Why My Life Sucks

This is so going to be part of the back story of my d20 Modern game.

I give you the 12 gauge 6 shooter

I’ve got 7 members in my Sunday game, if they all show up. None of them under 18, however they are just a bit touched, and I mean that in a good way. Expect Sunday night posts of the highlights of the game, at least from my point of view.

“I could have drowned 10 stupid people for the amount of gold you just used!”

I got invited to an after hours alcohol allowed all adult gaming party at the my current game store. With my current meds, I can’t drink, so I had several Jone’s Pure Cane Sodas. The party started at 10:00 PM, which, in and of it’s self is past my normal bed time. Played a game of “Redneck Life” and short (i.e 3 hour version) of Combat!, which is sort of like Risk meets Axis and Allies by way of Dragon Dice. Both are cool games and I will play them again, but damn, 1:30 rolled around and I was in desperate need of sleep.  Had to leave.

I’m starting the 4 winds camping beta test today, more about it later.

Some one has taken the PSRD and made it rock. See here This is going to make the Pathfinder games a lot easier to deal with, give then my FLGS has wifi (well, sort of)

In no particular order:

• Find a place for The Darling Wife and I to start over
• Loose weight. If going off of Zyprea alone doesn’t do it, hit the gym. Ideal weight would be 180 or so
• Get my shit together with regards to work or get on disability
• Get at least one “module” in all 3 games I play “published”
• Drop corn syrup based soda and snacks from my diet. (Note: to self, order some Dublin Doctor Pepper)

I may add to this list as the New Year approaches.

I’ve finished reading the two base line books for Pathfinder, and unless the Pathfinder licenses totally sucks, I think it’s what I’m going to be using for my Fantasy stuff for now on. There is no question it’s very derived from the SRD of 3.5 D&D. There are some differences, but in general if you know how to play 3.5 D&D, you know how to play Pathfinder. Any rate, I’m going to try real hard to make this an actual published (well, PDF published) product. Any rate, start working on the meaty bits in the next couple of days, get a sign up sheet out at the local game store, and start play testing in 2-3 weeks.

I’m going to write up a “horror” set of rules for Mongoose Traveller, and try and play test it over the next month or so.

I’m also going to try to do the “Tower to the Gods” adventure path for the Pathfinder (aka D&D ver3.75)

This gives real time tracking (via GPS) of ships at sea.. I am going to have to use this in my modern d20 game, in fact it may be a major source. This is cool in that geeky big brother sort of way.

As of now it seems that Jack The Dog will not be coming here. Mother has issues with him and Otto, our mid sized dog not getting along, (mainly over food, but that is fixable) but it seems that TRHG and TDW have it (the dogs) under control.

I’m giving Art Dude my 4th ed D&D books because I’m not playing for a while, and they can use them. I’m going to try to get my Foreven 1248 Traveller game going, using the Mongoose Traveller rules, less the “Mercenary” rule book. Supplement 4, “Central Supply Catalogue” fixes the most egregious issues with weapon ranges and effects. The “Hammer Slammers” character generation tables remove the need to use the Mercenary character generation rules, and I’m working on mass combat rules, thereby eliminating the need to use that book at all.

Today is also a mixed bag of work and going to doctors. With out getting into to much TMI I had an issue yesterday and have lower intestinal tract pain so I’m at my regular doctor this morning and I have an appointment with my shrink this afternoon. I seem to be doing well on my current meds (aside from the side effects, of course) so I hope to not change them today.

On the computer front I think I’m going to be able to use Tinybox for my mobile machine, but I’m going to have a long look as some of the other net-books next week.

I installed it on Godzilla.

1st report. It installed fairly fast and seems to have seen all my hardware right. It’s also pretty and makes nice noises.
It also, out of the box, doesn’t allow secondlife to run, plus trashes your MBR, which I more or less expected, despite being told it wouldn’t. This slightly changes my opinion on the non-Windows skills of one of the geeks at $WeSellUsedMacs. They may not be as good as he thinks they are.

I’ve got a newish monitor attached to Godzilla. It’s wide screen format, which I’m not sure if I like or not. 1600×900, I think. While the width is nice, I sort of miss the “tallness” of a normal scale monitor. Yes, I know it so you can watch wide screen format DVD with out letter boxing, but that’s not what I use Godzilla for most of the time.

The Dellbook, on the other hand, is more or less officially dead. Between the broken screen hinge and it’s latest thing of only running in 600 Mhz mode, it’s now my worst laptop. Tinybox is better on every thing other than screen size.

Over this weekend, I started reading over all my WWII and modern rule sets, to get an idea on where I need to go with OPFOR. Because I want it to integrate with Mongoose Traveller, I suspect that this is more or less a waste of time. I suspect I’m going to re-read the MGT SRD combat and skill section several times and use that as the base, plus my new concept of target fragility, being based on both the size of the target as well as things like training etc.

The guy that runs the data center that $WeSellUsedMacs uses to host our web site sold me his EeePC 701 for cheap.

I’ve loaded it up with a mutant version of the “Base” version of Eeebuntu Linux It’s going to be my DMing laptop I think. I like it so far, but I do have a bit of an issue with the keyboard, but that is to be expected when you are talking about a computer with a 7 inch screen. The biggest problem is the location of the right hand shift key. I’ve been hitting up arrow a lot instead of it. It’s a tossup, other than screen size between it an the crap top as to which is the better machine, at least as far as specs go. The fact that tinybox weighs just over a pound makes up for a lot of other things. A 4 gig SSD means I have to pay fairly close attention to what I load on the machine.

I can tell that who ever did the Eeebuntu distro is a geek at heart because gcc is included in the “limited foot print” version of it. That’s a non-trivial application to include, that most users of a Eee PC aren’t going to need. As it happens I am going to be using it, I’ve decided to reteach myself c/c++ and to brush up on bash and perl scripting. This will be one of the machines I do that on.

I decided rather than fucking up my best machine, I’m going to first see how hard it is to build the debian based mostly from tarballs “perfect” system.

So godzilla isn’t going to be the test box,   The craptop is.     Currently have installed the real freaking basic debian etch from the debian net install cd.

Due to extream amount of time needed to compile stdlib and the compiler, I’m getting those via apt-get.   I also changed to “testing” instead of “etch” as my backup source of packages.

First tweak.   added vga=792 to the default   OS section of the “magic” section of grup’s menu.lst   Should make the screen look better.

I’ve decided not to do any “optimizing” on this test run system.

One reboot later, and yes, the screen does look better.

1. Need a text based web browser – lynx
   1. Needs curses
   2. first fuck up.   Nuked the directory before I ran sudo make install.   Wrote script to do ./configure && make && sudo make install
2. Should have gotten links, which does tables and frames.   Getting it now.
   1. It needs openssl.   Which my magic mymake script doesn’t work on.
3. Next ssh client and server
   1. Another one that my script fails on.   Need to make it check for config vs configure.   Ah, maybe it does not.   Just realized I did the open SSL package.   Opps.   It doesn’t break the file.   Still need to fix ‘mymake’ “RSN”â„¢
   2. Needs zlib
4. First big one Midnight Commander
   1. Needs pkg-config
   2. Need glib
      1. Needs gettext, which takes a long time to compile..
5. ncftp pain free
6. X11     Pain starts now.     Fuck this.   apt-get install xorg xorg-dev
7. Starting to get XFCE4 running,using their graphical installer
   1. gtk+
      1. atk
      2. pango
         1. cairo
            1. libpng
            2. pixman (needed to get later version)
            3. freetype
            4. fontconfig
               1. libxml
            5. libtiff
            6. libjpeg (breaks script.   Also must do make install-libs)
            7. libjasper.     Cheated apt-get install libjasper-dev libjasper-runtime.   Could not find a good tar ball

   Fuck it.   Starting over with Linux from scratch, eat the whole drive no wierd layouts on a non 64 bit machine.

I’m revamping my work flow system.   Godzilla, not the rapidly falling apart lap top is going to be my primary machine for stuff not done at $WeSellUsedMacsAndNewWiis

Because I can’t leave well the fuck enough alone, I changed the OS on the Linux side of Godzilla, yet again.   I’m using “Mint Linux 6“.   It’s pretty much a very thing plastic disguise over the Gnome version of Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, so it’s pretty good to start with.   For what it’s worth, it’s live CD found and configured Godzilla’s weird ass on board sound card, which the Xbuntu 8.10 live CD did not.     I’m not surprised at that, it seems that the [K|X]buntu version seem to have a little more issues with hard ware.   Install seems to be a snap.     I’ve turned on the “3rd party drivers” to see what difference, if any it makes in second life.   glxgears indicates I should see some improvement.   More on that later.

I normally don’t like Gnome based desk tops, but this one feels more like KDE 3.x than any thing else, so I might not change.   I will be installing xfce4 and kde3.5, just incase.

When I go up north and fix Random Dafydd machine this will be the one I use. Why? First one to install a modern version of flash play for Firefox right out of the box. This is good.

Well, I’m of to check FPS and other geek-a-zoid things. Be back later.

This is a list of things that Ice-rocket found for my site in the last 3 weeks or so.   Not all of them, of course.   Some of my replies are snark, some are advice, some is deadly serious.   I leave it to the reader to figure out which is which.   Spelling and punctuation to the left of the : marks are from Ice-rock.   Errors to the right of the : are mine.

Leading off the pack, once you get past all the various versions of “[why] my life sucks”   is

1. Bristol Stool Charts:   Color me a surprised shade of brown.
2. lunesta drinkin:   Dude, just don’t.   It’s a waste of a drink.   You’ll get about half to 2/3 down and pass out.
3. cannot rotate dell displays d600:   Not with build in software.   However this will fix it.   Get it.
4. winterborn acoustic:   I’ve come to like that version better than the electric. Cool song Either way
5. what is shelf life of midrin:   Don’t know.   Mine are pushing 2 years old and still work.
6. lunesta redhead:   Odd mix.     Don’t think it works as a date rape drug, so that just makes it weird.
7. firefox 3.05 sucks: Some one else aiming for a ban I see.
8. why does my life suck and what can i do about i:   Find a medical professional that you know and trust.   Listen to what he or she says.   You are not alone, even when it feels like you are.
9. why is the phone taking over my life:   There is that “off” switch.   Even land lines have a switch to turn off the ringer.   Rember, the phone is for you, not the rest of the world.
10. rants about how life suck:   You may or may not have come to the right place.
11. “classic+traveller”:     Check out Mongoose’s version.   They have cleaned up some of the oddness of CT, but it feels like CT, not TW:2000 ins space.
12. my life sucks without him in it:   This is a bad sign.
13. How stool in there life pictures of them:   I am going to assume this was a Britol Stool Chart search.   Yes, they have pictures.   Not to gross, but enough to get the idea across.
14. why does tulsa suck:   Because it can.
15. Is there anyway i can make:   What?   Seem to be missing a final word or phrase there.
16. install gsl c++ express:   I know what the GSL is.   I know what c++ express is.   I don’t know what they have in common, unless GSL doesn’t expand to what I think it is, which means I couldn’t help any way.
17. Amidrine is it good:   If you freaking need it, yes, it’s God like.   If not, it will make you feel like crap.   It will make you feel like crap even if you need it, but it beat the hell out of the migraine.
18. leopard 10.5.5 vs 10.4.11: Dude, just don’t do it.   Not worth the pain for the pretty mirror effects.   And it’s 10.5.6 now any way.
19. g5 drivers sucks:   Pretty much.
20. dungeons and dragons fourth edition sucks and D&D sucks:   Two folks aiming for banning.
21. classic traveller vs mongoose:   Hard call. I’d go with Mongoose today.   Ask me tommorow I might have changed my minds.     Both are available if you know where to look (legal copies), but Mongoose is puttting out new stuff.   Just ignore the weapons in the last 10 pages or so of Mongoose Mercenary or your head will explode.
22. why life start at 40:   You might want to talk to a right to lifer about that.   Hell, even pro choice people assume that once your out of the host body, your alive.
23. tehran sucks   and khomeini sucks:   Why, yes, it does.   Course he’s dead, but he still sucks.
24. michael kors suck:   Must Not Post Gay Joke.   But he seems so nice on Project Runway.
25. upgrading from 10.4 server to 10.5 serve:   Unless you really like pain, don’t do it.
26. author of why my life sucks: J. Michael.   That’s about as much as I’m going to give out.   Real geeks could find out fast enough, but if you don’t know how, I’m not going to tell you.
27. nambla suck:   Must Not Post Gay Joke.   And, yeah, they do.   Not the good way either.
28. don’t know who to contact at ft bliss:   The offical page is here Of course you have to play silly games with getting their SSL cert approved by your browser. Why all the browser people suddenly started to not trust .mil SSL certs is a question I’d like an answer to. Starting to chap my buns.
29. 10.5.5 trying to login into 10.4 server:   Assuming you mean the remote server admin tool that used to be so cool?   They broke it.
30. lunesta and two beer: equals a long nap.
31. macports vs fink vs gentoo.   Em.   I haven’t play with Gentoo on a PPC, but I have spent way to much time with on x86/x86_64 boxes.   If you got a working Mac,   I’d go with 10.4.11 and fink.   It’s my standard for mac machines.
32. moving Mail 10.5.5 to 10.4:   Oh, dude, I feel you pain.   I think the tool you need is mailbfr
33. damn small linux sata_via sata_via sata_via:   Why the sata_via three times?   I think it works with it.

In all cases below, I’m using the factory default setting for the video drivers unless other wise stated, and have installed “today” non-beta version of Second life.

Right now, with the current downloads of PivitPro, on the DellBookPro system. (that would be the one that is a lap top with a badly busted hinge that I used normally in Portrait mode, SecondLife dies in a messy way if i don’t put it in Landscape. It also, as of this version (Second Life 1.21.6 (99587) Oct 14 2008 17:42:25 (Second Life Release)) tells me that my video sucks. I know that. I set the video to recommenced levels. Set it run in a 1024×768 window, I set it to my standard mode, which is turn on bump maps and shiny, use avatar impostors, local lights, and high terrain details. All other are left at what it thinks it should use. Standing on my porch (harbourne 3,124,48) looking out over the water, I get a frame rate of around 20 when it has focus, around 10 when it does not.

We don’t talk about the Linux mode on this machine with regard to Second Life.   Radeon Mobility 9000 are just barely good enough with windows drivers.   With Linux X11 divers?   I don’t think so.   I’ll test it with current drivers and SL software.   Barf. 3.00 FPS.   That really does suck.   Plus I looked like shit, with parts of my avatar being invisible.   General badness.

On Godzilla, in Linux mode, same settings I get 30 FPS when it has focus and about 12 when it doesn’t, when in landscape mode (i.e. xrandr -o normal). Issuing an xrandr -o right makes it claim it’s getting the same FPS, but it’s smoking crack. Second life might think it’s do that, but the real FPS is like 3 to 5. It works, however. In full screen mode (1280×1024) I get 25-26 FPS). This i can deal with. This is on a DVI connected monitor, with the “open source” version of the ATI X11 driver. The closed source version of the driver has issues with my card, as of now. The linux box is also acting as an Apache2/PHP5/MySQL5 server, I’ll grant with zero load, but they are running.   [edit:   It just hit my.   My screen refresh rate is 60 hz on this monitior.   That means those 30-32 number I was just seeing are really as good as it gets.   w00t and all that.   Don't make me go into my "more than half the refresh rate of the montior" is wasted rant....]

Godzilla in Windows and Portrait mode, supplied by the ATI driver, no second party tweaks. With the “recommenced mode” set (which, BTW makes water look worse than it does on the othe versions done above) I get 19 fps, in land scape, I get 23 or so, or roughly what I get in linux mode, but with, in theory better graphics, but I don’t think so, water in particuler looks like crap.   Turning on the same setting as above test I get 28 FPS, and water doesn’t look like a white mist.

Turning on all the flags I get around 15 FPS and it looks freaking great.

Upgrading the drivers to the latest version for the X1550 card from Saphire, the OEM of the the card in question, added maybe 1 FPS, after all the building loaded.   In “bells, whistles and gongs mode”   (i.e. all the flags turned on), it’s getting 16 FPS, and it does look pretty.   Well, the next door building that’s all in default plywood mode is a bit of an eye sore, but that’s not the drivers fault.

On the 17″ G4 Power book, in “bells, whistles and gongs mode”   (i.e. all the flags turned on), it gets roughly 0.5 FPS.   This obviously   is not usable.   It’s odd that it let me set those.   On the other limited graphics boxes they would not let me try that moronic setting.   At recommended settings, I get 17 or so FPS.   At my normal settings I get 15 fps.   Meh.   Apple G4 laptops are not known for being gaming machines.   Those values, are WITH X11 running, they are slightly lower if it’s not.   This makes no sense, but I’ve given up expecting rational behavior from OS X and X11

Short version. Looks like my second life stuff is going to be done on Godzilla, normally in Linux, in landscape mode.

My Sunday D&D game moved to Tuesday and changed places.     My Sunday game became a Mongoose Traveller game.       More on both of those on there blogs once I get moving.

AKA a WinBook J¹. This machine is needs to do two wildly separate things. One is to be my work machine, which basically means I need an SSH client, an FTP client and web browser, ideally Firefox 3.x The other is to act as my GM machine in the upcoming Traveller game I’m going to be running. That needs a web server that can support PHP5 and MySQL, plus I need the ability to read a modern PDF file. Printing would be nice, plus the ability to make either an PDF or RTF file, but this is not a requirement.   I also need, in general, an editor (vi is my editor of choice) and Midnight Commander (aka mc) installed.   Running GIMP would also be nice.

This isn’t that big of a deal, except that the machine has only 256 Megs of memory and “only” a 10 Gig hard drive. After much dinking around I’ve decided that I’m going to go whole geek on this project and use Gentoo.   I know that Damn Small Linux will more or less work, as will etch debian, but both of those have weird dependency issues, hence the Gentoo experiment.

This is sort of a live blog of this. And just to make things fun, I’ve got a stomake bug, which means I have to run to the bathroom and talk to Ralph on the BWP ever so often. The anti Ralph stuff I’ve taken, on top of my normal meds is making me very freaking dizzy.

So far, I’ve followed the steps in the Gentoo manual up to step 6. So far, so good, the basic mini-install CD has “just worked”. I suspect that is going to end when soon, because my “network card” is a USB thing, which may or may not be directly supported right out of the box. To make things more fun, the next step will be making this work with a USB wireless thing, but that’s for later.

General comment. Why did they provide “Nano” not VI? I’ve put way to many :wq at the end of files today. Plus random x’s where I wanted a character to go away, etc. To add to the fun, the CTRL key is in the wrong place on this machine.

Standard issue with living in the middle of the country. CST isn’t a default time zone in the “easy to get to” spot. It’s there, but you have to go looking for it. Oddly Mountain time is. In fact all 3 of the timezones other than central are in the basic zoneinfo directory, but CST is in the US sub directory.

Opps.   Need to “emerge portage” first.     Why would there be a new version when I downloaded the “current” version 30 minutes ago?   Got to love cutting edge retro-computing.

I’m now watching it patch the kernel source. It’s as much fun as it sounds like.   After this, I’ve got to find out what modules I need, which, if I understand the manual means I need to emerge pciutils and run lsmod

Just a personal note, the OTC anti-nausea pills are working, however I’m wired and feel more than a little dizzy.     I can feel my fingernails, which is a strange feeling.     Lots of rushing sounds in my ears as well.     Not driving today!

lspci reports I have <long list of stuff>

Well, shit. Need to start the SSH server at the start, other wise you have issues, and it fucking reboots.   Damn.   I hope I can just start the SSH server up, then skip ahead.

(I’ve got the SSH server up, changed root’s password and have attached to if via smallbox).

Looks like I don’t have to redo the longer steps I’ve already taken.   Will see in a few here.

OK, we’re back.   I’m dumping out the results of those test just so I’ll have a record if and when I need to redo something.

lsmod

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia] (rev 05)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia AGP]
00:05.0 Modem: PCTel Inc HSP MicroModem 56 (rev 02)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 22)
00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 10)
00:07.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 10)
00:07.4 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 30)
00:07.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 20)
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Trident Microsystems CyberBlade i1 (rev 6a)

And the big dump:(chroot) livecd / # lsmod            
Module                                   Size   Used by
ipv6                                   236260   12
dock                                     18448   0
fan                                       12804   0
pcmcia                                 45100   0
pegasus                               33424   0
mii                                       13312   1 pegasus
yenta_socket                     32908   1
rsrc_nonstatic                 20480   1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core                       45076   3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
video                                   26640   0
backlight                           13188   1 video
output                                 11776   1 video
thermal                               24092   0
battery                               16640   0
ac                                         12544   0
processor                           39656   2 thermal
button                                 16528   0
rtc                                       20768   0
tg3                                     111748   0
e1000                                 119616   0
jfs                                     169836   0
raid10                                 30080   0
raid456                             129296   0
async_memcpy                     10880   1 raid456
async_xor                           12160   1 raid456
xor                                       21896   2 raid456,async_xor
async_tx                             15948   3 raid456,async_memcpy,async_xor
raid1                                   30080   0
raid0                                   15872   0
dm_bbr                                 20128   0
dm_snapshot                       24996   0
dm_mirror                           29440   0
dm_mod                                 63428   3 dm_bbr,dm_snapshot,dm_mirror
sbp2                                     29960   0
ohci1394                             38192   0
ieee1394                             92600   2 sbp2,ohci1394
sl811_hcd                           19968   0
usbhid                                 35712   0
ohci_hcd                             29700   0
uhci_hcd                             30988   0
usb_storage                     120608   0
ehci_hcd                             39948   0
usbcore                             133484   8 pegasus,sl811_hcd,usbhid,ohci_hcd,uhci_hcd,usb_storage,ehci_hcd
lpfc                                   216016   0
qla2xxx                             168548   0
firmware_class                 17408   2 pcmcia,qla2xxx
megaraid_sas                     35504   0
megaraid_mbox                   38160   0
megaraid_mm                       18464   1 megaraid_mbox
megaraid                             44360   0
aacraid                               68996   0
sx8                                       25484   0
DAC960                                 73032   0
cciss                                   41220   0
cpqarray                             28004   0
3w_9xxx                               39300   0
3w_xxxx                               32928   0
mptsas                                 43144   0
scsi_transport_sas         37120   1 mptsas
mptfc                                   25988   0
scsi_transport_fc           49028   3 lpfc,qla2xxx,mptfc
scsi_tgt                             22344   1 scsi_transport_fc
mptspi                                 28296   0
mptscsih                             41344   3 mptsas,mptfc,mptspi
mptbase                               78308   4 mptsas,mptfc,mptspi,mptscsih
atp870u                               36352   0
dc395x                                 39052   0
sim710                                 13188   0
53c700                                 33444   1 sim710
qla1280                             123660   0
dmx3191d                             20096   0
sym53c8xx                           77588   0
qlogicfas408                     15104   0
aha152x                               42512   0
aha1740                               15872   0
advansys                             85248   0
initio                                 24900   0
BusLogic                             72948   0
arcmsr                                 29952   0
aic7xxx                             168760   0
aic79xx                             241624   0
scsi_transport_spi         30848   7 mptspi,53c700,dmx3191d,sym53c8xx,aha152x,aic7xxx,aic79xx
sg                                         41360   0
pdc_adma                             17668   0
sata_inic162x                   20228   0
sata_mv                               28936   0
ata_piix                             26372   0
ahci                                     34180   0
sata_qstor                         17924   0
sata_vsc                             16516   0
sata_uli                             15620   0
sata_sis                             16772   0
sata_sx4                             20484   0
sata_nv                               33160   0
sata_via                             19588   0
sata_svw                             15748   0
sata_sil24                         24068   0
sata_sil                             19080   0
sata_promise                     20996   0
scsi_wait_scan                   9472   0
pata_sis                             21892   1 sata_sis
libata                               152248   17 pdc_adma,sata_inic162x,sata_mv,ata_piix,ahci,sata_qstor,sata_vsc,sata_uli,sata_sis,sata_sx4,sata_nv,sata_via,sata_svw,sata_sil24,sata_sil,sata_promise,pata_sis

OK.   That was fun.   I don’t think that configuring a Linux kernel while on medication that makes you dizzy is a good idea.   If this machine boots and has networking on the first pass I’m going to to be surprised.   If it doesn’t well, they supply the auto-detect genkernel tool as well, which is what I’ll do if this fails, and to be honest about it, what I should have done from the start, but I’m going for geek points here.

I’ve just launched the compile a kernel stage.   This is going to take a while, so I’m going to publish this post and go take a bath.   Bonus points if it finishes before I get out!

Well, it might not be, based on what I have to do to the xserve down town, but in general, yeah, those 3 of you that reading about this can rest assured that no more posts about how much OS X 10.5 blows goats. Something that blows goat is only a good thing if your a goat. I’m not, so, well, there you go.

Due to several factors some what beyond my control, it took a little longer than I thought to get my iMac G5 upgraded to 10.4.11 server from 10.5.5 server.   However, as of this morning, it’s up and running fully the way I want it, which is to say with KDE 3.5 desktop and the Apple dock at the same time.   I’m currently moving via FireWire ® the current layout etc over to the G4 laptop (yeah, that one Art Dude).     I’m going to need to do a bit of tweaking once it’s moved over (like, for example, changing the IP address etc.) I suspect I’m going to need to nuke and reinstall the whole fink tree (given that it compiled for a G5 and that might, just might, have issues on a G4, duh). If it does, well, I’ve got my traveling AppleBox ®

Any rate, I “won” the WinBook on eBay as well, which mean I have another Intel based crap top. Going to be a Linux box, and it’s primary function in life is going to be my Mongoose Traveller Game master box. Happy Happy!

My doctor seems to think that the meltdown I had during the middle of the week was due to migraine interfering with the anti-depressants, and that I’m on a rather low dose. He doubled the dose, with a follow up in a few weeks. He also suggested that I get out more, so I am going to try real hard to restart my mid week D&D game and start up a Mongoose Traveller game. More about those as they happen.

So I’m posting a bit more tonight.   Then I’m going to read Classic Traveller background material getting ready for my Mongoose Traveller game.

As an aside, I fully support Mongoose Publishing and their attempt at making MGT open gaming.     Their licensees are fair and easy to use, which is more than I can say for the Wizards of the Coasts current license, the GSL

Like I   said over on Fly Over Thoughts, “It’s All Carter and Clinton’s fault“

I don’t know if the bail out plan is the perfect move, but I do know it wasn’t GW Bush’s fault.

Things that sucks

1. Last night, for reasons I’m not going into for privacy of others reasons
2. Freon.   Or the lack of it in a central air conditioning system.
3. Either the Bank of Oklahoma or Well’s Fargo.   Maybe both.
4. The City of Tulsa’s abatement inspectors
5. One of my neighbors.   not sure which one.
6. ONG.   Just in general.
7. Postfix on Mac OS X 10.4 PPC
8. Fink on the Mac PPC OS X 10.4 version
9. Ingram Micro,Petra,D & H, and Navarre’s some what odd B2B data systems. Each sucks in their own odd way.
10. Dog Poo
11. The GSL
12. AOL and   ComCast’s white listing system
13. Subscribe Me Professional (yeah, related to above)
14. What ever it is in the air this week that is making me sneeze
15. Forgetting to take my sleep aid
16. Getting a total of 6 hours of sleep over 3 days (yeah, see above)
17. The Cities of Wichita KS and Oklahoma City, OK
18. Internet streaming radio “stations” with ads.   A limited number of ads that you hear over and over and over and over.

Things that don’t suck

1. The Darling Wife
2. Art Dude and Redheaded Girl
3. Dungeons and Dragons 4th ed.
4. Jolt Cola
5. Choc 1919 beer
6. Cats and Kittens
7. Miniature Pinchers
8. German Shepherds

31st and Sheridan.

I live off of Sheridan.   My current gig is on Sheridan.       The City o’ Tulsa has decided to mangle the intersection AND the on and off ramps for the Broken Arrow Expressway.   My normal 3 minute drive is, if I take the “obvious” route, is now about 20 minutes.

This, to put it mildly, suck extremely large things through very small straws.

It seems that the pre-press version of D&D 4th edition got snagged some how, and tossed out on the torrents. I got a copy of all 3 books as a set of PDF files via ISOhunt using ktorrent on smallbox.

I am one happy gaming geek now. I’m still going to get the hardbacks, but at least I have an on computer copy RIGHT NOW.

w00t!!!!eleven!!!

Full of the win!

My 4th edition game has it’s own blog. Check it out.

Just got weird. Again, with out violating more than my own privacy, I can’t go into the full details of why, but yeah, it’s weird.

On the geek side of life, I’ve beaten ’smallbox’ into submission, and it’s back to being mainly a Linux box, with booting into Windows if and when needed. Can’t say enough good things about Hardy Heron, the latest version of Ubuntu aka Ubuntu 8.04 LTS.

I’ve also gotten quite fond of andLinux on the laptop. Really slick design. Runs a modified version the Linux kernel as a service under XP. You get more or less the full KDE experience if you run ‘kicker’ I’ve got mine configured to be a vertical tool bar on the left hand side of the screen, normally in “hidden” mode, so all you see in windows in a small button with an arrow pointing down. Once you click that, you get the normal KDE 3.5 launcher.

In other geek news I’m going to be starting a D&D 4.0 campaign, with the first “full” game coming up this Sunday. Granted it’s ‘Keep on the Shadowfells” to start with, but until the books and SRD comes out that is what we’ve got. The enWord.org’s “Pre-release” book is also a good starting point. The offical WOTC page for it has a 6th pre gen, which gives some idea on how to level up a Warlord, which is new info.

On the personal front, other than “weirdness”, Redheaded Girl and I need to talk about what the word “puppy” means. The white dog in this photo is the “puppy” that they rescued. She had called me to find out if I could keep it for the afternoon while they dealt with a situation out at Art Dude’s property. I said sure. When I got home, well, I went out to look at the “puppy”. Sorry, if you are that size, you are a dog, not a puppy. I’ll grant it might not be full grown, but still, that’s not a puppy. Sweet dog. Gets along just fine with other dogs (or at least with our 3). No clue about cats, but I’m sure we will find out real soon, given the number of cats Redheaded Girl and Art Dude have. Might keep the semi-tamed raccoon and the opossum off her front porch, but most likely not given that the pit bulls next door to her house.

Update: White dog gets along fine with cats. Some of my cat’s don’t deal well with her however.

On the professional front I’ll be back doing work at $WeSellUsedMacs next week. Don’t know how long that will last, but I’m trying to make it a “full time” part time job. I think, I can do a 20-30 hour week now, but we will see.

It’s spring. That means I’m taking pictures of flowers. This particular tulip grows in a rather awkward spot in my back yard. Makes mowing a bit tricky. This weekend was weird. Found out that not taking my “blue pills” (no, not those, my 10mg Amphetamine pills) and trying to DM a longish high level (15th plus) D&D 3.5 game isn’t really a good idea. This really isn’t new, just I didn’t really understand what a difference they made. Previous games were (after I started taking the speed) 5-6 hours or more. This one ran about 3 and half hours, and I was wiped out.

I’ve got an appointment with Dr. McClure tomorrow, will talk about weird sleep patterns, hope to go get that taken care of. Still not sure how much is the new anti-depressants, how much was the antihistamines and how much of it was I was in a pretty bad funk for the last 10 days.

On the headache front, I am aware this is not real data, but I can give a single data point on this. Despite what you may read, say here I’ve had one, count it, one, migraine after I changed out the CFL bulbs in my house for normal glowing wire sort of light bulbs. I was having them near daily. This was not helping my mental state. yes, I know, not a real scientific study and the plural of anecdote is not datum, but I do know what has happened to me. Trust me, the other stress factors and migraine triggers in my life right around the time I made that change got worse, not better. I really hope the statements that they have new designs fix this issue or that Ms. Bachmann gets her bill passed.

1. Just because it seems like a spiffy new feature, you don’t have to convert from categories to tags. In fact, don’t do that if you use categories and don’t use tags in your theme.
2. The US Army Digital Library is back open to the public. Has been for a while, but in cleaning up above I noticed I said something about it being closed. In a rare case of the DoD noticing what random members of the public thought, they opened it up rather quickly, actually.
3. Not sure I like my new anti-depressants. They seem to work, but side effects are a bit odd. Of course that could be the antihistimes talking. Either way I can deal with them until I see the shrink in 5 or 6 days.
4. More I read about the up coming 4th ed of Dungeon and Dragons, the more I think I’m going to like it. It’s coming out at about the right time also. The party should be hitting 20th level and ‘ending’ the Poltus campaign right about then. Be a great time to start over, so to speak.

I have a pair of MinPens, Brandy and CoCo.

Actually I have Brandy and The Darling Wife has CoCo, but that’s a whole other story.

CoCo likes to dart out the front door and run. She does this about once a week. Normally she goes to the end of the block and turns back and will come if you call her.

Some days, well, it’s off to the races. Today, for example. This is not the first time this has happened in the last 30 days either. At least this time it wasn’t just above freezing and I had my shoes on.

Ended up chasing her about half a mile. If you include all the twist, turns, etc. closer to 3/4 of a mile. Almost caught her when a random boy child out in the front yard with two adults males (dad and uncle if I understood right) wanted to “pet the puppy”, and CoCo was slowing down a bit and stood back and did her happy bark at the boy, but I’m not going to do a flying tackle of a dog in front of a child while on concrete. Too scary for the child and not real good on my knees. One of the adult males (uncle, I think) tried to help by offering CoCo beer from his can. In this case, it might have worked, given that she likes beer, but What The Fuck? Beer to a dog? Yeah, I live in Oklahoma.

Finally caught her while she was nose to nose with the first dog she ran into about her size that she could get close to. One successful move silent roll and a overbear attack later and I had got her. Given her defense if fairly high with both her dexterity and size modifier being so high, I was glad to have caught her. Yeah, today normally would be gaming day, why you ask?

So what were the Results:

1. Caught dog.
2. Binged knee.
3. Grass stains on knee of dockers.
4. Crotch seam on dockers opened up.
5. Strawberry milk shake I had for lunch wanting to come up.
6. Finding out that 10mg of Amphetamine Salts taken 45 minutes before a major Adrenalin rush slash aerobic exercise will result in a major crash about two hours later.

Any rate, that was my post lunch, and why I am in bed now, shaking like a leaf.