Install / Restore fest, Dreams, and Music, 2007 version

Got up this morning to the sounds of screaming sore legs and to the sounds of a screaming psyche. The legs I am keeping elevated per doctor's orders. The screaming psyche is the result of a bizarre dream I had last night. Apparently someone had hacked a World of Warcraft server -- the one where I often have 1st person dreams of being a WoW character. Anyway, I was being chased across Elwynn Forest by some kind of Nazi Troll Shaman (I am a human in this dream, not a blood elf as usual). I was getting seriously ganked, corpse-camped (kind of like my days on Maelstrom) and graveyard-camped by this guy. The next scene had me out of WoW and on a German Ford Tri-motor transport plane (like the one in one of the Indiana Jones movies). I was in POW garb, and this same troll from the game was sitting behind me, all decked out in his Waffen-SS uniform. The leggy blonde Aryan goddess-stewardess brings me a huge cup of hot coffee to drink while this troll keeps taunting me from behind about how he pwned me like Hitler pwned Poland back in '39. I turned around in my seat and spilled the entire liter-plus of steaming hot coffee all over his nice oberstrunfurther's uniform. The next thing I remember I was learning of the joys of free-fall from 10k feet, sans parachute . . .

I have a very long list of must-install software for this MacBook. Almost all of it is work-related. I am refusing to reinstall install WoW or any other game or RPG app until the work-related software I can install at home is installed (some of the proggies I need to put on this machine can only be done at work).

To wit:
All OS X updates done,
X.11 (needed for OpenOffice, not part of standard OS X installation) installed
OpenOffice 2.x installed
BootCamp Assistant installed (in case I have to nondestructively undo the Windows partition)
iTunes library AND playlists restored to iTunes; iPod content restored
Firefox 2.0.2 installed and updated, bookmarks restored
Flash Player for Intel Macs installed
AirPort Utility installed and tested
Gutenprint (gimp-print 5.0.0 print drivers for Epson printer w/o OEM drivers) installed and tested
Stuffit Expander (needed for other installs, think "Winzip for Macs") is installed and tested
Palm Desktop is installed and iSync Palm Syncing is activated. Palm user restored
Old contacts, calanders, etc synced to iCal and Address Book via .Mac
Flip4Mac (successor to Windows Media Player for OS X) installed.

Yesterday I mentioned Seanan McGuire's new album of filk awesomeness, Stars Fall Home. Oh. My. Fscking. GAWDS. I've known Seanan since the start of the worst year of my life (1995) I'd just moved to Lodi after spending almost 2 decades in Sacramento to move closer to a job I was to hold for only a few months and away from my then-best-friend, who had less than six months to live (neither of which I knew at that time). One night while perusing a used bookstore I met Seanan, who flounced into said bookstore, saw I was looking at science fiction and immediately proposed marriage to me. Being a red-blooded male, I accepted . . . as did the small platoon of other fiancees she was going to marry at the World Science Fiction Convention that year. My kind of wierdo! Right after that I met Michelle, who was working at the Pizza Hut across the street. Hard to not like this creative, insane wonderful young lady . . . and in the twelve years since she has grown into a wonderful singer, songwriter and (Real Soon Now, I hope) novelist of staggering awesomeness.
Summer 1995 was the Absolute Worst Summer of My Life. I lost both a decent job and a the aforementioned best friend in the span of a month. Combined with my sudden withdrawal from the SCA, I was more depressed than Weimar Germany's economy in the 1920s. What relieved the strain and kept me from ending it all was Michelle's constant stream of books and the sheer joy of Seanan.

1995 finally ended; I got through it and over it, finding myself in the process. Seanan went on to grow up into an accomplished young woman. Last year Seanan released her first album, Pretty Little Dead Girl. PLDG is a live recording of her Guest of Honor concert at the 2005 Ohio Valley Filk Festival; it got me through my hospitalization last year (Thanks again, Michelle . . .). SFH is her first studio recording (as far as I can tell) and it is AWESOME. Some of the tunes appeared on PLDG, but the new stuff . . . "Evil Laugh" is very nicely upbeat, reminds me of "Maybe it's Crazy" from PLDG . . . and I defy you to not weep when you hear "Still Catch the Tide." I cried when I read the lyrics; Seanan's voice wrung at least twice as many tears from me with the same words. You see, not too long ago, under similar circumstances, a woman I once loved spoke words like those to me . . .

Anyway, SFH is great. Get it. OK?