Thanksgiving...mmmmm...Turkey...mmmmm...no, I won't fall asl....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...turkey...mmmm....zzzzzzzz

So I'm installing Linux in between other things today. Start the PC with the boot CD. Click through the install screens. Stop dead at the "no network installed" message. Click backward through the screens to the network card option. Select the proper network card in the list. Stare at the next screen, "Enter parameters for the NIC." Enter nothing. Go forward. Network fails. If I can't install the network card, I can't download the rest of the installation files to the PC.

Look around on the Internet. Apparently I need the documentation. The documentation is supposedly easily available, but exists nowhere in downloadable form.

Find the documentation, but you need to be running Linus already to download/install it.

Try several parameters blindly--IRQ, base address, hex numbers.

Find out later on that I don't need to enter any parameters. Hmmm. Why didn't it work then when I left it blank?

Later in the day, come back to click other options. Amazingly, using the Install with ACPI disabled option works. What is ACPI? A new power management standard for PCs, which seems to kill the network card. Clear as mud.

Leave it to download and continue the installation. Realize that it will fail, since I won't be there to click through the next screen that comes up, since I'll be home. It will drop the connection (it installs over the network).

Linux, easier than ever. Definitely a learning experience, but how could this ever be for the casual, everyday user?

I'm installing Linux one more time--the first time I'm installing it on a decent system that's not obsolete. I think I'm going to work with KDE as the interface (for lack of a better word) rather than Gnome.

I came across this quote at http://people.etango.com/~awaite/blog/archives/000004.html:

"Then I found kde-look.org and went nuts. I practically have OSX emulated perfectly. That is a great and active community of graphically inclined enthusiasts!"

Dude, not to give credence to what Brad's been telling me all along, but why don't you just get a Macintosh?

Contrary to local office perception, it looks like Huey Lewis is still alive and kicking!

(Later)--Yep, and he just performed a few weeks ago.

Tonight Alyssa came home with us from day care acting surly. It was weird, and not like her. After a few minutes, Denise dragged out of her what was really bothering her.

Alyssa: Mommy, it's (Girl1) and (Girl2). They're just driving me crazy!

Apparently they each want to be friends with Alyssa, but not with each other. It's driving Alyssa to distress.

It's really amazing watching your kids grow up. If this is already stressing her out at five years old (six on Tuesday), what will things be like in ten years?

(And I'm not talking about Frodo's sword)

So Sting is doing a deal with Victoria's Secret to perform at their fashion show. First it was the Compaq deal and now this. Sting, Sting, Sting. How the might have fallen. Are there no depths you won't sink to?

Is it just me, or does news affect you differently as your life situation changes? I hate to hear bad news stories about children since I've had kids. Each summer I avoid the news with the inevitable caught in an overhot car stories, for instance. I just don't want to hear it.

When I was a kid and in my early twenties, I prided myself on how I could take anything without blinking an eye. I was tougher than dirt.

I was so naive and stupid. Now I just deeply appreciate what I have every day and every moment. Sometimes you have to realize how lucky you are with the life that you live. And let the people you love know it.

So Apple's iTunes has become Time magazine's invention of the year. How do they do it? They weren't first to market, but they made it work. It's just like USB--technology that was a flop until Apple made it a standard and evangelized it. Within a year, USB devices were out for both Mac and Windows everywhere.

It's like home wireless networks. Wireless base stations were in production from other manufacturers, but they cost $1100 apiece. Enter Apple, with a $289 base station that worked like a dream. They singlehandedly created the home wireless revolution and everyone else followed suit.

My two administrators with PC laptops asked to move back to Macs this year because of the things they can do with OS X. Now it seems that Apple has decided to roll out some of its magic to Windows products. Hey, this is a company that had the precursor to Mac OS X running on PC machines (look here if you dont' believe me). It's a good time to be working with computers.

iTunes is available for download for both Macintosh and Windows here. Be careful about buying those dollar songs once you get iTunes up and running, though--it can be addictive.

So Denise was telling me and the kids how she would give pills to a steer when she grew up on the farm. She would take a metal stick called a ball gun (about a foot and a half long) and load it with a pill (the ball gun had a kind of a plunger at the end for the pill). The pills were really big, as big as a three inch long hot dog. Then she would ram the stick down the steer's throat, pop the button at the handle end, and shoot the pill down the animal's throat.

Of course, she was telling the kids this to give Drew a choice--take his medicine, or we revive the ball gun and do it for him.

Parents are so mean. But he took his medicine right away (heh, heh).

Wow. This just in from Deborah Branscum's weblog. Apparently "Dr." John Gray, the author of all those Men are From Mars books, has faked all of his advanced degrees. His one degree is a high school diploma.

So the Mars guy is a fraud. Does this mean that Men aren't from Mars? Where are we from, then?

I think most women would say men could be from the doghouse if we don't get on the stick and get those things done around the house. Not that I speak from personal experience, mind you. It has a good ring to it, though: Women are from Venus, Men are in the Doghouse. Maybe I should publish it and make some bucks...

They always forget the Atkins Diet missing piece--sleep. At least I did, this week. It looks like I can't miss sleep the way I used to. It just kills me. I just had trouble going to sleep for some reason.

The other missing piece that people forget is the vegetable and salad family. No one seems to remember that low carb diets feed you more veggies and salad than you'd eat in months on a carb diet, if you do it correctly. That helps too.

I've spent the last couple of nights (and a morning) diving into the Microsoft Exchange Server. It's an email server that has calendaring and other goodies built in.

The one problem is that it's a virus magnet. Everyone and everything tries to infect the messages sent through the Exchange server. If you set up this email server, you're creating a huge target for bad mojo.

The other problem is that it's Microsoft. This software has some weird dumb stuff going on with it, like most Microsoft programs. For instance, like Brad said, why does a software install special extras in its list, and then go to the next item in the list--special extras all over again? And then it goes through the entire list again after installation just to make sure that everything was installed? Are they just doing this to convince me that the money I spent was worth it?

Working with Microsoft is sometimes like fighting a tug of war that you know you're losing--so you try to figure out the best way to lose in order to make the best of things.

...Web pages like this restore my faith in the fact that we're doing ourselves proud as a species.

Wow. And if the regular technopop remix of Tiptoe Through the Tulips isn't enough, check out the seven minute extended version on the same page.

And all because I was trying to find a page to explain Tiny Tim to my children.

My wife asks me why I use television references so often in conversation. Frankly, it's because for better or worse, television in the past four decades is a common language of reference among our generation.

If I use the words "and they told two friends, and so on. And so on. And so on..." most people near my age will laugh and understand the reference, much better than "'tis a tale told by an idiot."

On the other hand, maybe E. D. Hirsch was right.

I'm watching the lunar eclipse tonight--it's really cool. At full eclipse I can see the whole moon in shadow with binoculars, yet still visible. It's not disturbing like the solar eclipse I saw ten years ago, but it's still fascinating. I stand there watching and I think of people watching eclipses through Grecian times and back in Stone Age times, as long as people have been on Earth. Some things are pretty timeless.

Man, I wish I could have seen it even better. I need to get a telescope. Wouldn't it be cool to make a small platform somewhere that ambient light isn't a factor? At least the ambient light here is much less than in Philly where I grew up--I can see much more of the Milky Way than I see near the city.

We went to Alyssa's elementary school Fall Fun Festival. It was really cool. The hayride was one of the high points--it was probably the fastest hay wagon I've ever ridden on. It wouldn't have been as wild if we hadn't been riding over (and across) ruts and holes. I thought we were going over several times, but the tractor pulled us through flawlessly (although bouncily). Good times.

I can't even remember what Alyssa did to set Drew off. It was a few weeks ago. Whatever she did, we sent her to the other room. Drew, however, screamed in outrage and flopped on the floor. He then proceeded to kick his feet and pound his arms in the first true tantrum I've ever seen him perform.

Then he jumped up, and crying little angry tears, shouted "Alyssa! ALYSSA!"--(sniff)--"YOU STINK!"

Then a pause.

"Alyssa! You stink--ALL THE TIME!"

"Not just some of the time! All of the time!"

We were laughing too hard to tell him he couldn't say such bad things to his sister. What else could we do?

And they're mostly negative. I maintain my faith, though. Virtually everyone I know who saw The Matrix:Reloaded hated it, but I thought it was great.

Guess I'll find out about Revolutions soon.

I just finished watching The Royal Tenenbaums. I'm at a loss to describe the film, but I really got into it. But then, I'm always into character movies. A movie could have zero plot, but if it's about deep, engaging characters, I'm there.

I'm also at a loss to guess why this movie was in the comedy section at the video store. When I was in Play Performance in high school, we did monologues and other short scenes. Some were classed as dramatic, some as comic, and some as serio-comic--a piece with elements of the two. I guess that's what this movie would be called, serio-comic.

Or maybe it's just not really classifiable. That's one of the things that make movies like this interesting to me.