Brain Dump

I'm beat. Stupid Zotob and all the other variants targeting the security hole. I worked straight through a ten hour shift yesterday with barely ten minutes away from my desk to use the waste facilities. And this thing only infects Win2K machines! At least twice I was asked to develop new reports and get them regularly scheduled with less than a half-hour lead time. I have never felt more like a Visual Basic MacGuyver then yesterday.

Part of me is aggravated. Part of me is pretty proud that I met every demand within the deadlines given me. And part of me really wanted some BBQ, so we had Smokey Bones for dinner. Considering it's a chain barbeque place, it's pretty good.

I was so tied up yesterday, I couldn't go to the psychiatrist appointment with my youngest son. They're saying he has early signs of ADHD and are recommending medication. For a four year old. Sheesh. However, he has been kicked out of two daycares already due to his complete lack of control in certain situations. When he's throwing chairs at two years old, you start to worry.

I hate the idea of drugging up my kid. But what if he really has ADHD, and this will help him? He's pretty smart when he puts his mind to something - he has a pretty complicated vocabulary for his age, and regularly does worksheets faster than other kids his age. And he can beat his brother at some of the games we have loaded on their computer. (He really digs the Toy Story 2 Activity Center software. Before that he liked starting Bear and the Big Blue House over and over until the video card screwed up and displayed everything wrong.) He's also cute as a button and one of the mushiest kids I know. I'm looking for a good picture as I type this. Found one - first day of school this year: youngest on the left, oldest on the right.

So if we deny him the medication when he needs it, are we any better than Head Wacko Tom Cruise? I don't know. I just know that if it turns my little boy into a listless zombie, I'll have felt that I've made a tragic mistake.

So anyway, not much else going on. I decided to play the MechAssault 2 campaign all the way through, since it was short (two nights of play and I was done). Pretty easy, and would have peeved me if the multiplayer wasn't fun, and I pretty much got it for a song. BG&E is already in the tray, ready for my next game session.

---

Link of the moment: Want to improve your vocabulary? Try the visual thesaurus.

Indecisive

I just finished Lego Star Wars last night, unlocking everything except invinciblility without using cheat codes (I didn't feel like trying to round up the million studs just to buy God Mode, so I left it unpurchased). Fun game that I'll probably go back to every so often. If my kids can get themselves off restriction, it's probably a good one for them, too - except for that frustrating pod race. Those dang sand people are completely unwelcome in my boulder-strewn race course, thank you very much.

So now I have to figure out what to play next for my single player enjoyment. I've got twenty-five single-player experiences waiting for me to play beyond my usual selection of multiplayer Live games and City of Heroes, and I'm stumped. Do I tackle something huge like Mercenaries, GTA:SA or Gladius? Or do I go with some lighter fare like Metal Arms, BloodRayne or PoP:WW? Or should I get in gear on something critically acclaimed like Beyond Good & Evil? Then again, I could always hone my online skills by playing a single player mode on one of the Splinter Cells, MechAssault 2, or Ghost Recon 2. I know, life is rough. (Then again, if I'm worrying about this, I'm also not worrying about the hurricane damage to my house or the problems the kids are having in school.) Since I didn't pay anything close to retail price for most of them, I don't feel obligated to finish one or another for the purpose of recouping value through trades, though it would be nice.

There's family in town, so Patti is going to bingo tonight with some of them. I've got the kids - but once they go to bed I've got the house to myself. So I can play whatever I want without worrying about whether the PC or TV is in use until 2300 or so.

I think my cybernetic supercop senses are tingling, so I'll probably run a mission or two on CoH tonight unless otherwise compelled. But tomorrow, Patti will probably be working on another Pogo badge, so it's back to the Xbox for me.

Oh, and I added three more toys to my desk since that picture was taken (another Transformer and two magnetic Mega Blok knights), and the internet is sending me another seven thanks to some good deals. I should probably look for a twelve-step program for this.

---

Link of the moment: Speaking of interactive digital entertainment, what video game character are you?

Desk Reference

So yeah, month end has been pretty busy, as mentioned before. So I didn't get this done as soon as I wanted to. But as promised, I took a picture of my desk at work. Since some of it might be unclear, I've labelled the various objects so I could point them out here. Click the picture for a larger version. (And yes, I am aware it is messy as heck.)

1. Mega Bloks Bunny


2. Super Deformed Darth Vader


3. Mega Bloks Nano Off Road Runner (vehicle not visible)


4. Technic Stormtrooper


5. Soundbox for Puzz3D R2-D2


6. Some Lego Star Wars Minis (Millenium Falcon, AT-AT, Imperial Shuttle and Star Destroyer) and a Lego Rebel Snowspeeder


7. Mega Bloks Wolverine Super Tech


8. Marvel Mini-Mates, including Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Man (twice), Wolverine, Cyclops, Thing, Doc Ock, Rhino, Green Goblin, and Doctor Doom


9. "Cyber Chuck" Charlie Brown Figurine


10. Knight's Kingdom by Lego (All six of the 2004 series)


11. Mega Bloks Ship


12. Klingon Bird-of-Prey (floppy disk origami)


13. Starship Enterprise (floppy disk origami)


14. Small Snoopy stand-up


15. Mega Bloks Airplane


16. Toa Nuju Bionicle


17. Mega Bloks Supersonic Fighter


18. Mega Bloks Lobster


19. Lego X-Pod Robot


20. The rest of the Lego Star Wars Minis (two Tie Fighters, AT-ST, X-Wing, Snowspeeder, Y-Wing, Jedi Starfighter, Slave One, Anakin's Podracer, Sebulba's Podracer, Republic Gunship, AT-TE, MTT, and Sith Infiltrator)


21. Smokesreen (Transformers Alternator)


22. Silverstreak (Transformers Alternator)


23. Dead End (Transformers Alternator)


24. Windcharger (Transformers Alternator)


25. Side Swipe (Transformers Alternator)


26. Hidden at this angle under the Mouskateer hat, a stuffed Snoopy


27. Scattorshot (Transformers Cybertron)


28. Warthog with Gauss Cannon


29. Side Burn (Tranformers Universe)


30. Xevoz figures (On monitor: Razorclaw, Bone Cutter, Dune Stinger, and Moon Stalker; on cube wall: Shock Berzerker, Iron Spectre, Skull Jack, Shadow Blade, Alpha Ranger, Sledge Trooper, Hemo Goblin)


31. Puzz3D Helicopter


32. Snoopy as World War One Flying Ace


33. Perceptor Gestalt (Transformers Energon)


34. Bruticus Gestalt (Transformers G2 Alternate Paint)


35. Mega Bloks Spider-Man Super Tech


36. Snoopy candy bowl, traditionally filled with M&Ms

So there ya go. My desk.

---

Link of the moment: When I'm not around, do my toys have a block party?

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

I love end-of-month time. I get swamped at work and have so much to do, its pretty fun. I like having things to do and my monthly reports give me a staged set of goals to meet. This time around with the new company, I've also got some new requests and such inserted into the mix that is making it even more interesting. I also have about twenty back-burnered projects that I'd like to tackle. That might sound daunting to some, but it's what gets me in the door each day. Once a job is old and there's nothing new to look forward to, that is when it's time to move on.

I don't really have any pictures here at the blog. At some point, I've got to fix that. My cubicle, especially, needs to be digitally recorded. I love toys, and it shows. Despite the three computers I need to do my job, plus various paperwork and phone equipment, I have quite the collection. A quick count right now puts it at 74 different toys, and that's counting the two gestalt Transformers as one toy each. Lately, I've been collecting Xevoz figures. They're a discontinued toy line from Hasbro based off of Stikfas. These things are loads of fun to put together and play with. I could probably make some kind of cheesy stop-motion video and rake in the mad loot or something. Most of the ones I am missing are rare and expensive, so it doesn't sound like such a bad idea at the moment.

Well, while I run another report, I've got to figure out where those twenty headsets I ordered have gotten to, since they were due in last week. I've got contractors sharing headsets, and that's about one smidge below sharing toothbrushes.

---

Link of the moment: Pete's link back here (thanks!) reminded me of Pokethulu. I probably shouldn't even think about that.

Cruisin'

The title only works if you listen with your arcade ear for the digital voice on that car racing game.

In any case, I've got a new car. Specifically a brand new electric blue 2005 PT Cruiser. It's a little over two weeks old now, with almost 1200 miles on it. I'm loving it. I was originally looking for a minivan or SUV, but wasn't really excited by anything save perhaps the overpriced Nissan Murano. Then by some strange coincidence, three different people recommended the PT within a two day period of time. That was wiggy enough to make me take a look.

I poked around the Chrysler website, checked out a few car review sites, and everything was pretty positive. Except for the fact that I've always thought it was ugly as sin. Then I checked back the next day - not so ugly. Then Chrysler decides to do the employee pricing thing, and then, it's looking pretty nice. So I figure out the best dealership in the area that has what I want and head out.

On first pass, I wasn't impressed with the salesman. I've got a pet peeve about phones and customer service - if you are assisting me (and your paycheck is dependant on my willingness to buy), answering your cell phone is a good way to annoy me, especially if it's a personal call and you don't make any attempt to excuse yourself. I knew exactly which car I wanted (dealership web developers, take note: online inventory made me pick this dealership instead of one closer to home), and he found it pretty quickly. Then he starts pointing out the features of the car - which is cool, because the whole point of the visit was to actually sit in one and see how it worked - by reading the sticker - which is not cool. Okay, red flags start going off.

But then, something changed, and I'm not sure what. Maybe it was the fact that this dealership is set up like a parking garage, and the guy trusted me to drive the slalom course of new cars down to the ground level. Maybe because he started to loosen up and realized I was probably an easy sale. Or maybe he was just a little nervous himself. When we found out he'd only had this job for the past seven weeks, I became a little more forgiving. I drove it around and it was pretty much what I wanted in a car. He had the sale.

Of course, the financing piece of the puzzle was a freakin' bear. Why does this stuff have to be so hard? When I say I don't want meteor strike coverage, give up. When I say I can get a certain rate for a certain period from my credit union, don't insult my intelligence by claiming you're giving me a better rate by increasing the period by another year and knocking two hundredths of a percentage off. I can do math.

Anyway, everything worked out fine, and I drove out of there in my new Cruiser, all of 23 miles on it. A thousand miles later, and I'm still very happy with it.

Aside #1: My previous car was a '95 Dodge Neon I bought new in May of 1994. My car was the first Neon in the Aqua paint job sold at my dealership. I put about 188,000 miles on it and drove it pretty much into the ground, and maybe put all of about a thousand dollars in repairs into it during its entire lifespan (not counting things that wear like tires and such). That car owed me nothing, and still managed to get me $1500 in trade at the dealership. I salute you, friend, and appreciate your service.

Aside #2: The salesman? His previous job was a nurse caring for babies on life support. That's a freakin' emotional job if I ever heard one. He put something like 25 years into it, and was starting to feel beat down, emotionally. I guess car sales was a little less stressful. We're cool now, though I need to get the dang survey in the mail soon so he'll stop calling me to make sure everything is alright (because his paycheck is based on how I rate the sale).

Aside #3: The whole family loves the car. Patti still thinks it's ugly, but the boys love riding in it.

---

Link of the moment: Tangentially related to cars, test your sanity.