The Habitrail

My laser printer is dead. Water Bottle, an Apple LaserWriter 16/600 was not quite working right for a while, with blinking lights that indicated service was required.

After taking it in for service and having them look at it for a week, they determined that it needed a replacement part that would cost $150, plus $30 labor. Even they recommended that it would be better to just give up and buy a new printer.

So now I have a new printer to buy.

I’d say “man I’m up late,” but for those of you who’ve been keeping track, it’s still early for me.

So happy 2006. This is the year where I will turn 30. This is a scary thing. A year of change, a year of new stuff a year of…. well, storms flooding out freeways and making travel plans be cancelled, at least that’s what the first part has been, anyway.

I should make a FFXI post. I’ve actually gotten back in the groove, which is a shame, because now is the time I promised myself I’d actually start looking for other employment.

I came up with the term last week. For those of you not keeping track, I’ve been spending most of December (and the latter half of November) not going in to the office, only doing work when contacted, and it wasn’t ever that much.

Then, last week, I get called saying there’s a project that they need someone to work on, and their normal guy is slammed, it should be about four days of work. “Sure,” I say, and I go into the office on last wednesday, thursday and friday working full days. Some time on thursday, my boss asks me if I’m going to be around during the holidays. “Of course I am, where would I go?” I answer, and so I’m on call for work to cover the other people who are out of town (which has already started today).

It’s a reverse vacation.

It’s finally out!

I got through the part time job stuff, so here’s my friend code:
3565-4295-8804

Anyone else who gets the game, let me know your code and we can totally steal each other’s animals…

And now that I’m at home…

So, that was my last Yahoo! Year End Party. Even if I find myself eligible for some reason next year, I probably won’t be going. I wouldn’t have gone this year, except for one of the musical guests.

Earth, Wind and Freaking Fire.

There were probably close to 6,000 people there. I actually stopped and talked to about 10. This number is way down from previous years. I spend most of the time walking around, which is not unusual… but unlike before I couldn’t find anyone I knew. My feet hurt just as much as every year previous, but I have a lot less to show for it. Not only is it because most of the people I’ve known at Yahoo! no longer work there, but most of the people I know who still work there didn’t seem to be there… or else I never found them in the huge crowds.

Then on the bus ride home, even though there were plenty of empty seats, a guy plops down next to me… reeking of cigarettes and intruding on my personal space.

So… not a great way to end an eight-year run.

(Obligatory post from my phone on the bus back from the Yahoo! year end party)

Upon driving 380 miles to get to my garage door, I realize…

… the garage door opener is no longer in the car.

The combination has since been changed.

When I got in to my car a few days ago, I thought I smelled cigarette smoke. Not knowing what it could have been, I just dismissed it to being a smell that got picked up from being parked on my mom’s driveway for the last week.

Today, on my way to drive to Gardena so I could log into FFXI for Kori’s wedding, I was planning on plugging in my cell phone to charge it.

The charger wasn’t where I left it. Neither was the power inverter or the other power plug or the splitter that they were all plugged in to. So I looked in the back seat. Not there, either. I opened the trunk. Not there.

I looked under the seats, nothing there. (Mental flag went up.) Got back in the car and figured I’d worry about it later. Started driving off. (Mental flag goes off.) I had one of my CD booklets under the seat… the smaller one with all my Final Fantasy and DDR music. It wasn’t there. Neither was the bag of stuff that Joe left in the back seat.

I WAS FUCKING ROBBED.

No wonder it smelled like cigarette smoke… the bastard who did it was probably smoking while he was doing it. I don’t know when the hell I left my car unlocked, but I’m certain it was at my mom’s house, because Joe’s bag is gone and I only had that put in when I was on my way out of GenCon.

The power stuff is a pisser, but I can buy new stuff. Joe’s bag, I don’t remember what was in it, but it was mostly free stuff he got at GenCon. The CD wallet is what pisses me off, there were CDs in there that are hard to find and worth nothing on the street, only to fans like me. I don’t even want to think about how cheap they’re going to be sold for in some pawn shop…

Then I thought about how bad it could have been. They could have opened the trunk and started taking stuff out of there, like my big CD wallet and the karaoke stuff. Fortunately, my laptops and the karaoke hard drive were inside, along with anything else of real value.

Right on my mom’s driveway. Unbelievable.

I find myself moving up another rank on the geek-o-meter. I am currently in Orange County, and find myself in a dilemma. There is a solution, but I’m gonna try and see if I can find an easier way.

I need to be logged in to FFXI this Sunday at 5pm. Now, there is an internet gaming place in Arcadia, which I know has FFXI installed on their machines, but after calling them, they recommended getting there before noon to make sure I get a slot. Now, it’s not like I couldn’t find something to do for five hours in FFXI, but there might be a better way… not to mention a closer place to do it. (Arcadia is a good 30 miles away from Yorba Linda.)

My mother’s computer will not run FFXI, sadly. My laptop is a Powerbook. I’m not spending $300 for a PS2/Ethernet Adapter/Copy of FFXI/Copy of CoP.

If only I’d not gotten in to WoW (which runs on my laptop and gives me something to do when I’m down here), then my addiction would have made me bring my computer down with me, and all would be easy. Alas. All things considered, driving to Arcadia is probably the safest bet, but if there’s anything I’m missing…