Diary of a Network Geek

Oh My God!
Finally, after literally years of waiting Space Above and Beyond – The Complete Series is available on DVD. This was the finest science-fiction show EVER! Yes, I mean ever. Including Star Trek, in all its various incarnations, and both versions of Battlestar Galactica and anything else you can think of to date. It was real, hard-nosed, gritty science-fiction with compelling stories filled with drama and real meaning. Not psuedo, let’s-all-get-high-and-get-Roddenberry-laid messages, but the real deal. Every episode dealt with something that made you stop and think about what it meant to be something, to stand for something, or even to be human. There were funny parts, but not like in Star Trek that played for campy laughs. No, if there was something funny, it was funny the way things are in life, not some wooden slapstick played for laughs with goofy music.
And, of course, it’s the only science-fiction show to ever feature R. Lee Ermey. What can top that!? Yeah, he’s only in the two-hour premiere, but, still, Gunny makes his appearance. And, yes, I love this show so much I mentioned it on my other blog, the Fantasist’s Scroll.

Excuse me while I go spend a little money on whole lot of joy.

I finished Junky by William S. Burroughs this week.
As always, Burroughs is an entertaining, if somewhat disturbing, read. He is, of course, infamous for his drug inspired literature and with a title like Junkycould you expect anything less? The book jacket says that the work is “semi-autobiographical”, but, from what I know about Burroughs’ life, it’s pretty much dead on. Oh, some of the characters and specific situations might be fictional, but the meat of the work is pretty much real. Or, as real as anything ever is in his work. Of course, he was often writing while under the influence of heroin, which is the main subject of Junky, actually. Heroin addiction. It is, unfortunately a timely subject as H is on the rise again, or was a few years back. Thankfully, I’m somewhat removed from that world and don’t know what the “drug of choice” is among today’s up and coming addict. I am not, however, all that far removed from being driven by personal demons. Sadly, I understand this all too well and, in that way, Burroughs’ writing always resonates with me. When the main character, Burrough’s first-person alter-ego, describes everything in life being “gray” when not on H, I know what he means. How everything seems bland in comparison, even lesser “kicks” or highs don’t do as much as H. I get it when he talks about abandoning all else just to get that next fix. I recognize this landscape of pain, though I may not have walked it myself.
Honestly, this is as close as I can imagine it coming to seeing inside a junky’s head. Seeing the world as they see it. Seeing their drives and needs and how that prioritizes their life. It’s a little frightening at times as it describes over and over the process of needing to score and the mechanics of scoring then shooting up, though the depictions are far from graphic or obscene. If you have a strong spirit and want to see the bleak world an addict inhabits, this is a great read for you.

Now, though, I’ve started I Heard You Paint Houses : Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran and the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the Final Ride of Jimmy Hoffa, so it’s more crime drama coming soon!

I finished reading Industrial Magic this week.
It wasn’t my usual fare, but it wasn’t bad. Probably not good enough to hunt down more of the series, but not bad. Honestly, the title is what got me. If I’d actually read the back cover, I probably wouldn’t have bought the book at all. I categorize this type of book as, basically, “chick lit fantasy romance”. But, again, that being said, it still wasn’t as bad as some of the stuff out there. For instance, I liked it better than Obsidian Butterfly, which I couldn’t even read past the first two chapters. When I read trashy fiction, I don’t want to read endless conversations with the main character’s old boyfriends, or potential boyfriends, or whatever. I want action. Plain and simple. I want something to be happening. I want plot based on events going on, not semi-romantic thoughts and feelings. In that regard, Industrial Magic delivered.
The basic plot is that a killer is stalking the heads of semi-secret magical Cabals, who are the sorcerous rivals of the more feminine, and witch-run, Covens and must be stopped. (So, yes, this really could have been a simple murder mystery without the magic, but, well, I guess that wouldn’t be as fun or sell as well.) The main character is a witch, Paige Winterbourne, who used to run a big Coven, but, in an earlier book, lost that position. Her love interest is Lucas Cortez, heir to the Cortez Cabal, but who is a crusading lawyer that fights the Cabals. It’s that connection that gets them drawn into the plot. They’re trying to find, and stop, the killer. And, to avoid spoilers, I’ll stop describing the plot there.
There’s magic all over the book, but, mainly, as a prop. Light spells being used instead of a handy pocket flashlight. Binding spells instead of a stun gun. Necromantic conversations instead of a CSI-type crime lab. Everything they used magic for could have been replaced with modern technology fairly easily without impacting the story. Except for one point when they “cross over” to the realms of death. Other than that, everything else could have been avoided by simply planning ahead. In other words, it was a wasted metaphor.
The other thing that bothered me was the Cabals. Sure, they were obviously some kind of metaphor for corporate America and/or organized crime, but at no time was the source of the Cortez Cabal’s fabulous wealth ever explained. They just were really organized and had a lot of money. Period. Ignore the writer behind the curtain. Frankly, I thought that was a shame. It could have been a really neat sub-plot. And, with the title, it was what I was hoping to see more about! Ah, well, at least I can still write my own take on that without worrying about repeating something that’s already been done.
All in all, Industrial Magic was a decent book, but not great. If you can find it at a discount book store, it’s worth getting.
(And, yes, again, this review first appeared on my other blog!)

I finished The Napoleon of Crime : The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief this week.
This is some of the most interesting non-fiction I’ve read in recent memory. Adam Worth was, indeed, a true master criminal. The book traced his larcenous career from its early start as a serial enlister during the Civil War, wherein Worth “died” and reenlisted several times for the signing bonus through the years as a pickpocket in New York city and on into his larger scale crimes, both in the US and abroad. Interestingly enough, he never used a gun in the commission of a crime. Apparently, Worth found it somewhat declasse and “the last resort of the small-minded”. At his peak, he ran a ring of crooks of all kinds, but maintained such a discrete distance from the actual crime that Scotland Yard could never definitively link him to a crime. They knew he had planned them, but they could never pin one on him.
His “greatest” crime was the one that almost undid him, namely the theft of Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire. At the time, this was the most expensive painting ever sold and Worth stole it to use as leverage to get a compatriot out of jail. “Little Adam”, as Worth was known, was famously loyal to the theives he organized and went to great lengths to keep, or get, them out of jail. That “honor among theives”, which was so rarely seen in reality, was one of Adam Worth’s hallmarks. And another fatal flaw. He almost bankrupt himself at least twice getting crooks out of jail, and his efforts were rarely rewarded with anything more than additional betrayal.
Still, for all his flaws, Worth was an actual master criminal who planned fabulously. He always had theives ready to work for him because his reputation was so good. For most of his working life, if you can call it that, his “jobs” went so smoothly that no one was nabbed, with few exceptions. And, those exceptions were due mainly to the utter stupidity of the crooks in Worth’s employ, including his own brother.
This book tells the story so well, that I almost forgot I was reading actual history. The writing flowed like the finest fiction and, indeed, some of the events were so incredible that one could scarcely believe them. The author, Ben Macintyre, doesn’t focus on dates and highlights the physical locations just enough to get the story across. Instead, he concentrates on what matters in Adam Worth’s life: people. The amazing characters, on both sides of the law, are what drove both this book and Worth’s life in crime. Macintyre brings them to life brilliantly. Frankly, after reading this book, I long for an age when criminals could have been so genteel and not the modern, crude thugs they have become.

I heartily reccomend this book to anyone interested in history or “true crime” or even biographies. Well worth finding and reading, even if you only have a passing interest in these topics.

It’s a quiz on Beliefnet of all places!
When I took the “What’s your Potter Personality“, I was, at my best Albus Dumbledore. Obviously, I was pleased with that result, since I often think of myself as the Old Wizard, who makes things happen that other people don’t quite get. Well, with computers, anyway. Unfortunately, at my worst, I’m closest to Luna Lovegood. Luckily, I don’t believe in crazy conspiracy theories, so I must be more Dumbledore than Lovegood. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it!
Well, either way, it was a fun quiz.

So, this is my roundabout way of saying I finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yesterday. I liked it. Honestly, I’m surprised that this series grabbed me the way it did. Originally, I started reading it to give me more to talk to my step-daughter about, but then I got all caught up in the very complicated, multi-layered plot. It’s quite well done. Now, how do I talk about this without revealing any significant plot points…
I know it may have been too obvious, but I thought the Half-Blood Prince of the title was Voldemort right up until the real answer was revealed. It was, I have to admit, a bit of a surprise. And, frankly, with all the reading I’ve done over the years, I’m not often surprised by a plot twist. The other thing that seemed, well, a bit off to me was who Harry hooked up with in the book. Though, in a way, it does make sense, and I almost expect a wedding in the next book, if everyone involved survives. Speaking of survival, I’m not convinced that the character who died will remain dead in the final book. He’s too important. Personally, I think he’ll be reborn, in some way, into something that will be significant in killing Voldemort. And, I think Fudge will end up being the Minister of Magic again, after the dust clears.
Yeah, that’s about all I can say without giving anything away. It’s a good book and a good series. Of course, it is important to remember that this is really children’s literature that has wider appeal. For a kid’s series, it has a horribly complicated plot and mesh of sub-plots. Not to mention the unusually deep characterization and sophistication of the fantasy elements of this created world. I’ll have to reaquire the first five books and re-read the entire series before book seven comes out. (Yes, they’re that good!)

Now, I just have to pick the next book to read. Hmm, should it be The Napoleon of Crime : The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief or Linux Server Security, or I Heard You Paint Houses : Frank \”The Irishman\” Sheeran and the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the Final Ride of Jimmy Hoffa, or Linux Firewalls (2nd Edition), or Jesus in Blue Jeans : A Practical Guide to Everyday Spirituality, or Cities of the Red Night : A Novel. So much to read and so little time.

That’s Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 for the acronym impaired.
Well, I’m evaluating flavors of Linux to replace our antique Windows NT server, in my copious spare time, at work. Of course, my first choice was to go to Novell’s site and download the free demo of SLES 9. It took the better part of a day and night to download the ISOs and burn them, but, again, I did that in the background.
First of all, the install was quite simple and found even the junky, old hardware that I scrounged together for a test machine. Though, I have to admit that I found it rather annoying that I only used three of the six CDs I burned to do the install. And, I only used the third of those because I was installing a SAMBA server to minimize my client-side changes. (Yes, I know to block all SAMBA traffic out to the ‘net. Thanks for worrying about me though.) If I get the time, I’ll go back and try to figure out what was on those last three disks. I figure it was documenation and source-code, mainly, but that’s only a slightly educated guess.
Now, I’ve never actually used SUSE before, so it was a little new to me. Bascially, it’s standard Linux and X-Windows, but what’s installed by default and the assorted management programs are a little different than what I’ve gotten used to on RedHat. But, once I got the hang of YaST, it wasn’t a problem. In fact, reconfiguring the server via YaST was how I got the SAMBA server installed, configured and running. I should point out that I did this all without the benefit of reading any documenation and it still only took me about five minutes. Very easy to use, even for a relativel newbie.
Mostly, it’s what I’ve come to expect from the modern distributions of Linux. It was easy to install, simple to configure, and pretty to look at while doing both. Oh, and on the old PII with 512Meg of RAM, it ran really well. Nice and smooth. I was able to connect to the SAMBA server, map a drive and copy a file without any issues or having to set it up as a PDC or BDC (that’s Primary Domain Controller and Backup Domain Controller, again for the acronym impaired). I haven’t done any security testing against it, but it’s tucked safely behind our new firewall, so I’m not too worried.
The one thing I noticed that I really liked was the fact that you had to enter a password to reboot the machine. In RedHat, at least the RedHat AS 2.1 I used, anyone who had physical access to the server could simply click the reboot button and it would. With SLES 9, after clicking that button, I was prompted for a password. Only after I supplied the root password did the machine actually reboot. Nice feature, that.

So, over all, nothing spectacular, but a good, solid offering from the newest Novell group, SUSE.

I finished Art of Forgiving last week.
As a rather poor Christian, who’s trying to do better, I thought that this book might help me forgive some of the people in my life that, well, have done me wrong. Really, there haven’t been that many folks who didn’t give me just what I deserve, but there have been a few that I think went quite above and beyond even “an eye for an eye”, if you know what I mean. And, I know from personal experience, if I don’t learn to forgive them and move on with my life, that resentment will eat me alive. So, in an effort to be true to both my religious beliefs and my own personal integrity, I read this book.
First of all, I was quite relieved to see that the author, who is Christian, did not equate forgiving with being used again. Just because I forgive someone doesn’t mean I should let them walk all over me again and again. That damages one of God’s children, namely myself, and that wouldn’t be right.
Secondly, the author didn’t think I have to particularly like the person to forgive them, either. That’s a little more complicated, but significant. I’ll try to explain here, but it’s probably best to read the book, too. See, I can love someone as a precious child of God, but still not particularly want to spend a lot of “quality time” with them. I can forgive them the wrong they do me, trying in my flawed, human way to emulate Jesus, and still recognize that being with them would not be very conducive to my continued mental health. I forgive them what they do, not who they are.
It’s hard for me to sum up this book and its message this morning, but I really enjoyed reading it and getting some new perspective on forgiving. It has been a challenge to me these last few months, but I’m getting better, one step at a time.

Oh, and I finally picked up Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this weekend, too. I know I was trying to be all cool about it, but I read the first ten pages in the parking lot. God, how embarrassing is that!? So much for my high-minded literary pretensions!

No, this is not a bad acid trip.
Actually, it’s a pretty interesting web comic set in the not too distant future. What’s even more interesting is that it takes place in an Islamic-centric desert country torn by war and terrorism. Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought it might. And, trust me, this is a very different look at how that dynamic works. Very thought provoking.
So, check out The Spiders and get ready to be blown away.

Have a fun freaky Friday!
(Yes, this first appeared on Fantasist.net)

I finished Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov over the weekend.
It was an interesting book, though not quite what I expected. The story, as such, is told via an introduction and a series of comments on a poem. The commentor is, or believes he is, the deposed king of an Eastern European country called Zembla. He reviews and annotates a poem, called “Pale Fire”, written by his neighbor and friend in a little, college town named New Wye, where the former king now lives in exile and teaches Zemblan and Zemblan literature to students at the local college. Frankly, it’s a little hard to tell if we are expected to believe that the view-point character is, in fact, a deposed monarch or if he’s just quietly stark, raving mad. There is plenty of evidence for either argument, but, I believe he’s living out some kind of delusion that seemed harmless and charming to his poetic neighbor, who took pity on him and befriended him.
In any case, it was an interesting book and a literary departure for me. It was also not quite what I expected from the author of Lolita. It was far more accessable than I would have thought and, though sex and homosexuality was a minor theme, not as focused on abberant behavior as I feared it might be. The insanity or delusions of the main character were quite subtle and presented in that strange, calm, almost reasonable way that only the truly insane can present their view of the world.
One of the reasons I got this book was for that ficticious kingdom and language. I was a little dissapointed that there wasn’t more Zemblan represented in the book. The few words and phrases were really just there to spice and flavor the created kingdom of Zembla. Still, it does serve as an excellent example of how a little foregin flavor can go a long way. Again, I was impressed with the subtlty with which Nabokov presented his work. He paints his word-pictures with a very fine brush. The tiny details highlight the over-sweeping whole.
So, while it was not exactly “light” reading, Pale Fire was a very pleasant read, especially for a piece of “classic literature”. I heartily reccomend it.
(Was that literary enough for you, Mark? ;))

“… but what I do, that defines me.”

A great quote from a great movie. In other words, yes, I saw “Batman Begins” yesterday. I took a giant step outside my comfort zone and went at the absolute last minute to see a movie with a guy from a support group I attend. A guy who, honestly, I hardly know, though I’ve seen him at these meetings for years.
Anyway, it was a good movie. The fight scenes were done in that new, modern style that I think of as “Gladiator-esque” ever since seeing that movie. It was all a blur. Shapes whirling through the darkness and chaos everywhere. Not unlike a real fight, if memory serves, but a little annoying in cinema. I much prefer the older style where I don’t get motion sickness trying to follow the action.
The movie, of course, is about the origins of Batman, as the title implies. Slightly different than the comic book, he delves into the criminal underworld, and then is recruited by a kind of ninja/assassin’s guild/secret society designed to “fight” evil by totally destroying it. A sort of hyper-radical scorched-earth policy that also would wipe out the innocent as well. Not good. Obviously, Batman doesn’t stay a part of this group and, well, plot ensues from there.
It had a bit of a slow start, as origin stories often do, but once it got rockin’ and rollin’, it was a good, old-fashioned action movie ride.
There was one small continuity problem from the first movie that just leapt out at me. Who killed Bruce’s parents? In the first movie, of course, it was Joker, before he was Joker. In this movie, it was some other guy named “Joe Chill”. Also, Joker wasn’t Joker but still Jack Napier. He didn’t become the Joker until after Batman and he fought in the nasty chemical plant, just like in the comic book. But, that in no way diminished my enjoyment of an otherwise brilliant film.
Also, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman gave brilliant performances. Christian Bale was top notch as the angry, young millionare who became a crimefighter. And, all I can say about Katie Holmes performance is, er, it must be cold in Gotham. Or were those just some pesky Thetans in her blouse trying to poke their way out?
Oh, that reminds me… Gotham, though it was supposed to be a slightly fictionalized New York City, was Chicago. I recognized the bridges across the river, especially the Lake Shore Drive bridge right there at Wacker. I can’t tell you how many times I drove over that when I worked downtown. And, there were scenes that could only be Lower Lower Wacker. I know them, too. All too well. I also saw an altered Wrigley Builiding and the Tribune Tower, remade, if I’m not mistaken, into the Wayne Tower. Yep, it was all scenery that I knew quite intimately, though it’s no longer really home.

I have to admit, I liked this movie in part for the scenery and for the writing. It was a well written movie. I especially liked the quote, which was bounced back and forth between Wayne and his erstwhile paramour, Rachel Dawes, “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do, that defines me.” Indeed, I sympathize with that sentiment and always have. I identify with the dark heroes, who have that wild animal that they fear to release, but try to harness to do good. In my more arrogant moments, I allow myself to feel as though I’m one of them.
I am more than my Flaw. I acknowlege that at the heart of who I am, I am a flawed human being, but that flaw does not define me. What I do consistently defines me. And, I consistently act in accordance with my beliefs about what’s right, not the way my Flaw would dictate. I haven’t always, but I’m better than that, now.

Yeah, it’s worth getting out to see “Batman Begins“. Happy Independance Day.