SuSe did not last very long on the "new" laptop. Some file or other got corrupted and it wouldn't boot, just gave the message to manually edit the file. So I installed Ubuntu. This won't stay too long either as it is an older version and MySQL has to be compiled. Hopefully SimplyMephis will load and work out for me.

I am really sorry that Mandrake changed their name. Mandrake was a great name, easy to spell and pronounce. Nevertheless, Mandriva may be next in the series if Mephis don't work out. Something is bound to stick after a while.

My big public cooking debuit is this coming weekend. It could be that I have previously applied heat to an object and then handed it to a stranger to consume but that is not for sure and it is certain that I have never done it on the scale that will be possible this Saturday. Coffee and sandwiches do not count.

I have made all the arrangements. I have the trailer sized grill in the backyard and a hitch on my truck. I have placed the order for 500 hotdogs and buns. I bought 1,2000 napkins and arranged for all my friends to bring chips and soda.

The way I understand it, you put the charcoal in the grill, then pour on some special lighter fluid. They tell me the lighter fluid you use in s Zippo will not work properly. I have a fine looking long-nosed lighter to ingnite the fluid. After everything is lit real good, you close the lid and come back in about half an hour.

According to my source, unevenly cooked hotdogs are a fond tradition in many families, so even if I perform poorly there should be little evidence to come back and haunt me later.

Hope you can make it. We will have tofu pups as well. And the price is right.

Well, my plan of installing Windows temporarily fell flat on it's face; Windows did not recognise the USB CD drive even though that was what I was using to run the part of Windows that was telling me there was no CD drive...

Of course there might be some BIOS setting that would work around that, but who cares really, I have SuSE!

That is a Linux distro that has a nice GUI and works just fine. I wanted to try Slackware, but I didn't get too far. Maybe next laptop.

Ok, I do love my IBM 600e, but I wanted something just a hair faster, etc. I found a decent buy on an x23. The screen is a disgrace, the hinge is cracked, but I think I can live with it. It boots to GRUB>. I made a 1GB partition swap file, a 5GB root partition, and left the rest as /home. Except I left the 100mb first partition and that must be where GRUB is hanging out.

Tomorrow I will delete the /home partition, enlarge the tiny partition to fill in that space. Unless I find somebody to talk me out of that. After that I think I will go ahead and install W98 and use this laptop to download all the available updates, once and for all. After that, I can burn the updates to CD and reformat for whatever it is I want to run. Starting with Slackware.

As chief buying agent for the family, I sometimes have to boldy go and order stuff who have the bucks and don't want the aggravation. This is pretty cool: control in any for is gotta be good, and we don't want those significant others getting all web savvy on us and maybe catching on to all the fun we are having. Or maybe having fun themselves..

Anyhoo, this official buying agent status puts you in direct contact with companies that deal primarily with print catalog orders. Sure, you can phone in the order, but that is such a nightmare of holding/language barrier/upselling torture that would frighten even the most patient of shoppers.

I was in for quite a pleasant suprise when the reciepient of my proxied shopping dollars, Harbor Freight.com had a special little popup where I could enter the print caatalog numbers provided by the interested party. My little list of items grew and success seemed within reach.

One item is out of stock. Should I accept a half size larger pully or a double in the desired size? The expert is safely asleep.

Obviously this will just have to wait until tomorrow. This is where my beef comes in. Can't I save my nice little list in a wish list and come back later? Guess not. I don't even spend time trying, and close the browser.

**Note to self** If a wish list function is available, start with that and allow folks to move to the shopping cart later. Don't make them start over from scratch if the first try falls flat.