I think my 6-7 year-old x86 finally kicked the bucket. A few years ago, I was able to extend his life thanks to the ide=nodma boot parameter, which somehow allowed the faulty IDE controller to still install Linux, albeit grudgingly. Windows never complained, it just ran and chugged along fine.
Until a few days ago. I started getting blue screens (page faults in non-paged area, to be precise) completely at random, not linked to any specific action or application. I didn’t add any new drivers or applications to the system - in fact, I am very strict about what goes and doesn’t go on my Windows installations. I install a selective set of applications, applications I’ve been using for ages, that I require for OSNews, but mostly for Focus Shift; my scanner only works properly on Windows, and Paint.NET only runs on Windows reliably.
I did a thorough RAM check (I let it run 23 times), but it didn’t find anything. The drive in the machine is brand new. Those are the two key elements that can cause page faults in the non-paged area. Just to be certain, I’m running memtest86 right now. My guess, however, is that the IDE controller finally decided to end it FOR REALSIES this time, seeing the ide=nodma trick doesn’t work anymore either.
So, I’m kind of in trouble now. I already lost an OSNews story and a Focus Shift comic to the page fault errors, and I’m not keen on continuing to run through this minefield. I guess this means postponing Focus Shift (again) for a while until I come up with a solution.
I love that machine like a member of the family, for god’s sake. I have spent an insane amount of money on the thing in total, and I hate to see it go down like this.
And it’s been like this all week. I hug global warming!
I am a bit bummed about the lower quality of Madonna’s new album “Hard Candy”. In my opinion, this is her worst major studio album ever. I don’t think that the problem is that she doesn’t know how to put a good album together anymore, but I do think that she doesn’t care as much. You see, that’s an album that she “owes” to Warner Bros. before she gets out of her contract with them and move to her new label family. I would not be surprised if I found out that she didn’t care much about this album. Testament to this is the fact that she did very little TV promotional work for this new album compared to the older ones. Except 1-2 interviews on TV, she appeared nowhere else.
So, I put together my own ratings for her major studio albums (rating all the songs one by one per album), and here’s what I came up with. Apparently I like her early album work and her 2000-era better than her middle “erotica” career and her latest one. Special thanks to JBQ who helped me put that chart together at Google Docs, as I am a complete buffoon when it comes to spreadsheets.
Deep down inside, I have a girlie side too (where the hell did it go? ah, there it is). This version of Madonna’s “Erotica” song really brings out my girlie, romantic, even sexual side of me. I always kinda disliked the original “dirty” version of Erotica, but this one, along with the choreography, touches me so deeply that makes me take advances towards my husband. Only to be crushed by him 3 seconds later: “I am tired tonight baby…”.
Oh well, there’s always the weekend!
This is so much like real life. We all fall in love for the good looking one, but we end up marry the one who gets it right down with us. Same story for the well known Youtube celebrity ObamaGirl. She supposedly has a crash for Obama, but she ends up doing a video with the purer Gravel.
You’d think that, at one point, someone has gone through enough crap. That at some point, nature or god or luck or whatever says, hey, look, let’s give these people a break for a while. Let’s, like, not fcuk them for THREE DAYS.
Well, turns out that’s not the case.
Millions of brainless gutter sluts get breast implants every day, without a single complication, without a single problem. Yet, the one person that actually kind of really needs those implants gets screwed over. My mother’s left breast implant got infected. During emergency surgery, it was removed, and it was concluded that the infection was too strong to put anything else back in. This effectively means we’re back to square one.
They say that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. In that case, my mom must be made of diamond right about now. SUCK ON THAT, DE BEERS.
* It seems that Obama has won the candidacy, at least theoretically at this point. Short of Alaska’s Mike Gravel that no one votes for (too liberal and no money, I guess), I personally like Obama, and I hope he wins the presidency as well.
* WSJ has an article about the food prices and that the bio-fuels are to blame. All I can say is this: if Bush had handed down that $300 billions to fusion research instead of the war, I can tell you that we would all be benefiting from cheaper energy by now — even if fusion would still be years away. But I guess, if he was to do that, his buddies oil owners would be out of jobs.
* “Microsoft May Build a Copyright Cop Into Every Zune”, says NYTimes. Well, short of having artificial intelligence, how the hell are they going to know if my XViD file comes from an illegal download or my own shooting/export from within my video editor? This is no different than the stupid law Greece had of banning all computer video games just because the lawmakers could not distinguish between PC games and gambling.
* JBQ sent me a URL with a very indicative picture to show the difference between “shallow DOF” and “background blur” — two notions that people are getting mixed up. Background blur, is well, all the background blur you see. Shallow DOF though is how much of the subject’s surroundings is sharp (meaning that, between the lens and the subject everything is blurry, and behind the subject is also blurry).
* Our lights are arriving today! We bought the Smith Victor KT900 for both mine and my husband’s photography needs.
Must the judges continue to lick David Archuleta's balls after every single song this "Aw shucks!" nerd delivers? His silky smooth voice hasn't found its niche, except perhaps as a second rate Michael Buble/Josh Groban. Archie never met a run he didn't like, I can't remember the last time I heard the dude sing a melody. Is he so "cute" and non-sexually threatening that no one dares critique his completely boring adult contemporary ballads lest he not become a marketing machine to pander to 14 year old girls? Yuck.The reason I think this season stinks is because through the entire season, I have only had one "gave me chills" performance: David Cook's take on Lionel Ritchie's "Hello." Everything else pales in comparison.
Usually, there are songs that make me shut up and songs that can give me pause as I think "this is awesome." There were several great moments - I loved Carly's "Crazy On You," and I really dug Jason Castro's "Hallelujah." Many will rally for some of Chikeze's performance during Beatles week, but for me, I can count the "Wow, cool!" moments on one hand, and the "gave me chills" moments number just one. And while Syesha gets better and Cook solidifies his fan base, tweenage girls everyone should prepare to be let down by AI7 Idol winner David Archuletta's utterly dismal first album.
Tags: American Idol, TV, Reality TV, Rant
I have this negative opinion for music artists who can’t write their own music, or at least actively contribute in the production of their own album. But once in a while, an album happens to be so good, that even if it’s put together by a label and it’s just “a product”, I can forgive all that.
That’s the story with Rihanna’s “Good girl gone bad” album. I don’t like hip-hop (we are mostly into alt.rock in our home), but damn, that’s a good dance and R&B album, plus she can sing. It’s much better than Fergie’s album, and also better than Nelly Furtado’s. Definitely a better album than Madonna’s “Hard Candy” which used the same producers too. It seems that Madonna got just the left overs from the producer’s creativity.
Best songs on the album: Umbrella, Push up on me, Don’t stop the music, Shut up and drive, Rehab, and Good Girl Gone Bad. Except 1-2 songs that are not super but still acceptable, the rest are very good too.
1. Umbrella 9/10
2. Push up on Me 9/10
3. Don’t Stop the Music 9.5/10
4. Breakin’ Dishes 7.5/10
5. Shut up and Drive 10/10
6. Hate That I Love You 7.5/10
7. Say It 6/10
8. Sell Me Candy 7/10
9. Lemme Get That 6/10
10. Rehab 9/10
11. Question Existing 6/10
12. Good Girl Gone Bad 8.5/10
Overall rating: 7.9/10
Best hip-hop/RnB album I ever listened to.
Sunday night was steak night at our house, and I decided to go with an old favorite and a new experiment. On the right, Jenn was served as silly-sized black angus ribeye, supposedly from a noted black angus farm, cooked a blissful medium rare. We are big ribeye fans in our house, as we generally agree the ribeye is the most flavorful steak in the steer, with its marbling and tenderness. Although I rarely cook the cut, I coated a Flintstones-sized porterhouse with chimichurri and grilled it. As always, it re-affirmed my belief that the porterhouse is far from "king of the steaks," largely because as good as the filet can be - as tender and juicy as possible - the strip is never as good as I imagine it could be under other circumstances.
I consider myself pretty particular when it comes to beef, and I believe that short of preparing it over wood smoke on some 1100 degree grill, I don't think the strip can be prepared to taste as good as several other steaks. Like many cuts of sirloin, it really requires marinade or a rub of some sort to bring out any powerful flavor, and with some sort of aid, it's usually not natural steak flavor. In general, if a steak can't be seasoned with just extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper, it's a second class steak in our house. That doesn't mean we won't eat it, it's just second tier. Nonetheless, it was plenty tasty enough to accompany the meal.
Lightly sauteed asparagus, tri-color cous cous, and fresh pretzel bread accompanied the steaks and rounded out a great meal.
Image hosted by Flickr
Tags: Fooooooood, Food
JBQ came from work and we were supposed to go shopping for the week, but he was so tired that he slept for 1.5 hours. So I took the time to sketch two more portraits, ‘The Vision’ of the Avengers, and Wolverine of the X-Men.
The android Vision was always a tragic and sad figure. I hope I captured that.
In this sketch, I hope I captured Wolverine’s angry, animal-like nature.
That’s it. I won’t be sketching again for another 10 years or so…
This is why I love “Lost”. It camouflages itself as an action drama, but all the geek elements are there, in the form of easter eggs and scientific-like mysteries that eventually will be big parts of the overall story. “Lost” is simply any geek’s dream of a TV series, and anyone who have stopped watching it is only because his/her not watching closely enough — or they are not geeky enough.
One thing you don’t know about me is that I can sketch. Not very well, but truth is, better than most people can. I learned sketching all by myself since the age of 4. I still remember the beating I got for sketching all over my family’s (expensive) encyclopedia when I was 7.
Since the last serious sketching I did was 9 years ago, not even my own husband has seen my work (which I have left back in Greece, and possibly the rats have already eaten it away by now in the cellar). A portrait of Captain Hook was my best work ever, which I completed during a cold afternoon of 1992 in Germany. After that, I did very little sketching and I pretty much stopped in 1999 (except for a quick attempt to sketch JBQ in 2002).
But today was the day. The Marvel announcements brought me some inspiration back, but I was afraid to grab the pencil back to my hands. After all, 9 years without sketching guaranteed a failure. Thankfully, I did better than I thought I would. I finished with a pencil, scanned it, and then used PaintShopPro to just add the colors. Here it is.
I’ve said many times that I love the Marvel heroes. The kick DC’s heroes asses real hard!
Zap2It now has many release dates from the upcoming Marvel movies: “Iron Man 2″, “Thor”, “Captain America”, “Avengers”, “Punisher”… I can’t wait for the “Mighty Avengers“, my all time favorite comics. I always had a crash on Hawkeye, and when he wasn’t looking, there was always the Vision. 
The only thing that bothers me is they keep rebooting the movie series a bit too much. The new “Punisher” movie uses a different actor than in the 2004 movie, and “Hulk” too. I much prefer a more solid universe where the cast is what it is, so it’s more believable this way.
Hopefully, the “Fantastic Four” will get a third movie too to finish up their trilogy, but this doesn’t look very possible now… At least the “Wolverine” movie is coming out soon!
The first full album of “Rantings of Eva” is out! It includes older songs from their EP and some new ones too. “Sirens” and “Fracture” are their best of their new songs, but “Bright Side” remains my all time favorite of their repertoire and one of my favorite songs of all time. Overall, an amazing alt-rock album that more people should know about. Help the band by buying it DRM-free from iTunes for $10 or from Amazon for $9. This album is my first iTunes purchase, even if I had an account for a while now. Overall rating: 7.5/10
A few months ago I published an interview with Dusty Watts, guitarist of ‘Rantings of Eva’.