Productivity

by Matt | Oct 8, 2003 | Imported Entry

This week (and weekend) has been a big attempt at getting a lot of little things out of the way. Actually, we were quite productive.

Saturday I was at a wedding all day and then came home to relax Saturday night. Sunday we took Lauren’s parents over to see the apartment and brought our first load of “move in” stuff. We also went down the street to Target to get some basics (TP, laundry detergents, spoons, etc). That set me back a cool $100 but most of that was because I picked up the super-elite-mega-special edition of Monty Python’s Holy Grail. I knew they would do that do me so I held off in buying simply the “special edition” and waited for this collectors set. It’s got everything from an actual film still to a copy of the screen play and more DVD extras than you can shake a stick at.

Monday was where we really go down to it. I called the public records office back home and asked what I needed to do to get a copy of my birth cirtificate. We went to the DMV (here in TX called the DPS) to get me a Texas drivers license. It should be mailed to me in a few weeks, hopefully in time for the trip. We also went to the county court house and got our marriage license.

We also went and I picked out my wedding band. Very cool. I got a titanium and gold band. The gold is a strip / band within (in the middle) of the ring and the part thats touching my finger is actually titanium. I think I’m mildly allergic to yellow gold (or more accurately the nickel in gold) and so this was a cool way of getting the traditional gold in there while having a hypoallergenic and nearly indestructible ring in the process.

My shipment has arrived from New Hampshire as well. It’s at the shipping / transfer station as I write. Paul has offered to go over there at lunch with me and get as much (read: all) as we can and bring it back to the studio. That way, if I have to make more than one or two trips I won’t have to go back to essentially “the docks” to get my stuff, I can take it home to the apartment little by little at my own convience. That was nice of him.

As for the rest of the world, so much has happened since I last wrote. Those Boston boys have made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs and will face off against those ass-hat Yankees tonight. I’ve either watched or listened to every single game of the series. I’m obsessed. I won’t be the A-typical Boston fan and declare this to be “the year” only to be shot down at the end of the week, but its very exciting to see them playing well and if they keep it up they have a real shot this year. I actually would like to see Boston and Chicago in the world series but something tells me that if that actually happens the earth would split open and hell would freeze over. But here’s to hoping.

Also, Half-Life 2 MIGHT (and probably will) be delayed until 2004. The early story out of France said it was definatly delayed, but theres still no official word from Valve. Since I don’t like the French because they smell funny, the only information I plan on taking to heart is that spoken directly from the mouth of Gabe Newell. We wait in anticipation.

There are so many other things I could go on and on about. The record companies reversing their price cuts, Capt. Moron becoming governor of California, Newt being addicted to pain killers. I could go on forever. That will, unfortunately, have to wait until I get my system up. The system should be “running” by tomorrow but a connection to the outside world will probably have to wait until next week. And then… let the blog flood begin.

Matt out.

Whole lot of little stuff

by Matt | Oct 3, 2003 | Imported Entry

A few odds and ends to mention. Most importantly, my belongings have shipped from New Hampshire and are somewhere mid-journey to Texas. They should arrive Monday or Tuesday. The new apartment is nice and now I’ll have things to put in it. Hurray. I’m not sure what they shipped, they just said “everything” and I believe them since the invoice they forwarded my says 1300lbs worth of freight.

Technically we “moved in” on Tuesday when I got the keys but I haven’t been back over there since. Tonight we’re supposed to move a few things over and then pretty much all weekend will be packing, moving, etc.

I also picked up Halo for the PC and almost made a scene at CompUSA when they tried to give me some crap about a rebate. I’ll mention that again later. It’s a nice game. I had gotten halfway through on Paul’s XBox and now I get to finish it with kick ass graphics. Actually, I should take that back. People have been having some driver issues with it and frankly, it’s not a pretty as it could be. They really half-assed the textures in this one. They upped the particle effects and the lighting but left the standard XBox textures in there. It’s playable on my new work machine with the Radeon 9800 Pro but not at home on Lauren’s computer or (once it gets here) on mine. It might be upgrade season. If Halo, which has only a few DirectX 9 enhancements, is having issues, Half Life 2 is going to be a nightmare. I want to be blown away by HL2, not discouraged because I can barely play it.

So, that means it might be time for a new mobo, cpu and graphics combo. I’m all of a sudden glad that I didn’t buy that $300 phone.

Ok, back to work for me, long day of retouching and then a shoot this afternoon. Afterwards I get to move some stuff. There’s no rest for the weary.

Oh, and I still need Chips tux messurements. *poke*

Apartments and Planes

by Matt | Sep 30, 2003 | Imported Entry

Well, I went and got the keys for the new apartment this morning. Its very cool. The parking is a little sparse but I can deal. There’s also unfortunately a car-port right in front of the side of the complex I’m on so I won’t be parking directly in front of my apartment. I can however, park beside it and see my car from the bedroom window. I had a little trouble sorting things out with the rental office this morning. The keys they gave me didn’t work and neither did the gate openers. They reprogrammed the openers for me while a maintenance guy changed the door locks, so everything is working now. The gate is pretty weird though, it only opens on one side but its a double sided (two lane, in and out)gate. Although that could simply be my opener not working 100%. We’ll see.

As for the apartment itself, I don’t have any pictures to show yet but I can give you a mental walk through… As you come in, the kitchen is immediately to your right, separated by a bar. The living room is immediately to your left. Also on the left, through the living room is the “study” or second bedroom. Strait ahead as you come in the door is the dinning room (connecting to the kitchen on the right). Further in, there’s a large closet (for the washer and dryer) on the left and the master bathroom is on the right. At the end of the hall is the master bedroom and a huge (room sized) walk in closet. I’ll get some pictures soon.

Also, Jason just let me know that he’s flying into Intercontinental Airport on Friday morning. I’ll figure out some way to get him but for those of you who haven’t booked your plane tickets yet, please, for the love of god, fly into Houston-Hobby. Not Houston-InterCont. Hobby is much closer (only 10 minutes away) and I know it and the area pretty well. I don’t even know where INTC is.

Later.

So much to mention, so little time

by Matt | Sep 29, 2003 | Imported Entry

This entry could go on and on but I’ll try to keep it brief and stick to the bullet-points.

Hopefully no one has booked plane tickets for Friday yet (Jason and Nagle) because there’s been a slight twist. The rehearsal needs to be pushed up closer to 1-2pm because of scheduling conflicts with the minister. This simply moves the time table forward so dinner would be before 5.

Also, it just occured to me that you guys might not have a ride to the airport once Lauren and I leave. I’ll try to find you rides (my folks are staying in town for a day or two) but someone might consider renting a cheap car. Something to think about.

I move into the apartment this week. It will have no utilities because I can’t contact the electric company because their phone system is messed up. Yippee.

Still no word on where my stuff is. Matt’s getting angry.

Work is good, I have weddings every weekend until, well, my wedding. We just got a new monitor for me, a new graphics card for Paul and a new external DVD writer for both of us. It’s one of the nice Sony duel formats. Very slick.

I need Chip’s Dad’s mailing address. I have an invitation to mail him. Speaking of invitations, they went out earlier this week. You should have them shortly if not already.

I want a Tivo.

Half Life 2 is delayed. Not surprising. That sucks.

I also had some political things to ramble about, but The Screen Savers is on, so it’ll have to wait.

That is all.