Those Wacky Indians!

I ought to see this movie one day. Indian movie posters crack me up all the more because they (Bollywood buggers) really were serious. Or were they?

Clint Eastwood blows up many Russians with powerful aircraft

Perhaps I ought to the let them pictures speak for themselves.





And a tad explanation at that. The top image is Firefox, the bottom being that of Internet Explorer. You have the same code, but two different browsers, and since both rely on their own standards (Netscape for the first, Microsoft for the second), you'd have two completely different outputs.

Frustrating isn't it? It wouldn't so be if you were using Firefox, because it comes out just right. Maybe a little bit glitchy at the first loading, where the posts seem to overlap the title on above. Additionally, damn the Blog navbar on top that hindereth it so.

W3C's not going to hunt me down and brand me with a XHTML standard, well not yet at least. I simply don't use Internet Explorer for anything anymore, and I suggest most of you do the same, and I won't extrapolate on why Firefox is the better. There's enough of that kind of discussion going on in Slashdot for like, eh, forever. Geeks.

Its not very hard to put Firefox in your comp. Though of course, I will be fiddling with the CSS from time to time. Just to see where I've gone wrong. Or something.

Do I really need to put a title here? No I don't.

Well, that's a bit better now, though the colors may look a little bit off, at least to some of you guys. I'm still deciding on what is best, in the midst of work and all. In the mean time:


Alien loves Predator. The heck?

Perambulate

Just fiddling with the CSS.

It Rings! It Rings!

Ring. Ring.

Two tones that reverbrated from the table to my ear, enough to jolt me from my then-current state of peace. In a land that was not bereft of dreams, though I experienced none in the latest session, since I had the unfortunance not to abide by the natural laws of sleeping the night, working into the wee hours of the morn.

The air was silent except for the ever-present sounds of traffic outside my window, cars scurrying in the essence of mice in the maze that was a metropolis. Only the occasional staccato of a tram's wheels would add to the constant noise which I had accepted as part of my psyche. Habit and the unofficial practice of embracing the world about me, taking the flows of sound as one constant stream until they would all seem like a friend, the spouse you never acknowledge but is always there, by your side.

And I was awakened by the ring of a phone on the table in front of me.

Me: "Hello?"


Cue progressive metal.


Geoff Tate:
It just takes a minute
And you feel no pain
Gotta make something of your life boy
Give me one more vein
You've come to see the doctor
Cause I'll show you the cure
I'm gonna take away the questions
Yeah I'm gonna make you sure


Naw, it didn't happen like that. As much as I like Operation Mindcrime, thats not what happened. What actually took place, heh:


Telemarketer: Hello, Mr. McDonald?


Ever since the installation of the phone line in my bedroom, a flurry of calls have made their way to my ears. If one has felt the touch of the telemarketer, you cannot help but support the campaign perpetuated by a switchblade-armed bunny rabbit in his quest to rid the world of an ill that has plagued us for so long.

I'm a pacifist at heart. At least mostly. I do not rush out and gut the nearest fellow with a bastard sword (weapon of choice) who disrupts my piece of mind. The most one would get is a rude response, or maybe more.

Now I have been called numerous times and my name referred to as Mr. McDonald, and their mission to sell me raffle tickets to make sure that charity in all her power must be upheld by champions such as us. It is our solemn duty to support the needy and break the Hun, slap the Jap and turn their cities into molten metal. Uncle Sam wants you!


Well, maybe not.


Me: Yeah?

Telemarketer: We're selling some raffle tickets for this so-and-so-rip-off-your-mother campaign, would you like to purchase a few? If you do, you'll be in the running to win so-and-so item.


The first times, they would be fobbed off with wrong number, as is the polite way inherent in every man who has ever picked up a phone. The first times have passed, and I have taken on the persona of a John Doe, or in this case, John McDonald.


Me: Yeah sure, how many can I buy?

TM: [cue number here]

Me: Hmmm, okay, I'd like to buy about lets see, 30 tickets? That's right, send them over to my place. Have you got my address right?

TM: [cue random address here]

Me: Yep, thats the one. Alright, seeya.


That's one way to handle 'em, though one can always scream one's head off and reduce the other person on the line to whimpers and tears. But who knows really? Being their line of work, would they not already be desensitized to the harsh words of the no-sayers? And that the need to feel the love for the folk who call you in the midst of important doings are nothing more than attempts to paint a better image for them operators?

Or if you're really cruel, you can talk to one for > 20 minutes, raising that person's hopes of selling something and shell out a flat refusal at the very end.

Candle

I don't have very many things happening to me these days, or that I just seem to forget about them, or take a lack of pictures concerning. So sometimes I'll post pictures of albums my ear is listening to.





Yep. Good ol', good ol'.

Wallpapers are fun

Morning + Kaizers Orchestra + Sonic Youth + Reading Brodie's Post + 20 to 30 mins of PaintShop Pro 5 = Creative Silliness in the form of wallpapers.

Something religious,

grain lives on forever,

please don't hurt me, George.



This post is officially silly!

You thought comics were for kids?

I've seen some odd stuff, but this cracked me up at first glance.



And then there's stuff like this.



Meh. So, so meh.

Fuck titles! Titles suck!

I just discovered a coupla days back that with the resources of my uni I was able to set up my own blog. And in some ways, it seems so much more customizable than blogger.com is able to provide. Should I move?

The Waftness

Having your own room is good. You can fart to your heart's content and no one is going to complain about it.


I must say I really don't mind the smell of methane lasagna.

Thoughts of bastardising the Star Wars logo.

Blog Wars!


And it's on the Internet too!

I'm not sure if PSP 5 is capable of what I have in mind. Heheheh.


Currently listening to:



Political prog rock. FTW.

TDZK.

I miss this game.

And that is why I'm playing it again.

My Keyboard has gone to Peripheral Heaven

It all started on about Mondaynight/Tuedsday morning, when I was playing a game of Starcraft over Battlenet. Now you might ask, Starcraft? Isn't that a bit old? Yeah, I must admit, I haven't played it for about 2 or 3 years, some of you even longer, and I seemed content to put down a game or two with Stormcrow and Theros. So happened I still had a spare CD-key in my possession, thanks to Akuma.

Having a drink too, a bottle of Guiness, enjoying a little bit in the wee hours of the morn when suddenly my hand thwaps the bottle and it spills a quarter of its contents over this laptop.



I cursed, as any person like me would, screaming "Oh fuck!" at the first tumble of liquid through those keys. However, it did not seem to interrupt my gaming session with Stormcrow and Theros, even if my fingertips were beginning to feel a bit sticky, smelling of the familiar malt flavour. We ended in a draw, 2 versus 1, where I was the one. First time I ever encountered a draw in Starcraft. Usually one of us gets killed in nasty, nasty ways. "Kill all the women and rape all the men," as one Viking in a show said once.

Eventually, I thought I might as well take a nap, as it was also 9am in the morning, had my breakfast and went to bed, only to awake at 4pm. Fine, turned on comp, and some of the keys were sticky, and in their own right, would not rise when I would press them. It was only after finger-hammering them would they arise from their evil pits of alcoholic maltness, and there would be this odd recoil everytime you pressed them.

Of course, I panicked, a little. If this had happened to a conventional keyboard, I would not have felt as desperate as I would have been. By nature, laptop keyboards give the aura that you're not to go touchy touchy with them, lest you screw things up, much the same ways I felt with my box about a decade or so ago.

So, I took out the I and O keys. Ironic, eh? I/O. Just when they happened to be the stickiest of all, those little squares being ejaculated upon by brown bitter liquids. But eh, I took them out, which was one of the mistakes made this past few days.




There's no trouble in prying loose the teeth of an old DOS keyboard, but to do the same with a laptop keyboard? No trouble of course, the only part is putting it back. I spent twenty minutes per key, armed with a pair of tweezers trying to fit the bleeding things in.

So Viceice I see on MSN, and I tell him of my predicament, so he suggests that I go wash my keyboard.

"But how?"
"You should see two notches under the laptop, look for them."

He should have just said screws. Phillips heads. Not so hard to say now is it, considering that we all have done Kemahiran Hidup, eh? Eh? Plus there were four.

"Alright, sorry."



Viceice shows me link to remove keyboard from laptop. Nifty.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-53172




"Soak it in a tub of water for an hour, take it out to dry and use a hair dryer on it."

I do that, except that I don't have a hair dryer. Used a heater fan and more hours of drying while I retreated to watch some TV.

Came back (which was morning anyhow, considering that I never sleep at night anymore) and made sure that the keyboard was totally dry before plugging it back in. Went to bed and did not dream about surreal nightmares involving beer on top of letters. Nah, that would have been crazy, but wholly interesting.

Woke up circa seven hours later, turned on computer only to find out that the keys aren't working right. See previous post if you don't know what I mean. Keys that have the value of comma, v, t, and so on and so forth are all corrupted beyond moralistic belief. Only the great FUCK still remain untouchable, for a good reason, and seriously, I thank God for that, even though you might not. I have my reasons.

So I call up Viceice and tell him this this this and that that that. He says, "Oh, I've done it with other laptops but not IBM laptops."


KANINA!!


I never use that phrase, even in real life. So consider this a first.

Of course, I'm not too happy with the outcome of the dried keyboard. No kidding, if everything except fuck would come out as garbled rubbish, what else would you say. It was a matter of time when the off/on button would quit working, despite my pleas of curses and twiddling with the keys.

I consider Aaron's alternative, as I have some projects to hand in next week, so of course I'm a little bit more than desperate. Wouldn't you be?

The IBM Thinkpad I use has only 2 USB ports, so I go buy a USB keyboard plus a USB hub. Thats about 60 to 70 dollars there, folks.



Now you might ask, "Why not just send your laptop to the centre? They can change stuff like this in mere minutes."

I would done that, except that the only place where it can be serviced is in Sydney, while I am in the vicinity of Melbourne. To send it to be repaired would take a couple of weeks, plus they also say that the damage by liquid was not covered under warranty. I have stuff to hand up, and the laptop of mine is essential to their completion.

Yargh indeed, but they tell me instead of having service centres, that there are dealers some miles away from where I am that I may go and make a purchase of a new keyboard if I don't intend to wait. I ask how much. They say 74 dollars.


I grumble and look out for the addresses to the locations. One ten minutes by tram, and the other possibly thirty minutes by train. Took the former, of course, and went off to purchase another keyboard.

Nice place (I mean the area around), I might admit. Just by St. Kilda beach in fact. Nice weather and good smell of the sea. Pity I didn't bring along my camera back then.

So I enter the dealer's office and say this this this and that that that. Some talkings here and there, and they seem to have the keyboard. 100 bucks, please.


WHAT? BUT IBM SAID IT WAS 74!


Sure enough, IBM didn't tell me the true price, which involved GST, sending, postage and yada yada. I wonder if I got conned, but the guy agreed to reduce it to 90 dollars, since he too was not too happy with the way the main headquarters were handling things. Apparently they had another set of keyboards which were promised to reach their premises in late July, but never made it. I sigh, pay the man and go. I had about enough, plus I really didn't have the time to send the laptop for warranty anyway.


Long story short, I come back home, set it in and now I typeth the ends to this entry.



Am not going to drink beer in front of laptop again. Thats what a TV area is for. Expensive mistake I'd say.

A Tale of Two Inputs.

This is an input from the Windows On-Screen Keyboard. Precise, but so damn slow.


Now allow mye vto vtmype in a myore comyofvtorvtbale wamy,] due vto vthe facvt vthavt mymy kemyboard is novt onlmy romyallmy fucked up,] buvt ivt well,] whavt else can I samy aside fromy vthe facvt vthavt evtermy vtimye I vtouch on a kemy,] whevther ivt be vthe vt or vthe vt kemy,] ivt would comye ouvt as somyevthing I wouldn'vt wanvt?

I'my definivtelmy sure myou can read vthis. Jusvt ignore vthe exVTRA vt's and vt's,] vthough ivt myighvt be a bivt hard vto undersvtand vthe difference bevtween vthe cervtain kemys,] because vthe cervtain kemys seemy vto be svtuck. Oddlmy,] vthe levtvters f,] u,] c,] and k don'vt seemy vto be svtuck avt all,] which is a blessing fromy God,] I suppose. vthere is a reason whmy He allowed vthose parvticulkar levtvter s vto be released invto mymy kemyboard,] vthe vtalue of vthemy vthereof.I know whmy,] a vtermy good reason befcause.

myan I canvt evten vtmype a proper sevtenvtence wivthouvt backspacing or akking a line break,] because ivt wonvt levt mye. Fucking hilarious isn'vt ivt?

I acvtuallmy havte vto use vthe on screen kemyboard vto vtmype in vthe envter vtalue. vtmype in would be wrong,] buvt press woulod be bevtvter. I myake a few myisvtakes whenevter I vtmype,] being a fairlmy accomyplished wrivter wivth vthe abilivtmy vtio vtmype quicklmy wivth fivte fingers,] vthough I amy progressing wivth evtermy passing myomyenvt.

So ivt happened approxMYIAVTELMYX vtwo nighvts ago,] when I was plamying Svtarcrafvt ovter vthe BavtvtleNevt,] which somye of myou myighvt ask,] dude? ou svtill plamy Svtarcrafvt? Well,] ivt was becasue vthe person I was plamying wivth was in vthe myood,] and I had a spare D wivth mye,] so whavt vthe heck.

And vthen I had a bovtvtle of Guiness in fronvt of mye,] drinking happolmy awamy I was,] when a swing of mymy army processed vto crash vthe convt4envts of vthe bovtvtle of beer ovter mymy belovted kemyboard. I woulkd add somye phovtos here if I wasn'vt vtoo bovthered wivth vthe idea of mymy kemyboard being a bivt of a shivts.

So vthe nighvt afvter vthavt,] I vtake ouvt vthe kemyboard and givte ivt a soak like I used vto do wivth all my ovther kemyboards,] all vthose DOS kemyboards I use vto use back homye. here wasn'vt a problemy when I vtmyped wivth vthose kemyboards,] I myean vto samy vthavt I didnvt havte myuch of a problemy wvthen I vtossed vthemy and washed vthemy,] kemy for kemy. ou know whavt I'my vtalking abouvt here,] are myou? I vthink I'my confusing mymyself evten here.

So vtherefore,] I amy avt quivte a loss,] so I wash vthemy kemyboards,] bmy soaking ivt in a bivt of wavter,] and drmy ivt and all,] and plug ivt in,] vthe nexVT MYORNING ONLMYX vto find vthavt ivt doesn'vt fucking wovtrk!

Levt mye jusvt samy vthavt envter doesn'vt work,] while backspace vthinks ivt's a punmy vtersion of envter where ivt doesn'vt reallmy myake a new line unless ivts in a online vtexVTERX or somyevthing. And now evtermyvthing I do seemys vto fuck ivt self so nicelmy. I myean,] jusvt look avt vthe words I'my vtmyping ouvt righvt nbow! Ivts a wonder if myou're svtill reading vthis far! I myean,] a svtormy like vthis,] is evtern myore worse vthan spamy would havte on vthe myind,] I myean seriouslmy!

And I'my a Ivt - informyavtion vtech,] for vthose of myou vthavt somyewhavt are unsure of whavt ivt svtands for- person,] so ivts going vto be a bivt hard vto do comypouvter svtuff while I'my righvt here,] blasvting awamy wivth vthe almyivtghvtmy kemyboard. I myean,] whavt vthe bloodmy fuck?



AAAARGH!

Cripes!

As soon as I get another keyboard for this bleeding laptop, its CSS time.

Like the sign says.

Currently two days into the Guiness Key debacle. Agh.

What's happening today?

Oh nothing really, just working on a new design for this blog. Some fumbling about with CSS is in order.