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Software

Failed sandwich attempt and BBC radio

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I bought some mesquite smoked brisket last week at Kroger.  The counter lady gave me a sample before she cut my order.  It was tough but smoky.  I said go ahead because I was intoxicated with the idea of food shopping alone.

Earlier in the week I had bought some provolone and smoky sharp cheddar cheeses.  I was going to put the brisket in the microwave topped with the cheeses.  I thought that the microwave would melt the fat in the brisket making it a little more tender.  I was looking for a hybrid Philly sandwich.  The brisket stayed tough.

I was listening to a show called I’ve Never Seen Star Wars. The premise is a well-known person does or tries something they’ve never done before and give it a score.  Today a war correspondent (Kate Adie)tried porridge(score:6 out of 10) and sat through the first season of The Sopranos(score:9). She didn’t see it the first time because she was covering Kososvo.

Another show I was The Cavity Within. It’s a no laugh track sitcom about dentists.  Radio 4 extra reruns a lot of old radio comedies.  They go back as far as the 50’s.  The interesting ones are The Goon Show, Around the Horne, and I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again.

The Goon Show was in the 50’s and featured Peter Sellers.Goons.  Around the Horne was in the 60’s and had Marty Feldman.  I’m Sorry had John Cleese.  BBC radio has a theater in the main building.  What American radio station has a stage?

 

 

 

Trivia

NCAA Men’s Hoops Tourney

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2012 bracket picks

As ususal my bracket picks were toast 5 minutes after the first games started on Thursday.  I usually flip a coin on every game heads I pick the lower seeded team.  But this time Brooke had 2 schools in the tournament,Harvard and Missouri, so I picked them to go all the way to the final with Missouri winning.

I also applied another rule.  I picked the state school over it ‘s opponent say Kentucky over Iowa State.  If two state universities were playing I flipped a coin.  All the other games I used the coin.

I say a coin but it was really the random number generator on my task picker worksheet.  Odd numbers I went for the favorite, 0 and evens the longshot.  I broke my rule one game because Southern Mississippi beat UH for the C-USA football championship.

I lucked out on a few games but as you can see on the PDF I’ve got more red than newspaper’s balance sheet.  Kansas is my last hope for a pick in the Final Four.  I have to admit feeling satisfaction watching a randomly picked team mess up all the expert’s picks.

Last night we played music trivia at Mike’s Place.  They have great appetizers there.  Two in particular, the fried mushrooms and fried jalapeno slices.  We had been looking for great mushrooms near us for years.  Nobody could beat Mulligans, a defunct bar on FM 1960 in Humble, over 40 miles from the house.

These jalapeno slices are for people who like to pour pepper and Tabasco on their fried pickles.

Software

Anonymous OS?

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I saw today on Lifehacker that the hacker group Anonymous is releasing their own flavor of Linux.  Supposedly it will have a set of hacking tools.  I’m of two minds on this.

Speaking as a regular computer user I think it would be a very BAD idea to play with this distro if you value anything on that machine.  The idea of installing an OS from a hacker organization seems reckless and crazy.

I’m sure they are on the up and up but the words back-door jump up whenever I think about systems and hackers.  This has been in the back of my mind since Wargames.  A person that just uses their computer should stay far away from this OS.

I’m talking backup your system, clear your browser history of all sites that mention it, turn off the computer, unplug all the cables, and go watch a double feature of Wargames and Hackers.  You’ll thank me later.

That having been said I must put on my nerdy, geeky,  and pointy wizard hat and confess that I want it.  I don’t have the talent or the training to use it but I can learn.  I know I should have a properly secure machine and network setup to guard against the back door I mentioned earlier but that’s hard and boring.

I’ve always used software to wander down paths I never took.  It started with the text version of Star Trek and has progressed to planes, surgery, music, and sports.  Activision had a Hacker game for the Commodore 64 that started with just a prompt.

Now there’s a whole OS with hacking tools out there?!   As soon as I get another machine (probably from a pawn shop) Anonymous is going on.

 

Job Hunt

Dr. Phil hitting close to home

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Dr. Phil started off as a puff piece with Susan Sarandon.  She has a new movie out called Jeff : Who Lives At Home. Jason Segel is her 30-year-old son, Jeff.  Ed Helms is the married son with a job and a house.

The second half was about a 19 year-old that didn’t graduate high school, doesn’t have a driver’s license, and smokes pot and drinks.  Dr. Phil said he would get the kid a life manager and help the guy get a job.

After he did a bio piece on a producer that had been with him for the whole ten years he started this sentence with “if you’ve got a family member that you feel isn’t pulling his weight”.  That’s when I turned the TV off, got off the couch, and went into the bedroom to work on the Linux computer.

I don’t feel I make a equal contribution to the household because I’ve been out of work for almost 2 years.  The first 15 months I didn’t have a left foot.  I did go on a couple of interviews on the knee scooter.  Those did not go well.

All this time my wife has been doing all the household chores and supporting us through freelance editing.  I only bring in unemployment benefits.  I do send out 3 resumes a day to openings that I feel I have chance at getting.

When I’m not watching cable I work on my computer skills on both Windows and Linux.  I try to learn javascript, C#, web scripting, and SQL.

Software

Blogging becoming work

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Blogging and writing has been coming up a lot this week.  Now that I’m on this 250 word kick it’s becoming more like work rather than self-indulgent musings.  But a resemblance to discipline is resemblance to discipline.

I went to the doctor Friday for diabetes drugs and an opinion on this cough.  He said if it hadn’t gotten worse in 3 weeks it was just a sinus allergy.  So I get to go to the drug store and look for something that will kill the sympom.

He gave me some Lanthus pens.  These are very convenient insulin delivery systems.  He commented that they were expensive.  I answered that you pay extra for convenience.  I wanted to add that if I had a more expensive doctor he wouldn’t see me 45 minutes after the appointment time.

Forum came up on the task picker yesterday.  It looks like I have not touched the thing since November.  All I had was one category, Buzztime Trivia.  I added a few categories and a sub-topic.  My next task with it will be adding a link to it from both the work and play pages.

I seem to be an afternoon work person but I’m forcing myself to get out of bed in the morning.  At least I read my electronic sites and send out my resume to jobs I have a marginal chance to get an interview.

I bought and extra wireless router a couple months ago because Woot had a good price.  I’m toying with the idea of setting it up in my office and being able to connect my Toshiba to the Dell.

 

Job Hunt

Blog from the Linux side

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Yesterday blog came up on the task picker from the Windows side of my newer computer.   Today I’m creating an entry because writing came up on the Linux task picker spreadsheet.

I still have this cough so I’m putting off calling back a lady that was calling about a senior linux admininstrator position.  I definitely will call the woman just to tell the truth that I don’t think I’m good enough for a senior admin position.  At least she will keep me in mind for my honesty.

Writing on the Linux side involves me piling up pillows on the bed and propping the laptop up on my good leg.  I know the proper posture is sitting up but I don’t want to carry the Toshiba back and forth to my home office.

I keep the Toshiba in the bedroom because it makes the morning routine easier.  Wake up; grab the ‘puter; check both mail accounts; read my 10 daily websites, and then apply to 3 jobs that I think I have mild chance at getting.  It’s good to have the machine on the nightstand at bedtime.  I pick a BBC 4extra drama that lasts at least 30 minutes to fall asleep and drown out the wife’s snoring.

Lately my sleepytime dramas have been cut off before I’ve fallen asleep because the wireless signal dies.  One of the cats has taken to sleeping behind the router and the cable modem.  She has to give herself a good bath before sleeping.  Unfortunately a good bath involves getting tangled in easily pulled-out power cords.

 

 

Job Hunt, Music, Writing

Sick and new phone

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My nose is running and I still have this cough.  That’s my pitiful excuse for not calling back about a Senior Linux Administrator job.  I have to be on my game to talk intelligently about regular Linux administration. The only way I qualify for the Senior part is by age.

After a month I like only 2 things about the phone; its basic existence and its cord connects to a PC for data interchange and charging.  I have yet to get used to the user interface to do simple things like get to the missed calls menu.   Another idiosyncrasy is I have to hold down the lock button a lot.  I’ll probably get used to it as I get more calls.

I’ve decided to make bigger blog entries. Cool Site of the Day showed a site last week that talked about writing 750 words(3 pages) a day.  I’m not going for that big but I will go for 250.  Lord know it’s not easy on this particular machine since it’s missing the t key cover.  

I got this machine from my last job.  I keep it because it has a old version of Photoshop on it.  I have Ubuntu on my other laptop and I downloaded GIMP.  I’m terrible at both of them but I’m much better than I was in November of 2008.

I must say I like Pandora,  I’ve picked a Dizzy Gillespie channel and it plays the kind of jazz I enjoy.  You can recognize a beat and a melody but it’s like a late fifties/early sixties detective movie soundtrack.

 

Job Hunt

Still mildly sick

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I have had a phlegm-producing cough for over a week.  As long as I don’t try to talk it doesn’t bother me.  It kept me from going to SRO Friday to pitch my idea for redoing their website.

My unemployment benefits are coming to a close so I have to think up ways to pick up cash.  I hang out there a lot so maybe I could get some piecemeal work with the bar or the people who did their original site.

Today Lifehacker came up on the Dell task picker.  That’s an easy hour filled with free app news, productivity hints, and cooking tips.

food and drink

New phone

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Tuesday our sick cat Mackenzie pissed on the top of our chest of drawers.  Unfortunately my phone was on the chest of drawers.  I took it apart and dried all the parts. There was no joy.

I had planned to replace it the next day but a thunderstorm rolled through town.  It’s not like I was going to miss any calls.  I get a phone call an average of every three days.

Brooke decided that night to join me to see if we could get a new plan.  That meant I had to wait for her.  It meant I had to pick a place for lunch and places to compare phones and plans.

We thought we’d try a new Greek deli.  We thought it was in the old Bennigan’s space.  That turned out to be a new sports bar with slow service and passable food.  An AT&T storefront was in the same strip center.

The death star guy didn’t want to talk to us if we weren’t buying a new smartphone.  We went to Best Buy and their guy was very helpful.  I got a free Samsung that was just like my LG.  Brooke got a new flip phone for $30.

Trivia

Sick

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Tuesday the temperature went from the high 70s in the afternoon to the low 40s at night.  This kind of weather change plays hell with my immune system.

Wednesday morning I woke up sounding very nasal.  I started to feel worse as the day wore on.  My nose was dripping and my head felt like it was exploding.  By the time we got home from a very good trivia night (2 number 1s) I was ready for bed.

I downed a shot of Nyquil and crashed.  Last night I was feeling a little better but not at 100%.  I shot some more Nyquil last night but I’m still not at all well this morning.  My nose is still dripping, my head is still stuffed up, and it’s hard to breathe.

But I’m feeling much better now.  That’s one of my favorite lines.  It’s from Night Court.  John Astin played Harry Anderson’s father who had spent time in a mental institution.  After describing some crazy adventure he’d end it with But I’m much better now.