Be A Familiar - You'd make a Great Ghost

Fantastic Scottish band with new single "You'd Make a Great Ghost"

MIDLAKE - ROSCOE

My choice for best song of 2000s thus far...

Crash Different(ly)

This is why I am NOT a MAC user... (but don't tell my MAC friends, please...)

A Trip to the Studio

A true story - a re-enactment of a surprising trip to an arts studio in Saxapahaw. When Amy arrives, something is amiss. But what? And, why? And, who could have done this?

Ping

Yeah - I'm still here... barely... I think.
..maybe?

Computer History

I'm using this post as scratch where I will jot down my "computer history". I want to do this now before my memory is more fuzzy than it is today.

I was, by some standards, a late comer to computers. In the mid/late 70s I would spend hours at Sears playing pong on the Atari Tele-Games console. And, I do mean hours. My father did not want a computer in the house at that time and so we never bought one, but I always had an interest in them.

So, when I came to college (UNC-CH) I took an intro computer class. We worked on Apple][e and wrote programs in Pascal. I still have the print outs somewhere.

In the mid-80s I worked for a temp position for a couple of months in the Pathology department. The head of the dept. (whose initials were D.O.A.) bought the researchers a Mac. (The guy I worked for directly disliked it and didn't feel it was a "real" computer.) I messed with it quite a bit and got quite handy with it in a short time. That would be the last time I would use a Mac.

At work, we had one or two ATs and XTs that were shared and I used to fool around with them in off hours. I decided circa 1991 to start a databse of CD holdings for WUNC using an early db system called PCF or PC-File. Sad to say, we still use it to this day, or at least I do!

The first computer to reside inside my home would not arrive until 1993 (!); it was a used IBM XT with green monitor that was sparking to pink from time to time. It had a 1200 baud (I think) modem and I used it primarily to play in MOOs, access work email, and to look around at things via gopher, telnet and other pre-WWW methods.

Sometime around 1994 or 5, a friend, Randy Perry, who worked at a computer store, called me up because the store was going out of business and they were selling the whole inventory - cheap. I rushed down to the store, but the 386 he was holding for me had been sold. So, I got a Compaq 286 with a b&w monitor, and some incredibly small HD like around 20 meg. It booted to DOS and I ran Windows 3.1 on it. Around this time I started usign Netscape 1.0 (or maybe as early as 0.94 beta - I don't know) and was using NetTerm to telnet into MOOs. I was a customer of nando.net, set up by the New & Obsever paper in Raleigh.

(to be edited and continued later)

DIM has a frappr map now

Rear View @ the RR Crossing

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kweston/429644239/
Originally uploaded by Keith Weston.

At the red light, coming home from work with one of the worst queasy stomach feelings in ages. I hear the alram of the RR traffic arms and hear the steam engine whistle. The Kodak was in the passenger seat and was ready for this chance snap. Moving forward into the past. 19th century transportation viewed from a 20th century transportation captured by a 21st century transport (digital camera).

The Truth Can't Be Found, Even If It Is Out There

Our quest to watch all the X-files - blocked. VisArt in Carrboro and Chapel Hill stock only seasons 1, 2, and 3. All seasons have been released on DVD, but for some reason they are not on the shelves. Also, the Chapel Hill Blockbluster doesn't stock any X File titles. Do I detect a conspiracy?

Amy and I - well, mostly me, are hooked on the series. How did I miss this the first time through?

I am intrigued and amused by the "mytharc" portions but find too many of the"monster of the week" ones a little prodding and too often flat. Some work much better than others.

I find the ones that aim to be primarily humerous to be the most problematic. There are three episodes written by Darrin Moran. On X Files boards the quirky humor of these episodes are often highly touted, though I found all but one of them discordant, false and trying too hard. The successful one, Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, is a masterpiece, however, and especially so because of Peter Boyle's Emmy award-winning performance. This is TV gold. (Or, is it TV black oil?) TV guide listed it as one of the all-time Top 10 TV episodes. Rightly so.

I'm waiting to see how things change in season 4. It seems that most reviews note changes that seperate 1-3 from 4-6. Seasons 7, and especially 8 and 9 have their own difficulties because of the absense of Mulder in the latter two.

New Year/Old Year

Christmas 06 is gone and the new year is less than 11 hours away. I won't miss 06 over much. Especially the last 10 days that I have been extremely sick with the worst cold ever.

We've been watching - in sequence - the X-files. Given how much I am enjoying our quick passage through the first season DVDs, I wonder why I failed to watch it during its network run. It has the elements I like in escapist fiction: interesting characters, gripping stories, some ambiguity, paranormal and a nod to some of my favorite television legacies. Like Kolchak (at least the TV movies were above average for the time, if the series proved a disappointment).

07 is looking busy to start. Work has a number of initiatives that will be a challenge and need early attention. So, here goes...

Darn it

Darn it! I missed the fair again this year!

New Wheels on Old Pavement

The Cavalier huffed and puffed its gas-choked way into the car lot and sputtered its last gas(p). Recoiling in disbelief, the nice man at Carmax made an offer of $905 for a car with a water pump leak, electrical issues (windows wouldn't roll up or down), and... well, you get the picture. And, so, being a slightly bit more motivated to buy than I was, we came to a mutual understanding: I bought the 2002 Honda Accord Special Edition (black body, black interior) and made a bee-line for the highway before they had a chance to take a second look at the Cavalier.


My father would never buy anything but an "American" car. He had gone to Detroit to work on a (GM?) assembly line in the 1960s for serveral weeks during a protracted Western Electric work stoppage. My Honda is an "American" car - built in the USA. Surprisingly.


Yeah - it's a 2002. Getting "old". But,to re-assign an old NBC quote: "if you haven't driven it, it's new to you."

May I Have Those hours Back, Please

Listening to a classic soft rock station on the way home from work today I chanced to hear "Baby I Love Your Way" from Frampton Comes Alive. I cannot begin to count the countless hours I spent listening to this sleep-inducing morass in Jr. High. I suppose nearly everyone of a certain age, race and perhaps gender would turn to this recording in moments of adolescent inner and outer-spection. I can see I am in profound disagreement with the Allmusic.com guide review (linked above). There's nothing today to me that pops about this album save the dust crunchies of my original LP.

I know that there are many ways my time then (and now) could be spent. But, one major regret is the time I invested in the low-return payoff of listening to Peter Frampton. I suppose I could be kind and say that listening to that tripe allowed me to recognize in future days the smell of excess through a too-close familiarity. "Do You Feel Like We Do?" The answer is no, not any more.

Paths Home

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