Tue 9th Jan, 2007 -  Grand Theft Almost

Last sunday evening while at home with my wife, I hear a strange noise coming from outside the house…so I decided to take a look outside the window to see what was happening. Guess what I saw? There was this guy breaking my wife’s car window trying to steal her purse which she left “hidden” on floor of the passsenger side. I yell to the guy “Mira so cabron, que carajo tu haces, hijodelagranputa, dejame buscar la pistola pa’ pegarle un tiro a este maricon!!!!” BTW that’s some really bad shit in spanish. The guy got startled and started running as fast as he could away from the car. I went inside to get my stuff and by the time I got back the guy was gone. I was going to go after the guy to run him over with my own car, but my wife prevented me from doing so. The guy looked like he was drugged to the hilt, and he didn’t take anything from the car…but he did leave us with a busted window and $133 dollars in repairs.

Busted Window

posted by Administrator :: categories: Theft ::  Comments (2)

Thu 17th Aug, 2006 -  Gentoo..LFS…Gentoo…FreeBSD

Gentoo!!!
A few months ago I met this guy at a convention, a guru of Linux and all that is open-source. I asked him what his favorite distro was, he replied with “Gentoo.” He told me Gentoo was the way to configure your system by your standards. I thought, Gentoo, maybe I should give it a chance. Here it is, 5 days, and I still haven’t been able to install it in my old Aptiva. Here’s the thing: When you install Gentoo you do it from the ground up. I’m talking, compiling most of the stuff in the distro including the kernel, all from the command line. The cool thing is you get to choose everything, you make Gentoo into whatever you want it to be, the bad thing is deciding what to choose and what works with your system. On the positive side, I’ve compiled my own kernel, I’ve seen the dark side of the command line and it’s not as difficult as you might think. Now I understand what goes into a Linux system and understand a whole lot of everything (also have a whole lot of questions about a lot of other stuff.) So my first try at Gentoo failed (I think it was some bad kernel compilation choices.) At this point I was reading on the net and found about LFS (Linux From Scratch), twice as complicated as installing Gentoo. So I gave it a try, the harder it is, the more you can learn… and learn I did, that my hard drive was failing and that’s why in the middle of my LFS install I got this screen:

Ohhh nooo!!!!
OHHHH NOOOO!!!

So at this time I had to start over with a new drive and I decided to give Gentoo another try (it has a much better installation guide than LFS), once again I fucked it up and it wouldn’t boot. Again, I try to get it working and it seems that my hardware needs some config parameter which I don’t know, or maybe it just doesn’t like Gentoo. I was tired and pissed and wasn’t learning much, so I go for the FreeBSD install. Before that I was using PC-BSD, which uses a very simple graphical install, in other words, a pussy install method. FreeBSD uses a utility which let’s you configure most of the system without making you go psycho to see whether you forgot to add a dot-slash or not. It’s not as hardcore as LFS, but hey, BSD works, and this installation taught me a lot if not more than the Gentoo or LFS version. I’ve read that people can go about installing LFS 4 or 5 times before they get right. Maybe I’ll give it a chance, next year, or the year after that.


Graphical install, that’s for pussys, the pic above is from Gentoo’s terminal.


Now that’s a mascot, the BSD Daemon, long live the daemon!!!!

posted by Administrator :: categories: Tech ::  Comments (2)

Sun 18th Jun, 2006 -  Supaidā-Man (Spiderman)

Spupaidaman

Supaidā-Man (Spiderman): May 17, 1978 - March 14, 1979 (41 episodes) , licensed to Toei, CO in 1978, this is one of the coolest incarnations of Spider-Man ever. This guy Takuya Yamashiro, after an incident where he almost died, is saved by Gallia (Prince of the Spider-Planet) who came to earth in his spacecraft called “Marveller.” Gallia gives him spider-sense and powers. He also gives him a special bracelet with a web-shooter that can also be used to store his suit :) Thanks to Bandai (one of the shows sponsors) Toei decided to include a giant robot called “Leopardon,” which Supaidā-Man uses to fight giant monsters!!!! What can I say, pure genius. Here’s episode 1, and there are many others in youtube (search for “japanese spiderman.”) Enjoy!!!



posted by Administrator :: categories: TV ::  Comments (3)

Fri 19th May, 2006 -  Windows Freeware

These are apps I use everyday and the best thing is that they’re free, here’s a list with links, enjoy.

Visual Task Tips - This small piece of software gives you a preview image of windows in the taskbar to give it a Vista look. Remember to restart your computer after installation.

Ccleaner - Crap Cleaner, this is an all in one utility removes all the crap from Internet Explorer and Firefox, cleans the registry, allows you to remove stuff from windows startup, and also uninstall applications.

BitComet - In my opinion the best bittorrent client, written in C++ (makes it really fast.) What really distinguishes this app is that it features disk caching, so when those downloads are coming into your disk you don’t thrash it.

Bloodshed Dev-C++ - For all you programmers out there who don’t have the money or the time to deal with Windows .NET, this is the tool for you. It’s free and includes all the features you need to write those C++ programs.

PDF-Creator - Need to create a PDF, this the app, it allows you to save files to PDF and you can select the quality and the type of PDF you want to create.

JDiskReport - Don’t know where all that sapce in your disk is going to, this app allows you to view how disk space is distributed in a graphical form.

MP3Tag - This tool allows you add mp3 tags really fast, it allows you to edit a bunch of mp3’s in one sitting.

Tight VNC - When you need to control your home computer remotely through any browser with Java support. This basically allows you to control the computer like if you were sitting in front of it.

VideoLAN Player - The ultimate video player, if you can’t play it with videolan you can’t play it with anything (well that’s not exactly true, but this player can take almost anything you throw at it)

FoxIT PDF reader - Don’t wanna install adobe reader couse it sucks, install foxit, like they describe it in their website: small, fast, clean and free.

Screamer Radio - freeware Internet Radio player, plus recorder. It organizes recorded music by folder. It allows you to record continuously or splitted by song. I use it everyday to record all that awesome jazz music from SKY.fm.

7zip - At first I downloaded this utility cause I needed something to unzip rar’s, but then I started using the 7-z format which has great compression. I also use it for unziping pretty much everthing including zips cause it’s fast, really fast. (Right now the website is unavailable, but do a google search and I’m sure you’ll find it elsewhere)

Democracy Player - This app allows you to download all those free internet video podcasts (podcasts, video blogs, and BitTorrent feeds.) You subscribe to the one’s you like and the program takes care of the downloading. This written in python (kinda slow) you may need a powerfull computer to make the app run smoothly. It features a very mac like interface.

Well that’s it, next time I’ll be posting a blog entry of my favorite mac freeware.

posted by Administrator :: categories: Tech ::  Comments (2)

Fri 7th Apr, 2006 -  Lulu’s Culinary Corner

This week blog entry comes courtesy of my wife Lulu, who’s an excellent cook and has a bunch of cool recipes, so I decided that she should post some of them online. You know, once in a while between my tech posts. So here it is Lulu’s first culinary recipe, Cheesy-Spicy Quesadillas with quick and easy Guacamole. Here’s a link in case you want to download the recipe in PDF format.

Cheesy/ Spicy Quesadillas

Ingredients:

1 bag of large tortillas (any kind)
6 large chicken breasts, boneless
2 green bell peppers
1 large yellow onion
1 large tomato lettuce
2 packs of shredded cheese blend (any kind you like)
2 tablespoons of smashed garlic
Oregano
1 tablespoon of Olive oil
1 tablespoon of Vinegar
Hot and spicy Tostito’s Salsa
Adobo
Pam cooking spray

Instructions:

1. Take chicken breasts and cut them in long slices across. Season the chicken with a few sprinkles of adobo on both sides as well as oregano. Put pieces in a bowl and add olive oil, vinegar and garlic. Let chicken sit in marinade for a while until you finish preparing rest of ingredients.

2. Take onion, green bell peppers, tomato and lettuce cut in small cubed pieces and separate into bowls.

3. Preheat a large frying pan, spray with Pam and set heat at med-high.

4. Add chicken pieces to pan and cook until tender with color on both sides.

5. Take another large skillet pan and preheat as well.

6. Once hot, lay one of the tortillas on pan and add various pieces of chicken, some onion, pepper, tomato, lettuce and cheese and if you like, some spicy salsa. All this on one side of tortilla as if it was divided in half. Take the half that is clear and fold it over ingredients on other side. Press down with spatula for about 3-4 mins. on each side or until both sides are brown and crispy and cheese is melted.

7. Finish by cutting quesadilla in three pieces and may add sour cream/guacamole.

Quick and Easy Guacamole

2 avocados
1 juicy lemon
1 clove of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon of olive oil

Instructions:

1. Take all ingredients and combine while mashing avocados until a lumpy paste is formed.

This serves about 8-10 people at 2 pieces of quesadilla per person; if needed just add more chicken.

posted by Administrator :: categories: Cooking ::  Comments (5)