guess who's back

Hey kids. I've been napping... lost my job... got a new one... racked up about 10 large in credit card debt... settled with the cat food people to pay my vet bills for almost killing my boys... (hey, they threw in free food and an extra five hundred for "future care"... they're swell... d-bags)... watching my friends flake out, get engaged, get pregnant... whatever.

So. Oh, and not necessarily in that order. Here's the scoop on this fall. You heard it here first.

FALL 2007 FASHION TRENDS GET 'EM WHILE THERE IS STILL SOME HOPE YOU WON'T BE THE ONLY ONE NOT ROCKING IT

Jeans - Acid Wash is Back
Yes, it's like one of the worst fashion trends of the 80s, and it JUST WON'T GO AWAY.
Although this pic makes it seem kinda hot...



NEXT - High (hi?) tops... are back. Another 80s fashion staple we could all do without... this is not necessarily new news for most of you most likely, but whatev.


Finally. Plaid. Flannel. That's right.



Which leads us to the most UNHOLY OF UNHOLIES:




All images used without permission from various sites. Tricks.

nike vintage running shoes are shite

You heard it here first. Look at this garbage... do you really want to wear something that basically says, "Yes, I am cool with squashing every bit of my own fashion sense so that Nike can foist off some retro-trash on me."...?

The shoes are ugly! The marketing campaign sucks! It's an unfunny T-shirt ("Mustache Rides, 3 for $1.00" -- harr, harr) stretched out into an entire website! Blech. See for yourself here.

I'll now go and hide under a rock from Nike's interwebs patrol and their hideous late-70s era fashion.

in the words of martin q. blank...

I managed to incorporate a Grosse Pointe Blank quote into today's post on JoshSpear. Genius. It was like blogging kismet.

Just thought I would share, cheers.

underrated cheesy bands: counting crows

We have all been conditioned to grow out of Counting Crows, weren't we? Did they go the way of keg parties, four-twenty, and everything else from college that we thought was cool? (OK, some of us - the foolish and impressionable folks. Ahem.)

And you know, that's probably a good thing. Really. I was going to go in a slightly different direction here, but it's well past midnight and obviously I'm not at my most lucid. Just glancing at a 'top songs' list by Counting Crows on iTunes tells me that, yes, we're all probably better off not having "Big Yellow Taxi", "Accidentally in Love", or "Round Here", much less "Mr. Jones" in our Top 25 Most Played lists.

But... "Colorblind". That is a good song. Probably because I don't have any sophomoric emotional baggage attached (that I remember) to it. Recorded in 1999 on 'This Desert Life', I was living in a modern-music bubble at the time. Nothing penetrated it. Probably because I didn't have a stereo (to speak of), or much of any other way to listen to music. And when I did it was probably obscure titles purchased second-hand. What the hell was I doing in '99? Jesus. Oh, wait... I remember now... wasting time. In retrospect, time that could just as well have been spent listening to Counting Crows.

update: DbRA back from the dead

Like a virulent strain of malaria, like a stubborn bit of mold in the corner of your shower, like a... ok, well you get the picture.

My efforts to revive my computer earlier this week were partially successful. Despite the (seemingly) good advice (or if malevolent, then cunningly worded to appear helpful yet largely disinterested) of "anonymous" in response to my last post, I ultimately elected to simply wipe the slate clean (so to speak) after digging up my "Compaq Restore" CDs. This involved tossing half the contents of my second closet out into the office, and devoting several hours to staring at the monitor until it dutifully asked me to insert the next disk, and so on, but the long and the short of it (as if you'll ever get that without multiple tangents and digressions) is that my PC is (mostly) working again.

I keep encountering annoying problems associated with wiping out my hard drive. This evening, it was the realization that all of my iTunes library had been obliterated. And, of course, I had to download and reinstall iTunes. So I've been whiling away the hours (but not conversing with any flowers because I'm neither tripping on a strong hallucinogen nor am I schizophrenic, or for that matter, in the cast of a bad musical... where was I going with this...?) waiting for iTunes to:

1. Install.
2. Recognize my Nano.
3. Import the ~ 200 purchased songs from said Nano.

Good times! Undoubtedly, there are other, most likely less annoying, although potentially unbearably tragic, side effects of the scorched Earth policy I followed when rehabbing my computer. I'll keep you posted. I'm sure you'll be on pins & needles...

whatever this notskrnl.exe file is, it seems to be important

As my friend RR would say, my computer is effed in the A. As I would put it, it has shit the bed. Now, this is not necessarily the end of the world... wait, what am I saying?! This is the end of the world! This is like the fifth sign of the apocalypse!! Soon, it will start raining frogs, the North Branch will turn to blood, dogs and cats living together, MASS HYSTERIA!!!

Not good times, in other words, over at Camp DbRA. Not good times indeed. At the moment, I'm trying an "Emergency Reinstall" disk loaned to me from a friend. I can pretty much guarantee this is not going to work. For starters, the disk was designed for use with a Dell. I own a Compaq. You see where this is going?

Hmmm. I've accessed a Recovery Console. That seems positive.

Now its asking me for an Administrator password. I don't have one. Let's hit Enter.

A-hah! Command prompt! Boy, I haven't seen a DOS prompt in years. I was sort of assuming that I didn't need to remember how to do anything in DOS... since you, know, the world went Windows. Or Mac. Or whatever. (Remind me to tell you how at one point I basically taught myself C++ so as to hack my "WWII" BBS software at the age of fourteen. Yes, I was a geek. Now, I'm a geek but I'm much better looking and I know how to dress well.)

Let's try "chkdsk". That way I can feel like I'm doing something to help matters.

Hmm. Fine, "chkdsk /p" then.

"CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery..."

30% of the way there... go on, CHKDSK, do your thing!

(I'm pretty sure this isn't going to help. Where did I leave my Diet Coke...? Did I mention that I'm using my work laptop jacked into my home ethernet connection? So this *is* real-time-ish.)

"CHKDSK found one or more errors on the volume."

No kidding. Was it the notskrnl.exe file, perhaps? Don't be coy with me CHKDSK! How about, "chkdsk /r"... how do you like them apples? I think this program hasn't been used in about five years and it's gotten uppity... and it's probably cranky because I roused it from a nice nap. You know, robotic sheep and all. The "/R" parameter claims it "locates bad sectors and recovers readable information". Fab.

50% done with the second pass. I'm tempted to slip into the other room and resume my latest round/trainwreck of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007... at the moment, I have a 78 through 14 holes... for reference, par is typically between 70-72. Uh, for 18 holes. So I wouldn't be doing too terribly, you know, assuming I could quit now and not play the remaining four holes.

Somehow I think CHKDSK sensed my wavering attention. We're stuck at 52%.

Still stuck. My interest in waning by the second. The only thing keeping me in the game is that, while my work laptop is all well and good, I'm a bit leery of the records ("history", let's call it) I might leave behind if was to visit certain, shall we say less savory, websites....

Hmmm, hmmm. 52% still.

Egads. I have officially lost interest and we're already bordering on TMI here. Maybe I'll check back on this, like, tomorrow.

If you know anyone with a large sledgehammer or if you fancy yourself a computer nerd and would like to offer some advice, please leave a comment.

Cheers

things to do while your boss is out sick

Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't wish strep throat on anyone. I've had it, and thus I know from personal experience that it is not fun. Not good times, so to speak. That having been said, it does introduce some unexpected... flexibility, shall we say, into the workday. Therefore, for your consideration, I am offering:

Things to Do While Your Boss Is Out Sick,
In No Particular Order
(feel free to modify as needed, and remember - pace yourself)

• Read recent posts on JoshSpear.com.
• Think of something to write about for JoshSpear.com. (Got it!)
• Go out for coffee. Frequently.
• Check your bank balance.
• Reboot laptop, login, open a new browser window, check bank balance again.
• Mull over how long you can survive on your one card with available credit until your next paycheck clears and restores your balance to a positive number.
• Shop for things you can't afford, especially given the developments above.
• Seriously consider buying something anyway.
• Treat yourself to a bag of Peanut M&Ms instead. (My new obsession.)
• Extensively plan this weekend's golf outing. Would a bus-to-bus route be faster than an El-to-bus route? Would the train afford you more room (i.e. time to sleep in should you be hung over) for error?
• Peruse the CTA website. Find yourself amazed, yet again, that there are so many bus routes in Chicago.
• Muse about why you don't take the bus more often.
• Try to remember your last bus ride. (Oh, that's right, it - actually, they considering it was a bus-to-another-bus trip - resulted in your first and possibly last Missed Connection post.)
• Berate yourself for being hopelessly optimistic. Or maybe just a loser.
• Plot your next book purchase.
• Speculate as to when and if you'll ever complete several books you are currently "reading". (Especially this one.)
• Sneak a midday cigarette. (For shame!)
  
• Ponder how long you can be gone for lunch.
• Secretly wish you could have a few beers at lunch. (Could you have a few beers at lunch? Hmm. Probably. Would anyone say anything? Probably not. Would getting away with it easily kill the fun? Probably.)
• Update your profile on the social networking site(s) of your choice.
• Check the clock.
• Create a spreadsheet to determine how many hours you have to work over the remaining weekdays to meet the minimum required.
• Sigh in dismay.
• Look for an open bar tonight.
• Write a blog entry.
• Check the clock.