May. 28th, 2005

prog: (Default)
If I ever have a movie review show it will be called "Overreacting!! with jmac".



It's moving season again. Two people from my former central-Maine tribe are presently working their roots into the Boston area, which is pretty good. I will await [livejournal.com profile] xymotik's acceptance of a position at Harvard to complete the circle. (The parking is just as bad here as in Berkeley; you'll love it.)



My brother Ricky has moved out of my parents' house and into his very own apartment in Bangor. I had a good conversation with him last night about his concerns; he loves his apartment, but doesn't know whether it passed its recent Section 8 inspection and is worried he'll lose it. He won't: the landlord has to fix the broken things by law. Ricky is nonetheless stressed out and filled with what-ifs.

I pledged to help him, as he just needs help communicating his concerns with the appropriate officials. I learned that mom and dad are already helping, but I think I may end up playing a role anyway, since I may be his only relative with the patience to compile his speech (except when he's at his absolute worst and most obfuscated, but that isn't often).

Cute Rickyism OTD: Currently, when he wants to talk to me, Ricky phones me LD and then asks if I can call him right back, so he doesn't have to shoulder the full phone bill. Of course I'm always amenable to this, but last night I suggested that instead he just let my phone ring once so that I see his name on my cell's screen, letting me return the call without costing him a dime. I already have this agreement with Peter, but Ricky didn't want to do it because it struck him as dishonest... cheating the system, and inviting some sort of bad karma in retribution. Apparently he had a long discussion about this with the collect-call operator earlier that evening and it came to nothing, which is why he didn't call me collect, I guess.



I'm almost done with Wolfenstein. I like that one of the good guys actually pronounces the titular castle's name as a German would. I actually now recommend this game as a low-brainpower explore-and-destroy funfest, despite my first post about it... I just don't know what the level designers were thinking with the infuriating deathtraps in those first levels.

I'll probably be done with single-player FPS games after this, unless another really interesting one like Deus Ex pings my radar.



Yesterday was my last day as a full-time employee at ICCB. Doubt and regret didn't bite until the moment I picked up my last such paycheck from my mailbox, and it suddenly struck me that my next such check would be smaller by 2/5. Oh crap, that's a lot of money. Funny that it didn't come to me until now that this is actually the first major cost of my upcoming adventures, well before any of the other weighty fees I expect to pay to various departments and agencies before the year's (maybe even the summer's) out.

I have worked out my schedule, though: I suggested MTW, but was asked if I could to WRF instead, and I said aye aye. Of course this means that Memorial Day is not going to be a holiday for me now. Oh well.



The Volity list has been seeing some heated discussion this past week, and an interesting in-between idea emerged that a lot of people like; [livejournal.com profile] daerr called last night to talk about it. Very interesting.

I have a bunch of stuff to post there this weekend.

Cool

May. 28th, 2005 12:39 pm
prog: (zendo)
Icehouse game-designmeister Jacob Davenport's Rubik's Cube Artbook (with contributions from various other Wunderlanders) got boingboinged.
prog: (monkey)
After two years of delay I'm finally taking the reins of my long-term finances, starting with the great basic investment information found at Fool's School.

  • I took the somewhat painful step of stomping out the rest of my CC bill, including the big transfer I took out to help pay my taxes last month. That I felt at all attached to the money which wasn't really mine proves, I think, that it was indeed better to excise it now than later.

  • I transferred all the money that my Harvard retirement account has accrued over the last three years into an index (located elsewhere within the same account shelter); specifically, one that apes the S&P 500. Because I like apes. They're not as funny as monkeys but they'll do. Also it seemed to have the winningest returns among the indexes that Fidelity offered.

  • Next I must decide how to route future Harvard retirement contributions; it's still set to shunt everything into that useless money market. (I already have a bank account that serves the same purpose, only with a better APY.) Strong likelihood that I'll just glop it also into that index too, but I'm not sure yet... more reading to do.

  • Then I will see about re-re-restarting a Quicken file for the umpteenth time in my professional existence. (At least my bank offers Quicken-readable account exports.) With this information in hand, I'll start making a real savings plan outside of retirement stuff, with the aim of building a real stock portfolio. This is really exciting to me. Woo woo.
  • meh

    May. 28th, 2005 10:52 pm
    prog: (khan)
    Carnivale died. Coincidentally I called RCN to cancel my HBO service earlier today, before I learned this. (I figured I'd just torrent the third season.) Also the spokesperson's quote is BS... that last episode, while a good break point, was so not a "natural end" to the whole series; Sophie's actions at the end were an obvious hook for the next season. Now there is no next season, so they're reduced to randomness, and the show gets its Twin Peaks-like ending after all. Bleh.

    (And I failed in my mission... the wily CSR talked me into switching into a different cable package that still has HBO as well as a wider broadband pipe, and yet costs $18 less than my current package after a promotional dealie he turned on for me. I was assured I could still call and (once again attempt to) cancel at any time later. Uh... 'kay.)
    prog: (smiley)
    I'm sorry if I didn't seem to recognize you at the thing the other night. Your hair has grown out since the last time I saw you and it was dark and I was all confused.

    August 2022

    S M T W T F S
     123456
    78910111213
    14151617181920
    21222324252627
    28 293031   

    Most Popular Tags

    Style Credit

    Expand Cut Tags

    No cut tags
    Page generated Aug. 10th, 2025 11:08 am
    Powered by Dreamwidth Studios