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…

That’s right, as of this posting I’m officially more than halfway through the Blogathon. You know what that means, don’t you?

It means we can only go downhill from here.

Yeah, I know, it scares me too. We may all be in for a bumpy ride…

So this viewing was of the 8th episode, “Rumors.” Near as I can tell, all that’s happened is that the writers have added Yet Another Layer Of Mystery And Weirdness.

I still want to see how it turns out. I still have hope that there will at least be a point, if not that it’ll make any sense. Each episode has one or two interesting elements that make for good imaginative seed material.

But is it a good story? I don’t know yet. By the end of the ‘thon, however, I might have an answer. Five episodes to go, and I have at least that many half-hours remaining before I get to sleep, no?

Well, this episode managed to move things subtly forward and provide a history lesson along with some needed backstory. I’m thankful, very. Who knows, this show may not be so annoying after all.

Mind you that there’s still almost ninety minutes’ worth of material still to get through before I’ll know for sure.

I’m going to spend some time putting the kids to bed and puttering around the house. I need to move around, ya know?