Last year when I was applying for the FBI internship, the deadline kinda snuck up on me (as in, I found out the day of). That resulted in a little bit of running around trying to get people to give me everything I needed which would typically take a couple days. In the end everything worked out even though I didn’t get selected as one of the finalists. This year, I had everything planned out so nicely. I have the essay done, I’ve sent the assistant lady my letter of recommendation (which, yes, I wrote myself, and yes, it was still as strange as it was last year), I’m reusing the picture I took for my passport, and I was going to take everything minus the letter to Mr. Steele tomorrow. Everything is golden, right?
Wrong. I looked back at my post from last year (it was actually exactly one year ago today that I had this issue, detailed in the post “Ladies and Gentlemen, May I Recommend…Myself!“), and it just so happens that I have almost the exact opposite problem. Rather than having already gone to the Registrar’s Office to get my official transcript, I’ve been there for my enrollment verification but did not get a copy of my transcript. The good news is that last year I apparently got it at the same time I went (and that was before I had to tell them I needed my verification done yesterday), so I’m hopeful that the “3-5 days” their website says is not going to be true. Should I start worrying now about what’s going to happen to me next year on September 20th?
Personal - Dallas
A new version of the HTPC software we use, SageTV, has been released, so I could theoretically upgrade it either tomorrow or this weekend. Going against my usual tendencies, I don’t think I will. The reason for this is that upgrading one part requires everything else to be upgraded to the same version (i.e. upgrading the desktop software would mean I’d have to update the remote client on my dad’s laptop). Since everything works for the time being and I don’t need any features from the new version, I see no reason to risk screwing up a working system just to have the latest and greatest.
Coming back from the alternate reality where I’m happy with something that isn’t bleeding edge, nothing big has happened since yesterday. I couldn’t have played Tabula Rasa if I wanted (the US server is down today), I did play some WoW and Bioshock, and my only thing left for this week is a test in my education class on Friday. No football games, no unexpected events, and no other surprises. Life is calm. Unfortunately, history has shown me that it won’t be that way for long…
Personal - Dallas
I still have about a month to go for my half year mark, but this makes post #150 in my daily streak. That one hundred plus fifty more. One five zero. Approximately 5 months. Wow.
I did finally convince myself into preordering Tabula Rasa, primarily because one of the preorder bonuses was beta access so I could figure out whether or not I like it. As it stands right now, I’m not sure. It is still in beta with almost a month left to go before release so I have to cut it some slack on the technical glitches (some of which could absolutely be the fault of this computer), but I don’t hate it. At its core it really is an MMORPG, but rather than your standard combat methods, there’s this interesting third person shooter dynamic that makes you much more involved than just using ability after ability after ability (while waiting for the reset timers). The game definitely has potential, and I’m very interested to see how it keeps evolving throughout beta (and, even if I decide not to pick it up immediately at launch, how it continues to evolve). I think the MMO landscape needs something to push it away from everything being WoW clones, and Tabula Rasa definitely has the potential to be the catalyst for that change.
Bioshock is still a game in process, but I am making progress. If I was able to play it at my house as well as UTD I’d probably be done by now, but I definitely think I’m in the second half of the game and probably only have a week or two more until I’ve beaten it. If the rumors are true about a new Bioshock every two years then I’d be extremely content. Hopefully my completing it will fall nicely in sync with the release of HL2: The Orange Box so that I’ll have more FPS goodness to keep me entertained.
Personal - Dallas
There’s WoW, there’s Bioshock, there’s the internet — all of which I did, and I’ve been bored for a significant part of the evening. I’m not sure being at home rather than my apartment would have made much of a difference, but I at least would have been watching TV for part of that time.
SynCToy may not end up being as great as I thought it was going to be. When I was going through the setup process, I didn’t see a way to tell it to exclude files/folders from inside my My Docs folder. Pretty much everything of mine on my computer lives somewhere under there, and stuff like downloaded files I don’t want wasting time and space during the sync process. Back to the research board it appears…
Personal - Dallas
What I want doesn’t seem like it should be that complicated to find. I have an external hard drive, and I have two computers. I want a program to be installed on both computers so that when said external drive is plugged in, it will use a profile (basically a subset of My Docs) and sync any changes between the computer and the external drive. Not on a schedule so that I need to have the drive plugged in at a certain time during the day, but when the computer sees the drive, it starts this sync. In this way, I can keep my computers at UTD and home for the most part concurrent with each other without resorting to manually copying files back and forth between them and not wanting to update a file on one when I know that there’s a newer version on the other that hasn’t been copied over yet. Is this really so much to ask??
Apparently. Really, the only thing I haven’t found a solution for is the sync when the drive is plugged in instead of on a schedule. Microsoft has something released called SyncToy which is basically exactly what I want minus this feature. Yes, I can just say to manually run the sync after I plug in the drive (it’d primarily be when I come home for the weekend and then go back out to UTD on Monday), but it’s just something that I think should be possible.
The CV BBQ was fun; I didn’t hang around for as long as I did at the spring one, so I’m not sure if any games were played or not. This was the first fall one that I’ve actually been to. The past two years there was either a conflict with HP football stuff or I just didn’t feel like going. By going to these and actually starting to hang out in the lounge more I’m beginning to meet/learn the names of some more people beyond those who are in my CV classes. CV is basically UTD’s version of TAG, for better or worse.
Personal - Dallas
That’s basically what I did today right there. I’m starting to get slightly back into WoW, and tonight I had a very successful group in which I leveled once and completed three quests. That got my character to all of level 36, so I still have plenty of time before I have to start worrying about the level cap.
I think I’ve finally decided what my gadget purchases are going to be with my money from my internship. Rather than get an N800 now, a new one will probably be coming out before too long (rumored to have WiMax), and hopefully that will push the price of the N800 down into the range that the 770s are currently (closer to $200 than $350-400). For the time being, this should be replaced by both the phone and new media player that I’ve settled on. The phone is actually still up in the air a little; it’s between the iPhone and the Neo1973, depending on what the reviews of the 1973 say when it comes out in (theoretically) about a month. As for the media player, I think I’m going to go with the 80 GB Archos 605 WiFi for $349. Much larger storage space than the iPod Touch (although at the same time, a much larger form factor) but it still comes with a touchscreen, browser (a $30 add-on), and supports more filetypes that are important to me (Divx/Xvid and AC3). Pretty much the only thing that it doesn’t support which I have in my collection is iTunes music, but I’m willing to live with the burn/rip workaround for dealing with that (if I don’t go with the iPhone).
Personal - Dallas
After last week’s close game, it was going to be interesting to see how we performed tonight. The short answer is much, much better. HP 56, Bishop Lynch 0. Yes, I think we’re back to our dominating ways with no problem at all.
The first game I really want on PS3 is coming out in a little over a month (R&C: Tools of Destruction), but I still don’t plan on buying one until it drops in price. Not the fake 60 GB version price drop (wasn’t down to $400 anyway) either but a real one that brings the top model down to $400. My guess is that it’ll happen either right before Christmas to boost sales or right after Christmas to keep sales high (but in the process make lots of people mad, cue iPhone reference).
Personal - Dallas
My day has been long and exhausting. I started at 1:00 with two tests today, left UTD at 3:15 for two football games, and finally got back here about 10:40. My feet hurt, I’m ready to go to sleep, and I unfortunately have to wake up early tomorrow morning for my only early class of the week.
There was no DVD excitement today, primarily because I’ve spent so little time in front of my computer. The big highlight of my weekend is the game tomorrow night, and then all the teams have an off week next week, so it’ll be my last game until two weeks from today. Time to rest, relax, and have other things creep up that eat up time and leave me with less free time than I would have if there were games.
Personal - Dallas
No, I didn’t screw up the title of this post. It has taken me *5* attempts to finally get a DVD to burn correctly. Fortunately, a learning experience was embedded in there somewhere around try 3 or 4. The problem was being caused by a combination of Nero’s codecs and the fact that the file I was trying to transcode had a VBR audio track. At least, that’s the problem I’m pretty sure I had as a solution targeted for it solved my issue.
This also brings up an interesting thought on bug squashing. From the many forum threads I’ve read, Nero is definitely aware of this issue, but it’s a problem that has existed over two major versions of their full suite (6 and 7) along with three versions of the program that actually does the transcoding (2-4). Nero 8 is going to be released at the start of October, and it’ll be interesting to see whether this issue has been dealt with or not. On one hand, they made an assumption that I’d argue was a fair one to initially make: content that is going to be destined for a DVD is going to be in CBR form (since DVDs can’t handle VBR). On the other hand though, they’ve known about this problem for a long time, and it should be something that they could have patched in an update.
The Microsoft presentation that was at UTD tonight was definitely a good idea and IMO should be done again in the future, but the execution was way less than stellar. The people speaking were UTD alumni and didn’t seem to be all that prepared or have content that was really targeted at the audience (it was all important information, but almost everyone got bored really fast). Get an actual MS recruiter here with a presentation geared towards the right audience, and future events will be much, much better.
Personal - Dallas
Two days down, three more to go. My planning for this week is paying off in helping me organize my schedule and know in advance where I need to be and when. Today I went to the HP School Board Meeting, and Dr. Bryce even introduced me to everyone at one point during the meeting, pointing out how I was there as a part of a class to ultimately become a teacher. I even had one woman come up to me afterwards who recognized my name from the help I did over the summer with the online courses. My name is spreading more and more throughout the district apparently.
I’m not sure how much love Bioshock will get this week since most of my free time tomorrow and Thursday morning will/should be spent on studying for my two tests on Thursday. I think that if I review everything well enough that I should be fine, but I’m not planning on these being tests where I can recall everything I need to know without any reviewing beforehand. In fact, I rarely think that about first tests; it’s the second ones where I sometimes get into trouble. :)
Personal - Dallas