• Faster startups and shutdowns
• No more beach ball of death if Finder can’t connect to a remote server
• I’m finding myself using the CoverFlow and Quick View Finder much more than I thought I would
• Unified window decorations (no more mish-mash of brushed metal, pinstripey windows)
• Time Machine already saved my ass (more details later)
• Mail.app is noticeably faster and more snappy
• Spaces (finally! virtual desktops)

Spent Monday playing Wii sports and also picked up some cheapie games — FarCry: Vengeance and Resident Evil 4. I decided to start with FarCry since I played the PC version so I felt I could just jump right in and play it. The controls took some getting used to but I think I have the gestures down. The dumbest thing I did (so far) was I accidentally threw a grenade right in my face when I reached up with my left hand to scratch an itch on my neck. This just happens to be the same gesture you use to throw something, haha. Despite this, I think most of the controls make sense, with the exception of the Zoom toggle. I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to make that a punching type motion because you lose your sights every time you do it. So if I’m sniping, I end up zooming, lose my aim, and then end up panning around trying to find my target again. Gameplay is similar to the PC version, although they place less emphasis on the “stealth” type combat, but I’ve been employing that anyway since it seems more natural than the run-and-gun style. Other than the crappy FMVs, it’s keeping me entertained.

Feb 2001: First mention of the “All Your Base” meme. This was like 60 internet-years ago.

Dec 2001: I bought gas for 89 cents/gallon!!. lolwut? no wai.

Jan 2002: The beginnings of me being seduced by Apple’s offerings and begging for a OS X release for x86 architectures. If only the 2002 version of myself could see what I’m currently working on, hahaha.

Mar 2002: First mention of the Domokun / Kittens meme. The link to the image is broken, but I know you’ve seen it. If you haven’t by now, you lose at the Internets.

Nov 2002: First day working at SOE. *sigh* I can’t believe that was 5 years ago. The pay was shit, but goddammit I miss everyone there and just living in SD. My current job has me making over 3 times as much, but I was happier back then, for sure. Sometimes I think I should have stayed there.

May 2003: First mention of the Star Wars kid. Still cracks me up.

I just modified our Bugzilla db here at work to the same — “Critical” is too boring.

You’ll notice a big gap where nothing was written from 2004-2006. There were a few posts where I refreshed the site with a new look or something and made a terse statement to that effect, but really I guess I was just not in the mood to update. Also, the whole “blogosphere” scene exploded (I can’t believe I used that damn word!), everyone was doing it, and I didn’t feel I had much to contribute.

I still don’t feel I have much to contribute (haha), but now I feel it’s good to document some of my bullshit stories and rants just for posterity. When I get older and when my brain turns into oatmeal, I still might be able to remember this stuff.

Also to those who read my pre-2007 entries: apologies in advance for not using caps. That’s how I rolled back then, yo.

Ordering music online via modem and telnet? How old-school is that? I had ordered from them back in 1992 — purchased a few Pearl Jam import CDs. Ah the good old days of being a slacker college student. This takes me back to when I’d go to the computer lab, log into one of the VAX machines, caught up on my “Garden of Stone” digest (a Pearl Jam majordomo mailing list), read through some alt.music. USENET groups, and browsed through cdconnection’s catalog. I just thought it was one of the coolest things ever. While everyone else was fighting over the PCs and Macs to use Word or whatever, I could pretty much find an open VAX machine and just explore a “live” network. Little did I know I was just getting an early taste of what the internet was going to bring to the masses. Can we go back to those days? I miss it.