So, we had a lil LAN action going today. It wasn’t all that big of a LAN; there were three of us, and we mostly alternated between UT2K4 and Call of Duty. I played some of the mods, which actually turned out pretty darn sniffty. In LANs past, my machine has spontaneously rebooted at least twice over the course of the twelve hours of arse kicking. This time, though, my lil machine was a good girl–perhaps I’ll reward her with some extra RAM 😀

So, that pretty much sums up my day of nerdy nerdiness. I shall sleep most soundly, and perhaps quite late. hehe. I still need to see SG-1 and Atlantis from Friday night, which I most diligently recorded.

Ahh, well.. of to sleepy sleepiness.

Well, I’ve finally made it to the 21st century. Not only do I have the state of the art Athlon in my system, and a pretty kick butt ATI vid card, but now I have a new monitor 🙂 It happens rarely, for sure, that I would splurge. So you should count yourselves lucky to witness such an earth shattering event. How on earth will your reality ever be the same? 😉 Here’s what the lil lass looks like:

She’s such a pretty lil one. I’ve done a lil bit of gaming tonite on it, and it seems to very much kick some major arse–all 17″ of her. I’ve been so used to CRTs that this seems so concave to me. lol. It’s something to get used to, for sure.

I’m quite glad that tomorrow is Friday. I’m having some friends over on Saturday for a little LAN action. We’ll most likely be playing some UT2004 and perhaps some Call of Duty, if they happen to have the game. Should be quite the kewl day/evening/night. Usually, we play from noon to midnight–or whenever everyone gets tired.

Anyhoo, tomorrow nite should be kewl, too.. I’m going to see The Village with the bro. If the movie is even half as good as Signs or The Sixth Sense then it’ll be well worth it, indeed.

Off for some more gaming 😀

So, before coming to the boonies of Alabama, my family used to live in a Chicago suburb called Streamwood. It was a nice little town; it kinda reminds me of Madison, where I live now–only a good bit kewler. It was fairly close to Chicago which meant museums, Cubs, and a darn good time chillin’ downtown while eating some kick butt pizza from Gino’s East on Ontario & Wells.

I was surfing a good bit online today, going down memory lane. I looked up my first school, Oakhill Elementary. It has kind of an ugly website, very old content, and little useful content. But, still–it was good to see that the school is still there in the old neighborhood. The only familiar name on the whole site was Mrs. Wohlever, my 3rd grade teacher.

I also looked up the high school I would’ve gone to had we stayed there. I cruised the guest book a bit, to see if there was anyone I knew. I think there was one, but I moved when I was 10, which is a good frickin while ago–I’m gettin frickin old 🙁

Anyhoo, she was listed as being an AOL address. It’s been like 15 years, but perhaps this person might remember me–or perhaps my name will be as familiar to her as hers was to me.

All that surfing around made me realize how much I miss Chicago. I miss it enough when I go back there every year, and I never get tired of going back. And it’s always good to visit it vicariously through the web 🙂

I had the strangest & trippiest dream last night. Maybe it was the article I read yesterday about all of the solar activity that sparked it. It’s all fading now, but I dreamt that the sun was going nova. I think I remember watching an Outer Limits along these same lines.

Humanity had an afternoon of warning. So, as the planet got hotter, I spent the afternoon making peace with everyone and saying goodbye to all of my friends and family. When the end was swiftly approaching, I was in church; but it wasn’t my own. And there was a woman priest, which made Confession quite interesting. lol. It was hotter than blazes; a lot of people had lost consciousness. I was calling everyone I could–for some reason, the cell network was still working. When the sun was finally about to explode, I was speaking to my brother–I don’t know where he was, but I was speaking to him on the phone. We were about to watch the world end together when, for some reason, it all stopped. I really don’t know why it stopped, especially since it was at this point that I woke up.

This would make a great short story, if it hadn’t been written already. lol. But, perhaps I’ll put it to disk, anyway, and perhaps post the link here–I’ll just have to fill in the details and the ending, but it might make a good one. Especially since it involves me, my family and friends.. And all of humanity, of course.

It was quite the dramatic dream, but the instant I woke up the astronomer in me took over. Theroretically our sun, being an average-sized G-type star, wouldn’t go nova in such a way unless something really strange acted upon it. Stars that go nova in that way are usually smaller and quicker-burning. The sun will expand, but it’ll take a few billion years for it to engluf Earth. Anyway, while it was a really sad dream, my brain quickly reassured me as I woke up. Go brain! 🙂

Just another slackful Saturday.. It was pretty alright, I suppose.. It was hotter than blazes, that’s for sure. I can’t wait until fall arrives. I really don’t know why, but autumn has always been my favorite time of year; perhaps it’s because winter is just right around the corner.. Although, then again, Halloween has always been my favorite secular holiday 🙂

Anyway, that’s all for tonite–I’m quite tired and still recovering sleep from last night 😀

I had an awesome time last night at the Sobro Summer Nights music festival with mwshook and pescivendolo. It was a nice quaint little parking lot venue in the middle of downtown Nashville. There were three groups but the best were the last two, Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players and the main course, They Might Be Giants.

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players were unlike any band I’ve ever seen. They take old slides from yard sales and such and write songs for them. It’s really quite bizzare, but strangely hypnotic. There’s just no way to describe their strangeness. It was definitely quite the kewl prelude to the big guys. They’re most likely the only band out there still protesting Vietnam.

They Might Be Giants were frickin’ awesome. They played a good bit from their new album, The Spine. They had an awesome energy on-stage. Of course, my ears are still no more than stumps right now 🙂 They played a number of classics, too, and ended the night on “Istanbul”; quite the fitting end to an uber awesome night.

I’m just SO frickin glad tomorrow is friday. I think I’ll definitely catch up on some Zs this weekend–I think that supercharged Monday just made the end of my week a longer way down to the weekend.

Had a nice little evening tonight. We celebrated my dad’s birthday in true nerd fashion by watching War of the Worlds.

Other than that, just a plain Jane average day.

I think I’ll go start on those Zs early.

So today was just kind of your average day in Kevin Land. I downloaded some musc tonite *GASP* I haven’t done that in ages.. I’ve been too busy copying DVDs *evil, devilish laugh* I’m going to hell, I know. Hey, at least I’ll have a pretty good movie library to usher me out of this world. haha.

Did a good bit of gaming tonight. Haven’t done any real hardcore gaming in a while, and I should most certainly be punished for that. lol. Supposedly, I’m hosting the LAN this month at my place. We’ll see–no one has signed up on the website for it. I hope it doesn’t fall through, because I got quite addicted to Call of Duty at the last LAN 🙂 I’m probably going to get into Star Wars: Galaxies quite soon. I’ve heard it’s as crack addictive as EverQuest.

Cubs actually won today, but they’re still slipping badly. They’re 10 GB and only in 2nd place by 0.5 games. I really don’t think the baby bears are getting anywhere, but we shall see. Even if they don’t, it’s strangely zenful; watching them play every weekend. Of course, it’s all like going home again–minus the kewl pizza.

Anyhoo, I’m off to watch some ATHF and then slip away into blissful unconsciousness.

I don’t know what it is; my phone has been off the hook tonite.. Am I really that popular? lol. Nah. At least they were kewl people and not posers 🙂

Matt has invited me to a “They Might Be Giants” concert on Friday evening. It should be quite the hoot; I’ve never seen them live and I hear they can be quite the fun group to see. I don’t go to many concerts. In fact, I think the last one I went to was Cake a couple of years ago. I really would like to see Jump one day, if they ever happen to be around Nashville or Atlanta.. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t come to pidley little Alabama, but I guess you never know.

Today was fairly kewl. I coded some software that none of us ever thought was remotely possible. It’s good to know that all that book learnin’ about programming and software development stuff actually paid off. lol. Whenever I get in the zone when I’m coding, I seem to slip out of any standard temporal frame of reference and, before I know it, it’s already 4:00 and time to head home. I wish that would happen more often 🙂

Looks like the tire on my Ion is low already :\ I got the car about 3 months ago, and already it’s giving me lip. How rude can you get?

Anyhoo.. Off to do that sleep thing I do this time of night.

Today was definitely one of those supercharged Mondays. I was more awake than usual–normally on a Monday I’m a zombie until at least lunch time. It was all clicking today so fast that I didn’t even notice the time slip right by. I think I coded today, but I was so in the zone that I didn’t even really know what I was doing till it was done. I definitely like this kinda Monday.. I wish it would show its head more often.

So a friend of a friend is getting a team together to do a mod for Half Life 2, and I was thinkin’ of getting in on it. Even if it turns out to be nothing more than ideas, it’ll be kind of kewl to at least brainstorm neat ideas for what we as gamers really want in a game. And, of course, if it does go anywhere then perhaps I can get my foot into the door at Activision or something *snicker* I wish 😉 Either way, it would be kind of awesome to put my coding superpowers to fun use.

Getting souped up for DragonCon in the fall. It is going to be quite uber sweet. My first time was last year, and I wish I would’ve gone all along (Joe would say “I told you so” about here 🙂 ). Before DragonCon, the only convention I had really been to was one here in Huntsville long ago. I think it was around ’91, and the only star in attendance was John DeLancie. He was quite hillarious. DragonCon hands-down blows that pidley lil con away. A definite must for nerds and geeks of all ages 🙂

Anyway.. Off to that happy sleep land of happiness.