no one of consequence.

Ok, so Ive had an install of Linux running for a bit now. I’ve been running Kubuntu inside WinBlows as a Wubi install, basically to see if it’s something I can easily get the hang of. I like this OS, it’s not as complicated as Linux used to seem, since Kubuntu and its older brother Ubuntu come with a prepackaged GUI*. Mom, if you’re reading this, give it a try, it’s cool.

So I figure it’s time to make another move ahead and install WoW to the linux virtual drive now that im comfy with using my other basic apps over there. Except, well, WoW is large. Fucking huge actually. And I set up with a fairly modest virtual drivespace. So I dink around with things trying to expand my virtual disk space. But it isnt working right for some reason. I must be missing something.

Finally I see theres another disk showing. I assume the virtual drive finally set up. I tell Kubuntu to move itself over there. Except… err.. that was my storage drive. *wince* In a fit of pique, I uninstall Kubuntu. Paitence is my middle name I tell you. Fortunately, almost everything is backed up across the network with the exception of a few days worth of spam and some music thats safely stored on my IPod.

Sadly, I cant really let go of windows altogether, since I’ll still need the Adobe Creative suite if the graphics work ever picks up again. I cant really switch to an Open suite, as Lee uses it, and I have to be compatable. So untill Adobe gets the stick out of it’s ass and does something other than say “It’s Windows Software. Deal with it.” Im kinda stuck dual booting.

So now im downloading an iso of the newest Kubuntu release. I’m off to look at how to get dual booting set up on a partitioned drive.

*GUI is the pretty thing with the boxes and buttons that makes Windows go. On these installs it makes Linux go too. With some exceptions. Much like using Win 3.1 where some things simply had to be done from the command line. Yes, im a TechnoGranny who remembers using Win 3.1. Shut up.

Geek, Life | No Comments »

The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

—David Foster Wallace

Life | No Comments »

Once upon a time there were four little girls and one boy who were friends. They played together, laughed, pissed off each other’s parents and did all the things that children do, both naughty and nice.

They all started to grow up. The girls started to go to bars and meet other people and mess around with some things that weren’t really good for any of them. And the boy disappeared.

Many things happened to the girls over the years, and their stories are all their own. But at least one of them often wondered what happened to the boy, and missed him a great deal.

Turns out, the boy was off pursuing his Bliss.

I have the feeling that you will all know his name someday in the not too distant future. And im so goddamned proud of him it isnt funny.

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Frustrations piling up nicely.

Cant do dickall to help Lee get over the most recent hump, all of my ideas have been exhausted. I dont have the energy to do anything active, and my passive pursuits are mostly on hold untill something happens somewhere to our financial status. Hello TV. *disgusted snort*

Long term goals pretty much boxed for the foreseeable. Im back in survival mode.

Work is unsatisfying. Unchallenged, underused, and of zero value to the company other than as a live body to throw at the schedule. Christ, even IntaBoro made us feel like we were of *some* value, and they paid us shit and gave us no benefits.

Just keep going, just keep walking, cuz I cant even run anymore.

Life | No Comments »

I work in a call center. I spend five-to-ten hours a day talking to people who are confused, upset, bereaved, and downright pissed the fuck off. It tends to color my view. It brings out my most cynical side. Often it leaves me disgusted with humanity as a whole.

But today, when I came home cranky and annoyed with the world, I sat down, and accidentally clicked on the stumble button on my toolbar, rather than the google button. And my browser showed me THIS.

I smiled.

Every once in a while the universe decides to stop and remind me that humanity does still have a better nature. It isnt always entitlement whores and the ever-shrinking universe of the self centered. Sometimes, people will just do something nice. For no real reason. Not big flashy, I saved your life when I dragged you out of a fire nice. But a three second moment when someone randomly decided to help.

Hold a door. Help a parent get a stroller off the bus. Give someone directions. Do something goddamned nice. Dont even tell me about it, just do something. For my sake.

Because I need to know that somewhere, out there, people are behaving in a way that gives me back my faith in humanity.

Life | 1 Comment »

The key to putting claw covers on a cat seems to be doing it in the morning while he’s sleeping.

Also, want something deep-fried.

Life | No Comments »

I dont write here much anymore. Well done, Dawn, you win today’s Captain Obvious badge.

Part of it is work. I used to be able to blog from the old office. Commenting on my life, the world and the people around me… An almost constant stream of consciousness log of whatever caught my fancy.

I cant do that at my current job… probably wouldn’t be able to even if I had access. The pace is all wrong for it. Before I had hours of slow time, now it’s a heavy enough that I doubt I’d be able to string more than a few sentences together. Then, when I get home, im tired of talking, tired of thinking, just looking for a little quiet, if only in the recesses of my own mind.

Add to that this… disconnectedness.

Like today. I loaded onto my trusty iPod one of my oddball music play lists. An old one, I used to keep burned to cd before, for listening to on the way to work. It’s a crazy mix of old upbeat pop tunes. In the mix is this old tune most folks would only remember as ‘that song, from that Melanie Griffith movie”. Used to be, that listening to that, while weaving through the city streets, I’d feel connected. A tiny cog in the huge machine that I lived and worked and played in, but yes, a cog that helped, in some small way, to make that machine run. I dont get that feeling here.

Even after all these years, my heart beats to a different rhythm than the one that surrounds me here. Sometimes I still feel it pulling at me.

There was hope in it too, because there was always the chance that one could break through the ceiling into managment. Get out of the grind. Make some real money. Make a difference. Not here. Not in this job, maybe not in this city.

Back home, folks rooted for the underdog, not to win the lottery, but to make it to the executive suite by working your ass off. It feels like in this town, you’re expected to work your ass off and just STAY in the rank and file. Never have ambition to get further, never want to. Maybe it’s just the mentality at this particular company, but part of me wants to think that this is how Canadians think, if only because i’m surrounded by it. Maybe that’s not fair, but it feels like that, a lot. I dont mind being dispensible, I mind being wasted. Right now, I dont know if I’m being wasted, I just feel like this is some kind of treadmill that I’m never going to get off of. No way to get up.

I dont mind giving my time and energy and nervous system to a job, but I need to feel like I could possibly get somewhere. I dont feel that here, I just feel like im being punished for going at my work in the spirit intended, rather than the letter. Dead End, despite the recruiting hype.

Blogging, Geek, Life | No Comments »

I want my cat back.

Fucking bastard drivers. Have to treat this stretch of road like a speedway. The guy across the hall had his dog hit a couple of months ago. I should have shut the cats up then. But Lucky is such a madman, if i keep him in for a day he goes berzerk, usually leaving me bloody to the elbow. And how do you keep one cat out of two in?

So our sweet Charlie, who used to come sleep on my pillow at night is gone.

Edited to add:

Funny how people scold the pet owner about letting their cat out. You never hear anyone scolding the fucking scumbags behind the wheel who dont pay enough attention to avoid hitting a fairly light colored animal on a well-lit city street. I’ve seen drivers who can and do stop for fucking sparrows and squirrels, let alone a cat.

Murderous bastard, whoever you are, I curse you to get *EVERYTHING* you deserve.

Life, friends | No Comments »

Coolness. chack it out here: http://www.edar.org/

Life, News | 1 Comment »

John Barrowman, Your Song live.

Life | No Comments »