(no subject)

I spent several hours yesterday clearing out the storage unit I had rented to hold all my books and stuff that wouldn't fit in the little house we lived in for 2 weeks.

During the course of my moving this multitude of boxes I contemplated how much easier life would be if I managed to squelch my desire for material possesions and lived life in a simple Buddhist monastic fashion.

But I really like all my books and dvds and cds. I guess I'll have to wait a few years till I've reached a higher level of consciousness and can rid myself of all this stuff that is keeping me from achieving Nirvana.

******
I've been hearing about BitTorrent for awhile now but I've sorta of had a grouchy old man attitude towards it. "My Bearshare is good enough for me! I don't need no newfangled file sharing system!" But I've been embarrased recently by a freind of Dorothea's. She asked me to find some songs by somebody or other and I found a few by that artist and gave them to her. She gave me an odd look as I proudly displayed to her the paltry sampling of this artist's output and then told me that G had given her a disk with all of that artists albums on it. Grrrrr. Doesn't help that G is another guy either. I've been assured that G is 'just a friend' but still, if he's doing something better than me for my Baby then, ya know, that can't help but raise my ire a little.

Instead of hunting down G and beating him with a roadkilled squirrel while shouting "Stay away from my girl, Beyotch!, I downloaded BitTorrent and set about figuring out how it works. The first thing I learned is that I'm basically a day late and a dollar short, again. It seems during the past few weeks the evil RIAA has sued the pants off of most of the largest torrent sites and as a result the whole bittorrent phenonenom isn't quite as cool as it used to be. I did manage to dl a few things though so I don't suck completely. From what I've read, the free spirited file sharers of the world are reconfiguring themselves and preparing another assault upon the fortress of the RIAA. Rich booty awaits us, me hearties.

*******

The Holidays were low key here in The Republic of North California. I got some stuff and I got some stuff for some other people. I got Doro one of these and she dug it, even though her LJ says otherwise. We also got ourselves a scanner. It's pretty cool. My parent's have a ton of old slides, including a bunch my dad made during the two years he was in Vietnam and I want to scan those and maybe make a website to display them. It scans slides pretty well. It also scans negatives and makes them... un-negative, which is cool. I'm not too happy with the quality of the scans of regular photos, but I might have to mess with the settings a bit. They seem kind of grainy. Doro got me the extended widescreen edition of Return of the King, which I'm really looking forward to watching. I really want to see the extra scenes, but first we gotta watch the first two movies because somebody hasn't seen them yet.

"What's that guy's name again?"
"Aragorn but some people call him Strider"
"What's that one's name?"
"Frodo"
"What?"
"FRODO! FRODO BAGGINS! You've heard of Frodo, right?!"
"Uh, sorry. I've heard of Gandalf...."

I'm not sure if this relationship is gonna work out, man.

*******

This season will always be bittersweet for me since a year ago, on Dec 23rd, I had to have my best buddy, Jake, put to sleep because of cancer. He was 9.5 years old and had spent most of those years directly at my side. A finer dog never lived. I'm afraid I sometimes judge Tattoo unfairly because of memories of Jake. Sorry pooch.

( Rest in Peace Jakey )

(no subject)

I spent several hours yesterday clearing out the storage unit I had rented to hold all my books and stuff that wouldn't fit in the little house we lived in for 2 weeks.

During the course of my moving this multitude of boxes I contemplated how much easier life would be if I managed to squelch my desire for material possesions and lived life in a simple Buddhist monastic fashion.

But I really like all my books and dvds and cds. I guess I'll have to wait a few years till I've reached a higher level of consciousness and can rid myself of all this stuff that is keeping me from achieving Nirvana.

******
I've been hearing about BitTorrent for awhile now but I've sorta of had a grouchy old man attitude towards it. "My Bearshare is good enough for me! I don't need no newfangled file sharing system!" But I've been embarrased recently by a freind of Dorothea's. She asked me to find some songs by somebody or other and I found a few by that artist and gave them to her. She gave me an odd look as I proudly displayed to her the paltry sampling of this artist's output and then told me that G had given her a disk with all of that artists albums on it. Grrrrr. Doesn't help that G is another guy either. I've been assured that G is 'just a friend' but still, if he's doing something better than me for my Baby then, ya know, that can't help but raise my ire a little.

Instead of hunting down G and beating him with a roadkilled squirrel while shouting "Stay away from my girl, Beyotch!, I downloaded BitTorrent and set about figuring out how it works. The first thing I learned is that I'm basically a day late and a dollar short, again. It seems during the past few weeks the evil RIAA has sued the pants off of most of the largest torrent sites and as a result the whole bittorrent phenonenom isn't quite as cool as it used to be. I did manage to dl a few things though so I don't suck completely. From what I've read, the free spirited file sharers of the world are reconfiguring themselves and preparing another assault upon the fortress of the RIAA. Rich booty awaits us, me hearties.

*******

The Holidays were low key here in The Republic of North California. I got some stuff and I got some stuff for some other people. I got Doro one of these and she dug it, even though her LJ says otherwise. We also got ourselves a scanner. It's pretty cool. My parent's have a ton of old slides, including a bunch my dad made during the two years he was in Vietnam and I want to scan those and maybe make a website to display them. It scans slides pretty well. It also scans negatives and makes them... un-negative, which is cool. I'm not too happy with the quality of the scans of regular photos, but I might have to mess with the settings a bit. They seem kind of grainy. Doro got me the extended widescreen edition of Return of the King, which I'm really looking forward to watching. I really want to see the extra scenes, but first we gotta watch the first two movies because somebody hasn't seen them yet.

"What's that guy's name again?"
"Aragorn but some people call him Strider"
"What's that one's name?"
"Frodo"
"What?"
"FRODO! FRODO BAGGINS! You've heard of Frodo, right?!"
"Uh, sorry. I've heard of Gandalf...."

I'm not sure if this relationship is gonna work out, man.

*******

This season will always be bittersweet for me since a year ago, on Dec 23rd, I had to have my best buddy, Jake, put to sleep because of cancer. He was 9.5 years old and had spent most of those years directly at my side. A finer dog never lived. I'm afraid I sometimes judge Tattoo unfairly because of memories of Jake. Sorry pooch.

( Rest in Peace Jakey )