In other news, Babeness has solved the Adobe Acrobat problem.
But then, her solving a computer problem isn't really news. That's Reason #4110 why I keep her around.

4/28/2003 Monday 1:54 AM
Well, I'm at Mariana's. Friday night we were sitting 'round at my house, not doing a whole lot of anything, watching some telly and stuff. The storm was getting worse, but was fairly mild by our standards it seemed - lots of sound and fury, lots of lightning, lots of wind, but not a whole lot of rain. And then the power went out - a couple of times. During one of the blackouts I was looking out into the backyard, surveying the neighbourhood to see how extensive the outage was. And whatever happened, it was dramatic - some loud booms in the unpaved alley behind our house, and the neighbourhood lit up with scary green light. Several times. Babeness and I huddled close (which we had been planning to do anyway). The power came on for a few minutes at a time, then blacked out, and finally stayed out completely. There was much fumbling and stumbling, and after several stubbed toes and bumped noses, I managed to produce some candles.

An interlude:
Mariana just went downstairs to fetch some cold drinks. She said she put coins in and hit the button for iced tea. The machine gave her fruit punch. She grunted and put more coins in, trying again for iced tea. This time, she got iced tea. Thinking her fortunes had finally changed, she tried again for tea. She put the coins in, pressed the button. More fruit punch. Well, one outta three ain't bad, she said, and returned. The tea is good, the tea is cold, and she's drinking diluted fruit punch.
*Sigh*
It's a lifestyle.

We now return you to your previously scheduled bloggage, already in progress.
So, the blackout. Yep. Candles. Uh huh. Me and Babeness......

Anyway, the power was out for several hours and was still out when we finally went to sleep. When I woke up the next (Saturday) morning, the computer was on a dreaded Blue Screen with some messages, something about an Unmountable Boot Drive (You! in the back row! Stop laughing.) Well, that's just jolly. I took it to Cheap Guys, who said they'd be able to get it back to me hopefully Tuesday. I'm hoping that at the very least, the file system can be salvaged, with some Documents folders and the like. There are a lot of photos, also, that I've never backed up onto CD or anything. Everything else could be restored and replaced, I guess, but some stuff.....Egad.

4/25/2003 Friday 11:45 AM

Overheard at work:
"Did they say they got that Saddam Hussein guy?"

Overheard on the radio:
"Drivers on I-4 are advised to slow down when approaching the Something-or-Other area, as there is a cow weaving in and out of traffic. Drivers will need to be prepared to brake suddenly to avoid the cow and the State Troopers who are trying to lasso it."

Overheard from Babeness:
"Nobody should have to watch their roommate sit in underwear and a night-shirt and eat three-month-old Gummy bears."

Tripping the FF fantastic:

1. What was the last TV show you watched?
One of those "I Love the'80s" shows, last night (Thursday) with Babeness. I don't remember which year.
2. What was the last thing you complained about and what was the problem?
(Isn't that slightly redundant?) I kicked myself for not thoroughly rinsing some dish-washing liquid out of a glass that I used to give Babeness something to drink. The good news is, Dawn Berry Essence seems to go just fine with strawberry lemonade, and the colour even matches.
3. Who was the last person you complimented and what did you say?
Babeness. And what I said is nunna yer bizness!
4. What was the last thing you threw away?
A paper towel.
5. What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited?
And besides the Geocities log-in page for THIS site, it was a Yahoo news item about the Dixie Twits.

4/22/2003 Tuesday 10:42 PM

4/22/2003 Tuesday 9:35 PM
There are five Buffy episodes from Seasons 6 and 7 that I still need to download through KaZaa; I've gotten all the others. So I'm sitting here using KaZaa, searching, clicking, waiting, watching the little progress bars creep slowly along, most of them between 1 and 2 kb/s. But wait! That download, there, it's coming in at a rip-roaring 230 kb/s! Wow! It's already almost halfway done, and at this rate, it'll come in completely in just another six minutes! Cool.

I wonder what else this person has on his/her computer? With a connection that fast, if they have anything else I want or need, THAT is the person I need to get it from. Let me just see here...Use this little 'Find More From Same User' command, see what else they have..

Hmmmm...good stuff, good taste in music they have. Yep, already got that...Got that already, too. Those too. Huh, they have a lot of the same stuff I have on my computer. Cool. They have an Ayumi song, cool, I should download it for Babeness, she might not have it. Okay. Wow, they have a LOT of the same stuff I have. They...even have that obscure David Lee Roth song I downloaded a few weeks ago....
Wait a minute. Hold on. Just wait a by god minute here.
Let me look at this.
...
...........
All of this looks familiar.
This is ALL my stuff.

I'm looking at my own fucking computer here. I've KaZaaed my own fucking computer. By searching for a particular episode, I managed to find my own computer, by finding a flawed version that I already have downloaded on my computer. And by Finding More From Same User, I'm actually Finding More From MY computer.

Unbefuckinglievable. No wonder it was flying in so quickly - it was coming in from my own hard-drive!

*sigh*

In other news, it's been several weeks since I've done much more than answer FridayFive questions. Good job, Rob.

There was the Shakespeare play that Babeness and I went to, a theatre-in-the-park kinda production at a bandshell overlookng Lake Eola in downtown Orlando. It was The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which the director modified to set in 1980s America, at "Verona High School." I'm still not sure what it is/was about this particular play that suggested that setting, but oh well. So we dutifully showed up, using Mariana's departmental connections to get free tickets to the first production (technically a "sneak preview"). We nonchalantly strolled up, hand in hand, watching all the other people carrying their umbrellas and raincoats. Hmmph, we though. Hmmph.
Oh, please, do I really have to tell you what happened?
We left during the second act, soaked, shivering, pissed off at ourselves. We huddled under an awning for a little while, waiting to see if the rain would stop. It didn't. We left.
We never did see the two gentlemen of Verona High School finish doing their thing.

Hmm...Well, one Saturday night we went out somewhere. Ask Babeness where we went and what we did. I'll let her tell the story.....

And we are counting down the days until Babeness must leave me for the summer, and darkness and misery will fall upon the land.

We've played poker the past coupla Mondays, last night and last week. If I was a betting man, and if we had played for real money...I woulda been the big winner both nights, taking home close to thirty bucks both nights. That is, IF we had been playing for money, and if we HAD played for money, we would have played for relatively small stakes. But, you know, if.

4/18/2003 Friday 10:54 AM
Some MORE FF groovin'...

1. Who is your favorite celebrity?
William Shatner.
Is there anybody as absolutely cheesey, and yet as absolutely cognizant of and happy with his own cheesiness?? William Shatner is the MAN.
Runner-up, same reason: Danny Bonaduce.
2. Who is your least favorite?
Ehh. Plenty.
Too many to name, in fact. But if you're really interested, keep checking back; I swear that if I narrow it down to a single person (or even two or three), I'll update. Deal?
3. Have you ever met or seen any celebrities in real life?
Yup.
4. Would you want to be famous? Why or why not?
Wanting to be famous, or wanting to NOT be famous, isn't really much of an issue. I want to be very successful and happy at whatever I end up doing; if that translates into fame, fine...
5. If you had to trade places with a celebrity for a day, who would you choose and why?
Let's say Tim Robbins, so I could apologize for being such a shithead.

4/11/2003 Friday 10:54 AM
Some FF action.

1. What was the first band you saw in concert?
Besides school-mates doing their own talent-show entries and local "battle of the bands" shows, probably...Run-DMC, Michael Bolton, and a few others at Grad Night? There might have been some earlier ones, but I don't remember. (There are PLENTY that I don't remember, but that's another story!)
2. Who is your favorite artist/band now?
Led Zeppelin, still, and probably always. I go through phases, and of my five favourite artists, whichever one I happen to be listening to at any given time is what I'm likely to call my favourite. But overall, and over time, it's still the Hammer of the Gods.
3.What's your favorite song?
"Ten Years Gone," Led Zeppelin, from Physical Graffiti. The perfect song, perfectly written, perfectly recorded.
4. If you could play any instrument, what would it be?
Acoustic guitar.
5. If you could meet any musical icon (past or present), who would it be and why?
Call me a big ol' boring stick-in-the-mud, but I've never really cared for these if-you-could-meet-anybody questions. I mean, I dig Jimmy Page, but if actually met him, what the hell would I talk about to make it meaningful? Maybe something about his fascination with the occult or something, but I imagine that would wear our fairly quickly. Maybe Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis, or someone else from the infancy of rock 'n roll, would have some good anecdotes that I haven't heard.

4/08/2003 Tuesday 10:54 AM
For what it's worth, the Hellmouth is #7 for "pierce bronson hairy." I'm tempted to see if that's the same set of results for "hairy pierce bronson," but the sooner I get that image out of my mind, the better.
I've also revamped the KeyWord rankings, and removed any results that produce only the search terms in the Rankings themselves. There has been at least one new trawl in the past few weeks, and some of the search terms produce only themselves in the rankings, which is cheating a little bit. And I have regained the #1 ranking for 'pierce bronson shirtless,' which is all that really matters.

Feeling slightly better than last night, when I went to bed feeling like I weighed 400 pounds. My gut is being a little rambunctious, that's all.

The informational session at the School Board was a little pointless, I think, and didn't provide much information that a good read of the pamphlets and booklets we picked up Friday wouldn't have provided. So if I had bothered to give them a good read, I coulda gotten a couple more hours of sleep yesterday.

There is a small rosemary bush outside the window of this room, and it perfumes the air every time the wind blows through the open window. Simply delightful.

4/07/2003 Monday 10:46 AM
Arguing with war protestors is like trying to stamp out a grass fire. When you hit them where they are, they shift over to some other place.
A dialogue:

War Protestor: This war is wrong! War is wrong!

War Apologist: Nah, this war is justified.

Protestor: Why? Why is the US in this war??

Apologist: There are a variety of reasons the US has attacked Iraq, and a variety of reasons why the US should have attacked Iraq.

Protestor: Name ONE good reason. Just one.

Apologist: Well, Saddam Hussein is a merciless, savage dictator. The world is better without him in power.

Protestor: But the US has supported other dictators!

Apologist: That's mostly true, and it's mostly wrong to do so (even though every circumstance is different). So, after we remove Hussein, we're not quite as wrong as we were.

Protestor: Bush said it was about weapons of mass destruction!

Apologist: Yep, he's got 'em, he's not allowed to have 'em, he's used 'em in the past, and we're going to make sure he never does again.

Protestor: Oh, so Bush doesn't give a shit about "liberating the Iraqi people" the way he said. He was lying, then, all he cares about is the weapons of mass destruction. What a hypocrite.

Apologist: Of course we're also liberating the Iraqi people. We can't do both?

Protestor: Oh, so the weapons of mass destruction aren't Bush's primary aim?

Apologist: We're doing both.

Protestor: So "liberating the Iraqi people" is only 50% of the US's goal. Yeah, he sure does care about them! Yeah, right.

Apologist: At the end of the war, they'll be free to choose.

Protestor: The story keeps changing. First it's the weapons. Then it's liberation.

Apologist: It's both. Why can't it be both? Why does it have to be one or the other?

Protestor: I asked why the US attacked, and all you said was to get rid of a brutal dictator. You didn't say anything about weapons of mass destruction or liberating the Iraqi people. All of sudden, NOW you care about that?

Apologist: You said name one reason. I named one reason. I also said there are a variety of legitimate reasons.

Protestor: But you named getting rid of a dictator. That was the first thing that came to your mind. Obviously you're not too worried about the weapons or the liberation part. Hypocrite.

Apologist: What's hypocritical?? We'll do all three!

Protestor: So the lives of Iraqis are only worth 33% of your attention? That's sick.

Apologist: We're liberating them!! We're helping them!!

Protestor: I thought you wanted to get rid of Hussein and the weapons of mass desruction?? Now all you care about is liberation? Liar! Hypocrite!

And the grass keeps burning.

4/07/2003 Monday 7:54 AM
A Babelfish translation of my Babe-lness's post:

I truly hope she didn't choose to expire there.
As for her being straight, I am quite certain of it.
And the last sentences says it all.

Today I am going for an informational session at the county School Board office, to see what needs to be done to become a Mister again in the fall, this time at the high school level.

4/04/2003 Friday 12:05 AM
Happy Four, my babeness. No idea what I'd do without you.

1. How many houses/apartments have you lived in throughout your life?
Three houses. Two stints in the one I'm living in now; several years in my grandmother's house; one year in my adopted mum's house.
2. Which was your favorite and why?
Difficult to differentiate the houses from the times of my life that I spent in them. They were all wonderful. But from a purely structural perspective, my grandmother's house was coolest. Was fun living in it, too. But I wouldn't trade my life right now to go back.
3. Do you find moving house more exciting or stressful? Why?
I don't have a great deal of passion either way, but I guess I'd say stressful.
4. What's more important, location or price?
Location, absolutely. (Said the guy who currently has no financial wherewithal to move.)
5. What features does your dream house have (pool, spa bath, big yard, etc.)?
Besides my babeness?
It *also* would have a large yard, front and back, fenced in for dogs and/or young'uns; plenty of room for fruit trees and garden and still have plenty of open space; a small number of large, dominant oaks and/or maples for shade without covering the whole property; a pool; and a porch.

4/03/2003 Thursday 11:05 PM
I think I am now the unchallenged king of BitTorrents.
See, I just spent..(checking the clock)..a little over an hour and half trying to make this simple little graphic that would have shown about a weeks' worth of all of the search terms that have produced this site. The graphic would have been right

HERE.

And if I had been able to figure out how to do it, you would have seen that out of the 40 search terms, all but six of them had to do with BitTorrents. (Those six had to do with various German porn, mostly. Them damned AltaVista users.) So, anyway, you'll just have to take my word for it, okay? Meanwhile I'm taking down all the BitTorrents searchterms from the KeyWord Rankings.