Pidder-poddle!

On Friday night I was driving moominmolly and dilletante home from our dinner (Midwest Grill, aka "meat faucet") when I started talking about how much it once cost me to fix a shot headlight on my Beetle. Just to jinx me, I realize my passenger-side headlight is not reflecting in the bumper in front of me. Gah!

I turned on my fog lights, dropped M. & D. off and headed home. Once I got there, I realized my driver-side fog light was also dead. I was pididder and pidoddle, or pidder-poddle. Bucktooth vampire! (I have a full nomenclature for headlight death available upon request.) I also knew that my other headlight would die in about 24 hours because VW decided to wire the headlights in series and the overload kills the other headlight (at least that was my experience three years ago). I had to act quickly.

I grabbed a list of VW service shops open on Saturdays, set the alarm for 8 am, and sprang to action the next morning. The only place with time for me was the dealership in Manchester, NH. That's right, I drove my route to work on a day off. It was worth it -- much lower price than a certain evil böse evil dealership in Tewksbury, amazingly friendly staff, good reading material in the lounge. Then I went shopping at the computer fair.

I now have the net parts needed to build a total of three or four dual-processor computers. I do not need that many single-processor boxes but I still have all of it. I will soon be able to conduct some experiments about efficiency, throughput, compile time and overclocking constraints between a dual Celeron 400 box overclocked to 600 (or maybe dual 366 chips) and a dual P3 933 box. Either of these boxes would be eclipsed by my Athlon 2800 (I think) but that doesn't matter. I want to see which of these low-power solutions solves home server issues more effectively.

That project, however, is not my top priority: it's actually sitting at third place or so. The penult is getting the old VA Linux 2200 running Centos (with a freshly compiled kernel) and tying it to a UPS I got wicked cheap. This will allow the noisy but fast beast to serve the iOpeners that will fuel web service for folks at Arisia. This is a project I'm working on with hakamadare which will give me some extra sysadmin experience. Yay!

What, you may ask, is my top priority? Cleaning my apartment.

I've got a lot more giant objects than usual. There is a 17" monitor complete with its shipping box sitting on my living room rug. This is much more cumbersome than, say, a coffee table. Seeing it in the room sends me into anxiety mode because I don't know where it belongs, who in the future will need it, blah blah. Then again, I just remembered that I have plenty of storage space in the basement locker so I could use that for now. This is like the Polish block game where you have to move blocks of various lengths around a room in a certain number of moves. Actually, the web site for Klotski it's based on a French game but I've known it as Klotski ('block') since 1994. Moving the monitor downstairs for a couple weeks is like taking the four-square red block away.

I'll have all sorts of surface area upon which to work once I've cleaned or redistributed. Wish me luck with that. I'd tell you more, but I'm avoiding the adventure by talking about it. How Unitarian of me. Life is coming back together, making sense, having purpose. That's what matters.

-shuffle turn step no taps back, Dante

Scaaaaaaary cuppa

This is an update on today's cleaning.

I took a shower, washed the dishes (a major labor, since it involved washing glass bottles and sorting recycling), tossed some of the scarier garbage and hauled the monitor box (with monitor) down to my basement locker. I was starting to sort laundry when I was already tempted to get somber and pass out in front of NPR. I decided the choice of cereal for breakfast was a rotten one (too many simple carbs, not enough slow-burn protein). I needed coffee.

I decided to get hardcore with what was left of the beans in the cupboard. I ground them into powder and tossed them into my French press. Then I stirred the hunk after five minutes of steeping and pressed the mess.

When I poured it into my big mug, it was almost black. I added 2% milk; it stayed black. I poured more milk. The blackish foam at the top of the mug turned light brown. It looked like an older permutation of Dennis Rodman's hair.

I've only had two sips so far, but it's already kicking in. Don't mind me if I turn into a...

-blur, Dante

P.S.: Update to the update

I was able to get laudry running before the coffee energy crashed. Damn fast burn again. I need a hearty meal. I may have to put on my ripped jeans and get some groceries. I could whip up something that'll lead to a slow digestion without creating sluggishness. Then i won't be staring at the office and saying to myself "there's too much to sort here."

I have my iPod in my pocket as I run from the living room to the basement. I've got laundry clothing on -- tan long-sleeve that says "I'm on it." on the front, matching shorts, sandals. I look like SubGenius Ninja, ready to hand out waves of slack to unsuspecting victims of Jehovah-1. I myself cannot slack until my Fortress of Slackitude and Electronics is in tune with the invisible choir of it own slack.

music now: Beatles - "Tomorrow Never Knows"