Where do I begin? This post will probably just be a mish-mash of stuff as it comes to me since I’ve been so busy since the move.
First of all, the move went well. It turned out to be on one of the shittiest days of the year, but we had some awesome friends that were willing to deal with the weather to help us out, so thank you!!! In addition, with Devon being out of work and me working two jobs to try and make up for it, we have had a lot of help in getting us situated in our new digs with food, company, and help unpacking. (Sappiness warning) A few years ago I never imagined I would have such great friends. I was never very close to anybody before I met Devon, and since then have met so many amazing people that have accepted me into their lives and taught me how to socialize and be a part of their circle. Sometimes it still floors me. A huge thank you to everybody out there who has been a part of my life, no matter how big or small! I know I will do my best to return the kindness.
Ok, now that the mushy stuff is over with on to other things. Work has made things hectic, but everything is unpacked, electronics all set up, pictures and art hung, and that has allowed me to start living normally again. I really like our new place and am glad to be close to the majority of my homies again. I know Devon feels the same, even more so actually. She just started a new job and seems to be fitting in nicely. I don’t really know how long I’ll keep the 2nd job, but now that things have calmed down a bit I am starting to fall into a pretty good routine. The extra money makes it worth have a little less spare time and sleep. I guess its just something that I will have to think about as I go along.
As you may (or may not) have noticed, I have pretty much done a 180 and started Twittering. Since previously stating my bewilderment with the service, I have learned that there are in fact many ways to make updates and check other people’s updates and have found it strangely addictive. I think Jeff Gerstmann said it best (and I’m paraphrasing); its like everything that makes text messaging awesome combined with the pretentiousness of making public comments for everybody to see. At first, I thought that joining the Twitter community was in contrast to my self-proclaimed masturbatory nature of my blog due to its boldness. What I’ve come to realize though is that its as much for my own satisfaction as anything else.
As most of you know I’m a pretty big techno-phile. I love technology, am constantly amazed by the things that are possible, and I try to keep informed about it as much as I can. Encompassing more than just video games (although they are definately the biggest part), I am very enthusiastic about DVD, Blu-Ray, computers, iPods, TVs, podcasts, RSS feeds, and pretty much anything else digital or electronic. I’m not very good with the technical aspects of computers (more on that in a second), but I try to maintain a knowledge of all the latest technologies. Twitter is merely one more facet of my desire to constantly stay in-the-know.
Speaking of my lack of technical skills, I just recently (as in the day before yesterday) got our computer back to normal. Better than normal in fact. Before we moved, our PC had fallen prey to some pretty crippling spyware, to the point where it would bring the system to a crawl and the pop-ups would come almost faster than we could close them. Once everything was set up in our new place, I decided that the best solution would be to save a copy of everything in our My Documents folders and just reformat the entire hard drive, completely erasing all music, files, programs, and spyware from the thing. Being that this was the first time I had ever done this however, I didn’t have the foresight to make sure I had my driver disc before wiping the drive. After several calls to Dell, several trips to the library, and a call to Linksys to help me update the firmware on my router, I was able to download the drivers I needed and get everything running again. The next week and a half or so was spent re-installing all the programs, music, and files that I had backed up. Not something I ever want to do again, but its good that I know how to do it now should the need arise in the future.
The good news in all this is that I am being smarter this time around. I have installed some good anti-spyware software that was recommended to me, reorganized my nearly 15 gigs of music, and generally kept things a lot cleaner than before. I was even able to figure out how to get my music to stream to my PS3 so I can listen to it all from the comfort of my living room! Just another step to rounding out my technology knowledge base. And since I updated my router firmware, my Wii no longer has any problems getting online. Yes, I am definately looking forward to things returning to normal.
BTW, is anybody else out there on Twitter??? If so, let me know.
