You might be a redneck if..

..if people keep stopping by your house thinking you're running a yard sale.

Seasonal rite of passage

Just got done with the first mowing of the lawn for the year, as well as
putting in the air conditioner for upstairs. For the past 3 days there
have been temperatures in the 80s and I canna stand it no more!

I don't dare turn on my computers when it's this hot. It gets up to 77
degrees in my room (sometimes higher), and then I worry about all my
digital media. The floppies and optical disks. And then how I'm supposed
to sleep at night when I'm likely going to be all sweaty. I hate that.

So the air conditioner and big fan are put to their uses again, cooling
and blowing the air into my room. This is usually quite effective. I'll
feel the difference pretty soon.

Mom will want her air conditioner in her window soon. I'll try to get it
in soon, once I am not wracked with all over pain from exerting myself.
I managed to mow the back yard and then had to rest until after sundown,
during which I drank fluids and actually fell asleep for a short nap. I
might be out of shape. (sigh)

Finally got it to work

I finally got a PSX emulator to work on this one lady's 'puter. First,
the problem was with it crashing every time I tried to run it, set up
through the config front-end program. So that meant I had something set
horribly wrong with it.

So I installed DirectX on it.

Here's the thing. For video cards to produce those nice 3-D polygon
graphics and all, it has to support an API of one type or another,
sometimes all the APIs out there. My mom's Dell has an Intel chipset for
video, so the API called OpenGL worked on it, no problem, and that's the
PSX GPU plugin I use there. There's one other I don't remember at the
moment, but anywho Microsoft has theirs called - you probably guessed
it, DirectX.

The GPU plugin I eventually got to work for this lady's system is a D3D
labelled plugin. It needed a few tweaks, but it's finally working on the
Nvidia chipset.

I found out that the emulator could crash if you don't set an interface
method for the CDrom drive. It just plain won't work! So generally, I
have the emulator set to use the CDrom plugin for disks, but I can run
disk images with the emulator itself without having to change the
plugin! I also found out her DVD reader / CD burner combo drive for some
reason can't read game disks fast enough, no matter what I told the plug
in. So I have it set to use the newly installed Sony Optiarc DVD burner.
For some reason, it just reads the CD more smoothly, and I have the
CDrom plug in for async reading, a 4MB Cache, and using the right
commands and all for fast reading.

The problem I ran into is the difference in plugins. The GPU plugin will
remember the settings you place in it if you go back in to check them.
The CDrom plugin kept reverting to some settings it would default to...
ARGH! when you check it.

The problem I ultimately had to figure out was how to turn on XA audio
playback. The plugins themselves don't have this setting. One hidden
screen in the configuration front-end for selecting plugins for a
particular set of plugin configs (heh), not where it should be, has this
setting, but also so does the little dialog box in the emulator itself
that lets you select an audio plug in as well as test and configure it.

So once I finally had that solved, as well as smooth CD reading (disk
images didn't have that problem, so that led me to figure out the CD
reading problem), I was able to play games just fine.

And a little video plug in tweak to make sure leftover graphics didn't
stay on screen when they should be gone. ^_^ Just don't run the emulator
with the front end on her system, but run the emulator itself.

Soon to be gone!

Test

Test

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Edit from 'puter: Looks like I can use the keitai to post to my blog via text messaging. ^_^

Edit 2: The email address for the phone is still listed as an "open" invitation. The process involved having Google/Blogger email the invitation message to my phone. However, I had to forward that back to my Yahoo! account in order to be able to do anything with it, since the phone's internet browsing is severely restricted to Tracfone's site. Even though I had logged in with the link provided, and under my blogger account, that email address should no longer be listed as an open invitation. Right? I activated the link I was sent, and I sent a test text message to the blog from the phone!

Negi

Picture taken with the phone. ^_^ Shouko Nakagawa has a lot of blog entries done with her cell phone, lots of them of her cats, too.

Just got to thinking. If you haven't heard of Susan Boyle by now, you're probably Amish. She's been described as an "unlikely" singing sensation. Take one look at her and you'd not know she sings beautifully. Anywho, I feel much like her appearance on Britain's Got Talent. Most people take a look at me and come up with their own opinion, and it's always the wrong one. But get to know me, and you realize you had the wrong idea. I'm not going to sing, so you're just going to have to make an effort to find out why I'm just a really great person. My Asperger's tends to create problems though. One friend told me that to him, I'm this really good loyal friend with the occasional odd behavior, but the odd behavior is beside the point because there's so much else good to look forward to.

(Check my previous BGSU Animaration post for a newly embedded video of shtuff.)

"Metered" Internet usage billing is a very bad idea

And I hope companies trying this way to rip off consumers either go out
of business or get a clue. I don't know why the FCC hasn't stepped in
yet.

Metered internet billing is a huge step backwards. It kills innovation,
disenfranchises the poor as well as creates a bigger burden for them.
Technology, like fiber optics, already exists so that there never has to
be bandwidth limits ever! It is not logical, not necessary, not fair. It
does not necessarily "preserve network quality" if the network has
shitty quality to begin with.

The companies claim increased fees will be used to "grow the network"
but it's really to line the pockets of greedy executives with bonuses
they don't deserve. They should have been "growing" their network all
this time!

Please register your outrage over this practice with your ISP if it's
one of these companies over the unfair (and probably illegal) proposed
practice of metered internet usage billing: Road Runner, AT&T, and
Comcast.

In fact, Comcast was punished by the FCC for interfering with users who
used file-sharing software on their network. There must be action taken
against ISPs who interfere with access to Usenet newsgroups, too!

And in today's paper, Road Runner's attempt at this "experiment" failed
in Rochester, New York in a big way, as hundreds of Time Warner
customers began calling the local phone company about switching to their
service instead.

It smacks of a huge conspiracy by the RIAA or even movie studios to
attempt to curb the spread of perceived "piracy" of media content,
stopping the spread of the business model of offering video over the net
by making it unaffordable.

It's also some cable companies' attempt to stop the use of video over
the net so that cable subscribers don't "cut the cord" on basic cable.
This wouldn't happen if cable TV rates weren't so sky high as it is,
with its continually rising fees, much of the time for the same service
or number of channels. Pay more but receive less.

You should go with any other ISP offering high speed access but without
usage caps. Verizon doesn't do it, but then they crippled access to
Usenet. Check with satellite broad band services, too, though by default
they're expensive anyway.

What have these ISPs been doing all this time, charging their fees and
all? Have they not been re-investing the money collected? It seems not.
So they're going to milk this cash cow using the same amount of
equipment, it seems, when they should have been building their networks.
It's their own fault when they go out of business and lose customers by
trying metered usage billing.

Even though utilities like electricity, gas, or water do this already,
Internet use doesn't face the same supply problems. There is no raw
material to supply. It's all etheral data. Unless the electricity to run
the equipment got more expensive, there's no reason to charge more for
use. Upkeep costs only so much, so the rest had better go into
reinvesting in the network.

In contrast, the dialup ISP we use hasn't raised fees for almost 12
years! Yeah, baby!

Can't find a good copy of a MIDI

Been trying to find a good copy of a MIDI for the Chobits opening theme
music "Let Me Be With You." That doesn't mean there isn't one out there.
It's just one person put their copy up, then it everyone spreads it
around. That means everyone has a copy of the MIDI that I want, but I
can't get WebTV to load and play it, so everyone has been spreading the
same damaged MIDI file! There's something wrong with the file, and I'll
have to grab the file, send it to another address on our account here,
download that to the laptop, and I have an install of Cakewalk on that
which can load and edit MIDI files.

Then there was one webpage that spit out Error HTML files instead of the
MIDIs it was supposed to have... grrrr....

MIDI files and da phone, dual channel 'puter!

I found the MIDI files I remember having... in ZIPs on the Win95 laptop.
I found it annoying that I hadn't put those on my Archive CD. I'll have
to do something about that.

At any rate, I managed to massage the ZIPs into smaller chunks to fit
through Yahoo! Email. For some reason, and I don't if it's just our
'puter or what, we can't download attachments from Yahoo! Mail larger
than 500K decoded. They can be over 500K encoded, but not after. Larger
than 500K and you might as well put them on Megaupload or something and
I'll grab it that way.

Then I had problems emailing the files. I hadn't used the laptop in a
long time... And was using the newsreader to send email, instead of the
email program. While the newsreader _can_ send email, I never set it up
to do that. At least not yet. But anywho, they got sent out and arrived
at Yahoo! mail intact. 4 ZIPs of all those Anime MIDI files are now on a
thumbdrive. 2 of various anime, 2 of Sailor Moon MIDIs. A lot of these
are likely from websites that no longer exist, and if they do, the files
might be missing.

And I have the Red Dwarf theme, too. ^_^

I managed to send only 5 so far of the ones I chose to be the best of
the collection. I still have more to decide on. They sound pretty good
on the phone.

Things I noticed: It will deduct airtime even for a message it decides
it won't or can't download. I deserve that time back, dammit! I had to
resend one file, and another downloaded after a 2nd try while checking
for signal strength. They download S_L_O_Wly.

I tested a lot of the MIDIs by playing them on the puter I'm working on
for one lady. Man, that thing flies with the 1G dual channel RAM in
there. The XP logo loading screen doesn't stay up long, and almost as
soon as you see the desktop, it's done loading it! Might change a little
when I finally put in the anti-virus stuff and security software. But
programs like Audacity pop up almost instantly. And it shuts down fast,
too. It's like Murdoch's answer to "how soon can you get us down?" "You
just land it, brother."

It's pretty easy to find out if your computer can run dual channel
memory. Look for pairs of same-colored memory card slots. Read the
article on Wikipedia which explains dual channel RAM in better detail
than I will provide here.

The kit I had the lady get was $15 before shipping, and she had 512MB
single channel before the upgrade. I chose the 1Gx2 as the best value.
Any more and it's just overkill. It's not like it's water-cooled quad
core or anything. At any rate, I'm done with putting things in it. ^_^

Dangit, I remember having more MIDI files...

So anywho, the Tracfone can play MIDI files. Wow, that's cool. I
remember having a pretty big MIDI file collection, mostly anime MIDIs.
After perusing my one archive CD, I find out that I must not have put
some of them on there for some reason. I found ones I definitely
remember on there, but not ones I thought I had downloaded. So I'll be
taking a look through all my floppies my archive CD was supposed to have
on it, as well as a trip through the Win95 laptop for that one more ZIP
I remember having there. I found one ZIP I know is from there on a
thumbdrive, but the other I was hoping to find had things like the
Totoro theme, among others. I'll be looking for the source of what went
into that ZIP as it is.

I'll have a fight on my hands while copying it all off the laptop. I
think the external drive is dusty, at least.

Hm... I could email small bunches to myself on Yahoo!... I hope the ZIP
is under 500K.

"ganbaru va!"

Awesome friends, dual channel memory

I think I've got some of the most awesome friends anyone could have. And
I'm not saying that because I'm a kiss-up and I know they read my blog.

Two of my awesome friends bestowed upon me a prepaid and activated
Tracfone. I think they're good for gifts during the holidays and such
for a few years. ^_^

Totally floored me. I don't know how it will go after the first year is
up, if I got time left on the thing or not. I never bothered to buy one
because I found them to be too expensive (with the contracts some
companies want you to sign and agree to be their slave Imean customer
for some ungodly length of time during which you cannot cancel or else
pay huge cancellation fee$) or just a bucket with a slow leak that you
need to keep refilling.

Last time we had one, it was Mom's, and after difficulties in redeeming
one card after which the phone was locked (aka 'bricked'), we just gave
up trying to use one.

It has 1 Meg for onboard storage, not expandable. So I can send it a few
smallish pics for use possibly as a wallpaper, small animated GIFs for a
screensaver, small MIDIs as various ringtones and sounds, even small
short MP3s as ringtones. I'm going to root through my MIDI collection
for the best anime tunes I got, and some of the small pics for
wallpapers. It's important to optimize things since I got what amounts
to one high density 3.5 inch floppy for storage, some of which I think
it used for received data messages, sent ones as well.

I might have to use Audacity to set the bit rate kinda low for the MP3
clips, and try to get something around 100K or less. Might not be too
many of those. I wish it had 1G or a way to expand the flash RAM.

And something completely different:

The dual channel memory for one lady's system arrived today. It
installed easily and worked when I fired it up. I'm going to do a "burn
in" RAM test as soon as I can with the Ultimate Boot CD. This was a
Kingston 1Gig x 2 kit. I'll make sure she gets her original 512MB stick
back and tell her to keep it handy - you never know if RAM will ever
fail, but according to the instructor for my CompTIA classes, Kingston
is supposed to be one of the better brands for computer memory.

Now that her hardware inside the 'puter is up to speed (the DVD burner
went in a few weeks ago), all she needs to do is get some items that
plug onto it (like an external USB hard drive for backup), and get the
downloadable stuff downloaded and installed, screw the lid on tight to
secure and protect her system, and it'll be good to go.

I will leave a note telling the next user in no uncertain terms are they
to stick crap like Spy Sweeper on there. I've seen systems become a
bloody mess when they install crap like that and it doesn't work.

About to watch Strawberry Marshmallow after reading Book 2 of the manga
from Tokyopop. Nice 99 cent buy from Book Closeouts.

Mom's hideous toenails

Exasperation.

Ok, so tonight, just as she's getting ready for bed, she's sitting there
and noticing (and bitching about) water in her hose to the breathing
machine. I'm like OK, let's see this, and as I approach where she's
sitting, one of my feet (I don't even remember which part or which foot)
bumps the hideous toenail on her right foot. This causes it to rip loose
from the top skin of her big toe. This is of course painful, but instead
of mom saying ouch or something, she starts this godawful and annoying
crying. That doesn't help me, it just pisses me off.

So a frantic search for the medical supplies left after her stitches
episode, and I finally freaking find them. She tells me to try clipping
the rest of the nail off - impossible, and painful since it's still
hanging on by a piece of skin, and I clearly lack the necessary tool to
clip something like that in the manner required in this situation.

I've told her time and again to tell her damn doctor about those
toenails and get someone to cut them off, remove them, whatever it
takes. Now I think it's going to get taken care of. Never mind if the
doctor in town she sees doesn't do that, he could at least give her a
referral or SOMETHING.

I find some gauze, and wrap around the toenail and slightly detached
hideous nail, since it's dripping blood.

Then I see why there's water in her hose to the breathing machine. She
overfilled the damn thing.

Which means dumping it out, rinsing and cleaning it, and rinsing it
again.

She had better get that toenail (and the other one) taken care of soon
because I am NOT wrapping that forever.

This is my rant.

Creamy Mac and Cheese recipe

I thought I had lost this recipe and then refound it since it slipped
out of the drawer in the kitchen where I usually keep it. Tried to find
it on Parade Magazine's website, which was useless because it appeared
in USA Weekend in 2005!

1 tbsp salt
1 lb pasta, macaroni or other bite size variety
2 12-ounce cans evaporated milk
1 cup chicken broth
3 tbsp butter
1/3 cup flour
1 1/2 tbsp dijon mustard
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
ground black pepper, adjusted based on how you like it
1 pound grated extra sharp cheddar cheese

Bring 2 quarts of water to boil in large pan (dutch oven for example).
Add salt and pasta. Cook until "al dente", based on package directions.
Drain, then pour onto a baking sheet to cool and to prevent sticking
while preparing the rest of the recipe.

Microwave to heat the evaporated milk and chicken broth in a 4 cup glass
"Pyrex" measuring cup or bowl until hot and steamy but not boiling. Melt
butter in an empty pot (pasta or other big pot) over Medium heat, whisk
in flour, then whisk in hot milk mixture. Continue to heat pot and whisk
until thick and bubbly. (Very important!)

This part may take awhile, so it's OK to raise the heat to get this to
happen, but lower it immediately when it begins to thicken really well
because you don't want it to boil.

Whisk in mustard (don't omit any ingredients for this!), parmesan and
pepper. Turn off heat and stir in the cheddar until melted.

In fact, it may not really "do its thing" until you put in the parmesan.

Add the drained pasta to sauce, and stir until everything is well
combined over low heat. Stir to heat through.

The recipe says to add water if the sauce is "too thick" but for my
tastes, it's never too thick. Prepare and then put it in the fridge
overnight - it's even better cold.

There were 5 "flavoring" options included, such as Ham, Peas, and
Shallots; Chicken and Broccoli; Ground Beef and Salsa, Bacon and Onions;
and Sausage and Peppers. I haven't tried any of those yet, but if
bothered enough, I could come back to this and edit those in. Or I can
leave it to your imagination for you to figure them out on your own.

Cost effective tip: All these ingredients can be had for the basic
recipe at Aldi's, and really turn into something special.

Actually, I'll come back to this and add the flavoring options. I'm
tired at the moment.