This weekend I'm going to be performing a feat not done by the faint-hearted: I'm going to build my first file server for my home. And I'm going to do it using Linux.
Interestingly, it's something I've really want to try to do. And besides, there are a lot of sweet things about being a geek. Just ask anyone.
MACCA WANTED BROWN, blares The Adelaide Advertiser. I didn't guess it was about two sports figures.
Uh,I say "The fat man has landed, the eagle walks alone."
Delivering Excellence in Swine Reproduction
The Colonel and I were talking today about Twitter.
I think because people are afraid they'll miss something. It's human nature. Take for an illustration the man who put a mini camera on his cat's collar certain that after he left the house each day the feline lived some sort of wild and crazy cat life. After getting home and checking the images he realized something profound:
Someone whom I consider a watershed writer has passed.
Butters and I put together a menu to make any Christmas celebration proud: turkey with lemon stuffing, cranberry apple chutney, roast vegetables, candied yams and sourdough rolls; matched all up with cocktails and wines, including sparkling shiraz that Aussies insist you must have with turkey and you have a feast.
Yeah, I think this country does a disservice to itself by not having a bit of light and warmth during the coldest part of the year. Makes me appreciate home even more, I reckon.
Dear Catty, Farmer Ted was the character played by Anthony Michael Hall in that coming-of-age classic "Sixteen Candles". As I liked the way he grew up and got a bit wiser over the course of the film, I thought the same might happen for me writing this blog. Rather, I've just grown older and a bit more sharp tongued. Luckily, I still have a crush on Molly Ringwald.
Dear Lazy Signer, this is a view from the porch at Paxton Winery in McLaren Vale, South Australia. While it may look quite bucolic, it is hella hot and dry for most of the year. I took the picture in the "About me.." during the summer, meaning the view from the porch is really through the window near the porch while I stand in the air conditioning inside. So sue me.
As you will observe, the only way to see even the tiniest bit here in Australia is if I travel to the very tip-top of Queensland and stand on my tip toes.
Given it was summertime and a Sunday night so I'm sure I was at home from elementary school. My parents were in the room and not at work so that fits.
I remember when Halle Berry won the Best Actress Academy Award at the 2002 Oscars. It was a noteworthy event given the fact that no African-American woman had won it in the history of the awards. Her acceptance speech was heartfelt, simple and moving. During which she cried; and rightly so, I thought. My UK friends were pretty derisive about her reaction, saying how over the top it was.
In Philadelphia PA, where your farmer hailed from, a recent event involving children at a private swimming pool has shown there is still far to go in America.
Like something out of a made-for-TV movie, 19-yo UK resident and student Jamie Neal went out on a few hours walkabout in the Blue Mountains of NSW (Australia) and wound up lost. He had left his belongings, including his mobile phone, behind at the place he was staying. Some 12 days later he was discovered, just a bit the worse for wear, having survived by eating plants and berries to headlines all over the world.
Because of my time zone, it's difficult to watch the live hearings on the nomination of Judge Sonya Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court. However replays are pretty easy to come by. What's really striking is how annoyed I got by the senators on the panel from the first moments of the bluster and puffery of their opening statements. During these - were it a courtroom - I'm sure Judge Sotomayor would have surely banged her gavel and asked archly, "Excuse me, Senator, but is there a question in there somewhere?" In fact on one day Sotomayor was only able to speak for about 8 mins in over 3 hours of Senatorial grandstanding. So we endure our elected officials doing nothing but wanting to make themselves heard on some point important only to them or worse, their party backers.
Said Sen. Jeff Session (R-AL) in a discourse about letting personal feelings influence a judges decision,"In truth, it's more akin to politics, and politics has no place in the courtroom."
The US Central Intelligence Agency is one beleaguered agency under investigation on multiple fronts. Including the latest coming slowly and sordidly to light: acting, it's now appearing, as some sort of secret hit squad with the involvement of then Vice President Dick Cheney. Giving a new meaning to word dagger in the phrase, "cloak and dagger."
Me? I try to remember my top 3. I was reminded of one of them when The Colonel was talking about a holiday including a trip to Paris that he and the Mrs just returned from. While in Paris, he told me about sitting at a cafe and who they met and how it turned into an incredibly fun day with new un-looked for friends.
Likewise there was a summer when I lived in Paris. A friend I hadn't seen in forever came over from London and with another friend from America and with hours before returning to our respective countries we decided to spend all day just going from cafe to cafe. Starting at breakfast, we went from one to another as the whim took us, sitting for hours talking about anything and everything, laughing and companionable. Our drinking went from cafe cremes, to menthe a l'eau, to beers then to wine as the day progressed into night. The moment came as evening was falling and we were in a little cafe on a square off Rue du Pot de Fer. The setting summer sun was striking the buildings across the square as kids were playing in the fountain. As we sat and I looked around the square to the lights coming on in the filling cafes and then at my chatting friends I suddenly realized here was a moment that had waited an eternity to come and would never come again. I felt warm and content, special and privileged to be there that second at that place. And so I remember.
Being here in Australia where people drive on the left, they definitely tend to walk on that side too.
Pictured above is an aerial view of the stadium area in South Philadelphia circa 1971. From left to right they are John F Kennedy Stadium, The Spectrum, and Veterans Stadium. In these venues football, basketball & hockey, and baseball, respectively were played. Good sensible respectable building names that made sense (even "The Spectrum" as it was meant to be used by an array of arena sports).
Norton Anti-Virus has to be about the worst anti-virus program out there. And I say that not because it doesn't do its primary job, which is to protect your PC from malware; just in the way it goes about it.
Not content to protect your PC against viruses and other malware, it also takes over your recycle bin (in case you want to undelete something), your network access (in case something tries to connect that shouldn't), and your operating system (in case something tries to install that shouldn't). Not taking into account these are things that happen normally all the time, in the name of protecting you this software presents you with warning box after warning box of things you can't do anything about or are unsure that you want to do anything about.
And by dire warnings from other product that do similar things, a user is duped into installing even more software. Take my poor cousin Red, for example: between the protection offered by Windows and layered products of Norton, AOL, and virus scan package by her ISP her entire PC is now in a paroxysm of conflicting indecision. Practically schizophrenic with all these things in its poor computer brain trying to protect it, it displays lots of confusing warnings but accomplishes nothing.
From the lid on a juice drink:
While this notion is - of course - patently false, nowhere is the idea of social class more enforced than by airline frequent flier programs. In these programs you accrue loyalty miles for flying with a particular airline or airlines. The more miles you get the higher your level and so your status. Status levels with names like, "bronze", "sliver", "gold", and "platinum"; or worse yet, "member" up to "elite". And with each level come perks such as priority boarding, special check-in lines, better seating, and club lounges to go to instead of waiting at the gates.
But the let me tell you, the old saying, "...the harder they fall" certainly applies too. As I found out when, not realizing my level had been dropped in a period of inactivity, I nonetheless showed up at the airline club lounge following a particularly horrific flight. After a quick check of my name in the golden book the gatekeeper at the club desk purred with malicious glee, "Ooo. So sorry Mr Ted, but your membership no longer includes access to the lounge. Uh, bu-bye." And looking past me brightly said, "Next in line, please."
"Where the Wild Roses Grow", Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue - Dark and eerie with a cool video, Butters first introduced me to this song. Since then I've heard it on various YouTube videos playing in the background and on TV. I never would have even noticed this before.
"Salala", Angelique Kidjo & Peter Gabriel - I had the privilege of seeing Ms Kidjo in concert here. I'd never heard of her before and received the tickets as a gift. She is stunning on stage and can truthfully say I have never enjoyed a concert more in my life. Since then I have heard her music in the most unlikely places including a bookstore in the San Francisco airport and playing on outdoor speakers at a shopping mall in Australia. I'm glad I appreciate who she is now.
"Chase That Feeling", Hilltop Hoods - It is a rare Hip-Hop song indeed that makes me want to hear more, but this song is the #1 played on my iPod and on constant repeat. I first saw the video for it on RAGE and then received the CD as a gift. Hilltop Hoods are a trio from, of all places, Adelaide SA from an area I'm very familiar with (for reasons I won't go into here :-). They have swept the charts in Australia and my only regret is that the US seems blissfully unaware of them at the moment. But I think once this track hits the US - and lemme tell ya they do everything right on it - it will be huge.
Interestingly, these artists are either Australian or I first heard of them here in Australia. Hm. Is there a pod under my bed?
Since then I have seen it countless times; including people at food courts eat amongst other people's leavings rather than clear the table. Even today a group of kids in an outdoor eating area of a fast-food restaurant got up and left their trash on a table mere feet from a receptacle, only to have it join the other discarded meal packages blowing around the parking lot like brightly colored confetti.
The Singaporean newspaper, The Straits Times, recounted an on-line blog entry, "I, for one, will not clear my trays at a foodcourt, not because I lack social graces, but because most foodcourts are not designed for customers to do that. What's next? Asking diners to clear up after themselves at a restaurant?"
Like a bagel slicer. While in every store in the US bagel slicers are, in fact, unknown here. Yes, I said "unknown". Not the least reason because people don't really eat bagels widely here. Like when I went to an upscale cooking implement store to find one:
But help may be on the way in the form of Butter's trip to the US; Customs willing, of course. But if they raise any questions, all it would take is sharing a perfectly sliced and toasted everything bagel with a schmear and it's in!
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