We turned our old print/scan server into a Debian box recently, so it’s only a print server now. I was very disppointed that I wouldn’t be able to use my scanner without a lot of moving and booting into windows, but Win4Lin really is awsome. For those of you who don’t know, win4lin runs windows 98 in a terminal in linux (if you don’t know what that means there is no hope %)), Myk and I both have it installed on our computers, I can open up win4lin and do anything I would normally do in windows (assuming it’s not too graphically intense, even on Myk’s souper computer it gets slow even with a *background image* on the desktop, so no games). Well, we found out recently that it also sees parallel port devices, so we were able to get it to see the scanner, and use it!! Kickass!!! So for my first test I finally got around to scanning my license (it is a decent picture for a license picture), yay!

o/` The Cure – More Than This o/`

Yesterday evening was one of those times when I just needed to cry for no apparent reason, yay for being a girl. It was just one of those days when I couldn’t do anything right, I spent 2 hours on something stupidly simple, I quit a screen session and irc connection that had been up since December 20th! I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow that I am a bit stressed out about I guess, mostly because I don’t know how much it’ll cost… I shouldn’t worry about money so much, but I can’t help it!

So remember that wonderful 20 gig cobalt at the nearby CoLo that we thought we had to get rid of? Well as I think I have mentioned previously, if we cancel it we will be billed for half of the remaining payments, so over $500… $500 for nothing! So yesterday we decided just to keep it until the contract expires in August. We’ll be moving our IRC server back there, and probably hosting the ircservices until August. Hopefully by then we will know what is going on concerning Myk’s job and stuff, so we can find a permanent home for the services (it shouldn’t be too difficult, the problem we have currently is the services run in Windows only, the database is probably a freaking text file, and there are no stable windows boxes to host them on, so we need to migrate the services to a Unix services packages, and everyone will have to reregister everything, which sucks, but we dont have a choice). Anyway, we will be keeping our webpages on our home connection, because moving them back for ~6 months is not worth the work.

I am trying to find a project to work on. I talked to Myk about it and we didn’t get very far in our discussion because we got off on a tangent of course, so here I am, another day wasted. But then I ask myself, what does it mean exactly to waste a day? Is spending a day reading wasted? Is spending a day playing video games or chatting on IRC more wasted than if I spend it working on a webpage that doesnt extend my abilities in HTML or PHP? Is spending a day learning about history I missed in school wasted? I think this is the biggest problem with this “rut” i am in. I don’t know what to label an “acomplishment” so I go in circles. And I really do want to do work in Perl, I really do want to do more with MySQL, I want to make my page better with more PHP, but I just don’t know where to begin! The guestbook and poll were very sucessful ventures, I need something like that. Or an idea for a cool script for my IRC Bot. I need ideas before I drive myself crazy with inactivity. On the bright side my Neopets get a lot of attention in times like this %D

Hrm, so this morning I was talking to someone about my website (rather abstractly, because he asked) and I decided to see how big my site is… 124 MB YAY! Hehe… maybe I will just do some useless work on princessleia.com today to pass the time…

I finished Dune Messiah yesterday. I’ll type up the review eventually, great book though, I can see why this series is so popular, I really love it.

*wanders off*

o/` Stabbing Westward – Perfect o/`

*sneezes*

I hate mondays

Saturday morning a friend, Bob, emailed Myk and asked if we wanted to go to a computer show around 2ish. Sure. Apparently he had heard it closed at 4, but it wasn’t too far so we should get there in time to spend a while there. Bob came and picked us up in his new BMW (whee!) and we droveout toward the convention center. We pay the toll to get off the turnpike, and there is TONS of traffic on the other side! We look to the right, and there is MORE traffic! Bob says “uh, I think that is where we need to be” At this point it’s about 2:35. So we’re sitting in traffic, and we hear on the radio that the sale at the convention center is open til 9! It’s worth sitting in this traffic ’cause at least we will get there before 9. We finally get onto the off-ramp in the direction we need to go around 3:15 (about 700 ft from the toll booth, not joking) and then we sit in a little faster moving traffic until about 3:45. Finally we get to the convention center, find a parking space and walk through the doors of the computer show at 3:53. “Closing in 7 minutes!” we hear. NO!!! We turn around and leave, ’cause even though it’s only open another 7 minutes they were still wanting to charge the $6 admission fee. Turns out the computer show is just part of the bigger sales show going on, and the rest of it lasts til 9, but not the computer show.

Personally I’d really rather pay 3 times as much at a store or online dealer I can trust for my computer parts. The last computer part I bought at a computer show was speakers and a subwoofer for my system. They lasted about 6 months. I hate computer shows anyway, the dealers always ignore me and focus on trying to sell things to the guy I happen to be with… seriously, I thought I was just being paranoid again but I did several tests to confirm my suspicions. Anyway, after the failed computer show venture we decided to go to Unos (Bob is the guy we often go to Unos with on saturdays). I had two beers (satiated my beer craving, yay!) and a chicken sandwich. It was yummie.

Then we went home. I finished Wyrd Sisters, wrote up a review, and actually got around to updating my Books page, which I hadnt done in a few weeks.

Wyrd Sisters, By Terry Pratchett, 265 pages
This next book in the Discworld series focuses on three witches, Gytha “Nanny” Ogg, Magrat, and Esmeralda “Granny” Weatherwax. The small woody kingdom that they call home is taken over by a foriegn duke and the witches are asked, for the first time ever, to pay taxes. When they refuse it’s obvious to the duke that these women are evil! Personally, I prefer the Discworld novels that concern themselves with wizards, but I really liked this book. The amusing antics of the witches, combined with a wonderful cas of characters, which included a dwarf playwrite, a lost prince, and a very uncontent Fool, make for another fun-filled glimpse at the life on the Disc.

Yesterday I spent most of the day reading. Started Dune Messiah, almost finished it too, I think I only have about 40 pages left. It’s good, but not a whole lot happens, I can definately see how the new scifi channel’s “Children Of Dune” movie can absorb the second book’s important parts pretty easily, Messiah would definately not make it’s own movie (scifi miniseries) without being boring. I think I’ll read Brave New World next. I havent read that in a while, and that time was under “school reading pressure” hehe… I enjoyed it even under those circumstances, so I think I will really enjoy reading it again. Then there are … hmm 8 books on my shelf I still havent read, yay!

Bleh, my net connection sucks this morning. It’s stable… but I am lagging 3-6 seconds on every ircserver I’m on %( And surfing the net is crazy-slow … I will just hope it’s someone surfing our sites and not our connection flaking out for the first time in a month.

Anyway, I am going to try to work on some stuff and *hope* my connection doesnt go to hell %) *wanders off*

o/` Tool – Parabola o/`

I recently have been having a bit of ‘trouble’ with this friend of mine. He comes to me for advice, and obviously goes to a lot of people for the same advice, which in itself is no problem, but he seems to do it AT THE SAME TIME as he is talking to me. He gets irritated when I do not respond quickly at times, yet leaves 10 minutes between his responces and mine! I honestly want to be of help, but I can’t help but feel he is taking advantage of me. I spend time thinking about his problems and offering honest advice and he is barely there to respond to what I say! Now I wouldn’t be saying this if it was an occasional thing, and I haven’t brought it up in the past because I feel moderately guilty about feeling this way. I really am willing to be of help to anyone, because I know what it’s like to depend on the comfort of a few close friends. But this friend seems to try to draw tons of attention to himself, and then take evertyhing he hears and everyone he hears it from for granted. I understand he is going through a confusing time, and I suppose everyone has ways of dealing with it, but all he is doing now is pushing me away… should I be honest with him about how I feel? I am very afriad that he will take it the wrong way and end our friendship… but I am also afraid that I might snap one day with his endless pleadings for advice and tell him “I DON’T FUCKING CARE” … when that is totally not what I feel. Bleh.

*shivers*

The apartment feels so much colder when I wake up on mornings when Myk is home. Probably because I am forced to leave a nice warm bed to wake up (warmer than it would be if I was in it alone anyway)… so the air is so much crueler (is that a word?) when I wake up… plus I have the option of going back to that wonderful warmness *frowns at her cold feet*

#13thHour was fairly busy yesterday afternoon, had something like 14 people there, so I found something to do, yes chat! And I did a bit of updating to the #13thHour Site, added a section so it’s easy to get to R2’s information database (the password protected one) and gives instructions on how to access the bot through IRC. It’s all very simple, but you wouldn’t believe how much explaination it takes %( especially since I need to be VERY clear about everything, or my non-computer friends will be completely lost, they are so lucky I am patient… speaking of which…

I met another person who “can’t read the readme.” She is running Windows XP and got a virus through Kazaa (ugh!), and came into IRC and said “I have a virus and I can’t get rid of it.” First I ASSUMED that she had attempted to get rid of it, but all she did (using norton) was quarentine the files. So I went to the Symantec website, found the virus description and fix, and pasted the URL in channel. Now if you have every been to the Symantec website, you’d know that their “get rid of this virus” instructions are VERY straight-forward, to the point of saying “click start, then run, then type regedit” … so even a monkey could fix their problem. But this chick just couldnt get it “I read the instructions but I don’t understand” … now I don’t know if this was because she was just a flaming idiot (I dont know her well) or because she was afraid to edit something that she had never seen before. So I literally copied each step DIRECTLY FROM THE WEBSITE and pasted it in channel so she could get rid of her virus. It was so absurd. I don’t know why I bother wasting my time with people like that, cant freaking think for themselves.

Anyway, this problem of inability to “read the readme” is fairly widespread. I guess that’s what really deterred me from making my guestbook setup happy and user-friendly for people to download. The last thing I need is some idiot asking me how to read the instructions I very carefully wrote. And here I had been downplaying some of my acomplishments because all I did was read the readme, HAH! Now I know it’s a talent… /end extreme sarcasm

I also did a bit of editing to my .muttrc file (mutt is a text-based mail program). All I really wanted to do was change some of the colors from green to magenta (like irssi, and lilo, and my lyz@r2d2 prompt in terminals…). It was surprisingly simple %) Pretty Happy Matching irssi and mutt

I started doing a bit of ‘promoting’ for WallaceAndGromit.net. It basically consisted of going to a bunch of Wallace And Gromit sites, signing their guestbooks, and emailing the site owners to ask permission to link their site to mine… I ask to link anyone now after an incident were someone (strangely enough) did not want their site to linked to a “high traffic site like princessleia.com.” Why would someone make a website if they didnt want hits? *shakes her head* Anyway, I was very disappointed to find out that there are virtually *no* new Wallace And Gromit sites! Even the ones out there are full of broken links, and havent been updated in years. It’s sad really… Hopefully with the full length movie coming out in 2005 there will be a surge of new sites %) And maybeI will get a bit more traffic to my site (470 hits since October 15th … I guess that isn’t terrible maybe I am just spoiled by the success of princessleia.com).

Anyway, I am gonna go find something to do (and try not to crawl back into bed
*must resist call of bed*

o/` Hooverphonic – Magenta o/`

I don’t think this will be a long entry, I don’t have much to say.

Last night I was very very tired, I really dont know why I’ve been so tired the past couple weeks, I think it’s ’cause we are trying to go to bed earlier (10ish) and getting up at 7, I am probably just trying to get used to this new schedule. Watched some TV, read a little. It snowed sometime during the night.

Woke up this morning, there was only about a half of inch of snow outside, but still enough to make things look pretty. I cleaned the apartment.. did a bunch of extra stuff too that i don’t do every week (cleaning the whole stove, waxing some of the furnature) .. so it basically took all morning. At least it saved me from the problem of figuring out what to do all morning or feeling like I’ve wasted my time %) And I learned fast that there is a positive side to having a dry apartment, the floors dry really fast!

I don’t think we are going to do anything this weekend. The whole “trying to save money” thing really prohibits much activity. But that’s ok, another relaxing weekend at home is perfectly fine with me.

Of course, as is my terrible luck, after all that work for the test site for ukscifi.net (you can view the work I did here: http://www.princessleia.com/ukscifi/) the owner of UKScifi says “well, I like your design, but I want to incorporate my current site with it… etc, etc, etc. I KNEW this would happen, he probably wont even use my design, or he’ll just steal things from it to make his site better *sigh* I guess I should have expected this… Well, I DID… but I guess I just wasnt being realistic. On the bright side, Myk still has bevilacqua.us that needs to be made into a site (currently it just points to clockbot.net), so maybe I can do a bit of work on that %)

Yeah, I guess that’s it. I dunno what I’ll do this afternoon… prolly surf the net and chat or something, since I don’t feel much motivation to do much else… *wanders off*

Stupid dumb Bush, he is going to cause a war. I don’t want war %(

o/` Crowded House – Don’t Dream It’s Over o/`

I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I am very annoyed by people who have problems using email. Like my sister Heather. I email her a question, simple, like asking my mother’s phone number or something, and she’ll never reply! I had to get her attention on instant messanger, or on IRC, or when she decided to call me on the phone. What is this fear of email!? Then there are people like my mother who will call me instead of using email, knowing full well my hatred of phones *sigh* Then of course there are the people I write 3 page emails to, and they thing an appropriate responce is saying “hi” on IM… rar. Then there are people who actually send emails, and they send them in HTML … or they have a facination with sending fwds, no matter how many times I ask them not to. I mentioned in IRC this morning that I should write an email ediquette book, then I found out that it’s been done, I think that book should be issued with the purchase of every new PC…. hee

It’s nice and cold out, currently about 24, so it’s not the painful cold like we used to get in Maine. When I lived in Maine we lived right next to the coast, and so it was always windy, and in the winter it was the kind of wind that doesnt bother going around a person, it tries to go directly through them, chills to the bone. The wetness in your nose freezes and unprotected lips chap in 13 seconds. I don’t know if I miss that sort of cold, but this temperature is prefectly fine, I can definately say I will miss this cold weather if we move to florida. Florida. *sigh*! I guess a guy from the facility down in FL sent Myk some pictures today of the area, says it’s a nice area, and housing is nice and fairly inexpensive. We still don’t KNOW we are moving yet… but it looks like they are getting ready to make an offer and hope he accepts. I still don’t know exactly what I think of this all, “weary but willing” would be a good term for it.

I am helping the admin of ukscifi design a new website. I don’t know why exactly, but I am pretty sure it’s a mix of being bored and being vain. I am not a big fan of the admin there, he is a liar, and I dont like liars… but having MY WORK on ukscifi.net really draws me to this project… it’s a fairly popular website. I just hope the admin goes through with this project and all my work yesterday and this morning will not be useless.

Uh, I guess that’s all I feel like writing for noew *wanders off*

o/` Cake – Sad Songs And Waltzes o/`

It’s really dry in our apartment. It always gets like this in the winter, and dryness + long hair = static electricity. TONS of it, the only relief I get from it is my shower in the morning, and then my hair is wet. I put my hair up (like i NEVER do) last night because I was getting so sick of it, and of course as soon as I take it down to go to sleep I’m *zapping* everything again. *Stays away from computer insides and gas pumps* (the news media around here seems to be obsessed with warning people about gas + static electricity, and how it causes explosions sometimes).

Sometimes I complain too much. Looking back at some of my oldest xanga entries, I noticed that I was more positive in those… maybe it was because I was getting out a bit more, and it had only been 5 months or so since I was employed.. an entire year definately adds to this “hopeless” feeling %) I also didn’t care at all about getting comments, which I seem to check for often now… I guess I still dont “care” about them exactly, s’just I never looked for the multiple times a day, maybe I am just getting bored %) Yesterday I was definately bored. An entire internet out there and I just couldn’t *focus* enough to do anything, so after playing with my neopets for a bit I decided to read. Which was good, I finished the WOT book 10… and I am finally going to write up some reviews, yay!

Between The Rivers, By Harry Turtledove, 408 pages
I found this book very difficult to get into, and as a whole, rather boring. It was the tale of the world at the dawn of civilization, when gods ruled each town, and men were subject to their direct rule. It tells of the city and people of Gibil, the city of the lazy god, and how this god’s laziness struck fear of man’s independence in neighboring gods. Of course it is only a matter of time before the weakness of the gods is found and men elsewhere begin to rule themselves. I guess I would have enjoyed this book more if the characters were more developed, if was difficult for me to feel for even the MAIN character because he just was not believable enough. During the whole book I was waiting for something substantial to happen, and although the end does get a bit better, it was not really worth it, I don’t think I’d recommend this book.

The Last Hero, By Terry Pratchett and Illustrated by Paul Kidby, 160 pages
This large, illustrated book really intrigued me, I found it at one of those warehouse bargin bookstores and immediately grabbed it. It is a book of Pratchett’s discworld that tells of a group of older heros on a quest to “return the fire to the gods” and the journey by some of Discworld’s more powerful leaders to stop them, as this would destroy the world. As always, I greatly enjoyed Pratchett’s wit, and how wonderfully funny his characters are. The story itself was wonderful and greatly entertaining. It was also quite a treat to see visual adaptations of our beloved wizard Rincewind, and Death, and the spectacular pictures of the disc itself. I belive those who havent read any of Pratchett’s other books would even enjoy this, I will definately be reading this again and again

Sourcery, By Terry Pratchett, 260 pages
This is another book in the Discworld series. It tells of the eighth son of an eighth’s son’s eighth’s son, who is a sourceror of course, named Coin. Directed by the staff that holds the soul of his father, young Coin sets out to take over the world. As usually is the case, the wizard Rincewind is pulled into being the hero throught coincidence and mistake. A group of witty and funny characters, included the beloved luggage, fill every page of this book with “I can’t put it down” humor. Great book.

Book Nine: Winter’s Heart, By Robert Jordan, 780 pages
As with book eight, the complexity of the story continuing in this book causes it to move rather slowly. This book begins slowly and ends with 200 pages where it’s difficult to tear yourself away. Along with catching up with Mat, it further describes the invasion of the
Seachan, and more about their social hierarchy. Characters are reunited joyously and the last portion of this book leads you to understand more of the soul behind the renegade Asha’men, and several other large and small surprised and wonderous acomplishments, in the light.

Book 10 came out this month, and although I really want to wait until it’s in paperback, I am SO tempted to spend $18 on the hardcover (that’s with 40% off… since it’s $4 of top ten books sold at bn.com currently … currently #32 on New York Times Bestseller list). *Sigh* it’ll prolly be over a year until the paperback is for sale! Oh well…

I have no idea what I am going to do today. I am still on that “wow I got every goal I set for myself acomplished” kick… I am having trouble focusing as well, I think it’s because I have been sleeping a bit more than usual 8-10 hours a night, and when I wake up I am groggy, and that groggy feeling doesnt go away very quickly.

Two of my toes hurt. *sighs as she looks at her right foot* I probably hit them on something recently that I don’t remember… I am very clumsy and hardly ever remember where any of my bruises or other minor injuries come from %) But one of my toes is definately swollen, it’s not broken ’cause it still bends fine (not that anything can be done for a little broken toe anyway), and the other has a distinct area that is very pinkish… you never notice how much you depend on even your smallest toes to walk until one is hurt %( and I never notice how often I hit my feet on things accidentally until now. Yay toes.

So the guy who offered Myk a job in Florida called him yesterday. I am not sure if he has an official offer yet, but he was telling Myk all about how great the facility is down there… no cubicles, everyone has an office! *GASP!* When he told me this I laughed and asked if it was indeed the same company. “Yeah,” he said “No wonder my current facility is shutting down, it sucks compared to the others!” Bleeeh florida %) I hope he gets an official offer from them soon, I really would like to know whether or not we are moving down there, so I can plan a visit to see family again before a plane trip is required for that. And I know that Myk is seriously stressed out from work. Apparently just recently the *lost* his resume, and apparently they need the resume he was hired with on file, so they emailed him to get it. This was just the tip of the iceburg concerning the stupid mistakes this company has been making. The day he got the email about them requesting a copy of his resume one of his co-workers laughed and said “man, you are living in a dilbert comic!” … It’s not as funny as it seems! %)

Hmm, this is a long entry. Sometimes I wonder if I spend too much of my life writing about my life and not living it. Then I remember that having a life is very difficult currently… eh… at least I have people I talk to in IRC %) I NEED to find something to do today… *wanders off in search of something to work on*

o/` Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees o/`

Second entry of the day, yay.

So I said I was going to play with my bios this morning right? Ugh…

Fun With My BIOS

Hehe

I thought it would be fun to make a “splash” screen when my computer starts up, and my Asus motherboard came with all the software needed to acomplish this task, so I boot into windows and install the software.

The software isn’t the prettiest I have ever seen, it’s actually rather sad looking, but for some reason I decide to trust it, and I discover this neat little “backup your bios” tool included! Kickass.. I backup into a file on my harddrive (and onto a floppy disk just in case I need it in that format). Mistake number 1? Trusting this software.

I had a splash page that I prepared in The Gimp while still in linux. I go through the easy “do this then hit next” wizard, which includes pointing to the bios config file that I saved, and at the end of it they say to reboot the computer so things will work. I reboot.

The splash screen works! YAY!

I get an error about a missing “FastTrack Controller” … now I had had this error before, and Myk fixed it somehow while helping me out with my system. It’s not a terrible error, it still boots, but it’s silly to have an error like that. So I boot into windows.

“Wizard has detected new hardware, run hardware installation wizard now?” … WTH? I thought at first it was redetecting my normal Nic card, because windows sometimes likes to install drivers mulitple times (for fun?) so I cancel that and assume it’s just a silly windows thing. I go online to search for that FastTrack Controller error, and the first hit is for the P4S8X (my motherboard) help messageboard … apparently by default the ATA/Raid controller is Enabled, stupid? Yes. I restart so I can disable this in the bios… but why was it all of a sudden enabled? I reboot, go into the bios, change that back to Disabled, and go back to windows.

“Wizard has decected new hardware…” This is when it dawns on me that there is obviously something else wrong… why was something re-enabled that I had disabled? What is this driver that Windows wants to install? The driver for the SiS nic card.. my onboard nic card that I had disabled. Reboot.

Go into the bios, check my settings, and sure enough, EVERYTHING is set back to the defaults!!! That bios config backup tool *didnt work* So I fix everything in the bios (i hope!) and putter back off to linux.

Now this adventure would not have been so bad if it didn’t take half the morning %) Ugh! So much wasted time… I wasn’t even about to mess with the sounds on startup, it would be cheesy anyway, and probably get annoying %)

*looks at the time* Hrm, I suppose there is something I can work on for the rest of the day, I’ll think of something, if all else fails I can always look for quotes to add to my random quote file on my website *wanders off*