Last 5 CD's listened to in my car:
Eve 6 - Horrorscope (You have to admit, it's a great album title)
Appleseed OST
Widespread Panic - Ain't Life Grand
Ima Robot's self titled album
They Might be Giants - Apollo 18

Last 3 games bought:
Phantom Brave
La Pucelle Tactics
Disgaea
(Noticing the trend?)

Last 3 games gifted to me:
Unreal Tournament 2k4 (Like I have 5.8 gigs to spare. I don't even have 200 megs at the moment)
Ratchet and Clack: Up Your Arsenal (100% completion to boot)
World of Warcraft (A whole set of stories in itself)

Latest dark indulgence:
Darth Mix M&Ms (Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms for those who aren't aware, Star Wars Episode 3 themed/inspired, if the name doesn't give that way.)

Yeah, there'll be substance later, after I can get equations of laminar flow in non-circular tubes cleared from my mind.

Hopefully my immune system can hold.

So David caught a very nasty stomache bug, suffice to say my awakening today wasn't very present. Hopefully I won't be getting sick, but until it clears up, I guess I'll have to postpone a showing of Shaolin Soccer and/or The Incredibles. The former for knowing the roots of the Evil Team, the latter cause it's just cool.

Speaking of wanting intelligence, I could use some myself.

Okay, I really don't feel so bright. I've really got to start looking at the big picture before doing things these days. Seriously.

So, Kyle, Jiaz, and I laid down a deposit to secure a very nice 1500+ sq foot apartment 10 minutes from tech. A bit above $500 a month, which comes in at a fair bit less than what Jiaz and Kyle calculated Gatech's housing costs at some $620. So everything so be grand, right? Not quite, on several levels. Here's how it pans out.

First off the bat, that $500 covers, well, space, space and more space and some kitchen appliances. Nothing more. Tech furnishes sofas, a bed, a desk, a cabinet, a closet, as well as the kitchen stuff (for an apartment at least, though in the dorms the stuff's just communal). Sink's alot nicer, so's the fridge I guess, and the showers, so all pluses, but nothing that's super critical or anything. However, Tech also covers utilities. Okay, perhaps $130 total a month, so not enough to bring it up to the level of Tech still, we're still ahead, even factoring the gas of a 10 minute drive to campus rather than already being there (though if prices keep rising under the current administration this could definately change). I can get the furniture for the most part (probably minus a bed, I don't really want to move my desk either, or a table, but that's most of it I guess) and the community offers alot. Again technically not anything that Tech doesn't provide (pool, weight room, raquetball court). Parking's free, unlike at Tech however I'll likely need parking there as well so that my driving to campus amounts to something other than the boot getting attached to my CRV.

At this point I'd like to apologize in advance for spelling mistakes before I continue, I've had a major headache ever since traffic coming home and nothing's fixed it for me yet.

Alright, so so far things sound pretty good right? Saving a bit, pretty posh community, beer and skittles lifestyle right? Well, not quite. I don't know what to say about meals. Honestly at the 10-14 plans it's cheaper to eat at Woodruff than to furnish my own food, especially if I want to attempt the same level of variety and beverages. Well, alright, I can manage, just have to get a bit creative, force myself to cook with something besides the microwave perhaps, it'll be a learning experience, I guess. Learning that I suck at cooking perhaps, but I doubt that'll be the end sum of my attempts, I figure I can do well enough, if I push myself. Ah for the good old days of lovely enchilladas.

Alright, food's not really a big deal, I can just cut the savings from the inflated plans into buzz funds and dine on campus for lunch, decent variety and a passable value. What's the big kicker then? Simple. The per month cost of living at Tech is greater than the per month cost of living here, however, I wasn't planning to live at Tech this summer, when the lease starts. So, simple mathematics (and I've had way more than simple) will tell you that any number is greater than zero, alot greater. I've said this several times, innumerable times perhaps, but the way things work is often quite different in theory versus application for me, no matter what I try. Oh well, hopefully I'll have 3 jobs to juggle around which should account for it if it doesn't break me completely. *Cross fingers*

When I started the post 2 and a half hours ago I'd kinda planned another bash against my own intelligence for voting for Bush (and yes, I did, I admit it, and I regret it) but I'm not feeling up to it this evening, perhaps at another time.

However, Karma's not complete without a bit of balance, so: Anyone remember the Geogia High School Graduation Test? David had to take it. Included on the test was the following.

Anne held her stethoscope in her hands to warm it up for her patient. Anne is most likely a:

A) Secretary
B) Doctor
C) Farmer
D) Engineer

When David informed me of the question, I rationally pointed out that maybe 20% of Georgia High School students would be too stupid to know what a stethoscope was (I admit I'm too stupid to spell it on my first try, wanted to add extra letters), however he tactfully countered that you don't need to. The inclusion of the context clues "her patient" is more than enough to answer the question. Nothing but a Doctor has patients. So much for my line of thinking (and George W. Bush's purpoited No Child Left Behind program, but that's a story for another time).

Well, Happy World Water Day everyone. Hopefully the link works for someone, keeps timing out for me, but my net isn't as infailable as it is at Tech.

All I want is some intelligence...

Alright, so David borrowed Tales of Symphonia from a friend so I booted it up for about 2 hours today. Interesting game, I wish the damn skits had voices too them. Works like Tales of Destiny II from the Playstation if anyone remembers that one. The game is quaint, nice in its allowance of multiplayer, but not exactly bright. You start off with a 3 character party, quickly advanced to 4. So of course we jumped in David and Ian. Then it dropped back to two pretty swiftly, but Ian had bedtime anyways so we just unplugged the controller and moved on. Then it fell to one for awhile and David went to bed, so again I just dropped the controller and moved on. Turns out, that although there wasn't even a viable controller attached, the game left them in Manual mode and doesn't give me the option to swap modes mid-combat. In short because of the games own shortsightedness, I fought a rather nasty boss fight sans half my party who were merely standing in place doing nothing. My other major gripe is the Z axis. Like most games, there's a 3-d element to battles. Unlike Tales of Destiny where you had merely a forwards/backwards and an up/down, this game also has a z-axis, or relative depth. Unfortunately for you as the player, your selected target designates your z-axis, the direct line between you and them. What this means is that you cannot deal with the surronding enemies without changing targets repeatly. Logically you'd divide targets to avoid this in a full group, but even still, easier said than done, as such acts quickly bog down the pace of combat. I imagine that higher levels will eventually grant me more sweeping abilities to strike across the Z-axis rather than merely the X-axis, but that remains to be seen.

In other news, ingrown toenails are a major pain, good lord I didn't realize that they hurt quite so much.

The low res trailer released by Gonzo for Speed Grapher seems interesting, if way too low res. I can somewhat make out what's going on, but i've got to say, that was a damn tiny (size, not length, though that wasn't too great either) video.

Oh well, I ought to be sleeping, apartments to look at tomorrow, and they tell me I'm driving, so I'll have a report on that when I get back. Fortunately we have neither a pet nor an AnthroPC to worry about, so there shouldn't be any special complications with our search.

Wow...this is new.

Okay, so I usually come home on weekends to escape the drudges of weekends at Woodruff and usually the meal with grandparents and is pizza or hot dogs and hamburgers or occasionally london broil. Last night was indeed pizza with grandparents: 1 sausage, 1 pepperoni, 1 anchovy and black olives (definately not for me). Tonight however was completely different, in a very good way. Caeser Salad and shrimp with dip plus london broil with grilled mushrooms and onions and deep fried french fries. Quite good. Yay for home cooked meals. I guess I should thaw out some icecream for dessert, that sounds good.

Let's get retarded, part 2.

So, I'm convinced that work makes me stupid on the basis that I actually managed to mangle the pronunciation of the word pronunciation while in traffic on the ride over to work. As a sidenote, before you go looking at me like I'm crazy for talking to myself aloud, I'd like to remind everyone that I was taking David with me, so quit thinking I'm crazy like that.

(Misc) Don't look directly at the light.

Yes folks, I have slight astigmatism, yes, I will be getting glasses, get used to the idea.

(Apology) Well crap... it's been awhile hasn't it?

My forthright apologies for my failure to maintain this blog. I'll see about doing something about that. But in my defense, my Dwarven Paladin is borderline to getting him war horse, priorities and all you know.