October 29, 2002
I don't know if it's
I don't know if it's a cosmic coincidence or a media conspiracy, but there's been a bunch of articles about China lately. Nothing you don't know already, but it's interesting to see how China is portrayed by American media. I especially like the Wired article because it emphasizes how Taiwanese investors feel like foreigners in China despite all the superficial similarities. Not to mention the picture of the slightly lecherous hand of the drunken business man draped over the karaoke bar hostess.
October 22, 2002
October 18, 2002
Love the New York Times
Love the New York Times Magazine this week. There's (heterosexual) male-on-male sexual harassment, the myth of the 18-to-39 demographic, a sad tale of a Chinese girl trapped by an earthquake, and a suitably ambiguous story about The Strokes (are they bigtime, or did the backlash take them down before they even made it?). Although I could've gone without knowing where Clive Barker hangs pictures of his penis (no, not on his penis). A nice mix this week. Unfortunately, it all goes into (paid) archive-land by Sunday. Symbolic of the transitory nature of all things, I think.
On the other side of the intellectual spectrum, there's always the sensation that is the deep-fried Twinkie. Can't decide if this is the sort of thing that makes America great, or if it means it's all going to hell in a handbasket.
Stupid Project #2801128 That Will Never Happen
Set up a webcam to track the basil plant.
My 2-dollar-at-Target ficus died a hideous death after being unwatered for 6 weeks (although the fern managed to pull through), so I had a couple of empty plant pots. Always wanted to plant some herbs, but never bothered to track down seeds for them. But one day at Whole Earth, I saw fresh baby basil for sale, complete with roots in peat moss. Potted the plant and off we go. Seems to be doing well enough sitting on the window sill, thanks to the abundant afternoon sun. Have to resist the temptation of ripping off leaves before it settles in, though.
October 15, 2002
After three weeks of baseball
After three weeks of baseball playoff games involving both Bay Area teams plus football and the start of the NHL season, it's a litle strange to have a day with absolutely nothing of interest sports-wise on TV. It's almost comical how wrong the statheads' predictions were. On the other hand, I ferverently hope that a few October games doesn't cause the Giants to do something stupid like giving Dunston another season or signing Lofton to a big long-term deal. The games were sloppy, badly managed, but tense and exciting in that slow, deliberate baseball way, except Fox has to add in graphics, sound effects, and unneceesary zooms to ruin it all. Let's not even get started about the commentators, although I don't think Tim McCarver is all that bad. He'd probably make a better bench coach than an announcer, though. Both the Niners and the Giants were involved in close, back-and-forth games, but I was sure that the Niners were going to come back and win (on a signature play, no less), while fatalistically assuming that the Giants are going to lose the game, go back to St. Louis, and blow the 3-1 lead. Makes me feel like a child of the 80's. Bad memories of John Tudor, I guess.
October 13, 2002
My PC began randomly freezing
My PC began randomly freezing up recently. Tried to isolate the cause, but with the pirated OS, the old video card from a defunct company, the pile of parts from Fry's, and the software hacks to keep the Athlon running cool, I had no luck. At least with a blue-screen-of-death I can see which driver or program caused the crash. Tried to install XP Service Pack 1, but Microsoft had shut out the Corporate Edition key that all the pirated copies were using. Of course, the warez folks were way ahead of that, and a quick search on Kazaa (the spyware-less hacked version of course) yielded a key-gen program and complete instructions on circumventing the check. Didn't help.
Finally got the machine into a productive state by reinstalling and rolling back the video card drivers to the original OEM versions. Thanks to VoodooFiles who kept the flame alive now that 3dfx is no more. Now with MacOS X, the Mac is finally more stable than the PCs (I didn't have to deal with flakey PCs because I always used NT-based kernels). Unfortunately Apple releases too many software updates, so I can't really be an uptime whore. Might go up to the computer fair next weekend. I think it's time for a real video card, and maybe a wireless mouse, too.
October 06, 2002
Evil Conspiracy Afoot
So last week's Will and Grace episode featured Kevin Bacon and contained a great bit with Will and Kevin dancing to the soundtrack of Footloose (activated via Clapper). So what do I find when I open the Best Buy ad (always the best part) in the Sunday paper? The rereleased, remastered version of Footloose, of course. Coincidence? Yeah, right.