Machine
So, I'm trying to log into my machine remotely one day and it just isn't there. VNC keeps telling me "no server". I can still get to my web page (on the Linux box, go figure) so the network is still up. I've had this machine reboot for no reason a couple of times lately. When I get home I take one look at the screen "hard drive failure". That is a pretty new drive so I unplug everything and plug it back in. It comes right up. It is the power supply. "humph". The box isn't worth repairing. The $40 on a power supply would server me better if I just upgrade.
It seems like I hit this stage one every box. I have an old HP 333 that has a bad IDE channel that prevents me from installing the latest kernel of Linux. I have an old Gateway 400 that my web page uses. I also use it as a file server. The original 10 gigabyte hard drive caught on fire. That still cracks me up. It now has a 40 and a 120 gigabyte drive. I had to flash the BI/OS to get the 120 squeezed in there.
I should have a new machine on the way. Well, new to me. It is another x00 MHz box that no one seems to want. I want to take the box that I'm having the trouble with now and convert it to Linux. Right now the only thing I seem to do with it is Overnet, email and a bit of web surfing. I should be able to get away with Linux without trouble as long as the network card works under the distribution. The same NIC (Network Interface Card) will work find in one distro and not the other. It seems the cheaper the NIC the more likely it will work.
Now that Red Hat is dead (to me anyway) I have to find a new favorite distro of Linux. I will consider Fedora just as much as any other. I'm a bit miffed at Red Hat for acting like Microsoft. I'm sure they did this whole "We will support another free distro instead of keeping ours free" in order to get people used to paying for the name Red Hat. They can kiss my wallet.

Sick
What a difference a good night's sleep can make. I feel great this morning. I took a decongestant before I went to bed and slept like a baby.

Five Live
I listen to the BBC Five Live during the day. I come in at 6:30 am Central in Houston Texas. They are just starting their evening commute in England. They interview actors and singers and the like. They also have traffic reports, they call it “travel”. A couple of months ago the guy who plaid John Luc Picard on Start Trek The Next Generation read traffic. I thought that was cool. Well, It has been topped. Today they interviewed the guy who plaid Gollum. He read traffic as Gollum. It was disturbing and fascinating, just like Gollum. I pictured Gollum in a suit with a hat on the street on his way to work, daydreaming on the train, stopping for a paper, wanting an adventure.