Efficiency! I’m so proud, I have finally achieved a state where I can go infinitely without showering. Nevermind, that sounds gross, let me reword it better. See, for the longest time, I would feel gross and awful if I didn’t shower every single morning. This is a pain, though. It means less sleep on days I need to get up early. I also don’t get that dirty every single day, and I really hate that if I wake up too late for a shower, I’d just feel awful the rest of the morning. It was psychological, and needed breaking. It was a big pain at first, but I have acclimated myself now to being able to get up and throw on clothes and leave without bathing, and to not feel like I’m super gross for doing so. It usually makes more sense to shower at night anyhow, since I can wash off after I’ve done something super sweaty/dirty, rather then waiting for the next morning to do so.

I’m applying to be a part of a sleep study. I would disappear for 2 weeks into a lab, and get paid around $2,500. It’s not like I’m doing any other work right now! Looks like there’s a lot of testing to see if one qualifies though.

Pretty sure I’m headed to another Drupal meeting tonight. I’m growing bitter with Drupal, though. I mean, I know I’m asking a lot of it in what I try to do sometimes, but it’s just not very well organized. I just use WordPress for blogging, so it’s not like I’m stretching it’s limits very much, but it’s so nice how easy it is to upgrade things. Just a button click, and it’s taken care of. Magical! No such simplicity in Drupal. It’s all “download this, then dump this thing here.” And this is why Drupal shall never have the market share that WordPress has. There is a way of simple module upgrades, but it’s command-line interface. Which is fine for most developers, but this sort of thing helps guarantee that Drupal will make little headway into the non-developer world.

Boy could I use some pizza right about now!

Plus, add to this my quandries on that whole Windows 7 thing. I know it supposed to be significantly better then Vista, but when doing some brief research into laptops, they all came with 64-bit Windows 7. Now, I don’t know a significant amount about 64-bit, but according to my brief research, it will not run some older programs. I haven’t found anything saying *how* old of programs it won’t run. Like, will I be able to run Civ 3 still? Or, what about MS Gif Animator and Hex Code Helper (two rather antiquated programs which haven’t been updated since probably the late 90′s, but are quite good at what they do, so I still use them). Anyhow, I’m hesitant to jump on the 64-bit bandwagon right now.

I could make the jump and get something with Linux (Ubuntu, perchance). It’s going good on my netbook, and I feel like if I’m going to be in any way a decent programmer, working in a Linux environment would simplify my life. Just too used to Windows at this point. I could figure out some sort of virtualization program to use (VMWare?) and install XP? Or, for that matter, I could figure out how to dual boot and have both Linux and XP? Or, maybe I can get a laptop with Windows 7, and install Linux to dual boot with it. It’s also really hard to even find laptops sold with Linux on them (well, that’s not a netbook, at least).

So anyhow, this is what my brain has been mashing around lately.

Anyhow, feel free to check out my updates at varoper.com!

In other news, I’ve been spending money lately. First off, I bought a monitor! See, for awhile, I’ve been using this weighty bastard. I actually found it in the trash about three years ago, and it was an excellent upgrade at the time, especially considering it was free. However, at 50 lbs, I was not looking forward to trying to move with it. So, I got this baby. I’m really enjoying having a widescreen monitor, as I am the sort of person who likes to have a large assortment of small windows open that I flip back and forth between constantly. It is also very pretty, takes up much less space on my desk, has built-in speakers so I can get rid of my clunky separate speakers, and weighs 15 lbs. Even better: I checked retailmenot.com and found a $10 off coupon to use when buying it, yay!

I also ordered a netbook, which has not arrived yet. As I am unsure of what the internet situation will be like when we get to Colorado, I wanted to get something that would give me wifi access so I can keep up on email and necessary job search stuff. It’s pretty basic, and I figure that I can upgrade as needed.

Last night, Greek festival! Tonight, Greek festival! Saw Morgan and Dee there last night, and will see them again tonight. Saw Melvin for 2 seconds, and then he disappeared, never to be seen again. Saw random LJ friend, and in the time it took me to try to remember how her name was pronounced so I could say ‘hi’, she’d wandered off. D’oh! Food was good, especially custard whose name I’ve forgotten. I’m normally not too hot on yellow custards, but this was absolutely delightful and I even liked it more then the baklava. Last night I did the “meat on a stick + green beans” thing, tonight I’ll do the “meat + veggies plus tziki in a pita” thing, and it shall be magical. I’ll be getting there at 6 or thereabouts if anyone else wants to hop onto that magic carpet ride as well!

Oh yeah, this is a sweet amount of sea sponges. Oooh yeah!

And speaking of which, I tweet now. Or rather, I got a twitter account about a year ago, and recently got bored and have tried actually using it. I’m still wary of the actual utility of it, as it’s another way to post in AIM away message or a Facebook status update, but as, given my chosen profession, I have a need to stay on top of all these newfangled Internets, I gotta give it a whirl.

Thusly, add me on Twitter and I’ll add you back! I am @ptocheia.

I am currently drinking one of a dying breed. Caffeinated Sparks, how I love you so. We might be down to just a 4-pack now. And when that 4 pack is gone, I shall forever mourn the loss of the delicacy of caffeine +alcohol in one convenient delicious beverage.

My computer area is now oolong-flavored. Yesterday I had the fabulous fortune to whack my still-too-hot-to-drink cup of tea with my elbow, thus giving some things a bath. Nothing too important though, lucky for me there is apparently some serious indentation going on in the middle of my computer desk. Though, the left arrow on my keyboard is sticking in a rather unfortunate way. I feel lucky that the keyboard works at all, though, given my luck with spilling things on keyboards. Which I suppose is the price one inevitably pays for keeping beverages at one’s desk.

So this past Saturday! Diving madness! As Christine is unemployed and I am a lover of Free, we both went up to the U of R for their moving out day to check out all the detritus the students were leaving behind. At first I was disappointed due to the lack of VA-friendly items, but in the end all was well. Drew and I now have about 25+ packets of microwaveable popcorn (butter lover’s, to be precise). Someone had a great big box of the stuff and had chucked it, with barely any used at all. I also have a hula hoop! The best find though was a super sweet jacket. It’s made by Diesel, and is cut and designed in a really interesting manner, with joyous zippers. Once I’ve washed it I’ll post a picture of the awesomeness.

On a final note, I essentially have had a free drafting chair for the past several years. Back when I started doing contract work for OWP, I bought a really nice used Steelcase drafting chair from Hull St Outlet for $100. It was a really high-quality chair and was amazing for my posture. I used it constantly for two good years, and then when I went to work in-house, it just kinda sat around. I finally decided to suck it up and sell it. As much as I liked the chair, I liked the money more, and I feel bad if I own something and never use it, I feel like that item would be happier if it were owned by a person who appreciated it more then me. So I sold the chair on Craigslist – for $100. Yay!