one more day... (Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 12:23:27 PM) [Post a Comment]

Just one more day now and our DSL will be activated. It will be so nice--especially for me. To explain why, let's go back a few years. When I was in my second year of college (93 or 94, as I recall), my friends and I would laugh at the new term "Information Super-Highway". We figured that the internet of the time was more like a rather large two-lane highway. Even then, most places had very poor dirt road-like access to this "highway"--yet others were not any better than a well-beaten path. I think you can reasonably call the "Intarweb" we have today a Super-Highway. Unfortunately, though, because of a lack of money I've been forced to continue using a dial-up connection to the 'Net from home to this very day. If you know me well, you know I despise the area where I grew up. It was a poor, rural area full of people with backwoods attitudes. I consider a crappy dialup connection to be just like the terrible dirt roads I had to cross to get to the relative "real world" of college. The crappy dialup has been a tormenting reminder of where I came from.

UNTIL NOW.

The DSL modem and associated hardware arrived yesterday and I set it up last night. I wasn't able to configure it much without the line activated, but at least it's ready to go once it's turned on tomorrow. After that, no more dialup for me! Hopefully, no more of it EVER!

I should mention that right after my previous post on Saturday, our friends Phil and Serena stopped by to visit for a couple of hours or so. I finally got to meet their cute and precocious 6 month old daughter, Madeline. They were in town to attend yet another wedding of one of Serena's cousins. How many cousins does she have anyway? Not that I'm complaining, any excuse to get to see them is good.

Our kitten Hobbes has been acting worse than a two-year old at times this week. On Sunday, he discovered that my shoelaces were a most excellent chew-toy. Each day this week my shoelaces have been getting shorter and shorter as I've found chewed-off parts of them on the floor.  >:{  I'll now have to get new shoelaces this weekend and hide my shoes every night.  >:{

I've had this funny scene running through my head the past few days and I just have to get it out. Please tell me what you think of it:

Imagine a generic TV news guy on a generic TV news broadcast:
"And in other news today: Because of modern medical advances, the Pope is now amoung the living dead. In related news, the super-secret anti-demonic arm of the Catholic church is now having theological fits."

[Post a Comment]

DSL is coming!!!!!!1111! (Saturday, February 19, 2005 - 11:20:25 AM) [Post a Comment]

Carolaina told me yesterday that as an early birthday present, we were getting DSL! HALLELUJAH!!! NO MORE CRAPPY DIALUP!!!

Actually, we were kinda forced into it. It seems SBC is killing off all contracts with ISP companies for long-distance service. So, we would no longer be able to dial into Aristotle from here in Searcy. This also means everyone is forced to use THEIR dialup service or switch to DSL--which means lots and lots of money for SBC. This kind of thing should be illegal. They essentially have a monopoly on local phone service for most of the state, and they're abusing that power. At least it means I can finally have broadband access to the Internet at home! I can finally download old B&W movies and old TV shows!

This morning, I had a rather productive Atari game hunt. At Thackerland though, someone had bought out all of the commons Coach had. That's ok, since I already had all of them (sometimes more than one). I had much better luck at GameXChange. Here's all the games I got, in rarity order:

H.E.R.O. (Activision) [5]
Beamrider (Activision) [5]
Alpha Beam with Ernie (Atari) [4]
Final Approach (Apollo) [4]
Breakaway IV (Sears) [3]
Space Invaders (Sears) [2]

I'm having a pretty good weekend so far!

[Post a Comment]

busy few days (Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 12:45:06 PM) [Post a Comment]

This weekend, we went down to Bismark to visit with Carolaina's dad. He's gotten more work done on his small (but comfortably wonderful) house. It's now mostly done and quite livable. Before, the bathroom and bedrooms weren't quite done--they only still had the bare plywood floors. Now, he's gotten carpet in his bedroom and a linoleum tile on his bathroom and washroom floors. The only other major addition he's planning is a wood stove for those few times he's without power. I told him about my plans for making a battery-powered LED lamp and I think he liked the idea. I really like his house--it's neat, small and comfortable.

Monday was Valentines Day. Since we are short on money this month, I couldn't get Carolaina much--just a nice card and some nice chocolates. I wanted to get her flowers, but the prices on them were exorbitant. We wanted to go out to eat at the Filipino restaurant, but it is closed on Mondays. (Valentines should never be allowed to fall on a Monday, how rude!) We tried to go to Coltons, but there was a 45-minute wait just to get in, so we settled for a chinese restaurant called China Star.

Yesterday, I had a doctor's appointment at 3:30. Carolaina came down here to Little Rock to go with me. She arrived here at the office way early: "You know me, no sense of time!" she said. The doctor's appointment went well, but we didn't find out as much as we'd hoped. When we got home, I had found that my Dungeons & Dragons dice had FINALLY arrived. I'd ordered them two weeks ago, but had gotten the cheapest shipping, so I can't really complain... much. Later, we went to Letty's Place, the Filipino Restaurant. We both really missed getting to go there the day before. I had something called Ginataan. The Wikipedia article on soup calls it a dessert soup, but this was cooked different from how it's described there. It was pork and veggies cooked in coconut milk--similar to the Fritong Baboy I had last time, but this tasted completely different. It was still wonderfully good, though. Carolaina once again had the curry with chicken and shrimp.

Hobbes just would not let me sleep last night. I wouldn't mind if all he wanted to do was sleep beside me and purr. But NO, he wanted attention and was making sure I knew it. Carolaina finally tossed all the cats out of our room and shut the door so we could sleep. I need to post a more recent photo of Hobbes. He's grown a lot since we first got him.

[Post a Comment]

wonderfully slow week (Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 12:54:10 PM) [Post a Comment]

Compared to last week, I'm so glad that this is a slow week. Carolaina and I are going down to see her Dad this weekend. I love the quiet area he lives in down in Bismark (a few minutes south of Hot Springs).

Tonight I'll be heading up to Anthony's house to get him set up with the latest NWN patch and some freeware utility software for Neverwinter Nights. He currently doesn't have Internet access.

In other non-news, I came across this neat site. It seems a young married couple in Maryland is planning on building a hobbit hole house for themselves. Cool!

[Post a Comment]

medical scare (Thursday, February 3, 2005 - 6:54:10 PM) [Post a Comment]

I had a major medical scare yesterday afternoon. First some background info: on Tuesday, Carolaina and I went to see a doctor and he gave me a round of medication. I took the first of them yesterday morning before I left for work. Right after lunch, I started feeling like I was slowing down. It became hard to focus and putting simple thoughts together became really difficult. For example, a simple thing such as typing out the simplest phrases while chatting with Carolaina took 10 times as long since I kept making TONS of typing errors that made what I wrote unintelligible. A simple email to the office saying I would likely leave early because of this took me more than 10 minutes to write. I also became too weak to walk--even small movements became difficult.

Luckily, others in the office noticed me slumped down in my chair. I had to speak slowly and I'm sure my speech was badly slurred. Terry called the paramedics and they came and whisked me away to Baptist Hospital. I have no idea how long it took to get there, but I'm almost certain that it was the fastest I've ever traveled down the length of I-630. The paramedics and the doctors at the hospital were baffled--they had never heard of this medication causing anything severe like this before. Dr. Farmer could only guess that I just had a rare reaction to this particular drug.

Carolaina was already on her way to come get me when I was taken to the hospital. She arrived maybe 30 minutes after I reached the hospital and I was really glad to see her. After spending a few hours there getting tested (X-Rays, blood work, poked & prodded by doctors and nurses), I slowly began to recover. Even now, I'm still fairly weak, but I feel ok. Based on the doctor's advice and Carolaina's concern, I stayed home today to recover. I'm glad I did because I was weak enough at one point this morning to make walking difficult. I'm thankful that our house has a narrow hallway.

Since Carolaina brought me home from the hospital, we had to leave my car in the parking lot there at work. This means that she'll be bringing me to work tomorrow. But hey, this is a minor incovience considering I survived this incident nearly unscathed.

[Post a Comment]