Irene's Weblog

Yesterday, I spent about two hours updating our blogs to the latest version of WordPress. It’s supposed to be a quick 5 minute upgrade, but we all know how well those things go.

For some reason, I couldn’t upgrade the folders all at once and had to go back and transfer each file individually. It kind of sucked because there are several folders and each folder randomly upload files from each folder. That meant that I had to check each folder to make sure the right files were in the right places.

It really sucked because it blew all the free time that I had yesterday. Anyway, everything is updated and I’m using a new template for the blog. I’ll stick with this one until I find something better that I like.

Things here in Scottsbluff are pretty much the same as last week.  Work.  Work.  Work.  Then, some more work.  There isn’t much in the way of exciting news happening at the moment, so this will be short.

My car is getting a new oil pan and its 120,000 mile timing belt change done at the moment, so Paul has to drive me to work every day.  I should have the car back by the end of the week, which is good because I hate waiting an hour for Paul to be finished so I can get picked up and go home.

Also, we’ve booked our tickets to Ireland.  We’re going to go see Matt‘s parents.  We are also hoping to hook up with Annau and Leylah too.  With a little luck, Hendrik and Salma will be able to visit, but that’s not a guarantee.  I totally lucked out with the tickets.  $414 for each ticket, round-trip, from Denver to Dublin.  I also get to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road.  Heh, look out Ireland!

So, there’s this guy I know.  Let’s call him Billy.  Why Billy, you ask?  Well, that’s in honor of Stan Marsh’s grandpa on South Park who calls everyone Billy.  So, Billy it is.

In all seriousness, Billy fits all the typical gay stereotypes.  He’s got the poofy, 80s feathered hair that’s always combed just so.  He even carries a comb with him, just in case it, somehow, gets messed up.  He’s got the voice.  It’s very difficult to listen to.  Even on a girl his voice would be too girly.

His handshake is limper than a wet noodle.  When he shakes your hand, he always has this, “I’m secretly a creepy guy” look on his face.  The creepy guy thing doesn’t have anything to do with being gay but it’s, well, it’s downright creepy.

He’s also got the 1950s school cardigan.  No one has worn them in 50 years, but, there he is, strutting around like cardigans are the coolest piece of clothing on the planet.  And, when I say strut, I mean he’s watched Harvey Fierstein walk around too much.

Unfortunately, in this town, being gay is worse than being a murderer.  I try not to think about it, but, every time I see Billy, I think how unfortunate he is that we are in the 21st century and he still has to lie about who he is.  It’s really a shame too.  I’m sure Billy does know that he’s gay, but, unless he moves from this town, he’s never going to admit it.

So, I finally managed to get moved over to our new computer. It only took a year to do so, but, in my defense, I had to save to purchase the memory and then I actually needed the time to set it up. I also had to wait for Paul to get all his crap sorted out over the summer and either deleted or moved elsewhere from the old computer.

Most of the move went relatively easy. Installation of all the different programs went well. I just had to remember which programs I actually used on a daily basis. The next step was upgrading what I had. Fortunately, there is a great little program called MozBackup, which works spectacularly with Firefox and Thunderbird. There was only one little snag with Firefox and that’s because it was telling me that CookieCuller wouldn’t work with 3.0. I knew this was wrong because I’d been using it with 3.0 for some time. After messing around for about ten minutes, I disabled CookieCuller, re-enabled it, then told it to upgrade (even though there isn’t an upgrade). After restarting Firefox, I was good to go. I guess the glitch is just with fresh installs and not upgrades.

A few clicks later and I had everything else, including Opera, the latest flash crap, OpenOffice, etc., installed and ready to go. The only thing I forgot to install was DVDShrink, but I figured I’d do that a little later since it wasn’t a high priority thing and I was quite tired. Plus, it’s considered illegal to use now, so my only copy is on a USB stick somewhere and I didn’t feel like searching for it. Even though things went smoothly, it still took me about seven hours to get everything up and running. The last thing I did, which I thought would take forever, was setting up the router. That, literally, took me about 30 seconds and I was up and running. It is, honestly, one of the few, true plug-n-play devices I’ve ever had. Or so I thought.

Since I can’t test my router from home, I had to wait until the next morning for Hendrik to log onto my FTP server and test things out. Five hours later, we finally figured it all out. It was so freaking frustrating and I owe Hendrik a pile of beef jerky for giving up half his day to help me out. First, it wouldn’t let him connect. He could connect without the router, so we knew it was a setting somewhere. Well, after trying everything under the sun, we purposefully crashed the router to forced the firmware to install and the one little tick box that wasn’t showing up, showed up.  I ticked the box and we were all set. Still, I was about to stomp on it because I was getting so mad.

In the end, everything is up and working well again. It’s nice to finally get off my butt and make everything work after blowing it off for so long. Of course, after using my neighbor’s wireless router for so long helped me in my laziness. Since she locked her router down, I was forced to sort stuff out.

Sure, it’s only a P4, but I have 4GB of RAM, a 360GB hard drive and a pretty GUI thanks to the Cylon theme from WindowBlinds.  I’m happy as a pig in mud.

Since we like to travel a lot, Paul and I often keep some good tunes in the car to listen to. Attempting to find a decent radio station is futile, so taking our own choices with us is the more logical solution. We normally take one burned CD with us, which gets played over and over, for about six months, until we can’t stand it anymore and have to make a new one. Each time I burn a CD, I tell Paul that he needs to pick the songs. He never does and I get stuck making all the choices. This time, however, was different.

I fired up our old, 120GB external drive of music and waited for the desktop to recognize it. It’s woefully inadequate. It’s only got 1.98GB free, which is not good in many respects. I need to have more room just so the drive can work properly, but also for the music I’ve collected that won’t fit onto the drive. I’ve started to keep music on the C drive because I can’t afford to buy another external drive. I’ve even had to delete some stuff there because I just don’t have the room for all the music.

As I click on the folder to open up the “Full Albums,” Paul leans in closer to pick the music he has now decided he wants to help with. As the folders appear, I think to myself, “Not Billy Ocean. For the love of God, please don’t pick Billy Ocean.” I say this to myself over and over, hoping that, somehow, I might have just magically gained the ability of mental telepathy and I can force Paul not pick any Billy Ocean music.

“Ooo, Billy Ocean,” Paul says. My heart stops. I want to swear. I want to scream and tell him what crap Billy Ocean is, but I refrain.

“Okay,” is all I mutter as I double click the “Billy Ocean” folder, revealing his music. I already know what song he’s going to pick before he says it.

My hand starts to move the mouse towards the song and I hear, “When the Going Gets Tough. That’s a good one.” No it isn’t, but I click it and drag it over to Nero, adding it to the list of music. We agree on a couple of more songs, including the theme song from Casino Royale, You Know My Name. I like the song so much that it’s the first song on my old 128MB Creative Nomad Muvo MP3 player. I listen to it every morning when I ride my bike. We go through some Prefab Sprout and Paul picks a couple of their songs.

“What about that song by your Led Zeppelin guy?” Paul asks. “You know, the one Imus likes too.” Yeah, I know what song you’re talking about, however, I don’t like that too much either.

“You mean Robert Plant?” I ask, knowing that the song is not by Robert Plant, but Mark Knopfler.

“Yeah, that one, and he sings it with that hippy chick.”

That hippy chick? He is so off base, it’s not even funny. I want to play dumb, but I don’t want to take forever burning this CD, so I ask, “You mean Emmylou Harris?”

“Yep.”

“Yeah, well she doesn’t sing with Robert Plant. It’s Mark Knopfler. And the song is ‘This is Us.’”

“Whatever, do we have it?”

“Of course we do,” I say, slightly aggravated that he doesn’t always know the names of musicians. I drag that mp3 over to Nero and prepare it for burning.

All the songs that Paul picks aren’t totally bad. His taste in music is just different than mine. Okay, some of his musical choices are crap, but I did promise he could make the CD. I burn the CD and we stick it in the car. Unfortunately, Paul keeps taking the CD out of the car so he can listen to it when he’s exercising. After having the CD for one month, we’re going to have to burn another copy or make a new one because he keeps forgetting to put it back in the car, forcing me to listen to horrible pop music on the radio.

For those interested, the track listing is as follows:

01 When the Going Gets Tough – Billy Ocean
02 True Faith (Morning Sun) – New Order
03 Life on Mars – David Bowie
04 I Did It – Dave Matthews Band
05 The King of Rock and Roll – Prefab Sprout
06 Hey Manhattan! – Prefab Sprout
07 Salisbury Hill – Peter Gabriel
08 Mr. Blue Sky – ELO
09 True – Spandau Ballet
10 You Know My Name – Chris Cornell
11 This is Us – Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler
12 All The Things She Said – Simple Minds
13 Alive and Kicking – Simple Minds
14 If You Leave – OMD
15 Sowing the Seeds – Tears for Fears
16 Ordinary World – Duran Duran
17 Chains of Love – Erasure

There are some decent songs on here. I just really, truly hate Billy Ocean. I love “If You Leave” and “Ordinary World.” It’s a decent enough mix and Paul finally gets a CD with his music instead of always being stuck with the choices I make.