reese_tora

Merry Christmas

2009-12-27T08:30:57Z

Heya everyone! I hope you all had a great christmas!

Tradition demands... the listings of giftings, so here it is!

From my parents, a lap blanket with a pirate themed fabric on one side, a 'what I learned from cats' wall calendar, and a probably $50 gift card to Frys Electronics.(unless it's the gift card that was meant for someone else, in which case it's not $50)
Also, in my stocking, a chocolate covered pretzel and a bar of cold stone creations peanut butter and chocolate. The interesting thing about this chocolate bar, I note, is that it is made with milk chocolate with a peanut butter flavored white chocolate filling flavored with artificial(and not very strong) peanut flavoring. no peanuts involved, though there's a warning for hazel nut and almond traces, presumably from other chocolates cold stone produces.

From my younger sister, I received a color chart for Jedi Mickey Mouse with a certificate of authenticity.

From my older sister I received a t-shirt that says 'Jedi of the Month'

From my aunt, I received a tin of cookies, which I have not yet opened, and a pair of micro fiber wash cloths.

And my boss gave out christmas bonuses in the form of 'gift cards' that are essentially little check cards from AmEx, which means I can spend them pretty much wherever I want.

I had a great holiday thus far; I got to say hi to a number of relatives I don't see very often.

oh, and I may as well mention that I was sick last week(week before last?), a sore throat that evolved into me throwing up for about a day then coming back as a post nasal drip that's not quite cleared up yet, I ended up taking a couple days off from work, going in on Friday, then not feeling well enough to hit the company christmas party over the weekend. (I would have skipped out on Friday as well if I didn't have stuff that needed doing before the weekend)

Woah... Info dump!

2009-09-08T08:49:30Z

Something stupid just happened and I totally went to roll my eyes (even though I'm alone in my room) and, finding my eyes already pointed to the far left of my eye sockets, ended up rolling my head instead.

It's been a while since my last post, hasn't it?

I bought a new pair of headphones because the pair I got for Christmas is breaking. The plastic has broken in one place and it's now only connected by the wire, and something has come lose on the other side.

I picked up a pair of Panasonic RP-HTX7 stereo headphones and, wow... they're great!

I picked them because the part that goes over the head is metal, not plastic, so it shouldn't be subject to breaking like the previous pair. It's a 3.5mm jack, which is fine (the previous was USB, but before that I had 3.5mm ) but I had to find and install my motherboard's audio drivers since I didn't ge around to installing them last time I wiped windows.

The reason they're perfect is... they fit entirely around my ears without touching at ALL. the previous fit around, mostly, but put pressure on my ears, and I would get sore if I spent a lot of time with them on (more than a couple hours), but these are light and I feel nothing wearing them.

One small thing, the cord is only five feet or so, so I can only sue them plugged in to the front of my computer, and I have to be careful not to pull away far even then. I think I need to get an extender so I can plug them in closer to my keyboard.

Working backwards in time, my birthday was last week! yay me!

I had a chocolate cake, and I went to see Inglorious Bastards with my dad. I enjoyed the movie, though there was a scene near the end that gave me a bit of a headache.

Mom and dad paid for my sister and I to see Spamalot the Friday before my birthday. For a play and a musical, it was a little shorter than I expected, but It was fun to see in person, finally. A lot of it is in the sound track, which I own, but there's a good bit of stuff, both visual, and not sung, which isn't in that. There are a lot of references to the flying circus skits that you can easily miss, too.

Over all, everything's been going well. I haven't really been up to much outside of routine and the ordinary, so I guess that's all for now.

bleah, sick

2009-06-12T05:57:24Z

I've got some sort of throat thing going on.

It started yesterdaya fternoon, and the ticklying and soreness in my throat got worse over the course of the evening.

This morning I was feeling pretty bad, so I called in sick to work. I spent most of the day drinking liquids to sooth my throat and getting what I could down my sore throat.

There's also a minor runniness in my nose, but that can be attributed to environment. It is exacerbating my throat's condition, though.

This morning swallowing made the left side of my throat twinge and pained my left ear. mid afternoon I was feeling pretty good after a bowl of chicken ramen, but now the right side of my throat and right ear are doing the pain twinge thing. It's not as bad as the left was this morning, and I'm hoping it'll be cleared up by tomorrow... or atleast by the tiem I get out of the shower.

I'm hoping this is short lived because the monthly party is this saturday, and I don't want to miss it if I can make it. I also don't want to take too many sick days, sinec I get five for the year... I don't normally need them through the year, but it's better to have days off with pay and no notice available than to lose hours.

I went to bed early last night, and I think I may go to bed early tonight, too,a s I'm feeling kind of tired.

oh, yeah...

2009-06-09T01:09:56Z

hey, been a while!

I spent the weekend at Califur, so stuffs to talk about!

I took friday off and drove down around 2pm, the unregistered line was borked but I missed the worst of it.

I got to see 2_gryphon perform, checked out a few panels, and wandered the dealers' den, though I spent a lot of time in the common room chatting with people.

Second day I did more of the same, though I did make a mistake of using my camera in the dealers' den, as I'd forgotten to bring it the first day. I also recorded the fursuit parade and a few funny things before and after it, along with some pictures of fursuiters and stuff.

Third day I went to see this gameshow type thing called "are you smarter than a fursuiter" but it had been canceled due to technical difficulties, so I just hung out in the common room until all the interesting people had left and headed home.

aside from somepics and video, I didn't come away with a lot... a giant microbe plushie for Mange and a rerelease of an old puzzle game (similar to Myst, but older)

A lot of time I spent was hanging out with an artist who I watched draw and talked with, and who gave me a few pointers for drawing heads. I'm very happy about taht as he's someone who I respect very much as an artist.

I'll post links to video and some pics later.

neat old function

2009-03-14T17:18:34Z

I'm going on a trip. I'm going to Oregon.

I'm only taking my eee laptop with me, not my work laptop, and it runs linux, but I'll be up there for a week, so I want to be able to keep up with all my webcomics. The favorites list is from my main computer in Internet Explorer, and it's in the windows link format (.url, though this is hidden by windows even when you turn on file extensions)

problem: linux doesn't open windows link files.

solution: this has stared me in the face every day since windows 98 was my computer's OS. File>Import & Export...

I actually had to have this pointed out to me via google search fro a way to open .url files in linux.

It exported my favorites as a Netscape bookmark list... an html page I can just open in firefox with firefox on my laptop, which has all my favorites as clickable links.

So, now I have access to my collection of bookmarks, I can't think of anything else I want or need to bring with me as software. (taking my game system and camera, of course)

Of course, with the prevailance of Firefox and it's ability to automatically import IE's favorites, there's not usually much need for this export function, but I was glad to have it.

Know your rights

2009-03-09T20:11:14Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95qZtwJNjxk

This guy didn't.

Ow!

2009-02-28T22:24:15Z

So, I was walking past my desk...

Which is to say, I was walking sideways to get around the back of my desk, becaus e there's only a small gap between the edge of my bed and my desk for me to get through. Yeah, things are a little cramped at this side of my room... anyway...

I ended up hunching down a little, probably to keep my balance, and my back and left side were facing the desk, and I ended up standing into the corner of my desk where it has a bit of an overhang (the top of it extends past the sides)

My shoulder hits it and I end up with a ansty looking scratch, a little broken skin, but no real bleeding, thanks tot he shirt I was wearing.

Anyway, pictures:

Taken via the bathroom mirror, so it's reversed.

close up of the scratch

It's not too bad, but my shirt irritates it occasionally. Hopefully it will not keep me from sleeping, since I usually sleep on my left side.

soo...

2009-02-14T10:03:15Z

so, it's cold and wet.

Winter has finally arrived in SoCal, and it's 45 degrees farenheit outside right now(2 in the morning).

It's been cold and raining off and on all the last week or two, but now it's official.

I cut my thumb in the shower this morning. The shower is a bath with a pair of sliding glass doors mounted on the edge that doesn't have a wall, and it's got a bar that runs across the top that supports the doors. This bar, basically an upside down 'U' has some sharp corners.

OK, so I get out of the shower, drying myself off with the towel by grasping each end and rubbing like in cartoons (there's a mental image for ya, treasure it until you gan get to the brain bleach) and I extend my right arm all the way out and raise it while getting my back. BANG! I hit the bar that holds up the doors pretty hard, the edge hit my thumb between the nail and the knuckle, and it left a trench that's 1/4" long and 1/16" wide. It's a nice deep color now, and it'll probably be a week healing. In the mean time, I have to be careful tying back my hair because that's where the band rests when I'm stretching it around my ponytail.

huh...

2009-02-09T10:26:56Z

I just recieved my first ever Nigerian scam email.

Also, it was raining outside half an hour ago.

Lastly, I am awake much too late. That is all.

Coolest movie ever

2009-02-01T22:38:27Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntzYG9t5zi0

I am looking forward to this.

long night

2009-01-25T07:55:31Z

I was out driving for my company friday night, I don't do it often, adn it wasn't the latest I was out driving for them, but Iw as so tired I just went straight to be when I got home around 5am.

It didn't help matters that, unlike most times where I drive for my company where I can sleep in as long as I want in preparation for a long night, I got a call at 11am from one of our guys in an out-of-state market.

See, normally, I handle inventory, and I take care of IT for our office and the laptops we check out to employees, including installing drive test software, so the request I got might have been reasonable. The thing is 1: he woke me up, and 2: he wanted me to put FTP Pro on our server so he could download it. FTP Pro is commercial software that we use for uploading and downloading as an alternative to a web browser or the built in windows program. It's also available to download for free from the company's website, including a limited trial period before it needs licensing applied. The tech could have figured this out himself and not called me.

Anyway, we were doing pretty basic stuff, no pre drive, just verifying the sites they brought up worked.

In the dog house

2009-01-23T00:26:16Z

Well, I managed to screw up and get sent home from work. It's my own fault, and I have no excuse for what caused me to be sent home. I'm taking this as some time to look at what led to this and how I can improve my work habits to avoid retracing the chain of events that led to this.

On a completely unrelated note, though thematically consistent:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=213382&title=Road-to-the-Doghouse---Puppedential-Debate

d'awwww!

Hot enough for ya?

2009-01-14T10:06:20Z

Wow, it went from being pretty chilly to being quite warn here in SoCal.

On the topic of being warm, I was channel surfing during commercials, and I saw this show on National Geographic. 6 degrees warmer. Guess what it's about.

Now, I would like to preface this with the disclaimer that I am not a climate scientist, I am not an expert, and I do not take for granted the rightness of my opinion, but I am basing my opinion on a number of facts that I have run across here and there.

Now, about this show...

I saw three segments in it, one talking about the water problems in the NY city subways, one talking about desert shifts, and one talking about the effect on life in ocean.

The subway. The premise of this is that there is some problem with keeping water out of NY's subway system, and the fact that a rising sea level would cause major flooding in New York. The show even goes to the trouble of showing us Government agencies modeling the effects of raising the water level huge amounts.

Problem. Climate scientists don't agree on if or how far the sea may rise if the ice caps melt. There's no guarantee that the ice caps are or will melt(yes, there's ice receding now, but find a news agency that'll report on the fact that it's spreading in other places) with only a 6 degree increase in temperature. Worst case scenario has sea level rise some 30 feet, but some estimates have a decrease in sea level over all.

The deserts. The narrator talks about how deserts will march across the land, and tried to convey a very bleak image as the graphic of the Sahara desert moving south runs.

Problem. The desert graphic is filling in with green on the other side, it's not entirely obvious due to the way it's shown (as a somewhat curved globe), but it's there.

The ocean. I had to flip away in disgust at this, they suggest that a rise of 6 degrees in global temperatures will somehow kill all life in the sea. Buh? for ONE thing, the earth HAS been much hotter than it is now, and life thrived in that sea. Maybe life as we currently know it would stop, but new life would take its place as species evolved and adapted. And that's assuming that the major shift in temperature didn't just cause the current species to move with their respective conditions.

Yes, I think that climate science is important, we need to know what's going on, how everything works. We need to know if things are getting warmer or not, and what's really driving these things. (There's not doubt that temperature data shows an increase in temperature, and CO2 might be the cause of it, but there's so many reasons why CO2 might not be.)

But it's a complete farce to present the WORST CASE, the most extreme end of the simulation scale, trying to SCARE and TERRORIZE people into changing.

Did NatGeo lie? only be omission, but it's still a blatant misdirection, a fraud. I think it's a shame that what is supposed to be an educational channel, which should be promoting learning and critical thought, would show something so manipulative.

how about that...

2009-01-09T03:22:06Z

So, I got a link to a news article

http://www.switched.com/2009/01/08/is-microsoft-dumping-vista/?icid=200100397x1216827693x1201098409

The guy that posted the link suggested that Microsoft was finally dropping vista, and the title of the article implies the same.

Really, what it is is that Mr Balmer gave a speech talking about some of the stuff MS is working on, one of which is windows 7 (it doesn't have a real name yet, just as Vista was known as Longhorn)

Now, to be quite honest, there's only one bullet point that matters there; everything else is irrelevant garbage or useless features, and that's the promise to improve boot time and performance. It's important because that's what is useful, what effects everyone who uses this OS. It's also important because improved performance is one of the things that was promised with Vista (and quite the opposite happened.)

The public beta is also interesting, but, when all is said and done, that just means that they are calling a spade a spade and not charging the public to participate.

IMO, XP will continue to be relevant so long as MS intends to push DRM through their new releases of windows. To be fair, they're doing it at the behest of certain despicable bodies in the movie and music industry...

I'm not dead yet!

2008-12-31T06:02:47Z

In fact, I think I'm getting better.

I just had post nasal drip yesterday adn today (which, of course, meant some coughing), and I havn't otherwise been feeling sick, so I think I'm on the mend.

In the last few hours, I havn't even felt that much in the way of the drip or runny nose, too. (*coughs* spoke too soon. :P )

I'm hoping I feel good tomorrow, and completely recovered on the first. It would be a shame to waste most of my holiday and vacation days being sick, after all. :P

I spent most of saturday... asleep; I went to bed at 6 or so, I was feeling so rotten, and while I was up and blowing my nose or hacking up a lung every few hours, I spent until ten the next day in Morpheus's sweet grasp. I managed to last until my normal sleep hours on sunday (didn't feel bad enough to consider skipping pawpets, yay!)

I'm just glad I'd already arranged to take monday off with a vacation day, becasue I don't think I would have survived going to work if I hadn't, and I didn't have any sick days left to spend.

sick!

2008-12-27T20:32:23Z

darn it, I did catch something!

I didn't sleep well, having to blow my nose every few hours as it woke me up. I don't feel too bad right now, just some headache where my sinuses are bothering me (thanks to a nice hot shower), but my throat is still bothering me and my nose is running a lot.

I was planning on doing some stuff, getting my scheduled bribe phone (renew your contract for another year, get a discount phone upgrade!) but now I'm just feeling blah.

Fortunately, I bought some strawberry apple juice last week (I normally don't, though I like the stuff) and I had that to sooth my throat.

I wonder if what I got I got from my tour of the Midway. If you follow the audio tour, you are holding this little sound device that you enter the exhibit/location number and get an audio track played to you about it, and you do and up climbing up and down a few ladders, and those both make good vectors for disease. Except my throat was bothering me as we drove home, and that's awfully quick for an incubation period.

Santa came!

2008-12-27T00:58:01Z

As usual, here's my list of stuffs...

my older sister baked me a pan sized chocolate chip cookie(one 9x13 pan full of chocolate chipy goodness)
my younger sister got me a neat t-shirt(green, reads "I am away from my computer.")
my parents bought me a new watch, a USB headset (over-ear headphones with mic), and the lolcats book
and my aunt got me a flannel shirt.

Today, the day after christmas, I went with my dad to the Midway museum. That's the USS Midway, the aircraft carrier commissioned in 1945, two months after the surrender of Japan. We toured the facility, had lunch, and I came away with a greater appreciation for the cramped quarters and massive size of these vessels and the planes that fly from them.

Unfortunately, my throat is feeling a bit scratchy. It may just be from the talking I did on the drive down and back (about 100 miles each way) and the cold air, but I think I may be contracting a cold. I've got monday off anyway(taking a vacation day), so I may be fine by the time I have to return to work anyway, but it's annoying to say the least.

Merry Christmas, one and all.

2008-12-25T04:28:01Z

Here's a three and a half hour wish to everyone to enjoy their holiday tomorrow, whatever creed you may follow.

And here's the story at the top of the hour:

Canada has declared Santa Clause a Canadian citizen with full rights to enter the country.

OTTAWA, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- Santa Claus has been declared a Canadian citizen with fully authorized re-entry rights, the country's citizenship minister announced in Ottawa.

Full story: http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2008/12/24/Canada_declares_Santa_Claus_a_citizen/UPI-38291230121178/

My, what those Canadians will do... I expect a reaction from Russia, since Santa purportedly lives at the north pole, which is technically international waters between Canada and Russia. (and a couple european countries, too)

not safe for work?

2008-12-17T08:24:00Z

I followed this link from someones comment on FA, it may be the lateness of the hour talking, btu I thought it was pretty freaking hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbWs98f0g7M

Y'know... funny as it is, I still prefer hot girls. :P

and -10 points for stealing this from Forestcat

2008-12-03T19:19:19Z

Dear Santa...

Dear Santa,

This year I've been busy!

In June I helped bucktowntiger hide a body (-173 points). In February I pulled gabiapf's hair (-5 points). In August I gave callie_fuzzy a wet willie, then I took it back (-5 points). Last week I committed genocide... Sorry about that, writingrose (-5000 points). In April I saved a busload of nuns in Angola (326 points).

Overall, I've been naughty (-4857 points). For Christmas I deserve a spanking!

Sincerely,
Reese_Tora

Update

2008-11-29T08:04:02Z

so, um, little update, I did put the new video card in my computer, and I have celared a path to my closet AND cleared out all the stuff that was in the floor in my closet. Then I put a bunch of stuff in my closet.

Oh, and I discovered that I may need a slightly more powerful power supply to support my video card... my current supply is 430 watts- 20 less than the minimum recommended of the new card. So I went out and bought a power supply that supplies 650 watts(I misrememberd the spec as 550w while at the store, and couldn't find any 600w supplies, so 650w).

However, the card functions perfectly fine except for a little image corruption in my most graphically intense game, so I havn't bothered to install that yet, so installing the new poere supply gets tacked on to my list of thinks I need to do.
(I'm not too worried at the moment, but power supplies do tend to lose power delivery ability as they age, so... replacement has to happen at some point.)

oh, and I did take my car in, it was pretty quick.

No progress on the other stuff, though

inertia

2008-11-12T04:02:20Z

I haven't accomplished anything.

I need to take my car to the dealer because there's a recall on the water pump in my model/year.

I have a bag of faux fur and blue canvas I bought so I could make a carry-all for my Eee and PsP (and any art I buy at a con) that sits uncut and no pattern tested.

I have a path cleared to my closet, which contains few individual items to be removed so I can use it to store other stuff in the ongoing quest to clean my room.

I have a character sheet for Mage: The Ascension that needs it's back story created and put to paper.

I have a new video card that needs to be put into my computer.

I haven't accomplished anything, and I've had all these things in need of accomplishing for at least two weeks, and some of this has been wanting doing for months.

Sure, I have done some stuff, I made my closet accessible and threw out a lot of magazines, I have a good idea how the carry-all should go together, I have a working background for the Mage character in mind, but I feel like I haven't been doing anything, just surfing the net or playing games. I just haven't been able to bring myself to do anything.

Just some info...

2008-11-07T08:26:29Z

Hey, I figured I'd mention this:

Some people have started a petition agaisnt prop 8

Petition agaisnt prop 8

I realize half of you that read this also read(or own) the journal I found out about this from, but I am rpetty sure that some of you who aren't in the first catagory might be interested in it.

I don't know if anything will come of it, but I do know that(from chatter on one of my mailing lists) prop 8 still has to be passed by the California legislature by a 2/3 majority, as it is an amendment to the state constitution, and there are already three seperate legal motions filed on various grounds to overturn it.

Lottery again?

2008-10-15T21:09:34Z

I was thinking about the lottery today, as I bought a ticket yesterday for tonight's drawing.

I tend to buy a ticket when the payout is above 45 million for super lotto, and 100 million for mega millions.

ANyway, I was thinking about how the winnings of the lottery are paid out. When you win the lottery, atleast here in California, you don't just get paid the amount of your winnings. You're given the option of recieving a lump sum equal to the value of the money they actually have from the lottery, which is 45% to 55% of the listed payout, or to recieve the total payout via 26 anual payments.

See, what happens is that the lottery commision buys bonds enough to make the payout over the course of 26 years using the money that is colelcted through ticket sales that doesn't go to keeping the lights on or to the school system.

The lump sum is the principal that would ahve been invested in bonds on your hehalf.

Boom, recession, you're now in a depression. What happens to those people who are getting their lottery winnings through incremental payment? The bonds are still good so long as the issuing body does not default (which it may, this tme around), but 26 years is not a normal bond maturity period. But the lottery commision may have trouble finding bonds it can buy, or be unwilling to buy bonds from any of the available sources; what then?

Honestly, I didn't know it was bonds that the money was invested in before about twenty minutes ago. I thought it was invested in a more negotiable form, like a mutual fund or by tracking an index, and thinking that a lot of lottery winners might have found themselves up s#!+ creek without a paddle, especially if they're the ones who burned their bridges and thought they could live off their winnings. (a plan that often fails when they reach the end of 26 years anyway...)

Though the money is a lot safer than I thought, I still wonder if some lottery winners are going to find themselves without the money they thought they won...

Dear Dire-E...

2008-10-12T09:30:12Z

I was cleaning my room more today. I went through the old tower that I ahve stashed behind my desk and dealt witht he papers piled on it. I found, among other things, the materials from when my company's owner got us a 401k plan. I think it's funny, looking at them, that the diffrent piieces of the package have logos for Prudential and Nationwide on them, not the company that sold us the plan. I also think it's funny that the planner card, which is a matrix to guess how much your 401k will have earned in 20 or 30 years based on salary, contribution percent, and rate of return, only shows rates of return equal to 6%, 8% and 10%, when, in reality, my rate of return is a negative number for this year.
(but I'm still gaining money so long as my total loss is less than the percentage of contribution supplied by my employer on what's in my account, which is 30% of total contribution at present... and doesn't take into account the fact I need to stay with my company to the five year mark for my employer match money to be fully vested, and I'm sure that the losses aren't taken out of the match money first)

I also went to the monthly party that one of the local furs holds. I played Munchkin, and we watched some movies. We watched Black sheep while we were playing Munchkin. (didn't pay attention, but it was a comically over-done horror movie about evil sheep frmo waht I could tell), Nightmare Before Christmas, and I left in the middle of this Anime, which I forget the name of, but which is about two children who 'own' the treasure district named black and white.

It was pretty cold tonight. The cold air was amking it's way intot he room where I was wathcing the movies when the front door got left open, and it was a olittle chilly. When I left the aprty and walked to my car, the cold was nice at first, but I found myself speeding up and starting to shiver as I got nearer to my car, which was parked a block away frm the house. I was glad to get inside and set the vents to heat. I imagine that the fursuiters were a lot more comfortable than the previous month.