Unusual past few days, it's been. Quick summary:

I've been wrestling trying to get an IBM p690 "Regatta" going at work. Basically an IBM POWER system about as tall as me (6'5") that needs three-phase power and sounds like a hurricane when it's turned on. The air blowing out is also hot as hell, which means it must be drawing a hell of a lot of power.

32 CPUs, and supposedly 128 gigabytes (yes, *GIGA*) of RAM, it is quite a sight to behold. Unfortunately, one of the fans isn't working, AND it's not booting correctly, throwing firmware CRC errors. Alas, IBM is coming out to look at it tomorrow.

I've also been messing with a BladeCenter, which is basically a big chassis that takes blades, which are self-contained servers with their own memory and disk. Yup, a 2.5" 10K RPM SCA SCSI drive. Didn't even know they existed until recently.

So what's the deal with Best Buy and $90 DVI cables? I was there Wednesday shopping for a TOSlink cable for my new HDTV receiver, and I can't believe some people actually pay that much. I also saw an $80 TOSlink cable. It's pretty disgusting, when you can get similar cables for around ten bucks online, in some cases including shipping. Will folks really pay $70 for a cable just to avoid waiting a couple days for shipping?!

Oh, and by the way: ABC's "Lost" in HDTV is sweeeeeeeeeeeeee*EEEEEEE*eeeet. I can't believe I can watch it and other shows in *above* DVD quality, received over a plain ordinary indoor antenna! Amazing. I need to find a way to RECORD shows in that quality; unfortunately all the devices on the market that can do so appear to either require tape (Ewww!) or subscription fees (DirecTiVo). I don't agree with TiVo's ass-kissing the TV studios, either, so they can be without my cash.

HOLY CRAP THIS IS SO ADORABLE I'M GOING TO BARF:

Err.. *ahem*.. Now back to your regularly scheduled WTF.

(Snow leopards rule.)

Remember _The Lion King_? That movie I sometimes obsess about? Yeah, that one.

Well, it seems Disney produced a second soundtrack, but never released it. No, not "Rhythm of the Pridelands". This was a soundtrack featuring pretty much the entire score of the movie, with no dialogue or rearrangements. Some enterprising soul leaked it, and it has been posted to the Internet.

Check it out.

Us old and grey Lion King fans are always happy to see new material become available; I never imagined something THIS cool would suddenly appear, though. Especially since I'm a fan of Hans Zimmer, and loved his work in _Gladiator_ as well.

Get it while you can; I doubt it'll be posted for long given mac.com's stance on "piracy". But then this isn't really piracy, is it? Afterall, Disney never released it, so they're not actually losing any money from this....

It's nice to be able to hear the score as it was in the movie with no dialogue or sound effects. The "official" soundtrack rearranged pretty much the whole score, and made it into a mere shadow of its former glory. Especially awesome are the tracks "Plotting" and "Under the Stars / Simba Alive".

Enjoy!

240/120 volts, 60Hz, split-single-phase.

Yep, 60Hz! Not 63.4 most of the time and 59.7 when the toaster is running. 60.000. Period.

Yup! 120 volts. Not 127.3 or 118.5 or 0.0 when it runs out of gas. 120 freakin' volts.

And 240 for the water heater, of course! Hot shower time tonight!

I saw the crew working on the feeder while driving home from work, so I knew tonight would be the night. All hail the grid! For without it, we are in hot sweaty darkness....

-Z

Well, it's been a week since the hurricane hit; there's still no power at home. I'm back at work now, and it sure is nice to have power here without the constant drone of a generator!

Speaking of the generator, it just got its second oil change this morning. The unit needs an oil change every 40 to 50 hours of use, and it's gotten very heavy use this past week. The engine is running nicely, and still purring like a kitten though! Actually, purring like a very, very LOUD, very big kitten!

I've settled into life with self-generated power. I have extension cords running to my office and have various lights, the DSL modem, the laptop, and a TV plugged into it. Another extension runs over to the minifridge, and the last one runs to another power cluster where I charge my celphone, use the toaster, and other miscellaneous things. I haven't plugged the main computer into it, as the UPS doesn't work on the generator and I don't trust the generator that much; it may stop suddenly and corrupt data. My laptop has a battery to prevent that problem.

It's already starting to become routine. Wake up, drag out generator, check oil level, gas it up, start it, plug things in. Then the mid-afternoon shutdown and refuel, then the shutdown and drag it back inside before going to sleep. Needless to say, a pain in the arse.

I can't wait for mains power to return.

Seriously, what's with all these morons running generators inside the house?

I've heard reports that several people have already died in the wake of this hurricane... Not because of the hurricane, but because they ran a FREAKIN' GAS ENGINE INSIDE THE HOUSE.

Okay, let's look at a couple of factors here...

• Generators are DAMN NOISY: Even if they were completely harmless, why would you want that insane racket in your house? I know it'd drive me batty in no time...
• Exhaust fumes are smelly: You'd think after a while when you're coughing and can't breathe because of the nasty fumes building up, you'd stop the generator and open a window...
• Everyone knows running a car in a closed garage will kill you: Shouldn't it be common sense to apply this to any other type of engine?

Several people are Darwin award contenders already for this idiocy, and I'm sure there will be more before the power is restored everywhere in South FL. Not only that, how many family members of the deceased will try to sue the generator manufacturers for this?

People really need to grow some brains.

Still no power here. I *LOVE* my generator and am going to go gas hunting shortly, as I'm down to about four gallons total remaining.

Phone and DSL service has been spotty; Bellsouth has had trouble keeping the generator at the RT fueled. I'm on dialup at the moment, and let me tell you; once you've been on DSL and ISDN for years, dialup is practically unbearable.

I spent Wednesday on campus getting all critical services (including sarabi/Zorin.org };) ) back up and running. Now that Zorin.org is up, I'm going to go ahead and copy in the various Livejournal posts I made before this one.

Tuesday 10/25

So, the power is still out here. Luckily I have enough fuel to run the generator for a few more days.

The phone service died early this morning, due to the batteries running out at the equipment vault (Remote Terminal) that feeds my line. On a whim, I picked up the phone about an hour ago, and there was dialtone again! Apparently bellsouth wheeled a generator trailer out to my RT and plugged it in, lighting up all the phone lines in the area gain. Kudos to Bellsouth for doing this; there's hundreds of RTs all over the city! They must have a lot of generators.

Spent the day cleaning up most of the mess outside; things are looking a bit more normal now. I'll have some photos of the damage around here up once power returns and I get high-speed internet again. At least the phone service is back, so some of the boredom is abated...

Monday 10/24:

Well, I'm getting tired of hurricanes, and I'm sure everyone else in FL is too!

After shuttering up it took a while for the brunt of it to get here. Surprisingly, the power actually managed to stay on until well into the storm! Gusts really started up around 3AM, and the power stayed on until 5:30AM or so. Pretty impressive.

Damage is extensive, but nothing structural, thankfully. Lots of fences, trees, and signs down, and debris everywhere. I'm not looking forward to going to work and seeing the damage there. :(

So here I sit, running my Powerbook off its battery and using dial-up. I'm probably going to relocate to where the generator is for extended runtime; luckily the weather is nice and cool so no suffering in the heat for now...

Well, I haven't updated in a while. Been distracted and all. Extremely distracted.

I got a new toy last weekend, a PalmOne Treo 650 phone. Or PDA. Or both. It does lots of things; to just call it a "celphone" is somewhat unfair. It's basically a Palm PDA with a celphone built in. With Sprint PCS service, it can do lots of neat things, like make and take calls, get on the Internet for web surfing, AIM, SSH (to log into those UNIX systems), E-mail, and more. I'm now well-connected wherever I go! I'm not sure if this is a curse or a blessing; we'll have to see. Luckily, it has an "off" switch, so I can still get away from it all if need-be.

On Saturday I went with Rieshal and Kitwickliff (who just moved here a couple of weeks ago) to Sawgrass Recreational Park. I haven't been there in a long time, and it was wonderful to see Monty the panther for the first time in about five months. He's gotten so big; you can see pictures here. Kit is really into photography and I lent her the Rebel for most of the trip; she seemed to like it. (Kit, I'm going to convert you to digital yet! bwahahahahaaa..) We also went on an airboat ride through the everglades, which was pretty neat. I was surprised to find the airboats are powered by two bog-standard big-block V8s normally used in Cadillacs. They are EXTREMELY noisy and hearing protection is pretty much required on the ride.

The rest of the day involved dinner at an Italian place and later on watching a weird cat anime and then the movie Brazil. Overall a fun day, and I got to meet someone new. }:)

I can't believe how incredibly excited my kitty gets over lizards. I mean, it's sorta like this:

Object           Excitedness level
Kitty toy        ######
Food             #########
Lizard           #################################################################################

There was one on the ceiling today, and he kept looking up at it from the ground, totally transfixed. He even started meowing at it, and pacing around staring at it as it crawled across the ceiling. The lizard then fell off the ceiling and Lynxie chased it like it was the last lizard on earth. I rescued the lizard (amusing as this is, I don't believe in lizardcide) and released it outside, but wow.

Outdoor cats must go absolutely batshit insane; there's tons of lizards out there!

I do wonder about the meowing, though. I doubt meowing at your prey is an effective hunting strategy...

Went out with some friends to see Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride" last night. It was actually a fun flick; it's nice to see some production houses still using traditional animation methods, as opposed to insisting on using computer animation for everything. Regardless of the animation method, though, it's the story and characters that make a film.

I don't plan to see "Chicken Little" in the theaters. It is my personal protest against the rape of Walt Disney Feature Animation, a division that created some of my favorite movies ever. For those who aren't aware, Eisner basically dismantled feature animation, firing most of the artists and keeping only a paltry few who were transferred to the 3-D computer animation department.

Disney is trying to be Pixar. Sorry, it's not going to work. The reason Pixar films are so successful is because of good storyline and characters, not because it's "3-D". The artists should be the ones in charge, not managers whose only training is an MBA. Until the company realizes this, they are going continue their current mediocrity.