Wibblelog

OSNews has a neat article (posted a few days ago) (warning, possible obnoxious flash ads) about the GEOS operating system as implemented for the Commodore 64, which is one of those neat computing platforms from the 80s that becomes even more interesting (to me, anyway) in retrospect than it was at the time I was originally playing with them. I remember playing with GEOS on a C64 that belonged to a parent of one of my friends in the late 80s, maybe early 90s, and thinking that it was pretty neat.  Way cooler than what I could run on my Kaypro PC at home, where I was struggling to get DesqView to run.

A few years later, early- to mid-90s, I remember seriously wanting a copy of GeoWorks Ensemble (probably version 2, and later 3) to run on my Kaypro machine after I had hot-rodded it with a VGA card and a mouse.  Too bad I never convinced my parents to get me a copy of it, because I still think it would have been neat to use.

Cool things I learned from the OSNews article:

• Apple was considering using GEOS as the OS platform on their portable computers at one point.
• GEOS was way ahead of Windows 3 (released at least 4 years later) as far as font rendering was concerned.
• Microsoft wanted to buy GEOS and incorporate their technologies into Windows 3, and Ballmer warned them that they would be crushed if they did not sell.  They didn’t sell, and Ballmer was right.
• There are people insane enough to write web browsers and jpeg image viewers for the C64.

Neat stuff.  GeoWorks (the company that made GEOS) lives on, at least somewhat, in the form of Breadbox.  It sounds like they mostly write apps for cellphones and PDAs these days, but they will still sell you a copy of what they now call Breadbox Ensemble if you really want it.

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As promised previously, here are some photos of jenny and her shiny new car. Oh, also I’m in some of them.

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So, I’ve discovered another wine that I actually like: the 2003 Louis Jadot pinot noir bourgogne.  It’s relatively mass market stuff, so it’s pretty cheap - about $20 a bottle.  (or around $13 if you mail order it, apparently) It’s simple and very drinkable, and I think it goes great with lamb (which is good, because that’s what I bought it for).  I’m presently having a glass of it with some crackers and cheese, and I like it here too.  I don’t claim to know a damn thing about wine, but I’ve at least tried enough things to know what I like and what I don’t, and this one is on my Good List.  I tried their chardonnay as well - I don’t recall what vintage it was, but it’s whatever they had at Safeway last week.  I thought it was decent too, so I’ll have to try it again sometime.

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Hooray, Jenny bought a car. 2006 Toyota Rav4 Sport V6 OMG WTF BBQ etc. RED. She picks it up tomorrow after the dealer shines it up and scrapes all the dumb window stickers and whatnot off of it. (and puts a tank of gas in it, theoretically) I’m sure she’ll be extremely pleased with it - after all, it’s RED and that’s really what’s important.

Now comes the task of selling off her 92 Explorer (also RED, of course, with RED interior), so hopefully that won’t be to much of a pain. The dealer offered her $500 for it and made up some nonsense about the transmission needing to be replaced, which is hogwash. So, we’ll sell it privately. (”on the street,” as the dealer put it)

I’ll post shiny-new-car pictures tomorrow probably, along with perhaps a narrative of the three ring circus going on at the dealership while we were trying to buy the thing. For now, I sleep as quickly as possible because I have to be at work at 8 (which is a full two hours earlier than I normally mosey in!) to be a docent for the Ubucon we’re hosting at work tomorrow and Saturday.

(Update: photos posted)

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Now it’s much quicker for me to bike to work. It’s only about 4 miles now, and it could probably be a good bit shorter if I took the more direct (but less scenic and less safe) route. Being able to bike to work in ~18 minutes is pretty nice.

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So, while I do have a cat with a water fixation (Balin), I’m very glad that he hasn’t figured out how to do this. Check out this video.

(please ignore the “View this video on Google” link for now - I’ll get that part of my video embed plugin working later)

I pity their water bill.

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