>Overheard from one crazy-haired viewer:
“If Aisleyne beats Glynn there is something seriously wrong with the British public and I’m never watching Big Brother again!!!”
One can but dream…
–Updated Later–
Aisleyne was evicted third. Now time to endure the vomit-inducing love parade for Pete. *Yawns*
>I have been toying with a new Linux distribution tonight and I have to say, it has blown my mind!
How could this be Mr. Mac? I thought you were devoted to Ubuntu and thought that it was the best thing since sliced bread?
Yes that’s true but tonight I inserted yet another Live CD into my PC and booted into PCLinuxOS. What a great distribution. With the entire operating system running from one little old CD ROM, I have a completely capable PC running as stable as any Linux distro I’ve tried (and believe me, I’ve tried a lot of ‘em!).
Full network functionality including browsing all the other PCs on our home network, video and sound playback (no DVD playback without installing the appropriate library – it tells you how when you install it.), full internet capability, an office suite and it even detected the printer and scanner on the first go.
Here is a screenshot for you to see what it looks like.
It is bloody great!!! Although, in the screen shot, you can’t actually see that I was watching a video streamed from Patrick’s PC onto mine.
Give it a try and see for yourself. Make sure that you get the one optimised for your graphics card too. There is a version for Nvidia cards, ATI cards and also a plain-jane version that will work with all cards. With the optimised versions, you’ll get 3D acceleration out of the box which is rare with Linux. Especially if you have an ATI video card.
Mr. Mac Ease of Use / Wow Factor rating: 10 / 10
ps. This post including the screenshot was made entirely with the PCLinuxOS running on my PC – not bad huh?
> I know it is pathetic to post crappy jokes in lieu of serious and earnest blogging. ButI’m gonna do it anyway…
There is a factory in Northern Minnesota that makes the Tickle Me Elmo toys. The toy laughs when you tickle it under the arm. Here is a true story:
Lena was hired at the factory and she reported for her 1st day promptly at 8:00 a.m. The following day, at 8:45, there was a knock at the personnel manager’s door. The foreman from the assembly line threw open the door and began to rant about his new employee, Lena. He complained that she was incredibly slow and that the entire production line was behind schedule and backing up!
The personnel manager decided he should see this for himself, so the two men marched down to the factory floor. When they got there, the line was so backed up, there were Tickle Me Elmos all over the factory floor and they were really beginning to pile up at the end of the line stood Lena, surrounded by mountains of Tickle Me Elmos.
She had a roll of plush red fabric and a huge bag of small marbles. The two men watched in amazement as she cut a little piece of fabric, wrapped it around two marbles and began carefully to sew the little package between Elmo’s legs.
The personnel manager stared for a few seconds, saw what was happening, and burst into laughter. After several minutes of hysterics, he pulled himself together and approached Lena. “I’m sorry,” he said to her. Barely able to keep a straight face, he said, “I think you misunderstood the instructions given you yesterday. Your job is to give each Elmo two test tickles …”
>This man is working on the buses and collecting tickets. He rings the bell for the driver to drive off when there’s a woman still getting on the bus. The driver drives off, the woman falls from the bus and is killed.
At the trial the man is sent down for murder and seeing as it’s Texas he’s sent to the electric chair. On the day of his execution he’s sat in the chair and the executioner grants him a final wish.
“Well” says the man, “is that your packed lunch over there?”
“Yes” answers the executioner.
“Can I have that green banana?” the man asks.
The executioner gives the man his green banana and waits until he’s eaten it. When the man’s finished, the executioner flips the switch sending hundreds of thousands of volts through the man. When the smoke clears the man is still alive. The executioner can’t believe it.
“Can I go?” the man asks.
“I suppose so” says the executioner, “that’s never happened before.”
The man leaves and eventually gets his job back on the buses selling tickets. Again he rings the bell for the driver to go when people are still getting on. A man falls under the wheels and is killed. The man is sent down for murder again and sent to the electric chair. The executioner is determined to do it right this time so rigs the chair up to the electric supply for the whole of Texas. The man is again sat in the chair.
“What is your final wish?” asks the executioner.
“Can I have that green banana in your packed lunch?” says the condemned man.
The executioner sighs and reluctantly gives up his banana. The man eats the banana all up and the executioner flips the switch. Millions of volts course through the chair blacking out Texas. When the smoke clears the man is still there smiling in the chair. The executioner can’t believe it and lets the man go.
Well, would you believe, the man gets his job back on the buses. Once again he rings the bell whilst passengers are still getting on, this time killing three of them. He is sent to the electric chair again.
The executioner rigs up all the electricity in America to the chair, determined to get his man this time. The man sits down in the chair smiling.
“What’s your final wish?” asks the executioner.
“Well” says the man, “Can I have that green banana out of your packed lunch?”
The executioner hands over his banana and the man eats it all, skin included. The executioner then pulls the handle and a zillion million trillion volts go through the chair. When the smoke rises the man is still sat there alive without even a burn mark.
“I give up” says the executioner, “I don’t understand. How you can still be alive after all that?” He stroked his chin. “It’s something to do with that green banana isn’t it?” he asked.
“Nahh” said the man,”……………. I’m just a really bad conductor.”
>Some of you may be aware that Ms. Mac is in training for something. She will reveal the details in the fullness of time so I won’t blab now. As part of this, she has been swimming practically everyday. So since I am off work this week, I have joined her at the pool on Sunday and Monday.
We’ve been putting in the laps and so far, we swum 1.1km on Sunday and 1.6km yesterday. Bloody hell, I don’t remember the last time that I swam that far – probably never.
We’re off to the pool again today and then again tomorrow and…
>Just been on a site watching the Spain – Tunisia game using ASCII code in a terminal window. It is obviously ridiculous but still one of the coolest things on the internet today. It uses Telnet to “stream” the data to your computer.
Check it out here. It will take you a while to work out what it is all about, but when the “video” zooms in closer to the action, it is actually possible to see the game adequately.
_ajjaa _Q???4Qf _,...,_ ) a/]QQb .'@/~~~\@'. jQQba //~~\___/~~\\ _, .?QQ#[ _ |@\__/@@@\__/@| ]m _.7 "asLaas_a/ |@/ \@@@/ \@| , ,\J#L -!4Wba \\__/~~~\__// [aL[ \ \jmm jP '.@\___/@.' ,b#'"[ \jmmmmm _P. `"""""` a##' "4P#mmm# _ya _P !4####m ?]aa/ /' aaJ#U###m# 4QP' ' aa,/4!44! ' jf _'jQQQQyb7b / '. '.QQQQ4QQPb )? QQQ'QQP?' jg/ f _yQP']QQb aa a#W?'..QQQQ?)? ?' "##' _jQQP' .j? [ jQQ' aJ jmaaX#L??? ? am' _QjQQQ/ )QQQP? 4QQQ/
Follow the instructions on the HOW-TO link which is on the lower left-hand side of the page and everything should become as clear as crystal.
ps. It works in Windows and OS X too – it’s not confined to Linux geeketry! Instructions at the HOW-TO link.
>As many of you are aware, there is a special little lady celebrating her 23(+13) birthday today.
I am sure you will join me in wishing her a happy birthday. Presently, she is in bed reading trash mags and drinking tea. More exciting festivities to follow later.
Happy Birthday Beautiful.
Love you xxxxx
>…must work! Will report in later – have much to tell about my new hobby.
>
…The Chemical Brothers?!?!? I have rocked out to them on my iPod all the way from the bus stop this morning. My ears hurt now and I will probably be deaf even earlier than anticipated, but you’re only middle-aged once! *isn’t actually middle-aged*
Check them out at their official site. They are well worth the listen.
BTW, for any aficionados, is the sample on Surface to Air from The Modern Age by The Strokes?
>Remember the great news about the Xbox mod chip that I installed myself after our trip to France? Well that little bad boy is still running like a treat and everyone is happy with the ongoing performance of the machine.
Since I am either soft in the head or soft in the heart, I asked Ewan if he wanted a mod chip for his Gamecube. How hard could it be? He readily agreed (what else would he have said?) and I set about the task of finding out the optimum chip to buy which involves a heap of internet research and then the outlay of cash money to secure the goods. Did I tell you I bloody love shopping on the internet? Give me a credit card and a computer and I’ll have the bailiffs ’round in 72 hours to start recuperating the accumulated debts!!
Eventually we settled on the Viper GC Extreme. Easy enough to install I suppose, if you aren’t too bothered putting a soldering iron to a printed circuit board with no recourse when you fuck it up!
Here are some of the instructions…
The total instructions are limited to three pages like that with pics and very little text. The adage about a picture and some words did not apply in this case. What do you do when yours doesn’t look like the picture Miss?
The upshot is that the machine functions perfectly snd now reads games burnt onto normal size DVDs thanks to the mod chip and a new cover / case-modification (which also had to be purchased) and Ewan has expanded his game library to record levels. Oh and I took another step down the parallel paths of blindness and baldness due to the combination of very close work and stress. I don’t know why I volunteer for this sort of thing.
Stay tuned for the story of how I pulled Patrick’s PS2 apart to install his modchip…it ain’t gonna be pretty. I won’t be able to blog it until the psychiatric counselling is finished, but here is a sneak preview.
