New Furniture

I got my new bedroom furniture delivered yesterday.
I didn't have room/use for the chest in my bedroom, so I just had them put it in the guest bedroom for now.
I'm heading to Home Depot today to buy a washer and/or dryer.
I've decided to go with the simplest short-term solution, which is to buy a new washer and just put it where the old one is - if worst comes to worst, I'll throw some money at the delivery guys to get them to put in the extra effort to lift up the old washer and haul it out.
If there are any deals on dryers or washer/dryer sets I'll get a dryer as well.
There's nothing I can do to change the laundry set up that wouldn't involve someone coming in and doing some amount of electrical or plumbing work - even if I did a ventless dryer I'd still need to have the wiring done to bring a dryer inside the house.
Maybe at tax/bonus time I'll see about getting some work done to change it all, but for now, just getting a washing machine is the priority.
I had joked about just buying new clothes every week rather than getting a washing machine ("Hey Jon, I like that shirt." "Thanks, you want it? I'm just going to toss it after I wear it today."), and while it was a joke, I did actually buy a bunch of new clothes yesterday, but that was just because I needed some new stuff.

Random Day Off

I had planned on taking the day off from work yesterday because...well, just because.
However, when I left work on Friday I realized that I hadn't actually bothered mentioning that to anyone, so yesterday morning found me getting up at the usual time and heading in to work.
However, while I was there I looked at my calendar for today and saw that it was reasonably clear and so I decided that I would take today off...and this time I actually got the okay to do so.
I tried to sleep in as late as possible, but I seemed to max out at a bit after 10. Once I got up I did some sitting around doing nothing, then decided to venture out into the world.
Ever since I bought the house I've wanted to pick up a drafting table so that I'd have a workspace for drawing the old-fashioned way, but my half-assed searches for local places that sold them hadn't turned up any results, and while I found some good deals online, the shipping would add too much to the cost and the overall hassle.
The other day I posted a Facebook status asking if anyone knoew of a place in or around Leesburg that sold one. Casey responded with a place that has locations in several nearby places, so today I decided to check out the one in Sterling.
Since I was headed that way I stopped at Wal-Mart, which is in the process of becoming a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Nothing is where I remember it, so I wandered around aimlessly for a while before finding the handful of things I needed from there.
After that I stopped at the place that sells drafting tables, only to find that the location in Chantilly is the only one that actually sells supplies; all the the other locations are print shops.
So it was off to Chantilly, where I found a reasonable deal on a complete drafting set (table, chair, lamp), bought it, loaded it up in the car, and headed back up towards Leesburg.
Along the way I stopped at the comic shop to buy some drawer boxes. They didn't have enough in the store, and didn't have the anchor dealies that help keep them stable when you satck them, so the guy working there put in an order from their warehouse and they'll be in when I stop by on Saturday to pick up my weekly stash.
Speaking of comics, here are some pictures showing the current state of my collection:


All of these boxes are full of bagged and boarded (but disorganized) comics.


I don't currently have enough boxes to hold everything, so here are the remaining bagged and boarded comics waiting to be stashed somewhere.


And here's what's left to be bagged and boarded. Since I took these pictures, I have bagged and boarded some more, so currently the stack on the left has been bagged and boarded and added to the stacks in the picture above, leaving only the stack on the right.


Here's the new drafting table. I don't think this is where it's going to be permanently located, but I didn't have the energy to rearrange things.

And that's pretty much all I did with my random day off.

Now With Pictures

After talking to my mother this morning I went out and did some stuff, came home, sat down, finally got around to watching Friday night’s Batman: The Brave and the Bold – Hey Cartoon Network, do you have something against girls? Let’s see Batman teaming up with some heroines (the brief cameos by Fire don’t really count). How about some Power Girl, or Hawkgirl, or Manhunter, or The Rose and the Thorn, or Black Canary? So far, besides Fire, we’ve only had Katana playing much of a part in the action. – and then, musing on how rapidly time flies, I said, “Well, I should get up and do something; it’s already 10 PM.”
Obviously it wasn’t – it wasn’t quite 2 PM – but my point was that it might as well have been given how quickly my available free time disappears. Shouldn’t I be having fun with the way that time is flying?
Eventually I decided that I should put together the bookcase, so I got to work on that.
I’m not sure that it’s in its permanent position yet, as I’m planning to do some additional reorganizing in the office – including the eventual addition of a drafting/drawing table – and I haven’t actually put much on the shelves yet, but at least it’s put together.
I’m too lazy to write up the post I’d intended to write detailing my some of my experiences with people in the comic book industry that was inspired by that story I posted the link to about the guy who went to the DC Comics offices as a kid. My stories aren’t anywhere near as cool or interesting, and most of the people who know me have probably heard them already anyway, but somewhere along the line I’ll write it up.
Probably.
In any case, here are the pictures of my new office furniture:



The recently-assembled bookcase.



The new office furniture, with a focus on the new chair.



The desk, chair, and printer cart.



Bonus Picture: I remain amazed that those little disks actually work as advertised. Or, more to the point, that they actually work for me.

My Ancient Nemesis

Hmm, I guess I haven’t post anything in a while. It’s enough to make you think I’m Dave Campbell or something…until you actually read what I have posted and find that it’s neither as interesting nor as entertaining as what can be found at Dave’s infrequently-updated blog.
In any case, don’t be alarmed: my lack of updates is not an indication that I’ve actually gotten a life.
However, I have gotten the next best thing: money.
Even though I just had my taxes done on Monday, my VA refund was already in my checking account by Friday morning.
In my checking account, burning a hole, preventing me from just leaving it there...
I’ve been meaning to buy a new office chair for a while now. There’s nothing wrong with my old one per se – though it does have a rip in it – but I’ve had it since sometime in 2001, and it’s not nearly so comfortable as it once was.
Also, since it is still usable, if replaced it could serve as a spare, giving Scott someplace to sit whenever I’m showing him something up in the office.
So after hitting the comic shop this morning I made my way over to Staples and found a suitable new chair with good lumbar support and a high enough back that I can actually lean back and rest my head on it.
However, the chair didn’t have a price tag on it, and while I was wandering around hoping to be noticed by an employee – one of the pitfalls of having devoted a significant portion of my life to the art of not being noticed is that, unsurprisingly, it’s sometimes difficult to get noticed – I found myself looking at the desks.
It’s been my intention to buy a different desk since the day that I bought the desk I had. My old desk was perfectly serviceable, but it was bought in haste back when I moved into my house as I needed a desk right now and it was the best one I could find.
I spotted an L-shaped desk that I rather liked, one that seemed ideally-suited to a dual monitor setup. I noticed that there was also a matching printer stand suitable for my large-format printer, as well as a matching bookcase.
So by the time I finally did get noticed I had resolved to buy the chair, the desk, and the printer stand and bookshelf.
After loading them up in the car – which proved less of a challenge than I’d expected – I found that I had no room for groceries, so I headed home and unloaded the car, discovering that the scrawny kid working at Staples was stronger than I am, as I struggled with lifting and carrying the desk much more than he did.
Accomplishing that, I went back out to do my grocery shopping, came home and ate lunch, and then set to work on dismantling the ungodly mess of cables and wires and moved the old desk into one of the other bedrooms.
As an aside, I have to say that I was amazed and delighted to discover that those “Moving Men” things – those little disks you put under heavy objects in order to slide said objects around with ease – work exactly as advertised. I bought the things when I moved into the house, but this was the first time I ever used them. Honestly, the fact that I was able to easily slide my heavy, metal desk into the other room with scarcely any effort was the highlight of my day. Sad, I know.
After some vacuuming and dusting it was time once again to do battle with my ancient nemesis: ready-to-assemble furniture.
The battle went about as well as can be expected, and lasted for hours. I have to say, though, that I’m surprised that it took as long as it did for me to start bleeding, and at least this time – unlike the time I assembled my old desk – I didn’t suffer any blows to the head.
After setting up the desk I set to work on the printer stand, then hooked everything back up, taking thed opportunity to make my usual half-assed attempt at trying to impose some kind of order on the mass of cables and wires. It’s at least a little better than it was, and the new arrangement means that the speaker wires aren’t all tangled up with the other wires and cables, so I’ve finally gotten rid of the incessant static that used to issue forth from my left speaker due to the interfence from the other wires. So that’s a plus.
After that I put the chair together. The bookshelf is going to have to wait for another day.
As for the old desk, eventually I’m going to set up Munin, my old computer, on it in the bedroom that I’m using as something of a library. Assuming I can figure out and resolve the weird power issues that Munin is having, at any rate.
That’s going to have to wait until I get my bonus or my Federal refund – whichever comes first – though, as I don’t have a spare monitor since I’m unwilling to give up the dual monitors on Hugin.
However, once I do get the additional funds I’ll be able to spare the monitor I’m using as my secondary on Hugin, as I’m going to finally bite the bullet and buy a Wacom Cintiq.
In any case, I’ll post some pictures of the new stuff tomorrow, and I may even write up that post I mentioned on Wednesday.
In the meantime, I’m not looking forward to how I’m going to feel tomorrow morning, as I’m already pretty sore from all the bending, kneeling, and contorting that I went through today.

Cramping My Style?

A little after 11 this morning I got a call telling me that my furniture should be delivered in about an hour.
A little after noon the prophecy was fulfilled:












This is the set up I’ve been picturing ever since I first thought about buying new furniture. I think it works, given the location of my TV and the long, narrow layout of my living room.
The cocktail table does make things a little cramped, though, and it prevents some of the seats from reclining. I positioned it where I did because it will at least allow the seats that would most likely have people sitting in them – that is, the ones that would afford the best view of the TV – to recline.
Given that pretty much the only guest I have is Scott, I’ll have to see how well he thinks the arrangement works the next time he’s over.
I’ve thought about moving the cocktail table against the wall and using it in place of the TV stand – which no longer matches the furniture, not that it ever did – which would free up some room, but I remain undecided.
The new furniture does bring to the forefront the need to have my speakers wall/ceiling mounted, though that’s going to have to wait for a while.
Even if things are a bit cramped, it’s still infinitely better than having that stupid couch that I hated.
As for the hated couch, and the old coffee table about which I was largely ambivalent, I slipped the delivery guys some cash to haul them away for me.
Naturally, doing so turned into much more of a hassle than it should have been. I’d neglected to get any cash yesterday, so after they finished hauling things in I had to make a quick dash to an ATM. Naturally the drive-through ATM that I pulled up to was – it informed me, after I’d entered my PIN – out of cash, so I had to find another one.
Then, when I finally got back to give them the money, I had to squeeze past the delivery truck to park, and in the process I ended up scraping against the front of one of my neighbors’ cars.
Fortunately the damage – what little there was – was restricted to my car, and their car just got a deposit of some of my car’s paint, which should come off pretty easily.
Even so, I left them a note, as they weren’t home, then went out to talk to them when I heard them return. They weren’t concerned about it and appreciated the fact that I told them about it.
(See kids? Honesty really is the best policy*.)

IR Stupid Department:
The other day, randomly, my Windows Media Center remote control stopped working. This isn’t a huge deal, obviously, as when I’m sitting at my computer it’s not that difficult to do all the things my remote does with the keyboard or mouse, but I do like to use it for skipping ahead and back and whatnot, so I was annoyed.
I did a reboot, and when Windows restarted it told me that some Media Center service had encountered a problem and been stopped. Every time I tried to restart the service – which, I assumed, was related to the remote not working – it would immediately stop again.
I looked online for answers and found nothing that applied to my problem, so I was getting really annoyed.
Then, last night, for the hell of it, I tried replacing the batteries.
D’oh.
In fairness to me, though, I didn’t think it had been that long ago that I put fresh batteries in, and the IR receiver had been lighting up each time I pushed a button, indicating that it was receiving a signal. Apparently it was just a really weak signal.
Also, that the Windows Media Center Receiver service wasn’t running did kind of point to a software problem (or a hardware problem with the computer/receiver).
However, after I put in fresh batteries and found that it was all working again, I noticed that the non-running service actually was running (turns out it had just crashed that one time), and the one that I kept trying to start was for something else, apparently, and doesn’t need to be running in order for everything to work properly.
Oh well; in the process of trying to find a solution to the problem I found that there were firmware updates for my computer’s chipset and Blu-ray burner, a driver update for my graphics card, and a BIOS update for the computer, so it wasn’t a total waste of time, as I ended up installing all of the updates.

*Except when a woman asks you, “Does this make me look fat?” In that case, unless the answer really is, “No, not at all, “ honesty is the absolute worst policy.