in which I sign up for a social network

After my rant on the complete non-understanding of social networks sites like myspace and facebook... I signed up for facebook.

I know, I know... I said that this blog and the flickr account are the ONLY things I needed to stay in touch with the world.

But I realized that if I'm ever going to come out of the insular shell that I'm in socially, I'm gonna have to start SOMEWHERE.  I figure if I can find friends on facebook, then at least there some commonality to it.  I'm a very sociable guy, just not in traditionally sociable places.  I'm more likely to strike up conversation with someone at a bookstore than I am in a bar or club.  I don't drink and the bar/club scene has never been one that I've felt comfortable in.

Basically, I'm trying to say that if I'm ever going to make my way in the world, I have to be connected to world in more ways that I am now.

And I think that facebook is going to be a good start.

Banker's Hours

I work in a bank.

I work “banker’s hours”

Not anymore.

The bank that I work for is switching from “2 weeks vacation/paid holidays/5 days sick time/2 personal days” to Paid Time-Off.

And I’m not sure if I like that yet.  We may or may not have to work bank holidays.  If we don’t work the holidays, we HAVE to use our PTO.  We can’t take an unpaid day off so we can use that time somewhere else.  I won’t be getting 3 weeks vacation (like the old system).  I could take 3 weeks vacation and holidays, but I wouldn’t have any sick time to work with.

I really think it sucks, and it’ll take some getting used to. I’m thankful I have a job that is steady and won’t be going anywhere, but at the same time I feel like I’m getting screwed over on my time off.   I signed up to work in an office environment, not a retail store.  I signed up, knowing that 5 years in that I’d get 3 weeks paid vacation.  I kinda feel robbed.  I really feel that the time and work that I’ve put in at the company has been for nothing – no reward for the years of service I’ve given them.

But at the same time, I do like the complete flexibility that PTO offers.  I might not want to work President’s Day, and I could use that time that I would have used and use it on another day.  If I want to take every last Friday of every month off, I could.  It’s better than most retail/food service.  Most other jobs I’ve held offered NO vacation/sick time/benefits, so I should be grateful for what I have.

But I still can’t shake the feeling that I got shafted.

In which I rave about DOSBox

I love retrogaming.

 

There is something about old PC games from the 80’s and 90’s that you just don’t get in the current run of titles.  The only downside of being a retrogamer in this day and age is the fact that computers are too fast to run anything written 20+ years ago.  Couple that with the fact that the Windows platform makes it nearly impossible to get even Windows 95 games up and running on a modern (XP/Vista) computer.

 

But there is hope.  And hope comes in a package called DosBox.

 

What DOSBox is, is a x86 emulator that runs on XP/Vista that allows you to run old DOS programs.  How DOSBox works… well... that’s beyond my technical expertise.  But the end result is one of retrogaming bliss.  Tack a frontend to the program (like D-Frontend of DOG), and you have the best way to run DOS games.

 

Take the classic exploration game Starflight.  It flat-out WON’T run on a Windows Machine. Period.  I tried for months to try to tweak settings in XP to run it, and it just wouldn’t work.  I downloaded DOSBox and DOG, and within 5 minutes, I was playing one of my favorite childhood games, with no errors or slowdown.  Now couple that with the plethora of abandonware sites out on the internet (Home of the Underdogs and Abandonia come to mind), and you, too, can experience the treasures of computer gaming past.

 

I strongly recommend that if you download DOSBox that you also download a frontend.  DOSBox’s command line is ancient compared to what current users are used to, and unless you learned how to operate DOS back when it was the operating systems of choice (remember c:\ = the stick shift of operating systems), it’s a very difficult thing to wrap your head around. The frontend allows you to go in and actually tweak setting for each individual game, giving you the ability to setup profiles for each game, and making the experience virtually pain-free.

 

DOSBox + a frontend = Gaming Bliss….