Impressions of Linux in the First 24 Hours.

Entry 07/30/2025 06:42:39: Mentat 2537

Yes I installed Mint 13 days earlier than I said. Yes, it’s running (here’s the proof)

These are the first shower thoughts this morning that I had was this:

Microsoft Windows has made me lazy

Yes, I said it and I have to own up to it, and here’s the reason why I said this.

Yesterday when I pushed through the LiveCD try out on the deskside to ensure that the PC would be able to run and install Mint onto the deskside, I quickly discovered that while my MB does run on UEFI — I never set it up when I installed Windows 7 on it. Because of that, my BIOS had decided to to cable select my drives in the system where the Media Drive (used for games from steam, wallpapers and my MP3 collection) at 1 TB, was placed in the disk 0 position (it used to be in the previous machine, but was moved to the secondary position (D: drive) because I decided to make the 500 GiB Drive into a local system (C: Drive). The Local Drive was in the disk 1 position. As I was running through the wizard for the installation, I knew for fact that it would’ve chosen the Media drive to install Mint on it, which would then caused the system to being a dual-boot as Windows would’ve been left alone.. And it would’ve even created the dual-boot grub menu as well.

So, choosing the Something Else option instead of using the wizard, I was immediately hit with the fact that I had to do everything manually. Making the EFI partition for booting up properly, setting up the swap drive.. And finally setting up the EXT4 partition for Mint to getting installed. While it was a FAFO moment because the instructions for installation was extremely vague when it came to the steps for it. I messed up at first because I forgot the EFI Boot Partition, so instead of overthinking it, I waited to have a walk break and try again.

Sitting here now, I can tell you it was done that way intentionally because if you know, you know… It’s just not for the beginner to do on their own and without experience/supervision.

To continue though. After pressing it and going through the rest of the of the installation process, in 30 minutes I was able to successfully launch Mint from the desk side (without the LiveCD) and look at the long process of installing and tweaking the system to getting it running to my specifications.

Now… the made me lazy.

• The install made me immediately self-aware of just how much I forgot how to do things step by step manually.
• Converting over the media drive to EXT4 and then being able to use it for Steam and my personal use required me to take steps I haven’t followed since the days I was on an Amiga and working in a Unix workplace.
• Looking at the Samba and setting up a workgroup for the laptop and the deskside and it’s requiring a level of tweaking required to getting a machine recognized is something I never had to do. (I remember reading the manuals on Novell back in the day requiring this, but my token ring coding didn’t require it in Windows 3.x level of set up.

Currently I’m sitting here working on the thought of lunch and wondering whether I should work on setting up the workgroup for the Laptop and the Deskside (I just can’t be assed to use the thumbdrive for the music collection I have set up on the laptop to move it).

That’s about it for my first 24 hours experience. Off to think about it and make lunch.

Until the next time.

T-Minus 23 days & counting

Entry 07/18/2025 08:36:58: Mentat 2525

It’s time for me to start talking about the major gripes that I have not for the Linux Operating system, but instead with the community at large.   This is going to be the breaking point for me to wanting to work not only with the operating system but also with getting the answers that I need for anything that’s going on with my system(s). 

The first is that a good majority of the more experienced parts of the community lacks any rapport to the questions they encountered on the forums.  You are either dealing with the experienced people that demonstrate a complete uncaring attitude to being nice to people — new, intermediate and veterans — in the forums.  They copy-paste their answers which they have done ad infinitum (which is actually a sure bloody sign that if it’s **so** good, you’d think there would be a pin for it somewhere on the community boards).  They don’t work on anything remotely demonstrating interpersonal experience.  It’s like a race to get the most amount of answered like it’s an e-peen flex that they’re the ones with the most massive endowment for experience in the community. 

Or…  And these are my personal favorites.  In order to prove their experience as they’re trying to prove their massive e-peens, they will use ad hominem build straw men against another posters comment in order to prove their superiority.  They’re not helping either the poster or the contributors, and all they’re doing is creating a form of toxic environment that is neither supporting nor helpful to new users trying to get used to the culture they’re coming into. 

Finally and my personal favorite are the worst of the community.  They come in, drop a single comment like "well if works for me" (and yes.  17 years later I’m still seeing this scattered through more than just the Canonical community) and were positively no fucking help solving the problem.  These people are in my opinion, the worst examples of last word attitudes that aren’t useful and create a more negative environment than humanly possible.

**THIS IS NOTHING** like the experience that I’ve dealt with from any Microsoft or Windows community where people answer the question, explain a little of their experience with it, and move on. 

I often attribute this to the most negative parts of human qualities:  arrogance, condescension, elitism/turpitude (at worst case), and the sort of community negativity that I often didn’t have to encounter with problems in the Windows or Apple Communities.  In fact, they came in, answered the question, posted third party information and did what they could to create a positive experience before moving on.  

The last thing I would expect from people that were outcasts, misfits, out-of-box thinkers, and the generally independent thinkers that often take abuses from others for being different.  No instead they seem to be shoveling out the abuses they experienced  onto people in the world.  It’s the cycle of abuse that doesn’t seem to end. 

The second gripe I have comes from the people that don’t remotely answer the question posed about a piece of software and instead foist another piece of software that has **nothing** to do with the question posed.   Case in point, I was looking for answers to the questions I had when it came to KIO-drive (when I was trying out Fedora Plasma).  Did they answer the problems posed about KIO-Drive and Dolphin?  Nope!  They ignored the OP’s question, and would then insist to the OP to install RClone, OCAMLFUSE. OverGrive, or InSync instead. 

What the people insisting on alternatives didn’t explain is that RClone required excessive additional steps in order to operate properly…  And it’s use is much slower than what Windows users are used to with Google Drive (which was also not explained).   OCAMLFUSE has a small chance of working, yet more strongly on the not working at all (ending with a 403 "not authorized" issue and falls back on RClone’s part for setting up the cloud console to make it work).  Oh and I forgot to mention, three sites that supported OCAMLFUSE did an extremely poor job explaining that you had to include another repository from the creator of the program to make it part of the auto-update feature.  Bad move there, believe me.  To continue, OverGrive can cost $5.00 for a license to make it work "conveniently" (read: set and forget), and InSync costs a whopping $39.99 – $49.99 (depending on whether it’s on sale or not) to use it past the try-and-buy time. 

This neither answered nor remotely explained all the details of the alternatives leaving the person high and dry having to make decisions as to whether ANY of it is worth the effort. 

By the way, I did find my solution:  FreeFileSync.  It works like SysInternal’s tool: SyncToy from days gone by, and with the necessary tarball only requires a minor check with Google turning the 15 GiB Drive/Cloud into a thumb-drive.  The total time I had to take on this was 6 hours of going through..  Yes, RClone, GIO-Drive, OCAMLFUSE, OverGrive, all of them ending in either lack of proper documentation frustration or simply took too long to troubleshoot. 

And this is one example of the way the community completely derails a question on software by pointing to another piece of software they personally like instead.  If you can’t answer the questions — shut the fuck up and let other people answer it instead.  If no one answers it — believe me — you’ll be given the opportunity when the person comes back and asks, "are there alternative to …" 

The funny thing is that people laughed at me when someone asked the question, "what is one of your red flags when dealing with the Linux Community?" and I pointed this out first and enthusiastically.  Yet they all knew from experience how often they encountered this in their wanderings. 

With these two attitudes alone, it’s completely antithetical to the Windows and Apple experiences and with some of the people leaving both (Windows and Apple) because of being tired of all the bloat, the needless security that has nothing to do with the actual operating system and the needless levels kernel level securities (and security holes), that can leave the OS in an even more vulnerable state than being fixed. 

The third gripe I have has to be the extreme cliquishness I catch from the community at large.  Never in my life have I see so much elitism, cliquishness and insular attitudes from people using an operating system and finding programs to make the OS a user’s experience in free, alternative, and even productive software that meets the person’s needs.  In the three weeks I have moved from Fedora to Mint, I have never seen to much ageism, CIS/Trans/Non-Binary disdain, accusing gamers of not being anything of the sort (yeah, I still remember that one because PVP has been excluded from my repertoire).  I have seen elitism coming from people because they don’t run Arch, Endeavor, Plasma, whatever and even seen condescension from the e-peen flexers because of this.

People, this is an Operating System…  People from 12 years old to 80 years old are using it.  They are white, black, yellow, green, pink, orange…  They are  straight, gay, pan, trans, questioning, demi, polyamorous, whatever.  They can be using any one of 600 distros and yes underneath the whatever UI you currently have, they still use the same basic core that relies on knowing the command structure. 

When you’re having a conversation — be it with the OS, or outside of it — you’re going to be dealing with attitudes, understandings, perspectives and experiences that go well outside of your own.  Don’t make them feel bad if it doesn’t match exactly what the fuck you’re looking for.  Because more often times than naught you can learn something that makes your experience bigger than it was yesterday. 

My fourth and final gripe sort of wraps up with the impression I get from the communities that I’ve dealt with since 2008 when is started all of this during my dual booting experience between Windows and Ubuntu (and later distro hopped to my dissatisfaction).  The complete lack of help when it came to system maintenance and file trimming.  I have seen so many complaints from users running out of space for their discs where logs have gotten to whoppingly huge and unmanageable sizes.  Instead of explaining this to the OP, too often even the experience will tell them to **NEVER DELETE THESE FILES**. 

Umm…  excuse me this is unhelpful and doesn’t address the problems.  How precisely does this hoarding fix anything? 

It’s extremely rare to encounter someone trying to explain it’s time to look at your files to see what the errors are before deleting them.  And ALMOST no one will explain to the person how to delete them/trim them/clean up the rotated files to make it more manageable.   What’s worse is that they reinforce never deleting them — like it’s absolutely forbidden or something. 

This is gamer hoarding:  keeping things "just in case".  Not to mention extremely detrimental when it comes to system operations and system monitoring as it clutters the hard drive with excessive amounts of files that do nothing but take up space.  And it reminds me of this WTF  I often encounter when watching other players collecting new items. 

All I can ask is…  Why? and What’s the point?!  This isn’t remotely helpful, people!  This isn’t remotely a free user experience.  This is the sort of bullshit, secular and even parochial attitudes that we have to deal with constantly from the narrow-minded people in our day to day lives that put us down because we’re different from the pack, the clique, the social circles .  Why bring it to an operating system that — depending on the distro in question — REQUIRES the end-user understand not only how to make it work for them, but also can end up going tits-up because of a system update.  This is a system that REQUIRES the user be proficient and capable of tweaking and optimizing through routine maintenance and understanding. 

This goes diametrically against my first concept about being human.  I goes directly against my second concept of helping.  

At this point, I’m realizing, I like the alternative for Windows 10 which is sunsetting in October.  So far, Mint’s the way for me to go as it’s not causing me the anxiety and headaches Fedora Plasma did when I installed it on the laptop.  It doesn’t feel like Arch, which gave me the distinct impression of not being ready for prime-time.  Nor is it the most cancerous bunch in Ubuntu which is far too busy trying to be "cool".  Or Debian which is more plodding about OS security and features than even I’m capable of being when it comes to slow moving and methodical. 

Mint/Cinnamon does its best to not firehose me with updates, but instead updates based on improvements and code problems that weren’t worked out during the initial release.  So far *fingers crossed* core fixes aren’t breaking things.  And *knocking on wood* requiring me to roll back. 

But the whole of the Linux Community?  As Chris said in The Ritz, Screw you, honey.  Boy, if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a queen without a sense of humour.  You can die with your secret…  Miserable piss-elegant fairy.  if you can’t get over yourself or your ego-centric attitudes, die in a ditch.  That social cancer is tiring and drags people down. 

I’m going to be staying as far away from them as humanly possible. 

Until the next time.

The accomplishment that took 11.5 years to reach

Yep, not a huge accomplishment, but one of those that I’m rather proud of reaching…  Max Mastery Rank.

And it only took me eleven and a half years to accomplish.

The streamer observations continue…

Entry 07/01/2021 09:37:20 AM: Mentat 1655

Shower thought time…

There is a strong logistical problem with being a variety streamer that I’ve seen. I’m going to break this down into two parts: The first is a breakdown of the audience based on categories that I have encountered since I’ve been registered on Twitch back when it was still Justin.TV. The second being addressing possible ways of handling the first through branding and programming. And by programming I mean the games and the genres that the streamer might feel compelled to sit and stream.

Groups

The six groups I have encountered in my wanderings that are as follows:

1. Channel Changers you know the types. They’re the ones that would normally sit on the couch with remote in hand and flip through the channels endlessly in a state of agitation and boredom and looking for something to catch their attention long enough to slake the feeling of boredom they’re experiencing because they don’t want to do something else. While this group might throw a follow much the same way as having a list of favorite channels programmed on their remote, they’ll usually stop by if either the game or the streamer or even both has tweaked them enough to stave off their ever-present boredom.

2. The Game Loyalists much like the channel changers — are looking for a streamer that they can be loyal to based on whatever criteria they have and the games they’re playing… Heavily on the games they like playing. This particular group is both extremely easy and extremely difficult to maintain — even more than the channel changers because if the streamer has stuck to a game based on this group, if the streamer were to change programming to something else, not only can they act betrayed, they will lash out directly at the streamer and sludge the streamer through word of mouth to their friends to unfriend and unfollow the streamer because of that betrayal.

3. The Grazers these are the people that wander from category to category and streamer to streamer based on the whims of the moment, and will stick around long enough to give the illusion of being “loyal”. This will change rather quickly when they see the limited programming of the streamer, as they will start suggesting game they enjoy it will invariably start with the question, “have you ever played…” Depending on the flexibility of the streamer; will continue to suggest the same game or another, sometimes even blackmailing the streamer to play the game for their follow. These sort of people can quickly disappear — even unfollow — if the audience shows less interest in the game, and especially if the streamer is inflexible to the suggestions of playing a game outside of their intended genres/programming. I remember covering this form of audience member here under the fourth bullet point: Take suggestions for new games (or subjects) sparingly.

Another form of grazer are the game players. They just look for streams to play games with instead of going into a completely random and unknown groups in the game. They’re not usually as disruptive as other grazers looking to coerce people into playing their games, nor are they as disruptive about it as show-offs, and even be won over much like Game Loyalists

4. The showoffs: while I would like to think they this group would fit in with the Grazers as Showoffs and Grazers have much in common, it dawned on me that there’s a key difference between the two. Much like the grazers (above), they will wander only one category and from streamer to streamer to show off their prowess in the game either through playing the game — especially if the streamer has opened up the option of playing with viewers, or if the streamer’s knowledge of the mechanics of the game are woefully lacking. Showoffs will usually request to join the game and then play to flex their prowess in the game or will attempt to spout information of the game mechanics of configurations that demonstrate the game’s META in some way or another. Sometimes they might stick around if they think they have something to teach, however like grazers Showoffs will quickly leave if the player has more knowledge or prowess in the game or the audience shows more skill and knowledge than they do.

5. Streamer Loyalists small at best — this one is the one that I freely and liberally admit that I’m part of. That being the sort of group that is attracted to the charm and personality of the streamer and will be loyal to the streamer based on either the physical, emotional and/or even mental qualities that they project. I strongly believe and endorse trying to attract this sort of group because not only can they often give the streamer the sort of core base for a community, they are often the ones that the streamer can bounces ideas off of for expanding their branding and programming. Only problem I’ve encountered with this group is that there’s only a small part of it that will be honest and tell the streamer their perspective and opinion on something; especially if the streamer is having a form of existential crisis with what they’re attempting to project. The rest will — regrettably — do everything in their power to ignore the crisis like a mother telling their child nothing is wrong and will either throw bits, subs or donations at the streamer to make the crisis go away. And if they can’t throw money, they will throw compliments in an almost enabling manner to deny the thought that there is something wrong with the streamer and that he shouldn’t be sharing those problems with them as a method of working them out. It’s a mixed bag between those that want to help the streamer expand, and those that want everything to stay status quo when they joined and followed the stream.

6. The Lurkers that lurk for the sake of lurking the final minority group that I’ve actually encountered don’t seem to fall under the other three groups, and will be there to just lurk. They lurk because of both the game and the streamer and while they might rarely announce their presence they’re usually just there for the background noise going and it’s neither disruptive nor contains any friction that would cause them to leave. While this group might throw the streamer a follow don’t often count in the streamer’s viewer numbers because Twitch more often times than naught will be treated as Fake Engagement and their numbers are either stigmatized, or marginalized at best. And while streamers have an unspoken rule of accepting this group because of the rules of Twitch that cover calling out lurkers or bringing attention to them, at the same time Twitch jumps through all sorts of exception hoops set up to make them count but not count in the grand scheme of things when it comes to their Affiliate and Partner programs.

And while there’s no strongly defined lines for these groups, these categories can be used as a guideline to determine what sort of audience you’re wanting to attract — and more importantly keep — as a self-employed streamer.

Branding & Programming

The fact of the matter is, there’s no easy answers for this sort of consultation and any recommendation for how to pull each of these groups — even with the fluidity of these categories is going to come off as either a rumination or a miasmic mess given the lack of sleep I’m running on today. With that in mind, any of the ideas I might have and share should be weighed with the same grain of salt that the Fake Buddha Quote implies.

I know from experience that small variety streamers have many strikes against them when it comes obtaining a loyal audience core because out of the six groups, they have to rely heavily on finding the streamer loyalists to creating that audience base. Changing games often within a stream and during the week can often drive off the Channel Changers and the Game Loyalists because changing games (and interests) that often will cause them to find someone that is less prone to changing based on whim and need.

As a way to counter this problem when you’re starting as a streamer, perhaps stretching the schedule out to instead of daily changes to perhaps either spanning through several days to even weekly instead. Because, one of the things that I noticed in my wanderings through small streamers is the lack of consistent scheduling going on when it comes to their variety programming. In one instance, I’ve seen one picking stream games and ideas almost at random and working on the concept that if you throw enough shit at the wall something might stick.

Another issue based on an all-over-the place-schedule for streamer opens them up to grazers and showoffs and can actually cause a streamer quite a lot more issues if there are a bunch of grazers visiting with many different interests in games. I remember for example one streamer that tried to placate his audience (mostly grazers), and ended up having something like 300+ games that he had in his steam account that he played once and never touched them again. Ironically I stopped by to check him out a few months later and while I was lurking heard him routinely mention having all those games that have never been played and with empty promises and words about playing those unplayed games. Needless to say, I never looked back again.

I still stick by what I said in Self-Employment and the Wonders of Streaming: Part I, when it comes taking suggestions sparingly. Look at taking suggestions as an opportunity for something in the future, and if you want to reinforce the thought about being flexible through them up, just be very careful of saying yes routinely to new games, especially if they require money to playing them.

After that? *shrugging* it boils down to the very things I have beaten the dead horse on that I learned when as a political activist and lobbyist:

• Be Honest and Truthful
• Be Trustworthy and Kind (and if you can’t be kind when it comes to dealing with an issue, at least be compassionate)
• Be upfront and forthcoming
• Be respectful
• Be steadfast with your ideals (and that ideal is the brand you’re attempting to convey by your presence, as well as your demeanor)
• Be loyal to your audience and brand
• Know the difference between networking and self-promotion,
• Learn how to juggle your time wisely and apply yourself to that time. and lastly
• Learn the limits of your personality, and continue to push that limit to being better than you were yesterday

Amusingly the “be” qualities listed were taught by an organization I had little part in (Boy Scouts of America). Regardless of their history and their issues — truth is truth and did shape the way I approached politicians when I was lobbying for LGBT rights as well as how I deal with my business interactions outside of the Internet.

That’s it.. I’m waffling… Until the next time.

What’s little time off without a heaping bowl of DRAMA?

(Thanks to a good acquaintance for inspiring me to post an update with a meme).

And on a more pleasant note — I would like to give a hearty thanks (read: Fuck you) to the boys and girls at ESET for keeping up with the holiday spirit I remember from 5 years ago by creating a virus definition download that:

1. Knackered websites like Hotmail, Amazon’s Order Page(s), YouTube, and Flickr (just to name a few off the top of my head) and render them in 1995 standards (i.e., no graphics whatsoever).

2. Had Netflix spit out an Error Code: M7083-2107 that prevented it for being shown on the desktop (and laptop).

3. This really bizarre error code in Outlook 2016 indicating the client couldn’t establish an SSL socket connection.

4. Gave me this even odder error message in Chrome when trying to pick up my pay stub from work telling me the SSL server was obsolete.

5 Also gave the consistent and non-stop error trying to load up Facebook Games by telling me “the Connection was reset” but Armor Games and the card game I play on I-Am-Bored.com loaded up without issue or incident.  And finally,

6. Giving me these really bizarre server time outs in games like STO making me think traffic was over-loaded because of the holiday.

Without all of this “fun”; I would have actually enjoyed my day off for Thanksgiving instead of spending 1/2 my day troubleshooting what was going on with my connection.

“Thanks!” He says dripping with post-caffeinated sarcasm.

And there might be a mini-novel coming along soon enough.  Stay tuned.

A pat on the back with a healthy dose of headdesk

Entry 05/05/2014 08:31:09 AM – Mentat 698

Sometimes I feel like I’m between wanting to give myself a pat on the back and wanting to bang my head against the desk repeatedly. On the latter is because of the computer rebuild that I was left to do… And for the former the same reason(s). Okay so this was the deal…

I got fed up with the black screens that occurred when I was playing games: Rift and even Star Trek Online (which surprisingly isn’t a video card intensive program like Rift, Star Wars: The Old Republic, or even Warframe). So I decided on doing a roll-back on the video-card drivers based on the information provided on a couple of the forums that I was reading that had the same problems.

All right, easy enough. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem, I thought to myself. I began the process of uninstalling the drivers for the nVidia Card. Rebooted as instructed and let Windows try to install the generic nVidia Drivers.

Generic my ass! The drivers that Windows was attempting to install were the very same drivers that I just uninstalled! So uninstalling them, rebooting one more time and canceling the installation process, I tried to delete the nVidia directories as instructed and then tried installing the drivers I had before this debacle: 332.21. Successfully installed and restarted one more time….

…to be met time and time again with black screens during the boot-up process. I couldn’t get into windows at all no matter how hard I tried. Getting into safe mode though was a breeze. So in to Safe Mode I went to remove the drivers and give it another try to load up the generic drivers. And once again I was met with nothing but black screens during the reboot process.

Left with no choice, I decided to go into the closet to pull out the images for the drive. Gone… Any of the recent loads that I had set up for this system (Motherboard and vid-card specific) had been thrown out apparently. Back-up plan #2, grab the old-time Windows 7, Office 2007 and load up from scratch there. I took a look at the Windows 7 CD and it turned out to be the old 32-bit OEM version for the older system (long since dead). Apparently I also threw out the 64-bit version of it instead of 32-bit version along with the images that I was supposed to keep.

Ugh, I thought, It’s time for me to look online for the 64-bit ISO file.

It’s a good thing that Microsoft has entered into the digital age and allowed a couple of third-party companies to allow free distribution of the ISO images so that someone — like me — who has the license number stored on an external drive to pick the image up for a burn.

Following the instruction provided I was able to pick up the USB Stick burner for Windows and the 64-bit ISO while in Safe-mode. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to load up the USB image program in safe-mode, so a couple of attempts of trying to get windows to recognize the missing video drivers, I was finally able to back into Windows normally and install the imaging program. Realizing that my Thumb-drives weren’t big enough, I rushed over to my mother’s to pick up the one that I knew was well big enough to run the image on. And after explaining the situation to her, was back at the house burning the image to the thumb-drive in record time.

The install didn’t go as well as I expected the first time. Not formatting the Local Disk as I normally would, I tried to run the re-installation allowing Windows to create the Windows.old instead. It halted about ¾ of the way though and wouldn’t continue after almost 30 minutes (Looking back as I’m writing this, I should have realized what the problem was, but I was too annoyed with myself and the foibles that these nVidia drivers had caused). I restarted, formatted the drive and reinstalled.

This time it was a success and I was booting from the hard drive in about 30 minutes from installation. And in spite of the fact that I was able to download Windows 7 SP1, this still meant that I would have quite a lot of updates to download from Windows Update Center. 175 to be exact.

4 hours later I was finishing up the Windows update and on the last reboot and final 4 updates, I decided it was time to register Windows. This is when I see less than my usable RAM being listed: only 3.98 GiB usable. Then it hits me — I have the 32-bit version of Windows 7 installed. (And this is why it hung when it did before… you can go from a 32-bit to 64-bit architecture, but not the other way around).

At this point I spent 7 hours trying to get the system back to running properly and I was getting frustrated and tired. It was about 12:30 AM at this point and I decided to call it a night and try fresh the next morning.

The next morning with about 6 hours of toss & tumble sleep, I was back at it, trying to get the correct ISO burned onto the Thumb drive and while waiting for it to complete, double-checked the site I had originally picked up the ISO from. Sure enough, the 64-bit URL was for the 32-bit DVD. So fortunately I had picked it up from a different site and with it being over 3 GiB, I was more than reasonably sure I had the 64-bit Operating System. Now came the long haul of reinstalling everything I could as quickly as possible.

I was able to get the older nVidia drivers installed (version 332.21) because I had set Windows update to “Remind me Later”, and with a little work everything was back to running smoothly, in spite of the fact that I had more than 172 updates to go through and all the programs, utilities, games and what not.

9 hours later with some strange quirks I didn’t expect from one game (Rift) and two utility/programs (iTunes and KeyText), I was 95% installed to where I used to be. For Rift, apparently I need to have some special files from DirectX 9.0c SDK in order for it to run properly. Without it, the opening cut-scenes will cause anyone with epilepsy falling into a seizure. iTunes went terrorist and when I connected my iPod Touch to perform a sync revoked permissions to the music directory causing iTunes to lose track of where the music was stored (adding a file://localhost/ to the beginning of each file of music it had in its database). So, after re-establishing permissions for the directory on the drive, iTunes was completely copacetic ​and didn’t try to get schizophrenic about the music location again. And KeyText… Well, it’s telling me that the system was different than the last (only thing different at this point might have been the driver versions since the last install… So instead of writing an e-mail to the developer to ask for a different license key (I did so years ago and he was surprised I was still using the program), decided it was time to move on and find a freeware alternative. For the time being I’m going to need to break myself of the habit of launching a majority of my most used programs with a simple three-key combination. Fun times there as I caught myself almost clicking CTRL+SHIFT+G to launch Google Chrome more times out of instinct than naught.

Then during my long haul wait installing Windows updates on the wrong version of the operating system Saturday night, I was sitting at the table in the kitchen on the laptop playing a game of e-mail tag with someone from the local LGBT site that said as a start, “I have always wanted to meet you…” Of course, I had one of my “always? Always is a long time, and chances are I don’t know anyone in this state for that long…”

At first I thought it was that well-meaning but disorganized man from the Metro-Boston area that I had given up on years ago when he transposed his phone number a couple of times (and one that I called with a woman’s voicemail), and then after leaving a clear message with my callback number, wrote me to tell me he had accidentally deleted the voicemail message). Turns out it was another man from the Metro-Boston area that I recall having a short conversation with that was not only hell-bent on simply meeting up but also was… simple… in that limited way where I had visions of having a conversation after work that goes something like this:

Him: “What did you do today?”

Me: “Well it was a tough as fuck day with us trying to track down why there was a flutter in a dark fibre connection only to discover that we had to drive out to the middle of nowhere because we had to splice the optics back together due to a Cable Locator nicking the cable. Took a couple of hours of work, but it ended up right as rain. Then the phones came off the hook as we found out that a node for an area decided to take a break and just shut down. It’s not up right now, but fortunately for the fact that we weren’t authorize for OT, the second team that came in will have it running in an hour. What about you? What did you do today?”

Him: “I like turtles.”

The e-mail conversation was going pretty much the same way as before with me asking very poignant and pointed questions and the answers I was getting from him were one-off/odd-and-not-in-a-good-way (that didn’t quite answer the questions posed). After about the fifth not-quite answer, I reminded him why the last conversation we had ended so abruptly some years back, wished him well and went my merry way…

Friends, family and sometimes total strangers that hear me express my opinion (to the positive) on long-distance relationships wonder why I prefer starting most of them this way. I tell you why… When knowing that physical proximity is an issue that prevents instantaneous meetings and shading first impressions on physical attraction, you have to make impressions based on mental acuity. You also need to have the ability to express feelings not only in facial expression (when talking on web-cam) but also in words and written phrases.

And let’s face it, I’m not 20-something anymore. Sex isn’t something driven strongly by hormones… or used as a handshake (not that I ever did that, I never handled that casualness really well). With age comes experience, and bruises… As I said to the man while I was doing my reinstall, “…we’re at the point where we have baggage and luggage from the hurts and pains life has offered to us. A slow approach is best to work those issues out…”

Since coming home (to New England), I’ve gotten a lot of the sex as a handshake approach — from men my age too. Like the lessons we were put through from the time we were able to hit the clubs and mingle with other queerfolk haven’t been learned at all. Hell, I remember some years ago telling someone that I’d rather take it slow and was retorted with, “…slow at our age wasn’t an option… that we needed to jump right into bed and make the most of it while it still worked, we still had our looks…” That certainly put me off of men my age when that sentiment was resounded by someone else I had spoken to a couple of months later.

*Sighs* Anyway, I’m losing steam on this. I’ve said this stuff before; more times than I care to count. The fact is, I prefer to take my time — even if it’s long-distance. That and at least I won’t have to deal with New England Queerfolk that I’ve had horrible experience with since I moved away from the area back in 1993. Not unless there’s someone — anyone — around here that doesn’t come off completely unstable and is capable of expressing themselves.

Well, I need to run for the time being. Until the next time.

One Step Forward, One Step Back

Entry 04/12/2014 01:08:01 PM – Mentat 695

I swear to god sometimes when it comes to programs, it sometimes feels like for every step forward some software programmers take, they also seem to take a step back. Take Steam for example. They try to make their gaming platform/software environment stable and then all of a sudden, one of the latest patches will cause my PC to want to un-mount the 2 TB monstrosity I use for storing my games on it. No explanation whatsoever, no warning, nothing… Close Steam and suddenly I lose access to the gaming drive. It’s not consistent about it either. I’ll go for weeks and reboots at a time with the drive and the Steam Client behaving perfectly normal (and acceptable), and then there’s this string of client closes that cause the S: and T: (the added drives that use the SATA 6 connection) to just disconnect without notification. Sure, I can do a quick reboot and everything’s all right, but the thing is — it should behave without issue. This wonderful quirk of course, screwed with Warframe (which inhabits the same drive as the Steam Client), causing the update to fail repeatedly. After an uninstall and reinstall of Warframe and it’s back up to working. But not without not following the installation instruction set it’s given causing the game to load locally on the boot drive. Given it’s not that big a game (at about 5 GiB), it’s 5 GiB I don’t want on the root partition. And during this entry, I got it changed out without issue back to the original drive.

Then there’s the new version of Skype. Sure it fixes various problems with the program (problems I’ve never really experienced), but since 6.10 it’s been forcing advertisements to show up in chat windows and during video call/conferences. All right, I’m annoyed with that and try to find a work-around to make the advertisements disappear (like they used to show up in AOL, Yahoo when I used to use it and MSN Messenger). Turns out that Microsoft being the pernicious gits they are changed the way advertisements show up in the windows between version 6.10 and the newest 6.14. All right again, I found the fix for that — namely the adding of the hostnames to the HOSTS file — but now whenever I enter a video conference with a friend in 10 seconds Skype freezes/locks up and stops responding. Tried an uninstall/re-install of the newest version and the issue remains. Hell, the only way to get the camera to work again is to reseat the USB for the camera. Checked to see if it were a power problem with the motherboard/USB/Power Supply and it turns out I can leave the motion capture software supplied by Logitech up for hours. I can even leave Skype open on the options window and the Webcam continues to work without lockups. But the instant I go into a conference with a friend, 10 – 15 seconds it locks up. So for the time being, I’m going to keep to the older version (prior to the spam advertising) as the camera continues to work without lock-ups or freezing.

Moe is being… Well, persnickety. I noticed that he hadn’t been drinking all that much of his water and seems to be hellbent on drinking the water from the bath tub tap. While there is a leak if I don’t close the faucets properly, I suspect that it’s still not enough water for him to get through the day. Particularly given that he hasn’t had wet food in some time. And the last thing I need is for him to come down with a UTI. Tiger got those a few times in his life and that’s both money and vet trips that I can’t afford at the present time. So after quite a bit of experimenting, I think I found the solution. The food needs to be on one side of the room (near the stove), the water the other (near the bathroom) and the litter has to be near to the cupboard in the kitchen in order for him to drink from the water bowl more and from the faucets less. Oh he’ll still take a moment or two to drink from a faucet — like the kitchen or bathroom sink if I’m around it — and even sometimes drinking from the bath tub faucet when he thinks I’m not looking… But at least he’s drinking again and things seem to be back to normal there.

More along the lines of “normal” has to be the fact that after several weeks of staggered sleep patterns, I’m finally returning to a more normal pattern of 6 – 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. Well, until last night which was entirely my fault. I became overwhelmingly tired around 8 PM and ended up sleeping until almost 11:30 PM. So I stayed up for a couple of hours because of that — piddling about watching a show or two (namely The Listener) as well as playing some easy games until I got tired enough to pass out once again. So I got 7 hours of sleep last night, even if it wasn’t in one sitting.

I also had a low point during the week when I had a sort of “relapse” of rage as I was heading down to the supermarket to try my hand out at another slow-cooker recipe. Seems that when I get closer to the old address in the Valley as it’s across the street from the supermarket, the more I have these visions of wanting to inflict any number of aggravated violences against the two douche-nozzles at the apartment (landlord and that thing). The last couple of times I’ve been able to convince myself to simply let go and go forward and that’s usually a calming enough effect to drive it out of my head. The last time however, I went full tilt to the point where the rage had been almost overwhelming. The kind of overwhelming where I wanted to seek either of them out and slap the living shit out of them. Sure, I realized that I had taken a step in the wrong direction and that I was able to calm down enough to move forward from it — it was still more than a surprise that I allowed myself to sink low enough to that level again. Perhaps it’s because of this (and my bout of hypochondria) which had caused me not to sleep as well as I could have.

Then the real fun that came afterwards when I got home with the ingredients for the Sausage and Bean Stew… There I am, chopping up the onion when what does my cat do? Scare the piss out of me by jumping up onto the table from my blind spot. Jumped out of my seat and ended up gashing myself with the knife. I had flashbacks to the time I cut my finger on some broken tile back in the basement of the house in the Valley. Bled like a stuck pig then and again when I was chopping the onion. I sliced myself again when trying to move the chopping board and knife to the sink. While it wasn’t enough for stitches, I did bleed enough through the afternoon while I waited for the bigger of the two gashes to coagulate. At least I didn’t bleed all over the driveway and backyard like I did last winter.

[Last Edited: 04/14/2014 10:57:15 AM]

All right I spoke too soon. Sure I got a couple of nights of “normal” sleep, but that didn’t last as long as I was hoping. As I said earlier in the journal I passed out too soon. The night before, I didn’t actually fall asleep until after 2:30 AM. Then I woke up around 5:30; passed out again at 7:30 and woke up again on 9:30. I didn’t do all that much through the day (it was after all, Sunday); passed out again at 2:30, woke up again at 4:15 and now as the evening winds down, I’m feeling worn out and drag-ass. I should go to bed about this time, but knowing me if I did that, I would end up being wide awake at 2 in the morning. Then last night, I ended up going to bed at a semi normal time (almost 11 PM) work up about 3 hours later and couldn’t get back to sleep until almost 5 AM, mainly because I had heartburn from the ribs I had for supper that night. Sure, I ended up getting 6 hours of sleep, but it wasn’t all at once. Because of this scattered and uneven sleep patterns, I’m finding it extremely hard to focus on anything longer than 20 minutes. It also makes me extremely emotional and my sugar seems to be all over the place.

I’m really not at all sure what is causing this wacky sleep patterns (and subsequent lack of focus). It might be the weather as it’s suddenly changed from frigidly cold to spring-like warm. That and the humidity seems higher than usual: 60+% at least for the moment. But I’m not entirely sure. In either event, it’s annoying and working my health and nerves.

Not too much else at the moment. I need to get ready to walk the dog. Then make something for lunch. Until the next time.

The Slow Road… And distractions and petty annoyances

Entry 03/29/2014 11:34:07 AM – Mentat 692

Coffee? Check.

Grocery Shopping? Long since done.

Cleaning? Well, sort of. It’s clean but not a spring cleaning. Then again I still want it warmer.

I’m mostly accomplished, although the cleaning I keep wanting to push off. Not surprising really as I want full sunshine (not this mostly overcast nonsense), and it to be warm enough to having all the windows open. Sure, I have a couple of windows open right now, but it’s not the sort of spring-time warmth I want. Plus there’s threats of rain today which means the windows might not be left open for much longer. My sleep’s been rather clapped out the last week or so… Partially because of the fact that I’m dreaming vividly and surrealistically since moving back to the Hill (and away from the oppression and anger) I experienced in the Valley the last 2+ years. Partially because well, it’s that sort of meh kind of weather where it’s not too cold yet not too warm that it’s causing my sinuses to feel especially blocked. At least last night, I got about 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep before I woke up just prior to dawn, and then took advantage of a 90-minute nap before getting up again. I’m not too sure whether I like what I’ve read of those cycles. On the one side, I feel really energized after that nap. On the other, it takes a full 20 minutes to kick start my brain (and body) before feeling better. And lord knows, I despise feeling that drag-ass when I get up. I might try those a bit more in days to come; because I like the sort of focus I’m feeling after one of these naps — and was even mildly impressed with the fact that I was doing math in my head before the morning coffee. (As I said on the way to the market… “what can I say? I’m lazy with math. After all, that’s what my phone or computer are for…”)

Through the week, I was sort of prodded by mother and aunt about when I was going to go to call up my health care provider and make arrangements for seeing a Psychologist/Psychiatrist. I told the two of them through the course of the years (and after my parent’s divorce), I’ve seen about four (two of which were social workers). In the 4 months of seeing them, I’ve encountered very similar methods between the four: basically shelling out about $80 a week for them to just sit there and listen to me. When I asked each of them near the end of the sessions, they all said pretty much the same thing, “we didn’t see the need to guide you through this, as you had a very good idea on what you wanted to deal with…” Basically told me that I was healing myself and they didn’t need to do anything more than listen.

So I said to both of them, “what’s the need for seeing a shrink, for $1,200+ if all they’re going to do is listen?” After all, I’ve been working on a journal since I was 17 and posting it online for the world to see since 1999. Which accomplishes the exact same thing as having an impartial listener(s) for free. Because when it comes down to it — getting over the anger and rage that I have is going to be a long and slow process — regardless of listeners (paid and unpaid).

I assured them both though, I will eventually go see one. Providing of course, I avoid the pitfall of finding a psychologist/psychiatrist that feels the need to prescribe pills for problems (a solution I despise of most doctors in the medical field), and I understand fully what it is that I need help on.

I’m beginning to see that Moe and my mother’s dog Jack seem to share the same wavelength. They both seem to go crazy about the same time of the day (and even week)… They both disobey for the same reasons (and of course on the same day). They even seem to get more needy (or independent) at about the same time too. They even tend to binge and starve around the same time with their own food (although Jack tends to eat more table scraps than Moe; who eats none really). At least the good thing that comes out of this is that I can be prepared for it when I walk Jack in the morning or afternoon when he’s out on his leash and patrolling his neck of the neighborhood…. Because believe me… having an almost 100 pound chocolate lab that lunges at people to lick them, or attack rival dogs can be quite a pull for anyone not prepared. And I’ve been yanked off my feet by his pulling on a number of occasions.

While I haven’t been driven enough to write that short story I’ve hinted at in the last journal entries, on the bright side my dream states have been more mundane. Well by mundane I mean not something that would make Lovecraft or Poe or (Clive) Barker proud. Though there have been a couple of those sort of dreams going on peppered through my nighttime sleep. Heck, I’ve even had a sexually charged dream once or twice (alright six times) in the last couple of weeks. The good thing is that they weren’t so much the, “oh my god, really!? Not again!?” sort of dreams, but instead more the, “well that was definitely entertaining and amusing.” Can’t remember any of them for the last week — other than this morning’s — but that one was only because I’ve been visiting the rage and impatience for the two douche nozzles while explaining to my mother and aunt the three no’s when it comes to truly causing me rage (e.g., Theft, Pathological Lies, and Using people). At least when I woke up, I wasn’t angry, but simply wondering whether this dream was representative of the impending cleaning storm I have to do for this apartment.

On the good side, I’ve finally worked Free-to-Play for Rift to buy the Storm Legion Souls. I got them this morning before flying out the door to do my monthly groceries. I haven’t tried them out, but the good thing is that they’re there when I’m ready to come back and play.. Especially given that I have 4 character slots on this particular server (shard) as I’m thinking of trying one of each class. On the bad side, I’ve burned through another guild. And this is that story…

I have been in search of a new guild for some time now since leaving the first a couple of months back (because of personal issues with one player). So I warn them in advance that I’m currently shopping for a new guild that fits a certain criteria… They allow for casual players was the biggest. Others that can make or break my staying in a guild/fleet/group is friendliness to new players (as well as regulars), and the rest would be negotiable. So as a low level character I joined another guild warning them that I was shopping and that I had an end-game toon that might join depending on the feel.

At first they were all right with this I was playing a lower level mage at the time when I joined them, although in about a week they were pushing rather insistently for my end-game (Level 60) Rogue to join them for end game raids and seemed insistent as to whether this Rogue were of sufficient stats and gear to be able to do Expert Dungeons and Raids. While I didn’t mind the urgency for my end-level character to join their guild and assured them that there’s no locks on any sort of random (regular or expert) dungeon; they seemed to be all right, and left the nagging feeling I had on the back burner. So I joined with the rogue and they even helped with getting one stat up to their requirements for an end-game raid (Hit: 400). Granted my character was already “Raid Ready” with its Tier II PvE gear, but their standard while being higher was seemed sensible and graciously accepted the gift of a necklace to bring my Hit Stat above 400.

I remember over the last week or so that there was talk about a raid and then they set a raid for the weekend. I thought that it was going to be on Saturday, but found out last night that it was then, and insistently they wanted me to come in with my end-game character instead. Another nag, that I gave in to.

I told them right off the bat that I’ve never done a raid and the last two guilds I was part of; they were both not remotely high enough in level and geared for even Expert Dungeons. I explained that I can do rather well taking orders as well as having it explained to me any quirks of the scenario that we would be going into. The person that I was chatting with from the guild at the time seemed uninterested with this piece of information and continued to insist (too much) that I should be a bard (a support/healer role).

I told him several times in voice chat and in type that I haven’t worked with the class and it would take weeks before I would be up to mastering that role for the character.

He continued to seem to insist this in spite of my telling him that I was a more than adequate Area-of-Effect Damage Dealer, and an average Single-Target Damage Dealer that I should be/they needed a Bard.

Mildly annoyed, I ignored him after that until the raid started.

In the raid I told them once again I don’t do well being thrown into the deep end of an unknown mission and that as a virgin if they tell me what to expect, I’ll do better at keeping up with the group. The Raid leader (and officer for the guild) agreed he’d keep the new people in the loop during the mission. And no, I wasn’t the only new person for this guild-raid.

Of course, he didn’t tell the new people anything to expect. Which were the mobs, who was the boss and what kind of quirks the boss can throw at the group. He didn’t tell us how treasure was doled out (not the typical raid/dungeon of Need or Greed), how one conducts themselves in voice-chat/typing chat when it’s a mixed Guild/PUG group.

On one instance, I learned after the fact, and didn’t set my character role properly for maximum damage. I didn’t realize I had to “/roll” instead of the usual need/greed popup box (and because of it didn’t get any of the end boss loot). On the other, I completely botched the boss fight and we all died. When it was criticized that my DPS was under 3,000, I typed out I couldn’t find my rhythm with this boss (which was why my DPS was so low), I got chastised in voice-chat that I shouldn’t say that sort of thing as the PUGs could rage quit. The person that did so did it with the same level of condescension demonstrated because I couldn’t play a Bard according to his requirements.

I snapped back at the person that chastised me, that my admissions wouldn’t be so big a problem (as they were making it out to be) given that for most of the dungeon so far, I was ranked #2 in damage dealing, exceeding several veterans by significant points in the process.

The second time through the boss that we failed with, it turned out that the two people that were new to the raid did in fact survive and beat the boss (and the rest had died horribly), but by that point I was fed up with the guild and the raid on the whole and left. Both to cool off as well as play a game I was sure to do well with (Warframe).

I talked a bit with Glenn after that souring experience and realized that this was much like getting a new job and on the first day of starting it, the manager shows you the desk, computer and phone you’ll be working from and as the manager walks away says, “good luck with your job…” No training, no what to expect, not even basic explanations of what to expect — other than perhaps the feeling I was last choice for the position because: …I wasn’t a Bard…

So this morning, another “not a good fit” e-mail to the officer that recruited me, monies paid for the necklace given and off to the wilds to being a free-agent after a good nap and a couple of cups of coffee…

And that folk, is another example of the bad side of gaming. I think I’ll end it here for the time being. I spend too much time a distraction than the actual issues. I’ll be back another time and try again. Until the next time.

Entry 08/03/2011 10:30:29 PM – Mentat 617

“The world is round; it has no point.” – Adrienne E. Gusoff

Needless to say that it’s been a fun couple of weeks since I’ve last sat down to write. I was able to work out getting a replacement mobile phone for the one that I broke, and so far it’s survived longer than the first one (by a couple of weeks). Was also able to get the screen protector on without any problem whatsoever, and now I don’t mind it so much when I get oily fingerprints all over the screen because they’re easy enough to wipe off with a lint-free cloth. So I can be as ham-handed about it as I want without worrying about it getting dirty — which was probably the reason why I was being so cautious and careful that caused me to drop the phone in the first place. Was even able to work out a slight glitch in getting the SD card recognized on the PC. Then we had a power fluctuation in the house early in the morning between the last entry and this one, causing the power supply to die a terrible and horrible death (read: didn’t come back online with enough power for the video card).

New power supply in place (one with about 300 watts more power than the previous and putting it at a humble 1100 watts) and Frankenstein’s beast is back online. However, it turns out one of the front intake fans refuses to power up for reasons I’m not entirely sure. While it’s only one fan out of six, it’s still enough for me to be only slightly concerned with the cooling within the box particularly given the heat wave we’ve just come out from. At the moment, the temperatures around the Tundras of New England are more than a little comfortable — but as this is August (and technically the hottest time of the year) — I’m sure we have a couple of more days this month for the scorching hot (near 100 F/40 C) temps to strike some more.

*sighs* Still though, if it’s not one thing, it’s another…

Other than that — it’s relatively quiet here at the moment. My aunt and uncle are getting ready for a trip to Florida in a couple of weeks, for a couple of weeks, which means I’ll be watching their pets along with making sure things go along smoothly while they’re gone. It’s going to be pretty interesting to hear back from them given that Florida at this time of year is infinitely worse than here — and they’ve been practically melting (and bitching about it) the instant the temperature gets above 85 F (29.4 C).

I’ve been feeling pretty good since I’ve gotten the bike back and doing 20 km a day riding. Heh, some days I’m so covered in sweat, people think I got caught in a downpour along the way, though the good thing is that I haven’t had any sort of charley horses, and whatever swelling I had of the feet and ankles quickly goes down with so much as a 20 minute walk (1 mile/1.6 km). Good thing too — because while it’s not in the least bit painful, the fourth generation hypochondriac that I can be ends up thinking horrible things are going on — from elephantiasis (as I’ve said before) to kidney failure, to some of the nastier heart conditions/heart disease that can be found on the medical related websites.

I know, I know… leave the diagnoses to medical professionals if there’s a problem, and as a fourth generation hypochondriac to steer well clear of such sites. It’s just that sometimes in the morning, while I’m still waking up and sort of in a curious frame of mind, I end up finding information that seems to relate to my symptoms, and even though I’ve read it and realize that it’s not going to happen here — like the elephantiasis (which occurs in tropical areas) — my brains think that there’s always a possibility of it happening here. And that’s when I become my own worst nightmare and start worrying. At least for about 30 or so minutes before I drive it all out of my head and go about my business as usual. At least the good thing is that such silly worrying doesn’t seem to invade into my unconscious and I end up dreaming about some dreaded virus or some such happening…

…No! Of course not! What ends up in my head is working/quitting and re-hiring at my last job almost a year later. Yeah, that’s the dream that I had last night. One that was so annoying and disorientating, when I woke up at 6 in the morning to Cricket’s parading up and down my pillow because she was hungry was that I wasn’t sure whether it was all a dream or whether there were parts of reality to it with me going back to work there. Yeah, that one was definitely fun. Took me two minutes longer than I wanted to spend thinking about it this morning and realizing that my going back to work there for some months and then quitting again was a recurring theme of my dreams whenever I dream of the job.

Although sitting here and thinking about that dream again, I realize that I had another dream that followed it that was even more demented than the whole working/quitting recurring theme that I had. No, the next dream that tied in had nothing to do with the usual aliens invading earth motif that I typically have. And no, it wasn’t post war nuclear holocaust either. All I can remember as I’m sitting here writing this is that it was… weird in a very entertaining sort of way. Oh well… I might be able to remember it another time; right now though it’s lost to the back recesses of my brain waiting to jump out when I least expect it.

Speaking of, I was thinking about that during my ride through Smithfield. In about 2 weeks, I’ll have celebrated my first anniversary of leaving that job and loafing as I have during that time. Funny how even after a year of ups and downs and some of the trials and tribulations that I’ve gone through, I still find myself torn as to my decision on it. It’s not as bad now as it was last year — though it’s enough to still pull at me sometimes and leave me wondering whether I did the right thing or not. While my sanity is certainly better for it — it’s just one of those sort of things that I sometimes wonder whether this was a challenge I should have learned from instead of bailing out before I completely lost my temper. *shrugs* At this point it’s neither here nor there as it’s not something that can be readily rectified

Cricket’s hating the heat at about this point. If she hasn’t been growling and hissing at me when I’ve checked for life and gave her a quick pet, she’s been so sprawled out and lacking such energy during the day when the temperatures get up above 80. Her appetite’s slacked off a little because of it, though I did press her a bit into continuing to eat the three cans of wet food a day and whatever dry she’s in the mood for. Right now she’s off on the bed, sprawled out again and completely passed out after finishing off her third can of food for the day.

When it cools off though Cricket shows a lot more life. I think that the field mouse my aunt’s caught hints of has been making its way into my part of the house, which might explain why Cricket’s been in some of the more obscure parts of the apartment staring at things for hours at a time. When I go to investigate, Cricket seems to try to poke into things — particularly when I come with a flashlight. Though neither she nor I have found any trace of the field mouse, making me think that she’s getting demented in her old age and chasing after shadows more than anything.

As a precaution I’ve laid out a couple of humane traps to see if I can’t catch it, but so far the traps have been left un-sprung leaving me think that it’s only in my aunt’s part of the house and not mine.

That’s about it for the time being. Off to watch the continuing sweeping melodramatic soap opera — The Great Queen SeonDeok that Hulu has had available. Sixty-two, just over an hour long episodes that’s a sort of historic story about the first Queen of the Silla Empire. Pretty damned good too, even if it’s been terribly predictable at some points. Not to mention the villain of the story is someone I can just love to hate – Misil. Something I would strongly recommend to people if they’re interested in period pieces.

Until the next time.

Entry 03/20/2011 02:39:24 PM – Mentat 606

“Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.” – Oscar Wilde

Sunday here in the Tundras of New England, and at the moment I’m rather annoyed by the fact that on Thursday we had this wonderful teaser of pleasant spring-like weather that had reached the more than comfortable temperature of 70 F (21 C). I had the windows open and enjoying the warmer than usual breeze coming into the house (while also listening to the workers across the street changing out the siding o the house). Even the Hellbeast enjoyed being able to lay under the window and get a bit of heat from the passing sun before I had to close the windows when the temperatures dropped back to chilly. Now as I’m sitting here, temperatures outside are below freezing once again, and the cat’s looking toward me as a sort of portable furnace as she’s not happy to being cold. Particularly sad really given that today is supposed to be the First Day of spring, and impending weather reports through the week indicate that we’re expecting snow showers for two out of the next seven days.

“Don’t worry it’ll change soon enough,” friends and family say.

Definitely not soon enough for the likes of me. I want it to be a bit warmer now so that I can make sure my bike’s properly tuned up for the coming spring through autumn months of riding experience. It’s a bit too cold to be taking a quick spin on the bike when the temperatures are below freezing and the last thing I want is frostbite on my face.

Much earlier in the week as I was sitting here chatting with friends online, my aunt had stopped in and asked me whether I was doing anything and whether I had time to take a look at our neighbor (and distant cousin’s) computer as she was having some sort of computer woes on it.

Thinking that it was probably something minor, I responded in the positive, locked my computer and trudged on over.

What I was met with is the sort of amateur logic that only comes from people that think that when tech supports says, “unplug everything”, they mean everything.

The power strip was unplugged from the wall. The coaxial from both the cable modem and the wall outlet where it had come in and even the CAT-5 from the PC and Cable Modem.

Sighing to myself, I asked what the problem was.

My neighbor tells me that the computer just started acting funny and after calling Cox, they were told to unplug everything.

Well all right, can we get everything plugged back in so that I can look at the problem?

My neighbor got the power plugged back in while I had plugged the rest of the equipment, and after it had booted up and got past the welcome screen saw all too keenly what the problem was.

Ransomware. A piece of Ransomware that I haven’t seen in a couple of years: Total Security 2009 and it working rather well (at being completely bogus and annoying) on a Vista Machine.

So, booting up into Safe Mode, I was able to load in Spybot S&D and with AutoRuns also installed, I was able to find the source of the malware’s loading up (in the HKCU Run area, of course), delete it and remove the malware from the ..\ProgramData area of their machine.

All in all, it took me about half-hour to clean up their machine and as a precaution for the next two (hours), while the anti-virus chugged along, explained the dos and don’ts of malware and the ilk. Along with a healthy explanation of what to do and what not to do when calling tech support and they tell you “unplug everything”.

Following are some of the things that I had covered with them.

• Always be mindful of your surroundings. Yes, just like how our parents try to teach this to us when we’re younger so that we can avoid harm, the same can be applied to the Internet on the whole. Stick to familiar places, look for such things as locked padlocks in your Web browser (which indicate a valid SSL/TLS certificate, and a site that could be considered “safe”*). Even use the mouse-over function of the browser), not to mention many e-mail clients to see what the link is to see where it’s going. If you don’t recognize it, don’t click it.
• Have a modest array of protection software. Face it, no one product is the be-all and end-all of anti-virus/anti-malware catching. My advice is, choose one Anti-Virus Solution (AV-Comparatives is a good place to start to see how well one’s current AV solution is, and/or whether one should consider upgrading when shopping around), and maybe one or two different anti-malware/anti-spyware solutions to run occasional and routine scans. Be mindful of running anti-malware solutions along with AV Solutions in the background, as some do not always play nicely with others. On my particular system I run NOD32 (always active) with Windows Defender set to weekly scan and Spybot S&D once in a while for scans/check-ups, and HOSTS update as catch-all solution for sites on the questionable list. For those without experience with such solutions or not very mindful their surroundings, I tend to suggest one of the various flavors from WebRoot. It’s all dependent on how much the person is willing to invest, and how much learning the person is willing to do.
• Even with solutions in place, the weakest link to system protection is the end-user. As the Greek once said, “ρῇρά ṯοί μαθήσίος ἀρχά” (Experience is the beginning of knowledge, and also known by the idiom “experience is the father/mother of wisdom). There are plenty of e-mail newsletters, news sites, blogs to subscribe to and twitter accounts to follow that cover a wide assortment of news and information about malware (and how to remove them if the solution(s) chosen can’t), viruses in the wild, sites to avoid and various sorts of methods (and solutions) for getting around code injections that can cause a computer to become infected with malware, ransomware and viruses. Such sources of information can be (and often are) geared from the novice/acolyte to the expert/technomage of all things Personal Computer. Don’t be afraid of asking questions and getting involved in the forums, they’ll point you to other resources as well. Finally,
• When you get an IT Professional involved in fixing the problem, be as truthful as possible. At this point, the damage is done. You went somewhere you weren’t supposed to go, you clicked on something you weren’t supposed to, or you even downloaded something that the Anti-virus didn’t catch, installed it. So, the last thing you should be doing is sitting there with the IT Professional who’s turned on the computer and is asking what you did, is saying “I didn’t do anything…” or “…it just happened.” Tell them as best you can where you were, what you clicked on, or what you downloaded. As a gay man that’s been out of the closet for 31 years and been working in the IT industry for more than 21 years, I can tell you that there is very little that will surprise me in what people find and see in their journeys online. And I know from experience dealing with folk that work with computers and within the IT industry, they know as much about what and where as I do. If you need to be discrete, I understand, but don’t cover it up with “I didn’t do anything… it just happened.” We want to be out as quickly as possible, and if you explain what happened, will speed up the process of getting your system up and online all that much quicker.

[Last Edited: 03/21/2011 11:34:12 AM]

Heh, it would seem that I had forgotten I was working on this entry.

I had decided on taking a break from it as Glenn wanted to listen to Orson Welles’ radio play of War of the Worlds which could be picked up at Mercury Theater and after that ended up finding myself knee deep in the usual drama that only chat can provide. And by the time I went to bed and woke up this morning (to fold the laundry I didn’t fold yesterday), remember that this was being worked on.

Moving on now.

Quite a bit of news from the Apple Front since the last time I sat down and wrote a journal entry. iOS 4.3 for the iPad Touch, iPad and iPhone had been released thanks largely to the release of the iPad2. Seems that all the various news sources were chugging along rather nicely with the advent of the iPad2 and just how much more wonderful things were now that it had been released when low to my wondrous eyes a snag seems to have hit one of the arms of Apple’s commercial hydra. It seems that with the newest operating system, certain iPod Touch displays have been showing pixilation and display degradation along with power consumption problems as reported here. So far, I’ve been fortunate with the upgrade. I have yet to see the pixel/display degradation that has been shown at the various news/tech outlets and with the exclusion of the DI.FM applet that I use to listen to various trance channels that they have offered, power consumption has been as expected.

However, for those that might have experienced either, following are the instructions that I’ve come across in order for those in Windows machines wanting to roll back to the previous version to see if that will fix the problem.

Well that’s about it for the time being. I’m off to rant about the latest episode of Fringe with fellow Usenetters. Until the next time.