Its all about the music

If I had to choose whether to be blind or deaf, I dont think Id have to think about it. Id choose blindness. No contest. Music is too important to me.

Years ago, from about the time I was 8 up until I was 10 or 11, I took piano lessons. Sadly, they didnt stick well. It wasnt that I didnt want to, or that I didnt practice, it was just that the normal teaching method...whatever that was, didnt work on me. Eventually, I stopped when my last piano teacher went on maternity leave and never took it back up again. Nowadays I get envious of piano players, wishing I could sit down and play something from 'The Piano'(an...interesting movie, but an INCREDIBLE soundtrack). At present, I can more or less read music, and can pluck out the melody to almost any song Ive ever heard. I might be able to add a chord or two. Thats it.

More recently, Im semi decent at the guitar, so long as there are no bar-chords.

Maybe some people would consider me one of those types that always have to have 'background noises' around (always having the TV or radio on, whether or not theyre paying attention to it). In some ways, I suppose its possible, but I kind of hope not. So what if listening to music helps me concentrate and keep me from going stir crazy? Its not background music. Im listening.

Ive always been like this. I remember that it was cause for discussion during a parent-teacher conference in 6th grade. Everyone thought the radio and my tapes were to distracting. The solution? Listen to classical. The compromise? Hooked on Classics. Eventually, I decided that while HoC was an awesome series, some of the music sounded fine without the addins. I suppose we should blame thank Mrs. Dryden for that.


My music taste is extremely ecclectic for the most part. I love what I call 'modern' classical (read: movie soundtracks), celtic, celtic rock, rock, alternative, techno, country, some folk...theres not a lot I dont like. I suppose rap/hip-hop falls into this category though. After ten minutes or so it starts to sound monotonous.

I have different music for different moods. If Im pissed, Ill usually stick Evanesence in my CD player and turn the volume. Celtic music helps me to relax, and Peter Gabriel's Solisbury Hill can usually calm me down at any given time. I have two CDs which I call 'Happy Music' Vol. I and II. Dont be fooled by the titles. I burned them when I was depressed. When I want to think of home, I play David Lamotte.


Being hearing impaired is bad (and annoying) enough. But I dont think I could live with deafness.

21/30

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programmers with too much time on thier hands...

Back when I was in the market for an MP3 player, iPods were nowhere near the top of my list. To me, they were too mainstream and at the time they didnt support windows media files. .wma's make up about half of my music collection. The other half being mp3 files. If I got a pod, Id have to convert all the wma's to either mp3 or iTune format which is something I dont have the time or the hard drive space for. Eventually, I ended up with a Creative Zen Touch. Although it doesnt look as pretty or have the graphic capabilities that pods have now, its suits me just fine. Plus I like the Creative line. My previous mp3 player of 128megs was a creative nomad. Lasted through a couple years of hard use til I was ready to upgrade.

Then something happened.

I was browsing Facebook for some decent linux groups when I saw it. A couple years ago someone developed a kernel for iPod. I was sort of amazed and amused at the same time. It didnt surprise me a bit that someone had done it though.

While linux on Pods are all well and good, that wasnt what had me briefly consider looking into a ipod vid for 10 minutes.

On the FB group, the primary showing and discussion for Linux on iPod video was Doom. The original 1993 old school Doom.

I fucking love that game. Ive been playing it sense I was 12ish and it was a shareware game that came with Wolfenstein 3D. Hell, I still cant figure out how Final Doom was released without me knowing about it.

Fortunately, common sense prevailed. I still dont need a Pod, and can play Doom, DoomII, and Final Doom whenever the hell I want on my laptop. Or find a cheap gameboy advance and the those games, along with Wolf3D and DukeNukem3D from ebay.

20/30

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Write. It. Down!

Normally, I have a minipad and a pen or pencil of some sort within arms reach of me. I learned a very long time ago that inspiration strikes (or Gibbs-smack, in my case) at any time, usually at the oddest most inopportune moments.

Apparently, I have been lacking. Earlier today I had a couple different trains of thoughts that would have made a decent blog entry or two. For some reason or another, I didnt have anything to write with. You already know, dont you.

I cant for the life of me remember what I found interesting enough to write about. I think one was computer related, and the other was something I found absurdly strange and defied any sense of logic. Meh.

Tomorrow is another day, and my minipad isnt leaving my back pocket.

19/30

Stumble It!

who are you, and WTF are you doing in my car?????

Some months ago, when I was at the bowling alley, I went to get something from my car. As I was walking to the lot, I noticed an old red bike sitting in the lot near my car. I found this odd, because most people dont park bikes in the middle of a lot. They tie/chain it to something. After a second or two, it ceased to be interesting and I turned around, getting ready to put the key in the lock.

Except theres someone sitting in the drivers seat.

In the space about half a second, I went from being midly-but-no-longer-curious about a bike to really really pissed off. I jerked the door open and nicely (ok...not really) asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing, and to get out. Needless to say, he hauled ass out, and as I glanced back to make sure he didnt take anything, he got on his bike and hauled ass out of there.

In hindsight, theres a lot of things I couldve (or should have) done differently.
-Had I been paying a tad more attention, he wouldve been visible from the door of the center.
-Confronting him was probably a bad idea. I know damn well he couldve been armed. Oh well. I was already there. Why not go all the way.
- Turning ones back on the bad guy is always a bad idea.
- Sinse I did establish that he (probably) wasnt armed, I couldve taken him. Easily. But no... I had to make sure my satelite radio was still there, giving him the opportunity to run.


On a brighter note, because of this B&E episode my back window is now functional. Whatever this guy did to break in involved doing something via the back window. It didnt work before hand.


18/30

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29 and counting

On April 26, I head westbound for a nice long weekend in Cullowhee, with a quick stop to Ashville for a Loreena McKennit concert. The minister of the church I (mostly) attended while I was at WCU is having a retirement party at the end of the month, and Ill take any exscuse to go 'home' for awhile, even if its only a few days. The concert is an added bonus. I had already made plans starting on the 27th, and then I was made aware that she was going to be in Ashville on the 26th. Whats a day early? Heck, Loreena is an incredible artist that tours all over North America and Europe, and one of her stops is a mountain city that many may not even consider a major city? Im stoked!

All in all, I really look forward to seeing and spending time with my friends again, and doing some of the stuff we used to. I miss them so much. Some days more than others. If I wasnt in the middle of a federal civil-service exam test-prep thing, Id make more of an effort to go job hunting in Ashville. But the civil service thing is in Charlotte (for now), and I dont have that much more to go.

Im almost dreading how much money Im about to spend though. Who knows what kind of stuff Ill get at the concert, plus the fact that I have EVERY intention of taking the Blue Ridge Parkway from Ashville to the Balsam exit as many times as I can, so long as the weathers decent (Taking this trip in the fog with less than 10 ft of visibility is NOT fun, thanks :P ). Based on the trip up, and the trip back, and then popping back to Ashville, Im counting atleast 3.

Taking the Parkway instead of I-40/Highway 74 adds more than a little extra mileage.

But its well worth it.


April 26 cant come fast enough.

17/30

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Transparent Screens

Im sure quite a few of you are familiar with a sort-of-new computer desktop trick. Transparent screens. I first saw a few of them about a year ago on College Humor, when it was still an amusing site. More recently, a flickr slide show of these things starting making rounds. Its really cool. Not only are there the standard single computer screen with whatever's behind it, there are some that have multiple screens lined up one behind (or off to an angle, or...) the other.

One thing I have noticed though, is that all Ive seen are Macs. I think. There might be a couple that could be Linux, but I cant get a good look at the screen to try and ID the OS. Im pretty sure Ive never seen it with a Windows machine though.

Why? Do Macs have some special tool that makes this project easier, or is it one of those things that Mac users just like to do that Windoze people dont bother with?







Okay, I spoke to soon. A quick google image search let loose with plenty of Win-based desktops as well. Oops.

So Ill ask this. Whats the best way to do this? Take a picture of whatevers behind your monitor and photoshop the dimensions to death 'til it fits?


16/30

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Here we go

I had mentioned in a previous 'my job sucks' rant that my employers were hesitant to let people go due to the fact that we were so short staffed.

It looks like something has happened thats changed all this. I got a call from my boss wondering if I was available to work a few day shifts (Im a night type). It was stated plain and simple that people were getting fired this week, despite the fact we're already short.

Though I wonder how they are going to schedule me. Im already there during the day doing league work, and I do from noonish til my regular evening shift starts.


Meh. These next weeks are going to suck.
But thats not new.

15/30

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Damn Cheats

Is there no middle ground for these things? Theyre either really good, or they suck.
Anyone play Pogo? Online game site with all kinds of board type games, pool, cards...the works. Many of the games are multiplayer games, and if you dont have another person to fill the spot, a comp player takes over

I suppose that it would be expected for the AI player to be a little better than average at a game. But when the computer clears a pool table on its first turn, or goes out in a game of gin in less than 5 moves, and constantly pulls flushes and full houses out of its tin can ass in Texas Hold'em is going a bit far.

On the other hand, one of the other computer players totally sucks at these games. Missing an easy shot at a striped ball, having little or no checkers strategy, etc. It never fails. Computer 1 is the game ace, and Comp 2...well, isnt. Or maybe its the other way around.

Why oh why cant their be a middle ground? I get tired of roomhopping all the time.


14/30

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Just One

How often is it that a single number can mean so much? A single run, goal, or a point. A margin of less than a second can mean the difference between a victory or a defeat, or in some cases, life or death.

No, Im not about to bore you with an epic tale of how someone managed to escape death at the last possible second. Go watch an action movie for that. Besides, Im horrible at those kinds of stories, anyway.

I did, however, miss bowling a 600 series by one pin.

One. Fricking. Pin.

Im sure some of you know the mood. Im standing on the approach, taking the last shot of the tenth frame. All I needed was a 9, and bam! 600 Series.

So of course I rolled an 8.

Okay, so yes, 599 is a new high series for me, and I have a new best game of 239. But missing that last pin completely blew THAT cloud I was on away. Faaaarrrr away.
Though to be completely honest, missing the 600 wasnt quite as bad as the 3 or 4 times I rolled a 199 or 198 before hitting my first 200 game.


Luck 13/30

Stumble It!

creepy eyes

He's staring at me. Not doing anything, just sitting behind my laptop,staring at me. Im not sure what it is he wants. His bag of treats is almost directly in front of him, but he's ignoring them. That's a first, by the way. Rascal loves kitty treats.

He hasnt tried to shut my laptop, or shove it off the desk yet, so whatever he wants must not be all that important. So Im content to let him be til he decides to let me in on his little game.

Sorry this ones so late. Had no net access yesterday. I was staying overnight for a 'Room in the Inn' church thing, and though the church had a wireless network, it was secured and I didnt feel like going to the upstairs office to figure out the code.
Back now though. All is well.

12/30

Stumble It!

Well, we've decided. In outer space it's okay to wear white shoes after Labor Day.

While I was working, someone stopped me and out of the blue asked me how many pairs of shoes I had. Apparently, that was the discussion of choice at their table and they were using me to prove a point.

For some reason, they were shocked when I gave them a grand total of 6 pairs, only 4 of which I wear on a semi-regular basis.

What can I say? I hate shoes. I hate wearing the damn things. Given the option, Id go around barefoot.

And I did. Unless there was a 'shirt/shoes required' thing somewhere, I spent the better part of a semester going to classes and the whatnot barefoot. I also spent a good bit of this past winter tuning out "Where are you shoes!!!" lectures after forgetting (Yes, I usually forgot. Its gotten to the point where its not something I think about) to get shoes before heading outside to get the paper/mail, fill the feeders, etc.

With the exception of work and bowling, Ive been wearing my chaco sandals for a couple weeks now. If the winter and fall seasons are mild like they have been the past couple years, Ill be wearing them primarily until at least November.

11/30

Stumble It!

here kitty, kitty kitty

This could very well be the first time our not-quite-1-year-old cat, Rascal has spent the night outside, all night. Which means very little sleep for some people in the house.

Its not intentional. He was let outside a few hours ago, and he just hasnt come back in yet.

Having him out all night isnt a big deal. When its not cold out, thats where most all of our cats have chosen to spend the night. I suppose its just first night jitters.

Oh. Theres also the fact that Rusty, Rascals predecessor, was hit by a car one night last July. Rusty was a big time Momma's Boy, and he had made damn sure that everyone knew which human he favored.

Its strange how our luck has turned. We had Mike and Peaches for 15 and 12 years, respectively. This time around, poor Rusty was hit by a car, and Winston went AWOL. We never knew what happened to him.

Ah, someone just went downstairs to try and call him in. Again. I think its the 4th time in 15 minutes.

He'll be fine. Come tomorrow morning, we'll find him sleepy-eyed in a chair on the porch.

Besides, you werent planning on the week long beach vacation in June be his first nights out, were you?



10/30

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Trekkin'

Every 3 or 4 years, TPTB over at Paramount (or whoever owns Star Trek) attempt to come up with a plot for a good movie. They wrack their brains looking for a new and original idea that would hook their audience, giving them a reason to see the movie other than the fact that its a Trek film.

Um, guys?

Your thinking a bit to hard.

Theres more to Star Trek than Star Fleet and the Federation.

-Klingons. Kahless the Unforgettable against the Tyrant Molor.
-A long time ago, Vulcans and Romulans were the same race. What happened?
-Cardassian Occupation of Bajor
-If they can do an early version of Kirk, what about Picard and his Stargazer?
-ST First Contact was set in post-World War 3. What about this 'war' itself?
-Section 31 (Yay! Spy Movie!)
-How Borg became Borg. The various cultures they assimilated, the attempt at Species 8472.
-For about two whole minutes, I thought that a Trek Series based around StarFleet Academy might be interesting. I also had similar thoughts about something dealing with Red Squad.

Like I said, two minutes. An Academy Series would probably turn out to be something very near to soap opera-ish, and Wes Crusher wasnt all that popular a character on TNG. With that in mind...how do you think people would react to an entire ships worth of late teens/early 20 year old geniuses? hrm.


The point is, 5 Star Trek series have given AMPLE material to work with as far as movies go. Theres really no need to pull something completely new out of a hat and makeTrekkies scratch thier heads in confusion, wondering why a particular movie event contradicts something Riker said back in the 4th season.

9/30

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Stumbling around....

Okay, so I know that these posts arent supposed to be "follow this cool link" for fillers...but this isnt an "I Have Nothing To Write, So Here's a Cool Link" post.

Thats for tomorrow. Or maybe the day after.

About the same time I started this insane blogging project, I also followed a little linky to an add-on called StumbledUpon. Select your interests, and hit the magic button. Viola! Random sites to play on.

I really dont want to think about the time Ive wasted with this little button. I could have been doing something like playing Fallen Sword or Gothador or reading fanfic, or one of the 3 novels I have stashed somewhere (yes, I read more than one book at a time). Oh, and job hunting. Thats important.

Ive got a bookmark file thats crammed with some of this stuff, and I ended up adding a couple extra Mozilla addons and greasemonkey scripts that came through.
Yes, Im aware that both of these can be found via the addons page on the mozilla website, but this was more fun.

Hell, I added about 4 or 5 scripts for greasemonkey, and I only remember what two of them are. One's a dictionary/search thingy that allows you highlight a word, right click (or maybe hit a letter) and itll give you said definition or go off and search (whatever you wanted to do).

The other one I remember getting put RSS feed buttons in an easy to find place so I dont have to hunt them down. Perhaps I should hunt the rest down later.


Anyway, out of all the interests that I listed, it tends to give me a lot of cat-related links. Video montages of America's Funniest Video-type antics, and lots of pictures. My two favorites is this story thread, and a pic blog that has pictures using yet another form of tech speak (WTF is that anyway??? something to go along with that emo bullshit popping around?)

Im a cat person. Have you figured that out yet?

LikeBetter is freaky. It shows you two pictures, and you click on whichever one you liked better. After doing this for a few sets, the little 'brain' under the sets turns pink, and itll tell you something about yourself. 80% of the time, the damn thing is right.

Its also sent me to a bunch of online flash-type java whatever games, like a Mario thing, and a couple quiz games, and an interesting sand...thing.

As it goes, if your looking for a good way to waste time, or even some decent information about a particular subject,the stumbledupon Firefox add-on is the place find it.

Although, I suppose this should be a Mozilla/Firefox Browser plug as well, as you have to have it.

Come on people, lets step away from IE. Its a piece of poo, and you know it. Especially if you upped to 7. 6 was tolerable. 7, is..well, shit.
Make the change. You know you want to.


8/30

Stumble It!

More work blah

While Im more than a little eager to finally get a new job, at one point I was hesitant about leaving before my employers hired more laneserver-type people. As Ive said earlier, the bowlers are dependant upon the service, and not having it would suck. I like the bowlers. Well, most of em.

I asked my boss yesterday if he were planning on hiring any more laneservers. He said he certainly wasnt going to hire highschoolers for the position (which is apparently what the primary demographic among applicants is). Which is all well and good, as we sell a shitload of alcohol. 16 and 17 year olds cant even touch a beerglass, much less serve liquor.

When I mentioned that UNC Charlotte was barely 5 miles up the road and would be an optimal place to recruit, he just shrugged it off. Atleast, thats what it looked like to me.

The front counter has gotten new people. The snackbar has gotten new people. The only other laneserver has been assigned mainly in the snackbar, with the exception of two days. It used to be that snackbar and laneservers were cross-trained to do either. That hasnt been happening for awhile.

When the time comes for me to move on, and they dont have anyone trained to replace me...

Tough shit. They know Im searching for more permanent work. If they dont want to adequatly prepare themselves, thats not my problem.


7/30

Stumble It!

I talk to myself, I talk to my cats.

Its around 4 in the morning, and Im awake due to my odd sleep habits. Not being able to get back to sleep, I get up and head to the bathroom for some water. Shutting the door most of the way, I reach for one of the little dixie cups near the sink. Just as Im doing this, the door is shoved open and my cat, Lacie hops up on the counter. She then proceeds to sit in the sink, waiting for me to finnish.

When I'm done she hops out, races ahead of me to my room, and probably to my bed. Sometimes she'll just stop and wait for me in the middle of the floor.

This is a problem. Lacie is black and brown. Not only that, but its pitch black in my room, and the preceeding hallway (I dont turn on the hallway or bathroom lights because I dont want to blind myself or bug others sleeping. After living in the same house for almost 20 years, you have a vague idea of where things are). I know that slightly to my left is a box, and a little further in on the right is the trashcan I heard the other cat knock over a couple hours before. Where SHE is, however.... I dont know. Therefore, I walk towards my bed with my hand to the ground, hoping I dont trip over her (actually, this time I almost sat on her).

No, Im not going to turn the light on. Im too stubborn for that.

I will, however, put these on my Christmas List.


6/30

Stumble It!

Its COOKIE time!

Girl scout cookies: Great for the general public. Not so much for the Girl Scout's themselves. During the couple months at the tail end and start of a year, girls of all ages bust their asses selling cookies by going door to door and having booth sales. And for what? Sure, we (the public) get yummy cookies from the deal, but what do the girls get?

Not a whole hell of a lot. There are bitty consolation prizes and stuff if a girl sells the most boxes in her troop, and there might be troop prizes if a particular troop does tops in the district/council. The individual prizes may as well be something along the lines of "I sold 300 boxes of cookies and all I got was this lousy shirt". Or in some cases, a bandanna. Or a cheap waterbottle.

For every box sold, the troop itself gets back a certain percentage of profit..approximately 10%(give or take...i think there are some who get 12%) to do with as they please. Usually this means a trip somewhere.

Anyone good at math? In my area, cookies are 3.50 a box. Based on the figures above, a troop gets .35-.40 cents (Seriously doubt the 40 part...) per box sold. Common trips are either
a)Raleigh (trips to your state capital are always fun)
b) Savannah GA, where Juliet Lowe's birthplace is located,
or if your troop is overly ambitious (or knows lots of rich people) then,
c) a beach trip

.37 cents a box, taking about 3 boxes to equal a little over a dollar. Room/board have to be taken into account, along with food, and any admission/ticket prices for activities planned.

For a quick look, if a troop planned a weekend in Raleigh for fun state-capital educationish things, it would cost around $95 for a room that you can cram two or three girls. Theres 285 boxes right there. That in itself isnt too bad...except the average troop has about 8-12 girls. Theres another two or three rooms.

And thats just hotel cost. Looks like mom and dad get to shell out more money.

I think the 'goal' that has the most chance for success was the Brownie Troop outside Harris Teeter a couple weeks ago. The younger ones are easy to please. They're perfectly happy having an overnight in one of the nicer area hotels complete with pool, room service, and any other fun stuff the hotel has to offer.

Sure, the rest of the money goes to other 'worthwhile' parts of girl scouting, such as special programs and projects and camp maintenance, but I never saw a lot of it back when I was a scout. In order to attend many of these programs, there was still an entry fee for us and I think we still had to pay extra as a 'contribution to the presenter" or some bullshit like that(and it wasnt that good a program either).
There was always some maintenance thing or another at the camps. One year, the highropes course was down. The next year a popular set of trails were closed due to fallen branches from a storm at the beginning of winter (we were there at the end of April).
I spent a little more than two summers working at a summer outdoors camp, and have done a good bit of camp maintenance. If we can trailblaze/make a completely new trail up the side of a mountain in a couple of days, it shouldnt take 5 or 6 months to get around to clearing out some fallen tree's and branches. We couldve had it done in less than an hour.

They say the rest of the money is benefiting Girl Scouting and the girls in general. Prove it. Obviously, my luck with it sucked, and Ive never heard a single troop leader speak positively on the monetary distribution aspect of this decades-old fundraiser.

What about the rest of you? Girl Scouts, former scouts, scout moms and dads? Have you or your troops seen these benefits?

The girls have been getting screwed over on this for years. It makes me sad. :(






5/30

Stumble It!

Thanks a lot =P

Things I do to waste time on the internet:

1. Read fanfic Yes. I admit it. Im a fan fiction addict. fanfiction.net used to be my homepage. Actually, it probably still is on my old computer. Erm...

2. Play games like Gothador and Fallen Sword. Damn cows. *sigh* I also frequent Pogo .

3. Browse youtube. actually, not all that often.

4. Sift through all the cool shit stumbledupon hurls at me.


So, this makes two things Shane Nickerson has me hooked on. First is this 30 Days project, and now I glanced at Stumbledupon. Hundreds of dozens of ways for me to waste time.
I have a new file in my bookmarks that already has about a dozen links to go back to and look at later.

Thanks. :/


Oh, on another note, I loaded the plugin to the other computers Mozilla Browser and set an account for my mother. Soon after, she found me. "I wish you hadnt showed me this". She said....or something like that.

Another satisfied customer.

4/30

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ZzzZzzzzzzz

Um, Saturday night/Sunday morning WAS the early version of the Spring Forward of Daylight Savings...right?

Damn, you'd think we were at the other end of the scale, just 'falling back' with how tired I am. 24 hours ago, it was just after 11pm. I'm usually no where near this tired. Now at a quarter after midnight, my flannel sheets are so tempting. sheesh.

In my current residence, (and my car) there's one clock that doesn't work 6 months out of the year. The one in the house doesn't get changed simply because its such a bitch to take the thing down, change it, and put it back up. Therefore, during standard time we know that its an hour behind whatever the clock does show. For awhile, in about the summer (or winter) Dad would decide that the clock needed to be set right, and would take on the task of changing it.

Needless to say, this screwed us over completely, being so used to reading it an hour off. Sometimes we were almost late to appointments. Other times, we might've been ridiculously early had we not glanced at one of the regular clocks elsewhere.

My car-stereo clock remains on the wrong time because I dont have a fucking idea of how to change it. Dont get me wrong, with many car stereos its taken me all of 5 minutes of 'messing around' to discover most of the ins and outs to it. Not so with mine. Actually, due to us changing the battery a couple months ago, its now an hour and 33 minutes off. Or just 33 minutes during DST.

Luckily, my Satellite radio has its own handy clock display. And I wear a watch.

3/30

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Seriously, how good is Heroes?

Um...I really dont know. Ive never seen a single episode.

Actually, Ive seen very little of primetime TV these past couple of seasons. What few hours I do get in my current job are straight through primetime. There are actually a handfull of shows that I would like to watch, Hero's is one of them. I also enjoyed The Unit. Though most people think its stupid, Wife Swap has its hysterical moments. Mind boggling moments too.

That leaves me with a mere 3 shows that I watch on a semi regular basis: NCIS(when I remember to set the VCR)and Numb3rs are the two most frequent. I also watch CIS Miami, but with much less enthusiasm. Miami has had so many plot holes and 'WTF?' incidents these past couple of seasons that its barely watchable. I kind of watch Men in Tree's, but its sort of on the dull side at times.

At the moment, my favorite show in NCIS. I started watching this one somewhere near the start of the second season, give or take. Or maybe it was near the end of the first...Im not sure, because Kate was killed off in the 2nd season finale, and I recall a bunch of Kate stuff...to much for one season.
I recall that by the time "Twilight" came around, everyone knew someone was going to die, but they didnt know who. Damn...I thought Kate was the obvious choice.
The two characters they brought in to 'replace' Kate were, well...both good and bad. For the most part, Ive enjoyed watching Ziva, though I think they missed out on a HUGE opportunity for her character development from the episode "Dead Man Walking".
Director Sheppard? Hmm....Most of the time, I didnt mind her all that much. Most people hated her though, and its pretty obvious as to why. Sheppard and GIbbs have an intimate history. During her first season, it was a rare episode where she didnt bring that up. We got tired of it, and a particular fangroup really didnt like her 'intruding on someone elses territory'.
She has, however, gotten much better about it this season.



Ive found it extremely amusing that almost everyone knows what a Gibbs-slap is. Even those that dont watch it.


Damn. I just did an entire post mainly on TV Gossip. Holy shit.

2/30

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Another Strike for Windows

Or: Day One, Post One.

For some reason or another, TPTB decided to move daylight savings time up. How they mangaged to pull this off, or why isnt really important right now. Maybe tomorrow, but not now.
What IS important is all the trouble this damn thing has been causing my computer. In order for my computer to adjust its clock accordingly, it needs the latest Windoze update. Fine. Since this is (sort of) important, Ill look into it. I wander to the Updates sight and follow the easy steps.

It doesnt work.

Not only that, I havent had an update sense November. WTF??? And while we're on the topic, how did I miss this?

It tells me to reinstall/reupdate some files that are apparently missing or hiding. Should be able to do so from there. Fine.

Well whaddya know, after three tries, it doesnt work.

Fine, I can set the clock on my computer all by myself, thanks. Not a big deal. I a, curious about the rest of my computer though. Were any of these updates vital?

Ah. Here we go, found the files that needed to be installed and did so via the handy-damndy .cmd route. After a brief wait, all the updates I had missed were ready and waiting, eager to be installed. I got most of em, ditched a few ( IE 7 anyone?), and now my comp ( I need to give it a name...hmm) needs to do the required shut-down thing. Because I really, really hate that "Windows needs to restart" popup, Ill humor it.

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30 posts in 30 days

It occured to me earlier that there were a few blogs that I havent visited in awhile, so earlier today I ended up on Annie Sertichs blog. I scrolled down to the point where I had last read (most of the way down. Sorry about that :( ), and worked my way up. Second from the top was the start of Something Shane Nickerson Started a couple days ago.

30 blog posts. In 30 days.

After a bit of debate, I thought 'what the hell'.

Therefore, from March 11 (tomorrow) til April 11ish, youll hopefully hear from me ( or read from me, or whatever...) daily. Yay! You should be thrilled.

Mr. Nickerson has imposed a list of rules about this effort. I will adopt the following:

1. No mention of blogging, or bemoaning this "damned thing I promised to do, so here's the friggin' post."

2. No link-only posts that say, "I found this at blahblahblah.com and you NEED to check it out!" Granted, I might stick a few links here and there, but by no means will that be the only thing.

3. At least every third post will have photos.

4. Exciting news that has something to do with THIS.

5. Responses to interesting comments. Presuming I get any, of course. This includes the FaceBook feed as well as anyone who reads this straight from blogger.

6. Seriously, how good is Heroes?

7. No less than 100 words.

8. Of course, no ads.


This looks to be an interesting project, and I hope to be able to find enough material to cover. If I have to, Ill make all my Linux updates seperate, instead of reupdating the same post about ten different times.

On that note...see you tomorrow!

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Linux

For the past couple weeks, Ive been dabbing around in the world of the Linux OS. So far, my sucess has been mixed. At present, Im currently DLing and burning LiveCDs of various distro's. At the moment, Ubuntu and Knoppix are the only two that Ive done anything with. I just finnished burning a Mepis .iso, and Im currently DLing a Kubuntu and PClinuxOS.

So far, things havent quite gone as well as I have hoped. My ubuntu CD seems more like a demo disk, acting like it wants me to actually install the thing before I go further. Maybe Im missing something (probable)here. While I hope to install linux in a dual-boot system with my exsisting WinXP, Im not there yet. Ubuntu also doesnt want to read my hard drives correctly, and I forgot to write down the error message. derr.

The first time I booted Knoppix, it worked quite well with the exception of my wireless card. At the time, that wasnt a big deal. Everything else worked okay, and I could get help with that part later. When I ran Knoppix again last week, I had all kinds of trouble. I couldnt get to the place where I was last attempting to get my wireless up and running, and when I did things like atempt to consult the help file, or minor things such as chaning the desktop appearance, it told me that the directories/files werent there and had to be created. I did what it told me to do. Whatever it DID do, it still didnt work.

Later today, Im going to try the Mepis disk I just burned and see what happens, along with the PCLinuxOS and the Kubuntu. Hopefully those will work. I dont recall if it was Mepis or PCLinux that wouldnt do anything when I booted it. Maybe I had burned it wrong.

Any assistance with the afformentioned Ubuntu/Knoppix problems (and anything else for that matter) would be greatly appreciated.

Stay tuned to this post for updates. :\


UPDATE 1.0 Mepis was a mostly succesfull test, I suppose. Due to time constraints I didnt get to test it as much as I had wanted to. It also did something that strongly resembled freezeing up on me. Whichever programs caused this were 'terminated', but it never unfroze.

One thing I have noticed as far as wireless goes, on the ones that tell me that my wireless card is disabled it wont tell me where to go to enable the thing, and for the life of me I cant find it. gr.

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Fashion at the Oscars

I dont consider myself the fashion type. I know enough to be able to color coordinate most things, but as for the 'latest and greatest' and 'oh, that was SO 5 minutes ago!'...I dont care. Really. My daily wardrobe of choice is jeans and a t shirt.

Recently the fashion editor of my local paper, The Charlotte Observer did a column on the Oscars (who didnt?). She mentioned that Nicol Kidmans dress was beautiful (I agree), except for the bow thingy at the top. If you were looking straight on, it looked like a cup holder.

My first thought?

"Ooh. That would be usefull"

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*facedesk*

Im not sure who Im more pissed at. Co-workers that wont do their jobs, or my boss, who hired one of these people knowing full well that the new employee was only working the grill.

Actually, thats fine. If he wants to stay on the grill, thats cool. Personally, when Ive got a regular snackbar shift, Id rather be at the register. What doesnt make sense is that he also refuses to plate the items as well. Huh? Why? Normally theres two people back there. One on the grill, and one on the register (who's also supposed to get drinks). The register peep doesnt have time to go back and put stuff on a plate. Sheesh.

On a brighter note, the worst of the no-gooders is getting fired at the end of her shift today. *happydance*

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Alcohol Tolerance

No...no. Not that kind of alcohol. Ive never had enough of the stuff to get a grasp of what my tolerance is. I know I can handle two beers and feel nothing. Never tried to go for more. I dont like the stuff all that much.

I use antibacterial hand stuff a lot. Theyre more convienent and my hands feel cleaner than they would via soap and water.

At any given time, I have numerous scratches on my hands due to an active and playfull cat. Now, take lots of itty bitty open cuts + a solution with an active ingredient of ethyl alcohol.

Yeah.

Actually, I barely notice alcohols burn anymore unless its on a huge scrape and I cant find any peroxide. Suppose it comes from using the hand stuff so damn much.
Oh, and my 'rush' habit when I was younger. Some people got there highs from inhalants, or maybe doing stupid daredevil things, or alcohol (er...the drinking variety). Me? I picked my scabs and dumped some rubbing alcohol on it.

Meh. We all have our moments of random stupidity.

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Nothin' but the rain.

As I walked out to the garage to get something out of the big freezer, my cat Lacie scurried under my feet and passed me to the door leading outside. Nothing new here. She'l do this even if another door is wide open during the Spring and Fall seasons.
When I opened the door, she took a half-step out, and hesitated. It was raining. Not hard though, just a drizzle. After a few more seconds, she went out all the way, and I shut the door.

After I had gotten the bag of hotwings out that I intended to eat for lunch, I happened to glance back outside.

Lacie, of course, wanted back in.

So, I let her in, and she ran back into the house. This time, she ran for the door that leads to the back porch. Im quite disappointed to announce that it was raining there too. Not one to be dissuaded, she tried the front door.

Care to guess what she found?

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