First off if you are having problems with a certain contest, then plugging the secret letters into the Internet Anagram Server could be very helpful.

I like RPGs and play in a couple now & then.  I have also run the occasional session or two, but lately I got this itch.  The itch to play in a campaign world of my own devising which means I’ll need to run more than a single session or two. In trying to prepare myself for that, I’ve been following some new blogs and today read the logical article I’ve ever seen on the subject of war & international relationals.

This week while staying home sick¹, I finally got around to upgrading my work laptop from Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.10. I had been holding off mostly because it is my work machine and I had the idea I should keep it on Ubuntu’s LTS releases. Then I realized while I was keeping the system on a theoretically more stable version, I kept adding 3rd party packages/repositories to update specific programs I wanted (which contradicts the point of sticking with a LTS release). So I did the upgrade and was pleasantly surprised at how smooth the upgrade went. However I did run into one minor and one major problem after the upgrade.

• Minor problem: My dual monitor configuration got screwed up. Most likely because I did the upgrade at home (where I don’t have a 2nd monitor for the laptop).
• Major problem: All my SSH keys stopped working. I ended up recreating them and getting them pushed back out to all the servers I need to access using keys. Still that was disconcerting, especially since nothing about the keys (client/server) had changed. Even our network admin at work was confused by that one.

On the positive side, Adobe Flash Player 10.x is available for Ubuntu 8.10, so now I can watch Comedy Central’s clips of the Daily Show again (under Flash 9.x, they always crashed Firefox). Additionally there are prebuilt packages for Gnome-Do 0.8.x for Ubuntu 8.10, which like Mr. Pibb + Red Vines is crazy delicious! Specifically, Gnome-Do with the Docky theme. I believe the idea behind the Docky theme was to mimic some functionality of OS X’s dock, but could be mistaken (don’t own a Mac). The performance is bit slow on my older desktop², but it works great on the work laptop.

¹ Nausea + dizziness + complete lack of energy. Fortunately I’m mostly over it now, though still working to get my energy levels back up.
² Based on an AMD 1800+ CPU.

Lucky Day © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

The side effect of Nautilus working so poorly was I had time to do a little googling.  I’ve heard good things about the Hulu website for watching TV shows I’ve missed.  Thing i I hate sitting at my computer for long periods of time when I’ve got a comfy couch¹ and a much larger TV than computer monitor. So as I said, I started googling and looking for a XBMC/Hulu plugin and I did find one in the XBMC Forums.

Unfortunately the 0.2 release mentioned in the first post of that thread didn’t work so well for me and there were 38 pages in the thread.  I did some more searching and found an article over at LifeHacker.  The article seems to be talking about the same plugin but links to a newer release of it.  I kept looking to see if there were anything else out there and found what appears to be the main site for the plugin, xbmc-hulu.  That last site doesn’t provide a simple download, but you can use subversion to checkout the lastest copy of their plugin.

And that latest version is pure gold, which is to say I’ve not run into a single problem watching any videos via the plugin.  Now I can sit back on the couch and watch Colbert Report, The Daily Show and all sorts of other good stuff that I don’t get with my cable TV package.  If my sinuses clear up and this cold goes away, I could be really happy.

UPDATE: I appear to be getting quite a bit of traffic (for me anyway) on this post, so thanks for stopping by! Also I’ve finally read through the entire 40 pages (at the time of this writing) in the XBMC Forums thread about this plugin.  From reading that thread, there appears to be a lot of confusion on where/how to get the plugin to work.  So for the record, I’m running xbmc-hulu 1.0 (SVN copied checked out on 26 January 2009) on top of T3CH’s 2009-01-25 build of XBMC (rev17349) on an original XBox (softmodded using Mech Assault via ProductWiki’s instructions).

UPDATE: Per the XBMC-Hulu plugin release thread, there is no currently working version of the plugin.

¹ Someday I will have a comfy chair!

XBMC + Hulu = GOLD! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

…

Yes, yes, you can stop laughing now.

…

No really, stop laughing at me.

…

Bastards.

…

Anyway, we got one and before winter hit we used it maybe twice and it still seemed like an excellent idea. Now that summer is here I’m really beginning to feel that added bonus. Especially when I’ve had a cold for a week. A cold that had me coughing up huge chunks of flem, keeping me from going out and mowing the lawn in bits & pieces as I meant to do this week.

Instead, I just spent several hours fighting my lawn which had patches a foot or 2 high. Those of you with powered mowers are probably thinking “so what?”. Those of you with reel mowers are (hopefully) thinking “you poor bastard.”

You see, oh users of powered mowers, when you run across patches this tall a reel mower tends to bend the grass stalks down into the rest of the grass so they pop back up after you pass by the taller bits. To mow patches like this with a reel mower, you either:

• run at the patch, lift one side above the height of the tallest piece of grass at the last moment, and drop the spinning blade on top.
• or you use hand shears and chop it even more manually than with the reel mower (or you cheat and just pull the tall bit out).

With only one or 2 spots like this, it is not much of a problem but when you get to half the lawn it becomes a much bigger issue. Add in upper 80°, 50–60% humidity and you’ve got yourself a long, painful evening a head of you. Or at least I did when I started around 6:30 this evening¹.

Still for all my complaining, once I finally finish with the lawn I do get a real sense of accomplishment out of doing all the work. And I’m meeting more of our neighbors than Ariesna because I’m out working on the lawn every week². So when we attend neighborhood functions, more people tend to recognize me as that idiot nice fellow who was out working on the lawn. This seems to irk her a bit, but I don’t mind. :D

¹ I finally gave up the fight around 9:30 with only 1 long patch of grass left to mow.
² When I’m not sick. Usually. Ok, I’m out there at least every other week. Or so. *grin*

Blasted Lawn Mowing © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

I was watching some videos on my computer when all of a sudden Ariesna was shouting. I looked over and saw something flying around. Turned out a bat had somehow worked it’s way into the house but then was scared and flying around freaking out Ariesna. We locked our cat in the bathroom. Closed as many interior doors as we could and opened the door to our porch. Then after much cursing and effort we were able to drive the bat out onto the porch. All the time we’re doing this, our cat is wailing and crying most pitifully from the bathroom. Though as soon as we let him out, all was well. *shrug* Go figure.

Then Tuesday we’re both still feeling under the weather. I work from home liberally dosed with cold & sinus meds and feeling a bit tired, but closer to being back in the land of the living. Later that night, I mute the TV during some commercials to talk to Ariesna and we hear some rather pitiful wailing from our porch. I look out through the windows to investigate and find one of our neighbors’ cat (was wearing a collar) is sitting out there. Since it was a warm night, I just left him alone but I felt kind of bad about it. I did check the neighborhood email list but there wasn’t any reports of a missing cat. Plus several of the people in the area feel it’s ok to let their pets run free¹ so I figured it would just go home soon afterwords. I did keep looking out and after a couple of hours it eventually left but I still feel kind of bad about leaving it out in the cold². Mind you, I’m not going to let a strange cat into my house with our current cat. But I suppose I could have let it into the screened portion of our porch.

Today I made it into the office, still slightly down but significantly improved. Ariesna stayed home sick again. Then she went to the doctor and found out she’s got pneumonia. *wheee* She gets to stay home the rest of the week as she can’t risk transmitting that bit of plague to the kids at her preschool. It also blows our plans for Friday and the weekend. Ain’t life grand? *sigh*³

¹ No, I do not share that opinion. It’s dangerous for the pet (could be katnapped, run over, hurt, lost, etc..).
² The weather recently warmed up, so it wasn’t all that cold but still…
³ Yes, this post is mostly a pity party for us. :p

Interesting Couple of Days © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

2005. May. 7th. Ariesna and I were joined in wedded bliss. Unfortunately with her just finishing her degree and paying for a wedding money was tight so we didn’t have the cash to go some place exotic and we couldn’t really afford to spend more than a night away. So I picked a B&B just a few hours drive away. A helpful friend had recommended it as the most romantic B&B in the area. After the ceremony & reception, we drove out and enjoyed our one night there.

2006. Ariesna and I went back to the same B&B for an entire weekend. We ate out at a couple of nice restaurants, did a little shopping and hit up an art museum while we were there. It was a grand time, but by the end of it we were both tired. We got home, chilled for a while and eventually went to bed. Blissful slumber was interrupted at 4:30 AM by me waking up feeling like I was choking and/or drowning. I ran into the bathroom and spent the next 15 minutes or so kneeling in front of the porcelain throne. After getting myself cleaned up, I tried going back to bed but woke up a while later with the same problem. Again, I eventually got cleaned up and tried going back to bed. Later, I got the intense fun of making a trip to the doctor on what was supposed to be the last day of my vacation. I got weighed¹, poked, prodded and a q-tip was shoved down my throat². The doctor confirmed I had the flu combined with a sinus infection. However he was worried that I was severely dehydrated and wanted to put me on an IV to get some fluids in me. Alas after much poking (in both arms), they realized I was too dehydrated for the needle to go in properly. Eventually, they gave up on the IV and let Ariesna take me home. Though they did tell her to keep pushing fluids down me and recommended she get me to drink 2 liters of gatorade that day and keep pushing the fluids at me the next. She did so, continually waking me up from some of the best sleep I’ve ever had to drink, drink drink. And I don’t even like gatorade! *sigh* I mean the fruit punch version isn’t too bad but the rest.… yeck.

Anyhoo, I ended up spending the entire week home sick and now the night before I finally go back to the office I am feeling much better. I’m just not at 100% yet. My sinuses throb (and continually drain down my throat) and on top of that I’ve got an evening cough³ which feels like it’s going to rip my throat in half. But I’m still taking the anti-biotics the doctor prescribed and I’m hoping when the pills are gone so will be the last of my health problems.

Oh yeah, if you’re wondering about the title on this post that’s pretty much all the food I’ve eaten in the last week. It’s been thrilling. :(

¹ No, I’m not repeating what that lying hunk of metal claimed was my weight.
² Apparently, that’s part of the test for strep throat. Only nobody warned me in advance. Incidentally, the test came back negative but it has a 15% chance of failure.
³ It only happens after 5. No idea on why that is, but there you have it.

Banana, Crackers and Gatorade… Oh my! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

¹ A 6 pack of azithromycin tables (250mg).

A Real Pill © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Sick © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

• Bento | Gmaps:Google Maps with English translations showing eating/dining options in Tokyo, Japan
• Motherload: A flash based game where you drive a mining pod on Mars digging for ore. Sounds silly but it’s strangely addictive; I clicked it intending to play for just a few minutes and ended up spending hours on it today. Then again, part of that could have been the cold medicine.
• MythBusters | Lost Experiments: The Discovery channel has put online short video segments from the MythBusters TV show where we get to see never before released footage. :D Very cool!

Sickday Links © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. Buttercup is marry’ Humperdinck in a little less than half an hour. And every Wednesday, myself and a few co-workers head over to the Terrapin to get a cup of real coffee². Almost without fail, I order a “Grand Canyon” which is 2 shots of espresso, steamed milk, a shot of dark chocolate syrup and a shot of mango syrup. *yum* When I got there today, I picked up their tea menu and Rob (one of the owners) ordered me to put it down. I explained about the congestion and he accepted it, but I wouldn’t say he was happy about it. Then I ordered their Chinese Breakfast tea, as the description sounded similar to the yunnan jig tea I’ve mentioned before. Hot caffeinated beverages acquired, we headed back to the office and I headed back to the mountain of email that had arrived while I’d been out. After clearing out that mess (most of it went straight to the trash), I started/continued testing a problem I’d been working on Friday. I’m still processing the data for that test now, but I’m also starting to wonder if I should have stayed home again.

Today, like Sunday, I woke up feeling better than the day before. The problem is like Sunday, I didn’t stay home. Sunday, Ariesna & I were invited to go to Niabi Zoo over in Illinois with some of her family. It was a fun day and I took quite a few pictures³ but by the end of the day, I was totally wiped out and realized I should have stayed home. Now I’m not wiped out (so far) but I do feel more tired than I should from just sitting at a desk, staring at a computer screen. Ah well, not much I can do about that now.

BTW, last night I upgraded Cath’s site to the current version of WordPress. I was kind of annoyed at how long it took but then most of that time was taken up my crappy ftp client having problems deleting the files for the old version from the webserver. Mind you I was booted into Windows at the time⁴ which undoubtably was part of the problem. But I did eventually get it done and wouldn’t you know it looks nearly identical to what it did before. I’d call that a good sign for a seamless upgrade, but I’m waiting to hear back from her before I call it a success. So why the upgrade? In part to patch some old security holes and in part because all the new/interesting stuff for WP is happening on the newer versions. This way if she feels like going out and picking a different theme⁵; it should be trivial to install it.

Anyway, one of the reasons I was annoyed with the amount of time it took was last night also happened to be the season premier for NCIS. I’ve been a fan of this show for a while now, but season 2’s finale was murder. Quite literally, as they killed off one of the NCIS agents. I was very much looking forward to seeing where they’d take the show next, but with upgrading the site and some other things I didn’t get to watch the show as thoroughly as I would have liked. From what I did see, I’m not sure how enjoyable season 3 will be. I don’t care for the new characters they introduced into the NCIS office (Director Jenny Shepard and Agent Ziva David). The romatic background between Gibbs & Shepard could be an interesting subplot but they seem to be pushing it too hard in an episode which should be dealing more directly with the remaining NCIS agents working to find Kate’s killer. And then to make the episode a 2-parter leaving us on another cliff-hanger is distinctly annoying. *sigh* I guess we’ll have to wait and see if they can pull this up with next week’s episode.

¹ Next to chicken noodle soup, hot tea works best for clearing up congestion and helping me feel better.
² The first part of this paragraph is a quote from The Princess Bride. And when I say coffee, I mean flavored espresso.
³ I’ll see about posting some of them later. Incidentally, there was a classic car show being held on the zoo’s premises so don’t be surprised if you see more car than animals photos.
⁴ I had some work to do that required M$ Word, as OpenOffice Writer couldn’t properly edit the fancy formating in the document (originally created in M$ Word).
⁵ By perhaps looking through the themes in Alex King’s Theme Browser.…

Feeling Better & Mumbling Randomly © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Book Quiz © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.