God damn, it's been a long time. I'm such a slacker, but, to my credit, I've been busy. I think. Right? Well, if not hectic, then busy, for sure. At the very least, I'm drained by the time I get off work, so I suppose that's all that really matters. Right?
While I'm on the topic of work, I'll just jump into the biggest news: I got a sizable promotion. It happened a few weeks ago. I'm pretty pleased. I've been there just over a year, so my 5-year plan is working out nicely. This whole year I've worked there, I've made it my point to *not* be the bottom of the totem, which is hard, since most of my superiors are seasoned vets of the industry. Needless to say, I made it my mission to outperform some of my peers. I've really worked hard and it's a nice reward. Twenty-plus percent raise. LIKE WHAT?! Yow.
COLLEGE!
With some of that proverbial "fat cash," I've purchased a few choice items I've been lusting after for the past few:
1 -- Resident Evil 4, wii edition: Holy shit. This game kicks some serious ass. I know I'm way behind the times, but damn, I haven't been so addicted to a game in, well, years. If you have access to a Wii, I would highly suggest playing this. Popping the heads of viral zombies like zits with a souped-up shotgun makes me giggle.
2 -- A new pair of cans: Panasonic RP-HTX7. They aren't as audiophile as my old Sennheiser HD590s, but they are nice. Plus, I adore the color.
3 -- A new computer: It's a fucking beast. Without going into detail, just let me drop a few numbers. dual core. 3.2 GHz. 4 gigz of ram. dual SATA2 750 gig HDs in RAID1 for storage (finally, redundant backup!). two SATA2 120gigs in RAID0 (for speed). Booting XPpro, XP64pro and Ubuntu. NERD BONER.
I haven't built a computer in a few years and I'm fucking astounded at the performance and prices. Let me put it in perspective:
Fourish years ago, I built a computer for roughly the same amount of cash. It had 1/4 the memory, 1/8 the storage, 1/3 the processing speed. Astounding. Especially when I think of the specs on my first computer: the all-mighty C64. I'm planning on spending a bit more for some digital recording equipment, so hopefully, guitar recordings shall be in the future.
I went and saw The Go! Team at the Doug Fir a ways back. I caught some of their set from Coachella 2006, but I wasn't all that impressed. Still, seeing a band of that magnitude at a smallish venue, I couldn't miss it. I'm glad I didn't -- they absolutely tore that place to shreds. I haven't seen a performance like that in ages. I felt like I had run a marathon afterwards, just from watching how frantic the band was. Totally epic.
For the holidays this year, I get a whopping 11 days off. I'm excited. Hopefully I can get a lot of personal projects out of the way. I've been marinating on NERDSMASHER for far too long.
I remembered a brief time in my life. A flashback, for no apparent reason, to when I was in sixth grade. My busdriver, Art, who had been my faithful busdriver for 7 years, died. It was kind of hard for me, actually. Living in the boondocks, I rode the bus for an hour, both ways. I was the first one on in the morning and the last one off in the eve. After seven years of conversation with a man, you become attached to him. Anyway, after he died, we went through a series of temporary, substitute busdrivers. Most of them were totally unremarkable. Except for one -- Mark.
Mark drove the bus for roughly 4 months. He was a large man. Obese, even. He was probably in his late thirties and wore the same shirt for many days in a row. He was very nice, but very socially inept. His mannerisms were awkward. Any person who can solicit pity from a 12 year old smartass must not have a whole lot going for them.
On these long trips to and from school, when everyone else was off the bus, I'd move to the front of the bus and talk to him. As it turns out, he was a big computer nerd. A *huge* computer nerd. I was merely blossoming into the wonderful world of computers -- I had toyed with Visual Basic and regularly dialed into the local BBS (CRIME.ORG RIP) to play the text-based role-playing games and download pornography. He was years ahead of me on the nerd scale. We would talk about nerdy things and he would bring me floppies filled with games and other software. The majority of these conversations cannot be recalled, save one exchange, which is what popped into my head today:
Talking about how he used to 'manage' a McDonald's and now knows all the 'loopholes' in the system:
"Here's what I do -- order a Big Mac meal. Ask for some Ranch for your fries. This is key: upgrade your drink, then, ask for extra lettuce on your burger. Asking for the drink upgrade before asking for lettuce won't trigger any alarms with the cashier. Then, once you have your meal, take off some of the lettuce, put it in the top of the Big Mac box, add your ranch -- there you go -- free side salad."
I shit you not. Damn.
I have consolidated around 6 harddrives onto one, and have been sorting through gigs and gigs and gigs of random shit from over the years. I found the picture above, I thought it'd make at least one person smile.
I love you all.
