Thursdays at Lucy's

I still have yet to get MacOS X to boot properly on my new system. If I never boot into 9, then X works like a charm. The minute I restart the machine into 9, however, I can’t boot into X, getting this blue screen of death after the system startup process completes. Apparently, something is going very wrong with the machine. Today, to get any real work done, you need to be able to boot into 9. The strange or funny thing is that the system is pretty much a stock system! Hmmm… perhaps I’ll just wait until 10.1 comes out in September.

On Wednesday evening, I worked until 3:30 am on Thursday morning debugging this problem. Four hours of remarkably restful sleep later, I was back on the computer. Mr. Sandman didn’t give me any special tips or tricks, and I continued to be stumped at the keyboard. I called up the Apple Support Line when I was at work, but they need the system’s serial number in order to help you.

The work day on Thursday was typical, a little of “this” here and a little bit of “that” there. I really was itching to get back home so I could continuing debugging the computer problem; I also want to get home a little early so I could get ready for an evening at Lucy’s Teahouse with Steven, Susan, and Rae.

After I got home, I continued my work with the computer. The first hard disk is configured as follows:

8GB Partion: MacOS 9
8GB Partion: MacOS X: Currently Empty
40GB Partition: Media 1

I also purchased another 60GB for my computer at Fry’s. My best buys are almost always at Fry’s, but not today. I missed them selling for cheap some hard drives. “After paying what I did, I wish that there’s anything we can do to just take some of the equipment.” What kind of sentence is that?!? I wrote that sentence last night around 12:10 am (or this morning)… I must have been really tired!

Lucy’s was in good form as usual. Steve, Susan, Rae, and I ran into Bill Rivard, who came to Lucy’s with some of his friends, Wendy and Abraham (cool name!). The four of us were dressed in funkily last night. Rae had her Commie hat that she bought while in Beijing, Susan was wearing this black (or purple) velvet-like shirt/dress, and I was wearing my Tai-Chi shirt that I got in Hong Kong. Steven was a little more casual, but at least he was wearing his wushu t-shirt!

We continued our talk about movies and television shows like Star Wars and Star Trek. I’m still surprised at how much trivia knowledge that Steven knows. He gives me the impression that he’s absorbed just as much “useless” trivia knowledge about those cultural icons as I have!

We talked about the giant ice cream cone in The Doomsday Machine, a classic TOS episode. The music as Kirk stands on the Constellation waiting to be beamed out is to die for! I remember eagerly anticipating reruns of that episode since it was sooo gripping and classic! Some people speculate the Commodore Decker was the father of William Decker, the captain of the Enterprise from the original motion picture. I think that was confirmed in Vendetta, which would be an interesting twist to the relationship between Decker and Admiral Kirk in that movie. Hmmm… never thought about that, but it makes sense.

In The Doomsday Machine (TDM), Commodore Decker pulls rank to take over the Enterprise. In The Motion Picture (TMP), Admiral Kirk pulls rank on Captain Decker, taking over the Enterprise (sound familiar?) to confront V’Ger. In both cases, the alien starship/object is capable of great destruction. Wow… thinking of this is getting my creative juices flowing. Cool! To see the giant ice cream cone in action, check out the 60-second episode preview from the StarTrek.com web site. Classic!

We stayed well after Lucy’s officially closed for the evening, but the workers didn’t seem to mind. The food and drink were excellent as usual at Lucy’s. I had the pork dinner and the Sweet Memory tea. I definitely had some good memories from this event. As we were leaving, we said our goodbyes to Bill and his friends. We walked up Villa Street past Castro Street to Susan’s car. The air was fresh and crisp with the sound of techno from The Lime Light nightclub streaming by. I haven’t been dancing in a long, long time, ever since I was in Rhode Island in June. Hmmm… maybe it’s time to strap on the dancing shoes again?