I’ve not
disappeared.
I just been so engrossed in stuff
like Wikipedia
(I’m an actual "Wikipedian"
now), Linux
forums and mailing
lists, attempts at getting my blog (i.e. blog.angrykeyboarder.com - which
still isn’t ready to be seen, but it’s up) finally set up and so on.
It’s
amazing how I keep myself so occupied on the Internets™ (considering
I don’t have anything else pressing to do with my time).
As
a result of all this, I’ve neglected updating here.
But
I just thought I’d announce I’ve not left and with luck I’ll appear
here more often (and actually read your posts as well - not
that you
actually care anyway).
So to those of you
considering deleting me because I’m so silent, I just thought I’d let
you know I’m still here.
Meanwhile, I just had a
sudden burst of energy so I’ll update further….
Since
so much has happened over the last few months, I’ll try
to keep it brief, since I’m infamous for rambling.
So
(in random order).:
Les Miz!
I
saw my all time favorite stage musical Les
Misérables on Friday, 20 May. That was
the 13th time (!) I’ve seen the show (in a total of 5
different cities) since 1991. Sadly it may be the last as the
Original Broadway production closed in 2003 and the U.S. National Tour
will officially end in July.
Oh well, many
people (including my Mom, who was with me at the show on 20
May) think I’m nuts for having seen it so often. I like to point out
that the real fanatics have seen it 20-40 times and go so far as to get
into the "fan
fiction" stuff, which I’ve never had the slightest
interest in.
One final thought [or two. try to
stay awake now, OK?] on Les Mis, I found it rather fitting that I saw
this performance here,
because it was where I saw it for the very first time way back in 1991
(as well as the 2nd (1992) and 3rd (1994) time). I later saw Broadway (twice - 1993 with Lea
Salonga as Eponine, 1999) and in London (1992), Atlanta (1997, 1999, 2002 [twice]
and 2003) and Augusta,
GA (2003).
Mothers Day.
I
had a lovely "Mother’s Day Dinner" with my Mom. We went to
Ruddfuckers Fuddruckers
(her choice). I got off cheaply. 
Before
dinner we went to a movie.
We saw United 93,
which was awesome. If you’ve not seen it, I highly recommend
it. Surprisingly, I only got teary-eyed a few times (I’m
famous for crying at the drop of a hat).
moving right
along…
My Computer
I’m
at about the same place I was a month or so ago as far as my
computer. As I’d mentioned back then, I finally was
able to get Linux
and Windows running on it. Previously, that hadn’t been
possible (as I’ve mentioned a few times in the past).
But
I still haven’t gotten the hard drives configured the way I
want. I can now use all of them, but they don’t recognize one
another (well they do, but only one other vs. three others).
I manged to install FreeBSD (the DesktopBSD
front-end) on a third hard drive. I’m not really fond of
devoting an entire 250 GB hard drive to one operating system (each
drive is 250GB) but for the time being it’s OK I suppose. I’ve not even
filled the equivlalt of one of them yet. And besides, I’m
bored with the whole issue of getting them working properly (for the
time being).
Insect Mania! 
I’ve somehow lived on this planet for over
45 years without having ever heard of Biting
Midges (a/k/a: Sandflies, No-See-Ums so forth.
About
3 weeks ago, we replaced the flap on the cat door.
Unfortunately the cat door is 5 feet from where I sleep and 6 feet from
where I spend most of my waking hours (the computer).
When
we initially tried to replace the door we had great difficulty as the
new flap was of slightly different design and it seemed that screws
weren’t quite matching up (it turns out we weren’t doing it properly).
We
both got tired of being on the floor (inside) and the ground (outside)
so we gave up for a day or so.
Meanwhile the cat
door was wide open. That was one of the stupidest
decisions I’ve made in my life.
Oddly enough it
appeared that we’re had no incests entering the house. That gave me
less incentive to get the door fixed ASAP.
To
make a long story short, we got it working 2 days later.
About
a day after that, dozens of the above mentioned insects appeared in my
room. They pretty much stayed out of the rest of the house.
Most of them are extremly tiny (so tiny that screen doors won’t hold
them back)
And being the hungry blood-sucking
creatures that they are, they started biting me. Usually you
don’t feel the the bite (but you get an itch later).
Every
so often, you do feel the bite. It’s a tiny sting.
Nothing excruciating, but getting one every 10 minutes gets annoying.
The
biggest annoyance is just having them constantly circle you.
They like to go for the head and are known to get caught in your hair.
They
will also dive-bomb you in order to get a quick bite in. They often
don’t get what they want and just bounce off your head, arms, face,
chest. neck, back and so on….
Unfortunately
they are resistant to DEET, so that ruled out Insect
Repellent (believe me, I tried).
I
sprayed the hell out of my room with Flying
Insect killer. All that accomplished was an oily
coating on anything plastic and my leather desk chair.
The
bugs left for about a day then came back. I suspect they just relocated
to other parts of the house and hid out.
Speaking
of other parts of the house, they’ve now decided to follow me to other
areas of the house. This was only a "decision" they came to in the past
few days. I’d been sleeping on the living room couch as
sleeping in my room wasn’t an option. And it worked for a few
days. Then they discovered me and now basically follow me anywhere.
After
dousing the room with Raid and getting nowhere. I called
an exterminator.
He told me to use an insect bomb in the room.
He said, "I’d do the same thing for you, except that it would cost
$175.00).
So went out and bought some a few days
ago. I covered all my computer equipment, peripherals and
anything big and plastic in the room with sheets and let er rip.
The
instructions stated one is to air out the room for 30 minutes before
re-entering. To do this you turn on fans/ac/heat and open doors and
windows.
Unforutnaly the only door in this room
is the cat door. So I just put my room fan in the doorway,
opened the front door to the house (with screen door closed) and
basically spent the night in my Mom’s room. We locked the cat
in with us as well.
The end result?
They came back en masse within 5 hours. It is just as bad as
beforehand. So I guess the next step is to call the exterminator
back. Although, I don’t know what he can do. I’ve
read these critters are harder to control than roaaches.
The
only good thing is that they supposedly appear in Mid-May (as they did)
and disappear a month later. That means I’ve got just about 3
weeks to go…
This really sucks.
BTW.
I felt about 10 bites during the course of composing what you’re
reading now.
Lovely eh?
If
anyone has any suggestions (outside of moving to a new home) feel free
to speak up.
That’s about it for the time being.
