what the hell is an aluminum falcon

Well, my test at work is finally back up and running, although it will be somewhat jury-rigged until next week.

I was recently worried that the Pontiac G8 was going to be too much larger than my Malibu, being slightly longer and five inches wider. Well apparently the Camaro Concept is ten inches wider than my car, with promises to not reduce the width on the production version by more than 0.5". Apparently it's been decided to make the next Camaro five inches wider than any previous version. Hmm.

get busy child

So I kicked ass in my presentation to the company's general manager/COO/my boss cubed. Apparently he was impressed I did my own cross-section work. He only had some valid concerns about the test setup, which I had not designed but which I am now in the process of overhauling now that the new equipment is in. This involves like four times as much soldering - I'd say I did 550 solders today, and I haven't even started the wiring - but should last forever instead of breaking down. I am hoping to get the test back online tomorrow. Apart from the experimental benefits my boss says the retrofit ought to get me even more points with the boss cubed.

more car talk

I found some more stuff on the Pontiac G8 and it seems less interesting now for some reason. I'm not sure if I want a car that big, I'm not sure if it will have enough legroom, it looks a lot like a BMW (even if it is supposed to emulate an M5), and I'd like to see what kind of effect Active Fuel Management has because the mileage on the Commodore looks pretty low. I won't really know how I feel until I get to try one though. I might go harass a Pontiac dealer on my birthday.

Also, I saw a DeLorean on Friday when I was driving home from work. That's a new one.

that frankly will not fly

I still can't take any data at work so I've been working on my final report. I would say I'm working on my thesis but apparently it isn't one, which annoys me, because I'm doing at least as much work and it doesn't feel like my major is taken seriously. At least that means I have a little more leeway in writing my paper - the thesis guidelines are pretty strict, down to stuff like "DOUBLE HARD RETURN HERE" and "DO NOT CAPITALIZE, BOLD OR ITALICIZE THESE." I am writing my paper as close to the thesis guidelines as possible but not stressing over stuff like that. Today I dedicated the entire workday to writing and I got quite a bit further, actually filling in most of the placeholders I'd put in earlier this week.

media stuff

Beautiful Katamari: 10/26/07
Ace Combat 6: 11/13/07

I have to say the Heroes finale was kind of a letdown. The last two episodes of the season just couldn't keep my full attention.

now all i hear is tearing of paper

Now that the futon situation is at least contained thanks to metal plates, my new domestic project is to spruce up my balcony. I didn't have a proper one in Corvallis so I'd like to make good use of this one now that the weather is getting nice. The biggest change I am trying to make is to use mosquito netting to screen it off (at least mostly) so I don't have to worry about bugs or leaves and seeds blowing in. This is actually a bigger challenge than it may sound. I have already been through two iterations and still have not found a suitable way to mount the nets. I was hoping to finish that tonight but I have to let my blokish ingenuity simmer on that one. Perhaps metal plates are involved.

computer h8, part II

I have too much Microsoft in my life right now. My computer is under control, and the Xbox 360 works pretty well by itself, but getting the two to talk together is a pain in the ass. The most annoying bit is that in order to stream music to the Xbox I have to use the Zune software. Even though I don't have one of the damned things. Unlike iTunes for the iPod, which actually works really well, the Zune software is the worst thing in the world. It takes forever to load, keeps trying to rescan the same folders over and over, doesn't organize things properly, and the stupid network sharing service takes up 40 megs of my precious RAM. God forbid if Vista got mixed up in this somehow.

As long as I'm hating on computer stuff, I'd also like to give a shout out to Creative, who can't make an Audigy 2 that won't make mysterious static drown everything out in San Andreas. At the moment my sound drivers have completely failed for no reason. I did see some heartening news recently, which said that sound cards are becoming endangered because it is now possible to do 7.1 Dolby surround sound without dedicated hardware. I was worried I would have to settle for another Creative product in my future supercomputer, but maybe I won't after all.

Since I got the 360 I'm not in as much of a hurry to build a new computer. I did see that Hitachi finally put a 1TB drive on the market, but apparently it's relatively loud and uses a fair amount of power. Which I suppose should be expected from the leading edge. Still, the only thing I've decided on for the new computer is the case, an Antec P180.

look to my left and you'll see where i tried

So I got an Xbox 360 a couple of weeks ago. I have to say that Dead Rising does a fantastic job of desensitizing you to zombies. I had to start playing the game slowly because it freaked me out and now I've beaten Overtime Mode and gotten Zombie Genocider. The only other decent 360 game I've played so far is Test Drive Unlimited. I got a bunch of demos off Xbox Live but none of them were very good. Guess I'm stuck until Ace Combat 6 and the new Katamari game come out.

computer h8

I had a bit of a scare today at work when I messed up my work computer. I had changed some network setting so when I tried to log in it couldn't talk to the company network and it wouldn't log me on. I was about to call in the IT guys when I figured out there was no password for admin on the local machine, so I was able to get in and fix the network without anyone knowing. The irony is that I messed up the computer while renaming it Ephialtes, which I had picked because I knew it would eventually betray me. So the machine and I have a mutual h8 now.

these missiles you bubble wrap

Well I just figured out why the font is always so freaking tiny when I post. Something to do with the stupid template. I don't really want to mess with it but I can try and correct for it from now on.

Tomorrow is Friday! I have a much greater appreciation for them now that I am working full time. I even get to wear jeans.

My boss gets back tomorrow, this will be the first time he's been around since I started working. I think I have gotten quite a bit accomplished, but I couldn't do the main task he set out for me because the manufacturers are being snooty.

I finally got access to test data yesterday, but it's in another building so I've been running back and forth to upload the latest copy to the network. This isn't going to work if it starts pouring so I wrote a batch file to automatically copy the file to the network every 15 minutes.

I also started writing up some of the basic framework for my final report. My thesis. It's kind of scary because this is part of the end. It's about time.

Unfortunately I have yet to see the best part of having a real job (or something like it), a decent paycheck. My first payday isn't until next week. After that I might head down to Fry's to spend a bit of it, but mostly I need to start saving back up again after the move, especially since the financial aid office at OSU is being bitchy about the last part of my student loan.

Car sighting of the day: Lotus Elise.