Saint Mercurius and Artemius of Antioch

Same source as below.

Greek Fire

Greek fire. Courtesy of a star OP at 4chan-200 MB of varied Medieval (and before and after) prints and such. Thought I'd get something up before my coming sojourn to Pittsburgh.

Sound Card Fun

The picture has nothing to do with the post.

Again, more as a reminder for me, although this might help someone else. I installed a Creative X-Fi Titanium sound card recently. Sound did improve greatly over the onboard thing but there was mouse stutter and the occasional mouse freeze. I'd been using a PS2 connection for the mouse but that was mysteriously killed by the card, so I was using a USB port.

Tried moving the mouse around to other ports. Tried moving the card to another open slot. Nothing. Creative tech support suggested going into the BIOS and there were some online fixes that required editing the registry. I didn't like either idea. The Creative card and my nVidia 9500 GT card were sharing the same IRQ and that was leading to the backup on the mouse.

Just about when I was going to pull the card and send it back, I uninstalled my mouse drivers, then plugged in the mouse that came with this HP desktop. That installed new drivers (although both list generic drivers in Device Manager). I hate the HP mouse, plugged back in my generic (so generic that there's no manufacturer listed on the underside of the mouse) optical mouse.

No stuttering for five days. Changed the IRQ enough that it's no longer a problem. I'm not nearly smart enough to know exactly why but I am smart enough to not look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.

If this helps you, excellent.

SPC ECO

SOn a happier note (see below for the unhappy), with some free time, I checked to see if any of the main figures from Curve was doing anything. I was happy to discover that Dean Garcia has been pretty active and released an album last year as SPC ECO (which is pronounced Space Echo). It's superb-anyone who was into Curve will want this album-the vocals are by Rose Berlin, who has a lovely voice. This project is closer to Seefeel, which is an endorsement from me.

And not a client, I need to add. The album-cover above-is 3-D.

RE/MAX Kansas City = Phone Spammers

Last week, during dinner, my phone rang. Seeing that the caller was "REMAX KS CITY" and I'm neither buying or selling a house, I let it ring. Instead of a desperate real estate broker, I got some guy reading (badly) a script on behalf of some political candidate into my voicemail. I'm not even going to name the candidate because that's not the point of the offense.

The problem here is making a political call under false pretenses. It's not Remax Kansas City calling, it's a political weasel and that's dishonest. Given the miserable state of residential real estate, why a broker would alienate potential customers is one of those mysteries aren't answered until the company closes.

I gave 'em a chance to apologize via email. They failed. Google says it's "RE/MAX Realty Suburban" and the agent is Paula Maze. So, add 816-777-5441 to your list of blocked numbers because it's the source of spam calls.

Sandman

I was going to write something long and probably boring about baseball and pitching motions but I'm skipping it other than to note that Albert Pujols was happy to stand up with Glenn Beck but wouldn't return the call of the National Negro Baseball Museum. Karma will strike, it always does. (source: Sam Mellinger's Twitter, on Pujols, not karma)

Which leads me to happier news and weirdly connected-meaning karma and Sandman. Hollywood Reporter sez that there's prelim development of a series. Happiness at the thought, immense fear thinking about all the things that could go so very wrong. When I first read Killer Angels years and years ago, I imagined how good a mini-series could be. Then the movie came out. They tried. Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee? Really? With Jason Robards alive?

Link: http://livefeed.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/09/comic-icon-the-sandman-tv-series-in-works.html#more-7580

Still, first priority has to be Clint Eastwood as Bruce Wayne in Batman Beyond. Elect me cultural czar and it'll happen.

CMV Negative

This is here as much as a way of keeping this within memory as anything else. I donated blood today, as I do every eight weeks and one of the nurses noted that I was CMV Negative, or what they call a baby blood donor. I knew the baby blood part-they'd told me a few years ago-and even told me why, but since my usual habit is to gorge on BBQ, then sleep for three hours after donating, the technical explanation was always gone from my memory.

Today, I jotted down CMV- on some of the informational material and after a lunch of burnt ends from Arthur Bryant's, looked it up. It means I've never been infected with cytomegalovirus. For most people with healthy immune systems-like me-CMV is no big deal. For people without a normal immune system, it's a problem. This would include newborns and HIV+ individuals, among others.

If you're reading this and are eligible to donate, do so. And reward yourself with some burnt ends. The pic is actual burnt ends from Bryant's, just not the ones I ate. Comes with Wonder Bread and what seems to be a jar of pickles. I've learned to not get the fries, as much as I like 'em, because then I'm bloated for a week.