kill vehicle

Apple finally released new PowerBooks, so now I begin waiting 3-5 business days plus shipping time.

Impatient!

But man, it’s been a long time since I owned a Mac. I’m looking forward to rejoining the cult.

So, we’re watching Terminator 3 on TV. It’s pretty terrible, and is making me pine for the original.

What I really want, though, is a t-shirt with a halftoned picture of Robert Patrick throwing up the devil horns and the words ‘TERMINATOR IS FUCKING METAL’.

Is that really so much to ask?

I just spent an hour or so trying to figure out why Mozilla doesn’t show nice smoothed fonts anymore on some sites, and all the while I kept thinking of Pete’s recent Tea Leaves post on the X11 disaster. He ranted for a while about how pathetic it is that in 2005 X still doesn’t work right and probably never will, and in response he got some random Linux weenie complaining that his problems would just go away if he stopped using the wrong X server and the wrong programs.

Well, okay.

I’m using the shiny new X.org 6.8.1 server with libXft 2.1.6 and Mozilla Firefox 1.0, all tied together with Gnome 2.8.2. I’m as upgraded as I can get, according to /usr/ports, which I have arbitrarily chosen to trust.

So why is it that it still sucks?

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Anyone who doubts whether it’s possible to truly love something inanimate clearly doesn’t have a good espresso machine.

I’ve been making a lot of cocoa over the past year or so. Partially I blame Pete. When he was actively Atkins-ing he tended to rhapsodize about how wonderful a mug of cocoa with Splenda was. He’s right, so I got into the habit too. It helps that Mon Aimee in the Strip has very good Dutch-processed Guittard chocolate for something absurdly cheap like $4/lb, so I can make fancy cocoa as often as I like without really worrying about the cost.

The way I make cocoa has changed as I’ve discovered what I really like, and I’m pretty happy with the current method. It’s really a pretty loose recipe, shifting around to be soothing or spicy, thick and creamy or light and soft, etc, etc.

A few things stay the same each time: there’s always about a quart of milk, always about six tablespoons of cocoa powder, always some molasses, always some vanilla. The other seasonings vary wildly, including anything from cinnamon and nutmeg to powdered chipotle and star anise.

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