I haven't blogged in a month. It seems that I blog the most when there is the least stuff going on. What does that tell you about my priorities? I think the truth is that I just don't want to blog about something until I have a chance to process it myself.

Since the 1.5.x branch of Firefox has been (or soon will be) end-of-lifed, I decided to upgrade to Firefox 2.0 last week, and have been running Firefox 2.0.0.4 on my Inspiron 2650 with CentOS 4, and my VMware guest at work (also CentOS 4 / i386).

Yesterday I did something that was long overdue since I moved to Arizona; I called my MasterCard issuer and negotiated my interest rate down. Way down...from 18.3% to 0% for six months, and prime plus 2.94% afterwards. I did this once before, back in 2000, right after I read the Motley Fool's book "You have more than you think" and I was trying to get prepared to get out of the Navy. That time, I negotiated a fixed rate, but for some reason, the credit card companies decided that once I moved (or maybe it was got divorced), all bets were off. I was pissed, but stupidly did nothing about it until now. In any case, now that's handled.

Yesterday, I traded my ailing Lancer in on one of these:

It's....well, awesome. 6 speed manual, 4 wheel drive, etc. My insurance cost actually went down. Weird.

Some CD's I ordered at Zia came in today. I know, I know, I'm sure someone will berate me for buying CD's, but if it's stuff I listen to a lot, I kind of feel compelled to buy it. Plus, it's pretty hard to find quite a bit of the stuff I listen to online. I picked up "Welcome to My Dream" by MC 900ft. Jesus (Adventures in Failure is a great song), the new Dollyrots album, which kicks ass, and "The Unboxed Set" by the Angry Samoans. "My Old Man's a Fatso" is a great song, and I love the earlier recorded version, where the band screws up in a few spots, and the tape machine slips on the playback a bit, giving a nice lo-fi quality to it. Lo-fi that's meant to be lo-fi typically sucks, but I love rough recordings, when it's clear that it's the best the band can do. Maybe I just like crappy bands.

While I'm thinking about it; if you're having trouble leaving comments, try taking the blogspot.com out of your profile home page. Jeremy, the fine webmaster of Kerneltrap, manually approves posting from people that list blogspot.com in their home page due to a lot of spam coming from there. Hence, if you have blogspot.com info in your profile when you post, you won't see your comment for a while, until Jeremy approves it.

Kari and I went to the cheap theater today and saw "The Astronaut Farmer." I give it two stars.....I didn't want to kill Billy Bob Thornton after I saw it (like, for instance, Pushing Tin), but it was kind of cheesy. Kudos to American cinema though; we'll never give up the happy ending, but at least American directors are finally showing characters screw stuff up a bit. (spoiler here:
e.g. Of course he flys the rocket in the end, but there are a few minutes in the movie where you really think the story will close in failure.)

Just like me to infer that I'd actually blog more often, then go on a month hiatus. Sorry, and it's not like there hasn't been stuff going on. So I guess I'll just put up a whole bunch of stuff that's been going through my head and you can sort through it.

• I've had the Men at Work Song, "It's a Mistake," going through my head the last 24 hours. Even though the song refers to Reagan's 80's, I think it's oddly appropriate today.
  

And by "that" I'm referring to Internet Exploder 7. I just uninstalled it on my work laptop after trying it out for about a month and a half, and the best thing that I can say about it is that the uninstaller actually worked. Not that IE 6 was great, but at least it worked with the Sharepoint site here in the bank, unlike IE7, which sometimes would authenticate correctly, but mostly not. I seriously don't understand why people waste their time and money on Microsoft products. I get it when people say that learning open-source stuff is difficult, and there are problem with OSS software as well. But seriously, take a look at what M$ offers. Admins get a kick in the nuts of having to do something differently with every new product (not unlike some OSS stuff), and they pay for the privilege of doing things that way. Screw that. Oh, I did I mention that even Microsoft can't get their own products to interoperate well? Jeez people....wake up and start using software that actually works.

Is fascinating. Today I learned how Suzanne Vega had a profound role in developing psychoacoustic compression technology. I think this is one of the reasons I enjoy obsolete technology; because, in every piece of gear that you own, there is a story in how it was conceived, developed, delivered, and ultimately succeeded or failed. Sometimes, even the failures are more interesting than the suceeding technology. 10 years ago, I would have never convinced myself that I was really a historian at heart, but when I look at my passions for research, they usually center on tech blunders. That's OK, because if Neil K. and I ever do start our mythical software company, I'd rather come to the table with parables on what not to do instead of repeating common mistakes.

Is it me, or is that Dr. Neil Clark Warren dude from eharmony.com just freakin' scary. Now normally, I wouldn't mention it, but eharmony has been on a TV ad spree, and spamming my inbox like crazy. So, congratulations, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, you've officially made my $hitlist.

Looking at his wikipedia entry reveals that he was a former dean of a seminary. I guess that explains his cult leader like demeanor in ads.

Might be the husband of Rachel Probert. I was flipping through my co-worker Josh's copy of Linux User magazine, reading an article about the Fish shell, when I flipped forward and caught her article (and picture) at the end of the magazine. Ok, dude, how did you find a woman that looks like that and digs Linux? My bet is that he went all Weird Science and made her! Any advice for a punk rock loving, El Camino (with flames on it) driving, Linux loving guy like me?

Another week down. Another show down. The show went well; nothing else really changed with respect to the band.

The two big news items this week are:

• I'm transitioning from contractor to full-time employee where I work (name witheld intentionally).
• One of my cats, Erica, is sick.

The work thing is pretty straightforward. I generally like where I work. It's got its share of bureaucracy and B.S., but the Navy prepared me for that in spades, and unlike the Navy, it actually pays. Not quite as well as as it did when I was a contractor, but I'll have benefits that I won't feel uneasy about using, and other perks (401K and such). It's the right move to make.

Another weekend gone. I'm "on call" this week, so I've sort of had to stay availabe (which, for the most part, meant staying at home). To that end, I finally got my house wired up. I terminated the end of the Cat5e in the low-voltage panel with RJ-45 connectors, and hooked them into a switch. My low voltage wiring panel has a electrical socket in it, so powering the switch is no big deal. I have Cat 5e connections in each bedroom, one in the loft, two in the family room, and one in the kitchen...so I can get pretty networked. I hooked up my laptop, and it made me realize how much nicer a wired connection still is. Wireless works, but even with my iBook, I've always had little dead spots, requiring me to position either myself or the computer in weird ways to get a good signal. Not to mention that I think many wireless chipsets are taking a step backward in usability, at least as far as Linux is concerned.

I have always been easily distracted. But lately, it seems like I can't focus on jack. It's kind of driving me nuts. I feel like I was better about juggling tasks when I was younger compared to now. I wish I knew why. I have seriously considered getting a Ritalin script, but I'm not too enthused about taking a prescription amphetamine. I used to just be better about prioritizing what I wanted to do.