Better living through video games?
An article that I found interesting enough to leave here:
New Project: Server
Network-attached file server. I wanted to build it as much for fun as for the functional value it'd have after it's finished. It stores 250gb (expandable to 1tb) of movies and music. My plan is to put my entire music collection in one place and have it constantly accessible, as opposed to mostly on backup DVD-R's as it is now. Some auxiliary features like a torrent manager or web host would be nice, also. I wanted to build it as cheaply as possible, less than $100 not including hard drives. It sits in my kitchen on top of the fan enclosure over the stove, with a blinking red hard disk access light blinking furiously.
I used to spend so much time at work fixing and troubleshooting servers and workstations; I never do stuff like that anymore. The only exposure I get to playing with technology now is in my home, which puts a new light on tinkering with electronics. DJ'ing almost took the opposite route over the last year. Whereas IT was my job and DJ'ing was my hobby, the two seemed to have flipped.
I made use of my old domain for the new server, and there's a torrent manager frontend as well. Through this I can add and manage torrent downloads from anywhere outside of my home. Hopefully this'll expand to other services, so I can have better control of things while I'm gone. I'll hook up a webcam with a live feed on the server before I leave for America as a super geek security feature. This'll also be my first exposure to freeBSD, which will be beneficial in my developing understanding of managing a non-Windows server.
Here's a photo I just took of it in my kitchen, staring down at me. Check out all the scuffs on it. I'll probably paint the white side and top panels black before too long.
My Accidental Blackhole Contribution
Yesterday a terrible thing happened. Basically the spontaneous digital combustion of my entire online journal.
The mySQL database that it's based on up and disappeared, so when going to this page it'd display an error. I spent a few hours trying to figure out what happened and ended up eventually e-mailing technical support for my host and requesting that they provide some backups. The good part is that they run daily and weekly backups, the bad news is that yesterday they did both the daily and weekly backup, so their entire backup catalog goes back 24 hours. This is pretty pathetic for a professional hosting company.
Long story short: my old blog is fucked. But it's back now, and I've learned to back it up myself. And now I'll write with renewed vigor, hopefully.
Coors Tour?
Exciting new developments. Tenzin is trying to get me on a contract with him and one other DJ to tour around China for three months. It'd be a three-month contract with the pay at 15,000 yuan a month, almost three times what I'm getting now at Wonderland. I leave for Xi'an tomorrow morning at 8am and I still haven't told them that I won't be here for three days, but I'll give them a call when I'm in Xi'an tomorrow. I'm making 4,000 in one weekend when Wonderland pays 6,000 a month, so there's no way that I can miss this to dance around and sing in front of four year olds. I'm looking forward to checking out Xi'an also, supposedly it's a beautiful ancient city. Apparently it's still surrounded by a 30 foot-high wall and is the home of the terracotta soldiers which are famous. I'll bring my camera and hopefully get more shots in three days in Xi'an than I got in 11 days in Shanghai. I'm going with Tony, who's a just-trained VJ. He's an older British guy, looks to be in his late 30's or so. I met him just a few days ago hanging out with Tenzin at his place. Tenzin is a mid-20's half American half Tibetan muscle-bound kung fu MC, so he's naturally drawn to hip hop. His friend Sasha is a late-20's bearded native of Minneapolis who talks like he's black. He routinely says shit like "I tol' that nigga to leave me 'lone", and so on. Pretty hard to take any caucasian who speaks like that seriously, but the fact that he's as old as he is further complicates it. He lives in one of the most luxurious apartments in Chengdu, though. Sascha told me his rent is 5,000 a month, which is fucking astronomically high for this area of China. Apparently he's financed by managing an import/export company which exports tea and Chinese artifacts and imports high-end large-scale printing machines. Life is so interesting.
8600 Arrival
laptop arrived. it is my new love. the display is insanely high resolution. i feel like i have as much screen space as i did with two 17" crt's side by side. that said, of course there's an adjustment period. i'm waiting to install some 3d games to really test the performance. hopefully i'll get the chance to get warcraft 3 back from esfand tomorrow evening.
i met with billy today to discuss the route to LA. looks like we'll go south through atlanta to pensacola, stay there at my moms house for a day or two, then go west through san antonio, houston, tucson, and phoenix. looking forward to it!
currently watching: 25th Hour at 505 Queen St
Victory @ Traffic Court
i have to write about yesterday, because it was so great.
i had to go to traffic court for a speeding ticket that i got 3 weeks ago, for going 75 in a 55. i got the ticket at 3:30am on a monday morning on the toll road going home from the bus station. i had just returned from nyc and was with erica. between getting the ticket and appearing in court, i found an ebook online called pay no fine which tells you how to contest a traffic ticket. i read the book and prepared some questions in a line of defense, and it miraculously worked. the charges were dropped, no points were assessed, and i didn't have to pay anything (not even a court cost). that was the first omen. 
then i return to my office around noon and while i'm checking SH/SC on SA i find a thread about a dell rebate. it was an instant rebate that was good only for one day, $750 off any inspiron notebook over $1500. i'm typing this journal entry on my thinkpad, which i love and is great, but it's also old. i wanted a new laptop so i could run newer versions of the software that i use (i only have photoshop 7 on here, for example), but i didn't have a few grand to drop on a serious upgrade. anyway, i got an inspiron 8600 with the following specs:
Pentium 4-M 715 Processor
15.4" uxga display, 1920x1240 resolution
512mb DDR
128mb Radeon 9600 ProTurbo
40gb hdd
dvd-rom
wi-fi
$900 not incl shipping and tax
as soon as i got it i knew that i had to sell this laptop, since i don't need two. i was hoping to get $700-800, but i already found a buyer willing to pay $800. now i just need to sell two desktops.
i saw team america: world police the other night with esfand. i wanted to see the movie and heard it was hilarious, but i wasn't sure if it was worth seeing in the theater. we got blazed and needless to say, i laughed as hard as i can remember laughing in a movie theater. i downloaded the soundtrack off nmp3s and it is exceptional.
tomorrow is my last day here in the office, and on friday i go on vacation for 9 days. life is really sweet just before you're hopelessly broke. 
currently listening to: America, Fuck Yeah!
TEFL Progress
i'm quickly going through my TEFL course. 8 units left..
currently listening to: DJ Shortkut - Inna Dancehall Style
Dyed Hair, Again
shayda just left and i'm listening to getz / gilberto 2. fantastic tunes. i can't find my e2's (they're around somewhere), but i've been using the ipod earbuds since i misplaced them and find them to be fantastic. sound quality isn't quite as good, but it's very listenable and the comfort level is very high. because of the flat design of them, i can wear them comfortably while lying in bed on my side, or even sleeping with them on, unlike the bulky e2's.
i dyed my hair bright blonde this evening. i got the box of dye a few days ago when i was at CVS picking up a perscription for an antibiotic as i was recovering from illness. now seemed like a good time to dye my hair again, since i'm wrapping up at haifinance. i remember before i started working there, and even the first year that i was there, i was dying my hair on a fairly regular basis. it's fun every once and a while. because my father and grandfather are both completely bald, i'm pretty certain that i'll also be bald, so until that happens, i'll ride this motherfucker (hair) till the wheels fall off.
Cici’s Engagement News
watched the original resident evil last night with erica. it was pretty much as enjoyable as i had remembered it, which is maybe an 8/10 which is a fairly high mark for a zombie movie. i'd put it a notch or two above 28 days later, for the few really memorable scenes. also the score (done by marilyn manson) is fantastic. i think it's maybe the best thing that manson has done, that i've heard. i hope to see the sequel, maybe tonight with erica before she leaves for long beach tomorrow morning.
after watching resident evil we went to davids house where we had dinner with david, my sister, and my dad. this was the meal where my sister tells my dad that she's engaged. just like last time, except this time she's engaged instead of already married. pretty exciting i guess, but i wonder, what happened to the days where a man asks a father for the hand of his daughter? i don't know where that falls in marriage protocol these days, but i can't help but wonder. joerg (my sisters first husband) even went as far as to basically elope with my sister and marry her before even meeting my father. it's a good thing my dad is pretty much a cool headed easy-going guy, i could imagine other uptight 60 year olds having a heart attack over shit like that.
currently listening to: Polysics