Category: ranting

Confused last time you tried to access confusion and it was not here? What’s that Well we (and I use the royal ‘we’ here,) had a little interruption in our (not so) regularly scheduled programming. Some nasty person or peoples out there launched a DDoS [wikipedia.org] against confusion. Actually, against a domain that was, a long time ago, hosted on the same box as confusion. The IP was never removed. All is better now—as you see. My ISP NULLed out the old IP and configured all new IPs on the box. Then because the box was still being choked by established connections I issued a reboot command but the box didn’t come back online. Don’t understand that, I mean, re-boot, go down, come back up. Not go down stay down: that’s halt. A quick call to the service provider fixed that after it became apparent that it wasn’t going to fix itself. Anyway I was going to post some stuff this week, but as I am flying off to Virginia tomorrow—YEA!—it’ll have to wait. Ciao…

You gotta love socialist health care. I went to the ‘clinic’ here this morning: Walk in. Say “I think I have a sinus infection.” Give her my resident ID. Doctor shines a flashlight in my mouth and up my nose (hardware store standard issue black rubber model, not fancy doctors issues shiny thingy.) Doctor—well, I think so…—scribbles something illegible. “hand this to the nurse outside.” Hand the *perscription* to the *nurse*. “Take one of these once a day, one of these and these twice daily and two of these once a day. These three as needed and you must finish the treatment for this one. That’ll be 26 dollars.” I think I’m gonna take the antibiotics and stow the rest of this for sale in Virginia when I back next week. Socialist health care… I feel dirty!

I wasn’t like Linus [wikipedia.org] when I was a kid. I never really carried my blanket around with me. And it was a good blanket, soft, quilted, hand made by my great grandmother. I still have it, probably because I did not carry it everywhere. I just chewed on the corners while I slept.

What I did carry around as a kid was a stuffed kangaroo—called Kabby, that my mother got with Betty Crocker [wikipedia.org] points. I carried that thing everywhere. I left it out in the rain on night and was totally distraught because I didn’t know where Kabby was. I still have Kabby, missing one eye and there is a hole in the tail where the stuffing is coming out, but I still have it.

Kabby was the last toy I got that has not been subsequently and quickly supplanted by the next, newer, toy. Growing up a geek enshrined this as I am always on the lookout for newer and better toys. A new computer, new video games, new stereo, PDA, cell phone.

Cell phones are particularly bad. My first phone, after moving up from a pager, was the Motorola MicroTAC 550, of which I can’t even find a decent picture. I then got a Nokia 252n which I used and loved for several years. When I was in Europe I got a Nokia 3300—which I still think was the best 2G phone ever and possibly the best mobile phone ever. When I returned to the US I got a 3395 specifically because it had the same interface. My cell phone revolving door really got going after I started working for a company in the mobile services space several years ago. Since then I have had a Samsung 715e, a Sony Ericsson T610 (which is the best 2.5G phone I have ever used), a Trio 650, a Nokia N-Gage, LG 6000, a Motorola v600 and lately a Sony Ericsson k700i.

Last night I feed the need to have the latest and greatest by spending an inordinate amount of money on a new toy: the Sony Ericsson z800i [sonyericsson.com]. Oh, behold! Shiney!

I seem to have misplaced my keys—somewhere in Vietnam. Yes; Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City to be more precise. I jaunted off for a weekend in Ho Chi Minh City. Not as romantic as spending the weekend in Paris I guess. But then I’m in Singapore now, not London. I’ll try to write more about Vietnam when I get a chance to go through the photos I took. Thought I don’t expect too many good ones.

Anyway back to my keys. I had them when I was in Vietnam, but not when I got back. I suspect they were actually lost on the plane. They were in the outside pocket of my duffle bag, which in retrospect might not have been the best place to put them. There was nothing really important on the key chain. The key to the flat here in Singapore for which there are a number of spares. The key to my desk at work, which there should be a spare ‘on file’ with the office manger and a strange old-style key I found in London.

I found the strange key in Leicester Square on my first trip to London, which was actually only a single day/night. C██████ and I were on the way to Paris and we had a stopover in London. While wondering around I found this key in the cobblestones around Leicester Square. The key was like an old clock key. I have absolutely no use for the key but I though it was cool. Sucks that I lost it.

the other thing that sucks to lose is the metal chain and lobster clasp that was attached to the key ring. Very hard to find this kind of key chain with no leather on it. Oh well. Maybe I should call Singapore Airlines and see if it fell out in the cargo hold.

mena : Beggs!
*** Auto-response sent to mena : For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. –H. L. Mencken
mena : or a solution that takes longer than it should
mena : but free ice cream at ben & jerry’s today made things easier
beggs: I bet
beggs: why did they give you free icecream?
mena : it was free cone day
mena : I told a lady on the shuttle bus coming home last night that today would be free cone day
mena : she said she won’t eat their ice cream because they support communism
beggs: haha
mena : and that they go to cuba and give money to fidel castro
mena : but if you’re not buying the ice cream, then what’s the harm?