Received the Surface - Thanks! I'll be buried in it for a couple of days, at least! By the way, I'm changing the names of all my files on this end to reflect the year (-16) before I upload any more to here. I'm up to may, so far, and I just started today. Gotta do 2015, 2017 and 2018, too.

I did try one upload, and got that 'needs filename' response.

Gotta figure out a few things. I'm sure that since I have two Microsoft Win-10 computers, I can get them to communicate as a workgroup and transfer files directly. 

It'll be interesting when I try to log in here on the Surface. I'm still using the Fire tablet, now.

Glad to hear you received it. I hope it serves you well. :) 

I love this one. 

Sun Apr 11 2021 23:23:25 MST from ParanoidDelusions <paranoiddelusions@wallofhate.com>

I love this one. 

Me too! Love the little Dragon!

Sorry I haven't been on lately - my congestive heart failure has gotten worse, and I'm in the hospital to see what can be done about it. Extreme shortness of breath and weakness. It may be another week before I'm back home, maybe more. When I get back I will pick up where I left off. Still trying to get the two Win-10 machines to talk to each other and allow file transfers. I've done it before, but some things have changed in Win-10. They no longer have workgroups.

Sorry to hear about the bad news on your health, Jerry. I hope it is something the docs can get managed quickly and comfortably. 

I'll have to upload a picture of my little dragon soon. Reminds me of the guy in this picture. 

Windows 10 does move all of your cheese - and not in ways I'm ecstatic about. Still, it should be fairly easy to get them talking to one another on a network. You've got to enable file sharing now. 

Hold on a sec... 

Sat Apr 17 2021 16:56:54 MST from Jerry Moore

 

 

Me too! Love the little Dragon!

Sorry I haven't been on lately - my congestive heart failure has gotten worse, and I'm in the hospital to see what can be done about it. Extreme shortness of breath and weakness. It may be another week before I'm back home, maybe more. When I get back I will pick up where I left off. Still trying to get the two Win-10 machines to talk to each other and allow file transfers. I've done it before, but some things have changed in Win-10. They no longer have workgroups.

I'll give that a try when I get back home, but I'm stuck in the hospital and really not sure if I'm going to live or die. Of course, that's true most of the time. If I'm lucky, I may get transferred to a rehab hospital tomorrow, but I won't find out til then. If I do, I'll spend a week or two getting my strength back. If I don't, I'll have to manage a transfer from my wheelchair to the car, then go home and work on myself. Unfortunately my regular rehab hospital is full, so I'll be going to another one. I don't want to go to the one I went to last time because they had seventeen Covid deaths - the most in the county. Looking forward to being healthy again.

Well, I'm moving forward on the assumption that you're going to live - so as soon as you get feeling up to it, I hope the instructions here help, Jerry - but if you have any questions, just reach out to me. We'll set up a team viewer session if we have to and I'll remote in and help you, if you need. 

Whenever you're in the clear, you let me know - and I'll make the time to help you out. 

Avoid that hospital. That is crazy. 
Looking forward to you being healthy again, too - and I'm glad you're feeling well enough to at least check in here. Take it easy and take care of yourself. 

Sun Apr 18 2021 21:03:05 MST from Jerry Moore

I'll give that a try when I get back home, but I'm stuck in the hospital and really not sure if I'm going to live or die. Of course, that's true most of the time. If I'm lucky, I may get transferred to a rehab hospital tomorrow, but I won't find out til then. If I do, I'll spend a week or two getting my strength back. If I don't, I'll have to manage a transfer from my wheelchair to the car, then go home and work on myself. Unfortunately my regular rehab hospital is full, so I'll be going to another one. I don't want to go to the one I went to last time because they had seventeen Covid deaths - the most in the county. Looking forward to being healthy again.

Well, I'm in a rehab hospital for a week or two, but then I'm going back home. This place has a physical therapist who can help me get my strength back to the point where I can manage transfers between my bed and wheelchair (which I can already do) and between my wheelchair and the car, which is more effort. I'll still check in regularly, but won't be able to do any more than engage in conversations.

Conversation is fine. I'd rather here from you than look at pictures you upload, although I enjoy that, too. 

Just don't overdo it. Take care of yourself and we'll see you back here full force once you've mended. 

Mon Apr 19 2021 18:17:17 MST from Jerry Moore

Well, I'm in a rehab hospital for a week or two, but then I'm going back home. This place has a physical therapist who can help me get my strength back to the point where I can manage transfers between my bed and wheelchair (which I can already do) and between my wheelchair and the car, which is more effort. I'll still check in regularly, but won't be able to do any more than engage in conversations.

By the way, how are you doing? Did they get you stabilized and doing better? 

I'm still a bit weak, but feeling a whole lot better than at the beginning. I was hoping for a two week stay here, and the chance to prove that I can transfer to and from the car, which is the hardest task for me. My daughter is sick with two accessed teeth, but recovering, and will be here tomorrow for the first time in a week. I don't know if we'll be able to try it then, or have to set up a time when we can do it with staff supervision. I'm currently hoping to stay until the fifth of next month, since I have an appointment with my Cardiologist then, and would prefer to get there as Precious Cargo (Wheelchair delivery service). Then I'll feel like coming back home to get back to learning the peculiarities of Windows 10 on the Surface Pro 3. I hope I don't continue to need Oxygen, but it has helped with my occasional shortness of breath.  I may look into the cost of a Concentrator, since I don't want to deal with Oxygen bottles. I've gotten old, and I'm slowly dying of my Congestive Heart Failure, which is a very slow heart attack. I'm still hoping for another ten years, but I have to accept that it will likely be less.

Wed Apr 28 2021 18:58:13 MST from ParanoidDelusions <paranoiddelusions@wallofhate.com>

By the way, how are you doing? Did they get you stabilized and doing better? 

 

That's two Absessed teeth! Damn spell wrecker!

If you decide you need oxygen at home, let me know. I might be able to help. 

California has been in a tough spot for home oxygen, because of Covid. 

Thu Apr 29 2021 23:17:33 MST from Jerry Moore

I'm still a bit weak, but feeling a whole lot better than at the beginning. I was hoping for a two week stay here, and the chance to prove that I can transfer to and from the car, which is the hardest task for me. My daughter is sick with two accessed teeth, but recovering, and will be here tomorrow for the first time in a week. I don't know if we'll be able to try it then, or have to set up a time when we can do it with staff supervision. I'm currently hoping to stay until the fifth of next month, since I have an appointment with my Cardiologist then, and would prefer to get there as Precious Cargo (Wheelchair delivery service). Then I'll feel like coming back home to get back to learning the peculiarities of Windows 10 on the Surface Pro 3. I hope I don't continue to need Oxygen, but it has helped with my occasional shortness of breath.  I may look into the cost of a Concentrator, since I don't want to deal with Oxygen bottles. I've gotten old, and I'm slowly dying of my Congestive Heart Failure, which is a very slow heart attack. I'm still hoping for another ten years, but I have to accept that it will likely be less.

Wed Apr 28 2021 18:58:13 MST from ParanoidDelusions <paranoiddelusions@wallofhate.com>

By the way, how are you doing? Did they get you stabilized and doing better? 

 

 

So... the thing I like about the Dresden files - is Dresden is such a geek/nerd's hero. He is self-effacing and insecure and incompetent - but he wins every fight, he outsmarts every enemy. There is a quality of insecurity to the character that is equally mixed with overconfidence and hubris and fascination with being empowered over and above average people that reminds me of a lot of guys I knew from the modem scene growing up. Every girl falls for him, although everything about him would *not* attract the women he attracts in the book. These things are somewhat disruptive to the suspension of disbelief of the book - but in an amusing way that is ABSOLUTELY true to the kind of guys who shop at hobby shops like The Dragon's Den. 

As a well established King of the Geeks - the Dresden character is probably a LOT like I was back in 1987. 


I've heard lots of people warn that the writing was uneven - but I thought the writing was consistently good. It had a lot of Nouveau Private Dick tropes - and the women throwing themselves at Harry constantly was juvenile in a Heavy Metal sort of way... 


But I *love* that kind of fiction, kind of on the same level that I love Journey's cheesy cornball romantic lyrics. 


It is absolutely part of my culture as a nerd. I really enjoyed the book. 

I've been hooked on Dresden since I discovered the TV series on SciFi, many years ago. The novels are better, but I didn't know that at the time. Harry Dresden will always look and sound like Paul Blackthorn to me. Although I've heard complaints about the way they handled Bob, I loved Terrence Mann's portrayal of the character. It wouldn't have worked for later novels, but the show only lasted for one season. It got me to search for the books, and to discover Jim Butcher's other series,, which is a mashup of Pokemon and the Lost Legion that he put together on a challenge that he couldn't make a story with a dumb premise interesting by good writing. He actually doubled down on the challenge by including TWO dumb premises. I think he did a great job of it, although, just like DF, the first two books are a bit slow to start. With Codex Alera he had to do a lot of world building, so it had to go more slowly in the beginning. With Dresden Files, he was still in college, and had never written a novel before he didn't reach his stride until the fourth book in the series, but the early books showed his talent, even while he was learning the craft. He has a third series going, which is a steampunk adventure, but I haven't started it yet. There's only one novel so far, but he's working on the second one right now.

Harry Dresden is one of my heroes, and if I were younger I would aspire to be like him.

The only other Urban Fantasy series I really like is the Kitty Norville stories of a werewolf DJ in a world with vampires and other were-creatures. I'm three books behind the current release, but then, I'm two books behind the current Dresden Files novel. Damned Covid climate. I know most of what happens in them from reading many spoilers on FarceBook- one of the reasons I still hang out there. They have an unbelievably large community of users, even if they don't agree with me politically.

I can't imagine a the film industry being able to do anything good with the Dresden novels. It is very rare that a project like this gets the budget, talent, writing or vision to be carried off as anything other than transparently cheap entertainment. I mean, look how long it took them to get super-hero comics *right* - and the arrival of CGI was a big part of that - but so was realizing there was a huge market and throwing the right kind of talent and budget at the genre. Of course, then Hollywood went and fucked it up by trying to fit their social messaging and virtue signaling into every franchise. 

The Shannara series is an example of what Hollywood always does to franchises like this. It is very rare that they manage to get it as good as they did with Jackson's LoTR trilogy - and of course, Hollywood then went and blew it with The Hobbit. 

And, even when they seem to be getting it right, like they did with Game Of Thrones - they still have a singular talent to manage to fuck it up by the end. 

I can totally see a serious take on the basic premise of Pokemon being good, if done right. I'm not familiar with Lost Legion. 

I hear the criticism that Dresden is slow to start and the writing is uneven. I guess I'm not that critical - or maybe it is just that I've been a long time Stephen King reader - but Dresden seemed easy to get into and a page turner - and other than the tropes that it runs into - I felt the writing was pretty good. 

Honestly - my mental image of Dresden was this guy: 

Sun May 02 2021 07:15:16 MST from Jerry Moore

I've been hooked on Dresden since I discovered the TV series on SciFi, many years ago. The novels are better, but I didn't know that at the time. Harry Dresden will always look and sound like Paul Blackthorn to me. Although I've heard complaints about the way they handled Bob, I loved Terrence Mann's portrayal of the character. It wouldn't have worked for later novels, but the show only lasted for one season. It got me to search for the books, and to discover Jim Butcher's other series,, which is a mashup of Pokemon and the Lost Legion that he put together on a challenge that he couldn't make a story with a dumb premise interesting by good writing. He actually doubled down on the challenge by including TWO dumb premises. I think he did a great job of it, although, just like DF, the first two books are a bit slow to start. With Codex Alera he had to do a lot of world building, so it had to go more slowly in the beginning. With Dresden Files, he was still in college, and had never written a novel before he didn't reach his stride until the fourth book in the series, but the early books showed his talent, even while he was learning the craft. He has a third series going, which is a steampunk adventure, but I haven't started it yet. There's only one novel so far, but he's working on the second one right now.

 

Harry Dresden is one of my heroes, and if I were younger I would aspire to be like him.

Jim Butcher has said that there is another TV series in the works, and if it comes to be, he will have more control over the production than the last time, when he was a constant but they didn't listen to him in the end he walked from it. A lot of the fans, myself included, would like to see it done as an animated series with an anime style. That way you don't have to worry about the cost special effects or balky actors. He would still need iron-fisted control, and it might fail in the end. Too many egos in Hollyweird.

My take on the first TV show is that it was a good thing because it brought a lot of us into the fan group, where we discovered the novels. The series only vaguely resembles the first few novels, and would have been better off if they had changed the name entirely, although then I might never have read the novels, since I don't care for Urban Fantasy in general, and my other favorites aren't liked by many other fans. I like Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, but the flowery British tone of the text puts some people off. Another of my favorites is the Kitty Norville, the vampire DJ series by Carrie Vaughn. That has more fans among the DF folks, but they are into a lot of other series that don't impress me. I'm more into Wizards and Dragons than vampires and the like. I only picked up the Kitty Norville books on a whim and because of a cover, and found them to be interesting, and sort of Dresden lite. I loved the idea of a Christian dude getting turned into a vampire and refusing to give up his faith. Kitty is a Werewolf who was turned against her will.