258 thoughts on “Jack Mangan's Deadpan #108: The Horror, The Horror”

  6. Good thinking Ed.

    I need to check my own code for a “do loop” as I seem to be going nowhere fast.

    Oh, and might I add –
    Six is natural
    Six is fun
    Six is best when it’s one on one … plus 4

  7. Morning Deadpan!

    I’ve been without internet for several days now, I’m going into withdrawal.

    my story: They are doing construction in the lane behind my house. The stupid construction people cut my internet line. Now nobody wants to take responsibility for fixing it. so all I’ve been getting is, “it’ll be fixed tomorrow” for the last few days.

    I tried taking my laptop to a friends house and hooking into his wifi, but it turns out, he didn’ set up his connection and didn’t even know you needed a password, let alone what it was (at least it was a secure network 🙂 )

    right now, I’m at my downtown office. I’ve overridden the security proticols on the internet so I can get some WF and personal work done, but will have to put them back on and get off the line soon to do real work as, without internet, I’ve been unable to connect to the office and get anything done from home.

    It’s quite the sob story.

  9. If I don’t get it up by lunch time today, I think I’ll hit the mall with my laptop. They’re supposed to have open WiFi

  10. So now I know I know the name of the waitress at the coffee shop I offended saying she didn’t need an iPod. But only cos a pensioner asked her directly and I overheard.

    Am I a man or a mouse?

    Squeak!

  11. I don’t know Van. Is she cute? I suppose you can use it as an in as getting to know her 😉 Maybe you can make up for offending her.

  12. Just got a call from my hubby. It seems the hot water tap in the bathroom doesn’t want to shut off. I guess I’m going to my local Revy from here to get a new set of taps.

    oh joy.

  13. My current Gutenberg project, James De Mille – The Dodge Club, is really
    fighting me on the html version.

    Normally, I wouldn’t bother, but this book has 92 beautiful illustrations that deserve to be preserved, and html is the only way Gutenberg lets you do that.

  15. Well Pan. It’s been a slice. I’m not sure when I’ll have internet again, so maybe you’ll hear from me in the near future, and maybe you won’t.

    Ta

  17. TEB – you might check that faucet. Given the construction foul-ups, perhaps that is actually raw Interweb that is pouring out of that pipe!

    BTM – any chick that can over-ride security proticols is aces with me! 🙂

  26. This is a quote from Sting about “7 Days”

    “On ‘Seven Days’, we wanted to do something in 5/4 time with a kind of reggae beat and chords that come out of a Broadway show. It was a hybrid and the fun was in trying to make sense of this three-legged animal with two heads. I’m working with musicians I have to keep challenging and make demands on them by asking them to do things that aren’t natural.”

    5/4 time! Take that you damn pop idol wanna be’s.

  27. I recall the lyric, now that you quote it. J0e. But I couldn’t remember the song without Rhett’s link.

    Decent album. “Shape of My Heart” just might be the absolute best of Sting’s ouvre.

  39. Well fuck.

    “Your music was great, but we’re really cutting costs, so we’re not going to be paying for any more live music at this time.” WTF — I was guaranteed every weekend in October, otherwise, I wouldn’t have promoted it so heavily. Oh well. Apologies if you’d been making plans to go.

  40. I would so be there if I was even within an hours drive!!!!

    There is no getting around the dissapointment here. If you want to try and put a shine on it though … maybe you can invite your pals to come and hang with you for the next two Fridays … but instead of meeting at your place you just move it to the pizza place. Visit with your buds, drink a beer and play when you feel like it. What … are they going to fire you?

    I’m just saying.
    Dissapointing to be sure but you’re Jack Mangon … I know you’ll make the best of it. 🙂

  43. Morning Pan, sorry to hear about the gig cancellations Jack, bloody chilly this morning.

    Listening to an old Coverville with a cover partly performed by Nina of 99 red balloons fame. She has a voice with the power to move….

  45. I found out last week I missed Trevor Boris. He was twenty minutes away from me, and the tickets were $6. Six bucks!! Megaouchies.

    I need more shows for the bed-ridden. Of course, it’d be uber creepy to have a bunch of strangers in my room, watching me ill…

    Okay, I need more streaming content.

  50. Gutenberg project, James De Mille – The Dodge Club, uploading now. 100 hrs of volunteering well spent? Or horribly wasted? You can decide when it goes live 🙂

    It usually takes a couple of days.

  52. My Grandmother died last night.

    She was 95 and has been telling me for at least 2 years now that she was ready to go. Not whining but just very mater of fact. She couldn’t quite get around as well as she used to and really, she thought she had pretty much done all she wanted to do.

    I drove to see her this summer (she lived a good 13hrs drive from me) and we had a good visit. She was clear and alert and could still get around under her own power. We went out to lunch and to a park.

    The last 5 or so years I had really connected to her. I made a point of calling her regularly and found that I could talk to her about my own father as a youth or even about current events. She had a pretty good sense of humor too and while other folks might “dance around” normally sensitive topics with her, I could joke with her about that stuff and she would just laugh.

    Given her age, she had a pretty interesting prospective on life. War, political scandals, natural disasters, pre-occupation with celebrities … she had seen it all at least once (if not twice) before . She also let her age give her permission to say what was on her mind. She didn’t offer her opinion un-solicited but if you ask her she would tell you, direct and to the point.

    I’m not sad for her but certainly for my Dad and for myself.

    Okay, I didn’t mean to bring the room down with this but I needed to talk with someone about her.
    Thanks Deadpan.

    Please resume all irregularly unscheduled activities.

  53. Joe…*hug*

    When you lose someone who you could reasonably say had a good run, it still sucks. It sucks harder. The longer someone awesome is in our lives, the more it only seems fair that they should be there forever.

    The greatest gift we give each other is time.

  59. My condolences too JOe. It’s never a good time when your grandparents pass away. She sounds like a remarkable lady.

    Jack, sorry about getting cut on your gigs, but as you say there are other gigs out there. I look forward to you performing at one soon.

  60. I greatly appreciate the kind words from everyone about my gigs. But yeah, that’s trivial, compared to what J0e is feeling.

    Sorry for your loss, J0e. There are a lot of positives there about her life, but that still doesn’t lessen the grief and pain. I’m here for you as a sounding board, amigo, as is the Deadpan.

  67. Holy cow, I’ve been living in this apartment for over a month and a half, and it hadn’t even occurred to me to call in the contents of my fridge until you mentioned it just now! I’d been so focused on Questors and on real life that I’d totally forgotten about that. I’ll have to record what’s in my fridge soon.

  69. Hi Deadpan! Long time, no nipple.

    JOe – I’m sorry for your sadness, brother.

    Jack – I want to open a bar so you can play in it.

    Van – I could obviously tell you about the Mossad, but then I’d have to kill you. I think I’ll keep that one to myself . . .

    I’m in and out this morning. I was missing you all and just had to say hi. Life is kicking my ass at the moment, but I think I’m winning.

  71. btw: haven’t had my coffee yet and so I didn’t feel qualified to make the appropriate, inappropriate comment about “I’m in and out this morning.” …

    … so, I will just have to trust each of you to silently make your own comments at home.

  74. JaJ, condolences, buddy.

    It’s been the week of chaos around us this week. Darcy’s show went into the first couple days of Tech, so work on finishing that has been rough, especially the day her serger broke down. At least this was a good excuse to buy a $150 used one along with getting the other one fixed (not that we could really afford either, but she gets paid for using them so…)

    They bumped our work move from 45-60 days to thiscoming Monday, but then the sales/CS folks never built in a “Moving Day” into the sched, so it has been chaos at work all week. Just have to remind myself that the 42 miles daily reduction on my commute will be oh so nice…

    And coming into Friday, Fox and Darcy picked up the latest cold making the rounds too.

  78. I am waaaay behind in my podcasts (no internet, unable to download 🙁 )

    Well Pan, I’m off to kick some butt. Talk to you later!

  85. Yeah – as with any media – random sampling will generally turn up crap.

    I hear that Wander Radio is a good one. You can probably get lots of good recommendations from the guys around here, actually.

  89. Late greetings all. I’ve been somewhat out of pocket working on something I’ll share tomorrow.

    Joe – condolences on your grandmother. Sounds like she was a special one.

    Jack – definitely unfortunate about the gig cancellation.

    I know almost nothing about what’s been going on in the world since Thursday. Have I missed much?

  90. Most of the world has gone dark.
    Europe, Asia, the middle east, Africa.
    Reports are sketchy.

    Satalite communication went first. Then land lines.

    Our government is working on some sort of emergency package that involves giving Haliburton executives our space shuttle fleet and the remaining inventory of Fort Knox.

    … they’ve also inexplicably started issuing life jackets.

    I’ll type more as it bec

  92. Morning Pan!

    plus two right now, making it a beautiful autumn day.

    Am being bad. Have decided to ditch a WF meeting today so we can go see Max Paine this afternoon 👿

  100. 100ties!!

    skimming over the comments:

    j0e- I am so sorry for your loss

    I hope everyone is good.

    Bunny is your internet back yet?

    Ed- whats this bif project?

    Jack- sorry about the cancellations.. Glad I saw this before I asked you how your shows were this weekend 🙂

    jB- hope things get less hectic

    as for us.. this is my only stop by and we will continue to be MIA for the next couple weeks.
    Going to Houston next week where maybe we will get a chance to hang with Ed *swooooooon* 🙂

  102. At last I can share what I’ve been up to the last few days. Even though the 401k has taken a big hit this year, my job looks solid, even with the unfortunate likelihood of an Obama presidency. For 12 years, my 1996 Accord has been a workhorse and was the first new car that my wife and I purchased when we graduated from college. A few weeks back, it crossed 200,000 miles.

    But, especially over this last year, it’s been having little failures along they way that have been putting it in the shop more often. The most recent forced some appointments to be canceled while we juggled getting the kids to school and me to work. We were going to hold off and replace the car next year. But, the weak auto market lead us to see if we could get a good deal now.

    And get a good deal we did. I hate buying cars and dealing with the “stealerships”, which is one reason I make my vehicles last as long as I do. This time proved a pleasant exception. For the first time, I walked out knowing that I got a really really good deal on my purchase.

    Some of you probably won’t be surprised at my choice. The wife and I tested out several cars, and while there were some serious contenders, we ultimately both agreed that we had found our car:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/ultimate_ed/2957054372/

    This thing is amazing inside and out. I had done a lot of research and thought I knew a lot about this car. Even I was surprised at the amount of thought, detail, and creative gadgetry that have gone into this car.

    The whole experience with this particular dealer was actually pleasant. I’m actually looking forward to the next time I’ll be in the market for a purchase.

    I could have bought a Benz, BMW, or Lexus. But, I would have been buying something to impress other people. I don’t really like any of those cars, for a variety of reasons. This car is a reward for me and I’m now looking forward to the work commute each day.

  103. You know, one thing that has always bugged me about Gmail is the inability to put pictures in the message and have them display directly. Well, looks like there’s a way around it, using Google Docs to compose the message.

    http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Composing-Messages-en/browse_thread/thread/24217ecbb63ee5ae?pli=1

    In case the video isn’t clear, you basically build your message as a Google Doc, then click SHARE and Email as attachment. You’ll get a mail dialog to put in recipients and title. Choose the “Paste the document itself into the email message” option and your recipients will get the message with the inline pictures.

    Enjoy!

  104. Wow Ed! That’s like the Cadillac of family vehicles! Congrats on the sweet new ride.

    And with all the extra money you have during an Obama presidency, plus the lower gas prices we’ll have, you’ll be able to drive it a lot more often! 😉

    I kid, Ed. I still don’t fully believe that anything is settled.

    I hope you get to take the Smarty Hotties for a ride in that thing.

  107. I need to get out more. Watching the latest Family Guy, looking at the Me109Gs and Lancaster bombers depicted in the episode, and thinking “Hang on, those weren’t around in 1939..”

    cough

  109. Morning Pan!

    In answer to your earlier question, Van. I enjoyed Max Payne. You have to go in with no expectations. I never played the games, though my husband has. The trailers are a little deceiving, so you have to also ignore those. It’s a pretty good cop type movie following the formula of: “Cop loses wife in horrible crime. Spends the last three years as desk cop, but searches for wife’s killer during off hours.” (that’s all I’m going to say or I’ll start to get into spoiler territory). If you like those kinds of movies, it wasn’t too bad.

  110. The problem I’m having with podcasts is they all think they’re being cute by overlaying music with dialogue. I don’t care what dick tells you that is ‘professional’; it’s not. What it *is* is creating a a situation where all I hear is painful noise.

    So, content totally aside, since I can’t get enough to rate that fairly, the problem I have is the same one that smacks me down in every aspect of the universe in general: it’s not disabled accessible, and it’s proud of it.

  111. Bunny, the Max Payne games have some of the best story writing anywhere, in any medium. So I so not touching that movie, because it’s doomed to suck. They blow ‘game movies’ anyway, but this one will be more embarrassing because of how far they will make it fall.

  112. That’s probably where I was at an advantage, MD. Not having played the games myself, I took the movie for what it was. My husband, who played the first game, and maybe the second (I can’t remember on that one) said the movie was “ok” but wouldn’t comment to more than that.

  113. I loved the games so much, I played them multiple times. While I’ve played other good games, I usually don’t give in to the urge to replay them. But Sam Lake wrote such good stuff, I had to.

    I knew the movie was a write-off when there was winged angel / demons in the first trailer.

  114. And wow, you think fonts are ridiculously tiny now? The new De Mille project I’m working on, it looks like 4pt, tops. Insane.

    Thank all I can work from the scans, or I’d have to bail.

  115. As I said, MD. Ignore the trailer. I don’t want to give too many spoilers, but suffice it to say, the winged creatures are not as they are portrayed…. If you don’t mind spoilers you can e-mail me ryahatnucleusdotcom, and I’ll tell you the meaning behind the angel/demons

  116. Well, the sun is just starting to add a little pink to the horizon. I don’t think I like this getting up before the sun business.

  117. So can anyone tell me (not really, I’m not totally serious) why is it, the US economy is dying, yet it’s our dollar that’s dropping. Shouldn’t it be the opposite since our economy is holding fairly steady?

  119. And another thing… (it’s rant time, obviously), if I live in gas-rich Alberta, why is my at pump price higher than Ontario’s?

  124. Doesn’t currency fall for the same reason the stocks do? Twits are panicking.
    They bail like lemmings, and things go bad, so they panic more. It’s vicious cycle 101.

    Maybe we should just be hosing lithium down their throats…

  125. MD: Not quite. Someone that understands economics better than I should probably answer this, but as I understand it, the valuation of a country’s monetary unit has a lot to do with government policies, and the country’s economy as a whole, not it’s stock market.

  128. I thought it has to do with investor’s confidence in the currency. People want the dollars they think have value. Although your dollar also goes up and down based on the currency it’s compared with, so it’s not just what they think of you directly…

    It’s all pretend anyway. It’s like someone claiming they know the mechanism of a chemical reaction.

  130. As of this minute our dollar is worth 0.8371 on the US. I hope it goes up again within the next month as we are planning to book a spring trip in November.

  136. TEB is going to do another rant. I live in Alberta. Cattle and truck country. So why is it, everybody I know, owns small vehicles.

    I rant because I’m leaving in about half an hour to move a bunch of WF08 books from our mailing address to our storage locker. I’m always the one asked to help move, because I have the biggest vehicle of the group. And I just have a Toyota (what is the) Matrix. Tomorrow, I get to pick up the souvenir books. I need to get to know more “Alberta Rednecks”.

  146. Holy crapmuffins!!! I just got a phone call from the hospital, offering to move my surgery up.

    You probably all heard me yell: “Yes!”

    Of course, now I’m shaking in terror, but reminding myself that this is good thing. An excellent thing. A total awesome.

  161. All moved in to new temporary workplace location. Looks like it will be a big improvement, even if it is only until new space is renovated for us. Bright, I can see the outdoors, morale much improved (note this message), and generally happier place…

  164. Average 0.194 with the last being the fastest at 0.173

    Well, there goes another excuse for why I suck and Call of Duty. I’m fast running out of excuses beyond just generally being a lousy shot.

  172. Average time: 0.416.
    Fastest time: 0.253.
    My average is skewed by my time on the last dot, which was 0.97 – my reaction was not to startle, but rather to go, “huh? what’s this? oh, it’s a different color, yeah.”

  173. Tried the reaction-time test again, using the mouse button on my laptop instead of my separate USB mouse. Since I knew what to expect, my average when down to 0.29, and my time on the last dot was my fastest this time (0.234).

    Now let’s try it with the touchpad only!

  175. Using the touchpad made my time WAY slower, because the motion I made with my finger was much more careful and deliberate. It brought my average time all the way down to 0.421, with 0.336 as my fastest (second to last dot).

  178. dangerous thoughts, joe…..

    hmmm, a few years ago, I probably coulda used my shiny new car that I have no equity in for collateral. Alas, those days are probably behind us.

  183. Well, I tried it again, just to make sure it wasn’t some sort of fluke.

    Umm, averaged 0.196 again. So, while I still suck at COD, it’s apparently helped my reflexes a good deal.

    I’ll have to pass this on to the game forum to see what the other players manage.

  185. I’m thinking Ed plays waaaay to much video games.

    Jack – I’ve found about $3.82 (don’t forget the couch cushions and under your car seats!

    I’ve always thought that the best way to have a successful bar/club type establishment … would be to make money some OTHER way with that same space. For instance, have the back room be full of servers and you actually make money as storage space or web service.
    Or maybe you have some sort of web based design service.
    Or maybe you have a meth lab in the basement.
    The key is NOT to have to turn a profit with the bar itself. This leads to a more relaxed atmosphere and allows you huge flexibility with entertainment should you choose to provide it.

    OK
    So, all we need now is a Deadpanite with sound business experience, a Deadpanite with an upstanding enough “permanent record” to qualify for a business loan and we need an excruciatingly clever plan.
    We are soooo close on this one.

  186. Well, which Deadpan Bar do we like better, the hopping and bustling one or the dead quiet one? The various text versions have ranged between the two, and the audio versions have the “Death of Jack Mangan” which was no business, and the Origin Story, with hopping business…

  187. Morning Pan.

    Glad you like you’re new work digs, JB.

    For the bar, I have a Toonie – but I think that only works out to $1.70 US.

  190. That’d be a $2 coin, Van. The Canadian $1 coin has a loon on it, and they did away with their paper dollar at the time they introduced it. The $1 got to be called a “Loonie.” Accordingly, when the $2 was issued (a marvelous-looking two-metal coin like a silver coin center with a gold hug) it was pretty easy to go to “Toonie” in the vernacular.

  197. I’ve been asked to stay after class a couple of time to “refine my technique” (this is not as bad as it seems as, whenever a blackbelt stays late, other people stay late to continue practicing so we’re not alone)

    He’s also said when I test for my yellow belt (which would have been on Nov 1st but had to be pushed back a month because I won’t be there for WF), he was going to be my testing partner. Even other belts have commented on how unusual this is because black belts don’t partner with whites, usually it’s greens or even blues. Nobody has ever heard of a black belt being a testing partner for a white.

    He also like to hang around me in class and “give me pointers”

    It’s not uncomfortable, yet. I just think it’s strange because he knows I’m married.

  205. Playing with Drupal this week. So far I’ve installed the wrong version and then uploaded the correct version to the wrong directory and deleted it before realizing why I couldn’t find it…

    On the up side, I’m having fun playing with the click timer thing. Thanx for posting that one.

    And EB? “I just think it’s strange because he knows I’m married.” In my very limited experience, that’s a warning sign that he doesn’t care. Be careful, okay?

  206. Scry, if it starts to bug me, I just have to let the teacher know, Master Park, and he’ll put a stop to it very quickly.

    Well Pan, now off to transport more books for WF. It looks like people will be getting well over $200 in books in their membership bags. (extra weight charges on the airplane 🙂 )

    Ta

  208. Naw, I actually think it’s funny (and, as Van said, a little flattering). the minute he decides to ask me for coffee or anything outside of class, I’ll put an immediate kibosh on it.

    OK, really, really am going.

  210. Due to a hectic morning, I didn’t have time to put together a lunch, so I’m off to discover what Maple Grove/Osseo has to offer. Sadly, I don’t have the time today for a leisurely lunch, so I’ll have to go with whatever I find first instead of looking for what’s best…

  211. While I’m certain Osseo offers a nice Main Street alternative if I look for it, I opted for the regional chain sandwich shop Erbert & Gerbert’s down in Maple Grove. Some lunch hour when I can take my time, I’ll check out Osseo, I promise.

    Of course, I can hardly afford to forget to make lunch at home all that often, so it might take a while.

  213. Heck, they might have, the chain is based out of Madison, WI, or at least started there, so there’s a decent chance they spread down to Chi-town as well as up to the Twin Cities…

    Of course it would have had to been back when Ebert still had a tongue and Siskel still had life…

  237. You know, with the latest Heroes, things are finally getting interesting. And yet, I cant’ help but get wrapped up in how recursive it all is. If future Peter hadn’t come back and taken today Peter to the future, it seems much of the trouble wouldn’t have happened.

  240. Not that it’s the strangest word in the world, but I listened to two podcasts in a row just now that used the word “ephemeral.”

  242. That was selected as the podcaster’s “word of the week”.
    You get points for using it. Double points for actually using it in an appropriate manor.

    You must not have gotten the memo.

  244. I finally got around to watching the “Heroes” season premiere last night.
    Thank heavens for the fast forward capabilities of my TiVo. I wouldn’t have made it through it otherwise. I find I no longer care about most of the characters.

    All in all, I kind of wish I had spent that 1.5 hours doing something else.

  246. Ah Heroes, while this week’s episode is an improvement, I can’t get over the idea that the characters are just doing a lot of “stuff” without rhyme or reason. It’s getting harder to care what happens to them. It’s still a fun show but it isn’t the “awesome” of first season.

  249. Wow, it’s been a quiet day here.

    I posted the reaction time test on the game server forum that I follow. Average response there is looking to be about 0.21 with a couple that were faster than me.

    See, video games are good for something 🙂

  253. Exclusivity contracts promise more profits, Ed. In these cases anyway.

    It can also make for lots of unforgiving rage though, especially when you’re dumb enough to sign an exclusivity deal with a store chain that has locations like 3000 km apart.

    Plus your sales will blow.

  254. Wal Mart makes some interesting demands. So, if you are just an individual with product (like say, an independent film) it can b very difficult to do business with them. For instance, they agree to put your product on their shelves but you have to be able to deliver a hundred thousand units to them. All well and good except that they don’t pay you must shell out the cash to have these things produced in the first place. Let’s say, oh … $30K out of pocket.

    Gets better though. They pay you for the items BUT you have to sit on that cash because they demand that you must buy back ALL unsold stock after a pre-determined length of time. Will they sell 5 of the items or 50 thousand? No one knows. So you better not spend that money they gave you.

    All of this is “just doing business” if you are Sony or Disney. For the independent artist though … it’s pretty daunting.

  256. Thank you for trying JB. The new day did come 🙂

    Hugh and I must rest now. Tomorrow we will leave our liberal safe place to visit the great red state of Texas.

    night pan
    hope you are not up too late with the new pan, Jack
    see you when we return to Chicago

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