Saturday, June 26, 2004

The Chronicles of the Unbeliever

I've decided to try and read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.   I've really not read it since the first time through.  And they I went about it backwards I think.  I read the second Chronicles first.  And even though they stand alone there are a lot of things that are confusing..  Really like Stephan R. Donaldson but man is he long winded.  I've read the first few chapters of Lord Fouls Bane a few times but sort of drift off to something else.  But really want to try and make through all six books this time.  I guess I'm reliving my childhood (teen hood) somewhat again..

Any how decided to let the Xanth novels set for a bit before I get back into them..  Fear that the last book may be a cliffhanger and would hate to get there before the next one is written ;-)

Friday, June 25, 2004

Wired News: Florida to Tax Home Networks

Wired News: Florida to Tax Home Networks

Okay I can not really think of anything more annoying than to have someone tax my network attached computers in my own home. That uses equipment I bought and that I installed. What the heck is up with this. I can understand taxes that are translated into some service some benifit but this tax is insane.

I understand that it was started for business that used their own infrastructure to do telephone calls and don't use the phone system. I'm sort of thinking that this is a protection for the phone system.

There is also the thought that it would go to schools. What is going on with that. How does my having a network in my home require me to be taxed at a higher burden for schools... Do not understand this at all

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Xanth

I've been reading the Xanth novels again. Well some for the first time.. I read them many years ago when I was a kid. The were released on scrolls at that time. The newer book form is much nicer to hold in bed. And with electric lights it is so much easier to read after dark.. I still find them very entertaining. They are not exactly children books but they are really clever and funny.

I have just complete the isle of view.. I'm glad to see that Dolph's dilemma was finally resolved. And glad to see that Electra lived through the experience.. It is amazing to realize that, that book was written 15 years ago or so. Man do I feel old since I consider Xanth to be a part of my adult life. I probably read the first book before I could drive though..

I also have to say that the books that go with Split Infinity are really my favorite by Piers Anthony. Anyhow it has been nice to get to know and old friend and realize I still have more books to go than I have read. That is a big advantage of going back to a multibook Piers Anthony trilogy years later. I only have to wait as long as the Barnes and Noble's order to go thorough to read the next book.. Not years...

An ocean of meetings.

When I started out as a kid programmer some 15 years ago I never
really thought my job would consist of shuffling from one
meeting to another. I figured it would be some heroic last
minute debugging endeavor. It is 12:54 and I've already had two
meetings and will soon be heading for another. Now Meeting can
be okay. It is nice to set there and let your brain wander
around.. You know get some exercise feel the freedom of being
outside of your head and all but enough is enough I feel I
should accomplish at least one thing a week. If nothing else so
I have something to write in a status report..

You know what the worst is, it is the phone, webex meeting. You
always get to some point where you mind is completely absent and
all you here is blah blah de blah de blah right Steve. Then
there you are trying to play back on the blah and figure out
what the heck it was you just agreed to.

AAAAHHH The modern work place a cornucopia of meetings..

Oh well I'm about to be late have to go.. Trudge trudge trudge

Friday, June 18, 2004

Do I look fat to you ;-)

Been trying to walk every day this week. I have a Dr. appt. next week and he is going to wonder why my weight is going the wrong way. Then he will look at me with a disapproving scowl and say you need to lose weight. Am I over weight??? Well in a modern America I'm not the largest person you are going to meet but with all the lung problems and circulation problems caused by the icky fungus of the mid west (I'll tell you all about that sometime) I need to be a lean mean walking machine instead of a eating machine.

I'm back eating chicken sandwichs for lunch probably not the best but better than what I had been doing. Also working on eating less and walking walking walking...

Problem is I'm really busy lately and feel guilty taking out the time to walk. And even 30 mins of walking really makes the old calves hurt. Wish there was a quick way to get this done, but there isn't so walk walk walk walk walk.. Good luck to me..

Can you hear the Music.... Can you hear it now... How about now....

Well I dug out my HipZip and charged it up got it working started messing with it and got to the point where it would play music the first time I turned it on and then it would continually state that it the disk in it did not have any valid music files. Finally decided that it might be time to update.. So started searching for something that I could stick SD cards in. Man are MP3 players expensive and very few of them are expandable. Found the Digitialway MPIO FL100, it seemed to have nice features so I fired up Amazon and ordered one. As an mp3 player it is pretty cool but does suck up the old AAA battery pretty quick (Packages of NiMHs fixed that) has good play back, I'm not really into a lot of base. And took SD cards.. But the software for it is el stinko.... You know how you should plug in a usb device and it shows up as a drive and you just drag and drop simple.. NOOOOOO They have there own little retarded program for putting files on it.. I loaded looked at it and started searching for an alternative. There is a plug in for Windows Media but it seemed to lock up. Looked at a Screen Savers recommendation called SVETA part of DB Power amp. So far that is the tool I'm going to go with.. So as a player it is pretty nice but the tool for putting stuff on it gets an el-stinko rating... So if they would come up with some drivers for Win XP so it would look like a drive would be double plus good. Oh I have a Dazzle and can use that to dump songs on the SD. The Dazzle is USB 2.0 where the player seems to be USB 1.1 sort of slow to copy 384 Meg (128 Meg Internal, and 256 Med SD).

Monday, June 07, 2004

Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow

Saturday was a great day for being outside. Fairly cool, lots
of nice things to do and see. So do I stay in andw slave in a hot
computer room all day? Strangely enough I didn't...... :-)

Got up about 5:00am (yeah I really did) and got all my bike
stuff together and picked up Dave and headed out to the Katie
trail. Got there about 7:00 am or so (Hmmm really thought it
was still dark at that time of night). We biked a total of 16
miles and I came to the realization that bike seats hurt more
each year. You would think that at some point you would get
used to the terrible shooting pains caused by a bike seat that
after a couple of summers biking you would be able to just hop
up there and take off no pain. Well let me tell you that ain't
the way it is.. It hurts more and more.. But the time we
finished off I was reduced to limping along beside my bike
waving at the deranged horsefly buzzing wondering when the
hurting would stop. All in all it was a great biking day and I
can't wait to go again..

Also went out to St. Louis Mills and walked around. Wow is that
place big. Lots of stores, strange stores, why would you need a
place that only sells purple stuff. And I was once again
attacked by the mad buffing booth
weasel. Do I really look like someone that likes to have buffed
nails. I don't think so.. Also I think I'm going to have to
try Tony Romas again. Not as good as the Hickory Log in Dexter
but not to bad... Good help....

Well enough for now..
Steve

Thursday, June 03, 2004

G4 peuuuu

Been watching G$ TECHTV a little bit. The best thing I can say
is that The Screen Savers is still on. The rest of the shows
are like watching endless X-Play with out Morgan Webb. Yuck..
Looks like they are once again surrendering to the thought that
the only people that ever buy anything are kids with absolutely
no attention span.

Here is my solution. Stop giving money to kids.. Come on
parents you can do it just start buying the things you want.
Lets use economics for our own purposes.. Lets stop all these
silly shows and get some quality shows back on TV.