Don’t have a whole lot to say except that you can make glass out of sand. Big old fucking place for skaters to hang out if you do it right.
July 2006
Goddammit Jim, I’m a Doctor, Not a Mechanic!!
I pretty much hate working on cars. I can do it if I have to, and if I have directions for anything more difficult than changing the oil filter. Yesterday the positive battery terminal on the Neon broke off. Goddam acid buildup. It’s the 2nd battery, going on 186k miles, so I can’t complain too much. The entire harness would have been $92 so we opted to just get the terminal itself for $9, which is about three times the cost of a fucking universal. Just changed it out, with no injury, to boot. Anytime I do something to a car without injuring myself, I consider it a good day. I’ve fucked up my fingers, had a couple of hospital visits for metal flakes in my eye, etc. The list goes on and on. I don’t even change my fucking oil anymore. At $24 a pop, it’s worth it to help someone else pay their bills by letting them do the nasty job. Not to mention that if I do it I have to sneak out at night to get rid of the old stuff down the sewer drain or someone else’s gas tank.
I did recently replace the water pump and fan belt on the van. Actually, I drank beer and fetched tools while my neighbor replaced them. Occasionally I would hold something in place for him. Damn, that was a pain in the ass. In exchange though, I have done plenty of computer work for him. I guess it all evens out in the end.
Horschack is hanging at the Waffle
My SO likes watching VH1 occasionally, so by default, that shit filters to my brain. Occasionally something good will be on anyway. She is watching I Love the 70’s or some such shit and I just saw a picture of Horschack, then and today. Damn, I swear he looks just like one of my buddies in another town close to here.
Fucking Animal Crackers…REALLY!
How the hell did you think they made Animal Crackers anyhow?
Summer Teeth
Thanks to Dawn, I had to go over here and see what Summer Teeth are. Damn, my 2nd shift cook fits this bill.
A New Business Model
After my last comment over here I decided that I had come up with the perfect business model, reminiscent of the dark ages. Richie’s Redneck Surgery, Computer fixin, Dental Work. All you need is a bit of super glue, a sharp carpet knife, and a big old roll of fucking duct tape. Hell, I might even be able to quit my day job after a few decades of that, as long as I can keep one step ahead of the law.
I’ve got your Hollywood right here bud.
Back to work
Days off are much too short. I have to return to work this morning and I think that this is going to be just as long a week as the last one. They are supposed to break ground on the new restaurant (in my town) within the next two weeks, so hopefully I will get to open it. It would be nice to be that close to home. It just really depends on if I end up taking a promotion before then. My friend that just gave her notice may not back down, and if she leaves they are going to offer her job, which I really don’t want, but they have changed the way that promotions are done recently. I am #1 on the promotion list, and if I turn it down, I go back to the bottom of the list. Right now there are probably four people locally deemed ready for promotion, so I would be after them. Not too big of a deal I suppose. I am just fighting with myself about what I want. The promotion would mean a 15%-40% increase in pay possibly, while just taking the store here in town would greatly benefit my lifestyle. Less spent on gas as well as driving time. Shit what a quandry.
Guess I will have to make up my mind here pretty soon. I am also looking at the fact that once Stephanie has been out of graduate school for two years the Hope scholarship will have been paid back, and we can move if something better comes along. Both of us have talked about moving so that she can teach in a new system, and I could always apply for a promotion elsewehere, or at least a lateral move.
Windows Vista
Recently I rebuilt my PC and reinstalled windows. I think I may have posted a bit about the crap that was going on. Anyway, when I did, I installed the Windows XP 64 bit version in order to take full advantage of my CPU. There are a few drivers that will no longer work, such as my scanner, and my cell phone USB cable. No big deal, I can live with that. I moved the scanner over to Stephanie’s PC, and will just live with the fact that I can’t transfer the shit off of my phone. About the only thing that I couldn’t get to install and work properly was iTunes, and Quicktime, which pisses me off to no end. I did a bunch of searching on the Apple site, as well as other places, all of which came to no avail. Apple won’t support the 64 bit version of Windows XP. Fine, fuck you.
I then put Windows Vista Beta 2 on there, running a dual boot system. I had a few problems with my sound card and network card, but just swapped those out with some others from my basement that are compatible with both OSes. No problems there. There are a few glitches, I have a hard time processing converting DVD’s to Divx under Vista, right now I am running under XP to convert a couple so that I can send them back to Netflix and watch later. For the most part, I really like Vista. This is the first time I have even rebooted to XP in a couple of weeks.
The big kicker is that iTunes and Quicktime install under the 64 bit version of Vista with NO PROBLEM. Not only that, but they run just fine. Ok, so what the fuck is the deal? Apple, you are a bunch of fucking assholes. I started iTunes a couple of days ago and got the message that there was an update, so I downloaded it and tried to install. It gives me a message that iTunes will only install on 32 bit versions of Windows 2000 and XP. What the fuck? Is that the purpose of the fucking upgrade? You guys want to be assholes about what you have to support? It’s not like I have ever called you for support, and then only two times that I have tried to get Quicktime support (yes, I am a registered Quicktime Pro owner) nobody ever bothered to fucking reply anyway.
Software designers need to leave a loophole in their installation routines, such as advanced installation, so that assholes like me that want to fuck up their systems, can install their software on unsupported systems.
Maybe if I try to run it in compatibility mode that will work. Vista will still not report itself as being XP, but I have done this in the past with other stuff and it has worked.
The tough life
It’s been a hard day off today. I got up this morning to see the wife off to work, most of the teachers are starting to go back to work as school starts gain in two weeks. Drank some coffee and blogged for awhile. Had to watch Barbie Mermaidia with the girls which I recorded for them while they were in Bluffton. I took a nice nap on the couch while the girls played on Anna’s computer. Stephanie just got home and has run back out on errands. The positive cable on my car is broken and needs a replacement, but the nearest parts store is in the next town over, so she is driving over there to pick it up. I suppose I will help with replacing it, although I pretty much suck at doing anything on cars newer than 1967. The only one I ever felt halfway comfortable working on was my old ’67 Chevy Stepside pick-up. Damn, that was nice. Paid $100 for it, drove it for a couple of years, then ended up trading it for a bike which I later totalled. Bent the front rims, forks, bent the frame. Pretty much fucked it up.