Once again, Dementia is taking part in Blogathon, where she will be raising money for the Tri-County Humane Society. This is, as she puts it, “a Cause for Paws”. It starts July 29th at 9 AM EST and runs for twenty-four hours.
I’ve pledged to donate. You all should too. It’s a worthy cause.
Gah. In an earlier post I mentioned that I had an ingrown toenail and that it had gotten badly infected. I also mentioned that I had to go in to see the podiatrist today to have him take a look at it and cut out the offending ingrowns. Well, he did. Fortunately he did it under anesthetia (the injections for which weren’t the most fun thing in the world), and was done before I realized he had actually finished. Now I’m just sitting at home, both toes bandaged up, my feet propped up on my entertainment center, and having a caffeine-free Diet Coke before I consider going to bed. I wish I could say this was the end of the foot treatments, but unfortunately the doctor wants me to keep soaking them twice a day, leading up to a followup appointment next Tuesday. Gods, I hope this all works out fine.
I did myself and my parents a favor today and signed up for Netflix. I had been meaning to for a while, but with the new TV and DVD player, I figured it was about time for me to get onboard. Granted, there is a Blockbuster Video and a Hollywood Video near my house, but they tend to be out of my way and the former is a bitch to get in and out of. This just works out nicer for everyone involved… especially when Mom and Dad have their own sign-on and queue. Now I don’t have to worry about what movies to get them. Ah, well… at least there’re enough movies that I’ve been interested in that I have shoved into my queue. I should be good for a while.
Anyway, I guess I should be considering bed at this point. Fun fun…
Damn, I haven’t posted a regular post in a while. I suppose I should rectify that now… heh.
*sigh* It’s not that I’ve had much time to do such posts recently, actually. I spent most of last week on a business trip to Casper, WY. As beautiful as Casper is, it annoyed me to no end that data service didn’t work too well. Data service on my cell phone was very sporadic. In addition, I was staying in a Holiday Inn that had free wifi service, yet the service kept cutting out on me. It was worst on Wednesday night, when I ended up taking my laptop down to the lobby in order to get a decent signal. Ah, well… at least I can say that I got most of the work I was sent to do done. On the other hand, one set of equipment didn’t arrive until fifteen minutes after my flight home took off Friday, so that part didn’t get done. We’re not worried there; we can get someone local to do the preliminary configuration and then finish the configuration remotely. At this point I’m just glad this is the last trip I need to take for the foreseeable future. I have enough work waiting for me at the office that I need to catch up on.
I picked up a new game to try yesterday: Halo for PC. All right, all right, it’s an old game, but I wanted to give it a try and see how it is. I might also pick up a Playstation 2 to USB adapter from Fry’s so I can play Halo on it and get practice playing first-person shooters using a gamepad. As much as I like the keyboard and mouse combination, I’ll need to get used to a gamepad if I’m going to start playing console FPS games. In the meantime, I’ll be keeping to the keyboard/mouse and progressing that way. The game’s been interesting so far… should be fun to see how it goes. Of course, I’ll likely have to pick up an Xbox 360 if I want to play Halo 2…
Of course, I’m not looking forward to Tuesday, either. Apparently I developed an ingrown toenail that needs to be cut out… and it got badly infected, or else I would have had it done last Monday. Under doctor’s orders I’ve been soaking my feet twice a day and taking antibiotics. Trust me, finding epsom salt, white vinegar, measuring cups, and a container to put my feet in my first day in Casper was fun as all hell. Fortunately the soakings and antibiotics have helped and the infection’s been knocked down. Also, hopefully the soakings and antibiotics will finish once the procedure is done. I’m just not looking forward to the procedure itself. I hate surgeries…. heh.
Ah, well. I think that’s about all I had to say this time around. I’ll probably update with more stuff in a day or two once I figure out what I want to say… heh.
The image below is a billboard in Europe (likely the Netherlands) advertising the upcoming white PSP. I’ll let you guys make your observations concerning the ad; I think the title of this post gives my reaction well enough.
Heh, well, the main project I had for myself this weekend was completed successfully yesterday. The project? I upgraded my home entertainment system. :-) On Monday, I ordered a brand new ViewSonic 27″ LCD HDTV from Newegg. It arrived Wednesday, but I wasn’t able to bring it home until Friday (as I wasn’t going home straight from work Wednesday or Thursday evenings, and I didn’t want to leave it in the backseat of my car). Yesterday I went to Fry’s, and picked up a Samsung DVD player with upconversion capability, an HDTV antenna, and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children on DVD. I got them all set up last night; the old TV is in the office waiting to go into storage, and I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with the old Apex AD-1200 DVD player yet. So far, it’s been great; I watched FF7:AC last night, and this evening I borrowed my mom’s copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Both were great movies, and looked nice on the new setup. However, now I have two changes I need to make. The first is that I really should get a set of component cables for my Playstation 2, so as to take advantage of its capabilities in that regard. I wish the GameCube component cables were still available, but there’s no point crying about that. The other change is that I need to get a decent universal remote, like one of the Logitech Harmony remotes. I’m now caught with four remotes (home theater, satellite, DVD, and TV), whereas before I only had two. Narrowing it down to a single remote would make my life a LOT easier. Oh, well… I’m not going to complain overmuch. Needless to say, I’m very happy with what I have.
In other news, we had Chinese takeout for dinner tonight. We were originally going to have the hamburgers Mom had planned to make for July 4th dinner, but I suggested Chinese instead. I think my exact words were, “What could be more American than Chinese food?” :-) Ah, well… it’s funny. Before I started at T3, I wouldn’t have even dreamed of going to a Chinese food place. That changed when I got dragged to a Chinese buffet about three years ago. Now I count Pei Wei and PF Chang’s as some of my favorite restaurants, and the people at Hunam Garden (one of the local Chinese takeout places) know me by sight. I’ve even become more tolerant of Mexican food in my old age. (Though, granted, with one or two exceptions a Mexican restaurant will NOT be my first choice…)
I really don’t feel like working tomorrow, but unfortunately I have to. So much for a four day weekend… heh. Ah, well. Might as well pack up and get ready for the workday tomorrow. Fun fun…
This is a definite first. Mortal Kombat Online, The Realm of Mortal Kombat, Dave’s Mortal Kombat, Total Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat Outworld, and Kamidogu have teamed up to get a community-wide petition going to try and bring Mortal Kombat: Deception and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon to the Xbox 360. They’re not backwards compatible yet, but Midway and the MK community wants the Xbox 360 backwards-compatibility team to know that having Mortal Kombat playable on the 360 is something we REALLY want. I for one plan on buying an Xbox 360 in the next few months, and having MK Deception and MK Armageddon would make it a real keeper for me, especially with Xbox Live.
If you’re an MK fan and have a 360 or are planning on getting one, go ahead and sign the petition. We would really appreciate it. :-)
Well, this marks the end of yet another weekend, and quite frankly, it was just what I needed. I didn’t get much, if anything, accomplished. It’s simply been a weekend of relaxation while I recuperated from the events of last week. I had mentioned that the network circuit had gone down at my office Monday in a previous post. It went down again Tuesday, and I was at the office until 8 PM with the AT&T repairman while he fixed it. I thought the problem had been resolved… until the circuit went down AGAIN Wednesday evening. After a couple of hours, it came back up again. About all Qwest could get out of AT&T in regards to the outage was, “Sorry, our fault. It’s fixed now.” It’s stayed up since then… however, Wednesday evening the backup server died. :-/ I managed to get it partially operational on Thursday, and then after going through a bunch of hoops I managed to get it up Friday afternoon. It was stressful and annoying, and I am SO glad it’s all fixed and working properly.
So, what did I do this weekend? Yesterday I took Mom for her birthday dinner at Steak & Ale. We hadn’t been in years, and we figured it was time for a change from Outback Steakhouse and Cheesecake Factory. (I had actually been to the latter on Wednesday with Dave.) It was pretty good, and we’ll go back again at some point. I’ve always liked Steak & Ale; the menu might be rather limited, but the ambience of an old time steakhouse is always so relaxing. Heh. Mom really appreciated the meal, too, which is what counts in the end. As for today… I ended up going to meet my friend Lindsey to see The Lake House at the Cinemark off of Market Street. I don’t go for chick flicks as a rule, but it was good to see Lindsey, and I admit the movie’s preposterous premise had me intrigued. My verdict? It was a bit slow, but otherwise it was a good film. Afterwards we ate at Johnny Rocket’s (a burger joint with a 50’s setting), browsed around Border’s, and then I came home. All in all, a fun afternoon outing.
As for this week, it should hopefully be a bit more calm than last week was, even with my boss’s boss coming into town for meetings. I also plan on making a bit of a tech purchase, but that’ll be in a day or two. For now, though, I’m just going to relax for the rest of the evening; tomorrow’s a new day and all.
Today was not one of the better days around here.
I woke up very early this morning to the sound of heavy rain and thunder outside. I heard some barking outside that sounded like our dog Chase, so I peeked through the blinds to look at the front yard below. Mom was outside walking Chase in the yard so he could do his morning business… and to my shock, the street was flooded. I went back to sleep for a short bit, and then went downstairs for breakfast and learned what was going on. I later told Sean about it…
D’Arque Bishop: We almost had water get into the house. Thanks to all of the construction to the north of us, rainwater doesn’t get soaked up there like it used to and so it comes down our way. The water was nearly to our back door’s seal.
D’Arque Bishop: In fact, I didn’t even bother leaving for work. I’m at home now logged into the corporate VPN.
Sean MC: Oh god!
Sean MC: We were okay– wonder how dad faired? You know there’s got to be water in the DeHaas house then.
D’Arque Bishop: More than likely, as the only way we avoided water getting into the house was Bicycle Repairman springing to action and digging a 6 inch trench and drainage pipe.
For the record, “Bicycle Repairman” was our old nickname for my father. It came out from the old Monty Python skit where the superhero of a world full of Supermen was Bicycle Repairman. He earned it after coming out to fix our bikes one time after something happened to them while we were in some other neighborhood.
Anyway, I digress. The entire city suffered flooding, especially around where my office was. After getting warnings about the conditions from a few employees, I decided it would be best if I just worked from home today. Of course, it didn’t help that the main network circuit at the office died and we had to find a way around it. I’ll likely have to go in early tomorrow to make sure the makeshift replacement circuit is holding up, which is not a good thing considering weather conditions tomorrow morning are forecast to be the same if not worse. :-/ *sigh*
Oh, well. I can’t afford to work from home another day, as I’ve got too much going on at the office to even consider it. All I can hope for right now is that the weather will cooperate tomorrow morning and I’ll be able to get to the office with a minimum of issues. Here’s hoping…
Well, I would like to say that today’s been productive, but unfortunately it’s not been the case.
Last night was actually kind of fun, because Sinc and I finally gave Dawn of War a spin in multiplayer. I think we’re getting used to the concept of having infantry squads as opposed to just singular units. It took me a little bit to get used to playing as Chaos Space Marines as opposed to regular Space Marines, though. Sinc played as regular Space Marines, and we ended up playing against a pair of CPU opponents: one was a group of Space Marines too, and the other was a group of Orks. We won by the skin of our teeth… mainly because Sinc couldn’t figure out how to get his troops around this obstacle he had put up for a long time. I came damn close to being knocked out… fortunately my base defenses held against the sea of troops attempting to take it. :-) I think we’ve found a keeper, especially seeing as it didn’t have anywhere near the amount of lag problems that Command & Conquer Generals had been having recently.
We ended up taking Dad for his Father’s Day dinner tonight at Outback Steakhouse. We never go to dinner on the actual holidays, simply because the restaurants get more crowded than we’re willing to deal with. The meal was pretty good, as always… though, I must admit, I’m starting to get burned out on Outback. One place I wish I could go to more often is Chili’s; however, Dad doesn’t like Chili’s, so it becomes a moot point. That’s one nice thing about travelling out of town: I can usually find a Chili’s nearby. Ah, well… maybe I can convince them to try something different next week.
Speaking of out of town… the flight home yesterday wasn’t the most fun one I ever had. I got to the airport, had a rather generic burger in the food court, and went to the gate at 4 PM… only to see that the 4:25 PM flight to Houston (the one before mine) was cancelled. Oh, boy. I checked Continental’s website using my cell phone, and it turned out my flight WAS still running, but that it was going to be a half-hour late. Sure enough, it was. *sigh* Oh, well… at least I didn’t have anything pressing going last night. All in all, though… next time, if I’m going to be going to Odessa, I’m going to eat before I get to the airport. The generic food there did nothing for me, and there’s several good places between the location and the airport. At least I got everything done there that I needed to get finished.
As for tomorrow… I might meet a friend for drinks after dinner (I’ve found myself roped into having dinner with the folks), and I still need to replace the hard drive on Frost (I actually found a spare I can use as a replacement here). Otherwise, it’ll be just another quiet day, which is just what I need, really. Ah, well… :-)
Well, right now, I’m sitting in a very comfortable room in the Hampton Inn in Odessa. I’ll be spending the night here, and heading back to Houston tomorrow evening. I must say, though, that Midland/Odessa isn’t really as bad as I had thought it would be. Granted, it’s still more or less the middle of nowhere (especially at the location where I’m doing my work), but it’s definitely a bigger city than Rock Springs, WY is. It’s a good thing I scheduled to be out for two days, as well… granted, a week would have been better time, but I think I can get this location more or less functional by the time I leave tomorrow. About the worst that’s happened is that I ripped my shirt on a chain-link fence by accident. That in itself annoys the living hell out of me, as this shirt (my tan long-sleeved shirt with the company logo above the breast pocket) is one of my favorite shirts.
Frost’s hard drive had another seizure overnight, and I can’t log into it remotely again. It’s still operating its DNS services with no issues (likely because all the information its hosting is loaded into memory), but obviously I can’t manage the machine. I’ve not been able to snag a replacement hard drive for it yet, so what I’ve decided to do is replace it with a new machine this weekend. I have one machine available that I can spare as a DNS server; I’ll rebuild it this weekend and put it in Frost’s place, then retire Frost. Ah, well… such is life, really.
Anyway… should go get a drink and consider going to bed early. I’m tired and need sleep. Oh, well…