Dichotomy...

EQT is the devil. I think I might have to get out of here and just use up some extra vacation time so I don't absolutely lose it. I'm seriously about this far away from snapping right now.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 4:09 PM | Permalink | Comments

This just in, Nintendo blew it. It's no secret how many hours of my life Nintendo has claimed nor how much I defend them. Despite their decision to not allow the Gamecube to play regular DVDs (unlike the PS2 and XboX) in order to price their console below the competition, I still stood by them. I even like the Revolution's idea, I jsut don't want to be forced into using it. Nintendo is all about ideas, always have been. They offer more unique games and styles of gameplay than anyone else. Period. But when you're already alienated almost your entire fanbase and have made it nearly impossible for anyone who doesn't already own a Nintendo to want to buy your next generation console, what are you thinking? Maybe this thing is going to be huge in Japan, but I just can't see it selling well here in the states. Wii. Really? That's the best you could come up with? *shakes head in disgust*

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments

2 music things to mention before I go to lunch:
- I'm not a big Stones fan, but Earth Crisis's cover of Paint it Black absolutely destroys their version. Plus, Earth Crisis might well be the polar opposite of the Rolling Stones in almost every aspect. And Karl's headbands are cooler than Keith Richards'. And when was the last time Mick Jagger was asked to testify before Congress?
- I need to listen to Good Riddance more often. I've got at least 3 of their records from teh late 90s, I just never spin them up, and I really should. They're a damned good band. I hope their new record is good when it comes out later this summer.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments

I need to take Tuesdays off more often. I suppose Wednesdays would work too. Today feels like Monday to me, but tomorrow is already Thursday! Rock on! In fact, and I'm just going to throw this out there, I'd be willing to work 2 10-hour days, take a day off, do 2 more 10-hour days, and then have a 2-day weekend. That seems like a flagrant abuse of flex, but I suppose if I got approval from the necessary parties, it would be feasible. And it's not like I'm taking a 3-day weekend every week, or trying to cram 80 hours into week 1, take 2 weeks off, and then cram 80 hours into week 4. Oh well. For now, I'll just enjoy only having 2 work-days left this week and celebrate by playing poker tonight, then perhaps more Oblivion. This game is going to devour my life, I'm quite sure of it.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments

Also of note today, according to my Simpsons calendar:
It's the 20th anniversary of the "Chernobyl Nuclear Screwup". I've blamed this disaster for pretty much everything wrong with people born after my brother. Diminuitive size, bad taste in music, you name it. Thanks Soviet Union! Even in the wake of your demise, I can still blame everything (that occured after 1986) on you!

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments

Happy Administrative Professional's Day to those in that field! Rest assured that business would grind to a halt without you.

In other news, my birthday was a complete success yesterday. I took the whole day off. Emily prepared a super yummy dinner. My new computer is probably 95% functional for what I will use it for on a daily basis. There's still a few things that need to be installed and configured properly, but it's coming all well. I spent most of the day playing Oblivion and am thoroughly enthralled. I especially love that you can pretty much choose to do or not do pretty much whatever you feel like. After the emporer dies and gives you the Amulet of Kings, you're supposed to take it to some friar in a different town. But you could take it to a local merchant and pawn it instead. Or I just completed a quest where two warring people asked me to acquire an artifact and give it to them instead of the other one. So I found the thing, gave it to one guy, got his letter of reccomendation, then stole it while he was sleeping and gave it to the other party and got a reward. Awesome. I'm not so good at sword fighting yet, but my magic abilities and ranged attacks are progressing pretty nicely. Anyway, back to the real world and work. There will be plenty of imaginary time later on.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments

Happy birthday to me!! Oblivion is certainly going to take up the majority of my day tomorrow. "Tomorrow." I've only played through the tutorial basically and just started poking around the castle area outside the sewers. Wow. This game is so gorgeous and there's so much to do and pick up and interact with. Tomorrow I've got to get iTunes set up and import my email from my old computer. And of course a huge amount of other things. But that'll be my job for the morning. Then I'll be hooking up my new computer to my TV's DVI input and checking out Oblivion in all its widescreen glory. If that works out, I'll just need to get a really long DVI cable and a wireless mouse and keyboard. *drool* For now though, bedtime. Lots of things to get done tomorrow on my big day off. ;)

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:52 AM | Permalink | Comments

I saw the saddest thing at Best Buy tonight. I was flipping through the various over-priced CDs when I walked past the Nirvana section. And there it was. Just like the copy I have. A nice black and whte copy of good ol' Bleach. You know, the record when Nirvana was basically still a punk band? But wait, what's this giant sticker on the cover obscuring half the band? Yes my friends, it's one of your everyday stickers telling idiots who don't know crap about music why they should buy an album. Why? Perhaps not everyone knows that, and I quote, THIS IS NIRVANA'S FIRST ALBUM. Okay. Here's the thing. 15 years ago, Smells Like Teen Spirit was just starting to hit the airwaves. 15!!! No, seriously, I'm that old now that I can say these sorts of things. No one who has ever heard of Nirvana before should need to be told which album was their first. I'm going to go out on a limb and say, if you're in Best Buy, you've heard of Nirvana. And if are either 3 years old or just emerged from cryogenic freezing capsule, how is knowning that an album is some band you've never heard of's first record going to make you want to buy it? The mass media retardification of america makes me so irritated some times...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 9:16 PM | Permalink | Comments

Picture fest:

Pictures from the zoo are here.

Jenova's constituent parts:

Jenova's internal components:

Jenova's outer casing:

I'm this many years old now!

"Ha ha wha. Oh, sorry I'm late. There was trouble at the lab with the running and the exploding and the crying when the monkeys stole the glasses off my head. Wh-ha ha."
*fade to black*
"Oh, no, please no. I have a funny story if you listen. I even wrote theme music, here listen. Ha ha, mm-m hey hey, Professor Frink, Professor Frink, he'll make you laugh, he'll make you think, he likes to run, and then the thing, with the... mm-m person... Oh boy, that monkey is going to pay."

Posted by Rev. Adam at 7:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

Emily threw me a nice birthday party yesterday. It was not as well-attended as I had hoped, but there were enough people to qualify as a party and we put a good dent in the lasagna, salad, and cake. Everyone ridiculed the crown Emily got me. Frankly, I think they're just jealous they didn't all get party hats to wear too. Especially Dave. I'll post a picture later so you can see all the fun you missed out on. Emily made me an awesome Professor Frink cake (picture also pending) with neon frosting. It was all chocolate cake with chocolate frosting as a base too. She definitely knows how I like my cakes. ;) The girls were well-behaved in my bedroom all afternoon, and were eager to come see what the commotion was all about after everyone left and inspect their play area to make sure everything was still in order. I'm still seriously considering taking tomorrow off. This morning I just wanted to turn off the alarm clock and sleep a couple more hours, so maybe I should just plan on doing exactly that tomorrow morning. We'll see. I haven't played Civ 3 in a while, and that's a good day-wasting activity. Or there's X-Men Legends II which I haven't even started yet (I bought it after I got fed up with X-Men Legends in the ship level where you have to rescue the Navy guys - I always get lost and all turned around the dumb Navy guys walk into harm's way). Now that I have a running new computer (perhaps pictures of that to come as well), I kind of want to pick up Oblivion and really see what it can do. Perhaps a trip to Best Buy is in order tonight to spend my hard-earned (hey, staying alive 25 years is hard work!) birthday gift card...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Went up to Herndon HS after work on Friday. My cousin Sarah's second major production as drama teacher ran Wednesday through Saturday, so we went to check it out. They put on Damn Yankees, which I've never seen before, though I knew just a teensy bit about the story. In any case, for a high school production, I thought it turned out really well. A couple minor technical glitches here and there, but the kids voices were great, the costumes and sets were well designed and put together, and everything was well-choreographed. So bravo to Sarah and bravo to her drama students! We were thoroughly entertained. At first the $10 ticket price seemed a bit steep, but I just kept telling myself that essentially I'm paying my cousin's salary. Plus, the play was really good, so I think it was well worth my 10 bucks.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments

Work is pretty dead today. I have a lot of stuff I could be doing, but I'm just not motivated to do it today. I almost thought about calling in sick today, but then thought better of it and just came in a little late. I'm not sick of course, although my throat is a little tickley, but I think that's just the pollen. Fortunately, it looks like it might rain again today, so that should help out a lot. Plus, I hate to waste vacation days for no good reason other than being lazy. I'm toying with the idea of taking Tuesday off next week anyway, so it's not like I could flex the time to next week and ever make it up. But taking Tuesday off seems viable. I mean, how often do you turn 25? And how often do you get to spend that birthday sleeping until noon and playing video games all afternoon, shirking all other responsibilities? We'll see. I'll probably end up coming in to work after all, but you never know...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments

My computer is coming together. I powered it up last night and nothing sparked or exploded. I've got my RAID created and my BIOS all set up. I was going to start installing XP, but I couldn't figure out how to make the RAID drive C and the IDE drive something else, so I decided to just go to bed instead. Now I have a project for after poker tonight or after camera shopping tomorrow or after Damn Yankees on Friday or really whenever I get around to it. But let's be realistic, it'll be sooner rather than later. I can only go so long without a good computer at home and my laptop only gets me so far. But I'm excited to see everything working thus far and I can't wait to get it all done and set up and ready to kick butt.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments

I bought cigarettes yesterday for I think the first time ever. Marlboro Ultra Lights. Dave was in meetings all day and couldn't go to lunch, so he asked me to pick him up 2 packs while we were out, so I did. It's amazing how many people are waiting in line at the gas station to buy cigarettes in the middle of the day.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments

In other weekend news, Emily and I hit up California Tortilla on Friday night for our free chips and queso. I proceeded to spill half my queso on the coffee table, but the rest of it was pretty tasty. That place is great because they make a pretty darn tasty burrito and every time we go in there we get something else for free to keep us coming back. Sunday we went to the Easter service at church. Everyone's parents were shocked to see us as we came of our own volition. We finally met Erin's husband Kenny and saw baby Peyton who was still quite sleepy. After that it was straight home to prepare dinner for Caryn and JWu. Emily made some awesome mac and cheese with fontina and the ham turned out really well too. And just like that, the weekend was over! The rest of my computer stuff should be arriving today, so I've got a project for the week. And I need to do some research into getting a new digital camera. But for now I had better get some actual work done since I'm, you know, at work and all.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments

We had a good trip to the zoo and saw a number of animals we hadn't seen before. Still no sign of the lemurs though. We're gonna have to go back and break in at 2 am with glow sticks to find their rave party or something. Most of the bears weren't out, and there was no sign of the otters and beavers, but almost all the other animals were active. We saw the baby panda, who's still pretty small. He was asleep in the rock alcove, but he was pretty cute. We also found the elusive chinchilla finally. We think he might be a pink white or a very light tan, but since we could only see 2 square inches of his fur, it's hard to tell. We also realized that probably no one plays with him very much and we couldn't tell whether ther ewas more than one or not. And that'd be really sad if he had no social interaction since they are extremely social creatures by nature. We also finally saw the degus, who are way cuter in person than the various pictures I've seen. Tommy got attacked by a butterfly who refused to leave his hat unless it was for his shirt. Since it was a nice day, there were a ton of people at the zoo, but we found that if we stayed off the main path, it actually wasn't too bad. We did decide that in order to enter the zoo you should have to walk through a glass enclosure. This enclosure would be constantly bombarded by high pitched screams and pounded on by an animatronic creature 50 times your size. Hopefully this would give little kids an idea of what its like for the animals when they run around screaming as loud as they can about something. I know they're just excited, and it's great to see little kids excited to learn about different animals, but they need to learn that excitement need not be expressed as a function of vocal volume or frequency of glass-smacking. Anyway... I think I got some good pictures, so I'll try and post them in the next couple days.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments

What the hell? Why is Adult Swim going to start showing Saved By the Bell on Monday? Dear Adult Swim, your programming appears on Cartoon Network, you know, in case you forgot. Also, Saved by the Bell is not a exactly what most people would call a cartoon. I'm confused...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments

Manish and Dave just enlightened me to Leeroy Jenkins antics on WoW. I feel like I've read about him on PA or something previously, but I might be getting him mixed up with the jazz musician. In any case, this poor quality video on google made me laugh so hard I almost asphyxiated on my own guffahs. I don't think you have to be familiar with MMORPGs or the specific game to find the scenario entertaining, but it certainly didn't hurt.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

It's been a prety hectic week. Fortunately, I'm only working a half-day today, and it's almost lunch time. I ordered all the parts for my new computer this week and the video card and ram should be here today and the rest on monday. I think I'm going to refurb an old case I have laying around, but I can't decide on the best way to do it. It's got blue plastic accents that I'm keeping, but the rest of the cage is standard cpu-beige. I've seen some really nice almost-mirror-finish black cases. But I think the matte finish of the plastic would look shoddy by comparison. So I got to thinking, maybe a glossy black with blue specks or something. I dunno. I'll come up with something. It's going to be a busy, but hopefully relaxing, weekend, so probably no case-painting. We're off to the zoo all day tomorrow and then church on sunday and hosting an easter dinner. Next week should be a lot less hectic at work, and probably the week after that. Then it will start to ramp up again. But at least my birthday is coming up soon, and that cancels everything else out. ;)

Posted by Rev. Adam at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

Brief recap: I got a good raise this year. I'm getting put in for a promotion soon. The week ended better than it started. My car is behaing itself again.
Friday night Emily and I went down to the 'MCI' Center for one of the Caps last home games this season. They lost 4-3 to the Hurricanes, but there was a good amount of excitement right at the end when it looked like they might have a chance to tie it up. It was fun nonetheless, but I was totally bushed by the time we got home. Sustained loud noise will tire you out a lot faster than you might think. And no, it wasn't the loudspeakers or Metro rides, or the fans cheering. It was this woman sitting in front of us who I don't think watched more than 30 second of the actual game. She just talked non-stop to her two friends through the entire game. When she left with a handful of minutes still in the 3rd period, we werte elated! Finally! Peace and quiet!
It's been kind of cold and rainy the last couple days, and although we definitely needed teh rain, I wish it hadn't been so cold and windy too. Oh well. It's starting to warm up again. Hopefully it'll be nice next weekend for trip to the zoo.
Saturday we ran a couple errands, watched Dangerous Minds, and cleaned up the chinnies' cage. It's amazing how many times they can remake the same movie, and people will still go watch it. I mean, I know this isn't an earth-shattering concept. But isn't Take the Lead with Antonio Banderas essentially a copy of Danergous Minds, which was esentially a copy of Stand and Deliver? Maybe it's just me. Sunday was at least sunny, so we ventured outside again, albeit only to Safeway. That was followed up with LOTR:TTT for a good 3.5 hours, then playing with the girls, then bed time.
After today, it's going to be a pretty bust week I expect. Much like my busy weekend, though I don't feel like I got anything done. Except I did decide that since I got a good raise, I'm going to go ahead and get a new computer afterall. Here's what I'm thinking:
Asus A8N-E (socket 939, nforce ultra chipset, pci-e) mobo, Dual Core Athlon 64 3800+, 2GB Corsair PC3200 ram (dual channel), dual Seagate 160GB SATA drives (mirrored as a RAID 1 array). I haven't decided on a video card yet though. It's definitely going to be PCI-Express with an NVIDIA chipset and 256 MB onboard, but I haven't decided whether to go with the 6 or 7 series yet. It looks like it's going to run about $750 all said and done. Thoughts? I know I could buy something off the shelf with similar sepcs for that much. But you never know what kind of mobo or ram is in something like that. And you're likely to wind up with a lower grade video card that'll need to be replaced anyway. This way I know I've got quality components. Plus, I get the fun of assembling it myself!

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments

Crap. I think I just broke my watch. I mean, I've thought I broke it before, but it just stopped before for a couple hours and then kept right on ticking. This time is hasn't stopped, but it makes a horrible clanking noise when I move it. I think the kinetic mechanism came loose or something. It's still ticking, but I'll bet I can't wind it up again, so eventually it'll just stop and that'll be the end of that. Sadness. I guess maybe it's back to pocket watches for me until I find another $20 Vostok on ebay. Step 1 of course is try to pry open my watch in the wirtually nonexistant hope that I can fix it. Me and my meathook hands are probably not too likely to be able to handle the tiny tiny watch components very well. Poor KGB watch... =(

Posted by Rev. Adam at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments

The best part about my personnel manager being gone for the last 2.5 weeks is stealing all the candy from the jar on his desk. Supposedly he'll be back tomorrow. Then maybe we can have my performance review and talk about my raise (finally). Time for more free candy!

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments

I felt pretty crappy last night during Sonja's birthday party, and even worse this morning when my alarm went off. I think I just over-exerted myself working out yesterday. I haven't run 1.5 miles non-stop since I was on the track team at Woodson. I think it's great though that I'm making progress, don't get me wrong. A couple weeks ago I could barely manage a 5 minute fast walk/5 minute run rotation, and now I'm up to almost 20 minutes of consistent running. It's just that all that progress has perhaps come at a bit of a price. Namely that my body isn't used to that sort of thing. Oh well. No pain, no gain, right? Whoever invented that saying should be shot. No wait, that would allow him/her to gain something. Hmm...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments

I forgot to mention that Emily and I watched Brave New World with Leonard Nimoy yesterday. It was a pretty good adaptation of Huxley's book, though obviously a lot was missing. Made me want to go back and read the book again as soon as I figure out where I put my copy. Nothing beats Spock in a dress, except maybe for Spock singing about Bilbo Baggins... John Cooper you might recognize from Blade, Bernard plays the father on the OC, and the DHC looked really familiar as well. Emily said he was the bad guy in the ALF movie, but I swear I've seen him more recently that that. IMDB contradicts me, unless he was in the commercials for the more recent Manchurian Candidate with Denzel. Oh well. In any case, it was a pretty good movie. Made me want to watch THX1138 again too, even though the sexual premises are polar opposites. I thought it was timely what with V for Vendetta coming out recently. Also, I want to find my hardbound copy of 1984, I know that's around somewhere. I've got a lot of reading to do! Not to mention Imajica is still sitting on my bookshelf, and the Chronicles of Narnia, and I still have to finish the Dalai Lama's autobiography. I've only got something like 60 pages left, you'd think I would have finished it already...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments

After a stressful week, I had a pretty relaxing weekend. I was in bed until nearly 1 on Saturday. I just couldn't keep my eyes open in the morning, so I stopped trying to fight it. But I did eventually get up and attend to my various chores and errands. Paid my bills and rent, sent the IRS a check because I subtracted the wrong number (hey, I've never owed money before, I don't think that was really my fault). Cleaned up my bedroom and in the chinny area (formerly the dining room). Cut my hair, shaved, took out the trash. Played some more Trackmania Nations (that gave is powerfully addictive). It would be way more fun with a wheel and paddles and with a better gaming rig, but for the most part, it runs smoothly on my current box. But I'm (very) slowly moving up the rankings. Sunday night I cracked the top 4000 in the US! Emily came over to watch the Mason game. I didn't hold out much hope for the Patriots having watched the way Florida's been playing, but they hung in there for the first half. Florida's shotblocking just overpowered them inside and they couldn't buy a three-point bucket, so they were basically doomed from the start. After UF hit all those 3's to start the 2nd, it was all but a foregone conclusion that the Gators were moving on. I just hoped it would be against UCLA and not LSU. An all-SEC championship game? Who wants to see that? Sure, it would have been a good game. LSU has a crazy-good frontcourt, but UCLA wiped the floor with them. We didn't see the game though. I promised Emily I'd take her to the Melting Pot to celebrate getting a job up here, so we finally got around to that on Saturday night. It's an expensive night out, even without wine, but it's so much food. Too much food really if you do the whole 4 course deal. But we'd never been before, so we figured we'd give it a shot. Next time we go, the cheese course and dessert will be plenty of food. 2 straight hours of eating later, we crawled into bed and proceeded to sleep until 11/12 (damn you time change...) before eating a meager breakfast and running some errands. All in all a good weekend. Now it's back to the grind. Today is Sonja's birthday too, so we're going to give her some special treats tonight or something (not that she needs any more treats, but it's her birthday). Maybe now that she's 2, she'll stop crying like a little baby when I try to groom her. I doubt it, but there's always hope.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments