The theme of this site has been wearing on me too, so I’ve been learning how to code a WordPress theme in my spare time. It’s coming along slowly, but even if I pick a pre-made one have learned quite a bit to modify and personalize it. It’s time this site had a face-lift.

Here is the email I sent them.

“Dear Scheisters,

Sincerely,
Ben Jarvis”

I have an original SNES, a DSi, and a Wii. I also have a knock off Yobo NES. I would love to get a restored original NES and an Advance SP (to play OG Game Goy games with a backlight). Tracking down the individual games will be a little hard, but thats part of the fun, I guess. There are easier and cheaper ways to play these games (emulators, anyone?), but I want the real thing.

Speaking of the real thing, I might be getting a Casio CZ-101! This is identical to the CZ-1000, but has smaller keys and regular buttons. This is Casio’s “Phase Distortion” synth. Digital and totally different in tone and character from my Nord Lead 2. For a while I was using the VST version of the CZ-101 called “PlastiCZ”, but I love hands on gear. I really look forward to setting up my studio as I piece it together.

1. Twitter takes all my good ideas and I’ve stopped thinking in longer than 140 characters.
2. I don’t make the time to blog like I used to.

I still need to publish my old LiveJournal posts and clean up the over all formating. Do some quality control. This year I’ve decided to take up the coffee habit in an attempt to be more productive. It’s not natural to be this lazy.

How about I start with some baby steps. Some short posts to get back into the swing of things? Sound good? Okay, I’ll try it.

• Visited LA.
• Got back in to Magic: The Gathering.
• Purchased the Dungeon & Dragons 4th Edition books.
• Got serious about playing guitar and keyboard by following a video course.
• Watched a billion movies and hours of TV.
• Learned about several Korean pop groups via Corin.
• Spent too much money on repairing the Van.
• Lost some weight.
• Played a lot of Wii.
• Read a lot of comics.
• Got an HDTV.
• Imported all my LJ posts.
• Played hours of Warcraft.

To the untrained eye it’s not a whole lot, but believe me when I say I was busy.

Los Angeles

The trip to Los Angeles was a lot of fun. I saw friends and family that I haven’t seen in over seven years. Seems like just a few months or so, but it was seven years. It was great to have dinner with my parents and my brother. It was also sad, because I realized California is no longer my home. No one lives in my old neighborhood of Silverlake and everyone has grown up lives of their own. The city felt so big and lonely without a home base like the old lake house. My parents and brother live an hour north of LA. So I was in and out of LA over five days. I was happy to see my friends and family. I missed them dearly, but I’m convinced more than ever that I’ve moved on from LA. It’s true, you can’t go home again. I look forward to more frequent visits, preferably with less hectic itineraries.

Magic: The Gathering

It’s nice to be back into games again. I’m completing a project I started a long time ago. I have a large collection of Magic: The Gathering cards. In case you don’t know, they’re released in sets, generally 3 per year, and have a limited number of cards per set. In the game you can have up to 4 of any card in your deck, so collecting a full set (including the multiples) can be tough. I don’t think I have a single complete set, but I decided a while back to put the cards in binders according to set, leaving space for the multiples. I wanted to treat it like more of a collection than just a game. I have several thousand cards to go through, but once I’m done it will be trivial with future sets and I’ll be able to find cards in a matter of seconds. My future magic purchases are going to be much more frugal. On eBay you can buy most a set for under $50. I figure I can spare $150 a year to stay current on Magic. I can buy the rare cards as needed for the decks I build.

Comics

Tomorrow is new comic day for me. My DCBS order comes in and boy is it a whopper. I think 20-25 comics! I have like 16 on my pull list, but with Blackest Night and some of the arcs concluding in one shots, I have a pretty big stack this month. If you buy more than 10 comics a month, you really should be using DCBS. I still love to go to shop and I buy stuff, but the monthlies I get all come via DCBS. I’m power reading Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps to get to Blackest Night, but I’m enjoying the Sinestro Corps War so much that I’m now taking my time. X-Men has been great and I think Old Man Logan finally finishes.

I’m ashamed that it took so long for me to post something, but I just haven’t had it in me. I’ll see if I can do it again tomorrow and try to get the ball rolling again.

Why don’t I just buy a prebuilt Dell or maybe switch to a Mac? Well first of all my hacker ethos won’t let me buy a pre-built PC. It’s a little like a gearhead leaving there car stock. I like to be in control of all the various aspects of my PC. I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a mac. I could run all three OSes on it, but not only does it run in to the first problem of being a pre-built machine out of my control, its also very expensive.

The goals of my new PC are music production and gaming. Though I’m a Linux guy, I’m pretty sure I’ll be running Windows. The games I like (Warcraft, etc.) play best on Windows (though with a beefy machine and hardcore video card, WoW will probably play fine under Linux) and Ableton Live (my music production platform of choice) only works FULLY on Windows. Do I run Windows 7 or the evert faithful XP? Not sure. Probably Windows 7 if it’s as good as people are saying it is.

Since I’m laid off, I need to watch our spending. But I’m sure I have enough things laying around that could be sold I could probably raise the cash easily.

I need to plan a budget and pick out parts. Motherboard and chip technology has changed so much since I built my last machine it’s silly.

I do know that this time around, all my parts will be bought off the net. No more running up to Frys to get RAM.

I meant the take a look at that squealing wheel, but it I figured I’d rather do it tomorrow on the off chance that it takes more than the afternoon to fix. I’m sure it’s a broken spring or clip for the brake shoe. We shall see.

After work Corin and I went to the sporting goods store and bought a recumbent exercise bike. This thing is awesome. You get a great work out, raise your pulse rate, and all while reclining so you don’t put stress on your back. I’ve started walking again and I think I’ll add 30 minutes on the bike on top of that. Funny little side story: while we were emptying the box of all the bike parts we noticed a little red box at the bottom. It turned out to be a half-full pack of Xiong Shi cigarettes. From the other side of the world, some poor Chinese working stiff lost his smokes in our box. I can imagine him saying “Oh no! My smokes! What fuck!?!”

In preparation for DC’s Blackest Night event, I’m reading all the Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps issues starting with Green Lantern: Rebirth and Green Lantern Corps: Recharge. I realized that the reason I love the Green Lantern mythos so much is that it’s a superhero take on the Jedi mythos. I haven’t read any GL from before Rebirth, but this post Rebirth stuff is fantastic. Really good.

Here comes the weekend. Time to clear out some of those To Do list items!

Today I got the van back. I dropped it off yesterday and picked it up this afternoon. Since last Friday the engine was overheating. On Monday I tried to fix a leak in the cooling system and broke a bolt off in the water heater in the process. In the end I sealed it up, and that didn’t stop the overheating. So I took it in to the shop (with a thermostat that I got on the cheap) and had them put the thermostat in and seal cooling system properly. It worked. Well, it worked after I discovered that the radiator cap was either left off or it was on loosely. Either way, after I put the cap on, the van is running cool. There is a scrape/whining/squeaking noise coming from the rear drivers side wheel. The brakes work, but I will look in to it. At the very worst I’ll have do a brake job.

Today at work, while I was out, they had the meeting to tell us who is getting furloughed and who is staying. I wasn’t there and I think they tell us one at a time. So tomorrow I get the big news. Either I stick around for a while longer (could be all year) or I get let go next Tuesday. I’m not that worried. If I stay, that means more money. If I get let go, that means more time. Either way, I’ll be fine. If I get laid off, that means that I can try some of my other income ideas. PC work, writing, activism, volunteer work, eBay, web work, etc. Also more time for music and working out. I’ll have to find a temp/part time job, but that’s later.

We’ll see what happens.

This tax season is a little different. We have an economic downturn the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades and no one (I mean no one) wants to pay their taxes. Some probably can’t afford it, others are simply filing extensions. It all adds up to the same: our peak month was cut short. My boss told me that though I am among the top of the seasonal workers, this year there isn’t enough work to keep people around. It probably means that I will have a series of recalls and releases as the tax payments ebb and flow. But I have a trick up my sleeve.

All employees are welcome to apply for “detail” work. This means I can transfer to another area that needs workers on a temporary basis. I’m guaranteed a certain amount of time on the detail (in this case 10 days) and they may extend it as they see fit. This means I could be there for the required 10 days or the rest of the year. There’s no telling. One of the other possibilities is that I could come off the detail and get snapped up again by my home unit. In any case, I feel better about my future than just a simple “see ya later”. Hopefully, I don’t get laid off but anything can happen. Hell, I could use the vacation time.

In honor of Corin passing a test at work and today being new comic day, we went out for dinner at Dimassi’s and then to Austin Books. I picked up the new Action Comics and X-Infernus, another short box, and a pack of backing boards. So once we got home, guess what I did? Yup, bagged all those mothers. Now I’m done with the bagging and watching Criminal Minds while flipping around online. I downloaded a torrent called Marvel Major Event Chronology and I’m thinking of starting on that. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a collection of all the issues in all the major Marvel events. I figure if I get through all that, I’ll be pretty well versed in Marvel history. But, oh man is that a lot of comics to read.

I’m sorry that I haven’t been posting here. Every time I log in to Wordpress, I face an empty post window and I try to think of some brainy and interesting thing to say and…I draw a blank. So instead, I’ll just post about my boring shit and maybe in the process something cool will come out of all this. Also I need to take more pictures, I have an awesome camera and its totally going to waste.