A carnival of technology

I have a desk now and both computers are running in what will hopefully be a permanent location, so I think means I’ve now officially moved. The new apartment has a little alcove that they called a “sunroom,” which I believe is realtor-speak for “small and windowy.” I stumbled across a phone jack hastily shoehorned into the corner of this room, and I was able to get a DSL sync off of it, so fiona is now in the closet adjacent to this room. I also assembled the desk in here, so both computers are nearby and I can close the door to what’s become the machine room for quiet if I ever get enough things set up so that I can watch a movie or something. It also means that I had enough cables for everything among what I already had, so I wasted like $50 on cat5. Oh well.

I posted some new pictures of the mess I’ve made and some other things. http://photos.gophernet.org/browse.php?dir=%2Fmoving%2Fnov_2005 is probably of the most interest. I have not yet taken pictures to give a feel for the layout, but I’d like to get the place order a little bit first. Give me time.

Well, I done went and got myself moved. Many thanks to Mike, Joe and Sean: without your help, I’d still be working on it. The final cleaning and carload of things took place yesterday, and I turned in all the keys today during lunch. After they incorporate in another two days, the City of Sandy Springs is my new home. For those of you not in the loop, I moved out of the Atlanta suburb of Smyrna into a one-bedroom apartment in the slightly nicer suburb of Sandy Springs. I’m ITP this time, so at least this place is closer to stuff. Covad came out and turned on the Internet on Monday, and I currently have fiona set up in my bedroom closet. The bedroom jack was the best choice for hooking up the DSL, and I’d like to keep computers away from where I sleep this time. For now it’s at least behind a door. I have pictures of the apartment and the stuff bomb explosions which I will post as soon as the computer with all my picture posting scripts is unpacked. I have to reassemble a desk first.

In other news, I think I’ve finally heard of a more ridiculous idea than grocery gift cards. First, though, I’ll share some background on my radio habits. Atlanta radio is an oft-depressing landscape of about three genres: pop, rap, and country. There is some crossover among these, but for the most part a choice of any set covering these three categories will bring you every song you’re going to hear above 92MHz. When I bought my car, I saw the six radio set buttons (with two settings each) not as a luxurious feature, but rather as a terrible challenge. To combat the monotony I listen to stations like WREK—not because I hate my ears, but because I seek variety. The current six stations I’ve settled on are WRAS, WRFG, WABE, WREK, WWWQ and WBZY. WBZY, 105.3 MHz, I keep set mostly because the frequent format changes of that frequency have become a source of entertainment in themselves. My earliest memories of it are as WMAX, the 80’s channel, which I loved and wish they would bring back. At some point around 2003, I think, it switched to a talk-radio format with inconsistent and indecisive amounts of music. It then switched to Latino (not Mexican) music for a while, and it now houses “The Buzz”, formerly of 96.7 MHz, a station which plays alternative rock or whatever the hell it’s called now, competing with WNNX. As for WWWQ, I mostly listen to them for the crappy dance music that they play at noon and some nights. I’ve been known to listen to their morning show from time to time as well, and it has an advantage over other Atlanta morning shows in being the one where I’m most likely to hear the basis for an FCC complaint.

Back to the story, I was listening to WWWQ while returning the apartment keys, and I heard an ad from the Georgia Lottery Corporation. They suggested that I buy lottery tickets for Christmas. I’d like you take a moment to think about how you would feel either giving or receiving lottery tickets. How would you react if they lost? How would you react if they won? It seems to me like holiday-themed gambling can only end in anger and pain. To top things off, this commercial was followed by one from Kroger selling gift cards. “Well, I hear that you eat sometimes, so…” Maybe these particular industries should just stand a little back from the gift-giving apparatus. Maybe that’s just me.

Moving update! Mike moved his stuff to Midtown yesterday, excepting some things that he probably just forgot (dish rack, baking sheets, tie-downs, &c). I plan to do my big move on the 27th, though I’ll probably need a bigger U-haul. Mike filled a 10′ truck without an excess of furniture, and I need to be able to fit a similar volume of crap plus furniture (two bookshelves, two end tables, kitchen table, desk, bed, sofa, nightstand) into something. I’m eyeing the 17′, since it’s bigger than 10′ and costs the same as 14′. I would have reserved it today, but I left my phone at home, and it apparently costs $5 to reserve a truck online. Screw that.

DSL update! Speakeasy, Covad and Bellsouth have all been moving crazy-quick on the DSL thing, which means that my starting the process a couple of weeks before moving in made a big mess of things. Not to fear, though: Travis, install coordinator extraordinaire, has solved my woes. First, I couldn’t reschedule the final hookup appointment through the web interface, so Travis scheduled that for the 28th, and second, I found out that they had already shipped the install kit to the address I don’t live at yet. UPS is currently in a delivery attempt loop, but they have now been notified of the new location, so vinyl window clings will soon be mine.

I’d like to be able to keep a tire for the life of its tread for a change. I got another flat yesterday; it was the same position as the previous flat, and, though I noticed it quicker this time, I had still damaged the sidewall, so there went another sixty bucks. It also means that I’m going to have to find a way to start skidding sideways up on one wheel to get this one to wear out at the same time as the other three. The tires have been rotated since that first one was replaced, but I think it ended up being rotated right back around, so now I have one that’s 30k miles newer than the other three. Whee.

In other news, it appears that I will be able to get Speakeasy One-Link DSL at the new apartment, which means that I will pay Bellsouth no more forever, or at least until I move again. Speakeasy has asked Covad to tell Bellsouth to do some stuff, and Bellsouth is supposed to go out on the 15th to do whatever magic needs to be done at the NID. Unless something goes horribly wrong, like Bellsouth suddenly finding 30000 feet of wire spooled up in a closet between me and the CO, or Covad finding that they can’t lease any more rack space, the new IP for this machine will be 216.27.160.63, for those of you who care about such things. The Speakeasy sales guy, Robbie, in an effort to get me out of paying the install fees, upsold me to the 1.5 down/768kb up connection, which waives the installation fee and is free for a month. So I’ll have faster uploads for at least a month, and, if I decide I like it, that may where Bellsouth’s $30 ends up going.