Archive for the 'Miscellaneous' Category

Today is my birthday!

I received a Nintendo DS Lite, along with the new Mario Brothers game, and they both rock! The DS is quite impressive, and I’ve only played with it for a little bit. Perhaps I’ll post some photos in the next day or so. I also scored another Al Di Meola album (this guy can really play guitar - I highly recommend any of his stuff).

I’ve got several disjointed thoughts for you today.

I’m going to make a valiant effort to pre-order a Nintendo Wii via my favorite online retailer, Amazon.com. The Wii looks like an incredible platform, and is the only modern gaming system that has gotten my attention. With any luck, Nintendo will really score with this system; I can’t wait to try it out.

The new theme I’m working on for this site is moving along nicely. I’ve gone through a number of test designs, and I’ve finally settled on one that I like. Development work is still taking place (I only estimate it as about 75% completed), but I hope to roll it out here at the site in the next 4 to 6 weeks. Keep your eyes peeled.

Last month, I mentioned the new photo album software I was planning on writing. I’ve come a long ways with that project, but I still have a long ways to go. A number of design paradigms have changed mid-stream, so code rewrites are plentiful. I’m looking forward to rolling this out on my site. I estimate this at a 40% completion level.

I recently whipped up a database driven list of my music. What can I say? I’m a cataloging freak.

I’ll leave you with a great Kent Brockman quote:

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of them put together.

For whatever reason, I’ve been in an incredibly lazy mood over the past several weeks. Every day brings a new stretch of boredom, and I don’t know what to attribute it to. Perhaps I need a vacation. Thankfully, I’ll be taking one in two weeks. A new PC game couldn’t hurt either. I recently realized that I’ve been growing more and more tired of the games I’ve got. This past weekend, I reinstalled Quake 4, to try out its dual-core support. Although it was an enjoyable experience, it felt hollow. A new experience would be most welcome, but sadly there aren’t any games on the market that pique my interest. Prey looks interesting, but I’m not willing to pay $40 for it. Oh how dry the well seems to be!

In other random news, I’m working on a new theme for this blog. It’s still in the concept stage, but maybe I can get it up sometime this fall.

I’ve been battling several minor medical problems recently, which has slowed my blog posting efforts. With any luck I will get back to normality sometime soon. The Firefox profile tutorial I’ve been working on is nearly done, and a new release of Googlebar Lite is on the horizon. I’ve also had an idea for a new Windows application that I might write, should I find the energy and motivation to do so. Writing C++ all day for The Man sure makes it tough to do so in one’s spare time.

In other miscellaneous news, I recently purchased some new rims for my car. They replaced the original factory wheels (the standard steel ones with hub-caps). Over time I had lost or broken several of the caps, so I eventually took them all off. As a result, it looked pretty bad. The new rims have improved things quite a bit. I’m looking at buying a Canon A620 digital camera in the very near future, so I’ll try to get a shot or two of them. Lots of picture goodness is heading this way; I can’t wait!

I’m taking next week off from work, so hopefully I can use that time to catch up on stuff I’ve been wanting to do for some time (CoLT 2.0, a Firefox profile tutorial, etc.). I may even go nuts and convert this blog to WordPress 2.0.3. I ditched an earlier 2.0 build back in February, but I’m toying with the idea of trying it out again. We’ll see what happens with that.

There are several other miscellaneous topics to discuss: I’ve decided on putting off my computer upgrade for another month or so. With the predicted AMD price cuts coming down the pipeline, I could potentially save hundreds of dollars by waiting just a little longer. So that’s what I’ll do.

I only need one more Prince Valiant book (volume 35, Doppelgänger) to complete my library collection! Volumes 38 and 39 recently arrived in the mail (I purchased them via eBay), but I have yet to read them. Unfortunately, the last volume I need is also the hardest to find. I’ve only ever seen it on eBay twice: once with a larger collection and once by itself. With any luck, one will pop up when I’m looking.

Last week I gave the Prey demo a shot, and was very impressed. I want to run through it again, and I hope to comment further on it once I do so. It’s definitely a game I just might purchase…

My only grandfather passed away on Saturday, June 24. He had been very sick over the past month or two, mostly due to liver cancer. I’m going to miss him greatly; he was a great man.

The month of June is turning out to be pretty crappy overall. My grandfather has become very sick, and my sister and I are driving down to Georgia this Friday to join my parents who are already there. That means that I’m taking a day off from work, at one of the worst possible times. I’ve got a number of deadlines looming, each of which has a number of associated problems holding me back. But all of those problems pale in comparison to spending time with my grandfather. So off to Georgia it is.