Author Archives: ZealotOnAStick

How to Fix Your Carrier 2.5.4 ICQ “Old Version – Upgrade” Issue

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So, a couple of days ago, AOL started blocking older versions of the ICQ protocol.  I noticed this yesterday when my Carrier (the multi-IM client formerly known as FunPidgin, a branch of Pidgin) started telling me I was using too old of a version of my client, to please upgrade.  Now, all things said, this is kind of a minor thing . . .  I so rarely ever communicate via ICQ with anyone anymore, but I’ve had an ICQ number longer than any other IM identity, and what’s important, dammit, is that the potential for communication via ICQ is there.

I was still running Carrier 2.5.0, and I discovered today that 2.5.4 was available.  I upgraded, hoping that would fix it.  Nope.  I searched in vain online for information on this, news, fixes, newer code from a repository – something.  I found a slashdot article about the ICQ version change thing, which talked about a lot of IM client which I don’t use, and Pidgin’s site says that some folks in some areas were having issues with ICQ, and to just upgrade to 2.5.5, and that pretty much fixed it.

So, after some experimentation and fiddling around, if you want to fix your Carrier 2.5.4 to work with ICQ again . . . simply get the Pidgin 2.5.5 client, install it somewhere (another machine or something – I used a virtual machine, thank you VMWare) where it won’t muck with your main Carrier install, and them simply grab the liboscar.dll from the new Pidgin 2.5.5 install and replace the liboscar.dll in your Carrier install with it.  Start up Carrier and re-enable ICQ, and things should be fine again.

Bizarre Dreams

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I’ve had a couple of just downright weird, bizarre dreams lately.  I don’t even know what to try to make of what these things should mean, or what my psyche is trying to tell me, or whatever.  

First off, it’s a little notable that I’m even remembering some of these.  I’ve tended to go in cycles over my life, where I’d go a year or two of being able to remember dreams, and then a couple years of not being able to remember them at all, not even remember that I was dreaming.  Some of the stuff I’ve read about sleep cycles, dreaming, etc., suggests that maybe I’m just remembering some because I’ve happened to wake up out of dream sleep, be it due to alarm or whatever, and actively thinking about it lets me hold on to them.  I don’t know – I think it’s just sheer weird factor that makes them “stick.”

So, first bizzare dream for this entry – a couple nights ago, I dreamt that I was watching a Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Redskins game.  Oddly, it was being played at the Greenwood High School football field.  The stands on the south side of the field, which should be the Home team side, was the Redskins side of the stands for some reason.  I was sitting on the inside upper right portion of the stands (imagine it being split in 3 sections, center with the press box at the top, left and right), something about I couldn’t get seats for the Cowboy side or something.  The quarterback threw (away, I presume) a pass that was going to be incomplete, and it sailed right up over the crowd in the stands, and with me up at the top, I reached up and plucked the ball right out of the air.  This caused a considerable stir, I could hear the announcers (like, full on broadcast TV coverage) talking about it, exclaiming that for the first time in NFL history a pass was caught by a fan in the stands, and I’m holding this ball for a couple of seconds, thinking, “Oh crap, some of those big guys might want this,” and I turned around and peered down and behind the stands, and I saw a cluster of people – coaches, staff, etc., – walking towards the field sort of under/through the stands, and I threw the ball down to Joe Gibbs.  One of the announcers was laughing about it and talking about how, “wow, now he gave the ball to Joe Gibbs!” 

I remember seeing the replays on the jumbotron style monitor, and being annoyed that the camera angle was crappy, a mostly-overhead sort of isometric view, with me really small and not very identifiable.  While I could understand this, as they were surprised to see such a thing and wouldn’t have prepared for more of a zoom, I wished I was easier to see as being me.  I was (somehow) telling people on IRC that it was me that just caught the ball (met with skepticism, and “yeah, sure, whatever” sort of responses), and I twittered that it was me that just set that NFL first on TV just now, and that I needed to write on my blog about this later.

Then I started to get kinda worried and freaked out that there might be retribution from the Redskins fans (even though the announcer had said, “it’s still going to be ruled an incomplete pass”).  I snuck down and out of the Washington side of the field over to the Cowboys side, and was let up on their right side of the stands, which were very sparsely seated, with the front two rows being Jerry Jones and some of his staff and entourage and so forth, and maybe a dozen other people on all the rows above them in that section, including my Mom (who’s been dead for a year).  I sat up next to her, and continued watching the game.  Then a bit later, I went down there and talked to Jerry Jones, and he shook my hand, and said he got a laugh out of what I did, and thanked me for it.  Then went back to watching the game with intense concentration.  After a bit, I went back to him again, and was like, “Uh, Mr. Jones, I really don’t want to bother you more, but I was wondering, could I maybe get some tickets?”  He gave me 2 sets of tickets, one to a Cowboys Championship game (which, uh, doesn’t exist, but in the dream, at the time, it Made Sense), and another to a Dallas/San Diego game . . . in San Diego.  Which didn’t really make a whole lot of sense, but, what ever.  I showed my mom, and said, “Yeah, I’ve got to get there to San Diego myself, but still, these are awesome tickets!”  I was talking about trying to take my friend Ivy, but then voiced the thought, “Unless you want to go?” to my mom, and she was so excited and Of Course she wanted to go.

So, last night’s really bizarre dream . . . I was coming in late (oops, forgot it was supposed to be such and such time) for a Rocky Horror Picture Show performance.  I got up backstage in time to get in costume and go out and perform the final maybe fifth of the play or so . . . as Dr. Frank-N-Furter.  I just almost missed my cue to get out, and my first couple of lines were ragged, but then I started remembering everything and performed quite well.  Which, I guess my subconscious, dream-me knows (or remembers) all of Rocky better than the conscious me does.  I’ve seen it enough and audience-participated enough that I should know the whole thing, but I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable without a couple of weeks of prep and script memorization to get up and try to perform any role in it right now.  Aside from not being comfortable enough with my body yet (working on it, still losing weight on the low-carb diet) to dress in such a costume and get up on stage in it.  But I remember talking later in the dream and saying I was worried, that it’d been probably two years since I’d even watched Rocky, much less DID anything with it, but that once I got out there it started to come back to me.  

Oh, and yeah, this was all in the freaking Greenwood High School auditorium/theater.  With Mrs. Guess out there in the audience as director.  Yet another dream taking something funky and placing it in something to do with Greenwood.  That aspect really has me wondering a bit.

Eventful, Good Times of Late

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Didn’t make any posts this weekend – not even Daily Stuff.  This has been, overall, a busy, eventful, unexpected, and altogether excellent weekend.

Last week, I pretty much decided that with my upcoming paycheck on the 6th, along with my income tax return, with what I had in checking/savings, it was finally time (Again – the near $1200 of car repairs delayed me by a bit more than a month on my plans) to move on the whole Apartment/Getting-my-own-place-again goal.  Having already done a lot of the initial work of investigating, evaluating, eliminating apartment complexes here in Midland in January, this time it was a briefer process, starting with a short list of candidates.  Four complexes that were any real serious consideration, and another I called just to check on it as an option, and because it’s literally throwing distance from our office.  They were the most expensive, so that was pretty much an easy elimination.  

Of the other 4, I went and looked at all of them – 1 of the 4 I’d seen a 1BR Townhome before, which I liked a lot.  Really liked.  I just know Baby, my cat, would love the stairs there, and I liked the layout, but it was a little bit beyond what I would be comfortable with based on my projective budgeting.  Rent in Midland is stupidly costly right now – prices are still high from rapid rising over a few years of oilfield prosperity.  The oilfield prosperity is starting to show some real, true (worrisome to oilfield/oil company employees) signs of decline, but any drop in the inflated rent prices will take several more months, if not a year, before they start to happen.  In Huntsville, I had a 2BR, 1.5Bath 1100 square foot townhome for less than I’m (going to be) paying for a 710 square foot 1BR/1BA flat here in Midland.

So, anyway, after checking out all of the other 3 options, with some drama and surprises involved there, I decided on going for what’s supposedly the nicest/best rated of the complexes, Windscape.  Current schedule is to move in on the 13th.  Friday the 13th . . . I can’t help but feel that with everything that happened last week and weekend, it’s something that’s meant to be, and any luck I experience on that day will be Good.  It’s just going to be a tight week for me financially until my payday+ this Friday.

Friday night was looking to be pretty uneventful – I tried to get hold of a couple of people to see about doing something interesting:  seeing a movie with a friend, or going out for whatever workable (she’d mentioned wanting to go to a karaoke bar) with another, female, friend – but it seemed that stuff just wasn’t going to be happening that night.  So, without someone to make going out (and thus spending money) a worthwhile excuse, stay home and . . . apparently watch Seabiscuit with my dad.  During which I find out about some bad medical news about a friend of mine.  Not horrible stuff, but still unfortunate and unpleasant, kind of a bummer, which had (and still has) me worried for her.

Then at 10:15 that night, I get a text from Ms. Fire, commanding me to head down to the hotel lounge she’s in and ask her to dance.  I hop up, change shirts, brush my teeth, and head off to the lounge.  She seemed surprised I “actually came.”  To my surprise (though only a little bit) it was Tejano Night at this club.  I haven’t danced in like 9 years, and I haven’t danced to something other than techno/trance in a good dozen.  I wasn’t very good, but it didn’t seem to matter – the intent and effort, and quite possibly the fact she was a bit inebriated, seemed to matter more.

I’ll not go into further details on the rest of that night . . . but it was wonderful, and surprising.  

Saturday, despite lack of sleep, I got out to see that movie (The Street Fighter Chun-Li one) with my friend Ivy.  It wasn’t bad.  It wasn’t great either, but it was entertaining (even though I think Kristen Kreuk is just wrong for the role).  It had some very nice cinematography of Bangkok in it too.  

Sunday, I had a date to try to see Les Miserables at  MCT.  I type “try” because when I attempted to buy tickets Monday of last week, they were nearly entirely sold out – they only had 3 seats left, none of them anywhere near each other.  The nice old lady at the box office suggested I show up an hour before the show to try to get no-show seat tickets.  After discussing this concept with J, my supposed date, she said we should go ahead and try for it, and plans were made for her to meet me at the theater, see Les Mis, and then who knows?

I dress up as I thought reasonably appropriate for going to the Theater (to discover there later that several folks just went in whatever – but I still felt good about my clothing choice, I think dressing decently for the Theater is still respectful), and show up there a couple of minutes before 1:00.  I’m 4th on the list for no-show seats, with the box office manager informing me that she has no doubt I’ll get tickets.  I wait, seeing tons of people stream in, mingling, talking to friends . . . and then run into a good friend of my Mammaw.  People take their normal, had their tickets in advance, seats, being ushered and hurried into the theater by staff, and at 2:00, the box office manager starts calling out names for the no-show seat tickets.  J still hasn’t shown up (I’d been looking for her, for the entire hour).  I let the box office manager know my date didn’t show, someone else should get the other ticket, and she snatches back the pair she handed me, hunts around frantically, and then gives me a single ticket.  It was a decent seat.

Les Mis was excellent.  One of the best Community Theater productions I’ve ever seen (and most of my comparisons are from MCT shows, so that’s good comparisons, as MCT has been one of the best Community Theaters in the nation for a long time).  Not only was David Odom, who was a friend of mine in High School, on the debate team with me, in the play (as I knew beforehand and expected), but Robert Reed, another High School friend was in the cast as well.  I graduated with both of those guys.   There were other people who I knew from when I was involved in the theater back in the 90s.  I’m considering volunteering for a few shows, maybe auditioning for a part or two.  If not, I’ll at least get a membership, and make MCT a regular part of my entertainment options.

I’ve been trying to get in touch with J the last two 2 days, with no luck thus far.  I don’t know what the deal is, what happened – if there’s a good reason she wasn’t there, a bad reason, if I was just stood up, or what.  If I was stood up, oh well, her loss.  My weekend overall was so good, it doesn’t really upset me.