Day: April 29, 2009

Categories
...And Little E Makes 3 Funny Stuff

Feeding Mr. Evan

Wednesday, I retrieved Evan from day care in the middle of what seemed like a monsoon. Before I went to get him, I looked for the umbrella that I thought I kept in the car…I guess it’s been relocated. Anyway, we both got thoroughly soaked. We went to the store and stopped to grab food on the way home. We both looked like we’d showered in our clothes. (By the way, Evan thought that sitting in a shopping basket as his daddy raced it toward the car in the middle of the downpour was just the best thing ever. 😆 )

Evan and his daddy
Hold off on taking that picture, dad. I’m eating.

Evan and his daddy
Okay. Here’s the prettiest face you’re going to get out of me if you insist on taking our picture while I eat. Nom nom nom.

Evan and his daddy
Dad…um…we’re done here, right? Can I eat this in peace now?

In related news, it appears that the same storm may have fried my wireless router. That’s a bit of a biggie since I have a lot of stuff networked between machines. Hadn’t really budgeted for a replacement, so…..grrrrr. Incidentally, this is the first time I’ve lost any gear to lightning since the Apple II days.… Read more

Categories
Gadgetology

Gambitronic

Vila meets GambitI’ve begun prep work for a media center PC that I hope to install in the living room, God and/or the IRS willing (is there really a difference between the two in terms of sheer power?), come tax refund time. A while back I asked if anyone had any ideas on a maniacal supercomputer name to go with the new box. I have a LAN set up in the house called WOPR. My main desktop PC, Zen, is the WOPR hub; other machines already on WOPR are Orac (secondary desktop & file server) and Colossus (Avid). Zen and Orac are supercomputer names from the adorably outdated (and not just a little bit campy) BBC space opera Blake’s 7, while Colossus is the Forbin Project (and a nod to the sheer physical size of the box that runs the Avid).

The new machine will reside on the WOPR network as well, and it’ll be called Gambit. Gambit was yet another supercomputer that made a one-off appearance in the 1981 Blake’s 7 episode Games; appropriately enough, it spent all of its time entertaining an eccentric hermit and occasionally dishing out digital death via its automatic defense systems too. Gambit wound up getting cozy with Orac, and despite all of the advantages inherent in keeping Gambit around for future stories, naturally it was never heard from again. Of course, my wife will see Gambit as an X-Men reference, so it’s a win-win situation. Sort of like the time she named her new kitten Olivia, swearing that she was breaking the cycle of Shakespearean-named cats in our household (see also: Othello, Iago, Oberon). (I had to point her toward Twelfth Night – which features an Olivia – at a later date and then get out of book-throwing distance, because that all-inclusive Shakespeare book of mine weighs a ton.)

So that’s the important issue of naming the machine settled. Will the real Gambit get cozy with the real Orac? Only time will tell. Current plans call for Gambit to be equipped with a wireless keyboard/mouse combo (we’re looking at this one, again as funds permit). Ideally, it should be able to record as well as play back. It’ll also be browsing the web and doing e-mail, so I’ll install the usual security/antivirus/antispyware/antispam stuff on it, and I’ll be keeping a fanatical, Friddle*-esque eye on the thing’s health too.

It’d be nice to have another terrorbyte** drive to stick in there, but you know, I have a feeling that’s something that we’ll be needing to ask Santa about.

Can I actually put another system together and successfully convince it to not suck? Stay tuned, true believers. … Read more