Orson Welles

Orson Welles in 1937

Orson Welles’ last appearance anywhere was on the Merv Griffin show on October 10th, 1985. Coincidently, he died two hours after this interview. It’s not everyday you get to see such a great actor or someone famous this close to their death. It’s sad, but watch anyway.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hGgUQ9zbIk

Disneyland Tonight – December 12th, 2008

This was the first time I’ve been there on a Friday in so long and as soon as I got there, I remember why. That place was packed and whenever Space Mountain is a 65 minute wait, you know you’ve come at the wrong time! Anyway, this was the third time this week we went because we keep discovering new people with passes and now everybody wants to go at different times.

Because all the lines were so long, we figured we’d hit up some of the rides we don’t usually go on, so first we ended up on Winnie The Pooh — my roommate loves this ride and she really wanted to go on it. There was not one single person in line for this. I think the ride is a trippy ride. I still haven’t followed the actual story to it but I did find the following picture super funny:

Cracked out Winnie the Pooh

I don’t know why I laughed so hard when I saw this…maybe because he looks strung out on something and he’s covered in honey liked some cracked-out fiend. We went through this ride twice just so I can snap this shot. Sorry it’s so blurry, but obviously we were moving. 😉

Nothing much else happened tonight, but we had fun anyway.

Connection was reset by server error

I had a computer today with a problem that every once in a while, the internet would stop working. There was no sign of the connection going out (wireless, wired, etc.). You would just be on a website and by the time you clicked the 3rd or 4th link, you’d see a “server cannot be found error”. To further test, I started a hefty download (Windows SP3) and sure enough, 30 seconds in, the download stopped and the error “connection reset by server” was shown.

Computer Info:
Windows XP SP2
Hard wired ethernet to router then to cable modem

I tried Winsock fixes, dnsflushing, network connection repair, etc. and nothing helped. I feel stupid just knowing that all it was was that this client had originally been an AT&T DSL customer and had the 2Wire modem/router diagnostics software installed. I removed it and the problem was solved! It looks like this software was running in the background trying to “fix” a connection that was no longer there.

Case closed.

Get your ip even when DNS is down

I’ve come across this problem many times before where I’ll be fixing a computer and the internet works when using ip addresses but not hostnames. This is likely caused by a downed DNS server or incorrect settings. This post is more for my information, but it may serve someone in the future.

To get your public ip address without having to type in whatismyipaddress.com, just go to: http://67.203.139.152/. You’ll see a blank screen that just shows your ip address.

For testing purposes on a Windows machine, if you need to ping Google, use one of their ip addresses:

72.14.207.99
216.239.51.104
64.233.167.99

Also, as a quick check, make sure that the DNS service is running if you’re not on a corporate network (or any network where there’s a DNS server): type in services.msc into the Run command and check for DNS to make sure it’s started.

Space Mountain with the lights on

I was browsing through YouTube and I came across this video of Space Mountain that was in a phase of failure that for whatever required the main lights to be turned on. It’s a unique view of the ride that you’re likely never to see unless you’re a Disneyland cast member or ride mechanic.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VR_wn2QP8Q

Here’s another interesting video of Space Mountain where apparently the rocket weighed too much so it had to be emptied in the backstage area. This area can be slightly seen when you’re leaving the station and your rocket turns right to go up the climb. If you look left, you can see this room (although mostly blocked from view).

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3AVUSrryEM

Disneyland Tonight – December 7th, 2008

I just wanted to share a quick story about Disneyland tonight. But first, some sad news; I lost at Buzz Lightyear Astroblasters today and here’s the proof:

For the first time, I lost!
For the first time, I lost!

I’m not that worried about it; there are plenty of wins you can see on my MySpace page and besides, winning by 1100 points is not that much of a win! 😉

Anyway, on to the point of this blog :: we rolled up to Space Mountain and there were some dumbass kids walking in front of us and one of them decided to pull the chain off the stanchion in the line queue and let it drop to the ground. I didn’t see who did it, but I decided to fix it anyway. I picked up the chain and began to hook it when I heard a voice say “Don’t do it for him!”, but it was already hooked before I realized that it was a cast member who said that to me. I looked up and noticed the guy who did it coming down to fix it because apparently she him and told him to do so. As he was walking down, she told this kid to say ‘thank you’ to me. He actually did it, but I was also in the process of un-hooking it again so he can go down and fix it!! All this happened in a matter of seconds, but I said something to the effect of “Oh, you want him to do it? Ok, there ya go.” as I let the chain drop once more to the ground. As I walked past the cast member, she said, “Thank you!” and I said, “No problem. I hate assholes too!”.

The dude must have felt like a total ass for having said thanks to me and then still having to go back down the line to pick it up himself. In his defense, I guess I can say I’ve done this in the past when I was younger too, but not just out of the blue. I’ve always had a reason to do it; like letting a friend in line or taking a shortcut through some zig-zags.

One quick story about when I did that was at Knott’s Berry Farm in line for Ghost Rider and I unhooked a rope and attached it to my friend’s beltloop. It wasn’t heavy chain so I didn’t have to worry about the weight hanging on. The wait was so long we didn’t move for a few minutes and in talking to my other friends, I forgot what I did. Then we moved and I watched my buddy walk forward and almost fall back when the slack let out!! I laughed so hard because I forgot about it, but I was quite impressed with the beltloop not getting ripped off. Cheers to Dickies for making some high quality stuff.

Things that happened on my birthday

I found this idea to be quite entertaining. I found a few things of note that happened on the day I was born and decided to create a list. The only thing needed to qualify for this list is that the event happened on the day I was born. The year is irrelavent.

February 19th, 2008 – Toshiba announced that it would no longer develop, manufacture, or market HD DVD players and recorders, which lead to all other manufacturers to follow suit thus ending the HD format war and leaving SONY the victor with it’s Blu-Ray technology. More info…

February 19th, 1980 – AC/DC frontman, Bon Scott was found dead in his friend’s car after a night of heavy drinking in London. More info…

February 19th, 1807 – The famed Donner party is finally rescued. The Donner party was an 87-member group of pioneers that set out for California. After many problems on the way, many of the members starved to death and their companions ate their bodies for survival. More info…

February 19th, 1906 – William Kellogg founded the Kellogg cereal company. More info…

February 19th, 1945 – World War II: Over 30,000 United States Marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan to begin the battle of Iwo Jima. More info…

February 19th, 1948 – Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi is born. More info…

February 19th, 1878 – The phonograph is patented by Thomas Edison. More info…

February 19th, 197 – Roman Emperor Septimius Severus defeats usurper Clodius Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum, the bloodiest battle between Roman armies. More info…

February 19th, 2008 – Don Rickles releases an inside look DVD of himself, his act and offers some other comedian’s opinions and views on the man. The DVD is called Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project and is worth a look if you’re at all interested in the really funny man. More info…

February 19th, 1973 – Elvis Presley had to be sedated after an incident involving four men rushing his Hilton Showroom stage. He convinced himself that Priscilla’s boyfriend had sent them, and Elvis was demanding lethal retribution. (Source: desktop calendar – unknown origins)

February 19th, 1777 – Congress overlooks Benidict Arnold for promotion to major general. Feeling slighted that five junior officers got promoted before him, he decided to resign, thus kicking off the story of the most famous traitor in U.S. history. More info…

Windows Vista installed on MacBook – crackling audio

I recently bought a new MacBook (the aluminum one) and installed Vista 32bit using BootCamp. The process was insanely easy and there wasn’t much I needed to do other than insert some discs when it asked me to. Anyway, the only problem I’ve noticed so far was that when Vista loads, there are some audio problems in which the sound will crackle and pop. This happens with all Windows sounds as well as music and videos.

I traced the problem back to the WiFi card because if you disable wireless, the problem stops. So after a few hours of looking online for a fix to this problem, I came up with this:

1. Download new [DRIVERS NO LONGER AVAILABLE] and extract.
2. Access the Windows control panel.
3. Open device manager and right click on the wireless adapter.
4. Update the driver files using the ones in the newly extracted folder.

And you’re done! Enjoy the fixed sound!

UPDATE — This fix no longer applies since Apple has corrected the issue with newer drivers and a newer version of BootCamp.

WSAStartup Problem

I recently found an issue on one of my client’s computers stating that there was an error with WSASTARTUP and the actual error was: Either the application hasn’t called WSAStartup or
WSAStartup failed. This error, if you have it can be seen right away when trying to use certain services such as the internet, Windows themes and a host of other items. Also, the computer will take much longer to boot up than normal.

Usually, you can solve the problem by performing a simple Winsock fix using [download#2]. If that doesn’t work, try using these manual instructions:

1. Backup and delete the following registry keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetServicesWinsock
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetServicesWinsock2

2. Reboot

3. Go to the network connections folder, right click the icon for your network connection, and select properties.

4. Click install, choose “protocol”, and click “add…”

5. Click “Have Disk…”, enter “windowsinf”, click OK

6. Select “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), click OK

7. When the process in complete, reboot