Ever since Brenda & I moved to Boulder there has been one glaring omission from our daily lives, and that is settling down to read a good local newspaper. Back in Jersey, the Star Ledger was an excellent paper that originated from the local county where we last lived in that state. We got great reporting and writing, on everything from the international to the very local. The sports page was phenomenal. Molly Ivins’ column was printed regularly, and we had almost no use for the New York Times and its holier-than-thou masthead font (and pricing).

Here in Boulder, we have the Daily Camera.

Now, being a Boulder newspaper, the Camera boasts some interesting and fun features that definitely pander to the local culture. There is a “trail dogs of the week” section, where reader-submitted photos of their dogs out on the many local trails are featured; there is a rock climbing column, as well as what has to be the highest percentage of sports section coverage devoted to cycling and running in all their forms. And of course the letters to the editor section—replete with outlandish requests and complaints from both ends of the liberal-conservative continuum—never fails to entertain. But the editing of this newspaper has been sub-par from day one, and pretty much every single day I can spot at least a couple of grammatical and spelling errors in what is supposed to be a professional newspaper, and one of the articles in today’s business section encapsulates this dilemma so well I just had to share the first paragraph:

Camera’s Circulation Falls
By Alicia Wallace, Camera Business Writer

New statistics show circulation at major US newspapers continued to tumble, and the Camera does not appears to be immune to the trend.

‘nuff said? Thought so.

Mornin’ folks, happy Earth Day. I’m closing in on three years working for a sustainable design consultant, and I’m delighted to be applying my lighting design and simulation skills toward saving a little energy and creating more pleasant built environments. But I have to say, these years of observing how we work has taught me that we don’t always help our cause when we act all holier-than-thou while making our case for sustainable living. Smug email signatures come to mind, for example. I think as a group, we need to be less preachy and while we’re at it, maybe start walking the walk a little bit more. My office parking lot is filled with SUVs and luxury sedans, which I ride past each morning on my bicycle. Co-workers live in homes three times the size they need. Brenda & I live in a small condo and share one car, but I’m labeled as a cynic and a hypocrite for bitching about the very industry I work in. But I would argue that my “hope for the best but expect the worst” attitude towards everything from people to the planet serves me well in client meetings where many times we are viewed as naive granola eaters.

And with that, I’d like to give the mike to George Carlin for the bulk of the ranting. He doesn’t quite get everything right here, but his central message—that we’re only looking to “save the planet” to save our own dumb asses from ourselves—is pure cynical gold.

“We’re so self-important. So self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. ‘Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.’ And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven’t learned how to care for one another, we’re gonna save the fucking planet?

“I’m getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I’m tired of fucking Earth Day, I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. They don’t care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.

“Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We’ve been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun?

“The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles…hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages…And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet…the planet…the planet isn’t going anywhere. WE ARE!

“We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little Styrofoam. Maybe. A little Styrofoam. The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

“You wanna know how the planet’s doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet’s doing. You wanna know if the planet’s all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.

“The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ‘cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” Plastic…asshole.

“So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now. And I think that’s begun. Don’t you think that’s already started? I think, to be fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat. Something to be dealt with. And the planet can defend itself in an organized, collective way, the way a beehive or an ant colony can. A collective defense mechanism. The planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet? How would you defend yourself against this troublesome, pesky species? Let’s see… Viruses. Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And, uh…viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.

“Well, that’s a poetic note. And it’s a start. And I can dream, can’t I? See I don’t worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails. I think we’re part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron…whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn’t punish, it doesn’t reward, it doesn’t judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while.”

– George Carlin

Webster’s defines a patriot as “one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests”. But with a country this divided, the term almost has no validity anymore. I mean, our country’s “authority and interests” are presently defined by the Bush administration. Therefore, our country’s so-called authority is bogus, stolen, abused, misused and illegally expanded. Our interests? Hegemony and Looking Out for Number One. Sure as hell, I don’t support those. Am I not a patriot?

The first patriots were revolutionaries. Maybe it’s time to restore the original definition.

Clinton(s) suck, Obama is our best hope at the moment.

Hillary, you are a hawk in a dress, and your move to New York to become a Senator and wage this campaign was sad, sorry and obvious, and you only feed the right wing machine. You have nothing to offer, yet take in millions (in big chunks) to spread your hollow messages about experience and how much you care about and have done for Texas and Ohio (at the moment). You suck, I hate you, and I have donated money to a political campaign for the first time in my life (obviously not for your sorry, smug ass) because I sincerely hope that Obama’s momentum continues to roll right over your pathetic campaign machine, you cunt.

The right and I saw you coming since 2003, and I think it’s very sad that I still have to listen to you and help Obama’s campaign defeat you. You suck. Go away.

Still here? Read this article.

An editorial in today’s Daily Camera mentions a recent judge’s recent order to “disable” the domain name of wikileaks.org, a site that purportedly offers up Standard Operating Procedures for American troops in Iraq, Gitmo, and other evidence of corporate wrongdoing. Potentially interesting reading, and protected under the First Amendment for chrissakes.

Luckily the judge is an idiot, and does not understand the domain naming system too well. Here’s the IP address: http://88.80.13.160. As the editorial says, visit the site today. Do it to honor the First Amendment.

My preferred candidates are already out of the race or are still languishing under the boot of Big Media so no one even knows who they are (Dodd’s out? Dodd who?). I find myself wanting to comment on the race, and then again I like my blood pressure where it’s at currently. So I simply offer the lyrics of this song, written by Ian MacKaye, as we march on toward November hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

“Everybody Knows”
The Evens

You arrive with empty duffel bags, hungry eyed
You looked around taking measurements to move inside
The capital it is your proving ground, your centering
You and yours can keep your scores, but Washington is our city

Everybody knows you are a liar
Everybody knows you are a liar
Everybody knows you are a liar
Everybody knows you are a liar

Too much technique with no texture below
You fabricated your way in here and everybody knows

Everybody knows you are a liar
Everybody knows you are a liar
Everybody knows you are a liar
Everybody knows you are a liar

Too many distractions just obscure what should be shown
Stop with the abracadabra ‘cause everybody knows

You return via machinery and public lies
You broke to break, you’re breaking everything, it’s no surprise
The capital it is your playground now, your center ring
You and yours can keep your scores, Washington is our city

You and yours and all your wars have run your last campaign
You’re fired from a job you never should have had
That hideous strength absolutely sinks
You better watch your back

Let the door hit you on the ass

A while back I posted a tearful tribute, in song, to my dear departed TiVo. I still don’t know what happened to it, but it was an old Series 2 with the “40 Hour” capacity. She served her owners proud for almost four years, and I decided it would be cheaper and certainly faster to replace it with a new box rather than try to fix old blue. The “80 hour” Series 2 TiVos are now yesterday’s news, and apparently there was a big promotion through TiVo’s website recently so there was a glut of those babies available on eBay. After losing several auctions by a buck, I finally scored one for eighty bucks and the seller was nice enough to ship it to me via FedEx.

The fun stopped there.

Actually, it wasn’t so bad, but I was forced to read a lot of idiotic posts in various TiVo user forums trying to get to the bottom of my concerns about doing a fresh setup on my new TiVo, and thought I’d throw this up here for anyone in the same boat; hopefully I’ll save someone a few hours.

Here’s the deal: most of the older TiVos (certainly all the Series 1s and many of the early Series 2s) required you to do the initial setup of a new TiVo over a landline telephone. This was not a problem four years ago for me, but I have since dumped my copper landline because among other things Quest is a horrible company run by crooks. Anyway, suffice to say I had no landline in the house. My old TiVo had since been upgraded to connect to the TiVo service over my wireless internet connection, but as I mentioned the initial setup is supposed to be done with a landline.

So I started surfing around, found quite a number of posts claiming that you can do this, and the posts were for the most part incoherent and loaded with all kinds of special dialing prefix codes you were supposed to enter, etc. Every post seemed to say something different. Frustrated but hopeful, I saved a few of the tips and hooked up the new box. And the cursing began.

At first, I thought it would be easy, as I had a menu option to use the internet to connect, but every time I tried logging in to my router I was denied access. I eventually turned off all encryption and broadcast the SSID again, to make it as open as I could. My router would show up, I could feed it a password, but then it would say it couldn’t find the DNS server. This same router is providing IP addresses to my laptop and Brenda’s laptop, so this struck me as odd. Some more cursing ensued.

Out of desperation, I even bought a USB wired network adapter and tried it that way, mistakenly believing the advice from some lunatic in one of the TiVo forums. When that didn’t work either, I finally tried my last resort, last-ditch, house-is-on-fire, plane’s-goin’-down option: I called tech support, something Brenda had suggested I do a couple days earlier.

Surprisingly, they were very helpful and were able to confirm that I had version 7.2 of the TiVo software pre-installed from the factory, and that this version does indeed support connecting to the TiVo service and performing the initial setup over an internet connection. Bolstered with that knowledge, I tried once more to connect, but with no luck. Same error, couldn’t find the DNS server that I knew to be functioning. But now, armed with the knowledge that this was supposed to work, I simply roamed around and found an open wireless router that one of my neighbors had set up, and I was in in five seconds. It seems that I often assume the worst about a situation and when I do, I overcomplicate the planned “solution”. Had I poked around the airwaves for an open router the first night, this would have all been over with in a very short time. Oh well.

Connected to my neighbor’s router, TiVo was able to phone home and get itself all configured. A day or two later, TiVo had performed an upgrade to the latest software version (v9.??) and I once again tried to connect to my own router, and this time it worked! I re-enabled WPA encryption and it still works! We are now scrolling through pages and pages of movies owing to the doubled hard drive space and the fact that all the old stuff I had saved on my old TiVo is now gone forever.

Long story short, if your new Series 2 TiVo is giving you a lot of guff about connecting to your router, try yer neighbor’s, let TiVo upgrade itself, and then try again on your own LAN. Happy surfing.

I’m so distraught, I put it into song:

The Night the TiVo Died
(sung to the tune of Paper Lace’s “The Night Chicago Died”)

In the chill of a winter’s night
In the land of the yoga hippies
When Rob & Brenda’s TiVo died
And they talk about it still

When Rob arrived home from work
Brenda displayed a nervous quirk
She said “I have some bad news”
And then she gestured towards the tube

We heard Robbie cry
We heard him pray the night the TiVo died
Brother what a night it really was
Brother what a plight it really was
Live TV

We heard Robbie cry
We heard him pray the night the TiVo died
Brother what a night the people saw
Live TV and no pause
Yes indeed

And the box it would not light
What’s happened to the shows
And Rob considered his plight
And said “this really, really blows”

We heard Robbie cry
We heard him pray the night the TiVo died
Gonna miss stuff when I pee
Maybe it’s time we got HDTV
Glory Be…

Seriously; after almost four years, the damned thing just took a shit on us, and I’m now looking for the next thing to replace it.

Well, my silly little piece on “green” email signatures is in the news again, this time in the L.A. Times. When I wrote that, it was cathartic because I was so frustrated by a particular co-worker and his sanctimonious ways, and his mindless insistence that we all preach to our clients this message that I felt went without saying. Who knew it would become the single most popular post on my website and the source for two newspaper articles on green email signatures (and a television interview that as far as I know landed on the cutting room floor)?

Of course the fact that I work in sustainable design and live in left-leaning Boulder Colorado made my frowny post on green email signatures the perfect ammo for conservative papers like the Wall Street Journal and the L.A. Times—here was a guy who supposedly cared about the environment and even he is saying these signatures are stupid! Co-workers (and strangers reaching me through my website) have accused me of being a hipocrit (sic), but I think they miss the point. These whiny, sniveling exhortations to “please consider the environment” make you look exactly like the stereotype the Fox News windbags are trying to perpetuate. I’m not playing along, and you shouldn’t either. Save that unbridled environmental enthusiasm for flipping the bird at the next Hummer you see.

Vino cracks, loses a half hour in the hills; his Tour is over. Next day, Vino takes a stage win in convincing fashion, thrills the fans.

Hmmm…

Son of a bitch, Vinokourov tested positive. The fuckin’ idiot doped during the Tour de France, testing positive and getting his whole team kicked out of the Tour with less than a week to go, taking teammate Andreas Kloden—sitting pretty in fifth position—with him. If I were Andreas, I’d be pissed, but then maybe I’d be hoping I didn’t get my ass caught too, since I’d be on the Astana team, a horrid joke of a doping conclave. Let’s not forget that this was the gang of idiots that couldn’t even field a goddamned team for last year’s tour, since half the team was under suspicion of doping by association with Dr. Fuentes. Oh yeah, and if you’re enjoying watching Alberto Contador lighting up the road this year, and maybe catching a case of smug satisfaction watching him toy with Rassmussen (the other big doping story of the ‘07 tour) on the Pyrenees, don’t forget he too was on Astana last year.

Man, this just sucks. Roid Landis invalidated his Stage 17 comeback last year, and after 12 months of discussion about doping and how cycling needs to clean up its act, and the cycling press really handing it to the dopers and suspected dopers, we’re back in the same pile of shit this year.

The thing that really pisses me off is the smug reaction from colleagues and the mainstream media who look at cycling like it’s a circus. I mean, it is, but being a football fan and looking down your nose at professional cyclists is like being a catholic and looking down your nose at child molesters.

Are they all doing it? No way. But I’d say most are. Still. And that’s what I find really sad. But I can tell you this: I can’t wait for tomorrow’s last stage in the Pyrenees. It’s a great sport, filled with skill, danger, speed and pain. And I enjoy the contests and the scenery. And, P.S., the other sports have the same problem, but better unions, so shut up and enjoy the rest of the Tour.