Ashley has a Geeky Weekend

Saturday night was Jeremy’s board game party, and it was a smash hit. There were six of us, and we played a bunch of games from Cluedo to Guess Who. I didn’t drink because I’m still on antibiotics to clear up my long-running not-quite chest infection, but everyone else did and it was loads of fun owing I’m sure to the extravagant supply of party pies.

My new favourite games include Pictionary, Cluedo, and Taboo. We also played a terrible movie-trivia-knowledge game which I didn’t really enjoy that much because I know almost nothing about films, and I got the majority of the questions wrong.

I didn’t leave until 2 AM with old school friend Sarah, who kindly drove me to my door. This was lucky because my original plan involved a fifteen minute trudge home and in a depressing turn for the worse it had started raining.

Now it’s Sunday and I’ve got a hangover which  I’m coming to think must be an entirely psychological phenomenon. I spent most of the day in bed, only to get up at about two and do some minimal housework.

Now I’m setting up my spare computer with the intent of using it as my new desktop machine. I figure it’s high time I started relying less on my laptop considering it’s a Dell, the screen is fucked and prone to flickering and turning off at utterly random times, the CMOS battery and now the chassis are rusting, and it gets extremely hot whenever I try to do anything with it.

Despite all this it’s not as completely unusable as you might think, and in fact I’ve been using it in this state for the last six months or so. That said, there’s rust creeping up and out of one of the grilles and into my line of sight next to the keyboard, so there’s now a permanent reminder that I should really consider moving on to something a little more reliable.

Hopefully I will be able to buy some upgrades tomorrow to get my desktop up to speed. My Dell has served me well over the last couple of years, but I think it’s about time to relegate it to thinner duties.

  1. Posted March 14, 2010
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Ashley Susses Web Services

It’s actually unbelievably tricky to set up a web site anonymously. From all accounts the “anonymous” registrars will roll over and divulge your details at the drop of a telephone, and the only truly anonymous dns service that everyone seems to recommend has possibly the worst interface in the entire history of terrible things.

I ended up registering myself a brand new and somewhat anonymous domain through Namecheap.com, as recommended by Micheil who is incidentally working on music journal OnTheTune.com. The domain was cheaper than Godaddy and came with the privacy service for free, so basically when the rest of my domains come up for renewal I’m quite possibly going to transfer them to Namecheap as well.

So while I have no doubt that the whois privacy feature is a flimsy facade, all I really want to do is obfuscate my details. It’s not like I’m going to be breaking the law or anything, I’m just paranoid and want to keep this my new site under wraps. A tantalising secret.

The week’s been good so far. I finally went to the doctor about my coughy phlegmy thing on Monday and he gave me antibiotics which I’m not sure have actually done anything. I’m feeling better, but I also haven’t been able to shake this thing for the last month so feeling better isn’t necessarily synonymous with being better. I’m musing over the possibility of riding to work tomorrow regardless, but considering how late it is now, I’m not sure I’ll even wake up in time.

Tate also clued me in on the Bike Week festivities held over the weekend, and I was kind of keen to head on the ride through the new tunnel. A culmination of factors got in my way though; the registration web site is ugly, it’s asking me for way too much information, I need to get out of bed to get my credit card to pay the $40 or so bike toll. Apparently there’s an arbitrary registration deadline of today, and right now I can’t be arsed moving so I’ll go to Jeremy’s evening of board games on Saturday instead.

I kid you not, board games. It’s going to be so rad grown men will weep.

  1. Posted March 11, 2010
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Too Much Internets

“Ahhh, crap.”

The realisation strikes that I have bungled my strategy, dropped my ball, criss-crossed my buns, wasted my turn, and made up at least one faux-cliche in the process.

It occurs to me that what I want to write about most right now is indeed something that I don’t want me employer knowing. Or the majority of my friends. Indeed I’m starting to think that with the frequency with which I find myself starting to think I want another blog, perhaps there’s a fundamental reason for my vexation. And that’s that this one has kind of run its course.

I’ve got stuff I want to reason out for myself, much like I used to do many years ago before I even had this TLD. I used to be able to vent, reason, analyse and break my stupid young thoughts down and much like a manic depressive preys on details and relives traumatic experiences over and over in the hopes of finding a way to make things right, I would be able to simply deal with my shit straight up — once — and have my previous night’s conclusions one click away for subsequent perusal and digestion.

These days I guess I no longer feel comfortable doing that here. Through perhaps naïveté and a misplaced sense of pride, my blog and consequently every thought that precedes is now permanently archived in the Internet and collated with my name and just about everything I’ve ever done. I don’t quite know what possessed me to take part in this farce in the first place, but now I feel overly self-important and a bit two-point-oh, indelibly cloud and oh so social. All this and yet I’ve nowhere really anonymous where I can regularly do what I do best: piss and bitch and moan.

So I’m going to have to do something to make myself feel better about things, and although I haven’t worked out precisely what that’s going to involve, there’s  a good chance you’re going to be neither interested nor privy to it anyway. My blog’s always been wholeheartedly about me and my stuff, and it’s kind of tiring feeling the need to censor it based on the vast demographics I know are reading.

(Standard disclaimer: This is an ongoing thing, and it’s not about me, not you.)

  1. Posted March 10, 2010
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Bad Apple

I’m really pissed off with Apple. It’s one thing for Microsoft to corrupt and sue businesses into oblivion, but Apple? The “greener” pasture? The one who wants to strangle the mobile computing industry and be the sole distributor of content and software alike?

In hindsight it’s little wonder they’ve sued HTC, claiming infringement on everything from CPU throttling to drawing gradients. HTC being the largest dealer in open handsets, this suit is a square attack on the Android mobile OS. Unlike Microsoft’s relentless FUD attack on Linux, Apple has actually rallied its lawyers and stuck its money behind its effort into quashing its competitors.

The system needs an overhaul to prevent massive corporations bullying the rest of the world (and unfortunately it’s not looking good). This kind of stuff is indecent, despicable, and utterly wrong. Shame on Apple.

  1. Posted March 4, 2010
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Weekends Aren’t Working

I’m so tired, and it’s possibly a form of transient day-to-day burnout. I’ve been busy at work, and while I don’t directly have a lot of responsibility, I’ve got an awful, awful lot to do. I’m loving it, but it’s wreaking havoc with my lifestyle.

To be frank, I am sick of going out. This weekend was supposed to be “empty” for me to do with as I pleased. I was planning on working on my side-project and catching up with business and life. Instead I ended up going out twice, watching television, and feeling a dread weight on my chest and shoulders every time I tried to do anything remotely work-related.

It seems the only thing I’m capable of doing outside of work hours is sitting down and tuning out. I now fully get the concept of the nine-to-five grind, but to me it feels more like a week-long affair. I’ve been assured it’s normal, but I do so want to shake it. We’ll see how willpower goes with that.

Nevertheless I’ve been enjoying life. I started riding to work again at the start of the week despite not feeling confident enough to do so, and I also had another less serious accident involving speed, broken concrete, and a footbridge. I’ve been putting a number of skills to use in this new job that I haven’t used for quite a while, but even though it’s a good challenge I’m going to have to actively work to keep my skill set up to date. I’m not really looking forward to the unbearably smug “I told you so” that this revelation is going to bring my way.

Tomorrow is full of visiting people and drinking cheap booze. I’m going to enjoy this immensely, although deep inside I’d much rather just stay in bed all day with my laptop.

  1. Posted February 27, 2010
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