something to do

My iBook woes continue. Several people directed me to this solution, which sort of worked. She starts up if she’s plugged in, but when I unplug her, she locks up. I tried removing her battery and resetting the PMU again, and she’s currently fdisking. I was hoping I could help her out myself, but I think she’s going to need professional help.
Oh well. It still feels bizarre to write at my office desk, but somehow I’ll manage. Kwrite does all sorts of nifty highlighting and stuff. It’s fun to watch links change color while I’m writing them.
Ah, I am so easily amused!
Yesterday, I took the morning off, and surprised Anne with a trip to Disneyland to see the Haunted Mansion Holiday. My pal Eric works there, and he totally signed us in. Thanks, Eric! You rule! 🙂
The crowds didn’t show up until we were leaving around 3p.m., so we were able to hit all the fun rides that we love, and even made a trip to DCA for some Soarin’ Over California. It was cool to see the Tower of Terror facade that’s pretty much finished. The kids at Disney have done a fantastic job again with the Haunted Mansion Holiday, and I strongly urge everyone who can make it over there to check it out.
I’m working my ass off on a few nifty projects, Nolan is sick, and the holidays are looming, so I don’t know how much time and energy I’ll have to update my site over the next few days. I’ll dump some interesting links here to keep WWdN readers busy until I can dig some entertaining junk out of my brain.

  • Biz Stone wrote a great article for Blogger’s knowledge base called How to Get a Book Deal With Your Blog. I enjoy reading Biz’s articles, because they’re funny and informative, like School House Rock without the singing.

  • Is it just me, or does Strom Thurmond’s daughter look like a dude in bad drag?

  • I’ve been listening to The Cure’s Disintegration and Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration and Violator like crazy the past few days. I don’t know what it is about Plainsong, but every time I hear it, it’s like there’s a chain connected to my heart and the back of my head, and the song grips it, and gently pulls me up toward the sky.

  • My buddy Rob is an amazing magician. If you’re looking for a magician for a party or something, you should call him.

  • Powell’s does a newsletter, and Dancing Barefoot gets a fantastic review on page six! (Thanks to Amber, who sent me the link.)

I think that’s all for now. I see that my iBook has woken up, and wants a software update. One of the updates has to do with the battery, so maybe that will magically make everything work again.

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78 thoughts on “something to do”

  1. I’m curious, did somebody force you to make a derogatory comment about Strom Thurmond’s daughter?
    I guess nobody has ever made derogatory comments about you. If they had, you would know how much it hurts when it gets back to you.
    I don’t think she has much control over her alleged masculine looks.

  3. It doesn’t get any better than “Violator”. I’ve bought — subsequently lost — and re-bought that disc more than any other.
    Reach out and touch faith.

  4. Why dont you just reverse the polarity wil?
    surely that would fix it.(your iBook)
    Its Geordis answer to everything.
    (sorry, ive just been watchin star trek all night and im still thinkin on ST terms.)
    I compleatly agree with Ron.
    but because i like you so much im going to overlook that remark and call it a bad lapse of concentration and memory.
    tis the season to be jolly!
    dont you know its Christmas?

  5. “Is it just me, or does Strom Thurmond’s daughter look like a dude in bad drag?”
    Kinda like John Goodman dressed like Linda Tripp?
    /got ya a window seat, i’ll take the aisle.

  9. Make sure you clear the PRAM on the iBook often. You can also try replacing the cache. I did this on an old Mac PowerPC and it now works beautifully.

  10. Regarding iBook problems: my wife’s iBook had a similar problem a little while ago, and after running every diagnostic known to man, I finally gave up and called Apple. They said, “Sounds like the battery’s dead. We’ll send you a new one!” and sure enough, it worked perfectly.
    No amount of low-level Unix mastery can help you when your hardware fails. I wasted a week on my fiddlings, compared to two days waiting for a new battery. Someone told me that’s what tech support is FOR, but I still don’t believe them.
    But if it makes you feel any better, my friend’s new Dell laptop lasted two whole weeks before it took itself out in a puff of smoke. So by comparison, your laptop-turned-desktop (essentially) is almost a gift, right? 🙂

  11. Wil,
    I do all of my writing in OpenOffice myself. If I am blogging I simply…
    1. Write the entry in OpenOffice
    2. Spellcheck etc
    3. Paste into MT and add any links I want to add
    4. Save and enjoy.
    This saves the hassles out of spending too much time manually checking spelling and lets me get my thoughts out fast and furious. Hope this helps, but you have probably already considered and rejected the idea.
    – Mitch

  12. Black Celebration and Disintegration.
    Those two have never left my rotation for more than a few weeks since they came out. I’m more of a Music for the Masses man, with Depeche, though.
    The older I get, the more amused and amazed I am by the ability that shared music has to create a bond with people my own age. When we reach the point where we all have some little device on us that lets us beam text files to each other, everyone should just carry around a 20 favorite bands/albums list. 90% of the time, I can tell whether or not I’m gonna like someone by knowing what music they listen to. It’s not that I screen people based on that, but you can tell a ton about shared attitudes and experiences from what people listen to.
    I recently posted something in my livejournal to the effect that if there’s a mutual attraction between me and a girl and she was into The Pixies before 1992 or Joy Division before 1989, I’ll probably fall for her.

  13. I usually enjoy reading your site, Wil, but your comment about Strom Thurmond’s daughter was gratuitiously mean. Definitely not in the holiday spirit. I know it’s your blog and your thoughts and everything, but I don’t think Ms. Washington-Williams deserved that particular one. She’s probably getting enough flak as it is.

  14. wil,
    have you tried zapping the PRAMs?
    when you first power on the iBook, hold down command+option+P+R. keep holding them until you hear the startup chime a second time. that might help.
    grant

  15. Wil, I discovered your website a couple of months ago. I have enjoyed following your life process. Although I am not a geek, I am a huge David Sedaris fan so I am looking forward to reading your book (whenever I can get my hands on it!) Happy holidays to you and yours.

  17. Will,
    Try this fix for your iBook:
    1) With the iBook OFF, remove the battery, and connect the A/C adapter.
    2) Power the iBook on, and immediately hold down Apple-Option-O-F and hold those buttons down until you hear a low, single tone.
    3) Release they keys. Your laptop should boot into the Open Firmware screen (white screen with black text).
    4) At the prompt, type in the following:
    reset-nvram
    reset-all
    The iBook should restart after that. once it comes up, shut it down completely, put the battery back in, and leave the laptop alone for an hour to see if the battery charges. If the A/C adapter detects the battery and tries to charge it, the ring around the end of the power adapter should glow orange instead of green. After the hour is up, start the iBook up and unplug the A/C adapter to see if it will stay on. There’s a known problem with some of the MacOS updates throwing a programming switch off in Open Firmware that prevents the battery from being recognized.
    You can read more about this at MAC OS X Hints, and the fix I found can be read about at:
    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030731115309803&query=battery+reset
    BTW, i’m an Apple Certified Portable Technican and work for a large school district in Ohio. We’ve had a few iBooks with similar problems and if the battery itself isn’t shot, this should fix the problem you’re running into.
    Good luck!

  18. I just love how you have to ‘trick’ your mac’s to get them to work for you. Press this button for x number of seconds while holding your breath and rubbing your tummy in a counter-clockwise motion.
    Why not just get a copy of Yellow Dog and put Linux on it… ?

  20. This is slightly off topic, but since there are a lot of mac users here,you may want to read some hysterically funny Christian propaganda about how your Imac is a tool of the devil, and communist to boot. You can find it here:
    http://objective.jesussave.us/propaganda.html
    I have been laughing at this sight for days. The Kidz section is priceless. 🙂

  21. Strom means a tree in Slavic.
    Some trees are even ugly when covered with Christmas decorations…
    Ah…Biz Stone does rock!

  22. I had the exact same problem with my iBook. It was sent back to apple, given a new logic board, and no longer has these problems and hasn’t crashed since. The various reset-power-manager and reset-nvram things probably aren’t helping; you should just send it in for repair.
    Andrew
    (still boggled by all the folks who think they should convince you to get the kind of computer they have)

  25. i had a similar problem with my gf’s laptop when restarting. it wouldn’t wake up after it was restarted or if you closed the top and it went to sleep.
    try takin a pencil and boinkin the little reset nub next to the sound jack. (left side..the hard restart button)
    it makes a little “click “and then it restarts. that might not be the problem. or the solution.but i thought it might help. it worked for me.
    nice site.
    good luck with yer computer.

  26. Can you just give us a little taste of the Haunted Mansion? I really wanted to make it out there for the holiday, but it seems like I’m stuck in web dev in Nowhere, Ohio until sometime in Feb…
    Thanks!

  27. iBooks suck. At least mine does. I’m on logic board #14. No logic board has ever lasted me over three months, and several have lasted less than a month. On the bright side, Apple has replaced the whole machine three times, so I started with a 500 MHz 2001 Dual USB iBook, and now I’m on a 2003 900 MHz 32 VRAM model. After this next logic board replacement, it will probably be an iBook G4.
    The really odd thing is that my partner has a 500MHz iBook identical to my first one, and his has been trouble-free for almost three years. So that kind of rules out environment, electrical power, peripherals (we share them all) and just about any other external factor. All I can figure is that I must put out some kind of strange lavender aura with little spikes of black lightning or something.

  28. We love it when people like coming to Disneyland, though as someone who has to work there let me just say that the more of you who put off your trip till after Jan 1st, the happier many of us will be.
    Wil, next year go to the HMH preview night; this year they had some really terrific stuff going on. If you like that kind of thing.
    Please also note that you are now the fourth celebrity type who managed to come to Disneyland on one of the very few days I don’t work, who I actually would have liked meeting. I should have tried to get a shift that day, but I was too busy trying to wake up after camping out for LOTR.
    Folks who wanted to know about the HM event, I think that MiceAge.Com and LaughingPlace.Com still have pictures up. I don’t know about MousePlanet; they might have stuff too.

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