A Thanksgiving weekend in review
For each direction, there were 750 miles driven (eleven hours) and about 31 gallons of gas consumed, which equates to a mediocre at best mid-20's mileage. Let's also not forget that speeding ticket I got ON Thanksgiving by Officer Sphincter (85 in a 75 zone on I-90... gee, I wonder why the mileage wasn't that great?).
Oh, and to Wyoming's Fish and Game Department: It's time to send out the memo again telling the cute brown bunny rabbits to stay OFF the damn asphalt at 2am when I'm driving along. I turned one of them into a roadkill appetizer for an aquila chrysaetos to feast on later in the day. I did indeed see one of these grand scavengers on the highway enjoying breakfast a few hours later. That was one BIG bird. Had to have been a six foot wing-span as he lifted off to get out of the semi's way. Damn that I didn't bring the camera this trip.
And pass that memo on to the deer too, huh? I won't tell you what I saw spread here and there at about the mid-point between Casper & Cheyenne.
Over the weekend there was also:
One turkey carved and devoured.
One ham, dressed with pineapples & cherries.
Many helpings of REAL cranberry sauce. The kind that requires a stove top & pan, and no can opener.
Mashed potatoes & gravy.
Fruit salad, peas, warm bread & butter, not-from-a-box stuffing... The table was buckling under all the goodness.
But after that...
10 doses of Tylenol Cold non-drowsy (no, not all at once), totalling
- 6.5 g acetaminophen
- 200 mg dextro... hell, call it cough suppressant
- 4 g expectorant
- 100 mg decongestant
6 doses Robitussin cough syrup
- another 600 mg expectorant
and for night-time, 3 doses of Sudafed something-or-other that knocked my ass out.
So after that, there was time for some more counting for the drive home when 5am Sunday rolled around...
Inches of snow: 3
Degrees above zero: 4 F
Attempts needed to start the Nissan: ONE, which makes me all kinds of happy.
Not that I would have been totally crushed to have had to take a day off work due to being out of state and visiting my mom, but if the Nissan can handle Montana's version of an "it's getting a tad chilly" morning, I have no doubt that it'll handle Denver's worst "it's damn cold out there" morning.
187,000-ish scored on one play of Super Mario 3 on the original NES that my mom has had stashed away as her secret addiction (it's only a personal best, and in world 2 at that).
In other news, it turns out that my mom is an old-school gamer. How fucking cool is that? She tells me that some nights she'll stay up until 3am or so playing it. I had a talk with her, gently reminding her about those nights that she would chastize me about the Commodore 64 sessions I had until all hours. The irony was not lost on her, and I mourn the lost opportunity she had to contribute to my delinquency back in the early 80's. Ah well. Oh look! Three more star cards collected. 5-UP baby!
Micronaut, Gravitation Redux
27 November 2006
08 November 2006
ImposSiebel
Hmm. So let's say you pay $2400 for a TV plus $180 tax at Best Buy, but you decide it doesn't show the swimsuit channel clearly enough and take it back. Best Buy credits you only the $2400. Wouldn't you be rightly pissed about the missing $180? My company is doing this to our customers for some asinine reason.
Oh, the customer gets the full credit, but only after the rest of us jump through needless hoops to manually pull an additional credit invoice out of the ass of this order mangler system. And we paid cash money for this system... I wish I could tell you how much fucking money we have thrown at this donkey-dick sucking piece of shit, but it's too obscene a number for me to even type.
Sister Machine Gun, Got To Be
Oh, the customer gets the full credit, but only after the rest of us jump through needless hoops to manually pull an additional credit invoice out of the ass of this order mangler system. And we paid cash money for this system... I wish I could tell you how much fucking money we have thrown at this donkey-dick sucking piece of shit, but it's too obscene a number for me to even type.
Sister Machine Gun, Got To Be
26 October 2006
Computer go boom-ish
Those who get queasy from reading tech shit MUST LEAVE NOW
Wow, cool!
The primary IDE controller on my computer went belly-up, so now I can't boot (unless I keep trying for twenty minutes, and then wait a full TEN minutes for the boot to complete). Yay!
I'll try taking out the optical drive & see if it'll boot from the secondary controller more easily until I scrape up funds to get a new motherboard ... and CPU, since Socket A is a tad long in the tooth (so much so that I doubt it's been produced in a good two or three years). Anyone know someone that can use a working Athlon 1.2GHz Thunderbird series CPU? I'll even include the all-copper heat sink. Waste not, want not, don'cha know.
I could go budget & get a newer mobo that still supports AGP so I can keep my video card. Even so, I'd need new memory since my PC133 chips aren't going to fit anything new. I've got a pair of 128M sticks if anyone wants 'em (the 256M stick is spoken for). I think I'll splurge as much as I can though; I like games.
I'd thought about going to Dell/HP & the like for a new system (yes, even Apple, but I've got too much $$ in PC software to justify that migration). The thing is, I have many components that are fairly new and working great. Why get another optical drive, case & all when I have those already? I suppose I'm just not a true consumer. Oh well.
ANYway, I'm shopping for pieces parts. This does make me all kinds of happy. Now I've just gotta pare down the "nice to have" (I do wish the MSI K8N Diamond Plus wasn't so damned popular) to the "need to have" (I've not forgotten the need for a new power supply).
...
Follow-up: Booting from the secondary IDE does indeed work just fine, though I continue to get a brief delay while chkdsk does its thing. Every. Time. I. Boot. So yeah, a replacement is in the works.
----------------------
Psyclon Nine, You Know What You Are
Wow, cool!
The primary IDE controller on my computer went belly-up, so now I can't boot (unless I keep trying for twenty minutes, and then wait a full TEN minutes for the boot to complete). Yay!
I'll try taking out the optical drive & see if it'll boot from the secondary controller more easily until I scrape up funds to get a new motherboard ... and CPU, since Socket A is a tad long in the tooth (so much so that I doubt it's been produced in a good two or three years). Anyone know someone that can use a working Athlon 1.2GHz Thunderbird series CPU? I'll even include the all-copper heat sink. Waste not, want not, don'cha know.
I could go budget & get a newer mobo that still supports AGP so I can keep my video card. Even so, I'd need new memory since my PC133 chips aren't going to fit anything new. I've got a pair of 128M sticks if anyone wants 'em (the 256M stick is spoken for). I think I'll splurge as much as I can though; I like games.
I'd thought about going to Dell/HP & the like for a new system (yes, even Apple, but I've got too much $$ in PC software to justify that migration). The thing is, I have many components that are fairly new and working great. Why get another optical drive, case & all when I have those already? I suppose I'm just not a true consumer. Oh well.
ANYway, I'm shopping for pieces parts. This does make me all kinds of happy. Now I've just gotta pare down the "nice to have" (I do wish the MSI K8N Diamond Plus wasn't so damned popular) to the "need to have" (I've not forgotten the need for a new power supply).
...
Follow-up: Booting from the secondary IDE does indeed work just fine, though I continue to get a brief delay while chkdsk does its thing. Every. Time. I. Boot. So yeah, a replacement is in the works.
----------------------
Psyclon Nine, You Know What You Are
18 October 2006
You left it where?
Last year (or longer?) there was a lawsuit against Palm regarding a problem with the low-end Palm Pilots (think m100's if you know what I'm talking about) loosing the memory when merely changing the batteries. I noticed this trouble, but didn't think to file a class action lawsuit over it. The guy that DID think to do that received $10k for being a PITA, but I digress...
The courts signed off on an agreement to (in addition to oiling the squeaky wheel) refurbish those items. Owners like me didn't get a dime, but did get a post-paid envelope to send the thing in for the refurbishing. I figured, "Okay, if they're going to fix it free, I'll take advantage of it."
I received mine back a couple weeks ago after a couple delivery attempts. The courier they used couldn't leave it without a signature, and always finished their run around 2pm. The old m100 Palms are essentially worthless, really, but I guess they didn't want to deal with a bunch of other squeaky wheels claiming they never got it back & demand a more up-to-date Zire or something. Okayfine, I went & picked it up from the distribution center. It seems to work, but I've not attempted the battery change yet to see if it does the same thing.
That's not the point of this post though. Amazing that I'd go into so much detail about that, huh?
I had splurged Monday & ordered a new huge (to me & my 17" CRT anyway) LCD monitor. I only paid for the run-of-the-mill ground shipping, figuring I'd get it sometime early next week. I would've been perfectly fine driving down to the distribution center again to get it since this same courrier delivered so early in the day. I checked online to see where it's at this morning. According to the tracking information, they (that required a signature for an obsolete PDA) left the monitor at my front door. Thank you, Fry's. I really appreciate that... and I'm also pretty happy that I didn't spend the extra $20 for 2nd day delivery.
The challenge was to see if I could get home before the hooligan neighbors around here sober up & go collect "abandoned boxes" in the neighborhood... I'm happy to report that I succeeded, and am really enjoying the new view from my chair! If you get a chance to pick up one of these, I'm pretty damn sure you will not be disappointed.
Joy Kitikonti, Joyenergizer (Psico Mix)
The courts signed off on an agreement to (in addition to oiling the squeaky wheel) refurbish those items. Owners like me didn't get a dime, but did get a post-paid envelope to send the thing in for the refurbishing. I figured, "Okay, if they're going to fix it free, I'll take advantage of it."
I received mine back a couple weeks ago after a couple delivery attempts. The courier they used couldn't leave it without a signature, and always finished their run around 2pm. The old m100 Palms are essentially worthless, really, but I guess they didn't want to deal with a bunch of other squeaky wheels claiming they never got it back & demand a more up-to-date Zire or something. Okayfine, I went & picked it up from the distribution center. It seems to work, but I've not attempted the battery change yet to see if it does the same thing.
That's not the point of this post though. Amazing that I'd go into so much detail about that, huh?
I had splurged Monday & ordered a new huge (to me & my 17" CRT anyway) LCD monitor. I only paid for the run-of-the-mill ground shipping, figuring I'd get it sometime early next week. I would've been perfectly fine driving down to the distribution center again to get it since this same courrier delivered so early in the day. I checked online to see where it's at this morning. According to the tracking information, they (that required a signature for an obsolete PDA) left the monitor at my front door. Thank you, Fry's. I really appreciate that... and I'm also pretty happy that I didn't spend the extra $20 for 2nd day delivery.
The challenge was to see if I could get home before the hooligan neighbors around here sober up & go collect "abandoned boxes" in the neighborhood... I'm happy to report that I succeeded, and am really enjoying the new view from my chair! If you get a chance to pick up one of these, I'm pretty damn sure you will not be disappointed.
Joy Kitikonti, Joyenergizer (Psico Mix)
10 October 2006
If I dig any deeper...
I found a root sometime in the past few hours.
First some perspective. I have had nightmares for most of my life & could never figure out why. I wasn't knocked around at home, didn't get in to the liquor cabinet (much), let alone ingest/inject any other (debatably stronger) substances, as a kid. Didn't have any Uncle Molester that I had to visit. I just usually had gory dreams & never could pinpoint a root cause.
It bugged me, because I like to have a neat & tidy explanation for things (why this doesn't make me a dyed-in-the-wool athiest, I couldn't really say). A couple years ago, I made a conscious choice to not let it bug me so much. This coincided with me letting other things go a while after my divorce. I'd held on to some self-doubt for a while.
Anyway, I started writing a few of the nightmares down. One of my earliest remembered haunts came to me the other night. It was based in a waking incident one winter when I was knee-high to a grass-hopper.
We lived on a court. "Not a through street", as the signs say. One night I'd gotten out of the house because of some noise I'd heard. The moon was out, there were some clouds in the sky. There was one that was not like the rest though. The others were all just hovering there in the sky, no wind at all. One of those clouds, all poofy, was moving. I followed it as it drifted across the sky. Then it stopped. I stepped off the porch, and two steps onto the lawn, it started moving again. A little quicker that before, slowing down as it moved.
I stepped further out into the lawn towards the street because it kept going behind the roof line of the garage. Start and stop. I heard sounds of an engine revving, and thought, "What a weird cloud." Start and stop. Further onto the lawn I went, nearing the sidewalk. Start and stop. Before I knew it, I was in the middle of the street, looking at this odd-ball cloud sputtering across the sky as its companion clouds moved not one bit. The revving engine sounded closer. Louder. Then the squeal of tires brought me around on my heels to see headlights bearing down on me.
The revving went down with the nose of that car as it came to a stop not an inch from my chest. The odor of tires, locked up, filled my nostrils. Air rushed by me... through me... where I stood. The car rocked back and forth as it came to rest. The fan behind the radiator pulled air through, threatened to pull me through. I could tell you even now how many bug corpses were in the radiator of that Chevrolet Bel-Air, because I was sure to be the next corpse to be added to its fins.
A yell came from the front door of my house. It was my name, bellowed by my dad. Yelling at me to get in the house right now. Looking back, I see that I had cheated death. I was supposed to be a corpse in that grill. Because of a cloud. As I started running to the front door, I looked up at the last place I saw that cloud. It was still there. Glowing. Hadn't moved one bit, as though it was there, just knowing what was going to happen. It had lured me out to death's door (Christine?), and now appeared to be irritated that I wasn't taking up residence next to all the other bugs. That's when I was awake.
-------------------------------------------------
KISS, Detroit Rock City (as I peek out the window for any glowing clouds)
First some perspective. I have had nightmares for most of my life & could never figure out why. I wasn't knocked around at home, didn't get in to the liquor cabinet (much), let alone ingest/inject any other (debatably stronger) substances, as a kid. Didn't have any Uncle Molester that I had to visit. I just usually had gory dreams & never could pinpoint a root cause.
It bugged me, because I like to have a neat & tidy explanation for things (why this doesn't make me a dyed-in-the-wool athiest, I couldn't really say). A couple years ago, I made a conscious choice to not let it bug me so much. This coincided with me letting other things go a while after my divorce. I'd held on to some self-doubt for a while.
Anyway, I started writing a few of the nightmares down. One of my earliest remembered haunts came to me the other night. It was based in a waking incident one winter when I was knee-high to a grass-hopper.
We lived on a court. "Not a through street", as the signs say. One night I'd gotten out of the house because of some noise I'd heard. The moon was out, there were some clouds in the sky. There was one that was not like the rest though. The others were all just hovering there in the sky, no wind at all. One of those clouds, all poofy, was moving. I followed it as it drifted across the sky. Then it stopped. I stepped off the porch, and two steps onto the lawn, it started moving again. A little quicker that before, slowing down as it moved.
I stepped further out into the lawn towards the street because it kept going behind the roof line of the garage. Start and stop. I heard sounds of an engine revving, and thought, "What a weird cloud." Start and stop. Further onto the lawn I went, nearing the sidewalk. Start and stop. Before I knew it, I was in the middle of the street, looking at this odd-ball cloud sputtering across the sky as its companion clouds moved not one bit. The revving engine sounded closer. Louder. Then the squeal of tires brought me around on my heels to see headlights bearing down on me.
The revving went down with the nose of that car as it came to a stop not an inch from my chest. The odor of tires, locked up, filled my nostrils. Air rushed by me... through me... where I stood. The car rocked back and forth as it came to rest. The fan behind the radiator pulled air through, threatened to pull me through. I could tell you even now how many bug corpses were in the radiator of that Chevrolet Bel-Air, because I was sure to be the next corpse to be added to its fins.
A yell came from the front door of my house. It was my name, bellowed by my dad. Yelling at me to get in the house right now. Looking back, I see that I had cheated death. I was supposed to be a corpse in that grill. Because of a cloud. As I started running to the front door, I looked up at the last place I saw that cloud. It was still there. Glowing. Hadn't moved one bit, as though it was there, just knowing what was going to happen. It had lured me out to death's door (Christine?), and now appeared to be irritated that I wasn't taking up residence next to all the other bugs. That's when I was awake.
-------------------------------------------------
KISS, Detroit Rock City (as I peek out the window for any glowing clouds)
29 September 2006
Leaving ... on a jet plane
Oh how I'd love to not come back, though I wouldn't want to stay permanently at this weekend's destination. I suppose I like Houston as much as the next guy, but if my friends moved to someplace a little less humid, I don't know that I'd ever go back there.
This weekend's happiness is to be camping at the Renn Faire near Houston with friends. Since I've not taken any vacation for a whole ... (flipping through the calendar) six weeks, I thought I'd head on down there, hug friends, chew on turkey drumsticks, and participate in the Great American Past-time known as spending cash. Though I guess that's more like the Mediocre American Past-time since I'm not putting anything on credit cards, but I'm okay with that.
Really though, this is the last vacation I have planned for the year. Until I figure out what to do for the holidaze anyway.
The Start, The Underwater Song
This weekend's happiness is to be camping at the Renn Faire near Houston with friends. Since I've not taken any vacation for a whole ... (flipping through the calendar) six weeks, I thought I'd head on down there, hug friends, chew on turkey drumsticks, and participate in the Great American Past-time known as spending cash. Though I guess that's more like the Mediocre American Past-time since I'm not putting anything on credit cards, but I'm okay with that.
Really though, this is the last vacation I have planned for the year. Until I figure out what to do for the holidaze anyway.
The Start, The Underwater Song
22 September 2006
Surprised, though I maybe shouldn't be.
I made the second payment on Bobbie, and her "Service Engine Soon" light poped on this morning. Sure, Bobbie's not new (at 101k miles), but still. She's not missing or sputtering or anything, so here's hoping it's something minor, like an O2 sensor or something relatively benign like that.
18 September 2006
shorting out
The desktop is becoming a might unstable these days. For s system that I put together over five years ago, it's done pretty well. Until yesterday: It wouldn't boot up, saying there was no boot device. Turns out the primary IDE controller somehow 'mis-fired' for lack of a better term. Reset button didn't help, but power-cycling the thing was just the kick in the pants it needed. I'd hoped (as ever) that it would last a couple more years as I pick up new pieces parts to build the next monster, alas that's probably not going to be the case.
By "monster" I don't mean viciously fast hardware, so hot off the assembly die that even Tom's Hardware hasn't seen it yet. No, just something that will boot up, play nice, and give BSOD's a little less frequently than I've been getting with the current iteration. How many and often is that? Two, actually. One of those was from the first OS install. There was certainly another, but can't remember when. Probably happened as I attempted to overclock the 900MHz Duron processor that used to be there... Yeah, raw POWER baby!
Heck, the only hardware changes I've had to make to this box was one hard drive, and the oh so nice Altec Lansing speakers (lasted six years and change). I don't count the modem or CPU swap, nor the video card updates because the initial pieces weren't actually broken. Just slow.
Atomica, Worry
By "monster" I don't mean viciously fast hardware, so hot off the assembly die that even Tom's Hardware hasn't seen it yet. No, just something that will boot up, play nice, and give BSOD's a little less frequently than I've been getting with the current iteration. How many and often is that? Two, actually. One of those was from the first OS install. There was certainly another, but can't remember when. Probably happened as I attempted to overclock the 900MHz Duron processor that used to be there... Yeah, raw POWER baby!
Heck, the only hardware changes I've had to make to this box was one hard drive, and the oh so nice Altec Lansing speakers (lasted six years and change). I don't count the modem or CPU swap, nor the video card updates because the initial pieces weren't actually broken. Just slow.
Atomica, Worry
16 September 2006
Is there a full moon out?
One of the forums I frequent has been in a sad state lately. Everybody bitching about so little. Is this maybe some kind of test to make sure one is able to go absolutely ape-shit insane before the holidays begin? Because, if it is, I'm boarding up the windows and putting another dead-bolt on every door. What the fuck is wrong with you people?
Taking offence at someone else's opinion who believe one peoples or another make fantastic lovers (not a racist statement), feeling it's an affront to all those who differ?
Lashing out because you think this style of driving is heinous and the lashee gives another perspective?
Slamming one person because they chose to protect and insulate themselves while you allow YOUR SPOUSE to wallow un-aided because it should be the other that deals with their issues instead of you?
Fuck!
...wait for it...
Can't we all just get along?!?
Whitesnake, Still of the Night
Taking offence at someone else's opinion who believe one peoples or another make fantastic lovers (not a racist statement), feeling it's an affront to all those who differ?
Lashing out because you think this style of driving is heinous and the lashee gives another perspective?
Slamming one person because they chose to protect and insulate themselves while you allow YOUR SPOUSE to wallow un-aided because it should be the other that deals with their issues instead of you?
Fuck!
...wait for it...
Can't we all just get along?!?
Whitesnake, Still of the Night
13 September 2006
What day is it again?
House is clean-ish. The way I see it, if there's nothing crawling up outta the drains and the color of the carpet is a) identifiable and b) same as when I moved in, it's a win. A couple more people have viewed it, but still no offers. Even with the fucking curb appeal that was imposed.
Ice Cream Social; Work is putting on a fundraiser for United Way, so tomorrow ice cream will be scooped, toppings will be dribbled and sprinkled, and people will be like pigs to the mud pit. They might even fork over some donations, which would be nice. I've got scooping duty for a half hour, so we'll see how it goes.
ponder
S.U.N. Project, Fatal Error courtesy DNA Lounge Radio
Ice Cream Social; Work is putting on a fundraiser for United Way, so tomorrow ice cream will be scooped, toppings will be dribbled and sprinkled, and people will be like pigs to the mud pit. They might even fork over some donations, which would be nice. I've got scooping duty for a half hour, so we'll see how it goes.
ponder
S.U.N. Project, Fatal Error courtesy DNA Lounge Radio
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