Deadly when snuggled

As long as I can dream...
		12:09am 13/02/2015
	Details of work will return in the future at some point. Things are going well, though I still have many moments where I think fondly of tearing my hair out for it being less painful. @_@ "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." ~ Winston Churchill "Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them." ~ John Updike To new readers: Be warned that as you browse further back through my posts, you go through my recovery from crap in reverse. That means that you'll be reading it as a spiral into depression, instead of out of it. So... don't. I'm an ex-Pandora user. Nowadays I mostly tune in to Demoscene or Final Fantasy Radio to stay pixelated.


		04:47pm 08/07/2009
	depression/anxiety = biggest monkey ass on the planet
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Silly google. Again. Plus hooking up the Xbox to a monitor.
		03:07pm 07/07/2009
	Bah, Google keeps confusing me with all these changes. It hid my trash folder in googlemail underneath a hidden menu with my labels. I got all grumpy, too. XD --- I've been wondering how I might hook up the Xbox360 to my monitor, instead of the tv. TV is Philips, several years old and standard definition. Has component input and several RCA inputs. Monitor is Samsung, native resolution of 1920x1080 with two DVI inputs and the capability to receive either analogue and digital signals. It has two extra little VGA to DVI and HDMI to DVI plugs. Xbox 360 has a SD/HDTV switch on a plug that separates into RCA & component input, so either can be used. Supposedly the HDTV output from that is 720. It's only hooked up by RCA to the TV at the moment - as far as I know, it wouldn't look any sharper if I used the component plug. The Xbox to HDMI plug is too expensive for me to consider buying, so I'm wondering what the cheaper alternatives would be, if there are any. I don't know whether I'd get an improved resolution if I had a component to VGA cable. At the back of our Jensen amplifier there are some inputs and outputs of all sorts, but I seriously doubt it'd have a converter in there from component to HDMI given how much those boxes cost.
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		04:45pm 03/07/2009
	Whee, I forgot all about being able to play board games online at Yucata. Thanks again, ravenblack. I can try them out with Sue in advance of buying any. ^_^
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		01:30pm 01/07/2009
	Also saw Transformers 2 last night. It was fun enough at first but the ending was even worse than the first one. The magic unexplained resurrections were a bit much, and they did more of the 'robot appears, someone randomly says his name and you have no idea who it is'. The fight scenes were messy as before - throw in inconsistent robot voices and you really don't know who is punching whom while saying what. :/ It's like they haven't learnt anything from anime at all. Edit: Ha, Megan Fox watched it and said it herself - "I'm in the movie and I read the script and I still don't know what's happening so I think if you haven't read the script and you see it and you understand it you are a genius." -- Aww, I just googled my random thought and it's already been done to death. No surprise. Some silly author in my birdie-droppings-newspaper was making an ironic statement about how knowledge corrupts, and it clicked that, quite obviously, if God is all-knowing, knowledge is power and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then all the craziness in the world makes sense as an evil mastermind having lots of fun. One of the lines that came up on Google I've heard before, but it's still amusing: If God were corrupt, he would abuse his power. But God loves us. He wouldn't mess with us just because he can. He wouldn't tell us to sacrifice our child and then when we try to do so say, "Stop! I was just messing with you man! I was just pulling a JC." Nor would he create global warming or ..... wait ..... ;) These airplane crashes are depressing and make me less keen on the idea of flying overseas next year. Especially reading that many people in crashes over water die because they inflate their life jackets while still inside the plane, leaving themselves trapped inside as the cabin floods and unable to dive out. Save inflating until after you're out!
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Somebody go poke Sue for me.
		02:07pm 30/06/2009
	Last night, she had a go at the Xbox. She was having a blast playing a trial of Carcassone - a board game remake - and I remembered that a few years ago I visited ravenblack and was shown the same game. I was most excited by this, so volunteered the possibility of Sue and I playing the game together. Her response was that she was indeed having fun, but she didn't want to get it because... "You'll win." o_O I'd always been rebuked for daring the thought of sportsmanship before, but last night she openly acknowledged it. XD Maybe that's the first step to overcoming it. No matter the enjoyment of a game alone, if she'd lose against me she'd lose interest. If she won, she'd so much fun gloating any subsequent win by me bit twice as deep. If we race and I'd dare ram into her, she'd quit outright. Now even the vague possibility of losing something she's never seen me play gets in the way! XD I keep hoping her losing response will be the same as mine - "Yarrrr, I'll fight ye tooth 'n nail til ye yield or me wooden dentures are nary more than splinters, yarrrr!" It reminds me of the vast majority (save the valiant few!) of girls back in high school, when they'd interrupt an arm-wrestling match and demand a go. The moment there was a slightest tilt in their direction, regardless of how capable they were of butt-kicking, they'd give up with an instant flop. Any suggestions of games Su is more likely to kick my butt at are welcome. She used to enjoy Age of Empires, Rise of Nations, WoW & racing and some puzzle games. Also any suggestions of how I can lose convincingly. Whether it's narrow or catastrophic, she suspects any loss to be faked. I find this all especially bewildering given the competitive edge required to get the grades & career path she has. Maybe we should keep an eye out for a Dr Operation type game, or can have races to stitch up orange peels. XD
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God, Duke Nukem Forever & Zero Punctuation.
		02:22pm 29/06/2009
	I'd always thought that IF a God exists capable of creating all that is, he'd be a kindly and forgiving soul worthy of ever so much worship, and so forth. Because that's what I figured God SHOULD be, for the universe to wind up being okay in my books. But I had a horrible thought today. Going on the common presumption that life is not fair, it suddenly hit me - why should the afterlife be any more so? What if heaven and hell really aren't fair - what if the restrictions for getting in are actually just as restrictive as some say? Maybe we lost the message somewhere, and only the first seven people to streak across the Nullarbor will make it into heaven. Sadly we've discovered that the Xbox doesn't work well with non-HD tvs. It might all look pretty, but everything is so darn TINY on the screen. It's a fair sized tv, so it doesn't seem appropriate to be having troubles, but you know you're stuffed when you can't read the "PRESS THIS BUTTON TO LIVE" icon. @_@ On to Zero Punctuation, which is awesome: We have Prototype, and Infamous was sitting in the back of my mind, but now I'm just amused. Note for future ref: He liked Left 4 Dead, Earthbound, No More Heroes, Call of Duty 4 & Psychonauts... In case you didn't know, he has also done an EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW of Duke Nukem Forever!!! YES IT'S COMING!! OMGS!
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		09:55pm 28/06/2009
	Bought a rechargeable Xbox controller with a play & charge kit. All official Microsoft stuff. The little charging wire we plugged on to our existing controller, and could not pull it off for two hours. Eventually it came off - chipping off the plastic edges of the little plug it hooks into. The rechargeable controller it came with, it plugged into perfectly normally. There was no warning saying they couldn't be used together. The play and charge kits come with wires for use with regular controllers. Su is quite pissed. I don't know whether this then has to be turned to the retail store, saying, hey, exchange for the controller for one which the wire fits in, or to Microsoft. :/
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Bleaaaugh.
		12:28pm 27/06/2009
	I took a quick look at Gears of War on the xbox this morning. The viewpoint is from an invisible-camera-soldier, like you're watching COPS or something, with constant bouncing - while the character bounces too - from over the right hand shoulder. It's bearable, but whenever you tell them to RUN the viewpoint smashes down into the dirt and feels as if it bounces over every pebble. We got it for the co-op, in the hopes Su would enjoy it. Thought her time playing Halo was a little rough, but this... XD Far as motion sickness goes, I'm reading that anything with lots of Ginger should help, be it ginger pills, ginger tea or ginger beer. S'posedly there are these wristbands that press on the 'neiguan point' aka 'pericardium 6', a spot located on the "anterior forearm, 2 cun superior to transverse wrist crease, between tendons of palmaris longus and flexor capri radialis muscles"... Any other tips on overcoming motion sickness - something beyond "do it til it stops making you feel sick" - are welcome.
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		03:44pm 25/06/2009
	Couldn't get past round 30 or so on <a href="http://www.lge.com.au/games/autobotstronghold/>the Autobot competition game by LG</a> - only tried a few times and didn't want to spend all day trying to beat the 2 mil scores on there. Wouldn't mind the LCD screen, though! The competition is open to Aussies only, so feel free to share tips on optimal robot placement if you've got any ideas. Optimus Prime is available from round 25 onwards, though far as I can tell his damage is rather terrible. Edit: Got to level 49, takes about 20 minutes or so, and is most definitely a waste of time given that people aren't having much trouble hacking high scores into it. Stay away, stay away!
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		11:51pm 24/06/2009
	Setting up the new Xbox 360 and I'm having the same problems I did last time - silly MTU stuff. Even though I copied all the settings over, number for number. Bah. Post hunting time to work out what it was last time...
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Something's wrong with Mowgli.
		03:13pm 17/06/2009
	She's flicking her head and spraying a clear fluid out - like, saliva. I managed to open her beak and saw nothing unusual, but touching her throat results in a nasty pecking. I think something is lodged in there - seems likely because earlier today she was jumping around grabbing random pieces of crap (eraser shavings I was about to wipe away from my paper, carpet fibres, etc). Her behavior is also identical to when we were at Su's place and she swallowed (and then vomited up within two minutes) a piece of plastic about 1cm in size. Have set up a vet appointment for this evening - would go sooner if there was a direct route there. Melbourne public transport - buses, in particular completely and utterly suck. Her breathing is normal. She has sneezed twice since this started an hour and a bit ago. It's mostly the flicking and saliva that sprays out. I'm somewhere between scared and despondent (for fear of how much it'd hurt to lose her) and don't know what to do, really. Edit: I just tried to stay calm and kept an eye on her, and she just spewed up a massive ball of - I think - fibres and random crap. Stored it for analysis if the vet needs to work out if she's full of the stuff! She seems to be happier now. Phew!
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Hot chickitas.
		12:36am 12/06/2009
	As I've mentioned in the past, my birds love sitting under hot lamps - traditional bulbs of 60w or higher. Energy wasted as heat makes for happy little birdies soaking it in underneath, seems to help with the preening or some such. The last lamp wasn't built for the 75w bulb that melted into the socket, apparently, so I learnt about reading labels and eventually bought a new lamp a few days ago. Having problems, though. For one, Australia is no longer importing these old bulbs, apparently switching to energy efficient ones only. This means brighter light with less heat, meaning more likely to damage their eyes, meaning not going to happen. For two, the switch toggle is loose and requires setting a little back from 'on' in order to actually work. Blah. Three - I found two green 60w bulbs remaining at a nearby store and they worked WONDERFULLY in regards to being warm and not being bright at all, so my birds could avoid eye damage, but they only lasted about 6 hours each! Are colored lamps supposed to only last that long? I don't know if there's a safe way to colour regular light bulbs to not be so bright. :/ I considered getting a heating lamp from a pet store, but have heard horror stories about how they're coated in something that has a Teflon-like compound in it, killing numerous pet birds. None of the pet stores I've visited had any clue what was on the lamps they sold, and there's no requirement on manufacturers to label their products as pet killers. @_@ Not sure what to do.
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Pathfinding: If your destination is invalid, stop walking in a straight line. Or something.
		11:24am 11/06/2009
	This whole holocaust denial thing puzzles me. People like the old white gunman who opened fire in the holocaust museum this week and their writings on the internet. This Von Brunn chap claimed there was no photographic proof of the holocaust, for example. Edit: Heh, whoops. I left out the 'no' earlier! It boggles the brain to think these people have somehow managed to avoid the extensive reading and references available via the wikipedia. It seems remarkably easy for humans to decide on a conclusion and then dismiss anything that might resemble evidence. :\| I quote the wiki: Eisenhower, upon finding the victims of the death camps, he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead. He did this adding these words: Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the track of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened. -- Also the last few days I have remained surprised that despite this being the third iteration of the Sims, the little nitwits still can't navigate doors. A house will have four doors for entry, yet five Sims decide they must all stand in a row and look confused while trying to enter and exit only a single door. They waste easily a HALF HOUR of their lives standing there. Eesh.
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Usernames.
		08:16am 10/06/2009
	Hrm. They're giving folk usernames over on Facebook, first come, first served. I think it's a bad idea - as is, we go by names, people have the same names, voila no drama. There'll be too much "Damn that fool, they stole my username!" sentiment when the millions of Facebook users who were once able to have their favorite moniker on their tiny blog sites are all squished into one place. I still dominate the Google search for Scribblette, despite the mother at Wordpress taking number 5. Scriblette, as it is commonly misspelled, is some Xanga blog. And Scribblet is a software program. I was going to use BeyondOmega before for it bearing some relevance to work, but Google has started doing another stupid and inserts spaces between the words, so I just wind up with 6000 results for fish oil (as opposed to 7,000,000 results if you search for it WITH a space) - WTF! I'd like to stick with and maintain some degree of dominance over whatever moniker I pick in the end, as a, I don't know... company representative sort of name.
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		11:16am 09/06/2009
	Today I received the funniest line - a Facebook 'friends request' message - from a kid I knew back in grade 9. how can u look exactly like what you looked like in school. somewhere there's a portrait of yours getting uglier Edit: He followed it up with a comment when I applauded the line on Facebook: Clearly it was implied that you lead an evil life committing nefarious deeds or it would just be a portrait of a nice old man -- The birds are LOVING the new lamp. The green bulbs were fantastic for being easy on the eye, but they seem to die much quicker. One went inside of a few hours. I'm using a regular one right now, but I don't want the birds going blind! Close your eyes, you little nitwits. -- The pricing at the Sims 3 exchange seems ridiculous, and I've noted widespread open piracy on forums everywhere of the various addons as people buy them and share them. Supposedly it cost $2 for a single TV object. Maybe Maxis factored it all in and figured a few rich ninnies would cover the losses from everyone else. I wonder if they factored in how much higher the piracy rates would be for Spore being so shallow in the end-game. -- A bunch of nutters are hopping about claiming the world will end in 2012 (because despite the Mayan calendar system going up to 20.20.20.20 the third world - we live in the fourth, I think - supposedly ended on 12.19.17.19 at which point the calendar rebooted, or some such) and have now mixed that in with Obama being the anti-christ, as it fits into a convenient time line. They were especially offended when he referred to the Quran as the Holy Quran in his Cairo speech. Because, you know, you should never refer to someone's holy text as holy unless it's YOUR holy text because OMG it's not about respect, it's about you showing what religion you really follow.
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Obama's Speech.
		11:00am 05/06/2009
	I like the fact he had the guts to say HULLO in Arabic and was brave enough to quote the Quran, but it seems certain now that western extremists will try to assassinate him for being too friendly to the Muslim world. That or some 'natural' death such as happened with the Israeli PM who did that sudden about-turn on Palestinine. I don't look forward to it at all. I hope this was translated and transmitted about the middle-east as much as all those "WE R UR PALS NO RLY IGNORE ATTACHED BOMB" leaflets they scattered over Afghanistan & Iraq during the Bush era.
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Google changes
		08:24am 04/06/2009
	I liked the old Google mail. I liked the old iGoogle home too. Now I can't navigate from one email to the next email with a little 'next' button but instead have to go back to the inbox to do so, and can't middle-click emails from iGoogle to open them all in different windows. And where's the undo button for when you delete a mail and it deletes two separate mails (because apparently that's how they represent conversations now! or at least, that's what I think happened, maybe not.) Why do they keep messing with something simple that works fine as is, and why do they force upgrades on people who don't want them? I smell Microsoft.
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		12:32pm 02/06/2009
	Still trying not to read spoilers for the BSG series finale. I know some were disappointed by it but don't care! Wound up reading the one re this Lost season's ending with the nuclear bomb and Jacob and his buddy, which seemed very obvious... but still woulda preferred watching it first! Bad google. Bad google, bad.
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Random notes from the Wikipedia for today.
		12:36pm 29/05/2009
	GNC: Live well, taste BAD. Advice I've been given includes: EAT RIGHT BEFORE BED! You'll gain weight better that way! On the contrary, my sleep sucks for having to down this horridly artificial & super sweet stuff en masse right before sleep. Eating before bed no helpie gain weightie. I've only found debunkings of the statement so far and no actual proof.
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