What is more fun than 5 lbs. of Silly Putty? 100 lbs. of Silly Putty! Ryan adds an item to his list of wants...
Man arrested for selling legal items, and providing a warning that they may be dangerous. Frink.
It's unnatural! It's wrong! It is a female kissing Eric Raymond!!!!
And you know how I found it? Looking through my server logs, someone came to my site from google, after having searched for Eric Raymond Porn! - Server logs can be a scary thing...
Well I have returned from the New England Leather Alliance - Fetish Fair and Flea Market (NELA-FFM) in Boston and all is well. Steve and I picked Cassie and Mariah up at the Buffalo Airport at 10:10pm and then headed to a rest stop to get a bite to eat. We drove through the night to Steve's father's apartment in Newton, Mass. which is right outside of Boston. We got in about 6:10am, unpacked the car, and bedded down for a few hours. At 7:30am I was awakened by Steve's father, who thought I was Steve. He began to talk to me and after a few minutes (it was very dark in the room) he realized I wasn't Steve, but of course by that time I was awake. I got up and diagrammed Steve's father's microwave (for a Human Factors project) and waited for everyone else to awake. At about 9:45am Lucky (aka. Jesus, the same jesus I was searching for in a bus station in New Jersey last year) arrived. His girlfriend Caroline showed up shortly thereafter, followed by Steve's girlfriend Carolyn.
Lucky, Cassie, Caroline, Mariah, and I piled into my car and drove to the NELA-FFFM. The Ramada Inn where it was being held was completely packed so there were cops directing traffic. It is truly a grand experience to be asked by a police man "Fetish Sir?" and respond "Yes, please." We were directed to the Holiday Inn down the road that had extra parking and shuttles running between the two every 20 minutes. We parked and waited through 3 shuttle runs to finally get on the shuttle and back to the Ramada. We paid our fee, got our bags and bracelets and began to go through the booths and rooms. It was very much like last year, but with a bit more chain mail and more bondage furniture. There were some excellent floggers to be had for decent prices (although decent still means $100-$200, they were worth it), lots of latex/leather clothing that was quite neat, chain mail and all sorts of metal clothing and gear, and plenty of toys/instruments/hardware. One vendor had a display case with some very nice jewelry, everything from small rings that looked like several people intertwined, to sharp vampire finger armour. Cassie seemed quite interested. Cassie found a cats paw, which is a very soft fur glove that had sharp hidden claws at the end. Very much please/pain and very much Cassie. So we got it. Cassie also found a dual chain/horsehair flogger that she liked, so we got that as well. Last year I had seem a chain mail bra/shirt sort of item that I wanted to get for Cassie, but when I had gone back to get it, it had been sold. This year Cassie found one from the very same vendor in the same spot that was very similar to it. And she loved it, so they sized it too her (she's so small it had to be sized specifically for her) and got it. It looks very pretty and fits perfectly - I approve. I found a nice leather flogger that was not priced, but it was in the section with the other floggers that were about $110-$120. I asked how much was wanted for it and I was told $65. It was much nicer than the ones it was with and I imagine it would have been at least $110 if they had known which one it was. So it was practically a steal. We all met up about 4:00pm and headed back to the car. Lucky had bought a chain mail choker and bracelet, Caroline had bought soem rope and rubber cuffs, and Mariah had bought a dark purple cloak and dress with celtic knots on it in gold. Very nice stuff.
I droped off Lucky and Caroline and then headed back to Steve's fathers house. Steve and Carolyn had left to go down to Harvard Square and left us a note as to how to take the subway there. But fortunately Steve's father offered to drive us (there are no parking spaces to be had there ever, expecially on a Saturday night) and drop us off, so we arrived about the same time Steve and Carolyn did. We met them at One Arrow St. Crepes (known to Steve and I as the Crepery), and had dinner. I HIGHLY reccommend their crepes and Mint Lemonade. I've been there 4 or 5 times now and everything I had had has been quite good. The person who takes your order may not know how to make that Mint Lemonade if they are new, since it is not on the menu. But it is simply a lemonade with a long shot of mint syrup in it - it gets Ryan's seal of approval. We took the T (Boston's train/subway system) back to Steve's house and Cassie and I promptly went to sleep.
We woke up the next morning, showered, packed, and went by Steve's mothers house so he could pick up a box. I noticed the coolant in my radiator was low, so we stopped at a gas station and I bought some anti-freeze, mixed it in a large Big-Foot cup, and filled the radiator (with Cassie's help). We drove back to the rest stop we had visited 2 days before, because Mariah thinks she left her scarf there. It was not to be found however. We arrived at the airport about 6:15pm and Mariah and Cassie got thier tickets and onto thier plane in time. Steve and I headed back to Rochester. It was a good trip, except there was not ample Ryan-Cassie-Cuddle time.
Some site are just too damn interesting. I think this site inspires me to take more pictures of my firehydrant equipment. :)
Yes, Yes, I know what you are thinking. Why the hell is Ryan awake at 8:55am on a Friday. Especially after the previous day lasted 28 hours. Well I don't know either. But I'm going to see Cassie and Mariah! And we'll drive to Boston tonight and go to the NELA-FFFM tomorrow. Driving to Boston through the night at high speeds is fun. I reccommend it, and do it myself as often as I can.
"Little sleep and many bagels, makes one brave." - Ryan's Thought of the Day
Rochester is on crack. When I went to sleep Wednesday it was cold, snowy, and ice covered. When I woke up it was 52 degrees, and muddy. No ice to be found. Temperature changes of 34 degrees in 18 hours is kind of scary.
Well, so far the server has recieved the following donations:
And of course lots of movie/mp3/tv series donations. Thanks!
There is a good possibility that a friend of Steve's will be donating a nice big drive for the server as well. I approve. If so then the server money (and admin fuel) will either go toward another drive, or if we feel that there is enough room for a couple months then it'll go toward a UPS.
I'm a night owl.
My sleep schedule for the last few days:
Saturday 7:00am: Sleep
Saturday 6:00pm: Awake
Sunday 9:00am: Sleep
Sunday 7:00pm: Awake
Monday 12:30pm: sleep
Monday 10:00pm: Awake
Wednesday 1:00am: Sleep
Wednesday 7:30pm: Awake
One of the worst feelings a tech can have is the feeling of helplessness that acompanies backup media with errors on it. Today I attempted to put all of that wonderful data onto the server, some 50 CDs in all. 22 of them had read errors. And the movies on them could not be salavaged. I am not pleased. It happened on both CompUSA 700MB and Sony 700MB CDs. In in about the same place on them. Around megabyte 693. I first thought it was a bad drive. But then they were tried in 3 other drives, including the CDR that wrote them. And in both windows and linux. No luck. Read errors every time. Dammnit.
Well the other 28 CDs made it onto the server, so we've that many more movies/animes/etc now. 27GB free now. :)
Since a few people have asked me about the network here, and Zarek reminded me of it last night, I have made a quick diagram of our setup. I'll add some things and update it when I get some more time. But for now, if you are curious about what the house network looks like (and what kind of machines we have) e-mail me and I'll send it to you.
Server needs more space: Ok, now that the server has all this nice space (230GB) it is getting rather full. We're already down to 50GB free. That means we've 180GB of movies, MP3s, software, books, images, etc. And I have another 30GB or so that I'm putting on the server from CDs. So I have decided to begin actively soliciting money for another 100GB drive. So if you have an account and find the server useful please donate a little to help it get its new drive. Or if you'd like an account and access to all the fun stuff we have, give a little and I'll set you up with one. You can donate using PayPal to rph7945@rit.edu or send me a check/cash/first born. Thanks.
Here is a breakdown of what we have:
75G audio 166M beos software 4.6G cryptography.disseminate.info 168M images 7.0G linux software 111M palm software and docs 943M text 81G videos 4.1G windows software
All praise Zarek, for he hath given $30 towards the drive already. Thanks Zarek. We'll name the new LVM volume after you.
I like Calvin and Hobbes. All the strips from 1985 to 1991.
Ok dammit, 36th Act as Dictator of the World: "Legalise anything containing THC and make hemp underwear manditory." This crazy " War on Drugs" is just going too far. See here and here for details.
On a lighter note... I want one. Any vehicle with a kitchen, bathroom, and more computing power than what is in my home is Ryan-Approved.
Success. As expected there were a few snags but the new drive is in, and /bfg now has 230GB. The OS is updated and the machine has been physically cleaned. For those of you with accounts on the machine, plenty of free space now. :)
Yay! It's server upgrade time! I'm going to be downing the server to add another 75GB harddrive, upgrade some things, run some tests, and do various fun LVM extension stuff. Wish me luck, hopefully the new LVM won't nuke the 170GB filesystem on /bfg. Back in a couple hours, I hope...
Contrary to popular belief, Ryan is NOT Asian. Now that that is setteled, Ryan is off to consume more rice.
"Be anything but ordinary." - Ryan's thought of the day.
For those of you who want to be frightened by cuteness, or have a good laugh I've put up some pictures that were taken on December 25th here. Cassie and Ryan dressed up.
I have also started to put up high resolution versions of the pictures here, they are in PNG format and were scanned at 300dpi. Suitable for printing and editing. As I scan more images in I will have their high-res versions there.
Happy New Year! Be glad, 2001 is over and it is a good thing. I cannot remember many years that were as bad as this one for the US and, more importantly, freedom. Of course there was the September 11th incident, which started a war. But I'm considerably more worried about the laws, bills, acts, and ideas that it spawned. Everywhere I look there are people just aching to give up thier freedoms and choices for a greater sense of security. A false sense of security. This is a very dangerous thing. Freedom doesn't dispappear in a flash, rather it is slowly eroded away. So much easier to go unnoticed. Here is a short synopsis of some of the freedom issues this past year in the tech and science world. A grim reminder indeed.
