Despite my birthday coming and going without getting my hands on a PSP (that I actually own), I wasn't disappointed by any stretch. I honestly didn't ask for one, nor venture to think I would really get one. I was perfectly content with waiting out the high cost and giving into the PSP purchase in a year or so?until last Thursday. Since the arrival of the PSP, I have felt an ever increasing need to have one. Now I'm not referring to the one I consistently borrow from The Farm Boy or any other poor soul who makes the mistake of letting me handle theirs, but my very own. I'd name it something nice and simple like Joe or Steve or Ed or Bob and I would protect it from the elements in something pink and glittery (maybe I should rethink that name eh?) and I'd play with it every day and put it to bed every night! I promise! I promise!
Well, that's just sick.
So very sad in fact. Technolust is a dangerous mistress I have had a very long and abusive relationship with dear reader and apparently it has also brought my maturity level down even further (I didn't have very far to fall either).
While playing my GBA recently I felt robbed, longing for a PSP and then I felt incredibly ashamed. I bet this is what rich kids feel like when they don't have whatever it is rich kids want (a PSP no doubt), minus the shame. Let me explain...
I'm not writing all this to say how stunning the PSP is, but to marvel how the PSP has taken over my boring ass life. I didn't expect that at all. As I stated before, I was willing to wait quite a while to fork over that kind of cash for what many consider a mere toy, but now I am rethinking my position. I must be nuts to consider paying $40-50 bucks a pop for games, not to mention the cheese to get the unit itself!
I have so much to be thankful in my life, more than I bother to notice on a daily basis, but I want this PSP! That is where the shame comes into play. Why should I feel a GBA isn't nearly good enough for me when I have better things to use my money for like rent, bills, retirement savings, gas for my obscenely large vehicle and a thousand other things? Who the fuck knows? I should remind myself that at least I have an albiet minor, disposable income which is more than most people can say in the entire world, right? Well, I suppose I'm just a narrow minded moron because I still want one. But my head screams out...I will not give into temptation! I will not be a slave to those lil luminous squares I must convert into boxes while the dance beat moves me when a perfectly useful GBA game of Tetris can satisfy the urge! I will remain strong! I will not come home to my husband and see that look of pity cross his face?again! I will fight the good fight! I will not insist on being the only name listed in the High Scores! I shall overcome!
Pray for me, dear reader...I need all I can get.
I was futzing around this evening and happened upon a site I had yet to hear about before, WomenGamers.com. If you say you knew about this site already and didn?t inform me of its existence I will, in fact, call you a tool for not dropping the line to me previously (and if you even try to say the words Frag and Dolls, I will most certainly call you, well, something worse).
I was fairly impressed with the reviews and the slant towards women. Not in an ?I hate looking at naked and\or objectified women all the time,? kind of way, but a very insightful and intelligent kind of gamer way. This article in particular struck home with me. The second page makes some excellent points about marketing and gaming magazines. I particularly enjoyed this bit:
I really do understand that these are effective, time honored marketing strategies. I?m not offended by half-naked women. But it is this public face of gaming that reinforces the stereotype that most gamers are pimply faced, socially awkward boys or men that play, in part, to see boobies, with a small population of female gamers that play to socialize or to trigger an emotional response. This insults me as a gamer, and probably insults the pimply-faced gamers boys out there who want a real game, not just a piece of fluff. While I have no doubt that the buxom figure of Lara Croft contributed to her success (supported by the existence of games such as Leisure Suit Larry), I find it hard to believe that the boob-factor is really that big of a draw compared to content, graphics, and gameplay mechanics.
Makes sense to me...
I consider Group Policy to be one of the more accessible administration tools to date. It is quite useful and fairly easy to maneuver, but that didn?t come into play with my latest GP task.
With the recent expiration of the SP2 download block from Windows Update, it is necessary to know the effects SP2 could have on your user environment. Obviously each user environment differs, but most users will be affected by the default option of turning the Windows Firewall to the On position upon installation of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. When you have a decent amount of users this will push down to, the best option is to block the Firewall with Group Policy. It is an easy block to administer, but for some reason, still unknown to me, it would not push in my test environment. I would continually receive an Inaccessible error as the Reason Denied when running the Group Policy Results Wizard on the test machines. I checked permissions, recreated the Policy and did an amazing amount of research on the topic. Maybe because SP2 is a fairly new package to distribute Group Policies on, it hindered my search results. All the same, after a week of struggling with Inaccessible errors and pounding my head against my monitor, I found a workaround. I say workaround because I do not know the reason behind the fix so it can?t very well be called a solution. Sometimes a workaround is good enough and you won?t always be able to explain why they work. I?ve found in my line of work, it is perfectly acceptable to say ?It works. I don?t know why it didn?t work to begin with, or why it works now.? As long as you have a user working, that is all that matters in the end.
I created a standalone Policy which means I didn?t tie it to an existing GP. I checked and rechecked the permissions on each Policy User and even the Policy folders on the Domain Controllers. I updated the ADM files to the XPSP2 release and created the Policy on multiple machines. When creating a GP for Windows XP SP2, you must create it from a computer with that exact OS, so I did that as well. None of these produced successful results. A SP2 Windows Update block is also in place so I checked that Policy to see if it was interfering with the push down of my Firewall block. This is the best explanation I could come up with. I?m not sure if the Windows Update GP was the cause, but after attaching the Firewall Block to the existing Windows Update block GP and adding the latest system ADM file, all was working as it should. Hmmmm?well I couldn?t complain as everything was working properly, but I still wonder?why wasn?t it working as a standalone GP?
I guess I may never know?but as I said before, sometimes a workaround is all you have.
I?m gonna miss Dan Rather.
After watching tonight?s retrospective on Dan Rather?s career, I came to the realization of why I have appreciated him all these years...
The man?s got some balls.
Take the whole journalist aspect out of the equation and what remains is a guy holding a huge pair. That?s what this world needs more of, ballsy fuckers who don?t stand down for nothin!
Regardless of what you might think of The Man, ya gotta respect the ability that some people have to Just Put Em Out There and Take The Hits. Now that, dear reader, is what My Daddy taught me.
Our new VP of IT was announced and starts tomorrow morning...
I'm very excited to meet HER.
:)