Tuesday, September 27, 2005

The Passing of an Old Friend

Or, rather, part of an old friend. Skywarp's Mach Speed 694TAS motherboard passed away some time over the weekend. I was not there to witness it's passing, but when I got home Sunday evening I saw that my computer had shut down. I did the usual tests, just to make sure (including a really nifty test borrowing the power supply and motherboard testers from the Geek Squad!), but it was the motherboard. Which is terribly convenient for me. I didn't want to have to take apart the power supply to get at my fans. Because of the age of the internal components, however, I was left in a quandry. It would have cost a significant amount to get a similarly performing motherboard. Apparently Mach Speed made the best performing one out there. And none of the ones I found were cheap at all. So for just a little more money I can upgrade the motherboard, get a better processor and faster RAM. Here is what Skywarp will look like when he is up and running again:

AMD Sempron 64 2800+
2GB PC3200 DDR RAM
20GB HDD
120GB HDD
Floppy
6-in-1 Media Reader
16x DVD-ROM
12x DVD+/-RW

And since John's Aunt is looking for a new computer, and has come to me for it, I might can afford to do that very, very soon. I can't wait!

i know, i know, i know, i want you, want you

Monday, September 19, 2005

Gyar, aye matey!

National Talk Loik a Poirate Day! Yar!

The new monitor is still kicking ass.

As requested(read: hounded), a poem for Michelle:
"an ode to Michelle
silly short haiku poem
obligation done"

Thank you, thank you. No applause, just throw money. So my next paycheck, the one with nearly overtime, holiday pay and time and a half for my full day working Labor Day, will see the beginning of my Employee Stock Purchase plan. I am excited, especially given how strong Best Buy's stock seems to be. I'm also almost done with the training phase of Geek Squad. This week or next and then I'll be seeing the pay increase. Hooray for a higher pay scale! Don't get me wrong, the wage I was making on the floor in Car Fi was liveable for me. Single, little obligation, two roommates. But it wasn't what one would call "rolling" money. And I liked working over in Car Fi. There was responsibility, and I had more than most of the people in the department (aside from the Supervisor and the Senior) because Jimmy, the sup, knew he could trust me with it, and did, but not nearly the pressure that exists in, say, Computers. The Computer department is responsible for a much larger chunk of our daily budget than Car Fi. About ten times as much of the budget as Car Fi. And I get to listen to music all day. But eight hours working on computers is so much better for me and on me than six and half seling car stereos. Geek squad is where I wanted to be, and that's where they've got me. And a lot sooner than I thought I'd be there. And! I now have three Geek Squad t-shirts to wear until I "get" my Geek Squad uniforms. How awesome is that?

Man, I haven't made a real post in a long time, have I?

Have I mentioned I really like my job?

Another geek issue for you guys. Windows Vista. It used to be Longhorn, but the personal use version got renamed, whereas Longhorn is for servers. I got a hold of a copy of Vista Beta 1. And I have to say it's a very pretty system. A little faster than XP was on my laptop, which is somewhat surpising given that Megatron doesn't have but 512MB of RAM. I think Vista would actually look better on Skywarp, but there's some compatibility issues there I'm sure. The only things I don't like right off the bat, other than not working with the latest version of AIM, are the lack of a Disk Cleanup utility and the fact that it takes up SO MUCH SPACE. I'm sure there are files there I could delete if I wanted to, but I don't know what they are. I fear the "bloat" will only get worse in the final version. I might need to see about format Megatron and doing a fresh install. Might cut down on the size a bit, but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe I should do that. Hmm.

I bet my laundry is done. Bleh. I hate doing laundry.

how I wish, how I wish you were here

Friday, September 16, 2005

Forgot the Title the First Time Around

Yar, indeed, me mateys. Every day is a good day for me in the Geek Squad. At least so far, anyway. And I'll take that. My fellow agent, Tony, seems to have a 19" Sony Trinitron monitor he does not want. So he's going to sell it to me for $45. Sony. Monitor. LCD. Holy cow. Score!

Also, I'm selling an old doublet on eBay for anyone that's interested in it. Good condition. Used only very little and lovingly at that. Included in the auction is a beret I got some time ago. It has seen very little use, as I soon after got my first of three cavalier hats (felt, cheap leather, real deal leather.)

Speaking of costuming! Chris' wife, Lani, is doing me a wonderful favor in making me a red cape to go along with the new outfit Lord Captain Grey is wearing. Breastplate, metal bracers, red cape. I will look very captainy indeed. I am even having a pair of significantly snug pants made. I will be fabulous. In that completely heterosexual way. Seriously.

fabulous is as fabulous does

Oh. My. God.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Holy cow. There are no words to describe how unbelievably awesome that movie is.

sephiroth!

Thursday, September 15, 2005

It Doesn't Mean That I'm Weird

So for the past couple of nights I've been having some weird dreams. Which I suppose is really just "regular" dreams, but given how often I don't dream, it's weird for me. And on top of the real dreams is a lot of half-dreams where my mind is stuck in the world of Xenosaga. Which is an awesome game. Of course, it would help if my cat would stop thinking that 7:30 is an excellent time for me to get up. Even though I don't have to be up and at anywhere at all. At least until today, when I have to be in at work at 2:45. Yeah. Definitely need to be up at 7:30 for that. Especially after staying up until 3:30 playing Xenosaga because I didn't have to be up until 12:00-1:00 the next day because I don't have to be in at work until 2:45. Damn cat. Good thing he's cute. Otherwise he'd be one dead kitty. But for now there is lunch and then work. Hooray.

gotta have my pops

Monday, September 12, 2005

Robot Roll Call

Because I did some thinking and reworking. Vector Prime is too cool to be relegated to just a PDA. So, revisionist history being what it is, the PDA is now named Nemesis Prime. There will be a toy forth coming just as soon as I can get one. And the "new" machine I build will be Vector Prime. His parts will be a little older, but he will be powerful enough just the same. Silver/white with red lighting and a prominent Autobot symbol on the window panel. It will have to be a Dragon case like Skywarp. But, here's the rollcall so far:

Skywarp: PC Primus
1.2 GHz Celeron Tualatin (OC 1.32)
1.5 GB PC133 RAM
256 MB GeForceFX 5500
20 GB HDD
120 GB HDD
16X DVD-ROM
12X DVD+/-RW

Vector Prime: PC Secondus
(In planning stages)

Megatron: PC Mobila
2.0 GHz Pentium IV
512 MB PC2100 SODIMM RAM
40 GB HDD
DVD/CD-RW

Nemesis Prime: PC Micros
Palm Tungsten E
32 MB Internal Storage
1 GB SD Card

Galvatron: PS2

Soundwave: Cellular Phone

Starscream: CD Player

Ravage: GBA SP

geek work's made for a geek. like you.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Don't Stop Me Now

Wow. That was the best day of work, ever. For any job I've had. Eight hours of installs and tweaks and customisations and defrags and anti-virus and anti-spyware. It was awesome. Finally, someone is paying me a living to do what I love to do the most. I feel like I've come home, so to speak. I'm there five minutes and we're having in depth discussions of anime while running anti-virus programs and complaining about the junk people allow on their computers. It's awesome.

My PS2 is finally seeing some real use. I'd just been using it as a DVD player for the longest time, lacking games. And I hadn't looked into getting any games because most of the ones I want are old and hard to find. But. I went to get my hair cut (the long on in the front near the part) and there's an EB Games in the same shopping center. So I was just browsing the clearance bin. And lo and behold there was a copy of Robotech: Battlecry for $6.99. I had heard mixed reviews, but for $7, I figured it was worth a shot. And I find it enjoyable enough, certainly worth the investment. But I love a good shooter, even if I'm not terribly good at many of them. And the fact that it's a Robotech shooter makes it all the better. Sitting very close by was a copy of a cheese fest zombie action game of epic proportions. Evil Dead: A Fistfull of Boomstick! With voice acting by Bruce Campbell! Shweet! And it plays exactly like I thought it would. A few simple puzzles, lots of zombie slaying, and Bruce Campbell cutdowns. $10 well spent. The other things I got were the PS2 remote and IR sensor (I can't use the new one since the slim PS2 has IR built in and all the remotes out now are made for that. Rah.) and Xenosaga. I haven't started Xenosaga yet, but I'm waiting until I have most of a day to get into it. Xenogears was the best game for the PSX, and Chrono Trigger the best game for the SNES before it. Xenosaga being part of the Xenogears universe, I have high hopes for it.

Later that very same day I had lunch with an amazing young woman. I have some hopes there, as well. I will remain silent on any other details, lest I jinx it. But things look pretty good. All told? Awesome weekend.

blue-eyed boy meets a brown-eyed girl

Thursday, September 08, 2005

It were a good day, English

So today. Today was a good day. For meany reasons that I shall now bring to your attention. The first reason today was a good day was because yesterday ended as well as it did. Something I was nervous about I have a little less reason to be nervous about, but said progression brings on new reasons for nervousness, but that's a good thing. And intentionally vague. Part 2: I finally finished The Dark Tower. Wow. An ending even I did not foresee. Though it was poetic. Fitting, really. Thirdly, as of this upcoming Sunday I am going to be moved to another department in the store. The Tech Bench. Better known to the non-employee as...Geek Squad! Yes, they have moved me over to Geek Squad, and with alarming alacrity and lack of forewarning. I was completely unaware that they had even looked at moving me over there. AFter a two or three weeks of training, I get my uniform, badge and, most importantly, financial recompense, since Geek Squad operates on a different pay scale. Huzzah! Reason the penultimate, aka, reason number four, is that Vector Prime came in the mail today. I saw the pictures of this toy and immediately had to have it. I was, however, disappointed by the American translation of the paint scheme. Left a lot of detailing out, the materials were a little cheaper, from what I could see. If you have the option, get the Takara version of a Transformer. But looking at the robot mode, he struck me as looking very much like a Paladin, the White Knight of the Transformers world. I could see myself as looking like that as a Transformer. And I can do that because I am a geek. Lastly, it seems that I may be getting one of Chris' friends old tower to salvage at my leisure. And that always makes me a happy camper.

totally addicted to bass

Monday, September 05, 2005

It's a whole family!

So I have adopted a new member into my family of Transformers named electronics. I have a PalmOne Tungsten E PDA. With a 1GB SD card in the expansion slot. His name is Nemesis Prime. There's even a color theme that matches the character on PalmOS. It's a pretty nifty toy, I've found. The mp3 player is pretty high quality stuff. I've currently got about 170 mp3s on the card, and the player itself has an LCARS(Star Trek TNG and up interface module thing) skin. So I'm geeking out hardcore. And so thus have I started tooling around eBay in search of cheap 1GB SD cards so I can add more songs to my portable repetoire. And I've got a card reader on the way so I don't have to use Chris'. Though I might get my own laptop card reader like Chris has eventually. One for Skywarp is the big issue, but one for Megatron might be useful. Also! Chris' friend Heidi has allowed me salvage rights to her old computer that went crappo on her, so I'll have more toys to mess with! Huzzah! I love salvaging crapped out computers and objects. Like my PS2. And both my current computers. And this PDA. Huzzah!

this is the noise that keeps me awake

Friday, September 02, 2005

Fireflies and Laptop

So it's Friday, I'm on day one of my three day weekend, and I'm sitting on the couch watching me some Firefly right now. It's been a while since Megatron here left his bookshelf post next to my TV in my room. So I brought him out here so's I could watch some of the TV. Have I mentioned how much I love Sci-Fi Friday? Heh. And Chris is right across the room from me. It's just like 19C. Only bigger. And cleaner. And more awesomer.

And speaking of apartments, our AC got fixed today! The compressor and more went crapp-o on us a couple of days ago, so we had two days of no AC. But they fixed it this morning, so yay cold air!

my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle

This is For Real

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/

This guy works for DirectNIC. They do webhosting for an assload of sites, including Something Awful. He's been giving using his blog as an archive of his epxerience in New Orleans since Katrina hit. It's awe-inspiring. Hell it's movie inspiring. Grim survivalist fare liken to Escape from New York or 28 Days. I would like to hope that in a similar situation, I would act much the same. I thank God I am relatively safe from such things, but heed, children, for what happened, the breakdown of civilization in its entirety, is possible elsewhere. Let this serve as warning. People are stupid. And never understimate the power of stupid people in large numbers. Ever.

a mighty fortress is our God

phrase t-shirts are stupid

But profitable, it seems. I have taken my particular brand of irony and satire and have made it available to you, John Q. Public. Or John W. Rummage, if you prefer. You will visit, you will buy, you will make fun of others! Huzzah! I know some people don't like cafepress, some for perfectly understandable reasons. But I figure it doesn't cost me a thing to use it. Gives me a chance to create something I might not have been able to otherwise. So there.

but you don't care for music much, do you