The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So, in order to upgrade my computer (which is happening Friday. Wish me luck.) I have to save and backup all my shit, and so on and so forth. Makes sense.

One of the things I have to back up is my password vault.

See, back in the day, someone got one of my passwords to Mama’s sites, so I had to change it. I then realized that was my password like everywhere, so I went and changed everything then, to make it safer. But I realized I needed something to store all these passwords safely, so I looked around on the internet for awhile, and ended up with this program, called Password Vault. It worked well! I put all my passwords in there. It was nice, and it had served me for quite some time.

Fast-forward to now, I need to have a copy of this program so I can put it on my newly built compy and still access my passwords. I go and look for it, and find it over at this site. I realize it’s upgraded, and it’s talking about new features. I don’t see the old program anywhere, so I’m like “Okay, I’ll test it.” I download it, and run it. It updates my install.

Then I go to run it, and it says “Oh, input your key.” I go “No thanks, I’m using this the free way like I have been for a long while.” Then it says it needs to update my password vault. Alright. I make a backup and let it go to town. Then it says, for the trial, I can only save 10 passwords, and all the passwords over that will be lost.

What the fuck.

Well, obviously I don’t want to do this… but then it hits me. I just updated the program. I don’t have the old version anymore.

I frantically search online for the old version. Brer and Val both try to help me. We try just about everything we can think of.

Nothing.

My passwords are gone.
Unless I pay this asshole 15 dollars, of course.

I sent the man an angry e-mail, but I doubt anything will come of it. I’m never using his fucking program again, that’s for damn sure. I’m just screwed.

Bleh.

So, last weekendish, Steam had one of its many sales. This was a “Indie Games” pack. It was a whole bunch of Indie Games for 10 dollars. In this pack was the PC version of Eets, which I paid 10 dollars for by itself on the 360 and thought it worth every penny. It was a pretty darn good deal. So I just gave in and jumped on it.

One of the reasons I jumped on it is because it included a copy of Trials 2: Second Edition. Way, way back in the GFW Radio days, one might recall Shawn Elliot talking about this game at length. Seeing it in the pack was one of the reasons I pulled the trigger on it.

It’s every bit as ridiculous as its name.

Basically, you’re a guy on a motorcycle, and you’re on a 2D plane. You can accelerate, brake, and lean the driver forward and backward. And that’s it. And with those tools, you have to traverse increasingly fucked-up terrain. It’s really hardcore, honestly, because you have such little tools at your disposal. You have to learn how to game the physics system in order to, say, make your rider jump higher or longer or whatever.
What happens is you dying all the damn time. You drive forward a little bit, then crash. Your driver goes flying. You hit backspace to go back to the last checkpoint, and try again. Oftentimes, you’ll die right after getting past something to the next checkpoint, but it feels SO GOOD to have pulled off the crazy shit to get there. Then you keep going.

This is a game for the hardest of the hardcore, who enjoy mastering a system so completely that they can do crazy-ass shit like this without any issue whatsoever. I am not that person, so I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy the game as much as I have. I was expecting to try it, and then move on. But I’ve beat all the easy levels and I’m working on the Medium ones, and I’m kinda hooked. The game is a ton of fun, and it’s actually a pretty darn good podcast game as well, which is always a plus. I mean, I die every five seconds. It takes me at least 30 tries to get to the next checkpoint on almost every level at this point. But for some reason, it is a good time. I honestly can’t help but recommend it.

So, the latest book in my “I suppose I best read these books so I get an A in my novel class” reading series was Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. He’s like… a cyberpunk guy, right? Well, this wasn’t a cyberpunk novel. This was the first of many little letdowns from me reading the novel.

The novel is decently written and constructed. The chapters are short, and often have completely cryptic titles that I didn’t always get. The main character, Cayce, is a pretty interesting girl in a lot of ways. I wanted so desperately to like her, because I could totally dig her way of looking at the world, and how she liked to wander about in cities, her obsession with a certain little slice of internet culture, and so on… I got her. But I could never really get her. Because the book has this air of complete removal from its own story. It feels like I’m watching the story happen on a TV in a store window. There’s just an extra level of removal, even past the whole “third person limited” narrative style. It frustrated me all the way through the book.

The other big problem with her character was the entire 9/11 thing. Now, I’m not going to say the event wasn’t important, and novels shouldn’t be written about it? But this wasn’t a novel about that. I have no idea what kind of 9/11 based message Gibson was trying to make, but it was extremely forced into the novel and I would have greatly preferred it not to be there. I sort of feel like maybe it was supposed to draw me to the character more, but it really just pushed me away. It just felt like a clear intrusion on the reality of the book, and I hated it.

The plot itself does kind of go all over the place. Everything ties up in the end, but at the same time, you don’t feel like anyone has particularly accomplished anything, even though the goal Cayce was chasing for the entire novel is achieved. It just feels too “happy ending” in a lot of ways, the main way being the whole “Oh, now you no longer have your lifelong phobia for no reason yay!” mention at the end. Really? Seriously? Why the hell would you do that?

Overall, I probably can’t recommend this book too much. It wasn’t nearly as painful as Water for Elephants was in parts, but it also wasn’t as engaging as other parts of that novel. It’s a much harder read, and I left the novel getting just as little out of it, as well as being annoyed about how he was trying to manipulate 9/11 for no apparent reason. I dunno. I guess Brer might have been right, and I should have just read Neuromancer. Heh.
But, you know. Class. Had to read this one.

So, I just worked 3 extra hours today. I didn’t really want to, and they were kinda sucky hours, because I was lifting dirty boxes for all of them, and then some. During this shift, I got asked to come in tomorrow, my day off, and I said sure. This means I have to work tomorrow night too. I’m excited.

Why did I do this? Well, part of it is just the fact that I have trouble saying no, but the major part of it is purchase guilt. I felt bad for spending so much on a new computer, so I feel like I have to work more, even if that would stress me out, to make up for it.

It’s honestly really stupid.

I mean, first off, I had the money. I had plenty of money to make this purchase. Secondly, I use my computer, what, during 90% of my leisure time? More? And it’s not doing everything I want it to anymore, because I push it so hard to multitask. It’s not stupid for me to invest more money into something I use so much, especially since it’s been like… at least 5 years since I upgraded. Thirdly, I don’t think anyone thinks it’s a stupid idea. Everyone understands. It’s all good.
Still, I feel bad about it. Sort of.
Like so much of my life, I feel like I should be saving money, lots of money, and that big purchases are bad. This doesn’t stop me from making like… 20 little purchases of the same cost amount and feeling fine about it, of course. But I look ahead to after graduation and I know I need to save money, right? I gotta get ready to move on with my life. But it’s stupid to make myself get any more stressed than I already am, you know? I have to survive school before I can move on. No reason to get bent out of shape…

But yeah, I dunno. I very often feel this way about purchases. I feel like, sometimes, I need to hide things from my brother, for instance, so he doesn’t know I bought yet another game. It’s all really stupid. It’s my money. I can do with it what I want.

I should enjoy the things I buy. I mean, that’s why I bought them. And I will enjoy this computer… I just hope to gods it doesn’t give me much trouble in its construction.

So, I watched the last Futurama movie, Into the Wild Green Yonder, and all I can really say is “meh.”

At least it wasn’t as god-awful as Bender’s Game. That had a BRILLIANT premise that they proceeded to shit all over and completely waste. Fantasy Futurama would be great. Bunch of horrible fantasy parodies? Not great.
Still, this one isn’t really all that wonderful. None of the movies are. Bender’s Big Score kind of gets a pass because it’s got so much fan service, and Beast With a Billion Backs has its fans who aren’t me. But man, I mean… I dunno. I’d be very unhappy if I’d, you know, bought the thing with my own money. And I buy really stupid shit all the time and don’t regret it. Too much.

But yeah, I dunno. I’m unsure, I guess, why these “movies” had to try to be all epic. I don’t know why they couldn’t just be funny. I mean, I liked some of the plot stuff, but dammit, it’s about the humor, right? But all of them tried to be fucking wide-reaching. Was that just an effect of having more time? I dunno.

Ugh, I’m just ranting uselessly. The point is, there were very few moments that made me laugh in the movie, and there were moments of it being painful. At least Bender’s Game had the QVC parody that had me laughing. There was nothing really like that here. There was a bunch of painfully horrible puns that were funny the first 10 times and then went on for the entire movie, and there was a Penn and Teller cameo… and… I dunno. I really don’t know.

Basically, you aren’t missing much if you don’t see Into the Wild Green Yonder. At least Essner would be happy there was no musical number in it.

So the other night, as Nich sells me on yet another game and I go to preorder it, which leads to me preordering another game and then putting a third almost on preorder but then on my “don’t buy for birthday” list… it occurs to me how horrible the “burden” of having too much leisure is.

I’ve long decided that I’m a hardcore gamer, not in the “I beat every game on hard 40 times” kind of sense, but just in the “games are what I do and I do nothing for fun other than play games” kind of sense. But dammit, the games industry is now all huge and stuff. Ever since I’ve gotten a paycheck, I’ve kept up with all the new games I wanted, but it’s getting to the point where that is almost a completely ridiculous proposition.

I mean, let’s just look at what games Atlus has coming out that interest me. Between now and the end of April, I would like to give time to The Dark Spire, Steal Princess, Class of Heroes, and Dokapon Journey. Then, in May, comes the wonderfully long-named Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs King Abaddon, and then in June, comes Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. And they just today announced that, after that, we’ll be getting the PSP Persona remake this year. It’s a good thing Atlus has switched to that new payment system…

I won’t have anywhere near enough time to play all those games as much as I should have, and that’s JUST GAMES FROM ATLUS. There are plenty, plenty more games that need my attention. Hell, I’m having trouble giving both Street Fighter IV and Dragon Quest V the attention they both deserve right now. And I’m constantly distracted by my browser RPGs, too… and getting new games on my iPod…

It’s so lame that I have to schedule my leisure time to play games. I try not to. I should just buy some games and play them, and then buy a new game only when I need a new game. But I want to be a hardcore gamer. I enjoy being one. I want to try everything. I want to play everything. Hell, even with the games I have now, I am wanting to play Dawn of War II so, so badly… the only reason I’m not is because my PC isn’t up to it right now. It’s just all kind of ridiculous.

Still, I suppose being able to recognize that is a benefit, huh? Is it worse to be ridiculous and not know it? Or to know it and not do anything about it?
I have no idea.

So, in a matter of hours, I decided to buy a new computer, and then bought one. Brer helped me pick out the parts (and there better not be any firmware issues this time) and I pulled the trigger.

This was something I was going to do at the end of the semester, to reward myself. I was going to wait and then do a full upgrade, hopefully with Windows 7 around.

Then, my video card started failing.

Within the past two days, it has had “fatal” crashes twice. Once it recovered, and once I had to turn off the machine to get it to work again. I went to dust it out, figuring it was a heat thing, and found my case fairly clean. It has to be dying on me.

So, well… I’m not going without a computer… and if I have to buy a new video card… well… I might as well do it all now, right? Maybe?

So here I am. A new PC is on the way. It came in under budget due to a few plans. I’m still going to wait on a new OS, for instance. Brer has promised me that my current Windows install should work when I plug it all in. It better, or I am going to be a very unhappy camper without a computer for a few days. And if you know me, you know how big a deal THAT is. But yeah, so when Windows 7 comes out, then I’ll just do a completely clean install, and that’ll be that.
I also didn’t get any new Hard Drives. I kinda wanted to. I’d rather not wait until they fail to replace them. But I can buy a new drive when I do the new install of the new OS, huh? Maybe? Yeah.

Anyway, so, uh, wish me luck putting that together next week. I’m sure I’ll be frustrated, but hopefully it won’t be as bad as putting Jonathan’s together, since that had a problem outside of my control.

I guess I should do another backup soon, too. Hm.

So, I basically kind of hate all my classes this semester.

My night class is really awesome, and shall continue to be. One of my classes sucks for a good reason, so I can’t really hate it too much. The other two, though… there’s no real reason for them being as useless as they are. But they’re useless. And the reason is, mostly, my professor, Haskell.

Now, I can’t say that going to class is QUITE as useless as going to a class taught by Dr. Ramblin. He is at least mostly on topic, so that’s something. It’s close to as useless, and the problem is that his topics can normally be explained in one sentence, and yet he keeps going for the majority of the class, and then makes us split into groups to discuss it. It just makes me wonder why the hell I attend day after day. It’s extremely frustrating.

To top it all off, I’m in this Senior-level writing class for writing majors and minors with him, and he treats us like a freshman class so very often. We had a day discussing the difference between how to use a and an. He spends multiple days telling us what a personal essay is. It’s just… especially when he started the class with a “It’s so good to teach people who know about writing and are dedicated about writing!” it’s frustrating as hell. We know this stuff. I took this class to get to be able to understand how to break down someone’s style. We haven’t even talked much about that… it… ugh.

So yeah, that’s some off of my chest. I’m going to keep going, because Essner and his cool film student friends are there? And I’m going to keep going to my class with him in the morning because it’s slightly more focused. But geh, if you hear more about me being completely frustrated with this semester, this kind of stuff is why, okay?

WOAH, my arcade stick came in.

I’d heard about issues with the FightStick right when mine shipped out. People were complaining about all kinds of crazy things, but mostly the stick getting stuck in positions. This was… potentially bad! But luckily, it came in, and there was no such issues.

Man, it’s so cool. The art on it is ass-kickingly awesome, and it feels so heavy and… important. The buttons click easy, the stick moves alright. To me, it’s mind-blowingly awesome. I’ve always kind of wanted an arcade stick, but never really had good reason to buy one. I still didn’t, but I got one anyway, and I’m happy to have it.

The one thing I wasn’t expecting, though, was the learning curve. I don’t know why I wasn’t. It’s been literally years since I touched an arcade cabinet of any kind. But everyone was talking about how the standard 360 controller was so horrible, and though I was getting good with it, it was pretty horrible. So I assumed when I got the stick, my game would instantly improve, at least input-wise (I’d probably still suck strategically). When it got in my paws, though, I was back to square one. It was like I didn’t know how to do Hadoukens anymore. A bit training fixed that, mostly, but I still can’t pull off, say, Sakura’s Ultra Combo with ease, and that’s unfortunate. I hear that my problems come from the fact that this stick uses a “square gate.” Apparently octagonal gates are better? I would probably agree on principal, but there’s nothing wrong with this. It’ll just take some getting used to. And I know I’ll work on it hard tomorrow.

I also got a FightPad, but I haven’t had a chance to give that a solid test. So I’ll talk about that some other time, I’m sure. Until then, well, here’s a guide on how to play Ken online.

So here’s another work story for you.

I was finish up work on Friday morning. Everything was going great! We were actually getting out on time for once! Things were looking up. Everyone walks out, and all that’s left is me. I walk up to the alarm panel, getting ready to set it.

It’s then I notice that the broken door is inched open.

Let me explain: One of the doors to the store is currently broken. It will lock, but if you don’t close it just right, it will pop open just enough to set off the alarm, but not enough to actually open. It’s awesome. We’ve been avoiding using that door as much as possible.

I’m not sure if one of the managers forgot to set the door up for me before they left, or if one of my team accidentally went out the door, but it’s a real problem. A check of the alarm panel said that, yes, it’s open, and has to be closed for me to set the alarm.
I go and try to close the door. I pull it closed as hard as I can. I’ve never fought the door before, so when it clicks in place, I figure I must have it. It stays there for awhile.
I go back to the alarm panel, and it lets me set up the alarms. Great! I walk out the door, avoiding the broken door, of course.

Halfway into the parking lot, the door pops open, and the alarm goes off.
This alarm is loud. It was painful out in the middle of the parking lot.

Now, I have all the alarm codes, but I don’t actually have keys. I can’t go back in to turn off the alarm. So I call the alarm company on my cell, tell them it isn’t a problem, and say I don’t need anyone to come to the scene, and could they turn off the alarm? No, they say, you have to actually be inside to do that. So I need to wake up someone with a key. One of the managers gave me their phone number, so…

Well, shit, I hadn’t put their number in my phone.

So now I’m calling my parents, waking them up early in the morning to look up this phone number without trying to panic them. It’s not really all that great, and then I finally get the number to wake up the manager so she can come and turn off the alarm.
After this, cops come by. Everyone can hear this damn alarm, and they’re seeing what’s up. I explain the situation and apologize. They go “No worries, that’s what we’re here for” and drive off.

So I stand out in the cold a little while longer, the manager finally shows up, and we turn off the alarm. It’s been a little less than an hour at that point since I walked out of the store and the alarm went off. At least I got paid for that time, I suppose.

Moral of the Story: If you get a door fixed, but it turns out it still isn’t fixed? Get someone to fix it again instead of just working around it for weeks! Maybe.
I don’t know. I knew it was only a matter of time there was some problem with the alarm and I had to deal with all that kind of thing. I’m just kind of glad it wasn’t actually my fault, I suppose. Heh.