Sunday, January 30, 2005

PURPLE FINGERS

As an expression of solidarity with the imperiled voters of Iraq, I'd like to humbly suggest people dip a finger in purple ink. We take the right to choose our government for granted, these folks are risking their lives to do so.

The laptop has suffered a setback. I'm assuming that the Presario's BIOS doesn't recognize the 40 gig hard drive I bought it. I'll be exchanging it for a 20 gig unit (same size as the failing original) the next chance I get.

In other news, my home continues to be inundated with little girls' clothing and furniture. My brother-in-law and I are contemplating hawking children's furniture. It's just like regular furniture except for the following exceptions:

  1. It's painted white or pine.
  2. It's festooned with warning lables.
  3. It's three times as expensive as regular furniture.

Sounds like an easy gig to make money on, eh?

UPDATE: The purple ink meme seems to have traction all over the 'net.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

LAST CHANCE LAPTOP

So I got a new laptop and planned on sunsetting my old Presario laptop by selling it off to my buddy Manny. Unfortunately, the laptop's hard drive seems to be suffering from Alzheimer's or something and needs to be replaced. Considering that I don't think the street value for the machine is more than $300 and a new hard drive cost around $100, strictly speaking the investment doesn't seem worthwhile. Kinda like ponying up a thousand bucks to replace the tranny on the old clunker you're gonna sell for maybe twice that. So the question I have to ask myself is, is it worth it? Well, I think it is, for now, and here's why. I'm currently in transition, so I've been carrying around the new laptop instead of primarily using it in my home office. My homebound wife is currently sans computer in my absence. Yeah, I have some big desktop rigs I can set up, but I don't really have a lot of room for any of them (even though they are compact by desktop standards and I have a sweet 17" LCD display.) So I'll get the old Presario back in fighting trim. When my sister Bena makes her move to Israel, I'll let her have the laptop as my parting gift. I hope she'll like it. So I'm off to World Line computer, which is where Steve gets his parts from, to shop for a new laptop hard drive.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

TALK LIKE AN INSURGENT

Or, ebonics for terrorists...

Yesterday, I did my holy duty and drove my wife's grandmother home. Bubby had been staying with us since the baby came and had been a tremendous help. I would have driven her home Sunday, but I couldn't get any crusading whoremongering pigs to do the harlot's duty of clearing my driveway. So my holy explosive device transporter car couldn't leave its filthy infidel garage. The apostates finally showed up to shovel yesterday afternoon. Insh'allah, the snow shall be completely vanquished and it will run from the wrath of the holy shovels like the rejectionist infidel dog precipitation that it is with its tail between its legs.

N.B. I've gotten weird feedback for this post, feel free to comment, it's meant to be humorous. I may take it down...

Sunday, January 23, 2005

LOTS TO TALK ABOUT

FIrst of all, we had a beautiful baby girl on Monday, the 10th. Her name is Basya (after my grandmother, OB"M) and mother and daughter are doing splendidly. Sleeping right now, in fact. I couldn't be a prouder husband/father.

I see Paul (son of A. Bartlett) Giamatti is hosting SNL. If I were Paul, I'd have to say the most annoying question I could be asked would have to be "What's it like to work with Frankie Muniz?" Seriously, I've been a fan of Paul's work since he played Pig Vomit in Howard Stern's movie and an FBI agent in Donnie Brasco.

On the technical side, I continue to have trouble trying to grok JXTA, so I'm taking a detour to learn JSF, in an effort to bolster my short term earning potential. Sun's Java Studio Creator looks promising.

I'm starting to get pissed off at Flickr. Their web page said that if I invite x number of users who become members my status would be upgraded to premium. It was, for about two weeks. Now I'm back to being a free account user with the associated limits. Frankly, I don't mind not being able to upload more than ten megabytes of images a month but being limited to three photosets is a nuisance. I think I've found a workaround by sharing keyword pages, though, we'll see how well that scales...

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

I TOLD YOU SO

Now that the word "blog" is Merriam Webster's word of the year and all the hoopla surrounding the blogosphere has officially made us mainstream, I look like a fortune teller to my friends and family (OK, not my cyberspace friends, who are way ahead of me, but my old-school flesh and blood ones.)

Now that food, money and material are pouring in to the afflicted area of the Indian Ocean disaster faster than the logistical ability to process all that stuff, the hoopla surrounding the paltry initial US donation of 35 mil. has died down. The ability to deliver aid is where the real need is. Once again, while the rest of the world sits on their bums or forms action committees and coordination strategies the good 'ole US of A is getting it done. (With a very honorable mention to the Aussies, who are splendid.) And our military assistance carries with it no price tag, real or imagined, to sully the gesture of giving help to those less fortunate with a claim of monetary credit. I did point this out to my Mom (get well soon, Mom!) last weekend over Sabbath dinner before the larger truth became evident in more mainstream media. The maritime corollary to the maxim that amateurs fidget over strategy while professionals know that logistics wins wars is that poseurs pledge money for natural disaster relief while the big boys set sail immediately. Hooah to our men and women in uniform doing right by the victims of the Tsunami.

Special shout out to Wendy, gone for the moment, but no doubt soon to return.