posted 2004/12/31 at 23:54
Time for one last entry before the new year ... I think it says something about how cold it's been here when a couple of days ago the temperature got up to 35, I went outside and I thought I could get away with shirt sleeves. Then it hit close to 60 today (and it'll be over 50 on Sunday), so we've lost most of the snow. Now if only it can keep this warm throughout the year.
I picked up Chessmaster for XBox a couple of days ago since I can't find a copy of Fritz anywhere. Hopefully this will fill my chess void, since I really can't play on campus for reasons I don't want to get into.
Now to ring in 2005 ...
posted 2004/12/29 at 01:37
New on Backwash: "Something After the Election" (so sue me for uncreative titles). It's the post-election column I didn't want to write for the longest time, but as things continue unfolding here in Ohio, I just had to say what I had to say. That, and I was worried that everyone had forgotten about me on Backwash.
posted 2004/12/28 at 19:58
I know, I know, this took me too long ...
New in the ,journal: .org.4 part 3: togetherness. A fairly short entry inspired by being around my sister and brother-in-law over the holidays and how it's affected me. I was hoping the column wouldn't turn out as whiny as it did, but, well, this is me you're talking about here, right?
posted 2004/12/26 at 22:50
You know, up until last week we'd avoided snow here in Toledo pretty well, then all of a sudden last Wednesday eight inches of the white stuff got dumped on us. (Hmm, twist the second part of that sentence the right way and it could get really dirty ...) We're going to get back above freezing this week, so hopefully things won't get too bad by the time I get back to heading to campus on a regular basis again. (Especially since it looks like I'm going to be back to driving between two campuses for my classes this coming semester.)
Anyway, I went out tonight and got DDR Ultramix 1 for XBox, and as much as I don't want to give Bill Gates any more of my money than I already have, I am sorely tempted, whenever there's a game out for multiple platforms, to get the XBox version simply because my PS2 memory card is full and I don't want to have to buy a new one just to play more games. I'd use my Sharkport to transfer files to my computer to clear space off of my memory card, but of course my Sharkport doesn't work with the newer-model PS2 I got earlier this year. Screw you, Sony.
posted 2004/12/25 at 22:47
Time for the Christmas booty report, although the big present this year actually wound up being straight cash, some of which will be used to buy DDR Ultramix 1 to complete my US DDR collection. (Unless by some miracle one of the local used game stores gets a copy of Disney Mix in.) I was supposed to get Final Fantasy I and II: Dawn of Souls from Mark and Heather, but the shipment wound up being late so I guess I'm stuck waiting until next week for it. That's okay, though, because in addition to getting more Oh My Goddess! graphic novels (and how did I miss the news about the new TV show until I saw the cover of the latest Newtype -- oooooooooooooh Joe, I am so fucking jealous right now), I also got Season Five of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, which has been my company for most of the day today.
And since the .tv section of the .forum hasn't seen any activity in nearly two years, let's try to start some here ... hmm, anyone else notice how when the original Law and Order went into repeats on NBC a couple of weeks ago, they've only been airing shows from the previous season? Get the feeling they know that Dennis Farina looks like a reject from splicing the TV genes of Miami Vice together with those of The Golden Girls? Think they realize that they need to get Jerry Orbach back on the show, stat? I'm sorry, but they need Briscoe to return to the flagship next season. Besides, Babe ... er, Bebe Neuwirth can carry the new show on her own. You know it.
posted 2004/12/23 at 22:51
I realized I hadn't posted here in a few days, so, uh ... post. Yeah.
posted 2004/12/18 at 23:28
Okay, the silver van's brakes are at least semi-manageable now so I was able to go do some grocery shopping and play some DDR today. The blue van should be back in shape on Monday, and when we go to get it we'll drop the Camry off to get fixed. Given how much is wrong with the Camry, though, I don't know if I should count on getting her back until New Year's or so.
So yeah, I can't find my copy of Chessmaster here, so I went online looking for info on the latest version of Chessmaster. It turns out that not only will none of the previous versions work on my PC (no support for NT/XP), but the latest version won't run on my computer because Ubi Soft threw the mother of all copy-prevention on the disc and apparently if you even look at the CD thinking you might want to make a backup copy, the game won't run. So screw Ubi Soft.
Oh, by the way: .forum. You know you want to.
posted 2004/12/17 at 22:01
So on top of everything else going in, the folks just sent the blue van over to the shop to get checked up. With my Camry still out of commission with a bad battery and about seven other problems, and with me not wanting to drive the silver van ever, ever again after the first time I drove it, that means that at least until Monday, I'm stranded here at the house. Help me. Please.
I've spent about a week since the end of the semester just decompressing here, but it's high time I got a bit more productive. I've got a lot of writing I need to do, both on here and elsewhere -- I hope Backwash will still take me back after being absent for so long -- and accomplish other tasks. No rest for the weary, huh?
posted 2004/12/16 at 19:37
I'm so lonely right now. I was worried about this happening over break, and I hope something happens to remedy it soon because I'm really feeling like crap. Worse yet, I don't even have a usable car right now, so I'm stuck here at the house indefinitely. Things were different last year because I'd usually get some time alone in the house every day, but with the family business under this roof and now Mark here as well, I just don't feel like I have any privacy anymore.
Oh, and in other news, UT's computer system isn't letting me register for next semester right now because apparently I need to go talk to their collections office. That would be understandable, if it weren't for the fact that I don't owe them any money and their computers say as much. It's not like I can go down there right now to argue with them anyway.
Oh, and I suppose I should make some mention of this here: assuming I get this stuff with my account straightened out, I will be starting a BDSM student group on campus next semester. Before anyone asks, yes, there are BDSM groups on other campuses, most notably Conversio Virium at Columbia and Cuffs at Iowa State. Thankfully with all of the progressive-minded student organizations at UT conversing with each other a lot more since the election, there's a good built-in network for getting the word out about the group, and I'm hoping that at least if I can't get the group officially recognized, I can help get the BDSM community on campus in touch with each other.
So yeah, back to my exciting night here of watching TV and ... not much else.
posted 2004/12/14 at 23:52
Note to Food Network: Please, please do not bother trying to shove Iron Chef America down our throats any more than you already have. "The Chairman" is no Kaga. Alton Brown is a smarmy, ignorant shithead. Mario Batali's naked calves have no place on television. Bobby Flay is an asshole. You have no pomp. You have no circumstance. You have no Hans Zimmer music. You have nothing but a thinly-veiled infomercial for your own chefs, masquerading as the world's second poorest excuse for Iron Chef even made. (Okay, it's better than Iron Chef USA but just barely.) Please just shelve this shit before you piss off us Iron Chef otaku more than you already have. Okay?
In other news, I haven't visited any political Websites for about a couple of weeks now; I haven't watched any news in that time either. I just didn't have time to keep up with those things as the end of the term drew near, and now that the semester's over ... well, I haven't exactly been in a rush to catch up with Alternet. Maybe I'm just suffering from a little postponed post-election letdown? Eh, give me a few days to overhear something from someone and I'm sure I'll be back to my old ways soon enough.
posted 2004/12/12 at 20:07
Oh, crap. Let's see, I think I finally went to sleep at seven in the morning today after the lock-in and all that. And I just woke up now. I literally missed every ounce of daylight today. See, normally this would be a good thing because I generally function better during the nighttime hours, but sometime this week I have to hit campus during regular business hours to get my latest paycheque, deposit it, and then go and pay all my fees and stuff for next semester. I wish I could just go back to sleep here and wake up tomorrow morning, but I know that's not going to happen. Le sigh.
posted 2004/12/10 at 23:00
DONE. And good grief I don't know what shape I'm going to be in going through that push three more times just to get my MA. Don't even ask about all the work I'm going to be doing on my field study these next eighteen months.
So yeah, I've got about a month here to myself, and while I'd like to get some reading done here, I'm seriously thinking about trying to go through Final Fantasy VII again since I haven't played it in so long. For tonight and tomorrow though, I just wanna chill out. Well, that and the party in BG, but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.
posted 2004/12/08 at 01:22
Sheesh ... two of the past three nights I've been up in my office at UT working on stuff past midnight, and I've got another one of those waiting for me after I wake up this morning. Monday night I was down at BGSU's library again looking up stuff, and I wound up having to drive home in the most dense fog I've ever seen in my life. (Warning: geek humour ahead.) I felt like I was in a first-generation Nintendo 64 game or something.
Things are finally coming together, though. As expected, I've had to make due with UT food since I wasn't about to spend an hour driving here and back to eat, but after all of this work I think I'm entitled to treat myself to some really bad, bad food. So the diet resumes on Sunday ... hopefully.
Oh, and the marriage went off without a hitch. Welcome to the Shannon clan, Mark Cloete; may the Goddess have mercy upon your soul.
posted 2004/12/05 at 17:12
I'm at school now to keep working on end-of-term stuff; I'm finding it a lot easier to work here instead of at home. I didn't get as much work done last night as I was hoping to, but I think I can manage to pull this off if I just stick to it.
I really just wanted to write to say that I'm going to try to enjoy the Bengals being at .500 this week, because with two of their last four games at New England and Philly, they'll be lucky to even finish at .500. Oh well, Palmer's come into his own these past few games so this season can't be called a complete loss, and hopefully the Bengals' front office will have the sense to draft someone on D with their first-round pick this year. Sigh.
posted 2004/12/04 at 23:59
Just getting this in in the nick of time ... happy 39th anniversary to my parents.
And speaking of family things, Heather and Mark decided last night that on Monday afternoon they're going to go down to the Lucas County Courthouse and get married. Yeah. And I'll be conferencing with one of my teachers at the time, so I'll have to miss out on it. Oh well, I didn't attend my sister's first wedding and this one looks like it definitely has more staying power to it.
Since I touched on school here, I should also mention that you probably won't be seeing much of me this coming week. Apparently the graduate faculty doesn't believe in exam week, because all of my final papers and such will be due this coming week, and I'm still catching up from what I missed on my first sick leave. I think I can get everything done, but it's not going to be pretty. However, I definitely won't have much time for blogging or anything like that.
On the plus side, this latest cold seems to be going away fairly rapidly, Tuesday was bad for me because my throat got super-sore all of a sudden (and I had a presentation to give on Wednesday so I couldn't miss that), then Thursday I accidentally mixed Mucinex and DayQuil and I really did a number to myself; my face was feeling so puffy I couldn't stand it. Now things seem to be mostly okay, however, and I even DDRed at the arcade tonight. (Unfortunately, there seems to be a real problem with the Extreme pad now; it feels like one of the bracings inside the pad has broken, and it feels unstable to play on.) So yeah, diet resumes tomorrow, and I'm going to try making some changes to it to get myself healthier here. I may be keeping true to a calorie and fat range, but I need to stop eating so much junk. Maybe if I do that I won't get sick so often.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon