Monthly Archives: April 2007

Annoying Frog Trivialities

Posted by TD on April 22, 2007 No comments

I’m up and on the computer at 4:45 in the morning because my brain refused to spin down without knowing the name of those awful little cigarettes my ex used to bring back from France. After tossing and turning for far too long, I gave up and turned to the Internet to save my sanity. Gauloises. Why couldn’t I remember that, and what the hell difference does it make?

It reminds me of a great James Thurber story, “More Alarms in the Night,” in which a young James scares the ever-living shit out of his father in the middle of the night because he (James) can’t remember the name “Perth Amboy.” Not many books make me truly laugh out loud, but The Thurber Carnival gets me every time, even after a dozen reads.

Alright, I’m going to have a drink, dig out my copy of the Carnival, and try again to get some sleep. Hotness in the morning/afternoon/whenever I get up.

Iggy Pop Celebrates 60th Birthday

Posted by TD on April 21, 2007 No comments

Now there’s an unlikely headline. Happy birthday, Iggy.

Iggy

Another tech note

Posted by TD on April 20, 2007 No comments

Like almost everyone else with a wireless home network, I use a Linksys WRT54G as my router. For the past year or so, mine ran the HyperWRT Thibor third-party firmware package with generally good results. It’s much better under heavy load than the stock firmware but would inexplicably bomb out for 10 minutes every two days or so, and the signal dropped off to nothing as soon as I stepped out onto the porch.

On a whim, I switched the router over to DD-WRT firmware this afternoon. While it hasn’t been running long enough or under enough of a load to really wring it out, initial results are very promising. My laptop establishes a wireless connection in about half the time and I’m retaining 50% signal strength from the back porch, which means I can sit outside with The Unforgiving Puppy and still feed my internet habit.

If you have a compatible wireless router (check the list of supported devices) and aren’t happy with its performance right now, DD-WRT could be a worthwhile upgrade. And hey, it’s free!

Tonight is Venture Brothers night

Posted by TD on April 19, 2007 No comments

I’m watching all of Season Two back-to-back.  312 minutes of Super-Fun!

Didn’t get the DVDs yet? Well, go read Reason‘s interview with Jackson Publick, co-creator of VB.

Yeah, I’m a Linux Geek

Posted by TD on April 19, 2007 No comments

The latest release of Ubuntu Linux was released on schedule today. Go here to find a download site. If at all possible, I urge you to download via BitTorrent rather than FTP; those poor servers are taking enough of a beating already.

TTLB is working again, and a tech tip

Posted by TD on April 18, 2007 No comments

The Truth Laid Bear finally fixed the Gunbloggers group, which had been broken since New Year’s.

If you want to show your TTLB status on your blog but like to keep your page XHTML-compliant, here’s how to change the link code to make it valid XHTML.

Your original link code looks like this:

<script language="javascript" src="http://truthlaidbear.com/MyDetails.php?url=http://www.unforgivingminute.com/blog/&style=javascript">
</script>

Modify it so it looks like this (changes are in bold):

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://truthlaidbear.com/MyDetails.php?url=http://www.unforgivingminute.com/blog/&amp;style=javascript">
</script>

On a lighter note…

Posted by TD on April 18, 2007 1 comment

The Venture Bros. Season 2 DVD set is out now. Go buy a copy or I’ll take you off my blogroll. If you don’t already have Season 1, (a) why the hell not?!? and (b) buy it at the same time and watch it first. You can thank me later.

For my pal pdb, sexbot enthusiast and fellow dog owner, I present the Hotdoll: the sex doll for dogs.

Helluva week.

Posted by TD on April 18, 2007 No comments

Like a lot of you, I haven’t felt much like blogging these past two days. I’m working on a post re: the VT shootings, but I’m not sure if/when I’ll put it up. Others, notably Marko and LawDog, have already said many of the things I want to say, and said them better than I would have. I encourage you to go read them.

Helluva Day

Posted by TD on April 17, 2007 No comments

I don’t have much to say about it yet; obviously a terrible tragedy and my heart goes out to the victims and their families. 15 hours later and we still know so little. I’m sure more details will come out tomorrow.

These Taxes…. Are DONE!

Posted by TD on April 15, 2007 No comments

I used Intuit’s free e-file at taxfreedom.com this year; slick site that took a bit of the frustration out of filing. Our tax system is still an absolute bloody disaster, but at least I’m getting a healthy chunk of money back. And you know what that means: two chicks at the same time.