Archive for June, 2009
This is a Dark Game
You’ll probably laugh at me, but The Sims 3 made me cry last night. I’m sure it had something to do with my female hormone fluctuations, but regardless, it was rather upsetting to see my “sim me” age well before her time. She had made it to the end of her athletic career, but was four skill points short of her lifetime goal (Golden Tongue, Golden Fingers: 8/10 guitar and 8/10 charisma). Granted, she can change her lifetime wish and quite possibly fulfill it, but it seems too depressing. Who wants to watch a rock star granny?
I took a video of her getting engaged (although she didn’t get married or have kids) and of her final “birthday.” Since she wasn’t looking forward to aging, I opted to not throw her a party. Instead, she was playing guitar in the park for tips when she went from pretty to muumuu.
It made me reflect on my life and wonder how many things I want to do but will ultimately never accomplish. I’m going to be 27 soon, and at the rate I’m going, I don’t see my life as anything special. There are things in my life that I enjoy that I have put on hold. For one, I’d really love to be in a band again, but I feel like I don’t have time. I’ve always wanted to have an MBA, but I don’t like the expensive and difficult process of going back to school. I thought I’d be married by now, since a lot of my friends are married and/or pregnant, but I don’t feel ready for that. How old will I be before I have kids, if I even get to have kids? I feel like my time is slipping by and I’m not doing enough with it.
While that all is depressing, I do have to give myself credit for one thing. Despite feeling like there was no hope, I did weigh in only 1 pound higher than my initial goal weight this morning. Since December, I’ve lost over 20 pounds. The changes I’ve made in my life feel more permanent than anything else. I enjoy working out (to a certain extent, at least) with my workout videos and rollerblading. I get a sense of accomplishment from tracking my calories, and I don’t feel like I have to eat as much as I once did. It hasn’t been an easy road by any means, but I did set out for it and do it. I don’t have any plans to discontinue my current activities or habits, so who knows. Maybe I’ll get into even better shape than I was in high school.
On the more good news front, I may finally be able to pick up my Eclipse today after work. The mechanic has had it for a full month now. Granted, he’s fixing a massive list of problems. Since I got cold feet on buying a new Nissan Altima Coupe (I didn’t want to say goodbye to my current car), I got all of the problems I could think of fixed.
- Engine mounts
the initial reason for bringing it in - Water pump leak
caused by the engine mounts wearing down - Fuel door pop
would release but not pop the door open so I had to wedge something in the release and go around to pry open the door - Driver’s side windshield fluid sprayer
one of the two nozzles sprayed directly onto the hood - Air conditioning
compressor needed replacing - Power locks relay x2
power locks would not unlock the door but would turn on/off the alarm; the first time he replaced it, it failed within a few days; mechanic thinks because it was getting wet, so he’s moving it - Moonroof seal
my car would pee on me when it rained because the seal had been distorted - Driver’s side door handle
mechanic broke it off
Needless to say, it won’t be cheap, but with a little luck, my car will run almost like new for quite a while after this.
Feeling: So very, very old
Listening to: Aerosmith – Cryin’
June 18, 2009
Testing Out Windows Live
Windows Live
So I saw all the silly commercials for Windows Live, but I thought, “Why would I want to use some Microsoft program for that when I’ve already got Google (picasa, gmail, blogger, etc.)?” Well, the answer was clear: 25 GB of space per account.
Google’s Picasa software is very easy to use and intelligent. But 1 GB of space already has me wary about uploading any more photos. Despite not even using 1 GB (of a total of 7 GB) of my email space, it’s encouraging me to pay for more web space hosting. I’m not a fan of that.
The other thing I’m liking about Windows Live is it makes it very easy to switch between “linked” accounts. It’s pretty obvious that I have two Gmail accounts. One is for friends (real people) and one is for companies (not real people). Excellent spam filter or not, I still care about an email from any real person a lot more than an email telling me there’s a sale at some department store.
So, here I am trying out the blogging software, which claims it can upload to blogger. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it, but I’ll be sticking with the “Skydrive” (what they call your 25 GB) for photos so long as I can figure out a way to feed it into my photos page on kabby.net.
Shed
My family is in the final stages of getting a shed-well, a barn-put in our backyard. It’s a much more arduous process than it should be, thanks to permits and digging restrictions in addition to the normal foundation requirements. Yesterday, we spent most of the morning and some of the afternoon shoveling 5,000 pounds of limestone into a dirt square in the backyard and trying to level it. Yesterday evening and this morning, my back reminded me that I’m not a kid anymore.
Bunnies
To those of you who haven’t heard yet, Jonathan now has 2 lively young bunnies. Despite their naughty behavior, he has no plans to eat them. I visited and took way too many photos of them, which you can see in the album linked above. For what it’s worth, I’m impressed with the album linking feature in the Windows Live Writer.
Rollerblading
Yes, it’s true, I’ve tried to take up rollerblading again. I’ve gone with Renee a few times, and I had a lot of fun, despite having issues stopping. I decided my 15 year old skates needed a bit of a tune up, so I bought some new bearings. WOW, did that make a difference. They were like completely different skates. They actually felt a lot like my ice skates, which I’m comfortable with.
Best of all, changing the bearings made it a ton easier to stop, oddly enough. You’d think with new bearings, the skates would just be faster and harder to control, but that’s not the case. The skates are faster, sure, but they’re also not unpredictable like they used to be. The problem I had with braking the normal way was I couldn’t keep my balance very well. That was because braking means balancing on one foot, which is hard to do when the skate is rolling at an unpredictable pace (bad bearings cause your wheels to lock up). That was the best $40 (had to buy a $12 tool, too) I have spent in a long time.
Feeling: Sore
Listening To: Pink – Mean
June 7, 2009
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