Been Gone

August 22, 2007

From this blog thing for a while, but plan on coming back real soon…

Drunkard Burns Himself

March 28, 2006

I just couldn't pass this up! It is hilarious in a pitiful way… 

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com
A jobless alcoholic burned himself to death after his wife refused to serve him meat for dinner, Indian police said Sunday.

love.music.art.poetry

March 13, 2006

love.music.art.poetry

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

A haunting poem that I discovered on meme2’s tagworld page. This poem is but one of the many great things you’ll find there.

I was digging around in the guts of my Mepis Linux distro when I ran across this:

iwlist – Linux Command – Unix Command

This does a much better job of scanning wireless networks (and returning meaningful results) than does kwifimanager.

Scanning for wireless networks with kwifimanager has always gotten me nothing more than “Hidden Network”.
network scan

Using “iwlist wlan0 scanning” actually yields the name of wireless networks that I can hop on to.

iwlist scanning results

Lost My StumbleUpon Toolbar

January 11, 2006

I lost my SU toolbar a few days ago. I was just about ready to spot some interesting webpages when I notice my favorite toolbar was missing.

After a few moment’s consternation, I tried to uninstall and then reinstall, but nothing happened.
I googled it, and found a similar problem where an extension was interfering with the SU toolbar. Thinking I may have a similar problem, I began deleting extensions that I use infrequently.

Web Developer On my second try, I found out that Web Developer was causing my SU toolbar to disappear.

After uninstalling Web Developer, my SU toolbar returned in all it’s glory!

Deborah Tannen: Men and Women

This conversation, in one form or another, happens almost daily between us. In truth, I really thought she was just being difficult.

A married couple was in a car when the wife turned to her husband and asked, “Would you like to stop for a coffee?”

“No, thanks,” he answered truthfully. So they didn’t stop.

The result? The wife, who had indeed wanted to stop, became annoyed because she felt her preference had not been considered. The husband, seeing his wife was angry, became frustrated. Why didn’t she just say what she wanted?

I am going to have to readjust my thinking towards my wife; what I consider to be just “whining” isn’t so at all. I’m always thinking, “why talk about it if you aren’t going to do anything about it?”

To many men a complaint is a challenge to come up with a solution. Mark thought he was reassuring Eve by telling her there was something she could do about her scar. But often women are looking for emotional support, not solutions.

I got a good chuckle when I read the next part:

A cartoon shows a husband opening a newspaper and asking his wife, “Is there anything you’d like to say to me before I start reading the paper?” We know there isn’t – but that as soon as the man begins reading, his wife will think of something.

Our version is, as soon as I get comfortable, wifey will send me on a trip to the kitchen. Several times! Read the entire article, I’m sure you’ll laugh, and probably learn something new.

Sound in MEPIS Linux

December 31, 2005

I had been offline for awhile and did not have a chance to update my mepis linux distro. When I finally got around to doing it, I lost all my sound. I thought it was a hardware problem because I have an old Compaq Presario 1700 laptop.

+I googled it, and found instructions on the MepisLovers forum.

These instructions were great for a start, but as usual, nothing is as easy as it seems, and I had to slightly modify them to suit my needs. I didn’t know the name of my sound module, but found it easily enough:

Open a terminal window
Type kudzu -p

I scrolled about one-third of the way down the page and found it.

snd-maestro3

After writing that bit of information on a piece of paper, I booted into the live cd as root.

To boot into BIOS in a Compaq Presario, press the F10 key.

I found my way to hda1/etc/modules. This may be slightly different for your configuration.
At the end of the document, I placed this comment:

# Sound module

Just below that, I put in the following line:

snd-maestro3

I rebooted and tested the new setup at myspace.com. They had a Mrs. Pacman game online while the site was down for maintenance. This worked perfectly for me, and now I have sound once again.

What Happened to Rap?

December 25, 2005

My caddy is broken so I’m borrowing my brother-in-law’s truck. He’s got a pretty good cd player inside, so I’m taking advantage of the situation and jammin’ some of my cd’s. Since I haven’t bought cd’s in a while, all of my stuff is old, but still good.

I played one of my Thump cd’s until the laser wore it smooth; then I moved on to a Pete Rock cd ~ Soul Survivor (circa 1998).

One track in particular, Mind Blowin’ (no. 12), is one that I think is representative of the artist himself, and of the way rap used to be. Check out some lyrics:

We got one life to live baby, just one
We only got one life to breeze, see us live through our seeds

A refreshing change from lyrics of today, urging violence and infidelity.

Only fools fall fast, sellin out for the cash
but this love’s gotta last from the ash to the dust
Build trust, beyond the lust…

A far cry from today’s rap artists. Check out an album review, and an interview.

I have found a fellow blogger who has gracefully articulated what I have been feeling for some time now:

La Shawn Barber’s Corner » Do You Hate Black People?

Blacks need to be reminded, constantly, of our responsibility in this mess.

I attempted to express such sentiments on my StumbleUpon page, but LaShawn does it so much better.

Reading her blog post will give you a heady dose of reality; not many folks will like what they see.

Rather than using this blog to bit** and moan session about slavery, institutional racism and such, I’d use it to “keep blacks on the hook.� It’s a fresh approach and much more interesting than telling whites how racist they are.

Makes for pretty good reading, too.

Behave or else! Unruly kids in public stir debate – U.S. Life – MSNBC.com

[...] it was a simple reminder to parents to keep an eye on their children and set some limits.

I can certainly agree with that idea. I remember being left at home either by myself or with a babysitter while my folks went to the movies, a nice restaraunt, or just out on the town. My folks are old-fashioned, and don’t believe that children belong everywhere and that they should just run rampant, without limits.

“The rights of any one individual — whether he or she be a parent, child or stranger — do not negate the rights of others.�

Nowadays, I see little children attending movies that are rated ‘R’. I always ask my wife,

“Did the parents even check the ratings?”

“They don’t care,” is the usual answer.

Even out shopping, the parents let the children loose in the toy department, while the parents are elsewhere in the store, shopping. The toy department is usually a wreck, with children screaming and yelling (but no adult supervision).

I can distinctly remember my Mom telling me, “You don’t want nothin’, you don’t need nothin’, so don’t ask for nothin’, and don’t touch nothin’!” And this was even before we left the house!

I understand that at times children may become unruly and uncontrollable, but I still think that parents should impose some limits, and more discipline.

(We’ll see if I still feel the same way after I have a few anklebiters of my own!!!)