Offbeat Geek

Eye candy spetacular but have we seen it all before already?

Avatar, the new movie by James Cameron, comes out next week in the US.  Despite all the hype I can not seem to get motivated for this movie.  Maybe it’s just me but it seems to have borrowed too much of itself from other sources. Check it out:

1. The Battle for Tera.  Yes I know they are not entirely the same but the principle of a huge conflict between man and some peace loving aliens seems all too familiar. Especially when the one man falls for a female of the other species, changes sides, etc etc.
2. The Matrix. Do those Mech suits look like a “shiny”er version of those featured in “Revolutions”? Or is that just me? The Principle of the avatar itself? Residual Self Image perhaps? (I know its a bit of a stretch but with all the other similarities I had to put that one in) (continue reading…)

Looks like double dutch to me

I was shown some basic car maintenance jobs.  Air filter replacement, changing oil and other such handy D.I.Y. car things.  So yesterday afternoon I attempted my first solo oil change.  I went out with high hopes; they were promptly dashed…

My first mistake was leaving the car on the inclined concrete driveway. This would lead to a problem shortly after commencing the draining process.  In my enthusiasm to get started I neglected to remove the splash guard under the engine. This lead to a rather comical attempt at trying to remove the drain plug from the oil pan. After a fair amount tugging the bolt finally came loose.

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Server rack would probably be useful

After taking inventory of the external hard drives connected to computers in the office I calculated that they total over five terabytes of disk space.  More shocking was the realization that there was hardly any free space between the lot!  Traversing the labyrinth of files and folders has become a chore so I decided once and for all to restructure everything.  Shuffling over 5Tb of data has proven to be a tiresome task.  Four days of transferring files, almost 3Tb of data sorted and I am finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  With the aim of having all data shared across the internal network I want the files to be as accessible as possible. It is amazing how much redundant data you can accumulate on eight separate drives. Once I get all the data sorted I’ll be looking into more suitable method of data storage along with backup system.

On my return journey from the Cardinals game Sunday night I experienced a toothache unlike any other I’ve ever had the displeasure of enduring.  Dealing with that pain and trying to continue the two hour drive was a genuine trial.  Naturally, the next morning I book an emergency appointment after not having been able to sleep most of Sunday night.  A couple of x-rays later reveal that my bottom right wisdom tooth decided to grow diagonally and over the course of the last year and a bit slowly erode the tooth in front of it.  The inevitable appointment to remove the culprit was arranged for tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.  In the mean time I was given a prescription of Tylenol 3 and Penicillin to manage the pain. The rest of Monday continued with  varying degrees of pain.  This morning I awoke to even worse pain.  Despite maxing out all my doses of medication over the course of the day nothing has eased the headaches/nausea and pain. My face is starting to look a little the Michelin man!  What scares me is the fact that tomorrow, once the tooth has been removed and the cavity filled, the pain is meant to be worse!  It has to be said that I’ve a very low pain tolerance but I am genuinely freaking out about the next couple of days!