This kind of thinking, the Big Here and the Long Now, is why I can’t understand why many people do what they do. Or don’t do.
It’s not about the Short Now, or the Immediate Now. If we truly are grand creatures, we should be thinking about the Long Now. Thanks for the link,
I’ve got my old 30 gig HD installed into my shiny new external hard drive enclosure. I have found out that with 3.5″ drives (which is what I happen to have), neither USB nor Firewire has enough power to operate the drive. So, it works, but it has to be plugged in to a power cord, which makes it only a little more irritating when carrying it around for data mobility. However, I now have the data mobility that I was looking for, and am already chock-full of ideas on how to use it.
Also, for the last two mornings, I have had good showers. Not exceedingly long showers, and not showers with water pressure that could blast me across the tub, but -good- showers. What do I mean by that? I mean that, with the new shower head that
Also, I have a new Transformer on my desk at work, thanks to Will. It’s amazed me how the subtle differences in this repaint’s mold, as well as the obvious differences in color, have created a totally different personality. Despite the nearly-identical body to Smokescreen, Ricochet comes off completely differently. This kind of thing -almost- makes up for what they did to Prowl and Optimus Prime. I also have an Optimus Primal statue for my desk at home, thanks to
Some brilliance from
The other problem is squimishness. And this is, in my opinion the thornier of the issues. It does’t just involve completely restructuring our infrastructure, but something much more difficult: changing people’s opinion. Time and time again, I have been talking about food and meat comes up. I mention that the animal that I ate was known on a personal basis by someone, maybe had a name, maybe lead a good life before I was lucky enough to eat it. The reaction I think I’m going to get is. “Wow! I didn’t know meat animals could be someone other than a number. I think it’s really wonderful that you can eat meat that doesn’t come from immense cruelty and pain, but from animals that lived peaceful decently happy lives. Good for you.” The reaction I get is “Oh. Ummm. Ewww. I don’t think I could eat that. Why would you name it if you were going to eat it?” Why? Because by naming it I respect it. I honor it as a being worthy of being named and hopefully treat it both as an animal and as food with a great deal more respect than he or she would get in a factory farm or on the shelf at Kroger. I honor the animals I eat. I use every bit, I am grateful for their sacrifice, and I know that their lives enrich mine in a mulititude of ways. I thank the animals I eat as well as the plants, as well as the earth and the sun that have provided the sustanance for them to grow and eat. By being afraid to name your food, you distance yourself from that food. You categorize it as the Other as surely as a nazi footsoldier did with the Jew he shot. It’s easier to see the distancing with people harder with animals and plants. Our whole society is made up of ways to distance us from stuff. From meat animals, from ecosystems, from various subdivisions of other people, from pain, from reality. I think it inadvertantly distances us from life, from joy, from esctacy as well. We are numb and in pain from it.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): It’s possible you’ll live for 150 years. Scientific studies on how to outwit the aging process are generating increasingly compelling data, and so is psychospiritual research into the attitudes and emotions that encourage longevity. The coming year will be prime time for you to make yourself aware of these explorations, and to adjust your lifestyle accordingly. Here are two places to start your investigation: (1) the article “I’m Going to Live Forever” at http://tinyurl.com/6w4wh; (2) the book *Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever,* by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman at http://tinyurl.com/nv35y.
From
I know that, at this time of year, it’s very hard to think about anything after the first of the year, let alone plan for it. However, I wanted to give you all more than enough time to plan for this thing:
What:
Benny and Skippy’s Annual House Warming Party
(also, nods of recognition to Benny, Will, and Joe’s Birthdays)
When:
January 6th, 2007.
Starting at 8pm
Where:
(the same place it is every year?)
119 N. Fairview
Lansing.
Come Help us warm our house for another year.
Disclaimer: You’re coming to celebrate, and have a good time. The warming of our house doesn’t require gifts (it requires bodies, and love) so don’t bring them.
Par-tay! :)
So, armed with a combo drive and a 512 MB SO-DIMM, I was ready to upgrade the crap out of my iBook. By that, I mean keep track of the screws while
I had acquired both from ebay, and I was boosted by the fact that the machine had powered itself on, while closed, booted, and gone into sleep mode while I was off galavanting around the Flint and Detroit areas for family fun. So, it was working again, but the upgrade required a power-down. I knew it was risky, but I was bound and determined to squeeze every last drop of cool out of this thing. 1 GB of RAM and the ability to burn CDs was just the kind of cool I wanted. (cool)
This is where things took a bit of a turn for the worse. After tearing apart the entire laptop, layer by layer, we discovered that this particular generation of iBook does not have a second RAM slot for its onboard RAM. Nope, it has actual onboard RAM. Well, at least we could upgrade to the Combo Drive, right? Sure!
But it won’t turn on. Again. Same exact problem. *sigh* So, I have activated the actuators, perpetuated the perpetuators, set the gears to grindin’, reversed the polarities, increased the transporter buffer, re-routed power through the secondary coupling, and have decided to part out the iBook and sell its bits on eBay to fund a newer, better, faster laptop.
If you know anybody who’s interested in these sort of bits, please feel free to send them here. Also, please do the same if you know people looking for used White Wolf books. :)
In the meantime, I am not without a machine, thanks to
So, the electronics saga continues. I’m not sure why this happens to me in cycles (power supply and motherboard on my last desktop gave out on me simultaneously, power wouldn’t turn on with the iBook…), but apparently I’m rolling with it well this time. :)
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Though millions of other people may be flirting with glamorous badness and crafty nastiness in 2007, I bet you’ll have a minimal attraction to negativity, no matter how interesting it might allegedly be. Drama kings and drama queens may try to seduce you into the crazy chaos they stir up through their addiction to pain, but you’ll be pretty immune to their temptations. Seemingly reasonable people might hope you’ll buy into their gloom and doom, but you’ll be too smart for that. Congratulations in advance for your determination to be free of the stupid suffering that so many people love to entertain themselves with.
I am so tired. So very, very tired. Switching to a nine-to-fiver’s schedule for this weekend, as well as being in a bed other than my own, has drained me pretty well. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, though. The past three days have been awesome.
Saturday was catching up on the last of our shopping, and feeling pretty accomplished. Nothing ended up needing to be purchased on Xmas Eve, which is a first for me in a very long time.
Saturday night was one of the 8th Anniversary shows for In Perpetual Motion Radio, and I had a blast. The mood was very laid back, almost somber, but the music was as good as it always is. I was lucky to avoid anything ending in “a-billy”, which makes me a lucky Skippy.
Sunday, being xmas eve, had us packing during the day, moving the tree off of Buddy’s cage, and getting Buddy ready to go. Then, we headed to the T-W-P, and even arrived early. As always, the dog was infatuated with my parents’ lawn, but not so much with not being able to run free without a fence. We played with him for a while, then took off to Millington for the Cramptons’ Xmas Eve bash. After amazing amounts of food and a White Elephant present game, we headed back to the T-W-P, practically overflowing with family-ness.
I did -not- expect to have -that- conversation on the way back to the T-W-P. Color me pleasantly surprised.
I got nearly no sleep last night, but
Someone slipped us a lapel pin of a burning cat. ;)
So, many projects to move forward on, much playing to do, and I am le tired. We shall see if I fire ze missiles before a nap or afterward. :)
We got the best Xmas present EVER for
And, since yesterday was Yule,
You’re going to have to covet that hoodie IRL now,
I really wish that
Also, iBook won’t boot. Power button seems to have no impact on the generally off status of the laptop. It -works-, though, because you can use it in the keypress combination to reset the power management unit, and the Apple charger responds properly by blinking at you. PRAM reset also has no effect. Holding the power button down to clear capacitors with no power source, also no effect. Battery is charging when power is plugged in. Battery is responding properly. Won’t boot with the battery in or with the battery out. No chime, no nothin’. I even unplugged, took out the battery, cleared the capacitors, took out the keyboard, airport, that little metal plate, and then the RAM, waited 20 minutes, and put the thing back together. Also, I let it sit for 10 hours.
It’s just not. turning. on.
The only thing that I can think of is the logic board, and the notoriously shoddy video on it. I can a) take it back to Apple and see if they’ll replace it for free, since they’ve had a pseudo-recall about this sort of thing (that I missed the date on), b) replace the logic board myself – by which I mean watching over
Or, it’ll act like
I’m going to step outside for a moment, breathe the not-quite-cold-enough air, and smile at the sky.