Friday, September 21, 2007
Lately I've been reading 3 books: 1 Dead in Attic: After Katrina by Chris Rose (I'm on page 58), an advance uncorrected manuscript of Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger (My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated into What America Eats) (I'm on page 36), and the University of California Personnel Policies for Staff Members (July 1, 1996) (I'm on page 14). Brief comments on these, in order. The story is interesting and touching and brought tears to my eyes, but I got tired of Mr. Rose's voice after about page 30 and Bodoni is a very difficult typeface to read for body text. Every time I open the book I want to put it down because my eyes hurt. I thought it hypocritical that early on Mr. Rose said that if he could he would hurt all the looters, but then mere pages later goes on to express indignation when he was caught looting mouthwash by the police. On Twinkie: I've been reading this book out of a desire to find out what America—my friends and family—was, is, or will be putting into their bodies. I'm still undecided on this one. The story is much longer than I might have expected, and I do not think I have the desire to read this the whole way through. I would much rather have preferred to read this information in properly written web-style where the author actually answers the question of from where polysorbate 60 comes on the top-level page and you can click deeper if you want more information. You can't skip to the end of the chapter to find the answer—it's a narrative rather than a reference book. I guess it's a little unusual to read a narrative about the production of an unhealthy snack cake—perhaps a stringently edited film might have been a better communication medium, but I suspect the author had a hard enough time doing his research without a video camera. I don't have time now to talk about the policy manual. Maybe later. Usual oatmeal breakfast. The cdrom for Retrospect 6.5 is annoying in that it has separate partitions for Windows and OS X so when I inserted the cdrom into a Windows computer I could not copy the Mac installer to a server location for a Mac user to use. If I didn't have a Mac handy nearby, it would have been very difficult if not impossible to complete such a simple task. I know they do that so that Mac users don't run EXE files and Windows users don't click on Mac installers, but I think there are other ways to resolve this without having to have separate partitions. Carol, Lucia, Alyssa, and I have been receiving the Software Update Failed and General Failure error messages when starting Firefox ever since the 2.0.0.7 update was released a few days ago. This problem is very frustrating because the workaround which works for us now involves an admin having to manually remove files and folders from each computer which has the problem. Met with Mike S from the police department to discuss forthcoming door lock changeovers. He's appropriately sensitive to our needs (as we are to his), and we completed our business efficiently and with candor. Maintenance for Chris's MacBook Pro: installed VLC update, resolved Software Update Failed for Firefox and updated to 2.0.0.7. Next was the more mysterious problem of what was happening in Windows. He reported that the error message "VPU Recover has reset your graphics accelerator or it was no longer responding to graphics driver commands" would appear when the computer was idle and that it was happening frequently lately, starting about 2 weeks ago. Stuff on the web pointed to old BIOS, heat problems, and bad hardware, but this is a relatively new MacBook Pro which recently had a new fan installed and has OS 10.4.10. I tried starting up TechTool Deluxe by holding the C key on the keyboard while powering on, but the computer started into Windows. I thought I must have missed the C key, so I shut down Windows and repeated my steps but again the same result—it started in Windows. Next restart I held the Option key and then chose Macintosh when the menu appeared then quickly held down the C key but this time it started in OS X. Repeated as before, thinking I just had poor timing - same result—it started in OS X. I logged in to OS X as local admin, downloaded Boot Camp 1.4, burned a new Boot Camp cdrom. Tried to install Firefox 2.0.0.7 for OS X but it wouldn't let me due to a permissions problem—I must have previously installed it as domain admin but I didn't understand why it didn't simply prompt me to authenticate. I logged out and tried to log back in as domain admin and got the "You are unable to log in to the user account [accountname] at this time." Logged back in as local admin. Turned off FileVault for the local admin account. Logged in as me. Turned off FileVault for my account. Logged in as Chris. Turned off FileVault for his account. Logged in as local admin. Installed Office 2004 updates. Deleted the domain admin account from OS X. Domain admin account now works again. No more FileVault for me! Restarted in Windows XP. Met with student SA: Sophos installer appeared to complete successfully, but Sophos failed to install. Windows Vista Business, 2 GB RAM. Ran Norton Uninstaller successfully. Reinstalled Sophos - same problem. Downloaded fresh Sophos installer - same problem. Restarted in Safe Mode with Networking - same problem. Asked him to call OAAIS for resolution. Very late lunch: New York steak sandwich, fries, Dr. Pepper with a splash of Coke. Met 1-on-1 with Eric. Left work, chatted with Eric on the way out and met Amber. Took the N-Judah to Duboce Park and walked to the Castro. Met with Ted and Emery just outside of 440 Castro, and they introduced me to Kyle. Ted, Emery, and I walked to Castro Tarts where we planned to meet Chris and Nate, but Castro Tarts was closed or closing, so we waited outside. Chris and Nate showed up. We tried getting dinner at Harvey's, but it was too crowded, so we went to Fuzio instead. After dinner, we went to Badlands where sneeper met us. We had drinks for about an hour or so. Chris, Nate, and I left to watch Lifeforce (1985) in 70 mm at the Castro Theatre; the rest stayed behind. Lifeforce is an amazing film in many ways, and this original print was in surprisingly excellent condition. I cannot properly describe either this film or the experience of watching this film. There might be words, but I would not be able to sufficiently corral them in the proper order to do the film the justice it so rightly and wrongly deserves. It's awfully amazing, original but mostly unoriginal, B-movie and yet not B-movie. It's particularly fun to see Patrick Stewart in this film. Chris and Nate drove me home.