Look, I don’t want to be a downer, but its my website, alright?

So, at what point is it supposed to get easier? I can’t honestly say that I’ve had a single day yet where I haven’t thought about Derek being gone. Sure, sometimes its just a passing thought (on the good days), but the thought is there, nonetheless. Whether its telling joke that was a favorite of his, or simply passing by a place where he and I had gone (how silly is it that I find Best Buy mildly depressing right now?) the thought is there. Sure, there are good days and bad days. There are times where I’m surprised how ok I am, and times where it feels like I’m being smothered by a ton of bricks. Moving the last of Derek’s big stuff from his house in Cheverly, and therefore having to visit that house and his room, was surprisingly not as painful as I thought it would be. Seeing all of Derek’s stuff neatly piled in his Dad’s garage? A kick in the balls. His parents were talking about having a day where we gathered friends and pretty much gave away Derek’s possessions. That will probably be not so fun. Though, I will admit, there is some stuff of his I’d like to have – some for selfish reasons (stuff I could actually use, as gross as that is), some because I’d like to have it just because it was his. The idea bothers me a bit, for the same reason that I always get depressed when I move and see all my stuff boxed up. There’s this passing feeling like you’re summing a person up by their possessions. I like stuff. I like having stuff. Sometimes, my stuff definitely defines me. That doesn’t make it a good thing.

Gaming night has been sort of touch and go for me. In the past couple of months, Derek had missed our gaming nights a lot – he had been really busy at work before he left for Hawaii, and then… well, he left for Hawaii. So his absence wasn’t out of the ordinary, and yet now its just painfully obvious that he’s not there. Despite the fact that we often joked about how Derek tended to be a pretty passive roleplayer (something I hope I’ve learned to overcome [at least a bit] in the past two years of playing Nobilis) it was always obvious how much he loved being there with everyone. We just restarted the D&D campaign yesterday, and while we didn’t have a moment or silence or anything, I felt him missing (particularly since Kirt kept using the word “taint” – but you probably don’t want an explanation for that).

I am totally screwed if my MythTV box stops working. Why the hell did I let Derek convince me that installing Gentoo Linux was a good idea? I have no freaking idea how to even update the system. I guess this is where Derek starts teaching me to be as fearless as he was with this kind of thing. If it breaks, you just fix it, right?

I’ve never had to be Mr. Fix-It before. Not like this, at least.

Need to make time to get my second tattoo. I’d love to go down to Miami and hit up Miami Ink to do so – it would be a cool trip…but I think that might be a little difficult and expensive.

First off, I’ve turned comments back on, though I haven’t implemented a system for preventing spam comments yet because I haven’t had a good idea on solving it yet.

I’ve debated back and forth on whether I should post something here about Derek. Its probably still too fresh for me to do so, and I don’t know how to properly sum Derek’s influence on the past 10 years of my life in a post on a website. I would like to note that at the funeral this weekend, someone said that Derek was one of those people that, “lived each day as if it was his last.” Something about that made me angry, but I didn’t immediately realize why. It settled with me last night, however. I think that statement is a complete misunderstanding of Derek – he lived each day like it was his first in my eyes.

I used to talk
With honest conviction
Of how I predicted my world
I’m gonna leave it to stargazers
Tell me what your telescope sees

Oh, what is in store for me now?
It’s coming apart
I know that its true
Cause I’m feeling my way through the dark
-Through The Dark, KT Tunstall

No, proposing to Katie did not cause me to fall off the face of the planet. I apologize for my absence, and shall do my best to make amends. I haven’t had anything on my brain to draw, so I haven’t. I have, however, wished that I was drawing, so I’m going to through up some stuff I’ve doodled that is just random stuff.

The goings on:
I’ve had to turn comments off on the pictures and news because some asshat was spamming the comments with inappropriate advertisements. Here, of all places. A site that gets like 2 page views every month. Asshat. Hopefully I’ll be able to turn them back on in a little while.

Katie is currently in Russia studying abroad for a month, so I have been doing much movie watching to keep myself amused. I got a free one month subscription to Blockbuster Online which I’m using to rent movies that I’d be too embarassed to pick up in store (for the love of god, don’t ever ever ever see Ultraviolet).

Video games. I’ve played a lot in the last six months, so I’ll cover the highlights.

-Guitar Hero: buy a PS2 to play this game. Seriously.
-Condemned: Good atmosphere, nifty combat mechanics, superb lighting.
-Half-Life 2 Ep. 1: More of the same. Still not so impressed by HL2, but I’ll buy the other episodes because they’re at least halfway decent.
-Prey Demo: Goddamnit, a game with wonky gravity has been my idea for like 6 years now, and they’ve gone and stole it. This game should end up being a lot of fun multiplayer, and just might get me back to playing games online.
-City of Villains: I have NINJA HENCHMEN. I mean, how cool is that?
-Nintendo DS Lite: My most recent aquisition, and I’m quite happy with it. I’m totally enjoying New Super Mario Bros. and Brain Age is pretty fun too. I’m quite impressed with the intuitive feel of the control of Metroid Prime: Hunters as well.

Hrm…I guess I can actually find stuff to ramble about if I put my mind to it. Maybe I’ll come back in a few days and post some comic book rants (and talk about Superman Returns at that point).

So Kamil kept bugging me to update the site. Been busy working and playing games. September/October were some big months for games. I bought a ridiculous number in a short time. When I told Kamil that I had nothing to really talk about on my site, he said to review games, and I said no one would read them, and he said he would. So here goes:

Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy: Ambitious and over rated. Story line did not really “bend” as much as it “flexed slightly.” I only played through it once, but it was quite clear that nothing significant would really change if I played it again. It pretty much boils down to there being a “good” ending and a “bad” ending. Plot got really really pathetic near the end, as well.

Burnout Revenge: As bad ass as Burnout 3 was. Lots of mindless fun.

Myst V: Started strong, Ended strong, kind of slow in the middle. I was disappointed by the puzzles and the length of each age. I didn’t find the puzzles particularly inventive and you could probably play straight through the game in about 8 hours. That’s too short for an adventure game. I felt like I was barely starting the game and it was ending. As a fan of the series though, I enjoy how it wrapped the whole thing up. Oh, also from a technology standpoint, the facial animations (done mainly through texture work) and the complete graphics engine are pretty top notch.

We <3 Katamari: Please, King of the Cosmos, grace us with your presence in a third Katamari game. Can’t get enough of this one, I’m still collecting cousins.

Quake 4: Still playing this one. Engine is put to shame by F.E.A.R. in my opinion (see below). Pretty straight forward FPS. I’ll make it through the single player game eventually, but I’m in no hurry. The multiplayer is Quake 3, but prettier. I’ve got to get the frame rate up a little higher before diving into it more. Hopefully some sort of Rocket Arena 4 will come out, and some user made maps will make it better.

F.E.A.R.: Best FPS ever. At least in my opinion. The graphics are fantastic – shadows kick ass. Having your avatar cast a shadow is something that puts a level of immersion into the game that I’ve never seen. The absence of this in Quake 4 is totally noticable once you’ve played F.E.A.R. The scary moments are well spaced, and the fire fights are the best I have ever experienced. The Slo-Mo effect is fantastic; the sound shift and extra effects are perfect.

So, that’s a summary of stuff that I’ve played recently. I don’t think I’ve missed anything. I recently finished playing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and am nearing the end of X-Men: Legends (finally).

So there, Kamil. Fsck off (and I mean that in the nicest way)!

Go see Serenity.

Done? Ok, now go see it again. I can only hope that Serenity is half as satisfying for those who’ve never seen Firefly as it is for those who might call themselves “browncoats.” I think that Joss Whedon’s style translated quite well to the big screen – the pacing is fantastic, and while the overall story is a bit depressing, the witty banter here and there lightens the mood perfectly.

I was disappointed to see that it didn’t take the #1 spot at the box office this week, and that at #2 it only raked in a little over $10 million. I’m crossing my fingers that word of mouth will push it forward and that while it might never have a huge weekend, it will have a good amount of longevity to make enough money to fund a sequel. Mal can’t be done with the Alliance just yet.

My car obviously has a giant target painted on the back of it that no one has told me about. Most people who know me know the saga of my car. My car lived out the first 5 years of its life in Montgomery County without incident. Then, it started living in P.G. county during my college years. My poor `94 Honda Accord was stolen twice in just over a 1 year span in the years of 2001/2002. Both times I got the car back, through blind luck. I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that if it happened again, it was probably never coming back…and maybe that was for the best. The first time it was stolen it was taken from a Metro parking lot in the middle of the day. That’s just flat out bad luck. The second time, it was from my apartment complex’s parking lot, which was a factor of living in a complex that’s on a main road, easily accessible, and somewhat poorly lit at night.

Then, I moved to a nicer complex, that was not easy to breeze in and out of by random passers-by. My car stayed put for 2+ years, with no incidents whatsoever (outside of getting randomly egged right as I was moving again [which I have still not cleaned up properly because I'm lazy]). I move again, to a complex which is pretty much across the street from my old apartments where it got stolen the 2nd time. I have been there for about 4 months. Wednesday night, someone tried to steal my car again.

Tried, but were unsuccessful (luckily?). I’m not sure what prevented them from taking the car this time. Perhaps they were just crappy thieves and did something wrong while shoving a screw driver into the ignition cylinder. However, you can also lock the steering wheel of my car when you turn the car off (which I generally don’t do, but sometimes hit accidently exiting my car). I discovered that I had apparently locked the steering wheel upon trying to turn the wheel when the tow truck guy and I were attempting to maneuver my car into a better position for getting it on to the tow truck. When the steering wheel locks, you need to be able to turn the key in the ignition to unlock it. Neither the towing guy or I could manage to turn the cylinder with a screw driver to unlock the wheel. Perhaps blind luck prevented my car from being stolen. I have to wonder if locking the wheel would’ve prevented the first two successful thefts. Maybe its a habit I’ll get into.

Regardless, this leaves me at my wits end, once again. I can’t stop thinking that its entirely possible that I’ll get my car fixed and have this happen again next month. I certainly can’t afford to buy a new car right now. I also just am not in a position to move. I even hate thinking to myself that its clearly the area I’m living in that’s the problem. I try to cut P.G. County a lot of slack, but its rather hard to do right now. The whole thing leaves me frustrated beyond comprehension.

On a Clone High kick, thanks to Jeb getting me the whole series as Divx movies. I, er, uh, think this is the best cartoon ever.

Saw Fantastic Four over the weekend, and I must say, that I think the reviews have been overly harsh. I thought it was a good, straight forward, fun movie. Really, I thought it was exactly what a comic book movie should be – it glossed over the things you shouldn’t think too hard about (“Our outfits were changed too”, and Doom’s mask) and instead just tried to have fun. There were some good one liners, and as long as Jessica Alba wasn’t on screen, the acting wasn’t too bad. I swear, she’s not hard to look at, but she’s terrifyingly hard to listen to. Katie noted that her idea of acting is giving a puppy dog head tilt every third sentence she delivers. Would I have liked to see the FF actually get to be fantastic a little more than I actually did? Sure. But that has honestly been the case in every comic book movie so far. All in all, I say go see it, but don’t expect something that you can’t possibly get from a movie called Fantastic Four. Oh – why is it that they dropped the “The” from the title, anyway? They are The Fantastic Four, aren’t they?

On the art front, I’ve really wanted to draw lately, but haven’t had anything to actually draw. No pictures bouncing around in my head these days. Just too busy between work, Frisbee, and (man I’m so cool) bowling. I’ll get back on it soon, I swear.

Ok so the title has nothing to do with anything.

I’m now moved into my own place, and man am I tired. I don’t know how I ended up with so much crap. I’m a pack rat by nature, but I’m also sentimental, which makes me keep even more stuff than I normally might. I’m slowly getting set up at my new place; lots of empty Ikea boxes lying around. New queen size bed? Friggin huge. Spiffy entertainment center? Check. Matching coffee table? Check. Piles and piles of boxes to unpack? Unfortunately, check.

I find having essentially everything material I own in stacks of boxes somewhat unnerving for some reason. I can’t really explain what it is about it, but seeing all my stuff condensed down into a tiny place is kind of weird. I am not the sum of my possessions, but something about it strikes a nerve. Perhaps it just makes me feel unsettled – its indicitave of a state of transition, and I generally dislike change. Moving is a big change to me, particularly since I’m moving into my own place for the first time. First I get business cards at work, now I’m the sole name on a lease. This whole “adult” thing just won’t seem to leave me alone and let me play my video games in peace.

Speaking of video games, let me give a couple of giant middle fingers out to Sony and Microsoft with regards to the PS3 and XBox 360 (which is a horrendous name). Screw you both for making strangely shaped consoles which won’t stack happily in my entertainment center. And Microsoft? Double screw you for not being completely backwards compatible.

So, I added something kind of fun to the page today.  When you move your mouse over the links in the picture list on both the main page, and on the Pictures page, you’ll get a little popup thumbnail of the picture.   See – I did learn something at my last job!   The wonders of simple javascript. Just something to add a bit of motion and interactivity to the page – hope you guys like it.

Here I am in week 3 of the new job. Enjoying myself so far – everyone here is really nice, so the whole process of being the “new guy” hasn’t been as intimidating as I was expecting. I haven’t honestly done much “work” yet, which is at the same time kind of nice and a little frustrating. I’m a little uncomfortable being paid but not contributing. I know, that makes me sound like a big loser, but its just how I am.

People seem really busy around here, so I haven’t gotten a lot of one on one tutelage. A little on my first couple of days, but after that I was left to fill out my security paperwork and now I’m just reading manuals and code snippets on my own. One can only glean so much from that, but I’ve been told that hopefully this week I should get to sit in on some sessions that will help me out a lot more.

On the website front, Kamil is all on my ass to start doing my comic strip, which I have entitled “2s Complement” which is both geeky and appropriate to the strip’s content. If you don’t know why its geeky try doing some Googling, I’m sure you can figure it out. The strips I’ve done for it already I’m honestly not terribly happy with – I was when I finished them of course, but now that I’ve had some time to look at them, there’s a lot about them that bother me. So, while Kamil helps me get the website itself together, hopefully I’ll get myself together on a look/feel to the strip that I like more. So look for all that in the near future.