AWWWWWWW YEAHHHHHH

AAA, beeyatch

Ahem. Sorry. Never done that before!

Tattered Curtains No More

So the curtains that once hung in my living room were in pretty awful shape. I guess it was the afternoon sun beating up on them day after day. They were virtually translucent in parts, and outright torn in others. That sort of thing might have been appropriate in October, but Halloween's over, and it was time for a change.

Mmmm....Fluxy.

Hey, kids! It's time for my semiannual blog post! Be prepared for the sheer, uncompromising nerdity that is to follow. If you have children, you might want them to leave the room.

Some of you may be aware that, a while back, I got totally hooked on the video game Dance Dance Revolution -- or, as I like to call it, Crack for Twelve-Year-Old Asian Girls. I thought the game was ridiculous until I actually played it at my parents' house some time ago. Next thing I knew, I had my own copy of Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova for the Playstation 2, and was spazzing the night away myself.

Until my dance pad, the flimsy one that came bundled with the game, crapped out on me a couple of months ago. The down arrow just stopped working. So I headed out to Best Buy and bought the only dance pad they had, the React Universal Dance Pad. It was one of those soft pads with the foam inserts. It was all right, but not as sensitive as it could have been, and it was hard to keep it from sliding all over my floor.

I did a little research, and found that there is, in fact, one dance pad that everyone seems to agree is the best there is: the Cobalt Flux. It's a metal pad, not unlike what you'd play on in an arcade, and while it cost a hefty chunk of change -- three hundred big ones -- everyone says it's worth every penny. So, I decided I liked playing this game enough to invest in one.

It took them a solid month to get the pad to me. Why? Because they carefully build each one by hand, and then test the ever-loving crap out of it. And they're sturdy, too. Don't believe it? Watch what this crazy son of a bitch did to his. This thing will be the only thing left intact if the terrorists strike.

So, today, it finally arrived. I unpacked it, and, like all things packed in styrofoam, it was covered in the stuff. A little vacuuming helped that. About the first thing I noticed about the pad is that the sumbitch is heavy. I mean, I knew it was going to be -- the box says it's 45 pounds -- but I didn't really understand until I hefted the pad out of its packaging. Cleaned it up, slapped the four pieces of 3M Safety-Walk grip tape it came with on the bottom, plugged it in, and I was ready to rock and roll. And, by "rock and roll," I mean spaz out like an epileptic coke addict.

It's going to take time for me to get used to it -- it's way more sensitive than the soft pads were, and I'm not used to playing with my shoes on. But already, I can tell that this pad is really, really good. I never understood how people could play some of the harder songs and difficulty levels; it just seemed like you'd have to move your feet impossibly fast. After playing a few songs with the Cobalt Flux, it doesn't seem nearly so impossible. Once I grow accustomed to the pad, I get the feeling my game is going to improve like crazy.

Also, it doesn't slip, even just laying on top of my rug! I'm shocked and delighted. I assume the bugger's just too heavy to slip.

So, anyway, if you couldn't tell, the Cobalt Flux rates an AAA for me so far. If you're a DDR nerd like me, you won't go wrong with this guy.

Some pictures for you:


See if you can identify all the various pieces of evidence of my ridiculous geekdom in this photo.



Styrofoamy.




The control box...uh...box.



The pad comes with this thin white film protecting all the buttons. Kind of a pain to peel off, but the buttons sure are purty underneath.



The control box, which houses all the electronics that translate arrow presses on the pad into controller button presses. It's separate so that if it fails, you can just replace the control box instead of the whole damn pad.



And, finally, the Cobalt Flux in its unpacked, gleaming glory.

Just blow out the candles, and have a piece of cake!

So last night my sister took me out to the Genesee Theater in Waukegan to see "Weird Al" Yankovic in concert. And damn, can that guy put on a show.

He did a lot of songs from his newest album, Straight Outta Lynwood, which I expected, but he also kicked it old-school, with such past hits as Fat and Amish Paradise, and he included a medley of many of his songs, past and present.

The coolest thing, I thought, was that he was in-costume for virtually every song. While he sang Amish Paradise, he was decked out in black, hat, beard, and all. He dressed like Kurt Cobain did in the Smells Like Teen Spirit music video when he performed the classic Smells Like Nirvana, like Obi-Wan Kenobi for The Saga Begins, and like Luke Skywalker for Yoda. He even put on the old Michael Jackson fat suit (minus the make-up) for Fat. Crotch-grabbingly good. In between costumed numbers, video interviews were aired -- doctored interviews, in which Al pretends to interview celebrities, using clips of previously-recorded interviews done by others, to hilarious ends. He really tore K-Fed a new one, which was, obviously, awesome. You can see most (all?) of the interviews on YouTube.

For an encore, he busted out the ludicrous stream-of-consciousness Albuquerque, which was awesome. I was impressed with how Al sang for pretty much two hours straight, without missing a beat, only breaking for costume changes, and then used possibly his longest song as an encore. Plus, he made it even longer still, by padding the infamous doughnut scene ("You got any guacamole doughnuts??" "Nah, we're out of guacamole doughnuts!!!").

Words really can't express how awesome a concert this was. If you're an Al fan, and you get the chance to see him live, YOU DO IT. You won't be disappointed.

Here's a photo I took with my cell phone, to prove how awesome it was.



Pretty great, huh? Oh well. Just trust me. It was great. Thanks, sis, for the fantastic birthday present!

Earth's Mightiest Linux Distros

Wow, it's been a long time since I've updated, hasn't it? Since my last post, I've started my sabbatical, bought a sweet new Apple computer set-up (which I'll blog about soon), learned that an ibuprofen-vicodin-melatonin-nap cocktail works great for killing migraines, and came across this in the latest issue of Marvel's The Mighty Avengers (#4):



Wait a minute. Is that...? Look a bit closer...



That's right, nerds! Lithuania's Plokstine Missile Base uses Ubuntu Linux. On the one hand, this is awesome publicity and just plain fun to see. On the other hand, with the speech balloon "Someone's hacked right into the system," maybe it's not such great publicity after all. ;)

Fortified With Eleven Essential Vitamins And Nutrients

I have certain friends who keep bitching about the fact that I never update my blog.

Now, were I a lesser man, I'd leave this post at that, and chuckle to myself at how funny I am. Instead, I'll tell you that my nose is healing nicely, I got a lovely 10% raise at work, and they now make Diet Coke that is good for you.





For those wondering, it tastes to me very much like normal Diet Coke. A little different, texture-wise; my friend Ed called it "smoother." It's as good a word as any.

I can BREATHE!

Only through my right nostril so far, though. I think those doctors are sitting on some crazy good decongestant sprays.

I even managed to sleep a more or less full night last night. Color me heartened! And, happily, still no pain. :)

Septa and turbinates and nasal valve repairs

Strangely, I'm feeling basically no pain, although I do have a lovely prescription for Vicodin. Mostly I'm just dribbling blood and unable to breathe through my nose, although the latter seems to be abating slightly -- hopefully entirely, soon. No pics, I'm afraid...just the hope that all this will turn out to have been worthwhile. The doctor said everything went perfectly, so my fingers are crossed!

Surgery and Sabbaticals

So, I've finally bitten the bullet and (tentatively) scheduled my septoplasty...I go under the knife on Friday, March 2. After that, I get a whole week off of work (woo-hoo) during which I can feel like crap. Oh, well. I'm still looking forward to being able to breathe properly.

In brighter news, I've also (nearly -- still need to turn the form in to HR) scheduled my sabbatical! July 2 through August 10. No idea what I'm going to do with it. I'm sure I'll spend some time with family, some time with friends, and some time slacking off all on my own and doing nothing. I should fly myself to Vegas or something for a week or two of debauchery. ;)

From the Makers of Willie's Angry Chicken comes...

...Willie's Angry Beef!



I thought I had chicken, but I was wrong. So, I cut up a couple of steaks and threw it in my wok with a truckload of veggies. I have never used so many veggies for this recipe in my life. The photo really doesn't do it justice. I had to improvise with making more sauce to cover it all, since I felt too lazy to measure everything out. A splash of soy sauce here, a few squirts of chili sauce there, and another generous splash of chili oil...and it worked out very well! Go me!

And now I'm stuffed and have a couple of meals' worth of leftovers. Couple this with my having actually gotten to the gym today (gasp!), and I've had a pretty productive day!

Deviant septum

Wow...it's been a while, huh? Sorry about that. I've never been good at keeping up with stuff like this. Oh, well!

So, the most recent big news with me: I've been diagnosed with a deviated septum. Fun! For those of you not in the know, the septum is the part of your nose that separates your two nostrils. Sometimes it becomes deviated, such that it horns in on one or the other of your nostrils, making it tough to breathe through your nose. I had a nasal endoscopy done the other day, wherein a small camera mounted on a thin tube was threaded up my nose, into my sinuses, and down my throat, all of which felt about the same way it sounds. Thanks to the monitor that was in front of me, I also know it's one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen.

Then, I got a CT ("cat") scan done today, which is kind of awesome, because now I know what my skull looks like. I think I can see my BRAIN. Check it.