Tech Forums drive me CRAZY!

I can't stand it when I'm trying to find an answer to a tech question and the only resource I have is forums. Why? The people who start the threads rarely know a thing about what they're trying to do and they have their terminology completely off so a search on something relevant to your problem pulls up millions of irrelevant forums topics.

Example: I have a Belkin 54 G (FSD7230-4) router that I use for my wireless connection at my house. I recently set up our old desktop pc in my room and have it connected to my external hard drive so I can listen to all of my music on there. Problem is the PC doesn't have a wireless PCI card. But I happen to have a Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless B router that still works. I thought hey wouldn't it be great if I could just set that up as a Client AP and setup my Belkin to send a wireless bridge signal to it and therefore get my WAN connection on the PC in my room from that bridge link. So I set about setting it up and trying to figure it all out. I've gotten into the settings for the linksys and been able to try all kinds of customizations. I also tried messing with the Belkin and the only thing I've succeeded at so far is completely screwing up my network twice. So I've actually had to reconfigure my network twice so that I can just get my internet access back again.

I've been searching and searching for somewhere that would say how to set something like this up. Something to tell me just what settings I need to set up on the linksys including what IP address and gateway to use as well as any other settings such as the IP for the PC and stuff. There is a guide on how to configure the bridge in the Belkin which is really easy. But I haven't been able to find anything on setting up the Linksys that way. I have found a couple of forums on the topic but they all deal with using a Linksys 54 G with some special third party firmware that I can't use on either of the routers I have. The terminology and skill of most of these thread starters is insane. I am wondering what most of these people are doing trying to set these things up in the first place. One guy in particular kept calling his wireless router a "bridge mode AP" even though the router he had wouldn't do bridge mode and he didn't know how to find out the IP address of his computer or to a trace route from the command line. Another guy kept talking about B-mode and G-mode for wireless APs. There's no such thing as B-mode and G-mode. These are standards my friend not modes. There was one that I could have answered easily had I been around to read it when the guy first started but there were about 5 pages of debate as to whether or not the linksys B router supports WPA or not. Simple, it does not.

Then you have the responders who instead of trying to find a simple solution to the problem want you to change all of your network settings and do a hard reset on your device and then do a little rain dance. Either that or you get the people who have nothing more useful to contribute other than "your device sucks buy a new one" or something similar. The non-simple replies usually tend to give very little assistance as far as helping you figure out just what they want you to do either. They give a huge list of instructions that assume you know exactly what program you are supposed to be using or what config or batch code you are editing.

I am very frustrated. I also hate when you type support or setup or troubleshoot into the search but you still get price comparisons and reviews in the results. The only things I've found that even talk about what I want to do don't at all explain how to do it. They just show a pretty diagram and say "look you can do this with it!" I'd like to tell them what else they can do with it...

P.S. HP has probably the worst support website in the world.

Yes another XF post

I found out about the official X-Files sequel site being up and when I tried to go there I got a 403 server error. It looks like the site is somewhat unstable right about now but I was able to get through just now so I got some screenshots. The site is www.xfiles.com in case you want to try to check it out yourself. There's not much there yet but will be soon.

New Poster

And here's the X-Files 2 official movie poster that was leaked.

X-Files trailers

I have unfortunately not been able to stay on top of and as obsessed over the new X-Files movie that is coming out on June 25th 2008. But nonetheless I have been able to keep up with it enough to continue being as excited over it as the next fan is. I haven't been able to take a week off to go to Geekcon or whatever other Cons are going on where Chris and Frank spill the beans about XF (there should be some sarcasm implied with that last statement as the truth is very little has been revealed about the film at all) but I am grateful to those who have devoted their entire lives to websites about it so that I can easily find up to date information. The newest thing I have discovered is the following new video as a trailer for the movie. It doesn't shows anything from the movie but it has some great moments and voice overs from the series and really does a great job of summing 9 years up. The annoying part about this video is unfortunately it was recorded by probably the most annoying group of girls in the world who feel it necessary to coo and aw every four seconds and scream as loud as they can when Mulder and Scully kiss even though we all know that they kissed already 8 years ago and its time to quit acting like teenagers about it and just be happy that they're together. Man alive the downside to being an X-Phile is having to deal with Shippers whose entire fanship of the show is based on Mulder and Scully's relationship and none of it on the great SciFi/Horror/Conspiracy Theory that the show gave the rest of us. Anyway, without further doodoo here's the video.



And since I haven't already posted about the official first trailer that was shown at Wondercon I'll include that as an added bonus here.



Gasp! Even bigger news. Just found a partial of the second Movie trailer with footage from the movie. There are a couple scenes that we haven't seen yet. Including Mulder telling Scully he needs her help. Interesting...

New XF2 Spoiler from CNN

So most of this is the same old that you've heard over and over in every news article about TXF2 since you started looking for more info about it. But there's is a little something new in there too. Enjoy!

'X-Files' creator spills some details about film

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The truth about "The X-Files" sequel -- some of it, anyway -- is now out there.

"X-Files" creator Chris Carter, writer Frank Spotnitz and other crew members gathered Wednesday to discuss the TV series -- and declassify some information about the upcoming film.

The popular Fox paranormal drama, which aired from 1993 to 2002, starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully

"While this is not a mythology movie, it's true to everything that's come before," Spotnitz said at the William S. Paley Television Festival. "It's true to Mulder and Scully, who they are and where they would be this point in their lives and all of the experiences that they've had."

The series first made the leap to the big screen with 1998's "The X-Files: Fight the Future." Plans for another film were grounded in 2005 when Carter sued Fox over syndication profits for the show. The lawsuit was later settled.

Carter, who also directs the new movie, said it takes place in the present and uses a story envisioned when the series ended. While the show's sprawling alien mythology isn't part of the plot, Carter said there is a reference to Scully's seemingly supernatural son, William, who was born in season eight and later given up for adoption.

The film is due out July 25.

Carter was tightlipped about the title.

"I can't tell you," he said. "I know what I want it to be, but Fox has some ideas of their own."

CNN Article

X-Files Limericks Season 1!

Get ready for some Sanpaco Rhyme Licks! Well I have been kind of busy lately with school and I don't think I've really had a whole lot of interesting or original thoughts. So for today's post I'm going to dig into the archives of some dumb poetry I've written over the past year or so. The following is a limerick for every episode of the first season of The X-Files. Hope you enjoy them.

Pilot

Exhuming a boy that was dead,
Finding a monkey instead.
Time loss at night,
And scary bug bites.
Dirty feet means he got out of bed.


Deep Throat

Test pilots going insane
Implies they aren't flying a plane.
When Mulder then spies
UFOs that fly by
The memory is erased from his brain.


Squeeze

Eugene Victor Tooms is a man
Who'll eat your liver with his bare hands.
He sleeps in his bile
And this gooey X-File
In thirty years will come back again.


Conduit

A sunburn at night by the lake
Can't be a weather balloon mistake
The girl is returned
By the trees that were burned
And her mother tells her it was fake.


The Jersey Devil

She'll tear out your lung if you piss her.
She's a cannibalistic sister.
One homeless man dead
Another in a hotel bed.
Mulder is sure gonna miss her.


Shadows

Her boss treated her like a dad.
Now he's dead and she's very sad.
Now he's a ghost.
Her new boss is toast.
He kills them all because he's mad.


Ghost in the Machine

A computer named COS
That everyone thought was the best.
A C.E.O. shocked
And FBI squashed;
Now a virus will lay it to rest.


Ice

A virus pulled out of the ice
Just didn't know how to play nice.
If infected you'll kill
Because you are ill.
The cure is to be infected twice.


Space

A girl who's fiance is flying,
And a captain unknowingly lying,
A ghost face from Mars
Flips over cars,
The captain tries helping by dying.


Fallen Angel

An invisible alien burns
All in his path where he turns.
A fun-loving schizo
Turns into a psycho
Abducted by aliens Mulder learns.


Eve

Psychopathic Eves escape
And to the young one's fathers exsanguinate.
Two little twins
Beginning to sin
Later escape with Eve 8.


Fire

A man controls fire so hot,
And burns Parliament members a lot.
Mulder's afraid
Of the fire he made,
And he burns himself when he is caught.


Beyond the Sea

Dana Scully's dad has died.
She misses him deep down inside.
When she works on a case,
She again sees his face
On a psychic criminal, then cried.


Gender Bender

A man or a woman? Who knows?
It turns out that 'it' is both.
Sleeping in clay
Then they all went away
In one of their UFOs.


Lazarus

An FBI agent survives
But has a different spirit inside
The criminal's wife
Then takes his life
Right after he remembers a snowy drive.


Young at Heart

A man who much older was
Now younger with a salamander glove.
When first he was caught
Mulder should have shot.
When he catches him again, he does.


E. B. E.

UFOs seen everywhere
Means something's definitely up there.
There's taps and bugs
Which Mulder unplugs
And give Scully a bit of a scare.


Miracle Man

The touch from the son of a preacher
Instead of a miracle brings a seizure.
A man dressed in black
Wants to go back.
He was dead at the start of the feature.


Shapes

A shape-shifting werewolf no doubt
Will eat something more than just trout
A man with a gun
Stopped all his fun
Then his son ripped his jugular out.


Darkness Falls

Loggers go cut down a tree
And let mini spiders go free
They come out at night
But stay out of the light
Sucking mositure out of you and me.


Tooms

Tooms hunting liver again
Has suddenly found a new friend
Mulder close by
On him keeps an eye
An escalator gives Tooms his end.


Born Again

If a man could come back from the dead
And live in a little girl's head
Revenge he would get
For the murder he met
By the guy that's now in his wife's bed.


Roland

Scientists keep getting killed
One by getting his head chilled
An evil twin's brain
Makes Roland cause pain
Because it projects to him its will.


The Erlenmeyer Flask

A doctor with alien DNA
From the syndicate runs away
A flask labeled "Purity"
Turns out not to be
The monkey pee, Scully will say

Fast Food Mishaps

Maybe this is something you are used to as well. You go to the drive thru. You hear an unintelligible voice come through on the intercom. Not sure what has been said, you decide that you have been prompted to order. You say your order, "Steak Quesadilla and a medium Sierra Mist." You wait for a response. Soon you hear another voice which reminds you of the teacher in Charlie Brown. The tone and reflexion in the voice tells you from experience that your order is being confirmed. Now what you should say at this point is something like, "I have no clue what you just said," but instead you say something like, "yes that's correct," and you pull through. Of course at this point you have to sit behing the car in front of you who you decide must have ordered at least four bean burritos for each person they work with since there's no way one person could eat that many bags of food. You finally get your food and realize that instead of a medium Sierra Mist you've gotten some nappy potato and sour cream bowl. You decide not to make a fuss since its your fault for telling them the order was correct in the first place when you really didn't know if it was, so instead you leave and decide to make the best of your meal. You park to eat your nappy potato thing and that's when you realize you weren't given a fork or a spoon or even a napkin for heaven's sake. Your frustration at this point is such that you decide the best option would be to hurl the nappy potato thing at the door of the restaurant while screaming obscenities and displaying your manicurists talent on a certain finger as you drive away. At least you got your steak quesadilla instead of a baked case of pitas.

Well that has been my experience at a number of fast food locations. I have learned which ones to avoid depending on which area I am in be it while I'm around home, at work, or at school. One particular Wendy's near the airport was especially bad at getting my order right. Of course I usually had a special request like "no pickles" or something complicated like that. I had mix ups like getting a Coke instead of a Lemonade, getting a Cheeseburger instead of Chicken Nuggets, and getting super sized when I said small. My favorite experience at this one was when I finally decided I would make it as simple as I could by just ordering a #6 with a Coke. I was asked if I wanted any sauce and I said no. I went through the line and what do you know. EXTRA SAUCE! Sigh...

Another fun food mix at the drive thru happened to a friend of mine while I was present. We were at McDonald's and we all wanted two Double Cheeseburger's each. This particular friend always gets his with only meat cheese and ketchup which is the same as no pickles or onions. So we get to the intercom and the driver says, "6 double cheeseburgers, two without pickles or onions." The display shows our order as: 6 Double Cheeseburgers, 2 add mayo". So he says, "you got the order wrong we don't want mayo on 2, we want no pickles and onions on those two." The guy impatiently responds, "Yeah I got it, pull through." We decide to trust him and we pull through. Guess what. We get our food and sure enough we have two double cheeseburgers with mayo and no pickles and onions.

I don't know that there's really a point to this post other than to say, the drive thru can be very dangerous. Always make sure that your order is right!

Someone Stole the Baby!

So one of my best friends recently had his first kid and she is very sweet and adorable. Ever since she was born I've felt very differently towards having kids. I've always wanted to have kids after I'm married, but with all the nieces and nephews I've had to deal with and my short patience when it comes to dealing with loud obnoxious noises (which if you ask any of my 5 sisters, they will say this is very strange to hear coming from me) taking all that into mind I can say that I haven't exactly worried about how soon I would have a kid myself. But since this sweet little girl's birth I have felt excited at the thought of being a father. I have felt more patience towards my nieces and nephews and anytime I see a kid I get that gooey feeling inside. Recently I was listening to a story and a man talks about how he feels towards his young son when he asks for a candy apple and then later swats the apple out of the kids hand because he thinks he sees something in it and the kid starts crying. As I listened to this part of the story I myself almost started crying for the poor kid as if I was the dad and had just scared the poor kid and ruined his apple that he had been so excited about.

Anyway why do I bring this up you ask? Well last night I had an interesting dream. A very vivid dream. I was with my friend who I mentioned already and we were taking care of his daughter. She was wrapped up and I was holding her. We were in a kind of dark hallway waiting for something. As we stood there my friend had to go get something or do something I don't remember what exactly but in any case he left and I was there still with his daughter taking care of her until he got back. As I stood there waiting I really had to go to the bathroom. I held it but after a while I just couldn't anymore so I thought, "I'll just put her down here for a minute and then I'll come back and she'll be fine." Kind of the same thought process I have anytime I leave my computer on a table while I go to the bathroom or a vending machine while I'm on campus. I of course worry that someone will steal it but I figure I'll only be gone a minute or so and there's people all over the place. So I go. Then I come back and there is a brown paper bag there where I left the baby. For some reason this wasn't strange to me and I think she must have been wrapped in a paper bag before. So I'm holding this bag and there's something warm inside so I'm not too worried. But my mind keeps nagging at me to just check and make sure its the baby I'm holding. I finally check and... NO BABY! I look in the bag and there's a bunch of fast food hamburgers and such. It quickly dawns on me that I've lost my friend's baby. I can't really describe just how awful that feels. There's no undo button. You can't buy an identical one and hope he doesn't find out. You've just lost the baby and the only thing that matters is getting it back. Well I woke up before I could find the baby but I did go to his house tonight and am happy to report that he still has a daughter and no one has lost her yet. And I am having second thoughts on how soon I really will be ready to have a kid. Especially if I'm going to be putting them in paper bags and mistaking them for fast food.

Storm of the Century Review

WARNING! THIS ENTRY CONTAINS SPOILERS

If you have never seen Storm of the Century and you plan to see it someday then I suggest not reading this review as it is focused on my opinion on the ending.

From my comment profile at IMDb.com:

Storm of the Century was a very good show but with an ending that I wish had been different. I'm not saying that it was a poor ending as in not well written but I just was hoping for a different outcome and was very frustrated when it did not happen. It is probably more realistic in that sense and therefore makes its point very effectively.

I think the point of the story was that the majority of the town had no true religion or belief in anything even though they may have said they did. It is a cynical statement against most religion and how people tend to not live according to their own beliefs and standards. Mike Anderson seemed to be the only person in the town that truly did believe that God could save them if they stood up against the devil. And all the talk about how it would be better to have a child live with a bad man than to die? This shows that they did not believe that if their children were to die that they would at least be innocent and go to be with God, instead they would rather they have a temporary life in sin and be led to eternal damnation. This frustrates me so bad about the people in this town. It would have made me even more furious than Mike had it been me in his place. They basically say that the only choice they have is to give a child to the devil (damnation for all of them) instead of fighting against him and possibly dying but at least not giving in to the devil (salvation).

Stephen King is a very cynical writer and I usually enjoy his stories for this reason but I think this story just hit a very sensitive nerve. I like to believe that I would have been the "Mike Anderson" in the situation and I am fairly confident that I would because of the strength and firmness I have in what I believe religiously; however, I think there are many people who on the outside appear to be good religious people that turn out to have no real faith at all.

The difference in this ending compared to other Stephen King endings is that the hero of the story is the one who loses where in other King novels-while some of the good guys do die-the good side always ends up triumphant. But in this one the good guy that everyone is rooting for basically gets screwed and betrayed by his closest friends and his own wife to give away what he most loves in this world being his son. This is possibly one of the most tragic endings to any movie or play or book that I have ever come across. And finally to end there was the added factor that I kept thinking that for sure things would end up OK for Mike. I was wrong.

I have seen plenty of Stephen King movies and I know that I many of them have tragic endings but this one caught me off guard because I really cared a lot about Mike's character and wanted him to come out on top. I think one of the elements that make Stephen King's character's so interesting is that often times you can't really tell whether a character is good or bad. Sometimes they start out good but when they are faced with giving into evil or resisting they do the exact opposite of what you would expect.

A lot of Stephen King's character's, like Jack Torrance in The Shining, are weak in my opinion and that is why they give into evil influence. In fact if you listen to Stephen King commentary on The Stand he mentions this idea used in that story. Everyone is good but some are only good to the point where evil can easily overtake them anyway I believe is what he says. Basically I take this to mean that a lot of people are only good because they fear the consequences of sin or the social implications of doing things that are viewed as unacceptable in our society, but then when they are faced with pure evil in his stories they easily give in because they then fear the consequences and threats that they are faced with from the evil character, like death. To me this is a clear sign that these people have no faith or solid beliefs in any kind of religion at all.

Another example of this kind of hypocrisy is shown in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story Young Goodman Brown where the main character Goodman Brown runs into the Devil himself on walk in the woods. The devil continues to try enticing this good young man to join him and worship him but Goodman Brown continues to refuse by recalling the good righteous lessons he has learned from religious leaders and influences in his life. As he recalls these influences however, the people who most influenced him begin to show up on the path on their way to a devil worshippers meeting. He slowly begins to waiver but holds strong until he reaches the meeting and sees his own wife there as well. He realizes that everything he has ever believed to be good and true has been lies and hypocrisy and in the end he gives into the devil. A sad and cynical commentary on society but I think that is the same message Stephen King tries to convey.

So in Storm of the Century it seems that only the truly good people in the entire town are the ones that get screwed and that's why I didn't like the ending. This is seen in the scene where the boyfriend (can't remember his name off the top of my head) resists killing the pregnant girl but she just turns right around and kills him. So he gets punished by the weak for being strong in the face of evil. But this is just my opinion anyone who did like the ending is entitled to that.

I give this movie an 8 out of 10 rating.

If you would like to see what other reviews I have written you can see them here. Most of them are about X-Files episodes but there are a couple others strung through.

That being said I would encourage everyone who needs an X-Files fix to visit the X-Files Ultimate website. There is recent news and interesting information about the show and the upcoming movie there. Also there is a pretty fun game for those who are not easily frustrated.

Welcome!

So apparently there is a real place called San Paco. I always thought I had made this name up out of the twisted imagination of a 7th grader all those years ago but alas I stand corrected. And unfortunately this means that anyone who has been looking forward to creating a blog called http://sanpaco.blogspot.com will soon find out that instead of the wonderful musings of yours truly, you will find scattered msn archives in spanish of Sergito, Dany, and Yasser. Sad news.

Anyway moving on, I have started this blog on a whim because I have been feeling bored lately and wanted a place to vent. I know a number of people who have their own blogs and they seem to be a lot healthier than me mentally and emotionally. So maybe this blogging is a part of it. Maybe not. In any case it sounds fun too.

Things you can look forward to:
- Personal venting ground for politics and life in general.
- Reviews! I am often listening to audiobooks or actually reading them, short stories, podcasts, watching tv and movies, and listening to music. I have written a number of reviews in the past on sites like IMDb and rateyourmusic. I will link to my profiles on these sites in the future and share my opinions and reviews on these topics on a regular basis.
- The X-Files! I am a geek. But yes I own every episode on DVD including the movie and I know what episode you are talking about just by you saying something like "that one with the weird bat thing that was attacking them on an island". Just as an example. With the recent news (including the recent wrap up of filming) for the X-Files sequel you can probably expect to hear a lot about that for the next while. I probably wouldn't rely on me for an official and up to date news source unless you are out of touch completely with the show and don't want to read all the other sites out there.

So that's about it. I look forward to keeping this up!

My first podcast plug goes to Librivox Stories. This is a podcast feed which provides a number of classic stories from artists such as Edgar Allen Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and others. All Librivox recordings are in the Public Domain meaning they are no longer copyrighted and can be shared for all to enjoy for free. Their website is http://librivox.org and it has more than is on the podcast. Entire books by classic authors. While I was searching tonight I found they had one of C.S. Lewis' first writings called Spirits in Bondage and when I did that search I also found Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a book I've been wanting to read for a long time now. I also found Dante's Divine Comedy. I'm sure there is a lot more there for the taking and enjoying of any and all. Please check it out and if you are a good story teller you can even volunteer to be a reader.