All wet and no internet make Brian something-something

Please note that all blog posts before 8 April 2007 were automatically imported from LiveJournal.  To see the comments and any LiveJournal-specific extras such as polls and user icons, please find the source posting at http://brianenigma.livejournal.com/2002/11/

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I basically had to leave LiveJournal for a week or two. I have been trying to catch up on all the posts on my friends list, but boy, YOU GUYS CAN TYPE! There is this huge backlog of entries I am now trying to catch up on.

So what has been going on? The laptop broke again (this time, video display funkiness). Gary Sinise (or his stunt double) was dispatched to fix the problem. Now, I basically have a brand new laptop on the inside. New LCD screen, new motherboard, new video converter, new cooling unit, and new case underside. The keyboard and top are still the same (meaning I got to keep my stickers).

Kate got me yet another tank of Sea-Monkeys for my birthday, but after a short while we realized that three tanks, with one at home and one at work, was starting to be a little insane. We took it back and picked out a Harry Potter trivia game instead. That game is super-cool! It is sort of a cross between Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. There is enough trivia to make it a darn-good trivia game and enough luck such that Kate (the goddess of memorization) and I (the fool with the swiss-cheese memory) play a pretty close game. She still wins, feel like it is a much more close game. “I was inches from winning this time, but I'm SURE I will win next time!”

In other Sea-Monkey related news, my Sea-Monkeys at work seem to have a bit of an Oedipus thing going on. There were two females that gave birth to four or five little ones. One of the females has died and three of the little ones have gotten pretty big. One of the smaller males was trying to do the nasty with the big female. Also, you can check out The Amazing Sea-Monkey Webcam at work. It is not much to look at because the Sea-Monkeys are small enough and fast enough that they are difficult to see in a still picture, especially when I am not there because the desk lamp is turned off. You can see them quite well in the video I have taken of them, though. Maybe I will get a streaming image up sometime soon. Also, I was at the store the other day for work and noticed a Virtual Sea-Monkeys “game” in the discount bin. My wallet was lightened by $9 and I now have Tomagochi / The Sims -style Sea-Monkeys on the computer. It even includes a Sea-Monkey screen saver.

At home, the phones are dead and the DSL only sort-of works. The phone lines still have power, but only have static with no dial tone. The DSL works if I reset the DSL modem, which reinitializes the signal and allows communication to begin. I get close to maximum bandwidth, but that slowly drops to nothing. After about 5 minutes, enough static and garbage creep into the signal that the error correcting properties of the connection just throw in the towel and give up. I am now awaiting the arrival of a PacBell technician. He will be here sometime between 8:30am and 6:00pm. A NINE HOUR WINDOW?! What the f' is up with THAT?! I am just thankful that they were able to send someone out today. Last time something like this happened (at my parents' house many years ago), we called to send someone out, and the window was about the same time, but instead of being on the next day, it was two weeks out!

Posted in: Dear Diary

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