It’s for the TV
That's what we tell people about our internet satellite dish. It's for the TV.
And speaking of the TV, I got mine back. It's useless for things like network television or cable or satellite as we don't have a receiver but it's got a built in DVD player so now I can use it to finish off Star Trek and watch the numerous other TV shows I have. OH! And maybe it'll play Evil Dead 2!
I'm actually rather tired right now. The cement lifting totally wore me out and that was eight hours ago.
I’m covered in cement and have nothing else to do
So today we (the commo shop) somehow got involved in a detail unloading 130 110lb bags of cement off the back of a truck into a shipping container. We do it, get dusty as hell from all the cement, come back, wipe ourselves down with baby wipes, and go about our business when a guy visiting us comes by and asks why we're all dirty. When we tell him we've been unloading cement he brings up a very important fact that somehow escaped my leadership, "You know there's silicon dust in concrete right?" So cancer, here I come! Actually I don't know how bad silicon dust can be, let alone concentrated into an enclosed space such as a shipping container, but we weren't wearing breathing masks. Hopefully I'll be okay! Right now my biggest concern is taking an hour long shower to get all this grit off of me.
So I came up with the solution to the car issue. Katie said, perhaps in jest, that she wanted a Vespa. That struck me like a damn brick today. We have a little ATV we use to get around the FOB and I love riding that thing. Now an ATV isn't a solution to our problem a scooter or small motorcycle is. They're CHEAP, excellent on gas consumption, cheap to insure, and perfect for getting around Ft. Campbell. I looked into the Vespa and they're pretty cheap but the fastest the cheapest one goes is 59MPH, which means it'd probably only be used on-post or right outside post and never the freeway but something that small can be moved with the rest of our stuff cheaply so we'd have a vehicle when we move.
Once again, Katie's sleeping and I can't bring this up to her now so this is more or less a reminder to myself to bring up this option next time I can talk to her. I wouldn't have any problems getting a Vespa though. I don't care how gay it'd make me look. I hardly care what other people think of me anyway.
It’s official
Katie's lost it.
She's making a myspace profile for the dog.
Way past the deep end now, I don't think she's ever coming back.
AO and more work whining
So since I'm out here in Iraq with a healthy dose of free time I thought it'd be a good idea to take up playing Anarchy Online again since I hardly gave it a chance when I first signed up. It's free as long as you play without the expansions and it's an MMO. I'm playing a Opifex Fixer, a weird looking hacker-ish guy. It's still like Everquest in the future but who cares. It's free and I wasted an hour and a half playing it tonight and I'm still on n00b island. It's a fantastic way to waste time so far!
So while it's patching up someone knocks on my door. It's PFC Dilyard, resident dumbass and official Squadron Whipping Boy. This kid is a cavalry scout who they kicked out of the line companies because he's so dumb he'd be a danger to the other scouts on their missions. Apparently he's working in the TOC now, as janitor/errand boy because they sent him to get me to fix something. I asked him what the problem was and he said they didn't tell him. I'm irritated. How are they going to send someone to get me after I'm done for the night and not tell me how urgent the problem is? So I put on the quickest uniform I have (which is PT short and PT shirt) and head to the TOC expecting the sky to be falling. I get there and the first problem is the SIGO (signal officer, my boss) is still there. He didn't know they even sent for me, let alone what the problem is. So he goes into the TOC to ask someone because I'm in PTs and in no condition to be seen by the squadron commander or the sergeant major. Apparently the "internet is down".
You've got to be kidding me. Everyone else is up, but one computer which is apparently VITAL enough that they have to send for someone to get me the minute it's not working right. Well the commander has a briefing in thirty minutes (on an entirely seperate network) and the SIGO wants to show me how to set up his conferencing software, just for future reference. So we run into the commander and he's all "Hubbard, I never see you anymore, what have you been up to lately?" so I tell him that I avoid the TOC at all costs (truth, I'm cool with the commander so I can get away with not having to make up excuses for why I'm not there checking my stuff all the time. MY stuff works, he knows that) and he's laughs and tells the SIGO that he's got thirty minutes to get this conference up (SIGO, however, is kind of on the commander's shitlist) so we get to work. The conference program is entirely too easy to set up and the commander points this out as the SIGO can make some powerpoint slides for an idiot-proof walkthrough, and then it's back to the task at hand, the "internet (being) down".
So I reset the internet connection while the SIGO checks the settings on the computer itself. And the SIGO comes back and tells me that all he had to do on his end was unplug the ethernet cable and plug it back in. OH MY GOD. These people kill me. I got all my crap on and interrupted some very important internet surfing to fix a problem whose solution consisted of one of the MOST BASIC troubleshooting tasks? Now maybe I'm in the minority. Maybe I'm a part of a dying breed. But if I have a tool such as a computer or a radio or a humvee, I'll be damned if I'm not going to learn how to use it and how to fix it if a subject matter expert isn't available. These people use computers EVERY DAY and don't bother going through simple troubleshooting steps to solve problems before they want to wake me up to fix them myself. I swear if I don't get out of this unit soon these people are going to give me an aneurysm. I can't deal with the end-user forever. The good news to that is my next promotion is a sure-fire ticket out. Once I get promoted I'm officially overqualified to be in this unit and I'll either get sent up the organization structure (to brigade level) or I'll get put in another section of the division (such as G6, where the big wigs dictate computer and radio plans to units such as mine). EITHER WAY, my quality of employment will improve greatly. And Katie and I get to move into nicer housing.
So I'm not trying to stay E-4 forever. In fact I'm hoping to time my E-5 promotion with our redeployment back to the states so Katie and I can move into better housing as soon as I get back.
A BRAND NEW CAR!
So before I left Katie and I planned on paying off the laptop, paying off the mattress and dining table, and then saving our money for a downpayment on a new car. The Saturn's not quite ten years old but the money from the deployment would be a good opportunity to save up the money to get one. Well when we decided that we had planned on moving once I got out of the Army but I hadn't decided whether I was going to stay in past my six years or not. Well now I decided. Well not now, earlier but I've decided that I'm tired of missing Katie because I'm gone all the time and that I'll be getting out after my six years are up.
So Katie makes the point that it'd be a big waste to buy a NEW new car if we're going to be moving (relatively) soon anyway. To put this in perspective, we're planning on moving a long distance. Driving won't be feasible. We'd just have to sell the car anyway. So in my opinion, the Saturn should be able to make through the next four years and that buying ANY kind of new car would be a waste of money because as soon as we'd get it paid off we'd be selling it (or worse, we'd be trying to sell it even owing money on it).
No, Katie has her heart set on a new car. Even above a better TV (ours isn't crap but it's not great), new furniture (the futon couch worked for the first six months but it's kind of getting old), a bedframe so we're not sleeping on the floor anymore, any other number of useful things we could be spending our money on that we can take with us, or just saving the money to help cover the cost of the move, she wants a new car. Well by now I've heard enough of "I'm going to have it my way and that's that" from my thickheaded roommate and I'm tired of being bullied and pushed around by someone who thinks they know better than me so I told Katie that she can have her new car because she's going to have to go get a job and pay for it herself.
And now I can go fuck myself.
Nerd tattoo
So Katie already shot it down but I thought I'd share anyway since I still think it's awesome.
It's the Halo of the Sun from Silent Hill 3. Normally it's in red or blood but it'd look way better as a tattoo in simple black ink. Anyway. I gave my input!
The entry that never was
Or won't be until I can goof around with my account password. I WAS going to write an entry about how Katie and I are having a hard time agreeing on our matching nerd tattoo but since I had my host reset my password to get into my FTP account and that password was sent to my Army email, which I can only access at work right now, I'm assed out and can't show you what I thought we might be able to agree about. I knew I should've forwarded that email to myself.
Anyway. Today started off great, got woke up for no reason an hour before I planned on waking up myself. There was literally no reason for them to wake me up but the night shift gets bored so they wake people up to keep themselves entertained. Or so I imagine is their line of thinking.
More roommate drama, same crappy roommate. His feet stink. STINK. Like rotting skin, if I could imagine what rotting skin smelled like. This stuff is NOT natural. He says he puts foot powder on, obviously he needs a stronger solution. I'm about to go to the medics for him. Get him the prescription strength stuff, not that I believe he'll use it, just to get the ball rolling on some kind of administrative actions here. When people come into our room and say it smells like asshole and it's because of his feet, there's a problem. I'm tired of the smell of fungus and the wave of nausea that follows it. My eyes are literally tearing up here. His feet stink that bad. Worse the Lauri's!
I lied
I never actually went to sleep. I installed FreeSpace 2 (space dogfighting in pretty graphics ashsdfkjhas) and spent an unhealthy amount of time screwing with the enhanced engine for it to make it even prettier but it was so worth it. This game is so freaking gorgeous. And I'm totally crippled without my joystick. That's what I'm getting when I get home. A better joystick. I have a cheap Saitek that does the job but I want the solid stick AND an independant throttle. I have this dream of having enough money to get a bunch of LCD monitors, top of the line joystick and throttle, solid pedals, and setting up as a mech/space sim the way crazy people do with Microsoft Flight Simulator. Except that MS Flight Sim actually supports a full cockpit view because it's based in reality. I think I'd have a hard time finding any space or mech game that has a full cockpit view. BUT I CAN DREAM, RIGHT?!
Dear Volition,
Quit making that crappy GTA-ripoff "Saints Row" and quit making crappy sequels to the Half-Life ripoff that is "Red Faction" and please go back to making FreeSpace 3, with full cockpit view.
Love, brian
P.S. I love the word "cockpit".
Hostel, Hyperion, sleeeeep
Since I'm way too tired to stay up and type out more than one senseless post, here's one with a bit of everything!
Hostel is a crap movie. It's a turd. A waste of precious bandwidth, as I pirated it off bittorrent. It starts off like a softcore porn with three college age guys backpacking through Europe and having sex with promiscuous women at every stop and then turns into a crappy suspense TV movie. Ooooh who's killing these worthless people? Well wonder no more, they show you almost as soon as the first one dies! They then proceed to spell out for you, barney style, why they're dying. There's no horror involved. It's like watching Aliens with all the lights on and every scene shot with full lighting. Everything's clear as crystal, it's just a movie about people dying. I guess I can't complain too much though, it's not like I paid for it and I'm told it's an improvement over the director's last film, Cabin Fever.
Dan Simmons' "Hyperion", however, is an outstanding novel that ends entirely too abruptly. I'm not going to try to elaborate on the 500 page novel so to sum it up, seven people from all walks of life are sent on a pilgrimage on the planet Hyperion to pay a visit to the Shrike, a god-like creature both worshipped and feared, and each pilgrim carries their own dark secret and reason for being there. I love the way Simmons' paces this book. At first there's references to all kinds of futuristic and foreign things like farcasters and the TechnoCore and the Ousters and with each story the pilgrims tell of their past you learn more about those foreign and strange things. By about three-fourths of the way through, you know exactly what everything is and you've got a rather strong grasp on the universe the story takes place in. It's a sci-fi in a world that's dark and intriguing and the only thing that mars this book is the fact that once you've heard the stories of the ones involved, it ends. The overarching plot, the pilgrimage itself, carries on to "The Fall of Hyperion", and if I didn't already have that novel waiting, I'd be pretty pissed at how it ends. Not so much at a cliffhanger persay but more of someone telling you the joke but never getting to the punchline. I assume everything will be cleared up by the end of "The Fall of Hyperion" but that's another 500 pages away. Though, if "The Fall of Hyperion" is as good as "Hyperion" itself, I doubt I'll mind.
And now I've got to read a chapter or two before I pass out, way before bedtime because people kept barging in last night looking for my roommates to do some dumb radio crap.
How to alienate your “readers” in 10 simple steps
1. Start a blog
2. Buy a domain, move blog
3. change blog engines a couple times
4. never update
5. delete blog, make a livejournal
6. make your livejournal friends only
7. never update
8. get tired of the "secrecy", move blog back to domain
9. change blog engines
10. never update