Full circle...

I have left Microsoft's pasture for the greener swath that is Linux. Windows was fun but I felt constrained. I have installed Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelelot 11.10. The funny thing is my default media player for audio files under Windows 98 was Cubic Player. On Win 2K-7 was Winamp. On Linux...Cubic Player. I feel right at home again.

Yummy...

Last Thursday, I went in for surgery. I had to get an ingrown toenail taken care of. Now there is nothing but a strip of red, black, orange, and other assorted colors. The feeling sometimes feels like sandpaper, sometimes like an engraver. Healing time commences.

Rant time...

PeTA has officially crossed the line in my book. They attacked an institution that is Mario, as in the short, portly plumber Mario of Super Mario fame. They could not attack the franchise back in the 1980s, so they picked now? What lowlives attack what those hypocrites may have played as a kid? Last I checked a costume a skinned animal does not make. That is all.

Really?!

I just read that Gadaffy's family is bringing a lawsuit against NATO. What in holy fuck do they expect? Sympathy? OK, how many people did he and his cronies kill? Thousands, tens of thousands? And his family wants compensation for HIS killings? I find this lawsuit completely irrational and without merit. When we the USA killed Osama, his family gave exactly less than a flying fuck about it. Actually, I think they didn't care at all.

Goodbye old friend...

I have made the decision to discontinue use of Winamp. It used to be be my goto media player for everything, but was starting to show its age. The module plug-in has been abandoned and left to rot while the MP3 and other "modern" plugins got top priority. My new media player has become XMPlay by un4seen Developments. XMPlay has, what my favorite other media player Cubic Player for DOS does, a MIDI soft-synth.

(Temporary) fix?!

I ordered an All to HDMI box to convert my video signals to, well, HDMI. For a few years I was using a VGA box to do the conversions. The VGA device gave good results but the video quality from 8-Bit game systems was really poor for my tastes. The HDMI box however, treats everything right. My Atari 2600's video is crisp with no sign of inter-layer fuzz. However, I also have an Intensity Shuttle which I still plan on using when I sort out all of my video signal woes. The Shuttle does not like 8- or certain 16-bit game systems. My theory is that the chroma subchannel in the video signals is dorking with the video processor. The work will be covered on my project site, so stay tuned.

GRR!

It is official: Lady Gaga is an annoying bitch! Her song Alejandro got stuck in my head after going into a store and hearing it over the sound system. It is also rattling in my head now just thinking about it.