There’s no Harassing in Baseball…
By Brian | April 25, 2006
Keith Hernandez, New York Mets broadcaster, upon spotting 33-year old Kelly Calabrese (the San Diego Padres’ full-time massage therapist) in the San Diego dugout:
I won’t say that women belong in the kitchen, but they don’t belong in the dugout.
Ouch.
Later, during the same game:
You know I am only teasing. I love you gals out there — always have.
Ouch again.
He was reprimanded by his employer, SportsNet New York, and apologized on the air during the following game.
For the record, I think what Hernandez said was unbelievably tone deaf, and he deserves the slap on the wrist he got. But the reaction itself is not all that surprising. The article doesn’t mention if Ms. Calabrese is the first woman with a regular spot in a major league dugout, or if she’s the only one in such a role right now. Having watched baseball for a very long time (although not as long as Keith Hernandez), I’m pretty confident in saying that if she’s not the only one, she’s a member of a very, very small group.
So yes – a surprised reaction is not entirely out of bounds. And once a broadcaster is surprised like that, what comes out of his mouth next is more than likely going to get him in some kind of trouble. But my sympathy ends as soon as he uses the phrase “belong in the kitchen” followed by a veiled sexual reference.
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Some Folks Will Never Learn…
By Brian | April 22, 2006
Apparently, a few teenagers in Kansas decided they would celebrate the anniversary of the Columbine shootings by killing a bunch of their classmates. The plot was foiled because one of them talked about it in a MySpace.com post. A fellow student read the post and notified the police, who arrested the would-be murderers, and found guns and knives in their bedrooms.
I heard about this yesterday in the waiting room of a doctor’s office (they had CNN running on a TV in the room). An older couple was sitting behind me and when the story ran, she turned to her husband and said, “See? The Internet causes all sorts of trouble.”
All she heard was “kids planning to kill classmates” and “Internet.” Some folks will never learn…
Categories: News and/or Media | 2 Comments »
Solution to MSOffice “Not Responding” Error
By Brian | April 18, 2006
Once again, the power of Google saves the day…
The other day, Windows automatically downloaded and installed a number of patches (as per my instructions – I used to look at each one, but I never, ever said “No,” so I just changed it to automatic. Go figure…). For those who are finding this through a Google search, the patches were: KB915597, KB890830, KB911565, KB911562, KB912812, KB908531, KB911567, KB892130 and KB890830.
Anyway, after the patches were installed, my Microsoft Office 2003 Applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook) all began exhibiting a quirky problem: If you did File…Open or File…Save As, and tried to navigate around the folder tree, the program would freeze up, eventually giving a “Not Responding” error, and forcing you to close it.
I had visions of backing up all of my data, reinstalling MSOffice, reinstalling all the LiveOffice patches, and praying the problem went away. But before I did any such thing, I typed “MSOffice Save As Not Responding” into Google, and it led me to this Google Groups discussion on the problem. The last poster in the thread, a guy named Tom [Pepper] Willett, found and linked to the Microsoft Support Page that detailed the problem and provided the (2-minute) fix.
To summarize quickly: The problem is an incompatability between the recent Windows patches (specifically, patch #KB908531) and Hewlett-Packard’s Share-to-Web software, which gets installed on your machine if you have HP PhotoSmart software, an HP DeskJet printer, an HP Scanner, some HP CD-DVD RWs, or an HP Camera. The Windows patch installed a program called VERCLSID.EXE, which “validates shell extensions before they are instantiated by the Windows Shell or Windows Explorer.” I have no idea what that means, but basically, it makes MSOffice freeze up when you try to navigate the folder tree.
The Microsoft page gives you an 8-step process to correct the problem, which involves adding a line to the Windows registry (they even put the line in a textbox so you can cut & paste it without having to re-type it yourself). Basically, what you’re doing is putting this HP software on a “white list,” so the VERCLSID.EXE program doesn’t trip over it. Problem solved – and I didn’t even have to reboot the machine.
Now, here’s the amazing part: the Windows update came down late Thursday, April 13th, or early Friday morning. The first post about the problem in the Google Groups thread was at 1:44AM on Friday morning. Within 48-hours, 12 people had weighed in, and the last person had posted the link to the Microsoft-authored solution (which was posted on April 15th – the site doesn’t specify the time).
All hail Metcalfe’s law: “The value of a network equals approximately the square of the number of users.”
Categories: Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
Random Thought for the Evening…
By Brian | April 17, 2006
Flipping channels over the weekend and coming upon one of those infomercials, I was struck by this thought: What if one of these products was actually a real breakthrough?
I mean, what if the vaccum cleaner they’re touting actually IS a thousand times better than any other vaccum cleaner out there? What if the diet pill they’re going on about really DOES make you lose weight with no exercise or change in eating habits? We’d probably all ignore it, right? A really, really good idea might be lost forever in a sea of shlock.
Maybe we should nominate someone to buy one of everything, test it out, and report back to us. Any volunteers?
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 1 Comment »
Reykjavik Starbucks – now with WiFi!
By Brian | April 13, 2006
The latest survey of global broadband access ranks the US 12th in per capita broadband. Iceland took the prize with a whopping 26.7 broadband users per hundred.
Well, of course – what else is there to do in Iceland?!?
Categories: Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
A New Sniglet
By Brian | April 13, 2006
Remember Sniglets? Words that should be in the dictionary but aren’t? Why did they ever go away?
Anyway, I need a new one: what should we call that feeling you get when you accidentally type your password in the UserID field, and it shows up as actual characters instead of asterisks? You know – that feeling that everyone can see it now, even though no one is looking at the screen but you?
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging, Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
Switch….back?!?
By Brian | April 12, 2006
It’s hard not to laugh at this:
Apple Computer’s new software for installing Windows XP on an Intel Mac could leave the computer unable to boot back into OS X, users reported.
In installing Boot Camp, the hard drive is partitioned for OS X and XP. Installing the latter went without a hitch, but the machine would no longer boot back to the Mac operating system, according to users.
To be fair: they can get back by reformatting their hard drives and starting over. Also, this is a beta product, so we must expect such things. And, it should be said, the software is getting good reviews in lots cases – this is just a bug that some voluntary beta testers came across, and one that Apple is addressing right away.
Continuing on my thread from earlier posts, though, I’m more concerned about whether or not this dual boot machine is a “pure” XP machine and a “pure” OS X machine when it’s all working properly. If it’s native Windows within the hard drive partition, but not down to the hardware, it might start sputtering when it gets to things like corporate ESD (electronic software delivery) systems that push (Windows) software to desktops over the network.
If Apple’s goal is to enter the PC hardware market (a big assumption, but one I’ve been making all along), then a couple of problems at the outset could leave network administrators wary, and kill the whole deal. They need to put out some technical white papers on what they’ve done to make the geeks comfortable…
Categories: Tech Talk | 4 Comments »
Blogging about Britney
By Brian | April 11, 2006
I dont’ spend a lot of time reading about, let alone blogging about Britney Spears, but this story bothered me when it first came out, and this seems to be its resolution. Basically, a paparazzi approached her car while she was sitting in it waiting for her bodyguard to get her some coffee with her son on her lap. She got scared, and drove away, without first taking the time to strap the baby in (and without giving the paparazzi a chance to do something sinister, like ram the car in order to make her get out, so he could take her picture). At the time, I thought they should just leave her alone, as there is a huge difference between driving around all day with your baby in your lap (BAD), and driving away from a potential threat & then putting your baby in the car seat (GOOD).
At any rate, it got into the press, so I assume the authorities had to investigate it or answer questions about why they didn’t. Their conclusion?
The spokesman, Sgt. Ken Cheurn, declined to discuss what prompted the DCFS house call, saying, “It was their investigation.” But he said the matter was settled at the time of the visit and called the incident “a big nothing.”
Damn straight…
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We Really, Really Appreciate This…
By Brian | April 11, 2006
Red Envelope informs me that April 24-28 is Employee Appreciation Week.
First of all, I remember when this used to be called “Secretary’s Day.” My first year out of college, someone bought the office manager in our office a huge bouquet of flowers on Secretary’s Day, and she got royally pissed off that he thought of her as a secretary. Now, not only do we appreciate all of our employees (not just the secretaries!), but it takes a week, not a day.
Here’s the irony, though: The Thursday in Employee Appreciation Week Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, which itself used to have a different name (“Take Our Daughters to Work Day”). For the employees with kids, this day can be a lot of fun. For everyone else, especially the secretaries quite frankly, we’re basically telling them we appreciate them by making them take care of our kids all day.
Interesting thing, this Political Correctness, huh?
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 3 Comments »
Fran Dunphy is Leaving Penn…
By Brian | April 10, 2006
I’m hanging out in a hotel room in San Francisco, and I’ve got ESPN News on the TV in the background. I look up for a second, and the crawl on the bottom is about Penn Basketball! Go figure…
It seems Fran Dunphy has accepted an offer to coach at Temple University next year. The end of an era, I suppose.
Thanks for the memories, Fran. It’s been fun…
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