Ash the Mighty

About a year ago, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands and (what I thought to be) a small surplus of money. I therefore did what all totally and ridiculously overconfident people do . . . I decided to build my own computer. It took a few weeks to assemble all the parts (most of which were ordered at relatively low prices on E-bay), but I finally managed it after only a single trip to the pros so that they could corroborate my theory that I was sold a faulty motherboard. Since that time, my desktop (dubbed “Athene.” All my computers have been named. The laptop on which I am currently typing is Beowulf. I’ve also had Mad Martigan, Bruenor, and Nostradamus as well as a couple others) has had it’s ups and downs. The most recent down occured when a houseguest knocked it off of a low table, loosening the CPU fan and almost requiring a new CPU due to overheating.

I mispoke myself there. That was the second-to-most-recent issue. The most recent issue is that a few months ago I tried to install a copy of Linux (Umbutu) on the second hard drive. I thought it would be fun and interesting to branch out when it comes to operating systems. Well, instead of success, this distro of linux in fact screwed up both of my hard drives. Since I’ve been busy, I’ve just been making do on Beowulf, but now I’ve got a bit of time so decided to try and fix this bugger. The only problem is that any number of really important files were locked on that first hard drive so I couldn’t just wipe the both of them and start over.

So long story relatively short, I went this morning and bought a the cheapest little hard drive I could find. About 40 quid later (I could have gotten cheaper on E-bay, but didn’t want to wait) and several unpleasant minutes with my head literally inside the case of my comp, I have now installed a third hard drive on my comp (for a grand total of 240 Gb of memory!), have transfered those files onto the new HD, and am now happily formatting one of the original drives. Once I’m done with this lengthy process, I’ll be once again re-installing windows on the original drive. Maybe by this time tomorrow I’ll actually have a desktop computer rather than an expensive paperweight.

In other news, my parents had the Southwest Shakespeare Company Gala event “A Midwinter Night’s Dream” last night. Frankly I don’t know if it was a success as I haven’t spoken to them today, but knowing my mother, it was an absolute record-breaker (and apparently there were some very cool items up for auction, including lunch with Annette Bening).

You’ll be totally indifferent to know that I got my paper finished and even turned in on time. It came in at 3,040 words (not counting Bibliography or title page) and was very much about what I said it would be. I can’t comment as to its quality, but at least I got it finished. And finally, I’m pleased to report that I have finally been allowed to hire another bouncer at Jinty’s. I actually had a few choices, but ended up going with the one who undoubtedly makes Jinty herself happiest, a woman by the name of Lauren. I met Lauren originally through Chris, but she’s now in my Chivalry class. She’s a 25 year old Canadian professional rugby player (seriously) and is really disgustingly smart (she just can’t decide whether to go on and do a PhD in History, go back and finish becoming an MD in Canada, or both. I hate overachievers). She starts next weekend and I’m so psyched to finally have someone on the door with me!

Formatting is done now. I’ll talk to you all soon!

Slainte.

“It’s in that place where I put that thing that time.”
~Renoly Santiago (as Phantom Phreak) – “Hackers”

finally got my grade for Latin, and it was that beautiful letter D! Now rest assured that before this week, I’ve never been truly happy with anything less than an A. Really, I haven’t. But considering how certain I was that I had failed this Latin course, I seriously couldn’t be more happy with the first D I’ve ever gotten (especially considering how much of a gift it was from my prof)!

In the mean time, I’m up at 5am writing my paper which is due in about 9 hours. Why am I only about one-tenth of the way through said paper? Well, because I’m very strange. You see, things have to come together to make a paper really work. You need the right topic, the right research, and the right motivation. No perfect topic ever really came to me on this one. When I found sorta-right topics, I just couldn’t find the right research. And to top it all off, my normal motivation (extreme panic and stress) never really made itself felt. So, what kept happening is that I’d have an idea, find some research, discover in most cases that the research isn’t really sufficient for an essay of the scope which is due, and then start over again with a new idea. Occassionally I would find just enough research to start the paper before one of two things would happen: I’d realize eventually that I was wrong and I don’t have nearly as good a handle on the subject as I thought I did, or else I would write total rubbish and be forced to delete it before the crapiness of the essay infected the rest of my harddrive.

SO, I finally got the panic going (since it’s due so soon), but still didn’t like my essay or my topic. Then it hit me. Instead of writing in depth about specific aspects of the intensity of violence in the Medieval Period, why don’t I write a survey of the modern scholarship on the subject? After all, I’ve been reading literally dozens of articles on the subject! So I spent the first several hours after work taking new notes with my new topic in mind, and have now spent the last hour or so writing a kick-ass introduction. I really do like it. But then, I was at work for almost 10 hours today (stupid Old Firm match), have now been awake for almost 24 hours, and am hyped up on RedBull; so who knows if what I’ve written is even in English!

OK, breaktime over. Why do I spend my break typing more? My hands are going to fall off if I’m not carefull! I’m just not used to this much typing, and I really can feel them stiffening up already. It’s gonna be a fun day!

Slainte.

“They have their spurs, are fastened on their feet,
And, light and strong, their hauberks brightly gleam;
Upon their heads they’ve laced their helmets clear,
And girt on swords, with pure gold hilted each;
And from their necks hang down their quartered shields;
In their right hands they grasp their trenchant spears.”
~“Song of Roland” Verse CCLXXX

First let’s start off with Valentine’s Day. I’ll admit straight up that I’m a remarkably bitter individual about Valentine’s Day under the best of circumstances (my old blog, duelling-bunnies.net had a rant about it back when it, you know, existed), but, in line with a long-established stereotype, as a single individual during “Love Day,” I find it even more difficult than usual to walk down the street and not spit on the plethora of people holding hands and being . . . cute. Now I’m not against cuteness. But for Pete’s sake, while I was waiting for Chris at Buchanan Street Station today I saw a little gothed-out teenage girl with a red rose and a huge smile on her face! Doesn’t she know that being happy is against Goth Rule number 578953 subsection C? Well, I’m sure she went back to her customary frown as soon as she could though, otherwise the other pretend vampires would kick her out of their pretend court and not let her drink pretend blood or something.

And that leads us to other thing to not be amused about. The reason I was waiting for Chris this afternoon was so that we could go see “Meet the Fockers.” Please understand me. I had no desire whatsoever to see this movie (especially since it’s ill-conceived prequel, “Meet the Parents” just struck way too close to home to be at all funny). However, I was asked in a very polite-but-firm way by my flatmate to vacate said flat for to make room for what I have discovered to be a very romantic evening of takeout. Anyway, so “Meet the Fockers” was pretty much all that was playing, so I took a deep breath and went for it. My only real question is: “Did Dustin Hoffman have a house payment due or something?” I mean, De Niro is bad enough, but since he’s also sunk so low as to take part in “Shark Tale” and an American Express commercial, I’ve kinda stopped expecting him to be able to say no when these stupid parts come along. But come on, Hoffman! You’re Benjamin Braddock! You’re Raymond! You like Wapner! You’re not some aging hippy who calls his son “Gay” (it’s the character name, but it’s a cheap joke that [unsurprisingly] got a laugh every single time it was said. I hate people sometimes). Basically, the movie was just a load of crap filled with a complete farce of a plot (What’s with De Niro suddenly going from straight-laced CIA to fun loving horn-dog? COME ON, PEOPLE!) . . . and seriously, don’t even get me started on the worst-actor-ever, aka Ben Stiller.

Argh. I know I’m not usually one to talk, as most people will tell you that I’ll go see just about everything, and even tend to like most of what I see. But when something gets so much hype, and so completely fails to impress, I just have to have a good vent . . . especially since it was supposed to be my date substitute, damnit!

Hope everyone else’s V-Day went better than my own. I’m sure it did. At least mine wasn’t as bad as one guy I saw on Ashton Lane who was in the act of getting slapped by his presumably now ex-girlfriend . . . not having someone for Valentine’s Day is bad enough, but breaking up on it has just GOT to suck!

Slainte.

[Ben Stiller is an] “Assss . . . hooooole”
~Spencer or Bradely Pickren (as Little Jack) – “Meet the Fockers”

So I’ve gotten back in touch with my friend Lyssa (though in fairness, she’s the one who’s gotten back in touch with me, but who’s counting?). She let me know that she has a blog (since she’s been reading mine), and so I checked it out . . . well, I started to. There’s a lot there! First off, feeling totally inadequate because she actually updates the thing regularly and is funny (something I try for, but rarely achieve, I feel), but also because she actually gets things done. Even her idea of goofing off is getting loads of knitting done. My idea? Watch television. And we’re not even talking good television. I’m in Britain after all. For me it’s a choice between Trisha or Charmed reruns. You can guess which I watch (there is a redheaded Rose McGowan in the later, after all!).

So yeah, feeling like even more of a slacker. On the plus side, I’ve again managed to go to the gym every day this week. Haven’t really noticed much of a difference yet, but that’s pretty normal for me. I will be forced to be productive today though, since I’ve got another meeting of Medieval Paleography today at three. I figure I should go since I’ll be jetting down to Cambridge early next week to view some real-life examples of texts. I don’t know if I’ll stay in the class any longer than that though. It’s just not going to be that helpful! All the texts are in Latin (we won’t go there) or in Anglo-Saxon, so I don’t even have any way of checking to make sure my interpretations are correct . . . but at least I’ll be getting a trip to Cambridge out of it!

That’s pretty much all I know for today. I’ve been shamed into updating my site, and have now done so (thanks Lyssa). Oh, in case I forget . . . as some of you may know, my Mom’s birthday is coming up this Saturday (the 12th of February). She’s gonna kill me for saying so, but she’s gonna be turning the big FIVE-OH. I want everybody to send her a greeting for this momentous occassion! E-mail her here and it’ll get right to her! And while I’m at it, I’ll also send a late happy birthday to my brother-in-law Nate Marshall who turned 24 in January, and to Kristan Sanders who will be turning XX sometime within the next month or so (she’d kill me if I publicly released either of those bits of information! Love ya, Lady!).

Hope you’re all doing fabulously, and I’ll talk to you soon!

Slainte.

“Wanna take a wiccan time out and do the crossword puzzle?”
~Alyssa Milano (as Phoebe Halliwell) – “Charmed”

I would just like to lodge a quick complaint here. As pretty much all of you know, ever since sophomore year of college, I have been a pretty typical American college male. I have eaten too much, drank too much (though not as much as those frat boys by a longshot), and not exercised pretty much at all. This has resulted in one hell of a beer belly. Well, now that I’m single and getting older, I decided a year ago that it’s time to lose some weight. Since I came to Glasgow, I’ve yo-yoed quite a bit, and though I’ve started going to the gym every day again, I’m not too proud of myself considering I’ve managed to regain a lot of the weight that I had worked so hard to lose.

Now I know I’m overweight. It sucks, but there you have it. I decided this morning to get online and find out just how much the world at large says I SHOULD way considering my height and frame. And this is my complaint: According to any number of sites, men are supposed to start with the height of 5’0″ and the weight of 106 pounds and add 6 pounds for every inch over 5’0″. So being 5’9″ or so, I should weigh all of 160 pounds. Some sites say a 15% leeway is OK (meaning I can weigh as much as 184), but still! I’m sorry, but I haven’t weighed 160 since junior high school. I weighed more than that when I was on a State Champion swim team. It also means that according to that I need too lose something in the region of up to 85 pounds!

Yeah, I’m overweight. But I’m not that overweight. I’m officially a non-believer in ideal weights. I don’t know if these are just designed for guys with Spencer’s frame or what, but there’s no WAY anyone can expect a guy with shoulders like mine to weigh just 160! Argh!!!

Slainte.

“I’m not fat, I’m big boned!”
~Trey Parker (as Cartman) – “South Park”