Jessa is starting Swift's CDL school this week, and I'm being assigned my own truck tomorrow.  We're going total nomad for a few months, so we're clearing out the apartment, and putting everything into storage (like my collection of RAH books) that we'd like preserved.  We're taking the desktop, but it's getting a facelift in a few weeks as a truckCom. 7000+ MP3s and 3+ years of TV (including over 100GB of Modern Marvels) and you think I'm leaving it in a storage unit? Ha.

We have a queen sized bed w/pillowtop mattress, a Lane nightstand and bachelor's chest (white), a solid pine desk with drawer and pull-out keyboard tray, a black TV stand.  We've put them on Craig's List, but have gotten a dismal response, and we need to be rid of them tomorrow, making today the last day we can really do anything constructive with them.

If you are in the Austin, TX area, and can 1) make me a reasonable offer - lots of leeway here, it's a smoking household with two cats, but the furniture is in good shape - and 2) can come pick up the furniture today or tomorrow, then shoot me an email at tshewmake@gmail.com or Jessa at wolfwalkerkya@hotmail.com, and we'll work out a time for you to come look at them/pick them up while we're hauling crap over to the storage unit.  Also, if you have a pickup and just feel generous, we'd fall over fawning on you - we're moving this all with a Saturn Ion.  Good car - bad moving truck.  If they're still here Tuesday, we're leaving instructions to have Goodwill come get anything left in the apartment.

I have been updating my YouTube and Flickr accounts with content, so if you'd like to see some of the strange crap I see on the road, or just the pretty stuff (like W. Texas sunsets), then head over and enjoy.

Catch you on the flip side!

 

cat /etc/mood: busy

Oh dear.

3 pounds of pulled pork just came out of the crock pot.  Doused and soaked in my own "sweet'n'mild" sauce.  Unfortunately, those are the leftovers... not sure what I'm going to do with it all.

Terrible tragedy, it is.

Edit: I lied.  There were 6 pounds of pulled pork left over.  I just shoveled most of it into storage tubs, with a large bowl set aside for snacking.

cat /etc/mood: annoyed

I'm amused; while reading the comments on a /. story, I come across a comment posted by Electric Chameleon, who I haven't seen since the #c days.

Funny strange, not funny haha.

[11:20] linuxwonderboy: I think they got sidetracked on the way up - there was a sign, it was big - it said XXX. It assaulted them. They were minding their own business, just driving, and out of nowhere...
[11:21] linuxwonderboy: XXX
[11:21] thunderzag1: lmao
[11:21] linuxwonderboy: They couldn't resist.
[11:21] linuxwonderboy: It wanted cash. Fresh bills. Clean, crisp, lettuce.
[11:22] linuxwonderboy: It wouldn't let them go no matter how hard they begged...it forced them to watch videos made in suburban garages, in college dorm rooms, in cheap hotels...
[11:22] linuxwonderboy: finally, they escaped with thier lives, but had to sacrifice their last $20 - the one they had carefully hidden away in the glove box in case of such a gas emergency.
[11:23] linuxwonderboy: That's why they're stuck in Dallas.
[11:25] thunderzag1: roflmao

cat /etc/mood: amused

That's it. I'm finally, completely, fed up with Microsoft and the endless stream of bullshit coming out of Redmond - at least from the Operating Systems group. (I know there's at least one Microsoftie on my FL - this is not targeted at them.) I have been running Vista for the better part of 6 months now, and if it's not one thing, it's three others - not supporting games that have been out for less than 2 years, eating gobs of resources simply to render a web page, DRM, DRM, DRM...

So, I switched to Ubuntu. I've done this before, and I'm definitely no stranger to linux, but generally, I have reasons for moving back to XP, and most of those have been negated at this point.

Gaming? I got an Xbox 360 through shrewd bartering - and now I don't have to drop $500 every six months to play the latest game in high-res. In the meantime, I know that WoW and the Steam games run under Wine, and then there's FreeCiv...

Media? Ubuntu supports all my file formats, practically out of the box - and I'm tweaking some code on a project right now called FRUUPS that will allow me to stream it to the 360 - Media Center style. Oh, but it'll be DivX on the PC side - transcoding done on the fly. (Yes, there's at least two projects that do this in Win32 - TVersity and Orb. Orb is fabu, but it is hampered by the lack of available resources and the non-existent tech support. TVersity isn't mature yet, and locks up the Xbox regularly - rather defeating the purpose.)

Web? Firefox works quite well - and if a page demands IE, there are installers out there that allow you to run IE6 and IE7 under linux. At the same time. (Eat that, Windows!)

Oh, and performance? This machine is FLAMING fast. No, really - with the new Beryl interface enhancements, it looks pretty AND is lightning quick. Screenshots to follow - in the second one, I caught it just as I was minimizing a window - that's the animation. (Selected from a list of a dozen or so, and the color is configurable.)


 


I've spent a total of about an hour customizing the interface, and didn't have to edit any files by hand to do it. Linux has come a long way, baby.

Tags: linux, vista
cat /etc/mood: cheerful

I'm going to be in Memphis tonight, Tomorrow, and part of Wednesday. If you want to get together, leave a comment with a phone #, and I'll try to contact you. Comments are screened to protect the privacy of the innocent.

Been watching a few episodes of ST:TNG lately (ok, so I downloaded all 7 seasons. We're about to wrap up season 3...), and started fiddling with my interface in WinXP. Now, I haven't tested it with all the games yet, but for the majority of them, it seems to be just fine.




All of the panes are functional, dynamic, and interactive, except for the StarTrek Online logo. The left shortcut bar and right task bar are both StarDock ObjectDocks, and the UI is Emerge Desktop. Yahoo Widgets (formerly known as Konfabulator) provide some of the interactive bits. Samurize provides the status monitor text in the mid-left pane.

From the "Santeria" episode of CSI Miami this week, I present Horatio, cool as a cucumber.



Also, Denny Crane from Boston Legal, expressing some concern...



Ta.

This will probably make me less popular. I don't care, really.





The image is a link to the gamerati cafepress store, where the sticker is for sale, at cost. I've already ordered one for my back window - to go across from the US Army sticker I got when I started the enlistment process.

cat /etc/mood: awake

Or just that we'll believe everything we're told?

cat /etc/mood: awake