Last of the manual updates…which means some action on your part. Read on.

July 12, 2003

My cell phone rang around 8:30 this morning, but as I stumbled out of my room and into the computer room to answer it (I kept it in there last night instead of my room…don’t know why), I missed the call but saw who was calling. I decided to wait until I was fully awake to call them back. It was actually my friend Ali from Beloit calling, someone I really wanted to talk to, but being more awake than normal is a good thing, plus I get lousy reception inside to house and I have to go into the driveway so it’s not cutting off all the time. Going out at 8:30 in the morning to talk while in the t-shirt and shorts I slept in is NOT a good idea. Instead, I went back to sleep, only to find that I wasn’t tired anymore. So I ended up getting up earlier than I normally do, which meant that I was all showered and shaved by the time my Mom got up. I gave Ali a call a little later, and it was great to hear from her. Ali has been my friend for three years, and she’s one of the people I’m really going to miss from Beloit, and she’s one of the people who’s trying to get me to go back to Beloit for graduation next year. I admit, the desire to see my friends graduate is a big one, but I’ll have to see where I stand financially at that point next year.

Yes, I shaved. I haven’t shaved all week since I’ve been preoccupied with other things, and the times I’ve gone out, I haven’t really cared. People who know me well know that I don’t shave terribly often, but after a bit of griping people give up and let me be scruffy for most of the time. Tonight we’re doing our postponed BBQ, though, so I thought I’d look nice for everyone in my family, at the very least.

Most of today has been spent doing nothing at all, really. I picked up the last of my stuff so the house could be cleaned, and then I went outside and read. It’s actually a book that I’ve read before, but not for a long time. Someone–I don’t remember who, now, gave me a set of books by an author named Robert Asprin. They were all fairly slim fanatasy books, which I usually don’t go for, but these were a riot. There’s a whole series of them, and I had the first four, but I somehow mislaid them, and they disappeared among the boxes and boxes of books in the house. I was complaining to my then-girlfriend Heather Darrow a couple of years ago at how I wanted to read them again but couldn’t locate them anywhere, not even at Powell’s Books, the largest bookstore in the country (located convieniently here in Portland), and not even at Amazon.com. Seems that they’re out of print and other people such as myself have bought all them up. Popular series. So anyhow, she heard me lamenting I couldn’t find them anywhere and she took it upon herself to find copies of the first three books and gave them to me for my birthday that year. Second time I’ve gotten those books for my birthday, but this time they sure meant a lot more than the first time I got them. So I go to Powell’s last week with my Dad, and lo and behold, a shelf full of Robert Asprin books, including the ones I was looking for the last time I was in there. These ones were mainly new prints, though, so I guess the publisher got the hint. I picked up the 4th book in the series (the last of the originals that disappeared, although Heather couldn’t find the 4th, only the first three), as well as a book that combined the 5th and 6th in the series. It’s pretty childish stuff, but Asprin spins a good yarn and writes very humorously, so it was worth the money. I also picked up the next book in the Ender saga, the series written by Orson Scott Card. I generally stay away from sci-fi and fantasy books as a general rule, although some that I’ve come across have been notable exceptions. The Ender series is one, the Robert Asprin books are another, 2001 by Arthur C. Clarke, and the first non-Lucas Star Wars trilogy by Timothy Zahn are some good examples. I honestly don’t see what the great stigma is that’s attached to sci-fi and fantasy books on the whole, after all, they’re just made-up stories like most other books. Maybe it’s just the stigma that all sci-fi and fantasy have attached to them. I tell people that I don’t read sci-fi and fantasy, and on the whole, it’s true. When I name my favorite authors, I usually say Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton, even though both of them essentially contruct “fantasy” stories, and at least with Crichton, sci-fi as well. I didn’t hear people complaining that reading Jurassic Park made them sci-fi geeks, but it sure did. Who says sci-fi has to be in outer space, the future, or involve aliens in any way? Bah.

As you can see, my website is slowly getting back to normal. I’m finding that I have to do the coding by hand instead of using the program that I did before, so I’m learning a bit of the HTML programming language that web pages are programmed in, and it’s slowly making sense as I make progress. One big thing, though, and I’ll put this on a different line so you all can see this if you’re skimming:

I’m no longer sending out update notices for my website.

That’s right, I’m done with that. I feel bad that some people I send notifications to no longer actually read my site, but no one ever ask to be removed, because I think that they fear that I’ll be offended. Well no longer. If you want to be notified when I update my website, you can use the feature to the right and add your email address for the automatic updates that will go out with every entry. It won’t just notify you, but it’ll also give you a 20-word excerpt for a taste of the entry. If you want to just chance remembering and coming back to my website to read on your own, you’re certainly welcome to do that. I think I’m going to start updating my site every day now that it’s a bit easier and I have an easier archiving function at my disposal, so anytime you check back there should be an update, most likely. You’re welcome to be on your own. I’m not implementing a a remove function yet, so if you sign up and change your mind of the auto-update feature, you’ll have to email me and ask to be removed yourself. Eventually I may implement that, but I’ve got oother things I need to work on first.

On caveat about the auto-update, though. Those of you with Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail account will need to create a filter for me, though. The email will come from my email address, but for some reason both Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail consider the update notice to be spam and they route them to the bulk mail folders. It’s easy enough to create a filter, just go into that section of your webmail and say that my email address is a good one and to let it through. You’re done. A little extra work, but the way I have my website set up, that’s the only way it can happen, without getting too technical. I’m sorry about that.

I forgot to mention, I got my new CPU up and running the same day my website went back online with the new look, so I’m essentially using a “new” computer. 2 GHz CPU, new motherboard, new sound system (same speakers, though, but the device in my computer actually producing the sounds is different). My system does feel a bit faster, but the place Ill probably notice it the most is in my games. Especially Battlefield 1942, which I know I’ve mentioned before. BF1942 loves extra RAM and CPU power. I bought an extra 256 MB of RAM for that game recently, putting me at 768 MB–more than three times at big as my first hard drive (which I coincidently still own, if anyone’s interested in buying it from me). I actually wanted to upgrade my computer because in a couple of months, I’ll be looking at picking up a game (at least, I’m asking for it for my birthday) that will definitely tax my system. I won’t go into that now, but I’ll start hyping it as my birthday gets closer.

Anyone ever watched the show “Monk” on USA? Hilarious. I’m surprised at the calibre of the shows that cable networks are starting to kick out. “Sex and the City,” “Six Feet Under,” “The Sopranos,” and the new “Dead Like Me” are all on the premium networks, cable nonetheless, and all are critically-acclaimed. FX has “The Shield” which I’ve never sen but heard is pretty good. Lots of people yelling, I hear–Dad, you’d love it. USA now has “Monk” and “The Dead Zone,” based off the Stephen King novel of the same name, and both are great. I never watched either of them regularly while I was at school since I had so many other things to think about, but now that I’m home, have cable, and have nothing else to do, maybe I can catch them if I remember.

My room is totally clean and all my laundry put away for the first time in a long time. I moved the last of the things in the room across the hall downstairs, and frankly, I’m not sure what to do with some of them. All that’s left is cooking stuff. Or food stuff, I should say, since my champagne flutes and wine glasses are included in the pile, as well as my two shakers for mixing drinks. I don’t think I’ll be getting too much use out of any of those in the near future, but on the other hand, where am I supposed to put them where they won’t break (the glasses, that is)?

So tonight’s the big BBQ. Time to load up on some beef for the first time in awhile, but whatever doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger, right? Steak. Yum.

Remember, add yourself to the auto-update list if you want to be notified whenever I post entires, but I’m not emailing anyone anymore. If you want out, now’s the time. Just smile and nod at one less email coming into your inbox. If you do want to, put your little ol’ email in there and add it up. I’ll keep working on the site if you keep reading it. Thanks, and have a good night.

Posted in Beloit, Geekery, General