Dallas, 11:25 PM: Technology illiterate people can say some of the funniest things when you put them in front of the computer. For example, take my aunt who was just over here giving me a haircut. She recently got a laptop and is getting internet access in the near future, so she wanted to know how to join the throngs of stalkers I have that I now know about. As an aside, you all are doing a really good job because I don’t see you anywhere. Anyway, I refused to give it to her and told her to go ask my mom. Well, my mom was trying to explain the “http://” part of the URL to her, and she said that it looked like the money in the Geico commercials (at least the :// part). I can’t really say that I’ve ever thought of it that way before, and I’m pretty sure that the people who standardized that chose it way before Geico thought up their current a campaign. That said, I wonder if Geico ripped off the internet?
Tomorrow morning I have to leave here at like 5:30 in order to get to DFW to catch my flight, so I shall be going to sleep pretty soon. The benefit is that I get to go back in the morning rather than tonight and now have to miss a day of work, but the obvious downside is that I have to leave here really, really early to do so. Fortunately this direction of travel is the nice one for me since there’s only a net change of 2 hours rather than 6. If I had to leave at like 3:00 to get there by 9:00, this post would be coming from Seattle instead of here.
Dallas, Personal - Seattle
Dallas, 11:55 PM: My day was dominated by three main events which helped take up quite a bit of time that I would have otherwise been bored. First, my mom and I went to go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I guess I had fewer issues with it this time since I knew what the cuts and changes were going into it, but this is still the movie that I fundamentally have the biggest problem with. Then, we went to Kohl’s and bought me a ton of clothes (when the original trip was just supposed to be for shoes). I guess that if I’m going to have a non-electronics shopping extravaganza, it’s better to be an unbirthday event than the alternative. Finally, we went to dinner at The Keg officially for my mom’s birthday, but unofficially for my dad also since I gave both of them their presents.
Tomorrow my day is bookended by stuff but with a large gap in the middle that I need to try to fill. Not having any games around makes life here slightly boring. Take away my DVDs, and I’m left with precious few entertainment alternatives upstairs besides just watching whatever is on TV at the time.
Dallas, Personal - Seattle
Dallas, 1:10 AM (9/19): What’s this, a post from Dallas? Yes, my loyal stalkers, I have escaped from the city of Starbucks for the weekend and am back in Texas until Monday morning. My dad and I have had this planned for about a month, and the occasion is for my mom’s birthday which is this next week. Airplanes still can’t figure out how to fly between Dallas and Seattle without problems so my flight was slightly delayed, but fortunately it was extra time spent sitting in the airport rather than on the plane.
Tomorrow (or today, whatever) I might go see Harry Potter with my mom if she wants to go to one of the few places in the area where it is still showing. Otherwise, I’m not really sure what my day tomorrow will entail. It’s not like I made big plans or anything since the whole reason for me coming down was as a birthday present for my mom, so I’ll just be winging it for the next few days as far as my schedule goes.
Dallas, Personal - Seattle
As of today I now officially have a team that I’m on for Windows 8, so hopefully this will solve the problem of no work to do. Actually, it definitely will solve that problem; it’s more of a matter of when that problem gets solved that I’m more concerned about. Ideally this when will be sooner rather than later, but we’ll just have to see.
I want to do some hard drive upgrading before I put Windows 7 on my computer, so I’ll likely be buying those in the not too distant future. I don’t really need to buy hard drives for any reason since I have plenty of storage space as it is right now, but I just feel like fewer, larger drives would be better so that I don’t have as much stuff split up as a result. One can never have too many hard drives, so I’m sure I could find a use for the displaced ones without too much effort on my part.
Personal - Seattle
Since Chuck doesn’t return until after Christmas, I needed to find a new favorite show for the fall. Sure, Survivor is coming back on tomorrow, but I wanted a good scripted show to watch. Glee has filled that role beautifully after I watched the first couple of episodes this morning (before I actually had stuff to do at Microsoft). It’s on Fox so I fear a little bit for its longevity, but it reminds me so much of the type of humor that Arrested Development had.
Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have a place found for where I want to be for Win 8 so that I can actually, you know, have a job to do. Of course, the great irony would be that once I have a position, I’m probably still not going to have any work to do in the immediate future. My life at Microsoft is apparently one destined to be filled with boredom regardless of what I try to do to change it.
Personal - Seattle
I’m pretty sure that today was one of my least productive days at Microsoft so far. I basically sat at my computer, had no meetings with anything, and just browsed the internet all day. Sure, maybe I sent off one or two semi-important emails, but Microsoft really needs to find something for me to do quickly. Fortunately the remainder of this week is decently busy, so there shouldn’t be any repeats of today in the near future.
One of the things I did was watch the videos on our intranet of the company meeting and of MGX which happened back in July. I didn’t watch the whole thing of either since they’re like 4-5 hour events, but I rewatched some of Seth Meyers’ jokes and Ballmer’s keynote. I’m pretty sure that if I watched closely enough I could see myself on camera a couple times when they went to audience shots, but doing something like that requires a whole different level of boredom.
Personal - Seattle
The Zune HD comes out tomorrow, but recent developments have led me to postpone getting one for about another month. First off, Newegg and my credit card were not playing nicely with each other, so rather than get on the phone and try to solve that issue, I just canceled my order. However, we finally got information on our employee pricing and availability, and it will be slightly cheaper for me to wait and order it that way (plus I get to choose cool colors and customizations that I wouldn’t get otherwise). Perhaps this is just the universe’s way of telling me that I should wait a little longer and give my Zune 80 just a tiny bit more love than it would otherwise see.
I finished watching the final season of Avatar: The Last Airbender this evening, so now I just have to wait for M. Night Shyamalan’s movie to come out and see how he handles the adaptation. The DVDs are like $40 each on Amazon so there’s no way I’m going to buy them, but I probably will add them to my cart so I can keep track of price drops. If the prices drop low enough, then it would be a definite possibility that it could be added to my collection.
Personal - Seattle
One thing that recently occurred to me (and it has happened before) is what would happen if, for whatever reason, I was unable to make a post at my typical late night times due to my server being down or otherwise unreachable. A power outage for me I have decently covered through my phone, but if there’s a problem outside my control, my streak could come to a screeching halt through no fault of my own. I guess that’s just a risk I run of having the posting schedule I do, and if I want to cover my bases in that scenario, I should start posting earlier.
Apparently movies with the number 9 in the title are just destined to not be that good. 9 was a decent movie, but nothing special at all. The animation I felt was excellent, and while there was a plot (unlike the other 9 movie), I felt it was fairly shallow and a lot of stuff never got explained. For this movie, I do in fact agree with the critics that it is very deserving of a mediocre score. My score: 5.5/10.
Personal - Seattle
Andrew is already running Windows 7 on his main computer, and I really don’t have a good reason to not be running it on mine. My biggest blocking issue is just the time required to backup all of my files, do the install, and put all of my necessary programs back on. I probably also want to order a new hard drive from Newegg before doing such a thing since I’d rather just go with all of my programs being installed on my main hard drive like normal rather than using a separate drive like I do now.
I didn’t go see 9 today, but the reviews so far for it have been mediocre. Not horrible, not amazing, so there might just be hope that this is a movie I’ll enjoy. Most likely I’ll just go to the theater a couple blocks from my house tomorrow to watch it, and I should be good and ready to provide a review of it tomorrow night.
Personal - Seattle
Well, my prediction of today being boring was pretty much spot on. I didn’t even have any meetings to go to with my mentor, so I just sat in my office and caught up on my distribution list emails (think like a forum, but not nearly as well organized). At least for next week I already have a couple meetings planned related to figuring out exactly where I’m going to be for Windows 8.
I think I’m probably going to see 9 this weekend, and hopefully it will get the bad taste of being in a theater that District 9 left in my mouth. Gamer is a little iffy which is why I might go see it also, but if I have to choose only one, 9 is my first choice. I also finally got the rewards card for the theater chain up here that seems to be like AMC is in Dallas, so I’ll probably settle for going to a sub-optimal location simply for convenience’s sake.
Personal - Seattle