Video Games

Neither of us slept much in the night. She wasn't in a deep sleep at any point that I can recall, and I know that at least one point where I was finally in the midst of succumbing to slumber I had the cat jump onto my body and nestle next to me for pets. I had to retreat to the futon in the basement to get as much rest as I could between that and my intended wake up time of two hours afterward.

They pestered me a bit to convince my wife to stay, and then they directly pestered her ...

It feels good to have a totally cleaned out mailbox.

The reading of Bushido by Inazo Mitobe is going by pretty quickly. I should be able to get it completed in a few days at most. It's rather frightening to see the how much his grasp of English far surpasses many native speakers today. It's also interesting how the book is structured to primarily draw parallels and amalgamate the perspective of bushido customs with that of other countries; these were things which were pointed out ...

At some point around 230AM today, the Internet connection here pooped out. Resetting the router and modem several times did nothing. I went to bed without thinking more of it than to assume that the problem was something with the ISP. I woke up this morning to hear that my mother in law did make a call after it wasn't restored and the issue which ultimately needed to be fixed was the cable connecting the modem to the router. I can't say I've ever had it happen before where that specific cable came ...

Laziness pays off today, as I came to discover that among the things which I kept in my garage from the last bike that I had was the new tire and inner tube which I had purchased for it, and it was the same size as the tire I use now. Replacement was easy and free.

I received a mail from the IRS today, the first after I had left them the mail last week which I thought was going to be the first of many as I would discuss each of the points which they cited as my submission being in ...

Is this the long slide home?

I reach the entrance at work this morning on my bike and for no particular reason I feel like making myself stop by deliberately bumping into a brick pillar ahead of me rather than catch it with my arm on the side of my body. I usually don't use the handlebar brakes. Mind you that I'm doing this at a speed no faster than a normal walk, and I hit the wall and come to a stop without incident as I expected - or so I thought. When I came back to my bike at ...

During my lunch breaks at work I take the hour to do a bit of Japanese study. It gives my brain something totally different to do. However, I'm coming to notice that my method of study doesn't seem to help the content that I have to look up stick in my head very well. Maybe what I should also do is write down the words that I have to look up here as a way of reinforcing the task. If I get in the habit of doing this, maybe I'll take the time to do it on my days off or the like as well.
...

Almost done with Trollope's book. Yeah, I think the small passages where he doesn't speak too kindly about blacks is what keeps the book if not his entire legacy hidden away from public consideration now. To wit:

Originally Posted by Anthony Trollope

In saying this I fear that I shall be misunderstood, let me use what foot-note or other mode of protestation I may to guard myself. In thus speaking of the African negro, I do not venture to despise the work of God's hands. That He has made the negro, for His own good purposes,

...

A difficult call came in today. I had two options open as far as what my first job would be, and the previous successful conclusion of the driving test for the local operation pretty much secured it for me. I knew I'd have to end consideration of the second offer eventually, but that choice was thrust upon me with a sudden phone call. It was the recruiter who operates his own service of coordinating employees with employers. It caught me off guard, and the person who called didn't make the conversation ...

In celebration of this being my 1000th blog post on this board, I shall do absolutely nothing different other than make that acknowledgement.

I'm glad that I'm able to get these training modules done online. W4 and I9 are submitted. The process is well underway.

There's another job offer that came up about something related to a new utility company looking for "energetic people" in an exciting field and other language which usually accompanies fly-by-night ...

The road test for the employer was today. Shifting gears in a truck that I've never driven took some getting used to, and finding reverse seemed to be rather troublesome. I think I might have rubbed a curb on the right turn returning to the facility. I even stalled out once on the road, and I had a lot of starts from stops that rocked the hell out of the truck. Still, despite all of the problems, I managed to show enough competency at the task that they were willing to take me on to the next steps ...

Road test with the company is indeed scheduled for 9AM tomorrow. The location is 20 miles away and would take a half hour's drive to get there in normal conditions, which means that I should leave here no later than 8AM.

I'll need to find some time to visit the government office to get my Hazmat authorization procedures underway, though I probably won't have time to do that until tomorrow. Studying for the written test is proving to be a bit of a pain, as answers among the practice ...

It's 2PM and I'm standing on the salesfloor and doing some busywork because it's the only place I could be doing something without being in someone else's way in the backroom or taking away someone's work to do. I'm using a different type of handheld computer because the normal style units were all taken at the start of the day. I'm standing there and tediously poking the screen just to have the ALT key be pressed as a I press a function key so that I can confirm the location of some product that ...

My Dad had a medical procedure this Friday which was enough to have him sidelined from then until now and probably into the next few days. When I called home after dinner today to see if anything was going on for the Hallmark, I was told by Mom that he was already in bed. We agreed for me to be notified when he woke up. My Dad did call a few hours later, but did so to inform me that my Mom was in the hospital. She mentioned in the earlier call that she was about to do some yardwork, and apparently ...

I give credit to DarthPayne of our insulated and isolated chat channel for helping me see some light on something today.

For whatever reason (and completely unrelated to the conversation that was ongoing otherwise) he listed the Atari ST game "Time Bandit" as one of his Top 5 games of all time. I can't say I heard of it before, so I went over to trusty Youtube to provide an example of it. From watching one clip to another, the main thing I'm seeing is that the player never ...

Wake up to the phone with a job offer in response to something that I had submitted somewhere in the middle of the night. Local route, low pay, but they don't need me to have had a certificate of completion from the driving school. As it turns out, there are actually only a small handful of employers who are willing to hire people who have the license without having at least completed a driving school. Out of context, that certainly doesn't seem unreasonable, but many of these same places have their ...