Callback!

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The definition of Uptoia, from xkcd.com:

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As I mentioned earlier, I bought a new computer last week, and so far it has been nothing but trouble. it keeps spontaneously rebooting at what appear to be completely random intervals, and I just don't know why. In fact, it rebooted on me 10 minutes ago while I was typing this post.

Why did it reboot? Couldn't tell you. Driver conflict? Maybe. I've updated software and drivers for just about every component, but that doesn't mean I've eliminated any possible conflict. Hardware failure? Can't rule it out. I'm about to start memory testing. If that passes, I'll move on to the power supply.

If I ever solve this problem, I'll be sure to let you know. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to start counting ones and zeroes.

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I'm an enthusiastic subscriber to The Week magazine, in part because it fills the void left by my newspaper subscription going digital. (Maybe I just need something to do with my hands while I read.)

Each week, The Week showcases an assortment of recently released books, and this past week their top recommendation went to Eve:

As it happens, there's a copy of Eve sitting on the table in my den right now. That's because Cat Bohannon is the daughter of my childhood piano teacher who moved back to New York state but still calls my mom to brag about her kids' accomplishments. (Hi, Rosemary!)

I haven't seen or spoken to Cat in many, many years, probably not since the last time I touched a piano keyboard. But it's still a kind of vicarious thrill to know that someone I once chased around a willow tree is a Big Deal now.

By the way, Rosemary is justified in her bragging. Cat's older brother is science journalist John, who has his own Wikipedia page (but I'll always think of him as the guy who teased me with prank phone calls in elementary school).

Meanwhile, I'm sitting in a basement reading old news and typing blog posts. Maybe I should have spent more time practicing the piano. Sorry, Mom.

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95/2261. Teen Witch (1989)
This is a coming-of-age fantasy power movie in the vein of Zapped! but for girls... and much tamer... and made by incompetents. Its misguided confidence is surprisingly charming. Watch for the teen lust hunk unironically shaking up the Coke before he gives it to our heroine!

96/2262. The Murder Man (1935)
Holy cow, Spencer Tracy is always good, even when he's playing a detective reporter who is also.... Aw, but that'd be giving it away!

98/2264. Sergeant Rutledge (1960)
John Ford's take on racism in the American West... and in America in general, I guess. Frankly, the third act feels a bit like a cop out, but I have to accept that Ford was working in an era that demanded happy endings for Hollywood tales about the limits of American exceptionalism. I should probably be satisfied that such a movie (with a such dark subtext) even exists in the period.

99/2265. Blondie (1938)
The first in a series of movies that adapted the long comic strip into a live action situation comedy. This was apparently very popular in its day, but Dagwood is too incompetent to be sympathetic — or coupled with a hottie like Blondie!

100/2266. Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
John Ford directs Henry Fonda struggling with frontier life during American Revolution. What it lacks in realism (which is a great deal), it makes up for in cliches! Which doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. Cliches get repeated for a reason.

101/2267. Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
Another John Ford picture that tries, in its way, to correct the public record on the tragedies of Manifest Destiny in the American West. (Ford was no innocent bystander in this. He sure presented the French-allied Indians in Drums Along the Mohawk to be particularly bloodthirsty rapists and murderers worthy of exterminating.) Sadly, the worst part of this isn't all the unnecessarily dead Cheyenne but the extended "comedy" sequence with Jimmy Stewart playing Wyatt Earp just before intermission. While this may be another of Ford's concessions to contemporary audiences, it's so tonally incongruent with what comes before and after that it robs the rest of the movie of any dignity, making the whole experience feel more exploitative than sympathetic. Yuck.

More to come.

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My aging computer, which I use 8 or more hours a day, has been showing signs of senility lately, so last Sunday I decided to buy a replacement. Specifically, I decided to buy a Razer, as that's what was available on sale at BestBuy.com with the specs that friend (and boss) James recommended. Before going through a shopping cart, I did a little research and discovered that Razer.com had an even better price on their own product. So I decided to order directly from the manufacturer instead. That proved to be a mistake.

No sooner had I completed their checkout process than Razer promptly sent me an email to notify me that the transaction had been "unsuccessful" and urged me to get in touch with their customer service, which I did immediately via chat. The representative told me they would "forward a support ticket to the relevant team" to verify me as a legitimate buyer so that my purchase would be processed by their system "automatically." Except it didn't.

On Monday, I got another email, telling me that the whole problem was my credit card processor. They said I needed a payment authorization code to clear up the problem, so I called my bank. Turns out the bank's AI was naturally suspicious of such a large purchase of nearly $3,000 — don't judge me — and killed the transaction. Fine. It happens. In fact, I appreciate the caution. Except they could not give me an authorization code because no payment had actually ever been authorized. They said I'd need the merchant to run the transaction again.

I told Razer this, and they said they couldn't run a charge against the original order; I would have to just place a whole new order. One small catch: between Sunday night and Monday morning, Razer raised the price of the machine by more than 13%. Since I was only shopping from them because they had been cheaper than Best Buy, I asked their customer service to honor Sunday's price. They declined. I explained that in that case, there was no longer any incentive for me to buy from Razer.com... and they followed up by politely suggesting that I "explore authorized Razer resellers, where you might find attractive deals and promotions."

In hindsight, perhaps I should have expected that. The Sunday representative ended our chat by telling me that "right after you end the chat, you might receive a survey for you to provide us with feedback. The survey is all about ME as your assistance buddy as how I tried my best to assist you today, and not with Razer services" (emphasis mine). Hint, hint, Walter.

Anyway. This is all just a longwinded way of explaining why I will not be buying a Razer computer from any Razer reseller, authorized or otherwise. If they don't want me to buy their product, I'm more than happy to oblige.

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From the Old Soldiers Never Die Department:

Peacemaker Tries Hard #4, October 2023

Now that he's palling around with General Immortus, Johnny Blackhawk, and The Red Bee, Peacemaker just might be the youngest person in his own title. He's no spring chicken himself; his father was a Nazi concentration camp commandant. Or at least he used to be. Comic books have a tendency to play fast and loose with established character biographies.

Speaking of which, flashbacks in this issue definitively detail the Red Bee's time as a special agent American Mystery Man actively fighting the Axis powers (and their terrible "War Wheel") in the European theater of World War II.

But wait! Everyone knows Red Bee died on February 23, 1942, on Earth-X (as graphically revealed in 1984's All-Star Squadron #35). What this story presupposes is... maybe he didn't?

Comic books being what they are, it would seem that Red Bee recovered from being dead — maybe health care was better back in the day — and continued his fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

Which is how he ends up with Peacemaker in the Amazon jungle held hostage by the villainous gourmand Snowflame. Good thing Red Bee has another Greatest Generation trope: a sidekick!

A friend in need is a friend, indeed!

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This summer, I got a new, much bigger monitor. "Much bigger" means that my previous desktop background of several years wasn't going to cut it anymore. So I made myself this:

click to embiggen

By which I mean I made the blueprint, not the ship itself. And when I say I made the blueprint, I mean I re-edited a bunch of different images from the 1973 Star Trek Blueprints: the Complete Set of 12 Authentic Blueprints of the Fabulous Starship Enterprise drafted by Franz Joseph and published by Ballantine Books.

So, yeah, I went where someone else had gone before. Fabulously.

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90/2256. Mississippi Burning (1988)
This is another one of those movies you might have expected me to see before now, but I really didn't care for Gene Hackman when I was younger. (I've since corrected that mistake.) It's a fine movie, I suppose, if you can get past the rather blatant "white savior" tropes that would have you believe that the FBI were the true heroes of the civil rights movement!

91/2257. The Ghost Breakers (1940)
Gene Hackman I've grown to appreciate; Bob Hope, not so much. Certainly, not a lot of ghosts get broken in this Bob Hope "comedy," and I'm still not sure the plot makes any sense. Do they ever in Hope films? I think that's a large part of why I avoid them.

92/2258. The Man with a Cloak (1951)
More thriller than murder mystery, the real question in this is the "true" identity of the cloaked protagonist detective (played by the always worthwhile Joseph Cotton). I appreciated the reveal, so I won't spoil it here.

93/2259. Cry Wolf (1947)
Maybe I've seen too much Hitchcock, but I saw the third act "twist" in this thriller coming from two acts away. I had more fun trying to imagine who might have been tricked by such a plot than I had watching the story unfold (although I did appreciate the stunt casting of "evil" Errol Flynn and "naive" Barbara Stanwyck).

94/2260. Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2021)
Sadly, this isn't as charming as its predecessor; it has pacing problems as it lurches from cliched episode to cliched episode in what I assume is an attempt to keep younger audiences entertained. But it does seem to be aware of its flaws, and it tries to makes up for the rough edges with extra doses of self-referential meta-commentary. I am always down for that.

97/2263. Born to Dance (1936)
Jimmy Stewart sings and dances! And he's really not that bad. Of course, he gets a lot of help from co-stars Buddy Ebsen and Eleanor Powell, plus a ridiculously over-the-top finale that would have embarrassed Busby Berkeley. It's not perfect, but it is worth a watch.

More to come.

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