thinking of you this room becomes a shrine

So I came in to town to upload a pile of images I'd made for the still fledgling encyclopedia system but I seem to have burned the wrong directory of files… So that's the end of that plan. I don't really feel like driving back and getting it so it's going to have to wait until another day.

(Canada's a pretty country, as are all countries.)

At least the drive in was nice. It's raining here right now and I love the rain… It's a short drive; I only got to listen to one song on the radio. Sweet Marie by Phaser, a perfect blend of psyche rock, shoegazing, and country blues. Of course, I like most things that make good use of a slide guitar.

Not that I miss being single or alone, but one of the things that I miss from when I lived by myself was being able to play music loud any time I wanted. I have great Sennheiser headphones, and I've hooked up my old Boston Acoustics speakers to my stereo and computer, but it's not the same as being able to really pound my old big stereo.

You know who doesn't like the rain though?

          trains.

Last time I was on the train we were pulling into Guildwood (just outside of Toronto). Their station sits at the top of a slight hill and as we started to pull up, we slowed… and slowed… and stopped before the station. We paused.

And then we started to back up — five miles back.

It turns out that when there are leaves on the tracks (this being fall there were many), when they get wet they act as a lubricant between the train and the tracks and it gets no traction. We literally had to back way up to get enough speed to make it up the hill. It sounds unreal, but it's true.

Well, I've got a busy week over the next two days… Transporting some cars, doing a big update, and putting together some back end stuff so Jon can release the hugely renovated and monstrously improved iam.crush toy. And then we're off to the Netherlands and more shortly.

Food is good

We don't have a lot of food here; I was going to go grocery shopping but I put it off on account of being in Toronto. All that was in my fridge (vegetable-wise) last night was a red bell pepper, so I fried that up along with some canned corn and white navy beans in a sauce I made primarily out of habaneros, garlic, sugar, nutmeg, and lime. Turned out very well.

A couple days ago I ate at a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant — one of the first times in a while I've walked away from a restaurant happy about the food. Normally I just go for the company since it's rare to eat somewhere where I couldn't prepare a better meal myself. Anyway, at this place I had a variety of mock meats that were so close it was almost disturbing. According to Phil it's because when monks (vegetarian) were traveling with pilgrims (not vegetarian usually) they learned how to cook perfect meat substitutes in order to “trick” the pilgrims into being vegetarian as well.

So now my latest food mission is to first learn how to work with seitan (gluten) properly, and then learn to work it from scratch… I've been looking over some how-to's and it doesn't look difficult (just a little time consuming). I'll report back on the experiments when I have results!


Other than that I've installed SpamAssassin on my server (I was — and still am — running Spamnix locally, but with over 20,000 spams daily I can't keep straining the satellite link without risking them cutting me off or raising my fees). It shouldn't affect anything, but if the next update rolls around and you haven't gotten a reply on your image submission, please drop me a line so I can confirm it's not set too aggressively.


Besides prepping for tomorrow's big BME update, my plan for today also includes cleaning one of the barns to move one or two of my babies back here to do work on them. I'm probably going to shift the Laser body onto the Kelmark chassis and start rolling on the bodywork. Other than the way the brake pedal is set up, it's a pretty seamless swap.

"Automated posting tool warning

If you're using one of the “non-official” (user created) automated update tools such as the ones that'll include what Winamp song is currently playing on your computer in your entry text, please be aware that until I complete the shift to the new diary format you should probably not use them. Some will just not work, but they may also risk damaging your diary, possible irreversably.

I should have those forms finalized within a few weeks at which point the creators of those tools will be able to put together a new version for you to use. Sorry for any inconvenience. Oh, and I thought some of you might enjoy seeing my father's license plates:

Should I succumb to temptation?

So as you guys may remember, I sold all my sportscars a couple months ago because I thought I was moving. Plans got a big jumbled so now I find myself without any toys… I even made the mistake of giving away my 650 HP Corvette beast because I didn't want to see it sold to some dope who wouldn't appreciate it — mistake's not the right word because I know it's at a good home though.

Anyway, the car above is for sale down the street at a fair price. The owner has really made it look kind of gaudy with a harsh two-tone color job and overdone pinstriping, but I'd paint it anyway assuming those stripes aren't just stickers! I've been a big fan of this car since I was a kid, mostly for the “doors” so who knows. I'm all about these plastic fantastics.

Holy warrior

Some of you may remember my original claims that Bush was painting this as a holy war (more; third movie down). More recently I've been quoting Lt. General Jerry Boykin, the deputy undersecretary of Defense under Rumsfeld. About a year ago he was giving a talk with photos taken in Magadishu — one of the photos had a dark mark over the city. He interpreted it literally,

This is your enemy. It is the principalities of darkness. It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy.

There was a man in Mogadishu named Osman Atto. He said, "They'll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me." Well, you know what? I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol. [Other nations] have lost their morals, but America is still a Christian nation.

[They hate us] because we're a Christian nation. We are hated because we are a nation of believers. [Our] spiritual enemy will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus. I want to impress upon you that the battle that we're in is a spiritual battle. Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.

Boykin believes the world is in good hands under Bush, because,

[Bush is] a man who prays in the Oval Office. George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States — He was appointed by God.

This all plays out in an apocalyptic game that Boykin almost sounds like he's looking forward to, saying,

We in the army of God, in the house of God, and in the kingdom of God. We have been raised for such a time as this. Anyone who puts on the armor of God becomes a target for Satan. Be ready. He will be coming. He'll try to stop you from doing what God wants you to do. But you knew that already.

Rumsfeld says that he won't do anything to stop him, because he doesn't want to interfere with “free speech” — what he of course ignores is that when a highly decorated general who's getting promoted to higher and higher positions says these things in uniform, he's saying them for all Americans… in effect telling terrorists that, yes, this is a war of Jews and Christians trying to destroy Islam (which I don't believe it is, but Boykin probably does).

Quotes above from: 1 2 3 4 5

Oh, and I am currenty receiving spam at a rate of one every 4.3 seconds. I believe I have determined the source… could it be… SATAN?