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Today has been all about the new laptop

So, Cy gets a new laptop. It’s the last one they have, so it was the demo unit. Heavily discounted, good. Tested and solidly burnt-in, good.

Fsck only knows what’s installed on it, bad. Very bad.

So,

  1. Reinstall XP.
  2. OK, first find that damn 25-character code. Where the hell is it? Don’t throw out that receipt — it’s not in any of the paperwork.
  3. Oh. Here it is, on the bottom of the machine. OK.
  4. OK, now reinstall XP
  5. Oh, we need a network connection now?
  6. Merde, wireless isn’t working.
  7. Dig out an ethernet cable.
  8. Good, that works.
  9. Now, reinstall XP.
  10. Wait. Every 5 minutes, the screen will change, but leave it alone, and it will prompt you for an answer to an inane question.
  11. OK, we still have to do that windows update crap.
  12. Install all the drivers. At least it’s only one DVD-ROM worth.
  13. At least now wireless works.
  14. Install firefox, his copy of office, anti-virus, anti-spyware, set up privileged and unprivileged users (to keep things safe), RealVNC for remote access, Putty SSH and cygwin for me to be able to use it as well.
  15. Defrag the disk (to speed things up, since speed is the major gripe I hear about)

Oh, and let’s not foget after:

  1. Turn away for 30 seconds, and turn back to find weatherbug installed.
  2. Endure 2 hours of constant bitching, as I install gaim instead of aim.
  3. Hope for death to end the bitching. No such luck.
  4. Oh, but every other system is slow because of my anti-spyware activities. Forget the fact that there are > 200 useless and unused programs installed on the system in question.
  5. Oh, and I’ve never recommended a cd-ripper that works, despite the fact I’ve never used anything except cdex on windows, and it’s the only program that has ever worked. That’s my fault, you see.
  6. That also explains about 50 of the useless and unused programs that don’t slow down the system.
  7. Tabbed browsing? Keyword search on google, ebay and amazon? OK, maybe this isn’t so awful.
  8. Sure, if gaim and firefox aren’t so bad, let’s try Thunderbird.

What is the difference, really?

The Lemon helps us understand the true difference between Democrat and Republican.

I’ve also always been partial to Dave Barry’s take on it (I’m paraphrasing here):

Imagine you get a flat tire one night. The Republican won’t stop, because they don’t want to be late for ugly pants night down at the club. The Democrat will stop, but will accidentally set your car on fire.

Grace is sick

…with a cough.

Top this off with the skinned knee and nose from a few days ago, and we’ve really got a winner. Poor girl. Being 3 is hard.

We went to the store today, and bought 3 different types of medicine. I gave her the liquid one before bedtime, but she didn’t like it. I also got the “breath strips” type, as well as some popsicle-style, but those weren’t frozen yet.

We’ll see how she wakes up before deciding if she’ll go to gymnastics tomorrow morning.

It finally happened…

Grace came downstairs in the middle of the night…all on her own.

I was getting ready to slice bread, and shut our bedroom door as a precaution (so as to not wake those who were already sleeping). I had put the loaf in the slicer, and plugged in the knife when I heard the bedroom door open.

My first reaction? “Damn cat.” (For those not in the know, our cat can open doors. In either direction.)

I get ready to close the door, when I glimpse blonde hair getting ready to wake someone.

A very brief conversation ensued, and she willingly was carried back up to her room and put back in her bed. Turned on Daddy Cy’s music again, and she promised to close her eyes and go to sleep. Fortunately, I heard her call before she woke him. Some fresh ice water and some cough medicine, and snoring emanates from her room once again.

Busy day…

and hardly any paying work is getting done…

So far, I’ve

  1. Fixed some DNS issues
  2. Fixed some firewall/proxy server issues
  3. Got a new catalog site configured and running
  4. Fixed some issues with the old catalog site
  5. Created two ssl certificates to resolve the two items above
  6. Dealt with one expired domain under my opensrs account
  7. Scheduled photos for Grace and her cousins (and me)
  8. Picked out clothes for the photo shoot
  9. Labeled and carried two boxes of christmas crap out to the garage
  10. Removed about half the staples from stuff I have to scan
  11. Started scanning ~1000 pages, front and back (at least there’s an ADF)
  12. Vacumned the upstairs (at least there’s Roomba)

And it’s not even noon…

Update 8pm — Grace came home, and I got nothing else done, except for baking cookies, 2 loaves of bread, fixing dinner, cleaning up, getting her washed and into bed. Nothing!

Why Tarrantino dialog is considered “good”

Specifically, I’m talking here of “Kill Bill Vol 2“:

There’s a section where Bill is talking about comics — making the point that Superman’s alter-ego is human while every other superhero is the alter ego of a human. The quote, from imdb:

An essential characteristic of the superhero mythology is, there’s the superhero, and there’s the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When he wakes up in the morning, he’s Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic that Superman stands alone. Superman did not become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears, the glasses, the business suit, that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak, he’s unsure of himself… he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race. Sort of like Beatrix Kiddo and Mrs. Tommy Plympton.

Nobody else puts that kind of diaglog in “action” films. Few others could get it through the studio system, and most of those that could, wouldn’t.

Think about that; a serious critique of all humanity, embedded in conversation in what is by all standards an action film.

In many ways, it goes back to what made “Titanic” such a formula film; a guy flick is one where lots of people die quickly (think ID4), while a chick flick is one where a single person dies very, very slowly (think Terms of Endearment). Titanic — the Cameron one — tried pathetically to surf both these descriptions. It succeeded, but looking back I’m pretty sure most people will agree that it only succeeded on those terms. All in all, that film was much too clinical where it was factual, and too hammy where it was fictional. The makers of that film had no — zero — expectations of their audience. “Feel sad here. Here’s a touching moment of humanity. Don’t forget minor moments of humor! And in the name of all that is holy, don’t forget to include some simulated teenaged sex before the audience notices the plot holes or bad dialog or starts to think!”

Then, of course, there are films where nobody dies, and 80’s music plays while people try on clothes.

Is it any wonder I’m insisting on good passwords now?

Just a hint of part of the problem

Feb  6 04:08:18  sshd: Failed password for illegal user test from 212.94.223.99 port 59096 ssh2
Feb  6 04:08:18  sshd: Failed password for illegal user test from 212.94.223.99 port 59105 ssh2
Feb  6 04:08:18  sshd: Failed password for illegal user test from 212.94.223.99 port 59094 ssh2
Feb  6 04:08:27  sshd: Failed password for illegal user guest from 212.94.223.99 port 59499 ssh2
Feb  6 04:08:27  sshd: Failed password for illegal user guest from 212.94.223.99 port 59513 ssh2

Continue reading “Is it any wonder I’m insisting on good passwords now?”

Fun at the ice bats

So, we took Grace to her first hockey game. She wanted popcorn and cotton candy — some of which she even shared with Cy. By the time she had had enough, her fingers were more than modestly sticky.

But she wanted some more popcorn. One bite, and the look on her face demonstrated that she realized the cross-contamination problem.

Then, she got that sly look on her face, and I knew she had thought of a silly solution: to simply dip her mouth directly into the popcorn (as I was holding it), thereby bypassing the sugary fingers.

Also, when the game first began, she said “Miss Jody says that we don’t play with sticks.”

I’ve said it before, but I can’t repeat it too often: of all the things I never expected of being a daddy, her sense of humor is the most pleasantly surprising element.

There was also some confusion at the end of the “Rudy’s Barberque Sauce Drinking Contest” when the buzzer went off, but it was quickly cleared up when we realized that none of the contestants were miked.

Half a fscking hour…

It took less than 30 minutes for some user — notice that that is luser with a silent ‘l’ — to try to spam some magazine site on here.

Guess what! Everything is going to be moderated! Everything is going to have to be moderated! You know, I was hoping that this would be so much more work, as I’m not getting nearly enough spam in my life.

Not that I’m advocating that groups of 800 to 900 anti-spammers start taking house-to-house searches of known spam gangs in which everyone fires — oops — I mean misfires — a gun, so that there is no way to know which bullet killed that specific spammer.

No, I would never advocate that. That would be wrong. It would feel fantastic, it would better the ‘net as a whole, but it would be wrong.

Oh. Like J needs a blog to run on at the mouth…

Or the keyboard, for that matter.

But here it comes. Lock the doors and hide the children…

(Actually, the real reason I’m doing this is so that I can record and grep things I figure out, or find funny, or want to remember)