Now, with only one hour (therefore two posts) remaining in Blogathon 2003, I’d like to thank everyone who pledged a donation to the World Wildlife Fund on behalf of Your Favorite Little Grey Duck. Thank you Jenn, Wendi, Erin, Amy, Iris, Jayn, Marty, Sam, Mari, David, Sarah, Lilith (& Geoffrey) and Paul. Collectively you pitched in a total of $183! You should all feel proud of yourselves, and I’m proud to have inspired each of you to give a little something.

Sincerely, truly, I thank you all.

This entry concludes my first participation in the Blogathon. I think I made a decent job of it, posting bunny pictures and linkage and reviews and bits and pieces of what-not. It could’ve been better, it could’ve been a helluva lot worse.

Personal thanks go out to Wendi for sustenance and support and (in one notable case) journal fodder, to Alex and Erica for being here and keeping me entertained before bedtime, to Mari for stopping by, to Lilith for calling to say hi, and to Jenn, Dawn, Annessa, Larry, Jaymi, Dalemar and random fellow ‘thonners who chatted or emailed their support and encouragement. I wouldn’t have managed this little feat of geeky endurance without you.

Was I crazy to sign up for and take part in this worldwide extravaganza? Of course I was. The craziness was for a cause, however, and it also provided a challenge. One should challenge oneself every so often, wouldn’t you agree?

So now it’s getting light outside, and I wonder how much sleep I’m going to get. Honestly? I’ll probably only sleep for a few hours. Such is life, I suppose. It’s not as though I had to do anything major with my day (other than a surprise bonus day of loading and unloading Wendi’s DJ equipment).

Let’s do this again next year, shall we? Of course we shall. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed. G’nite! Or, good morning…

I decided to take out and dust off a little internet appliance I was given years ago, an Intel InBusiness Internet Station. In other words, a modem-sharing device. The idea in mind was to take the burden of internet connection sharing off of the server so I can (heaven forfend) shut the server down so I can get a decent, quiet night’s sleep.

So I hauled it out and more or less got it working. Then, a flash of stupid moronic asinine inspiration hit me: I should upgrade to the latest release firmware!

So I downloaded the software from Intel and proceeded to do the deed. Only, there’s a problem of some sort with (I think!) the D-Link hub I’m using… communications are wonky between the computers in this room and the device. So the update aborted, leaving the device utterly useless. (My suspicion is that the cheap-assed D-Link doesn’t like having mixed 10-mbit and 100-mbit devices.)

A flash of inspiration struck, leading me to haul the device into the other bedroom to see if it would behave better on the other room’s hub. And it did! I was able to use Wendi’s computer to successfully update… once I could get the software transferred to her computer.

You see, her computer could no longer see the server. And copying the file to a floppy? No good, her floppy drive’s not hooked up (!). So I had to burn a CD-ROM (!!) just to get the updater onto her computer.

But wait, there’s more! I tried doing the simple FTP-based update. Nope. I ran Intel’s updater, and it seemed to be stuck in a loop so I (being the idiot I am) decided to abort the run once I thought (!) that it had already successfully updated the software.

Finally I just launched the updater, grabbed a book, and wandered off to read until the updater itself decided it was done. At which point things started going my way. Except for the part where the D-Link hub in here is so discombobulated by having a 10-mbit device attached that (get this) I can’t get machines to see each other anymore.

I’m online through the device right now, but only on the server. The other computers can’t see the device at all, let alone use it to surf the ‘net. As it is, my connection is kind of… intermittent.

The upshot is: IF IT AIN’T BROKE DON’T FIX IT!

So now I just need to beg Wendi to run me down to the station to swap out the hub. Oh yeah: Peter David’s “Knight Life” is an entertaining little read. Hey, it got me through the afternoon of waiting for progress indicators and blinking lights…

I have an organized collection of music files here on my computer, but I don’t rip all of every CD I have for my listening pleasure. This means that I have a catch-all directory, and when I got done listening to some anime soundtrack selections I decided to queue up a few tracks out of “AllTheRest.”

A few. Okay, it totals three and a half hours of music, and it’ll give you an idea of the kinds of things I listen to:

49 tracks in playlist, average track length: 4:16

Playlist length: 3 hours 29 minutes 35 seconds

    Playlist files:
    1. Lindsey Buckingham – Go Insane (3:05)

    2. AC-DC – Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (4:10)

    3. Alanis Morissette – Uninvited (4:37)

    4. Apollo Four Forty – Stop The Rock (3:33)

    5. Arcadia – Goodbye Is Forever (3:44)

    6. Bangles – Hazy Shade Of Winter (2:47)

    7. Bankstatement – Diamonds Arent So Hard (5:12)

    8. Bankstatement – Queen Of Darkness (4:26)

    9. Basement Jaxx – Red Alert (4:17)

    10. Brainbox – Wet Pavement (4:25)

    11. Caroline’s Spine – Sullivan (4:05)

    12. Cocteau Twins – Blue Bell Knoll (3:23)

    13. Control Machete – Si Senor (3:58)

    14. Cranberries – Zombie (4:14)

    15. cult – fire woman (5:10)

    16. Cusco – Montezuma (5:17)

    17. Days of the New – Enemy (5:11)

    18. Dirty Vegas – Days Go By (7:07)

    19. Eiffel 65 – Blue (Da Ba Dee) (3:30)

    20. Emerson Lake and Powell – Touch and Go (3:38)

    21. Fastball – The Way (4:20)

    22. Foo Fighters – Next Year (3:22)

    23. Gorillaz – Tomorrow Comes Today (3:12)

    24. Guns N’ Roses – Civil War (7:36)

    25. Information Society – Mirrorshades (5:37)

    26. Johnny Clegg And Savuka – Cruel Crazy Beautiful World (4:25)

    27. Kylie Minogue – Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (3:50)

    28. Love Spit Love – How Soon Is Now (4:26)

    29. Men Without Hats – Moonbeam (3:38)

    30. Men Without Hats – Walk on Water (3:28)

    31. Mint Royale – Show Me (feat. Pos from De La Soul) (3:43)

    32. Nikolaj Steen – Tainted Love (3:39)

    33. Paul Simon and George Harrison – Homeward Bound (2:37)

    34. Peter Schilling – Major Tom (Coming Home) (4:59)

    35. Philip Glass – Koyaanisqatsi (3:29)

    36. Queensryche – Real World (4:22)

    37. R.E.M. – Stand (3:12)

    38. Russ Ballard – Voices (5:34)

    39. SES – Dreams Come True (3:51)

    40. Space Brothers – Shine (6:30)

    41. Telepopmusik – Breathe (4:58)

    42. The Breeze – Shine Your Love (4:00)

    43. The Damned – Grimly Fiendish (5:11)

    44. The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds (Radio Mix) (4:03)

    45. The Sighs – No Caroline (2:54)

    46. Thompson Twins – Play With Me (3:39)

    47. Vitamin C – Vacation (3:20)

    48. Wallflowers – One Headlight (5:04)

    49. ZZ Top – Cheap Sunglasses (4:47)

What do you think, eh?

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We now return you to your regularly scheduled Blogathon day.