Aussie Phorums

Aussie Phorums - Blogs http://phorums.com.au/blog.php Phorums, computer technology, DVD, australia competition en Wed, 19 Jun 2013 05:49:22 GMT vBulletin 60 http://phorums.com.au/images/misc/rss.jpg Aussie Phorums - Blogs http://phorums.com.au/blog.php test http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?216-test Wed, 22 Feb 2012 08:52:29 GMT (*)(*) (*)(*) ]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?216-test The Chronicles of Dean - Part 16 http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?188-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-16 Fri, 30 Apr 2010 07:50:16 GMT Captains Log (sensually masculine and rather large), Fri 30 April 2010 5:10 PM I found a page for putting Gentoo portage on my Mac. I was excited. Macports sucks when it comes to uninstalling a dependancy, reinstalling things, finding orphaned packages, finding things that need to be... Captains Log (sensually masculine and rather large), Fri 30 April 2010 5:10 PM

I found a page for putting Gentoo portage on my Mac. I was excited. Macports sucks when it comes to uninstalling a dependancy, reinstalling things, finding orphaned packages, finding things that need to be recompiled when libraries and other files move. Macports is pretty good, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

This is a new Gentoo portage, not the ancient one that had a lot of problems and is now abandoned, and the manual specifically mentions details for Snow Leopard in regards to choosing a 32 or 64 bit build directory.

It turns out that Gentoo on the Mac is currently worse than macports because the packages that I want aren't building. I'm currently doing it again, in a more desirable location as well because where you start is where the directory has to stay (bastards should put that at the top of the manual). The reason I'm doing it again is primarily because I liked having a bash that behaved like the bash I was used to on linux. The colours of the files are the same at the command line, and more importantly, if I forget a cli option I can put it at the end of the command, for example in mac:
ls Directory -l
thinks you're looking to list the contents of "Directory" and "-l", while a proper bash experience should realise that you just wanted to use the -l option and put it at the end. This has always pissed me off about OS X. There's probably a simpler way than bootstrapping a bunch of stuff, including a compiler, and building another bash, but I don't know what that simpler way is.

Another benefit I hope to look at is that Gentoo and Macports should be able to work together where things are broken, for example, because of the differances in the way the BSD and Linux ports of some programs have been done, command line options mean differant things, and Macport developers don't comb through 3000 line bash scripts to find all of this. On top of that, sometimes there's things that are just plain missing in Macports. An example of both of these things is the tovid script for converting from any playable format to DVD.

I know that no-one uses DVDs to burn movies anymore, and we all have old laptops with VGA cables hooked up to our big TV's, but I needed to make one for someone. I installed tovid from macports, but found that some of the command line options didn't jive so between looking at man pages on OS X and an ssh into a Linux box, I fixed everything. This is a huge script. Its like 3000 lines of bash. The script then hands off to python scripts. I found it odd that anyone would bother with 3000 lines of bash.

Long story short, some of the tools that are later called weren't installed as dependencies when I installed tovid through macports. Those tools, as it turned out, don't exist. It makes it pointless to even have tovid available in macports. I could have saved a lot of time by rebooting into my Linux install and doing it from there, where tovid does work.

What I'm getting at, is that now I can edit the ebuild dependancies... for example mplayer isn't building at the moment in Gentoo, and macports is lacking some tools. I know those tools will be available in Gentoo, so what isn't available in one system will likely be in the other. The idea in this case is that I'd be able to run tovid without leaving OS X by putting both macports and gentoo in my path, and editing the Portfiles and ebuilds so that I can get everything jiving correctly.

If you need help and you can find them, maybe you can hire The A-Team.
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo...trap-macos.xml
At the time of writing, I had to skip building make the first time and let apple's make do it. I couldn't build apple-gcc until after portage was built. I did it before the sync. Remembering from yesterday, there was a problem with python and get-text or docxml or xml something... something like that... one of these builds will fail. Its a circular redundancy. you need to emerge --oneshot --nodeps python then emerge python again to pull in all its dependencies which will include the offending ebuild. Somehow, I think I didn't run into this today though, and that I had already dealt with at the point I'm at right now, which is emerging the GCC that portage is going to be using after emerge -e system at the end of it all.
Also, I didn't have the troubles with make yesterday that I did today... actually now that I think of it, the solution ended up bieng to hit the enter key when it hangs. That I am having a different experience right now than I did yesterday suggests that the project is alive in its maintenance.

Portage on Mac, even if it sucks, is kind of exciting, especially when the notion is that it will probably gain support rather than the other way around, plus I'm pretty sure I'll have a working tovid tonight. ]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?188-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-16 The Chronicles of Dean - Part 15 http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?187-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-15 Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:38:36 GMT Fri 26 Mar 2010 07:07:50 EST

It annoys me every time that someone brings me a Windows problem that involves something that isn't actually them being a dumbarse, because my experience with Windows OSs is that I have almost none, which makes me, fundamentally, a dumbarse when it comes to solving non-dumbarse issues, yet it happens often enough to be annoying.

"How do I get around this Windows Genuine Advantage shit?"
"How do I figure out what's causing a failure to write to usb drives?"
"How do I remove all of these viruses that I got by downloading free antivirus software from pop up sites and Frostwire?"

I always tell people "I don't know, but there's a lot of forums out there that have people that will be able to help you, and it will be a lot quicker than waiting a month or two before you come across the next geek friend you have and then once you do find that person, its faster than having 2 week lag time between trial and error for diagnosis and treatment." I say that nicely though, not how I just wrote it, but it doesn't matter because out of fear for looking dumb, or joining a message forum and being flamed over not using the search function or something, or whatever the reason presumably is, their problems stay unsolved.

This brings me to a new thought. A while back, Canonical was promoting Ubuntu various ways. One was by offering free shipping of the OS to anywhere in the world. I got one of their releases this way when I was still on dial up and wasn't willing to spend 4 days downloading something that I only had a mild curiosity about. They no longer make it such an appealing offer and instead state that if you aren't able to use a download mirror or a torrent then they will ship it to you, but the implication has changed from "Here! take it!" to "Fine! if you really need it then we'll do you the favour."

The other large thing in the promotion of it was that they offered on their website that local volunteers would come to your house and install it on your computer. They might have also mentioned that there would be some basic education on using it but I'm not certain now. It was a long time ago.

Well I guess it doesn't matter because I don't remember what that new thought was anymore. Maybe it was something to do with how people, back then given the smaller community and even fewer who could really work around bugs and get everything working as needed... well If I had to have someone come to my house to install an OS, I sure wouldn't be able to use it, and like many other people who used popular Linux distributions at that time, I spent a lot of time googling, and later on dicking around with things to get things working properly as every computer is differnat. I'd hate to be the guy who was volunteering for home visits to install the OS because at the time there were always more than a few things that were essentials for your average user that needed special attention to get working, if at all, and my presumption is that all the Ubuntu community (dorks and idiots as a mob but a lot of good people with good knowledge as well) wanted was to have everyone ditch their XP, and the reasons for that ranged from the idiotic to the idiotic... and I should know because I've had my idiotic reasons. Plus, everyone knows that we should all be buying Mac products while complaining about those products at the same time... the trend has started to shift and this will be the new way.

My name is Dean and I wish I knew what my new underwear was called but I don't pay attention to these things and my wife bought them, so I didn't really look at what style they're named, but they're black.

Ohhh wait... you know I think for the first time ever, I wrote something that people might actually read. If I were to just use the complaint about people asking me to fix their Windows issues, that I know nothing about, and exclude the rest. I'd actually have something that I could throw ads if I ever had a crap load of page hits. Yeah Buddy!!!... $100 a month here I come!!! In fact there's probably 2 or 3 blog entries lopped into one here. 4 if you count my underwear. ]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?187-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-15 The Chronicles of Dean - Part 14 http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?186-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-14 Tue, 23 Mar 2010 04:26:33 GMT 19 year old girls on the internet are not to be trusted, not even if they seem incredibly grounded (which I am not) and mature for their age.

I'm sure the question in everyone's head is "Why is Dean putting any time into strange 19 year olds?" Its a good question, and part of my answer is "Exactly!", but part of it is an explanation as well. Its someone who I came across as a 13 year old 5 years ago, who I found rather annoying at the time but forced myself to be nice to and who over time I came to think was a blitheringly simple person to talk to occasionally, for the reason a smart yet stupid stereotypical blonde is. She got onto my messenger a while back, as a forum gossip queen who I knew I could both leech for info and feed info to to be indirectly passed around, over some self inflicted chaos involving political bullshit between myself, a moderator, and someone who just discovered the internet the week before (or so you would think given the stupidity of their reaction to my usual ... over reaction). Anyway, that's how this friendship started.

I maintain that this was only a friendship as well. I only asked to see her boobs 30 to 40 times so it was all quite normal. I'm kidding, and truth be told I have asked to see them. I don't think they would be that exciting, however my wife finding out that I asked... that would create more than a little tension but it wouldn't be sexual in nature.

My wife does know who she is, and knows who some of you people reading this are. She even remembers people from a forum I used to post on 8 years ago.

I've forgotten where I was going with this when I started now. I think I just wanted to complain. Its not just girls of course. Guys are the same way and adolescence is what it is. I really shouldn't expect people to follow their moral integrity over a mob mentality, loyalty to someone else who has a problem with me, indefinitely, unreasonably, and I really shouldn't expect them to follow their integrity further than an ice cream truck... okay that's an overstatement, we'll say "nightclub" instead... which is kind of funny now that I think of it because I got a Facebook event invitation for a guy's birthday at a nightclub... "Ladies drink free" and the picture of the place halfway resembled a cheap brothel looking thing... or so I assume that's what those places are in the city that have an entrance with a stairway going up. Obviously, I'm not going.

I've forgotten what I was saying again... its the lack of sleep I'm forcing myself through at the moment.
Oh yeah... I was saying that of course it isn't just girls that are like this, however they do gossip a lot I guess but more importantly I've never really had the urge to put guys on my MSN. There's some on there and have been in the passed... one who was 19 that I met from a forum in fact. I was helping him moderate is why he was there. After that I ever so often made conversation with him and then started asking about his sex life. If he didn't actually have girlfriends from time to time I would have thought he was gay for putting up with my harassment at all along with the nervousness.

Kids really aren't screwing as much these days (here in Australia), than they were when I was the same age (in the US)... good on em I guess.

Right... so how did things go wrong with this girl? Well I'm not even sure they have to be honest, but it is clear that after being suckered into joining an incredibly... immature themed forum of hers, that it may be time to ... yeah well it looks like there's been a large violation of trust. I guess when the 13 year old forum gossip queen grows up, its expected that this is going to happen.

I find it incredibly difficult to end counterproductive relationships on the internet in comparison to it being... not without ... I think its my age. I didn't have the internet until I was ... hmm, I didn't have a computer untill 2000, so I was 28. By the age of 28, the ideal would be to have naturally learned how to deal with and go through life's problems such as staying away from a person or a place that gave you the shits. 8 years on the internet and a little more than half of that with broadband, and I find myself ... having to learn fundamental skills. It feel belittling now that I finally identify it.

This failure to leave something alone goes for social sites as well, including this one. I'm not trying to be disrespectful or ungrateful, but its not like there's anything really going on here that I should feel the necessity to come back. I don't as often of course, but its still every day.

I guess that its a widespread thing... this unwillingness to let things go online, in comparison to real life lessons that we learn, for example I have 2 friends that are recently separated and I'm pissed off enough at their behaviour toward me (I was used on both ends unknowingly and yes I see the sexual innuendo there so I'm taking the fun out before anyone can be stupid) that I'm pretty okay with not really bothering with either of them and I'm sort of keen to give back some property that they lent us. This I have WAY less problem with than I do with the idea of leaving my Facebook account, which I don't even look at for days at a time, don't upload often to, and don't even use my real name on (privacy... futile even still it seems though).

Yeah so basically... if you think you know a 19 year old girl on forums and MSN that's head centred and has enough integrity not to go behind and slander you over opinions that aren't even their own, then you're wrong. You've actually found one of those lizard people from "V" and just haven't figured it out yet.

My name is Dean and I switched from boxers to those boxer/brief looking things that are sort of like the swimsuit that Daniel Craig wears in the swimming scene in Casino Royale and they're absolutely incredible! I love them. They're really comfortable and the hold everything exactly where you put them for as long as you can go without peeing... maybe even longer but I'm afraid to test for results. ]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?186-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-14 When was the last time you smelled the roses? http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?184-When-was-the-last-time-you-smelled-the-roses Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:47:12 GMT Time is too short - we all need to find time to do the things we want to do & not the things that everyone else wants us to do. We need to take time out of the rat race before it's too late! I finally realised that even though when you become a mother & a wife you still need your own space & time because if you don't you never make it up & won't be able to pick yourself up again & make yourself whole - no matter what you do.

You need to change your focus, make a difference & start making decisions - stomp your feet its your time. Take the moment you were born with & STANDOUT. Make a reason - no become the moment & start your reawaking - become successful, take control of yourself & over everything you do & start sharing your gift because being a mother & wife/lover you can do anything you can achieve anything you have done so many things. You have conquered the world & lived, especially sleep deprivation, dirty nappies, being fat & just going through all those hormones. You have survived.

Now i's your time to STOP, & SMELL THE ROSES..... or ELSE!!!!! because I SAID SO!!!!:) ]]> babylocks http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?184-When-was-the-last-time-you-smelled-the-roses The Chronicles of Dean - Part 13 http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?183-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-13 Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:33:00 GMT Tuesday 15 December 2009, 1:32 PM I find it hard to believe that everything falls at the same speed inside of a vacuum. We got a new vacuum and it has one of those clear things where the dirt flies around in a circle... a bagless vacuum, and its pretty obvious that a marble would end up at the... Tuesday 15 December 2009, 1:32 PM

I find it hard to believe that everything falls at the same speed inside of a vacuum. We got a new vacuum and it has one of those clear things where the dirt flies around in a circle... a bagless vacuum, and its pretty obvious that a marble would end up at the bottom while a feather would just keep spinning around and around.

The only scenario I can think of where a feather and a marble would fall at the same speed inside of a vacuum would be if you dropped the vacuum cleaner from an airplane with the feather and the marble inside of it, but that's obvious. That's like saying "Everything falls at the same speed inside of a file cabinet."

I always knew that school was mostly useless. ]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?183-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-13 well i went out last night http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?182-well-i-went-out-last-night Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:26:30 GMT I went with my friend and her sister and cousin, so we basically went where they wanted to go or had arraged to meet friends or whatever. But the place next door was playing really good music, the songs I really like when I hear them but can never remember what they're called and don't know who sings them, I always think they're kinda fast Seattle Band music but I don't even think that's right - maybe I'll discover one if I go looking on YouTube and post it here later. Anyway we were lined up for ages outside waiting to go into this other place. Sometimes I think I should just go out by myself because I have no problems dancing with strangers and then I could choose where I want to go.

But I had a pretty good time except I'm pretty sure their vodka was watered down because I had a lot of drinks and it can't just be the fact I balanced the last five with water that leaves me with no hangover today except feeling a little bit tired. Anyway I danced and my friend was really funny drunk so I had a good time, and my other friend was the skipper, which was really nice of her.

The thing of great importance I discovered last night was that it's absolutely inexcusable for a club to play "Uptown Girl" or any Billy Joel for that matter. As my 4-year-old would say in a TV-acquired American accent - "Eeeeewwwwww..."

Well I guess I should've gone to the other club. ]]> walli http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?182-well-i-went-out-last-night The Chronicles of Dean - Part 12 http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?181-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-12 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:13:03 GMT Wednesday 9 December 2009, 9:12 PM

Radio Damaged during attack. Enemy came hard and fast. Troops overwhelmed. I'm last survivor in compound.

Saw orange smoke on mountain peak 36-J. I'm 10 clicks away. Enemy burrows at peak sunshine hours of day. Suspect that seasonal UV exposure causes too much irritation to their alien skin.

Orange smoke could be Alien trap to flush out survivors from bases within line of sight, then again it could be a legitimate call for help.

Will shelter here for the night, then head for hill 36-J during high UV hours and hope for no heavy clouds appearing in the sky.

Overtaking a working alien craft to get off world is not a wise action. Can only hope that orange smoke turns out to be Alliance and enough of them to overtake a working ship. Would be certain death if I tried it on my own.

My overall mood about the situation is optimistic despite the odds. Back on Earth I had planned to have sex on every continent. Asia and Antarctica are still my virgins so I feel my odds of escaping and getting back home are pretty good. ]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?181-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-12 noentrytitle http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?180-noentrytitle Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:10:49 GMT I have plans to read blogs people imagine nobody will ever want to :dD I have plans to read blogs people imagine nobody will ever want to :dD ]]> walli http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?180-noentrytitle The Chronicles of Dean - Part 11 http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?179-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-11 Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:38:19 GMT Thursday 3 December 2009, 11:30 PM Not Much really going on. Rearanged a bunch of furniture again, this time in attempt to create a psychological feeling of a bigger workspace for my wife by swapping the towering filing cabinet with the bookshelf. It worked. It involved, of course,... Thursday 3 December 2009, 11:30 PM

Not Much really going on.

Rearanged a bunch of furniture again, this time in attempt to create a psychological feeling of a bigger workspace for my wife by swapping the towering filing cabinet with the bookshelf. It worked.
It involved, of course, dropping lots of things behind heavy objects that needed to be moved in order to be retrieved.
Unfortunate result is that now the towering filing cabinet is sitting right next to me, and I feel psychologically boxed in. Will, possibly tommorow, swap out other couch with dinner table and move to other couch, thus creating the illusion of more space and removing monolithic filing cabinet blockage that keeps me from seeing my wife when she is at her desk and I'm on the couch.

Stated in previous blog that I don't know if this section is moderated and will be testing to find out. Downloaded picture of lesbians from google images, and typed all of the above for no other reason than to make sure it doesn't show up on the blog previews, and thus thwarting the possibility of attention to it from the random blogs coming up when clicking on the blog section.

Here it goes:

Attached Thumbnails

]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?179-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-11 The Chronicles of Dean - Part 10 http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?178-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-10 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:19:50 GMT Monday 30 November 2009, 2:20 PM

I really don't have much to write about. I'm incredibly bored, which is why I'm here.

I do have a few things on my mind at the moment though... and as follows:

Why the hell is "Murder She Wrote" on afternoon television? Who watches it?
My muscles in my upper right shoulder are very tense and I'm now in some pain, especially went bending and lifting and throwing stuff around and that sort of stuff. As a sub thought to this thought, once, my nerve got pinched very badly and I couldn't reach my arm all the way above my head. I went to grab some juice from on top of the kitchen cupboards, and my arm wouldn't go all the way, and then I had decreased strength in it. It came back when the pressure came off. Had a bit of numbness too. It was a whole shoulder problem apparently. I felt it sort of pop into place when it resolved.
Why the hell can't my wife like canned chilli? I like it and its so easy in comparison to the things I prepare that I'd like to substitute canned junk with.
Is that real beef in canned chili, or is it rat meat? Do I care?
Why are there sometimes boobies and sex scenes in the middle of the day on TV?
I wonder what's in the packages under the tree that my wife put there. There's three of them. I know that one will be and electric razor.

Yep, so that's about it. ]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?178-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-10 The Chronicles of Dean - Part 9 http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?177-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-9 Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:17:12 GMT Friday 27 November 2009, 12:17 PM

I survived the lighting of the Christmas tree at Martin place. I've already talked about it twice so I thought I'd give an update on it.

The show sucked compared to last year. It was terrible. There was that hippie girl from playschool and she was good because she was singing familiar playschool songs, and she's pretty animated. My daughter liked that part a lot. We went with her cousin and parents. My daughter and her cousin, same age, were dancing around like crazy, so they liked that part too. They like to hit each other and get mad, then hug each other, then laugh and play, then hit each other... well they don't really hit very much at all, but they sure don't know what sharing means yet and can argue and play tug of war with just about anything, and push each other over and stuff.

When we first got there, we put our blankets on the ground, then more people came and this guy put his bag partway on our blanket. I happened to have the pram in my hand and picked it up and swung it across and smacked his bag out of the way. You have to be ruthless at these things... regardless, by the end of it there were people overlapping their blankets onto ours, I couldn't really move position very easily and it was really uncomfortable.
We probably looked like we were hogging space becuase we had room for the kids to dance and wrestle, and I'm sure everyone thought we were jerks, but then an hour later everyone else came which was 4 more adults and anyone who had bad thoughts or worked their way into our space now had to feel the shame of knowing that they had gotten it wrong, and that evey inch they had stolen from our space was now a major inconvenience.

Yeah so the kids liked it, or at least the part were the hippie Playshcool girl sang. I don't know her name. An older lady with short hair and a pink shirt came out and sang with a screeching and horrible voice, song after song after song after song after song, and every time she said "How many people out there are here with family?" or something like that, it was just dead silence. She sucked. My wife said that no one was listening and I looked around and sure enough, it was a crowd full of people staring at everything but the stage.

There was a kids choir, and they were okay, but not really the appropriate thing for the kids that would be attending the event I think. I think the woman who sucked at singing stayed on stage longer than she was supposed to as well, because the tree is supposed to be lit at 9:00, but it didn't get done until 9:20ish.

I had a good time while our kids were playing, which was about the first half of the time, but after that it was just uncomfortable to sit.

The real downside this year, is that someone, somewhere must have puked up the nastiest smell ever. I was looking around for where it was and never did figure it out. Its been since I was a kid that the smell of puke, or seeing someone else puke has made me puke, but I almost did multiple times last night, and the feeling lingered for like an hour after we left.

It occurs to me that I'm really focusing on the negative. Overall, I didn't have a bad time. I enjoyed the company, the kids had a great time for a while during the show and for a while afterwards later.

Anyway, we got home late, and then I woke up, ate breakfast, then I checked my email, other internet crap, and here I am, so there's really not much to type about, plus I'm still sort of waking up as I don't feel well rested.

Oh... that reminds me. I stopped drinking coffee, and the addiction is gone, but **** I miss it because I love the taste. I have some decaf so I'm going to get some in a second. ]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?177-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-9 The Chronicles of Dean - Part 8 http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?176-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-8 Thu, 26 Nov 2009 03:26:14 GMT Thursday 26 November 2009, 2:25 PM My wife is getting home a little early so we can go to this stupid Christmas event at Martin Place where they eventually light the stupid lights on the stupid tree. The kids like it, but I think my wife likes it even more. She called me from work and asked me... Thursday 26 November 2009, 2:25 PM

My wife is getting home a little early so we can go to this stupid Christmas event at Martin Place where they eventually light the stupid lights on the stupid tree. The kids like it, but I think my wife likes it even more.
She called me from work and asked me to have a tuna sandwhich ready for our daughter because my wife is picking her up on the way home and says that when she gets off work she usually has part of her sandwich left that she hasn't eaten and that Leia eats it in the car, and loves it.
I know that my wife is a slow eater, and that even when she schedules herself a lunch in anticipation that no-one will cancel an appointment, that she still can't seem to eat the whole thing in the allocated time, and I don't understand why, but oh well.
I don't really care that the sandwich isn't completely eaten. Oh yeah I forgot to say that I make her lunches that she takes with her. What bothers me, is that she gets home with my daughter and I'm hoping to either have dinner almost ready when she comes home, so that she has time to kick off her work clothes and so forth, or I try to serve within an hour of her getting here. This means serving Leia too. All this time I thought Leia was a picky eater, that she was being sort of defiant at times. I've been cooking separate meals for her trying to get her interested in our food... but no, the reason is that my wife is feeding her the uneaten part of her sandwich on the way home. I'm a little annoyed at this.
Not only that, but there's a line that's crossed, where my daughter makes it a game to not eat, and the line is when she's outright deviant and ordering one of us "NO!" when we say "Do you want a bite of chicken?" or something, because as soon as that happens I get up with a peice of chicken and she IS taking a bite, otherwise it becomes acceptable for her to order us around at the dinner table, and were very passive about it to begin with.
So yeah, the sandwich eating makes me more of an authoritarian than I need to be as well.

I can't put my hands flat on the ground. I can't, for example, do pushups because my wrists won't bend that far. They will but I'll snap a bunch of ligaments or tendons or something. I had an injury 9 years ago where I fell 10 almost completely head first and broke a lot of bones and crushed nerves in both wrists when I landed as I landed hands first to swing my body down more and keep from landing straight on my head. It was really successful, and I ended up landing on my chest. I still smacked my forehead on the ground... the physics of the fall are still rather baffling. Anyway, I also sort of bounced, and came straight back up to my feet in a half crouching position, and I just stood there for a moment to see if smacking my head was going to knock me out or not, because I knew I was hurt and was going to lay down backwards rather than fall again... but I didn't get knocked out so it was all good. I mangled both of my wrists and had 3 surgeries. Broke one of my elbows that I wasn't aware of straight away becuase of the pain in my wrists, and had a rather large scab on my leg (with only a couple drops of blood supprisingly) that later fell off to reveal a festering mess that I had to have X-rayed to see if it went all the way to the bone. It almost did.
Anyway, I wore casts for 5 months on one arm and 7 months on the other, and I never got the mobility back. So its not that I can't do push ups.. its that doing them on your fists with your wrists straight is really hard (go ahead and try one), and I can't be bothered.
Ever since the casts came off, I can't put my hands straight to have sex. I use my fists to support myself, and when my daughter wants a horse back ride, I use my fists to crawl around. So that's about it for now. I have some mild arthritis on occasion in some of the joints in my left hand that I'm sure is related because its the same ones that hurt like hell when I did it, and later when I hadn't had the casts off long and tried to break a longboard in half by punching it. Apparently my left hand only gets one really good punch, and if that object decides that it doesn't want to move, then I can no longer use that hand for long enough to make a difference. I don't remember why I brought this up. I think its because when I sit on the ground and put my hands on the ground to support me, its again my fists, and today I expect that the pavement is going to be really hot at the stupid Christmas tree thing. We're getting there ridiculously early to get good ~~seats~~ pavement.
I hoped it would rain but its fairly unlikely, and I then hoped it would at least be a little cloudy all day to keep the pavement from getting direct sunlight, but its been sunny. Its 27 degrees outside which means the pavement is 4 million degrees.

In Los Angeles, on hot days, they would sometimes tell you on the news, during the weather report, how long it would take to cook an egg on the sidewalk. Its sort of a bizarre measurement, but then again some ancient civilisations used to keep records of how perky the womens' nipples would get in the winter. This was the earliest form of temerature measurement.
No I'm just kidding. I thought of that when I was in England in the winter and it was -3 degrees outside at noon. Here I am recycling the joke 2 years later. The egg thing is true though. I wonder if they still do that.

So I think that Leroy Peterson is my secret Santa. I think his query in the shoutbox about supersaturating lollies into softdrinks was an attempt to get to know me better.

If it isn't him then its siliegrrl, because when I sent her a message about all systems being go, she said something about wondering what my secret Santa would get me. Then again, she has the taste of power, being the one that's the central source of ... she's the central server.

Sex this morning. Not bad. Was average.

My name is Dean, and these are my words. ]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?176-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-8 The Chronicles of Dean - Part 7 http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?175-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-7 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:35:50 GMT Monday 23 November 2009, 5:35 PM

Loose stool again today. Not unpleasant though, just something that you don't usually talk about, so I thought that I would.

Its official. I now don't really like Windows, Mac, or Linux. I really enjoyed Linux as a desktop machine while I used it, and I still use many tools that I used on it both on my Mac, and remotely, for example right now I'm converting files on the machine hooked up to the TV up to DVD format. I didn't think I'd ever be converting to DVD format again, but here I am.
The truth is that Linux really would be a great choice, being free and all, if a small handfull of projects got just a little better, and shit got ported to it more often. The last Ubuntu release was pretty good, I even was able to tether my iphone for internet use as easy as on the Mac. Some things sucked arse though. It'd be a bore to go into it, but I'll cut it down to one, also boring, sentence and say that packaging from Debian unstable was this time not a good idea.

I get a massage today. I get my fat body massaged and its supposed to make me lose weight. I've now officially weighed myself on my doctor's scale, however I've already lost considerable amounts.. visibly, and according to a tape measure, and I'll just have to see how it goes now. Oh right... the good part. She does a really relaxing bit on my back. Most of the time I think to myself "Its probably only another $50 for her to continue and give me a really nice massage," but that is for the corporate whimps, plus she doesn't really speak my language and if even if it isn't sensual, I need some sort of dialouge to feel like there's a buffer between me and the person who's making my body feel great.
I always think its a bit strange to pass by a place in a shopping mall and its a little tiny hole it the wall with a curtain and barely even enough room for one person and the massage therapist.

Yeah so... in less than an hour this lady will be here, and usually after she does it, she puts voodoo heat cream on me, and wraps plastic wrap, then aluminium foil, then plastic wrap again on top, around my belly and chest. It's absolutely ridiculous, but she comes from a country where everyone is pretty superstitious and I'm sure she beleives this part is beneficial. I think it just makes my skin feel as if it is hot where it is, makes me sweat, which means I'm sweating under plastic wrap and some creme stuff and it feels all sloppy. When I take it off, my skin is red, and it still hurts for a little while. Also, she made me this shirt out of stretchy material that's so freaking tight that I honestly can't breath as well as I should because my chest doesn't expand like its supposed to.

Today when she comes, hopefully my wife will be back, but also my cousin in law will be here, so I'll have two translators, and I'm finally going to tell her that I don't want the torture cream, plastic wrap, and that I'm not wearing the shirt of despair. I figured out this morning that I actually already know how to verbalise all of that, without the adjectives, without help. I'd thought about telling her before, but I haven't wanted to have a bilingual debate about it. So basically I'll be telling her out of my own mouth in the presence of my wife and her cousin, and then if there's any debate I can say why in English, nicely and not like I just did, and then keep on saying "No quiero."

These inlaws are going overseas this week, so we have a mini Christamas... got them gifts. Maybe they got us some. Don't know. Cooked enough food to feed everyone but can freeze it if not. I'm a well organized ~~housewife~~ Darth Vader.

Thursday, I'm meant to go to the Christmas tree thing at Martin Place. I went last year. We were almost all the way up front, and oddly, Georgie Parker (who was hosting it) sort of kept on looking at me. It wasn't my imagination. I didn't even really make anything of it until I'd gone to walk around a couple of times. She was following me with her eyes like she had a crush. It honestly was like that. Then it went away later.
Anyway, you have to get there early and sit in the scorching hot sun to get a spot at all. Also, anyone reading this who plans on going, should get some kind of heat buffer to go between their arse, hands, arms, feet, or whatever you're sitting on the ground with. The ground is like 160 degrees and it stays that way until 1 AM. I feel sorry for homeless people now that I think of it. Probably not 1 AM though. The other word of advice, is to go with a group and spread out just a bit, because the more people that come, the more you're going to feel obligated to cram in, and in my case, I ended up sitting next to a guy in business clothes that stank worse than any cab driver I've ever ridden with. In fact it was worse than anyone that I've ever encountered, ever. The breeze would occasionally just barely start and it was coming straight at me as well. I didn't care about the breeze bringing the smell, because I could already smell him, but a bunch of my inlaws were on the other side of me from that breeze, and I didn't want them to think it was me.

Right, so some playschool folks come out. Some other kids TV show people come out. The kids love it, I hate it but survive, then Santa comes out and he pulls the big thing that makes the light to the giant tree come on.

I hope it rains to be honest. The back up plan is to go out to dinner if it rains. I'd rather go out to dinner than sit on a hot pavement and have a scorched bum. Its also dirty. People walk there all day.

So its 5:30, no inlaws are here, my wife isn't here yet... I thought I'd be cutting this short, but I'm out of mundane crap to go on about.

Oh yeah, I remembered. I thought I had finished my Christmas shopping, but I hadn't. NOW I have finished my Christmas shopping. Life is good. I'm glad I got it out of the way. ]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?175-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-7 The Chronicles of Dean - Part 6 http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?174-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-6 Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:58:51 GMT Wednesday 18 November, 1:59 AM One day, a long long time ago, in the US, in the summer, and described here in a sentence with a lot of commas, in Florida, where summer is really hot, I was working at a halfway house, and part of my job for a short while was shopping and cooking for everyone. We... Wednesday 18 November, 1:59 AM

One day, a long long time ago, in the US, in the summer, and described here in a sentence with a lot of commas, in Florida, where summer is really hot, I was working at a halfway house, and part of my job for a short while was shopping and cooking for everyone. We only had 8 clients at that time, but in addition there was me and my boss, so I was shopping and cooking for 10 people on a really restrictive budget. I used to shop at a Super WalMart. Its really the only place you can hope to feed 10 people on less than $150 a week, and I'm still amazed that I managed it. They carried huge portions of things though, like instead of buying a normal sized can of beans, you can buy a restaurant sized ones and the price break is significant. It isn't like that for that many items at WalMart though.

I'd usually take a couple clients with me to help out, and also so the could actually witness the budget I was working with and how far it went because it curbed their bitching about not being able to eat crap cheeseburgers out of the microwave at any given moment, or other such stuff, especially since we ran a program where they were directly responsible for the money they paid to stay there, by requiring them to get a job.

So one day... oh wait... there's another story here too. Our administrator, who was useless except that she was the head of a treatment center so the company was basically paying her to do nothing but send referals, but I still had to fax her all the reports I did. Anyway this one guy was a bit of a sex addict, especially in the absence of drugs, and I thought it was that he just made some stupid decisions about women... like seriously very bad choices that led to some stupid dramas in the environment, but it wasn't uncharactoristic of the environment and he was just a little worse. One day I took him shopping, and in the US, prostitution is okay... except that its been outlawed by every state, except Nevada, and out of all the counties in Nevada, there's only one that hasn't outlawed it. I think its only one. So basically, there's only one little spot in all of the US where brothel's are legal. The taboo of prostitution is pretty ... large, as one can deduce. Its also why its always illegal when you see it in US film. I didn't know what the word 'brothel' meant until I moved to Australia and heard it. I'd all my life been saying 'whorehouse'.

So this guy was a good guy. He was an honest guy when he wasn't high, and he was an honest guy rapidly after getting clean too. On top of that his prognosis was really favourable, which is refreshing when 3/4 of the people you deal with are there by court order, or in hopes of sucking up to a judge during an impending court date. It was common for people to lie and say they were voluntary and weren't there as part of a parole or probation, which was retarded because we didn't care anyway and only asked to document ... okay we wanted to know if we had been violent criminals and if was incredibly serious we ... hadn't yet crossed that bridge... and also we would admittedly come up with a convenient excuse to turn away sex offenders, as a legal liability to us (plus its creepy), and I don't remember how I got to be typing about this...

Oh yeah... this guy was a good guy all around. Also, our administrator was incredibly hot, and although I was never allowed to say anything about that observation, there was always alot of talk amoungst everyone else about it. She came around and talked to everyone every now and then... then she'd leave and all of the sex deprived (by nature of male institutionalisation) guys would say what people say sometimes.

So I was shopping with this guy, and 10 minutes walk or so was a motel that was sort of thriving on the business of crack dealers living there and people buying and renting the rooms to smoke it and screw prostitutes. You would never know by driving by the place though, because the literally did live at the motel and there weren't dealers or prostitutes hanging out outside. I didn't know until that guy told me.

He went missing. We couldn't find him. We went to the parking lot and I saw him walking back. Asked him where he'd been. I thougt he'd been across the street at another motel where the crack was obvious.
So it was a pain because I was going to have to do a thorough drug test which instead of doing a "random" or "hmm... maybe" drug test, was more than just giving someone a home pregnancy test style one, but driving him an hour to the treatment center where our administrator refered from, having him p*ss in a cup, having it sent to a lab, and getting the results back, which by the way it takes WAY longer to receive urine or blood tests like that in the US than it does in Australia. Here if you get a blood test, you get the results the next day sometimes. In the US its a week, and you might be dead by then if you actually needed the blood test.

He saved me the trouble and just fessed up, and this is sort of a testament to the taboo of prostitution in US culture because saying so was surely less preferable for him that if he had actually gotten high and was going to magically think he was going to avoid a positive result (which always happens, and I'd previously done that myself when drug tested when I was using, as well).

So he just told me not to bother, that he'd gone and screwed a whore. Its pretty weird because apparently at that particular place, the guys actually pimp the girls out, and he used to go there before he came to the halfway house. The arrangement meant that he had to screw the girl with whoever was taking part of the profit, still in the room. That's a really weird arrangement I think. I've gotten high with whores when I didn't have anywhere to smoke and had guys come around and knock on the door every 10 minutes and want to make sure things were okay, and thought that was excessive.

Okay right... so I guess its weird now, and far less a big deal, but at the time it was because I ended up, if I remember right, either waiving, shortening, or giving him the lightest reprimand that I could contort into applying... I think I gave him the lightest thing possible for visiting the area where dope was being sold and called it 'disrespect for his fellow housemates as a community' and I don't remember how the hell I justified that. In the US it should have been more serious because he'd gone AWOL. Anyway, the real punishment was that I had to write a report and send it off to our hot administrator in a society where screwing a whore is a step down from screwing a sheep.

Yeah so that's it.

What I was originally going to say though, is that when I walked around this store in the Florida summer, there'd be lots of girls in tshirts, some without bras, and I once thought out loud, to the same guy coincidentally, something like, "They should pay us to walk around behind some of the girls, following them and holding up their boobs if they aren't wearing a bra. Its just the right thing to do. Its good customer service."
As it happens, my wife let my play "bra-man" today when I remembered it while she was doing stuff in the kitchen. ]]> MeanDean http://phorums.com.au/entry.php?174-The-Chronicles-of-Dean-Part-6