I’ve been busy, and that’s why I haven’t written anything for awhile. Plus I don’t want this to turn into just another political blog.

I took Friday afternoon off and spent that and most of the weekend clearing out the back yard, which was getting a bit overgrown. #1 Son and several of the lost boys came over and helped. All of the boys worked really hard. And I really appreciate Alex hauling it all away to the recycling yard.

I’d hire Alex in a New York minute. He was really good about pulling only the weeds and leaving the non-weeds. #1 Son yanked up one of my roses that I’d asked him to preserve. It made me sad.

When I bought that rose, it was only about 6″ tall, and it had only one cane. It was on sale, for obvious reasons. I bought it from Oregon Heirloom Roses. All of their roses are grown on their own roots, so they tend to be hardier and you don’t have to worry about suckers. I nurtured that little rose when I planted it. I was surprised it made it through the first winter, but it bloomed the first spring. It was a single blossom: red with a white and yellow center and white reverse.

I know my yard doesn’t look nearly as good as I’d like to have it. I just haven’t been able to keep up on it, for various reasons. But I’d look out my window and see that cheerful little rose blooming, and it sort of gave me hope. It became a symbol of me getting my shit back together and getting the yard in shape — of my life not sucking any more. So when #1 Son pulled it out, it just felt like one more dream that bit the dust. I know he didn’t understand why I was so upset.

After that I told him to take all of the roses out. It made it easier to get to the weeds.

But I told him if he pulled out the marsh mallow I’d kill him.

The mallow still stands. 🙂

I wrote to Heirloom Roses, but they don’t carry Eyepaint any more. They have one called Dark Eyes. It has more petals than Eyepaint had, it’s darker red and doesn’t have as much white in the middle. But it has a white reverse. So maybe it will be reasonably the same. I need to get down there and see if they have one blooming.

I have to admit up front that I’m not necessarily a fan of first person shooters. I don’t play games that often. But when I do, I prefer games that require some thought and logic rather than blowing up everything that gets in your way. I’m a fan of games like the Myst series, Schism (the DVD version) and that ilk.

Then there’s Doom.

I’ve been playing Doom for somewhere around 10 years, give or take. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the perfect FPS: Little or no plot, big guns, lots of stuff to blow up, mindless enemies to destroy. Oh yeah! I have Doom II installed, and I still play it. I also think it’s cool that Doom can be patched and expanded. I have a few patches installed: Barrels turned into Beer kegs and health drinks turned into Pepsi cans. My favorite patch turns demons into a certain big purple dinosaur, who comes bouncing into the base singing a certain amazingly obnoxious song, and then turns into nice purple splats when blown up. 😆

Everyone who knows me knows that I am in no way a violent person. I shoo bugs out of my house rather than kill them, even. But there’s something just so stress-relievingly satisfying about Doom’s mindless, pointless violence.

And now, after what seems like forever, Doom 3 is released, and you’d better believe I was in line to get my copy. Fry’s gave me a rain check for one at $45 — everyone else is $55, so I was willing to wait an extra day — and last night I finally had it in my hot little hands. It’s rated “M” for blood, gore and intense violence. I knew I was in good hands.

There were a few false starts getting it installed. It didn’t like being installed on my D: drive, where I usually install non-OS software. It died when trying to unpack. So I had to delete and reinstall on C:. It wants to run at 800X600 at High quality. OK. I can accept that. I’d rather have 1024×768, and thought I’d get that with my ATI 9800XT, but it’s OK. Configuring it to use surround sound caused the sound to cut out and then the game to freeze. I’ve solved this by using 2D sound. It may be a driver issue. There’s a new driver for my Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. I’ll download and install it tonight.

#1 Son came in while I was messing around with freezes caused by the sound problem. He offered to install it on his computer to see if it worked better there. I told him he’d have to pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.

OK… first impressions:

The graphics rock. Period. The attention to detail is awesome. I love the way my point of view moves when something hits me – very disorienting. I wish I could afford a next-generation graphics card, but I can’t justify it right now.

The game starts out deceptively simple. The first missions are to report to headquarters, get armed, find your way outside and to the next building, and locate a missing scientist. That’s where things start to go to hell in a handbasket.

I’m not one to really get that caught up in a game, but the atmosphere is really spooky. The lights go off and weird things come out of nowhere. I had a tendency to blindly spray everything in sight with bullets. Not a good idea if you’re standing next to something that might blow up.

I didn’t have much time to play, so I didn’t make a huge effort. I made it back to the main base building and was attempting to cycle the airlock when the demons got me, the world turned red, and that was all she wrote.

I’m not sure I like having a plot — even as thin as the plot is. But I’m willing to work with it.

I don’t want to talk to people. I want to blow things up. It’s annoying to have to stop and talk to other characters. This is Doom, dammit, not Journey To The Center Of The Earth.

The PDA is both annoying and a good tool. Having to locate a downed person’s PDA in order to have access to a restricted area isn’t that different from having to find a key of a particular color. But it’s a little bit annoying to have to pause to refer to the PDA for other info. Hints are not unappreciated, however, so I guess it’s good in some ways. But see under “I’m not sure I like having a plot.”

There are lots of dark, narrow, twisty hallways. I’m hoping that I can get to somewhere open and light where it makes sense to use the big guns. It will be hard to use them in the halls. And a flashlight? Gimmeabreak. I’m on Mars. I should at least have night vision. I want to use the flashlight to see, but I know as soon as I do some demon is going to jump out and get me because I don’t have a weapon.

That aside, I still recommend Doom 3 to anyone who’s a fan of FPS or of the original Doom series. I notice that it’s expandable and patchable, like the original Doom. I’m hoping for a Barney patch, or the Bush equivalent, soon, along with a few custom levels out in the open.

Mom’s grade:

I don’t necessarily believe that all correlation is more than coincidence. But here are a couple of really interesting entries from Julius and Biltud over at JuliusBlog:

This one shows the correlation between Bush’s approval rating and terrorism alerts:
Chart: Bush Ratings vs. Terror Alerts
Remember, though, that correlation does not imply causation.

And this entry details the timelines of alerts and how they relate to the national news headlines in the days just prior to the alert:
Timeline of Terror Alerts
I find this one less compelling, simply because it lists only headlines that were not flattering to the Bush Administration, and lists only headlines before each terror alert. It would be interesting to see what else was going on in the news at that time, both before and after each alert.

There’s a lot of info here, and it’s well worth checking out!

Not political? Suuuuuuuure. I have a hard time believing that. It’s also going to be hard to prove, though.

This in today from The New York Times:

A Candidate Who Says What He Means (Most of the Time)
By CARL HULSE
Published: August 5, 2004

This no doubt confirmed the worst fears of President Bush’s most severe critics.

As he signed a $417 billion Pentagon spending bill today, the president offered his own unique take on how the money would be used. “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we,” Mr. Bush said. “They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people — and neither do we.”

Obviously, the president didn’t mean it quite that way.

Yeah… Sure he didn’t. 😆 😆 😆

The article continues with a report of John Kerry’s trip to Missouri, where he spoke to a convention of minority journalists. One of the questions he fielded had to do with how he would have reacted, had he been reading to school kids on 9/11. His response:

“First of all, had I been reading to children, and had my top aide whispered in my ear, `America is under attack,’ I would have told those kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United States had something that he needed to attend to, and I would have attended to it,” Mr. Kerry said to applause from the group.

Bush is speaking to the same group tomorrow. Gee, I hope they ask him the same question. 😈

In July, a computer engineer named Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan was arrested in Pakistan. He is accused of acting as an “e-postman” for al Qaeda, distributing coded messages from group to group. In the same raid, officials also “recovered” documents, computers, surveillance reports and sketches — much of it compiled before 09/11/2001 from information publically available on the net or through other open sources. The material apparently concerned US financial areas like Wall Street and the World Bank.

This in from Reuters:

Ridge Defends ‘Three-Year-Old’ U.S. Terror Alert
Tue Aug 3, 2004 12:05 PM ET

By Mark Egan
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The warning that U.S. financial centers may be attacked by al Qaeda was based largely on three-year-old information, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said on Tuesday, but some intelligence dated from January and he insisted the threat was still real.

Ridge’s appearance in New York at the Citigroup building named on Sunday as a potential al Qaeda target came as U.S. terrorism intelligence has come under fire again, this time for forcing police in New York, Washington and New Jersey to massively increase security based on old information.

“I don’t want anyone to disabuse themselves of the seriousness of this information simply because there are some reports that much of it is dated, it might be two or three years old,” Ridge said.

. . .

Ridge said there was no information on the potential timing of any attack and no evidence of more recent surveillance by al Qaeda of the buildings named in the latest terror alert.

So we’re now at “high threat level” (or “orange stars” for those of you following the Persistent Illusion magical Lucky Charms threat level) because of data that is at least three years old, was mostly compiled before 09/11/2001, and might have been updated 7 months ago? (I’ve seen stories that say that the info was updated in January, may have been updated in January, may have been updated at some unspecified time, or hasn’t been touched for years. You pick.)

Why is this coming out right on the heels of the Democrat Party convention?

Said Ridge:

“We don’t do politics in the Department of Homeland Security. This is not about politics. It’s about confidence in government.”

Uh… OK… so I feel really, really confident in my government now, oh yessiree bob! The Bush Administration will lead us to the promised land!

Oh, c’mon. Of course this is political. The guy was arrested earlier in July. Why wait until right after the Demo Con, why alert the nation to a three-year-old threat, if the motivation is not political? It’s obvious this was meant to crush Kerry’s bounce from the convention.

KPAM radio this morning quoted Ridge as saying he felt it was important to get this information in front of the American public so that we could defend ourselves. Huh? How am I supposed to defend myself against an attack by terrorists? Is this a statement that even makes sense?

Our friends overseas get it:

Allies Spurn U.S.-Style Color-Coded Terror Alerts
Tue Aug 3, 2004 10:11 AM ET
By Peter Graff
LONDON (Reuters) – The latest “code Orange” has drawn mild scorn from U.S. allies in the war on terror, who say Washington’s high-profile alerts cause undue panic and could make people less safe by undermining trust in intelligence. Most of Washington’s major allies have avoided color-coded alerts like those Washington introduced in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, saying the public can do little with warnings unless it is told specifically how to respond.

. . .

Kevin Rosser of Control Risks Group consultancy in London said Britain’s approach “is not to make color-coded warnings, not to publish every possible threat, but work closely with institutions that may be affected to help them tighten security and address threats in the least disruptive way possible.

“The problem (with the American approach) is that it creates public anxiety. If the goal of terrorists is to spread fear and unease then to some extent they’ve done that job for them without anybody carrying out an attack.”

Other countries take similar views. A spokeswoman for Germany’s Interior Ministry said it has an internal threat assessment system, but no equivalent of the public, color-coded U.S. scheme, and “we see no advantages” of introducing one.

. . .

“The security services collect intelligence not to issue warnings but to act on it,” Ami Ayalon, former chief of Israel’s Shin Bet security service told Reuters. “When intelligence is insufficient to guarantee a terrorist attack can be thwarted, you pass the partial information to the police, who often make it public.”

“But there is a price to this method, an emotional toll on the public,” he said. “When I was in the Shin Bet, I often preferred to take the risk and not to say anything, because I felt that regular terror alerts can in themselves lead to a terrorized society.”

Isn’t is amazing how it seems that everyone all over the world gets this — but not Dubya? Oh, no, he’s of the “keep them scared and stupid” school of governmental control.

But this is the kind of crap we’ve come to expect from the Bush administration. Prevarication and exaggeration.

Poor Dubya. He seems so far in over his head. He swaggers around like “I’m cool, look at me, I’m Pres-i-dent.” But it was worth the price of admission to Fahrenheit 911 to see the look on Dubya’s face as he is reading a story with a group of grade school kids and is informed that a plane has been flown into the World Trade Center. Does he jump up and excuse himself to the kids, explaining that he’d love to finish the story but important Presidential duties called? Nope. Not our Dubya. He sat there, shrub-like (pun intended) as though he were planted, for 7 minutes. He didn’t look very full of himself then. Doe-in-the-headlights does not begin to describe the look on his face.

Almost I felt sorry for him. Almost. Then I remembered that he wanted to be a war President. OK, Dubya, so don’t just sit there, lead.

I remember an joke I read right after the last election. The old farmer says that Dubya reminds him of a post turtle. “What’s a post turtle?” asks the author. “Did you ever drive down a country road and come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top?” replied the old farmer. “You know he didn’t get there by himself, he doesn’t belong there, he can’t get anything done while he’s up there, and you just want to help the poor thing down. That’s a post turtle.”

Ah, yes, grasshopper… optimizing the table space really does make the blog load faster.

Be a good little sysadmin and remember to do that on a fairly regular basis.