Hey Look! Jon Did A Picture!

Earlier tonight Stacy called to invite me over to watch some movies with her and Scott.
I declined, as I'd been working on the picture below and wanted to actually finish it.



I have to think that seeing the end result of what I did with my time has to be more enjoyable than actually spending that time with me.*
Anyway, look, Jon did a picture!

*I'm kidding. Mostly. I wasn't in a great mood today, mostly because this picture was pissing me off, but in any case, I'm sure that wouldn't have made me very good company.

I Don't Even Make A Good Statistic

Earlier I forgot to mention something that happened last night.
I was in my kitchen when I heard my doorbell ring, so I looked to see who was at the door and saw some woman I didn’t recognize holding a clipboard.
I figured it was probably some kind of census thing, but she had a kid with her, so I thought it was possible that it was someone selling something or looking for some kind of sponsorship. Either way I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, so I just stayed quiet and pretended not to be home.
I could tell that before she went away she left something on my front door, so after a while I opened it to check.
It was, in fact, some school census thing, with her number on it telling me to call “even if there’s no one under 20 living at my home.”
So eventually I did.
“Do you have any children living with you?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, her voice now considerably less friendly and positively dripping with disdain, “so no kids?”
“Nope!” I said, in the most cheerful voice I could muster.
“Well,” she said, the disdain not at all dried up, “that’s all I needed to know. Thank you for calling.”
I got the distinct impression that I was supposed to feel bad about not having kids, and that my lack thereof made me less worthwhile as a human being – or even a statistical data point.
Oh well.

(Not) Living In Interesting Times

Thursday morning I woke up five minutes before my alarm went off.
Even so, I ended up leaving at pretty much the usual time, and somehow managed to get in to work ten minutes later than usual.
Not sure how that works.
I was a bit tired, but not overly so, until I got onto my weekly call with one of our vendors and she started talking about how tired she was, and as we spent a good 45 minutes yawning back and forth while reviewing open tickets, I found myself getting progressively more tired, and by the time the call was over I was ready for a nap.
Given that there’s nothing that I watch after 10 on Thursdays, I decided to turn in early, though that, of course, didn’t pay off, as the fact that I was exhausted was no help whatsoever in getting to sleep.
Friday morning I repeated the Thursday morning experience by getting up earlier than usual and arriving at work later than usual.
A bit before noon my boss came around and asked if I could go to a meeting with her that afternoon. The meeting was with another company down the street at 2:30. I had a conference call at noon, which lasted over an hour, and then went to grab some lunch. I’d just finished eating, at about 1:35, when my boss came around and said that the meeting was actually at 1:30 and we needed to go right now.
We got back from the meeting around 3, and my boss said that she intended to pack it in and go home and recommended that I do the same. So, after tying up a couple of loose ends, I did.
Still feeling tired, I decided to use the extra time to take a nap when I got home.
During said nap I had an odd dream in which a pretty girl I’d never met before was trying to talk me into going to some party with her and her friends, all of whom seemed really keen on making sure that I went with them.
However, this party, my dream self knew, was a party thrown in celebration of pranks and pranksterism, so I was, naturally, suspicious, with visions of the prom night scene from Carrie flashing through my dream mind.
I woke up before I found out whether or not I was eventually talked into going.
After I woke up it was an exciting evening of eating some leftover Polish sausage that I’d grilled the night before (While grilling the sausages, which were almost ready, with one already starting to burst, I used the tongs to reposition one, and the second the tongs touched it, the sausage burst open and sprayed my face and neck with hot sausage grease. I thought, “Now I know how porn actresses feel.”), and watching my most recent Netflix movie – Shrek the Third – on my computer, as for some reason the sound was jacked up when I tried watching it on my TV.
Despite staying up late last night not doing anything in particular, I woke up a bit before 9 today and decided to shower, dress, and venture out into the world.
I had decided to go to Best Buy to either buy some more speakers, or else simply buy some speaker stands to use two of my old speakers, and go for the full 7.1 set up. I got there a couple of minutes before it opened – as did about a dozen other people – and stood outside in the drizzle waiting.
Once I got inside I decided that I’ll just hold off on the 7.1 thing, possibly taking Scott’s suggestion and hiring some pros to come in to fish speaker wire through the walls and ceiling and get all of the speakers mounted. Maybe even get the house wired for Ethernet at the same time.
From there I went to Arby’s and had a Bacon, Beef, and Cheddar, figuring that the fact that it included bacon made it count as breakfast.
And now here I am, thinking about taking another nap.

For The Record, I Don't Wish that

I'm not sure why, but every time I see the ad for this mug when I'm at The Onion's site, it cracks me up.
Maybe it's the use of the subjunctive mood, or the thought of how people in an office setting would react to seeing someone with such a mug, but whatever the case, it gets me every time.

Easy Like A Video Blog Post

Too lazy to write up a proper post, but I think a video of a 90's Alternative Metal band doing a solid cover of a classic Commodores song and featuring a bunch of drag queens is a reasonable substitute. Enjoy!

I (Didn't) Feel The Earth Move Under My Feet

Apparently we had an earthquake here in Northern Virginia yesterday.
It was news to me, as I didn't feel a thing.
Several years ago there was an earthquake in Richmond that could be felt all the way up here.
Didn't notice that, either.

No Chance

I had an eye doctor appointment this evening, the result of which is that I’ve been “released.” I wasn’t aware that I was in captivity.
What that means is that my progress is such that I no longer require regular follow-up visits and won’t have to return for six months.
When I was scheduling my next, half year-distant, appointment, the cute-ish girl asked how I’ve been, as it’s been a while since I was last there.
I said that I’ve mostly just been working and trapped in a cycle of making money and then spending it.
She said, “I wish I had money to spend.”
I said, “Well, it’s different for you; you’ve got kids.”
Agreeing that they do tend to eat up disposable income, she added, “But they’re worth it.”
I said, “Yeah, I suppose so. But I can’t take that chance.”
“What chance?”
“The chance that they might not be worth it.”
I then added, “I mean that literally. I actually cannot take that chance, given that people aren’t able to reproduce asexually.”
That seemed to slip past her.
I thought it was funny.
Somewhere in the conversation she mentioned that she’s been legally separated for seven months.
I suppose there would be some who would suggest that she did so rather pointedly.
Meh.
I mean, sure, she’s kind of cute and she has a nice rack, but she also has kids, as in plural, and, honestly, the last time I tried to date someone who worked at my eye doctor’s it didn’t really work out so well.
Of course, the last time I tried to date anyone it didn’t work out so well.
Beyond that, I don’t think that the reference to being separated was actually a pointed one anyway.
Maybe things will be different in six months.
(Yeah, right.)
I think I may have found a picture that I want to draw, so those of you who’ve been waiting for something new in that regard should start holding your breath.
Don’t worry if you turn blue and pass out; that just means it’s working.

I Hope I Don't Have To Explain What's Wrong With This

Note to protesters: you might want to study a little history.
(And if it was an attempt at sarcasm, it fell flat.)

Wired For Sound Or Wait, There's A Game I'm Supposed To Be In?

Yesterday when I was aimlessly wandering around Wal-Mart, I was looking at their home theater stuff to see if they had any decent home theater in a box (HTIB) systems that didn’t include a DVD player. I don’t need another DVD player, as, between my old computer and the HD DVD player (which, despite the death of the format, I don’t feel was a waste of money, as it’s still a very good upconverting DVD player) I already have two hooked up to the TV.
But I also didn’t want to purchase separate components, as that can get really pricey really fast.
They had one, but I didn’t buy it. However, when I got home I started thinking about the implications of having a receiver that has an HDMI pass-through, which is something I hadn’t really thought about before.
Having a receiver with HDMI pass-through would mean that I connect all of my HDMI devices (set-top box, HD DVD player, and Media Lounge) connected to the receiver and have only one HDMI cable running to the TV, instead of having each device connected directly to the TV.
Yes, I know, a-derr, but as I said, I hadn’t thought about it before.
Also, the new TV stand had this gaping hole in it that positively cried out to be filled by a receiver of some kind, and I’d gotten tired of relying on the TV’s paltry speakers for sound.
Scott was coming over in the afternoon for some TV and DVD watching, so when he arrived I proposed that we go home theater shopping and he was amenable.
We first went to Circuit City, where we found a nice 7.1 Onkyo system that was pretty reasonably priced.
Naturally they didn’t have any in stock.
Ultimately it was for the best, as it only had two HDMI inputs, which would mean having to buy an HDMI switcher, tacking another $100 onto the price.
Next we went to Best Buy, which was killing Scott, as, for a variety of reasons, he hates Best Buy with a fiery passion.
They didn’t have any HTIB systems that I liked, but I found a reasonably-priced 7.1 receiver from Sony that had the necessary three HDMI inputs.
We couldn’t find any 7.1 speaker packages, but I decided to opt for a 5.1 system from Yamaha (which I got a 10% discount on, as all they had was an open box set), figuring that I could always buy two additional speakers at a later date (or use two of the speakers from my old HTIB system). Next up was a short HDMI cable to connect the set-top box to the receiver, and some speaker stands, and, a fair amount of money later (Disposable income…you know I love it), we were on our way back to my house, where the most important part of the day was yet to come.
No, not setting up the home theater – thanks again to Scott for helping me with that – but something far more important: we made bacon wrapped Tater Tots to accompany the burgers we grilled.
Holy.
Freaking.
God.
Words cannot express how sinfully, decadently, heart-stoppingly good they are.
Then it was on to setting up the home theater, and then, finally, we were able to watch Friday night’s episode of Battlestar Galactica, which was sitting on my DVR, and then Battlestar Galactica Razor on DVD.
(We also managed to fish the sole-remaining HDMI connection to the TV through the wall, so no there are no obtrusive cables hanging from it.)
Even sans the two extra surround speakers – which I really don’t have any place to put anyway – the sound was really, really good. In particular there were a lot of really cool surround effects.
Today has been less eventful. I went to Target to pick up a few things that I’d forgotten yesterday, such as some Just For Men.
I remain on the fence about the whole hair coloring thing. On the one hand, I suppose it does look better than the gray. Kathleen says that she likes it, to which I usually respond that her liking it doesn’t really do me any good.
(As I said to her before this most recent round of hair-coloring, “It’s not my gray hair that keeps the women away; it’s my gray personality.”)
But on the other hand, it seems pretty pointless, and though the slogan on the Just For Men box is “Stay in the game,” the fact is that I’ve been out of “the game” for a very long time – and not because of my gray hair – and, in fact, am not entirely sure I was ever in it to begin with.
Beyond that, I just don’t really care either way. Gray or not, it’s all the same to me, and while the coloring process isn’t that a big deal and doesn’t take long, not coloring it involves no effort at all.
Still, I did it today, and I’ll probably do it again, but I doubt that it’ll ever be anything I have any particularly strong feelings about.
(Note: I was going to post pictures of the new set up, but Blogger is being retarded.)