last day in lansing

I was in East Lansing all day. I got into town around 11:30 AM, and tried to get a haircut. However, when I walked into the barbershop the two barbers that were just sitting around talking and reading magazines said they couldn't take care of me until noon, for whatever reason. I then called my friend Lisa to try and get some lunch, but she wasn't answering. I found out later she was in the shower - I told here I figured that and I wouldn't get angry for cleanliness. As far as getting a haircut goes, I decided to hell with the normal place, those bastards aren't the only barbers in town, and went to another barber like 100 feet away.

After successfully obtaining a haircut, I got in touch with Lisa and had lunch a Qdoba. I was surprised to see Lisa has a brand new car, a black Pontiac Vibe. She loves it. I then visited with grandparents all afternoon. I then went over to PJ and Paul's place. I brought Freeman so we set it up to do a huge file swap (20GB+ each way over crossover) and we went to see War of the Worlds. Review on my other site. When we got back I parted ways with PJ and Paul, which is sad becuse I'm probably not going to see them again for a long time. I had to drive home in the dark but it wasn't too bad, and now I'm putting the newly pirated music somewhere I can sort it, writing this and writing my WotW review.

Well, it's July now. I have a crapload of packing and prepping to do tomorrow. Leaving on Saturday - I can't believe it's this close already. Next week is the Trail and finding an apartment - hopefully I'll be settling in a week from now.

getting ready to hit the trail

War of the Worlds came out today. I was checking it out this morning, it looks like it might be pretty good. The music and imagery on the website alone evokes some of the creepier parts of Half-Life. I want to see this movie, but I'm not sure when I'm going to get the chance.

My room and hallway are a mess right now because I'm really sorting through stuff for Oregon. I still have a lot to do though, so I don't think I'm going to the Hard Lessons concert on Friday. That's a little sad because that means I've missed two in a row I could've gone to, and I always have a good time at the concert even if I thought it was a mistake beforehand. My time in Michigan is just about up though,

I watched Escanaba in da Moonlight yesterday, which was pretty good (if not bizarre) and 3000 Miles to Graceland today (which was awful). I think I'm going to have to check RottenTomatoes before I am tempted by more $10 DVDs. I'm cruising through their movie reviews and I'm agreeing with all of them so far. Fist Of Legend even has 100%.

My dad and I went to Borders to get some books on CD for the Oregon Trail. I picked up the radio versions of the first three Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, and some Car Talk. My dad got something about geology and The Far Side of the World, which is in the same series as Master & Commander. I wasn't impressed with the first book, but I'm interested in hearing this one.

I'm kinda focused on packing right now so I'm starting to forget other things. I was going to get a decent ringtone for my cell phone but I got distracted. I think I'd like Hawaii Five-O.

distractions

I got stuff done today. I also screwed around with side projects. I chipped part of the HL lambda on my external hard drive, so I sanded the whole thing, resprayed it and put Contact paper over it to protect it. I also found my old USB fingerprint scanner and got it working again, which is great because it's cool and it lets me be super lazy with passwords.

I am going up to East Lansing on Thursday one last time, so I really need to start getting stuff packed tomorrow. At least I am shifting towards a more normal sleep schedule (no more staying up until 3AM and waking up at noon).

My computer chair broke more today. I think if I were sticking around much longer I'd have to replace it. We are supposed to get our DSL hardware by the end of the week but the service doesn't start until next week, so I won't get to enjoy it until I come home for winter break.

reductions

I'm having fun doodling on the computer. I wanted to make a logo for a made-up corporation so I did a Google search for 'symbol of industry'. The favored result is the bee, followed by beavers, ants and spiders. Another site claims red clovers are a symbol of industry. Frankly I was hoping more along the lines of gears and mechanical things...

The Malibu had whatever leaky part fixed, so the air conditioning might be fixed now. It was damn hot today, and it was good to have the A/C.

I went through some boxes of stuff today to get a better idea of what's going and what can stay. I'm in a big purging mode. Getting rid of boxes of stuff I don't need. Selling off what I can. Even on Freeman, I'm offloading what I can to the external hard drive so I can free up precious primary hard drive space. I got several gigs back by offloading big folders, like all the episodes of Red vs Blue (1.5GB) and some multi-hour Oakenfold mixes I don't listen to (2.5GB). I also offloaded a bunch of old Outlook Express email, which can be deceptively large. Thanks to my data setup I haven't lost files since early 2002. The flip side of that is that I keep accumulating files and I don't clean them out. It adds up. I also need to purge what's on my iPod, because it's about 95% full. At least I decided to go big and get the full iPod, that's a big help. Even in Gran Turismo 4, I went through my garage and sold $5,500,000 worth of cars. That's how much I'm into getting rid of things I don't need. I guess I'm just trying to get ready for life on a tight budget.

I got paid for Riemann Mk. II today, and combined with garage sale money I've got over $500 to drop off at the bank tomorrow. Despite my unemployment (which I am enjoying thoroughly), I'm almost making money this summer.

t minus six days

I finally got around to ripping my new Blackthorn CDs, and I am surprised yet again by how retarded CDDB contributors are. For example, a contributor moved the word 'the' to the end of song titles. So what should properly be 'The Parting Glass' is now 'Parting Glass (the)'. What the hell is that?

I'm also getting annoyed with batteries. It seems like every time I put something down the batteries are drained when I pick it up again. Cell phone, my new cordless phone, the camera, iPod, it doesn't matter. Batteries suck. You'd think that someone would have come up with batteries that could hold a charge.

I saw 'Batman Begins' with my dad today. That is a good movie. I like Bruce Wayne's transition from angry guy, to ninja, to ninja with cool toys. The movie is a lot darker than the campy pieces of trash that preceded it. I thought the music did a very good job of helping with this and I'm tempted to buy the soundtrack. I like heroes that are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, like Batman and Gordon Freeman.

I'm leaving for Oregon on Saturday, so this week I have to do everything that remains to be done. I'm hoping that the stupid car part I ordered will be in tomorrow so I can fix my damn A/C. I need to start figuring out what stuff deserves to be in the car and what can be shipped later. The shift from 'bum' to 'graduate student' is going to be a hell of a shakeup. My friend Erin has already passed the point where to her, 'home' is not the place where her parents live. I feel like that distinction might be creeping up on me. I'm also going to have to make a lot of new friends. Fortunately it seems like the grad students are a close-knit group, and most of them should be around during the summer. No idea when I'm next going to be in Clarkston after I leave, so my Gregg's breadstick intake will probably be even higher this week. (Clarkston people will know what I'm talking about.) I also want to catch the Hard Lessons show on Friday, the day before I leave.

t minus one week

Down to the last week in Michigan. I have much to do in preparation. We had another garage sale to day to get rid of more crap and I made another $140. I also saw my friend Christie briefly, which was cool. She was in Corvallis last summer and gave me some tips on things to do in Oregon. It was damn hot and humid out today, so the garage sale was rougher than the first one. I have some gas money to show for it though.

My family rented some movies today, so I have some new fodder for movie reviews. We also set off some fireworks, including the last couple illegal ones left over from a stop in Ohio while driving back from my Florida internship. Not sure what the fireworks rules are in Oregon - I'm guessing the same as Michigan.

Just think! In a week, I'll have more to post about than doing nothing in my hometown! Exciting.

i guess i'm doing this old-school for a while

Wireless network is still not working. Jim is having the same problem so at least it's probably the neighbor's fault. Until wireless network returns, I'm back on dialup. Fun. Our own DSL is maybe a week away. So don't expect any more photo albums to go up until I get somebody's broadband.

I didn't get the Malibu into the shop today because the part I need didn't show up yet. At least I got a bit of sorting done today.

A little over a week until I leave for Oregon, so my days are naturally getting filled with things that at least peripherally relate to that. And yet technically my summer isn't even half over. I got out the first week of May and I don't really start being a grad student until the end of September (One reason I wanted to get a job - that's a long time to be idle.) Tomorrow I'm hoping to get the Malibu's A/C fixed and I'm going to look at luggage. We're also having another garage sale on Saturday to get rid of the crap we didn't sell the first time. Exciting stuff.

The last Pistons game has started, so I guess I should get some token watching in.

i'm a sad pirate

Yahoo Photos decided to work again, so I fixed the new photo albums. However, my wireless network connection has stopped working for some reason. I can't receive packets from the network. I am trying to fix that, but I'm hoping to get the Malibu into the shop soon so I'm not going to mess with it for much longer. Computers suck.

pictures

Well I uploaded a bunch of pictures to my photo album site, but I've come to the conclusion that Yahoo Photos sucks. I'm working out a better way to do pictures but I haven't made the new program completely bend to my will yet, so it will be a day or two before the new and improved albums go up. In the meantime, enjoy some pics of Oregon and today's car show. Thanks to Yahoo I currently can't add captions or change the order, so you'll have to enjoy them out of context for now.

In other news, the Malibu goes back to the shop tomorrow for a new Freon-carrying tube and another A/C recharge. Hopefully I can keep some of the Freon this time, I'd like a cold car.

lots of cars

It seems like one of those days where I got a lot done and still wasn't productive. I got up early for some reason so I cleaned out the Malibu. Then I found out there was a classic car show at the GM Tech Center, so I went with my parents. It was pretty cool, just wish we'd had a lot more time to see the cars. GM had three new cars on display: the Hummer H3 (meh), the Pontiac Solstice and the Pontiac G6 Convertable. Even my dad hadn't seen the last one yet. There were also some souped-up Chevy Cobalts. I took pictures until my batteries died. I posted pics of the DeLorean below, and I'm uploading more car show pics to the photo album site so check it out. When I got back from the car show I mowed the lawn, did the dishes and some other chores. I didn't do anything about Oregon though.

DeLorean

DeLorean

a pirate's life for me pt. III - "we prefer to be called buccaneer-americans"

I've been using the neighbor's DSL for a couple weeks now and by now I'm taking it for granted. Fast internet is just something you get used to. It will be good when my family gets DSL + wireless network, but that will be only a few days before I leave. Remember back in the day when 'wired' was a good thing? I feel old.

No clue what the internet situation is going to be in Oregon. Campus probably has broadband with some wireless hotspots, but I need to find an internet provider for my apartment. (And an apartment.)

I was going to update the photo album site, but then I started updating my Serials 2000 database. Now I'm installing a newer (pirated) version of Photoshop. I pirated most of my software back in high school, so a lot of stuff is getting out of date now.

So I'm doing three pirate things at once. I could also rip a DVD and download music on Kazaa, for good measure.

updates

I actually updated my website. It's been neglected ever since I started ranting here. It needs some more attention though - maybe I will watch some new movies to review or something. I was very close to buying Bulletproof Monk the last time I went to Best Buy, but then I remembered I wanted to see Cradle 2 The Grave (the movie with Jet Li, DMX and Tom Arnold) and I wanted that one so much that Bulletproof Monk went back on the shelf. Unfortunately they did not have any copies of Cradle 2 The Grave, so I left Best Buy empty-handed, always a sad event. I think I'm also going to try to update my pictures site, that's been completely forgotten.

I sorted a bit of stuff today, but I think that was more to settle into my room than get ready for Oregon. Even though I've been graduated for over over six weeks. I might take a crack at sorting stuff for real tomorrow. So far my list of things has:

1. my George Foreman grill
2. my pillows
3. my laptop

Now I can probably get pretty far with these three items, and it's pretty symbolic of grad student life (eat, sleep, and compute), but I'm gonna need more than that.

I might also take a look at the Malibu. I could stand to get some of the leaves and crap out of the air intakes, and it could stand to be waxed.

I read some of the news today. Not the crap on CNN, real news. I really hope they impeach that son of a bitch George W. Bush and his whole damn administration. I used to trust CNN. I got mad at them after they dropped the ball on the SpaceShipOne flights, and the current media environment is just ridiculous.

car stuff

I took the Malibu into the shop to get the A/C looked at. They had put a special UV dye in the Freon last time, and today it's all over the engine compartment. It leaked all of my Freon in a couple days. I've got a line leaking Freon pretty bad, and the compressor might be leaking a little bit too. I'm going to replace the line and see if I can get away with just that for a while.

My dad brought home a black 2006 Chevy Corvette Z06, he has it for the day. It has a 500HP engine. It was almost scary to ride in. Really freaking cool though.

2006 Chevy Corvette Z06

2006 Chevy Corvette Z06

how often do you see a speedometer that goes over 200MPH?

peaceful day

Today was mildly productive. I finally got around to calling some of the apartment places in Corvallis. The situation out there is better than I thought, I'm catching the peak time between people moving out and people moving in. Hopefully I'll find something good. I have to do more calling tomorrow.

The A/C in the Malibu is dying again, I'm pretty certain there's a freon leak or something. So it's going to have to go back into the shop and get looked at again.

I'm typing this outside on the deck, in the hammock. Life is good.

iPod + iTrip

external hard drive

lambdified external hard drive. background: new hammock. far background: the malibu.

two weeks notice

Less than two weeks to go before I leave for Oregon. I went to some stores today to look at luggage but I didn't really see anything I liked, so I have to do some research online. I'm also compiling a list of apartment places in Corvallis to call tomorrow. I'm a little concerned about the battery in my iPod, but I don't really have time to deal with it before I leave and there's an Apple store in Corvallis anyway.

We got my dad a hammock for Father's Day, and he's quite happy with it.

"holy crap, this guy's OCS material!"

I'm reading some news stories about military recruiting, which reminds me of my own story. A couple summers ago (pre-Iraq) the Marines kept calling my house, so one day when I was bored I talked to them. They said they wanted me to come down to their office and listen to their spiel. I had nothing else going on, so I agreed. When I got there they had me take some kind of computer-based aptitude test just to make sure I wasn't an idiot. Now, people that know me know that I test well. Their test also wasn't exactly high-level. So I finished their test in about a third of the time allowed and got 98 out of 99 on it. The recruiters were very happy about this, saying I was a good candidate for their Officer Candidates School and such. They got so excited they started talking like you'd stereotypically think Marines do - I was amused. I sat around listening to their spiel some more and at the end I was like nah, I'm going to college and getting a good job instead. It was fun.

i'm way behind on my beating quota

I spent a good part of the day in East Lansing. Had lunch with the guys, then we went to Best Buy where Charlie found Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (the game with the bongos) very amusing. No one else was in EL afterwards though, so I just came home.

Got plenty of road time with the iPod/iTrip. It works pretty well, but I am still trying to figure out where to put it in the car to make the signal strongest. I used shuffle mode on the way home, mixing it up is good for listening in the car. Traffic was kind of heavy but not stop-and-go. I-75 is pretty torn up right now.

I felt like stirring up some trouble today so I cashed part of a birthday check in $2 bills. I spent three of them so far and the cashiers are surprised but take it in stride. Maybe I'll get some more.

I installed the expansion pack for Dungeon Siege, but it is starting to get boring too. I might try out some of the network stuff but I don't really feel like continuing on with the single player campaign. It's not exactly the mark of an excellent game when the player gets bored halfway through and stops playing.

Lunch and maybe hanging out with my friend Erin tomorrow, and perhaps some sorting of stuff. I have been really bad about getting ready for Oregon. I haven't even gotten oxen yet, I just know some of them are gonna drown when we try to ford the river.

if only all my crusades were this easy

I went to EB games and it turned out the dumbass that sold me the game two days ago gave me the wrong disks. So the guy there today gave me the right disks and I was on my way. Now it's time to scrounge something up for lunch.

gunning for eb games

Damn, it's already 1 PM. I went to bed really early too. I must have been tired.

I intend to work on Oregon prep stuff today, but before that I have a score to settle with EB Games, they ripped me off and I'm not going to stand for it.

It's still cool out today, I like it.

addendum

I had lunch with my old physics teacher Mr. Burdick today. He's doing good, it was pretty fun seeing him again. I gave him the physics shirt I slated for Brian Greene but never got around to mailing. I think it means more for Mr. Burdick to have it, especially since I don't know if or when I'm going to bring the shirts back.

The Malibu was in the shop all morning so I had to borrow my mom's Buick Rainier. I hate SUVs. I was very happy to get behind the wheel of the Malibu again. I wish I knew someone with a Prius so I could see what they drive like (just to satisfy my own curiousity).

I brought my iPod everywhere today, so I could listen to my music in either car. Even though my Malibu has an MP3 CD player, I like having the depth and flexibility of the iPod. I can easily make playlist changes, or play something completely random. I definitely have no regrets about the iPod, especially since in the past few months I've been finding more solace in listening to my music.

My sleep schedule is a little off because last night I went to bed at 3 AM again and got up around 6:30 AM. I'm pretty wiped so I think I'm going to listen to some music and go to bed.

tune-up

My car is now all set for the trip to Oregon. I got the oil changed, the brake pads replaced and the air conditioning works again. Add to that the Rain-X and new windshield wipers, and the Malibu is in fine shape for travel. I am leaving for Oregon on July 2nd or 3rd, we are still finalizing the timing and route.

It was grey and rainy again today, but the rain finally brought cooler weather so we turned off the A/C. The fresh air is nice.

I don't officially have plans for tomorrow, but it's getting close to 2 weeks until I leave for Oregon so I really need to work on apartment stuff and start sorting all of my stuff. Especially since Friday I'm going to be up in East Lansing to have lunch with the guys and Saturday I'm meeting another friend for lunch.

I got Dungeon Siege yesterday, but the fun is already starting to wear off. The game isn't outstanding, and EB Games ripped me off by not giving me the expansion pack when I thought I was buying it packaged with the original game.

i already knew there was a 6 AM, i didn't need proof

It's so early...I up this morning because my car is going in to the shop to get its A/C fixed. If I'm going to be up and about this early in the morning I'm at least going to get some french toast sticks from Burger King. I'm meeting my H.S. physics teacher for lunch too, so today is a busy day.

birthday summary

My birthday went OK. It was gray and rainy for most of the day - bleh. I went over to my mom's work to set up Riemann around lunchtime, then I sat around playing SimCity. I did a little bit of research on Oregon apartments. I also sprayed the Half-Life lambda logo on my external hard drive.

For my birthday I got an FM transmitter for my iPod and a fancy cordless phone for my apartment in Oregon. I would post pictures but they came out bad, I'm going to try again tomorrow when I get some sunlight. I'm also going to get some luggage, butI need to pick it out.

Now that my birthday's over I need to really start gearing up for Oregon. I'm going to take care of some of that, but I have a ton of plans this week. I'm having lunch with my old physics teacher on Wednesday, lunch with physics crew + Gobeski in Lansing on Thursday, and lunch with another friend on Saturday. It's becoming critical to get the air conditioning in my car fixed. I also need a haircut, and I might have it lightened while I'm at it. So I'm going to be busy this week.

double deuce

It's my birthday! I'm 22.

pontiac solstice

the pontiac solstice again - today i drove it

i can't think of a title

I got to drive the Solstice today before my dad had to swap it back. It was a big deal for me not only because it's a cool car - it also has a manual transmission, and I'd never driven a stick before. I stalled it out several times, but I started to get the hang of it after a couple laps around the neighborhood.

I beat the zombie city in Half-Life 2 today. I also installed an old sci-fi game called Ascendancy because I felt like commiting a couple acts of xenocide.

Plenty to take care of this week, I have to start making a list of candidate apartment complexes in Corvallis and I should also get the A/C in my car looked at.

we don't go to ravenholm...

Half-Life 2 works. I'd forgotten that after the 5 CD install you have to connect to the internet and do a file decryption, thus insuring HL2 is the longest install of any game. I found out that HL2 actually does widescreen, so I can use my full display when I play. HL2 ran pretty smoothly, but the loading times were even worse because my hard drive is slower. On the upside, I don't have psychedelic texture glitches anymore. I had left off about 2/3 of the way through Water Hazard and I went right up to the beginning of Zombietown. Because Ravenholm is not a place I should be at four in the morning. (Is it that late already?) My audio is also a little glitchy at points, but that's what I get for going from an Audigy to an onboard sound card. But Freeman can run HL2, and I'm fairly impressed.

status report

I've been running this blog for a couple of weeks now. I'm pretty happy with it because it's easy to manage and it looks nice, so I'm going to keep doing it. I'm thinking it might be nice to always have at least one picture on the front page, but if I don't have a really good picture from recent events that means I have to dredge up something random from my files. What do you guys think? Who the hell is even reading this, anyway?

I'm on CD 4 of the Half-Life 2 install, so I'll find out how well Freeman can run soon.

performance tests

I spent most of the day at my cousin's high school graduation open house. She is going to MSU, and I wish her well with that. I got to talk with the extended family about Oregon. Most of them have at least a general idea about my program, but me getting a summer TA position is new. I did attempt to explain my program once but only did a halfassed job of it. I always have to explain my program because it is so unique. I wish I had a brochure or something I could hand out. Another cousin was warning my parents that I would come back from Oregon with a goatee and a ponytail, but I told her that I am not the 'do as the Romans do' type. I got to ride back in the Solstice, which was fun. I watched All The President's Men with my family, I liked it.

I reinstalled Generals on Freeman and it runs about as well as it did on my old computer. I had some fun playing with that but now I am moving on to the final performance test, Half-Life 2. I didn't get around to installing it until now because it spans 5 CDs. We'll see how it runs. Freeman is certainly holding up as a replacement for Riemann Mk. II. The laptop is pretty anchored to my desk right now though - I've got my own mouse, better speakers and now the external hard drive. It's basically a docking station.

Only about 3 weeks until I leave for Oregon - time to start getting things together. I'm pretty nervous about everything but it will all be worth it.

Monday is my birthday!

two more days

Two more days until my birthday! I have a feeling that 22 is going to go much better than 21.

Dougal found out I'm awake, so he made noises at the door until I let him in and now he's being very happy wandering around my room. I think I'm going to call it a night soon though.

heavy cloud but no rain

I want to go relax in the hot tub but there is lightning outside, even though it's not raining at all. Stupid weather.

The new hard drive enclosure I got works great. My computer is running slow from moving all these huge files around though. The enclosure also gets very warm when the hard drive is active, but it's made of aluminum so at least the heat is dissipating. I'm glad I got this new thing, because the one thing I was worried about with this laptop was hard drive space.

I decided to reclaim some room in my movie holder by putting all of the Gundam Wing episodes onto a single DVD instead of 6 CDs, but it turns out a couple of the files were corrupted and I'm going to have to replace them before I can burn them to DVD.

I think I've been spending too much time playing with the laptop, I need to get out a bit. If anyone is in Clarkston feel free to hit me up, and I'm planning to go up to E.L. in the near future so I'll be up there at some point too. I'm going to have lunch with my old high school physics teacher sometime, which I am looking forward to because I haven't seen him in a while and he was a big influence on me and my going to MSU.

My reimbursement check from UCSD finally showed up. I'm relieved - that was $1000 I had tied up for over two months because whoever was processing it took their sweet time.

lots of 1's and 0's

My hard drive enclosure showed up, so I am doing a lot of computer work today. I need to swap around files, repartition the newly external hard drive, and figure out how I'm going to do file storage on the laptop.

Once I get one with all the tech stuff I am going to chill out for the rest of the day. I've kind of plateaued in Gran Turismo 4, so I might go to the new GameStop down the street and try and find a new game.

There's a Hard Lessons concert tomorrow but it's going to be a busy day and I don't think I'll be up for it. Besides, it's in Flint, which is not a good place to be at 2 in the morning.

it hurts to watch

I'm watching some of the NBA finals game, and I'm remembering how much basketball sucks to watch. Basketball is an OK game at heart, but then layer on all kinds of bullshit rules, the inane commentators and the constant barrage of advertising and it becomes awful. I like basketball plain and simple. For example, in NBA Street for PS2 there is one rule: shot clock. And you can turn it off if you want. In real life the players are always trying to get fouled, and the stupid rules help them by making it a foul to block in a certain way or otherwise be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's even worse at the end of the game when the strategy of the defense becomes to foul as quickly as possible. Then the commentators ramble on about something incredibly stupid while the TV network crams beer ads between free throws, and the whole experience gets to be unbearably ridiculous. So I am going to cheer on the Pistons, but in a way that involves me not watching more than the last few minutes of the fourth quarter because any more and I start throwing a fit about how stupid the game is.

And yet, basketball is still more fun to watch than baseball. Football is about the only sport I can tolerate watching. I gave up on watching the game so I am getting Windows XP installed on Riemann. I think I'm going to get Riemann to a good state of installed-ness, do another Sudoku puzzle and go to bed.

The picture I posted earlier today is of a Pontiac Solstice, a little roadster that is still in development. A few are in GM's captive fleet, and my dad got loaned one for the weekend by one of his work buddies.

another quiet day

Not much going on today either...I went through all the archives of the webcomic Ctrl-Alt-Del, I finished beating Ace Combat 4 for the 10th time, I did a Sudoku that was pretty hard, I got some stuff in the mail. My hard drive enclosure shipped and it should be here for my birthday. I think I'm going to start working on Riemann tonight so I can sell it, but I'm going to go chill in the hot tub first. The first Pistons-Spurs game is tonight too, so I'll probably support the Pistons and watch part of that.

It was hot and humid out today, but we have the A/C on. I wish we had a solar power system so we could run it with impunity, and I could laugh at the sun and be like 'The harder you beat down on this house, the more power you give us for air conditioning!' Or something like that. While I'm wishing, I wish I had a Prius. Maybe someday.

I've had the laptop for about a week now. It's going so well I haven't turned on my desktop in days. I was a little skeptical of the widescreen format, but I pulled a quick 180 on that one. I can fit more columns of data into programs like Excel and iTunes, and AIM doesn't get as much in the way anymore because I can push it further to the right. Overall I am very pleased. Between rebates, the garage sale and selling my desktop I will probably make back 2/3 of the cost of the machine, so it didn't hurt my wallet too much in the end.

pontiac solstice

this car is still in beta, not many of them yet

kicking back

I didn't do much today, spent a good part of the afternoon listening to music and doing Sudoku puzzles. I got tired of my wimpy laptop speakers, so I broke out my Monsoons. No one else was home at that point so I cranked them up.

I'm going to try to get a couple things done before I go to bed though. I still have to get my laptop rebates in the mail, and I have some more thank-you cards to write. I should pick up my room a bit too, it's starting to get bad.

meet freeman

adapt or die

I'm already starting to get low free space on Freeman even with its 80GB hard drive, so I've been looking into getting some kind of adaptor for my 120GB internal hard drive on Riemann. I knew there was some kind of cable available, but I've also found that you can get actual enclosures for the drive so it's protected and looks nicer. Newegg.com has a whole section devoted to these devices, so I am getting a good feel for what is available. I'm happy enough with my new laptop that I'm probably going to sell off my desktop after I pull its main hard drive.

I took care of a lot of errands today and also did nice things like doing the dishes and mowing the lawn, so I'm just kicking back now. I played SimCity 4 today, with a little Ace Combat 4 on the side to mix things up. I'm pretty good with SimCity now, so I was designing weird cities to see how they'd work. One was in the crater of a volcano, another was split up into five tiny islands. It's fun to take the odd geography and adapt to it. I tried to build a village in the ruins of a metropolis but that didn't go so well.

Epilogue: I bought a hard drive enclosure for $37. It's coming super-slow because I didn't spring for pricey shipping, but I don't need it right away. Not a bad price for 120 extra gigs though.

another experiment

I figured out how to use Yahoo! to post photo albums. It's actually easier than I expected, so I think I'll be happy with it. I only have two albums up right now, but I will post more later.

I didn't do too much on Monday. Played some SimCity 4, beat Ratchet & Clank 3 again, watched the Pistons game. I've got stuff to do today, but I need to get some sleep first.

shakedown phase

Well, I think I've got most of the core stuff set up on Freeman, so now it's time to put it through the paces by installing games. I think I'm going to warm up with some SimCity 4 and then really test this thing by installing Half-Life 2 tomorrow. While this is going on, I'm also doing 24-hour endurance runs in Gran Turismo 4. I can multitask my gaming!

Freeman was running hot when I was chilling on the deck, so I found some software that actually throttles the CPU to what's needed. Hopefully that will cool things down a bit. Overall, I am very happy with the new laptop so far.

prius

a pirate's life for me pt. II

I'm posting this update outside on my deck. Wireless networking is pretty darn convenient. Not just because I can steal it - I like my new ability to wander around the house and still be connected. I can also be online without having to worry about someone else wanting to get online (like stupid AOL, only allows one person to sign on at a time).

an alchemy that turns garbage into money

Our garage sale is over. I made almost $330, but we still have a lot of crap left over. That's one less thing to worry about. I guess I'm going to spend the rest of the day fiddling around with my new laptop.

a pirate's life for me

My new laptop has a wireless network card, so I started playing around with it. I soon found an unprotected network that is kinda weak, but fast - way faster than dialup. I don't know whose it is, but I like having the fast internet. I'm currently using it to get all my Windows updates. I don't know how secure or stable this connection is. It's fun to play with though.

faith in chaos

Today was mostly spent getting things ready for the garage sale, it's going to be crazy tomorrow. We had around 1000 price stickers and most of them are gone.

I did stop working on garage sale stuff long enough to go to Best Buy, where I finally got my laptop. It's going to be a while before it's fully up and running, but I have it far enough that this post is being typed on Freeman.

early in the morning

I tried going to bed at a reasonable hour, but that backfired and now I'm up at 4AM instead of going to bed at 4AM.

It looks like the laptop I want is showing up in stores again. Hopefully I can get one today, but I also have to get everything ready for the garage sale tomorrow.

I watched four episodes of That 70's Show in a row the other day. That show took a weird turn somewhere. Donna should not be blonde. Apparently Eric took the year off after high school. He said this, which reminded me of myself:

"I love my job. Because I don't have one. Today was the slip 'n slide
marathon. Tomorrow I'm catching butterflies! And the day after that
I'm breaking out the giant bubble wand."

I am certainly enjoying my unemployment.

more laptop

I went back to Best Buy to check out the laptop I liked. I still want one. They were out this afternoon, but they just got 6 more in tonight so I should get one in the next day or two. Tomorrow I'm going to be busy getting ready for the garage sale, so I may not have time to get it.

you can't make fun of me if i beat you to it

tour de hard drive

I don't feel like doing real work, so I'm exploring my music collection with iTunes. I'm testing the theory that there is at least one decent song on every CD so I'm going through music I don't listen to and flagging the decent songs. Some of them are good except for a stupid intro, so I skip around each song to check. If it does have a stupid intro I can chop it off with sound editing software. I'm an impatient person, I don't want to sit around for 30 seconds - or even a full minute in some cases - for the melody to start. One song lost almost two minutes.

I'm getting better with iTunes. I started by only flagging the truly great songs I have, but now I have another level for songs I like but aren't one the same level as the other songs. I need the flagging to help me find my way around my music, it's pretty easy to get lost.

It's also interesting seeing the different versions of songs I've collected. I have seven different versions of Flaming June by BT, and at least three versions of Finished Symphony by Hybrid.

the hunt is on

I want this laptop. I think I'm almost ready to buy it. I'm pretty sure this would be the most expensive thing I've ever bought. Just one problem: I'm having troubles locating one. If I decide to get it, I would probably have to drive to Rochester for it, if they still have one. I'm going to go to the closest Best Buy tomorrow to play with their floor model some more, and maybe give them some trouble about not having one in stock (even though I already know they don't have it). I want to check it out again because I'm a little worried about the keys falling off, although their floor model was probably just picked at by idiots.

It's been a good year for high-tech. First I got a new digital camera, then an iPod, and now I'm looking at getting a laptop that can probably kick Riemann Mk. II's ass. One of the consolations of having no girlfriend is that I can afford lots of toys.

time flies

Holy crap, it's June already. That sure snuck up on me. I'm going to be 22 in less than two weeks.

Also holy crap it's Wednesday. We're officially having a garage sale this weekend and while I've done some preliminary sorting, I am not at all ready.

At this rate I'm going to be in Oregon before I know it. Not that I'm complaining, it's just going to be a huge shift.

regarding wars

I reread The War of the Worlds tonight. It creeped me out enough that I'm going to listen to some calming music before I go to bed. I tap out pretty easy on horror stuff, especially zombies. I reread that book because I'm excited for the new movie, I'm interested to see how it's going to be updated. I want to see the old movie too.

I'm getting further along in laptop computer research. I found a couple of candidates based on Athlon 64 chips that are real powerhouses for not much money. I think it's very likely that I'm going to get a new computer in the near future. I don't know if I really need a laptop, but I am at least doing a good job of rationalizing it.

I saw something in the news today about how the U.S. and the U.K. stepped up bombing of Iraq in 2002 to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving us an excuse for invading. The Bush administration is outrageous and I hope Bush gets impeached. I am only outraged at Iraq more than all the other things Bush has done because Iraq is killing people.

I'd like to apologize, to whomever is in a position to accept it. When it started, I was for the war in Iraq. I remembered how fun and easy the first Iraq war was, when I collected Desert Storm trading cards. I waited eagerly for the day the invasion would begin and watched CNN - eating popcorn - when it finally arrived. I don't remember when I changed my mind. Maybe it was when the many inspectors found none of the alleged WMDs. I am completely against the war now though, and I'm sorry for getting caught up in the war frenzy when this all started.