|
11.01.01 :: 22:19
Today started out nicely. It was the first day of my new schedule where I go in a couple
hours later than I used to. It was nice to wake up of my own accord without my alarm rattling
me out of bed. I have an awful habit of staying up until the wee hours of the morning doing
my writing practice and cutting my sleep down to 5 or 6 hours ^^; But to have a half hour to
lay there and think before rolling out of bed and getting a shower.. yeah.. I could get used to
that ^_^
I uploaded part 13 of Sowing the SeeDs today. I've been slowly chipping away at getting
the webpage to where I want it. Having to do it all without the tools I prefer kind of sucks,
but I'm getting there. Fanfiction.net actually let me upload today (yay). I uploaded to Mediaminer.org as well, though I'm feeling a bit disenchanted with them. I'm still tweaked
that some jealous SOB went through and rated every part as a 1, even the ones that had 0 views.
Whoever did that can kiss my beanie butt. If they had even an inkling of the hard work and
effort that's gone into that story they'd have the respect to act maturely and just leave it
be. But enough of that...
Kim of the D'backs blew it again. WTH?! Ahead two runs, bottom of the 9th, two outs and
the Yanks pop off a game tying run. And then the Yanks went on to win it. Augh! I do feel bad
for Kim that the exact same thing happened to him two nights in a row, but still AUGH! Hopefully
the D'backs will stop the Yanks cold once they're back home.
11.02.01 :: 09:57
I started on it last night and this morning I feel compelled to finish my rant on
Mediaminer.org and ratings. First, I wanted to be sure that there wasn't the misimpression that
my ego needed stroking, it doesn't. What happened is that someone went through and
systematically lowered Sowing's rating without even *looking* at the parts that they rated.
That, in my opinion, is unfair. It's also a problem that's fairly common on Mediaminer and I
know that we're not the only one to fall victim to it.
If you don't like a story, that's fine. Not everyone is going to like the same thing.
Maybe whoever did that read it on this website and didn't need to view it to know what the
contents were. I'll allow that. But judgements of Good or Bad are reached somehow, and it
behooves you to share your reasoning. This goes across the board to everyone, good or bad
ratings. Unless you're completely indifferent to something, then you don't have a justification
to share.
Why is it important to share? Because feedback is how you learn. Think of it this way,
in sports a coach stands there looking over the player's shoulder telling them what they're
doing right or wrong. Fanfic writers don't have coaches to monitor their progress, only
readers. Readers are the coaches. *YOU* are the ones who let us know how we're doing. How are
we going to get better if you don't give us feedback?
So that's why the Mediaminer thing
irked me; because it was an across the board bad rating without a reason being given. I have
no choice but to see it as petty jealous because no feedback was given for how to improve.
11.02.01 :: 20:46
Today was rather uneventful. Just had a couple thoughts and observations that I'd like to
share:
Crosswalks are there for pedestrians to use. I know, this isn't an earth
shattering revelation, but you'd be surprised how many people around here can't figure that
out. Like the extra 3 yards they're taking up by having their bumper in the intersection is
really going to get them to their destination any sooner. I'm tired of walking across the
street behind vehicles. I'm half considering printing up a bunch of flyers that I can
stick on driver's windshields as I walk passed. "Get the hell out of the crosswalk, moron!" has
a nice ring to it.
Pennies breed just like hangers do if they're left unattended. I went to pay for a
couple tacos and found enough change in my car to make it correct. I thought I'd only throw 2
or 3 into the ashtray, but when I stuck my fingers in there I came up with a lot more... o.O
My dog has me trained like a dog. There's no other way to explain how my body is
always curled up in a ball to accommodate *her* when I wake up in the morning nor how my hands
know exactly where to scratch so that she's properly satisfied. Oh yes, she is a devilish hell
beast, and a fudge eating bit-shift, but I still love her.
Anyhow... Was going to start playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms VI tonight, but the game
looks a bit more involved than I'm up for. Maybe I'll start a new FF8 game instead. I need a
save that's on the second disc *before* first entering the Chocobo Forest. I'd also love to have
my save back that was 60 some odd hours and had everything on disc 3 done except Lunatic Pandora
(that was my fanfic fact checking file). Lost at some point and now I can't double check stuff
until I make or find another. Anyone with a DEX drive want to help me out?
11.03.01 :: 23:26
I was having a fabulous day up until a half hour ago. See, a half hour ago I noticed a
problem at work with one of the servers and went down there to investigate. There was a problem
and so I dutifully contacted the people who could fix it. As part of my duties I checked my
email and the answering machine, which subjected me to more wishes of ill will and hatred than
any person should encounter in a 15 minute span (or a year span, if ever).
Okay, I can
understand being frustrated when your net service isn't working the way you expect, I really
honestly can. And as a person who is usually good natured and tries to be helpful if at all
possible, I'll do whatever I can to make sure things work, but it can't always happen 100% unless
you have 24/7 staff (which we don't). So, knowing that I always sincerely give my best, it tends
to make me feel like crap when people (customers) lash out angrily at the person trying to help
them. Honestly, do they think yelling at me is going to get their problem fixed any sooner? Do
they think cussing will motivate me to work on their account, or only make my hand slip and
accidently delete it? (I wouldn't, but the thought does cross my mind on occasion...)
Anyhow, before being punished for trying to do a good deed, I was having a grand day. I went
and saw Monsters, Inc. with the parentals this afternoon. It was a pretty good movie,
definitely geared towards the kiddies. Plus, like Aki's hair, I found myself fascinated by how
the blue thing's (Sully?) fur moved.
After that I gave my brother a ring and chatted with him for a bit. Then I watched the
D'backs smack down the Yankees. Oh ho ho ho, that was beautiful! Speaking of beautiful, I
really like that Nike commercial where the multi-national ball players sing "Take me out to
the ball game". Very potent without bashing you in the face with its message :)
I also picked up Dragon Warrior VII this evening (still waiting for Arc the Lad, which looks
like it may have been delayed *again*). I've played an hour into it and I'm not sure how I
feel about it yet. I can understand back when the series was on the NES and had 2 buttons why
they made use of a command menu... but on the PSX generation they couldn't have coded the "Look" command to the X button? Or the "Talk" command to one of the others? It seems silly to have to
pull up a menu to accomplish a simple task that's one button with most every other game. Maybe
it's because I haven't played a DW game in so long. I've forgotten the nostalgia of it all or
something like that...
11.04.01 :: 21:09
The D'backs won! =D It was a great World Series, a lot of fun to watch. Okay, I'm good until
April ^_^
Today was wasted watching sports and reading the first Harry Potter book. In other words, it
was pretty relaxing. Right now my stomach is in knots. I'm not sure if it's because I ate
something that isn't agreeing with me or what. I half suspect it might be stress. I don't
handle that so well and I'm feeling anxious about going to work tomorrow (since I know all day
I'm going to be hearing about the server being down yesterday).
I came up with a new mix
CD. This one is titled "FFX MIX X2". All of the tracks except for the last one are from the
FFX OST.
01 Zanarukando nite
02 Spectacle of Spira
03 Blitz Off
04 Otherworld
05 Crisis
06 The Prelude
07 Normal Battle
08 Brass de Chocobo
09 Spirit dream inside (by L'Arc~en~Ciel from FF:TSW OMPS)
Repeat tracks 1 - 9 on the disc since they're only ~30 minutes in length.
11.05.01 :: 21:16
Well, last night was downright miserable. I woke up at 1am and visited the toilet. Tried
to go back to sleep after that and the dog was curling up to me. I wasn't in the mood to cuddle
so I kept kicking her off my bed and out of my room. She got pissed and went out to the
livingroom and shit on the carpet --; Yeah, that didn't make me happy, especially since I have
a low tolerance for that smell and ended up having to visit the toilet again. I did manage to
get a few hours of sleep and went to work. I didn't stay my full shift though, the crackers
lunch I ate wasn't sitting well =/
An odd thing happened while I was curled up in my bed taking a nap. I had the TV set to
Foxnews and was snoozing lightly when a buzzing noise woke me up. I fumbled around wondering if
I'd accidently set my alarm, but I hadn't. Then I realized that it was coming from the TV. It
was a test of the EBS (Emergency Broadcast System). I haven't seen one of them since I was a
kid. When I was a kid and the Cold War was still ongoing. Times change but they don't, I
guess...
I've spent most of the evening curled up on the couch watching the Raiders vs. Broncos game.
I don't care one way or the other about either team, it's just something to nap to. For those
who are curious, I'm a Chargers fan. And yes, last season was extremely painful. At least
they've won more games this season :)
11.06.01 :: 23:05
I didn't go to work today, my stomach and I weren't on cordial terms still. Spent most of the day on the couch sleeping or playing FF8. I know it's been a while since I've played through FF8 (a few months at least.. ;) but I was really sucking at TT today. I couldn't win for the life of me. It probably didn't help that I was running around the Garden chasing the boy in the blue shirt while yelling, "Stop! I want to take your lunch money!!" I still don't have his MiniMog card, I'll have to work on that...
Mom came over to see if I was still alive and we watched Swordfish. Personally, I really liked this movie, but many of the non-geeks I've discussed it with didn't like it. I don't think my mom will let me pick the movie again for some time...
I think it's just a subject matter that Hollywood hasn't figured out what to do with yet. Yes, there are hackers out there doing all sorts of "cool" stuff, but the problem is that the common joe user doesn't understand *why* it's cool. Hollywood tried to put it into a context that's nothing more than window dressing. I know plenty of geek-types who would love to have all the women hanging off of them that John Travolta did in the movie, but it just isn't that way. Your average geek has rumpled clothes, ruffled hair, and a brilliant mind. That isn't a bad thing, mind you, but Hollywood can't sell it and so they create a fantasy. They're good at that. Personally, I'd rather have the mind. It's what's on the inside that counts, after all =]
11.09.01 :: 16:23
I think I've finally figured out why mornings suck: because that's when the wackos are let out of their houses. Honestly, when I'd be at work around 7:30am - 8:00am, no problems, it was too earlier for them to be out. But now that I go to work later in the morning I'm encountering more of the weirdos. Like the other day, I went to the market to buy a fountain soda. I was standing in line waiting my turn when this lady literally *pushes me out of the way* and puts her stuff on the belt. Um... excuse me? She was buying a handful of items, writing a check for under $10, and her little girl kept wandering away. Want to imagine now long it took for me to get back to where I was and hand the cashier my $0.70 for a soda? Gyah.
Then this morning I went to the market to get a soda. Feeling somewhat smarter I decided that I'd slip $0.35 into the soda machine out front and avoid being shoved out of line again. Nice idea except for the lady that was driving the wrong way down the aisle and nearly ran into my car. She stopped right in front of the soda machine, got out, bought her Pepsi, and hopped back in again and drove away in the wrong direction (again).
See, by this point I'd be thinking that there's just something wrong with people, soda, and that market, but the weirdness continues as I go into work. There's the one nasty intersection along the way that people habitually run the red on. This morning was no exception. What was different was the county sheriff sitting there *WATCHING* and didn't do a damn thing. What the hell?! Do the streets have to be flowing with blood before the law enforcement will do something about the drivers' antics in this town?! I could take the bus.. but I wouldn't feel safer. They don't look out for pedestrians either. I've almost been flattened by a couple of them --;
Hum.. I'm ranting again.. Sorry ^^;
11.12.01 :: 00:01
Yggy is back! With the help (and prodding) of Brian and Adam we got my much beloved and terribly missed desktop computer going again. Brian came over Saturday. I'd originally made a deal with him to give him a video card if he rebuilt Yggy for me. (I build computers all day, I just can't bring myself to do it on the weekends as well). We found out that the video card wouldn't work for him, but he worked on Yggy anyways. While we did that we also exchanged and copied much anime goodness. I've now got new stuff to watch ^^
Brian got the base system put together, but didn't install many of the drivers or the software. If Adam hadn't showed up Sunday, that still wouldn't be done. Adam set his iBook near Yggy and started copying anime like a mad fiend, so I sat at Yggy and started loading disks into her. It was a battle at times, and I still haven't resolved the issue with IE not opening up Apple's website, but everything else is working nicely. It's gonna take me a bit to get everything tweaked to where I want it (especially if I put LiteStep on this machine), but I can at least start working on webpages more seriously now.
It's been a good weekend =]
11.14.01 :: 17:43
Y'know, it always takes me at least 3 tries to remember what my blogger login / password are. Usually I'm not this dense. I wrote up a nice blog entry yesterday, but then blogger wouldn't post it. Oh well, less of my ramblings to go around ;)
I picked up 2 copies of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 1 strategy guide today for Austin and Adam. They're coming over tonight to play their new game and be social like. I look forward to it, especially since Adam's moving soon. He just moved back here too. I'm gonna miss him =( Anyhow.. I was at Software, Etc. picking up their stuff when the Manager was like, "Oh, Amanda, you reserved Arc the Lad, like, a year ago, right?" My eyes lit up and I said, "Yes! Is it here?" (I thought it'd been delayed again). He shook his head in the negative (I was heart broken) and went into the backroom and came out with an Arc the Lad watch. The store had only gotten one to give out and he was giving it to me. Cool beans =]
I was happy but the mother of the kid next to me wasn't. He boy had reserved MGS2 and she wanted to know why he didn't get anything? Um.. maybe 'cause he didn't even reserve Arc the Lad? ^^; The Manager ended up giving her boy a Tomb Raider III t-shirt 'cause he was feeling generous, but it just kinda annoyed me. I dunno.. Probably just a childish reaction on my part. Feeling embarrassed about the behavour of others.
Helen finished the proofread of the next part of Sowing. When I woke up this morning I thought of a scene that I should add to make things smoother between that part and up coming ones. Gyah, I think I need more time in the day. At least my muse gave me this idea before it was too late to add it =]
11.15.01 :: 18:54
"Windows is unable to create a shortcut here, would you like to have one placed on the desktop instead?" I hear that phrase at least a half dozen (if not more) times a day for the last 2 years. Customers insist on reading the "error" message to me when we try to create a shortcut to their dial-up connection. While they're in a state of panic I'm telling them to just hit "yes". In fact, on average, I will tell a person to hit "yes" three time before they actually do it. This situation annoys me, but not at the customer, it's not their fault that they're getting warning sounds and messages popping up at them. No, I blame Microsoft for making that an event that causes a message to pop up. Where else would you want a shortcut except on the desktop? (Okay, I can think of exceptions, but I'm talking about the other 95% of the Windows user base). Just create the blasted shortcut and stop tormenting the people I'm trying to help, darn it!
I found out today that the Winter Jampack 01 (a quarterly PS2 demo disc) is going to have a playable FFX demo in it. The Playstation website says it'll be released on or around the 20th. I'm so excited, I'll finally get to dig my claws into FFX ^^ I was a bad bean this afternoon and download some English movies from IGN. I dunno what people are complaining about, I didn't mind any of the voices that I heard. Not even Rikku's voice annoyed me and Tidus sounds appropriately surfer-boy-ish. I'm ready to like this game :)
11.16.01 :: 23:49
How come I can never think of anything interesting to write when I'm sitting here doing it and then immediately after I hit the publish button my brain goes on overdrive on topics. It was a pretty blah, boring day today. I took a lot of calls at work, but that's more becoming the norm. I also spent a good chunk of time reading reviews and information on the Persona games. Now I at least have a basic understanding of what took place in Innocent Sin and can see more of the connections between it and Eternal Punishment. I hope Atlus brings Innocent Sin over here some day, I'd love to try it.
I have the feeling that this is going to be one of those wasted weekends. The sky was a dreary grey today with a constant drizzle making the world around me slick. No fun, especially when I'm not in the mood for it. Weather like this just makes me want to curl up in my bedroom and waste the day away playing video games or something. If I do end up doing that, it'll probably be Eternal Punishment that I do it with. Maybe I can prod myself to be semi-productive. I kind of have the itching to write a game review for it, so maybe I will.
If nothing else I could go see the Harry Potter movie... or at the very least finish reading the first book ^^; Not sure how I'm going to like it. The book right now is, well, mildly boring IMO. I'm half way through it and it hasn't hooked me at all. Of course I'd have to fall into the slim margin of people who "don't get it" --; I'm the same way with Xenogears. Heh.. Guess I should be used to it...
11.17.01 :: 21:06
I like weekends, weekends are nice. Weekends are when I get to sleep and rest and do absolutely nothing though I really should be working on [blank] project. Today was no exception. I've wasted away most of the day burning CDs and idly working on Sowing. I only ventured off the property once to go to the mall to find out when Software etc. will have the Winter Jampack 01 in (Nov. 21st).
Soooo.. I might as well talk about the story. To be blunt, I'm having a bitch of a time writing Quistis well. I've faked it well up to this point by feeding Chaos outlines and ideas and he writes many of her actual interactions. I just can't wrap my brain around her character to my satisfaction --; She's just.. I don't know.. I'm never happy with it when I write her parts and she's one of the major characters in the story, gyah! So I've been putting off forcing Quistis to work with me by writing scenes involving everyone else but her :P
Maybe I should take a break and go back to lusting over Yuna for a while. Yuna *_* Okay, I'm good. Back to work!
11.18.01 :: 19:45
I was having a really odd dream when my dad woke me up this morning to take a call from my mom (she was having computer problems). I dreamt that I was hanging out with my brother and we were doing things together. Went to the market to buy a couple cases of soda 'cause it was on sale. I wouldn't go into the market because I was barefoot, so he suggested strapping this little hand baskets onto my feet and walking around in those. I told him he was nuts and went to sit in the car... Only it wasn't his car I sat in, it was the two little old ladies'. When the came back and wondered who I was I got out and went to my bro's car. Then we went back to his best friend's place. My mother had this odd obsession with giving me Pez and Pez dispensers. Except that I really don't care for Pez and I especially dislike grape flavored, and that was all she was giving me. I had something like 50 of those little packets of grape Pez. It's probably for the better that I woke up at that point, before I started eating it :P
I resolved mom's computer problem the best I could, but there really wasn't an answer for it. I then putzed around, did laundry, watched football, checked e-mail, etc. I'm happy, I got an email today from a penpal I haven't heard from in quite some time. In fact, I've been catching up with a lot of people I haven't heard from in months. It's a good thing, I just have to be a good penpal back and write a response now ^^; (Not always my strongest suit...)
I beat Persona 2: Eternal Punishment tonight using a save file Alessar gave me. Yeah, yeah, don't harp on me yet. I fully intend to finish the game on my own. He gave it to me so that I could check out some things like th EX Dungeon. There's a lot to look forward to once I get there. This just adds fuel to the fire of spoiling myself like mad with Persona games lately. I'd cosplay as Maya... If I had dark hair... And didn't have a thing against wearing anything that exposed my legs... Gyah, I think I'm better off with my plan to cosplay King at the next con I go to. (Anime North 02, here I come!)
I think I'll sit down and write that letter now. I need to do that while I'm feeling motivated or I'll never get it done ^^;
11.19.01 :: 23:41
This morning got off to a rough start when a wind storm blew through the valley. Ever since those trees fell on the house, and by my room, and while I was standing right next to the blasted thing, I don't handle wind storms so well =( When a big gust comes through I find my heart racing, panicking, wondering if it could happen *again*. Like maybe someday the trees will get lucky and finally squish me. That's an unreasonable fear (but aren't most phobias?), but when they've come so close already on separate occasions...
Needless to say, I didn't sleep much (too busy burying my head under my pillow and clawing into the mattress). Got up mildly grumpy, the foul weather didn't help that any. Continued to storm on my way to work. Fortunately I work in a dark windowless room (really, it is, drives my optometrist nuts) and couldn't see or hear the storm outside. That is, until I went up front to speak with one of my co-workers and she pointed out the window, telling me to look at how the stop lights were swaying in the wind. Oh yeah, that made me feel *a lot* better. I sulked back into my corner and shivered the fear off.
At Sean's prompting / prodding / go because it'll cheer you up-ness, I went to see Harry Potter with my folks after work tonight. Twasn't a bad movie at all. Thankfully it moved along as a better clip than I feared it would. (Precious little time was spent on the Dudley's, yay). Still haven't finished the book, and I'm not sure I will either. One of my other great fears (bodily mutilation / mutation) *ahem* Well, the end of the movie had me twitching in my seat. Oh well, it didn't seem like I was going to win today anyways.
My only real problem with the film is unfortunately one I have in a broader sense and it's entirely my own: I have difficulty following the British accent. I missed about half the lines Hermione said. My ears just aren't trained to catch it. Now if it were a Japanese person trying to speak English I would have had an easier time. Guess I'm just odd that way... ^^;
11.20.01 :: 21:37
I was thinking about the evolution of video game controllers today. I harken back to my Atari 2600 with its single stick and single button that was pounded on furiously during games of Defender and Keystone Kapers. (Two of my favorites along with Pitfall and Ms. Pac Man :)
My brother and I were good and our parents got us a NES for Christmas. The controller had 4 buttons plus a D-pad. Woot! We were moving up in the world. Remember how Nintendo Power put out a couple issues that had sheets of stickers you could put in the controllers? Mine looked like a circuit board. Then again, I was a mischievous child and had taken the controllers apart and switched the buttons around. (Other victims of my tampering were the TV (which blew up ^^; ) and my bicycle. I was destined for geekness!)
My brother and I ended up with a small horde of games (30 - 40 of them). I was a master of them all! I recall when my grandmother gave me Super Mario Bros. 3 as a summer present. (A 'tradition' in my family. Our parents would give us a time consuming present at the start of the summer vacation to keep us out of trouble. My dad was fond of giving us models. But that's another story). She'd forgotten to take the price tag off of it: $65. Games nowadays cost around $50 (if not less). And $65 back then was worth a lot more than it is now. A good reminder to me that the price of games has only decreased with time, so I don't begrudge paying the $50 that much. Now I'm really off topic...
Getting back to controllers. Next in my console history was the SNES. 8 buttons and a D-pad. Actually, my controller had more buttons than that 'cause I bought 3rd party ones. For some reason I've noticed that I like big controllers that I can wrap my fingers around. The Madcatz PSX/2 controllers with rubber grip are a favorite.. Ahem..
I took a few year hiatus from gaming and then came back to the PSX/2 (I lump them into the same generation controller wise). 10 buttons, 2 analog sticks, and 1 D-pad. Which leads me to another really random thought I had once while dissecting a dead Madcatz controller. (What? You think that just because I've "grown up" I would have stopped doing that?) I was wondering about creating a connector for my computer and then drivers so that it was possible to 'type' using a controller instead of a keyboard. I haven't thought this entirely through yet, and I don't think controllers have enough buttons for this yet (give it another generation or two). But using a shift key to flip between modes and some fancy finger work and you're set ;)
11.21.01 :: 18:49
I was woken from a sound sleep at 4 this morning when Pepper came tearing into my room and did a flying tackle across my chest. Let me tell you, that's not the way to wake up. At her continued prompting I got up and let her outside to do her business. She flew out the door like her ass was on fire, then came running back in. She then planted herself right by her food dish. Nice try, mutt, but breakfast is at 6:30 as it has been for years.
I went home for lunch today. Because I go to work in the late morning I don't get lunch until mid-afternoon. I plopped down on the couch, curious to know what was on daytime television while I killed some time. I was doing okay with the crappy cartoons until I changed the channel and found a documentary on how tofu is made. Oookay...
I'm not going to be able to go to California for the Thanksgiving holiday like I'd planned. Ended up having to work Friday =( I feel horrible. I really wanted to go visit Mike and Vera. Been looking forward to it all month, in fact. To add to the disappointments, Software Etc. didn't get the Jampack in today like they said they would. They told me to come back on Friday to see if it was in then. I feel like a good part of this weekend is going to be spent resisting the urge to sulk like a child... --;
11.21.01 :: 22:16
Okay, two posts in one night, you can thank me later ;) I've decided to compile a list of why Oregon is the best state in the US of A.
- We're both conservative and liberal. 50/50 right down the middle, makes for a lot of interesting power struggles within the local government. It's good, wholesome, mud slinging fun for every registered voter!
- No sales tax.
- It's illegal to pump your own gas. You don't have to smell funny, get out of your car, or anything. Just hand the attendant your debit card and you're set.
- Oregon is the Beaver state. Take that in as many perverted ways as you want.
- We get to make fun of the Californians south of us.
- Both the Ducks (U of O) and Beavers (OSU) football teams kick ass.
- We at least try to be innovative with our laws. Never mind that the assisted suicide law was rejected by the Federal courts and the Oregon Health System was derailed. One of these days the rest of the nation's going to realize that we're onto something...
- Ranch sauce is served with nearly every meal.
- We have lots of trees, need I say more?
11.22.01 :: 14:19
When I went to get on the net this morning I discovered that I couldn't go out anywhere. So, that meant I had to go down to work and investigate. I wasn't the first one there, thankfully, and Qwest had already been notified since the problem was on their end. It was fixed after 1pm this afternoon. As near as I can figure, it was around a 5 hour outage. That means it's going to be a busy day tomorrow apologizing to customers who call to complain about the outage (and about how we weren't there even though it's a holiday and we *did* respond as soon as we discovered it :P ) My job is a thankless one at times.
Last night I figured out the trick of drop down boxes. Now that I've got the structure of the page figured out and some templates made I just have to write the content for the character indepth pages. I'm going to do them one character at a time instead of by chapter. The first character that'll be updated is Quistis. Not sure when I'll get it finished and uploaded, but it's in the works.
I wandered out to the living room this afternoon to grab a bottle of OJ from the kitchen. I'd just been fiddling with the java script and commented to my father about how I learned a new trick last night. His reply, "You're smarter than you think you are." That floored me. My father very rarely offers praises, especially ones that are glowing as that one. I feel all fuzzy on the inside :)
11.23.01 :: 12:46
I did a stupid thing yesterday. I'd made plans to go pick Austin up from his grandparent's house after my family was finished with dinner. We got back from dinner and I picked up the phone and rang Austin's cell to see if he was ready to be picked up. It rang several times and then he picked up and groggily said hello. I asked him if he was ready to go. He said he was "in the room". "Eh?" "I'm in the room," he sleepily repeated. I sweatdropped (not literally, but you get the idea) and went to the workroom he sleeps in when visiting. He was on the bed half asleep with the cell up to his ear. His dad had dropped him off at my house while we were away and he had let himself in ^^;
He followed me into my room and fell back asleep on my bed while I played more Persona 2. I finished Aobe Park and am doing the between dungeon running around. I think I'll go to the Seedy CD next and take on the 100/km Hag =] After Austin was up again he played Metal Gear Solid 2 until around midnight. It was cool getting to watch him. I don't have the patience / skill to play a game like that, but I enjoy watching them being played.
When I came into work this morning there were 24 messages sitting on my desk regarding the service being down yesterday. :P
I had a really odd dream this morning. Let me see if I can put the fragments of it into some sort of coherent order. I dreamt that we (being myself and some non-descript 'friends') were hired to exterminate these bugs. So what we were doing is finding the mounts in the ground that they lived in and then sealing them up tight so that they couldn't get out. That was well and good until we discovered that what we were doing was a *bad* thing and that we actually needed the bugs for.. some reason. They were important and we were killing them off, only we weren't. They were mutating into uberbugs and had gotten smarter.
The platform we were working on sank into the sea (gee, I wonder where that came from.. MGS2 anyone?) so that only these 4 tips stuck out. Each friend controlled that region. We could make the region livable, but we had to get the bugs to help us. When the bugs were agreeable we had to crack their shell open and spill the squishy insides out into the bowl. For some reason this made everything okay. But we had to do it to *all* the bugs.. and I'm talking thousands here. A lot of the dream was spent doing that.
Then I woke up and rolled over and went into my next dream. A family friend had asked me to deliver this clock to her. I was trying to, but I didn't have a vehicle to drive, so I couldn't take it to her. I tried to take it via my bike, but that didn't work. So I got a cart from the market and pushed the clock there (it was one of those nice wooden, heavy, face clocks that sits on tables). She lent me her suburban so that I could take the cart back to the market. I loaded the cart and my bike into the back of the vehicle and got in. I discovered that it was an automatic with about 20 different gears o.O; Very odd indeed. Just getting it into reverse was a pain.
That wasn't the worse of my troubles. Then a creature that could best be described as one of those human-face horse things from Parasite Eve 2 came up the passenger side door. I needed to get out of there and get the cart back. My dad came out on the porch and yelled at the creature. It went over to my dad and it was all tall as my dad was. My dad swung at it to bat it away and kept yelling to chase it off. So I put the suburban into drive and left.
Ha! Who needs fanfics when I have dreams like that every night ^^
11.23.01 :: 23:48
Woohoo! WOOOHOOOO! I say, I got my paws on the FFX demo :D And demo is definitely the right word, you get just a taste of the game from it. Didn't take me 15 minutes to go through the entire thing =/ Guess that means I'll just have to go through it more times to make up for its lack of length. I've written a review of the demo for Bahamut Infinite that'll probably be posted sometime tomorrow. Um.. yeah.. that's all I had to say. I'm going to go back to hugging my Playstation 2 now =]
11.24.01 :: 18:04
It snowed this morning, but the ground was too wet for it to stick. That was a good enough reason for me to not leave the house until the afternoon ;) I watched about 15 minutes of this horrible cartoon on WB called Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century. Excuse me, but WTF was *that* supposed to be? Gyah, it was bad. I went back to sleep and missed most of the cartoons. The only one I caught was a repeat of X-Men: Evolution. Oh well, that's what anime is for.
I spent a couple hours this morning doing HTML Bahamut Infinite. Yeah, yeah, I have my own site to work on, but I was looking for a break from my own projects, y'know? I have gotten some writing done today (and hope to finish writing the part I'm working on tonight). I asked Chaos to check over my work to see if I was on the right track of if I'd strayed and he says it's still good. Wai, just have to flesh out the outlines I have written. It makes me excited to think about what I've got planned... I think those who read Sowing will be pleased by how it turns out :)
Anyhow, I need to go check my mac & cheese. Yum, haven't had in a while. The dinner of champions!
11.25.01 :: 18:30
Yesterday was obviously my productive day because I've gotten nothing done today (except a lot of napping). I haven't even played Persona 2 today. No, between my long bouts in bed I've been sucked into BattleFaeries. It's kinda addictive like fun once you figure out what you're doing. And having a battle axe helps. I've been thinking about picking up a copy of The Sims, but haven't yet. I tend to plan my game playing out. I have 4 games on reserve at Software Etc. They were originally scheduled to come out over a few month's time, but because of delays they're all coming out within the next month (if they aren't delayed again). I'll be swimming in games soon enough if I'm just patient.
I'm going to be getting Dynasty Warriors 3 (aka "Customer Smackdown 3"). It'd a delightfully violent game (without the blood) where you get to smack down hundreds of soldiers at a time. Heh eh hehehe ^^ Brian stopped by my house this afternoon while I was watching football (yeah, that's another thing I did today!) and we played the demo. We're tenetively planning an anime watching / Dynasty Warriors 3 fest next weekend =)
I'm also going to get Arc the Lad (duh, I've been waiting for *months* for that one). Hoshigami, which looks to be a Tactics-esque game. Yummy. And it all will be topped off with Final Fantasy X shortly after Christmas. Oh yes, December is going to be a lovely month for me. I've been waiting a long time for some games to come out that I could get excited about. No Gran Turismo 3, Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid or ICO for me. None of those float my boat. But now my time has come.. mwahahaha!!
11.25.01 :: 23:49
I had a bombshell dropped on me this evening. After 2.5 years of being separated, my parents are finally going to try getting back together. I'm not sure how I feel about this. The detached, rational, mature part of me says that it's their lives and I wish them to make the best of it. The emotional, childish part of me knows all too well that there is plenty of hurt to go around. A lot of time will be spent mending fences if our family is to heal. So I guess that I'm not happy or sad. Frightened perhaps of the daunting tasks that lay before us. Now's not the time to bury my head in the sand, though that's what I'm tempted to do. I'll have to be strong and offer my support, or at least try.
11.26.01 :: 19:59
Well, I've had a shitty day. Unless you want to listen to me bitch about it you'd better skip today's entry.
I came into work this morning and was handed over a dozen phone messages to return from the weekend. I tossed those aside because as soon as I got to my desk the phone started ringing. After being there for a half hour I'd already logged 5 tech calls. (That's a lot in a half hour). I was onto call #6 when I got an email from my boss that he'd sent out to the entire staff. It was a pointed reminder that only one person had sent him a weekly report and that if we didn't feel the need to send him a report, then we could send them to the unemployment office. He finished it up with the delightful "that's not a threat, it's a promise". Well... You can probably guess what ran through my mind. I was up to my eyeballs in work and he was bitching about a missed report. What the hell? I keep a log that any employee can access that tracks what calls I've taken and the customer issues I've addressed. Need to know what I've been up to? Look at the fucking log!
Needless to say, that put me in a foul mood. A very foul mood. Our tech staff was cut down to just me last month. One bean and one person from the billing department that I'm training to be a tech. Yeah, he does well, but he doesn't know everything yet. Asks a lot of questions, which is good. But sometimes I need someone who already knows the answers to back me up =/
Anyhow... The day didn't get any easier. A steady stream of calls kept coming in and I kept landing the long ones. Y'know the ones with the old ladies who are pissed because they can't figure out how to send an attachment even though my *dog* can manage it. (Forgive my bitterness, usually I don't mind teaching people how to use their machines, but today was too much). One customer called me several times throughout the day with a variety of issues. During one of her calls she'd landed the trainee tech and he'd recommended she install Internet Explorer 5.5. Not a bad idea, unfortunately it did something bad to her machine. So I spent most of the day trying to fix that. And of course she doesn't have her Windows disc because who the hell bothers to actually *buy* their software anymore? --; She's pissed and is going to bring her machine down for me to fix tomorrow. I hope I have the time to fix it, I really do --; The trainee brought in a machine to be repaired today and is stuck on it. I didn't have the time to even think about it. I fear that tomorrow's just going to be a repeat of today...
And my ear hurts. Okay, that's an odd thing to say, so let me explain. When I was born the doctor pulled me out by my left ear and I have pinched nerves. Usually it doesn't bother me as long as someone doesn't grab me by that ear. If they do (once I'm done writhing in pain) I'd beat the living shit out of them, but anyhow...So, by some cruel twist of fate it turns out that I'm left eared. Another odd thing to say. But y'know how you always put the phone up to one ear or another reflexively? Yeah, I put the phone up to my left. I also sleep on my left side, but that's easy enough to work around by bunching up a pillow and creating a hole for my ear to lay in, but that's probably more than you wanted to know... My point now that I'm finally getting back to it is that my ear hurts from using the phone too much.
I'm also kind of pissed at Battle Faeries right now. I'd stumbled into a pretty high score. (I went from 77 to 74k and then over 100k). So what happens but my friends see me as a quick way to jump ranks. Beat up the bean who doesn't have the faerie level to defend herself and take the points she stumbled into... --; Bah... Were I in a better mood I'd say "easy come, easy go". But I'm not, so I'm going to sit here and simmer in my own juices.
My plans for tonight include sulking, writing, grumbling, Persona 2, and pouting. I hope tomorrow's a better day...
11.27.01 :: 20:21
Today went somewhat better than yesterday, but it'd started pretty rough. I was still grumpy from yesterday and hadn't slept well 'cause I was thinking about a computer I needed to fix. Stupid me. I try to live by the principle of "don't go to bed with unfinished business" and that's the main reason why. I'll stay up all night thinking about it if I do. When I did get to work I was buried, but I expected that. I had more computers come in than what I'd scheduled (I hate when that happens --; ) Despite that the machines I worked on practically repaired themselves. The easy repairs brightened my day some. I know I'd be in another pissy mood right now if they'd been difficult.
Well, my friends kicked my battle faeries around s'more last night after I'd given up on it. This morning I started building them back up again. My score was in the 60k range. I worked it up to around 90k and then stopped. When I came back an hour later I found that someone had been bouncing off of me and had raised my score by 100k o.O; Man, this game is funky weird at how you can raise and fall ranks almost at random. I've spent my time building up my money and fortifying my faeries; bunkers and satellite strikes all around =)
So, the random thought for the day. I was thinking about who was the best final boss from a Final Fantasy game. I want to go with my bias and say Ultimecia and Griever from FF8, but really, they're not. In fact, they're actually pretty lame. Wanna know why? Because you didn't learn about their existence until the last few hours of the game. You didn't have a chance to build up your disdain for them. They were just someone else to pound on before the ending credits rolled.
Using that criteria, the best ending boss from a FF game in my opinion is Kefka. Think about it, you knew he was a slimy bastard from the very get go. Countless baddies have *threaten* to destroy the world, but how many of them actually accomplished it? Sephiroth didn't. Ultimecia didn't. Kefka did and then you had to run around that ruined world trying to beat him down. When it came to true villainy, Kefka had it down to an art.
11.28.01 :: 18:33
Sometimes I wish I had a digital camera. I'm not sure I can describe this and do it justice... The city had its Christmas tree lighting ceremony last night. Whoopie, I didn't go (no surprises there). But when I came to work this morning I discovered that many of the buildings in downtown had plush Santas on them. Okay, it was cute on the building that had the legs of a Santa hanging like he was coming out of a window. Another building had 3 Santas handing off the roof for dear life. My personal favorite was the headless Santa strung up between two second story windows. It looked like he was either splatted against the building at a high velocity or crucified, take your pick. I hear that whoever's idea the Santas were is catching a lot of flack for them and they might take them down soon. I'll have to see if I can borrow a camera and take a picture of them before they're gone.
I picked up my copy of Customer Smackdown 3 today. I look forward to giving it a whirl, especially after the last customer I spoke with. When they're account is disabled by billing for non-payment, no one is supposed to turn it on except billing (meaning that they're square in the eyes of the bookkeeper). Is that a hard concept to grasp? I don't think so, personally. So I fail to see what good arguing the point over with me for 10 minutes is going to do. I'm not going to turn the account back on. I'm not going to call in someone from the billing staff to okay the account. (I work after hours). They'll have to wait until the morning during business hours and get it figured out then. It's that simple really.
My faeries are holding their own last I checked. I figured out that fortifying them before I logged off was a Good Thing. They have Bunkers, Satellite Strikes, and Pandora Boxes all around to make sure they don't get their butts kicked too bad while I'm away earning a living.
I went to the doctor this morning for an annual checkup. It was one of those exams where you put on the smock and freeze your butt off while waiting for the doc to come in and do his poking and prodding. When the nurse gave me the smock I jokingly said that I wanted a blanket if I had to dress down. A moment later she came back into the exam room and tossed a light blanket to me. Woo! The exam went well as far as I know (it was just a checkup, so I'm not expecting the lab tests to come up with anything). That's a weight off my shoulders, I'm good for another year now!
11.28.01 :: 23:45
It's coming to be that season and some people have asked, so here's my Christmas list. Take it seriously or not (I'd advise the latter ;) - World domination (I couldn't possibly screw it up anymore than it already is ;)
- Yuna from FFX
- Someone to publish Sowing the SeeDs...
- ...for it to become a New York Times best seller (that can hold off as a birthday gift ;)
- Quistis from FFVIII
- A new computer (1.4Ghz processor, 512RAM, 80G HD, the works y'know ;)
- Another box of Kraft Easy Mac (I'm out)
- Child's Toy to be released domestically on DVD
- Xu from VIII
- A new mattress for my bed
- A new comforter for my bed
- A new pillow(s) for my bed
- A new set of sheets for my bed (see a theme here?)
- Rose from Legend of Dragoon (someone has to test out the new bed =)
- The mouse in the kitchen to finally go away or die
- Capcom vs. SNK 2 for the PS2
- To go a week without being asked any stupid questions (and yes, there is such a thing)
- A GameCube and Smash Bros. Melee (if you're feeling generous ;)
I haven't been a good kid. In fact, I tend to cause as much mischief as I can get away with and not hurt anyone's feelings. At least life isn't boring when I'm around? =)
11.29.01 :: 23:08
My Internet Explorer is playing broken right now, so I'm doing this in Netscape 6.2 and let me say, this blog thing looks like crap. The windows are all screwed up. Bah. I used to be a big fan of Netscape, it's great for checking your HTML because it's so strict, but now it's just annoying. Hmph.
Today was another busy day at work, but most of my days are that way. The most memorable call that I received actually started yesterday with a guy who was trying to configure his Outlook Express for Hotmail. This can be done, but I've never had a Hotmail account, don't want one, and it's not our company's mail server. I can help him set up a hundred (well, 32, since that's the maximum number of accounts OE will allow in version 6) accounts using the company's mail settings, but I just don't know Hotmail's settings and told him as much. I advised him to search Hotmail's site for the settings or contact their tech support. After 5 minutes of him asking for another tech he finally understood the idea of "after hours tech" and how that generally implied one in a small town like this one. He was SOL.
Okay, so he called back this evening hoping to get a different technician. (Guess he didn't understand the "after hours" part...). I told him, again, that I was all he was going to get and he already had his answer. He said he'd call other technicians around town and they'd all suggest he look it up on Hotmail's site. He didn't like that answer and was fishing for another. I wasn't snide when I pointed out that if he'd gotten the same answer from multiple sources, maybe he should try it. He grumbled and decided that maybe that would be a good idea. It's no wonder I'm so jaded some days...
I just caught the end of "Your world with Neil Cavuto". It's a business analyst show on Fox News. While I only have a modest interest in business, the best part of the show is at the end when he gives his commentary. Tonight's commentary was to remind us of a lesson I wholeheartedly agree with, "be humble". Or, even more so, be modest. So much of the media today is about catching your attention; be flashy, be out there, be the center of your world and everyone else's. Personally, I prefer to speak softly. To slide in there unnoticed and be a foundation type person. Be modest, that's the way to go IMO.
(PS. If the spelling in this post sucks, oops. The spelll-checker was down when I wrote / published it).
11.30.01 :: 23:45
This is my second attempt at writing a blog tonight. It's been a busy day, but I can't seem to organize my thoughts well enough to actually put down anything coherent. So... Here are just some quick hits of what's going on as of late:
- Pepper is glomping me like I'm the only human in the world. She went so far as to follow me into the bathroom this morning o.O;
- I have to work tomorrow, but I plan (with my boss's approval) to sit there and play Customer Smackdown 3 when I'm not taking a call.
- Brian's going to come down mid-morning to play CS3 with me too ^^ (again, with approval). Actually, it was more of a condition. I said that I had plans this weekend (to play CS3 with Brian). My boss asked if I couldn't just play my game at the office and pick up the phone when it rings ^^; We've been getting a lot of new customers because of @Home going down and he doesn't want to miss any by being closed on the weekend, (which we usually are).
- The postal system has been hating me with one exception. A tape that Helen sent me arrived today. On the long lost and probably missing list is a package Chaos sent like 3 weeks ago and Crazy Taxi 2 that I'd ordered from Red Octane and had shipped 2 weeks ago. I contacted Red Octane to let them know that the game didn't make it and they're taking care of it. Chaos, on the other hand, is fit to be tied last I saw him...
- I haven't written any ficage in several days. This is very usual for me. I need to get out of this slump...
- ... but I did finally finish the first Harry Potter book. My opinion of it stands: it's not a bad book, but it's not my cup of tea either. I'm a die hard fan of space opera, video game reviews, and technical articles. If it isn't one of those three things then I'll likely find it boring ^^; I'm onto the next Potter book since I promised that I'd at least make it that far into the series.
- My battle faeries are holding their own. I haven't taken them out to battle today (too busy with other things!) but at least they aren't losing points while I'm away =]
And those are your news briefs into a bean's life ;)
| 
