Goodbye Antec Aria, we hardly knew thee :(

Dear Antec Aria,

Although I was very happy that you came into my life back when I built you, I knew that it was too good to be true. You delighted me in your cute cube-ness, and your glaring, blue LEDs that lit up the night while I tried to sleep as I downloaded huge files; your highly convenient - in theory - but non-functional card reader was my largest pet peeve, among other things like becoming discontinued and "improved" upon as the new NSK1380 model without card reader, most likely due to it being non-functional to begin with.

Everyone marveled at your smallness. They oohed and ahhed you as I showed you to everyone who bothered to look, as I beamed proudly and told them that you were "adorable" and "gave me many a headache." I even enjoyed the relative dustiness of cleaning your innards every so often, swabbing the little corners with rubbing alcohol and making lots of dust bunnies in the corner of the room.

Alas, it was indeed too bright an existence with me. Last night, while I was busy listening to the marvelous Saturday night recordings of Colorfinger (SA), sailing away at a Cursed Isles adventure on Puzzle Pirates (as I often do now to kill time and to be adored by my SA crewmates), and contemplating on wedding planning... Everything suddenly turned black. Silence.

Except for one singular noise.

Squealing away while your power cord was still plugged in, I realized it was your time.

Your power supply had suddenly died. The saddest thing is that I cannot transplant a power supply, as your case is too cute and specialized to have just any old one (oh noooooo), and I can't get your plug out of the case anyway.

Thus, it must be that I bid thee farewell, my dear Antec Aria. You served me well through three different cities, and you have come to your final rest.

With deep regrets,
your momma ;_;

***
(Before you ask, the warranty is only for 3 years anyway.)

I am borrowing Jorghnassen's laptop in the meantime, while I wait for my new case to be delivered. The NSK1380 may fill in the same spot on my desk, but it certainly won't fill the same spot in my broken heart. :(

Lessons from Junior Senior

Yesterday I discovered that my latest favourite band, Junior Senior, had called it quits since the end of September. No surprises actually, as both Junior and Senior (Jesper and Jeppe) had been pursuing solo works over the last little while.

In the off chance you have never heard of Junior Senior, there are many videos online of their music. Their breakthrough in the NA market is probably Move Your Feet, noted for the pixel art featured in the video, back in 2003 when it made the run throughout the geek blogger circles.


Another notable song was done with the collaboration with the B-52s singers - Take My Time:


Last year, I became entranced with the band. I listened to their albums constantly while driving back and forth between work while in Waterloo. I forced Jorgh to listen to it while I made the 8 hour marathon drives, and I still listen to it to drive him nuts.

The reason I listen to it all the time, and have not gone nuts, is that JS never goes old. Well, there's two reasons actually; as a musician, I'm used to excessively repeating pieces, and I don't get as tired of hearing pieces I like, as other people might. (Which is also why I annoy Jorgh with Queen as well, but that's another story.)

Every song in their repertoire is fun, catchy, and definitely good for dancing. Inspirational when you're down in the dumps. Celebratory when you're doing something great. (Stupid when you're doing the vacuuming but whatever.) There's definitely an element of fun-for-the-sake-of-it in their songs, rather than something grandiose or corny. I'm sorry to see them split but at least they gave the world a great sound. :)

All the pressures you embrace
They take you to a magic place
And take your magic place along
And put that feeling in a song

And keep on working through the morning
Working through the night
Until you see the light
Cuz You can hold it in your hand
And try to understand
Just do it do it do it get it down
Cuz music's not just sound

Keep on working on something better
Keep on working on something better
Keep on working on something better

-Junior Senior, I Like Music (W.O.S.B.)

Some :( and :) but more :(

Some time last week, my mum told me that the water spout leading to the outside of our apartment in Quebec exploded and flooded my room. Fortunately only the floor was flooded, but unfortunately it destroyed all the stuff that was paper and lying on the floor. Which was everything under the bed. She had to throw out all the things that were soaked. This soggy wet pile included artwork from high school, school notes, some other books, and other mementos from the 199X's.

However, I have come to a reluctant acceptance of how these things were by no means something I would miss terribly. They were items that did have some significant meaning at the time, and that is why I kept them. But if they had been of more meaning I would have probably put them somewhere not under the bed. (Kind of like the Clean Sweep philosophy.)

This holiday weekend has been rather unexciting. I have a pile of midterms yet to finish, but that is my own fault for being a procrastinator.

Next weekend however, we're heading to Ottawa to hang out with Donnah. :D Jorghnassen has a conference, and I'm going to be taking Monday off so I can stay a bit longer.

Yes, big news looms ahead...!

In the meantime, I have more work to look forward to. The kids want cookies...

ST Voyager's Stupid Sad Episode :(:(:(

I regularly visit the SA forums whenever it's open to the public. I justify this obsession: sometimes there are threads that are horrible, hilarious (or both), and often get posted into the SA Front Page like the Comedy Goldmines or Photoshop Phridays.

This afternoon I had the misfortune of reading the "MS-Paint the saddest thing" thread, and some of the things posted there (while not MS Painted) were pretty sad, like the Thai insurance commercials. I only watched one of them but boy is it gut-wrenching: Click this if you feel like crying pathetically.

I had the TV on right afterwards, and it happened to be the Star Trek: Voyager episode called "Course: Oblivion". To summarize: the entire crew and ship came to the realization that they were merely copies of the original Voyager and crew due to some chance encounter on some planet that made exact bio-copies of everything, and their bodies and everything else were breaking down because of some techno-jargon; they had the choice to continue leading their copied lives and to continue heading to Earth, or go back to the planet they originated from to survive.

Of course, things don't turn out so well for them. In fact... let's just say that I really think you should pay just a little more attention to mysterious piles of blobs when you walk by.

Goddamn that was sad. :(

---

Yes, it's been a pretty sad afternoon. What with Jorghnassen killing all the spiders and everything. :(