It seems I break everything I touch. This morning my wireless router went belly-up. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the damn thing to respond to my computer; once I finish writing this, I’ll do some more battle with it. How annoying.

A good part of the rationale behind mucking with the wireless router was because my family will soon get to add an iMac to our wireless network. We got an Airport card today, and this evening attempted to install it; too bad for us that the iMac needs a special Airport card adaptor that must be purchased separately from the main Airport card. Aargh! Even more frustrating is that I have a clear memory that I used to have such an adaptor, but (apparently) threw it away quite some time ago.

Back then, I must have figured that it’d be a cold day in Hell before I would have any reason to stick an Airport card in the iMac. Judging by the fact that I now have a reason to stick an Airport card in the iMac, as well as the fact that iTunes is now available on Windows (you may recall Apple’s short-lived ad campaign announcing the application: “Hell Froze Over”), it’s obvious that we exist in the one of a multitude of parallel universes where incredibly improbable events occur. Remember Sliders?

If that’s the case, then maybe I should start asking more girls out.

Anyhoo, after discovering that I wasn’t going to be installing an Airport card in the iMac tonight, I tried to put the iMac’s built-in Airport antenna cord back into the case—and bent it unnaturally. Hopefully I didn’t break the sucker. I then dropped the Airport card itself.

It’s been an absolutely lovely day. I can’t wait for tomorrow to arrive.

Went to work today. Boss didn’t listen to his employees, again. Yay. Eric came over after work and we had some fun chatting.

Basically, not much to write home about. I have a new Super Mario Bros. 3 desktop picture (wallpaper, whatever), courtesy of desktopgaming. Clever stuff, if you appreciate (mostly old school) video games.

One of my less-followed interests is design—both in terms of layout (of pages or, more recently, web pages) and interface (real-world objects, and computer GUI). I stayed up too late last night reading some articles on GUI design, which reminded me of my interest in the area. On the off chance that others might find them interesting reads as well, here they are: design, and craftsmanship.

That rigmarole about my life getting more interesting once school ended? Lies. Life is, however, much less stressful these days—at least in the evenings. Work tends to be rather frustrating while the sun shines.

The funny thing about working all day is that you’re tired at the end of the day. I’m having some difficulty focusing my eyes right now, and it’s only 11:30. Sad.

Today was the ornament exchange at work. Carl got a Tazmanian Devil with (as I put it) awesome Nutcracker action. I got the most technological ornament, which gave you a place to put a picture and record a message for all time. Others suggested I have my girlfriend record something for me, which I responded to as Squall (in FF8) would (i.e. “…”). Despite the fact that Marin and I wrapped our ornaments in the same paper, and the fact that Laura noted out loud “hmm…there are two gifts here wrapped with the same paper…,” it took Ramona a few minutes to figure out that her gift was from me.

My coworkers are quite an entertaining bunch, when they aren’t all grousing.

Otherwise at work I dedicated myself to scanning payment batches. For my day’s effort I finished scanning a full (business) week of payments; this also provided me with a sore butt. This is impressive only because I am quite good at sitting—it takes something extraordinary for me to get tired of sitting. In fact, at the end I was pretty much going crazy; lucky for me, everybody else ditched early.

Final grades came out today: The Streak continues unabated.

This evening Marin and I watched the first four Kimagure Orange Road OVAs. One of them (“White Lovers,” for those of you keeping track) was especially egregious, and played out exactly like the lecture model everybody learned in school: tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em, tell ’em, then tell ’em what you told ’em. In this episode, there’s a legend that if two people who are in love with each other ski down this particular mountain, they’ll suffer some calamity and eventually be found frozen, naked, later. [Yes, in many ways, the KOR OVAs are simply episodes of KOR that were too hot for TV.] Of course, Kyosuke and Madoka end up skiing together, and get trapped in a cave by an avalanche. We then learn how there is a story about these two lovers who got trapped in a cave, wandered around, and then fell down a pit (with molten lava at the bottom, as I predicted moments before Kyosuke used the exact same words); the guy managed to grab hold of something with one hand, and a hand of the gal with his other hand. After a while, though, his hand cramped and the gal fell to her doom. Ever since then, the gal haunts the mountain and causes trouble for other lovers.

Then a pack of zombies (curiously enough, though their flesh was generally worse-for-wear, their eyes were intact) appear out of nowhere and cause Kyosuke and Madoka to go running around their cave; they then fall down a pit (with molten lava at the bottom), and Kyosuke finds himself in the same position as the guy from the story. The bitter ghost then appears, and encourages Kyosuke to drop Madoka to save himself; Kyosuke elects, however, to fall to his doom with Madoka. (Curiously, again, he falls just a bit faster than Madoka—gravity must act more powerfully on him—so they can interact a bit during the descent.) The ghost is so moved by this display of chivalry that she dissolves the illusion that Kyosuke and Madoka are trapped in.

The two then wake up in the snow, holding hands. The clouds part, and we see the no-longer-bitter gal and guy from the story reunited as they ascend into the clouds.

Needless to say, the episode was Comedy Gold.

After rewatching FLCL with the director’s commentary (which helped in two ways: rewatching FLCL, and the commentary the director provided), I’ve decided that I really like FLCL. There is some structure behind the craziness, which makes it all the more satisfying.

The director brought up some interesting ideas, too. Such as the division of humanity into two groups: those who would “swing their bat,” and those who would not. I am a member of the latter group, I’m afraid; I would rather strike out not having tested myself—and thus hold out hope that I could hit a home run, if I just applied myself—than swing and risk falling short. I wonder, sometimes, if that’s one of the reasons I wound up at OSU. This aspect of my personality, when combined with my lack of “big dreams” (as my O.B. teammate, Yunho, suggested I should have), are the two most damning reasons why I will never change the world.

Another idea the director noted in his commentary was the idea that “kids who act like kids, and don’t pretend to be adults, are actually more adult.” I measure up better here, I think; I have few pretensions about who I really am. I’m greatly humored that, recently, almost everybody at work has approached Marin and asked her (never me) which of us is the older sibling. I guess I don’t act my age.

Which is ironic, because—in some ways—I could successfully argue that I’m more responsible (and therefore “mature”) than some of my elders in the office.

We picked up a Christmas tree today. I think this is the first time we’ve really done that since Grandpa died (and we consequently got rid of his truck)…it was a much calmer affair this year than it has historically been; we’re all much more mellow about what we really want out of the tree. I suspect that sometimes it’s going through the motions that makes it feel like the holidays.

Not that it feels like Christmas is nine days away. It really doesn’t. And I’ve fallen short on sleep again, so I’ve somewhat (not completely) returned to my more morose, introspective self…not quite a holiday spirit. Hell, I don’t think I’ve really felt that “Christmas spirit” since my freshman year of college. That’s five years, now.

Not coincidentally, that was the last year that we celebrated Christmas the way we always did when I was growing up; Grandpa died (the night before a chemistry midterm) the following February. Cricket, my family’s dog, later passed away….I can’t fully shake the feeling that I’m losing my anchors to the world, nor can I ignore the fear that I won’t be able to make it on my own without those anchors.

Wasn’t I supposed to be feeling invincible about this time in my life?

…

It doesn’t help the Christmas spirit, either, that the damn media doesn’t know when to quit. I was happy to learn that Saddam had been captured, but I didn’t care for the 48 hours of rehashed news that followed the initial announcement. I like Christmas music as much as the next person, but I don’t need 24 hours of it for the entire month of December, as one local radio station has decided I need. There isn’t that much good Christmas music, so the station had the choice of replaying a few songs a hell of a lot, or playing a lot of crappy songs—and they chose the latter. Ugh.

OK. Enough. I should get some sleep, so that I stop my sullen postings.

I’m still catching up on sleep, and I’m still on a screwed-up sleep cycle. I continue to not feel like writing a whole lot, either. Thus my poor blog continues to suffer.

Played some Soul Calibur II on the PS2 when I visited Andy this weekend. It pretty much sucked: the graphics were inferior to SC on the Dreamcast, and the improvements were either questionable (did the gals really need enhanced jiggle algorithms?) or added little value over the original concept (ooh! Different weapon stats!). The matches were also over damn fast; it’s been a while since I played Soul Calibur—and I know those rounds were quick—but these new rounds feel even shorter. I’m certainly not going to plunk any of my money down on the game.

Guilty Gear XX, though…continues to be great fun. Andy has his PS2 hooked up to an HDTV, which was the first time I ever saw Guilty Gear look pixelated (it really was designed for the lower-resolution “standard” TVs)…but it was still smooth as all heck. And I could still play it well, despite having laid my controller down (with respect to that game) before school started.

And, on a sidenote, go to M-W.com and check out the definition of the word “pixilated.” I didn’t know that.

Yesterday evening Marin and I watched FLCL in its entirety (six episodes, so we weren’t that bad). It is another anime that leaves me completely bewildered as to how I could review such a beast. I’m going to have to watch it through again to see if I can make heads or tails of the story; you get a sense that there’s a deeper meaning to it all, but you get no sense as to what that deeper meaning is. I suppose that, in many ways, is enough—the show was entertaining, and it’ll most definitely be entertaining on a second pass.

Today I pretty much wasted. Go me.

Made my day to hit CNN and find this story posted. Boo yah!

Made it to Andy’s and back in one piece, which was good. Even had heavy rain the entire length of the interstate on the way back, which added an extra challenge to the trip—no troubles, though. Jury is out on whether or not I’ll get a blister on my thumb*—that’s what happens when I have to throw down despite little practice with Guilty Gear XX and Soul Calibur 2—but the jury has unanimously convicted me of being unfit to write coherent sentences.

[*Yes, Eric, your assumptions were correct. Andy welcomed our visit Christmas Eve, though, should we need to head north. Bonus fact: Nick arrives back the 20th, so this trip could be chock full of fun times. Now we just need Brian (ahem) to give us the word.]

Okay…the nice officer is telling me I need to put the keyboard down now.

Just checked my grades, and I have an A from Computational Number Theory! Guess my paper didn’t suck too badly.

Today was a day of study for my linear algebra final, after a second night of catching up on sleep. (Eleven hours from Tuesday to Wednesday, and ten hours from Wednesday to Thursday—good times!) After the exam—where Dr. Faridani was once again kind to us—I went down to the Slug where I found Britt. Had an enjoyable extended conversation with him, which will probably be the last time I see him (for a good while, at the very least); he’s graduating and heading off to Africa (!) for a year. OSU’s going to be that much less friendly next term, I’m afraid.

Once I got home I assembled my things for tomorrow’s road trip to see Andy’s new apartment. Yes, I am once again leaving my house for over 24 hours. Gasp! Should be an adventure, since I’ll be driving around places I’ve never been. I’m thinking I’ll take off early enough to avoid Friday rush-hour traffic.

Alas, I have a bit more tax to study before I crash and burn tonight…so I won’t be getting another 8+ hours of sleep tonight. Tax class, unlike numerical linear algebra, won’t be pulling any punches tomorrow.

Anyhoo, enjoy the start of the weekend! I’ll probably be back Saturday afternoon sometime, unless Andy’s Saturday poker crew includes the likes of Nick and other friendly faces.

Though my right hand currently hurts from taking tax notes, it’s getting late, and I have a final tomorrow evening I haven’t begun studying for, I’m happy right now. This is the second day in a row where I’ve had a gleam in my eye and a spring in my step.

And, no—I did not ask my doctor about Viagra.

I think I might actually be out of the extended slump I’ve found myself in (knock on wood). I once again believe I can make a positive difference in my life:

I can make work better, rather than just let it drag me down. It is worth making work better, for the people involved. If stepping out costs me my job, that’s OK.

I will call Lee and John, and see if they’re willing to take some steps towards actually being friends again. When I saw John at the end of summer, he mentioned that it would be nice to do something together again; it is now time to make that happen.

I will call Eileen, as I can now believe that I have some personal value—or, at the very least, that I won’t just be a constant drag on her (should she care to interact with me, that is).

It’s the difference between being active and passive, between having hope and…er…not.

Eeeeh. Life should beat some common sense into me again, sometime soon. Until then, though—cheers!