KSO Blogger's Night tonight

Lots of Music. Lots of Shakespeare. Mix 'em together and you've got the 2010 Knoxville Symphony Blogger's Night.

Angie's had a very busy week so I'll be making a go of this myself.

Blog report in a few days.

New Barbie is demeaning

Mattel recently announced a new line of Barbie dolls. They are the I Can Be... series. Sure, a trademark goes somewhere in there. This is big business. Here is the I Can Be... Computer Engineer Doll.


The I Can Be... Computer Engineer Doll empowers

girls to play out different roles and "try on" fabulous careers, including computer engineer, the first Barbie® profession chosen by popular vote! Always a reflection of the times, this digital diva engineers the perfect geek-chic look, with hot pink accessories and sleek gadgets to match. The inspiring set also comes with a special code that unlocks career-themed content online, for even more digital play (how fitting)!

Features for Geek Tech Barbie include:

• Dressed in a funky tee with binary code design
• Comes with cell phone headset, laptop bag, and pink laptop
• Special code inside each package unlocks career-themed content online
• Perfect for gadget girls

If being a Computer Engineer doesn't suit your little girl's taste they can choose to be a News Anchor, a Newborn Baby Doctor, a Rock Star, a Dentist, or a Babysitter.

The thing that is the most offensive of this is that this doll is demeaning to a good percentage of the Computer Engineers out there. We do not all wear funky tees with binary code designs. We do not all wear phone headsets. Some of us have lives outside of work, whether it is being a member of good standing in the Society for Creative Anachronism or playing Dungeons & Dragons. Sometimes we come out of our mother's basement, if just to go to Best Buy to purchase the latest Asus - Rampage II GENE Micro ATX Motherboard 2000MHz (Socket LGA 1336). It does have 12 USB ports and 8 channel audio.

Mattel and Barbie, get a life.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and watch the final episode of Big Bang Theory, Season 1.

And, Mattel, if you're reading this, in general, real Computer Engineers are not Choking Hazards.

A study in Caroline

Misc. Thurs. Ramb.

Yes, it is time for another edition of Miscellaneous Thursday Ramblings.

Windows 7 has been good and stable. We've had it for about two months now. I did see one BSOD, but I'm not worried. Our trial version of Norton Security MumboJumbo expired, so I installed Microsoft Security Essentials. It seems to be working out well.

In other computer news, my in-laws' laptop got hosed up last week. The hard drive was filling up very quickly. Out of about 60GB, they had 16MB free. You read that correctly. Culprit was the AVG Free software. Something was triggering a gotcha and it would create a dump file. That was about 100MB in size. Every four or five minutes. You do the math. They are now running Microsoft Security Essentials.

A co-worker's home desktop also got hosed this week. Windows XP Pro Antivirus 2010 rogue program. Basically it hijacks your computer and makes it unusable until you buy their software to tame it. Or, you can use the instructions here.

It made the user look like this.

On the reading front, I've been working on Donald Honig's A Donald Honig Reader, Neil Lanctot's Negro League Baseball, and Sue Macy's A Whole New Ball Game.

On the TV front, Angie and I have been enjoying Big Bang Theory and Castle.

Just because I like his humor.