An Unfortunate Return

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!


Or, more appropriately, Merry Christmas and Another New Year!!!!


In my experience, each year is roughly equivalent to the last, so all the celebration about it is kind of silly. The New Year celebration isn't even about anything in particular. It centers around the moment when the arbitrarily designated calendar that we use cycles back to 1. There's nothing particularly important about the transition between December and January, either. No historical event upon which to base the change, no transition between seasons even. It's just an excuse to get really drunk and make out at midnight (apparently). But hey, if that's your kind of thing, then go for it! I, for one, went to sleep at 10pm.


Oh, and for your information, we are now around a week shy of a year until thousands of stupid people ruin their lives by selling all their worldly possessions in anticipation of the END OF THE WORLD!!! Just in case you were interested.


So it's been about two weeks since I last posted. I was in Ohio for the majority of that time celebrating Christmas with my family. In spite of being in a house too small to really accommodate four couples, two grand kids and myself (a fact that led rather frequently to my experiencing a bit of sensory overload), it was a fun vacation. It was nice to be back home and around my family. In addition, this was the first year in a while in which the entire family was home all at once! Well, the entire family save my younger brother who is serving his mission in Riverside, California.


I had initially gone home not expecting much this year. The reason behind this was because I just couldn't think of anything that I really wanted to ask for. Within reason, that is. I don't really want much these days, and the things that I do want are things that tend to be a tad too expensive to ask for as a Christmas present. I've actually had this problem for a while. Birthdays and Christmas are a bit frustrating for me because I don't really have anything that I want to ask for. That doesn't mean that I don't want anything, just that I don't know what I want. It's a very strange position.


In any case, I did have one thing on my list. I've been needing to upgrade my computer for some time - I need at least a quad core processor, which would also require a new motherboard, I need to upgrade my air cooling systems from the factory default, new graphics card that can handle Battlefield 3, etc - but most of those upgrades are rather pricey. The graphics card, however, has been the primary goal. My processor, mobo and cooling system can handle BF3 as long as I clean out the interior of the box regularly and don't try to play for hours on end. (Which I still do anyway.) The part of my computer system that is most taxed by the game is the graphics card. Now, I currently have an Nvidia GTX 250. It's a few years old, but its a beast of a card. It can run BF3 on moderate settings, but it suffers from overheating just like the rest of my computer. The one part that would make the most difference in my ability to play the game would be a more powerful graphics card.


Of course, when it comes to my computer, I only want the best. The most powerful single card on the market today (that I an aware of) is the Nvidia GTX 590. I want that card. But it costs more than I could ever expect to ask from my parents, even if I did have my own job to pay for some of it myself. I think that it also would require me to buy a new computer case and possibly a new power supply. My current card just barely fits inside my box. :P


So the 590 was out of the question. Fortunately, the models below it aren't trash either, so I compared the prices of the 580 and 570 models. As I recall, the 580 was around $450 - $500, well out of my price range, but the 570 was only $350-ish. Now, I admit that I don't have a great grasp on things as far as expenses go, but I figured that between all the members of my family, they could each chip in a small amount and get up to around $350. It would mean that I would only be asking for and receiving a single present this year, but that was okay by me. It was the only thing that I really wanted, anyway. Well, after talking to my dad about it, I learned that even $350 was way too much. I mean, it's not like my dad is already single-handedly covering all of my considerable expenses for school and life in general or anything. Needless to say, I was not pleased, but I understood and was okay with it.


So I went into Christmas not expecting anything. It also occurred to me a few days before Christmas that I hadn't actually bought anything for anyone else, either. This conundrum was remedied by a convenient universal wishlist and a trip with my Dad to Costco. Usually when I've not bought anything for anyone else, my parents (read my Dad) covers for it by just saying that one of the presents they bought is from me. This time, I was actually involved in the process of choosing the items, so I felt a bit better about it in the end. (I don't enjoy getting gifts for others because, given that I am hardly able to figure out what I would like, how would I possibly be able to tell what anyone else might like? I also don't like just getting something for someone just for the sake of the action. If there's no real thought put in it, it feels fake to me.)


Everything worked out in the end and while I was right about not expecting to be getting much of anything for myself, I was rather surprised that I got anything at all. Even more surprising was when I opened what appeared to be a very much undisguised pillow and found that it was actually a bag of Cluster Stuff filling concealing the box for the very card that I had asked for. I ended up getting the one thing that I wanted anyway, in spite of how much it costed! It's not very often that I experience emotions like happiness in anything more than a matter of fact way, but I was definitely happier than that when I realized what it was that I was holding. 


(Thanks, Dad.)


I also received a winter coat and a pair of slippers from my mother, both of which ended up not fitting properly, so we'll have to repurchase them at a later date, a set of collectible Star Wars themed USB flash drives (the Darth Vader and Storm Trooper ones,) and a $10 gift card for Chipotle from Rory and Rachel. That gift card might actually be my favorite of the other gifts, too. There is never a time when I would not enjoy free Chipotle. :P


**********


So I spent the remaining week of my vacation hanging out at home and finally playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess until it was finally time to leave. I packed up the majority of my stuff on Friday night and finished the last minute things Saturday morning before we left for the airport. I had come in with a single suitcase and my backpack, but was leaving with two large duffle bags and my backpack. (My suitcase's handle was broken and the wheels refused to cooperate, so my Dad just had me switch it out with his bag.) The second bag was exclusively to carry my graphics card and the Playstation, which I was bringing back with me. While going through security, I was flagged to be scanned by the nifty sub-millimeter scanner thing - a fact that I was not in any way unhappy about. Those things are cool. After I got through the scanner, I was informed that my backpack needed to be searched. Apparently my calculator, Triple Combination and two copies of my Dad's novel blocked too many x-rays for the TSA's liking. In any case, my bag got sent through the machine a second time and was cleared. The flights were, for the most part, uneventful. The exception arose as we were taxiing to the terminal after landing at Chicago's Midway airport when I suddenly realized, much to my horror, that I had forgotten my keys at home. o.O


This normally would have been only a minor inconvenience. I could get spare apartment keys at the office and my car would have had a spare key attached to it in the little magnetic box I had purchased. However, my car is one of those fancy ones that have RFID chips embedded in the keys. I can't start my car with a key unless it has been made specifically by Toyota and has that little ID chip inside it. If I attempt to start the car with a mere copy, the vehicle will automatically lock itself up completely and a Toyota technician will have to come out and fix it for me, presumably requiring a large sum of money afterwards. Long story short, I have to be a homeless person at my brother's apartment until Monday, when my keys, which were shipped overnight by my parents, will hopefully be delivered by mail. Not a big deal, but still kind of annoying. I've gotten to the point where I just want to be home, you know? Anyway, I need to look into getting a second key made for my car so I can actually make use of that little spare box... 


So overall, it was a fun and enjoyable vacation and I'm mildly bummed that it's over, especially since it turns out that I'm not going to be moving out of my apartment. I get to spend the next semester with the same annoying room mate. Woohoo! Oh, well. I'll survive. I just won't be very happy about it.