It Only Takes One Bad Apple To Make Me Hate Computers Even More

So, I joined the Mac cult with promises of "it just works" and "you won't have all those silly problems that Windows lusers have". I have come to the conclusion that these confident proclamations are a bunch of horse-hooey.


Don't get me wrong, I really like OSX. It is generally so much cleaner and nicer to work with than Windows, IMHO. It's more Unixy under the covers so you know I have to love it. But all this stuff about "it just works" and being able to avoid the kinds of annoyances that Windows has is, as I said, just a bunch of horse-hooey. Well, OK, maybe the annoyances aren't exactly the same, but it seems that OSX has plenty of its own.

The past couple of weeks I've been noticing that after a day or so of (relative) idle time, when I go back to my Mini it becomes quite uncooperative and unresponsive. The screensaver goes away and the desktop comes right up, but from that point on it's as if some huge CPU hungry program is running in the background. The application windows and menus become completely unresponsive. Trying to bring up a menu results in the "beach ball" (I've come to learn this is the equivalent of the Windows "hourglass"). A beach ball sounds like it would be fun, but it isn't. The system is not completely dead, but it literally takes minutes for a menu to come up. About the only reliable "cure" I've found so far is to power cycle the little beastie. When I do that, everything comes up just fine, and it will continue running great for several days, only to once again freeze up.

I've managed to pre-emptively have "top" loaded and running on a couple of occasions when this little phenomenon occurs to see if I could determine what was taking up all the CPU time. Of course, wouldn't you know it, "top" tells me that the CPU is 80-99% idle on any given refresh cycle. All the while, instead of updating every second or so, it alternates between erratically updating once every 10 or 15 seconds, to updating in a burst of once-a-second refreshes 3 or 4 times. The beach ball re-appears. It mocks me.

So I've talked to my Apple-savvy nephew and my Apple-savvy friends and co-workers and, of course, none of them have ever heard about anything remotely like this. I've done a fair bit of googling and have, at the very least, found others with symptoms that sound a lot like mine. For example: here and here. What I haven't found is any clear-cut cause or permanent solution.

What I have learned is that OSX, like Windows, has its own little annoyances and quirks. For example, I've seen recommended in several places that whenever you apply an update, or are having general "weirdness", you should to run a built in OSX utility that fixes the file permissions on system files. I'm sorry, but this is not something you should have to do on a system that is supposed to "just work". Nevertheless, I have done so, in hopes that this will make my problem go away. I won't really know for a couple of days probably, because that's how long it usually takes for this to manifest.

In case your wondering, no, I have not loaded my Mac up with all kinds of weird third party applications and questionable utility programs that would likely be fouling things up. Other than what was already installed on the system, and iLife (which came bundled), the only other applications I have installed are FireFox and Thunderbird. I do not have a bunch of applications running in the background when this occurs (confirmed by "top"!). Sometimes Firefox and/or Thunderbird are open, but not always. It's one of those weird hard-to-diagnose problems that make me thank my lucky stars that I don't work in tech support.

I will be sure to keep you, my loyal readers, posted.

Golden Corral 500

Donna and I had a blast this past Sunday attending the Golden Corral 500 here in Atlanta! Here are the pictures I took.



And here is a short video clip I took from our seats of the cars flying by. The audio would be pretty cool if it wasn't filled with static. Oh, well ... it was just the video clip recording of my digital camera, it's not really a camcorder I guess. :)

We've been to the fall race here in Atlanta a few times but this was our first time for the Spring race. We were really glad we went. Leading up to it we were a little worried about the weather. Forecasts earlier in the week were calling for the possibility of rain. Luckily, the weather was absolutely perfect for most of the race -- sunny and in the 70s. It did cloud up a little late in the afternoon and cooled down a bit but it was still great.

The opening festivities were a mixed bag. I was blown away by the Army flying in the pace car on a chopper. When I saw the chopper flying in I assumed it was doing some kind of a fly-over -- imagine my surprise when it landed on the track almost right in front of where we were sitting! And when the pace car drove out of the cargo area ... well, that was just too cool!

Then there was the national anthem. Wow. This was not good. John Michael Montgomery, a pretty well known country music star performed. You would probably have fairly high expectations -- I know I did. Well, I'm sad to say it was downright embarassing. The video screen on the track showed a close-up of him at the beginning, which they quickly cut away from. I imagine they did that quick cut-away because the guy was obviously READING THE LYRICS! Who doesn't know the words to the national anthem? OK, maybe some people don't. But a professional country singer? Who knows he's going to be singing it in front of thousands of people, plus however many more watched it on TV? It might have been a little more forgivable had he not also sounded awful. I mean really, really awful. Had they not announced who was singing I would have probably felt sorry for the guy, thinking it was just a nervous amateur. It was really shameful. When I watched the replay on TV (Tivo rocks!) I began to wonder if maybe the guy was drunk. I don't know, but I think the guy needs to make an apology.

It quickly became obvious that a lot of the drivers were going to have a long day. There was a pretty big pile-up of cars in the back stretch after the race went green, before they even completed the first lap. A few drivers were out for the race. Jeff Gordon was pretty much knocked out of it although he did manage to eventually get back on the track and get some laps in.

I had high hopes that it was going to be a good day for Junior, since he's done really well at Atlanta in the past. Unfortunately, his early season slump continued unabated, with a 24th place finish. He did actually manage to move up a spot in the points standing. We were very pleased to see that Michael Waltrip had a good race, with a very good 7th place finish. He moved up 8 spots in the points standing and is just behind Jr. now.

The race had a great finish. The last third or so seemed to be mostly dominated by Jimmie Johnson and Greg Biffle, trading the lead back and forth several times. But in the end, Carl Edwards managed to sneak in and pass Johnson right at the end for the win. This was after getting loose in the turns a couple of times in the last 10 laps or so.

Carl Edwards really seems like a nice guy, so I was happy to see him win. He had a pretty good weekend, since he also won the Busch race on Saturday. It was his first victory in both divisions of NASCAR. I think this guy is going places ... he's 3rd in the cup standings right now!

Aside from the disappointment of Jr's continued troubles, it was really a great day. We are really looking forward to our next race.

Just Like a Walk in the Park

What an awesome weekend it was! The weather here was in the mid 70s both days. Spring has finally sprung! Or ... has it? Doesn't look like it's going to break 60 again at least for the next several days. I hope the weather is as nice here next Sunday for the Atlanta Nextel Cup race as it was this Sunday.


Speaking of Nextel Cup, that was the one downside of the weekend. Dale Jr. is not off to a very good start this year. He ran into the back of Brian Vickers and wrecked them both very early in the race. He also, however, demonstrated one of the qualities that I really admire about him. In the post-mishap interview, he didn't try to make excuses or deny responsibility. He stepped up, admitted he screwed up and apologized to Vickers and his team. Now I'm sure that didn't really make Vickers feel a whole lot better, but he at least respected Jr. for being a man about it.

Other than that, it was a great weekend. Donna and I took the dogs to the park both Saturday and Sunday and got in some good exercise walking. We also took some time to just sit and relax and enjoy the breeze and the sunshine. The park was really busy -- there were lots of folks who apparently had the same idea. The dogs enjoyed it, too. They got to sniff lots of people and other dogs -- and they really enjoy going for walks in general.

I cannot wait for Spring to finally get here!

The Check Is In The Mail

That nice mail man ... errr.... person ... ummm..... postal delivery agent? Anyway, that postal service employee brought us a wonderful bounty in the mail yesterday. Just wanted to share some of the treasure we received. I knew it was going to be my lucky day when I saw no less than THREE checks from Citi. I was a little disappointed when I discovered they weren't going to add up to quite enough for me to retire early.

Like a kid opening gifts at Christmas, I ripped open the first check. Three dollars!!!! Woohooo! Breakfast at McDonald's. I ripped open the second check. Four dollars!!!! Alright! I like the pattern that's forming here. Finally, I opened the third check. I could hardly contain my excitement when I saw that it was -- DOUBLE DIGITS!!! TEN DOLLARS! Oh, yeah! Jackpot!

Hmmm. I wondered if maybe it was a little strange that Citi would be sending me all this bounty for no apparent reason. That's when I decided to look a little closer.

Cashing the first check amounted to an agreement to enroll in "Watch-Guard Premier", a service which allows me to register all my credit cards, and if I lose my wallet, make one call and have all of my cards canceled. It also provides me wth "ID Theft Expense Reimbursement" and credit monitoring. All this for only $6.95 a month! To quote Eddie Murphy from his Saturday Night Live days: "What a bargain! What a bargain for me!"

The second check would enroll me in the United States Auto Club. Sounds very patriotic! Heck, maybe its a shadowy government agency! I always wanted to be in the CIA! Well, turns out it's just your basic roadside assistance service. But only $7.95 a month!

Finally, the big whopper double digit check. I can join Shoppers Advantage. For only $8.99 a month, I get the privilege of ... buying stuff from them! What a deal!!! They have low prices on quality products and all kinds of good stuff like that.

And the best part of all ... these offers will be "conveniently billed to my Citi Card account each month"! Ahhhh, how sweet!

Now each and every one of these organizations may be offering fabulous deals at unbeatable prices. But this is such a slimy, underhanded way of doing it. I wonder how many folks think "ooooh, a check" and just don't bother to read the fine print? How many others read the fine print, figure they can just cancel and keep the money, and then promptly forget about the whole thing? Only to notice several months later all these recurring charges on their credit card statement, and find it a big hassle to ever get these services canceled. On general principle alone, I won't use any of these services.

Fortunately, there was mail from other folks who didn't try to sucker me with checks. They were merely offering me convenient reminders. Like the company that sent me a "bill" for renewing my domain name. Except, it was not the company that I'm currently registered through. And the cost was about 3 times what I pay now. Again, I wonder how many people fall for it? Especially businesses. Looks like a bill, they know what it's for, so they pay it without ever giving it a thought. Meanwhile the company laughs all the way to the bank.

Finally, I got a renewal notice for a magazine. Trouble is, I just started subscribing to it. When I say I "just started" I mean that I haven't even gotten the first issue yet! Read the fine print. Yup, it's not even directly from the magazine publisher. It's from a "third party magazine clearinghouse" who offers "discount" prices. Only problem there is that their price is over double what I paid for my original subscription.

All of these under-handing bordering-on-scammer people need to be horse-whipped. But I'm not bitter.