the diary of antoine roquentin

I REALLY don’t want to bring my computer with me because of (1) its massive bulk and weight, and (2) the possibility of damaging it, but I still want all my files, so I ended up remembering that we use this software called Timbuktu at work that can take over other computers. So I went online and there are myriad services that can offer remote PC access. I signed up with one, and I’m going to bank on it. It seemed to let me do everything I need. We’ll see if it’s true. I’m going to log in to my home computer while I’m at work tomorrow (today, since it’s 1 a.m.) and see if it does indeed do all the stuff it says it will do for free. If not, I may waste $20 for GoToMyPc.

Categories: Ennui

You asked…

Categories: Ennui

I know I haven’t been writing much, but I’ve been experimenting a lot with that build of MacOS X for Windows. Today I finally got it all set up so that I can either boot into windows or boot into Mac OS. I’m currently looking for the USB cable for my camera, as I took some pictures of my computer running the last time. I have a feeling I’m not going to find it though. I guess I should just be less lazy and use the card reader. Aha, there it is. Hiding underneath my birthday box. I don’t know how these will turn out, but even if they look retarded I think I’m going to post them just as evidence of my ultimate geekery.

Hm, the monitor shot is pretty good. The other just shows how cluttered my workspace is. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge:

Isn’t it beautiful? well, it would be beautiful if Core Image and OpenGL would work…or if the sound would work…or if Rosetta would work. Basically, I’m disappointed that it’s not a fully functioning operating system instead of just a Developer Kit, which is what this version is designed for. But I guess I should be glad that I have a motherboard that supports the operating system. I also can’t boot into it directly, I can only boot it if I go into “safe mode” in Darwin by interrupting the sequence and hitting “-x”. But I’m still really psyched to that I have at least some semblance of a dual-boot system. I used to brag about how fast OS 10.3 (Jaguar) ran on my 450MHz Power Mac G4 at work, and now that I’ve used Tiger (10.4) on my 3GHz Pentium 4, my Mac at work seems INCREDIBLY sluggish. But at least it doesn’t crash like a mofo when you try to install an unsupported program like the developer kit does.

I really enjoyed hanging out with Molly even though it was only for a weekend. The transition back to mundane life will be a difficult one, but I won’t have transition for very much longer. Countdown to uberfun:
1 day
39 hours
2392 minutes
143542 seconds

(omg, I’m so used to using OS X that I just went to look for Dashboard so I could pull out the “countdown” widget)

Out of boredom and malice, I replied to Jordan’s message on MySpace. Apparently he’s going to read The Catcher in the Rye and some other novel for me. What’s that phrase…when cows fly? I’ll be ice-skating in Hell when he finishes reading a novel.

I’ve been thinking a lot about whether I would actually by an Intel-based iMac, as is my dream. Unfortunately, I would probably end up installing windows on it. It depends on what kind of support they’re going to offer for Windows emulation, and of course the horsepower. If that baby doesn’t have at least a Pentium 4 3GHz, I’m not even going to consider it. To run windows emulation at the speed to which I’ve become accustomed I’m going to need a much better processor. We’ll see what Apple cooks up. God I can’t wait until Macworld in January! GRR!

If they don’t end up coming up with something that meet my specifications, I think I’m just going to construct a knockoff Mac using the leaked Tiger installer that I have now and use it as a file server. I’m going to construct it so that it won’t need any fans. Then I’ll be able to download p2p 24/7, and have a RAID 1 array to store it all in. Woot. So no matter what, it’s a cool computer with Mac OS for me. Even if I do end up getting an iMac, it only has space for a 250 Gigabyte Internal drive and it just makes sense for me to create that hypothetical mactel server so I could have access to my (soon-to-be terabytes of) files.

Oh, I don’t know if I mentioned this: one of my coworkers invited me to her housewarming party on Saturday, but I had to work so I didn’t go. I feel like I missed out on an essential workplace bonding ritual or something. Oh well. Even if I wouldn’t have had to work I still would have hung out with Molly the whole night.

In other news, I’m absolutely loving this new USB keyboard I got. The keys are so much easier to press, and the letters are all spaced out unlike my other one. I hope it will make my wrists hurt less. I can’t wait to try out my noise canceling headphones on the trip, and to see if I can actually be content with the amount of music on my iPod for that long of a trip. Supposedly I carry two days worth of music in it, but the real question is: am I going to listen to every single song? We’ll see. In my pre-iPod days I would get frustrated because I would get sick of all my CD’s, but with the iPod, I can set it on random and then hear music that I haven’t heard in a long time once I get bored with my playlists.

My Dad woke me up at six o’clock in the morning today because the television wouldn’t work. True, it was my fault… I was using my VHS player (I’d taped some Family Guy) and forgot to set the channel back to 3, but god…a monkey could figure that out. In that moment where I was in the living room freezing in my robe, stabbing at the television buttons two inches from my face because I’d forgotten my glasses I was really fucking sick of being everybody in the world’s tech support. But that was only because it was 6 AM.

I had to get up really early this morning because I had to work at my other job. I was so exhausted, I haven’t gotten much sleep lately. But then again I always say that and I will be writing posts at 3 a.m. with abandon.

I guess I should watch an episode of Star Trek to wind down and then go to sleep while it’s still early. I have to be fully rested and in ultimate party mode for my trip to Sac. I’m planning on getting one and one half hours of sleep the entire trip. Maybe I’m overestimating. Let’s go with half an hour. Woot!

I remember Kelly and I would go through 24 packs of Mountain Dew like it was going out of style, and would use Jolt to get ourselves up early in the morning to continue doing whatever it was that we would do. One time at Grammie’s house, we piled up the cans in the kitchen to form three gigantic aluminum obelisks and waited for someone to walk into them as the old people of the house awakened at 5 AM. I can still remember the delicous crash of them all falling down. Unfortunately, I think Kelly’s mom was the one that walked into them instead of Grammie.

I deposited all my birthday money, and now I have an obscenely large bank account (more money than I’ve ever had). I’m sure this trip will remedy that. Well, I’d better get to sleep. For some reason my computer clock has changed to 3:34 a.m. Glad I have my old-school analog clock on the wall to keep me sane. It’s only 8:45 p.m. I might not blog much when I’m on the trip (in fact, I probably shouldn’t blog at all, seeing as Kelly doesn’t have any voice-recognition software). As much as I feel like a total loser for doing so, I’m probably going to bring my computer with me. Oh well. That’s why I can’t wait for an iMac. A computer that doesn’t weigh a ton and is actually portable. Coolness!

Those of you without repetitive strain injuries should purchase one immediately.

Categories: Ennui

Well, it’s 4:11 a.m., and I just finished working on Molly’s computer. I still need to clear up a few other things, like setting up her e-mail and dial-up Internet by getting the usernames and passwords from her, but the thing is working flawlessly. It even boots up three times faster than mine! (The reason my computer takes so long to start up is because I use around a gigabyte of virtual memory for all these memory-hogging programs like my voice-recognition for which I should have more RAM…anyway) I did a fresh install of XP and everything, but her license key didn’t work so I had to use mine. I had to call someone in India to validate the license key, but the process was relatively painless. All of her email and bookmarks and everything were safely migrated to the new operating system and so far I don’t think I lost a single file of hers. So it’s a preliminary success.

Work tonight was time-consuming, but rewarding. I am developing a titanic crush on this one guy I work with. I have to consciously stop myself from checking him out constantly…but he’s usually working and stuff so I can devour him all that I want. I know all about sexual harassment so I would never do/say/nonverbally say anything that would be a faux pas, but still…he is just SO damn hot. Hm. That inspires me to listen to that OK Go song of the same name. Anyway, he titillates me.

Oh! Molly and I got to hang out again today !!!! We went to Pizza Hut to see if Amanda was working, and she was! She gave us a big hug and some pizza and when she got off we all sat down at a table talked for a while. It was so great. I miss hanging out with cool people. After that me and Molly went and got coffee drinks, then headed over to the cinemas for me to finally show off my Dance Dance Revolution skills. I was actually quite good, for someone who hadn’t practiced in forever and had only eaten cake and cookies all day.

I really got into it, but then realized I was like 15 minutes late for work so I dropped off Molly at her hotel, we said our goodbyes, and I went up to work. It wasn’t actually goodbye though, I have to drop off her computer tomorrow before she leaves. This means I’m going to have to get up before noon. Hmm.

Out of habit I called Misty on my way home from work (it was around midnight). She works odd hours, so I didn’t feel weird about it. It turns out she’s been working two jobs now and has about five hours to sleep in between them. She had better buy some cool stuff to justify all of this working like a slave. But I think that it’s more than that. People that work 24 hours a day have something that they’re running from and it just goes to further my hypothesis that she has some deep dark thing that she doesn’t want to face. I have to admit that I don’t mind not hearing from her. I’m actually getting good sleep, instead of staying up until 4 a.m. every day on weekdays.

Anyway, I read a little more about ipodlinux, and it turns out that you can only run it from a Macintosh formatted iPod. So I think I’m going to try it out installing it on my last day of being in Sacramento. Or my first day…depending on how adventurous I am.

I guess I should talk about all cool stuff I did on my birthday, but I feel like the moment for an in-depth post is just gone. I’ll summarize: I didn’t tell any of my coworkers that it was my birthday because then it would have tainted it. I got off work and met Molly at Sam’s and met his new wife. Me and Molly and her kids went to Circle J and had lunch, going over all the gossip and such. Then we went to the beach and explored the tidepools and looked for agates. I showed Molly and her kids the little part where you can go up into that rock at Pebble Beach. She thought that was pretty cool. After that we went and checked into their hotel, which was actually really beautiful (even if the room smelled like masked cigarette smoke). We went out to walk on the beach when we met of mutual “friend” who happened to be staying at the same hotel as us. We watched the sunset, then got ready to go to the dinner for the two that were getting married. It was really fun and we had an interesting conversation, not to mention the glory of Flaming Bananas. All in all, it was a day well done.

I opened all my cards as soon as I got home and they were really nice. I got all sorts of money, but for the first time I feel like I don’t know what I want to do with it. What I want is is a 300GB external drive. Why did the one I want go out of stock? I looked at all the others, and they just are either ugly or have no cooling fans. Grr. Hmm…eBay perhaps? Nah, all they had was the silver one. And I want the black one, damn it. Well, I should be getting to sleep…it’s like 5 a.m. I am absolutely ecstatic that Apple is supposed to release at least one Intel-based product at Macworld in January. I will have enough money to buy it, whatever it is. I hope and pray that it’s an Intel-based iMac, but that’s probably not what it is. AppleInsider says iBooks or Mac Minis. I would love a Mac Mini, but I have a feeling that they’re going to have substandard processors. I’d definitely buy a PowerBook, but it seems a bit too early for them to be releasing such a complicated product like the PowerBook. I feel like the iMac is actually the more logical choice for the first new Mac, becauseall you would need to do would be to take out the power PC logic board and then put in an Intel-based one…there isn’t really much miniaturization needed. Crap. Must go to sleep.

Stupid Jordan sent me a myspace message tonight with some blathering about pictures…it didn’t make much sense. I’m too lazy to read it again and too lazy to write a response, so far. And too lazy to proofread this post.

Categories: Ennui