Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

It's old news, but I think I should mention it.

The seal -- yes, it was a seal -- whose picture started the "walrus and the bucket" saga died over two years ago. Here's a news clipping.

Once again, I'm unable to afford the time off to go to a weekend filk convention, as much as I'd like to go. It's about the only time I get to see some of you in real life, albeit briefly or in passing. And sometimes it's the only chance I get to sing or play.

Ditto this for Conflikt, and quite possibly FKO as well.

At least amazon_42 can't razz me about wasting my money going to cons. :-P

For those of you who are going....have a great time!

My alma mater had a CDC Cyber mainframe computer from at least 1981 (when I started there) to 1986, when it was replaced with an IBM mainframe. I was loosely affiliated with the College of Mathematical Sciences, which was a unit of the university that had a lot of aspiring computer geeks like me. I wonder where they are now.

In 1985, there was a group of us that used the Cyber's messaging system (written in APL) to communicate with each other. We had "handles" -- mine was Cerebus, after the aardvark of comic book fame -- that we used on the system instead of our real names. Those were fun times. I wonder where they are now.

The Cyber was a great vector processor -- it excelled at mathematical calculations, which was required by the science and engineering communities of the university. Even though the OS was a little cryptic, it wasn't as cryptic as Unix.

I haven't seen any stats, but I'm guessing today's desktop computers are more powerful than some of the top-of-the-line Cray supercomputers of years ago. And they don't require liquid cooling.

Other than museums, are there any Cyber machines still around? Or have they all been scrapped?

If you went to college and was a computer geek like me, what machines did you have at your school? Did you spend any time on them? Any amusing stories?

I was going to expand this list to 10 items, but I couldn't come up with enough items to fill the list. Maybe later.

5) Not using their turn signal.
4) Driving slow in the passing lane.
3) Tailgating.
2) Driving on the shoulder. (What's your hurry, people?)
1) Tossing lit cigarette butts out the window.

What are your driving peeves? Let's hear 'em.

Last weekend, I noticed that there is an Abitibi Paper Retriever dumpster in the parking lot of my local supermarket, which is about 1/2 mile away from me. This will make my paper recycling runs a lot less time-consuming, since I no longer have to drive 10 miles to the county dump to recycle my paper.

What's not clear to me are the types of paper they'll accept. I've been recycling nearly everything made of paper or paperboard, including toilet paper spindles, cereal boxes, glossy junk mail, old catalogs, magazines, and (of course) newspapers.

I'm guessing one of the local schools is using this project as a fundraiser. And I'll be more than happy to supoprt it.

....that I talked about on Tuesday can be found by Googling on the phrase "snowball cockatoo". The first two links that show up point to YouTube. The rest of the links are news articles about the bird and the sanctuary it lives in.

No, I can't watch it at work; the firewall blocks all streaming media. And I can't watch it at home because I still use dialup. :(

BTW, I remember watching an SNL sketch many years ago about another dancing cockatoo who was bopping along to "Macho Man" by the Village People. Anyone else remember that?

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas if you celebrate it! And a Happy Festivus for the rest of us!

I also want to thank those of you who sent me cards and email messages!

Last night I bought a pan of Papa Murphy's lasagna and had some for dinner. Not bad, although I think I make a better lasagna. I just didn't feel I had the time to cook. Then I watched "It's A Wonderful Life" on TV. I've never seen the movie in its entirety. I keep missing the middle section. This was no exception, as R called me at around 9:00pm and asked if I could tape "2007: The Year in Animals" on Animal Planet for M. It featured the cockatoo on YouTube that dances to the Backstreet Boys, which M just LOVED. So I taped it when it re-ran at 11pm.

Today, I got up early and went to R's place to drop off gifts for M and spend time with the family. I'm back home now. I'm not sure how I'm going to spend the rest of the day.

NY Islanders forward Chris Simon was suspended for 30 games by the National Hockey League (NHL) for stomping on the leg of Pittsburgh Penguins' player Jarkko Ruutu with his skate.

Link to the article at foxsports.msn.com.

There's unsportsmanlike conduct, and then there's serious unsportsmanlike conduct. Simon's been suspended before. He's thankfully taken leave of the team while he gets some much-needed counseling.

But is 30 games enough? I'd have voted for 40 games, or the rest of the season. Intentionally trying to cause harm to one's opponent is definitely Not Cool, in any sport.

...because now I can't sleep. Ah well. I can catch up on email and LJ at home now instead of at work in the morning.

Yesterday, I braved the weather and did some volunteer gift wrapping at Borders with athenawindsong. My company's holiday party got postponed to Sunday night, so we ended up having dinner at the Rusty Bucket.

I hate icy roads. I've been in once ice-related accident so far, and I don't wish to repeat the experience. But I don't mind snowy roads.

Today, the roads were a little better. Made it to UU services and the morning discussion group. Then had M for a few hours. Then, after dropping M off, I went to the company holiday party. To be more accurate, it was more of a dinner than a party. I had escargot, filet mignon (which I should have ordered medium instead of medium well, I'm sorry to say), salad, cheesecake, and iced tea. I'm still feeling full.

I'm one of these people who finds snow theraputic and cheering. A winter day -- or night -- with no snow is depressing. It's too dark out without snow. But then, I grew up in an area that is known for lake-effect snow.

The folks north of where I am are still getting wind and drifting snow -- so much so that a number of schools are on a 2-hour delay for tomorrow.

To be honest, I haven't felt like doing much of anything in the past couple of weeks. Work has been challenging recently, and when I come home, all I want to do is eat, watch TV, read, or sleep.

Today I made my monthly recycle run, dropped off platic bags at Wal-Mart (they're the only place around that accepts them for recycling), dropped off hangers at Target, and donated baby toys to the Salvation Army. I'm glad I was able to get out of the house for a little while while the weather was relatively nice.

Tonight I have chicken and dumplings in the slow cooker. I made it from a frozen mix. I may have enough for several meals, which I'll stretch over the next couple of weeks.

Shou-outs: Happy birthday suscochran!