Rollin Bowlin Mater and the Pittys are shown to size compare between the regular diecast line and this playset.

People like me? Is that so? And what typ of person am I, oh Master of pickup lines... I think but ask "Really?"

-Yeah, you know, girls of your age.

Now it's getting interesting. My age? I'm 25ish. I look around and see people of about the same age as myself. But then again, I've never been one to guess ages very good. "Hmm?" I say with a questioning look.

-No offense, but you look a bit older than the other girls here, he says and gestures out into the room.

Aha, he's trying to neg me. Badly excuted, but alright. I nod at him and turn my attention to my friends. I'm quite sure he's expecting a comeback at this time, but I'm not one to make things easy for them. At this point I can see the wheels turning in his head, it's the game, it's suppose to work, what went wrong? Skipping ahead a few chapters he goes for a kino, touching my arm gently with his fingertips.

-Nice bracelet you have. My mother has one just like it.

Wow, kino and neg at once, I should be falling head over heals for this one. Not so much. "You should probably read the book one more time, hun." I say and grin. Bingo, his face turns a bright shade of red and the stuttering commenses immidiatly. Excusing himself he runs for the door. I'm a bitch. I feel content.

Anyways, pictures. That's the whole point of the post- pictures. :)

Is my 3rd child getting huge or what? I swear he's grown twice his size since we've had him. Sparky doesn't think so but- pfft on him. :)

And, to ease everyone's fears, he hasn't shown one more sign of aggression *or* of timidness. He does go to his "house" sometimes when things get loud around here, but I think it's just to "escape" and kind of take a minute or two to himself, because a few minutes later he's out chasing the kids or playing with Sparky. We just took time to play and let him know we weren't going to hurt, leave or abandon him, EVER, so I think he's beginning to trust us more. Which makes my heart happy. :)

Now, on to something else.

See that? That is my to-do list for the next week. From 7/14 *today* until 7/20. These are just basic things that need to be done everyday. It's hanging in my bathroom. The thing is? For the last 2 weeks, my head has been in a fog and I feel like everything is kind of slipping out from underneath me. So, I decided to write a list, kind of evening things out over the week, that I can follow and actually feel like I'm accomplishing something. When I went scrapbooking on Saturday- I got 6 layouts (2 page layouts) done (I'll post pictures tomorrow), so I decided this week I want to get two more layouts done. If I do that, my stack of pictures will have gone down a bunch, to make room for more pictures that I have coming in soon. (From Snapfish, my new best friend.) I also am going to start making more things from home. I'm starting a blog tonight with different recipes and stuff like that. I'll post a link up tomorrow, it'll teach people how to make *so* much from home, from bread (that is so yummy) to Laundry Detergent. No, I'm not going "green" I'm going "cheap" -- I'm going "save money". I think that, with gas prices the way they are, and the way that food prices are, it will be so much better for me to spend $.50/loaf over $2.00/loaf of bread. (It's about $.50- maybe a little less.) I'll be putting up what it would cost for you to buy the product at a store, and what it cost to make it at home, and how much you save.

....I might just do one recipe a week or something on here, instead of starting a blog. It really all depends. I'll think about it.

I started a new blog today, a Army Wife blog. I know I'm not one yet, but when I do become one, that'll be my outlet for that. And, I might get rid of this blog and just write on that one. Since I don't give my name or Sparky's name on it, it'll be all anonymous. Which I think would be safer.

The only thing I honestly worry about is this: When Sparky is in the Army, I'll have to be secretive about where he's going, what he's doing, how long he'll be gone, etc. That? Worries me. I'm worried I'll give something away on the blog. That one, or this one, it doesn't matter, I guess I have to start re-reading my blog post  3 or 4 times. :)

Let's just say Sarge and his crew searched a couple of houses. In the process of one of the searches, he and his "peeps" discovered a very large amount of cash. As Sarge told me, there were bags of cash, plastic bins full of cash, trash cans full of cash and so on. 

The various people involved who actually saw the money speculated it was around 11 million dollars worth.

ELEVEN million. More than I will ever see, much less earn, in a lifetime.

My first reaction--Just slip some of that into your pocket there, Sarge. No one is going to notice, oh say, fifty thousand missing. 

Well, yes, they probably would but a girl can dream.

DISCLAIMER-I'm not really a criminal but I also don't play the lottery so some of us have to get our kicks in other ways.

I know, I'm demented. 

Anyway, to get the huge amount of cash counted correctly, they called in a service to ensure accuracy. In all the hullabaloo with school getting out, our upcoming move and the other things that make up my life, I forgot to ask Sarge about the final count on the cash.

Last weekend, we're at a family dinner and I overhear Sarge talking to my brother-in-law. He was telling him about the cash and the circumstances in which it was discovered. Then I hear Sarge say "seven million dollars."

I immediately say "It was only seven million?"

I said it like this because I remembered the speculated amount being 11 million. In reality, it came out like "What, only seven million? Why I've gotten so much more than that myself!" 

Sarge and my brother-in-law started laughing hilariously.

Sarge responds "Only seven million? That's still a lot of money, honey."

I quickly tried to explain to my brother-in-law the origins of my comment but it didn't work. Oh well, if we could all have that kind of a problem.

This is a quick manual on how to install kana and kanji (Japanese writing) handling for the Mozilla-Firefox browser (and probably all other browsers) on Debian Sarge.

I don't know whether the following is or isn't mandatory, but these steps were enough to give a good result.

Installing the "Languages" extension

* Note: this section has proven useless so I have moved it to the end of this article. Just for info on how to install this extension.

Installing the fonts

The first (and only) step to take is to install the fonts on your system.

The easiest way is probably to use apt-cache search (or search within synaptic if you're more like this) for "japanese fonts" and you'll find some fonts packages.

Install some of them. I've used: apt-get install ttf-kochi-mincho for additional fonts, you might want to install the following, but just ttf-kochi-mincho (9MB) should be enough apt-get install ttf-kochi-gothic xfonts-intl-japanese xfonts-intl-japanese-big xfonts-kaname (you'll need to have root access or sudo in order to use apt-get install)Note the xfonts ones are smaller in size (but didn't help in my case)

You should already be able to see the japanese fonts in your browser. If this doesn't work, try the following in any order:

• restart your browser (close every window before launching it again)
• go to the extensions page for Firefox and follow the link to the "Languages" extension's homepage, then follow the link to the language-specific extensions and install the Japanese one (strange characters ending with "Ja")
• restart your X server (in order for him to take into account the new fonts - I really don't think this is needed, but just in case...)

If you have comments about this article, please send me an e-mail.

Installing the "Languages" extension - most probably useless for you

Start Firefox and go to the extensions handler (Tools -> Options -> Extensions) and click on the link to get to the extensions' page.

Select "Install" on the "Languages" extension section. Install the extension by clicking "Cancel" if you're not administrator so that the extension is installed only for your user. Clicking "OK" when you're not administrator will probably not succeed in installing the extension.

Then you'll have to restart your browser in order for your changes to take effect.

  ]]> http://lifeasabluewife.wordpress.com/?p=346 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:56:10 +0000 The Blue Wife http://lifeasabluewife.wordpress.com/?p=346 is not all it's cracked up to be. 

For a few hours this morning, Sarge and I had no kids--thanks to my wonderful sister who took them for a little while. 

Sarge and I decided to go to lunch and then Sarge could go on into work. As we were hanging out in blissful peace and quiet together, he warned me that he was going to be late tonight. 

When I asked why, Sarge informed me that his narcotics unit and the crime suppression unit were doing a joint venture. It appears they are going to send undercover officers into night clubs to buy drugs. Once a buy is completed, the crime suppression dudes and/or dudettes are going to go in and arrest the involved individuals. 

Now, Sarge has supplied me with more details than I am disclosing here. I cannot mention these certain details because it would give too much away. But, as soon as he tells me the entire plan, my stomach does this weird flip and I just don't feel good about this whole deal.

Call it paranoia, but this endeavor is not sitting well with me. I guess part of it is that I have advance knowledge.

Usually, I hear about these questionable situations after the fact.

When it's a done deal and I know Sarge is okay. 

Being the grown-up, mature person I am and the excellent leader/parent of two extremely well-behaved, well-adjusted children, my first question for Sarge was "Why do you have to be there? Can't you just send out a couple of your people and have the other group keep an eye on them? Then you can come home EARLY to me?"

Sarge's response was "I can't very well send my people into what could be a potentially dangerous situation and not be there to support them." 

All I'm thinking is "Why not? I have no problem with it."

Well, to be honest, I guess I wouldn't be okay if Sarge were that kind of a slacker.

But it really does suck being a grown up.

All that responsibility, having good ethics, and such nonsense. 

This has sent Sarge into an emotional tailspin. I do have to be honest though, Sarge's emotions do not express themselves like the highly volatile outbursts I sometimes have. Personally, I like to blame PMS even when it's not applicable. I know this means I am weak and unwilling to accept responsibility for my actions but I'm okay with that. 

Anyway, back to the story at hand. Sarge has not been the happiest, most pleasant person to be around. The thought of buying this house has really put him in a bad mood.

But the proverbial straw that has broken the camel's back is that there is a Lieutenant's position opening up in the police department. Sarge wants to be promoted REAL BAD!!!! I can't even begin to tell you how much I think he wants it.

I'm not even sure I know why he wants it so bad. It would be a raise in terms of salary and that would definitely be nice with the bigger house. But I think part of it is that Sarge has been busting his booty for the last several years. He seems to be a really good leader/supervisor.

A couple of years ago, Sarge was working the road and had a group of guys working under him. He was on evening watch (usually 2:30 to 11:00) and things at home had just gotten too much for me.

I needed him to be at home.

I asked him to switch to day watch so he could help me out. So when his guys found out he was potentially going to be changing shifts, they all got together and confronted Sarge. They didn't want him to go to another shift. They wanted him to stay right where he was. 

Being a fairly decent husband, Sarge did change shifts for me. Things were real rosy at home for about five months. Then he had the opportunity to move to the Narcotics unit to work undercover and the rest is history. I have now learned my lesson not to ask Sarge to change shifts anymore. No matter how much I think I want him too. 

But I cannot tell you how much I want Sarge to get promoted. He's usually such a laid-back, easy-going fellow. But this person that I've been living with these last couple of weeks is not the same. I'm usually the worrier.

So everyone, cross your fingers. Knock on wood. Rub a lucky rabbit's foot. Whatever it takes, we need all the positive thoughts we can get. Let's hope that things go Sarge's way and then I will have to come up with a new nickname for him. 

The pic above is from Spawn.com. I think you can order the product from there.

I'll be honest, I never played Halo. Don't even own a new gen game console. With that and the opening quote in mind, it's obvious the only reason, the real reason I got this toy was because of Red Vs Blue. As a result, I had no interest in the Brute or Grunt figs, and my real problem when I decided to pick this fig up was whether to go with the Mark VI or the EVA type Spartan. The EVA's domed head gave the impression of a balding head, which could work for Sarge. While the Mark VI (pictured above) was more versatile, as not only would it be a more "show accurate" Sarge, it could be used as a pre-Light Red armor Donut or even as Fanatic. In the end, I let my gut do the talking and got the "generic" Mark VI armor.

I got Sarge'd.

Looks

Good stuff, it's nicely detailed and overloaded with weathering. This is one grungy figure. I've seen a few McFarlane stuff, mostly the Dragons and whatever's hanging on the pegs. This seems to be typical fair, which is to say it's got plenty of probably unnecessary detailing. Which is good in most toys. It doesn't hurt it here either.

Now, there are those who don't dig this figure due to scale. This guy's in the 5" scale, meaning he's taller than your Star Wars stuff, but shorter than Marvel Legends. But that's actually a plus to me personally, as amongst my fave figs are the Souchaku Henshin line, which is also of this scale. But yeah, bear in mind that this ain't gonna scale with most humanoid style stuff.

Overall I think the figure looks good. I'm not a huge enough fan of the Halo franchise to complain about game accuracy. Of course, this guy is probably more detailed than the game models, but against official art or posters? I'm afraid I can't tell.

***1/2 out of 5.

Articulation

Now this is the real reason I'm reviewing this figure. Not that it blows the Souchaku Henshin figures out of the water. It doesn't. The problem is lack of double-joints (which would admittedly break up the sculpt), which instantly prevents it from attaining SHS levels of articulation. And it certainly ain't on Souchaku Figuarts level. The McFarlane Halo 3 Mark VI Spartan is more on the lines of a super duper articulated Star Wars 3.75" fig. Since it uses a hinged-balljoint system similar to Star Wars and other Hasbro products, but it adds a few extra twists. Overall, the articulation is very well integrated, unlike the SHS line. But what I want to talk about, is this...

The hips. The hips are awesome. I say, this might even be considered revolutionary. The hip joints is definitely something that I'd like to see other toy companies incorporate. You see, the hips are swivel hips. Which looks good because it doesn't break up the sculpt much, but it's really just a cut, so there's not much articulation there. You can only swing it back and forth. What makes it revolutionary is that just below the hips seems to be some sort of balljoint or hinge joint. That means that despite being a mere cut joint, the Spartan's legs can still do the splits. Actually, there seems to be a double cut on the hips, but it's just the idea of that ball/hinge just below the cut that's absolutely brilliant. It allows you to maintain the sculpt while providing the articulation. Pretty dang impressive.

**** out of 5.

Accessories

Comes with a gun, a grenade and a couple pegs. You can also remove his shoulder pads and chest plate. Functional, but nothing fancy. Certainly not as impressive as some of the SHS figures, but it's still functional.

Therein lies my personal problem with the series, for I lack the moolah to army build them at will. From the looks of it, the figures in the upcoming waves will all use the same basic body as the Mark VI. The only differences will be the chest plates and shoulder pads, and heads of course. This is good in terms of cost saving, but as great as the base figure is, I have too many interests to pick up everything property I see. It's hard to justify getting more than just a few of these figures for me, the most is I'll pick up enough to represent the core cast of the original Red Vs Blue crew. I'm definitely waiting for a Blue Spartan of some sort to represent Caboose. But beyond one red and one blue, I may not even pick up the rest. We shall see.

*** out of 5.

Overall

A good solid figure. If I wasn't already way overextended with Transformers, Kamen Rider stuff etc, I'd definitely pick up all these guys. It's still a cool, recommendable figure though. Now hold these shotgun bullets for me... in your gut! BANG!

**** out of 5.

~Sarge is already acting soooo much better. He didn't need the laxatives (thank God!) and has pottied so many times today that I lost count. We took him on a very, very long walk earlier (trying to get him used to the leash) and he did okay. He tugs a bit on it when he has a smell he wants to follow, but other than that, he was very, very good. He's exhausted now and sleeping on a blanket in the living room.

~I put him in his "house" this morning, which (right now) is in the living room. I'm not trying to be mean, and I'm not sure if you all have little cages for your dogs or not, but I'm trying to train him to be in there and alone sometimes. Right now? Honestly? He howls. Whines. Barks. Scratches. Unless he's sleepy and then? It's okay. It's nap time and he'll just go right out. So- I'm trying to get him used to that a little bit because I go to the gym every morning for an hour, and I want him to get used to being alone. (I feel bad because he *just* came from a cage-type setting.)

~This pup, as young as he is, has not had *any* accidents in the house. He'll sit by the sliding glass door and wait for me to let him out. Last time was almost too late, as soon as we got to the grass, he went, but he still waited. I? Am. Amazed. Last night? He slept the whole night through. From 10 P- 7:30 A, he slept, and didn't get in our faces or kick us all night. This morning? We were woke up with kisses, lol.

~The shelter? Said in the cage, with the other pups, he was pretty "mellow" acting. He's been in shelters his whole (short) life and is from New Mexico, he's a transfer pup. (New Mexico seems like a long way to bring a puppy, ya know?)

~The little people? Oh, yeah, they are still here as well, still loved and taken care of (for the most part). They are lovin' the new pup as well, which is great. Lillie has been following him around all day, saying, "Puppy!" every. two. seconds. She's kicked and pulled on him a bit, but all in all- she's been good. We've had to just watch her around him.

~Sarge's belly is still swollen looking to me, but maybe he's just fat? LoL. He's a heavy little booger.

~No church for us today, we're still looking for a new place, and by the time we got up and ready this morning, the church we wanted to try out had already started, so we'll have to wait until Wednesday.

~Sparky is going to the chiropractor twice a week, because of the car crash his muscles around his neck seized up, like, and his neck is being held straight by them, instead of at an angle, like most people's necks. He should be better in a few weeks. *Our* car insurance is paying for it until they find out whether or not the person that hit him has car insurance. Which means, no copays, yay!

~I've been trying out new recipes this last week. One of which was Apple-Glazed Pork Tenderloin, it was really scrumptious. I'll try to post the recipe on it here this week, maybe, with pics.

~I bought our pup a camo collar. It matches his name. :)

That's really all there is! Happy Sunday everyone! :)

Sarge (oh, his full name is Sergeant York Our-Last-Name) is acting kind of.....depressed (?)-- he won't play very much (he's only 8 weeks old) and he won't do really much of anything but lie around. He won't even potty! He's eaten twice since he's been here and he hasn't pooped or peed! Just wondering, I guess if this is normal?

I have a vet appt. on the 12th for him, to get his next shots and a check up- but if he doesn't get better by then- what do I do?

(Tomorrow- if he hasn't "went" I'll get some Puppy Laxatives-- but other than that--?) 

When I come up to you and ask, "Sir, excuse me, where are the Tucks pads? Do you have any idea?" and you say something like, "They are over there....somewhere, I think. This aisle." and point down the hair-care aisle? Expect me to be pissy and give you attitude. There must be a *reason* I'm asking for Tucks Pads. And when I come back and ask again, because they were not, in fact, down the hair-care aisle? Please don't roll your eyes and say, "Well, we must not carry them." ::sigh::

Sincerely,

An unhappy customer

Dear Woman in Pharmacy,

I asked you where Tucks Pads where. You said 3 different places, after I responded, "Nope, been there, already looked," you saying, "Well, Wal-Mart doesn't carry them, that's right," and walking off? Not helpful.

Sincerely,

A very unhappy customer.

Dear Cashier Lady,

When I handed you a coupon for $4.00 off of Purina Dog Food, and you said, "You know it doesn't cost $4 right?" I wanted to slap you. Honestly. I'm *aware* it doesn't cost $4. Which is why I came to Wal-Hell, I knew it would be cheaper than $4. Therefore I'd get it *FREE*. Thanks for ringing it up anyways, though.

Sincerely,

A kind-of-happy customer.

There's one more..................................

......................

just a little further..................

..........

..............

almost there................

................

Dear Dog Shelter,

Thanks.

Sincerely,

A new pet owner :)

No, he's not growling in the second picture. His name is Sarge (tentatively) and he's a Lab/Mix. Very adorable, very puppy. 8 weeks old. So sweet and non-menacing.

So we met for dinner last night and Sarge enlightened me with the following two stories.

WARNING: The contents of these stories may offend/disturb some people. Please know I'm just telling it like it was told to me by Sarge as it really happened to him.

A few nights ago, Sarge and his fellow undercover officers were staking out an extended stay hotel room where crack was supposedly being sold. They were waiting for the search warrant to come through. Once it did, they got the alleged dealer and had to conduct a search of this person's, well, person.

Sarge so enjoyed telling me about how the dealer had "hid the crack in his crack."

Being of morbid curiousity, I just had to ask if it was all the way in (I'm not going to explain that--just use your imagination. Although Sarge knew exactly what I was talking about.) or if the crack was just stuffed down the pants. 

Sarge's response was extremely disturbing but very clear. "Half in, half out."

Not a pretty mental picture here. 

I had to ask yet another question of Sarge. If this answer was affirmative, then Sarge was never going to touch me or my children again until he had showered, say, a thousand more times. 

I asked with great trepidation "Did you conduct this search yourself?"

Thank goodness for me, the answer was no.

Being the great supervisor he is, Sarge had one of his employees conduct it. As Sarge repeated to me, his advice to his supervisee was "I don't care how far you have to go. If you have to be like Mike Rowe (from Dirty Jobs) and get elbow deep in it, so be it. I just want the drugs."

So inspiring that the man I love, the father of my children, the person I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with and entrust my care to when I am old and decrepit, shows such compassion and understanding. It just warms the cockles of my heart. 

To finish on an even more uplifting story (please read sarcasm into this), Sarge and his group recently did another search warrant on an apartment where a female was arrested. Unfortunately, the female had a three or four year old child. While the female was being arrested, the child was cursing in Spanish at all of the officers.  

I have so many mixed emotions on this that I cannot even begin to put them out there. I have shared the story with you and unburdened myself somewhat. Let's hope you don't lose sleep on these snapshots into my husband's work life like I do. 

<3

Given our somewhat untraditional life and schedule at home, Sarge is a pretty bang-up dad. All the talk of drugs and arrests and getting the bad guys aside, Sarge is an excellent balance to my somewhat indulgent nature as a mother. 

He loves to get his kids outdoors and have fun with them. And in the process, actually gets me out there too. 

He will play with them in all sorts of ways.

In fact, I know of very few fathers who probably loves video games as much as his kids.

Hence, his father's day gifts of Mario Kart for Wii and the LEGO Star Wars game for Wii. Of which it is now 11 p.m. at night and he is still playing his games. 

I probably shouldn't admit this either but we also did not get out of our pajamas until 1 p.m. today because we were all playing the games. Let's get back to the topic at hand though.

Sarge is also great at encouraging his kids to experience more.

Our now-five year old boy (four in this picture) can ride a two wheeler.

Our eight year old girl is a bang-up soccer player and can swim a pretty good butterfly.

Sarge is the one who pushes the kids outside of their comfort zone. 

He's not perfect by any means but he's perfectly imperfect for us.

Happy Father's Day, Sarge. 

Sarge got to replace his two year old car a couple of weeks ago. Not only did he get a new car, he also got to go shopping for all of the needed new cars.

As I have only owned one new car in all of my 38 years, I have no notion of what it is like to buy over 10 brand new cars in a three/four week period. Add that they get all of the cars severely under invoice prices and it's just adding insult to injury. 

So he pulled in the other night with this. 

EDITED: Sarge asked me to remove the frontal picture of the car. He said he wasn't too thrilled with it. 

It's a very nice brand and a special edition or something like that. It has a back-up camera, a navigation system, a six disc CD changer, and lots and lots of other goodies. 

Now I'm not really a "car" kind of girl. As long as it gets fairly good gas mileage, is reliable and won't break down on the side of the road, and can hold up in an accident, it'll work for me. If I see really nice cars driven by other people, I'm not really that envious or jealous. I don't need a car for a status symbol. 

But I am a little perturbed that my government employee husband gets to drive this everyday (with gas provided) while I cart the two hellions that are my children in my quintessential "soccer mom" car, my Honda CRV.

It brings out the worst in me. It makes me want to be completely unreasonable. I want to tell Sarge that since he get to drive a really nice car then we should buy the more expensive house because that's where I spend the majority of my time.

I know logically that we don't own this car. I know rationally that his driving a nice work car really has nothing to do with our house and what we should or shouldn't buy but it's how I feel. 

I'm just plain, straight-up jealous in a very irrational, illogical way. It happens to me but just once in a blue moon. 

If he gets to drive a nice car, I should get a nice house. I'm not saying this makes sense, it's just part of my warped, demented thinking. 

We're still in talks about whether to buy a new house. The money thing is a BIG issue. Whether we can afford it is the main question. 

Sarge has jokingly said in the past that he should go on a police mission to Iraq or Afghanistan. If a law enforcement officer does this, he/she is sent overseas for a year. Their housing, food, travel, equipment, etc is all paid for by the sponsoring company. The salary is usually over $100,000 and their salary is tax free.

The downside is that the officer is sent to a very unsafe part of the world and is gone for a year. No different from the thousands of military personnel already deployed.

I truly do not know how their families hold it together while their loved one is gone. I am extremely grateful for their sacrifice.

I just don't know if I could be so understanding. I have a feeling I would become very bitter or cynical.

Anyway, I jokingly mentioned the police mission thing to Sarge tonight because I really want to buy a specific (read more expensive than what we currently have) house.

His response-it's not like being a police officer is all that safe here in the U.S. 

In a fit of anxiety, I decided to do an online search of law enforcements deaths for 2008 and this is what I found on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund website. 

I'm not feeling too comforted right now about his career choice because where we live is on the list above.

So much for my selective deniability.

Just when I think life is all nice and rosy, things, like reality, just slap me upside the head. 

::sigh::

I gave Eva and Sarge flea treatments on Thursday night, Eva hasn't kept anything down since... I was going to take her to the vet yesterday, but Andy decided to pop out here, so I put it off. She ate dinner tonight, and I haven't heard/seen her puke yet. This is a good sign. But, I'm still taking her to the vet tomorrow afternoon. I need someone to give me advice on how to avoid this in the future. And, I love you interwebs, but this time professional advice is in order.

What else?

Oh yeah!!!!

The Red Wings are totally kicking ass in the Stanley Cup Finals. WOO! Seriously, I'm not a big sports fan, but I am a HUGE Red Wings fan. My roommate is a fan of the Penguins, and both teams were looking awesome this whole season. We basically agree that our teams are good for entirely different reasons. His is very young, and they have the enthusiasm and movement of 20 year olds. But, the Red Wings have a TON of experience, and many championships between all of the players. The current goalie was the hero of the team when I was in High School, along with a lot of the other players.

So, yeah. The first 2 games of the finals series ended in the Wings winning 3 to nothing. Twice in a ROW. Lol. So, anyways, my roomie and I have a really funny rivalry going on, in which we give each other shit all the time. It's awesome.

Ok, I'm effin tired. G'night.

It's Monday night and Sarge has the holiday off. 

In honor of Sarge being home on a weekday night, we'll have another installation of "Ask Sarge."

What made you want to be a police officer?

Drive fast, carry guns, get in other people's business (all this is said with a grin-somewhat tongue in cheek).

Save lives and arrest dangerous people, that's what it's all about. 

The rest of everything we do is crap. If it's not about saving lives and arresting dangerous criminals, the rest of it is crap. That's all it's supposed to be about. 

That's not what it's all about but that's what it's supposed to be about. 

(I think I may have tapped into a sensitive topic here so I'm going to move on.)

When you tell you people that you are a police officer, what response annoys you the most?

When someone wants to tell you their story about when they were screwed over by the police.

How often do people really get screwed over by the police? 

I have no idea. I'm sure people always think they are getting screwed over. 

What is the main negative perception about cops that you would want to change?

(Sigh) Ummmmm . . . 

Very long pause.

Probably just the fact that most people think cops are a**holes. 

And he's done, outta here, gone with the wind, going for a run.

So ends the latest installment of "Ask Sarge."

Besides, he seemed a little more cynical and negative than usual so it's probably for the best. 

Again, Happy Memorial Day!

Instead of focusing on the negativity above, let's just take a moment to honor the true reason for this day. Regardless of your views, a special thanks to all those who serve. In whatever way you serve.  

This article reports the successful use of a Trust 750 LCD FamilyC@m digital camera under Linux Debian Sarge.

The FC 750 got to work pretty easily. It uses USB Mass Storage and stores its pictures in jpeg format.

To use it, first install hotplug (apt-get install hotplug). Then start it. I didn't find a way to start it manually (but didn't look for long) so I know rebooting the system did work for me. It's most probably unnecessary though.

Connect the camera to the computer as described in the manual (put it on PC mode and tick "Mass Storage").

You could see, using tty1 (the first terminal screen) that the camera is recognized by the system and that a link to it is autogenerated at /dev/sda1.

Edit your /etc/fstab file (you need root permissions for that) and add this line: /dev/sda1 /photo vfat user,noauto 0 0

Then (still root) create /photo (mkdir /photo) and give permission to the user(s) to read, write and execute within this directory (chmod o+r,w,x /photo).

Leave the root access behind you (exit) and type mount /photo. Now go into your /photo directory and check out your picture files…

Now you've set that up, and assuming you've got a GNOME environment, you can use the Disk Mounter applet to make it even easier:

Right-click your task-bar. Click Add to panel -> Utility -> Disk Mounter.  Right-click on the newly inserted applet on your task-bar. Click Preferences. Change the directory to /photo and choose a nice icon. Try clicking the icon to mount/umount the camera.

Don't forget that in order to umount the camera, you need to avoid having anything accessing the /photo directory (or one of its subdirectories).

I didn't try the webcam feature though. The FamilyC@m was a very basic digital camera though (one of the first ever cheap ones) and I would certainly not recommend it today (although mine might still work, it used to make 1.3Mpixels pictures of very arguable quality, so it is now in a box, somewhere).

It seems I've been pretty lucky to upgrade without any major problems, but hey! If I was, why wouldn't you…

Before starting the upgrade, please note that it could need up to around 1GB (depending on the packages you already have installed) hard disk space to store the packages and then install them. Once you are done with it, it will eat around 200MB more than the corresponding Woody, still depending on the packages you had before.

Also, it might be a good idea to download the packages on a fast connection and keep them on your disk until you can actually do the upgrade (using -du option for apt-get dist-upgrade).

• log as root (or use sudo if it is well configured)
• change /etc/apt/sources.list (save the old one in /etc/apt/sources.list.woody)
  • change all stable to sarge
  • comment backports sources, if any

• apt-get update

• halt X and use terminal mode only (/etc/init.d/xdm stop, gdm or kdm)

• apt-get dist-upgrade (take note of the packages that will be REMOVED, you'll probably need to readd them manually afterwards, if you want/need them. Note that lots of packages will be downloaded)

• read the questions carefully before answering them, you'll probably want to install the new versions of the configuration files, unless you really know what you do. Chances are that you will need to reconfigure some of those files afterwards, though [1].

This is pretty much all you need to do. If you have a problem with replacing a config file, check the changes by typing "d" before accepting the update.

I had a problem with xlibmesa3-glu unable to install because of some file removal need, file which was also used by xlibmesa3. I proceeded to remove xlibmesa3, temporarily (using dpkg -P xlibmesa3). This has required me to remove a lot of other packages, but basically, once it is removed, all new versions come back again with the next apt-get -f install.

If the process interrupts displaying an error and asking to do an apt-get -f install, just do so and then type apt-get dist-upgrade back again when the problem is solved (see above paragraph for a problem resolution example).

Once you are done with all the upgrade, check once more if there is no new version (Sarge is moving fast) with an apt-get update followed again by an apt-get dist-upgrade.

Chances are you will have a new kernel. Using LILO or GRUB makes it completely different. Note that both LILO and GRUB come with a sensible script to update their configuration depending upon the kernels installed (if you used Debian kernel packages, which I recommend). You will also probably be interested in this article too: HOWTO Upgrade from devfs to udev on Debian Sarge

Remove the current Java Runtime Environment or Java Developer Kit if installed (usually j2re1.3 or j2sdk1.3), and install the new version, compiled with GCC 3.2 (j2re1.4 or j2sdk1.4).

Remove the Python versions you won't use anymore.

Use deborphan to clean all unneeded packages (purge packages).

Replace flashplayer-mozilla, if installed, with flashplugin-nonfree, which has a way to update your Flash plugin easily (/usr/sbin/update-flashplugin).

If you used the GNOME 2.2 backport from James Strandboge like described in the article HOWTO Install a Debian Woody with GNOME 2.2 and OOo 1.1, I suggest you also do the following steps to get a really clean Sarge:

• there will probably be a lot of packages left from the backport. To list them, I'd bet listing packages whose version number include a j (my packages), a jds (James' packages) or woody (James or other's packages) are of those. You'll have to remove them and replace them with the appropriate Sarge version
• rebuild scrollkeeper's database by issuing a scrollkeeper-rebuilddb

If you used, like me, some Adrian Bunk's backports [2] with the GNOME 2.2 backport and OpenOffice.org 1.1, you may run into other problems as well. Forcing manually ( apt-get install, nothing more complicated, don't worry) the install of the removed packages will work without problems. The following command resolved the problem for me:

# apt-get install openoffice.org openoffice.org-bin openoffice.org-debian-files openoffice.org-help-fr openoffice.org-l10n-en openoffice.org-l10n-fr openoffice.org-l10n-nl debianutils coreutils manpages-fr

Christian Marillat's packages for multimedia applications will probably not upgrade like expected, but hey, this is not Debian! And as you already installed them on your own at the first time, it is not more difficult to upgrade them now.

Welcome to Sarge…

I strongly advise to clean packages which have been removed while upgrading. To do so, list them with the following command and purge them if needed:

# dpkg -l|grep ^rc