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GRAFFITI -- November 08, 2004 thru November 14, 2004

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Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable.     About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.

Ron Paul in 2008

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Read LinuxGazette, get a clue.

MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
November 8, 2004

2137 - Good evening. The weather liars say that it's going to be the first freeze of the season tonight. I'll admit to believing them, since minutes ago at 2100 hours, the thermometer outside of the kitchen window (next to the house) read 33.7° F. It's not much of a reach to think that it's nearly freezing now, more than a few feet away from the house, and that it won't get a bunch colder before the night is done. The high temperature for the week is expected to be 50° F -- it wasn't that long ago when that was the expected overnight low for a week or three...

I spent the day working on computers (surprise, surprise) and I used BitTorrent to pull down a copy of the three ... ahem, four discs comprising the binary release of Fedora Core 3. I'll be putting those to use tomorrow for a developer at work. Also I got a nice compliment today from someone who was a client I worked for while an uppercase NERD:

> Also, you probably missed the news ...

Oui.

Best wishes to you, then, and I hope this email finds things well with you. Thanks for the support you provided me -- always swift and understandable, neither of which are to be taken for granted.

It's good to be appreciated. Now, I've had a long day on little sleep ... a definite OFIM, so I'm outta here, going to bed early. Have a good evening.

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Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
November 9, 2004

2031 - Good evening. I'm going to be helping out Mark Huth put the finishing touches on his mailbox shortly, so I haven't much time. Work today was good, and now I'm up here while Marcia watches an awards show for both kinds of music. That's right, country and western. No accounting for taste...

John Ashcroft writes, "I've fucked up enough peoples lives, and helped the terrorists destroy our American way of life and American freedoms to the best of my ability. I'm outta here." Thanks for nothin', you losin' an election to a dead guy, trampling over civil and constitutional rights nutcase bastard. Good riddance.

On the lighter side of the news tonight... John Ashcroft resigns. Here's hoping one of California's own nutjobs, Norm "Can I feel up your grandmother" Mineta follows his example. Then maybe we can get some action on search people who are actually suspicious, say all young men of middle eastern descent ... and not searching old non-middle eastern grandmothers and retired generals and the like. Oh, or we could still just try my other radical idea: give EVERY passenger something sharp. It's not enough to hurt the plane, but more than enough to take down a handful of islamic terrorists.

Oh, my. Full of piss and vinegear tonight I am. Best be calm, got work to do. Have a good evening.

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Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
November 10, 2004

2200 - Good evening. Another productive day at work, installing the freshly released Fedora Core 3 on a couple of boxen, and being generally helpful where I can. The day was partially offset by a general pissy-ness on the part of the Traffic Gods this morning. I haven't even come close to a squirrel in the last few days... no offerings, bad traffic. The breaks of the game, that's for sure. By the time the day was done and I was home, it'd been 12 hours even, a bit longer than I like for general purposes. Power runs to finish projects, sure, bring them on. But for a regular working day? My bad, I finished what I was working on, and looked at my watch to find it was quarter to six in the evening.

Molly and Lucy being friends.Molly and Lucy being friends (2).I was having a nice little belly-scratch cuddle with the mutts last night when they curled into one another and made it easy for me to scratch two bellies at once. It was a terribly cute moment, and Marcia managed to catch that with the camera. Now we're a three dog house again, as Ebony is over to visit for a few days. Lee brought him over on the weekend to spend a bit more time around Molly and make sure that everyone would just get along. And of course, they do. The only problem is that sometimes they all want attention from the same person at the same time. Last I checked, I wasn't a Motie.

I also paid bills and made a steak and veg stir fry for supper. That pretty much filled up the evening. I am whacked. Have a good day tomorrow, catch you then.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    THURSDAY    Fri    Sat    Sun   
November 11, 2004

1917 - Good evening. Veteran's Day. My pop was in the Navy. Hat's off to you, Dad! And to all the other veterans out there who've fought for this country and for our freedom... I thank you. This day is yours, I'll not trouble it with any other events. Have a good night, and a better day tomorrow.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
November 12, 2004

2131 - Good evening. Cool, VERY COOL! The Maestro Telescience Java application and many datasets from Mars. You need to go there, install the app, and explore Mars for yourself. Wow, this rocks. Too much fun to post more tonight, thanks for sending me the link, Dad!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    SATURDAY    Sun   
November 13, 2004

1357 - Good afternoon. Heh...

To the Citizens of the United States of America:

In the light of your recent failure to elect a reasonable president 
and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the 
revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical 
duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except 
Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new Prime Minister (Tony Blair 
for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is 
a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America 
without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will 
be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to 
determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid to the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the 
following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

* You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. 
Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be 
amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, 
you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up 
"vocabulary".

In addition, using the same 27 words interspersed with filler noises 
such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and ineffective 
form of communication. Look up "interspersed".

* There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know 
on your behalf.

* You should learn to distinguish between English and Australian 
accents. It really isn't that hard.

* Hollywood will be required to occasionally cast English actors as 
the good guys.

* You will no longer be allowed to play American football. There is 
only one kind of football. What you refer to as "football" is not a 
very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world 
outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays 
American football. Instead you should play proper football. 
Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a 
difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed 
to play rugby (which is similar to American football, but does not 
involve stopping for a rest every 20 seconds or wearing full body 
armour like nancies).

* You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons 
if they give you any merde. The 97.85% of you who were not aware 
that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves 
lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. (Merde is French 
for "sh*t".)

* All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for 
your own good. When we show you German Cars, you will understand 
what we mean.

* Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

Thank you for your co-operation.

We stopped by the BookMart this afternoon. It's a place where remaindered book go to sit in their kennels and wait for someone to take them to a good home at frantically low prices. I picked up David Brin's Kiln People, Donald Kingsbury's Psychohistorical Crisis, and Harry Harrison's A Stainless Steel Trio, all in hardcover and jackets, for the princely total of $19. Then I found the Wiley PHP5 and MySQL tome, half off at $25. Marcia found four mysteries including the latest Sue Grafton, for just over $20. A good day's hunting, I think. Time for some reading. Have a great day!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    SUNDAY  
November 14, 2004


Warning: Undefined variable $my_destinations in /usr/local/www/apache24/data/legacy.orbdesigns.com/bpages/2004/z20041108.php on line 166

2259 - Good evening. Shopping, house cleaning, laundry and PBS's latest Henry VIII. This was part two of the production, and altogether very well done. If you missed it, keep an eye out for the show to come around again - the history was good and the acting wonderful.

That was a full-ish day ... oh, that and helping out Mark Huth with the possibly final stumper in his new email setup. Note to self ... if one of the virtual domains is my own (aka orbdesigns.com), then don't have it listed in the variable in main.cf. Set that to localhost, and put orbdesigns.com in the virtuals table.

My goals for the week are simple: design a new network scheme, start the arrangements to bring a new T1 online, and take a hard look at how backups are done with an eye to ease of use and reliability. Nothing to it really... HAHAHHAHAHA. Well, I can dream, can't I? Have a great evening and a better tomorrow. Chowder!

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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.

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