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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Thursday, February 19, 2004

Tonight’s Chilidog   It has a little cheddar cheese, but no mustard.   Sister Ruth reminded me of a couple of more good Toledo memories. The art museum was special, but I was focused on a time when Art was the guy who fixed our TV. I’ve since managed to appreciate art, especially the surreal, that fixes your mind. The art museum also appears in my dreams. Extra credit to Sister Ruth, Steve Raker, and Sylvie for jogging my memory on that.   And the train station – we could get a round trip ticket to Toledo for three bucks, if you were underage <g>. I remember especially the chiclets dispenser in the Deshler train station. Go up to the window, buy a ticket, then use the leftover pennies to load up on Tutti Fruiti chiclets to explode in your mouth while you waited for the train.   The worst trains were the ones they called “milk trains.” They would stop anywhere. It seemed like 50 stops on the way back from Toledo, but I still have dreams about those trains too – stopping in multiple track locations with Chinese fire drill exits and entries, women with cigarette holders and red velvet coats, walking around the train and sometimes lighting atop it before sitting down in the very same seats, never questioning.   I loved the zoo too, but I never figured out the petting zoo. The animals accepted their fate gracefully, but I don’t think they ever really liked having small humans run their hands over them, probably preferring to be left alone like our farm animals. Our cows “sort of” acknowledged us, but they never liked us or disliked us, just accepted that humans were things that just walked around them and milked them until we eventually killed them. In the petting zoo, the animals “sort of” knew that we were no threat unless they bit us or kicked us in the face, but they were just as boring as farm animals – except for the glorious peacocks who spontaneously gave you instant dreams when they fanned their tails. 8:58:00 PM    comment []

Po-jama People   You know, the Brits kicked out ol’ Winston in 1945, in a Labour Party landslide.   That’s the way of a Warp Resident. When the war is over, so is his claim to power. Old soldiers never die, but they do get dismissed.   In the US, our current Warp Resident paraded proudly in front of a Mission Accomplished banner on the deck of an aircraft carrier named for another Warp Resident, Abraham Lincoln.   That’s damn conclusive! Cue the fat lady, tell Yogi Berra, roll the credits, and raise the house lights - the warp is over! A made-for-TV Survivor moment – last man left standing!   But Warp Resident has been sliding in the polls ever since. Today, CNN reported that either Kerry or Edwards would defeat him by double digits (I always think of a single digit when I think of our Warp Resident – it’s the middle one on my right hand) if an election were held today.   Of course, the election will not be held today. That gives the bitch who ridicules crippled veterans, Gay Fedora, and that dope fiend on the radio ample time to fantasize a whole bevy of new aspersions - and cap off their patriotic presentations with a sober determination that “there are numerous disturbing rumors about both non-Warp Resident Pepsi candidates a and b.”   We have done it before and we can do it again, add some shaking heads for a little extra drama and it’s a major production worthy of Spielberg – all financed by a warpchest rivaling that of a major Hollywood blockbuster or Steinbrenner’s payout for the 2004 Yankees. Formidable.    Meanwhile Former, But Still Authentic, Warp Resident whips out his witching rod to divine, I dunno, about 8 kerjillion new jobs by the end of next week and blames “number crunchers” when he gets called on the sheer insanity of it.   They are probably those same derned number crunchers at the CIA who conjured up the 500 tons of imaginary sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents that Warp Resident reported with a straight face in the 2003 SOTU!   Them damn number crunchers!   How can you fire them for incompetence when they keep changing jobs? Still there is a little justice – I bet their butts hurt really bad from having all those big numbers pulled out of ‘em.  8:15:42 PM    comment []

Had to go the lobotomy route to get my wireless jukebox up and running again. The manual with the HP ew5000 says you should just unplug the receiver for a while (if you have a cable modem, you’ve heard this “reset” procedure before – but if it saves them 11 cents for a recessed button, that’s the way things work in China now), but it still retained all my network settings. My wireless router has a soft reset (in the 192.168.0.1 utility) and a recessed button on the back, so I could reset that. Uninstalled the HP Media Server software, shut down, restarted, and reinstalled it. Hooked the receiver up hardwired 10/100 while watching the ew5000 using video capture software through the ATI composite video input. It was syncing up again.   Then, disconnected from Ethernet, I made the wireless connection to a default unsecured network. Success (I like that word better than “Fuck!). Changed the network name, then connected again. Success. Added SSIDs and, after a little twiddling, success again. Took the receiver back to the living room and the entertainment center (I hate “home entertainment center” – where do they think you’re gonna use it, in a barn?) and played my computer technician success theme, “You’ve Got A Bright Future In Sales” by Fountains Of Wayne. I think I’ve earned some grated cheddar cheese on tonight’s chilidog. 6:12:51 PM    comment []