My
name is Eric A. Seiden and this is Eric's Curious Home Page.
I was owned by a cat named Scooter until
5 December 2008,
and if you want to see what she or I look like, just go to my Photo
Shop Of Horrors Page or my Flickr
page. I have many hobbies, and
one of them is the Internet. Things I do on the net, besides working
on this web page, include writing hockey articles for various websites,
trying my hand a fiction, and just exploring. I also reluctantly answer
to three nicknames: CMOT TMPV, Keypad, and Ewok. If you want to know
what "DARSYS" stands
for you can check that out at the DAR
Systems International corporate page. A few people have suggested
I write about how I discovered the Internet I may write that
novel one day, but it's a long story for another time; besides, I can't
imagine anyone would actually care about that.
I
love many sports. My favourite sport is ice hockey, but more about
that later. In professional sports, I follow the Dolphins (NFL), Panthers (NHL),
and in college, I stick with my true love, the University
of California Golden Bears, often known as Berkeley (aka
I am, surprisingly, an ice
hockey fan (more later). Besides following hockey, I also follow
football, and occasionally basketball; I am fond of Lacrosse, though
I'll admit I don't fully understand it yet. Additional hobbies I
indulge in include: reading (more later), writing (I've written two
unpublished novels), ice skating (I wear Easton Z-Air skates, having
switched from Bauer, and continue to skate despite two unsuccessful
knee surgeries in October 1997 and December 2000). I collect coins,
sports memorabilia, original production animation cels, hockey cards,
and other random things as may amuse me from time to time. I am vastly
entertained by almost all things Disney.
Another
odd interest I have is subways: I am fascinated by them. While they all
interest me, BART in
San Francisco (the world's best city) and The
Underground in London (best map of a subway ever devised and world's
second best city) are by far the best, with the Paris Metro coming
in a distant third. Commercial aircraft also fascinate me, and I love
to fly, especially Concorde on which I've
managed to travel a few times. I've racked up well over a half-million
frequent flyer miles just on my favourite airline: sick, isn't it?
I recommend Delta
Air Lines and I encourage everyone to avoid American Airlines --
though lately Delta's service is plummeting so this isn't so iron-clad
anymore.
I love to read. My interests lie mainly in science-fantasy,
though I often dabble in other genres when the mood takes me. If you're
looking for a good read, some of the authors I suggest (in no particular
order) include David Eddings, Jo Rowling, Raymond E. Feist, Orson
Scott Card, Terry
Pratchett, Steven
Brust, J.R.R.
Tolkien, Mercedes
Lackey, and many others. I love to talk about books, so feel free
to inquire as to others I may recommend. If you want to buy books,
I wholeheartedly recommend Amazon.com where
I now buy most of my books. My favourite newspaper columnist of all
time are Herb
Caen followed by Dave
Barry -- both are Pulitzer Prize winners. You will find a selection
of authors and titles on my Reading Selection page.
As
for music, my tastes are eclectic: I love the Beatles (both
group and solo Beatle efforts), Eagles, Elton
John, Jimmy
Buffett, Jean-Michel
Jarre, Tina
Turner, and Kaho Shimada, who has one of the most beautiful voices
you've ever heard in your life. Another favourite of mine is musician
and comedian John
Charles, who is a one-of-a-kind act I recommend to everyone. Genres
I like include: rock, pop, new-age, classical, and even gasp! some
show tunes (Les Miserables, Phantom
of the Opera, Cats, The
Lion King, and Billy Elliot). If you want to see my CD Library online,
I have it posted. It lists all my CDs and it's over 3.3MB in size. Click
here and it will load in its own window.
When
it comes to television, I have very little patience with the insipid
tripe that is now on television. Currently on television, I still watch
the Simpsons, Family
Guy, Lost,
and South
Park though most are in decline. Some great shows have
passed through over the years such as Daria,The
Wonder Years, Hill Street Blues, Hogan's
Heroes, I Love Lucy, Mary Tyler Moore, Maude, All
In The Family, the Jeffersons, Cheers, Barney Miller, Cosby (the
original series), and more. Amazingly, you can still find many of them
on Nickelodeon's
Nick at Nite as well as TV
Land because they've withstood the test of time. Having just spoken
of television and in advance of speaking of movies, I guess I should
mention, in no particular order, some of my favourite actors and actresses: Sean
Connery, Chad
Allen, Bea
Arthur, Lucille
Ball, Patrick
Stewart, Max
Von Sydow, Jack Nicholson, John Lithgow, Elijah Wood, Robin
Williams,Jodie
Foster, Michael Cera, and Mary Tyler Moore -- these are some of the
people I think really know how to act, as opposed to doing what
is a poor imitation of acting.
I
love movies and plays. Some of the best movies I've ever seen include: Gone
With The Wind, A Clockwork Orange, Wizards, Contact,
ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the impeccable Lord
of the Rings Trilogy,
The Sixth Sense, Blazing Saddles, and Almost Famous. I also hold a
special place for the Rocky
Horror Picture Show, though calling it anything but cult, camp,
and fun would be a stretch. My favourite play of all time by far is Les
Miserables followed by Billy Elliot and then Phantom
of the Opera and Lion King. Both Phantom and Les Mis are based
on books around 100 years old and still hold up very well. A great
movie or play requires many things to make it outstanding throughout
the years. However, you can gauge a movie or play's true worth by a
simple test: do you want to watch it over and over again? Some movies
or plays may seem great at a given point in time, but they don't age
well. Somewhere between theatre and film lies a unique experience: Cirque
Du Soleil. If you haven't seen one of their shows, you're missing
an amazing thing. Most of their productions are excellent and they have
permanent shows all over the globe. My favourites include La Nouba (Orlando),
Ka (Las Vegas), and Love (Las Vegas).
Certainly,
there are many more movies and plays I love, but those mentioned are
the ones I feel withstand this small test: the very best if you will.
Of course if you love movies (or television or sports), there's nothing
like a DSS dish and DirecTV especially
HDTV; I don't feel like turning this web page in to a commercial, so e-mail
me if you want to know more about satellite, HDTV, or Plasma TVs.
And, I swore I'd never pay for radio but XM has
me hooked -- my car came with three free months but it only took
four days before it was love. I'm now with Sirius because latest new
car came with that instead, and it's not quite as good. Still commercial
free radio is worth paying for.
I'm also fond of e-bay.
It was a great place, though a more and more people make it necessary
to take certain precautions. I used to list items for sale but I've since
given up becase they stopped being friendly to the sellers. Now, mostly
I spend money. If you're interested to see if I'm selling anything, you
can get directly to the list by using the icon below:
If
you want to buy me swag just 'cause I'm oh-so-cool,
then you can visit my Amazon wish list. I don't actually
expect anyone will, but it's an excuse to add another
link to this page:
There is life out there! At least I believe
there is. Many years ago, my friend, Steve Kovacs, told me about
a project called SETI@Home. If you've seen the film "Contact" or
have any concept of the SETI project, this is something you can
do with no effort on your part. Help find intelligent life in
outer space; you know there's not much left on this planet. The link
below will show you all about the SETI@Home project. Once you learn
about it, join
our work group and team up for fame and glory and the greater good!
Please, also see the Team CMOT Seti@Home page!
Speaking
of 'social networking',
I belong to quite a few. LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are for people
I really know. All the rest, I accept invitations from most anyone. I
use the "darsys" handle
almost everywhere, so I'm pretty easy to find, or just click on one of
the links:
I am desperately looking for something. Maybe you can
help! There is a neon Molson Ice (beer) sign. It's a very colourful
ice hockey goalie's mask; it's not 3D and is a flat one hanging on the
wall and had a very unique purple neon in its design. I have been searching
high and low for one to buy. I've only seen it once at
the Roadhouse Grill in Davie, Florida (University Drive); they wouldn't
part with it and now the chain is long gone. If you know anyone who
distributes Molson, or works in the beer or food industries and can
help, please e-mail
me. I'll be in your debt. I have a similar one made out of tin
that I bought on e-bay but it's not the same.
One of the big problems with the world
now is customer service. It's falling down rapidly and people expect
less and less -- as a consequence, they get less and less. I
hate settling for bad service. This applies to all industries from
restaurants to airlines to retails stores to banks: I can think of
no segment that is unaffected by this. Clearly, there are some specific
exceptions. I could name, perhaps, a dozen. One stands out above all
else. I had a very expensive solid sterling silver pen with a silver
Concorde on the clip and it worth around £85
or so. I got it on Concorde and it was
simply irreplaceable. Sometime in 2001 it disappeared, and I'd been
checking e-bay for this pen every
few days since then to no avail. I contacted British Airways but they
were unable to help me saying it had long since been discontinued (though
they still sold pens, it wasn't the one I had). BA was kind enough
to refer me to the manufacturer, Links
of London. I sent Links a fax immediately, begging them to search
their warehouse and offering to pay for one if they could find one.
I didn't hear back for a week and figured, "just another company
that ignores its customers" because normally this would have been
the end of it. Then on Friday (11-15-02) I received an overnight courier
package from London. I received a very nice letter apologizing that
they didn't
have one anymore but that they hoped the enclosed pen would make up
for it and, indeed, they had enclosed a very nice solid silver pen,
a catalog, and a contact for their New York store should I be dissatisfied
with this free replacement pen! I sent them off a thank you letter,
and I am amazed at this most excellent, unexpected, and fantastic
service. I still miss my original pen very much because, as nice as
this pen is, it is not an "on-board only" Concorde pen, but
it was wonderful to write with. That was a lovely gesture and they've
got a devoted customer for life.
Profundity. It's a neat word. I was
thinking of moments in time that profoundly affected me one way or
another, for better or worse. Here's the list, in descending order.
9-11-01. The unbearable sadness of life in the
modern world. I still can't watch those pictures. (I'm sure you
know which ones I'm talking about.)
The Challenger accident. It affected me deeply,
perhaps because I witnessed it as it unfolded on television.
The death of Princess Diana. I don't know why this
affected me. There's no rational reason for it.
My first flight on Concorde. Many people don't
understand my obsession. Anyone who has flown her, understands deep
within their soul. I feel sorry for the people who haven't experienced
it.
Ralph Bakshi's rather trashy animated film of Lord
of the Rings because it inspired me to read the book. The book
changed my life. And in the same vein, the first few moments of
Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring made me believe I was there.
My first subway ride. Toronto, Canada.
I hear Imagine for the first time.
Technology: My first computer (TRS-80 Model 1,
4k Ram); AppleLink Personal Edition (which one day will become
AOL), and the Internet.
Moving to Berkeley, California in sixth grade.
I left my heart in San Francisco while discovering Herb Caen. There
is no other place like it on earth.
Finally, everyone should have some pet peeves and I am no exception.
Here are some of mine...
One
of my biggest peeves is junk e-mail, UCE, or as it is commonly
called "spam." There are many sites
that help you manage
spam which is a growing problem on the Internet. Even Yahoo has
a huge
list of anti-spam sites.
Spam will continue to get much worse unless you voice
your concern! If you want to have fun, InterNic (an authorised
agent acting on behalf of the US Government) has a special search
engine which will give you the real name, physical address, e-mail
address, and phone number for any domain in the world. Your mailbox
is filled with spam from these scum; there's no reason why you can't
find them with a simple click
of the mouse. FIGHT
BACK!Help spread the word. If you don't fight it,
the problem will get worse. Once you find them, feel free to post
their real contact information -- this tends to irritate them --
show them what it feels like. Multi-Level Marketing spam is currently
under investigation by the Federal
Trade Commission; if you get MLM spam, send it to spam@uce.gov for
intervention by the Federal Government. Many MLMers don't pay their
taxes and will also get toasted by the Internal
Revenue Service. Spam involving medical fraud can be sent to dmedine@ftc.gov and
any Spam that requires use of the US Mail in any way can be
sent to customer@email.usps.gov for
investigation. Spam involving stock fraud for US companies only can
be sent to enforcement@sec.gov.
I
hate David Waronker because he screwed me out of nearly $700 and
I hope he and his entire family rot in the eternal abyss of hell.
Here's why: I accept people try and fail at things. I accept people
sometimes can't meet their obligations. I do not accept people who
deliberately
lie, defraud, and otherwise mislead you specifically to avoid those
obligations. Do not do business with him or his companies. He's a
scumbag. One must assume his lack of honesty is prevalent in all
his businesses
(CBD Development, USALandsale, others). The quick story: I bought
and paid for season tickets, and mid-way through the season on February
28th he relocated the team. He promised all season ticket holders
a prompt refund (I
have this in writing and copies of media reports saying this as well).
As of early May I had not been paid, most e-mails had gone unanswered,
and the ones that were answered contained promises not fulfilled.
Certified letters were ignored, calls were not returned, and so forth.
All of this is documented. On 5-15-04 (less than one week after this
page went up) I got a profanity-laden, typo-ridden email from Mr.
Waronker's
wife
who
thinks
I've
said terrible
things about
her
children. I don't seem to see that above; do you? I was going to
answer, but decided not to get in a pissing match. I got a more politely
worded letter from Mr. Waronker asking who would actually read this
web
page. I
guess
the
answer is "Mrs. Waronker." He suggests I use my refund
(not received as of yet) for medical attention. I do not believe
in posting private
e-mails, so
you don't
get to see them at this time. I do have them archived for posterity's
sake along with copies of all the e-mails and web pages which constitute
my
reasons for being irate. On 5-17-04 I received a counter check with
no imprint which had both my first and last
name spelled incorrectly, in a plain envelope with no return address.
I have presented it to the bank and awaiting it to clear. Copies
of the check, envelope, and such have also been archived. None of
my other friends have received refunds, return phone calls, e-mail
answers. I have encouraged them all to retain legal representation.
I stand by all statements made here. I am expressing my opinion on
the honesty and integrity of Mr. Waronker based on his actions. These
actions are documented. I am considering posting them on a separate
page for your amusement. (As of July 2004 I am the only one who has
received a refund. He's been twice spurned by the WHA in an attempt
to sell his team. Apparently I'm not the only one who doesn't wish
to do business with him. In August 2004, the City of Orlando
ejected him from the arena for breach of contract.)
I
also hate people who don't know the difference between you're/your,
to/too, their/they're/there, and it's/its.
Go back to third grade if you can't handle the English language.
Morons should be free to use the web as long as they don't type.
Grammar and spelling are a necessity for proper communication and
expression of ideas. If you write like an ignorant idiot, most people
will assume you are one and won't pay attention to what you have
to say. Maybe this makes me a curmudgeon. I don't care. A nice person
wrote a great article on poor grammar. With her permission, I have it
on my site. Another guy has created the Apostrophe
Preservation Society. There's even a newsgroup.
And last, but not least, I am a devout Mac-a-holic
but even so, IBMs don't peeve me in the least: I realise they serve
a purpose
in the world. However, the fact Microsoft even exists on the planet certainly does
peeve me. Windows indeed; humph! Instead of spending all this money
to make your IBM compatible work almost as good as a Macintosh,
just buy a Mac.
Bill Gates is a thrice-bedamned whoreson bastard, so don't support
him or his evil company. Lots of companies make superior products
that
cost less money.Or, to sum it up in two words "Windows Vista."
Clarus The Dogcow
The
adorable little critter off to the left side is Clarus
The Dogcow. If you aren't familiar with Clarus, your life is woefully
incomplete. Things about
Clarus you may find on the Internet include QuickTime
movies, sounds, pictures, and even the complete history of Clarus.
If you click on Clarus, she'll talk to you, but only if she's in
the mood. Clarus is a wonderful creature and you should learn what happens
when you have
a Nest
of Dogcattle. All hail the glorious Dogcow.
Moof! The complete history of Clarus in two parts: one and two.
There is of course the official
Apple Clarus the Dogcow page.
There is now another site which has more Clarus
stuff and links than I could
ever imagine.
One Of The Coolest
Things In Life
This picture was taken of me at a Florida
Panthers hockey game: I am in my full game-day regalia: jersey, hat,
paw, shoelaces, shoes, socks, shirt, and pins. I'm a die hard ice hockey
fan -- if you can't tell that from this picture, you're having a very bad
day. In June 1998, I gave up a three-plus year stint of writing a regular
column about the Florida Panthers for LCS:
Guide To Hockey. I also run several mailing lists
and a message board. If you are interested in joining
the message board or joining
the jokes list or
just want to see a list of Florida
Panthers resources, a wealth of information
is available on many of the web pages linked to this site. If you want to
read the great story of how I fell in love with hockey, the tale that was
posted on the LCS web site is now available here.
If you have never been to a professional ice hockey game, I strongly urge
you to try one. Many cities around the world have teams in a myriad of major
and minor leagues. It's a fast-paced sport requiring a high-level of skill.
I promise you'll fall in love with hockey just like I did. You should have
one thing in life that makes you extremely happy, and hockey is certainly
a wonderful choice: not all addictions are bad. Speaking of hockey, Miami
had a short-lived ECHL hockey team that only lasted once season. It was my
privilege to do the Miami Matadors official
statistics page.
Undeterred, the Miami Manatees tried and failed a few years later. Of course,
I continue to follow the NHL's Florida Panthers as well. Many of you have asked
to see a picture of me as a kid -- well wait no more! Just go to the PhotoShop
of Horrors page,
and you can see a picture of me from 1971!
Or, you can check out some of my random photos out on Flickr:
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from darsys.
You are visitor number
since the counter was installed 21 June 1997
I have select game worn, game used, and autographed items for
sale with full certificate of authenticity (COA). Click the above logo to
see this list!
I have a whole slew of computer software and hardware for the Macintosh,
Apple II, and PC for sale at any reasonable offer. Click the above logo to
see this list!
This page last updated 29 January 2010 and was created
21 June 1997.