September 2005 Archives

"Those jeans are great. They make you look hotter than you look...

No. No. Nonononono. That's not what I meant.

I mean, they make you look hotter than you actually are..."

We all know what you mean, Carrie.

It's true

So last night I went to the scotch tasting, as I had mentioned before. I did not actually get very intoxicated, despite tasting nine different single-malts. Mmm... No, I didn't get a chance to blog last night because I was up too late, as the evening kept on going and going.

So my friend David and I met up at Frondizis at 6:30. We were escorted to a private dining room were we met sat with two other composers from UMKC and a fifth person that none of us had met before. Overall, there were only four tables in the room, so including the presenter, waiter, and guy who put everything together, there were maybe 20-24 people there. It was delightful.

Now, the scotch tasting was fantastic, but unfortunately it seems I have expensive tastes. Turns out the bottle that I really enjoyed, a 1989 15-year Aultmore (114 proof) runs a little over $90 a bottle. Ouch. My second choice, a 1992 12-year Glen Scotia went for $68. Oh well. So I didn't take home a bottle of scotch this evening, but that's not to say that the evening was a waste.

For one thing, I learned quite a bit about the process of making scotch and the art of scotch tasting. Yummy. But the best part was the company. Turns out that the fifth guy at our table is on the opera board here in Kansas City and travels the world seeing amazing opera performances. The evening went on for many hours (indeed, the organizer left before we did) as we chatted and sipped scotch. It was amazing. I mean, the exclusive event, private dining, exquisite drinks, and opera discussion was fantastic. I felt just like I was living a scene from Frasier. I has rubbing elbows with some of Kansas City's elite and loving every minute of it. For a while, I even forgot how little money I make as a graduate student.

Ah, the good life.

Thankfully, I do not make much, and cannot indulge my burgeoning expensive tastes. But I have to admit, it was fun for a while.

It's National Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I'm just sayin'. Arrr.

Tomorrow evening, I will be attending a local event that, I feel, should be an excellent start to the week. Normally, Monday's have little that I tend to look forward to. I have to get up way to early, deal with annoying high school kids all day, blah blah blah you get the idea. Well, tomorrow night will be something completely new for me (no, not that, that came on May 28th), I will be attending a scotch tasting.

Now, I'm a fairly recent newcomer to the world of scotch, but a friend of mine, David, promises to give me a proper introduction tomorrow night.

Oh, and you should consider this fair warning about any blog post that would appear tomorrow evening. The cost of this little shindig is $30, and I plan on getting my money's worth. Do not fret, however, as my adorable wife promises to provide transportation.

Until tomorrow, then.

Carrie and I made our weekly trip to Petsmart again to look at kitties. As we currently live in an apartment that doesn't allow large pets, we are merely scoping the scene. Normally, this is a fun event, but today was even better. While the small pets collection is always good, there were an exceptionally large number of dwarf hamsters available. These, I'm afraid to say, are my favorite pet so far (I've never had a cat or dog, or anything bigger than a syrian hamster, for that matter).

They had many different varieties of the Campbells, Winter White, and Chinese hamsters. I wanted to take them all home. Indeed, Carrie and I were very close to buying another cage and getting two or three more. Thankfully, we did not, for I had been neglecting my poor friend, David.

David is a Black Russian Campbells Dwarf Hamster and is starting to go get silver patches as he gets older. I had forgotten how cute he could be, and for that matter how long it had been since I had cleaned his cage. So I took care of the little guy (who adorns the majestic flag of Andreas Potens) and really enjoyed it. Since he is now about 1 yr and 4 months old, I better appreciate him a bit more while he is still around, eh?

Or at least until we get a cat, that either A) eats him or B) literally scare him to death (it happened to a friend of mine).

Ok, so that's a bit of an odd post for me, so I think I'll have to mention how awesome I'm getting at Mario Kart Double Dash. I've been playing entirely too much lately...

Ok, so Monday morning was especially bad because I had had such a fantastic weekend. Oh well...

You see, my problem at work (aside from the musical getting started, which sucks), is that I have to be in so early in the morning. I've been trying to be good, saying that I'll go to bed at 9:30, which would give me a much needed eight hours of sleep, but, as usually, I'm here, sitting at the computer, not tired. 6-8 p.m., I'm quite tired, but from 8-11 I'm good to go. I'm not meant for this "early to bed, early to rise" stuff...

Sorry, I know I've gone off on the subject before, so please forgive this reiteration. And do realize that it most likely will not be the last.

All that being said, since we sold Carrie's old computer, we've begun to notice how often we both want to be on the internet at the same time. Well, as it turns out, Carrie recently, and most excitedly pointed out a mac computer she saw on T.V. It was one of the old "clamshell" ibooks that were introduced way back on July 21, 1999. They go for about $200-$300 on ebay, so now it's just matter of convincing her that we need one of those much more than a "kitty."

This evening the wife and I went to go have dinner with some friends of mine from UMKC. During our stay we were introduced to a band called the Asylum Street Spankers. They are a folk band, sort of. Their instrumenation and vocal harmonies are folk, but the subject matter is often anything but. For instance, the "Mah nah Mah nah" song was great, as was "If You Love Me" and "The Scrotum Song."

Warning: The Scrotum Song may and/or may not be offensive, but it is extraordinarily catchy. I'm just sayin'...

While I'm on the subject of recommendations, you should also check out Richard Cheese, a guy who takes pop songs and turns them into hysterical lounge songs. If you had to download only one off of iTunes, I'd pick "The Girl is Mine."

Finally, an old recommendation that those of us who listened to 96.5 FM in KC last year would know is the Dresden Dolls. For them, I'd say "Coin-Operated Boy" is a winner.

Ok, that's all for now. I've had a bit too much wine (don't worry, Carrie drove me home), so that'll have to do it for tonight.

After an incredibly long post yesterday, I think I'll spare you all my locquacity.

The wife and I went to a Wizards game this evening, which was very exicting. Unfortunately, the play was pretty sloppy, especially with the Wizard's passing, but the roughhousing was sweet. A few yellow cards and in the second half a red card--nice, being that it was for the MetroStars. Still, though, despite many excellent opportunities, the Wizards fell 0-1. It was pretty sad. Especially because they gave us some sweet "GOAL!" signs to use during the game. :(

Actually, what was more sad was the attendance. The last time I was there it was for Independence Day, so there were special promotions and fireworks after the show. This, a regular old game, has significantly lower attendance, which as magnified by being seated in a stadium that holds 80,000. We couldn't even come close to filling the lower level. I mean, come on, these guys made it to the MLS finals last year.

Oh well. At least the stadium will be sold out for the Chief's home opener.

Go Chiefs!

You may have noticed a bit of an absense of my website over the last 24 hrs or so. You see, we decided to sell Carrie's Dell on Ebay.

That's when all the fun began.

The first thing that I did was to take a bunch of pictures of the computer and list it on ebay. Duh. To take the pictures, though, I decided to move the computer to another location, which meant disconecting it from our network.

Mistake #1: Assuming the PC wouldn't cripple the network as it had upon its introduction.

You see, the first time I tried to get Carrie's computer to cooperate on our LAN it managed to make sure that no computer (including itself) could connect to the internet. It took about two days for me to finally get things working again. When I plugged her computer back into the LAN after a few months of cohabitation with my macs, it was up to the same old tricks. Unable to remember how I solved the problem in the first place, I decided to forget about connecting it to the internet.

The computer sold on ebay for a reasonable price, and the winning bidder asked if he could pick it up today (it sold on Tues, I think). Not a problem. So last night I decided to format the hard drive and do a clean install of the OS and other programs, both for our security and his ability to make the computer his own.

Mistake #2: Assuming that Windows XP is an easy install like every Mac OS since about 1990.

Holy crap.

First, I couldn't figure how to boot off the install CD. In a mac, I'd simply switch the startup disk in the system preferences and reboot or reboot and hold down the "C" key. Pretty logical.

After about a half an hour I decided to consult the manual on how to do this, since not one part of this process was intuitive. Turns out you have to hold down F12 at a certain point in the reboot. I kid you not. I missed the window of opportunity twice before finally getting it. Ok, so far so good, right?

Well, turns out that I go into system setup via F12, but since I had the cd in the DVD drive and not the CD-RW drive, it wouldn't acknowledge it. Nevermind that they both read CD's. After a few failed attempts to solve the problem, I finally figured to put the CD in the "correct" drive. Ok, now proceed to next step.

Mistake #3: Assuming that the keyboard, which had been fully functional, would continue to be so throughout the entire process.

This was a real kicker. I had to go eat dinner and let my subconscious chew on that one for a while. You see, after going through two menus, I needed to make some choices about formatting and clean installing. Unfortunately, the keyboard completely ceased to work after two menus. No explanation whatsoever. After dinner, I decided to try something that I considered stupid at the time, but since I was left with no other option (save giving up entirely) I decided to plug in my USB mac keyboard.

Problem solved.

Now onto the formatting. Blah blah blah, the C: drive is formatted. Now to install XP. Everything seems to be working. Cool, a reboot. Awesome, the startup screen. Oh, but wait. The screen resolution is 640x480. Why?

Mistake #4: Assuming that installing the OS was the last step to achieving basic functionality.

Oh. No. After being completely unable to figure out why I couldn't change the screen resolution, I decided to hook this baby up to the internet and download some updates, etc. to make everything all better.

The thing is, though, that the network card didn't seem to exist. At all. I poke around a bit into some sort of device management thing only to realize that I don't have the proper "drivers" installed yet. You have to be kidding me. For all the wonderful functionality of the flagship of a multi-billion dollar company, I can't read the freakin' network card. Or the Integrated Intel Graphics whatever. (Which is bull in and of it self. A computer in the 21st Century without a graphics card? What?) So I dig throught the many cd's and find a driver install thingy. As soon as I pop the CD in I get a message about how drivers should only be installed with the aid of tech support. Problems with conflicting drivers could blah blah blah...

Ok, skip that screen since the guy is picking up the computer tomorrow. At this point, I begining to wonder if I'll be able to give him a working computer inside of 18 hrs. Unbelievable. So I dig through the plethora of drivers I have at my disposal and manage to get at least the network card and monitor behaving properly. The rest I'll leave to the internet.

Oh, but wait, I can't get on the internet yet. I don't have anit-virus or anti-spyware or anything like that. What do I do know? Oh, and don't I need to intall about 234,353,381 patches that Microsoft has released in the last year and half first as well. But how can I without connecting to the internet?!

Well, I installed the little norton antivirus trial until I could download the AVG Free thingy that had been previously installed. Like that'd help. I still have to download virus definition updates, remember?

Mistake #5: Assuming Microsoft's updates would help the computer.

So I update that Norton, download an anti-virus program and then launch the windows updater thingy. Now this seems to be a handy little website. You go there, and Microsoft will tell you what you need to download to make you system more secure and more user-friendly (or should I say slightly less prone to millions of malicious attakcs and slightly less gouge-your-eye-out painful to use). Ok, so I do that, and while it was downloading a whole bunch of stuff I don't even want to think about, I also download Mozilla, iTunes, and Quicktime. Hey, a little bit of help couldn't hurt.

Now, there were a few downloads, but among them was not the infamous Service Pack 2, or whatever. Odd. Well, many downloads and installations later, the system is rebooted. And then...

BAM!! Blue screen of death. Well, it was blue anyway, but the text read differently. Something about corrupted memory being dumped or something. It really looked like the ship had hit the van if you know what I mean. I waited a minute or two and nothing else happened. So I tried the old PC user's standby.

Reboot.

This time I get a black screen with fancy DOS-reminiscent graphics that informs me that something was wrong with the computer. Thanks. It allowed me to go back to a version of windows that was working or something. I dunno. This crap is beyond me. So I make a selection and cross my fingers. Everything looked good when it booted back up, but to make sure, I figured I'd run that update thing again.

Mistake #6: Assuming that Microsoft would let me download everything I needed the first time (or fifth for that matter).

Lo and behold, there were as many updates to install as I had already installed on the first go round. Apparently, this clever little tool will only let me update so far, and then I have to do it again. And again. And again... ad nauseam.

Finally, at about 1:30 in the morning, I finally came across the SP2 that weighed in at about 100MB. I set that thing to downloading and went to bed. For a while anyway.

When I awoke the next morning (four hours later), I repeated the process, and again, more updates. I couldn't believe it. I left for work and prayed that it was still running when I returned. Thankfully it was, and after doing that a few more times, it seemed that I had run the well dry over at the Microsoft update center.

Phew. Now to make sure the mouse I advertised on ebay will work with this computer.

Mistake #7: Assuming XP had genuine plug-and-play capabilities.

You see, I plugged in the mouse, the OS told me it found new hardware, and then... nothing. That cursor wasn't moving. I installed everything I could find on my old Logitech CD (unopened, because, well, I didn't need it for the mac). Nothing working there. Ok, fine, try the old mouse. Hmm. That's not working either now. Crap.

Reboot.

Nothing.

Reboot with only original mouse in place.

Nothing.

Reboot with the Logitech mouse only.

Not so much.

Ok, one last go.

Ah, that did it. Fourth times the charm, right?

Well, after installing a few more programs that we had lying around I gave up. I managed to get the system back to working order (though I know there are two drivers that I cannot find via the install CD or the internet), burned a CD, played a DVD, surfed the web, etc. That seemed to be enough for me. (Oh, and also deleted nine spyware files that had made their way to the computer in 12 hrs of being connected to the internet behind a firewall and router.)

I moved the computer out into the living and awaited the buyer's arrival.

He came by, checked it out, gave me some cash and left with that machine. I felt guilty. Here this gentleman was polite enough to take this thing from my household, who dared to use the thing, and he even gave me money for this privilege.

I plugged my macs back into the network (one of which being this web page's server) and said goodbye to the last PC that will grace my household.

The thing that gets me, though, is that people go through this sort of thing with frightening regularity. I was insufferably angry for about eight totals hours because I'm not used to dealing with this sort of crap. I mean, do people honestly believe that this is what computing is all about?

I have nothing more to say.

Oh, what a fun weekend.

I traveled to St. Louis for Labor Day and enjoyed a fun-packed weekend, if I do say so myself. The first evening was spent with Nathaniel and consequently destroyed him in Monkeyball baseball. Well, at least in the first two games. In the third, were it not for a well-hit homerun in the last inning I would have been completely shut out. No matter.

Saturday we went to go see the Japanese Festival. Nice. We fed some koi. Unfortunatley, it was a bit hot out, and to avoid sunburn we went back to Nate's. Then, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. Oh goodness me, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it. Forget ice cream, I'm a custard guy from now on.

Later that evening, we went out to a nice dinner and then hung out with some of my friends from college. Good times.

Sunday, hanging out, bar-be-que, mario kart. It ruled.

Oh, and it was that day that I learned about the word "dirty." You see, for one reason or another, I had never actually considered what the word actually meant until last Sunday. If you look at the root word, "dirt," it would naturally follow that "dirty" would mean that the noun it was modifying was associated with "dirt." And yet, this is rarely, if ever, the way in which the word is used. No, if someone has spaghetti sauce on their shirt, it is "dirty" and not "saucy" (another word with fun connotations). If your car has been crapped on by birds, it is "dirty" not "bird crappy." If there are clothes on the floor of your bedroom, it is "dirty" not "clothesy" or "dirty laundry-y."

Ok, so I got hung up on the word dirty, no matter. I hope you all had a fun weekend as well.

Oh, and personally, I think brownies are best enjoyed with ice cream. That is, if you want my opinion. Any thoughts?

The weekend was fantastic, I must say...

I will be more specific tomorrow, but for now, allow me to show you my most recent hang up.

NationStates

Nathaniel was the one who informally introduced me to the site via his own country of The Protectorate of Lazy Days, which in turn promted me to being my own country, Andreas Potens. Check it out, it's good times. And let me know if you do, because it would be fun to get involved with more people that I know over there.

The gig is up, and I'm not happy

I've gained weight. Now, for most people this is a normal occurrence, one that they are used to fighting as much as possible. But as for myself, I have always been one of the few blessed individuals with a metabolism that could match that of a small horse. Eat as much as I want, gain no weight. Lose weight if I don't eat in near excessive quantities.

Then I got married.

My wife loves baking, and so I've been eating chocolate peanut butter balls, cake, and various cookies in large quantities for the last three months. Lo and behold, I gained about five pounds, mostly around the belly button. I couldn't believe it. It was the first time in my life that I'd ever experienced weight gain that wasn't directly associated with height gain.

I suppose the party is officially over.

Granted, if most people ate as I did over the last three months, they'd probably average about ten pounds of weight gain per month, so I shouldn't complain. If it only weren't for my wife baking so many delicious goodies. What is a guy to do?

Buy bigger pants. At Eddie Bauer, preferably... :)