YATTA!!!

This was me about 20 minutes ago

Y'ALL!! Ok, so I'm a bit of a big ol' nerd and I just have to tell everybody that I feel like a frickin' genius right now.

I have been trying to get SimTower to work for quite some time. It was sort of a cycle where I would remember how much I love to play old DOS games and I'd play the one or two that I have made work reliably (either with the CD I still have or that I downloaded) and I get on a mission to make SimTower work again. Like I said the other day, Dosbox has been the coolest thing to work with because it seriously is taking me back 15 years to when I was a kid in the 90s playing on my dad's computer. Everything from the way the directory structure and navigation handles to the sounds (oh! The sounds!!) is just totally perfect. But I could never make SimTower work because it would give me an error message that said it needed Windows to run. I use a MacBook Pro, and I wouldn't have had access to Windows installation disks... ever, much less have a way to run them now. My mom inadvertently gave me the idea to try to find the game FOR Mac, but because I have an Intel based Mac, it doesn't have the Classic OS already installed, so I would have to run Classic OS through an emulator, too. After barking up that tree for a while, it was back to the drawing board (read: I came home and took a 4 hour nap, which is really more of a baby-sleep than nap, anyway).


Well, ladies and gentlemen, after my nap, I resumed the quest and while reading forum after forum after thread after whatever, the knowledge was bestowed upon me that I can INSTALL Windows 3.1 (My 1990s original OS) and run it through my Dosbox.

this is incredible.

The best part is that I can sort of manipulate the file structure from OSX, since it's all housed in there anyway. What would have taken FOREVER in a copy, paste command cycle just takes a second. And I can back everything up... like the entire OS. Shoot, I FUBARed it up the first time I tried to install SVGA drivers and just delete the whole folder from OSX and started over. It's GREAT!! I figured out how to make the sound drivers work and everything. I installed and ran SimTower and it WORKS!! Suffice to say that tomorrow at work will be consumed by this game.

so. excited.

Sorry about all the technobabble. I hope at least some of you out there will be able to get what I'm talking about.

I'm not, however, sorry for the Heroes 'ence.

What? You don't know what "ence" means? I'll blog about that later. The rest of this was too important to wait until morning.

BOO!

When I was a little kid, my dad used to scare me. What am I saying.... he STILL scares me. If he's walking ahead of me and turns a corner before I get there, odds are pretty good that he's stopped and waiting for me to get there so he can say "AGGH!" and make me jump. Because I will. About 98% of the time I will jump and scream and then go, "You turd!!" and he just laughs because it is endlessly funny to him. This is a long-standing thing for Dad. Throughout our childhood, he has moved our stuffed animals and hidden in our beds at night, sat in the bottom of the dark closet, hidden behind the door to our room... Once, all of us came home and Dad's car was there, but we couldn't find him. We probably looked for 10 minutes, and when we finally found him, he was behind the lower rack of clothes in HIS closet. Good one, Dad. Another useful tidbit in this whole thing is that all of the eyesight in our family is baaaaad, which only aided his mischief. So not only was it usually dark when he was laying in wait, it was also usually time for bed, so we've all got our glasses off or contacts out or whatever and no one can see anything anyway.

This has been good practice, it seems, as I have been watching around corners and in closets and behind doors the whole time I've been in Albuquerque. Joel seems to get immense satisfaction from seeing me jump and then me telling him he's a jerk (hahaha). Like how I'm brushing my teeth last night, and when I turn the light off on the way out of the bathroom, every light in the apartment is off. So what do I do? Say, "Oh! Good grief... You jerk!" and turn the bathroom light back on. I didn't have to go very far before he said "AGGH!!" from his hiding place on the ground in the hallway just outside the door. Or this morning, on the way to the bedroom, I look in the office and there is a figure standing there that looks like a Death Eater.



Death Eater.

Ironically, this didn't scare me. It was morning though, and that possibly had something to do with it, but it did at least make me do a double take. He was disappointed in my reaction, and said he was going to take a shower. I sat reading for a good few minutes and wondered why the water hadn't started yet. When I walked past the office, HE was there instead... as in, wearing the coat (apparently, in the office and coming out of the bathroom are the most popular locales for this behavior). Again, for whatever reason, this didn't scare me, but I applauded the effort.

Clearly, one is more apt to make me jump and scream with less prep work. Just sitting watching TV for long enough without moving and then making a loud noise will get me, seriously, every time. What can I say? I'm an easy mark.

Still, my favorite time he tried to scare me was once over 4th of July weekend. I was walking past the office and caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I walked into the office and he is standing on the chair by the door, in a psycho-killer type position holding... a feather duster. We just look at each other and since I'm obviously not scared, and also I have no idea what he was going for with that approach, he just goes,


"Hmm... it appears I may have over-planned this..."

Yeah...
you may have...

8 hours...

...is a REALLY long time to be in the car. But it is absolutely worth it.






That's Ashley, my Albuquerque roadtrip buddy. She was in the sun and it was too warm, so we put the sunshades over her.



I didn't want to turn around to take a picture of the rainbow, so I took a picture of it in the side mirror. Note the difference in the color of the sky in front of us versus the sky behind us. That was a rough patch we had just been through.



This was probably 1 or 2 hours from Albuquerque




I brought a bunch of my music and books so hopefully I make some headway on the papers and recitals and crap for next semester. Anywhozits, I'm gonna get out of this Hastings and go piddle around until Joel gets off work. Toodles!

p.s. I don't just mean worth it for the sunsets, mountains and rainbows.

Wordless Wednesday: 11:11

I'll be there soon

Wordless Wednesday: If at first you don't succeed...

]

*zzzzz* WHAT!? Ok, ok... I'm awake, it's cool.

Yeah.

So, I'm back! Yay! But I'm WHOA tired, so this will be short (hopefully, that isn't at all what he said) and sweet. Well, it will be short, anyway. I'll post a little more about my funfunfun 4th when I get to my camera (I think it's in my suitcase at home) and see if any of my pictures turned out. For now, I only have a the pictures from Joel's camera which, since we didn't take it to the top of the mountain, doesn't have any firework pictures on it.

What's that? Oh yeah. We totally watched fireworks from the top of a mountain. You guys = so jealous.

The gal that drove (her amazing Scion got such good gas mileage that my half wasn't even $50) had to be at work this morning at 6am (yikes), so we left last night from Albuquerque at about 9pm. Yes, in case you're counting, that gave us just about exactly enough time to get back as long as we didn't stop for very long. She dropped me off this morning at my apartment 10 minutes before she was supposed to be at work. I slept for 3 hours, went to a voice lesson (which was AWESOME) and I'm at work work now. I want to make a tasty casserole for dinner, but I'm very sleepy. It will all just depend on my laziness when I get finished with work.


I will definitely tell you all about of this later:

• Hallucinations on the road home


• KAH-razy dudes at the Love's just outside of Amarillo


• Mountaintop fireworks (with pictures!)


• Away We Go (HOLYMOLYSOGOOD)


• whatever else I think of when I'm not so damn sleepy

Aren't you just dying to know?! I know I am. (Hmm...) Before I go, here's a couple of pictures! Yay!





This place is like a postcard, y'all



Good weekend. :)

Until next time!

Song for today

And so over the great blue oceans
And then over the cities filled with light,
I know we'll be together tomorrow
Oh, but I'll dream of you tonight.


I'll Dream of You Tonight - Hem

]!

Fireworks and Vacation time!

So I'm getting pretty excited for this lovely holiday weekend. As if you didn't know, I'm going to Albuquerque for a few days! And, as has been previously stated, vacations are wonderful.

Actually, this is the first of a couple of these trips this month, but this one is different for a couple of reasons. First, it was relatively unplanned. I have a co-worker whose boyfriend lives in Albuquerque (total coincidence) and so she goes out there about twice a month. She is cool as SHIT and we're going to have a total blast on the 8 hour car drive (and in her Scion, which gets MUCH better gas mileage than my Explorer). Second, this one will have FIREWORKS!!! (Well, I guess they'll both have fireworks, heh heh... ahem..)

Anyway...


Fireworks are so much the best thing and fun and wonderful and happiness and smushy and preeety.... *sigh*

I love fireworks.




Oh! I also love this song!! I heard it in the trailer for "Away We Go" and I can't stop listening to it:


All of My Days - Alexi Murdoch

]

pic here

Mooooovies!

Hey! I'm back from the abyss that was Friday's workday. It was a terrifying journey but I made it back alive.


Ok, so there are a few movies that I am REALLY wanting to see this summer. Here are the two I am most excited about:


Away We Go


(500) Days of Summer


Also: MY IRS CHECK CAME IN FINALLY!!! Just in time for my 4th of July trip, too! Well, I have more actual work to do today, so blech. I'll blog later, promise. :)

I should probably go ahead and apologize...

...for the content of this post and how completely meaningless it is. However, it amuses me AND wastes time, which are two very valuable things to me at this moment, so without further ado, I present...


Pressing issues at work.

Today, this includes:

• Which of the alarming quantity of funny/nonchalant/emo self portraits I'm taking has the most Facebook potential


• Harassing everyone that I know is available to entertain me (Many thanks to Seester, Joel, Kelly and John)


• Deciding whether a side ponytail or a high ponytail is better


• Angling my portrait machine (ahem... computer) so the mess over my right shoulder isn't visible (not my mess, don't know where it goes to clean it up)


• Downloading a crapton of music (You're welcome, Joel)

Anyway... yeah. I don't really feel like playing WoW at this moment, and I don't want to watch a movie or TV, either. So, of course, in this situation, I present you with a song and fruits of my boreditude!

Trolley Wood - Eisley





I can't resist that stupid mosaic maker.

Real life

Vacations are wonderful. Really, no matter what you choose to do with your time away from work, it's the suspension of reality that is the best part. Coincidentally, that is also the most heartbreaking part of going back to work. I say I'd get tired of sleeping in and watching movies and eating delicious food and going neat places and not having to go to work... but I don't know that I'd really get tired of that.




Rocks, water and me. Bricktown, OKC

Bison... not as stable as it looks.

Baby Duckies!! They were so damn cute...

I so should have made him take another one. My hair is all in my face.


So anyway, I am back in the real world and I am thinking of a quote from Someone Like You. Admittedly, it's not the same scenario, but I feel it's still appropriate:


"There are few things sadder in this life than watching someone walk away after they've left you, watching the distance between your bodies expand until there's nothing... but empty space and silence. "

him: You're going to cry.
me: Shut up. I am not.
him: You're so going to cry.

Finally got my motivation back

Ok, I need to unpack my apartment. I mean, geez. We moved in over Spring Break and I have yet to actually unpack the vast majority of my belongings. However, I have company coming this weekend, so it's time to unleash my inner domestic goddess (if I even have one... let's hope so) and organize and clean!


Actually, when I get in the right mood and listen to the music, cleaning and organizing all my garbage is actually kind of enjoyable. Yesterday was NOT this day. I was totally a lazy person all afternoon and then there was a tornado (no kidding. 'Nado.) and so I just wasn't in the mood to do anything but sit in my chair and veg. Today, though... the inspiration has struck! I have music! I have macaroni and chicken nuggets! I have the urge to clean!!


Yippee!!

In honor of said motivation, I'm going to share a few of my favorite cleaning musics. They may or may not be Guitar Hero songs:


Lay Down - Priestess


Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys


Sick, Sick, Sick - Queens of the Stoneage

My return to the land of the living

I updated my Facebook status to let the world know that I am done with all my school responsibilities this semester (THANK GOD) and my friend John said, "Finally your tweets might be less of a downer all the time... ;)"

So, I formally apologize for my lack of characteristic up-ness in these recent times. At this point, I will not obsess over grades and school and whatnot, as there's not a thing I can do about it (This is my Hakuna Matata reflex. I have talked about it a little before). I'll probably check the online grade postings like it's a cast list waiting to go up, but stress time is officially over.


I absolutely cannot express how glad I am that it's finally summer. I was very, I guess resentful is the best word for it, resentful this semester with regard to my classes. The relief of knowing that all I am truly responsible for is showing up to work is just... so.... nice... *sigh*


I have very high hopes for this summer, too. Last summer was great, don't get me wrong, but my job kept me completely tied to OKC. I literally left the city for 2 days. This will NOT be the case this summer. I have concerts and operas and digging for diamonds (yes, I'm serious. How ama-za-zing does this look??) and who-knows-what else I want to do. Even if I don't get to do all (or heck, any) of it, just having the ability to get up and go feels so good.

And because I'm all about lists, I'm going to make a Summer List. I was going to call it a "To-do" list, but it's not really that. It's more of a "All the things I may have in store for me this summer" list:

• Go to Tulsa to see A Little Night Music and My Fair Lady. I have several friends involved and I had a BLAST last year when I went.


• See Ben Folds in Tulsa or Fayetteville (pending financial situation and desire to see 1964: The Tribute in Wichita Falls the same day as the Tulsa concert)


• Seester and I have been wanting to go to Crater of Diamonds State Park for a LONG time. If we can get that together, it would be flipping sweet.


• My friend Shelley will be in Tanglewood teaching kids at the camp part, but she said that I could (read: should) come see her because it's like "Disneyworld, but for music." Sounds good to me.


• My Alyssa friend and I jokingly talked about starting a store on Etsy to maybe profitably get rid of some of the things that are created when we need a crafty outlet for our creativeness. I was only half joking.

I should also include a couple of not quite as fun (but VERY IMPORTANT) things:

• Learn the Four Last Songs by R. Strauss for my recital


• Do research and/or begin work on my thesis

And that's just the stuff I know off the top of my head. I haven't even thought about 4th of July or my birthday (turning 25. Whoatown.) at the end of July or ever seeing my dad in southish Texas or just going to Wichita Falls at random to see Seester, Li'l Brudder, and my mom. This is going to be awesome.


Summer, I have waited all semester for you to get here:



Let's do this.




Thought I should introduce Li'l Brudder properly, but aside from pics of him with a jewfro, I can't really find a good picture. So ignore my retarded expression, if you don't mind:





However, I also think his jewfro is endlessly hilarious, so here's Brudder and Pops a while back ago:

lawls.