Fellow Fathers Take Note: I Have Found Something Of Purest Fucking Genius

One of the drawbacks of Growing Up: you forget the purity of play, the sheer anarchy of expression that goes with childhood. To put it bluntly, grownups need rules.

Kids need 'em too, of course. That's why so many kid games end in screaming arguments with hurt feelings all round. But the difference is that BEFORE those arguments, the kids are having the most brilliantly expressive and creative gameplay you could want. Whereas the adults -- well, they usually don't wind up in screaming matches, no. But that's because of The Rules. And those same rules generally prevent all that amazingly fun gameplay.

Thus it is, my fellow parents, I offer you Brikwars. Unbalanced, loony, fucked-up table-top miniatures gaming rules using Lego bricks, or the equivalent. Plus any other bits of toy crap that happen to be lying around.

Seriously. This stuff is pure goddam genius. Dads of all ilk, I urge you right now to go to the website, locate the rules, and prepare for mayhem with your offspring. Even the rules themselves are hilarious -- as I write this, I'm flicking over to the website in question and reading, and I'm giggling like a loon at the concept of 'Stumble Dice'.

Oh man. I have absolutely GOT to get myself a really, really big bag of secondhand Lego stuff. The boys are totally not going to know what hit them...

First Breaths Of Autumn

Nice day yesterday. I've pretty much got this computer jumping through the hoops I want now. Solved a minor boot-priority problem (who knew that an external USB backup drive would demand first place on the boot-priority list? Not me! Still, it means I can probably set up a simple Linux system on a thumb-drive, add the capacity to read NTFS and FAT32 to it, and use it as a troubleshooter if I have to. That's encouraging); set up the old computer for the boys to use -- still have to put the printer drivers on it, but that's no big deal.

The day was sunny and lovely. We've had a bit of recent rain, but it's drying out again, so the boys and I decided it was time to go on an Expedition. We put on our best explorer garb (and I've even managed to find a pith helmet to go with the solar topee purchased at Christmas) gathered our survival gear, and went down to the bottom of the property, near the spring.

Y'see, the spring rises from a gully, and there the trees and the near-rainforest starts. And I think that our spring eventually becomes a small creek which runs into the Brid river near the start of a local dirt road -- so I thought we could try forging along the banks of the creek through the trees until we came to paddockland once more.

I was, of course, quite wrong.

The gully has been logged and cleared before. That's obvious by the fact that pretty much everything growing down there (tree-wise) is wattle, which means regrowth. I did find a few little myrtles down there, near the creek itself, but they were in bad shape. I think the last few years of low rainfall have put the zap on them.

Anyway, despite past clearings, the regrowth has gone ahead in a big way. The creek bed itself is unnavigable -- it's not so much a creek as a permanent bog in the bottom of a ravine. Lots of squelching, fears of leeches, and a maze of fallen logs and tree-ferns to negotiate. Hard going. We eventually scrambled up the bank, and followed the side of the creek through the trees, but it was still tortuous stuff, with lots of clambering and struggling and backtracking to find a clearway...

... eventually we ran out of time. The boys had become a bit nervous about getting lost (and of course, one wonders how we were supposed to manage that!) and we definitely had to get back in time for Natalie to go off to music, so I struck out uphill, towards the main highway. Eventually we found a marker post for the underground phone cable, and since I knew the cable led back onto our property, we followed the general direction of the arrow on the little sign, and came out at the bottom of our place once again.

The boys were utterly delighted by the whole event. It counted as a 'proper adventure', apparently. We took photographs, and made notes on a map, and next time, we'll even keep a video log. Apparently.

Finished up the day with hand-made pizzas and an Iron Man cartoon movie while Natalie went off to music. Oh, and while I'm at it: here's a really good use for leftover pizza dough --

Home Made Pretzels

These are the big, salty, bready kind, not the small crunchy kind. But they're really, really good. What you do is make a standard pizza dough, and once you've made your pizzas, you take the leftover dough and put it to use as follows -- start a small pot of water boiling. Put some baking paper on a cookie sheet. Prepare a glaze of egg and a little milk. Set your oven to 220C (2oo for fan-forced). Break off a golf-ball sized chunk of dough, and roll it between your palms until it's about 30cm long. (That's a foot in the old measure.) Tie it into the familiar pretzel shape, and drop it into the boiling water. While it's in there, start making another one. By the time you've rolled and tied your second pretzel, the first will have floated to the top of the water. Remove it with a slotted spoon, and put it on the baking paper. Put the second pretzel in the water, and continue as before. When you run out of dough, glaze the pretzels on the baking paper with the egg-mix, and sprinkle them with some salt flakes. You can add poppy seeds or sesame seeds, but these are seriously non-canonical. Finally, bake your pretzels for about 20 minutes, or until they turn golden brown. Enjoy them hot, fresh from the oven -- or let them cool, and put them into your kids' school lunches, where they will be enjoyed tremendously.

And now, some photographs...

Yes. Those are slugs. And yes, in the right upper corner you can see a pair of sunglasses. I've never seen slugs this size or colour in Australia before. Must pass this photo on to friends at the museum...

Cub Scouts... very proud of their new uniforms.

Toxo The Cat loved the visit from Grandma Rose. Wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.

Grandparents are incorrigible. Here's Rose cleaning the kitchen windows, with help from the Mau-Mau.

The Mau-Mau, off to her first day at school. She thinks the uniform is the Best Thing Evar!

Younger Son's foray into Thai Fish Stew was a success.

On Expedition: this is about forty metres downhill from our spring

And this is probably a hundred metres or so downhill from the spring. You can see why we wound up climbing out of the creek bed. I totally love the headgear the boys are wearing, though. We were The Compleat Expeditioners, I tell you...

Holy Spunt!

Wow. That's possibly the strangest email problem I've ever wrangled.

As mentioned before, I've been using a lovely little email client called 'Foxmail' for about ten years. It's simple. It does what it's supposed to do. It works. It's free. What's not to love?

However, migrating to this new machine and Windows 7, I had to jump up from Foxmail 4.1 to Foxmail 6.5, and in the process, I had to figure out how to change its default setting from Chinese language to English. Fortunately, the Interwebs are good at finding clues to things like that.

Unfortunately, once I got it all set up, I couldn't for the life of me RECEIVE email. I could send, sure, but not receive.

Puzzle.

Eventually, I downloaded Mozilla Thunderbird, and set it up. Thunderbird promptly did the kind of thing that gives me the screaming shits with Windozeware in general: it decided to 'read' all my info and set up my email accounts for me. Of course, it couldn't account for the fact that I use a router off a Satellite modem, and that I have maintained a cheap, minimalist Ozemail account for the last ten years precisely so that I haven't had to change email addresses. In other words, I get mail in via the ozemail POP server - but I send it out via the satellite provider SMTP server.

No worries in Foxmail. All I've ever had to do is simply configure the two processes separately. A no-brainer. But Thunderbird insisted I was using some kind of IMAP server, and kept over-riding all my choices. Still, I kept at it, occasionally swearing and hitting it with a stick, and eventually I got it set up. Or so I thought.

What I discovered was that I could RECEIVE email on my new Thunderbird software, but I couldn't goddam well SEND it.

So now I had a Foxmail setup that could send emails. And a Thunderbird setup that could receive them. And all my email addresses, current files, etc, were in the Foxmail system.

Not a tenable situation. And a deeply goddam irritating one at that.

So I went outside for a while. We had a long, slow, roll-around-and-ricochet thunderstorm this morning. There was rain, and even hail, and the weather since has been threatening. However, it cleared up for a bit, and I figured I'd spent enough time fragging around with the Big New Toy. Especially as I was getting frustrated enough to think about kicking holes in the wall.

I fired up the mulcher, and put a huge pile of branches and trimmings through it. Then I took the resulting mulchy goodness and spread it around the place, over the new plants and gardens and stuff. Then the rain came back, all threatening-like, so I returned to the embrace of The Computer.

And in pure desperation, I tried something on Foxmail I've never tried before: Remote Mailbox Management. Lo! The moment I opened it up, it promptly noodled its way onto the 'Net, and declared I had two new emails. I had to figure out how to execute a 'fetch-and-delete' routine to bring them to my machine -- but it worked!

So that's one more small piece of progress. I can once more send and receive email to my longstanding address, using my favourite email client. Yay!

...in other news, Smaller Son wants to undertake his Cooking badge in the world of Cub Scoutery. Ergh. And so I shall be overseeing his efforts at Thai Fish Stew, and Custard with Shortcake and Blackberries this evening.

Sigh.

Aaargh.

Okay.

I've moved all my photos, video clips, music and documents across to the new machine. I've put Google Chrome in place, and migrated my bookmarks.

I've reinstalled Irfanview, Audacity, Abiword, OpenOffice, AVGfree, GIMP, ImageForge, Dogwaffle, Monkeyjam, Noteworthy Composer, Yeah Write, Foxit Reader, and VLC player.

I've taken the opportunity to add CCleaner, DeepBurner, Recuva, and Zipgenius.

I've hooked up the D-link router, and made my 'Net connection sit up and do tricks. I've even purchased a wireless D-link receiver for my old computer (now the new computer for the boys) and ensured that a 'net connection works for them too.

Everything is looking groovy, yeah. Except...

For years, I've used a nifty little email client called 'Foxmail'. It's very small -- maybe a couple MB in size -- but incredibly efficient and stable. I love it. It does all the stuff you WANT an email client to do, and none of the bells-and-whistles bullshit you get from the big boys. It doesn't autolaunch. It doesn't demand to be integrated with anything. It just fuckin' well receives and transmits email, keeps address books and directories... and that's about it. Brilliant.

Except, of course, that I was using version 4.1. And the only version now available is 6.5

So let's start with the fact that Foxmail is Chinese. I put my old 4.1 version onto this Win7 machine only to see it crash and burn. Okay, fine. So I downloaded 6.5 and installed it... except that it was all in Chinese.

Shit.

I did some research. Turns out that if you dig through the installation files, you can find a file called "Chinese.lgb" and delete it - and after that, Foxmail speaks English.

Okay, sweet. I did that. And lo! There it was -- a lovely, shiny version of Foxmail, complete with all my old address books and files and inboxes and everything. And when I used it to send email, it did so without complaint.

But when I use it to receive email?

Nothing. I get a brief note that says 'Idle'... and then nothing. Nothing at all.

Now, I know the password and userid is right. It's the same one I used on the old machine just 36 hours ago. And I know that the SMTP and POP servers are right, for exactly the same reason. And I can send and receive webmail. And I can use Google Chrome just fine.

So... What The Fuck is wrong with my goddam email client all of a sudden?

Aaargh!

Dull Computer Tasks

Well, I'm typing this from the floor of my study, where I've set up my shiny new computer. The old one isn't really powerful enough (memory or speed) to handle animation work for/with the school, and the boys needed a replacement for the ageing and temperamental laptop that they've been working from here at home. The connection was obvious: update time.

Of course, it's never so simple as that, is it?

I sent out a half-dozen requests for quotes, to a range of Launceston-based suppliers. Three of them actually replied. Of the three, two completely ignored every word I wrote about "please don't bother trying to sell me security-ware or antivirus wares. I will manage that for myself", and tacked prices for enormous, kludgy Suites for the Lazy Brain-Dead User onto the quote. (Yes, Norton. I'm looking at you.)

That left only one. They seemed good -- the quote was very reasonable, the machine fit the specs I requested, there was some useful advice and alternative suggestions attached. There was something that struck me as odd about the phone number, though. When I rang them, I figured out what it was: they're based in Hobart.

Naturally.

Still, they offered a three-year hardware warranty, and they do have a Launceston office to handle service issues. And they were truly helpful. So -- faced with such a mighty plethora of choices, I got up at 0630 this morning, and made the drive to Hobart. I was there for about fifteen minutes, picking up the system and handling the paperwork. And then I turned around and drove all the way back again.

Three hours either way. Eh. You get that. I liked the people I dealt with. I'm confident that if something goes astray, I'll get help out of 'em.

Of course, that doesn't alter the fact that migrating all of my working software and documents from one computer to another is a big, fat, hairy job. And on top of that, I've allowed myself to be persuaded to try Windows 7. (According to all sources, it's what Vista was supposed to be. Except functional.) But this system has a dual license. I can revert to XP if Win 7 sucks.

So far, so good. I've set up the browser. I've hooked up the network cable: no troubles getting online. I've ported my weird little email client through, and made it work. I've brought trusty old Yeah Write across, and installed Abiword. I've transferred tonnes of old documents and photos without a hitch.

I reckon I've got about two more days worth of this kind of work before I can hand the old machine over to the lads and plonk this one down on my desktop. Boring, boring, boring...

So It Goes

Yesterday was supposed to be a special event. Yesterday marked a sea-change, an alteration of my circumstances such that I could at last begin the transition away from Near-Total Parent back towards something approaching Human Being.

It was, in fact, the day that the Mau-Mau went to school, and both boys went to school, and Natalie went to work, and my parent(s) were back in North Queensland.

I guess you could say I've been waiting nearly nine years for this one. Certainly, I've been actively anticipating it since before Christmas last year -- savouring the prospect of a day largely to myself, to focus on the things I want to achieve in writing.

That's how it was supposed to be. Me. My computer. And six whole uninterrupted daylight hours in which to work. Nobody shouting and arguing. Nobody watching movies outside my study. Nobody demanding food, drinks, resolution to arguments, answers to ridiculous questions. Just me, and the muse.

And so, of course, at roughly 0930, the power went out.

I connected the old-style phone we keep for precisely this reason. (Walkie-phones die when their mains power goes.) I rang Aurora, the power company. No -- no power losses in my area. I pressed buttons, and eventually spoke to a nice lady. She made me go through a complicated and -- to my mind -- rather stupid routine of shutting off everything in the fusebox, and then turning it all back on again in a very particular fashion.

The power did not come on.

She advised me to ring again in an hour. There might be news.

I rang a neighbour. He didn't have power either. So it wasn't a fault at my end. Good.

An hour later, there was no news.

I read some books. I worked in the garden.

There was no news two hours later.

At 12.30 or so, the phone rang. A cheery woman on the other end asked me if the power was on. It was not. I went outside to the fusebox and performed the Pointless Ballet Of The Power Switches once more, and the power resolutely remained non-existent.

Ah, she said. Obviously the crew hadn't located all the faults yet.

Oh. Fucking great.

At a little after two, just as I was packing up to go shopping and fetch the kids, the power came back on.

I don't really think I can convey how angry and disappointed I was. I know -- I should probably take it all in my stride. Power outages happen when you live in the bush, yeah.

But... I was really, really looking forward to yesterday.

Now all I want to do is kick someone.

S ! C ! I ! E ! N ! C ! E ! SCIENCE!! YAAAYYY!!

Ladies and gentlemen, once again the world of science has finally begun to catch up with one of the idle-moment outputs of my mighty brain. I remember some twenty-five years ago, living in a noxious, ugly flat in the Fairfield river-flatland area of Brisbane. I recall lying awake at night, sweating like five pigs in a one-man sauna as Brisbane worked its summery magic on my stifling, stuffy little bedroom. I remember opening the windows, in the vain hope of catching some sort of leaden, humid, corpse-breath breeze from the stinking, turgid river...

... and then I remember the whining. The terrible, shrill, vicious whining of the clouds of Brisbane summer mosquitoes charging into my bedroom, sharpening their goddam nano-tipped bloodsucking probes, and diving straight for my fucking earholes. FUCKERS! FUCKERS!

In the end, I recall I pulled the sheet all the way over myself, leaving only my nose exposed so I could breathe. And of course, periodically one of the little bastards would have a crack at spelunking, and I'd get mosquito up the nostril, whereupon there followed much sneezing and snorting and swearing, and very little sleep. Christ on a flaming jet-propelled crutch, I hated those little bastards.

In the quieter moments of that night, I dreamed up a device. I designed it in my head. I dwelled on it at length, envisioning exactly how it would work. It would have three lasers, at least. Little things. Not too powerful. But they would be controlled by a computer, and a couple of high-resolution, motion-sensitive cameras. And whenever the cameras picked up the movement of a mosquito, ALL THREE GODDAM LASERS WOULD HOME IN ON IT -- and there, in the crossfire, the intensity of the three or four beams at once would be enough to ANNIHILATE THE FILTHY LITTLE BASTARD IN A BLAST OF SUPERHEATED LASER-DRIVEN MOSQUITO VAPOUR!

It was a Fine Dream. It made me happy. And I took it to bed with me on many long, sticky, filthy, vermin-ridden nights in South-East Queensland... at least until I could afford a proper mosquito net.

And now, ladies and gentleman, it is with the greatest of delight that I can tell you that Science has finally understood my needs, and come out swinging. Check it out: http://www.physorg.com/news185463943.html

There's even mosquito-zapping footage up on the website. Oh, and the scientists in question reckon they might be able to bring the per-unit cost down to maybe $50.

It's just a shame there are bugger-all mosquitoes here where I live. But if they build one that will take out those awful little fucking flies that you bastards breed on the mainland and send across the Strait with the northerlies every summer, I will buy at least one for every room in the house. In the meantime: YAAAAAYYYY SCIENCE!