Attack of the Clones

I made it about 1/3 of the way through it and couldn't keep my eyes open, so around 3:30, I went to bed.

On the plus side, the marathon is being replayed throughout the weekend, so I didn't really even need to stay up all fucking night to watch it. Terrific. I could have slept in my comfy bed and watched it this afternoon.

Meh.

The Phantom Menace

So far, so good. Star Wars in HD looks terrific (I wish it weren't in the middle of the frickin' night so I could turn the sub-woofer on - but I'm nervous about pissing off my neighbors so my 7.1 surround sound system than can pump out 1000 watts is in stereo mode with the center and L/R channels cranked up)

It's almost 2am and I'm not really feeling too tired. The nap I took this evening helped out a lot with that (*sigh* I need to take naps now to stay up late).

And I don't care how stale and wooden Natalie Portman's dialog is in the movies, I still want to have sex with her.

Am I getting old?

So there's a Star Wars marathon starting in about 30 minutes (at midnight EST) - it's all 6 episodes in order, in Hi-Def. It begins with Phantom menace at midnight and ends with Return of the Jedi at 11:30am (Jedi ends around 2pm) - that's 14 hours worth of Star Wars.

Needless to say, when I first heard about the marathon, I was really excited. I've always loved Star Wars - I even liked Phantom menace (sorta).

Here's the thing, though...I'm not 20 anymore...yeah, yeah, I'm only 27, but still. In college, I wouldn't think twice about staying up all night on a whim to play video games, drink, study (all you Alpha-Chi'ers...keep yer damn mouths shut). I work full time, and really only have the weekends to do the things I want - do I wanna spend a large portion of it watching a marathon that I know is going to make me tired and useless for the rest of the weekend?

I thought I'd keep make a post about my progress through each movie and see if I can 1) last through all 6 episodes and 2) make it through the weekend without sleeping through the rest of it

I'll make a new post with each episode. Read along, watch along, or go back to bed....your choice

...

Wherever your politics may lie (about 10 minutes long)





Watched it on the Tugg's blog, and it's worth multiple views

The land of the beautiful people

Is where I now live. No, I didn't move to LA (I still have a couple of morals...they're lying around here somewhere). The apartment building I moved into is nicknamed "the land of the beautiful people"...why you ask? Uhhh...because of it's superior architecture...why do you think, artard? More attractive women reside in this building than in any other location in NVA. Not sure why or what's so special about this building, but I don't care 'cause I live there.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking...how'd they let a slob like me in? It wasn't easy and I had to promise to use the side entrance and I can't use the pool or exercise room during daylight hours. It's worth it, though. Every day I see an attractive woman...getting her mail, in the elevator, walking around doing beautiful people things. Each day, the women seem to get more attractive.

And if you're wondering how many of their numbers I have and how many of them I talk to...well, you clearly don't know me at all, do you?

If I'm not feeling lazy and there's daylight when I go home, maybe I'll take some pics of the building or something.

Watched pots do boil...eventually

The same goes for mailboxes. There are benefits and drawbacks to ordering albums from the UK. In the plus column, you can get a lot of music before it's released in the US. Especially from bands that enjoy more popularity in Europe and near obscurity in the US. In the negative, however, you pay a premium (exchange rates, prices in the UK are generally higher and of course..shipping) and you have to wait fucking bloody ages for things to arrive.
Naturally, I'm speaking of the latest album from my favorite band Rammstein: Rosenrot. Which was released on Oct 28th in most of Europe and probably won't come to the US until sometime in 2006. I pre-ordered the album from musicnonstop.co.uk, who are basically my only source for buying Rammstein albums outside the US. The only downside to the whole transaction was that I had to wait almost 10 days for the frickin' album to arrive and as some of you probably know (some..ok, all) I'm not the most patient person when it comes to things that I want. I like my gratification instant, thank you.
So, finally after days and days of waiting (have you ever noticed that when you're expecting something in the mail, the less of it you get?), the album came and of course, it's awesome and was completely worth the wait.
As with all their albums, it's a good mix of hard, fast, loud angry songs with a couple of slower ones thrown in to keep it interesting. Since I'm betting that most of my readers aren't big Rammstein fans, I won't bore you with a song-by-song review. Rather, I'll simply say that the title song (Rosenrot), Spring, Zerstoren and Ein Lied are among my favorites right now.

In other news, look for a review of the new Cingular Blackberry 8700c. Just as soon as I can dupe my company into buying it for me. I am also accepting donations to buy my own so I can take it with me when I eventually give my 4 word departure.

Oh, and for all you retail monkeys out there. If I'm standing in your line, with items to purchase, ring me up first and then go on break. Don't go on break right when it's my turn after I've been standing in your line for 10 minutes. If it happens again, I'll throw a temper tantrum that will make a potomac soccer mom blush. You've been warned.

A techie blog first: product reviews

It's really only a first on this blog because I've got nothing else to write about and I don't want to go another month without updating.

First on the table: Netgear's WPN824 RangeMax Wireless Router.
Why am I reviewing this? 'Cause I just bought it and it's cool. The reason I decided to upgrade my current wireless router is that my sister just got a new laptop and signed up for broadband, so rather than have her plunk down more money on a wireless router, I figured it'd be better if I gave her mine and upgraded what I've got. Aren't I a great brother? Also, my router kept dropping the connection, so it was either toss it out the window or give it away.

And now....the review.
This router rocks. It looks very cool, a little macish-looking, but it's small and the signal hasn't dropped off once (well..except for that one time...but my cordless phone was right next to my laptop and the phone rang).
The idea of the router is that it has 7 internal antennas which find the best route between the router and all connected devices. Essentially, the antennas are supposed to move around sources of interference (microwaves, cell phones, other wireless APs). If you look at the pictures on the box you'll see they have a nice diagram of the wireless signals bouncing and refracting from the router to the connected PCs and laptops. How Netgear managed to make a wireless signal bend in mid-air is beyond me. Maybe one of my astronomy and physics-minded readers can fill me in on how that's possible.
The main downside is that the dome on the router is really bright, so if your internet hookup is in your bedroom (like mine is), it might be a little too bright while you're trying to sleep. They do include a cap that is supposed to cover the antenna dome, but it 1) doesn't block out all the light and 2) it blocks out the neat display of the antennas moving around.
Also, you can't mount it on the wall, which kinda bites. Especially if you had the last one on the wall and there isn't room on your desk for it. I'll get by.

In closing, I would highly recommend this router if you live in an area that is saturated with other people's wireless signals. Also recommended is the RangeMax wireless PC card (WPN511).
If you still have trouble with other people goofing with your wireless signal, get Pre-N. The goal is to get something incompatible with everyone else's AP, so that's either 802.11A or Pre-N.

Of course, if you get something that's too incompatible you won't be able to do any wardriving when your connection goes down.

Maybe I'll make this a regular feature, we'll see. I do take requests. If you want me to review something, buy it for me and I'll review it and tell you to buy one for yourself. I figure this is useful for people who have more money than me and like being told what to do.

The return of the Klingon

yeah, yeah, yeah..it's been awhile since I posted anything. Big deal, wanna fight about it?

So this is what's been going on with me lately.

I'm searching for a new place to live, hopefully before the (mis)management of my current apartment drives me completely insane. See, the apartment building I live in now used to be all rentals. A new company bought the building and they're converting to over-priced condos. Part of this conversion is the complete remodeling of the building and every unit (for currently occupied units, they wait until we move out to renovate).
You can probably imagine what it's like to live in a place that's being torn down and rebuilt right under your feet. Most of the work is done while I'm at work, but for the last couple of months they've been starting earlier and earlier and they work on the weekends now too.
I can usually tolerate a lot of noise, but the last couple of nights have been pretty bad. They re-tiled the main lobby the other night (they started working on it at 5pm and didn't stop until after 9pm), and the amount of noise these guys made was unbearable. I couldn't hear myself think, I had to leave my place for an hour just to get some peace.

Soon enough, though all these minor annoyances will be behind me. I'll be in a new place (perhaps in a different state?), with new annoyances to give me migraines. Kind of like the one I have now...

That's all for now, since my head is pounding so much I can't see straight.

And for those of you who have been asking...the alienware laptop is fantastic

Minor change

Hi all,
Just to let you know, I turned on word verification for the comments. So, now when you want to leave a comment, you'll get prompted to enter a random set of letters before you can post the comment.
I've been noticing some "comment spam" and Blogger says that word verification should reduce or outright elminate it.
I feel bad about making people who read and comment on the blog go through an extra step to post their thoughts, but this is the shite state of affairs these days. If there was a way to reduce comment spam without punishing the people who post relevant comments, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Thanks for reading and for posting

-dmk