WOULD YOU CARE FOR SOME TEA?

I'm Not Dead

I've just been having a peaceful weekend, reading, listening to music, writing point-in-time aged creditors reports, and not blogging.

Back tomorrow.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:34 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Worm Redux

Susie's having a party in her comments. A big welcome to DJ Paul from Sanity's Edge.

Meanwhile, I have been rewormulated. I liked it better the first time 'round.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:29 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Every Good Boy

Every good boy deserves fruit. What's the other one? Oh, F.A.C.E. Yeah.

I'll be spending the weekend downloading music. Not from Kazaa, 'cause that would be bad (and I wouldn't want to do anything bad). Not from the iTunes Music Store, because I don't have a Mac.

Err... Except for the dual G4. And the G4 cube. Oh, and the iMac. Um, and the G3. Apart from those, no Macs.

I still won't be using the iTunes Music Store because it's only available in the U.S., and I happen to live in the not-U.S. Somebody has to, or else the planet gets out of balance and tips over and the polar ice caps melt and all the penguins get sunburn and Miami sinks below the waves. Which would be great and all, but sunburnt penguins get grouchy and we can't have that.

I won't be using BuyMusic.com because it's run by a bunch of wankers. The files are Windows-only, and I don't... Well, only two. The files are Windows only, the user interface is Windows only, everything is riddled with DRM ("Digital Rights Managament", as in, "You ain't got none"), and they charge too much.

Instead, I'll be downloading from EMusic. (And, yes, I've made a Music directory on my E: drive.) $9.95 per month - though they do ask that you sign up for 12 months to get that price - and you can download as much as you want.

Really.

They don't have all the current Top 40 stuff, but I don't really see that as a downside. If there's something on the Top 40 that I like, I'll hear it somehow and I'll buy it. What they do have includes They Might Be Giants, a number of George Carlin comedy albums (as opposed to his tragedy albums, I guess), some selections from little-known artists like John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis... Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw... Bach, Mozart, some guy named "Vivaldi".

In short, all the stuff that I'd really like to own but had never got around to forking over the cash for. And now, for the same price I paid for lunch on Thursday, I've got it all. Or at least I would have if my download speeds hadn't suddenly decided to suck. Since it was working fine earlier in the evening (during hideously expensive peak time) and only started sucking just now (during quote-free-unquote off-peak time), I'll tentatively lay the blame at my miserable excuse for an ISP, who shall be history any day now.

Any day now... Taps fingers... Grrr.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:23 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Got You, Fox!

Gotta love 'em: the Foxiest news around:

As many sound and revealing theories as have been proposed over the past year to explain France's confounding geopolitical behavior, they've all missed something fundamental.

The country's less than Western, less than ally-like stances would have seemed less baffling if we hadn't started from a wrong premise: Namely, that France is a member of the civilized world.

(Fox News via Merde in France)

(Is there anyone else in the world who remembers the Ventura Amiga User Exchange and their Killer Demo Contest? No, probably not.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Need Brains...

Feeling zombificated. Need brains. Read Lileks... No Lileks?

Ug.

Food. Need food. Light bulb in microwave gone. How me find dinner now?

Update: Lileks! Sleep now.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Collinization

John of Collinization is the latest to make the leap from the fireswamp Blogspot. Why not stop in and say hello?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Living Colour

Holy standard copier paper, Batman! My local computer store is selling colour laser printers for $1299! (Australian dollars, that is.)

It's only 1200x600 dpi - and I was holding out for 1200x1200.

It's Windows only - and I want Postscript. But with a bit of scripting, I can automate Postscript to PDF conversion and have that print, so I can pretend it's a real printer.

Watch Pixy Misa struggle with temptation...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Desktop, Meet Linux

About two years ago, I said that Linux wasn't ready yet for the average desktop user. It was at least a year, more likely two, from reaching that point.

This review of Lindows suggests that the day has finally arrived:

It's hard to find something bad to say about such a polished product. The email client on the Mozilla-based "Lindows Internet Suite" browser is configured by default to "check spelling before sending", which is great for my aunt, but I found highly annoying. It can be turned off, hopefully.

The notebook's internal Lucent LT-WinModem wasn't recognized. But then that piece of crap is not recognized by any other non-Windows operating system, not even by those that have a winmodem driver. Creating and establishing a dial-up connection worked well when using a PCMCIA modem.

It's all there. It all works. And if it's not on the install CD, the Click 'n' Run feature provides nearly two thousand applications that you can download and install with a single mouse-click. This includes Nethack, the ultimate adventure game, which is still missing from RedHat as of version 8.0. (I have yet to install 9. Sue me.)

It's not a Linux for the hard-core geek like me. I'll continue to build my own kernels and compile my own applications. But for those looking for a good, cheap desktop OS with some Windows compatibility, this is it.

I'll get a copy myself and take a further look. I'm sure one of the computers around here needs a quick scrub and reinstall.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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The Big Time

Congratulations to Tim Blair, Australian media watchdog watchdog. You know you've made it big when your hate site has a hate site of its own.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:06 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Good News

Ambient Irony is now the number one Google site for the search Squirrel Goes WEEEEEEEEEE!!!.

Also, Frank says:

RARR!

But he linked to me anyway.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:29 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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