Today 11/18/2007

Today I have accomplished as close to nothing as is possible for me. I had intended to paint the shower in the bathroom. Didn't do it. I had intended to go to the store and buy some needed groceries. Didn't do it. I had thought to mow/mulch the leaves in our yard. Didn't do it. I had intended to vacuum the living room rug, because it's nasty. Didn't do it. I had intended to do at least one load of laundry. Didn't do it. I had planned to practice playing my guitars. Didn't do it.

I had a rough night last night and little restful sleep. I had an all-day-sucker bitch of a headache today, which did not subside until around 7:00 or so And no, sadly, it wasn't a hangover. I almost wish it had been.

I did manage to shave and shower and change clothes, although I never did get dressed enough to go outside. I fed the cats and the fish. I messed around with Mozilla's Thunderbird on the laptop, trying to get it set up the way I wanted it (which was how my MS Outlook was set up). Almost got it, too. Ate lunch and watched the TV for awhile, caught up on a couple of shows I had recorded. Came up to my main PC and searched the Internet for the little rubber pads that go on the CPU to keep the cooling fan assembly from cracking the chip. Apparently, AMD is the only chip maker that uses these things. Never did find the damn pads. Spent nigh on to three hours looking for them.

Started this blog at 7:30 or so and quit for awhile when my family returned from a day out at GrammaHaus. It's now 10 before midnight and I'm almost done with it. I reckon I should go to bed, but I don't want to go just yet.

OK, now I'm done with it.

Thoughts?

Pax,

Nelson

Mean people suck

I just read a reminder article from ZDNet news (picked up from from Reuters) about yet another malicious attack on the unsuspecting computer public. This one involves the Adobe Portable Document Format. You can read more about that here and here (and lots of other places, I'm sure), if you wish. You can get the latest version of Acrobat Reader® containing the update from Adobe.

Dammit.

Maybe I'm naive or something, but I sure do wish people would quit trying to mess up other people's computers. I don't understand the impulse that drives people to be malicious towards each other. I've tried to understand it, I really have. But I can't.

I know: "Why can't we all just get along?" (This quotation, by the way, is mistakenly attributed to Rodney King. However, what he really said, in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, was "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?" The closest I've found so far is from the movie Mars Attacks. Funny movie, but I digress.)

Can anyone explain to me why we're so damn mean to each other? I feel sad every time I think about it. If we were truly nice to each other, wouldn't this be a better world?

Any thoughts?

Blaze!

I am now the proud owner of a Logitech Marble Mouse. I know: sounds like a Disney toy, but it's not! What it is, is a trackball. I've never used one before (always been a Mouse-man) and it is taking some getting used to, but I think I may become a convert.
The cursor moves over the screen with grace and speed unseen prior to installation and my wrist isn't hurting anymore (although, in fairness, it wasn't hurting too much to begin with). I'm discovering all the things I could do with the wheel mouse are still mostly do-able with the trackball, although some (Open link in new tab) take a little getting used to. With the Wheel mouse, I had only to click on the wheel to open a website in a different tab. With the Marble Mouse, I must simultaneously click the two side buttons to do the job. And there was no documentation to tell me how to do this: I discovered it on my own. I must remember to notify the Logitech tech people about this.
;-)
Another interesting experience is scrolling. With the Wheel Mouse, I could hold down the left mouse button and use the wheel for scrolling wherever I wanted on a web page. I liked that. Can't really do that with the Marble Mouse, but BUT BUT universal scroll actually works beautifully with the Marble Mouse (it did not work so well with the Wheel Mouse). It does take some getting used to. Marble Mouse also is much more quiet than Wheel Mouse was.

Also, I installed 2 more gigabytes of Random Access Memory today. That makes a total of 4 GB (all my machine will allow) and things do seem to zzzzip right along where they just moved quickly before. Honestly, I can't tell much difference, but I like to think that the machine is now well oiled indeed. I just hope Windows (XP Home) is using it all to its best advantage. Shane or Ludie, if you're reading this, maybe you could give me some idea as to how to determine if that is so.

Busy week: Also received a banjo that I won on eBay. It's beautiful and has a great tone. I used to play fairly well (I know there are some who find that statement somewhat oxymoronic and I don't care), but one fine day about 12 years ago, I loaned my banjo to a painter (house, not portrait) named Bucky.

This was not wise. No. Not at all wise.

So after a recent revival of my guitar playing skills (also dormant for a long while), I began to pine for my long lost banjo. And I got one! It's a Washburn model B9 and it sounds great! My son hates it. Too loud for him. Ah well, he will learn...

Someday I'll do a post about music and our on-again, off-again love affair and tell you about my guitar collection.

Enough miscellaneousness for now.

Pax,
Nelson