Why don’t I find this stuff more often?  Because its too funny.

style.org > Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow.

I recently facilitated a wireless router purchase for Katie’s BFF and just tonight I had some trouble with my own wireless router.  All of a sudden, the config page went blank.  I could not click on anything and the page clearly was not formatting correctly.  Usually in this situation, the first course of action is to reboot the router, then hit the reset button for 30 seconds, reboot again and hope it works.  Well, it didn’t.  Instead, the problem decided to stick around.  After about two hours of searching, there was a reference to tftp.exe as an alternative to upgrading firmware.  This was the solution to my problem, now how to get it.  Going to Linksys.com was absolutely useless, the community forums are disorganized and the ‘auto’ help is really no help.  It turns out that tftp.exe is a free program that Linksys created to ‘talk’ to a router without the web config page.  I’m sure that sysadmins had to do this type of thing with serial ports and chicken heads in the dim, dark past of computing, but we expect better in this age of flying…planes.  So, the process is this: go to ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/ and find your router.version.zip file.  In that same directory is the tftp.exe that you can save to your desktop.  I ran it directly from the desktop after it was downloaded (all 45k of it) and it asked for server, password, and file.  Well, since the router was reset several times in my frantic set of troubleshooting actions, that was easy, 192.168.1.1.  The password is admin.  (Once again, resetting makes this really easy.)  The file is in the zip download.  Unpack the zip and browse to the file.  It updated the first time.  (Yay.)  Power-cycled the router again and it worked.  Crazy.  Now, resetting the wireless router and the MAC address filter doesn’t work.  Sigh.  I’m tired and I’ll take the wireless internet with WPA2 protection.  Perhaps I will replace this piece of technology in the next year or so, but I wanted to get this down before passing out and waking up to Katie at 5am when she can’t get on the internet.

I have just gotten back from a recent trip to Whitworth College..uh, University and on the way over, when I was trapped in the sardine can some fondly call a plane, I was accosted by the sound of the airline steward talking to his captive audience over the speaker system.  On a plane, every person is a captive audience to whatever disgusting tripe they are peddling at the moment, which meant I had to listen.  I can’t help but listen.  Not only am I expected to listen, but what if this is the moment that I can get that most elusive of prey, a ‘deal’?  Besides, the speaker is literally two inches from your head and the decibel level rivals the last rock concert you attended.  (Since I used the phrase ‘rock concert’ I haven’t been to one in a while, but the imagery is sound.)  Anyway, I listened for the sound of the wanted prey, spy the track of this beast, but all I found was spor.  The ‘deal’ was not to be found.  I was tricked by the lumbering cousin, the ‘sale’, which at first blush looks very much like the ‘deal’, but instead just smells bad when you are downwind.

So, I am clearly caught in the stench of a ‘sale’ and since I can’t turn the speaker off, down, or my ears, I must continue to listen to this rambling three minute pitch and realize that I am not an individual anymore.  Alaska Airlines has transmutated me to a consumer, a demographic, a target goal, and a nusiance.  Why can’t I just pay an exorbitant price for a substandard product/service so they would not have to do this?

I understand that the steward was only doing what he was told to do, it was his job.  He clearly did not relish the moment, his voice was animated, but it lacked the fervor of a true believer.  Instead, a convert to the religion with frayed edges on his slightly oversized, organization-issued jacket.  I could believe that he would rather be handing out ice water than speaking the words, but it didn’t matter.  He said them anyway and I received them with as much lackluster enthusiasm.

Another thought came to me: why do we rely on these workers for life-saving directions when they can just as easily make the opposite decision?  When the representatives of the corporation are required to speak words they do not believe for the benefit of the corporation, what is to stop the representatives to reach a breaking point in a crisis and think themselves just a worker, not really important and besides, I want to live, I have a family just like you, consumer-peon.  When the representatives of the corporation demonstrate how to put a seat belt on with equal interest as we would watch an ant on the sidewalk, I wonder if I would respond favorably to any command given to me by a representative?

Perhaps this is taking the moment in time to an existential degree not found very often, but this is my dilemma when I step on a plane.  The purpose of the airline is NOT to get you to Point B, it is to make money while taking you to Point B, unless its cheaper to leave you in Chicago while your connecting flight leaves for Columbus without you.

is definitely good news.  I am working very hard not to be consumed entirely by World of Warcraft now that I’ve got two characters (Stheris and Danieris)that are slowly leveling.  I realized yesterday that I started this game four years ago and it has been some of the best money I’ve spent.  You literally cannot get bored with this game.  There are too many ways to distract yourself from the basic kill and level your character.  The new barbershop option is really quite fun, changing your character’s looks is always a good time.  Now that my two characters are moving to or past level 40, I am starting to get items that are worth more than what you could buy at the auction house, so I’m starting to make some serious gold, which was a hinderance to me in times past.  (By the way, if you’re in a guild and are on Shadow Council or Lightbringer, I’m looking to join one.)

In other news, when resisting the siren song of WoW, I have been watching movies and reading with Katie.  We cannot keep our hands off Half Price Books and have the stack of, well, books to prove it.