I was just awakened by a soft, rhythmic knocking. What was it?

• Something from a dream? I was having a strange dream in which I was riding home (to my childhood home) on a school bus. The bus was on the main highway in Canby and kept turning around and around and around and around. Traffic was blocked in both directions because Canby High School was hosting some sort of national basketball playoffs and traffic was a nightmare. Finally, after what seemed like hours of turning around and around and around, I told the driver she could just let me off and I'd walk home (to my present home). Then the knocking woke me up.
• Something from a cat? It's quite conceivable that either Toto or Tintin had some sort of itch that must be scratched. If this occurred on a hard surface (kitchen table, bathroom floor, nightstand), then it would have produced some sort of rhythmic knocking that could have been enough to wake me but not enough for me to place it. Toto was sleeping by Kris' side, though, and I think Tintin was asleep on the love seat in the TV room.
• Something outside? Maybe, just maybe, there was really somebody knocking on a door or window. This makes me nervous. I got up checked all of the doors and windows were locked. I peeked outside, but didn't note anything suspicious. Still, it makes me nervous.

Regardless of the noise's source, it provided me enough adrenalin so that I'm awake now. I had anticipated sleeping in (something that's still novel, since my Sundays were until recently just a sixth day of work), but now I'm up and awake and will spend some time finishing the installs on this computer.

It's been a fine, relaxing Sunday. I've had a little fun, done a little work, and enjoyed a liesurely pace.

I spent a bulk of the day cleaning the house and finishing the configuration of this new computer. The house, as I've mentioned, was a mess. I managed to clean every room except the TV room (which is basically Kris' den anyhow, and is filled with her stuff) and this computer room. In the process I was able to locate the remote control that Kris believed the housekeeper had thrown away. Not so. It was simply lodged deep in the cracks of the love seat. One of her rings is also lodged there, but I wasn't able to locate it. How has she managed to lose two things in the love seat? Does it have some sort of gaping maw, some sort of event horizon? No. She's just careless there, I guess, which is unusual for her.

This office is still messy because I've basically just made a pile of all the stuff that I collected from the other rooms. There's a 10' diameter pile of crap that needs to be sorted, but I don't know if I'll get to it tonight.

I managed to get all of my software installed on this machine (Athena) finally. More importantly, I got Hercules (my old machine) running as a "headless" server (it has no monitor). This requires little other than determining that the proper hardware is present and booting the OS to a resting state, but it still took some time. I shared Hercules' two drives so now the little network here has about 114gb of shared drive space. I transferred many of Hercules' data files to Athena's drives and salvaged my old Eudora mailboxes. I also transferred the last few gigabytes of MP3s to local drives. (We've got a total of 16.8gb of music in 1880 songs -- I've got to find some software to organize all of that!)

My goal is to turn Hercules into a Linux based file server. This should be easy, I think, though I've never actually worked with samba. I've set up a Linux ftp server and apache web server, though, and don't think that setting up samba for file sharing can be much different. Hercules is kind of beefy to be acting as a file server, a P2-450 with 192mb of RAM. It's probably only a temporary role.

Jeremy called and left a message wanting to know why his 128mb PC133 DIMM won't work in his old P166 motherboard. Read the fucking manual, Jeremy! Ahem. Jeremy tends to, well, to just do stuff without research. I told him in so many words: "That memory will not work in that motherboard."

1. The memory is running at 133mHz, and his board is not going to be able to talk to it. (Actually, I could be wrong on this point. I know that a 100mHz motherboard won't talk to a 133mHz DIMM, but it seems possible to me that if you have a front side bus speed and memory speed that are multiples of each other, then perhaps they'll be able to talk. One will just be severely crippled.)
2. The motherboard (which is kind of cool because it takes 72-pin SIMMS and modern DIMMS) probably isn't capable of handling any one piece of memory greater than 32mb or 64mb. They key thing here, though, is that Jeremy could find all of this information out by reading the manual for the motherboard, which is probably right next to the machine. I know we sure used it a lot when we first put his machine together.

My shoulder is sore. sigh

As a book Lolita, is notable for a number of features. Chief among these is Vladmir Nabokov's lucid prose, his careful depiction of a quite mad Humbert Humbert. Humbert is the prototypical unreliable narrator; we're never sure whether what he is telling us is the truth or merely some fantastic delusion (or an outright lie). Though repellant, his character is also somehow seductive, and we as readers are drawn into his twisted mind.

As a film, Lolita is awful. Stanley Kubrick's directing is (to this untrained observer) lifeless and dull, and the performances by the actors are overwrought. I'm particularly disappointed that the usually solid James Mason (outstanding in A Star is Born) turned in such a dreadful performance. Perhaps the book, with its strong interior monlogue, just cannot effectively be converted to film. I know that there is another, more recent version, that I may try to find, but I'm not too inclined to do so after this. (Curiously, in this film Peter Sellers reminds me of non-Star Trek Brent Spiner.)

Kris' neck is giving her great pain, though she doesn't know the cause. She is in extreme pain and finding it difficult to move. She is also coming down with a cold. She's a ball of misery and woe.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2005 — Warm and Hearty   Paul and Susan allowed me to spend an evening and a morning with them in their new home. I had fun, despite a long quest for warm and hearty food.

2004 — Catfilter   Here is a complete collection of all the cat-related questions from AskMetafilter. Enjoy!

— Of Butter, Sugar, and Salt   Some dieters crave butter (not me! — I don't like the stuff). I long for sugar and for salt. This makes it a challenge to lose weight.

2003 — Character Camp   "How could you not know?" Byron asked, his temper rising. "This is what we had planned. We each spent the night alone, and then came back together as a group. That was the Whole Point."