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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Author: Karel Kerezman

  • I’m awake now, thank you.

    I often joke about my list of five hundred fifty three reasons I’m glad I was born a boy-type person. One faces little dangers on occasion, however, in this form. For instance, you could be getting dressed in a daze after a bad night’s sleep, not really paying attention to the usual safety requirements of (for the want of a sillier turn of phrase at this hour of the day) product placement, and end up pinching oneself in an article of clothing.

    Later I’ll probably be dozing off, but right now? I’m quite awake. Ow.

  • 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.

  • Thanks a lot, brain.

    That’s funny, I don’t remember asking to be awake at 5:30am on a Saturday. Yet here I am, sitting at the computer trying to distract my brain from a nightmare that woke me up startled enough to cry out. Man, I hope my roommates are still soundly asleep, ’cause I’m pretty sure I sounded like a damsel in distress. I embarrass myself often enough when I’m conscious, I certainly don’t need help from my subconscious.

    Tarantula-like creatures have no business crawling around in my psyche, particularly when I’m asleep, dammit.

  • Music Library Meme

    The guy who draws Dork Tower posted a silly meme a few days ago, and I decided to hop on board. (Hey, I haven’t done one of these in a while. I think I’m allowed.) Mind you, I don’t use iTunes (no Ogg Vorbis support) so all I can do is make Winamp jump through the hoops. Luckily I’m already in the habit of using the Media Library…

    So here goes:

    How many songs total: 5,028
    How many hours or days of music: 15 days, 2 hours, 37 minutes
    Most recently played: Dodo/Lurker by Genesis
    Most played: Integral by Pet Shop Boys (10 times) *
    Most recently added: “Version 2.0” (album) by Garbage **

    Sort by song title:
    First Song: #1 Crush by Garbage
    Last Song: Zoot Suit Riot by Cherry Poppin’ Daddies

    Sort by time:
    Shortest Song: Vitamin C by Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop OST #2 “No Disk,” 0:06) ***
    Longest Song: Sasha’s Voyage of Ima by BT (“Ima” CD#2, 42:45) ****

    Sort by album:
    First album: “10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1” by Midnight Oil
    Last album: “Zone Of The Enders OST” *****

    First song that comes up on Shuffle: I’m With Stupid by Pet Shop Boys

    Search the following and state how many songs come up: ******

    • Death – 9
    • Life – 71
    • Love – 190
    • Hate – 31
    • You – 377
    • Sex – 9

    Most Represented Artist: Genesis (233 tracks) *******

    Footnotes:

    * I’ve only recently gotten into the habit of using the Media Library. Otherwise there’d be songs with much higher play counts.

    ** I had to find this the old-fashioned way: Doing a date search in the file directory. Winamp seems not to track my “recently added” very well for some reason.

    *** I’d have found the shortest “proper” song in the list, but I ran out of time this morning. The first dozen entries were “non-songs” of one sort or another. So I gave up.

    **** Which beat out Genesis’ “Supper’s Ready,” the previous (three) contender(s) (original and two live renditions), by almost twenty minutes!

    ***** Last studio album, not a single, by a proper band: Worldillia by Porno Graffitti

    ****** In Winamp, file path and album are included in all searches. These numbers are therefore inflated a little bit. Yes, this annoys me but there seems to be no way to search only in the title of a song. (Argh.)

    ******* By no means is all of my Genesis music ripped to MP3 or Ogg. The same is true for most of my other favorite artists, actually. That first number (~5000 tracks) would be much, much higher if I really wanted to go crazy with the digital music library…

  • 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.

  • Oh God, save me from your followers.

    In case you need an example of why I grow increasingly skeptical and anti-religious as the years go by, let me share with you a bit of something to make you think:

    The rescuers were there in uniform, and the girl’s parents were interviewed. A reporter asked, “What do you want to say to the rescuers?” The father responded, “I want to tell them that we thank God for sending them!” Folks, let’s get some priorities in place here. This wasn’t a miracle, in any way. God didn’t send the rescuers, a telephone operator did. God didn’t supply the oxygen that the child received, nor the other first-aid techniques they applied. The rescue squad saved the girls life, after the omnipotent, all-seeing, omniscient one to whom churches have been erected all over the state ”“ allowed the child to fall into the water.

    (Tip of the godless man’s hat to James Randi.)

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