Minimum System Requirements

I spent more than two hours driving around Raleigh today trying to waste money. That's how much Raleigh sucks. You have to work like hell just to throw money away. I was looking for some cheap DVDs or CDs or maybe a game or two, but I didn't want to drive the dozen-year-old Explorer way the hell out to the Wolfchase area or downtown while the Probe is having growing pains (more on that in a bit). I tried the Cat's Music and Blockbuster out there before getting desperate and driving to Kmart, where I found lots and lots of fullscreen editions of The Hulk and even more obnoxious, screaming kids. Oh, boy. Finally I ended up at Wal-Mart, where I bought Half-Life/Team Fortress Classic and an Ultimate Doom/Doom II/Final Doom bundle for a combined 25 bucks.

The best part is how the Doom95 front-end on this CD will not, no matter what I try, recognize that I have a mouse. I mean, I do have a mouse, and DOS Doom recognizes it, and the old copy of Doom95 on my original Doom II disc from 1994 worked on this PC when I installed it last winter. I even switched mouse drivers a couple times and checked the documentation, which, in classic id Software style, cheerfully recommends playing the game with the fucking keyboard. Anyway, I ended up installing ZDoom into three different directories and using that as my launcher. Problem solved.

So about the Probe. The other day my mom decides to go get the oil changed after I found out it'd been over 10,000 miles since the last one, and guess what? The "Check Engine" light came on before she even got out of the driveway! You know about the Check Engine light, don't you? It means, roughly, "Something's wrong, and I'm not going to tell you what it is". It might as well say, " Uh Oh." So after I added two quarts of oil, because it was that goddamned low, a $60 diagnostic said the spark plugs weren't getting enough juice. Replacing the spark plug wires didn't put out the light, and another diagnostic said that there's probably a faulty sensor. So, basically, the computer that controls the Check Engine light is setting off the Check Engine light. Oh, hooray.

Trevor the Pseudo-Magical Toad

It's funny how Stargate can simultaneously be a slightly underrated movie and a vastly overrated television series.

I'm watching Conan O'Brian's show and wondering why Tears for Fears is playing a 20-year-old song and how Selma Blair could possibly be any hotter. If there was ever a reason to pay to see a John Waters movie, it's to see Selma in A Dirty Shame. Or anything else she's ever been in.

Yesterday I got some cash in the mail and realized it was my birthday. Funny how that happens. If you try real hard not to think about the fact that you're almost 30 and have no apparent future whatsoever, you can actually turn 27 or 28 and not even know it. My favorite part is skipping out on family birthday parties where you're expected. I did that last year, or the year before, I forget. It was awesome. I imagine birthday poon is pretty fucking cool, too, but I wouldn't know. I've never actually managed to hang onto a girlfriend long enough to have one during a birthday. I think.

Anyway, this is the kind of thinking that used to send me to vodkaland. Fortunately, I've evolved as a person so that I no longer think about that kind of thing until I'm already the mayor and secretary treasurer of vodkaland, where I'm more than equipped to deal with such questions.

Antiproductive

Seems like I've gotten so much done in the past couple weeks, until I stop to think about it.

Ripped 140-something songs from 30-something CD's. Still not halfway through. Thing is, I'm probably spending as much time looking for neato Winamp and Coolplayer skins as I am actually listening to music. And when I do have the full playlist going on random shuffle, I'm just waiting for it to get back around to Deftones' "My Own Summer."

Getting really, really tired of the scrollwheel bug in Firefox. Maybe it'll be fixed in the next release or update, but if anyone knows a patch or something, for god's sake, tell me about it.

Spent a couple hours mowing, edging, and blowing my mom's front and back yards again yesterday. I rather enjoy it, to be honest, but I'm beginning to hate her lawn mower. There's just all kinds of stuff wrong with it that I can't fix, and as far as I can tell, the only way to change its oil is to actually hold it upside down to let it drain. Oh boy, I can't wait to get around to that.

Watched Reign of Fire on cable. Better than I expected, though I'm starting to wonder what the deal is with Christian Bale. I suppose taking oddly-spaced roles in B-movies about psychopaths and dragon-slayers is one way to get over that child-star stigma. But the guy can definitely act, so how about making some good movies instead?

Speaking of child actors, walking punchline Edward Furlong got arrested this week for walking into a Kentucky grocery store hammered and trying to "free" the lobsters from the tank in the seafood aisle. Way to go, Ed. That's just the sort of determination and creativity that will really get people behind the animal rights movement.

Finally got around to reading Diary and Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk. I read Choke and Survivor and half of Invisible Monsters years ago, and these two were no different. Dark, sparse, twisted, presumptive. Reminded me of Jim Goad's nonfiction. Or is it the other way around? Anyway, I'm looking forward to Haunted and I should really get around to reading Fight Club.

The World of Tomorrow!

So I finally realized what year this is and started getting some DVDs. I've been clinging to VHS because, like most people, I have a huge number of tapes and a VCR so old it would kick its feet into the air and die the moment I tried to move it. But that's why god made DVD/VCRs.

So I've been catching up on my movies, Digital Video Disc-style. In the past month, I've watched, in no particular order, Master and Commander, Austin Powers 3, A Mighty Wind, Bad Santa, Pirates of the Caribbean, Terminator 3, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Evolution, 28 Days Later, The Royal Tenenbaums, Old School, EdTV, Starsky and Hutch, Hellboy, Hidalgo, Jeepers Creepers 2, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Welcome to the World of Tomorrow, AC!

Idle

Not doing much tonight. I've ripped 80-something songs to MP3s because I was tired of switching CD's, but I just end up looping my Deftones playlist. Just now I'm on Mascara, a song I can relate to in a rather gruesome, unholy way. Anyway.

I'll be toying with PhotoPlus later tonight or tomorrow, because ver. 2.0 of the Gimp is making me want to tear my hair out. Not literally, because I gave up the Battle of the Hairline a year ago and I shave it off, but still. It's making me that mental.

Only other major news for me is that Don Poier will finally be
calling Grizzlies games on TV. I swear to your god, I've been praying for this announcement for three years. Matt Devlin, that overrated talking hairdo, will be broadcasting for the Charlotte Bobcats, those poor bastards.