I managed to pretty much not post at all over the holidays, so let’s
get things up to date.
The holidays were fun! I had from the 23rd through the 2nd off so
was able to flop and relax for a bit, and get my Christmas
shopping done at my leisure. Spent Christmas morning here snuggling
with Candice and the cats, and then headed down the 401
to Belleville for Christmas dinner with my father and stepmother.
Came back the next morning and went over to my mother’s back here
in Ottawa for dinner on Boxing Day, and then spent the rest of the
week moaning about how I ate too much.
I did well shopping this year — no trouble coming up with
ideas and everyone seemed to love the presents I got them. I did
pretty well too — nyxie got me a USB flash drive and more
Alessi, and my parents got us a PS2, food processor and kitchen scale.
We headed out to get a handful of games right away (GTA:VC, GT3,
Katamari Damacy, FFX) and have been hovering over a controller
pretty much ever since. More game recommendations are welcome,
especially the classics that I’ve missed by not getting a PS2
by now.
New Year’s Eve was a nice quiet dinner at home and champagne at
midnight, which is all I need.
Work’s interesting lately — half of the sysadmins in my group
have been moved into the enterprise apps group, taking the R&D
systems and SAN with them, leaving the rest of us to concentrate on
core infrastructure and Internet services. It’s odd not having them
around but it’ll really let me start to focus on carving out a strong
niche. I still sort of felt like the new guy because so much of what
everyone did had to do with the way Mitel did product development,
but now I’m back to concentrating on the stuff I know best and it
looks like I’m expected to take on a lot more responsibility, which
is the sort of thing I’d prefer anyhow. My new business cards stick
“Senior” ahead of my title, so I guess things are going OK. The
smaller group means that I’ll finally be able to train someone else
on the e-smith bits that only I know, which means I won’t be on
call 24/7!
On the other hand, it means I’m going to be up to my elbows in Windows
soon, migrating from NT4 to Active Directory 2003. Ah, well. It’ll be an
improvement over the Windows infrastructure we’ve got now, at least.
It’s looking like a great year.
7 responses to “Belated update”
Obviously, Ico. Everyone who knows me would see that coming though. Also, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is an excellent game, although much harder.
Also, there is the entire PlayStation back catalogue for you to choose from. That includes Spyro the Dragon (the sequels aren’t anywhere near as good as the first), Grand Theft Auto, and massive quantities of really oddball games like Incredible Crisis and Power Shovel.
Of course, if you don’t mind spending extra money on accessories, there’s good old Dance Dance Revolution and Karaoke Revolution, plus the Eye Toy stuff, not that I have any idea how much fun that actually is in practise.
You could also hunt down a Linux kit if you’re feeling hackish enough.
You should get a hold of Rhapsody but, uh, check out how much it goes for on eBay. But you can at least get La Pucelle Tactics and maybe Disgaea.
Simpsons Road Rage is a good mindless 2 player. It’s fun and great for guests and such because it has a low learning curve.
I’m currently playing Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal (This is the third in the series, 1 & 2 should be classics)
And Sly 2 (Sly Cooper is the first i the series and is a classic I believe)
And Ace Combat 5 (Good graphics, best flight sim for the PS2 which isn’t saying much :) But its good for shooting, less for flight controls)
I’ll have to check out Ratchet and Clank and Sly — you’ve made me realize that I’m not that familiar with the PS2 franchises.
I’d forgotten all about combat flight sims. I’m a PC flight sim guy, but for realism — I bet a shoot-em-up in something faster than a Cessna 172 might be fun :-)
I was looking at those the other day. They seemed reasonably priced and I nearly bought one, until I thought “Uh, what am I going to keep on it?” SSH and PGP keys. What are you going to use yours for?
Thanks! Yeah, a DDR pad is going to happen eventually. I had a psone so I’m familiar with a lot of the the Playstation back catalogue, but I fell out of the PS loop over the last couple years of being Gamecube-only. The first thing Candice did on the PS2 was to get Chocobo’s Dungeon working, though.
On the practical side: Whatever I need to transfer from one place to another, really. SSH and PGP keys, definitely. Hotfixes, drivers and service packs when I’m setting up new machines, before they’re on the ‘net. MP3s from home to work, a couple CDs at a time.
Less practical: A Knoppix homedir or install. Firefox, putty, VNC and an X server to make a Windows machine practical. Stuff like that.
In addition to what Mendel said:
My Resume (in a couple formats)
AntiVirus and Spybot software, I try to remember to update the defs every few weeks.
ZoneAlarm Installer (free firewall)
Trillian (with my buddy list,skins,plugins)
All of that is “permanent”, the rest of the space I use to transport stuff.