Thu 3 Apr 2008

Thursday Thirteen #16: Things I Learned Last Month

Posted in Thursday Thirteen at 0:05

1. One morning, I lost the internet connection on the upstairs PC. Yet, the laptop downstairs could connect through the wireless router, and MEPIS on the PC worked too. That seemed to narrow it down a lot, so I was confident as I began the usual process to try to fix it: Google and read, Google more, read more. But while I learned things, the dreaded “limited or no connectivity” message still came up after each reboot.

   On the following day, I re-read everything and noticed something: before you do anything, remove all firewalls. I had disabled the hardware firewall on the router as well as the software firewall from Comodo, but after re-reading, I used CCleaner to thoroughly uninstall Comodo. After the required reboot, the problem was gone and we were back online once more.

2. In 2005, Paris Match printed photos of the wedding of television newscaster Béatrice Schonberg and government minister Jean-Louis Borloo. I drove to a nearby college library to read the article.

   When she returned to television, Paris Match featured her again, but this time all I had to do was download the magazine.

3. Yes, his ears hang low: An English Lop has the world record for the longest ears on a rabbit — more than 31 inches (79 cm) long.
4. I finally broke down and got an MP3 player. Not just anything, though, (or should I say, iAnything). Instead, I researched them, learned what I needed to, and now own a tiny Sony. It came with free music downloads from Amazon, which were used on early Talking Heads and recent Weird Al.
5. I realize it is now possible for me to fall asleep during Psycho Killer. However, Couch Potato always wakes me up. (For now.)
6. The Sony MP3 already had some songs on it when it arrived, but I kept only one of them: A song called Walkman Demo Music from someone I’d never heard of named Okino Shuntaro: It’s what I’d call American-sounding, except with scattered English words that bounce from speaker to speaker. (e.g., “Fire / Mirror / Fire / Angel”) Reminded me of Engrish.com.
7. I’m starting to use filters in GMail to tag incoming items. Saves time by automating what I used to do myself.
8. An email forwarded to me at work told about how bump keys are used to pick locks, and its attached video certainly got my attention.
9. We’re less than a year away from all digital TV in the US. It shouldn’t affect us as long as we have cable. Still, for fun over the weekend, we looked at the TVs at Sam’s Club and decided that the Sony Bravia had the best picture. An observer watching video of a National Hockey League game said, “Geez, this screen even makes hockey look interesting.”
10. Blog titles that made me want to read more: “How I Changed the World Today.”
11. Hot on the heels of his 1994 solo debut, “11 Tracks of Whack”, Walter Becker’s next release “Circus Money” has been announced. June 10 — yes, this year — is the date.
12. John Denver once called during a Steely Dan recording session to invite Roger Nichols (recording engineer for Denver as well as the Dan) and Donald Fagen to take a sunset helicopter cruise around Manhattan.
13. The Automatic Upgrade plugin for WordPress is a splendid little program.

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