Technology and the joys of gremlins

I finally broke down and decided to get a wireless router for my apartment setup. I perused the Interwebz and found one that got a fairly high rating. It seemed simple enough. It was billed as the sort you just plug in, pick your connection type, create a password to secure your wireless network, and BAM! Internet with wireless.

All the comments I read seemed to support the plug-and-play functionality.

Oh how naive of me to think this was indeed the case.

I forgot about gremlins. No, not Gremlins, but the perverse monsters of World War II legend that mess around with any kind of technology.

Not surprisingly, my wireless router did not work as advertised. I still have the old router and that works like a charm, so it's not the Internet connection. I followed the instructions for the new router to the letter, including the careful, slow, systematic powering up of the modem, followed by the router, followed by the PC itself.

There's still a stubborn refusal to connect. The router itself seems to work just fine but it doesn't appear to want to chat with my modem. I'm finding this somewhat irritating.

Erin go bragh

• Everyone's (cliched) Irish today. WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
• Finished "Redshirts" by John Scalzi on Friday. That was one goddamn hysterical and weird book. Excellent read. Nice job with the "Star Trek" tropes. Funny and thought-provoking at the same time. Just what I needed when I was having beers.
• I've already rambled plenty over Veronica Mars. The long-and-the-short of it is that if you enjoyed the TV series at all, you're going to like this movie. Probably a lot. Sassy, funny, clever, and a couple of neat plot twists. It was like a long TV episode only without TV's restrictions on language and hand gestures.
• Freakishly-hot weather here in California. My allergies are beating the unholy shit out of me this morning. On the plus side, it's rum-drinks weather. *ahem*... yeah, that's probably not really a thing.
• So it's Monday. If you feel a burning need to get into the right frame of mind (meaning: facing gibbering horror), check out this video. If possible, watch it in the dark. It's entirely possible you won't need coffee. You might need a change of shorts. Sort of depends on your threshold, I suppose.
• Yesterday was a full moon. Today's St. Patrick's Day. Yeah. That's going to go really well.

I am a fickle, hypocritical, bastard

With that as my lead-in, I have to say I've finally gotten a chance to watch the Veronica Mars movie.

Okay, so I'm still pissed about the whole Kickstarter delivery thing.

Having now watched what my money went towards, I'm oddly at peace with the situation. God damn that was a good movie. Clever, well-written, and the perfect follow-up to the TV series.

Rob Thomas, I owe you an apology for my name-calling over the last two blog posts. That was a magnificent film you crafted. Good job.

Veronicrapped out

Out of a perverse desire to fuel my continuing rage over the clusterfuck that is this Veronica Mars Kickstarter, I've been following some of the coverage and the Kickstarter itself.

It's nice that folks are enjoying the film. I suppose I would have if I were inclined to go to a theater. I might have, had the Kickstarter not gone so far south.

Now I want really nothing to do with the goddamn film. The company backing this (Warner Brothers? Some fucking group of assholes like that) are offering a refund of Kickstarter funds if there's receipts that we've bought the film through iTunes or Amazon. Alternately they're offering $10 back.

Nice.

I understand the various arguments in Kickstarter comments that I shouldn't hold Rob Thomas responsible for this, but I do - at least in part. He's experienced with all of this. He knew what was going on. The very fact there were "extra staff" on hand to "address difficulties over the Flixter downloads" meant that Thomas or his backers (or both) knew this was going to turn into shit.

I'm honestly too angry to try to get the damn film and watch it. I may never watch it. I hold grudges and I'm pretty goddamn pissed off right now.

Bah. I really need to take a walk or something and not let this crap get to me.

Kicked-in-the-nethers-starter

I was one of the many folks who backed the Veronica Mars movie on Kickstarter.

Suffice it to say, I will never, ever back a film in Kickstarter (or any other crowdfunding source) ever again. Especially if Rob Thomas does it.

Ratfuck bastard promised certain tiers digital copies of the movie. Nice enough. I figured I could download the flick legally and watch it from the leisure of my PC.

Nope. That wasn't the deal at all. Thomas opted to go through some DRM-heavy streaming bullshit service that doesn't even work properly.

I was a huge fan of the "Veronica Mars" TV show. At this point, I'm so pissed off I'm inclined to boycott anything having to do with the goddamn film. I hope this film bombs. I hope this film is so heavily-pirated that Thomas doesn't make a dime on it. Bastard.

what to expect

Wind. Allergies. Blah-blah. That's all we're getting out of me today. More whining.

grumbling....

• My hatred for Daylight Saving Time remains strong. That's no shock.
• Reading "Redshirts" by John Scalzi. So far it's a solid follow-up to "The Martian".
• Seriously. Why do we even need Daylight Saving Time anymore? It's not like even farmers really need it.
• I got nuthin' else. Tuesday and DST. I swear it will be a miracle when this day ends.