Under destruction

The ole phish bowl and my foray into blogging will be undergoing a bit of transformation in the weeks to come so expect very little in the way of new material around here.

In the mean time I'll be posting my delusional ramblings at agentbedhead's, where I've been dubbed the resident pool-boy. The rumors of my Flash Gordon style swimbriefs are greatly exaggerated, just keep in mind though, men in briefs are sexy. Think Aquaman, Superman, phin, Batman, etc...

Steve-O provides the best description of my blogging efforts as of late. Then Phin, "guest blogging" (if by guest blogging means the equivalent of letting a scamp of howler monkeys into the home for a fun afternoon of cage-rattling and dung-flinging over the curtains) over at Sadie's...

Side note: The crookedness of the hat is intentional. Why? 'cause that's how I roll.

Bringing the Rodgers Home, Day 1

Ward of Beaucham Tower Corporation, John of Argghhh, and the gang have landed safely in Mexico, some of their luggage, not so much. Why should you care about this? They're live blogging the return of the USS John Rodgers.

John is providing the play by play at his site.

Trend setting

Me, I've got nothing here.

Zero.

But we're setting the trends of tomorrow at agentbedhead.com.

O.E.S. Project Weblog back online

I've received several e-mails asking about Ward and the gang over at Beauchamp Tower Corporation. Well they've have been having a rough go of it the past couple of days with their domain registrar.

Most folks looking for updates on Operation Enduring Service knew to find them at http://www.btcorp.us/mt. Well that worked until a couple of days ago and without going into details there were a couple of technical snafus that are in the process of being resolved. So until then you can get your O.E.S. fix at http://www.btconline.us/mt.

So no worries folks, the blogidodihexiweb's resident hurricane magnet is still alive and kicking. Oh and he's dragging John of Argghhh to Mexico to pickup the John Rogers.

Bloggy outrages

As you've noticed, or may not have, this and several other Moo Knew blogs have gone kerchew a couple of times lately.

Well rumor has it that a fresh batch of Manties arrived at the LLama Butcher's Shop and a cat Llama fight never before seen by man nor beast erupted when Steve-O tried to grasp all the pink lacies for himself. The ensuing slap-fest got quite ugly and one of them put their hoof through the server's power supply, and well it ain't been right sense.

Well that's the rumor anyhow, and well I'm not really one for spreading rumors.

Okay, so I'm full of crap, but new Moo Knew servers are on the way.

Busted

Now this ain't happened to me, but you know, I'm sure it's happened.

So there I wasn't standing in a line at the grocery when I didn't spot a really cute girl and by cute I mean smokin' hot.

You know if I hadn't been there I'd have seen her, but I wasn't there, honest.

While I wasn't standing in line I wasn't checking her out from head to toe. She'd have been wearing shorty terry cloth shorts and a tank top to help fight off the summer heat, if I had been there to check her out that is. Probably on her way home from the gym as the sweat tank top was still clinging ever so closely. At least that's how I'd have imagined it.

While I wasn't there and most definitely wasn't checking her out she didn't catch me gawking at her with my mouth wide open and tongue hanging out. I imagine it sure would have been all kinds of awkward for her watching as I couldn't look away and managed to miss the conveyer belt all together. Man that'd be horrible sure am glad it didn't happen to me and I'm really damn happy that the missus wasn't there to see it happen.

Now where are those chainmail underpants I ordered express mail anyhow?

Digg Dugg

Every time I read something about Digg I can't help but think back to the wasted days of playing Dig Dug or Dugout as it's titled in the Java Applets on Al Gore's wondermous Intertubenets.

I get beside myself, I've talked to a couple of people who are interested in adding Digg This links to their blog posts on Movable Type Blogs. Wordpress users should be able to use the plug-in, if'n that doesn't work let me know, I'll update this post.

Anyhow, to add the link you'll of course have to add some code to your template.

First things first be sure to have a functioning backup of your template.
I'm a highly trained professional idiot so I don't make backups when I'm toying with my site, but don't be like uncle phinny kids, learn from his mistakes and mishaps. Otherwise your blog could suck too.

So if you'd like the code it's below, you'll have to figure out the best place to add it too your template, that or send an e-mail and I'll tell you where to stick it.

* You'll need to replace this with a category from here.

Home repair difficulty rating systems

Me, I'm a fan of DIY repair jobs, the missus, not so much. Well she doesn't remind the DIY type projects, it's just she isn't so much the fan of me doing them. I personally don't think she's being understanding or caring when I turn the kitchen and dining room into a work-shop, but that's just me.

Earlier today we were discussing a couple of items on the "Honey-Do" list and I started explaining what all was involved and about how many beers it would take to complete the project. At first she seemed puzzled by my response so I explained it just a bit further, with examples.

A task such repainting the bathrooms is easily a eight beer project. One beer during the preparatory stage, three beers per bathroom and one beer during clean up. For something more complex, such as repainting the hallway and living room it's easliy a twelve pack project. Two or three beers during to remove the four-million pictures, spackle the holes and sand them smooth, two or three beers to prep for painting, four or five during the painting process and one during clean up. See really it's not a complex theory to grasp at all.

Satisfied that I'd thoroughly explained the process of evaluating project difficulty we made our way down her NEVER ENDING list. It's gonna be a long drunken summer folks, I'm just hoping my liver can hold out.

Some people never learn

The older you get the wiser you become, at least that's the lie we keep telling ourselves. So after thirty-one years, as of today, on this spinning ball of mud you'd think I've learned by now.

No I haven't been chastrated after my last post and the missus still hasn't kicked me to the couch. She, luckily, took the for better or worse part of our wedding vows seriously. Good thing too, 'cause there's a whole lot more worse than there is better. Now if I could just get her to remember the obey part I'd be all set.

I'm instead talking about my pal Murphy and his irrevocable set of laws. Primarily the least known law that states: Any project phin thinks will go smoothly will snowball into the shit hitting the fan.

Now of the background. Thanks to Uncle Bill and his merry band of midgets at Microsoft I'd been getting the Blue Screen of Death for about a week. The only option, reload Windows. Easy enough for a semi-non-retarded tech guru. So I decided to format the machine, copying all the needed files to a second drive, and while I'm at it setup a dual boot system running linux as well.

As I said, the best laid plans, etc...

Copying files, no problem. Using the Microsoft Transfer Settings Wizard, problem. The file they said looked great (and that I tested) tanked when it came time to use it. No biggie, I copied the settings from the backup that I'd made.

Next up, installing SuSE. Easy as pie, I like pie, only problem, I wanted SuSE to be the default OS and Windows doesn't like that. So I had to beat Windows into submission.

Anyhoo, I'm back up and running after two days of highly technical terms that mainly consist of four letter words strung together.

Regularly schedule delusions of grandure and marriage advice should continue any day now, right after I get a couple of designs wrapped up and the setting in Windows back just right (hell it only took two years last time).

Happily married

Theresa is looking for comments / experiences that lead to happy marriage. Now most of the suggestions were pretty good, but as I thought about it this afternoon I realized there was quite a bit lacking. So I present to you phin's guide to a happy and healthy marriage*:

Now the way I look at it there's two options. You can ether be a dandy boy and start sitting down to pee or you can take to heart the words I'm about to share with you. Now I ain't claimin' it'll be easy getting your woman properly house broke but it really is worth a little bit of work. Imagine, being able to watch an entire race or football game without hearing her nag about something. This my friends is your path to enlightenment.

1) Weekly beatings and scheduled closet time for her. You've really got to start this out from day one. It really goes a long way to asserting your dominance and letting her know who the boss is. Otherwise she'll start thinking she's got rights and want to vote or even worse she'll want to drive.

2) When talking with your wife, be sure to use small words. This way she'll be able to understand you, remember, nothing more that three syllables or she'll spend all day trying to sound it out and this cuts down on the amount of time she can cook, clean and raise the chirrens. What may be even worse is she'll start thinking and we all know she can think or she can work, but she can't do both.

3) Help with the laundry every once in a while, like once a month instead of leaving your clothes piled up on the floor in the bathroom strip in the laundry room. Just make sure she has your robe and cigars waiting for you by the recliner. There's nothing worse than strolling through the house with a bit of "the turtle" going on.

4) Be sure she has plenty of "her" time. I'd suggest golfing of fishing with your buddies. This will leave her plenty of time to get those chores done without having to pester you. Plus without you in her hair she'll have plenty of time to whip up your favorite meal for you and your buddies. Just make sure she doesn't forget the appetizers.

5) Remember she works hard too. So every now and then she needs to be reminded of just how much you appreciate her. So when you're sending your girlfriend a dozen roses be sure to pick up an extra to take home to the missus.

6) Make sure she doesn't meet your girlfriend. I can't really express the importance of this one. Women tend to be a tad bit jealous and well when you throw a twenty year old with perky jubblies into the mix you're just asking for her to get jealous and want to start working out again to get the girls to perk-up. Which as you know will cut into her cooking and cleaning time and well we just can't have that.

I'm sure there's something I'm missing, but figured I couldn't spring all this advice on y'all at once. Just remember it takes years to get a woman properly trained, so once she's nice and obedient she'll be hard to replace so don't trade her in, unless it's for twins.

* I really should start an Adventures in Involuntary Celibacy category, 'cause if the missus reads this I'll be sleepin' on the couch wearing a titanium cup for a month.

Free Steve-O

Adventures in Linux

Warning strong geek content

As you may have picked up I'm a tad bit of a computer geek, but just a tad. Be that as it may I've toyed off and on with various operating systems other than the mainstream Windows and Apple varieties. I'd taken a bit of a hiatus from those endeavors in recent years, work was too much like work and the last thing I wanted to do was battle with a machine when I got home. So like many others I fell into a life sublime mediocrity and played within the parameters that good ole Uncle Bill set forth.

No longer.

I've been toying with a couple of various Linux installs on a test machine. Primarily FreeBSD and openSuSE with plans to install Fedora and Solaris later on. Color me impressed, although I'm not really sure what part of the rainbow that comes from.

openSuSE was a quick and easy install, as easy as installing one of the Windows operating systems. With the pre-bundled open source Software you're up and running in a jiffy with all the tools and applications you'll need to get on with your daily routine. Considerably less space is taken up by the operating system and applications leave space for pictures and music (about 4GIG for a majority of the applications available).

FreeBSD was a bit more of a challenge to get up and running. I had to employ some computer geekery and wave the magic chicken bones around a couple of times to get things to my liking. really it isn't something I'd recommend if you're not comfortable, real comfortable, working at a System (DOS Prompt) and editing files.

With either of them I'd recommend the KDE Desktop Environment. Gnome leaves a bit to be desired and least for my tastes. KDE provides users with a Windows like operating environment without the performance degradation we've all come to know and loathe with Windows XP and from the early reports / testing I've seen Vista won't be any better and probably worse.

FreeBSD / openSuSE and KDE have turned an old, as in seven to eight years old Pentium III 733 with 256MB of RAM, machine into a fully functional and powerful workstation. The system boot time is equal to that of my Pentium IV 3.2gig with a GIG of RAM running Windows XP.

Now I wouldn't recommend trashing your current machine and going with Linux if you haven't toyed around with it first. There are some applications and benefits Windows has over Linux (I'm sure some die hard Linux fan will start sending hate mail now, such is life). But if you have an older machine laying around that is too old / slow to run Windows 2000 or XP and want a spare (so the missus isn't always screaming at you that she needs the computer) or you'd like a backup for the kids, I'd recommend giving openSuSE a whirl.

Nooz readers

Sadie, the good looks and talent of apothegm designs is gonna kill me for this. She hates the feed readers with a passion, 'cause they're like little girls and ma'ma always said little girls are da debil. At least that's what the Waterboy's ma'ma always said.

I've fallen in love with a news / feed reader. It's aKregator, one of the many open source / free products available in the openSuSE Linux setup.

The best part about it, it's quick and easy to open up the blog to read the article in the format and medium it was intended, best of all it's all in the same window. The downside, the "referral link" for site meter doesn't show up so people won't know where what site you're coming from, if you want to call that a downside. The other downside, it's only available for Linux machines.

The hunt is on

Somewhere in the U.K. an inventor (Link isn't really safe for work, unless bouncing jubblies are okay) is being hunted by an angry mob of Southern Gentlemen, aka Rednecks, with impure thoughts on their mind. When they find him, they'll throw a beating to him never before seen by mankind. Hopefully he'll live and serve as an example to other would be "do-gooders".

HT: Ace.

Next up on Dr. Phil: Husbands who don't like their wives.

What a unique concept. One of the great and unique thinkers he is.

Ain't that a shocker of a topic? Here I was blissfully thinking that every husband was so deeply engrossed in their wife's thoughts and feelings that the marital spat was a thing of the past. Guess I'd better sell my stock in Toilet-seat Cover 'R Us. Damn, and just when I thought I was going to make it big time.

Damn you Doktor Phil and your touchy feely methods of making us embrace our inner feminist. Me I'm all for equal rights. If she wants the toilet seat dry leave the seat up. If she wants a good reason to wash her behind leave it down, I'll be sure to hose down every square inch of it, and a bit of the floor too. I've never really understood why chicks get so damned upset about the toilet seat deal anyhow. It ain't rocket science and you'd think after their tail gets a nice bathing in toilet water they'd learn to check the seat. Women are the more superior sex aren't they? The screams of men being pigs and simpletons are all over the Internet and yet they expect us to change.

It's the age old adage, men get married expecting women not to change and the do, women get married expecting men not to change and they don't. Yet for centuries we, both men and women, have been greatly disappointed, you think we'd learn by now. Which of course is why I'm all for gay marriage, I'm not the first person to say it, but shouldn't they be miserable like the rest of us?

Want to end the gay man's monopoly on fine dining and fashion? The cure marriage. All it'll take is a divorce and Francis will be lining up with Jim Bob and Ray Ray to buy flannel shirts from the discount bin at Wally World. I guess that makes me a cynic, damn, and here I was thinking I'd look on the bright side of life.

The toilet seat thing though is a pisser. It wasn't long ago ladies had to head outside to "powder their noses" and you can get your sweet as they made sure the seat was down then. One step forward and two steps back I guess.

I can't wait 'til next week's episode. House Training Your Teenager, when and when not to use the shock collar.

Cybering

Ace finally got around to installing Yahoo! chat, now if he could just figure out cyber-sex.

A restoration of faith, kind of

My faith in mankind was severely diminished this past week. It seems our, not me and you in particular but humans as a species, have lost all sense of decency. I'm o the most prudish of people, as you may very well know if you've been rambling about the phish bowl for any extended period of time. Really there aren't very many topics I won't cover, yet some things should remain covered, by a tarp, bed-sheet or burlap sack if necessary.

What you're probably wondering struck such a deep cord? Bathing suits or the lack there-of to be precise. I'd really like to know which fashion industry executive made the brilliant call to make a thong in a size 4X, really folks, that's Four (4) X's. Now some of you may be thinking this is an anomaly, but it isn't, I seen it with my own to eyes in multiple locations. I'm also sad, and a bit disgusted, to say I saw it being worn, if you can call it that.

Now just so y'all won't think I'm sexist the beast having a whale of a time sporting her bikini was accompanied by an equally rotund cross between a wildebeest and Bigfoot, who happened to be wearing a Speed-O. Let that sink into your mind's eye for a second, hell y'all might actually be able to hear and smell the fat sizzling in the 95 degree heat.

Now I realize people are stupid, it's a given and one of the main reasons as a rule I don't like them, but isn't there somebody at some level of our economic supply chain that said "I don't think that's a very good idea". Apparently not.

As a general rule I'm against a nanny state, for this though, I'll make an exception. If not for your humble binocular toting pervs bird watchers like me at least think about the kids folks, at least do it for the kids. Really our youth doesn't deserve mental scarring like this until they walk in on their parents in their full blown BDSM regalia.

On the upside though, a bit of my faith was restored as I found a ready supply the single greatest clothing creation to hit stores in the latest century. That item: the Large-Tall Crew Neck Undershirt. Sure those of you of average and stubby smaller stature won't see the brilliance of this as you've never battled to keep your undershirt tucked in when only an inch of it hits your waist-line.

Somewhere there's a tall skinny clothing designer worth every last drop of the cosmo his boyfriend will be buying him later on tonight. Here's to you mister Large-Tall Crew Neck Undershirt marketing guy, may your supply of Cosmos or Appletinis hold out until your boyfriend looks like Matthew Mcconaughey.

In Remembrance

I returned from a family trip to the beach and a pseudo hiatus from all things internet related a few days earlier than I'd hoped or planned. I received a call from my Dad earlier that one of my Aunts, his brother's wife, had passed away after battling with cancer for several years.

It hadn't really hit me that she was gone until I walked into the house a few hours ago. In the hurried state of planning to get home, spending a bit of time with our son, saying good-byes to the wife's family and driving back I'd managed to keep myself distracted. But now, there aren't any distractions, I'm sitting here trying figure out how to say good-bye to a woman I've known practically all my life.

To say Aunt C. could be difficult at times would be an understatement, but to me, that was part of her charm. You always knew where you stood good, bad or indifferent; if it was on her mind she said it. To some and even me at times, it wasn't the most desirable of traits. Looking back I can't help but respect her for it. Her opinions and beliefs were steadfast in a time when many people's convictions seem to falter and sway on a regular basis.

One of my first, and most fond, memories of the time we spent together was at a family reunion in Wilmington. Sitting outside of a small church where she fawned over how cute my brothers and I were. (Good looks and humility are just a couple of the crosses the men in our family are forced to bear.) As I passed by Wilmington on my way home today I could almost smell the fried chicken, collars and home-made biscuits that were a staple of the reunions, yet it didn't strike me until I got home that she'd never again be there with us.

I remember her talking to the missus a few short months ago before our son was born about how exciting and life altering parenthood is. I'll never get the chance to tell her just how right she was, but I'm certain she already knew it.

Aunt C. and the missus clicked. Like two peas in a pod they'd talk and cackle portions of it undoubtedly at my expense when they were together. I'd normally escape unscathed, but in parting she'd always remind me to take care of her girl and I'd always promise I would.

One of my greatest missteps was not finding the time to stop by to visit with her after our son had been born. I can't help but regret not taking the time to stop by with the missus and our son to spend a couple of hours with her. Selfishly I'd taken for granted that she'd be there when our schedules slowed down to a semi-normal pace and we could take a day to run up and visit. It’s something I'll always regret.

I picked up a card to send to my Uncle, before I drop it in the mail I wanted to put its words somewhere I can remember.

A Better Place
There's a place
I've never seen
beyond this world we know,

A place I've only heard of
but someday hope to go

It's not on any map,
there are not roads
to take me there.

But it's a place of perfect peace
where hearts are free from care

And though I understand
some may be saddened
when I leave,

One day, we all will meet again,
that's what I believe.

When it's time to travel there,
I think I'll wear a smile.

I'll say good-bye to those I love,
but only for a while,

Knowing there are others
who have traveled there alone,

Who cannot wait to greet me
and whisper "welcome home".

Headstrong and stubborn until the end we shared quite a few ways. I'll always look back fondly on the all too short time we were able to spend together and I'll take a bit of solace out knowing that at least now she's in a better place.

Good-bye Aunt C., you'll be missed and until we meet again I promise I'll take care of your girl.