that’s my stapler

Saturday: replaced cam cover gasket and spark plugs. The gasket replacement required way too much cleaning. Next time I’ll follow my first instinct and get one from a junkyard to swap out, so the cleaning can be done separately.

Sunday: adjusted rear brakes. I have the fictional self-adjusting rear drums. When it’s time to replace the shoes I’ll look into cleaning or replacing parts so they’ll work again.

In Debian Lenny, urxvt isn’t able to update utmp by default. My solution is to simply make it setgid utmp. This might not be the thing to do on a multi-user system, but on my desktop it does what I need it to.

Here’s how to make it persistent between package upgrades

dpkg-statoverride root utmp 2755 /usr/bin/urxvt

It occurred to me that not only is Snapshot by The Art of Noise a cool track, it’s almost like it was made to be a ringtone – released in 1984, decades before downloadable ringtone mania. IMO the first 30 seconds or so work the best, but if your phone allows using the whole track have at it.

Wagoner defends GM’s reliance on SUVs.

In response to analysts’ concerns about GM’s dwindling liquidity in light of the latest slide in demand for its most profitable vehicles and the jump in raw material costs, Wagoner responded that “under any scenario we see, we’re good until the end of the year.”

What an incredible country we live in, where such short-sighted business leadership can survive even that long.  Is six months now considered taking the long view?  Do we want give our execs bonuses and other incentives based on that kind of performance?

Wagoner shouts “Save us!”

Unbelievable.  As far as we know nothing illegal has happened to bring the US auto industry to this precipice, but there’s a level of irresponsibility that matches or exceeds what went on at Enron and Worldcom.  These executive criminals deserve far worse than they’re ever going to get.  I think we should at least arrange for them to be pilloried in downtown Detroit.  The kind of violence being perpetrated against the US by its own corporations calls for retribution in kind.  That these men are getting off scott free ($1 a year salary?  This is sacrifice?) and being allowed to helm our largest corporations onto the rocks defies logic.