Well, dear readers, we have finally discovered the culprit in the slow-loading Internet and the no playing You Tube videos. It should have occurred to everyone sooner and yet it didn’t. I know why it didn’t occur to me, but once the seed was planted there was no doubt in my mind. I’ve spent hours on the phone with Apple Care experts, doing this, doing that, deleting this, clearing that, none of which helped anything. I loaded, deleted, loaded, deleted and loaded Flash player. Nada. The real clew should have come when we tested the laptop without any success. And the iPad without any success. That should have told Apple and me everything we needed to know and yet it didn’t. We should have figured it out when You Tube wouldn’t work with Google Chrome. And why didn’t we figure it out? Because we were, in fact, on the Internet and going from site to site, some of which loaded pretty quickly, some of which loaded jerkily, but all of which loaded. Also, a key to the problem should have been the horrendously long download times for the simplest of things – things that should have taken thirty seconds were taking thirty MINUTES or more.
Yesterday I spent another hour on the phone with Apple, with a British lady Time Capsule expert. She read through the case notes, we chatted about what we’d done the day before, and then she was surprised that we hadn’t done certain other things. The first thing she had me do was open Airport Utility and there we found a firmware update for the Time Capsule. We attempted three times to do it – it should have taken under a minute but it would not complete the update, always giving us an error message after about eight minutes of trying. That pretty much told this woman everything she needed to know and she mentioned for the first time what she felt the culprit was going to turn out to be – Time Warner and my modem. The minute she said that, everything made sense and why that hadn’t occurred to anyone else at Apple is anyone’s guess. A bad modem would cause all the slowness, would definitely make You Tube impossible, and also make downloads endless. So, to be sure, she first had me do a “ping” test, which measures the communication between the Time Capsule router and the computer – perfect. Then she had me go to a website called speedtest and there, when we finally got the damn page to load, we did a test of the modem speed – which came up as 0.26 for download time. That sounded pretty fast to me until she told me that that speed was basically like having dial up all over again. A proper modem speed for download would be above ten and closer to fifteen. And she knew right then and there it was Time Warner and the damn modem, which she surmised hadn’t been working properly for weeks and weeks. To make sure it didn’t just need to be refreshed, we did that and there was no change. At that point I got off the phone and called Time Warner.
Speaking to tech support at Time Warner is like talking to automatons. They have a script and a book and they don’t want to do anything other than what the script and the book tell them, no matter what you’re saying to them. They are trained to blame everything and everyone but themselves. So, I explained everything that Apple and I had done – all the tests – the bad modem speed. Instead of just saying they’d get me a new modem, he immediately blamed the Time Capsule and refused to do anything until we unplugged the Ethernet cable from the Time Capsule and plugged directly into the computer. I really did not want to a) waste my time, when I knew it was the modem, and b) unplug because every time Time Warner makes you do that, the router loses all its connections and you can’t even get back on the Internet without calling Apple and having them walk you through it. I argued as much as I could and then unplugged and went directly into the computer. He told me that on his end my modem looked fine. We then did the speed test plugged directly in the computer – oops. 0.26. He then acknowledged the modem must be bad. I asked him why I had to go through all this when I knew it was bad in the first place. He said nothing. I plugged back into the Time Capsule and of course could not even connect to the Internet and he had no clew how to deal with that. Idiot. Then he made an appointment for some guy to come here and bring a new modem – today between eleven and twelve. I then indeed had to call back Apple and we had to unplug the modem and let it refresh and then finally the Time Capsule found its settings and I was on the Internet, albeit jerky and slow. We never did figure out why the Time Capsule icon that appears when a backup is happening, wasn’t disappearing when it was done. The Apple tech said that may right itself once I finally do the Time Capsule firmware update. We’ll see about that.
Needless to say, that took up way too much of my time and day and was truly frustrating. The new modem cannot get here fast enough, but once I have it, I’ll have to have Apple talk me through the Time Capsule settings to make sure it’s recognizing the new modem’s settings. To that end, Apple is calling me at twelve-thirty. I’m hoping the Time Warner person gets here closer to eleven. I was supposed to have a confirmation call this evening but I didn’t. I just called and confirmed it on their voice mail system. We’ll see how the new modem works and if it fixes everything – if I’m not happy with it, then it’s over to AT&T early next week.
Other than that, I spent time sending singers mp3s and music and everyone now has everything they need and all songs are chosen and assigned. For whatever reasons, the final song choices were not that easy with this show, but I think they’re the right ones. I also did a three-mile jog, picked up some packages and put some gas in the motor car.
Then it was time to dine with the Staitman gals – mom Karen, and Sami and Sarah – the kids are going off to camp for a month so we wanted to see each other before that happens. We went to the Studio Café – we split the wings, which the kids loved – I only had two of them, while they each had three. I had the mac and cheese and the BMOC scramble – eggs, bacon, mushrooms, onion and cheese. The mac and cheese wasn’t a huge portion but I hadn’t eaten all day and was famished. I’d told everyone that Ed Asner is a regular lunch patron there. Not five minutes after being seated who should arrive but Ed Asner. The dinner was fun and we all laughed quite a bit.
Then we decided to show the girls Poltergeist, as they’d never seen it. I think they both really enjoyed it, but neither found it scary at all, save for the clown moment, which gets everyone. I remembered seeing the film opening night and the screams it got every time I saw it (I took several people over the next couple of weeks) – but I’d forgotten that Poltergeist was just a PG film. It’s also thirty-two years old and there’s much worse every night on television and that’s what today’s kids are used to. They look at a thirty-two year old film that’s been ripped off countless times by lesser talents and they don’t find it scary – in much the same way kids twenty years ago didn’t find Psycho scary. My point is that when these kids show THEIR kids what they found scary THEIR kids are going to laugh and not find it scary at all. Thus it has been, thus it will always be. I love Poltergeist and never tire of seeing it. It does everything right – makes you care about the characters and their plight rather than overwhelming with relentless effects. It’s very funny, it’s scary, and it just keeps surprising, both in characters and effects. Obviously what was terrific-looking in 1981 looks a little less terrific now (that goes especially for the face peel scene – it just looks very phony now, but then – you wouldn’t believe the screams that scene garnered), but none of that matters. It’s just wildly entertaining, wonderfully acted, well-written, beautifully directed (the credited director is Tobe Hooper, but there is not one shot in this film that doesn’t have Spielberg’s trademark style all over it – all one really has to do is look at any other Tobe Hooper film – everything becomes very clear when you do that), with a brilliant Jerry Goldsmith score. The transfer on the 2008 Blu and Ray was lauded at the time and is still fine, but I think a fresh transfer done today would yield better results. I also found the sound lackluster – in the theater it was pretty spectacular. What’s amazing about Poltergeist is that it was made back-to-back with ET – both films had budgets of ten million dollars and that was not a big budget in 1981. They just spent the money well and there were none of those ridiculous five million dollar or more actor salaries. Then you look at The Lone Ranger – cost (with advertising) three hundred million dollars and it will be one of the biggest bombs in Disney history – the industry analysts are already saying it will lose two hundred million dollars. I wonder at what point the madness stops?
Continuing on our Kritzer songs, here’s another from Kritzerland – this was a song I had on the Sun label when I was a kid – a 45rpm record that I really liked. It’s I Guess Things Happen That Way – originally sung by Johnny Cash, and here sung by Guy Haines with a track by Grant Geissman. Benjamin torments his mother by singing this song repeatedly.
02 Guess Things Happen That Way
Today, I shall be up early, hopefully the Time Warner person will arrive earlier rather than later, I’ll get a new up to date and up to speed modem, I’m hoping the Time Capsule just finds it automatically, but I’ll have Apple walk me through any problems, then I’ll do a jog, hopefully pick up some packages, and then I’m going to The Gardenia to sup and see a singer. I’m still trying to find someone to go with as I don’t really want to go alone.
Tomorrow, I may or may not drive down to the Hollywood Show – I do have a work session with the MD of the Kritzerland show – that’s at four and will last about two hours, then I may see a play in the evening. Sunday I have no idea what’s happening, but I do have the other minor busy work to finish. Monday we announce the new Kritzerland title and the rest of the week will be busy right up until our recording session with the East Coast Singer.
Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora and the Pony, for today is the birthday of our beloved Cillaliz. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to our beloved Cillaliz. On the count of three: One, two three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO OUR BELOVED CILLALIZ!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, get a new up to date and hopefully speedy modem, I must hopefully pick up packages, and I must sup and see a show. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, too many to mention. Blu and Ray, I’ll have to find something fun to watch. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I shall hopefully awaken and have no more low speed Internet. In honor of What If’s opening in 2004, here is another clip from the show – this one, what if Irving Berlin, instead of writing Annie Get Your Gun, had written West Side Story? And it goes something like this.