Have you ever been kept awake by gold fish? Noisy gold fish? I have. I never would have dreamed that gold fish were capable of making noise, but they do, they can gulp air. I was sleeping on a friends couch in Seattle, he was babysitting a pair of gold fish, sitting in a gold fish bowl on the dining room table twenty feet from my couch. We suspected that the water was tainted or something because they kept gulping air, and it seemed a little more cloudy than before. I guess fish need oxygen in their water, and if they don't get enough of it they come to the surface to suck air, making little popping sounds with their little fish lips.

It might not have been so bad if I wasn't worried about them, what if they drowned? I couldn't allow myself to become callous about their tiny wet lives. We had tried changing the water to make it fresher, but I was afraid to change too much of it because I thought I remembered something about fish being really sensitive to tap water and acidity or chlorine or something. So there I lay awake, worried about fish lives and water quality. What keeps you awake at night? (edit 534) Permalink

I think it's important to upload videos about important events in our lives, like today I stopped off at the old office, or shop, to help retrieve an e-mail for the book keeper. And I made some music too.

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A friend of mine used to comment on how Americans like to have bumper stickers that say things, say things that anyone can read. So that's what this is, a big long annoying bumper sticker of opinion. My opinion tonight, is on lawns.
Last night I found myself in my dad's back lawn, (I'm always finding myself places). It might seem a perfectly normal place to be, sensible and logical even. But it's not. Not in my opinion, not on this bumper sticker blog.
I was in my dad's back lawn, or "the back yard", as we call it. Because I was raking up grass clippings. Again a "natural and logical place for a man to be" you might think to yourself. Well, you, you're probably American, or maybe Canadian, you think lawns are natural and normal. Well they aren't. They are cultural! I distinctly remember my history teacher telling us that lawns came into being in the 20th century, before that lawns were restricted to parks, they did not surround everyone's personal suburban dwelling.
I certainly don't remember seeing any lawns in Taiwan. That makes me an expert by the way. I admit though, I may have been feeling rebellious since I was listening to "Smashing Pumpkins" on my not-iPod as I was raking, raking in the dark. I was "raking in the dark" because I started at 6:30pm, and by 8:30pm it's dark. And first, of course, the lawn needed to be mowed, with a riding lawn mower, the law is smaller now than when I was a kid push mowing it, but now there is a riding lawn mower.
So with Billy Corgan crying to me in stereo, I scraped grass clippings up into my plastic rake, using it like a shovel, flopping it into the wheel barrow, going to each grass pile I had raked up earlier, wondering if it would get any darker. And wondering why the only time I was ever in the far back lawn was when I was mowing it. I could see the warm and inviting yellow glow coming from the glass door on the back of the house, 50 yards away, a tiny little rectangle of not-raking-up-stupid-senseless-grass light.
Over and over again, I kept saying to myself, "Why do we mow the lawn?" "Because we have a lawn." "Why do we have a lawn?" "So we will have something to mow." "Why do we mow the lawn?"...
I think we have lawns so that our neighbors will see that we are mowing them as we should, which is what we should be doing, what should be done. I don't think many people wonder why they have lawns most of the time. I think it's culture. something that is because it is. Wow listen to my rebelliousness against the establishment!
I gotta say though. This morning when I woke up, I ran out to that back glass door and gazed out admiring the fruits of my labor that I had been unable to see in the twilight. It sure does look good mowed. (edit 532) Permalink

http://www.mapping-tools.com/info/pushpins/pushpins_2009.shtml (edit 531) Permalink

Get yourself a college education for free online, read this article: College Online. Just like sitting there in class. I watched a lecture on escape velocities, he did one for earth, and one for a human too, a spherical human with a 1 meter radius. (edit 530) Permalink

This might come in handy a lot. JetBytes helps you transfer files between users, but it does it directly between users. You just point to a file with the browse button, then it gives you a URL to copy and paste to r another user, probably with a chat program, and as long as you have the browser open, then it will transfer the file. (edit 529) Permalink

Greyson's computer has Synergy setup on it so he can move from his dual screen AutoCAD Windows XP computer to his Windows Vista notebook on sitting on his desk to the right. It wasn't working today. The error log said it couldn't connect. After checking the firewall on windows vista, which is running as a client, I was not able to get it to work. But after I added an exception in the firewall for TCP port 24800 on his Windows XP computer, running as the server, where his keyboard and mouse are plugged in, it worked. Somehow port 24800 got itself blocked recently. (edit 528) Permalink

Greyson just showed me lmgtfy.com. It's pretty funny, I can't wait to send people to links that show them how to google things. I just can't wait. (edit 527) Permalink

Whenever I try to print to the PDFCreator Windows XP looks like it's trying to install something called "SmartSound QuickTracks Plugin",


then it fails and gives an error dialog that says: "Error 1706. No valid source could be found for product SmartSound Quicktracks Plugin. The Windows Installer connot continue."

This also happens when I'm running Microsoft Access programs, whenever a new form is loaded. I don't want SmartSound Quicktracks Plugin, so I've been trying to figure out how to make Windows stop trying to install it.
I found this forum that mentions it.
I downloaded Windows Installer CleanUp Utility
and TempCleaner.exe
Then I downloaded SmartSound something I didn't really want to do. But no matter, I never had to install the SmartSound update, once I clean my registry that annoying message went away. Problem solved. Thanks Google. (edit 526) Permalink

I'm typing this on a Wii onscreen keyboard with one of those fun wavy wiimotes. It's fun and tedious at the same time. Youtube works pretty good though. And while I was typing this my sister walked in with her USB keyboard and plugged it in so I can type really fast without the Wiimote thingy. And it was Tegan's idea to use the Usb keyboard, and it's Tegan's Wii for that matter. Katie just said "everything's about Tegan." They are watching me type this. It's pretty funny, everyone is watching me type this on the Wii. It has mesmorizing sound effects. Half the reason I'm typing is just to hear the clicky sounds that it makes. So this is my first Wii entered blog, and maybe the last, since I can only see about two lines at the same time. But that sound... it's so rythmic and seductive. The only way I can move the cursor around is by holding down the Ctrl key and pressing the arrow. But you can't do it while the word is still red, you have to press enter to tell the Wii that you are done typing the word. The Wii tries to guess what word you are typing and offers a little selection below while you are typing it. Oops I just shut off the clicky noise, I'm not sure how to turn it back on. (edit 525) Permalink