November 2006 Archives

Damn, Am I just having bad luck lately or what? I ran an upgrade for a couple of things under Windows Vista, and never could get it to start back again. That was Monday night. I am back up and running under XP now. I've created a second partition so that I can put Vista or Debian Linux as a dual boot, bur am going to do a complete system backup with this XP setup so that I can just extract the shit off of CD the next time I hose my system with software that is not quite ready for production use.

I am having problems getting on to the Internet this afternoon. I've reset my cable modem and router, but that does not seem to have taken care of the problem. Damn, no way I am going to call Charter. Every time I go through their tech support, I have to go through this screwed up automated deal that is fine for clueless folks but by the time I call them, I have done all of the troubleshooting that is going to get done. 90% of the time I know more than the dude on the other end of the phone anyway. I've had their job, and most of them have no fucking clue. What do you expect for nine or ten bucks an hour I guess, which is all they pay those guys.

Technorati : Charter, Internet

Amazon is doing this thing where users can vote on what is going to be on sale, and then on Thursdays they offer 1000 of them at a pretty decent discount. Last week it was for the Xbox 360 Core System. I was a pretty good deal at $100. Christopher is dying for one, so he got himself set up at the computer and prepared to get one. I think it shocked him that he couldn't even get the page to load. Well hell, 50k people hitting a site all at once to purchase took up an awful lot of bandwidth. Personally I think that the number was MUCH, much higher than that, but it's a pretty good round number.

I was checking out some of the forums over there and there are a bunch of whiners claiming that Amazon did a bait and switch, or that the people who got one used bots or were hackers, and even one claiming he is filing a class-action lawsuit. They are all dumb-asses. The whole thing is akin to Wal-Mart at 6am on Black Friday. Lot's of people there at the same time, pushing and shoving and all trying to get the same five toys that are left in stock. Most people left disappointed. That's life. I thought that the whole thing was a pretty darn good idea, and even if Chris didn't get the system, at least he tried. No loss, other than a few minutes of sit-down time at the computer. Much better than people clubbing each other over the head for a few damn toys.

Technorati : Amazon.com, Christmas Gifts, Xbox 360

I managed to sleep through the kids getting ready for school today. I vaguely remember at least one of them waking me up, but went right back to sleep. Managed to nap until about 8:30 or so. Very nice.

Since Divx converter does not work in Windows Vista, I am experimenting with Xvid and AutoGK on my PC to see if I can compress a couple of shows that I want to keep. I also have several movies from Netflix that I want to rip and compress that we have not seen yet. Seems like an awful lot of work just to watch a couple of videos that I will end up deleting later anyway, but space is at a premium on my entertainment PC, and I will keep a couple of them for the kids to watch. over and over and over again. Then I will get sick of them and delete them.

I had thought about decorating the house for Christmas today, but I am going to skip that. Maybe next week when I actually have two days off. Today I am going to plan Ruth's birthday party. Kind of late, but I haven't had much time away from work due to the holiday. Just a few friends and some beer for the adults as it is my birthday as well. I am looking at the links that my wife sent me and still don't have a clue what to do, but will find something cool. Maybe I will drive to the party store in Carrollton tomorrow afternoon for some more ideas. Cheap is always good.

I did order her a birthday gift, should be here Wednesday. Some game called Cranium Hullabaloo and an Aquadoodle drawing mat. Hopefully the wife hasn't already gotten her anything, or else this will be a Christmas gift instead.

Speaking of Christmas, we are going to take the girls to see Santa on Sunday afternoon. One of the cooler things that we do as a company each year is something called Santa's Sleigh. We will set up at one of the restaurants in the parking lot. Some years we have rented an RV, others we set up a tent and stuff. We have food and Hot Chocolate for everyone, and all of the kids get to sit in Santa's lap and they each get a gift. All of the children of our employees that are under ten years old participate. It's pretty fun, and for a lot of them, it's the only trip to see Santa that they will get. I damn sure won't take my kids to the mall to see Santa Claus. That's one of my childhood memories that is really cool, but nowadays it is a great big goat fuck that I try to avoid like the plague.

Technorati : Birthdays, Christmas, Goat Fucks, Sleep

Lately I have been getting forwarded shit from other people's cell phones. Here is the body of the one I just got.

FR: I almost posted the number so you assholes could forward some tasty messages BACK to this person, but decided that might not be a good idea.

(FW:)S-L-A-P!!! you're now my bitch...the national pimp off has begun! Pimp others before they pimp you! You can pimp anyone except your pimp. Start pimpin bitch!

What the fuck? I saw the "bitch" part and the first person that I thought of was Yabu. What's up with that. OK, quit filling up my inbox with this shit. Oh by the way, if you sent me this and I have offended you, good deal, go fuck yourself.

This kind of shit is worse than junk mail because I have to pay for text messages you dickhead assmunch.

Even though I had tried to reload the driver from device manager, apparently I needed to completely reload the software using Creative's installation file. I fucking hate soundblasters software and drivers. I have been using their cards for 15 years or so and I like them, but they are always behind the times with drivers, and their software blows chunks.

Listening to the best of the Pixies right now. Much better working environment. I don't know what the hell I was doing (probably working) while they were still around, but this kicks ass.

Update - Apparently the sound issue is something in Windows. Fucked if I know what. I tried different speakers as well as headphones, in both soundcards. Tried disabling one of the soundcards. Reinstalled drivers. Did a system restore. Know I am starting to get pissed off and may kick it a few times to see if that will work. I've gotta have my itunes. I know I can listen to music on the TV system, but it's not the same, particularly if Holder or one of the wall crawlers want to watch TV.

I am pretty much a happy camper today. Stardock released Windowblinds for Vista yesterday (at least the beta version). I have missed being able to skin my windows under Vista. I've used this program since 1999 or so, and it kicks ass. I also found a transparent console called (amazingly enough) Console. I used to use an eterm like program called eConsole, but development on it stopped several years ago and it doesn't run properly under Windows Vista. The first time I loaded up a skin it crashed explorer, but after a reboot I haven't had a single problem since. There are literally hundreds of skins available for free at Wincustomize, although Windowblinds itself is shareware. Well worth the price.

The only thing that I have found that is a pain in the ass with this "new" pc is that my sound quit working mysteriously yesterday. I am getting ready to check it out with a different pair of speakers, as it won't work on the built-in sound on my MB or my sound card. I also tried with headphones and couldn't get that to work either. Piece of shit.

Here's a screenshot of my current desktop.

Update - Apparently the sound issue is something in Windows. Fucked if I know what. I tried different speakers as well as headphones, in both soundcards. Tried disabling one of the soundcards. Reinstalled drivers. Did a system restore. Know I am starting to get pissed off and may kick it a few times to see if that will work. I've gotta have my itunes. I know I can listen to music on the TV system, but it's not the same, particularly if Holder or one of the wall crawlers want to watch TV.

Technorati : Stardock, Vista, Windowblinds
Flickr : Desktops

Once again, I have a computer up and running. I ended up being able to get one of my media PCs running again, it just had a couple of bad sticks om RAM in it, so now I have a PC again, and it's faster than the one I was using. Sweet. Does that mean I will post more? Probably not.

Damn, I have hardly posted at all this week. Another long one. I just got home a few minutes ago. Early enough to kiss the girls good night, but that's about it. I will have to take a much needed shower and hit the sack soon. 4:30 AM comes too damn early.

The kids got their grades today. They both did very well, That is a very good thing. Chris got at least all Bs. Great. Except the part where he gets his computer back. Damn. Since Anna's milk went in the laptop, I am computer-less. I guess it could be worse, I could be dick-less. And a zombie. That would definitely be worse.

As much as I love home automation, and the homemade PVR and such, I may be retiring the fucker and putting it back under my desk for awhile, since it used to be my PC anyway. Damn, just can't decide.