09.09.06
A casserole of personal information
I should’ve updated my journal before, but first I was busy, and now that I have a break, so much has happened since my last entry that the thought of putting it all down in words scares my pants off. Regardless, I will try to write a decently entertaining update now, trusting my memory (and particularly lack of same) to sort out the most worthless stuff.
University
…is the best thing that ever happened to me. Along with a short list of other things, of course, but it’s a strong candidate for the top spot. High school was great, but Film and Media is the best parts of Danish and history combined into one awesome subject and sprinkled with 4-6 movies per week. Today, for example, we saw Chinatown (Polanski), which is a good movie, and A bout de souffle (Godard), which is stuck somewhere between fun and boring but certainly makes me feel elite for having seen it. The courses themselves are either history or hardcore analysis and theory, both of which I enjoy. I must admit the ~100 pages I have to read for Monday’s media history lecture are rather intimidating, especially as I won’t have most of Saturday off to read it in (more on that later), but I’m sure I’ll manage somehow.
The best part of my chosen subject is the people, though. They’re all intelligent (you need pretty good grades to even get into this course) and most of them are really passionate about the subject. Granted, most of them are passionate about the film aspect and don’t care so much for the media part, but that’s cool too, their enthusiasm inspires me. Happily, I’ve also been able to find some people who are as interested in games as I am, and I’ve already had several long, at times rather intellectual conversations with them. Overall, there’s a good social vibe and I hope to spend many hours in the bar of our institute in the future.
Work
Ye gods, it’s busy at work these days. We’re kicking off a whole new IT system at the same time as we move to a new building, so everybody is stressed beyond belief. This’ll be the fourth system we have to maintain, and largely unlike the three systems we’re already managing, but of course the goal is to consolidate the systems as we go, moving the National Library Authority, the Arts Agency, and the Cultural Legacy Agency over to the new system when they too move into the building. But until then (and it’ll be at least a couple of months), we have to support 4 vastly different systems. It’ll be pure chaos.
Of course to make things worse, I’ve been re-employed for 15 hours a week (as opposed to the 37 I’ve been working since April), and nobody has time to write up my contract. Not to mention negotiate the terms of my employment. It does look like I’ll be getting a 9 kr. per hour pay raise, though! Which is nice.
The administration agency (where I work) is moving this weekend, and I’m going to be helping with that Saturday from 12 to whenever. Next weekend comes the Library Authority and the Arts Agency the weekend after that, which lands me two full weekends of work. I won’t be getting a lot of sleep this month.
Hardware
Amidst all these scary changes that are happening around me, I have found time to design and order a new set of intestines for my computer. Since my last video driver update messed up my OS, I’ve been wanting to upgrade. Mainly, I need a new video card and a new CPU, but since the video card will be PCI-E, I’ll need a new motherboard, and at the same time I decided to get an AM2 processor. Of course that motherboard is only DDR2-compatible, so I had to order a new set of RAM too. It’ll be a Hell of a machine, and the graphics card has already arrived! It’s an HIS Radeon X1900XT ICEQ 3, which translates into a ridiculously fast and conveniently silent card. I’ve unpacked it and placed it on the box it came in next to my bookcase. I turn around every 5 minutes to look at it. It makes me happy.
Let me end this catch-up post with a short list of games I’m really hyped about, and which I will be able to play once all my hardware gets here:
- Neverwinter Nights 2 - Set for release in Europe on October 20, I am going to barricade myself in my room with nothing but the NWN2 toolset, a month’s supply of canned food, and a bucket for excrements.
- Splinter Cell 4: Double Agent - One of my favourite franchises; the previews I’ve read all made it sound amazing.
- Dark Messiah of Might and Magic - Looks like the first instance of 1st-person melee done perfectly right. I want to play a thief so I can pretend I’m Garrett again.
And I’m also planning to pick up Darkstar One as soon as I’m done upgrading my new rig, simply because I’m looking for something new, and a free-roaming space shooter with a strong storyline sounds like it. Perhaps I’ll even have time to play Psychonauts and GUN! Heck, maybe I’ll even get around to completing the main storyline in Oblivion! Weirder things have been known to happen.
