As I mentioned in a post last week, I purchased a CD clock radio.
The primary purpose of said purchase, of course, was to allow myself to be awoken by something a little more pleasant than the buzzing of an alarm.
When 4:15 am rolled around on Friday morning, I became vaguely aware of the sound of an audience cheering. In my semi-conscious state I thought, “Well, how nice. Yay me, apparently.”
As I drifted closer to wakefulness it became clear that the crowd wasn’t cheering for me, but rather for Sarah McLachlan, whose beautiful, beautiful (insert several more "beautifuls"), angelic voice helped pull me fully into consciousness.
I have to say that it’s not a bad way to wake up.
The only drawbacks are that I find that I’d much rather simply lie there in bed listening to Sarah sing than actually get up, and that I’d also much, much rather that Sarah herself were actually there to rouse me from my sleep, but alas, as I rolled over I found that, excepting myself, my bed was empty as usual.
Ah well.
With the exception of getting my annual review on Friday and being informed of how much of a raise I’ll be receiving (more money is always a good thing), the weekend was largely uneventful.
I was annoyed on Saturday and Sunday morning to find that I wasn’t alone in the fitness center for my morning workout. I read in “Men’s Health” once that, though we might not like it, we have a tendency to workout a little harder when someone else is working out at the same time. The competitive instinct, apparently.
Whether that’s truly the case, I can honestly say that I really wish he hadn’t been there. I like having the place to myself (though I wouldn’t be averse to having several hot chicks show up), and typically the fact that I’m there before 5 in the morning has assured me that I would.
I hope this isn’t the start of a trend, but if it is, I guess I’ll adapt.
Of course, by "adapt" I probably mean "stop working out and get fat."
Over the weekend Dell was having a big “Presidents’ Day Sale,” so Brian ended up ordering himself a new computer.
As I’ve got some spare money burning a hole in my bank account (In telling me about the Dell sale, Brian said, “I know what you can spend all that money on.”), I checked out their offerings myself, but ultimately decided against buying a new computer from them.
I had, however, been toying with the notion of buying/building a cheap computer to take the place of my secondary computer. I wouldn’t need anything too fancy, I’d just like to have something with a little more power, as the secondary computer (named Munin) is over four years old and was a rather low-end system to begin with.
I went to a couple of sites and looked through some “barebones” configurations, thinking that, if nothing else, I could salvage Munin’s hard drive and DVD ROM to keep the costs down.
The problem I kept running into, though, was that I was tempted to build a new main system instead, which would drive the costs up considerably, leading me to spend more money that I really want to (even though I really want to buy a new kick-ass computer).
Ultimately I ended up agreeing to buy Brian’s current 17” flat panel monitor for use with Munin (it’ll fit better on my kitchen counter), as he’s getting a new one with his new computer.
I also ordered two Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3.0 wireless keyboard/mouse combos. I wanted a wireless keyboard and mouse for Munin so that I wouldn’t have wires hanging off my counter, but while I was at it I figured I should get one for my main system as well (named Hugin, by the way). If you buy directly from M$ the combo costs $85, but I found a site selling them for $50 a piece. So it was a bargain, and how could I pass up a bargain?
Because Brian has been raving about the fingerprint reader he bought, which allows him to log in to any sites that require a password with a simple touch of his finger, I also considered purchasing the Microsoft Optical Desktop with Fingerprint Reader, but I wasn’t able to find it much cheaper online, so I opted against it.
I may well buy a separate fingerprint reader at some point, though. I’ve just got too many passwords at this point.
For a while I was considering buying myself a Media Center PC as my main system.
Honestly, what I’d really like to do is buy myself a new, kick-ass main system, then make Hugin my secondary system (and turn Munin into a Linux box), and also buy a Media Center PC, like this one, or a Digital Entertainment Center like this one, which I could use solely as my home theater.
Unfortunately I can only afford to do one or the other, so I think that I’m going to do neither.
I'll buy the LCD from Brian, hook up the new keyboards and mice, and leave it at that for a while.
Last week, drawing on the lessons we learned, Kathleen baked her own bread. Unlike our results in class, however, her bread turned out perfect and did not look like an aborted pig fetus the way ours did. So kudos to Kathleen!
For my part I’m unlikely to bake my own bread, as I almost never eat bread.
When I got home from work last night I found myself having an odd connectivity problem with my computer (Hugin).
For some reason I simply could not get online. I did a power cycle with all of my equipment, checked all of my settings, but no dice. Over on Munin I could connect with no problem, so my cable modem and router were both working properly. Hugin just refused to get online.
I messed around with a few things, gave up in frustration for a while, then went back to it and found that it was mysteriously working.
Shortly thereafter the connection dropped again.
I managed to reconnect to the router, but only at a very low signal strength, which meant that I didn't have enough signal to actually surf the Web.
The low signal strength was baffling, as the router is maybe five feet away from the wireless adapter on my computer.
Then I noticed something odd. The name of the wireless network I was connected to was “EU,” which is not the name of my network.
In fact, I was not connected to my wireless network; I was connected to a network belonging to one of my neighbors.
So I removed the neighbor’s network from the list, told the computer to connect to mine, and boom, back online with full signal strength.
I really don’t understand why that happened, but I’m guessing that at some point the signal from my router dropped, and my computer just latched onto the first signal it found, then moved that one up to the top of the list as the preferred network.
It’s hardly the first time my signal has dropped (which is pretty annoying), but that’s the first time I’ve seen the computer latch onto someone else’s network like that.
I’ve upgraded the firmware on the router in the hope that it will prevent me from losing my connection so often.
Last night, after straightening out the network issue, I spent a couple of hours chatting on AIM with Wendy, the young woman who took me to task for claiming that female comic fandom is a myth. I have to say that it’s interesting to talk to someone who knows a lot about comics and is also actually a girl.
For those of you who concern yourself about such things (namely my mom), Wendy is already involved, so no, this isn’t a potential romance for me, but I should think that by now it would be obvious that there’s about zero potential for romance in my life anyway.
In any case, one of these days I’ll write that entry about female fandom and women in comics that I mentioned last week, but that day isn’t today.
As for today, I did briefly venture out into the world, as I needed to pick up a few groceries.
I also had to stop in at my eye doctor’s office, as I needed to replace the little device that cleans and disinfects my contacts. Somewhere along the line the UV light in it that actually kills the germs stopped working, and recently the element that heats up the conditioning solution broke off.
So, since I was venturing out today and it’s sort of on the way, I stopped in to buy a new one.
I explained what I needed to the woman working there and why, and she asked, “Do you have the damaged unit with you?”
I said that I didn’t, and was a little puzzled by the look of concern that crossed her face. Was I only allowed to own one at a time? Is the broken one some kind of hazardous material that needs to be properly disposed of? Had I paid a deposit on it?
She said, “Well…okay....I’m going to trust you to bring it in, otherwise I’ll have to charge you for this one.”
Ahhh...that made sense. It seemed that I wasn’t going to have to buy a new one like I thought; I simply needed to swap the old one for a free replacement. Sweet!
I had thought that maybe there was a warranty on it, but I couldn’t remember for certain, and didn’t feel like packaging the old one up when I initially ventured out.
I probably should have, though, as after I'd done my shopping and gotten home I had to head back out to bring the old one back to the office.
And that more or less brings us up to date. I may be back with another entry later on.
In the meantime, just on the off-chance that there are any new Threshold readers stopping in today, here’s a plug for my novel blog.
I wrote the novel, titled “15,000 Years,” in order to contribute to National Novel Writing Month this past November.
This is my first (completed) novel, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t think it’s especially good. It has definite possibilities, and some day, when I’m not sick to death of it (writing 50,000+ words in less than 30 days can leave you feeling kind of burned out), I may return to it and rework it into something more coherent and engaging.
As it stands, though, it’s an extremely rough draft that was written largely in stream of consciousness fashion with very little forethought.
Anyway, if you still want to read it after getting that glowing review, feel free. There’s also a link to it if you click on my Profile. Enjoy!
(Note: The graphic declaring me a “2004 NaNoWriMo Winner!” only indicates that I successfully wrote 50,000 words in a month, thereby successfully completing the challenge. It doesn’t mean I won an actual prize, or provide any indication of the actual quality of the story. So if you were thinking that I was just being humble in my critical assessment above, think again.)
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