Western Arab

Got fed up with the hosting provider I was using. There were too many days with very slow loading, in addition to downtime. Webmaster tools showed that google kept having problems loading some pages some times and other times it loaded them fine. So I have been thinking about moving it for the past two weeks. And that happened today. Even downloading database to move to new host took so long on the old host. They were decent before, and I was using them for atleast two years. Now they just were horrible.

So hopefully this host performs great. I’d hate to have to move the site again but the move was pretty smooth. So yay for new host I hope.

One of these little guys gets in the house every now and then when I open the front door. They like to hang out at the door step and when I open the door, they panic and run inside sometimes. The smart ones run away from the door. This guy has been hanging out in my office for a few days, I thought I had forced him out the front door after he got in, but I lost him for a second while chasing him out. Click the image to see it larger.

Lizard on my Cable Modem

So I remember seeing an exotic food show on discovery channel I believe where they would capture lizards for food. I think it was in Thailand. They had a stick with a string noose attached to it, and would lower the noose over the lizard’s head and snatch it up to capture it. I decided to make one. I took a clear plastic ruler and made the best noose I can with a piece of string. I really don’t know how to make a noose so it isn’t the best.

This lizard seems to like my cable modem. He comes out and sits on it watching me. When I try to get to him, he runs out to the back of the desk. He eventually returns, he came out on it atleast five times and got away each time. My first attempt with the noose scared him before I got near him. I had too much slack on the string. So second attempt I got the noose right next to him, and was trying to slip it on his neck, but the flimsy string doesn’t stay straight. So it rotated and brushed or tapped his face, and he got scared. I didn’t really try the noose more than that.

I also tried placing a sticky sheet of paper on the modem so he would walk on it and maybe stick, but he didn’t seem to come near it, at least I think he hasn’t. My dad brought over a small jar with some bird seed in it and a cracker, so if the lizard climbs in it, I would close the top on it. So far he hasn’t entered and I haven’t seen him much anymore. I gave up on the sticky paper, the noose is still ready and an option. Let’s see if I can capture him.

I was getting shaky video on my desktop thru the kvm switch the past few days when playing Left 4 Dead. After investigating, it seems the shaky video is being caused by wire interference. I have had like a million wires and cables all wrapped and twisted together. I spent more than two hours cleaning this up. I disconnected everything. I did re-arrange things as well. My desktop went back down in the desk cabinet instead of sitting on my desk. I have more desk space now.

Finally after doing that, I went thru the same comcast crap as the last time. What appears to be comcast dns issues. Resetting router, modem and all that to fix it. Wasted I don’t know how much time on it. All I know it caused a lot of stress, cursing and anger. I hate you comcast. But atleast my desk looks cleaner and there are much less wires. It is 3:46 am right now. I will go get what sleep I can now.

And hopefully my video output on the desktop is corrected, but too tired to test anything right now.

Hamza Robertson with Sami Yusuf – The Mountain

A video of my parakeets out in the screened patio. They like being in the cage more it seems, atleast for now. I need to get them comfy enough to sit on my finger or hand.

I didn’t get to see Watchmen today at the IMAX. So just to do something I went to city place by myself.

City Place

I walked around, they had a band performing some old songs. I am guessing 80′s songs. So I had some good pistachio and strawberry icecream. Walked around some more, there was someone walking a huge dog which everyone seemed to like but atleast the dog was well behaved. Then I had a tuna salad sandwich at panera bread on honey wheat bread. Good sandwich and it came with a bag of highly fattening potato chips. Walked around some more … and that was pretty much it, but it was a nice night and it was something different for a change.

There was a bar on the upper level that had on arabic music and they had atleast two belly dancers going around from table to table, dancing and collecting the dollars. Inside they had another dancer and customers dancing on a table. Not sure what to say about all that … but I think one of the belly dancers was indian.

When I was leaving panera bread, a girl with her two friends opened the door to go in just as I was going out. So NATURALLY I walked through when she opened the door for ME. She didn’t seem very pleased with that, I think she muttered something about manners but I didn’t care to listen. She thinks because she has breasts, I am supposed to wait for her and her two friends to walk in. Logic says I don’t wait for three people, three people can wait for me. 

we will never submit. we will never leave. we will never be silenced. we will never forget.

لن نخضع لن نرحل لن نسكوت لن ننسى

Video of Sami Yusuf’s “We will never submit”.

Got my 4 gigs of RAM for the macbook. Ended up going with xp 32 bit on vmware fusion. Working great so far. Installing the RAM was a major pain in the ass. Eight tiny screws. I got my box of cheap small screw drivers I had bought a few years back at the dollar store. So I managed to get six of the screws out and I ended up with a blister on my finger. I cursed apple for making it so hard to open the machine up. I finally managed the seventh screw, when I finally remembered I had a screwdriver on my keychain meant for eyeglasses, tried that on the final screw that would not loosen and isnstantly turned. It was only then that I realized, it is not the macbook but my shitty screwdrivers.

Tax guy, after two weeks, I called for two days to get a hold of him. Tells me he is working on my taxes and will try to finish them up next day by afternoon. Again I say you will call me when they are done? He says yes. Day goes by, no call. Arab to Arab all over again. Not using his services again, or lack of services. Will see if he calls tomorrow.

We changed the green/yellow parakeet last weekend for a female green/yellow one. She is a little older than the blue male one and has long wings. She flies good … kinda. She doesn’t seem to avoid walls. She flew into the wall twice. So I let her out in the screened patio now only. She flew into the screen at least three times but I think she will get better over time. Maybe I will post a video of them later when they are out on the patio.

Closed Zone from the the director of animation of “Waltz with Bashir”. This video is about Gaza and the border closings.

Finally, the apple mini-display port to vga adapter arrived today. I am using the macbook right now my 24″ monitor. Apple used the worst possible shipping method. What genius thought that shipping thru DHL to USPS was a smart idea? Why didn’t they just ship it via USPS in the first place? I would have received it much sooner. So what this means is I started using my macbook as my main computer. I setup my work applications on it today and used it for work. So far so good. I installed VMWare Fusion with Windows XP 64 bit. I am hoping I don’t regret the 64 bit choice with software issues later, but for what I need so far, 64 is working. I will also have to buy Fusion since I am running their demo right now.

So for the transition and because I will still need my windows machine (especially for gaming), I installed a USB/VGA KVM switch. I also had to buy a USB keyboard, yes I was still using a PS2 keyboard! So I am switching between them easily and I have a shared folder on a third machine I use as a server for work. I also ordered 4 gigs of 1066 DDR3 RAM to replace the 2 gigs the macbook comes with. Mac OS X runs just fine with the 2 gigs but I will be assigning the virtual machine 2 gigs for XP, and OS X will be awesome with 4 gigs when the virtual machine is not running. The RAM should arrive later this week or so I am hoping. So yes a geeky post here, but it seems I have converted to mac. And now when I travel, I won’t have to synch up my work files anymore.

The new macbook is a winner, and today is the day that I converted to mac. But I will still have to use windows as well.