Howdy all. All three of you, and I think two of you have stopped visiting … : )

It’s been really busy at work lately with several upgrades occurring over the last few weekends. As such, good ol’ Christmas has snuck up on me kind of sudden like. I know that with many people it sneaks up without warning and then they find themselves scrambling to meet the XMas rush. Not me though. i actually recall about 3 or 4 weeks back noting that Christmas was right around the corner, and that I had to start preparing for it. Did I follow through? Too busy …

Which is why I figured I’d take the time here on the train and think about what this time of year means to me. The biggest thing that I can think of is the one thing which I won’t have this year. Spending time with friends and family, and yes that’s a deliberate order … : ) … This is the first year where I haven’t had XMas week off, which quite frankly was a bit of a shocker. The plan otherwise called for Erika and I to spend a week back in Windsor. I was REALLY looking forward to it too, and it’s now been reduced to two night out there.

I would have loved to spend more time with my family back here in Toronto too, but now that we’ve relocated back this way we can see them anytime want. Which is easier now that we’ve bought a new car. Did I mention that we had bought a new car? Yeah, I mentioned that. It’s the people that I can’t see on a regular basis. That would be the gaggle of gooses out in Windsor …

It never mattered where we were, or what the ‘planned’ activity was. It was always spent laughing and joking around, enjoying each others company. This weekend I’m missing a party where I know that these hijinks are going to continue. These are the moments that I miss the most, beyond the people themselves who are involved in those moments. I guess that’s what this time of year means to me …

Friendships. I would toast the good ones however anything worth labelling as a friendship already has that associated with it.

So to those who I may not be able to see this year, I want to raise a virtual glass to wish you and yours the best of this holiday season. Erika and I miss you all very much. And you know who you are … : )

One more thing. Star Trek opens up tonight. And despite any reviews to the contrary, it’s an even number so it’s going to be good. Heh heh heh … phasers set to frag …

Oh yeah … Saw Harry Potter last weekend. It’s scary! I don’t mean like cerebral creepy kind of scary … I think it has something to do with the fact that you’re seeing this kids in danger, and there’s just something about kids being in trouble …

That’s not the big one I forgot to mention. JAMES BOND!!!!! Why is it that I am so blessed that I get a James Bond movie just about every other birthday? Buh du DA DUM! Da da DUM! Carder … Mike Carder ….

So here I am on the train, on my 29th birthday. Truly an odd sensation, not because it’s my birthday but rather that I can honestly say that for the first time in my life there are more important things going on in my life. With work being one of the top priorities. I am getting older … : )

Erika and I bought a car. Brand new, 2003 Jetta 1.8L Turbo, in Galactic Blue with all the trimmings. Some would say THAT is my birthday present but it’s more for Erika than it is me. For no other reason than it’s in her name … : ) She’s wanted a new car for quite some time now, and she’s wanted one with all the frills. So as is always the case, whatever my baby wants …

It’s been a really good time to be a gamer. I may have used that phrase before but there are just so many good titles out there. MW4: Mercs, Age of Mythology, NFS: Hot Pursuit 2, Shinobi … oh yeah, and there’s that little game they call UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003!!!! Actually spent last weekend in Windsor doing a tournament with the boys. I haven’t had that much fun gaming since back in the day when I was running those tournaments! For the occasion, I showed up with my brand new Lian Li case! Sweetness! Of course, I wasn’t the only one who decided to dress up for the occasion and there was another Lian Li case there, and it was already tricked out. Damn you Donoghue ….

Comdex is going on right now down in Las Vegas. There’s some interesting stuff coming out of there, really interesting stuff. The big one is the GeForce FX. I’ll try and post a link but have you seen pictures of this thing? It’s going to take up TWO slots because of the cooling apparatus! The thing has it’s own 4 pin molex connector! That’s NUTS! I know that the Radeon 9700 has it’s own power supply, but I mean come one guys! I thought we had done away with this kind of thing back in the days of the Voodoo 5!

Anyway, Christmas is hurtling towards us very rapidly. I find myself wondering what I’m going to get my Erika … hmmmm …

Boy do I have some things to rant about.

The move went well. Stevie, Sean and Maria came into town to lend a hand, and boy was it appreciated. Erika and I have now officially migrated to being a two truck load couple. That means the next move we officially hire movers. Probably because by that time Erika will have had us acquire even more stuff. Knowing her, it’ll probably be more LARGE stuff too. sigh

So here’s my beef. I finally picked up my brand new computer case. An Aluminum Lian Li case. Anyone who’s been talking to me about computers within the past six months knows how much I’ve been jonesing for one of these bad boys. So after I’m done moving all the old components out of the old Tremclad case into their new cathedral, I give ‘er juice. Nothing happens. And I mean nothing. The fans started spinning, the LED on the mobo was on to indicate it was getting power, the HD light came on to indicate that it was seeking briefly, but beyond that NOTHING. No post errors, no loud screeching, nothing! Double checked all of the connections, especially the speaker. Yanked ALL of the components except the processor, still nothing. I went out and bought a brand new processor. Still nothing. So I’ve got a sinking feeling that it’s the mobo. sigh

Well at least I picked up Spidey on DVD. Sweeeeeet … However I watched that on Friday before I swapped the case. Something tells me I’m going to have to watch again several times to dull my pain …

To quote Stan the Man, Excelsior!

Yes, Erika and I are moving again. Hopefully this will be the last ‘temporary’ move before we actually just buy ourselves a house.

We’re going two blocks north of where we are currently. So we’re essentially in the same neighborhood. As my buddy at work would put it, less churches. The homes in the new ‘hood are more modest, not like the cathedrals around the old ‘hood.

Can I tell you how nice it is to be a gamer right now? I am having so much fun with so many different games. I’m a sentimental kind of guy though and always have to stick to my guns. Unreal. Tournament. 2003. I will knock the game a bit in that if you’re playing it offline against bots, it just doesn’t seem as much fun as the old one. Probably because most of the ‘team’ maps have too much symmetry to them. I miss those old maps where the separate halves of the board actually had individual character, like CTF-November. I will admit though that once you’re playing with your crew online or better yet across a LAN any complaints just disappear. As it so happens, two weeks from now, the Timbit tour will be making a stop in Windsor for just such a LAN event. Hide your power cords, stock up on Coke, and buy some earplugs to protect you from the profanities which will most assuredly fill the air …

Hey, I know I’ve been ULTRA low key about movies lately (heh heh heh) but there’s something coming next week which might change all of that. Spiderman. DVD. November 1st. Then we get Harry Potter, James Bond … there’s a couple others which I can’t recall but it’s going to be a good month. Always is for my B-Day … : )Peace. Out. Headshot.

So, what’s going on in the Wacky World of Timbit? Sorry, that was the old old site … : )

Last weekend Erika and I went back out to Windsor. I had a really really big geeky reason to go. LAN Party. I’ve got some pictures which I’ll try and post online. 16 people is a pretty good turnout. Large enough that we could play 2 full teams on Bombing Run. Heh heh heh … the addiction has started all over again! UT 2K3 is absolutely awesome! If I have any one critique is that I miss the old menu interface. I felt that one was better organized. Ack, I’ll just chalk it up to growing pains.

I ended up picking up one of those strap systems like I was talking about, from Gear Grip. The strap itself was very handy, my machine just weighs close to half a ton. That’s what didn’t make it work. Ahhh, I can’t wait until I get my hands on a Lian Li case … nice light weight aluminum …. sweeeeet …

I’m close to last place in my football pool, but third in the Survivor pool. I’d probably be on top of the Survivor pool except for the fact that I keep getting the ‘boot’, and that keeps costing me points. Damnit.

Two more weeks to go until we move out of the basement. I’m going to miss the place, just not the people. That’s OK because I feel that the place we’re moving into is better suited for us anyway. Now to just convince Erika of that …

Oh yeah. Leafs … 1-0 with a shutout. Niiiiiiice!!!!

Oops.

I’m sitting outside what is going to hopefully be our new place. I only say hopefully because I’ve always been wary of the unknown. Who knows what could pop up at the last moment? For instance, a piece of Skylab could have it’s orbit degrade slightly, altering it’s 25 year spin around the earth, causing said piece to land smack dab onto my bank and wipe out all records of my account. Highly unlikely since it would take around several THOUSAND piece of debris to wipe out bank records (plus two floods and a plague) but you never know.

It’s a cute little bungalow. Small birch tree in the front. Small shaded porch out front. I think it’s going to be a great place. Erika still needs a bit of convincing but I’m sure she’ll come around. Best part about it is that I’m now even closer to a GO Station. I could spit from this porch and hit a train. But without hearing the train. Sure, it’s a little busy on this street but it’s still really quiet. Just what we’re looking for.

So what else is going on. Big LAN party this weekend back in Windsor. I’m trying to track down one of those strap systems which are used to transport cases back and forth. I’m hoping to land one before the trip because I’ll end up taking the train back to Toronto. Erika has to stay for work reasons. That’s OK cuz’ I’ll ride in first class … bring this very laptop along for the ride and then play on the ride home as well … God, I’m such a nerd. I was hoping that maybe I would find some time to put down a couple more coats of paint onto the Tremclad Black box, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Ah well. As long as what’s under the hood works, right? Heh heh heh …

OK, OK, so I haven’t updated the site in a bit … however, I’m trying to be super nerd and do my web posts from the train … yeah, who’s the man …

In case you haven’t gone to the Hawaii site, we had a good time. A REALLY good time. So much so that once we got back everything was kind of hard to adjust to …

I’ve got two pools on the go right now. NFL and Survivor. Don’t ask how I got in two diverse pools. It might have something to do with CASH … anyway. I’m fourth in the Survivor pool, and smack in the middle of the NFL one. As long as my Dolphins are winning, that’s all that matters … : )

On the game side … Kingdom Hearts. Who would have thought that Disney would have been able to work well within a SquareSoft license? OR vice versa? I think Erika was impressed at first, but now she’s going a little bit crazy having me giggle all the time. They’ve just done such a good job of integrating all of the Disney characters that you actually begin to reminisce … too much fun …

Don’t go see Ballistic – Ecks vs Sever. Just don’t.

Projects on the go … Looking for a new place to live. Period. We’ve been looking north of Toronto but we haven’t been lucky as of yet. We’ve settled on the fact that we want to go back into a house, but not a basement. A lot of places that we’ve been looking at have been really nice, but unfortunately no luck so far. Ah well. Once we find a place, then I get to wire it … : ) … I’m going to have to upgrade to an eight port hub … One for the Timbit box, One for the Desktop, One for my laptop, One for Erika’s laptop, One for the PlayStation 2 Online adapter, One for the future gaming machine … that leaves two ports … any ideas? What kind of appliance could I put in that mix? : )

TTFN

And am I packing? Nope. I’m being a geek and setting up some new sites over here at the Timbit Box …

And here they are. Right now they’re just skeletons, but over the next few days all three will probably be fleshed out. As well, this old site will get a renovation to fall in line with the new look …

Erika’s New Home Page

The web page of Erika’s Dragon Boat Team … They placed first in their division BTW …

The HAWAII site! … This one will be REALLY flushed out over the next week

I’m trying out a new system to post pictures live to the web so they’ll be automatically integrated into the web site. But of course I will still pepper the sites with my usual brand of humour … : )

See most of you in a week!

EDIT – For obvious reasons, two of the links were taken away … I wonder why?

You want geek? Check out this little doo dad … Plugs into the serial port on the back of your computer, and a little plug in outputs the CPU Utilization. So when you boot up a game or something, it red lines … awesome …

Meet My Folks Update – They kicked out the GQ boy in favour of the guy with the massive porn collection. Because GQ boy sez he doesn’t PREFER blondes. He never said he hates ‘em or anything. Traded him up for porn boy. Something’s up with the air in California …