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I harvested a hard drive out of a Linux machine I wasn’t using to replace my dead disk in my main machine. I discovered the dead disk was an IBM Deathstar. “Son of a..!” came flying from my mouth.

See, problems with an IBM 60 gig hard drive are very well known and well documented. In fact, I had one of these die on me 3 years ago. I knew what to expect. And I knew I needed to replace it. But it must have slipped my mind shortly after I acknowledged that I had a shit drive in my computer.

Luckily, though, the infested disk is now out of my machine. All is well again in the Jason Complex.

I had my switch blow out on me yesterday while I was at work. Which meant all my internet traffic ceased. This is the second Linksys switch I’ve had burn up on me in 4 years. I’m thinking of stocking backups just in case.

An odd side effect of this all seems to be the loss of a hard drive in my main computer too. I haven’t lost any data….yet. I’m in data recovery mode. It seems when it rains it pours.

I had to belly up and admit today that I wrote some code which has brought an application to it’s knees. There’s nothing like having someone look at your code and laugh at your mistake. It is all in good fun. I figure it’s better to accept responsibility and find a fix rather than finding a scapegoat. People aren’t typically looking for blame, they’re looking for a fix. So as long as I can find a fix, then the blame game sort of fades into the background.

Well, the new DSL speed increase happened this morning sometime between my shower and getting to work. I can’t really tell much of a difference from work though. My line should handle 1.5mbit down /1mbit up but I’m getting somewhere around 970kbit down / 400kbit up. Still a two-fold increase from my line before. I’m just at a loss as to what to download first.

UPDATE: Last night I was able to max out both my download and upload pipe. All is well in the Motylinski compound.

I was quite excited last Thursday when I learned Apple had ported iTunes to Windows. I downloaded it both at work and at home. Regardless of the interface or system resource suckage, I was bound and determined to support Apple somehow. Because in my heart of hearts I will always be an Apple fanatic. Sure their things are overpriced and feature-lacking (Where the heck is a second mouse button?!) but they’re suave and sexy. Heck, both my grandparents are more hip-looking with their iMacs than I will ever be. So I was bound and determined to leap back into tech-suaveness with my use, and abuse, of a legal online music service.

I went hunting for The Whos Happy Jack, the song from the Hummer commercial. I could spare 99 cents for the rock-classic-turned-catchy-jingle song. I found the version I wanted, clicked “Buy Song” and waited for bliss to set in. I was prompted with an error message. Apple wasn’t going to take my credit card. I know I had at least a buck on there, I know it! It should be fine. I spent the next half hour trying to weasel my way through their checkout, each time running into an “Invalid Address” error. That’s right, Apple told me that my address was wrong on my credit card. Or, at least that’s the bank reported to them. I became quite disgruntled by this. So much that I promptly removed the software from my computer. Thanks, Apple, but no thanks. I’ll go somewhere else for my music.

Whoa! Where did December go? Between the wedding, Vegas, Christmas, computers, and the dentist I haven’t had time to think. So let me recap what’s been going on in my life.

Wedding
Although there are a ton of outstanding issues everything seems to be falling into place. The big thing I have left to do is write my vows. I keep promising Courtney I’ll do it. One of these nights I actually will. For the second time our honeymoon got a little derailed. Not as bad and before though. We were flying on Sun Country until they decided to close up shop. Now we have to take a flight back at 11:40pm Sunday night which is less than ideal.

Las Vegas
Las Vegas was everything I thought it was going to be. And I’m never going back again. Well, at least not for many, many years. The trip was best summed up by Grant at 12:30am Friday night when we were trying to find a bite to eat. We had been there for 16 hours and Grant declared to everyone in a very low, shaky voice, “I am a delicate flower.” We peaked high and quick and from there on out it was all down hill. Vegas has too many lights and too much noise. It’s a sensory overload. I can say honestly if I never see Carrot Top again I’ll be a happy man.

Christmas
Christmas has really snuck up on me this year. We finished our shopping early ‘cept for Courtney’s dad. Though Courtney’s brother said he had it all taken care of. All we had to do was kick in some dough. But I haven’t heard from him lately so if you’re out there, Chad, I think you know my email address. I went to the jewelers (again!) to see if I could find Courtney anything interesting for Christmas. We promised not to go all out like we traditionally do. Neither one of us have much money to be throwing around. So I wanted something cheap. Well, I couldn’t bare to have my darling wearing anything cheap so I picked her up a nice pearl necklace and earrings. You know, for the wedding and all. I couldn’t keep a secret so I gave them to her that same night. Now I wish I hadn’t cuz I won’t be able to top that with a cheesy Christmas present.

Computers
The week before Vegas my computer decided it was going to give up. It basically stopped functioning all together. The hard drives started spouting loud profanities at me so I decided to finally put it in its final resting place and build a new one. I wasn’t able to go all out like I had hoped but for $450 bucks I was able to build a pretty decent machine. 512 megs ram, AMD Athlon 1700+, a new motherboard and case have turned me back into the hardcore computer elitest that I love to be. Feel free to envy me.

Dentist
You may be asking why this was such a big deal, right? I haven’t been to the dentist in 5 years. Of all things my parents made me do, the dentist is what I feared most. This topped off with a tooth ache that was starting to throb had me scared shitless for two months. That’s how long I had to wait for an appointment. I ( and by “I” I mean Courtney) made the appointment back in October. I mustered up enough courage to go this morning and after all was said and done, the Doc told me I have great teeth…..except for the gaping crack in my back tooth. So it wasn’t so bad I guess. It could have been worse. They did say the crack was probably from me gritting my teeth. So no more caffiene or stress for Jason! Yeah, right.