How do you know that being a stay-at-home parent is starting to make you lose sight of what's "normal" in adult discourse? Some might go traditional with the fact that you have entire one-sided conversations with them because they don't talk yet.
Pish tosh, I say. I was happy when Bluetooth headsets came out, so I wouldn't look quite so crazy walking down the street talking to myself.
No, the new bellwether seems to be whether you have those one-sided conversations to the tune of the Macarena. Extra points if, once the baby goes to sleep, you continue the conversation (to the same tune) with your dog. And even more points if the dog performs tricks on the chorus.
Monday, October 01, 2012
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Down-the-grade, Darling, Down-the-grade…
By the way, it has concerned me that at least a couple of threads on discussions.apple.com have said that an iOS downgrade such as I described two blog posts ago is "not possible". I feel that that's misinformation, and I don't know where it's coming from, but I don't like to end it on that note, simple to understand as it may be. This is because, while "no" is a simple answer, it's not (always?) the correct answer to this question. As my previous post states, I was able to downgrade.
You don't have to do anything illegal, or anything which will even void your warranty (because you're putting Apple-approved software on it). That said, even though I will give you a basic overview of the steps you'd need to take, I will not tell you how to get any of the individual steps done beyond what's simple to jot down here. Partially that's to avoid taking on your responsibility, partially that's because I don't want to keep writing forever. If you don't know how to do get a step I describe done, the responsibility to find out how falls on you, to research it. Search engines are your friend.
What you need:
I will say that you need to put some forethought into it. Specifically, you need to have kept a backup of your iOS 5.1.1 install file. It will be named something like "[model of your iOS device]_5.1.1_9B208_Restore.ipsw", and while 5.1.1 was the latest iOS you've used your computer to install, it will have been kept inside your "~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates" folder. That's where it is on a Mac, I don't know where it is on a PC.
If you didn't already make a backup of this file before you upgraded to iOS 6, Apple told the computer to automatically delete it and replace it with the one for iOS 6. I can't tell you where to find a replacement, sorry.
Also, be aware that anywhere inside ~/Library is not somewhere Apple wants you tinkering around in. That's why as of OS X 10.7 and later, they don't make it directly accessible. Anything that goes on in there is really designed to be done by the OS and by the programs you run, not directly by you. Changing things in there willy-nilly can make all kinds of things not work right. You have been warned.
That said, backing up a file you're legally entitled to (by the fact that you own an iOS device that will run it) is fully within your rights, and copying it (as opposed to changing it in any way) shouldn't present any functionality problems. So to get to the correct folder, just go to the "Go" menu in the Finder, select "Go to Folder," and type in the correct path to that folder. As long as you typed it in correctly, a Finder window for that folder should open. Again, I heartily recommend against deleting, moving, or changing any files in there. Just copy what you need.
As above, if the computer has already replaced and deleted this file, then you've missed your chance. There may be other ways out there to find one, but it's not one you're legally entitled to (you're legally entitled to your copy). Maybe you can see if it's available via your Time Machine backup. Beyond that, I can't help you. Sorry.
Moving on, if you want your iOS device to look and work how it did before you ever upgraded to iOS 6 (with your sounds, wallpapers, apps, music and photos, etc. in the same places), then you will also need a backup of your own data on the phone, done as close as possible to just before you upgraded to iOS 6. If you generally back up to the computer, you would have just hit the "Sync" button in the iTunes window. If you generally back up to the iCloud, I still recommend before any major iOS device upgrade, to back up to your computer by option-clicking the iOS device's icon in the left column of iTunes' window, and selecting "Back Up" from the contextual menu that pops up. This is because if you rely on Apple's iCloud backup of your iOS device alone, it will have changed things when you upgraded to iOS 6, and Apple hasn't set iCloud up to allow easy downgrades, because they want to keep the ball rolling forward.
If in doubt at all, back it up yourself. And also realize that any content you've put on the iOS device or changed since upgrading to iOS 6 (particularly irreplaceable, personally-made things like videos you've shot) won't be in that most recent iOS 5.1.1 backup of your data (because you shot it after you upgraded to iOS 6). So back such things up some other way (say, to iPhoto), before downgrading back to iOS 5.1.1.
What you do:
If you did happen to make a backup of your iOS 5.1.1 install file, then you can put your iOS device into DFU mode (if you don't know how, you can search for how to do it) and then restore the 5.1.1 install file onto the device. The way to select the 5.1.1 install file as opposed to the 6.0 install file is to hold down the "Option" key as you press the "Restore" button in iTunes. This will allow you to navigate to the 5.1.1 install file, wherever you've put it, and select that (as opposed to the most recent one in the folder discussed above, that Apple uses by default) as the source from which to restore.
Once this iOS 5.1.1 software is restored to your device, you're half done. Then, you'll want to use the most recent backup of your data from before you upgraded (discussed above), to put back onto your iOS device. Once that data is put back on, it should then be back to how it was before you upgraded to iOS 6. Be aware, how long it will take is related directly to how much data you had on your iOS device: the more data, the longer. Once that's done, you can then make your own decisions about what and how to put back content you added/changed under iOS 6.
Finally, one more point to be aware of: if iOS 6 upgraded the firmware on your device in some way that iOS 6 needed to work, but which iOS 5.1.1 is not compatible with and it can't be overwritten by the iOS 5.1.1 install file, then downgrading won't work. I don't know which devices, and in fact whether any of them, this will happen to. It didn't to mine: my downgrade just worked, and it put all of the versions of firmware that are available to view under in the Settings app under General>About back to what they had been before under iOS 5.1.1.
As far as I know if the firmware is changed by iOS 6 in a way that is not downgrade-able, then iTunes should just not allow you to perform the downgrade, and return your phone to working (such as it does) with iOS 6. Keep in mind that I am not in any way affiliated with Apple, ie. not an Apple software engineer, so I don't know that for sure. Your mileage may vary, and the fact that it worked on my iOS device doesn't mean it will work on yours. You're responsible for your own decisions and actions.
So I've said my piece. I don't think it should necessarily be simply and flatly said that "you can't" downgrade from iOS 6.0 to iOS 5.1.1. Maybe you can't on some devices, in some configurations. But I did, and I did so completely legally, without invalidating any of the services Apple provides through iOS 5.1.1, and without any highly technical or questionable shenanigans. I just know how to do some things, and researched how to do the parts I didn't. And I was open to trying it. There may be iOS devices and situations for which the method I used won't work, and I can't help you with those. But the Internet may be of help to you.
Good luck!
You don't have to do anything illegal, or anything which will even void your warranty (because you're putting Apple-approved software on it). That said, even though I will give you a basic overview of the steps you'd need to take, I will not tell you how to get any of the individual steps done beyond what's simple to jot down here. Partially that's to avoid taking on your responsibility, partially that's because I don't want to keep writing forever. If you don't know how to do get a step I describe done, the responsibility to find out how falls on you, to research it. Search engines are your friend.
What you need:
I will say that you need to put some forethought into it. Specifically, you need to have kept a backup of your iOS 5.1.1 install file. It will be named something like "[model of your iOS device]_5.1.1_9B208_Restore.ipsw", and while 5.1.1 was the latest iOS you've used your computer to install, it will have been kept inside your "~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates" folder. That's where it is on a Mac, I don't know where it is on a PC.
If you didn't already make a backup of this file before you upgraded to iOS 6, Apple told the computer to automatically delete it and replace it with the one for iOS 6. I can't tell you where to find a replacement, sorry.
Also, be aware that anywhere inside ~/Library is not somewhere Apple wants you tinkering around in. That's why as of OS X 10.7 and later, they don't make it directly accessible. Anything that goes on in there is really designed to be done by the OS and by the programs you run, not directly by you. Changing things in there willy-nilly can make all kinds of things not work right. You have been warned.
That said, backing up a file you're legally entitled to (by the fact that you own an iOS device that will run it) is fully within your rights, and copying it (as opposed to changing it in any way) shouldn't present any functionality problems. So to get to the correct folder, just go to the "Go" menu in the Finder, select "Go to Folder," and type in the correct path to that folder. As long as you typed it in correctly, a Finder window for that folder should open. Again, I heartily recommend against deleting, moving, or changing any files in there. Just copy what you need.
As above, if the computer has already replaced and deleted this file, then you've missed your chance. There may be other ways out there to find one, but it's not one you're legally entitled to (you're legally entitled to your copy). Maybe you can see if it's available via your Time Machine backup. Beyond that, I can't help you. Sorry.
Moving on, if you want your iOS device to look and work how it did before you ever upgraded to iOS 6 (with your sounds, wallpapers, apps, music and photos, etc. in the same places), then you will also need a backup of your own data on the phone, done as close as possible to just before you upgraded to iOS 6. If you generally back up to the computer, you would have just hit the "Sync" button in the iTunes window. If you generally back up to the iCloud, I still recommend before any major iOS device upgrade, to back up to your computer by option-clicking the iOS device's icon in the left column of iTunes' window, and selecting "Back Up" from the contextual menu that pops up. This is because if you rely on Apple's iCloud backup of your iOS device alone, it will have changed things when you upgraded to iOS 6, and Apple hasn't set iCloud up to allow easy downgrades, because they want to keep the ball rolling forward.
If in doubt at all, back it up yourself. And also realize that any content you've put on the iOS device or changed since upgrading to iOS 6 (particularly irreplaceable, personally-made things like videos you've shot) won't be in that most recent iOS 5.1.1 backup of your data (because you shot it after you upgraded to iOS 6). So back such things up some other way (say, to iPhoto), before downgrading back to iOS 5.1.1.
What you do:
If you did happen to make a backup of your iOS 5.1.1 install file, then you can put your iOS device into DFU mode (if you don't know how, you can search for how to do it) and then restore the 5.1.1 install file onto the device. The way to select the 5.1.1 install file as opposed to the 6.0 install file is to hold down the "Option" key as you press the "Restore" button in iTunes. This will allow you to navigate to the 5.1.1 install file, wherever you've put it, and select that (as opposed to the most recent one in the folder discussed above, that Apple uses by default) as the source from which to restore.
Once this iOS 5.1.1 software is restored to your device, you're half done. Then, you'll want to use the most recent backup of your data from before you upgraded (discussed above), to put back onto your iOS device. Once that data is put back on, it should then be back to how it was before you upgraded to iOS 6. Be aware, how long it will take is related directly to how much data you had on your iOS device: the more data, the longer. Once that's done, you can then make your own decisions about what and how to put back content you added/changed under iOS 6.
Finally, one more point to be aware of: if iOS 6 upgraded the firmware on your device in some way that iOS 6 needed to work, but which iOS 5.1.1 is not compatible with and it can't be overwritten by the iOS 5.1.1 install file, then downgrading won't work. I don't know which devices, and in fact whether any of them, this will happen to. It didn't to mine: my downgrade just worked, and it put all of the versions of firmware that are available to view under in the Settings app under General>About back to what they had been before under iOS 5.1.1.
As far as I know if the firmware is changed by iOS 6 in a way that is not downgrade-able, then iTunes should just not allow you to perform the downgrade, and return your phone to working (such as it does) with iOS 6. Keep in mind that I am not in any way affiliated with Apple, ie. not an Apple software engineer, so I don't know that for sure. Your mileage may vary, and the fact that it worked on my iOS device doesn't mean it will work on yours. You're responsible for your own decisions and actions.
So I've said my piece. I don't think it should necessarily be simply and flatly said that "you can't" downgrade from iOS 6.0 to iOS 5.1.1. Maybe you can't on some devices, in some configurations. But I did, and I did so completely legally, without invalidating any of the services Apple provides through iOS 5.1.1, and without any highly technical or questionable shenanigans. I just know how to do some things, and researched how to do the parts I didn't. And I was open to trying it. There may be iOS devices and situations for which the method I used won't work, and I can't help you with those. But the Internet may be of help to you.
Good luck!
On the other hand…
This and other pages like it make me consider going back and essentially being a beta-tester for Apple (well, that's what it would be…) in my own town. I wouldn't do it in a town I didn't already know pretty well, or where I wasn't pretty sure I could find an alternate method of figuring out where the heck I was or where the heck I was going.
This is the most comprehensive page on it I've found, but as I mention, there are other pages out there. Another consideration is that there are other apps out there (Why, oh why, Apple, would you break out a perfectly good unified solution into the need to go and find others?) to fulfill the features that Apple has taken out of iOS 6 Maps (and even one they never put in, but should have). A list of a couple I'll likely use with iOS 6 is below, but look at what's on the App Store, cuz you may find one that's better for you.
For public transit, Transit ~ Directions with Public Transportation. Note that this requires iOS 6, won't run on any previous version. You may also want to investigate if there's an app that works better for you, in your particular town.
For bicycling routes (which even the iOS 5 version of the Maps app doesn't have, but Google's provided over the web for years), CycleMap.
For Google Street View, StreetViewerLite. Note that at least on iOS 5.1.1, it seems to be slower than the Maps app at this feature, but at least it has this feature.
So I'm considering going back up to iOS 6 at some point soon, due to its features and security over iOS 5.1.1. Haven't yet, but wish me luck! And of course, as always, realize that your mileage may vary.
Friday, September 21, 2012
"We have to go back, Kate. We have to go back!!!"
After more than 24 hours of checking the final version of iOS 6.0 out, I was so frustrated with their implementation of Maps that I downgraded back to 5.1.1. Do Not Disturb was neat, alternate options to either refusing or picking up a phone call you're really not ready for were neat. And the overall interface polish was evolutionary, but neat. That said, I find it unlikely that I'll upgrade back up to 6.x.x until Apple (or TomTom, or whoever has to) does some serious work on making Maps usable, intuitive, accurate & inclusive of all the methods of transport it used to be, at least (and while we're at it, why not add in bicycles, with the obligatory stern warning & legal rejection of responsibility about people being idiots while staring at their phones while on them?).
Alas, not yet. The iOS 6.0 iteration of Maps was as if Apple had burned their bridges with Google & marooned themselves on an uncharted island.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Networking, the nose-to-the-keyboard way
Let it be known that I love the idea of open-source software. The idea of a community of folks working to make something we can all use for not an exorbitant amount of money (often, no money at all, except that you pay for power and transmission of data) is wonderful. But it's also true that there are situations that arise out of that, where you get what you pay for.
Linux is great. Particularly Ubuntu is coming along to near Mac-like user wonderfulness, without having to maintain the fanatical control of only running it on their own hardware. Like the Mac and all other Linux releases, it provides access "under the hood" with the use of the Terminal.
Now, I'm not a computer science major. But I started using computers when my grandfather handed me a TRS-80 he couldn't figure out, and I've been using Apple IIs and Macs essentially since they came out, PCs at various workplaces, and Linux as a hobby machine on and off for years. I don't know *NIX commands like the back of my hand, but using the Terminal doesn't make me nervous in the slightest, as long as I can then see the results on the Desktop.
Now, there are one or two networking projects I've been trying to find a way to get done around the house, which have proved cumbersome on the Mac, apparently because they're features that Apple has decided they'd like to remove from their reasonably-priced client OS software, instead referring folks who know enough to want them to their still reasonably-priced, but more expensive Server OS software. These used to be things you could tinker around in the Terminal to do, but Apple sort of paved over that option as they built their pretty Lion high-rise.
So I looked for 3rd-party programs to get done what Apple used to be flexible enough to let us all do, as long as we were willing to roll up our sleeves in the Terminal. And most of those programs lost their ability to do what they did, with the Lion upgrade, because they used the same *NIX commands Terminal would have used, just with a prettier interface.
Therefore, I decided to look into Linux as a slightly less restricted way to accomplish my aims. I didn't want to dual-boot my Mac or replace its OS completely, and I didn't want to leave a virtual machine running all the time, either. So I needed some real hardware to run it on. The cheaper, the better. Free would be key.
On Mother's Day, of all days (a fact my new-mother-of-a-wife doesn't particularly enjoy), I found a discarded laptop literally sitting on a bench with a note that said "Works. Runs Win7. Free." taped to it. It was a Dell with acracked plastic casing, a dead slide-in optical drive, and USB 1.1. So no booting from a CD or flash drive. Luckily, Windows 7 was on it and it did boot, though it didn't run particularly fast. But hey, it was a single-processor 2.2GHz Pentium IV from 2002. It was great that it was still running at all.
Dude, you're getting a free, limping but alive Dell.
I used Ubuntu's "wubi" installer to get Linux on there, and went on my way. Worked pretty well, if with a small 5GB HD image, and slower than I might have expected. Where were the old interface controls to get rid of shadows and antialiasing and all that? Oh well. It worked.
So off I tinkered in Terminal. But then it started having trouble connecting to WiFi. After a while it worked, if I gave it both a wired connection first, and several failed attempts to connect to WiFi, before it would work. Windows had no such difficulty connecting to WiFi. Hmm. Well, that's OK: it was destined to work as a server, so I'd probably leave it plugged in to Ethernet almost all of the time, anyway.
Once I got my server all set up, it was off to the races. I also got clients connected up nicely. But they could only connect to the server; the server refused to actually serve them any data. Useless. And worse, while people were griping all over the forums about exactly the same problem, there was no solution listed anywhere.
So I gave up (on that purpose: the laptop is still sitting in a cabinet, much to my wife's chagrin. But she won't see it until the next time I say, "Huh I wonder if I could…") on Linux, and went back to the Mac. In the intervening time, someone had put together an app to let Lion do what previous versions had all been able to do. Yay! Better not to be running a whole other computer to do it, anyway.
Then, from work one day, I decided to use a different (virtualized) installation of Ubuntu to network into the Mac server. Wouldn't connect. Other clients had had no problem connecting at all, and getting the data they needed. But this Ubuntu client wouldn't do it for love and your lack of having to pay money.
Once again, the forums were full of people with exactly the same issue. But no answers. One person who had posted this issue had lamented the fact that he wasn't getting any answers by going back on every few days and posting in the same thread, "Bump," then "Bump," again a few days later, eventually getting silly with "Bumpity!" and who knows (not a direct quote, but in the general vein of his commentary, "Who do I have to bump around here to get some answers?!?".
Nothin'. So I love exploring on the Linux side of things. But high entry fee or not, the necessity of having a third party go in and restore services they used to offer or not, I have to stay on the Mac side of things for the moment.
And don't get me started on what the record companies are making Apple do with iTunes (and what Apple themselves is doing with iTunes, making it the catchall for their digital media… It might as well be labeled, "iTunes, kitchen sink edition!".
Whups, I said not to get me started!
Linux is great. Particularly Ubuntu is coming along to near Mac-like user wonderfulness, without having to maintain the fanatical control of only running it on their own hardware. Like the Mac and all other Linux releases, it provides access "under the hood" with the use of the Terminal.
Now, I'm not a computer science major. But I started using computers when my grandfather handed me a TRS-80 he couldn't figure out, and I've been using Apple IIs and Macs essentially since they came out, PCs at various workplaces, and Linux as a hobby machine on and off for years. I don't know *NIX commands like the back of my hand, but using the Terminal doesn't make me nervous in the slightest, as long as I can then see the results on the Desktop.
Now, there are one or two networking projects I've been trying to find a way to get done around the house, which have proved cumbersome on the Mac, apparently because they're features that Apple has decided they'd like to remove from their reasonably-priced client OS software, instead referring folks who know enough to want them to their still reasonably-priced, but more expensive Server OS software. These used to be things you could tinker around in the Terminal to do, but Apple sort of paved over that option as they built their pretty Lion high-rise.
So I looked for 3rd-party programs to get done what Apple used to be flexible enough to let us all do, as long as we were willing to roll up our sleeves in the Terminal. And most of those programs lost their ability to do what they did, with the Lion upgrade, because they used the same *NIX commands Terminal would have used, just with a prettier interface.
Therefore, I decided to look into Linux as a slightly less restricted way to accomplish my aims. I didn't want to dual-boot my Mac or replace its OS completely, and I didn't want to leave a virtual machine running all the time, either. So I needed some real hardware to run it on. The cheaper, the better. Free would be key.
On Mother's Day, of all days (a fact my new-mother-of-a-wife doesn't particularly enjoy), I found a discarded laptop literally sitting on a bench with a note that said "Works. Runs Win7. Free." taped to it. It was a Dell with acracked plastic casing, a dead slide-in optical drive, and USB 1.1. So no booting from a CD or flash drive. Luckily, Windows 7 was on it and it did boot, though it didn't run particularly fast. But hey, it was a single-processor 2.2GHz Pentium IV from 2002. It was great that it was still running at all.
Dude, you're getting a free, limping but alive Dell.
I used Ubuntu's "wubi" installer to get Linux on there, and went on my way. Worked pretty well, if with a small 5GB HD image, and slower than I might have expected. Where were the old interface controls to get rid of shadows and antialiasing and all that? Oh well. It worked.
So off I tinkered in Terminal. But then it started having trouble connecting to WiFi. After a while it worked, if I gave it both a wired connection first, and several failed attempts to connect to WiFi, before it would work. Windows had no such difficulty connecting to WiFi. Hmm. Well, that's OK: it was destined to work as a server, so I'd probably leave it plugged in to Ethernet almost all of the time, anyway.
Once I got my server all set up, it was off to the races. I also got clients connected up nicely. But they could only connect to the server; the server refused to actually serve them any data. Useless. And worse, while people were griping all over the forums about exactly the same problem, there was no solution listed anywhere.
So I gave up (on that purpose: the laptop is still sitting in a cabinet, much to my wife's chagrin. But she won't see it until the next time I say, "Huh I wonder if I could…") on Linux, and went back to the Mac. In the intervening time, someone had put together an app to let Lion do what previous versions had all been able to do. Yay! Better not to be running a whole other computer to do it, anyway.
Then, from work one day, I decided to use a different (virtualized) installation of Ubuntu to network into the Mac server. Wouldn't connect. Other clients had had no problem connecting at all, and getting the data they needed. But this Ubuntu client wouldn't do it for love and your lack of having to pay money.
Once again, the forums were full of people with exactly the same issue. But no answers. One person who had posted this issue had lamented the fact that he wasn't getting any answers by going back on every few days and posting in the same thread, "Bump," then "Bump," again a few days later, eventually getting silly with "Bumpity!" and who knows (not a direct quote, but in the general vein of his commentary, "Who do I have to bump around here to get some answers?!?".
Nothin'. So I love exploring on the Linux side of things. But high entry fee or not, the necessity of having a third party go in and restore services they used to offer or not, I have to stay on the Mac side of things for the moment.
And don't get me started on what the record companies are making Apple do with iTunes (and what Apple themselves is doing with iTunes, making it the catchall for their digital media… It might as well be labeled, "iTunes, kitchen sink edition!".
Whups, I said not to get me started!
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Nom de nomnomnomnom…
Quite often when people see us walking down the street with our dog, they comment that it must be a bird dog. The breed does happen to be a birding breed, but we're not hunters by far. So I thought recently that maybe I should cryptically retort, once receiving that comment:
"Well, you are what you eat…"
And given what's in its dog food (namely, chicken), that's partially correct. But then, it's also corn dog.
Hairy Houdini
So, the dog has now figured out the significance of keys.
A while ago, the dog figured out how to jab at the top latch of its crate, to flip it open. Luckily, it didn't have the angle necessary from inside, to flip the bottom latch open. But still, we'd come home to find the crate door weirdly askew, because the top latch would be hanging open, and the bottom latch would stay locked. Rather than allow the dog to bend its crate totally out of whack, necessitating the purchase of a new one, we decided to put a lock on the top latch.
And the dog watched, and waited. Over the past few weeks, we've seen it sort of mouthing at the lock with its teeth. Not biting down, but just sort of feeling around for where a pointy object (it was lightly trying its teeth) might slip in and somehow open it. It has then invariably pulled back and gone into that cute "gears are turning inside my head" cocked head posture, as it figures things out for itself.
During all of this time, we've been putting the keys to the lock over on the windowsill (because we didn't want to be running around the house going, "Honey, where did you put the keys? The dog needs to pee!", etc.*), on the other side of the crate. Come home, grab the keys, unlock the crate, let the dog out. Put the dog in, latch the gate, lock the latch, put the keys on the windowsill. A behavioral pattern on our part, that could be followed, to be sure. But by a dog?
Yes. My wife came home today, to the keys lying on the bottom of the crate. Don't worry, they were close enough to the side of the crate that she could reach in & fish them out, to unlock the crate and let the dog out successfully. But this means two things, on the part of the dog:
One: The dog now recognizes not only that something needs to be put in the lock to open it, but now specifically what needs to be put in there. Which I suppose is good, because my wife also presented the worry, "What if the dog had ingested the keys?!?". Luckily, I find that unlikely, since it apparently recognizes their significance.
Two: The dog was able to jam some part of itself out from between the rather narrowly-spaced bars of the crate, to swipe the keys off the windowsill. It didn't just frustratingly jab half a paw at them and get nowhere; it patiently, methodically angled its front leg (or whatever it was able to use) between the bars and held it there long enough, carefully enough, and exactly the right angle to brush the keys off the windowsill and plop them accurately into the crate. Kind of like Angry Birds, for dogs.
Man, it's just a good thing the dog doesn't have opposable thumbs. It's probably got a plan for that, too.
---
*And yes, before you get all up in arms, we do recognize that the worth of a silly crate is immeasurably low next to the personal worth of our dog. And we do have wire cutters that will cut the crate open, if it ever comes to not being able to open it otherwise. And while we're at it, no we don't love putting our dog in a crate, even though the dog has known from puppyhood that the crate is and always will be its own personal safe place (would you deprive a child of its room?). There are unavoidable times that we can't be there, when the dog also can't go to doggy daycare or whatnot, because of its ongoing ear thing. So we're doing what we can, we do love our dog, and we do give it as much exercise and interaction as a couple of people working outside the home, can. So please keep the hate mail to yourself, and rather consider how you'd handle it. If you would handle it by not having a dog, good for you. But your life is not ours.
A while ago, the dog figured out how to jab at the top latch of its crate, to flip it open. Luckily, it didn't have the angle necessary from inside, to flip the bottom latch open. But still, we'd come home to find the crate door weirdly askew, because the top latch would be hanging open, and the bottom latch would stay locked. Rather than allow the dog to bend its crate totally out of whack, necessitating the purchase of a new one, we decided to put a lock on the top latch.
And the dog watched, and waited. Over the past few weeks, we've seen it sort of mouthing at the lock with its teeth. Not biting down, but just sort of feeling around for where a pointy object (it was lightly trying its teeth) might slip in and somehow open it. It has then invariably pulled back and gone into that cute "gears are turning inside my head" cocked head posture, as it figures things out for itself.
During all of this time, we've been putting the keys to the lock over on the windowsill (because we didn't want to be running around the house going, "Honey, where did you put the keys? The dog needs to pee!", etc.*), on the other side of the crate. Come home, grab the keys, unlock the crate, let the dog out. Put the dog in, latch the gate, lock the latch, put the keys on the windowsill. A behavioral pattern on our part, that could be followed, to be sure. But by a dog?
Yes. My wife came home today, to the keys lying on the bottom of the crate. Don't worry, they were close enough to the side of the crate that she could reach in & fish them out, to unlock the crate and let the dog out successfully. But this means two things, on the part of the dog:
One: The dog now recognizes not only that something needs to be put in the lock to open it, but now specifically what needs to be put in there. Which I suppose is good, because my wife also presented the worry, "What if the dog had ingested the keys?!?". Luckily, I find that unlikely, since it apparently recognizes their significance.
Two: The dog was able to jam some part of itself out from between the rather narrowly-spaced bars of the crate, to swipe the keys off the windowsill. It didn't just frustratingly jab half a paw at them and get nowhere; it patiently, methodically angled its front leg (or whatever it was able to use) between the bars and held it there long enough, carefully enough, and exactly the right angle to brush the keys off the windowsill and plop them accurately into the crate. Kind of like Angry Birds, for dogs.
Man, it's just a good thing the dog doesn't have opposable thumbs. It's probably got a plan for that, too.
---
*And yes, before you get all up in arms, we do recognize that the worth of a silly crate is immeasurably low next to the personal worth of our dog. And we do have wire cutters that will cut the crate open, if it ever comes to not being able to open it otherwise. And while we're at it, no we don't love putting our dog in a crate, even though the dog has known from puppyhood that the crate is and always will be its own personal safe place (would you deprive a child of its room?). There are unavoidable times that we can't be there, when the dog also can't go to doggy daycare or whatnot, because of its ongoing ear thing. So we're doing what we can, we do love our dog, and we do give it as much exercise and interaction as a couple of people working outside the home, can. So please keep the hate mail to yourself, and rather consider how you'd handle it. If you would handle it by not having a dog, good for you. But your life is not ours.
Friday, March 02, 2012
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords!
Here, I link you to a story (click the link to see!) on one of my favorite tech news aggregation websites, slashdot.org.
Besides the rather disturbing ease with which this is done to the e-voting systems we all may someday have an opportunity to use (and thereby be disenfranchised from our vote), I suppose you could say there's a rather humorous angle to this story, as well.
Maybe Bender's campaign slogan should be "Elect my shiny metal a$$!". Though that may be hard to compete with one from Skynet stating, "Ah'll be baahck… for your childrens' education!".
Besides the rather disturbing ease with which this is done to the e-voting systems we all may someday have an opportunity to use (and thereby be disenfranchised from our vote), I suppose you could say there's a rather humorous angle to this story, as well.
Maybe Bender's campaign slogan should be "Elect my shiny metal a$$!". Though that may be hard to compete with one from Skynet stating, "Ah'll be baahck… for your childrens' education!".
Friday, February 24, 2012
How Much is that House Elf in the Window?
So the dog has gotten (mostly) used to life in its cone. Still, something about the way its ears hang limply in the thing, and/or the sadly solicitous look it gives me from time to time, remind me of:
Its newest nickname? "Dobby-Dawg".
Its newest nickname? "Dobby-Dawg".
Saturday, February 18, 2012
I get the Message…
More techie stuff. Hopefully I'll have more funny stuff to post sometime soon. Who knows, maybe I'll even have funny techie stuff at some point. Or maybe I just lost half my audience by saying so. My recommendation is to stay tuned, but it's a big Internet, so you'll do what you want.
Anyway, I installed Apple's Messages beta for the Mac (Apple, I suppose, showing off one of the many features that will come in 10.8 "Mountain Lion" sometime late this summer. Mostly, I did so out of curiosity, because hey, if there's a public release on a new feature, why not check it out? It's designed to cover not only what iChat always has, but add in the iMessages service for use in communicating by short text message and/or chat, with iOS 5 (and up) devices. Cool.
Still, I'm not much of a chat user at home. At work it's near-constant, because that's one of the many ways our business gets done. But at home, it's generally a phone call, a FaceTime session, an email, or one or two brief iMessages or texts. With regard to those last two, it's usually not an extended back-and-forth unless both/all parties have time, when, if it's between home and somewhere else, you can't always expect.
Still, curiosity overrode that, and I happen not to be running 10.7 "Lion" at work for various reasons that aren't worth going into here. So on my home Mac it was.
First, there was some difficulty choosing which AppleID to use. For FaceTime via the computer in the past, I've used a different AppleID than the one I use on the iPhone for FaceTime and/or iMessages. That's partially to keep it all straight for myself. I have no doubt that Apple could figure out how to get communication to the device I'm closest to (perhaps several of them), but I like want to do it my way, for now.
I found there was no way to set up a second AppleID in Messages for the Mac, once the first one had been set up. And that AppleID, once entered, couldn't be changed. There was no problem adding or removing other chat services, but only one AppleID was ever able to be associated with it, so you'd better choose wisely from the start. For those of us individuals or families who want or need to use multiple AppleIDs from one user account on the computer for any reason at all, that's pretty limiting right there.
So, feeling I was finished with my experiment, I was glad to see that Apple had thought to put in an "Uninstall Messages" link under the Application menu. When I clicked on it, I was further happy to see that the next window said it would reinstall iChat. So I followed the directions to allow it to do so (it was apparently re-downloaded, but not from any link I've been able to find anywhere on the web or the Mac App Store).
Unfortunately, the app it installed was non-functional (would not start), and had a generic icon. To make matters worse, it wouldn't let me trash it & re-install from a previous copy I had had the foresight to zip, because the non-functional copy was "used by the system", and there was no way to authenticate around it.
So I decided it was lucky I had backed up to Time Machine just before install Messages for the Mac, because while it would take a while (and I could hopefully let it happen overnight), I could restore to my most full system recent backup & be on my way.
Well, an admittedly separate problem (and therefore not the Mountain Lion/Messages for the Mac development team's problem, necessarily… unless any of the code or people are related) came to be that my backup was somehow corrupted, such that once installed, the Mac would only boot to a spinner with a dark grey apple on a light grey screen. Such corruption happens from time to time, and Lion had even warned me a few times (something 10.6 "Snow Leopard" never did) that it needed to scrap the old backup and start a new one to maintain integrity or whatever (not the dialog box's exact words, but the general gist). Still, it hadn't said that in a while, at least since the 10.7.3 update (maybe something changed with that update to make backups more solid?). In any event, I had been backing up as regularly as possible, all the while.
In the end, I found the solution to be the following (for me, in this particular case. If presented with a similar situation, your mileage may vary & I can't comment on how to address it.):
I let it go ahead (after exploring several other options, again) with the Restore. But then upon restart, the spinner on the grey screen still wouldn't advance to the desktop after a ridiculous amount of time that seemed to indicate it just wasn't going to get its caches in order to boot properly (again, I can't tell you when to do so, just that I have years of experience looking at various Macs and knowing after a certain while, "Well, that's just not going to boot. Plan B, or C, or whatever we're onto now…"). So I powered down & booted back into Lion Recovery Mode to re-download & install Lion OVER the installation that had just been restored by the backup (but neither over, nor replacing, my personal data ALSO just restored from the backup). In doing this (does it never end?!?) there was even an issue with my AppleID password, maybe because given many false starts, either Apple's servers or server personnel (or both) probably started wondering why I was downloading Lion to be installed multiple times in the same day.
Luckily, a new install of Lion on top of my old, restored personal data worked. Oddly, it said iTunes 10.5.3 and Airport Utility 6.0 were available as new downloads once started up (which is weird, cuz they were both on there already). And of course iPhoto had to re-sync with Photo Stream and my mailboxes had to (re-)update. But all my content, other apps and previous settings and functionality were there.
iChat was among those. Sitting there with its custom icon and working as it had, before the update to the Messages beta. Given that I don't use chat on the Mac from home much, I think I'm just going to leave it sitting there until a full version of Messages for the Mac is installed by Mountain Lion.
Not that I eschew betas. But this experience with something I didn't need, which was tough to set up, threw things out of their natural order, was impossible to remove correctly, and then which outside circumstances made it almost impossible to rectify, makes me not want to work any further with this software until I have to.
Also, I want to point out that it's not that I think Apple did a bad job with the intent of Messages for the Mac. I look forward to how it and several other features turn out in the final version of Mountain Lion. But for now, I'm going back to tinkering with things I have a reason to use, and which I know how to fix. For example, when Spotlight finishes indexing my drive, I may decide that I want to just manually toss and restart that Time Machine backup…
Hmm.
---
Update (2/19/12): As soon as the machine attempted to back up to Time Machine, it told me that it needed to discard the only Time Machine backup and start it again. Sure would have nice to have a previous heads-up of that, but at least my suspicions were corroborated.
---
Update 2 (3/5/12): Perhaps someone at Apple read my blog (or the same issue came up in Apple Support Communities, more likely…). In any event, they seem to have addressed something which may be related to the Time Machine restore weirdness that I was experiencing:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1505
I have not downloaded or installed the update yet, so I can make no claim as to how or how well it works. But at least it's there, and hopefully it works for folks, if you've run up against Time Machine restore issues under Lion.
Anyway, I installed Apple's Messages beta for the Mac (Apple, I suppose, showing off one of the many features that will come in 10.8 "Mountain Lion" sometime late this summer. Mostly, I did so out of curiosity, because hey, if there's a public release on a new feature, why not check it out? It's designed to cover not only what iChat always has, but add in the iMessages service for use in communicating by short text message and/or chat, with iOS 5 (and up) devices. Cool.
Still, I'm not much of a chat user at home. At work it's near-constant, because that's one of the many ways our business gets done. But at home, it's generally a phone call, a FaceTime session, an email, or one or two brief iMessages or texts. With regard to those last two, it's usually not an extended back-and-forth unless both/all parties have time, when, if it's between home and somewhere else, you can't always expect.
Still, curiosity overrode that, and I happen not to be running 10.7 "Lion" at work for various reasons that aren't worth going into here. So on my home Mac it was.
First, there was some difficulty choosing which AppleID to use. For FaceTime via the computer in the past, I've used a different AppleID than the one I use on the iPhone for FaceTime and/or iMessages. That's partially to keep it all straight for myself. I have no doubt that Apple could figure out how to get communication to the device I'm closest to (perhaps several of them), but I like want to do it my way, for now.
I found there was no way to set up a second AppleID in Messages for the Mac, once the first one had been set up. And that AppleID, once entered, couldn't be changed. There was no problem adding or removing other chat services, but only one AppleID was ever able to be associated with it, so you'd better choose wisely from the start. For those of us individuals or families who want or need to use multiple AppleIDs from one user account on the computer for any reason at all, that's pretty limiting right there.
So, feeling I was finished with my experiment, I was glad to see that Apple had thought to put in an "Uninstall Messages" link under the Application menu. When I clicked on it, I was further happy to see that the next window said it would reinstall iChat. So I followed the directions to allow it to do so (it was apparently re-downloaded, but not from any link I've been able to find anywhere on the web or the Mac App Store).
Unfortunately, the app it installed was non-functional (would not start), and had a generic icon. To make matters worse, it wouldn't let me trash it & re-install from a previous copy I had had the foresight to zip, because the non-functional copy was "used by the system", and there was no way to authenticate around it.
So I decided it was lucky I had backed up to Time Machine just before install Messages for the Mac, because while it would take a while (and I could hopefully let it happen overnight), I could restore to my most full system recent backup & be on my way.
Well, an admittedly separate problem (and therefore not the Mountain Lion/Messages for the Mac development team's problem, necessarily… unless any of the code or people are related) came to be that my backup was somehow corrupted, such that once installed, the Mac would only boot to a spinner with a dark grey apple on a light grey screen. Such corruption happens from time to time, and Lion had even warned me a few times (something 10.6 "Snow Leopard" never did) that it needed to scrap the old backup and start a new one to maintain integrity or whatever (not the dialog box's exact words, but the general gist). Still, it hadn't said that in a while, at least since the 10.7.3 update (maybe something changed with that update to make backups more solid?). In any event, I had been backing up as regularly as possible, all the while.
In the end, I found the solution to be the following (for me, in this particular case. If presented with a similar situation, your mileage may vary & I can't comment on how to address it.):
I let it go ahead (after exploring several other options, again) with the Restore. But then upon restart, the spinner on the grey screen still wouldn't advance to the desktop after a ridiculous amount of time that seemed to indicate it just wasn't going to get its caches in order to boot properly (again, I can't tell you when to do so, just that I have years of experience looking at various Macs and knowing after a certain while, "Well, that's just not going to boot. Plan B, or C, or whatever we're onto now…"). So I powered down & booted back into Lion Recovery Mode to re-download & install Lion OVER the installation that had just been restored by the backup (but neither over, nor replacing, my personal data ALSO just restored from the backup). In doing this (does it never end?!?) there was even an issue with my AppleID password, maybe because given many false starts, either Apple's servers or server personnel (or both) probably started wondering why I was downloading Lion to be installed multiple times in the same day.
Luckily, a new install of Lion on top of my old, restored personal data worked. Oddly, it said iTunes 10.5.3 and Airport Utility 6.0 were available as new downloads once started up (which is weird, cuz they were both on there already). And of course iPhoto had to re-sync with Photo Stream and my mailboxes had to (re-)update. But all my content, other apps and previous settings and functionality were there.
iChat was among those. Sitting there with its custom icon and working as it had, before the update to the Messages beta. Given that I don't use chat on the Mac from home much, I think I'm just going to leave it sitting there until a full version of Messages for the Mac is installed by Mountain Lion.
Not that I eschew betas. But this experience with something I didn't need, which was tough to set up, threw things out of their natural order, was impossible to remove correctly, and then which outside circumstances made it almost impossible to rectify, makes me not want to work any further with this software until I have to.
Also, I want to point out that it's not that I think Apple did a bad job with the intent of Messages for the Mac. I look forward to how it and several other features turn out in the final version of Mountain Lion. But for now, I'm going back to tinkering with things I have a reason to use, and which I know how to fix. For example, when Spotlight finishes indexing my drive, I may decide that I want to just manually toss and restart that Time Machine backup…
Hmm.
---
Update (2/19/12): As soon as the machine attempted to back up to Time Machine, it told me that it needed to discard the only Time Machine backup and start it again. Sure would have nice to have a previous heads-up of that, but at least my suspicions were corroborated.
---
Update 2 (3/5/12): Perhaps someone at Apple read my blog (or the same issue came up in Apple Support Communities, more likely…). In any event, they seem to have addressed something which may be related to the Time Machine restore weirdness that I was experiencing:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1505
I have not downloaded or installed the update yet, so I can make no claim as to how or how well it works. But at least it's there, and hopefully it works for folks, if you've run up against Time Machine restore issues under Lion.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Hopefully not a Mountain of Lion poop (to deal with)
I (temporarily?) return to my tech commentary roots on this blog, to observe that this is going to make next to no sense to the proverbial "Granny":
When OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" came out, it was easy to explain to any user what the system requirements were, for them to upgrade from previous versions (something any technology which SELLS software features wants them to do): 10.6 simply required an Intel processor and 1GB RAM.
Then 10.7 "Lion" muddied the waters a tad more, by requiring an Intel Core 2 Duo processor or higher, and 2GB RAM. OK, still easy to say in a sentence, and as long as the listener is actually thinking about what they hear, there's a good chance they'll get it.
Now the notes on the Developer Release of 10.8 "Mountain Lion", the full version of which is due out some time late this summer, read like this: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/16/os-x-mountain-lion-drops-support-for-many-2006-2008-macs-with-integrated-graphics/
Now, Apple could have been trying to "C" their "A" a bit in 10.7, by putting the name of the model (and time of year released) in the first screen of System Information† a lot easier to find than Model Identifier, which doesn't say anything, but a technician can identify, in the old System Profiler in 10.6§.
–––
* Read more on this, at http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/16/mac_os_x_mountain_lion_release_signals_shift_in_secrecy_at_apple.html
† System Information is an app available when you select "About this Mac" under the Apple Menu, and then click on the "More Info" button in the new window that comes up.
§ The functionality of System Profiler is still available under 10.7, if under that second "About This Mac" window that came up in System Information, you click on the "System Report" button near the bottom of the window.
When OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" came out, it was easy to explain to any user what the system requirements were, for them to upgrade from previous versions (something any technology which SELLS software features wants them to do): 10.6 simply required an Intel processor and 1GB RAM.
Then 10.7 "Lion" muddied the waters a tad more, by requiring an Intel Core 2 Duo processor or higher, and 2GB RAM. OK, still easy to say in a sentence, and as long as the listener is actually thinking about what they hear, there's a good chance they'll get it.
Now the notes on the Developer Release of 10.8 "Mountain Lion", the full version of which is due out some time late this summer, read like this: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/16/os-x-mountain-lion-drops-support-for-many-2006-2008-macs-with-integrated-graphics/
Did you get all that? I'm not sure I did. And it's changing. Which is fair for a product not released yet. In fact, I have to admit that as long as handled carefully, this shift in the way Apple handles the secrecy of their release schedule could be a good thing*. I just hope this morass of legacy computers that will and won't be supported by 10.8 gets clearer, because I can tell you from personal experience that confusion is just about the most frustrating thing possible, for computer consumers.
Now, Apple could have been trying to "C" their "A" a bit in 10.7, by putting the name of the model (and time of year released) in the first screen of System Information† a lot easier to find than Model Identifier, which doesn't say anything, but a technician can identify, in the old System Profiler in 10.6§.
Somehow though, that seems like (to extend the metaphor) updating Granny's prescription on her glasses, when the real trouble is she's got cataracts. Hopefully Apple finds a way to help her clear those up, before 10.8 gets released. Apple tends to make products look amazing. Let's make sure 10.8 can look amazing to Granny too, or at least that her upgrade path clears up.
–––
* Read more on this, at http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/16/mac_os_x_mountain_lion_release_signals_shift_in_secrecy_at_apple.html
† System Information is an app available when you select "About this Mac" under the Apple Menu, and then click on the "More Info" button in the new window that comes up.
§ The functionality of System Profiler is still available under 10.7, if under that second "About This Mac" window that came up in System Information, you click on the "System Report" button near the bottom of the window.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Well, the Elizabethans WERE a pushy bunch…
So, even all of the obvious drawbacks to having a "cone of shame", the dog has discovered one distinct advantage: It herds us by bonking into our legs if we're not moving fast enough for it.
You stopped in the kitchen to get a snack, on your way to let it out the back door? Bonk! to the shin.
You're puttering around wondering what you forgot, before taking it out for a walk? Bonk! to the knee.
You're standing in front of the food bowl, without filling it? Bonk! to the back of the calf.
What have we done?!? I'm not sure whether the dog will miss its new "limb" when it comes off, or just forgive us because the return of peripheral vision will be so wondrous. Time will tell…
You stopped in the kitchen to get a snack, on your way to let it out the back door? Bonk! to the shin.
You're puttering around wondering what you forgot, before taking it out for a walk? Bonk! to the knee.
You're standing in front of the food bowl, without filling it? Bonk! to the back of the calf.
What have we done?!? I'm not sure whether the dog will miss its new "limb" when it comes off, or just forgive us because the return of peripheral vision will be so wondrous. Time will tell…
Friday, February 03, 2012
A book-eared hot dog
Well, the dog's ear thing hasn't cleared up. In fact, it's gotten yucky enough that my experience telling people about it face-to-face compels me not to gross you out here. If you have a penchant for veterinary disgust, look up Ear Margin Vasculitis. Don't say you weren't warned.
In any event, we've been sent to a veterinary specialist (who knew there were such things?). And I must say that their entire office were very competent, patient with our copious questions, and nice. They even called the next day to follow up, and were very patient with everything that came up, yet again. Still, due to the sticker shock of "My dog needs what?!?", I just can't shake this interchange from the episode "'Round Springfield" of The Simpsons, in which Marge and Homer are attending the opera.
Homer (wearing giant foam "We're #1!" finger): Man, these are some primo seats… I sure could use a hot dog right about now…
Marge: Homie, we're at the opera. You can't get hot dogs here!
Hot Dog Vendor: HOT DOGS! GETCHA HOT DOGS!!!
Homer: Woo hoo!
Marge: Do you just follow my husband around all the time?
Hot Dog Vendor: Lady, he's putting my kids through college!
Which is all kinds of fun currently, as we'll soon have our own little one whose options for college we'd like to keep open. Who knew, I'd end up in life identifying with Homer Jay…
In any event, a friend's prediction in the comments of this site that the dog would need the Cone of Shame proved correct, and the dog has been surprisingly brave about it: At one point while feeding it dinner last night, it started making this constricted hacking noise, and I was afraid the thing was on too tight for the dog to swallow, so quickly took it off.
Don't do that. Taking it off is ridiculously easy for those with opposable thumbs, in an emergency. But when the emergency turns out to be the dog essentially saying, "Bleaugh, I don't like this pill you fed me…," rather than your worst fears, the cone is at least as ridiculously difficult to put back on (unless you happen to have a degree in topology).
Still, the dog didn't run away with its tail between its legs the way it does when we come at it with its fleece-lined raincoat before we take it for a walk (During winter, I often have to enlist my wife's help in the daily "chasing of the dog" ritual). In fact, throughout all of this new headgear configuration, the dog just stood there, seemingly happy (drugged up?) to have me fiddling with and cursing at the completely foreign lampshade thing mounted around its neck.
As it is now, we have a new alarm system with regard to where the dog is in the house. Instead of having to listen for gnawing noises in the sudden silence after a regular play session with its bone, during which we fear it's moved on to the couch or our shoes or important documents or something, now we just listen for an arhythmic, plastic "bonk!" as it learns (badly) to navigate without any peripheral vision or the same depth perception (white ring around its field of view vs. nose) it once had. I know: "The poor dog!"… Well, call me a meanie, but it's also really cute. I'm not sure I'll think so when filling in long, curled impact grooves in our walls, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
In the meantime, "Bonk!… bonk!… bonk, bonk!… bonk!" and "Awwww…!!!" to one and all!
In any event, we've been sent to a veterinary specialist (who knew there were such things?). And I must say that their entire office were very competent, patient with our copious questions, and nice. They even called the next day to follow up, and were very patient with everything that came up, yet again. Still, due to the sticker shock of "My dog needs what?!?", I just can't shake this interchange from the episode "'Round Springfield" of The Simpsons, in which Marge and Homer are attending the opera.
Homer (wearing giant foam "We're #1!" finger): Man, these are some primo seats… I sure could use a hot dog right about now…
Marge: Homie, we're at the opera. You can't get hot dogs here!
Hot Dog Vendor: HOT DOGS! GETCHA HOT DOGS!!!
Homer: Woo hoo!
Marge: Do you just follow my husband around all the time?
Hot Dog Vendor: Lady, he's putting my kids through college!
Which is all kinds of fun currently, as we'll soon have our own little one whose options for college we'd like to keep open. Who knew, I'd end up in life identifying with Homer Jay…
In any event, a friend's prediction in the comments of this site that the dog would need the Cone of Shame proved correct, and the dog has been surprisingly brave about it: At one point while feeding it dinner last night, it started making this constricted hacking noise, and I was afraid the thing was on too tight for the dog to swallow, so quickly took it off.
Don't do that. Taking it off is ridiculously easy for those with opposable thumbs, in an emergency. But when the emergency turns out to be the dog essentially saying, "Bleaugh, I don't like this pill you fed me…," rather than your worst fears, the cone is at least as ridiculously difficult to put back on (unless you happen to have a degree in topology).
Still, the dog didn't run away with its tail between its legs the way it does when we come at it with its fleece-lined raincoat before we take it for a walk (During winter, I often have to enlist my wife's help in the daily "chasing of the dog" ritual). In fact, throughout all of this new headgear configuration, the dog just stood there, seemingly happy (drugged up?) to have me fiddling with and cursing at the completely foreign lampshade thing mounted around its neck.
As it is now, we have a new alarm system with regard to where the dog is in the house. Instead of having to listen for gnawing noises in the sudden silence after a regular play session with its bone, during which we fear it's moved on to the couch or our shoes or important documents or something, now we just listen for an arhythmic, plastic "bonk!" as it learns (badly) to navigate without any peripheral vision or the same depth perception (white ring around its field of view vs. nose) it once had. I know: "The poor dog!"… Well, call me a meanie, but it's also really cute. I'm not sure I'll think so when filling in long, curled impact grooves in our walls, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
In the meantime, "Bonk!… bonk!… bonk, bonk!… bonk!" and "Awwww…!!!" to one and all!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Well, I'm a classically trained… Wait, you want me to WHAT?!?
So, when my wife and I moved to our current city, it was early-to-mid-recession. Therefore, in a rather creative attempt to find work, among all the other places I applied, I figured why not submit my info to a casting agency? Until better work comes along (which it eventually did), why not hang out as an extra or something in one of the productions slowly raising our burg (or at least, the look of out burg) in the nation's film-and-TV-watching consciousness?
I never heard so much as a peep from the casting agency with which I signed up, until after I found other work. Since then, I've received the occasional email from them, mostly for roles that seem just slightly off of the information I gave them (for an older guy with their own kids, when I have yet to have my first child; the wrong ethnicity; roles for someone with -I paraphrase here- "rugged, but not perfect good looks", and who wants to think of their look that scrupulously for something they're not going to do?). Sometimes, the information has been just carelessly off: roles for moms or grandpas.
But sometimes, just sometimes, the role they sent me was so wildly off of anything not only that I could portray, but that anyone would expect to portray, that I had to hold onto the email. The classic one was a role posted for "Little Person [which I am not] MALE", with the description of the role reading, in total: "MUST BE ABLE TO SWIM.".
My greatest concern is what on earth they were planning to do to whatever little people responded to the role posting. Sure, maybe some fluffy piece on how we're all the same in the water. But something in the all-caps tone of the description prompted me to worry that the role might be in some drunken college flick where they toss (forgive the term: I'm trying to illustrate the idiotic mindset) "midgets" in an alligator-infested moat in the background, to see if the average watcher of that kind of crap can tear his eyes away from the "Girls Gone WILD!" in the foreground of the frame.
Never did I find out what happened with that role. And maybe, now that I'm publicly mentioning it, I won't hear about any other roles. Or maybe they'll only send me the weird ones from now on.
In any event, it was the email I received today about a role that prompted me to write this blog entry: It was entitled simply "Overweight [again, which I am not] Man", but the description read, "Male, white, 40-50 years [also, which I am not]. Interesting face and features. Will be naked and bouncing on a trampoline for the shoot. Scars, tattoos, piercings okay."
I don't know whether to be deeply offended at the assumption that I am any of the things NOT listed in my description to them when I signed up; or deeply concerned for the poor, naked, obviously being-laughed-at-for-his-weight person who responds to this.
In any event, rest assured I will not be naked and bouncing on a trampoline any time soon. Well, not at the same time, anyway. Talk about rug burn…
For those of you who are just getting to know my writings over the Inter-Muh-Nets™ and don't know what I look like, you're welcome for the (partially) spared visual. For those who do know what I look like, sorry, but I can't pay for your therapy to remove that image. And for those who go searching for pictures online, prompted by anything in the last few paragraphs, I don't need your web traffic, sicko!
(Says the guy who brought it up…).
I never heard so much as a peep from the casting agency with which I signed up, until after I found other work. Since then, I've received the occasional email from them, mostly for roles that seem just slightly off of the information I gave them (for an older guy with their own kids, when I have yet to have my first child; the wrong ethnicity; roles for someone with -I paraphrase here- "rugged, but not perfect good looks", and who wants to think of their look that scrupulously for something they're not going to do?). Sometimes, the information has been just carelessly off: roles for moms or grandpas.
But sometimes, just sometimes, the role they sent me was so wildly off of anything not only that I could portray, but that anyone would expect to portray, that I had to hold onto the email. The classic one was a role posted for "Little Person [which I am not] MALE", with the description of the role reading, in total: "MUST BE ABLE TO SWIM.".
My greatest concern is what on earth they were planning to do to whatever little people responded to the role posting. Sure, maybe some fluffy piece on how we're all the same in the water. But something in the all-caps tone of the description prompted me to worry that the role might be in some drunken college flick where they toss (forgive the term: I'm trying to illustrate the idiotic mindset) "midgets" in an alligator-infested moat in the background, to see if the average watcher of that kind of crap can tear his eyes away from the "Girls Gone WILD!" in the foreground of the frame.
Never did I find out what happened with that role. And maybe, now that I'm publicly mentioning it, I won't hear about any other roles. Or maybe they'll only send me the weird ones from now on.
In any event, it was the email I received today about a role that prompted me to write this blog entry: It was entitled simply "Overweight [again, which I am not] Man", but the description read, "Male, white, 40-50 years [also, which I am not]. Interesting face and features. Will be naked and bouncing on a trampoline for the shoot. Scars, tattoos, piercings okay."
I don't know whether to be deeply offended at the assumption that I am any of the things NOT listed in my description to them when I signed up; or deeply concerned for the poor, naked, obviously being-laughed-at-for-his-weight person who responds to this.
In any event, rest assured I will not be naked and bouncing on a trampoline any time soon. Well, not at the same time, anyway. Talk about rug burn…
For those of you who are just getting to know my writings over the Inter-Muh-Nets™ and don't know what I look like, you're welcome for the (partially) spared visual. For those who do know what I look like, sorry, but I can't pay for your therapy to remove that image. And for those who go searching for pictures online, prompted by anything in the last few paragraphs, I don't need your web traffic, sicko!
(Says the guy who brought it up…).
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Wash your mouth out with SOPA
Just a thought: the two videos I linked in my January 17th post, as well as any reference to anything else of cultural relevance that I've made in this entire blog, could be grounds to shut it down without due process, if either of the SOPA or PIPA bills under consideration now in Congress pass. One of my favorite references to this fact from today is this one*, which I could also be shut down for referencing, if these bills pass. See where I'm going with this?
So while I'm clearly blathering on through many other sites' blackout today, that doesn't mean I'll always be able to (and more importantly, potentially, for you, that you'll always be able to) unless we raise our congresspeople's awareness of the big precipice they could be pulling us all over, if they don't think more closely about what they're doing.
* (some potentially inappropriate but not explicit cartoon representations, as well as a dirty word or two. tbyc™!)
So while I'm clearly blathering on through many other sites' blackout today, that doesn't mean I'll always be able to (and more importantly, potentially, for you, that you'll always be able to) unless we raise our congresspeople's awareness of the big precipice they could be pulling us all over, if they don't think more closely about what they're doing.
* (some potentially inappropriate but not explicit cartoon representations, as well as a dirty word or two. tbyc™!)
Keeping a leash on my thoughts
Last night where I live, it dumped buckets of snow. Then, in the morning, it dumped buckets of rain. Just as yellow and blue make green, so too do snow and rain make slowly receding slush. My wife and I took the dog out & slogged around much less far than we had intended to, as all three of us got drenched and freezing and desirous of a return to residential heating.
Those piles of slush had looked so placid and inviting. Clearly, the sky has it in for us.
In any event, when we got in, I peeled the dog's soaked coat off of it (Yes, the dog has a coat. It's a short-haired breed with no undercoat, but besides that, we are clearly the kind of dog owners who want to embarrass our dog.), and balled up the coat and leash to toss on the kitchen counter.
My wife threw up her hands in exasperation, wiped down the counters with antiseptic while wondering aloud how I never died of food poisoning while a bachelor, and said I should have beelined to the bathroom with these things, to drip dry in the shower. She then disappeared with them, apparently off to prepare for her day, where there were not people throwing dirty things onto clean.
The dog and I stood dripping and blinking at each other in the mud room. I then shrugged, grabbed a towel to dry it off, fed it breakfast and we went about our day, too.
I came home a few hours later to walk and feed the dog, only for its coat and leash to be found… nowhere. I looked where we normally keep them. I looked where we don't normally keep them, but where I may have seen them once or twice before. I looked where I've had dreams of them being. I looked where I had never conceived of them being. Nothing.
It was getting late, and the dog was looking at me like, "What is this game you're playing? The rules make no sense. Oh, and I gotta pee…". So I let it out to gingerly pick through the slush and do its business, while I prepared lunch. Texted my wife to ask her where the doggie gear was.
The dog came in, ate its lunch. Played a bit with its bone, gamely ran when chased, chased when I stole its bone. When things calmed down, it looked at me like, "I'm not sure why we're not on schedule, but at least you're worth staring at for a while." The dog does that a lot, in lieu of anything better to do. It's a bit unnerving, in the evolutionary that-wolf-thing-staring-at-me-could-rip-out-my-larynx-if-such-a-thought-ever-crossed-its-furry-mind manner, but also incredibly endearing in the "You've done so very much for me in my short, cute life. I wonder what you are going to do now?" way.
When the fun of staring at me was complete (I think the dog is usually fairly generous in this regard: I don't find myself particularly engrossing to stare at.), it then rang the bell to go back outside. I had hoped it had meant to finish doing its business, but it was instead fascinated with the now more quickly melting slush. Prancing around and munching, batting at it and leaving cute little paw prints all over the yard, just to see how much area it could claim in a medium other than pee. That was some fun, at least… even though the poor dog was shivering its little tail off.
It was getting late, and my wife wasn't getting back to me.
Well, at least the dog had gotten in a good play, if not a good walk. Oh well. So while I went to go do my business prior to leaving back to work, I passed the shower in the bathroom. The shower, that held…
The coat and the leash. Where my wife had told me to put them.
At the same moment, I received a text from her telling me where they were. And then another, apologizing that it was probably too late for me to use that information to actually walk the dog.
Now, she hadn't earlier expressly told me that she was putting them in the shower, but she had disappeared into another room with them, just after telling me I should have done so.
Something tells me I'm going to have to work on the whole "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" thing. Soon, I'll have more than the dog's mind to compete with: there will also be a baby's mental development to measure up against. Hmm…
Those piles of slush had looked so placid and inviting. Clearly, the sky has it in for us.
In any event, when we got in, I peeled the dog's soaked coat off of it (Yes, the dog has a coat. It's a short-haired breed with no undercoat, but besides that, we are clearly the kind of dog owners who want to embarrass our dog.), and balled up the coat and leash to toss on the kitchen counter.
My wife threw up her hands in exasperation, wiped down the counters with antiseptic while wondering aloud how I never died of food poisoning while a bachelor, and said I should have beelined to the bathroom with these things, to drip dry in the shower. She then disappeared with them, apparently off to prepare for her day, where there were not people throwing dirty things onto clean.
The dog and I stood dripping and blinking at each other in the mud room. I then shrugged, grabbed a towel to dry it off, fed it breakfast and we went about our day, too.
I came home a few hours later to walk and feed the dog, only for its coat and leash to be found… nowhere. I looked where we normally keep them. I looked where we don't normally keep them, but where I may have seen them once or twice before. I looked where I've had dreams of them being. I looked where I had never conceived of them being. Nothing.
It was getting late, and the dog was looking at me like, "What is this game you're playing? The rules make no sense. Oh, and I gotta pee…". So I let it out to gingerly pick through the slush and do its business, while I prepared lunch. Texted my wife to ask her where the doggie gear was.
The dog came in, ate its lunch. Played a bit with its bone, gamely ran when chased, chased when I stole its bone. When things calmed down, it looked at me like, "I'm not sure why we're not on schedule, but at least you're worth staring at for a while." The dog does that a lot, in lieu of anything better to do. It's a bit unnerving, in the evolutionary that-wolf-thing-staring-at-me-could-rip-out-my-larynx-if-such-a-thought-ever-crossed-its-furry-mind manner, but also incredibly endearing in the "You've done so very much for me in my short, cute life. I wonder what you are going to do now?" way.
When the fun of staring at me was complete (I think the dog is usually fairly generous in this regard: I don't find myself particularly engrossing to stare at.), it then rang the bell to go back outside. I had hoped it had meant to finish doing its business, but it was instead fascinated with the now more quickly melting slush. Prancing around and munching, batting at it and leaving cute little paw prints all over the yard, just to see how much area it could claim in a medium other than pee. That was some fun, at least… even though the poor dog was shivering its little tail off.
It was getting late, and my wife wasn't getting back to me.
Well, at least the dog had gotten in a good play, if not a good walk. Oh well. So while I went to go do my business prior to leaving back to work, I passed the shower in the bathroom. The shower, that held…
The coat and the leash. Where my wife had told me to put them.
At the same moment, I received a text from her telling me where they were. And then another, apologizing that it was probably too late for me to use that information to actually walk the dog.
Now, she hadn't earlier expressly told me that she was putting them in the shower, but she had disappeared into another room with them, just after telling me I should have done so.
Something tells me I'm going to have to work on the whole "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" thing. Soon, I'll have more than the dog's mind to compete with: there will also be a baby's mental development to measure up against. Hmm…
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Blood is thicker than koolaid
So, our dog has this spot on the end of one ear that due to the dry weather, or its habit of sitting DIRECTLY in front of the heater, or un-carefully brushing through the bushes instead of doing what it's told, or maybe due to all three reasons, this spot tends to get a bit bloody. It's usually scabbed over, and I've never seen it get on any furniture or anything. But over the weekend the dog came in, and upon flopping its head back and forth to shake off after having its head gear (a gentle leader contraption without which the dog would pull us across several states) taken off, the walls in our mud room looked like this:
(From Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums)
(Images from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Dunno what that music is, or what it's doing there, though. Yay for YouTube!).
My wife wasn't there, but I decided to get the dog all patched up before she might bring home a pregnant blood aversion, and do the same thing as the above video, but with puke.
So I got out the first aid kit (both the human one and the dog's) and put on some some calendula, as well as some Neosporin and a band-aid. Miraculously, the dog didn't wig out at those tasty unguents and sales disappearing past its eye to be applied just out of sight, and then covered over with something sticky and skin-like. In fact, the dog amazingly settled down & didn't even pay its new accoutrement any mind. I theorized it decided "Well, Daddy put it on me. Usually when Daddy puts things on me, they make it better. Maybe it's an earring! I want one of those, cuz I'm a dog, and of course all the prettiest dogs have earrings!". Of course that's what the dog was thinking. My theories are always correct.
So I got out the first aid kit (both the human one and the dog's) and put on some some calendula, as well as some Neosporin and a band-aid. Miraculously, the dog didn't wig out at those tasty unguents and sales disappearing past its eye to be applied just out of sight, and then covered over with something sticky and skin-like. In fact, the dog amazingly settled down & didn't even pay its new accoutrement any mind. I theorized it decided "Well, Daddy put it on me. Usually when Daddy puts things on me, they make it better. Maybe it's an earring! I want one of those, cuz I'm a dog, and of course all the prettiest dogs have earrings!". Of course that's what the dog was thinking. My theories are always correct.
The dog and I then settled down for a bit of a post-walk nap (which involves sitting on the couch, the dog cuddling up next to me, and me dozing until something falls down and I get jerked awake). Unfortunately, while the band-aid stayed on, it didn't really stem the flow of elevator kool-aid or whatever. So when next I got the dog to get up and eat, I used this stuff called styptic powder, and it dried right up, even after further ear floppings. Which is good, because that's what my wife had told me the first time she saw the ear bleeding. Her theories are also always correct.
It's also good because I had been (jokingly) imagining something like the following interaction with my wife when she got home:
(NOTE: Some very brief not-safe-for-work-or-kids language. Think before you click!™)
(From Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums)
Cast whichever of them you want, as either of us. I know how I'm leaning. Just don't think of "Rachel" as anyone real, cuz we know and love several Rachels we'd like to keep very much alive. And while we're at it, don't cast our dog as Buckley, cuz of what happens to him later. And it's not quite high-strung enough to be Spark Plug.
Actually, wow: let's keep Gene Hackman alive, too. He was apparently just in a (non life-threatening, but still scary) bicycle accident, a few days ago!
Update: Well, band-aids, as you know, fall off. Oddly enough, they fall off of flopping, hairy dog ears even faster than they do off of relatively sedate, hairless human skin. So when it fell off again, my wife (apparently without a pregnant blood aversion. Good to know!) put two band-aids at the end of the dog's ear, one perpendicularly over the other, so it formed a heart-shaped pattern. Aw… now that dog has got a serious (Sirius?) fashion statement going!
Which is good, because the more we fiddle with its ear, the more apprehensive it gets at letting us. Bleeding doesn't seem to hurt (and it's not still bleeding, but we're just covering it up in case…), but repeated fiddling just out of sight, particularly when one lacks opposable thumbs to do what we're doing, is apparently freaky. Who knew?
Update Two: Apparently, there's some sort of regular pill we can give the dog, to make the edges of its ear heal soft, supple and silky smooth. It's some condition that's easy to fix. So we're taking the dog to the vet tomorrow.
Watch the side effects of the pill include bursting out into Barry White songs in appropriate basso profundo, in the middle of the night. Or the dog's fart clouds getting a visible green cast to them. Or growing antlers or something. But will the treatment be better than the symptom? Only time will tell…
Friday, January 06, 2012
Epic Fanny (in the American sense, sicko…)
It seems interesting to me that January 6th is traditionally labelled "Epiphany" in the Christmas season calendar. Maybe it's because it's the day we realize we can't keep our New Year's resolutions?
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Caniz Navidad, Caniz Navidad…
Our holiday cards this year show me, my lovely (and radiantly pregnant) wife, and our dog, in its new Christmas sweater. The shot we went with, in fact, is the only one in which the dog is looking at the camera. Its posture in this shot is a partial profile, looking judgmentally (as it got more and more tired of the picture-taking process) down its nose at the camera. It also had one front leg draped over mine with a jaunty crook to its elbow, and its paw hanging limply down, almost hand-like.
The dog, as much as anything else in the otherwise wonderful picture, also turned out looking great. It almost seems to be saying, "I don't always pose for holiday pictures, but when I do… I make sure it's with a hot Mommy, a lucky dork of a Daddy, and one heck of a cute little sweater on!"
The dog, as much as anything else in the otherwise wonderful picture, also turned out looking great. It almost seems to be saying, "I don't always pose for holiday pictures, but when I do… I make sure it's with a hot Mommy, a lucky dork of a Daddy, and one heck of a cute little sweater on!"
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