July 17th, 2010: It's raining, it's pouring...
Saturday afternoon and it's raining again. Power's out again, too. I'm hoping it comes back on rather soon, as I have a number of Retrochallenge-related things I'd like to do today.
At least I have my trusty Model 100 (on which I'm writing this) which is battery operated and thus not affected by the power outage... ditto my shortwave radio, although reception is less than ideal given the thunderstorm occurring as we speak.
Ah well, if I have to push my plans back a day, it's not the end of the world.
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I had an interesting experience while returning from the grocery store around noon today. The thunderstorm happening now was just starting, and one could see bolts of lightning off in the distance. One hit about a kilometre from the bus stop, and I could actually HEAR the lightning. It was a sort of crackling sound, mixed with that "zzzztttt" sound you'd hear in cartoons and sci-fi movies, and the sound of air rushing. It was the weirdest thing, I think I'll remember that sound as long as I live.
A couple of seconds later came the thunderclap, and it shook the very ground beneath us, rattling the bus shelter and setting off car alarms.
Yes, it's been an interesting day. At least I got home before the rain REALLY started coming down. I managed to stay relatively dry, although I was a bit leery about holding up a metal umbrella, with lightning dancing all around...
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Hmmm, power's still out half an hour later. Think I'll read a magazine or two, plan tomorrow's retro-activities, and write a little something for my "Running Commentary" section. Maybe watch a bit of TV on my old Casio TV-470 portable... (caught an episode of "House" that I'd never seen).
July 14th, 2010: Lamenting fresh produce.
Well, I was without electricity for a while last night, thanks to the thunderstorm that passed through Winnipeg. I opted to listen to my (battery powered) shortwave radio and drew a rough sketch to serve as my guideline for Conceited Jerk Dot Com's new title page. By candlelight.
I recently developed an interest in Constructivism, and am trying my hand at blending art, design, and propaganda in Constructivist style... my first experiment will be the aforementioned title page. While I have yet to draw it up in ImageFX, I expect to do so by the weekend. Should be fun.
The 20's were an interesting time... what with Bauhaus and Constructivism and all that. You know what else the 20's had? No bananas!
If you've been wondering what the Hell I (and wgoodf, to a lesser extent) have been yammering on about, it all stems from here - specifically at the 1:20 mark - using bananas as a euphemism for luck.
July 12th, 2010: Weebles wobble but they don't fall down!
Back to prove you can't keep a good Jerk down, I belatedly begin Week Three.
Losing my favourite computer (retro or otherwise) was a bit more demoralizing than I let on. Sure, it's a temporary situation, but I was rather looking forward to putting together a few good art projects with the ol' girl. Ah well, heartbreak or not, the show must go on...
I talked of resurrecting Miyuki, my Amiga 4000, but that fell through as well. I had trouble getting the PSU to work... wouldn't power up at all. But after an hour of coaxing, she fired up into the ROM splash screen. Remembering the HD was dead, I swapped in a new(er) one and inserted my Workbench 3.1 disks and discovered (much to my horror) that Miyuki's floppy drive is dead.
Sigh.
At this point I'm getting annoyed. Angry even. Cruel fate, why dost thou mock me?
So what do you do when life hands you lemons? Some will tell you to make lemonade. Fuck that, lemonade's for Girl Scouts at roadside booths. When life hands me lemons, I throw them back as hard as I can screaming "I ordered bananas!"
And bananas I will have.
The first thing I did tonight was fire up Natsumi (A1200) to see what I'd installed on her... apart from games, not much, but there's plenty of room on her cavernous 1 Gigabyte hard drive. Room for, say, ImageFX 2.6 (my favourite graphics program - think Photoshop, only good.). I also found the time to install the Subway USB controller I bought at the same time as Ami-chan's Deneb USB card!
Another little add-on to keep my retro-machines on the Cutting Edge of Obsolescence™!
Unforunately, I had to remove it for the time being, as the standard-issue Amiga 1200 PSU isn't powerful enough to handle my accelerator, floppy drive, hard drive, and Subway and thus Natsumi won't boot. I can rectify this by using my Amiga 500's PSU, which is a fair bit more powerful... now if I only knew where I put my A500!
No matter with or without USB, my art project will begin tomorrow (come Hell or High water) as I design a new title page for my website. The theme will be The Cutting Edge of Obsolescence™!