Okay, now it really is!
From me (“the wishor”) to you (“the wishee”), please accept without obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday season, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious / secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.
We (“wishor”) wish you (“wishee”) a financially successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2004, but with due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures or sects, and having regard to the race, creed color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting this greeting, you are bound by these terms:
1. This greeting is subject to further clarification or withdrawal.
2. This greeting is freely transferable provided that no alteration shall be made to the original greeting and that the proprietary rights of the wishor are acknowledged.
3. This greeting implies no promise by the wishor to actually implement the inferences contained in this correspondence.
4. This greeting may not be enforceable in certain jurisdictions and/or the restrictions herein may not be binding upon certain wishees in certain geographical locations.
5. This greeting is warranted to perform as reasonably as may be expected within the usual application of good tidings, for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first.
6. The wishor warrants this greeting only for the limited replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wishor.
7. THIS GREETING IS PROVIDED BY THE WISHEE “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE WISHEE BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GREETINGS) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS GREETING, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
[“Politically Correct Holiday Greeting” from e-mail message; modified by me before posting.]
Happy New Year Almost!
Well, I should have posted something after Christmas, but I haven't gotten to it yet. To give you a hint of what I've been up to the last few days, it has something to do with fighting with Verizon Wireless concerning my year and a half old cell service (call receiving problems) and the fact that my Apple PowerMac G5 has bluetooth.
You can also catch another thing I've been doing today at OfB.biz — my annual GNU/Linux year-in-review article.
Depending on what happens, I may not be back on tonight, so have a very very happy new year! Thanks everyone for a great year of blogging in 2003, I'm looking forward to 2004!
Good Day/Hard Night
It wasn't much fun to install, however. Under my desk is — to put it in the best of possible terms — a messy war zone of technology. Having four computers hooked up (PowerMac, Dell desktop, Dell laptop and a “guest” system — presently the Shuttle XPC), plus all the other niceties such a printer, pda, cable modem, router, etc. leads to lots and lots of cables. Uhg! I decided to move everything out rather than just tossing the new KVM cables under there — to make everything somewhat organized.
Ha! That was 7:30 p.m. tonight. It is now 1:00 a.m. I got everything back in place and nicely bundled by 9:00 p.m. At 9:45 p.m. I realized that there was a low “beep” and static when using the KVM switch with my speakers on the G5. Hrfm. It was 10:30 when everything was completely moved out again and probably 11:15 when I realized the problem was the switch (both the 2 and 4 port versions do the same thing). The sound mysteriously disappeared when the Mac was directly connected to speakers, so I was sure it was the switch. Using a heavily shielded audio cable rather than the integrated KVM one didn't change anything.
I think it was about 12:00 when I realized the same noise could be heard when I switched to my PC desktop while the Mac was on — thus it seems that the KVM is vulnerable to sound interference and the G5 seems to be emitting a lot of it. About 12:10 I finally isolated the culprit - it's the G5's hard disk. When the hard disk spins up, noise appears on the speakers. Take that for what you will.
Overall though, besides very sore knees and back, I'm pretty happy. When the sound is at a reasonable level, you really can't hear the interference and when there is actually music playing, you can't hear it at all. If I leave my speaker volume low and turn the computer's volume up, I should be good to go.
Tired
What a week. At the cost of sounding like a broken record CD, it has been a crazy week. After tomorrow, though, I expect clear sailing (not counting normal Christmas hustle and bustle) for the rest of the month. That'd be nice!
It's only 15 days 'til Christmas… are you all ready for it or saying “already?”
I'm ready for the Christmas season, but I'm not ready for Christmas day yet. It'd be nice if it was around December 1 right now. Oh, well — still two weeks to finish decorating and all the other good stuff.
Not Dead.
Despite rumors of such, I actually am still here. Time permitting I might get a nice post in tonight — if not tonight, tomorrow for sure. I have some last minute work piled up, but I think it should go fairly quickly. Or maybe not.
At any rate, I have some stuff to talk about. I have two new computers sitting under my desk — one of which I really don't need… I'll explain why in my next post.
Back!
I'm back… yeah, it was a short trip, but I just couldn't arrange things to get part of the week off. I went to Silver Dollar City yesterday and, as always, it is one of the prettiest Christmas displays you can see. I feel very refreshed at the moment — the Ozarks will do that to you. I'll post more about everything later.
In the mean time, I have a question for the Bourbonite readers of this blog: What's your favorite pie at the Hen House Restaurant? I'd had the French Silk and Chocolate Meringue before (and I have a to-go piece of French Silk in the fridge), but tonight I tried the Coconut Meringue and it was delicious!
Be Back Soon
I'm taking a few days off for some R-n-R in the Ozarks. I'll be back soon and try to post more afterwards (reflections on the Purpose-Driven Life will be one of my next posts — I just finished about an hour ago). I'll also answer the final set of questions on the 40 Days of Purpose small group (sorry, guys, for being missing the last week!).
Driving and My Digital IQ
How did you do? Post yer results (or your answers to the “Sunday Brunch” questions) below.
A New Meaning for DOA
Most things you receive are guaranteed that they won't be dead on arrival. What if, on the other hand the whole point of its arrival was death? That must have been the thought that crossed the mind of founder of a new e-mail service: MyLastE-mail.
Apparently, the concept revolves around the idea that a person would want to send people e-mail messages when they died (you can send personal messages, not just a generic announcement). Afterall, as the site points out, you never know when you might kick the bucket, and you certainly may have things to say to those who you leave behind after your farm purchase. Yeah, right. I just can't see sending loved ones an e-mail message saying:
Hi there, I'm dead. I'll miss you.-Tim
PS: Don't forget to feed my cats. Thanks!
How about you?
I'm back.
Well, I'm back from an unexpected blogging break. This week was really busy and then the weather change got the best of me leaving me a bit under the weather (pun intended), so I just haven't had a chance to come blog.
I've also spent a lot of time on the phone with FedEx and NewEgg.com. FedEx delivered about $300 worth of parts I ordered to the wrong address (an address which apparently had a waiver that said that FedEx didn't have to get a signature from them). After several days of repeated calling, FedEx finally got the driver to go back, only to find out that the resident of the home it was delivered to took the FedEx package to where you would logically take a wrongly delivered FedEx package: UPS!
After that, they waited around a day hoping UPS would call and report the package. When that didn't happen they had me call NewEgg and ask them to resend the package (saying they'd settled the claim with NewEgg). Of course, when NewEgg called FedEx, FedEx said it was my problem because I signed a signature waiver (rather the resident of where ever they delivered to signed that waiver and even if I had… how's that relate to delivering to the wrong address?!!?!). Finally, after talking to FedEx a few more times, I called NewEgg back and they now have my order shipped again. They were nice enough to up the shipping from FedEx Economy to FedEx 2 Day. Hopefully this time FedEx will get the address right.
Unfortunately all of this also ended up preventing me from getting a few articles on OfB that I was hoping to. On the bright side, one of those articles depended on the parts that are now MIA at UPS, so I couldn't have written the piece anyway. There's always next week.
Moral of the story: this is the second time in four months I've had trouble with FedEx. I recommend UPS at the moment.
