et alii*Step V.2
"We're Boned"
The title of the last entry ("Lab mice?!") is a reference to the latest book I'm reading,
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I changed it a little and I won't bother trying to explain too much as I don't want to give anything away. That first book is quite entertaining if you're into that sort of thing by the way. It's a very short book that only took about two days to finish. Now I'm part way through the second book in the series. Still quite entertaining. Now I just have to buy the remaining three and the collection will be complete.
Lately I've been feeling a little depressed. I feel like going into details though, not even to a hardly-if-at-all-read blog entry. I just really don't want to be in college any more. Which means I would like to get an appropriate certification like Network+ and/or MCSE to get a job. Which requires more college classes sure but at least it's with the immediate goal of not being in college any more. As opposed to spending a more time in college. Which is no longer what I desire. Now this scenario seems logical to me but not to any one else for some reason. See the easiest way to get a job is via the college. So I'll take a part time job via the college while I’m getting the MCSE then use that certification to get a real job at which point I can either take Saturday classes or whatever or just use keep the job full time forever. Alright so this means I won't be going to a university any time soon. I wasn't going to a university any time soon anyway. So this certification approach is my new goal hell or high water. I'm not nearly as optimistic or cheery as I was only a year ago. Now why that is I wouldn't know. Actually I do know but there's not a lot I can do about it until I get a job and make some amount of money. Which I hope will be soon.
About time I ended that rather pointless paragraph. I wonder if anyone would notice the difference between my last couple entries and the ones before that. I seem to be on some sort of slippery slide of despair and depression of some sort. Or perhaps it only feels that way. Well instead of turning a new leaf I'm just going to sulk and whine and feel sorry for myself until I feel differently. Maybe that won't work though. Ya think?
I do have some what a method to my whining though. My goal was actually to use this blog to practice writing to kind of hone my skills if you will. Then start a website that might actually have some number of visitors and put one of those Amazon affiliate links. Then maybe, in a year or two, I might actually be making money on via this website thanks to my writing skills. Well that's the theory anyway. I would use this blog for such a purpose but as mentioned several times I have no visitors what so ever.
Now I'd like to complain about politics. Because there aren't enough whiney idiots whining and complaining about politics despite obviously not knowing what they're talking about. Or something to that effect. I for some odd reason watched an episode of Hannity and Combs the other night on Fox News Channel despite knowing that usually no a very good idea. The problem, ya see, is that everybody is allowed to talk over everyone else producing a very anarchic, pointless experience of watching. Anyway there was this "Democratic Party Advisor" on as a guest which I think is a euphemism for something I'm not sure of. I think that means "highly paid human infomercial only TV to repeat the same few lines over and over and spin whatever is said by an opposing view into appearing to be a racist and/or bigot". If anyone doesn't know this is one of those Crossfire right wing/left wing debate type shows. The right wing half the show which was Oliver North this time around and he was talking about the combatants in Iraq who were killing troops during this latest war. Colonel North was simply pointing out that he was there as a reporter at the time and knows for certain some of the fire the soldiers were taking were in fact from "foreigners" who in all likelihood were either direct members of or in some way in associated with the terrorists. From this statement this advisor guy took that to mean North was saying all foreigners in the United States are some how terrorists. Now how is an official employee of a major political party allowed to get away with this? Am I the only one to see the two are not in any way connected to each other? Where do they dig these people up anyway? I mean I realize the job market is tight right now and all but give me a break. I guess this is what you get when you pay for a mouthpiece. And it's not like there's any doubt he's a bought a paid for mouthpiece either. But does he really believe what he is saying? Or is it simply to do and say what he's paid to do under all circumstances?
"Lab mice?!"
The title of the last entry ("Haven't seen you since the lube job") is from another Whose Line skit. Ryan and Colin were doing this "Film Noir" scene where the two of them interact with each other and every so often do an inner-monolog narrative to the camera (yes I know there's a word for that which looks something like "serrilaquee" but I can't find the spelling so gimme a break). One of them in one of these monolog narratives says something about having not seen the other since the lube job with his wife but that he wasn't going to mention this but when he goes back to the regular skit immediately says "I haven't seen you since the lube job" to which the other responds "hey!". That show's a little cerebral though (despite the dumbing-down from the British version) and it may be a bit over my head (or maybe I only want it to be). Either way I thought it was a funny line.
Hey look everybody. I've had
one hit everyday for
five days now. It's like I'm on a roll or something. If you happen to follow the check mark-looking icon at the left you'll note it will lead you to my hits and visitor statistics page which has more than 5 hits a day reflected. Well all "winfirst" and "PacBell usa" identifications would be the author loading the page over and over trying to get it to look right. But the other hits are actual visitors. So that'd come out to 5 in the last 5 days now. In a row! So to all the other blog authors who have less than a hit a day I'd just say "hah-hah". Oh and I'm not nearly this narcissistic or egocentric in real life. Just in blog-life. Oh and I'm excited about all the hits.
I would like to complain about the "environmentalist wackos" as the popular term goes. Or perhaps the more accurate term is "environmentalist nazis" or "them crazy motherfuckers who don't have a shower or know what the fuck they're talking about".
Did I scare away what few visitors I have? Great. Perhaps I should clarify my definitions here. The "environmentalists" of which I am referring to aren't really environmentalists but really members of some sort of weird cult bent on imposing socialism on the world. Pretending to love flowers and a pathetic attempt at science just happened to be the chose medium for this goal. So if you or someone you know buys a Sierra Club calendar every year and writes a check to "save the rain forest" to better sleep at night: don't worry. You're not one of these nazis of which I speak. You'll recognize them when you see them.
For example if you were to read
this story (new window) you would see these elitist who supposedly know something of the environment (e.g. write checks and say the right shit at the right time) actually don't want to be bothered with it when it might have a negative effect on one of them personally.
Separately and unrelated to Kerry there are also organizations actively pursuing a policy of a "voluntary human extinction" in order to save the earth. These would be the nazis of which I referred to earlier. The cultists are a little different however. They have little groups of people around world whose sole job it is to indoctrinate what I can only assume to be very very susceptible young people from grade school to apparently upper 20's in age. I assume it goes something like trying to wrap ideas and concepts into logical and smart-sounding wrappers, which seamlessly blends over into Bush-the-savage-caveman-who-bombs-the-innocent. I would expect your average person would be able to recognize this effectively but apparently I am wrong. So what we get are semi-brainwashed seemingly mindless automatons who don't seem to be able to say anything besides something to the effect of "the earth is dieing" and "Bush is evil" in one way or another.
Now I hate to mention Al Gore as those two word are for some reason a very polarizing phrase. But might I point out he wasn't always so great in them minds of ... however many people are left who actually follow him like a cult guru of some sort. In fact when he was a senator from Tennessee (his home state, had he won he would be president right now. Thank god for pissed-off teneseeians...but that's another entry for another night.) he was actually close "conservative" so far as his pro-tobacco stance and pro-life views. You may be doubting the validity of such a statement (as well you should) but I don't have a link handy to prove so you're going to have to look it up on your own. Some how he became some sort of "environmentalist" psychopath and wrote a book entitled "Earth in the Balance". Apparently the second half of this book is not unlike the Unabomber’s Manifesto, and a copy Gore's book was found in the Unabomber’s shack. But I can't verify either of those statements either. So you may as well dismiss me as some sort of right-wing dumb guy. Or look it up yourself. Now I'm the one making the statements so the burden should be on me to back up what I say. But this is only a blog and I'm too tired. So if this in anyway intrigues you then search for and get back to me.
Another thing on Gore are his mannerisms and apparent worship of the teacher unions and various environmental groups who have bought and paid for him. Just seems so obvious that everything he says and does even now is in direct aim and a particular audience. But this is starting to and will soon be even more so extremely funny and entertaining. And isn't free entertainment something we all want?
Apparently he contemplating almost thinking about maybe becoming interested in a radio and/or cable network that he may or may not partially back in the near or distant future. As
reported by Time Online this would be a liberal network in the vein of countering the likes of the Fox News Network and the well known Rush Limbaugh on AM radio. Apparently two (or two and a half depending on who you ask) cable news networks, ABC/NBC/CBS/PBS and NPR/PRI not to mention the programming of all the other popular cable channels aren't enough for Al Gore and the rest of them. They want a wide "diverse" range of opinions -- as long as those opinions are theirs I gather. Take a look people. MSNBC is the most liberal thing you could ever ask for. PBS? Lots of right wing perspective there. And NPR? It's even better than the rest not even having to turn a profit thanks to the public funding. Nobody listening or contributing? Just allocate more government money. So how can any of you non-conservative types be complaining? Don't like Fox News? Here's an idea: don't watch it. Don't like Limbaugh? Don't listen. I see now what conservatives have been saying for so long is really true. They do want to squelch anything that doesn't agree with them. Makes it much easier to continue saying "we've got wide, diverse array of opinion" when no one is able to speak up and disagree.
By the way and for the record Fox News isn't really that conservative when you come down to it. It simply does a better job of airing both sides of a particular issue or story. CNN and MSNBC do not do this at all. If I watch MSNBC for example within the first few seconds of a reported story I can see a political agenda start to emerge. And how anybody can miss this I don't really know. Now I'm tempted to spend to the next several minutes trying to come up with something specific for an example but that is not necessary as all a reader has to do is turn on MSNBC and watch for a few minutes. Odds are you've never seen it since the ratings range for below 100,000 viewers to perhaps 200,000 (still very low even for cable). And also for the record MSNBC is nothing more than a mouthpiece for every possible liberal agenda you can imagine extremely thinly veiled as a "news source" (again see channel for immediate and obvious example).
I've just realized this was a completely pointless and waste of an entry. Even for a stupid low-read blog entry. So I've decided to stop it here.
"Haven't seen you since the lube job"
The title of the last entry is from an episode of a show I only recently started to watch again. Actually the show
The Family Guy only started in re-runs fairly recently so it wasn't really my fault. This line was from the character, Peter Griffin, he was drunk or something and telling jokes. At least I think that's what it was. Can't remember.
The Family Guy is actually quite a wonderful show and very under rated. You can now find it Monday night through Thursday night at 11:30pm on cartoon network. And that line is very funny. Not to mention accurate :-).
And in the breaking news section...
Two hits! I received two hits in 24 hours! Wuhoo! One of them was from the "General Electric Company" domain at 5 in the morning. Now why would someone at General Electric Company be looking at my blog at 5am? Why would anyone be reading any blog at all never mind at 5 in the morning? Who reads blogs at 5am in the first place? Am I the only one wondering this sort of thing?
Tonight I watched an episode of Whose Line is it Anyway? with Richard Simmons as a guest star. I don't think I have ever seen a studio audience or Drew Carey laugh quite as hard as in this episode. I've never seen anyone act quite that gay on that show either. There's a lot of mock-homosexuality on that show ya see. But usually it's the cast members merely acting trying to get a laugh or whatever. Only Simmons was a little more convincing. Because he is gay obviously. The way he acted though it was extremely funny. Lets just say he was a little enthused.
So to update on my computer situation I think I have it either mostly or completely solved the problem with the high temperatures. First I should mention there's a new link at the left labed "my puter" that will link to a list of images I took of, you know, my 'puter. As you may have noticed the fan is in the wrong spot. Well I haven't changed that part actually but I did turn it around to it was blow into the case. And look the idle temperature has dropped by 6 degrees to between 47 and 50 Celsius. I suppose I should have guessed that that's the way it should have faced. I bet I didn't even need the new heat sync. But if I ever move the fan to the right position directly over the cpu I’m sure the cpu will be cool enough I can over-clock it. And isn't that what we all want? No? I guess the processor is only $100 these days, online that is. At CompUSA for example it's only about $170 at the time of this writing. Add sales tax to this and I'm still wondering why anyone would be go into a CompUSA and buy that processor. I guess if wanted a professional to install it than it would make sense. But if you're buying a processor by itself wouldn't you know how to install it? Well you should. So even if the stupid legislature bastards actually try to pass a sales tax (no, this isn't constitutional, and yes, I'm sure) on Internet sales it will still be cheaper to buy off the Internet. I'm not exactly sure why there is such a discrepancy in prices. Internet sales tax, something to rant about!
Now you may be saying something like "how can an Internet sales tax be unconstitutional, there was no Internet 1776" or even "why shouldn't the Internet be taxed? After all it's only fair to quote level-the-playing-field unquote so why shouldn't there be an Internet sales tax?". Well I have answers to both these statements or questions.
First of all an "Internet sale" isn't really any different than any other sale if you really look at it. All you're doing is typing in your credit card number into a computer and sending this information over phone lines to another computer which then clears it with your account or whatever it is and the company on the other mails the product to you. If you were to say, oh I don't know, order something from a catalog or off home shopping channel you would pick up the phone, use the phone lines to communicate your credit card number over the phone lines to a person on the other end who then enters this into a computer, is cleared with your account and the product is shipped to you. Or...you go to say a computer store and pick out some software, you go to the register and take out your credit card, swipe it, sign off on the purchase and wait for it to go through. By transmitting over phone lines. To your bank to clear it with your account. Sound familiar? But transactions via catalog or home shopping network don't have sales tax if you're buying an item out of your state (so far as I know). So why pass an Internet sales tax?
Second, on the "leveling the playing field" front, this is not a valid a contradiction as it's I think merely a euphemism for socialism. Maybe it isn't fair CompUSA has to compete with sales tax while all those Internet sites don't have to. But then CompUSA (and I'm only using this national chain as an example) has lots of advantages over the Internet sellers not to mention the options of doing both by either creating their own online brand or partnering with an already established online retailer they can have both worlds. Besides which "leveling" any playing field would only work to stifle competition which is the whole advantage these days.
Lastly this is unconstitutional because in the constitution there is a specific clause about regulating the trade between states, as in congress shall not do it. And as demonstrated above if your trying to charge sales tax on a transaction across state lines you are in fact breaking the law. Of course constitutions haven't seemed to slow politicians down lately, nor have much of any laws for that matter. I can't link to the exact place in the constitution at the moment as it is 1 in the morning and I'm a little tired. A simple google search will however yield you the results of what I am looking for.
"What's the difference between porn and art?
A government grant!"
The title from the last entry is from and episode of
Married With Children delivered by the infamous Kelly Bundy. Some how this line just stayed with me. I don't think that show had that many quotable lines like this. For context I think she had just arrived home from work or something and had had a bad day of some sort. I'm not actually a big fan of that show. Sometimes there's nothing else on though.
As is what usually happens I have all these great ideas for my blog until I actually sit down to make the entry. Then my mind goes blank and I end up prattling on about stupid stuff instead of being clever and witty. Err whatever. I hate it when that happens.
I did see an episode of South Park last night. This time the show was exploring the newfound ability to use the word "shit" on basic cable. And the plot revolved around a TV network president using the word to increase the ratings via the shock of it. As this was happening there was this counter in the lower corner counting the number of times "shit" is said in the episode. They got up to about 160 times. No reason really, just to be able to do it I guess. Not sure about that show sometimes. Sometimes it's really well written and funny and other times it's just disturbing/disgusting/really reaching for a shocking moment. Still better than The Simpsons though.
Yesterday I spent much time submitting this blog to various blog directories. So maybe I'll have visitors sometime in the next 24 hours. For those of you who care enough to click the counter at left you'll not a lot of hits for the "winfirst" domain. Yes, that'd be me refreshing the page trying to get it to look right. Just so everybody knows. Outside of me I've had literally about 3 or 4 visits. And all but one of those was from people I know.
In my last entry I brainstormed an idea for this story and/or NWN module I wanted to start writing. Well I've started an outline of what that may look like. I'm not going to share it though :-). Not sure if this is turning out to be easier or harder than i would have imagined. I haven't done any creative writing in a really long time, only writing like this (whatever comes to mind and nearly always made up as I go along) or as an assignment (also made up as a go along). I don't even know if I'll ever finish it or what the story will look like. Of course I don't do much fiction reading either. I think that'd help get me into the whole swing of writing fiction, reading some fiction. Actually I have the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy novel staring at me right now, I just haven't picked it up yet. I also ordered the first two books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "Trilogy" from Amazon, but only because I think it's required for computer people like me.
I did start reading a book though. Only it's about writing. It's called Writing in Flow. Basically it's a description of the state of mind some people go into when they're doing something creatively and all sense of time is completely lost. Which also coincidently describes how sometimes a driver will lose sense of time driving at night just watching the center yellow line and then snap out of it and not know where he is. This was explained to me as a form of hypnosis. But to creative types apparently it's "flow". This actually happens to me all the time. Usually it takes a deadline and some amount of pressure for it to really happen though. Or sometimes I'm just really into what I'm doing. For example I took this writing class as a "distance learning" (I watch the teacher live on TV from 50 or so miles away and talk to him via class room microphone) class and the teacher let me submit my writing assignments via HTML formatted document instead of printing it out and sending it in. While I was preparing the HTML I just kept tweaking it and tweaking and fixing and tweaking it and going and going...until it had been about 5 or 6 hours. I wasn't even thinking about the time. I didn't sit down and say "ok, the next 6 hours is reserved for this stupid set of HTML documents!" or anything. I just had to get it to look right (or i probably wouldn't sleep but lets not talk about that :-) ) and I kept working on it until I was more or less satisfied with it. So far as I can tell this would be "flow". But I didn't have to go through any process to go into this on purpose. Just took me being neurotic and obsessive-compulsive enough to keep on it until it was done.
I also did this for my first English class (not the one I spoke of in an earlier entry) for the 5 to 7 page term paper I had due. I did lots of procrastinating as usual until the very end of the semester. Of course I had to turn in which topic I was planning and a detailed outline (it was very, very detailed) but I didn't start researching or writing until about 3 or 4 weeks before it was due. I did the amount research required (cited sources from print, newspapers, the Internet) and finally just started writing. And I knew I had to have it done by a particular date. As I said I have kind of an obsessive-compulsive streak in me so I had actually been "looping" what I wanted to write and say over and over in my head the entire semester so when I started writing it's like I was on the 50th draft by then. But I was surprising myself in my writing. Where was this coming from? How did I come up with putting the thesis in the second paragraph like that?! I've never done that before. And again I was writing without noticing any amount of time passing by. Oh and I was still working on that essay the very last day possible for it to be turned in. Like 3 hours before the deadline I was still writing the conclusion. That was my only draft and I didn't proof read the whole thing before I turned it in. Well I got an A on the paper and an A in the class. I did have some typos though. It seems I kept using "cite" and "site" in the wrong contexts. But those were the only mistakes to speak of...that the teacher caught. Actually it was quite biased and only proving a foregone conclusion I had already made up my mind about. Kind of like CNN does... But the standards seem relatively low for an English 1A class for some reason.
Why can't everything be like that? I want math to be like that! But oh no. I'm horrible at math.
*Step
All right I think I am finally going to talk about LiteStep. It is after all referred to in the title. First I will try to introduce it and describe my personal experiences with it. Of course very few readers will understand what in the world I'm talking about. But that's only because this program is extremely difficult to describe both accurately and in terms everyone can understand. This is a problem with in every instance of technical writing when a difficult concept has to be introduced (don't get me started on pointers in programming for example).
First of all I will point to you to an article written by someone else who attempted to accurately describe this in a way everyone can understand, entitled "LiteStep Explained" by Jalist (new window) over at my other abandoned-looking site dedicated to LiteStep (ok maybe it is abandoned, I just don't want to admit it). Jalist seems like a pretty good a writer and the explanation I think is clear.
Next I can point you to this site: http://www.velocityart.com/?page=archive§ion=litestep (new window) which many "themes" for LiteStep along with screenshots. If you click the various thumbnails you get a full-screen view of it. This should hopefully give you an idea of what this program does and some of the features. If you don't feel like clicking those links and/or are intrigued enough about it then read on...
Day Tripper, Lite Stepper
In computer terms LiteStep is what is currently called a "shell" for MS Windows (all versions from 95 to XP/Server 2003). Now some of you are asking "what do you mean by that", some are asking "what's a shell" while still other sarcastic pukes are saying "shells are command line programs for MS-DOS and UNIX derivatives, what kind of puter-person are you anyway?". If you're one of those last people I'll get to you later. As for everyone else I'll try as best I can to use metaphors to describe what a shell is. First let me mention that your interface in MS Windows is already a shell. If you're a little more advanced than the average you may have heard of "shell extensions" or "shell utilities". The most famous of which is probably TweakUI, part of the MS PowerToys. This shell, you'll find it on your C: drive as Explorer.exe, is very simply an application that provides the user a friendly interface complete with start button, desktop and access to a file manager called "My Computer". If you look at your list of running applications (use task manager or ctrl+alt+delete depending on your Windows version) you'll note the Explorer.exe program running. Try ending this as a task and you'll note the computer gives you the shutdown dialog box (at least in versions 9x and me, haven't tried NT, 2k or XP).
So basically a "shell" is like the dashboard and steering wheel inside your car. Imagine the steering wheel inside your wasn't the right size, the shift stick was in an awkward place, you could barely reach the clutch and breaks and your knees barely fit under the steering wheel. All these things are the main control interface to an engine in your car. The other features found on your dash of this imaginary car may include all the dials telling you stuff like RPMs, how much gas is left, the oil light blinks making it not of much use and all the others, all these features giving the status of the system. A very kludgey "interface" to the engine of your car. Now imagine you could easily change out this annoying dashboard/interface and replace with something custom-fit to your liking. You still have the same engine, it's still the same car with the same gas mileage, just the manner in which you control the car has been changed. This is basically what a "replacement shell" such as LiteStep is supposed to be providing for you. I sure hope that made sense.
Now what if you're satisfied with your dash board? What if you fit in your seat and your oil light works? Well maybe someone going to show you a better way but there's only so many adjustments you can do. Well to me this is Explorer. Sure I can put in lots and lots of shortcuts and download programs to make Explorer more personalized and stream lined. I would still feel like I have a bunch of obstacles to jump over just to get where I'm tiring to go. Like the whole stupid interface was designed around getting in my damn way...But I digress. If you have had similar experiences and you are fairly intermediate to advanced than LiteStep may be right something to try.
Shell If I Know
Now on to those arrogant people trying to tell me LiteStep can't be accurately described as a shell (everybody else skip this section). Well it is. So there ya go. Alright maybe I should make more of case than this. Well in MS-DOS and UNIX you literally set a parameter in a text configuration file naming the shell you wish to use. This setting loads up this program when the system starts up and provides an interface. This is exactly what is done in MS Windows in the case of Explorer.exe and LiteStep. Sure in these two cases the programs are graphical interfaces, but what difference does that make? Both are programs specified to start up when the system starts to provide the user with a way to interact with the Operating System. So why does a shell have to be a command line interface? And indeed if you find any computer term dictionaries on the Internet at no point in the definition of a shell will you find a reference to command lines only. Now this may still have not been a case for many of you. The shell will be a command line till the day you die. Well fine! But I'm telling you these programs, Explorer and LiteStep, fit every definition and attribute you can think of when describing what is commonly known as a shell.
Well this is the first part of my multi-part attempt at describing this program LiteStep. There will in fact be more parts to this forth coming. Maybe not in the next entry, maybe it will be in the next entry. No way to tell really. But stay tuned!
"I'm sitting on the horns of an enema"
I suppose I should explain the titles since I may actually have some readers soon. I started a little game with the titles for this blog where I use an obscure pop-culture reference as the title, leaving the reader to try and figure where I got the reference and what it is a reference to. The title of the last entry, "Old Sources of Energy", was a quote from some Sierra Club nut ball bastard (was that insensitive?) talking about not gathering any more energy resources in favor of newer "renewable energy sources". These newer sources of energy technology will take decades to develop and perfect and become widely adopted. So what are we to do in the mean time? Complain about energy prices and blame the corporations who couldn't lower prices if they tried because of the environmental policies. Well as long as it makes sense. This title had little to do with the entry last time, I just happen to hear the environmentalist nazi use the line as I was about to start the entry so I used it.
For this entry I'd like to explore a little more of writing abilities. Below is an e-mail I sent to a classmate in my accounting class in its' entirety with some portions censored for obvious reasons.
--------- My e-mail --------------
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 14:58:45 -0800 (PST)
From: (Censored)
Subject: (My name) (from accounting) New Number
To: (Censored)
Hi,
My new number is (Censored). And the old number will give you the real number (if the above one is wrong) if you call it if you want to make sure that's the real number. The old number again is (Censored).
So should I have chapter 6 read and significant progress on the assignments done, or just have 6 read, or are we going to concentrate
on 5? The test if the big calendar on the wall is right will be on the 19; a staggering 8 days from now. I guess we'll talk about it on Wed./tomorrow.
bye
(My name) (from accounting)
=====
"I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time"
-Mark Twain
------
--------- My e-mail --------------
Now I wrote this e-mail rather quickly and without thinking much about it and just sent it off. To my surprise my classmate expressed utter amazement at how great my e-mail was. I couldn't understand what she was talking about. Why was she so impressed by this e-mail? I don't really understand. Doesn't seem so special to me. Yet she was so insistent of how great an e-mail it was. Maybe she's easily impressed.
Ok so actually I had this one episode of Seinfeld in mind when I was writing it. I didn't tell her that. I don't think I even realized at the time I was writing it. The episode in question had Elaine (no idea how to spell that name) hanging out with the polar opposite characters from the normal Jerry, George and Kramer, in sort of a "bizarro world" reference to the Superman comic book series. These other characters went to the library to read for fun, were real nice to each other and of course every time the other version of Kramer would come over he would knock on the door, say his name and after a few seconds add "from across the hall" (as opposed to Kramer’s sliding and swinging the door open all the time at will). And the new Jerry would always hesitate then let him in when he said "from across the hall". So I was kind of ripping that off with the constant "my name...from accounting 1a" those few times. I hope that made sense. Well anyway I still don't understand what's so great about this e-mail.
Next I want to brainstorm this idea for a story I'd like to write. It's basically going to be a parody of THE ONES WHO WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS
by Ursula Le Guin which can be found here (new window). Normally I would be more hesitant to some what promote a story that has some "hippie-ful overtones" to it. But that is why it will be more of parody.
Basically a character would be dropped in the middle of this city of Omelas that's more based on reality. Kind of a Han Solo or Wolverine in the X-Men movies kind of character who seems outside the story from the rest of the characters. He'd wander around, talking to different people and learning the story as he progressed, making snide comments and pointing out holes in the story as he went. Eventually the revelation of the child suffering so society could live happily would be revealed. And at the end the character would be given the choice to stay in Omelas and accept the suffering of the child as a fact of life or leave Omelas due to moral indignation or whatever. Of course, this would be the end of the story. No answer to the choice.
Actually what I really want to do is make a Neverwinter Nights Module (new window) based on this story. Of course I would have to change it a little so there was some fighting. And I would have to figure out how to make it "non-linear" so it's not a one-track story. The story would always end the same way: the player is given a choice of either staying or leaving Omelas. Either way the module would end right there. It wouldn't matter which choice the player made. I might include a third choice like rescuing the child. But that would have a catch to it also as it would have dire consequences. Something like the rest of city population either dieing or possibly just turning it into a really bad place with lots of suffering. I think it would be fun writing the story and making the NWN module like that. It would take forever to build the whole city though. Then I'd have to build it again in the everybody-suffering-now version.
I just check my hit stats and I've received two visitors! Thanks visitors. I guess this means I have to post an e-mail address. Pfff. Alright fine. I better not get any spam though. If all goes according to plan you should find it at your left. Oh and I’ll post something about LiteStep next time...
"Old Sources of Energy"
I can't believe I haven't made any submittals to this blog in almost a month. I get a little free time and suddenly I'm too good to write. Something I enjoy somewhat anyway. The answer to the last entry was good old Chief Wiggum from The Simpsons. If I remember that episode correctly home had just been arrested, at which point he lets out his trademark expletive. To which Wiggum replies with "That's what they all say... They all say d'oh". Did I mention I like that show? I don't think I did. Well I do. Like that show. Wuhoo.
As I mentioned in the last few entries I've finally built my new computer. The fore-mentioned problems seemed to be alleviated for a while there. Accept that my BIOS would report a bunch of garbage characters at the boot-up screen in place of the name of the processor, AMD 2500+. So I took what I thought would be a risk and used the utility that came with my ASUS motherboard to flash and update the BIOS to the latest version. And to my total and complete utter surprise it actually worked...on the first try! The program connected to the ASUS FTP site, found the latest version of the BIOS, erased the flash ROM, updated the ROM, and prompted me to reboot. Which I did. So good then the BIOS correctly reports the name of my CPU.
So I start playing my new game, Elderscroll 3: Morrowind. After something like a half hour of play the computer reboots. This was right after I flashed the BIOS. In previous days I had played for hours with no miraculous reboots. So what's the deal? So I use the other ASUS utility called PC Probe and it tells me the CPU is at 56 degrees Celsius which is quite hot.
Side track! Side track! Side track! Side track! Side track! Side track!
I'm not one of these "Canadians" who use them fancy "rest of the world measuring systems" that are laid out and organized in a "logical manner" (pfff!) but it does seem more convenient to use Celsius in this case. I guess because "my CPU is running at a chilly 44 degrees" makes more sense than "the CPU's at a chilly 114 degrees!” Right? For those of you Americans who don't know in the Celsius system, 0 degrees is freezing and 100 degrees is boiling. See what I mean? Damned fruity rest of the world measuring systems...
End Side track
So any way I started to get worried. I described the issues to my clan mates (Max Jerome, Dark Man and PhotekOBV more specifically) and Dark Man suggested buying a new heat synch called the Volcano 7+ so this is what I went out to buy. I spent $35 on that damn thing. I could have got it for less had I ordered online but I needed it right away, as I really wanted to use my computer. This particular heat sync seems actually pretty popular these days. In the package included as some "thermal grease". You're supposed to put it on the "dye" (or is it "die"? I dunno) of the CPU too kind of insulate the CPU from the heat sync. I had to go through several attempts at applying this grease. The first one or two times (yesterday) I ended up with a hotter temperatures than I had with the sync that the CPU came with. But today I looked a little more carefully and tried to find some better instructions on the Internet and re-applied the grease. This time when I booted up the CPU was 47 degrees according the to BIOS at first but once warmed up by the time it the OS had booted it was to 53 degrees. Ok that's not so good but still better. Then I did some activity and it eventually climbed back to 55 degrees. I decided to test out Morrowind and what do ya know we're back to 60 to 61 degrees. This was about 6 or 7 hours ago. Now, at 11:08pm, PC Probe is reporting 49 degrees Celsius. Looks like this grease stuff needs some sort of "incubation period" of some sort before it starts to work. Ok perhaps that isn't the right term. Just needs to be "cooked-in" I suppose. Point is looks like the grease is now helping. Finally! Of course it will take a session of several hours worth of Morrowind to know for sure the system won't reboot after a long time of heavy use. A sacrifice I'll just have to make... On complaint about this new heat synch though: it's really, really noisy. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending) we have one of those "whole house fans" and it's installed right outside my bedroom door in the hall. So when it is on it drowns out the noisy multiple computers. Lucky me! I think I'm getting used to it though as I now fall asleep fairly quickly despite the noise.
Speaking of my computer I finally installed one of those fancy window "case mods" into the side of my computer. I also installed a blue cold cathode light to the inside. I have taken some pictures with a digital camera and will have the links up eventually.
In other news I've had the last couple weeks off. No classes for the summer and no job. I did almost get a job though. Some job agency found my resume on the Internet and tried to hook me up. But I must have blew it in the old enthusiasm department. I guess. I can be enthusiastic under the right circumstances. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be an on-demand sort of thing as I obviously didn't pull it off at the right time. So I suppose this was a learning experience. Still would have been nice to have a real job with some sort of money coming in.
In other news the oh-so-beloved governor of my state of California (Marxist People's Republic of California) is in the midst of a recall campaign. This means if the needed 900,000 signatures are collected and validated a special measure will be put on the ballet first asking if the sitting governor should be recalled and if so who should take his place. Apparently the number of signatures will in fact be collected. The current governor, Grey "grey-out" Davis, is one of the most unpopular governors in this state's history. Of course the amazing thing mere last November (that's about 7 or 8 months ago) this very same person was re-elected. And why? The voter apathy is so high only the left-wing wacko types were the ones to show up. Although even that isn't all true as the Republican alternative actually won more counties in the state including a southern county (the south of the state seems more liberal than most parts of the north). There simply weren't enough people even aware of the election never mind willing to vote in it. But with an approval rating something like 25% I don't think I'm the only one who is expressing joy at the news of this recall. Of course I'm still trying to figure out how he got re-elected in the first place. Part if it is the weakness combined with the stupidity of the competition. And part of it was the voter apathy. But what about the people who really did vote for this Davis fellow? Did they actually believe this guy when he said he wouldn't raise taxes and the budget was balanced? Do people that stupid actually exist?! Yes, that's right. If you believed him you're stupid. Very, very stupid. Not to mention gullible (please forward your blog tax to the following address....if you don't comply space aliens will come probe you and not in the cute way...). Gullible.
Now I probably could come up with more to talk about. In fact I know I could. But it's 1:00am now and I'm a little tired. It did occur to me the title of the blog does refer to LiteStep and yet I haven't actually written about the subject yet. Well I will write about it. And soon.
