Fire Breathing Cow

Bye bye blog.

2007-09-03T15:30:00.001-07:00

No, not really. I'm just moving. Again. The saga continues at: http://www.whenbunniesattack.com/

OH CRAP. MORE RAM NEEDED.

2007-03-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

OK, so at least it's a good thing we do have virtual memory because I just found out why I couldn't run the processing job properly. It's because it now requires at least 2.3GB of RAM to run. Wow.

Look at that memory spike. No wonder why the computer was thrashing when I only had 50MB virtual memory and then it just gave up

WinXP VIRTUAL MEMORY LOW. ARGH!

2007-03-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's the fault of Parallels or WinXP or what, but somehow my virtual memory got set to 50MB rather than its normal 2098MB. (Big big difference!) I noticed that my computer was significantly slower after installing the latest update of Parallels and that my virtual memory had dropped to almost nil. But, I thought this was a new feature of Parallels' memory management. Wrong. Dead wrong. So my poor laptop has been thrashing for the past couple of weeks!

I took a look at the problem today starting with Parallels' memory setup itself. Everything looked normal to start with. Parallels' memory manager showed it was automatically allocating:

... and the VM looked OK too:

One would think that almost 1.4GB of RAM should be enough for Parallels! Then I booted up WinXP and tried to check out its memory settings under System Properties -> Advanced -> Performance -> Settings and there the virtual memory was showing 50MB. Weird. (The photo shows the correct memory setting, but it used to say 50MB.)

So I clicked Change and lo and behold it had Custom Size selected! Not only that, it was a paltry 50 MB!!!

No wonder why I kept getting "Your system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file." errors.

Now for the frustrating part.

I clicked System Managed Size and hit OK but nothing changed. No matter how many times I tried changing the setting nothing would take effect.

And then it dawned upon me. The Set button to the bottom right is not the Set for the No paging file option! NO! NO! NO! That Set button is actually the setting changer for that entire section! So I selected System Managed Size and then clicked Set:

Now my computer is happily reporting a large virtual memory size!!!

UGH! A simple UI placement of the set button could have solved my frustration.

WIRELESS MIGHTY MOUSE WON'T SCROLL DOWN. ARGGHH!!!

2007-03-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

Crap. After enjoying my Apple Bluetooth Wireless Mighty Mouse for a couple of months now it stopped being able to scroll down. Aaa!!! I use that scroll ball all of the time! I thought it was a communications error, so between yesterday and today I've reset my machine a number of times. I've disconnected and reconnected it. I've unpaired and re-paired the mouse. Nothing worked. So I started searching around on the web.

Lo and behold there are a plethora of articles and blogs and comments about how the Mighty Mouse won't scroll down, or won't scroll up, or just won't scroll. It turns out that this little mouse is really susceptible to lint and dirt. Unfortunately, Apple's "sleek" and "clean" design means you can't open up the frakkin' mouse too. So, the solution? Clean it from the outside.

No, really.

Apple even has an article on it: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302417.

The instructions are basically to get a lint free cloth and rub the ball until it comes clean. (No lewd thoughts there, k?) So I grabbed a paper towel (because that's all we really have in the office), put some water on it, and rubbed the damp towel over the ball many times. And, guess what? It scrolls down now. For how much longer I can't say, but for now I'm at least able to get my work done...

APPLE: PLEASE GIVE US WAYS TO OPEN THINGS UP AND CLEAN THEM.

ERROR CODE -1309. AARRRGH.

2007-02-17T14:03:00.000-08:00

Since starting to use Parallels I know have files that are much much larger than 4 GB--the virtual disks. Currently one of them is sitting at about 18GB, and unfortunately I'm running into this wonderful error:

Sorry, the operation could not be completed because an unexpected error occurred
(Error code -1309).

I did some browsing around and it turns out there is a 4GB file limit on FAT32-formatted drives. Ugh. I put it in FAT32 so I could see it with the Mac, but of course that now creates the problem of the virtual drive. I don't know what to do really. I suppose I could find a file-splitting utility somewhere... Ugh.

GRR. OUTLOOK ERROR POPUPS TAKING OVER.

2007-01-31T19:47:00.000-08:00

I love it when I lose wireless connectivity but Outlook won't quit. Oh it gets better, it starts popping up error messages. So let's say you go away from the computer for a few minutes, what do you see when you return?

GRR!

STUPID SF DRIVERS

2007-01-22T10:51:00.000-08:00

You know, just about every morning I get onto the freeway at a particular on-ramp. And to get to it you really have to start lining up blocks beforehand in the righthand lane. I know this and always try to get in it early. Inevitably, someone new comes driving down not knowing the protocol and I usually let like 1 person into the line. I figure that while it's not cool to let people cut, it sometimes is hard to get into the lineup.

This morning I was trying to get into the righthand lane and there just were no breaks. For no matter how long I signalled to get in no one would let me in. People just sped up. I mean, really! I always help people out and no one would give me a break this morning?! What gives!!! So, I'm a little peeved that "what goes around comes around" apparently doesn't apply to me.

*fume*

Um. EW!!!!

2007-01-02T13:40:00.000-08:00

I now have joined the mass of people using CalTrain to commute to work. Normally, this is a great way to travel. You have peace and quiet, it's fairly smooth, and you can bring cups of coffee on board. They even have cupholders. Ever since about three weeks ago I've been using it at least 4 times a week and I never remember it being really that dirty. Today as I boarded I looked at the seats, then in another car, than in another... each seat was coated with stains and weird crap. I'm not quite sure what it was! Anyways, I asked another train-commuting friend if he noticed the same thing and he thinks it's the freakin' NYE partygoers! AAAA!!! It's so "ew" it needs capitals, boldface, and underline: EW.

I was very seriously thinking of standing the entire 30 minutes ride. But I found one seat that wasn't all fuggled up. *sigh!*

JUST SHUT UP!

2006-08-25T01:40:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe that's a bit strong. But why is it that on Muni people have to yell into their cell phones? Like I'm interested in what happened that day, or what your sister's doing, or whatever! I can understand quiet conversation on the bus, but why yell? Grr!

GAH! AND THE BLINDING FLASH OF LIGHT...

2006-08-02T02:55:00.000-07:00

Somewhere between prying open the cover to the blinding flash of light that came out of the camera body I started wondering if it was even possible to fix my camera. I had been trying to remove a protective ring around the camera barrel mechanism in my little compact camera when I must have made contact with the capacitor for the flash unit. The next thing I new there was a click, a blinding flash of light, and a little glow from the camera body itself. I stopped in mid-motion for a few seconds mentally processing what had just happened.

I was holding a screwdriver.
I had just taken off the camera housing.
I had found a way behind the wires to the stuck camera barrel.
I was trying to free a metal ring around the barrel.

My next thought was: damn! After that I put all the screws back together and pressed the power button. This time the camera barrel did not move and the screen only said: E18. Oh that's bad. Very bad.

Somewhere from Saturday night to Sunday morning the camera barrel of my Canon compact had gotten jammed and would no longer close all of the way. I have no idea what got into it or how to solve the problem. I looked up online that this was common and likely some debris had gotten inside the barrel. I tried jiggling things around like the instructions suggested but nothing was seeming to work. You could press the On/Off button and the barrel would extend, but the focus was badly out of whack. And after the mishap I described above the camera barrel was pretty much frozen.

After cursing things I started to run through my options. I can try to get it fixed, but that will cost probably at least $80 and take a week. I can buy the exact same model for around $250. Or I can do a mini upgrade to a more recent model for $290---also remember that I'd have to buy a new battery. Any which way I look at it, I'm screwed.

Going without a camera is not an option. I am about to go off on another trip and not having a camera would be a tragedy knowing how much of a shutterbug I am. I could get a different brand of camera, but unless it uses SD memory cards then I'd have 3 GB of very useless memory cards and I'd have to buy new xD or memory sticks.

Gah. What to do. What to do.

BIOLOGICAL WARFARE. GROSS!

2006-07-07T22:08:00.000-07:00

The fun thing about riding the city busses is that you get to see all sorts of people. The unfunny thing is you get to smell all sorts of people. And being a warm summer day you can't help but notice that it isn't the bouquet of roses that fills the air. No, when you're sitting down in a seat and it's crowded, some people have to stand in the aisles. And they hold on for their dear lives (because buses make all-too-frequent stops) by grabbing the overhead railing, thus exposing their most deadly weapon: armpit cannons. See, there is a difference between a stinky armpit and an armpit cannon. The cannon is aided by the natural flow of air wafting through partially-opened windows at the fore of the bus which draw air down and towards the aft. As the light breeze passes the armpit it projects The Nasty down towards any occupant seated below. Me. And there I sit trying not to budge from my seat, tears welling up in mine eyes, and using my cell phone to try to create some sort of shield in front of my nose. Oh damn did it reek.

That main course of armpit was complemented with a side dish of Ass. That is served by people who choose to grab the overhead railing backwards, which place the ass right next to your face. Yes, you can try to lean back a little, but the seats don't allow for that much movement.

The takeaway from this is that it is best to get a window seat when possible or be standing above the Smell Zone. Unless you're quite short in which case your nose will still be armpit height---oh poor you.

RERECORDING A VIDEO? EH?

2006-07-07T22:02:00.000-07:00

I don't understand this. You know YouTube---that wonderful site where everyone uploads their favorite anime, TV shows, and video blogs ad nauseum. While browing the popular clips there is one of the Family Guy where the men are singing barbershop quartet style in a hospital around an AIDS patient. I can understand uploading just that clip. But what some bright person did was to go to YouTube, play that segment, and rerecord it with their digital camera, then upload the new movie file again.

No, that doesn't make sense, does it?

So the resulting video is now blurry, shaky (from being handheld), in mono, and once in a while you see the YouTube player progress bar creep into the bottom of the frame. Crazy, no?

OUT OF DISK SPACE!!!

2006-07-01T00:34:00.000-07:00

GRR! I cannot believe that I actually ran out of disk space today. My home desktop computer has about 450 GB of storage spread over 3 hard drives. While that's not necessarily the largest amount of space anyone can have the point is that up until last year I never thought I'd used it all up so quickly.

And then I really got into photography.

I take a lot of pictures. On a recent trip I took probably on the order of a thousand pictures and movies a day. (Now multiply that by the 12 days I was on vacation!) Most pictures I delete because they just don't come out right, but a lot I keep and then do some very light photo processing on them---e.g. cropping, color balance, fixing rotation.

This last trip consumed about 19 GB of data and when I attempted to make a copy of it I suddenly ran out of space! It turns out the drive the pictures are on is only about 160 GB. 40 GB are used for iTunes CDs and downloads, 16 GB go to multitrack audio, 4 GB go to web site creation things, and there are a few other gigabytes consumed for other things. But the pictures part ends up taking 60 GB or so! And that doesn't count the fact that I plan to make a few movies out of all the pictures!

So, now I'm at a crossroads.

On the one hand, if I shuffle my disk space around a bit I can probably move some things onto my other two hard drives. (However, those two hard drives are actually serving distinct purposes.) I could go and buy a NAS (network attached storage) device and back up all my data over firewire. (But that's like $500.) Or I can try to replace the hard drive with a new 500GB hard drive. And I'm really leaning towards that since it would be less than $180 to do so.

The trouble really is that I'm unemployed at the moment and I really ought not to be buying all these toys. In fact, I have been buying expensive toys because I'm trying to build a home media studio of sorts. And with a couple of impending trips planned, you can see that this is all putting a strain on my already tight budget.

On the other hand, allocating space to do some of these big projects I have planned would be possibly beneficial for the future because I would have the space to grow for some other projects I want to do this summer. And it being 4th of July weekend there are some sales going on.

Ugh. What to do! What to do!

THANK YOU, RUM

2006-05-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to rum and other widly mixed beverages it made tonight at least somewhat interesting. I went to an electronic music night at a local bar on the account of someone I met at a DJ shop this week. I figured it was in the neighborhood and only $3 cover charge---why should I not go?

Alrighty, so I turn up there alone because my other friends are busy for the night and I'm like, "hm, OK, there has to be something good about this." They have a DJ stand, some erotic anime going on in the background, and a couple of Mac computers out front. I'm thinking, "OK, well there should be something worth listening to." Wrong.

Everyone there was not really in the talking mood except to their own friends and the music wasn't even danceable. It was what I would term highly experimental electronic soundscape music. Meaning: lots of booms, bleeps, and blurps to some sort of rhythm but no real solid beats. I finished my first drink at the bar and I was thinking, they have to switch to the second artist soon (the event started around 9:15p and there were two artists featured). I ended up getting a second drink and walked over to an availing couch. It was soooooooo boring. The beats were repetitive, uningenuous, and just downright monotonous. The good thing is that I have a new high score on Bejeweled---I ended up just playing games while trying to figure out if there was some sort of a beat. Oh well...

About 2 hours later I stumbled back home (thanks to drinks made of 95% rum) and I snacked on some Triscuits before crashing out to bed...

JUST LIKE A BEACON

2006-04-21T08:19:00.000-07:00

Holy crap! The new Epi-pen is frickin' ginormous! Damn!

(For those who don't know, an Epi-pen is an "epinephrine injector" which basically means it's a huge-ass needle that I use to jab myself with should I start suffering some violent food allergy reaction. It's supposed to buy me a little time to get to a hospital.)

So I go to the drug store to refill my Epi-pen prescription and I'm thinking, whew! finally got that out of the way! because my last 'pen had expired about a month ago. I get home, open the familiar orangey box, and out comes this jackhammer of a device. I'm thinking, oh, neat, they just added some extra packaging for shipping. Then I take a second look and gasp in horror that it really is the 'pen! No!!!! I mean, the circumference of the tube is about the size of a quarter (yes), and the length of it is 6 inches long. 6 inches!!! Oh, and did I mention that it has the bright orange cap on the protective sheath? Yeah, it's so big and bright and orange it could be a beacon to hail low-flying airplanes.

This barely fits in my purses now! Damn! I have all these cute little purses and that means either I'll have to find a smaller wallet or carry less things. (I mean, what girl couldn't live without her iPod, celly, lip balm, eyeliner, headphones, bus pass, breath mints, pen, etc. I mean, c'mon! Grr!

GRR! LOOK BEFORE YOU STEAL!

2006-03-22T08:56:00.000-08:00

GRR! I can't believe how often I print something to the shared printer on our floor in the office and someone else takes my printouts! I mean, geez, LOOK at the friggin' printout before you just walk away with a stack assuming they're all yours. Or at least RETURN the wrong portions of the printouts back to the printer! What kind of a world are we becoming!!!

OK, WTF

2006-03-09T09:21:00.000-08:00

Really. WTF. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0217062contract1.html

Guys, this is NOT a way to make a happy home.

GRR. ROOMMATE JUST SCRATCHED FAV NON-STICK POT.

2006-02-28T07:44:00.000-08:00

I'm not a cookware fetishist but I do like the set I have. I know people knock Calphalon One's non-stick line however I think it works pretty well. I use it for everyday cooking. I wanted something that had quick clean-up, see-thru lids, stovetop-to-oven baking, and gave pretty good overall heat. Personally, it works great.

When I moved into my new apartment I had only met 1 of my 2 roomies, and I reminded him to use plastic or wood, not metal on the pans. He already knew that---I was pretty nervous looking at his other hanging cookware that the nonstick pans had deep gouges in them. So, last night I came back and started cleaning up the kitchen and there was my 4.5 qt. pot with ... holy crap it has scratches in it!

When I had seen my other roomie prodding it with a fork earlier in the day while she was making macaroni and cheese, I hadn't thought she was actually cooking with it. I knew I should have said something, but I was thinking nah, she probably knows not to cook with metal... Wrong. I know she doesn't have that much cooking experience but I assumed she had at least learned how to care for nonsticks. I gave her a talking to after that...

Well, one of these days if I get more serious about cooking I'll probably switch to copper-coated or some All-Clad stainless but I was hoping to keep the Calphalon set pretty pristine until then. On a side note I went to Calphalon's site and in their product demo they decided to use a metal spatula to scrape some seared fish off the skillet. (I can only guess that it looked better for the camera.)

GRR. POOR CAR.

2006-01-29T11:45:00.000-08:00

My car is getting so beat up and it's mostly all my fault. Ever since I moved I've had a million close-calls of getting in accidents, and even though I've been pretty lucky so far I know it's only a matter of time, really. I actually have a perfect driving record, something I'd like to keep too. But, today, GRRR! I actually have my first official bump with another inanimate object.

I pulled into my parent's driveway and instead of going nose-first, I backed into it. This was so I could unload some rather large and heavy things from the trunk. After doing so I needed to move it out of the way---the driveway allows 3 cars on it and I was straddling spots 1 and 2. So I skillfully maneuvered the car into spot #1 and as I was straightening out ... BUMP. My rear bumper neatly ricocheted off the garage frame. DAMN! I completed the parking and shut the car off. A vertical stripe now marks where my bumper kissed the house paint.

What sucked about this was that I was being very careful but in the rear view mirror I guess I couldn't see the actual distance between my car and the wall. Poo. I mean, had there been 1 more foot I would have cleared the wall; I was actually slowing to a stop in my reverse direction anyways. But, instead I was met with our weathered paint...

So, I'm kinda upset at this right now. I guess in some ways I've been getting more careless in driving. Most of that is because I have to drive with more force and direction. If I don't it's really hard to get parking in my new neighborhood and the other drivers are very aggressive. I guess I'm going to have to learn to shift from "city mode" to "suburb mode"...

Poor little car...

DRIVEWAY MOMENT 1

2006-01-03T09:11:00.000-08:00

Grr. First parking ticket in SF. Grr. Cited for:

VC22500E DRIVEWAY COMPLAINT

Turns out the nose of my car was just barely into someone's driveway. Grr. And I could have sworn I actually did fit perfectly between the two driveways when I left. (Did someone push me forward? Nahhhh.) So, dammit, score +1 for the SF DPT.

FASHION INDUSTRY ... GRR

2005-12-24T09:44:00.000-08:00

There's a video podcast I've been subscribing to and in the latest one they showed part of a runway show. What immediately struck me was how lithe and waifish the models were. I mean, like 0% fat content ... and 0% meat content. Legs like chopsticks. It was kind of revolting. Most of the magazines I subscribe to do show thin girls but not that thin. I'm always an advocate that the Average Woman is a beautiful thing and that being skinny isn't as important as being healthy and active.

F-----G SCAMMERS

2005-12-20T00:51:00.000-08:00

OK, I just got scammed. I had been receiving telephone calls incessantly on my home answering machine for months to the point where it was consuming almost all of my phone's memory. They gave an 800 number for callback---800 are toll-free, right?

Wrong.

So I'm looking at my bill and it's fairly expensive, but sometimes it is. Then I look at the charges and there is one for ... EL SALVDOR? (Yes, that's a spelling error.) I'm so filing a complaint against this.

FLAME ON.

We are so selfish...

2005-12-14T18:05:00.000-08:00

You've listened to our esteemed President's speeches, right? Right? Well, the one thing that always strikes me as being really selfish are statements like this:

...

We are living through a watershed moment in the story of freedom. ... Yet we need to remember that these elections are also a vital part of a broader strategy for protecting the American people against the threat of terrorism.

...

When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. ... And it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. ... Saddam was a threat -- and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power.

...

Yet we must remember that a free Iraq is in our interests, because a free Iraq will be a beacon of hope. And as the Middle East grows in liberty, the American people will become safer and our nation will be more secure.

-- George W. Bush
From the White House transcripts, today 11:08a EST.

(And of course this was heavily paraphrased, but the statements are real.)

I don't know about you but every time President Bush speaks of the war it ultimately comes down to "we will keep America safe". America. Us. Me, me, me, me... I mean, like we are not the only country in the world targeted by terrorists. Why is the focus so much on us? Like America is last hope for a democratic world? Doesn't this strike you as being selfish?

And the statistics you hear all the time like "30 Americans wounded today"...what about other nations' casualties? What about the citizens of Iraq! While we're fighting to keep our armed forces alive and safe, what about the tens of thousands of affected Iraqis who have no care about the war except to keep their families safe?

BURP. ARGH.

2005-12-09T00:51:00.000-08:00

Indigestion just sucks. I had this ultra-spicy hamburger yesterday that burned so bad I was feeling The Pain through the night. Today, it was still a little firey so I drank one of those yogurt smoothie things. Oops. Bad mistake. Now I'm still firey but my stomach is burbling. Sigh.

Looks like "Fire Breathing Cow" has turned into "Frustrated Belching Cow".

GRRR! KRALL IS FREE!

2005-12-06T18:32:00.000-08:00

Diana Krall. Love her. Her latest Christmas album. Well, I am kinda lukewarm about it, so I only bought a couple songs off of it from iTunes. (iTunes is great how they have like a free song of the week.) So I logged onto the iTunes store and guess who is free this week? Diana Krall. And the free song? One of the two I purchased.

AAAAAAARGH.

OK, so I could have saved myself 99 pennies, but still. GARRRGGHH.

Holy Frozen Spit, Batman!

2005-12-06T02:56:00.000-08:00

It's cold. Really really cold. You wouldn't expect California to fall into this sort of chilly snap, but oh-my-goodness-it's cold. It went from being moderately warm, to breezy, and straight down into ice cold. I rarely have the heater on but right now it's keeping me from turning into an icicle. And it's not that it doesn't get cold around these parts, but it seems unusually chilly. Yours truly, the Fire Breathing Cow, would love to heat the room with some angsty flaming breath, but I wouldn't have strength to keep heating this room all night. All I can say is that I hope my energy bills aren't going to be too high. :(

Sony sucks the llama's ass

2005-11-25T01:07:00.000-08:00

OK. Here I am ripping all my legitimately purchased CDs into my iPod and I get to the Switchfoot "Nothing Is Sound" CD. I pop it into my computer (autorun disabled to avoid the XCP installation, of course) and it doesn't even come up as a recognized disc at all. Well, this just chaps my hide since the only CD players I have left that are not in computers are 1) my car and 2) my Playstations. But, holy crap, I can't even view a legitimate CD. I can't believe this. Die Sony, die.

Angry Cow On The Loose

2005-11-20T05:31:00.000-08:00

COW ANGRY. MUST DESTROY STUPID HUMANS.

So, it occurred to me the other day that I really don't have a blog for venting. After all, The Blogsicle is meant as a cheery look at the oddities of life. That's all well and good, but a girl needs to vent, right? RIGHT?!

And thusly, the Fire Breathing Cow jerked to life amidst a furious lightening storm. This was the "Moo Heard 'Round The World". No, well, not really. (But if you say something enough times most people will believe it to be true.)

Once again I did faux journalistic due diligence and Googled for the existence of other Fire Breathing Cows. I only found a few hits so I claim this blog. :)