For some reason (I’m sure it was a good one earlier, but I can’t think of it now) I got the song “Real Gone” from the movie Cars stuck in my head earlier. After using my Zune pass to listen to it, I decided that it had been long enough since I had actually watched the movie, so that’s what I spent the evening doing instead of watching TV. Granted, it helped that there was nothing on TV that I wanted to watch tonight, because otherwise, I would have had to live with just the song.
Andrew and I attempted to play a TD earlier tonight, but it seems that both of our computers were conspiring against us. First, the program wouldn’t launch on my computer; then, neither of us could join the game each other was hosting. We ended up both retrying, and somehow Andrew managed to not even be able to log back in. Needless to say, we did not end up playing anything, and that’s actually the reason why I had the free time to watch Cars in the first place.
Personal - Seattle
Boring day today was…not quite as boring as it could have been, but still quite a bit of empty time. Tomorrow, however, that should not be a problem (at least according to my calendar), so that makes me all happy inside. It’s not too busy, it’s not too empty, it’s juuuuuuuuuuuust right.
I keep telling myself that eventually I’m going to go snowboarding at one of the resorts around here some weekend, but the big question is when will I get around to actually doing it. I either need to buy the actual board to go along with my clothing (a likely purchase before too much longer) or rent one when I go, then there’s the whole question of exactly how far I’m driving for a day of being on the mountain. I’d be surprised if I don’t do anything related to this in the next month or two, but it’ll probably take expecting a really boring weekend to make me go through everything that needs to get planned.
Personal - Seattle
I’ve played by fair share of trading card games throughout the years, but one downside is that playing them by yourself can get extremely boring. So, when Xbox Live had their XBLA version of Magic: The Gathering (one of previously mentioned games, although I did tend to suck at it) on sale for 400 points ($5), I played the demo, felt it would be worth the purchase, and bought it. Actually, the one argument that can be made in favor of MS points is that it actually cost me $0 on Sunday when I decided I wanted the game; I already had 2000+ point in my account, so it was all funny money as far as my present financials are concerned.
Today was busy enough but unfortunately still slightly boring. Tomorrow should be even worse as far as that relationship goes (less busy, more boring), but I’m sure that I can keep myself busy throughout the afternoon. After all, it isn’t like I just sit at my desk and stare at my monitor when I have nothing else to do.
Personal - Seattle
Even though I don’t have any direct time conflicts (to my knowledge at this point), a DVR for my TV would be a very convenient thing to have. One of the areas where watching Hulu (or “prerecorded”…) shows shines is the ability to pause at any moment, rewind if you get distracted, etc. Well, sometimes a commercial break is either inopportune or just isn’t long enough, so I’m thinking about upgrading to a DVR from Verizon, and the bonus to that over rolling my own is that it also comes with a dual tuner. The one downside is that it costs slightly more a month, but if they’ll let me return my other cable box yet keep the remote for free, then it’s a wash for me bill wise.
Not only do I have a couple of meetings tomorrow, I have one at 9:00 in the morning (Wednesday also, different meeting). Unfortunately both days I’m completely free after lunch, so while the schedule gods and I still need to have a chat (maybe I can book a meeting with them one of those two afternoons), I’m at least not bored all day long like I was today. I can’t be bored for too much longer since planning for the next milestone has to start up soon, but since my free time can’t be evenly distributed throughout the year, I’ll take it whenever I can get it.
Personal - Seattle
The little “low battery” light on my mouse has been pulsing for a good month now (granted, I wasn’t home for three of those weeks, but still), and it can pulsate all it wants as far as I’m concerned. Just like with printers and their ink levels, wireless keyboard/mice seem to think that 75% or something is low enough to start complaining about the battery level, but I just keep happily using it until it eventually goes out. Of course, that could possibly happen at a very inopportune time (like when I’m in the middle of a multiplayer game), but I’ll take that chance and get all I can out of my low batteries.
In one of the few ways that UTD copied HP, tomorrow would be a holiday for me in the previous 17 years of my life, but not this time. Apparently MLK Day isn’t important enough for Microsoft to give us a day off as a result, so my week is a full 5 day one instead of getting to be just a bit shorter. If it’s any consolation (which it isn’t), I’m finally to the point where Monday nights are constant TV for me with Chuck, 24, and Castle all on in consecutive hours. Of course, this week 24 overlaps Chuck, so I’ll have to Hulu the latter (otherwise, I’d be skipping an hour of 24, and that would just be unacceptable).
Personal - Seattle
So, I had this awesome post written up about why I was going to be posting from my phone (I’m at the Colemans, possibly not getting home with enough time to make a post before midnight once I leave here), and then my phone decides that having a full battery is just way too boring and somehow went from full to empty in about the span of a second. Now, last time I checked, that typically doesn’t happen, and I’m pretty sure my phone is telling a lie about having an empty battery since it was happily full earlier today. Until I can get home and put the smackdown on it, however, I’m restricted to boring old computer posting. Hey, at least this is just more reasoning for getting a new phone as soon as I can and getting rid of my iPhone.
If my phone decides it wants to work by morning, I’ll be waking up early to watch the Cowboys. In an ideal world, this will be worth it since the Cowboys will win. Then, tomorrow night is the first part of the season premiere of 24, so either way tomorrow will end on a good note. I also need to remember that I have White Collar starting on Tuesday night, so slowly my TV schedule is getting full once again.
Personal - Seattle
As I should be doing, I started playing Assassin’s Creed again earlier tonight and made some respectable progress, but I’m still nowhere close to finishing. Even though the sequel is supposed to be much better, I just have a thing for playing through the games in the order they came out. One notable exception here is the Final Fantasy series because, let’s be real, playing through 1-6 + beating 8 + beating 10 + playing 10-2 + beating 12 would just be a tad excessive before starting 13 when it comes out in a few months.
Being able to watch Dexter over Netflix instant streaming is quite convenient since it isn’t a show I feel the need to…*cough*…obtain through alternative methods, but it is a show that I’m enjoying watching. Since it’s a Showtime show, the episodes are like 53 minutes instead of 40-42, so it feels like you’re watching more than a typical one hour show, but it still isn’t as involved as a movie. Not having commercial breaks to deal with is also another interesting aspect since that keeps everything moving along at a decent pace and reduces the number of good “pause spots”.
Personal - Seattle
Blame my gigantormous game backlog on whatever you want, but tonight is simple, simple proof that in order to make it go down, all I have to do is just sit down and play them. Take Mass Effect, for example; I sit on my couch, spend probably a little over an hour playing through it, and I finally get around to beating it, slightly over two years after its release and about two weeks before the sequel comes out. Am I going to buy Mass Effect 2 when it comes out? I sure hope not because I have plenty of other games to play, including the three I ordered off Amazon still sitting on my table.
Tomorrow I effectively have constant meetings from about 9:00 until 3:00, so I’ll definitely be ready to go home once the day is over. What will I do once I get home? Well, the logical guess would be to play some of those games I discussed in the previous paragraph. That’s also what the likely choice will be, but who knows what forms of entertainment might become available in the next 16 hours or so.
Personal - Seattle
Last summer I read a book called Daemon which was quite good, and it’s sequel, Freedom(TM) (yes, the (TM) is part of the title), just came out. It was available to get on my Kindle, but the digital price was less than a dollar less than the physical hardback version. Since I already had the first in the series, not wanting to split them up, I went ahead and ordered the tree-killing version of it. Will it be as convenient to read? No, it’s larger in all three dimensions than my Kindle, but it just didn’t feel right to have a collection split across multiple formats. This, of course, coming from someone who bought the latest Harry Potter on Blu-ray (but then again, it did come with a DVD version also).
Tomorrow and Friday are two quite full days for me with just enough down time to make them manageable. They’re also days that require me to do very little except just sit around (but not in my office, hence the “full” part), so I’ll be going into a weekend on a high note. There’s nothing worse than having lunch on a Friday with absolutely nothing to do in the afternoon, yet knowing you have another 4-5 hours before the day is over. In my case, I get to be entertained right up until that cutoff this week.
Personal - Seattle
One of the games Andrew talked me into buying during the Steam holiday sale was Burnout Paradise, a game that I would have never bought on my own, but for $2, it seemed interesting enough. According to Andrew, the game plays much better with a 360 controller than with a keyboard. Microsoft felt the need to go cheap and make wireless controllers only transfer power over the Play and Charge kit, not data, meaning that all my existing controllers didn’t work with my computer. So, I decided rather than get a wired controller, to just get the 360 controller PC pack which comes with a wireless controller and a receiver that would enable all my controllers to now work instead of only one.
On the flip side, Microsoft also released a small thumb keyboard for 360 controllers about a year ago, and while I’d never buy one at retail, since I was at our company store anyway and typing out messages without one is quite painful, I figured that getting one was worth the investment. So, I now have a keyboard for my console, and a controller for my PC. If my computer was hooked up to my HDTV, then I might really get confused as to which one I was on at any given time.
Personal - Seattle