Geek Porn

So your favorite geek is hunched over the keyboard, staring intently at the screen. Comments such as "Look at the rack on that one" and "Oh, it's so big" come drfiting out, and you know something's up. You walk up behind him and sure enough, he's staring at some techie site lookie at a server PC with three terrabytes of hard drive space, more RAM than anyone has any business with, multiple processers, eight USB ports, firewire, and a blu-ray DVD-R built in. Yup, it's geek porn.

A 32 Gb flash card...wow, I could store anything on there... Eight USB ports? You compu-whore. 6-in-1 card port... Holy cow. Look at the size of the chips on that board. And the Mac air? It's so skinny, with a full size keyboard... Mmmmm... so good.

Around here, ThinkGeek.com is far more popular than any Pr0n website can claim to be because it is so awesome. So many cool gadgets and doo-dads. Give me a lightsaber or wi-fi detector or USB missile launcher any day over some magazine.

Anyway, life on the present day side of things runs very well. I've been a contractor at the computer job for the last seven months and joy of joys, I'm finally getting hired. They decided I'm worth keeping around, so I will get some vacation time, some higher pay, and insurace too. Can life get better? Well, a Wii would help, but let's not be picky.

Life with the Queen continues to be awesome as well. Today, it threatened to snow and right now, it is, so she kept the kids home since we only have one car and while the drive in wasn't bad, picking me up later might really suck, since it's supposed to get bad around here. I remember when it got year before last, it got really, really bad. I lived closer to my job then, and the drive was still rough. From where I am now, that drive would have been near impossible.

So they're at home, and last I spoke to the Queen, Rock Girl was playing Webkinz, which is that Sims-like game online where you buy a stuffed animal, enter a secret code online to get a year free, and play with your critter in a Sims-ish environment with games and such to earn kinz-cash to "buy" stuff. Rock Girl is a lot like me in that she's AD/HD, one of the smartest in her class (and that's not a father thing either; her test put her in the top 1% of her age group), and her name comes from her interest in playing guitar. I seriously need to get at least a PS2 at some point so she can play Guitar Hero. It'll help with rhythm management. I'm teaching her music, but learning rhythm is best done through practice, and the game could help a lot.

By the same regard, she is stubborn, and even growing a bit reclusive, as I am still. Since she is a girl, she won't grow totally introverted, and I would prefer she doesn't, but she likes her quiet time to read and play video games away from the younger two, who more than occasionally annoy her.

The other two were playing together. Siblings are interesting, since theyt tend to play best with the sibling immediately next to them in age. Sassy Pants plays with The Socialite, and The Socialite plays with both of them, since she's in the middle. The Queen says The Socialite is most like her at this point, since she has the intelligence to do well, but prefers to socialize instead of doing the work. She proved this when she and Rock Girl went to a chess tournament recently.

I spent a week trying to teach her the finer points of chess, and she was just playing and blowing me off. It was very, very frustrating. But lo and behold, on the day of the tournament, she (being the only kindergardener) not only won one and lost one, but she had, like, six draws. The people in charge said she was giving the 1st and 2nd graders a run for their money on this game. This means she was playing me all week, when she really knew what she was doing. Little pill.

The youngest is Sassy Pants, and she is all attitude. Now, what would make me really happy with that one is if she would poop in the potty. Yes, as parents, we all have dreams, and right now, that is what I want. I want the poop in the potty and not in the panties. I don't know if she gets involved in other things or if she is being like the Socialite and refusing, but I want to scream so often.

Ad to this, an attitude of not exactly defiance, but shall we say, one that tests the limits of how far she can push herself before stepping over that line. She's been in trouble more than once, but she adjusts to it. She gives us some lip, but she's learning where the lines are and she pushes...hard.

So far, she hasn't settled that little personality into anyone's really yet, and we're not certain she will. All of the girls are their own people, but the older two picked up on the Queen's and my personalities, while the youngest might be quite unpredictable.

The Queen did ask me if on that 32Gb Flash card, there was a video of plugging it in, taking it out, plugging it in, taking it out, plugging it in, taking it out, and then finally plugging it in and downloading something, before finally removing it. Had to let her know that the capacity actually means you can leave it in there longer before finally pulling it out...

Mmm.. nothing better than a lot of good storage to make life grand.