Sunny Breaks

So I saw a UFO this morning. I pronounce it ‘you-foe’. On the bus out to uni in the distance to the west. What did it look like? Well, exactly like a hot air ballon. I’d only be too happy to say that I saw a hot air balloon, and that it was someone going to work in it, but it was there one second, and then the next moment it was gone—on an almost windless morning.

I think I’ve mentioned before how difficult it is to appreciate sparrows. Plain-ness and ubiquity aside, everytime I step outside of here a whole bunch of them scramble from whatever bit of the backyard they were foraging. They sit up on the edge of the corrugated iron fence and sharpen their beaks. And I know that if I droppped dead right there it wouldn’t be long before they were back down, pecking my eyes out.
But sitting out by the pond at uni eating lunch I most times get one or two standing in front of me looking meek. These must be the ‘ken geniuses of the sparrow species – the ones who are about to vibrate and explode onto the next plain of sparrow-consciousness. To have such tiny brains and still figure out that begging the humans pays off.

I’m officially a happy slacker slacking it up in Slackland. After running it for about a week and a bit nothing catastrophic’s happened and I even upgraded it to Kde 3.1.1 which is bloody amazing. I reckon it’s pretty grand that (while still using the same old hardware) switching distroes has got me a faster boot-up time than ever before. Using Kde 3.1 apps through Fluxbox are quicker than 3.0 – and it’s flashier looking, has more features and – all up is well stable thanks to the Slack package installation system—which hasn’t taken that long to figure out. There’s some handy little things that people have made to keep it all nice.
It’s interesting – the difference between a distro mostly driven by volunteers, like this — and a commercial set up. In some ways it’s actually been easier to figure things out because slack people make more effort to explain things in the README and INSTALL files.
But, (don’t it always happen?) the first time in ages when there actually is a whole lot of stuff I want to d/load (because there’s stuff that would benefit from updating, and ! the updates and stuff are actually easy to install !) and for the last week or two the tpg connection has been really patchy. Other times when it’s got busy at the Geelong POP (in that it’s taken a fair while to get a line ie. continual busy signals) they’ve added another modem or whatever… but this is more like they need to get more pipes or bigger ones. – 10 seconds of normal flow followed by 8 seconds of being stuck at zero.

This is something i don’t know much about – and there doesn’t look like there’s much info on the web either. I was mostly interested in who is making them – there must be a lot of money in it. I found this one note on google groups about how they were introduced to cars to make them more fuel efficient, but all up haven’t really done this. My anecdotal evidence goes along with that.
[Incidentally, it’s funny how I’m more likely to be skeptical of something originating from an alt. group than if it had its own web page.]
Froggy was telling me how his car’s – a mitsubishi magna – computer chip is going kaput. It was happening over summer – I don’t remember exactly but the power used by the air con. would cut in or out at various points—while driving, the upshot being situations like being on a highway and the whole thing locking up (because of power steering) and him ending up halfway up an embankment after much swearing. It’d be pretty funny if it wasn’t for real. The mechanics said the chip had to be replaced (this car’s is probably no more than 5 years old) and the cost was something crazy… $2000 or something. Froggy said bugger that – he was only planning to drive it into the ground anyway – so he got the mechanic to set the revs twice as high as normal so it wouldn’t cut out. The mechanic grumbled that it’d be using heaps of juice doing that, but did it anyway.
Also, a year and a half ago he bought a new BMW for hiis wife. The last time they took it in for a service they were getting offers to sell it because that particular model has a ‘superchip’ in it which allows more power through to the engine (or something like that). So there ya go.

name: Jay
email:
url: www.mowabi.com/
ip: 205.191.171.239
date: 2003-05-04-13-31
Perhaps I am a cynic, but I am suprised that the BMW service people didn’t just steal the “super chip”.
Edit Comment / Delete Comment Block IP 205.191.171.239 / Block IP range 205.191.171.*

name: yak sox
email:
url: www.spouting.net
ip: 203.58.6.10
date: 2003-05-04-18-58
Wow, you’re more cynical than me because I never even thought of that !
I bet froggy would’ve noticed though ‘cause he’s always thrashing that thing – if it wasn’t hammering up to 60kmh as per normal then there’d be trouble — ACA trouble, Today Tonight trouble. I’m sure the dealership wwouldn’t want that kind of publicity.

In the opshop today I realised I’m more and more drawn to the feel of clothing rather than colour or what it looks like. I got this shirt – 100% polyester – it wasn’t til I got it home that I noticed it’s a really hardcore granny colour – bone or maybe beige – bah – I don’t care – him feel nice. Also got a pair of I guess what would be clown pants for clown funerals, kinda sombre but ludicrous similtaneously. These will server well as PJ pants. The quest for the perfect pair of outside pants continues.

Another correlation I’ve noticed is: the grumpier the bus driver, the worse they drive. I’ve seen two sign posts knocked over in the space of a month, and been vaulted forward (or backward depending on which way I’m sitting) off the seat due to sudden breaking twice this year.

Barrelling through town the other day i saw an old man standing out the front of Timezone (a video arcade chain) looking in. He was watching a kid on one of those machines where you’ve got to dance. I wondered what he was thinking (the old man that is).
It occurred to me that these entries may sometimes get a bit entropic (that’s communication studies lingo for specialised or non-explanatory) and that maybe overseas readers might not have a freaking clue what I’m on about—but then maybe people in the next town don’t either. In any case – will try to link to things where possible – or more likely expalin things. Half the problem is that so many things, organisations, companies here have no web presence. Take Timezone for example. Nothing. Another example is a few days back i stuck “honda spacey” in a title here, and what happens? I would’ve thought there’d be something about them out there somewhere – are they only sold in australia or what? It’s a motor scooter. I used to really like ‘em – and envisioned me riding one. Spacey.
In comparrison – a lot of things in North America have been put online. That’s the way it seems at least. Most times when i bump across something bizarre on the net – it’s originating in the US.

I’d forgotten how much of a gouge printer cartidges are… [mumbled profanity…..] Forty Dollars?! ... Getouttahere…. [mumbled disgruntled opinion on IT and printer industry…]

Iron on transfer t-shirt idea: words in bold, “THIS IS WHY I WALK AND TALK THIS WAY!”. It’s dual-purpose – it’s like the ‘saying sorry in advance routine’ for situations where you really screw up, or an affirmation of your SupaStylin’ when you’ve got it goin’ on.

I wonder who drew them pictures on the three site. Not bad. Dumb tv ad idea but.

name: Jay
email:
url: www.mowabi.com/
ip: 205.191.171.239
date: 2003-05-04-13-36
Well i’m not sure if it’s as you intended.. but that googlification of “honda spacey” has Spouting at the top of the list. If you end up trying to explain things by pointing back to yourself – it’s gonna get confusing :)
Edit Comment / Delete Comment Block IP 205.191.171.239 / Block IP range 205.191.171.*

name: yak sox
email:
url: www.spouting.net
ip: 203.58.6.10
date: 2003-05-04-18-53
Um, yeh – it was at the top before i pointed to it – when that happens for things I didn’t mean it to – i kind of feel obligated to go back and write a bit about whatever it was that got indexed. For instance – maybe I should now start selling motor scooters.
;^{)
Edit Comment / Delete Comment Block IP 203.58.6.10 / Block IP range 203.58.6.*}

name: Jay
email:
url: www.mowabi.com
ip: 205.191.171.239
date: 2003-05-05-11-59
i see that once again, I have missed the point completely :)
Edit Comment / Delete Comment Block IP 205.191.171.239 / Block IP range 205.191.171.*

name: yak sox
email:
url: www.spouting.net
ip: 203.58.6.10
date: 2003-05-05-17-35
I think the best thing for me to do here is to not attempt to explain further since the odds are that it would become more confused. :)

Holy Canole, couch cadets! I opened up the Green Guide today and see that channel seven are showing A Fist Full of Dollars this saturday night at 11:20pm – how’s that for timing? I’m assuming the way they program is nationally based – I’m pretty sure it is.

I got back my first assignment for the semester today. As I walked back from the mail box with it in mah hot little hand I was psyching into not feeling too disappointed – afterall, the first one back is bound to be a bit rusty and this off-campus subject feels like a total lucky dip. Not being able to see the marker of the assignment, and judge it they’re a real hard-arse or not – in reality makes no difference, but I like to think it does.
I was more than pleasantly surprised to see an 85% on it. (as Monkey would say) Go team Me! I might finally be able to nail an overall HD for a subject with this one – visual texts – the communications studies subject.
It was the deconstruction of a Simpons episode one, which I should get around to HTMLising in a decade or so. The next thing for that subject looks at film instead of television and I should be able to weave The Idiots into it for the art cinema component, so I got a little head start. Will also be looking at Tout va Bien for the ‘marxist cinema’ bit.. I don’t know anything about it yet.

Quote for the day; “How can it be so cold in here. It’s like Greenland in here.” – from Withnail & I. I’m working toward a point in time where i won’t have to say anything original again — it’ll all just be quotes from tv and movies, and maybe songs.
And it is frikkin’ cold in here.

name: Jay
email:
url: www.mowabi.com/
ip: 205.191.171.239
date: 2003-05-04-13-39
Hey I think i’m gonna start using that word “exclaimy” .. very cool! Some how seems to work in some places better than say, “excited”