What a BuzzKill

“What? You mean you’re not going to post another video today? Are you crazy? I live for that shit!”

Sleep is just something my body knows it should do, but doesn’t really want to go about, well, yanno … actually doing … enough. I’m finding myself completely awake much later than, say, 2 weeks ago. Last night I got around 4.5 hours of sleep. What’s especially odd to me is that I’m not even tired — which is and isn’t a lie, sorta. I mean I feel like I’m not getting enough sleep, but I don’t feel tired. Does that make any sense? The night before I got about 5.5 hours of sleep.

It isn’t because I’m doing anything that would keep me up that late. I’ll stop playing Lord of the Rings Online as early as 11:00 pm and still not be able to get to sleep 2 hours later. Drinking a couple of beers will make me a little drowsy, but when I get into bed, I can’t fall asleep. There’s nothing like wanting to go to sleep, feeling like you’re going to go to sleep, but not actually falling asleep. Huh? What? Exactly.

We’ll see what happens this weekend. I don’t have anything planned (except to get rid of my cat) and Rece will be at his mother’s for the weekend, so it may be possible to get caught up on some missing rest. So my theory goes, at least.

Yep, I’m getting rid of my cat. I won’t say how, but the cat will be gone. Okay, I will say that it involves a shelter, but that’s it. My apartment smells of cat pee and I’m not happy about it at all. Didn’t she read my earlier post about restroom behavior? Stupid cat.

Work has been very busy lately, thanks to an anti-virus software roll-out project for one of our clients. They have over 120 computers that need their anti-virus software upgraded. All but about 30 of them are at remote locations, on stand-alone workstations, with staff that barely know how to right-click, let alone attempt to install software on their own — well, except for Smiley Central … they always seem to manage getting THAT piece of crap installed. Oh, lordy, lordy!

The entire process is very repetitive. We convinced the company headquarters that this was the perfect opportunity to make sure all of their computers were up to date and operating properly. So on top of the anti-virus software upgrade we’re doing updates, patches, and general system maintenance/tune-up things. The entire process is very repetitive. One of the only complaints I have is that it gets boring rather quickly to do the same process over and over again. It’s like the bottle in your shower says, “Lather. Rinse. Repeat.” except that bottles don’t talk. But some computers do (“Shall we play a game?”). The entire process is very repetitive.

So, yeah, sleep. My apartment is a complete mess right now. To see just how messy it’s become, click the webcam link to the right. Don’t forget that the username is Webcam1 and there is no password.

The web host I use to host my website, this blog, and Quinn’s blog just increased my online storage from around 175 GB to 478 GB for free. I’m trying to figure out what to do with all that space, since at this point Quinn and I have only managed to use around 0.1% of it. Online backup? Maybe. I’ll have to figure out how I can secure what I put up there before that becomes a feasible option.

Right now I’m at the office working on a client’s computer that’s hundreds of miles away. Their office is out in the boondocks, so the only Internet service they can get that’s better than dial-up is satellite. It’s pretty neat, but the latency is a bitch! I’ll click on something and it’ll take a second or two before I see that it did it (or didn’t). What typically takes around 2-3 hours to complete is looking like it’ll take 3-5 hours. The entire process is very repetitive. Hey, it’s all billed by the hour, so who am I to complain? I know my boss won’t!

The good news is that I’ll have plenty of work to do for the next couple of months. The bad news is that it’ll be a lot of the same stuff over and over again. I’m definitely going to have to get the other techs working on this project so I can change things up a bit.

Can one really be poor when they’re rich? Fuck if I know. I’m glad you asked, though.

_{This entry thinks that the entire process is very repetitive.}

This old video from 1966 does a pretty good job of predicting about the future of home computing …

[flash http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4796674762025998102]

_{This entry knows better than to take a taxi in L.A.}

Well I figured out how to fix the problem with being unable to embed flash videos on my blog posts: I just needed to encapsulate the code for the Flickr badge doo-hickey to the right within its own DIV tags. I’m glad it was something simple, because I really like that doo-hickey (besides I spent about an hour and a half hacking the code before I figured out how to make it look the way I wanted).

I was going to post the video I linked to in my last post, but it’s been taken down for violating copyrights. Oh well.

In other news … uh … I have nothing to say, really. Life is good!

_{This entry likes to play patty-cake with poodles.}

After 12 years, I finally built myself a brand-new computer. This may seem odd to hear from an I.T. guy, but the fact is that since the first computer I bought back in 1995 I’ve had a computer that was either some constant set of upgrading one piece here, one piece there, leftover used parts that clients no longer wanted, or a part replaced when the one I was using eventually failed. I wasn’t trying to live on the cutting edge of technology, but I did manage to keep my system current enough to handle whatever it was I wanted to do.

The computer parts were ordered last week from Newegg.com and the last box arrived yesterday. I assembled it last night and stayed up late installing Windows XP (I won’t try Vista until after the first service pack), all the usual plug-ins and applications (Foxit PDF reader, 7-Zip, QuickTime, PrimoPDF, Adobe Flash/Shockwave players, etc), and all available updates from Microsoft.

The late hour didn’t bother me much since I was going out with Christine, Sam, & Rece to watch the lunar eclipse later. I took some pictures of the eclipse, that I’ll post some time soon.

So back to the computer … I brought the computer to the office with me so I could continue installing software when I had some spare time between projects and assisting clients. This thing is fast! I’m quite impressed and getting anxious to give it a test drive soon. I loaded Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar and will probably hop on to play after I’m finished typing this post. I should be able to turn up all the video options that my old computer either had trouble displaying or was unable to display at all. I’m so excited!

_{This entry is going to journey to Rivendell!}

Today I went to an 82 year old client’s retirement community to help him with some issues he’s been having on his computer. He was very happy to learn that he no longer needed to use AOL’s ridiculously slow software to check his email and stock portfolio (he’s loaded, btw).

On my way out, I glanced at their daily events board and had to grin …

So I guess it is true that the Nintendo Wii is enjoyed by people of all ages. That’s cool.

This entry wants to play shuffleboard on its Wii!

This is a post made using Windows Live Writer. I learned about it from:

Scribes – The Best Free Blog Editor: Windows Live Writer

So here it is.

I can also use it to insert a bird’s eye view of my apartment. How cool!

Exciting, eh?

This entry hopes it works correctly.

I just installed AOL on a client’s computer. Deliberately.

Dear God, what have I done?

This entry just threw up in its mouth … just a little.

National Geographic has a very interesting article on their website about swarm theory. It’s about how simple creatures like ants and bees are able to act more intelligently as a group than would be possible as individuals. There are people already basing studies and experiments on how this might come to work for people as well. Businesses, government, and military could potentially find innovative ways to apply this to improve their operations.

This entry has a new respect for ants.

For a time I’ve got another webcam set up in my living room. This one is extra-tasty-cool-and-shit … it’s robotic! So if you want to give it a whirl, be my guest and check it out.

Username: webcam1, webcam2, or webcam3

NOTE: This only works on Internet Explorer only. It’ll require you to allow the installation of an ActiveX component.

Robotic BuzzKill Cam

Please don’t comment on the mess, because I really don’t care.

This entry might do a dance for you, if you watch.

4 weeks and counting, and I haven’t gone a day at work without some mention or discussion or troubleshooting something to do with one of those infernal hand-held devices. Sure they’re about as handy as a rubber glove in a sex shop, but by golly I’d love it if I could just not have to deal with them for ONE STINKING DAY. I swear, it’s been enough to put me into another “Eggs with flippers” mood.

Segue into the sickness … I flew up to Sacramento on Monday to attend a course on Blackberry Enterprise Server Administration on Tuesday. I could tell that I was getting sick, but since the class, flight, and hotel had already been paid for, I started taking Airborne and hoped for the best. Well the best isn’t what happened and I found myself spending Monday waking up every 2 hours in a fevered sweat. It was fortunate that I had hopped into bed about 9 pm, otherwise I would have been a complete zombie for the training class.

After enjoying a lovely buffet breakfast Tuesday morning, I caught a taxi to the facility hosting the training. The course was definitely worth the time, and I learned quite a bit that I should have known BEFORE I was told to install the blasted platform and rolled it out to the CEO. It did become rather difficult to concentrate later in the afternoon as I could feel myself begin to come down with another fever.

The class eventually ended, I got my certificate of completion and I was off to catch a taxi to the airport. This turned out to be unnecessary, since one of the guys attending the class had a rental and was also headed there. Dexter turned out to be a real cool guy and we spent the time waiting for our respective flights talking shop over crappy Chinese food at the airport food court. The flight home was uneventful (as one would hope), but I was unable to sleep on the plane, as usual.

Christine, who had been gracious enough to watch Rece while I was away, came to pick me up at the airport. She was nice enough to tolerate my whining and got me back to my car, which I had left at work before my trip. That night’s sleep was good, thanks to a double shot of Nyquil.

I ended up calling in sick for the next couple of days (Wednesday & Thursday). To be honest, I almost wish I had done so today as well. On my way back from lunch I ran into the CEO in the parking structure and she brought up the Blackberry again. Damn it.

This entry used to like blackberries.