tedfoo

Regarding the New Year

Tragedy struck our house Friday night when we could not locate this particular Buzz Lightyear:

Yes, we have many different Buzz Lightyear’s but this was the one Rhen wanted on that particular evening. Tears were shed on both sides. Huge search parties were coordinated to find “Flying Buzz”. All ending in failure and misery.  The evening ended with a promise from domestic leaders to make wings for “Big Buzz” (who does not have extended wings) out of cardboard.

Early Saturday morning (like at 7 AM) I was searching for a good piece of cardboard to fashion Buzz Lightyear wings for Rhen. That’s right. Change of plans. No longer did Rhen want wings for “Big Buzz”. He wanted his own. Plans were made and a factory was created to fashion Rhen’s wings. I worked on concept and manufacture.  C_ worked on detailing. A note here - one day Rhen will grow up to be a project manager and your child will work for him and he or she will very much hate him. Rhen demands the very best. No shoddiness. No bull. Actually, project manager would be beneath him. Rhen will be somewhere on the lines of Gordon Gecko.

Resulting flying wing for Rhen:

Detailing was minimal since Gecko wanted the project finished YESTERDAY!

Still though, we weren’t having any luck finging “Flying Buzz” and we knew this is what Rhen truly wanted. Sunday morning I could take it no longer. I braved the cold weather and rummaged through our car in my pajamas, successfully locating “Flying Buzz”.

Joy and merriment. Renewed vows of family peace and harmony spread like wildfire through our house. The perfect ending to the extended weekend.

Posted in Family, Futile | 1 Comment »

Righty tighty and lefty loosey is a bit tricky when it comes to bike pedals

Me: This is what high school drop outs do for living. They assemble bikes.

C: Yeah? But they can do it a lot faster than you.

Posted in Futile | 3 Comments »

Fresh upgrade, fresh snow and other concerns

Dearest Reader - you know how much I love to tell you when I upgrade my blog software? That’s right, I’m running WordPress 2.7, also known as “Coltrane”. Pretty geeky, eh? The new admin panel is completely different. It’s sveltely in appearance. I want to eat it, not write with it.

So this was a big part of yesterday -

Drove to Rochester and found that school had been closed (stupid me for listening to MPR and not listening to local weather on the radio - I blame Blagojevich). So, I turned around and fought winter weather in the eastbound lane of I-90. Alas.

Other things that are currently on my mind. Listing:

- Minnesota state budget deficit. Don’t lay me off!

- My wireless router. Why do you suck? I have you working OK for now, but you seem to fail me so often. Too many people have wireless routers now causing interference with my router. I’ve started giving my wireless router technologically threatening names in hopes that my wireless neighbors see it on their wireless lists and are scared back to a wired internet. Otherwise I’m moving back to a wired internet.

-My slow laptop. I should make you happy and buy you more memory, but I’m broke. Sorry.

And that is pretty much it. Not so bad, really. They almost seem trivial except for that first one. Ha ha.

Best of luck everyone. See you in 2009, perhaps earlier.

Posted in Commute, Futile | 4 Comments »

My first and last holiday post

The holiday season is upon us. I hardly ever ask for anything but there are a couple things that you can keep in mind if you’re in the giving mood. In list form:

1. An invite to ffffound. Good luck with that. If you happen to have one in your back pocket please send it to tedfoo at gmail dot com.

2. Pale Young Gentlemen, Black Forest Tra la la is available at Amazon as an MP3 download (DRM free).

And that’s it! Happy holidays folks - remember to finish gift shopping early in order to avoid stress and general holiday malaise. Best of luck.

Posted in Futile | 4 Comments »

Hello, database

A couple weeks ago my webhost (hey guys!) sent me an email saying I had to upgrade from MySQL 4 to MySQL 5 or else.  Heh - actually they were kind of vague on the “or else” part. It was more like, “Hey you’re missing out on great features in MySQL 5 (by the way we’re discontinuing support of MySQL4 January1, 2009)! Converting is easy! Do it today!”

So I did it. I created a new database and clicked the conversion button. Transfer old database to new one. Woo hoo. Easy enough.

Now, to update the PHP configuration file that connects blog to database. It’s a few lines of code that call the database and login credentials.

Unable to connect. I must of modified that stupid config file for 20 minutes. Fail fail fail.

Below, the login line of code there is one line of code that calls the host name, and commented next to that line of code it said something like, “99% of the time you will not need to modify this line.”

I was that 1%.

Hello, database.

Posted in Futile, Technology | No Comments »

As I giddily await for WP 2.7 I will drink this coffee

It’s not going to happen today but soon I will be guilted into upgrading my blog software. What happens if I don’t upgrade it? Something like - I can haz tedfoo.

This time though, I’m going to do something different. Instead of deleting the previous version’s files - I’m just going to overwrite with the new version. Shock-a-lock. Not recommended but these upgrades are the long death of this blog and oddly enough the only thing I can seem to write about with any clarity.

So keep it tuned here for the new WordPress upgrade to 2.7. It’s can’t miss blogging.

Posted in Futile, Technology | No Comments »

The sound of love

I give you - The Coonhound Deluxe. Guess, we’re not getting rid of him. Just yet.

Posted in Pets | 3 Comments »

Regarding “Heretic Pride”

Finally got around to upgrading WordPress. Wooo - 2.6.2 is the BEST WordPress yet. Seriously, keep the up the great work guys. Really, I mean that.

Just so you know, this isn’t gonna come easy. I do feel oh-so compelled though. We’ll just make the best of it.

Better than upgrading your blog’s software? Downloading the new Mountain Goats album. No it isn’t yesterday brand spankin’ new but it’s 2008 new. I believe it was released in February? Better late than never.

The album is titled “Heretic Pride” and it has 13 tracks (there is also a bonus track if you buy the entire album). By the time you reach the title track (the third track) you believe that this album is going to be on heavy rotation for the next 5 to 6 months. I mean with lyrics such as this who doesn’t want to believe:

I dreamt that I was perched atop a throne of human skulls
On a cliff above the ocean, howling wind and shrieking seagulls
And the dream went on forever, one single static frame
Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name

And I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam
And no one in her right mind would make her home my home
My heart’s an autoclave
My heart’s an autoclave

Previous Mountain Goats albums have focused on themes of isolation, emotional trauma, addiction and loss (but not in a cheap Wal-Mart-ready emo way).  Same deal again with “Heretic Pride”. Basically when I ask my wife why she does not like The Mountain Goats she simply says, “too depressing.” I argue, “It’s a good kind of depressing! Cathartic depression!” She doesn’t buy it of course. The Mountain Goats is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.

Typically the musical arrangements on a MG album are sparse (guitar, bass and maybe a piano?). “Heretic Pride” fills out that urgent sparseness with strings and organ- and backing vocals! Tastefully done too! No surprise that the album was produced by Scott Solter and John Vanderslice.

Here’s a great little press kit release of “Heretic Pride” in cartoon form:

Here’s a link to buy the album without all that nasty DRM embedded into your mp3. Yuck.

No DRM music over here - my brother would be so proud!

My favorite tracks from Heretic Pride:

-Sax Rohmer #1

-Autoclave

-San Bernadino

-Michael Myers Resplendent

Posted in Futile, Music | 1 Comment »