Category: Geekery

  • Hungry Veritas is hungry.

    I’ve been multitasking heavily all day. At one point I used my console connection to this server to look up some port-to-service mappings. (Firewall logs at my employer’s colocation facility showed a couple of minor anomalies. I was tasked with tracking them down.) The grep session gave me more results than I needed, but I did find the desired information so I left the terminal session be and moved on to other things.

    I just came back from foraging for foodstuffs, sat down, looked at the laptop screen and thought for a moment that my server had become possessed by LOLcats. At the tail end of the results from earlier, something that originally escaped my notice:

    nomdb 13786/tcp # Veritas-nomdb
    nomdb 13786/udp # Veritas-nomdb

    Perhaps I’ve been reading too many cat macros, because I should not be seeing “NOM NOM NOM NOM” when perusing the /etc/services file…

  • Follow-up Obscure Holiday Post

    Here’s a bit o’ cross-cultural trivia for you: Yesterday may have been Pi Day (and a couple of other Days besides, which I won’t go into here) but today is yesterday was alsoWhite Day!

    Tip of the hat to Brent for bringing this to our attention. We now return you to your regularly scheduled weekend.

    [EDIT] – What do you know? I’m an idiot. I didn’t pay attention to the date on the entry, or what day it is today. Baka.

  • Pie R Not Squared. Pie R Round.

    Hey. Happy Pi Day!

    It’s the end of a long, slow work week. My health has returned, but my insomnia has decided to make up for lost time. I haven’t had a full, restful night of sleep since Saturday. Well, at least I’m back to normal, eh?

    My employers threw a company party at my supervisor’s house, a suitable venue because they have a bigger house than they need and a big basement room filled with toys… pool table, pinball machine, and so forth. I proved yet again that I’m no good at competitive games, but I had fun enough. Side note: One of the guests used to work for Monqui, which means we both know Jaime Cooley, former music director & air talent at KNRK. Small world!

    Part of my weekend plans involve cleaning. I’ve been dead to the world for the last few weeks, so my bedroom and bathroom aren’t in the best of repair. It’s high time I did something about that.

    Kyla and I have found a new addiction: Top Gear. Hey, we’ve gotta do something while waiting for more Avatar, let alone the new season of Doctor Who.

    I think that’s everything for now. More to come, when I start doing post-worthy things with my life again.

  • Karel’s Birthday Present

    I despaired of finding the perfect present to convince everyone that they should get me, but now… I think I’ve found it.

    [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GAUnuuBkW4]

    That should do nicely, shouldn’t it?

  • I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.

    Well, some great-and-powerful computer geek sysadmin guru-type fellow I turned out to be. I came home, got onto the computer to check my mail and do the other usual just-got-home online stuff, and the machine pops up a message saying that I’m low on disk space.

    “I am not!”

    Then I decided to check anyway.

    Huh. Go figure.

    So I burned off a couple of DVD-ROMs’ worth of downloaded videos; now my computer’s a bit happier with me. Apparently I have a new priority project for the foreseeable future… and my tax refund shopping list just acquired a new line item: A large secondary hard drive.

  • Getting Some Extra Mileage

    If the plugin I just installed works as advertised, this post will show up on my LJ as well as here on Ye Olde Journale.

    Since I’m here anyway, how about a catch-up on recent events?

    • Friday night, Lil’ and I hung out with friends and family after taking in the crack-laden broccoli at Outback Steakhouse. No, seriously: What do they cook their broccoli with to make them so addictive?
    • On Saturday I got the kids caught up almost to the end of season two on “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” I stopped short of the final episode because leaving them with that cliffhanger for an unknown number of weekends seemed a cruel thing to do to my wonderful children whom I love dearly. I was tempted, though.
    • Also on Saturday, I cooked food on the stove and in an oven for the first time in a very, very long time. It was just my “famous” pasta-and-cheese, but hey. (Kyla: The combination of cheeses worked perfectly. You rock.)
    • Last weekend was another Double XP weekend in City of Heroes/Villains. Several low-level “toons” aren’t so low, now. My top villain is actually my top villain, and she has her pet. My Kheldian is approaching a level at which she might become effective, let alone fun to play. My second blaster is rapidly becoming both powerful and a true joy to fight crime with. And, just for the heck of it, my main scrapper ran a few Rikti ship raids for bucketloads of cash and merits. What can I say? Those high-end enhancement sets don’t come cheap.
    • In other gaming news, I bought the new costume parts for the three accounts I’m responsible for. The mastermind named Carmine Santiago, formerly seen wearing a bright red hat and trenchcoat and slacks ensemble, is now sporting a dashing black tuxedo with elegant red trim.
    • Kyla and I both took Monday off. (She also had Friday off. Some people, eh?) We mostly just relaxed and goofed off, but I did make a trip out to Fred Meyer and picked up the replacement shaver I’ve been thinking about for the last few months. The old shaver broke (a bit more than it already was broken), which forced my hand somewhat. I went with a Norelco rotary system and so far the results are worth the money. Not only that, but it’s remarkably quieter than the cheap Braun was. You still can’t tell I’ve shaved by midday since my hair grows so darned fast, but at least I leave the house with a smoother face.

    I’m still plugging along with my own little renaissance, albeit with fits and starts (like the week-long lack of posting). At least the breaks aren’t due to depressive episodes any more! You have no idea how much happier I am now than I was even three months ago.

    Life may not be perfect, but it’s not too shabby either.