SuperSatellite ||

As is now commonish knowledge, I have resigned myself to at least a few more years in Pittsburg. What we shall refer to as the foreseeable future. Let’s face it, money talks baby.

That being said it does nothing to change one clearly undeniable truth. Pittsburg sucks bootiehole. Yes, I even have a nifty accompanying example. So yesterday was Saturday. I hit Stella’s early to listen to Liz play. That’s usually a good time, but the shows at Stella’s generally take you to around 10:00. Fair enough. The guys met up with me there, and we headed to 505. That was fun for a few minutes, till it turned into us watching E! on the little TV that we couldn’t listen to. Let’s face it, it’s just not as fun when you aren’t playing pool.

We left there at about 10 till 11:00. Then brainstormed. What is there to do in Pittsburg at 11:00? Bowling. Bar hop. And what? You know what we did, we walked around the porn shop for like 5 minutes. That was the best idea we could come up with. What the hell is wrong with this place? Are business people oblivious to the fact that there is a social aspect in this town in sore need of addressing? We crazy young folk need something to do once in a while. I know, it’s a nutty idea, but some of us are weird like that and don’t want to just sit around a bar drinking drinks for $6.75 a pop. Activity. Engagement. That’s what we need.

Think about it. A big real arcade. Laser tag arena. 24 hour fitness center (that doesn’t cost a fortune). Late night mini golf course. How many ideas can you come up with if you just stop and think about it? And imagine the kind of draw it would have. Anyway, I know it’ll never happen. So for the next few years I guess I gotta make my own damn late night fun.

The real saving grace this weekend was a three pronged attack. One, I got my new washer today. No more dumping quarters at the laundromat. Go me. Two, got to see my old friend Jennifer this morning and just catch up on stuff. And three, got to see my other old friend Rachel from Indy and hang out, which was awesome.

***NOTE: The following blog contains language that might be found to be geeky and uninteresting to most normal people. Tough.***

You know what, sometimes I just thing I need to stop. “Mr. Fienen, put down the CD-R and step away from the computer!” But seriously. For the second time in as many months, I nearly scrapped my main drive on my desktop. For once though, I came out on top.

Back story. You might recall my mentioning killing it a while back. Well, that was not my fault actually, just the inevitable death of an old drive. So I replaced it with a new 160Gb drive. Partitioned it and set up to dual boot Windows and Linux using GRUB. Well, the other night I needed some extra space for some video I was editting together. I haven’t used Linux in a while, mostly because I wanted to play with a new distro, so I formatted the partition for NTFS and used it to drop some video on.

Then I realized the error in my ways. Rebooting gave me a nifty “error 22″ from GRUB when the computer came on. Why? Because the partition the boot record was stored on was gone. Deleted by yours friggin’ truly. Well damn… What to do, right? I tried using my install CD to get to the recovery console and fix stuff, but the Administrator password I have used for ages “mysteriously” no longer worked. I was able to use a basic boot CD to force it to just ram the first part of the drive through and into Windows. It worked okay, so I went with it. I used the opportunity to pull up what is now my new best friend. UBCD4Win. I found this by accident. It’s sorta a pain to build the first time around (it’s not just a ready to go ISO, although the v3.0 promises to change that. It’s now on RC5, so I’m thinking new version very soon).

So from there I rebooted with a copy of UBCD4Win. This thing is slick. Sorta like a Windows Live CD, though not really. It’s just Windowsesque. But it comes packed with tools. And since it runs from the CD, you can work on things like hard drives without problem. Unless you’re me and manage to just flat out erase the MBR. Why did I do this? The short answer is tool misuse. I went in the wrong order with a partition tool I was unfamiliar with and just brought the whole partition table crashing down around me. Fantastic. Restarting the comp assured me it had no clue what it was doing with that drive now. Boot media? What boot media?

But, being the useful CD it is, I was able go back in with it to scan the drive, and it saw there were clearly two partitions, and it restored them. I set the first one as active, and rebooted. It tried so hard to start. It really did. But in the end it just sat there, cursor blinking, unsure what to do. But at least no error, and I had confirmed with UBCD4Win that the file structure was just fine and dandy. Reboot again. Among the tools on the CD is a Windows password reseter. I was able to change the Admin password that I apparently forgot somewhere along the road from there and boot with the normal XP install CD then, login to the recovery console fine, and run fixmbr. And POOF! I have a repaired computer finally.

As far as I an concerned, UBCD4Win is now a permanent addition to my toolbox, that thing is super neato. Granted if I would not be dumb to begin with…

I’m gonna date myself just a little here. I started using computers about ten or so years ago, right at the birth of the big computer boom. Windows 95 was it, a P166 (no MMX) was screaming (but even better with the enormously expensive 233 upgrade), and a 1.6Gb hard drive was almost impossible to fill up. I won’t even comment on 16Mb of RAM. Anyway, one of the first things I got into with my boss 14.4 modem was instant messaging. A program had come out right about that time that really broke the seal for IM’s. ICQ. It meant I Seek You. It was a simple, but feature filled piece of software. It was also the only program of it’s kind with the reach it had. Before long it was one of the most downloaded pieces of software on the internet.

And now to the point. I no longer use the ICQ software. Instead I use Trillian, an even better piece of proprietary software that combines ICQ, AIM, MSN, and Yahoo (among other things) into one easy to manage tool. For the record I don’t use Google Talk. But I noticed something the other day. No one, and I mean no one from my ICQ list was online. I feel some heartfelt obligation to it, because ICQ was the thing back in the day, but now it has just slipped. It’s sad. My old 7 digit (among some of the oldest still in use) UIN begs to be used, but anymore it’s one of the Big 3 or nothing I guess.

I won’t drop my ICQ connection. My mom still uses it after all. But it just makes me wonder how it could fall so far, and if they will continue to hold on, or fade into obscurity. I used an actual copy of the ICQ program a while back and it was just bloated and too much. Maybe the time has come to put the old dog to rest.

No, no, not tornadoes. I’m going to take a few moments to discuss the bar that would be dance club up north of town. Last night we decided to head out to Twisters to do some dancing. We had been out at 505 for a while beforehand. As per usual, I was driver, so I go where they go. And I don’t really care. I like trying out new places. But Twisters has something of a…country following. First, let’s discuss getting in. At a 21 and over bar, don’t charge a cover. That alone makes me not want to go back. The only place that can really get away with that would be a real dance club. Not a bar with a dance floor. What you do is allow 18 and up, and charge the cover on people 18-20. See how it makes sense? Charging the actual customers an additional $5 to get in is just stupid, especially when you’re out of the way in the first place.

I did eventually dance. I cut in on Rory and Cassie. Rory tried to dip me and dropped me, then he fell on my penis. It hurt. But it was marginally humorous. Some bachelorette there wanted to get her picture taken with us afterwards. But let’s face it, $5 to get in, music that I can’t dance to, and more cowboys than I ever care to surround myself with ever again. I just don’t see us going back there. Now, if 505 does indeed open their kitchen and dance floor next door, then we’re talking. It’s just not worth it to drive out north of town and pay to get in to a bar like that. Frankly, none of the bars here are worth paying to get into for that matter. 505 seems to be the only one that has figured that out.