Gecko Bloggle

Eep Omnibus Pablum.
(Translation: I got nothin’.)

Yeah, no, I got nothing. This past weekend was good, partly ’cause I deliberately didn’t get into anything from work ’cause I knew this was going to be “hell week,” due to some stuff that’s coming up fast for a Friday deadline. Today, I felt like I was battling all day to stay on target, which was made worse when I suddenly ground my gears to switch tracks entirely for something that’s due tomorrow, instead of something that was due last Friday.

Heh. Ooopsh.

On the upside, I spoke to someone on the phone today who talks even faster than I do. It was awesome. I didn’t necessarily feel confident that he could do what he said he was going to do, but omigod did he ever BELIEVE he could do it. It was one of those rare moments when I found myself thinking “You might be full of it, but I hope you manage to pull it off.”

I wonder how often people think the same about me at work?

So what have I been doing lately? Just for fun, ’cause I’m crazy like that, I installed VMWare, and created a virtual Ubuntu Server. I just wanted to see what it could do out of the box, and found that there was a step with a “do you want fries with that?” checkbox screen, and two of the items were web server and mail server. The very same two things that don’t really work very well on my current server rig right now. So I fired ’em up just to see how scary they were, and they just. Plain. WORKED.

I didn’t install an FTP server (oops), so I couldn’t just start hauling stuff from my currently IIS server into the virtual Apache, but I was pleasantly surprised once again by Ubuntu.

The server version isn’t as exciting as some of the vertigo-inducing effects you can find with the Compiz stuff under Ubuntu workstation, but hey, who needs all those windows doing the hokeypokey like that?

(/me waves hands back and forth, going “Oooh! Ooh!”)

I’m becoming a zealot, aren’t I? Shoot.

If I keep this up, I’m going to end up being the guy running around in shorts, suspenders, and a backpack, telling people “He got Linnixth running on his watch! On his watch he runs it!” I don’t think I’ll ever be as uber as Mister Aardvark, but I’m happy to claim to have been there when he was still a guy working in a bagel place and thinking maybe he should learn about this Linux stuff after he finishes his first album.

Arwen and I went to Deb’s birthday on Saturday night, just like when we didn’t have kids. Rip and I went out yesterday to the park, and there’s some fun pictures up on Flickr (of both events).

On the way home, we hit the bargain bin at London Drugs and bought Super Monkey Ball Adventure, which is a little over Ripley’s head, but sorta slap-happy fun anyway. Two hours of fun for $9.00, not too bad.

OH! I might be going on a business trip soon. Probably. Most likely. We’ll see. Second time in my career I’ve been paid to go somewhere. Last time was when Service Pack 2 for Windows XP came out, and I spent more time going through customs than I did in the air.

This time, I’m gonna have to travel on a Sunday, and come back on the following Saturday (I think, we’ll see). S’gonna be fun (I think, we’ll see). Arwen keeps saying I said I was going to Daytona, but I *know* I didn’t (I think, we’ll see).

For the record (hah!) I bought CDs last weekend, and forgot to tell the world. Despite what groups like the RIAA might have us believe, FREE streaming of music pointed me to music I’d never heard of before, but I like, and then that led me to BUY some for SOMEONE ELSE, ’cause I thought they would like it too…

She just turned 19 (happy birthday last week!), and I’m happy to say she’s my cousin, from that freaky-music-over-talented wing of the family. Somewhere on Youtube I’ve got my uncle John playing a badly tuned piano. I seem to have got the funny gene, but not the musician gene.

Okay, enough nothing from me. ‘nite yall.

Oh, and this song makes me want to do a new style of dancing Mr. Mills and I spoke about in one of our podcasts, and I’m a call it “grumping.” A little moody, and little blue, but funky. Think DeeeLite, but bummed. But diggin’ it. Y’know?
(probably only shows up at http://www.geckotemple.com/blog).

A long time ago, in a Valley far far away, I used to ride my bike a lot.

Like, a LOT.

And now, with the help of Google Maps, I’m going to bore the heck out of you while figuring out how far I was actually riding, if you’ll bear with me.

Starting when I was about 16, I was riding my bike 16km to school, the first six of which was down a windy mountain road until I hit the bottom of the valley, and then flat. Not a big deal, but getting home? In two years, I *might* have done that ride 1/3rd of the time. Maybe. I remember not having an odometer, so I was counting the rotations of my pedals while riding some long straight bits (Prest Rd. was psychologically difficult, even though it was straight and flat).

When I had my first post-highschool job, and first apartment, with my first post-highschool girlfriend, I was riding to/from work, and while only 7km, there was a horrifying hill called Mariner, which was a winding climb that was bad enough that I’d listen to car engines struggle on the way up, and listen to truck brakes grind and smoke on the way down. Psychologically, this hill was painful. The first week or two or riding up every day, I was having to stop, get off, and walk, or brakestand to catch my breath and stretch my legs . I worked with a guy named Boraz Carrera (pronounced like “Boris”), I think, who, in that “West Coast Italian Ehhhh…. no problem” way he had, explained that hill climbing shouldn’t ever be about pain in your legs, because “your legs can only hurt so much, and then they can’t hurt MORE, they just keep hurting the same.”

He might have been full of horse pucky on me not actually damaging my leg muscles, but damned if his advice didn’t work. I still look at a hill and go “Oh, ew, no.” but can climb it anyway, remembering Boraz’ “yoda-the-sherpa” advice.

When I was living in East Van, I was carless, and was riding 19Km to and from work, and can still fast-forward in my mind’s eye through the entire trip, and instantly hear Public Enemy’s opening to “Fear of a Black Planet” playing on those beautiful summer mornings. Still one of the best albums to cycle to, in my opinion.

Then there was a great dearth of bike riding, except for a short time when I was doing little zips (9km) around Stanley Park’s SeaWall, which was (oddly enough, pretty much flat).  Like, maaaaaybe did that a half dozen times before my bike was stolen from the lockup in our basement.

Oh, but then I bought another NEW bike, (new to me) for $100, and then that got stolen from work.

Last Spring, I bought a brand new swankity bike.  A Trek 7100 or something.  Light.  Sturdy.  21speeds of over-raised seat craziness.  A few trips (and one care package from my mom) later, and I’m decked out for anything except black ice, it seems.  If the weather’s +4 or better (allegedly 38, for our friends to the South, if you use Bob & Doug MacKenzie’s “double it and add 38” rule), I’m riding to work now every other day.

My little computer tells me it’s *just* shy of 11km when I use the routes I’ve picked for lowest psychological impact.  Also, I want to arrive at work looking like I’ve been cycling, not looking like I’m REcycled (gettit? huh? haha? no? okay), so my ride TO work is slight hillier in the beginning than on the way home.

Google Maps is lying, but this is sort-of my route to work.  Takes me between 35 & 45 minutes now, which isn’t too bad for an old dude like me.

Further news as events warrant, must go play Guitar Hero II and finish recovering DJBrokeman’s data from his drive that cacked on him recently.

Oh, and have a little hope for me in my board meeting tomorrow, okay, there’s still work to be done, but MAYBE it’s getting better.  We’ll see.  We’ll see.

So, uh hi.

Long time, no see, eh?

What have I been doing?  Let’s see.

Family:

• We’re good, all things considered.  Xmas was stressy and rough, but only due to external circumstances (see Housing, below).  Considering what we were up against, I think Arwen and I did extremely well.  Nobody got hurt, and the kids once again have toys that keep them busy without making us insane.
• My mom’s on the mend.  We went up to visit, and she’s doing much better.  Thanks to everyone who asked when they felt it was appropriate, and didn’t when they didn’t.
• My wife developed a thing for socks before either of us knew what hit her.  One day, she showed me something, we both sat there for a minute, and then I said “Yeah, actually, that’s hot.”  Who knew?  $17 for a pair of socks can be a good deal, if they’re the RIGHT socks.

Work:

• I’ve been busy with work, which has been going really well, now that I’m finally getting the hang of not being an all-day techie, but instead getting used to the idea of putting together training and documentation FOR techies (and end-users).  There’s a high-impact, but (we hope) low workload project in the very near future, thanks in large part to all the hard work already being done by the guy that works next to me all day.  He knew this stuff was coming, so he did all the technical tough stuff, so now it’s just a question of all the stuff we didn’t expect, and rolling out what’s coming without freaking out our userbase.  The next week or two should be fun*, and a nice way to come back from our winter break.

Housing:

• I’ve also been kept very busy with being a new board member at home, and trying to figure out how to bridge what I’ve been hearing and seeing vs. what can (and can’t) be changed/corrected.  We got something rather, shall we say, alarming *right* before Christmas, which really put a dent in our holiday time, but in the end, I think it was bombastic enough that it meant I went to bat and started swinging.  Is everything goodness and light now?  No.  Is it the end of the world?  Also no.  There’s hope now, at least, which is something I couldn’t say 8 days ago.  Or even two.

Facebook:

• Yes, I’ve been booking many hours on there.  Not really *doing* anything, just having a lovely OCD time and hammering that refresh button to see what’s happening NOW with everyone I know.  I feel like those rats you hear about, who’ll push the “get food” bar constantly, even if there’s no food coming, simply because food comes sometimes when you push it.  Karlababble has asked for a Intervention from Facebook, but I think that’s just ’cause she wants to get into fisticuffs with the older guy who shows up on there once in a while.  On Intervention, that is, not Facebook.  Wait.  Dude.  What?

Music:

• I’ve been listening to a fair amount of new stuff, thanks to a large number of excellent new/free music blogs, and streaming sites.
• Damien Rice hit my radar late one night a few weeks back, and I was instantly transformed into a slackjawed slushpile of overwrought emotional goo.  I was sitting there feeling grief & loss for something that I had NOTHING to do with.  I wasn’t just sad because the songs hit me, I was sad because those song existed.  I’m not sure when the last time that happened was, but hooboy.  If it was a seasonal thing, it’s good I wasn’t in the Hallmark store at the time, ’cause I would’ve started bawling right there.
• Johnny Vancouver and I did a podcast two MONTHS ago, and I haven’t had time to re-encode some of the songs that got squished by the process to post the whole show.  Soon, baby.  He and Warren have also been doing a Video Podcast that I’ll have to link to in the near future, so you can see that it’s not HIS fault we’re not doing shows, it’s all me.

Geekin‘:

• So, Vista came out around this time last year, and I’ve been using it at work in all its 64-bit glory (and bleeding edge stupidity).  At home, I’ve been afraid to try to fix the Win2k3 server I’ve got running this site, (it’s currently completely unresponsive on the console, and Exchange 2003 isn’t talking to the outside world, but the webserver works, so I’m not touching anything), so we’re moving to 3rd party hosting in the very near future.
• I’ve also been fooling around with more flavours of Linux than you can shake a memory stick at.  Ubuntu (and Kubuntu/Xubuntu) have all passed my “diddit goe?” test with flying colours under all sorts of weird hardware, and I’ve been happily using it as my “main machine” at home for doing everything I need to do in an evening.  The October (7.10) version just plain works, including wifi.
• I’ve once again found new respect for Knoppix LiveCD, with it’s utterly awesome ability to ignore that a drive or partition are all screwed up, and just copy stuff anyway.  My friend at Vancouver Film School can attest to the power of Knoppix when it comes to restoring data from drives that have been declared “dead.”
• Trinity Rescue Kit also made my day more than once this year.  It’s nice to be able to pull a “dead” machine from under a user’s desk, and have their data shared back to them via Windows (Samba) networking shares in under 5 minutes.
• I tried messing with my iPod’s head, and installing RockBox, but eventually found it too annoying to USE, even though I like the idea.  I’ll stick with the portable and multi-platform Floola to get my music onto my ‘pod without having to use iTunes (or stay married to a single workstation for music, for that matter).
• I also found out that old iPods can have their harddrives replaced using the odd little drives found in Toshiba R100 laptops.  Also, a new (and bigger) battery for an iPod can be purchased online for less than $35 (incl. shipping of the battery).
• Digital Picture Frames purchased at ToysRUs for under $80 don’t necessarily suck.  Way less work and heartbreak than trying to build them myself out of Frankensteined Laptops.

New Year’s Eve:

• This year was small, and time well-wasted playing Guitar Hero (I finally got over my stupid “but I’ll suck at it” stagefright to try it.  I don’t know what I thought was going to happen, but I’m told I’m doing pretty well for someone who picked up a plastic axe less than a week ago.  Totally Rick and Elissa’s fault if I even end up in front of the Movie-Theatre-sized screen at work, rocking out to Flock Of Seagulls’ “I Ran” in the next six months.
• I have a slight headache NOW that is, I think, the hangover from going to bed last night at 3am, and getting up at Noon.  Possibly held at bay by taking the kids to the park in single-digit weather.

I’m not making any promises or resolutions this year, but I do *hope* to post a decent-length thing at least once a week.  No more two-month hiatus (hiati?) for me.

What else am I looking at lately?  Check here from time to time to see what I thought I’d want to look at later.

* Not really, I’ll probably be muttering a swearing to myself by middle of next week.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Just in case this field is blank, it’s a player for the new (FREE!) Saul Williams album.

Radiohead might be on to something… I’m a check out the album, and THEN pay for it. What a concept.

My Dearest Friends and Fans,

It is my greatest honor to present to you The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!,
my new album produced by Trent Reznor and mixed by Alan Moulder. The wall of sound that we’ve created is tagged with such graffiti that a passerby would seek out doors and ways to ENTER. Once inside a world defined by dreams come true they’d find aligned with the simplest act of sharing what we treasure. Most people aren’t aware of the world of art and commerce where exploitation strips each artist down to nigger. Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us ’til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun. The ballot or the bullet for Mohawk or the mullet is a choice between new times and dying days. And the only way to choose is to jump ship from old truths and trust dolphins as we swim through changing ways. The ways of middlemen proves to be just a passing trend. We need no priests to talk to God. No phone to call her. And when you click the link below, i think it fair that you should know that your purchase will make middlemen much poorer…

NiggyTardust!

love,

Saul

Go here to check it out.

Another show?  In LESS than 45 days?  What up with THAT?

Duncan was nice enough to join us for another one, and we were a little more wired (read: we’ve had a few) this time around.

Covers show.  Check it.

Via this link right here.
{Or put our RSS feed address into iTunes, and let it download automatically for ya. }

1 – Talkybit 1

2 – Toxic – Mark Ronson F. Tiggers

3 – Three Is A Magic Number – Blind Melon

4 – Love For Sale – Fine Young Cannibals

5 – Talkybit 2

6 – Heartbeats – Jose Gonzalez

7 – Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley

8 – Don’t Fear The Reaper – Jenny Pinkertone And The Bluetones

9 – Talkybit 3

10 – Happiness Is A Warm Gun – Breeders

11 – I Will Survive – Cake

12 – Love Will Tear Us Apart – Mainsqueeze Accordion Orchestra

13 – Talkybit 4

14 – Rhinestone Cowboy – Radiohead

15 – Crazy – A Random Find On Seeqpod

16 – Stairway To Heaven – Dread Zeppelin

17 – Talkybit 5

18 – Human Behaviour – Decemberists

19 – Kiss – Age Of Chance

20 – Mission Impossible Theme – The Meatmen

Here ya go.

1 – Meet Me – Nora Smith-Hisler

2 – Talkybit 1

3 – Oh My God – Mark Ronson F. Lily Allen

4 – California – Marlena Shaw

5 – Track 24 Off Duncan’s Cousins Hip Hop Compilation – Guy of the Hip Hop Genre

6 – Talkybit 2

7 – Ultimate – Gogol Bordello

8 – Purple – King Kooba Meets DJ P-Trix

9 – Can’t Stop Talking – Betty Hutton

10 – Talkybit 3

11 – Nature Of The Experiment – Tokyo Police Club

12 – Goldrush – Yello

13 – Track 4 Off Duncans Cousins Hip Hop Compilation – A Series of Samples from Other Songs That Have Been Strung Together to Make One Song in It’s Own Right

14 – Talkybit 4

15 – Kinetic Stereo Kids – Barefoot In The Rain

16 – How You Sell Soul to A Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul – Public Enemy

17 – Fantastic Plastic Machine – Theme Of Luxury

18 – PiAno – Richard T. Hatch Says Round Evry Corner

19 – Talkybit 5

20 – Dead from the Waist Down – Catatonia

21 – Strma A Uzka – Susuma Yokota

22 – Once in a Lifetime – Wolfsheim

Well, it happened again. We hung out for about 3 hours and ended up making show that’s about an hour and a half long. Hoo-boy do we like to hear ourselves talk. If you listen very closely though, there’s ALSO some music in there…

Click HERE to start listening, or download it with your favourite podcast/rss download thingie.

Oh, and you might wanna throw on some headphones, ’cause both the lyrics and the hosts resort to some swearing from time to time.

• Talkybit 1
• Can U Dig It – Pop Will Eat Itself
• Protection (Breaks Mix) – Massive Attack
• Yin And Yang (The Flowerpot Man) – Love And Rockets
• Talkybit 2
• I Turn My Camera On – Spoon (and the video we’re talking about is here)
• Fed Up And Low Down* – Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
• City Of Angels – The Distillers
• Talkybit 3
• We Share Our Mother’s Health – The Knife
• Music Selector In The Soul Reflector – Deee-Lite
• Das Spiegel – Chemical Brothers
• Talkybit 4
• Can U Keep A Secret – De La Soul
• Read A Book* – Bomani “D’Mite” Armah
• Watch Ya Mouth* – Busta Rhymes
• Talkybit 5
• Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
• Legs – The Art Of Noise
• Talkbit Bonus: SoundCheck Goofiness
  Total Time: 1:26:49
  

* Parental Guidance Suggested (Oh, and when we’re talking? Assume we’re swearing a bit from time to time).
(Background audio during talkybits provided by UNKLE‘s upcoming War Stories album, which drops in North America July 24th)

Did I mention? With the swearing? I did? Okay.

I want one of these little robots really badly, BUT, I can also see how they’d be used for their intended purpose, so it also cool in a more geeky kinda way.

Happenin’ little tune by Spoons, too.

From the site: We are currently developing and studying dance-oriented nonverbal play with between children and the robot Keepon, designed and built by Hideki Kozima. Keepon is a small creature-like robot developed to perform emotional and attentional interaction with children. It has four degrees of freedom, a soft rubber skin, two cameras in its eyes, and a microphone in its nose.

So yeah, so… yeah.

Song list coming shortly, but you’ll all be happy to know the categories are fixed, even though none of the OTHER podcasts MP3s are back online after our main drive exploded a few weeks back. The data’s all safe & sound, but still offline. It’ll be back up again soon, kay? Kay.

Not entirely safe for work, or the faint of heart, so grab some headphones and send the kids to bed.

So start listening by clicking the play button (if you see one), or clicking this.

• Talkybit 1
• Check The OR – Organized Rhyme
• Pressure Drop – The Specials
• Hey Ya – Mat Weedle
• Talkybit 2
• Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Patti Smith
• Who Am I (Animatrix Edit) – Peace Orchestra
• Sea Lion – Sage Francis
• Talkybit 3
• Xltronicradio 20060118 – Mike Paradinas U-ziq
• Rainbowarriors – Cocorosie
• Where’s Johnny Sabatino – Dzihan & Kamien
• Talkybit 4
• Icky Thump – White Stripes
• Parting Of The Sensory – Modest Mouse
• Perpetual Dawn – The Orb
• Talkybit 5
• So Much For Everyone – Dan Mangan
• Body’s In Trouble – Mary Margaret O’Hara
• Bonus song & Easter Egg

Try downloading the site from a much-faster (but might-not-be-there-any-more) mirror.

And if you’re one of us evil Facebookin’ types, you can join the FB group found here.

Or put the RSS feed URL into your iTunes/Podcast grabber, and get ’em that way.