After some regrettable downtime associated with video cards, broken monitors, USB 1.0/2.0 problems, I am now happily back up and running, this time with 3 P815s and a brand new 2.8GHz P4, stuffed into the same shabby old case I've always had. Did I mention that I now have 3 P815s? 200 bucks off of ebay. Ching!

Our house has a rose bush. It's huge and unmanageable, and we think it's inhabited by sentient bees that are controlling our minds. But after a rain it's quite pretty; it will be a shame when I DESTROY IT.

What is the protocol for blogging about other blogs? I've just recently started reading BoingBoing, which really is the new Memepool. If you're not reading it, then you're missing out on a whole lot of porn jokes.

But the point of this is not BoingBoing, except to say that BoingBoing had an article about Rance's Blog, which I have started reading. The deal with Rance's blog is that he won't say who he is, but he claims to be someone famous in Hollywood, and he can't reveal his identity because then he couldn't tell you any of the juicy stuff about Hollywood that he's telling you without getting into a lot of trouble.

But of course, he can't tell you juicy stuff about Hollywood anyway, because almost anything he says will give away who he is, and so he just makes up supposedly equivalent but false details for all of his entries. The result is relatively witty, but irritatingly unsatisfying because of all of the identity-protecting vagueness and detail eliding. So far it seems to be an inventory of what it's like to be rich and famous.

I guess my annoyance highlights what I like most about blogs: they at least try to be real while still maintaining some self-respect, so that puts them half way between reality TV and sit-coms in my book. So what does Rance offer? A contrived fiction originating in Hollywood... Hmmm, where else can I obtain such a rare thing?

I finally saw the latest zombie flick. Thumbs up! As a commentary on the human condition it is merely mediocre, but I give it an A+ for being vivid and pretty. Shiny, even. The primary thing that makes it cool is that it has speed-zombies. Not like the lumbering, brain-eating zombies of yester-year. Now we have gritty, 16mm footage of droplets of zombie blood and zombie sweat flying in perfect spheres away from the furrowed brows of the many mindless, engraged antagonists of the film as they flail and twitch their way toward our heros. Just lovely. Plus, lots and lots of Britons die, and the female lead has extremely cute hair. You love that.

My car now undenyably burns oil. Big plumes of white smoke out the tailpipe. Very classy. And now, thanks to my recent oil change, it burns Mobil 1 Synthetic, rather than the shitty Castrol GTX I was using before. The various great minds of Subaru forum-ness weigh in on the subject here.

My leading theory is "weak turbo seals". The turbo is mainly cooled with engine oil, and it has seals that prevent the lubricating oil from getting into the air ducts. But when the seals degrade, they let oil by and it burns. Over time this degredation worsens, until the turbo no longer is lubricated properly and it siezes. Then you get to buy a new turbo.

My car doesn't currently burn oil all the time, though. It's only the first time you go to full load after the turbo has been cold. Now, the lame thing is that it doesn't matter how warm the engine is, because if you're coasting or idling, then the turbo never spools and your exhaust gas is never that hot, even though the oil and water temps are both up. But the first time you dump a bunch of pressure into the cold turbo, it coughs smoke. After that it stays clear until it cools again. Irritating.