Tag: local

I see no problem with this at all.

The Segerstroms want to put in 23-story condo towers across from South Coast Plaza in “Lakes Pavilion”, where the Greek restaurant is. First, they have to demonstrate that putting these in won’t cause environmental impact in the form of more cars. I wonder how hard it will be to convince their drinking buddies on the City Council that everything will be fine?

http://www.dailypilot.com/front/story/23331p-33245c.html

It’s not as bad as the condo-ization of East Costa Mesa, which is just slums in 20 years. At least South Coast Metro is already a sterile collection of malls and corporate plop architecture. But wow, if they start cranking up high-rises everywhere…

O ye lawyers and ferris wheels

The total bill for my vertiginous vomitous vacation to the ER is roughly $900 after my excellent insurance. Otherwise it would have been more like $5000. For which I am grateful. But, so much for paying down more debt next month. Also, the insurer and the hospital are disagreeing about whether I pay that particular bill to the tune of $521 or $487, so I foresee a fun conversation on the phone tomorrow about that.

And then I think about the people who’d have to put that money (either sum) on credit and pay the minimum on the never-never, and how they can’t go bankrupt any more, and how their minimum payments will double next year, and I am even more grateful that I’m on the Eloi scale and not the Morlock one right now. If this had been me 15 years ago I would have been in deep shit. Oh wait, that was me 15 years ago, and I got sued in small claims court for $2000 by a medical group!

I was thinking these thoughts as I went over to the Apple Store to get them to fix a bad key on my expensive laptop that I can barely afford, and there was a guy in front of me in the top of the line Mercedes SUV (5 liter V8, MSRP starting at $49,275) driving like a complete dick and endangering others, and as I went down Dover Drive to PCH this person was basically playing chicken with a gigantic tanker truck full of gasoline. So here you had the gas-guzzling luxury pansy-ass dude ranch $50,000 SUV with one old fat white guy in it risking the lives of everyone within a mile over whether he got to go in front, including the working-class dude driving the fuel truck who is bringing Mr. SUV the fuel he needs to keep on with his pathetic lifestyle.

I live in this weird part of the world where almost daily I get an overblown condensed symbol of everything wrong with my country shoved right in my face, and I find myself saying to the Great Novelist: “Where is your subtlety? Enough with the clunky obvious symbolism!”

At the Genius bar I sat next to a 20something perfect California girl hottie with the blonde and the tan and the curves and the hoo and the haa. Not usually my type, but she was exceptionally hot and also really nice. However, I fell out of “love” with her as soon as she used the word “proactive”.

As I left, a family was arriving and the little girl was complaining about something. I heard the mother say “Well, we’re going to stay here for quite a while. We’ve FINALLY made it to the MALL!”

HOWTO: Wireless Internet at 17th St. Diedrich Coffee

Original author: substitute

The Diedrich coffee houses offer free wireless internet access. When access fails, it is often the result of the wireless access point failing to give out addresses and other information. This document describes the procedure for connecting during such service failures.

  1. Introduction

    The arrival of free wireless Internet access at the 17th St. Costa Mesa Coffeehouse was welcomed, but reliability has been spotty. In most cases, a failure to connect is the result of the wireless router’s DHCP server behaving unpredictably. One can see a strong signal, but cannot get to any Internet sites, and service that has been working properly can suddenly stop. To make matters more confusing, other laptops will have connected just fine but not your particular one. Here’s how to fix that.

  2. Document History

    This is the first issue of this document, version 0.01, August 2005.

  3. How to use this HOWTO

    If you cannot reach the Internet but have a wireless signal, follow the instructions in this document. If that does not work, you are S.O.L.

  4. General Information about Wireless Networking at Diedrich Coffee

    The Diedrich coffeehouses offer free 802.11b wireless access to the Internet. They do this by installing open access points made by Linksys, which are connected via NAT to the DSL router; upstream is handled by Covad Communications. In theory, anyone with a standards-compliant wireless card can easily connect to the network and enjoy Internet access along with a beverage or pastry. In practice, it is common to connect and find the network inexplicably unable to route out to the Internet.

  5. Network Configuration when DHCP is not available

    Open your operating system’s network configuration program. On the Mac OS X system this is the Network Preferences Pane in System Preferences; on Windows it will be the Network Control Panel. Other operating systems are not discussed here, since the general information below should be sufficient for users of Unix-like systems.

    Find the screen for your wireless adapter’s TCP/IP connection settings. Change the configuration method from “DHCP” to “Manual”. Insert the following settings:

    IP Address: 192.168.199.200 (see note 1 below)
    Netmask: 255.255.255.0
    Router Address: 192.168.199.1
    DNS Server Addresses: 64.105.132.250 64.105.166.122

    Note 1: If this does not work, choose an address ending in 201, 202, 203 etc. until your operating system stops telling you that the address is already in use.

    Make sure that you have applied these new network settings. At this point you should be able to browse the web, read email, etc. If you still cannot do so, go back to your network settings and change everything back to DHCP the way it was before. You are S.O.L.

  6. Glossary of Terms used in this document

    DHCP: DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. It is a system by which a pool of Internet addresses can be handed out as needed to client computers by a server. A client set to connect via DHCP sends out requests in a predefined manner to the server, which then returns the appropriate configuration information to the client.

    802.11b: The 802.11b standard defines a wireless network access method with a maximum network throughput of 11 MB/sec. It is of the “Wi-Fi” wireless access standards the most available and most compatible.

    S.O.L.: Shit outa luck. Go do something else today.

  7. Acknowledgments

    I would like to thank Lauren Maddox for letting me rant at her tonight about how messed up the wireless is there.

  8. Copyright

    The Diedrich Coffee 17th St. Coffee House Wireless Internet HOWTO is © Copyright 2005 substitute.

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the: Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

We’ll be way too tired after yoga and facials.

Vince Lombardi would never have cupped his hand while slapping a player’s ass. It’s really very distressing to reach for the nitro and get a bottle full of duds, especially at the doctor’s office. Could you make sure that doesn’t happen any more? She said the fish water was looking dirty so she put bleach in it, for real. He asked me if Boob Guy was gay.

I keep trying to explain her to him and he just keeps saying “she’s just STUPID! she’s just STUPID!”. He told me he needed a ride there to see his girlfriend and I just said “does your girlfriend come in a little plastic bag?”