Fast Times
Ok, so basically my life for the last week has revolved around 3 things: class, work, and Fable: The Lost Chapters. I’ll cover them in that order…
Class merely is. It’s a regular daily routine. I didn’t do the 450 page reading assignment for my IDIS class. I did about 40 pages of it. I kept up with the discussion just fine. I’ll probably head in to work this weekend now that nobody’s here at all, and do that chunk of reading then. Compilers blows. Still no first project assigned. I still haven’t found a project partner, which means I’m going to get stuck with either someone who’s in the category “dregs” (which I guess technically I’m in myself) or I’m going to sneak by working on my own. I very much want to work on my own … diffusion of responsibility is a bad thing. Doesn’t change the fact that Hosking is a total flake though.
“I’ll be assigning the first project this week”. Umm … no. You haven’t taken down last semester’s projects, homeworks or anything yet. Which means you’re going to compress the later projects … the ones that should be 3 week projects are going to become 2 week projects, because you’re not on the ball. Which means that your flakeouts will directly translate to increased difficulty for us. Thanks…
</rant>
Anyway, next on the list is work. Nothing interesting happened until tuesday or so. We’ve got a couple new people, I had some accounts to create, normal junk. But on Tuesday, the executive director of IN-DHS comes in and drops his mammoth laptop on my desk. Power it on -> straight to bluescreen. “Unmountable volume”.
So I had to do some livecd alchemy to back up the files on it, and then some windows-install necromancy to bring the drive back from the dead. Just call me “lich”… Interestingly, I think the drive’s still OK. But when I told him he could come pick it up, I really pushed the idea of routine backups for anything remotely important, because a drive that’s been revived like this may or may not continue to live. Computers are still 40% magic, and anyone who claims otherwise isn’t being honest with themselves.
Anyway, other than that I also got new hardware purchases pre-approved. That makes me happy, because it means I’ll be getting new hardware. I just need to get quotes and final approvals.
The scope of what I do is continuing to expand. I mean like seriously expand, a lot. I’m going to try to put together a short course on using subversion effectively for my users over this weekend or next week. I’m taking occasional plodding steps toward the ldap single-sign-on account management system. I’ve revived what used to be my old linux workstation, turning it into very usable dualheaded winxp machine. I’ve got a complete looking upgrade path to accomodate new users (for a little while). I’m also going to send the bosses on some key-hunts, to get missing lab and office keys back from people who’ve left. I think I’ll probably be helping the building deputy get our card-swipe system up and running later this semester (but I’m not sure if that’ll actually fall to me or not). I might be getting a new server to host SharePoint services on. All in all, there’s a LOT going on, and I’m sort of right in the eye of the vortex.
Meanwhile, in the eye, it’s still calm. I put two or three days into Fable: The Lost Chapters for the PC. It runs really well on my system (p4c 2.4/800/ht, 1gb ddr400, gf fx5700) with decent graphical quality (1024×768, high mesh detail, medium-low shadow detail, medium everything else). I enjoyed the reasonable amount of new content … though I sort of felt like a lot of the new plot-content wasn’t as freeform or as well orchestrated. I’m not going to say any more about it, because I don’t want to spoil plot-related stuff … but it’s pretty great. Especially for free and nearly a month before the official release 
.
Oh, and I’m thinking of chopping off about 10-12 inches of hair, because I think keeping it as long as it is is causing my dry scalp problems. It’s just too long to wear down, I’ve got to keep it tied back to be able to do anything at all (like walking, reading, taking notes in class, using a computer, sleeping). I’m wondering how much it’d impact my overall “look” though … I’ve gotten so used to having inconveniently long hair strewn across my back that it might feel really strange not having it there. I think I’m still going to keep it long enough that I can wear it in a ponytail though… just not a ponytail that extends to below the bottoms of my shoulderblades and straggles down to the small of my back. (Damn, that’s some long hair — 
).
Finally, my heart goes out to the people in New Orleans, for obvious reasons. I’m not quite as disaffected as I sometimes perceive myself to be, I guess. I found myself feeling genuinely choked up about the suffering down there… and angry about the inadequate preparations and slow responses to it by our government agencies, and the utter incompetence of FEMA in particular.