After getting my computer back in order, which apparently takes me a couple weeks for some reason, I went drunkenly browsing around the internet.  For whatever reason, I remembered the term “fartknocker” from Beavis and Butthead, and decided to type that into my browser.  The only thing that pops up for fartknocker.com is a busted search engine full of ads and crap.  Not to be discouraged, I figured that maybe I should spell fartknocker differently, and that landed me upon fartnocker.com.  The only thing that pops up is an image of some kid with the word “fartnocker” typed on it, as well as a hit counter at the bottom of the page.

Who is this kid?  I used the Google reverse image search (the little camera logo in the image search box), and the only information that pops up for this picture is fartnocker.com, and the picture itself is labeled as “The Fartnocker.”  Why is this kid The Fartnocker?  What makes him so much better than all the other fartnockers out there that he gets the title of THE Fartnocker??

The internet… so full of mysteries.

Thanks for the tip, I may very well give it a try when the final version is released.  I knew that 11.10 has been out for awhile already, I just wasn’t entirely sure when 12.04 was coming out of beta.  Multiple monitors was the only thing that I really can’t do without since I use it when when drawing and using multiple programs at once.

The Cardigan EP by Billy Van is available for free right now.  Anyone that enjoys his style of dubstep should definitely check it out.  Really good stuff.  I just stumbled on it while installing uTorrent, as there was a giant link to the .torrent file right below the link to download uTorrent.  There’s nothing better than free music!

Where have I been over the last week?  Well, I’ve been on a whirlwind ride of anger and frustration during the last few days, but thankfully things are settling down.  It all started with a story of how Microsoft is censoring personal messages on their Windows Live Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger).  If there’s one thing that I can’t stand in the world, it’s limitations and censorship… I guess that’s two things, but you get the idea.  I was so angry that I decided (for the eleventieth time) that I was done with Microsoft products… forever.  With the disaster that is shaping up to be Windows 8 with all the tiles, charms, metros, and swiping features (swiping, on a desktop PC… seriously??), I figured now was as good of a time as any to make the switch to Linux.

After doing a little research, I decided to try Linux Mint.  It was, according to many reviews, the most user friendly version of Linux, and was supposedly a good starting point for people that were making the switch.  Well, I downloaded the live CD, tried it out, and actually enjoyed my time on it.  Then I installed it… and oh, wow, what a mistake.  The first challenge turned out to be the only challenge, and the one that may have forever changed my mind about Linux as a usable operating system for desktop computers.  I have two monitors, and like to use dual monitors on my PC.  One has a resolution of 1440x900, while the other is 1024x768, and because of the way my desk is built, the only spot to place my bigger screen that I do most of my work on is the right side, meaning I have to put my spare monitor on the left.  Windows has never given me any problems with placing my spare monitor on the left, and just extending my desktop to the left screen, while leaving my taskbar and everything else on the right.  Welcome to Linux, where even something as minor as hooking up a second screen becomes a painful, tedious process!

I was so happy when the dual monitors worked just fine on the live CD.  I figured that maybe Linux, as a whole, had finally turned the corner from being the bug filled mess that I had experience with in the past (I’ve used several different distros, and all with the same results — frustration), to being an easily useable operating system.  I installed it, booted it up, and my second monitor wasn’t recognized in Linux.  No problem, right?  Just install the nVidia drivers (I have an nVidia graphics card) available in the repository and everything else should be simple, right?  Right??

After installing the drivers, going into the nVidia settings, and setting up the dual monitor support, everything, taskbar, windows, icons, all switched to the left screen… exactly where I didn’t want them.  I struggled mightily in the dual monitor settings, switching every possible option that I could think of, hitting errors, blank screens, and finding that there was no real way to make my right monitor my primary screen, even when the option to make my right monitor the primary screen was selected.  Every file I test downloaded popped up on the left screen, every new window that opened appeared on the left, and I finally gave up.  I ended up downloading Ubuntu, figuring it would do what I wanted since it is by far the most popular and widely used Linux distro.

In all honesty, I really liked Ubuntu.  The way their Unity desktop operates makes things really enjoyable and easily understandable, and it’s just as pretty as any Aero that Windows can offer.  However, setting up dual monitors gave me the same problems that I had with Linux Mint, and was possibly even worse than Linux Mint.  I understand that Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, so they’re going to have some of the same issues… but the dual monitor thing shouldn’t really be an issue at all.  The only way to keep everything I wanted on the right screen and strictly have the left screen as a spare was to set my left screen up as the right screen… confused yet?  So, if I wanted to drag a window over to the left screen, I actually had to drag it to the right.  I was willing to deal with the monitor issue if it meant finally being free from the clutches of the evil empire of Microsoft.  Now, remember when I pointed out that my monitors had different resolutions?  That comes into play next.

I restarted my computer, ready to continue setting up and customizing my Ubuntu installation.  However, a nice fat error message popped up when I got to my desktop.  It read something along the lines of the virtual screen size wasn’t the same as the physical screen size.  Apparently the the way the nVidia drivers work on Linux is that it creates a space that is equal to the width of both monitors together (side by side) and the height of the highest monitor, and slaps your desktop on it.  Since my monitors are two different sizes, there’s a nice blank spot on the desktop that the smaller monitor doesn’t see, and the desktop extends off of it, creating the error message.  That was it, at that point, I was done with Linux on my desktop PC.  I really wanted to like it, I really wanted to use it as my everyday operating system.  I was fully prepared to commit to it… but when it can’t do something as simple as allow me to use my monitors in whatever configuration that I want, that’s a huge strike against it.  I know that there’s probably some magical workaround using the terminal and command line crap and the sudo apt get this or that, but there’s no reason that something so simple needs to be so complicated.

I don’t play many PC games, and the ones I do play are easily playable on Linux.  I use my PC more for music and media purposes, which Linux can easily do with XBMC.  One thing Linux apparently doesn’t easily do?  Dual monitors.

That’s not to say that I’ll never use Linux again.  Every year or two, I do try out a couple of different distros.  I’m sure after I’ve had some time to cool off, I’ll be ready to give it another go… or whenever my new Windows installation decides to bog down and crap out again.  As I said before, I really liked the Unity desktop that Ubuntu offers as it’s quite functional, and it even has enough eye-candy so I don’t get bored with it.  If/when I get a laptop, I’ll probably immediately install Ubuntu on it (since a laptop obviously wouldn’t have two screens).  Now I’m off to sit and wonder what could’ve been if only Linux was functional enough to perform a few simple tasks.

A little backstory: I bought a new hat last night… and suddenly realized I have a ridiculous amount of hats.  There are 27 hats pictured… and I believe that I’m actually missing a couple that are somewhere in my house from when I was a toddler.  The Super Mario Bros. hat is one that I got when I was roughly 6 years old, and at the time the Super Mario Bros. were a really big deal.

I bought the Chicago “Old Time Hockey” hat when the Chicago Blackhawks were really really bad, and consistently managed to miss the playoffs.  It was a cool hat at the time because it was ironic, now that the Blackhawks are actually a good team, it’s not as cool, because I’m a Detroit sports fan.

I’m not a fan of Jimmy Johnson, but the hat was free, and who doesn’t like free stuff?  My favorite hat out of them all is the Detroit Red Wings hat pictured in front.  I had to get it because it tends to be difficult to find a Red Wings hat that contains a Red Wings logo with the actual Detroit Red Wings Bookman font style.  You can find hats that have either the logo or the font, but rarely both.

Also not pictured is 4 different knit winter skull caps (two featuring Detroit Lions logos) that aren’t pictured, for a total of 31 hats.  I like hats.

It says “Refrigerate After Opening” even though I refrigerated it before opening.  I wonder when the refrigeration police are going to come beating on my door?

Why, oh why, does stuff like this continue to happen?  I was a child of the 80’s and early 90’s, and every year my childhood memories are being used raped by Hollywood to create horrible movies.  Micheal Bay is set to produce a reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie franchise.  His quote, “These turtles are from an alien race, and they are going to be tough, edgy, funny, and completely lovable.”  WAT?!  Considering how awful that Transformers 2 and 3 were, how Michael Bay was able to warp something as simple as transforming robots that shoot lasers and stuff (pew pew pew) into an unforgivable conglomeration of Shia Labeouf’s high-pitched whiny voice, racism, and potty jokes; I’m sure that it won’t be difficult for him to screw up something as simple as a group of mutated teenage turtles that are also ninjas.

The good news is that Michael Bay (at the moment) won’t be directing… but I’m sure he’ll have his grubby little hands all over everything else and will have as much “creative input” as possible.  The fact that the he’s talking about changing the Ninja Turtles into “aliens” is a horrible abomination of an idea.  Their origin is pretty much already set in stone, as it was introduced in a comic series, several different series’ of cartoons, as well as the original movie series.  The origins of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is already fucking established.  There’s no need to change it.  The ooze is a pretty important part of the Ninja Turtles’ story, and is akin to the radioactive spider biting Peter Parker to create Spider-Man.  It’s the kind of thing where you just want to grab a bucket of popcorn, sit back, and enjoy a bunch of human sized turtles beating the crap out of evil ninjas.  Of course, this is Michael Bay we’re talking about, so maybe he’s not talking about aliens from outer space, but rather the illegal immigrants form of “aliens.”  Honestly, when Michael Bay says that the Ninja Turtles are going to be aliens, it makes me think he would attempt make something like the Japanese Mutant Turtles OVA.

Think about it like this: it’s like Michael Bay taking something that’s already been established for decades like Superman, and instead of Superman being an alien from outer space, Bay just randomly idiotically decides that Superman would instead be a regular human that had some ooze splattered on him that gave him his super powers.  Makes perfect sense, right? WRONG!!

To Michael Bay,

Not everything needs to be from outer space.  That is all.

Sincerely,

A concerned citizen

Springtime!

I’m so happy that the TV series Community is returning on Thursday, March 15th!!  Community is an extremely underrated show, and it may eventually face the same type of fate as Arrested Development.  It’s a show that has a loyal fanbase, has been well received by critics, but is being horribly mistreated by the awesome idiotic executives at NBC.

What makes Community great is that it features rich character development, interesting storylines, genuinely funny situations, and witty dialogue.  Oh, and that’s not even mentioning the infamous paintball episode(s).  I honestly never thought that watching a show about a group of lovable misfits attending a community college could be this funny. Thankfully, Community is back.  Who else is ready for some paintball?!

Well, after careful consideration after receiving a DMCA notice from Comcast, I’ve decided to pay for a VPN service.  A friend advised me to sign up for a newsgroup type site, but I honestly don’t really use the internet for that kind of stuff.  The few things I download on the internet are honestly available for free (and the stuff that isn’t free, I pay for).  I’m not an idiot, I understand the laws and the reason that I got the notice.  However, just because I understand it doesn’t mean that it makes a whole lot of sense.  What I downloaded was available for free, however, I don’t enjoy watching streaming videos because of quality issues.  Piracy is not about wanting stuff for free, it’s about service issues.  Give me the stuff I want in a format that I want at a reasonable price and we can all live happy lives!  Simple, right?  Well, I guess it’s not simple when you’re trying to make money with an outdated business model.

Anyways, after doing a bunch of research, digging through tons of different VPN services, looking at pricing options, providers, and their data retention policies, I decided to go through BTGuard.  It was highly recommended on TorrentFreak, which is a site I visit frequently (along with TechDirt), as laws regarding intellectual property and freedom of speech are something that I take great interest in.  BTGuard doesn’t keep any type of data logs, the only logs they keep is your name, username, and payment method.  The price was reasonable at $9.95 per month ($6.95 if you only want BitTorrent service), and it’s slightly cheaper if you buy multiple month packages.  Honestly, it costs about the same as a newsgroup site, but the upside is that I can be anonymous while browsing the web.  They have servers in the Netherlands and in Canada, and in my experience, both locations are about the same, as far as speeds go.  I would highly recommend disabling IPv6 on your computer until OpenVPN 2.2.3 is fully released (OpenVPN is a client that you can use to access the BTGuard network instead of changing your computer’s network settings).

The strangest thing you’ll notice is that when you do a Google search, some words in the search results are in Dutch since Google’s servers see that the IP address you’re using is from the Netherlands, depending on which servers you choose to connect to.  Yahoo! will at least give you a separate tab on their front page so you can choose the Dutch version of Yahoo or keep the English version.  Of course, there are times that the BTGuard servers are under heavier loads, and you may see your speeds drop to 25% or 50% of what’s normal, but this is usually only temporary, and your speeds will pick right back up again.  It sucks that I now have to pay $9.95 extra per month just to continue using the internet for what I personally view as an okay (not illegal) activity… however, the giant corporations controlling the government see things differently, I guess.  It sucks to be paying more, but it’s worth it for the peace of mind.  If VPN services are ever outlawed or forced to keep data logs, then I guess that I will join a newsgroup… but hopefully that won’t happen.

I can’t wait to tell my kids someday that while sharing is caring, it’s also illegal because the U.S. government hates puppies, rainbows, kittens, and unicorns.