If you ever run into this pain in the butt error, hopefully this’ll save you some time:

Installing a gem without the version works fine; installing a gem using “-v 2.x.x” or whatever version you like ends in:
spec_fetcher.rb:254: warning: getc is obsolete; use STDIN.getc instead

Guess what? RubyGems 1.3.7 doesn’t play nice with OSX 10.5.8. So downgrade to 1.3.6, or if you’re using RVM, do this:
echo 'rubygems_version=1.3.6' >> ~/.rvm/config/user ; rvm remove 1.8.7 ; rvm install 1.8.7
(assuming you are using 1.8.7 in your RVM, otherwise, use 1.9.1 or whatever)
Voila, works like a charm.

EDIT 7/7/2011: According to Mike Shaheen, the new way to do this is simply:  rvm rubygems 1.3.5

Thanks to Wayne E. Seguin for his help on irc.freenode.net #rvm (and for RVM in the first place!)

PS You may have to downgrade to 1.3.5 to get “rake gems:install” to work.

Remember my last post about how I was starting an herb garden, about two months ago, and I wasn’t expecting anything to actually grow?

Stuff grew! The big foof of green you see on the left is parsley; I had to separate it out from the others so they didn’t hog all the sun. The rest in the tray is oregano, basil, tarragon, and catnip. The plant in the soda bottle bottom behind the parsley is a marigold I got from the UU church’s earth day service. Thinking tomorrow will be a good day for planting outside.