I've found my niche

I was just messing around with the LJ search function today, and out of curiosity, searched on the place where I worked, just to see if there were any interest groups for it. I found one, kmart, that apparently only has its founder and myself as members. I shrugged and posted to it anyway. But then, looking at the founder's info page, I noticed another community...an active one...called retail_is_hell.

It's just perfect! Finally, somewhere I can read stories from life of other people who have the same problems I do, and share my problems for a little commiseration! I can already tell that reading this group is gonna be some big-time therapeutic.

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There's a meeting of the local Linux user-group tonight, and I'm thinking about taking my computer down there to get it looked at. There are two major Issues I'd like to get settled...a problem with truetype fonts that's making my eterms not work right, and getting set up to burn CDROMs with my CDROM burning drive (which I've never been able to make work). Ordinarily, I don't like to move my computer anymore, since I got cablemodem; I took it to a nearby LAN arcade a few times for gaming events, but got the feeling that the movement was putting needless wear and tear on its connections. However, it's possible that it just might be worth it this time. Heck, I might even see if I can get that pesky RealMagic DVD player software working, too.

I just have to get through a 4.5 hour workday wearing a silly t-shirt first. I think I can do that.

(no subject)

It occurs to me there are all sorts of silly little Linux problems I might get addressed at that meeting...such as the way the cursor vanishes over xterms on my box...or the way I can't get my Clie to sync with jpilot...wow, I hope there's time for it all. :)

Linux aftermath

Had a somewhat wearing and trying day today. I documented the worst incident in this post to the retail_is_hell community; I'll let you read it there instead of repasting the whole thing here.

Linux user group meeting went pretty well. As it happened, I arrived shortly after they had started talking about DVD...and since I had both ogle and Netstream2K on my box, I got turned into the primary demo unit for it. Showed them ogle, and then I figured what the heck, I hadn't been able to get it to work yet, but there was always a first time...and maybe someone there could tell me what I was doing wrong. So I decided to try demoing the NS2K player...and it worked! Sure startled me.

And they were able to help me with some other problems, too. Setting me up to burn CDs in Linux, for instance, and getting the cursor to look right in Xterm. Sadly, my greatest problem--the font glitches that make Eterm not work--was beyond them. Oh well, maybe I'll try to find a Linux community on LJ and post about my problem there.

After the meeting, we headed up to a nearby snow-cone stand. Well, to call them snow-cone was actually kind of like calling a gourmet restaurant a food place; they were a shaved-ice stand with about a zillion flavors. Other folks were adventurous; I just tried peppermint. I hadn't been too optimistic about it, as all the snowcones in the past tended to lose their flavor rather quickly, leaving you sucking on ice by the time you got to the end...but to my surprise it was actually pretty darned good. I may have to go there again sometime.

Now I'm back home, considering watching some more DVDs or trying to burn some CDs. I was going to go to bed, and get up early to drive down and surprise my folks at church tomorrow...but then I remembered an email from them that they would be "Inca municado" for the week--I think my Mom has a teaching retreat or something at Tantara, and Dad's gone along to keep her company. It's really too bad they don't have a cellphone; it would be handy in that situation.

Oh well. I guess I'll sleep in tomorrow, and surprise them another time.