I was browsing through recent entries at collision detection, and in a comments thread found The Mini-Mizer.
Then I used it for evil. And by “evil” I mean “geeky fannish purposes.”
(That’s supposed to be Edward Elric of Fullmetal Alchemist. Or, as close an approximation as the Mini-Mizer could provide. Heh.)
Yes, yes, you’re all laughing at me. I’m used to it…
Via Jack Bog’s Blog, a few dozen bullet points as to why Bush should go down in history as, among other things, a one-term head of state. Including:
I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the US Treasury.
I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.
I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
I am the first president in US history to compel the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
I took the world’s sympathy for the US after 9/11, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world.
Oh, just go read the whole thing yourself… if you’re inclined to revisit the reasons why we should all be disgusted with our current so-called leadership…
get Bush out of office
(Thanks, Lil’. Heh.)
LAYER ONE:
— Name: Karel
— Birth date: 8 March 1972
— Birthplace: Ketchikan, AK
— Current Location: Portland, OR
— Eye Color: Blue
— Hair Color: Light brown
— Height: 5’8”
— Righty or Lefty: Righty
— Zodiac Sign: Pisces (or Rat if you’re into the Chinese version)
LAYER TWO:
— Your heritage: A bit of Czech & Finn, but mostly American Mutt
— The shoes you wore today: My beat-up Rockports, as usual
— Your weakness: Heavens above, where do I start?
— Your fears: Lots of things, like bugs and other critters, and death, and being destitute and/or homeless, and my loved ones coming to serious harm, and…
— Your perfect pizza: Pizza Hut’s meat-lover’s, pan style
— Goal you’d like to achieve: Lose a few pounds
LAYER THREE:
— Your most overused phrase on IM: Any of the actions… *shrug* and *smirk* and such
— Your first waking thoughts: Do I have to?
— Your best physical feature: I have no idea…
— Your most missed memory: How can you remember a missed memory?
LAYER FOUR:
— Pepsi or Coke: No
— McDonald’s or Burger King: BK, but only for the double cheeseburger plain with bacon
— Single or group dates: Yes
— Adidas or Nike: No
— Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: No
— Chocolate or vanilla: Chocolate
— Cappuccino or coffee: No
LAYER FIVE:
— Smoke: No
— Cuss: What the f—- makes you think I f—-ing cuss, you s—-head? 😉
— Sing: Badly, and infrequently
— Take a shower everyday: If at all possible
— Do you think you’ve been in love: Yes, lots
— Want to go to college: Not really
— Liked high school: Only in my Junior year. Dammit.
— Want to get married: Been there done that got the alimony payments. =)
— Believe in yourself: That I exist? Sure. Ask me if I believe in God, next.
— Get motion sickness: Yes
— Think you’re attractive: Not so much
— Think you’re a health freak: Hah! Pasta and pizza and chocolate, oh my!
— Get along with your parent(s): If you call “being in contact about once a year” getting along, sure.
— Like thunderstorms: Ooooo, yes. Yes indeedy. Hell, I’d be a storm chaser if I but lived in the right part of the country.
— Play an instrument: No
LAYER SIX: In the past month…
— Drank alcohol: No
— Smoked: No
— Done a drug: I tried Claritin, and I think it worked.
— Made Out: Has it been a month? Damn.
— Gone on a date: Yes
— Gone to the mall?: Yes
— Eaten an entire box of Oreos?: No, not since I was a very small boy.
— Eaten sushi: No
— Been on stage: No
— Been dumped: No
— Gone skating: No
— Made homemade cookies: No
— Gone skinny dipping: No
— Dyed your hair: No
— Stolen Anything: No, and what teenaged girl dreamed up this list, anyway?
LAYER SEVEN: Ever…
— Played a game that required removal of clothing: Yes
— If so, was it mixed company: Yes
— Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: I’ve been drunk once in my life. That was before I was a teenager, actually.
— Been caught “doing something”: No, assuming you mean what I think you mean. If you mean “having sex,” why don’t you just say so?
— Been called a tease: From time to time…
— Gotten beaten up: Yes (see: “high school,” above)
— Shoplifted: No
— Changed who you were to fit in: I’ve never fit in. Tried to, but no.
LAYER EIGHT:
— Age you hope to be married: *grumble* This question’s another example of teenaged-girl authorship. Bleh.
— Numbers and Names of Children: Numbers, plural? Anyway: Two, Alexander and Erica
— Describe your Dream Wedding: One which I wake from, screaming.
— How do you want to die: Preferably never, but if I must, make it quick.
— What do you want to be when you grow up: Preferably never, but if I must… oh wait, I already am what I want to be, for the most part. So there!
— What country would you most like to visit: Japan. Failing that, the UK.
LAYER NINE:
— Number of drugs taken illegally: None, but once when I was a kid Mom tried to get me high on pot so I wouldn’t get carsick anymore. I politely declined. I’ve also never been carsick since…
— Number of people I could trust with my life: 4, at least. Maybe more.
— Number of CDs that I own: Somewhere in excess of 300. Probably closer to 400.
— Number of piercings: Zero
— Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper: Zero
— Number of scars on my body: The only surgical scar I’m aware of having may have healed to nothingness by now. Maybe I should check that. Any volunteers to help? *smirk*
— Number of things in my past that I regret: Plenty, but I try not to spend time actually dwelling on them.
Via blargblog and, well, a whole bunch of places… this tidbit:
“We declared war on terror. We declared war on terror — it’s not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui.”
Jon Stewart gave a commencement address that’s equal parts funny and pithy. Okay, maybe not equal parts. There’s some pith in there. A bit. Well, a line or two.
Oh, just go read the thing for yourself.
It’s bad enough that Wendi’s downstairs neighbor fancies himself a musician and feels compelled to practice his guitarwork (sometimes with accompaniment) all hours of the night. (Dude, here’s a clue: If you were any good, you’d be doing actual paying gigs on Saturday nights instead of engaging in six-string masturbation in your crappy apartment.)
But tonight, I came home (at 1am) to… a huge boistrous party going on in the townhouse adjoining ours. Did I mention that the balcony everyone’s crowded onto is right outside my window? Oh, but it’s okay, because apparently they warned us first and even extended an invitation. (I wasn’t here for this. If I’d known this was happening, I’d have sought refuge elsewhere.)
Great. So it’s 1:30 in the Ay Em, and I’m not likely to get anything resembling sleep for… what? Two more hours? Three? And I have places to go and work to do, tomorrow. Frelling lovely.
I guess I’ll get some work done on that livingroom PC I’ve been (re)building (again)…
I’ve been working sporadically on a computer project at home, one designed to provide a means of viewing video files (specifically digisubbed anime, but other files as well) on the 32” TV in the living room. Towards that end I’ve been fighting with the proprietary ATI Radeon drivers for Linux. Oh, I’ve sort of made them work, but they’re quirky and forgetful and a major PITA to work with.
This evening I was looking through my boxes for slide rails with which to mount the Livedrive bay unit into the machine in question when I came across an old piece of video hardware: My old Canopus Pure3D II. It’s a 3dfx Voodoo2 accelerator card from back before all video cards did 2D and 3D combined.
It also sports S-Video and composite outputs.
Turns out, it is also natively supported in modern Linux distributions. Well, isn’t that handy?
I dropped that critter into the chassis (along with the Livedrive, since the slide rails I needed were in the same box as the Canopus card) and, after surprisingly little futzing around, managed to generate signal out of the S-Video port. It took a few tries to find a screen resolution and refresh rate that would generate a useful signal, but even that only took up about twenty minutes.
On a side note, I also used apt to perform a massive upgrade on my Fedora Core 1 install. In this instance, the ‘apt-get dist-upgrade’ command resulted in almost 150 package downloads. Wow.
Anyway, my next step is to see if I can manage 800×600 out of the S-Video port, and then I get to start setting up software. If all goes well, by this time next week I’ll have a working multimedia computer down in the living room. Excellent!
