The No Smoking Counter is back. It looks like I’m off to a good start. Let’s see now if I can make it to that month mark! It does feel much better to not be a smoking, let me tell you! So, as I’ve said before, kids: Don’t smoke. What ever you do, don’t smoke.

I just wanted to give a shout out to the guys at Guy Cast. I recently planted the seed for The Soju Experience with them. They talked about it on their latest cast, and one of the guys bit and said he’s going to do his damndest get a bottle of this toxic waste turned dinnertime drink for the next cast. It should be noted his counterpart on the show did display a bit of hesitance… Obviously he’s the smarter of the two. But, he caved by the end of the show. Go with god, my friends.

I forgot to mention to them, they should probably have someone there who doesn’t partake of the wonderful drink. Most day after soju stories start with the words, “Well, I don’t remember, but I’m told that I…” I’d say 80% of the time I’ve had a lapse of reason and drank this vile crap, I’ve blacked out. Anyway, good luck, gentlemen!

Lastly, if you haven’t checked out Guy Cast, I’d recommend it if you are a podcast junkie. Definitely one of the top shows out there. :)

So far, so good. If you are running a server spy, you’ll notice my server is back on Linux. ;) I’m loving it! I’ve had a few hurdles, and quite a few remaining, but such is the price of freedom. It feels SO good to be free again. Not tied to the Microsoft Machine, and not tied to the utopian fog of Apple either. Life is good.

So, I just used Amarok 1.4.7 to sync my iPod video. Once again, Amarok has proved it is the most superior media player around. Worked like a charm! Plug and freakin Play. It was quick, and seamless. Much unlike iTunes. Christ that’s a piece of shit. If this is the best thing I get from moving back to Linux it will be well worth it! I HATED iTunes.

Ok, so I’ve made a few half-assed attempts lately to quit smoking and have failed miserably each fucking time. So, I’ve got a plan now to quit after I’m done with this round of cigarettes — I always have to time my quitting on when I run out of smokes… I’ve got OCDs, so sue me.

Step 1: Get on the Step 1 patches. Yes, patches work, folks. Doesn’t do much for your nicotine addiction, but it will keep it at bay while you fight the whole psychological thing.

Step 2: Clean out my car. I smoke in my car. Yes, I know that’s terrible, but I’ve been doing it since I had a car, and it’s a bit of a challenge to break that habit.

Step 3: Write down all the reasons I don’t want to smoke, and keep it in my wallet. Something to help me get through those craving sessions.

Step 4: Clean out the paraphernalia. Seriously clean out the crap.

Step 5: Live happily ever after.

So, when am I quitting? Well, I have about two packs left. That will last me maybe 4 days. So, I expect I have 3 to 4 days before my adventure begins. Wish me luck!

So, I’m writing this from KDE 3.5 on the Kubuntu distro. So far so good. Things are going as well as can be expected with switching to a new operating system. I had to install a few times as the memories came rushing back. Things like not forgetting to make your /home a separate partition, and installing the 64-bit kernels to take advantage of the RAM I have… But, after a few installs I got everything it a nice start state.

I’ve spent most of the weekend re-touring all the apps that I used to use, trying to find a new set of defaults for going forward. So far ‘ve got the following going:

Obviously, I’m using KDE for my desktop environment and window manager. I’ve used many others, and I always come back to KDE. I remember the good old days when I was really into WindowMaker. Man, that’s a really slick window manager if you want something with a low footprint. I just took a look at the WindowMaker homepage to look at screeshots. I can’t believe they are still on 0.92!! Then when you wanted to get REAL geeky, you went to Enlightenment, but you soon found out it was less geeky, and mostly just flashy. Then there’s Gnome, which is basically KDE’s arch nemisis. One of the great Linux divides. KDE vs. Gnome, QT vs. GTK, vi vs. emacs, yadda yadda. I used Gnome for awhile. It’s not a bad alternative, but I just found myself drawn more to KDE. I’m certain I will be switching over to Gnome to check it out again…

I’m really digging my Amarok. It seriously has to be the best music player out there — all platforms considered. It was one of the things I missed most when I moved back to Windows this last time. So nice to have it back.

Kopete for IMs, though, I’m not sold on it. I wish Pidgin had a 64-bit release! Come on guys! If Trillian had a nice Linux binary, I’d definitely keep paying for that.

KMail for my email… I’m teetering on this one. I may be switching over to Evolution. Evolution is a VERY sweet PIM client. I’m trying to support KDE by using their PIM suite, but, it’s not really impressing me much. I can’t get my GMail account to work on it, and well, I need my POP GMail! So, I have a feeling I will be moving to Evolution here in a bit, but they are kind of in bed with Novell SUSE and Novell is starting to rub me the wrong way.

Other than the KMail/GMail hitch, the only other real challenge I’m having is finding a 64-bit Flash Player… Yes, that’s a pretty big hitch… But, I have found a nice plug wrapper that will allow me to wrap the 32-bit player into the 64-bit environment. It will just take a bit of doing…

I’ll keep ya posted with my new Linux adventure. It feels so good to be free again!