OF SICKNESS AND SOFTWARE

Just coming off a period of sickness in the house, with Little Bronx
puking his head off for two days solid, while Mrs. Bronx was equally ill
for a week prior (though she managed to work through it -- the woman's a
rock).  I'm expecting it to hit me anytime.  Seems like some kind of
stomach flu.  I simply can't wait.

I've been streamlining this space as best I can, and getting a better
handle on the upload and posting processes.  "Things get a little
easier...once you understand," as that ancient preachy song goes.  Over
all, I find gopherspace more interesting than the regular Webs these
days, though the number of dead links and server disappearances get old.
In a way, right now, it's like a treasure hunt, and that keeps surfing
fresh.  There are a VERY finite number of available sites, though -- or
so it seems to me right now -- so things will soon be old hat, unless
more and more people jump aboard the Retrotrain.

I'm especially happy to have gotten the blogging/phlogging application,
Germ, up and running here, which allows for a more streamlined approach
to the whole thing.  At least, in my opinion.  It's really a Perl script
put together by one Wesley Teal, who goes by "wt" here on SDF, and has
already been added to by a number of others, in the best FOSS tradition.
I'm currently using Germ 0.2.0a, which is already outdated.  No biggie.
Steak knives are about as cutting edge as I get.

The other day, I finally got "Fedora Community Remix 12.1" fully
downloaded and seeded using rtorrent on this machine.  That may not seem
like a big deal to you, but my connection is so bad here at home, that
it took many days to accomplish.  Add to that, my general newness to
bittorent in general and rtorrent in particular, and there were, shall
we say, "divinity challenged" moments.  But I can't find a checksum for
12.1 anywhere -- not at the torrent site, not on the dev's site, and not
on the Web in general.  They have it for 12.2 (which came out while I
was about half-way through this DL...grumble, grumble...), but not for
12.1 anywhere that I've seen.  I'm going to have to drop them a line and
see if they can whip one up for me.  I've tried bittorent before for
distributions, and have always had bad luck with the md5sum.  Media have
been fine, though, so my general faith in the technology isn't yet
shaken.  We'll see.

So it's dead on the Interwebs, and there is nothing of any interest.  At
least, the weekend has been a dead spot in my limited circle for as long
as I can remember.  I've often thought that Friday would be a good night
for a live or recorded audio show of some sort, but I haven't been able
to find one that interests me.  Tonight (Saturday), the "Linux Cranks"
will be on, but I'm not sure I'll be up that late.  Okay, okay...so a
goodly portion of the weekend doldrums is on me.  Doesn't make them any
less barren.

**********

Nethack-n-Slash

Still no Nethack news, but I have started to get Little Bronx into
role-playing games...you know, REAL ones, not those horseshit excuses
for RPG's that computer players and designers use the term to describe.
Since I got rid of all my gaming books years ago, after one move or
another, and I wanted something simple and fast, I quickly scribbled up
a couple sets of rules for character classes, combat, and magic.  We've
had two adventures so far, and he's hooked -- hooked, I tell you!
Heh-heh-heh.  Indoctrination well under way.