Birthday blog!
Yay! It is my birthday, and I am older than EVER. Yes, it tends to work that way, somehow. I've heard somewhere before that somebody thought it'd be better if we lived backwards. So we started old and crusty, and then slowly got more fit and good-looking. That'd be kind of nice. With the way science is going, maybe that's not too far off.

So yes! Birthday! Which means a gathering. A shindig, if you will. At my place, which not everyone has seen yet. So I've been cleaning! It should be clean enough to satisfy most by tomorrow. Which is when the shindig is taking place. Somewhere around 8 or 9. Come, if you'd like! It's nothing formal, although I just might pull out one or two items I picked up today. Maybe. I AM a big nerd, after all, and those are both great for gatherings, but it may wait until later in the evening.

Yeah, I did that for myself for today, since I recently found out something very good. In case you didn't know, getting medical insurance outside of benefits is EXPENSIVE. Quite. And that was one of the bigger bills I had to handle. I really thought I was going to have to recover about four figures for mine, but I had put it off because I get insurance through benefits (starting tomorrow), so I didn't have to worry so much about keeping it current. Yay! So I was dreading trying to juggle the income through current bills and recovering that and a couple of other smaller ones (almost all caught up now). I thought I had a grace period until today, so I contacted them earlier this week about repayment options, maybe putting it off a bit more, since I didn't really need it anymore, but I wanted to be good and pay for everything. Turns out (I should open my mail instead of assuming it's the bill I think it is) I didn't have a grace period this time, so at the start of September, they cancelled my insurance. They retroactively cancelled it. Back to June. Which is okay because (as far as I remember) I only had a dentist cleaning appointment in that time. But it's ESPECIALLY okay because they wiped my balance clean. I owe NOTHING. Yaaay! No credit damage, either, so this was an especially good revelation. And it means I have a little more than I thought I would, so I went ahead and used a fraction of what I had set for that to get my two new items. And everything is cool.

Yes, I think there is balance in the world. I was having a pretty horrid couple of weeks not too long ago, if you remember. And it seems to be swaying the other direction. Even if tomorrow is awful, just the past few days have been pretty swell. So remember that, if you're having a really bad day/week/month/year, things will eventually balance out. Grin and bear it as best you can, and just start looking forward to the time when things WILL get better. I do have to mention, (possibly from blog reminding) a lot of people remembered my birthday, and I actually had four people wish me a good one within half an hour after midnight. It made me feel loved. Yay! Thank you, guys!

So I'm debating sparring tonight in kung fu. I'd prefer not to jam anything today, so I might just chill a bit, maybe leave early. Although previously for my birthday Sifu graced me with an extended set of three-on-one sparring, if I remember correctly. How could I pass that up, really? But my mom said I had to stop by at least for a little bit. I believe she wants to give me my yearly smacking. How can I pass that up, really?

I did watch Mean Girls. It wasn't too bad. It was based on a non-fiction book about cliques in high schools, and how girls treat each other. So it was eerily realistic. That, and I do admit a slight appreciation of Lindsay Lohan. It satisfies my odd craving for a chick flick for a little while.

Okay - I DO have some things to do at work, so I'll get back to them. Even though I'm quite efficient, so I tend to finish things with plenty of time left over. Normally. It's cool, you just have to balance it out. Random link time. Today is my birthday. And normally gifts go with birthdays (although I'm not expecting anything myself, seriously). And sometimes, for such events, you're not sure what to get. But there are some sites out there that have pretty cool trinkets for very good prices. Even if they're only available for 24 hours at a time (if they don't run out).

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 1:59 PM | 1 comments

 
No more sniffles
No more! I think it was just a cold. But I managed to get through it. So now not so much any more. Ugh, it wasn't fun, though. I think kung fu helped me pull through all that. Kung fu is good for the sinuses.

Speaking of which, tonight was a crazy kung fu night. We had something like four people just starting tonight, and I think three or four people who've only been about a week or so. Then another four standard students (including J.R., who hasn't attended in a few months) plus me and one other instructor student. LOTS of people. I got to break in the new guys. It was fun. Then Sifu did some self-defense moves at the end of class. That was also fun. One of the new guys learned some self-defense moves in a prison system (on the LEGAL side of it), and one of the moves we did was similar to that. Although his had a major problem, and I pointed it out to him. It was kind of funny to see him quite surprised at an elbow an inch from his nose, before he even realized anything was going on. Our version of the self-defense move corrected the "hole" in the version he used previously. That, and I did some conditioning with a few guys. It's interesting to see how they react when they realize how hard arms can actually get. Especially when they're already pretty solid (muscular and thin), and lil' ol' me can lay some nice bruises on them. Thankfully they reacted in more of a manner of awe than anger. So there's potential for future fun, there.

The weekend was good stuff. First good weekend I think I've had in a while. Got some good sun on Saturday, after going out for some volleyball. Then watched a couple of movies (The Punisher and Man on Fire) - they were oddly similar, although I was rather surprised that Denzel made the Punisher look almost pansy in comparison. It's a rather heavy movie. That Denzel, though - he's so dreamy! At least, that's what I hear. I thought it was good, though. Heavy duty, just be forewarned if you decide to watch it.

Oh, and I did get some apartment cleaning done. In preparation for Friday! I think I'm going to do a minor bash at my place on Friday night, probably around 9ish. Yes, for my birthday. I'm getting old. Which means the gathering won't be TOO crazy. At least it won't be intended to be. And everyone's invited! If you're reading this, then yes, I mean you. Just call me if you have questions. Hopefully I'll have the apartment looking spic and span in time. Maybe just span. There's a chance a large variety of people will show, meaning time for networking. Yay! Meet new people, always fun. I've met EVERYONE, so I'll be good.

And Sunday was good times. Sandra was in town, so we got some breakfast. At Marie Callender's! Great breakfasts. Seriously. And then it was time to chill for a while, then do the church thing. Church was quite good. We had a LOT of people there, both in choir and in the congregation. So our harmonies turned out quite splendidly. It was cool.

And yes, I've been recording! I still don't have anything final, but I've recorded three ideas so far. I need to write words and think of a singing style for each. Maybe when I get something solid I'll post it here. Maybe. We'll see.

Oh! And it's time for a random link. Because I'm going to finish watching a splendid movie I rented. But hey! I have a fun link for you. You may be too old to remember this, but all the Sim games did get started somewhere. Make sure you have spare time before checking it out. It may suck some of your time away.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 10:15 PM | 4 comments

 
Ugh I have sniffles
Yeah, I think I may be sick. Or else a sudden case of allergies. Normally I get my allergic reactions in the spring, but this time it looks like I'm having the symptoms for fall. That, and the fact that the temperature at work is right at 70 doesn't help that. So it's a bunch of blowing my nose and feeling like my head is trying to expand.

Things are getting better, bit by bit. Although one of my distractions is making me mad - my retarded XBox is getting worse. I have Burnout 3 and Fable, both of which are excellent games. But I can't really play Fable, because my XBox will lock up about half an hour into anything. Mainly it's a bad disc drive, I think. But it'll try loading something and then pop up a big screen (the equivalent of a BSOD, I think) that tries to convince me my disc is dirty or damaged. No, damn XBox, it's YOU! So since you have to get so far in Fable before it will save, many times I have tried advancing only to have it lock up before I can save. It makes me quite angry. Although, thankfully, Burnout, being the ultimate piece of software (it seriously could contend for game of the year, meaning Halo 2's going to have to meet the hype to compete), only locks up every now and then. I've learned I really shouldn't pause, though. Because my XBox gets confused and forgets what's happening. It flips out and then decides to pull the "Oh it's YOUR fault the disc must be dirty" manuever. Stupid XBox.

I've still got kung fu, though, to ease my mind. Although the students were being pretty bad on Tuesday with the first form. So, since Sifu wasn't there, Justin and I put them through the wringer. Meaning they did the first form many times, and finally step by step (through all 85 moves or so) to make specific corrections. It was therapeutic, though. I'm debating on going tonight or not, since I feel kinda pooty.

Oh yeah - a week from today I shall officially be one more year in age. I think it's getting to the point where I don't look forward to these days so much. Ugh. Oh well, hopefully it will be fun. Maybe I'll try to have a clean apartment by then. A lofty goal, considering I still haven't completely unpacked stuff. Although I've started up again, putting boxes in my new garage. Woo!

And usually around this time of year I go ahead and splurge, get myself something fun. Like, say, a gaming system, or a guitar. This year I really can't do it, since I'm still behind on a few of my bills (although caught up on the majority of them). But I will say I was VERY close to going ahead and putting something else on layaway. A guitar. A very NICE guitar. This is on my list of guitars I want to have on my wall eventually. The reason I didn't expect to get it soon is because this thing normally costs around $2500. It was about half that price where I found it, and in mint condition. I guess it wasn't meant to be, though, because after I left after looking at it, somebody walked in and bought it. Looks like I'll have to wait until I can actually afford it. Silly money.

Okay, time to get back to work. Stuff to do today. Always good. So random link time! I do have a Master's degree in computer science. But, as it turns out, a lot of people out there don't. Sometimes they just have to remind you.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 1:02 PM | 1 comments

 
Tuesday means off kilter
Yeah, normally I blog on Mondays, but I'm being different today. I have a few minutes while I run some crazy scans on various machines in my subnet, so I thought I'd take advantage. And blog.

So the weekend was one of those up and down ones. Where good stuff happened, and not so good stuff happened, and then it all happened again. As for my "date" on Saturday, I kind of got stood up. That wasn't so good. She was occupied and didn't have my cell number, so she couldn't call me ahead of time. Turns out she was overly detained by her three kids. I guess that can happen sometimes. Seeing as I don't have three kids, I don't know for sure.

I did get to do two demos at the health fair at Union High School, helping the school. The first day (Saturday) we were supposed to start around one, but something got mixed up, so they gave us an additional time to demo the following day. Originally it was only on the one day. The first day was interesting. We had a karate school demo before us, and it was mostly kids, and then the instructor breaking single boards with spinning kicks, urging the crowd to clap together to get a rhythm going. I guess it helped him. What, being only 6'4" and breaking each BOARD with spinning kicks. Must have made him nervous. So after he finishes we get to start. We shared our time with two other schools; one was taekwondo, one was kenpo. We split our demo time. By split, I mean that we'd do two kung fu demos, and then one of the other two schools would demo. Repeat that pattern. I guess a lot of people weren't used to the demo atmosphere, because they got quite nervous. There were quite a few mistakes. Two of our students, students who are senior to me and just got their black belts, did a sparring set. And somehow lost it in the middle, somewhere. They managed to figure out something, although it was apparent they lost their train of focus. Train of PAIN, more like it. I did a single set near the beginning, and it actually went quite well! I did my form low and fiercely. It was strong enough that the couple of people in the front row would tense up as I moved towards them, although I never got closer than about three feet. I got complements, though, which was cool.

It was a lot of forms for a bit, with single forms, sparring sets, so forth. Justin and I did a sparring set, turns out he's already feeling much better. I think it went quite well. Very fast, very hard. Helped re-bruise some bruises I had gotten from training for the self-defense part of the demo. Then I did another sparring set with the senior student from the kid's class - he was very nervous (was throwing up early that day, but turns out it was all nerves), but he did very well! I think it may have impressed some people. After that it was time for a breaking demo by the taekwondo school. Sadly, they actually did not successfully break more than half their attempts. One was a girl who tried a back spinning heel kick into two boards. It really looked to me and Justin like her attempts were warmups, only we realized after a couple that she was really trying to break the boards. It was about as hard as if she had jumped in the air about a foot and a half and then landed. No stomp, just a mild thud. I think she wasn't happy, though. I felt kind of bad for the school, but everyone has bad days.

After that we did some self-defense techniques, out of the five animal sets. I did a tiger technique and a dragon technique, and they both worked fairly well. Then the kenpo school did a sparring demo with swords, samauri-style. It was all impromptu, so no real set movements were planned. It was interesting. Finally, we finished with Sifu doing the always impressive bending of the rebar. Seven feet long, half an inch diameter. Think you could bend rebar that big? Maybe. Could you do it by putting one end against a piece of wood (being held by Justin, who in turn was braced by four other people), and the other end against the small of your throat? Sifu can. And did. It was quite cool. A bunch of kids were checking out the bent rebar afterwards.

So it turned out pretty well, although the next day's demo was very similar, but better, I'd say. Justin stood in for one of the students I did self-defense moves against, and I ended up accidentally kicking him harder than I meant to, although it was pretty funny. It really does work. And then since we didn't have all the students we did Saturday, Sifu added some more self-defense moves, this time moves against me and Justin by Sifu. Which meant Justin got his fingers and wrist twisted around in various painful ways, and I got to be slammed against the floor a few times, with extra strikes and kicks for good measure. And the taekwondo school broke almost every board this time, although they reduced the number of boards a bit. I think part of it may have been the big pad we had for our floor, since it was bouncy enough to lower the force they could throw from their techniques. It was cool, though. And we watched a Krav Maga school demo afterwards, which was primarily straightforward self-defense techniques. Mostly blocking and striking immediately, followed by many more strikes, usually in the knee to the chest variety. Justin and I recognized pretty much all the movements, but we had to give them credit because the techniques they use are quite effective. At least, against people who aren't expecting them. Muahahahaha....

So yeah. LOTS of kung fu. With a slight break for church on Sunday. My guitar now has only eleven strings, since I snapped one during practice on Wednesday, but I felt like I played fairly well, considering. And I did get a few complements, too. Always nice.

Then MORE kung fu on Monday. Small class, although I led everyone through warmups for the first time in a while. I like leading warmups. I usually push a bit harder than other people, so everyone's sweating by the end. It felt like a good class, though. Ending with some good chin na techniques, which I personally like quite a bit.

And I have more kung fu later today. For about three hours. That's a lot of kung fu! I like kung fu. It's a good thing, because if I didn't, I'd probably be miserable right now. I kind of am, because I'm coming down with either an infection or allergies. My nose is running like a dog trying to catch a crazy fast frisbee. Which means lots of Kleenex. Which means my nose will be turning red pretty soon. Which is sucky. But that's okay, I can deal with it.

Okay, time to check on my scanned machines. Hope you're having a lovely day! My week this week looks like it's going to be at least 100% better than last week. Which is good. Random link! I think I've posted before, but now this special something is at a 1.0 pre-release version. If you're not running it already, I HIGHLY recommend it. No pop-ups, will prevent a lot of spyware installations - trust me, if I've fixed a machine for you, you'll know the benefits.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 2:58 PM | 2 comments

 
Happy birthday, blog!
My blog is now a year old! Woo! Actually, as of yesterday. I thought I'd just pop a quick blog up just for funsies. Check it out. And I might as well do a random link while I'm at it. Yay!

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 11:44 PM | 1 comments

 
Quickie
Mmm, a quickie. I'm leaving for the weekend pretty shortly here, but thought I'd post another blog to make up for not posting as much as usual. Although I don't have TOO much to say.

Today's actually been not too shabby. I got some stuff at work done, which is quite good. I found out about Ghost in the Shell 2 being released in theaters (sadly, not in town). I think it will be good. A mix of sci-fi and philosophy. For some reason that really appeals to me. I went and got a haircut at lunch, had a good talk with my barber (she's cool). I'm much sexier now. My barber actually liked my sideburns, so I'm leaving them (albeit trimmed a bit). And she made a comment that I resemble a Beatle (John). Not the first time I've gotten that comment lately. Although I used to get that comment ALL THE TIME. Seriously. Compared to every one of the Beatles. John and George, I can see. Paul and Ringo, not so much. Somehow wearing a guitar helps, too. Not sure why. Anyway, I guess I was sexy enough to be asked out within an hour. Woo! Sort of. My barber and I are going to get coffee, even though I don't drink coffee. Should be interesting. Not sure what her intentions really are, but somehow I don't think I'm that sexy, so it'll probably just be some chillin' and chattin'.

I really do think the main reason she asked me out was because I made some comment about needing distractions. I need to push FORWARD. Get out of my bad week, and get some good stuff. So I think I'm going to start recording again. Yes! Yay! That's a good thing for you, Trusted Reader. Hopefully. We'll see what happens with that. I already have some song titles in mind. They'll probably be a little crazy, I can't be writing anything SERIOUS now. So hopefully it'll be good stuff.

Okay. And it IS time to go. Since my boss has left. So - have a lovely weekend! Here's a nice random link for you to enjoy. I think this is one I might actually get into, I think it'd be fun.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 4:18 PM | 3 comments

 
Slowly getting better
Yeah, this week hasn't been one of my better weeks. It IS getting better, though. And I have to say that all my friends giving me good vibes helped a LOT. Thank you, guys! I'll give a shortened list of some of the sucky stuff, but I'm not diving into it. Basically, the car broke down ($800 I don't really have), my biggest hard drive broke down (digital photos, all my digital music), an animal died somewhere in my apartment (never found it), ran out of money (an automatic payment unexpectedly early) -> ran out of gas + ran out of food, had a big clash with an old friend, broke a guitar string. Oh yeah, and broke up with the girlfriend. It's all slowly getting better. Slowly. Any one of those I could have handled. When it's all stacked on top of each other, it somehow makes things a lot worse. But I did have help from friends and family. Thanks again!

The animal smell has gone away, either it was cleaned out or faded, so that's good. I got my paycheck, so things are looking a little easier to handle. I DID get Fable, which is too sweet. If my XBox wasn't retarded and didn't freeze up randomly, it'd be better, but it's still quite awesome. Excellent music, story, feel. I recommend it. And Burnout 3 is still good. Although it doesn't relieve tension as much as I'd like. Kind of adds more, when I'm already worried about other stuff. But after things have gotten better, it gets better, too. Just like ice cream!

And a brief word on the girlfriend. A few of you made some comments. I'll just say we're still on very good terms with each other, and the breakup was a necessary choice, for a variety of reasons. I'll also say it's very hard to separate with someone when you both still care a lot for each other. I hope not too many of you have to experience that, if any at all.

I did have a good night at kung fu tonight, it cleansed my system a bit. Two new guys who are pretty gung-ho about starting. I showed them why kung fu is cool, and watching the slow smiles cross their faces as the realization sunk in was priceless. I think they might stick around for a while. Justin's getting better. We're doing a demo on Saturday, some sort of health club over on Mingo. We've got ten minutes, and another group (Karate) will have ten minutes. We were supposed to practice WITH them, but they never showed. Sifu said he didn't care what they did, we're still going to do a good job. I think we will, too - it's a pretty good lineup of stuff. I'm doing three forms and two self-defense maneuvers. Two of the forms will be sparring sets, one with Justin, one with the most advanced student in the kids' class. The guy is really good, but very short, which means my stances have to be SUPER low, which worked me out quite a bit. It should be at the very least interesting.

Work has been pretty good, I'm doing a big Symantec update tomorrow and got props on letting everyone know ahead of time. So that's good. Just haven't been sleeping well enough to make me rested as much as I'd like to be. We had a cool community building session today, which was different, but kind of cool. Except for the lunch. Which was all very vegetarian. Lots of casserole looking things, random vegetables, and crackers. I'll be having my pizza here shortly, hopefully that will cleanse my system of all those nasty non-previously-warm-blooded organisms. Mmm, pizza and Pepsi. Makes me feel better.

Okay, so hopefully things will be getting back to some sort of normalcy sometime reasonably soon. In an effort to appease the state of being normal, I'm leaving you with two random links. VERY random links. One is just viewable. The other is a little more interactive. Sort of.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 9:03 PM | 2 comments

 
Everything's broken
Ever had one of those days where everything that can go wrong does? For me, today is that day.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 4:08 PM | 6 comments

 
Overdue blog
Uh-oh, my blog is overdue. That's okay, though. I've been kinda busy. Actually had stuff at work to do that meant I didn't have time to blog at lunch. But today I can!

The weekend was three days long. Can you believe it? I ended up spending a bit of it with Sandra, but I had some good sleeping in moments, also. One of the big things was actually with Justin. I called him to ask him something, and found out he was in the hospital! It made me a bit nervous, but it turned out okay, he had his appendix removed. It means he won't be too active for at least a couple of weeks, but he's probably resting for good reason. That meant that I pretty much had three hours of kung fu to handle on Tuesday. Sifu was gone, as well, for a lot of the day, so it was me and Chris taking care of business. Starting with the kids' class. I hadn't taught the kids' class before then, so it was a new experience. A very new experience. They take a little more patience, time, and slightly less violence. But it was informative. And class was over before I realized it, since it's only about forty minutes long. And after that it was time for the BIG kids' class, but it was pretty laid back since there weren't too many people there. It meant each person got specific teaching time, and it was pretty cool. I took care of warmups for the first time in a long time, and I think I tired them out nicely. Yay!

Yesterday was more of a fun day. Fun because of three things. Guitar, gaming, and dihydrogen oxide chaos. Choir practice, naturally. Although since I showed up early, I got some good emotional outlet through playing, which I highly recommend for anyone, from time to time. And then it was time for the chaos - water balloon battle! It was with Newman, and it was pretty fun. It started organized, but eventually turned into a more hysteric conglomeration of frantic saturation procedures. Yeah, basically grabbing the last few balloons and chucking them at the first person you thought needed to be a little more wet. It was a lot of fun.

Ooh... but gaming gets its own paragraph. Why, you may ask? Some games deserve their own paragraph. Burnout 3 is absolutely incredible. I picked it up yesterday, and I haven't had a lot of time to play it yet, but what I have put in is awesome. It sucks time away quite easily, too. Imagine your favorite racing game. Then crank the level of detail up several notches, make it 60 frames per second, widescreen, and progressive scan. Add some Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. Then take the sense of speed you normally get in racing games and multiply it times FOUR. And then put the race in the middle of a fully populated set of city roads. With full crash damage detail. The ability to go into slow motion during wrecks to guide your flaming piece of wreckage into other racers. As well as modes where your goal is to take OUT the other racers (many times), as well as a full mode dedicated to causing as much damage starting with one single impact as possible. And then throw on a lot of extra stuff I definitely don't have time to describe here. Yeah, NOW you have an idea why this gets its own paragraph. Online competition? It's got it. Make your OWN soundtrack to play in game? Okay. And the adrenaline rush while you're actually playing is unparalleled. I highly recommend it; this game is rated LUSCIOUS.

So between that and the last bits of my World of Warcraft beta time, I've had my free time nicely filled. WoW is also excellent. And it's still only beta. It's better than any other MMORPG I've seen, in its BETA stage. I've made something like five character to try out, and I think I like the Taurens best. They look like bipedal bulls, and they're pretty freakin' tough. I made a Hunter character. So it's almost like having a hamburger coming to eat YOU. When (/if) I get to level 10, I get to have a pet! That might be worth it in itself. I may have to actually purchase this one when it comes out. We'll see.

Oh, one very bad thing did happen. I have many hard drives. Three were active in my computer. Two of which were linked in a RAID sort of fashion (mirrored, mind you). The other was 80 GB, and basically full. Of music, of digital photos I've taken, that type of thing. And it's going bad. Which is very bad. It means I have to buy another hard drive and then attempt to recover as much as possible before the whole thing dies. I'm just crossing my fingers for my digital photos, because that's the only place I have a lot of them stored. Teaches me for not backing up to something a little more secure. And YOU should learn from this, as well. Back up your stuff!

Ah, but WoW and Burnout (and Fable, soon enough) will distract me until I can afford to try the recovery. If you have any other ideas on the best way to go about it, let me know. But I think I've got everything planned as best as possible. Which hopefully will be good enough. To distract YOU I have a random link. This time some news about an unexpected turn of events, which might make a few of you out there (i.e., ALL of you) smile.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 11:58 AM | 0 comments

 
Three-day WEEKEND
I like three-day weekends. I don't know why. Maybe that's just one of those things that will always be a mystery. Ah, but it should provide time to recover my sleep, hopefully. Which I still haven't recovered completely. Ugh. It's still been kind of a slow week, but I'm starting to think that's how EVERY week is, with occasional exceptions.

Yeah, Wednesday was choir practice, which actually turned out pretty nicely. We have yet another guitarist, which makes four. He's a freshman and plays primarily electric, although he's borrowing an acoustic for the time being. One of the other guitarists thinks four is TOO MUCH (pssh, what's he thinking), so he's standing down. I'm hoping to convince him four is JUST ENOUGH, if not far too few. So practice, followed by a jam session by all the guitars. And a piano, with one of the new guys, who's quite good at the piano (and other instruments, if I understand correctly). It was pretty sweet. The pianist actually started playing The World I Know by Collective Soul, and it took a second to recognize, because he had it quite layered. Since I've known that song for many years, and one of the other guitarists knows it, too, it broke into a spontaneous cover, which sounded quite good. A lot of fun. Not to mention a little Stevie Ray (Pride and Joy) and Jimi (Voodoo Child), all on acoustic. Maybe we'll have to throw a couple of those in during church sometime.

And I went to visit my friend Fred with Carlos, to finish our lengthy imported Japanese samauri flick. Yeah, all TWENTY MINUTES of it. It was pretty sad, we thought there'd be another hour and a half or so. But it was okay, we ended up utilizing the time nicely.

So yesterday the WoW Stress test began. And I didn't have the file installed. GRR! I was mad. See, the file is kind of large. As in 2 GB large. So I had to download it, first. And FilePlanet was misbehaving, not giving me the link. So I had to search near and far to finally locate it on Blizzard's site. Took a little while to download, and then I started installation this morning. I'm kind of excited to try it out.

Also, best kung fu class in a while. I was just motivated, for some reason. Worked conditioning, went through Gung Gee for the first time in a while, helped the students, and then ended up sparring with one of the younger students. Normally I go light on him. Not this time. I made him work. I didn't hit him, just pause my fist about an inch from his face each time, so he'd know it was there. And my groin kicks stopped as soon as they touched the fabric of his pants. But nothing he threw got through this time. It was fun, I got to practice fighting with each of my hands (individually), and then with no arms, just legs. Makes for a bit of required innovation.

After that, class was over, and Justin and I sparred. And for the first time in a long time, we sparred HARD. I actually hit him more than I have in a very, very long time. Couple of solid face and chest shots. He got his slaps in, of course. And a couple of good thrusting heel kicks. Although I was pretty satisfied by his sweep on me. He planted his hands on my chest, swept his leg from behind my legs towards the front of me, and I saw it just in time. I lowered into a high horse stance, and I was solid. He ended up moving himself, which was cool to see. He almost swept himself, and I was surprised. I ended up with a few nice battle scars, too. A cut on my elbow from blocking a kick of his, a nice scrape on the inside of the other elbow, and a solid scrape on the lower left part of my chest. It was a very good class, though.

Ooh, Burnout 3 is coming. And it's going to be very, very good. The first of many. One week, baby! I always loved racing games. My personal favorites have been some of the earlier Need For Speed games (High Stakes, STILL a good game), as well as the Gran Turismo series. The Burnout series brings something new to the table. Racing through full traffic, and if you're unsuccessful (ahem, you collide with something), the physics engine makes it all okay. Because it's beautiful. That, and there's something built into testosterone that is attracted to massive explosions and big wrecks. Chaos. At any rate, it's luscious.

Ah, and now it's time for the three day weekend. I'm hoping it's a good one. Sleep, some unpacking, a lot of WoW, and maybe some other fun excursions. Hope you guys have a good one, too! Random link time. I'll leave you with the quick solution for IM for people who don't want to install software, and who might need to get around certain blocked IPs. And since we're on a three-day weekend, a BONUS random link. You're welcome.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 1:05 PM | 3 comments

 
Pootenheimer SMASH
I've been on a Hulk kick lately (in case you couldn't tell by my counter icon). Oh, yeah. I've been a big fan of the Hulk ever since I was a kid. I went out and rented the old-school set of TV movies of the Hulk. I'd seen them before, but it's been several years since I have. The funny thing is the memories it brought back. I used to LOVE the first movie, The Hulk Returns. It has Thor in it! I remembered all the music from it, it got me excited just watching this last time, when some of the music kicked in, because I remember it exciting me when I watched it originally. I think I'm going to have to buy it, it's just too cool. And Lou Ferrigno makes a very cool Hulk.

The other thing I've been doing with Hulk stuff is reading some of the comics. I found a full set online, so I've been reading through the comics, to learn the recent story behind the Hulk. It's very intricate, convoluted, and fascinating. And who doesn't love a super hero who's stronger than anyone and is basically invincible, even if a little misguided on occasion? I'm particularly entertained by scenes where some poor schmuck thinks HE'S the one who can take the Hulk out. And he learns the sad truth, but oh, too late. Hulk smash!

Yeah, so I'm writing a third paragraph about the Hulk. Man, I am a fan. Which makes me sad about the recent movie. Because it didn't do well, and a lot of people were expecting to see a whole movie basically consisting of, well, Hulk smashing. And lo and behold, there's actually a full plot in the movie. I think the storyline was developed to try to parallel the comic a bit, but in truth, it's difficult to really relay the story fully enough in two hours or so to keep people intrigued. Especially when most people want to basically watch a Godzilla-style movie. I think I might have to buy that movie, too, though, because I am one of the few who actually DOES care more about the storyline, and there are a few very cool action sequences. Hulk smash!

So I got my first paycheck. Yay! And I managed to pay off about half my bills completely, and knock a chunk off of some of the others. It's quite a relief. That, and I also managed to snag something new with the apartment. I found out a few things about the way they're laid out. Essentially, on either side of my apartment are two other apartments; they're the second floor of three-bedroom apartments that take up two floors. Very nice apartments, I believe. And they come equipped with an attached garage, which has stairs that go from the garage to the second floor, or the first floor of that apartment. There are three garages on each side of the building, two of which are the attached ones (if I understand correctly). Which leaves the middle one. And I managed to snag it after the last people who had it moved out. Yay! It's sweet! It means I can keep weather from affecting my car, which has been a pain in the past. Either from severe heat, possible hail damage, or snow/ice that takes time to scrape off. Now I don't have to worry about it. Woo! And there's extra room for storage, so I can keep a lot of my packing materials when I finish unpacking all my stuff, now that I know I can keep the apartment. Plus there's an inside door, which exits by the covered stairs, so if it IS raining, I can stay nice and dry. Yaaay! Lots of bonuses, and it's really not too much more on top of the rent. Personally, I think it's worth it, and it IS hard to land that garage.

And work has been good. Things run a little bit slower at the City, but that's okay. I had orientation today (the first session), and they talked about all the rules, sexual harassment, and about benefits. Ooh, benefits. I'm still learning Perl, which I've found out is quite cool. I think if I can get used to it, it may replace my old KSH scripts.

Ah, and kung fu this week has been fairly quiet. Not too many people this week, really, although I did finish writing an article for Sifu and the newsletter, about conditioning. And Sifu actually liked this one. Which is good, because he didn't like the last two attempts I made at writing an article. Bleah. Also, we've been practicing the new Chin Na techniques in class, which I think are pretty slick. They're VERY effective, and if you do them right, they don't take much effort at all. It doesn't look like you're doing anything, but a very subtle twist here, a turn there, and the opponent is bent over in pain. Very fun stuff.

Okay, and that's enough blog for today. I shall head from here to choir practice, and then probably chill a bit on my non-kung fu night. So random link time! This is something that EVERYONE should know about, but just in case you're not up on all the details on keeping your computer safe, secure, and current (and you're running some kind of Windows machine), here you go.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 3:31 PM | 3 comments