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

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Saturday, June 26, 2004

Be Like Dick!   Hey, I hear Dick Cheney has been banned from the Subservient Chicken website – and not just for giving it the bird. Some have criticized Cheney for providing a blatant negative example of the family values his political party represents, but in my book he is an excellent example.   Tell your children not to waste their time studying or serving in the US armed forces – that shit is for goofy poor people who can't even afford food stamps. Tell them instead to ingratiate themselves with families like that of "the other Dick," Nixon - or the entire Bush family. That's a guaranteed meal ticket and the real meaning of Family Values.   No matter how badly these enlightened children screw up, it’s always somebody else who foots the bill. If some powerless lout like Pat Leahy questions the legality of ripping off California taxpayers in a phony energy crisis (or Halliburton gouging US taxpayers in Iraq), you can always use a common vernacular  expression (and don’t kids love to learn those!) such as one recommending that he insert a certain member (the one you have nominally) into an orifice he doesn’t have - and if you choose wily wit as your modus expresando, you can further develop the proposition by stating that Culture Wars are a battle between the "haves and have-nots." IOW, those capable of compliance with The Leahy Directive and those biologically-challenged by it.The sheer irony would make Tucker Carlson giggle and ol' Bill Safire would roar, maybe even touch himself!   Then, because you're above the law, you can always go on MurdochVision and tell the whole flossing world you don’t regret it one fuchsin bit, because “Leahy asked for it."   Yes, boys and girls, that is the absolute luxury of absolute power – you can say anything you want to anyone, anytime! Ain't that cool? Teacher giving you a hard time? Now you know what to say - and tell her you learned it from Dick "Head" Cheney.   You've got to learn how to exert this extraordinary power at a very early age or you will lose the it, kinda like The Force. Remember, you answer to no one! As you fish the seas of Life, you are the captain of your own ship and the master of your own bait - and anyone who says otherwise can just go... 5:38:05 PM    comment []

The FeederCam is up and running, very primitively. The otherwise fine instructions did not tell me to put the router in as default gateway and it took me this long to figure it out. It’s been a while since I’ve used anything but DHCP to obtain an IP address.   I’ll leave it up until dark and try to get it in a more refined form tomorrow. You can see the birds (mostly house finches) in action by clicking here. I think my router can handle about five simultaneous connections before it collapses in bewilderment.   When you’re on the page, click either “ActiveX” or “Java” to see a real time display.   This message will self destruct at sundown. 4:59:52 PM    comment []

I’ve given up temporarily on getting outside access to the webcam and decided boil up a pork butt with some peppers and onions.   9:45:12 AM    comment []

I’m gonna my D-Link DL 614+ wireless router “Shaq” because it blocks nearly everything, but misses the easy shots and falls short of the championship. That may sound complicated. Let me explain.   A few weeks ago I became determined to VPN into the GBD Corporation private intranet so I could work at home (a very bad idea generally, but good for added flexibility). An earlier application has worked fine, but when I <dreaded word alert> upgraded everything went straight to hell. After many, many hours of reloading the app and removing shit like Microsoft’s Advanced Networking, I still couldn’t authenticate on the intranet. After I’d given up, I found a note on a message group where somebody had a similar problem with the same router. The solution was “Disable Gaming Mode” in the routers firmware. The only good thing that can be said about this experience is that I learned my router’s firmware in-and-out, and a little more about networking. The bad news is that I now find I need all that and more.   That wireless webcam. Just set it up and type in your router’s WAN IP address when you want to access it from the Internet. Wrong! I can ping my IP address, but Explorer won’t load the picture (or anything) when I type it in there. I’ve given up for today, but I know there will be one simple box somewhere that needs to be unchecked, one the documentation for the webcam never mentioned. Both the router and the webcam are made by D-Link, why don’t they like each other? 8:13:44 AM    comment []