Because the US is apparently part of Russia now...

Merry Christmas!

Would you like to pin this .ini file?

The saddest part is that this would still be more meaningful than 98% of existing Facebook posts.

Microsoft recently released an updated configuration menu for my keyboard. It still doesn't let me change the function of the stupid zoom slider so I can use it to scroll. It does, however, include handy little buttons that, presumably, allow me to easily share my hotkey settings on Facebook and Twitter. Because, you know, my friends and family really need to know about such things. Hooray for progress!

Know Your Defunct Amusement Parks in Pennsylvania

Remembering the Labor Movement in 2012
iPhone photograph on Blog
$35,000

So I have this great idea for a First Friday meta-exhibit! It's called "We Parked at the Mall," and it consists of exterior photographs of various First Friday galleries that, for whatever reason, decided to turn out the lights and pack it in by 8:15 or so, the event's official 9 PM end time notwithstanding.

Apparently, the strategy to actually seeing more than two or three galleries at this thing is to bring a good pair of running shoes, don't spend more than five seconds on any one piece, and pray that you don't run into too many people you know. After all, it's not like this is supposed to be a social event or anything. Don't bother trying to come back on Saturday in the hope that any of it will be open again, either. Are you kidding? This place is even more of a desolate ghost town on the weekends than it is during the week!

Remember kids: we all want to revitalize downtown Scranton. We just don't want to put in more than an hour and a half per month to do it.

And speaking of shameless endorsements

A message from the National Chicken Tenders Bureau.

I'm sure this is *exactly* what Stallman had in mind

From the "Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root." dept.

Launch Firefox? Are you sure you don't want to buy a Kindle Fire instead?
(Wallpaper source: Fuji Choko [alternate link])

So last weekend, I found myself having to upgrade my Linux box to the beta version of the upcoming Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" release. This release consists primarily of minor version bumps: new kernel version, newer X server, etc. There is one very noticeable difference, however: the search bar in the dash, in addition to locating programs and files, now recommends stuff to buy on Amazon based on what you're typing. Because if there was anything that was truly holding Linux back on the desktop, it was the lack of built-in functionality sending your every action to a random megacorporation for marketing purposes. This is something that not even Mac OS X or Windows have yet (although nobody really knows what the hell is going on in Windows 8), so it's really a nice jump that the Ubuntu folks have gotten on the competition here. Though they really need to hurry up and get this functionality added to the grep command.

Of course, none of this changes the fact that it still doesn't really work that well as an operating system. I mentioned that I "had" to upgrade to a beta. This is because the system would blow up in my face whenever I attempted to save large files to it from another machine on the network. Sometimes it would kernel panic, other times my Samba share would become inaccessible from other computers on my network until a reboot.

After weeks of constant reboots, messing around with Samba settings, tweaking registry settings on my Windows box, and just about anything else I could find, I finally thought I had located the culprit: a problem with the kernel drivers for my ethernet card. This was fixed in newer kernel versions, but despite the fact that the current stable version of Ubuntu is considered a "Long-term support" release, and the fact that this is a rather common gigabit ethernet chipset, there was no easy way to get the newer kernel version to fix this problem without having to do a lot of manual installation, which is something that never ends well.

So I had to upgrade. And it worked. For about a week. And then I had another kernel panic this morning.

So the machine that I have all my files saved on is still completely unusable as a file server, but at least it's much easier for me to dick away money on Amazon now, because that's all that's important, isn't it?

It's a brand new record for 1990...

They Might Be Giants' brand new album, Join Us Flood!

The local stations' 24-hour flood coverage has been nothing short of magical, in the "college radio show when the CD player breaks down" sense.

The anchors on 16 are currently showing Facebook photos in order to kill time until something, anything, new comes in, and as I'm typing this have forgotten the meteorologist currently on duty, who I think has used at least three different pronunciations of "Katia" so far. Earlier, they had Tom Clark introduce the newest member of their weather team, with whom he has absolutely no on-air chemistry (there's a shock), in what seemed like the most awkward weather segment EVER.

They also keep repeating a series of helicopter reports that all devolve into Marisa Burke having a conversation about the damage with the pilot and/or camera operator, who are, of course, inaudible. They also repeat a segment in which a guy says that he's going to stay in his house, and if the water reaches the second floor, he's just going to "skip" out. I don't think he quite understands how these "flood" things work.

Meanwhile, 28/22 seems to be broadcasting from a temporary studio, lit with flashlights, interspersed with footage from a series of security cameras, and the anchors have actually been *describing* Facebook photos because they can't get the photos themselves on the air. They've also instructed viewers to call schools and such about closures, because they apparently can't get that information on the air either. I'm surprised they haven't gone off the air due to hamster exhaustion by this point.

Great news!

From the "No, not the Dacia Sandero" Dept.

Since we last checked in on the progress of Scranton's luxury condominiums in 2006, they've finally managed to tear down the other half of that building in the back of the lot, as well as another to the side! Well, most of the one to the side:

Still, this sucker's gonna be ready to open any day now!

We now conclude "Things that tick Peter Hocking off" week on this blog with an HDR image of downtown Scranton.

Unfortunately, we were unable to find any middle-aged women in foofy pink dresses and curly blonde wigs who were willing to pose for the photo while holding the aforementioned iPad.

This is why I still read anime blogs

Series reviews such as this:

The phrase "Train wreck" comes to mind, but it’s really not accurate. Trains have momentum and direction. This does not. A better analogy would be a pack of feral chihuauas in heat. With grenades taped to their backs. Entertaining and destructive, maybe even cute and tragic at times, but ultimately a waste of explosives and snake food.

from Aroduc's post on the final episode of Angel Beats!

Couldn't have said it better if I still went through the trouble it takes to actually watch this stuff.

We have our priorities in order!

Number of days it took to fix the broken images on this blog: 2

Number of days it took to produce the stupid video in the previous "Technical Difficulties" post: 4

Of course, most of that time was spent just trying to find a free video editor that actually did what I needed it to, without having to resort to Windows Movie Maker.


...


And after going through about fifteen different Linux video editors that all crashed out the moment I tried to do anything at all, I ultimately had to resort to Windows Movie Maker. You stay classy, Linux!

We are experiencing technical difficulties, please stand up.

Well, yay. Enough things on this blog are now so completely borked that I'm going to have to start paying attention to it again. Maybe all of the forthcoming image fixes will convince me to start updating this thing on a regular basis.

Okay, okay. You can stop laughing now. Get off the floor. Please.

In the meantime, while I scour ten years of hard drive cruft trying to find the stuff that was here, please enjoy the following video:



Test card photo by tm-tm. Wall located in Riga, Latvia.

So when do we get to have another World's Fair?

Let's see, we have Obama, of course, then Biden, Hillary's at the end, and then we have... Wow, I never knew that Morrissey was a high-ranking cabinet official. Or is that David Byrne?

I've been maintaining for a few months now that the presidency of Barack Obama, if nothing else, will at the very least result in a level of kitsch that has not been seen since the JFK era ended.

Here, now, is the proof of that hypothesis.

So now I'm left wondering...

The crowd being informed that they're actually in line for the Carousel of Progress.
(photo by ryptide)

What, exactly, would have happened if he did swipe the pen?

Well, that and why the Chief Justice of the United States can't seem to remember thirty-five goddamn words.

And why they didn't send Bush out of Washington on a vehicle more fitting to his legacy than Marine One.





Like, say, a tricycle.





With a busted wheel.





And pink tassels on the handlebars.





And a little basket. Can't forget the little basket.

WUSR Fun Fact #4,012

Total number of people affected by this announcement: 2

Really, guys, Regis could use the work...

I swear that Dick Clark and Jerry Lewis are having some kind of competition over who can look more pathetic in their yearly television appearance.

I, for one, welcome our new Muppet Kate Pierson overlords

I take it back, this is the best video ever.

Don't get too excited now, guys.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a new winner for the "Creepiest Photo on this Blog" award!

In the months since the Lucky☆Star anime aired, Saitama prefecture, the setting of the series, has been finding new and innovative ways to make a quick buck from the franchise. This includes the show's Hiiragi family being registered as official residents of Washimiya, and the Washinomiya shrine (where Tsukasa and Kagami Hiiragi work as miko) hosting an event attracting thousands.

Now the city of Satte, hometown of main character Konata Izumi, has gotten into the act as well. The city is installing decorative panels commemorating the series on over 500 of its street lamps. This is in addition to the limited edition sake already available in the city.

If this were any country other than Japan, these would be covered in Sharpie scribbles by now.

In light of these events, the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce would like to issue the following reminder:

(Photo by tomdobb)

Demotagging

Red arrow - approximate location of Scavenger Hunt.
This room is also the location of the latter half of In which I realize far too late...

Just a reminder:

Next new year's eve will be the last time you'll be able to wear the incoming year as a pair of glasses for the next nine hundred and ninety one years.

Start planning now.

In which I realize far too late that I have chosen the wrong university to attend

Man, it's amazing the kind of halftime show you can pull off when you don't have only ten poorly-funded band members trying to share the field with 412 vapid cheerleaders.

There are certain high schools around here that could possibly learn a lot from this, but then again, who needs silly things like funding for the arts, when you can have hundreds of teenage girls in miniskirts kicking their legs? It's not like the people demanding all the funding for the cheerleaders are just a bunch of perverted old men who like looking up the skirts of underage girls, nosiree! I'm sure they only go to Jitty Joe's for the ice cream, too.

Meanwhile at 'Da U, they have replaced all of the bench seats in the second floor cafeteria of the Guster center with new ones.

Approximately one month before said cafeteria closes.

For good.

As in, "the building is being demolished."

As if it wasn't bad enough that they had just spent a small fortune renovating said building two years ago.

(Maybe they're just upset that I found Yuki?)

Still a pain in the ass at 4 AM, though

It's kind of nice to see that I'm not the only one who has had to resort to the old "Bed or Chair System". In fact, it seems to be a time-honored tradition. Of course, the best solution seems to be to get a nice, big apartment and clear the local IKEA of shelving units, but A: I'm stuck in retail for at least another two months, and B: there's no IKEA around here, anyway.

I have begun collecting figures. My status as "that one eccentric unmarried uncle everybody has" is now permanently cemented.

Update: I have managed to work the "Bed or Chair System" into today's Japanese homework:

ねる前に、ベッドの上にあるDVDの山をいすに移動しなくちゃいけません。

Before I go to sleep, I must move the mountain of DVDs that is on my bed over to the chair.

I have no idea if this is entirely correct, but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough when the teacher docks me three letter grades for using にinstead of へ or something silly like that. Seriously, that's what we're dealing with this semester. We're already planning a sting operation to go to Japan and drag last year's instructor back, kicking and screaming if necessary.