no one of consequence.

So this shiny little toy has moved into our network semi-permanently. It’s my SIL’s Boss’s Powerbook G4. He doesn’t use it, being an older man unaccustomed to computers, but being acquisitive enough to want all the toys just the same. It’s been passed around a bit, from my SIL, to her half-sister the psychotic (who beat it up a bit), back to J (who has an iBook and a G5 desktop already), and now on to us.

Not that we really NEED a laptop. But it would be handy for meetings and for testing the occasional bit of digital-use design work. I also argued to J that letting it live with us for a while would give me the chance to really get to know OS X (it’s running Panther), which would finally give me the knowledge to be able to support her systems without having Google’s interface in front of me. Lee speaks Mac better than I do, but even he’s just functional. Given time and experimentation, one or both of us will become as savvy with OS X as we are with Windows.

So I’ve been poking at it all afternoon. I’ve already found:

• I cant use the desktop install discs to upgrade the OS to Tiger
• the term “Kernel Panic” and what it means
• how to boot from disc, auto eject a disc at boot, and enter safe-mode
• OS X seems to be a bit fussier about slightly wonky install files
• The adobe suite install runs quite a bit slower on this laptop
• How to set up a mail profile, but not how to make it the default when there are other active profiles (I had to deactivate the other profiles)
• her battery life is less than optimal, and she isn’t storing power well. Over 10 hours she lost about 10% of a full charge.

The next step will be setting our modem up for wireless and the Joys of Interracial Networking from a Mac perspective. I managed somehow to get J’s iBook recognized by our windows network, but I cant remember how I did it. The Powerbook (who is decidedly female but doesn’t have a name yet) cheerfully finds the network shared files and Intarwebb Tubes all by herself when I plug in via ethernet, but I have to figure out how to make her visible to Junior and Zoe like J’s iBook is. And how to show the lil Powerbook where the printers are.

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Dear Southerners,

I have explained Chicken Fried Steak to my dear darling Canadian mate the only way possible. I made some. I remembered the biscuts and mashed potatoes. He is a happy camper.

The steaks themselves worked out beautifully. However, I am of the opinion that my white gravy leaves much to be desired. It came out overly floury and not terribly tasty. Please advise?

Love and kisses,

A Yankee who really IS trying,

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Ed Robertson has been playing in his bathroom.

A lot.

But he’s been uploading the video to Youtube, so he’s forgiven.

Accoustic recordings at the BNL Youtube account HERE

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http://www.myspace.com/saveconeyisland

Thor Equities, the company that has bought up most of Coney Island has begun demolishing the Amusement park.

For years they led everyone to believe they intended to revamp, revitalize and preserve the park, that they didnt intent to change use. Not that everyone believed them.

Now the nonbelievers are proved right. Thor Equities has been seeking zoning changes, in order to build timeshare and high-end condos on at least part of the land. The City has so far resisted, and in response, Thor has begun evicting longtime tenants and demolishing attractions on the site in an attempt to pressure the city into either giving them their zoning changes or having Coney become a wasteland of demolished and empty lots.

Apparently the Go-Carts and the Batting cages are already gone. Possibly the Bumper Boats too.

http://community.livejournal.com/newyorkers/2535724.html?view=24965420#t24965420

A protest is being planned for the near future. Get involved if you can, and help try to save Coney Island from these greedy bastards who want to destroy part of NYC’s cultural heritage because it wont make them millions of dollars. Remember what this kind of action did to Rockaway. Dont let them kill beachfront Brooklyn too.

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Check this out. It’s called an Aerogarden.

Serious, serious wanties. Aeroponic growth with a built in plant lamp. I’d so have fresh basil all year round. Sadly, it’s way too spendy for me, clocking in at $150 USD + $20 for a set of the apparently treated seeds.

Not that I have a black thumb, but conditions in our apartment are not what I’d call ideal for plants. The windowsills are much too cold for greenery this time of year, and there’s not enough light away from them. Im struggling to keep my normal houseplants going. Lost the variegated leaf Spider plant already. (The plain leaf is doing OK, if not fantastically. The crazy thing insists on reproducing.)

I now fantasize about building a “mock window” with a grow light built into the top and a window box below to hang in our kitchen, where I would grow basil, chives, mint and parsley…

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Finding ways to fill the long hours of the day gets hard after a while.

Books are just plain not cost effective. I read too damn fast, same for expanding the movie collection. Warcraft is good for a while, but I cant let myself sink deep enough into it for it to truly hold me, Lee doesnt like that. I’ve tinkered and twitched Junior’s settings to the point where doing anything else with him is just counter-productive unless I get some more hardware. The guitar tries to guilt trip me occasionally, but Im just not interested enough to experience the self torture or interrupt the neverending stream of REAL music around here with it. Dont even ask about pencils. Not gonna happen.

Going out and DOING stuff? Well, no. I dont really have anyone to hang out with, the weather is truly crap, and I havent found anything I would actually enjoy doing. Sports are right out, even if the weather was good, my knees wont take it. Shopping is fun, but that takes money we really cant spare. I’m not allowed to take classes of any kind, Im not allowed to work, I’m not even allowed to volunteer* anywhere as per Canadian immigration laws. I probably wouldnt mind a gym, but that’s not in the budget.

A long rest is nice, but im starting to go berzerk with boredom.

* Im apparently not allowed to do anything that anyone could possibly be paid for. Even if it’s a postion that ISNT paid. It seems the view on this is that if volunteer groups cant fill the space, they should pay someone (who is legally employable) to do so.

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Finding an optician&optometrist here is just baffling me. (more…)

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Someday i’ll get used to seeing all this snow around. I think. I hope. It’s still kinda extraordinary to me.

Not to mention irritating. Well the snow isnt irritating in and of itself, it’s how bad people generally are at cleaning it up. You’d think that up here, where Im told it generally snows like this pretty frequently they’d have a good system for dealing with it. Not terribly. Getting down the street to the supermarket is a fucking obstacle course. Im sure it’s not too bad to folks who dont have the kind of issues with their legs that I do, but for me it’s scary. But then, I’d gotten used to hoofing it around Midtown and Lower Manhattan, where by the next morning it’s possible to not even NOTICE it had snowed.

Dear city, Pony up for a couple of snowmelters. Kthnxbye.

My old bad knee is still bad, my GOOD knee is starting to go bad from favoring the bad knee so much, and of course my ankles are weird from the two seperate occasions where the bad knee misbehaving resulted in my probably breaking something in each of my feet. Which of course I never had looked at. *facepalm*

This results in days like today, where I woke up a bundle of OW as the storm was in the process of clearing out. Yesterday’s heavy snow into freezing rain is now alternating sunshine and flurries.

Last night’s brief trip out to play in the snow at the side of the building is probably part of the cause too though. *grin* I was in the mood for snow sculpture, but had to settle for pitching a few snowballs at Lee instead as the freezing rain was still coming down.

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