Barkerburgh

I finally swapped B5 seasons 1 & 2 for 3, 4 & 5.

I used long-hoarded tokens to go over to Peter and Leslie and Simon’s to get more B5 fixes, that is to say, not repairs, but hits, tokes, doses, satisfaction for my honkin’ B5 jones.

Had an accidental fine barbecued chicken dinner, with very interesting pasta and a nice partly homegrown salad, eaten al fresco on the back concrete, which the neighbour says is good for babies (but, as they say at the funeral home during visiting hours, remains to be seen.).

Well, last week was kinda hot and humid at times. Last year when that happened (45 with the humidity at least once) both my computers went south, pear-shaped, down the dumper. Not only that, but the heat put off by the machines made my place very uncomfortable.

So I shut them right down a few times at night instead of running diagnostics overnight. Well, I guess they didn’t like that plus the heat and humidity. When I got home from L, P & S’s and fired up the machines, then put in the first disc of B5, Season 3, my DVD app wouldn’t work. Now it’s quite good, you can pause and slow-mo it, capture screen shots, all the nice little bells and whistles. So I tried VLAN, that good old dependable workhorse. It worked but the image was jumpy and jerky. Unwatchable. No buffering? I dunno.

I tried a few other apps (Word, Freemind, etc), most worked. ITunes did not. Same error as the DVD app. Rats on rats.

Over the course of the day yesterday (Tuesday) I flushed the registry, scandisked, defragged, uninstalled and reinstalled the DVD app. No luck.

Finally I reinstalled Windows. Partial success. A different error from before (but the same from both) from ITunes and the DVD app (I’ve blanked on the name of the app.).

Then I tried good old VLAN again (open a disc), but instead of clicking on DVD(menu), I just clicked on DVD. Success.

I feel cursed, but that’s nothing new. I’m used to it. I cope. I carry on. I cry, dry my eyes, hike up my pants, and keep slogging on towards my date with Destiny, a tall, red-haired stripper I met in Brampton back in 96.

PS, I am 5 days short of being 1 year shy of being 50 years less than a century. Save the parties for next year. This year just love. (That means presents, because love is intangible and presents aren’t.)

1> ‘The Unit’ looks like a good show.

2> So does ‘Boston Legal’.

3> That poor kid in Detroit who the 911 operator told to stop fooling around with the 911 system…

4> I really should have been watching ‘Babylon 5′ years ago.

5> Dean Koontz’es’s book ‘From the Corner of His Eye’ is a good read, nicely constructed, even though hardly anything really plotty happens until about page 600.

6> ‘My Name is Earl’ gets funnier and funnier.

7> Venus Express!

8> I love this weather.

9> The last few episodes of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ have been kickass, except I missed it both times on Space this past weekend through bad TV viewing planning. I guess I need to take a course.

10> ‘Coronation Street’ is getting kinda wacky, but that’s good. It’s a little boring when things are normal.

11> Nancy Grace is a foul human being.

12> If I was taller, I could see farther in a crowd during an emergency.

Finally! The coughing fits were the worst part, (on and off fever, too, though) every couple of hours all the time, that burning kind that doesn’t feel like it’s going to stop. Went through a box and a half of generic NeoCitran, but it didn’t really help with the cough. It just made it easier to get back to sleep after I woke up coughing and proceeded to hack away for five or ten minutes. Once or twice I woke up gasping for breath but not coughing, unable to catch my breath at all. Don’t know what that was about.

Fortunately, I was alone most of the time and didn’t realize at first (and kept forgetting) that I had laryngitis too, on and off. I was housesitting and only remembered when I tried to talk to the resident cats or the TV.

PS, Battlestar Galactica looks awesome on a big screen TV.

I hate this. I usually get my winter cold around Christmas.

It started in my head, just sniffles and a light fever. Manageable, I thought.

Then it dropped to my chest a few days ago. When that happens I can expect violent coughing spasms in the middle of the night, or even if I just laugh wrong during a TV show.

Two nights now, I’ve woken up twice in the middle of the night coughing uncontrollably for two or three minutes at a time, and I mean coughing uncontrollably, maybe one horse bark a second sometimes. When I was similarly ill several years ago, twice in one night, the attacks lasted for about half an hour and both times when the coughing finally stopped, I couldn’t draw a breath; my diaphragm was seized up or spasmed or some damn thing and all I could think of was that I have about two minutes to fix this, looking around for a good solid chairback to semi-hemi-demi-Heimlich myself. Twice. Jeezes.

Two nights ago it was so bad that my ribcage and stomach actually hurt now.

I feel lousy and I hate everybody and everything.

Rrrr.

Two weeks without Coronation Street because of the 400,000-tickets-shy-of-an-SRO Olympics, that’s why, you bloody stupid wankers!

“But then out of the turgid miasma of Television white-noise video, on the same night he lost Coronation Street for two weeks, there came what were probably the last four episodes of his beloved ‘Arrested Development’, and the blasphemous and heretical South Park episode about the Blessed Virgin Mary. He nearly nearly choked twice from laughing, lost his breath, and his throat kind hurts today a bit….and all is good.”

Thank God for Battlestar Galactica and that there are no sports in space. Nerdal responses to that last phrase go here, God love ya.

Okay, so some of you may remember my earlier rant about CP24.

I have now formed the opinion that it is in fact a high school training ground for budding journalists.

It’s been obvious for years that many of the talking heads who read the news aren’t really all that educated in practical terms; they may have a degree and x number of years of experience, but not all of it took.

You will recall what I wrote about what happened when famous Japanese director Um Akeesha Uh Kuralakawaka died.

CP24 news-text-thingy writers have a problem recalling their high school English, and since they’re obviously still in high school, that’s bad.

I really should write these things down when I see them, but one error that seems to repeat is the mixup between the words ‘wave’ and ‘waive’. Using the former for the latter obviously changes the meaning of the phrase or sentence, sometimes hilariously. (”Humane Society waves adoption fees this weekend.”)

Now what prompted the urge to write this particular entry was an item that flashed by on the news-text-thingy last night after the Golden Globes.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was nominated for his role as Truman Capote in ‘Capote’ and Felicity Huffman was nominated for her role as a transgendered person in ‘Transamerica’. They both won in their categories.

However, some cornpone yokel from the journalism class at Dumbass Redneck High typed in that Philip Seymour Huffman had won for his role in Transamerica. I want to assume it was a joke (hyuck-hyuck-hyuck) but I have to assume it was the usual editorial ignorance, thoughtlessness and lack of attention to dteail.

But I’m sure you can imagine my reaction.

(It was laughter.)

Oh, and CNN’s Darin Kagin told us recently that Alaska’s Augustine Volcano erupted on an uninhibited island. Sometimes a cigar ain’t just a cigar.

You know, like when you say one thing and mean your mother.

Dear Friends,

In the spirit of the season, I offer the two items under ‘Pages’ in the sidebar section to the right.

The instructions are included. Pay attention to #7.

The season of presents! Always presents! Ever presents!

And kindness and love and hope, while we’re at it.

Go ahead, leave a comment telling what you think pisses me off.

Jeepers H. Jingling Cripes.

CNN reports that stupid fncking Fox has cancelled both Arrested Development and Kitchen Confidential.

Rrrr.

Anybody who knows me knows how much I dislike children. Not just some children, like the wicked hellions my friends are raising, but all kids.

Did you see the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Remember the crazy old man who travelled around with a cage on wagon and a net to capture children, who were illegal in the country of Vulgaria. That would be me.

And don’t get me started about happy, well-behaved children in public places! They’re just saving it all up. For the worst possible time.

Kids are sly. You know how people say they’re sick of precociously witty and intelligent children in rubber-stamp US sitcoms? It’s because that part’s not made up. Children are all really like that in real life. The parents just don’t see it. But I do.

I’m warning you. Stay away from children! They’ll sap your energy and play with your head. You’ll end up just like me.

Be warned, be afraid, and run away, for the love of God.