2 Bit Hacker

Another year, another post for the holidays, whichever ones you might choose to celebrate. I’ve been claiming Pastafarianism for most of this year, which prescribes a simple Holiday season. I really ought to pick up a copy of the holy book one of these days.

Anyway, I’ve got my desktop PC up and running again with a shiny new power supply. Hopefully this one will last for a while. Delia’s desktop’s video card started having fits when we hooked it up to a DVI monitor. I had similar issues with another card back when I first built this system, so I think it may have been a flaw in that line of cards. We picked up a new one at Best Buy, so it’s all happy again.

What with the new expansion pack and all, we’ve decided to take up WoW again. I figure with Jason playing and a few other friends on there, it’ll be a good way to waste away some winter nights. I’m looking to avoid all the stupid guild drama crap this time around though. So far it’s been pretty fun. A lot has changed since we stopped playing, so it’s kind of fun to discover all the little new things.

Not a whole lot going on otherwise. Thinking of having a New Year’s Eve party here. Slowly working on getting my stuff out of the second bedroom so Delia can use it as a massage room. She still needs to get in a bunch of practice hours before she can get her state certification back, so I figured having a place to practice would help.

I’ve been playing a fair amount of video games lately, most recently Fable 2 and Fallout 3, both on the XBox 360, with some Castle Crashers mixed in. I also picked up Soul Calibur IV a while back, but that’s more fun to play with other people, and people don’t visit my apartment all that often.

Fable 2 is good, but I found the main storyline to be way too short. Sure, there are plenty of side quests to do, and some obscure achievements to unlock, but it doesn’t feel like the content is all that rich. I’ve played through the main story twice now, in order to try once as good and once as evil, and it just doesn’t feel all that varied. I’ll keep poking at it though, as it’s easier to just let it collect dust for a bit between playings in order to build up cash, since you keep earning in-game while not actively playing. Not a bad game, but I somewhat wish I had rented it instead of buying, though Delia appears to enjoy it.

Fallout 3 on the other hand feels much much larger. I’ve been playing on and off for a couple of weeks, and haven’t finished the main storyline yet. There’s just so much to go out and explore that I find myself wandering around the Wasteland instead of trying to advance the story. At least once I skipped part of the story due to exploring, which I was surprised to find the game allowed. The combat system is a little weak, as it lacks the target lock that a lot of the other FPS games I’ve played on the console have had, and aiming is fidgety. The V.A.T.S. combat stuff makes up for this though, making it so you don’t have to aim on your own, though it does slow down combat, but it also conserves ammo; a precious commodity in the Wastes. I’m considering buying this so I can get on to the next game in my GameFly queue. It’s a great game, and there’s already downloadable content on the way for it.

I’ve also been thinking about fixing up my home PC and picking up World of Warcraft now that the second expansion is out. Jason still plays, and apparently the end-game dynamic has changed a lot since I stopped playing. I just don’t want to get sucked into it again and get wrapped up in all the guild drama. We shall see. At the very least I need a new power supply, and I might need a new motherboard, which would pretty much require a new CPU as well. Tech Report just put out a new system guide, which is tempting me to just buy a whole new system again. We shall see…

Well, I have not one but two new computers now. The first is my new desktop at home, the system described in my previous post. It’s all assembled and running happily now, and I’ve finally been able to play the likes of HL2 (the demo at least.) Having a modern computer again is really nice. I could use suggestions for games to play though. I’ve reactivated my WoW account (yeah, I can see the comments on this one coming already) though I’m trying to limit my playing to a few nights a week and not letting it take over my life again.

The other new computer is an IBM Thinkpad T43 laptop, with a Pentium M 2.0Ghz CPU, 1.5GB of RAM, 80GB HD, an ATI Mobility Radeon X300 with 64MB of RAM, and a 1400×1050 screen. This came to me thanks to Big Dave, who I am very much in debt to. If you have need of hosting or consulting services, check out IronCastle Systems (plug plug…) The Thinkpad is so much nicer than my aging Sony VAIO. It just feels a lot more solid, and it’s default software loadout is a hell of a lot nicer. No stupid media programs that I’ll never use, just useful stuff like the Thinkpad’s location manager for changing settings based on what network I’m on, and the fingerprint ID stuff. I’d highly recommend a Thinkpad to anyone looking to get a laptop.

Aside from all that, not a lot new or exciting in life. My diet is going okay, I’ve been sticking too it fairly well, though I need to get out and exercise more. Should be easier now that I don’t have a cold and the weather isn’t hitting 100° F anymore…

Finally killed my WoW account the other week, not sure if it’s stopped working yet or not, haven’t really cared to check. Delia’s considering canceling her account, but hasn’t made the decision one way or the other yet. Feels good to not be sitting in front of the computer the whole time I’m at home, though I usually wind up in front of the TV watching a DVD with my laptop going, but still…

With my new-found spare time I managed to get one of my projects done; I now have a working garage door opener remote! Ended up buying a 4-relay box from PepBoys and wiring it to a power supply from radio shack and velcoing it to the back of the door opener unit. Near as I can tell the relay box was designed to be used in a car to remotely turn on/off accessories like lights to show off to your friends. The outputs could be put in a momentary mode though, so it worked out perfectly for the door opener. As a bonus, I know have 3 spare relay channels in my garage that I could use for something, if I think of anything cool to put out there.

I’ve got a few coding projects I want to work on too, the most important of which is an online scheduling calendar for Delia’s De-Stress Center. I had started it in PHP, but now that I’m working with Mason all the time at work, I decided to switch over and use that instead. It should be relatively simple to throw together, I just need to sit down and get it done one of these nights. It’s harder than I think it should be to sit down and code after getting home from a day of sitting and coding.

I also want to take pieces of the old SimPro code and turn it into a home automation controller. I think the data collection and scripting stuff would work out great with an X-10 interface and a couple of tweaks. I want to scrap the website side of it though and rewrite that from scratch, which will take some time. It’s all in PHP currently, and I have a hard time following the code in a lot of places. That’s probably going to be a long term project.

Also, Evil Dave wants to build a recipe website, which I think would be really cool. I just need to make time to work on that as well. So many projects…

I really should get back into the habit of updating this thing more often, though I’m not sure I want to write much till I figure out what I want to do with my LiveJournal. I suppose I could write a plugin for WordPress to cross-post, but I haven’t really felt motivated to do that yet, though WP’s plugin API looks to make such a task a lot easier, providing hooks at publish time, unlike MT, where I had to do things at build-time.

Anyway, not a whole lot going on at the moment. Friday night we went to Amanda’s graduation party with Melody. We got there kind-of late, after a roving thunderstorm kind-of killed the bonfire, so we just played a little Guilty Gear Isuka and a lot of Apples to Apples before taking a wandering route back to Melody’s place to drop her off.

Delia and I then wasted all of Saturday playing World of Warcraft. She’s got a level 25 Tauren Druid, and I was questing with her on my 24 Undead Warlock. It was fun, though we did completely waste the day away. I did manage to install Ubuntu on Delia’s new-to-her laptop, a Gateway Solo 2500. It’s not a bad little laptop, though it’s battery life seems to be pretty short. Ubuntu appears to be running fine, though I have yet to get audio to work properly. I never have much luck with ISA-based soundcards.

Sunday was Delia’s cousin’s graduation party. Delia left before I got up (I stayed up to late fiddling with her laptop and playing WoW) and I only managed to get there for the last half hour or so. We then met up with Melody at Taco Bell for lunch and where we bore witness to the aftermath of a series of stupid events involving a purse. It’s kind-of involved, and I don’t feel like typing it all out right now. We then went out separate ways, Delia and Melody back to the apartment to hang out for a while, and I off to my weekly D&D game. I’m tempted to start writing about events from the game, but I don’t think many people would be interested. Perhaps I should start a category for it. Anyway, after game we all met up again for the traditional self-inflicted punishment of eating at Denny’s. I really need to stop doing that, as I’m feeling ill enough not to go into the office today. I think I should just stick to a bagel or something next time.

Right, it’s been a while, here’s a rundown of how things in life are going.

Delia and I are doing pretty well. Her massage business is going fairly well, though she’s still working one day a week at Staples. Her concert last weekend (on her birthday) went well. I’ve got some pictures from it on my camera, just need to upload them sometime. I’m still playing way too much WoW, but I’m trying to cut back now that my main character is up to level 60. I should probably just hop on for raids with my guild and a bit on weekends.

We’ve been in the new apartment for nearly two months now, we still have some stuff that needs to be unpacked and put away, but for the most part we’re pretty well settled in. I’d like to rig up something a bit better for our garage door opener at some point, since we don’t have the transmitter for the opener. Right now it’s just a key-switch to open/close it from the outside, but the barrel of the lock likes to come out. I found a few remote control relay boards that might do the trick, but it’s not really a high priority. I’d also like to pick up a box of cat5 cable and a crimping tool of my own to make the ethernet run from the cable modem (in the living room) to the computers (two rooms away) a bit neater.

My car is finally paid off (yay!) so of course it now needs to go in for repairs. It’s been leaking coolant for a bit now, just haven’t had the money to go get it fixed, but I finally do, so it should be going in tonight. Near as I can tell it’s not the radiator or the pump, so I’m hoping it’s just a loose or broken hose someplace. Other than that, it’s been running well. Nearly up to 110k miles.

Work is going along, I’ve been getting quite a bit done in the past couple of weeks, finally getting our notification system mostly finished off. Right now I’m working on speeding up our image capture stuff to something more useful than 1fps. It’s proving to be a bit more work than I expected, since my program wasn’t really designed for it, but I think it’ll work out. I still need to write up a resume and start poking around for a new job. My plan to work full time somewhere else and just do SimPro stuff on a contract basis, which I think will work out better for everybody.

I’ve also been tossing around the idea of a new computer. Mine is still running fine, but it’s starting to fall behind the curve with newer games. I’m thinking a nice Athlon64 on an nForce4 board with a GeForce 6600 should do nicely. I’ve also got an eye on one of the newer 19-inch LCD panels with an 8ms response time. They’ve been getting good reviews, and a lot of places are saying they’re finally ready for gaming. Hopefully I’ll be able to put some money aside and get all that stuff before the next LAN party.

Finally getting around to updating my journal for Thanksgiving. Delia and I went over to one of her aunts’ houses in the early afternoon, but since they had already done their normal Thanksgiving stuff a few weeks previous, they were having roast beef instead of turkey. They did make up a turkey breast though, which was tasty. After eating we hung around there for a bit, playing with the dogs a bit and Delia took a bit of nap. Then we wandered over to redenife’s house for a second dinner. This one was much more traditional, with a proper turkey and stuffing and whatnot. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to really be hungry at this point, as almost everyone there had just come from a previous dinner. I feel kindof bad about that, because there was a lot of food, and it was quite good.

Oh yes, and the pies. So many pies. At Delia’s aunt’s house there were four pies (chocolate, apple, pumpkin, and pecan) and then at Rob’s there were too many pies for me to remember. I do remember a strawberry rhubarb pie though, which is, of course, the best type of pie known to man. So very tasty. So much pie.

The rest of the long weekend was spent recovering from the pies and playing World of Warcraft, which is now sucking up a majority of my spare time, though I try to remember to take breaks to sleep, go to work, and spend time with Delia, who seems to be very understanding of my gaming addiction. I love her

Oh yeah, if you’re interesting in seeing how WoW looks, I’ve started posting some screenshots.