Being Nosy

Snagged this off someone... I don't like to drop names, because picking them back up hurts my back. ;)

It's just one of those things I feel the need to do now and again. I like to think of it as life inventory that I'm going to share.

( Clicky... )

For the second time in the last few weeks I went to a theater to see a movie. This isn't something that I do very often. Generally speaking I prefer to wait for a DVD release, or even to be carried on one of the premium movie channels as I get them all for free as part of my employment with my cable provider.

I can't really say why I've been spending money on theater going as of late, but I learned something... or more remembered something that I think I lost sight of some time ago. Just because people don't seem to want to spend time with me doesn't mean I'm not worth spending time with.

Sure, I have a few people locally that on some level or another I think of as friend, and I see them occasionally, but all in all I spend most of my time in the company of me.

I saw Terminator Salvation tonight, I made a brief mostly non spoiler-ish comment about it on Facebook in response to an old friend from high school that said I would be disappointed. I might reiterate and expand on it here later, but that's for another time. Leaving the theater I went to the Cold Stone Creamery which is in the same complex, then sat outside in front of the fountain to enjoy the spoils of the war with the line there. As I made quick work of my waxed paper cup of plain sweet cream I realized that everyone else sitting around me on the other benches was with someone else. Usually that would have made me feel lonely, but this time something was different, something clicked. I wasn't any less happy than they were, I wasn't any less likable, or any less attractive. I wasn't in any way less at all.

It's been well over a year since I was part of a couple. In all that time I thought of myself as alone, when the truth of it is I'm still half of what made the nearly 10 year relationship that she and I had together worth having. Sure I miss her, as she was and still is my friend, but I'm still me more or less, and while I may not have 'the other half' of who 'we' were I still have all of who I am.

If that's not good enough for someone to want to spend time with me, then I'm not the one missing out.

So a few months ago I got a two year season pass for Busch Gardens Williamsburg. I've gone a few times since, and I've come to realize that spending three years as a cable tech and climbing ladders has somewhat desensitized me to heights. Sure my ladder was only 28', but still I think being strapped to a steel cable over a busy street has made me not so impressed by roller coasters. Still fun... though I'm fast realizing that being at the back of the train is much more fun than being at the front.

Anyway I got there about 4pm, as it seems I just can't get out of the house before noon on Fridays. Good thing I don't work Friday, eh? Decided to hit Alpengeist first, as the park wasn't very busy and I've never ridden first car on that ride (refer to the first paragraph) and all I can say is WEAK! I'll be sticking to last car on that one from now on.

Made my way around the park a bit, and to The Big Bad Wolf, which is 25 years old this year. I rode it the first year it was open, and it's still my favorite coaster at the park. Sure it's one of the slower ones, and by todays standards it's pretty tame, but it's still fun.

Sat first car, because the trip through the village is just more fun that way. Usually I sit alone, as it is a two per row car. Would have this time too, except just as they were about the release the train, the girl that was standing behind me asked them to open the gate so she could get on. Kinda weird, but what ever. Funny, very pretty, seemed to be in her mid 20's, and despite riding on a roller coaster, had a nice little conversation.

Had fun, it's really a nice park.

Wish I'd gotten her phone number.

Hell, wish I'd gotten her name.

Probably wouldn't have made any difference, but even if she'd given me the phone number to a pizza place, it would be nice to at least once be able to say I did that.

(It was brought to my attention that I can't pay attention. I'll explain by explaining how it happened. I was introduced to the argument out of context and without having seen the movie. I then saw the movie after being awake for over 20 hours on 4 hours of sleep. I then wrote the post the next day. I put 2 and 2 together and came up with 5. The argument was wrong, but the logic still holds. I've edited the post to reflect the whole argument.)

So I saw the new Star Trek movie Sunday night. It wasn't bad, really. It wasn't what I was hoping for, but at the same time it had a little of the feel of the first two movies from way back in the day (I was there, I can say that, yo).

There seems to be some rumblings about a scene at the beginning where little Jimmy Kirk plays the song Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. The issue is about another song that they do called Intergalactic. For those not intimately familiar with the song, and don't have the lyrics handy, there's a line at the end which says "Like a pinch on the neck of Mr. Spock".

The argument follows that as the song Sabotage is played in scene, that the Beasty Boys existed in the Star Trek universe; it further states that assuming all else is equal that the rest of their catalogue would have been the same... which would then include Intergalactic. How could the Beasty Boys know about Spock, Vulcans, or that snazzy little number that's defused so many situations on the bridge of the Enterprise and across the galaxy.

Sure it's possible that in the Star Trek universe they just didn't write that song, or that one line didn't appear in it, but assuming it did it would leave one trying to explain how they knew about our Vulcan friend.

Spock, along with most of the Enterprise's bridge crew were in California in 1986, and our pointy eared friend dropped a guy on a city bus with a pinch. People talk, and getting the people that over heard his name, and the people that saw the bus situation to talk to each other wouldn't have been hard. So it's a very small stretch to think that the story would have made it to these fine young rappers, and eventually into a song about things from out of this world.

That is all I have to say on the issue.

It's all about time travel bitches... and remember that's old school warp factor 10 with a sling shot around a star, anything else is slack.

O'kay so it's not been quite that bad, but this week has been trying really hard to get me down. Nothing big, but then that's the problem. A rather nasty rush of little things, which on their own wouldn't be a problem, just keep coming at me.

I'm not gonna let it get me, though. I was even late to work this morning by a few minutes because I turned off my alarm and then fell asleep on it (don't ask), but I'm good. I've got a birthday party to go to tonight, and I'm making some progress on a project I've been dragging my feet on. So it's all good, and to this week which is trying to hard to harsh my mellow I say


Pffffththth!

So I took the whole week off. Left work March 22nd, and don't have to be back until 16:45 March 28th.

Why? Well a few reasons, but a good part of it was just that I needed some time away from the constant assault of 'the dumb'. As anyone that works in customer support knows there are times when it seems as though every customer you deal with hasn't got any sense, common or otherwise. Lately it seems like every day has been a never ending stream of those people. I needed a break.

So what did I do? Mostly nothing. Well nothing much anyway. A fair amount of time was spent sorting through things in my room; a part of my seemingly endless attempt to clean. I've collected a lot of things in my life, and I'm trying to get the amount of things down to a more manageable level. Slow going, because I only do it in spurts, but when I try to do it all at once I get overwhelmed and give up. The hardest part is accepting than until I get much closer to done there are going to be times when it looks like I'm going backwards.

Tuesday I was woke by a text from lilith2003tr asking if I wanted to do anything. There is only one more Tuesday left before my schedule changes as we don't have a common day off again, so I pulled myself out of bed and made with the ready getting. O'kay, so it was about 13:00 and I should have been up anyway, but a little motivation is always helpful. We took a brief tour of the area, or ran errands as she referred to it, and ended the day with dinner at which we were accompanied by her other half.

Much like Monday, Wednesday was spent cleaning, sorting, and otherwise trying to make sense of things I've been holding on to for a long time; and that brings me to Thursday....

Thursday was the moment every pack-rat lives for. The day when he is vindicated. The day he can look to everyone that's ever asked with scorn in their voice "why are you keeping all this stuff?" Without saying too much about the 'plot' as the episode hasn't released yet, I packed up a bunch of stuff that came from the 90's and went up to Williamsburg, VA for a shooting of Hak5. As usual, it was a great time. They're an awesome group of people, I just wish I didn't live quite so far away. *shrug* Can't have everything. It was good to finally have a use for some of the stuff I've been holding on to for so long. On the one hand I feel as though I can finally let go of some of it. On the other it's just reinforced the idea I should keep it. We'll see... for now I have far less useful stuff to get rid of. Priorities are important to something like this, so gotta stick to them.

Friday came and went without much fanfare. Though I did give in and buy a two year season pass to Busch Gardens Williamsburg. I've lived here most of my life and never had a pass. I don't go nearly enough, and with my new schedule aligning with the shooting of Hak5, and that pulling me in Williamsburg more often, I might as well make the most of it. If I make 15 visits in two years I'll have paid for it in parking costs alone.

It's now early morning Saturday, and I have to be at work in about 14 hours. Just a half day, then Sunday, and I have two days off again. Next weekend won't be as nice as I'll only have Saturday off, because that's when my schedule change takes effect... or is that affect. I can never remember which is which, and don't care to look right now. Damn English; I don't blame foreigners for not understanding the language. Most of us native speakers don't understand it either.

I got an email today saying that the Black & Decker® 3-Speed RTX-B Rotary Tool I ordered using my points from the Coca-Cola rewards system had shipped and would be here tomorrow. This made me very happy.

I started collecting points years ago when they were offering the PSP title LocoRoco, and was saddened when they ran out of stock before I had collected enough points. Since they I'd just been hoarding my points until something special came along. A few weeks ago I got an email from Coca-Cola to advise me that they would be doing away with all of their +2,000 point items and as I had well over 2,000 points available I decided to see if there was anything I wanted. The rotary tool seemed well designed, and got great reviews from a number of sources, so I ordered it.

Just a few hours after getting the email that the item had shipped I get another explaining that the tool was out of stock and that instead they had shipped me the Dremel 4.8V MiniMite Cordless. The picture in the email suggests they sent me the kit w/bits but doesn't say either way. The email said that this was an upgrade. Even a brief review of the specs show that this is in no way an upgrade, in fact it is a huge downgrade given the massive difference in drive speed, and that I not only wanted the case that came with the RTX-B, I do not want a cordless tool. Sure they might be more convenient but typically cordless power tools designed for home use are woefully underpowered, and the total cost of ownership is higher.

The email included a phone number to call if I was not happy with the 'upgrade' and wanted to send the tool back and wait for the requested item to be in stock. As soon as the wrong item comes in, I'll be calling them to arrange to ship it back. Hope they don't expect me to pay for return shipping.

Yeah, another one... why? Because I want to. So :P

Place an X by all the things you've done and remove the X from the ones you have not, then post!

( Things you have done during your lifetime: )

This has been posted by a number of people I follow on LiveJournal, as well as about 50% of the people on my friends list on Facebook. For all I know on MySpace too, but I only go there once every other month or so to update my status because I absolutely despise MySpace and think it is to the web what AOL was to internet content providers.

I think the original version had some kind of 'list people to fill it out' thing in it, but the version I'm copying from didn't. That's o'kay because I always delete that part anyway.

So, without further delay.

( Finish This Sentence: )

About two hours left in my shift, and I am more than ready to go home. For the second week in a row I went up to Williamsburg to hang out with some friends, and ended up crashing on their couch.

This weekend they had a full house, and I got to meet some seriously awesome people. Rock Band was played, pizza was had, and much geeking out with scary easy Windows remote exploiting.

There are pictures, but I haven't been home yet to sort through and upload them. Will be on my flickr account later.

Because I've not been busy enough lately, I managed to get myself a spot on this week's episode of Hak5. How did I pull that off? Why? What the heck is a Hak5, and what happened to Hak1 through 4?

Well unlike Babylon5, I don't think there were a string of shows which failed under mysterious circumstances. (But what do I know?) Hak5 is an IPTV show about network security, computer forensics, hardware modding, and general geeky goodness which has just started it's fifth season. Having developed from a 'group of friends doing their thing' format to a more professionally produced show, it still keeps true to it's roots of bring on the Technolust in all it's forms.

As for how I got involved in this episode; a few episodes back there was mention of renumbering a bunch of Windows computers which were statically assigned with some kind of script. Without going into great detail, I worked out how to do just that, with PHP. I know, odd choice. Well couple that with a PHP runtime compiler and a day off, and you end up with me being a 'special guest' covering something that just a few weeks prior I didn't know anything about.

So Feb 17th came and went with less fanfare that I would have liked, but then some television stations did still shut down their analog transmitters. Not as many as I would have liked to seen, but every little bit helps. Since the local PBS station was one of them, broadcast channel 15 is clear, so analog cable channel 66 now comes in clear in all the rooms in my house without digital cable converters.

Sure I don't really watch that channel, but if I wanted it, it would be clear now.

WEEE!

I've been sick for about the last five days, so I haven't been paying much attention to what's been going on. So while I wasn't watching (excuse me for being sick) the Senate tried to extend the DTV deadline to June 12th. Thankfully the House smacked them down. Doesn't mean they won't try again, but good to know someone has my back. Even if it is the Republicans.

I know the converter coupon program is out of funds, and I know a lot of people didn't get them that will need them, but four months isn't going to help that. I just want the damn questions to stop.

That is all.

I thought about just reposting here, but as this is more 'internet related' I'll leave the post where it is, and just link to it.

So to read my moment of self realization in the face of content licenses click here.

I got reminded of an old 'article' today. I still don't know which is funnier, the article itself or the comments that it got.

I'll save the commentary, as I can't stand people telling you what you're about to see or hear then coming back and telling you what you just saw or heard. I'll just say this... OMGWTF?!?

Read on and laugh/cry

Anyone that really knows me knows that I have slightly different ideas on what is necessary than most. For example (and to push forward the point of this post) I never really saw the need to put money into a good top coat. For the most part I make due with a zip up hoodie, a leather jacket which is more a fashion statement than a warming device, and a PVC top coat that is a great wind breaker, but not so much the useful for keeping warm in and of itself. But hey, I live in south eastern Virginia. It's rare that it gets cold here for more than a few days at a time. So what's the point?

Right?

Well seeing that Mother Nature has decided that my home has been immune to the bite of winter for far too long and has brought many a cold night upon me (shut up, I know it's still above freezing most of the time, but it's still colder than a human should be) I decided that I have been without a decent top coat for far too long. Yesterday I happened across what I think is an o'kay price on a knee length wool coat. There's no way I would have bought it at the $280 they were originally asking, but $140 was acceptable. It's light enough that it doesn't need to be freezing out to wear it, but being wool it's warm enough to make a difference if it should happen to be cold enough to bring water to a standstill.

Priorities change... as do plans, or lack there of, or something. I think.

I really need to either find a different job, or at least get a different schedule at my current job. It's really hard to make plans when you can't get time off when you need it, and don't have anything to do when you have time off. I got a hand full of days off approved over the next few months; and I've been trying to make arrangements to do things on those days. This has not been going so well. I've been met with 'maybe' and 'I won't be in town'. I don't blame those people, so if you think there's a chance I'm talking about you, please understand that I'm not upset with you. I understand. I usually don't know until nearly the last minute if I'll be off on a day other than my normal days off, which don't seem to be the same as anyone else I know.

It would be nice to 'get out' or just do something where ever. *shrug* I'm not sure just why I think it'll happen, in my case past performance IS an indication of future performance. Which flies in the face of those financial commercials. What do they know anyway?

Anywho, I have a copy of The Bank Job that Netflix would probably like to have back. So I think I'll watch that, and then see about getting some writing done.

Now I have to decide if I want to keep the days off, or just cancel them to maybe use the time later in the year.

A little over a year ago an old supervisor gave me a little glass bottle with Japanese writing on it. Said it was a tasty soda... and it was!

Well tonight while I was out and about I stopped by a little Japanese market in Norfolk, and found this. A nice happy little bottle of ramune. Original lemon-lime flavor, or so my taste buds told me. Also picked up a bottle of 'melon' which tasted like kiwi. Was kind of hoping to find bubble gum, but no luck. There are other Japanese markets around the area, perhaps I'll have better luck finding that particular flavor at another store.

Until then, to take out the marble, or not... that is the question.

So most all of my 'gifts' this year came in the form of cash, which is how I like it because no one in my family can seem to get me anything I want, anyway. You'd think after 34 years they'd know something about me, but that's not what this post is about. So I digress.

I've been 'interested' in music games for a long time, which some people will find odd as I don't like button masher games. I guess the difference is that with music games it makes sense that I press certain buttons at certain times, with anything else it feels like artificial difficulty.

After work, if I get off early, or other times I find myself out and about I often stop into a local Best Buy and abuse the people around by playing Guitar Hero, or Rock Band. A few weeks ago I decided I actually wanted to get Rock Band, so I did a few days ago. It's about all I've done since. I'm pretty good on drums, and not so bad on guitar/bass. I hadn't bothered with the mic as I didn't think it was possible for anything good to come of it. Well tonight I was playing around it it, and found out that as least in the view of the game, I'm not that bad of a singer. Maybe it's just that I have decent pitch control, not that it's a 'good' pitch. ;)

Anyway, there's my proof. Because if there's no picture it didn't happen.

The lovely and seductive Eartha Kitt passed yesterday from colon cancer.

Even at the young age of 5, watching reruns of Batman in which she played Catwoman, I knew there was something about her that was alluring in a way I wasn't quite old enough to understand.

As I grew and became aware of her singing and full scope of her acting career I became truly amazed with her as both a performer and a person.

At 81 years young, Ms. Kitt, you left us far too soon. May the next stage of your journey be even half as successful and rewarding as this past one was for you.

You will be missed.

I don't usually advocate OS wars, but when they are done this well who am I to argue?