Ah, only a few more hours left to 2003.

Let’s see… Some Blessings I can count. Just off the top of my head.

• My Beloved
• Newt
• My brother is on his way to good health.
• I’m getting in better and better shape.
• Old friends coming out of the woodwork.
• At a gig that makes a positive difference in the world.
• Made a number of kindly friends.
• The vast majority of this year’s stresses have been alleviates or are in the works for correction / removal.
• Improved Computer system

Not too shabby.

Some New Years Resolutions (I have about the same ones every year.)

128×48, the graphic resolution of the original TRS-80
160×160, PalmOS devices in their original PDA form factor
640×480, sometimes colloquially called VGA, since it was the big advance brought by IBM’s introduction of VGA
800×600, casually referred to as SVGA, the comfort zone on a 15-inch CRT
1024×768, generally said to be XGA. Much liked on a 17-inch CRT
1152×864, which is about as much as most people can stand on a 17-inch CRT
1280×1024, generally considered optimal on a 19-inch CRT
1600×1200, graphic design sweet spot, at least until something better than a 21-inch, 72 dpi CRT goes mainstream

My current desktop: 2048×768 (2*1024×768)

Since it’s Pretty much the New Year, I’ve taken down the Christmas Decor on my site… I’m thinknig about a nice birthday / candlemas / Imbolc / Groundhog’s one for February. Here’s one of my fave online cards for the holidays… arrow keys move.

I hope that 2004 is superior in every way to 2003 by means of love, happiness and health to any and all. Though, if it comes down to it, I’m putting my loved ones first, then myself, and then everyone else gets what’s left. 🙂

Ah, only a few more hours left to 2003.

Let’s see… Some Blessings I can count. Just off the top of my head.

• My Beloved
• Newt
• My brother is on his way to good health.
• I’m getting in better and better shape.
• Old friends coming out of the woodwork.
• At a gig that makes a positive difference in the world.
• Made a number of kindly friends.
• The vast majority of this year’s stresses have been alleviates or are in the works for correction / removal.
• Improved Computer system

Not too shabby.

Some New Years Resolutions (I have about the same ones every year.)

128×48, the graphic resolution of the original TRS-80
160×160, PalmOS devices in their original PDA form factor
640×480, sometimes colloquially called VGA, since it was the big advance brought by IBM’s introduction of VGA
800×600, casually referred to as SVGA, the comfort zone on a 15-inch CRT
1024×768, generally said to be XGA. Much liked on a 17-inch CRT
1152×864, which is about as much as most people can stand on a 17-inch CRT
1280×1024, generally considered optimal on a 19-inch CRT
1600×1200, graphic design sweet spot, at least until something better than a 21-inch, 72 dpi CRT goes mainstream

My current desktop: 2048×768 (2*1024×768)

Since it’s Pretty much the New Year, I’ve taken down the Christmas Decor on my site… I’m thinknig about a nice birthday / candlemas / Imbolc / Groundhog’s one for February. Here’s one of my fave online cards for the holidays… arrow keys move.

I hope that 2004 is superior in every way to 2003 by means of love, happiness and health to any and all. Though, if it comes down to it, I’m putting my loved ones first, then myself, and then everyone else gets what’s left. 🙂

Had Thai dinner with Danny last night, and got Dan his DVD player… he’s officially caught up with the 90s. I’m going to give him a copy of Young Frankenstein on Friday, as his first movie.

After a *very* satisfying supper of red curry tofu and a dessert of coconut ice cream, There was a brief constitutional walk to the nearby theatre to see what’s playing, and I was surprised to see only a couple of indy/art flicks. I do want to see Cold Mountain, though… if only for the imagery and to see if they changed the ending from the book. Then we picked up the DVD player (and I got some blank DVDs), and browsed the computer / console games section. If Danny ever gets an X-box, I’ll get him that Extreme Beach Volleyball (Or, CGI boobie-girl bounce, as I like to call it.) I prefer Warcraft III. Lastly, we headed over to the near uber-Barnes and Noble. He picked up a copy of The Color of Magic, because I’ve been talking about the Discworld series too much lately.

New Year’s Eve… Hopefully I’ll get to see my beloved tonight, and we can spend some quality time together.

[ACIM update]We had our 52^nd success, an Alzheimer’s Elderly in Port Orange. Also, SD gave notice yesterday, MM will start work as a Tech sometime next week. It looks like CS will be here for a while yet, but I suspect it’ll only be a matter of time before the Kahuna and he run afoul of one another, and the axe will have to drop. New person to take up some of RI’s duties, and RI will be back on Monday, after tending to her mom’s funeral arrangements. [end of update]

Skip converting the Ohio newsletter to HTML, wasted enough time on it already. Just slap a PDF up there, and be done with it. Make PDF the Standard from now on, and keep it consistant. When the next Florida and Georgia items go out, convert to PDF as well.

Back’s much better. Monday at work was crazy busy…. spent the whole time doing research and programming, my favorite two things that I’ve ever been paid to do. Sometimes hard work, but rewarding, and makes use of my strengths.

On the opposite side of the fence, I state for the record that I really dislike my Quark obligations… possibly because I only know a very little bit of it, and am expected to be an expert. I’ve learned a lot lately, but there’s still some room to grow.

Big Kahuna Kindly split call with me this week and I think that’s a fine Christmas Bonus… Plus, she got us all veggie lasagna for a Christmas lunch last week. Works for me!

Heading out to supper with Danny tonight.. and it looks like Janet’s friend Dick invited himself along for Friday. That’s a peeve, but I don’t foresee it being too much of a problem. Dick’s more of Janet’s pal than Danny, really… but I figure it’ll give Janet someone to talk to, if Danny and I go off on a conversational tangent she’s not interested in.

I’ve been a DC++ing fool lately… downloaded about30 gigs worth of stuff, and really have only previewed it to make sure it’s what it was claimed to be. I tend to grab movies, watch ’em, and then delete them…. Sort of a netflix, without the postage or service fees.

A year ago – RFL pictures, PT Barnum, Malawi vampires, Morse code

2 years ago – Treebeard and Entwife, Met Denise & Sara @ Danny’s Party, Mai Kai, eclipse

3 years ago – Calcutta Chromosome, Got shoo as a pal, Amitav Ghosh, Saw D&D movie with Danny, and Andy running the yellow Pompano comic shack.

I think I’ve found the most narrow “Prize group” ever. I picked up a box of Brown Sugar and Oat Total cereal today.. and affixed to the front was a DVD of two Barney Miller Episodes.

Episodes – The Tunnel and The Obituary

A huge number of ways to subscribe to my journal, if you use a RSS aggregator:

Subscription Options : Scottobear’s Livejournal

Other livejournalists can reproduce this list by just searching and replacing scottobear the username in all of the links.

Cable guys came by and picked up the digital box yesterday… the 3-month trial is over, and I’m not going to pay $84 a month for HBO and a nifty remote. I’m happy paying less than half of that, and using the remote that came with the TV. I won’t miss HBO at all. As Long as I have Discovery, AMC, History and the Cartoon Network, I’m pretty much set.

I’m really pleased that revising my video drivers (uninstalling the latest ones, then reinstalling took care of the freezing business…. I’m much more fond of it, now that I’ve assigned hot keys to the game pad, and the it doesn’t seize up.) It’s good to have a backup magic user healing you during combat. Sammy is a Rogue, D a Mage, and my Warrior cover the fundamental fantasy RPG basics… Sammy’s a Cat girl, D’s a Human, and I’m the big mook race.

Point of discovery: I now know firsthand that tobasco sauce in the eye stings like a SOB… I thought as much in theory beforehand, but an accident today with a burrito has confirmed my long-standing suspicions.

Flaming Pear‘s freebies are excellent (as are the ones that aren’t so free.) Vitriol and Solidify are especially handy. If you use PSP, GIMP or Photoshop, they’re must-haves.

Florida Sky at Christmastime.

Went to the ACIM Christmas party, got to meet some nice folks, and was entertained quite a bit.

Factoids about last night –

• Elyahou is a hugger.
• Rhonda likes to kiss hello/goodbye twice.
• Newbie’s Father is a Lawyer, can tell a good dirty joke, and doesn’t want to go into politics because he’s too honest.
• Newbie’s boyfriend is a good match for her.
• Newbie’s mom is a “cheap date” drink-wise.
• Newbie takes after her mom, look-wise and drink-wise.
• Bob directed Porno movies at some point more than six years ago.
• I really like chocolate chip brownie bars. I think I ate five of them, along with assorted cheese and olives.
• Big Kahunas’ hubby George, has a sweet tooth, and is a big European history buff. (We talked for a good hour about Spain, Iceland, Germany, and Sweden.)
• Some people bring kids to parties marked “no kids”, and it ticks off those who paid to get a sitter.

I’ve discovered it’s easier to download cracked serial numbers(warning: if you don’t have blockers in place, you could be inundated with popups and cookies and spam, oh my!) for software I own, rather than to track down the CD-cases with the ID codes on them.

Airline logos: 75 pages of them, from Aerosite.net.

Educator’s Reference Desk great education source directory from creators of ERIC database.

Festival Network Online search for art and music festivals, shows, craft fairs, etc.

Libdex: an international library guide, find info about a library, including branch libraries; also has a directory of library blogs, a Publishers search and a directory of online newspaper lists.

A Sightseeer’s Guide to Engineering .

The National Map Viewer: this is a new mapping service from USGS: I like this pretty well, you can zoom in down to street level but all maps show topography as well as other features and you can customize it in a lot of ways. (The viewer uses pop-up windows for some data entry and to display some results. You must temporarily disable any pop-up blocker that you have installed on your machine for these windows to work. )

Spooky Newt pic from atop the tower.
He reminds me a little of Zardoz.

*Thank you* for the lovely book from my wish list, Lisa!

It arrived in a very timely manner, and I’ve been looking forward to reading it for quite a while! (Since 5/15/03, to be precise.) It came as a complete surprise, and I really do appreciate it.

(It was a copy of The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Diane Ravitch.)

I’d love to see these technologies arrive sooner than later. Continue reading 6376 – Prezzies, tech, tarantula hair. →

Yum, The momster brought over a stocking. I got some lovely sundries, including a really tasty slice of pumpkin-spice bread.. and… *no* toenail clippers. I think it’s a minor Christmas miracle! Newt got a pretty collar, and some fine paper wads to chase. Mommie dearest got a nice bottle of wine and some candy.

Pic from yesterday, Newt and I reading together.
A couple of sleepyheads!

I was very disappointed to see that Microsoft stopped providing downloads of the TrueType core fonts from the web, considering that my system doesn’t have Baker signet, Papyrus, or Verdana by default. Hopefully, they’ll be provided when I reinstall MS Office / Word to this system, otherwise, I’ll have to bleed them off of Frankenstein. (Big Brain’s New Name). My next step is to see if I can yank them from somewhere else as I’ve had no luck with the web.archive.org site.

I’ll leave the streaming cam on again, today… I like that I can set it to toss things in the gallery only if the image has changed by a certain percent. Instead of streaming audio, I’ve shared a link to a silly music directory at the bottom of the page. Folks can download what they want.

It’ll be a thick day today… Training Mohna in the morning, and getting the Georgia Newsletter on the website by 4pm. I’m really glad that tomorrow is Saturday. I look forward to a little relaxation sometime this weekend. I may be able to get Kahuna to take a little call, so I can hang out with Danny…. His birthday is the top of January.

The holiday’s brought forth a lot of good vibes for me, and that’s something I really appreciate. As this year draws to a close, I think that I’ll do a longer review of this year’s blessings. The best of them is that I picked up a number of new friends, and renewed friendships with some old friends that I’d lost contact with for an age, and found some worthwhile work to do. Anyhoo, it’s time to launch. Until later, dear journal!

Mistletoe thoughts for my beloved and all my good buddies today!

Watching Shrek today, and looking forward to munching on some green bean (or maybe broccoli?) casserole this evening. Good, hearty, comfort food. Simple to make.

Ok, set up Newtcam again, a lovely video stream as well and got fancy, by adding a link to winamp streaming audio at the bottom, as well. (Old time radio right now, for the fun of it.) Heck, I might stream Patrick Swayze Christmas episode of MST3k. Get Winamp 5.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a comment in the Toybox from Katt. I agree.. the Artist Smiley does look a lot like Doug. I look forward to being friendly with her as well as her hubby. (Random kitty factoid: Their cat D’art was a very big part of why I ultimately foster-cared for Newt.)

A lovely WWII Christmas story (found to be true via Snopes.)

I tell you what, this little 128 meg USB flash drive that came with my ‘pooter is a hoot. I guess mine was free, to make way for those playing mp3s and all the other jazz that I don’t need. The size is just right, weighs nothing, and it holds enough to make it worth my while. Another addition to my utility belt… a great way to transfer data quickly!

Really Big Brain is now on two monitors, Big Brain is on the operating table….I’m stealing some of his memory, and devouring any other bone marrow that could be of use. I like having a Frankenstein machine laying around, so that I can test parts and pieces.

I’m having some trouble FTPing with XP… I’m not sure what the story is. Maybe some proxy issues? I tried both the IP address and the DNS still times out. It’s a static IP, and I’m just trying to fiddle with my website / Newtcam. I can log in, but that’s about it.

The Message I get is –

“An Error occurred opening that folder on the FTP Server. –
200 Type set to A
200 PORT command successful
425 Can’t build data connection: Connection timed out. “

Anyone know of why I’d have weirdness via XP? I’m looking through known issues, now. Any answered would be greatly appreciated from folks that know more about XP pro. I can hit it from the command prompt.

[update: – ten minutes later] – Fixed the problem by changing to “passive mode”. If you’re using IE, goto Extra > Internet Options > Advanced, then goto the surfing header and check the box that says something like “use passive FTP-protocol”. unfortunately, chillcam isn’t liking that too much, despite there being a passive FTP option there, too.