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Posted on

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

do you find this odd?

Primitive 1st-timer style.
The other day, driving to work, I saw some kids on their way to high-school. Windows down, rap music blaring, and smoke billowing out both sides of the car. We were stopped in traffic at the time, and the passenger chose this is as the right moment to clear the cashed bowl they had been puffing on. He craned his head out the window, put his mouth to the ceramic pipe, and blew out the ash. Man, we were never that brazen… smoke weed before school? Nope. After school, sure; in the car, sure. It was just funny, he looked right at me (as I was right beside them in traffic) as he cleared the bowl… not a care in the world. I shoulda got the plates and narc’d on ’em, but nah… I lived in that world once… maybe not quite as extreme… but still. Intro paragraph over.

Friday night (Saturday morning, whatever), moderately drunk – so much so that my fingers are stubborn on the keyboard. Not wanting to stretch to the right letters, skipping words in hopes my brain won’t notice. Seriously, if you could see the type-to-backspace ratio for that last sentence, you’d know what I’m talking about. The 90 Day Men are playing in Winamp… I hated them at first, mocked the singer’s “singing,” but now I love them – the music is amazing, the tone is something altogether new and interesting. Get the album, even if you hate it – you’ll be better for it. Anyway, the night started off at the new brewery/restaurant here in town. Two-hour wait for dinner, all two hours of which was spent sampling beer. Dinner, more beer. Afterward, the crew reassembles at my place to take care of the leftover leftovers from last weekend’s Halloween bash. Everyone leaves and it’s 1am, and I decide to drink some water and write. I’m not staying up much longer, my fingers are lazy like they’re waking-up cold and have gone long unused – and my mind is muddled with beer. Just long enough to put this 90 Day Men album on my MSI flash MP3 player – then I hit the sack with the album in my ears. In fact, this is it; I am done; goodnight until I pick up this entry again, no doubt on Sunday night.

Saturday morning, and the day started out ambitious enough. Slept in late and then decided to hit the backyard and finish cutting stones for the porch. Put on the work-clothes and fired up the saw, cut three bricks and placed them, pushed the trigger on the saw for the next batch of bricks – and nothing. Checked the outlet, checked the breaker – nothing. Owell, I figure it was the yard’s way of telling me that I wasn’t meant to work today. Instead, I was meant to sit here, on the couch, watching old episodes of the Twilight Zone and working on webpages. I’ve decided I’ll heed the signs, and do my best to do nothing.

Oh man, I went a little crazy with Sharaun gone and smoked my pipe in the house all day. Then I came in the house yesterday after a nice dinner at Erik and Kristi’s, only to realize that the place reeked of stale pipe tobacco. Slept last night with all the windows open and the fans on, in an attempt to air the place out. And as a final precaution this morning before heading out to pick her up at the airport, hit the place with some air freshener and Febreze. I musta done a good job, ’cause she didn’t say anything when she walked in the door. I even tried some crafty pre-excuse about the cat taking an exceptionally pungent dump or something. Ahh… freedom… to smoke my pipe on the couch, to eat spaghetti two nights in a row, to have a floor free of cast-off clothes and junk. I’m glad my wife’s back.

So, to recap: go get the 90 Day Men album, and while you’re there pick up the Go! Team album. Then, when your friends hear songs on the OC and latest WB shows that they remember hearing in your car months earlier – there will be no recourse but for them to acknowledge your psychic taste in music. Dave out.

Posted on

what that man said

I don't know what... my obsession is.
Left work early today for a 3:30 appointment. Yeah, an appointment with a lawn mower and my front yard. Since ol’ Ben Franklin took away my after-work daylight, I’ve got to be creative with when I get non-weekend yardwork done. Hey, saw this the day before the election. Seems to say that the real interpretation of Bin Laden’s words on his pre-election tape is actually a threat to individual US states choosing to side with Bush. Dunno how much truth there is to it, but I found it interesting. The website seems credible, and releasing a pre-election video which is directly trying to influence the election makes sense to me. Owell, intro paragraph over.

As often as I’ve complained about my sedentary, cubicle-based, job and my desire for something with a little more “movement,” there is one good thing about it – I get to listen to music all day long. I’ve been lucky, having had a series of jobs where I can indulge in tunes: working in a music store, and desk jobs where I can throw on the headphones and hang out in my own little world. It gives me a great opportunity to hear new tunes. Most of the time, I’m not listening-listening, it’s more like background music – but I do pick up the “feel” of the album that way, which puts me in a better position to appreciate it more if it turns out to be good. Anyway, I have no idea what I’m saying – I just wanted to talk about how I’m happy I have a job where I can listen to tunes all day. There, was that so hard?

I’m going to go against my better judgment and write a paragraph inspired by a TV show… and not any TV show, the new 91210 – the OC. I know, I know… where are my scruples, right? But I’m gonna break it down for y’all, I love that show. I don’t even care, call it a guilty pleasure or something. Anyway, I’m not going to write about the show – I’m going to write about something the show made me think of.

Back in high school, I think our senior year, a friend of mine “ran away” from home. Not in the side-of-a-milk-carton thing, when you’re 18 it’s pretty much your choice to make. He had some problems with his dad, and decided he’d had enough. He moved in with another friend of ours, and stayed in a guest room there. Come graduation, I had grown a lot closer to Jeremy. We were both sticking around the hometown for the next two years, choosing cheaper and easier community college over a four-year school. Our mutual friend, the one he was living with, however, had chosen to move away. This left Jeremy without a place to stay.

On a whim, I suggested he come live with me, at my parents’ house. Out of that casual suggestion, a living arrangement was born. A living arrangement that was awesome. We were best friends, brothers even. Never have I been closer to someone, or enjoyed someone’s company that much. For two years Jeremy lived in our converted garage, just like Ryan on the OC. (I told you it was coming back, didn’t I). Anyway, when I watch that show – I think of those years when Jeremy lived with us, and it just makes me feel good. Every once in a while, I start thinking that the days I’m living in are surely the best days of my life. I’ve thought that a lot, probably every year.

I think that’s the way it should be… every year is the best year. Even when you look back on them, they are still the best years. Today: the best year; last year: the best year. I’ve been extremely fortunate, I try to remember that. I do.

Next week, I already have a couple entries planned. I’m going to write about my New Orleans drug experience, and about getting robbed on the empty streets of Nassau. Holy crap I love this site, reminds me of Dr. Bronner’s soap. The term “bastardy queer” is priceless. 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

early returns

Duck!
6pm, sitting here watching Peter Jennings (I’m an ABC News devotee) read early returns from the east-coast states. Sharaun and I are waiting until the after-work 5pm crowds die down a bit before heading to the polls. I’m totally wrapped up in the news coverage, it’s kind of like watching a horse race… in slow motion… but there’s some of that same excitement. And… the passing of a paragraph marks the passing of a couple hours, we’re back from the polls… votes cast. Good stuff.

You guys can tune out for a while, I’m about to get super nerdy here.

I finally uninstalled Microsoft Office. One more program that I can now do without thanks to quality freeware. I’ll admit, I like Office. But, faced with really functional free alternatives like OpenOffice.org, it’s hard to justify the expense. I had held onto Office so long for a couple reasons: I love Outlook for e-mail, and I had designed a large Access database to track my music collection. OpenOffice had no good Access equivalent, and I had never found another e-mail app I was satisfied with. Both of those things recently changed.

Since migrating my webpages to a new, FreeBSD-based, host – I’ve taken the time to convert my music collection database from MS Access to MySQL. Having the database in MySQL removed my reliance on Access, so I decided to once again take a look at alternative e-mail clients. I re-tried Mozilla Thunderbird, which I had given up on before because it lacked a decent calendar feature like Outlook. However, with the addition of the Mozilla Calendar plugin, and a slick-looking theme – Thunderbird is all I’ll ever need in an Outlook replacement. So, thanks to MySQL and Mozilla – I was able to completely ditch MS Office for a completely free alternative. And, I can still use all my old Office docs and Outlook mails, because they’re all compatible. Now the only thing that costs money on my machine is Windows XP itself… which I’ll happily pay for. Rad.

It’s late, I’m tired… it all signs point to another four years o’ Bush. Sorry for the crappy entry, Dave out.