Category — General

to those who believe differently than I do about this topic.  I’m going to rant a bit…

I was just surfing a forum for some tech information and read a post by someone whose signature said:

__________________
The meaning of life? There is no meaning. You’re just a more complex carbon chain reaction than a dog, a tree, or an amoeba.

Now, I believe that God gave us free will and that this guy is entitled to his opinion.  No problem there.  I just think that it really must suck to live that way!  I mean, thinking that you are just an accident of chemistry, that there is nothing more to life than a complex happenstance of quirky molecular attraction.  How the hell can someone live like that?  How can you live thinking that there is NO meaning??  What keeps you from acting out every tiny whim?  Why don’t people like that stab their co-workers with a pencil when they whine during staff meetings?  How come they actually pay their taxes?  Why would you bother to do anythingother than exactly what you damn well pleased to at that exact moment?  See a hot chick?  Bend her over a barrel!  Like that guy’s car?  Hit him with a brick and take it!  It doesn’t matter! There is NO MEANING TO ANYTHING!

I can hear someone saying now - “Well, stupid, you don’t do that because of the consequences!  You’d get arrested, because in a civilized society people don’t do that to each other.  And those that do, suffer the consequences…”

Ok, good point, sounds good.  But think about it a bit more.  That means that society is the ultimate authority, the ultimate judge and the ultimate standard by which everything is measured.  We live our lives by society’s standards.  Isn’t that a “meaning” to life then?  Isn’t that what a “meaning” is?  If I say, “The meaning of life is to be happy” or “The meaning of life is to serve God” or “The meaning of life is to get rich” - aren’t those all things that one then judges himself by?  Am I happy?  Am I serving God?  Am I getting rich?  Meaning is a delineation - a mark in the sand whereby other things are judged.  So, if we say life has no meaning, but yet live in society, we are making society the ultimate authority and therefore the ultimate meaning.

Don’t you see how horrible that is?!  Society is the ultimate meaning!?  Are you kidding me?  All we live for is civil obedience?  Fitting in?  Keeping up with the Jonses?  Peer pressure is REALLY the best that it gets?

Society is the ultimate meaning???

How on Earth can that be?  Are you kidding me?  People really believe that crap?  Come on! Society produced these people:

And, even

I know, I know…  Not nice of me to throw that freaky drag-queen in with the picture of Hillary…  Oh, um, well um… Never mind.  *SNICKER*  (sorry, couldn’t help that! )

Anyway, my point is that society simply cannot be the paragon of existence and the ultimate achievement of life.  And, there MUST be meaning to life, because we all judge ourselves by something.  Even if you don’t believe in God - something is the lord of your life, and therefore it has meaning.  In fact, I really feel sorry for anyone who pretends that it doesn’t.  I think they are scared of reality with meaning, because they simply haven’t quite figured out what it is yet.  And, if they are wrong, there could be serious consequences.

In fact, I almost feel more sorry for them than I do for the goat pictured above.  No, not Hillary, the other one!  Ahem.  Really, I’m sorry. I’ll stop - honest, I will.  :D

Well, I’ve taken the plunge and ventured into the world of flat panel televisions.

My trusty old 20″ Magnavox TV finally died. Bought with money we received from our wedding, this standby piece has been relegated to the bedroom since 2003’s purchase of a 65″ Mitsubishi widescreen projection TV. As such, it was pretty much on light-duty - only getting any amount of use when I was traveling and Heather needed some noise in the room to get to sleep. It just couldn’t compare to the big screen on the first floor. Since my new job doesn’t require as much travel, the TV has been nearly unused for several months. But, a recent week-long stint in Las Vegas for the National Association of Broadcasters Show, simply brought the old TV to its knees. It died a sad death of high-shrieked static noise. Sleep well, old friend…

Now, what to do? I just couldn’t see spending any money on something that wouldn’t last a while and the placement of the old TV in the bedroom was really awkward. Really, the room screamed out for a flat panel, mounted to the wall, directly across from the bed. Oh great muse of decoration, twist my arm again, please!

So, I did some research and began shopping online and in stores and settled on a Panasonic 42″ Flat-Panel Plasma HDTV Model: TH-42PX75U. I loved it! It was the right price ($1500 at Best Buy and 10% off) and it was also the clear winner in picture quality in that price range. An excellent buy. So, I bought one.

It sucked.

The first unit that I brought home whined louder than an ill-mannered child in a never ending art museum. I think it might have actually been louder than the old Magnavox I was trying to replace. Well, clearly that wasn’t going to work.

The second unit that I brought home had severe menu burn-in all along the left hand side of the screen. It was so bad that I could easily read the words “Setup Menu” during a dark scene during a movie.  Aw, crap…

The very nice folks at BestBuy offered to order me another one or to have one brought in from a neighboring store. While their customer service was very good, I wasn’t about to take a chance on what seemed to be a bad product.  No, thank you, I don’t think so. The units that I had were manufactured in March of 2007 - a big aluminum sticker said so right on the back. Being a new model for Panasonic, these units were hot off the presses and clearly they are having a few issues with production quality in the early units - at least in the 42″ model. A neighbor of mine has a 50″ that looks and works beautifully.

So, what to do, what to do… Do I return it and not get a TV right now, or get something smaller, larger, what?

Being the cheapo that I am, I ended up negotiating with them on the Pioneer 42″ 4270-HD Plasma instead. They didn’t want a $1500 return, and by the time I finished the negotiations and returned the power cleaner they talked me into buying to stop the “humming” of the first unit, this beauty only cost me $150 more than the Panasonic. Not bad for the model that I would have picked originally if it wasn’t for the cost.

The Pioneer has amazing, very life-like color. A bit richer than the Panasonic, and certainly more realistic than LCD. It makes no noise whatsoever and looks absolutely phenomenal. As all plasma’s do, during the day it can suffer from some glare, because it has a glass front, as compared to the plastic front of LCD’s. That’s OK with me though, as this unit was for the bedroom and doesn’t get used during the day.

As I mentioned, my intention was to put it on the wall - and after testing it out for a few days to make sure it worked, etc. I started the process of hanging the beast. The $99 medium tilt bracket (also includes a slim profile bracket) that they sell at Costco did the trick in no time - and it was $100 less expensive than the BestBuy equivalent. The hardest part was running the wires through the wall, as I ran the power cord through as well, so it would have a completely “cordless” look to it. A decent sized HDMI cable running to a sweet Motorola HD-DVR, a set of component video and TOSLINK to my slightly older DVD player and things were right as rain.

See… Everything works out for the best. Now I have a GOOD reason to buy the Logitech Harmony 1000!

Pioneer 4270-HD, Plasma TV, Panasonic TH-42PX75U

All rhetoric aside about how megastores like Costco are putting the Mom and Pop shops out of business, I really do love Costco.

Recently I bought an Ironman Aeros Elliptical machine to aid in my quest for some kind of body weight normalcy.  After doing a lot of research on what was was out there I settled on a model from Costco largely because of their fabulous return policy.  If you are not familiar with that policy, its very simple - if you don’t like something, bring it back.  No questions asked.

Much to my dismay, after about 15 weeks of use, the product broke.  Honestly, it was a joy to use, but one of the wheels that ride along the back tracks simply snapped right off.  I would have expected this on a normal quality elliptical, but I was really surprised considering that I specifically bought this model because it was made to hold someone my size and larger.  Maybe I just got a bad unit, or maybe Ironman just sells junk - either way, my machine was toast.

Crap, now what??  I have to return it.  I started dreading the experience, but then I rememberd that I bought it at Costco for this exact situation.  So, I simply took off the handles and the console and loaded it up into my wife’s van and drove to Costco.  In roughly 15 minutes, 2 guys had helped me unload the sucker and I was walking out the door with $1,100+ cash, in my hand.  Not a single hiccup.  All they asked was what broke.  Remember, this is over 3 months later!  Nothing about, go to the manufacturer for service or we’ll replace it, etc.  They just gave me my money back.  $1,100 plus dollars!!  That’s really great service, and that’s why I love Costco.

I would have preferred a unit that worked, but I can’t blame them for that.  Now I’m on a quest for a new Elliptical machine and I’m quite bummed that I can’t buy it at Costco! 

I guess my grade school suspicions were correct…  Girls do have cooties! :)

“Women have three to four times the number of bacteria in, on and around their desks, phones, computers, keyboards, drawers and personal items as men do…”

Get full story here.

In further news, a shocking realization that I no longer care that girls have cooties.  SIGH!  Women and their wiles!

women, bacteria, cooties

While many of you know this, I thought I would write a note to officially ”announce” that I’ve started a new job as a Solutions Architect for Artesia, the Digital Media Group of Open Text, Inc.

This change concludes a total of almost 8 years at Mainsoft, my previous employer.  Leaving Mainsoft was a tough decision, as the people there are some of the brightest and hardest working folks I’ve ever known.  Their products are rock solid and fit a real need in the market.  I’m truly thankful for my time there.  Eight years is a long time though.  I was looking for something with less cross country travel and something that was more indigenous to my home city of Los Angeles.  Enter Artesia!

Artesia focuses on solutions for the digital media ecosystem, meaning primarily providing Digital Asset Management software for companies who work with digital files.  A mouth full, I know…  In a nutshell, Artesia helps companies with huge amounts of digital content (images, video, Photoshop files, InDesign files, etc…) store, index and categorize that content and then provide for easy searching and distribution of it throughout the enterprise and to their partners.

The usage spans across most industries and verticals.  Companies like Major League Baseball use Artesia as the repository and workflow manager for creating their “Condensed Games” on MLB.TV.  A company like Molson Coors uses Artesia to help them manage brand consistency.  Getty Images uses Artesia to underpin their entire editorial division.  Many uses, but a single architecture.  Very flexible, and very neat!

Headquartered out of Rockville, MD (just outside of D.C.), Artesia is the leading company in the Digital Asset Management space.  Their customer list is hugely impressive, and the people have a lot of vision.  Its exciting to move to a new space and start fresh.  Mainsoft will be a tough act to follow, but Artesia seems to be up to the task.

Artesia, Digital Asset Management, DAM

A pox on the NFL!

A cease and desist letter to a church holding a Super Bowl party to support its local team?  When will this US sue madness stop?  Hmm, can I even print the words “Super Bowl” here without getting into trouble?  They’ll bend the rules for a sports bar, but not for a non-profit organization?  The Colts should officially protest to the NFL - unless that’s where it came from to begin with, which is nearly unthinkable.  

What’s next, banning the local Pee Wee league from calling one of their team the Giants?  Maybe they’ll go after bake sales for some kind of butter infringement.

We’ll continue to see more of this kind of crap if we as consumers don’t start to protest this harsh, idiotic wave of treatment and start voting with our dollars. Suddenly, I’ve lost interest in watching this game.  Oh, wait - since the Pats lost, I really had no interest in it anyway.  Apologies to my friends in Chicago! Yawn. Go Bears.

Read more here.

OK. A bit of a rant here… At the airport, watching CNN (only because I can’t change the channel) and they are covering the story of Americans being evacuated from Beirut.

These people are actually complaining about how they were evacuated - it wasn’t quick enough, it wasn’t organized enough, etc.

Um… Hello! YOU are the morons who chose to live in Lebanon! Now that taxpayers are paying to haul your rear out, NO BITCHING PLEASE!

And that is another thing - the whole hubbub about the ‘loan’ document they were made to sign. That’s been part of the law for decades! Nothing new. Oh today, its a novelty, because it hearkens back to a time when people actually believed in personal responsibility.

“Oh, I chose to live in a notorious hot spot of terrorism and strife. Maybe its my responsibility to get myself out should things not go well. Oh, you are going to do something to help me? Gee, I’d be grateful for ANY help…”

CNN actually had the balls to say that some of the people that had been evacuated to Cyprus weren’t being taken care of because they didn’t have credit cards and couldn’t buy a ticket home - off-handedly blaming the State Department for not fixing things.

Oh yeah, I have a ton of sympathy for someone who goes halfway across the world (nevermind to THAT part of the world) and DOESN’T bring a credit card. Maybe we should have the National Guard follow them everywhere they go as well, just to make sure they look both ways before they cross the street.

Don’t get me wrong - I can empathize. That’s why it pisses me off so much. I would be grateful for whatever my country saw fit to do to help me out of a difficult situation I had largely gotten myself into. And, I’m sure there were plenty of folks who WERE grateful, appreciated the help that they were receiving and didn’t want to bad mouth our government. Of course, CNN would never put THEM on camera though…

*SIGH*

There, I’m done. Sorry for the rant.

Middle East, Beirut, State Department