Go Home Stella. You're Drunk.

     As I look out the window, the sun shining down on the blanket of snow is a beautiful sight to behold. It would be better if this were December, and not March.
     Winter took its sweet time getting here. Now don't get me wrong, I love good snowfall. What strikes me as funny is how quickly we all seemed to forget it was still Winter. Most of the season was really mild, and actually pretty nice. Nice enough to get us all to let our guard down. Then Stella showed up.
     Stella's the relative nobody wants to have visit. You know the one. The kids love her because she's fun and they get to stay home from school when she visits. She drives you crazy because she blows through your life like a tornado and leaves destruction in her wake. Stella's the one who leaves the bread loaf untied, lipstick on your glasses and a cigarette butt on a plate in the sink. You find her clothes all over the place after she leaves, and the dogs look like they've seen something unmentionable. Yeah. Stella's a hoot to have around.
     What cracked me up about her visit was how folks reacted. Schools and activities closed like they normally did, but businesses seemed unable to get on the same page. Working in retail, I was a little surprised we stayed open while Stella was having her first gin and tonic in the living room. Then again, in the 12 years I've been at the mall, I've seen it close only once or twice. Malls and movie theaters will be the only buildings standing after the apocalypse.
     While Stella was passed out in between rounds of drunken karaoke, the plows ran and cleared the streets. Apparently, it was clear enough for folks to travel and make their way back to their homes after the weekend. We get a lot of customers from Canada, and they didn't seem to think the storm was that bad. Trekking through 24 inches of snow to get a new shirt must be routine in the Great White North. Here it just seems a little silly. It's all good though. That silliness keeps me employed. It helps to live within walking distance of the mall. Yep, we'll be open. Come on in, Stella. Have a drink.

Reset, Reset, Reset

     So here I sit, watching the the screen as the little circle of dots goes through its motions. Somewhere in the time between powering down two nights ago and booting tonight, My computer went brain dead.
     What I found surprising wasn't the crash itself, but there was no blue screen of death. Just a screen announcing Windows has failed to start and offering options. It seemed kind of silly to have and option to continue to Windows when it just crashed. I gave it a click just for grins. Nope. No joy, just another crash.
     Back to the menu of options. Now for someone like me, the advanced options button is like giving a kid a Zippo and telling him not to start a fire. I decided on clicking the reset button and letting it reinstall itself. It's cruising along at a snail's pace, but it'll get there eventually. My hope is it'll actually start and I can just get on with my night. If it doesn't, I may just have to click that advanced button and see what havoc I can unleash while rooting around in this thing's brain.
     It's looking good so far. The actual installation screen is up and it's at cranking away. Dammit! The first unexpected error! The process is restarting. If it fails again, I may have to break out the Windows 8 discs and take a step or two back. I'm cool with that. Win8's stable, simple and gets the job done.
     So far, it's gone from changes, to undoing changes, to redoing changes to, holy shit! A start screen! Nope. Automatic repair now. Pulling the internal network card I added may have caused the crash. Let's see what happens. Yeah, that didn't do much. Hello system restore. Good-bye updates.
   I have a feeling this restoration is just an animation to keep me occupied. Twenty minutes in, and we still have the sliding green bar. And my wife calls me impatient. Right. Oh joy! "Finalizing file restore", and another sliding green bar. I'l be seeing that damned thing in my sleep. So in a little under two hours total time, it's finally finished. Rebooting, and... and... wait for it...wait for it...IT'S ALIVE! MWUAAHAHAHAHAA! Sadly, no lightning or other Frankensteinian stuff.
    Now, let's see why the network adapter's such a bandwidth hog...

President's Day?

    So tomorrow's Presidents Day. It's a federal holiday for Americans to celebrate the nation's Presidents and to have a day off from work. Thank you, Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1971.
     When I think of Presidents Day, images of Washington and Lincoln come to mind, after all, they're the traditional reason for its observance. Later on, all the presidents were brought into the holiday fold. I'm okay with that, after all, we have some greats in that list of leaders. Men like the Roosevelts, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, deserve a day.
     This year though, I'm wondering what those greats are feeling as they look down on what's happening in our great nation. I picture his daily life in the White House like an episode of the "West Wing" written by Tobe Hooper on acid. My apologies to Aaron Sorkin.
   POTUS: Alright folks, I've got a bigly busy day, a yuuuge day ahead so let's get down to business. What's on our platter?
   Leo McGarry: Mister President, your pick for National Security Adviser has been pegged for colluding with the Russians. We're going to have to ask him to resign.
    POTUS: Who pegged him? Bring me their head, now!
    Charlie: I'm on it sir.
    Leo: Hold up, Charlie. We can't just go grabbing people off the street for sharing information we don't like to hear.
    POTUS: I need to tweet about this. Where's my phone?
    Toby Ziegler: Mister President, maybe we should hold off on the Twitter for a --
    POTUS: I'm the leader of the free world! I can't tweet if I want to. Now, somebody give me my goddamned phone!
     C.J. Craig: Toby has a point, Mister President. The people aren't used to seeing their leader just tweeting whatever comes to mind.
    POTUS: Who is this broad? Lady, who let you in here?
    Leo: C.J. has been your press secretary since the beginning sir.
    POTUS: Was she the one I grabbed by the --
    Leo:  Not here, Mister President, Not here, not now. Let's respect the dignity of the office.
    POTUS: I've got dignity, it's great dignity, I'm a dignified guy. Give me a second, and I'll show her my dignity.
    Toby: Mister President, you've got to get yourself under control. If you don't, the media's going to have a field day ripping you apart.
    POTUS: The media, the media, the MEDIA! What the hell do I have to do to get in with the media? It's all FAKE NEWS anyhow.
    Josh: (snickering) Go to the press room and tell them they've all been punk'd.
    POTUS: (pushes a button under his desktop) Really?  Who's a punk now, laughing boy?
    Josh: (falling through the trap door in the floor) Oh shi-- (squishes as he hits the spikes in the pit he fell into.) Donnaaaa!
    Leo: Listen Mister President, dropping Josh through the floor wasn't the right thing to do. You can't just --
    POTUS: I've got a button for you, too, Leo. It's a yuge button, it'll schlong you bigly.
    Leo: Don't bother with that Don, I flew missions over Vietnam. Weren't you in school back then on a deferment?
    POTUS: I didn't go because I'm smart. The same reason I don't pay taxes. Smart. Now where's my phone?
    Toby: Didn't you leave it on the table at Mar-a-Lago?
     C.J.: I'll be in my office drafting a release for today's tomfoolery.
     POTUS: I need to get that tweet out while it's still in my mind. I do great tweets, really amazing tweets. You should see my tweets.
     Sam: We've seen your tweets Mister President. It's time to stop. Social media is not a good tool for you.
     POTUS: I'm the king of social media, I'm great on social media. I rule on the cyber.
     Toby: I need pie.
     Sam: Let's go get pie.
     Leo: Okay, I think we're done here. Thank you Mister President.
     POTUS: I still don't have my phone. I need my Twitter!
     Josh: (from the pit of doom) I've got your phone, Mister President. Come down here and get it.
 (Fade to black)
     Well, that's my image of the new administration. Have a happy Presidents Day. Again, my apologies Mr. Sorkin.
   
   
   

What to do While the Patch Downloads

     I'm faced with a conundrum.  What is there to do while the game patch downloads? It's nearly midnight and I'm waiting for "Star Trek: Online" to finish updating.  It's chugging away and I'm cooling my heels waiting for the chance to blow up bad guys. The fact I haven't played in a while is making it feel like forever. 

     I'm four episodes into "Z: The Beginning of Everything", on Amazon. Snacks have been munched, fizzy-brown stuff is bubbling in the mug and the cat has finally gotten bored and wandered off. I've tried biding my time with Microsoft Solitaire Collection, but it's no substitute for adventures where none have gone before. I'd log in Final Fantasy XIV, but playing online while another game patches is and invitation to a lag fest. I've got no desire to see my avatar and his trusty chocobo face-down in the grass.

     So here I sit, tapping at the keyboard as ones and zeroes make their way from the servers to my computer. Hazel is in her basket, glaring at my keeping the lights on. A click and she's happily dozing off. The glow of the keyboard and screens trigger memories of late-night board operator shifts on deployment. The only thing missing things are about 30 more screens and the rumble of the screws trying to vibrate the equipment off the racks. I can almost smell the day-old coffee smoldering into mud. Sometimes I miss it; then I look around my house and forget why I do. No dogs or cats or families allowed on ships.

     As time ticks away, I'm glad work doesn't come until one o'clock. I will blast bad guys to bits tonight, dammit. The opportunity to sleep in looks really nice as episode six of "Z" winds down. Yep, it's officially the patch from Hell. I'm cool with it though. It's probably making up for two or three updates since my last login. This is one of the costs of being a game junkie. If you play any massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), the updates keep us logging in. 

     Well, season one of "Z" is over, and we're at 83%. To bide the remaining time, Let's watch the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"'s 40th Anniversary Edition. It promises to be a great movie just before bedtime. It'll probably get me killed once the game is playable. I'm cool with that. As Worf says: "Today is a good day to die", even if it is a virtual death. The neat thing about virtual death is you get to come back and try again. If only real life was like that (roll footage from "Edge of Tomorrow" here.) 

     Finally it's time to go explore the final frontier. The rest of you should go to bed. 

Another Marathon

    So it's another Saturday night and I'm in the middle of another marathon of "The Walking Dead" (TWD) on AMC. I've seen the series up to tomorrow's episode at least three times, yet here I sit.
     What is it about this series that makes people like me feel like drug addicts waiting for their next hit? Is it the mystery of how the dead come back to feed on the living? Is it the violence and gore? Is it the adventure of the survivors' struggle?
     What appeals to me about this show is a little bit of all of that. Zombie movies have always been a favorite for me to watch. The idea a corpse can re-animate and feed off the living is fascinating to me. I guess this version of the apocalypse is less horrifying than a post-nuclear version. Then again, I can remember having "nukemares" as a kid after ABC aired a mini-series called "The Day After". The living dead can be dealt with a little easier than nuclear detonations.
     The storytelling in TWD is tightly-written and pulls no punches. Could we have gone without seeing Glenn and Abraham getting bludgeoned in the season seven opener? Sure, but I don't think It would have had the same effect on the audience. Show runners have said the more loved a character is, the more painful their death will be. Seven's premiere was even more viscerally painful than when the Governor killed Herschel or Beth bought the farm. The deaths changed the group dynamic in some manner. Herschel was the voice of wisdom in the chaos. Beth was the group's hope for the future. Glenn was the resolve, and Abraham was the crazy-courage. After each loss, the group has had to find those things down different avenues.
     It's how the characters interact with each other and their situation that keeps me tuning in. How far will each person go to keep the group alive? How will they ever be safe with scores of walkers roaming the streets? How will they ever find peace with predator groups like the Saviors bearing down on them? Will Carl ever get a decent eye patch? These questions are burning in my mind.
     Up until the mid-season finale, the group has had to suffer the wrath of Negan and the Saviors. Daryl has had the worst of it, stranded in Negan's version of the Hanoi Hilton. I can still hear "Easy Street" playing in the back of my mind.
     The marathons are a good idea, and AMC knows it. The buildup they create leading into the next season or half-season is large. Personally, I can't wait to see if they kill Negan or let him rot in a cell like they do in the comic. It's difficult to imagine the former. Negan's too good a villain to get whacked in a single season. The threat of him escaping and causing havoc would be a great tension creator down the road. Either way, I'm sure there'll be a marathon before we find out.
     Of course, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.