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After dealing with the horrible state of dvd authoring in linux I finally rebooted to windows (after 74 days of continuous linux uptime) and I authored my first video DVD, wheee! I also did hours of windows updates, hahaha, god how I hate that. Oh, and it turns out that the firmware in my dvdwriter was already updated, bugger.

I’ve been doing a lot of research into creating a linux powered dvr/pvr box… instead of going the Tivo/ReplayTV route, and while the Linux PVR would cost slightly more than a ReplayTV it would have considerably more features…. provided that it would actually work. It’s all more of an intellectual excerise than true planning because there’s no way I can afford to plop down $750 for a toy anytime soon, there are too many more important things. Of course, also, since my company was hit with a sledgehammer early this year, my general income is still pretty shitty — and while it’s no longer only half of what I was making, I’m still about six hundred per month shorter than I was… it sucks so much I can’t even explain how horrible it is.

While I could easily be making reference to life in general, I’m instead referring to Linux and software for authoring DVDs. I guess you can’t always have the best of both worlds, heh… And while the software to encode video is quite superior in Linux than in windows, the technology to actually put that video onto a dvd is so incredibly pathetic. The only way to even burn a data DVD is to use a hacked version of the commandline program ‘cdrecord’ …and you have to ignore all these warnings about disc size! Which of course means if you’re not incredibly careful you’ll pass the 4.3GB limit (which makes perfect sense because the discs say 4.7GB), hahaha, argh! Of course, industry-wide, there’s still the whole controversy over DVD+R or DVD-R… which is very similar to the whole beta/VHS debacle of the 80′s. Since we all know that the inferior technology won out this does not bode well for re/writable DVD discs either. To further complicate matters I need to boot to windows anyway so that I can upgrade the firmware for the dvdwriter drive, I hate how specs change so rapidly that after buying a pack of DVD+R discs I cannot even use them!

Oh, and then there’s this whole PVR insanity. Everything online says that the video4linux interface and technology is fairly mature and works well. Mhmmm… Except that my tv tuner/PVR card is probably one of the most common (these days courtesy of WINXPMCE) and I find absolutely zero reference to it being in use for linux. Oh well, in reality it’s more of a toy anyway, but it’s still annoying to not be able to do what I want in the OS of choice.

Well, lastnight was utterly dissapointing. It started out well with Matthew phoning to coordinate plans earlier than expected, for that brief period of time it really seemed like it was going to come together without incident. I was wrong.

I had a sinking feeling during the late afternoon that the evening would somehow become fucked up, but I went ahead and got ready anyway and might I say I did look fabulous, hah. he was supposed to pick me up around six, but to call first… so six comes around and nothing, six-fifteen and nothing, six-thirty and nothing… you get the idea. A few minutes after seven he calls and proceeds to tell me how the day got screwed up and he accomplished very few of the things necessary and suggested that we have lunch tomorrow (now today). I was less than pleased to say the very least. The only workable compromise that I could come up with was to still do something, but later in the evening, and then perhaps lunch the next day. I had pretty much zero faith in that actually happening, and wouldn’t you know, my lack of faith wasn’t misplaced either. He gave an estimated time of nine, but ten rolled around and I still hadn’t heard from him. At this point, when others are saying that I’m too patient, I decided to ditch the whole idea and went to bed along with turning off the phone’s ringer. He didn’t call anyway.

This is simply not working, regardless of his intentions, my time is being truly disrespected and resultantly I’m being disrepected. There’s only so much I can put up with and we’ve reached the point now where my patience has run too thin. Oh well, I gave it a valiant attempt, in theory at least, and while it’s not terribly difficult to deal with life in slow motion, there is the point where trying to make something work with someone is less worthwhile than being alone. There just are not enough pros to outweigh the con of how stupid I feel when I’m sitting here stood up.

Grandview Avenue, the epitomy of horrible roads… now smooth as glass. The city started destroying it back in June/July and might I say, they did an absolutely perfect job of making it so horrible as to make it unusable. It stayed that way all summer up until the past couple of days… I’m driving the new road uttering my amazement in terms of “wow, oh my god, this is amazing” pretty much the entire length of the road.

Hmm, yes, Cole phoned me yesterday morning upon seeing a Tastycake truck. If you’ve not been following along he discovered the joy of this Philly based junk food while out here and wasn’t able to locate any in Ohio, so last time I was up there I brought him several boxes. He made references to visiting for my birthday next month, but I’m just not feeling it. I’ve done a lot of thinking and I really think I want to be alone. I really do think I’ll be feeling pretty horrible and judging from how I felt after getting off the phone with him, which was pretty much the verge of tears, I really just think it’s best to not see him. There is also that whole aspect of getting excited about seeing him and then have it not happen; which is quite common.

I also heard from Matthew lastnight, we have tentative plans for him to cook dinner for us tomorrow evening (Saturday). If the weather isn’t too terribly cold (and it seems like it will be) he also suggested we do a bonfire sort of a thing outside, seems very nice though. Given his track record I’m trying not to get too excited about it, but I can’t help but to look forward to it, it’s sort of sweet and romantic… or at least has potential to be.

Oh, and I made biscotti for the first time this morning, it’s white chocolate & hazelnut. It’s definitely better than anything I’ve bought, hahaha… sooooo good! I want to get some almonds and make chocolate-almond ones too. It’s surprisingly easier than I expected to make.

Yesterday was the eye exam, amazingly enough my prescription didn’t really change from Decembre of 1998, I guess that’s why I never felt the need to get them checked between then and now. The new glasses cost me $168 not counting the eye exam (another $40), which I guess isn’t too bad, but it’s still quite a hit to the wallet. I saved major dollars by going the plastic frame route versus Titanium, and I also skipped out on the contact idea since I can always do that part of the exam at a later date. I’m thinking that I might still skip the contacts and get prescription sunglasses instead, I’ve always wanted either green or yellow darkly tinted sunglassses, heh. Originally, years ago, I bought contacts so that I could wear regular sunglasses, but it really ended up being a waste. I rarely wore the contacts and the monthly disposables ended up being more like single-use ones. I refused to allow the ‘assitant’ to do the Gluacoma test, you know that awful air-puff thing, so the doctor used this magnifying lense thing to check my optic nerve instead, everything was just fine (as suspected). Anyway, they should be ready sometime next week.

Last week I bought a few yards of this interesting blue/gray nylon microfiber fabric and cut out a Burda shirt pattern, still haven’t actually put it together yet. Instead I sort of got back into the whole soaping idea, made the Rose soap for that guy’s girlfriend; it turned out very nicely. I also soaped Green Tea & Coconut Milk fragrances this morning. The green tea only partially gelled due to my oops with insulating it, but it’ll be fine. The coconut milk soap, with real coconut milk, might be a little bit less white than desired as I added 20% Palm oil to it. The Palm oil has a slight yellow tone to it, but since I have a gallon of it and rarely use it, it seemed appropriate to use it up in this testing process. I’m working on having a rainbow of different soaps, if nothing else I’ll have something nice to send people for the holidays, heh.

I really should build another soap mold, because once I get into making it I don’t want to stop. I divided my 55oz log mold into two 24oz sections so I can at least make two batches a day. The Ginger Passion soap I made recently still hasn’t become very firm, damn that Olive oil! It will eventually get harder, but the slow cure of a castille-type soap is very annoying. The scent is fantastic though and will probably make it again, the soap too is quite yummy. I’ve been mostly concentrating on cost-effective test recipes using ‘common’ oils like coconut, olive, soybean, etc, but I do miss working with the more exotic stuff like Ricebran & Babassu. I need to get more Ricebran and Castor. I really think the castor helps lather considerably and hate that I can’t find it anywhere locally since it’s really the only thing I want to get right now. A gallon of it costs about $15, but then it has about $10 shipping which kills the idea of ordering just that. The one nice thing though is that I’ve been able to experiment with a variety of different oil percentages and I’ve come up with some very nice formulas, both of the luxury and the inexpensive types. My sandalwood soap consisting of mostly Walmart purchased oils (not counting Palm Kernel Oil) is awesome.

I have the lounge finally cleared out, and nearly organized. I won’t be getting the couch this month because I opted to get the new glasses, it just seemed more important. I think I’ll wait on the couch until I can afford to get a chair or two also. The actual furniture is a fairly low priority though, I don’t need the couch or anything else really, it’s just one of those ‘nice’ little things… having a place to just chill . Since I spend most of my ‘downtime’ working, hah, or at least sitting here at the computer, it isn’t anything to worry about. I’m too prissy (Sam!) to get a couch at a thrift store, you never really know what had been done to it, with it, or on it by the previous owner and that just freaks me out. I think that even if I’d get a used couch the cost of fabric, foam (cushions would probably need replaced), and the time involved would rapidly bump the cost to being less than worthwhile.

On a somewhat related note, I’ve decided against getting a new surround system, the one I have is definitely good enough, no need to plop down tons of money replacing something that works, at least at this point. I also started a membership with Netflix recently, so I’d be able to get movies that not even evil Blockbuster carries; many of the gay/foreign files I want to see.

In general I’ve been a bit happier over the past week, at least in the sense that I wouldn’t characterize my mood as “profoundly unhappy” right now. I’m still far from any conventional definition of ‘happy’ but I’m alright.

I figured it was about time for a change, the roots were coming in and things were getting a little crazy. It’s also becoming more important to finally get new glasses, so I’m working on that particular horrorshow with an exam scheduled for tomorrow evening. It’s ridiculous how even getting ‘cheap’ glasses ends up being insanely expensive, blah. I’ve opted to go the plastic frame route this time, as the titanium is just too expensive; the whole metal allergy thing really sucks. I found a pair of frames that’ll work though, and they’re not too painful in regards to the wallet. I was going to get contacts, but I think I’ll hold off on that, I’d probably not wear them often enough to justify the additional expense anyway. I just have a totally different viewpoint now, I guess because I’m comfortable with my lack of life, versus before I was in the district a lot, etc, and well… whatever. It just aggravates me to no end though, how because of my prescription I’d either have 30 pound lenses on my face or I pay at least four times more money… I hate having bad eyes.