murfSTUFF

The problem with where I live is that is among the kind of places one would usually describe as: the middle of nowhere.

This description is fairly accurate. There is nothing where I live. A first note is that there is not one, single traffic light in the whole of the county. This is not an exaggeration. While there are some right on the border, there is not a single one in the county proper. That should give you some inkling of how Podunk it is where I live. The county's biggest thing entertainment wise is a drive-in movie theater. It doesn't get much more rural then Fluvanna county, let me tell you.

Of course, the issue for a person of a nerdy disposition such as I is the fact that the nerd life style is tethered quite strongly to the internet. The biggest issue I faced with living in Fluvanna was the fact that obtaining any form of accelerated internet above Dial-up was just not to be had. Too far from the phone company's DSL signal, and while my NEIGHBORS 200 feet away have a line from Comcast, I was unable to get a single ounce of help aside from “Your home is not serviceable” which never answered my question of “Can we attempt to make it serviceable.”

So I sat, disheartened and annoyed. So, at Matt's information, I figured I'd see if I could try out this new fangled wireless high-speed through a cell phone company. It took a bit of research to make sure I didn't jump haphazardly into it, but I've now got wireless “high-speed” through Alltel.

I use the term “high-speed” loosely because I'm having mixed results with it. Sometimes it surfs quite well, and speed is good. At other times I've seen downloads hit a speeds I was used to from dial-up. I again blame my location of the middle of nowhere. More often then not though, it's fast enough to get me by.

However, on the plus side, this affords me the benefit a connection that can be used to connect to XBox Live. A fact that has pulled me back to Vana'diel (yea, FF-XI). I have to really have a chance to play it that much, but we'll see how I fair in the coming days/weeks on that front. I need to do some more research because I'm having some issues networking stuff together, or getting the modem device to work on my Mac, and I seem to lack the ability to get my Wii online, but ya know, whatever. It works, and I can surf the internet better for right now and I've got plenty of time to work the kinks out of the system.

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First… I got a new toy.

New Xbox 360

Then, I went to a REALLY big city.

Big Apple

So, that is how I will preface my rant today.

Mistwalker Studios’ first game, Blue Dragon, has been released and has managed to hold my attention when I’ve been given the chance to play it. Because of this game, I finally broke down and got myself an Xbox 360. (No Xbox Live yet because where I live sucks and is without highspeed intertrons) Also in recent weeks, I found myself glued to Metroid Prime 3 (which was a most amazing gaming experience). So there’s been a brief revival in my gaming hobby, which is nice. I plan to add Rock Band and Super Smash Bros. Brawl to my collection in the coming months. As well as the ever-popular Halo 3 should I manage to land myself some high-speed internet. That’s where the vast portion of my time has been as of late.

In addition to my new toy, I helped my mother celebrate her 50th earth revolution by hopping into a van and heading to New York City. Which is a stark contrast to my home-turf where the tallest building in the area is about a mere 10ish stories. A whirlwind trip by any definition. We saw a lot: Ground Zero, Wall Street, Central Park, Rockefeller, Times Square. I even got to go by such nerd meccas as Hook & Ladder 8 (The Ghostbusters Firehouse) and the Apple Store.

Nerd Meccas

But the TRUE highlight of this trip for me was going to see a Broadway show with Mum. NOW, Mum wanted to see Jersey Boys and I wanted to see Avenue Q. Granted it was Mum’s birthday, so I was more then willing to miss out the puppety goodness. Unfortunately for Mum, no seats were available for her show of preference and she had no desire to see my show, plus we had Dave in tow. So we found the best middle ground possible, and something else I wanted to see. SPAMALOT!

Spamalot

The show was hysterical, and a lot of fun. I’m really glad I got to see it. Now if only I saw the original cast with Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce and Hank Azaria… that’d been something else. It was still sexy-awesome and I’d love to see it again and I highly recommend checking it out should the opportunity present itself.

Fetchez la vache!

All told, a fun trip, a new toy distracting me from the site and other such joys. Additionally, I’m taking a Japanese class at UVa which is neat and I’m enjoying that too.

That’s all I’m gonna say today and I hope you enjoyed my photos.

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Filed under:Personal Tags: new york, spamalot, xbox