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| 07/29/2001 -{ Passing Through New West Like a Hot Burrito }- |
My goals for this weekend were threefold.
Saturday I got to sleep in, and even started to do the 2nd and 3rd items on my list.... then for some freak reason I reboot linux fux0red up. HD on constantly, a load of 20, and I couldn't kill the processes (even though the system was responding just fine). So I left it until an upload I was waiting for was done and rebooted to windows, did some work in there and rebooted back to Linux. Fsck errors. A pissoff, but expected when you reboot with a constant on HD. So I fix the errors (thank $DEITY my other partitions are reiser!) and reboot to make sure everything is cool. "Kernel Panic. No init found."
ARGH!
I pass init=/bin/sh to the kernel. No luck. I pass other stuff. No luck. I finally reboot into windows and use explore2fs to see my linux / to see what is going on. The files are there, and ok. Weird. Maybe the actual init file is fubar. Ok, copy in the one from my system at work.
Now, I'm going to pause here for a moment and tell you about the dangers of not heeding the warnings when software (such as explore2fs) tells you that it's a REALLY BAD IDEA TO USE THIS OPTION and ARE YOU REALLY SURE YOU WANT TO ENABLE WRITE MODE IT WILL PROBABLY DESTROY THINGS. Well, I didn't heed it and thought to myself, "Ok, this guy is just wanting to cover his ass if something does happen, but it's probably actually really ok." Nope. Reboot to linux and now it's not "no init found" but rather weird directory entry error messages. So I reboot to linux using a boot disk and run fsck on my /. Errors errors errors. Remove that directory and copy my /sbin from work over. Reboot. Same thing.
Bah.
Luckily / is partitioned off from /usr, /var, /home, /var/ftp/pub/mp3, etc and I decide the easiest way to get things done is to just re-install. So I do, and basically spend the rest of the day rebuilding things. This takes us to 12:30am Sunday morning when I go to bed.
Sunday. First, a quick review of the 3 things I wanted to do this weekend (today).
8:30am a phone call from FFMom saying "come out to aunt so-and-so's, she's got $160 boots and shoes for you for $20 a pair!" (aunt so-and-so gets rejects, show model shoes and imperfect shoes from where she works apparently). I didn't learn the last time but we go. Turns out the offer of free shoes is to get us out there so that we can help move aunt so-and-so from her trailer to the one across the road (a literal 10 step walk). Guess who gets drafted to work? Yup, you guessed it. At least I got to plug in the computer again (never did check if I put the sound card cable in the right plug though... oops).
So 1ish we head out and drop FFMom off at work and continue to find the place were Firefly was going to do inventory while I go home and work on items 2 and 3. Well, guess who got guilted in to helping? Yup, you guessed it again. I won't bother describing the pain my back endured hunched over counting sunflower seed packs, maxi pads, condoms, chocolate bars, pre-wrapped sandwiches ("Do you think they make pre-wrapped bacon?"), antifreeze, and motor oil. Needless to say it sucked. 6ish rolls along and we head out to Yohimbe and WebDiva's to participate in a going away party for Pommie, who is heading back home in this age of tech-work-crap. We'll miss you dude.
This takes me to present, 10-11pm-ish Sunday night. 0/3. Bah. I think I'll sleep now and see if tomorrow is any better. Oh wait, it's Monday! Actually it's Sushi Monday so it can't be all that bad, right?
| 07/27/2001 -{ Ever Have That Feeling That Your Cat is Just Biding Time Before Eating You? }- |
| 07/24/2001 -{ Ooops. }- |
On a side note, I hate kids. The little punk that was about 15 and weighed about as much as my leg? Him and his skinny-ass little frame of a body can go to hell. The little girl who was about 12 and weighed about as much as my head? Her and her 90 pound little punk ass can go to hell too.
My climbing harness seems to be fitting snugger around the mid-section these days. This is good. This is also the only way I can really tell if I'm loosing any real weight because I can't see any difference. Course, it could be my pain receptors in my belly are so bloated with pizza, beer and hotdogs that I can pull the harness tighter without noticing.
Finished Module 1 in the PADI course (yay) and am about 1/3 the way into module 2. Hope all ya'll are doing the same!
Morning
I must retract my <BITCH> from the other day. As Tig has pointed out
to me, the links to speakeasy etc
are still accessable under links and other browsers. I am obviously smoking
crack. Actually what happened was I'm so used to going to the frontpage of staticred and seeing content
and not having to go down an extra level (if you could fix that that'd be
greeeeaaaat....), that when I saw the text message I ignored the links that
were there and went off on a crack-induced episode.
My apologies.
In other news, no Corny pukage yet. Looks like the new food is working. He was making strange noises last night and dragging around his sock (a really really fluffy old winter sock he liberated from me when he was a kitten). I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with him and the sock. He doesn't really do anything with it other than drag it around and sleep with it every once and a while though. Maybe he was feeling blue or something, but he seemed much happier after I went to bed and snuggled with him for a bit.
Went to bed late again due to mp3-organization-induced-insomnia. I'm into the D's of the new stuff I got. I still have a few hundred megs of Sawyer Brown and Prairie Oyster to organize that's in the download directory, but it's not the jumble I had before, so I'm not going to worry until I get to the S's.
| 07/22/2001 -{ If Everyone Got Along Who Would We Hate? }- |
I've been playing with a program called mp3mover which will take a directory of un-organized mp3s and organize them into directories of artist/album with nice filenames (whatever you specify). Very cool program. It does what it does well, but not perfect, depending on the naming/id3 tagging of the file. So after every run I have to go through and re-organize, nuke crap, change id3 info (or add it), move some stuff into categories such as country, comedy, etc. This takes a fair amount of time, but it also allows me to run mp3_check on them to make sure they are OK (most songs are, but the longer stand up stuff I'm collecting seems to have errors once and a while) and also toss the lower quality files for the better quality stuff, listen to each song, or at least the start and finish, to make sure they are ok. Relatively relaxing anyway.
Also started on the PADI certification CDs. Only about 3/4 of the way through the first module, but if I follow what I want and work on it for an hour or so a night, it all should be done by Aug. 11 when the course starts. I was thinking that if I had tons of ca$h (my .com millions) I could have fun buying nifty scuba toys. Too bad everything you can buy for scuba seems to cost about $800+. I've bitched about that before though.
What else. Hmm... I was going to re-do the logo on our company bugzilla site (internal, don't bother) to make it a little cooler looking, but never got around to it. Wouldn't mind re-doing the look of this page a bit to make it look neater. I like what Tig has done with the comments on his site. I'd have to do CSS then, which brings me to another point:
<BITCH>
I'm currently writing this from a console on my system. Why not in X? Well,
because I'm here and I can do it here just as well as I could with a GUI. I
got to a bunch of links from other sites (for the above links I put up) just
dandy. But I go to staticred.net to go and
get an URL for some comments (note the empty link for "comments on his site"
above) and get the message:
"Upgrade your damned browser already!"
[blah blah links for GUI browsers]
Unless Netscape 6, Mozilla, or Opera (you forgot Galeon!) have text modes available to
them, I'm completely out of luck trying to access his site to get the
INFORMATION I WANT! He doesn't even bother to try to display it, as
he has in the past, for text browsers. I'm used to not being able to see nice
formatting using links but
at least I COULD FRIGGIN' SEE SOMETHING!
</BITCH>
If the above is the result of CSS then I think I'll happily continue using <TABLE> and <FONT> until I die :P~
| 07/19/2001 -{ I don't have anything witty to say today. }- |
Remember how I mentioned the new stereo? Well, the faceplate jammed for no reason. It's been kinda shakey, sometimes not rotating down like it should when you hit the eject button, but not it's not going anywhere. Which sucks, because you have to move it to get the CD out. So tonight after work I'll be heading to A&B to bitch and moan to them about it. I read a few reports of this on the user boards, but figured that if you were careful (as I have been) you'd be ok. What really sucks is there is no reason for it to be stuck. It's not spring loaded I don't think, so that means that it's just a catch that lets it down... or something. This is why I do computers and not electronics. Bah. At least the shop is open till 9pm tonight so I have time to get down there in a decent amount of time. What I hope will not happen is they say "oh, well we have to send it back to Kenwood" and rip out the deck and I loose it for 8-10 weeks while they send it across the country so someone can stick a screwdriver in the side and get it out.
Did I mention that this is pissing me off? More so because I have a bunch of new CDs that I'm about to burn but I can't listen to them until the faceplate can be moved off so I can change them!
| 07/18/2001 -{ Cat's Don't Appreciate you Throwing Things on Their Head While They Pee. }- |
Something about VWs.
Something about looking at a new house.
I was meeting someone at an IHOP in Maple Ridge, and the first guy I met was a
construction worker who asked me to go get his food (or his friend, one of the
two) from inside. I go inside and find his friend, who I guess doesn't like
him because I get a ride from him along the freeway, but right around the
Grandview highway exit of the #1 he stops and dumps all his buddies laundry
out of the car! Being the nice guy I am I get it and bring it back to the guy
at the IHOP (even though I get dumped out of the car too). When I bring it
back to the pancake house I meet another guy who I recognize as a
pervert/child molester/wanted felon. Tall and gangly, and around 40 or so,
clean shaven (not that the description really matters of course). Talking to
him I realize that and try to make sure that I'll be able to talk to him again
so I can get him arrested.
I was at my parents and the same guy came up to drop off a package in a delivery
van. I didn't want to give it away but I didn't want to get to close in case he
decided to grab me. Had to sort of come close but not too close.
All I wanted to do was not raise his suspicion but still keep him around so the cops
could get to him. I made up an email address where he could reach me,
screwing up each part, trying not to give him a real one that he could check
on but something that sounded legit. I think it was
blue-something-climber@ufies.org. When he left I go
downstairs (this was at my parents house) and dad is outside with a guy and I
say "is this the police investigator?" and then turn the corner a bit more to
see that the pervert is still there. I immediately backtrack and say "I only
say that because I'm sure I've met/seen you before" or something. Anyway
somewhere along the way he leaves and then contacts me.
End of the dream is me tied up (let them think I was anyway) with a board
stuck in my mouth, with a bar of soap on top, then another board (some sort of
gag I guess) and the pervert and his friends (who are in some sort of club
outside of being perverts) and putting things on the floor... 3 potatos is
what I remember. They are saying something about "he can answer the easy
ones" in reference to me being a trained person who knows about interrigation
and infiltration of Bad Guy organizations.
Somewhere along the way also I was looking at buying a house. It was huge,
with an entire area that was outdoors yet fenced in. My thoughts for it was
to put the kids in there (kids == cats I think in my mind). I was walking
through it with FireFly saying things like "and there's the dining room that
I'll never actually use." This house factored in with the pervert somehow
too. I think he had a victim, a girl tied up in the bottom of a house (not
the one I was looking at) that he was holding but she was very smart and was
working on a way to get away.
Ok Lord, I promise, I won't eat any more extra-onion pizza just before bed, and you won't send me any more dreams like this ok?
| 07/17/2001 -{ "What a twisted Web we Weave / When we Practice to Deceive..." }- |
Re-arranged a bunch of drive space last night for MP3s too. I found a 10G partition that wasn't being used which is good, just a PITA to not have it where it can be merged in with another nicely. I'd like to just combine it with the existing MP3 files and make a big 20G partition, but without using the LVM in kernel 2.4 I can't. Well, that and I don't have any place to put the files while moving things around :)
Speaking of MP3s and the AudioGalaxy program, don't install it!! Tig put me on to the fact that it contains spyware, which is not good :) The linux client I don't think can track things like browsing and so on, so I'm still going to use it from that end, but it will not be run by a user that has access to anything but a place to put MP3s :) Too bad too, it's a nice program.
Ah, there we go, move my old netscape config files out of the way and let it download the messages again and all is well. Yay! Now I can get my work mail at home agai.... oh wait a minute. Shit! :)
| 07/16/2001 -{ My Kingdom for a Bowel Movement }- |
2:20am
Long day today. I'll start with the short and sweet of the actual events.
Went out to get a desk. It rained. That sucked. Went to my parents for a
dinner thing. That was good (except that I couldn't have anything but soup).
Came home. Put desk togeather. Finished paper for work.
So that was the short of the day. The thing is that as I was driving home to my parents I remembered that I hadn't taken my 3rd antibiotic pill of the day (to keep swelling in the mouth down or something like that). I'd remembered to bring it along of course, as I'm a smart boy, but I had no water. "No problems," I thinks to myself, "I've dry swallowed pills before!"
So I do.
Mistake. For some reason the stupid pill gets lodged somewhere in my esophagus, just before the stomach. Dinner (soup) and beer, water and tea all go down just fine. But when I'm done the paper for my meeting on Monday and decide to go to bed, it starts to hurt. I mean hurt bad. Ever gotten a lump of rice caught in your throat? Well, something like that, but farther down and harder to get rid of. In fact, at 2-bloody-30 in the morning I still haven't gotten rid of it. It seems to get worse when I lie down for a bit, and I have no clue how to get rid of the stupid thing!
The neighbors would be looking at me funny if they could see in the windows, cause I've been doing some weeeeiiird stuff in here.
At this point in time I'm trying to drown it by drinking large amounts of water, hoping to flush it down. Vomiting isn't high on my list of "stuff I like to do early in the morning when I'm tired and need to get to bed to go to work tomorrow and be concious so I can do the work I didn't get done last week and this weekend," but if worst comes to worst, I'll do it dammit! (<you hear my you little pill or whatever you are blocking my esophagus!>)
Random note: Since napster has basically been killed (or legislated out of existance if you want to look at it that way), my buddy cfreeze pointed me to AudioGalaxy, a system where you can get music. Basically you use their "satallite" program and run that on your computer (after setting up an account on their site of course). Then you search the site, find the mp3s you want and click on the little radar dish icon. They are put in a queue for downloading by the satallite program. If a user goes offline that's fine, because the system will continue the download when they, or someone with the same song, comes back online. It's not as nice to work with as fara as being able to sort, select bitrates, check sizes, etc as something like napster or a similar P2P file sharing system, but from what I can tell, it's pretty sweet.
<pause for another pitcher of water>
MP3s rock too. I got a new car stereo last week, the Kenwood MP8017, which plays CDs of mp3s as well as all the stuff a normal deck does. This means that I can have my complete (legally bought BTW) collection of every Blue Rodeo album (that's 12 CDs full) fit on a single CD and be able to be played in the car! A 700meg CD of an average of 7meg songs is, yes, 100 songs (which is low, as most mp3s are smaller than 7megs). So 10x the music of a standard CD. It rocks. I have only burned a couple of disks (The Definitive Blue Rodeo (every album), The Definitive U2 (every album) and a couple of mixes), but with the amount that can fit on a CD, I think the 24 cd wallet I bought will last me a while :)
Hmm... didn't realize that there were more than the one from Kenwood available. Seems they have several decks available (mine is the low end model).
My only complaint about mine is not to do with functionality or features, but user interface. Basically it sucks. I don't think that anyone actually had a mock-up of the system in their car for real use for any amount of time. The buttons are small and hard to hit, and feel "mushy", and their arrangement could be much better. Some buttons (like the one for changing pre-set bass/trebel) are great, but pointless at being that big. Some buttons are taller than others, for no reason. MP3 Folder navigation is backwards (the button on the top moves you down, the button on the bottom moves you up), and it's missing some key features that would be awsome to have (full CD random, song preview). It was a decision for me between this one and the Sony CDX-MP450x and the Sony didn't read ID3 tags (the embedded information in an MP3 that gives you the full song name, artist, track, album, genre, etc. I simply can't survive seeing a song come up as "BLUERO~1", "BLUERO~2", etc. I'd much rather see "Blue Rodeo - Five Days in May" ya know? The Sony had better UI I think, but in this case the features of the Kenwood won out (a as a bonus, it was cheaper too).
Reason #54362 not to trust Future Shop employees: When asking them about the two decks and in particular about the fact the Sony didn't seem to be showing the full song name (I hadn't researched it at the time to know that it couldn't) he said "oh yea, it does normally for me, sure it does" put in a CD (normal CD, not a MP3 CD) and it did (I guess it can read embedded information off a music CD or something). When asked (again) "ok, so it works for music CDs, what about MP3 CDs?" I was told "oh of course it does, I just don't remember how to turn that setting on" (or some such bullshit).
<pause for another pitcher>
I'd venture heading to bed now (gads, 3am!) but it seems as soon as I lie down my stomach hurts again. I'll check my mail real quick and then see how it goes. Hopefully I'll drift of to dreamin' till morn.
| 07/11/2001 -{ Oh Highway, Yes it's My Way... }- |
It wasn't as bad as I thought, as I was extremly numb. The main thing was the smell and sound of then cutting things in half. Lucky I had a tarp over me and they couldn't see me gripping my hands togeather so I didn't scream like a little girl as they ripped things out of my jaw. After the bottom ones he did the top (obviously) and they went really easily. Because the bottom ones were half still inside my jaw they had to cut them... the top ones however just "slid out". Some instructions on which drugs to take when, and how if I was a smoker this would really suck, and I was sent home, where I've been spitting out blood, changing my gauze pads and taking tylenol 3s.
All in all better than getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick, but still not quite the way I wanted to spend my wednesday afternoon :)
7:07am
My dream:
It's still fresh in my mind. I brought my car in to the shop for something
(the shop was located where the Save-on-Foods is now at the bottom of the
hill) and they took it away from me! Kinda. Apparently in my dream when I
bought my car originally I bought it on lease, so every year (7 months?) I got
to trade it in for a new one. So for $700+ I got a nice new 2000 (not sure
why it wasn't a 2001) Prelude. I talked with the salesdude for a bit, and
then the saleslady (who was in her bathrobe) and at the end of my dream she
was trying to find me a new car by hitting the car alarm beepers under the
desk and listening. Eventually she asked the salesdude to find one. About
this point I woke up.
Rough night. It was just boiling in here lately, at least especially in the evening. This morning it looks pretty grey out there so hopefully it'll be a decent day.
Today I get to have my wisdom teeth out (wee) as per the dentists suggestion from a couple of years ago. The horror stories I've heard make me really want to reconsider though :\ I can only hope that the extraction will be nice and smooth and easy, and even more smooth if I can be put out while it's happening :) We'll see. I've heard the "oh it's so eeeaaassyyyy" stories and the "... then the dentist stood on my chest with the jackhammer..." stories. Not sure which one mine will be. I'll let ya'll know though.
| 07/05/2001 -{ Oh $DEITY Take me now! }- |
1:50am
Normally when I update at this time of night it's going to be an early night
for me going to bed. Tonight, not so. I was in bed around 10pm last
night(!!!!). Scary but true. I'm up now because my cold/allergies are about
to kill me. I'm sitting here with my eyes not quite working, awake because
it's impossible to sleep with a plugged up, runny nose and sneezing every 2
minutes. I'm not sure if this is allergies or a cold though. Allergies
normally don't affect me at night, and they are only hay fever anyway. Hell,
I was riding my bike out in the sun monday with no allergy medication of any
kind and I was fine! My cow-orker ScoobyD has just got over/getting over a
cold, and as she has a desk right beside mine, that's where my blame lies. Of
course, I haven't had a cold in a long time, so I don't remember how one
feels, but I thought the rest of me would feel worse.... this
sneezing/sniffing/runny nose/<pause to blow nose>congestion feels more
like allergies because the rest of me feels ok (well, did feel ok
until yesturday evening). I've definately had allergies lately (after
playing soccer friday afternoon for example, I felt the scratchy
throat/watery eyes/sniffing come up on me slowly) but this is either
the result of someone dumping a huge load of [whatever the hell causes
hay fever.... hay/tall grass I guess] under my window (I just closed all
doors and windows to my place in case that did happen... it's going to
be boiling tomorrow but I don't care!) or a real honest to goodness cold.
Did I mention I feel like crap? I've gone through half a roll of toilet paper tonight. Hmm... maybe if it is a cold taking cold drugs would work better. I've been taking allergy ones assuming that that was what I was dealing with. At this point I'm about ready to down a bottle of random pills in the hope that one of them will make me feel better! The raw nose due to blowing isn't all that much fun at this point either.
ScoobyD you're an awsome java coder but at this moment in time I think I hate you :)
<sneeze><sneeze>...<sneeze>
I'm going to see if I have any more drugs that I can take.
Ok, the only thing I had that mentioned "allergy" and "runny nose" I took the last one of earlier. The others were all for stuffy nose and congestion, neither of which I have. I had clariton though. I figure I'll sit out here and do stuff (surf, do some research that I need to do for work, maybe a little code to clear out a bug or two) until either a) this stuff kicks in or b) I'm so tired I have no choice but to go to sleep. See what good going to bed at an early hour does? 10pm should equal a wonderful night's sleep and waking up refreshed and ready to take on the day! So much for that crap. If this is what happens when I go to bed early from now on it's going to be 3am for me!
Oh by the way, unless I feel massively better in the next 6 hours or so, I'll be working from home/dying on my bed/couch k boss?
| 07/04/2001 -{ Hello Mary Lou, Goodbye Heart, sweet Mary Lou I'm so in love with you... }- |
I was playing Urban Terror in real life
(again), in a building that had a pool (I think)
in it (though not like any of the maps that are in the game). There were some cool
additions and differences in playing it in real life though.... one was
tranquilizer darts. Another (which I used when I was hit by a tranquilizer
dart) was the "Porn Star" (whose name I forget) with the optional "friends"
addon (like you'd have a silencer for a rifle, well, the pornstar addon was
her friends. There some other cool addons too, like stocks for your rifles,
tranquilizer rifles... Gameplay was different in some ways as well. I still
didn't get tired at all, but you could pick an item up (in your hands) instead
of walking over it and then put it by your other hand, and whatever was in
your hand was added to your inventory....
I get the feeling I've been playing waaaaaay too much of this game lately :)
In other news, happy Canada Day (belated). Wandered out to my parents place on Canada Day and the Arcterdad became a Canadian citizen! Whohoo! Congrats Dad, I'm really proud of you! The ceremony was ok, not hugely long or boring, and there was free (though gross) cake at the end. The day was finished off with a party at SilverStr's place, with everyone from work, except of course the slacker loosers who didn't come out :) Lots of pool, vegging, enjoying the backyard, and chatting with people about work and non-work stuff. Very cool.
Happy 4th of July to the 'merkins out there too. To celebrate and honor this special day I think tonight I'll watch Independence Day. Or maybe I'll hit the climbing gym... Either way, I'll be thinking about all ya'll.