 New Years' Resolution: at least one update per month. I'm falling out of touch with too many amigos.
So... what the hell is Mick up to?
Lost Cat
Our little white cat has left us, I'm afraid. He had his breakfast on December the 8th and went out. Not a sign of Jack-the-lad on our doorstep when we arrived home from work that night. We banged his dish with a spoon, but no little head popping up behind the back wall like a jack-in-the-box. "I'm worried about our boy," Carmel said.
Dozens of lamppost posters and ever-widening patrols rewarded us with four false alarms. It's terrible. It's like a member of the family has vanished. For more than a month, I examined the pages of the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals daily. The features there would break your heart. They plant every sort of horror story about what might have happened.
After this latest race across town for what turned out to be someone else's white cat, we've had to face the truth. Jack's not coming home again. We only had him for less than one year, but that was one critter with personality to spare. The dodgy little chancer!
I like to think that he's wandered on, found a new little family to charm. He had been owned before we took him in, after all. Maybe he's CatGuyver. He wanders from place to place, helping bring out the best in as many different casts of characters as he can.
On to a topic a little more cheery....
Bored at work? If you are drudging away, despairing at the uninspired things being done with good technology, allow me to pass on word. Itconversations.com makes a wealth of innovative ideas available for free .mp3 download. Host Doug Kaye has collected many fascinating interviews, presentations, and keynote addresses from the most important conferences of the last year.
I spent most of November and December listening my way through these archives on the drive to and from Symantec. (My Neon USB key, reviewed below, uses the same adapter as an external CD player.) It's a ripcord relief to be reminded that there are original ideas out there, and thinkers with the gusto to make a success of them.
The site's worth a visit for Steve Wozniak's two hours alone. True, it's probably a promo for his forthcoming autobiography, and as well planned as any other big CEO's presentation. It's still a hell of a story. Wil Wheaton- yes, the kid we all wanted to kick off the bridge of the USS Enterprise with a jackboot the size of Italy- also delivers a must-hear. Wheaton's grown into a hell of a good stand-up comic with a Jimmy Page-esque knowledge of sympathetic chords. (Plus, he likes Guinness! Dude's welcome down at my local, any day.)
On the cutting edges of IT, there's meat about digital security, web services, and nanotechnology. What strikes me as absolutely correct, though, is the site's focus not on any one field of technology. Many speakers aren't geeking away about technology at all! World Changing and The New Explorers deal with a guy who's combining playground equipment with water-pumps in Africa, and another named Ben Saunders who decided to walk solo across the North Pole from Siberia to Canada. Author interviews, too. Innovation, that's the theme. I'd love to hook up with open-minded people who are turning new ideas into quality, practical products. That's work that would never get dull.
For now? My brain's in training. The last few months have brought me bounding on down the Microsoft Certified System Engineer trail, covering a lot of technological ground while gathering up networking and security skills. It's a bit like one of those orienteering races that I ran when getting ready for the 2001 Wicklow Challenge. Except this time I'm (1) widening my ass on a QA Lab chair, rather than getting fit, and (2) also completing Unix Admin courses at the same time- mucking up matters by trying to climb two mountains at once. Instead of getting smarter, the more I work, I just keep quoting Homer Simpson: "D'Oh!"
Time for a shout. It'll come as no surprise to anyone who knows what a messer I am that The Register is one of my favorite sources of key IT information online.
Like so much shower-drain hair, Marketing Bullshit clogs the Internet. I think of The Register as my plunger. Something useful and vaguely toilet-related, in any case.
Let this brief illustration speak its own thousand words: Beer Fights Cancer.
Oh! Do not confuse register.co.uk with register.com. register.com should be called bendover⪅fishvomit.com Those unscrupulous bastards stole my old dfaguide.com domain name.
(This change to mickhalpin.com is NOT a desperate bid for self-promotion following a You're a Star audition.)(All lies!)
(Full story in a future update.)
Changing the topic swiftly back to IT... I've been meaning to give my little Neon USB key a plug for the best part of a year now. Mick-the-gadget-freak picked up this 256 MB device from shop4memory.com, an outfit in the nearby town of Celbridge.
For storing information, the floppy drive in your PC is a decade out of date. Today's presentations, tunes and trailers are far too big to fit on a fragile plastic disk. Not so for a USB key like my Neon. These suckers can hold as much as 180 floppy disks could.
Not only that- this device is also a walkman small as a thumb. It plays whatever .mp3 music files it stores. If you get sick of them? Flick a switch and the Neon becomes an FM radio. What's more: if you are without a pen when suddenly struck by your dumb-idea-of-the-day, the Neon's mic turns it into a Dictaphone.
All with one AAA battery. Handy device.
Now, I've not compared the Neon that I bought to any other brand. There's many other products that perform these same tasks. And in fairness: many older computers can't recognize that a USB storage device has been plugged into them, and this Neon of mine acts up every so often and needs to be reformatted (wiped clean). Mick's final verdict, though? Official DFA seal of approval.
OK, OK, so it's all computery nonsense this month. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With those exams, the PC Upgrade and Repair courses that I am teaching, and my new "Solaris Guru" role at Symantec, I've been sleeping and dreaming the things the last few months.
Now for a subject that's a little more fun...
Orlando, Florida: July 2004. Mick's folks shout with glee. Mick's long-suffering wife groans. Why?
After seven long years, I finally cleared my Florida bookshelves. Visit by visit, suitcase after suitcase- and the odd box by surface post, when my Ma couldn't stand a specific clutter another second longer- I've at last transferred my collection to Dublin.
In recognition of Mick's status as Worst DFA Bookworm in History, Amazon.com has benighted the status of Amazon Associate on this humble site. Mickhalpin.com is now an official portal that highlights my faves & raves.
Anyway: search away in either of the boxes below, whenever you're planning on a purchase from amazon.com or amazon.co.uk for an interesting alternative to visiting through the normal front doors. I'll tinker with it and see if I can't customize the start-off point. I promise not to pester anyone with bad recommendations. I'll just keep stockpiling more and more of the best original Irish and US lit until I've no option but to put a Used Book Shop sign out the front of my house.
What? No shameless plug for NFG Magazine this month? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Issue 5 is still available via mail order, and Issue 6 is due to hit store shelves in February.
On a related note: Paul Haines' magnificent "The Last Days of Kali Yuga" won Australia's Aurelias award for Best Horror of 2004. (Horror? I thought this tale of backpackers drinking their way around Asia spoke more about belief than terror.) Regardless, we're thrilled to have brought it to as many readers as possible. Well done, Paul!
Yes, it's normally some strange music group that I recommend. Traditions are made to be broken. This installment, DFA fans, I'm raving about a film called Bubba Ho-Tep.
"Bubba Ho tep?" I asked Texan Sean.
"Ho-Tep as in mummified pharoh," he explained. "Bubba as in big fat Southern redneck."
Not to give too much away: an Egyptian exhibition mysteriously disappears off the American museums circuit. Years later, bodies start piling up in a secluded Rest Home in Texas, scarabs and hieroglyphics the only evidence. Of course, only one man can stop the evil.
The greatest man of the twentieth century!---
Elvis Presley.
"Oh, please, Mick!" I hear the protest. "Your cracked brain! As soon as you mentioned You're A Star's rejects, I knew an Elvis impersonator would make an appearance sooner or later." Well, let me assure you. Like all enlightened men of reason, I am a fan of The King. But Bubba Ho-Tep is a project that is so off-beat, so true to the original spirit of a dozen things most people had never considered related before, so well done.... no sceptic can deny its charms or power.
It's like when Kevin Doyle covered that crap Enrique Englasias song, spinning musical gold from something weak as straw. Bubba Ho-Tep works. Straight to video upon its 2002 release, word of mouth has since been elevating this outstanding little movie to a cult classic. I lend my voice proudly. Bubba Ho-Tep shakes, rolls and flat-out ROCKS.
One serious note (as serious as is possible about a film where Elvis and a surprise-extra 20th century icon battle a psychopathic redneck mummy): Bruce Campell's portrayal of The King is fantastic. He's got the voice, the moves, and the attitude. More, he makes the character into a statement. This cruel world might consider you washed up, old, useless, a joke- but there's still power within, baby. There's still some good you can do.
Speaking of washed up useless jokes who just may contribute something useful.... Here's a list of new articles in the DFA Guide to Dublin, "The only guide to Ireland written by Americans, for Americans." I've transcribed my recent adventures
and
for your edification. There's also
- a plug for J. G. Farrell, an award-winning Irish author who seems in danger of sinking into obscurity.
But wait! You can also read
- a new profile of A Haunted Heart author John McKenna, free! Unlike Farrell, he did not die catching a fish. (Not yet, anyway.)
Oh! And
- Martin Malone! An Irish dude up for a literary prize worth €100,000, the lucky bugger.
Check ‘em out, alongside the sixty-some odd other nuggets o' wisdom about ex-pat life in Dublin.
That's more than enough for January! What have you been up to? Drop me a line. And come visit again toward the end of February for a new update! It's true! No! These fingers aren't crossed! (ALL LIES!)
Peace
Y F M H
mick @ mickhalpin dot com
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