Cherie

...

Bob Plutocracy

Who needs dialogue? Not me, that's for sure.

Fun in Snow

I made this at my parents house a few weekends ago, but didn't get it off my Dad's camera right away, didn't get it uploaded, etc. It's just a little taller than I am and took several hours to build. Those snow boulders are quite large and end up weighing a lot. It was fun though - good exercise, and satisfied a need to build with snow.

Practicing some post-consolidation here, I will now begin to talk about linux. I am delaying the "share files with windows" objective, as it is becoming more clear to me that just copying solutions off the internet doesn't really teach me a lot except for how to solve that one problem. Well, that's an exaggeration, but it feels like truth.

Now I'm reading a text book called Just Enough Unix which Nathan used for one of his classes and is lending to me. One of the interesting facts that I've picked up is that Unix, a very powerful and popular operating system, is in fact a pun on the word 'eunuchs'. I mean, I noticed that right away with a title like "Just Enough Unix", but then it turns out that it really was just some programmer's idea of a funny joke.

Dirty jokes aside, it feels like I'm learning how to use stone tools in order to build a jet fighter. But the book moves at a pretty fast clip, and does make a point of showing how the simple commands it teaches will one day do powerful things... once I actually know what to do with them. And then I get to move on to the book Chris recommened, which has a much more imposing title that I don't remember right now. So this is a good speed for me.

Crazy Eights

The font is different because this is the first strip I've done in Linux. So how did I transfer my files to my Linux computer, you ask? Did I get file sharing working already?

Haha, no. I took the CD-R drive out of the Linux machine, put it in the windows machine, and burned a disc. I love removable media.

Linux Graphic Drivers

OMG

Installing a graphics driver nearly defeated me. In Linux, to do something as rudimentary as installing a driver for your graphics card (GeForce2 in my case), you have to download the source code for the kernel of the operating system so that the driver can compile a whole new kernel. Then you have to go into a configuration file and manually change what resolutions you can set the monitor too.

Yeah, I can't blame you for skimming that paragraph. It's crap. And it's even more complicated than it sounds. As a result, Monday and Tuesday nights I had to, exhausted, force myself to give up and go to bed at 4am after having seemingly made no progress.

But no longer! I finally succeded using questionable methods, but I got the job done. Someday, I hope for the name Uj to no longer be synonymous with the Total System Meltdown of a computer.

The next major goal: to successfully transfer files from my Windows (secondary) machine to this one.

But not tonight.

Fleet Brikwar

The war is over, the page is up.

Jumanji

Linux Installation Update 3

Well, the Linux project stalled a bit last week while I was preparing my legos for the brikwar, but now that I'm at my parent's house for the weekend, I've gone hog-wild, and decided to install linux on my laptop. This, despite warnings from the manual that installing any operating system on a laptop is a risky business due to non-standardized system structurement.

Despite that, sucess. There are flaws, yes. It will not boot with the PCMCIA CD Drive plugged in - but it will recognize it later. And the X-Window graphic interface will not recognize the touchpad and will not start until I plugged in a usb mouse. Flaws aside, I had a relatively easy install experience, and now have more of an opportunity to immerse myself in linux.

I recently decided that immersion is the way to do it. Like learning a language, reading the manual will only get me so far. I won't stop reading, but in addition I will attempt to learn to do all of my normal internet activities in Linux without resorting to my Windows box.

But seriously, "X Window"? Please, Linux community, at least come up with a name that doesn't have 'window' in it. Seriously.



Also, with regards to the choir - I'm with you.

New Look, Location

Alright, I hope not to move the blog again, as that is inconvenient for everybody.

However, the best part about the appearance change, aside from the fact that it is no longer one of the basic blogger templates and looks more like something I'd do, is that it is much easier to edit the template now. All I have to do is upload the .css file with the changes. A definite plus.

I will soon (likely this weekend) put up a page at the old location forwarding people here.

Alright, Aaron and Nathan will be arriving shortly for an epic game of Brikwars, which I will document and put on my mocpage sometime soon. So I've gotta get ready for that.

Good News For People Who Like Bad News - Modest Mouse

After 2 weeks, I felt obligated to take Surfer Rosa out and give another disc the proverbial spin. And so, another birthday gift, Good News... got its chance in the spotlight.

A week and a half with the album so far, and I have warmed up to it, but it has been slow. Obviously, I wanted the album largely because of "Float On", a relaxed, mellow, uplifting song - and the only song anyone's heard of. But the rest of the album is more resigned, dour, and at (many) times outright morbid. It was not what I was prepared for.

Which is not to say that I do not enjoy aspects of the album. But it tends to be more because of technical aspects like the mixing of two melodies in "Bury Me With It", or simply because it reminds me of something else, like how "Interlude" makes me think of the midi soundtrack to Monkey Island II.

All this does make me wonder whether spending long enough with an album will make me find things to like about it. Something I learned in one of my psych classes is that people prefer a sound with which they are familiar, but I'm not sure this is applicable. I imagine that if I put in something I was not at all inclined to like, I'd just end up driving myself crazy before long.

Because it's not that long a drive :)

If Chins Could Kill - Bruce Campbell

Bruce Campbell has starred in not one but many productions with a cult following, and thus has a great number of very rabid fans. I really liked The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr., enough to seek out other things Bruce had been in, but I'm nothing in the grand scheme of his fans.

But I really enjoyed his book. I got it for Christmas, and quickly read the chapter on Brisco, but then put it down in favor of America - The Book. But this weekend I flew out to Nashville to throw a surprise birthday party for Amanda, so I took it out again to read on the plane.

It's not a complicated book. It's just fun. A lot of stories about a bunch of people having a really good time, working really hard, and creating interesting things. His career has been similar to that of They Might Be Giants, who, as Flansburgh has put it, have "clawed their way to the middle." And they both have learned to be quite comfortable there.