Am I Blog Enough For You?

I’m working from work today and cleaning my desk (physical and desktop). A few things I need to clean out before I throw away…

1. Random pictures from myspace.com profiles

Three pictures that made me laugh and then right click->Save Image As…

I had to convert them to jpgs to upload them to my blog. That sucks. The wrist one was animated as a .gif, which made it even more appalling.

I was told by a 19-year-old that, “Myspace is dead. Everyone is on Facebook.” She’s not even in college, though. Don’t you have to be in college to get on Facebook? I think I may end my journey through Socialnetworkingland at Myspace and not go on to Facebook. I’ve done Friendster, Orkut, Myspace, Classmates.com, and probably others I can’t remember. They are all kind of pointless and not in a good way.

2. My (new) hatred of Sony

I still totally want a Sony Reader, but I really hate Sony right now.

Short version: Our computer has been dead for almost a month now. I’ve spend at least $200 and countless hours unsuccessfully trying to revive it. It turns out I have no access to the fucking license that I fucking bought with the computer.

Slightly less short version: The computer (Vaio PCV-RZ50CG) ships with a 250GB hard drive which is partitioned into a hidden recovery partition, a very small (12G) NTFS partition for C:, and the rest in a roomy partition for D:. I needed to enlarge C: or else the computer couldn’t run any more, so I bought some partition moving software to do this. It worked great, so I decided to defrag C: since I finally had enough free space for the first time in over a year to defrag it. After that it would no longer reboot. It didn’t recognize the drive. The C: partition was gone. Since I’m an idiot I didn’t make recovery CDs when I first booted it up. (Apparently PCs no longer come with recovery disks. You have to burn them yourselves.) At this point I tried everything I could think of — FreeDOS, XP recovery floppies, more partition software, Ubuntu Live CD, Bootable floppy from another PC… Nothing worked, so I had to buy the recovery disks on-line for $50 as recommended by Sony support. After assuring me that these were the right kind, it turns out that they aren’t the right kind and the right kind aren’t available. I considered buying an OEM version of Windows XP MCE (it’s not available retail) to install, but I read on the forums that the Sony-specific drivers won’t install with it. At this point I have two options: (1) Take it to a Sony service center and pay $280 to have them reimage the drive or (2) Install Ubuntu on the Vaio and buy a new PC. I’d rather buy a Mac, but we have a lot of software that is currently Windows-only.

What makes this even more painful is that Santa brought me a 24″ Dell monitor, and I want to set it up in my office. Right now it would only be able to show “NTLDR not found.”

The part that kills me about this is that I fucking paid for the fucking Windows license and I have no access to it. Even if I made the recovery disks right when I got the computer, it still wouldn’t have an actual installable copy of XP MCE. If the support guy is right (50/50 chance — same as a monkey) and I have the right version, I would still be right where I am anyway.

Good things about the experience: I know a lot more about partitions, the Linux NTFS project, Microsoft’s OEM licensing model, and Sony’s generally shameful history with DRM schemes (like this and this).

I still want a Sony Reader, though.

3. S. to me: I hate you daddy.

I got another cute card from Stephanie that says “I hate you, Dad.” It’s complete with a picture of a heart with an X through it. I normally would scan it in and post it, but my bitch ass Sony Vaio is down. What caused her to slide this under her door? I was helping her practice piano, and she wasn’t paying attention. Finally she wound up a music box/teddy bear and put it on the piano next to me. I sent her to her room. There should be a law against anyone trying to teach their own child how to play an instrument.

Good things about the experience: 1. I feel I have more insight into both Beethoven’s and Mozart’s relationships with their father. 2. It’s healthy that S. channeled her aggressions into making some art rather than drawing all over the wall and then peeing on it like a certain other child of mine did. 3. We made up in the morning.

4. Dream

I had a strange dream the other night. Sparkle’s younger sister and I were doing a special Christmas radio show together at KFJC. We were mixing Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas with random Throbbing Gristle tracks, and we called it A Throbbing Guaraldi Christmas. I remember this very clearly down to seeing the album covers next to the turntables. Very strange, but not a bad idea. What does it all mean?

5. CDs for Xmas.

I gotted a lot of CDs for Xmas, so I will list them here:
-Tom Waits: Orphans
-Christopher O’Riley: True Love Waits (Radiohead songs done on solo piano. Knives Out is my current favorite.)
-Southern Funkin’: Louisiana Funk & Soul 1967 - 1979 (From when I was born until when I was 12.)
-DJ Nu Mark: Hands On (One of the DJs in Jurassic 5.)
-Easy Star All-Stars: Radiodread (A reggae version of OK Computer, similar to their reggae version of Dark Side Of The Moon.)

6. Why can’t I name them all Tyler?

I used to live in Noe Valley pre-kids and I know people with kids named Tyler. But this made me laugh out loud. Between D. and me, “Why can’t I name them all Tyler?” is our secret code for pointing out obnoxious parents.

7. Christmas song

Does anyone remember “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses? That’s the only Christmas song that I really like. We had the god-awful Sirius Christmas channel on in our house in the weeks running up to the holiday. One night after D. went to bed S. begged me to turn it off. “I want music with drums and guitar,” she told me. I was so proud. I also like “Merry Muthafuckin’ Xmas” by Easy-E. (”Come over here and sit on Santa’s face…”)