malada

It was sunny Saturday and I needed to go to the local Agway located way across town for grub killer. Grubs annoy me. Having skunks dig up my lawn annoy me. Having skunks stink up the neighborhood annoy me. Driving across town to buy grub killer annoys me. So I made a list of the garage and yard sales from my local paper and hit every... single .... one.

People are getting trickier. They find out their neighbor is having a rummage sale so they drag out their junk and attempt to sell it. Sometime whole *streets* do that. So I hit those sales too, and the ones that just stuck a sign on the street. I must have hit ten sales, maybe twelve!

I bought ONE item: a five dollar multi tool. Useful!

To be honest, there wasn't much that thrilled me in all the sales. Some things did attract me: a really early word processor - a piece of history! A VHS video camera *complete* in a case with cables, adapters, battery charger - a real blast from the past! And a pair of (most likely decorative) katanas. Neat!

Naw. I got home and treated my lawn.

Last weekend I hit a rummage for the American Cancer Society (great cause) and got some neat stuff: a Realistic (Radio Shack) 10 band audio equalizer (been looking for one of those) a nineteen inch computer monitor (always handy especially since I gave away a nineteen inch monitor recently) and some bags of various adapters in them. The USB wireless adapter I plugged into my Linux box and hey, works like a charm! Lucky me!

Don't buy toys. Buy tools. But for a good cause spend liberally.

-m

As a serious Penquinista I like to avoid Microsoft Windows as much as I can. I do keep a few old (and mostly scavenged) PCs around with Win98, XP and Windows 7 on them... just for these few stupid tasks that linux can't do or do easily.

My latest rescue (curb collected, garbage picked) needed a new power supply and after it was installed the machine booted up with a full install of Windows 7 Ultimate... over the original Vista. The drive was *full* (like 95% full) of *stuff* - including 130 gigs of ripped TV shows: mostly manga. Embarrassing.

I found RAM on sale and doubled what was installed. A cheap processor bumped me from 1.8 ghz to 2.4 ghz. I need to scavenge a front USB jack because the originals were *trashed*. I can get the one that will fit in the 3 1/2 inch drive bay. It could use a better video card but not right now. Ccleaner, Avast and Malwarebytes helped clean up and speed up the system... but I strongly suspect it's a mess under the hood.

I did find the Win7 key and copied it.

Since I am a Good Person I wiped the disk using DBAN. It took 5 hours to securely erase 256 gigs. I'm not interested in your *personal* data. I will point and laugh though.

Then I installed Windows 10 Pro.

*hangs head*

I feel so dirty. (LOL)

It was an interesting experience. Microsoft has gotten so *nosey* about everything. But what struck me was the pleasant little screen at the end of the install which says,

LEAVE IT ALL UP TO US

*That's what I'm afraid of!*

There's a chance that the Windows 7 key will work and will activate Windows 10. I'll check that tomorrow. In the meantime I need to take another shower. (LOL)

-m

With a little research one can find out that pigs are fairly intelligent animals.

With even less research you can discover the horrifying and disgusting ways they're treated. Hog farms tend to raise them in cages, have themlive in their own feces and stuff them with antibiotics. In some states, they have huge holding ponds of pig excrement which they empty by 'aeration': mixing the shit with water then shooting it into the air. This aerial shit storm then rains down on their poorer and powerless neighbors.

Yeah, and this is legal too.

So yeah, no more pork for me. No bacon (and no meat is tastier than bacon!) either. I'm not a big meat eater to begin with but every bit helps. Screw you pork industry - I don't want to eat your shitty meat.

I know cows and chickens are treated badly too. I don't have a serious problem with eating meat - especially beef - in particular: cows are a renewable resource. I eat the cow, I wear the cow. I just think that if we're going to kill and eat animals we should give them a good life - not a living hell.

On that note, I'm hoping the Impossible Burger can scale. If we can make meaty like burgers from plant material and make it competitive to beef it will be a game changer. A tasty game changer.

-m

Since Mueller's report hasn't been released yet it's hard to say exactly what's in it... but from the way it's being treated by Barr I think it's got some dirt on Trump.

My basic take on it is: if it really exonerates Trump from any collusion with Russia it would be made public. Not just that - copies would be printed and handed out to every major (and minor) news agency.

But no, in less time it takes to read a decent novel a 300 page legal document (not including appendix and footnotes I'm guessing) a four page 'review' has been released. Ah... no.

I'll reserve judgement on the Mueller report until after it's been released. My opinion of Trump has remained the same: he's a liar, a crook, a swindler, a wife beater and possibly a sociopath.

And that's public record.

-m

I trundle into work yesterday and discover a little baggie in my work mailbox with an official CDC tick removal kit.

There was one in everyone's mailbox. I have no idea who put them there. It sort of harshed my morning mellow.

However, given that Trump's SOTU address was the previous night a kit to remove blood sucking parasites could be handy.

-m

It's too early for spring cleaning so a Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse is a good excuse to do some major sort, toss and clean.

My desk.

I started by cleaning off the desk which has become a flat surface to store stuff. This includes 5 years worth of bank statements. So I go to put them into Deep Storage and discover 15 years of bank statements.

The were also filling up the drawers of my desk.

We recently got a new paper shredder from Staples so I've been giving it a work out. So far I've filled 3 big trash bags with shred.

But I've discovered my desk again. Hopefully, this time I'll keep it.

We're dug out from the snow storm and we're both down with cold/flu. Head and chest. I've been soldiering through it the past few days but today I think I'll stay in my jammies and just play sick.

After more shredding.

-m

I can't say 2018 was a bad year for me personally nor was it a great year... it was, a year.

Work was okay - I'm still working, the job is okay and my boss cares about me. We we tend to watch each other's backs which is a good thing. Although I've been with the company nearly 30 years and I am 'of that age' I'm not quite ready for retirement financially or mentally.

My home life is good. Been with the spousal unit for *mumble mumble* years now. Although we're both a bit creaky and probably a little on the heavy side we're both in decent health.

The Big Project that got *done* this year was replacing the driveway. Expensive, yes.... but it looks so sweet.

I did start a YouTube channel. It's mostly for fun and learning video production. I actually know a lot generally but some of the specifics I'm picking up.

A project that did *not* get done was the novel I've been chewing on for several years. It's a sword and sorcery fantasy with a young mage attending mage college. She's of noble lineage so there's tons of politics and history. I've discarded almost as much writing as I've written because it was just not right. I've got a separate folder for the discards because although some of it wasn't right for the characters it might be a few years down the road when they've matured a little. Shoot, most of the major characters are teenagers.

I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books so I know very little about the popular conception of a mage college but I will say this about my take on it: if the Masters of Magic think you're unstable, immoral, unreliable or untrustworthy it's their job to find out and PUT YOU DOWN. Some people shouldn't have power.

Looking at the outside world - the racists and the Trumpetts ran around causing havoc. Cryto currency had it's bubble burst. The stock market got fluffed by tax cuts but that's just foam: no substance. Too many people died in wars, natural disasters and human induced folly. 2018 sucked.

The midterm elections give me hope that a Blue Wave will clear out The Swamp. It will take time. Swamps are filled with poisonous things and they *like* their Swamp.

Celebrate or recover from celebrating today. The work of the world lies before us. Establish Justice with Grace. May the blessings of Truth be upon us and may the power of Love direct and sustain us throughout the year.

Good luck and I wish to all a better New Year.

-m

The young man who sold me the now ruined computer called me back and said he had a second computer that was older and in much worse shape. I told him I'd give him a ten spot for it sight unseen.

It was... in much worse shape. And dirtier too.

Someone had been there before me and looted the hard drive (good move) and all the RAM. Chancing that the motherboard was still good I put some compatible RAM in it, checked the power supply, switched it on and hoped it would boot.

Er.... nope.

However, I noticed it had a CPU that was compatible to the machine I had previously bought. Could it be that the CPU got ruined when it came out from socket? Several of the pins were damaged... so there was nothing to lost by swapping CPUs.

And..... after swapping the CPU into the first machine it booted back up!

WOOT! It's a little slower and takes more power... but it works!

Did I pay too much for the systems? Probably. I got one working one out of the mix so I'm happy and I'm sure the young man who sold me both system appreciated the extra cash before the holidays. I got a few spare parts out of the second one so... it's all good.

But I'm staying off Craigslist for a while.

-m

I don't subscribe to a lot of people but I ought too subscribe to a few more. I just recently found an friend from the old USENET days with alt.devilbunnies here on dreamwidth. Yeah, USENET. I'm old. AOL for DOS ruled!

Anyways, I'm watching the tRump administration start to slowly collapse with both fear that tRump and the Rethugicans are going to make things much, much worse and with hope that we can turn things around eventually.

Stay curious.

-m

ALWAYS spray paint outside.

I thought just a quick 5 minute spray paint job in the basement wouldn't bother anything. Now the whole house stinks.

I moved the freshly painted item to the garage and opened the basement windows. Hopefully in a few hours the smell will go away.

I'm such an idiot.

-m