The state of my hard drive is good and strong…ly packed, going back to Seagate for warranty replacement. The whole process has been long and painful: first getting the drive to recognize that it was dead, then trying to extract it from the G5 (whose drives should just slide in, but one of mine—for whatever reason—was stuck), and finally trying to pack it to Seagate’s exacting requirements. If you don’t pack the drive in an electrostatic bag or a SeaShell case, surrounded on all sides by at least two inches of foam rubber, then we may declare your warranty null and void. Can they really get away with that, legally? Beats me, but it looks like other hard drive vendors pull the same crap.

On the upside, this gave me an excuse to go visit The Foam Man, a longtime business that I’ve never before had reason to visit. The shop consists mostly of some cutting tools, more foam than you can shake a stick at, and a jovial guy behind the counter. Oh, and the demo couch: left side is the original padding, right side is the replaced foam padding. Idea is you sit on the couch, not in it.

On the downside, the foam and shipping cost me twenty bucks; not the cheapest in-warranty repair cost I’ve ever had.

The state of Andy and Julie’s wedding was good and strong. Andy is an outgoing guy who makes lots of friends, and it showed in the sheer number of his wedding guests. The wedding itself was more laid-back than I expected, and the post-wedding reception was far more elaborate. Saw old faces such as Joel and Matt—old enough that I was glad I still remembered their names—and helped Neil develop a couple truly awesome “million dollar” ideas. (I didn’t tell you this, but: whammy bar on a piano. As Brian pointed out, how else are you going to be able to play Bulls on Parade?)

Truly a pleasant evening—so pleasant, in fact, that it made Friday feel like Saturday. Saturday, in turn, felt like Sunday. Sunday then somehow felt like Saturday again… leaving me tired and feeling like I my weekend was shorted on Monday.

The state of Metal Gear Online is good and getting stronger. I’m still bad enough to stick to the beginner servers—where it’s hit-and-miss whether or not you’ll find a team who tries to work together—but I’m not an entirely lost cause. Last night, courtesy of a combination of S. Snake as the Metal Gear Mk. 2 and a bunch of people who wandered around alone, I scored my first victory as Snake in a sneaking mission. (Sneaking missions put Snake—and a little robot with a stun whip, if there are enough players—against two teams. The two teams are trying to kill both each other and Snake; Snake tries to collect three dog tags from the two teams.) I’d be happier, but my victory was definitely not the result of anything I did.

The state of learning Ruby on Mac OS X keeps getting…wait for it… better and stronger. I don’t know how I missed it before, but the MacRuby project looks like it might let me realize a long-time goal I’ve had about writing a “real” Mac application. Thing is, I’ve always hated programming in C (and am too lazy to learn Objective-C), so it was obvious I was never going to get very far. This may change that, and gives me hope that learning to program Ruby will have more benefits than simply letting me try to learn Rails.

What program would I write? …beats me.

…

(Bet you all can’t guess what my favorite part of Bush’s State of the Union address was each year. Good and strong are—IMO—hilarious ways to describe the state of the union, and their funniness compounded with each year they were used.)

[No spoilers; fear not.]

Brian and I opened GameStop yesterday morning to claim our copies of MGS4. We actually arrived about five minutes before the store opened… and about one minute before a guy dressed as Snake. Camo shirt, bandana, eyepatch, cigarette, slicked-back hair… my first thought upon seeing him was Oh God; Brian later confirmed that he had a similar reaction.

Turns out that he wasn’t a rabid fanboy (this coming from a guy who would have attended a midnight launch of the game, mind you), but an employee of GameStop having fun with a major launch. His laid-back attitude, especially in contrast to what we were expecting, made the wait much more entertaining than it would have otherwise been.

The other people waiting included a (“get back to middle-school!”) young boy, a rather disgruntled-looking couple, and some random guys both older and younger than me. Not a terribly impressive showing; I can understand why they didn’t both opening at midnight.

…

The game itself controls quite well, and (of course) is gorgeous; my new favorite move (ever) is rolling around when you’re lying on the ground. This game is going to make playing other games where your set of abilities is hugely constrained (I’m looking at you, Resident Evil 4) even more frustrating to play.

…

If you didn’t read the legalese of the Metal Gear Online beta (lots of which involved issues with microtransactions), you wouldn’t have gotten a whiff of the capitalistic stench coming off of it. The final version of MGO hits you over the head with its capitalistic greed, explaining that you have the ability to create one free MGO character for your game and PS3, but will have to pay for others.

Also, some punk stole my MGO beta character’s name. This saddens me, as I had become rather fond of (my initial joke-character, before I realized I couldn’t make others) OGC.

Lots of noobs to feed off of in MGO right now; a good number of seasoned players are also around to pick them off. I’m nothing great, but I can still pick off the ones with rookie eyes… though I imagine I look like one of them, to anyone with some skill. Them: haha at least that n00b tried to shoot in my direction. Me: gdmnt.

…

But, yeah. This is the first time I’ve played an MGS title at launch, and also the first time I’ve played without an all-knowing Brian watching me get slaughtered. (The “all-knowing” part has changed; I’m still getting slaughtered.) I’ve improved over past games, though, where—if left to my own devices—I would have crawled through the entire game. Nowadays I’m more likely to take risks and actually move forward with some semblance of speed. (I.e. in the past I played as if I were Snake in enemy territory; now I play more like Snake in enemy territory.) Somehow the whole experience is more fun that way.

My mom frequently played Jim Croce on the stereo when I was little. So much so, in fact, that I now associate his songs with the peace and warmth of being a little kid safe at home.

Late last year I found another artist who evokes similar feelings in me: Vienna Teng. I’ve clumsily described her music as “home-y,” as in music that makes a place feel like home, and her first two CDs (the third hasn’t done as much for me) have quickly become some of my most treasured.

And while I don’t have the guts that Greyduck does to record myself extolling the virtues of her music, I can link to several live performances of a few of my favorite songs. While these renditions fall short (in my opinion) of the CD versions [some of which are in rotation on her website], I’d argue that the music still speaks for itself much more eloquently than I could:

Gravity

Homecoming (Walter’s Song)

Lullabye for a Stormy Night