As seen in Alt.support.autism : 10 questions for the new year

1. What was the best thing that happened to you in 2010?

Haven't died yet. Or being able to afford a Nintendo DS Lite finally. Or
doing that cooking panel at that one convention with actual cooking
demonstration.

2. What was the worst thing that happened to you in 2010?

Not getting that job at the hospital.

3. On balance do you rate 2010 as an above average year or a below
average year for you?

Neither. Average. Maybe slightly below.

4. Where did you make progress in 2010?

No progress made here or anywhere, next question.

5. What did you learn in 2010?

Some people are assholes, and which ones from the anime club were
trolls. And watch what you do on the net because they can backtrace it
and report it to the cyber police. The consequences will never be the
same.

6. Is there anything you regretted doing (or regretted not doing) in
2010?

Nothing I regretted doing, but some things I regretted not doing. Can't
specify.

7. Did any of your interests change in 2010?

No.

8. Do you have any New Year resolutions in mind yet?

Go to Japan, get married, win the lottery.

9. Is there anything you plan to do in 2011?

See question 8.

10. What do you hope will happen in your life in 2011?

See question 9.

:3

Stick it, Takhar Group

I have gotten 3 calls from this scam operation that does business as a
collection agency. A recorded message has been left after 5 pm (not
allowed under Federal laws regarding debt collector companies) and I've
gotten a call on Saturday (also not allowed). I have sent them a letter
that told them they are no longer allowed to contact our phone number
once they have been notified not to do so, but since they have ignored
that Drop Dead letter, I filed a complaint with my state's attorney
general office. I hope something will happen.

I know I can press charges and get at least $1,000 out of their asses
for violating federal laws.

They do not say for whom they are calling or why, just the recorded
message claiming we "must" contact them about an "urgent" matter, but
they don't specify any more than that. Until they do, they're not
getting a reponse. But even then, they're not getting any kind of
response except being sued.

Oh, yeah, they have a website, but nothing comes up when I plug in our
phone number.

Curious case of user accounts

My younger sister was telling me of the problem they were having with
their computer's network connection. They recently added a D-Link router
to their house so they can use streaming of Netflix on their PS3 I
think. Anywho, what it eventually came down to was that they have 2 user
accounts on their XP Desktop. One account works just fine with the
network. The other has problems.

Of course, the problem also lies in the fact that the other user account
was the one my nieces were using to play those online free flash games,
and of course one of them decided it would be handy to download and
install a toolbar for translations. I remember removing that piece of
crap since Google has a Translate feature already.

Who knows what else got installed in there as well. I remember removing
some Pando / Panda media server but after watching some of its network
activity, I decided it should also be removed.

Hopefully scans of the computer will turn up something. It could be just
an easy check of settings. I would recommend creating another user
account and test its network connectivitiy and then perhaps deleting the
one without a working network.

Valu City On Whipple Is Now Roses

Had to send this to my email address and edit it.

Sent 2 times from my cellphone, still hasn't shown up

I've tried twice recently to post a picture from my cellphone to my blog
about the new Roses store that took over the former Valu City at Meyers
Lake Plaza on Whipple in Canton. Both times the picture has not shown
up.

Also: I notice how my sisters (and my nieces) who try to eat healthy and
all claim to have all these allergies, and here I still eat cereal with
milk and meat among things they don't eat and I have fewer problems than
they do!

Barcelona?

When I logged on Facebook yesterday afternoon, I got a surprise notice
that someone in Barcelona somehow logged into my Facebook account and
added themselves to it using a mobile device. Who the hell in Barcelona
would do that or know me? Well, I stopped that unauthorized access. I
also went and removed them from the account and changed a bunch of
passwords.

The problem lies in the fact that pictures saved from your account,
posted to other groups or whatnot, have a numerical identifier that if
someone knows what they are looking for in the filename of the picture
they've saved, can try to infiltrate your Facebook account.

A friend showed me what to look for and I found 1 picture I had posted
to another group pop up on a blog, and it wasn't even renamed! I left a
comment for that blog entry to ask them to rename the image. I know
enough NOT to post a picture saved from Facebook somewhere else without
renaming it.

Just Had A Job Interview Here.

Fixed!

So glad to have my car back that I just sat in it while in a parking lot for several minutes.

SOMEONE, ANYONE PLEASE FIX MY BRAKES ON MY CAR

It's been 8 days since my problem appeared, and it's still no closer to
being fixed.

My bro in law today finally came out to see what he was going to do only
to realize he doesn't have the tool needed to bend the brake line. My
father is in town and moments ago just frustrated me by mentioning
things that just wasn't helping.

Things like driving the car and having someone else in front to help
slow the car down. I'd rather not risk this.

There's the use of a tow truck. My AAA Gold may help with that. But the
thing is if I was in the realm of just calling a mechanic to work on my
car, I wouldn't have called my brother in law in the first place who at
first seemed to think he could do the work.

As it stands now, I still don't have anyone or any plan to get the brake
line fixed. I need to be somewhere Tuesday. I don't have time to try to
get it in at the mechanic I trust.

It's a leak in the rear brakes, a brake line that supplies them. What
makes me mad is that I had those rear brakes worked on earlier this
year, and there's ANOTHER damn leak???

My dad took me around to do shopping this morning, and even though he
offered and paid for a couple things, I'm feel I'm being criticized for
one of the items I spent money I saved up for that purchase.

It's just so frustrating. I'm depressed to tears over this. DAMMIT.

Somebody, just come work on my brakes!!!!!!!

First Time In This Place

What you need for a Sony Vaio desktop

I can't stress this hard enough - when you buy a new computer, you must keep all the CDs that come with it. These CDs will include a Windows OS install CD, a CD of OEM utilities and drivers for your hardware that work with the OS, and perhaps other software. Let me state that out of all of these, the OS and DRIVERS CDS YOU MUST KEEP SECURE, which makes things easier when it comes time to reinstall everything!

I recently had the chance to work on a Sony Vaio desktop. The front of the case had a number of RX860, but everything on Sony's support website kept saying I was messing with an PCV RX850, and then a sticker on the back said it was a PCV-7762. Did they know where the 2 most important CDs were? No.

My problem with Sony's Vaio support website is that it doesn't have the Drivers per se, they have updates. Well, let me correct that. I did find the Yamaha YMF753 audio driver for XP on there and that worked just fine. But all other files for installing stuff were updates which is why I couldn't get the video drivers installed.

Today, I got a chance to run CPU ID on it, and came up with SiS 651 as the Chipset ID. I really had to dig to find a file that actually installed those drivers. This filename is SI_B20950801BY.EXE. This is a 2003 dated set of SiS 651 drivers for the Sony Vaio desktop I was working on. I found it through what I consider sheer luck, but also knowing what you are looking for helps a LOT. The files on Sony's support website have 2004 dates and are updates. After installing those drivers from the 801BY file, it recognized the SDM S71 monitor and I was able to set it to 1024x768 resolution, higher than the 800x600 I was stuck with up until I got the drivers on there.

Most of the other devices work, but I think the card / memory stick reader still hasn't been installed, and the built-in ethernet is not needed because they use wireless internet and have a USB antenna on that system.

I also found an install for the system's Pioneer DVD-RW burner, a DVR-104 model. It might help to put that in sometime so it will burn faster than 4x. Not really sure what that's for but maybe I'll get a chance to find out.

It could use more RAM having only 512MB and 2 more unpopulated memory slots.

I wasn't able to complete everything I wanted to do. I forgot to put Adobe Reader on there, and didn't get their Epson 3490 scanner working, but did get the printer installed. The driver install for the scanner referred to a Start Here card, and unfortunately that wasn't immediately available. And Audacity wasn't recognizing its MP3 library for some reason. Plus for some dumb reason I downloaded the wrong file for OpenOffice but instead grabbed the English language pack for some reason. Doh!

Unrelated, the entry editor here on Blogger was making the cursor jump around in some odd way and I don't know why.

I thought I had that fixed

My bro in law came by to look at the Kia, and he says it's something he
can fix, but he can't do it until Friday.

It's another brake line leak. The main line that supplies the rear
brakes. I thought I had that worked on earlier this year. Oy vay. Why
don't they powder coat the parts for brake lines? I thought they rust
proofed cars. He tells me he can buy a standard length of the tubing
used for brake lines and replace it, carefully bending it to route it
where it needs to go.

Thing is, I have other corrosing / rusting to be concerned about as
well. I say find some Rustoleum spray paint and put that on there. I
remember there being a product that treated rust spots.

I really hate sub-standard workmanship. If it were up to me, I'd have
all exposed and subject to exposure metal surfaces powder-coated or at
least a decent paint job.

Titanium. That's got to be the secret.

Griz goes to the vet tomorrow. He's so weak. It's sad. He outlived my
grandfather by about 6 years, and my mom by 1.

Still not fixed, but at least got some shopping done

I spent the first half of Saturday depressed and mad. When it comes to
taking a look at things, I say no time like the present. However, I have
severe anxiety over the cost of fixing the brakes. I still don't know
what the problem is. At least someone's coming out today to try to find
the problem. Even in spite of my dad trying to "encourage" me to go do
something with the car, I feel it's best to let someone know what they
are doing take a look. I tried to look but I don't know what the hell
I'm looking for and I don't want to make things worse.

So anyway, my older sister at least offers to take me around to do what
I was hoping to do on Thursday. I was also hoping to see the latest
Harry Potter movie on the opening weekend, at least try to see one of
those while it's in the theaters because my mom didn't get to do that.

A stop at Big Lots spotted English Leather cologne, and I got on the
company's website to beg for them to bring back English Leather Lime.

Griz won't be taken to a vet until Monday. He's just so weak and sad
that it's sad to deal with him. I'd consider adopting an older cat just
to have an "old man" around, but I don't know if Marmalade would take to
a new cat as well as he did with Griz, or if he would do badly as Negi
did with his first impression (Negi went after Marmalade because Marm
looked like a small orange cat from outside that Negi also attacked).
Older cats don't get adopted very often from the animal shelters.
Usually they'd might do best with a no previous cats house and / or with
older people. I just feel it not right without a full complement of 3
cats around here - 1 young (Negi), one not quite as young (Marmalade),
and 1 old (Grizz). Another problem with an older cat is that its habits
are set. I don't want another cat that will pee where it likes or be
picky about food. There could be diseases I don't want mine to get.
Perhaps it's time for a female cat. I'm sure my 2 boys would LOVE that
even if they are shooting blanks.

We had 3 cats for some time back in town. Dottie was the old cat,
Tabbytha was the middle cat, and Tink was the young cat. Also all 3
being female, they got along.

Soon it will be Marmalade being the older cat over Negi, and they don't
get along. Griz and Marmalade are friends and I don't know how this will
be handled among cats. I imagine they grieve.

There is some place I need to be this week (on Tuesday) and I wouldn't
mind finding out if any place is offering cheap LCD monitors like last
year on Black Friday. You just never know. I liked being able to shop
and have it done and back before 9 AM and avoid the stores with
overwhelming crowds.

Even if I did end up buying Susan Boyle's debut CD and played it while
sobbing.

Yet another goddamn problem with the Kia and brakes

I thought I was supposed to help someone with their computer today, but
as it turns out, I didn't have any pressing need to go anywhere. I was
wanting to get some other stuff done though.

So this afternoon, I went out to the car and started it up. I hate
having to fight this car to get it started, but it took more than 3
starts to get it going. I know the fuel tank isn't venting right because
the fuel backs up in the fill thingy and pops the nozzle to off which
requires me to wait for it to flow down into the tank every 7 tenths of
a gallon or so.

Anyway, I back up and get to the end of the driveway and begin to make
my turn to go out on the road and I press the brake pedal. Only it goes
squish all the way to the floor.

I don't think that's supposed to happen.

Anger and anxiety set in as I pull it back into place, and do a few more
squish to the floor pressings and the brake fluid light comes on. Just
F-ing great.

I have some more fluid around here, left over from last year when I had
the rear brake system worked on. I didn't think to have the rest of the
brake lines inspected then, but they weren't giving me problems then.

I hope this is just some stupid brake line that's not extortion-rate
priced to replace. If it's a master cylinder or something... I would
hear an audible squish sound from outside when I pressed the brake
pedal, like how air is forced out of a bellows or some other similar air
bladder. So perhaps the fluid is squirting out of a damn faulty line.

If I had tried to go somewhere with things like this, I'd have had
almost no way to stop. I can't drive it like this.

Dammit.

Griz isn't going to be here much longer

Within the last few days, Griz, my grandfather's cat, seems to have
taken a turn for the worse. He's got a sad meow like there's something
wrong. He's not been eating. Some days he would puke up some yellow
foamy crap, but then go about his day like he just got rid of a
hairball.

I think Griz is 16 years old. He's persnickety, something he picked up
from my grandfather. He's also stupid, like my grandfather. My mom
bought a covered cat pan which if you just roll it over has a way to
filter out the clumps and turds from the loose sand and then catch it in
a tray you just pull out and empty in the trash. Well, Griz doesn't get
that sort of idea, so he'd get in when the cover is on and instead of
turning around, he'd leave his ass end hanging out of the pan. Marmalade
understands turning around.

My grandfather got Griz on the recommendation of one lady he had coming
out to help him with stuff soon after my grandmother, his wife, was
placed in the nursing home due to Alzheimer's. I'm going to estimate
that around 1994, but Griz might be a bit older than that. 16 years old
for him though sounds about right, though he might be 17 or so.

Griz has lost a lot of weight and his meow doesn't sound very good. I
hope he doesn't go off to hide. I don't even have a box for him. I don't
know where to bury him. At least I did for him what my grandfather never
did for me. While growing up, I had to be upset several times as more
than one dog was whisked away to the dog pound for whatever reason by my
grandfather. First was Dixie, a beagle given to us by my aunt. Then it
was one of her puppies we decided to adopt. And then it was my dog in
the mid-80s when I went off to college.

I don't know why he did that to us. It wasn't until Ariel that we had a
dog from a puppy until she died. We had several cats pass away though.

So instead of putting Griz to sleep, I hung onto him. He outlived my
grandfather by nearly 6 and a half years. I likely won't miss him peeing
where he shouldn't, like in a couple spots in my room for whatever
reason if I don't block off my room. I have to make sure no other cat
takes up his habit. I can put down the area rugs he used to pee on after
he goes.

We couldn't keep Tink because she also had litterbox issues, even when
it was kept perfectly clean. The least little bit she didn't agree with
and she found something else to pee on, like a washcloth left on the
floor. Even though she kept mostly to herself after suffering brain
damage during her spaying, she wouldn't have been able to resist peeing
on the carpet around here since there's so much of it.

Griz looked fine a year ago, but I guess that's how cats are. I have a
lot to do tomorrow, and I hope I can still find him when I get back. I
don't want to find him lifeless somewhere like I did with my mom.

Pinching in my left shoulder

I don't know what causes it other than perhaps I'm sleeping the wrong
way, but lately I've been getting this odd pinching sensation in regard
to my left shoulder. It's like if I somehow move it the wrong way, and
this way is a mystery to me, then something in my arm or shoulder or
whatever decides it can then send me painful pinching sensations. It's
really annoying. I don't know why I get this and I wish I knew some sort
of stretching or whatever to get something in there to pop back where
it's supposed to go and stop trying to pinch nerves or whatever.

Also I've also noticed feeling sleepy during some part of the afternoon
again. I haven't had this happen for a while and now I've gotten it
several days this week. I'll rise up well and all in the morning, then
things go downhill after 1 pm or so. I'll fall asleep and maybe wake up
by 4 pm or sooner if a phone call interrupts things. I'm not messing
with the computer when this goes on. Maybe I'm just bored with the TV
(who wants to watch the news all day or crap on other channels I've no
interest in). Mom would say I'm not getting enough sleep at night.

Maybe the time change affects me like this? I don't know.

I may also post some "typical" job interview questions that I have
problems answering in the hopes of getting some better perspective on
how to answer them. like What outside interests do I have aside from
computers, what is my greatest weakness. Stuff like that.

Let's eat here sometime

I don't think this guy wants to meet with me at all

So anywho, the call for the interview I was hoping for earlier this week
isn't coming. I got told that once again someone working full time at
this place took the part time position, which to me doesn't make sense.
That means taking a pay cut. It is not unheard of - some places promote
from within, but this doesn't sound like a promotion.

Is there something wrong with this place that one guy working part time
can't get enough hours, and the person working full time would rather
work part time? And the pessimistic paranoid part of me thinks the guy
who would do the first interview is discriminating against me because I
have Asperger's, and my BVR people are talking with him and trying to
get me in.

Because once again, he tells them it'll be a month before anything can
happen, if it does. It's been "a month" since March. I've been strung
along all this time, and I'm getting sick of it. Either talk to me or
don't and stop coming up with excuses. I DON'T HAVE THE KIND OF TIME
WHERE I WAIT FOR AN OPPORTUNITY, DAMMIT.

Anxiety!

Over at the one stop to prepare for my possible upcoming interview and I would be lying if I said I didn't have huge amounts of anxiety over it.

Diagnosis of the L866R

I finally got this thing to work better in spite of the issues with
Windows ME.

After finally getting HijackThis to do what it does well, I eventually
got USB Thumbdrive support copied from a FLOPPY (heh!) onto the
harddrive and now my Lexar drives work with WinME. My favorite go-to
tool doesn't work on M.E., but Spybot does! So I had it go do what it
does well. It found 809 items to remove. The system works much much
better now. I still want to get an anti-virus scan done.

Windows ME has some issues. I don't think this system has had any
updates before Microsoft dropped support. It doesn't seem to recognize
DVDs larger than 1.99G or that a DVD has more than that on it even if it
does end up accessing it. The taskbar also locks up so program tabs
don't disappear when you close them and then you also can't use the
Start menu. I see there were fixes Microsoft issued, but I'll have to
use one group's unofficial service pack to address these problems, among
others.

However, these all become moot if I can get Windows XP to go in and take
charge. That means replacing the optical drive with either a DVD burner
(kinda overkill) or a DVD-CD burner combo drive, which would be more
appropriate. It would do me no good to end up with a drive that won't
recognize disks made by DVD Flick, though. Even after the work I did
checking out the unit, the drive won't read anything now.

Second recommendation is taking this system up to its maximum of 512MB
of RAM. One webstore estimates a cost of $30 for this (256x2). This
would enable XP a more suitable environment, even if all it does is play
back video.

I wouldn't mind adding an Ethernet PCI card for it, which may be
superfluous after seeing a Linksys wireless module on one computer a
week ago. Depends on which is cheaper.

The monitor that came with it blows. It does a maximum of 800x600. It's
certainly not multi-sync. The graphics controller can do wide screen
display ratios which makes it awesome. One thing that ME does that bugs
me is that it doesn't remember window settings for things like My
Computer - it doesn't remember the size and that I want to display
Details and not a List. I'm always having to reset that.

I also found some protected WMA files on there. What I'm going to find
out is if Daemon Tools Lite works on Windows ME and emulate a CD Burner
drive and put those protected files on a simulated CD image so I can rip
it into unprotected MP3s. I don't know why I'm even bothering because
it's likely music I don't care about. Also found what looks to be left
over AIM files indicating a plethora of AIM screen names the girl who
might have used the system had in their contacts list.

It's got Microsoft Office on there which is super nice. All the more
reason to keep Win ME on there. There are some files I have no idea what
they are so I'll be poking around on the 20G harddrive more.

Oh, and any chance that some deleted pr0n might be lurking is most
likely gone because I defragmented the drive, too.

Up late with a Dell Dimension L866R with WinME on it

I don't know why I stayed up after 2 am last night trying to do stuff with a Dell L866R desktop. Someone gave it to me just because they didn't want it anymore.

It had some stupid toolbars that didn't do any good. My first problem  was that the Samsung SD612 DVD Rom drive wasn't reading CDs. I found out it reads DVDs just fine, but DVD drives are supposed to read CDs, too. After finding out it recognizes burned Data DVDs, I had my other P4 tower burn out a Data DVD with a few tools, but that was a challenge in that I was first using Infrarecorder to do that. I don't know what it
was doing after I added files to the disk project and then it put them  on what it was going to burn, but after it got that far, it would get stuck in preparing what it was going to burn. I don't know what it was  doing. I did a forced shutdown, got it to make an ISO at least, but still InfraRecorder would get stuck in getting ready to burn it. It makes CDs no problem. So I used another piece of software to burn my  InfraRecorder made ISO to an actual DVD which then worked.

I've used InfraRecorder to make a Data DVD before. I wonder if the  problem lies in that I wanted to put a lot less than 1G on the disk. I noticed my other program wrote quite a bit more than the measely amount
I did get onto it. Or that InfraRecorder was not only padding out the  data to be burned, but encoding it, too? I don't know.

But the Samsung drive on the L866R is SLOW. Or that it's just got issues, but either way, that drive will need replaced. The system appears to not have been used for 7 years. I found someone's high school  "Homecoming" pics and some ripped CD tracks. Why do they call it a "Homecoming" rather than just a fall festival?

I finally got something done by copying HijackThis onto a floppy. It let me shut down a bunch of crap and WinME became more responsive again. It's still got issues. I'll need to find the USB drivers for my Lexar
128MB thumbdrive since it appears to act like Win98SE when I plugged  mine in. If I can't get one of my tools to remove junk to run on WinME, I might have to resort to Avast 4 Home.

It has no Ethernet card, which some reports said it's supposed to have. 128MB RAM, and it'll cost me $30 to bring it up to the maximum 512MB. 20G hard drive.

It's not going to do anything important, if at all.

Update: I got USB Thumbdrive support working on it! and I have Spybot S&D finding the bugs since Spybot works with Windows ME. Also set the wallpaper. I think I will now be able to grab the stuff I wanted to grab off it. It might get a Windows ME-tan wallpaper.

Somehow I managed to survive this past year

Last year at this time, I was in the middle of staying up for 3 days
straight due to shock over my mom. I don't know how I managed to survive
but here it is a year later.

I'm still having to untangle her business from online and all. One
company sent an amount to a collection agency claiming she "defaulted"
on some amount and they got told what the others have been told. I think
more of those individual letters will be coming at some point. Her
credit card is taking back the amounts she spent and now these separate
companies will want their money. Too bad, there's nothing.

I'm still in shock. I keep waiting for her to come home. I ask our dog
when mom's coming home. I still say in the morning "Coffee please" like
she would. I ask her what she wants for breakfast, and figure pancakes
or waffles or oatmeal or whatever. I ask her what she wants for supper.
I have her light set on a timer as to when she'd take a nap after
showering and it comes on in the evening when she'd get up to use the
toilet and take medications, and it turns on in the morning when she'd
awake to take her meds then, too.

I still have one more place to call to tell them to remove her from
their list. I have like 8 or 10 letters to write to tell them to stop
sending catalogs. I'm glad the BETUS people finally stopped sending
crap.

I have utilities in my name now. Taking her name off was the hardest
thing I faced. Traces of my mom disappearing from stuff. Her name is
still on a few bills that don't matter though.

I miss taking her to appointments. I worry about the future. I hope I
get some good guidance in setting up my own computer service business.
Trying to get hired as an entry level IT hasn't gone well. The BVR
people I've worked with have been good but even they have limits to what
they can do. (Should I pull back my Ticket to Work thing?) I think it's
due to my resume which lists jobs I've had over the years, and perhaps
the lack of actually working in the field puts off people even though I
am qualified. I'm sorry, but at the time I needed a job, I took what I
could get. Working with computers has been a dream since high school.
It's just that my circumstances and my Asperger's didn't let that happen
as most people would expect. I did some things at various jobs that let
me demonstrate my skills with computers. That should count for
something! My 10.5 years at the restaurant should at least show loyalty
to staying in one place. That's a problem I had with an interview years
ago. The guy who spoke to me then with my sparse resume said he couldn't
see me staying with them for more than 6 months. My friend who
recommended me for the interview said they ended up hiring one guy who
didn't know anything about computers, was studying them in college, and
quit after 3 months.

Having my own business means I can be nice to me. I can work the hours
and days I want. Nobody can fire me. And I have to work on my skills in
dealing with people. At least I don't have to call people up - they'd be
calling me.

I understand computers a lot better. That job at the grocery store was
hell. I want a job working on computers. I do NOT want to go back to
anything with foodservice or retail.

AAARRRGHH Get out of my eye!!!

There's nothing more annoying or aggravating than being woken up because
some particle of something got in my eye and I can't seem to find it
with a Q-tip and eye drops help only a little.

I don't know what it is. Maybe an errant eye lash. or eye booger or
whatever. I can't GET IT OUT! ARRGH! It irritates my eye when closed,
when open, when I blink, or even move it around. I've irritated it and
part of my eyeball turned red - in the sense that it's not bloody, just
irritated.

I wish I had one of those eyewash thingies. I WANT THIS OUT OF MY EYE.
Usually I can get them out right away but this time it's holding on for
its life.

Some up and down

Yesterday I worked for a 2nd time on a lady's Sony Vaio with XP Home
edition on it. What I found out last week is that her hard drive had
developed some bad sectors preventing XP from successfully booting up,
even in Safe Mode. So I diagnosed the problem as corrupt system files,
but after working with it for a while, I also determined that the bad
sectors corrupted some of the drivers needed to make it work. This was
due to having to wait a long time for the re-install of XP Home which
wasn't appearing to go very far.

So I decided to install a 2nd copy. This is when I found yet another
Stupid Install of XP. The hard drive is an 80 Gig Seagate. I guess the
bad sectors developed due to an incorrect shutdown or something, plus
this system sits on shag carpeting. That's a prime target for static
discharge. One of my recommendations was to get it up off the carpet.

Anywho, in the process of installing the 2nd copy, I found that C:
partition was only 16 Gigs, and D: Partition was 60 Gigs!! WHO THE HELL
DOES THAT? Did this come this way from the Sony Vaio dealer? Who was
that? So I installed the 2nd copy on the D: partition. But the problem I
face after that is finding the right drivers for this system. The model
number on the front says one thing, but when I try to get the drivers
off Sony's support website, the ones for Video say they're not made for
this system. The Yamaha sound card driver works just fine though!

So my job now is to find out what this system's got for hardware and try
to find the right drivers. After which, I would like to wipe the hard
drive and erase the partition table and make it a straight 80 Gig drive
once I have that figured out.

The down part is one guy's laptop I worked on earlier this year figuring
out a problem he was having with video files. The inverter circuit for
the backlight failed, and I found a replacement part on a website for a
mere $24. I even sent an email with a link to the precise page for the
part, so all that would need to be done is click on Put in Cart, and
proceed to checkout.

Instead I feel let down in that he couldn't do that for some reason and
instead ended up going to someone else and paying more for the part plus
the service to put it in. I feel I probably should give him what he paid
me for looking at the laptop earlier this year.

Life's annoyances

On Sunday, I thought I had the VCR hooked correctly to the satellite
receiver unit to tape a couple of programs off a couple of channels. It
was only after wasting my time that I find out that somehow I had
switched the color coded cables for the video and an audio channel and
ended up not getting anything I had waited all week to get.

I figured out I could run the video out into the VCR and then the box
that takes those signals and turns it into RF could be plugged into the
output from the VCR. That way in the future I'll know it's hooked up
correctly.

Also my grandfather's old cat is very senile. I'm just waiting for him
to get old and not be here anymore. If I don't block off access to my
room with something he won't try to jump over, he'll sneak in my room
without me knowing and pee in a couple of spots in my room on the carpet
or any newspaper lying on the carpet. I treat these spots with a dousing
of vinegar, but not before I grab him and rub his nose in the deeds he
left behind (both of these were still wet) and impress upon him the
dangers of doing what he just did and that anything other than the
catbox is just not an option. Period.

The catbox is clean and deodorized. He has no excuse. I won't take his
old age as an excuse either. Family members keep suggesting I have him
put to sleep. Thing is, I want to do for him that my grandfather never
did for us, except in the case of Ariel, the dog we had from puppy until
what I consider an early death due to changing her to food she was very
allergic to and instead of just simply changing her back, everyone
decided to medicate her seizures.

My grandfather, for much of my early life, never let us keep a dog for
long. Even the golden retriever my mom had was kept out at my
grandparents' house. But there was the tall female beagle one aunt gave
us who subsequently got pregnant and had a litter of puppies. But no, we
couldn't keep her anymore. I was walking home from school one day to see
my mom, grandparents, and our dog being whisked away and I got yelled at
to go straight home. I hadn't walked that far off school grounds when I
saw the car go past. That does things to a kid, but my grandfather
didn't care. Even the puppy I got to pick out I was also forced to give
her up before we moved in town.

But even then we had dogs again. When I went away to college after high
school, my grandfather was once again the reason my dog at that time was
also whisked away to the dog pound.

Until my younger sister got her Molly-dog, we had never had a dog from
puppy until it died. Plenty of cats, but never a dog. We cried hard when
Ariel passed away because she just loved us so much. My younger sister
and her Molly got really attached, too.

So, in spite of Grizz peeing where he shouldn't, I desperately want to
try to give him a life in his old age. He's picky and stubborn, a bit
like my grandfather. His friend Marmalade will likely miss him because
he doesn't get along with Negi at all.

In Memoriam: Becki Doland

Tonight while bored, I was browsing through Genvid's forums when I found a post about a 30th Anniversary DVD release of The Sea Prince and The Fire Child, a classic Japanese animated film from the 1980s. It reminded me of a friend named Becki Doland who had a decent but rather unofficial copy of a dub version of it on VHS, and how some years ago while visiting with friends I got to see it. She absolutely loved the film and went to great lengths to track down the copy she got. She really wanted it on DVD.

Then I saw that an official DVD release happened just a few weeks ago. Right Stuf has it for about $15.

I wanted to tell Becki, perhaps fire off a letter (since her computer, last time I saw it, wasn't working right and she basically dropped off the net) and let her know.

That's when I began an online search to confirm the address I pulled off  a CD. And then that's when I began seeing search results for her obituary. She passed away on January 30th of this year. She was only 34, 27 of them spent battling some form or another of kidney disease. She once told us she was not only adopted, but was the first patient at the Cleveland Clinic to undergo a double organ transplant (kidney and liver). Her diminutive stature was likely due to her early fight with what I remember her saying was a genetic problem.

Damn. Why couldn't that DVD have happened any sooner!?!

My friends and I first met her through email messages posted to the group of an old anime club she had attended a couple of times. She lived in Brunswick, which is quite a drive from Canton. If I remember right, she went with us to Anime North beginning in 2000, and ended with Anime North 2004. She was quite a sparkplug. She had been to Anime Expo and Ohayoucon as well. Her presence (sp) made for quite an experience. I remember one year at Anime North buying a Candy Candy DVD which made her mad because she wanted it, and on pure adrenaline got up and walked away from us without the aid of her wheelchair. Considering more than a few of her joints were some metal replacement and that usually meant a lot of pain, that was quite a feat. She eventually calmed down and found the vendor had another copy of the DVD which she was able to buy the next day.

I had the chance to buy some items from her, like the original Ojamajo Doremi Peperuto Poron from Japan, not the lousy crap Bandai put in stores from the horrible 4kids dub. She still had quite a few things from her trips to Anime Expo that I drooled over. She was there in 1998 dressed as Sailor Saturn, complete with glaive. I have a copy of the video she got from doing that. I think I finally sent off a copy of the Anime North 2004 Masquerade DVD either last year or earlier this year. This was a DVD she couldn't get to play because a paper label got slapped on it, and I finally got ahold of a system with a DVD reader that pulled it off perfectly and I made a backup copy and sent it to her (after removing the label, of course).

She was also known among us as the Goddess of Parking because she had the blue Handicapped tag we could hang from the rearview mirror, something which enabled us to find those 5 Japanese music CDs one year, and it took me until earlier this year to finally identify the last unknown track on the Mystery CD.

We didn't get to know her for long, but I am still thankful to have met her.



By some odd coincidence, I found this in a PDF (yes, I edited the cap, but the words not in Anime Ace font are untouched) from a Medina County hospice PDF newsletter. Here's her name and the name "Campanella" below it. Sure, this is a coincidence, but consider the fact that The Blessing of Campanella was an anime that ran this summer and a videogame with the same name is also coming out. I had no reason to pay attention to this anime at all, but I did. Was this some sort of sign that Becki would have liked it?

10 Unanswered Questions?

I'm going to do this for shits and giggles, but past experience has
taught me that I should never do these kinds of things.

>1. What is the meaning of life?

42. We don't yet have the question to go with that answer.

>2. Is there a God?

No, because proof denies faith.

>3. Do blondes have more fun?

Well, I'm not a blonde and I'm not having much fun, so I'd say yes.

>4. What is the best diet?

One that keeps you alive. Some say the Mediteranean (sp) diet is best. I
prefer Japanese.

>5. Is there anybody out there?

Well, the universe being infinitely vast and all, there's no chance for
anyone ELSE out there, let alone us either. The entire population of the
universe is actually zero. There's also no money, imports, or exports.
Consult The Guide for more information.

>6. Who is the most famous person in the world?

The guy who unclogs toilets.

>7. What is love?

A song by some guy.

>8. What is the secret to happiness?

Sex and Money. Though some people with money aren't always happy, the
sex makes up for that. The 2 are very related in many ways. I know if I
had money, sex would be there soon after, and having both would make me
happy.

>9. Did Tony Soprano die?

Probably. We'll exhume the body someday to find out for sure.

>10. How long will I live?

What does the expiration date on your birth certificate say?

A Year Ago Today, 9/15

Mom had the first of two planned surgeries to correct cataracts in her
eyes. I remember her having to put eye drops in one eye that they were
going to operate on, but they told her the wrong eye. So instead of the
eye she was putting drops in, they operated on the other. She described
it as looking through a yellow mist.

She was waiting for the availability of that year's flu shots. The H1N1
flu was going around. She didn't want to catch it. She usually got her
flu shot as soon as she could every year.

She was telling the people at the hospital that they were Awesome and
afterwards telling her friends how the staff put her at ease. The doctor
told a few jokes. There was a delay in the actual procedure because they
had to put the drops in the eye they were going to work on and gave the
stuff a chance to do what they were supposed to do.

I wish I could remember the stuff she said about the whole experience.
She was so worried about it all, but it ended up changing her life.
After things healed enough, she found she could see without glasses for
the first time in over 40 years. She said it takes getting used to
trying to take off her glasses to see up close and she's not wearing
glasses. I even shopped for her to buy some reading glasses since the
replacement lens fixed her vision but only up to a point. The doctor
said she would need something for the up-close stuff.

I'll have to ask my younger sister to see if she remembers more about
what mom told her about that first cataract operation.

This next month is going to be hard to get through. I see the stuff
around me that got left behind and I cry. My mom should be here and
she's not and it's not fair. I keep telling myself that she's just in
the hospital and I keep wondering when she's coming home.

I was hoping the pain would go away, but it hasn't.

Report on Loose Socks v.0.1

I have been going through my saved Email messages on the terminal and
found this gem which I am posting to my blog.

------

This is a short essay on Loose Socks, the socks in fashion with Japanese
school girls. This is before I do any translation on actual quotes of
loose-sock-wearing girls from one magazine article I have.

According to my source, they are available in at least 3 different
sizes:

Normal length - not sure on the length, but it's about 609 yen

Long length - about 60 cm, 735 yen

Super Long length - about 90 cm, 1575 yen

The Normal length is called "Cute Style" made by Chu Chu Anna in Japan.
The care instructions warn "Do Not Bleach" though with these being white
socks, it's a wonder to me why not.

The Long Length is made by "St. Bearding House". The socks are a Cotton,
Acrylic, Nylon, Polyurethane blend. This pair is a King Original made in
Japan.

The Super Long Length (also known as Too Long Length) are 90 cm, and are
the most commonly seen style. These wonderfully long socks go right up
the shin, and can practically go up over the knee. These are the right
pair for the proper baggy or "loose sock" look. This pair is called
"It's Art" and is officially labelled as "Loose Socks" by Elegan Co,
Ltd. Yokohama, Japan. One sticker even boasts "Best Quality / Good
Feeling Loose Socks". I'm not going to argue that!

Instructions with these socks include how to wash, what not to wash them
with, and how to keep them up. The fact that these 3 pairs of loose
socks do not have elastic is also indicated in some way.

How To Keep Them Up -

Wearing shoes plays an important part in keeping these socks up, as does
some kind of Sock Stickem. 3M could make something for these and make a
mint.

I actually asked a Japanese school girl in Japan how to keep these socks
up and she tells me:

"In order to keep loose socks up, we use a kind of glue called "Sock
Touch"."

She drew a series of pictures. Get a small ball (or dab) from the
container, pull up your socks to the height you desire, then roll them
down a bit. Smear the little ball of stickem around your leg where you
intend to keep the socks up at, and then roll up the edge of the sock -
"Stuck!"

Without any translation of the article I've seen, it seems school girls
who wear the long loose socks take pride in the fact they can get theirs
to look perfect. Until I actually do some research on their answers,
this is all I can report.

-end of paste-

So I've been thinking...

This latest bit has had me thinking a lot in the past week. I just
wonder if I can understand it a bit more.

If you don't agree with something said about you (ie negative
criticism), is it illegal?

If it hasn't caused anyone harm, can someone still be sued because of
it? I would believe a burden of proof is required here.

What if the person who wrote it had good reason to believe it was true
at the time it was written? This is a plausible defense.

If you feel someone is saying negative things about you or your group,
company, etc, at what point do you just simply defend against it in your
own way in a professional manner and hope nobody takes the negative
comments seriously as opposed to threatening with legal action or
"other" methods?

In my mind, there is a difference between saying / writing negative
comments and untrue things, and a difference between saying them
intentionally and saying them because at the time that's what one
believed to be true until further evidence turns up.

And then there's the terms regarding saying untrue things (slander) and
writing them (libel), and just plain negative comments (which I call
Criticism).

You can't be sued for criticism. Most of the time you also can't be sued
for expressing an opinion. The words "I feel" or "I think" also apply
here.

I wish I had the capability to sue people for saying untrue things about
me. But at the same time I already have the skills to act professionally
when people express negative criticism. I can take it as a means to
better myself or to respond as to why the negative comments / criticism
is unwarranted. It's also the other people's responsibility to read that
response and act accordingly. Most of the time they have only their
point of view. They should be willing to understand the other side of
the situation.

It's really sad when they refuse to learn how to act professionally.
Maybe a class in Business communication is required.

Case in point. One day years ago while working at the restaurant, I had
woken up with a really bad pain in my back. This limited my capabilities
for the day until I could find some way to get my back into shape again.
One of the shift supervisors didn't like me, and even though I told her
that my back wasn't in the best of shape and she would have to pull a
bit more of her own weight, that still didn't stop her from ignoring
what I had told her. So while trying to take care of something, she
yelled at me from the front line because I hadn't acted fast enough for
her. I got mad and kicked a trash container across the back line floor.
She had a couple friends in and "encouraged" them to complain on the
toll free comment phone number.

A few days later they were back in, so was the annoying shift supervisor
girl and my boss. I explained to her friends that "we discussed the
incident and we agree it was unfortunately not handled in the best
manner possible." My boss was impressed by my response. The girls
accepted this statement, but nobody noticed that I did not apologize for
the incident in any way. But the annoying coworker never did that sort
of thing to me again!

I found out a few years ago she went on to get a nursing degree when her
obituary was printed in the local paper. I thought OMG. She must have
gotten cancer or something. I didn't wish for that.

Oh well. Things happen.

An annoying aggravating inconvenience

I don't know what my sister is doing now. Apparently there's some GFI
outlet that needs to go in somewhere in the basement. Only thing is the
circuit that powers most of the downstairs (TV, computer, much of the
kitchen) she feels the need to switch off. Upstairs, the bathroom, one
outlet and some part of the kitchen (fridge) are on other circuits.

This means I can't watch TV or use the computer that's on that circuit
while it's off. I hope the router retains the settings.

Anywho, I've waited PATIENTLY for an HOUR. I don't think she planned
this out very well. I know you can install light fixtures and switch out
outlets without turning off the electricity. I've done it and it's
simple science. Just don't touch both wires at the same time. That's all
there is to it.

I don't know what she is doing. Most people, say if they're putting in
an entirely new outlet, usually get said outlet and box in place, run
the wire from the outlet, then if they need to, switch off the circuit
to connect the wires. Much less down time than what I'm putting up with
now.

It pisses me off over inconveniences like this. Yes, she told me that
she was going to do this, but all I thought it was some simple outlet
installation switch out or something. You don't need to turn off the
power. This is bad planning what she's doing now.

She knows I'm annoyed. It might not get her to finish any sooner, but
maybe in the future she'll consider others and plan better.

Ferengi Nosed Over Priced Dvd Guy

Came home early from Kitsunecon

After doing the cooking panel, I was really tired and in some pain, and
I also decided I had enough fun for the weekend so I came home early. I
was looking forward to Sunday Afternoon as my return window. As it is,
Kitsunecon is an anime convention waiting to be discovered and possibly
grow.

The dealers room needed more dealers and more variety. Asian Invasion
was cool being there. There was one other lady in another corner selling
all sorts of nice useful items and some cosplay. I think she made some
money. The Overpriced DVD guy made a sale, and he tends to show up
almost everywhere.

I had hoped to find some "I"s that I don't have or even Eiken books I
missed. I figured I spent enough and that wasn't going to change. I came
to do a good cooking panel at last and I accomplished that. If I get a
chance to do it again, I'll try to do only 2 things, maybe 3. Still, I
managed to make some food that was well received. All those who missed
it, too bad. I really should have taken some more Ibuprofen just before
the panel began. My organized preparation made it easy to get through
what I wanted to do.

As it turns out, coming home early was a good thing another way. My
younger sister who I asked to look after Melody, apparently unlocked the
deadbolt on the back door, so anyone who wanted access but not approved
by me while I was away could get in to the basement, for example, even
though there was access from outside already. The basement door was
unlocked from inside, too. Shows who I can trust. Both people I asked to
watch after our dog claimed allergies. I need to find someone else I can
trust who won't give access to people who don't freaking need it and
take advantage of when I'm away.

It's the principle of trust.

Anywho, Rant over for now. I'm sleeping in. I got a picture of that one
dealer with the DVDs to post. I managed to get a photo of only 1
cosplayer. And that Robert Axelrod who was supposed to appear? He may
very well do that for Sunday. I don't know. There were some other guests
who did appear, though. There were some last second changes made for
whatever reason. I hope they can find slightly bigger facilities and
better promotion. This was sort of like Anime North in its 2nd year.
Just don't grow too fast.

Kitsunecon Day 2

Cooking panel: Mission Acomplished. It was very well received, with the Takoyaki and Taiyaki with chocolate Gnutella being a big hit. It took longer than I am used to when cooking these things with the little electric burner I used, so I barely got to doing the California sushi rolls when time ran out. I filled the 2 hours I was graciously and generously given. The Okonomiyaki was enjoyed but didn't get to cook up the entire batch I mixed up.

I'm hoping to be able to do another cooking panel, possibly with help, as well as a 2nd burner or an electric griddle for okonomiyaki. The only thing I didn't do was CURRY. Oh well. I guess it's better to be over prepared rather than have to strain and fill 2 hours of panel time with 30 minutes of content.

Got to see Adam again, though it was just a wave at the door. I wish he had come in to see the panel. Also got to see more of the Spatula crew that I miss.

The most interesting vendor in the dealers room is the one selling $1, $5, and $10 mystery goodie bags.

Kitsunecon Day 1

This is a little convention just waiting to be noticed. The people are nice, both staff and the few attendees I have spoken to, some who spoke to me first! There weren't many people present early on due to being on the edge of school starting up, but things got livelier at night, which was a good sign.

Other con attendees described one guy in the dealers' room as the Over priced Ferengi-nosed guy. He has several tubs of DVDs but has no clue how to price them so they'll sell. He's got Right Stuf and Amazon to compete with (maybe even eBay) as well as the occasional load found at Big Lots. That was my big anime score of the day - Tsubasa #1, Tokyo Godfathers, and 2 Trinity Blood DVDs I didn't already have - each $3.

I'm not sure of one dealer who might be called White Wolf Enterprises, but when the guy was setting up I saw he had Sailor Moon mugs in stock, and when I bought 2 (1 of each design) he charged me $20 each then later in the hotel room found a sticky with $12 on it in one mug. He might have taken advantage of the annoyance of people hovering around him while setting up.

Ate at Donato's that night which seemed kinda fitting.

Dealer Catching Up On His Reading

Am I really a member of this family?

So anywho, I am preparing for a short trip, if you can call it that, soon. I need someone to watch our dog. The cats will do OK on their own, set up with water and food. The dog is another matter.

One sister can't watch her because she claims she's allergic to our dog. The other sister says she can't watch her either because one of my nieces is suddenly now allergic to dogs.

Who are these people and has anyone gotten a 2nd opinion and treatment???

So I'm faced with having to allow one sister to come out and take the dog for walks and make sure she's fed.

I was hoping to have her out of the apartment for the weekend and almost everything turned off.

I'm not allergic to cats or dogs. I don't know why they are all of a sudden.

DVD Flick, aggravating at times but still works

So anywho, today I want to make a DVD with DVD Flick. 6 files are AVI,
and I want to stick a short clip as an FLV (or maybe it was MP4) at the
beginning. I set it all up and get DVD Flick going.

Just as it's generating menus, I get an annoying error box. The number
is error 91. I try to find out more of this error, and I don't get much.

I rarely get errors from DVD Flick. The software sometimes exits after
saving a project file which I have to reload DVD Flick and re-load the
file (if it got saved completely - otherwise I have to re-do the project
again).

Annoyed, I find myself exiting the software and restarting and reloading
my DVD project. I think. Otherwise I just removed the short clip I
wanted at the start of the disk. This time my disk gets generated and
DVD Flick finishes.

I should see what version I have installed and see if the latest fixes
these sorts of problems. Newer versions are supposed to handle MKVs
better. That would be nice if I got only SRT sub files, but I don't. I
have to pull things out as a separate A.S.S. sub file and an AVI and
then hard code the subs.

I wish I knew what caused problems. If I can't recreate it, I can't
figure it out. The odd thing is the clip I was going to use had been put
on another disk some time ago without any problems at all!

Travel Channel, I am Disappoint

So anywho, that semi-annoying Samantha Brown on the Travel Channel has
this series of 8 episodes of her travelling around Asia, which if you
checked your map, includes Japan. I've been waiting weeks for her show
in Japan to air. According to Travel Channel's website, that was
supposed to be TONIGHT, 8/23, at 8 pm EDT.

Instead, they aired Anthony Bourdain in Saudi Arabia. You can't believe
how pissed I am at this. I like Tony's show; I'd love to go to Japan
with him and or Zimmern in tow (Sapporo anyone?), but when I get told
about and expect a show about Japan to air that I've not seen yet and it
doesn't when it's supposed to, I get really mad. WHEN IS IT REALLY GOING
TO RUN, TRAVEL CHANNEL?? DON'T YOU LIKE JAPAN?

There's a repeat set for this coming Sunday at 8 am. I'm going to find
out what they elect to run instead. What was the major malfunction that
they just tossed out their well-announced ahead of time schedule???

SUCK IT, TRAVEL CHANNEL. STOP TROLLING PEOPLE LIKE THAT. I EVEN GOT A
VIDEOTAPE READY TO RECORD IT. YOU WASTED MY ENTIRE EVENING THAT I WON'T
GET BACK!!

BTW: Zimmern's 3rd show (2nd entirely in Japan) is on this Sunday as
well. This is the one where he visits Nakamatsu-sensei, inventor of the
floppy disk, and tries his hand at being a horumon chef.

At least that's what the schedule says NOW.

Cultural Reference in Occult Academy

I think it's in Episode 2 (maybe 3) of Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin (Occult
Academy) where Abe-sensei tries to compliment one lady on her
dango-style hairdo. He says it suits her, and she takes it as a
compliment, complaining that the kids make fun of her hair comparing it
to "that song." A brief image of "that song" even gets shown in place of
her hairdo with one part missing.

"That song" by the way is Dango San Kyoudai, otherwise known as The 3
Dango Brothers. I have a scan of the CD single, as well as a translation
here:

http://community.webtv.net/MrShoujo/Dango3Kyoudai

How did I know this? A Japanese penpal I briefly corresponded with
around the time "Dango 3 (san) Kyoudai" was hugely popular in Japan
(around 1999 if I remember right) told me about it. She heard it
everywhere and frequently. It was a popular song from a children's TV
show, and like everything in Japan that becomes popular (like a song),
it was covered many times over. I bought my copy, a CD single of the
original version, from CD Japan. There was a CD album of various
versions by different artists.

I think I saw another cultural reference in another episode of Occult
Academy, but I can't seem to remember it now. Oh well.

The other bit I was posting about was I translated another song from
Sailor Moon for a friend for an upcoming wedding. I got to realizing
that I hadn't transferred all my translation work off my Atari 8-bit
disks to 3.5 inch floppies using a friend's Atari 1040ST and null modem
setup. There was a song by Chibi-Usa that I worked on that I called
'Don't make fun of my dream' that I'm missing from my translation
archives. I worked on a good number of other Sailor Moon songs, and
perhaps a few Ranma 1/2 songs. My translation for a Sailor Mars image
song definitely made the rounds on the net.

I don't remember what all I worked on as far as song lyrics - I do
remember working on songs from a Sailor Moon musical. My bigger projects
all got transferred before we had to move in 2003, but sadly it seems a
bunch of my Sailor Moon (and other) lyric translations didn't make it
over. I'm really hoping they did and I just hadn't gotten to the
floppies yet (which I thought I had when making my Archive CD) - if
they're still readable. I have them all stashed away securely - it's
just a matter of finding time to go through and find a drive to read
them, which I definitely have.

I JUST REMEMBERED THE OTHER BIT:

There was an Urusei Yatsura reference in one part where they try calling "Space People" by doing the famous chant.

Changing computers 1 Gig at a time

Recently, my younger sister was able to get funding for a RAM upgrade of
her Dell desktop. I found out it can run faster RAM than was in it when
they bought it years ago. Maybe in 2004 256MB was plenty, but not
anymore.

Here's the interesting bits. The RAM in it was DDR PC2700 2x128 Dual
Channel. Dell put in the cheapest, slowest RAM the motherboard would
support.

In it now is 1 kit of 2x1Gig, 512MB per slot at DDR PC3200 Dual Channel.
And the motherboard has another pair of slots for more RAM, up to a max
of 4Gigs. The Latency and voltage were indicated on Kingston's stickers
as 3 and 2.6, but after checking online, the motherboard will adjust
automatically since there's no BIOS setting for RAM voltage.

I fired that thing up and it really cooks. My Bro in law had some
friends over playing some CCG and I can tell a noob now. One guy asked
if it had been defragmented lately, and my bro in law said it had been,
and I was quick to point out that defragmenting does only so much, but
the real speed boost is in more RAM, not to forget faster Dual Channel
RAM.

From clicking on a user's account icon to hearing the welcome sound is a
mere 59 seconds. Less if you just log off from one user to another.
Google Earth pops into memory. I had some minor things to clear out. An
updated Spybot S&D took around 49 minutes to do a 1.2 million item scan.
That's pretty Fast! Did I forget to mention I had VLC play a couple of
saved video clips at the same time as the scan went on - with no
jerkiness?

I found a few annoyances to clear out. On my Bro In Law's side of the
system, I had to remove a few toolbars that crept into Firefox for some
reason. Also had to delete Yahoo! cookies so that they could log into
Yahoo! mail successfully. Somehow a cookie got blocked, and I fixed
that.

Then there was some bullcrap called Pando Media Booster. It shows up as
a process called PMB.EXE. It kept accessing the net. I don't know what
it's for but after installing Comodo Firewall and seeing what it was
doing, I didn't like what it was doing so I disabled it for now. I don't
know what it's used for but as much as it was doing, it was better to
turn it off and find out later. It may eventually get removed.

I've seen 2 XP systems get some surreptitious install of McAfee Security
Scan. Probably a drive-by install when something else went in. I've
uninstalled both cases since the stuff I've put on those systems takes
care of McAfee's crap that doesn't need to be there at all. Why it
showed up I don't know, but it's not necessary!! Unless it came from a
CDrom in this case, it's probably a trojan. Oy vay. When you have AVG
Free and Spybot S&D as well as Comodo Firewall (as well as some of my
favorite tools), you don't McAfee or Norton anything.

However, I would recommend that you buy a license for AVG when using it
on a business computer. I saw one laptop with the Paid upgrade of AVG
and it's rather nice.

Annoying woman at Big Lots

Make your purchasing decisions before paying ~ not while paying!

The problem with Recycling

Recycling is a good thing. If you know what you're doing you can
actually make money doing it. I did it some years ago with aluminum pop
cans.

The reason I bring this up randomly is that I got the latest thingy from
the local region Solid Waste Management District. It talks about all the
stuff that can be recycled or reused, what they don't recycle at this
time, and then in the back, some pages on places that accept items to
recycle. There was some odd bits like margarine tubs, regardless of the
plastic, weren't being taken for recycling, and the things that they
said you don't or can't compost like animal fats or vegetable oils. I
guess I'll have to look that up.

Only problem is, much of the time, they CHARGE you money to take an item
to recycle, instead of the right way, PAYING you for the items you are
taking to them.

That's how it used to work! I bring you 500 pounds of crushed aluminum
pop cans, you give me so much per pound and we're both happy, because I
know you're going to take those pop cans and resell them and make back
the money you paid me and then some.

I want money back for all the inkjet cartridges we've bought. Some
places used to offer some amount when buying new ink cartridges. When
bought online, some sellers put in these plastic postage pre-paid
mailers so you can send the empty cartridges back in to some place to
recycle them. But this is done anonymously. You don't get any
recompensation for the cartridges. Have I sent any back in this way?
Hell, no. Compensate me dammit.

So if you want to take in a regular tube type TV to recycle for whatever
reason, some places charge you money to take the item. We know they're
going to make money again on what they pull out of the TV, so this makes
no sense to me. It sounds so much like a scam.

Also some communities force people to separate their trash for
recycling, but I wouldn't do that unless it guaranteed a reduction in my
trash collection bill. If you found a market for recycling my trash,
that means you found a source of revenue. Stop charging me so much to
haul off what you're going to bury. Pay me for my time to do your
goddamn job!

The story is different with Car Batteries. Usually. Some places will
offer a discount on a new battery when they take your old one. I've seen
this happen a few times and this is good thing. It encourages business.

But if you tell me it's going to cost me $50 or more to get rid of an
item, screw you I'll keep it or figure out another way to get rid of it.
Pay me $50 to take it off my hands, and you've got a deal.

Some places used to take old newspaper for making money on recycling.
There used to be something called the DeMolay Paper Barn here where I
live. It was more or less a charity thing. They collected paper for
recycling and made some money doing it. Though paper recycling goes into
the realm of tons of paper before you get any substantial money...

There used to be some place in town where people could "drop off" their
recyclables, but nobody there to pay you for it. The company that hauled
this thing away each month was likely laughing all the way to the bank.

Then there are places that suddenly decide they're not accepting stuff
from people but instead focusing on large companies for recycling. That
means they found rocks in a crushed up pop can. One guy who used to live
behind us in town did that. At least until he ran out of gravel from the
alley he lived next to and the alley got paved over.

Pay people to recycle and you'll see more of it going on. Nothing
motivates like money.

The router works

I got the router plugged in and working last night. In one way, it does
matter which cable is plugged where. I tried to leave the original cable
modem cord plugged into the computer and use that on the blue ethernet
labelled port, but the software for managing the network wasn't
detecting the internet connection to the router. So I turned off the
router and cable modem, swapped cables, and plugged them back in and
powered up.

Internet connection detected right away. I could put my other P4 tower
on the net again, but I'm not using it for doing that. My P3 with
Win98SE doesn't have the driver for the NIC yet, but I wasn't going to
get on the net with that one at all.

At least it's there for a wireless access point (or wired) when I work
on people's systems and don't need to turn off the cable modem when I
switch connections.

I have security on that as much as I could. It's got WPA2 turned on, and
the SSID is not being broadcast. I could even turn on MAC filtering. I
do not allow remote or wireless access to the router's management
features, and yes, the default name and password to the router have been
changed. In fact, I changed it a 2nd time to something harder to figure
out and I wrote it down. When using the HTTP interface, I had Firefox
remember the password.

The network manager software can detect intruders, but without the key,
they're not getting in. If they spent the time and effort, they might
figure it out, but by then I might have it changed and they have to
start all over again.

Uneasiness over adding a wireless router

My older sister wants to share the internet connection here and in order to do so, it means adding a router with hopefully both wired and wireless connections. Even though I'm CompTIA A+ certified, I am anxious over this. I do not want to see a change in the use of the net with the computer. I don't want to have to deal with problems a router can present, some of which involve rebooting the device and such. I'd rather have a network switch if it's all the same. I'd like to be able to set it up so that it doesn't even present itself at all - I don't want it to filter anything, I don't want it to do ANYTHING except just decide what connection and what traffic goes through. I also would like to make sure that if I need more bandwidth, then I get priority.

Networking is something I haven't had much experience with, and in many cases it can work well when it does. This is again one of my problems with having Aspergers - a change in routine. Things are fine the way they are now, and I don't need a problem cropping up that creates stress.

Yes, I know, this can be a learning experience. With what I've learned and experienced so far, I'm anxious.

Good days and bad days

Since October, I've tried my best to deal with things. I'm glad to be
getting counseling. I'm afraid of the future, though. I had hoped to be
working or something by now.

I saw mom's caseworker for Caring Hands about a week or so ago. She
asked me how I was getting along, and I told her. I have good days and
bad days. The bad days are when I wake up completely tired even though I
had enough sleep. I sit in front of the TV and get very little done. I
usually fall asleep. I get sad and I cry. I lose entire days because of
Mom not being here right now. I ask Melody when mom's coming back. I do
that from time to time, tell myself Mom's coming back- she's just in the
hospital.

The phone is largely quiet. Very few phone calls for my mom in some form
or another. I still need to call back the Neurocare center and tell them
what they need to know. I'm sure they noticed she missed her appointment
last November.

I want to hear her call for "Coffee, please!" when she wakes up after
dealing with her morning medications. To move her mattress back over. To
bitch her out over spending money she doesn't have. Take her to her
appointments. That responsbility fell to me at some point.

I've been trying to get in touch with a girl (now a young woman at this
point) I used to spend time with some years ago. I found her online, but
she's trying very hard not to get in touch with me. I don't know what I
did years ago other than being a complete idiot. I want to re-establish
a friendship that for some reason just fizzled. I really liked her then,
I find I still do now. I just didn't realize it and was lacking the
skills to show it, I guess.

That would brighten my day if I could talk to her again. She gave me her
phone number(s) and I don't know why I didn't call. I should have. After
some point, like after mom got laid off, things just got f_ing crazy
around here.

Liz, whatever it was I did or didn't do, I'm sorry and please call me.
I'm easy to find!!! I can prove I know you with stuff you should know
and is not posted online!

Refridgerators need this feature

I don't know what happened with the fridge last night, but it apparently
didn't get shut just quite right or it popped open a crack. I don't
know. I came down this morning and when putting the butter aka margarine
on my toast, the stuff in the container didn't have its usual cold
stiffness that margarine right out of the container from the fridge
should have. What the heck. I have one of those thermometers and it's
registering well above 50 degrees F. Uh...

At first, I think the thing's busted. I immediately turn up the coldness
setting in the freezer and in the lower fridge part. Now, usually some
units when you do this sort of thing, it immediately kicks on. Not this
one. Instead, my stuff in the fridge languishes a while more before it
turns on. In those waiting moments, I'm freaking out.

What refridgerators really need is a Emergency or Suddenly Cold
Override. A button you press to force it to turn on when the temperature
inside is clearly not where it should be.

What really struck me odd is that it wasn't running already. Any other
unit when you leave the door cracked open, it's running like mad to
compensate.

I wanted a button to get this thing to turn on out of cycle and just get
things cold again. Now I'm putting a chair against the door when I go to
bed.

Egg rolls... dozens of them

Well, yesterday I was out and about with my older sister and my dad.
There was a number of things to accomplish. One was to see about the
glasses I'd gotten recently. Apparently the lenses were "progressive"
but they weren't sitting on my face and nose right, so they were able to
change the nose rest thingy. I still don't like them.

I needed another storage bin thing for the records I pulled out of a cat
pee stained cardboard box. I have something that's for neutralizing
litter box odor being used for cleaning the items stained during the
urine seep, and it's almost used up. Unfortunately in our goings around
yesterday during which we ended up at Ollie's, they were out of the
product I wanted to get more of. So I'm using it sparingly on the stains
that it appears to be removing.

We went to Aldi's for a few things, and dad picked up some flowers for a
couple relatives he wanted to visit in a nearby rest home. Aunt Bernice
and her sister, both of whom appreciated the visit. After looking a bit
there, I am DAMN F-ING GLAD my mom was NEVER in one of those places!!!!
It's not right she's not here right now and I'm still depressed over it,
but everyone better stop saying things that pretty much blame me for
what happened.

After that we were on to visit a couple Indian / Asian food stores. I
had printed a map for my older sister for 3 stores, 2 of which I
recommended. The one my friends and I like a lot was closed on Mondays
which I didn't know, but the one on Whipple was open and she bought some
things there. I found the place had frozen taiyaki treats and I bought a
couple along with some nattou and a cookie treat called KANCHO. I sh_t
you not!! I should post a picture of the package.

We also paid a visit to Sam's club which my dad has a membership for. I
can beat their prices on Memorex DVD+R media anywhere else, as well as
thumbdrives. I don't know - it seems a waste to pay to shop somewhere
only to pay higher prices on things. He offered to pay for a few things.
I guess I should thank him. It was only when I got home did I get
reminded I had 2 packages of egg rolls in the freezer already, and the
stuff gotten from Sam's club wasn't going to fit unless I took out a few
items and threw them away and removed everything from the boxes.

So I ended up with 30 egg rolls in my freezer.

4 were from an Aldi's package. 8 were from a Taipei package. Both I
already had but for some reason I completely forgot. (That is a problem
I have because of my Aspergers.) 20 were from Sam's Club.

I have a freezer full of Asian-type food. I need either a bigger freezer
in the fridge or a small chest freezer. Or a dinner party of some sort -
if I can neutralize more of the pet smell.

I was so wiped out that during the night while I was waiting for DVD
Flick to finish a project, I let our dog out to pee when she asked, and
forgot - ending up leaving her outside the entire night! I'm so sorry
about that!!!! T.T I hope she got asked to go inside next door with my
sister anyway.

Best value of the day: 32 oz Frozen Coke at Speedway. $1.09 before tax.
These are bigger than the Burger King $1 Frozen Cokes.

Aunt Bernice?

After spending time with my older sister and my dad visiting an aunt in a nursing home. I'm glad I kept my mom out of one!

WebTV Fail

That's not how you spell it.

I don't know where to begin to describe it

Today for some reason this morning, I decided that perhaps I should go
through our room of boxes and perhaps find a few things I've been asked
to find. Our grandparents' pressure cooker-canner, some wood recorder
instruments, and a Fight Hate figurine that at the time we bought it
years ago joked that it looked like my dad.

I thought I knew where one or two of those items were in that room. Oh
by the way, this is also where I have the cats' litter pan in the closet
because this is the most convenient place for it to be in the house.
It's not the bathroom or the kitchen, places it shouldn't be. Only
problem is I have a bad habit of not checking on this regularly (and
even moreso without my mom here to remind me when she smells it), and to
multiply that is my grandfather's cat who in his senile age decides to
pee where he likes because he's unhappy with the litter pan, which I've
tried teaching him is not an option.

Here's another layer to this. My twin-size bed frame without a mattress
since moving in 2003 is partially set up in that room. It's been a while
since I tried setting it up after finding out I don't have the room to
do it right. I was hoping to at least get it set up and perhaps put some
boxes on it. I had it partially propped up with some little boxes of
sorts to hold it up in the hopes of imagining this thing set up.

So imagine this. An old cat who gets unhappy with the litter pan, and a
partially set up bed with a space underneath. Oh yes, the cat decides to
create a mountain of dried .... All I can say is I'm mad, and if anyone
else had seen that, I'd be short 1 cat right now. I'm glad I got the
chance to clean that up. Maybe now I'll have a better time getting rid
of the smell when I check things in that room. I don't know how long
that it's been like that, perhaps over a year. Since early 2009 or
earlier. I have some urine smell remove enzyme stuff and vinegar jugs to
buy. Perhaps rent a carpet shampooer for the stain that's in front of
the door on the inside of the room. I've had a hard time cleaning that
room.

I found 3 places under things where I had to sweep, and I'm glad I just
changed the canister bag on my grandfather's sweeper. I have another new
bag to put in and I hope I can get more Type H bags for this thing, and
perhaps the round disk paper filter that goes over the motor. Most
annoying thing about that cleanup job was the hose clogging and needed
pulled off so I could clear it again. I have only a very little more to
do.

I found the pressure cooker. My grandparents bought it at Miller Sales
in 1976 for $43 (the sales receipt was still in the box!). I don't know
where the recorders are, and I have an idea on where the Fight Hate guy
is. I've seen him recently, and I didn't throw him out like my older
sister would have done long ago if it were up to her. I'm surprised she
asked about it. I have an idea what size box to look in.

The room has boxes that need to go out of there, mostly holiday
decorations of various stuff and some of Mom's things. And stuff I have
to go through (I believe it's due to my older sister's 'habit' of
throwing away other people's things without even asking as the cause of
my need to keep stuff - I've noticed over the years some of my things
were just suddenly gone, the sore point of which was 7 cassette tapes of
stuff I recorded while visiting my dad years ago. My messy room is a
defense mechanism to keep people out), as well as storage bins I need to
buy because of cat urine stains on the cardboard boxes. I see there was
no activity in the spaces where the cats can't get into but then they've
surprised me before.

Wat

Whitening strip gone wrong.

Expose Suarez Corp and put them out of business!

What is Suarez Corp?

Ever see those wordy 2-page ads in Parade in the Sunday paper
advertising those heaters "made by Amish craftsmen" and you see the pic
of some people purporting to be Amish busily working on these things? Or
how about the obviously photoshopped images of a cat sitting on one?
Sure they probably work, but they're not made by anyone Amish.

How about the latest scam? "Rare" $2 bill honoring the 50 states, first
starting with New York?

Those $2 bills are also sold by Suarez Corp. The address for this place
is 8000 Freedom Avenue, North Canton, OH 44720. In fact, they place a
lot of wordy 2-page ad spreads in various places. The products are
expensive, and frequently like the $2 bill I mentioned, a rip-off scam.

Don't buy their products!! This also goes for all those TV ads where you
can call toll free and for $20 you can change your life with a product
you didn't know you needed. Those commercials annoy me. I would say buy
only those that still show Billy Mays.

But the rest of them are just stupid. There's the Red X over stuff.
People nod a lot. The Bark Off commercial is annoying because you can
tell the dogs in the commercials are clearly looking at the trainer.
Same with the Potty Patch one. You never see a dog using it in that one,
and they're clearly just doing what the trainer is getting them to do.
That dual draft guard thing has annoying door closing sound effects
which it doesn't need - especially when you hear it twice for what's
obviously a split screen of the same damn door closing once!!

Or ones that say the offer is available "to the first 100 callers in
this area" when it's a nationally broadcast cable channel!!! I also hate
21st Century Insurance. "Attention drivers STATEWIDE." Why is it just
Statewide? How big is this state? The right world is NATIONWIDE. And
check that toll free number they want you to call. It changes a lot!

OK, so why is the Suarez $2 bill a fake? It's not authorized by the U.S.
Mint. For New York, the Federal Reserve bank isn't in Atlanta, GA, so
the seal wouldn't have an F in the middle. There are twelve Fed banks
around the US, but not one in New York, so the closest I think they'd
get would be A for Boston or B for Philadelphia, if I remember that
right. D is Cleveland, that I remember.

But then bills are issued by all the Fed Banks, but I'd think they'd get
this one to the banks closest to New York, or at least issue them in
some similar order to the 50 State Quarters, but do your checking.
They're fake.

It's the latest scam by Suarez Corp. Check the address, pass the word,
stop buying their crap and put them out of business!

Hanamaru Youchien

This is a recent anime production by GAINAX, and at only 12 episodes
(right now anyway) it's painfully short. Just as you get to the last
episode, the cute characters have grown on you and you want to see more.
Some episodes are PG13, while most of them are PG at least. It's cute
and funny, but there needs to be more of it.

This is one of those times which I had the means to go to Gainax and
offer to support production of more episodes. If there's a manga for
Hanamaru Kindergaten, it'd be nice to see it get licensed and brought
over.

This is a rather short anime review, but then I don't want to spoil it
all and this anime deserves recognition.

Thankful for therapy

I am glad to be getting help for dealing with things since October. I have been in so much pain since then that I couldn't have handled it myself. I don't know how anyone else handles what I've had to go through. Mom didn't do this when her mom, my grandmother (one of them), passed away in August 2000. Instead of dealing with it, Mom just turned to her doctor Anne K., and instead of referring her to counseling just went and prescribed her Paxil. This was a bad idea. Mom had been in the care of a Dr. Beshara (sp) for years until she began working in 1991 due to stupid changes in public assistance rules.

What Anne K probably didn't know was mom had a nervous breakdown in 1979 or 1980. She was in the hospital for a while. My sisters and I had to live with my grandparents. I barely remember that time.

I don't want to have the same problems she had. I've had some dark times since June 2007. I just want to be able to do what I know. I know computers, I don't know about people. I wish I knew more about women, at least enough to get one to marry and live with me.

My mom accomplished some things in her life. She had an X-Ray Technician certificate, but I don't understand why she didn't get a job as one. She also got an Associate in Medical Laboratory Technology, which meant she knew how to run all those tests in medical labs in hospitals. It's a shame she was unable to get a job doing that like she always wanted.

She did work in plastics plants though. Our Christmas of 1982 was pretty good because she went to work for one place in East Canton that had its workers on strike.

She ended up getting another plastics factory job in 1991 after going out for a temp agency, working at another place that ended up hiring her, where she worked until she was laid off, then after working sporadically until the end of 2001, after which she was injured on the job and was unable to work after that.

She lost weight in the 1970s only to gain it back during 2002-2003 by going out to buy ice cream for some reason. And not the cheap stuff, but the expensive stuff with loads of fat. She had a problem buying the wrong things, and it reared its ugly head during 2001.

She quit smoking in 1997 or 1998. She had smoked all the time I knew my mom, and for her to be able to stop showed her determination when it came to setting a goal and achieving it. Soon after that, she saved enough money to buy the big screen TV we have now.

There are some good things, but because she was a huge part of life and I was right in front of it all, I have taken things quite hard. And I definitely need help.

No~Shoes Skooter Lady

Min at Borders

Another dream about Mom

I had another dream about my mom. She was sitting in a chair or upright
in bed somewhere. It might have been a room somewhere, like a hotel or
someone else's house or maybe a hospital or care facility. She wasn't at
home. She had just woken up.

"Oh my god!" I said. "Mom, you woke up!"

"Of course I did! Why would you ask that?"

"Because we thought you were dead. I let you lay there long ebough. You
must have been really tired!"

"I must have!"

She was wearing her thick fabric pink sleeper thingy she used to wear in
the winter to keep warm. She had her glasses on. She looked alert and
OK. I gave her a hug.

"I hope you'll get to come home soon."

"I hope so, too." she said.

I woke up crying again after this dream as well.

I think there were some other details in this dream like I think she was
on a couch and we woke her up for some reason because I couldn't get her
to wake up and someone came and did it.

Sometimes I really hate air conditioners

Right now I have just one small Energy Star air conditioner (air
cooler?) in the window at the top of the stairs. Reason being that it's
an Energy Star unit, which means it's not going to co$t a lot to run it.
This past week has been consistently hot, so while after the night time
temperatures come around again, the comfort level in the place is OK,
but then the goddamn temperature inside starts going up again to 80
(even 81) degrees F around 4 to 5 pm.

This little air conditioner isn't cutting it. I hate to put the big one
back in and the little one downstairs and then have to run both, but me
and the animals are getting tired of the inside temperature going up
like that in the evening. I don't know why it's so ineffective in the
early evening like that. It's like it just stops cooling for some damn
reason.

I'd like to have one of those Japanese units with the remote control and
all. Maybe they'd work better.

Bereavement

I finally began the latest round of counseling for my current problem, not my Aspergers, and apparently what I currently am suffering from isn't quite depression but bereavement. The man who saw me today says it's an emotional response to the loss of a loved one, and the more pain you feel means the move you loved the person you lost. But this feels like depression to me anyway. I imagine you can have Asperger's and still suffer from depression or bereavement.

At least there's a word for what I've had a problem with so far. I hope in the course of counseling I can get help for a bunch of the other things I'm having problems with. The man I spoke to said it will help to just be able to talk about things.

A Perpetual annoyance