Books & Movies & Football Manager & Windows

Finished reading John Grishams The Associate today.  Pretty weird book overall.  You’re basically sitting there waiting for something big to happen and it never does – no real climax to it etc.  It’s just a story.  Not bad by any means, but I was expecting something more for sure.  Next up is John Katzenbachs The Wrong Man.

Fuck, I can’t wait for Windows 7 to come out.  I’m buying a whole new desktop machine and I am pumped – my current one is just slow as shit, and badly in need of a reformat – yet I just can’t be bothered with another reformat.  Hopefully Windows 7 will be able to handle the piece of shit that Firefox has turned into.  It’s always sad when a program gets worse with age, not better.  The memory leaks in it are ridiculous.

I wish I knew more computer geeks though – or rather, ANY fucking computer geeks.  I’ve lost touch with the computer world, so when I go to buy a computer and I choose the default one, then it is like “DO YOU WANT TO BUY THIS PROCESSOR FOR $440 MORE?” I am like “No fucking clue”.  No idea if I need it, what it does or anything.  Stuff like “Hyperthreading” is basically a foreign language.  Any hardware guys out there up for helping me build a new computer?  Drop me an e-mail at G@DealerDan.com.

The new Football Manager game, FM 2010, comes out I believe next week.  I’m slightly tempted to purchase it, as FM 09 is getting frustrating at times with the tactics, and so many little bugs.  But on the other hand, I’ve never really been able to have a long-term game in FM 09.  I had a nice 12 season one in FM 08, but my longest in FM 09 was 5 seasons with Rangers, then the 3rd patch came out and I had to restart.  Since then I’ve never been able to get past the 3 season mark, which is disappointing.  I’ve started a game with Crystal Palace just now that I hope I can get a long game out of – but who knows.

Anyway the purchase of FM 2010 is probably something I won’t bother with.  I mean they are releasing it next week, then they plan a patch around Christmas, then ANOTHER patch around February.  No matter what SI say, it WILL fuck with the save game.  Always has, always will.  So I’m tempted to skip it, or at least play FM 09 up until February.

We’ll see. Watch me buy it on release day.

Finally here are movies I have watched lately and my ratings of them:

Those bottom 3 I never even finished.  Horrendous stuff they were.

Just Chillin’

That subject pretty much sums up my last few days.

The no-work thing is going pretty well – still just doing the bare minimum, although some days the bare minimum ends up being a lot!  I keep getting ideas etc too for website changes and things to do.  I recently read a book about domains, and it talked about how you should build one page on every domain, rather than letting them just sit there.  One of those things that makes complete sense, but until you actually read it you don’t think of it.

So I went through a list of my domains.  I have a ton of NFL Tickets sites(like BEARSNFLTICKETS.COM etc) and me and Vin will split the load on those.  Taking those aside, I have about 68 domains that I need to write a 600 word article for.  I started that today while watching the soccer, and going to just keep writing this during the football tomorrow.

TV watching I’m down to 5 episodes left of Sopranos.  Should finish that in next few days.  Absolutely no idea what to watch next – hoping to convince the wife that I can go ahead and watch the rest of The Shield without her.

I finished most of the Joseph Finder books, and started John Grishams The Associate.  I forgot how great a writer Grisham was, and how easy his books are to read.  I read about 200 pages in an hour, and should have it finished tomorrow.  Then I might try Vince Flynn – Protect & Defend.

Also went to see Zombieland on Thursday which was a pretty fun movie.

I’ve been playing a fair amount of XBox 360 lately, and today I went on a marathon session, investing 7 hours into it and beating Saw.  Honestly probably not a good idea – I don’t mind playing for an hour or two, but those long sessions are killer, and make me feel like shit afterwards like I’ve totally wasted my day.  Think I’m going to tone down the 360 playing for a little bit.

Speaking of – I’m gonna go get me the alternate ending in Saw which should hopefully be worth an achievement.

Thank Christ.

When I was in Budapest, I of course had my Blackberry on me at all times.  I was at dinner on the 3rd night, when Here Comes The Hotstepper played on it, indicating I had e-mail at my super important e-mail address, which I generally have to respond to immediately.  After checking it, someone asked me

“You’re not using your Blackberry for e-mail over here, are you?”

“Yeah……..why?”

“International data transfer rates.  It’s like $2 a kilobyte.  How many e-mails do you get in a day?”

“About um……..400.”

So yeah, since coming back from Budapest I’ve been shiting myself waiting for my Rogers bill to arrive.  I probably could have called them and asked, but really I was too scared to.  Much like how you don’t get tested for cancer – you’d just rather not know.  Then this evening that e-mail arrived – “Your Rogers Bill is now available”, and I took a deep breath and opened it….

$283.41.

WHEW.

I was seriously expecting a 6 figure sum.  Apparently I DON’T get charged for receiving e-mails however – only if I am browsing the web or doing text messages or using Blackberry Messenger.  That’s what cost the extra – it bumped my bill up by about $161.

I’m almost disappointed.  I’ve been practicing my “WAH WAH I DIDNT KNOW I AM SO NAIVE” phone call to Rogers for weeks now.

Whew.