So I went to see Morrissey the other night at the Hummingbird. Naturally, being disorganized, I went first to Roy Thompson Hall, thinking it'd be there, but only the Symphony was there, not Morrissey. I was also late for Morrissey, mostly due to a malfunctioning 401 series highway that only had 1 lane open near highway 10. That caused the missing of 'The Dears' - who opened for Morrissey.

Morrissey sung well -- still has a great voice Probably 150 people rushed the stage to body tackle/hug/smooch him, but he took it all graciously and the pro that he is, never missed a beat and kept on singing.

I noticed that the keyboard player had a signature edition Moog Voyager, as well as a Haken Audio Continuum Fingerboard (a fretless keyboard controller I desperately lust after)

If you're not familiar with his work, Morrissey was an icon of the 80's (also of the Smiths) and his songs are cerebral and sinister, with lots of wallowing. His major themes are always the romance of troubled youth, the eternal nature of longing, and the ultimate peril of failure. (recall one of his famous songs: "I am human and I need to be loved"). His quotes are great: You've never been in love / until you've seen the sun rise / behind the home for the blind' hehe.

I also ate tasty chicken soup and met a nice dog, Doris at a friend's friend's house. Good Stuff.

Okay, so today was the day of the Level 2 Vacuum. I am a grand-master at Vacuuming. Armed with my trusty Electrolux AERUS Guardian, I proceeded to do the Level 2. What is a Level 2 you ask? Well, first, let me assure you that it's not just vac'ing the floors. Level 2 includes the walls and the ceilings. It pulls out grit that was there since the house was built. Special attachments are invoked. How long does it take? About 6 hours to do most of the hosue. 2 Hours just for the stairs. Did you know dust settles on the edges of the inside of cabinet doors?

Level 2 is hard-core, and includes things like all hanging lights, all the cob-webs and spiders that grew over the last year in the fruit cellar, soft brushing all the wine bottles, light bulbs, --- even the back of the TV set! On the whole, 1.5 bags of dust were gobbled up, AND I did a level 1 vac just last week! The Level 2 is the precursor to the GRAND LEVEL 3, which will take place in the FuTuRE! That's a tremendous effort though, so for now Level 2 will have to hold the dust down, adn the AERUS Lux Guardian Air will handle the rest.

I urge you to take a close look at your homes -- perhaps a Level 2 is necessary. I can be contracted to teach Level 2 and Level 3 Vacuuming Skills if you trully want to be a VacMaster. Nature abhores a vacuum, but not as much as DoktorFuture abhores dust.

As nice as those ceramic knives were, I couldn't seem to find many to buy, so I ended up getting nine ultra-sharp Global knives. They are made from molybdenum/vanadium stainless steel and are hardened to Rockwell C58 I think (that's hard). They're all seamless stainless steel -- even the handle, and they cut soooooo well that I might even cook with them (so far I've used them to open a hard-drive case, and some other Misc. packages).

I had a great week spent in management trainng and team building exercises. The area was very beautiful (I took about 300 pictures), and walking all the court-yards and gardens got you covered with cob-webs, which is excellent. Huge boxwood trees and Chinese Holly. Stars were very bright -- inspiring me to start organizing some star-gazing camping weekend outages with same-minded folk.

When I got back this evening, I noticed the web server was down, as was the Windows 2003 server. Some sort of power failure (have not put in the UPS's yet). When I booted the windows box, it of course gave me trouble (DHCP server said it wasn't authoritative and couldn't start up -- wha???). So an hour to fix all that jazz. Still don't know how to set up NTP on 2003. One drive was making some 'knock knock' noises, so I backed up 250 gigs off of it just in case.

I also upgraded to the latest Nessus beta, and started the baseline scans of the network (after tunning the Gigabit interfaces a bit).

Tomorrow is family touring, as is Monday. This week should have a stone BBQ appear all magic like in the back yard.

I rested most of today, but the dust was too thick, so I vac'd the main floor, and washed some of the floor. So much dust. A-choo! I hadn't vac'd for probably 4 weeks. I used almost all of the attachments of the Vac, and did all the corners of rooms. I found various cob-webs and little bug things in little hidey-holes, so they're all sucked up.

Stomach is settling down, but man, I'm not gonna use Kitchener water for a long time. I kept the taps running to try and clear out anything in the pipes. MEMO: Get the UV filter light replacement from Culligan.

The deck is all stained now, which is great, but it was raining today. Was also going to get fertilizer for the lawn, but that got scratched as I was in bed.

Saw a great DVD this evening: Poetry in Motion, with Ginsberg, John Cale, Waits, and more. Great DVD.

I can also turn my head left again, which means my booga-chooga muscle in my back is working better. Thumb hurting when typing and mouse clicking - kind of arthritic.

While resting on the couch, I started doing some real-time algorithmic music, which was well appreciated by those who heard it. Playing with a new program: Spongefork

So I got some kind of stomach ailment, from drinking the Kitchener water. They're digging up the streets in the area, and it seems sewage keeps streaming into the drinking water -- FOR REAL. Holy s*it. So I'm on the can right now, flushing regularly, and probably only contributing to the greater problem. My head is achey and I am staring at Visio all day long.

Last week was pretty good on the home front. Gilbo is improving the deck with these nice Chinese temple gate peices, and he's re-finishing it with a better technique. Christopher has sourced flagstone for the path , and has plans for the stone BBQ. Fall will be good in the back yard methinks.

Oh will this stomach not settle down! Two bathroom trips to get this blog down. Too much information you may say, but one can never be too informed.

I got Windows 2003 server up and running, with the video streaming bits, so perhaps it will prove useful for streaming -- the other option is the Apple Quick Time streaming thing, which I will also set up and compare.

I also worked out every day last week, which was vital, since I had not exercised so well for so long. I feel much stronger, and am sure that had it not been for the exercise, I'd be totally knocked out by the Kitchener poo-water and unable to Visio.

I'm researching kitchen knives, and in so doing got a black ceramic chopper from Kyocera. What an amazing knife. Certainly not a Hattori, as I've lusted after for a year or so. Still, the ceramic chopper is fired at extreme pressures and temperatures, and is amazingly light. Above all, the blade is 'black', which makes for eerie cooking. All goths should have these black knives.

I'm also now on 'XM' satellite radio, which has an excellent interface named 'Delfi'. XM sounds pretty good. I'll by anything that depends upon satellites, for they are groovy and I like to watch them go by at night -- about the only things you can see with the smoggy city air and all.

I ate reasonably well today, but did not get enough water. This weekend, I will veritably drown in the ol agua.

Today I got to be a bit creative, and worked in Dreamweaver all day doing conceptual mock-up's and the like. I'm all buzzy since it is setting in that I'll be getting an Arp 2600 (i think, it could be an Arp Oddesy, we'll see)-- my 2nd vintage synth. It's an Antique, an instrument, and a work of art all in one -- and the price quoted to me was very fair indeed! I'm also reminded today on how awesomely cool TriGun is. Vash the Stampeed sure has a great coat.

My driver failed to pick me up this morning, apparently he was sleeping. I think I drew upon my nostradamus might when I asked him to come at 7:30am instead of the usual 8:30am -- this afforded me the opportunity to get another lazy cab and still be early for work. It's hard finding reliable people to be sure.

There's a great video on Dr. Robert Moog comming out soon. I also got a phone call from Don Buchla the other day -- which is a contemporary of Moog but far more creative in my opinion -- which is awesome. I'm on the hunt for one of his mad creations -- the Marimba Lumina, which I perceive to be one of the top 3 best controllers of all time. I mean, just have a look at this. The man is a madman and a gOD. holy moley

My driver was 'stuck' today so he sent another driver to take me to work. Hrmf. Today is a research day, where meat is being put on the bones of projects. Made 2 power-points, and a few nice diagrams. Debugged a video-stream for the boss-man company address, and had a nice lunch consisting of a bbq beef wrap, but alas I had a coke, which is the antithesis for good health. I will go home and flog myself. I definately messed up my apartment last night - got to spend some time cleaning.

I'm convinced that Tivo is great. I have to network my Tivo, wirelessly, and do that Tivo media center thing. I'm always recording InuYasha, Dr. Who, Sealab 2020, Home Movies, South Park, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wolf, Lupin, Venture Brothers (awesome), etc... Cartoon and SciFi mania!

Tonight, I go to the needless markup and pay my bill, then pop by the Apple store to see the new iMAC -- a pretty peice of poop to be sure. Everyone should get a MAC.

I am in Virginia now. I couldn't reach my normal driver, Anil, so I was worried if I would get in on time -- did. I spent the morning with my boss-man, and also making some lists. Recently I've become more of a 'get things done' list maker, which is excellent. The one personal rule is: nothing ever falls off of the list. There's the OEM program, a UI Project, and a security experts group as my big 3, plus about 16 other smaller tasks to support the peeps. Breakfast today was the ritualistic Starbucks Venti Chai Latte and fruit salad. Lunch is soon, after an interview. I just love the cafe here.

After work, I go to pay my Neiman Marcus bill, which used to be substantial, but is now modest.

Slept in to 7:05am, and missed the trainer. I woke up in a panic, thinking that I may have been wrong as to what time my gym appointment was today. I went to bed thinking it was 8am or 9am, but it turned out to be 7am instead of 7:30am. Whoah. Went to the bank to get some $$ for my mom, and then drove to Buffalo, accidentally took the 405 instead of the peace bridge (not used to that route -- seemed to save time) and flew to my apt here in the USA, where I spent the afternoon reading various materials folks prepared. Sneezing a lot today. Drank a lot of water. Ate some beans. Installing Service Pack 2 on the PC laptop.