January 2005

There were 50 posts published in January 2005 (this is page 2 of 5).

There we went

Ah well, season’s over. The game was a real letdown. I’m not even that into football, but I could still tell that Roethlisberger was just off his game. The interceptions killed any chance of a victory.

Halfway through the game, me and my fellow viewers (John, Amber, Justin) got bored and decided to finish the game in NFL Blitz 2003 on the Xbox. Steelers won there by the way. And it was a much more entertaining game.

Would have been nice to see a super bowl presence in my one year here, but hey it was still one hell of a season!

Here We Go

It’s so strange living in a city with a sports team people care about. Near impossible not to get swept up in the whole rush as the Steelers go into the final round of playoffs tomorrow.

That’s tomorrow’s paper pictured by the way, for some reason they come out early.

Everywhere I go it’s the black and gold. Even tellers at the bank yesterday were all wearing jerseys and stickers.

Far cry from Rochester and the minor league teams there.

I just hope the Steelers win, so the whole city isn’t in a funk Monday morning 🙂

Conference Blues

I’d really like to attend the Computers in Libraries 2005 conference in March in DC… I think it would actually work with the spring break schedule, too.

One problem: Attendance for all three days is $379 before even paying for a hotel room ($185/night) and travel expenses. Oh well. Welcome to the professional world I suppose. Maybe once I’ve got a job something like that would be affordable. Or even better, an employer who would send me….

The ‘ol Roundup


ButtonMashing.com linked to me today (thanks by the way!) as a new blog he found that comments on gaming from time to time. Made me realize that its been far too long since I have. So I present a roundup of what I’ve been playing recently. Or more accurate, what’s been taking time away from Halo 2 online play.

KOTOR II has sucked up 95% of my gaming time. Amazing game, though I do admit to being a bit disappointed in the difficulty level of gameplay. The first couple planets are somewhat difficult, but after that it levels off quick. I think because you can play the planets in any order, the difficulty level of them all is set low. Each planet has to be beatable should you go to it first and unexperienced. Last night I blazed through Korriban in maybe half an hour. The fights should have been much harder. Or maybe I just spend too much time leveling up, I dunno. But the plot is A+ and makes up for any shortcomings. I also appreciate some of the finer details of play; gaining influence and converting your party members to Jedi has a certain satisfaction to it.

Burnout 3: Takedown was a fun rental last weekend. I normally hate racing games. I end up trying to cause the biggest wipeouts possible rather than complete the races. Finally, someone made a game where that’s the main objective! Burnout 3 is one of the most addicting games I’ve played in a while, particularly crash mode (wherein you try to cause the biggest dollar amount of damage possible in an intersection). I just gotta remember to drive a little easier if I go out right after playing… The online component was a mess though. I tried it once and after failing to join games 6 times in a row, and getting booted from one that finally worked, I gave up. Really makes me appreciate Halo 2’s implementation of Xbox Live.

Katamari Damacy remains top on my list of games I’d like to play. If only I had a PS2… I might buy it anyway just to get a copy before it disappears.

One tenth of one percent…

Once again the governor of New York is ignoring public opinion.

Funding for libraries was cut by 5 million dollars last year. State library funding is now back at 1994 levels. Despite repeated votes by the legislature and a public letter writing campaign to restore the funding, Pataki still refuses. This time he’s left the cut in his proposed budget for next year.

Libraries provide amazingly valuable services. Yet the state can’t even find one tenth of one percent of the total budget to fund them.

Not that it matters too much I suppose, I mean the state budget hasn’t been passed on time in 20 years. Quite often it is many, many months late too. Grumble grumble.

How Pataki continues to get re-elected baffles me.

At least I’m consistent…

Forgot the whole camera itself this time. Looks like another day for an interior shot, since I don’t feel like going out in the bitter cold again. Apologies. I do so wish I had a camera phone. Hard to beat my $30 every 60 days deal with Verizon Freeup though, even if it does only supply a “Brick Phone”. I’ll get some actual new content-based entries up here sometime soon too.

And I should mention a thank you to Tame The Web, which linked me the other day!

Testing the Flickr Zeitgeist


edit: yeah well that didn’t work… supposed to only have my own pictures. hmm.

edit again: Apparently it works correctly in the sidebar, but not in a post. Odd. So in the sidebar it will remain! It looks boring for now, but once I add in more pictures (another week or so worth probably) it should look rather neat.

It’s so cold out…

…that it almost makes me want to take up drinking coffee. All the way up to 11 at the moment, wind chill still well below zero.

I watched the bus drive by my apartment this morning 10 minutes early, unfortunately. So walking to work was the backup plan. Even so, I was planning on taking a picture of the Cathedral of Learning on the way to work this morning for the Flickr project. I brought the camera, but somehow forgot the batteries. Oops.

Now I’ve gotta come up with something good to take a shot of; I’d rather avoid another interior apartment entry.