Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Three Years

It's been 3 years to the day since I got the call that Rhea's water broke. It feels like forever, and it's flown by. Doesn't mean I don't think about him every day. He would be 3 on October 22nd.

IM000433

Monday, September 29, 2008

Whiter Is Better!

I know what you're thinking, and no, this is not another racist tirade. I'll do one of those tomorrow.

We went on Friday to the Apple store and got our iPhones set up. I made an appointment online. We went in and they looked at us like we had feet for hands. They didn't know what form I filled out, but they were able to look it up. Once the kid started setting us up, that's when the fun really started.

We told him that we wanted a white 16Gig and a black 8Gig. Now, this would tell me that we each want a different iPhone. We're porting our numbers over, so therefore you might want to ask which number is going to which phone. Well, this is obviously not a question a Genius should ask, and we ended up with our numbers being on the wrong phones. Fail.

We also asked about the discount for Postal employees. Genius-boy said they can't do that there at the Apple store, and referred us to the AT&T store. Of course, he was able to take our money without a problem, which I'm sure is the most important part of the transaction. My satisfaction is secondary.

So, we ran by the AT&T store and they fixed us up quick. Got the SIM cards switched and the discount applied to our account without a hitch. We should have gone there in the first place, but I called at least 5 stores and couldn't find one with the 8Gig in stock. Of course, the AT&T store we ended up at had them in stock, but whatever!

One of the things I'm really excited about is getting back to scrobbling on Last.FM. It's so much better than the Zune Social. And it works! I feel bad for selling the Zune, but it's just not as good of a device. Even with the inclusion of Hexic.

We've been adding apps all weekend. The best ones so far are the Lightsaber, Cowbell, and Pour1Out apps. Totally worth buying a $300 iPhone!

Friday, September 26, 2008

The Hits Keep On Coming

We discovered yesterday that our dogs have fleas. Fortunately, they don't seem to be of the mutant, flesh eating variety. It's a pretty big deal nonetheless. We had to run to Wal-Mart and buy killer in spray, carpet powder, and shampoo variety. There is now a pile of laundry that needs to be done in hopes of killing the little bastards. The fleas, not the dogs. Yet.

When we're leaving to go buy all the flea destroyer, Rhea notices that some asshole has hit my truck. There's a nice dent in the passenger side where it looks like someone pulled in next to me and misjudged it completely.
my truck
We called the police and they came out and gave me a case number for my insurance. Now I get to deal with that. Wonderful!

On the joy side of things, we have an appointment with the Apple store today. I called around to all the AT&T stores looking for 8Gig iPhones, but they were out. The Apple store has "a handfull", so hopefully there's not a big run on them before we get there.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Twitterific!

You just never know what's going to blow up and what isn't. Most comments that are made on Twitter just float on by without so much as a second thought. Then, on rare occasions, a topic explodes and we're all posting 140 characters as fast as we can type them. It's one reason out of 100 that I love Twitter.

Other reasons would be the constant flow of tweets, the ability to send SMS from your phone, and the immediacy of it. Honestly, I don't think there are 100 reasons. Can I change that to 5?

Anyway, tomorrow is the day we're planning on going to the AT&T store and get our iPhones. Yes, even with the announcement of the G1, we are still going to make the switch. Honestly, the G1 doesn't look like anything more than a phone running Windows Mobile. It'll be open source, sure, but I'm not sure that will be able to compete with the app store.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Kohl's Smells

I worked last night at Kohls. It was pretty lame. I'm sure you're thinking "how can it be lame? It's a night job at fucking Kohls!", to which I would say "the people there stink. I mean literally, they smell."

I spent most of my night pondering the how's and why's as to the type of people that work strictly overnight jobs and, furthermore, why those same people tend to have body odor. The lack of bathing immediatly springs to mind. Is there some connection between sleeping all day and not showering? I usually shower before I go in. Makes me feel good to be clean and dingleberry free.

Anyway, I'm going to try to write something here on a daily basis. I imagine that this will last upwards of 2 days, but I'm going to go ahead and proclaim it anyway. I think it may help me hone my chops, as it were.

What is honing, anyway?

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Writing Vs. Blogging

I don't fancy myself as much of a writer. As much as I like typing up a bunch of paragraphs, I don't know that I could ever do anything more than blog. I like posting news up at Platform Nation, but that always feels more like regurgitating the same stuff found elsewhere. The thing to do is find something original. Break something open. See something new that somebody missed.

I'm not sure what that means exactly, but it sounds really good. Of course, doing something like that takes a lot of time and commitment, something I'm not too keen on devoting. Not that I don't want to, but it would take away from other things in my life that are important. And I kind of like having my wife around.

I'm not sure what the point of this is, other than the fact that I'm bored. It's just that I look at shit on the internet, and sometimes it just feels like I'm reading the same story over and over. Joystiq posts something that X3F posted that came from Kotaku that came from an interview done by somebody at PAX.

Oversaturation much?

I guess that's why I like podcasting so much. I'm never sure where we're going to go with our show. It's open and loose. Like a hooker having a half-price sale.

If I were to try to write anything, it would have to be comedy. The problem is, writing doesn't feel as spontaneous as just talking. Plus, you don't have anyone to bounce off of. You just have the reader, who probably won't get the subtleties of your fart joke anyway.

Bottom line is, I wish I could record a lot of my day to day conversations. Or possibly have my own reality show where people watch my every move. They could see me work, twitter, drive, play games, and maybe even interact with real people. I'm thinking we bring in the real people in season 2. Let the watchers fall in love with me first. And believe me, they will fall in love.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Stay At Home Week?

Far from it. This week is gonna be pretty busy. At least I think it will be. Hell, who knows?

So, Friday we're planning on getting our iPhones. I really can't wait. I've been using my Dash for 2 years now and it's really showing its age. I have to delete text messages every few days because the memory is full. Drives me crazy!

Of course, as soon as we are planning on going to the AT&T store, the rumor starts that a 32GB iPhone might be coming. That's fucking awesome! So, do we wait? I'm thinking no. I've suffered long enough!

I really can't complain too much about my Dash. It's been a pretty solid little phone. I've had to replace the battery, but that's really it. I'm impressed with myself that I was able to use it for two years without getting the itch for a new phone (up until the 3G iPhone came out, that is).

I'm still wanting to get a new Xbox, but I'm going to put that off for a while. iPhone comes first! I snuck in some Rock Band 2 on Saturday and played The Club last night. I even downloaded the bike patch for Burnout Paradise. Fun was had. And beer.

Good times.

I've been listening to the new Metallica album. It's pretty good. I'm impressed. Doesn't make me want to buy it, but I will recommend it to anyone that wants a good, illegal download.

Speaking of good downloads, I listened to episode 34 of GameHounds this morning. They were giving away Spore, and I won! I'm so excited to get that game. I really hope it plays on my PC. The creature creator ran ok, so I'm hoping I have just power to give it a go. Thanks to Edie and Hawkes for giving it away. I'll make something with really big balls just for them.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Rock Band 2!

As you can see, I picked up Rock Band 2 this weekend. I decided to go to Walmart at midnight to grab it. Unfortunately, the first Walmart we went to didn't have it. Personally, I think they had it, but just didn't want to get it out for us. There were about 8 people there waiting, and we got the shaft.

I ended up staying up till about 4 a.m. playing and drinking some cold beers. Talk about good times!

At one point, I took a break and went to Raptr.com and signed up. I'm not sure why. Honestly, I think the Michelob made me do it.

So far it's not doing anything for me. I mean literally, it hasn't done anything yet. They say it takes a while to sync up with your Xbox Live account, but I'm thinking it doesn't take days. Of course, I had trouble with Brightkite at first, but it's working now. I'm probably just too impatient. Expecting everything to work sooner than later. Crazy!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Samurai Slowdown

Alright, so now I'm pissed. A quick browsing of Major Nelson's blog post about Samurai Shodown 2 proves that the game was originally listed at 400 fake points, then later upped to 800. That's $10 in real money for a retro title. What the fuck?

I know I've been bitching about the rising prices of arcade titles for a while now, and I'm sure everyone is pretty sick of it. Oh well.

I have really been looking forward to this game since I heard it was in the works. My sister and I used to play the hell out of the Genesis version. Nothing beats playing as Hanzo and doing a bunch of cheap grabs. lol!

Anyway, I've decided that I'm done with the Xbox Live Arcade. I've bought my last title. I'm not shelling out 800 points for a game that should be 400 since Microsoft is trying to push their price increase with the "Summer of Arcade". Fuck that. Any money I spend on downloadable games will be on the PSN.

The sticky-sweet irony of the whole thing is that I'm in the market for a new 360 with the 60Gig HDD. My quasi-launch system's disc drive has been making some very unpleasant noises lately, and even given me disc read errors while playing Rock Band the other night. I'm not sure, but I think that's a sign that I might be screwed.

Of course, buying a new Xbox means moving all my content to a new HDD. I do not look forward to that, especially since I've never migrated my licenses to the replacement system they sent me after my launch console RROD'd. I anticipate it being a pain in the ass.

Anyway, look for my Xbox on eBay! Bidding starts at $149.99!

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Buddy And Stuff

I picked up Buddy from the Humane Society on Tuesday. He was all groggy from being neutered. It was funny when he tried to walk. He stumbled sideways like he was drunk. Hehe. The HS did piss me off when I asked for his ear medication. They told us more than once when we visited that he had an infection and would have drops. When I asked for it I was told it was locked in a room and that the person with the key was already gone. Convenient! I called the next day and found out that there were never any drops. The vet had never looked at it. I would need to bring him back in to have the vet look and see what kind of medication we needed. And all this had to happen before the vet left at 3. Really? Because I have all the time and gas in the world to make multiple trips up there because you people are dumbasses!

In other news, I'm currently on the job hunt. I've got my resume' out on Monster and CareerBuilder. There are layoffs happening here at my job, and I want to get while the getting is good. I've been told that they aren't planning on laying me off, but I don't trust them. There are other factors at work here that I can't really explain. Suffice it to say that there is a mole in place with a direct line to my manager. 'Nuff said.