phillip's weblog of infotainment!

I purchased a 2006 Lexus IS 250 in Jackson, MS while I was TDY to Keesler. Gave old car to cousin Samantha. photos

With only six years and two months time in service, I have been selected for promotion to Technical Sergeant (E-6). Line number 7169 of 7314. I'll probably be promoted in July 2008. My points (average selectee points in parentheses):

TIME IN GRADE:    20     (37.98)
TIME IN SERVICE:  14.5   (24.08)
DECORATIONS:       3      (5.4)
EPRs:            135    (133.30)
PFE:              70.83  (60.86)
SKT:              76.04  (53.9)

TOTAL:           319.37 (317.17)

CUTOFF SCORE:    315.8 (3C0x1 only)

Jessica, a woman I met at Keesler, got me to sign up for Facebook. It is ok for keeping up with what some friends are doing, but a bit of a walled garden.

I've been planning to buy a new car whenever I get my next PCS orders. No telling when that could be. SSgt Stall reminded me a few days ago that I can't spend my money when I'm dead of a heart attack. So I'm looking at a Scion tC. Also considering: Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Saturn Aura, Hyndai Sonata, Kia Optima.

Yesterday I volunteered (EPR coming due) for what I thought was going to be Habitat for Humanity but actually turned out to be fixed up Camp Shady Brook, a YMCA camp in the mountains about an hour northeast of Colorado Springs. Let's just say I'm staying out of the sun today. Photos.

Heard on NPR: An Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq

I added my Google Reader (Wikipedia) shared items (feed available) to the sidebar. Some call it a link blog.

Twitter.

I update Flickr at least.

Many errands to run.

This afternoon I received two vaccinations, but not before the guy in front of me passed out.

In my right arm I got a typhoid fever shot (good for two years) which makes your arm quite sore. On my left arm I received three pokes for a smallpox vaccination (good for ten years), which uses a live cowpox or possibly the vaccinia virus. It leaves a scar.

Ordered a second IOGEAR 320 GB external hard drive from Newegg. Or I could have taken the time to burn 80 DVDs.

This morning I marched in the Colorado Springs Veterans Day Parade.  I had volunteered for it earlier in the week.  I woke up at 7:30 to get ready. I left the house at 8:15.  It was snowing heavily.  I got downtown at 8:45, We started marching at about 9:45.  A refresher is needed on counting cadence for some.  See AFMAN 36-2203, Drill and Ceremonies.

Last Thursday my squadron had Open Ranks in service dress at the the base fitness center.  The commander seemed to take a second look at my hair, but didn't say anything.  I had planned to get a haircut the evening before, but I had to work late.

At the last squadron commander's call, I was awarded the Air Force Commendation Medal.  Here is the citation:

This is to certify that the Air Force Commendation Medal has been awarded to Staff Sergeant Phillip M. Stewart for meritorious service 15 October 2001 to 1 March 2005.

Accomplishments:
Staff Sergeant Phillip M. Stewart distinguished himself by meritorious service in various assignments, culminating as Vulnerability Assessment Specialist, 50th Space Communications Squadron, 50th Space Wing, Schriever Air Force Base Colorado. While assigned as a Space Systems Controller, Sergeant Stewart masterfully supported the launch of a 100 million dollar Global Positioning System satellite. His proactive troubleshooting reestablished the correct data connection and enabled the flawless launch of this critical space asset. A premier Information Assurance adviser, Sergeant Stewart rigorously evaluated over 200 critical information systems, ensuring all systems were identified, accredited, and secured. Additionally his outstanding technical knowledge ensured the 50th Space Wing's publish and military websites were compliant with United State Rehabilitation Act [Section 508]. His attention to detail ensured site content met stringent standards and allowed disabled users' access to all website information. The distinctive accomplishments of Sergent Stewart reflect credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.

Last weekend was a three day weekend, with Columbus Day on Monday. I went to see War of the Worlds at Picture Show at Citadel Crossing where movies only cost $1.50. I didn't really care for the main character. When I walked out of the theater it was snowing pretty good. The side mirrors and rear window were covered by snow. It continued to snow all through Monday. Tuesday saw the first delayed reporting of the season.

Saw Serentiy this evening. It was quite good.

You may resume living your life now.

My right arm is sore from playing dodgeball Thursday morning as part of WarFit. My squadron left work early yesterday to bowl, but I just ate some curly fries and played a couple games of Ms. Pac-Man at the bowling alley before leaving.

Josh is playing D&D over at the Macks today. I'm finishing up watching the Firefly TV series and plan to see Serenity this weekend.

I just donated €9 ($11.10 USD) to the Azureus team.  Usage.

I've been looking at buying a new car for some time now. I currently have a black 1995 Ford Tunderbird LX which I purchased in 1998. I save a lot of money as long as I keep it since liability-only insurance is cheap and it has been quite reliable. But it certainly needs a paint job and the windshield replaced, which I'm certainly willing to pay for, I just haven't gotten it done.

I got over my reluctance to buy a foreign car last time I visited my parents. I've been wanting a Honda Accord, like Jim, but I recently noticed a very nice looking car: the Kia Optima. Apparently Koreans now almost match Japanese auto makers in quality.

Yesterday morning I placed my first ever order at Overstock.com. They had a few books at prices better than Amazon.com. Just now I placed my first order in years with Buy.com: a 320 GB external hard drive for $199.99 that Jim told me about. Now if only they don't run out of stock. See also: the best internal hdd.

Friday morning I passed my annual physical fitness test (governed by AFI 10-248) with a score of 80.7 out of 100. 75 to 90 points is "Good". Breakdown: I ran the 1.5 miles in 13:44 for 36 of 50 points. My 32in waist (slightly sucked in) gave me the full 30 points. 7.2 points out of 10 for push-ups. 7.5 points out of 10 for crunches.

I've forgotten everything I wanted to write about now. Starting to get cold the last couple nights. Low of 36 tonight.

Internets active!

A workman from Adelphia came by yesterday and turned on the house's Internet-only cable. I've been busy reading websites, torrenting bits, updating software, etc. I have a third 300 GB hard drive, video card, and power supply to install. See new computar setup.

About a month ago I moved out of the dorm on Peterson AFB where I had been for almost four years and into this house that my friend Josh owns. My main motivation to move out was the extra money I would make. Moving out of government quarters I will be paid BAH of $681.00 (E-5 without dependents in this zip code) and BAS of $267.18. That's $948.18 extra tax free dollars a month. My rent is $500 and includes utilities. Besides that, the only extra expense is having to pay for my meals while at work, which is usually less than $1 a meal.

I just paid $24.95 for one year of Flickr Pro. I wonder if it is worth is.

Moving to a house over the next couple weeks, need to get the carpet steam cleaned this weekend.

I'm in a ridiculous Windows XP administration class today and tomorrow.

TDY to Biloxi for a two week 7-level school confirmed for January 2006.

Insert list of Tezuka Osamu manga ordered via Amazon.com

Purchased more mutual fund (SWDIX) and bond fund (SWLBX) shares.

I'm putting 5% of my base pay into the Thrift Saving Plan. Hugh tax advantage. Will increase to 10% soon.

Just donated $20 to the Wikimedia Foundation.

Amazon make it easy to order stuff

• Tokyo: A Certain Style
• Comic Books and Other Necessities of Life, by Mark Evanier
• Katsura Masakazu's I''s, vol. 1. I picked up volume 2 a couple weeks ago at Media Play.

Wiki power is here to stay

The best places for getting info on current events such as today's London bombings is Wikinews and Wikipedia.

New DVD burner

NEC Beige IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3520A BG, $42 shipped, FAQ.

Google Maps hacking

Working on something.

Back for the attack

Firefox 1.1 isn't too far away. Surprisingly fastback will be turned on for it even though it causes quite a few bugs. XUL error pages have been turned on by default. A couple bugs to make them better: Favicons for XUL error pages, netError.xhtml should look a bit better. Drag and drop reordering of tabs has been fixed for a while on the trunk. The Burning Edge has more.

Well, I swore that I wouldn't buy any more DVDs until a high def sucessor was out (hopefully Bluray Disc). But I caved and ordered BBS: The Documentary. Turns out it is under a Creative Commons license and I could have just downloaded it, but the guy who created it put a lot of work into it, and I feel he should be rewarded for putting it under a free content license. Torrent links for the poor: one, two.

First hailstorm of the season yesterday evening. This is why I don't want to buy a new car before I PCS.

At Schriever on Friday there were some events related to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. A lady from the local Chinese was doing free caligraphy.

Power Supply dead

About 7pm my power supply popped loudly and gave up the ghost. Gathering dust must have short circuited it. It's dead, but the fuse inside it doesn't look blown. I ran across the street to the BX during a Survivor commerical break and bought (sales tax free) a 350W power supply for $49.95.

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox trunk nightly builds are pretty stable, only crashing about once a week. Just checked in is the new superfast back and forward.

Air Force

I gave a five minute brief on secure passwords and social engineering at 22 SOPS commander's call yesterday, and at 3 SOPS commander's call today.

My troop is on a permissive TDY to DallasCon 2005 this week. His first EPR is due in August, so I'll start working on my first ever EPR writing soon.

Air Force related

Gazette.com: Airman dies from fall. Drunk 19 year-old fell from the second floor of my dorm around midnight Sunday. Sucks for his family.

I have gotten my first troop. A1C Smith, He's an eager fellow who knows more about network security than most 3C0X1s.

I should get to Keesler AFB at least once this summer for a class. I'll take leave en route and try to visit some friends (zin, Shannon, fRy).

Since I passed my four year mark recently I need to build a new rack which includes the Air Force Longevity Service Award.

I reenlisted for another four years earlier this month. The oath:

I, NAME, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Etc.

The April 4 issue of Federal Computer Week is pretty good. It covers open source software. There are articles on Firefox and wikis. The March 28 issue of InfoWorld has a cover stoy on enterprise blogs and wikis. Wikis are exploding this year. I'm trying to get one on the intranet at work.

Air Force happenings

This is my second week as a Staff Sergeant, the first non-commissioned officer (NCO) rank the U.S. Air Force. I'm still getting stripes sewn on various uniforms.

The 50th Space Wing at Schriever AFB is currently in the middle of an operational readiness inspection (ORI). I'm part of the body pool that is working for the AFSPC Inspector General. Last Saturday I was moulaged out at Base X to play the part of an injured person.

Air Force deployments used to be three months. This increased to four months in Sept 2004. And now for some people deploying to U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility will be there for one year. But I'm not complaining, it's still much less than the Army's 1.5 years.

Also, I've got another ribbon to add to my rack:

BY DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AUTHORIZED BY THE EXECUTIVE ORDER 13289. On 24 Feb 2005 General Lance W. Lord, Commander of HQ AFSPC approve the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal (GWOT-S) to all US military members assigned, attached or mobilized to AF Space Command for at least 30 consecutive or 60 nonconsecutive days from 11 September 2001 to a date to be determined in the future are awarded the GWOT-S.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

I donated $105 to the EFF last month.

Adelphia cable Internet bandwidth limits

A couple weeks ago my Adelphia cable Internet bandwidth limits changed. I think my download speed limit is about 200 KB/s now where it used to be 400 KB/s. I used to be able to upload at 28 KB/s but can now upload at 50 KB/s. This upload limit increase has helped my BitTorrent ratios. Yesterday was the first day that I have gotten my BitTorrent ratio up to 1 on two J-Pop trackers that I frequently use: Hello! Tracker (52.5 GB) and jpopsuki (19 GB).

Over 1 TB soon

I currently have four hard drives for a total of 830 GB. But they are all about full, so on Thursday I ordered a second 300 GB SATA hdd from Newegg.com. This will put me over 1 TB. I'm already using the two SATA connectors on my motherboard, so I also ordered a PCI SATA expansion card. FedEx tracking. While I was at it, maybe I should have bought a second GB of RAM and a faster DVD burner.

Speaking of hard drives, I thought I might have lost my 200 GB one morning when it had some write errors and then disappeared. It came back on reboot, but I need to continue to burn stuff to DVD off of it. I really need a Blu-ray drive. Almost 50 GB per dual layer disc sound great, although that is 20 discs per terabyte.

Amazon purchases

• Bone: One Volume Edition, 1300 pages for $26.37
• American Splendor (2003), $11.97 DVD
• Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 2 (B&W), $1.49 DVD
• Planetes: Volume 4: Part 2, final volume of this manga
• Shadow Star volume 6

11:55pm. TV show watching. Just finished watching the first four episodes of the Japanese dorama Gokusen. It is like female version of Great Teacher Onizuka. Before that I watched the latest episode of Boston Legal.

Audioblog, the second. VOC002-2005-01-20.ogg

Late. I'm thinking of buying this Norcent 42in Plasma EDTV display. Only where would I put it?

Bram Cohen: Apache Bullshit

11:00pm. Yesterday evening was my Airman Leadership School graduation dinner at the enlisted club here on Peterson AFB. Raina and Pat came. I sat at a table with my commander. He gave me today off. Tomorrow I start my new job in the new Information Protection Office (IPO). It should be more hands on that my work in the Information Assurance office. Saturday I fly home for xmas on two weeks of leave.

I just orders the three TPB volumes of Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends by Rick Veitch:

1. Rabid Eye: The Dream Art Of Rick Veitch Volume 1
2. Pocket Universe: The Dream Art Of Rick Veitch Volume 2
3. Crypto Zoo: Volume Three of the Collected Rare Bit Fiends

I think I'll order a t-shirt or two or maybe a poster from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Maybe the Frank Miller and the Brat Pack ones.

I picked up from the post office yesterday my first ever flash memory based MP3 player: Creative Labs MuVo Micro N200 512 MB MP3 Player (Black). It is pretty cool. It has an FM tuner and can record both radio and voice. So I was checking it out at 5am before going to bed this morning and recorded this, call it my first ever audioblog: VOC001-2004-12-16.ogg. I was very tired.

I'm seeding Morning Musume 2001 13nin gakkari xmas special part1-2 (640x480 subtitled by HPS) for Redline. And of course I have lots of stuff to seed when I'm on leave.

8:15pm. Every couple of weeks or so I need to email or paste a link on IRC that is very long. I then try to remember the name of one of those URL shortening services. Well, I've found the best: notlong.com. They even have a very nice comparison of all the different services. http://ascent.notlong.com is much better than http://search.suprnova.org/search.php?data%5Bse... etc.

Dell came out with a new widescreen LCD monitor last month, the 2005FPW. Apparently Dell is NOT positioning it as a replacement for the 2001FP that I own. The 2001FP is better anyway for a couple reasons. One, even though the 2005FPW is widescreen, it has fewer pixels than the 2001FP: 1680 x 1050 is 80 pixels wider, but 150 shorter! Two, most games have at most, one or two widescreen resolution options, usually none. Quake3 has one, Doom3 has two, but back in August the id Software CEO said that the Doom3 widescreen was faked, dunno if it still is.

Rush - Echoes on the Stages is the best freakin' bootleg ever. It is from 1996-10-18. It is available on Suprnova in Shorten format. (Christ, I hate Shorten, FLAC is so much better. I think I'll use foobar2000 to output it to wav and CDex to encode it as FLAC.) One person's review:

This has to be one of THE greatest find for us RUSH fans. WHERE IN THE WORLD DID THIS SOURCE COME FROM?? WOW!!! The sound is crystal clear with nice stereo separation and a wonderful mix. ... According to the packaging, this source is taken from the rehearsal performance one night before the T4E tour opening night (19 October) at the Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY. There is no crowd noise, because there was none. RUSH is going through the entire setlist (probably) in front of the crew and perhaps few lucky individuals who had the privilege to be there. Sometimes Geddy throws in odd lyrics here and there; and during some of the older songs, Geddy doesn't sing the lyrics at all and just lets the music come through. Listen to TSoR for some of Geddy's humor!! What a great addition to anyone's list.

Speaking of BitTorrent, should comic book publishers be worried about online copyright infringement of their published works online? I would say yes. See these four Z-CULT FM trackers: tracker1, tracker2, tracker3, tracker4. And there is also the large comics section on Suprnova.

Wired News: Weather Data for the Masses - This is great. Colorado Springs: RSS, XML.

8:30pm. I ran some errands this evening after ALS. First I went and picked up my mail, then out the main gate to Galaxy Cleaners to pick up a blues set and drop a BDU top. Coming back I stopped at Military Clothing Sales and bought a white dress shirt for my semi-formal uniform that I'll wear to my ALS graduation. I then got a $6.45 haircut, had the battery replaced in my watch for $4.50, bought groceries at the Commissary, and aired up a tire that seemed low on my car.

I'm thinking of buying the Creative MuVo TX FM 512 MB flash memory based portable MP3 player for $130 (includes shipping). Even though I would prefer something that also played Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, I still have many things in MP3 format (audiobooks, jpop, etc.). I would use it mainly when forced to exercise by the Air Force, which is three times a week. This device also works as a USB drive.

11pm. Yesterday I went over to the house of Josh and Raina for a bit of Thanksgiving where it was mentioned hitting some stores for the sales in the morning. I visited the BX at 4am this morning for a free $20 gift card. It was too crowded to actually buy anything. At 10am I went to Wal-Mart for a couple $3.88 DVDs.

While I was there I grabbed an HP DeskJet 3520 color printer for only $26.88 (price comparisons at froogle). This will be only my second printer since 1994. I have been happily without a printer for over five years. I rarely need to print anything for myself, and when needed I could do so at work. But for ALS I need to print out some homework, and a printer may not be reliably available at ALS. I just noticed that it doesn't come with a USB data cable. Luckily I have a spare that came with my new monitor to connect its built in USB hub.

This printer works "mostly" in Linux with the hpijs driver. Hmm, maybe I should have bought the HP DeskJet 3740. It is only $37.99 at Amazon.com and is reported to work perfectly with Linux. Earlier in the week I was looking at getting the Epson Stylus C86 Inkjet Printer for $94.04.

Froogle now has wishlists and store ratings. Google Blog. One thing that Froogle needs is the ability to specify favorite stores. I would prefer for products at stores I trust and already have accounts at (Amazon, Newegg, Yahoo, etc.) to always appear at the top of product search results.

A couple great audiobooks that I listened to last evening: Bill Maher's When You Ride Alone, You Ride With Bin Laden, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction. Good and funny stuff read and performed by their respective writers.

Red Hat Magazine. Looks pretty good, but it uses Scalable Inman Flash Replacement, which totally sucks when FlashBlock is used. And what sane person can stand to use the rotating, click-the-box, smash-the-fucking-monkey ad-banner filled Web with Flash always enabled?

There is a Firefox endorsement at the top of this page visible only in IE. This is done via conditional comments (which I don't care for but they are standards compliant and in this case are put to good use). I'm 99% sure Google will not index text in such comments.

Midnight. I ordered a new video card from Newegg. My über monitor desires DVI. Track.

10:19pm I checked out Steam, Valve Software's content distribution system, for the first time yesterday. As such it is pretty damn impressive. A 700 KiB application download, where after installing, you just punch in a CD key and it downloads and lists everything you are able to play. Looks like the future of commercial games is here.

I punched in an old Half-Life CD key and was playing Counter-Strike for the first time in years 15 minutes later. I played a little HL single player and then a good bit of Team Fortress Classic, fun fun.

CNET News.com: Computer gaming's Steam-powered war

10:51pm Half-way through a four day weekend.

Small Form Factor (SFF) PCs are cool. I'm tempted to build one based on the AOpen EX915 XCube. $324 at Newegg.

Pat came by to pay me $200 for my old computer which I put together for him a while ago. He also returned the 15in Sony Trinitron monitor that I was going to sell him for $50, but apparently there is something wrong with it, a green tint or something. I'll hook it up and see. While he was here I sold him my old digital camera for $20.

I just ordered the DVD of Freedom Downtime.

10:22pm Second day of Airman Leadership School (ALS) complete. Twenty-three training days remain. Thursday is a holiday, and Friday is a down day. I should graduate on 15 December. I'll work at Schriever for two days and then fly home for the holidays. I've finished up at my old job in 50th Space Wing Information Assurance. My new job will be in the new Information Protection Office back in Mod 3/4. I've been out of the mod for almost a year and a half.

My new computer display and new 300 GB hard drive are doing well. I need to buy a video card with DVI out. Hardware list.

I have strayed from the purity of my DVD minus past. I ordered a 100-pack spindle of Velocity 8X DVD+R for less than $30. The price has been going up. Amazon probably was losing money on shipping a 5 pound object for free.

Three good TV series you should check out: Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton, Himalaya with Michael Palin, and Alistair Cooke's America. All three are on Suprnova.

Firefox 1.0 was released today. It's really an essential part of my Internet experience. I'm very displeased when I have to use Internet Explorer on some other computer.

8:00pm HALLO! Jim told me to update. Watching Alaska: Big America on the History Channel. Heading to the chow hall for three cans of soda. More to come.

Hardware:

Philips DVP642 Progressive-Scan DVD Player - This $64 DVD player plays XviD and DivX burned to data DVDs. Works great with what I've tested so far.

My dad was planning to buy my brother and I new digital cameras for Xmas, but I wanted a better one to take to Washington D.C. for FIAC at the end of this month. A 5 megapixel Canon PowerShot A95 is on the way along with two sets of rechargable NiMH batteries with charger and a 512 MB CompactFlash memory card. A95 reviews: Steve's Digicams, DCRP.

Other things on order from Amazon:

• DVD: Revolution OS
• Book: Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror
• Manga: Buddha, Vol. 5, Deer Park, by Osamu Tezuka
• Manga: Shadow Star, vol 6
• Manga: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, by Hayao Miyazaki [second edition box set]

When I went out to look at an A95 before ordering one, I found out that one of the Best Buys here has moved to a new location that was not yet open. So after getting some ice cream at Coldstone I went over to Circuit City to look at the camera. Before leaving I bought a Memorex Shower CD Clock Radio. Doh, the reviews of a similar model at Amazon are not good. That will teach me to impulse buy. This is why we need ubiquitous wireless Internet access for PDAs, so I can look shit up and instantly compare prices.

New HDD ordered: Revolver pointed out a great deal from Newegg of a Maxtor 300 GB Serial ATA, 7200 RPM, 16 MB buffer hdd for only $212. So I ordered that this evening. I've been out of free space on my combined 520 GBs for a few weeks. Damn you Bram Cohen!

Software:

I'm currently updating my Firefox every few days with a nightly build from the Aviary branch that 1.0 will be released from. I'll switch back to using trunk nightlies after 1.0 is released. Features on the trunk that are not the branch include mouse wheel not scrolling in overflow areas, CSS error reporting, and more. The Burning Edge is currently tracking branch changes. Opening links from applications in new tabs is the coolest new thing. The only problem is that if you choose to "Select new tabs opened from links" affects not just links from other apps but also links when you middle-click.

VLC Media Player 0.8 should be coming out soon, but just like Firefox, you can check out nightly builds. Screenshot.

Doom9 tells us that ffdshow has a new release (20041003) out.

FLAC 1.1.1 is out, changelog.

foobar2000 0.8.3 is out, screenshot.

SUCON'04 Captured Talks

6:50am Today I start my drive to Keesler AFB for a 2.5 week Computer Security Management class. When I get back I'll upgrade my video card.

A couple months ago I found my MP3 CD player under my front car seat. It had been there since I drove out here in Oct 2001. I tried to get it working, but it was dead. I was planning to listen to Pimsleur Japanese leasons on my drive. I guess I'll stop and buy a new MP3 CD player along the way.

I'm not taking a computer with me, but I will be taking a bag of paperback books. I've got VNC set up on my computer here.

Along the way I will try to visit zin in Dallas, fuzznutz at Barksdale AFB, and then I'll stop at home in Madison, MS before heading to the coast on Sunday afternoon where I'll see Jim and Ed..

As a courtesy, Adelphia would like to let you know that you have reached 100% of your monthly download allowance on the 5GB newsgroups account for the period from 07/12/2004 to 08/12/2004.

Slate: Why Garfield Sucks (my title)

CHEAH Chu Yeow: New features in Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8

Google finally added a favicon on their secure server making it much easier to fine in a bunch of tabs.

Cleaned up my Places page a bit.

I went to PC Club and bought two 80 mm case fans (one OKgear, one Galaxy Crystal LED) and a second set of 10 black thumbscrews. Thumbscrews make opening a computer case so much nicer. My computer is all put together with the case on now. I still need to buy a new video card though. A sound card to prevent the onboard Realteck sound from slowing the system during play of the forthcoming Doom3 would be nice also.

I have a couple spare hard drives, one 40 GB and one 80 GB, that I will be shipping to Deathreap.

I'll be at a network security class at the local SAIC facility this week.

A two hour tornado warning was about to take effect a few minutes before 1500 at Schriever, so several of us ducked out instead of going down to the first floor hallway. Right before I got to Peterson it started to hail. It hailed for about 5 minutes. A few minutes after I got him it starting hailing dime sized for 10 minutes.

I'll be at the Federal Information Security Conference at the Antlers Adam's Mark Hotel for the next two days.

Army gets new combat uniform. Can you say Starship Troopers?

aard was asking about it, so I've updated my user.js for Mozilla and relinked it from my start page. One important addition is config.trim_on_minimize.

bludulv was nice enough to send me a Gmail invitation. The interface is quite nice. I especially like the keyboard shortcuts. Gmail Browser Requirements. Opera should be supported when Opera v7.60 comes out. I guess I'll make it my primary email address. I was trying to switch to my Adelphia account as my main account, but I won't be with Adelphia forever. My usage of the excellent Thuderbird might be reduced though. Gmail support https, but it doesn't tell you that or present a link for it anywhere. You have to hack the URI yourself.

The first season of HBO's Deadwood finished up with episode 12 on Sunday. An excellent show. I had forgotten that yesterday was the premiere of the Mark Burnett's The Casino (I'd link to the official site but it is an all Flash piece of shit) on Fox. Luckily I saw the torrent for it at one of the two TV torrent sites I regularly check. Unluckily, we have cocksucker censors in this country: Censors Cut Sin From Sin City, Fox Tones Down "Casino". Joe Schmo 2 started tonight on SpikeTV. It doesn't look like it will be as good as the hilarious first season, which I plan to buy on DVD.

DU Meter has been deleted. NetMeter wins. Thanks, Ichabod.

Good-bye, DU Meter. It has been fun.

Thanks for the day off, Ronnie.

CHIEF's Sight Picture: Adapting the AEF -- Longer Deployments, More Forces. AEFs, like the one I'll be going on at the end of the year are now 4 months instead of 3. At least it isn't a year like the Army.

Gunner Palace

Today there was a base-wide yard sale on Peterson AFB. I started by heading over to Bert's house where I later bought a couple shirts for $1 each. Across the street I picked up the first edtion of Mastering Regular Expressions for $1. On the same street I bought six CDs at $.50 each and one DVD for $2. Walking around the neighborhood I found one more thing, an ATI TV Wonder VE for $3.

For Tuesday morning's WarFit, we did a simulation of the AF fitness test. I ran the 1.5 miles in 12:22. This morning we ran 4 miles. My calves are protesting.

Internet radio: Kawaii Radio, SuprNova Radio, Virgin, Icecast Steamlist.

A second three day weekend this is. Continuing to bittorrent, burn dvds, and play RoNx.

Jim set up WordPress. I should do likewise.

New software releases: GAIM, Azureus

Several of the guys in #quake play RoNx, and we just played a 2 on 2 game. Victory.

Wikipedia is very cool. You can see my recent changes and all recent changes.

Webcam: I bought a new webcam. Computar page updated for your amusement.

Games: Still playing aoe2 with the fellows along with a bit of RoNx.

Television: Series I'm enjoying include Deadwood, Good Luck!!, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, Monkey King, Sahara, The Ascent of Man, Gokusen, Ace wo Nerae, and Bishojo Senshi Sailormoon.

Manga: I'm reading: Maison Ikkoku, Sgt Frog (Keroro Gunso), Excel Saga, Rurouni Kenshin, DragonBall, Shadow Star (Naru Taru), Iron Wok Jan, Trigun, Alice 19th, and Get Backers. I'm going to start reading soon: Tenjo Tenge, Negima.

Air Force: Tested for E-5 for the first time on Tuesday. I've got less than a year left on my current enlistment. I got a CJR so I can reenlist if I want to. They killed all reenlistment bonuses for my career field before I became eligible to reenlist.

I'm not happy about a bit of vitiligo visible under my chin now. I'd like to grow a beard to see my white hair.