"Like a graveyard...

First off, I should mention that I volunteer as a driver for RightRides, a group that provides free rides home to women, LGBTQ, and gender-queer individuals on Friday and Saturday nights. The goal is the elimination of gender-, orientation-, and sex-based violence. This Sunday, at the Mercer Street Babeland, there will be a performance of The Vagina Monologues benefiting both RightRides and the V-Day 2010 Spotlight on Women of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door.

A friend is building a game for XBox 360 Live Indie Games market that he's calling Zomband. It's a classic rogue-like adventure game (like angband, etc.) with Zombies. His development company is The Hip Gamer, and he's raising development funding at Kickstarter. It looks like it's going to be really interesting. If you think so too, toss some bucks his way. They're just days away from a tech demo!

Below is a very happy sight. NJTransit turns off signal lights when there are no trains around. So it is very nice to see the lights come on at 1130, telling you that you're about to head home.

I just got my mom one of her birthday presents. I think I'll install it tonight so she won't have to deal with it. Also because I'm a cheapskate and got her an open box version. Gotta love Best Buy. I plan to get her some other things, and split it with one of my brothers. Sounds fun, right?

Being on 2nd shift has screwed up a lot of my normal routine. I'm down to 2-3 big meals a day, instead of 5-6 small ones, for instance. I also haven't been posting nearly as much. And I've been lazy at work because there's no support. Whatever, I'll be back on 1st shift next week, and all will be good.

I also picked up 'Foot Fist Way', which was hilarious in theatres and I can't wait to show to Howard and Pat. I think they'll get a kick out of it as the lead does everything wrong.

I've got some LED lights that I got at Ikea a few weeks ago. They provide nice, diffuse lighting at very low power in a variety of colors. They're really handy as a sort of night light, so Erin doesn't have to turn on the harsh overhead light to come to bed.

Due to a miscommunication on my part, I didn't get to see The Dark Knight last night after class. It's for the best, I think, as I got to bed at least 2 hours before I would have gotten home, had I seen it.

My class is really cool and relevant to my interests. The Chief Security Officer of AT&T is the professor. He recommends reading Feynman and 2600, but there is no required text, which is great, because I already read those.

I've been catching a little of the convention, and I think it is too slick and too mastubatory. But I'm glad Obama will be getting the nom and that Hillary is no longer trying to split the party.

Time to go to work. Tell me a happy story to read on my lunch break, please.

Approved for Zipcar! Will have the card in 3-7 days.

Erin and I went to Paragon last week, and I noticed this near an internal phone. The list of languages was very long, running from sign to Urdu. I thought that was pretty cool.

I am really tired this morning. That's what I get for staying in Brooklyn until 11. And I ache, which is what I get for going to the headmaster's class. And there's a good chance I'll miss my NJ Transit train, which is what I get for being 5 minutes late leaving the house, and betting wrong on subways. But now I'm on a 1 train that might make it to Penn on time. Of course, by the time I post this, I will know whether I made my train or not.

In other news, I need a haircut. My hair is over my ears and a distraction when I exercise and it's too warm. I hope to take care of it Saturday before practice.

Made my train! Still want to sleep.

Taken of an Acela train in Penn Station. Aren't we all looking for a quiet car? Like last night, on the subway, I was between two guys w/ their music so loud I could hear it as clearly as they could.

Last night's commute had another key problem: I missed my train out of work. My options were to wait over an hour in the cold late night, or call someone who could give me the number of someone who could give me the number of a co-worker that lives only lives 2 minutes away from work. Of course, I'll get made fun of even more relentlessly than normal, but I think it will be worth it in terms of the extra sleep and the ability to play Wii Fit.

Now off to Erin's graduation!

So I'm getting a new nearly sub-notebook in a few days. It comes with Vista, which I'll be keeping on it, just in case Spore ever actually comes out, but the rest of the time, I'll be using Linux. The laptop will have WiFi and Bluetooth, and I've found that there are very few good graphical programs for managing either, and all only work in the major Desktop Environments (KDE and Gnome). So, even though I'm getting used to Gnome at work (thanks Fedora Core, in your RPM muck), I'm thinking of going the KDE route. And I'm thinking, therefore, of going with Kubuntu for no-configuration Debian-derivative joy. However, I am very open to whichever distro can make suspend-to-disk easy and work with most (preferably my) laptops. Any suggestions? I have experience with Slackware, Gentoo (most recently and most in-depth), and a little bit of Debian. Sabayon (and the fact that it's Gentoo-derived) interests me, but I'm concerned the stock Intel video card will not be up to the task. I suppose for that last bit I can try the live CD out.

I went to Fairway to pick up some of my favorite Ginger Beer, and first, they had nearly none left (certainly none left in their legendary Cold Room), but my long arms were able to fetch me four delicious bottles. Prize (and salt, and peppers, and olives, and Silk®) in hand, I went to the register. A little old lady let me cut in line because I had so few things. The cashier starts to ring me up and stops at the soft drinks. She says something I cannot quite hear because I've got my iPod on (antisocial me, indeed). I take off the other earbud and ask her to repeat herself. "ID." I try to explain its a soft drink with less than 0.5% alcohol per volume, but she just looks at me like I'm either an idiot or trying to get around showing my ID. I display my papers (bitte) and swipe my credit card and continue on my way.

So, I feel good. It's excellent.

I accomplished all the goals I set for myself for today:

• Get my "graduation present" money (money that has been sitting in a relatively low-yield savings account for me to pick up when I graduated). (It will be put in my much higher yield savings account, worry not.)
  
• Go to Tae Kwon Do class. Always a pleasure, but today was especially good for some reason.
• Accomplished my sekrit mizzion
• Listened to tasty music

Thought I'd post this to bring the tone of my LJ up a touch. I rarely post when things are going right. This journal paints such a bleak picture of me and my life. Good thing that I remembered to post this.