Update: Fire at the Movies

Okay, so I had a pretty ridiculous experience at the movie theater tonight. As the last post indicated, Pete and I had went to see Slumdog Millionaires. The movie was like 30 minutes in, and I was really just starting to get into the movie, when all of a sudden the fire alarm strobe light was flashing and an alarm started going off (aside here: does anybody remember the article I wrote for the Spartan Spectator about the strobe lights in high school? Good stuff right there. Eric you can use that if you need to). No sprinklers. There was a good 20 seconds of people ignoring it, as nobody really knew what to do. Slowly people started rumbling and getting up and looking around. The movie kept playing for a minute or two, and Pete and I eventually moseyed out to the hallway to see what the ruckus was.

In the hallway, everybody had pretty much the same expression...what the heck? No smoke, nothing exciting, just a bunch of confused people. So we stood towards the door for a little bit as people shuffled around. Finally someone started heading towards the exit and everybody else followed (crowds are funny when there's nobody in charge), and we made our way out and to the front of the theatre.

It was pretty cold outside, so as people made their way to the front, they were starting to go back inside again. Which is funny, because if there was a fire, that is not helpful. Finally everybody got kicked out of the theatre, and soon after the fire truck showed up, and I snapped the picture above (which is awesome).

As we were standing outside, freezing, Pete mentioned that he was just waiting for someone to drive up and ask what was going on. Seriously about 10 seconds later, a guy in a small truck drove up and asked what was going on. The conversation was pretty funny, not just because Pete totally called it, but also because it was pretty obvious what was going on. I mean seriously, there's a fire truck sitting outside the movie theatre with about 200 people huddled around the front doors. What else possibly could be happening?

So not too long later the "all clear" was sounded and we made our way back inside. As we were sitting in the front row, we heard the employees saying someone just pulled the fire alarm as a prank or accident or something. Moral of the story, no smoke, no fire. They continued the movie about when they left off, and we all got free movie passes - "rain check"s technically, which I kinda think isn't the right usage for that term, but whatever.

All in all, we got out of the 2 hour 9:05 movie at about 11:45, so that's about a half hour delay. And the movie was quite good. Certainly an entertaining night at the movies.

Fire at the movies

So Pete and I were watching Slumdog Millionaires, and the fire alarm
went off. Now there is a firetruck.

Great Sock Exodus of 2009?

Yesterday I had to use my backup pair of socks that I keep at work (what, you're telling me you don't have a pair of socks at work for emergencies?). You may remember back in The Great Sock Exodus of 2007 I got rid of all my old socks and replaced them with all new socks. Well this pair has been in my desk for quite a while, and wow, how awesome are new socks? I may have to be on the lookout for great sock deals, because I could totally get into some new socks right about now.

Tickets

Good news, I just read an article that says my car, the Toyota Solara Coupe, is 306% more likely to get ticketed than the average car. That's 5th highest of any car model! The highest was the Hummer at 463%, followed by two Scions (both of which I really like). In fact, there were three Scions in the top ten, which I think is pretty much their entire car lineup. One more Toyota made the list, so that puts Scion/Toyota at half of the list! Congratulations!!

Another strange fact...the entire top ten, except for the Hummer, is all foreign-owned car manufacturers. The whole BOTTOM ten is all American-owned manufacturers? Coincidence? You decide.....

Mid-week update (and free boxes!)

I know, it's been a minute since I posted last. With all the moving and various things happening, it's been a little crazy around here, still. Pete and Brandon are officially moved in - that went down on Saturday. The whole day was really a series of failures, but we managed. All in all it went pretty well I suppose, no major disasters. It looks like Pete has officially claimed that he's unpacked, and the lack of boxes around the house would point to that being true. It's good to have everything settled in, more or less.

After moving stuff on Saturday, Molly and I went to Grand Rapids to see the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra concert called "Hot Hot Hot: A Night at the Copa". It was all Latin dance music from the symphony, and about half the songs featured an actual pair of dancers doing their thing. It was pretty awesome. The last song they played was a Latin-flavored medley of I Will Survive, Last Dance, and YMCA. How could that possibly not be awesome?

Molly informed me of something awesome today - that you can get free boxes through the USPS and eBay. A friend of mine at work told me that you could get free boxes from the actual post office, but I couldn't figure out where they were giving them away (and the post office scares me a little too). But Molly tipped me off that you can just order them for free from USPS.com. They have flat-rate and standard boxes in 6 different sizes. And they are free! So I ordered 10 of each, and they'll be here in 7 to 10 days. Sweet!

Today I got a second packet of information from Rosenbaum Eye and Laser regarding my upcoming LASIK correction. It was exactly the same as the first one - new prescription and all. Awesome, that makes me feel good that you guys are poking at my eyes and you're sending me packets of information twice.

The season premiere of Lost was on last night. Man that show is awesome. That's all I got there.

One of my more recent projects is I'm trying to get this Boxee software to work. The idea is you have this running on a computer of some fashion that's hooked to your TV. Boxee not only lets you connect to movies, pictures, and audio that's stored on any computer on your local network, it also connects to the internet and lets you access all the free streaming shows available places like ABC, NBC, and hulu.com (in addition to being a MythTV frontend, which doesn't help me...yet). It's also got a social spin on it, so you can see what your friends have watched, and recommend things to them, etc etc. Sounds pretty awesome.

I don't really have anything exciting to say other than I'm working on it, and I'm not sure what I want to hook to the TV. I have an old laptop from Molly with a broken screen that would be perfect, but it appears to be way too slow to be usable (after I finally got Linux installed on it, which was a major pain). My actual laptop doesn't have an Intel processor, so that won't work. I have another computer that would work, but it's a desktop, and I'm not terribly excited about having (another) desktop next to the TV. I want an AppleTV, but I not only can't really afford it, also they are due to upgrade them soon and I don't want to be left behind. What to do, what to do.

One more thing, I finally got my DTV Converter box coupons (i.e. gift cards) in the mail the other day. I did hook it up to my PC monitor and it does work fine, which is awesome. Originally I was thinking I could hook it to my cable and that would work, but upon further review, that's not true at all. I need to get a cheap set of rabbit ears and it will be good to go (right now I have a tiny wire, which isn't awesome, but does work). I don't really plan on watching much/any TV through it, but it's mostly the sweetness factor of it being hooked to my monitor.

LASIK News

I went back to the eye doctor last week, it was my one-year checkup from my LASIK surgery. The last time I was there, the doctor told me that I would probably be a good candidate for an "enhancement" procedure for at least my right eye. My vision is about what I've said for a long time now, that it can be difficult to drive at night, but the daytime is fine. Last time, the doctor said they would wait until the one-year mark to see if my eyes continue to change. No use in getting the procedure done again if my vision hasn't stabilized.

So I went back to the doctor, and he said my prescription is the same as it was last time, 6 months ago. He scheduled me for an appointment at Dr. Rosenbaum's, and I will be having an enhancement done on February 10th. On what eyes...well that's still up in the air. The doctor said my right eye, definitely they would do, but my left eye is questionable. I guess it's right on the line of what they will go in and try to fix, so it will be something they'll have to call at the LASIK joint.

The procedure, if you're wondering, is the same deal as the first time. Except they won't be re-cutting the flap, just lifting it and lasering it. In case you forgot what that looked like, the video is still available from my original post on LASIK, which was a year ago yesterday. Good stuff.

I'm pretty excited to get this done. Overall I'm still happy with my vision, but it definitely can suck at night. I'm going to be a lot happier having actual 20/20 vision, or at least something closer (FYI, I believe the doctor told me that I'm 20/25 in one eye and 20/30 in the other). And more good news, because I paid for it with the flexible spending business, this week will be my first paycheck post-LASIK, which is also going to be awesome!

I'll keep you posted.

Mid-week Weekend Update

Whew.

Last weekend was Jeremy's wedding, so that means he's officially out of the house now. He got most of his stuff out; all that's left is a pretty sizable box that's in the kitchen. Given that it's Jeremy though, I'm satisfied with that. As I mentioned in the last post, I had been without internet since last Saturday. Finally, today the Comcast guy came out to hook me up. As with all things Comcast, it was a struggle. The first person I called claimed that I had to have a copy of the lease before they would turn on service. Luckily I called back later and the next person was less clueless and informed me that that was incorrect. Anyway I've got cable and internet again, and I'm glad.

Although really, it probably was good timing that I didn't have internet, because I have had a lot of stuff to move. Prior to Saturday, I had been working on moving the stuff out of the Man Room to the basement, or wherever it had to go. Once Jeremy left, then the process started to move my room into his old room. I finally completed that today, so I'm back to full operation in my new room. It's definitely nice to have more space.

That also means I can focus on taking care of the rest of the projects around here...I bought an on-sale bookshelf at Meijer I need to assemble, I need to get around to replacing the oven (which is another story), I've got to take some pictures of the various failures in the house to send to the landlord, assemble the TV and stuff that's going to the basement...the list goes on.

Not to mention another project that I finally got somewhere on - I have been trying to move from my slightly-illegitmate copy of Quicken 2005 to the open source GnuCash. GnuCash is a pretty serious tool, as it's a lot more accounting-like than the relatively simple Quicken. It's also not native to OS X, so it's been way harder than it should be to get it installed. I've been working on getting it installed for a long time, much less actually figuring out how to use it! Anyway, that's also to do.

Also when going through moving my stuff, I keep finding things that I want to sell on eBay. I've never sold anything on eBay, so I'm a little hesitant to start. Mostly it's figuring out the shipping...what to ship it in, where to get the materials, how to factor that into the cost so I don't get hosed, and what to do to make sure it doesn't explode in transit. Really I need to just start sell something once and it will be a lot easier after that.

In all this moving, I've discovered that I really enjoy throwing things away. I have thrown away a couple of Explorer loads of random crap from around the house, not to mention a couple of Granger-containers full of garbage bags. There's just been so much stuff sitting around the house from the various inhabitants that hasn't been taken care of until now, it's really good to put trash in its place. And one thing I miss about Ramblewood is the dumpster. Strange, I know. But it's really awesome to be able to take something, and just throw it in the dumpster, and it's immediately gone, done, ended. Anything, from a banana to a couch, just put it in the dumpster, and it ceases to exist. It's that easy. Like what if I wanted to throw away a couch now? I have no idea how I'd do it.

Actually I do. I'd probably take it to Ramblewood's dumpster...

Internet Fail

So recently I posted about calling Comcast about getting the service
switched into my name. Well it appears as though Jeremy succeeded in
getting the cable shut off, as the cable and Internet both failed
unexpectedly about 30 minutes ago. So if you were going to look at my
pictures, they will be unavailable until Comcast gets out here to hook
me up. Luckily I have my phone, which does have non-Comcast Internet.

Awesome.

The 70's

Sometimes I don't know how we survived past 1971. Does anybody else think Carole King looks a lot like Uncle Ted (without a mustache)?

I still hate Comcast

So I've been calling the various utilities to get service into my name on the house, as Jeremy's moving out in the next 48 hours.  I've called Comcast twice, and both times they have thought I live in Ypsilanti.  Apparently the zipcode there is 48197, instead of 48917 which is Lansing.  How it's gotten screwed up the same way twice, I can only attribute to Comcast's terrible-ness.  Nobody else I've talked to has had that problem.

Unfortunately, two calls later, I still don't have service in my name.  So can they go three-for-three?  I wouldn't bet against it.