Rain Delay

We had some snow and freezing rain overnight and into this morning, so when I got up I called the “Inclement Weather Hotline” for work and learned that we would be opening two hours late.
I thought about going back to bed, but decided instead to just take a more leisurely approach to getting ready and to take the opportunity to start my car and let it thaw out completely before heading in to work.
By the time I left the roads were merely wet, and thus easily traversable, and I was pleased to note that there was considerably less traffic than normal, so, overall, I’d have to say “Yay snow and freezing rain!”
I ended up pulling in about 45 minutes later than usual, but given that I typically get there 45 minutes early, this meant that, technically, I was on time.
Most everyone else took full advantage of the delay, and more besides, rolling in somewhere around 11, and a lot of other people clearly opted to work from home, so the place was pretty quiet all day.
I had considered working from home – opting to bring my laptop home with me yesterday rather than simply locking it up in my cabinet in my cube – but there was a meeting I was scheduled to attend at 9. I figured it wouldn’t actually happen then, given the delay, but assumed that my boss would probably reschedule it for later in the day, which he did.
Of course, after the meeting started my boss turned to me and said that I could leave, as it turned out that my involvement wasn’t required.
(He’d thought that one of the results of this meeting was going to be a document that I would have to produce, but it turned out that someone else was producing the document, which was fine by me.)
It was a pretty boring day for the most part, as I didn’t have much to do. I have a lot of projects on my plate, but for pretty much all of them I’m waiting on information from other people, and am unable to really do much until I get the information.
On Tuesday, the latest in DC Comics’ direct-to-DVD animated adaptations of classic comic storylines, Justice League: The New Frontier, will hit the shelves.
I decided I couldn’t wait that long and did a search of the newsgroups to see if an advance copy had made its way out to the public. I found several copies and downloaded one to watch last night.
(I don’t feel guilty about this in the slightest, as I’m still going to buy the DVD come Tuesday, if for no other reason than that I’m hoping that, just as Superman: Doomsday had a sneak preview of New Frontier, New Frontier will have a sneak preview of The Judas Contract, which is the one I’m really waiting for.)
I won’t post a review – I already did a write up, via e-mail, for the only regular reader who cares – but I will discuss some of the troubles I encountered in watching it.
(Okay, mini-review: it was awesome. The too-short running time meant that a lot – and I mean a lot – of the story from the comic it was based on didn’t make the cut, but the essentials were there, and the animators absolutely nailed Darwyn Cooke’s style, producing something absolutely stunning to behold. The voice work was top-notch, with only a few minor exceptions, none of which were anything close to being deal-breakers.)
I’d started to watch it on my computer, but decided that while my new monitor is big and bright, it would still look better on the HDTV.
When streaming to my Media Lounge there are some issues with audio quality, so I decided to copy the file onto my USB drive and play it back from there, as the Media Lounge has a USB input for just that purpose.
However, there were still some audio glitches, so I decided to burn a DVD.
The encoding of the DVD took forever, and then, during the actual burning process, it crapped out at 92.9%.
Finally, two and a half hours later, I was back to where I had startedand decided to just watch it on the computer, though even that wasn’t without complications, as some encoding issues with the file caused it to randomly switch from color to black and white and back again at odd intervals.
Still, it was ultimately well worth all of the trouble, and I eagerly anticipate picking up the DVD on Tuesday.

New Frontier Trailer

'Justice League: The New Frontier' Trailer

Boring Day Entry

In addition to picking up an HD DVD player on Wednesday – specifically the HD-A30 – I also decided to bite the bullet and finally pick up the Absolute New Frontier at the comic shop. I’d been wanting it for a while and decided that it was as good a time as any to get it over with and buy the thing. The quick flip-through that I gave it confirms that it looks really good: sharp, crisp colors, nice paper stock, and some excellent extras such as character designs and various other goodies.
On Tuesday, shortly after the Verizon tech who’d gotten my Internet working again had left, I noticed that it wasn’t quite as zippy as it been during the brief time that it had worked on Monday. Various speed tests confirmed that I was “only” getting 5 Mbps down. Now, this is a respectable speed, and is five times better than what I was getting from DirecPath, but it’s not the 15 Mbps that I’m paying for.
So I called Verizon once again and was greeted by their automated phone system which ran some tests and concluded that I needed to talk to an actual person. However, rather than transferring me to an actual person, it told me that one would call me within six hours and then hung up on me.
No one ever did call me until nearly 7 PM the next day, but the person who did call had good news, as he had found the problem – I’d been set to the default speed of 5 Mbps – and corrected it.
So now I have the extreme speeds again, and I was able to set up my wireless network without screwing anything up.
David, my Realtor, stopped by on Tuesday to give me a housewarming gift (a nice set of dishes) and to check the place out. He said that while it’s clear that I’m not finished with organizing and decorating the place it’s already nicer than it was when the former owner was living in it.
Certainly it’s considerably less cluttered, and turning the dining room back into a dining room frees up a lot of room in the kitchen, which, while decently-sized, isn’t really big enough to be an eat-in kitchen.
So far it’s been a very slow day at work, as per usual, and more boring than usual, as I didn’t bring my laptop in, so I don’t have my collection of mp3s to listen to, or the ability to do any online tutorials.
I didn’t want to bring in the laptop as now that we’re in the new NOC there seems to be a stricter adherence to the rules, and bringing in non-business laptops has always been against the rules, though most managers have been willing to overlook it on Saturdays.
Now? I’m not so sure, as we aren’t even allowed unfettered access to our workstations – they’re locked inside cabinets.
We have speakers, but they don’t have headphone jacks, so it’s difficult to listen to music unobtrusively.
On the plus side, it’s not as ice cold in here as it was in the old NOC, though the warmth seems to lead me to drink a lot more water. It seems like I’m constantly refilling my mug, much more frequently that I did in the old NOC, and I already drank a lot of water there.
Maybe it’s not the warmth, though. It could be that the water here is better. After all, I’m getting it from an actual water cooler, not the filtered water dispenser.
Either way, all that water makes the fact that there is only one set of bathrooms which are closed for cleaning for over an hour on weekdays that much more troublesome.

Beauty And The Beast

I'll leave it up to you to decide which is which.
Apart from creating these buttons while following a tutorial, today has been pretty uneventful here at work.
Earlier on the Internet radio station I'm listening to the song Rainbow in the Dark by Dio came on, and, amused, I IMed Brian to tell him. He didn't appreciate how funny it was.
It led me to say, "*Sigh* I miss my metalhead friends."
Sometimes it's difficult to not be around people who understand how inherently funny it is to hear a song by Dio, or, better yet, King Diamond.
It's kind of like this MasterCard commercial:



I actually bought the issue of The Comics Journal featuring the Darwyn Cooke picture of Power Girl I used in the button tutorial. I really hope the image gets released as a poster at some point.
In any case, I suppose I should get back to being bored for a living.

This Is Why Darwyn Cooke Is The Man

(Thanks to Clay, via Scott, for passing along the link)