Has anybody thought to ask one of these kids running around with the trucker hats that say Von Dutch if they actually know what Von Dutch is? Corollary: Has anybody other than me seen the new rage in car window decals—Calvin kneeling in front of a big huge cross? I bet Bill Watterson is slashing his wrists over that one.
The Superdrive came this morning, so I have a date with the guts of our Sawtooth tonight for some upgrading. Not much else to report right now—this week has been a blur of work, dinner, freelance, and sleep. On the down side, Jen called me from downtown Ellicott City last night to report that some jackass stole the rear license plate (and bracket) from the back of her car in broad daylight. Thanks. So she has a date with the friendly drones at the MVA tomorrow to sort that mess out.
Our IT guy handed me a disc today and asked me if I could read it on my Mac. It’s a 12-year-old CD of sound effects from the Hanna Barbera archives, recorded in some proprietary format by a company that evolved into the folks that make ProTools. Anyway, the discs are filled with sounds any 18-45 year old kid would recognize, from Fred Flintsone’s feet making the car go to Muttley’s teeth chomping Dick Dastardly’s ass. Good fun for customizing alert sounds.
Oh, P.S. “That’s the way girls like Lynndie are raised.”
Heh. Here’s an article about something on our minds… The heck with it. We’re going to have a big fondue pot and let people pick their own hors d’oeuvres. (free registration may be required)
Well, That Helped. So Bush got on Arab TV yesterday and yammered on about how “…the people in the Middle East must understand that this was horrible.” No shit! He didn’t apologize for a goddamn thing, though, which is a fantastic lesson to teach our kids, country, and neighbors on this planet.
I spent about two hours working on some freelance last night while Jen was sleeping, and I have to say that I am extremely happy with our new office. This morning I got up early, made coffee, and sat down to another hour or so of edits. The sun was rising through the atrium windows over my desk, and the cats quietly paced around my feet; for the first time since we moved in the new house, I felt like things are coming together the way we want them to.
Fans of the Beatles, Metallica, and mash-ups will dig on this link: Beatallica. The lyrics are absolutely hysterical, and the impersonation of Hetfield’s voice is right on. Apologies to XLT for ignoring/forgetting his mention of this gem.
Sweet. In my pile of SCSI-compatible (and thusly extinct) mac peripherals, I have an Apple Pro keyboard, righteously regarded as the best keyboard ever made. Since the move to USB, Apple has been making junky keyboards without the tactile feel of the mechanical original. Now that Jen and I have a workstation, we’re going to need a good keyboard to go along with it. Here’s the answer.
The 300 or so bulbs we planted last fall have all made their way above ground, and are blooming in waves: first came the scouts, the daffodils, who braved the whipsaw temperature changes and grew tall and straight. Then came the tulips, spreading fat leaves and daring the deer with their bright red petals. (several of these soldiers have fallen to the hungry enemy, their headless stems at attention among the other troops.) Now we’re seeing the crocuses bloom, low to the ground, and the hyacinths, which are taller and fat with the promise of purple blooms. On the side of the house, the tiger lilies are sending their shoots over the dead leaves, and the tulip tree is in full bloom over the front sidewalk. Even Jen’s amaryllis is about to bloom, still in gulag over the back porch.
Forward Progress, or: When Technology Actually Works. I’m using the new version of Eudora, which features a spam filter for incoming mail. You “train” the application by marking junk mail, and it “learns” what your preferences are over the course of a few weeks. I was averaging about 100 spam emails a day (having my address on the website didn’t help) and going through the inbox for one good message among the 99 bad ones was getting to be a drag. Currently, I’m seeing about 30 in my inbox, and the number keeps decreasing each day. Let us all praise the gods of software.
Check it Out. An all-percussion version of Paranoid Android by the UMASS Front Percussion Ensemble. (via Pitchfork)
Some bean counter at Kinko’s decided that it just doesn’t make sense to support Macs as part of their in-house systems. So they’re phasing them all out. Which means you gotta bring a Powerbook if you need to print something in color. Ain’t that just great?
Some early thoughts about Panther: God, this thing is so much faster. It’s a pleasure to use this laptop again- something I thought I’d never say after I left OS9 by the side of the road. The redraw and UI feedback are almost as quick as OS9 used to be, which is saying a lot. I’m usually about three steps ahead of the UI in terms of what I’m trying to do with the computer, so when Jaguar got slowed down figuring out how to draw this fancy transition or make that button blink, I got stuck waiting for the machine to catch up to me. Very annoying. Command-Tab for the applications menu is a fantastic addition—something from Windows that I miss on the Mac. Expose is OK but I haven’t found a real need for it just yet. (Designing on a laptop screen means you get real picky about workspace organization.) Overall, I’m impressed and very happy that I can squeeze another year out of ol’ reliable here.
Whupped. This weekend was a blur of nothing but work, work, work on the house. Pictures are here and here. That is all.
Update 5 pm. This tower is running smoothly, and the Powerbook has a new lease on life. To my peeps who have Pismos (*cough* Rob and Dave *cough*), you gotta upgrade. It’s like having a whole new Powerbook.
Update 3:34 pm. Looks like (knock, knock) everything went smoothly and well. All my stuff is where it should be; I enabled journaling on my existing partition seamlessly, chose the “Archive and Install” option, and crossed my fingers as it started. 30 minutes later, I’m checking email, loading the updates, and it looks almost exactly the same.
One drawback about Panther is that it looks like ATM under Classic, the benchmark font utility, does not pass open font info along to Panther, so I have to use the OSX version of Suitcase. Sigh.
I’m offline for a few hours while I upgrade the Pismo to OSX 10.3. Wish me luck.
Great News. Looks like Hellboy is getting good reviews around the net this morning, which makes me very happy. I think the books are some of the most expressive, beautiful comics I’ve ever seen, and the stories only make them better. I think Jen and I may go see it this weekend (she doesn’t know that yet.)
Not So Great News. Unfortunately, we may have to walk: the transmission in the Taurus was giving me fits this morning. I merged on to the Beltway, and while I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the rain, traffic, and radio, my Spidey-sense noticed that the engine was rumbling in a different way—I was still in first gear doing 55mph. I pulled over, shut it down, and re-started the engine, and that seemed to help, but the wonderful clunk of shifting into gear is getting more and more noticable each day.
There’s a great quote on the second track of Psyence Fiction by UNKLE: the beat slows, and you hear someone say “There were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we went insane.” I found out last night reading an article on Lawrence Fishburne in last week’s New Yorker that the speaker was Francis Ford Coppola, describing US involvement in Vietnam. Pardon me for stating the obvious, but….
So, in case the wedding invitations were still a little oblique for some of you, here’s some more information about the bug on the cover.
Last night I met up with Jason for some drinks in the city. We’ve been following a sort of haphazard schedule with each other for the past six months or so—between work, play, and life, we don’t see each other as much as we used to. I’ve known him for about five years, and he’s grown to be a good friend of mine. When my previous relationship ended, he listened to my boring tales of woe. He’s been my answer guy for software questions (any meeting we have involves at least a half hour of Mac geekery), house tools that I might not have (thanks for the drain snake, my brother), and he posesses a wicked sense of humor that I can’t keep up with. The guy kind of pisses me off, because he’s good at everything he tries.
He’s also in the middle of shedding his worldly posessions, packing what’s left, and leaving Baltimore for the left coast. I’m happy for him, and I only want the best for him and his future, but his leaving fills me with a sense of emptiness.
Now I’m going to go sit in the corner with my woobie.
High Technology, Part 2 or, Stuff You Really Can’t Afford. One of the things Jason is getting rid of is a G4 tower, which is now sitting next to my desk here at work. I think you’ve probably gotten a good deal on a used computer when it comes to you with all of the original packaging—the twist-ties are still in the box with the manuals. It’s older technology at this point (a 400mhz G4 machine in the age of 2Ghz G5 towers) but it’s so much faster than this laptop, I can’t even describe the difference to you. Seeing the OSX screen at a resolution above 1024×768 is a novelty I won’t tire of for a while.
My to-do list is as follows: Back up HD from the iMac to the G4 -> swap HD to G4 -> reformat 160GB drive and partition -> load 10.3 -> load applicatons and data files -> move stuff back from iMac -> wipe iMac drive and load 10.3 -> load applications and music back on iMac. Got all that?
I hafta admit, I wish I had installed the comments system here a year ago. It’s been really interesting to write about different subjects and see what you’ve responded to over the last month, so I’m doing a little unscientific list:
- Online Personality Tests – 2 entries out of 3 got comments. (My Theory: everybody got tired of them, or you already got them in your inbox the previous morning)
- Working on the house – 3/4 (You feel sorry for us, and are secretly happy your houses aren’t broke-down like this one is)
- Wedding Information – 2/3 (You’re thinking, enough already…am I invited or not, you cheap prick?)
- Weekend Updates – 2/3 (Because it’s just so much more interesting than the rest of this crap.)
- Computers – 1/4 (This is you: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)
- Trucks – 2/2 (Everybody loves trucks.)
- Booze – 1/1 (Almost as much as they like booze.)
- NASCAR – 0/1 (But nobody likes NASCAR.)
- Democrats 2/2 (OK, damn, this got some feathers rustled. Good to see you’re still awake out there.)
- Frigging AOL – 1/1 (And who doesn’t have a frigging AOL story?)
- TPS Reports – 1/1 (Or forgotten to put a cover on theirs?)
- Maryland Ham – 1/1 (Wow. I mean, this one got some people talking. Or maybe it was the beets.)
- Work changes – 0/3 (You don’t care where we’re employed, as long as we pick up the next round of drinks. Ungrateful bastards.)
So there you have it; that’s what people are talking about.
Pictures. Here’s some shots of the office in progress.
Daily Boardscan. Jen and I have a blue paperweight sitting in the foyer of the house taking up space: a rev C (slot-loading) iMac I bought a few months back in working condition. During the install of OS 10.3, I accidentally kicked the power cord out of the wall and (predictably) it went dark. Upon reboot, the machine made the needed clicks, whirs, and beeps, and showed nothing on the screen. Apparently I had blown the video board in my clumsiness, rendering the machine useless (this unfortunately is not the DVD model with the VGA out port on the back) for anything but anchoring a boat. What I’d like to do is swap it for the rev B grape iMac server, as it’s faster and quieter, but money and time have put those plans on hold. Anyway, after searching in vain for information online about this malady, I found this page with other folks having the same problems.
Music for working by: Chemical Brothers, One Too Many Mornings. Beautiful, driving, relaxed beats.
As much as I would love one of these to drag around behind the Scout, the price is just a little steep for my blood. Also, check out this link: Mocoloco—yummy industrial design to warm the heart and empty the pocketbook.
settlement check
Update: Jen called me on the way back from the printer to tell me the invitations came out looking pretty good. Even though she told the printer three times which direction to run the job on the paper, they still f’d up the RSVP card, but considering we’re getting the job run for free, we can deal with it.
This weekend we’re heading down to the L-P City to take in the Hollywood Volunteer Fireman’s Stuffed Ham & Oyster dinner (a peculiar southern Maryland delicacy which sounds gross but is actually delicious) and put in some face-time with Jen’s folks. Hopefully some more bridesmaid issues will be resolved and peace will reign over the land, but I’m going to be wearing my steel underpants just in case.
We’re also taking delivery of a used 400mhz G4 tower from our friend Jason, who has taken mercy on us with a generous payment schedule in light of our soon-to-be tight budget. I’m hopeful that Jen will find new employment quickly— it sounds like the local market is a lot busier than last summer, which was deader than Abe Lincoln.
Nothing is more humorous than listening to Jen try to close a long-dormant AOL account via the phone while the moron on the other end tries to keep her from doing so. Apparently the script they have been given involves the phrase, “I understand that, Ma’am, but did you know (insert worthless offer of AOL product here)…?” Seriously, she must have said the words “I just want to close my account” about fifteen times. I think it was at the point when she mentioned that they’re only supposed to try three times before they have to listen to you when Skippy The Wonder Salesman got the message.
Open The Pod Bay Doors, Hal. Friday I got all my home automation gear from FedEx, and after work I tried plugging it in to make some stuff turn on and off. Installation is simple, and the Indigo software recognized the USB hub immediately, but none of the lights I plugged in seemed to respond to the X10 commands. Jen and I retreated to the Whistle Stop for beers and food, and I devised a new plan of attack; Saturday morning I plugged the USB controller into my Powerbook and took it to a different wall socket—Voila! No loading drivers, no patches, no greasy kid stuff—the software worked out of the box. Apparently there’s too much noise on the socket the iMac is plugged in to (it shares a socket with a BackUPS Pro 1000, Airport Base Station, SMC DSL switch, DSL modem, and cordless phone, which is a no-no in the X10 world) so I’ll have to figure out some form of filter or double-socket approach for the final setup. One drawback that I found is that the outgoing email alerts don’t support authenticated SMTP yet, which means I have to write, compile, and link to AppleScripts to send myself mail when something goes boom (or, for that matter, send the house an email and have it turn on the living room lights, then send me back a confirmation email.)
On the other hand, Indigo’s author is a very helpful and responsive fellow, and had replied to my forum post within a half-hour. I’m only about three days into the trial period on the software, but I’m definitely buying a copy of Indigo—I’m that impressed.
I think I’m going to start a page detailing the trials and tribulations of my home automation experience to help other folks who may be looking for help. There were a few things that weren’t clear to me right off the bat, and it may be helpful for other folks to hear about my experience before they jump in.
(Note: in my days as a production artist at a local hack design shop, I worked on an account for a home automation system called HAL 2000, a branding move about as smart as naming your firstborn child Charles Manson. Did these people even watch the movie?)