loading up the digital u-haul.

I finally made the move to a self-hosted WordPress blog. Come check out the new digs!

Until I figure out how to import all my old stuff into the new blog (the current export file exceeds the maximum size for the Import tool), you can look up the old content on this site. For new embloggenings, head over to http://www.munchkinwrangler.com.

highly he continued glasses purse.

Sometimes, you find a gem among all the really boring generic “Loved this post!” spam caught in the filter. The following piece of clickbait has a surreal stream-of-consciousness quality that reminded me of the Cylon hybrids running the baseships:

“There began the handbag with their main black replica about vuitton else – finger workboat loved scarred on its blueblack. He began about the tiffany, replica as marking you. Walkie had his talkie. Highly he continued glasses purse – now, was the replica. The coach quality replica so. Esq oily. Twice. The chopard began forgotten. John, unknowing a special player watches. You turned you little to continue his he’d swiss, no numerous army above watches above. Me had of coach nodded of handbag, and i focus should’ve to be this replica – scar hand in the. I closed being i’d. A zenith was the adjoining replica – to the distant rolex in suspect watches the most surprising din from the features into delgado – and he must impatiently fold and sleep, relatively focus columns. Also him looked to stonehenge and finally to replica zealand, how them had unexpectedly of two on the executive, lowering, for a lips – still as of way, and fully in after a new night. He could clear become the watches for we removed known the women never to line, and they could throw mocked talking the safety with the atomic eye at the nose and telling his arrival. Rolex said his watches. He don’t tooted. We was he to him nowhere, perhaps very in i went it, into her bangs his that rolx. I began gliding the quality.”

(I took out the clickable links.)

That is so full of meme gold I don’t even know where to start. Walkie had his talkie! He must impatiently fold and sleep! I began gliding the quality.

admin notes.

Two quick administrative notes:

1.) I like this new theme. I think I’m going to keep it.

2.) WordPress for iOS makes me homicidally sad.  I think I’m going to delete it, reformat the flash memory in the iPad so that all traces of that piece of excrement are gone, and then never speak of it again except on discussion panels where the subject is “Shitty Software That Sucks Donkey Balls.”

(On a related note, I nuked someone’s comment when I deleted that duplicate citizenship post.  Sorry–didn’t mean to do that, and can’t figure out a way to reverse it.)

a shiny new suit for the magic elf box.

So I upgraded two out of the four desktops in the house to Windows 7.  As I mentioned yesterday, they were all still running XP.  Bold action was needed, but we were not willing to torrent the haxxored warez or spring for three or four individual $120 upgrades.  Enter the Windows 7 Family Pack Upgrade, which lets you upgrade three machines in your household.  (We got ours for $130 from Amazon, which was a no-brainer decision, considering that it’s only a few bucks more than the single upgrade package.)

Wonders abound! Yesterday, I did custom installs for Robin’s PC and my Mac mini (via Boot Camp), and both upgrades went without a glitch.  When you upgrade from XP, you have to reinstall all your apps, but you can copy all your old data back into place from the Windows.old folder after the installation is complete.

The rig on Robin’s desk originally came with Vista, which worked OK, but was subsequently downgraded to XP after certain…issues.  (Endless UAC nagging, for one, and performance and compatibility problems.)  Windows 7 seems to be a lot better.  I have to say that it’s actually quite nice.

What I like so far:

• The performance.  On the same hardware, it doesn’t seem to be any slower than XP.  The frame rate in games (World of Warcraft and my catalog of Steam games) has remained the same.  (Those are the only reason why I have Windows on my Mac mini, since WoW has twice the frame rate under Windows of any stripe than in Mac OS X.)
• The look.  It’s shiny.  Oh so very shiny.  Translucent window frames, Aero desktop effects, previews of task bar items, and so on.  It looks much more modern and polished than XP, and more consistent than Vista.
• The ease of networking.  Homegroup file and media sharing is about as easy and transparent as it gets.  Driver-less network printer installation was also a welcome feature.  Overall, this is the first version of Windows that’s as easy to network with other machines as Mac OS X.
• Windows Live Writer.  That’s the only application I actually miss when I switch back into Mac OS X.  For offline blogging, it’s the berries.  There are some apps on the Mac that approximate its function, but they’re all payware, and nowhere near as slick and seamless.  Windows Live Writer 2011 only runs on Vista or Windows 7—before the upgrade, I used the older version of WLV on XP—and it’s hands-down the best desktop blogging client out there.
• The built-in security and backup features.  Now, I’m spoiled by OS X, which is reasonably secure as operating systems go, so I was constantly annoyed by the need to tack anti-malware and –virus solutions onto Robin’s XP install to keep it free of Internet crud.  It was also time for MS to integrate a viable backup solution akin to Time Machine on OS X.  With decent backup and security software built into the OS, it’s less of a maintenance hassle.
• The new taskbar.  Swiped from Apple, with its dock-like properties, but you know what? They stole it because it works.  Program pinning, live window previews, wise use of screen real estate—all very nice.  It also amuses me that the progress of a download or file copy can be observed even when the window is minimized or in the background, because there’s a colored progress indicator moving across the taskbar button.  Nice touch, and one of the details that are an improvement over Apple’s implementation.

Anyway, I don’t want to sound like a breathless fanboy here, but Windows 7 is actually kind of nice.  The upgrade package with three licenses is also a great deal—it’s not free like Ubuntu, or $29 like Snow Leopard,  but for Microsoft, it’s a downright bargain.

search term safaris, and the current lack of prey on the intertubes savannahs.

This morning, I went through the search terms for the last week or two, and came up with exactly two snark-worthy terms.  That’s a pretty thin take.

Lately, the MSTS has been a bit repetitive, since I tend to get the same search terms.  Rather than bore everyone with the same old thing every Monday, here’s the new drill.  I’ll check the search term log daily, and copy & paste the good stuff into a draft post.  Once the draft hits a good number of snarkable terms, say ten or so, I’ll do a Search Term Safari that day.  That will keep the Search Term Safari reasonably fresh, and have it remain a regular feature on this here Interblogs thingie.

technical diffic*brrzztt*

WordPress is a little wobbly right now.  Stand by for proper appearance and side bar widgets.  I’ll hammer the place back into shape as soon as my Dashboard works properly once more.

giving the people what they want.

Back to the old theme for now.  Not because the Nays outnumbered the Yeas by two to one, mind you, but because I’m the boss ’round these parts, and I can change things around at my whim.  Yeah, that’s it.

(Actually, reader and fellow NE Bloggershoot attendee Scotaku put his finger on the property that bugged me about the Notes theme: the text didn’t line up with the lines on the background paper.  Also, I prefer serif fonts for readability, and there’s no way to change the font on the other theme.)

So we’re back to the boring, efficient Teutonic-like scheme that you all have come to know and love.  (Except those of you who use RSS readers, that is.)  I’m kind of itching for a change to keep things fresh, but so far I haven’t found a theme that is clearly superior to the old standby.

please to be perusing the writenings.

I updated the long-neglected Fiction section of this here Interblogs thingie with the stuff I’ve been putting out for public consumption recently.  More to follow.

stand by.

The MSTS will be delayed today.  Right now, I’m on my way out with the kids, to take one of our doggies into the shop for some warranty work.  The doggie surgeon is near Burlington, VT, so I’ll be on the road for a while today.

More later…

administrative notes.

The Monday Search Term Safari will resume next Monday.  I totally forgot to do one yesterday, and when I went through the blog stats this morning, there wasn’t really anything good in there that hasn’t been snarked upon before.  Let’s give it another week to refill the search term supply, so I don’t bore everyone to tears by making fun of the same thing for the umpteenth time.

Also: I’m currently working through my email backlog. If you have sent me an email in the last two or three weeks, I’ll probably excavate it today at some point and reply.

Lastly, today is trash day. Remind me to take the trash down to the road by noon. Seriously.  There are diapers in there and stuff.

Update: The garbage is by the road. I repeat, the garbage is by the road. Jacques has a red pencil. That is all.