Confusion

Okay first off, I'm glad to see that Firefox has a commanding lead here. Good. Let's keep it that way. Second: Lynx?! How in the hell did Lynx manage to show up? For the uninitiated, Lynx is an old-school but still widely used text-based browser. That means no pictures. That means I'm BAFFLED as to how it shows up in my statcounter, as the only way that SC knows if you've been here or not was if the picture of the counter loaded at the bottom (so if you have images off, it doesn't know you're here).

Cool, so I decided to see just how viewable this page was in Lynx - and it was suprisingly easy to view. Much better than say NCSA Mosaic 2.0.1 or Netscape 1.12, both of which are on old Grandpa PowerBook.

Lynx? Weird. Even weirder is that there are Windows/OSX ports of Lynx. Who wants to use a text-based browser outside of a shell/terminal environment? I guess somebody obviously does or nobody would've made it.

Oh, and Johnny "Benedict Arnold" Damon selling his soul to the devil and taking George Steinbrenner's poisoned Yankee Money is absolute bullshit. That guy was a rockstar in New England, a hero, and he just threw all that away. He could've lived the rest of his life in Boston and never paid for a meal, gotten all types of free stuff, lots of future endorsement deals, and he would've been forever treated like a king, a folk legend. Now he'll just be another nobody in the crowd of overpaid millionaires in the Yankee dugout - and there's no way that team will promote him like Boston did. He'll be just another guy behind the real stars in New York, A-Rod, Jeter, Sheffield, and the Sandman. Ugh, it all just feels dirty. If Jason Varitek ever leaves Boston, I'll be distraught.

The Partial Switch

So about a month back, my dad and I woke up early on a Saturday and headed to the far end of town for FSU's seasonal surplus auction. Up for bid were about 200+ older PCs (mid Pentium-III class) and various other electronics/office machines. Nothing really caught my eye except the laptops (all were really old, but probably workable) and a rack of Apple G3 PowerMacintosh towers (the blue and white ones, not the older beige ones). The way the auctioneer did the auctioning was odd, instead of going lot by lot he'd just point at a rack, and highest bid got first pick of the rack. Then he'd repeat the process and the new highest bidder gets top pick of what's left on the rack.

The whole reason I wanted a Mac to begin with is that I'm really, really interested in those Intel-based iBooks that Apple is set to put out in a little while (some say as early as January). I really wanted to get some time in with Mac OS X before I jumped in with a $1000 investment, so I figured running the OS on a $50 Mac would be a good trial.

Dad and I arrived around 9am and they were a good 200 items away from what I was interested in, so we decided to kill some time and went and got some breakfast. As we arrived back, they were in the middle of selling off the laptops. I decided before showing up I'd spend $50 max, ideally for a laptop and a G3. So when the auctioneer asked "Okay, who want's a $10 laptop?" I raised my number. Sold. I picked the one in the middle of the rack, not being able to fully see what it was - I figured for $10 it doesn't matter if it's a 486 or whatever, as long as I can get it online it'll serve some purpose. So they marked my laptop with my bidder number and then dad and I proceeded to wait a good half-hour for them to get to the Macs.

Before the auctioneer got there, me and a few other potential Mac owners decided we'd conspire with each other to keep prices down - a $50 max we said. So much for that - First G3 tower went for $90. The third one, one with a busted lower support, went up for bid and nobody jumped on it at $15 - so naturally I did. After one sorta-interested person's bidding bumped it to $20 I snagged it at $22. So for $32 I picked up a laptop and a G3 tower. Hot. It was only when they brought my laptop out to me did I realize that I was now the owner of not one but TWO Apple computers. The laptop was a Apple PowerBook 540c (circa 1994).

The G3 tower was easy to get running. It came completely wiped, so I had to install MacOS 9.0 on it. After using it for a while I decided that it was time to install OS X, which took some hacking (zapping the PRAM, running commands from the open console, etc) and was a pain in the ass (the install failed 6 times, and worked on the 7th) but in the end I had an old G3 running Tiger (OS 10.4) and I was a happy person. That was, until I started to use it. The problem? It was slow as hell. Apple says you need 256mb of RAM to run OS X, and this computer came with 128mb. That's what we call a problem. After suffering with this setup for about a week, I broke down and ordered 512mb (2x256mb) off the web for $45, bringing the net investment in this computer to $67. Now I've got a great, usable Mac and I've been using it as my primary desktop. The bevy of open source applications available for OS X made the switch an easier one as the software I needed was out there and free. Only problems with the Mac so far: the mouse that came with the computer sucked (the old puck-style one-button) so I replaced it with an old Microsoft USB optical/wireless mouse I had around, and it doesn't support drives larger than 137GB - as I found out when I tried to install a 200GB drive. Other than that, I've been having a good time with it. I like the flexability of a laptop (being able to type while sitting in my recliner beats my computer chair) but the purpose has been served - I do like OS X.

The PowerBook on the other hand was in bad shape. The batteries were both shot, no AC adapter was included, and the replacement battery that was included was for a different model of PowerBook. Crap. So first step was to order an AC adapter. 4 days, one eBay auction, and $12.99 plus shipping and handling later, boom, we have juice. After plugging in the PowerBook and firing it up I learned three things: that nobody wiped the old hard drive, it was previously in use at the FSU DNA Sequencing laboratory, and judging by the system date, it hadn't been turned on in over two years. There was some pretty good software loaded, including an ancient version of Microsft Office (Word/Excel/Powerpoint) and Netscape Navigator 1.12. Now I had a computer that turned on, but no internet. For that I would need a AAUI to RJ45 converter (to convert Apple's proprietary ethernet jack into wide-phone-jack-looking one that we all use nowadays) - that was another eBay auction and $10. Total investment at this point on the PowerBook was just shy of $40 - probably more than I should've spent, but whatever. This was a fun hack. After getting the adapter and struggling through getting the OS updated from 7.0 to 7.5.5, I got this damned thing online:


The dead lives! After screwing around for a while, I loaded up a browser that I last used back in probably 1994, NCSA Mosaic. Running Internet Explorer? Go to Help -> About Internet Explorer. See? "Based on NCSA Mosaic." Hot. Oh, and you want proof I got it online? Here's the bit from my blog's statcounter (click on the counter at the bottom and you'll see this page):
Of note, NCSA Mosaic 2.0.1 was released in October 1995. Can you imagine how much the web has changed in the last 10 years? A whole hell of a lot. Not much loads on this page. In fact, this very page won't really load all that well. The Camino/Safari browsers were used by me in OS X. (Oh, and ENTIRELY too many of you are still using the terrible Internet Explorer 6. Do you like popups? Do you love banner ads? Do you enjoy being a target of every web virus/spyware application out there? Switch to Firefox! Jeez! Go download it now!) I know it comes default in XP and it just works, but it's by far and away not the best choice out there. Oh, and speaking of operating systems:

See that "Unknown" section? That's me running MacOS 7.5.5 - I doubt that Statcounter.com is still keeping tabs of really old operating systems so it just lumps them all together. I like how all Linux is lumped together.

So that's the story of me and two Macs - one old and one ancient. I like them both and am really looking forward to being able to ditch my crappy Dell Inspiron 1100 running XP for something newer, faster, and more Apple flavored. Hot times.

Curiously Stupid

Okay, I have a problem. (Well not just one, but that's another story.) My problem is that I tend to stay up way too late.

I guess it runs in the family, as the house (except Dad) is usually still up and moving about well past midnight most days. Tonight, while waiting for my laundry to finish (I started it around 1130pm, 4 loads or so) I got bored - and when I get bored, I come up with dumb things to do. Then while sitting upstairs screwing around on my new/old Mac (a B&W G3 running Tiger if you care) I reached for a thing of candy I had recently bought and had an idea. I enjoyed doing my Jelly Bean post a couple weeks back, so I wanted to do another in a similar vein. So what's the target this time?

Altoids.

I figured if I'm going to do this right, I need as many flavors as humanly possible. So at 1215am I grabbed my wallet, keys, and phone and headed off to buy as many tins of that wonderful candy as possible. I first tried the local Super Wal-Mart, but they only sold the big multi-packs. I didn't need 3 tins of each, so no-go. I then headed to the nearby CVS Pharmacy which to my great delight, had Altoids Mints/Gum/Sours for $1 each if you had a CVS card. I didn't, but I managed to get the girl at the register to scan hers for me. So $12 later, I've got me an English shit-ton of confections:




Okay, so I've got the Altoids - but everybody knows that in order to do a proper taste-test, you need a palate cleanser. Or two. The Japanese use wasabi between rounds of sushi, so I decided that my palate cleanser should be something ridiculous. And they are:

On the left is a trusty Diet Coke, moderately chilled. Not too unusual, just your standard run-of-the-mill 12 fl. oz can of the nectar of the gods. In the center we have one 15.5 fl. oz bottle of Strawberry Yoo-Hoo, vigorously shaken and somewhat cold. Why strawberry and not chocolate or double fudge? Well, mint and chocolate go too well together, so of course...okay, honestly I have no justification for this. In fact, I really don't like Strawberry Yoo-Hoo. I'm dumb. To the left is one 16 fl. oz cup of Circle K's finest "English" Toffee Cappuccino, lukewarm and ridiculously sugary. How do I know it was "English" toffee? The dispenser had the word "TOFFEE" set over a picture of the Union Jack, so I just jumped to that conclusion. So between these three, I think I can annihilate any taste in my mouth. We'll see.

First contestant, Peppermint:

This is the best known, best selling, blah blah blah. How does it taste?! First off, on opening the tin you're greeted with the most wonderful smell. This is one of the better parts of eating these things, the aesthetics of opening the tin and being greeted with the aroma of the candy. So I snag two out of the box and toss 'em in my mouth. Verdict? Pretty tasty. Good peppermint taste, not too strong, but does leave a pretty heavy aftertaste in your mouth. So the original gets by with a "Very Good" rating.

Next up is Wintergreen:

These smell exactly like those old Wint-O-Green Lifesavers that we all remember eating with the lights off to see if you really could see a spark or not (I never could). The smell is great - but the taste is hella weak. These honestly taste a lot like just sugar, with a very light mint taste. Most assuredly NOT curiously strong. So the verdict here is "Decent".

(At this point I take a swig of Diet Coke and immediately realize that Coke + Mint is one of the worst tastes EVER. So at this point DC is only used after much Yoo-Hoo and Toffee Coffee.)

So at this point we move to Cinnamon:

See, Cinnamon and I have a love/hate relationship. I really hate Cinnamon and never would prefer to buy cinnamon gum/candy, but at the same time whenever I do eat cinnamon candy I always end up liking it a lot more than I remembered liking it. And I realize that probably made no sense, but bear with me, it's after 145am. These are easily the strongest smelling candies of the bunch, and I do have to admit that I love the smell of cinnamon. Taste verdict? These are good. Good and strong. Reminds me a lot of a childhood favorite, the Atomic Fireball. Chalk up an "Excellent" for Cinnamon Altoids, as much as that pains me to say.

Next, off to Spearmint:

Now, I've never liked Spearmint. Spearmint is Peppermint's bastard stepbrother. Sure it smells wonderful but the taste usually leaves much to be desired. That is exactly the same case here. When you open the tin you get blasted with a strong, wonderful fragrance and the sight of the small green candies. Unfortunately, then you actually eat the candy. Ugh. Verdict on this bad boy is a resounding "Disgusting". I proceed to finish the bottle of Yoo-Hoo. And then realize that Strawberry and Spearmint is another terrible combination. Dammit!


And look at that thick film left on the bottom of the Yoo-Hoo bottle!

Clearly I get an "F+" in "Shaking Vigorously".

Now to the moment I've been dreading: the dreaded tin of Liquorice:

As anybody who knows me well enough knows that I HATE the taste of liquorice. The flavor usually left for those evil black jelly beans is best left there, in my mind. I hate this damned flavor. So I open the tin (reluctantly) and of course, a terribly strong liquorice odor hit me in the face. That's strike one. Then I go to pick one out and do a slight double-take. White? The candy is white? See - liquorice candy is almost always black in color. I consider this nature's way of pointing out the less-than-desirable taste. But these are ominously white, and are just warm and inviting. Then I eat one. I have to really, really try hard not to spit these bastards across the room. TERRIBLE! The verdict here is somewhere between "Somebody Get Me a Brillo Pad So I Can Scrub the Taste Out of My Mouth" and "Oh why God?"

Noticably missing is Altoids flavor #6, Ginger. I couldn't find a tin of Ginger anywhere (I was shocked I even found a tin of Liquorice) so I had to just bite the bullet and pick up a few tins online:


[UPDATE: 12/19/05 6:11pm] Success!

Okay, so I went around town today to find some Ginger Altoids, and lo and behold, I found a few boxes of these rare tins at the local World Market - one of those fancy food stores that specializes in all things expensive and foreign. These are a bit odd to have in the states because let's face it, the only places that Americans are accustomed to having ginger is at Japanese restaurants and in drinkable Ginger Ale form. When I visited my grandmother growing up, she always had Vernor's Ginger Ale in the fridge. So I started liking ginger early on but like I said, being an American you're not really around the flavor of ginger all that often. When I opened the tin of Ginger Altoids, the smell was a very pleasant one. Smelled just like when I used to open up a can of Ginger Ale. So how did they taste? Very good, actually. These have a pretty strong sweet ginger flavor to them, with one hell of a kick for an aftertaste. Verdict for the Ginger altoids is "Great".


So we're through with the big tins, now it's on to the gum. This should be better.


First up this time is Cinnamon, since I had some good results with the hard candies. This gum delivers as well - a good, strong Cinnamon taste that hits you quickly. This stuff will obliterate your terrible breath. Chalk up another win for this gum, and an "Excellent" rating.


Peppermint gum is next, and interestingly - the flavor of peppermint is slightly different from that of the mints. Huh? For some reason, this gum is a LOT stronger. I'm a fan though. This gum too gets an "Excellent" rating.


From here on we're in the sour gums. First up is Sour Cherry. This tin sure smells good when you open it, but I was ill prepared for the taste. Is it sour? Oh hell yes it is. The sour cherry gum packs a wallop. The kind of sour that makes you curl your face up and say "damn" - and the flavor is good to boot. So far, this is easily the best thing I've tasted tonight. Mark it "Phenomenal", Dude.


Last up is the Sour Apple gum. This gum doesn't have much of an odor, but the taste again is incredible. The flavor is just like biting into a ripe Granny Smith apple, so if you like those, you'll love these. I'm a huge fan of both of these Sour Gums. So we'll just call this one "Incredible."

So in synopsis, if you like Cinnamon you can't go wrong with anything in a red and gold Altoids tin. If you're a fan of sour candies, the two flavors of the Sour Chewing Gum are right up your alley. The mint gum is great. The peppermint and wintergreen mints are good, the ginger is great, the spearmint is terrible, and the liquorice candies make you want to rip your own tongue out and mail it as far away from your central nervous system as geographically possible.

Dang, not tired yet. I guess I'll go see what's on TV.

All is a Game

Sorry for the lack of posts, it's been a rather busy month or so for me with holiday travel and school winding down for the semester.

Quick movie/music/game wrapup to start things off:

Harry Potter 4 (2005): It was good, but you could tell that they obviously threw out a lot of character development in order to fit the massive book into the movie's 2.5 hour time frame. The director's cut should add a few of those things back, but I think they still made all the right cuts in terms of importance. A little more character development/interactions between Ron, Hermione, and Harry would've been nice though.

Das Experiment (2001): A German language movie based on the infamous "Stanford Prison Experiment" from 1971 where half a group of subjects become prison guards and the other half inmates, and the psychology of it all is studied. I really enjoyed this flick, so check out the DVD if you ever run across it.


The Aristocrats (2005): This is without a doubt one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. It's a documentary by Penn of Penn and Teller and it's about the filthiest joke ever, "The Aristocrats." Lots of different comedians (from Robin Williams to Drew Carey to Bob Saget) tell their versions of the filthy joke and it's just absolutely mindblowing how funny it is. See this movie.

I really want to see Peter Jackson's King Kong as well as The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Producers, Munich, and Syriana. Should be a busy movie-going season.

Musically, the latest and greatest new addition to my music collection (other than the Decemberists catalog that I recently finally assembled) is System of a Down's "Hypnotize", which when paired with their earlier-in-2005-release "Mezmerize", makes up probably the best rock album I've heard. The "Mezmerize/Hypnotize" combo is easily in the running for my 2005 Album of the Year, grouped together with Death Cab for Cutie's "Plans", Picaresque by The Decemberists, Nada Surf's "This Weight is a Gift" and "Twin Cinema" by The New Pornographers.

From a video game perspective, I had been playing a fair amount of the new King Kong for Xbox, and I was digging it. That all changed when I finally got off my butt and got Mario Kart DS. It was a simple sell: I love Mario Kart and I have a DS with a house running a WiFi network, so why not?. Let me tell you the wireless play is INCREDIBLE. If you like Mario Kart, get this game. Easily the best game I've played all year. And it has 32 tracks! 16 new ones, and 4 from each of the last 4 MK versions (SNES, N64, GBA, and Gamecube). The new Mario soccer and baseball games I need to get as well. I loved Mario Golf and Tennis. No matter what people say, the cube was not a failure this generation - it had possibly the greatest array of purely fun games out there.

So now that we've gotten past the media reviews, what's been going on with me?

The family and I all spent Thanksgiving in Jacksonville with my relatives. I only stayed one day because I had to get home to look after the dog, Elise was coming into town the next day, and I can't stand one side of my family.

I think everybody has that one part of the family that just doesn't fit. My mom's oldest brother is a lawyer and is spoiled to the core, and his kids usually act just as rotten as he does. When I explained that I wanted to be a doctor and what my interests are, his only retorts were "oh, well you should be [insert specialty] instead because they make more money. I do their taxes, I know." The man could just not get it through his head that I'm not getting into medicine for the money. Fortunately my other uncle, a much-brighter engineer, picked up on my frustration at the issue and tried to explain to his older brother that I was doing this because it's where my heart is, not the dough. It's amazing what drives some people, and how different two people can be. I hope I never become that selfish. Almost inspires one to selfless altruism just to make sure I never become that selfish.

The day with Elise and Avni was great - a chill day where all we did was talked, ate, and watched Brotherhood of the Wolf. Pictures are up on the photo blog, as are my family's pictures from Thanksgiving.

In sports, look for 2005 year-in-reviews for both FSU and GT football in the near future. GT basketball appears to have some incredible talent on the court (see GT's narrow 2-pt loss at Michigan State in the ACC's Annual Big 10 Slaughter) but they also just reek of inconsistancy (see GT's blowout at home against the UIC Flames). Coach Hewitt's got 4 sophomores and 1 freshman starting, so I know that's what you expect from such a young squad. I also know that Paul's gonna get those boys moving, and that teams really should look out for GT down the road. We're gonna knock off somebody big.

Also, I think that after watching highlights of Reggie Bush, that he is easily the best college RB I've ever seen. Not best college player, because the things I saw Derrick Brooks and Deion Sanders do to opposing offenses were sick. But Reggie is the real deal, that's for sure. I'm sure every school in the Pac 10 will be happy to see him leave SoCal.

My Bucs are killing me as well. Missing a chip-shot FG to beat the Bears really hurt. I do however love that Brad Johnson is 4-0 with the Vikings. BJ's a class act and he deserved another chance to play pro football. I hated that the Bucs went with CHRIS FREAKING SIMMS over a proven winner like Johnson. I haven't liked Simms since his Texas days where he stole reps from a much-better QB in Major Applewhite.

Oh, and in other weird news, this post is my first on my new (old) Mac. I went to FSU's fall surplus auction and picked up a Blue and White G3 Power Macintosh for a whopping $22. Though it took some hacking to get OSX (Tiger) to run, it was all worth it. My only gripes right now are the sluggishness of the computer, but that's because it needs more RAM. The 128mb that this machine came with is not gonna cut it in the long run. So after an upgrade, it should be kickin'. Why a Mac? Because I eagerly have my eye on a new Intel-based iBook whenever Apple releases them next year, and I wanted to get accustomed to OS X to see if a switch would be worth it. I really like the flow and look of the OS, and the built-in UNIX features make it extremely useful to me. I'm sold.

Hopefully it won't be a month before my next update, but who knows. School will be done soon enough.