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Sunday, 25 March 2001
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Went to see Enemy at the Gates with my daughter. My 15-year-old daughter. I never thought about how it was rated (happens to be "R"), and in fact I didn't even look to see what the rating was before I took her. Now, I generally don't like youngsters watching "R"-rated movies, and in future I plan to be more conscientious about checking the ratings beforehand. That said, however, I can report that I lucked out this time. Yes, it's a war story, based (presumably loosely, after all this is Hollywood) on the true experiences of Hero of the Soviet Union Vassili Zaitsev, who was a sniper in Stalingrad during the horrible, grinding winter 1942-3 battle. There's quite a bit of graphic war-type violence, but none that could reasonably be called gratuitous; and one brief amorous interlude between our hero and the inevitable love interest. My daughter peeked through her fingers at the mild sex, but watched the soldiers die without flinching. Hm... I found the story moving; the visuals seemed realistically filthy and horrifying; and the acting was uniformly excellent. But what really struck me about it is simply that this is a Hollywood movie about a hero of the Soviet Union. It's truly an excellent film, but at the same time, it wouldn't have been out of place at a Soviet-era propaganda festival.
I was born in 1958. In elementary school, I saw those horrible cold war propaganda movies that showed us how little Bobby would protect himself from a nuclear explosion by ducking and covering. There was a bomb shelter in the basement of PS 37, stocked with stacks of canned rations. I hadn't yet started kindergarten during the Cuban missile crisis, and I remember the Big People acting very secretive and worried. I vividly recall being certain for a couple years or more, every time I heard a siren, that the missiles were in the air. Really. Now I personally don't believe that the history of the human race is a hope-inducing upward spiral of ever-increasing cooperation that will culminate in an era of world peace and plenty. History as such gives little rational support for such sentiments, nor is such an era probable in light of Biblical prophecy. But every now and then it's nice to pause and reflect on the occasional fallen barrier, the little interludes of thaw in the international relations ice age. It reminds us that whatever tensions and animosities exist, people are still just people. There are heros everywhere, mostly unsung.
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Monday, 26 March 2001
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Well, I learned something else about PCs. I had been under the impression that because my oldish Soyo socket 7 motherboard has power connectors for both AT and ATX power supplies, the board would drop into an ATX case. Not so. Well, that is to say, the mounting holes can be lined up, but the whole board would then sit about half an inch away from the back of the case, making it impossible to properly install the cards into their slots. Puzzling. Of course I could drill new mounting holes, but I don't expect I will. I'll probably just eventually get a real ATX motherboard, and carry on along the gentle upward slope of the "continuous rolling upgrade." I find I don't buy computers — I buy a part, then another part, then another part... eventually I have enough parts to put together another computer. Not the greatest strategy for ensuring compatibility, much less seamless integration; yet progress nevertheless keeps oozing forward. More anon.
And I'm now actively searching for a new place to hang my hat. I'm expecting to close on the house in four weeks, and that means it's well past time to stir my stumps and get things boxed up and put in order, and then find a tolerable place to send all the boxes. Wherever I end up, it will be both more expensive and not as nice as my present digs, but I can't afford to actually buy the house I'm living in now (or any house worth living in, probably), so off I go. Wish me luck.
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Tuesday, 27 March 2001
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Because I am a stupid man, I'm browsing around again for a new mobo/CPU. I'm thinking that the best bang for the buck is still AMD rather than Intel. Seems like Asus mobos are pretty much top shelf in both performance and price, so I'm wondering if maybe an almost-as-good-but-cheaper along the lines of Epox or Iwill (or maybe even Soyo) might fit the bill. I saw that type advertised online for about US$125, where Asus usually seems to start somewhere north of US$150. I'm trying to restrain my kneejerk reflex, which is of course to buy the fastest thing out there right now. Not having any prospects of suddenly becoming a man of means, I suspect that my poverty reflex will eventually outweigh my lust. That's not always reliable, though, as my Jornada purchases can attest. Any clueful advice would be welcomed.
Here's an odd thing — when I use Dreamweaver 3 to ftp this page up to my site, the timestamp gets set back three hours on the one copied up to the web. I checked my PC's clock setting, and the time zone setting as well, and they were both fine. Hm.
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Wednesday, 28 March 2001
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Wow am I busy! Not productive, but busy... And I have to go to another meeting in a couple minutes about our corporate website, which needs to be done over, from the conceptual state right on up... As the good Dr. Pournelle often says, it's a great life, if you don't weaken.
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Thursday, 29 March 2001
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Well, yesterday after work I signed a lease for a little apartment in the city. It's a strange feeling. I found something in my old neighborhood, near where I spend the first 15 years of my life. Rochester is the third-largest city in New York (though the first, NYC, is probably as big as most of the rest put together), and like most fair-sized cities these days, it's mostly lower income and minority in population. The area where I'll be is within a few miles of two major colleges and a popular community college, so I'm told that many of my neighbors will be of that ilk. (Note to self — what the heck is an "ilk"? Look it up.) The apartment itself is part of a house, not part of a complex; and it has nice old wood floors and a bay window. Small, as befits my very modest disposable income, but it looks pleasant. I can get a cat (neutered, the landlord states emphatically) if I want, which I probably will do if I can afford to feed it, rather than having to eat catfood myself. We'll see how the money works out. I'll take possession in mid-April, hoping and praying that nothing comes along to derail the house closing.
The guy from the music store called me back yesterday, too. He says my guitar is working again. I just have to make a cover plate to mount the switches and such. Since the guitar was custom made, I can't just use an off-the-shelf item. But I'm psyched — it'll be really great to have that old thing working again. I'll probably replace the tuners, as well. Then yee-hah. I've always left my old Fender Strat at church, because when you put it in its case, it makes a four-foot-long, twenty-pound burden to sling in and out of a car. That's why God invented roadies, man. So now I'll have a good guitar both at church and at home, and I can practice and compose whenever I get the urge. In fact, I just bought some new headphones just so I could play without annoying the neighbors. Of course, granted that they're likely to be half my age, they're quite a bit more likely to be annoying me. Ah well. Such is life.
I expect my little living room will be mostly crammed with computers and stereo/guitar equipment, so I'll whip out my trusy eight-port SMC 10/100 hub and get the network going again. I wonder if I'll be able to afford Road Runner. $40 a month, plus you have to buy some kind of basic cable TV service, for another $10-20. Hm. Probably not right away.
Don't miss the next exciting episode...
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Friday, 30 March 2001
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I couldn't believe it — I pulled my Jornada out my hip pocket, flipped up the cover, and stared in shock and horror at the beautiful spiderweb-shaped design that used to be a touchscreen. Way beyond "ack" and "poop". So I called the service droid at HP and got the requisite magic numbers, and they're sending FedEx to pick it up this afternoon. The fembot cautioned me to check the ship-to address on the FedEx waybill, to make sure entropy had not crept in. Somehow that fails to fill me with confidence. I sent them a letter in my best professionalese, swearing up and down (and truthfully, I might add) that I never folded, spindled, or mutilated said unit in any manner, but merely pulled out my pocket and opened it. I must admit I also put in a paragraph to the effect that I'd been carrying Palm III devices in that pocket for the past couple of years, and even dropped the Palms a few times, with never a scratch to their screens. Truthfully again, I might add.
Aw, phooey...
On the other hand, I'm feelin' pretty good about backing up all my stuf on the Compact Flash card...
And on the brightish side, I'm presently washing down my Tylenol and Advil with some reasonably pleasant coffee, of which I plan to quaff more later. Breakfast of champions! "Quaff" — there's a neat word. I think it must mean adding some dashing wrist action to one's basic slurp. Or something. Another word to look up later. Oh and BTW — "ilk" is from the Old English by way of the Middle English, circa 1500 and change, and nobody knows where it came from. Presumably yet another word invented by drunken college students to baffle their elders, that slipstreamed unnoted into the vernacular. Or maybe we should just blame Shakespeare on general principles.
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Saturday, 31 March 2001
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No entry.