Montly archives
Working from home
Due to crazy weather and crazy network slowness last week I worked from home for a couple of days. This is neither a very good nor a very bad idea for a couple of reasons.
A) I accomplished a lot. A. Lot. All kinds of new and exciting things are coming to vita.mn this week, and not just because Matt promised them in last week's issue to god and everyone. We've been busy little bees getting all kinds of hotness ready for, well, god and everyone, to enjoy.
and B) during the time I normally take to... oh, say work out or walk a few blocks and get some coffee during my break time at work... instead I put on my pajamas, put my kitty on my lap, and ordered a brand new computer. Yyyyyyeah. Forty-four inches of monitor** hottness should be on its way to my humble abode sometime this week.
** That thump you just heard was Steve falling on the floor.
My wonderful little laptop Shiva will stay near and dear to my heart, but after almost 5 years of BFF'ing (including the birth of sopheava) she just couldn't handle the demands of MMORPG'ing. Uh, I mean.... running photoshop and 10 other apps simultaneously. It was time.
A spankin' new computer with all that monitor means I'm going to have to deliver on some pretty amazing graphics, photos, and content (yeah, this old thing) in the weeks to come. Or else Matt's never gonna let me work from home again.
Stop-and-go
[link] My new favorite commercial. I think I might even love this one as much as I love cat herding. Almost.
My list of lists
Here's my top 10 list of - le current - favorite lists on vita.mn. I get to call responding to shit like this, "working." Rock 'n roll.
1. Best songs to stick in your co-workers heads
2. Best Twists in a Movie (Spoilers...maybe)
4. Things that defined my childhood
5. Soda vs. Pop
7. Favorite color in Minnesota
9. Most Anticipated Albums of 2007 - UK/EUR (and the US version)
10. Things to do on the bus commute
Go get your list on while I take pics of my new computer for you.
Week in review, 03.12.07
+ My kitty turned a big-boy 1. He's officially graduated from sleeping *on* my face to positioning himself so that he's simultaneously spooned and necked. The behavior of a male adult, clearly.
+ My new computer officially graduated to an A- on its report card under the column of 'Plays Well with Others.' I had some issues with getting the monitors callibrated to my [anal retentive] liking. Luckily I always get what I want and there are few, if any, remaining issues with getting the entire Sopheava-Super-Mega-System back up to speed. I'd also like to take this opportunity to officially thank Apple for turning Vista's one really cool security feature in to a complete joke in under 30 seconds.
*ahhhh-llow*
+ I heart this new gap commercial. I hearted even more when I found out the girl is Claire Danes. Who knew?!
+ This commercial made me fall on the floor after laughing so hard it cut off all the oxygen to my brain. Funniest the first time you see it and have no idea what's gonna happen. After that? Not so much.
+ Vita.mn got St. Patrified. I'm yanking the green Saturday night so check it while you can. Matt's instructions were... "Maybe make the dot in to a pot of gold. A 4-leaf clover maybe? Something simple." Yup, simple. Got it. The green and I got a litttttttttttttttttle carried away but at least he got his clovified dot.
+ I torrented. Have you guys heard of this thing called torrenting? IT'S AMAZING! Seriously, where the effenheimer have I been?! Behind an old laptop or something?
+ Try your best to miss the movie Marie Antoinette. No really, trust me on this one.
Now that things are a little more back to normal on the miracle that is modern home computing I will try to give you the D.L. on the system and it's sassyness by the end of the weekend. Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Push it real good
This pretty much sums up every woman I know. An average commercial turned *awesome* in the last 10 seconds. [link]
Maya
Mondo has been after the DL of my new computer's innerds for the past 2 weeks (that sounded dirty, que non?). I aim to please so let's get down and dirty.... or at least as down and dirty as possible in the next 15 minutes before I head to lunch because lunch is a very, very important meal and I am all kinds of huuuuuungry.
In case you missed the one blog post I actually remembered to put up this month, I BOUGHT A NEW COMPUTER! She's bright and shiny and smells just like the far eastern land of shiny new electronics. I named her Maya for no particular reason other than I thought it sounded like it went with Shiva (the name of my laptop) and Horus (the name of my wireless network). I unpacked her the day she arrived, but there's been a lot of moving and painting and rearranging and carpet cleaning (another 'that sounded dirty' but totally not dirty) going on around the joint so only last night around 1 a.m. CST did she finally settle in to her final resting spot. It's good for her to learn how to move around so flexibly in her younger years imho. Here're the specs:
- Pentium Core2 Duo 2.13 GHz processor
- Genuine Windows Vista... as opposed the the free range, black market, grain fed kind (thanks for clarifying that Dell)
- Two widescreen 22" flat-panel monitors
- 2GB dual channel SDRAM
- 320GB hard drive
- Your standard CD/DVD burning combo
- nVidia GeForce 7900 GS @ a sad 256MB
- 7.1 channel audio, but only a 5 channel speaker system including subwoofer - who needs SIDE speakers, honestly?
And cuz I wanted to nerd out a little further...
- An integrated 13-in-1 media card reader
- 3 extra firewire ports
- Wireless keyboard and mouse... but those only came much later
I ended up choosing a Dell for a variety of reasons, none of which involved the word 'pink'. On the list of possibilites were an Apple and building (there most certainly was a pink case all picked out and ready to order), but when it came right down to pricing my many and demanding needs Dell gave me the most for my money... even if I did want more memory on my vid card. In fact, the first time I called and tried to get 512MB or 768MB of memory with my card the rep said to me, "Um, yeah, I'm going to need to know what you plan to use your computer for before I can give you that kind of information"
Wait, did I just get attitude? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I just got attitude. "That's really none of your business. I want to upgrade the memory to 512 or 768, how does that price out?"
"We can't give out that kind of information without knowing what you plan to use it for."
"Weapons of mass destruction, clearly. Now do you want the sale or not?" If I had been thinking clearly I should have said, "Now do you want the sale 'er no?" cuz a little Minnesotan accent would have run a lot of interference on their monumental stupidity that ended up costing them a couple hundred dollar sale.
Dumbasses.
So far I'm pleased with Vista. She's running it without any trouble whatsoever, which is nice so I can immediately respond to my many and unvaried allow and deny demands without any lag. Nice touch. To be honest I haven't delved too far in to Vista's intricacies yet so giving a proper review isn't really in anyone's best interest.
I will add that I'm surprised by Vista's dual monitor support. Sure it supports dual monitors but I had to download UltraMon just get two different wallpapers on each monitor and extend the toolbar across both screens. Really Microsoft, do you even use your own product? Shocking.
Annnnnd, your time is up. Lunch! The next blog post won't be from work... it'll be from 'The Command Center' right after I'm done launching weapons of mass destruction.
Doing a little undercover recon
My secret double-life has been outted: in the past 3 days I've been friended by not one but TWO people who somehow found me in teh tubez. That's right, I decided to give twitter a fair shot and have even updated my stream a couple of times. Check me out, I'm all twitterpated 'n stuff.
For realz, do people actually read other people's twitter streams? Seems like one of those things you sign up for and update... but the only one checking out your stream is, uh, you.