Another Word for Nerd

and I got two paragraphs of glowing praise from my manager, as well as an “Exceeded Expectations”! Now that that is over, I think I’ll just rest tonight and get some sleep. Not much else going on.

will combine two of my hobbies - kit building and guitar playing. I’ve got my eye on this kit clone of an Ibanez Tube Screamer (TS-808) overdrive effects pedal.

“CAMBRIDGE, England (AP) — A museum visitor shattered three Qing dynasty Chinese vases when he tripped on his shoelace, stumbled down a stairway and brought the vases crashing to the floor, officials said Monday.”

I bet someone will be making sure their shoes are firmly and securely tied from now on…

I just built Steel Bank Common Lisp version 0.9.9 using a pre-existing 0.9.8 install on two of my systems.

Dell SC420
1G RAM, 160G SATA disk, Celeron 2.53Ghz CPU, Fedora Core 4
~15 minutes.

Sun Enterprise 420R
4G RAM, dual 18G SCSI disks, quad US-II 450Mhz CPUs (2M L2 each), Solaris 9
~2.5 hours.

Very rarely will I get emotional over a webcomic. Damn.

“Best Buy said today that it has begun the next phase of its two-year plan to eliminate mail-in rebates from its portfolio. First, at the start of the year, customers began receiving their savings instantly on notebook computers, rather than waiting for these rebates via mail. Second, the company has introduced a convenient online rebate submission process that enables customers to submit select Best Buy rebates online, through BestBuy.com/rebates. Both of these initiatives mark a significant step forward in improving the overall shopping experience for Best Buy customers.”

Why not just lower prices to begin with, rather than have the “rebate” thing at all? All “rebates” do is let the company collect interest on the rebate amount between when you buy an item and when you get your money back weeks or months later..

$918 later, the Kia is back on the road again. Had to have the front calipers, pads, and rotors replaced, the brake hydraulic system flushed out, and four new tires put on. That’s what I get for letting it sit for four months idle in the driveway.

I went looking on Amazon for a Haynes or Chilton manual for it (2001 Sportage), but amazingly, there doesn’t seem to *be* one.

For now, I bought a subscription ($24.95/year) to AllData DIY, but it has the most sucktastic user interface I’ve ever seen. If I’d known it was going to be this bad, I would have just ordered the factory service manual on CD-ROM. I still may pony up $10 for a week’s worth of access to the Kia Service Information System.

This afternoon I also ordered a ScanGauge “auto computer”, so I can see more detailed engine information (and MPG) in realtime.

As of 1/22/06, I’ve lived in Houston for a year. I really like it here, and don’t miss Austin at all.

As of this September, I will have lived in Texas for ten years. Wow. It’s been quite a trip.

MySpace and Xanga lamers trying to hotlink images off my machine will now get a nice HELLO.JPG (warning: NWS) instead.

With about an hour of work (cleaning corrosion and neutralizing battery acid, stripping battery cables, putting new cable terminals on), the Kia now has a new Sears DieHard Gold battery and starts up fine (after an initial rough running for a couple of minutes, as it hadn’t been started in about five months).

Tomorrow morning I put some fresh gas in, and take it down to Firestone to have new brakes, rotors, and tires put on, as well as an oil change and a fuel system cleaning.