Well, let's see.... To answer the most often asked
question I've received in the last six months or so: No, I did not die.
Quite the opposite, in fact, since things are going quite well. Time,
however, has been scarce, and I just haven't been able to work on this
thing much lately. And now that I've started up again, it's become
apparent that I've forgotten how to do most of this stuff, so I guess it'll
be a while before you see anything much different. I have plans to
give the whole place a face lift, just as soon as I relearn HTML.
This may take a while, since I wasn't much good at it in the first place.
I've been busy tinkering with the inside part of
my computer, mostly, and have managed to screw it up royally, and restore
it back to life (albeit a bit differently each time) many times.
In fact, I put one together more or less from scratch (I mean, I didn't
go out and start soldering things together or anything). It's got
a Cyrix 166+ processor in it, and 64 megs of EDO RAM. I also have
three hard drives in this thing (two EIDE, and one SCSI), and I have an
IDE tape drive, too (8 gigs: a bit of an overkill, I s'pose, but what the
hell). I put everything into a monstrous full tower case, which I
decided I needed, because my hands are too damn fat work around in anything
smaller (not with all the crap I have stuffed in there). I also have
a 17" monitor now, so I guess you'll be seeing things designed for at least
an 800 X 600 resolution. If I get around to changing things, that
is. So, if you're in the market for a 75 Mhz Pentium with 24 MB of
RAM, a 1.6 gig hard drive, and a whole lot of software and other goodies. No reasonable offer refused. And
if you hurry up and buy it off me, I'll be able to build a nice Pentium
II machine, and then sell my current one.
Things haven't gone quite as well for Uncle Pat,
I'm afraid. Things were looking up for him at first when he was approached
by an innocent, unsuspecting nurse via the Internet (don't these people
watch Jenny Jones, for God's sake?). Well, finally they met, and
though none of us could understand what she saw in him ("well, at least
he doesn't snore," was her reply to our queries), they seemed to be getting
along quite well. Then came the passage of "Francis' Law" in New
York State, and Uncle Pat was fingered by some of his neighbors for being
convicted six times for mulophilia. Uncle Pat insists on his innocence
("and, besides, things are different out there on the farm"), yet still
he was forced to flee the area (he insists that the imminent passage of
"Lassie's Law" had nothing to do with it). He and his Ninja nurse
are currently on the "lamb" (so to speak), robbing liquor stores and kidnapping
livestock as they make their way across the country. I hope to hear
from them occasionally, and I shall pass along any reports I get.
I've also been playing WAY too much computer games.
Mostly the Appache Longbow and X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter. Forget about
the cocaine, folks, THIS stuff is REALLY addicting. I even went out
and downloaded Internet Explorer, just so I could play against other people
in the Internet Gaming Zone. At least the damn thing now ASKS which
drive to install itself on. I have the new Netscape, too. I
like it, but it's still kind of buggy, anfd I can crash it pretty easily.
Most of the time, I still use good old reliable Netscape 3.01, which rarely
crashes, and seems to display my pages in the manner they're intended to
be seen. Mostly, I just wish these people would knock it off, and
stick to one product for a while. I haven't even figured out HTML
2, and they're worried about HTML 4.0.
Well, I guess that's about all for now. I just
wanted to let y'all know I'm still alive. See ya later.