HIM – Our Diabolical Rapture

And to respond to why people make fun of Canada… um, because it’s funny? See part of it has to do with the high French population in canada, and we all know that the french are known for being rude and annoying. As for the rest of canada, the people are pretty normal, maybe even a little nicer, so it’s ok to make fun of them in a joking way… not like making fun of mexico, if you make fun of mexico you are called a racist. *shrugs* And so in the spirit of making fun of Canada, I uploaded the MST3K Canada song to my webpage, you can grab it if you want, it’s quite funny, and less than a mb:

MST3k Canada Song

*Yawn* So I got up this morning and my bot wasnt connected to the scifi server, the server had reset and he came back with -!- R²D² Erroneous nickname. Apparently the scifi server doesnt allow ascii characters in the nicks anymore! YAY!! Sure R² has to be r2d2 now, but there was just so much Perl hated about those weird characters %) r2 will work MUCH better now. %)!!!

So last night we went to the bookstore and picked up the 4th and 5th Wheel Of Time books so I didnt have to continue reading icky Degree Of Guilt. They are about 1000 pages each, so it’ll occupy me for a couple weeks, I’m gonna have to figure out something else to read after them tho, and order them from bn.com before I finish these… I am thinking I’ll read Snowcrash since it’s on my “need to read” list.. I wish I had a physical need to read list %) Oh and maybe by the time I am done with these books I will have gotten over to my friend’s house to borrow his 2001 books..

Enough about books! I have to mention something that I had to deal with yesterday. I was in #13thHour, just minding my own business, and this guy I know comes in (it was actually him and his friend at a computer chatting as the same person), and said something about how great Microsoft Spellcheck is. Now I have no idea how this program works, but after seeing all my typos they were like “haha, want a copy?” I casually refused, saying it really wouldnt be much good to me since I didn’t use windows. That’s ALL I said. Not “I dont want your stupid MS products” or “MS products are for stupid windows monkeys” or “MS is for lamers” no, nothing like that. And then I get from this guy “what’s your point? I use windows, and linux, and OSx and ….” i was like “my point is I can’t use a microsoft windows product if i am not using windows…” They totally attacked me like I was some “other OS elitest” insulting their Windows usage. I asked him why he attacked me like that but never got a responce, heh. Honestly, nothing could be further from the truth. So I started thinking about my thoughts on why I use linux, and wrote them up… I might devote a section to my site eventually on this, but for now I will just briefly outline here:

Why I Use Linux

For the work I do, perl development, image editing, web development
(using technology acceptable on ALL browsers), as well as most of my
casual computer usage (playing mp3s, chatting, surfing the web, some
gaming), linux fits almost all my needs. It is also very stable, and I
don’t have to worry about mandatory rebooting everyday so I wont lose
work. I deal with far fewer crashes when working on things, making my
time working greatly reduced. I also found the working environment of
enlightnenment emmensely beneficial, I no longer have a cluttered screen
of all my applications I am working on jumping all over each other… I
currently have 9 virtual desktops in linux, usually use about 6 at a
time. Also x doesnt use up as much memory as windows does %) And if I
get really frustrated with X using my ram I can always close it and
still do what I need to do from virtual terminals. I think my record
uptime for linux was 70 days… for windows? 3 days, and that’s with
TONS of problems… with how much I use my computer it’s really not
acceptable for me to stop everything I am doing to reboot. Also, some
games (like my beloved Unreal Tournamet!) run in linux much better than
windows. I am able to view and shut down anything that’s running in
linux to play UT using the most possible ram and processor power, in
windows I don’t have nearly the control. Did I mention that Linux is
free? Microsoft’s software is VERY expensive, and you definately don’t
get what you pay for.

Reasons Windows Still Exists

Maybe this is improperly titled. Oh well… I do sometimes boot into
windows. Why? Because I might want to work with flash, and I haven’t yet
found a linux port of Macromedia Flash studio. But I don’t use flash too
often since it’s not viewable in all browsers. So mostly my trips into
windows consist of watching streaming media. See, most streaming media
requires plugins that are only made for windows and macs… I cant watch
music videos, movie trailers, or short movies in linux because of this,
sucks? Yes of course, but there is nothing I can do about it. Also
gaming, although I can play UT in linux, most games are only playable on
the windows platform. Sure there are other games that can run on linux,
but it wont be a big movement until a few major companies make that
step… just like with anything else. In addition, print/scan/digital
imaging support for linux sucks. I boot into windows when i need to get
digital camera pics off our camera, and we use a win2k box for our
print/scan server. Now, for the beginner on the
computer windows is alright… it’s unstable, and when you install stuff
it slows your computer down with 32545 things running at the same time,
but it really is pretty easy to use. Linux does require some knowledge
of computers, and when something goes wrong people do need a brain to
fix it.

I guess in the end, it’s really a matter of time before linux is
supported by more popular software companies and is finally accepted as
a “user friendly” operating system. But there have been very great
advances with KDE and Gnome to make things look positive. Several
corporations already require their employees to use a linux graphical
desktop, and it’s really not too difficult to use! Of course I try to
push people into using linux… and me being a woman helps a lot %) Most
guys dont want to be shown up by a woman so they will give it a shot.
It’s not for everyone, but even now it’s a very good alterative.

I’ll definately need to clean up that rant a bit before I put it on my webpage %)

Moving on… I got an email from a guy I knew in Seneca Falls last night, he was always pretty cool, dropped by the store I worked at all the time to cheer me up, and we hung out sometimes, just as friends of course. He left for TN last August and I gave him my email one night while we were hanging out downtown and told him that if there was no other way of finding me, email would be it. It’s been almost a year since I heard from him, and I didn’t expect to, so it’s really made me happy %) He had no idea what happened to me and my ex after he left, said he saw my ex with “some ugly chick” last time he visited SF and asked him if he was stupid enough to dump me for her, hahaa. So I emailed him back letting him know what happened, where I was n stuff. Unfortunately I have a feeling he was hoping I was still in Seneca Falls since he mentioned he’d be “willing to move back to Seneca Falls if there was a reason to” … was that a guy just being cryptic? Lol. Oh well, he’s always been cool tho, maybe we can keep in touch through email, I’d like that..

Hmmm… oh we went grocery shopping last night ’cause we didnt have bread, or milk, or hardly anything else %) We got home and I was gonna make Myk a sandwich for him to bring to work today… I couldn’t find the bread. First I thought it was me being stupid when I put the stuff away and I just put it in the freezer or something, but I looked EVERYWHERE… even out in the Jeep to make sure I didnt leave it there. Nope. Heh… as we were leaving the grocery store the cashier was in a rush to leave and I’m sure he left our bread in a bag behind the counter and forgot about it in his eagerness to leave… flocker %( We paid for bread and the stupid Giant monkey didn’t give it to us… makes finding lunch for today really sucky, I’ll prolly have some leftover mashed potatos and chicken or something. *looks at the time* I should do that now…. but first…

PLUG is tomorrow night, we’re thinking of going, ’cause the weather has cooled down a bit today… driving into central philly when it’s hot is not my idea of a good time %) But we missed last month’s meeting ’cause Myk wasnt in the mood for it. Anyway, yeah… lunchtime.