Here are the elements that made up the composite image above, according to alphabetical order:
Amarok version 1.something had been automatically upgraded by the OS level-up to version 2.0. The user interface looks somewhat different. But more important than that, there was no sound!
Upon executing the application the systray warned me, "Phonon: KDE's Multimedia Library. The audio playback device HDA Intel (AD198x Analog) does not work. Failing back to default." Playing any songs, a warning would pop up, "Too many errors encountered in playlist. Stopped playback." When I played the same songs using Totem, they worked perfectly.
So I did a some Googling and discovered this solution which worked.
1. Create the file libphonon.conf
[%General]
HideAdvancedDevices=true
[AudioOutputDevice]
Category_-1=@Variant(\0\0\0\x7f\0\0\0\vQList<int>\0\0\0\0\x4\0\0'\x11\0\0'\x12\0\0'\x10\0\0'\x13)
Category_0=@Variant(\0\0\0\x7f\0\0\0\vQList<int>\0\0\0\0\x4\0\0'\x12\0\0'\x11\0\0'\x10\0\0'\x13)
Category_1=@Variant(\0\0\0\x7f\0\0\0\vQList<int>\0\0\0\0\x4\0\0'\x12\0\0'\x11\0\0'\x10\0\0'\x13)
Category_2=@Variant(\0\0\0\x7f\0\0\0\vQList<int>\0\0\0\0\x4\0\0'\x12\0\0'\x11\0\0'\x10\0\0'\x13)
Category_3=@Variant(\0\0\0\x7f\0\0\0\vQList<int>\0\0\0\0\x4\0\0'\x12\0\0'\x11\0\0'\x10\0\0'\x13)
Category_4=@Variant(\0\0\0\x7f\0\0\0\vQList<int>\0\0\0\0\x4\0\0'\x12\0\0'\x11\0\0'\x10\0\0'\x13)
Category_5=@Variant(\0\0\0\x7f\0\0\0\vQList<int>\0\0\0\0\x4\0\0'\x12\0\0'\x11\0\0'\x10\0\0'\x13)
[AudioCaptureDevice]
Category_-1=@Variant(\0\0\0\x7f\0\0\0\vQList<int>\0\0\0\0\0)
2. Open the home directory. Hit Ctrl+H to see hidden files and click on the .config director.
3. See if directory kde.org exists. If not create the kde.org directory there.
4. Put the libphonon.conf file in the kde.org directory.
5. Open Terminal and type these commands.
- sudo apt-get install phonon-backend-xine
- sudo apt-get remove phonon-backend-gstreamer
Once these are done, Amarok 2.0 should be working fine again.
Sources:
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Here are the elements that made up the composite image above, according to alphabetical order:
Irfan's been on a daikaiju kick lately. Checking out all the monster throwdowns on Youtube, he's decided that giant, flying, bipedal sabre-toothed tortoise Gamera is his favourite monster. We quickly illustrated this picture earlier this morning. Click on the thumbnail for the full image.
]]>But movie is far more than that. It’s a perfect bookend for the trilogy, dramatically and visually. It’s been 10 years since the first movie and Andy’s all grown up and is ready to move out to college. All his belongings are going to be either stored in the attic or thrown away. Andy has decided to store his remaining toys in the attic, much to everyone’s relief.
It wouldn’t be the great and fun life they had before, but at least they would have each other until the end.
Caution. Spoilers will follow.
However, a series of unfortunate events occur which causes the toys to end up donated to a day-care center named Sunnyside. Ever loyal to Andy, Woody rallies his friends to try to get back home. But since they mistakenly thought they were donated, the rest of them opted to remain at Sunnyside, which appears to be a extremely toy-friendly establishment at first glance. After Woody says his goodbyes, it is soon clear that Sunnyside is a Stalag for toys, run by the bitter “Lotso”, a Lots-O-Huggin Bear.
When Woody is sidetracked on his way home, he comes to the knowledge of the darkness behind Sunnyside's toy populace and returns to rescue everyone and get them home before Andy leaves for college.
What is surprising about the movie is how dark the tone is. Even as the movie begins, we are told that some of the old cast like Bo Peep and Wheezy were gone, sold off at a yard sale or thrown away. Buster, the once-energetic dachshund who first appeared as a puppy in the first movie and had some adventures with the toys in the second, was already old, tired and weak. Even the attitude the Andy’s toys display in the beginning was bleak and fatalistic. They are already resigned to spending an undetermined amount of time packed in a box and not being played with.
However, the movie’s plot hurries along at breakneck speeds putting our heroes through a series of perilous and humorous situations that a lot of the darkness simmers under the viewer’s awareness. We meet many new colourful characters, most of which are funny and some are menacing. One of them, the silent cymbal-banging monkey with the intense eyes, exudes the same creepiness of the same type of toy when it appeared briefly in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). The creepiness here is magnified tenfold and reminds the viewer how dark the movie is.
After enduring all the adventures and hardship, the toys are even forced to stop running and embrace their mortality in a very powerful scene. Will they survive the final danger? Even the toys do not think so in the scene - and they convey the emotion fantastically. Woody tries very hard to keep his crew together while simultaneously be loyal to Andy. But one of the themes of the story is change.
In the end, everything is changed forever because ultimately Andy is now a young adult, resulting in a bittersweet ending for these characters most of whom first showed up in Toy Story back in 1995.
Other notable points of the Toy Story 3 is Ned Beatty at his sinister best as Lotso, Michael Keaton and Jodi “The Little Mermaid” Benson as Ken and Barbie who are both hilarious in an interrogation-torture scene, "You've Got a Friend in Me" performed by the Gipsy Kings and DEATH BY MONKEYS!
Pixar has been churning out quality stories year after year. Toy Story 3 never comes to Up levels of character drama, or Ratatouille levels of sense of awe, but it has more heart and soul than the usual crop of Hollywood summer blockbusters. And if you've who played with toys as a child and never threw any of them away when you've grown up, this movie will be doubly wonderful for you.
We all wore vac suits because we infiltrated the bad guys' base from outside the space habitat, where I lost my Groucho Marx glasses. I wielded a pair of heavy railgun pistols, the neurachem-stimulated Bishop Six had a sniper rifle slung on his back and Billy wore a pickelhaube helmet for some reason and tried to bluff some guards with a dazzler in his hand.
Ultimately, we figured out how one does solve a problem like Maria.
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And so it came to pass that as I was relaxing in the living room as the last glow of the setting sun disappeared, a bird flew into the house. At first it just rested on the carpet looking forlornly at me, perhaps wondering into what parallel universe it had travelled to. I called Irfan to approach slowly, but as I edged for a closer look, it flew.
Because the top of the doors and windows were a couple of feet lower than the ceiling, the bird had difficulty trying to leave the house. It flew here and there, catching a breather on the floor, at the top of the cupboard and clinging onto curtains.
As we tried to help it leave the house, Irfan called up his grandparents to let them know what's happening. It even flew within an inch of Irfan's head - causing him to shriek - as he was on the phone. In the meantime, I tried to take photos of the little thing wherever it stopped to perch.
Finally it stopped at the door grill, and I got a photo of Irfan with the bird right over his head before it flew out to freedom. We hope it will come back some other time for tea or coffee.
]]>Irfan recently obtained the photos they took during the excursion.
One of the first thing I thought of telling Irfan was that I played in the rubber plantations which was ubiquitous in Sitiawan when I grew up there. Then, I remembered that they've all been mostly replaced by houses, rows of shophouses or palm oil instead. Guess I have to show him photos of it instead.
]]>However, on this day we decided to see if the bowling alley at the mall known as the Mines Shopping Fair was good for a game. It was, so there we bowled.
Only Irfan, Ain, Irfan's atok and I played, though Irfan's opah had a go during one of Ain's round.
One stand-out characteristic of the Mines Shopping Fair is the canal that runs through the mall itself. There are boats with which a visitor could be brought out to the lakes, either to the north or the south of the mall.
Only Irfan and his granddad took a trip on one of the boats while the rest of us stayed behind at the mall. They reported later that there were monitor lizards at the lake shore, but no photos were taken. They had to return earlier than scheduled because the rain grew heavier.
When they returned, Irfan's opah, Ain and I were standing by at the inlet that led into the docks in the mall.
Atok took the photo above as I took the one below.
In the canal are scores of catfish, a lot of which are larger than my forearm. Where visitors were feeding there there was nothing but a writhing, squamous, wet mass of tentacles and gaping toothless maws. I lost 1/1D6 SAN watching the fish feeding.
I for one welcome our new flesh-eating catfish overlords.
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* Mouse over the pictures for captions
It does seem like this year is flying by really quickly. Can you believe that we are almost done with June? Half the year is done already! Allie has been growing like a weed, and absorbing everything around her. In this past month, we had our usual trip to New Jersey for work, but we also got to meet up with Amy and Jef in Philly, and Allie had a lovely playdate with their son Reza. We also met up with Min and Aida, and Allie had a playdate, with Aida's son Casey yesterday. It's really been quite an eventful month. Allie seems so close to speaking actual words. She doesn't seem to want to repeat the words that she does know how to say but she is happily adding to her noises repertoire. She has, however, been consistently saying "night-night" to both Vin and me at bedtime. Her newest (and very amusing) animal noise is the hyena ("ha ha ha!"), and in addition to red, yellow and green, she now knows blue and orange. She gets confused by pink and blueish-green shades like aquamarine and turquoise (well, who doesn't?) but those five basic colors she has down pat. She's a fairly rough and tumble little girl. She took a fall the other day and skinned both her knees, one of them rather badly, but she did not cry (good girl!). Don't worry, her knees have almost completely healed now. She just loves her bubbles and balloons. We are still reading Hop on Pop by Dr Seuss as her bedtime book. She has memorized a good chunk of the book, chanting (without words) along with us, not just using the correct number of syllables, but the correct intonation as well. It's really quite funny.
She's imitating everything we do, and really starting to feed herself with the spoon (this can be quite messy and requires supervision) but she's getting there! Oh, and she is on her way to having ten teeth! Two molars have erupted through the gums but have not yet completely come out so she has had some fussy days (some light sleeping and some slow eating days) but she has not complained. She's quite the trooper. And she has more teeth threatening to break through. She is still a singing and dancing machine, quite adept at picking up melodies, and now when she dances she mimicks finger-snapping which is utterly adorable.
Her hair is coming in not just growing in length, but in thickness as well. It takes quite a bit to actually wet it through when we wash her hair. And the reason why she wears the same barrettes over and over is that these are the only ones that work that are "salon clips" style. If the barrette is a traditional snap on barrette, she will actually yank out her own hair as she yanks out the barrette, something she likes to do from time to time. And we've purchased a few other kinds of clips which aren't strong enough to hold her hair at bay. She refuses to allow her hair to be tied back out of her way. So we have to keep using these same barrettes, sometimes doubling them up to keep her hair out of her face. These clips have gone through the wash quite a few times as the poor things take a lot of punishment. 
Speaking of punishment, Allie has gotten attached to two of her stuffed animals, Kiki the Koala (thank you Auntie Mei) and Pursley the Kitkat (thank you Auntie Mandy). Both these animals go everywhere with her, and sleep with her. They go into the grocery store, the post office. Everywhere. Allie even threw poor Pursley into the pool when we visited Corby and Sue and that poor cat had a swim (followed by vigorous toweling and a short stint in the dryer). Both these animals are taking some punishment, let me tell you!
Anyway, on to a recap of how Yaya spent her 23 month birthday. Summer is finally here! It does make me a happy girl and Yaya loves being able to go outside and play. Unfortunately, on Tuesday, it rained all morning long. Allie starts off the morning with a bunch of milk and runs around in her pajamas:
(See the Father's Day entry for an explanation of the smile)
Allie was quite disappointed and really wanted to go outside. Here she is trying to convince Papa that since she wasn't wearing her pajamas anymore, it was time for some outdoor playtime:
Alas, the rain did not let up. So Allie had to stay indoors and keep busy:
She pushed her stroller even though the brakes were on, she was that determined. Then she got in the stroller and hung out:
She did look outside longingly:
UPS did make it even though it rained (FedEx did not, but that's another story altogether...power cord craziness), so we opened some boxes and Yaya got some new early birthday stuff! Very easy to assemble too!
Since the rain was still going, we played balloons in the house (bubbles make too much of a mess and is a strictly outdoor activity):
Some interactions with the kitkat:
Other indoor activities needed (and coming right up!)
Finally the sun has come out, but by this time it's getting late and it was quite hot out. Plus she does seem to get eaten alive by mosquitoes when we go outside, even if Vin and I don't see any and aren't bitten ourselves. This is true later in the afternoon, especially, so we decided that she could wait to go and play outside another day.
All in all, despite the rain, Allie had a great day and so did we. Another fun day, completing another fun month. And next month, Allie will reach a milestone birthday! Tune in in one month for a complete report on how she spent her real birthday (marking her entry into the terrible twos - God help us all).
And to close, Allie tells us that all is forgiven and she still had a fun-filled day despite the enforced indoor games and slight cabin fever:
Happy 23 month birthday, baby! Love you! See the rest of y'alls next month for the big one!
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Vin got to play in his Father's Day baseball game, but Allie, Lily and I stayed home since Allie had slept in.
Can you guess what Vin's favorite baseball team is?
The bear logo is important as Allie loves all the shirts and hats that Vin and I have that have the actual cubs bear on it (and not just the "C"). She growls at it. So now she has some clothes that she can growl at when she goes to Vin's games or goes to Chicago Cubs games with her Papa! And here are Papa and Yaya, enjoying Father's Day together. That face she's making is what you get when you say "Smiiiiile!"
Happy Father's Day, babe! You are the most amazing Papa in the world, and we all love you so much! Also a belated Happy Father's Day to Abah, Yope and all you awesome dads out there!
Because it rained earlier in the morning, Irfan wore his Atok's hat just in case it rained again. The hat stood by constantly in Atok's car for emergency usage.
Irfan later became a perch for a couple of colourful birds. He was happy the birds didn't poop on him.
Ain tried to fend off a bloodthirsty pack of crowned pigeons.
Will the fence hold if the ostrich attacks? Irfan thought nervously.
The black-headed bulbul apparently has no acne on its body at all.
This superb starling looked superb.
The peahens were very tame, and Irfan handfed quite a number of them as he went around the bird park.
The scarlet ibis stood out wherever it could be found, thanks to its eye-catching colour.
Little parrots came to Ain for bird seed. Wait till they hear about her special nasi dagang.
Apart from shielding Irfan's head from rain, we found another use for Atok's hat.
There are lots of things which they didn't teach us in science class back in school. One of them is that parrots love cola.
Suddenly, we found ourselves in a squirrel park instead!
Irfan hoped very much that the stork didn't find his hair or ear tasty before the photo was taken.
We also discovered that the silver pheasant wasn't as friendly to humans as the peahens. It kept its distance.
It sure looked like a cassowary, but its eyes said, "I'm an oviraptor, Doctor Malcolm."
Finally, Irfan saw an owl in its cage doing what it does best in the daytime and did a mean impression of it.
After that we had lunch at the National Museum, then went to the Planetarium which was highly infested by uniformed schoolchildren on school trips during the holidays.
]]>Irfan posed before the Skypark's big screen computer display of the inbound and outbound flights. His Cik Ma's flight is on there, speeding closer to the airport.
Also, someone has a new digital wristwatch. See? Wristwatch.
Also, someone met his cousin Aiman who also came to the Skypark to see Cik Ma.
Finally, the cousins rode on their Cik Ma's trolley. Why? Because it's cool, that's why.
I was sad though that there was no MPH or Times. Illiterate Philistines! Bashi-bazouks!
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