So this week was pretty interesting.

On Monday, I got the bike.. The Trek 6500. Front-suspension, v-brakes, very kewl shifters (one for up and one for down on each side). It was a very nice ride right-off. They fitted me on a 21.5″ bike which was pretty funny because the first time I got on it, it felt like I was getting on a horse.

On Wednesday, Ruthie and I went riding on a path down Old Madison Pike. I had been on the trail a few times before, but only walking. This time, on a bike, the path seemed much shorter–even given that it was extended fairly recently. It was also my third time on the bike. The path begins at the Pike and ends at a subdivision. The road into the subdivision is inclined–I’m guessing about 20%, but that’s just a number I’m pulling out of my arse. On some egging from Ruthie, I decided to go up the hill and shoot back down it. I just barely got to the top of the hill without getting off the bike. After a moment’s respite at the top, I began the trek downward. I began pedaling, just to gain a bit more momentum. Before I knew it, it felt like the rear of the bike exploded on me.. I was still coasting downhill, but I noticed when I pedaled, there was no resistance. After getting halfway down the hill, I finally got off the bike to find the derailleur sheared away from the frame. I really don’t know what happened, but it looked like the chain was toast. Perhaps the assembly (or the chain) took a hit–either that, or I don’t know my own strength 😉

Anyhoo, I took the bike in Thursday and it was ready Friday. That was definitely a hugely uber awesome thing, because I figured it might’ve been out of commission for a week or something. I took the bike out again yesterday morning with Chris on the same trail with more happy results.

I started a new MMORPG this week called Guild Wars. It’s a very awesome game, and it might even persuade me to ditch World of Warcraft. I know of a few people playing, so I could go either solo or party if I wanted to–it looks like this game could be good in either case. Your powers, spells and items aren’t given to you based on level, but based on merit–if you have enough gold, then you can have the same weapons as a level 1 as you do as a level 20. Training is the name of this game, and level is only a secondary means of gauging a player’s abilities. Level 20 is the max level, but that is the point where the game presumably really begins–everything up to that point is basically playing on training wheels 🙂

And the best part is that this MMO is free–after you buy it for $50, of course; no montly fees whatsoever. I think that alone can get a bunch of my RPG buds to switch, not to mention the awesomeness of gameplay.

Right now I’m chillin’ at the parents’. My brother and I got mom some Begonias yesterday for Mother’s Day. She seems to like them, but I hope that rabbits don’t start munching on them. We saw the Cubbies finally break a 7 game losing streak. Poor Cubbies. Something tells me it’s going to be another tough year for them. Watching The Phantom Menace at the moment.. Episode III is right around the corner *wipes the geek drool*

And, yes, I’m glaring at you stupid tractor-driving rednecks who insist on driving tractors with max speeds of 20mph on 55mph roads in the frickin midst of morning rush hour traffic 😛

I was watchin the Cubbies duke it out with the Astros today. When I last looked, it was 8-3 in the 5th. Prior had given up a grand slam and a 3 run homer off of 2 walks. It was not very nice at all. Bleh.

Friday night, I went to see Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with a buncha buds. I really enjoyed it. Martin Freeman did a very awesome rendition of Arthur Dent, and Alan Rickman did an unforgettable Marvin. It was definitely a great beginning to the Summer of Geek 🙂

Saturday I did a little LANing. Like every LAN, it actually turned out to be a whole lot of LANing. We gamed from noon to about 10pm. We played a whole bunch of Desert Combat, which is a game I haven’t played in a while. It’s a mod to Battlefield 1942 which includes weapons & vehicles from the modern day era. My favorite vehicle, by far, is the Apache.

So, sometime this week I’m finally going to get that bike. I’m definitely going to get the Trek 6500. More than likely, I think I will get the one with V-Brakes instead of disc. The best part about that is the bike has mounting holes for disc brakes, should I choose to change that later.

A good bunch of my buds have been gone for the week, so LJ has been relatively quiet. You guys better have some damn good stories to post when you get back 🙂

It’s definitely a really beautiful day. It’s 67 right now, and I think it got in the 70s somewhere for the high. It’s been nothing but sunny. I hope the rest of the week is as awesomely kewl.

I’m starting to formulate the plot for a new story. I haven’t really written since high school, so this’ll be interesting. When I finish, I’ll more than likely post it on my website.

This has been a really superly awesome weekend.

Friday, there was the rehearsal for Matt & Missy’s wedding. It was really quite simple; basically, we did a couple of run-throughs for the main event. It wasn’t all that bad at all, in comparison to the last wedding rehearsal I was in at age 5; that rehearsal seemed to drag on and on and on and.. Bleh. Time tends to drag when you’re a bored 5 year old kid 🙂 Anyhoo, dinner was at a very fancy Huntsville resturaunt called Luciano. I had a ribeye that was quite spiffy, indeed. Their medium rare was pretty much my idea of rare, but it was still quite good. As long as they don’t cook chicken that way, I’d be quite fine with it.

And, Saturday came the afforementioned main event. It was a very awesome and beautiful ceremony. It went pretty much without a hitch. Matt was 15 minutes late in arriving, but it turned out to be a fashionably late kinda thing 🙂 It was a mixed Catholic/Baptist wedding, so it wasn’t a Mass; it was just like a Mass, for the most part, sans the Eucharist. Also, when we said the Lord’s Prayer, it seemed as though the Baptists had a few extra lines in it at the end.

The reception was pretty awesome, as well. Matt had a Simpsons groom cake. I danced a little at the end, but other than that I mostly chilled with his brother Jake, his friend Will, Liz and Josh. Ryan Cantor and Brittney Piertzak were also there; I haven’t seen them since high school. There were four of us non-married chaps there to try to catch the garter; Jake, Will, me and someone else. It was the someone else that caught the garter–the rest of us really didn’t put up much of a fight 🙂

It was definitely an awesome weekend.

Oh, I wish I could be in Rome for this..

One month until Episode III.

It’s almost like when ROTK came out; you’re losing an occasional annually visiting friend or something–instead of every year, though, it’s every three. In that nerdy sort of way, of course. Mainly, I guess now I’m just seeing the movie for the FX and the score, both of which I think, will be quite amazing–it would have to be after a frickin year-and-a-half of post-production *hangs on by a thread to nerdy little hopes*

It’s been really uber nice around here. The last 3 or 4 days have been in the 70s. I think we have shaken off the mild winter for warmer days. Bah, in the end I think we skipped over winter altogether.

I played some poker over the weekend at mwshook‘s bachelor party, and won around $200–of course this was all in chips, so it was merely a simulated game 🙂 Still, being the first time through, that was pretty damn awesome. I haven’t played poker, really, since high school. And, if that was for anything, it was pennies.. We played some Cincinnati, Cleveland (variation on Cinci), Spit in the Ocean, Texas Hold ‘Em, and some draw/stud. It was a nice little party; I really didn’t know anyone there, but it was a really friendly group. Anyhoo, Matt gets married this weekend. w00t!

I think I’ve discovered that if I get 7 or 8 hours instead of 6 or 7 in sleep, I’m much happier. Maybe I should give up my night owl ways, as fun as they are. Of course, that’d mean *GASP* less World of Warcraft time. Oh, no!

Thank you, Slashdot. You have given me whole minutes of hysterical laughter on an otherwise bland afternoon.

An Automatic Computer Science Paper Generator

If only I had thought of this when I was an undergrad; not only would I have had smashing and entertaining technical papers, but I would’ve had an awesome senior project 🙂

So, here I am; Saturday afternoon. I have chosen to geek out. I am rebuilding both of my computers. Chris, a friend of mine from around these parts, has given me quite the scheme. I am rebuilding my laptop and my desktop with new swap partitions. I am taking my secondary slave drive in my desktop, creating a new partition in FAT16, and using that partition as swap space. Theoretically, with it being the first partition on the drive and the fact that there’s no NTFS overhead, I should get at least somewhat of a performance increase. I’m skeptical that it’ll increase performance all that dramatically, but it’s worth a try. It’s always good to squeeze your machine for all it’s worth. The laptop will be similar, although it has only one drive, in that I will make about a 4GB partition of FAT16 for swap. We’ll see how it goes. Fortunately, the laptop mirrors my desktop in terms of settings and such, so all I have to do once rebuilding one is copy over settings and documents from the other. I don’t even have to bust out the nightly backups. What I need now is some good (free, if possible) ghosting software.

I finished reading Episode III. The story is definitely quite awesome, and I can only hope that the movie only adds to its kewlness.

the rest of the story…

So, I’m in Publix yesterday, about to get some wings. I gave up wings for Lent, so my mouth is watering over the prospect of having them, once again 🙂

Right as you walk in the door on the left side there are magazines and books. The very first book I see that stands out..

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

My heart races; is it a joke being played on poor little geeks like me that are eagerly awaiting what is mostly the final Star Wars movie ever? I walk up to the shelf and snatch the book, as if it’ll disappear on me if I don’t act swiftly. The book looks very distinctive, with a picture of Anakin/Obi-Wan locking lightsabers, with Darth Vader (in the suit, of course) larger and behind them, all with an orange lava backdrop. The title is sans the Episode III that seems to have become part of the standard subtitle of Star Wars prequels. Some guy named Matthew Stover wrote it.

Oh, ok. Here’s some plot for those who can peek in-between their fingers at it

Got back from AZ the night before last. The rest of the trip was very pleasant, indeed. The Cubbies ended up going 2-2 while we were there. The 3rd game was rather interesting because it ended on a flubbed double play. It was at Ho Ho Kam, so the Cubbies were fielding in the 9th with 1 out. If I remember correctly, there were runners on 1st and 2nd. A ground ball was hit and tossed over to 2nd for an out. The baserunner did not get out of the way of the throw and blocked the throw to first; instant double play because of player interference. It was one of the odder Cubs wins that I’ve seen, spring training or otherwise.

It was definitely a very nice trip, for sure. It was definitely one of the more relaxing vacations I’ve had; took my mind off of everything but baseball.

So, the rest of the weekend has been slacking, so far. It’s been a really nice weekend, that’s for sure; I’ve even turned on the air conditioning. I think it probably won’t last, though, knowing Alabama weather.

SciFi Friday was indescribably awesome; SG-1 ended on a really nice note, and so did Atlantis. Galactica is becoming more and more awesome every single time I watch a new episode. I think that the series absolutely blows away the original disco incarnation of the story 🙂 There’s just so much happening on so many fronts. It’s definitely something that makes every episode uberly interesting.

I’m watching SG-1 right now; it’s the first one that had McKay in it. His character seems almost more pompus and arrogant than how he is now on Atlantis. He called Carter a “dumb blonde” *snicker*

I got a new game called Rise of Nations. So far, the game looks a good bit like Age of Empires. It might even distract me from WoW a little bit. Of course, it’s trading one gaming addiction for another. lol.

Tomorrow is Easter; I can’t believe how quickly this year is going, so far. Next thing ya know, it’ll be the middle of July or something. It’s rather ironic that it seems the older you get, the quicker time seems to past. I think that the work world makes you way too busy 😛 lol. It makes everything fly by in seemingly short amounts of time.

Oh, and I can renew the wings addiction tomorrow. w00t! 🙂

But, tell me have you seen the marvelous breadfish?