August 2001 Archives

Circular Links?
So today I was watching the apache logs for my site like I always do and I noticed a bunch of traffic coming from http://www.curry.com/. Being the curious type I bopped on over there and started reading down in today's posts and came across this. I dig getting linked to from other people's pages. I'm such a blognoser.
Thanks for the support Adam!

Lung stuff.
Well, kind of. I was over at Anime on DVD yesterday and saw a link to to http://www.lungsforjill.org/. Given that I'm waiting for a lung too it just felt right to put up a link to her site. It also made me realize I should dig up some links on my site that point to information on Organ Donation.

I admit it these days. I've become a mac user. Since I got my TiBook I've had a hard time using my windows machine. Here's an article from yahoo about apple and OS X. I dig OS X.

In the category of 'everyone else seems to be doing it'. I went to Stor Entertainment Ltd and generated a storTrooper of myself:

I feel so silly

It's official.

I am now active again on the transplant list. I actually feel a little stunned about the whole thing again. I'm not quite at the hands shaking level, but I think I am just still way nervous about the whole thing. Hopefully in a day or so I'll settle back down. I feel like I'm in the home stretch of a race and there is no looking back.

I've already decided that if I'm anywhere near a computer when this happens that one of the first things I'll do is quickly make an entry here so that people know I've gone in. I'm hoping that once I get through surgery and out of intensive care I'll be able to use my computer and start making some updates about how my recovery going. Plus I figure that will help keep me sane. I expect that I'll be in the hospital for around three weeks. Basicly, once you are recovered enough to do things you basicly go into recovery mode, where you are exercising, learning about the medications you'll be taking, and basicly learning how to live your life with this new lung in you. From the looks of it I'll be kept quite busy.

Wish me luck!

So I just woke up because I was sure that I heard something underneith my bed. But of course as soon as I woke up, no sound. Not even a peep 15 minutes later. So now I've finally relaxed enough that I can .

Okay, this is scary, and just a little bit wrong.
A guy wants to be a tiger man.

So I just was looking at blogger.com and saw this little tidbit.

Hey! Maybe there is hope for me yet! Though, with some of what I post here I can see them running in the opposite direction. ;)

No zannah, you aren't the last one to know about Wil Wheaton's weblog. I'm sure I must be.

I thought his page and blog were suprisingly kinda cool. Moreso then I would have expected. Okay, I admit it, my expectations were pretty damn low.

What is the deal with code red? Isn't this thing EVER going to go away? Last night I must have gotten about 15 probes from it, a good 5 of them from the same machine.

So I've been fiddling around with my archives some and came up with a way to bookmark individual entries in my archives. Now this isn't that big a deal to lots of people out there with blogs, because blogger already does that by default. The problem was that I'd wrapped the whole thing in PHP and so all that typical stuff wasn't working. Now to see the link to an archived article, click on the time it was posted (you'll notice it's a link), and presto you're there.

I'm glad I got this done because I've been wanting to have someplace I can reference blog postings that I see as important, and it makes this all that much easier.

WOW. I mentioned before that I got a copy of Kiki's Delivery Service on DVD. Well I'm finally watching it and am stunned by the picture quality. I've had this movie on tape for years, but it was a copy of a copy and had a kind of muted look. This DVD is so vibrant with its colors. I love DVDs.

Deep breath time.

I talked to one of my doctors today at the Lung Transplant Clinic (finally), and indicated that I was ready to reactivate on the list. They have a weekly staff meeting where they discuss such things and I should know Thursday afternoon for sure if I am reactivated. Though, the doctor I spoke with said she doesn't think there will be any issues.

This is a huge step for me. Back when I was called a few months ago I was so mentally unprepared for this. Now, I'm still scared as all heck about it, but I'm ready to face it. My guess is that since I've been called once already, the chances of me being called sometime soon are a bit higher. I'll post some more details about that whole process on the lung page soon if anyone is interested in reading about that.

Farscape, One of the better sci-fi shows on TV right now starts a daily run on the Sci-Fi Channel. It'll be showing at 8pm Monday thru Thursday. As far as epic shows go, this one is great. It starts out a bit slow, but it just keeps getting better and better.

I hate when I have busy days like this. I don't even get to update this at all.

It's now after 4 and I haven't eaten yet. I'm STARVING. I'm trying to figure out if I should go home and make myself something reasonably healthy or get fast food on the way home.

Work has been CRAZY today. I think I'll probably end up falling asleep very soon after getting home.

Even the most ordinary stuff seems surreal when you wake up in a cough syrup-induced haze.

So lately I've been catching Samurai Jack on Cartoon Network. I have to say this is one of the more intersting cartoons I've seen lately. Especially of ones produced in the US. The way the episodes are produced is very cool. For instance, in the first episode a good chunk of the story is told purely with images and music, no dialogue. (I thought it worked quite well).

I highly recommend checking it out.

I just saw Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
Picoreview: Snootchie Bootchie!

One thing I hate about the building I live in is that it holds heat really well. So that when it is nice and cool and comfy outside at night, it's still too hot inside.

Wow, what a nice relaxing day it has been so far. I woke up kind of early and puttered around the house for a bit and decided to head out to Harvard Square to get a ham & cheese croissant and read a bit, then maybe do some shopping. It was a great start to the day. I love watching people in Harvard Square, and right by the Au Bon Pain is one of the best places to do it. The air was still a bit chilly from last night, which was quite comfortable.
Then I wandered around for a bit, picked up some Ranma books, the El-hazard box set that just came out and made my way back home. I think it might be naptime.

So I finally got around to breaking the sunrise set up into tracks so that I can burn it to CD. Anyone who'd like a copy drop me a line with your address and I'll see if I can get one out to you. (Though I'll warn you that I'm a slacker and it may take a while :))

So this company online CD Japan is an amazing place for picking up japanese music CDs and anime DVDs. Weekly they send out announcements of what their upcoming preorders are. I hate it when they come up with things like this (because I want it SOOOO much!):

LUPIN THE THIRD second tv, DVD-BOX (Title subject to change) (DVD)
Catalog Number: VPBY-11912 Price: Yen-105,000 , US$(880.95) Release Date:
05-12-2001
A collectors item containing all 155 episodes of 'Shin Lupin Sansei (LUPIN
THE THIRD second tv)' which was aired from 1977 through 1980. Hayao
Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke) directed the episodes 145 and 155 under the
name Tsutomu Teruki. Like the 1st TV BOX set, these episodes are
remastered and refined new prints. Comes in special Box. 13 packs of '2 in
1 keep cases' with booklet enclosed.

Almost NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS! AIE!

So I ordered a few poster/wallscrolls from The Right Stuf (which, btw, rules for most things anime related). My 'cube' at work had been looking a little bleak, so I've been looking for things to brighten it up. I got two, one is a Cardcaptor Sakura wallscroll, and the other is a Gasaraki poster. Pretty cool. I'll have to get a pic of my desk up for people to see sometime soon.

So, I have found out that my Pirate Name is:

Captain Harry Kidd

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

So this morning I get a call at 6am saying that the power is out at work. I make my way up there slowly, since there wasn't much I could do once I got there, and once I get there they decide to send everyone home to work from home. So, I finally get home, traffic was insane, and power comes back on again. Sheesh. Never a dull moment. At least I didn't have to drive back in. I got to stay in air conditioned happiness all day.

I think it is naptime now.

Book of the moment: The Practice of System and Network Administration
I'd heard about this book coming out a few months ago and was really psyched about what I heard of it. It just arrived at the bookstore today and I leafed through it and decided to pick up a copy for me and ones for my two sysadmins. So far, this book seems like a great 'how to be a sysadmin' manual from the more general side of things. There are tons of books on system administration for every OS out there, but this covers that area of "but why do I do it that way?" or "what do other people do?". I'll post a more complete review of the book when I finish reading/skimming through it (including the index it is over 750 pages long!)

LOTD: Underground
I found this flash game from a link on zannah's site and need to stop playing it! If you like dancing type games at all this thing is pretty keen. Multi-player too. Give it a try!

So I got my first R2 DVD today in the mail. So I finally get to test out that feature on my DVD player. The DVD I got is Kiki's Delivery Service (Majo no Takkyubin). This is probably one of my favorite Miyazaki films ever. It was definitely the first I saw. Totoro is due out next week and I can't wait to get it.
On the other hand, all the text on the box is in Japanese and now I think I'm going to have to learn it enough to at least understand DVD cases.

I forgot to post this last week, but I noticed that my friend Colleen made it to the Continental Divide on the bike trek she is on. I'm way psyched for her. This bike ride sounds like it has been quite an ordeal and it's so cool that she's made it so far! If you happen to be going to Burning Man she'll be working at some massage tent there. You should head over and tell her Gregory said to say hi. You can read about the bike trip over on http://www.intrepidheroines.net/.
On a related note. I can't wait till she gets back because I've been lazy and haven't found another massage therapist since she's been out of town.

So I created a Live Journal. I don't know that I'm going to post anything to it, since I have my blog here. The main reason I created it was to make it easier to read all my friend's journals. I've been trying to think of just what kind of things I should post to it. Maybe I'll try and remember my dreams and write them down in it or somerhing. Or maybe I'll just record what I had for lunch every day.

LOTD: Sam & Max
Sam & Max rule.

So today I ended up heading to New Hampshire to see my parents and some cousins who I don't get to see often. I had a wonderful time. They have a place on this lake. It was very cool to relax and visit with family. One thing that was great was seeing cousins I probably hadn't seen in around 15-17 years or so. Given that they are all close to my age it is kind of suprising I hadn't tried to get a hold of them earlier.
I do plan on keeping in touch with them.

The other thing today made me realize is that I do need to get out of the city now and then. I do love it in the city, but it is so nice to just get away from it all.

So it feels like a nice Saturday. But I'm still not quite sure what I'm going to be doing. My parents want me to drive up to NH to see some relatives. It actually sounds great. At the same time. I have to be somewhat around to drop of CDs for Bree. Though, she doesn't need them till at least 9 tonight, so I'm probably safe there. There is a beach party going on tonight, which I would love to be able to go to. I'm still deciding, though I think I might head up to visit with family. It's on a lake, from the look of it I can't see it being more then an hour and a half away. I can put on a CD and that will take me almost the whole way. It's also on a lake, I could bring a book or two to read while up there and just relax. And I just had someone IM me that it Rocks there.

Some quick recent DVD reviews.
I got The Right Stuff from Netflix. I'd actually never seen this before and thought it was pretty damn good. My one wish is that the DVD had been a double layer DVD so that I didn't have to flip it over halfway through. I also caught up on some Farscape, and saw and episode I hadn't seen before, which was pretty cool. And right now I'm working my way through an anime CD for a series called Lost Universe. So far it's pretty fun.

Cool news from the SciFi channel. Farscape will be showing four days a week (Monday thru Thursday) starting Monday, August 27. For those of you who haven't seen this show I highly recommend it. It still think it's one of the best SF shows on TV these days.

LOTD: Boong-ga Boong-ga
There is nothing at all I could possibly say about this to even do it justice

All day meetings suck.

more later

Well, Mike blew it. He was breaking into USDS and got caught by the guards. I had a feeling this would happen. I had hacked into their security system and was watching him just stand there as the guard came to get him. He didn't even try to get away. I do feel slightly sorry for him. I get the feeling Jenkins is probably messing with him bad. He did have it coming though.

LOTD: ::: presstube + pitaru = insertsilence :::
This is just a really cool little flash thing that my friend Pete pointed me at last night. It's quite keen!

I have an Anime series to add to my list of favorites. I just finished watching The Irresponsible Captain Tylor and I have to say that it is definitely one of the best shows I've ever seen. It has such a good mix of comedy, action and drama. And once again it is one of those shows that starts out seeming like nothing out of the orginary. If you're an anime fan, I recommend it.

So I just saw Legally Blonde. I wasn't sure what I was going to think about it, but I ended up really liking it. It was quite fun. The one thing that sucked about the movie was this person sitting behind me. I'm glad he enjoyed the movie, but did he really have to repeat the last word in almost every single funny line? I realized that I've actually had decent luck with going to the movies and having to deal with obnoxious people in the theatre. I just haven't run into them that often (I hope I haven't just jinxed myself!)
Anyways, I recommend this movie. It is quite fun.

Watching Robotech right now and having big flashbacks to watching it as a kid. I remember rushing home every day so that I could see it.

So, while yesterday started out fairly crappy, it ended up quite well.
To recap. I woke up at around 4:30 am coughing. Bleh. I go into work, and there are power issues. Bigtime power issues. One cube would have power, the next would have power in half the outlets, the next none, and so on randomly. Then it all finally died, and then came back 10 minutes later. It was still flakey though, and as I left to go to my hair appointment I was nervous.
On the plus side, I got my hair done. I had needed a cut for a while, so it feels good to have nice short hair again. Then, I get home to find that my friend Chris has sent me the CD single for Personal Jesus, which I really wanted for the b-side Dangerous. And then I finish up this really cool mug at the Clayroom. Quite a nice finish to the day (even though power did die one more time while I was getting my hair cut).

Ahh, nothing like losing power at work.
We just had what must be a brownout. The lights were on and about half of the UPSes were going off. It was enough to make one go insane.

So I know I've mentioned before how most days I have the access_log for my web site scrolling in a small window at the bottom of my screen. It's purely an ego thing. I like knowing that someone is visiting my site now and then.
Now and then I see a referal that just makes me go "HUH?". Todays is:
http://www.google.com/search?q=ultra-vixens+boston&hl=en&safe=off&start=10&sa=N
I'm trying to remember when I had the words Ultra Vixens in my blog. For some reason that doesn't quite look like something I'd be posting about. Now I'm going to have to grep through my archives and see where this comes from.

Musings on music and DJing
There have been some interesting posts flying around on one of the rave mailing lists I'm on talking about. A lot of it talking about things like how much an artist a DJ really is. I'm not really sure that I'd think of a DJ is an artist. If anything he is more like an actor in a play, or someone reading a story to someone. If they are really good, and the source material is really good, they can move you with it. On the other hand, it could just as easily bore you (I guess the other half of this could get into the whole idea of what someone's personal repetoire brings to the plate). But in the end, I think a lot of being a DJ is just about playing music that you like, that you hope other people will like too. And that you'll be able to make them dance when you play it.
I do think about how the music will affect the people listening to it. I do like to think that I can affect their mood to some extent. When I look out across a crowd of people and see them dancing and smiling then I'm pretty sure I'm achieving it.

I'm still not coping real well with the idea that I might not be able to spin out at clubs after the transplant. I've got my fingers crossed and I'm playing it all by ear, but it still sucks. It's probably going to be close to a year before I can even think about doing it again.

holy crap.
They've been tracking me somehow. I found a scanned in document at USDS that had my name, and that indicated some kind of tracking they'd done of me. And it wasn't even recent, it was from years ago. I dunno, the whole thing seems kind of creepy. My name was the last I expected to find in there. Damn. I'm not sure what this means at all.

Ha. I got this guy's secretary to give me his login and password. I hope to be able to hack into the USDS site this morning and see what I can dig up there about Majestic. I'm a little nervous doing this, but I just have to know what the heck is going on. I hope I don't get caught.

Augh, damn blogger. (actually, it works more often then not so I shouldn't complain)
Anyways. I was just saying that I woke up coughing at around 4:30 this morning. I hate it when that happens. Because it's always this dry raspy cough. Well, actually, it's always a dry nasty cough. There's something about laying down that does it. I wonder if it has to do with needing more oxygen when sleeping. I seem to remember reading that you require more oxygen when sleeping then you do when just sitting around. Anyways. I'm awake now. Considering heading down to work early. I've got that coffee craving and it won't be quite as warm out.

So I realized today that I haven't spun in about 2 weeks. I had unplugged everything to use the powerstrip for my computers as I was rewiring them. It's weird. I keep going over to spin and then remembering that nothing is plugged in. Spinning has been such an important part of my life and to now have practiced in this long feels weird. On the other hand. I have been quite busy with getting the whole network set up in my apartment and that has taken up that other time. Now that I think of it, I think I'll spin for a bit now.

So I finally got around to learning procmail. I have to say this is actually quite cool. I'm pretty amazed at the level of power you can have in filtering messages. I'm not sure why I never did this before. No, wait, I do know. I'm lazy. I have a wonderful knack to just put off things until I really need to learn them and then go "damn, I was such an idiot!" Of course this now means that there must be something better then procmail out there that I just haven't heard about yet and I'll have to change everything in another 6 months.

LOTD: Sheep Across the World
A page about sheep. Everything you'd ever want to know. In fact, probably more then you ever wanted to know. BAA RAM EWE.
(shamelessly stolen from zannah's blog because I thought it was hysterical)

While this isn't the link of the day, this is a great article on Mac OS X. It is written from the standpoint of someone who is a unix user (specificly BSD). It's nice to see people looking at OS X as something different then your typical Mac OS. Existing Mac users will still have issues with it. But that is to be expected. In many cases you're asking them to change how they've been doing things for years. I actually think it was pretty cool for apple to make the drastic a jump.

Another quick anime review:
I just picked up some of the later DBZ episodes on DVD. After the intensity of the episodes prior to this (The Cell Games), these are great. They are hysterical. I can't wait to watch more!

While browsing through news stories I ran into a story about some guy being chased through a Maryland Motel. I wonder if this is Mike. That idiot is going to get himself killed if he's not careful.

LOTD: blogdex
Those wacky folks at MIT Media Lab are at it again. This time with a system that crawls blogs looking for links and keeps track of what the most popular ones are for the last 24 hours. It is pretty interesting seeing a snapshot of what people are looking at.

Quick short anime review.
I'd caught about 5 episodes of The Irresponsible Captain Tylor on the International Channel and liked it enough to pick it up on DVD. The show is about this guy Tylor who joins the space force because he thinks, "It will be a nice relaxing life". Hey, you get free food, free clothes, a nice easy desk job if you're lucky. The guy is complete slacker. He ends up getting assigned to a space ship as captain. Though this ship has a problem. No captain has ever lived longer then three days. The crew has always ended up killing him. Will Tylor live? Well, as of the 5th episode he's still alive. The show itself is hysterical. I find myself laughing out loud almost every episode so far.

On another note. I'm working on digging up more info on Mac OS X internals. Specificly stuff to do with netinfo. If anyone has any good sources on such things can you please drop me a line and let me know?

Ugs.
I've been working on documentation for the last few days and I've just been hitting blocks all the time. I just find myself staring at the screen blankly not really sure what to type next. I think I need to find something to distract me. Bejewelled helped for a small moment, but then I felt too guilty for playing it and went back to write. And now I'm starving, but it is too hot outside to go get food.

Bah

Time for a moment of geeky happiness!
I figured out how to set the hostname on an OS X box. (For those of you who'd like to know, it seems to come from a file called /etc/hostconfig. There's a setting for hostname that is set to -AUTOMATIC- by default). This is one of my main gripes with OS X. While they have made a very usable unix for the desktop, they did do some kinda wacky things that just aren't quite standard, and it confuses this old sysadmin.

Augh.

Curses to Nari for putting a link to Bejewelled on her blog. I thought I'd kicked my addiction to this game. Only to find out that I can now download it onto my computer!

Some of you might have noticed my page has changed a little.

I decided to learn more about CSS. It's pretty cool and not too hard to learn, though I'm still not 100% sure that I'm using them correctly. Anyways, drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Nothing like being woken up with bad news.
The phone rang first thing this morning and it was Kendra. She sounded fairly upset and was saying something about Mike taking off after talking to Ray (that sketchy guy who says he's helping us). I guess he went off to see if he could find out about that guy from the hotel. I'm pretty sure he's just flipped out by now. Hopefully I'll know more later.

There's nothing quite like being able to sit out on your doorstep and be online.

Back when I got my TiBook I got a wireless card for it and set up a little wireless network. It's been quite nice. I get to sit outside, watch people walk by and enjoy some fresh air. It also makes it much easier to sit and bed and be online. It is going to make life quite nice once I have my transplant. I'll be able to be online from anywhere in my apartment. Right now I'm working on configuring fetchmail from my doorstep. I just think that is too cool. (I feel like such a geek sometimes).

I did some research and got the name of someone who was at the hotel the night they stormed Mike and Kendra's room. I was a little tricky about it. I hope it doesn't get me into trouble.

I heard from Kendra and Mike this morning.
Shintaro found them and they have all gone down to New Mexico to hide out there with someone. Mike's cracking. I'm sure he's just going to completely lose it soon. Everyone else seems to be holding together, for the moment. I got an anonymous tip about something this morning and I hope to be able to research it after breakfast.

Site FYI:
Things may look a little screwy today, because I'm playing around with CSS for the site. :)
(besides, who looks at anything but the home page anyways?)

LOTD: Adam Curry's Website
Yes, that Adam Curry. It's actually a pretty cool site. Definitely worth checking out.

I hope Mike and Kendra are okay. They've been keeping a very low profile since their hotel room got busted into by those men in black. I think I figured out where they went to, but I can't get a hold of Shintaro to let him know where they are!

(Aha, I just IM'd him and told him where they are. He's off to try and find them. I wish I could go and help.)

I added a new section to the left info bar. My queue of DVDs to watch. I seem to sense an overwhelming amount of anime. It's kind of funny because I always had a kind of fleeting interest in it, but since I got my DVD player it's like I've gotten completely sucked into it. I'm continuously amazed about all the different things that are available.
Many people seem to group all anime into one catagory. The more I watch, the more I find that there are just so many different styles of shows. There's the typical big robot stuff (I'm watching Gundam Wing right now), there's the cutesy stuff (mmm Cardcaptor Sakura), the strange stuff (serial experiments: lain), and then there's things like Battle Atheletes Victory (which is a kind of sports series). It's nice to see it getting more recognition through things like Cartoon Network.

Speaking of toon network. They just announced recently that they are going to be showing Cowboy Bebop during their upcoming new timeblock called "Adult Swim". The timeblock will be for shows that are for an older age group and it will be on later at night. Pretty keen.

Wow.
I just discovered that there's a link to my blog over on another blog page I look at. It's kind of cool because I really dig her site, it's definitly one of my favorite.

Administrative changes.
I ditched my movies page for now. Mostly because I want to database enable it so that I can keep it updated more easily. It fell so far out of date. In its place is my handy dandy new guestbook. Give it a try.

(Possibly) final Majestic review:
I'm getting to the end of the pilot epiosde. And now they are hoping that I'm hopelessly hooked on this game and will pay $9.99/month for it. I just can't see that happening right now. I mean, it is interesting, and for that $9.99 you get access to a bunch of web based things over at ea.com. But I'm just feeling kind of enh about the game. I'm sure the demo was designed to give you a taste of what the game could do, but I still don't feel real inspired. I'm thinking about maybe trying it for a month or so then turning it off.

Overall, the game wasn't bad. It has a lot of potential. But as I said in an earlier post. They need to have more variation in it. You're set up to interact with other players, but you are all stumbling along the same trail, so that interaction becomes more a case of giving hints to other players, as opposed to different people getting different clues and having to compare notes. I just watched an interview with the show's creater over on GameSpot, that says they do expect it to get harder. So I'm not sure what I want to do. I think I may actually give it a try.

The humidity has started to get bad again. ick.

So I'm adding a new blog to my list of blogs/livejournals. This one is for Bree, The Hollywood Starlet. Because I'm sure she's destined to tour the country following around folk singers and writing about them. I hope she doesn't hurt me for sharing the link to it :).

Majestic Update:
To be honest. I'm still not real sure about this game. It's kind of interesting. But the story is (as far as I can tell). Mostly just on rails. You can only do things as they give information to you and there isn't any real branching that I've been able to tell. So it comes down to did you happen to figure out the needed clue to get to the next step. It isn't even like there are multiple ways to get there (that I can determine).

It's definitely a very interesting concept though. I could see this kind of game really getting quite complex. I'd love to have there be little side puzzles you can stumble across that are part of the overall storyline, but if you miss them you aren't missing anything.

One of the funkier things is getting IMs from the game. I personally think that is pretty cool. They do need to work on the parsing of stuff a tiny bit, but it isn't too bad for a start.

okay, one good thing about being on this late.
I found my LOTD: Dance Dance Resurrection
Praise tha Lord!

being on call sucks

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneith. At night, the ice weasels come.
- Matt Groening