Hey, MatthewT, thanks a lot for telling me about the Violent Acres blog. After reading a couple dozen posts from the RSS feed, I loved them so much that I went to the beginning of her entries (October 2006) and started reading them all. So far I’m up to April 1st, 2007 and I should be caught up by the end of this week. It’s by far my favorite new blog. To anyone who hasn’t – go read Violent Acres!
After installing that email subscription thing this morning, I suddenly couldn’t stop updating my home page! I converted the rest of the site into WordPress since only half of it was done before. This ended up fixing a lot of broken links and pictures along the way. Then I started adding content. I reorganized my Instant Messaging page and added a bunch of new logs on it that had been sitting around my hard drive. There’s a whole section for Tannest, Tetris and a Taco Bell girl.
Then I added things to the Workshop. There’s now a tutorial on how to make a laptop car mount and some pictures of my old hidden bookshelf doors. I deleted tons of old broken pages and pictures that didn’t need to be there anymore. I converted the guestbooks into WordPress and fixed a lot of audio files.
While fixing something on my Eastgate Cinema page, I remembered this incident from about a month ago where I happened upon a Myspace Group for disgruntled Eastgate employees. Well, I’m certainly disgruntled! So I joined it. It seemed like a good way to brag about some of the Eastgate cheer I’ve spread over the past 15 years, as well as to promote my Eastgate page and a few links on phonelosers.org. Here’s the link to that thread.
As expected, a lady on there yelled at me for being immature. But she also let me in on something kind of interesting. After murd0c and I hacked Eastgate’s answering machine, Colleen called up the theater and tattled on me! I always wondered how Eastgate figured out so quickly that I was responsible for their answering machine. Now I know! “She was hoping that you would get some jail time on your little prank.”
This was all in the midst of our divorce and she was hoping I’d get busted for it to make her look better in court. Even though it didn’t work out for her, at least she still got to pull one over on me by sneaking out of town with the kids, telling them they were going to Disneyland but actually moving them to Oregon without letting them say goodbye to their dad, their friends or their family.
I wonder how often she trolls all the sites, looking for things to bust me on. Hi Colleen!
I just installed a plugin that allows people to subscribe to entries here. If you sign up using the form below, you’ll receive an email each time I post something. And what could be better than more junk email, right? I promise not to sell your address to spammers unless they offer me at LEAST $100,000.
I’m going to set this up on phonelosers.org too. Right now I’m using a 3rd party email system for PLA posts and I’m sure that even though they swear they don’t spam, they probably do or they sell subscriber’s email addresses. So this is cool and I’m stupid for not doing it sooner.
And in other news…for some reason last night, the nonstop Yahoo messages of HAPPY NEW YEARS! really annoyed the hell out of me. It started at 9pm PST from the people on the east coast. Every blog I read wished me a happy new year too. To protest the new year, I went to bed at 10:30, read for an hour, and fell asleep. Then the cat woke me because the fireworks freaked him out.
Books I’ve read in 2007:
Angela and I went to see Juno this evening, which was as awesome as I expected. After that we snuck into I Am Legend, which means I’ve seen it THREE TIMES in the theater now. The kids and I snuck into it last weekend after seeing The Golden Compass. It’s been great every time.
The other day a guy posted on my 618 BBS shrine page a link to his page at telnetbbsguide.com. So I decided to give some BBSes a try yesterday. I logged into two of them and played around on them for about an hour. One of them was a WWIV BBS, which I haven’t seen since the late 90’s. It’s weird, because they still scroll slowly as if I’m on a 9600 baud connection and they still use ANSI graphics and you have to hit the space bar after each page to scroll through long posts and stuff.
The two BBSes I visited weren’t exactly active. The WWIV board hadn’t had hardly any posts from this year. A few of the games (Tradewars, Pimp Wars, etc) seemed to be somewhat active. There were files areas, voting, and all the other stuff that used to come with BBSes. I don’t know if they still update software like WWIV, but it looked and felt just like it always had. It was neat, feeling like I was in the early 90’s again.
But I really don’t understand the point of running or visiting a BBS. I mean, anything that can be done on these things can be accomplished just as well on a website. Forums and file areas, obviously. The games are mostly text-based with a few ANSI screens thrown in. It’d be easy to port those into web sites or flash. Seems like the only appeal to BBSing would be to connect with people in a certain geographical area. But since these are all using telnet instead of dialup now, that part of it makes no sense either. Besides, you can find local people, things, conversations on Yahoo Groups and Craigslist.
I just don’t get the point of any of it other than to feel retro. A lot of the posts on the WWIV board were things along the lines of, “Oh, this brings back so many memories!” and there wasn’t much conversation besides that. I guess that’s all BBSing is good for. If someone wants to point out something to prove me wrong, I’d like to hear your opinion on it.
Tomorrow’s gonna be busy.
A couple weeks ago, blog after blog began featuring these stickers from evilmadscience.com that read “Now Slower and with More Bugs!” I ordered a set of 10 and they arrived in the mail a few days later. The obvious thing to do with these stickers is slap them on copies of Windows Vista. A few blogs have shown people sticking it on their own copies of Vista, but so far I haven’t seen anyone put them on software in stores. So I stopped by Target today and stuck a few on some Microsoft products.
I accidentally put one on upsidedown since I was trying to be all stealthy about it.
You can order these stickers from evilmadscience.com.
UPDATE @ 4:45PM: I was out again today and stickered some more products. What was it, you ask? Apple software? Intuit? Linux? Nope, just some grocery items at Albertsons…
As I was snapping a picture of the Tampax (with the flash on) a girl walked by me with her cart. I’m sure she saw the flash and probably wondered why I would be taking pictures of tampons. A minute later she was blocking the isle and I was just kind of hanging out, waiting for her to move. She looked over at me and said sorry. I told her it was no problem, I wasn’t in a hurry and was just browsing. In the tampon isle.
I’ve still got 3 stickers left. Any suggestions?
UPDATE on Sunday: The Evil Mad Scientist site posted my pictures and some of the users there think I’m a horrible person because of it! They’re saying things like “That is illegal, and disgusting. Regardless of your loyalties, that is just uncalled for.” and “Ridiculous, childish and weak, weak humor. Vandalism is a sign of vacant creativity.” What a bunch of boring prudes! I should start putting “This product causes cancer!” stickers on merchandise and see how they react.
Christmas was fun. I got a car stereo (to replace the one that Warren stole) and a bike (to replace the 2 that Warren stole). The car stereo plays USB devices. I was hoping this meant it would play a 160 gig hard drive, but that wouldn’t work. I wonder if I need to put a powered hard drive in there instead. I know my Xbox 360 won’t accept unpowered laptop drives, I guess because there’s not enough juice in the USB cable. I’ll have to try using a regular external drive. I bought a 4 gig flash drive, though, and it works perfectly. Some day I’ll upgrade that to an 8 or 16 gig flash drive.
The kids got cool stuff. I got them bikes! There’s a pretty huge neighborhood right behind us that is perfect for biking. Then a few DS and Xbox 360 games. Emily got an Ipod and Payton one of those Radio Shack electronic hobby kits. Emily wrote me an awesome poem as a gift. And I guess that’s about it. I didn’t have them on Christmas day this year, but they stopped by anyway for a couple of hours. I was really bored the rest of the day. I was also feeling kind of sick on the 24th and the 25th, but luckily that went away. Last night I spent about 4 hours just watching TV.
I’m reading a new book, called Robbing Banks. It’s an American history of bank robbing from 1831 – 1999. Good stuff in there.
Pretty much all day, every day, I read blogs. I use Google Reader to easily skim through them all without actually having to visit their web sites. Currently I’m subscribed to 53 blogs. Here are a few of my favorites:
I was going to list all 53 of my blogs here, but screw that. Those are my favorites. Everyone should go visit a few of them. But more importantly, please use the comments to tell me what your favorite blogs are. 53 is not enough for me and I need more to read.
I just did laundry…IN MY HOUSE! After 2 years of making weekly trips to the laundromat, I’m finally able to do laundry at home again. Not that I’m complaining about the laundromat – it was a good place to catch up on reading and homework. But this is still exciting to me since laundry will be so effortless now. I found a washer and dryer on Craigslist for just $100 and the guy even delivered them to my house. I offered him money for gas and he wouldn’t take it. He said they’re 10 – 15 years old but parts have been replaced in them recently. So far I’ve done 2 loads and they seem to be working.
At approximately $5.00 in quarters a week for the laundromat, I should be saving $20/month by doing laundry here. So this will pay for itself in 5 months. I guess that’s not counting the extra water and electricity I’ll be using. Fine, I guess it’s more like saving $10/month. Maybe $15. Whatever, I like this way better.
I had to go to Home Depot and get a new plug for the dryer since the receptacle in the garage was some funky design that I’ve never seen before. I picked up a sheet of pegboard while I was there. Last night I put up a bunch of shelves and the clothes bar, which you can see in the picture. I’ve got quite a bit of shelving left over since the kids don’t need it in their rooms anymore. At some point this spring I’m going to build a work bench under the pegboard. Maybe one that folds down against the wall so the car can still fit in.
It’s nice having a garage again. Besides being able to park the car in it and not having to scrape ice off the windows every morning, it’s just cool to have a place to store things and possibly build things. I haven’t had a garage since 1997 and I’ve missed it. Hrmm, I need to research garage door hacking and see how easy that is these days.
Thursday I visited the rental office and signed the papers for the new apartment. Or, townhouse, they call it. I don’t know what that means, but it sure looks like an apartment to me. We did an inspection of the apartment and it was officially mine. I ended up taking carloads of things over all day since work was dead. I think I quit at 11pm that night. Also I picked up the kids from school even though I didn’t have them that day, just because I was excited to show them the new place.
On Friday the kids were home from school so I didn’t get much moved since they took up too much of the car space. Around noon we rented a U-Haul and they helped me fill up the back with tons of stuff. I think we took just one load in the U-Haul, then spent some time in the new place, organizing and cleaning. We also officially moved the cat – he was pretty freaked out about the car ride and the new place. Colleen picked up the kids around 5:30. That night, a guy from Craigslist came to help me move all the heavy stuff. I was starting to get worried since he was 3 hours later than he planned to be and my U-Haul had to be back at 8:00 the following morning. But once he arrived, he was great. We got everything moved in just two truckloads. The couch was the worst and we could barely fit it in the front door of the new place.
When we first arrived at the new place, the cat came down and greeted us. Then he disappeared. After not seeing him for awhile, I started to worry that he might have run outside while one of the doors was open. So me and this guy, Alex, start searching the apartment and calling for the cat. I thoroughly search each room, looking up on shelves, under blankets, and behind everything. No cat. We walk around outside, looking for him in bushes and stuff. No sign of him. So we leave the garage door open a few inches, just in case he’s outside.
We go and pick up the 2nd load from the old place and bring it back. And still no cat. It’s pretty unusual since the cat is always running around when people are here. I’m starting to get kind of worried. The kids would be really upset if the cat turned up missing. Alex and I do a little more searching, both inside and out, and then he leaves. I start searching rooms and closets, shutting doors as I’m 100% sure that the cat isn’t in a room. After maybe 20 minutes, I’m finished and still haven’t found him. I decide that I’m going to start searching outside so I head to my room to get my flashlight. I’m starting to think about what picture of the cat that we’ll use on LOST CAT posters and I’m thinking maybe I’ll sit on my porch for half the night, hoping to see the cat running around in someone’s yard. And there’s the cat, right in the middle of the hallway.
At the time I had no idea where he could be hiding, but after telling Emily about it yesterday she told me he was probably inside the couch. If he wasn’t there, then he’s found a pretty amazing hiding spot. But yeah, he was probably in the couch. Later that night I took my first walk to 7-Eleven! It’s just 3 blocks away, which to me is a major perk of living here. Dari-Mart was 8 blocks from us at the old place, which was a little too far for a quick walk for a snack. I’m going to love having a 7-Eleven so close. I got some Nutter Butters and an empty cup for milk. That was my supper.
Saturday morning I woke up at 7am to take the U-Haul back. I had to stop by the old apartment to use my broom to sweep out the back of the truck, then put $5.00 of gas into it. Got a McGriddle for breakfast and went back home to wait for the cable guy. The kids came over around 9ish and they spent the day playing and occasionally helping me clean and organize things.
I can’t get over how much I like this new place. Warren issues aside, I’m just liking it here tons better than the old apartment and it’s worth every bit of the increased rent. My closet and room are huge. I could easily fit 3 dressers into the closet and still have room to walk around in it. Not that I have that many clothes, but it’s great that I can stuff all my bedroom stuff into there and have the rest of the space (aside from my bed) for nothing but office. My giant wall of shelves is several feet longer than in the old office. And it’s so nice to have a garage to store things in. Things like empty boxes, computer parts, random electronics and car parts. I had to keep all that junk in my room before. And no more scraping the ice/frost from the windows in the mornings!
The neighborhood rules and there’s a cool park about 10 blocks away that we walked to yesterday. There’s also woods everywhere. We went for a long hike in the woods next to the park yesterday. It was freezing, but fun. I’m going to search them for Geocaches soon and if there aren’t any, we’re going to place a new one there.
There’s woods right next to the apartments too that are fenced off, but easily accessible if we enter from the other side. I’m sure we’ll end up checking those out once it gets a little warmer out. On the downside, I can’t walk/bike to the post office and lunch anymore since I’m no longer close to downtown. Not that I could bike there anyway since Warren kept stealing my bike. But on the upside, I can walk to school now!
My Flickr page has pictures of the new place. And a few pictures of the old place being disassembled. I have 3 weeks still, to get the old place cleaned up in hopes of getting my full deposit back.