the pod bay door

:: Perhaps the planets were out of alignment when I made a number of upgrades to my home computer recently, because I continue to encounter nothing but problems. To wit, I’ve loaded Office 2003, Moveable Type 3.121, Firefox 1.0, and Norton Internet Security 2005, within the last few weeks. I’ve detailed problems with Firefox already, and continue to delay facing the inevitable regarding getting new templates for my blogs, which needs to be done to make them work in Firefox, especially STLQ.

The non-stop aggravation is now with Outlook 2003 at home. It has now decided it doesn’t want to work anymore, and keeps giving me this error message:

Task ‘podbaydoor.com – Receiving’ reported error (0x8004210A) : ‘The operation timed out waiting for a response from the receiving (POP) server. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).’

Yes, yes, I’ve searched the error on the ‘net, found pages at Norton and Microsoft that discuss it, and tried to replicate the suggested solution within Norton 2005 – makes no difference. And with the new version of MT, when I save an entry, it kicks me out, back to the login page – I log back in, and the post is there, saved. D’oh! Of course, this also means that if you are e-mailing me, I may not get it, and you may not get a reply, either, until this is fixed.

I’m plugging in the iron so that I can use it on the white flag I plan to raise soon. Why is it that when you upgrade to improve the functionality of your machine, it never seems to work right?

That sound you hear is me sucking my thumb in the fetal position on my bed. First, ice cream. Good night.

:: I continue to have problems with Firefox, and the time being taken trying to make it work is wearing me out. I downloaded FF 1.0 for the second time at home this weekend, making it my default browser. The problem begins when I login to MT 3.121 to manage my blogs. The login page is out of alignment – note the top bar on this picture – when I log in, and the page that opens up after I log in, listing my blogs, is skewed to the left. It gets only worse when I go to the create a new post page, also skewed left, and looking like absolute shyte. I ran AdAware again, made no difference, so FF is once again uninstalled on my site. *sigh* This is getting ridiculous. I want to embrace this new browser, which is getting rave reviews from Geoff, Kenton, and others, but I keep hitting brick walls. I think there are ghosts in my 2.5 year old Dell Dimension 4400. That, plus the machine is aging quickly. I am methodically removing music files from the 80g hard drive to free up space in hopes that it won’t be as sluggish. Most likely, I need a faster processor. 1.6 doesn’t cut it anymore.

:: I am way behind answering e-mails, with 200+ in my inboxes between work and home. I’m working on a book chapter, about the literature of petroleum engineering and refining, which is taking up most of my time these days. I will get to the e-mails soon. When I solve the Firefox problem, I also need to install new templates for STLQ, which doesn’t line up properly in Firefox.

:: After watching Modest Mouse on SNL on Dec 13, a band with whom I was unfamiliar, I purchased their two most recent albums, The Moon and Antarctica, and Good News For People Who Like Bad News. Modest Mouse makes interesting, eclectic music, not easily accessible, but so far, worth the listening effort.

:: What a difference two weeks make. Two weeks ago, Ashlee Simpson reduced the musical history of Saturday Night Live to one of its lowest points ever. Last week, Modest Mouse brought the level back up to where it belongs, enough to convince me to purchase their new and second newest albums. Tonight, U2 raised the bar much higher. I finished watching the east coast feed of SNL, the actual “live” broadcast, which I can watch at 9:30 pm here in Edmonton, because I have digital cable which carries the Detroit NBC affiliate. U2 opened with Vertigo, followed with a brilliant and moving ballad from the new album (don’t know the name yet), and closed the show by bringing the house down with “I Will Follow”. Rarely do bands perform three songs on SNL (I can think of Springsteen, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., and Paul Simon – there are probably a handful of others.)

I felt exhilarated watching them perform on the show. During the closing number, the entire cast of SNL was off to the right, watching, enthralled and entranced, smiling broadly, almost in disbelief that U2 was actually performing in their house. I taped the show, and rewound to watch them perform again afterwards. Three amazing performances, inspiring to watch and experience. A great band, about to hit the top again. Last Sunday, Jon Parales, writing in the NYTimes, suggested that How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is the best album of their 25-year career.

What dumbfounds me is that Lorne Michaels presents us with top notch bands like U2 and Modest Mouse, but counters with absolute assembly line shyte like Simpson. Perhaps U2’s performance will encourage him to book top-notch high quality bands that actually perform live, well crafted, original music on a live show, and that haul ass while doing it. HTDATB will hit #1 within days of its release on Tuesday. Its purchase will be an antidote if you will, to help me forget about the upcoming result of our forthcoming provincial coronation election on Monday.

:: Yesterday I upgraded my Moveable Type installation from 2.661 to 3.121. Did it go smoothly? HA! And the Boston Red Sox Chicago Cubs won the World Series this year, too! I do not have the template/CSS/coding savvy of Certain Other People I know and respect immensely, so I will ask you to bear with me for a while, please, until I determine how to deal with the new comment templates, which are sucking eggs right now. As well, STLQ looks like shyte in FireFox.

What I need to do is simplify things, and rebuild both sites (STLQ and PBD) with a new set of templates. For now, I’m going to bbq some salmon.

:: Rather than create more entries, I’m going to add to this one, so I can look at this picture for a while. Cindi has links to a number of great sites, some funny, some sad. I saw the Sorry Everybody site on Michael Moore’s page the other day. Americans can send photos of themselves to the site. Each picture features the contributor showing a written apology for the rest of the world to see, for the Nov 2 election results. Those of us in the rest of the world can send a photo with a message of support, including my fellow Canadians. Some can get very creative; perhaps they watched the opening credits for Napoleon Dynamite. A soldier who served in Iraq apologized. Texans are sorry. Yoda understands. Babies are upset, as are scientists, cats, dogs.

:: It began by rising at 0545 hrs, driving to Kathryn’s house to pick her up and drive her to the airport to fly to Cincinnati. I returned home and went back to sleep. When I awoke, I putzed around and then decided it was time to put up the Christmas lights, which took about two hours.

Then I went to Ikea – the Ikea store here is new, but only in that it’s a new building. Ikea has been in Edmonton for years, first at WEM (still the planet’s largest mall – yes, it’s bigger than Mall of America – but apparently not for long), then the store moved to the south side, and earlier this year, to the south south side of the city. It’s the first thing you see when you drive north into Edmonton on Highway 2.

It’s an enormous store, the size of a few football fields. The customer service is outstanding, and – this isn’t trivial – the frickin’ shopping carts are so much fun to push around. They are silent – no spinning wheels – and have four wheel drive. Wal-Mart, Safeway, Costco – are you paying attention? The Swedes have been on to something good for years. Ikea serves a $1 breakfast every day – gotta try that soon. Today I bought some light blue Gullmaj curtains, grey Index wall fittings, an Index curtain rod (grey), and Index Sarita finials. I’m going to attempt to install the curtains in front of my new sliding door by myself. (Mike Nichols, stop laughing now!) The staff person said to wash and dry the curtains first. The curtains are in the dryer, and at the moment seem to have lost some of their colour. I’ll check them tomorrow morning.

This evening I went to the movies, ostensibly to see Birth. I arrived and was told the 7:30 show was cancelled for a sneak preview. Immediately annoyed and with little time to decide what else to see or else leave, I chose Napoleon Dynamite instead, which was a total hoot. I was surprised to find the theatre packed – the movie had played at our art house cinema previously for a few weeks, so I thought the theatre would be 90% empty. Word: if you haven’t seen the movie and plan to, DO NOT leave when the credits begin. The movie resumes after the credits and continues for about 10 minutes. The credits are great – each one is served on a plate of food.