Category: Rantings from the Pulpit

Probable problems and upcoming trips…

D'Arque Bishop

Bleh. Yesterday while I was at work, I was checking my home email (as I didn’t have time before leaving work and I had gotten in a few minutes early), and I noticed that Frost (my DNS server) had failed to send its daily log report. So, out of curiosity, I went ahead and tried to log into it via SSH. No go; for some reason, Frost kept rejecting connections. Despite Sinc mentioning that it might just be sshd freaking out (as it sometimes does on his own server), I kept figuring that something serious might have happened. I wasn’t sure what it might be, though, as it was still responding to DNS queries without any issues. Anyway, I got home, and switched on the server monitor… to see the screen filled with filesystem errors. :-/ I powered Frost down and back up quickly, and it wouldn’t even detect the hard drive. Crap. I then powered it down for a couple of minutes, and brought it back up. This time the hard drive was detected and it booted. I’ve not seen any further hard drive errors, but I’m not taking any chances. I’ve already backed up the DNS server configuration, and as soon as I can scavenge a small (4-6 GB) hard drive, I’ll take the old drive out of Frost and rebuild it.

Also, it appears I’ll be getting one of my planned trips out of the way this week. I’m having to go to Midland/Odessa on Thursday to bring the internet circuit up at the building our location there just moved to, in addition to setting up a time clock and getting some data off an old machine. It’s not exactly how I would have liked to spend the end of the week, but it’ll do. Heh, though, it IS funny… Malia mentioned that this trip should be a fun trip and not a business trip. My response was something along the lines of, “There isn’t anything IN Midland or Odessa!” I wouldn’t exactly choose to go there on a fun trip, really… it’s really the middle of nowhere. Ah, well… at least I can always take along a DVD or something to entertain myself while I’m spending the night there.

I picked up a new strategy game Saturday night while I was out and about: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. I wanted to try something other than Command & Conquer: Generals (which Sinc and I have been playing often the past few months), and I had heard Dawn of War was a very good real-time strategy game. Plus, I must admit, I’ve always liked the Warhammer 40K setting. (Those of you from the old days who remember playing Talisman have seen a couple of elements from Warhammer in that game, as they were both made by Games Workshop.) Right now I’m still getting used to it, especially with the fact that infantry is squad-based as opposed to having individual units created and manually formed together into units. Sinc’s getting used to it as well, but he’s a little more pessimistic than I am. Then again, I’d love to get a network game going where I can try out the Chaos Space Marines and put them through their paces. :-) Frankly, I wouldn’t mind switching to WarCraft III for our network RTS games, but that was ixnayed. Ah, well… we’ll see what comes up on the horizons. Hopefully the Dark Crusade expansion for Dawn of War will spice things up even more, especially seeing as they’re throwing the Tau and the Necrons into the mix.

As for me, right now, I’m thinking I’m going to turn in early, as I’m likely going to have a long day tomorrow. Fun fun…

And now, another example of, “I can’t make stuff like this up…”

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.bbkingblues.com/schedule/moreinfo.cgi?id=3420

Steven Seagal is a martial arts master who has gone on to have a successful movie career, starring in movies such as Above The Law, Under Siege and Exit Wounds. As a “blues fan”, Steven Seagal admires and has been inspired by some of the greatest musicians ever, such as Curtis Mayfield, Lightning Hopkins, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King and Robert Johnson. Mixed with world music’s strong influence, his “blues world” compositions appear as natural, subtle, and authentic.

I don’t know whether to chuckle or cry. Then again, Garret has apparently heard his music before, and said, “I’ve heard his music before. It’s not nearly as kickass as his movies. But… I guess it isn’t too bad.” I’ll take his word for it; I have no plans to travel to New York just to find out for myself. :-)

Real-Life Tekken?

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/tekken/tekken-with-actual-humans-178609.php

For all those that believe fighters aren’t an accurate representation of reality (well, they’re not), two marital arts dudes have created a live-action Tekken. The effects might be fake, but the moves ain’t. If you’re still a naysayer, these guys will kick your ass. For reals.

I must say, the video was relatively well done, especially the fight choreography. It’s worth a view… even if you’re like me and don’t like playing Tekken. Heh.

A lazy Sunday afternoon…

D'Arque Bishop

Well, I’m sitting here in my kitchen, on my Powerbook, and feeling like I need a nap. As it stands, I’m waiting to see whether I’m going to be allowed to install a piece of software onto some of the servers at work, and I’m in a holding pattern until I get permission. So, right now, it’s a bit of a slow day.

Yesterday wasn’t quite so slow. I went to go visit Dave at his new apartment sometime around lunchtime (which is in a MUCH nicer and safer complex). From there, Dave and I went to lunch and then Spec’s (which I mentioned in a previous entry), then returned back to the apartment. Louie soon came around, and we settled down to watch a movie I had seen on Dave’s coffee table but had never seen before: The Towering Inferno. I quite enjoyed it, and probably have a space in my DVD collection for it. :-) After the movie, we followed Louie to his apartment (he needed to shower and change), and then we went to dinner at Ninfa’s. In retrospect, India’s probably would have been better as I didn’t care for the food in Ninfa’s. After dinner, we made our way to Club Tropicana, which is a Latin club Louie likes to do salsa dancing at. Those who know me well know I’m no dancer, so Dave and I had a couple of beers and chatted while Louie went out onto the dance floor. Afterwards, I went back to Dave’s apartment with him to pick up the beer, ale, and my laptop, and headed back home.

As for today… I’ll likely just have dinner out or something. Otherwise, it’s just going to be a slow day, which should be fine considering I’m looking at another busy week. Ah, well…

I swear, I can’t make things like this up…

D'Arque Bishop

I’m over at Dave’s apartment right now. While we were out and about getting lunch at Fuddruckers, we stopped in Spec’s because Dad had requested I get some more Shiner for the house. I picked up a 12 pack of Shiner Bock and Shiner Light… and then Dave showed me a bottle of something that surprised me to no end.

Yes, that does say “Tempered with burning witches” at the bottom.

I ended up picking up three bottles: one for me and two for my parents. I’ll let you guys know how it tastes later on. :-)

Long days and needed rest…

D'Arque Bishop

Bleh. So, I did end up travelling to Corpus Christi yesterday. Believe me, the Corpus run is enough of a pain in the ass when it’s clear skies the entire way. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty bad, so I was driving through almost constant rain showers until I was about ten miles past Refugio. On the way there, I picked up some lunch from a McDonald’s in Odem (about 15 miles from the actual office location), and brought it to the office with me. As I remarked to one of the employees there, “I only ever eat McDonald’s when I go to Corpus… and each time it reminds me of why I never eat there any other time.” After getting everything taken care of there that needed to be taken care of, I left at 4:30 PM, stopped for food at a nearby Denny’s and gas at the Raceway in the same parking lot ($2.50 for regular… damn), and then made the long drive home. Again, it was rainy off and on most of the way back, before settling on hazy and humid by the time I reached Houston proper. I got home at 9 PM, checked some stuff, and eventually went to bed…

… before getting up an hour earlier than normal so that I could be at the office early to make some preparations in advance of a board meeting. *sigh* I’m almost tempted to ask if I can go home early tomorrow after all the late nights I’ve had, but I’ve got too much to do to even consider doing that. Ah, well…

Those of you who know me well tend to know that I tend to be rather pragmatic, to the point where I don’t even wear jewelry save one item: a gunmetal and gold wristwatch. I bought it using money given to me by my paternal grandmother before she died, and it’s meant quite a bit to me as a result. Well, a few days ago I found something rather disturbing: I must have hit the watch against something accidentally with some force, as a crack had appeared in the crystal face. Mom was good enough to take it in to the jeweler she uses, and they’re ordering a new crystal face for me. They didn’t have the ones with the gold band around it in stock, apparently. In the meantime, I tried doing what some friends do and use my cell phone as a timepiece, but it tended to annoy me more often than not. Thankfully, Dad’s letting me borrow a gold watch in the meantime until I get mine back. I was going crazy checking my wrist and not seeing a watch there…

And for now, I’m just going to get a drink and possibly go to bed a bit early. Thankfully tomorrow is the end of the work week, and I can relax a bit afterwards. Fun fun…

Bleh… unwanted travel.

D'Arque Bishop

Well, this week HAD been looking promising seeing as it was a four-day week. Unfortunately, I found out today that I need to go out to our Robstown location (just outside of Corpus Christi) in order to set up a time clock tomorrow. *sigh* Ten to one I’ll be bombarded with support calls while I’m driving out there, too. Ah, well… I can always look on the bright side: it’ll get me out of the office for a day, and most of the day will be spent on the road where I’ll be either listening to music on the iPod or talking on the phone. It could always be worse.

I’ve already gotten the Powerbook back from the Apple Store; after importing Blood on the Asphalt into iTunes and getting it (and some playlist changes) synched over to the iPod, it’s just sitting on my desk doing nothing. I’m just glad to have it back at this point, as the borrowed laptop at the office tends to annoy me more often than not. I just find it easier to keep track of things on Mac OS X than I do on Windows XP… especially when it comes to Windows terminal sessions. Ah, well…

Anyway, not much else going on around here, though I could probably do with an early night tonight. I do have a bit of a long drive tomorrow… meh. So, off to bed for me…

Interesting things du jour…

D'Arque Bishop

Heh, of all the things… after I posted yesterday about Shinnokxz trying to get me into World of WarCraft by offering a ten-day free trial, he went ahead and sent me the keycode for the free trial. The thing was, the email that was sent to me with the keycode also included a link where I could download the entire WoW client free. Not being one to pass something like that up, I went ahead and downloaded it. Seeing as it was something like 2.2 GB, it obviously took a while. :-) Once it finished downloading, I took a look at it and was mildly surprised to find that the downloaded client did indeed have both the Windows and the Mac OS X ports included on it. I’ll probably load it up and try it once I get my Powerbook back.

Speaking of the Powerbook, the Apple Store called me and told me they weren’t able to replicate the problems I was having. I had a talk with the guy, and we came to a mutual conclusion. A few days ago I had tried my MS notebook mouse on the laptop I was borrowing, and it refused to work there. What we think happened is that the malfunctioning mouse was also preventing other USB devices from working on that controller, including my USB flash drive. So, I’ve gone ahead and ordered a Logitech V400 Cordless Laser Mouse for Notebooks, and will have it delivered to the office. In the meantime, until it arrives, I’ll just go ahead and use this old MS Intellimouse Explorer I have. As for the Powerbook, I’ll be picking it up tomorrow night.

Apparently the Overclocked Remix guys have released another site project. This one is called Blood on the Asphalt, and is based off the music from Super Street Fighter II Turbo. I’ve already downloaded it, but haven’t added it to the iTunes playlist or burned it to CD yet. The reason I hadn’t put it on iTunes yet is because I use my Powerbook as the main control for my music library. As for burning it to CD… usually when a site project is released, they release album art and lossless versions. They didn’t release either this time, so I’m going to wait for a few days to see if they do so. (There’s already been a few comments about the lack of album art; apparently the project lead mistakenly thought no one would want it.) If one is interested, one can find it at http://sf2.ocremix.org.

And that’s about it for this end… now it’s time to rest up before work in the morning. Fun fun…

A Sunday morning post…

D'Arque Bishop

Well, it’s Sunday morning, and I’m close to halfway done with the three-day weekend. Before I go any futher, I just thought I’d post my latest desktop, for anyone who’s interested…

Yes, those are characters from both Diablo II and World of WarCraft in that wallpaper. I mentioned that I was going to work on my “Pile of Shame” (aka, games I have that I’m ashamed that I never started or finished) this weekend, and the first game on that list is in fact Diablo II. Once I complete that, I’ll likely go to Final Fantasy VII and finish that; the last time I played it was on PC, and I’ve since lost the save files due to the ravages of time. Not to mention the fact that last I checked, it wasn’t playable on Windows XP…. anyway, I picked up the PS1 version some months back, and then later on picked up a PS1 memory card (as I didn’t realize at the time that PS2 memory cards wouldn’t work), but never got around to playing it. I probably will soon, though.

As far as Diablo II goes, I was discussing it with people on #mortalkombat last night, and Shinnokxz was expressing disbelief that I would rather play it than World of WarCraft. I had to explain to him that I was playing it single-player and not multiplayer, and that I was playing it just to say I finally did. He tried to get me to go to World of WarCraft instead, even offering a free ten-day trial. I’ll eventually get into WoW (hence the wallpaper, really), but it won’t be for a bit. I’d like to have a decent laptop back before I get into MMORPGs again, just so I have access to my communications while in-game. :-)

As for today, I really don’t have too much planned other than playing some Diablo II and likely doing some work for the office that got overlooked a while ago and needs to be done. Well, the parents and I will likely go out to the County Line (a really good barbecue restaurant in the area) for dinner, but that’s about it. I also need to get my bedroom into some semblance of neatness so I don’t trip and kill myself while traversing it, but that’s a whole different story. In any event, time for me to get some more coffee. Fun fun…