The Gift -- REPRINT

I was doing a quiz earlier this evening, and came across question 13^FNa. I was flippant in my answer, but the asking hung in the back of my mind. And the question turned on me, and asked itself again and again - as such things are wont to do. And I knew in that moment I had not been honest, not in the post, and not in my own mind. I had never truly appreciated the gift I was given - better to say I realized not the gift it was - nor to this day do I begin to say I understand how (or as important, why) it was passed.
As such, I never truly knew how to thank the giver. A simple "thank you" seems now as it did at the time; totally inadequate in scope. What she gave that cold night in December as we danced by firelight -- it seems to have happened another lifetime ago -- was nothing less than the key to my own soul.
How do you thank someone for opening your eyes? Like my own private Road to Damascus, that starlit night pried the scales from my eyes. I was stripped bare of the doubts and self-pity I had swathed myself in for so long; and was set free from the coccoon of self-loathing that had long shadowed my soul so deeply that in the night I feared the darkness within. By the light of the fire, she burned away the dark mantle with friendship I have cherished daily.
That night, so long ago, she gave what noone else could. She showed me love, the love given freely between friends who trust one another fully [no matter how I later tried to decieve myself thinking it was more]; but more important, she healed the scars left by another by showing that even stripped bare of all the trapping, I was worthy of being loved. And in that, she gave me the greatest gift of all.

She gave me hope.

In that hope, I found a true love of my own. It will never be enough to just say "thank you", it is a soul-deep debt I can never truly repay.

^FNa Dead Link, text follows:
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Yes, but the terms of service say I can't tell you about it.

First Post -- REPRINT

Ok, Chel & Barb. Here I am. I have finally made a myspace page. You happy now?
Yahoo!Messenger is scheduled down for another hour, so I'm stuck up at the office with noone to talk to. Now, normally, that's a good thing - I still maintain that nothing good is happening when I'm talking to people at work; or when I'm people are talking to me so I can work. I guess there's a difference, isn't there.
I finished reading the book I picked up at the library this afternoon. ... Hold up. Swap for time reference ambiguity... This afternoon, I finished the book I had picked up at the library yesterday. The story was good, and I was fairly impressed. Then again, I like urban fantasy. I've been impressed with the fantasy coming out of Harlequin's Luna imprint. Yes, I know. Harlequin is primary a "chick" publisher: you've probably heard of their romance paperbacks. Until I looked it up, though, I didn't notice any connection between the Harlequin (romance novels) and Luna (fantasy novels) imprints. Then again, I also never noticed that Ballantine and Doubleday were both Random House labels either. Anyway, digression over. In the Author's words...
"A Seattle cop with no use for the mystical has a near-death experience and is offered a choice between dying, or life as a shaman. When she chooses life, she finds herself neck-deep in a murder mystery and up against a couple of old Celtic gods."[1]
Which I thinks sums it up pretty well. I came out of it thinking about a lite version of Neil Gaimon's American Gods, if that tells you anything. If not, well pick either one up yourself. Both are good alternatives to all the happy sappy crappy that I can't seem to avoid during the holyday season.

-- Author's Note. First published to http://blog.myspace.com/djayhogan on 08-Dec-06. Urban Shaman is ISBN: 0373802234. I still recommend going to pick up Gaimon's American Gods.

So, my daughter's getting her computer upgraded for Christmas. Actually, let's say that for Christmas she's being given (suspendable) internet privileges on the computer in the living room. There is only one problem with that...
There is no way I'm letting her get on my home network with a Win98 computer. The last thing I need is my daughter running a honeypot. Which leads me to my second, more expensive problem. Her computer wasn't top of the line back when Win98 was new; XP would just point and laugh.
So, I could drop ~$150-200 on a entry-level computer, hook it up and call it good; or I could provide a object lesson in cost-effectiveness. For $62 (including S&H), I'm maxing out the memory and adding a wireless card. Cost-effective? Well, the memory isn't gonna transfer anywhere -- PC100 isn't in high demand these days -- but the wireless card... while 802.11b/g isn't gonna win any speed awards any time soon; N is backwards compatable and if/when she actually gets a new computer, the card can travel -- or get put into mine if she doesn't need it. :).
And the best part is; this is what she wanted!
What's even stranger; she doesn't want XP -- or Vista, not that it could handle that monster -- on her computer. She wants Ubuntu. She's gonna have to settle for Xubuntu, though. The lower footprint (1.5 GB vs 4 GB) isn't going to burn through the late 90's size hard drive (which will get replaced or a second drive added sometime around April); her music files (actually, probably most of her home directory) will be on the network.
Now, it's just a waiting game. Wait for a late night that I can install the card, memory, and OS. Wait for Xmas to put it back out and boot-er up.

All Aboard the Meme Train

From http://theironlion.net/blog/book-meme/

Grab the nearest book.
Open it to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

At the fdisk prompt, type a for a list of commands.
--Using Linux Third Edition, Special Edition.

One More Thing

One of the things I took away from Tuesday night's election coverage was the astute observations by FoxNews contributor Karl Rove.
Yes, I was watching Fox News. It's not something I do very often - I'm not conservative by any stretch of the political definition. That said, the actual news portions of their broadcast day - such as Live Desk - are reliable and watchable, and as long as I stay away from the op-ed/"analysis" shoes (Hannity, O'Rielly, Van Susteren), my TV screen remains remarkably free of footwear flung in frustration. That said, I feel the same way about MSNBC (Olbermann : O'Rielly :: Kettle : Pot). I'm really politically homeless: moderate to conservative fiscally, extremely liberal when dealing with social issues, damn near libertarian on the Federal Gov'ts role.
What caught me while I was switching between the big 3 cable news outlets last night was Rove's evaluation of where Obama found votes. Sorry, can't find the video anywhere. I'll recap like the cohost did; Obama took votes from the various demographics with a scalpal, not a hatchet.
In other words, he built a coalition; instead of trying to win over whole blocks of voters - like Kerry did in 04 - and risk alienating his core constituency, Obama won over small portions of the traditionally Republican demographics: 2, 3, 4% of the vote compared to four years ago. Enough little steps, and you make large strides :).

A Time for Change

An Open Letter to Democrats:

Congratulations, my friends. The candidate you selected to represent your ideas to the American electorate has won. He won with a simple message... that it is time for change.

Savor the victory. Allow yourself a little time to gloat; but get over it, and do so fairly quickly. As of this writing (approx 2:30 am Eastern Time), you have 54 seats in the Senate, and cannot reach a 60 vote super majority without the help of Leiberman and Sanders. You've made gains in the House, but you've probably lost KS-2 (Boyda: D-Topeka), and perhaps others... I'm not going to search state by state to double check right now. I know it's just one seat in a heavily Republican seat, lost to a popular state Treasurer when your fairly popular Democratic Governor wasn't on the ticket to boost turnout for the incumbent. But it is there.

Soon - maybe not tomorrow; but soon - the real work to enact Obama's Change begins. Moreover, it must begin on a local level as well as the national stage. And quite frankly, it means doing many of the same things that another Democratic President asked us to do: work together to build better communinities, volunteer; make ourselves better.

And encourage our lawmakers - Democrat AND Republican - to do the same. Build coalitions; use diplomacy; prioritize, and use those priorities to reduce wasteful spending. Reinvest in our elementary and high schools; find effective ways of keeping kids involved in school and learning, so we can compete in the Science and Mathematics fields. And yes, raise taxes when there is no more fat to cut.

And maybe; just maybe, we'll be able to turn 4 years into 8.

Say What???

I wasn't really paying attention to what was on the television when I heard the announcer say

"And the win puts Kansas City in a tie with New York for the position..."

This totally confused me. I knew that the Yankees had lost tonight and KC had won (on the strength of an 8th inning Mark Teahen inside-the-park home run). But a quick check confirmed that the Royals and NY are not even in the same division, and even if they were, neither are lined up for the Wild Card berth (if the playoffs started today).

Then I remembered what I had been watching. This was the Major League Soccer news (during halftime of the Chivas USA / LA Galaxy match).

Kansas City Trip

Well, it's been a week since we got back from vacation in Kansas City. I had a heck of a time up there, let me tell you.We took out Thursday morning after I got home from work. It Was a quick turnaround, no time for a nap between getting home and leaving again; so I grabbed a shower to recharge and let Chel drive so I could doze while we were on the road.Timed it about right, too; got out of Kinsley around 8:30-9:00, which meant we were able to grab lunch at in Emporia with Daph on our way through. I didn't realize it had been that long since she had seen Aubrey; but we hadn't had a chance to see her at Hannah's Graduation and that was the first time in a long time Aubrey had been back.Back on the road, we made pretty good time on up to KC. This time I really was able to nod off - which is a real trick when I'm in the car. And it was still pretty early when we got to the hotel. I crashed while Ada and Chel tried in vain to find the Wally-world that had apparently closed since the phone book in our room was printed.When they got back we loaded up and gave Aubrey her reward for straight As this school year: a trip to the Rainforest Cafe there at Oak Park Mall.For those of you who haven't been heard of it, Rainforest Cafe is this jungle/wildlife theme restraunt with animatronic animals, trees and vines, rock textured walls, waterfall, the whole nine yards. Little bit more expensive than what I'd normally suggest to go out - ended up being about $25 a head for one appetizer, four entrees and soft drinks - but it was a treat for the little one.Got done there and went back to the hotel room; where I actually had time to take a look at the room itself. I won't say that it was the worst place I've ever stayed. That distinction goes to the motel - which is under new name and presumably new management - that I worked at oh, almost ten years ago. But the counter was falling apart, the door handle to the bathroom was falling off, the towel rack was coming out of the wall; there were scuff marks in odd places, for some reason it felt like the furniture had been positioned to conceal something, and it had a mildewy musty smell - not what I was expecting. I was expecting the smell of stale cigarette smoke that is the bane of housekeeping in hotels which still have smoking rooms.We didn't complain about it, though. Mostly because we were already set up, I was bushed, and the bed and shower both worked. Sometimes, just sometimes, that's all you really want out of a hotel room.Friday, we went to Oceans of Fun; where I made a decision that would haunt me for the next week or so. Yes - like the idiot that I know I can be - I decided that I didn't need sunscreen; we were only gonna spend 4, maybe 5 hours out there. Just a reminder; water has the ability to both reflect and magnify skin damaging UV rays, depending on the water's shape and angle to the sun. As a result of forgetting that little tidbit, I ended up with not only sunburnt shoulders, but blistered shoulders that over a week later are still like fresh from the oven Grand's biscuits: hot, tender and flaky. I did get to ride a couple of water slides I've been wanting to ride, even if I was pushing the weight limit just a bit.After a round of shopping and introducing Aubrey to sushi from the Oak Park food court - she had a slice of pizza, and I gave her maki roll to try from off of my plate - we went back to the hotel. Where I tried very hard to sleep without moving too much.Aubrey really didn't care for the sushi too much - something about the nori and the sticky rice together - but she did seem to enjoy the "gari", that pickled ginger that's used as a palatte-cleanser/digestive.Saturday, we went to Worlds of Fun. Which probably would have been more fun - and definitely would have been more roller-coastery - if I hadn't been so sunburnt. Not looking for sympathy mind you, it was my own damn fault.We finished Saturday off by hitting the combination A&W/Long John Silvers with one of Chel's old friends whom she hasn't seen in years. Probably one of the few places where your order can have both "fish and chips" and cheese curds.Sunday was the long drive back home. We stopped at Emporia for lunch, and toodled on back before it got dark. It was an early night for all of us; everybody was tired by the time we got home.I had a wonderful time, and I think everybody else did, too.

Going on Vacation

So, we're going to Worlds (and Oceans) of Fun this weekend. I'm taking a couple days vacation, which got me looking at my paystub for this last check.
Square at the top (where you'd find a return address on a "modified block" style letter) are the leave balances for our vacation and sick time.
At the county, our sick leave accrues at 4 hours a month (a half-day for most) and 8 hours (a day for most) a month for vacation. I understand that; what supervisor wouldn't want to give you an incentive to schedule leave time in advance? Pretty much every supe who has to cover shifts, I suspect; which is probably why I get 96 hours of vacation time a year and only 48 hours of sick time.
I only have one problem with the whole setup; and that is vacation time is capped. Admittedly, I can build up to 3 weeks worth of time before I hit that "use it or lose it" ceiling. And most people only get 2 weeks per calendar (or in some cases, fiscal) year. So I've got it good. But even after this weekend, I'll have over two weeks of VC left on my next check. Which means - assuming I don't take another vacation (which I don't plan to any time soon) - by the end of the year, I'll be back at the ceiling.
Our sick time, on the other hand, doesn't have a ceiling. At the end of July, I'll have 3 full weeks of sick time built up -- even right now, I've stored up the sick time from over 2 years worth of paychecks.
Which - for me - helps to offset the lower wages. That, and the health/dental/Rx/vision insurance that the county pays for (no insurance fees out of my pocket), the retirement plan and life insurance.

I'll be back on Sunday night.

Memorial Day

Well, today is Memorial Day. More precisely, it's right around 10 am on Memorial Day and I'm sitting in my drawers, eating a breakfast treat.
The answer to both questions that are probably popping up in your head right now[1][2] is one and the same... I mowed the lawn this morning after work.
I absolutely detest mowing the lawn. Not because of any particular love of a tall lawn, nor of the oddly-shaped flowers that appear on said lawn when it reaches a prerequisite height. Quite frankly, mowing the lawn kicks my ass. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I'm allergic to mowing the lawn.
OK, maybe not quite that far. I'm not allergic to mowing the lawn per se; I just don't get along with the sheer volume of pollen and dust that gets kicked up when the lawn gets mowed. Even when I wear a dust mask, in order to function the rest of the day, I pretty much have to shower as soon as the lawn is done.
This past week, an old acquaintance of mine tracked me down. She and I were fairly close at one time. It took me a very long time to get over how the two of us parted ways. But we played email tag for a bit and started IMing on Yahoo Messenger. Long story short, she's moving back to the general area - about an hour's drive away - and we're friends again. I'm not going to air my dirty laundry anywhere other than need-to-know, but I'll say this: being willing to discuss your feelings honestly with someone you care about makes things a lot easier
Well, by now, the lawns been mowed and I've finished my breakfast. I'm going to bed.


[1]"DJay, you work the night shift, what are you still doing up at 10?"
[2] "Why in the world are you sitting in your underwear?"

Tornado near-miss

Last night was fairly active for tornados in our part of the state. At least three touched down in eastern Edwards County, and at least one in the western half. We lost a couple houses near the Pratt county line (no injuries there); on on U50 at the Stafford county line (1 leg injury), and some outbuildings, power poles and trees along the Arkansas river.
We got lucky; a tornado took out a couple of outbuildings out at my cousins house, and put a 2x4 in the outside wall. They live about 3/4 mi south of town. A half mile north and we wouldn't have a football field, about a mile northwest and we'd be out a hospital (and my house).
Other tornados skirted around Greensburg and Haviland, and Protection made CNN's front page.
We got lucky.
The best part; the forecast for tonight [Saturday] is more of the same. I think, when I get home, I'm going to pop open one of my delicious Boulevard Unfiltered Wheats before I go to bed.

Poker Experiences

I like playing poker. And I play online quite a bit. There's really only one problem with it.

I'm not that good a poker player.

That's not to say I'm a bad player; I'm just not that good. I'm probably giving myself too much credit when I put myself in the category of merely average. Which is the other reason why I've never funded an online poker account.[1]

Which is why I'm really enthused about playing poker at Bodog.[2] Because they literally pay you to play. Admittedly, it's only a penny an hour and it takes 500 hours of play to reach the first payout; but it's there. Let me back up.

I found Bodog because they have play money online blackjack. I'm better at blackjack than I am at poker[3]. I played there a while and then tried out their poker client. While most poker sites I've been to have real money and play money; Bodog accounts have a four-'currency' structure: Play Money (PM), Poker Points (Pts), Tournament Credits (T$), and eCash ($). Play Money is just that. eCash is your real money balance, and you can withdraw it by check or have it deposited into your bank account. Tournament Credits are a dollar equivalent that are usually awarded to winners of qualifier tournaments[4] can be used to pay entry fees for scheduled tournaments.

The interesting part of Bodog's structure are the Pts. Pts are basically Bodog's loyalty program, and can be earned in 3 ways: rakes, fees, and time. Playing in a raked pot gives you up to 1 point depending on the amount of rake (the fee taken out of the pot by the house). Paying an entry fee also nets you poker points, for every $1 paid in fees, you get 3 pts. And the best part, for every hour you play, you get a point. So what are they good for? Entry fees for one; there are both sit-and-go and scheduled tournaments that use poker points instead of cash. They're also transferrable to bonus cash, which you have to roll over into real cash by betting/paying fees.

I worked the play money sit-and-gos for about two weeks before cashing out in a guaranteed freeroll.[5] It wasn't much - $3.00 - but I placed in the mid-30s in a 2000+ player tournament. Right now, I'm sitting at $3.22; I cashed in a sit-and-go, then missed the money in another, and conned myself into a rebuy and an add-on after losing the last hand before break in another free roll. Missed the cut by about 100 (in a 3000+ field) in that one. So, I'm back to the freerolls.

Tell you what; rather than me trying to explain it; go sign up for an account. Hit http://www.bodoglife.com/ , sign up for a free account (use referral number P10F115A), download the client, and boom, you're on your way. Or, to paraphrase a commercial...

I'm "DJay Hogan", and I play on Bodog Poker.



[1] The primary reasons being that A) I'm a cheapskate, and B) I've always found other things to do with my fun money.
[2] And no, this isn't a paid advert. When I find something I like, I tell other people, simple as that.
[3] It's the only game I've actually won money in a casino on.
[4] 'Qualifiers' are tournaments where the prize is a seat in another, usually more expensive or exclusive tournament.
[5] 'Sit-and-Go' is a type of tournament that starts when a certain number of players have joined; as opposed to a 'scheduled' tournament that starts at a certain time. 'Cashing out' refers to winning money in a tournament; usually this means finishing in the top 5-10%, depending on the tournament's payout structure. A 'freeroll' is a tournament with no entry fee. Most freerolls have the option of re-buying (obtaining an additional starting stake) or adding-on (buying additional chips) within a certain time frame. The prize pool is determined by the number of re-buys and add-ons. In a 'guaranteed' freeroll, the host guarantees a minimum payout, basically pocketing the re-up cash up to the guarantee level.

On Caleb Campbell

Even if you follow college football, chances are that until Sunday, you hadn't heard much about Caleb Campbell.
It's not surprising. The 6'2" safety was the only player drafted from his team; a teams not affiliated with a major conference (and having only one nationally televised game), one whose 3-9 record - while disappointing - tied for their second best finish in the last 5 years, and a team who hasn't had a player drafted since 1997. Campbell - taken by Detroit as the 218th player in the 08 NFL Draft - is far from being a household name.
No, what makes him the focus of attention this morning is not necessarily his play on the field, but the fact he will be playing on Sundays this fall. He is - for all intents and purposes - the first major athlete to take advantage of the Army's 2005 alternative service option program.
Basically, Army grads sign up for 5 years of service after the academy. Athletes who qualify for the alternative service option program are considered on active service as a recruiter for the first two years of their pro career. If they're still playing after their second year, they can swap the remaining three years of active duty for a six-year stint in the reserves.
This program is not without controversy. Yes, as an officer, there is a very good chance Campbell would have gone to Iraq or Afghanistan or any of the other places we've stuck our armed forces' collective nose into. There is also a good chance that he would have been put in an office job at the Pentagon, become a training officer at one of the many bases here at home, or even been assigned as a recruitment officer going to schools and college campuses trying to get more men and women signed up for service in the army. Which, if you'll look closely; is exactly what he'll be doing in Detroit - or somewhere in that general area - on Tuesdays (the NFL's off-day).
The bigger question is why the United States Military Academy would enact this sort of policy.
And I think I know why. During the first two years, assuming Campbell makes the team as a starter - and starting a new safety on a defense that ranked 31st in pass defense last year isn't that big of a stretch - every week that Detroit shows up on local TV, you'll hear somebody combine the words "Caleb Campbell, Safety, Army" at least once during the game. And if - by some ungodly chance - the Lions make the Superbowl with him as a starter, the biggest television audience of the year will hear "Caleb Campbell, Army" come across the screen.
And this rule wasn't put in for Campbell; imagine what would happen when West Point finally fields a decent team again, or gets a David Robinson-like basketball talent (Yes, I know Robinson went to Navy. Bear with me for a moment.) who in his senior year, leads them to even a Sweet Sixteen game and jumps to the NBA. And if even in half the 92 NBA regular season games during the year, one of the TV announcers works in that whats-his-name is serving his country with this recruitment effort. You know that'd be Sportscenter fodder for at least a good six months. That's publicity; and publicity for the army means increased recruitment numbers, plain and simple.
And perhaps that's the point of the program. Increased exposure through athletics means increased enrollment means more volunteers.

Am-I-Dumb.com

Am-I-Dumb.com - The Dumb Test

MotD: Seen on a T Shirt...

Bad Grammar Makes Me [sic]

In and Installed

I'm going to put this in big bold letters so you remember - and more importantly, so that I remember it.
OEM Hardware Does Not Come with ANYTHING!!!
We will call that Rule #1 of Building a Computer. So DJay (that is, me), remember the next time you buy anything that is appended with letters standing for Original Equipment Manufacturer that it is up to you (meaning me) to find the cables, the mounting screws, the software and the drivers to make it run. Which is what ultimately decided that my new DVD burner was going to be a swap job instead of an add-on.
The actual physical installation was a snap. I was half-afraid I would have to go in and remove the power supply in order to get the thing in. I was saved from that hassle by popping off the case's plastic front cover and sliding it out the front. I have very little good to say about Compaq (though I'm a bit kinder to them since they were bought by HP), but their cases were well-made.
So out goes the old, semi-functioning CD-RW drive and in pops the DVD burner. I fire up the Windows side, pop in a DVD (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, if you were wondering) and am promptly reminded of Rule #1. And it's corollory: if it's an upgrade, the software to use it won't be on the system restore disc.
To quote from the Windows Media Player website[1]: By default, Windows does not include a DVD decoder. "Not a big deal," I think as I follow the provided link; "I'll just download the decoder and call it good." MS offered three links for DVD playback on their WMP site: Roxio, CyberLink, and InterVideo. Get DVD playback capabilites added for $15.00.
And I thought for a second, and I decided I'd go with VLC. This free (as in Libre) video player can handle DVD natively. It can also handle pulling the video from the DVD but that's a whole other story. Only one problem, the VLC isn't a plugin, and so I have to run VLC instead of WMP, but that's not a big deal. A quick change to the context menu (changing the default action for DVDs to Open with VLC) and we're good to go. A quick press of the play button and I'm hearing the strains of So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish. Grab the universal drivers for the Lightscribe system (which uses the DVD burner's laser to engrave a label on the top of the disc) and I'm done on that side.
Now, over to the Linux side. Again, less trouble than I was expecting. Ubuntu recognized the drive as a burner, and recognized the DVD that was in it.[2] Again, I run into the same problems as on the Windows side; neither Kaffeine nor Totem could read the disc, complaining it was encrypted and that I lacked the necessary library. Totem went ahead and told me which one I needed, but couldn't tell me where to find it. By that time, it was time for me to go to work, so I've done some research. I found the driver necessary, and have installed it (I love being able to use SSH to log in at home). Now, just to be on the safe side, I haven't played it, and won't until I get home. Chel may not appreciate a DVD going off behind her back for no apparent reason (I still haven't figured out how to route the sound through the remote computer's speakers. Oh well.). We'll see if it worked first thing in the morning.


[1] MS Play CD or DVD FAQ
[2] Or, at least, the fact it was a DVD, and the volume label.

NCAA Tourney Day 1

This is one time of year I actually do enjoy watching basketball; and after one day in the NCAA Division I Championship tournament (March Madness), I am fairly impressed, and feel good that the teams I were really wanting/expecting to win did. I'm not in any pools this year; I don't have a "Bracket of Integrity", I just watch the games, and pick a team as I go.

So, a look at the headlines...
Blue Devils need last second magic to beat Belmont
It took the Dukeys the entire game to beat the 15-seeded Bruin. Down 71-70 with 4 seconds left, Belmont had the ball out of bounds under their own basket and mishandled the inbounds pass. Duke will face West Virginia (def. Arizona 75-65) early Saturday afternoon (2 pm Eastern)
No rain delay for Bulldogs, Musketeers advance
One of the best stories this year, the #14 Georgia Bulldogs had to win two games in one day in the SEC tournament to even qualify for the big dance. (The severe weather in Atlanta - don't know if they ever confirmed as a tornado - damaged the arena and forced the schedule back a day.) But the Dawgs ran out of steam against #3 Xavier, losing 73-61.
Bears Boiled
I was kinda hoping for an upset here, but 6-ranked Purdue was 11 points better than #11 Baylor. Was hoping to see a Big XII team advance here, but oh well. Purdue and Xavier are on tap for the later Saturday afternoon game.
Aggies hold off BYU
I did get my wish of a Big XII team advancing in the west regionals, but what a reward huh? As a prize for knocking off the #8 Cougars, #9 Texas A&M will face off against #1 UCLA (def. Mississippi Valley State 70-29).
Wildcats slip past Trojans
Yes, I know it was a 13-point win; but anytime #6 USC plays, the headline has to include some sort of condom reference. Except for a strech midway through the second half, #11 K-State looked really good in the upset. Beasley will play (at least) one more game for the Royal Purple, and it will be against the #3 Badgers of Wisconson.

Kansas beating Portland State doesn't even deserve a headline, though it was closer than I would have liked... they may have a hard time in Saturday's noon game against UNLV.

Games I'm keeping an eye out for today, ...
Assuming of course, that I'm 1) up and 2) in control of the remote. Both of these are fairly doubtful.
7 Gonzaga - 10 Davidson Raleigh, NC; 12:55 pm ET. Intriguing little matchup here, and another good spot for an upset. Davidson is riding a 22-game winning streak, has a better record, averages more points, and allows fewer points than the Bulldogs. Their losses? North Carolina, Duke, at UCLA, at Charlotte, at Western Michigan, and at NC State.
2 Texas - 15 Austin Peay Little Rock, AR; 3:00 pm ET. Austin Peay hasn't won a tourney game in 21 years, and I don't think that streak is going to end this year. Texas will not want to be the first #2 seed knocked off in the first round since '01; and after Duke's scare yesterday, you can bet that Texas coach Rick Barnes is gonna have his guys ready to play.
6 OU - 11 St Josephs Birmingham, AL; 7:10 pm ET. Another homer game for me. I want to see all the Big XII teams do well (because if they do well, then KU/K-State look better by comparison).
8 Indiana - 9 Arkansas Raleigh, NC; 9:40 pm ET. The late game I'm keeping an eye on because of the story surrounding it. If you didn't know, Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson resigned quite suddenly amidst allegations of recruiting violations. Pretty much the same thing he was caught doing at Oklahoma - making calls to recruits in ways that were against NCAA rules. Indiana basketball really hasn't been the same since they parted ways with Bob Knight. One thing I will say about coach Knight. You may not like him, you may not like his coaching style or interview style or on-court persona. But he did his job well, and he did it without the barest whiff of impropriety. So I take a goodly amount of Schadenfreude in IU's recent troubles. But with the resignation of Sampson, I'd like to see them do well.

A long and boring night.

Normally, having a slow night doesn't bother me much. I mean, I can usually find things to do... but in Kinsley a slow night is a slow night.
On a normal night, dispatch usually handles two officers - one PD (city) and one SO (county).[1] Sometimes on weekends, the PD sends out two, but usually it's just me, the radio, and two guys on the other end.
Tonight was a little different. Everybody (but me) went home by midnight. That's means 7 hours where it's me, the computer, and the slight chance the phone might ring. It's been a long shift.



[1] Day shift is a little busier, 1 PD and 2 SO.

DVD update

So, with permission from my lovely wife, I went ahead and bought that DVD burner from Newegg. If my date-crunching abilities are on, it should be here on Monday. Total spent: $65. That includes S&H, three GB (3x1GB) memory cards for the little one's media player, and a stack of DVDs. Now the only thing I'm concerned about is whether to just add the DVD drive or replace the existing CD-RW.

Simply adding the drive has a certain desirous quality to it. I have a free 5 1/4" outward-facing bay open, and the power supply is more than capable of handling a second optical drive. Bsides, since this is technically a "combo" drive[1], it would make certain procedures much less painful and disc swapping a more palatable alternative.
But to do that, I'm gonna need to grab a new IDE cable, right now I have a Single and a Double, and I'd need two doubles (I remembered this only after I put in the order; thankfully, dad has a room full of such cables, I bet that I can swipe one). [2] Hopefully, this won't mess with my setup too much... I have things working pretty much how I want them, and this may mean a half hour or so of changing symbolic links. That is one thing that I will give Windows; the relative ease of adding new hardware[3]. We'll see what I can figure out between now and when it comes in.

[1] It can write to a number of different media types, notably here (multiple formats of) DVD and CD.
[2] There's probably a specific name for them, but I don't know it. The one's I call "single" have two connectors - one on each end - and let you attach a single drive; the "doubles" have three connectors, to attach two drives to the motherboard.
[3] I like Linux, and I prefer to use Linux. But I'm not a zealot; I can and will admit when something else does something better. And assigning locations to devices by UUID (and having the OS recognize them) is something that I have more experience on Windows than on Linux systems [A]

[A] Gods do I have experience with it. A tip for all of you setting up Windows networks; Assign network drive letters closer to Z than to E. Hotpluggable devices - digital cameras, flash drives, basically anything that Windows treats as a hard drive - starts assigning drive letters with D. And manually assigned network drives are dealt with second, but take operating precedence. In other words, say you've got a hard drive (C:) and a CD drive (D:). Then you mount a network share (Map Network Drive) as E:\.
Now, plug in your digital camera. You'll get the found new hardware, and it'll attempt to autoinstall. And it will automatically mount the camera as the next drive. The mounting routing, however, doesn't check for mounted network shares; so the memory card in your camera becomes E:\. But, since the network drive assignment takes precedence, the drive designation (E:\) is taken back by the network share. And you can't find or eject your camera. Great jorb.{i}

{i} The way to fix that is by right clicking My Computer, Manage...; and then going and reassigning the device to a new letter.

$25 DVD burner

For every new computer tech, there comes a point where I say one of three things:

1. Forget it, there's no way I'm dropping $X on that.
2. Ooh, ooh, ooh; gotta have it, gotta have it now; or
   
3. Well,I guess this is the new standard. Time to invest in it.

Actually, that's usually my thought process on anything, not just computer tech. But Newegg sent out their Deals of the Day feed, and it hit me. While I wasn't looking, DVD went from #3 to its swan song.
Now, outside of a few things here and there (Nintendo DS being the prime example), there's never been any confusion between me and a hardware early adopter. I don't have HDTV, hell, I don't even have a DVR. But perhaps its time I got a DVD burner for my computer.
Hell, right now, I could pick up an internal DVD burner for my computer for slightly more than a special edition DVD [1].
Probably the biggest reason I never bothered with a recordable DVD was all the different choices of format, and the limitations of actual readers in using them. DVD-R, DVD+R, +RW, -RW, -RAM, +R DL; and it's a crap shoot whether your living room player would even be able to read it.
For the 30 bucks, I really thought about getting one. But then I did what I always seem to do... I said to myself, "Deege, you were wanting to build a media center PC anyway. Why not just put the money away and save up for the combo BluRay drive/DVD burner instead?"

[1] No, I'm not exaggerating, by much. LG DVD burner @ newegg.com, $24.99; "I Am Legend" 2-disc Special Edition @ walmart.com $22.87

New Game

I've been spending some time doing something that I never thought I would. I've been playing an MMORPG[1].

For years, I've avoided this type of game. Mostly because - in all honestly - I have an addictive personality. So, mindful of the horror stories of "Evercrack"[2], I dipped my toes into the world of Puzzle Pirates. Mostly because, well, it's one of the few that isn't pay-to-play.

Most MMORPGs are along the lines of Dungeons and Dragons: a magical fantasy setting, and killing monsters (or other players) makes your stronger. And this formula has worked well for everything from the old text-based MUDs to the latest upgrade to World of Warcraft. And the problem I have with them isn't that I don't like the setting or gameplay; it's that I do. And when I like something, I tend to go overboard on it.
But I decided to try my luck at Puzzle Pirates. It's less of a traditional MMORPG; it's a series of puzzle minigames connected by common theme and graphics. There are still the basic MMORPG elements to it; you can go solo or join a clan (crew) or guild (flag) to attack (pillage) roaming monsters (either actual sea monsters or Non-Player Character pirate crews) or other even other players. But what makes it interesting to me is the free (as opposed to subscription) servers economies. Goods (except for raw materials and cash) are all controlled and produced in-character. That means if you want a sword, you either have to find someone who has the sword you want and buy it from them, or go to the blacksmith and have a sword made. Want a ship? Go to the shipyard; if they have the raw materials, they'll make you the ship.
The only thing that really isn't produced in-character (or via the spawning system which controls commodities and cash) are dubloons. Dubloons are a higher-priced currency, that are created by purchasing them on-line, around 25 cents per dubloon. Dubloons are used for delivery costs on things like ships, and to unlock certain puzzles for a month or so. You can trade for them at the banks; the exchange rate is around 1000 PoE for a Dubloon, though it varies quite a bit.
As for the puzzles themselves, most of them are fairly familiar. If you've played Bejeweled, you'll be comfortable Bilging, Dr Mario fans will grep Sailing fairly quickly; Bubble Bobble masters will rock at Rumble. As for the more esoteric puzzles, there are help guides and in-game tutorials readily available.

Tell you what, click the logo to download and try it yourself. The download may take a bit, but I think it's worth it. The software is free, playing is free. If you go through this link (or the widget at the top of the page), you get 500 PoE to start your piratey lifestyle - and Gilles De Rais (my pirate on Hunter ocean) gets some cash out of the deal as well. Give a "tell" on the bottom bar if I'm online. I'll hear you anywhere on the ocean.


[1] That is, a Massively Mutliplayer Online Role Playing Game.
[2] A play on the actual name, Everquest. It was one of the first "mainstream" MMORPGs, and got a lot of publicity when some younger players would neglect friends and family in favor of the game.

290 and other updates

A Note about Notes
Following the style of two of my favorite authors (being Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett), I've decided to include asides in the form of footnotes. Mostly because they make the text itself easier to read: otherwise I'd have all sorts of appositive phrases offset with nested brackets and braces and parenthesis and dashes. You know, [something like this {or this (or even this - though this one may be a touch ridiculous-)}].

Weight Update
I've not been keeping up on writing this, and that's alright. But I hit a milestone weight this last week. I'm down to 290, which is pretty much the lightest I've been since I moved back to Kinsley. Five more pounds and I'll be as light as Chel has ever known me.
She, on the other hand, has hit a bit of a mental plateau. Not that I can blame her though; between running the Girl Scout cookie sales, troubles at her job, and me being well, me; stress has become a major part of her life. That and a major setback to her weight loss - an ongoing medical problem which is going to limit her somewhat.
All in all, I've got about 15 pounds to lose before the second weekend in April.

Computer Update
Used the cash I got from my birthday to buy an upgrade for my tinkering rig. Jumped from that 256MB module I had left (see my last post) to a full GB of RAM and plugged in a 80GB second hard drive. I installed Xubuntu [1] on the new drive, so now I'm dual booting between that and WinXP.
Also trying a neat little XP program called VirtualCD (it's not freeware, btw). It lets you emulate a DVD/CD burner. Which means I can burn to CD [ending up as the 'image' of a disk] without actually using a CD. Will be very useful for getting those nice Apple proprietary files to work on A's media player. Which was the entire reason I put WinXP on in the first place!

Vacation Updates
Spring and summer is the time for vacations. And night shifts' Vacays start the first weekend in April. Nothin' like pulling a 7 on/7 off to start a month, eh? Not that I'm complaining too much, mind you. That mid-April paycheck should have 122 paid hours on it[2]. Combined with the dispatch-wide raise we got[3] will make sure anything I put off before our first trip to KC will get paid for. The next one will have 96 paid hours - still a boost compared to my normal 88.
I get more boosted checks for June: the one coming right before BOM will be another 122, mid-June will be 128. Since I'm taking Vacay to take Aubrey to Worlds of Fun over the 4th of July weekend, I won't get holiday pay; but if I end up working like I've offered to, that's 140 paid hours to get me from the 21st into August.
Sometimes, I just love working the system.

Hobby Update
I'm of the firm opinion that every man needs a hobby[4]. You know, something that he can be passionate about[4]. An activity that he can grab onto with both hands and really get into[4]. One of my coworkers actually has two: motorcycles (which didn't surprise me) and photography (which kinda did).
Mine is computers - if you hadn't guessed. I've got my tinker rig going pretty well, and over the next year or so, I'd like to save up the money to build my own computer. You can help. Click the Donate link to the left, and help me get the money I need to build my own computer.

***
[1] That's the Xfce desktop environment on top of the Ubuntu distribution of Debian Linux. If you're willing to switch to a Linux environment, Xfce is fantastic solution for working on a computer with a slower processor or limited memory - in other words, a rig that chugs trying to actually do stuff on WinXP. I've since installed the K Desktop Environment. KDE a bit more of a memory hog (still pales in CPU usage to XP), but since I like the interface and workings of a lot of the KDE programs, I figured I'd go ahead and switch over.[a]
[2] I consider a 'paid hour' the amount of time worked to earn an hour's pay. For time and a half overtime, every 40 real minutes, you are paid as if you worked a full hour. [b]
[3] Our sheriff convinced the commissioners that it would be

1. Cheaper than training a part-time newbie
2. Cheaper than paying benefits for a new supervisor; and
3. Much cheaper than paying the Deputies time and a half to sit in dispatch

[4] Other than the obvious.[c]

****

[a] Not that you can't run K* (most KDE-based programs) under XFCE. In fact, I did for a while. But when you "apt-get install" a program (the preferred way of doing things) in a Debian distro (such as Ubuntu), all the program's dependencies - the files containing the instructions and other programs it needs to run - are installed as well. In Linux, the libraries (instruction files) are shared between programs[A]. Which meant by the time I had installed the few programs that I really like using (Kontact for email, Konversation for instant messaging, Amarok for tunes), I had pretty much installed KDE anyway. version 3.5, at least. I'm not in the mood to help beta-test 4.0.

[b] Which makes paid holidays kinda suck. The county awards holiday pay equally across the board: everyone gets 8 paid hours. Even if you work a 12-hour shift that day (like I have to when I work), you get 8 additional paid hours for the holiday; for a total of 20 paid hours [holiday pay does not count toward the 40 hrs/week OT start]. Which means that on a holiday, the exchange rate is 36 real minutes::1 paid hour.

[c] Masturbation.

***

[A] This makes patching some security issues much easier. If you fix a problem in a shared library, that fix extends to everything that uses that library. Compare that to Windows where nearly every program ships with its own sets of drivers and libraries.

Having Fun Installing WinXP

Or, I Really Need to Take Better Notes

As much as I like using Linux, I freely admit that there are tasks that it is not at all well suited for. And since I was faced with such a task a while ago, I had to dig out the old Compaq system restore discs and put XP back on my tinkering system.

All fine and dandy for a week or so. Problem was, I got a missing file message when I finally got around to uninstalling all the resource-hogging backlog that HP/Compaq[1] feels compelled to install during a system restore[2]. A dozen unplanned restarts, a virus scan that can't read much of anything and a CHKDSK later, I've come to the conclusion that something is seriously wrong with this computer. (This was a week ago, Wednesday)

Rather than fuck with it overly much, I decide to just dig out the restore disks, grin and bear it. Like I've said, this is a tinkering system. I don't have anything on there that I need to keep.

So, I get them in and low and behold, I get
!(< =)

Actually, it said IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Since that particular jibberish made as much sense to me as that did to you, I got to looking and found that the likely cause was the computer having problem communicating with the expansion cards. When removing both of my expansion cards[3] didn't let me proceed (with either the restore discs or the XP Pro install disc that I located elsewhere), I went even more drastic. I went in to the BIOS and turned off everything that wasn't absolutely necessary to starting the computer. In other words, I let the computer use the processor, talk to the CD and Hard Disk, and put stuff on the monitor. At least this cured the IRQL. In it's place, though, was a BSOD[4] telling me the MEMORY_MANAGEMENT module failed. So I took a hint.

I pulled all 512 MB of memory.

Now, anyone who knows the basics about computers will tell you that - up to a certain point[5] - the more memory you have, the faster your computer is going to go. Conversely, the less memory you have, the slower your computer will go. You can use this to run a very - very - basic test to see if your memory is working. Basically, one at a time, in the first slot, you plug in each module and see if it even tries to boot, or if it fails.

You guessed it, one of my modules failed. Which wouldn't bother me so much if it hadn't have been the newer one.

So, I learned two things this week. The first being that after cleaning all the crap off of it, Windows XP Home Edition can and will run respectably for web browsing - albeit fairly slowly on anything multimedia - on 256 MB of RAM.

Of course, I didn't find this out all at once. You see, when I got everything sorted out, I went to connect to the internet. All my connections were snug, my ATI was pushing a strong signal at 1280 x 1024, and the modem was sitting unused, as usual. But for the life of me, I could not find my freaking network adapter. Or rather, I found it, plugged it in, and the computer ignored its existance.

By this time, it was closing in on bedtime last night, so I said fuckitall and went to bed. First thing when I got up, I sheepishly returned to the computer, entered the BIOS, and turned back on the onboard LAN.

Which brings me to both the second thing I learned, and the opening of this post...

I really need to remember to take better notes.


[1] Actually, it's not just HP. It's anyone who tries to sell you a computer these days... Dell, Gateway, IBM. I have no problem with preloaded software straight out of the box. But for goodness' sake, I wish they would package it separate from the operating system on their system restore disks (HP's practice of not including separate restore disks with your computer is an entirely different rant). When you reinstall - or repair - the OS, you shouldn't have to spend a half hour aborting various branded shite.
[2] I'm ont talking about the Welcome to Windows thing. To give you an idea of this, I turned on the computer. Windows Messenger; to be expected, that's an actual XP component. Then the little connect to the internet graphic pops up, which won't go away until you run through their options trying to sell ISP subscriptions. I don't need an ISP, I'm hooked up already. Then comes Compaq Organizer - a heavy-duty program that could have been a widget - which is basically your Start Menu's most used programs list, a free-floating search bar, and your bookmarks folder. A dozen shortcuts to WildTangent; gone. And then I can start getting rid of the trial software.
[3] An ATI Radeon 7200 video card and an Agere Modem, if you were curious.
[4] That is, Blue Screen of Death.
[5] That point being the top end of what the mainboard can recognize and deal with. Any more than that, and either the computer is going to start throwing errors or just ignoring what it can't see. In my case, that point is 1024 MB (1 GB) of memory. Actually, it's probably 2GB, but the manufacturer says limit it to 1. This is a tinker-toy, not a gaming rig. I don't need to go all that fast.

What I try to be...

"...is fundamentally a person.

He fears he may be a bad person because he knows what he thinks rather than just what he says and does. He chokes off those little reactions and impulses, but he knows what they are. So he tries to act like a good person, often in situations where the map is unclear."

--Terry Pratchett, referencing his character Samuel Vimes, Oct 2004.

Saw that quote this morning wikisurfing. I hadn't heard that frame of mind - which I admit to sharing - phrased quite so well before. The quote was in response to someone saying that "Vimes is not fundamentally a good person."

You ever feel like that? Like you're one lapse away from becoming what you [feardespiseinsert verb here] most? You see your choices laid before you and you can't help but be tempted by all the choices. And the only thing keeping you on the straight and narrow isn't the internal rewards of being of a good person; but the fear of what you might become if you stray. And the sickening realization that you're entirely capable of choosing the 'bad' path, and that a part of you truly wishes to fall from grace.

There's another concept that Pratchett uses when referring to Vimes. It's the opposite of drunk. No, not sober; it's as far from sober as drunk is, only in the opposite direction -- you have knurd. Knurd is about two drinks short of stone cold sober; it's where that nice haze that people live their lives in gets blown away; where all the illusions and assurances we fill our eyes with in order to function as decent human beings is wiped away. When you're knurd, you can't help but see the world as it is; and more importantly, you can't help but see yourself for what you truly are.

Say what?

You know, there's some things I never thought I'd hear on a morning sports talk show.

The phrase "there's a bunch of sexy tentacles coming off of this thing" was near the top of the list. But that's the phrase I heard this morning watching Mike & Mike in the Morning while they were discussing the Roger Clemens congressional testimony this afternoon.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm exhausted, or maybe I'm just perverted, but isn't there a number of phrases that might be -- I don't know -- more appropriate than "sexy tentacles" when discussing tangential stories from an interesting news story? Unless the lead story -- and I hope you pardon my word choice here -- explicitly involves Japanese women in schoolgirl uniforms. Then who knows, 'sexy tentacles' may be entirely appropriate.

Pedro and the Cockfight

Video surfaced on Youtube this week of NY Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez and MLB Hall of Famer Juan Marichal at a cockfight in the Dominican Republic.
First some facts.

• The video - which is over 2 years old - shows Marichal and Martinez acting as honorary "soltadores".In other words, they were the ones that put the animals into the ring.
• Right or wrong, cockfighting is legal in the Dominican Republic. In fact, the fight took place at the nationally known Coliseo Gallistico de Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo Cockfighting Coliseum).

U.S.-based animal rights groups are - predictably - up in arms about the whole ordeal. And the gods know I don't blame them. Cockfighting is a particularly barbaric practice, and there are a number of very good reasons why it's illegal here in the US.
So why can't I get worked up over this whole thing?
Well, I think the biggest reason is the knowledge that other people don't hold the same values as I do. And apparently Hispaniola is an entire island filled with people who hold strikingly different values regarding the morally and ethically correct treatment of animals. So much so, in fact, that a practice most Americans would find viscerally repulsive is not just tolerated; it is to baseball in the Dominican what pro baseball is to pro football in the US: the second most popular spectator sport.
Should we condemn Martinez and Marichal for their involvement in an activity that is perfectly legal where they observed it? Perhaps. Perhaps that outrage would be better directed toward your local congresscritter in a call to pressure the Dominican Republic (and other nations) into discouraging - if not outright eliminating - the practice.

The other thing. Harris Interactive released a poll earlier this week (2/5). US adults who follow one or more sports were given a list of sports and asked to name their favorite.
No big surprise, professional football was the favorite of the biggest chunk of the pie: almost 30% of respondants named NFL as their sport of choice. Football is very popular in the US, an additional 12% of those with a preference preferred college football, making it the third most popular.In second was baseball (Harris didn't separate college from pro) with 15%.
Fourth is where it gets interesting. In 1985, when Harris started the poll, fourth and fifth were a tie between pro and college basketball. Not surprising, this was during the great Celtics-Lakers matchups and Michael Jordan's rookie year. Today, fourth place is Auto Racing (including both F1 and NASCAR), and fifth is - of all things - hockey. The basketballs are in a 3-way tie for sixth with men's golf.

Oddly Enough, Continued

The damn disc was scratched. Oh well, we'll try again in the morning. The more I think about it, the more I realize I should have just told 'Brey to deal with it until April rolls around. That's when the new version of Ubuntu (my OS of choice for this computer) comes out.
Basically, the disc was smudged before I started. I tried to use it and it burned ok, then it failed the verification. I still tried to use it. Didn't get very far, but no big loss since the box is FUBAR at the moment anyway.

I'm down another pound, a few ounces over 298 on the fitness center scale. It's not fast going, but I never expected it to be. I probably won't be down to 275 by the time we go to State, though I think Chel will be. I did a half-hour workout this morning, a mile on the treadmill, and some light weight-work for my shoulders, back and abs. But my shoulder's a bit sore tonight; no big surprise, I've had trouble with it after workouts since back in high school. Depending on what Chel has planned and how I feel after my shift, I may go do another round in the morning. Or maybe when Chel gets home from work. Either way, while I don't particularly like working out, I do like the feeling just after I get done.

Oddly Enough

Subtle:
Has anyone else noticed that the people in the background of the ad for that PMS-symptom easing birth control pill Yaz are singing "We're not gonna take it!"?
Not-so-Subtle:
I haven't been on for a few days. And to be quite honest, there's a couple good reasons. Mostly that I haven't been keeping track of what I have been eating. Ever since last Sunday, I've just been gnoshing more and more. I know, I know. Back on track, though. Since I got up, I've only had a ham sandwich, a small handful (~1 serving) of Harvest Cheddar Sunchips, and a Green Giant vegetable blend package. Around 3-4, I'll have a lean cuisine steamer bowl (whiskey steak, IIRC).
The other reason is that I did something incredibly stupid and messed up my computer.

Best of intentions, right? Aubrey uses my computer, too - complete with her own username and password. So, anything she does is her business, and not mine. I trust her to make good decisions about things.
Then again, I'm not completely stupid. Because even though she's only supposed to get on when mom or I are around, she conveniently forgets early on Saturday and Sunday mornings. So I installed parental controls, IP logging, that sort of thing. I also made sure that she has a limited user account, without sudo access. Which means that she can't install or uninstall programs, turn off my logging daemons or really hide anything. And every once in a while -- after she goes to bed -- I read the logs. It's intrusive, it's sneaky, and it shows an appalling lack of trust in my only daughter. It's also good parenting. I check up on her. I've told her what kind of people get online, that not everybody is looking out for her. I don't want to scare her, I just want her to be aware of it. And she knows that there are some sites that we don't care if she looks at, some sites we'd rather her not look at that we aren't going to get upset about, and that there are a whole lot of sites that we really don't want her to look at until she lives another 8-10 years. And she knows that I'm going to be checking on her at times.

But, while she was going to the sites we approve of, her browser (Firefox) would crash. A combination of too many flash ads and just plain bad coding, really. So I had her back things up, saved my stuff, and tried to fix things. And I finally said, "you know what, screw it;" and went to reinstall. Which was all fine and dandy, until I realized that all my install disks are scratched. In a spot that doesn't come into play until after the disk is formatted (bye-bye data) and everything else is installed. I don't know how all of my disks lost the same program (the program that controlls the installation stuff), but it's made it hell trying to get it back up and running. So I'm sitting up here at work, trying to ride a torrent for a new disk, and it's a bit slow going. I'm down to about an hour left. Hopefully, this one will work.

Splurge Day

I have a feeling that tonight is going to be a 'splurge day' on my quote-unquote diet.

Evening Meal: 810 Calories
1/2 pie of Kashi roasted chicken pizza (450 Cal)
Sugar-free Pudding Cup (60 Cal)
Dr Pepper (300 Cal)

Second Meal {planned}: 860 Calories
Wendy's Ultimate Grilled Chicken Sandwich (320)
Side salad w/Ranch (240)
Dr Pepper (300)

That's 1670 calories already. Those sodas are a bitch to the bottom line, aren't they? I have a microwave dinner if I get really hungry before the night's out, but I really don't think I will. A couple glasses of water should tide me over until I get home and to bed in the morning. So, if I know that the soda is going to crash the ride, why drink it? Quite frankly, I didn't care :P. I want a freaking soda.

Final Weigh in, 2/1

So, apart from that 528 Calorie breakfast sandwich I had before I slept the day away, I've really eaten quite sensibly, I believe.


Evening Meal (Burrito Scrambler & OJ): 601 Calories

• Tortilla: 120 calories
• 2 eggs, scrambled: 154 Cal
• Ham: 51 Cal
• Dijonnaise <1/4>: 1 cal
• Orange Juice (~20 oz): 275 Calories

Snacks (2 oranges, Ritz Mix): 190 Cal

• Ritz 100 Calorie Pack: 100 Cal
• 2x Small Orange: 90 Cal

Lean Cuisine Dinnertime Select Salisbury Steak (Early Morning meal, 3 AM-ish): 270 Cal

Since I'm drinking water exclusively tonight at work, there's 0 calories there. For a total of 1589 calories. A little less than what I probably should have had, which would explain the bellyache I had this morning (either that, or that mushroom gravy just did a number on me).

Opening Lines

A list of book opening lines I found enjoyable (there's a link to an update on the page with more opening lines) http://classicilliterature.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-start-book-off-right.html. Take a read (middle-clicking will pop it in a new tab), and come back. I'll wait.

You know, he's right. Some of my favorite books I've known I'll like from the first line. One that comes up again and again in the comments is probably the best example.

The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.
--The Gunslinger, Stephen King

Even the first time reading it, I could hear it in my mind. Actually I heard the voice of Sam Elliot drawling through the line, putting nearly a full stop between the words "desert and" to put that narrator's air of inevitability to the chase that ends -- and truly begins -- with the conclusion of the book. Or Stephen Fry saying:

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western
Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small un-regarded yellow sun."
-- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

in that impeccable accent of his. I don't know why I 'hear' things I read. The way my mind processes information, I guess.

Half Day

The last day of my 'weekend' is always an odd day out.
Tonight I go back to work, so I've got to sleep most of the day. Which is all fine and dandy, except it messes with my calorie counting. I mean, I have about 4 hours of wakey-time, and then I go back to sleep. It'd probably be a lot easier if I kept to my work schedule on my days off -- you know, awake at night and asleep in the day. And I would, except there's something that's just 'right' about sleeping alongside the person you love. I guess I just crave that presence next to me, even when I'm not conscious of it. But, Chel works days, so I sleep alone most of the time.

Anyway, i woke up hungry as an ox today, so before I go back to bed, i fixed me a breakfast sandwich:

Breakfast: 528 Calories

• 2 Slices bread: 90 Cal
• Ham (3 oz): 151 Cal
• Fried Egg (no oil): 92 Cal
• Curley's Hickory BBQ, 1 tbsp: 35 Cal
• Miracle Whip Light, 1 tbsp: 20 Cal
• Apple Juice: 140 Calories.

My BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate, amount of calories burned by spending 24 hours at rest in a temperature-neutral environment) figures out to be right around 2700. Basically, for me, today will be about a 36 hour day, when I got up this morning (~5am) until I wake up Saturday (~5pm). Since my self-inflicted target intake is 1500-1800 (between 1/2 and 2/3 BMR); my range for a 36 hour day would - mathematically - be 2250-2700 Calories. So, I have about 1700-2100 Calories to get me through the night. I should be okay.

Calorie Counter's Toolbar

If you're using Firefox to surf the web (and if you're still using IE, shame on you), you probably know all about the various toolbars and extensions available to help customize your browsing experience.

Well, if you're trying to keep track of your caloric intake, this toolbar may help.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3357

It's the CalorieKing/Joslin Diabetes Center search bar. Type in the food item you're looking for, and it'll look it up through CalorieKing's database.

Oh yeah, if you are still stuck using Internet Explorer, you can find a link for the IE version on this page:

http://www.calorieking.com/toolbar/

300 Game

Chel got us a membership to the local Wellness Center. We've been talking about signing up for a while, now, and Chel finally got around to it. Heck, we've lived on the same block as the stupid place for the past year and we've never went. It's about what you would figure for a small-town fitness center: various weight machines, treadmills, stationary bikes, some free weights.

And, of course, the dreaded scale.

I like this scale better than the one at work, and the one over at Grandma's house. The one at Grandma's, which we've been using, is a standard bathroom scale; and it works fine, but with all spring-type scales, there's the problem of warping with age, and at higher weights, they're not as accurate. The one at work is a slider scale (like the ones you might see at the doctor's office). Only problem with that one is the fact that it's only calibrated to 300 pounds. Unfortunately, that's not quite enough for me.

But I stepped on the scale at the Wellness Center; and weighed in wearing a pair of cloth shorts, sweatpants, a T-shirt, socks and shoes. I tickled the scale until the bar balanced on its own in the middle of the range, just like you're supposed to. And to my surprising, I had to move the 50 pound weight back a slot.

At 7:40 this morning, I weighed in between 299.5 and 300 pounds. And that was before the 3/4 mile treadmill and mile bike ride.

I haven't been at 300 pounds since well before my wedding. If I remember right, the last time I had to look up at 300 was shortly before Chel moved to Kinsley, and that was 5 1/2 years ago. Since last Christmas, I'm down 25 pounds. My next goal is to get down to 285. That's 15 pounds, or 5% of my current body weight. It also represents between 12 and 14% of my heaviest weight ("Between" because I didn't weigh myself regularly; so I'm not exactly sure what my starting weight was; though I know it was at least 325 pounds; at Thanksgiving I was probably closer to 330.)

And yes, yesterday's post was accurate. That ham sandwich was all I had to eat yesterday. Today is going to be a little bigger, if not better.

Breakfast (5:30 am): 270 Calories
10 oz Apple Juice: 140 Cal
Kashi Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie: 130 Cal

Lunch (11:30 am Burger and Tots): 769 Cal
Hamburger Bun: 84 Cal
1/4 lb Burger: 320 Cal
Ketchup: 45 cal
Mayo: 90 Cal
Tater Tots: 220 Cal
Dr Pepper (24oz ): 300 Cal

Dinner (6:00 pm 2x Roast Beef Sandwiches & OJ): 676 Cal
4 slices Bread: 180 Cal
Roast Beef (5 oz): 301 Cal
Mayo (1/2 tbsp): 10 Cal
Curly's BBQ (1/2 tbsp): 20 Cal
Orange Juice (12 oz): 165 Cal

Total Calories: 1715

Not a bad day. I'm inside my target range (1500-1800 Cal/day) with a little bit of room to spare. Enough room, in fact, to have a homemade iced coffee (6 oz brewed coffee, 4 oz milk, <1 tsp sugar; ~68 Cal) before I go to bed if I'm thirsty. As for what I could have done better; I probably could have done without the tots at lunch, but other than that, I did pretty good.

Food Diary 1/30

Considering I've slept most of the day, it's not really surprising that I'm eating fairly light. One decent sized meal is about it today...

Dinner (6:45 pm)
Ham Sandwich: 245 Calories
2 slices, Sara Lee 100% Multigrain Bread: 90 Cal
6 slices, Deli sliced Oven Roasted Ham: 60 Cal
1 tbsp Miracle Whip Light: 20 Cal
1 tsp Hellman's Dijonaisse: 5 Cal
1 slice Swiss Cheese: 70 Cal
Sunchips Harvest Cheddar (~20 chips): 190 Cal
Dr Pepper, 24 oz Bottle: 300 Cal

Total Calories for day: 735 Calories

Food Diary 1/29

Well, If I'm gonna do this, I might as well do this right. Gonna keep track of what I've eaten during the day, and see if I can identify problem areas.

First Meal (5:15 pm)
Lean Cuisine Spinach & Mushroom Pizza: 330 Cal
Orange Juice, 1 1/2 cups: 165 Cal

Snack (8:00 pm)
Banana: 72 Cal
2x Starlight Mint: 120 Cal

Snack (Midnight)
Banana: 72 Cal
Hershey Dark Chocolate bar: 60 Cal
Creamy Ranch Dip (1 tbsp): 30 Cal

Lunch (3 am):
Healthy Choice Grilled Turkey Breast dinner: 270 Cal

Dinner (7:30 am)
Breakfast Burrito: 340 Cal3
2 eggs: 120 Cal
Ham: 80 Cal
Tortilla: 110 Cal
Cheese: 20 Cal
Taco Sauce: 10 Cal



Total calorie count: 1459 Cal.

Losing Weight

I'm losing weight, and I feel like crap.

While both of the above statements are completely true; in this case, the first has nothing to do with the second. I've been sick the last few days, which really isn't surprising if you think about it. The whole damn town seems to have come down with this crap.

But the important thing, at least long-term, is that I'm losing weight. Saturday morning I weighed in at a svelte {that word, I do not think it means what you think it means} 305 pounds. Which means I'm down around 15-20 pounds in the month since Christmas. I'm not losing as fast as Chel is; but then again, I haven't actually been 'dieting'. I've been 'following along', as it were. Am I serious about losing weight? Yes, at least as a long-term goal.

I do have some... misgivings about the whole thing; but nothing I really care to put into words at the moment. Maybe later.

Video Game Sales Numbers Released

Yahoo News is reporting $17 billion was spent on new video games in 2007.

That's 'billion'. With a "B". For comparison; the 2006 gross domestic product of Iceland was around 16 billion US dollars.

The news wasn't the dollar figure itself; rather, the news was the gap between video game sales and box office returns. It widened again this year. People spent $9.7 billion on movie tickets. And no, I'm not sure either number is worldwide or US only. Y!News didn't feel it was important enough to say.

Doesn't surprise me, really. The National Association of Theatre Owners reported that the average ticket price in the US for 2006 (the most recent number available) was $6.55. Which, by my math, would be around 1.48 billion trips to the movies each year. Taking a look at most of the movies released lately, I'm finding running times between 80 and 120 minutes, so I'm going to figure, at 100 minutes per movie, that's about 2.5 billion hours of movie time per year. Compare $17B, at $60 a head - figuring every game at the high end of the console game-only market - is 283M games sold. Still an impressive number, but dwarfed by the box office trips. But then again, compare the average straight playthrough time of a video game - discarding RPG[2]s which can offer anywhere from12 to over 200 hours of play and MMORPG[3]s - I'd guesstimate 6 hours per game bought, or 1.7 billion hours, which is comparable.

But truth told, I don't know why they are comparing those two (VG sales vs BO return) numbers.

First, we don't know - or rather, the article doesn't differentiate - if that $17B figure is software only; or software and hardware. Which would seem to make a hell of a difference; even discarding the secondary market for accessories (controllers, memory cards, etc.) and the growing gaming-PC market, the cost per console runs about 5-10x more than the software (150-600 per console vs 30-60 per title, discarding for a moment games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and the Singstar series which are bundle packaged with specialized controllers), making a significant difference in weighing and comparisons.

But that's not addressing the more fundamental problem with this sort of comparison. A more telling comparison - in my eyes, at least - would be VG sales against DVD sales. Because, quite frankly, a video game purchase is much more akin to buying a DVD than going to the movies. Especially given the movie house's explanation of the rising costs of tickets: you go to the movies for the experience of going out to the movies. Quite frankly, you would buy neither a video game nor a DVD for the experience of buying it, you buy it in order to use it. So, I'd like to see a comparison of the units sold for DVDs vs Video Game software. Quite frankly, I put the hardware in the same category as DVD players anyway. You get the XBox 360 in order to play one format of games and the Wii to play another format; you buy an HD-DVD player to play one format and a BluRay deck to play another. The only reason to choose one over another is limited availability of software titles. That is one place where I'll give the electronics industry some credit. Format wars are decided fairly quickly (the writable CD extension mess notwithstanding). Heck, even the movie rental services have an analog in the MMORPG subscription service.

Where was I actually going with this? Hell if I know. I just thought it was interesting.

[1] http://www.natoonline.org/statisticstickets.htm
[2] Role Playing Games. Game genre characterized by the player's characters gaining abilities based on the number and difficulty of enemies faced, see Final Fantasy, Pokemon; compare 'Adventure' games where additional abilities are gained by reaching certain plot-points (Legend of Zelda) or locating 'power-up' items (Super Mario Bros, Halo3).
[3] Massively Multiplayer Online RPG. Sub-genre of RPGs featuring persistent online worlds in which a player's character is able to interact with other players' characters. See Everquest, World of Warcraft.

Competitive Gaming on ESPN?

Out of all the things I've read this weekend, the fact that ESPN is going to be covering Major League Gaming isn't the strangest, but it's close.
Now, maybe I'm biased. The only competitive gaming I've actually watched was an afternoon show on G4 a couple years ago and that Madden video football league that ESPN has shown the last couple years. MLG's got corporate sponsors (XBox 360, natch; and Gamestop) and backing from some big sports name backing (such as Gilbert Arenas).
And you know, depending on the scheduling, I might try to catch an episode or two. My only problem is the games they are playing. Halo 3, Call of Duty 4. First Person Shooters. Not my preference in games to watch people play.
Now, the sports games, I could see televising. You plug into a Madden 08 (or for a better determination of skill, some mid-majors in NCAA Football 08) contest, and it's not going to be that much different - from a viewers standpoint - from watching a real football game. Keep the 'camera' on the 'field', and cut to the gamers only to show celebrations/strategy discussions.
I could even see real-time strategy games - Starcraft, Age of Empires, that sort of thing - getting some airtime. I could see then televising like they do the poker tournaments. Instead of hole card cams, they show a defogged map as your main screen, and use cutaways to particular bases/players to show unfolding strategies; and run interviews after rounds. Pro Starcraft gamers are pretty hot right now in South Korea, actually; comparable in popularity to other major S. Korean athletes.
And no, I have no illusions of being able to compete on that sort of level. But I have to admit, it sounds like it will be a lot more interesting than it probably is.

MotD: Corporate Telephony

In the beginning was the DEMO Project. And the Project was without form. And darkness was upon the staff members thereof. So they spake unto their Division Head, saying, "It is a crock of shit, and it stinks."
And the Division Head spake unto his Department Head, saying, "It is a crock of excrement and none may abide the odor thereof." Now, the Department Head spake unto his Directorate Head, saying, "It is a container of excrement, and is very strong, such that none may abide before it." And it came to bass that the Directorate Head spake unto the Assistant Technical Director, saying, "It is a vessel of fertilizer and none may abide by its strength."
And the Assistant Technical Director spake thus unto the Technical Director, saying, "It containeth that which aids growth and it is very strong." And, Lo, the Technical Director spake then unto the Captain, saying, "The powerful new Porject will help promote the growth of the Laboratories."
And the Captain looked down upon the Project, and He saw that it was Good!
--from fortunes

I hate to bitch like this, but I don't feel good this morning. I've got a headache from hell, a sore throat that won't go away, and the running commentary in my mind is just plain pissing me off at the moment.
The headache I can understand. My primary symptom of caffeine withdrawl, no big mystery there. I haven't had caffeine of any type since 3:30 PMish Thursday, so that means it's been about 36 hours; that's about right for me. Only another 5 or so to go before it subsides.
The sore throat is a little more vexing. I'd like to blame it on sitting around in the same room with Chel smoking all day on Thursday (since I woke up with it Friday morning); but she has the same deal, so I'm wondering if it isn't a touch of the crud. Just what I need going into my weekend to work, right?
The commentary, though; that's another story. Sometimes, I wish my monkey mind would just shut up with all the chattering. But no; I can't even get my own head to leave me alone. All my fears, failures and regrets; pounding my mind's ear in an unending litany of doubt and self-loathing.

And no, I'm not schizophrenic. The whole "voice in my head" thing is just a metaphor; or rather, a framework that internalizes my current predilection for learning aurally (by hearing) opposed to visually (sight) or orally (by speaking). When I was going through a visual phase, I "saw" the thought processes as an internal 'ticker
a la the continuously updating 'crawl' at the bottom of a news, business or sports channel; right now its manifesting as a soft whisper from over my ear. I've even had internal dialogs with the cliche shoulder devils/angels.

Long Night

I found myself watching the Australian Open this morning.

Watching televised tennis - for me - is a sure sign that I am bored at work. At work, because if I'm bored at home, I'll read, play games, or - if nothing else - stretch out and nap. Unfortunately, sleep is but one activity that is frowned upon while at the workpace. But I usually have the same opinion of tennis that I have of golf and many other sports. If I'm not there, I don't care. If I could have gotten gallery tickets to Prairie Dunes in the past few years, I would have happily walked the course and watched golf. But don't ask me to watch it for too long on television. Same with baseball. If I could get Rockies tickets to Coors Field, I'd be driving to Denver a lot more often. Hell, if I could get seats at Kauffman, I'd be watching the Royals get beat every chance I could; but please don't make me sit through Joe Buck calling another Cards game. Hell, please don't make me sit through Joe Buck calling anything. Even listening to Madden at his worst moments of self-parody is better than listening to Joe Buck's inanity.

But the Aussie Open. It was great. Andy Roddick was taking on Michael; and Roddick hit a perfect smash setup. Berrer steps up to the net, hefts his racket, sizes up the shot, leans back...
and flubs it into the net. It looked like something I had hit -- and there's a reason I haven't picked up a racket in 10+ years. Gave the courtside reporter a case of the giggles that lasted the rest of the set.

I'd like to think I'd know better....

There's a lot of things you do when you get a call as a dispatcher, and - depending on the situation - there's a lot of things you don't do.
Common sense says that one of the things you don't do when taking a '91-home' call (breakin at a residence in progress) would be to ask to talk to the intruder. Now, I don't have a copy of SanFran's priority continuum handy. But you'd think a home invasion would be near the top of the list, with or without weapon confirmaiton.
As a computer guy - and having used different Windows versions - I also find it funny that our code for a "fight in progress" is 95, while a "mass disturbance" is 98.

Sunday Morning Blues

This is a throwback, I tell you what.
One of my coworkers called in sick today, so I'm sitting up here at work, collecting an extra 11 hour shift of OT for the week. Not that I'm really complaining, mind you, the money is definitely welcome. But this was my weekend off; I had planned on spending today doing very little.
Actually, that's not quite true. Though I may have planned on doing very little, Chel had planned for me to take down the Christmas tree. Yes, our Christmas tree is still up. I don't feel too bad; as long as it's down by Valentine's day, I'll be happy.
I'm glad I have one of those jobs where I don't actually do much "work", per se. I'm not out there making things or moving things or selling things. I've said before that my job is to wait, and that's pretty accurate, really. Now, if I were in a bigger town, it'd be different; but here in Kinsley, all I really do is wait. I wait for a lot of things. I wait for my shift to be over, mostly, but I don't know of anyone who's working on their scheduled day off that doesn't feel like that. Part of that is I rarely get to talk to people who are in a good mood.
Noone calls me at work because their happy, ya know? I don't get to hear from people who are having a good day. I hear from people because their house is on fire, because their car is wrecked, because they're sick, because someone they love is stuck in jail, because something has happened they can't deal with by themselves; because - in a way that is unique for every caller - some sort of hell has broken loose in their little corner of the world, and they need help to deal with it. So, yes, I'm more than happy to sit up here and wait entire shifts never having to talk to anyone on the phone.
But I'd still rather be home with my wife.

A New Way of Working with Computers

When you first buy a new computer, you're pretty locked in to one of two choices to run the basic system: OS X (Apple) or Windows.

Well, that's not quite true. If you're willing to put in a little time and effort, there is another choice. Actually, there are a hundred choices out there, but it boils down to one family of OSes: *nix. You'll usually hear them all referred to one of the more popular branches, Linux.

You can look up the history of Linux (and the difference between it and BSD, and all the other OS options) if you're interested, but suffice to say, the basic impetus is that of all innovations at college: perceived necessity, available time, and relative poverty.

FLOSS Regularly

Free/Libre Open Source Software is a movement within the software industry away from proprietary software. Basically, it's a move to make computer science more of a pure science than an applied science: more like astronomic research and less like pharmaceutical research. The basis of FLOSS is the dissemination of knowledge; so that what one person knows, everyone can know. In software, the basic knowledge is the "source code", the behind-the-scenes programming that tells the computer's processor what to do. Share the source code - the building blocks of the program - and let people use it to build on your ideas. The upside to this mindset is that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you want to build a wheelbarrow. The downside is that such dessemination makes it much harder to make money off of the initial work.

With the tax season just around the corner, we're provided with a rather prominent example of how this works. The IRS distributes a set of static (unchanging) calculations, and instructions on how to work the calculations. And that information is available freely; anyone can go down to the local library or to http://www.irs.gov/ and pick up a copy of the calculations and instructions and do their taxes themselves. Or, they can go to a vendor who specializes in doing taxes (an accountant), give them the information to plug into the calculations, and no-muss, no-fuss the taxes are done. It's the basic premise of open source software. {OSS is slightly different than FLOSS, if taxes were "Free as in Libre", you would be able to change the underlying calculations in order to get it to work better for you. Try that with your taxes and you're looking at an audit.} The same situation with closed-source - or proprietary - software would be analogous to the IRS setting up kiosks, making you enter the information at a kiosk, and then printing out a bill or check. Yes, it gets the job done; but not disclosing the underlying methods prevents the taxpayer from being able to question or confirm that the calculations were made correctly.

Now, the next observations and comments I make solely on my own experiences with Linux. And a little effort and a little time was exactly what it took for me to get up and running.

A Little Effort

No matter what we're talking about, learning a new system takes some work. And a computer running Linux isn't running Windows, and it isn't a Mac. It's Linux, which is probably a system that's new to you, and so will require a little effort on your part to learn. And probably a little more than the first time running Windows.

Why? Well, the biggest reason is that you can change nearly everything. Which is why the mantra of back up anything you change should be running through your head constantly. Of course, the same is true when you are tweaking the workings (like the registry) of Windows.

A Little Time

Everything you do will take a little more time the first time through. Because customization is so prevalent in the Linux mindset, you can spend a more time getting things to work exactly like you want; and, well, that's just the way things are. The flipside of the coin is that because things are so customizable, once you have things set up how you want them, you're golden.

The second "time" factor comes into play when you buy accessories or upgrades. Now, in my less than humble opinion, the purchase of computer accessories and upgrades should never, ever be undertaken without first researching the part and confirming that it will work with your current computer. You wouldn't buy a program without first making sure your computer could run it; likewise, you shouldn't buy a camera, a printer, a new video card or a DVD burner without at the very least googling it to see what kind of problems you should expect and that you're going to have to deal with.

For Linux users, the step goes from optional, but recommended to absolutely necessary. It should be understood; as far as most hardware manufacturers are concerned, providing support and drivers for Linux take a distant second to making sure their product plays nice with Windows. {Drivers are the code/programming that lets the computer 'talk' to the new device.} Some manufacturers provide their own drivers for Linux; others offer nothing except well wishes. Still others will provide the specs to the Linux community and let them write their own drivers.

A Little (less) Cost

Even something that purports itself as "free" isn't. There really is no such thing as a free lunch. So what (other than time and effort) is the cost of installing Linux? Well, let's take the distro (version of Linux) that I installed, Ubuntu.

You can get Ubuntu Linux in a variety of ways. The first is to download a disc image from http://www.ubuntu.com/ and burn it to a disc yourself. If you're using Windows, you'll need a program like Nero or ImgBurn -- Windows XP doesn't handle ISO files natively -- and a CD to burn it to. You can get the download in two different install modes (LiveCD, a bootable CD that lets you try Linux without removing your existing Windows installation; and the Alternate install CD, which works on older computers, those with less memory, and select computers like HP/Compaqs that really don't want you to remove Windows) and two releases (the current 7.10 and the Long Term Support version 6.6).

The second is to actually buy the CD or DVD. Various retailers, including Amazon.com for the US, sell the DVDs. The difference between the CD and DVD is the amount of "extra" programs that are included. Of course, if you don't mind waiting 6-10 weeks, you can get single discs shipped free of charge from Canonical (the company that distributes Ubuntu); or packs of 20 for around $34 per pack.

Which is where I should probably let you in on the secret how companies expect to make money off of it. It's the same way an accountant does. The rules and regulations, the policies and everything else are out there for everyone to use if they want. Canonical - and Debian, Fedora, and all the other Distro vendors - put it together in an easy-to-use package, and are making their money by showing people how to use what's there, and providing support for companies who can't justify a full-time staff to fix things. For around $900 per desktop and $2750 per server (or $4000 for a thin client and cluster setup) per year, Canonical will provide 24/7 phone and email tech support. Compare that to anywhere from $70K-$130K/year for a senior systems administrator (Careerbuilder.com, for Dallas, TX area), and you can see why there's a market for it.

So, should you switch to Linux? Maybe, maybe not. The choice of which operating system to use is a personal one, and if you don't have a problem running Windows, there's no real reason to switch. I would suggest, though, that you at least try a LiveCD version of one of the popular Linux distros. Yes, an OS running strictly from CD will be a bit slower because you don't have access to a swap partition/virtual memory (an area of the hard disc used as/mimicing additional RAM) and because you're limited by the optical drive's capabilities (which are going to be considerably slower than your HDD). You may find that you like it better and - more importantly - can get more use out of your computer when it's running Linux.

MotD

So, what does MotD mean?

Probably the most common translation is "Message of the Day." From the BSD help page

The file /etc/motd is normally displayed by login(1) after a user has logged in but before the shell is run. It is generally used for important system-wide announcements.

MOTDs appear pretty much everywhere you go on the internet, but it's not often they're identified as such. The Yahoo! Messenger Insider is a form of MotD; basically any "welcome screen" that shows up when you log on to a service would be a MotD.

It's also the Mind of the Dingo, or now, Mind of the Deege. Is it something important? Probably not. A relic from when I actually could look at what I wrote and be proud of it; from when answers were simple, and all you had to do to change the world was make enough people believe in the idea that was right. So why bring it back?

Who knows. Maybe, just maybe, something I write will touch someone's mind or heart, make them feel good about themselves, or convince them to believe that a good idea is the right idea. Or maybe its just more verbal diarrhea clogging up the internet.