July 20, 2002

Religion as represented in the Star Trek Universe:

• The Vulcans - Zen Buddhists.

• The Klingons - Muslims.

• The Bajorans - Hindus.

• The Ferengi - Jews (the offensive, stereotypically bigoted view).

• The Borg - Christians.

DD 9:17am EST on Saturday, Jul 20, 2002

July 17, 2002

I neglected to mention that the other night during the redneck match, someone did an acronym about Halloween being an evil holiday. The captain said she knew she'd get a private message from me about it. And I was extremely disappointed to find out that it was made by our team's co-captain.

Tonight I was playing, and the following was not only a shock to see in the selections, but greatly offensive to have been chosen by the other players to win the round:

Why are such statements considered acceptible? This is a horror and a pock on humanity, the sort of intolerance bred of ignorance and paranoia which holds us back as a species.

Don't these people realize how far more evil they are? Such dumb, uncivilized rabble mentality - wait! What's that? Is that Foggy Mountain Breakdown I hear? Well, that might explain things, but it doesn't excuse them.

DD 10:48pm EST on Wednesday, Jul 17, 2002

The computer will be brought back to the chuckleheads on Saturday. I have the best Dad, even if he doesn't understand my art or even try to. He'll be helping me bring the PC and scanner to the shop for them to determine something that shouldn't be. Oh, and the unusable sound support. Think they'll replace the motherboard?

Uninstalling IE6 was easy. It reverted back to IE5 on its own. But the revelry was for the sake of my operating system and keeping it from the lecherous grip Gates' products increasingly hold on people's computers as he puts out more versions...

...because now with Windows 98 and the added power, yours truly will be using Neoplanet and Netscape 6.2.3. I must have about thirty or forty themes installed on Neoplanet to accommodate every conceivable mood. Netscape just needs one: Skypilot, an iridescent art deco interface that makes the browser look like a mindblowing linkware page.

I've even solved the TV issue - sort of. It's a temporary fix. Got a female mini jack coupler to merge the headphones with the cabling leading from the VCR's audio out RCA plugs. It's obvious that some sort of amplification is needed; the volume is very low. But for someone like me, it's audible enough to enjoy. Thank goodness for radar hearing. And just in time to catch a great Doctor episode on Voyager tonight: Message in a Bottle.

DD 9:41pm EST on Wednesday, Jul 17, 2002

July 16, 2002

*The sound of Foggy Mountain Breakdown cuts into the cyberair

There we wuz, with one game tween us. Ah had this sorta late match spazz o brilliance. Either that, or they jess suddly stardid vote'n for mah akernims for no discernal reason.

Then th'other team they had a lil bit o that there ENgine trouble an' came up short parsnipinants. So's one o them RE-cruited one frum our team t'play agin us.Thet was one who couldn't be in th'match o'er some sort o skedglin' problims.

There ah wuz, jes fahv from th' winnin' points, when we lost to our own team mate playin' agin us on the'other team. Thet there bitch din't even ask our cap'n for permishun. She jess showed an went all out lahk a spittin' racoon in a bear trap.

This mus be how they hev fun in th'Ozarks on Satiddy naht when th'idjit box ain't workin'...

DD 12:16pm EST on Tuesday, Jul 16, 2002

DAMN I wish I was adept at hardware configuration!

Do you know what they did? They INSTALLED IE FUCKING SIX on my computer!

Did it ever OCCUR to them that MAYBE if they ran into such a highly customized system - right down to the start menu - that if I WANTED Internet Suxplorer 6 I would have installed it myself?

We have problems with customers at work because it is such a downgrade and unable to handle highly interactive sites as well as IE5. I don't recall them ASKING permission to install that, nor did it have anything to do with what I paid them for. How the hell am I going to get that Big Brother leech off my machine so I can downgrade back to IE5 without ruining anything?

BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So besides that, their onboard sound card doesn't work - I even did a clean uninstall (means I went through the registry and removed all instances of it) and downloaded a new set of drivers for it AND a Win98SE patch. It's like it isn't there. The system sees something attached to it, but can't make it jive.

And when I turn on the SCSI scanner, Windows hangs on startup. Again?! It's not the Adaptec SCSI controller card because the ZIP and JAZ drives work fine. And I updated the drivers for the scanner for Win98 as well. So what's this about?

The three problems I had before the upgrade are gone, except that for some reason the system thinks that "H" is my default CDRom drive. It's a simple matter to tweak the registry so it sees it as "I"

But even though I have these problems, and I STILL can't listen to what's on TV, I managed to restore my log files and Email programs and desktop in time to play in an acronym match. Stay tuned for some hayseed hilarity. I have to get a banjo for this puppy...

DD 9:13am EST on Tuesday, Jul 16, 2002

July 15, 2002

Wow, that was fast. I guess it wasn't so difficult. They only had to image transfer my old hard drive to the new one, then use partition magic to scoot it over and create a second drive, make a "d:\My Documents" folder in the new, empty second drive, then put the hardware all on a new motherboard and processor. In THEORY, the new moboard will see my IDE CDROM drive, and Windows won't notice any major differences save an extra drive and one less CDROM.

Of course that's just a theory.

When I am done, I will have C, D, E, F, G/JAZ, H/ZIP, I/CDROM, a speed of 1.8ghz, and 256mb RAM.

Beeeyutiful! I might just reinstall Illustrator, Neoplanet, and Simcity3k Unlimited.

DD 12:43pm EST on Monday, Jul 15, 2002

I'm definitely going through the GT's: Geekizoid Tremens.

People at work think I'm strange for working with the ECH perched on my shoulder today. Somehow having the equivalent of a pirate's parrot comforts me. Why it took them four months to realize I am strange, I have no clue.

DD 9:43am EST on Monday, Jul 15, 2002

Well, the baby is in the shop. As expected, the sound wasn't working on the TV last night. I grabbed my rickety old Walkman, then grabbed the nearest tape I could find, and ended up torturing myself with ELO II and No Answer while starting a jigsaw puzzle.

Naturally because I had no sound on the TV, there was a segment on Sixty Minutes on painter Thomas Kinkade. DAMN!!!

After the tape (one side was enough jeez. Why couldn't I have picked up one with New World Record on it or something?), I looked for radio stations. I found new ones and to my surprise Little Steven was a DJ! He played some great stuff and my initial anxiety over the void in my life began to subside.

I went to bed before midnight.

DD 8:25am EST on Monday, Jul 15, 2002