Categories
Music Philosophy

Home Free

My Tchou Tchou has been away for several weeks, caring for her Mom in the hospital in Urumqi. I just heard from her this evening that her Mom died in the early morning today.

I’m so sorry, Tchou Tchou. I remember this feeling well…

So I sit alone in my apartment, crying tears for a woman I never got to meet. Some comfort comes from the words to a song from my Christian past, “Home Free”, by Wayne Watson:

I’m trying hard not to think you unkind, but Heavenly Father,
If you know my heart, surely you can read my mind.
Good people underneath the sea of grief,
Some get up and walk away, some will find Ultimate Relief.

Home free, eventually,
At the Ultimate Healing, we will be home free.
Home free, oh, I’ve got a feeling,
At the Ultimate Healing, we will be home free.

Out in the corridors, we pray for life;
A mother for her baby, a husband for his wife.
Oh, sometimes the good die young, it’s sad but true.
And while we pray for one more heartbeat, the real comfort is with You.

You know, pain has little mercy, and suffering’s no respecter of age, of race, or position,
I know every prayer gets answered, but the hardest one to pray is slow to come, “Oh Lord, not mine, but Your will be done.”

Oh let it be.

Home free, eventually.
At the Ultimate Healing, we will be home free.
Home free, oh I’ve got a feeling.
At the Ultimate Healing, we will be Home free.

“Home Free”, by Wayne Watson (4:45, 2.1 MB)

Categories
This Week Online

This Week Online: Week 47

Keera loses her eBay virginity.
Jason writes an essay about filmmaking that’s too hard to summarize.

Categories
Antiwar Music

Christmas is Coming

I’ve been looking forward to the Christmas season this year for quite some time because I’ve got something awesome to share with you. Last year, I posted the mp3s to my absolute favourite Christmas album of all time, Sunshine and Snowflakes, but I did it on December 23rd last year, which was a little late I suppose. This year, I want to make sure I blog about it well before Christmas. Besides, a lot of you weren’t regular readers of my blog back then, and so you might have missed it.

Sunshine and Snowflakes is great! It’s a choir of “40 kids singing at Christmas”, very upbeat and uptempo, and they sing the familiar carols with a twist, plus a bunch of originals. Do check it out. It came out as an LP in 1973 and has long since been out of print. So I digitized it and you can download the mp3s here.

Now I must admit that I’m very biased about this music because I grew up with it, but I’m not the only one. There are thousands out there, like me, who grew up with this music too. Some of them played it at home, some heard it at school or church, and many performed it when they were kids. I know this because they’re searching for the album online and they’re finding my post from last year. Check out the comments! They’re incredible. I’m bringing so much joy to people through this gesture, and I hope it continues. I’m even somebody’s hero!

So, if you’ve not done so already, head over to last year’s post and download the music. If it’s new to you and you like it, leave a comment. And post a link to the page on your blog or website. I’d appreciate that, and so would the people you help reunite to this beloved music.

To round out the story, a family-run business called Sweet Music that deals in out-of-print records and tapes of Christian music is, independently of my site, offering CD-Rs of Sunshine and Snowflakes for sale. The cool thing is that they’re based out of my hometown of Edmonton. Sweet!

Merry Christmas everyone. Share the joy!

Categories
FreeBSD Linux Python

Ubuntu + Python + BitTorrent trouble

I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced trouble with the Python that comes installed with Ubuntu when trying to use the official Python BitTorrent client. (Note that Ubuntu comes with a Python BitTorrent client, but it’s completely different than the official one. Seems like a rewrite. I don’t know its origin.) Anyway, the official btdownloadcurses.py eventually hits some error that screws up the screen drawing, and btlaunchmany.py eventually stops working and begins sucking up 100% of the CPU.

I’ve seen lots of discussion regarding different clients and different OSes with regard to the 100% CPU usage. But I don’t think this is related. Now my intuition told me that the fault lies with Ubuntu’s Python installation. The above problems occur under Hoary and Breezy, and I’m using Python 2.4.2 of the Ubuntu base installation and BitTorrent 4.0.4 downloaded from the BitTorrent website.

So in an experiment last night, I grabbed the sources from www.python.org and compiled my own Python 2.4.2 from source. So far, the official BitTorrent client hasn’t cracked or croaked when running under this Python. So there is something weird about Ubuntu’s Python installation. I wonder what’s different about it.

Update: Well, I spoke too soon. After two days of running soundly, the client gave up the ghost just like before. So, now what? I guess I’ll go back to FreeBSD.

Categories
General

The Blog Post Has Landed

For the last week and a bit, my Tchou Tchou has been in her home town of Urumqi, in Western China. Her mom has been seriously ill and in the hospital, so my life and my mind have been quite preoccupied with that lately. I, myself, have been nursing a cold all week, so that, too, has caused me to slow down and reflect.

It’s my Tchou Tchou’s birthday today, so we’re having to celebrate apart. I’m happy that she can be with family and with her mom right now, but I wish it were under happier circumstances.

Now this blog post has been in danger of being thrown out many times. It could go in so many different directions, and I’m just not focused enough to bring it down for a safe landing. I just feel the need to write something. I have so many ideas sometimes, and these just evaporate if I don’t write down at least the topic. But I’ve neglected this blog for too long, only posting about technical goodness and nothing else. That’s a fault I will either correct soon, or continue to beat myself up over.

Well, it looks like this post has landed after all, for better or worse.

Categories
This Week Online

This Week Online: Week 46

To preface this week’s “This Week Online”, I just want to point out that I am pleased to find that, by doing this, I’m building quite a nice resource for myself, namely a brief history of people and ideas I’ve found interesting and useful over the weeks. Here’s the latest installment:

Tony is impressed by an innovative, new stapler.
Joanne discloses the Chinese government’s real stance on trademark violations.
Jim finds a new way to express himself online.
Tom shares a great audio conversation with the blogosphere’s Robert Scoble.
Bruce drops several gloves as he recounts the Sony root kit story.
Allan instructs how to speak Chinese to a non-Chinese person.

Categories
This Week Online

This Week Online: Week 45

Tony has trouble explaining what he does for a living.
Chris announces the arrival of the Beijing 2008 Olympic mascots.
Joanne does too.

Categories
Antiwar Speech

CJSR is Podcasting Now!

CJSR, the community radio station from my hometown, is podcasting now. More specifically, it’s just the CJSR News Department that’s doing it.

Yeah, yeah, I know. News sounds really boring. But it really isn’t news—the word “news” is the wrong word. Really, what the News Department does is spoken word stuff, local happenings, interviews, lectures, and informative programming. So it has little to do with the “6 o’clock news”.

A lot of the programs are particular to Edmonton. But my favourite program, and the only one I regularly listen to, could easily entertain a global audience. It’s called “Radio Outpost” and it’s a travel show for budget travelers. Travel stories, travel documentaries, and travel tips. Check it out.

I also like “Youth Menace”, Canada’s only young offender/child welfare show, hosted by and for youth. It covers issues that touch a lot of people in our society, often the most forgotten.

There’s a whole lot more than these, so look around the site.

A nice feature is that the individual shows have RSS feeds so you can subscribe and have the shows automatically downloaded to your computer and put onto your mp3 player. The site also has an overall RSS feed that’s a bit hard to find, so here it is for your convenience. Rock on, CJSR!

RSS XML feed:

Categories
Audio

CJSR Streams Are Back Online

I’m happy to discover that the CJSR streams are back online. Woot! I’m listening to “Prairie Pickin'” right now as I write this. 🙂 Both of their servers have been down since about June 2005, I think. So it’s been a long time coming.

The easiest way to connect is via my Radio page, and you might be interested in their program schedule while you’re at it.

CJSR, I’ve missed you!!!!

Categories
This Week Online

This Week Online: Week 44

Tony is confused by Google’s preference for Windows over Linux.
Keera is still processing. And she asks, why death?
Merlin tells us how to write sensible emails.
Bruce cries out for the creation of lots of new hash function designs.
Tom yawns about Microsoft’s most recently announced services.
Michelle discovers paradise, and its name is Nelson, British Colombia