Author: wwducat

About: Writer, Technology guy, Photographer, Possibly EX-Software QA Engineer, Worker Bee. Interests: SCUBA, Working out, Friends, New Views, New Vistas, Photography
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Alright many Liberal Democrats are officially Obscene!

I’ve seen more dumbass tweets and comments lately that directly say Republicans are the cause of everything from Tornadoes in OK to bridge collapses in Washington.

I’ve got news for you people… 

As a Republican I wish I had that kind of power… If the Republicans had that kind of power do you think President Obama would have won the election? Here’s a better question. If Republican had that kind of power… do yo think they’d unleash it on other Republicans? Uh… NO dumbass they’d have destroyed democratic strongholds!

Ok, So stop with the moronic diatribe. 

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I’m disappointed in, and ashamed of a lot of folks in this country.

In particular I’m ashamed of people who in the midst of a disaster, chose to comment along partisan lines making political points.

Need I remind you that 24 children DIED in Moore OK?

How is this any different from the tragedy of Sandy Hook? Oh yes, one was a tornado the other was an insane guy with guns.

I guess there is a difference… but not to the parents who buried their children.

Where is the wailing and gnashing of teeth? Where is the 24 hour news coverage? Where’s the indignation? Wheres the outrage that a public building wasn’t safe for children to be attending school?

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Within hours of the tornado touching down there were people making comments publicly on Twitter that implied, or directly said somehow a red state like OK was deserving of a tragedy BECAUSE they were a RED state. 

Worse yet were comments saying that because the Republican party had voted against a bill (apparently loaded with pork) to allocate more money for victims of hurricane Sandy, Oklahoma was somehow Karmic payback. 

Frankly, one dumbass comment I could overlook as someones village idiot getting access to a computer.

However, the torrent of similar comments on Twitter and even being posted on major news sites covering the tornado simply made me want to vomit.

I was offended, sickened, and honestly wanted nothing more than to backhand the lot of these people. Including some people I call friends. I haven’t decided yet If I’ll still call them friends… Time will tell.

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How the hell do you figure anyone was deserving of a MILE WIDE tornado?

In a disaster there are no Democrats or Republicans, there are just people who have in many cases lost it all. They’re Americans and they’re hurt and their community is in shambles.

The only thing we as Americans should be saying is “How can we help? How do we get them supplies and medical aid?” Costs be damned! Let the accountants figure it out later. 

Glen Beck, whom I don’t listen to… I know he’s a media personality, I know he’s a conservative, I suspect from what I’ve heard him quoted as saying that he & I will probably not agree on too many points… called on his listeners for unloaded 18 wheelers to load up emergency supplies an hour after the tornado touched down.

He used his fame and media connections to start coordinating relief efforts.

He could have been taking pot shots at FEMA. He could have started flinging shit at the Obama administration. I don’t know if he did.

What I do know is that a Tweet that came from him and was retweeted, gaining momentum and that more and more people were saying great idea! How can we help?

That’s what Americans are supposed to do. 

Political posturing, grandstanding, and bullshit are supposed to evaporate when it comes time for us to pull together.

Maybe we All should remember that.

I’d suggest that the Ultra Liberal Democrats take note…

I’m a Republican who’s not pleased with the Republican party. But I will never switch to the Democratic party if this is what passes for acceptable behavior.

I will however redouble my efforts to help the Republican party repair itself and grow.

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I hate Memorial Day weekend

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I hate Memorial Day weekend because of the damn garage sale hunters.

I live on a street that first of all is private, second it’s a dead end street. Which means that these people come barreling up the street and then they hit the brakes like maniacs. It’s tough enough on the street.

But… And this is what pisses me off, when these inconsiderate morons do the same thing in my driveway I just go off.

There is no one on my street selling anything…

There’s no reason for these people to be in my driveway. When they damage the drive I get really hacked off about it.

They’re gone in a flash but the leave me cleaning up their mess and damage.

I understand why so many people have their driveways chained off.

I hate living like a prisoner, just trying to keep my shit from being damaged.

The same thing happens with my vehicles. Most of the damage done to them isn’t done by me. It’s done by other inconsiderate pricks. Either in parking lots or by assholes dropping shit on the roads and just driving on.

I hate fighting to keep my stuff nice just so someone else can screw it up.

What ever happened to people doing the right thing?

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Not a good morning.

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Because last night I didn’t sleep very well.

What can you expect when you’re in a sleeping bag on the floor? I guess I’m getting too old for “roughing it”

Why was I sleeping on the floor?

Well, the older of the two dogs had some sort of seizure last night about 10PM. The only thing I could do was hold him and talk to him.

The seizure passed after maybe two or three minutes but the dog was still panicked by it. I laid with him on one of the dog cushions just talking to him and petting him. 

The other dog who is normally such a jealous guy seemed to know something was wrong. He let me cuddle and talk to Butch without interference.

Around 3 hours later Butch decided he wanted to get up. He walked around tentatively but as obviously still weak.

By around 1:30 I’d decided that I wasn’t going to leave him alone, so I pulled my sleeping bag out and had just settled down when Butch laid down beside me and drifted off.

That’s when I discovered a couple of things.

One, fat as I am I have no padding on my hips and Two, the carpet I was sleeping on has some kind of lump right in the small of my back.

I’m not moving, I don’t want to disturb the dog. I cat napped through the night.

This morning the dog is moving slow but according to the web that’s not completely unexpected. He’s going to the Vet this morning to see if there’s anything that can be done or if this is simply a function of him being an old dog.

Then I’m going to do Poo patrol in the yard and some weed whacking (Which is overdue). That will give me to opportunity to see if there’s anything in the yard that may have acted like a poison. I’m concerned about one or two of the neighbors who may have indiscriminately used poison trying to control moles or other rodents.

If one of those came to my yard to die that could be a source of poisoning as well.

Sounds strange that I’m hoping it’s poisoning… But that’s something that time, care and plenty to drink can repair. There’s not much I can do about it if its just old age. 

I hate making end of life decisions, but don’t want the Dogs who have been my loyal friends for so many years to suffer. 

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Oh Goodie Goodie Goodie!

I just got a box from Amazon!

Whoo Hoo!!!!

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Season Four and Five of TrueBlood. 

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And Cinemax Season One of Strikeback.

And the very cool parts are that They include Digital copies, and DVD copies!!!! 

Alright… so I’m a little excited. I’ve really gotten into watching programs that I like on my iPad or over the Apple TV.

I really like being able to Buy Once and watch on whatever the hell device I decide to watch on when I’m damn good and ready.

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Software Sucks!

It’s been a day of software woes in this household.

It started with my partner handing me their cell phone which was clearly in a loop. Every 15 seconds a message was displayed that said Genius has stopped responding press OK to close the application.

So you’d press the helpful OK button and the message would disappear then come back 15 seconds later. After fiddling about I managed to get deep enough into the layer upon layer of menus till I finally could clear the cache for the application that was misbehaving.

Problem Solved.

Mind you this was before my first cup of coffee. It’s nice to know that my digital interfaces appear to come online before the rest of my brain.

On the other hand it’s kind of scary that my computer related information is at that low a level in my brain. I mean what happens if someone asks me a question while I’m sleeping? Do I start spouting free technical support information? 

Humm gotta change the programming so that tech support information is only available after sex… I’d get laid a lot more often!

Then my partner said they’d been trying to fix it on their own for 3 days. So I felt guilty for making it look so damn easy.

You’d have thought that someone would have encountered this in testing and had the programming folks build in an automatic clear of the cache.

I’ve been dealing with software issues of various types for the past couple of days but all those issues came to a head today.

In general dealing with musicians, composition software, mixing software, or simple recording software, is absolutely nothing like dealing with normal software.

Imagine if you will the annoyance factor of someone like myself who sits down at a piece of software and is presented with a button that looks like a waveform.

When I press that button instead of a nice waveform graph that I can edit, the volume goes up.

But that makes no sense because right next to the waveform button is the master volume slider but moving that does nothing.

Because by “volume” the creators of the software actually meant Input level. 

And so on until I’m pulling my hair out because absolute nothing is intuitive except that what I would intuit is completely incorrect every single time.

So I decide this software is not for me…

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I download another manufacturers demo version. Before they allow me to download their software they want me to create an account. Then they allow me to download the DEMO.

I could understand it if I’d purchased the software, but it’s a DEMO.

That’s like having to fill out, and have a credit application approved before you go on a test drive.

After jumping through their hoops, I have the software downloaded. I install it. Guess what? It doesn’t install.

It goes through the motions, it modifies the shit out of my computer, but the installer of the main application throws an exception ON INSTALLATION and my system shuts down the extraction of the file.

After fiddling with it for an hour I gave up, then spent another hour painstakingly removing bits of their software and backing out their changes out of my system.

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Next manufacturer… Was a completely no way in hell. They wanted 1000.00 for their application and there was no demo available. This manufacturer ended up doubly on my personal shit list because of what was going on in the next room.

My partner had been trying to upgrade a version of composition software. From the same company that wanted a grand for their mixing software. 12 hours later my partner successfully completed the upgrade.

First, their system wouldn’t acknowledge the email address. The serial number was fine but the email address wasn’t in their system. Then phone calls to their offices resulted in conversations like:

“Hi could you give me the number to your sales office? Thanks.  Did you know that your web site has the wrong number listed?“

Their answer: “Yes” CLICK!

“Hi I’m trying to upgrade my notation software Sibelius First Note… It’s notation / composition software… Yes I’m sure you sell this… I’m looking at your web site… Well that’s the problem… your web site won’t process the purchase… Hello? Hello?” They hung up.

“Hi I’m calling from California, is this the corporate office of AVID Technologies? Good, could I speak to someone in customer service? Yes, I’m having trouble completing a transaction. Yes I’m trying to upgrade some software I own.

Customer service? Hello I’m having trouble upgrading some software. Yes I know I should be calling your California office that’s part of the problem. They’re not answering their phone. I’ve tried your web site, it’s not processing the transaction.

Look, I’ve been on the phone and on your web site looking for assistance for the past 6 hours, isn’t there some way you could just take the $40 and send me a link to download the software?

No, I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just trying to complete this business so that I can get on with my day. Hello? Hello?” GRRRRRRRRRR!

After spending most of the day talking with these people and getting nowhere my partner tried the website again and this time the serial number and the email address worked.

My recommendation at about the 4 hour mark was to just go to the competition.

The point of all of this is to highlight the ever increasing frustration caused by arrogant attitudes, and frankly shitty software testing.

Android applications that are part of the CORE Android OS and can’t be removed that obviously weren’t tested with corrupted caches.

Installers for DEMO software that don’t work. Really? do you think I’m going to BUY your software after such an obvious failure?

Overpriced software which might work but that I can’t even try before buying. ( I notice today that there are demo downloads available) 

Nasty people on the phone who think nothing of hanging up on an existing customer?

I’ve gone back to the irrational piece of software that I’d decided to abandon in the first place.

Maybe it isn’t so bad after all.