Old News: May 20th, 2003 to May 30th, 2003

4:27 p.m. [GMT-8:00]
30 May 2003 (Fri); Post #316
GURPS tomorrow (Saturday) at 4:00 pm for those interested. If you can't make it there at that time, it'd be helpful to notify me. (E-mail, cell, AIM, etc.)



10:47 a.m. [GMT-8:00]
30 May 2003 (Fri); Post #315
The first case of West Nile virus in a human in Franklin county has been reported. Heard it through the grapevine, but the info comes from someone at the health department.

Went to Infinite Frontiers yesterday. Got KODT #79, KODT Tales from the Vault vol. 4, a Nodwick, a PvP, and the game Nanofictionary. Been playing a lot of Munchkin/Star Munchkin (we mix the decks) and Fluxx lately. Kinda want to play Lunch Money again, but my copy got trashed. I think I'm gonna try and sell my copies of Car Wars the Card Game and Battle Cattle on eBay. I hate those games. Goin' to McDonald's for lunch. Today's MP3: Anne Murray - Teddy Bear Picnic.mp3 (2:44).


11:16 a.m. [GMT-8:00]
29 May 2003 (Thu); Post #314
Been studying for the 70/76-215 exam. I got an e-mail from Microsoft today with a bunch of stuff in it, but mainly my MCP ID. I'm a Microsoft Certified Professional now. Apparently you become one if you pass any of the 70-/76-series tests. Anyway, I can view my transcript and stuff.

Just got back from the clinic (printer share problems). Been practicing Dub-I-Dub on DDR 2nd mix. My pad is starting to get really flaky... ghost steps, difficulty triggering the sensors for Right and Back. I need a metal pad. The Cobalt Flux pad seems to be the best home pad out there. $300 though. Ee.

I am an absolute riot on the Anandtech Forums. Okay, not really, but at least I've managed to garner something other than scorn and unprovoked hostility in a thread. See? Today's MP3: Weird Al Yankovic - Angry White Boy Polka.mp3 (5:03).


11:39 p.m. [GMT-8:00]
28 May 2003 (Wed); Post #313
Answer: 12 minutes. Stupid Charter people. Probably can't tell a router from a sack of potatos. Or something.

11:32 p.m. [GMT-8:00]
28 May 2003 (Wed); Post #312
Gah, yet another Charter outtage. I can ping IPs of other users on Charter (like Phillip), but can't access any other internet resources. We'll see how long this one lasts.

4:01 p.m. [GMT-8:00]
28 May 2003 (Wed); Post #311
The following post includes 111 kB in images. Oh, how I mock those of you on dial-up.

the highway
The road to Federal Way. This was taken at 4:30 a.m. Hanwool and I weren't very tired at this point since we'd had about 30 oz. of extremely over-sugared coffee each.
us in front of the car
All of us standing in front of the Explorer at Highline community college in Federal Way.
building
The building where I had my test. The campus of this school was really nice. Actually, the whole city seemed very clean and pretty upper-class.
plaza sign
A directory for Dana Plaza. Federal Way is kinda unusual in that there are a lot of Korean people living there. As you can see, nearly everything is in Han-gul. We had breakfast at a small bakery near here.
fancy town
FANCY TOWN! YOU COME TO FANCY TOWN! BUY FANCY PRESENTS! OBEY MY DOG! FANCY, FANCY!
pal-do
Pal-Do World. This is a grocery store that we went to with Hanwool. He got something like $220 in groceries for his family.
inside pal-do
Me inside Pal-Do World surrounded by two tons of ramen and soba noodles.
akasaka restaurant
Akasaka Japanese Restaurant (31246 Pacific Hwy South, Federal Way, WA). Hanwool's dad is good friends with the sushi chef, so we got a lot of free food. The sushi was the best I've had yet ('course, I've only had it 3 times) and boy did I have my fill. Plum sherbert for dessert. Yum.

Anyway, I enjoyed the trip. There was a little bit of unpleasantness when Jones got sick on the ride home, but hopefully that was just some motion sickness or something temporary. It was really cool seeing various parts of Federal Way... it was like going to another country. Korea, I suppose. Except I don't know what that's like, so I wouldn't make such a direct analogy. But it was definitely different.

Hanwool and I were talking about making the sushi-trip a once-a-month thing. I think that'd be cool if we went somewhere close (like, Spokane maybe), but I don't think I'd want to make that Federal Way trip more than once every six months. 8-10 hours of driving seems a bit much for raw fish, you know? Then again, it was good sushi...

Today's MP3: Weird Al Yankovic - Hardware Store.mp3 (3:44).


8:01 p.m. [GMT-8:00]
27 May 2003 (Tue); Post #310
Yay, I passed my MCSE exam (test 76/70-210). We had sushi. It was good. I'll post more, but right now I'm very tired and generally icky-feeling from a total of 10 hours of driving (5 of them mine). I'll have some neat pictures later tonight or tomorrow. FTR, Jones, Beefy, Hanwool, and I went to Federal Way today. Some people couldn't figure this out based on previous posts. Later.

2:47 p.m. [GMT-8:00]
26 May 2003 (Mon); Post #309
Okay, going to Federal Way tomorrow. It wouldn't hurt if everybody familiarized themselves with the route we'll be taking, just in case. Based on the suggestions of a few people, we'll be leaving at 3:00 am. So everyone be at my house at that time. Hanwool'll drive most of the way up to FW so I can study. Here's a list of things you may do on the trip up: (a) quiz H. on 70-210 questions, (b) sit quietly, or (c) sleep. Okay, I'm kidding, but I really will need to be cramming for the 4 hr. exam, so don't bother me or we'll leave you on the side of the road in Toppenish.

If you need to back out or suddenly have a schedule conflict or something, call my cell so we don't wind up waiting for you. I understand the morning rush hour is pretty bad. Yadda, yadda, lunch at the sushi place, maybe hit an arcade, then back to Pasco. Whee.

BTW, did you know you can save $20-30 on toner cartridges for HP laser printers if you buy the Staples brand instead of HP's? And they seem to be just as good. We'll see how many pages it lasts though; my HP cart went 3,700 before getting flaky beyond reasonable use.


Slee-ee-ee-eep.


6:06 p.m. [GMT-8:00]
23 May 2003 (Fri); Post #308
Set up the wireless networking at my parents' house. It was amazingly simple. Just plugged the router in, then went over to my sister's system and plugged the USB wifi adapter in (just one cable, doesn't even need external power). Installed the drivers, then a little icon popped up in her system tray; double-click, says there's a new network to connect to, click "Connect." Bam! Full internet access. Gets really good signal, even though there's about 50 feet and three walls between her machine and the router. I didn't set up WEP or anything, but war-driving is hardly a problem in west Pasco. I'll take my chances.

It seems like it's actually summer now. I had to turn on the air conditioners earlier today. It's actually 86° F outside! Tomorrow's supposed to be in the low 90s! Wow. Just seems so sudden. Anyway, I picked up two 12-packs of soda at the Shell station: Coke and Vanilla Coke. Ran into Matt. It was awkward. Apparently, he's marrying some woman named Teresa sometime this month or next (I wasn't really paying attention). Ugh.

Because I bought the wifi stuff through the AHOP acct., the checkout girl (Angela) at Circuit City started telling me how much she likes Dr. Oliver. We had a short conversation. She seemed pretty up on her networking jargon. She couldn't believe my dad's kids were in college (guess she didn't realize he was that old).

Anyway. Invisible Monsters is pretty good. Seems even better than Survivor. I'm beginning to think Palahniuk's gimmicks are getting a skoche tiresome. "Give me anger. Flash. Give me intense regret with overtones of frustration. Flash. Give me a reader who thought this device was cute until chapter 17. Flash."

Still, it's a great book. Oh yeah, there's an awesome deal on 10/100 ethernet USB adapters here. Only $2.99 each! I bought 4. With shipping, it was only like twenty bucks. And they're so useful. Well, anyway. Today's MP3: Video Girl Ai - Happy Tears (Opening).mp3 (5:42).


2:15 p.m. [GMT-8:00]
23 May 2003 (Fri); Post #307
Just scored 50,480,100 on If You Were Here. 212 max combo, 162 perfs, 50 greats. Felt it warranted a post. Well, I'm off to buy wireless stuff at Circuit City. Ciao.

50 million on DDR.
50 million points on If You Were Here, DDR 4th Mix. Bow before your king!


2:12 a.m. [GMT-8:00]
22 May 2003 (Thu); Post #306
I finished Survivor last night. It was good. Slightly better than Choke, I think. I bought Invisible Monsters (another Palahniuk novel) at Hastings today with Jones and Beefy. Before that, we all had lunch at the China Cafe. Before that, Drew and JD came over (Drew brought ice for snow-cones). Drew and I DDRed a little, JD borrowed my GURPS Cyberpunk.

I've been posting in the AnandTech forums. There was this thread where ppl were showing the innards of their machines, so I contributed this page (details on my main system). Also been active in the forums on Beefy's site (SuperSoda.com). He and "dGon" are having an amusing little tiff that's so far involved threats to call the police and a lot of wang-loving comments.

At the China Cafe, Ryan and I had the General Tsao's Chicken (Beefy had the Almond Chicken). Good stuff. Still studying for the 76-210 MCSE test. OMG, it is some boring stuff (RIPrep, permissions, PXE compliance, etc. — yawn). If you're studying for this test, here're some good PDFs you can find on Kazaa or GNUtella or whatever:
70-210 MCSE Windows 2000 Professional Study Guide 2nd ed Sybex.pdf
TestKing - MCSE 70-210 Q&A with Explanations v1.2.pdf
Troytec MCSE Windows 2000 70-210 (FULL ACCESS).pdf
Today's MP3: Millincolin - Mr. Clean.mp3 (2:39).

Beefy and Jones beating on each other.

Jones and Beefy "sparring" ... or something. 5/21/03, on the north side of the house.


3:53 p.m. [GMT-8:00]
20 May 2003 (Tue); Post #305
I remember what I was going to post yesterday that I forgot: I scored 38 million on Dam Dariram (191 max combo, IIRC). Drew saw the whole thing. Last night I started reading Palahniuk's Survivor. It's really interesting. A little better than Choke, but neither of those came anywhere near being as good as Lullaby was. I'm more than halfway through. It's kinda neat; the pages in the book are numbered backwards (you start at 300-something and work towards page 1).

1:24 a.m. [GMT-8:00]
20 May 2003 (Tue); Post #304
Oh, man, sometimes I wish I was reckless enough to trash people I know on my blog... cuz I have some words for certain people. Anyway. I guess I can make general comments though. I hate it when people talk about how "in love" they are with their SO on their blogs. And, for some reason, the SOs always have these disgustingly popular, cutesy names that invariably end in "i." Here's a sample of the kind of crap I have to wade through daily:
You know how it is when your so liek completely in love with another human been? me & sandi were up too like 5 am just talkgni. we understand each other so much its like our brains are the same and oh i'm just so in love with her i want to have babies oh and shes so hot i love her love love lvoe love luv luv luv whee the world is so bright and happi cuz im in love...
The spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors are intentional. That's really how this drivel looks. Of course, this goes on for like 3 posts. Then you don't hear about "sandi" for a couple days and the next post is just "we broke up for mutual resons." Next week the idiot has another airheaded bimbo to play with.

Okay, anyway. Hanwool and I just went to Go Bowl in Pasco. Ohhh-hhh boy, do I have some things to say about them. First, these drittseks tell us we have to pay a four dollar cover charge just for the luxury of being in their crappy little den of human scum. Oh, and they tell us this after we've been there for a while, so it's not like we had a choice. So we DDR (5th mix) for a while, then go to get more money at the bank (seeing as how we were each robbed of $4). We get some cokes at McDonald's and come back to DDR some more. These fascist drink-Nazis (well, just this one mega-jerk, actually), stop us and say we can't have outside drinks in there. Morrapulers.

[Incidentally, you might notice I don't use English swear words here. I try to keep it PG (maybe PG-13). Instead, I use Norwegian curses.]

Been studying for my MCSE tests a lot. Downloaded a bunch of 70-210 study guides and sample tests. Of course, I'm actually taking tests 76-210 and 76-215, but they're essentially the same. I got in on this odd promotion/beta-test Microsoft was offering (it was surprisingly hush-hush); got both tests for free (normally, MCSE exams are $125 each), so I saved myself $250. Of course, they're not offered at the local testing center, so I'm going to Federal Way and Moses Lake.

Had the GURPS game on Saturday. Seemed to go okay. Drew and Phill were absent. Justin will probably be absent for this week's game (some racing thing), but I'm not entirely sure what we're playing anyway (HDHC, Upsidaisium, or Theomundi). Jones brought some very good banana bread his mom made. We all had Mochi (this strange Japanese dessert of mango ice-cream covered in rice-dough). My grandma sent me a snow-cone maker. It works; the results are pretty delicious. I like snow-cones. I need to get a bottle of Tiger's Blood flavor syrup.

Umm... what else? I have to buy a bunch of wireless networking gear. I've never worked with unusual antenna setups, so if anyone knows a good resource for that (equipment reviews, how-to's), plz toss me an e-mail. I need to set up an omni and at least one (probably two) directionals.

Still playing SMAC a lot. Probably too much. Something went wrong on the last game though; Deirdre actually started kicking my ass. Then I made a pact with Miriam, but she started pulling this crazy dritt where she kept building bases inside my territory. The only up side was that we have pretty good relations, so I was able to buy them off her for a couple hundred energy credits each. Mind worms are so hard to kill on Talent level.

"Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." — Ralph Waldo Emerson