malada

With the air quality in the unhealthy area due to fires up north, and the house was getting hot and stuffy, a little BoneGnawering was called for.

I found some furnace filters with the maximum filtering level (FPR 10 filters mold, allergens and most smoke) and taped it to a window fan. The airflow wasn't great and it didn't cover the whole window area but the air quality in my room was much improved and no hacking and coughing.

The rain is helping. I hope the rain reaches up North and helps put out the fires.

New DVD burn of Ubuntu Studio won't load - not sure why. Could be a bad burn or the DVD drive in the machine is dying. So the broken Ubuntu Studio install was fixed by reinstalling some packages via the GRUB menu. I didn't know I could do that - so I learned something new today.

I'm not sure how long I'll be using that particular system - it's always been a bit problematic. The motherboard is ancient and one stick of RAM has already given up the ghost.

One of the problems with the Windows XP machine was an incorrect audio driver. It took me awhile to find the right one. I still don't have Internet on it - probably another driver issue - but I'm pretty sure I don't want to be on the Internet with an XP machine. I shouldn't complain - it's a hack of several machines cobbled together. I should check the RAM too as it's mismatched.

I also had a scare with one of my Ethernet hubs. It's the oldest one of the bunch and every few years it needs to be rebooted once or twice by unplugging it. My home network is a bit of a Rube Goldberg with several hubs daisy chained together but most of the time it works well enough and it covers a lot of the house.

Then my media rig started beeping at me instead of booting. Four beeps on a Dell system means there's a memory issue. Scary. Re-seating the memory sticks seemed to fix that. I'll have to keep on eye on that because it's done this once before.

I've been gifted another unwanted system which I may use as my *next* media rig. Although I don't like that Ubuntu Studio went from XFCE (light weight and clean) to KDE Plasma (shiny and more of a resource hog) as the desktop, it mostly does everything I need to do right out of the box. Graphics? GIMP. Video? KDEnLIVE. Audio? Audacity for simple stuff, QTracker (which is just okay) and Ardour (which I don't like they layout of). Reaper is 'experimental' but I have run it. It's only 60 bucks so I might go for it.

I have to use the version of LMMS - my main music composing software - from the main website as the version in Ubuntu Studio doesn't support VSTs. I'm not sure why they don't use the main version. You need do WINE and it only handles 32 bit VSTs but there are still a fair number that can be used. WINE doesn't come preinstalled so that may be an issue.

I'm babbling. Sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRiRyopVm6Q

Leftie says Hi!

Seasonal depression has hit again - hard.

I know this is something that hits me spring/early summer - around the beginning of June or the last days of May. It's a bit late this year. I'm beginning to wonder if it's linked to my seasonal allergies as I'm sneezing and sniffling a lot lately.

I know this will pass. I just have to refrain from yelling at people who insist on doing stupid things and generally avoiding everybody.

My writing is so scattered right now. I've got plot bunnies popping up for a third book when I haven't finished writing the first one. I've got YouTube projects to finish too. We just did Second Life's Relay for Life and I've got a ton of video captures to sort, trim, resize and edit.

-m

BREAKING NEWS>>>TRUMP INDICTED!

Yeah, what else is new?

I'll admit that the charges are pretty damn serious but he's skated away from so many crooked deals I'm not getting excited until the man is tried, convicted, all appeals denied and he's behind bars. Then I'll break out the bubbly.

One can hope.

-m

Since I'm Folding @ Home my computer is on all the time. I decided to keep my word processor open too to remind myself to write every day.

I haven't made a lot of progress - a few sentences here, a paragraph there - but it's sentences and paragraphs that weren't there before. Last night I was writing up a scene with a one-off character... and she blew up on me.

Forced to participate in an unjust situation she screamed and cried and raged about it. So much sadness, so much pain just poured out of the character, through my fingertips and onto the page. I was jittery and upset as I closed the scene - so much so I couldn't fall asleep for several hours.

I don't sleep well normally but last night was worse. I'm a wreck this morning. Yet, that one scene character summed up an evil that has been built into the society, an evil with the best intentions - the worst kind there is.

Must write more.

-m

My housemate and I both agree we need to exercise more. Although I walk almost every day, I could use more. I've bought a few cheap second hand bikes but they were either poorly made or not fit for the task.

After much research my housemate found one that they liked and ordered it. Some assembly required. The instructions weren't the clearest and the parts could have been machined better - some of the screws needed to be fussed with - but the bike is assembled and looks and feels sturdy.

Now to use it every day.

Maybe I should get some weights too. I won't mind having a body that all the lesbians go, "Oh... my!" when they see me.

-m

Want to see more snowflakes? Let's go over the major storms we've seen recently:

Bud Light sends a specialty can to a transperson. She makes one post about it. Out come the snowflakes screaming that their favorite piss water - I mean, light beer - has gone Woke! They shoot up cans of Bud Light and wreck store displays of the beer. They're even threatening not to buy that sh*t beer. Real touchy those snowflakes.

The big box store Target introduces 'Pride' items. Out comes the snowflakes! They swirl about threatening Target employees with violence. Some stores are pulling the Pride displays and items to placate those poor little snowflakes. They might melt, you know.

Now it seems the outdoor clothing store North Face has a drag queen spokesperson. I saw the ad - it was hilarious! It was inviting everyone to come on out! And mentions lesbians! Cue the howling of snowflakes in three, two, one....

Gods, people. Get a life. We're here, we're queer... we've always been here. And before you all get on your snowflake high horse about child molesters and groomers... let me remind you...

We are your children. You want pedos and groomers, check your local church first.

The front of our house has sported several arbor vitae for a very long time. They were scraggly and unmanageable so last year I chopped down all but one of them.

The last few weekends I've been digging up the stumps. Still one to go.

I their place I've either planted new or transplanted hostas which I seem to have good luck with. One of them I didn't know I had since it was under the remaining arbor vitae. I took advantage of the cooler weather and transplanted that one today.

After clearing out some vine like weeds I discovered two more hostas I didn't know I had. They'll stay where they are but I should mulch them or do something to help them grow better. Now my back and hands ache.

Right now the front of the house looks scraggly but give it a few years and it should look nice.

As a child of the space race, I can't help but watch (when I can) all the private rockets being shot off.

So I *had* to watch the initial launch of Starship.

During the event I was too caught up in the event to catch certain things but there were several parts of the launch where I was thinking, "That doesn't look right."

When the rocket started tumbling I *knew* something wasn't right - and watched the big boom at the end. SpaceX - just like NASCAR, you watch the race for the wreaks.

Boom today.

So I've been catching up on the commentary and oh boy it looks like things with pear shaped and went pear shaped *really fast*.

Starting with that huge ball of smoke and dust and chunks of concrete that was once the launch pad. Debris everywhere - most likely bouncing back up to strike some of the engines. As the vehicle rose, more and more engines self-destructed. One analysis suggests the launch failure system failed and the rocket blew itself to pieces.

A proper launch pad with flame diverters and water systems (like NASA and the Russians and the Chinese have) might have prevented that but no, Elon wanted to skimp on building that. Idiot. To have a space port you need *reusable launch pads*.

I hope the FAA pulls SpaceX's flight permissions until they build proper launch pads.