Xmas in November

Xmas came early this year, in the form of a new 500G Seagate HD and an external Firewire/USB case to put it in, so now my shiny little Mac Mini has a shiny little backup drive to run Time Machine on! Yay!

Pictures here.

School's out for su^H^Hwinter!

Classes are over for the year. Yaaaay. Now I just need to get through 3 exams.

Little Rocket Man

So today I finally went and did it. I completed the "Little Rocket Man" achievement in Half-Life 2: Episode 2. For those of you not aware, this achievement basically entails taking a small garden gnome from a shack in the beginning of the game, and carrying it with you through the whole game until just before the end, where you load it into a rocket which is about to get blasted off into space.

It is, perhaps, the pinnacle of gaming insanity. And I did it.

Smelly Pinecones

Mmm, superstore is selling the cinnamon-scented pinecones again, so I bought a new bag to put in the bathroom.

Keeps things smelling nice, and doesn't look too bad either. Nice and festive.

A little cheaper this time

So I took my car in for a bit of service this afternoon, though mostly for an oil change. Thankfully it came out quite a bit cheaper than the last time I took it in for a quick service.

I had the washer nozzles re-aimed, got a new valve stem cap put on, got the oil/filter/etc done.

I didn't get the speedo fixed, since in this particular model of car it involves replacing the whole instrument cluster and probably not getting it any more accurate. I'd rather spend the $200 on buying a new set of 10% larger wheels and tires. It's on my list for next fall after I make millions in California over the summer.

I also didn't get the brake pulsation fixed, because it's probably just due to the wheels being bent again, which is another thing that will be fixed by getting new wheels and tires next fall. I'll probably still keep the old rims and put some 10% larger winter tires on them, since slightly bent wheels don't really matter that much for winter driving.

The only other thing on the list for next fall is getting some rust patches patched over before they eat my whole car... Assuming the car doesn't explode before then, but I think that should be fairly unlikely.

Total damage was only $30.34. Sweet.

That fresh from the dentist feeling

... feels exactly the same as any other day. Turns out my teeth were pretty much spotless, even though I hadn't gone for a cleaning in 10-odd years. Go fig! I think there was one tiny little spot of plaque that needed to be chiselled away, but that was it.

No cavities or problems either. At least, no major problems. It seems that one of my wisdom teeth is impacted, but we're apparently just doing a "wait and see" on it for now, which suits me just fine.

Trading stripes for spots

So I upgraded my Mini to Leopard. I must say I'm very impressed, even though I was already using it for 2 months this summer. It does feel a bit odd now that there's some of my code in it, but I guess I'll just have to get used to the feeling.

The only thing that makes me sad is that I can't load it on my G3. Even if it had enough CPU for it, the 6 gig root drive is just too small to hold it all. It'll have to make do with Tiger, for now and forever. So sad.