Socially awkward fellow

Sometimes websites add new features and put a little popup box next to the feature with an explanation of it, cool, cool, I like it...but if it's in Gmail or Facebook, I have to do an extra step of translating, cause I can only guess so much of the text (I have them in German for those that didn't know).

What's that now?

That's what I did when Gmail added the contacts in the conversation. But I don't just copy & paste, I type it all myself. Sometimes it helps to see how the translation actually changes when adding new words, and I also now don't find it weird how in German the verbs are almost always at the end. Of course, sometimes I have to guess something, cause the translation is weird, like in the pic: "Some actions, such as the minimize / maximize, are now over icons to the right", yeah, totally makes sense, haha.

Also, I found out that 3 people (or one person 3 times) found my blog by googling "socially awkward fellow", hahaha.

BSOD

No pics, cause my stupid laptop won't connect to the internet and that's where I have my pics, I'm blogging from the desktop PC. Ok, it just connected...

Anywho, I turned on my laptop and right before the "Starting Windows" screen appeared, I plugged the HDMI cable to output to my TV. I don't know if it was that or just a coincidence, but the first thing I see in my TV is the Windows' Blue Screen of Death, yeah, it's been a looooong while since I saw that, I had forgotten about it, it kind of even made me smile, for nostalgia's sake.

Yeah, I wonder if clicking "Check for solution" will actually do anything useful

Of course, if it would've BSOD'd again, I would've been pissed. But nope, it didn't :D.

In fact, my laptop has only crashed on me a handful of times (not counting the times when Windows didn't get along with Flash Player and rendered it unusable)...only once in Linux :)

Frozen water...

...or ice, haha.

It's been about a month since I stopped drinking soda at work, I take a bottle of frozen water, so that it keeps cold during the whole shift, and with this infernal heat we're having, it's very welcome. I have a very cool pic of the bottle with an ice "layer", it had water inside and outside, it looked awesome...but I have misplaced my USB cable, so yeah...

Also, I don't eat chips at work anymore, and barely drink any soda at home, only if somebody buys one specifically for me (I see a glass bottle of coke in the fridge, I will drink it, no questions asked). But I don't buy them for myself anymore, which I used to do everyday (sometimes twice a day).

I have only two exceptions to the not-buying-coke-for-myself rule...in the movie theater OR at a restaurant (fast food more likely than not). A couple of years back, I stopped drinking soda altogether, and tried going to the movies, buying popcorn and buying a bottle of water...nope, doesn't work, half of my excitement to going to the movies is the popcorn, I will not make that sacrifice.

But yeah, out of the 10 or so cokes I drank during a week, I'm down to about 2, so I think it's good :). But the thing is, I didn't even make a plan or said to myself anything...one day, just out of the blue, I decided I wanted to freeze some water and take it to work. That means, I do NOT intend to stop drinking soda for good, it's just too delicious to me, I'l' just not abuse it.

Poolsick

This has been the first weekend in like 5 weeks that I haven't played pool...I miss it, haha.

I have been wanting to play for at least 4 days, but it's one of the things where actually doing it by yourself is not possible, I mean, you CAN play by yourself, but it's not fun...I'd think.

I want to get good at pool, cause it's one activity where getting older doesn't limit your ability to play, and I enjoy it a lot.

Also, I think after our trip, when I don't have to save money for something specific (besides my saving up for Spain), I'll buy a pool table, that's one of my recent "dreams", to own a pool table :)

Oh, how I love...

...bureaucracy.

When I was in the car crash, it was arranged for my car to be repaired at some shop. Well, all good and well, but my dad wanted us to collect the money instead, and take it to a cheaper place and fix all the other things my car has (which are quite a lot).

Ok, that's fine by me, I do want my car to look no so disgusting like it does right now. Well, after the insurance company sending "papers" to the HQ offices in México City, and lots of mumbo jumbo, I JUST received my check for the repair...WTF???

It has been 4 weeks since the crash, and they just could complete their shit till now??? I can't imagine for how long were those "papers" sitting by somebody's desk, just waiting for an approval seal or some shit.

But anyway, I finally will get my car in the shop, I'll fix everything that's wrong with my car (superficially), and paint it, and without paying anything myself, all using the insurance money.

Sometimes you can't think of a title...

...so naturally, you steal it off of somebody else, haha.

Normal Friday, work, going with my aunt Maribel to help her with her work computer, go to the gym, and then to the movies by myself :D.

One thing that did change is that I had a very hard time taking out the "ticket" for the parking lot at the mall. The mall is really close to my house and since it was night, I didn't open the car windows, and I thought: I'll just open the door when I have to reach for the ticket and problem solved...but nope, ever since the crash, the driver door doesn't open from the inside AND also the driver window doesn't work (but that's been like that for some 3 years), it's just there being held by a piece of wood. Add to that that today I worked my shoulders, and I have absolutely no strength left, so yeah, lowering the window and reaching out for the ticket was an odyssey.

Also, I was short on money, so I got all the money out of my giant save key, and thought it'd be enough, but I was short $5 pesos, so I ended up buying a ridiculously small soda. But the best part was when I was paying:

I was secretly hoping I did have enough money to pay

That's what I paid with, I felt like one of those old people that pay something that's worth a dollar with pennies. There was a time when I wouldn't have dared to do it out of shyness, but I've outgrown that, I do embarrassing or ridiculous stuff without regretting it one bit :)

Busted cable

That is, the HDMI cable that goes from the living room TV to the PS3, it still works but apparently just not with the PS3. Whenever the output from the PS3 to the TV switched to 720p, it just started doing stupid stuff like this:

Notice how the menu DOES display being at 1080p, it only acts stupid at 720p.

So I switched the cable to the one I had in my room with my TV, and now it works fine. And my laptop outputs fine to my TV with the "broken" cable, so, yeah, I don't really know what's at fault.

Warning...

I almost never pay attention to warning in cans or boxes or any kind of container...well, here's one I should have paid attention to: do not leave canned air in high temperatures or the can could explode!!!

You know it's my car cause of all the trash

I still haven't found the bottom of the can :P

I left it in the car cause I kept forgetting to grab it...and then, one day, out of the blue, a loud BANG! I was inside the house and thought somebody had hit my car or something, it wasn't till today that I realized what that sound was from, cause I just discovered the exploded can, haha.

So yeah, people, if it says keep in room temperature...do it!!!

Mouse pad

I can't really think of a time when I would need to use a mouse pad, modern computer mice work in most places, but we have one lying around in the house, could come in handy if I ever want to use my mouse in a glass table, but it's not very often.

The thing that I find funny about this, is: I think this mouse pad belonged to Angélica from way back when she owned her first PC, correct me if I'm mistaken:

I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat

How it has come to survive all these years is beyond me :P

Ant invasion

I always take a couple of sandwiches to work and pack them in my backpack. I get to work, sit in my desk, take out my laptop, and set the backpack on the floor to my left, leaning against the wall. Then like around 10am I get hungry and eat the sandwiches.

Well, today that was not meant to be. Same routine as always, with the little difference that when I reached to grab my first sandwich, I felt a couple of tickles in my hand, I looked and sure enough, it was two ants...I lifted the backpack, and no less than 100 ants below it...I FREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAKED OUT!!! I followed the trail of ants, and they were coming from behind the wall on my back, I froze for about 15 minutes, then I told my boss about the ants. I don't know what he did to them, but he got rid of them, took out the sandwiches from my pack, and at least other 50 ants came out of them, haha.

I have been feeling tickly all day long, I keep thinking I'm crawling with ants all over my legs and arms. I push my backpack as far as I can, and can't help but think they're everywhere, hahaha.

Lazy Sunday

Sunday... the only day I get to wake up as late as I want... that's the most appealing thing about a Sunday to me... but for the past couple of months, I've had to wake up earlier than what I would've wanted (like 9 or 10 am, haha) to do different things, but not today :D. It's one of the few Sundays when I haven't had to do some work, be it work for the jewelry, or homework (I did it yesterday, yes, a first for me, hw on a Saturday) or formatting a PC.

To me, this is what a Sunday should be like, do whatever I feel like doing, not worrying about time or anything, just relax. Usually it's stuff like playing a video game, going to the movies, watching some tv shows (not on air, on Hulu or something like that), catch up on my news feeds, play around with my laptop OS's settings, read my programming books, watch some programming screencasts, and stuff like that.

Also, I started playing L.A. Noire, a game Mari lent me, the one she blogged about how the characters' face expressions are so real... and I gotta say, they look stunning. Also the game is pretty cool, you're an LAPD officer in 1947, who fought in WWII, and you're trying to climb your way through the police departments. You get to solve crimes, interview suspects and witnesses, find clues, and stuff like that, it's pretty good. I felt like it has been forever since I played a game :P

Your system is up-to-date

When I see that in the update manager in Ubuntu, it makes me sad, haha. Ubuntu has spoiled me in the past  with updates even as often as twice a day... now it takes up to 3 days to receive updates, not cool :P.

Of course, I don't like updating for over 2 straight hours like with StarCraft II (which by the way I haven't started yet).

You don't know what you're missing until you have it

Ok, that's not true...entirely, cause you can know what you're missing, you just don't appreciate it as much until you have it...and only certain things. And sometimes you think you're missing out big on something and once you have/try it you realize it's not that big a deal...

Anyway, my point is, I've never owned a USB flash drive until some 3 months ago, and I didn't see what the big whoop about owning one was. Everybody at school had one, and sometimes they just assumed you had one...well, no, I never did. But now that I do (I didn't even buy it, I honestly don't know how I got it), I can see their point, if I had started using it some years ago...right now, all I ever need is in the cloud, though I have to say I do enjoy having one...no more burning cds to install a Linux distribution every time I feel like it, which is more often than one would think. Just make a bootable flash drive, and I'm all set

Installing Fedora 14 :)

Tech mom

Today I taught my mom how to print a file...

...and also how to burn an ISO image to a blank DVD...

...I know, not the hardest things ever, but for a person that only knows how to log in to gmail to check her "funny" emails, that's something :)

Can't hold my arms up

Today I started going to the gym...I don't even know how I'm writing this, I can't, for the sake of the almighty gods of the universe, move my arms. I don't even want to think about how I'll be when I work out my legs, I'll probably call in sick for work, hahaha.

Anyway, I've had a pretty long and tiring day, so I didn't take any pics, and I just want to get some sleep, so I'll keep this one short

US keyboard vs Latin American keyboard

I've always owned computers bought in the US, so naturally, I got used to american layout keyboards.

But in my current job, and in school, they only have Mexico-bought computers, so all they keyboards in those places are with a latin american layout.

But even if I try to hard, I can't efficiently program in a latin american keyboard. Here are some of the reasons why:

1. Most LA keyboards have the left shift cut in half so it fits another key (<, >), so I find myself writing <90 whenever I want to type a set of parentheses ().
2. Most LA keyboards have the Enter key across two rows but not as long as american ones. And since Enter is like the 2nd most used key when programming. I type \ a whole lot of times when trying to hit enter (I know that's not the key in the picture, but I always set they layout of the keyboard in the OS as american, so this key \ in american keyboards is moved to the one next to the enter in LA keyboards).
3. This is not the case in the keyboard on the pic, but at work, the backspace key is not long like I'm used to, it's just as big as any letter key, and it gives me a hard time. When I want to type = or +, I use the backspace key as reference to know if it's the right one (I don't look at the keyboard at all when typing).

Also, don't even get me started on when the keyboard layout is actually set as spanish. First of all, I use / a lot, and in spanish, it is in the 7 key, so shift+7 instead of just hitting it with the pinky like in US layout. Semicolon is heavily used when programming and in the US layout it's just next to the L, but in spanish Layout it's shift+,(comma), that is not good. Double quotes are shift+2 and the @ sign is AltGr+q

That's why I still have to use my laptop (US keyboard) to program at work, and I only use the Mac for other stuff, like seeing the preview of what I'm working on, or editing pics or stuff like that.

AutoCAD

I'm taking one class in summer: "Computer Assisted Drawing" (Dibujo Asistido por Computadora), and they're going to teach me how to use AutoCAD... I'm not much of a drawing person myself, but I am pretty good with numbers (since it's very heavily used with coordinates and angles and lengths), and AutoCAD is not really meant for artistic drawing, so, I think I'm going to do just fine.

This was my first drawing

Also, I installed StarCraft II, and it's been literally 2 hours of updating process, I love that game, but I hate that much updating in one sitting, why was the game that I downloaded yesterday not fully updated? So, I guess I won't be playing today.

I'm all for updating, but if I download it, why can't it be the most recent version?

CONCACAF Gold Cup

Since Diego doesn't live anymore in the house (figuratively) and Ricky seems very uninterested about football altogether, the only ones that are getting hyped about the Gold Cup in the house are my dad and me. And last Sunday and today it was a given that we were going to watch the games together (and in HD :D), and it's pretty cool, all the more cause México has beaten the crap out of the 3 teams they've played so far. Now I'm looking forward for the next game on Saturday :).

Also, I'm downloading StarCraft 2 again (cause I formatted my laptop), so I have something to play while Mari lends me L.A. Noire :P cause I haven't played any video games since Half-Life 2, and that's a loooong time, haha

It's going to take its sweet time to finish

Getting better

Today was another family reunion, and we played pool again, I have to say, we're getting better :), we'll kick Chuy's ass when we play with him when he comes, haha :P.

Also, reminiscing about the last time you guys visited, we played some Texas hold 'em, Diego bought a set of chips some time ago, so it was cool :).

Pelón ended up winning

That bag of chips in the pic was destroyed by the ceiling fan when I threw them trying to get them over the fan...but I failed miserably and chips flied all over the place, haha.

Shit be great

Today, Tenampa & me went to eat at Wendy's, and we have this thing that if they bring us the book to write a comment about the restaurant, we always write silly stuff...today was no exception :P

This time I think you can make out the text by clicking in the pic

We have been doing that since high school, so like 8 years ago :P

Not no more

My visa expired on Sunday, so I can't go to the US.

But it just hit me today...I really can't go to El Paso, lol. I mean, before whenever I asked somebody if they've been to <place_name> in El Paso and they answered: "No, I don't have a visa", I always thought "Hmm, good thing I DO have one"... but not no more. It's a funny feeling, I mean, I haven't been to EP in like 3 months (excluding last week when I got my passport)...but if I even want to go right now...I just...can't :S.

That's me 10 years ago (don't even try to zoom, it's an awful shot)

And I always looked at the expiration date and thought to myself "Pffff, it's still ages till it expires" :P. But I will renew ASAP.

Speedometer...

...works again.

Ever since my car died back in January, the speedometer stopped working (I blame the mechanic, he must have unplugged a wire or something), and my car has not been having the best time since then. It's been in the mechanic like 15 times, and always for something different...

But today I used it after getting it back from the mechanic...and the speedometer worked, maybe it's a sign from God that now it's fixed for good!!!

Seat belt doesn't work correctly, that's why the light is on

Obsession

So, my stupid cell phone won't connect with my computer, so I can't upload the pics or videos I take on it, so maybe some of my posts in the future won't have any pics :S.

Also, I've been obsessed watching SNL sketches these last several days. But more specifically this band called The Lonely Island that makes parody and comedy videos (they are featured on SNL). This is just one of the more recent ones:

They usually have celebrities singing with them. And though it's not my kind of music (mostly rap and some pop), the lyrics are pretty funny.

Most of their videos are in Hulu with a title of "An SNL digital short", but you need to be in the US (I use a proxy to see them, haha)

That's not right

While searching through the change in my giant save key, I stumbled upon two 10¢ coins:

Yes, not the best focused picture :P

I'm not sure, but shouldn't they be the same size??? I find it weird that they would redesign that particular coin given that nobody in the whole country seems to use them, which is why I found it weird.

Burnt hand

Today was a family reunion, we hung out as a family, went to play a little pool...and we realized we suck ass!!! I keep blaming the cues and the table.

Then we saw some old recordings of family parties, it takes forever to watch those things if one of the "tías" is holding the remote, haha. They pause the movies for everything.

Then I burned my hand, haha. Not a serious burn, but it was an hour ago and it still hurts a little. My mom asked me for help, cause she had a pot with menudo and something got stuck at the bottom of the pot and asked to unstuck it, did not measure my strength and splashed very very hot "caldo" all over my hand, hahaha. (It was a bit swollen and forgot to take a pic, so, no pic this time :P)

The bigger, the better

I had to lend some money to my dad this week, so now all I'm left with is $500 MXN, and they're supposed to last till my next paycheck on the 15th...the good thing is, it's only one bill:

And the bigger the bill is (value, not size, haha) the more immune it is to temptation, I know I won't use this one for chips or soda, no sir, my mind doesn't even contemplate bills like these. But if I do end up using for something and I'm left with smaller bills, then there's a problem, haha. I usually only use bills if what I want to buy is at least 20% the value of the bill

Please be early, please be early...

Don't you hate it when you wake up randomly minutes before the alarm sets off? That just makes me want to stay in bed even longer!!!

This is my mom's, I just needed a picture, haha

That happened to me this morning, my alarm is set to ring at 7am, and I woke up at 6:55am to go to the bathroom, I didn't know what time it was till I went back to bed, I was pissed, haha.

Then again, if I wake up at least a couple of hours earlier, I go back to sleep happily :)