Paul’s alice.homelinux.net weblog

Tonight I finished installing the “Sansa” cable track lights I purchased from Ikea. I was very excited to find them in Bolingbrook for $16.99, especially since the cheapest I could find any cable track kit was roughly $220. But don’t bother searching Ikea’s US site for their other models; not everything in inventory is shown there, which has gotten my goat on more than one occasion.

Anyhow, the kit setup perfectly after I bought some higher-end parts than what came in the package. I replaced the turnbuckles, end hooks & eyelets, and extended the cable with a terminal barrier strip to reach the outlet near the floor. I can’t imagine how the stock anchors would hold up, either, so I used my favorite kind instead.

Side note: I had thought I read somewhere once that all the product names in their catalog are based from city names in Sweden. While Holly and I were shopping, we decided Fartyg would be a great place to retire. Who wouldn’t want to get mail there? Each piece would say “fart” on the address.

Following some discussion with my mom, dad, and other interested parties, I was able to put together a LAN party in my parents’ basement with 6 good PC-toting friends of mine. It took a whole evening to setup; I used my 16-port 10/100 Linksys switch and 10x 25′ patch cables. Mostly Half-Life & mods were played, but I did get a chance to face-off with Joe in The Ship, mostly getting killed (but I did get my kill-Joe-with-fire-axe in!)

It was also a chance for me to try out my first `40′, which was Mickey’s. It didn’t have any particularly distinct taste, which was alright by me. The website is phenomenal, offering everything from a fake-Internet-illiterate spokeman, to girlie-alcoholic-beverage-wallpapers.

I had an abundantly awful trip home Friday. It started with a hippie boarding the Metra train heading for Orland Park, and ended with a car accident. Thankfully, but unfortunately for some other person, the accident wasn’t mine. Oh, but wait…

On the particularly crowded ride home, I found a seat a few minutes earlier than usual and settled in to read and possibly fall asleep. Not long was I sitting there until a group of 3 or 4 hippies decide to plop themselves and large duffel bags full of crap into seats across from mine, turn around, and talk loudly to each other on such topics as:

• Bad pop music
• Unconventional health wisdom
• Political theories

“Not to worry,” I thought, I’ll just tune them out with my iPod. No dice, though; the battery was *completely* discharged. To make matters worse, the girl this particular hippie was chatting with appeared to be at least somewhat ill, which prompted him to butt himself over towards his stowed bag, extract a make-up bag (not kidding), and lend her his “essential oils” or some other such foul smelling substance. I can’t have been the only one who wanted to remove him from the train Silent Bob-style.

Shaking off the train ride, I took command of Green and headed down Depot St. towards 111th. Since the police direct traffic at the intersection, I was able to make the turn easily and head West to the next red light, but it is not long before I notice one of the cars behind me make the same turn a bit more awkwardly. In fact, the car seemed to head into the right turn lane for Harlem a bit too early, jumped the curb, and slammed into a light pole in front of the station of Worth’s Finest.

With the sound of crunching plastic and aluminum, the once-round pole crimped into a flattened tube and began swinging towards the ground, landing with a hollow thud. Only the most crooked insurance company would not total the car. The director of traffic couldn’t believe his eyes, and ran into the police station and back out with more walking cops in tow. The passengers were visibly shaken, but very quickly attended to by the growing horde of cops.

By the time the light turned green, I was more ready than I’ve ever been to get home.

My niece Emma has grown to a point where she exists as The Wiggles. (That is to say, she is one with them.) Consequently, when Heidi and Chris decide to take Emma to a Wiggles live show, it leaves Abby, who has outgrown them, out. So through what I’m certain was some type of election that I may or may not have been involved in, it was decided that Abby would stay with us for Saturday and Sunday.

After a light dinner at Red Lobster, Holly and Abby went to go see Hairspray while I excused myself from said chick flick and rummaged through the local used CD and other stores. Flick ended, we went home and played some Counterstrike: Source and ZSNES, and called it a night.

Woke up early (7:30 is early on a weekend), and since it was raining pretty hard, Holly suggested going to Enchanted Castle in Lombard today. Excellent idea, that is, until I met Elvis.

I saw his machine with the moving shelves strewn with varying amounts of tokens, looking very likely to require just 1 more to cause a chain reaction whereby many tokens would fall into the pits of reward. In fact, just 2 tokens later, and I had a pile of tickets on my hands. But I couldn’t stop there.

My sweaty hands were almost at once empty and I needed to fill them once again with tokens. Off to the token machine I went, returning and examining all the shelves for the optimal spot, almost not seeing the young woman who had taken the spot I found myself seeking. Stifling a laugh as she gave up empty-handed, I moved in once again. But as I ran out of tokens yet again, I think I actually heard Elvis call out from the machine, “Cash in your 401K!”. That’s when I knew it was time to stop.

At the end of the day, what I had amounted to a very happy niece, hands full of expensive (but nearly worthless) items, and a bit less cash than what I’d began with.  I’m happy to have them both.

As a side note: Turns out my mom had the same affliction whilest up in Rhinelander, WI only with real quarters. I don’t know if that’s really worse; using actual coinage or game tokens, though. At least I didn’t resort to stealing.

I find this Incubus song fitting to the time I will see without Holly, since she’s off to some type of sales/staff meeting for 2x 5-day sessions. I wonder if I’ll find myself in this situation sometime in the course of this event…

I’m floating down a river
Oars freed from their homes long ago
Lying face up on the floor
Of my vessel
I marvel at the stars
And feel my heart overflow

Further down the river
Further down the river
Further down the river
Further down the river

Two weeks without my lover
I’m in this boat alone
Floating down a river named emotion
Will I make it back to shore?
Or drift into the unknown

Further down the river
Further down the river
Further down the river
Further down the river

I’m building an antenna
Transmissions will be sent
When I am through
Maybe we can meet again
Further down the river
And share what we both discovered
Then revel in the view

Further down the river
Further down the river
Further down the river
Further down the river

I’m floating down a river

This “fortune“ from slashdot.org has got to be the best I’ve seen.  You know, safety first. 

I’m on a roll with not getting stuff that should be stupid and easy crap to work.

• Failed miserably at applying tint film to the rear door of the Saturn, twice.  I should get credit for not breaking the glass intentionally.
• Since I bought “Just Cause”, I can’t get the coca truck back to the Riojas base in the 3rd mission.  Soon as I leave their base, I get swarmed with cops and Montano cartel.  I don’t think it’s supposed to be that hard, but I’ve tried several times and am ready to give up on the whole game.

I guess some other stuff has worked out, but I would steer clear of asking me for help to avoid being #3.  >:-(