What, 8 things about me?1

All right, so lovely Allison over at Adverse Journalism hit me to do this one. I'd usually not do something like this, but hey, I have to. She is my girlfriend and all...

The game is to list 8 random things about yourself. The problem? I'm boring. But here's my shot.

01. Whenever I find a song that I enjoy a lot, I get obsessed with it. I'll play it over an over again, sometimes for days at a time. I've done this with songs like Get Behind The Mule (the John Hammond version), or Vigilante Man from Ry Cooder. Alice from Pogo is another good example.

When I say obsessed, I mean that more than I should. If it really piques my interest, I'll spend too much time finding out everything that I can about the artist and song. Suddenly, my interest will move on to something else.

02. I'm interested in older technology. This ranges from doing things via a CLI to listening to Shortwave Radio to using Vacuum Tubes.

The CLI part goes towards my affection for things like IRC, and my need to have as much info directly in front of me as possible. I'm not much for shiny interfaces that move a lot. The Shortwave Radio interest stems mostly from listening to Spy Numbers stations. Pretty interesting stuff to me, because it's old technology that's still being used to transmit secret transmissions. Vacuum Tubes are an interest mostly because I'm a guitarist, and I really dig the sound that tubes give amplifiers. My current amp is a '65 Twin Reverb Reissue from Fender. I love it. I need to retube and rebias it a bit hotter, tho.

03. As noted above, I play guitar. I've been playing for the last 10 years or so, and it's a lot of fun. I'm mostly into play Blues and Rock, but I mess around with a lot of stuff, too. I've been playing around with a lot of more modern sounding stuff lately, and it's a lot of fun, too. I need a band, tho. My current setup is an American Series Stratocaster feeding into a Jim Dunlop Wah, Ibanez TS9, Line 6 DM4, Boss Chorus (not sure which model), and a Line 6 Roto-Machine. The amp is a '65 Twin Reissue,

04. I am a freak for Star Wars. I've even gotten the Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker, and Darth Maul replica Lightsabers and love them dearly.

05. I'm learning Python. It's the first language I've come accross that I've had an easy time learning. I've been working on a program with it for a long time. I plan on getting started with IronPython some time soon. It's a lot of fun, tho. All though I'm trying to learn about Classes and Modules a little bit more. My main project would benefit from custom modules quite a bit.

06. I have a music collection that spans across about 140 gigs and 25,000 songs (those are rough numbers). I collect music like crazy. Found a song I like? I try to get the entire discography. This obsession with collection has lead to an obsession with storage, as well. Currently, I have a server with a terabyte of storage, and my desktop comes within 50 gigs or so.

07. If I work with you and I don't write something down, I didn't remember it. Period. That's why I have two whiteboards in my office (a big one and a small one) and an "art book" with unlined pages. If I didn't write it down, then you didn't ask in the first place. The unlined paper also encourages me to think within limits, but to float around a bit within those limits.

08. I recently bought an Xbox 360 and, frighteningly enough, I really enjoy it. The graphics are pretty good, and it works well with my current setup, including piping media through my server to it. My favorites so far are Call of Duty 4 and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.

That's what I've got. Sadly enough, I've nobody to tag.

Move along now.

Freezing my ass off is worth it this time

Right now, I'm sitting outside of London Heathrow Airport having a cigarette in 8 Degree C weather (that's 46 Degrees F), and I wouldn't have it any other way. Or maybe I would...

See, I have a small problem. Less than 5 hours ago, history was repeating itself to me in the most bizarre and unusual fashion, and it's something I'm not very keen on going through again. I had to say goodbye to her again.

I left Prague after the most amazing 8 days of my life. I was so happy to be there, on my first real vacation in about 9 or 10 months. When I say real, remember that it's on the scale of NO WORK WHATSOEVER FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME. I hope the caps made that apparent.

Regardless, I spent 8 days in Prague. Beautiful city. Absofuckinglutely the most amazing city I have ever had the privilege to see. Great city, great people, great times.

But there was something that occluded my view - and you know what? I'm extremely happy that it was there.

My main reason for going to Prague happens to be probably the most important person in my life at the moment. So when I say that I had a distraction with the city, what I really mean to say is that my girlfriend is the most kickass and beautiful woman on the entire planet. Seriously. Had I not gone with her, I might've absorbed more of the city. But you know what? I'm not really that disappointed. I saw her, and that's what counts on this one. I got to be around her after 2 months of something I like to call P.C.D. - or Physical Contact Deprivation. I'll get more into that and it's effects on relationships at another point.

But enough about my babble on that (She's another post entirely), I was glad to be there an experience some of the most amazing sights there are on this planet. Standing on ground that has been held as a castle for 1000 years (that's right, one thousand) was humbling at the very least. Prague Castle is goddamn amazing and put my view of "old" into perspective. Think about it. I'm an American. My view of old is the 232 years of independence my nation has had. The buildings are around 200 years old, give or take, and it's really nothing compared to the castle. F'Serious.

We also hit up Berlin for an overnight stay in the Heart of Gold hostel in Berlin. Ally's a huge fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and this hostel is themed with that. Granted, we didn't get one of the hugely themed rooms, but it was cool nonetheless. No curfew, no bullshit, good price. I'd highly suggest it.

While in Berlin, we pretty much just walked around and looked at the amazing architecture of the place. The Germans know how to build some ridiculous buildings. The Reichstag is fucking HUGE. Made me feel small. Like crazy. It was nuts. We saw a few other buildings, as well as the Jewish memorial there, and that was pretty interesting. All though I have to say, Prague is better. It stole my heart, for lack of a better term.

I need to go in. It's 6.6 C (43 F), which means my ass is about as cold as it can get.

Until next time.