Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Not much new. Got home late from a great day of studying.

It never ends...

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

After nearly 45 hours for reformatting the hard drive in the Tivo (I forgot to check on it yesterday), I figured it was trashed. I called DirecTV back and they're sending a replacement box. So far it's been painless, other than the fact I lost all my HD recordings and am without HD for another 2 - 5 days. Perhaps I should build a little redundancy into the network.

Monday, April 11, 2005

My cell phone belt clip came today. I don't know if I'll like it, but figured for $0.01 plus shipping, it might be worth a try.

Also, didn't get a chance to geocache. I'm itching to find my first. Maybe this week.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

I slept in late today because I was at a bachelor party last night. The night consisted of Broadway Pizza, a Twins game, Gameworks, O'Donovan's, and Seville's. It was a blast and good to see those I haven't in a while.

Since the Tivo wasn't working right, I watched three movies this weekend: I ♥ Huckabee's, Vanity Fair, and Closer, all of which were probably way over my head.

Man, that's a lot of links.

Saturday, April 9, 2005

I started with DirecTV about my issue. After the usual troubleshooting, she recommended a complete format of the hard drive. Before I do that, I'll have to see if there is a temporary solution to extract some of my recordings, as they will be completely erased.

Let's see, how long will a format take on a 250GB HD?

Friday, April 8, 2005

Ahh, the first grill of the season. I almost forgot how good a grilled steak can be.

I'm having troubles with the HD DirecTiVo unit. As I'm watching either Live TV or a recording, the audio/video jerks and hesitates, like it's a corrupt file. Then after a while, it stops responding altogether and reboots itself. I've tried a manual clean reboot, but that didn't seem to help. Luckily it's still under the year warranty, but we'll see how much of a hassle it is to exchange.

Thursday, April 7, 2005

It was quite hard getting up this morning. I rolled into work around 10:30. I played around a bit with the new GPS device. The good news is that I can navigate my driveway, and only got lost once. Hopefully I'll be able to go find a cache this weekend. There are several in the park I live by, so we'll see.

Wednesday, April 6, 2005

Well, I'm home, after sitting in between two fat people on the plane. Luckily I slept the whole way. I noticed that my Garmin Vista came today. I've been wanting to get one of these for the past couple years, mainly for geocaching, and I finally did it. Now to just figure it out.

Tuesday, April 5, 2005

Stupid, stupid. I felt like crap all day. There were four of us last night, and at any given time during the seminar today, not all four were there. I got there a bit late and had to leave to take a nap from 10:00 to noon. We were planning on going to New York city, but we knew that would end up in disaster. So we ended up going to "Ladies Night" at the hotel bar, barely choking down a few brews. The only ladies I saw were the waitresses.

Monday, April 4, 2005

I'm not sure how this post will read, as we closed down two bars tonight. The hotel bar tried to kick us out at midnight, but we talked them into serving us one more, and they gave it to us for free. Then at about 12:30 they brought in the heavy artillery, a big black dude which we called Chisel. For some reason, he was carrying a hammer around that apparently, at least to us, looked like a chisel. We then headed over to TGIF's until about 2:30am. There weren't many people there on a Monday night in the middle of New Jersey. Go figure.

Sunday, April 3, 2005

I'll spare you the details of my day, since it consisted of sitting or eating. I had to go buy an adapter from Best Buy as the TV in my room wouldn't accept composite cables. I asked about their return policy since I'll probably just return the adaptor when I'm done. When I was unscrewing the coax from the TV, part of the back of the TV snapped and shattered, rendering it useless. I called maintenance and played stupid. They brought me another one, but smaller.

I did learn that some of my coworkers didn't get into the hotel until 3:00am and had a similar landing I did.

Saturday, April 2, 2005

I finally arrived at about 9:30 at the hotel in New Jersey for a work seminar. There was some situations that prevented us from taking off from Minneapolis. First we were sitting on the tarmac waiting for our turn. Then the captain came on the PA and said the ground crew put some stuff on the wings, but didn't give the paperwork to the pilot. So we had to turn around and get some paper. Naturally, everyone blamed someone else for the mix up, but in the end it just meant we were delayed. So we get back out to waiting for our turn, and the captain said there was really bad weather in Newark. He said other planes tried to land but couldn't and had to go find another airport to land at. After waiting in Minneapolis on the plane for almost 2 hours, the captain came back on and said "The weather still hasn't lifted and in fact the air pressure is reading identical to hurricane-like weather. But we've got a good plane. I think we'll make it." So, after almost a 3 hour flight, we prepare for landing. I still find it amazing we landed in anything but a fireball. The plane was flying sideways, I swear the wing scraped the runway due to the rocking, the front tire wouldn't connect so we were bouncing like a superball, and we were fishtailing when he slammed on the brakes. People were crying and praying.

At least I get to now sit in a 4 day seminar about insurance regulation.

Friday, April 1, 2005

I asked Karl to use his Xbox travel case for my upcoming trip to exciting New Jersey. And what does he go and do? He gives me one of my very own. Now I'll be taking it where ever I go ... hotels, work, every where.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

I woke up this morning quite sore. I don't know about this "new technology" in the Sleep Number beds. Basically, it's just an air mattress ... the same you can use while camping. I think I'd be less sore if I slept directly over some jagged rocks.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

The Sleep Number bed came today, in several boxes, in the rain. The estimated assembly time was one hour. It took me two, with my excuse being that I basically had to set up two beds. The king is actually just two twins. They said no tools required, and instead used wing nuts. Well, I'd rather have a drill to tighten screws than tighten a million wing nuts by hand. My fingers are quite raw. At any rate, what the instructions don't take into account is the prep time, which was about 40 minutes. This included getting beer from the beer store, disassembling the current bed, finding a new place for all the stuff forgotten about under the bed, vacuuming a two inch layer of dust bunnies, and going to the bathroom from drinking too much beer already.

We'll see how this bed "changes my life forever".

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Along with probably everyone that uses Blogger, I've been experiencing some problems with accessibility and updates. It seems a lot of people start with Blogger to "test the waters" of the web log trend. If they like it, they'll port over to another service. I guess that says something of Bloggers friendly user interface.

Hopefully soon I'll be one of those that switches, trying my hand at the great PHP and MySQL duo. Of coarse, that would mean I would have only myself to blame at the problems.

Monday, March 28, 2005

If you have "Do one thing on to-do list" on your to-do list, can you cross it off?

Sunday, March 27, 2005

I went to Champps (which, by the way, has free Wi-Fi) today for the Easter Brunch. As soon as I walked in the door, I was greeted by someone dressed in a rabbit suit. It was at this time that every synapse went into overdrive and I couldn't get Donnie Darko out of my brain. I suppose I should give that movie another chance, but it really freaked me out the first time.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

A little more research into the TV viewing arena has made me giddy. I found out that XBMC can also play ty files, which are Tivo files. This allows me to bypass the step of converting these to mpeg files.

I can't even begin to understand how mankind survived without the internet. It would take so long to learn anything new when your bandwidth is the speed of a covered wagon.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Today at work, I did a lot of research on the Tytools package. In a nutshell, it allows the extraction of Tivo's (including DirecTiVo's) video files to a PC to a format that can be further edited for your needs. Many people create VOB's from these for DVD authoring. I plan to create MPEG's to stream to the TV's.

All of this requires a hacked Tivo, something I'm not willing to experiment with on the new boxes. I still have my first Series 1 DirecTiVo sitting around looking pretty. I think it's time to finally crack it open and play with its guts.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

I had meetings from 8:00 to 2:30, continuous. The good news is that most were conference calls and I got to browse the internet while on the phone. The bad news is that my neck is permanently crooked from holding the phone up with my shoulder. Maybe I'll have to steal someone's headset this weekend.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Karl got his Xbox rigged with a bigger hard drive. So the next natural step was to transfer all my games over to his box. After trying several variations of FTP programs using his PC, we decided to try the Xbox FTP program. I thought this was never going to work, seeing as most computer things never do, but it was quite easy. In fact, we even got the magical 10Mb/s transfer speed, allowing us to transfer 30G in about an hour.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

As I was walking home from work yesterday, I saw something shiny peeking through the melting snow. Obviously distracted, I picked it up. Lo' and behold, it was the missing face plate to my Alpine radio that some punks trashed from my car. I wiped off the mud, snapped it back in the car, and it worked like a charm. Luckily I didn't win the auctions on eBay for a new faceplate I was bidding on.

In related happenings, it would really suck to have a malfunction if you were this guy.

Monday, March 21, 2005

I finally got the second DirecTiVo unit activated and running. Now that I have the video working upstairs and down, my next project will be to get the surround sound fine tuned. Naturally, this involves running more wire around the house, something I've learned to love.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

What can I say, another day. This studying routine better end soon, especially when I have to stand while reading to prevent falling asleep.

I did notice that yesterday's post was my 100th. There was no ad in the New York Times, but still significant (to me).

Saturday, March 19, 2005

I was unusually tired today. It was hard getting up this morning, hard studying, hard drinking beer.

I'm also having a little trouble with Blockbuster's mail DVD subscription service. The past two movies have been mutilated through the mail, allowing the return envelope to show resulting in the movie automatically being returned to Blockbuster. Also, the two free in-store rental coupons were not showing up online, so I couldn't use those to get my two games to copy to the Xbox. And the emails I sent are being unanswered. I guess this is how customer turnover starts.

Friday, March 18, 2005

My plane back from Hartford was supposed to leave at 5:45pm. I got to the airport at about 4:00 and learn that it's been delayed until 7:00. After sitting around, it got pushed to 7:45, then 8:00, then 8:30, with rumors that it was going to be cancelled. A cancelled flight isn't the worst thing, but if it was cancelled after sitting at the airport for over 4 hours, that would have been quite irritating. In the end, it took off a little before 9:00 and didn't get into bed until almost midnight.

I think I deserve to not have to come in on Monday since today was a 15 hour day.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

I went to my boss's boss's house for a St. Patrick's day gathering. It's about 50,000 square feet atop a large hill with a pool in the back and a hottub in the loft overlooking the world. Most of the furnishing came with the house, including a 47" plasma, liquor bars on every level, an arcade in the basement, and the servants.

Anyway, I tried to refrain from playing the video games for as long as I could. Someone asked me to try to beat the high score on Ms. Pacman. When I finally died, they were either impressed with the score or happy they now got a turn. It was probably good it didn't ask me for my initials, as I had many Guinesses and the possibilities of work inappropriate 3 letter words would have been to tempting.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

I watched Super Size Me tonight ... much better "documentary" than The Real Cancun, but certainly not as good as The Matrix. I mean, what good is the McDiet experiment when we're all just living in a computer program?

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Alright, I'll admit it. I watched The Real Cancun tonight, all in the name of science. Don't blame me if my goal in life is to watch every movie made. Although it's officially a movie, I'd be hard pressed to call this 90 minute Real World episode one. I suppose if you're into reality shows, which I'm not, this would be a good way to get a season packed into one sitting.

Monday, March 14, 2005

So I was thinking of The Village and wondered if I could live in the 19th century.

I doubt it. It might be a learning experience for a weekend, but to live Little House on the Prairie life? Not interested. Their games consisted of scaring girls with toads and sweeping the porch, slightly different than playing Halo with someone in Europe and watching HD with DTS audio.

Of course, my great-grandchildren will be saying the same thing about the 21st century.

Sunday, March 13, 2005

I watched Around the Bend last night. It's only worth seeing to see Christopher Walken. There's one type of actor that plays the same character the same way in every movie. There's another type of actor that plays different characters the same way in every movie. Either would normally signal a bad actor, but not in Walken's case, which is the second type. His characters range from The Prophecy and Last Man Standing to Envy and Stepford Wives. But in each movie, I see Christopher Walken playing a character. This is not to say he's a bad actor ... just the opposite. He can't do wrong. If you disagree, check out the Saturday Night Live with him hosting. Hilarious.

Saturday, March 12, 2005

I have a 55" widescreen, which is perfect for the room it's in. I tried to play Halo 2 online with split screen down the middle. Even though half of the screen is still pretty big (I'd say about a 30" regular TV), it was near impossible to play.

I guess I'm spoiled...

Friday, March 11, 2005

I stumbled upon a very interesting site with some things to think about. Some of it's a bit lengthy, but worth a glance.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

I had meetings with big-wigs, studied, and went to bed. I did happen to watch a little High Def television programming. It's still incredible to me. I'm not sure if it's worth the extra $10 a month for a few crappy channels, but I'll definitely use my free 6 months to the fullest.

Wednesday, March 9, 2005

I watched The Village last night. Some people don't like M. Night Shyamalan's movies, but you certainly have to give him credit for out-of-the-Hollywood-box thinking. He always seems to throw in a "here's one more thing I'll put in my movie to get them thinking". I don't like to give away much in a movie in case you haven't seen them, but The Village and The Sixth Sense are excellent examples of this, and to a less obvious extent Signs and Unbreakable.

And speaking of Hollywood movies, I saw The Notebook last Sunday. This romantic drama was incredibly predictable and had a formulaic plot. However, I thought the acting was quite impressive and the scripting was entertaining. I'd definitely recommend it to the right audience.

Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Yet another interesting day this week. I was supposed to fly out to Hartford this afternoon for work. We got on the runway, and the captain said that Hartford was closed due to weather. So we had to deboard the plane. After a few hours of complaining and waiting at the airport, I decided I could go out next week and got a refund for my ticket. This was all on work time, but I would have rather been at work.

Take a look at the Neo MP3 link on yesterday's post. The song's title is quite fitting.

Monday, March 7, 2005

I went out to my car this morning and found that the passenger side window was smashed. I could tell immediately that I was dealing with amateurs on account of the faceplate to my Alpine was smashed. Instead of pressing the "detach faceplate" button, they took a crowbar to it. They then attempted to pry out the radio, which might work if you're the Hulk. They also did a number to the heat controls. All in all, they probably did little monetary damage (other than the window) since there are a million 1998 Nissan Maxima parts out there. This incident might have bothered me less if they were a little more professional about it.

As he cooks his heroin --
VINCENT
I just wish I caught 'em doin' it,
ya know? Oh man, I'd give anything
to catch 'em doin' it. It'a been
worth his doin' it, if I coulda
just caught 'em, you know what I
mean?

LANCE
It's chicken shit. You don't fuck
with another man's vehicle.

They didn't even bother taking my sunglasses, CD's, coat, the stuff I would probably take if I were a thief. The weird thing is that I happen to take my removable Neo MP3 player out that night, which I never do. They probably wouldn't know what to do with it, but it would have really made me mad to lose 30GB of music.

Sunday, March 6, 2005

It was around 50 degrees today, and it's supposed to be below freezing tomorrow. I don't get the weather in Minnesota. Actually, I just said that so you'd think I talk about more than Xbox and studying. In fact, I don't care at all about the weather. The only time I'm outside is to get to and from the car. Other than that, it could be typhooning outside and I would have no idea. Unless the DirecTV signal went out. Then I'd care...

Saturday, March 5, 2005

I went to go install a print server and a printer for someone today. You'd think an hour tops, but it took almost four. I thought I'd do this install correct and follow the instructions to the letter, but that didn't even come close to working. I searched the web pretty hard trying to find someone with a similar error, even called Dell, but to no avail. I ended up solving it while on the third hold with Dell. I should probably throw my solution in the newsgroups for the next person.

Friday, March 4, 2005

I went to a surprise birthday party for my sister-in-law (?). It was expectedly fun. She was quite surprised and Karl was a bastard after a few brews. I hope I can wake up for karate tomorrow.

Thursday, March 3, 2005

I may have found a fairly good solution to streaming DVD's from the server to the Xbox. I'm trying out a free program called SimpleDivX. I've done some tests and it looks promising. The only glitch I've found is that there is no sound when sampling the sound at 48kHz. I know a lot of sound cards can't handle this and must have the sound converted to 44.1kHz. I'm recreating the avi file now at the lower sample and we'll see if Xbox can play it.

Or I could just find out what the Xbox can handle and build the file around it.

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Nothing too exciting happened today. I inched my way closer to the final products in both wiring and Xbox.

But here's something you can amaze your friends with.

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Well, the whole online gaming has taken me by storm. I usually end up being in last place, but it's still fun. Other than that ... late to bed, early to rise.

Monday, February 28, 2005

After how many complaints, and I finally got XLive Kai working. I had to do the proper testing to make sure it was working (of coarse) and ended up playing until midnight. It works, but it's not pretty. I had an old laptop sitting around with Windows 95 on it, which is now rigged up after having to find another patch cable (5' for $3 at Menard's). The only tricky part of installation was the fact that the router would lose power everytime I left the closet; and when I went back in it would restart. As it turns out, the power outlet is also controlled by the light switch...

Sunday, February 27, 2005

I spent some time doing behind the scene's work on the home network. I routed a lot more RG6 and CAT5, and formated many hard drives. When it's all said and done, all the hardware will be in the server closet (as opposed to in various rooms) and the house will look like a hammock with the web of wires. All this and I only have a few walls to patch.

Saturday, February 26, 2005

I had to call the Microsoft Windows activation number today because I (legitimately) reinstalled Windows on a new hard drive. Now, I'm all for making money and I doubt I'm racist, but the off-shore customer service phase will hopefully end soon. I got the "Please restate your problem" line too many times.

Friday, February 25, 2005

It's sure fun to be able to take a half day on a whim. I got the hardest part of wiring the new runs of coax: getting the four feeds from the roof to the server closet. Jose, the DirecTV install guy, had it running all around the outside of the house. I went into the attic through a vent and dropped it straight down with the plumbing.

After a successful day, I went over to Karl's to help him out with his new Xbox. When we both get ours running flawlessly ... I can't even describe it with words.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Unfortunately for the two readers out there, it is study time again. Most of my time will now be taken up memorizing articles. I guess this just means my study breaks will have to be all the more interesting.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

I've always thought about getting into sports, mainly because I have a few friends really into them. But then I remember there's computers and movies.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

I've been running pretty old versions of various utilities on my Xbox, so I spent a good portion of the night upating to the latest releases. I'm currently testing and things are going good. I'll soon be playing Halo 2 from the HD. Next, I need to test ripping a movie to the Xbox.

Speaking of movies, last weekend I watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. It's not that good of a movie, but there is something about it. I did like the effect they were going after with the camera and the old school comic book feel.

Monday, February 21, 2005

I ended up going back to the site for some more hardware troubleshooting. I had to install a new printer because the "all-in-ones" are not usually network compatible. Hours led into hours and I still couldn't install the new printer to the new Dell laptop running XP Pro, although I could very easily on the Windows ME machine.

On an unrelated note, Hunter S. Thompson passed away today. I've dabbled in reading his books and find them quite interesting. I realize that movies are generally nothing like their book couterparts, but Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is one of the greatest movies made.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Well, the people didn't call me today about anything not working from the job I did yesterday. That is a good sign. I guess it will really mean something if they don't call tomorrow, when they actually use their computers for work.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

I set up a small office network today. I figured it would take 6 hours to do everything I needed to. I started at 9:00 am and left there at 10:30 pm. It seems I would get everything working right and as I walked out the door, something would break. Their previous computers were running Windows ME and had many screens of adware. And I'll leave it to the reader to picture the size of the dust bunnies behind the desk.

Friday, February 18, 2005

I've been complaining a lot about having too much to do, but then goof off instead. I took the day off today to get as many projects done. I spent about 8 hours wiring the house for the new DirecTiVo boxes, and didn't finish. Once dinner rolled around and a movie started, I was spent.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

After about 4 coasters, I finally got a burned Mandrake distro that worked. A little word of advice: spend the extra $25 and don't get the cheapest CD burner there is. I don't know if that holds for DVD burners, but why risk it, especially when DVD-R's are more expensive.

Tip of the day: When running EvoX, hold Left Trigger, Right Trigger, Back Button. It'll be your favorite combination, even more than Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

I finally had the time to dig into my moded Xbox. It's quite the amazing piece of work. I installed a few utilities to make it even better. Now I can copy games and movies directly to the hard drive, then back them up onto my PC or burn them to disc. Unfortunately I couldn't test any of it since the 250 GB hard drive is already full of games. And FTP'ing from Xbox to PC takes a bit of time, especially over the wireless network.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

I had good intentions of going to karate and getting some work done around the house. I need to do some wiring for the new DirecTiVo boxes, get the UFO antenna tuned to get HD locals, and activate the last box. On top of that, I want to rig up a laptop to the new TV upstairs to display pictures and the internet, and somehow get XLive Kai working.

But instead, I blew it all off and hung out at a bar with a friend. There's always tomorrow.

Monday, February 14, 2005

I found two alternatives to Xbox Live: XBConnect and XLive Kai. I spent several hours trying to get XLive Kai running. After many PM's and phone calls to random people, I still couldn't get it working. After doing a little more digging I find out that the wireless adapter I'm using (DWL-520+) is one of very few incompatible cards with XLive Kai. I guess I'll look into XBConnect and any incompatibilities. Otherwise, I will have to 1) hardwire the computer to the router, 2) purchase a compatible wireless card, or 3) set up an old computer in the server closet that will be hardwired and running XLive Kai.

Why can't things just work.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Let's see ... I stepped on a rusty nail today. Luckily I go to the emergency room often enough to have an updated tetinus shot. I do have to admit that the frequency of visits is getting less.

I'll have to work on that ...

Saturday, February 12, 2005

I didn't get much accomplished today. In fact, nothing on my list got crossed off. I did watch Catwoman, which, other than a few cool fighting scenes, was pretty bad. I then stayed up until almost 1 am playing the Catwoman video game, which, other than a few cool moves, was pretty bad.

Friday, February 11, 2005

I realize this is old news, but I just learned about it. This guy named Andrew Fischer sold advertising space on his forehead using eBay. And he got $37,000! I wonder if work would allow me to sharpie words on my face?

In other news, a cool program I played with this fine Friday during work was NameVoyager. According to her blog, you can really see how history affects names, like German names during the 1940's.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

I found out today that all the features that the stand-alone Tivo's have, specifically Multi-Room Viewing and Picture Viewer, are not available to the DirecTV/Tivo combo boxes. So the two units I bought last weekend just got a lot crappier. I guess I should have done more research before spending all that money. Hopefully DirecTV realizes how many people want these features and will flip the switch.

I guess that's just one more project on my list ... be the first to hack .tivo files.

Wednesday, February 9, 2005

I went to go rent Halo 2 ... again ... and Blockbuster said I had a late fee. Now I'm not from around here, but doesn't the slogan "End of Late Fees" mean anything anymore? Apparently, if you don't return the movie before the "second" due date, there are "restocking fees". So, they got me on a technicality and renamed the fees. Chalk one up for the machines.

Tuesday, February 8, 2005

We had a meeting with the chief actuary for my area. It was good to hear that we all still have jobs and that we should in the future. I officially have a boss now; at least it says so on the org chart. We'll see how it works out.

Monday, February 7, 2005

I ooh'd and ahh'd over all the new equipment I bought over the weekend. I also read up on all the new features we'll get by upgrading to Series 2 tuners. I'm really excited about TiVoToGo, Photo Viewer, and Multi-Room Viewing.

Sunday, February 6, 2005

I spent quite a few dollars at Circuit City today. I went there for an HR10-250. This is the DirecTV HD DVR. I got it installed right before the Super Bowl began. Now, I'm not a football fan, but watching this game in high definition sure had me tuned in. Actually, anything broadcasted in high definition would get my attention. It sure will be hard to watch standard definition now.

So, like I said, I went there for this box, and came out with a lot more. I also picked up another HD montior for upstairs with matching stand. Figured I should pick another DirecTV box for it. Got the necessary cables, including the HD kit for Xbox. I never knew that retail stores allowed negotiation, but it appeared they were expecting some. The HR10-250 normally costs around $1000, but I suggested $850 and they accepted. (When I got home, I called DirecTV and asked if they could give me a credit for being a loyal customer and upgrading to HD. They gave me another $250 off without a fight.)

I got many new toys to play with now. I am very happy. Did I mention HD is incredible? I know it's just TV, but c'mon.

Saturday, February 5, 2005

It was a record high today, something around 50 degrees. I decided to take the Christmas lights down, which is also a record. I think last year it was around May the lights came down. It's February and I still hate Christmas decorating. I am sure of one thing; if it was just me living here, there would be absolutely no decorations. Hate.

Friday, February 4, 2005

I stumbled across this "too good to be true" hosting company called twelvedollarhosting.com. They offer unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage. Their site looks legit, but I'll definetly have to do some more research before I sign on.

Speaking of stumbling, it was near impossible getting up this morning after the bash last night. My head stopped pounding at about noon. Good thing lives aren't in my hands during work.

Thursday, February 3, 2005

I had a work function tonight. I really like those, especially if the company pays for the food and drink. I did the expected mingling. But more importantly, I almost broke the record for most drinks during the evening. I vowed then that next event I would become the record holder. Luckily it was the bigwig encouraging me.

Wednesday, February 2, 2005

I got my first official "computer job". By a reference, I was hired to purchase a new laptop, update hardware, and install a wireless network. It's certainly not the most complicated procedure, but one should put in the time. I ordered a loaded Dell Inspiron 8600, which doesn't get here for a week and a half ... just enough time to get my game plan figured out.

Tuesday, February 1, 2005

The St. Paul medallion was found today at about 3:00 PM. The wife and I went and looked for it from about 1:00 to 3:00, with obviously no luck. It would have been cool to be there when it was found (it would have been cooler to find it). I guess there's always next year.

Now where am I going to find $10,000?

Monday, January 31, 2005

I could never see the picture in these holograms before, but now I think they're the coolest thing since teapots. Now I just have to understand the explanation NASA gives.

Sunday, January 30, 2005

After watching the movie Wimbledon, I realized two things. The first is that I miss following tennis. There was nothing better than sitting down with a bag of Tostidos and a jar of Pace on a Sunday afternoon watching the men's final. The second is that Kirsten Dunst is not a very good actor.

Saturday, January 29, 2005

We got some more of the curtains hung in the movie room. And I don't mean no store bought curtains. I mean raw fabric custom stitched. It's all coming together.

I was trying to tell the wife about the Halo 2 making-of featurette Karl and I watched - acting as giddy as a school girl. And she actually pulled the "It's just a video game" line. This coming from someone who cries watching those damn diamond commercials.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Well, I got nothing done at work. Literally nothing.

On the other hand, I got a little playing time with my new Xbox controller. In the words of Ferris Bueller, if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

I've been toying with the idea of setting up a site for the family to post and share ideas, organize family events, perhaps maintain individual blogs, etc. Karl introduced me to a powerful application called Plone, which would work if I were going to host the site. Since that won't happen for some time, I've turned to other applications that use PHP/MySQL. I've looked into Nucleus, Geeklog, and even pLog. I would really like to write my own, but that takes time. So I'm looking for a cheap solution that is relatively stable and will have support for some time.

I guess I should also see if the family has any interest.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

There's a "Treasure Hunt" put on by the local paper every winter. The paper will give clues each day (for 12 days or until found) about the location of the medallion. The medallion can be hidden anywhere (on public land) in Ramsey County, which is pretty big, although it's usually in a park. Last year, it was hidden in a park very close to where I live, and that's how I learned about this. This year, I'm getting a little more involved in that I read the clues and do some internet research. Maybe I'll go out and look. With a potential prize of $10,000, I suppose I should.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Boy, do I have a lot of email on hotmail and gmail from not checking it in the past two months. And with there storage sizes of at least 250 MB, I'll be going through it for a while.

To get you a bit more up to speed with my life, Karl and I took a Saturday and passed Halo. Now he's bragging he bought Halo 2 and gets to play it before me. I better not stumble upon a large sum of money. I would literally become the couch.

Monday, January 24, 2005

It's been over two months since my last post. A lot has changed since then. But the good news is that nobody reads this blog other than me, so nobody has been out of the loop. And now I'm just talking to myself.

Anyway, the reason I haven't posted is because my computer has been out of commission. It started with ... actually, I don't remember. In the end, I upgraded everything, which is the same as saying I built a new computer. I do have the original keyboard and monitor, though. I've learned quite a bit and had to take the plunge to Windows XP.

I have lots to post, but best to start off slow...

Saturday, November 27, 2004

I finally played Halo in Cooperative Mode. I know I'm a little late in my review, but this has got to be the game of the year.

Monday, November 22, 2004

It did turn out that barebonekit sent the wrong motherboard. They were out of stock and claim the one they sent me was an upgrade. I'm hoping I'll finally install the new hardware over the long Thanksgiving weekend.

I also got the new website up and running. I'm still using Blogger, but masking the domain with echomoche.com. A cheap service for buying domains and hosting is GoDaddy.

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Today was the first day in a long time I didn't have any commitments. So instead of sleeping late and playing video games, I woke up early and had to do chores. It was a scene from some bad sitcom. I guess it felt good to get some work in around the house. But just think of all the ancient aritifacts that went into the wrong hands because Indiana Jones wasn't there to stop it.

Saturday, November 20, 2004

I had two silent auctions to go to tonight. If I get everything I bid on (by "I" I mean my wife), it'll be around $300. But I guess they're for a good cause.

I received my new motherboard, processor, and RAM from barebonekit. I think they sent me the wrong mobo, as these sites generally are known for. And as convenient as ever, their site isn't working and they sent no packing slip. So, I guess a call is in order. Hopefully they have a phone number somewhere, and that it's working. I would like to upgrade as soon as possible.

Friday, November 19, 2004

I went to a black belt test tonight, probably the one I would have participated in if I went to class consistently. After seeing some of them perform, I'd rather be a red belt for the next 5 years than test when I'm not ready. I know that to get better you have to try new things and make yourself get to the next stage, but I would personally rather get excellent at something before moving on. In any case, watching the black belt candidates has motivated me to try harder and prepare better.

Now to stick with that plan...

Thursday, November 18, 2004

I finally beat Secret Weapons Over Normandy. In general, very good game for historical reference, very poor ending. The game stopped have way through WWII! Maybe there will be a sequel, which I doubt I'll even download.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Not having a boss and no projects at work is a very dangerous combination. It's amazing what you can learn on the internet.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

I'm bad ... I skipped karate to watch movies.

I always thought it was difficult to get a gmail account, but I was wrong. I set up echomoche@gmail.com today ... now to get that my website up.

Monday, November 15, 2004

I looked on my calendar, and tonight was the only night in the next couple weeks that I don't have anything scheduled. As much as it hurt, I had to pull myself from the Xbox to do some house chores.

I started reading another vampire book. I got hooked on Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles a while ago. I found another series by Michael Romkey. So far it's not as good as Rice's.

Sunday, November 14, 2004

Wow, it sure has been a while since I posted (my goal is every day). The wife was out of town for several days, which pretty much means I was in a foggy haze during waking hours.

We had a karate tournament today. It was a very long day, but quite fun. I was in team form, which we got first place. I also got first in fighting for men's red belt.

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

I got sucked into a 6 hour marathon of Spiderman 2, and this was after work. I'm taking Friday off of work. It's a shame there are only 24 hours in a day, because I'm sure I'll be playing it all day.

Tuesday, November 9, 2004

We practiced for the karate tournament coming up on Sunday. This is the first time I've particpated in team form, which is a creative form comprised of parts of standardized forms and "fight scenes" with four people. I didn't think it would turn out as well as it is. It should be a fun time.

Monday, November 8, 2004

I've got the base installation of netinstall of Debian. The netinstall will install the bare minimum of the operating system and then download the rest. The unfortunate thing is that I can't get networking to work on the laptop. It doesn't help that I'm trying to do this wirelessly. It also doesn't help that I don't know much about Linux, either.

Sunday, November 7, 2004

There's got to be a better invention for cleaning gutters. I'm sure my neighbors are thinking the same thing as they watch me hanging over the eaves with a 35' inevitable fall in store for me.

I went to see Dave Mordall and Kathleen Madigan tonight. They were on Last Comic Standing. It was frickin' hilarious. I wish I could remember some of their funnier bits to post.

Saturday, November 6, 2004

During study season, I create piles of paper that I need to sort out later. Things like bills, financials, etc. I was shredding a lot of paper today, including PIN's and account numbers, which got me to thinking. I know my PIN for various accounts, since I use them frequently, but what if I forgot one day. Then I thought of the longest string of digits that I have memorized. I came up with 16 from credit cards ... although I do have pi out to about 200 digits.

Friday, November 5, 2004

Ahh ... the joy of no commitment. I left work a bit early and then stayed up pretty late playing Mafia and Spiderman 2 on Xbox. Everyones got to have a time wasting hobby, right? Some people shop, or garden, or watch sports. Mine (right now anyway) is video games.

Thursday, November 4, 2004

I have Mandrake installed on my "play" laptop. It's a good distro to explore linux, but I wanted something more. So I tried to install Debian and I think I'm in way over my head ... but what else am I going to do?

Wednesday, November 3, 2004

Not studying sure feels good. Since it's slow at work, I've been doing some personal finance at work and home. I've really neglected it for the past few years, mainly retirement. It may sound odd, but I really like playing around with the numbers ... anything but studying.

Tuesday, November 2, 2004

I voted today, which I normally don't do unless coerced. More importantly, I rediscovered Craigslist and spent way to much work time looking around.

Monday, November 1, 2004

I got the first three movies in the mail from Blockbuster. It seems that there is a local distribution center, so hopefully future turnaround will be quick. I also stopped by a friends to pick up DVD X Copy. I might need to invest in more hard drives...