Arctangential

I guess it’s time to update. I keep writing half of an entry and then deciding to just delete them. Such is life. Anyways, the past few days…

Last night I set up the very first stages of my planned X10 system for my house. For those that don’t know, X10 is a system whereby different electrical devices in your home can communicate amongst themselves using signals transmitted over radio, and also through the power wiring of the house itself. As an example, here’s what I set up last night: I replaced the light switch that controls my front outdoor light with an X10 light switch. That light is now a X10 device, with code 1. Then, I plugged a radio transceiver module into another power outlet in my house. This device relays radio signals into the power system. Finally, I bought a key chain device, about the size of a remote car opener, which I configured to transmit control signals to devices 1 and 2. So now, when I get home at 1am to find that I’ve accidentally left my outside light off, and I can’t see anything at all, I can just push a button on my key chain and the light will come on, instead of spending 5 minutes fumbling around with my keys and my little LED light thing. It’s pretty nice.

Going forward, I’m not really sure what I’m going to do. I have a doodad that will let my computer interface with the X10 system, so I will be able to write some code to turn lights on and off, stuff like that. They also sent me a ton of extra stuff, since X10.com doesn’t seem to sell anything that isn’t in a “bundle”, so I have some motion sensors, a control panel thing, and some other assorted X10 devices. I’m really not sure what I’m going to work with next, but it should be fun anyways. I’m really happy with what I’ve gotten done so far.

So today, I went to a gun show. I’m not really a huge gun nut — I have fired some at a range a few times (a friend had a membership there, so it was near enough to free), but that’s about it. I’d never been to a gun show, though, so I figured it would be worth checking out. It was pretty interesting; people were selling a lot of stuff I didn’t expect them to, and I learned about different gun stuff, by asking the various sellers. There was a lot less Nazi stuff being sold there than I had thought there would be, and most of the people selling it were selling WWII and WWI memorabilia in general, but there was at least one guy who just had the big all-Nazi storefront. I guess he has the right though.

All I bought was a butterfly knife; I’ve kept a butterfly on my desk ever since I picked one up at some point during high school — I like to just flip it around while I’m thinking over things, or waiting for the ‘puter to do its thing, etc. Most butterfly knives you find at cutlery shops are the same crappy brand, and they break really easily. They’re only $10-$15 each, so it’s not a huge deal, but it is annoying. This new one I got is really nice though: it has internal hinge pins, which means they don’t get loose nearly as quickly, and it has really sturdy handles, so they’re not going to snap, which is how most of the others break. The only thing I don’t like about it is that the blade is double-sided; a lot of the butterfly techniques I like to practice involve slapping the blade against your finger, which can hurt a little bit with a double-sided blade. I am getting used to it though.

For some reason, often when I am in a restaurant and reading a book, the waitstaff seem to enjoy asking me about the book. I’m not really sure why; they never really want to discuss it or anything, and at best it interrupts my eating process, but I guess… actually I have no idea why they do it. Anyways, this example, which I had yesterday at Denny’s, pretty much typifies this kind of exchange for me:

Denny’s: Hey, what book are you reading?

Me: The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro.

D: Who’s that?

M: He wrote The Remains of the Day.

D: What’s that?

M: They made a movie from it. Anthony Hopkins was in it.

D: Who?

Silence…

M: Can I have another diet coke, please?

Another recent fun one was when the waiter asked me what book I was reading because he had noticed that it had a map in the front, and he likes books with maps in the front. I actually gave him the title/author and he wrote it all down, so maybe he’ll actually go read it. Who knows. I’ve seen worse ways of deciding what to read.

I was awakened from a dream at 1:30 this afternoon by the dulcet tones of my cell phone attempting to play Tool’s Sober, so I don’t really remember much of it. I know it ended with my father arriving at my place very late, like 3am. He said something like, “I’m here.” And I said something like, “I didn’t know when you were going to get here.” Then he said, “You can ask me now.” And I did. And he said, “About now.” It wasn’t really a joke or anything, more like an explanation. Then he went out to his car to get his bags. It was at this point that my phone rang.

I used my workbench last night, to glue some pieces of wood together. It’s not entirely perfect, as I don’t have anything to sit on while I’m working at it. That will have to be my next purchase.

Either that or some pie.

Exciting happenings in the world of Me today. Apart from work, and from getting a cool new faceplate for my phone in the mail, and from getting a long-awaited Lego set instruction booklet in the mail, I had one very big exciting happy thing that I did. I bought a workbench at Sears. I’d been putting it off what with that whole not having any money thing, but I finally decided that basically I don’t care. So I bought it.

It’s the cheapy one, so it doesn’t have electricity or nail bins or a pegboard or a light or anything like that. Of course, I don’t really want those things, so I kind of see that as a feature. I had fun getting it home — in order for it to fit in my tiny car, I had to roll down the windows so the top corners of the box could stick out of them and lift the box up so it was resting on top of the armrests. Even then, I had to squeeze the doors pretty hard to get them to latch, and I was terribly fearful for the entire trip home that one of the doors would pop open and fling my happy workbench into traffic. Luckily, this didn’t happen.

Also while at Sears I got a big tool:

(Click for Bigger)

The CD in the image is for size comparison, and is a full-sized CD-R. The Wrench is 15″ long. Fifteen. It’s huge. I don’t need it. I’ll never need it. But it’s so beautiful. I had to have it.

I am a consumerist whore.

And I love it!

Woe betide! The worst has come to pass, and I have been swept up in it. I don’t know if I will survive. Heck, I don’t know if the world will survive. It’s truly a disaster of monstrous proportions. I’m very frightened. Also scared.

So what’s wrong?

They opened a Krispy Kreme Donuts. 3 minutes drive from my house. Directly on the road that I drive to get home from basically any shopping trip, and often from work. A big KKD. With a drive through. And a hot sign. And specials. And an enticing aroma, and blinking lights. And it’s open 24 hours.

Last night, I was on my way back from seeing T3 (which I’ll discuss later), and without my even being aware of it, I was suddenly in the drive-through lane. The next thing I knew, I had ordered 13 donuts. And now they’re all gone. I have to assume that I ate them. I think they were pretty good. This is incredibly dangerous.

I might die.