So it's the Fourth of July and everyone else, normal people, are outside doing stuff. I'm inside typing on a laptop while babysitting a dog. I don't mind though. It's cool where I am. Outside it's about 102 degrees. And I have a black car so it's even worse.

Anyway not a lot has been going on. About two weeks ago a co-worker of mine started making my life a living hell. I was about five minutes from just packing up and walking out. Leaving without a word and never coming back. I was that miserable. But he eventually "had a talk" with the manager and he isn't mean any more. Not as mean anyway.

So that's what I do all day everyday: ghost/ghost/ghost...install/install/install. Except the program they use to install applications really sucks and doesn't work about a quarter of the time. Oh and the methods from backing up PCs via ghost aren't nearly as effective as they should be. Some models are too recent they can't be ghosted over the network. I know this to be true and yet my co-workers seem to have other ideas. I mean I don't know much about many things but when I do know a lot about something you better listen!

So I solved that problem: they have a windows PE CD they use form imaging. It has Ghost32 on it with networking support. I use two PE CDs and run a peer-to-peer ghost. This had never even occurred to anyone else. And no one even seems interested in learning how to do it either. I really shouldn't giving knowledge away for free. I mean really. Especially if on one's interested in learning to begin with.

So that's most of what I do: image PCs, install what ever PC gets on it: "the core". Then install the appropriate applications for each person. I've now got a process down well enough I can stay two or three days ahead. That's easy when there's only six PCs to do but takes more effort when there's twelve. Fortunately I have about fifteen pre-imaged desktops with core ready to go at all times.

I also decided to get some electronica music recorded into MP3 and put on my player to listen to all day. Slightly better than complete silence. The good stuff is actually pretty good.

I found a program called "Free Sound Recorder". Two guesses what it does! Then I wrote a script that does a send key from starting and stopping the respective recording. So I have gigs and gigs of 2 and 1/2 minute MP3s of this electronica music. I load up several hours worth onto my MP3 player and listen to it all day long. I only use one ear plug (the other ear's plug stopped working so I cut it off).

Besides working I'm slowly making my way through both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spin-off series Angel. Right now I'm on seasons 4 and 1 respectively. Angel I wasn't sure about but it's growing on me. Buffy may not be as good as it once was but the consistent quality of the show is just amazing. For instance one episode everybody lost their voice. So basically it was a silent movie. A product, on modern TV, intended for a mass audience and it's basically a silent movie. It's just amazing. So risky. How in the world did Wedon convince a network to do such a thing?! Very creative.

Also this season, season 4, one of the characters decides she's a lesbian. So there's lots of metaphorical lesbian sex. Sometimes it's subtle symbolic innuendo, sometimes it's a bit more obvious. There's not nearly enough of that these days. Metaphorical lesbian sex I mean.

Also Spike is one of my favorite characters. He was once an evil vampire villain but somebody put a chip in his head so he can't hurt anyone anymore. So it was like he turned impotent or something. The character just has such a sense of humor to him. It's amazing.

In fact one of my favorite moments of the series so far is a scene with spike and Buffy's mom just kind of sitting in a living room awkwardly looking at each other. Spike, the evil always-trying-to-Buffy vampire and Buffy's mom, the wholesome living normally kind of person. Just sitting in a living room. Not even saying much really. Ok I'm probably not describing it very well. It was a great moment though.

And finally I'm not reading any books right now but I am playing two games. One is Company of Heroes the other is FlatOut 2. Company of Heroes is a real-time strategy game set in World War 2. It should be the same as every other RTS but instead I'm having way too much fun with it. I've been playing one or two maps at a time for weeks. I don't know how many more there are before I get to the end of the campaign but damn is it fun.

FlatOut 2 is a great but sometimes frustrating racing game. It's also quite fun.  ¶ 4:34 PM