Weekend Rundown III

So, what did I do this weekend?

Well, it all started Friday (of course) after work, the Get Connected Summer Staff, sans Spoon, headed to the little podunk town of Salem to catch "Farenheit 9/11" on the day of it's release. Courtesy of Mapquest we got there to late, so the Fishbowlers had to pick up our tickets for us and we had to eat at a different resturant than them when we arrived. The whole area around this little theater was packed because it was the only place in about a 100 miles that was actually playing it. We made our way down the block in the pouring rain to find a little a bistro. As it so happens, almost everyone there was in a rush to finish their meal by 7.45, the time the movie started. The food was excellent (can't go wrong with a reuben) but the atomsphere was meh. Not meh because of the setting, but meh because of the pompous ass that sat behind us. I won't go into a lot of detail, but he was just a hardcore conspiracy theorist and his date, I quote, said "Oh yeah, Dick Cheney, isn't he like... the vice president or something?". Stupid bitch and he's brainwasher her, excellent subject, eh? I really enjoyed the movie/documentary, despite the obvious one-sidedness, but that's life.

Short of cleaning up around the apartment, all I really accomplished was finishing the second (and last) episode of Noir. Below are my feelings, some spoilers I guess you could say.

Episode 14: At this point the show, it really shows how powerful Soldats really is. Once again, there is some sweet shooting by Kirika, being that she's uber leet and all. I was glad to see Uncle Claude die, he was kind of freaky in a uh... uhm... how do I describe it? *plays the classic banjo song from Deliverence* That should sum it up.

Episode 15: Faye, uhm I mean, Shao Li (like that similarity wasn't on purpose) is just a kick ass bitch. Watching Kirika and Chloe side by side was pretty damn awesome, too.

Episode 16: Shao Li in that traditional dress was hot, like, hotter than Faye hot (obviously), my only question is, what kind of race is she, if she isn't affected by the poison? Watching her and Chloe fight, despite its shortness, was very similiar as the Rock Lee versus Sasuke duel, except this one didn't end up with me rolling on the floor laughing. Finally, Chloe's keeper, is that male or female? I'm pretty sure female, but it's got that asian transexual freakyness going on.

Episode 17: Who the hell is Soldats! How can you be a child of an organization, that's all I'm wondering.

Episode 18: This I found to be a very moving episode, just the plot twist keep piling up that I was beginning to get confused. Thus, I took a dinner break.

Episode 19: The beginning of this episode just made me feel weird, it was so much unlike all the other episodes. Mirielle's printer sucks, by the way, reminds me of my old Lexmark. The translations changed in this episode as well, Altena became Artena, so I was confused for a touch. I should go back and count how many times Mirielle would be dead had it not been for Kirika. It should average out to at least one an episode. It's pretty damn obvious Mirielle knows who took out her parents at this point.

Episode 20: This episode was chock full of history, which is a change of pace as opposed to just flashbacks. My question is, who in the hell wears heels while rooftop jumping? Kirika's hate filled facial expressions makes you feel a little uneasy. The ending was pretty screwed up, too. If you know most animes, you know it would run at least 26 episodes, but if you didn't and didn't have these all collected, I feel sorry for those who had to wait a week.

Episode 21: By the end of this episode, everything it out in the open, but by now it was all pretty much obvious. So, I'm hoping there will be no more flashbacks, that plagued this entire series.

Episode 22: That little girl looked just like Mirielle, as I reckon it was supposed to, oooh freaky. The whole village looked like something ripped straight out of a Steven King book. At the end of the episode, it was clear that most of the town lacked any sort of tactics. I mean, who charges armed soldiers in a mob formation? When the old man sniper got taken out by the RPG, it was just like the scene in Saving Private Ryan. I reckon' I should compare the release dates to see who got the idea from who, although I'm pretty sure, it was Noir taking it from SPR. Oh, a French based army got owned... big surprise =]

Episode 23: This was a very slow episode, not much to highlight, and unfortunately, more flashbacks.

Episode 24: What the hell, are they assassins or gladiators? Another blade breaking move by Kirika, scary huh?

Episode 25: Felt like I was watching a lesbo moving at this point, and since their age is pretty vague, it just seems so wrong. Kirika saves Mirielle, again, by stopping a blade, again! My question is, despite friendship, why choose Mirielle over Chloe? If I was an assassins, I'd want the strongest partner, not a sexy, high heeled, short skirt wearing, blonde who.... oh nevermind, answered that one myself.

Episode 26: What the hell kind of ending is that. I'm left wanting, again... I was pretty sure it ended in a homocide-suicide of the two maidens, but I was told that was wrong. They say the manga explains it better, so I'm search of that.

Overall, I thought this was an excellent anime, it could have done without so many flashbacks, but since they're meant to be watched one a week or so, I guess I don't have much room to complain. I'd like to watch the English dubbed/subbed version, see how the 'professionals' translated everything and what voices they would've used. Finally, the soundtrack was superb, a must buy for everything (Disc 1 anyways).

Work is still slow, but I've been setting up more and more systems (when I can find them). I really need to clean the entangled messed under my desk, it's a disgrace. Lastly, I must hit the Google to find an easy recipe for trout, since I bought one (Kroger had no salmon and I didn't want herring) and have no idea how to fix it.

Weekend Rundown II

Well, what all happened to me last week? Trying pretty much nothing (as usual with my boring 9-5 job) until the weekend.

As I normally do every three to four months, I take the long journey up I-77 to visit my buddy Chris in Parkersburg, WV. What was on the agenda? Anime, pulling ethernet cable, Dungeons and Dragons, and of course, drinking!

I arrived Friday night, about 9, and he showed me what he had purchased. Couple of wall plates, 75' of Cat5, some cat5 plugs, and a Linksys 802.11g router. After a delicious meal of pork-chops, corn, and stuffing, we set out to pull wire. While he was in the basement setting up the router and cable modem close to the outlet, I quickly made a section of 9' patch to test my now rusty skills. Perfect, of course. It took us about an hour to run the first wire to an old phone/cable plate, because we couldn't get through the floorboards and the outside insulation and etc etc etc. Eventually, we just dremeled a larger hole in the wire housing and the cable was ran in about 5 minutes. Ran downstairs and put a jack on the end of the cable and hooked it to the router. I stripped and attached the cat5 to the wall plate and tested out the port (which worked). So, I go to put the port on the plate and... damn it... wrong side. Had to cut off the wire, put the port on the plate, then rewire. Still worked, so I was fine. The second port was done in about 15 minutes, same process, minus the screw up. My powerbook was my best friend, helping test the strength of the wireless network in the house and each hardwired connection. It looked good, his PC was hooked up to one jack and the XBox by his bitching widescreen at the other jack. Watched some anime, went to bed.

Saturday, I woke and he was watching my Kenshin OVAs (which I still haven't seen). I surfed the web for a bit and around four we headed out to the NET (North End Tavern) for some of the best food and beer money can buy. Won two bucks on Keno, spent five to play. One day I'll just give the waitress the five and save some time. Bought a half-gallon growler of Net Lite as well, which I need to drink soon before it goes bad. Then it was off to Mike's for about five hours of quality Dungeons and Dragons, as well as some general UO and computer discussion. Got home about about 2.45am and played Halo with Chris till about 5.30. Levels are Heroic are a bitch, even with two players.

Go up Sunday late, around 1, meant to leave by 2... instead finished watching part of a Kenshin OVA, helped him reconfigure his entertainment system, showed him some router management items, hit the mall for some cheap Chinese food (combo meals without drink included aren't really combo meals, now are they?) then finally hit the road a little before 5. Got home, worked on my sleeving, which is taking forever.

That's roughly my weekend. Still haven't finished Noir yet. *sigh* Life...

Weekend Rundown

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted anything here. Then again, nothing really 'exciting' ever happens to me, so, blah blah blah here I go. I think our relationship is finally on a road to being fixed since she agreed to stop talking to him, I'll guess we'll see, but it's really taken a weight off of my mind.

Conan has started running new episodes again, so the nights don't go by as slowly. Humor is always a plus. I didn't get to watch any Noir this weekend because I was gone! After I lovely sushi meal from Kroger on Thursday, I headed homeward to see my sister's graduation the next day. Of course, it rains, and so it's pushed back to Friday and what I do end up doing. Driving my fiancee, my brother, and my sister around Winchester all day to shop for random stuff. I spent 7 hours in town so I could get a screw extractor set, does that seem right to you? In addition, we got to cook pork stir fry for the whole family and everyone liked it, that's always a good sign. It wasn't until about 11 o clock Friday that I finally got to work on the stripped screw heads in the case and of course that had to go wrong. Seems the smallest screw extractor was about the same size of the screw itself. Oh well, drilled the screw heads off and the threaded portions could be undone by hand. What a surprise.

Amy's graduation was ok, except for the getting my bald noggin' roasted and spending more of the day driving around town exchanging stuff and getting photos dropped off, developed, and what not. Merc and I took a peak at Victoria Secret, but she didn't buy anything, then again, I did just get her a PJ set (no, it's not that revealing). We watched a couple episodes of Naruto as well (up to episode 26 now!) and, well, let's say that Rock Lee is one interesting fellow, as well as Guy-Sensei. A very comical yet disturbing student-teacher relationship. And what's with that turtle?

We also watched Identity, you know the one where a whole bunch of people with the same birthday get stuck in a hotel together and they started getting killed? A very good movie with an interesting twist. I found it enjoyable, to say the least... too bad my sister wouldn't shut up for the first 30 minutes or so and I had to turn on the subtitles. Pity. We meant to watch "Pitch Black" as well, but Merc wasn't feeling to great and sleepy to boot. So, just had Toast rip a big ole 8 gig image of the DVD on the good ole Powerbook. Speaking of which, I should prolly move that over to a bigger drive when I get home.

Came home Sunday, had some brawt for dinner, watched the Laker's game. Not that I'm a big fan of basketball or anything, but I figure it's best to know what Merc's bitching about by the end of the game so I'll a general idea of what's going on. I have decided that if I had to be a big black man, I'd want to look like Ben Wallace. What a badass.

I should prolly should've posted this earlier, but I didn't think about it... only two hours of work left now, because we just got back from filming out commercial for New Student Orientation, it needs to be edited, but it should result in a pretty funny product.

So, I'm just piddling around work right now and I am so bored. Merc's got an internship at Time-Warner Broadband, so I'll get to talk to her less and see her even rarer. At this rate, I'll see her one more time over break, July 4th weekend or so.

I guess things are looking up for once. Here goes nothing, eh?

What a crock...

So the Bolts win the Cup, eh? What crap, I don't care what anyone said about that puck, no matter how you twist it, even with those 'ABC' specialist and their cameras say it wasn't in. So, now, they'll make a big deal about Andreychuck winning the Cup for the first time after playing 22 years or whatever. Maybe if he wasn't whipped and let his wife trade him to Tampa Bay, instead of bailing out on Colorado, he would've had a cup a lot sooner. Serves him right...

God, work is so boring. I don't know how to stay alive, worst of all, all these PCs and Dell laptops that sit around the office seem to interference with my Airport Extreme card and I don't get any connectivity inside the rooms, just in the hallways, lounges, etc, which makes work kind of hard at the moment. Especially when I need to go to meetings our what not *shrugs*.

My diet is going, eh, I don't feel like I'm losing anything... I guess I'll find out more when I go home, where there's actually a scale. My thoughts of paranoia are still around, I wish I could get rid of them. Friday is my sister's graduation, so, I still haven't worked a full week here, ha. Back to mindless web surfing.

One season down, one to go..

Finished up the first season Noir today. Here, are my feelings:

Episode 7: Some new flashbacks, the change of pace is good, right? I'm noticing even more that some people bleed and some don't. I've been told that I'll figure this out later (thanks for the spoiler =p). I gotta try that move my student ID one day...

Episode 8: First episode with the 'Dada' soundtrack, wasn't as funny as when I heard it the first time. Noir eating the nutty butty got me wanting one ... damn diet =[. Silvana is one crazy bitch, I'll tell you that much. You just can't go around stabbing everyone. The fight scenes were pretty intense here, got me itchin' to play some Battlefield, Vietnam style.

Episode 9: The black skirt Mierelle wears is just plain hot. I'll have to get one for Merc. Why are anime chicks so hot though? Maybe it's 'cause they're faker than American women. The Kiss of Death, that lasted way to long, can you say lesbian? And how come all these women only wear lipstick on half their lips. The near end of this episode really had me going, but, this isn't Counterstrike! A person with a knife cannot beat a person with a gun.

Episode 10: More 'Dada's, if they keep this up, they'll lose their novelty. Let's just face it now, people, if someone in this show has purple hair, they're just plain evil. True Noir! WTF is that about, eh?

Episode 11: Yup, purple people are evil, no denying it now. The true Noir reminds me sorta Sasuke in Naruto, the way she wears her cloak. How come lackeys can never fight? How do these corporations get into power with shots like that. I can't even imagine the cost in bullets.

Episode 12: "So you're here to kill me? Want to go on a hike?" Dur. He's a real smart one. And that kid, the true Noir, she's pretty freaky, never seen an assassin so happy.

Episode 13: Very sweet beginning, that Noir found a friend and all. You could just tell it was going to end badly and it did. Such a pity.

What else have I done this weekend. Try getting pissed off at the NHL. That goal was soooo in, but all the officials missed it, upstairs couldn't stop the game in time, and Calgary didn't have the oppurtunity to win the Cup at home. The NHL contacts ABC later and tells ABC they felt the puck did not totally cross the line and that there would be no more talk about it. This translates to we just made the biggest fuck up in Stanley Cup history since '99 when they let Brett Hull sit in the crease (not that I'm saying that part time, whiney, bandwagon goalie Hasek ever deserved the Cup). If Tampa Bay and that sorry Andreychuk win the Cup, it'll be undeserved.

What else have I done today? Try nothing! I ate some Pho, played some Mario Golf and surfed the web. I love weekends =]

Crazy Fish..

I have some chiclids, they like to dig... but this... was just way to much...

Click here for Pictures

Maybe...

I think I've found peace, I don't know yet... I guess I'll know when I lay down and let the thoughts run tonight.

How have I spent my day, you ask?

I've been watching Noir... Here... are some feelings:

Episode 1: Very confused by the end, I assume, this is to get me attached to the show so I'll see how it pans out, which I plan on doing. Strange how no one ever bleeds though. =/

Episode 2: This episode kinda dragged ass till the very end. I thought the way she dispatched that guy with his own glasses was pretty awesome. I thought it was pretty humorous that the smock Noir was wearing said Wutang on it. That just came outta nowhere.

Episode 3: Things have finally picked up, which is bitchin'. The episodes are moving quicker now and are more enjoyable to watch. The final fight scene kicked ass, especially the tactis they used. Then again, from someone who used to want to be a US Army Ranger, what do you expect?

Episode 4: Not much excited happened this episode. Some French Army guys got on, but for the French not surrendering, that's a step up.

Episode 5: Once again, kind of a flat episode. I'm getting tired of seeing the flashbacks, but, I guess these episodes were meant to be watched one a week or so, not all back to back.

Episode 6: That cat was just plain evil, not innocent and naive, I don't care what anyone says. I'd say throughout this whole show so far, that's the only kill I couldn't have made. The dude was in pennance for crying out loud.

On a final note, Flames are playing tonight. They'll win, of course, and bring the Cup back to Canada. Know the last Canadian team to raise the Stanley Cup? Try the '93 Montreal Canadiens, lead by Vezina Trophy, future Hall of Famer, Patrick Roy.

Priceless...

What did I accomplish at work today?

Dell’s cost for a 2 hour 1 800 phone call: $24

Dell’s cost for 5 combo drive for Latitude C610: $700

Dell’s cost for 1 combo drive for Latitude D600: $150

Dell’s cost to ship all these items: $120

Total cost to Dell: $994

Treating Dell’s IT department like a redhead stepchild: Priceless

*whistles*

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...

Goodbye!

When will it end..

Today was an excruciatingly long day at work, where once again, I didn't really accomplish anything. People seem to take their good ole time responding to my emails. So I sit at work for hours a day staring at my laptop waiting for a message to come across. I get your mom jokes in stereo from the two fools sitting beside me, which is ok, until they go past point and begin getting into my personal problems, but what am I supposed do right? Be made fun of for complaining now?

I wish people would carry their weight around the apartment. I bought paper towels, we're out of paper towels. Anybody replace them, no. I did the dishes two days ago, sink was full again today, I gave up and loaded up the dishwasher. Fuck it, eh? I'm tired of hitting my damn head on the fuckin' cabinet cuz someone doesn't remember to close them whenever he gets a glass.

Only one more day of work left, then I got the weekend. I gotta find a hairdryer so I can do my cable sleeving, which came in today. Dropped in the DVD Combo and the floppy as well. The case looks nice, it'll look nicer when I finish though.

As a final note, I removed Merc from my team, because I wanted my profile to be shown. She knows how to get in and still do the editing though.

Why is time so slow?

It’s Thursday now, my third day of work this week and God is it boring. I thought that when I left the Miller organization four years ago, I’d never be sitting in front of a computer again and just idling. I do what I can, but I mostly sit around waiting for emails back from other people. I’ve resorted to keeping my iPod on me at work, being permanently remoted into my PC, and having AIM running on this laptop. It helps the time go by a little faster but oh well, that’s life. Things have been pretty boring as of late, my wire sleeving isn’t in yet and the floppy and combo drive of my new computer should be in today, as long as FedEx got there before Mustard left. On the plus side my DVDs came in. Fear and Loathing is such a bitchin’ movie (along with Desperado, Exit Wounds (DMX w00t), A Bridge Too Far, and Ocean’s Eleven). Ordered a couple of anime movies last night, too, hopefully they’ll be here soon, I still need to watch the others, but there are certain people I like around when I watch them.

The thoughts I’ve been having lately don’t seem to disturb my sleep as much as they used to, but with such a horrible sleeping schedule (5-6 hours on a good night) it may just be mere exhaustion that’s allowing me to fall asleep so fast *shrugs*.

Well, it’s almost lunch time, I need to run to the bank and make some deposits so we can pay the rent…