Archived News :: Year 2005

Back in NOLA

2005.12.11 15:24 UTC

Well, I've been back in New Orleans for nearly 2 weeks. I had no furniture, heat, hot water, clean water, or any of my belongings for a while. Now that I have everything but furniture again, it's not so bad. Even though it's kind of nice not having furniture (not in the least), my back and knees miss it. It's hard to sit up straight with no backrest when you have to hunch over the computer. I get "old man" syndrome even after 10 minutes. I almost decided to not get internet back since I'm leaving in less than 3 months, but obviously that didn't work out too well. Funny thing is, now that I'm back, I can't wait to leave.

Morrowind

2005.11.20 16:00 UTC

Well, I'm addicted to Morrowind again. I suppose that's not a bad thing. It's a great game after all. The only problem with the game is that it is really easy to become overpowering in it. For example, just yesterday I found a way to pretty much give myself super powerful potions. I now have 17 million intelligence, and I will continue to have over 17 million intelligence for nearly 150000 seconds. Yes, 17 million intelligence for over 41 hours. So, now I got to start over, since I accidentally saved over my previous savestate through gratuitous use of quicksave. My Pikemage will live again, with already its 4th incarnation.

I still play Guild Wars and Jedi Academy. It's just that for now I will probably only play when playing with someone, instead of playing them just to play. In other words, I can always save Morrowind anytime and play another game if someone wants. As a matter of fact, I almost have to, to keep from getting bored of a single game.

Image Gallery

2005.10.25 23:20 UTC

Not much has gone on in the past week or so. So, rather than say a bunch of nothing, I'll just say I finally have put up a Image Gallery thingy that mostly contains screenshots of the games I play, or have played. Funny thing is, I had this up before I even had my forum up, but took it down for a reason I have already forgotten about. The World of Warcraft and Star War Galaxy ones are just random ones I took throughout the course of playing. For Guild Wars I tried to put up some of the better ones. Enjoy.

DMS Tools, dmdsmacro and getndn

2005.10.12 23:48 UTC

I figured I'd release two tools I've made that fellow DMS administrators might find useful. One is getndn and the other is dmdsmacro.

Getndn is a Perl script made to grab the NDN reports off of DISA's website directly, and to unzip the files automatically for you to make it much easier on you and save some time.

Dmdsmacro is most possibly the greatest tool ever for logging into the DMDS Profilers, since it will do it for you. Just got to configure it, then run it everytime you need to log into the Profiler. I know in my shop it has saved thousands of man hours already, especially when it takes 5 minutes or more to log in manually on a single machine with that has a bunch of cards on it.

Both can be downloaded from the files page.

Field Trip To New Orleans

2005.10.12 01:07 UTC

Well, I finally had a chance to go down to New Orleans and grab a few things. The only problem is I grabbed a "few" things, and am starting to regret not taking more, heh. My belongings are fine for the most part, at least from what I saw. It seems fortune has smiled upon me through this.

It's pretty bad down there. Every room in the building I was living in had varying degrees of damage, the least of it was mold. Trees were down, signs were down, stop lights were out, roofs of houses caved in, trash everywhere. Very few places were open for business. It probably won't go back to "normal" for a very, very long time. I'll be long gone by then though, heh.

Added Display Of Comments

2005.09.27 08:41 UTC

I originally intended to show how many people replied to my news posts, but couldn't quite figure a good way to put them in there. I really didn't feel like trying either. Luckily, with my abundance of time I have, you can clearly see that I have made it so. Maybe now you all will figure out that you can reply to these news posts, heh. Oh, you don't need to make an account to reply/comment, so you can't use that as an excuse.

This Past Week

2005.09.23 06:55 UTC

Hurricane Rita rocks. I was going to be allowed to go back to New Orleans to grab some stuff from there, but due to the hurricane in the Gulf, that was cancelled. Oh, how I love it.

I was forced to move out of the decent room I was staying in and was moved to an even better room. Everything is like brand new. Hell, the building was finished like 6 months ago, or so I've been told. As a result, I don't have a roomate anymore, which isn't a bad thing. Here I thought I would be moved into horrible room with someone I didn't know, and since I work nights, I would probably never get decent sleep. The only things that suck: no TV, no internet, and no room service.

Oh, I can get a TV and internet, but I haven't had a TV for years, and why would I want to get one now? The only way I'll be able to get internet is if I also get basic cable. Which I think is albsolute bolonga. Why the hell would I have to pay for cable TV if I'm never going to be able to watch it? 40usd for cable, 40usd for internet. It's absolutely absurd. Hopefully, I'll be able find a way around that.

Luckily, I finally got a chance to go through the stuff I did manage to bring. Here I thought I only brought clothes et al, but I found I had thrown my Game Boy Advance in there as well. Beings that I didn't feel like playing any of the games I had, I went to go buy a new one. I ended up splurging on a Nintendo DS and got 3 games for it already. Whoops. Oh, what desperate boredom will do to a person! At least now I can play my old games with a backlighting, and it will also help for the wait for the laptop. Yes, I'm still waiting for it. Apparently it has something to do with the zip codes being different on billing and shipping address. Joy.

New Laptop, Ambulant

2005.09.13 10:35 UTC

MS-1029 barebone notebook, AMD Turion 64 MT-37 processor @ 2.0 GHz, 1024MB PC3200 DDR RAM, 60GB 5400RPM ATA100 HDD.

Sounds good, no? I just ordered it the other day. Hopefully I'll be getting it relatively soon. Mayhaps I will be able to retain some semblance of sanity during the wait for it, because I'm sure only being able to watch TV during my time off is killing what is left of my saneness. If only there was something else to do around here, but there's not. It's quite sad. Oh well, I only have many, many more months left of this place. Ha.

Kansas City Blues

2005.09.03 05:23 UTC

Leaving all my electronics in New Orleans, save a single thumb drive, and not thinking that I might be in Kansas City for a long time, has got me really bored. All I get to do is work, sleep, and watch TV. I had no idea how much I really depend on computers for entertainment, and how much I really don't like watching random shows on TV. Sure, there's a computer in the lobby at where I'm staying, but that doesn't really help much, since I can't go anywhere I want. Also, can't really do it at work, since there's work to be done and people looking over my shoulder all the time.

Been thinking about getting a laptop. I've been meaning to get one for a while, but haven't because I really have enough computers as it is, and I don't really travel that often or this long. If I find a decent laptop that is cheap enough, I'll be definitely getting one as soon as I find out my mailing address here. Otherwise, this'll be quite the boring several weeks to come. At least I'm better off then the people that are stuck in New Orleans still.

New Orleans Sinks

2005.08.30 13:07 UTC

With about 80% of New Orleans flooded, and extensive damage to the city, I doubt that I'll be able to return to it anytime soon. I left all my belongings behind, so I'm kind of worried about them. Even if they're gone, I'm still alive, and all that stuff can be replaced. Hopefully living on the second floor will save alot of them though.

I'd call what I'm having a vacation, except for the fact that we're working double and triple shifts here to get everything up and running on the network. At least when everything's fully operational again, we'll be able to have some R&R. Joy.

Hurricane Katrina

2005.08.27 18:43 UTC

Well, another hurricane is coming my way. As you can see on this map, anything in pink means it's going to hurt. I just so happen to be in one of those areas. Not only that, but the eye is projected to go right over New Orleans. Since the city is below sea level, it means we're doubly screwed. It's going to flood, and it's going to be very bad. Especially if it follows the projected path.

Luckily, I won't be there for this. They're flying me to Missouri to make sure the communications network doesn't go down. I'll be back in about a week or more, since if it hits New Orleans like that, I won't going back to it soon because there most likely will be nothing left.

Ultimate Laziness... Almost

2005.08.24 04:18 UTC

After a few hours, and several breaks for Jedi Academy later, I have built this new news page using my forum as a backend. I mean, could I be any lazier? Granted, I could have downloaded a plugin or something for phpbb that would have done the same thing, which would have made me even lazier, but it wouldn't look this cool! It may look the same on the outside, but trust me, it's not.

As a result, I merged my old news items onto a single file so I don't have to worry about too many moving parts with it anymore. It will become the older old news after I have enough news items with this new system to generate an old news page. Ha, say that three times fast. Oh, now you can leave comments on the new news items, or reply to them, with the new system too, since it uses the forum indirectly and all. Enjoy.

Time

2005.08.20 20:50 UTC

For the first time in quite a while, I have happened upon an abundance of free time. It's amazing. I don't feel rushed. I don't feel like I have to do anything. Just be. It's great.

Now that I do have time, I have been playing games more. Still mainly Jedi Academy and Guild Wars, just because they're both oh so good. I watch anime and other things as well, but not really as much as I've been playing games. Every now and then I'll do something productive, but that's usually only at work. Oh how I love to kill the time that I've got.

Forum Up, Replays Down, Modem Good, Computers Bad

2005.08.12 08:50 UTC

I have new forum now. It's all pretty and everything. This time without those annoying ads and crap that was on the last one. Enjoy.

I removed all the replays page, since the ones there are no longer supported with the new version being out and all.

Also, I did finally get my new cable modem, but now have no working computers, ha. Of course I broke them on purpose, but am now having troubles with the new setup I'm trying with them. I bought new hard drives for one of my servers, and was going to put the server ones into my gaming machine. I found out just today that there is only one SATA channel on my gaming machine, and to use two hard drives I absolutely have to set them up on a RAID. Problem is I wanted a 36 gig and a 250 gig drive in that machine, so that won't really work. Hopefully I'll be able to find some work around for it after work.

FedEx Issues

2005.08.10 06:12 UTC

FedEx sucks. I will never pay for overnight shipping from them again. Words cannot express the hatred I have for them right now. I was home all day, waiting for a damn package from them, and they never bothered to show up. Not at all. No notice on my door saying they were here, but wait, they put in their tracking record thing that they attempted to deliver it, but no one was home. Which is complete bull. I can't believe the audacity of the person that did that. Here's the kicker, it's not the first time FedEx has done this to me. Those other times didn't bother me so much because I normally use the cheapest shipping method, but this was for overnight; I mean I'm supposed to have them now, right now, and not tomorrow.

I called FedEx and explained the situation, and they said they'd have the guy do a redelivery today, but I guess the guy didn't want to, because he never came by again. I called FedEx again, and the lady appologized and all that crap. It's not like it was her fault, the delivery guy is the dimwit. She said that I could pick it up at their little distribution center before they closed. I almost lost it there. Their distribution center is a little over an hour away to drive, and they wanted me to pick it up. I didn't pay all this money for me to drive for a total of 2 and a half hours to pick it up. I paid for overnight shipping for a reason, so I could have it delivered to my door the next day. Completely ridiculous.

I had better get it tomorrow, otherwise I may just end up going there and giving someone an earful.

Decisions

2005.08.09 07:15 UTC

It's almost been a year since I started paying for hosting. I get like 50 gigs of bandwidth a month, and have been using nearly all of it. You wouldn't think it by how this site looks, but it's true. It's not this external site that generated it, but in fact a contract with another party. That's partially the reason why I never did anything with the site, because I didn't want to go over the limit. That, and the whole "not having much time" thing. Now that the contract is over and I am starting to have time again, I have choices.

My year of paid hosting is almost up, and I can either do one of two things. Pay for another year and start doing something with the website, or move back to free hosting. The domain is mine, so no matter what I do it'll still point to whereever I move.

Luckily, I've decided to do something with the site. I haven't paid for the next year yet, but if it falls through, I can park this somewhere until I get some motivation. At least I actually have ideas. No real plans, but a large to-do list... like releasing some projects I've done for work, though I haven't really decided about that.

The only thing really slowing me down is my lack of artistic talent. I sat here, playing with GIMP for no less than 4 hours, trying to do a single image, and I'm still not even remotely happy with it. If I wasn't such a perfectionist I might actually be able to get things done. I always have to fiddle with whatever I'm working on until I give up on it. Don't be shocked to come back in like a week and see this site completely changed though, or at least have a significant facelift.

Connection Issues

2005.08.07 10:41 UTC

Yeah, so I've been having connection issues for the past couple months. Just recently it's been really bad, where I can only seem to play games in the early morning. Now, I believe I have found the reason, though I have called the tech support many, many times for my ISP, none have told me the same thing as to why my connection may be messing up. The reason my connection sucks right now is that my ISP has stopped supporting my modem. Seriously. They never informed me of this, but it's true. I've checked their capatability list many times, and until just today I've seen my modem up there, but now it's gone. So, now I have a modem on order for overnight shipping, so hopefully I'll have it by Tuesday, but until then don't expect playing games much except early morning. About the only thing I can do is surf the web, and even then my connection times out many times in one sitting. In the meantime, I need to call my ISP and try and get me some free months of internet for their horrid negligence that's costed me nearly 4 months of grief. Fun.

Getting Lazier

2005.07.31 15:00 UTC

I changed the internals of my site. The only thing different you should notice is I don't have only one PHP page doing everything anymore, so at the very least I will be able to maintain my future sanity.

Timesinks

2005.07.04 19:43 UTC

Ahh, it's been over a year since I've updated this site with any public content, and to commemorate such an occasion I still won't. Instead, I will list of things that have thoroughly killed my time in this past year (besides work and sleep). Without further ado, here we go:

1. Warcraft 3 - Damned custom maps like Defense of the Ancients are what kicked this whole year of laziness off.
2. World of Warcraft - Played the beta. Was really impressed, and almost bought the game because of it. Instead a friend insisted I try SWG.
3. Star Wars Galaxies - The game that helped me figure out how engaged I can become in a grind game, with 24 of 32 professions mastered in 7 months. I'd probably still be playing it, if not for Sony Online Entertainment completely changing the game on everyone to make it more WoW-like.
4. Jedi Academy - Still is eating my time. Not so much as it used to, but I still playing it often.
5. Guild Wars - I alternate between JA and this game. Great game, but am trying very hard to not become addicted to games again, so I play it moderately. I'm playing a Ranger/Warrior named "Talon Swain" and am currently at level 17. Feel free to pester me in game, heh.
6. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Whoo! Best Star Trek series ever. I have been watching an episode per day for the last couple months, and am currently on season 4, episode 9, "The Sword of Kahless." Cheers.
7. List of anime series I've watched in this past year - El-hazard: The Magnificent World 1 & 2; Great Teacher Onizuka; Gunslinger Girl; Haibane Renmei; Hikaru no Go; Now and Then, Here and There; Last Exile; RahXephon; Scrapped Princess; Outlaw Star; Serial Experiments Lain; Revolutionary Girl Utena... and am currently in the middle of Sailor Moon and Fullmetal Alchemist.

News

2005.05.04 06:08 UTC

What's this? An update finally in half a year? No, just some database maintenance. Heh. That's not to say that I have been doing nothing all this time, it's just this site has been put on hold. Sad thing is, I do more programming for work than for myself lately. Mayhaps one day I'll stop getting addicted to computer games long enough to mess with this site some more, but only time will tell.