Entries Tagged 'Life' ↓

Had a nice weekend.

Went to see “Henry Rollins”:http://henryrollins.com Thursday night — got my white car driving again Friday night.

Finally did an oil change on the Bug Saturday night — finally played WoW again Sunday night.

“Robert Jordan died today”:http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/. Word is that the final book in the Wheel of Time series will still be released, since there’s quite a bit of unpublished material that he had lying around.

Apparently, he was writing (or at least dictating) up until the very end.

Well, there’s a new addition to my family of computers — it’s my wife’s new portable laptop, Henry. (You just _always_ have to name computers — if you don’t, it’s bad luck! Kinda like with ships.)

!http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1157/1342842965_7bb70e7705_m.jpg!

Nina needed a slightly smaller laptop so that she could sometimes bring it to school — eh, who am I kidding? _Slightly_ smaller? No insult meant to the laptops we already had, but I’m firmly convinced that they were never meant to be portable — just _smaller_ than desktops. My personal laptop and hers are 15-in *8 lbs.* _monsters_, from about four or five years ago.

Now, this nice model (the Compaq Evo N410c), is from that era too, but for its time it was made with a completely different paradigm — it’s only 0.9 inches thick, weighs slightly less than 3.5 lbs, and is only 12 inches, diagonally.

…and I got it all, used, on “Ebay”:http://ebay.com, for less than what people pay for iPods.

…_used_ iPods.

We’re running “Ubuntu 7.04″:http://ubuntu.com on there right now, with all the bells, whistles, and fancy effects, and it’s more than capable of running it (3D-emulation worked right away). Not only that, but the installation was slick as shit, too — I’ve never had one run more smoothly than it did with Henry. Even the bonus wireless card that the seller included (one with a Prism GT chipset) worked right away, with absolutely no tweaking needed whatsoever…

The battery seems to be quite old, though (laptop batteries _never_ last very long), so I’ve ordered a new one that should be here soon.

I’ve been fiddling with my cars lately, too, in various efforts to fix them and tune them up.

The Beetle was brought to Montgomery in the guise of performing a break-light switch recall, and whilst it was there, I told them about a “funny vibration” we had been hearing for a while — I cringed the entire time I did this, knowing that, if it turned out to be something under warranty, the examination cost (about $70) would be covered, but if it wasn’t covered under the warranty, I had to fork over the dough.

Well, turned out the noise, which I had been thinking was an exhaust leak and malfunction, turned out to be a rear wheel bearing that was slowly wearing out — oops (it was my second guess, to tell you the truth). However, it’s covered under the warranty! Yeah!

My other cars have not faired so well. Ever since doing an oil change on my white Mustang (and disconnecting the battery so that I could clean off the terminals), it’s been shutting off at weird times and sometimes refusing to start up at all. I actually got a chance to check around the engine compartment today, and during the course of my examination, I decided to pull one of the spark plug boots off (just to take a random look)… and the spark plug boot fell apart in my hand, with most of it still remaining on the spark plug.

Yeah… I don’t know if that’s what had been originally causing my problem, but I’m sure it doesn’t help.

My purple Mustang has been having problems of its own, as well. It’s been “pinging” (a sound caused by ill-timed detonation of the fuel inside the cylinder) for a while now, but it’s gotten worse. I bought a “timing gun”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timing_light about a year ago with the intention of fixing the timing on my purple Mustang (if it needed it), but I couldn’t figure out how to use it with my car (the front engine compartment is very, _very_ cramped).

Well, today, a year’s gone past, and I’ve since figured out how — by moving my upper radiator hose two inches to the left.

That’s it. Why the hell couldn’t I have figured that out sooner?!? Now, to figure out what the hell I’m looking at and how to fix it!

It was this one and the one from Consumer Reports (Mean Failure Time — 100 Watt Challenge!) that had me laughing out loud.

Going to work this morning, I noticed how the little bypass road that I usually take is starting to be developed heavily. Up until now, it’s always just been mostly farmland and a couple of big “estates” — you know, those fancy houses with two stories and a _huge_ front yard. There’s always been a tiny bit of development going on — a few strips of stores, a single subdivision, etc.

Lately though, the level of development has stepped _way_ up.

(At this point, I had a lot more written about this point, including how allusions to Nelson DeMille’s book “The Gold Coast” and everything, but I lost it. Don’t worry how. Just believe me that it was great.)

+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+

My weekend’s going to be busy, but at least I don’t have to travel anywhere, except to the local Wal-Mart to get enough oil for oil changes for all three of our cars, and maybe Autozone for some spark plugs, and maybe Daylight Donuts for some, well, breakfast.

Taking a big trip soon — I’m not too worried, though. Got a good car that gets great gas mileage and is dependable as hell, though the exhaust is being extra loud for some damn reason lately.

Either way, I got AutoZone to talk with the engine’s computer, and it said everything was A-OK, except for a tiny glow plug problem, which doesn’t make a damn bit of difference in this heat…

Traveling 2000 miles in 4 days is sure to be a hell of a trip, but it’s nothing I haven’t done several times before. It’ll suck having to go to work only a day after I get back, though (if I get back when I planned — the return trip always seems to take a lot longer!).

Over the years, I’ve become quite the connoisseur of rice. Do I have a special liking to rice? No, not so much as I just appreciate being to buy 10 lbs. of food for $3!

You can’t beat it. Rice is the staple food (and for some, the only) of most of the world — this is what most of humanity eats along with breakfast, lunch, and dinner (if they get three meals a day at all).

Me — I just eat it to save money. Why eat more?

*Regular-old White Rice*
Nothin’ fancy about this rice — it’s what your mom used to cook for you. Two cups water, one cup rice, boil, and then simmer for 20 minutes. Doesn’t get much harder than that. If eaten plain (I don’t recommend it), this type of rice is utterly tasteless and has a texture that will bore you to tears.

*Basmati Rice*
Grown in the foothills of the Himalayas, Basmati rice has a naturally fragrant smell — you can really notice the first time you cook a pot. The rice has a slightly longer grain than you might be used to, and when fully cooked is slightly drier as well — this is probably due to the lesser water requirement of Basmati rice (1 ½ cups water to 1 cup rice).

I’ve only ever been able to find it in these big 10 lbs. woven bags with a whole bunch of Pakistani writing on it — a neat touch.

*Jasmine Rice*
The particular brand of Jasmine Rice I bought was from Thailand — Jasmine Rice had a very nice flavor and texture, slightly fragrant but not too much so. Now that I think about it, there wasn’t very much special about Jasmine Rice, except for that it seemed to be of a slightly higher “quality” — I know that’s real subjective, but it was just something about the way it looked, tasted and smelled.

*Botan (Calrose) Rice*
When I first opened this rice’s bag, I instantly noticed a difference — the rice’s grain was very, very small! Seriously, it’s like half the size of a “normal” grain of rice like what you’re used to.

Its requested ratio for cooking was slightly different, too — the bag requested a ratio of 1.5 cups rice to 2 cups water. The rice, when done, was very, very sticky — just how I’d expect from a type of rice used in sushi!

*Saffron Rice*
The mother of all rice — a rice with such a nice natural flavor that you can just eat it plain. It’s rice flavored with a spice known as “saffron”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron — whatever the hell Saffron is, I know it’s good!

You can have this rice with a curry or a stir-fry, but just eaten plain it is a dream. It’s not spicy or overpowering, but has such a _rich_ taste that you won’t want to put down your bowl.

!http://threshold-zero.tmanime.com/images/6.jpg (Green Eye)!:http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2438897
“Ask me about Blindness”:http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2438897

For about 4 hours or so today, I sat at my computer, enraptured, reading the most amazing thing. I just couldn’t stop reading, no matter what.

Follow the link above, and you’ll find a “Question and Answer” session by a fellow who’s blind. He’s been blind since birth, and has never known the sense of sight… because of this, he has some of the most unique perspectives on life, meeting other people, _et cetera_ that you’ll probably ever hear.

You don’t have to read every post in the (14-page-long) forum thread — just search through it for posts by him (his name’s _Caffeinated Sloth_). He quotes the questions put to him before he answers them, so you won’t be missing anything.

There. Done? If you’re not, go back — it’s really cool. The guy seems like the most laid back individual in the world — he’s asked several times about what he’d do to have sight, and he answers (basically), “To tell you honestly, I’m not too concerned about it.” Remember — he’s been his whole life without sight; he’s never experienced it or knows what it’s like.

Think about it this way. Someone comes up to you and says, “You’re missing a sense called ‘Ingtoc.’ I have this sense and you don’t. With this sense, I can tell that this object here [points at phone] has the quality of ‘furl.’”

Would you be that concerned that you didn’t have this magical sixth sense called “Ingtoc?” (It’s a bullshit word — don’t bother looking it up.) No, you wouldn’t be — you have no frame of reference for what this sense does, and furthermore, you’ve gone your whole life without it and probably feel like you get along just fine that way.

The guy also posts a quick MP3 he makes of his screen reader program working away (he’s a blind person that doesn’t use braille all that much — prefers screen readers) — either he’s messing around (I don’t think so), or he can actually listen to spoken text at an incredibly fast rate… he explains it later on, and debunks some of the amazing-ness. Says it took him years to reach that speed, and it only works with that one program he uses (an accessibility program called “JAWS”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAWS_%28screen_reader%29).

It’s made me think more about my web design, for one thing. He says he can’t stand images without proper “alt” parameters (his screen reader just skips over them) — this is directly in line with the official Document Model Specifications provided by the “W3C Internet Consortium”:http://w3.org, of course. He prefers the use of “h” tags as well (h1, h2, etc.) — they make it easy for screen readers such as his to quickly “jump” across sections (what I think they were originally intended to be for). Makes me feel bad for neglecting them all these years, it does.

“CAPTCHA’s”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha (like the one I use on this site) are also a pain in the ass for him, as you might imagine — there is no computer system known to man (at least publicly) that can figure out a well-made captcha, and that’s pretty much the point… An alternative would be the question-based authentication at a site like “Ajaxian.com”:http://ajaxian.com — this type of spam-proofing asks a simple question before you comment (What is two plus two?) instead of giving you an image to decode. It’s enough to fool an automatic spam robot, but a screen reader like “JAWS”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAWS_%28screen_reader%29 should read the question just fine.

It’s made me think a lot more about coding standards when it comes to markup such as HTML, for one thing, and just why such things are important to individuals such as him. (Are you listening, Microsoft? I’m sure there’s some upper-level execs in your organization that are sight-impaired in some way.)

By the way, from time to time feel free to check my “Tumblr Blog”:http://captainskyhawk.tumblr.com — it’ll just be quick little things that I send from my cell phone! Yep — pictures, quick text messages, all straight from my cell phone.

The site is even PDA/Newton accessible via “http://captainskyhawk.tumblr.com/mobile”:http://captainskyhawk.tumblr.com/mobile (hint hint nod nod wink wink), so you lucky owners of internet-enabled PDA’s can have fun, too.

…for the first time in about 12 years or something, and they ground on one of my teeth with a device that reminded me of a belt sander.

A very small one, of course. Tooth-size.