Life has been pretty busy lately, and I haven’t had as much of a chance to write as I would have liked. So, I will give a quick update to things goin on in my life.

Happy Dad’s day to all the dads out there. I had a pretty good day — hung out with family and just tried to relax. Heidi and Rhys got me a really nice Fossil watch, so that was freakin awesome! Rhys did a very good job keeping the secret from me, much to our surprise. He mentioned that he had a “surprise” to give me on “Mother’s Day” a few times, but never gave away the secret. :)

I’m still not smoking! WOO HOO! I have a few patches left to go if I want to finish out the program, but honestly, I’m pretty much done with it. I tried to put a patch on today and it didn’t stick very well, so I just tossed it. I think I’m truly done with the whole smoking thing! Feels good to be done with that shit. OMG. I still get cravings, but I have enough will power to fend off the cravings this time. I just gotta keep my exposure to smokers limited for a time, else I know I will fall.

I have been thinking of taking up online poker again. It’s an online game that 1) I like to play, 2) takes little time, 3) doesn’t have a monthly cost, 4) can actually win money! So, we’ll see. I noticed that Poker.com seems to have turned into a portal of sorts. I used to play there when it was a gaming site. I know the US Govt has frowned on online gaming, so I will have to check into the current laws, etc… BOOO

That’s about it for now. I’m gonna get to work, and try and enjoy the day! Chat at you guys later!

There was a time when I would definitely call myself an avid gamer. I’d still like to call myself that. But, lately every game I play seems to fall short of that proverbial mark — whatever that mark is. Perhaps the problem is I am not aware of the mark I am trying to hit.

I just LOVE Massively Multiplayer Online games. I’ve loved them since the days when we mudded on terminal screens at the University…

I’ve played a lot of MMOs since those days: EQ2, Planetside, Dark Age of Camelot, Eve, Tabula Rasa, Guild Wars, Second Life, and now Age of Conan… Some of these did well to capture my attention, some did very poorly. However, lately, it’s as if no games are capturing my attention at all! Not sure what that is about. I mean, the latest MMO I’m playing is Conan… Yeah, CONAN! I should be all over that like white on rice, but somehow I’m not…

The reigning theory is that the heat is rolling in and we all feel a bit lethargic. Gotta love the oppresive summers here. Well, I have thirty days on Conan and we’ll see how it goes. I might just stick to Angband… ;)

Ok… Well, two out of three ain’t bad. I’m hanging at Drew’s place. We’re geeking out, pretending we are accomplishing something, when actually all we are accomplishing is killing off his Private Stock Captain Morgan’s rum, which, by the way, is quite tasty! ARRR! And, it’s not even Talk Like A Pirate Day!

We just installed Windows Core, and found that we don’t have credentials to login… Yep, that’s right, it didn’t give us a place to set up our Admin account… DOH! More likely, we missed it in our drunken stupor… YAY for drunken stupors! :) Boo for work in the morning!

Congratulations KDE Team on their Beta 1 announcement! I’ve been a fan of KDE since way back when. I don’t recall what version they were on when I first found them. I’ve tried many Desktop Environments and Window Managers and I always find myself coming back to KDE. It was always a toss up between Fluxbox and KDE for me. I finally ended up staying in KDE for my desktops and using Flux on my servers.

Recently I switched my main desktop back to Windows Vista (pausing for sighs of dismay). Right before KDE 4. Right before the beauty of Plasma. Right before KDE went to the next level! I will definitely be trying it out to see what Plasma is like. I just have to ask, WHY CAN’T WINDOWS LEARN FROM THIS!? I mean, Aero has the ability to do all of this stuff, but they don’t. Hate that.

I miss my Kontact, aKregator, and most of all amaroK! Well, anyway, I just wanted to give my congratulations to the KDE Team! I may not being in KDE anymore, but I still think of it fondly. :) Keep up the good work, guys and gals, and keep showing the world what Open Source projects can do!

Well, the Thought Dumpster is back. It’s not in full glory at the moment, but it’s functional! :)

Nothing makes you feel older than trying to learn things. Was it always this hard to pick up a new skill? Is it harder to learn because of my age, or maybe because of all the distractions that age has brought along with it…

Either way, I find myself easily frustrated trying to learn the latest skill in my arsenal. Flash. I’ve always wanted to know how to code ActionScript, and use Flash technologies. So, I bought Flash CS3 and am on my first steps toward understanding Flash and ActionScript. Flash of course would fit in nearly all of my projects, but I have a certain special project I’d really like to use Flash technologies in. I really hope I get somewhere with this project, because it’s something I would really like to see become a reality. Here’s to hoping! I’m sure I will be using Slack’s Place as my little Flash sandbox while I am learning. After all, that is one of the main reasons for this site.

Wish me luck and if you have any tips, links, or pearls of wisdom, please drop me a line! :)