edlib

If Zoom ever needs a second job around the holidays...

Only 4 groups of kids came to our door. At least that's what mom said. I was at work, dealing with Al DiMeola, who is a wee bit of a weirdo as it turns out. Most of them came late too... long after she thought it was all over, and she turned out the light and locked the door and laid down on the couch, they showed up pounding on the door and leaning on the doorbell. Anyway... 90% of our candy remains. I'll do my best to promote diabetes at work this week.

E'yup. Go fast. Turn left. Repeat. 'The International Internet Cat Video Festival' at work tonight. Pretty much exactly how it sounds. We showed a DVD of somebody's collection of cat clips on our big screen. Kinda silly, but ridiculously easy, so no complaints from me. Some of the clips were pretty funny... but I've already seen all the best ones already. I do have Facebook, after all...

NASCAR road course races are better than ovals. Oval track racing gets monotonous for me. There's a little interest in hearing about different pit-stop strategies... but that's really about it.

I work until at least 11pm most nights, sometimes later, typically 6 nights a week, unless it's 7 nights. It's probably been 20 years since I have managed to watch any TV in real time. The only baseball team I give a crap about how they are doing is the Red Sox... and that's only because: (2.) they are local; but mostly because: (1.) I work within walking distance to Fenway Park, and the night games often let out right about the same time I'm leaving work, and it affects my commute. Rah Rah! Goooo, Sports Team! When I have time to pay attention to such things, I follow Formula 1, Indycar, the World Rally Championship, and other motorsports... with the possible exception of NASCAR, which I typically find boring.

Really frustrating day at work. Too many brand-new, completely green stagehand crew. Weird technical glitches for seemingly no reason. Threw me off my game... The show went fine... but I was fuming at the console all night. Meh.

It's been a long, long time since I've used a keyboard to game. Hell... it's been a long time sine I've used a gamepad to game. I always used arrow keys for movement though, and space and enter for the two most common actions. Made the most sense to me.

Yeah, but the older I get, the more I get used to it... After Space: 1999 and 2001 (and 2010) failed to be anywhere near the predicted level of futuristic awesometasity, my threshold of disappointment kinda callused over. But: none of them predicted how many cat videos there would be available on the internet... and that's pretty amazing, right?!??

I just noticed that the Falcon hyperspace flyby shot in this trailer looks almost EXACTLY like the J.J. Abrams Star Trek warp shots of the Enterprise. Hmmm... At least the lens flare shots aren't totally out of control, though there are a few... and so far I haven't seen any of his trademark seasickness-inducing hand-held cam shakiness... yet.

A friend just posted this. It's better. (This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.)

Hmmm... I'd have to upgrade my game console. Since I never turn on the ones I have anymore, or ever seem to any have time to play games... it would be a bit of an investment. I hear the vehicle controls in BF are still kinda clunky.

All that in-atmosphere dogfighting makes me want to play Rogue Squadron again.

Fair enough... but of those of us remaining here, it's 'Ye Olde Sausage Fest. At least I think it is... I've met several of them in person too... but perhaps I assume too much. If you want to see the faces behind the usernames, you'll find most here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/18468824200/ or https://www.facebook.com/groups/18003359008/ There, all our secrets are revealed.

I'll take it into consideration, thanks! Even if I don't move to Win10, though, I might just reformat/ reinstall Win 7 from the backup DVDs I have. It's gotten pretty slow and buggy lately. But it's over 5 years on the same OS install without a refresh... I'm probably way overdue. By the way: Keyan is a dude. I'm pretty sure we're all dudes here. Those of us remaining, still posting, and keeping this place alive on bare minimal life-support, that is. There used to be females... if you dig through the forum strata deep enough, you can see evidence of activity from the other gender back in the prehistoric past. Those days are apparently long gone now, though... There might be lurkers, though... who knows?

Bought a 2 TB hard drive this afternoon. Backing up a bunch of crap off my laptop in case I decide to make the move to Win 10 and it all goes to hell in the process. Or... if the internal drive craps the bed before I can get that far... which is always a distinct possibility with a 5+ year-old-laptop. Either way... I'm covered for all the stuff I have no desire to lose... which isn't really all that much, anymore. Some family pics. A few music files. A couple of interesting PDFs... I doubt I'll make much of a dent on the drive.

I just worked 43 hours of the last 72. Yup. It's fun to do a full week's work, then ANOTHER full week's work (plus OT) in just 3 days. No wait... it's not really fun at all. What's the thing that's diametric opposite of "fun"? That. It was that. The paycheck will be epic though. Let's just hope I live to enjoy it...

I actually really like my job. I just wish it was just a bit more humane in the amount of hours and the unrealistic expectations of what we can do in an impossible schedule. But when things are running the way they were designed, life is good. Those times seem to be rarer and rarer these days, unfortunately. We seem to be victims of our own success, though: We keep pulling off these shows... so everybody thinks that next time they won't have to hold back, and they can just keep piling on events. P.S.: By the way... Yankees Suck. As a card-carrying resident of the greater Boston area, I believe that I am legally required to state that anytime the name of the team is mentioned. Actually... I personally love it when the Sox season ends... my commute gets SOOOOOO much easier. Where I work is one subway stop away from the ballpark. I'm always torn between support of the home team, and my dread of a post-season crowd rush to Fenway every night. World Series in Boston are the worst. At least in terms of me getting to and from work. And when they do win the series... I try to flee the city limits before the riots start.

Work has been totally nightmarish lately... and we are only a couple of weeks in, with a long way until May and Commencement. This bodes not at all well... Several events a day, 6 or 7 days a week, and each one is "THE BIGGEST, MOST IMPORTANT CONCERT EVER!!!" Except, we usually only get less than an hour to set up for a show that would, in a perfect world, take 4 to 6 hours to set up properly. Leading to my stress... because since these are so high profile, they have to be absolutely perfect, too. Oh... and many of the student crew working for me was just recently hired, so most of them don't know what to do on the job. I'm not a particularly happy dude these days.

You would think all those digital cable boxes and 'on-demand' streams would leave a record someplace that can be tallied, and the data analyzed. My guess is that the Nielsen people, like the offer I got to subscribe to TV guide the other day, are a relic from the pre-digital media universe with a tiny niche of Luddite hold outs, and clinging to life and relevancy for as long as they can before extinction. The survival instinct is very strong...

Just leave your TV tuned to CSPAN or the Weather Channel every time you leave the house to give them something to ponder...

Before I started college, there was a summer/ fall where I was doing 90 - 95 hours a week. You don't get to do a whole lot other than work and sleep though. I was so stressed and caffeinated during that time that I lost 30 or 40 pounds. Made enough in 6 months to pay off my first year of college and almost all my bills during that time. And that was working 2 more-or-less minimum wage jobs... Albeit with a bit of OT at one or the other or occasionally both each week.

This week at work is pretty slow... except for Friday, which is going to be like a week's worth of insane, stressful work in a couple of hours, and is going to suck. Next week I'm already scheduled 60+ hours. Ahh... Vacation is truly over! Here come the crazy work hours again! Next stop: Graduation! Of course: the extra money will be nice, especially around the holiday season... But the toll it's inevitably going to take on my mental and physical health (not to mention my love life...) is not really something I'm looking forward to.

Just Googlily maps. It has a way to calculate times by car, public transport, and foot. All of which seem overly optimistic. And the route it calculated from Beantown to Oregon for train and bus seems weird to me: It hugs the border with Mexico quite a bit, and takes almost 5 days. I took Amtrak from Boston to Seattle when I was a kid. Pretty much a straight shot, and took under 3 days. And the A-Wing was always my favorite. Speed and maneuverability for the win. You can't kill what you can't hit!

Maybe we should pace our walking so that our arrival is simultaneous, and just prior to Dec. 18th... so we can all have a dinner on Zoom before attending the "The Force Awakens" premier.

46 hours by car... but "this route has tolls"... so F that! It's only 960 hours by foot, not counting sleep. I think I'll do that instead. It will give me time to work up a proper appetite. What are the specials you will be running come mid-November?