Tuesday Oct 26th, 2004: PM - Late PM:  Tonight I was in a brief discussion with someone from my ISP who I now work with… I mentioned my displeasure with the my DSL service.  Before I knew what he was doing, he bumped up my speed.  I’m now actually getting the speed I’m paying for and it’s fantastic.  And sometimes a bit more too.  My download speed is not like “leap tall buildings” fast, but it’s very fast considering my area of operation.  Very nice.  Happy Ogre again!  With decent speed now, I’ll be able to get a lot more procrastination done!   

Angry Ogre:  News reports are showing big snow coming my way tomorrow.  I hope not.  Let’s see, about 2 hours west of here they got 42 inches of snow.   If we get even a fraction of that, we’re in trouble.  Come on, PAYDAY!  Daddy needs a new pair of tires!  Actually, I’m not that worried.

Oh, another thing I’m not worried about… my brother Zack.  SPC. Zack has just outranked everyone in his platoon with the SAW and the Pistol.  Making him a designated SAW (M-249) gunner.  Outstanding!  That is bloody OUTFREAKINGSTANDING!  I know he’s going to be fine.  My other brother Josh however… he’s driving a HUMVEE.  He’s screwed… well… not with Zack covering his “Can’t hit the broad side of a barn” ass.  I’m kidding.  I’m proud of these guys.  They are already heroes in my book, just for having the balls to stand up and do their duty to their country.  I’ll be sending them packages when I can… I’m wondering if a package can include Beretta 92 factory magazines.  Anyone know about that?

Thanks for some new banners, guys.  I’ll be putting them up shortly. You guys did much better than my lame efforts.  (Or lack of, I think I was in Gimp for all of sixty seconds doing that)

Today at work I became acquainted with a very cool web application “GoToMyPC”.  I set up a network at the local water sewage treatment plant and the manager wanted to remotely view and deal with the automated system.  The fellow I was working with suggested that, and it worked beautifully.  And it’s a better solution than the one we were initially trying to tackle, because now Mr Plant Manager can do his job on site, around the site, off site, out of state, anywhere that he has a decent computer and internet connection.  He was most pleased.  That’s a pretty damn cool application.  I’ll have to look into it deeper.    Not that I would have any actual use for it here, but for some clients, I can see it as being invaluable.

Politics… Sheesh.  The Democrats are already filing lawsuits.  Those assholes.  They are filing false suites to hamper the election because they know their man has little chance.  We’re down to one week and counting.  This week will go by fast.  Thankfully.  And then we will be done with it.  We will either continue heading where we were heading or we will go into a full dive and really hit the bottom.   We shall see.  We will all be voting, indeedy we will!  You better too.  Even if you don’t want to – go cast your vote.  Because it does count.  Not if the Democrats have anything to say about it, but for now at least, it does.

I’ve become fascinated with Christian Art from the middle ages up through the renaissance.  Of course this is related to the class I’m taking on the subject, but the class is all about the names and dates of the painters and all that jazz… but I’m not into that.  I just like the artwork.  I wish my text was actually bigger, with bigger pictures of the paintings and such.  Some of the details are just fascinating.  Some early Christian artwork is comical, some divine, and some horrific.  The paintings of the angels and of the apocalypse are my favorites.  They are fun to look at.  Very different from your normal landscape with a deer in it that you see here in Utah.  Not that I don’t mind hunting themed nature art or whatever… but if I see another painting of Lab Pups with a duck decoy, I’m just going to puke.   I guess as a guy I am supposed to like those sorts of paintings.  But I’m afraid I don’t.   I’ve got to visit an art gallery for this course, and I’ve not done so yet.  I’m not sure where I can go around here.  I’ll have to go to one in Park City or Salt Lake.  If there is a good one out there worth going to.  The Poster Shop at the mall isn’t going to cut it.  And even if it did, I’m not interested.

I am also loving some of the old poetry of that era and I’ll post a bit from an interesting piece that you’ve never heard of, but you know the author, or at least, the translator.  JRR Tolkien.  It’s called “Pearl” and it’s very good.  At least, I’ve not heard of it before.  It’s one you can’t read to yourself, you have to read it out loud to appreciate the artistry of the words.  If words have flavor, this is Chocolate Truffles. 

AM: Sweet… the snow didn’t stick, a warm(er) front moved in and turned the snow into rain again.  Excellent.  Wet ground, not icy frozen snowy ground.  This is an improvement. Okay, the new logo sucks.  I was playing around with Gimp a little bit more and not learning much.  As you can tell.  But before you tell me it sucks… Let’s see you do a better one, along the same theme.  I was wanting to touch on the feeling of John Carpenter’s The Thing, frozen, desolate, alone, and ogerish.  

Even better news, the election is now only 1 week away.  I am very much looking forward to it.  The sooner we put Kerry to bed, the better.  And once this election is over, I challenge everyone to do a Find and Replace and change “Kerry” to “He whom doesn’t deserve to be remembered” on all your Blogs if that’s possible.  Good night Kerry, it wasn’t nice knowing you.  What would be sweet is if Mass voted him out of the senate.  Dole had the integrity to resign from the Senate when he ran for President.  Kerry didn’t do that.  So if Kerry loses, he just goes back to Boston as if nothing happened.  Forget that he brushed off his Senatorial duties for a whole year… well, considering Kerry’s work record, nothing changed did it?   I think there should be some legislations that says if you are going to campaign – you need to drop your “Senator” status.  “Former” would be just fine.

If Mass votes in someone else… that would be classic.  That would be a dream come true.  That’s something worth praying for.  Because Mass deserves better representation than Kerry and Kennedy.  Oh man, if both were voted out?  Glorious.  Okay, I dream.  But what a wonderful dream!

Funny how the Liberals are spinning everything.  Tons and tons of explosives go missing in Iraq… uh, but that stuff was reported last year, and it was missing before US troops got there.  They are trying to blame Bush for everything!  For hells sake, Bush is not an omnipotent god!  Bush is the head of the executive branch of the US Government – that’s it.  He’s not the King, he’s not the Monarch, he’s not the Dictator.  I don’t think any US President has ever endured more ridicule and scrutiny… certainly not Clinton, not Carter, not Roosevelt or Lincoln.  And no president as ever been given the impression of having so much power by the Liberal Media.  If Bush flicks a booger in DC, it Tsunamis in Japan. 

Monday, Oct 25th, 2004: 2100hrs: Snow.  There is snow in Ogre Valley, and I’m not at all pleased with it.  It was pretty up in the mountains, but flakes are falling here where I dwell. This displeases me greatly.  Hopefully the stuff will not stick and the roads will remain closed.  It’s been raining all bloody week so everything is soggy.  A bit of a temperature dip will mean everything becomes encrusted in ice until next April. I’m not at all looking forward to driving on that with two bald front tires.  I was looking forward to getting new tires before the Earth turned white.   

Sunday, Oct 24th, 2004: Noonishsomthing: Top Ten Geekiest Hobbies.  This is funny.  I am pleased to say that I no longer indulge in anything on that list… but there used to be one.  But I’m not telling you what that is.  Thank heavens George Lucas turned me off of it. 

There may be hope for avoiding a future conflict between the US and China.  We’ve just opened up a HOOTERS over there.  You can’t fight against each other when you share boobies.  Maybe they can do a cultural Hooters girl exchange?  We send over some brassy big breasted blonds and they send over some svelt black-haired beauties?  There you go.  Military conflict avoided.  Okay, I know international relations are more complicated that than… I just like the idea of Hooters babes being the new ambassadors of peace.  Take that Jimmie Carter.

I’ve had a couple emails from some readers asking me to change the font because MadOgre.com is hard to read.  I am using 10 point font, because I can get all the text properly formatted for the site’s layout.  Going up to 12 would be flat out stupid looking.   However if you are having a hard time reading it, there are a couple options for you to do on your end.  Number One is adjust your text view sizing on your browser.  Just pull down the VIEW drop down menu and adjust the Text Zoom.  That will make everything easier on the eyes, not just MO.  The other thing you could do is to adjust your display properties.  Right click on your desktop, properties, go to settings and then move the slider over to the left a bit.  Both of these changes will make a big difference.  But if you need just a subtle difference, try this.  Try turning on “Clear Type” if you don’t have it already. Right click on the desktop and select properties again. Then select the Appearance tab.  Click the button that says “Effects”. Then check the second box that says use this for smoothing fonts… if it says “Standard” like it does for the default setting, then there is an arrow for a drop down that will give you an option for “Clear Type”.  Select that, Apply, and okay… there you go.  See if that helps your peepers.  It’s primarily for use on LCD screen displays, but it helps on CRTs as well.  I’ve decided I am not going to go back in time and change all the old page colors.  Sorry. 

More thoughts on The Grudge: The Grudge wasn't actually that scary.  It was more of a thriller trying to unravel what happened.  I liked the way they worked it all the way up to the very end which just ended way to soon and abruptly.  Instead of really building up tension like how a good director can do... they just used music.  The music would get louder when you were supposed to feel tense.  So if you are aware of the music, you realize that there is no tension and something is about to jump out at you.  So you don't jump when that happens.  In a well done movie, the tension builds naturally and the music is transparent... you are not aware of it... then when things go bump it really scares the dickens out of you.  This isn't the case in The Grudge.  The director and editors kind of rushed everything and the result is that it's a good movie, and interesting, but not nearly as scary as it could have been.  That and the ghost is a girl and she looks too cute to be scary... unlike The Ring where just the ghosts face was scary looking.  There is a little ghost boy too, but he is only scary because he meows like a cat.  That's not scary.
Anyways, it's a cool movie... it's well worth seeing considering the other options.  Like "Taxi". Sheesh.  I’m looking forward to The Ring Two and another movie that was previewed… one I’ve been waiting for, “Boogieman”.  That looks pretty good, but very much like a “Darkness Falls” cookie cutter movie.  But the potential is there.

I’m reading a first draft of a new book.  “Monster Hunters International” and I’m getting a kick out of it.  I’ll write a brief review of it when I’m done. 

Saturday, Oct 23rd I think it is, 2004 still:  Late Night: The Grudge.  It was a pretty good flick.  A bit, uh, what’s the word?  Predictable? But movies always are these days, so I can’t hold that against it… but the ending was a touch abrupt.  It seemed like the makers had a good idea and the just ran out of interest in continuing the picture so they just ended it.  Like how Stephen King ends a story.  He’s just like “Well, I’m tired of this book, so fuck it… everyone dies… the end.”  It’s pretty good right up to the end of it…. But I didn’t like how the they showed the ghost so early.  That was lame.  The first attic scene was cool, because you were like “WTF!” But then they just over played it I think.  They didn’t really build up the tension at all… just used music to give you the tension and that’s lame.  A few really cool effects in it, like when the sister was pulled down into the bed.  That was disturbing.  Still… the movie was a solid 7 out of 10.  Previews showed something cool – The Ring Two.  Sweet.  That was a solid 9 in my opinion.  I really liked it.  The ghost wasn’t fully revealed until the end… that was awesome.  It built up the tension the proper way and had much better pacing.  The Grudge felt too rushed.

I pulled out 3 old laptops.  None of them work.  I am going to take them into work and tinker with them to see if I can get one of them to work.  I don't need much of a system... just a small machine that displays text well, has an Ethernet port, and can run Linux and Open Office on it.  That's it.  Battery life isn't an issue, processor speed isn't an issue... RAM isn't an issue... I'm not going to play games on it... just text.  Email and Writer.  I need a writing tool and that's it.  Let's see, one machine is a Compaq 1800, an IBM Thinkpad, and a Compaq LTE. Out of all of them, I'd love to have the old Thinkpad working.  It's slow, but it's small and light.  Perfect for a writer on the road.  Well, prefect out of the 3.  The 1800 is the sweetest... but I left my 512 meg stick of RAM for it in my desk at CompUSA when I left there.  Damn it.  Wish I still had that memory!  Oh well... this machine is screwed bigtime.  It used to be able to play DVDs and all that snazzy stuff... but now it wont boot.  It will power on, spin the drives, and then hang.  Nothing comes up on the screen.  Not sure what that is. Maybe a bad processor?  Otherwise the thing is in good shape.  Well, save for the missing battery cover, memory cover, and hinge covers. Other than that, it's bloody perfect!  Screen is great, as it keyboard and touchpad and all that.  20 gig HD too.  I think I left some MP3's on it, but other than that, I don't remember what's on it.  It would be nice to get that running again, but it's not the ideal machine for my purposes... too big  Big nice screen that's great for movies and stuff.  Can't remember the processor speed... 900Mhz?    I'd trade all three for a decent little workable unit.  The old LTE?  It's like a 266 Win 95 machine.  Has 98 on it I think, but it hangs when loading the OS.  I bet FreeBSD would run great on it.  *sigh* oh well.

I also pulled out 3 old desktop PC's.  1 boots and runs great, and the other two boot fine, but don't have an OS.  These are old IBM Aptiva PII units.  I don't know what I'll do with them.  One used to run 98 and has a NIC and we used it as a web terminal.  I think I'll do that again with it for the little guys.  They don't need anything else on it.  The first one I mentioned that runs great, well, it runs better than I remembered it to.  340 megs RAM is more than enough for a web terminal and word processor running Win 98.  It is almost as fast as a PC I built Friday... Brand new Asus board, AMD 2600+ processor, 256 megs of PC2700 DDR, and a Radeon 7000 G-card to run Win 98SE.  That machine was super fast.  Not the most potent of hotrods, but the system response with a less bloated OS was incredible.  Everything was instantaneous. It makes me really wonder what the hell advances we are getting at with XP and all that jazz.. .and I'm hearing Long Horn is no better and actually only worse on system resources and everything.  98SE wasn't that bad of an OS really... it just wasn't pretty and it didn't have all the drivers you needed archived... you always have to put in new drivers and always had to put in your 98SE disk.  Resolve those things and you would have had a pretty cool OS.  But that isn't what MS did, is it?  That's why I think MS is going to loose the OS and Applications war to the Open Source movement.  Big players are already on board with Open Source.  Sun, IBM and the like... all working with Linux and other Open Source providers.  Heck, even my church is goign Open Source.  Seriously, the LDS Church is using Open Office.  Cool huh?  The Church is saving millions of dollars a year because of that.  And that money goes back into the branches and wards.  I love that.

Afternoon: Thanks for the help guys!  I’ve got NERO on a disk I left at work, I’ll get it Monday and do the ISO properly.  WinRAR was installed on both machines that I downloaded on and this one… so it looked like a RAR archive.  Hence the unzipping and my resulting confusion.  Nero – Burn ISO – got it.  No problem.  Thanks for links to good advice about all this too.  Interesting that SUSE users shouldn’t download the NVIDIA drivers, but instead use the SUSE downloader tool to get the driver and install it… Interesting because I have an FX 5200 card.  Not the best, I know, but it’s a step up from the card I used to have… the Ti 4600.  Now I have a question about this… the Ti 4600 has 128megs of RAM and I think it’s DDR.  The 5200 only has 64.  But since it’s DirectX 9 compatible, I could get some really good performance out of it.  But in Linux DirectX 9 isn’t the issue.  I think I’d be better off putting the Ti 4600 card in my Dell for use with Linux.  That old machine is totally gone so I’m just savaging off all the parts.  Maybe there is something bad on the board… maybe a daughter board is keeping it from posting.  I don’t know.  I don’t care.  Speaking of old boxes, I broke out an old PII machine I had, plugged it in and turned it on… runs great.  340 megs of RAM is plenty for Win98.  Yep – say hello to my new Linux box right there… because that’s plenty for Linux too.  Maybe not SUSE, but another distro, like Slackware.  Or Gentoo maybe.  It’s a lot of fun “shopping” for your OS.  Oh, I looked at my old Mandrake distro and it’s not 9.1 like I thought, it’s 8.1.  So the latest Mandrake 10 should be a hell of a lot better that that was… and that wasn’t all that bad to begin with either.

I went to the gun shop to check and see if my CZ-P01 had arrived yet.  Unfortunately it hadn’t.  While there, I noticed the slickest little OD green carbine I have ever seen.  The Walther C-22.  It’s a bullpup that holds a spare mag in the stock like the Steyr Scout does.  Very clever rifle.  I liked it.  I’ve never even heard of this gun before.  Had it been in 9MM or something, I’d have been all over it.  I might just have to track one down anyways.  With a little Aimpoint on top, that thing would be smashing fun.  Why have I never heard of the C-22?  I’m scratching my head.  Note to Walther:  Make that in other pistol calibers!!!!  9MM, .357 SIG, .40, .45, 2X23MM, 10MM!  You would really have something if you did.  I’d buy several of them!

AM: My computer has two hard drives.  I have XP on one, and I want to put SUSE 9.1 on the other.  I want to set up my computer to boot from either, letting me select the OS at start up.  I have the 9.1 ISO on disk and I unzipped it onto my 2^nd HD.  The Icon for that drive has changed to the SUSE logo and that’s kinda cool.  Unfortunately I can’t boot to the 2^nd HD in order to start the set up.  I think I need to create a boot CD or something but SUSE doesn’t explain how to do that.  Arrgh.  Any SUSE Gurus out there have a suggestion?  I’m not in a hurry.  I’ve more important things to do.  Like winterize Ogre Manor today.

First week at the new job.  I am enjoying being back at work with a boss that isn’t bossy at all and just lets me get my work done.  I don’t mind it at all and already he has opined the idea of putting me on salary…  I think this will work out fine, but I need to make sure I devote my lunch hours to study time, or else I wont have any.  This will take some getting used to.  Mrs Ogre of course already has my paycheck spent. But that was to have been expected.  I will buy her a new pair of glasses because her contacts are bugging her.  I don’t mind doing that for her.  I also need new glasses and a pair of front tires on the Bronk… and 4 on the silver Cherokee… and… damn… there’s the whole paycheck.

Snow is visible here in Ogre Valley.  The mountains all around us are white capped and look lovely.  Unfortunately this means snow is going to soon enough be on the ground here.  This is a good and bad thing.  Good, because snow really is quite lovely and hushes the noise of the world… and brightens the night so that even in starlight, you can go about without banging your knees into something.  Bad, because I gotta get up on the roof and patch a leak.  It’s rained all week and as luck would have it, we discovered a leak in the roof… right over my bed.  Nice.  Well, it wasn’t a bad leak or anything, but I had best get up there and effect the repair before the roof gets a 12 inch blanket of snow and ice over it and repairs made impossible.  I’ve also got to get the swamp cooler drained and wrapped or any and all heat will escape through the 3 foot hole that is the swamp cooler.    Last year we wrapped it in plastic and that wasn’t good enough.  So I will use a wool blanket first and plastic over that for some insulation.  Utah winters, especially here, are extremely bitter cold.   Weather reports show a huge snow storm possibility in the near future so I had best get on it.

Go check out The Pickle… (link in the left column) Commander Glenn has posted a remarkable essay that I wish I had written.  So in lew of rants here today, go there for a good lecture about reality.

Tonight I am going to go see “The Grudge”.  That’s something I’m looking forward to.  Mrs. Ogre and I went out last night to see “13 Past Midnight” a small play put on my the highschool… directed by one of my English Profs, and performed by many of Mrs. Ogre’s dance students.  It was amusing, but I preferred the dinner we had afterwards.  A real sit down meal that didn’t have a toothpick sticking in it nor was it wrapped in paper.  Here in Ogre Valley, most meals come either-or and sometimes both.  Well… I’ve procrastinated enough.  Time to get up on the roof.

Thursday, Oct 21st, 2004: Early Morning: Going back in time:  No, not to the middle ages again… to last Saturday.  Last Saturday I picked up a newspaper and brought it home with the intent to read it.  I never did.  Never got the chance.  Tonight when I came home from school, and after I had a good shag, I realized that I have not seen one jot or tittle of news.  I have no idea what’s going on in the world.  So I pick up that newspaper that was still laying flat and folded like it was still new and important, and I read it.  What do I find?  Mikey Moore-On showing his ass again.  He was at UNLV and took the chance to rip on Utah.  You can do that when you are given an open microphone with no one allowed to offer an ideological or intellectual challenge.  He said, talking about the UVSC students that paid for him to come out, “They have never backed down and I will always admire them for doing this.”  Really?  He admires a couple of extremists who hijack the entire budget to give to him, in direct opposition of the wishes of the majority of the student body?  Is that bravery?  Or is that being a bunch of jackasses.  Well I guess I can see how this is considered a noble thing by Liberals.  After all, their whole party dogma is that they know best how to spend your money.  A few people who have control of the funds and they run roughshod over the rest.  Isn’t that something that Moore himself spoke out against in his first “documentary” film?  Ah, see there?  Again, the Liberal pattern is revealed:  “Do what we say, not what we do because the rules (even the ones we make) do not apply to us Liberals.”

My writing class was great tonight… it really was.  We took over an unused conference room normally used by the University brass (that means high level officials) and instead of sitting on normal mass produced metal and plastic chairs, we sat in posh high-backed leather executive chairs that pan, tilt and zoom.  The discussion was lively… but two instances it kind of annoyed me. One instance was a brief discussion of Political Correctness due to one paper that used the phrase “Gypsy Curse”.  The paper was about wrist watches and had nothing to do with Gypsies… Gypsys… Gypsi?  Whoever the fuck they are, this had nothing to do with them.  The PC issue was that this could have been somehow offensive to some people.   This is where I get offended.  We as Americans, and especially those of us unfortunate to have been born Caucasian… we have to be very careful not to in any way reference any minority group – even roving bands of stateless European wanderers – for fear of offending someone – someplace – even if there are none in the room or state or country.  I exaggerate a bit of course, but I do so out of frustration.  I’m white.  I’m a male.  I’m Christian.  I’m not allowed to be offended.  Damn it, I want to be offended!    *sigh*  So the discussion regarding a brilliantly written paper about watches was completely blown out of the water because of “PC”.  Let me be frank, “PC” is what offends me.  The fact that some people go out (not in the class necessarily) of their way to be offended… that they look for an offense no matter how small in everything… that offends me.  Those kind of people offend me.  That they can be so shallow and intellectual small that they will offer complaint and demand action over the insignificant.  And we let them do it.  Instead of saying, “Grow thicker Skin” the response of appeasement has become institutionalized.  Last year I heard said that we can’t even call Black Eyed Beans black eyed anymore… they are now “spotted beans”.    WTF?  Black Eyed is a term related to getting bopped in the eye and the resulting bruising around it… has nothing to do with Sammy Davis Junior.   I think PC efforts do nothing but perpetuate racism.  I’m sorry… I’m not racist.  If I don’t like you – it has nothing to do with what color race creed or religion you are.  I don’t like you because you’re an asshole.  If you find that offensive – good!  Because I don’t have time for Political Correctness.  And neither should you or anyone.  We have more important things to worry about. 

Kerry slams Cheney for getting a flu shot?  Hey Kerry… You don’t fly commercial aviation.  It’s called the privileges of wealth… “Hey Kettle, the Pot called.”  The flu issue is the result of the Government meddling with the affairs of the medical system… I wouldn’t bring attention to it if you are wanting more governmental meddling.  You dickhead. 

Oh wait… The pot vs kettle thing… that’s racist isn’t it?  Some monosynaptic dunderhead was probably all pissed off about me saying that. 

The Democrats committing voter fraud?  No way.  Spin that if you can.  Criminal action is criminal action.

A joint called King’s Ammo out of Texas emailed me.  Asked me if I would trade links with them.  What do you think?  Should I give them a link? ;)

Spam has gotten so bad.  WTF is VLagra?  Hey Spamholes – if you can’t spell it, I aint buying it from you.  And if you are a serious financial institution, when you add strings of words like “chicken coop dogface banana patch” at the end of your email… you make me question your ability to get me my approved home loan amount or your ability to manage my assets or fix my credit problems.  I understand the desire to get past filters and such; but really, if you think about it, if I am filtering your shit out, it’s for a reason.  I don’t want it.   Spamming should be made a criminal action.  Spyware should be made a felony.  If we can seize all of ones assets, house, cars, bank accounts, for a back of weed… we can certainly do the same for spyware makers and spammers.

Because of Spam, I run email filters as much as possible.  Sometimes that scoops up emails from readers.  Please read my “Contact” page.  If you are a Horde Officer, your email addresses and names have been filtered into different folder… but if you are not off sufficient Horde Rank, you do not get such preferential treatment and you could get accidentally filtered out unless you follow the contact conventions as I have laid out.  I get a hell of a lot of spam and I let the filters run blindly.  If I don’t respond to your email – that’s why.

The pictures I promised of the green 92:

If anyone else gets a green color change on Beretta Inox finishes... let me know.  Again, this is the result of using Ogre CLP on an Inox 92.  I don't know if this is a freak thing, or a repeatable effect.  I think it's killer cool.  This is the only side effect I have heard from all the others who have tried OGRE CLP and have liked it.  I've yet to hear anyone saying they don't like it.  Even if it turned this gun green.  ( He doesn't want to sell it) 

Tuesday, Oct 19th, 2004: Today was crazy.  I got a lot of good work done and there is a great deal of satisfaction in that.  The hero of the day was a Knoppix Live CD.  We had a HD that was assumed to be dead and dying and the other fellows couldn’t recover the data.  I threw in Knoppix and within 15 minutes had all the critical data backed up to a secondary hard drive.   If you don’t have a Knoppix Live CD – you should.  Even if you are not a Linux aficionado, it’s a very useful tool.  In 2 days I’ve used it several times where other tools were not as effective or didn’t work at all.  I’ve used it before, but never had it really proved its worth.  Today changed that.  It feels good to be working again, but this job is going to conflict with my writing and my school.  Now I don’t have time to come home to do homework and study… I’ll have to do it during lunch breaks and between times.  I hate to say it… but I very much need a laptop.   *shudder*   Doesn’t matter if it’s old and slow, I can put linux on it and it would run fine… Mozilla and Open Office are all I need… Time to lurk around Ebay.  Freakin laptops… Sheesh. 

Lots of emails have been coming in and I’ve tried to respond to all of them…  I’ve something very interesting that came in from Hordeman Heath.  Seems Ogre CLP altered the finish of his Beretta INOX 92.  He sent pictures and swears it’s the truth – but OGRE CLP turned the lower receiver green.  I’ll post photos later tonight after classes.  Strange thing.  I think it looks sweet as hell.  You can be the judge.   So, a word of caution regarding the CLP formula… We shall have to test this out ourselves to see if this is indeed a repeatable occurrence.  When we get a Beretta INOX that is. 

Today I had to put on another fuel filter.  The Bronco was sputtering and stalling again… a condition that was worsening day by day.   The new filter fixed the issue like I knew it would.  I must have some serious gunk floating around in my gas tank.  One of these days I’ll have to drop the tank and rinse the gunk out.  Who knows what’s in there.  Remember, this is the truck that had gelatinous sludge excrete from the oil pan like a large stool sample when I pulled the drain plug for the first time.  This truck has seen no love until I adopted it… the poor thing.

Monday, Oct 18th, 2004: 1930hrs: Quick post... some thoughts regarding two heroes of the middle ages: 

Two iconic heroes in British literature come from two very different backgrounds and hold very different qualities. On one hand we have Beowulf, who’s strengths include courage, great physical strength, wisdom, and an understanding of combat. He has a fearlessness that goes beyond a fear of death. Beowulf wanted glory forever, to always be remembered. He had no real faults in his character. He was a “Superhero” without kryptonite until the very end.

Gawain on the other hand is a different sort of knight-hero. His strengths are his moral virtues and his devotion to faith. He was able to face the Green Knight’s challenge, and to ride to his certain doom… so he was brave. But he flinched when the axe was raised. He also kept the green silk that was given to him when he should have turned it over to the knight-hunter who turned out to be the Green Knight himself. So in these ways Gawain was flawed as a hero, he was made human by his faults.
It would be interesting the see these fellows change places. I don’t think Gawain would have had much of a problem facing Grendel or the Dragon. After all, Gawain rode to a fight where he wasn’t even able to fight back. At least facing Grendel, he would have been able to dodge in the very least. At least until Grendel grew hungry and carried him off to be devoured at leisure. However, that is not the problem. Gawain’s real problems would have come from his more human traits. His courtly chastity would have made him the subject of many jokes around the Norse campfires Beowulf was accustomed to. I don’t think Gawain would have survived very well.

Beowulf would have had no easier task in sitting comfortably at the Round Table. His more Pagan traditions and conventions would have had most everyone around him offended. Had he faced the Green Knight, at the moment it was obvious his first stroke didn’t finish the Green Knight, he would have continued to rend the Elf-Knight until he was completely dismembered and disemboweled with the pieces burned on a pyre.
Should this have not worked and the challenge given in full, Beowulf would have of course ridden to find the green chapel. Beowulf’s career as a Christian knight would have come to a screeching halt once he arrived at Bertilak de Hautdesert and the fair lady came to his bed and said “My body is here at hand, Your each wish to fulfill; Your servant to command I am, and shall be still.” I don’t think the Hunter would have wanted that gift turned over to him. Beowulf, I think was not as hindered in the matters of chastity as was Gawain.

But a comparison between the two on such matters would be a disservice to both. Both heroes are unique in their own ways. Where Beowulf would have undoubted ravaged the fair lady, Gawain probably wouldn’t have lasted an hour pulling at the oar of a longboat, him being accustomed to laying in bed late until some tart comes to kiss him and wake him up for lunch.

Let’s look at the challenges facing each hero:
Beowulf
Long sea voyage in a longboat
Celebration at Heorot
Grendel packing off 30 men
Battling Grendel
Grendel's Mom
The Dragon
Beowulf dies

Gawain
A horse named Gringolet
Dinner at the round table
The Green Knight who promises not to move
Fighting off kisses from an insistent lover
Giving kisses to a guy that just beheaded a wild boar
A pretty green silk scarf
Finds out he was kissing the Green Knight's wife

No, I don’t think Gawain would have lasted 24 hours in the land of the Geats. Beowulf would have endured Camelot for awhile before he ended up wandering away in a boredom induced daze, probably bumping into Mordred, and for the lack of anything better to do, coming back to Camelot in order to tear the place up.

 

Sunday, Oct 17th, 2004: 1930hrs: During the course of my studies today I searched for information about Berserkers.  Most of what I found was all related to gaming of one sort or another… then I found the gold mine.  An article that deals with Norse/Viking Berserkers in a historical/literary sense and has nothing to do with rolling a dice. 

Of all the mythologies out there, the Norse Mythologies are by far the most interesting.  I’m talking about Odin and Loki and that lot.  If you have to pick a group of mythological gods, these guys are the coolest.    With winter coming on I better finish building a pyre to honor Skadi.     

John Stewart’s appearance on CNN’s Crossfire has cost him.  His show “Daily Show” dropped 7% since that appearance where he came out in support of Kerry.   According to Drudge, CNN officials call Stewart belligerent.   I have the video clip of his whole appearance and I thought it was pretty good.  It was funny.  He made his points well.  But I don’t think the Crossfire guys really got what Stewart was trying to say… and I think he is right.  He was telling them that they should be holding both candidates equally responsible… basically calling for an end to the partisanship approach and to really get after these politicos.  This message was missed by CNN who remain, as Stewart says, partisan hacks.

Slacker Uprising Tour?  Moore is such a pathetic asshole.  He has become a parody of himself. 

Jobs gets back to work.  Interesting.  Hey Steve, Take the iPod’s hard drive, slap a big color screen on it, a little qwerty board, put linux on it and call it the next generation Newton running Pocket X and give it user changeable batteries and the ability to sync with Linux, XP and Mac boxes.  That’s what I’m waiting for Jobs.  Make it so. 

Speaking of Jobs.  My new one starts in the AM, and from that I go straight to the campus.  I should have a few minutes to post an update but other than that, it’s going to take me a few days to sort out my schedule and routine.   

Looks like the Jackasses are hard at work trying to steal the election already.  These guys are scumbags of the highest order.  They are carrying out blatantly illegal actions… Glenn has a good post about the rest of the Left’s bullshit.   The Democrats are unethical even in the best light, and flat out criminal in normal light.    If you support Kerry – you are accepting the illegal voting practices that the party is exercising for the purposes of ousting Bush and putting in an immoral and corrupt individual into office.  If you don’t like Bush for whatever reason – ask your self which is worse.  What Kerry’s people are doing to destroy the Democratic Process or Bush not saying what you wanted him to say.   I don’t see how you can sleep at night if you are planning on voting for Kerry.   Politics has always been a pitched fight… but this is getting extremely ugly to a level never before seen in American history.  It’s shameful.  It’s disgusting.  It’s revolting.  And even if you are a Democrat – you should be feeling the same way.  Unless you are just as corrupt and then you are going to say it is all Bush’s fault.   In that case, please, relax.  Drink a nice cold glass of Draino, and take a bath while blow-drying your hair.

Saturday, Oct 16th, 2004: 1100hrs: Lots of responses regarding scary movies.  Lots of different suggestions and only a few movies had more than one vote.  This means a couple different things.  First off, The Horde (Loyal and Faithful MadOgre.com Readers and those that believe in Liberty above all) is made up of a very wide selection of Americans and other Free Minded individuals from around the rest of the globe.  Second, this means that the movies that spanned this august community are indeed very scary movies.   Here are those movies that The Horde considers to be very scary… in no order:

Aliens, The Thing, Poltergeist, The Exorcist, Event Horizon, The Ring, The Birds.

I think renting a selection like this would be a good way to celebrate October 31^st.  Other good selections that were sent in that deserve mention:  The Pit and the Pendulum, The Shining,  Dog Soldiers, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Salem’s Lot, and… and… hell… I could go on and on… I love a good scary movie.  Slasher movies don’t scare me.  Freddy, Jason, and those sorta things… those don’t do anything for me and I don’t even like watching them.  I like scary movies that make me turn all the lights on when the movie is over and make me want to sleep curled up next to Mrs Ogre while clutching my scriptures.  Of course the Idea of President Elect John Kerry does that too, but you get my drift.   I also don’t like a scary movie where the movie could have been over in 3 seconds had the hero been armed.  Or when the hero has a gun going in, but he drops it or leaves it.  That bugs the hell out of me.  You have a life threatening situation and you drop your gun and don’t even bother to pick it up again.  That just pisses me off.  When you are in that sort of situation, guys, it takes a pry bar to loosen your grip on your gun.

Have you guys seen all the flap about these flu vaccines?  And the Democrats want the government to take over even more medical management?  They can’t even manage the one thing that they have responsibility over… simple flu vaccines.  We have old people camping out over night to get the shots… If you are needed a flu shot, you are the last person that should be camping out on the street in October.  Instead of having the government regulate everything, let’s have the flu shot thing fully privatized and if the government really wants to help, they can subsidize the cost for the elderly.  There is no shortage of Viagra is there? 

Private Industry is the way to go.   You want to kill something, you impose government regulations and oversight.  You want something to be made available to everyone… you privatize it.  Look at Lumber, look at the deer populations.  You know how during hunting season you can’t ever see a deer?  I’ll be damned if I didn’t have a nice herd in my back yard yesterday morning.  Nice 10 point Buck with about 6 or 7 fat Does in attendance.  I was tempted to edge the barrel of The Green Marlin out the window and take down one some juicy venison.  Just up the street from me is little meat processing joint.  I could have pulled the trigger, and had a deer being butchered by a pro within 15 minutes and be putting white paper packages into my freezer within another hour or so.   Are the deer populations growing because of the Government?  I don’t think so. 

The hunting industry has been very active in promoting education and conservation and as a result the hunters themselves have been taking ownership.  Last year during the harshest part of the winter, I watched more than one hunter/land owner buying food and putting it out where the deer can get it.  And that’s not unusual either.  You give someone a stake in it, and they’ll take care of it.  The Government doesn’t give a shit about supply and demand unless votes are involved. 

Out here… we just like to see the deer. The BLM?  They just like their paychecks and pensions.  The County Animal Control guy… He doesn’t even know what a deer is.  It was in the newspaper last year that he was called out to look at these big paw prints in a lady’s garden.   He thought it was bear.  Turns out it was just a St Bernard.  Dog prints… Bear prints… Even a 1^st year Boy Scout can tell the difference. 

This is also the guy that picked up Ranger out in the desert and put him in the shelter logging him in as a German Shepard.   A Wildlife Biologist took 2 seconds to identify Ranger as a Wolf and further examination and a test showed him to be a Timber Wolf.   How the Animal Control guy picked him up must have been real treat to watch.  The guy at the Shelter freaked out when I was scratching his head.  Evidently Ranger was not noted for good behavior at the shelter.   But that’s another story…

My point is that these “Officials” even at the local level don’t really care all that much about what’s going on or the details to their own jobs other than Pay Day.  Do people like this care if your grandmother sat in her wheel chair all night to wait for a flu shot?  They don’t care.  They don’t give a damn.  

The stores that are offering the government distributed shots – they do care… because that old lady is a customer to them.  They have a stake in her happiness with the service.  Same with Clinics and Hospitals where there is competition in the area.  Privatization makes for better service, support, and better quality products.   But the Liberals flat out don’t understand that because A, they are too stupid. And B, because they are Communists who hate the American Way of life and are trying their damnedest to destroy it. 

Look at the cultures the two Presidential Candidates are promoting.  On one hand you have Bush who is promoting empowerment.  And on the other hand you have Kerry who is offering apathy.  Bush’s plan is the right one for America.  Education.  While his plan isn’t perfect, and is even critically flawed in some ways… at least he is trying to address the issue.  Power comes through education. 

Kerry’s plan is only to keep the people fat and happy with handouts so they are dependant upon the Democrats for sustenance.  Pigs at the trough.  That’s not the American Way.  Education will make those people better Americans because when they start getting education they start to open their eyes and see things that they didn’t see before.  Like the differences between right and wrong, and their own potential, and what they could achieve if they put forth the effort.  They will want to pick themselves up because they can see.  Kerry would have everyone blinded by apathy.  

Friday, Oct 15th, 2004: 2130hrs: Here is a little good news.  Day By Day is coming back on December 1^st.  Outstanding.  I am looking forward to picking up where we left off.  Chris Muir has had a lot of serious issues lately.  The death of his mother, 4 hurricanes… But we are glad to see him getting back into the saddle.

Being October 15^th and all, it is time to prepare for Halloween.  Or at least to pause and give thought to our Pagan holiday.  The most fitting thing that I enjoy this time of year is watching scary or occult movies.  Two that are good, but not often mentioned are “The 9^th Gate” and “Stir of Echoes”.  There are many scary movies out there, and some are scarier than others… neither one of these are really all that scary… but they are groovy with a nice creepy vibe that I like. Movies have a taste… a flavor… and these both taste good to me.   The Grudge, the Ring, The Haunting… so many good movies out there.   Let’s see if The Horde has a consensus on the scariest movie ever.  What movie has scared you more than any other movie ever?  (Anyone saying “The Ten Commandments” is fired.  Anyone saying Steel Magnolias, Pretty Woman, The Ya-Ya Sisters or anything of that nature… you have our sympathy, but that’s not what I’m talking about, so your fired.  Scary Movies…. Give my your Top 5.

Forgive the lack of updates, but the news has been slow and not much worth talking about… and of course I have school which I have slacked off on a bit after the exams and I have some catching back up to do. 

Part of classes is reading a very cool story, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”.  If you’ve not read the story before or in a long time, it’s a good read with fresh eyes.  It’s been about 2 decades since I’ve read it, so the story while I remembered the gist, was new to me.

Speaking of Middle Ages stuff, Horde Commander Glenn has an interesting post…  Very cool.  Ogres of all sorts have a deep appreciation for arms and armor, ancient to modern.  While not our first choice of fighting equipment these days, a good sword will always hold a special place with us. 

Preferably in the giblets or our adversaries.

Speaking of Arms…  I’m looking forward to receiving the CZ-P01… For some reason I am anticipating this gun more than others.  I wish I could go to my one local gunshop and see something I like under the glass, but that never happens out here.  Cool guns, interesting guns, I have to send off for.   The P01 is a very interesting gun and I had to send all the way out to West Virginia for it.  Just thinking about it gets me a bit giddy.  The P01 is an interesting weapon.  Some have opined that the CZ-75 is the most advanced 9MM handgun one could get.  (Jeff Cooper adds “if you have to have a 9MM”)  The P01 is the direct descendant of the CZ-75 after extensive testing and engineering and retesting.  It is the product of serious developmental effort.

Thur, Oct 14th, 2004: 0945hrs: The Debate Part 3: I watched the debate with only a half heart this time. The debate rolled out with the different questions, but the same answers. Bush kept on task and Kerry kept contradicting himself. “I have a plan... I'm going to do everything the President is doing, but I'm going to do it better, because I'm John Kerry!” What a joke. I especially loved the “I'm a hunter and a gun owner and I respect the second amendment and I'm not going to tamper with the second amendment.... but...” Then he goes on to say how he is going to screw with the second amendment. You can't do that... when it comes to the Bill of Rights, you can't do that. And no true second amendment supporter would have even got near that sort of answer... especially when the AWB was nothing useful for any point or from any direction. Kerry mentioned a cop telling him of a drug bust where the bad guy had an AK-47 on the bed. Was it fully automatic? You see, an AK-47 is a fully automatic weapon. An SAR-1 or a VEPR II might look like an AK-47, but they are not fully automatic and they are not AK-47's and they are not illegal rifle and the AWB did nothing to ban or limit these rifles. The AWB for those of you just tuning in to MadOgre.com was so totally useless that even the anti-gun groups and the police have both agreed that the ban did nothing. If you haven't looked into that issue, here, I have. Talking about leadership? A real leader can look at something and decide if it's useful or not. And the AWB was not useful. When I say useful, what am I talking about? What was the goal? Reduce crime. Banning cosmetic features on a rifle doesn't reduce crime. Such logic taken a step further would be like banning the colors Red and Yellow for automotive paint... because Red and Yellow cars are driven faster and we want to end street racing. WTF? How is that logical? It's not. And neither was the AWB.

Some Indians gave him a blessing? Wasn't it the Indians that called Kerry “Running Eagle” because he is so full of shit he can't fly? I want to see an examination of Kerry's proposed spending... because this guy was promising a hell of a lot more than the United States can afford. How is he going to pay for all those promises? One or more of three things are likely to happen. 1. Kerry is going to raise taxes more than ever before. 2. Kerry isn't going to deliver on even half of these proposals, and with a Republican held Congress, I doubt he could effect even one of them. 3. Kerry is going to run America's credit to the limit... he accused Bush of raising the national debt, but from what it looks like from my perspective, the national debt is exactly what Kerry is going to increase.

I thought it was classic when Kerry mentioned his friend, The Maverick, and Bush said that he supported him for the presidency. That was great. Ultimately pointless and all that, but it was funny.

What wasn't funny was Kerry's evoking of Cheney's gay daughter. I thought that was pretty damn low. Other people's personal lives should not be something you discuss during a presidential debate... it's not of any national interest that the Cheney girl is a lesbian and Kerry could have made his point without putting out that information. That was extremely tacky. I think it shows that Kerry isn't as elegant as they like to paint him out to be.

The more you listen to Kerry, and really hear him, the more you realize that he is hollow. He has nothing to offer. The more I hear Kerry, the more I can't understand him and the more I can't stand Kerry.

I'm not quite done yet playing around with open source applications. The latest one I've tried out is the king of applications, Open Office. The download was fast and easy... the only thing you need to make sure you have is Java. If you don't have it, it's a fast download and install. Once you have Java installed, if not already, then go ahead and install Open Office.

It looks rather dated style wise. For example, Open Office's world processor, Writer, (I like that!) is not pretty like MS Word, but the real beauty is the function and the tools. And in this, Open Office is drop dead gorgeous. I can't say that I have found anything that I like better than Word, but there is one feature I like... an auto-complete feature that looks at the word you are typing after a few letters, decides what your are typing, and throws out the suggestion for the rest of the word. If that's the word you are typing, just hit enter and you are on to the next word. If not, just keep typing. The suggestion will change as you give it more letters to go on. This is a feature I've first encountered on Pocket PC, and I loved it there. Having it here is helpful, especially if you are not a typist type person. There is of course the spell checker and it works great. You get the normal red line under the questionable word and right clicking on it gives you suggestions, and if you spelled it right, you can add that word to your dictionary. The best thing about it is that you can configure Open Office to how you like it, much like the old Lotus Smart Suite that I loved and I've never found the perfect replacement for.

It's not perfect. For example, I'd like the option to insert a hyperlink to be included in the right-click menu when you highlight some text. And there are some other little tiny things like that. And then there is the Open Office HTML editor. It's dated. Much like Mozilla's Composer... Luckily there is Nvu, so buying FrontPage isn't necessary.

The Spread Sheet application opens and saves Excel documents with no problem. Even imports the documents with editing formats such as cell colors. That's a nice touch. I've not testing everything with this... but it all looks just fine. I've not a big Spread Sheet kinda guy.

Over all, Open Office is a full functional set of work tools that is right on par with Microsoft Office 2003 and WordPerfect Office 11. In fact, I know for a fact I like it better than WordPerfect. I don't see any reason for someone to spend the over 400 bucks it would cost to buy MS or Corel's office suites... or even Star Office (Open Office's Daddy). And what I like about it the most is that this is all OPEN SOURCE. That means for the end user, it's free to download and install and it wont require activation after 30 days like some applications. Now, just because it's free doesn't mean you just snake it and run... you can... but that's so uncool. Being Open Source means they could really use help. Either in the form of help in development or financially. Meaning if you like it, it's good form to donate some cash. This way the product can always be made better. It's also good form to tell others about it. Now, this is something I had been aware of. I've used it when I was running RedHat on my old/late box. I never really considered it for use with Windows. That is a huge oversight. If you don't have an office suite, or even just a good word processor... Open Office is my first choice. In fact, I just might be uninstalling MS Office in the near future.

For those wondering what I'm using to edit MO right now, I'm using on a rotating basis, FrontPage 2003, DW-MX 2004, Composer, Nvu and Notepad. (for Nvu I have to edit locally and then FTP the page up because Nvu's Site Manager is buggy and never works right, but Nvu is pretty much still all in development but the potential is there) I am trying to decide which one I like better.  You guys can seen here and there weird quirks and what not... that's because I'm still learning the ins and outs of all the different applications.  Now understand, editing MO is not just logging in and filling in a new box to add a new entry.  I'm authoring and publishing a whole new page every time. 

I've reformatted my D drive and I'm going to put Linux on it... this Dell box gives me the option to select where to boot from.  After thinking about it, it seems like I should be able to do a dual boot set up without the normal dual boot issues because of a partition.  This is a physical second hard drive and people have much better results dual booting this way.  I'm still trying to decide on which flavor of Linux I want to download and install. I'm still leaning to Gentoo and SUSE. But the latest Mandrake 10 is also tempting.  While I am still deciding on that, I'm pulling down GIMP for Windows right now. 

Wednesday, Oct 13th, 2004: 0930hrs: I’ve found something very interesting. Composer is a dead in program. Has been for some time right? Wrong. Composer lives under the name Nvu. Nvu is the Mozilla Foundation’s new HTML editing program going along with Mozilla’s new direction of splitting up each product into their own package. Nvu is taking in elements from FrontPage and Dreamweaver and have combined them into a new package. The current version is “Nvu .50” and is available for all platforms but was created for the Linux environment. This is awesome because this was one of the main reasons I swapped from Linux back to Windows – because at the time, there was no WYSIWYG editors. Now there is Blue Fish and Nvu and a couple others I remember seeing recently. This is great! I’m excited. I’ve downloaded and installed Nvu. Fast download (even for me out here in the boonies) easy install, and it looks good. Of course with my luck I can’t get it to work right… but I’m tinkering with it. This has a lot of potential. Especially since this is Open Source.

Glenn has a good understanding of the early history of Islam . What is so incredible about Islam is how fast and far it spread - during the lifetime of Muhammad. It was amazing. At that time, it really was religion of Peace... and respect for women. It was a "Simple Message" and in embraced all faiths.

Really quick – Did you know that Islam is connected to France? Mecca to Paris:
After Muhammad died, it was the 2nd successor that turned it into a conquesting religion and that's when they started going after Constantinople and Northern African further west than Egypt and up into Spain to be stopped only by "The Hammer", Charlemagne's Grandfather. Who by the way developed the concept of "Heavy Cavalry" after studying the way the Muslims fought. These Heavy Cavalrymen became the "Knight" and thus sewed the seeds of Feudalism which started thanks to Charlemagne's Grandsons Charles, Luthor, and Louis; who were more interested in infighting than fighting the Viking raids and that gave us the famous Battle of Maldon and they death of Byrtnoth (if you look up the battle, you will find about a dozen different spellings for the name… which is unimportant. What is important is the pronunciation of the name, which is spoken with a guttural snort on the first syllable and then you spit out the second… practice it while trying to sound like a Germanic Barbarian and you’ll get it) which is the starting bell of "Feudalism". And also drew a rough line between France and Germany (Search the Oath of Strasbourg) when before they were both “Franks”. The Visigoths pushed down into Spain not wanting to put up with all that mess but it’s interesting to note that France used to be a bunch of Germanic Barbarians. Thanks to the emergence of the city-states and the Church’s bounding growth thanks to the Carolingian Renaissance thanks to Charlemagne’s “suggestions” that the Church help educate the people… different cities grew… some, like Paris grew faster because of the church and of course we know that Paris is home to a very popular cathedral which was even more magnificent back then than it is today because back then there was little in the region to compare it to. So there you go a two minute trip from Mecca to Paris. It's fun when you look at how History ties things together. It really is.

Tuesday, Oct 12th, 2004: 1400hrs: This is hilarious… I just downloaded something and installed it… but it was the Pakistani edition I guess… maybe Polish... so everything is in another language. I can’t read a damn thing. Clicking on things trying to navigate… it started wanting to download stuff. Scary! This cracked me up. It was crazy. Oh well… Lesson – Using Pirated Software doesn’t pay!

Okay, maybe it does and I’ve saved damn near 10 grand over the last 5 years… and I’m going straight to hell for it. But hey, I can always repent, right? Death Bed Confession!

Ifound something I never knew I had… a couple music videos by Blink 182. Those guys didn’t get spanked enough as children. I’ve never been a Blink 182 fan. In fact, I’ve kinda always not liked them. Speaking of music videos… Evanescence… I’ve mentioned them before… Amy Lee is a goddess. I like her vocals almost as much as Annie Lennox’s and as far as female vocalists go, that’s really saying something. Their videos are flat out cool. Very cool effects, direction, imaging, and they go with music which sets them apart from most vids. Not that I am really into music videos… but they are an interesting art form.

How the hell can people say Bush is a liar? Madeline Albright said “ Clinton lied, but no one died.” That’s nice Mrs. Albright, but – A. Bush didn’t lie. And B. Bush didn’t lie under oath. Of course this doesn’t denigrate Bush in anyways, it only proves to show how little the Left cares about the rule of law. They only care when it can be used against their political enemies. To them the rule of law is either an obstacle or a tool. It’s not the way they live… it’s just something to use. That is abhorrent to me. They like to say Bush lied about going to Iraq and that there was no WMDs. Ever since this issue first came up, I’ve pointedly challenged this idea. Saddam had them and the capabilities. The Left likes to say “Well where are they?” Evidently, if they can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Much like matters of Faith, Liberals just don’t get it. But there is no faith involved in regards to WMD’s. How the Left can say something doesn’t and never existed when we have so much documentation on this stuff is just asinine. Much like the whole Liberal agenda, but that’s another subject. We have found 10 -12 chemical artillery shells, and ABCNBCBSMSNBCNN are not reporting any of it. We have Al-Qaeda straight up admitting they are in Iraq… and that they have chemical and biological weapons. (Thank to Horde Commander Glenn over at The Pickle for that link) And then the questions about Nukes… What’s this then?

Bush never lied, and because of him thousands and thousands of innocents have not died. Bush is a freaking national hero right there with Winston Churchill in my book. Invading Iraq was the right thing to do.

Kerry has no valid argument against this. His posturing and his apologists have been nothing more than entertaining. His basic argument is nothing more than “I’m better than Bush, and I can’t tell you why because you’re not smart enough to understand.” Of course as the opposition candidate he has to give us reasons to vote for him and not the incumbent… that’s just the way it is. Unfortunately Kerry is not able to give us any reason to vote for him. But their latest tact is flat out disgusting. Kerry is trying to become the next Jesus over here. “If you vote for Kerry, the blind will see and the lame will walk again.” This is just disgusting. Now Presidents are Gods, or at least Kerry is. Kerry and Edwards are just assholes.

Here is something everyone should see. Take a look. The Truth in Iraq. Powerful.

Special thanks to Jim from San Jose… Jim sent me a M.E.R.G.E. T-shirt. M.E.R.G.E. stands for Mobile Emergency Response Group and Equipment. It’s San Jose’s tactical response team. Very cool. Looking these guys up, we see that they know how to party and play hard. Keep up the good work guys, and stay safe!

The more and more I used DW-MX-04, the more I’m getting used to it. It’s becoming easier to use and I’m learning some tricks with it… however there are still some things that I find extremely annoying. For example, when I try to add a hyperlink from within DW, it wants to download that document locally instead of just adding the damn link to it. I don’t want to save a freaking copy of something just because I’m linking to it. And if I select, “no, don’t download it” it gives me an error and wont make the link. WTF? I’m going to continue using it… just because I want to get this freaking thing figured out. But right now, if I had to choose on which package I’d spend my own hard earned cash on – I’d have to buy FrontPage. It’s just easier to use. Has it’s draw backs, but being so easy to use is a huge advantage. NOTE: In relation to the first post for this day, this copy of Dreamweaver is not pirated! If you want, you can download it too... Right off Macromedia's own website. They give it away.

Monday October 11th, 2004: Early Evening: Top movie out right now in the box office is “Shark Tale”.  Or something like that.  Driving here to the University I passed the theatre and looked at the other movies out.  Never heard of any of them but Taxi.  Shark Tale is going up against Taxi.  A movie about a retarded cop who has to ride in a taxi… but the taxi is cool and driven my this crazy cool chick who happens to be Queen Latifa.  The cop is one of the unknown SNL rejects… doesn’t matter who if they are from Post Belushi SNL.  So this dumbass movie is the only rival to counter Sharky… okay.  Hmmm… it seems this ties in to the Presidential Election… It’s not a matter of how good the Candidate is, it’s a matter of how much the other candidate sucks.  Imagine having to be the guy selling this Taxi movie idea.  “Yeah, see.. the cop has to ride in a taxi… yeah, like in Funny Farm with Chevy Chase.  But the taxi driver is like really cool and hip and funny… yeah… like Queen Latifa… and the cop is like really stupid…”  What’s even more pathetic is the jackass who green-lighted this movie.   Who is the more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows the fool?  So the guy selling this crap isn’t nearly as stupid as the idiot who actually said “Yeah, let’s roll it!”  No wonder all the best movies are coming from overseas remakes.

The Grudge is coming out this weekend I think.  SMG is playing in this remake of a Japanese horror… and this is very cool, because the last Japanese Horror was flat out excellent – The Ring.  It’s still scary.   The Grudge looks like it can be that much scarier than The Ring.  Just a guess.  This gives me at least something to look forward to… because right now the scariest thing going is asking my wife what our bank balance is.

This is funny.  Remember the Alamo now has a new meaning.  If you are going to have sex… I would have picked out a more romantic location… but from a historical stance, not a bad choice.

Scientists have finally discovered Big-Foot.  I know someone who will be personally thrilled at this news.   These things kill lions.  Damn.  Okay, it’s not a Bigfoot… but it does show the possibility of these creatures.   The reason why I’m bringing this up is because the Nunnery is basically a No-Go.  We were going to do a Scooby Doo camping trip at a joint called The Nunnery.  But permissions have been categorically denied at all levels. So we have a new idea for a mini adventure.  Near Yellowstone is an area that is according to Bigfoot Researchers, a hot zone.  We can go up there, and do some “Big Foot Hunting”.  Search for signs and indications of BF activity and all that jazz.   Should be fun.  The idea isn’t so much to search and find, but to have a little adventure… do some debunking… find something interesting… and anything that might make one late for supper, but have some fun stories to tell over the table.   BFRO.net I think is the address for BF “research”.  I’m not convinced that these things are really there.  But I’m also not convinced (thanks to news items like this) that BF’s are not impossible.  So we find the hottest spot where finding evidence of one is the most likely… and go Scooby Doo around the place and see what we can see.   Not as spooky as the Nunnery situation… but this should prove to be just as fun.  So let’s plan on doing this little trip in the spring, after the thaw, because it’s getting cold up there already and I don’t believe in camping out in the cold unless you have a very very good reason.    The bigger the group we can gather, the more fun it will be.  This can be kind of like a Utah Gathering, but a more adventurous one.  Further out, but come on, out here in Utah, that’s really not that far.  Just a few more hours drive than The Nunnery was.  We can meet in SLC, or round there abouts, and maybe carpool the way up.  I could drive, the Bronco would be (especially with the top off) the ultimate Bigfoot chase vehicle.   Especially if I can get the seats and roll bars installed.  Tthe idea is putting in two folding bench seats like in an old Toyota Land Cruiser… the are along the sides and face inwards.  Then have a rollbar cage over the seats to protect those in the back not just from roll-overs but also from branches and stuff.  Then on the bars, a rack system like on the off road rigs used by the Rangers and SF in Iraq and Afghanistan...  So you hang your gear on the rack to save space inside.  Space for guns and gear and ammo and coolers full of Cold Ones.  I know the guy who can do it, and I think he might be interested in a trade for it.  He’s a damn fine machinist and was also a US Army Ranger, so he would know exactly what I need and how to do it and how to do it better than how I conceived it.  We shall see.  Hmmm.  I still need to get tires for the Bronco.   Maybe it’s a good thing I have this job starting Monday!  

Late Afternoon: Uh oh. Looks like I’m going to have to put off that Sabbatical to Idaho . At least for awhile. I just accepted a new job that will take up most of my day. Starts next Monday. Hmmm. To be honest I’m disappointed that I wont be able to go now. Well… I’ll be able to do it some other time. Or maybe this job isn’t going to fit or work out… and I’ll go up to Idaho anyway. But in the mean time, there is a guy out here that can use some help, so I’ll give it to him.

Christopher Reeves death… That’s unfortunate. Death due to complications of infections due to bed sores. I’m not a big fan of Superman or Reeves himself… but that is just no way to die. That sucks… Can’t get to Valhalla through bed sores.

Looks like the US Army is starting to search out a new handgun for the troops. Here is a discussion about it on AmBack. This is probably going to be the end all do all handgun for general side arm to concealed work for inspectors and such. Look at the requirements.

1. Increased ballistic potential. That means, not a 9MM Nato.
2. Durability and reliability over the M9 and M11 pistols. That’s going to be tough to do because those two pistols are some of the most reliable ever field by any Army.
3. Rails and night sights. Of course you can’t have a gun without those now.
4. Holster system that can deal with the gun with the light on it. Hello… SOC rig right there!
5. The ability to use a suppressor if you need it. Of course.
6. Changeable grips. Interesting. Like the P99 and P2000.

In the Amback discussion I mentioned a 1911 in 9X23MM, the Springfield TRP Operator. It has rails and night sights. And you want to talk about a ballistic advantage? You gotta be kidding me. (I talked about 9X23MM some time ago… last year maybe? It gives you more horsepower and more reliability than most other auto-handgun calibers out there) You can change the grips too. But I think they are talking about changeable back straps. An interesting requirement. Does it seem like the US Army is pimping for the HK P2000? Or maybe a new HK pistol we have not seen yet. I’m not sure what the Army is really looking for here… but it should be interesting. And this is a big contract too. I bet all the major players are going to want to get in on it. This means there are going to be a lot of new and very cool handguns coming out.

I do not consider the Walther P99 to be a contender… nor any other handgun with grip dimensions fitting 9MM. We are probably looking at a .45 handgun. Either .45 ACP or case lengths at least as long as .45ACP. HK’s regular USP .45 gun with a changeable grip would probably be a ringer for the contract. This is a gun I am suspecting to be just around the corner. And putting that gun into a 9X23MM chambering would be a simple matter… and presto… there you have the US Army’s new handgun.

Of course, they could be thinking about .40 caliber. But I don’t see that as likely option. .40 caliber is not as reliable or as accurate as a .45 or 9MM. At least not in my opinion. Look at all the guns out there that have damn near perfect track records in 9MM but iffy reliability in .40. There are quite a few. HK, Beretta, SIG… I’ve heard complaints about .40’s in those for some time now. Okay, not so much in the HK. Because the HK USP was designed for the .40 off the bat. Much like SIG’s P229. This is of course in contrast to the other .40 guns which started out as 9MM’s and have been refit. I don’t know why, but it does make a difference. Probably in feeding geometry.

Early Afternoon: My Green Marlin is starting to give me some issues. The dreaded “Marlin Jam” is raising its head. I lever down and the empty brass ejects as normal, and the next round out of the tube doesn’t land on the carrier as it is supposed to, but it’s instead getting shoved all the way up to the bolt while the nose is down by the tube. I have to reach a finger into the action and push the cartridge back into the tube and direct the shell onto the carrier. Once it is there I can then lever the action shut again so the carrier can lift the cartridge inline with the bolt so it can be fed properly into the chamber. This isn’t so much of a problem if I’m just out running around the Uintah Mountains with Ranger. But if I was out seriously hunting, or if I was to grab the rifle in the middle of the night should I hear an unexpected sound…. Then that would be a problem. That would be a huge problem. That would be a fatal problem.

My Go To Gun, the gun I grab when there is an unexpected knock on the door late at night, or when I hear something funny outside… it remains the Beretta 8045 Mini Cougar .45. The Beretta Cougar is an incredible weapon… It’s all very Beretta, but it has a closed slide like how some people prefer and debase the 92 series for not having… but it’s all Beretta. The regular Cougars are very comfortable and accurate… the Mini Cougars are also just as comfy and accurate with the use of the “extended” regular Cougar mags… and yet with the use of the flush fit Mini mags the Mini Cougar becomes a very good choice for CCW. Some of the Horde have tried out the Cougars and those that have, have loved them. Well, those that have tried and are familiar with the Beretta platform with the slide mounted safety. Last year I went out to the Wasatch Front and had some guys shoot it Mini… They didn’t like the short grip. This issue goes away with the longer mags and the “adapter”. The Cougars are being dropped off Beretta’s line up and out of the armories of some police agencies. These guns can be had for very cheap now. If you come across one… check it out. When I travel, I do so with the Cougar as well… but regularly… make that all the time… the Kel-Tec P3AT is the gun that I have with me.

Writing: In a few weeks I am going to go up to northern Idaho and pretty much just lock myself up in there. No internet connection, no distractions, just me and a word processor. I’m going to finish my books. The Art of Defense: 13 Chapters on Personal Defense. Vibrant Darkness. Redemption. Redemption being the biggest work, my major focus, and the whole reason I am doing this. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll also take with me a handgun (the Cougar or the CZ-P01) and The Green Marlin. It will be blanketed in snow up there, but I’ll be able to hike for some exercise. I am going to get one of my old PC’s up and running and use that up there. Maybe the old IBM Aptiva with Linux on it and Open Office. That’s all I need. I’m really looking forward to this solitude.

Speaking of writing, I’m working on a paper about “Nature”. Nature… I’m trying to write about Ranger and channel Jack London. At least that is the goal.

Speaking Linux, I’ve been going over the distros and what they all have to offer… I’m liking SUSE and Gentoo. (and for older boxes, Slax) I’m leaning to Gentoo. I’m looking for a nice tight distro, easy to install, with Open Office bundled. There are so many bloody distros out there and more and more popping up… Hell, compile your own code, put in the apps you want… bang – you can package that and make your own Distro! Seems like that’s what so many people are doing. Hell… You guys want an Ogre Edition Distro? That could probably be made to happen.

On one hand, you have Jennifer Anniston. On the other hand, you have Angelina Jolie. Damn Brad Pitt… Damn him to hell. I’ll let you search for images of both, because this raises the question: If you were Brad Pitt, what would you do? Fark is on the subject. That first picture of Angelina… oh my.

Is it possible that Kerry is the worst presidential candidate ever? The more you look at this guy… the more you listen to him… the more you dislike him. Even some of his supporters are only supporting him reluctantly now. Hillary could probably step in any moment and just totally erase any and all Kerry support.

Sunday, October 10th, 2004: 2000hrs: I just got off the phone with my brothers… they are shipping out to Iraq. They are eager to get it done, and I’m happy for them that they are able to finally get underway. Their unit has all the good toys and they are outfitted properly so I am not worried. Both of them are in the same unit, and both of them are good soldiers. Their good friend Cappelli, a total Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, is also a good soldier according to reports… so they can all watch each others backs. Not Backsides, Cappelli! I envy them the adventure.

Oh, and I’m just giving No-Telly-Cappelli some shit, because I know he reads MO and I’m just wishing him luck too.

Okay, I think I got this figured out now. I finally configured Dreamweaver to MO via the built in FTP client and of course the solution was easy and right there in front of me. Dreamweaver is a complicated bastard. Even such a simple thing as font color and bolding is more complicated in DW. I highlight the text and hit “Bold” and nothing happens. WTF is up with that? I’m using the split function so anything I can’t get done via the Designer console, I can just code the HTML directly, then click the design window and see what I did. That’s nice. No need to change windows like in FP. So DW does have that advantage. Special thanks to Steve Ting, Glenn Gutshall, and Brad Knapp for helping get MO back online and updated. Thanks guys.

Okay, you guys have been wanting some gun related content. Here it is.

I had The Bride come shooting the Deagle Babies with me so she could take some photos. Let me tell you, I’ve shown these guns no mercy. I’ve not even cleaned them once. After I picked them up I inspected the internals and gave them a light rub down with a light treatment of CorrosionX and that’s all I’ve done to them care wise. I’ve put more rounds in a short period of time, through these guns than any other handguns I’ve ever shot. I’ve been abusive to them and cruel. And they’ve never faltered. The pictures will be going up in the weapons section shortly. And you can judge for yourself. Now these guns even while all gunked up, were still quite accurate. Even the Sub-Compact as you will see in the photo. Accuracy and reliability were both in attendance and these are the top two considerations for a personal defense weapon. Then factor in excellent ergonomics and something as intangible as “feels good” and put it all into packages sized for duty carry and concealed carry… these are not guns to overlook if you come across them at your local gun counter. I’ve said before that I had the impressions that these guns would turn out to be shooting machines. I was correct. To say these guns are shooting machines is what one might call an understatement. These guns flat out performed with all ammo I tried, even going through a bucket of mixed mystery rounds. (something I do not recommend you try doing) I had heard reports that these Baby Eagles are only average in terms of quality accuracy and reliability. This is not the case. These guns are excellent. However they do have a downside, one that is easily remedied. The triggers. The triggers themselves are nice wide and ribbed target style triggers, but the pull is something else. The pull made me wince the first time I felt it. But this is something that I either got used to, or it smoothed out a bit with use. I suspect these guns would be much more accurate with a little attention paid to the triggers by a reasonably skilled gunsmith. But I’ve said all this before. Here is what’s new. The bride likes shooting these guns more than any other she’s fired. That says something. These are fun guns to shoot. I’ll be finishing up a full review this week.

1400hrs: I just got off the phone with my brothers… they are shipping out to Iraq. They are eager to get it done, and I’m happy for them that they are able to finally get underway. Their unit has all the good toys and they are outfitted properly so I am not worried.

Okay, I think I got this figured out now. I finally figured out how to connect Dreamweaver to MO via the FTP client and of course the solution was easy and right there in front of me. Dreamweaver is a complicated bastard even such thing as font color and bolding is more complicated in DW. I highlight the text and hit “Bold” and nothing happens. WTF is up with that? No biggie as I write "offline" and just past in anyways. Man, I've got a lot to relearn here... but at least I have the "remote view" and all that jazz that is seeming to work fine now.

Let's test this upload.

Saturday, October 9th, 2004: Afternoon:  I'm playing with Dreamweaver again over here... and I've run into a snag.  I am not able to import MadOgre.com.  Namely because I am unable to select the site via the Manage tool.  I don't have anything on MadOgre.com that is valid to select.  What's up with that?  Also, what do I need to do to make that work?  I've even gone to the library and got "The Dreamweaver MX Bible" and I've got that book now on my computer as a PDF thanks to the handly little CD Rom inside the cover.  Yet I am still unable to import thanks to a lack of information as to how to do that.  It walks through the process, but I'm still stuck.  I've sent email to my Host regarding this asking them for further light and knowledge.  So here I am using Composer again.  This is annoying.  Especially after all the time spent on downloading DW.

I've got a lot of people telling me how awesome DW is... now I just need someone to tell me how to get this bloody thing to actually work.  It connects to the point that I can see my files and folders... I just can't "Import" the site.  Very annoying.  It wants to find a dreamwaver site file on there as if everything on the web should have been created with Dreamweaver file extensions.
 
Friday, Oct 8th, 2004: 2345hrs: Quick Update. I finally got Dreamweaver 2004 MX and I'm taking it for a test run. So far I like it. One thing that I am missing is the list of the file folders on the MadOgre server so I can just drag and drop and open other files quickly for fast editing... at least, if you can do that in Dreamweaver, I've not found out how yet. I also don't like the lack of text editing tools on the tool bar. There is a button for bold and Itallics, but that's about it. I think I'm going to have to edit in Word and paste in ... lets try that... old on a second.

TestingTesting Testing Testing Testing Testing so on and so forth...

Hmmm. The bolding and italics pasted in, as did the hyperlink, but the other text formats didn't come through.

The interface is clean and getting the hang of some of the features. Built in FTP feature that is faster than FrontPage, interesting. There are a lot of different things about this that I'm going to have to get used to... for example, ripping out 90% of the text, and throwing it into the archive is going to be more difficult. Let's keep playing with this and see how it goes. It's just a matter of learning and getting used to the new system. For all it's faults, FrontPage had its advantages.

Oh, while I'm here... The Pickle was never listed in my links roster... So go check out the updates over there...

2130hrs: The debate tonight was awesome. Very lively.  Bush was looking good... looking comfortable... looking confident.  Again, Kerry contradicted himself during the debate.  Bush had some good retorts and had some energy behind them too.  He showed some real passion about things and Kerry didn’t.  Kerry tried to show passion, but just came off as creepy.  I think on all levels Bush won this debate hands down. Kerry said, I would have used force wisely. Yet Bush did exactly what Kerry was selling before the invasion. Kerry is on record for saying he supported President Bush's actions... right up till Howard Dean started kicking his ass during the primaries. Bush pointed that out... Very well done, Mr. President! And his retort about owning a logging company... Want some wood? Classic. That was fantastic. He had a lot of humor tonight, and Mrs. Ogre said I like him! You couldnt help it. You had to like him. Even if you disagreed with him, he was just so damned amiable that you couldn;t help but to like him. I think he scored some major points with the undecideds tonight.
Kerry kept banging on WMDs... Bush countered brilliantly.
Kerry kept saying we went in alone... Bush countered brilliantly.
Bush owned the debate tonight. Kerry had nothing - NOTHING - going for him.  
Speaking of being Un-Decided.  At this point, how in the hell can you honestly and truthfully be undecided?  The only reason to be undecided is that you have completely and pointedly avoided all politics up to this point.  And if that’s the case, that is pretty shameful.  You have a responsibility as a Citizen to pay attention.   But if you haven’t, let me help you.  I’m going to tell you who to vote for. Flat out, no question - Vote For Bush.  If you haven’t been paying attention before, there is no way you are going to listen to me list the reasons so I’m just making it easy on you... just vote for Bush because that is the right thing to do.  If you want to vote Kerry, your wrong and you should probably just go out and do something other than exercise political action come election day. 
Whoa... Now they are saying the Helens eruption, if it happens, could be as huge as the one in 1980.  Holy cow.  That eruption was on a nuclear level in terms of devastation.  One of the Horde suggested that we pray such an eruption cracks the fault line all the way down California and sends Cali out to sea.    Hmm... While I wont pray for that, I will keep a candle lit for it.    If it could happen before the election, there goes Kerry’s 55 electoral votes.  
Okay, I’m downloading (or trying to) Dreamweaver MX 2004 as I type this.  It’s slow going thanks to my wonderful (NOT) connection that I’m paying out the ass for.  With DW-MX, I should be able to really jazz things up. I’m looking forward to getting the whole file... I’m on the second attempt now. It’s a huge file, but it looks like Dreamweaver is just the tool I need.   
Email from reader: “Ogre, you should publish a newsletter as a supplement to your Blog.”
A newsletter?  What to you mean?  Like an email... like I send out a daily email to subscribers? Or do you mean a paper/snailmail newsletter and have to pay a shit load of postage?  Let me lay this down for you... MadOgre.com is all out of my pocket.  People sometimes donate a few bucks via paypal... and that helps out, but it’s always short and I make up the difference.  Pretty much the money I make from writing magazine articles is paying for gun transfers and for my bandwidth and hosting.  So right now I’m not just breaking even, but I actually make about a $1.59 profit which is enough to buy a Mt Dew.  Dropping the kind of coin that it would take to mail out a newsletter would be staggering.  Let’s just ignore the cost of printing for now.  Who in there right mind would pay for delivery of MadOgre.com content when you can get it for free off MadOgre.com?  Free to you that is.  And email?  No... I am not going to spam.  MadOgre.com is here if you want it.  If you don’t like what I have to say, you don’t have to come here to read it.  So no... no newsletters.  Thanks for the suggestion though.
Tomorrow is a special day for the Ogre Household.  I’ve mentioned this some time ago, but the day is upon us.  My little sons, my twins, are getting baptized.  I will be performing the ordinances personally.  I’ve asked them both if this is what they want to do, leaving the choice completely up to them.  If they said they didn’t want to or felt they were not ready, we wouldn’t do it.  But they are wanting to be baptized and we are pleased.  For those new readers out there not up to speed or have not read the “ABOUT” page, the Ogre here at mad ogre is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  A Mormon.  And I am indeed very proud of that, and of my church.  It holds a very special place in my heart.  Even when I am not especially pleased in the actions of some of the members or in the choices of some of the leadership... The Church has my allegiance.  You can believe in who or what you may, and I will respect that.  This is what I believe and I frankly I don’t care if you respect it or not.  I am who I am... and my dick isn’t so small as to require your approval.  No, I am not the best example of those who are Mormon.  I’m not that kind of Mormon.  To me a Bible Bash isn’t something to avoid.  I can counter any theological argument and I can debate both sides... and sometimes I do.  But it’s not about that.  It’s about what you or I feel in our hearts.  That’s what it is all about.  I could just as comfortably be a member of another church... Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist or Islamic... but I choose to be Mormon.  I am very pleased that my sons choose to be also.  Someday they will struggle with maters of faith, and they will re-evaluate their hearts and their faith.  This is an individual journey.  They are off to a good start. 

1000hrs: I thought 2nd Presidential debate was last night.  Oops, evidently I was wrong and it is tonight.  Good.  Looking forward to it.  Why did I think it was last night?  Must have been smoking some crack or something.  Or maybe having ones computer going down for a week really screws you up like that.  Let me tell ya, I felt out of touch big time.
One thing that I think should be brought up during the debate, at least in passing... something wonderful... Tomorrow for the first time ever in history, there is a free election in Afghanistan. For the first time, the people there are going to be able to actually vote.  That’s incredible. And unlike the mainstream idea the world has about what the United States is doing around the world... the people there can vote for whoever they want.  The people there have been given control of their own country.  When England went there, they had other plans.  When the Soviets went there, they had other plans.  When we went there, everyone just assumed we were following that pattern.  But that’s not what happened.  The tribes of warriors who have defeated everyone before us - they worked with us. Why?  Because we paid them off?  You can’t buy those guys.  They helped us because they knew why we were there.  They saw the vision.  Tomorrow they are going to be able to enjoy the fruits of that vision fulfilled.  This is something that they had always fought for be were never able to achieve.  Because of President Bush and the Champions of Freedom otherwise known as the US Military, freedom as come to Afghanistan. 
But it is not going to be easy for them.  There will be violence tomorrow... people will die at the polls because the terrorists want to disrupt the elections.  But people there are still willing to go and risk their lives to vote.  They want that freedom that bad.  This is something that we Americans as a whole completely understand.  Unfortunately thanks the efforts of the Liberals to make America stupid, some here in the US have forgotten that.  We call these people Liberal Democrats.  If Al Gore had won in 2000, this would not be happening.
Iraq might be a dangerous area, but the Iraqi people are going to be able to vote in a free election as well.  Not a fake election were Saddam got 100% of the vote, no, a real honest and free election.   These guys have freedom now.  Car bombs and kidnaping and rockets are the acts of desperation.  The acts of those who would deny a whole population a choice.  It isn’t going to work and these terrorists are going to lose.  The people of Iraq are sick of the terrorists too.   Here is the deal, you give a people who have been oppressed and afraid of standing up a taste of freedom... and they will fight for it.  And the people in Iraq are.  There are some towns that are completely fucked up and should just be razed, but on the whole Iraq has the vision. 
This gives me hope for my Brothers.  My younger twin brothers are going over there in a couple of days after a brief retraining.  Their mission is all Mad Max. They are going to be rolling in an armored up HUMVEE riding escort for convoys on seven hour journeys to and from Abu GrabAss.  They are going to be potential targets for these road side bombs and ambushes... but thanks to the people of Iraq tasting their new freedom, the terrorists are having a harder time making these attacks.  They pull them off, but it is more and more difficult for them.  That means their days are numbered.  Iraqis are giving us more intel because they are wanting peace. 
Fact: George Bush has given freedom to millions and millions of people.
France is really pissing me off.  No offense to my French readers, but your President Jacques Chirac is a gigantic asshole.  He wants to lift the arms ban on China so they - France - can sell weapons to China.  Why? Because they see that China has the money to spend.  Never mind that they want to buy weapons so they can take freedom away from Taiwan and fight the USA to do it... so who cares about the ban? Why would this ban make a difference?  They ignored the ban and sold arms to Saddam anyway.  And then Chirac calls American influence a catastrophe?  Hey JacqueAss, if freedom and democracy is a catastrophe, then bring it on.  I’m starting to thing Chirac is an evil sunnovabiotch. He is an agent of oppression.  Simple as that.
AVG AntiVirus... Just caught a couple viri that Norton missed.  Trojan Downloaders.  Shit. 
The Browser War is back?  No, the browser war is over... Mozilla won. 
I'm just giddy about getting the CZ-P-01.  Absolutely giddy.  I've wanted one since the first time I saw one.  Some cats like the CZ-PCR and it is indeed a fantastic compact fighting gun, but I held one side by side with a P-01.  Something about the ballance than the P-01 had was just perfect. I'm mailing off the FFL paper today.

Thrus, Oct 7th, 2004: 1530hrs:  Applications I’ve been playing with and really like… Mozilla’s Sunbird.  It’s a very simple and clean calendar application that allows you to post events, program alarms (reminders – I love that) and all that jazz.  It’s not complicated… and it beats a calendar on the wall.  The only downside is that it doesn’t have the Snap-On Tool babes.  We can’t have everything.
WinAmp’s version 5.05 is out and it’s pretty cool, if you want an alternative to Window’s Media Player.  I do.  Version 3 was pretty sucky… 2 was the best.  5 is using 2 with the good points from 3, hence the version 5.  Word Perfect 11 came with the Dell and I never used it because I never liked Word Perfect.  I thought what the hell, so I installed and took a look at this version 11.  Not bad.  I like the tools and I like the fonts… not bad at all.  My favorite office suite was Lotus’ Smart Suite.  It kicked ass.  I miss Ami-Pro.  1-2-3 was rock solid too…  Corel’s suite with Word Perfect has Quattro Pro and it’s not bad either.  If you need a spread sheet, it’s a good option.  Like I said, this all came with the Dell.  No need to have installed Office.  The only downside is that Word is required at school.  But I can use WP to save a file as a .doc file.  Not bad at all.  I may uninstall Office.  Other options are Open Office and Star Office.  Reports are coming in that Open Office is the way to go.  I might look into that eventually… at least after the semester is over.  Star Office is one I’m familiar with and I like it.  Microsoft’s Office’s days are numbered. Now, looking at WYSIWYG HTML Editors, I see there are some options out there, but none I am really liking.  Now if I was (make that “when I am”) running Linux, there is one called Blue Fish that I’d be all over. 
Okay, I’m geeking out on all this stuff and this isn’t what you guys have come to expect from Mad Ogre.  I understand that.  The Horde is needing the leadership, direction, light and knowledge from the Ogre… I know.  I know.  But please forgive my distractions.   Looks like someone is getting ready to set up an FTP for me so I can get DreamWeaver MX.  Once I get that, I'll be back to my regular sorts of postings that you cats have grown to know and love.  I've got some good ideas to put up that I think you guys will approve of.   The debate is tonight... I'll be watching it armed with pen and paper and taking some good notes on it.  This one should be interesting.  I hope Bush decides to take it to Kerry and forgets playing the nice guy... being the nice guy doesnt win him any points and his platatudes were not even returned.  There is no point in being nice to a Liberal... they don't appreciate it and they don't return the effort.  And it IS an effort being nice to Liberals sometimes.  
I'm tired of these Liberals busting on Halliburton all the time.  Halliburton is a great company able to get things done no other company can.  Who else was jocking for the contract to drive fuel trucks through combat zones?  Gimmie a break!  No one wanted that.  They were there and they were ready and able so they got the task.  This isnt digging a new foundation in Omaha.   Check this out.  The other day my Bronco flat out died on me in an intersection.  No juice.  Electrical problem... no ignition... no spark... no nothing.  And here I am in the intersection.   As soon as I came to a stop, and turned on the flashers... A truck with Halliburton printed on the side stopped and two cats jumped out and helped me push my rig out of traffic.  Then they looked at the engine as soon as I had popped the hood.  No kidding here... within like 10 seconds one of them said "Try it now."  Yup.  Engine fired right up.  Then these two guys went over the problem argued the cause between them two and gave me the full report on what where why and solutions.   Then they smiled, waved, jumped in there truck, and went on their way.   Halliburton.  Not only that, but they pay the guys around here four times what they need to be paying.  Why?  They want happy and loyal employees... and it's Halliburton that is pumping the revenue into this area.  Other companies are taking it out... Halliburton is the life support of my town out here in the middle of nowhere.  If they were all about profits, they wouldn't be paying out what they are paying these guys.  This puts money in the pockets of the employees that they can spend.  This money is spend through out the whole community driving local businesses.  This is something Liberals do not understand.  Mainly because they are stupid.

1000hrs:  Forgive the lack of update again... I'm testing some stuff out to find a better way of editing this site.  I can't find my FrontPage installer, and all I have it Word, Publisher, and this... Composer.  But Composer seems to suck and I'm not liking it.  I can't update directly, so I am saving and then uploading via SmartFTP.  I'm goofing around with this until I find a way to get comfortable with it.  I am too used to FrontPage and have spoiled myself with it silly.  That's what happens when I got lazy.  This whole site used to be all done in NotePad and damn it, I'm tempted to go back to that format.   (Look in the archives to see what I'm talking about)    So this is just fiddlefaddle right now. 
I thought I had DreamWeaver, but I evidently I don't.  If anyone has an MX version disk, let's trade some software!
Screwing around with this stuff is not something I have a lot of time for.  I've got tons of studying to get done... this is why I was using FrontPage in the first place.  To save time... because MO has become pretty damn huge.  I've got to get back to the books and have burnt my Blogging time.  This is the cost of doing my blog old school and not using dedicated blogging software.  But that's okay... I've looked at those tools and I just don't like it.   Hmmm... actually this Mozilla Composer isn't that bad, but tool is dated as hell.  With all of Mozilla's efforts to make the browser better, they've ignored Composer.

Wednesday, October 6th, 2004: Evening:  Thank you for all the help guys, I appreciate it.  I got the system up and running again properly.  However I am left with a little dilemma.  I don't want to use FrontPage anymore.  I think I have DreamWeaver somewhere... but I've not used it for ages... Version 2 was the last one I used if I remember correctly.  What's the newest version now? Five?  I'll have to get my hands on that and relearn that whole deal.  Maybe give MO here a facelift.  Anyways... I had to install a firmware update to get the drive to work, and from there I could use Window's Repair function from the disk if I rebooted off the CD.  But since that didn't work I just said "screw it" and reformatted the hard drive (after spending over an hour of backing up data) and reinstalled everything.  Well... not everything.  AVG instead of Norton and I'm going to reconfigure my hardware firewall.  Semantic may be the source from some of the issues I've been having. 

I watched the Vice President's debate twice in a row on CSPAN and have a few opinions about it.  First off, John Edwards is one smarmy bastard.  I don't like Cheney very much, but I absolutely can't stand Edwards.  The man sounded like a broken record and was totally unable to finish a sentence without invoking "John Kerry" with religious fervor.  And we was rude too... smarmy and rude.  It's bad form to keep calling your opponent a liar during a debate.   But where Bush was playing too nice, Cheney just let Edwards have it, and kicked Edwards ass all over the place.  This Kerry-Edwards War Hawks bit isn't going to work for them.  No one believes it and their own base of Liberal goobers don't like it.  Overall, I think Bush-Cheney is looking better than ever.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow night's debate.

The Beretta 1201FP:  I decided not to get it.  I've got a CZ-P01 coming instead.   So that will be my next handgun review for Concealed Carry Magazine, after these Baby Eagles. (Which btw continue to impress me)  More on this later.

So to sum it up, Ogre is back online, angry as hell about a few things, and I have a burning desire to play Gom-Jabbar with Bill Gates.  Email is also back up and running as it should be.  Thank heavens. 

 think I am going to take Ranger for a jaunt and then hit the books.    

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