Oddball Update

I was going to title this post “I’m Doing Science and I’m Still Alive,” after a line from the end credits song for Portal. But I didn’t, because a cursory Google search revealed that a ton of other like-minded nerds did the same thing — months ago, in fact — so it’s already passé. I know better than to beat a dead pop culture horse.

But hey, welcome to Oddball. I’m still here, and in a functioning mental capacity to boot, lest you think otherwise. No, I haven’t been busy, though that’s usually my excuse when I don’t post for a while. In fact, quite the opposite: I’ve been enjoying my job, learning lots of new stuff that used to vex me. In the off hours, I’m spending lots of time playing video games, hanging out with Apple, going to some new places and watching my favorite movies. It’s great, it’s reduced my stress level significantly, and no — I’m not a bit sorry.

In a couple of weeks we’ll be flying out to Thailand again. This time will be a bit different from last year’s trip, in particular because we’ll be staying at the new home Apple’s parents built. It’s in a very nice, quiet area not too far from their old house; we visited the place a few times last year before it was completed, basically just to check the property, water the plants and soforth. Their old house is in a very busy (read: noisy) industrial part of town, so this will be pretty cool.

We’re actually not sure how long we’ll be staying. A lot of that is going to depend on some of the stuff we’re planning to do there, which I won’t get into. Our tickets have us coming home in a month, but it might wind up being longer — we’re sorta flying by wire here, actually. So I’m planning to make sure we have everything we need to be comfortable for a longer period of time, like cellular phones and our own DSL connection at the house. These sorts of services are affordable and require no contracts in Thailand, so there’s no great barrier to entry.

In the meantime, now that we’re at the “two weeks to liftoff” milestone, the trip preparations are beginning in earnest. I’ve got lots of TV shows and other stuff digitized and ready for mobile watching, and have outfitted my iPhone with a headphone adapter and an external AA battery pack to keep it running during our lengthy travels. My laptop is getting prepped this week for the trip, with all the software and other junk that I need to have on it for work. And last week I received my shipments of books to read, so I’m just almost good to go. I love technology, but nothing passes time better than a good book.

Speaking of the iPhone, it continues to be a boon to convenience here at home. Most nights, I spend the last half-hour or so browsing the web on the phone. Last night, while trying to get to sleep, I was thinking (as always) about Gearbox Software’s upcoming video game based on the Aliens movie, and how awesome it’s going to be. My mind then jumped to Alien, which my TiVo just recorded this weekend from one of the Encore movie chanels. Man, I thought, now I want to see Aliens again too.

So I reached over and grabbed the iPhone off the nightstand, turned it back on and did a TV schedule search. Surprise — Aliens was going to be on early the next morning. Through TiVo’s website, I submitted a remote schedule request for my TiVo HD to record the movie. Yeah, the TiVo itself was in the next room and I could have just gotten out of bed, gone in there and set it up. Or, I could have gotten up a little earlier in the morning and set the program then. But why bother when you can set it from the bed? Hee hee. It’s such laziness, and yet so bloody awesome.

And yes, this morning when I woke up, my Windows Vista TiVo Gadget came on and there was Aliens right at the top of the playlist. Gotta love technology.

It’s already 4:00. Not sure how that happens, but I’m not complaining. I’ve been quite busy at work so far this week. My current task involves managing pay-per-click advertising campaigns for our company. I’ve never been good at this, have always been frustrated by it and really just never liked it — until it started to work. We decided to get serious and devote some real time to it — as in, pretty much all of my time lately — and now we’re getting real results. Since PPC advertising can be either a money pit or a boon — usually the former — I’m excited that this is shaping up to be another skill I can add to my arsenal. You never know when it might get you some work on the side — you know, assuming you want to do some.

Speaking of work, I’d better get back to it. I’ll see if I can post some more later. I’ve been meaning to gush about this hilarious animated show on TV that I recently discovered. It’s so funny, I can’t possibly not write about it. Yes, I said “animated.” Any guesses? And no, it’s not Family Guy.

Tagged as iPhone, Life, Thailand, TiVo, Work + Categorized as Life, Life/Work