I know I've not been around in quite some time. For the most part, I've just not been in the mood.
Working at "Toys B We" (not allowed to use their copyrights or trademarks, especially in blogs, as per the employee contract, so have to use this approximation). Things kinda suck there. Anal on rules, and screwy hours. Sunday I worked a 12 hour shift, but for the most part so far, they've only on average given me 12 hours (this week, since I am filling in for someone on some days, I have 27, still, only 2 weeks since I started there have I worked more than 15 hours counting this week). Still, its a paycheck.
Since I was here last, had a few deaths as well. Bill passed away, and that was particularly rough, due to how he went. Still, he had a long life, and was 23. Spam died just a week ago. She was going on 17, so had a good run as well.
For a while, I was playing a lot of Second Life. Kinda got out of it, too much drama, and also the client is a horrid buggy piece of shit.
Lately, mostly been watching different TV shows I've downloaded. Have the Mac mini hooked up to the TV, and using that. Great for video podcasts and what not. Also trying to work on getting a mythbox together. Already have the tuner card (pcHDTV HD-3000), and most of the parts. Now just need to get a hard drive in it, and start getting things set up.
Monstershit has been back up and running. Happy about that. Turns out the CPU fan was dying, and so wouldn't always start. Got the fan running for a while, but it was just a temporary thing. New heatsink and fan on today, keeping things a little better. Idle temps are a bit too hot for my taste (~120F), but the top temp is inline with what they used to be (~130F). Odd how it has such a short range.
Also, have had the start of birthday goodness. Yesterday, received a brand new 3rd gen iPod Nano from some really good friends of mine. Thing is really tiny, and sounds great. Plus awesome battery life. I really appreciate it, but still think it was too much.
Plus, fixed a few issues on the blog. For a while, it decided to not let me log in, which was quite annoying.
Things have been hell here lately.
I know I haven't posted in a while, but that is due to various issues, mainly being my net connection being down more than it is up. When it has been up, it has been horribly slow, like how it has been the last few days, where it was going at 20kbps and slower (Monday night, 4kbps). When you're having speeds like that, and 40%+ packet loss, it may as well be completely down. Plus, Got a new hard drive in Monstershit, got everything installed on the new drive, migrated everything over, only to have monstershit have it's CPU burn out 4 days later (freezes on boot now).
Yes, I am still doing the Wii exercise thing, and have everything written down, and will be adding that info shortly.
Also, I upgraded the blog software, so hopefully won't be getting any more spam.
First up at bat today, Linux.com had an article about a new open source project, the Linux Guitar. The basic concept is that the guitar will be able to record what is being played, add its own effects, etc. Also, all that goes into the guitar, even the shape and layout will be freely available. Pretty sweet.
Next up, according to Destructoid, Nintendo still hasn't released the specs for online play with the wii. This most likely means that Nintendo hasn't finished the spec, which really sucks.
Weight: 259.0lbs
Waist: 42.0"
Wii Fitness Score: 28
Yay, Axel tore the shit out of my hand, my mouse is on the fritz, and things still are fucked with the bank. Fun fun.
Bank is trying to tack on a third overdraft charge, for reasons unknown (I've not used it since last week, so there hasn't been any additional charges), bringing the total up to $78 they want for their screw up.
On the mouse, it seems to be resetting what ever is on the hub that it is on, so apparently the PS/2 adapter it was on before, and now my USB hub with the scanner and such. Yay… more money I gotta spend…
Back again.
Things have been hectic here. This week have had family from out of town staying here, and all the craziness that provides. Its not been bad though
The sony laptop I have broke, again. Had issues with its hard drive, again. Since thats been wating hard drives, and the hinge aint cheap to fix, I'm probably not gonna fix it. If I do, I might mod things, strip it from its case, come up with a better cooling system, and put it in something else.
Other projects here, I'm trying to plot what I should do with a 4u rackmount case, and baby AT 486 I have. as it stands, the Baby AT doesnt match up right with the Fullsize AT case, so probably gonna pull out the drill and my tap set and go to town. Other ideas I've had is to make a hood scoop on there, with twin 120mm fans drawing in cool air from them. Not sure what else. I also am wanting to setup a headless server for auto backup of my main desktop machines. Could that be the purpose of the 486? Maybe, if I can get it to support large drives without an issue. If I decide to drop the 1500+ I have into the 4U instead, I am pretty sure its gonna be opticalless, and use that bay for a removable drive setup. I'll be tossing up sketches later of my mod plans. What ever I do, it'll be on the cheap, probably done with some of the scrap metal I have laying around. No biggie though, gives me a challenge.
Other news, picked up Gran Turismo 4 finally. Wasn't so hot on GT3, but lets see what 3 or 4 years developement has done on it. Can't believe at the memory card requirements, I'm used to seeing 80k, or upwards of 300k, required for a save game, but 2 megabytes? Damn. New memory card definitely for me then, when I can afford it.
Saw Pirates 2 on Monday, good movie, crappy ending. Its hard to say whether to recommend seeing it on the big screen, or to just wait and watch it right before Pirates 3 next year, since its more or less a year long intermission instead of a year between sequels. If you can, wait till after the credits for another funny scene.
