Nick Postagulous
Friday, February 25, 2005
Boot Time
It's boot time here at work. See, as an enviro droog, I do what is called "Field Work" which is stand in the sun while we wait for the laptop to do whatever it's going to do. And thus, I am issued boots.
I'm wearing my boots from three years ago now. They are Wellington boots, made by Iron Age. I particularly like them since they are (a) broken in and (2) have a composite toe rather than steel. Oh, and that's the thing, they have to be steel toe boots, just in case a particularly heavy piece of sunshine happens to strike my toe.
The other boots that I wear are, I think Rockys. They are very beautiful, with brushed aluminum raised eyelets, but they weight about seven pounds each, or so it feels as I Frankenstein walk around in them. Though, I do wear them, but I'm not willing to get them muddy yet, as they are only two years old.
My boots from last year, Wellingtons of the Rocky brand, have been worn exactly once, to church one Wednesday night, because my black Old Navy slacks had shrunk and the black suede loafers have too low a rise.
Now, this year, the pickens are not slim. We have black leather Converse All Stars (Chuck Taylors to those of you who are young and/or trendy) with steel toe, and also a pair of Skechers with a steel toe. And lots of boots. But, hey, I'm overflowing in $140 pairs of boots that will last nearly a decade if treated well, and at least four years if treated badly. So, do I want the Skechers (probably pictured above) or the black leather converse hightops?
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Fairybells ??-2005
I got this email from Teri:
After a 3 year battle with chronic renal failure, we had to have Fairybells euthanized last night. Her health deteriorated rather quickly over the past month. She was no longer tolerating her treatments and had virtually stopped eating. Her breathing became very labored last night and our wonderful, compassionate vet met us at the clinic to end her suffering. She went peacefully and without pain.
Fairybells was a sweet kitty and we will miss her.
Labwork
The guy who runs the lab has been sick two days in a row. So, I'm running lab. I'm not too fond of it either.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
No Business Like
One of the internet people that I've known for, oh, maybe a year, has had one of her projects show up on TV. Check out the rather freaky, and sure to be cancelled, Robot Chicken on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. She's an animator with the middle initial E. I just watched it. About 50% LOL funny. About 50% really really missing the funny. But lots of good Star Trek and nerdy jokes.
I wonder if we'll ever see Davey and Goliath 2000?
Monday, February 21, 2005
Tactics
(skip to next topic if you don't want to hear me rattle on about videogames, ok?)
If you've been reading me a while, you know that I'm fond of the turn based combat type Playstation games. (Like, say, that chess game that C3PO and Chewbacca were playing in Star Wars.) Right now, I'm playing Gladius. In fact, I've been playing it since Christmas. I don't get too much Playstation time these days.
I think Gladius and Front Mission 3 are the two best TBC games I've played. Though the one that really turned me onto this genre was Advance Wars 2, which I played on my nephew's borrowed GBA when I was in China.
Now, in my perfect little Playstation game world, we'd have more Tactics games. And I call them Tactics games for a reason, as that word is code for Turn Based when it's put in the title. So, here are some titles I'd like to see:
Armored Core Tactics - Front Mission 3 (and 4, but I still haven't played that) are great mech customizing combat games. But, while there are about 30 or so weapons in FM3, the Armored Core series has hundreds. I think AC2, the only one I've played so far (though I do own AC2: Another Age), has over 200 and they are five titles past that in the series now (at least in Japan, I don't think we got the last one).
Ghost Recon Tactics or Freedom Fighters Tactics - Or basically, any of the squad based shooters. For some reason, 99% of all Tactics games are fantasy based. I'm sorry, but I just don't dig the whole fantasy thing. But I will be playing Final Fantasy Tactics once I get around to it. Which will probably be around 2008 considering I've got a stack of games waiting on me. Freedom Fighters just gets a nod here since it is my favorite Squad Based Shooter. But that's probably only because we don't have Full Spectrum Warrior yet.
The Matrix Tactics - Ooh, I'm such a nerd. But it would be really cool to have a tactics game set in the matrix world.
And another thing, I'd like these games to be in more of a smooth way, rather than I move, computer moves type way. I'd rather see things move simultaneously in slow mo or something. And get rid of the grid system (which Phantom Brave already did that, but fat chance I'll be playing Phantom Brave.)
Ok, that's even more rambling that I like. Next topic.
Chinese Monotone
I think one of the reasons that westerners sometimes think that English-as-a-Second-Language Chinese are unfriendly is that they speak in a monotone. The lady at the takeout place near us does that, but she'd friendly and all, but you sure can't tell from the way she talks. I think this is mainly because they are raised having tones as part of the word, and then they get here and there is no tone, so they speak everything flat. Just my lil theory.
Railroad Day
I have done some extensive driving today at work. I have gone over approximately six RR crossings and three of those have had trains on them today. What is with that? I rarely see trains. Of course, I was running late for work, and I should have expected to see the coal train. (Where we are, electricity is coal).
Expensive Plastic
Tonight, I think I'll be buying Nina a playground set. Not one of those big ones, but a little one. I might also pick up the playhouse we'll be getting for her, but I think we might also wait until her birthday for that. But, heck, she's going to be two. Two ballons and a cake will make a two year old happy. (Though I'm sure it'll be a big deal anyway, but I just want to buy the lil house now too.) Oh, and playgound thing = $200, lil house = $140. But the little house I really like is $350.
(And I didn't know they had an adobe playhouse until I got to their site. ooh.)
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Clean Ears Too
Well, I'm not sure what the deal is/was with my blog being all misformatted. I'm hoping that nothing got corrupted or whatever. But that's what this little nothing post is about. Pushing the messed up content down, or seeing that it's actually the messed up header.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
It Does Make Sense
Though I'm not sure that I even need to get new earbuds. But there are some silicone "foams" that funnel the sound into your ear canal that I think would be nice. Keeps me from buying the Koss "The Plug" headphones.
But the earbuds that came with my Sandisk digital audio player are actually better than my $20 Sony buds. I wonder what brand they actually are, because Sandisk is really just a flash memory place. But the MP3 player rocks. (Though it has converted me from 128 whatever MP3s to 64 whatevers WMAs).
And if you haven't zipped over to AllofMP3.com, and are a music person, you really should. They totally rock.
Day Off
Alison's mom had knee surgery on Monday, so Tom and her took off work. Tom took his mom to the hospital, and Alison stayed with Nina. See, Alison's mom is our babysitter for Nina while Alison is still working. And Alison's last day of work is next Friday. Woot.
Well, Alison was off to take care of Nina and also see if her mom needed any thing on Tuesday also, so I took off work too. And had a really good day.
In the morning, Alison, Nina, and I went to the duck pond downtown. Nina had a lot of fun, but the last few days she's been acting a little oofy, and I'm not so sure it's not sinuses. She then took a three hour nap.
Alison Wal-Marted during the nap while I played Gladius on the Playstation. I'm playing through again with the alledgedly more difficult Roman campaign. But I know so much more about the game, I'm just uberpowerful.
After the three hours, Nina started making waking up sounds, and since Alison and I were ready for her to be awake, we went on in and said hi. Well, Nina was still super sleepy and would probably have slept longer, but too late now, eh?
We went to a playground in the afternoon, but Nina was just so tired that we only played for a little while, then got Alison's mom a shake at Sonic and took it to her.
The rest of the day went well too. A highlight was Alison and I playing follow the leader with Nina, which amounts to an intense abdominal workout. Nina loved us clapping when she clapped and lying down when she lied down. When Nina and I were still playing some simple toddler game, Alison came in with "blankie" and Nina gladly went off to bed.
It was how I really wish every Saturday could be. But we tend to have errands pile up on us and end up running around on Saturdays.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Singing at Church
Our congregation has rotating song leaders. We used to have just one, but he moved too far away. Though he did do nearly an hour one-way commute for a while, eventually he realized how silly that was.
Molto Lento Accompagnato Buffa
The youngest song leader can turn any song into a dirge. There was a song in 4/4 time which I added up should have been 17 seconds per verse. It was actually 70 per verse the way he did it.
Oh, and I know that I should not have this attitude during worship, and I try not to, but during that song I had lots of spare time.
Canzone Oscura
The guy who's currently pulling Sunday morning song leading is fond of obscure hymns. Not that I want some catchy, Beatles-esque songs, but the ones he picks are unpopular for a reason. They are hard to remember how they go. They're not very melodious, they have no hooks, and usually the bass section is all over the place.
Mr. Bass Man
I sing bass. I suppose I should sing tenor, but tenors do stuff besides drone. Bass usually is more a drone line, and since I find it so hard to find the notes in the first place, once I've got it right, we might as well use that note for every word for six bars.
Fat Don't Make You A Tenor, Lady
When I say tenor, I think of the Three Tenors©. Note that Luciano and the other two guys are, in fact, guys. There is a lady who sits near us who sings tenor, but an octave high. It's very strange. She's a heavy lady, and I wonder if that shapes her perceptions of what she should sing.
The Sopranos
Really, 80% of everyone sings soprano. Heck, I sing bass about 70% of the time and then soprano the other 30%. Mainly because minor-key dirges from the 1840s get picked by the current guy and I can just sing with the rest of everyone. Well, actually, when we get one of those, I'd say the majority of people don't sing.
Canzone Oscura II
And that's what really makes it interesting, why is this guy allowed to start the service off on the wrong foot by making us all stumble around on some unknown lame song. I mean, chuck out a standard. Trust and Obey. Amazing Grace. Anything that we actually know as the first song. If you want to bring the service to a screeching halt, do it after a prayer or something, not first thing.
Summer Camp Songs
Our hymnbook goes up to around 900-something. Any time you hear that we're singing a hymn with a number above 800, it's one that was written since 1980. And let me tell you, QA/QC was not practiced on religious songs since about 1976 or so. As the Deer Panteth for the Water is one of my personal un-favorites. All the songs sound like something you'd sing as some baptist summer camp, as I'm sure they all were.
Turn of the Other Century
I really prefer hymns written between around 1890 and 1920. If you attend a church and have congregational singing (the only kind we have, so no lousy and pretentious solos from the preachers wife, as I was tortured with when I was a baptist growing up), you might know what I'm talking about. That time period really produced some nice stuff for us basses. Though I'd have to say, right around 1911 or so, they get a little too Anchors Away. But better that than some song no one has ever heard, and once we try it, everyone realizes why we never sing that. Cause it sucks.
Disclaimer and Explanation
I am firmly aware that worship services are just that, for worship. My entertainment is not the issue. I'm trying to please God. I'll admit that I should do my best at making a "joyful noise", and I do. But this is something that's really obvious. The quality of the singing suffers. Then again, it's not like we're paying anyone to be a song leader or anything.
Flalto
Oh, and I think the lady who sang alto, loud and flat, died about two years ago. Man, I tell ya, it was When Flat Altos Attack!
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Nightmare
The norm for me these days is to wake up in the middle of the night. It's always around 1:30 or 2 and I'll think it's about 10 minutes before my alarm goes off at 5:35, I'll look at my watch, see what time it is, and fall back asleep. I used to not be able to get back to sleep that quick, but I'm getting better at it.
What woke me up last night was the dream I was having. It was a nightmare, but a very subtle one. I wasn't being chased or hunted or falling. We had gotten a phone call from Alison's mom. She said that Nina was over at her place. We said no, that Nina was here in her crib. We checked and there was no Nina in her crib. Alison's mom said that someone had found her walking down the street. Then I woke up.
I think you have to be a parent to totally understand the total "oh, crap"ness of that. Maybe not. But it freaked me out. I almost went down stairs to check on Nina.
TV or Lack Thereof
The only show that I'm actually watching on TV, besides maybe a Forensic Files while I eat dinner every third night or so, is Amazing Race. And Amazing Race 6 just ended. I got no TV.
But it's not like I'm watching TV anyhow. I still haven't watched the 2 hr finale of The Amazing Race that happened on Tuesday. I'll probably watch it tonight or tomorrow.
But I have been watching Nina's TV. Dumb ol' Maisy, Blue, the stinkin' Wiggles, I spit in their general direction. I'm pretty tired of kid shows. I am just so glad that she doesn't watch Teletubbies and that Barney is 12 years out of style. Oh, and Play with Me Sesame. Gah, I can't stand that show. Ernie is irritating. Bert is irritating. Prairie Dawn is tolerable. Grover is ok. But they only have about 30 different segments that they use. And since there are about 10 per show, seeing the same crap over and over really gets to me.
The two headed monster with the newspaper has to be my most hated, least favorite. My favorite segment is when we have the art show with Prairie Dawn. Interesting to see these drawings which look like they're from disturbed children. I mean, whole pages covered in red and black scribbles is a cry for help, yo.
Monday, February 07, 2005
A Day of Discoveries
Saturday morning, after I discovered that I had no coffee (not one of the discoveries I'm talking about though) and went out to Publix and bought some Starbucks Sumatran, yogurt, and crumbled feta cheese, I was a lil hurtin' dog needing some caffeine. And, see, I've acquired this pseudo-addiction to expensive energy drinks (Sobe NoFear or, preferably, Monster). So, I stopped at the Texaco and bought a Monster. But they also had Rip It Fuel, which has a 99 cent price point.
A little research shows that it's actually the people behind Shasta and Faygo pulling this off. It's still got a gram of taurine in it, but they're sweetening it with high fructose corn syrup. And having a price that's half of Monster, I think I'll end up buying it more.
And while the market might be flooded with 16 oz carbonated energy drinks, my convenience stores are not. It hard to find a Sobe NoFear, I still haven't seen Coca Cola's Full Throttle, and Jolt's new products are no where to be seen.
Discovery II
After Nina's nap, which Alison vacated the house to help her mom unpack from her June move (gasp), we all went to the Kid's Kingdom. I thought it was going to be some small thing. But it was huge. And free. I think this will be a regular thing for the kiddo.
Video Game Discovery (3)
After spending 67 hours playing Gladius, and getting 20 very cool gladiators, and having over a million dollars worth of stuff and 999,999 in liquid assets (I don't sell since the game never expected me to hit the million dollar mark I guess), I win the game. And I tell you, the last three hours of that was really amazing. They really should have had some of the Dark God show up earlier, or at least stuff like The Beast of the Air and crap. They were killer (but I killed them).
After I killed the Dark God, the game prompts you to save. I did. The credits start. I skip the credits. It dumps me at the title screen. I load my game. The credits start. Noooooooooo! Yes, I worked on these gladiators for freakin' ever and now they're gone gone gone.
I wonder if I actually watch through the stupid credits if I can get back to my game. It would be really tacky of Lucasarts to force a person to sit through the credits. Is it not enough that you got my money? Do I really have to be forced to watch the credits.
But, even so, great great game. (If you like turn based combat)
Friday, February 04, 2005
I [heart] Indian Tech Support
So, since a little before Christmas, our internet at home has been wonky. I say wonky, and not slow, because it was only partly slow. Our download speed was 250ish whatevers but our upload speed was only like 17 whatevers. 17 is very slow.
In mid January, I called and got some corn-fed Iowa nerd who didn't help me worth crap. "Have you installed any new software?" No. "I want you to reboot the computer." Yawn. That was it. He basically said he'd check something out but called me back to let me know to live with it.
Yesterday, since I never had, I pushed the reset button on the DSL modem. Then the internet didn't work at all.
And see, in the slowness, even though it was nearly impossible to get to a web page (lots of asking through the uploadness there) I was still able to get music off AllofMP3 since their catalog is installed on my computer.
So, I call. I get tech support.
She said her name was Tanya, but it probably really isn't. She had me:
- Try to get on the internet
- Delete cookies, delete temp internet stuff
- Try getting online again
- Reboot
- Go to some http://number thing which was a login
- log in, read some versions to her
- enable remote access to the modem so she could update the modem's software
I didn't even realize the modem had software. And now that I think about it, that login was probably something resident inside the modem itself.
During the modem upgrade, she asked how my day was. "It was pretty good. It's been raining and I have to check flow monitors, so I got all muddy, but I was listening to my walkman, so it was pretty fun."
I then asked if she was in India. She was. "Cool" I said. I asked how her day was, but then remembered it was morning. "Yes, it's 6:34 a.m." she said. That's odd, since it was 6:50something our time. Clock slow?
I told her Good Morning and she laughed in a way that I could tell she was really sleepy. The upgrade finished. She told me to get online and it worked. I told her she was great, and she is.
Hurray. Tonya the Indian Tech Support Gal Rocks!
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
They're Cats
Saturday, we took the cats to get their annual rabies shots. It's a law. We don't get any of the other crazy vaccinations, as there is no reason since the cats don't go outside. I also declined the $100 per cat analysis of stuff I couldn't take care of if we knew anyway.
But what really irritated me, but not really so much (but then again, I am talking about it now), is when we first came in, some old, long haired crazy cat lady (I can only assume crazy cat lady) said, "Are those the Postagulous children?" Alison, humoring this loon, said yes. I said, "Actually, she's with her grandmother, these are the cats."
This incident is after Alison called to make the appointment and got some animo-centric weirdity. Alison explains why we didn't get the rabies shot in August when it was due (oops) by telling them that we have recently adopted. "Oh, a cat person or a dog person," the total whackjob said. Alison let them know it was actually human. I'm sure they were disappointed.
And, let's be honest here. As much as I love Zapato, Mouse, and Velvet, we didn't adopt them. We got Zap and Mouse free and we bought Velvet. Pets are property. They will never get old enough that they transcend the fact that they are under ownership. They are limited in their mental abilities, which frankly are probably the most sharp then they are six months old.
And even though I let the cat lady know, perhaps too subtly, that these were actually cats, and not in fact our children, that didn't stop her from saying, "Exam room 2 is ready for the Postagulous children."
I then ripped her arm off and beat her with the wet end while screaming THEY'RE CATS THEY'RE CATS THEY'RE CATS!
Raining
It's raining today. I'm not terribly fond of that. In fact, when walking through the rain to the building this morning, as cold cold rain was hitting my head, I said outloud to myself, "This is really annoying."
Not Houdini
Yesterday, after I had left for work, Alison decided to take the trash out to the street for the truck to pick up. In the minute it takes to do that, Nina turned the little locky thing on the inside of the door, locking Alison out. In her pajamas. The ones with the cats on the paper thin pant legs.
Alison tried to get Nina to unlock the door. And Nina tried to unlock the door. Alison heard Nina trying the locking mechanism, but realized it was a lost cause when Nina resorted to knocking on the door to get it to open.
Alison went next door to Kurt and Melony's house and called me. I zipped home and opened the place.
We had just started Nina's "dance tape" (a tape I made with songs from her favorite shows) so Nina was either playing near the window Alison was outside of, or dancing in front of the TV, which does include Rolling Down The Sand Hills.
In the afternoon, I took Nina to the playground at the mall. I forgot a sippy cup, so Nina got to drink about 8 oz of 7up. She was in a great mood that night too. I went and got Chinese food (hot and spicy beef).
Overall, besides the minor crisis, it was a pretty good day.
But, yeah, today it's raining and just plain sucks, at least weatherwise.
