but at that time i couldn't see it

My stupid cold dragged itself out much longer than I would have expected, and I'm still working on the last 1%, but I am much better now. Finally having a weekend where I could sleep in helped - unfortunately it is back to the grind tomorrow. San Diego in less than three weeks though, even if my overall plan is still half baked.

I picked up GTA IV and so pretty much dropped off the face of the earth for a few days. I have to focus on the storyline now because there is an achievement to beat the story missions in 30 hours, and I do not ever want to play this game all the way through again. It starts off really slow and never seems to open up the same way previous games did. I pretty much forced myself to keep going to open up new areas. The graphics make GTA IV look like it's been taken to a new level but in terms of actual gameplay it's actually been brought way back from where Vice City and San Andreas were - at least in the parts that mattered; we have traded car customization, side businesses and jetpacks for in-world internet spam.

I've not only been playing GTA IV - I also picked up Consider Phlebas, the first book in the 'Culture' sci-fi literary cycle. The setting for the book seems very interesting but the actual events of the book are petty, overdescribed or downright uncalled for. I am finding myself pretty much skimming the book for the parts where they talk about the setting as a whole. Unfortunately this book was described as the best in the series, so it may be downhill from here.

Not much of what I would consider interesting car news lately, although there was the story about the "Return to Vanishing Point" Challenger. The very first preproduction Challenger was rescued from the crusher, painted white and entered in a race under a Vanishing Point theme...unfortunately reality seems to have mirrored art too closely, as the Challenger met a tire wall during a time trial and seems to be out of action. At least for that particular race.

to whom speed means freedom of his soul

For as much as I profess to love cars I really have no interest in motorsport. The epic battle of the C6.R vs the DBR9 is pretty much visible only to the Europeans, and rallying is so dragged out it would be impossible to follow when the events are. NASCAR I just find appalling. My only real fondness for the sport was when I found myself in a restaurant in Government Camp watching a Pontiac GXP.R mix it up with some 911s at Laguna Seca. Unfortunately I don't really know what series that is or when it runs, and I still don't have TV anyway.

I finally decided to board the geek train after everyone else and watch the first season of Battlestar Galactica. Unfortunately I watched half of the first episode at 2AM when I was knocked on my ass by a head cold - that really messed me up for the day. The series started off well enough, if depressing - I had no idea of the premise of the show - but it already seems to be dragging down into the same formula. Oh look, they are running out of another critical resource. Another dozen Vipers out of their ostensibly finite supply get blown up to acquire it. And then Baltar gets caught in a wacky awkward position because he has a Cylon in his head. I looked at some later season spoilers and it sounds like some serious retconning happens as well. I don't know if I'm going to pursue this past the first season.

in the sodium light

The weather perked up a little this weekend. Today it was 63 and sunny. I've perked up as well, as my cold has faded away. I went in to Portland today to find the OSU bookstore. It was in the one chunk of town I can barely navigate. Unfortunately the store didn't have a heck of a lot, so I went down to the riverfront and explored a bit there.

the runway lights are the deepest blue

Everybody at work is getting sick. There was something going around and then my boss brought something back from his trip to Oklahoma. I have managed to avoid it so far as I do a lot by email and I'm wearing a mask half the time anyway. It may have finally caught up to me though, as I have a bit of a sore throat. I don't want the Oklahoma Flu.

I recently bought Command & Conquer: The First Decade. I already own almost all of the compilation except for the expansion pack to Tiberian Sun, which I have just finished playing. I thought the compilation would just be 10 CDs, but they've actually packaged everything from the original to Zero Hour on one DVD, which is extremely convenient.

Buying that game was interesting. It cost $24.99, but the first time it came up on the debit card reader it said $24,990,000,000,000.00. I'm kicking myself that I didn't take a picture on my new cell phone. I told the cashier I wasn't feeling generous enough to pay off the national debt. The second attempt was $0.02, but I didn't get to keep that.

I've pretty much sorted out the artwork in my music collection, but I haven't really sorted the collection itself. I did just get the Ace Combat 6 soundtrack, which some blog had packaged with the Halo 3 soundtrack for some reason. As far as the new iPod goes, I got an acrylic case so the stupid edge that kind of annoys me is covered up altogether. The menus are still a bit laggy at times though.

merriment

Christmas today. Among other things I got the entire set of Northern Exposure, a TV show I've vaguely heard good things about but I've been oblivious of it until now. Checking that out should be neat, especially with normal TV running completely on empty now - no Heroes, no Top Gear, no QI, nothing. Tomorrow will be Lansing for Christmas with grandparents. I haven't been up there in a long time, and I've not really been out and about since I got back except for a pizza run.

With Christmas festivities almost over I can try and concentrate on making the most out of being in Michigan. Unfortunately I caught a minor cold en route, so I have been a little out of it since I got back.

a different kind of sunday morning

I think I may have finally figured out how to disable the bastard auto-update on Google Toolbar. There's no option to make it not replace my nice version with their horrible new one, so I had to get clever. I have been idling in the lair of the beast (toolbar.google.com) and it still hasn't auto-updated, so maybe I am in the clear.

I made an impulse buy today. I was in Staples trying to find new red pens because grading exams used up the last of my good ones, and in the laptop accessories section they had solar chargers. They have a MSRP of $100, Staples originally had them for $80, but they were on clearance for $19.80. Solar power + 75% discount is something I can't pass up. Unfortunately it's night right now so I can't play with it. The website has pictures of people using it in weird places, like "extreme ironing" in the Himalayas. Maybe mine won't be used for that, but hey, if civilization collapses and the power grid goes down I can still listen to my iPod.

I found out last week that the Atlas Shrugged movie(s?) is finally being pulled together. Angelina Jolie has been confimed as Dagny Taggart, I think she'd be perfect. Brad Pitt as John Galt I don't buy as much. I don't know who would be better though. Michael Gambon would make a pretty good Hugh Akston, and Harrison Ford would be a good Hank Rearden if he were younger...Anyway, we'll have to wait until 2008 to see. One of the articles I saw also said a remake of The Fountainhead might also be done. I've seen the original and I've been waiting for it to come out on DVD for years, which is finally about to happen.

The movie news has sparked my interest enough to make me finally get around to my annual reading of Atlas Shrugged. This is the 5th year now. I'm not going for the speed record this time - currently set at 4 days, but I swear it can be done in 3 given nothing to do and the stamina to break through The Speech on Day 3. This time around I'm taking my time and reading a couple chapters a day. That's more than I can afford time-wise anyway.

I've had a cold all week and it's annoying the hell out of me. dHealth/dt > 0 but it's not over yet. Cute Fred Meyer Girl was also sick. We commiserated with each other briefly and she gave me a Halls.

I acquired some mp3s of the new albums by BT and Hybrid. The BT tracks aren't that great, he's gotten a little too artsy. They are spacey and ambient and the shortest one is over eight minutes long (with the longest one topping 14). The Hybrid album doesn't seem to stand out at first, but it got under my skin and I can't stop listening to it. Today's post title is stolen from one of those songs.

drives

Computer work is not progressing as planned. As I was backing up data from my internal drive to the external, I found the external drive is kind of on the fritz and is resisting any treatments I have to offer. The only thing I can think of to remedy it is a reformat...which is exactly the sort of thing I don't want to hear, because there's not really anywhere for my data to be now if both of my drives need work.

So I'm looking at getting a new, proper external drive. I can get a 300GB drive for only around $120. Combine that with my current 200GB and I'd have half a terabyte of data storage. I would have way more space than I need...at least for the moment.

Then I might have another 80GB on top of that, from my old desktop. It apparently suffered a power surge that let the motherboard's magic smoke out. I wouldn't really have any use for that drive though. Basically I have to determine if that computer would be worth rebuilding, or if it should just be salvaged for parts.

In other news, it's good to be back in Michigan and my polymorphic head cold is all but over.

contents under pressure

I arrived in Detroit at an ungodly hour this morning in bad shape but still in one piece. Recently I've been suffering a sort of head cold that changes its symptoms every day. Presumably only an illness as polymorphic as this could make it past my robust immune system. On Saturday I had a sore throat, stuffy nose and addled brain, on Sunday this had turned into a runny nose and a lack of energy. And today? Sinus pressure and I lost my voice for a little while. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

The sinus pressure, combined with some ham-fisted cabin pressure control on the behalf of a Northwest Airlines crew, caused me some grief during the final approach to Detroit. I had horrible earaches for the last 15 minutes before touchdown and even a bit of shooting pain in my forehead. And then my ears didn't pop when I got off the plane. In fact they didn't pop until I got home an hour later, sat in the hot tub and set about purposefully trying to mess with the pressures in my head. I got it mostly right and then gradually equilibrated over the rest of the day. Flying on a plane should not require that you recalibrate your head afterwards.

One of the first orders of business once I regain my health and coherence is to reformat my computer, which has gone over a year on one installation of Windows. I broke some stuff quite a few months ago and it's kind of jury-rigged together at the moment.

So yeah, I'm back in Michigan for a few weeks. So if anyone else is around, drop me a line and I'll see when I can swipe some wheels.

time issues

Undergrad midterm was this week. I spent almost six hours grading exams tonight...and it may take up to nine more hours.

I would say that I've been very busy but that is rather an understatement. I'm reaching the point where my productive output is not based on how hard I work, but on the number of hours in a day. I am worried that in the near future I will literally not have enough time to complete all the tasks before me. Today I went in really early and barely scraped out my E&M homework minutes before it was due. And I can't just cop out and dump one or two tasks - everything is important.

I am finally getting over my cold. I think it was prolonged because of all the stuff to do and my not being able to just sleep in. My weekend is completely blown already - perhaps even overbooked - but I'm sleeping in tomorrow, damn it. I've earned it.

The biodiesel stuff is a go - perhaps too much of a go. Basically any spare moment I have will belong to some form of biodiesel project task. Quantum makes me feel really smart on the homework and really dumb in class - I've been doing well on homeworks, and then I come to class and utterly bomb in-class worksheets. The midterm sounds like it will be on stuff I can handle though.

I could elaborate on some of the other stuff I've been up to this week but it's already quarter to 2 and I need sleep.