Damn, Am I just having bad luck lately or what? I ran an upgrade for a couple of things under Windows Vista, and never could get it to start back again. That was Monday night. I am back up and running under XP now. I've created a second partition so that I can put Vista or Debian Linux as a dual boot, bur am going to do a complete system backup with this XP setup so that I can just extract the shit off of CD the next time I hose my system with software that is not quite ready for production use.
November 2006 Archives
There used to be a small club in Atlanta called the Metroplex. If I recall, it was on Marietta Street right down the road from the convention center. Mostly it was used by hardcore bands who would come and play. Lots of all ages shows. After awhile though, I guess they decided to cash in on the cow and started to let "speed metal" bands play there. I got to see early Anthrax there, as well as Motorhead and Megadeth. Lemmy autographed the back of my jeans jacket one year when they played. One of my favorite shows was when Threshold of Pain and some other damn band that actually produced a few albums Hallows Eve opened up for Megadeth. As soon as I hit the Post button I will remember the name of the band I am sure.
My roommates/friends, Eddie and Lewis went to that show with me. I was already working for the company that I still work for, but was not married yet and still hanging out with the guys, so I was probably 20 or so. We rode down in Eddie's VW Beetle and had a blast. A mile or so from the Metroplex, the fucking engine started smoking and stuff at a stop sign, so he stopped for a minute, and all of a sudden it caught fire. Lewis was sitting in back, shitting a golden brick as he waited for us to get out so he could fly out of the car.
We stood there for a moment pondering what to do, but the solution was already clear. We finally heard the sirens about a half mile later as we were laughing our asses off on the way to the show. Car fire? Who gives a shit, Megadeth was playing. Nobody ever did get in touch with Eddie about his car, so I guess it must have burned beyond recognition.
I am having problems getting on to the Internet this afternoon. I've reset my cable modem and router, but that does not seem to have taken care of the problem. Damn, no way I am going to call Charter. Every time I go through their tech support, I have to go through this screwed up automated deal that is fine for clueless folks but by the time I call them, I have done all of the troubleshooting that is going to get done. 90% of the time I know more than the dude on the other end of the phone anyway. I've had their job, and most of them have no fucking clue. What do you expect for nine or ten bucks an hour I guess, which is all they pay those guys.
It appears that the problem is starting to resolve itself. I can get to most sites, but some stuff is still inaccessible.
I adopted a cat about a year ago. She is an inside cat. When I adopted her I got most of the shots and stuff. One thing I have not done yet is to get her fixed. I haven't really worried about it too much, as she doesn't go outside. Unfortunately the kids have let her out twice in the last month, so now she is pregnant. Around this time in January we should have a bunch of shitten pissen kittens around the house. If Rob were still alive I might have to send him a care package. I know that I won't have too many problems getting rid of them, but what a pain in the ass.
It's back to work for me this morning. That one day off after working seven days just kicks my ass. I managed to sleep about nine hours Sunday night, and then went to bed early last night, but tossed and turned for quite awhile, so am pretty tired this morning, and just didn't want to get out of bed. I need to be able to clone myself.
Ever.
The last concert ever at the Omni (in downtown Atlanta) was Metallica. April 23rd, 1997. It was a kick ass show. The stage was set up in the center of the coliseum with seats all around. We were way up in the nosebleeds anyway, but that's OK. I am older now and have no illusions about getting in the mosh pit.
Toward the end of the show, shit started catching fire around the stage, and equipment started falling over. The band just kept on playing. One of the guys that handles the lighting way up high had his equipment "break" and came swinging down through the air just hanging there, and even more stuff caught fire. They just played on anyway.
About that time the wife grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the show hollering. Damn. I was mad for days about that one. It was a very cool show, and obviously all part of the show. Even so I will remember that one for a long long time.
...if it really does pan out. I'm still waiting on Led Zeppelin and AC-DC to finally break down and allow their stuff to be sold on iTunes as well.
Amazon is doing this thing where users can vote on what is going to be on sale, and then on Thursdays they offer 1000 of them at a pretty decent discount. Last week it was for the Xbox 360 Core System
I was checking out some of the forums over there and there are a bunch of whiners claiming that Amazon did a bait and switch, or that the people who got one used bots or were hackers, and even one claiming he is filing a class-action lawsuit. They are all dumb-asses. The whole thing is akin to Wal-Mart at 6am on Black Friday. Lot's of people there at the same time, pushing and shoving and all trying to get the same five toys that are left in stock. Most people left disappointed. That's life. I thought that the whole thing was a pretty darn good idea, and even if Chris didn't get the system, at least he tried. No loss, other than a few minutes of sit-down time at the computer. Much better than people clubbing each other over the head for a few damn toys.
I came across this band via Tesco at Blank Forever. As one of his commenter's suggested, she reminds me a bit of Chrissy Hynde, maybe with a little edge. I particularly enjoyed "Adios, Motherfucker" but maybe that's because I am such a pig. Over at their home page you can download several of their mp3s, and I have one here called "Movie of my Life" that they allow to be made available for public download. You can pick up several more at their page as well as some photos and whatnot. You can visit their Myspace page here. I looked on iTunes, but unfortunately nothing is available there yet. I guess that's why it says "upcoming EP" on their web site :)
That's OK, I need to save my damn cash for Christmas presents anyway.
Here's a pic of the band (from their website):
Yeah, she's fucking hot too.
Apparently Eric dances "like Joe Cocker with eight or ten angry bumblebees down his trousers". Damn. I was once told by a girlfriend some 22 years ago that I dance like an Ape in Heat. I suppose I need a few lessons from Fred myself.
I managed to sleep through the kids getting ready for school today. I vaguely remember at least one of them waking me up, but went right back to sleep. Managed to nap until about 8:30 or so. Very nice.
Since Divx converter does not work in Windows Vista, I am experimenting with Xvid and AutoGK on my PC to see if I can compress a couple of shows that I want to keep. I also have several movies from Netflix that I want to rip and compress that we have not seen yet. Seems like an awful lot of work just to watch a couple of videos that I will end up deleting later anyway, but space is at a premium on my entertainment PC, and I will keep a couple of them for the kids to watch. over and over and over again. Then I will get sick of them and delete them.
I had thought about decorating the house for Christmas today, but I am going to skip that. Maybe next week when I actually have two days off. Today I am going to plan Ruth's birthday party. Kind of late, but I haven't had much time away from work due to the holiday. Just a few friends and some beer for the adults as it is my birthday as well. I am looking at the links that my wife sent me and still don't have a clue what to do, but will find something cool. Maybe I will drive to the party store in Carrollton tomorrow afternoon for some more ideas. Cheap is always good.
I did order her a birthday gift, should be here Wednesday. Some game called Cranium Hullabaloo and an Aquadoodle drawing mat. Hopefully the wife hasn't already gotten her anything, or else this will be a Christmas gift instead.
Speaking of Christmas, we are going to take the girls to see Santa on Sunday afternoon. One of the cooler things that we do as a company each year is something called Santa's Sleigh. We will set up at one of the restaurants in the parking lot. Some years we have rented an RV, others we set up a tent and stuff. We have food and Hot Chocolate for everyone, and all of the kids get to sit in Santa's lap and they each get a gift. All of the children of our employees that are under ten years old participate. It's pretty fun, and for a lot of them, it's the only trip to see Santa that they will get. I damn sure won't take my kids to the mall to see Santa Claus. That's one of my childhood memories that is really cool, but nowadays it is a great big goat fuck that I try to avoid like the plague.
...of work this week. Thank goodness. It's my seventh day and I am worn out. I get one day off this week and then another six days before I get anymore. Shit.
Around eight months ago, my oldest child got a job. Originally it was to pay for auto insurance, as I think that he needs to pay his portion if he wants the responsibility of driving (that and it doubles my freaking rates to put him on the policy). Needless to say, I have yet to get any insurance money, and he has driven maybe once since he got his license in February.
He works for the same company that I do. Initially he asked if he could work for me, and I let him know that I could get him a job, but it would be working for someone else. I love my family, but the last thing I want is to have them working for me. I've been there. My wife worked for me off and on for several years, and I always expected more from her than my other employees, was harder on her, and then there were the employees. Half of them think that you are getting the gravy train because you are related to the boss, and the other half go to you with questions that they don't want to ask the boss. I figured that I would save him from this. There's always the fact that he is a smart-ass punk and I have enough of those working for me already.
He went to work at the new store that they opened up on me last year. He only works weekends, and breaks from school, so that works out well. For awhile he worked mornings which worked out well. I would just drop him off on my way to work. After awhile he was put on the 2pm to 9pm shift. Big pain in the ass. It meant that my wife got to start taking him to work because I had already been there for eight hours at that point. Still, not too bad. Just as soon as I left the Carrollton store and opened one here in Temple, they put him back on day shift, which means he has to be there prior to 7am. No fucking way that I am going to drive him to work on a regular basis, then turn around and drive back to my town. One of the reasons I wanted to open a store here so badly is so that I DON'T have to drive anymore. I fill the tank once every two weeks or so now. Nor is my wife going to drag the girls out of bed at 6am to drive him to work. So far, he has been able to catch a ride with one of the waitresses who actually lives here in town. That is, until now. She is off tomorrow. Apparently he has know that since about 1pm this afternoon. He waits until 7pm to come down and tell me that he doesn't have a ride to work.
Of course my response was along the lines of "what the fuck do you want me to do about it?" Maybe not in those words, but pretty close. I asked him who he had called for a ride. Nobody. I told him I guessed he needed to call his bosses and see if they could find him a ride. He called, and they can't come get him. I then explained that he needed to call them back and find out who was working and see if he could not get in touch with one of them. A couple of them could come by here and get him, and it really wouldn't be out of the way. It ends up that I am going to take him one town over and his boss is going to pick him up. If it came down to it, I would probably spend the extra 45 minutes to drive him to work, but I can't tell him that I will take him if he doesn't find a ride, because then he won't look for one. Just like the rest of my employees.
Fucking pain in the ass kids.
...at least somewhat. It's shortly after 3:30pm on a Saturday and I am home. W00t!!. I have a manager trainee for at least the next six weeks, so she is doing shift change tonight and I am going to sit on my ass and surf the web. I actually have a couple of videos to edit, but that's not even close to work. I only wish that the Divx converter worked under Windows Vista.
Originally I had not planned to join my family in Atlanta this year for Thanksgiving. I was able to change plans this afternoon and we drove to Roswell and had supper with my family. My Grandmother and Great Aunt were there, as well as my Mom and Dad, and a couple of Aunts. It was nice being able to see them, as I only seem to get to a couple of times a year.
Apparently my family is catching on to this internet thing and at least a couple of them have blogs now. I was not particularly forthcoming about the fact that I have a blog, although my folks now and everyone knows that I had had a web site for several years now. I figure being the only Libertarian in the bunch sort of makes me stand out and I am already pretty good at hurting peoples feelings without trying to hard (made another waitress cry today) so I don't advertise anymore. I did add links to a couple of my relatives though over in my blogroll.
I had a pretty good time, and wish I could have stayed longer. Since I had to drive home and was already nodding off we decided to go ahead and make the drive home about 7:30 or so. This is the first Thanksgiving that I can remember that wasn't all rush. Normally I rush out of work at 2pm or 2:30, change, drive to wherever we are eating, then have to rusg back to work and be there by 8pm. Big pain in the ass. Even though we didn't stay particularly late, I didn't feel the need to rush back. I did shift change at work last night, and will tommorow night, so my new boss didn't want me going back in tonight. Works for me.
This will probably be my only entry tonight. With everyone having their Black Friday sales tommorow, I will be extremely busy, so I plan on being in the shop by 5:30, and have my entire first shift scheduled in at 6am. If I don't get a chance to post again this weekend, I am off on Monday, so maybe I will get a chance then.
...that I can remember anyway. I've been told that everyone dreams except for maybe sociopaths. Either way is fine by me, at least I was able to sleep for seven hours uninterrupted. Hopefully today will be an easy day. I think that I have extra help scheduled this morning, so I may be able to get some extra stuff done that has been needing attention, then get the hell out by 2:15.
Well damn. It's Monday again. I have enjoyed my weekend off but I could have used an extra day. I need more sleep :>
I found out last week that I get more vacation starting in January, so now I get two weeks plus another ten day vacation each year. Very cool. Since the fiscal year starts in June that means that I will actually get two ten day vacations next year. I need to see when spring break is for my kids, as that will be when I take the first one.
Just can't get enough of this album.
iTunes has apparently given us the ability to embed iMixes in web pages. Would be even better if I
"How 'bout YOU heal ME with your love, pretty mama"
Gotta get your pick up lines somewhere, why not Cartoon Network?
Here it is, my weekend off and I have been up for an how already. My parents are coming out this afternoon and we are going to have our Thanksgiving dinner today as I will probably not make it home on the real day. Chris has to work this morning, so I got up to make sure that he was awake. Damn, I think I will pull an Eric and go back to bed until the sun comes up.
Lately I have been getting forwarded shit from other people's cell phones. Here is the body of the one I just got.
“
”
FR: I almost posted the number so you assholes could forward some tasty messages BACK to this person, but decided that might not be a good idea.
(FW:)S-L-A-P!!! you're now my bitch...the national pimp off has begun! Pimp others before they pimp you! You can pimp anyone except your pimp. Start pimpin bitch!
What the fuck? I saw the "bitch" part and the first person that I thought of was Yabu. What's up with that. OK, quit filling up my inbox with this shit. Oh by the way, if you sent me this and I have offended you, good deal, go fuck yourself.
This kind of shit is worse than junk mail because I have to pay for text messages you dickhead assmunch.
In one part of the article, the author says "You would not call a piece of meat a "dead animal," even if you realize it's a part of one".
I don't know. I have had a couple of pieces of meat when I was younger that I tended to refer to as "dead" animals. Just saying.
BTW, thanks for the link Leslie. I am not sure what it is, but any link having to do with beastiality and necrophilia is just too damn good NOT to click on.
...but if he were here he would be whacking the shit out of that other guy with his hockey stick. hehe. Thanks V-Man (just blame my blasphemous ways on him).
Even though I had tried to reload the driver from device manager, apparently I needed to completely reload the software using Creative's installation file. I fucking hate soundblasters software and drivers. I have been using their cards for 15 years or so and I like them, but they are always behind the times with drivers, and their software blows chunks.
Listening to the best of the Pixies right now. Much better working environment. I don't know what the hell I was doing (probably working) while they were still around, but this kicks ass.
Update - Apparently the sound issue is something in Windows. Fucked if I know what. I tried different speakers as well as headphones, in both soundcards. Tried disabling one of the soundcards. Reinstalled drivers. Did a system restore. Know I am starting to get pissed off and may kick it a few times to see if that will work. I've gotta have my itunes. I know I can listen to music on the TV system, but it's not the same, particularly if Holder or one of the wall crawlers want to watch TV.
I am pretty much a happy camper today. Stardock released Windowblinds for Vista yesterday (at least the beta version). I have missed being able to skin my windows under Vista. I've used this program since 1999 or so, and it kicks ass. I also found a transparent console called (amazingly enough) Console. I used to use an eterm like program called eConsole, but development on it stopped several years ago and it doesn't run properly under Windows Vista. The first time I loaded up a skin it crashed explorer, but after a reboot I haven't had a single problem since. There are literally hundreds of skins available for free at Wincustomize, although Windowblinds itself is shareware. Well worth the price.
The only thing that I have found that is a pain in the ass with this "new" pc is that my sound quit working mysteriously yesterday. I am getting ready to check it out with a different pair of speakers, as it won't work on the built-in sound on my MB or my sound card. I also tried with headphones and couldn't get that to work either. Piece of shit.
Here's a screenshot of my current desktop.
Update - Apparently the sound issue is something in Windows. Fucked if I know what. I tried different speakers as well as headphones, in both soundcards. Tried disabling one of the soundcards. Reinstalled drivers. Did a system restore. Know I am starting to get pissed off and may kick it a few times to see if that will work. I've gotta have my itunes. I know I can listen to music on the TV system, but it's not the same, particularly if Holder or one of the wall crawlers want to watch TV.
Since I am working so close to home now I seem to be sleeping later and later. Apparently I must need it, but I sort of enjoy that time in the morning to blog. I also use that time to balance my checkbook and just take plenty of time to wake up. Perhaps I can attempt to go to bed a little bit earlier and that will help out. I finally seem to be over the bronchitis, but my bosy is probably still trying to recover. At least my ears don't feel like I am on a plane anymore.
Once again, I have a computer up and running. I ended up being able to get one of my media PCs running again, it just had a couple of bad sticks om RAM in it, so now I have a PC again, and it's faster than the one I was using. Sweet. Does that mean I will post more? Probably not.
...and I actually have a couple of days off thank god...and not a fucking thing to post :>
I have to take the smallest one for an ear re-check in a few minutes, so she gets to spend my day off with me, which is a treat for both of us. She is currently watching Dora as I listen to the Pixies (Wave of Mutilation).
Perhaps I am the one who needs to go back to the doctor. I have been on antibiotics for about eight days now and can't seem to shake this crap. My ears feel as if I just got off a plane and nasty stuff flows from all of my orifices. I DO feel better than I did this time last week, but really would like this to go away.
Looks like a few folks are getting together at the Vinings Inn for supper tomorrow night. Since I am off until Sunday morning I am going to have to head in to Atlanta (traffic and all) and have a bit of fun. Unfortunately I have to be up early Sunday, so won't have too many libations while there. Yabu is coming, so I will bring my get-out-of-jail free card just in case.
Damn, I have hardly posted at all this week. Another long one. I just got home a few minutes ago. Early enough to kiss the girls good night, but that's about it. I will have to take a much needed shower and hit the sack soon. 4:30 AM comes too damn early.
The kids got their grades today. They both did very well, That is a very good thing. Chris got at least all Bs. Great. Except the part where he gets his computer back. Damn. Since Anna's milk went in the laptop, I am computer-less. I guess it could be worse, I could be dick-less. And a zombie. That would definitely be worse.
As much as I love home automation, and the homemade PVR and such, I may be retiring the fucker and putting it back under my desk for awhile, since it used to be my PC anyway. Damn, just can't decide.
I was informed the other day that I have to be at a meeting in Anniston, Alabama at 5pm on Tuesday after work. On election day. What the fuck is up with that? I feel the need to protest. That or leave my boss by herself mid morning while I go vote. That may just be the ticket.
Finally seem to be getting over whatever crap I have had the last week. I am taking an entire drugstore every day in the attempt to rid myself of this shit and it seems to be working. Hell, I even had a breathing treatment last night and am currently working on coughing up the other half of my lung. Perhaps another smoke will do the trick.
My days off have finally rolled around, and none too soon. I was off last Sunday of course, I think I have worked 48+ hours in the last three days though. Business is really exceeding my expectations so far, and I hired extra people just in case, but they are so fucking weak I am having to stay there anyway. I left shortly before 11pm last night.
My lovely wife made me a doctor's appointment for this morning and apparently I have severe bronchitis. I ended up spending most of the entire day in a non-moving position on the couch. Hell, I didn't even get up to go smoke. I did manage to go get the girls this afternoon, because I though that we were going to be late getting my son to work. He just got dropped off on the way home, so that worked out well.
