Daisy, Daisy . . .
After nearly 5 years, I’ve decided to wipe my Gentoo install. I moved this install from MB to new MB and from HD to larger HD. All without reinstalling. A simple copying of files and boot sectors entries was all I ever did. This would be impossible on a Windows box (anti-piracy features aside) because at the time I stopped using Windows it suffered from bit rot such that after a year, the average Windows install was slow.
With Gentoo the rot was slower and different. Nothing seemed slower, but things would break. I installed my system before ivman, udev and the rest of those programs. Then I got them working, and now they are broken again. I installed my system when alsa was an external module. Then I used the kernel version. Now Alsa is broken (but can be fixed by running alsaconf) and I don’t feel like wading through the forums to see what obscure file I accidentally deleted or portage forgot to update.
Some time ago my 50 gig OS partition was full. I don’t exactly know how this happened, but over the years portage left a couple gigs of orphaned files on my disk. I deleted them and all seemed well, but I suspect that my current problems can be traced to things portage should have done or things I shouldn’t have done.
I think Debian is more likely to do what it should than a fresh Gentoo install, and this will give me fewer opportunities to do what I shouldn’t.
Gentoo devs, thanks for the utility and education. Debian devs, get ready for a newb.
1/16/2009
Indie, I loved you
Seriously.
Indie 103.1 was the best radio station in LA for as many years as it was on. I heard Henry Rollins play ‘Angel of Death’ by Slayer, which you never hear on the radio for a reason. But I also heard Jonesy play Roxy Music’s ‘Out of the Blue’ followed immediately by Japan’s ‘Halloween’; two songs that you never hear on the radio by bands you seldom hear on the radio.
Rollins played Lobby Loyd and the Coloured Balls this summer and for 5 minutes in my car ‘Heavy Metal Kid’ was my favorite song. Subsequent listening has diminished my esteem, but without Indie I’d never have heard it.
I don’t live in LA anymore so I hadn’t had much of a chance to listen to them. I decided to tune in to their online station just for old time’s sake.
They were playing U2’s ‘Stuck in the Moment.’ WTF!?
I hate you Indie.
12/7/2008
‘Tis the Season Again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSlpCBek1_M
11/15/2008
The Ocho
I am against Prop.8 and encourage people to work to overturn it. There are a lot of people who have thought about this issue more than I have and I won’t presume to tell them how direct their activism.
That said, there is probably a better way to protest Prop. 8 than staging a sit-in at 18th St. and Castro.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an a clearer example of trading the efficacy of the message for convenience of making the message.
Well, except earlier today when I was the sole participant in a sleep-in to protest global warming.
Keep hope alive people.
9/9/2008
The End Is Neigh!
If the new supercollider in Europe doesn’t create a black hole, destroying the earth tomorrow, then you’ll still have almost a year to enjoy the splendor of Nuke Tibet.
I set up this website, named for a bumper sticker that never was, to be a hugely popular outlet for my juvenile smartassery. Unfortunately, Nuke Tibet remains profoundly unpopular and as I’ve become more proud of my work, I wish I could claim it without also claiming my pronounced hope that numerous innocent children be afflicted with crippling diarrhea. It doesn’t matter that their parents are hipster peackniks, it is still wrong.
I will continue to update, and probably more frequently than I have been. But you have been warned!
Both of you.
8/26/2008
Your Dumpster with Grafitti is not a Character
I’ve become used to hearing people refer to various inanimate details of a film as being a “character,” and I’ve been content to more or less take them at their word. However, in watching one of the astonishingly pretentious bonus features of Children of Men I heard a production designer claim that the overall production design was a “character.” This will not stand.
In Hitchcock’s Rebecca, Manderley can be said to be a character because the house is supposed to be a symbolic incarnation of Rebecca. Similarly, you can say that the country, the land itself, is a character in westerns and movies like Lawrence of Arabia, because it presents obstacles and blessings and forces characters to react. For the same reason, the sea might be said to be a character, and naturally ships like the Nostromo in Alien or the Enterprise in Star Trek can be said to have their demands and quriks etc.
The production design in Children of Men might be said to express the bleak outlook of a society without children, but that doesn’t make it a character unless the goddamn Club Obi Wan in Temple of Doom is also a character because it reflects the zeitgeist. By these standards, the two-headed quarter in The Dark Night should get a Best Supporting Actor nomination.
Time will tell.
8/22/2008
I don’t float like gravity and I have a cavity
In light of these facts, I bought a Diet Mountain Dew, figuring it couldn’t possibly be as bad as I remembered.
I was wrong and re-amazed that there are enough people losing bets to keep this drink in production.
Maybe the orange concentrate in real Mountain Dew has too many calories, so not only is DMD trying to simulate sweetness, but also citrusyness. And for some reason they threw in some wintergreen, so Diet Mountain Dew tastes like when you brush your teeth and drink juice, only all in one beverage.
I now feel like I’ve already brushed my teeth and had juice. Next step is pancakes and bacon, completely negating any theoretical caloric or dental hygienic gains from drinking a diet soda.
Its like the man once said “Dew or Dew not. There is no try.”