RIP Robert Palmer.
Greasy Kid Stuff. When I was a kid, I spent about half my life from age 10 to about age 15 in the woods. Not because I wanted to; If we had lived in an area that was near someone else my own age, I might have done other things like played ball, rode my bike, or lit fires. But we were up on the side of a mountain, in a strange house, and the neighborhood kids were all maladjusted pricks. So I hung in the woods. I built forts, played army (defined as wearing a green T-shirt that said M*A*S*H and shooting an imaginary gun at imaginary Bad Guys) and, well, explored. During these five years or so, I crawled through brush, cut down trees, moved earth, and generally got dirty. I remember having poison ivy a few times, to the point where I had to get the pills (and let’s all thank God for the pills) to rid my blistered skin of the infection. I would usually get it while helping my Dad cut some kind of weed back from around the house—can you taste the irony there? it’s a bitter, bitter flavor—and it would be a small patch, somewhere on my arm or hand. By the next morning I would be a quivering mass of ooze not unlike a skinny Jabba the Hut (or even Pizza the Hut, if you prefer) and pleading for the pill. Ahh, the magical pill. Within a few days the itch was cut back to a dull roar, and the blisters would dissapear inside of a week. But I lived in fear of the Ivy. It was out there, waiting for me. Biding its time.
The doctor yesterday prescribed me the Corti-whatever cream instead of the pill. I have this crap slathered on me like tanning butter and it’s not doing diddly; the poison ivy is spreading like Kudzu and mocking me in a quiet, but persistent manner: “…itchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchy…”
I want to claw off my own skin.
Last night I answered an ad in the local Pennysaver (bless her, Jen knows I’m addicted to the Pennysaver, and always leaves it out where I can find it) for a grape iMac for the low low price of $100. We drove to beautiful Glen Burnie, I paid the man cash, and we have a new fileserver waiting to be built. Not too shabby— a first gen 333mhz, 160MB RAM, 6Gig hard drive.
*** STOP: 0x00000077 (0x00000000, 0x8175A800, 0xBFCFDCA0)
KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERRORBeginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete. Contact your system administrator or
technical support group.
Looks like we’re probably (but not definitely) grounded by the storm, so we most likely won’t be going to Houston tomorrow. Dammit. I was really looking forward to meeting the Masso clan and watching our friend JP get hitched (and getting out of town, for that matter.) Sorry, friend. Luckily Southwest has a pretty cool cancellation/refund policy, so we may be able to get our dinero back, or at least get a credit for a future flight.
In other news, that company I ordered plaster washers from, and who sent me a confirmation email, has no record of the order I placed. When the dude on the phone told me this, I hung up in disgust, but will most likely have to call back and place an order over the phone to make sure it goes through. What a hassle.
(Update: Some dude called the house and mumbled something about not having me in their system because the order already went out, or something stupid like that. So I guess the stuff is on its way.)
I was one of the last retards out on the roads this afternoon, picking up some final things before heading home; I got food, beer, and clean-burning propane. I’m going to go dig out my camping gear and dust off the portable grill, just in case. We already have large tree limbs down in the back yard (as well as next to the Scout) and the power has blinked off about four times already—thank god for laptops.
Remember everyone, tomorrow is Talk Like A Pirate Day. Yarrrr!
For about the thirtieth day in a row, it’s been raining here in Baltimore. Since we’ve been in the new house, I think there’s been about a half-day of sunshine—and that was with about 80% humidity. Ugh. It kind of sucks going from central air to open windows and rain; you wind up sleeping in a bed that more closely resembles warm pea soup. Yeah, you say, boo-hoo, Bill; you could be a Marine in Afghanistan walking around in full combat gear, but the fact is, I’m not. My new house is about to float away down the Patapsco.
Last night I was finally able to get some work done in the house; I ran three new phone lines to the kitchen, living room, and dining room so that we don’t have to use the basement stairwell anymore. Halleleujah, amen. Next up is a quick upgrade to the dining room wiring; I’d like to run a grounded circuit to the plug where we have our printer, hub, and power strip so that we don’t fry the 1950’s era wire job.
In other geek news, it looks like Eudora has upgraded their client to version 6. I have mixed emotions about 5.1 (I basically have to use it because my email server requires a client that supports APOP) and the basic usability of the program, but the new spam filtering in the paid version is tempting. I’m going to wait for a few weeks and then see what the feedback sounds like.
Holy crap. I just found out that my high school orchestra teacher, the guy who taught me how to play bass violin, was arrested on charges of child abuse for molesting 6-year-old girls. For the love of God, that is screwed up.
This evening I dropped Todd back at his house, and he and Heather fixed me a plate for dinner; their neighbors Mike and Meg stopped over with their daughter Catie as well. We sat out on the porch and chatted, and while Catie was busy playing I chanced to snap a few pictures of her. Thanks for dinner, guys!
catie, 8.20.03
Renie sucessfully kicked me into upgrading the truck. Thanks in advance for the sleep I’ll enjoy tonight, sis.
Today I’m making a bunch of calls to the various utilities I have to disconnect service and begin new service at the new house; this should be a wonderful symphony of phone menu systems and hold music.
I’m going to finally cut the cord and donate two computers to AmVets—the first two computers I ever bought, as a matter of fact. The first is Norman, a Mac IIcx I bought in the summer of 1995 for the astounding price of $400. Norman was a great old brick for a number of years, and helped me get online and into the computer age; I upgraded him several times until I just couldn’t use him anymore. The second is G-Force, a 7100/80 I bought new (the only machine I ever bought new) from MacWarehouse in 1998 on clearance. G-Force got me through the beginnings of web design, Director classes, and the first freelance gigs I got, as well as being the test machine for MKLinux, when I saw the writing on the wall and began to upgrade my skills. Goodbye friends, and good luck out there.
How about we schedule a meeting, and forget to tell people about it? Great. Sounds like a great idea. Yeeeeaaaahhh.
I paid something like $375 for a pair of glasses about a year and a half ago; they were round frames, somewhat smaller than their predecessors, with thin lenses and UV/antiglare coatings. Expensive, yes, and pretty durable—I’m somewhat of a Sumo wrestler when it comes to glasses—but not without their flaws. About six months ago, scratches started to appear in the antiglare coating, spreading across each lens until they looked like I was peering through handfuls of cat hair. This weekend, coupon in hand, Jen and I ventured to the Lenscrafters to find a new pair.
What I’ve walked out with will shock all those who know me; I have gone totally Euro-trash. Jen calls it the “hipster-doofus” look; you might choose to call it the “fey hairdresser” look. (I hope not.) Thus ends my streak of wearing metal framed eyeglasses (ever since the fifth grade, when genetics cruelly kicked me in the ass) and the end of a twelve-year stint with the round pseudo-Lennon look. At some point in the next week I’ll take a picture of myself to show you. Maybe.
In a remarkable display of stuffing an entire corporation’s head into the sand, Palm has now renamed itself PalmOne and split the OS and hardware divisions into two companies. Memo to the CEO: Make me a small cellphone that syncs via Bluetooth to my laptop and doesn’t weigh 4 pounds or cost $600, and maybe I’ll buy another one of your products. Until then, enjoy watching your valuation tank.
Last night our friend Dave dropped by with a full-size Ford pickup, and within about twenty minutes we filled it with boxes, crates, and other square gear for transport to storage. After a nail-biting trip across town (stupid dumb Harbor Tunnel) we unloaded and took him to dinner at Kelsey’s Irish Pub. This morning, besides the empty space where the mountian of boxes used to be, this place doesn’t look anything different.
Beginning to wonder about the origins of my house, I found this site this morning: Sears Modern Homes. I don’t think the new house is a Sears model, but I do see a few familiar designs in there. Also: the site that took me to this one, chock full of great links: Retrolounge.
Slashdot ran an article about identity theft last evening, and there was a tidbit of interesting information amidst the fames and paranoia: This link on fake SSNs.
In other news, the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration got blasted by that new virus thing yesterday, which forced them to shut their computers down for the day. Remarkably, service times actually increased.
new I think it may be time for some of our elected legislators to roll up their sleeves and get some of the kinks of the intellectual property and copyright laws sorted out before our economy goes down the toilet.
The new Jane’s Addiction album is a mixed bag. There are some songs that really rock, and there are some that merely move. I don’t know what exactly I was hoping for, considering the fact that the band was so strung out recording Ritual they don’t remember it, but this album is pretty good. I suppose it will be one of those albums I have to listen to a few times to get into (see: Songs for the Deaf, Turn On The Bright Lights, Vespertine) but overall it’s not too bad.
Slashdot had an entry on the art of Machinima, where you take the in-game engine of your favorite first-person shooter and “film” a script or some other story. Apparently there’s now a contest for the best of this year’s clips; that link took me to the Red vs. Blue site, where a couple of guys have taken the familiar Capture the Flag scenario and asked the question: If the bots in the game were real people, what would they talk about? This is a distinctly Kevin Smith/Quentin Tarantino approach to the subject, and howlingly funny for anybody who’s been in the military, played a lot of FPS style games, or just likes offbeat game humor. Worth a look, guys.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any funnier. The Scout’s ignition module burned out at work today, so the juice won’t get from the battery to the starter motor. It doesn’t click, grind, or catch. Not a thing. I caught a ride with Nate into town to pick up Jen (remember, the Scout is the one running vehicle we have) and then to Jen’s house to where the Tortoise is parked. We say good-bye to Nate (he doesn’t need to get involved in this insanity, and it would be our luck for his car to break down too) and hop in the Tortoise to try to make it down to the mechanic’s. About a quarter of the way there, she gives up the ghost—there’s a hole in the return line from the radiator about the size of a dime that I didn’t see when I looked over the engine. We get a tow from a nice young guy and drop it off with my mechanic, who so far has saved us roughly $500 by proving that the Saturn’s alternator wasn’t dead, just the battery. So that car isn’t heading back to the dealership anytime soon.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Seen on the way in to work this morning: A Baltimore cop, waving to a woman on the street from their cruiser. As I got closer, I realized he and his partner were wearing Groucho nose and glasses. Unfortunately I was driving, and I didn’t have time to bring my camera to bear.
Hopefully tonight, Jen and I are gonna go see Pirates of the Caribbean. I’m looking forward to it. Yarrrr!
I may have already linked to this, and I’m too lazy to go searching for it, but I think this will be a Christmas present for Bill this year. The Slim Devices Slimp3 is a networkable MP3 decoder for your stereo—you connect your computer to the SLIMP via Ethernet, and your SLIMP to your stereo through RCA jacks. The SLIMP takes care of the rest. A fine solution to getting all the CD’s I’ve burned back to the stereo, which has more power and sound than my computer’s speakers.
Then again, there’s the 30GB iPod with an FM transceiver to broadcast all those songs-and playlists-to any FM stereo within 30 feet or so. Yeah, I think maybe that’s a better solution. But that SLIMP device is slick.
Everybody say Happy Birthday to my sister Renie today!
Jen and I have been doing some work with a friend of ours for the last year and a half, and we started on a new project with him a few months ago. I IM’ed him last night and he told us he’s sending us this cool phone for payment of services so far, which is very cool. This is no ordinary phone; it’s a VoIP (Voice Over IP) phone built by Cisco and made to plug into any broadband network around. You pick up the reciever, and as long as you have a fat pipe, you call out as you would normally, without paying exorbitant long distance fees. Thanks, John.
Proof positive that there are about seventy ways to skin the cat: Todd helped me figure out how to do the thing in 3DSmax that was beyond my ability yesterday. It took all of two minutes to show me, and now it looks great. I need to get past my dependency on looking at this application like I would Adobe Illustrator, and embrace the 3D. The trick is to not get as discouraged as I did yesterday, to the point where I just want to go home.
I’m looking for some kind of Neon how-to guide and source for parts out there; I picked up a trio of neon letters at State Salvage a few weeks back, and I’d love to hook them up to a transformer and get them working. Unfortunately I don’t have any of the electronics and it seems to be impossible to find a local supplier who carries parts. I’ll have to keep looking.
Meanwhile, the fans for the 3Com hub arrived today; besides a little tinkering with the clips inside the case, installation was a snap and this machine is currently networked through the hub with no problems. The fans are rated for 12 volts of power, but considering the originals were rated for 5.5, I think it should be just fine.
Macintouch has a good tip on reviving seemingly dead Powerbook batteries: boot up into Open Firmware (Command+Option+O+F) and type “reset-nvram” and “reset-all”. Then type “mac-boot” to boot normally. Theoretically, this should reset the Power manager and allow you access to the battery (if one day it shows up as dead to your machine.)
Today the Turing Machine has its Rock Pants On.
I, however, do not have My Rock Pants On. I am nowhere near my Rock Pants. They are very far away from me right now. I feel like I’m looking at a computer for the very first time again. I’m realizing just how frickin’ little I know about 3DSmax, or more specifically, how little I know about making quick, easy models.