So, it’s almost my birthday and I had a hard time deciding if I really wanted to put a Kindle on my tada list. I ended up putting it on there, even thought it’s not likely that I’ll get it (it’s $399!). I also found out that you can’t gift a game to someone’s steam account without actually having the app installed, which sucks, because I want Rainbow 6 Vegas 2. Oh well, there are a lot of Wii games on there, but I can’t really think of anything in a decent price range to tell people to buy me. I’ll have to send it to everyone pretty soon, so I’d better find some $20 items pretty quick or I’ll look like a greedy bastard, which isn’t true at all. If you feel like you need to get me a birthday gift, feel free to make it a email card or something. There isn’t much that I just have to have right now.

Posted on Apr 29.08 to Life | 1 Comment »  

Water park this weekend was really fun. BW3s for dinner. Bought a new HDD enclosure and I can still recover my music. You know what I thought was strange is the tiny selection of HDD enclosures right now. I went to Best Buy, Staples, and Circut City. All of those stores only had 1 type. I guess it’s because the cost of external storage is so low (and the 2.5s are so much cuter than the 3.5s). The thing is: I didn’t want a NEW drive, I wanted MY drive, with all my music. Well, it works now, so I’m a happy camper.

Posted on Apr 28.08 to Life | No Comments »  

Work went fine yesterday. We did a practice upgrade and nothing for which I am responsible failed, so that’s good. I left work at about 4 so I could go home and mow the lawn. I only got the front done because it was going to rain, and I have an electric lawnmower and there’s no way I’m going to stand in the wet grass with an extension cord. I got a bit more caught up on Nocturnal, though I’m still behind the current release by about 4 or 5 episodes.

When the wife got home with the kids, we played a bit and her cousin came over for a visit which was quite fun. I also got my new mp3 player because my old one went through the wash (I’m sure you’ve read that by now). I was pumped…so I went upstairs and tried to load it up with music. Here’s the thing: my external music hard-drive is dead. I tried to use SpinRite but I can’t get it to work. I’m so incredibly worked up about this. If you’re reading this and you think you can help me salvage it, please let me know…you’ll be my hero.

So, since I had to put something on this new player, I decided to download some more music (which made me a bit late to work this morning, but totally worth it). I noticed that Everclear released a new album this year…actually this month, I think. So I’m checking it out, but I think it’s ironic because The Dalt and I were just reviving the “WTF Ever Happened To…” email thread and I used that one.

Anyway, I’m sad today, missing my tunes, but trying to get by with what I downloaded this morning.

Posted on Apr 25.08 to Life | No Comments »  

Today at work, we were supposed to be prepared to begin building the new application upgrade components at the drop of a hat. Unsurprisingly, things didn’t go as planned and our 12:00 pm estimated start time was pushed back until 4:15. We were all left dangling, and every hour or so we’d get an email that basically said “We’re almost there, hang on!”. Well we had enough and most of us left once we got that message because you can’t really get anything worthwhile started, let alone completed, in that much time.

So, I decided to play some disc golf and I’m quite pleased to say I lowered my average score per 9 holes from 37 to 36.2 since the last time I posted my scores. Here they are, by the way.

On the way home, I stopped by Barnes and Nobel to check out some parenting books to help my wife and I get over the discipline slump we are currently having with the girls. I got a few ideas that I think I’ll implement, but the one thing that I found interesting was that there were so many books about specifically raising boys, but only 1 on specifically raising girls. “Raising Boys, for Dummies”, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Raising Boys”, etc. For Girls, a book called, simply, “Raising Girls”. Now, I wonder…was this because girls are so tricky, that the demand in my city alone has overtaken the current supply…or (more likely), do the professionals not really have a clue and these books don’t even exist. A cursory google search would probably answer my question, but the philosophical point remains valid, I think.

Posted on Apr 24.08 to Life | No Comments »  

Well, it took me about 4 hours, but I finally got True Combat: Elite installed on my computer. The guide for installation isn’t great, so I had to wing it. All of the documentation is for XP, and even that sucks pretty hard. Here is the rough guide I created to tell you what have to do to make it work in Vista.

1. Install Wofenstein: Enemy Territory 2.55.
2. Upgrade it from 2.55 to 2.6
3. Download and replace the the EXE files with the 2.6b files.
3. Create an account at some French site to download the EXE of the True Combat mod installer, because the download mirrors at the official site are down and the ZIP versions don’t work.
4. Install the True Combat mod 0.49
5. Patch it to 0.49b
6. Upgrade the 3rd party app for Punkbuster
7. Change the W:ET EXE to windows compatibility mode of XP SP2.
8a. Change your system settings to not prompt for changes in the Program Files folder, or;
8b. Right-click and run as Administrator every time you want to run the game (which means you can’t really add it to launch from you Steam account).

I did all of that, and at 10:00 on a Tuesday night, there were a grand total of 26 people COMBINED on all of the servers and nearly half (11!) were on a password protected server. The server I did get logged on to had some players that were all too happy to devour a n00b, spawn-camp, and laugh when you didn’t know the map layouts.

It’s a real bummer, because last summer I played this game quite a bit and really enjoyed it. I found out really quickly that I like Urban Terror much better as a FREE Combat Sim.

It’s making me really antsy to download Counter Strike, though…

Posted on Apr 23.08 to Life | No Comments »  

Yesterday was crazy at work. Nothing major, just busy as all-get-out. That’s right, I said all-get-out. What are you gonna do about it?

Anyway, after I was finished at work I headed to pop the cherry on my disc golf for the year. I played pretty well, shooting a 33 while my best is a 32. I keep all my scores over at discgolf.com, but here is the quick link to my scores. Look at those monster 7s from December of 06. Holy cow, August of 08 was when I played the most. Since then, I’ve gotten some new discs that I’m working in and I’m really pleased with my choices.

Most folks are all about the Innova Roc. Don’t get me wrong, I like ‘em…I have one in my bag. But I think I prefer the Shark (I’ve got 2; a DX and a Pro). It has a little bit less fade, which makes them about the same for shorter shots, but more stable if you’re throwing it whole-hog. That’s right. I said whole-hog. What are you gonna do about it?

Posted on Apr 22.08 to Life | No Comments »  

Wet. That’s how I describe Saturday.

So we tried to go to the Race for the Cure this weekend. I even made the kiddos some fancy shirts for the event, like I do every year. Unfortunately, we got rained out, so we went to Costco instead. Sunday was fun; we had a great day with the girls and we even set up their sandbox because they wanted to pretend like they were at the beach.

Wet. That’s how I describe the sand in their sandbox.

I’m almost finished with Edenborn, the second in the 3 novel series by Nick Sagan. I’m so close to being finished that I’ve already added it to my Books 2008 post. So his dad is Carl Sagan, which I’m sure gave him a leg-up in the publishing industry, but I’m finding he’s a great author in his own right. They’re releasing the second printing of the paperback of the third novel, Everfree, next month. This one will be smaller and cheaper so I might wait for it. This means that I’m in the market for a new book to start, even though I’m still waiting to finish a handful of other ones that I still carry in my manbag.

Hey, speaking of, I just ordered another one from ebags.com. It looks like a cool one and I’m pretty pumped about it, even though it cost about 100 bucks. On the money side, I got my new card from Chase so the identity theft thing is about as over as it can get.

Back to books; I’m anxious to get my new mp3 player ordered. I never knew how badly I needed one that could play text files until I got my last one. Yea, the one that went through the wash.

Wet. That’s how I describe my old mp3 player.

It won’t play files, but I think I can still use it as a 2G thumbdrive (if I can remember to carry around the cable with me.) Carrie should order the new one for me this week. Horray.

Posted on Apr 21.08 to Life | No Comments »  

We’re back from vacation and nobody in our house is back to their “normal” routine. I’ve been crapping out an amazing amount of liquid straight from my anus in a geyser-style flow, powerful enough to raise me up in the air and remain there until I’m finished, like some kind of Tom and Jerry cartoon. The best thing I can say is that I’m glad this type of bowel issue didn’t interfere with the 2 thousand miles of driving we did while traveling.

Since we’ve been back, the kids haven’t slept well, which means we haven’t slept well, which means that we’re grumpy, which means that I haven’t worked out since getting back, which means that I’m even more grumpy.

Meanwhile my credit card was hi-jacked and the uber-dorks couldn’t figure out how to do it right. Anyway, the charges are being reversed, but I’m out that money until the paperwork goes through and I’m issued a new card.

So what makes this Adventure “crappy”? I shall answer that in alphabetical order:

- Diarrhea
- Fraud
- Insomnia

Posted on Apr 17.08 to Life | No Comments »  

Spread the word!

Posted on Apr 14.08 to Sports | No Comments »  

Sweet, the girls’ site redirection works again. I had to delete the subdomain, wait for it to be released, and add it again. Dunno why, but that’s the way it is. Fixed.

Posted on Apr 14.08 to Technology | No Comments »