Accomplishments today
1. 6am - 8am MWR shift, also known as two hours of reading and apathy.
2. Got some cro-mag fired up on Livejournal. EDIT: I can't make the "negative" the focus without mentioning the positive. Got tons of compliments on a ridiculous God's Girls community post I made. (link)
3. Somehow managed to get our pairgains working, delivering piping hot SIPR access to the tankers and field artillery guys.
4. Ate more at lunch than usual. I actually finished my crappy little pizza and more than half of my fries.
5. Had a nice chat with Katie. Plans plans plans. I might elaborate later or I might just save this for a "oh, here's something I had planned that I did but I didn't tell anyone until I've already done it" entry.
6. Investigated Able troop's internet access. It's a line run way too far that barely works but it's better than nothing and they're happy with that.
7. Gave a medic a quick class on how to put ends on a CAT-5 cable.
8. Ran the line from the tankers to the field artillery for their SIPR.
7. Ducked out at work exactly at 5:30pm.
8. Swept and picked up my area a little. Dust EVERYWHERE, thanks dust-collecting carpetting and lack of vacuum cleaner.
9. Crappy shower where I found some shampoo. I'm out of shampoo so this was a boon as it was almost entirely full. There might've been a reason for that though, it smells like plastic/oil. Like motor oil. It lathered though, so I know it's actually shampoo and not motor oil. I might keep using it until I can get some real shampoo.
10. Burned an Underworld Evolution vcd that won't play on my crappy leftover TV/DVD combo. Plays without sound on my computer. Argh. I will find a way around this.
11. Castlevania whooped my monkey ass.
So since I've been up since 5:30am, I think I'll play some Final Fantasy IV Advance until I pass out and start this exciting process over. Since I go on leave in almost two months, I'm preparing a list of topics to train the other people in my shop on so that they're not totally assed-out while I'm gone. I know this place is going to fall apart without me. Or at least my network will. I'm basically leaving to come back to three weeks of work piled up. No, the others in my shop are totally competant, they'll get all the minor crap out of the way while I'm gone, they'll all just learn what it means to be The Hub for three weeks.
Laundry Girl
I thought I better add this before Katie has an aneurysm and sends me a million IMs/emails asking who Laundry Girl is, as referenced in my new About page.
There's a girl at the laundry facility. She hits on me. By normal human standards, she's a 3. By Army standards, she's a 5. By deployed Army standards, she's a 6. Not quite passing. Anyway, the day she started this Hice was dropping off laundry with me so of course when we get back to the shop he lets everyone know how the laundry girl was hitting on me and looking at him like he had a dick on his forehead (and not in that erotic manner). It's been kind of a running gag in the commo shop as Allmon and Hice's uniforms are pretty screwed up and their collars keep popping up and making them look like Elvis and mine are always nice and flat. It's the Laundry Girl. She's pressing my collars for me so I don't look crazy. Today Wilson asked why my uniform always looks so clean. Laundry Girl. She washes mine seperate so they get cleaner. They're washed with love. Hice one time said I'm going to start finding her panties in my clean laundry. I don't know what I'm going to do with those if that happens.
So Laundry Girl joins my AIT girlfriend on my list of post-marriage girlfriends.
About me
The "about" page has been updated. Katie made it for me. I've filled out entirely too many of those. It's smallish though, I might have to add a lame Myspace survey.
EDIT: Added said lame Myspace survey, thanks Sara!
Hello. I’ve waited here for you,
everlong. Now I'd never lump Foo Fighters in with Bush as being a less-than-mediocre band with one moment of musical clarity but "The Colour & The Shape" is their best album and "Everlong" is the best song they've ever had. Like "Come Down" it's just one of those songs I can put on repeat and listen to over and over and over.
I think it's official; Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is whooping my monkey ass. I love that phrase. SFC T uses it all the time, usually in the context of, "(Allmon, Johnson), ima whoop yo monkey ass". I know when he says that that one of those two brain surgeons did something stupid. I know when he says that it's time to laugh at how dumb my coworkers are.
I LOVE when people try to throw rank at me to get what they want. SGT Criner does this often. He's E-5, I'm E-4, though he tried this kind of crap when I was an E-3. Usually he wants something dumb so he'll dress it up as something important, like recently he wanted me to give him some CAT-5 cable so he can get internet in his room so he can "talk to all those other people at the other bases". He's in charge of the biggest pieces of crap in my unit, he himself is a pretty big piece of crap, and he thinks he's super-important. And when I tell him no or tell him to talk to SFC T, he gets all huffy and storms off and then he'll keep asking me about everytime he sees me. He'll even go so far as to lie to me in order to make me think someone important wants him to get these things, like he told me he talked to SFC T and he told SGT Criner to talk to me about it. No. SFC T doesn't want him to have any CAT-5 because he doesn't want any more people on his network. SGT Criner didn't talk to him. And now he's trying to get Wilson to give him some, even though Wilson's a radio guy and he'd basically have to steal it from me in order to give it to him. Wilson's not giving him anything. Wilson knows better. He'll be trying Allmon and the SIGO next, the trick is to remind SIGO that SGT Criner's full of crap and doesn't need anything from us. SIGO's a little loopy sometimes.
In general I love when people try to do some crap behind my back. Someone will come in looking for me to put a connector on a CAT-5 cable, my first question is "what's this for?" Usually my next question is "where'd you get this cable?" or "who ran that line?" Some of these guys don't understand; I don't care what rank you are. I have the crimpers. I have the connectors. I know how to put the two together. You don't. Basically no network work gets done without my divine (ha!) intervention. They don't understand that being in charge of the network makes me also in charge of the security of my network. People need reasons for getting network access. I don't need people adding more users to my already overloaded network behind my back.
This all makes me sound like I'm letting some resemblance of power to go my head. It's not. This is my job. Make a network, add users, police and maintain my network. I don't need backseat administrators. I don't need clever people with a little networking knowledge. They give me headaches and create work for me. This sounds like it goes against my "I don't need stupid users" rule either but it doesn't. If someone needs to move to another office and can take their own cable with them from one location to another and plug in, that's fine. That's great even. No loss or gain of users, everything's the same just one person's in a different location. It's when people try to hook up their buddies or themselves without the right to. That's not what I need.
It’s set to default.
All entries default to "nerd" catagory. It's faster that way.
Katie sent me cookies and snacks and stuff along with my new DS/GBA games, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Mega Man Zero 4, and Final Fantasy IV Advance. My unwarranted impressions follow in that order.
Castlevania. The name just screams "Buy me!" unless it's on a new home console. The last two handheld Castlevania's have been fantastic. Outstanding examples of how to make a two-dimensional exploration/action game. This one is no different but first the gripes. Why skimp on art? For whatever reason Konami felt the need to replace the typically spectacular cover and instruction art with cheap anime crap. The in-game art is still intact but this cover art doesn't scream blood dripping horror like the previous Castlevanias. Please compare...
The difference is quite obvious. Awesome, awesome, lame. What in the hell, Konami? Overblow the budget on the game itself so you had to skimp for the first time in YEARS on box art? This might not be as bad as it is if Soma didn't have goddamn Farah Fawcett hair. Seriously Konami, you're killing me.
On a much brighter note, Dawn of Sorrow itself is totally awesome. A little harder than Aria of Sorrow. It's outstanding.
Mega Man Zero 4 is just that. I've only finished the introduction level but for the first time in a Mega Man Zero game, I got through the intro without dying AND got an "A" grade. Hopefully this means I haven't lost my skills gained from those insane days at Fort Polk, Louisiana when I somehow managed to beat Mega Man Zero 2 and Mega Man Zero 3. This Mega Man Zero ditches the shield boomerang and chain rod (useless and useful, in that order) for the Zero Knuckle, which allows you to take an enemies weapon and looks disturbingly like a molestation attempt. Zero reaches out and grabs. It's so dirty. And since I'm a Z-saber whore I can't see myself using the Zero Knuckle much at all. I don't play Mega Man Zero to shoot or molest, I play to dash and slash. I play Mega Man Zero like I play Castlevania. Run up to the bad guy real close and smash the attack button until it dies.
I haven't started Final Fantasy IV yet. On gameboy I mean. I started it on PSX when I got Final Fantasy Chronicles and that's why I got it for gameboy. My playstation isn't portable, my gameboy is, and Final Fantasy IV is the only Final Fantasy I've enjoyed enough to WANT to play it.
It’s hard being Special Operations
How can this not be a "nerd" post? It's impossible with a title like this.
No I didn't join Special Forces, that'd be insane. I'm playing Freespace 2, despite the fact that I'm crippled without a joystick. At least I have my high resolution mouse. Anyway, there's a part where the campaign splits off for a side mission or three where you're working for Special Operations Command and working undercover "deep into enemy territory" with "no logistical support" which means I do one mission where I'm killing my own guys and then a mission where me and another SOC op fight off the guys we're undercover with and then one where I'm required to fight off six (6) other ships in the same ship as me with no backup. Boy that was a fun mission to do FIVE TIMES because I kept getting my ass kicked. I think my problem is that when I charge head first into a wing of fighters with guns and missiles blazing and end up playing chicken with the lead ship, I never lose and end up smashing nose-first into it at full speed, which usually results in a big explosion or me bouncing off of their hull. Either way I take a ton of damage myself for the dumb stunt.
The space battles in this game are INSANE. Capital ships have beam weapons, flak cannons, AND missile banks. And seeing the ship you're chasing get hit with an anti-fighter beam is incredible. Getting hit with one yourself sucks though. And getting hit with flak sucks. I've learned to take out flak cannons first. If they're not the most destructive, they're the most annoying because all the explosions make my reticule go all over the place and it's hard to hit a moving target when I'm moving in random directions myself.
This game rules. Why can't they make more space fighters like this?
Suck
I wrote an entry. Kind of boring but it was me whining about my day. And wordpress lost it. And that sucks.
EDIT: I suck. It's there. Not lost.
Digital Sender
I hate the damn digital sender. It's this super-cool little scanner that will scan pages, send them to your computer as PDFs, send them though email to others (without needing a computer's intervention), send faxes, blah blah blah. Well this damn thing was meant for a static IP network hooked up to a POP3 mail server, both of which we don't have here. So the stupid thing loses it's IP address all the time, won't resolve hostnames, and generally requires bi-weekly maintenance. It sucks. And for the last couple weeks I've been in the clear because it was broke. Now it's back. With a vengeance. And it just keeps sucking.
I'm making entirely too much headway into Symphony of the Night for playing it with a keyboard. I'm way too tired to be typing and watching Star Trek. It's not even 8pm. Isn't that horrible? I spent the whole two hours of my MWR shift reading. And I found that diamond in the rough, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, at breakfast this morning. I dig through the cereal bins every morning looking for it.
Bound in flesh, inked in human blood
Since I've got my TV/DVD player back (it was a leftover from my last base that I found and brought here) I thought I'd watch some Evil Dead 2. What an outstanding movie. So it's not a real sequel so much as remake of the original but it's still good and leads right up to Army of Darkness better than the original. But this dvd player is crap and dies after two hours of use so I missed the last fifteen minutes of the movie because I watched an episode of Star Trek beforehand. Stupid TV/DVD combo!
I did little to nothing today. Talked to Katie on trillian till lunch, somehow got sucked into helping the other two in the shop remove some radio equipment from a couple of destroyed trucks, and then I took off. And I was just told a couple hours ago that I had to work the MWR from 6am - 8am. What a pain. Typically I don't wake up till 8:30 so now I have to wake up three hours early to sit around and do nothing because no one else who's awake will be using phones or internet. Oh well. That's two hours of book reading time that I have every intention of taking advantage of.
Speaking of book reading, that's exactly what I was about to do before I realized that I haven't updated yet today and since I've run out of stuff to say, I think I'll go back to it.
Another exciting day in Iraq
Another day of doing next to nothing, really. I'm suffering for some Symphony of the Night so I managed to download a copy and get a playstation emulator working. You don't want to know how much time I wasted doing this. So now I'm playing Symphony of the Night for the thousandth time except now with a keyboard and it's kicking my ass. I died fighting the doppleganger. The second boss. That's horrifying.
So right after christmas we started getting these goodie boxes in the mail. They're free stuff from something called Operation Appreciation or something like that. Some mildly useful stuff, a pair of socks, a knit cap, some foot powder, some snacks and other things that varied from box to box like a DVD or CD. Well I was out at the med clinic working on one of their computers and I saw a copy of the Lost Highway soundtrack lying on a counter. Now Lost Highway came out before I cared about David Lynch and it's yet to be properly released on DVD so I haven't seen the movie but the soundtrack was produced by Trent Reznor and he contributed more than a couple tracks to it. It's also got some David Bowie and Marilyn Manson (pre-Antichrist Superstar) so I'm borrowing it overnight to rip it. I was shocked. Some lucky bastard got the Lost Highway soundtrack in a free goodie box and didn't even appreciate it. This was seriously a diamond in the rough, everyone else got crap like CDs from bands you've never heard of (Hiroshima?) or bizarre DVDs (claymation Rudolph, I got a movie about Bobby Darin).
So a while ago Katie sent me in a food package some dried apples that I just got around to trying tonight. Let me say I won't be eating a single dried apple ever again in my life. Maybe it's because they've been in a plastic sealed bag for god knows how long but to say the taste was unpleasant would be a slight understatement. I didn't vomit but two slices were more than enough for me to seal the bag back up and hide it away for long enough that I don't feel bad about throwing out an almost full container of perfectly good (if you like plastic) food. So I'm glad my next package, containing my copies of Final Fantasy IV Advance, Mega Man Zero 4, and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (!!!!), will include more snacks and noodles. I'm damn near out again.