The Lair

Heard about Skitt’s Law? Well, if not - click on the link and edjamacate yerseln. In summary, spelling or grammar flames contain spelling or grammar errors too. Pot, kettle, black… ha ha ha! to you too etc

Only, I think I want to generalize that into a “don’t laugh too hard at anyone, you might end up doing the same thing” rule.

In other news, I feel the need to vent about flavoured vodkas today. Why vodka in particular? It was one of those bad habits I picked up during my misspent undergrad days. Other than being a somewhat snobbish sounding drink to many (jeez, I don’t drink arrack and only arrack like a red blooded Sri Lankan male? what the hell is the matter with me?) I also happen to like the taste and odour. I’m not entirely sure where the myth about colourlessness, tastelessness and lack of odour came about but it’s definitely not the case as far as I’m concerned. Vodka only lacks colour, it most emphatically posseses both taste (of tap water, in the case of the infamous Rusalka vodka produced by the local rotgut manufacturer) and odour. The nicer (read: somewhat higher quality) vodka that I’ve quaffed has a distinctive smoothness about it. So why ruin things with fruity additions?

Last time I was back home, I sampled an … Absolut vanilla? Unsurprisingly, it tasted very vanilla. I’ve also mustered up the courage to sample the various citron flavoured varieties and my assessment is simple. Flavouring vodka is an abominable practice. The flavour drowns out everything else, all the subtle nuances and just feels wrong. It needs to stop now, before everybody’s drinks start to taste like lollypops. PSA ends.

Oh, and a somewhat ancient Slate article confirms that Poland makes better vodka than Mother Russia… Considering that online purchases are not possible, it looks like I’ll have to rely on the good offices of Poland (sitting opposite me) to try the famous potato based vodka. I’m surprised Skyy didn’t make the cut, though.

It seems hardly credible to a person venturing towards the city - but there is only one pub in a 3 mile radius which serves something other than the ghastly Strongbow cider. So, I venture towards The Vic in search of Scrumpy Jack and discover that the Vic kitchens are closed. It’s 1325 on a Friday afternoon. On St. Patrick’s Day. And the kitchens are closed? Fer cryin’ out loud! Two quick pints later, I was out and about heading towards the Snack shack for some quick (and probably unhealthy) fodder. Vic, you’ve just made absolutely sure that I never step inside your premises for serious drinking. No good food in a pub = no point paying a return visit.

In other news, I’ve been making promises for so long that it’s about time I showed something for it… ladies and gents, the counter assimilation has begun.

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I spent the morning upgrading to Dapper Drake, the next Ubuntu release. Incidentally, my laptop (for this is the machine which permanently dualboots Windows and Linux) started with Warty Warthog, then got a dist-upgrade to Hoary Hedgehog, then to Breezy Badger and now onto Dapper Drake. No reinstalls, just dist-upgrade each time and the major things just work (with a bit of tweaking). That’s pretty darn impressive, if you ask me.

So much for the good news. The bad news is that I spent the morning fighting Dapper Drake. At the moment, the scoreline is Dapper 1: Drac 0. There is nothing wrong with the default upgrade procedure, just a few minor conflicts with some bleeding edge packages that I had installed from other sources. The new Gnome looks very … orange and it seems that hibernation and other functions that one comes to expect from laptops actually work. Much to my shock and horror, it even seems like ACPI detects the battery charge level. Wooo. No luck yet with encrypted wLAN though. Fuggit.

The really bad news is that Dapper Drake packages a bleeding edge, SVN updated version of XFCE. My settings got hosed; my careful menu customizations were ignored and general chaos ensued. Even worse, the bleeding edge Dapper XFCE does not include all the goodies (where is lil star? why remove it? whyyyy?). Revert to the old XFCE ? Nuh huh. No can do. So, in a fit of juvenile pique, I threw the obligatory hissy fit (Oh noes. My desktop environment of choice doesn’t work!) and booted back into Windows.

My options at this point appear to be: compile the goodies from scratch off SVN source, beg/plead/threaten people till the Xubuntu crowd update xfce4-iconbox or switch to another DE/WM. I suppose its as good a time as any to try out the intriguing Ion or even the more conventional Fluxbox/Blackbox WMs but ummm… I just want to get some work done this week? I’m easily twice as productive with a familar (read: heavily customized) desktop environment than with a plain vanilla Gnome or KDE. Even worse, it seems like Dapper Drake could become Ubuntu 6.06 (instead of 6.04). The rationale for this possible delay is explained here. That means two more months before packages have to be frozen in place. *sigh*. It’s all a conspiracy to drive me back to XP, I tell you.

In other news, it appears that the student bars around campus are being threatened with closure. The response from the SU? Urge everyone to go to the bars last week (I was oblivious, as usual) and then, boycott the bars this week. Geddit? Barcott. I am Jack’s utter lack of concern about all of this though. Wake me up when the campus bars start offering edible food because till that point in time, there really isn’t much reason for a visit there.