13 steps

It’s weekend, well really my ‘big’ vacation of the year seeing as our little adventure in the US cost me the rest of my vacation days. This weekend will be spent relaxing, being a translator during my wife’s language exam, going to the beach if the weather permits, working on my big idea for my second site and relaunching that, and rehashing the company’s website as they didn’t like the design and are thinking more along the lines of blinking lights. Yay. Yahtzee reviews Soul Calibur IV and yet I still want to play it, looking for a good feed aggregator I discovered Gregarius finally got an update after 2 years and I remembered I still had it installed on the site somewhere and someone else has apparently been using it all this time. I miss my music so I might have to hook me old server up this weekend seeing as that holds a backup of everything. I’m still liking this theme but I might make a new header, I want a new logo, a new t-shirt design, and a haircut. Where did all the funky new ajax webscripts go? Seems they all disappeared in the 2.0 bubble, they’re all startups instead of something we can run ourselves. Speaking of which, must not forget that I wanted to test Woopra for the new site. Should I wait to see if Google picks up on the proper gallery titles or should I implement this now? Must remember to log on to work before Zzz to reboot the Small Business Server. It’s quirky in that it fails to reboot on schedule. I need coffee.

I remember people mocking me for reading superhero comics, now we have Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and a new Punisher movie all on the big screen in one year.
I remember people thinking that playing computer games was just for kids and silly, now everyone and their granny either has an X-Box, DS or is hopping on the Wii bandwagon.
I remember people saying I was a computer nerd for getting on the internet, now everyone has internet even on their freakin’ cellphone.

The trouble with all those things going mainstream is that the quality goes down because it ‘has’ to be adapted for the idiot masses, which usually makes it lose its appeal that drew us to it in the first place.

Try wading through hundreds of spam blogs and ad ridden sites to find an old school gem of knowledge.
Try finding a game that makes you raise an eyebrow instead of being same old same old rehashed and dumbed down to infinity.

I miss the old days.

I’m still trying to figure out how I want to organize the gallery on my blog here for the huge flood of pictures I’m taking.
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It would seem my other half is responsible for staying in touch with other people these days.
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don’t know where, don’t know when…

A lot can be said about social networks, both good and bad, but one thing that is entertaining is suddenly getting friend requests and hearing from people you haven’t spoken to in years or even decades.

ps. I’ve now joined Facebook as well. Network overkill!

CSI Miami
Never watched this show before, and I doubt I will again. Lieutenant Horatio Caine, played by David Caruso goes about solving crimes. The problem is that poor David only ever had money for 1 acting lesson, and in that lesson he was taught that looking at the ground and then looking up dramatically and saying a one liner makes him look extremely cool. David just took it a bit too literally or is trying a bit too hard to look cool and so he looks up dramatically about 60 times per episode. It’s simply too ridiculous to watch. Next!

Creative virtuoso.
A good example of what I like about blogs. Don’t know how Devin ended up on my site but I followed his link and found a blog with computer stuff and personal stuff mixed together, some of the personal entries specifically hit close to home and it’s nice to be able to relate.

Street Fighter
Playing EX3 again makes me want a new EX game, a new Zero game (or Alpha as it’s called outside of Japan) and Street Fighter 4. And please make 4 better than 3 which so sucked in my opinion. And where’s that new movie they were going to make?

Lamp for fish tank
Just a personal reminder to pick up a new TL lamp for in my fish tank seeing as I had to switch the current one off over the weekend, it started flashing like crazy which I don’t think would have been good for my fishies mental wellbeing.

Part 1 is here in case you missed it. Standard disclaimer; these are just a list of things that made me raise an eyebrow during my first visit to the US. I only went to Indiana and have yet to see the rest of the country, so I’m guessing some things vary from state to state. I hope so anyway…

Here’s a small list of things we found noteworthy:
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How’s the weather?
At work we have to go outside for a smoke, and inevitably people will be walking by all the time. Now for me, a hi will suffice. “Bah, it’s raining, I hate the rain”. Yes thank you Captain Obvious, I can see that quite clearly, and feel it by the water splashing everywhere on me. I know it’s meant well, but it still annoys me at times. Especially when it happens too many times in any one day. But it’s small talk, and a way for people to reach out and connect I suppose.

So…
How’s the weather?

but you can call me XIII. Weird isn’t it, how attached we become to names. I’ve now been online since about 1995 and back then nicknames were the most normal thing on the world wide web. So was common decency and respect, but that’s a topic for another entry. The point being, fast forward to 2007 and I’m a lot older and wiser *cough* and I visit a lot of sites these days where people just go by their real name instead of a nick. And sure, why not? It seems that on forums nicknames are still the way to go. But anno 2007 I do a lot more than just visit forums, and let’s face it, they seem to be dying a bit anyway. It’s always been a bit amusing to have people ask me what my ‘real’ name is and be all mysterious, especially back in ye golden days. Also I want to use this front page blog more as my central hub where I gather and combine everything from all the networking sites as well, many of which I use my real name on, such as on LinkedIn or the dutch (and slightly less obnoxious) version of MySpace called Hyves.
But I’ll still hang on to XIII, after all this time it just feels natural.

The mind works in mysterious ways, I still don’t get why you sometimes dream the way you do. It can be unsettling at times, waking up covered in sweat and totally out of it. It’s also always puzzled me why you can still remember it vividly when you wake up but it fades so quickly in the hours afterwards.