What a better way than to close out 2008 (and start 2009) than with a visual refresh? Ok, I’m sure there are quite a few better ways, but this is the one that will have to do for here. While some people might be out partying, I’m at home writing a blog post and watching TV. Hey, it’s all about priorities, people.
As I mentioned before, giving an update on my streak count is extremely easy today considering my post one year ago had my then current count in the title. I’m now at 610 straight days of posting: 254 last year and 366 (the full year!) this year. 2008 ended up being a very good year for me posting wise, even with trips to Japan and Seattle in the mix. Can 2009 perform just as well with Park City and my moving to Seattle? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…
Personal - Dallas
A couple days before Christmas I discovered a game by the name of Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot. Now, this isn’t the normal type of game I’d usually buy. You’re thinking because it has the word “bunnies” in the title, right? No, it’s actually not a video game at all but a card game. After having played one game of it today, it’s actually pretty fun. Sure, it has the distinct disadvantage of needing multiple people in the same physical place that want to play it, but not every game can be WoW. That would just make life way too easy.
My newest show of choice to be watching is Alias. It premiered the same year as 24, the latter of which I obviously began watching back when it actually aired. With Alias I don’t have any “catching up” to do per se since the series ended after five seasons. Maybe I’ll eventually get around to watching Lost the same way; either that or I’ll have to have some marathon sessions of it in order to catch up to what’s going on now.
Personal - Dallas
I may have gone just a bit overboard when getting storage for our new file server. In our old one there was about 400 GB worth of space given to storing all of the media, and it was getting close to 90% full when the switch was made over to the current one. Well, most of what was on that hasn’t been brought back, and with the stuff that I’ve been downloading so far, I’ve only used up about 150 GB. When you look at the pie chart though and take into account that the total storage area now is at 1.36 TB, I don’t foresee a storage upgrade being necessary anytime in the near future.
One unforeseen issue with my ripping everything to H.264 is the fact that Vista Media Center doesn’t play nice with those files, so I’m going to have to tweak the HTPC downstairs. Most likely my solution will be to put SageTV on there and use that as the main interface since I’ve tested that and it does work. Path of least resistance is always the best, and since that’s a pretty easy fix, no reason not to use it.
Personal - Dallas
I spent the past 2-3 days catching up on about the last 2/3 of the latest season of The Amazing Race, and one thing that I didn’t just notice but seems slightly odd is the fact that all of the episodes are named. Other shows, like Survivor, do this also, and they typically use one of the best one-liners from that episode to be the name. When you start scanning down the episode list then, some of the names can sound extremely strange and/or funny when taken so much out of context.
Just three days left in 2008, and barring any major screwup by me, I’ll have a full calendar year (not just 365/6 days) of uninterrupted posts. Getting into this groove of posting before I go to sleep every night has obviously helped immensely, even forcing me to post meaningless, random posts (oh, like this one!) on days when otherwise I’d have nothing to talk about. Off the top of my head I have no clue what my streak is at right now, but give me three more days and it’ll be a really easy calculation for me.
Personal - Dallas
The process of ripping DVDs to our server is made quite easy through the use of remote desktop with one exception. That one thing would be the process of actually having to insert and remove the DVDs from the computer, which requires me to walk back and forth between my room and the server every 15 minutes or so in order to feed the next disc. Sure, this could probably come across as me being lazy, but you have to figure that I could somehow rig up a device that would let me load the DVDs from my room. It’s probably a little more than a weekend project though.
For all the noise being made about the rain there was surprisingly little of it, and as a result, ultimate frisbee was able to be played just fine. My schedule tomorrow is pretty light aside from the usual, so I’m not sure how I’ll fill up all that remaining time. Maybe TV and video games, perhaps?
Personal - Dallas
Man, if only it would just stay in the 70s for the entire year in Texas. No freezing cold days that do nothing except annoy everyone, and no triple digit temperature days in the summer that do nothing except annoy everyone. Sure, a 70 degree day may not feel that “winterish”, but when that means you can actually be outside and do stuff, who really cares?
Tomorrow, the plan is, to go play ultimate frisbee again. Whether or not that happens (and if so, even the location) is somewhat up for debate due to some invisible rain that is reportedly going to occur tonight. It was supposed to happen at 8:00, then at midnight, now at about 5:00. Maybe when I wake up it’ll be raining, maybe not. Nothing shows up on the radar though, so I’m not that sure why the weather people have such a good feeling that it’s going to rain.
Personal - Dallas
Yeah, don’t ask me why, but I’m extremely tired at the present moment. I haven’t left our house all day so I’m not sure exactly what I did to get so tired, but that seems to be a little after the fact now. Granted, if I go to sleep now I’ll probably wake up at about 6:00 tomorrow morning, but then I can just stay in bed for a little while longer. Anyone have some objections to that idea?
Unless plans change, tomorrow night we’re taking Brandon, his mom, and his grandmother to Benihana. The last time we were in the same city (to my knowledge) was our Vegas trip last year, but we’ll be meeting each other again in less than three months when we go to Park City. Maybe I need to work on getting some people to help coordinate my social schedule better as far as seeing my friends goes.
Personal - Dallas
Well, aside from the HDTV that I’ll (eventually) be getting, I guess the only thing I can really say that I want is money. I have no super long list of games this year, and anything else I might ask for, money is a great substitute until I get around to either getting it or changing my mind. As I pointed out last week, I definitely have enough things that I can spend money on that I want to buy.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever spent two Christmases in a row at home (i.e. no trip to anywhere), but I’m not about to complain. Ok, sure, maybe if Hawaii or Vegas was an option on the table I’d be angry about staying at my house. They’re not though, so I’m not. Sleep in, watch TV, play games? I think that’s just about a perfect way to spend Christmas.
Personal - Dallas
After letting it sit around for a week or two, we finally watched The Dark Knight tonight with my grandparents. As it turns out, it’s not exactly the shortest movie ever made. I think they were all expecting it to be about an hour and a half, but it’s really an hour longer than that. I didn’t mind, but my mom might have been the only other person to stay awake through it all. Regardless, maybe not quite as good as the first one, but still a good movie. My score: 8.5/10.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, so that basically means that family stuff will be happening all day long. Since it’s all going down here, I have my computer and video games to keep me company while everyone else stays downstairs to talk and do other things that can only be entertaining for so long. Good thing I’mve become quite the expert at entertaining myself after all these years.
Personal - Dallas
Today was a pretty slow day in the week of Christmas as all I did was stay at home and do my normal vacation stuff. For the rest of the week, my grandparents from Arkansas will be here which brings with it the simple fact that more stuff will be going on. One day of nothing, three to four days of much unnothing. Fair trade?
I’ve been catching up on some of the TV shows that I downloaded but didn’t watch on a weekly basis for the past couple of months. For Heroes, I even need to go plug in our old server so that I can pull the second season/volume off of it (which is from a whole year ago). If nothing else, having all these shows gives me something to do in between playing games and still not being entirely comfortable with the fact that for at least a few more weeks, I have no homework to do.
Personal - Dallas