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Browsing Posts published in September, 2005

Computer update

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I finally got my desktop back today from Geek Squad, after calling them at least twice a day every day since Monday. So things were bad, but not horrible. Turns out that my video card went dead, and also my hard drive is in process of dying. Luckily, I think I’m going to be able to get all my data off of it. I’ll find that out sometime soon. I went ahead and bought a new video card and a new 160GB hard drive, which is twice the size of the old one. They said my hard drive was bad, but they hooked it up as a slave on their test computer at Best Buy and they could read it no problem. I brought the system back home tonight after Yogi’s and the office and gave it a bit of a clean job with Q-tips and everything. Man there was a disgusting amount of dust in all kinds of nooks and corners of the unit. Anyways, I put in the new video card no problem. The hard drive set up was a little more complicated, but overall pretty easy. I have my new hard drive set as the master, and the old one is in there as a slave. I got everything hooked up and at least things are showing up on the monitors. I am going to install Windows on my new hard drive, then hopefully I will be able to transfer everything over from the old one. The old one will probably stay around until it explodes or completely dies, I can use it just as a temporary drive or to store stuff before I burn it off. Since the computer has a new video card and a new (bigger) hard drive, I think I will call the system something new. I’m thinking Musashi? Then Kojiro will exist as the slave hard drive, and will probably die sometime soon. Musashi and Kojiro…. hmmmm….

Thank goodness I’ll be able to keep all my old stuff, hopefully. I think sometime soon I’m going to do a major backup as well, haha. This whole situation really scared me. Maybe it’s good that my video card died so I could find out my hard drive was in bad shape. If not, I might have lost it all…

Get well soon Kojiro

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So my desktop is busted. Somehow, it won’t load up right or even give me a post. Sooooo I tried playing with it myself, couldn’t get any results. Went ahead and took it to Best Buy’s squad of geeks. $40 just to find out what’s wrong with it, and it will probably take like 4 days. Great. I have a feeling it’s something wrong with the power supply or the motherboard. As long as I don’t end up with a wiped hard drive, I’ll be happy. Let’s hope my computer gets fixed soon and doesn’t cost me too much…

I fixed it

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The electrical wiring in my living room was really messed up. Ever since I moved it, there was something goofy with the power outlet on the right side of the room, where I plugged in a lamp. After a few weeks, if I unplugged the lamp, the other 2 outlets in the room would go out (one had all my computer setup, the other my TV setup). Needless to say this was a pain in the butt. This morning, I was sitting on the computer taking a break from a morning full of studying really hard (haha, actually I was studying, since I had a test and fell asleep the night before), and the power goes out. Just in the living room, since the kitchen light stayed on the whole time. Only this time, I couldn’t just jiggle the lamp plug; something was even more messed up. I got it working for a while, but then just as I was leaving, the power went out again.

I came home to the power being out, but didn’t really have enough time to fix it. I called my dad when I was finishing stuff up at the office, explained the problem, and just as I figured, he knew exactly what was wrong. I think my dad knows pretty much everything, especially electrical and other fix-it type of stuff. So apparently the living room was all on a parallel circuit, and something was loose in the lamp outlet plug. Either a broken wire or a loose wire, hopefully. While Dad was telling me this, I scribbled a diagram on a scrap of paper. I got home, killed the power for the living room, and took apart the outlet. Yup, one of the 4 wires in there was a little loose. Took it all apart to make sure (and cause I was curious), put it back together, and VOILA. The outlet works fine now, I don’t need to worry about jiggling the lamp plug, and I can use my comp and TV tonight. I have to say, I feel accomplished.

Elecman!

The hunt

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the future. Not like way into the future, but mainly the great task of finding a JOB. I’ve had to work on resumes and cover letters for my X420 class, and there’s this career fair coming up at the end of October in Boston. I think I’m going to go. It’s a bunch of Japanese companies, which is something I’ve been considering. The big hangup, however, is that most of these companies ask for Business Level Japanese of American applicants. I’ll admit, my Japanese is pretty good, especially conversational, but BUSINESS LEVEL? Uhh I don’t think so. It’s like keigo (honorific language) on steroids. That’s my main reservation about going to Boston. I’m just counting (I mean hoping) that there will be some companies who only ask of conversational Japanese ability, and/or companies there who interview in English. Boston would be a fun weekend trip as well.

X420 is also doing it’s own little job of making me stress out and think about getting a job. The class itself is cake; I go to class sometimes, and spend about 30 minutes a piece on the homework assignments. I’m doing really well so far; the class is graded on a point system, and I’ve been making plenty of points. It is, I suppose, a good excuse to make me work on resumes and stuff like that, since otherwise I probably would neglect to do them. I need to start going to job fairs, sending out resumes and cover letters, and in general just actually go out and hunt for a job. Graduation isn’t until May (I should find out when I need to register for that), but I have a feeling I’m going to need to find and have a job by the end of March at the very latest. Maybe I should just take the easy way out and do JET (teaching English or something in Japan). The pay isn’t great, but it’s not bad. And I’d be in Japan. Do I even want to be in Japan?

Speaking of the job hunt, and X420, I have to admit how much I hate some business students. I know, I’m a business student, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about certain business students (there are a lot of them) that take this all too seriously. I’m talking about the kids who wear suits to stupid company presentations IN CLASS (not like real company presentations, just them coming to talk to a class), go up and try to BS smalltalk with the presenters just to “stand out,” and in general just try too hard to be “professional” and just trying to get a job. It’s hard to explain, but I think you know what I’m talking about. There was such a presentation in my X420 lecture this past Thursday, and when it was all over, everyone is in line to throw their resume into the company folders. One of the presenters is up at the front of the room, and I hear this one kid in front of me trying to make smalltalk. Not even meaningful conversation. Just pure BS. It was so forced and uncomfortable it could have been on Curb Your Enthusiasm. And of course he tried to turn his comment into a handshake and a “Hi, my name is Retarded Moron, blah blah blah.” These kids do it all the time. I am not going to kiss up to someone to get a job (OK maybe just a little, but I still gotta keep my dignity). If someone is going to hire me, it’s going to be because I’m awesome. Which I am. Look at my resume. You will hire me.

I’ve decided (OK not really, it’s always been kind of a given) that there are 3 main categories of job that I might be going for. Also there are hybrids of these categories. The 3 are: Marketing/Advertising, Television or Film, and Japanese related. Right now I have no clue which one I want to concentrate on. I have a feeling that the marketing path will get me the biggest starting salary…somewhere around 50K plus. That’s pretty darn tempting. Television is probably something that I would love the most. Japanese would be fun, but I don’t know if that’s something I should do right away. Especially since I don’t have business level Japanese (ugh). If I were super lucky, I could land a job doing TV advertisements (CMs) for a Japanese TV station. Let’s be honest, I’m not going to land something that sweet right away.

This post was pretty pointless (I say that all the time, mainly because it’s true). Just wanted to let everyone know that finding a job is a huge pain in the butt and I wish I could just get paid a handsome salary to stay at IUSTV the rest of my life. Oh, in other news, I finally got Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, and it is one of the sweetest films I have ever seen. Even if I’d never played through FF7, I think this would still be one of the greatest films ever. The CG is amazing; about 3820498 times more impressive than Toy Story. Everyone should see this movie right now. I’m totally buying the DVD when it’s released in the US at the end of November. For now, my torrented version works great.

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I’m exhausted.

Just for a laugh…

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The eye of the ranger is on you

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