Blog: Reloaded

Posted in General on July 25th, 2004 by p14nd4

Hm, at first I was trying to explain how this was like the Matrix (Matrix: Reloaded being the second movie in the series, and this post is the second in the series), but got too lazy to finish the analogy (which, believe me, wasn’t shaping up to be anything worth posting…unlike the rest of the fine literature I choose to leave in, of course). You can try to figure it out for yourself, should you choose to be so ambitious; I obviously wasn’t.

Today started for me around 3:15 PM. I did wake up a couple times earlier in the day, but I promptly decided anything less than 12 hours of rest was simply unacceptable, and promptly fell back asleep. (I wonder what my boss would do if I started coming in to work around 4 PM, and simply explaining that I needed my 12+ hours of sleep. Maybe I won’t test my curiosity on that one, though.) Although I dislike many things about my job, virtually never having to work weekends is a definite plus. Well, I rolled out of bed, un-marked myself away on AIM, started up some music (Die Fantastischen Vier – Vier Gewinnt), and went to check out whatever was going on. I’m living with my parents this summer (what can I say, it’s cheap, I’m lazy and poor, so I’ll tolerate it), so their location is something that always needs to be assessed. My father is away for the weekend, and it turned out my mother was working until 6 PM, so I had the house to myself for a while yet, anyway. Although I don’t really do anything that really requires having the house to myself, in situations like that, it’s just nice to know I don’t have to deal with annoying parents for a few hours, know I can play my music loud enough to hear down the hall…things like that.

After wasting a couple hours, interrupted briefly by a shower, which I can’t really consider a waste of time, I concluded I wanted to see either “Bourne Supremacy” or “I, Robot” tonight. I scanned my buddy list for potential candidates to join me, but my main choices were either offline or away. I too lazy, or weird, or something, to actually call people to see if they want to go to a movie with me, so I ended up going to see “Bourne Supremacy” by myself. On the bright side, by not inviting the chick I was initially going to invite, I saved $7.50-$25 (depending on what we might have done for food), and presumably prevented any potential anger/jealousy from my girlfriend (although it’s her fault for being two states away). Some other people assured me it wasn’t terribly strange to attend the movie by myself, but it still felt a little strange. I’m sure I’ll get over it (in about 10 hours…by the time I wake up).

Overall I thought it was a pretty good movie. It had some good fighting, some good driving. I thought they abused the camera shaking effect during certain fight/driving scenes, though, which detracted from its quality, and made a few specific details difficult to track (although never to the point of making the events difficult to follow). I also thought the movie lacked closure on what happened with the Russians; the ~8 second “scene” left a few things ambiguous. I also thought it was a little interesting that they used the exact same song to finish the movie / begin credits that they did in Bourne Identity. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to mean something, but idunno. The knowledge that a third movie is coming forced me to think about what might be in store. The only real ideas I had involved Bourne cooperating with the government again, and probably learning more about what exactly happened to make him this way, and something to fix his condition. Maybe Julia Stiles will finally actually play some role in the movie (her minimal participation struck me as strange, considering she’s a moderately big name). Enough about that, though.

I headed over to Chipotle after the movie, which was my third meal from that restaurant this week. I think I may finally be re-acclimating myself to spicy foods, after many months of not consuming them. I’ve really become an increasingly large fan of Chipotle this summer, possibly due to its convenient locations relative to my office and my house. It may be the “new taco bell” for me. I used to eat Taco Bell at least once a week (during my senior year of high school), but have eaten there only rarely since then. It’s not that I’m a huge fan of Mexican food (hm, can Taco Bell even be considered Mexican food?), but Taco Bell just filled a hole in my life; it seems Chipotle may be able to do the same (although it is admittedly much more expensive than Taco Bell; minus one point for Chipotle).

Coming home late in the evening/night is always nice, because the stop-light a few blocks from my house changes from its normal daytime operation schedule to a night-time schedule. During the day, it will always remain green for the main/busy street for at least a minute or two, regardless of how many cars are going through it, or waiting from the other direction. I’m not sure exactly what time it switches to “night mode” (maybe 9 PM?), but once it does, damn is it glorious. The moment a car pulls up from the side street, or the moment someone pushes the walk button, the main street will turn yellow (followed shortly by red, if these concepts are foreign to you), so the maximum wait time is about six seconds. I want to get one of those police car remote control dealies so I can change the light to green for my direction whenever I’m coming. Screw everyone else.

Once I get back to my room (read: computer), time is pretty much lost. Between the period of about 9:45 PM (roughly when I returned) and now (2:25 AM), I can only think of three things I’ve done: watched star trek (again, that falls under the category of “yeah, I’m just that f-ing cool”), talked to people, and written this. I’m not exactly sure how that adds up to almost five hours, and the fact that it has, frightens me somewhat. I really need a personal, on-site personal assistant, to keep me in line, and notify me when I’m being overly wasteful of my time. (I have no problem being wasteful of my time…but there’s a point at which it crosses a line. I’m pretty sure I passed that a few hours ago, despite having no recollection of said line.)

As a last few notes for tonight, I killed the sixth ant I’ve found in my room in the past three days. I’m slightly concerned, but I don’t really know what could be drawing them in, nor how I can prevent them from getting in. I even go out of my way to remove sweet, sweet soda cans from my room, specifically for the purpose of not drawing insects in here. I’d also like to remind everyone to NEVER ASK ME TO DO ANYTHING. When people ask me to do things, I find it very difficult to say no, so I usually end up doing it, even though I’d probably rather not. And, for further clarification: NO, I WILL NOT FIX YOUR COMPUTER. I have to get up around 1 PM tomorrow (er, today already) to fix a friend’s family’s computer. Grr. I’m sure it’s spyware/adware/viruses, etc, but I know it’s an old POS too. I’ll probably just recommend the $319 (+tax) Dell to them. Maybe for payment they can give me SOMETHING TO MAKE MY HEADACHE GO AWAY.

Meh. I’m off to bed. I know it will be difficult, but you can (probably) live without my presence for the next 10 hours. G’night.

Hm. Hello.

Posted in General on July 24th, 2004 by p14nd4

I’ve never been a huge fan of blogs. It’s 11:11 PM on a Friday night, and I’m creating, and posting in, one of my very own, though. I’m not exactly sure why, but I can guarantee you it was prompted by seeing one of my ex-girlfriend’s blog. I was dissatisfied with the quality of her profile on there, so apparently I’m rectifying my dissatisfaction by potentially making a better one of my own, that virtually no one will read (hey, like virtually all blogs!). I’m guessing this is going to be one of those things (like my first personal web site, http://thepieguy.tripod.com/ … or much of anything else I do, for that matter) in which I maintain interest for a brief period, and then abandon. I’ll look back at it in a year or two and have a nice laugh, and a good time will be had by all.

…Anyway, since I know everyone is dying to hear about my day (because I’m just that cool), let’s have it:

I’ve recently been setting my computer to start playing my music in the morning to wake me up (in conjunction with my alarm clock), since my alarm clock has proven to be fairly useless in its primary goal. The alarm clock sits at the foot of my bed, but I’ve apparently mastered the skill of sitting up, and turning it off (not just snoozing it) without actually waking up. (Even more impressive was during high school when it was across the room, and I was able to walk across the room (which entailed stepping in very specific places, over computers, piles, etc), turn off the alarm clock, and get back into bed, without really waking up (I didn’t remember doing it, much of the time, and no, the alarm clock never stops on its own).) Back to my exciting day, though. Anyway, I woke up to Tool – Forty Six and 2 at 8:05 AM, laid in bed for another song or two, then showered, and such, sat around my room for about 20 unnecessary minutes listening to music, and eventually headed off to FedEx (my third time in two days).

I bike to work (and most everywhere else I need to be), but FedEx is about one minute from my office, so it’s not a big deal to swing in there before work. I picked the most retarded way ever, to get there, though, which pissed me off. I literally thought to myself “This is the worst decision I’ve made today. Wait, no, sitting around my house an extra half hour was a worse decision. But this is definitely the worst decision I’ve made in the last ten minutes.” (Yeah, I’m…cool…like that. We’ll stick with that choice of words.) Anyhow, I decided not to lock my bike at FedEx, which sounds like a stupid comment, but I’ve pretty much locked my bike everywhere I’ve left it (except my garage) for the past five years, so it’s weird. I guess maybe I’m getting lazier, which may be difficult to believe, but I think it’s true. Into fedex…

I’ve always been confused with the forms and packaging they offer at FedEx. I’ve been going there for years, but not consistently enough to really get it down. There are certain things you’re supposed to use their packaging for, some you’re not…some charge by size, some by weight…it’s all very foreign to me. There are two forms for ground shipping, both of which I filled out. It turns out I didn’t need to fill one of them out, and the other one, that I did need to fill out (which I did), is possibly the crappiest form I’ve ever seen. There’s no way I can write all the necessary information legibly in the space they provide. Bastards. Well, the shipping was cheap, and I’m getting reimbursed for it anyway, so it didn’t really matter, but that was good. My bike wasn’t stolen (although you probably figured I mentioned it for some deeper reason, earlier in the story, you were wrong), so on to work I went.

I park my bike in the underground parking garage at my office-building. Everyone else from my company just parks in the regular lot in front (which does have a bike rack), so it’s kind of strange that I park [my bike] down there, but it’s closer to the bike path, and then I don’t have to lock it (the garage exemption rule ;)). It’s nice and cool (temperature) down there, too, which is pleasant after a vigorous bike-ride, heh. Parking where I do, means that I also end up using the back entrance to the building, which kind of reminds me of Peter Gibbons (my idol, by the way) explaining that he uses the side entrance so that Lumberg doesn’t see him come in late. I sit down, mark myself not-away on AIM (not only does my company allow the use of AIM, they require it…for company communication purposes, of course :P), read some email, catch up with a few people in chat, etc.

I won’t get too much into what I do at work, for various reasons, but today’s activities included:

  • Telling a few co-workers to check out freeiPods ( http://www.freeiPods.com/default.aspx?referer=7274942 … one co-worker signed up)
  • Researching a few WiFi/Ethernet bridges (I was annoyed that a co-worker mac-lot suggested the $125 AirPort Express off the bat … and laughed at Apple’s site claiming that they revolutionized wireless by introducing the first / affordable WiFi solution (geeks might find that funny))
  • Visiting web sites and recording 1-800 number extensions from them into an excel sheet.

Hm. How horribly stimulating. On the bright side, though, I got free pizza. My company does free pizza Fridays as a morale boosting exercise, because they require you to put a note commending a co-worker on a specific thing you noticed them doing well. I think it’s a big load of crap, but if I get free pizza, I’ll jump through a hoop. The whole company then left “early” around 5:30 PM for a company party at the CEO’s house. It was alright…more free food, entertaining dog fight, fireworks, CEO walked into a glass door. I got a ride back to the office around 10 PM, at which point I biked home, read some away messages, including a link to a blog, which then started this. Damn I’m cool.