Brief Thoughts, Briefly Written

Capricon XXXI 2011! (2 of ???) Live Band Klingon Karaoke (Now with more Leia!)

2011-02-23T02:09:00.002-06:00

Capricon XXXI 2011! (1 of ???) Live Band Klingon Karaoke

2011-02-20T21:30:00.005-06:00

Heh.

Capricon (www.capricon.org) rocked, and my favorite part.... the live band Klingon Karaoke of course with Sing With the Band!

First Video is up, more to come!

... ever needed to use another wireless adapter with your Mac?

2010-02-08T23:06:00.002-06:00

*** GUEST BLOGGER ***

We just got a Apple iMac G5 with no Airport Extreme Card in it. Dave has a tiny USB Wireless Card, it's a Buffalo WLI-UC-GN. He told me that he wasn't sure if the USB wireless card would work at all. First thing I did was grab my MacBook to go find drivers on the Buffalo website. They only had drivers for Windows. So my next step was to do a bit of research because I knew it had to work. I did a google search for Mac drivers. Looked at a couple of websites and found a forum that had the answer http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=193751. I was directed to go to the ralink site http://www.ralinktech.com/. I was a little confused at which UBS driver to download but the forum posted which file to download. After the download finished I popped in my 2gb flash drive and copied the file over. I plugged in my flash drive and installed the driver. I used the ralink software to connect to our wireless at home and went to the system preferences, network to make sure I was getting an IP address. It works and works very well.

Fuck you Pat Robertson.

2010-01-13T17:39:00.001-06:00

Pat Robertson: Haiti 'Cursed' By 'Pact To The Devil'

Fuck you.

Hypocrisy and Religion, re: Haiti Earthquake

2010-01-13T11:43:00.005-06:00

I'm livid right now. However, I've channeled that into an intelligent, well thought out response on Facebook. Since Facebook is a crappy isolated walled garden, I'm posting it here for everyone to see.

Hey.

ASSHOLES.

Yeah, i'm talking to you.

If you work for the "Christian and Missionary Alliance" or decide that the mere fact that you go to church or claim to worship the "one true god" whatever that may be (Allah, Buddha, Jesus, Flying Spaghetti Monster, whatever) and claim that you're Pro-Life "from the moment of conception", practice that shit.

'cause you know what? If you don't, i'll call you on it, and use the nuclear option on you publicly, in front of your friends and family, you fucking hypocrite.

I'm eloquent, educated, and previously a very interested party in biblical scripture and history. If you want to measure your Christian Penis (tm) with me, I'll make mine go "TIIMMMMBER" in front of you and embarrass the hell out of you.

TL:DR:
Publicly avowed Pro-Life Christian decides non-believers deserve death via earthquake in Haiti. (see a parallel with Katrina & sinners?) I call them out in front of friends and family, and an epic win ensues.

Nathan Quote #4:

2010-01-04T18:24:00.005-06:00

"I'm going to pee on you, because I hate you."We told him he could not have candy.

He decided to argue. I sent him to his room.
He cried, complained, and yelled. I sent him to the top bunk, took the ladder away, told him he was in his room for the rest of the night, and sat there with Nikki watching him and not speaking until he calmed down.
He stripped off his clothes and threw them at us. He then threw down his teddy bears, and his bed clothes and sat up there naked.

Parenting is fun. I barely contained my laughter. Since on the Internet I don't have to, here's what I instantly thought of. :)

Chapelle's R. Kelly - Pee on You | Viral/Other | SPIKE.com

gifLOL

2009-12-02T17:35:00.003-06:00

EPIC REDDIT THREAD ALERT

"Hey Ask Reddit, what's your favorite .gif?"

Mine is really a c-c-combo:

Help! Need help naming a track (v2.1): DK & Santogold & TEPR Update!

2009-11-26T22:02:00.002-06:00

I forgot that I followed up on this request for help and found the answer...

Santogold - Say Aha, remixed by TEPR

I believe TEPR's site (LOL MYSPACE) is here:

http://www.myspace.com/tepr

Sooo, here's the mix I was looking for:

Sing With The Band f/ VINNY!

2009-11-13T08:25:00.004-06:00

Sing With The Band does Live Band Karaoke every thursday night at Chicago City Limits

Thinly Veiled Excuse of Drink and Game for Make Benefit Glorious Operating System of Windows 7! (The Presentation, The Pictures)

2009-11-11T00:20:00.005-06:00

The pictures... the presentation...

Prepare yourself, oye... :)
*NOTE
These videos are available in HD on youtube, so click on 'em to go to youtube, or just watch and laugh here.

So we started out with some music, we oooh'd and aww'd over a new Windows 7 laptop one of the guests brought in. We moved on to some Rock Band 2, and some Skype conferencing with another party in North Carolina.

We ate some pizza, drank a bit, fooled aruond, and started the presentation, which... I gave you above.

After we moved onto a Bomberman Live contest that ended in me giving away the Party Pack copy of Windows 7 Ultimate!

Second place got the poster. :)

Full Flickr Photoset here:

Halloween 2009!!!

2009-11-08T10:38:00.005-06:00

Halloween 2009!

We hosted 61 people total, held a costume contest (we got 59 people to take photos)

(following photos courtesy of David Grelck) (Full Halloween Photoset Here)
There was a tie for first place!

First Place: Jessica Rabbit

Frist Place: Charlie Chaplin
Third Place: Roger Rabbit
Fourth Place: Awesome warrior chick

We have some extra photos courtesy of Jon Resele. (bleedingtiger.deviantart.com)

(full photoset here)

By the way, that's me on the right... if you want to know what I was, I was a:
New Jersey Guido

See hotchickswithdouchebags.com for reference material. :)

7PM - 5:30AM...

We had a good time. :)

What I've Bought Lately: UPS

2009-11-08T10:24:00.006-06:00

I've needed some better surge protectors / uninterruptible power supply, and I saw a special for a 1285VA UPS, so, I grabbed two!

I bought a Cyberpower CP1285AVRLCD UPS
I got 2 for $200 total from Buy.com. (Now they're available on Amazon for $108 each)

I'm using one for my television / stereo / gaming equipment, and one for my computer equipment in the other room.

What I've Bought Lately: Video Card

2009-11-02T20:00:00.005-06:00

Well, I hosted that Windows 7 Party and had my computer hooked up to my television (Toshiba 40RV525U 40" LCD) and realized if I wanted HD Audio I had to use three minijack/headphone to rca converters and send them to my receiver... I don't have an optical audio out (toslink) or a coaxial audio out port on my motherboard (ECS G31T-M, purchased for free at a Fry's B&M store) so... I needed to remedy that.

My video card, an XFX GeForce 8600GT worked well, but didn't have any native hdmi out, just two dual-link DVI which are great and work with DVI-HDMI converters, but... do not output audio.

So I looked for the best card I could get for under $100 that did not take up two slots. nVidia didn't have anything to offer with these requirements, however AMD/ATi did, I found a HIS Radeon HD 4670 that fit the bill.
It may take up two slots, but it's "second slot" is to the LEFT, not to the right, and I had space to the left!

So, that's what I've bought lately

Thinly Veiled Excuse of Drink and Game for Make Benefit Glorious Operating System of Windows 7!

2009-10-23T14:42:00.003-05:00

Just to clarify:

My Windows 7 Party, "Thinly Veiled Excuse of Drink and Game for Make Benefit Glorious Operating System of Windows 7!" is happening tonight. So, get a hold of me and join us there!

Windows 7 Whoppers! Hmmm..... mmmmm....

2009-10-23T13:29:00.001-05:00

I think I know where we're getting dinner tonight at the Windows 7 party. :)

Linus Torvalds Gives Windows 7 a Big Thumbs Up!

2009-10-23T13:15:00.002-05:00

heh heh heh

So I'm holding a Windows 7 Launch Party of my own!

Happening tonight, check it out!
http://houseparty.com/party/176744

Toshiba 40RV525U: Awesome, when it works...

2009-09-30T15:05:00.001-05:00

We have a Toshiba 40RV525U flat panel television that's nine months old. For six of these months it's had some issues. We had it repaired a few months ago, it still has the same issue.

I'm keeping track of it all here, just so if someone needs to refer to evidence, they can.

Also:

Are we proud of our country yet?

2009-09-11T10:48:00.003-05:00

I posted a new diary on the Daily Kos titled: "Are we proud of our country yet?", it was prompted by this picture:

These are just "stream of consciousness" thoughts that came up in the middle of an instant messaging conversation. So, if you're going to read then yell at me, at least read the whole thing then yell at me. :)

Thanks.

IMMA INDOCTRINATIN YOUR CHILDREN

2009-09-08T11:39:00.003-05:00

... because if there's one thing Obama loves, it's indoctrinating children.

1 vs 100, Live Show, Avatar Video!

2009-06-19T22:20:00.005-05:00

Hehe, so ... Chris from 1 vs 100, (The live host) asked us to submit video of people doing the dance that the avatar does, so...

HERE IT IS!

(lol) (taken with my new Canon PowerShot SD960IS, and yes I am crazy about it)

...and now for more from your capitalist shill:

2009-05-22T00:54:00.004-05:00

I'll be brief:

I'm selling, via eBay, two Blackberry Curve 8320 phones. They're fully unlocked, in near-mint condition, are fully tested, come with all the original accessories (and one of them has an extra battery and silicon case), and come with a pitch man... me!

While eBay auctions aren't new, the "pitch man" aspect seems to be.

Frank suggested I do a bit of video. Half a year ago I had a Sidekick 2 with a broken screen, but I wanted to eBay it for parts so we filmed a couple minute video showing it working, making phone calls, but unable to display anything on the screen.

That never went anywhere.

However, I wanted to film myself showing whatever product I was selling working. Frank suggested I take it the next step and do something a little more comprehensive. So we started with these eBay auctions, and we'll move on to something more involved later, but here's the online video (also embedded in HD in those auctions... check 'em out!):

Family Portraits: See? Even I occasionally look good!

2009-04-23T10:23:00.004-05:00

Frank Rodriguez put some portraits up of Nikki, Nathan, and myself.

I take a ton of pictures but it's rare that I consider myself... erm... "good looking" in one. (Yes yes I'm hard on myself, relax!) So I'm posting them here for your (and my) viewing enjoyment! Click the pictures for the link to the full res source.

Chicago Portraits

Chicago Children Photography

I've asked if we can take some portraits, and some outside staged pictures like we did a couple years ago, once we do that I'll make sure to put those up!

* Note, if you're interested in having a portrait taken, head over to his site at Portrait Photography Chicago and drop him a line!

Imported Spirits from 1971

2009-04-22T00:17:00.003-05:00

Nikki's parents found some old liquor at their house. This, is that liquor!

Chicago, Photography, Nathan!

2009-04-21T20:00:00.003-05:00

** Shameless Plug **

Frank Rodriguez has posted a couple of very neat pictures, of myself, Nikki, and Nathan at his portrait/blog. Check 'em out!

http://www.portraits-chicago.com/chicago-children-photography/
All Nathan, all the time.

http://www.portraits-chicago.com/chicago-portraits/
It's a picture of Nikki and myself, just ... well, being together!

Lenovo's System Update Tool: DEPRECATED

2009-04-01T07:30:00.006-05:00

Source: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-72207.html

Forum Discussion: http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=Special_Interest_Utilities&message.id=4434&query.id=8940#M4434

Disclaimer: No, this is not an Internet Retardation Day (tm) Joke. I wouldn't do that to you.

Last night around 4PM I was running updates using the ThinkVantage System Update utility. I've always considered this utility part of the IBM/Lenovo advantage. This is the #1 reason I prefer Lenovo laptops to Dell laptops (those manufacturers being the only ones my company uses) and it makes life SO MUCH EASIER, both on laptops not updated in years, or in installing a fresh Windows install from scratch.

... and now it's gone.

Lenovo is changing the way customers obtain updates for their PCs and Servers.
For our PC customers, automatic updates via ThinkVantage System Update (TVSU) are being discontinued. Customers can continue to download updates by accessing the Lenovo support site at Lenovo Support & downloads. Lenovo is pursuing alternative solutions for system updates and future offerings will be communicated through the new Lenovo Message Center Plus.

Thanks Lenovo... you turned me from a -huge- cheerleader of your hardware into... well, someone pissed off at you. True: No other laptop manufacturer really offers a comprehensive update utility that would download and batch install everything within a couple reboots, INCLUDING bios updates. (Asus's utility is a joke, I am typing this on an Asus laptop right now.)

Fuck you Lenovo... fuck you. You don't give us something awesome, then take it away and expect us to like it.

Help! Need help naming a track (v2): DK

2009-02-25T15:13:00.008-06:00

*** UPDATE ***

DracoTheTyrant has come through yet again (Actually, his Shazam app on the iPhone did). He found the one of the vocal track's sources:

Santogold - Say Aha

Don't ask me what's going on in that video.

Anyhoo, there's another vocal track mixed in there, and I don't know what the backbeat is from. Keep up the good work peeps!

So this time I'm listening to Solid Steel.

(NINJATUNE FTW)

I hear another track that I don't recognize. So I'm clipping it from the mix again for you to hear, and hopefully, name!

Download it here (Click the Ninja)

Continuing our series on child sexual education...

2009-02-13T11:12:00.003-06:00

Thank you to the Portand News and FARK.com for this gem:

Abstinence Clowns!

2009-02-02T17:37:00.006-06:00

Our tax dollars at work under the Bush Administration! Thank you Derek Dye!

Via Daily Kos
Via AmplifyYourVoice.org

Also... Family Guy did it first! (Thanks to Steve Chaos for the link)

Bicentennial Man

2009-01-29T22:26:00.004-06:00

Back in 1999 I watched a movie called Bicentennial Man. I remember enjoying it quite a bit, but I was also surprised to find out it was based on a novel by Isaac Asimov called The Positronic Man.

Before this movie, I'd read some of Isaac Asimov's short stories. I still retain a good memory of them, they were fun to read and there were so many, but at the time I was big on Star Trek, so my whole Sci:Fi world was dominated by that singular continuing story.

Well, by the time 1999 came around I'd grown up a bit. I turned 18, got ready to head out into the working world (For about half a year), endured the buildup to Star Wars Episode I and the ensuing disappointment, and had been ready to expand my horizons. So I looked it up and found it was part of the "Robots" series of books by Isaac Asimov.

I had previously read the entire "Foundation" series of books, while my friend Greg read the "Robots" series, but I never dedicated the time to reading it. But this movie surprised the hell out of me, in a good way.

I mention it now because I rented it via Netflix and watched it for the first time with Nikki. She loved it, and I remembered how much this movie really moved me, now and back then. It also reminded me of a Re:sound episode I listened to via podcast just a few weeks ago, Resound #44: The Fake Docs Show.

I believe the second story in starts talking about the near future, where robots begin to replace parents in Australia as caretakers due to a negative backlash against parents and parenting's negative affects on business and productivity. "Robbies" were beginning to raise children. The whole story was very freaky, it sounded just professional enough to be believable (which was the point of the whole Re:sound episode) and just scary enough to really set off my internal shudder mechanisms.

Listen to this Re:sound podcast, then watch Bicentennial Man. There are quite a few parallel questions regarding the role of robots and technology in today's society. Will we all end up like this?

Reality 1440x900 by ~pyxelated on deviant ART

Anyway, the whole point was to relay that I was blown away (again) by Bicentennial Man, and that it's aged well and is still apropos to today, and our near future.

That is all. :)

Casper Van Dien: You Are My Hero!

2009-01-29T09:22:00.004-06:00

Oh... Wow...

Via Ain't it Cool News;

Childhelp.org (for the prevention and treatment of child abuse) decided to launch a new anti child abuse campaign using Casper Van Dien of "Starship Troopers" fame.

They announce it with the following press release:

Actor Casper Van Dien suits up as “Johnny Rico”
to tackle child abuse in series of PSAs for Childhelp

Starship Troopers star urges people to join him in fighting back against child abuse

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (January 28, 2009) – Johnny Rico, lead character in the hit movie Starship Troopers, is suiting up once again to fight back against the evils of the galaxy. Hollywood actor Casper Van Dien has reprised the combat savvy character for Childhelp to talk about fighting a different war – the war against child abuse. Two new public service announcements (PSAs) were filmed for Childhelp, one of the leading organizations dedicated to the prevention and treatment of child abuse, and recently made their debut online.

The PSAs were put together by an all star team including Academy Award winning visual effects directors Robert Skotak and Dennis Skotak, with the assistance of their brother Jeffrey Skotak who is now also working in visual effects. Robert and Dennis Skotak won Oscars for their visual effects work in the movies Terminator 2, Aliens and The Abyss. The filming was done by John Murlowski, who filmed Starship Troopers 3, and the editing by Kevin VanHook, who has worked on many blockbusters including I, Robot and Daredevil.

“Everyone jumped at the chance to come together and support such a great cause,” said Casper Van Dien. “Four children die every day in this country because of child abuse and neglect, and we all need to do whatever we can to help children in need.”

The PSAs can be viewed on the Childhelp website at http://www.childhelp.org/troopers/video

About Childhelp

In 2009, Childhelp commemorates 50 years of bringing the light of hope and healing into the lives of countless children. CEO and Co-Founder Sara O’Meara and President and Co-Founder Yvonne Fedderson started Childhelp in 1959 , establishing it as a leading national non-profit organization dedicated to helping victims of child abuse and neglect and at-risk children. Childhelp’s approach focuses on advocacy, prevention, treatment and community outreach.

The Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline, 1-800-4-A-CHILD®, operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and receives calls from throughout the United States, Canada, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Guam. Childhelp’s programs and services also include residential treatment services; children’s advocacy centers; therapeutic foster care; group homes and child abuse prevention, education and training. Childhelp also created the Childhelp National Day of Hope®, held each April during National Child Abuse Prevention Month, that mobilizes people across America to join the fight against child abuse.

There's nothing funny about child abuse, which makes me wonder why they'd choose Casper Van Dien and the really bad (but popular!) Starship Troopers series to encourage us all to join the fight against child abuse. But hey, it's a laudable goal, and we're all really onboard anyway. So lets just sit back and enjoy the PSA series they're putting out.

Roll the film.

... and

... and now onto more vulgar topics:

2009-01-23T22:16:00.010-06:00

*** UPDATE ***

The person in question regrets taking these pictures and requested I make them a little less public.

"Meh." I've done my job, but all in good fun. As much as this was -more than fair- retaliation for the "tool" comment, I'm happy to remove all references to names here, even fake ones. I even removed references to it in Facebook. So it shall live and die here, on this page.

Also, I WIN!

So a friend of mine, lets call them...

<charlie brown's mother talks here> decided to take my vaunted "pimp gorilla karaoke singer" picture (look left) and turn it into something so vile, so offensive that I couldn't let it go unanswered.

It's not like I haven't been called a tool before, ... or felt like a tool before... or was a tool before... Still, it's not an opening salvo I can let go unanswered. Therefore, I have lovingly crafted my response...

BEHOLD!

Help! Need help naming a track! (Scratch Perverts)

2009-01-21T20:21:00.008-06:00

*** UPDATE ***

It's Chemical Brothers - Rize Up

Thanks to Facebook / Jon Lehuta for that one!

I started listening to a mix that I'd downloaded from The Mixing Bowl a while ago by the Scratch Perverts. Specifically: Scratch Perverts Live @ Club Vie, Rotterdam (Republic of MTV) from 07/10/2006. However I can't seem to track down a track list and there's this absolutely dynamite tune in the middle.

So, I need help! Listen to this and please let me know if you've heard it before, or if you can name it? Thanks!

Nathan Quote #3:

2009-01-14T17:38:00.003-06:00

We were trying to get Nathan to brush his teeth. He accompanied Nikki to the dentist's office today and received a new toothbrush so now he's all about that one. When we tried to get him to brush with his old Wall-E toothbrush, here's what he said:

That's the most ridiculous toothbrush in the world and I'm NOT using it!

(sigh)

Fark.com, my favorite site of all time (so far) was featured on Jeopardy!

2009-01-13T03:52:00.002-06:00

Nathan singing with his preschool class

2009-01-13T01:50:00.001-06:00

The camera work is my dad's. I couldn't be there so to my dad, thank you!

Web 2.0 v2: Flickr & Youtube

2009-01-13T01:14:00.004-06:00

So now I have a Facebook Page, a Blogger Blog, Flickr Photostream and a Youtube Channel.

(lol)

Why?

Facebook's a great social networking and microblogging site, but content posted there isn't available to the outside world (family and luddites that don't want or care about Facebook) unless you sign up for an account.
Blogger is available to everyone and has passable photo and movie storage support, but doesn't allow deep-linking of those resources, and requires people sign up for a Google account to comment.
Flickr is fantastic for photos and allows for deep linking of resources, ok for short movie clips, has impressive group membership and relation features but doesn't act as a blog so it requires you use something else to link to it, unless you have people... sign up for a Yahoo account and subscribe to your photo stream.
Youtube is movies only, and while I cringe at its quality (even the "hd" streams are crappy), it's #1, fast, has a huge audience, allows embedding of resources, but has only rudimentary support for commenting and ... requires a Google account.
It all seems insane to have to manage three different sets of account credentials and manage four different, slightly overlapping, but extremely useful memberships to post everything online. It means lots of crossposting.

For example... This article is on Blogger (where anyone with a Google account can comment), but I'm going to post this article on Facebook (where people will undoubtetly comment). The previous article linked to my Flickr page. The next article I post will link to my Youtube page for Nathan related enjoyment.

... really?

Who has created alternatives...

There is the Apple solution through iWeb and MobileMe that has very tight integration with iLife and iWork apps, but this really only works seamlessly for Mac owners and doesn't include a good social networking resource.
There's OpenID which has support for LiveJournal, Wordpress, Typepad, or AOL accounts, letting you use one ID but still requires maintaining separate memberships for different resources.
Google's trying -really hard- right now (Youtube/Picasa Web Albums/Blogger), but doesn't have that social networking component. Picasa also happens to be a little expensive, but not unreasonably so.

Who else, what else is out there? Everything's still walled off in its own proprietary feifdom, and until someone either comes up with a better solution (which would require massive amounts of programming and design work, community feedback, and PEOPLE to sign up / subscribe), it's going to continue like this.

I'm encountering similar issues between the XBOX360 and Wii camps right now. I have both, but some people have either / or.

Further immersing myself in Web 2.0: Flickr!

2009-01-09T15:19:00.003-06:00

I finally decided to join Flickr!

(Here's the photostream)
There are some absolutely priceless pictures here... including this video:

Yeah... I need to work on that a bit.

But check it out! (I need to put about 15,000 pictures up there)

Tethering Blackberries on Mac via Bluetooth: AT&T

2009-01-07T16:50:00.005-06:00

In the same vein as tethering to a Windows XP system, here are brief instructions for doing it on a Mac OS X 10.5 system!
(Thanks to amkls704 at howardforums.com and Eugene Dong for instructions)

Extract this file (blackberry-3g-cid1.zip) to:

/Macintosh HD/Library/Modem Scripts

(Secondary Download Source, requires registration

You have your Blackberry and Mac paired, we actually need to remove that pairing and begin from scratch. Remove the phone from your paired devices list on your Mac, and on your Blackberry, remove your laptop as a paired device.

Re-pair your Blackberry and laptop. (Run the “Setup Bluetooth Device” wizard)

Choose:

- Mobile Phone
- Blackberry 9000
- Hit Continue Again
- Check the box next to “Access the internet with your phone’s data connection”
- For the Phone Vendor: Choose Other and for the Phone Model: Choose Blackberry 3G CID1 (the script you put into the modem scripts folder)
- Launch Network Preferences, and click "Bluetooth" in the list.
- Select "Add Configuration" from the Configuration drop list. Name the configuration AT&T via Blackberry Bold (or something like that)

o Username: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
o Password: CINGULAR1
o Telephone Number: wap.cingular

- Check "Show modem status in menu bar"

That should do it! Click on “Connect Bluetooth” on the modem icon on the Mac, a connection timer should come up and let your mac in on the 3G goodness!

Tethering Blackberries via Bluetooth: AT&T

2009-01-05T15:35:00.007-06:00

I figured I should start writing down some of the more obscure information I come across every day. I'm an aggregation machine that just happens to lose data every so often, so this is my backup strategy.I have a couple co-workers with the new Blackberry Bold (9000). Yes it works well, it's light, thin, flashy, etc... but what really makes this killer is that it supports 3G data, and a concurrent voice call. Verizon and Sprint have Blackberries that support 3G data, but not at the same time as a voice call. T-Mobile should "eventually", but they're still developing their 3G network. (I stick with them for the excellent customer service)

All instructions here are listed for Windows XP, but if you're using Vista, they still work... the places you have to look are just slightly different.

There are quite a few forum posts on how to tether Blackberries via bluetooth but none that get it right, and for the ones that get it right, none that refer directly to the Blackberry bold. So, let me state a couple items:

When attempting to tether the Blackberry Bold via bluetooth, do not:

Use the AT&T Communication Manager software
Add the tethering plan to your AT&T account (yet)
Expect to be able to sync your Blackberry to your laptop via Bluetooth reliably

Please do:

Find and install the latest Blackberry Desktop Manager software (v4.7 as of this post).
Pair your phone with your computer via bluetooth after installing the desktop manager software
Expect to sync your Blackberry via USB (or use an enterprise server).

After all that (install Blackberry Desktop Manager, pair phone and laptop via bluetooth), here's what to do:

You should have a new modem in your modem list called "Standard Modem over Bluetooth" or "Standard Bluetooth Modem". You also may have one that just says "Standard Modem" but when your phone is paired it will list the com port your phone is on for the com port of the standard modem. Identify this device.

Go into the device properties of that modem (Phone and Modem Options / Modems Tab) and click on the "Advanced" tab. Under extra initialization commands, enter this:

AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","wap.cingular"

Click OK a few times to save / close everything, then go to your Network Connections list and run the New Network Connection wizard.

Set it up as a dial-up connectoin, and when it asks for an ISP name tell it whatever you want, but when it asks for a phone number give it the following:

*99#

Save the new connection, create a shortcut on your desktop, and that's it, you should be able to dial-up!

Now if you want to do the "right thing" (tm), you'll call AT&T and have them add the tethering plan to your account. You can then use "isp.cingular" instead of "wap.cingular" which might be a little faster... or at least better if you ever need to call AT&T for help.

Otherwise that's it!

Back when Sesame Street was cool, Steve Wonder played.

2008-12-30T16:40:00.004-06:00

I used to love Sesame Street.

I watch it now and cry, much like I do with modern Simpsons episodes.

Old School.

Nathan Quote #2:

2008-09-25T13:14:00.002-05:00

"Mommy, can we sell our two cats to another family so we can get a pet snake?"

New Feature: Nathan Quotes!

2008-09-13T01:09:00.004-05:00

From here on out, I will label anything to do with a "Nathan Quote" as... "Nathan Quotes"

So, Nathan Quote #1 is:

"Mommy would be perfect if she was born a cat."

Thank you, thank you, he'll be here the next 14 1/2 years.

Post Sept. 11 thoughts...

2008-09-12T01:05:00.003-05:00

I actually came up with 95% of this text this morning, but it was all in e-mail and not in a public format. So, here it is. (Link here)

Phase 2: Make Victims Pay for Rape Kits

2008-09-11T13:57:00.006-05:00

Thanks to Sarah Palin (Vice Presidential Candidate) we now know what Phase 2 is:

Make Victims Pay for Rape Kits!

... really... who in their right mind would vote for her for VP...

See my diary here:

Compare payment for rape kits to other law enforcement activities: Palin '08!

Jesus is a friend of mine (Jesus is my friend)!

2008-09-09T14:08:00.004-05:00

Christian "Music"

I think the quotes tell you how I generally feel about it.

However, Christian Ska is very much alive... in the past!

Via BoingBoing, here is Sonseed!

But in all seriousness, I am/was an honest fan of Mephiskapheles. :)

Nerf Office Wars

2008-06-20T11:57:00.001-05:00

http://view.break.com/521743 - Watch more free videos

Shauna Boliker, Richard (Dick) Devine: FAIL

2008-06-13T16:45:00.006-05:00

So a jury of his peers acquitted. R. Kelly of child pornography charges that have been in the system for more than six years.

Now I didn't think too much of Asst. State Atty. Shauna Boliker before this trial (due to what I perceive as her inability to coherently, succinctly, and effectively make an argument to a jury), and I wasn't privy to this trial itself, so I can't say she directly failed. I suspect she took a weak case that really never should have gone this far and did the best she could do. A better attorney might have pulled it off, she couldn't.

However, I believe Richard (Dick) Devine just guaranteed that I'll never vote for him again.

"This prosecution is one we have no reservations about."Child pornography
prosecutions can be extremely difficult in many ways--one of them being that
victims often don't come forward themselves, Devine said.Even so, he said,
charges "have to be brought."
Source: Chicago Tribune

I understand that child pornography prosecutions can be extremely difficult. However, no! No No No! Charges do not have to be brought. You build a case on what you have and what you can prove, and if you don't think you can win (which, seeing that the evidence was pretty much the video tape, and some witnesses testifying that the girl on the spot was in the video even though she denies it) you have no business bringing a prosecution to trial.

It's a waste of my money and a waste of everyone's time. It's also a waste of talent.

I know that if someone close to me was molested I'd want to go through anything to see the person who molested that person brought to trial and convicted... hopefully castrated. However, if I couldn't prove it was that person other than a feeling, or an urge to get SOMEONE, then I would have to force myself to act differently.

I may "feel" R. Kelly's guilty, but I can't prove it.

"Not guilty" does not mean "innocent."

If we can't prove guilt, we shouldn't put people through this and waste money, time, and peoples' lives. This case should not have gone to trial.

Doesn't mean we can't laugh at R. Kelly's (mis)fortune.

Oh My God: Nathan... Cute... OVERLOAD

2008-05-22T14:06:00.000-05:00

Fry's Electronics Ads!

2008-05-12T12:06:00.004-05:00

So I have no idea if i'm going to permanently post Fry's Electronics Ads here or not. I usually head over to a Chicago based Vietnamese PC Magazine, TapChiViTinh. Personally I think it's awesome they host the ads on their forums.

But, I just lost some of my regular hosting, so i'm posting the pictures here to hotlink from the TapChiViTinh forums pages, so here goes. :)

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Saturday, May 10th, 2008

Western Digital "VelociRaptor" - !!!!!

2008-04-21T11:05:00.009-05:00

Over the last few years, when I've needed a high performance hard drive, I've purchased and recommended the Western Digital Raptor line. From the first 36GB 10000RPM 8MB cache drive all the way to the 150GB 10000RPM 15MB cache'd Raptor X, I've been extremely happy with them.

I've purchased at least 30 for myself and clients, and none of them have died.
They run at 10K RPM (faster than the standard 7200RPM or 5400RPM for desktop drives) meaning faster sustained read speeds and faster random seek reads.
They sound cool without being annoying (hehe).

But, they're old... the last update to the line was in late 2006 and, I still love them, but I'm always looking for more speed.

So they introduced the VelociRaptor.

It's a terrible name, yes, but it's all about hard drive performance, and apparently this "tears shit up". It's a 2.5" drive with a huge heatsink surrounding it!

There've been 10K RPM SAS server drives out for a long time, it's nice to see they're bringing them over to the desktop, standard SATA side.

So, while I didn't find this out all by my lonesome, I thought this was exciting enough to bring everyone's attention. Want a fast drive? GET THIS.

300GB, 10K RPM, 3.0GB SATA (finally), and lots of healthy reviews = win.

Source: Engadget
Review: Tom's Hardware
Review: Maximum PC
Review: PC Perspective
Review: Hot Hardware

Rock Band : The Next Generation

2008-04-15T20:57:00.003-05:00

My favorite game is Rock Band.

Our band is the Commonwealth of Pants.

Yes, NIkki's British, so that's why, leave us alone.

Anyway, some intrepid soul with (apparently) more love of Star Trek than me decided to go the extra mile and make Rock Band characters out of Star Trek characters.

I wish I had thought of this myself, because it's awesome:

(drops jaw)

Oh, and by the way, here's a video of Nathan drumming. :)

GCalSync - Synchronize Blackberry with Google Calendar

2008-04-15T08:31:00.013-05:00

I have a Blackberry Curve 8320 from T-Mobile. I love the device. So much so that I put it through a full washer / dryer cycle just to make it look and smell great! Upon finding out the device no longer functioned, I coughed up the $110 insurance fee and received another. (It looks great, does not smell great... )

But right now I'm not using it with over the air sync of my calendar / address book information since I don't have a working Exchange server at the moment. So I decided to try to (temporarily) move away from the Microsoft Outlook / Microsoft Exchange combination.

The last time I tried this I attempted to use Ximian Evolution (now just Evolution), then I looked into Chandler, and... I came up empty. (Note, the Evolution logo has changed... I just like this one more)

The truth is, I need e-mail and calendaring all the time, everywhere I go, on a laptop, on my desktop, on my phone, and I need them to all share data seamlessly.

I think I may have found what I'm looking for.

Mail: Mozilla Thunderbird

Calendar: Mozilla Lightning (or Sunbird if you want a separate application)

Blackberry Sync: GCalSync

To make it work on the Blackberry side of things you need to be aware of two potential issues which I was not aware of. I received an "invalid tunnel name" error. I fixed it by resolving two issues:

Disabling the "Proxy" setting under TLS on the Blackberry.

Choose Options -> Security Options -> TLS -> TLS Default
Choose Handheld (not "Proxy")

Setting the APN name

Choose Options -> Advanced Options - TCP
Type in your Wireless Provider's APN address, username, and password.

(For T-Mobile, it's wap.voicestream.com with no username or password)

This is the closest I've come to breaking up the Outlook / Exchange combination.

It still isn't seamless, sync between the Blackberry and Google Calendar isn't automatic, you have to initiate it at the GCalSync app on the Blackberry.

Additionally, it won't update already uploaded events.

Nevertheless this is the closest I've come in a while, so I'm going to work with this and see what I end up doing.

Windows Vista Downgrading, aka: Purchasing laptops and shoehorning XP into them

2008-04-13T21:15:00.011-05:00

So anyone purchasing a laptop these days has to deal with Windows Vista.

Disclaimer:
I've been using Windows Vista since day one. I heavily promoted Windows Vista as a panacea for problems laptop computers had connecting to disparate networks, power management, and other little XP issues that would crop up.
I am no longer a promoter of Windows Vista. I help people get rid of it in favor of Windows XP, or a I give a gentle push towards Apple.

I purchased four laptops from a local retailer, three Acer Extensa 4420-5237 units, and a HP Compaq Presario F756NR. I'm keeping one of the Acer's for myself.

Yes I linked you to a Taiwanese Acer site, because Acer America no longer lists that particular unit.

Both laptops come preloaded with Windows Vista Home Premium, 32-bit.

(Insert random Microsoft / Vista hating joke here. Here, I'll start you off: "Preloaded? More like pre-bloated!" Ok, ok, another one: "Preloaded? You must mean defective by design." Actually, that last one is a slogan referring to DRM infestations. Check out http://www.defectivebydesign.org.)

Anyway, both manufacturers (HP/Compaq and Acer) don't offer Windows XP on these laptops. They also don't list XP drivers for these laptops on their websites.

HP makes it rough, luckily enough intrepid souls out there purchased these laptops and either edited some .INF files on their own or found the exact same hardware on older laptops, or on other similar laptops offered by HP, Compaq, or another manufacturer and used the drivers from those models.

Unfortunately, all that information is buried under several forum posts and it's not in one location. So, I'm going to 1) Link to the original posts, and 2) Link to a 100% tested (by me, on a single laptop, don't complain if you can't get it the first time, just ask questions!) compilation of all the correct drivers, and 3) tell you how mad I am.

So, for the Compaq Presario F756NR, drivers are available here:

(Uploading, will post link soon)

The original forum posts I referenced are here:

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?admit=109447626+1208137423572+28353475&threadId=1188979
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?admit=109447626+1208137423799+28353475&threadId=1193928
Link to another laptop, the V3000Z CTO with some drivers and utilities that work. Read the earlier forum posts though.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=228&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3180330&lang=en'

Luckily, while Acer is just as dumb as HP for not listing drivers on their site, apparently their European bureau didn't get the memo.

So for the Acer Extensa 4420-5237, drivers are available here:

http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/ex_4420.html

(lol)

Have fun y'alls!

Westboro Baptist Church gets Rick Roll'd

2008-04-07T20:04:00.003-05:00

So the Westboro Baptist Church protested at Northern Illinois University (NIU) during services for the deceased.

Thank God someone Rick Roll'd them for their trouble.

Btw, this happened in Orlando, FL. Thanks to Perez Hilton for the link! (and Nikki for sending me there)

The coolest thing my dad has said (in my presence) in recent memory:

2008-04-03T18:20:00.004-05:00

I received an e-mail from my dad today, and it reminded me that he occasionally used to rock.

It is a Microsoft bug/feature related to 8 bit MIME. 2003 Exchange forwards in 8 bit MIME. Other Exchange Servers and many other Servers can accept it. Yahoo and BlackBerry do not. This MS Document tells us how to turn off this feature. It’s scary and reminds me of my days as an assembler programmer XOR’ing a packed data field but it works. I have tried it on mine and now Yahoo messages can be forwarded to my BlackBerry and Vice Versa. It’s something I’ll need to do on any Exchange Server I have that forwards mail to a PDA or server similar to Yahoo.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257569/

I just looked at that and said to myself, "That's so cool... he used to be an assembler programmer... he knows what XOR is... hehe".

But anyway, to comment on Microsoft, 8 bit mime, ESMTP, and... how dumb SMTP is as a protocol, and why Blackberry/Yahoo/anyone else can't understand a few extra "introduction" lines (or why Exchange 2000 can't) is just... annoying. :)

Best April Fools Joke This Year, C/O The BBC

2008-04-01T11:02:00.002-05:00

I wish public broadcasting was taken as seriously in this country as it is in Britain and Canada... GOD SAVE THE QUEEN... and the BBC and CBC.

(I do love Chicago Public Radio and PBS)

... and so the Rick Roll has truly come full circle.

2008-03-26T08:14:00.003-05:00

So someone decided to actually look up Rick Astley. Hey, it's the Los Angeles Times, they're still journalists over there? (wow)

They let him in on this whole rickroll Internet phenomenon. Apparently he's into it, and has no plans to start a new career. Just relive a little of the old one.

Good guy. :)

I miss the Chappelle Show...

2008-03-21T23:52:00.004-05:00

So I knew I wouldn't have time to listen to Barack Obama's speech, "A More Perfect Union." It's gotten saturation media coverage, mostly good, some disgustingly terrible, so I'm not going to push it or post any real opinion other than, "I must volunteer."

But it got me thinking about moments when political speech transcends politics and becomes a real force. So I remembered watching the Chappelle Show back when it was on "for real" and -fantastic-. (The entire first and second season is what I consider fantastic)

So Wyclef Jean comes on singing President. So I just want to share.

We Interrupt This Programme;

2008-03-06T15:48:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since writing. I've reflected quite a bit on the trial and I realized I'm still having issues coming to terms with it.

So I'll continue to write about it... and shame all those who've earned a public shaming.

In the meantime, ... NEDM

Rick Roll'd: Rick Doom

2008-02-23T17:25:00.002-06:00

(facepalm)

Rhymefest "friended" me on Facebook. (and why I'm lame)

2008-02-23T16:38:00.005-06:00

Out of the blue I got an add request from Rhymefest on Facebook.

My first thought: How the hell does Rhymefest know who I am?
My second thought: I wonder if it's the post from a couple weeks ago.
My third thought: Nah... my site's read by a whopping five people (at best).
My fourth thought: Maybe google indexing is just that damned good... and maybe it ranked me high for "Rhymefest"
My fifth thought: It's probably not Rhymefest anyway.

So I accepted, and whether it's Rhymefest or not, it's cool as shit. :)

My sixth thought: Oh yeah... Facebook... (searches for Rhymefest) Damn, I'm number three on Facebook for "Rhymefest"... Apparently my last name (which incidentally rhymes with Hairy-Ass... thanks fourth grade!) being alphabetically first means I'm third in the pecking order.

So, while I still laugh at social networking in general as being a waste of time and useless (to me, not to anyone else, just to me), it apparently does connect people.

Thanks Rhymefest!

Check out a few articles on Rhymefest if you're interested:

Live: Rappers hate American Idol (VillageVoice.com)
Rhymefest Interview (ThaBiz.com)
A Revolutionary MC Speaks: An interview with Rhymefest. (JIVEMagazine.com)

Oh yeah... why am I lame? 'cause my first five thoughts were "...what the?" instead of "awesome"... :)

What beats Klingon Karaoke? STEVIE WONDER ON SESAME STREET!

2008-02-21T00:37:00.002-06:00

Oh ... oh man... oh wow. Sesame Street back in the day was full of... what's that word? WIN
First, attribution:
I found this clip originally on Baby Roadies about... half a year ago? It disappeared after a couple days and I couldn't find a good quality clip again. Well, found another one.

Klingon Karaoke!

2008-02-19T18:47:00.004-06:00

(grin)
Thanks Frank for an awesome Friday! Thanks to Capricon too!

Update: Attribution: OrganicPhoto.com (Frank!)

Flotation Centers, Relaxation, ... I need to head into Chicago.

2008-02-18T20:36:00.007-06:00

So my Aunt Teresita and Uncle Frank ran a flotation center a couple years ago called "Aguasal". I'd never heard of flotation centers, isolation tanks or float tanks, only of sensory deprivation in the context of The Simpsons.

So I didn't exactly have an educated perception of floating. :)

But luckily Frank and Tere did, and knew about the benefits of floating enough to not just write or evangelize, but to found and run a flotation center!

Chicago's ABC 7 station ran a report on flotation while they were putting the finishing touches on their center.

A few months later, 190 North, a local Chicago based "news magazine" type show decided to pay Aguasal a visit.

This was all back in early to mid 2005. Unfortunately Aguasal closed (and so did my easy, nearby chance to float!) but it left a permanent mark in my mind and in many others.

Floatforhealth.net still ranks as one of the premier sources of information for flotation on the internet and it's still run by Frank and Tere.

They've also put up a blog that answers many questions about flotation. Check out floatation-tank.com and you can ask questions and get some answers if you're interested.

It also has links to where you can float in the US. The two places local to Chicago are:

Ecosspa (Naperville, IL) directions

SpaceTimeTanks (Chicago, IL) directions

Sony Support = WIN

2008-02-15T17:12:00.010-06:00

So one of the clients I support purchased two Sony Vaio VGN-TZ195N laptops. They arrived with Vista Business pre-installed.

Sony VAIO VGN-TZ195N/XC 11.1" Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor U7600, 2 GB RAM, 48 GB Flash Drive, Vista Business)

I started out by removing Vista Business and installing our volume licensed Windows XP Professional software. Everything went great except for one thing...

The on board Sprint broadband card (Novatel Wireless Expedite EV-DO Rev.A) did not have Windows XP drivers on the Sony eSupport website. The eSupport website was pretty honest about it saying "we don't yet offer the SmartWi utility for Windows XP". however I figured I'd be able to hack something together.

I wasn't. I tried grabbing the XP Expedite drivers from the OQO website (which uses the same mobile broadband card) and it didn't work. I tried playing around with Novatel's support website to see if I could finagle it into giving me XP drivers, with no success.

So I had to give up, order Vista restore dvds from Sony (Yes, I forgot to make backups, and no Sony doesn't make some of their shared libraries available on their eSupport website!), wait for them to arrive, and re-install the Sony certified Vista installation.

It was not a happy day for me. It was not a happy month and a half for the two executives that received brand new Sony Vaio laptops loaded with Vista either.

That's where Sony's technical support comes in.

I called, mentioned the problem, told them I downgraded (hah) to XP and that even after installing the new SmartWi utility that it wasn't detecting the hardware.

It would give me four devices, "data interface" with no drivers.

I got referred to level 2 tech support with no hassle at all, told them the issue, waited about five minutes, and I was given a link from one of their technicians to download new Novatel drivers. I installed the drivers, and it worked!

The whole tech support experience? under 15 minutes.

HUUUUGE props to Sony technical support. Wow.

Dell has a lot to learn.

Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL : Shooting (Updated)

2008-02-14T17:20:00.005-06:00

(Updated CNN Article)

I of course made the usual calls making sure everyone I knew was ok and to see how things are going on campus. How many school shootings have occurred in the last two weeks?!

I don't have anything interesting to say. Here's an eyewitness report of what happened:

http://daily-chronicle.com/articles/2008/02/14/news/latest_news/news02.txt

Happy Snowfall Chicagoans!

2008-02-12T18:18:00.000-06:00

At least we're not Portland!

Obama-Mania!

2008-02-08T23:53:00.001-06:00

Ignore the fact that I took a Republican ballot in the Illinois primary to vote for Ron Paul. I'm all in for Obama in the general election. (Though Ron Paul's candidacy is very attractive right now)

SUGOI: I love this. 8bit Obama is fifteen shades of awesome.

You got Rick Roll'd

2008-02-08T21:26:00.000-06:00

Damnit... I got Rick Roll'd again.

I still laugh every time so, you know, it's ok. But jeebus this has spread like wildfire the last few months. So here's a bit of 80's style funk for all of you.

If you haven't been Rick Roll'd yet, consider yourself Roll'd.

How to Prosecute a Rapist, Part 2: How not to interview rape victims. (Part 1)

2008-02-08T13:02:00.000-06:00

So,

I left off discussing how bad the opening statements were. It's bad enough we as a jury couldn't discuss the case, it's worse that we had someone to complain about and we couldn't even do it. But that's the system, we don't control that.

The first three witnesses in the case were Mario Villa's victims. I believe it was the actual victim for this case first, then two previous victims who testified for modus operandi and identification purposes.

For those of you not in the know, apparently when you have a multiple felon you can admit previous crimes, or other previous incidents into the trial but not as evidence counting against the specific charges against the defendant. It only counts for:

defendant's proclivity to commit such crimes
defendant's modus operandi (mo, his style)
identifying the defendant

So, first witness was the woman that this proceeding was for. Sge walked up with tissues in hand, obviously distraught and crying, raised her right hand, and sat down.

The prosecutor (there were two, one younger woman, maybe 35-45, and one older, shorter, and ... someone that preferred to cake on their makeup aged around 50-60) who I'll define as the "older" one got up there, asked her to spell out her name for the ladies and gentleman of the jury and proceeded to question her.

Oh wait,
Your honor, may I approach? I have tissues.
I believe she alre-...
(walks up anyway and places a tissue box in front of her, in the way of us seeing the victim)

Ok, annoying, and I believe the judge felt so also. It was pretty obvious even from that first small act that the only reason for walking up to give the victim tissues was to emphasize that she was crying to affect how we felt about her.

Here are a few words of advice for you attorneys out there:

If you're questioning a victim that's gone through a terrible ordeal and is still strong enough to testify, make sure she has tissues, water, whatever she needs before she gets to the stand.

When you're questioning a victim that's obviously distraught, crying, or otherwise not in a good state, you don't need to show us that. We know. We're people, when one person sees another human being in pain, most of the time they want to reach out and comfort that other person. That goes triple for rape victims. Please don't give us signposts to that fact. WE KNOW SHE IS HURTING. WE FEEL FOR HER.

Anyway, continuing past that little point of legal theater, the older prosecutor went on to question the victim. Except she didn't so much question as make statements in pidgin legalese that require a yes or no answer, then move on while interrupting the witness as she's attempting to give more details. For example:

When I want to ask someone what they did before they arrived home and what their bedtime routine was, whether there was any light on in the house and whether there were any windows open and whether their front door was locked (all relating directly to the charge of Home Invasion, and to the ability to identify the defendant), I'd say

"So, on the night of February 7, 2004, you shopped for groceries and went home, correct?"
"Yes."
"Tell us when you got home, what you did, how you prepared for bed, and went you went to sleep."
"I arrived home around 9:30pm, put away my groceries, went upstairs, got ready for bed, and went to sleep around 10:15."
"Did you lock your door after you arrived home?"
"Yes."
"Did you leave any lights on?
"No, I turned them all off."
"Was there another source of light you didn't turn off?"
"Yes, a street light was directly outside my window, I left the blinds open so that it light shone through."
"Did you leave any windows open that night?"
"Yes, I left my downstairs windows open."

So at this point we've established she got home, lived in a two story apartment, went to bed with no lights on (but had light shining in from a street lamp), and had left a window open downstairs. This question and answering established a nice little narrative for a young woman arriving home after grocery shopping and going to bed feeling safe. This is what the prosecution wanted to show. Then I would have brought out pictures of the front of the first floor apartment, the opened window, the stairs leading upstairs, you know, simple things to illustrate what this guy would have had to go through to get in. I would have asked, "Is this the window you left open? Are these the stairs leading to your bedroom?" Then I would have walked by the jury and showed the pictures to them, briefly, but long enough for them to visualize her apartment.

That's now how questioning occured.

"Did you have the opportunity to go grocery shopping on February 7th, 2004?"
"Yes."
"Approximately what time did you get home on February 7th, 2004?"
"Around 9:30pm."
"What did you do when you arrived home on February 7th, 2004?"
"I put my groceries away."
"Then what did you do?"
"I went upstairs and got ready for bed."
"Did you have the opportunity to turn off all your lights?"
"... yes."
"Did you have the opportunity to lock your front door?"
"Yes."
"After you had the opportunity to turn of all your lights and lock your front door, did you then proceed to go to sleep?"
"Yes."
"Was there any light in your room?"
"Yes, from the street lamp outside of my bedroom."

Then came the exhibits...

"What is this a picture of?"
"That's the front of my house."
"I've marked this as state's exhibit 1 for identification purposes. Does this picture illustrate the front of your house in substantially the same condition as on February 7th, 2004?"
"Yes."
"What is this a picture of?"
"That's a closer picture of the front of my house."
(It happened to be the address numbers)
"I've marked this as state's exhibit 2 for identification purposes. Does this picture illustrate the front of your house in substantially the same condition as on February 7th, 2004?"
"Yes."
What is this a picture of?"
"That's a picture of the window I left open, the one the-"
"I've marked this as state's exhibit 3 for identification purposes. Does this picture illustrate the front of your house in substantially the same condition as on February 7th, 2004?"
"Yes."

This went on for about... 15 to 20 exhibits. Not with any explaining why they were showing the exhibits, and not with showing us ANY of the exhibits AT ALL. The older prosecutor literally brought up 15-20 pictures as exhibits, asked the same damned question every time, and interrupted her witness every time she tried to give a little more information that requested, as in something other than a "yes" or "no".

A few more words of advice to attorneys:

This applies to pretty much any witness, not just a rape victim. But when you're asking questions, I understand (and we as a jury understand) that there are going to be certain things you need to establish that we don't necessarily understand the need for (or we don't yet). But you can ask several questions at once and let the witness speak. Please... ask several questions at once and let the witness speak. Don't just ask questions that require a yes or no answer, especially if you want to emphasize that this witness is a very badly hurting human being who you want us to sympathize with. Treating her like a robot, speaking like a robot, and not letting us hear a narrative does not help your case.

When presenting exhibits, please show them to the jury. We want to see them.

Please don't present 15 to 20 exhibits at once. Spurts of 3 to 5 are a good medium, and it allows us to see pictures as the witness is telling us about events. It also makes sure you don't skip ahead and show us pictures of a bloody tampon on the ground before we've heard the witness testify to that.

When you speak, don't close your eyes because you're trying to remember stuff. Be prepared, look at the witness when you're speaking to them, look interested, look engaged, look like you care.

So, questioning continues in the same style. "did you have an opportunity to..." "I'm going to interrupt you every second to lay out a story in pidgin legalese, please answer yes or no."

Ugh, terrible... and the rape victim is of course up there and she's crying, just wants to tell her story and get off the stand, and we sympathize with her, but we start hating the prosecutor.

So, conversely to the prosecutor's questioning, the defense attorney (Stone I believe) actually did a competent job of questioning the rape victim.
When I say competent I mean he did a great job of:

not looking like an ass
being sympathetic, yet still asking quick and to the point questions about specific facts.
acknowledging that something terrible happened and that he's sorry
listening to answers, waiting until they're finished to ask the next question
keeping it brief

While overall I was not impressed with the defense attorney, at this stage of the trial he did a "pretty good job" (tm).

He still probably should have been more picky at the jury selection stage... I just think he wasn't trying. :)

Oh, by the way:
Article on the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-chicago-rapefeb08,1,3390796.story

The two state's attorney's (I don't know which is which yet) are:

Assistant State's Atty. Patricia Shea
(No picture available yet)
I previously referred to her as the "older one".

Assistant State's Atty. Shauna Boliker

She was definitely the better of the two. I previously referred to her as the "younger one".

Apparently ASA Shauner Boliker is also prosecuting the R. Kelly "pissing on you" child pornography case.

The defense attorney was:

Jed Stone, Stone & Associates, L.L.C.

Apparently he's made some "World Can't Wait: Drive out the Bush Regime" speeches. I'm linking to one here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5585713256770995112

I say defense attorney because even though they were two, the "second chair" defense attorney, John Curnyn never spoke. I don't hold it against him or anything, but we really only saw Jed Stone in action.

By the way, no one questioned the jury on the way out! none of the attorneys bothered asking us why we did what we did. I know one of the beauties of jury duty is not having to explain a guilty / not guilty verdict, but man... Anyway, I'll get to that in another post. This one's rivaling chapter length and I'm only a few hours into the trial.

Brand New! Brand New! Brand New!

2008-02-08T12:31:00.000-06:00

About three weeks ago I listened to NPR (WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio) and Sound Opinions came on. They were discussing Michael Jackson and his latest attempt at a comeback via a hop-hop world that's rapidly coming around to Jackson being "cool" again due to the 25th anniversary of Thriller. Then they discussed Michael Jackson's "biggest fan", Rhymefest.

I first heard Rhymefest on a few Kanye West tracks. I've always been a big fan of sampling, scratch DJ's, and organicly grown rap and while Kanye may not be "underground" or producing for Jay-Z anymore, he was definitely groundbreaking. He brought Rhymefest into my consciousness.

So I grabbed Rhymefest - Blue Collar.
I loved it, I'm definitely going to see Rhymefest next time he's in town.

Anyway, Rhymefest made a mix album he's released for free via his MySpace page
taking samples and interviews from Michael Jackson's older and best work and mixing it together into some fantastic tracks, some hilarious interview segments, and an all around great album.

He may riff on Michael Jackson for his proclivities, but all in all it's obvious he's got a lot of love for Michael Jackson. Go visit his MySpace page and download Man in the Mirror for free.

Family Guy Funny? When the hell did that happen (again)?

2008-02-08T10:52:00.000-06:00

"You've checkmated my teenage cynicism!"
"Excellent, i'm a bigger hit with the kids than Will Smith and his nice clean rap."
"WHOOOO HAHA, I respect women when I'm on a date,
I take 'em to a park or maybe a museum and I only try to kiss 'em, if they're ready
WHOO HOO WHAT WHAT WHAT uh WHAT I say WHAT
Help out your mom and dad by gettin' a job
so you can help pay for school supplies
WHOOHOO say HO
Wipe your shoes on the mat when you come in the house some one just CLEANED that floor WHOO HOO SAY WHAT WHAT HA HA"

How Not to Prosecute a Rapist, Part 1: Opening Statements

2008-02-08T01:28:00.000-06:00

First, a little overview:

The Cook County, IL Circuit Court system selected me for jury duty. I visited the 26th & California (Chicago) criminal facility, submitted myself as required, and ended up performing real jury duty with real jurors, a real judge, a real defendant, very real victims, multiple witnesses, a decent but unremarkable defense attorney, and surprisingly incompetent prosecutors.

Second, a little qualifying statement:

Current mood: Angry
I spent four days sitting with eleven other jurors (and two alternates) listening to witnesses, prosecutors, and the defense attorney. But I'm not mad at the process, I'm mad at the lawyers... mostly the prosecutors. I'm a private citizen with no substantial legal experience. All I kept thinking was, "It can't be this bad all the time..." and "my friends would eat these two for breakfast if they were opposing council, and they're just a year out of law school".

I believe that's a bad sign.

The judge, the court reporters, the clerks, the officers were all top notch and on top of their game.

I had no previous knowledge of the case, the defendant, witnesses, or attorneys before sitting for this trial. After the end I did find out I knew of a couple of the offenses.

I'm writing because I'm angry, and because I want lawyers out there to know how to more effectively argue to a jury. For example: don't piss off the jury. I thought that would be a pretty standard concept learned in law school . I suppose not.

Most of the time I'm going to speak for myself, but occasionally I'll address what we as a jury felt. I'll make sure to note that. We as a jury were pretty much on the same page as far as frustration, so most of the time, speaking for myself is speaking to the attitude of all of us.

Third, a little background on the case:

I didn't know this at the time, but we were going to try the first out of seven cases against First, the judge was fantastic throughout the entire process Villa, aka: Jose Alpizar. He was known in the media as the "Lincoln Park Rapist" and the "North Side Rapist". From 1999 to 2004 he was busy looking for unlocked windows and casing vulnerable women on the street.

Onto the point,
Opening Statements:

While I've never served on a jury before (I'm 26), I had a certain expectation of how things were going to go. I'm not talking about from cop shows or lawyer shows, I mean from a "You're going to be here for a while, here's what we're going to prove" point of view. That's not what happened. I consolidate the prosecution's opening argument's to this:

We are going to present some evidence and it's going to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Mario Villa is guilty as charged of home invasion and of aggravated criminal sexual assault.

Ok, that's good... so, can you give us a little outline of how you're going to do that?

Mmm... no, that's ok, you figure it out.

... really?

Great... Defense opening statement?

You're going to hear a woman testify about a terrible event, and we understand it's going to be uncomfortable and it's not going to be pretty. But the judge instructed you to follow the law, and we'd like you to focus on that. You all took an oath to be impartial, so when examining the facts and evidence of the case we want you to truly be impartial, follow the law, and make a fair decision based on the evidence in front of you. Be impartial and follow the law. FOLLOW THE LAW

Follow the law, yes, we will try to do that.

So, what did we learn? Prosecution?

When giving an opening statement, please don't just tell us "We have a case that will blow you away", give us a brief outline of your case.
Tell us ahead of time that your chain of evidence is rock solid, your expert witnesses unimpeachable, and your victims sure. Don't force us to try and figure that all out later (though we will if we have to).

Defense?

The Judge starts by telling us that he's going to instruct us as to the law. During jury selection, both you and the judge asked if we could be fair and impartial. If you want to reiterate the point, please do so once.
If you're going to reiterate the point, don't sound so desperate. It makes it sound like your case has one broken leg to stand on.
If you sound desperate, you make it known you're going to try and use the word of the law to the benefit of the defendant (what we call a "technicality" in lay terms).
If you're going to build your case on little "technicalities", we're happy to evaluate your case based on that. Please tell us what those might be ahead of time, or at least elude to parts of testimony you want us to focus on. Again, we will do our job by figuring it out, but it'll make it less likely we'll see everything how you want us to see it.

That's it for opening statements. Coming next?

How to Prosecute a Rapist, Part 2: How not to interview rape victims.

Here's some background on the case if you're interested.
NBC 5 news report from March 22, 2004: when they caught the guy.
Chicago Sun-Times reporting on the beginning of the trial.

By the way, the charges were, "Home Invasion", "Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault", "Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault", and "Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault" for three separate acts involved in the same event.