Worn Out, but Alive...

I just finished reinstalling my operating system. I have been burning CDs, backing up, and reinstalling all day long. Of course, the real work didn't begin until around 430pm, when I decided to delete my partitions, and go for it. I tell you, it's enough to drive you mad. At this point, all I have left to install is Adobe Photoshop 8. Outlook is committing some kind of foolishness with my mail rules, so that's another two hour project. *sigh*

I'll fill everyone in on my Monday, as well as replying to the hordes of comments I have in my Inbox, tomorrow. Er, later today. :) For now, I think I'm going to go pass out, and relish the fact that I don't have to take my dad to work today. (I asked him specifically if he could get a ride from someone else.)

WARNING: Long Update Ahead. Merge Left.

*Yawns* Let's see. What did I say I'd tell you when I woke up? Ah, yes.

Okay, to begin at the beginning, so to speak, I must first tell you about...

MONDAY

...and what happened that day. Obviously, I had to get up at 330am to take my dad to work. I came home, and goofed around on the computer for a few hours, and then went back to sleep, because I had plans for the day beginning at noon. Well, I slept until 1130am, because I'm an idiot. I thought, for some harebrained reason, that despite my complete and utter lack of sleep, I could wake up on my own at 1030a, so I used the alarm clock as a "last minute" kind of thing. Needless to say, the "last minute" came without me ever stirring prior.

I took a shower, and headed over to nyminal's place, where we were going to play some skirmish battles using my D&D miniatures. That was pretty fun, even if Brad did win three out of four games. I didn't manage to win until I broke out a warband consisting of a Red Samurai, a Minotaur, a Gargoyle, and a Tiefling Captain running them all. Of course, I only had the Samurai and the Gargoyle left when I won, but I still won. (Brad whipped on me once with a warband of orcs, led by an Eye of Gruumsh. My elves did pretty well, UNTIL the orcs reached melee range. OUCH.

Leaving there around 330pm, and running late, I headed for Kevin's mom's house, because I had to take the Christmas lights down for her. This is all but a tradition now. I really enjoy spending time with both her and Kevin's Dad, Pop. I always find it relaxing and comforting. She had made a steak dinner for my birthday, which I ate at a leisurely pace that I haven't done in a long time. I ran Pop up to the nearby Wal-Mart Neighborhood Store to get some milk, and then had the most sinfully delicious chocolate cake I've ever had the pleasure of eating. It was moist, and rich, and I NEEDED milk* to finish it. Mmm.

Around 6pm, I left there, and decided to swing by Kevin's, since I hadn't seen him since the wedding, and one of my New Year's Resolutions is to keep up with my friends better. He was home, and he and Brandi were working on a DVD of the wedding, complete with chapter marks and custom intro screens. I tell you, Kevin is amazingly talented. While there, we talked about a bunch of stuff, but I think I spent most of the time catching up with my inner geek by helping him with the layout of the chapter menu and discussing computers.  He hooked me up with Windows XP and Photoshop CS, and informed me of how great BitTorrent is. Now that he's weighed in on it, I think I might just have to look into it.

I came home, and did some browsing, and fell asleep around 11pm. I haven't had a day like that in a while, where I just did what I felt like, when I felt like doing it, with no worry about where I was or had to be. Then, on...

TUESDAY

...I had to take my dad to work again, but I only wound up staying awake until 6am this morning. Frankly, I'm terribly glad of that. It was so cold this morning (around 20° F), that you only want to stay in bed. Apparently, I was right, because when I woke up at 1030am, my dad was already back home. Apparently, they cannot pour concrete when it's too cold. (He is a carpenter there, who makes the forms they pour the concrete into.)

I took him to the grocery store, since he had mentioned it earlier, and that's when I began the biggest project I've yet done of 2004 (*wink*). I had about 10 discs of stuff I needed to backup, so I played some Hot Shots Golf on the nearby PS1.** I then did my reinstall, which I've already chronicled here.

One significant event to come out of my reinstall: I checked the jumpers inside the computer when I switched the 20 and 80 gig drives around. (The 20 gig drive is now going to be one huge mp3 folder, and I've already got around 9 GBs on it.) I noticed that the voltage on my memory was 2.5V. Checking my manual, which I had out anyway (I accidently unplugged the ATX Power, Reset, IDE Activity, and such cables.) I noticed that the jumper was set to "Default". However, "Default" in this case was 2.6V.

I changed that to the correct voltage, and you know what? No weird issues when I copy from my CD drives to my hard drive. There might be more wrong with my computer, but that may be a thing of the past. I just cannot imagine that something as simple as an incorrect voltage could affect my computer so negatively. (I couldn't touch my computer when I burned CDs, because I ran the risk of causing a buffer underrun.)

Also, I had to fight Semagic to get it to reinstall and run. I kept getting "Cannot contact server" errors. I tried reinstalling just about every version available in the last year and a half. Finally, the final version that sema himself did installed. After several (literally) hours, I discovered something EXTREMELY strange: If I renamed the EXE to "Livejournal.exe" from "LivejournalU.exe", it would connect. I didn't question my luck. I just installed the newest release, which is very pretty, but that's probably the modifications to the buttons and such that XP does. This leads us finally to today, which is...

WEDNESDAY

...and the fact that it's my birthday. :) I've already seen that I have a veritable TON of posts to comment on, but I want to thank everyone already. I haven't had this many people say "Happy Birthday" to me on my birthday in literally years. You guys are the best. Now, I am going to go fill up that MP3 folder... :)

---

* - Yes, Steve. Ice cold milk. :)
** - Yes, the little white one. *I* remember that the bigger, older grey one was called the "PSX". Sheesh.

Tales of a "Wage Slave"

I didn't think that I was working today... but I was wrong. Since I woke up, I've been adding mp3s from my collection to the 20GB drive. I've got 5.5 GBs free, and I have a stack of 36 CDs in front of me that I still need to rip. Song count so far is 2275, taking up 13.4GBs.

This is fun, though massive. My playlist as it is right now could play for over a week solid without repeating anything. I've also found more than a few album covers that might be appearing soon as I get around to making them into icons. :)

Again, I want to thank everyone for the well-wishes. I've gotten more than I ever thought possible.

Quick Recap of the day...

Today, in case some of you on my Friends' List* don't know it, is my birthday. I want to thank everyone again for the surprises. As I mentioned in rafaela's journal, I haven't had this many people wish me a happy birthday in a very long time. It pleases me greatly to think that there are people in my life that consider my birthday important enough to post, or even comment.

Now, before I get all sappy on you, let me do a quick rundown of my day since 3pm. I began ripping CDs from my collection that I didn't already have as mp3s. I've gotten my Iron Maiden, Helloween, Europe, and Loreena McKennitt ripped. I still have Sarah Brightman, Savatage, and Vanessa-Mae to do. My mom made chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn for dinner. The chicken was good, but it wasn't the same as the celery seed baked chicken. (This was some variation on chicken parmesan, I think. Really, it's her own idea, but that's closest to anything you might have tried.)

Then, we had the cake, and I was absolutely horror-struck at the sheer number of candles on top of it. Of course, I didn't get them all out in the first puff, which really bothered me. Am I that old already? Sheesh. I have got to practice for next year. I then made a quip about the fire marshal and building codes as I removed the candles and picked the wax from where it fell on the icing.

I took the cake after that. No, literally. :) I picked it up, grabbed a fork, and headed to my room. My mom said, "Where do you think you're going?" I replied, "Well, it's my birthday cake, right?" She replied, "To share."

Tsk, tsk Mom. Where in the "contract" did it say that? Oh well, I brought it back to share, since I couldn't - and wouldn't want to - eat the whole cake. After that, my aunt showed up, bringing me a birthday present. It was Underworld on DVD. Let me say, this movie bloody ruled. I loved it. It was great. Kate Beckinsale did more for the leather industry with this movie than anyone else in the last ten years.** On top of the figure, she's got a truly pretty face. And those eyes.. I sure hope they weren't contacts. That would kill me. A woman's eyes are the prettiest thing about her. Never fake it. It's not worth it.

In closing, I'm going to quote Bilbo Baggins from his eleventy-first birthday, since his comment best sums up my feelings towards all of you:

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like;
and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

---

* - From my list today, there's not many who aren't aware. If you're not, then you probably don't care anyway. :-P
** - I don't believe I've ever mentioned that raven-haired women with pale skin are probably my absolute favorite, have I? Oh, and the blue eyes. *purr*