geekspeak 2 Comments

Mac Junkie

I walked into Goodwill this weekend, and what did I see?

A first-generation iMac. Bondi Blue. Tray-loading CD. No keyboard or mouse, a little discolored and worn, missing the door cover to hide all the cableage. Price: $60. Plugged it in at the store, saw that it was running OS 8.6.

I went for it. *shakes head* I figured, WTF. My old legacy Mac is running at 275MHz, this iMac had a sticker claiming it was a 333, and I was pretty positive that all iMacs were G3s. My 6500 was merely a PowerPC.

I brought it home, plugged in my PC’s USB mouse, and surfed around the Mac as best I could with no keyboard. I discovered that the OS had been a little lobotomized in the previous owner’s zeal to clear off the hard drive, so I pulled out my old OS 8.5 CD and performed a clean install of the operating system. After all, the iMac has built-in ethernet, so I’ll be able to download OS upgrades from the ‘net, no problem. I’m pretty sure that Mac operating systems through OS9 are free downloads… and I may be able to procure a copy of OSX for a reasonable price somewhere online.

After a little online research (from my PC, that is, after retreiving my USB mouse), and after some serial number decoding, I learned that this is actually a Revision D iMac, apparently in Blueberry. (Coulda *sworn* that was Bondi Blue…) Processor speed 333MHz, bus speed 66MHz, 6GB hard drive, 15″ screen, manufactured in August 1999 in Mexico.

Why, you ask, did I buy this relic? It’s unexpandable, un-upgradable, and obsolete.

The answer? I just can’t pass up a Mac at the thrift.

Really, the more reasonable explanation is that I haven’t used my 6500 in months, just because it’s so damn clunky. I can’t install any modern web browsers on it, Gmail didn’t work right in IE 5.5 last time I checked, and I have little reason to even power up the Mac anymore. I guess I thought that if I had a G3, I might be more inclined to at least check the layout of my websites on a Macintosh. Plus, I’m curious about OSX — the last time I used a Mac on a daily basis was right before the switchover from OS9 to OSX. Apparently, this iMac can run OS 10.3.9 with no problem, and maybe even OS 10.4 with a little tweaking. With its whopping however-many megs of RAM, though, I might be better off sticking with a “classic” OS.

I’ve gotten so used to Windows PCs now. I used to be a complete Mac-o-phile. Now, I don’t know if I could do without my right mouse button and scroll wheel on a regular basis*. If I had over $1000 to blow on a computer, I’d probably end up spending it on a new flat-panel display and/or a dual-processor Windows-based something-or-other, rather than a Mac mini or a new iMac.

I just purchased a keyboard, puck mouse, and cover door on eBay. Total cost with shipping: $25. So, I blew $85 overall on an obsolete computer. Did I get hosed? Sure.

At least it looks kitschy.

*Yes, I know the Mighty Mouse has those capabilities. The question is, would I really want to spend $70 on a mouse after dropping a grand on a computer?

weight loss

Diet & Fitness Update, Week Ending 8/12/06

It’s true, what Erin told me: anime conventions are not conducive to dieting. Even so, in the past two weeks (I didn’t weigh last weekend, due to Otakon), I managed to keep my weight gain to only one pound. I weigh 207.5 lbs as of yesterday morning.

I didn’t walk every day during my vacation. I didn’t use the fitness center at the Marriott. I haven’t done my PUSH workout for the past two weeks. I did, however, walk a shitload at Otakon. I wish my pedometer hadn’t busted its beltclip the day before, and that the battery on Aaron’s pedometer hadn’t been dead, so I could have counted my steps while I was there.

So, considering that I’ve been eating out much more than usual and exercising much less than usual over the past two weeks, I’m… well, I’m never *pleased* about gaining weight, but I’m glad it wasn’t any more than a pound.

Start: 210 | Current: 207 | Goal: 190

I got out of the habit of making myself a weekly menu, after only two weeks of menu-ing. I’m not making myself one for this week, either, but I’m planning the return of the Palm IIIc and DietOrganizer. I need to do a reality check and make sure my “normal” diet isn’t going crazy with too many calories. I haven’t been tracking anything, carbs or calories, and have instead just been watching portion sizes and eating frequently and yadda yadda yadda.

This week is also going to see the return of cardio. I know, you’re scoffing at me. Or shaking your head. Or rolling your eyes. But give me a chance here. I’m planning to go out and jog for just ONE day this week. Just to remind myself that it won’t kill me. And because it’s fucking nice outside.

This week is just basically the get-back-on-the-wagon week. I’m pretty pleased with the way I looked in Erin’s Otakon photos, surprisingly enough, but I’ve been *feeling* jiggly and unfit. Nasty upper arm jiggle, nasty thigh fat, nasty spare tire, just nasty in general. I know it has a lot to do with my level of activity, and I’m going to fix that this week. That’s the goal, anyway.

*deep breath*

I’m tired of being all talk and no action. WTF. This is seriously annoying. I am GOING to do this, and I am NOT going to lose heart halfway through the week and get distracted and opt not to exercise in favor of websurfing or designing or podcasting or whatever. My health comes FIRST, goddammit. I owe it to myself.

randomness 4 Comments

New ‘Do

Ladies and gentlemen: my new hairdo.

Once again, I donated my hair to Locks of Love; however, this time, I went to Aaron’s usual stylist, Great Clips. I didn’t have great expectations for Great Clips, but they did give me a free cut for donating my hair, and they’re only a few minutes from our house. They didn’t do fancy poofy hair-drying like Hair E. Canary in BG did, and didn’t make my hair look all fresh-from-the-stylist or anything, but they cut it for free, and will be mailing it in themselves, thus saving me postage.

It ended up a little longer than last time, too, since Great Clips took exactly ten inches off my hair. Last time, I had the stylist at Hair E. Canary just cut it *short*, which ended up being 14″ of hair. Whee! Anyway, I’m glad this is just short enough to swing above my shoulders, but long enough to pull back if I need to (albeit with a few wispies at the nape of my neck).

So… whaddaya think?

the ongoing saga of my job

Back To Work

Been back from vacation for a day and a half now. Having trouble concentrating this morning. Good excuse to blog.

Lots of weirdness happened at work while I was gone. Our supervisor had already told us that he was leaving the department, so that was no surprise. His replacement was announced in my absence, though, and was met with lukewarm enthusiasm at best. His successor is a supervisor from another department, which left that department with a supervisory vacancy. In turn, yet another supervisor from another department — the department for which James and I are currently developing a new tracking database — is moving to fill *that* vacancy. Which leaves the department with which we’ve been working currently in limbo. So, the supervisors are having a nice little Chinese Fire Drill, people are leaving their respective departments like rats from a sinking ship, and James and I are a bit dazed.

The timing of the announcement was impeccable, too, being that I was on vacation last week and James is on vacation this week. So, he was pretty much flying solo last week, apart from us trading a few update emails, and I’m flying solo this week. These two weeks are enough to confirm our suspicion that this job really does require two people. It could be that we’ve just grown used to bouncing ideas off of one another, or it could be a function of my struggling confidence level, but I hesitate to make any drastic changes or embark on any new projects without confirming with James first.

That said, I should probably try to focus and make some headway on something.