It would seem that GoDaddy.com, my DNS registrar, was completely ill-prepared for last night. They are "experiencing technical difficulties." I have no idea when Pendorwright will come back into the DNS pool. This completely sucks.
Mar. 11th, 2007
What is she doing to that woman?
Mar. 11th, 2007 10:32 am One of my favorite places for lunch is the Three Sisters Cafe' in the alleyway of Pike Place Market. It's a little pricey but the sandwiches are really good. The other day I was there with my camera and I had to take this photograph: I've always wondered, what the hell is that woman doing to her sister? Strangling her? Putting a salad on her head? Is the woman on the far right trying to restrain her from further abuse, either of a sibling or her vegetables? One of those odd store signs where you're not quite what the artist was trying to say when he crafted it, or the merchants when they accepted it.
Just in time for Sunday.
Mar. 11th, 2007 10:51 am That does look like one of those photographs you see on church flyers, doesn't it? It took a lot of work to get that; I don't have a tripod so I did this holding the camera in my hand, using only the light from the stove vent hood, with no flash, an extended exposure and a much slower than default shutter speed. I'm still figuring out what all that means but the result is quite nice.
As for the subject, well, I made that yesterday. It's amazing how easy plain French bread has become for me; I just toss yeast, water, and flour together and it seems to work. A few people have raved about the "no knead" bread recipe but I have to wonder if it's really that much fun to skip the kneading part. The only secrets are to have a sheet of canvas for shaping the loaf and a well-heated baking stone to make sure the temperature in the oven is correct and even. And the smell of fresh-baked bread in the house is absolutely worth the relatively minimal effort.
I've been having a hard time getting up the energy to write this week. Some of that is clearly because I've been doing a single dad routine. I did manage to sketch out a timeline for the Sterlings series only to realize there's this huge flamin' hole between Dove's major resolution and Zia's major resolution. Since I'm doing a kinky "Tales of the City... with dickgirls... in space!" sort of thing, I need to find a way to fill that hole. I have two sideline couplings available, so to speak, and/or maybe a military crisis (that would at least involve rewriting Zia's end story so she acknowledges that the crisis happened, she and her lover being involved with the military and all), but again, the energy is there.
Ah, what the hell. Maybe I'll write the last chapter of Jerrica's Story first, so I know where I'm planning on ending up.
As for the subject, well, I made that yesterday. It's amazing how easy plain French bread has become for me; I just toss yeast, water, and flour together and it seems to work. A few people have raved about the "no knead" bread recipe but I have to wonder if it's really that much fun to skip the kneading part. The only secrets are to have a sheet of canvas for shaping the loaf and a well-heated baking stone to make sure the temperature in the oven is correct and even. And the smell of fresh-baked bread in the house is absolutely worth the relatively minimal effort.
I've been having a hard time getting up the energy to write this week. Some of that is clearly because I've been doing a single dad routine. I did manage to sketch out a timeline for the Sterlings series only to realize there's this huge flamin' hole between Dove's major resolution and Zia's major resolution. Since I'm doing a kinky "Tales of the City... with dickgirls... in space!" sort of thing, I need to find a way to fill that hole. I have two sideline couplings available, so to speak, and/or maybe a military crisis (that would at least involve rewriting Zia's end story so she acknowledges that the crisis happened, she and her lover being involved with the military and all), but again, the energy is there.
Ah, what the hell. Maybe I'll write the last chapter of Jerrica's Story first, so I know where I'm planning on ending up.
Botnet Survey
Mar. 11th, 2007 05:34 pmSo, this morning, now that Pendorwright has come back up, I did a survey of my box, scanning for rootkits and basically doing the monthly security sweep. The machine looks okay but there were a lot of breakin attempts recorded by auth.log, brute-force dictionary attacks on the SSH server mostly. I decided to do something about by putting up a self-protecting firewall, one that uses various TCP/IP controls to block users before they even get to the "enter a password" phase.
When I first started up the program, DenyHosts, it immediately found 165 different hosts out there that were systematically trying to script-kiddie my box, throwing over 11,000 user names at it. So far, nobody but me has been able to get in, but grief, how ugly and annoying. Next thing you know, I'll have to reconfigure the secure login server to use an obscure port just to keep the log files from growing absurdly large.
When I first started up the program, DenyHosts, it immediately found 165 different hosts out there that were systematically trying to script-kiddie my box, throwing over 11,000 user names at it. So far, nobody but me has been able to get in, but grief, how ugly and annoying. Next thing you know, I'll have to reconfigure the secure login server to use an obscure port just to keep the log files from growing absurdly large.
Yamaraashi-chan's big day
Mar. 11th, 2007 10:33 pmWhat do I do with beautiful bread that's over a day old? Turn it into french toast, that's what, with an egg, milk, sugar and cinnamon. The three of us had breakfast and did chores, and when one o'clock rolled around (and we'd tinkered with every damn clock in the house) we all drove into Seattle to attend the 2pm symphony.
Why? Because Yamaraashi-chan was singing in it. She and the rest of the KidSounds Chorus provided the "youthful voices" part to the third act of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, "The Court of Love." They sang lines like:
They sang the Latin part so the text didn't have all that much interest to them.
Before we got to Carmina Burana, however, we had to sit through Symphany Number 3 for Organ, by Camille Saint-Saens. I would have enjoyed it on its own, but Kouryou-chan was very restless. Asking a little girl like her to sit still for a whole hour was tough. She managed. The concert itself was very illuminating; I haven't watched a full orchestra in years. Omaha commented that the horns seemed to be missing their cues, and I thought that the third violins were a bit off-key.
I have a much deeper appreciation for Carmina Burana now that I've watched it performed live. The soloists were pretty good, although Kouryou-chan couldn't stand the soprano. The tenor who sang "The Roast Swan", though, was fabulous; he sang without his book in hand, instead making gestures with his hands and expressions with his eyes that made the audience laugh, as they're supposed to for that part of the concert. I joked that his publicity photo made him look like a young Palpitane, and then Omaha pointed out to me that his biography states he did work for the Star Wars III soundtrack. Hmm. In person he was much more personable.
I couldn't even see Yamaraashi-chan for the children's choir. We were down low and to the front, so the piano blocked our view. Omaha thought she saw one of the kids fall down, faint from the heat, noise, and stress I imagine. But the rest of them did very well, and were much more in time than, say, the pianists, who like the horns seemed to be behind a half-beat or so.
After the concert, we found Yamaraashi-chan in the lobby. I was so proud of her. She stood up and did her part, I've been listening to her practice and rehearse (so much sometimes it drives Omaha and I crazy and we tell her, "go downstairs if you want to practice singing!" She seemed really happy with her own performance.
Omaha and I delivered her back to her mother, good as new, then struggled with the car to get out of the concert hall: damn, that place is slow to empty. We returned home in time for me to make dinner, which was old-fashioned tuna noodle casserole, turning the last of my bread, the heels, into the toasted breadcrumb topping.
A good day, and I hope Yamaraashi-chan has a valuable memory to last her a long time. That was very cool, her performing in the biggest and best concert hall in Pacific Northwest, and she did a great job.
Why? Because Yamaraashi-chan was singing in it. She and the rest of the KidSounds Chorus provided the "youthful voices" part to the third act of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, "The Court of Love." They sang lines like:
| Oh, oh, oh, totus floreo iam amore viginali totus ardeo novus, novus amor est, quo pereo | Oh! Oh! Oh! I am bursting out all over! I am burning all over with first love! New, new love is what I am dying of! |
Before we got to Carmina Burana, however, we had to sit through Symphany Number 3 for Organ, by Camille Saint-Saens. I would have enjoyed it on its own, but Kouryou-chan was very restless. Asking a little girl like her to sit still for a whole hour was tough. She managed. The concert itself was very illuminating; I haven't watched a full orchestra in years. Omaha commented that the horns seemed to be missing their cues, and I thought that the third violins were a bit off-key.
I have a much deeper appreciation for Carmina Burana now that I've watched it performed live. The soloists were pretty good, although Kouryou-chan couldn't stand the soprano. The tenor who sang "The Roast Swan", though, was fabulous; he sang without his book in hand, instead making gestures with his hands and expressions with his eyes that made the audience laugh, as they're supposed to for that part of the concert. I joked that his publicity photo made him look like a young Palpitane, and then Omaha pointed out to me that his biography states he did work for the Star Wars III soundtrack. Hmm. In person he was much more personable.
I couldn't even see Yamaraashi-chan for the children's choir. We were down low and to the front, so the piano blocked our view. Omaha thought she saw one of the kids fall down, faint from the heat, noise, and stress I imagine. But the rest of them did very well, and were much more in time than, say, the pianists, who like the horns seemed to be behind a half-beat or so.
After the concert, we found Yamaraashi-chan in the lobby. I was so proud of her. She stood up and did her part, I've been listening to her practice and rehearse (so much sometimes it drives Omaha and I crazy and we tell her, "go downstairs if you want to practice singing!" She seemed really happy with her own performance.
Omaha and I delivered her back to her mother, good as new, then struggled with the car to get out of the concert hall: damn, that place is slow to empty. We returned home in time for me to make dinner, which was old-fashioned tuna noodle casserole, turning the last of my bread, the heels, into the toasted breadcrumb topping.
A good day, and I hope Yamaraashi-chan has a valuable memory to last her a long time. That was very cool, her performing in the biggest and best concert hall in Pacific Northwest, and she did a great job.
I'm sorry, Seattle!
Mar. 11th, 2007 10:37 pmFriday, I wore a Hawaiian shirt in the hopes that I might confuse the sun gods into giving us more sun. Instead, I seem to have convinced the rain gods that what we wanted was lots of warm, moist air from the Hawaiian basin dumped on us. Ah, well.
And someone please slap the editors at MSNBC around. In a story about what happens next in the Scooter Libby saga, the tagline read: The GOP's Raging Pardon. Parse it twice; you'll get it. Damn, that's a line to be proud of. Can't believe that made it past theircensors sensibilities.
And someone please slap the editors at MSNBC around. In a story about what happens next in the Scooter Libby saga, the tagline read: The GOP's Raging Pardon. Parse it twice; you'll get it. Damn, that's a line to be proud of. Can't believe that made it past their
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