I think I’m a consultant right now. That’s the only word for it. A small non-profit has hired me for two weeks to help them decide what to do with old computers, set up a network, help them plan a game they’re designing, and automate their backup system.

This temporary position happened to coincide with the host of their external sites, ValueWeb, merging with Hostway and moving their servers to a different city… and they claimed the machines would only be down 12-15 hours. It turned out to be over 3 days with no external site or company e-mail, but what’s the difference, really? I’m glad I’m not hosting a business with them, I’ll say that much.

While some of it’s frustrating at times, I’m getting to muck around with Applescript. Oh, and it pays the rent too!

I saw Transformers today. I went in expecting to barely tolerate it and I was really pleasantly surprised. The robot characters were pretty well done, and the humans were almost good too.

I’ll happily admit that I got pretty choked up when Optimus Prime was introduced. Lots of old memories and feelings came flooding back, mostly connected to his death in the 80′s movie. I was too young when it was in theaters, but I watched a whole lot of reruns and VHS a few years later, and I was asking for an Optimus Prime toy before I could properly pronounce his name. Odimus Pry could, to my mother’s frustration, potentially refer to Optimus or Rodimus.

Michael Bay’s movie did justice to my Transformers memories, and that gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. It kept surprisingly close to canon and closed in a way that could either open it up for a sequel or simply tie it in as an alternate opening for the mythology. I do hope to see a sequel, perhaps with Leonard Nimoy returning to reprise his role as Galvatron. If not, I’ll still be adding this one to my DVD collection.

P.S. Ratatouille is awesome. See it. SEE IT.

Many creatures in nature collect what they see as scarce resources. If it might make their lives easier or better or just more fun later on, they’ll drag it back to their nests.

If I were living out in the wilderness in a cabin with no modern amenities or contact with the outside world, what would I do? If I had enough food, water, etc. to last me for a bit, I might wander the forest for 8 hours. Let’s call this my work day. Perhaps I pick up 3 shiny rocks and a really cool stick. This would be my pay for the day of work, yes? So if I pay for a Nintendo DS or a Video Card or some other materialistic object for my own enjoyment, that’s my day’s work.

A human creature whose needs are satisfied will fill their time by collecting objects for their own enjoyment, like a raccoon hoarding bits of shiny metal. “Materialistic” people do the same thing that any animal will do, and I really don’t see anything wrong with that. As long as one’s needs are met first, why not have fun with the rest of your abstracted money/time? It’s only natural!

…and I think I had good reason. Before there was “The Blogsphere,” blogging was the realm of high school and college kids complaining about their lives, saying nasty things about their friends, and moaning to anyone who would listen about how much their privaleged, suburban lives sucked.

This still goes on. People still invite their friends to a party in a public blog posting and wonder why some of them don’t get the invitation. Hell, I’m starting mine off by complaining about complaining. As the national media will tell you, however, blogs as an outlet have expanded in their scope and possibility in recent months and years. Now I’m in a new place. Far from my family and my hometown, the contents of my life distilled to a 14′ U-Haul. Maybe it’s time I grew up with the technology.

This brings us to my shocking change of heart. Partially at the urging of one of my professors here at DU, and partially because I’ve played the petulant child on the subject long enough, I’m going to give this a try again. I’m hoping to come up with a post a week at this point. I’m not sure yet if I’ll have a topic, but since this counts as a post, I have a week to figure that out, don’t I?

It’s truly remarkable, this new sense of completeness and rightness in the world. Even when I’m being kept in the dark by friends, distrusted, mistreated, and forgotten, these two wonderful songs still hold the magic they held last Tuesday night:

Take On Me (Aha)
Walkin’ On Sunshine (Katrina & The Waves)

The joy returns with them, again and again. I hope it always works this way.

In other news, I made Igor Bars tonight. Of Dork Tower fame, they’re Cookie topped with Caramel & junk topped with Rice Krispie Treats & junk topped with chocolate and any sort of other sweet thing you can throw in. As my roomie-to be, Mike, put it, I can offer them to people and say “Here, have some diabetes.” Really really heavy diabetes.

I’m walking on Sunshine… and it still feels good!