Here, today, I would like to commemorate a rare event. I’m not sure that “rare” is even the right word. It’s almost unheard of.
Last night I slept for at least eight uninterrupted hours.
No loud noises, no random waking for no reason, no insomnia, nothing. So yes, I’m marking this on the calendar. Wow.
I’m going on record (ha ha) with an unpopular musical opinion, and I don’t really care who knows it.
Back in early 1985 two singers released their own versions of the same song. I was thirteen years old at the time, right in the target demographic for Top-40 “Z” stations like Z-100 here in Portland. One of their gimmicks involved voting for the better of two songs via a phone-in tally. Since this one song’s two renditions came out within weeks of one another it probably seemed a brilliant idea to put them up against one another.
It’s possible that I still have my cassette tape recording of the event kicking around here somewhere but I wouldn’t put money on that bet.
Everyone who lived through the ’80s is familiar with and may even like the version that went on to become a one-hit wonder. Me? I still prefer this one, and I always will. So be it.
(For the love of your sanity, don’t seek out the actual promotional videos for either rendition. They’re very, very… ’80s. Hooboy.)
At the end of a moderately terrible day, I came home to find this link in my Inbox, courtesy of Wonderduck himself.
So we’ll end today on a high note, if you’ll pardon the expression…
My mother was big into all kinds of things when Sis and I were kids. She had an on again, off again relationship with playing the flute (usually to Jethro Tull) for instance. At one point her big fascination was horses. She rode horses, she owned a horse or two, she traded a lovely souped-up Ford Fairlane 500 for a beat-up truck so she could haul hay around for horses. One day she ended up with a pony. Which is to say that someone gave her a pony.
You know that joke about people who want all the things, “and a pony”? Mom actually got the pony.
She paid nothing for this animal, so, seizing upon available inspiration, it was renamed to… Priceless. Priceless Pony.
I tell you this so that when you look at my cast of ducks and wonder how the cast-iron duck got stuck with “Rusty” for a name, you realize that the apple did not, in fact, fall far from the tree.
Over in the Gallery I’ve posted the most usable pictures taken with my mobile phone from last week’s trip back East.
Yesterday, I learned a few Linux tricks I didn’t already know followed by everything about ZFS and the nitty-gritty of how Dattos work that I didn’t know, not one bit. Today, I learned about bare-metal restores and some troubleshooting tips, then I took a test.
I feel sorry for the guy who has to grade mine, because many of the questions required written answers. Have you seen my handwriting? It’s abominable. For some reason my motor control goes completely out the window when I’m holding a writing implement. The longer I write, the jitterier my hand gets. I was hoping for some kind of web-based testing interface, I truly was. Ah, well. If they can interpret my test sheets correctly then I’ve probably passed… which is good considering the ridiculous amounts of my employers’ money and trouble involved in getting me here for that purpose.
Tomorrow I get up at 3:30am… Eastern time. That’s half past midnight on what is still my internal clock’s time, mind you.
This weekend I’ll see about doing something with all the pictures on my phone, but don’t expect a post from me tomorrow… 10 hours of travel await me. Yee and/or haw.
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | ||||||
