DECEMBER 2002 ARCHIVE
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• 12/31/02, 12:45 a.m.: Last Post of the Year
All right, so I'm back by popular demand. Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, but like I said, I only have dial-up at home and haven't even used the internet much, let alone touched this page. At any rate, since most of you all got to see my new ghetto iBook, I suppose there isn't much purpose in showing you pics of it, but I guess I will anyway. At least you can check out the whole burner-installation process. Almost crazier than the tibook ordeal...and more screws, too.
You'll notice that this time I decided to label all the screws with masking tape instead of throwing them in a cup ;-) And although you can't see it, my main implement of destruction was the orange peeler I used to pry the case apart...definitely NOT an Apple-approved tool of the trade.
• 12/24/02, 11:45 a.m.: Happy Holidays
Merry Christmas, everybody! Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!
• 12/20/02, 12:26 a.m.: Movin' time
I hate packing and loading my stuff in the van, but I've decided I hate cleaning even more. I swear that the person who lived here before me never even cleaned the dang stove. It's gross, and I know I've used it all of four times since I got here, so it can't be my mess. Oh, well. Guess I'll have to finish up tomorrow...
Me and Mr. Pismo are anxious to get home...
• 12/17/02, 9:05 p.m.: Two Towers madness...Grr.
Sadly, in spite of the fact that I have no finals of any kind this week, I have too much work- and moving-related stuff going on to be able to see Two Towers this week--dammit!!! I'm eating (free!) dinner with my engineering group from work tomorrow evening, and since I'm at work all day and the theatre in IC is worthless and doesn't have any shows after 8pm (and having a midnight showing tonight is of course out of the question), there's no way I'll see it tomorrow. Thursday I have to work late and am playing ball after work...and Friday is my last day to clean my apt. and do some last-minute shopping. *sigh* That's life, I guess, so I'll have to wait until Saturday night in Ames to see it...what a load of crap.
In good news, my iBook arrived last night. However, as you can see, it's in Ames--how frustrating. I reallly want to play around with it, like, RIGHT NOW. Once again, it's another thing I'll have to wait until this weekend for. Ugh. I can't wait to get back to Ames, now. Imagine that =)
• 12/16/02, 9:14 p.m.: Mr. Himac, meet Mr. HiBook
Well, I've splurged once again and have decided to tackle a new "project": I bought a refurbed 12.1" iBook 600 off Small Dog last week for just under $800 shipped. It's a pretty basic model, with 128mb RAM and a 20gig drive, but the kicker is that it only comes with a CD-ROM. SO... I bought an iBook CDRW off eBay, and once I install that, upgrade the RAM, and sell the old CD-ROM drive, the whole package will cost about what I paid for the Pismo. Then, I'll have to decide which one I'd rather have, and sell the other and maybe make a few bucks. The winner gets to keep my Airport card, if I ever get it back ;-P If anyone thinks I'd be a blooming idiot for taking a new iBook over a Pismo, please let me know before I make a big mistake. However, with Andy considering getting one, I'd hate to be the only non-Miller Mac user without an iBook =)
If you have 20 minutes to spare and haven't already read this insane story about some guy's vigilante-esque eBay justice, check it out. Evidently some poor dude got ripped off for $3000 on a fake cashier's check (not to mention losing his TiBook), got pissed, then initially denied by the FBI and Secret Service, then took matters into his own hands and kicked some ass in a little sting operation with the aid of some random mac users. Quite the story if you ask me, assuming it's all true.
• 12/16/02, 12:15 a.m.: Return of the light-cutting bastard
Hmmm...I went home to Ames this afternoon (briefly) to take back a van-load of stuff I have here at my apartment. Back home, my parents tell me that for some reason the lights on the tree in back have gone out--while the others hooked to the same extension cord are still on. Weird. So I go investigate and find that, for probably the fifth year in a row, someone stupid $@*%er has taken it upon himself to cut the $@*%ing plug off the bottom string of lights. WTF?! Last year the bastard cut a non-working string on the bushes in front, then when I had fixed those, cut a string in back. Year before that, same story. What gives? Some dirty $@*&ing scumbag gets a kick out of ruining my days of hard work putting all those lights up. I just don't understand it. Just to spite the $@*&ing light-cutter, I refused to put a new string on the tree in back, and simply repaired the cut string. And they WORK (for now). So there >:-P
You know, this whole ordeal makes me wonder if someone hates me or my family for some reason. Kind of scary, really, though I don't know where I would have made any enemies. If anyone out there knows anything, I'd pay good money to know what's going on. Oh yeah, and GOOD LUCK to all of you on your finals this week. Kick some ass ;-)
• 12/14/02, 12:18 a.m.: WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
I know this is an odd time to post an update, but after surviving a day of work that was all-too-fitting considering the date (though perhaps it was not so much unlucky as it was just a lot of hard work), I feel obliged to let you know how good I'm feeling right now after the Cyclones' victory over the Hawks this evening. Jafar came through in the clutch and hooked me up with a ticket, so I was able to witness the dramatic victory in first-person ;-) Way to go Cyclones!!-- I suppose I should be out partying right now to celebrate, but I'm currently heading to bed since I have to get up at 5:30am to go to work...how exciting.
• 12/11/02, 6:16 p.m.: After last night, I've got a funny feeling...
...that this year's basketball season is going to be a lot like last year's: real tough to watch. The Cyclones are just a disaster on defense, and the Big 12 schedule is going to be nothing but brutality if the 'Clones play like they did last night. But the season's still young, and there's plenty of time to improve, I guess. We'll see.
In other news, I got my new hard drive today. (Yippee!) My old 20gig had filled up rather quickly since last summer, so I got one of those new Western Digitals with the 8mb cache. We'll see if it really makes a difference, though. Regardless, I still got a good deal--80 bucks for 80 gigs isn't half bad. I'm tempted to just throw it in a FW enclosure and use it like that, but for now it's going to sit in my PC and collect mp3's off Kazaa until Andy gets his G4 back and returns Himac to its rightful place ;-)
• 12/9/02, 11:52 p.m.: Go Cyclones!
So I'm sitting around this evening trying to get up the motivation to finish my laundry when my hot latin lover (a.k.a Schilling) calls me up from a hotel room in downtown I.C. I guess he was in town for an interview with P&G tomorrow or something, and they put him up in the downtown Sheraton--that is, after taking him out to dinner at Mondo's (nice Italian chain restaurant) and for beers at The Airliner (local bar/pub). Pretty nice, eh? More than I got from Amana when I rolled into town for MY interview, anyway...
As for our very own Iowa State Cyclones, they play their first real game of the season against Boston College tomorrow. I will personally be making the trip back to Ames after work just for this big game, and will be driving back when it's all done, so I hope the Cyclones make it worth the trip. GO IOWA STATE!!
• 12/8/02, 11:31 p.m.: Ho Hum
Grr. I spent the last hour and a half trying to fix Mr. Paul's broke-ass CD player, because of course, I thought I was the man or something. I think I managed to make it worse, but at least we got it put back together. What a waste of time. Other than that, though, it's been a nice weekend, and for that reason I'm really not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. Especially since I know I have to work next weekend (maybe even Sunday, too), so I won't get a break for awhile. Bah >:-(
BTW Andy, when are you going to get Himac back up and running? I really miss strangesearch...
• 12/7/02, 4:28 p.m.: I love Saturdays...
Today has been one of those wonderful Saturdays where there's not a whole heck of a lot going on. I've spent a majority of the afternoon sleeping, watching TV, reading, playing video games, etc. It's been very relaxing, especially after a long week of work (bleh...) But I suppose most of you guys are busting your a$$es today studying for finals and completing projects for "dead" week. Or at least you probably should be ;-)
It also occurred to me today that I need a new computer project. The whole TiBook thing was a lot of fun, and in the end (and in spite of Apple), I managed to make about $36 and some change off of the whole deal. Not bad when I thought I'd end up losing money, I guess. But now I find myself sans TiBooks, and itching again to fix some computers or start a new project of some kind, so if anyone has any ideas/suggestions, or broken computers that you don't need, or anything like that, let me know. More computer stuff is about the last thing I need right now, but I'm just feeling the need to mess around with something right now.
• 12/5/02, 10:08 p.m.: Basketball.
I guess basketball is the theme of the day. I played some ball tonight with some engineers and drafters from Amana in the "highly competitive" Amana basketball "league", and I'm so damn sore from lack of this type of exercise that I can hardly move from my chair. It was a lot of fun, though. Made me realize I should really get out more...
I also found the the following snippet about our local long-ballers from Grinnell while perusing espn.com:
So we usually stick to Division I hoops here, but we're going to make an exception after seeing a recent D-III box score. If you want to see points, check out the Grinnell (Iowa) Pioneers. In three games this season, the three-point chucking team from Grinnell is averaging 140.7 points per game. The Pioneers scored 160 in a victory over Martin Luther and then came close to threatening a pair of D-III records it already holds in the next two games.
In a 144-114 victory over Augsburg (Minn.), Grinnell made 31 threes, one short of its record of 32 threes. In a loss to Northwestern (Minn.), the Pioneers attempted 83 threes, three short of the D-III record.
And, no, those are not typos.
WTF?! Eighty-three 3-point attempts for one game is flat-out RIDICULOUS. And making 32 in one game is unheard of. Mad props to those crazy Grinnellians ;-P
• 12/3/02, 8:57 p.m.: Better late than never, I guess.
You would think that a person who buys a computer off eBay that comes with overnight shipping would make sure s/he was there to pick it up the day after it was shipped. Or maybe even the day after that, or after that. But then you might be wrong: the guy I sold my TiBook to just picked it up last night--a full week after I sent it. I'm sure with the holiday and all, he was probably busy, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Still kind of funny, though. Sort of defeats the purpose of having overnight delivery, even from my end of the deal--I had been hoping that there would be less chance of it being damaged in transit if it was sent overnight. But I think it's had about 4 attempted deliveries since it arrived in the guy's town...oh, well.
In other news, I downloaded the newest version of Chimera today, and it totally kicks IE's ass. I think I'll be using it for all my web-based needs from now on.
• 12/2/02, 7:52 p.m.: Now I HAVE seen everything...
If any of you regularly check dealnews, then this is old news. But last week I saw a post on that great site for the most ridiculous rebate I've EVER heard of: $13,000 for some airplane. Yup. It's a tough thing to do, but I think the UP Sale has finally been outdone ;-P
Oh yes, and a big THANKS to Andy for pointing out what a dumbass I am.
• 12/2/02, 12:08 a.m.: Mr. Fox, I know how you feel...
I hope everyone had a pleasant Thanksgiving...I know I sure did, even if it was WAY too short (I only got four days off total, ya know.) And if you didn't notice, I took a break from updating my page, too. Sorry about that.
I know someone has mentioned this before, but you just gotta love the way Foxtrot seems to always know what's going on in your life. Case in point: for those who didn't happen to see Sunday's, it involves Roger's battles with eBay bid snipers. I got more than a good laugh from this one, as I can totally relate. The resemblance to my own, even recent, experiences is uncanny ;-)
I apologize for the low-quality picture. I have no scanner, so I had no choice but to take a picture with my digicam.
