[190] Stray Rounds

console

< Piro >

"laptop tracking"

Tuesday - November 6, 2001

I'm exhausted today, and no, not because of any Megatokyo stuff - the process of making and putting up the comics has actually been downright pleasant and fun in recent weeks. It's just been a bad day. one of those days where each and every thing that happens makes you just wanna curl up in a ball and not come out till everything bad goes away. A day that has me seriously thinking about going home, turning off all the lights, wrapping myself in a blanket, getting some Hot Cocoa, and finishing playing DigiCharat Fantasy on my Dreamcast late into the night until the world realizes that i dont care anymore.

but that wouldn't solve anything. :)

One of the reason's I'm tired is that Seraphim's schedule is gonna kill me - hell, its gonna kill both of us. If you recall in my last rant i went off in a big discussion how we had outgrown our current computer resources - oh ya, that became proven fact over the weekend. Man, what a crunch. Several papers and projects later, we're both just punchy from lack of sleep. And what's funny is that Seraphim was BUSTED! haha! In her rant on monday she mentioned a few things about what she's doing for her class - and someone realized that Seraphim was actually in their class (they just dont know which one in class it is). :) hahaha! It never occurred to her that there might be some MT readers in her class. heh. Poor Seraphim. :)

Oh, on the laptop thing. I'd like to thank everyone who emailed me with advice and information on recommendations and thoughts regarding laptops. It all amounted to well over 700 emails - and within those mails it was pretty easy to see some patterns about what people recommended or had good experiences with. In a nutshell, aside from those of you who tried to convince me to get a Apple Titanium G4 laptop, Dell was the clear winner, with IBM and Sony coming in as secondary choices. I was told to avoid Toshiba and Compaq laptops like the plague. Granted, its not a scientific poll, but thats where the recommendations came in at. Also, i received a plethora of really good and helpful information regarding what works and doesn't work for laptops when it comes to graphics work and other things.

And regarding accepting PayPal donations to help pay for the laptop? Nah. I appreciate all the positive feedback on the idea, but in the end i still would not feel right about it. I've decided that i can foot this bill. I got creative last weekend and figured out how i could swing it.

In fact, my new laptop should be here tomorrow. I ordered a refurbished Dell Inspirion 8100 with all the bells and whistles. Largo is annoyed because it blows his desktop machine away. ^_^ tee hee. On saturday i picked up a Linksys broadband router at CompUSA and got that running so that I could plug the new laptop in and start using it right away. Well, that after I strip Windows ME off that thing and get Win2kpro installed. brrr.

Its odd because it's not really a toy or a luxury, like the idea of getting a laptop always was before. It really is a necessity. Seraphim and I work pretty hard, and I like the idea that i wont be in her hair anymore when she needs to concentrate on things. ^_^

Oh, almost forgot - you might have noticed some banners for Think Geek showing up on the MT site - well, we just started a banner exchange with OSDN which will expose countless unassuming millions to the greatness that is the new Megatokyo Banner ^^;; (and hopefully draw some new readers). Anyways, Good folks at OSDN (things like Slashdot, Freshmeat, SourceForge, etc, are all OSDN sites) as well as that ubergeekycoolstuff store Think Geek.

Ugh. i am tired tho. I'm going to take it a little easy tonight - tomorrows comic is a bit of an experiment - i wont ruin the surprise ^_^

... support mt stuff ...

You can support Megatokyo by getting yourself some cool YakPak swag using the link below. Piro has been carrying a black Medium Flapdoozy since the comic started (because that's what i really use ^_^). Also, the YakPak people are cool folk:

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< Dom >

"Boogie oogie oogie"

Friday - October 26, 2001

[Dom] - 09:08:00 - [link here]

This past Friday, I went back to my hometown of Redwood City for an annual event I wouldn't miss for the world, the Project Read Trivia Bee. I've always been a lover and collector of esoteric knowledge, so trivia contests always attract me, especially the team-based ones, since I know my knowledge doesn't cover many fields at all. But that's not what keeps bringing me back to Redwood City. As the name suggests, Project Read is a literacy program, and they use the Trivia Bee to raise funds for their programs. I'm a big fan of Project Read. I started volunteering there when I was 14 (which makes my age 28 at most, for those of you who care), and over the years I've developed a close relationship with them. I've helped build and dismantle their float for the 4th of July parade, organized books, worked in their mail room, organized barbecues and other fundraisers... about the only thing I haven't done for them is tutor, which I've unfortunately never had the time to do. Now that I don't live in Redwood City anymore, all I can really do anymore is special events, so the Trivia Bee is always a special treat for me when it rolls around.

Anyway, some of you may have heard that today, October 26th, is my birthday. This is true. Some of you think you know how old I am. If you do, you're one step ahead of me, because I keep forgetting myself. I just don't find it important.

What I find important is that Halloween is coming up, and after walking around my office knocking on pieces of furniture and shouting "Maaaarioooooo", I'm going to be Luigi for the office party. And I find it disturbing that it's easier to get my hands on a backpack vacuum cleaner than it is to find that big green cap Luigi wears... I also find it disturbing that my cosplaying twin Genjitsu, AKA the man in charge of American Cosplay Paradise has decided that he either needs to be Mario to my Luigi, or Kirby to my Yoshi.

All I can say is, I need to practice my devouring things and pooping them out as eggs and powerups.

Let's see, now it's time to link people...

First, in case you didn't notice, my last rant included a link to Ninja Burger, a website which keeps ninja magic alive and well in the fast food industry. Their comic is pretty funny, so check it out if you saw Ninja Burger before it had its own comic. Now, if only Ninja World actually existed outside of The Tick, I'd really be in business. Ah, well.

Second, since I owe her a couple favors, and she has incriminating pictures of me, I'm obliged to plug Chibi-chan's fresh new comic, which I like so far because it involves a goddess having her wings taken away. The less wings in this world, the better.

Speaking of incriminating pictures, Mac Hall continues to amuse and surprise me. I owe Matt Boyd a stick figure strip, and I owe Ian a kick in the teeth.

Emi-chan, who has fled from California and is no longer within strangling distance of me, has taken the opportunity to start updating Strange Candy again. So all those people who stopped paying attention when she moved, well, she's back. And for the last time, the only relationship between Strange Candy and MegaTokyo is that Ed and I know both Piro, Largo, Emi and Tanzy personally. The characters in the two strips are completely, totally, and utterly separate.

Also returning to life is The Jar, which went down due to traffic overload, but is back, and still really weird.

And with winter's chill setting in, I've started to read this little, infrequently updated comic by Lem, who gave me a Winter T-shirt to ward off the chill. Not that I'd whore out his comic just because he gave me a T-shirt, mind you. But this little story is pretty cool, and you can say "I was there back at the beginning".

Oh, and on Wednesday, I went to an Orbital concert with my roommate and Mitsune, a friend of ours who happens to own Hinatasou, one of the best Love Hina sites I've seen. By the way, for the millionth time, Piro is not Keitaro, if you compare Erika to anyone in Love Hina you're looking in the wrong direction, so please, stop posting your "great discovery" in our forums. Dozens of other people have made the comparison, and are wrong--the only thing Fred took from Love Hina was the layout idea, which is a fairly standard comic layout anyway.

But I digress. About Orbital. The show was awesome, but one thing jumped out at me--Mitsune tried to get me to dance. And, as an Asian male, I am genetically incapable of dancing competently. Seriously. Excepting line dances, which are an abomination and must be destroyed, the only dance I've ever really gotten right is the "cross your arms and nod your head arrhythmically while eyeing the refreshment table" dance. But she insisted, and I didn't really want her pulling on my arm anymore, so I tried. And yes, I sucked. But I had fun anyway. Don't ever expect me to dance again, though.

Gotta sleep now. Good night, and see you next SGD.