I have a talent. A way with words, if you will. Have you ever been at a table and heard me talk, after which it was evident that I did not think beforehand? Yeah, I've been there too. Last week I gave my team at work good reason to think I'm racist, and I also made Heather think I forgot her name. I actually plan my day, sometimes, to increase the probability that I'm checking my mail or walking in or out when she is most likely to be sitting in the office alone and bored. It almost never works but I do try. Yet, she thinks I haven't even remembered her damn name, which is ironic because I've blabbed about her to the entire internet on multiple occasions. I really have a talent for this sort of thing. I am going to just catch her one day and ask her point blank if she wants to go out. Then she'll most likely say no, but I've made a deal with myself to stop thinking about her after that. This is going to take a while, because as I just mentioned, I'm not good at running into her when she's alone, and asking her out in front of some other tentants or her co-workers (one of which is probably a new boyfriend) is a recipe for an intensity of awkwardness that I am not prepared to deal with. After that it's the cute redhead at starbucks. She's...leaving at the end of the summer to, uh, to go to college. Yeah she'll probably say no too.
Oh, I met this awesome girl in Nordstrom on Saturday. She helped me get a shirt tailored, and told me I should buy Hugo Boss shirts because they are slimer and would actually fit me. I was giving her one of my email addresses for the whole picking-up-the-tailored-shirt notification, which contains the string 'theroadninja,' and we got into a conversation about motorycles where she mentioned that her Dad is going to teach her to ride. I told her to get a Ninja 250 because they make awesome starter bikes, although I forgot to tell her that it sucks to learn to clutch on one of those. Then I told her to email me when she learns how to ride, and we'll ride together. I neglected to mention that I currently don't own a motorcycle. I'm in between bikes, as it were. I thought it would be more slick than getting her number. I don't really think--wait let me check--nope, she hasn't emailed. I will be receiving a lot of marketing e-crap from Nordstrom though. Dammit.
That Miley Cyrus song has been banished from my head, though not before I started rewriting the lyrics. You're Gonna Go Far, Kid has taken its place. I'm not sure what it is about, but I enjoy rocking out to it in my headphones at work.
Speaking of work, I've had a miserable task this past week and have gotten myself addicted to notalwaysright.com. It is a feed of ridiculous and dumb things that customers say to retail people and call center handlers. Actually, one of them is from a game store in Exton that I used to visit. I'll post the link if I find it. I don't know if I'm just lonely, or if my circle of friends here is missing that one super rude person that keeps things interesting, but I love reading that site. Sometimes I sit there and dream about what I would say to the rude customer. If I work retail again, I will probably get fired within a day.
Seattle is experiencing a heat wave. That means my air-conditionless 6th floor apartment is about as hot as a rainforest and my desk located under the vents in the air conditioned office feels like I'm working in a refrigerator. Its actually 12:20 AM and 90 degrees in my apartment. I'm not exaggerating: the thermometer says 90. It was 89 an hour ago. I think my computer is adding to the heat. Opening up the windows hasn't helped. Suffice to say, if you ever hear a person from Seattle tell you they don't need air conditioning, know that it is kind of like hearing a vegetarian tell you that they don't need to eat a lightly salted, medium-rare new york strip at an upscale restaurant. It's technically true, yes, but it reminds me of the architect guy in the Matrix sequels saying "There are levels of existence we are prepared to accept."
I beat Lego Star Wars (Original Trilogy) tonight. My list of games that are multiplayer that also girls seem to like now includes:
Lego Batman
Lego Indiana Jones
Lego Star Wars
Mario Kart
*Mario 3
Rock Band.
*technically one player, but...never mind.
I have not yet purchased rock band, on account of how all my money is going towards flight lessons becuase I can't keep a budget. I've actually had to stop eating lunch out, too. You should see me try to pack my lunch. Oh crap--the pasta I didn't finish is still in my backpack. I'm going to end this while I'm ahead (relatively speaking).
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Hail to the King, Baby
My sister is visiting. Also some girl just stood me up this weekend. I'm beginning to think Seattle is a great place to live if you already have a girlfriend. Also I read on the internet that Amazon is doing evil things with their Kindles. According to the internet someone thought remotely deleting 1984 off everyone's kindle would be a good idea.
Yesterday we hiked Mt Rainier. Apparently I suck at applying sunscreen, because I My face, neck, and little strips on my forearms are totally burnt. Also, it hurts to walk. Apparently when you are not in shape, and you try to hike to the top of a mountain all day, it destroys your muscles. Who knew? Anyway, it was pretty awesome. This time we took ski poles and I remembered extra socks. Much more snow had melted since I had been there last, and you have no idea how much easier it is to walk on a boring macadam path than it is to trudge uphill through snow. Oh, I also remembered boots. Boots help. We saw a mountain goat. It was a lot smaller than I imagine, which I guess is why they can climb so high.
It was kind of depressing though. Parking was difficult. I mean, Mt Rainier is a mountain. You can't really get more impressive, or vast, or awesome. Not without also being deadly. When I go flying in my tiny little Cessna, it sometimes give me a bit of a god-complex because at 3000 feet above the ground all of the little people and buildings--everything mankind does--looks tiny and unimpressive. What does look impressive, still, are the mountains. They can be like walls. In fact, if the clouds are, say, overcast at six thousand feet, and I'm flying just East of Kent, then I find myself boxed in on three sides by mountains, with a ceiling of clouds above me. Only mountains can do that. Mountains are impressive.
Except, of course, when you drive to the visitor's center at Mt Rainier. First, there is a scenic, awesome and super windy road, which motorcycles and Subaru STI's are made for, and on which you will be stuck behind someone that doesn't know how to drive and chooses to drive their vehicle at roughly 1/5 of the speed you could go. I am actually not exaggerating; I did the math and it was 1/5th. I had a lot of time, on a ccount of how damn slow they were going.
Anyway, you can just drive, on roads, all the way up to 5400 feet above mean sea level. There is a lodge with restrooms and greasy food and stay-off-the-meadow signs. And no parking. Its a mountain, and there is no parking. The biggest natural...object, save for all the glaciers which will probably melt (I'll get to them in a bit), and there's no parking. This, my friends, is what depresses me: there are so many people here we can fill up a mountain. Granted, there should be more parking spaces. But its a mountain. Lack of parking is something you experience in a city, or at a movie theatre, or at the DMV. Not at a mountain. It felt like I had arrived at a cheap carnival.
Another interesting fact about Mt Rainier is the...difficulty level. I am told that to get to the summit, you have to climb up to some camp somewhere, spend the night to acclimate, and then make your bid for the summit. And it requires tents and ropes and ice picks and ice boots and probably radios and shovels and all that. And we'd have to train for it. At least, that's what Luke keeps saying. I'm sure he's right, but when I'm at the mountain, the more I hike the more I think I could just kind of waltz up to the summit. I think it is deceptive because the slope starts off easy and then increases, getting harder and harder until you have to like fight for a 100 feet, instead of just strolling along.
Anyway, we climbed to somewhere between 7200 and 7300. I know this, because we passed a sign saying we were at 7200, and we never made it to some place called "Camp Muir," which the sign at the bottom said was 7300. We were probably pretty close, but I elected to turn around. We were above the tree line, and past the scary sign saying the weather is going to change and you're going to die in a cloud. We were actually at the height of the clouds. It was pretty cool. Also there was no grass. Just snow and rocks, which, by the way, are easier to hike over than snow.
Then we went back down the mountain, and I tried to work on my ability so ski on nothing but my two feet. A lot of people were wrapping trash bags around their waists (or doing something smart like wearing snowpants) and just sliding down the slopes on their ass. I was in jeans, though, but the sliding did look fun. As we neared the bottom I began to understand why an out of shape person can't actually just stroll up the mountain and get to the top. I began to understand this fact because my legs started to hurt. Hours later, it hurt to walk. I normally take the stairs at my apartment, but I've been taking the elevator ever since. My legs still hurt, actually.
My sister was on East Coast time, so she went to bed and I tried to catch up with some friends in Freemont watching Army of Darkness. Interestingly enough: that movie, my email address, and the fact that I waited ten years for a video game called Duke Forever that was never made, are all linked. Back to the story. I get to the theatre, but the one person whose cell number I had wasn't answering....ok this actually isn't that interesting. I was going to write about how it was incredibly painful to walk, especially downhill for some reason, and then how I ended up walking back and forth through Freemont twice trying to find some bar my friends were going to. Unfortunately, this is one of those stories where I just end up looking like a dumbass. My legs do hurt, though.
Anyway, today we went to the Locks. The locks are pretty cool, and exciting to watch. The actual water raising/lowering is quite slow and boring, but watching all of these boats pack in and tie themselves to the sides or each other is fun. And then they get up or down to the next water level, the lock clears out fast. I kind of want to own a boat, just so I can go through the locks. It would be a good place for a date. Actually, a lot of things I've been doing lately would be good dates. The only thing missing was, you know, a girl. More on that in a sec.
After the locks my little sister rode along on my flight lesson, and didn't throw up. So I guess I'm not that bad of a pilot. Still a bit anxious about the soloing thing. As in, I am not looking forward to it at all. I understand, though, that the whole point of the license is to be able to fly by yourself, so I'm going along with it.
Last night at the bar one of my friends mentioned that there are a lot more guys than girls in Seattle. I had been denying this fact to myself, and didn't really want to believe it, but everyone else at the table was in agreement. Mathmatically speaking, there has to be somewhere on this Earth where the opposite is true. I mean, if Women outnumber men on the planet, and men outnumber women in Seattle, there must be at least one place on Earth where women outnumber men. I don't really care that much. I'm just annoyed that some girl stood me up this weekend. I was supposed to see Harry Potter with some girl I met on the internet. Dorky, I know, but I actually want to see this one, because I hear Snape becomes a bad guy, and I'm curious as to how true that is, and whether or not that fact will ruin the series for me. The thing I liked about Snape was that he was a dark character, but he was still a good guy. He had depth. If he turns into a bad guy, then every shady-looking character in that series is a bad guy, and (to me) the series becomes little more than a cheap childrens tale. Maybe it will be fun to watch anyway. I dont know. Suffice to say I wanted to see it, and I really wanted to see it on a date with a girl, because there is really no other way that you can watch a Harry Potter movie. Now, it seems that I won't be seeing that movie, and I basically just wasted all that time chatting up that girl, and I have no idea what random thing I said that pissed her off.
My car continues to be awesome. It's name is definitely Jessica now, and this time I'm the one who named it. That reminds me: Katie, the ninja 250 I sold to a guy at work, has a new life as a gift to some girl. I told the guy who rebuilt it that its name was Katie, and he said he'd pass that on.
When my flight training is done I plan to save up for another bike. I also am going to find someone to make me a ski harness, so I can strap skiis onto my back, ride to Mt Rainier, park in the motorcycle parking area, and then hike the mountain, and then ski down and rode home on my sportbike.
Speaking of "when my flight training is done," I have a huge list of "when my flight training is done." I'm basically putting my life on hold until someone signs a piece of paper saying I'm allowed to fly a Cessna with some passengers. The reason--and I can't believe I'm admitting this publicly--that I'm even doing this is because of a girl. It was one of those times where I fell in love with some girl and she didn't feel the same way and I decided I needed to make my life more interesting. You know, that live-life-to-the-fullest, sieze-the-day, do-anything-but-sitting-at-home thing. I didn't realize at the time just how much time and money it costs to get a flying license. I am beginning to think that "carpe diem" is a load of crap, and the next time I hear someone talking about living life to the fullest, I'm going to inform them that it is too expensive.
In other news, I have a Miley Cyrus song stuck in my head. Normally this wouldn't be a problem. I tend to like artists that most people hate or look down on, like Nickelback, Avril Lavigne and Taylor Swift. However, my good buddy Mark pointed out to me a particularly dumb lyric in the particular Miley Cyrus song that is stuck in my head. Why is this a problem? This is a problem because my method of getting songs out of my head--unstuck, if you will--is to listen to them over and over and over and over again. Which is what I'm doing right now, actually. But thanks to Mark, every time I hear that stupid, stupid line it causes psychological pain. Ironically, hearing Mark complain about this song is also the reason it is stuck in my head in the first place. I'm not sure what to do. This damn song is so catchy. Why couldn't they write better lyrics? I don't even know who Miley Cyrus is. I just know that people on the internet like to make fun of her.
Yeah. That's right. I'm up at 12:40 on a Sunday night in my PJs writing in my blog and listening to Miley Cyrus on youtube. You know what? You're reading it.
Yesterday we hiked Mt Rainier. Apparently I suck at applying sunscreen, because I My face, neck, and little strips on my forearms are totally burnt. Also, it hurts to walk. Apparently when you are not in shape, and you try to hike to the top of a mountain all day, it destroys your muscles. Who knew? Anyway, it was pretty awesome. This time we took ski poles and I remembered extra socks. Much more snow had melted since I had been there last, and you have no idea how much easier it is to walk on a boring macadam path than it is to trudge uphill through snow. Oh, I also remembered boots. Boots help. We saw a mountain goat. It was a lot smaller than I imagine, which I guess is why they can climb so high.
It was kind of depressing though. Parking was difficult. I mean, Mt Rainier is a mountain. You can't really get more impressive, or vast, or awesome. Not without also being deadly. When I go flying in my tiny little Cessna, it sometimes give me a bit of a god-complex because at 3000 feet above the ground all of the little people and buildings--everything mankind does--looks tiny and unimpressive. What does look impressive, still, are the mountains. They can be like walls. In fact, if the clouds are, say, overcast at six thousand feet, and I'm flying just East of Kent, then I find myself boxed in on three sides by mountains, with a ceiling of clouds above me. Only mountains can do that. Mountains are impressive.
Except, of course, when you drive to the visitor's center at Mt Rainier. First, there is a scenic, awesome and super windy road, which motorcycles and Subaru STI's are made for, and on which you will be stuck behind someone that doesn't know how to drive and chooses to drive their vehicle at roughly 1/5 of the speed you could go. I am actually not exaggerating; I did the math and it was 1/5th. I had a lot of time, on a ccount of how damn slow they were going.
Anyway, you can just drive, on roads, all the way up to 5400 feet above mean sea level. There is a lodge with restrooms and greasy food and stay-off-the-meadow signs. And no parking. Its a mountain, and there is no parking. The biggest natural...object, save for all the glaciers which will probably melt (I'll get to them in a bit), and there's no parking. This, my friends, is what depresses me: there are so many people here we can fill up a mountain. Granted, there should be more parking spaces. But its a mountain. Lack of parking is something you experience in a city, or at a movie theatre, or at the DMV. Not at a mountain. It felt like I had arrived at a cheap carnival.
Another interesting fact about Mt Rainier is the...difficulty level. I am told that to get to the summit, you have to climb up to some camp somewhere, spend the night to acclimate, and then make your bid for the summit. And it requires tents and ropes and ice picks and ice boots and probably radios and shovels and all that. And we'd have to train for it. At least, that's what Luke keeps saying. I'm sure he's right, but when I'm at the mountain, the more I hike the more I think I could just kind of waltz up to the summit. I think it is deceptive because the slope starts off easy and then increases, getting harder and harder until you have to like fight for a 100 feet, instead of just strolling along.
Anyway, we climbed to somewhere between 7200 and 7300. I know this, because we passed a sign saying we were at 7200, and we never made it to some place called "Camp Muir," which the sign at the bottom said was 7300. We were probably pretty close, but I elected to turn around. We were above the tree line, and past the scary sign saying the weather is going to change and you're going to die in a cloud. We were actually at the height of the clouds. It was pretty cool. Also there was no grass. Just snow and rocks, which, by the way, are easier to hike over than snow.
Then we went back down the mountain, and I tried to work on my ability so ski on nothing but my two feet. A lot of people were wrapping trash bags around their waists (or doing something smart like wearing snowpants) and just sliding down the slopes on their ass. I was in jeans, though, but the sliding did look fun. As we neared the bottom I began to understand why an out of shape person can't actually just stroll up the mountain and get to the top. I began to understand this fact because my legs started to hurt. Hours later, it hurt to walk. I normally take the stairs at my apartment, but I've been taking the elevator ever since. My legs still hurt, actually.
My sister was on East Coast time, so she went to bed and I tried to catch up with some friends in Freemont watching Army of Darkness. Interestingly enough: that movie, my email address, and the fact that I waited ten years for a video game called Duke Forever that was never made, are all linked. Back to the story. I get to the theatre, but the one person whose cell number I had wasn't answering....ok this actually isn't that interesting. I was going to write about how it was incredibly painful to walk, especially downhill for some reason, and then how I ended up walking back and forth through Freemont twice trying to find some bar my friends were going to. Unfortunately, this is one of those stories where I just end up looking like a dumbass. My legs do hurt, though.
Anyway, today we went to the Locks. The locks are pretty cool, and exciting to watch. The actual water raising/lowering is quite slow and boring, but watching all of these boats pack in and tie themselves to the sides or each other is fun. And then they get up or down to the next water level, the lock clears out fast. I kind of want to own a boat, just so I can go through the locks. It would be a good place for a date. Actually, a lot of things I've been doing lately would be good dates. The only thing missing was, you know, a girl. More on that in a sec.
After the locks my little sister rode along on my flight lesson, and didn't throw up. So I guess I'm not that bad of a pilot. Still a bit anxious about the soloing thing. As in, I am not looking forward to it at all. I understand, though, that the whole point of the license is to be able to fly by yourself, so I'm going along with it.
Last night at the bar one of my friends mentioned that there are a lot more guys than girls in Seattle. I had been denying this fact to myself, and didn't really want to believe it, but everyone else at the table was in agreement. Mathmatically speaking, there has to be somewhere on this Earth where the opposite is true. I mean, if Women outnumber men on the planet, and men outnumber women in Seattle, there must be at least one place on Earth where women outnumber men. I don't really care that much. I'm just annoyed that some girl stood me up this weekend. I was supposed to see Harry Potter with some girl I met on the internet. Dorky, I know, but I actually want to see this one, because I hear Snape becomes a bad guy, and I'm curious as to how true that is, and whether or not that fact will ruin the series for me. The thing I liked about Snape was that he was a dark character, but he was still a good guy. He had depth. If he turns into a bad guy, then every shady-looking character in that series is a bad guy, and (to me) the series becomes little more than a cheap childrens tale. Maybe it will be fun to watch anyway. I dont know. Suffice to say I wanted to see it, and I really wanted to see it on a date with a girl, because there is really no other way that you can watch a Harry Potter movie. Now, it seems that I won't be seeing that movie, and I basically just wasted all that time chatting up that girl, and I have no idea what random thing I said that pissed her off.
My car continues to be awesome. It's name is definitely Jessica now, and this time I'm the one who named it. That reminds me: Katie, the ninja 250 I sold to a guy at work, has a new life as a gift to some girl. I told the guy who rebuilt it that its name was Katie, and he said he'd pass that on.
When my flight training is done I plan to save up for another bike. I also am going to find someone to make me a ski harness, so I can strap skiis onto my back, ride to Mt Rainier, park in the motorcycle parking area, and then hike the mountain, and then ski down and rode home on my sportbike.
Speaking of "when my flight training is done," I have a huge list of "when my flight training is done." I'm basically putting my life on hold until someone signs a piece of paper saying I'm allowed to fly a Cessna with some passengers. The reason--and I can't believe I'm admitting this publicly--that I'm even doing this is because of a girl. It was one of those times where I fell in love with some girl and she didn't feel the same way and I decided I needed to make my life more interesting. You know, that live-life-to-the-fullest, sieze-the-day, do-anything-but-sitting-at-home thing. I didn't realize at the time just how much time and money it costs to get a flying license. I am beginning to think that "carpe diem" is a load of crap, and the next time I hear someone talking about living life to the fullest, I'm going to inform them that it is too expensive.
In other news, I have a Miley Cyrus song stuck in my head. Normally this wouldn't be a problem. I tend to like artists that most people hate or look down on, like Nickelback, Avril Lavigne and Taylor Swift. However, my good buddy Mark pointed out to me a particularly dumb lyric in the particular Miley Cyrus song that is stuck in my head. Why is this a problem? This is a problem because my method of getting songs out of my head--unstuck, if you will--is to listen to them over and over and over and over again. Which is what I'm doing right now, actually. But thanks to Mark, every time I hear that stupid, stupid line it causes psychological pain. Ironically, hearing Mark complain about this song is also the reason it is stuck in my head in the first place. I'm not sure what to do. This damn song is so catchy. Why couldn't they write better lyrics? I don't even know who Miley Cyrus is. I just know that people on the internet like to make fun of her.
Yeah. That's right. I'm up at 12:40 on a Sunday night in my PJs writing in my blog and listening to Miley Cyrus on youtube. You know what? You're reading it.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Free: Free as in Free speech? Or Free Beer? Or Free kick in the balls?
Some noteworthy things have happened in my life. Like when Heather broke the door while she was trying to hold it shut so I couldn't get in. I still can't tell if she's interested. And like Luke and I hiking Mt. Rainier in snow, wearing t-shirts, and sliding down the slope in our sneakers. It was like an odd combination of ice skating and being in the ministry of Silly Walks.
Those events, however important and interesting, are not the subject of this post. Ubuntu is pissing me off, and I don't have anyone to complain to about this sort of thing because no one cares:
It all started when...well lets say it started when I became fascinated with the Google Web Toolkit. You can get it in the form of an Eclipse plugin that lets you just write a Java class, which the Google stuff turns into an ajaxy web page with no further intervention. I can get a web app running without even touching a web server. The downside, for me, is that the only way to run your app outside of a test environment is probably to upload it to the Google App Engine, which I'm not sure I'll want to do.
Anyway, this Eclipse plugin requires you to have Eclipse 3.3 or later. That's pretty reasonable. I think 3.3 is pretty dated--in fact I think it was dated when I was still in college. I think it was dated when Abraham Lincoln was president. Anyway, the version that I had on my Ubuntu system was 3.2--so I upgraded. Not Eclipse, Ubuntu. The new version of Eclipse was not available for my version of Ubuntu, so I upgraded said operating system.
That, my dear reader, is when the trouble began. You see I've upgraded Ubuntu before. Last time I upgraded Ubuntu, it was because I had Eclipse 3.2 and I thought I needed a later version to make JUnit work. I did a full upgrade of Ubuntu, which promptly uninstalled my favorite mp3 player, and broke Wine and VMWare. The later two I never successfully fixed; its been a while since I've played a computer game released after 1998. Also, I still had Eclipse 3.2 after the upgrade. And JUnit didn't work.
I subsequently did get JUnit working, but apparently I never got Eclipse upgraded, because this past weekend I tried to install the Google Web Toolkit plugin and discovered once again that I have an ancient version of Eclipse. This time, I did two full "upgrades" of Ubuntu, watching my system become less and less useful as I jumped to Ubuntu 8.10 and then 9.4. Each time I checked Eclipse, and it was at 3.2. It is still at 3.2. There are no more versions of Ubuntu left to destroy my system with. I still have Eclipse 3.2. I began checking the internet for the reason. Admittedly I should have done this from the beginning, but the idea that I could go through three major revisions of an operating system without getting an update to a popular development environment that is now so outdated that nothing works with it, well that was unthinkable. The entire reason I am using this stupid, ugly and annoying distribution is because I didn't want to ever deal with outdated package versions or library/package hell again. I wanted to use what everybody else is using, and let them do all the work. Annnnd....I was wrong.
Now, my "status bar" -- a relic from the windows operating system that I hate -- is full of even more icons that I don't want. The power button in the corner of the screen no longer lets you power off the computer. It still looks like a power button--still has that power button icon--but if you want to turn the computer off, you have to click on your username at the top, and then select "Shut Down..." in the menu, which does not have any icon at all next to it. So, the power symbol means log off now, in Ubuntu world. This reminds me of something--it is kind of like that operating system where you click on "start" to turn it off. Windows. Great. They also changed the volume control: they took something that was clean and simple and made it take up more screen space with unecessary buttons. Also, now when people sign on and off of AIM an enormous rectangle appears in the corner constantly, announcing that another of a hundred people I don't talk to anymore is now online. I'm actually afraid to use my computer, because I don't want to know what else broke--I mean, got "upgraded." Maybe the new Ubuntu standard for terminal input is Sign Language. In Japanese. Maybe all of the system documentation has been translated to 100% Esperanto, in some GNU documentation standard that only Emacs can read. Maybe my Java runtime has been replaced with the "Free" version that doesnt work. I mean, I don't know. Actually, I kind of do have kind of a clue. I'm pretty sure half of my video codecs are gone, so the next time I go to watch a movie I'm in for a real treat. Honestly? If Windows was Linux, I would totally use it.
The upgrade left me with the following options:
1) switch operating systems
2) stop using the computer for a while
3) install Eclipse outside of package management, creating a time bomb that will erupt and screw up my setup if the Ubuntu people get around to upgrading Eclipse before my hardware decays
4) write about this in my blog.
As you can see, I've made my choice.
Those events, however important and interesting, are not the subject of this post. Ubuntu is pissing me off, and I don't have anyone to complain to about this sort of thing because no one cares:
It all started when...well lets say it started when I became fascinated with the Google Web Toolkit. You can get it in the form of an Eclipse plugin that lets you just write a Java class, which the Google stuff turns into an ajaxy web page with no further intervention. I can get a web app running without even touching a web server. The downside, for me, is that the only way to run your app outside of a test environment is probably to upload it to the Google App Engine, which I'm not sure I'll want to do.
Anyway, this Eclipse plugin requires you to have Eclipse 3.3 or later. That's pretty reasonable. I think 3.3 is pretty dated--in fact I think it was dated when I was still in college. I think it was dated when Abraham Lincoln was president. Anyway, the version that I had on my Ubuntu system was 3.2--so I upgraded. Not Eclipse, Ubuntu. The new version of Eclipse was not available for my version of Ubuntu, so I upgraded said operating system.
That, my dear reader, is when the trouble began. You see I've upgraded Ubuntu before. Last time I upgraded Ubuntu, it was because I had Eclipse 3.2 and I thought I needed a later version to make JUnit work. I did a full upgrade of Ubuntu, which promptly uninstalled my favorite mp3 player, and broke Wine and VMWare. The later two I never successfully fixed; its been a while since I've played a computer game released after 1998. Also, I still had Eclipse 3.2 after the upgrade. And JUnit didn't work.
I subsequently did get JUnit working, but apparently I never got Eclipse upgraded, because this past weekend I tried to install the Google Web Toolkit plugin and discovered once again that I have an ancient version of Eclipse. This time, I did two full "upgrades" of Ubuntu, watching my system become less and less useful as I jumped to Ubuntu 8.10 and then 9.4. Each time I checked Eclipse, and it was at 3.2. It is still at 3.2. There are no more versions of Ubuntu left to destroy my system with. I still have Eclipse 3.2. I began checking the internet for the reason. Admittedly I should have done this from the beginning, but the idea that I could go through three major revisions of an operating system without getting an update to a popular development environment that is now so outdated that nothing works with it, well that was unthinkable. The entire reason I am using this stupid, ugly and annoying distribution is because I didn't want to ever deal with outdated package versions or library/package hell again. I wanted to use what everybody else is using, and let them do all the work. Annnnd....I was wrong.
Now, my "status bar" -- a relic from the windows operating system that I hate -- is full of even more icons that I don't want. The power button in the corner of the screen no longer lets you power off the computer. It still looks like a power button--still has that power button icon--but if you want to turn the computer off, you have to click on your username at the top, and then select "Shut Down..." in the menu, which does not have any icon at all next to it. So, the power symbol means log off now, in Ubuntu world. This reminds me of something--it is kind of like that operating system where you click on "start" to turn it off. Windows. Great. They also changed the volume control: they took something that was clean and simple and made it take up more screen space with unecessary buttons. Also, now when people sign on and off of AIM an enormous rectangle appears in the corner constantly, announcing that another of a hundred people I don't talk to anymore is now online. I'm actually afraid to use my computer, because I don't want to know what else broke--I mean, got "upgraded." Maybe the new Ubuntu standard for terminal input is Sign Language. In Japanese. Maybe all of the system documentation has been translated to 100% Esperanto, in some GNU documentation standard that only Emacs can read. Maybe my Java runtime has been replaced with the "Free" version that doesnt work. I mean, I don't know. Actually, I kind of do have kind of a clue. I'm pretty sure half of my video codecs are gone, so the next time I go to watch a movie I'm in for a real treat. Honestly? If Windows was Linux, I would totally use it.
The upgrade left me with the following options:
1) switch operating systems
2) stop using the computer for a while
3) install Eclipse outside of package management, creating a time bomb that will erupt and screw up my setup if the Ubuntu people get around to upgrading Eclipse before my hardware decays
4) write about this in my blog.
As you can see, I've made my choice.
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