So, finally, after close to 25 years of not owning a video game console (the previous one was a Philips Videopac G7000 system from the early 1980s), we finally took the plunge and got ourselves a Nintendo Wii system. It was bundled with Wii Sports and one freely selectable game, so we chose Super Mario Galaxy, which has been getting great reviews. Also, we threw in the Cars game for Marius, which instantly proved itself an enormous success. Ka-chow!

It’s been really fun so far (The “physics” in Super Mario Galaxy is a real mind-bender!), with the possible exception of having sore muscles in places we didn’t know existed. Then again, Linda and myself shook hands on trying to stay fit and exercise more this year…

(I didn’t bother with a mod chip yet. And I resent the hardware manufacturers for making me need one. Being able to make backup copies of my legally purchased games to avoid damaging the originals should be a mandatory feature, not something you have to (in their eyes) break the law to enable. Yes, yes, I know it’s meant to hinder piracy, but copy protection shouldn’t be an obstacle to paying customers. So there.)

Wow, I really suck at this blogging business, don’t I?

Anyway, here is today’s random selection of brain lint.

On new year’s eve I proposed to Linda, and the crazy wench accepted! We’re doomed! Aaah!! (I’m joking, dear. Ow. Stop. OW!)

Red wine and my recently acquired movie quiz book go together like … two things that go together really well. Especially the red wine. That goes together exceptionally well. (Certainly better than the beer I had last weekend, when we celebrated Michael’s (a friend of ours) 30th birthday, which brought me a insaneously hidderous headache, despite only consuming a few of them.) The quiz book was a great bargain, too. It cost me NOK 10.00 (approx EUR 1.25), and it contains 1800 questions (most of them pretty hard), and hopefully the same number of answers. We’re working on finding out.

In more technical news, I’m hoping to have fibre (FTTH) pulled through my wall soon - as in a few weeks. After moving to Karmøy, my ADSL has acted up quite a bit, dropping the connection every Nth minute, but only staying offline for 30 seconds or so. Enough to be annoying, nonetheless.

Music! I have discovered Dark Lunacy, a great melodic death metal band from Italy. Great stuff. Also, only a few more weeks until the Karmøygeddon Metal Festival kicks off, under which I plan to see Kamelot, Scar Symmetry and Communic. (May 5th on Byscenen, for those who may be interested.)

And I need more disk space.

So, I guess I have some catching up to do…

Marte is growing. No surprise there, really, but it happens much faster than you would think when you’re smack in the middle of her doing so. She can smile (occasionally), lift her head, kick (to the extent of *almost* pushing herself forward when lying on her tummy), and today she rolled over from her back to her tummy all by herself. You know, all those strange little things that make parents go wonky.

In other domestic news, we’re moving in just under 3 weeks. I can’t say I look forward to that ordeal, but I do look forward to having done it and getting settled in the new house.

Also, I have discovered some new music. Summoning, an austrian epic black(ish) Tolkien-metal duo, is well worth a listen! I haven’t dug too deeply into their older stuff, but their two latest albums, Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame, and their brand new Oath Bound are terrific. Another great one is Amorphis‘ latest album, Eclipse.

And I would like to extend my gratitute to Albie for reminding me about Top Secret! I haven’t seen that since I was the size of a (largish) cabbage, and I had almost forgotten all about it, until now. Definitely on my to-see-again list.

Oh, I almost forgot; Comment and trackback spammers should be stabbed in the face. As should the pricks who hire them to market their useless crap. (If it wasn’t useless they wouldn’t have to resort to spamming to sell it, would they…) In the end it’s the customers’ fault, though. If nobody bought anything as a result of unsolicited junk mail, they wouldn’t bother sending it out…

OK, I think that will do for now…

The more I listen to our beloved politicians, the more convinced I am that I have to chose between the Black Plague, cholera, cancer, tuberculosis and several unpleasant sexually transmitted diseases.

Before, unless my memory is playing tricks on me, it was possible for a trained ear to determine which causes were important to any given political party by listening to their pre-election yapping. But as of lately, all they have to present are some vague, meaningless, horoscope-like twists and turns that desperately try to appeal to as many voters as possible without alienating anyone.

Luckily, there is one topic left that the numskulls dare have an opinion on; the so-called predator debate. As one representative for Senterpartiet put it, “We have to shoot all the wolves to preserve the biological diversity in our woods.” Honestly, how bright can one get without hurting oneself?! And these are the kind of people we have to choose between.

I wish they could introduce negative votes. Then I would at least know that I tried to prevent one specific group of morons from having any influence instead of actually helping someone.

If any politicians are reading this, and think that that was a good idea, you’ve got my vote!

Following the trend of general breakage, my ADSL-connection flatlined on me this morning. You really don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, I tell you. Oh, the withdrawals!

Anyway, I phoned my provider’s support hotline, and got through within 15 seconds. (Honestly, I love these guys’ service. No immediate resolution presented itself, but the techie promised to look into the matter. Some 15 minutes later, the line came up-ish, but with about 55% packet loss. After waiting a bit, I called them back to inform them of the new status, and the techie could see a lot of line noise, which would explain the symptoms. After having convinced me to check all my cables (which I knew were OK, but I had this odd feeling he could tell if I only pretended to unplug and check them), he marked the line as faulty, and I was told to expect a call from a local techie within today or tomorrow. Nice and prompt.

What’s even nicer, though, is that the connection seems to have healed itself some time this afternoon, and all appears to be peachy again. Whee!

This is actually the first time I’ve had problems with my feed, in several years. OK, I’ve had some minor glitches before, but those hardly count. And every time I’ve talked to them, the Catch techies know what to do. And you gotta love a company whose first-line support staff all seem to know what an ARP packet is!

(Yes, I know this event spans several days, but the name was too catchy to pass up on.)

Time to fire up ye olde backup scripts, people. It’s that time of the year again. First, one of my 80 GB disks decided to retire early and take a notable portion of the sectors residing on itself with it. I had a spare disk lying around, though, so I managed to migrate everything over, except for a few files which I could do without. (Who needs those “..” entries anyway, eh?)

Anyway, shortly after,
CyBeR’s disk
joined the party.

Then, to make the start of the new week perfect (even before I had finished my first cup of coffee), a customer of ours’ backup server started complaining about icky filesystem errors. A quick fsck (as quick as fscking 160 GB of bad sectors can be) revealed yet another apostate.

How rude.

It has been brought to my attention that I don’t update
my blog as often as I should.

Just thought you’d like to know.

I’m not going to say much, but I stumbled across
an entry by Jonathan Simms, which pretty much sums up my feelings
about the issue;
“What now?”.

So, it finally happened. I’m expressing my uniqueness and
individuality by doing exactly the same as millions of others.
Which uncanny force has convinced me that what I write
here will actually be read by anyone who gives a damn?
Am I that important? I doubt it.

Truth be told, even the very word “blog”
tends to offend me. The very essence of the word
projects laziness that even a certified sloth would envy.
It was originally called “web log”,
but that was too complicated, I guess.
Not unlike the American version of “aluminium”.

Yet, here I am, writing this. And it’s kind of fun.
I might even do it again.