by srhuston

My Friends Are Disappearing

I’d intended to do another one of those Facebook notes, but I haven’t got to it yet.  I’m thinking of the soundtrack one mostly, that’ll be fun to put together.  No, tonight’s rambling is brought on by some photos I just looked at.  A friend posted photos she took from a wedding I attended, and I tagged a few other friends that I saw in the photos.  And one person I tried to tag, only he wasn’t in my friends list anymore.  I go looking around, and I can’t find him on Facebook anywhere.  There’s comments he’d left on another friends’ photos, so there’s proof that he was there before; but now he’s gone.  First a few months ago, I saw that Toni Kember disappeared off of Facebook, and other people that I know are friends of hers couldn’t find her there either.  Now Jon Lyon is gone too.  It’s a conspiracy!  They’re going to start charging us to remain friends with people!  Or we’ll have to pay a fee for every 10 friends after the initial 15!

Or Facebook should just send a notification to people to say “Hey, your friend deleted their account, so you know…”  Yeah, that’d be nice.  At least I’m assuming that’s what happened anyway – that, or I’ll need to cough up $10 if I ever want to see Jon alive again.

by srhuston

Delectable Delights

My wife used to run a home business selling jams and jellies, mostly at craft shows in and around where we lived.  It was a lot of fun.. well, she enjoyed the making of stuff, and I kinda enjoyed people watching at the shows themselves, we both hated setup & breakdown and the associated moving of crap from point A to B to C to B to A.  But anyway, with having a little boy running around the house, and a little girl on the way, there just isn’t time to keep up with it anymore.  So instead of throwing out all the canned stuff that’s sitting waiting to be sold, she’s offering it at these prices:

Available for $1 each
12 pints Green Tomato Pickles
5 pints Garlic Dill Pickle CHips
11 pints Cucumber Relish
4 pints Corn Relish
6 jars Peach Jam
4 jars Merlot Jelly
4 jars Carrot Cake Preserves
1 jar Blueberry-Raspberry Jam
2 jars Cabernet Jelly
1 jar Hot Pepper Jelly
2 jars Chardonnay Jelly
2 jars Ranier Rose Jelly
4 jars Seedless Raspberry Jam
4 jars Kiwi Jam
4 jars Blueberry Jam
6 jars Blackberry Jam
2 jars Pumpkin Pecan Butter
1 jar Moscato Jelly
6 jars Island Topping
2 jars Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
1 jar Very Berry Jam
21 jars Salsa (not sure how hot it is)

Available for 2 for $1 (4oz jars)
3 Chardonnay Jelly
2 Champagne Jelly
10 Mint Jelly
4 Merlot Jelly
1 Sauvignon Blanc Jelly
3 Hot Pepper Jelly
1 Cran Blueberry jam

If you’d like any of this, then contact me through whatever means you know (Facebook, email, comments on my website, etc) and I’ll get her your information.  Cash, check & credit card accepted :>

by srhuston

Take 5

Another one all about music – that’s the kind of chain thingy I can get behind.  Hey, at the very least, they’re getting me to post stuff on my website again (link on my website, to my website – seems silly until you relaize the people who would click it are not reading this on my website 😛 )

List your answers and tag your friends to compare and contrast your tastes.  Answers do not have to be in any particular order.

  • 5 favorite artists or bands
    1. Rush
    2. Genesis (Hackett-era mostly)
    3. Yes
    4. Pink Floyd
    5. Led Zeppelin
  • 5 favorite singers
    1. Freddie Mercury
    2. Jon Anderson (Yes)
    3. Stevie Wonder
    4. Peter Gabriel (Genesis, solo work)
    5. David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)
  • 5 songs that make you really happy
    1. Stevie Wonder – Superstition
    2. Yes – Mood For a Day
    3. Rush – 2112
    4. Genesis – Los Endos
    5. Dire Straits – Walk Of Life
  • 5 favorite sad songs
    1. Led Zeppelin – The Rain Song
    2. Moxy Fruvous – The Drinking Song
    3. Yes – Time And A Word
    4. Johnny Rivers – Memphis
    5. Rush – Nobody’s Hero
  • 5 favorite “guilty pleasures”
    1. Vengaboys – We Like To Party (some may know it as the old guy’s song in the Six Flags commercials)
    2. Taco – Puttin’ On The Ritz
    3. Starship – We Built This City
    4. Baltimora – Tarzan Boy
    5. The Bee Gees – Run To Me
  • 5 favorite songs with a person’s name in the title
    1. The Turtles – Elenore
    2. Genesis – Lilywhite Lilith
    3. Pink Floyd – See Emily Play
    4. Elton John – Roy Rogers
    5. The Beatles – Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
  • 5 favorite covers
    1. U2 – Everlasting Love
    2. Me First & the Gimme Gimmes – Elenore
    3. Elliot Smith – Because
    4. Yes – America
    5. Moxy Fruvous – I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You
  • 5 artists or bands who should fade into obscurity
    1. Madonna
    2. Bon Jovi
    3. Bruce Springsteen (yeah, I’m from Jersey, and yeah I’ll catch shit for it – I DON’T CARE 😛 )
    4. Puff what’s-his-face
    5. Biggie dude that got shot
  • 5 artists or bands you miss most
    1. The Who
    2. The Grateful Dead
    3. Freddie Mercury
    4. Genesis (the early lineup – Gabriel, Hackett, Banks, Collins, Rutherford)
    5. The Mamas & The Papas
  • 5 artists or bands who don’t get the recognition/airplay they deserve
    1. Old Genesis (before “Trick Of The Tail”)
    2. Gentle Giant
    3. Old Rush (before “A Farewell To Kings”)
    4. Asia
    5. Yes
by srhuston

Pseudorandom Music

This is enough fun that I could do it for a few hours.. maybe I’ll make a post with a bunch of them later.

  1. Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random.  The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
  2. Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3.  The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
  3. Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days.  Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
  4. Use Photoshop or something similar to put it all together.
WINK - Eternal Summer in the Grateful Heart

WINK - Eternal Summer in the Grateful Heart

WINK was the Wikipedia article, the quote was “There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart” by Celia Thaxter, and the image is here.

by srhuston

Life In A Song

Using only song titles from one artist, answer these questions.

Band/artist: Rush

  1. Are you male or female:  Working Man
  2. Describe yourself: Digital Man
  3. How do you feel about yourself:  Grand Designs
  4. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend:  Scars
  5. Describe your current boy/girl situation:  Closer To The Heart
  6. Describe your current location:  Limbo
  7. Describe where you want to be:  Between Sun & Moon
  8. Your best friend is:  Everyday Glory
  9. Your favorite color is:  Red Barchetta
  10. You know that:  For What It’s Worth
  11. What’s the weather:  Cold Fire
  12. If your life was a television show what would it be called:  The Camera Eye
  13. What is life to you:  Freewill
  14. What is the best advice you have to give:  Leave That Thing Alone
  15. If you could change your name what would you change it to:  By-Tor and the Snow Dog
by srhuston

Steve? Sports? Nah…

I was going through the PlayStation Network the other day, like I do every now and then, and looking over the demos available for download.  Some demos I download even though I have no real interest in the game, just to see if maybe I’m wrong about it.  One such demo I downloaded on Saturday night fell squarely into that category.  MLB 09: The Show is the latest installment in the “MLB: The Show” series of baseball video games, and may be notable for being one of the few sports franchises which EA Sports doesn’t have their claws in.  Now, for those people who know me fairly well, you know that sports and I just don’t get along.  I don’t watch stuff on TV (the occasional football game, such as the Super Bowl, notwithstanding) since it’s pretty boring for me to watch other people play a game.  The only sporting event I’d remotely enjoy seeing live in person would be a baseball game, and that’s more because of the atmosphere than the game itself.  I don’t have a favorite team of any sort.  I don’t know stats.  I’m lucky if I know all the rules of a game for that matter.

But, I really like this video game.

Continue reading →

by srhuston

Linux + PS3: Emulation Paradise

Having seen a lot of people recently talk about running emulators on their PlayStation 3s under Linux, I thought I’d give it a try.  Quite frankly, I’m not sure how so many people can be happy with how their setups work when I see their list of things that aren’t working properly.  From wireless controllers which don’t work without a wire to full screen displays that aren’t full screen, most of the pages I found talked about all the little bits that weren’t working, while also mentioning all the things that worked great.  So for some unknown reason, I decided to try it myself; at the very least, I thought I could probably live with some of the caveats, and at most I might get everything working perfectly.  Well, I’m quite happy with the result, so I figured it would be good to share my experience and what worked.  Not so much that anyone reading this through normal means of reading my website would find it interesting, but Google Knows All.
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by srhuston

What’s In A Name?

Okay, yeah, I’ll bite on this one.

  • Real name: Steve Huston
  • Witness protection name: (mother and fathers middle names) Elaine William
  • NASCAR name: (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad) Alfred Albert (hah!)
  • Star Wars name: (first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name) Husst
  • Detective name: (favorite color, favorite animal) Red Raccoon
  • Soap opera name: (middle name, town where you were born) Robert Willingboro
  • Superhero name: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink, add “The” to the beginning) The Blue Whiskey
  • Fly name: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name) Ston
  • Street name: (fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie) Vanilla Chocolate Chip
  • Porno name: (1st pet’s name, street you grew up on) Farkas Cinnaminson
  • Gangsta name: (first 3 letters of last name plus izzle) Husizzle
  • Drunk name: (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, first two letters of your middle name, last two letters of your first name then last three letters of your last name) Tsroveton
by srhuston

Albums That Rocked Your World

It is with many thanks to Brian Jones that I write this note – thanks, because I finally got tagged in one of these Facebook chain letters which I’m interested in doing again (a lot of the ones I’ve seen lately are the same thing over and over).  This one, however, is something I can really get behind; so much so, that I’m doing a little more than required of the note:

Think of 15 albums, CDs, LPs (if you’re over 40) that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Dug into your soul. Music that brought you to life when you heard it. Royally affected you, kicked you in the wasu, literally socked you in the gut, is what I mean. Then when you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good.

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by srhuston

ICQ Number Stolen?

22:17:43 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Error: Disconnected.
22:17:43 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Signing off..

Seemed harmless enough.  My ICQ connection disappears sometimes, so on February 2nd I didn’t worry about it when this happened.  Hell, I probaby didn’t even notice.  However, that’s when the fun ended I guess:

22:17:43 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Reconnecting in 5 seconds..
22:17:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signon: 2109563
22:17:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Couldn't log in: Incorrect nickname or password.
22:17:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signing off..
22:17:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Reconnecting in 15 seconds..
22:18:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signon: 2109563
22:18:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Couldn't log in: Incorrect nickname or password.
22:18:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signing off..
22:18:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Reconnecting in 45 seconds..
22:18:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signon: 2109563
22:18:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Couldn't log in: Incorrect nickname or password.
22:18:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signing off..
22:18:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Reconnecting in 135 seconds..
22:21:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signon: 2109563
22:21:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Couldn't log in: Incorrect nickname or password.
22:21:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signing off..
22:21:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Reconnecting in 405 seconds..
22:27:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signon: 2109563
22:27:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Couldn't log in: Incorrect nickname or password.
22:27:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signing off..
22:27:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Reconnecting in 900 seconds..

Never did reconnect.  Now, since my password wasn’t changed by me, I’m pretty sure that all the various IM programs I have which have the password stored will have it stored correctly.  My first thought when I saw all of this – the next day, mind you – was that there was some global ICQ problem.  It’s happened before.  That, or maybe ICQ was actively blocking the program that I use – bitlbee – from connecting to the network.  But it wasn’t long before I found out that everything was basically fine, except for my account.  Tried telling their website that I wanted a new password, only every email address I throw at the site comes back with a “We can’t email a password to that address” error.  Which really makes it sound like I was banned or something, but who knows?  Their tech support requires you to login before posting a question (cute, really) and it looks like nobody answers questions there anyway.  There’s no published information for actually getting in touch with a real person somewhere either.  So it looks like, while my UIN exists, and for all intents and purposes is still me (shit, my *photo* is still on there too…) I don’t have an ICQ number anymore.  Which annoys me mostly because of the fact that I created that account over a decade ago.  And since all the information about that “person” is still looking like it’s me.

So if you happen to know someone at ICQ, or are someone there, drop me a line – I’d love to have my account back, or at least know why all the methods provided for me to get it back aren’t working.