Dirt Nap

Well, it was inevitable. My trusty iBook laptop which has given me so much grief over the years (though it ran trouble-free for almost 14 months) has finally decided to take a dirt nap. It suffered a fall to the floor (not my fault this time), and has trouble booting.

I get a boot chime, and I get a grey screen, but the OS refuses to load. No Apple screen, just a blank grey screen staring back at me. So, of course I went into troubleshooting mode to figure out what I could find out. Well, I pulled out my OSX discs and attempted to boot from the optical drive and repair the hard drive. This usually cures most problems, but no dice this time. I heard the optical drive spin up and do a little reading, but I saw no feedback on the screen.

At this point I decided that I had better find a way to rescue any files that reside on the hard drive.

So I booted into target disk mode from the other laptop in the house (a first-generation MacBook) and was successful in mounting the iBook's hard drive on the MacBook. A few minutes later, and I had everything I could think of that I may need to keep from the dying machine. As an afterthought, I ran the disc utility program and repaired the hard drive on the ailing laptop.

Thinking that I may have repaired some critical damage on the hard drive, I attempted to re-boot the iBook. Again, a boot chime and grey screen, but nothing else. Running all the possibilities through my mind, I came to the conclusion that I had a failure somewhere on the video processor, or some other problem on the hardware bus that was preventing the machine from booting.

Either way the failure is on the logic board, and that only means I have one option left. Purchase a replacement logic board, or retire the laptop. Replacement logic boards are incredibly expensive, and when it comes to iBooks, logic boards are in short supply, as this is the component that usually fails in the first place. As far as eBay is concerned, purchasing a used logic board from a seller is a bit like playing Russian Roulette -- auctions for laptop components are almost always parted from dead laptops.

So the next logical thing is to say sayonara to the trusty computer. I've had the machine for over 5 years -- and it was at least 2 years old when I bought it. I've likely sunk as much as $1500 of hardware and software into the laptop -- for repairs, upgrades, etc. So where does one draw the line and refuse to sink more money into the machine? Well, that is always the definitive question. Even if it was working, the most I could get for the laptop would be $200. If I hocked a dead iBook on eBay, I'd get less that $50 for it.

I think it's time to look into a new(er) machine. One of the stipulations is that whatever machine I purchase, it must be faster and newer than the machine it replaces. Therefore if I purchase a replacement laptop, it must have at least a 1 GHz G4 processor. These machines are still sitting around the $500 mark on eBay, which I thought was a little rich, provided that G4 laptops were retired by Apple over 2 years ago.

I realize it might make a little more sense and buy a state-of-the-art laptop computer for $500 more. The other two Apples that live in this house I consider to be quite fast already -- speed isn't the issue here. The issue is the chipset that resides in older Apple machines. The G4 architecture allows me to run legacy software. Yes, I realize that I can run old software through a virtual machine -- though my experiences with virtual machines and emulation has been mediocre.

Since I spend a great deal of time working in Logic on recording projects, I do have need for state-of-the-art technology. I have had my current desktop machine for a year and a half (and it was 1 year old when I purchased it) -- so it's beginning to get a little long in the tooth. I will likely wait for another iMac revision (or 2) and see if I can upgrade to a 24" Aluminium model for $500 less than a new one, but that's a story for another time -- and in all honesty, I don't need to be in a major rush to replace that laptop.

Resurrection

I have been hiding under a rock the last month. Seriously, I have had many projects take precedent over other recreational activities... such as blogging, and yes, I have been missing writing on here, which incidentally only my mother and my two fans read regularly. I guess I felt like I needed a vacation from my routines.

It's funny because I really do enjoy writing, and was at many times the last month, motivated to write, but I just couldn't seem to find the time to sit down and really write something.

I am currently writing this post from a laptop (yes, the infamous iBook laptop), that has died more than one horrible death since I bought it some time in 2003. The last time I tried playing with this machine, I had it up and running for about 10 minutes, before the video all scrambled up.

Then, thanks to a post at Low End Mac, someone posted a how-to turn an old iBook with a dead video card into a server. "Ah!", said I, "I found a new use for my little old laptop that has given me so much grief over the years" -- at least almost the entire life of this blog.

So one Friday evening, I pulled out the old iBook out of the storage closet, plugged in the battery, and soon found out (after wiping a corrupted hard drive), that the video had fixed itself autonomously without me having to perform any Voodoo rituals. I set up an OSX server and played with it for a few days, but I was a little leery about putting any sensitive information on my "new server" without a sensible backup, as the hard drive has been known to die on me spontaneously.

So I wanted to find a use for this old derelict, yet without any worry about losing any critical data. So what was I to do?

After some thought, the answer came clear to me -- and it was something I have wanted to do for more than 7 years, yet was not feasible until this point.

Which was install Linux, and use it for kicks and giggles. So last week, I downloaded a disk image of Ubuntu Edgy Eft (which is the last version to support Power PC), and rather quickly, had it running on my old 800MHz iBook in very little time.

Why? Because I can.

By now, you should have noticed the Flickr link on the sidebar. I finally broke down and signed up. Actually the true reason I signed up was because I had a couple pictures on Yahoo! photos that were going to get deleted unless I transferred them to a new service, as Yahoo! was going to discontinue offering their photo service.

Now that I have signed up for a Flickr account, everybody who had used it has now migrated to some other service. It seems that I am receiving a some invites to join the latest flavor of the month: Facebook.

2007 Musings

So much for my holidays. Tomorrow, it's back to the rat-race, and I don't feel the least bit rejuvenated. The last ten days has been chock-full of family functions, feeding and watering houseguests, and doing much-needed work around the house.

Overall, Christmas was pretty good to me, although I didn't get the super-thin 12" MacBook Pro I asked Steve Jobs... er... Santa Claus for, I did get a video game that paid homage to two of my childhood passions: Lego and Star Wars. In addition to some much-needed clothing, I also got the Complete Calvin and Hobbes Box Set, which I have only managed to read one of the three volumes.

I thought for a while that I would take this post to reflect on the 2006 that was, and what I could expect to see in the next year. That project seemed like far too much work, so I'm not going to do that this year. I can sum up 2006 six in one word: Madness. I really bit off more than I could chew, and by the looks of things 2007 isn't going to be any better -- in fact, it looks like it's going to be even busier -- at the very least, until September.

The MacBook has been in the shop for two weeks. It still is suffering hardware issues, though the "random shut-down" problem had been fixed, there are issues with the battery. The computer kept telling me that there was no battery attached to the computer, even if there was. Thus, the battery never took a charge. A laptop that can't operate on battery charge is no more than a really small desktop computer. I started to miss the MacBook so much, that I decided to pull out the derelict iBook to see if it worked -- and if I could diagnose the problem. It started fine and ran flawlessly for about five minutes. Then out of nowhere, the screen went garbled, then turned black. So that means the video card is gone, and that's soldered onto the Logic board. It's almost not worth fixing, unless I can find another logic board for about 25 dollars -- which translates to not very likely.

I haven't gigged in a few weeks, which is, in a sense welcome. The same goes with teaching. By next week, my schedule is going to fall back into the chaos it usually is.

DH has also taken some time off recording his album for the Holiday season. However, that project will be put back into high gear in a couple days. As far as progress goes, we are in the middle of tracking the seventh song, and drum tracks for three songs have been cut. So, by any estimations, I guess we are about 2/3 finished the album. That could be translated into another three months until I can breathe a sigh of relief. I never thought that it would take us this long to record the album.

Don't ask me what resolutions I made for the New Year. I don't make resolutions.

The Last-Ditch Effort

Longtime readers of this weblog will know the tragic tale of my laptop, its' benign and naive early days, and its quick fall from grace.

Hindsight tells me I purchased a lemon. It was an "eBay special", and I originally thought I got a good deal. I sank a fair amount of money into extra peripherals and software, though the efforts may as well have been in vain.

A little more than a year ago, I spilled my highball on the display and fried it. I was heartbroken. I had sunk well over a thousand dollars into that machine, and it barely lasted me six months. It was imperative that I repair the machine, since I could not afford a new one. Since the computer was fully operational (besides the display), it could likely be repaired, provided I could find the necessary parts on eBay.

After I consulted my computer-savvy friends, it was brought to my attention that it was likely the inverter board that blew. It is a small circuit board that provides high-voltage to power the LCD screen. My friends almost unanimously agreed that this was likely the culprit, and it could be easily replaced.

All the while, I was still using my computer. Apple was ingenious for developing the A/V port on laptops, that not only worked as a headphone jack, but also could provide video as well. Using the A/V Cable, I plugged my computer into the television set and managed to get a picture. The resolution was atrocious; it was difficult to read text without changing the resolution of the screen to 640 x 480, but I managed while I waited for my replacement part to arrive in the mail.

When my inverter board arrived, I spent more than a few hours carefully performing open-heart surgery on my precious laptop. It was a much more delicate endeavor than I had imagined. I had serviced desktop computers before, but the laptop was a challenge, since there is next to no free space within. When I finally had the machine assembled (with no leftover parts remaining), I held my breath, and pressed the power button.

I heard the start-up chime, which was a good thing, and I patiently waited to see the screen light up. All I got was a brief flicker, then a blank screen. Was I heartbroken. I had spent all this extra money on a part that didn't help my predicament. At least I could still run the computer from the television, I could listen to music or play a few of the games. I could still use the computer for the time being, though it was crippled, and I imagined another solution would eventually present itself. I still believed my machine could be repaired.

A few months had passed, while no solution had presented itself (that is to say, no cheap replacement parts were available on eBay), an act of dog sent my laptop flying five feet from the top of television to the floor. The machine had been on at the time, and I feared the worst. The A/V cable that connected the computer to the television had been severed, the jack still embedded in the computer. The display was damaged further, hinges were bent, and it was obvious that I would have to replace the entire screen if this machine was to return to its' former glory. Clouds formed overhead, and I heard the rumble of distant thunder. Zeus was not pleased.

Generally speaking, with respect to laptops, if the screen is damaged, you may as well buy a new computer, since the cost to replace the screen is likely more than the value of the laptop. This point also holds true if the logic board is damaged.

I counted my lucky stars that the computer would still boot. I still managed to run the machine via a replacement A/V cable, and I moved the setup to a corner downstairs where the dog would not likely give my laptop an aeronautics lesson.

All the while, I had been searching forums on the web searching for repair solutions for my little iBook. I soon discovered that I was not alone, and many iBook owners reported having problems with their display. Many users reported their troubles were due to a faulty logic board. In fact, the problem was so severe, that Apple implemented an iBook display replacement program as part of their warranty. Since I bought the iBook second-hand, and due to the fact that the iBook was three years old, I did not qualify for the free maintenance.

Last summer, my iBook finally died. It just happened one day, the laptop would not boot. I managed to get a startup chime, but there was no screen on the television, nor did I hear the hard drive spin up and load the operating system. In a panic, I thought the hard drive might be corrupted somewhere in the boot sector, so I tried to boot the computer from my OSX install CD, but that attempt proved fruitless. My laptop had become a very expensive paperweight.

To make things worse, I could not boot into single user mode, nor could I boot into open firmware. I had an Apple Hardware test CD that runs diagnostics on the computer hardware, but I couldn't even get that to load. All signs were pointing to a logic board failure, and that meant my laptop was beyond repair.

The hard drive on that laptop was the keeper of a great many files that were very important to me. I had a backup of my original webpage that resided at Yahoo! GeoCities. There were hundreds of emails, jpegs, and documents that I could not afford to lose. There had to be a way that I could rescue those documents and transfer them to my iMac.

My computer-geek friends had advised me that we could dissect the computer, and place the hard drive into an external firewire hard drive enclosure. This seemed like the best option, though I didn't like the idea of spending a number of hours ripping apart the laptop to disconnect the hard drive. The online iBook service schematics showed that you had to virtually disassemble the entire laptop in order to remove the hard drive. It has also been six months since I purchased my replacement computer, and my friends hadn't been able to find the necessary time to assist me in the surgery.

Last night, I could wait no longer, as I needed those files that were sitting idly on my laptop. It was a longshot, but there was one more thing I could attempt in order to rescue all my coveted files. I bought a firewire cable and directly connected the two machines. I was hoping that I might be able to boot my laptop into firewire target disk mode, and then copy the files directly to my new computer. I hit the power key on my laptop, held down the 'T' key and prayed.

I had nearly given up all hope, and then I saw a second hard drive icon appear on the desktop of my iMac. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and I proceeded to copy the files I had so missed to my iMac. I even ran disk first aid on the laptop to repair any corrupt sectors of the hard drive. I have not attempted to boot the laptop, but I imagine I will attempt this tonight, and see if the laptop will boot, or if it is indeed the logic board that is dysfunctional.

Now that I have rescued all my webpage documents from ages past, I highly anticipate that my Tour Journal from 1999 will be updated frequently.

Yesterday, the sun was shining, and Zeus was well-pleased.

A Lesson In Archaic Video Game History

Due to an Act of Dog, I will be purchasing a new computer in the near future, as my laptop has been rendered damaged beyond repair. If I am lucky, I might be able to get fifty bucks for a machine I paid a thousand dollars for less than a year ago. It appears that I may have to wait until at least September to purchase a new computer. The new model of the iMac is expected to make its debut on August 31st. Rumor sites speculate the new model will have wireless mice and keyboards (that means built-in Bluetooth), a G5 processor and a case redesign. Other specifications are sketchy at best. I expect the "I want it" factor will be high in this model, especially if the price point is comparable to the prices of today's G4 iMacs. I hope the larger displays will stick with the new models; there is not enough workspace on a 1024 x 768 monitor resolution. And to think we used to work on 640 x 480 pixel resolution.

I have recently expanded my (small) collection of musical instruments. I recently purchased an acoustic bass guitar and have been teaching myself to play it. My playing still sounds like crap, but I'm having a great time nonetheless. I must admit, that my improvement is commendable over the last couple weeks that I have been playing it. Now that I am involved in this Grease thing, I often have to make a choice if I should spend my time practicing the bass, or the drums.

I thought I might discuss a bit of video game history with you, as I have been doing some research on the history of Role-Playing Computer Games. It seems that I may have been mistaken if I had stated that NetHack was the first computer-based RPG. NetHack may be many things, but it certainly wasn't the first.

NetHack enjoys a certain phenomenon that a playable version exists in for nearly every possible computer platform. Not only that, but each port is nearly identical in features. It is also a game that has not only survived, but also thrived over fifteen years. Many video games are popular for a couple years, but are then forgotten when a new 'flavor of the month' emerges. The other great thing about NetHack, is that the code is open-source, and the game is distributed free. Finally, we cannot hesitate to mention the size. Fully compressed, a version of NetHack can almost fit on one 1.44 MB floppy disk. I think the last game I played that fit on a disk that size was Dark Castle.

While reading up on NetHack documentation, I ended up discovering that NetHack was based on an older game called Rogue. I do not know much about Rogue, except that it was a Dungeon-esque Role Playing Game that used ASCII characters or tiles for graphics. Rogue apparently, is still around, and enjoys a rather small cult following.

In the depths of my web searching, I discovered that Rogue was based on another program. It was based on a game called the Sword of Fargoal written around 1982 by Jeff McCord for the Commodore 64 and Vic-20 systems. The Sword of Fargoal was an incredibly popular game at the time; and a game that I certainly enjoyed. It was a difficult game, which took hours to play -- and if you were very lucky, you might have found the Sword, and managed to make it out of the Dungeon alive.

I had managed to stumble on Jeff McCord's personal webpage, and read his personal accounts of the game. It appears that he based the Sword of Fargoal on an older game he wrote in his High School Computer Science class called "Gammaquest II" written entirely in BASIC on the now archaic Commodore PET. I would possibly consider Gammaquest II to be the impetus of the whole Role-Playing phenomenon because of one distinguishing feature: Gammaquest II had an algorithm that would randomly generate dungeon levels, and the dungeon would be revealed piece-by piece as the player explored. This seems to be one of the most intriguing features of the NetHack phenom, is that the game is different each time you play it.

The reason why I have been researching these archaic games is simple. First of all, I understand how a character is generated in a Role-Playing Game such as Dungeons & Dragons. I have an understanding of rudimentary statistics, the rules of chance and probability, and their applications in a role-playing game situation. What I am interested in, is how the computer randomly generates a gameplay map, places items, monsters of varying difficulty, treasures, etc.

I am not going to profess that I can design a better mousetrap. Nor do I wish to distribute someone else's intellectual property. All I would like to do is learn a bit about programming and designing a NetHack-like game is the only thing I would want to program.

Picking a language to program the game is another difficult matter altogether. Do I write in Java, so it can run on all platforms? Do I program in C? Visual Basic? Or do I program in some Mac OSX native utility?

This could be a massive undertaking for someone who has so little time to even write in his blog.

By the way, I used to love playing that old NetHack-like game "Dungeon of Doom" for the old 680x0-based Macs. I played that game for countless hours. Only rescued the Orb once.

Time

Time is a precious thing. It seems to be the one thing that we all don't seem to get enough of. I have been running madly for the last week, and have had no opportunity to post here. My apologies to all who are interested in my incoherent rants and raves (I guess that means I am apologizing to myself).

In fact, I don't even have the time tonight to write about anything interesting, even though a number of themes did cross my path in the last week. Given ample time, I may explore some of them in the upcoming days. Until then I must ask you to be patient while my life slows down to a manageable level.

My laptop is still in a matter if disarray, and I imagine I will have to purchase a new computer in the upcoming weeks. But I am patiently waiting, for the following reasons:

1) Last week, I paid for 6 months' worth of vehicle insurance. Knowing my driving record, my insurance premiums are not exactly cheap. More like $4000 per year. So I just dropped a pretty penny, and a new computer isn't exactly a trivial expense. Oh yes, financing a computer or my insurance is not an option (have you seen the interest rates?).

2) Apple released new Power Mac G5's today, all sporting dual processors. What this tells me is that Apple left a market open for single-processor G5 machines. It is my guess that the G5 will make it into the iMac relatively soon, perhaps by it's next revision. If the price point is comparable to the current machines, it will be an excellent choice of computer for its' price, as well as it would buy me as much as 5 years out of the machine before it would be deemed obsolete.

I would like to discuss the implications of why I choose Apple computers over the PC counterpart, but I do not have time to discuss it tonight. Perhaps in a subsequent post I will allude to some of the myths, and truths about the "Light and Dark sides" of the computer industry.

Friendship

Minute changes to the blog are in the process as I write this entry. The links subsection of the sidebar will re-appear shortly, as well as more fun images for you to all drool at. Animal has returned, but I am unsure how long he will remain as my on-line persona.

Initially, I was hoping to use my storage space at Yahoo! GeoCities to host my images. It didn't work out to my chagrin. Never fear; the web is full of cost-free, legal solutions. My problem should be solved, indefinitely.

Viewing some other blogs, it appears that the skin I have chosen for my site appears to be quite popular. I never thought myself as being a clone per se, so I suppose some customizing to this skin may be an order. Damn you, trend followers! Funny thing is though, I like the color scheme, the fonts, and the overall general appearance.

It appears that my laptop has bit the big one. Yesterday I received my much-anticipated part in the mail. I spent a few hours installing the new inverter board, and managed to get it back together, with no leftover parts, or pieces that were either broken or with improper fit. You could imagine my disappointment when I powered up my laptop and there was still no screen. I am at the point where I have had just about enough of this situation. I have sunk a great deal of cash into that machine, purchasing wireless cards, routers, additional drives and software, and now this happens. Now it appears that I will have to buy a new machine, and sell the other for parts. I'd love to upgrade to a brand-new machine, but the cost appears prohibitive. I may end up shopping on eBay for an older machine. I really don't want to spend more than a thousand dollars. My car insurance is due in a month or so, which is not a trivial expense.

You see, nearly three years ago, I was involved in an automobile accident. Luckily, nobody was hurt, but both vehicles were damaged beyond repair. It was determined that I was at fault, and charged with careless driving. Around here, that's a pretty serious offense. My insurance is astronomical -- in fact what I pay in insurance premiums, I could have paid my new car off twice already (a 1999 Toyota). I am looking forward to this fall, when the offence is erased from my driving record, and my insurance premiums return to a more manageable level.

So between a new computer and insurance premiums, I wonder how I am going to manage to eat, sleep, and live for the next several months.

On a completely different tangent, I'd like to tell you a little about my youth. I had a real tough childhood. I was the smallest person in my class which made me the victim of countless bullying incidents. I never had a girlfriend all through high school, and I often hid in the Library with other runts, geeks, and nerds in order to avoid bullying, extortion, being laughed at, or any other forms of abuse that teenagers are normally subjected to. I tried everything I could to become popular. My parents wouldn't buy me fashionable clothes so I could fit in with the crowd. Instead, I got the second-rate "look-alike but not quite authentic" reproductions, which were much less expensive. No matter how hard I tried to be popular, it would not make a difference. I was doomed. I was a nerd. I liked Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons, and video games. I wasn't allowed to go out past 10:00 on weekends. To make things even worse, I played in the school orchestra.

My parents would go and see their best friends on a monthly basis. As I had no friends that were allowed out on weekends, by default I was dragged to my parents' friends house. At the time, I actually didn't mind. They had a daughter that was one year younger than I. She was thin, beautiful, and very popular. There came a point where she was never home, since she was out partying with dozens of her friends. We went to different schools, so we never crossed paths during the day. I would often look forward to going over to their house, in a chance that I could hang out with her. Instead, it came to a point where it was disappointing to go over to their house, because she wasn't there. I'd have to resort to hanging out with her younger brother, who was about four years my junior. Can you imagine how difficult it is to be fourteen, and trying to hang out and have fun with a ten year old?

I would lay awake at night, praying that one day, I could be as popular as her. She seemed to have such a fulfilling life. She had boyfriends, countless other acquaintances of both genders; she went to parties, school dances, and she had the trendy clothes. She had it all. All I had was a full head of curly brown hair that could never be styled right, and second-rate clothes.

One night, we went over to my parents' friends house. And lo and behold, she was staying home that night. In fact, her parents let her throw a party in the basement. We arrived early, before the festivities were to begin, but it didn't take long. Soon, the basement became packed with at least one hundred teenagers -- none whom I knew -- all drinking, flirting, dancing, smoking, screaming, and making out. It was my first "real" party. Sure, I had been to parties before -- at Chuck "E" Cheese, but this was a real party, where there were a hundred teenagers, behaving like teenagers, under minimal parental supervision.

She had cool parents. They would let her throw occasional parties, and let them drink because, well, teenagers will drink anyway. At least this way, there will be someone there in case things get out of control.

I was lucky that she let me hang out with her friends. She was kind, and introduced me to everyone, even though I had no clue who they all were. I would have been lucky if I remembered three names. There were a few jerks there, but generally I found the people to be quite friendly while they were under the influence of alcohol. I was reluctant to have any drinks at the party, with my parents being upstairs, and no booze of my own. I wasn't about to ask a total stranger if I could have some of his (or her) alcohol. So I just hung out.
The party went all night. People didn't leave until 4:00 in the morning. By then my parents had been long gone, and I was crashing in the spare room. Before I fell asleep, I told myself that something had to change in my life. I was seventeen, going in to my last year of high school, and I wanted something more out of my life than being known as a geek all through high school. I was going to do whatever it took to become popular.

Enter Jesus Christ, my savior. Okay, he wasn't Jesus, but the fall he was cast as Jesus in the high school production of Godspell. He had long hair, wore a leather jacket and torn jeans, and was one of the most popular people in my high school. The population of my school was over 1600, so if you mind me saying so, he would have been in the top five males. He was also a superbly friendly individual. I befriended "JC", as we had similar interests: we loved music, and we loved to jam with other musicians. He didn't seem to mind that I was riding on his coattails. My initial purpose of hanging out with him was to observe how be interacted with other people, and perhaps being seen in his company, I might be "cool by association". It didn't take long for me to figure out that it was I, all along, who needed to change.

It was as simple as an attitude adjustment. I quit caring if others snickered and pointed fingers. I wore what I wanted -- and I wore clothes that I wanted to wear -- not what was bought for me. I was soon wearing flannel shirts, growing my hair long, and wearing shirts from popular bands of the day (which weren't any more expensive than the shirts I had been getting all along). Generally the uglier the clothing, the cooler it was. I learned to control my passive personality, and made an effort to talk with anybody -- no matter their popularity. How I conducted myself amongst others was a reflection of who I was, who I wanted to be, and not what I expected others to perceive me as. I also had one outlet that fed me tons of brownie points: I played in an alternative rock band that played gigs in schools and punk halls around town.

It didn't take very long. My popularity grew by leaps and bounds. The phone at my house started ringing off the hook. Girls were calling me. I started going to parties. I started to have the social life that I had only dreamed of. Within one year I went from being a nerd to becoming one of the most popular people in not only my school, but in the entire city.

One year. That's all it took for me to go from zero to hero. That attitude change stuck with my for a number of years after high school. I soon went to College, and tore the campus up. I was unstoppable; the wildest partier you had ever seen. At that point in my life, I couldn't be bothered to have a girlfriend because I was too wild to be tied down. I was completely out of control, and it's a small wonder that I survived that first year of college.

The next year, I was off to University, and the trend continued. I moved into Rez, and within one week I knew all the students in residence. I hung out with everybody, and it didn't matter if they were jocks, nerds, freaks, or preps. I partied like I never had before -- and it's a small wonder how I managed to pass my classes. My popularity continued even though I was in a different city, with a whole new slough of strangers. I felt it was an incredible feat, I was once someone who tried to follow along and be accepted by his peers, and soon became the leader; the trendsetter.

The next and subsequent years of my schooling were turbulent. I grew a great deal mentally, and what I wanted out of my life began to change. I soon realized that what I had, wasn't what I really wanted all along. It wasn't about the quantity of friends, it was about the quality of friendship I had with them. For the remaining years of my University career, I had not so many friends, but the quality of the friendship I had with them improved greatly. I became very close to that group, and that friendship remains to this day. That being said, I was still "popular" by definition. We still threw wild parties where there would be tons of people, and I still had more friends than I could handle. But this time, I knew I had something even better than popularity, and acceptance with the masses. I had friends that would be the best of friends for the rest of our lives.

I often wonder how many "friends" I have had in the last decade or so. It numbers beyond the hundreds; it could be as high as a few thousand. I remember going to bars and clubs in my College and University years, and knowing someone at each and every table. There would be five hundred people in the bar, and I would know twenty percent of them. That's not a lot of time to have a conversation with everyone.

How many true friends do I have now? Probably a few small dozen. Does that upset me? Not in the least. I am at a different period in my life, and taking in account how busy I am with my jobs, I like to spend what time remains with my closest friends. Many of my friends are married with children, which doesn't allow us to go out and party like we used to. I am probably still the wildest out of all of them. The difference in my life is that I am more wise, reserved, and responsible than I used to be. Believe it or not, being responsible isn't such a bad thing.

I was lucky enough to have the best of both worlds when it came to my social life. I had the pleasure of being a nobody, and also achieve (local) super-stardom. Because of this, I have no regrets.

Searching For Some Skin

The birth of a new webpage is a wonderful thing. Endless possibilities flood your mind. Creative juices begin to flow, and you begin to visualize how you are going to make your unique creative statement.

Being a newbie blogger, I picked a generic template to get started right away. It is not a statement of my true self; out of the ones supplied on this page, I figured this one would be the most aesthetically pleasing. I know there is so much more I would like to add.

It didn't take me long to discover a nearly limitless selection of blog skins. Some I thought were quite admirable, others less so. None of them however, was what I was exactly looking for. I expect that I will have to do a lot of customizing to have my blog appear the way I really want.

I find it unfortunate that all web browsers do not support many of my favorite typefaces. Essentially that would mean if I wanted to use them, I would have to resort to creating graphics. Not a terribly big deal, I suppose. I am certainly not so happy with the color scheme as I am the layout. I would sure like I lot more interesting things in my sidebar.

A big reason why I feel like my hands are tied is due to the fact that my computer is out of sorts. You see, the story kind of goes like this:

A little over a month ago, I was sitting at my laptop, enjoying a beverage. I was quite thirsty. I was looking at my laptop, and he was looking mighty thirsty too. So I decided to give it a drink. So I poured rye and coke down the laptop's mouth, thinking it would rather enjoy the tasty beverage. Instead, he got sick.
And he's still sick. So I have been without a computer for over a month. I was quoted between 500 and 700 dollars for a new display for the laptop. I promptly began searching for a new computer. Before I could buy one, I consulted one of my computer-geek buddies who said I could find the necessary part (an inverter board) for less than 100 bucks on eBay. I found one in New York City, and I expect it should arrive here in a week's time or so. Then it's time for some open-heart surgery.

I have my archive of images, graphics editing programs, and web design tools all on that machine. I really don't want to begin a huge project, and then scrap it all once my computer is repaired. I don't always like using other people's computers for that very reason. That, and I have about 20 gigs worth of tunes on that machine, and I am only about halfway through ripping my CD collection.

I posted another link today. Undergrads is one of my favorite animated television series. It has been the funniest show I have seen since the Simpsons. The show features four friends and their misadventures while attending College. Being a recent University graduate when I first saw the show, it had immediate appeal. The show also featured a killer soundtrack. Unfortunately, only one season was made, and it seems unlikely that there will ever be a second. At least I have the complete first season on DVD, as well as a T-Shirt autographed by Undergrads creator Pete Williams. No, I do not wear it.