picks of the month:
I don't have a wish list. If I want something, I'll buy it my damn self.
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Damn. Damn damn. At least these guys and Salon are still up and running. And, this is really funny. Like anybody should be surprised? The funny thing is that they quote the capital management guy as saying that they won't go after anybody who has a $1,000 laptop because it costs too much in legal fees. Enjoy the equipment, guys! I have scientifically determined this morning that any 24-32 year old male driving a late-model black Honda Prelude is a jerk. And should have his license revoked. And my nose is running nonstop this morning. Blah. Another note on the Blackhawk Down thread from yesterday- I was not aware that there was a movie being produced on the subject. Ridley Scott is directing, which means at least it will look good. They're saying March 2002 for a release date- we'll see how recent events shape that decision. I downloaded the Real player yesterday to see some of the video that the Philly Enquirer had made available for the Blackhawk story. Let me just say that I've never had to deal with a more intrusive, annoying and deliberately misleading install sequence just to use a media player in my life. I wish I had counted the number of screens I had to go through to simply install the player, or the number of hidden checkboxes I had to hunt down and find just so that I could avoid hidden "channels" and "subscriptions" for "alerts" that I don't want and don't need. What are they thinking? Don't they realize that after they bombard their unknowing users with daily email updates about Britney Spears' hair color that they're going to alienate and ultimately drive away their users? This wouldn't be so bad if the software actually worked, but when I played the video, it loaded, buffered, and ran, and 1/2 to 3/4 of the video was obscured by artifacts or just plain dropped out. Why don't people just use Quicktime? Plus, 3/4 of the application acreage was taken up by all manner of stupid banners, flashing geegaws or useless text that I don't want to see. | link I went out for beers and some dinner with Jeff Curley last night after work; I've been putting him off for about 2 months now, and he had a really rotten day, so i thought I'd try to help a little bit. We hit the Stil, which is an Irish brewpub up in Hunt Valley, and had about 4 rounds with dinner- i was feelign fine. Jeff and i got into a discussion about programming languages and learning C++, and the way he explained a lot of things really made sense to me. I want to learn C++ now. I think if I come up with some kind of simple project and work on it nights over the winter, i can learn a lot from him and the other guys at work. I'm really excited about this. As a consequence, nothing got done in the basement last night. Oh, well. Hmm. What else is new? Here's a funny clip taken from FuckedCompany.com about the new dress code at Sapient... Required reading: The Philly Enquirer's coverage, later turned into a book by Mark Bowden, called Blackhawk Down, about the helicopter raid in Somalia that went so very wrong. | link Random funny sighting: I saw, on my way through Fell's Point this morning, the Antique Man carrying a fully-suited mannequin in a silver fireproof suit across the street. Ashcroft is busy attempting to take our civil liberties away. Hopefully, people will wake the fuck up and realize we are trading the things that make this country great to try and track down 15 guys. I'm all for doing what it takes to get the guys who are responsible for the WTC bombing, and possibly other attacks to come, but I don't want the government reading my email, arresting me for encrypting my private material, tapping my phones, or randomly searching my car. here is an interesting download from the ACLU about privacy- I'm downloading it and putting it in the ol' wallet. I picked up the last of the supplies I can buy with this paycheck- a gallon of satin white, some rollers, caulk, wood for the inside of the closet, and wood to replace the one piece that pissed me off so bad this weekend. Tonight we install. And clean. | link I saw a special on a bunch of officers and historians who returned to a Vietnam battleground in about 1993 on "20-20" or one of those other news-magazine shows. I bought the related book a few years back called We Were Soldiers Once, And Young, about the battle, called "LZ X-Ray". In it was a platoon leader, a guy by the name of Rick Rescorla, who basically kept an entire platoon together and helped turn the tide of the battle, and who shows up on the cover of the book. I heard on the radio today a sound clip of Robin Williams, who, during the all-star benefit this weekend, mentioned a security chief for Morgan Stanley by the name of Rick Rescorla, who worked on the 44th floor of Tower 2, and who, in the 1993 bombing, got all his people out of the building safely (and who got their attention by dropping his pants.) He didn't make it out of Tower 2- they said he was last spotted on floor 77 or so, clearing the building. The Miami Herald claims that he was instrumental in getting about 4,700 Morgan Stanley employees out alive. I looked up his name on Google, found the "We Were Soldiers" website, and found that it was the same man. It doesn't seem like much, and probably pretty stupid, but I really felt that news- from the writing in the book, and the stories that were written about him, I kind of felt like I knew the guy, or at least had a connection to somebody in the building. I didn't get as much done in the basement as I'd hoped; some of the stuff I tried to accomplish didn't work. The birch plywood I bought for the shelf is too small on each side- note to self: standardize on common measurements- 4' and 8' lengths of wood. Makes it easier and less wasteful. I started laying the kickplate along the walls, and some of it looks great- some of it looks like junk. The short piece in the corner by the closet is twisted and bowed, and is made worse by the bulge in the wall directly behind it. I have to pull it, mill a new piece and replace it. I went out and got some replacement wood, so all should be OK for now, but it's just annoying. I also have to fix the blade guide on the table saw, which is pulling the wood out from the blade and widening the cut- pissing me off. I bought wood for the shelves on the walls, and framing wood for the closet, and will install that tonight or so. I also have a 10" plank to be cut into two pieces for the window shelf- there's nothing else I can do there. And then I need to stop and consider finances. Here's the best diagramatical map of the WTC disaster I've seen yet. This explains what I want to know about what's been affected and what hasn't- something the nightly news has been poor at doing. Here also is a link to an interesting article in Business 2.0 about LEGOs and the Mindstorms programming kit they ship; I went from there to the LEGO site and cruised around during lunch today. | link Hmm. Lots of different things happenning last night and today. Bush gave his address last night to Congress; his words were tough but I still feel that the guy is a wooden puppethead. I wish there was something in his voice that betrayed some form of emotion about everything- he just sounds like he's trying to read off the TelePrompTer and not screw up the big words. Congress, as expected, applauded after each inflection; I think they were just glad he didn't mispronounce 'outraged' and 'unilateral', and clapped in relief. Tom Brokaw, currently walking around with his head up the ass of anybody who fought in dubya-dubya-two, had Stephen Ambrose on to provide commentary, and asked him if he didn't think that Bush's address recalled Roosevelt directly after Pearl Harbor. At first, Ambrose didn't answer, and I secretly hoped Ambrose was thinking, "No, you ignorant twit, Roosevelt was actually a living breathing human being who had an original idea and was elected on merit; this cardboard McPresident gets spoon-fed his opinions like creamed corn every morning." But it seemed that Ambrose couldn't hear Brokaw due to faulty sound feed, and when Brokaw repeated the question, Ambrose agreed with him. Oh, well.
Wall Street is selling off stock like they just found out it causes cancer; what the hell are they freaking out about? Yeah, we're going to war. Yeah, things are different. Yeah, the airlines are in trouble. But anybody who thinks that Boeing isn't going to be cranking up the production on some kind of new airframe to deliver nasty-looking bombs is smoking crack. Anybody who thinks that the government isn't going to help out the airlines is shooting heroin. Anybody who thinks that the tech sector isn't going to bounce back to produce all manner of sneaky devices to kill, maim, snoop on or steal from enemies of the US, whoever they might be, has their head in a pile of blow like Tony Montana in Scarface. | link Hmm. Let's start with Boring News About The Basement. I was able to construct the bookcase last night and install it in the wall; it looks real good and fits perfectly. I'm now reconsidering the decision to have it stick out from the plane of the wall by 1.5" or so, but I'd really like to have it as deep as possible, and I think that I can frame it in in a satisfactory manner. I also mudded most of the little problem spots around the room that had only become apparent after painting, and put another square in place at the base of the staircase cieling- the original had been off-square and looked crooked. I hand-painted the drywall in there and it looks GREAT. I'm really excited to finish-paint that whole stairway and install the lights- it's going to look great. Tonight I'm going to pick up the louvered door for the closet and put in the framing around the doorway. I also have to reconfigure the back of the basement to move the stupid file cabinet out of the closet. I'm nearing the end of Cryptonomicon, and it's got me hooked again; there are passages and chapters that are really funny and incisive; the problem is that these chapters are outnumbered 10 to 1 by whole chapters that are plodding and irrelevant. I like Stephenson's ability to spin a yarn, and I'm enjoying how all the characters are coming together over the generations, but Jeez, man. I'm going to check out Snow Crash after this and see if it's a better read. Oh, and as a friend pointed out about this book: Alan Turing was gay. (this is ironic, sarcastic humor: this fact is mentioned about 400 billion times.) | link We got nailed by Nimda yesterday- my machine got infected with it from our file server, and that explains the incredible strain on the Internet yesterday at 2PM or so. The New Yorker did a great issue in response to the disaster; Art Speigelman created a haunting, eerie cover which at first glance looks totally black- only when you get it under a light do you see the twin towers about 1% darker than the rest of the cover. Inside, different writers offered thoughts and descriptions of the disaster; Hendrik Hertzberg wrote a fantastic, moving opener, and Susan Sontag wrote a blistering condemnation of American policy in foreign countries. There was also a great article on Mayor Rudy, who, in spite of all his faults and foibles, led his city out of the ashes this past week. Last night, I lay in bed under clean cotton sheets after a hard night's work reading my book; the cats wrestled on the floor at the foot of the bed, and a light, gentle breeze blew through the window. As I read, I became aware of a jet flying toward the house. Maybe I was just hyper-sensitive, maybe I was inflating the danger in my head. But it sounded way too low, and way too loud. I rose and looked out the window into a clear, crisp evening sky, and heard the engines echo off the houses around me, but couldn't find the plane's lights. I got back into bed as the sound faded, but it took a long time to get as comfortable as I had been before. The gentleman in the next cube over, while being a very nice fellow, has been talking on the phone with a friend, and I can't help but overhear. I like the guy fine, but his politics suck. If he makes another Clinton joke, picks on Chelsea, or makes a snide comment about 'this tolerant society', I'm going to get up and smack him with his keyboard. I may not have liked Clinton as much as the next Democrat, but god. Rush Limbaugh got rich writing crappy books bashing Slick Wille, G. Gordon Liddy made a half-assed radio career out of bitching about Clinton, and I have news for you guys: ALL THE JOKES ARE OLD. GET OVER IT. All your Republican heroes lie just as much as the Democrats, boink just as many interns and pages, and swindle just as much money. GROW UP. | link </end of rant.>
Another good night in the basement last night; I was able to get the floor in the basement vacuumed and painted battleship gray, while also managing to spill about 1 quart of white latex flat on the floor in the back half like a seizure victim. The endcaps to the cieling tiles are caulked and awaiting finish paint; the area above the window is figured out and mudded (it sits more or less flush with the joist above) and the stairway cieling is sanded and ready for priming. Tonight I have a list of supplies to pick up:
A week ago today the planes started falling. A week ago today I sat in the same place I did this morning, bowl of cereal in hand, watching the events happen. In the past week, I have found a newfound and undying respect for firefighters, EMT and police personnel; A new reason to fear air travel (as if there weren't already enough), a new, special kind of love for Peter Jennings, a rapidly enlarging hole in my stomach, and a Sam's Club card to stave off the apocalypse with pallets of cat food and mineral water stocked in my basement. Oh, and a newfound hatred for the religious right. Speaking of, Falwell decided to apologize for his stupid-ass remarks. The guy doesn't have enough brains to say something intelligent or enough balls to stand up for what he does say. I also brought in my box of old comics today to go through and catalog; I'm going to get a list together at lunchtime. I am a nerd. Ruby (the NT box running IIS here that Breakaway) got hacked again by the same 14-year-olds as a few months ago. What a headache for Dan, the IT guy here. | link
This morning I woke up with both cats in the bed with me. Teller slept almost the whole night with me- that was what I needed this morning. The day broke clear and crisp; I didn't have a splitting headache when I rose, and the house was cheery and bright. That was great. Spoke to a urologist this morning; they ran a urine sample and found blood. I don't know what that means, but I'm concerned. They're scheduling two very mideval-sounding test for me to take sometime in the future, and then we'll have more of an idea as to what's going on in my lower urinary tract. This weekend Jen and I did a bunch of shopping for her job at the Sam's Club; we also bought a bunch of stuff for us, too. We stocked up on some frozen goods for the next few weeks- pierogies, chicken, and gnocci. I also found a Sharp 32" TV for about $350, which (I thought) was a stellar price. Hopefully it'll be there in another month or so when I have available cash to pick one up. Sunday I woke late and got to work downstairs; I sanded my brains out again and got everything finished; by 3 in the afternoon I had all the walls covered with two coats of primer. It looks really good now that it's not green and white and the floor isn't covered in white dust. There are a few places to hit with some finish plaster to hide some stray paper and bumps, but overall we're ready to start the painting. I'm going to block off some stuff and fire up the spraygun maybe tomorrow after I get some more latex flat. I also finished off the south side cieling areas where it meets the wall so the finish looks a lot better. Still need to figure out what to do with the flat cieling section directly in front of the window, but that shouldn't be too hard. Let's see- here's a partial list:
This is one of the reasons I love Salon: They have had great coverage on several aspects of the NYC bombing. I'm going to bring in a box I have in my basement full of old comics and Nate is going to help me sell them on Ebay. Maybe I can make some bucks off of that- it would be helpful. I also still need to venture to DC to get rid of $60 worth of Metro cards before they expire. The contractor at the next desk over from me is stabbing his keyboard in a random and scattershot manner not unlike that of small-arms fire. Someday the Powers That Be will design a keyboard that actually benefits from a "quiet" action, instead of the goopy, mechanical sound most current keyboards emit. Until then, I get to deal with the annoyance of this guy angrily poking through the keyboard into the desk below. Time for headphones. | link
Woke early this morning to the sound of thunder; I lay in bed and waited for the cats to join me. They stayed with me for a few hours and left- by that time it had passed. When day broke, it was overcast and gloomy, much like my mood. Jen helpfully pointed out that what I should have said last night was: Also, here two of my best reasons for peace in this fucked-up world: penn | teller Here's another good reason that the Christian far-right should probably be sterilized for their own protection. People as ignorant as this should just not be allowed to procreate. I'm sorry. But then again, it was inevitable that somebody would do something stupid. 3:05 PM - More sanding last night; sanding my brains out. The sanding block I bought last week is dead, and my mud is gone, so I went out today and got more. This weekend will see the stairwell sanding getting finished, the stairs themselves being torn out and probably replaced, and some paint in this mutha by Sunday evening. Halleleujah. I also got a Sam's Club membership yesterday through work, and we spent about 45 minutes wandering the caverns of that store staring at pallets of dog food, gallon bags of shrimp the size of my feet, and cheap electronics. They had a 15" LCD monitor for about $375 there, and I'm sorely tempted....but not giving in. Somehow it all seems wrong to spend money on myself right now, economic paralysis or not. About the only thing I can rationalize is spending on the basement. And I think that's just so I have something to occupy my mind. | link Still pretty numb this morning. I'm going to talk about the basement now, not because I'm an insensitive, uncaring asshole, but because I'm trying to continue on with my life, as I think everybody in this country is beginning to do. I think that it's important to move on and not give into these morons. And also because I don't know what else to do. Last night I put the b/w TV on in the basement and sanded my brains out while listening to the coverage. I got the box under the stairs edged and mudded, the window edged and mudded, and the closet sanded and mudded. Pretty much everything has one coat of mud and is sanded at least once; I'm going to get up in the stairwell and sand that whole thing tonight and try to get it finished- it's a hateful place to work because it's hot and sweaty. 12:54 AM - Pretty numb about everything. No new news; just people talking about how to deal with everything. Depressing. 5:19 PM - Contemplating the talk that's going around today about "measured response" and "retaliatory action". I've been thinking about the draft; about being called in to serve the country and getting put on a ship and being sent to some hot, sandy nation to obliterate some poor scared guy who knows just as much as I do and wants just as badly to go home. Been thinking that World War I was started by one guy with a pistol killing an archduke (whatever that is) and how events spiraled out of control from there. Been praying that our government does something smart, decisive, and quickly. Been thinking that I'm pissed, I want to kick some butt, and that I'd go, but I hope and I pray that the military leadership of this country isn't as inept, bumbling, and incompetent as I believe it is. 10:44 PM - And, as if to verify all my fears, doubts and uncertainty, I saw some file footage of Dubya talking (no, more like struggling to convey emotion) to the rescue personnel at the Pentagon. Does anybody else see how absolutely wooden and phony this guy is? I'm supposed to rally around this puppethead? He couldn't even complete a full sentence, let alone rally these tired, exhausted people into helping him. He sounded weak, confused, and incoherent, and it seemed to me that somebody was piping in half-completed sentences for him to mouth through his Secret Service earpiece. I can't believe he's the leader of this nation. Clinton was a liar, but at least I believed that he felt some kind of emotion. I got the email about the candlelight vigil at 7:00 tomorrow; I'm going to definitely bring a few Dietz lamps and fire them up. I also want to find a big American flag and hang that sucker right on the front of my house. 12:44 AM - Just in case you thought I was going to sleep feeling all righteously indignant, I just read a list of writings by some notable people, gathered by a smarter woman than I, who all say what our country's leadership should have said about 30 years ago: We're reaping what we've sown. We've been very, very lucky up until Tuesday, and somebody finally had the cajones enough to pop the comfortable little bubble we've been living in these past 400 years. We as a society conveniently forget, or choose to ignore, what our government does in its spare time, out of sight and under the radar: Central America, Southeast Asia, Cuba, blah blah blah. Today I got schooled by a friend's father for forwarding a pretty jingoistic reply to a pretty jingoistic email (I'll omit the details) and pretty much learned to shut my big trap. but it doesn't change the fact that I'm mad at somebody, and I want some retribution. One thing that does work, based on my limited 30-year study of human nature, is that an overwhelming show of force scares the hell out of a lot of people. We're a different country now. Things have changed. That will be hard to swallow for a lot of people. But it's time to rattle the big saber and remind some folks that we are still the preeminent power on this planet, we have the will, and we do not like it when you drive planes into our buildings. None of this is going to bring any of the innocent people from the WTC or the Pentagon or those planes back. And I'm not advocating what happened in the least. I'm just amazed it hadn't happened earlier. Now I'm going to bed. | link Fuck me. What a mess.  Jen and I got about an hour's worth of glorious sleep together spooned on the bed, before rising, on a beautiful September morning. After she left for work, I was eating breakfast and listening to Howard Stern at my desk at home, and heard the first reports of the plane hitting the WTC. I went downstairs and turned on the news- it was all over the dial. I called Jen immediately and told her what was happening. She didn't believe me. As we were talking, the second plane smashed into the second tower. I sat around and watched the coverage for a few minutes yesterday, and being alone, I decided to head north to work to be with people. I got into work and immediately we headed over to Jeff Curley's house to watch CNN on his 53" TV. For a few hours, we sat stunned watching things unfold. I was shocked to hear about the first plane. I was horrified to see the second plane. And I was terrified when I heard about the Pentagon. I headed back home and went immediately to the store to stock up on supplies, then headed home and hunkered down. Jen came by and we sat to watch the coverage in disbelief and shock. I am grateful she was with me. People leaping from the 80th stories of the buildings.
Today the Greycube server got hacked. I wonder if it's a random script kiddie? 11:03 AM - Still trying to get work done, actually trying to approach it. Attempting to put it all out of my head. 11:24 AM - Stacey checked in with me- she's OK. 11:42 AM - Able to log onto Greycube; I'm backing up my files right now as fast as I can. Afraid I'll lose everything. My last backup was about 2 months ago. 12:02 AM - Ross checked in with me- he's OK as well. 2:32 PM - Found a real nice site from caterina.net - it's called the artful dodge. Very nice design with 3 colors and no blending. Yes, I'm shirking work, looking for something else to concentrate on other than this interface and New York. 12:02 PM - For once in this city, a small glimmer of original thought shines through. The program director at WHFS, normally a lock-step 'Alternative' radio station, has been playing relatively awesome songs since 'Loveline' cut out at 11:40. U2 and 'One', Elvis Costello with 'What's so Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding', REM with 'Everybody Hurts'. Right the hell on. If they had just pushed through their usual disgusting, sticky mass of proto-alternative payola whiny white-men complaining music during all this mess, I probably would have impaled myself on my bass guitar. But somebody alive is actually in the program room; I like to think they've barricaded themselves in the DJ booth and are calmly loading the player and smoking their final cigarette while representatives and AR guys from the music labels rush the door wielding boxes of the new 'Limp Bizkit' CD-Single. I had to work in the basement for the evening- I couldn't listen to the radio, watch the TV or deal with another report of the chaos up in NY. I got a lot done too, but I'm gonna save the description for tomorrow. Oh, and it's now back to the regularly scheduled crap rock. I guess the AR guys beat the DJ to death with his microphone. | link Back at work today; Jen and I had another great weekend together, even though she was feeling a bit down about work. I know she's pushing herself really hard to do well, like she does with everything else in her life, but she needs to take it easier on herself about this job- I don't want to see her burn herself out by worrying about it too much. The two of us had a great evening at Peter's on friday, capped off with a trip to the balcony at Lista's for some margaritas, and then a fantastic nightcap. Saturday I was able to get a lot of work in the basement done- the window is now framed in and enclosed with drywall, and I took some of the old pink foam and insulated the front wall from the A/C ductwork. The shelf went in smoothly and the sides are tapered out about 2 inches wide and one inch tall, so there's a real nice feeling of openness coming from that wall instead of a porthole effect-I was dreading that possibility, because the front wall had to be framed out about 16" to clear the gas and water meters. I'm also very happy because the cats will have a great place to sleep, there will be a wonderful place to put some plants, and there's a ton of light flooding into an otherwise pretty dark room. I was also able to form some flashing around the outside on the bottom and the top of the window box; that was a pain in the ass and took more time than I thought, but it doesn't look too bad. I probably should have done the bottom section first to practice. The sides should happen sometime this week, before it gets too cold/wet/etc. I also need to recaulk part of the top flashing and borrow a tall ladder from Dad to repair/repoint/recaulk the front picture window. Pretty impressed with myself for remembering how to ftp via the windows console; I forgot to bring my PC disk in to reinstall some of my software on this machine, so I just wrote this in Notepad. Anyway, tonight I'm going to buy some metal bead edging and another tub of mud, and try like hell to finish up the sanding as quickly as possible. Wesley Crusher has a website. | link OK; at some point when I'm home and on my own DSL line, I need to check out this site: www.stileproject.com. I read that the guy who runs it is quitting because he put some video of a kitten being killed and readied for eating, and of course three billion people freaked out and decided to start spamming him with death threats. Never mind that the rest of the site is covered in porn and other goodies. Kinda reminds me of rotten.com, another "wait till you get the heck home" sites to look at. | link 11:30 PM - just up from the basement. I got the right hand side (from the stairs) sheetrocked in; the box containing the stairwell is boxed in and looks pretty good, actually. I got everything done across to the window opening- the upper left side and the way it went together is still bugging me. I have no real way of framing it out or covering it over, and that is going to bug me for a long time. I'm stumped. I did put a brace over the base opening for the window at level, so I can drop a set of planking across it for a real nice windowsill. Today at work was prety good- I was able to focus on the interface enough to realize that A. the color choices I made for amber worked equally well as copper, and B. when I added some noise at a 30% screen in the background, it really looked good as copper. | link I got some more sanding done in the basement last night, and was able to run the feed from the new computer circuit into a junction box mounted on the wall and up to the second floor office. I'm going to leave the circuit turned off until I can install a new box behind the drywall in there and add a plug. I got some more drywall installed and used the last 4'x4' sheet, so tonight I'll buy 3 more sheets, the junction box inserts for the new wiring, another tub of mud, several more 2x4's, and three large lighted rocker switches for the lighting down there. I'll probably try to focus on the front window tonight and build the box setup for the enclosure (that should take a while) and maybe get some drywall installed. I talked to my Mom last night; she was mainly trying to get her iMac online and get the e-mail set up so she could send/recieve again (Dad, who is frightened like a little German schoolgirl at all things Mac, got on there the other night and futzed the whole thing up) so I stepped her through the process and got her back online again. After 6 months of her paying for Earthlink modem access while Dad paid for a cable modem sitting in the next room, they finally ditched Earthlink, got her back up on his network after I suggested they buy a DSL/cable modem router like the one I have. Sometimes they drive me nuts.
Yesterday I found an archive of old Commodore 64 games, and found a pair that were listed that reminded me of days gone by. One was a game called 'Impossible Mission', and featured a quote of an English guy saying, "Destroy him, my robots..." in a bad Bela Lugosi impersonation. That one took me back. The other one was a game called Mail Order Monsters, where you could build monsters and equip them with different items of varying deadliness, then drop them into an arena and have 'em fight it out Gladiator-style. I also found a copy of Skyfox, which for its day was a pretty cool game and had me entranced for about a month before I mastered it and it got boring. There was a clip of the IM theme music and a ROM download of the game; I also found an emulator for the PC and a great site to download more ROMS. Maybe if I get super-ultra bored I'll fire it up and play a round or two. Maybe. This all served to remind me that I need to get back with Stas and see how he's doing. Found this site on PriceWatch- the Kodak 3400 is $279. A 48 MB compactFlash card is an additional $40 as well. I'm gonna look in the ol' bank account and see what's in there right now. Found this article on the Kodak website- i love this place, I have always been fascinated by it ever since I saw a GEO Magazine article on it in 1982, and I want to go to Arizona to see it. 11:30PM - Just came back upstairs from the basement- my back is aching, but in a mildly pleasant 'I just did 4 hours of honest good work' kind of way. I bought 3 2x4x10's, 3 sheets of drywall and the adapters for the steel junction box, which got installed; more drywall up on the inside of the closet- there's just a spot on the inside right wall that needs to be done and then it just needs a finish mud. The plug went in OK and all I need to do now is test it out tomorrow evening. The left wall of the closet is, in hindsight, about 6" too close to the side of the furnace, preventing easy access to the humidifier unit, but I'm installing an access panel in the corresponding wall that will allow entry and replacement of the filter. The steel edging is up and 1/2 mudded on the left wall, and most of the inside is sanded. All in all, a good night's work. | link Jen and I had a fantastic weekend together- after some serious issues were discussed, and we actually got to the point where we looked at splitting up. We went north to the Chadd's Ford Winery and did some antiquing on Sunday, and then went to the festival on Sunday. I bought one of those handy picnic-wine carrier deals where it holds a cold bottle of wine and two glasses. Very nice- i always wanted one of those. Jen packed a picnic basket and we tasted wine, then bought a bottle and sat on the grass in the shade with each other. We didn't want to leave. Renie has all kinds of good news about Charles, her new flame; apparently they are officially an item. I am very happy for her- she sounds ecstatic about it, and with good reason. This is the best news I've heard for her in a long time, excepting the house, which goes to settlement on Thursday. I read today that HP and Compaq are going to "merge" to form an "87 billion-dollar company". OK. I owned a Compaq workstation- hell, I don't even remember what it was now, about 3 years ago. I bought it from my employer at that time for $250, which was pretty steep but still a decent deal for what i got. Not six months later, in attempting to do something as simple as drop a larger hard drive in the thing, I fried the BIOS on the board because, and the exact details are now hazy, the BIOS could only be accessed by a special program inserted on a floppy disk. So I gutted it, bought a case and new motherboard, and salvaged the remaining parts. What a piece of junk. HP makes great printers in my opinion, but their computers suck just as bad. Good luck, guys.
Mr. Rogers is packing up the farm. I wasn't even aware he was still around and doing new shows. All the cracks about a 50 year old guy playing with puppets and talking about the "Land of Make-Believe" aside, the guy had an impact on my life, in a positive way. Take care, Fred, and thanks for the memories. You, Sesame Street and the Electric Company were my daily education outside of the New Jersey Public School System. Which, I'm proud to say, taught me the difference between Your and You're; (i.e. one is overused by stupid idiots) and their, they're and there. | link
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