Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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not a gamer

Blow on it a little, maybe lick it. Pull it out 5 microns and then push it down.
I did nothing this weekend, nothing at all. I should have, could have, done lots… clean the garage, mow the lawn, clean the house, etc. But I didn’t. Now it’s Sunday evening and I realize I’ve wasted my days off. How ashamed I am of my laziness.

I did do some “work” on Sunday, but not of the break-a-sweat variety. Sunday afternoon I spent a good deal of time working on plans for my Pac Man cabinet “upgrade.” That’s right, I’m breaking my own cardinal rule and messing with something that’s working fine in an effort to make it work “better.” I’ve always held that it’s a stupid thing to do, make something better when it’s not really bad to begin with – but I have a pretty hefty upgrade planned. I’m going to add a 3rd control panel, with two sets of controls, so that the cabinet can now play horizontal games. Since the original design is true to the old-school cocktail style cabinet, it’s limited to vertical-oriented games. Adding a 3rd panel along the long-side of the cabinet will allow two players to sit side-by-side and play games horizontally on the monitor. Upgrading the cab like this opens up the machine to thousands of new games… two-player side-scrollers, fighter-games, etc.

Must be “video game fever” time for me or something, since I’ve been working on the Pac Man machine and making plans for the future console emulation project I’m planning. The other day I ordered the dance-pads for the Dance Dance Revolution portion of the console emulator, got a good deal on Ebay for two pads. If someone had told me that one day I’d actually enjoy playing Dance Dance Revolution… some silly dance-on-a-pad game, I’d’ve probably laughed at them. That’s no nevermind though, because it’s gonna be part of the emulator now since I love it. Anyway, the console emulator machine will be the next project, and I estimate work starting early next year.

What’s with this Extreme Home Makeover show? If I remember right, back when my wife first starting watching it, it was kinda tolerable to me – showcasing the actual home-modification. I’d sometimes put down the computer to watch the builders frame a wall or run wires or knock down a room. Now, it seems like the focus has completely changed. Suddenly, they only fix homes for families with greater than 10 kids, a certain percentage of whom have to be either addicted to crack, autistic, or afflicted with some other horridly unfair childhood disease. Now it’s more like a Lifetime or Oxygen channel show, where everyone cries at the end because the makeover crew built a touching monument to the dead father or an elevator for the five year-old born without ankles.

Out of time, out of words; out.

Posted on

i got nothing

Turkeys that got killed.
I have the urge to somehow pore through all my past entries and try to compile a “wordcount” for what I’ve written so far. It’s more of a “look what I did” thing than anything useful, I just think it’d be neat data to have. Speaking of poring through old entries, I still need to go play “cleanup” on the entries that had a less-than-perfect transition to WordPress… like the one’s with Chinese characters and whose commas turned into question marks. I shudder to think of the potential new reader being turned away after finding archived entries impossible to understand with all the Chinese and imperative-overuse.

I have nothing to write, and it’s a Friday. I will slap together these two paragraphs and print it. Sorry.

Can you please look at this. Bright Eyes, holding down the #1 and #2 positions on Billboard’s “Hot 100” singles chart. Last week, Usher and Alicia Keys… this week, when the teen collective lifts their heads from their bongs, they will have claimed another indie act. Good job Bright Eyes, too bad the indie creed says I can’t listen to you anymore. Dave out.

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Raining again in sunny California

Mmmm... ice cream...
Seriously. I mean, c’mon. Yeah. Now, I know it may be hard to trust me – because it may seem like I’m gushing about a new album every few days… but for real y’allz. If someone was describing the new Go! Team album to me, saying things like, “Oh, you know, it’s like this sample-happy beatsy 70s/80s semi-disco electro-pop, with old breakdance and rap samples layered over the top,” I’d probably make up my mind without even hearing it. Just doesn’t sound like my bag. For the most part, you can have the Junior Seniors, Avalanches, and other type bands. But for some reason, be it the fact that I really like their name or not, this band is different. It’s not your everyday album that can make me bounce around in my car seat in my best impression of dancing, or pump my fists to the beat. Just to make an honest man of me, check out this track and see if you’re not happy after listening. Then, check out this brassy number and tell me you don’t wanna go plop down the $11 this thing costs. Enough about music, I think.

I’ve been thinking more and more about making a “complete console emulator” that will live permanently in the living room, attached to the TV. It would be a small form-factor PC with USB ports out the front where I could plug in a bunch of different controllers. The machine itself would be dedicated mainly to video game console emulation, and would do the job of an Atari, original 8-bit NES, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Nintendo-64, and GameBoy Advance. I’d also install Dance with Intensity for DDR. Along with this would come the most historically-accurate controllers, USB’d originals, and decent pads for DWI. Anyway, looking at some attractive small form-factor systems, and doing a quick mental cost-assessment, I think I could do the whole project for about $800. Not bad… very tempting in fact.

Raining again in sunny California… has been for a couple days now. Spent the whole morning rushing through my routine thinking I needed to be at work for my Mandarin class – it goes for five hours every Friday. Turns out, it’s not even Friday, and even if it was, the class doesn’t start until 9am. So, that sucked. I do that a lot, y’know. Adding to the list I put down earlier this week: I often don’t know what day of the week it is, and rarely know what the date is. A lot of times I’m just on autopilot… thinking about whatever’s monopolizing my thoughts at the moment, I should try and pay more attention to detail.

I went to the freezer to get an ice cream sandwich, but it was just a box that used to hold ice cream sandwiches. Man, what I way to ruin a craving for an ice cream sandwich. Not wholly unexpected though, living with my wife. Dave out.

Posted on

facing northeast

How may I be helping you?
Busy morning and still no internet at home. Time to press “go” on the blog.

Turns out my router is just fine, my ISP is having some issues with their “circuits,” and I’ll be out of an internet connection for an undetermined amount of time. That sucks for me, because the internet is my brainless-entertainment. I mean, for most people, it’s television. They come home, plop down, and watch TV all night before going to bed. Maybe not really paying attention, maybe doing other things while “watching,” but the TV is the prime occupier of their free time. For me, it’s the computer. I’d rather sit in front of the computer, surfing the net, listening to music, tinkering with this and that, making webpages, etc. The computer is my TV.

This has been the source of some friction between Sharaun and I before. She feels like I spend the “whole evening” on the computer, which I counter with something like, “I feel like you spend ‘the whole night’ on the TV.” This does not computer to her, because the TV is just “what you do.” I’ll admit, it’s more mainstream. I bet the vast majority of people come home from work, turn on the TV, and have it going in the background until they go to bed. Kids of the TV generation then see this as “what you do” in that post-work, post-school, evening time. It was the same way with my family, we had our “shows” that we watched. Cosby on Thursdays, Murder She Wrote on whatever day Murder She Wrote came on, McGuyver, Family Ties, etc. Problem is, in her mind, there is a fundamental difference between wasting time in front of a television and wasting time in front of a computer. One is “OK,” a socially-acceptable waste of time, while the other, for some reason, is not.

To me, they’re both wasting time. To her, watching TV together is “spending time” together. But, if I’m sitting on the couch with the laptop while we watch TV together, somehow it doesn’t count. I don’t really understand it. In order for our evening to qualify as “spending time together,” we apparently both have to choose to waste it in the same way. I’m even in the same room, the sole difference is that I’m staring at a laptop monitor and she’s staring at a television. It’s funny, if I’m reading a book – that’s cool, if I’m doing dishes in the kitchen, that’s cool too; it’s only the computer that somehow magically negates the “spending time together” thing. I predict this as a problem for more people as the brainless-pastime paradigm slowly shifts.

I talked to Tracy on the phone today, a buddy of mine is in Taiwan staying at the hotel where she tends bar. He was at the bar, and had her call me up. She still can’t speak English that well, but it was funny to talk to her. She said she’s happy that I’m coming out there again soon, and this time she might let me take her out to dinner. I mean, really, y’all be knowin’ she’s not a real “girlfriend,” or else I wouldn’t be calling her that on the internets – but she is fun to hang out with when I’m in town. Hopefully, I’ll be able to talk to her a lil’ more this next time – providing I pass my Mandarin class and don’t get fired.

Kind of related, last night I called tech support for my ISP, since the connection was down and I wanted to inquire about a possible outage. The guy I got routed to was in India (I’m not pigeon-holing here, he told me), and our conversation was hilarious. First off, without sounding too boastful, I’ll set the stage by saying I could run rings around this guy’s tech expertise. Not that what he knows won’t enable him to solve 99% of the type of customer issues he probably runs into, just that to me it was pretty much useless. Anyway, I told him my connection was dropping packets, particularly large ones. Small packets were making it through with a higher percentage, while the loss increased with packet size.

The first thing homeboy asked me was “where, exactly, are you located?” I responded with my city and state. “Mmm-hmmm, OK,” says he, “Where, exactly though, are you located, sir?” “Uhh…,” I repeat my city and state again, asking if that’s the information he wants. I go further and give him the nearest “big” city, just in case he’s squinting at a wall-map of a country halfway around the world trying to find my tiny suburb. “Mmmm-hmm, excellent sir. But, in terms of location sir, where, exactly is that located?” Wow… what?! My mind races: what does this guy want? I respond with my zip code, and wonder if I should next resort to longitude and latitude or degrees, minutes, and seconds. “Oh, and currently I’m sitting in my computer room in a large grey chair, facing northeast.” Hilarious. It goes without saying, I humored the guy for about 10min and then hung up on him when I got to feeling too bad. Yeah, I do people like that.

Dave out.

Posted on

angels and devils

Tuesday's... here!
My internet was down last night (and still is this morning, for that matter), so I didn’t get to write. Luckily, I had the following 3-paragraph bit stored away in my “drafts.” While that usually means I’m not quite happy with it and want to do a “rewrite,” circumstances today dictate that I just press “go” and get a free entry. Stupid broken internet, I have a sneaking feeling it’s my router… it’s been acting way funny lately. Anyway…

Over the years, I’ve learned that I really don’t commit things to memory that aren’t important to me. I’ve also learned that there are some common things which most people do deem important enough to keep in memory, judging by the number of those I’ve met who can call them up at will, which I certainly don’t have memorized. This tells me that I should probably know these things offhand, but I don’t. Reviewing them, they certainly seem pretty important – memorization-worthy even. For example:

I don’t know how much money is in my bank account on a daily basis. I don’t know how many miles-per-gallon our vehicles get. I don’t know what my coverage limits are on my homeowners or car insurance are. I don’t know the interest rate on my house. Sometimes I don’t even know how old I am. I don’t know how much we spend every month. I don’t know how much gas, or milk, or bread costs. I don’t know how to drive to places I’ve driven to been to before.

Looking at it, seems like most of these items are finance-related. I don’t know whether that’s a good or bad thing, and I’m sure there are two schools of thought there. The hippy in me tells me it’s a good thing that my mind isn’t bogged down by materialist, capitalistic creeds and ideologies. The yuppie in me, however, tells me that I should know what’s in my 401k to the penny and have a running balance sheet for every dollar I spend. More often than not, I tend to hang out with the hippy in me. He and I sit around smoking dope in me, listening to Skynyrd in me, and throwing eggs at the yuppie in me’s Escalade from the front porch of his trailer in me.

OK yeah, that was it. Come in and write a few sentences above and a few below, and start the presses. I’ll talk at ya later, until then. Dave out.

Posted on

stop off to top off

GIS for yuppie
The president is still the president, and Americans voted him that way again. No matter what is said about “stealing” the election last time – this time it’s not up for debate. The country prefers Bush, simple as that. I think the democrats made some key mistakes, one of them the fact that they are constantly calling Bush “stupid.” Perhaps not outright, but be it either inferred or insinuated – the impression one would get is that he is too dumb, or inept, to properly lead. Maybe, without knowing it, the dems shot themselves in the foot with this… My bet is that there are plenty of Joe Americans who can identify with Bush’s situation, and view the dems’ assertion of his ignorance as a mocking of their own brainpower. They can give Bush their votes as a big middle-finger to the nerds that made fun of them in school, the jokes that go over their head on Saturday Night Live, and the pretentious, how-can-anyone-think-he’s-funny-compared-to-hilarious-shows-like-Jackass John Stewart. Whatever, be it religious fundamentalists, gun enthusiasts, rich folks, who cares – he won. We, the United States, voted for him, so that’s all she wrote. And that’s all I’ll write about it too.

Woke up this morning to the sound of rain in the downspouts, which for some reason sounds like it’s fed through and amplifier and piped in through hidden speakers in the wall – so dang loud. That means rain on the way to work, and of course, umbrella usage. I mention this because, this morning, as I was walking into work using my umbrella, I realized something: either umbrellas suck, or I never learned how to use one right. (Man, check out all the commas in that sentence, but I think it’s still grammatically sound, right?) I mean, an umbrella has never performed as billed for me. It’s more cumbersome than protective, and I still get wet. I get wet because water rolls off the top and drips on me, I can’t get the angle right to protect my back and front, and it does nothing for my legs/shoes. About all an umbrella is good for is keeping my head dry… and who cares about that. I should invest in a good hooded rain slicker… seems much more (I never remember, is “much more” OK to say?) sensible. Maybe I’m just inept.

I mentioned earlier that I was “chosen” at work to participate in a class in Mandarin. Some college prof is coming to teach us “survival Chinese,” where we learn things like how to talk money, directions, small-talk, and business stuff. According to the official notice I got for the class, I was “identified as a strategic participant” for the course. Now, I don’t know if that means I’m being shipped to China soon or something – but I am excited about free learning (as someone who currently owes tens-of-thousands to the government for education, free learning is appreciated). Anyway, the course is supposed to be “challenging,” and we were urged not to commit to doing it unless we’ll be able to be dedicated in our studies and “homework.” You know how long it’s been since I’ve had homework? Then, down near the bottom of the notice, there was a line which stated something like “… failure to complete the course with a passing grade will result in corrective action.” Corrective action? Now I can get fired for a B, what pressure. Just like I’m from an Asian family! Y’know, like my wife’s kids whose parents make them sleep outside when they get anything less than an A? (Yes, for real.) Apparently we’re learning the culture as well as the language…

Well guys, I’m on my own. Dropped the wife off in front of the airport around six, and began my brief bachelor weekend by grabbing a burger and hanging out at Anthony’s. Later, I think I’ll go home and stay up late watching TV in my boxers. Actually, since I wrote that last sentence at Anthony’s… it fast became 1am and I find myself at home in front of the PC, after a nice evening at the local brewpub. That’s right. As I was passing said brewpub, Ben called me to inform me of a gathering at the very place… so I did a u-turn, and joined the fracas around 10:30pm. Much talk of the election and war and other less-hotbutton topics later, and with two pints downed, the final holdouts called it a night and headed home. ‘Twas good, talking, drinking, coming home at 1am on a “schoolnight.” What a life I live… pubbing it up on a Wednesday night with friends… coming home with that nice ale-inspired-edge to the evening’s writing… and totally abusing ellipses while at it.

I think this is one of my best entries, found it the other day while trying to search through old entries and fix the commas-turned-into-question-marks problem from my WordPress migration. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but y’know what I mean. Or, maybe only I know what I mean. Seriously… I write as much for me as for anything. I can only hope that someone, somewhere, reads this shit with interest…

Sorry if I pissed off any Asians with the Asian family comment, but you know how I do. All of the sudden I want to write until dawn, but I realize I’ve got a pretty decent wordcount for an entry – and I don’t really have much to say anyway. Until I can’t string words together anymore, Dave out.

Posted on

sportin’

On my blog?
So, Sharaun bought me a bunch of new shirts recently. Y’know, the kind that all the “cool” guys wear? To me, they look like 70s relics for the most part, but apparently all the cool late-twenty-somethings are wearing them. She’s also stocked my hangers with some “cool” jeans, apparently defined by looking orangey-dirty and being a half-inch of flare away from bellbottoms. Now, I don’t profess to follow any fashion trends, or to even pay attention to such things, but when I wear these new clothes – I do feel nice. Somehow, be it the magic of haute couture or whatever, I actually feel a little cooler when I wear them. You can probably see it in my cocksure swagger – and read my thoughts on my face: “these clothes make me more socially acceptable.” All kidding aside, I am kinda glad that she buys me stuff in efforts to keep me hip. I mean, I’m not gonna be a presenter at the MTV whatever awards anytime soon – but I can almost pull them off without resultant hilarity.

The only problem with the cool clothes is the stark dichotomy between them and my usual accoutrements. (Yes, this is a thesaurus contest). This night-and-day effect almost always elicits some kind of comments from those who see me on a regular basis. Things like, “Dang Dave, why so dressed up?, ” and, “You clean up nice.” Not that these comments bug me, I guess I just get kinda shy under the focused attention. I’m mean, as you can probably tell by the way I keep a freakin’ journal on the internet for the world to read – I’m pretty coy. Who am I kidding… I’m the dumbass with the lampshade on his head. Regardless, it’s amazing what a few small comments and a change of clothes can do for your bravado.

So, really… I don’t know how I found it – but I’ve started reading someone else’s weblog, a random person I’ve never met, for that matter. Just the other day, I was waxing on about how I’m not the “typical” blog-reading, blog-writing, blog-eating-sleeping-drinking blogger… but it seems I was wrong, at least, a little bit. When you get mixed up in this lifestyle, it sucks you in man…

I put some awesome green floodlights on the graveyard last night, ones that are truly meant for outdoor use (the indoor ones I started with popped in the previous night’s rain). These are true 100W floods, not the piddly 40W low-voltage crap I was using before – so they really light the place up. Enough so that they cast an eerie green glow on the front of the house. The entire effect is really satisfying – the blacklight, moving, crank-ghost, the green-lit flying witch, and the shadowy-green house and graveyard. Can’t picture it?, check it out:

Horror, bathed in green.

Anyway, one time I found this link on the intarweb – and I clicked it – and it took me to a pretty interesting, and definitely creepy page. By creepy, I mean worrisome – so why didn’t I just say “worrisome?,” I dunno. That link, the one I clicked a couple sentences ago, was this one. It talks about, and even coins a term for, a person getting fired from their job for content on their weblog. Now, I usually try to stay away from talking about work in much detail here, and I don’t even think I’ve really ever said what I do for a living (other than be awesome). But, just doing a quick mental search (binary, of course, because my brain is efficient and elegant) of my past entries – I think I probably have some “dooce” fodder on these pages.

Frequent pining for vacation, less-than shocking admissions that sometimes I don’t do anything, sordid tales of business trips to the Orient, all these things could probably be used as evidence against me. I really do think about things like that, y’know. Getting fired because I posted a picture I drew while in a customer meeting, something dumb like that. That’s why I’m generally leery about people at work knowing about this thing – even though I know there are some occasional readers, I try not to spread it around. Hopefully I’m non-specific enough that I’ll never have to worry about getting “dooced,” but man, that would suck. Hard.

Looking at other blogs, comparatively, I write a lot. I see a lot of one-sentence stuff out there. That’s cool I guess, but for some reason I don’t feel like I’m “writing” unless there’s a couple paragraphs. Granted, sometimes my “couple paragraphs” are just rambling – but it makes me feel better to see the words I guess.

Somehow, someone was referred to my blog by Googling “whale sounds in water pipes.” I swear, that’s what the stats say. Dave out.