Battlestar Galactica

Just to establish my dominance in geekdom, I thought I'd post here about the one show of which I'm currently obsessed: Battlestar Galactica. I remember working for Studios USA when David Eick and the guy who played Apollo on the original show came through to pitch this show. At the time, it was suppoed to be the original thing, 20 years later. I like this way better: a retelling of the original story, just done well (y'know, with elements like character interaction and plot). I shook "Apollo's" hand when he introduced himself and I said, "Yes, I know. You were a hero of mine when I was a kid." This, of course, thoroughly pleased David Eick, and he started pitching the show to me. Boy, wouldn't it have been a kick in the pants to be working on that show right now. Ah well. C'est la vie.

But I have gotten Heidi hooked on it. It didn't take long. She watched one episode with me (the premiere of the second season was on our three-month anniversary, so I asked her to record it), and then she saw another episode on her own, and she got sucked into my geeky vortex. I will not be held responsible, but her brother, Darrick wants to get her hooked on World of Warcraft, too. I won't turn her to the dark side on that one, but if she comes over of her own volition, I probably won't complain too much. But I digress.

Anyway, she now wants to see the first season of the show to catch up. I just found out the first season is on DVD (I was gonna get it anyway... I just have a little more incentive now). She's coming over tonight, and we're heading out with Matt to get some Korean food (after the show, of course). I think I may have some DVD's for her.

Blog-Spam

I've seen blogs that are spam-esque before, but I never knew there was such a thing as a blog-response spam. In any case, I got it on my last post. Crap on a cracker, that's annoying. I'll give it one more chance. If I get one more spam response, then I'm disabling anonymous responses.

A Fine Saturday

I still don't have internet at home, so I couldn't blog about this until today, but I just want to talk about how wonderful Saturday was. I got a few errands done in the morning, then Heidi came in, and we did nothing. She lay around and read my second copy of Harry Potter (I pre-ordered a copy from Amazon.com, and forgot that it was coming, so I ordered another copy), while I did dishes and crap. I had to wait around for the DirecTV guy to show up, and he was late, but I'm OK with that. If he's late, that means he's doing things right for other people. And, sure enough, he was the most competent of the six technicians I've had in the apartment over the last two weeks. I now have HD DirecTV with Tivo, and DAMN! That's the way to watch TV!

Also, one thing I really like about DirecTV, is that with Comcast, the best I can do to avoid the temptation of the "naughty channels" is to lock them. With DirecTV, I can remove them entirely. Out of sight, out of mind, capische?

Anyway, while waiting for Mr. Tech, when not reading, Heidi and I had a really good conversation, and the opportunity to pray together about some big stuff.

Then we went out. The weather on Saturday was quite nice after the rain. A little humid, but the temperature was quite pleasant. I did a search on Citysearch for a good date restaurant, and found Deleece. It got a fairly high rating, but I'd never heard of it, so I thought I'd take a gamble. We ended up having to change our reservation because of the lateness of the DirecTV guy, but they were able to take it. The inside was crowded and noisy, and the outside was practically empty and freakin' gorgeous, so we chose to sit outside. The waiter came up and gave us the specials, and my mouth was beginning to water already. We chose a lamb thingy and a beef tenderloin thingy and we split them. We also had a beef satay appetizer and a brownie dessert. To anybody reading this, wherever you may be, if you are ever anywhere near Chicago, I recommend coming to this restaurant. This was the best dining experience I've had for years. The waiter was the best I'd had in probably two years, and the food was freakin insanely amazing. When I commented this to the waiter, he even chose that opportunity to suavely complement Heidi, ensuring that she would have an even better time (if she was previously insecure, which she isn't). And yes, the company made the evening, but that was a kickass restaurant.

Yes, Saturday was a wonderful wonderful wonderful day. Sunday was a pain in the ass because of the heat, but Saturday made up for it all.

Did I mention I'm a geek?

How jedi are you? :: by lawrie malen

The King is Dead. Long Live the King!

So my Comcast woes are left behind, now. I fear no cable company, nor do I attempt any further fixes. Not that I'm expecting a lot better now, especially that I now have contracts out the wazoo. I'm now working with DirectTV and SBC to combine my magical mystery home into a massive behemoth of electronic funstuff. And no, I didn't really understand what I just wrote, either.

Direct TV comes on Saturday. DSL gets turned on August 1st. Perhaps I'll have my speakers up this weekend (I'm thinking bookshelves near the TV ought to do the trick, in addition to storing the equal parts DVDs and books that I have around the place). Of course, the couch doesn't come for another 5 weeks, minimum, so I'm not in any huge rush. Perhaps I can use this time productively, like building the mighty costume.

Furious

So, I had the Worst Cable Technician in the World (I should make him a plaque) come in on Saturday. He showed up, judged me for buying a modem that the previous tech suggested, broke the cable to the TV, judged me for having the modem hooked up to the USB port, judged me for not recognizing that the TV wasn't working (primarily because last time I turned it on, it worked fine), and subsequntly told me he couldn't do anything (boy, ain't that the truth), and that he'd have to send a line technician out. Dammit, I could have told you that!

So Comcast has been on my shit list all weekend. I still have no home internet, but now I don't have the cable I've been paying for. And this with a brand-spankin' new TV. I've been patient; they've attempted several times to accomplish something, and I'm going to give them until the end of the week to be successful. I guess I should tell them about my deadline, but if they are too incompetent to take care of the connection by Wednesday, that's when they find out about my self-imposed deadline. That's when I go check out my other options, which, admittedly, are less effective and less desireable than Comcast. However, if they work without me calling them every day (Comcast can't even get it to work with me calling every day), that's more impressive than a potentially great service that perpetually fails.

Also, as long as I'm on a rant, let me continue said rant. My normal route to work is to get on the brown line, and then transfer to the purple line when I can, because the purple line goes around the loop the alternate way, and is significantly quicker for me. Today, had I decided to stay on the brown line, I would have probably gotten another chapter in Harry Potter read, which would have been OK (although I'm hearing less-than-stellar reviews of the book), and I would have maintained a seat the whole way, and I would have gotten here a lot earlier. I got off the brown line shortly after my chapter was done, and waited for the Purple line to come by. Another brown line train. Another brown line train. Another brown line train. Is the purple line running today? Well it must be, because there's a purple line train coming from the other direction. Another brown line train. Another brown line train. The brown line train that I was originally on comes from the other direction, having made its way all around the loop. And the next one. Finally, twenty minutes after I got off the brown line, I get back on the brown line in disgust. I make my way around the loop, and, even when I get to my stop, there's no purple line train that has come the other way. What the hell was going on?

Boxes of Gravity

tSo I got a bunch of things from UPS yesterday. Since I have the new place, I've been picking up a lot of things online, and having them shipped to me. Not necessarily the wisest course of action, since I'm never home, but it is cheaper. Anyway, since I was heading out to see Heidi yesterday, I stopped by the UPS place to pick up my 5 boxes. I asked if I could borrow a dolly, and the lady at the counter said, are they bulky or heavy? I didn't know, so I told her so. Well, it was both.

By the time I got home from Heidi's it was midnight, and I had to lug an 80 pound box up 3 flights, not to mention that 3 of the other boxes were at least 20-odd pounds each. By the time I got to bed, I was sweaty and nasty and pretty much dead to the world. But, I got my Bose surround sound, and I got some stuff from thinkgeek.com. So, in all, it's good stuff. Just a pain in the sphincter, and now I'm really tired.

And I have a flat tire. *sigh*

The move

So I moved over the weekend. I was unable to blog about it until now, because I got Comcast as my internet provider. Yep, you guessed it. Not working. I'll give them a little bit of time, because they are the fastest option I have, and they tend to be very good with their customer service. Of course, customer service without actual service is kind of pointless, but I'll be a little patient.

Anyway, so on Friday, Heidi was coming in to help me out with the last few details before the big move, and her parents (who live way the heck out in Bartlett) called her: "We have some back braces for John." Heidi was on her way into the city, and said, "I can't come out there." "That's OK, we drive in." This is from people who aren't particularly comfortable driving in the city. So I guess I made a good impression.

Anyway, the move started out slow, and I was terrified that I was going to be doing it alone, but this was also at 8:45am. My brother and mother showed up at about 9:15am, and we got most of the old place unloaded by 10:15, when Zach and Richard showed up. When I was on my way to the new place, I got a call from Joe, saying he and Nancy were at my old place. Since I didn't have much stuff, we started in earnest loading up (3 flights!) about 11:00, and finished before noon. Everybody was talking about how easy the move was. We were all sweating like pigs, but relaxing in the one air-conditioned room, and, what's more important, my back was in pretty good shape. I still had to get things organized, and I still have a fair amount to do, but I can keep going with that. Let me just say, I have some really cool friends.

But the Comcast tech pissed me off. My computer wasn't set up, but I could tell very clearly that the modem wasn't working (one blinking light means a bad connection). Still, he was all excited that he might get done by two, so he took off to finish up his last job for the day. So now I have to take off early on Thursday to get a technician to come in and get the connection working. Dammit.

Goals for life...

When George Lucas received his lifetime acheivement award from AFI, William Shatner did a presentation, and was subsequently stolen from the stage by members of the Fighting 501st (this was all choreographed). I don't yet have the video of it, but I may very well find a way to download it. In any case, this is a goal of mine, soon to be realized. No, not to steal William Shatner. But to finish my trooper armor (which should be much easier now that I have a new place and the space in which to do it), and join this "prestigious" organization. Sunday will be a day in which I putter about the house, but I think Monday evening I'll get started on my stuff. All I need right now is spray paint, and that's really difficult to find in the city limits of Chicago. So, I just need to make my way up to Evanston to get things done. But I'll leave you with a little glimpse of some folks who will be buddies and cronies of mine in the near future:

Blue Man Group

My friend Steve (who has auditioned to be a Blue Man twice, and once for one of the band members) gave me a heads up for a job with the Blue Man Group, as a Video Engineer. Not that he has any special "ins" or anything, but he saw it in the Reader and gave me a call, in hopes that I would be interested. Had I not been driving and tired, I would have done a little jump up and clicked my heels together. Heidi helped me out with the cover letter, and it looks really good, so I'm almost definitely getting an interview. The job itself, I'm qualified for, but they'd be taking a chance. A chance that would pay off, but a chance, nonetheless. But I still think I have a good shot at this thing. For those of you reading this that pray, pray hard. This would kick butt. A lot.

Tired...

My God, I'm tired. This weekend was insanely busy, and I really didn't get any "wind down relax and just be" time, despite the fact that it was a four day (!) weekend. That, combined with the stress of trying to get everything moved over to the new place, combined with the fact that I haven't had a comfortable night's sleep in months makes for Johnny being a zombie. I'm getting a REALLY comfortable mattress delivered on Saturday, and I think I may lie down on that Saturday night and not wake up from it ever again. Sunday, I think, will be a day of puttering about the house, just getting things in order, and sleeping as much as freakin' possible.