A winning weekend (not you mariners)

The Sounders FC won the Cascadia Cup yesterday. And the day before, they were mathematically assured of a berth in the playoffs. And they’re doing better in the Concacaf Champions League than they were last year. They’re going to the playoffs for the third year in a row. Not too shabby considering as the team is only three years old. MLS had the right idea when they gave franchises to Portland and Vancouver as well. The Derby matches are always fun, and more people are enjoying it than if it were just the Seattle team (like with The New World Order (Mind-Control Division) and the Seattle Mariners. Though with the Mariners I have to say that they don’t just suck. They swallow, too. What the hell happened to them? Wasn’t Ichiro won of the reasons we went to the playoffs in 2000/1? But the season will soo be over, and the fans’ suffering will end. Until next spring.

And the Seahawks won today. At least the defense won. And I got home from work early enough that I saw the defense win it. But they always say that while your offense sells the tickets, it’s the defense that wins the game. They beast the Arizona Cardinals 13-10. And they did it the hard way. They Cardinals weren’t wearing their mitres…

And guess who’s 3-0? The Lions. I saw them in the preseason when they gave Tom Brady his well-deserved beating, and I decided to root for them this year (I don’t think they’re playing the Seahawks this year so I can safely have divided loyalties). I think what happened is somebody told them in the locker room that all of their opponents this year are Christian…

At last! Or so. It could be said?

As I said last week, one of my monitors died last week. Coincidentally, I got paid. Remembering how one of my friends had an unused monitor in his garage, I emailed him and asked him how much he wanted for it. He said he'd give it to me for free. And he delivered it, too. So now my computer now has two Gateway EV700 monitors, and I can also use one for my workbench wherever I need to fix a tower...

The end of an era…

If you’re willing to serve your country, and possibly die for your country, it shouldn’t make a difference whether or not you know the difference between teal and fuscia…Don’t ask, don’t tell has been repealed.

It’s time for ARRR! again…

Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

So remember to buckle yer swash, shiver yer timbers or go walk the plank…

Its back....

Finally, they chased away that bright yellow UFO in the sky. And we can now go back to our self-watering lawns and our self-washing cars. And its not even my day off...

Friday night, I took down my window fan and put it away. Then I closed the window. And fifteen minutes later, I had to turn the heat on. And less than a week before, we were hitting the nineties....

You can’t catch me! I have Gingerbread!

After running Froyo for almost a year, I finally saw that the development on the Gingerbread ROMS  for the HD2 has made some progress. Enough that I thought it could be worth the trouble of giving a try…

Not that I had anything against the Froyo ROMS. The rafdroid ROM is as stable as anything else available, and the Cmylxgo isn’t that bad that well. But there were some bugs:

• The Rafdroid roms like to reboot. A lot. And the current one has issues with bluetooth.
• And the Cmylxgo like to freeze. A lot. And it likes to reboot somewhat, too.

And it doesn’t help the Cmylxgo stopped developing for the HD2, and went to the HTC Sensation (and btw, Igwanarob, NRGZ28 went to the Sensation as well). Rafpigna, the developer of Rafdroid, has also said that the current version would be the last version, most likely.

So, I went looking for a Gingerbread ROM in the XDA Developers forum. There were a few ROMs out there to try. I downloaded a couple. The first one I tried was the CoreDroid. It was more a customised port of the Sensation software for the HD2. It was slow, it crashed, and there were graphical glitches. Needless to say, I went with another one. I went with this one. So far, I’m impressed. I don’t see any of the bugs/annoyances with this ROM that I saw with Froyo. But time will tell if this turns out. If not, I have my local archive of the Rafdroid, and I’ll just live with it’s quirks….

Edit: the day after I wrote this, NRGZ28 published a new energy ROM based on the HTC Sensation. I tried it, and I was impressed with the appearance. However, I've decided to go with something that's proven to work: Froyo. So i'm running Rafdroid again. Though I've rolled back the kernel so my Bluetooth sets will work with it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it...

Yet another hardware eulogy….

This time, I know it was hardware failure. I could hear the death scream, and I thought I could smell the Magic Blue Smoke. Farewell, Sylvania F72. Of course, this means that my tower won’t have a dual monitor display until you’re replaced. Which really is going to bite. I could use you to keep the My Documents folder open, while I used my other monitor (a Gateway EV700) to edit a document. Now, I’ll have to re-learn how to switch between windows on one display again. Maybe I should get a hi-def display now (I have a 1gB video card, so I think my system has the oomf to drive one). But that’s too expensive for now.

But with the exception of that, the rest of my tower is running well. But with the monitor gone, I think it’s time I moved most of my computing to the laptop….

It's been 10 years....

Since the tragedies in New York, The Pentagon, and Pennsylvania. Everybody else is talking about never forgetting 9/11. I must be in the minority. I would rather forget it...

What had happened since then? This is no longer America, land of the free. A have become a neo-fascist police state in the name of security. We cannot travel by plane without being sexually assaulted and/or subjected to medically significant amounts of radiation. Or correspondance is now monitored, probably routinely without a warrant. We can now be stopped anywhere by police and told to present our papers without cause (it's happened to me more than once). We are becoming a nation where if you're not a right wing evangelical Christian, then you're a criminal. In some states, it's even worse, if you're not white, you're a criminal. Due process of law and habeas corpus are things of the past. They don't even need proof anymore. They just have say terrorist, and you're locked up without lawyers or a judge, and subject to torture. Benjamin Franklin once said that those who would give up liberty for security deserve neither. We are now a nation without liberty. And there are still credible threats, so they say. So we are still a nation without security...

I did not rejoice on that day. And I did not rejoice on the day they killed bin Laden. Violence breeds violence, and is in and of itself evil.

Really, the only way to defeat the terrorists is to be free. The thousands who died that day died free. Yes, the attacks will come. Terrorists will rage, armies will assemble, and mobs may combine. But we can not give in to our fears. When we become a nation of fear, then our enemies have won.

Fuck the terrorists. I want my Liberty back. Live free or die...

To Simon Malls…

Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message.

A while back, I complained to you specifically about the Coke machines eating my money, and how I would only get a partial refund frim guest services. The reply I recieved was that you authorized the refund of the remainder of my money, but by then it was no longer worth it, and I decided to just eat my loss. I also decided that the Tacoma Mall (and the stores therein) would no longer see my business as a result of the 'go pound sand' attitude that I was shown. And I told you so at the time. I thought that would be the end of the matter. But no. You added me to your spam list. My home internet access, and my phone's internet access are both limited and metered. *I HAVE TO PAY FOR THE UNWANTED ADVERTISEMENTS YOU SEND ME!!* I do not need your ads, you don't need my business (if you did, you would've made sure your vending machines were working, and you would've made sure guest services actually gave a damn about customers).

Once again, under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Spamming is considered theft of services and trespass to chattel (see CompuServe Inc. v Cyber Promotions). Your messages are unwelcome.

So I’m Netflixing tonight….

Tonight, I’m watching the Franco Zeferelli film Romeo & Juliet. I first saw it in the 9th grade Engrish, after having read it. I’ve just realized how Cosmopolitan The Bard was. Only Shakespeare can do a movie set in Italy, and when they make a movie of it, they still use British actors.

CBS is a kill-joy….

I saw this on slashdot. Whenever I flash a new ROM on my Android Powered T-Mobile HD2, one of the apps I downloaded from the market was the tri-corder app. It was ad-free and open source. The funtionality in the app was always duplicated in other apps, but it was still fun to use. Not anymore. CBS killed it. This sucks. C’est la vie….

Ok, my towers going down the tubes....

Or it could just be a random system fart. But I doubt it, since it was showing the exact same symptoms a last week. Fortunately, I still had the windows XP CD still in the drive, so I just booted to the CD and an running chkdsk. Again. I think its time to back up my data, this time to an external computer. Fortunately, the first time my tower had issues, I bought a laptop. And I have enough space on it to hold everything. But first thing is first: I must get the tower running...

Edit: Ok, so I ran the short chkdsk, and I was able to boot into safe mode. Unfortunately, I can't move files across the network, but I am copying my important files to my second hard drive, which will then be physically disconnected until I can repair it. Something tells me my terabyte hard drive might be going....

Edit: it was actually just a cable that got pulled just loose enough. After unplugging everything, then reseating all my cable and expansion cards, it's ask good now...

No more Starz on Netflix

I was reading that Starz content will not be available on Netflix anymore. Apparently 300 million wasn’t enough. Starz specifically wanted higher prices. Too bad. Big Fat Fucking Deal. Yes I have the Netflix streaming plan. But I also have Starz as part of my Comcast/Xfinity programming, and I can still stream there on-demand programming though my laptop.

But I prefer Emergency! reruns, and 6 degrees of Kevin Tighe…

I got a haircut a couple of weeks ago

Actually, I got several hairs cut <rim shot>. But as I sat down into the chair at the Tacoma Mall Mastercuts, the stylist suggested a Mohawk. My reply was only if I could giver her a tonsure, waxed. Needless to say we agreed on the ever popular and low maintenance 3 and 1 (clipper setter #3 on top, and #1 on sides and back). I thought to myself that I could be worse. At least nobody suggested the Justin Beiber…