Standing On Boxes

Okay… I just got one of those little Mac mini’s… the ones with the Intel chip inside…
It isn’t a replacement for my PowerBook. My primary personal computer has been an Apple laptop of some sort for over 10 years now and I’m not about to change…
I bought it for 2+ things…

1. to run Windows at home (my poor little Thinkpad at work has finally run out of steam and is being replaced by a Dell desktop thing (actually, it has the same Intel chip as my mini (a Core Duo) — except it might be faster… and it has 2 monitors) so I won’t have that to bring home when I need to do work at home…))
2. To play with the whole multi-media entertainment center idea… if I can get it to work with my tv…
3. My mother is getting one to finally replace her 12 year old PowerMac 6100 so I thought it might be good to get basically the same thing in case she needs help. (And I already have too many laptops as it is so no MacBook — at least not until they get all the kinks out.)
   

So… first step is to set up Mac OS X on it the way I think is appropriate…

1. There were 13 updates to the Apple software/OS… took a while (tonight) to download and install.
2. Any bundled software will need to be updated (It came with Quicken 2006 — wish I hadn’t bought that a few months ago)
3. Any software I want to copy over
4. Assorted other stuff..

And then for work stuff…

1. Need to get a copy of Windows XP Pro (I bought Parallels – the software that lets you run Windows inside of OS X and I also plan on trying BootCamp (which basically turns an Intel Mac into a Windows box))
2. Need to install software I need for work related stuff on it (Visual Studio and Co. mainly… anything else I can Remote Desktop into work and access for the littel I need it.)

That’s it so far… I don’t think I need to document the steps so far…
And I really need to get a printer… hmm…

It’s getting too confusing with my fic categories. I have fics on my ‘future fic’ page that I’m working on now. I have fics that belong on different pages (e.g. not all the “Bad Fics” are bad). I have a couple fic ideas on the non-idea pages. I have fics I haven’t worked on in over a year on my current Wips page…
I need to figure this out. In a coherent fashion… so people can find fics easier… (And I can’t run any fic archive software inside my blog pages… it all has to be static pages/files or stuff rendered inside of my blog tool before it gets posted to my blog site. Unless I get clever with Javascript…)
Hmm….

Okay… nothing exciting…
“Where the Books Are” – Part 3 is posted everywhere I post stories (oops — except ff.net — tomorrow?). Only one minor change – based on feedback — where part 3 didn’t quite match something said in part II. That still needs refinement… before I write the next part.
“The Two” – Part 13 still needs to go up on TtH but otherwise, baring major issues, it is posted (Willow’s explanation for taking Dawn caving/underground training is a lame sentence and needs work but I’m stumped right now. It can wait…)

Okay…
Posted Part 1 of “Where the Books Are” to “TtH” and an initial draft of Part 3 to Ikoly.
Part 13 of “The Two“, the dreaded ‘middle of the fic’ is also now up on Ikoly. It doesn’t end where I’d originally planned… that can go in the next part.
They’ll both get posted to BwW later this weekend after I give them one final review (to catch the usual mistakes). Posting them to TtH will be after that. Like all of my non-crossovers.

Am I the only person surprised there are people who recreate the Viking lifestyle as a hobby? Sort of like the Society for Creative Anachronism types? Or maybe they’re just a small subset of that group?
(I’m watching a show on the History Channel — people building a Viking longship – apparently using a Viking design. Though I think it is a scale model since it looks like a large rowboat to me.
But no women get to help. One of the boat-builders wives was unhappy at the declaration that women had nothing to do with building Viking ships.
Something for which there is apparently no evidence? If you believe this show anyway…
And what about Norse “shield women” ?? They actually existed. I’ve seen at least one reference (assume the accuracy of the source) that Tolkein based the character of ∞owyn on them.)

I seem to be in the a little bit at a time mode with all my fics… “Where the Books Are” is growing by a couple hundred words a day. A few other fics are going in that direction also. It would be nice if I could actually finish a part of one.

Took the T to the airport today. Not a big deal you say? Knoxvegas has it’s own airport you say?
Sure… but one of the criteria was a non-stop flight between here and there. And there ain’t no such thing at a reasonable price out of Tyson-McGee (Think $1K+ — on a good day)
So we did the Nashville/Southwest thing (Another criteria being the airline’s minimum age for traveling alone without an adult or adult supervision.)
We drove to Nashville this morning, had an early lunch (early for there thanks to a crossing of a time zone on the way), and went to the airport.
I drove home after the T’s flight left…
thanks to a traffic jam, of sorts, on I40 in West Knoxvegas — the trip back took at least 30 minutes longer than the trip out…
So… I spent approximately 6 hours on the road today for 345 miles and 15 gallons of liquid hydrocarbons.
Any minute now… I’m going to crash… the trip-based ‘up-ness’ has almost worn off (it usually takes a couple hours)
So early to bed…

Just for people who do RSS feeds… I’ll start using titles — the kind that show in RSS feed readers. Why? An upcoming feature on “TtH” that links to a user’s RSS blog feed… it doesn’t work if you don’t have feed item titles (even though the standard says it is optional — if the RSS feed reader software requires it in order to work, I’m sure there are other RSS news reader tools that expect it also. So let’s not argue… and just use it…)

Okay…. I went back as far as June 1, 2006 and added titles (more accurately – changed my item “titles” so they are official item Titles in the rss.xml files). (Why only June 1st? I have 4+ years of blog entries… I’m not going to do this to any earlier ones. Sorry.)

There was a challenge on TtH — #400 Immortal Revelations — It gave me an idea for a quick fic. Not that I’m exactly following it…
But see: A Lady of Aquitaine for a start. (Btw – Alix of Aquitaine was a real person/historical figure. She was Eleanor of Aquitaine’s younger sister.)

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Okay… I’ve changed Joyce’s “original” name in this fic. A better name for Alix of Aquitaine (where she was from — her father being Duke of Aquitaine) is “Alix de Poitiers” – the name she had during her brief marriage (She apparently had 2 children and died when she was approximately 28 (after being divorced for 2+ years). I suspect she didn’t have a happy ending.). It just sounds better to me as a semi-obscure name. But the story title won’t change.

Family visiting for the next 11 days… not sure how much, if any, writing I’ll get done.
But tomorrow I have to go to Nashville (the airport) and back…
But I’m hoping to squeeze out time for a couple more of my TtH100 ficlets and maybethe next part of the librarian Buffy fic.
What I’m really focusing on is “The Two” – I really want to get the next 6 parts done this summer. Or more even. THe next part — 13 — just needs an ending scene and some revisioning/tweaking and it’ll be good to go.

Last week was Superman week…
This week (well a couple days of it) appears to be Pirate Week. But so far – more commercial than Superman week. Must be the Disney influence…
Oh… yeah… the sequel to that Disney pirate movie is out tomorrow…
They are predicting heaps of money…. everyone likes pirate movies…
The ONLY review I’ve seen/read? Not good. Worse than the worse “Da Vinci Code” review.
But people will go see it… it IS Disney and has pirates and is as American as apple pie…
Probably the closest we’ll get to a patriotic movie this summer…
Scary…

Nothing much on TV right now… some show called “Eats of Strength” — some guy trying to beat the world record for eating sliced bologna…
The world record was 2.41 pounds in 6 minutes…
It cannot possibly be serious… though they treated it like it was… with interviews with the person attempting it, the person who had the record last, and a bunch of other ‘competitive eaters’
whoops… looks like he ate 2.76 pounds in 6 minutes… not a pretty sight. Rolling up the bologna, swallowing it, gulping water as he did it. Trying not to throw up at the end…
Scary stuff…

FWIW — Part 2 of “Where the Books Are” has been updated. Might even be finished but I’m not sure yet. Needs another read-thru to be sure. Good thing I’m in the middle of a 4 day weekend.

While watching the World Cup yesterday/today — I thought I would import all of my CD’s (20 years worth) into iTunes. I had a few in there already…
It took six hours (3 games worth)…
I didn’t quite get all of them… oe of my old U2 CD’s (War) had a bad spot – missed the last 3 songs. And over the years I’ve lost a few CD’s (I’ve got the cases for 5 of those but no CD).
I also didn’t copy 3 (A 3 CD Rod Stewart “Best of”; a collection of Christmas songs; a Janis Joplin retrospective)…
And, of course, I have no way to copy my 40+ cassette tapes, most of which I don’t have on CD yet (and probably won’t).
So.. what did I end up with?
According to iTunes — 63 artists, 106 Albums, 1186 songs (3.5 days worth) in 6.95GB.
That’s a lot of music. Now I have to back it up. But to what? external drive, DVD’s (2-3), CD’s (12+) ?
Hmm… if I had an iPod with more room… I could put my entire collection on it. Not that I would want to…