The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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Perhaps I should explain to the new visitors to the cafe, that I am the bloke who sits in the darkest corner with a copy of "Electronics for Dogs", wires, batteries, various powdery substances, and a holey cheese, while muttering "The Milk Marketing Board will regret stealing my patented Cheeseaerator. Oh yes, they will! Buggrit, buggrit, I told 'em! Millenium hand and shrimp!". This fascinating pastime keeps me happily occupied, along with the coloured wool, so I don't say all that much. Except when I cause a train wreck. Or else to cause a train wreck. I find it hard to distinguish. Oh, is it time for my medication again? Too kind. All the pretty colours!

You must also watch for crocoducks......

ow, so if i understand correctly, all is solved then, gromit did it ! !
and we must see that he stays occupied with harmless electronic stuff (?!) so that he doesn't feel like train driving or so and then all is fine.

have a muffin gromit ...

One must ALWAYS have mad duck tape at ones disposal. It's uses are many, however as Richie has been so kind to point out, the one above should cause deep concern for all our little barnyard friends. I mean, dingos ate my baby, takes on new meaning when you have such beasts in the wild. Mad duck tape is indispensable. If mad duck tape were in the train wreck that Gromit had in his backyard it could have been prevented...trust me.

It is important to keep the dingoes from the baby, too. Crocaducks are still rare, but dingos and eagles still like to eat small ducks and children. Mothers, do your jobs, Fathers, go to the hardware store now!! The child in this picture is not mine (err, I don't think, I never know), however, it is a picture from my, Pick a Pet and Child Daycare Center. In this case notice there is no duck tape over the duck or the childs mouths, it was feeding time and it had been removed.

(lemon did it)

Hmm..... And I always thought duct tape was just for the bedroom!! !

Many many uses. I mean NASA invented it, holds car fenders in place, replaces windows, keeps peas on the knife and holds things firmly in the bedroom. One must always be firm in the bedroom.

Me? Cause just one leeeettle train wreck and a few other perfectly harmless minor mishaps, and you get the blame for everything. How about Chuck and his Feng Shui landscaping with all natural, guaranteed organic explosives? Or Lau's computer with the Doomsday Button? He thinks I don't know about that, but I do! And have you seen Postie's dog? The Japanese made films about that dog coming out of the sea and eating Tokyo!


They took it away from me. They said don't I remember what happened the last time I had sugar? No, I don't. Nothing happened. Sugar is a perfectly harmless substance. I can deal just fine with sugar. I was merely a little frisky. Chuck and Postie's dog had hardly any trouble at all restraining me. I don't see what the fuss is all about. Can you send me another muffin? In a plain brown paper bag? So they don't know what's in there?

I just realized I am grieving for all my book notes lost on my hard drive. . .

it has been a rough week, glad I can practice with the Cafe Choir the "twelve" song and nod my head about the guy that though they could teach you to clap. They thought they could teach me to dance. . .after all, just watch the person in front of you and doesn't your body just follow?

I never understood why people thought cheerleaders were dumb. . after all. .they had to work so hard to remember every little routine. .whew! if I tried to do that, I would have to be a GENIUS!

I am watching Tyra Banks' "America's Next Top Model, although they play the past seasons endlessly on some middle range cable channel so why should I bother getting each one weekly. . .anyway, Heather is pretty open about her Aaaaaahsperger's and Tyra askes her point blank about her eye aversion, etc. Our girl Heather was voted 'model of the week' twice now. I hear you can go on www.covergirl.com and vote for her, but I got distracted by uploading a pic of me and trying on the different makups. I look pretty good as a black woman!

Merle

It's always the quiet ones you gotta' watch out for!

A little story...

Last night (early this morning, for me) Postie had a tiny bit of password trouble. What I haven't told him yet is what had happened a few hours before to me.

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Last night was my oxymoronic "Asperger Social Group" meeting. A newish member who lives near me had asked if I could give him a lift. I knew he was into computers and music (he performs and composes), so I mentioned 64Studio (as he was complaining about Vista being grimly slow and that it wouldn't run half the programs he uses on XP).

So, I went round a little earlier armed with the freshly downloaded/burned live CD of 64Studio (which does anything/everything with audio/visual stuff, so I'm told, but I'd never tried it) plus I also took my newly constructed "Linux on a Stick".

We stuck in the CD and went to start it up. But then I remembered about my stick and decided to just try that out first (as I've no idea what 64Studio is like, and I wanted to show off the latest snazzy Ubuntu/Compiz desktop, which makes Vista look like a duck, with extra tape).

As it boots up, from the stick, I couldn't quite figure out why it seemed to be accessing the CD as well. A puzzle, which I put off thinking about.

Anyway, up comes a moderately familiar Ubunu screen... but... it's asking me for a username?

I've run lots of live CD versions of Linux. They never ask for usernames. What's the point? They're "read-only", so it's not as if you can overwrite them or anything.

I was stumped. I obviously had omitted to "Read The (whole of the) F***ing Manual". It eventually dawned on me that this is running off my USB memory stick. It's essentially the standard "Live CD" of Ubuntu, but with some tweaks that allow me to write stuff to it. So, yes. It does warrant username/password protection.

I tried a whole range of possible guesses: root, admin, guest, etc. Nothing worked. Then, by a bit of guru stuff, I discovered that the username was in fact "ubuntu". OK. So my guessing skills aren't that great. I did correctly guess, first time, that the password was zilch/nada/nothing/blank/none - as in, leave it empty.

Up came the nice desktop, but with another problem. The touch pad on the laptop didn't seem to want to work. Failed to sort that, but grabbed a USB mouse. That didn't work either (this is really very strange, for a Linux system. Except that the version on my stick is the somewhat iffy "Tribe 5" beta release of Ubuntu 7.10, which is VERY "bleeding edge").

Time was running on a bit, so we gave up at this point. We'll sort it all out some other time.

I did discover why the CD had been being accessed during the start up. This Ubuntu is a really clever thing. The version booting from the USB stick had obviously noticed that the CD had stuff on it. Being helpful, it had trawled through that CD, and found all the "goodies" on it. When we eventually had got into the desktop, we actually had all the full-blown audio-visual composing/editing/playinmg suites of programs at our fingertips.

Anyway, I've left him the 64Studio CD. I suspect he'll have better luck with his touchpad/mouse booting directly from that. Hopefully it'll prove useful.

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The Asperger Social Group was good too. I tried to convince everyone that cashmere was made from llama wool in Tibet. Everyone else was fairly sure it was lambswool, or from special sheep. One person DID say something about goats, which I ignored. The answer is a lovely blend of them all - cashmere comes from the Tibetan cashmere goats. (Not those lamas that I confused with yaks, or, if they're female, dris).

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PS. *** = lam

Tyra Banks, Heather? If they have the launch codes I'm concerned, if not, I guess I'd rather not know. Apparently they have something to do with beauty and cheerleaders. Hell I still think Mae West is someone I'd like to meet in the after life.

Jeeezuse H. Louise, Merle, you think that's why W figures he's got it all covered? He could do those cheerleader routines and he's a damn gee-knee-us because of it. Gawd, I'm to old for cheerleader camp, maybe I'll send Ike instead.

Although, I bet I still can do a mean Jitterbug, my Cha-Cha is probably pretty rusty. Ballroom dancing classes, damn how I hated them, they made you touch a girl and I was painfully shy. I haven't lost a partner on a Jitterbug swing since class room practice. Wasn't my fault I tell you, she just missed the grip after the swing. Her fault not mine and that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Mad duck tape would have helped though. Hand to hand combat, Kodokan Judo and Jitterbug trained, all before the age of 20, I'm lethal I tell ya.

The first time I danced with a boy I was in the 7th grade. I didn't know him by name, but had seen him in the halls. I wasn't the slightest bit attracted to him, but I had no aversion to him either. At any rate, he saw me standing idle in the gymnasium and asked me to dance. Even thought I didn't really want to dance, I didn't want to reject him even more. I was 5'2". He was a tad shorter than me and had thick-lensed horn rimmed glasses and his hair was slicked back with Alberto VO5. I knew the smell. It was a slow dance. He slouched a bit and pressed his ear against my cheek. Every time he broke the ear-cheek connection, it felt and sounded like a plunger. The other boy I danced with was almost 6 foot and weighed about three hundred pounds. He was in my Latin class. We jitterbugged and when he swung me, I went flying like a duck in a poodle skirt. I also danced with my best friend Sandy who'd had polio and dragged one leg. We were an eclectic bunch.

Quoting Lau:

I've always wanted a cashmere sweater but didn't want to pay the price. But now it has just occurred to me that eliminating five trips to the Dollar Store (one per week @ twenty bucks a shot), I could afford the price of a nice sweater. Who says I can't do math?

Yesterday I paid a visit to my old hometown library. It doesn't have the same feel to it anymore. It's carpeted and the one huge room has been divided into three. The smell I used to love is gone. It was probably a combination of paper, mildew and floor wax. They also installed a little central desk area for the librarians. There were three librarians on duty. One of them looked vaguely familiar. I stared at her for a bit until I recollected who she was. I said "I think I know you." She looked at one of the other women and both rolled their eyes. I don't know why they did that, but I'm used to that kind of thing. "Is your name Peggy?", I asked. She said it was, I told her that I went to elementary school with her, and that I couldn't remember her last name. She didn't offer it, but told me what it was after I asked. She had a look on her face that indicated she did not recognize me. I told her who I was and she nodded. I also told her that I am very good with remembering faces and voices. She said she was not. Throughout that exchange the other two women looked smirky. They didn't approve of me. I had big silver earrings, beads around my neck, hair in a pony tail, and was wearing jeans and flip-flops. They were all dressed very matronly and spoke in a quiet, sedate manner. The library didn't have a copy of "Look me in eye" so Peggy ordered one for me to be delivered to library in the town where I reside. When I got home there was a package on the porch addressed to me. It was from my friend that I had spent time with recently in Atlantic City. It was "Look me in the eye".


The thing that I wonder about is: Why do I remember (recognize) people who don't remember me? I mean absolutely noting to Peggy and she means absolutely nothing to me. She had unique eyes and a unique and subtle smile. We were never pals. She was in my third grade class in 1950. Fifty seven years ago. This happens to me all the time. Faces make an impression on me. And people with Asperger's are supposed to be face blind. I think it's because I stare at faces and photograph them. Maybe that's the case.

BBRRRRR! My furnace decided to quit working last night. It got down to 0 Celsius with a wind chill of -4. I haven't heard from the landlord yet and I talked to him last night. It's bloody cold in here!!

Good thing for cashmere, yak, llama, alpaca, silk, angora(rabbit), mohair (which comes from the Angora goat), merino(sheep), corriedale (sheep) or we'd be even colder. And I'd have to find a different perseveration! I met a lady a month or so ago who spins merino wool and can add hair from certain breeds of dog into it. Collies and shelties work the best and I think I'm going to send her some of Pongo's hair and see how it spins. Lord know he sheds enough.

I do custom work and designing. Friends get a good deal (just buy the yarn, labours free) and I guarantee it won't fall apart!!

I have a photographic (eidetic) memory and never forget a face. I can't always read them properly, but I always remember how they looked. Maybe you have the same thing.