First, the freaky bit:

Yesterday afternoon, while I was at work, someone broke into my car and opened the hood. Nothing was stolen, nothing was tampered with, but when I went out to the parking lot to go home, the hood of my car was open.

I’m guessing that someone in the street racing community wanted to see if I had a VTEC engine in my car (I drive a Honda del Sol, popular among street racers around here). I don’t, but if I did, I bet my car would’ve been missing when i went to go home.

Fun stuff

lightgatherer is very sweet.

She’s also an excellent model. I should have some images to post online soon. 🙂

Of Giraffes and Alligators

Shelly (bandage) was once told that her problems with isolation were not because she’s messed up, but because she’s a giraffe and she’s hanging around with a bunch of alligators. Hanging around with other giraffes helps with the feelings of isolation.

Seems pretty straightforward, right? Problem is, the world is filled with alligators, and giraffes are fairly rare.

In many ways, my relationship with Kelly (kellyv) was designed with the idea that I would become romantically involved with alligators in mind. Alligators who fall in love with me are quite likely, at some point, to decide they want me to themselves; this is the way alligators work. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if someone is going to force me to choose between her and Kelly, then I’m going to choose Kelly.

Indeed, the terms of the relationship I have with Kelly were inadvertently set up in such as way as to make my lovers ask me to choose, because the terms of my relationship with Kelly make it very difficult for anyone who falls in love with me to feel secure with me.

That’s a problem it took another giraffe to see.

My relationship with both Shelly and Kelly is changing to accomodate the knowledge of this design flaw. Relationship changes are not always easy. they are, however, often necessary; indeed, any healthy relationship can and must change over time.

I do not plan to exclude either one of htese people from any part of my life. They are both wonderful people who bring joy to my life, and I will not willingly part with either.

So it’s all good. 🙂

Windows XP: How do we loathe thee?

Kelly’s laptop has been acting quite strange. Or rather, it’s been acting like a normal Wintel laptop, which is quite strange if you’re used to working with Macs.

The way it works is this: Install Windows 98 SE. All is good, for a while; then, over a period of months, things gradually quit working, or work increasingly erratically, until finally using the computer becomes as frustrating as picking ant shit out of pepper while wearing boxing gloves.

So I reinstall Windows 98. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Well, Kelly picked up a copy of Win XP Professional on the off chance that it does not suffer from Redmond Bit Rot(tm) to quite the same degree as Windows 98.

Okay, so here’s how to install XP Professional on an NEC Versa SX laptop, in a week or less:

1. Boot from the CD.

2. Run the setup program from CD.

3. Choose the hard drive to install on.

4. Tell it to do an archive and install. Estimated time: 37 minutes. OK.

5. Watch The Simpsons for 20 minutes. Computer has to reboot. OK.

6. “Please choose an operating system: Windows XP or Windows XP.” Huh?

7. Choose the wrong one. Computer freezes hard. Goddamnit.

8. Turn the computer off. Turn it back on. Boot from the CD. Run the Setup program.

9. “There is not enough hard disk space to install Windows XP.” Well, hell.

10. Hit the Back button, choose the hard drive again, tell Setup to format the hard drive. “Setup can not format this hard drive, as files needed by Setup have already been copied onto the drive.”

11. Turn off the computer. Turn it on. Boot from CD. Run Setup. Choose the hard drive. tell Setup to format the hard drive.

12. 37 minutes to install. Rock on! Watch Law & Order for 20 minutes.

13. “Please check the date and time settings.” Set the correct time zone, hit OK.

14. Turn on the computer, which has mysteriously switched off the instant the “OK” button is clicked.

15. Boot from the CD. Run Setup. Choose the hard drive. Tell Setup to format and install. 37 minutes to install. Yadda yadda yadda…

13. “Please enter your Windows Product Key.” Fish around, type in the product key.

14. Turn on the computer, which has mysteriously switched off as soon as the “OK” button is pressed. Whatinthehell…??

15. Repeat Steps 11 through 14 about 6 more times.

16. Computer finally accepts the product key. Goddamn fucking Windows Product Activation dialog comes up. Tell Windows to activate online. “Thank you very much…” Yeah, blow me.

17. Reboot. listen to inane music. “Take the Windows XP Tour!” No thanks, I’d rather stick needles in my eyes. “Register for a Passport account on MSN!” No thanks, I’d rather stick needles in my eyes while walking barefoot through a field of thistles.

18. “You have 30 days to activate Windows…” Excuse me? You were already activated, remember?

19. Activate Windows again. “The maximum number of activations for this product key has already been reached. Please call Customer Support…” Whatinthehell?

20. Call Customer Support. Recite 44-digit Product ID number. Receive 44-digit Product Activation Number. “Thank you very much…” Yeah, blow me, Billy. You and all your minions.

21. Marvel at how much easier all this is on a Mac.