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Critters Home Base Toiling In The Pixel Mines

Care for a cat scan?

This is becoming an increasingly common sight in my game room/office with the now-frequent Opening of the Window:
Cat Scan 😆
I’ve just about got all of that scanning and printing technology hooked back up, so Olivia may have to find a new spot to crash. Seriously – I need to find her a little ottoman or something. I used to have one in Green Bay, and kept it next to my computer desk, and Othello and Iago would spend all of their time there, watching me and staying within petting distance. Today I nearly stepped on Olivia’s paw (one of her recently-operated-on paws, no less) and she let out a loud alarm squeak before I put my weight on it. I moved my foot in a hurry and turned around to check on her, only to find Othello standing between me and her, hissing at me. Somebody’s protective of his little sis. I never thought I’d see the day.
Supremely frustrating evening at work tonight, just another instance where I’m more than ready to move on or just get out and start carving my own path. Maybe it’s just me getting a “bad attitude,” but the faults and weaknesses in our company are now sticking out like big, red, glowing sore thumbs to me, more and more, every day. And it pisses me off. It shouldn’t be like this. These are bring-everything-to-a-standstill problems and making-us-look-really-amateurish problems. When you’re endeavouring to be in the mass media, especially with a news operation, your credibility with the public is your only currency and it can take a lot to rebuild it if you make a habit out of screwing up. In this day and age of cowering away from anything that might potentially result in the vaguest whispered hint of a lawsuit, and then turning around and courting easy hot-button controversy for ratings, it’s no wonder that the media is losing that currency of respect with the folks who they’re too busy forcing ads onto.
Pac-Man potholderBack to the game room: when I moved stuff around, I had to take the HAL 9000 off the wall, leaving an icky nail sticking out. A while back, a friend of mine – in fact, it’s someone who reads this blawg! – sent me a few hand-made potholders (which, in this house, come in far more useful than you might realize, though I’ll admit that at least one has been hijacked by Olivia and pressed into service as her pillow). This one, however, is a display piece only, and perfectly suited for a retro gaming room. I just thought they’d like to see that these were definitely appreciated.
Back to L.E.O. for just a second – if anyone wants to grab it through my site instead of Not Lame, I’ve put it in the site’s store – click here-ish. All proceeds go toward…well…getting me a copy of the same. 😛… Read more

Categories
Critters Home Base

Preparations B.

While working on moving stuff around and hooking it back up today, and realizing that the Doctor Who pinball backglass wasn’t going to be able to adorn the window anymore, I decided I’d like some real live sunlight in the room. This turned out to be a very popular move with my household helpers.
Earl's game room
Olivia seems especially happy with the prospect of being able to sit on top of the computers and watch the bird’s nest that’s been built in the brush that pretty much covers the window. (It’s an interesting privacy screen, but it’s really just a case of me needing to get out from behind the computer and get outside and suck up some allergens to cut it all down. On the flipside, I could always just tell people that my game room is on Kashyyyk.)
Earl's game room
God only knows what the bird were thinking. 😆 … Read more

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Critters Gadgetology Home Base

Preparations.

Today has been all about starting to rearrange the game room for the new gear that’ll be occupying it in about a week and a half or so.
Viewsonic Monitors
Trying to find a way to avoid buying yet another monitor, I pulled down a flatscreen we haven’t used in a while to see if I could get it to overcome a problem it has displayed in the past – namely, starting to display the bottom of a Windows display about halfway up the screen. Turns out that there’s a trick to fixing this (it’s a known bug), and now we’re working just fine. These two monitors will be the Avid edit monitors.
Avid-ready
This is the end result of today’s toil; my main computer (Zen)’s monitor is at the far right, Orac’s is the one in the middle/corner, and the one between them is a 17″ LCD that monitors either cable or the output of my existing (non-Avid) video gear. (Orac’s and Zen’s monitors can also do composite video signals – you may have seen these in action at OVGE.)
Avid-ready
And how do I handle the daunting power requirements of this stuff?
Avid-ready
Kitten power! (ZZZZzzzzzzzzz…)
Only Olivia could crash out while I’m moving stuff all over the place, creating clouds of dust and lots of noise in the process. 😆… Read more

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Critters Funny Stuff Home Base

What IS it with people?!?

Those people in the other cars, I mean. Why is it that, when I’m just trying to pass on the left on the highway without completely trashing the speed limit, so many of the people I’m trying to pass suddenly decide to make a race out of it, as if I’m somehow threatening their very existence? I guarantee you, if I’m trying to pass on the left, no one will think any less of you or relieve you of whatever social status you hold because you got passed. It just means I need to drive faster than 55 miles per hour, and I figure it’s a simple matter to just pass you rather than be late to work because the person driving in front of me is tottering along and talking on the phone. Clearly you’re capable of driving the speed limit, be it 65 or 70 – clearly, because the moment I pull out into the left lane and crank it up to 65, you’re suddenly doing freakin’ 80 (i.e. waythehelloverthespeedlimit), because God forbid anyone should be unwilling to take a back seat to the guy who’s yakking while he’s driving.
Sometimes I daydream about a 007-style Aston-Martin tricked out with all kinds of gears that’d get other folks outta my way. Except make it a Corsica. I’m on a budget.
In other news, my first experiment in scanning negatives with the previously mentioned scanner has yielded an unexpected surprise – now you can see what it was like when I finally moved out of my parents’ house and got a life. (Well, okay, okay, good point – but at the very least I moved out of my parents’ house.)… Read more

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Critters

Casual Friday

It’s casual Friday here at Casa Green, and everybody is in a hurry to do absolutely nothin’.
Othello’s asleep in the fuzebox:
Othello in the fuzebox
Olivia’s decided that the dining room table is a fine place for a cat (I have to respectfully but firmly disagree):
Olivia on the dining room table
Xena’s going to sit out the stormy weather while Olivia henceforth decides that playing with an 80+ pound dog’s feet is a fine place for a cat:
Xena and Olivia
Me? I’m ready for a day where I can sleep the hell in.
Oh, and a memo to these people whose house I saw from the parking lot at work this morning:
It's Christmasween!
For pete’s sake, wait until Thanksgiving or something!! 🙄… Read more

Categories
Critters Funny Stuff

Pooch smooches!

Smooched by a poochThis happens every morning, only this time I had my camera at the ready so I can show you people what kind of abuse I take when I get home from work.
I mean really, what can you do? You’re already sitting down. The dog weighs over 80 pounds and is practically standing in your lap. So you might as well soak up the puppy love and get some pooch smooches. See the video here.… Read more

Categories
Critters Music

Olivia: hero of the Rebel alliance

Olivia got into a spot of trouble on Tuesday afternoon for destroying daddy’s new Death Star. 😯 Seriously, there was no major damage, but it convinced me to go ahead and take all of the newly disassembled pieces and put them back in the box until I have a more permanent place for it to go.
I'd just as soon kiss a kitten
Laugh it up, fuzzball!
So...you have a sister
A rare non-playful brother-and-baby-sister shot.
In other news, I have a new CD to add to my album anticipation list – well, okay, technically it’s already out. It’s Peter Frampton’s new instrumental album Fingerprints, which I didn’t even know about before Kent insisted on playing Frampton’s cover of “Black Hole Sun” over the phone to me. Normally I’d shake my head at anyone trying to introduce me to an album that way, but I was amazed at how Frampton, of all people, rocked it out, complete with his trademark “talkbox” effect.
Kent’s also wondering when the next OVGE is. Aren’t we all?
I was under the weather Tuesday so I stayed home. I’ve had a very sore throat since Sunday and today I just woke up feeling like crap. Hopefully I’ll feel better Wednesday, but curiously, I didn’t miss work all that much…… Read more