Old. I’ve arrived.
I've passed a crossroads and the path back has been cut off. Headed straight into Old without so much as a warning sign. Old.
Wasn't supposed to get there. It's a destination from which no one returns, yet here I am.
The arrival in Old happened so quick, I am still trying to make sense of it all. In the span of two weeks, my entire way of living has changed. Between the time I was diagnosed and today, my body has already started misbehaving.
My vision has degenerated changed to the point where I can't focus on objects up close unless I peer over the top of my glasses or take them off. Doing either makes me feel older than I feel.
Ok. Mobile posting is full of fail.
I like being an enabler.
This past weekend, a friend called me an enabler. Shock! Horror! Me, an enabler? Bah. Wait. Introspect. Reflect. Assess. Epiphany.
I am an enabler. He spat the word at me with derision and my reflex was to feel offended. Pausing on that word for a moment, I realized his snap judgment of my character was absolutely right. I encourage bad behavior all the time, especially in the people closest to me. However, I also condone good behavior, even in people whose presence makes my skin itch.
Here's why: Every person should be allowed to live their lives in the manner they choose, regardless of the wishes of others. As long as the activity or behavior doesn't interfere with the same allowance for others to do the same. This is something I believe down to the core of my being to be true. (Doesn't mean it's right, sane or feasible, but there it is.)
To that end, if someone I know is drinking themselves to death, I won't lecture at them to seek aid, but if they do, I'll support them through the process as I can. I just think we're all doing what we can to survive until the end. Whatever you path you choose is your own.
The countdown is on…
January 7th is the day I will be undergoing major dental work. It's been a long time coming and I'm looking forward to ending this continual pain in my head. It's been years since I've been without it. I almost feel like I'll be losing a friend.
Wednesday’s the day.
Wednesday morning I go into approve some major dental work that has been a long time coming. I'm nervous, but excited about the work that will be done.
There will be before/after pictures when the procedure is complete. I expect the differences are going to be very dramatic.
Some screenshots of XBMC on my XBOX.
I really enjoy XBMC. It's the only thing that makes my old first-gen XBOX worth a damn any more. GameStop no longer carries them, but PS2 and GameCube titles are readily available. So, an open source project has given it new life.
Here's some recent screenshots:
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| From XBMC Screenshots |
And one more:
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| From XBMC Screenshots |
Listening to some Professor Kliq, an artist whose work is licensed under a rather liberalCreative Commons license. The XBMC skin is Focus from SVN.
had teeth pulled – anxious as all hell now.
had 4 teeth pulled on Monday from the left side of my face. Punchy, but I'm managing.
Song of my now: Under the Influence by Matthew Good Band
Mother told me to be something
so I'm afraid enough to stay wide awake.
Technorati Tags: insomnia
“Relevant ads”
I just need to get this off my chest. There are no such thing as "relevant ads." Ads by their very nature are irrelevant. Ads are intended to sell or inform you about a product or service that you didn't even know you needed.
If it was something you needed, you'd already know where to find it or necessity would drive you to locate it. Instead, marketers use advertising to leave you feeling like there's something missing in your life without the wares they're peddling.
I was just thinking today about how adding the term relevant doesn't really make the advertisement any more meaningful. It just means that marketers have targeted my likes and behaviours better than in the past. This is, in part, due to the advent of tracking cookies, referral links, adfarms and other web technologies used solely for marketing purposes.
I would recommend that we remove that particular phrase from the English lexicon. And stone to death any marketers that utter it.
New post on my technology blog.
I won't do this very often, but I'd like to announce that I have a new post on Feeding the Machine that may be of interest. It is in regards to how our usage of internet websites is tracked beyond the sites we visit.
I'd love any feedback you can provide me.
New wallpaper
Every once in a while, I make abstract wallpapers. Here's one of them:
Another red abstract wallpaper
Taking a chill pill.
I don't know that I'll be contributing to Ubuntu by way of Kubuntu for a while. language-selector's been ported to PyKDE4 and is awaiting a wrapper to integrate Python applications into System Settings as control modules, so my part's done. That being said, I think I'm going to have to leave Kubuntu behind.
You see, I don't have a snappy new computer with loads of RAM and a dual-core processor. I have a nearly 4-year-old setup with 1 gig of RAM and an older NVIDIA card. I can't continue to run KDE4 as, even with Desktop Effects turned off, the desktop runs so sluggishly as to almost render it unusable.
Thanks to KDE 3.5.9, however, I've lost my irrational bias for QT applications. In fact, I've found a wonderful cross-platform IRC application: Quassel. It runs a core process, that maintains connections and communicates with the actual IRC server, and a client that makes IRC requests through the core. This gives the benefit of being able to remain connected to IRC from anywhere through one core.
So, for now, I'm giving Xubuntu a shot since I've played with the lightweight XFCE desktop environment in the past and loved it. Compositing in X works fine, Firefox doesn't crash when visiting certain websites (this did happen in KDE4 w/Desktop Effects turned on) and overall, my machine feels responsive.
Linux has always had the reputation of making older hardware perform better than in it would in Windows. KDE4 seems to run contrary to this, however. Hopefully, by the time 4.2 is released, I'll be proven wrong. If I were interested in purchasing new hardware to keep up, I'd already be running Windows or Mac OS X.
