First Bike Ride of the Season

Today was a pleasant 80 degrees and since we have sprung forward I got home in time to ride my bike for an hour before the sun set.

I got a case of the vapors whilst airing up my tires.

More Angry Music

I find something oddly satisfying with good angry music. It makes me happy. Today, I found this:



Here is some more angry music.

Freedom to Choose the One You're With

The other day I was talking to my 11 year old daughter about attraction. She was telling me about all the little Junior High boys that she either likes or dislikes. It was probably one of those moments that should either give me nightmares or that I should fondly remember forever. However, I'm not normal.

It got me to questioning how we choose who we are attracted to. It's not a decision we typically make with our "logical" brains. That's where the "chemistry" comes from. When you think logically about who you should be with, you think: nice, smart, successful, has a lot of money, etc. When you are out in the world the person you are attracted to has: a nice ass, great set of boobs, long legs, etc. That last part was somewhat of a joke. Sometimes you'll see someone with no ass, no boobs and 5 foot tall and you'll be thinking, "I don't know why I am attracted to her, but I am."

The point is, we don't really choose (logically) who we are going to be attracted to. It's some kind of emotional response. We end up with a person that was serendipitously placed before us at the right time when the neurons were firing in the proper sequence and Neptune was aligned with Venus.

I have therefore decided that prearranged marriages are the way to go. If you trust your parents to be intelligent reasonable people then they will be able to logically choose who your best mate for life should be. It's also in their best interest to appoint someone that will help provide good looking grandchildren. Most importantly of all is that they have a better chance of keeping emotion and chemistry completely out of the equation. It should be a purely logical decision for the best chance of a long term relationship and to positively impact the greatness of the human race.

It's Not My Fault (INMF Syndrome)

I figure this is the largest problem facing America today. When the economy goes south everyone starts pointing fingers. When you sign the dotted line on a loan you can't possibly repay, you blame the mortgage company. When your child is disrespectful (or worse), you blame the music industry. When did we quit accepting any responsibility?

A few days ago, my youngest daughter asked my wife if she ever got in trouble at school (my wife is from Germany). My wife asked her what she meant by trouble. My daughter said, "Well did they have paddling or detention or anything like that in Germany?"

My wife explained to her that in the school she was in, they kept a journal that the teacher could write in. At the end of every week you have to take the journal home and your parents had to sign it. Then, on your Monday return, you had to show that your parent had signed the journal. The journal is where your transgressions and accomplishments were logged.

I asked about lack of parental discipline. How could they allow children in the school who were trouble makers, but had parents that don't care? The thought was so alien, she had trouble coming up with an answer. Finally, she decided it must be because the troublesome kids went to the "other school". In Germany, your 6th grade performance determines whether you go to the school that prepares you for college or "the other school". The kids and the parents are held responsible.

Who is responsible here? It's not the kids. They can't help it if their school sucks. It's not the parents. They can't help it if the schools suck. Maybe it's the music. Maybe it's the government. Who knows? Let's sue someone and if we get lucky they'll give us lots of money and it'll make us feel better about the sorry state of affairs that we were coerced into.

Stop blaming and start thinking of ways that you can make a difference.

Alliterator Animal Sh*t List: The Letter 'M'

I know you've all been patiently awaiting today's entry. I've also been. I think I promised before that the M's were very good. I hope they don't disappoint. Not that anything in a list such as this could be disappointing. But enough with my meandering mumblings and out with it:
Massive Mound of Musty Moose Manure

VMWare, Virtual PC's and Stuff

I've not blogged much recently. It's because I've been experimenting with Virtual Machines or Virtual PC's or whatever you want to call them. It's really a pretty cool idea. I suppose it's been around for a long time. Back when I purchased my first PC many moons ago, I quickly found out I could get emulators to emulate my old Commodore 64 or Apple II. Ask me why. I dare ya.

Basically, what they do is cause your current PC to emulate the hardware of an older PC so I can create a virtual Commodore 64 in a window on my Windows XP desktop. I am sure if you go do an Internet search you can find all kinds of emulators you can download and install. There are even video game emulators that will let you play the arcade version of Galaga, Pac Man, etc. It's actually kind of fun for us geeky types. "Hit Ctrl-I to insert a quarter".

VMWare has taken it one step further. VM stands for Virtual Machine I believe. As I type this blog I have a Virtual Machine running in another window in my background where I am installing Fedora. It's a flavor of Red Hat Linux (Fedora -- Red Hat -- get it?). I could theoretically have all the Virtual Machines I want running on my Windows Vista workstation. I could, if I wanted to, install Fedora first and then install all of the OS's I wanted in Virtual Machines on my Fedora workstation. It's all rather entertaining for us geeky types. I expect there is some real usefulness for it though. As for me, I am writing Linux code on my Fedora virtual machine while I play games and write documentation on Vista. I've also discovered that I can create a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to the office and work via a Windows XP virtual machine (since my employer doesn't believe in Vista). I might have to diagram that one if you want to wrap your head around it.

When I first started doing this, I started with Virtual PC 2007. It's a Microsoft Product. It's pretty easy to use. Except, it's not as robust as the VMWare product. VMWare was a bit of a pain to get working initially. I expect becuase the VMWare guys are trying to make money. Virtual PC is a free download from Microsoft, but it only runs on one of their $100+ operating systems. They've already made their money you see.

If I haven't lost you yet, here are some things I've learned that seem intuitively obvious, but they aren't:

1. If you want to install an operating system that is not owned by Microsoft on Virtual PC 2007, you must somehow configure your graphics to be simplistic. If you are installing Ubuntu, for example, you must tell Ubuntu to use "safe graphics" during the install. In the long run, it's easier to use VMWare.
   
2. When you go to the VMWare website, look for the Downloads section. Once there, ignore all the other stuff, and download the VMWare Server. They will force you to create an account. They will force you to supply a valid email address so they can send you a key. Then you'll get lots of unwanted emails while they attempt to sell you stuff. They deserve the money, but not from me. The important part to remember is that the free download of VMWare Server is all that you require.
3. To install the OS on your Virtual Machine all you need is an ISO Image. It's really the quickest way to get started. With VMWare the ISO Image must be placed in the Virtual Machines directory on your hard drive (I think it's always under C:\Virtual Machines). For some reason, this isn't obvious. It leads you believe that the ISO image can be anywhere.
   

Red Panda

I like Red Pandas. I've been a fan ever since I watched "Kung Fu Panda" which was one of my favorite cartoons last year. It has one of those scenes that makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.

My profile picture is a picture of a Red Panda (also known as a Firefox, a Fire Cat, a Lesser Panda, and some others I think). I don't remember where I got that picture. I was looking for one that would fit my profile. There are many cool pictures of Red Pandas.

Yesterday, Paul sent me the one you see pictured above. Now, I know some Pauls, but I don't know any Pauls that claim to monitor my blog. It is also possible that one of them accidentally gazed upon my Google profile.

Paul sent me this message, "Maybe you would want this, maybe not." It's a cool picture.