My Rantings in 2008

My Rantings in 2008...

Wednesday December 31st, 2008

We got off work at 11am. Nice. So I stopped at the local grocery store on the way home for food and beer.

I am officially Barracho, or drunk. Consumed (Guzzeled) 2 24 Ounce cans of "Steel Reserve 221" "Extra Gravity" 8.1% Malt Liquor. Quite the kick in reality, it is.

After the "Santa Killer" and then graphic realisation of what the Qassam missiles were I needed a vacation from reality. Just a short vacation because tomorrow I have hangover and back to reality I go.

Just got up to use the restroom and discovered I'm beyond drunk. Time for a nap...

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After a 4 hour nap I'm sober again. And hungry. Ate a sandwich from lunch (that didn't happen) and now I'm snacking.

Maybe I won't suffer from a hangover. Took 2 Excedrine tablets upon waking but I really don't think I needed them. Feel okay.

Actually came up with an idea for renovating my website. I'm going to have only one "Rantings" page, not one per year. A photo page with 10 select photos, a technology page, and two other pages yet undecided. Much simplified and also better organised so I can make changes easily.


Tuesday December 30th, 2008

Two-thirds through the work week. Mañana is the last day of 2008. About thirty hours from now!

The Qassam rocket's propellant is a common fertiliser, Potassium Nitrate. That and sugar produces a solid propellant that can be easily poured into a rocket casing. The warhead is filled with TNT and urea nitrate. The Qassam is a very easy to manufacture rocket that is has a big terrorist factor even though relatively few have died compared the the thousands of these rockets that have been fired at Israel population centers.

That's right, the Hammas fires these unguided rockets at women and children, not military targets. What Israel is doing is fully justified. Perhaps the Gaza Strip Palestinians will wise up a elect someone other than Hammas for their government. Until then, Oh Well...

One more day...


Monday December 29th, 2008

My new 4 Gigabyte USB FlashDrive and replacement mouse arrived today. So I plugged it into "Gamer3" and it didn't mount. So it is a Windows 2000 Problem.

So I reimaged the Windows partition and guess what? The new 4 Gigabyte FlashDrive works, the 2 Gigabyte drive that stopped working now works, and the 1 Gigabyte Memorex Traveldrive that had worked all along: still works.

I installed just about every portable application I had in the 4 Gigabyte Drive and have 3½ gigabytes of space left. Plus I now have an empty 2 gigabyte and an empty 1 gigabyte drive.

The replacement mouse is a well-built mechanical ball-type mouse. Will use a tiny bit less power and should really work just as well. Might have to once in a while actually clean the ball but I can handle that ;-)

More disturbing details about the Santa Massacre. If he hadn't been badly burned he was probably planning to execute his EX-wife lawyer's family. As Bryan Suits said: we will probably never really understand what happened.

One third of the way through the work week. Two more days and 2008 is over!


Sunday December 28th, 2008

Today I was "post holiday depressed". A self-diagnosis that fits the symptoms. Took a nap from about 11:30am to about 2pm, then got up and walked to the store for groceries. The exercise cleared the blues up a bit and then a Marie Callendar's Mushroom Chicken pot pie and half a large bar of dark Hershey's chocolate lifted the rest of the gloom. Not that I'm happy but feeling a bit better.

Listening to Bryan Suits and the "Dark, Secret Place" on KFI Radio. He was talking about the Israeli/Gaza Strip and the conflict that is in it's second day. Some facts from the KFI On-Duty military expert:

The elected government of the Gaza Stip is Hammas, yes the terrorist organisation. Hammas was elected back a few years ago because of their "humanity". They did a lot of community help projects that endeared them to the Palestinian people.

A few days a ago the cease fire brokered by Egypt between Israel and Palestine expired. The Hammas in the Gaza Strip then started shooting Qassam unguided missiles into Israeli population centers. The Qassam missle is home-made and very inaccurate. Videos of it being fired can be found under "Qassam" on YouTube. Blueprints of the missle can be found by GOOGLE-ing

The YouTube video shows a bank of these Qassam missles being fired off and it's readily apparent that these missiles are extremely inaccurate, going off in every which direction.

Hammas, being a terrorist organisation, is not concerned at all if women and children die by their rockets attack.

The "normal" way of dealing with rocket attacks is radar-guided artillery or mortar attacks. Modern field radars can pin-point the source of a rocket attack down to 10 meters within seconds. On YouTube is a video by an al Qaeda source of a remote-controlled missile launch where within 1½ minutes the rocket launcher is destroyed by mortar fire.

The "normal" way of dealing with rocket attacks won't work because of Hammas and their cowardly habit of installing their rocket batteries next to schools with children or orphanages.

So the Israelis are putting their lives on the line and flying precision-bombing missions with F22s and Apache Helicopters on Hammas targets that they have located over the past year.

There are many non-combatant women and children casualties in the Gaza Strip killed by the Israeli airstrikes. Yet, these civilians are not totally innocent because they elected Hammas as their government. The Israelis are striving hard to minimise non-combatant casualties but the Hammas targets are being destroyed. The Hammas popularity is rapidly eroding in the Gaza Strip.

Would you believe that some people are upset about the women and children causalities? The Palestinian women and children causalities that just happen to be stupid enough to be living next to Hammas rocket batteries and weapons caches. But not a word about the Israeli woman and children deaths by Qassam missile attacks.

Israeli ground forces are now assembling on the border ready to go in. The Israelis are being very public about it. Hammas says they are waiting for the right time to strike. I think Hammas is severely wounded already and perhaps even fatally.

Israel is also watching Barak Obama closely. This very clear case of self defense will show if Obama is just talk about Iran not being allowed to get nukes or if he is just hot air.

If Obama's reaction to the Gaza Strip doesn't show firm support for Israel then Iran will be attacked very soon before they can get the new Soviet Anti Aircraft missles installed and operational in Iran. This will happen well before January 20th when Obama takes office.

Another short week of work starts tomorrow. Only 3 days but if last week is any indication it is likely to be a long week. Perhaps this week I'll Wifi, but maybe not. 3 days left in 2008


Saturday December 27th, 2008

Today, because I've watched DVDs all the night of the 25th and all day the 26th I'm all movied out. Yesterday I took a long nap, and today I'm a bit bored. Have a lot of excess energy that I need to do something with.

So I'm going out for a "Second Breakfast" at Carl's Jr and then I'm going to "WarBike" at Sunkist library, which is closed but their WiFi access point is one of those long-range type "n" routers and I have a choice of easily hitting it from in front on the bench or behind sitting on the grass in the park.

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The Library WiFi is alive! This is just a quickie update to insure I don't forget to update before my battery dies.

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Minor bug in Ubuntu 8.10: the power indicator will read out that there is an hour left and then 5 minutes later a 2 minute warning message will appear. Not that's it's a real big problem and over all Linux is well worth using.

Did discover that my guess was correct: the old mouse was bad. Tried the temporary replacement mouse from my home system on my laptop and it worked. Today my new mouse and FlashDrive is due to arrive. Will be ready to go Monday when I next WiFi.

The battery life on my laptop is more than long enough with the wintry temperatures. When my battery died I was more than ready to pack up. That and I needed to use the restroom badly. Too much coffee.

Leo Laporte on KFI Radio was interviewing a girl and her boyfriend. Girl Gamers aren't treated well sometimes on regular gaming sites. A bit of sexism exists. Girl Gamers are now 42% of the gaming community (and growing).

Many boys are really afraid of being beat by a girl. Plus most gamers are young. It is amusing that I, a 54 year old male, have no problem with sexism. That's likely because I have a daughter that I readily acknowledge is smarter and even more aggressive at times than I am.


Friday December 26th, 2008

My Son gave me 3 DVDs for Christmas. The original "Alien" movie, the movie "Starship Troopers" based on the book by Robert A Heinlein, and a Will Smith movie "Hancock".

First "Alien". This classic Sci-Fi Creature Feature was filmed in 1979, long before the modern special effects like Computer Generated Imaging was developed. Ridley Scott, the director of this low-tech Sci-Fi, created a very suspense-filled thriller. You never really get a good look at the Alien, just see the aftermath. The first Alien sets up the following "Alien" movies by giving you a very vague idea of what the Alien is like. Sigourney Weaver is Riply, a character who is the leading lady, or more accurately, the Nemesis of the Alien Species. Sigourney is in all the Alien movies.

My favorite "Alien" movie: Alien: Resurrection. Here Sigourney (as Riply) is cloned from remnants of her DNA from the previous Alien movie and she is a bit Psychotic, for a reason.

"Starship Troopers" is a movie based on the book by Robert A Heinlein. A more modern movie (1997) with modern CGI effects. Directed by Paul Verhoeven, who also was the director of the 1990 movie "Total Recall" that marked the first, limited use of CGI. The special effects are spectacular but a warning here: there is plenty of graphic battle scenes with much gore, both human and various colored fluids from the Insectiod enemy. Yet the main story line is not the war with the "Arachnoids" but the friendship and love between a handful of fresh High School graduates, young men and women who vow to always be friends.

One idea in "Starship Troopers" that I tend to agree with is the idea that only military veterans can be citizens and vote. Seems like a lot of electoral stupidity is caused by people who vote while remaining clueless about what freedom costs. Our country doesn't have much of a future.

The third movie, a really surprisingly good one, was "Hancock" starring Will Smith as "John Hancock", a very troubled man with super powers and Charlize Theron, who is someone from John's past who has the knowledge of who he really is. Filmed this year the special effects are incredible and it's a story about a superhero with very human weaknesses. The movie opens with a high speed chase while "Hancock" is sleeping off a drinking binge on a bus stop bench. A kid wakes him up and calls him a name when he doesn't want to help with the high speed chase. The movie is a a good movie for all Will Smith fans.

My favorite Will Smith line is from "Independence Day", when he opens the hatch on the Alien Invader's space fighter and yells: "Welcome to America" as he knocks out the Alien with a punch. A favorite Will Smith movie is "Men in Black"

Only 5 days left in 2008. I ask myself "Self, what should I do with this website?" I need a new direction, a new focus. For sure at least a new look.

Tomorrow I might go over to the Sunkist library and get on the WiFi, even though the library is closed for another 8 days. It's going to be a bit cold, although warmer than the last few days, and there is no rain forecast.

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The rest of the afternoon was good. My son played a Playstation game called "Kill all the Humans" or something like that. My Ex wife spent quite a bit of time on my Daughter's Laptop "Larry" doing Internet stuff, and my daughter and EX did a lot of "girl talk".

Then we all went home. After my EX had given my daughter a jumpstart they drove off. Then "La Barca Azul" (The Blue Boat, or the old blue Chrysler my daughter owns) died. As in quit. As in wouldn't start.

We were in a bit of a bad place. It was cold and damp, we couldn't get back into the apartment so my daughter used my BlackBerry to call a friend. A very good friend as she would be able to help us in a while, after they had taken some of her family home. So we walked down to the corner, weren't impressed by the movies playing, and then decided to walk a bit further to McDonalds to get some food and something hot to drink.

McDonalds has WiFi. Not free but not impressive at all. $2 for 2 hours of very slow Internet access.

Then her friend and her friend's mother came and rescued us. We got "La Barca Azul" started and this time waiting until it was fully warmed before driving off.

My whole day only lasted 12 hours. Was back home by 7PM and got to spend some extra time with my daughter.


Wednesday December 24rth, 2008

Today 4 more gauges came into the fill lab that I had Isolators for so I filled 10 gauges total today. In three days 45 gauges. An average of 15 a day. My boss was really happy and a happy boss is a good thing in these very uncertain times.

I filled 10 gauges and left at noon. After lunch the company president told us that we could clock out at any time after we were through eating and the time would be automatically taken off our vacation. I was tired, stuffed, and ready to go home. Also wanted to beat the rain that is supposed to come in tonight.

At work they catered lunch. It was actually very good. Turkey, Ham, Mashed potatoes and Gravy, Salad, Rolls and etc.

Have been re-playing Myst V: End of Ages. With the faster processor in "Gamer3" I can play in the free-move mode, going anywhere I want. I can explore everything within the highly detailed worlds and go look at anything that is interesting from any angle, even the back side.

Just talked to my daughter. I'll be going to her house tomorrow and my son Isaac will be going there to. They have WiFi so I'll bring my laptop.

Reminds me: need to "WarDrive" onto a local WiFi and do a quickie upload.

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WiFi all down. Or too far away. No biggie. I'll do the upload Mañana at my daughter's house. Will be able to show my son Ubuntu Linux.

It's going to be cold and rainy so I'll be riding the bus.


Tuesday December 23rd, 2008

Today I filled 24 gauges. Tomorrow the most I can fill is 6 gauges because someone didn't order enough Isolators to finish the gauges due to ship this month.

My company (3D Instruments) takes custom orders from customers and then two weeks or so later ships the order. Which means we need good Inventory Control. Sometimes the Inventory Control doesn't work well. Of course, to be fair, a supplier may be struggling to make shipments on time.

Tomorrow the company is supposed to supply lunch and we are going home an hour early.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was speaking in Fresno Friday and admitted that the "revenue" increases in the Democrats' budget they passed last week were illegal. So John and Ken on KFI Radio have been playing the audio of his admission at least once an hour.

The President of the Howard Jarvis Association said that the audio of the "Governator's" admission of the illegality of the tax increases would be used in the lawsuit.

KFI Radio will be on watch all through the Christmas Holiday to make sure Schwarzenegger and the Democrats don't pull a fast one on us.

It only briefly rained this morning after I had already gotten to work. With luck it won't rain during the day and stay that way until after I get home.


Monday December 22nd, 2008

This morning started off bad. When I arrived at work I discovered my keys weren't in my pocket, right after I had padlocked my bike where I park it.

Found my keys. Right where I had left them. In the padlock at home that I use to lock up my bike.

The gauge isolators I needed came in just before lunch. Even with such a late start I managed to get 11 gauges filled and out.

Isolators are devices with diaphragms that keep the gas or liquid being measured out of the gauge's Bourne tube. Thus the gauge becomes hydraulically operated and "isolated" from the measured gas or liquid.

Been thinking about my new "Friend" on Facebook. What happened between us happened 15 years ago. I'm not the same person I was 15 years ago. He probably isn't either. Reading his Facebook profile intrigues me a bit so whatever happened 15 years ago is ancient history and irrelevant for today.

John and Ken on KFI Radio were telling a story about someone who showed them how with an Internet Radio application called IHeartRadio you could listen to the John and Ken Show on an iPhone. Gee, a portable battery powered device for listening to radio broadcasts. I got one. A portable battery powered device for listening to radio shows. Cost me $20 for the last one I bought. His iPhone cost him $300. Mine is called a RADIO

When I was a teenager I had a portable battery powered device for listening to radio broadcasts that had vacuum tubes. Not transistors. Vacuum tubes. 4 of them. And an expensive 45 volt battery that would power it for a few hours. It was an antique. Worked well but battery life really sucked.

Okay, I'm not that old. The vacuum tube portable radio was an antique when I was a teenager.

By the way, a "vacuum" tube is a pre-transistor amplifier that had a electrically heated cathode (negatively-charged electrode), a positively-charged plate, and a "grid" that controlled the flow of electrons from the cathode to the plate. The "vacuum tube" is constructed in a tubular glass "tube" which is evacuated of air, thus the "vacuum".

I'm sure WiKiPedia or GOOGLE would have a better description than I can give for "vacuum tubes".

"Vacuum Tubes" were very inefficient, with most of the electrical energy being wasted as heat. One plus was that "tube" equipment made nice heaters.

At one time Radios were being made with 20 or 30 vacuum tubes to impress customers. Only a hand full of the tubes actually did anything besides light up. Those "Super Radios" made really nice heaters.

It's been cold and rainy all day. Didn't rain hard, in fact wasn't raining either when I rode to work or rode home. Rain is forecast for tomorrow and through Christmas.

My ceiling in my room doesn't leak...       much. During really heavy rain it's just an every few seconds drip. I could complain but I guess I really don't care enough anymore.

I'll go to bed early tonight. The week is going to be a somewhat rough one due to rain so I'm going to make sure plenty of sleep happens.

Did that make sense?


Sunday December 21st, 2008

The Iraq war is winding down. The Department of Defense keeps statistics on deployed and furloughed troops. Lately it has been more deadly in terms of fatalities to buy and ride a motorcycle here at home than to serve in Iraq. The DoD has been therefore trying to discourage motorcycle riding.

The duty of American Troops in Iraq has changed this year. Before, Like police, the US military was practising "presence patrols". Constantly moving troops around so that it appears there are many more than there actually is. Like the local police. Police and Troops in motion can respond much quicker than police or troops that are based somewhere where they have to load up into vehicles.

Now the troops are bored. Just sitting around in bases and only intermittently leaving for any type of patrol. The Iraqi army has been doing a good internal security job, even quelling (all on their own) a regional uprising. That miffed the US commanders because the Iraqi army "just did it" without being told to or even asking if they should. But that's what's needed to be in place before US Troops can pull out.

Troop levels are down in Iraq. There are less troops in Iraq than in South Korea. Less than even in Japan.

Tonight around midnight it's supposed to start raining and continue through tomorrow (Monday). Tuesday hopefully will be dry and then I can go WiFi-ing. Haven't decided to ride to the downtown Library to WiFi or to just sit outside the Sunkist library and get on the WiFi there.

Just "wardrived" onto a WiFi Access Point I can "see" from my bedroom. Macchanger allows me to "fake" my MAC address to any of a billion random addresses, which means the cable people can't keep me out. That and I'm getting a 46% signal strength from my Linksys WPC54GX WiFi Adapter, the refurbished one I bought for less that $10

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I was "kicked off" within 15 minutes. The WiFi access point. Got my email read and even found that someone surprising on Facebook had become my friend. This person 15 or so years ago had been, how shall I say it, someone I had total contempt for.

So I wrote on his wall "Happy Hanukkah".


Saturday December 20th, 2008

Yesterday afternoon I got a "wrong number" call on my BlackBerry. From country code "82". South Korea. Got a second call from the same number only minutes later so it wasn't a random misdial. An expensive wrong number!

The Sunkist library is now no longer opening on Saturdays. The Main Branch downtown will be open but I really don't need to surf the Internet so badly that I'd take a mountain bike ride there. Besides, I have my 'Berry and can just use it's rather generous Internet allowance of 10 megabytes to keep up on news and do routine email checks and such. This is the Holiday season so there won't be anything major happening during this time anyway.

The Sunkist Library will also be closed until January 4th for the Holidays and (I believe) repairs.

In the next two weeks maybe Israel will attack Iran. India might attack Pakistan. The old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times" seems to apply.

Bernard Madoff (pronounced "made-off") has swindled many people out of 50 billion dollars. I keep hearing of more victims every day. Latest is the Olympic Council.

Leo LaPort on KFI Radio started his show talking about that teacher in Texas that confiscated the Linux CDs that one of her students was giving away saying "there is no such thing as free software" and "don't waste your time with anything besides windows". On so many levels the teacher was wrong. One point Leo made was that the thousands of dollars spent on Windows software by the schools would be better spent on other things.

I've been using Linux for 3 years now. Started with RedHat 7.3 and now have been using Linux on my laptop since June of 2006. The Pentium II 233 Mhz Dell 3200 laptop ran well enough on Xubuntu 6.06 and new "new" Pentium III IBM ThinkPad 600X runs Ubuntu 8.10 with all hardware working.

Linux has arrived as a "good as windows" operating system. There is only 1 thing Linux won't due is sync with my BlackBerry and I wouldn't be too surprised if that changed soon. Ubuntu 8.10 with the WINE Windows emulator will run many of the Portable Applications on my FlashDrive.

Perhaps for fun I should try to get the BlackBerry Desktop Manager (Syncing) software and Microsoft Office 2000 Outlook to function under Wine running on Ubuntu.

Two very recent events have me deeply concerned. First was that "budget package" just passed by the California legislature with about 10 billion dollars in "surcharges" and "fees". The Section 13 of the California Constitution EXACT wording requires a two-thirds majority to pass any revenue increases. The EXACT word is "revenue". Which means taxes, surcharges, and fees or any other euphemism for revenue.

The second event is the ruling of the California Supreme court against a woman who tried to help a friend who had been in an auto accident. The Good Samaritan law of California seems clear enough. You can't sue someone for trying to help you. But these robed freaks decided the Samaritan Law didn't protect the woman because it was decided by the judges that the woman had performed a "rescue" when she dragged her friend from a car that she thought was about to explode.

What worries me is that both laws, the Proposition 13 two-thirds majority rule and the Good Samaritan law, are both written in clear and concise language.

California Judges have done that before with the Proposition 187 ruling. It's unconstitutional to prohibit an illegal alien, an invader in our country, from getting schooling, health care, and even food stamps and welfare. Which I very strongly disagree with. If Prop 187 had stood as law maybe we wouldn't be in this budget crisis.

Yesterday (Friday) I stood behind a woman with multiple children who didn't speak English, looked a bit furtive, and paid for her groceries with food stamps. Now she may or may not have been an illegal alien but if she was I resent money being taken from me to give to her. I voted for Proposition 187 and as far as I'm concerned any tax money given to illegal aliens is illegal because 187 Prohibits it. And I voted for Prop 187.

The Judges in Robes who ruled Proposition 187 unconstitutional must be smokin' crack...

When our country was formed it was because the King of England, "over there", was doing whatever he wanted: raising taxes and passing laws that we had no say in. Now the California Legislature and Supreme Court Judges, "up north", are doing whatever they want, passing illegal budgets, ruling illegal aliens have "constitutional" rights, and over ruling Samaritan Laws.

PCLinuxOS on "Gamer3" seems to be acting up. It will often get real slow and pretty much lock completely up. I've turned off a few of the PCLinuxOS "extras" like the fancy Gnome Applet manager.

Tomorrow will be the first "official" day of winter. It's been cold enough for me to wear long pants for over two weeks. I've put my sleeping bag on my bed instead of the light comforter I had, got out a heavier jacket to wear, and even considered getting light gloves.

Today I got my Verizon bill in the mail. Wednesday I had received the emails and text messages informing me my bill was ready, Thursday I paid the bill on-line with my Prepaid Mastercard but today I received the bill in the mail.

Tried Microsoft Outlook and the BlackBerry Desktop Manager on my laptop running Ubuntu Linux + Wine. Outlook installed without error but would not start past the splash screen and the BlackBerry Desktop Manager wouldn't install. At least it didn't seem to. After I had given up and even deleted the BlackBerry Desktop Manager setup package the installer finally opened up.

Played a new FarCry level called "Splash Harbor". "Gamer3" ran this somewhat more demanding FarCry level without any hesitations at all.


Thursday December 18th, 2008

Yesterday I was going to the library to WiFi after work but the cold and rain made me postpone WiFi-ing until today, which turned out to be a somewhat cold but sunny day with no rain.

My "ToDo" list is all checked off. Think I'll leave early because someone has been stealing bicycles from the front of the library and I don't want to become a victim.

Just bought a replacement USB Flashdrive for the 2 Gigabyte Kingston drive that died. For the same price a Talent 4 gigabyte FlashDrive! My first USB FlashDrive was a Memorex 512 megabyte for $59. At the time that was a deal!

The Sunkist library is not going to be open Saturdays starting, well now. The financial crisis has hit. No real big deal, I'll just adapt a little.

The California Legislature has just passed a budget full of illegal tax increases. They need a two-thirds majority under current California Constitutional law but they tried to get around it but calling the tax increases "surcharges" and "fees".

The "Governator" says he will veto the bill. We will see.

Almost 7PM, I'm going home...


Tuesday December 16th, 2008

The Martin Scorsese film about the British Rock band "Rolling Stones" is titled "Shine The Light". It was filmed this year (2008) at a benefit concert in New York City. Martin Scorsese did a phenomenal job of capturing the concert and putting you in a seat far better than even former President Clinton had (Clinton's a hard-core Stones fan). The film was done in Dolby 5.1 surround sound and it puts you on the stage with the two lead guitars on either side. 44 years ago The Rolling Stones was formed and from watching this DVD they are still going strong. Keith Richards is now 80 years old and the other 3 original band members aren't all that much younger. Rolling Stones fans must see this one.

Keith Richards has a very interesting way of dressing. Wild hair, a bandanna and ear rings. Looks like a pirate. In fact, Keith was in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and he looked pretty much like he dresses on stage for a concert.

Mick Jagger, although not as energetic as when younger, was in motion the whole time. Didn't jump any but was certainly much more energetic than you would expect a 70 year old man to be.

"Get Smart", the movie, is very funny. Back in the late 60s, early 70s the television show with Don Adams playing Maxwell Smart was one of my favorite TV shows. Max (the new Max) has a Swiss Army Knife that along with all the normal stuff had a blowgun with poison darts, a flamethrower and even a crossbow. The modern Max, just like the original Max, is very accident-prone. He is a crack shot with a handgun but repeatedly misses what he's aiming at with the crossbow and shoots himself. This, being a modern movie, has great special effects and many things get blown up or broken. A movie well worth watching.

Tomorrow I'll WiFi. It's supposed to not rain much tomorrow so I'm going to pack up my ThinkPad and go to the library after work. I'm trying to get some people together to Christmas Carol around work and I need to GOOGLE some Christmas Carol Lyrics. It will be a very impromptu event, hopefully taking everyone by surprise.


Sunday December 14th, 2008

This morning I went to WalMart. I'm mentioning it only because I needed a few personal items so I had to go. I hate shopping around the Holiday Season. By the time I was checking out at 10am the store was becoming crowded with Holiday Shoppers. WalMart is one of the few retailers that are doing good because they have always had low prices. Which is why I shop there. No need to pay more for anything than I have to.

Spent the rest of the day watching DVDs.


Saturday December 13th, 2008

My Kingston 2GB FlashDrive only seems to not work in the Windows 2000 side of "Gamer3" but works (sort of) in the PCLinuxOS side. I say "sort of" because I'm unsure if data transfer is accurate. The FlashDrive works on both the Ubuntu and the Windows 2000 sides of my laptop. Guess I'll just have to wait until the next time I reload Windows on "Gamer3" to use the Kingston FlashDrive. Until then I have the ugly old Memorex FlashDrive as backup.

Windows does that. Flaky, weird things, that is. I have two FlashDrives, one that still works perfectly and one that doesn't, but only on the Windows side of one system.

Now it's time to go WiFi-ing

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Got my "ToDo List" checked off. Even found the libdvdcss decoder that (hopefully) will allow me to play copyrighted DVDs on Linux. PCLinuxOS is a Debian-based Linux distribution that is compatible with Ubuntu and I found a pre-packaged for Ubuntu installer.

Having so many choices with Linux makes simple things sometimes complicated. But safe: no viruses, spyware, rootkits, NADA. What Linux doesn't have in the bad department makes up for a few hassles here and there.

And either I'm getting better at installing and using Linux (maybe), or the Linux distros (Like Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS) keep getting better and easier to install (probably).

When I first got to the Library I got on the WiFi instantly. A PC-Windows user and Macintosh user came in later and couldn't get on. I even got off and then back on with no problem. The WiFi Access Point had to be reset by the librarian for the other laptop users to get on.

Think I'll go home and celebrate by getting some "junk food" from the Carl's Jr on the way home.

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I checked out two DVDs: The "Get Smart" movie and a film by Martin Scorsese about the British Rock band "Rolling Stones". Watched "Get Smart" through almost twice and then the "Rolling Stones" movie.


Wednesday December 10th, 2008

My Kingston 2 Gb Flashdrive just died. After only 4 months of use. I'll have to check it out more thoroughly but it doesn't seem to work with my gaming system, either the Windows or the Linux side.

To get the game "Prism Guard Shield" copied from my laptop to "Gamer3" I had to split it and copy the 700 megabyte pieces over one at a time with the 1 Gigabyte Memorex flashdrive that still works even though it's ugly after being repainted black and laminated with medical plastic. The medical plastic that I had left over from my leg injury.

Tomorrow night I'll skip WiFi-ing. I'll be playing "Prism Guard Shield"


Tuesday December 9th, 2008

As of 2PM this afternoon my friend Amy is home with her new baby. That was fast. Not easy, though. She says she is sore.

Internet was acting up a bit. Sometimes RoadRunner (Time-Warner) cable sometimes does that. The Internet will run nicely, then "clog" up so websites can't be found, and then clear up after a few minutes.

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I found a free National Guard training game called "Prism Guard Shield". 1.5 gigabytes of download. And a new book (newly published) by Richard Bachman (a.k.a. Stephen King) called "BLAZE".


Monday December 8th, 2008

My friend Amy had her baby. At 3:27 this morning (of course, babies never come at convenient times) after only 5 hours of labor.

I had taken the rear wheel off my mountain bike to re grease the rear bearings Friday. Got lazy and didn't get it done either Saturday nor Sunday. This morning when I put the wheel back on the bike it didn't squeak. I had tried everything to stop the squeaking before, loosening it, tightening it, moving it this way and that and it wouldn't stop squeaking. Then this morning I just dropped it in place, tightened the quick-release, and it worked, without squeaking.

Tomorrow it's a trip to the library to return the two books I read over the weekend and to WiFi. If it doesn't rain, that is.


Saturday December 6th, 2008

Thursday when I was WiFi-ing I discovered that there was a new release of PCLinuxOS with the Gnome Desktop interface. I prefer the Gnome Desktop over the KDE Desktop, not really because one is better than the other but because the Gnome Desktop is less like Windows and more like the Macintosh interface.

PCLinuxOS 2008 installs very cleanly and is perfect for a non-Internet connected PC because most standard audio and video formats are included in the base install. Such as the standard windows video formats, flash video formats, MP3s, and other common formats, except for the DVD format.

With Ubuntu and all other distros those same codecs can be installed from the Internet. Ubuntu packages most of them together as the "Ubuntu Extras".

The PCLinuxOS 2008 Gnome release
Very sharp looking

CLICK FOR LARGE VIEW

I feel very lazy today. Was thinking of going WiFi-ing but then decided: Too much work to put my bicycle back together. Besides, I was reading Orson Scott Card's new "Ender" book: "Ender in Exile". Card is a master story teller who has written many "Ender" books, describing Andrew "Ender" Wiggan's life as first a child military leader and then as "Speaker for the Dead". Read "Ender's Game" first, then the others. All in the Science Fiction area of the library.

Next up: James Patterson's newest book "The Dangerous Days of Daniel X".

I'm fortunate to live in a town where the public library is well-funded and has plenty to offer.


Thursday December 4rth, 2008

Today I'm tired. Got plenty of sleep last night. So, why am I tired?????????

Have done my "ToDo" list and I'm thinking of going home early. Need to come up with a new design for my website. What would be interesting? What would be unique?

Fact is, my own website bores me and I want to change that.

Found two books to check out. A new "Ender" book by Orson Scott Card and a new book by James Patterson.

My mountain bike is "squeaking". I need to take the rear wheel apart this weekend, re-grease the bearings and while I'm at it change the disk brake pads.

Think I'll go home...          as soon as I finish downloading the Ubuntu 8.10 live CD.


Wednesday December 3rd, 2008

Today I got a surprise. A raise. $1 an hour, a 9.75% raise. 3D Instruments actually values me as an employee.

In these times having any job is a good thing, many have lost their jobs and I know how that hurts. Having a job where I get a raise is an especially good thing.

The raise won't make life easy, but it will loosen the tightness of budget that I've been feeling.

Last night I stayed up late reading and didn't get enough sleep. Tonight it's to bed early and tomorrow I WiFi.


Tuesday December 2nd, 2008

Easily got my "ToDo" list done. Found a very funny video on YouTube: "The Matrix Running On Windows". Search for it. Make sure your "cookies are enabled" ;-)

Think I'll go home early. And eat...


Monday December 1st, 2008

Tomorrow I WiFi. Out of boredom more than anything I guess. It would throw off my schedule if I were to WiFi on say Wednesday rather than tomorrow and for no other reason than that I guess I'll WiFi Mañana.

Been reading a lot, more than anything just avoiding thinking. Perhaps tomorrow will cheer me up. Of course, hoping for anything always ends up the same. Disappointment and desolation.

My, aren't I in a dark space tonight?


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