Spock. Now. You. Can. Try. This. At. Home.

Yep.  It’s the Star Trek Episode Plot Generator.  Pointy ears not included.  And neither is William Shatner’s toupee.  But then again, William Shatner isn’t included, either…

Technorati Tags: Star Trek

A commercial from my youth…

I grew up in a military family (father was in the Army).  We were stationed in Germany, and the only Engrish speaking TV station was run by the Army.  The one good thing about it (and possibly the only good thing) was no commercials.  Then we came stateside, and were able to watch regular TV with commercials.  There was one commercial that stood out in particular, and our friends at The Consumerist have pointed out that it’s on YouTube.

Submitted for your approval.

And surprisingly, Faith No More, does a pretty live cover of it (maybe if they went with this, it would still be available….):

And no, I don’t dig white chocolate.  Hershey’s Special Dark, please.  Thank you.

Technorati Tags: '80s commercials...

A good combination

Zero Wing.  A Sega Genesis game that never sold well in America.  In fact, I don’t think it sold at all.  It was well known for it’s atrocious treatment of the English language.  Don't believe me, see the Wikipedia write-up here.  Anyway, it also goes well with a Brian May guitar solo.  See here:

Isn’t there anything Queen can’t make better?

Technorati Tags: All your base are belong to us,Queen,Sega Genesis

Gee, that was quick….

Lately I’ve been having problems with my phone syncing to my computer.  Yes, my phone runs Windows Mobile (so I guess I should that The Anti-Christ for that one), so there’s my problem right there…

Anyway, I decided to clear the phone out tonight, and reinstall everything (this included uninstalling/reinstalling ActiveSync).  On my computer, this would imply at least 2-3 days before I could safely surf the internet, and almost a month before all my software would be reinstalled and I would ‘moved in’ to the computer.  On my phone, I had everything reinstalled in 20 minutes.  It took slightly longer to set my email up, and I still need to tweak the theme.  But what’s going to take the longest time is I have to reload all my music…  And that was what was causing me the problems originally.

Technorati Tags: My Computer,The Anti-Christ,Windows Mobile

It was another day off today….

And I did absolutely nothing.  Nada. Zilch.  Jack Shit.  Well I did go to Puyallup today, thinking I would spend the day with one of my brothers, but he had to tend to other business.  Well, it wasn’t a complete waste of a day.  I did get some more software installed in my WinME virtual machine.  I’m beginning to realize that the virtual machine on this computer will get better performance than when I had it installed on my old computer.

Technorati Tags: My Computer,The Anti-Christ,Virtual Machines,Going Old Skool

Sheep and Goats

Taxonomically they’re related.  But in religious terms, there’s a difference:

• Sheep always go to heaven.
• Goats always go to hell.

Now, let’s have some Cake:

Yes, I know it’s just yet another half-assed excuse to post another music video.  To be honest, I really can’t stand Cake, but this song is an exception.

Technorati Tags: Music,Cake

RIP Khan

Ricardo Montalban has passed away. Yes, he was Mr. Rourke from Fantasy Island, but I will remember him for his role as Khan in Star Trek 2. He was the best villain ever.  It wasn’t until many years later after first seeing him that I found out he was Mexican.  Even though I only knew him through the villains’ roles he plated, he was still one of my heroes.

He will be missed.

Technorati Tags: Star Trek,Khan

My Early Experience With Windows 7

Ok, so I downloaded the beta of Windows 7 from The Anti-Christ earlier today.  Burned it to DVD.  And realizing that I have two physical hard drives in my computer, I gave it a try.  From the time I put the DVD in the drive to desktop was between 30 minutes and an hour (to be honest I wasn’t really keeping time).  From previous experiences (with WinME and WinXP) here are the major differences:

• Everything is now done from a gui.  Even when you boot off the DVD, you’re greeted by a GUI, which should be a Godsend to the computer-illiterate masses who don’t know how to do anything from a command line.  The Anti-Christ must be borrowing a page from all the major Linux distributions, most (if not all) of whom have had gui based installers for years (Mandriva and SuSE immediately come to mind).
• Compared to WinXP installation, if you choose install from within windows, all of the major decisions (like which drive/partition to install it to) are made from within windows.  Whereas in previous versions it would just copy the files over, then it would reboot, and you have to navigate through the DOS-like interface, which could be a little bit intimidating if you don’t know what you’re doing…  A little more work on this, and my very much computer illiterate mother would be able to do it.
• Once you get through the installation, it’s very much like Windows Vista.  The hardware requirements are pretty much the same, so if you’re current box can run Vista, you can run windows 7 with little or no problem.

And the drawbacks:

• It is still beta software (and that means that it’s not stable).  Of course, the obvious warning not to use this on mission critical computers.
• Since it’s a beta, not all manufacturers have released hardware drivers yet.  Like my TV card.  And IIRC, there were several components on my computer that they didn’t have drivers for.
• I’m not all that thrilled with the Aero interface yet.  I may upgrade to Windows 7 when it’s finally released, and learn to love it then.  But then again, I just found the port for the Royal Noir theme (the one that XP Media Center has), and that’s enough eye candy for me.

And my one tidbit of wisdom if you’re dual-booting with 7 and XP, and you just want to go back to XP:

1. log into XP.
2. Go to ‘my computer’ and format the drive/partition that 7 was installed on.
3. If you followed my advice here, then reboot your computer and choose the ‘recovery console’ option.
4. If, for example, your XP installation is on your C: drive, then at the command prompt, type ‘fixboot C:’.
5. Reboot again, and you should be back at XP again.

Your mileage my vary…

Technorati Tags: My computer,The Anti-Christ,Windows XP,Windows 7

I’m watching the Tonight Show right now

And John Melendez is going to get a tonsure.  Not the traditional roman tonsure, but he’s going to get it all shaved off.  It would be far more entertaining for him to get his scalp waxed.  A very slow waxing.  This is why I don’t gamble on national TV…..

Now you can have a bankruptcy in the diamond business…

When I was growing up, I listened to a lot of radio (hey, no internet, no cable TV, my choices were severely limited).  My best Holiday present ever was a stereo that had a digital tuner (not even a cd player).  Anyway, one of the ads that I still remember from the 20-some odd years of listening were the spots for the Shane Company.  Everything must come to an end.  The Shane Company has filed for bankruptcy.  Maybe they can pull out of it.  Maybe this is the end……

Technorati Tags: The Shane Company

Mental Note (once again)

When burning DVDs make sure to shutdown the andlinux processes, unless you really want to spend over 40 minutes on one DVD.  The Anti-Christ has released a public beta of Windows 7.  After several tries over the weekend, I finally managed to download it, and burn it to disc.  I’ve finally got the hardware to run it, but I hesitate to install it because my TV card doesn’t have windows vista/7 drivers for it yet, and I do use my computer as my main tv.  And for the first time since knoppix 4.02 was released, I can finally access the internet from knoppix again (funny thing, after 4.02, knoppix stopped recognizing the network card on my old computer).

Technorati Tags: The Anti-Christ,My Computer,Windows 7,Knoppix

What's this?

With all the rain & flooding we've had here in the Great Pacific NorthWet, it was a total shock to see this strange, blue cloud in the sky today. I don't know what this signifies, but I can say this: EVERYBODY PANIC!

Almost forgot…..

While trying to get Windows ME to install in VirtualBox (gave up after 8 hours.  And I had really high hopes for it too, but that will be another post), it occurred to me what yesterday was.  I almost missed my father’s birthday.  I did call him and wish him a happy birthday, but I thought I’d use my virtual soapbox to say:

Happy Birthday, Dad.

MySpace, Facebook, Blogger or ???

I’ve had this blog since 2006.  Last September (or August, I can’t remember), I finally got a MySpace page.  Then my boss mentioned facebook, and I got a facebook page.  Some of my friends & relatives like MySpace, but most prefer facebook.  For the most part, I like facebook too, but there are some of my friends who prefer myspace.  The two are good for keeping in touch, but I actually prefer blogger.  I know MySpace has a blogging feature, but I’ve already had my virtual soapbox here set up for almost three years.  And I really don’t like all the pimped & blinged out myspace pages, either.  And don’t get me started on R&B music, either…..

Technorati Tags: MySpace,Facebook,Blogger

Going Old Skool. Again….

As I think I’ve said before, my (old) computer came with Windows ME installed on it.  I highly recommend it to clueless newbies.  Then again, it is kind of like learning to swim by jumping straight into the ocean….  Anyhow, after a year of dealing with the Blue Screen Of Death, and various and sundry other problems, I went to Windows XP (you’d think that The Anti-Christ would realize that not doing a Half-Assed Job would be a Good Thing).  For the most part.  I kept trying to dual-boot with ME and XP, or just going with either one of them (even if I was going with one OS, I’d still make sure that I had the hardware drivers and software compatible with the other OS as well).

Well fast forward to my new computer which just has Windows XP Professional.  Installing WinME is not an option.  Then I realized, that: 1. I have XP Pro and 2.  I have a really fast processor and plenty of ram.  I’ve never had any really good experiences with virtual OSes and emulators (mainly because my old computer was slower than the Postal Service).  And when I last tried Virtual PC 2007, it shut down saying I needed XP Professional (I had XP Home at the time).  So I downloaded Virtual PC 2007 and VirtualBox, pulled out my old windows discs, and set to work.  First off, I learned that even though I’m in a virtual environment, I still need to fdisk and format.  Installation was a long time (even longer than my old PIII).  Virtual PC was slightly faster than VirtualBox in installation, but VirtualBox is more configurable.  But, I can now still play around with my old games (mainly MechWarrior 2) that won’t even install in XP.  I could probably even install my favorite Linux Distro (OpenSuSE) if I wanted to, but that would be another blog entry…

Technorati Tags: The Anti-Christ,Windows ME,Widows XP,Virtual Computing,My Computer

Happy New Year

OK, I’m watching the New Years at the Needle.  I remember the fiasco that happened last year when the fireworks didn’t go off properly. They said it was a computer malfunction.  There is a reason why mission critical computers don’t run windows.  The Anti-Christ is known for doing a half-assed job.  Already I’ve seen the traditional marriage proposal live on TV (last year, they had three or four).  I’ve already celebrated the traditional way: with nachos and beer.

Now comes the New Years’ Resolution.  I don’t really make resolutions, and when I do, I usually end up breaking them my January 2, so these are more lifelong goals than resolutions. Anyhow, I resolve to:

• Take better care of myself.  I am a diabetic, and I am starting to see some the complications of the condition.
• To get out of debt.
• To live within my means.  The economy’s been in the toilet for awhile, partly because of people using credit, not realizing that eventually the bills come due, and the piper will always get paid.
• To be more productive at work.  It is far easier to retain employment than it is to find new employment.

Anyway, Happy New Year.  I must now retire.  I don’t have tomorrow off, and I have to get up pretty bright and early.  At least, the fireworks went off properly.

Technorati Tags: Godless Pagan Holiday,New Years Day