Just in case you ever cared, nybble and other words used to describe bits and bytes and assorted combinations thereof.
posted by MikeM at 10:07 AM    

 
Saturday I just relaxed with some friends and played PS2 games all day long - mainly Burnout2. Then we watched Jurassic Park 1 and 2.

Today I went shopping for towels and such, got two bagfuls of really nice ones! With Mom coming in next weekend, I wanted to have some nice towels on hand. Then some friends came over and we had mexican and watched Finding Nemo and Resident Evil.

I haven't done much with my system in a long time - I gave up on getting the cassette unit installed correctly, as I just didn't have time to worry about the serial connections to the unit and the sound card redirects and all. Seems like this thing is WAY too complicated and requires you to re-wire your whole sound system, limiting a 5.1 system to a simply 2 speaker analog configuration. Maybe with the new system I'll get it going long enough to dub some cassettes onto CD, but I'm finding it easier to just buy the CD's. I might end up selling or giving this thing away - ditto for the VHS-to-DVD dubbing unit I bought and which I have working fine.
posted by MikeM at 7:44 PM    

 
I have no words... Dead Couple to Be Married
posted by MikeM at 4:19 PM    

 
CLOSED! The re-re-rescheduled closing went off without a hitch. Well, the settlement atty left Springfield, VA right at 7pm, and that was when we were scheduled to close. In Gaithersburg. When he arrived at about 8pm, we quickly ran through the numbers and signed all the items that we as the sellers had to sign. I got my check, we left!

It is such a relief to have this behind me. Now I get to deposit the check and wait a few weeks to be extremely sure it clears before I begin paying off the debts I have accumulated in the past two months.

If you had told me on May 1st that in four months I would be separated, living in an apartment, and would have sold the house already I would never have believed you. Strange the way things happen. Oh yeah, "Battle Engine Aquila" and "Gauntlet: Dark Legacy" showed up today! Both look like great games.

I have also been pricing a new computer, so far I'm up to just under $5k for it. We'll see what it will cost by the time I'm ready to order it. I'm going top of the line this time - AMD FX53 with 2gb high speed ram and dual Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300gb SATA HDs - rated the absolute fastest 7200rpm drives, just under the speed of the WD Raptor 10,000rpm 73gb drives, and four times the storage for about the same money!

To see approximately what I'm getting, check out www.gamepc.com and look at the Disruptor 300 with the add-ons I mentioned. Nice system. Oh yeah, I've swung back to wanting the BFG 6800 Ultra OC video card from Nvidia as opposed to the Asus X800XT from ATI. Both ring in at $620, so no financial difference. The 6800 is slightly faster and the drivers are reputed to be more stable and more compatible with a wider range of hardware.
posted by MikeM at 8:47 PM    

 
Lovely. Africanized Bees May Have Arrived in Okla.

posted by MikeM at 4:16 PM    

 
Secunia - Advisories - Winamp Skin File Arbitrary Code Execution Vulnerability

It appears that if you use WinAmp, you are in danger - this is a pretty nasty vulnerability. I don't use it, but if I did, I would stop immediately until they fixed this problem! If the winamp icom is in your taskbar (lower right corner) you need to click it, get into the options, system options, and disable it from running on startup!

By the way, this thing automatically runs on startup as default, so if you have winamp installed and haven't turned that off, it is likely running, and you are vulnerable.
posted by MikeM at 3:44 PM    

 
Just got a call - rescheduled the closing for 7pm. Lovely.
posted by MikeM at 11:56 AM    

 
Once again, no closing. From 4pm - 6pm we waited in the closing office while the buyer's financier twiddled around with paperwork that should have been completed days ago, trying to get it all faxed/approved at the absolute last minute. As we departed, the paperwork came through, but at 6pm there would have been a 45 min delay while their agents drove to Gaithersburg from VIRGINIA. Closing is re-re-scheduled for 6pm tonight, so we don't have to take any time off.

I did get to go to the house with the buyer and show him all of the pool care stuff, how to backflush the filter, clean the skimmer, what amount of chlorine to add, how to add DE once you backwashed the filter, etc. I also answered a few questions about the house for him. They seemed concerned about some foam that was around the pipes going into the ground near the hot water heater - I don't even know why that would be a concern! It has always been like that, I assumed the builder did it to prevent any sort of ground seepage and to insulate the pipes.

When I got there, several kids were in the backyard, walking around and dipping thier feet in the pool, etc. I think they forced the back gate, but as the future owner's son was in the mix, likely OK. A bit disturbing, but OK. I think they will enjoy the house quite a bit!

I noticed that the weed problem has gotten far worse than before, when I had the gardener come and pull them all for $800. There are 7' weeds now in the backyard, and there is a squash/pumpkin sort of plant in the front bed that sprawls over about a 10' radius, including part of the front walkway to the front door!
posted by MikeM at 7:22 AM    

 
First successful recording/playback using a holographic disc - 1 TERABYTE storage with a 1gb/s read rate. What this means is that the DVD and dual-layer DVDs will become ancient technology once this gets out into the market. A disc the same size as a DVD or CD, with 1tb storage is incredible.
posted by MikeM at 1:37 PM    

 
...And no closing today. Closing tomorrow. My stress levels are climbing as this is the second time they have postponed it. At least the first time gave us a week to prepare, this time I got a call at 3:30 about our 4:00 appt being cancelled and rescheduled for tomorrow.

Ah well. House is in good shape, I was just there looking things over and getting the last of my stuff out - I thought I was done, but I took the snow shovel from the garage, the brita pitcher and a can of mt dew from the fridge. House is in good shape, just smells a bit stale from not having anyone in it. I turned the overhead fan on to move things around a bit, and closed the upstairs blinds to drop the sunlight heat factor.

posted by MikeM at 5:09 PM    

 
Tom's Hardware has an article on Firewire 800 that also includes information on how the new SP2 for Windows XP impacts the firewire drivers. It seems that if you use Firewire 800, you will need to get new drivers as the windows native ones will reduce your speed to 100. Yes, from 800 to 100 with a single update. Nice, eh?
posted by MikeM at 12:18 PM    

 
This is fun. The Political Compass

I am:
Economic Left/Right: -0.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 2.4

On the chart, this puts me dead center right/left, and just a bit up from center towards Authoritarian. I'm fairly close to Kerry, actually.

Check the website and see where you fall, as well as famous people and the presidential hopefuls. Also, the Iconoclasts section is a great eye-opener!
posted by MikeM at 7:36 AM    

 
Well, today is the closing on the house sale. I'll be able to pay off the VISAs and the car!

Sunday I went to Patty's and hooked up her firewall, all is well. Sara decided to stick with DSL, and I'll be hooking up her firewall as well once she's ready.

I bought several more games, and picked up a few from amazon that the game stores didn't have locally. Battle Engine Aquila, Armored Core 3, Simpson's Road Rage, Sub Rebellion, Burnout 2 (WOW - great game!), Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, Super Bombad (Star Wars kart racing), Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain.

I should have enough for a while - although if anyone has any suggestions for excellent PS2 games, let me know!

posted by MikeM at 7:23 AM    

 
I bought a PS2! Got a refurbed one from EB Games for $119, got a FPS controller for $29, and two additional PS2 controllers (just like the one that comes with it, but different colors) for $10 each. I also got the 4-player adapter module for it. The FPS one is a pistol grip model with the buttons laid out to make First Person Shooter games easier to work with. I've already tried it out on Half Life - works great!

I have all the connections on the front of my TV, so I didn't even have to crawl back there to connect it, but I might do that anyway just to neaten things up a bit.

Games so far (all pre-owned, saves money!) : Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid 2, GTA3, GTA3-Vice City, Spiderman (very cool game), and Splashdown, which is a jet-ski racing game like Hydro-Thunder, but with extremely fun tricks and stunts. Ever flip a jet-ski forwards while doing a barrel roll? I have. Most of these games have options for wide-screen TVs, so they look fantastic. I could even run the audio through the surround sound system, as several have Dolby Digital!

Yesterday I spent the first part of the day cleaning, and the second part hanging out with a couple of friends, Sharonne and Jaime. He bought a few games while we were at EBgames as well, including one that had a lot of old arcade favorites on it, inclding Joust and Joust 2! We played that one for several hours. 2004 and we were playing games from 1984. :)

Today I played part of Metal Gear Solid 2, and now I need to go over to Patty's and hook up her firewall and try to get Sara configured for wireless - that or run a 100' cable through hidden places and under carpets. Wireless may be easier, but running cable will be cheaper and more secure. Hopefully I'll get home tonight in time to relax a bit and maybe play some more City of Heroes on the PC. With so many entertainment sources, even I can't get bored for long!

posted by MikeM at 11:57 AM    

 
Now we really know what motivates George Bush!
posted by MikeM at 12:42 PM    

 
"Microsoft pays dearly for insults through ignorance"

"Insensitive computer programmers with little knowledge of geography have cost the giant Microsoft company hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business and led hapless company employees to be arrested by offended governments."

Just another funny news article - goes to show that when dealing with multiple cultures, you can't be too careful.
posted by MikeM at 10:38 AM    

 
Too funny, I just found a reference to papernapkin.net, a rejection service. Short story is when someone asks you for your email address, you give them <anyname>@papernapkin.net, and when they email they get this to the point reply.
posted by MikeM at 7:42 AM    

 
Well, I just unpacked 24 more boxes and put all of my hardback and gaming books on the shelves in the office! I have only 6 boxes left, and they are all full of stuff I need to sort into drawers or find storage for, like diskettes, shelf toys, etc.

I also bought a few wall clocks and hung them up - I can tell what time it is pretty much anywhere in the apartment! You just don't know how important that is until you take a break from City of Heroes and notice the microwave says 12:34am and you have to be at work tomorrow at 7:30am. Clocks are good.

I got my firewall/router installed and working just fine - I learned that with a Linksys you can't have both the WAN and LAN side set up for DHCP. I don't know why, but mine was conflicting, and one of the notes on the manual said basically 'Don't Do That.', so I set the LAN side for fixed IPs and suddenly everything stabilized.

The symptom was connectivity was Ok for a few minutes, then dropped for a few minutes and you could watch the lights on the router go out as it reset, then come back on and connectivity would come back, then the lights would go out as it reset again, etc.

I think the DHCP server on the LAN side was screwing with the ComCast DHCP server on the WAN side, and I don't know why. Brian said he runs both sides DHCP with no problems. *shrug* Must be my special karma. :)
posted by MikeM at 10:48 PM    

 
Computer Associates buys PestPatrol. This is bad news for me, as CA also sells such fine products as BrightStor and ArcServeIT backup softwares, which I'm sure you have heard me ranting about.

This means that I will very likely have to find a replacement anti-spyware application for both work and home. PestPatrol as we know it is likely not long for this world. CA has a habit of buying companies and integrating their software, messing it up along the way.

Witness the integration of Alexandria, a decent UNIX backup package, into BrightStor. Disaster.

Ah well. Perhaps Ad-Aware or Spyware Search & Destroy will be my next favorite anti-spyware software vendor.
posted by MikeM at 3:09 PM    

 
Microsoft has published a list of programs that need changes to be made to an XP system running SP2 to get working again. 842242 - Some programs seem to stop working after you install Windows XP Service Pack 2.
posted by MikeM at 11:41 AM    

 
Fred again has something to say : Rant #247 - Pondering The Telescreen
posted by MikeM at 11:10 AM    

 
If you really think the government is trying to make your life easier and more secure, think again. Big Brother's Last Mile: "The FCC's new ruling on broadband wiretaps will force customers to pay for the privilege of making the Internet less secure."
posted by MikeM at 2:51 PM    

 
Another version of the MyDoom virus/trojan/worm is out, and apparently spreading like wildfire from the reports. W32.Mydoom.Q@mm Appears to come from a friend, having falsified the 'From' field. it will have an attachment of an EXE file, usually named 'photos_arc.exe'.

If you click on the attachment, it will infect your system and begin sending out infected mail using a built-in email server. It will also connect to another website and download/install a backdoor trojan on your system, which will then allow anyone with your computer IP address to access all of your files and remotely control your system, including planting more viruses on it or using it to attack other systems.

Remember, never click on ANY attachment that you aren't expecting! Even then, all EXE files should be regarded with extreme suspicion!
posted by MikeM at 1:58 PM    

 
Well, I just emptied 10 or so boxes of paperback books into the new shelves I bought a few weeks ago. Just those books over half-filled the shelves. I'll need to buy more shelves before I will have room to bring my collection from Roanoke! Maybe I'll have some room left in the office, but I have 28 boxes of hardback and gaming books to shelve in there. I also got all my pictures hung on the walls! The place is looking more like a home now!

posted by MikeM at 11:37 AM    

 
Top 10 Reasons to Deploy Windows XP Service Pack 2

Well, I now know that I have to upgrade to XP and have SP2 on my new system. In this article they mention that a patched XPsp2 system passed the GRC.com "shields up" test with a perfect score!

This is the test that I use to determine if my machine is acceptable or not.

With all the other security and functionality fixes made with SP2, it may finally be 'good enough' for me to trust it and upgrade from Windows 2000.
posted by MikeM at 1:29 PM    

 
Man Detained for Tossing Hamsters Off Terrace

This SOB killed six hamsters and a guinea pig by throwing them off his balcony into traffic. He should be immediately executed - it is well known that mass murderers often begin their rampages by torturing and killing animals and working their way up to humans.

posted by MikeM at 10:41 AM    

 
Seeing that I thought solar sails were a Good Thing, my good friend Gary just pointed me at this site : NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program.

Wow!
posted by MikeM at 9:32 AM    

 
Oh, this is just too funny...

Google Search: bastards

Search for the word 'bastards' on google - look at what the top return is!
posted by MikeM at 9:07 AM    

 
Yahoo! News - Millions in U.S. Face Mega-Wave from Island Collapse

I mentioned this a long time ago - here are the other links about it.

BBC news report

BBC Science article

BBC Science Q&A

BBC Science show transcript


posted by MikeM at 11:24 AM    

 
Anyone see a resemblance between John Edwards and Damien Thorn?

The Omen : Final Conflict (1981)

John Edwards

Of course, I'll be voting for Kerry in any event. I just thought this was funny.
posted by MikeM at 10:38 AM    

 
The Japanese successfully launched and deployed a Solar Sail recently! This is a great first step towards unmanned exploration with little to no major fuel loads and engine weight. The research modules no longer need large engines to move about once we get sails working. Of course, they usually only work when moving AWAY from the sun, and the sail itself blocks the target, but they will work all that out. It's just cool that this was science fiction and now very nearly reality!
posted by MikeM at 9:42 AM    

 
This was just brought to my attention by a friend of mine (Gary) : Denny's Beer Barrel Pub - 6 lb. Burger. Damn, that's a big burger.

For the more rational of us, Fuddruckers will do just fine.

posted by MikeM at 9:21 AM    

 
Had a nice weekend at home, unpacked a little more, moved the pictures around to approximately where I want to hang them, completed the assembly of the rest of the bookcases and such. I finished the bathroom project, which consisted of the bathmats, shower curtains and an extra shower rod. Now that it looks somewhat nice in there all that is left is to hang the pictures. I'm thinking that my next project is to hang all the art - or put away all of my books/cds/vhs tapes in their various new homes. Both need to be done by the end of the month when my mother and possibly my brother come to visit!

I played a few more hours of City of Heroes - such a good game. Managed to get myself and the rest of my team outmatched and thus 'killed' several times. Luckily I was able to retreat to a safe place and use my new teleport power to teleport their bodies to me, then I ressurected them! Nice to have the power. :)

I started giving Maggie some of those 'calming' biscuits we bought a while ago. I think they do have an effect, she is calmer and only barks at visitors for under a minute now, where she used to be good for 5 min or so. I spread 4 of them around the house - I hope that she eats them throughout the day and stays happy and quiet.

I ordered all four seasons of "South Park" from amazon. :) Along with several other DVDs I wanted. Not thrifty. But they are just so FUNNY. Horrible, anti-social, unsuitable for viewing, but FUNNY.

posted by MikeM at 7:59 AM    

 
Just got the news yesterday that the home inspection went well. They apparently found a couple of minor issues but didn't want to make repairs part of the contract, so they haven't added any conditions to the close! They actually are trying to move the closing date up a bit, which I fully support.

The appraisal came in as well - at $425k, which was exactly our asking price! Nice to know that we guessed well.

Last night I assembled the bathroom storage unit - two shelves, three drawers, and another two shelves at the bottom in an enclosed cabinet with a door. Very nice! All that is left to assemble is one more large bookcase and a small one. Once that is done, I can begin the arduous process of unpacking all my books and putting them on shelves. I should be done by the end of the month.
posted by MikeM at 10:39 AM    

 
Oh yeah, all that stuff we set out for Purple Heart? They never came to get it, but neighbors took a large part of it, and then the new owners apparently grabbed up the rest because it is back in the house and garage! The single box that was left I put out with the trash.
posted by MikeM at 7:55 AM    

 
Last night I went back to the house, took all the trash we had accumulated in the garage to the curb for pickup, and used the shop-vac to clean up all the dirt/dust/leaves/webs that had made things pretti nasti in there. The garage looks nice, and I even found all the various tools and extensions for the shop-vac and left them all on the garage workbench in plain sight. I checked the house again, and all is well. I think this is all we need to do - the rest is up to the buyer.

We decided to let the tapestry convey. I think the new owners liked it, and it is a huge hassle to get that big & heavy folding ladder into the house, down the stairs, then opened and up to the tapestry (around 12-15' high). Then standing on a ladder trying to take the tapestry down and the brackets that support it? I dislike heights. Putting it up four years ago was a trial, and nearly ended up with injuries and pain. I decided to leave the tapestry up there, even though it cost us over $500 all those years ago. It is very nice, but it is also large and heavy, and there is simply noplace to put it in my apartment. I'm going to have a lot of fun trying to make the pictures I have work in my apartment, much less a huge tapestry!

When I got to the house, the sky was rumbling and you could see bright flashes in the distance, getting closer - I left Maggie in the car and ran several trips worth of stuff to the curb before it started really raining hard - I mean dumping it! The lightning and thunder were truly impressive. Poor Maggie barking her head off in the car, and I couldn't even hear her! I ended up taking a large flat box that once upon a time enclosed a large painting and holding it over my body as I ran thru the rain to the car. The box was big enough (4x3) that I was able to balance it on top of the car roof and door while I got Maggie disconnected and let her jump down. We ran back to the garage, and from there went into the house - she was soaked, I wasn't. I stayed under the box while she wanted to forge ahead.

I'm considering letting Maggie go with Patty once everything settles down and Patty has all the boxes clear and Sara is all moved in. I think it might be better for both dogs to be together, and from a purely selfish point of view it would free me up to actually have a life that didn't revolve around the dog. My ball and chain, I call her. I also worry about the barking and my neighbors - she doesn't bark so much when Toby is with her. But this is all just conjecture and I may end up keeping her, we shall see. Perhaps I'll get more comfortable with having her around and she will adapt to apt living and being left alone a lot.
posted by MikeM at 7:53 AM    

 
Once More with Hobbits: A Lord of the Rings and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Musical Adventure.

Ow my brain.
posted by MikeM at 4:00 PM    

 
Finally finished with the house! All empty, cleaned up, and a large pile of good items for Purple Heart. There is a matching pile of not-so-good stuff in the garage, where we went through all of the items and selected a very small amount to take with us, a larger portion stays behind for the new owners (paint/brushes/rollers/yard stuff), and the largest portion is piled in the middle of the floor to be taken out Wed eve for Thursdays trash pick-up. All we have to do Wed is take the trash to the curb, sweep/blow/shop-vac out the garage, and we will be done with the house!

Sara is moving Saturday, so I have to make room in my dining room for her table, which I'm using until she needs it again, which might be never. This means, unfortunately, that once the table is in there, I'll have nowhere large enough to assemble the bookcases I bought. Tonight is bookcase-building night, it appears. I have a few boxes to move, only 3-4, then I need to build at least the two large bookcases and get them in their final homes. I also need to move the coffee table into it's spot in front of the TV, and perhaps find a more gracious method of concealing the wires to the speakers. Now I have the area rug running between the TV and sofa, at a 90 degree turn from it's usual orientation. Looks kinda strange.
posted by MikeM at 7:32 AM    

 
Saturday I got back online, and even got to keep my old email address. Turns out they connected Patty a few hours before me, and since we told the tech that I wanted my email (that was secondary on her account) to be the primary on my new account, he 'did magic' and marked it to be so. When the tech (different one) got to my apt to connect me, all he had to do was register my account as a new one and tell it to use my email as primary, and everything worked great.

Since he also hooked up the TV with digital cable, HBO and Showtime, I spent a few hours figuring out and connecting the Surround Sound receiver, speakers, DVD/VHS unit, dual cassette, etc - all that wiring. I think everything works. I watched a movie in DTS and Dolby just to make sure they worked, and played a VHS as well. I haven't tested playing a CD without the TV turned on, but the way it is wired should not require the TV for that. I think I had it wired wrong before. Very wrong. Better now.

Sunday, I left Maggie here at the apt for a few hours while I helped Patty move stuff out of the house to her apt and she did very well. I'll leave her here tomorrow while I'm at work, and come home for lunch to check on her. Patty wasn't so lucky. While she was out shopping for a desk this morning, Toby was VERY sick and had multiple orifices throwing off ballast in several directions. On her new apt carpet. The carpet that was due for a 'dog inspection' tuesday. *sigh*. We think he was just nervous-sick, because he hasn't really had much alone-time with Maggie there all the time, and it was the first time he had been left alone in the apt. Plus his crate (cage) wasn't there.

I ran out and got her several types of miracle spot/stain remover, as well as fetching Toby's crate from the house and bringing it into the apt. Toby was VERY happy to have his crate, and ran right in there and lay down. Poor guy, he just needed some comforting surroundings.

Today we also cleaned out the house, removing all of the remnants of our belongings, and went a LONG way towards throwing away all the stuff that neither of us wanted anymore. We are leaving a huge amount out front for Purple Heart. http://www.purpleheart.org and even more for the trash pickup.

I thoroughly vacuumed all of the upstairs carpets, walls, corners, fans, ceilings, and misc cobwebby spots. The entire upstairs is vacant and ready for showing! Downstairs... Well. It's vacant, but not clean by any definition of the term. I'll be there tomorrow night cleaning it all just as thoroughly as upstairs. Once the house is clean and empty of stuff, we can let the realtor put a lock-box on the door. We hope the contract we signed already will be the only one we need to worry about, and that the buyer will follow through according to plan, but there is always the chance they could back out. Once I finish cleaning the house tomorrow, we will need to empty and clean the garage, and then we will be done! I'll let the yard service continue mowing/edging the lawn until after closing, then cancel and pay the outstanding balance. Gotta keep that curb appeal!

Now then, off to bed after a healthy snack of three french twirls and a glass of dragonjuice. All I have eaten today is the remaining two twirls, some popcorn and a bit of peanut butter that I had to coax from the near-empty jar. Now that I have bought actual groceries and emptied the fridge at the house, I have some food in the apt to work with. On the plus side, I weighed myself this morning and came in at 230 lbs. Yes, 230. At the beginning of May, I was at 245 or even a bit more. So between the stress, poor diet, and hard work moving stuff, I have lost 15+ lbs and actually feel pretty good, physically. I'm tired out from the 1am bedtimes and 6:30am wakeup calls, but that was partially offset by a nap I got today. I'm hoping a few days of regular food and normal sleeping patterns will serve to get my energy back up.

posted by MikeM at 10:00 PM