Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

Last night I got the XFree86 4.0.1 up and running. In fact I’m typing this from my sweet KDE environemnt now. What a pain that was. Well, the graphics are working and I am happy. I d/led the Quake 3 demo for linux, since it would have a simple install rather than hacking the files from my Windows Q3A CD. Would the OpenGL driver work? Hell yeah!

Within seconds I was fragging away under Linux. Soon enough I’ll run the benchmarks to compare the two operating systems.

My problem now is that sndconfig doesn’t recognize my Diamond S100 sound card. Yeah, yeah, I should have bought a Souundblaster ’cause of good driver, yadda, yadda, yadda. Shut up! Now I need to figure out how to install and load the ALSA drivers for my card. I read the docs and they have scary words like make install. What’s an RPM freak like me to do?

Last night, the kids were at my parent’s and I took my wife out for dinner. She wanted to get sushi. That’s fine by me, I usually get tonkatsu at Japanese restaurants. I’ve never been attracted to sushi and had never tried it.

The place we went is called A Float Sushi. You sit a typical sushi bar, and there is a water trough running all the way around the bar. In the trough is a chain of wooden boats, each with small plates of sushi on it. As you see somethign you like, you grab the little plate off the boat. My wife loves this idea. My theory is that A Float captures a women’s two favorite things in one, she can eat AND shop at the same time.

Well for some reason I felt brave and decided to try sushi for the first time ever. I grabbed a plate of some bright red fish. Michele said it was tuna. I steeled myself for the first bite. I imagined that the texture would be similar to raw beef or chicken. Amazingly, it was completely different than anythign I would have expected. The texture was smooth and almost creamy. I ended up eating two plates of tune before we left. Now I can’t say I crave the stuff, but I don’t fear eating sushi anymore. I can see how once you are past the ‘yuck, raw fish!’ stage you can find the ones you like. For those that haven’t tried sushi, it’s not what you think. I’mnot saing it’s great, but it’s something you won’t expect.

First, go watch this movie. That was me circa 1984. Hilarious stuff.

I wrote a new Ultima tale tonight.

Here’s a tip for all you wannabe linux weenies out there. When doing a fresh install, take the time to check if your video card is supported. I repartioned my drive to install mandrak Linux on my box. Went smooth until the X configuration. Bomb. Try again. Bomb. After beating my head against the wall for the entire morning, I finally read the readme.txt. Well, it seems that my super sweet GeForce 2 GTS ain’t supported too well just yet. It seems that besides needing XFree86 4, I need the custom drivers from nVidia as well.

Unfortunately, the Mandrake install loaded XFree86 3 instead of 4. So now I am tasked with upgrading to 4 from the command line. To top it off, you can’t RPM from XFree 3 to 4. I fear that it might involved *gasp* compiling a new kernel. Wish me luck.

Well, since my wife doesn’t read this page I’ll write about her here. My wife drives way too fast. She cranks up the music on the Rio and blazes down the highway. Today she was on her way down to visit her friend Jenny when she got pulled over for doing 80. Bwah-ha-ha!

Looks like it’s internet traffic school for her. Best of all, after traffic school, she’ll have to be on her best behavior for 18 months. I will enjoy ribbing her endlessly about this.

Now if only I could convince a certain cousin that driving at 140 on the interstate is also not a smart idea.

Yeah, I know no updates for a bit.

First, go read crookdimwit.com

Next, last two boxes of DOTS. Box 1: 7 cherry, 2 lemon, 1 lime, 4 orange, 4 strawberry. Box 2: 5 cherry, 5 lemon, 1 lime, 5 orange, 2 strawberry. Cherry continues to dominate. Lime gets the shaft.

Lastly, this place is funny.

1) Eating corn on the cob while talking on the phone.
2) Not putting up your webpage when you say you would.

Well I’m in beautiful Cincinnati this week. Visiting my in-laws and helping to watch the kids while Michele is at the Quilting show.

I went to a drug store today to pick up couch medicine for Mira. I spied a lovely box of DOTS there. A big 7 ounce box of DOTS. Picture coming soon as I get a chance to d/l the image off the Coolpix. Of course, you are asking the same question I did, “Is the flavor ratio the same as in the little boxes?”

Here’s the stats:
Cherry – 18
Lemon – 10
Lime – 5
Orange – 14
Strawberry – 10
Total – 57

A little different from the regular alphabetical order we’ve seen in the small boxes. Cherry still comes out way ahead, but what’s with there only being 5 limes in the whole box? I think a letter to DOTS will be in order soon.

Message to James & Ethan: Meteor Crater – Diamonds – Stuckeys

Supposedly on Monday my brother’s new site CrookDimwit.com goes live. Go and read. Mock him endlessly if it is suxx0r. Send him righteous cash through Paypal if it roxx0rs.

Yes, I revised the HTML. I also added a link to the cruft archive.

It’s rainy here and women are still wearing those stupid open toed shoes. I have determined there are huge genetic differences in te brain chemistry of men & women.

I wrote up another Ultima story. Read it here.

Thanks to invaluable help from James of the All-New trikster.com I am finally able to update the Dots Count:

Reseacher	Mike	Mike	James	James	Mike	Avg.
Date	8/21	8/22	8/23	8/28	8/29
Cherry	4	7	5	6	5	5.4
Lemon	3	1	5	4	5	3.6
Lime	5	2	4	3	3	3.4
Orange	5	6	2	1	0	2.8
Strawberry	1	2	2	3	5	2.6
Box Total	18	18	18	17	18

As you can see, for some strange reason the frequency of flavored Dots in a box is based on alphabetical order. Why is this so? I have no idea. More research is needed. If you have Dots counts, feel free to send them in.

Mexican food for lunch… food coma approaching… must go…

I was walking into work from the parking structure this morning. I take the stairs because it’s the only exercise my sorry ass gets. A women headed down the stairs just in front of me. She walks down the stairs at a snail’s pace. WTF? I normally blaze down the stairs 2 at a time.

Then I realized, she’s wearing women’s shoes. Some sort of stupid ass sandal with no back. She’s going slow because she’s afraid her shoes will fall off otherwise.

Let me say this out in the open. Women’s shoes are the result of collective mass insanity by the fairer sex. Why else would women put up with uncomfortable shoes that can fall off your feet.

Thank God I am a man.