A Little From Column A, A Little From Column B

Having recently viewed Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, I stopped in at my local White Castle on the way home Friday night from my shopping trip to indulge in what one might call "The Crave". I purchased a semi-robust crave package of roughly four double cheeseburgers, an order of mozzarella sticks, and a large cream soda. I then proceeded to pound it away mercilessly.

It then proceeded to pound at me mercilessly for the next forty-eight hours.

I’ve had food poisoning about four times in my life now. After this past weekend, I really don’t need a fifth time. There are a lot more interesting things I’d rather be doing than counting how many fibers are in the carpet of the bathroom floor. Or how many spiral patterns are on the ceiling. Saturday, I was flat on my back all day. This is one of the milder cases of food poisoning that I’ve had though. Previous bouts with this have left me unable to move without passing out, wringing with a cold sweat, and enjoying the feel of porcelain against my forehead. Ugh. I don’t want to have to go through that anytime again soon.

Needless to say I’ve sworn off fast food (or at least Gut Grenades) for awhile.

---

Yesterday afternoon I took my wife out to Columbus so I could spoil her a little bit. She’s been jokingly hinting that she wants a laptop for the past few months, so I thought I would surprise her. We went to Circuit City and picked out a simple HP model that was on sale. It has a widescreen monitor, half a gig of RAM, wireless LAN, plenty of nice extras, and it didn’t set me back too far. I even had enough money left over to get her the photo printer she wanted, a laptop bag, a USB thumb drive, and a Wireless G card for the other laptop in our house. Not too shabby.

Cheryl has thanked me about fifteen times for her new toys. I jokingly told her that it was OK. I would be settling up in August when I order my Alienware. Not to mention I pre-ordered my PSP.
 

---

I registered for my last term of college today. I am having student services mail me a graduation application, which I will gladly fill out and return. In August, I will officially be done with school. Man, I can’t wait to have a little more free time again. I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like.

For the first time in a long time, things are working out for the best and I’m not stressed. I don’t know how to handle it. I’ve grown so accustomed to being stressed out and overworked that it’s a shock to see light at the end of the tunnel. Heck, now I really know what "light at the end of the tunnel" means.

It’s a good feeling.

Geek Tech Talk

Wednesday’s rant was fed from two months of growing frustration about online gaming. One can only take so much verbal abuse from other (immature) players before deciding to hang it up and take a break. I mean these people aren’t just kids, they are people my age acting like drunken frat boys. People are just so damn obnoxious online anymore and it sure as heck isn’t like it used to be back in the "Good Old Days" whenever the heck that was.

When I met Cheryl online in 1997, the Internet subculture was altogether different. All the freaks and weirdos hung out in their desolate corners of cyberspace. Much like a virtual city, there were digital bowerys of debauchery and incest that some people chose to go into. Other places were "bright’ and "friendly". Those that chose to slum it typically didn’t get out and wander among the general populace of Internet users. There were no web cams, no voice chat, and certainly a lot less overt perverts meandering about.

Now, any redneck with extra money and a wal-mart rig can go online and webcam with what he thinks is a fifteen-year old transvestite with a penchant for sadomasochism. The younger generation having the ability to do pretty much whatever the heck they want to online certainly doesn’t help matters any.

I don’t know why I complain, I guess I should know better. If I offended anyone yesterday, sorry. But as the saying goes, "I gotta be me".

---

It’s my hope that I will get XM Radio installed in my car this evening. After work I plan on driving up to Best Buy and seeing if I can buy some hardware and get it installed. Otherwise, I’m just going to be picking up a USB Ethernet Adapter for my Tivo. Maybe a couple of hard drives too. It all depends on any one of a thousand different neurotic factors. Given my current disgust with online gaming, I’m taking a break and concentrating on geeking out on other things.

I bought a Linksys wireless bridge earlier this week and have so far tested it out successfully. I can get a good strong signal that lets me do things as intensive as online gaming if I want to. Mostly it will serve as a makeshift access point for the Tivo and the church laptop. At least until I can get the laptop its own wireless card. It was nice working on homework upstairs last night for a change.

I’m hoping that I can get the Tivo on the network, and hopefully swap out its one 35GB hard drive to two 120GB hard drives. This will give me roughly 240 hours of recording time. This is quite a few episodes of the Wiggles, Barney, and Teletubbies (not to mention Battlestar Galactica, CSI, and Mythbusters).

I don’t think that I will be moving movies back and forth from the Tivo to my PC. I don’t have a DVD burner, and trying to be a torrent seed isn’t my idea of fun. It would be cool to enable the caller ID hack though. I’ve been scanning Tivo forums for the past few days getting ideas about what I want to do.

---

The projector is scheduled for replacement tomorrow at the church. So, I’ll be wandering out about noonish to meet the tech who’s installing it for me. I’m looking forward to seeing it in action is this is a LCD projector with HDTV and widescreen capabilities. It will be interesting to have the projector back since we have been without it since late December. The church services certainly haven’t suffered because it hasn’t been around. It’s been a nice vacation from technology for the last month, and this is giving the church an excuse to make a few changes. It should be fun firing it up again on Sunday morning and loading up some video.

The Online Gaming Low-Life Hierarchy

<rant>

For the past two months straight I have been getting my groove on with various games on X-Box live. As many of you already know, I have been mostly playing the game which shall not be named. Being that it is online gaming, I expected to have to deal with my fair share of cockknockers and asshats.  As of late, it seems like less and less people want to play the game, and more and more people just want to run their mouths and generally screw off. Let’s look at some of the characteristics of some of your typical low-lifes that you can find in this game (and in online gaming in general).

• The Spawn Camper – These bullet magnets are the lowest of the low. The poor bastards are too dense to rub sticks together to make fire, let alone rub two neurons together to develop a viable strategy on playing the game. Generally these poor sods can be found hiding in deep, dark crevices where they can’t be seen. They wait for some unsuspecting player to respawn nearby or run by at which point they rush out, feebly attempting to deal out death. If successful they go back into their spider hole. Spawn Campers are butt-licking cowards. At best they will live in their parent’s basement the rest of their lives and making a living playing online texas hold ‘em. At worst they will show up in an ER needing to get one or more of their infected heroin injection points lanced and cleaned out.

• The Nickname Knocker – These guys are like The Mouth Runners, only not as smart. At best, they can only come up with some lame variation of your nickname that tends to imply homosexual tendencies or something involving molesting a dog. It’s good to know that we are in third grade again. I’m gladly reminded of that at least once a night while getting my frag on. Since most of these kids are fixated on bashing minorities and homosexuals, then I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if I indulged their repressed homo-erotic fantasies by planting a rocket launcher up their collective arses repeatedly. And I do. Over and over and over again. Nickname Knockers tend to end up making a viable career out of cleaning the debris trap at the  local car wash or pulling french fries out of the hot oil at a mom and pop fast food stand with their bare hands as entertainment. I hear those skin grafts hurt like hell.

• The Mouth Runner – These asshats take more pride in their talking ability than their
  shooting ability. They tend to talk, hum, sing, or shout epithets at
  every moment during a game. This would be a good thing if they weren’t
  on my team. Mouth runners tend to grow up to be used car salesmen or Pablo’s bitch in cell block D. Take my advice, shut up. Your future will be that much brighter. Maybe you’ll be on Oprah someday telling an inspiring story and extoling the virtues of feelings.

• The Team Killer – These models of recidivism in action can actually manage to plant a bullet in someone’s head. Unfortunately that head usually winds up being yours. You’d like to kick them out of the game, but you really need them because you’re really really close to leveling up again in the rankings. Team Killers are good players because they have a lot of experience slaying people. If you’re lucky Luke will turn away from the dark side long enough to not be a cock and help you win the game then go team-kill someplace else. If you’re unlucky, Darth Small will continue to team kill his way to an ejection, leaving you to face the real enemy alone. Team killers are all registered sex offenders and pedophiles. Better hope you dont end up with Pablo and The Mouth Runner chuckles.

• The Poor Sportsman – This arrogant sumbitch tends to reign at the top of the collective loser shitpile that exists at the bottom rung of the online gaming ladder. They actually have the mad leet skillz it takes to win and be successful. However they have this slightly grating tendency to remind you of their abilities repeatedly. They also tend to give a color commentary on everyone else’s playing ability. These players deserve credit for being good. However, they deserve no respect. Just because Daddy bought you your X-Box and you can spend all day playing when you should be banging your high-priced in-home tutor isn’t a fault of mine. Poor sportsmen will grow up to be Rhodes scholars and graduate from Ivy League schools. They will go on to be successful investment bankers and politicians. They are all destined to die from Syphillis or Gonorrhea after screwing corporate-business-deal Geishas in Hong Kong. Serves you right you fricking bastards.

Ironically, I play the game because it’s fun. Sadly, it’s getting less and less fun to play because of people like this. I just don’t get why people have to be pricks. It’s almost like it’s in fashion now. Sheesh. Stupid people.

</rant>

And the P Word Is…

Promoted!

I’ve been awarded a promotion due to all my hard (?) work over the past year. This brings a hefty raise that coincides with a hefty annual bonus. This means that I am going to be able to pay off at least one credit card (I actually already have…) and start paying down another one very quickly. This is a huge answer to our prayers and will go a long way towards letting me have lower stress levels. This is always a good thing.

So now, I am still on the same help desk, basically doing the same job with a few more additional duties, and getting paid a fair amount more for my work. Yay! Here’s the announcement that got sent out. I’m posting it here for posterity’s sake.

---

I am very pleased to announce the promotion of Christopher Adams to Specialist, Desktop Services. In his new role, Chris will be taking on additional responsibilities which will include support of the Afaria environment. Chris has been a member of the department name deleted since September of 2000. Prior to joining name deleted, Chris was a Customer Service Representative in department name deleted where he provided technical support for their users. Chris has received (and continues to receive) numerous recognitions for excellence in customer service. His extensive technical background is instrumental in our efforts to improve the quality and efficiencies of the Helpdesk (name modified).

Chris earned his A+ certification in June of 2000 and is currently attending university name deleted carrying a double major in Management Information Systems and Information Technology. On the Dean’s list with a 3.9 GPA, Chris will graduate in August of this year. Chris is also pursuing a CCNA certification.

Chris is a positive role model for the team and he daily demonstrates his hard working attitude and dedication to company name deleted and our customers. Please join me in congratulating Chris on this well deserved promotion!

---

As you can see, I modified this somewhat so I could protect my privacy. With many employers constantly scanning for blog entries, you can’t be too careful. Even if it is good news Plus, I can’t have some Internet weirdo looking me up and sending me Monte Cristo cigars or something because he or she likes the things I write. Granted, many of you know who I am and where I work but there are a lot of wackos and psychopaths that don’t.

I’d kinda like to keep it that way eh.

How much for just the horde?

The majority of the weekend was spent being a husband and father. It was a good weekend for which Cheryl thanked me repeatedly. I did the same for her. (This may seem strange to you but we do it often as part of our relationship.) Emma was in her glory playing with my X-Box and helping me slay wave after wave of the Covenant horde. Thank God for cooperative play as she gets to see things happen on screen, make the Master Chief do things, and generally not want to use my controller. This has the added side benefit of letting me progress through the story. A truly happy compromise for all parties involved.

Cheryl and I got to spend some quality time together this weekend which was also nice. While bouncing my daughter on my knee, I was able to get in some air hockey table time with Cheryl. It was a good time, watching the little plastic puck fly back and forth. We gave Emma her own puck to play with as well as her own paddle. She helped me to victory a couple of times.

---

Regarding my last post, I still can’t say much. Suffice it to say Cheryl is not pregnant so don’t go thinking that. This is more in line with work than my personal life, and secrets will be revealed soon enough.

---

My daughter is turning into quite the little technomancer. When I called home this morning to check in with them and see how things were going, her first words to me were "Game!" and "Remote!". Game meaning that she wants to go downstairs and play video games with me, and Remote meaning that she wants to play with the remote control for the TV. It’s kind of amazing and frightening at the same time. She would rather flip through my technical manuals than read her books. I guess she is trying hard to be like Daddy. This isn’t so much a bad thing as a humbling one. I mean, after all she has an old keyboard and mouse in her toybox.

---

Cheryl and I usually get a pay-per-view every once in awhile and this weekend I picked up Garden State off the Tivo. It’s a good movie. It started off kind of quirky, but ended up being a good movie. I didn’t connect with it as much as I thought I would. It is primarily geared towards the twentysomething or a child of the 80’s. Since I am a member of Generation-X I didn’t see the relevance of it nor find a deep meaning anywhere. I think I would understand it more were I not thirty-one. The definining movie of my generation was The Breakfast Club, not Garden State. Either way, it is still a good movie with some classic visuals and classic moments. I would recommend it.

Don’t Say the P Word

I have some very, very good news that I am busting at the seams to blather on about but I can’t. Not just yet. Hopefully within the next few days I will be able to let the words come asploding out of my head. Suffice it to say I am extremely pleased about this turn of events and it is something I didn’t see coming. I hate to tease but I have to tell someone.

Perchance to Dream

Sleep evades me. Dreams even more so. My nights are long and cold and dark and filled with tossing and turning. Insomnia shakes me awake as I drift off to what should be a peaceful sleep. When I do manage to sleep it is low quality, something purchased at a bargain price and worthless. Apparently last night we lost our power and Cheryl woke me so I could reset my alarm clock. I have no memory of this event, even though she says we clearly carried on a conversation. An entire conversation.

I know it’s one thing for a man to not listen to his wife while the television is on, but I cannot remember entire conversations that I have supposedly had with Cheryl. I’ll even be driving to work and not remember half the trip. I’ll be in South Bloomfield and suddenly realize I don’t remember the trip between there and Circleville. This happens almost every other day. Am I really that busy and preoccupied?

I think I need to see a doctor or something.