OK, so my vow to post seven times in seven days was an epic fail. I managed a paltry three, four if you count this one, which I do because it’s not quite midnight, so shut your whore mouth!

I was examining my site visit statistics tonight and I was struck by something odd...my traffic is way up! And by way up I mean, actually there. Seriously, where are all these hits coming from? And more importantly, where are all the comments? If 20,000 of you bitches visited my site, where are the filthy comments, snide remarks and invitations to cardboard keggers? I love having you here at Mike’s Bytes, I really do, but either leave a comment or send me a dollar. Or send me both and it’s a date...I’m just that easy.

Today was very yin and yang kind of day. On the good side, several job leads presented themselves, and I’m excited about the possibilities. But on the downside, we lost Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. I’m still in shock that these two icons of a generation are gone. Ever since I was a kid they have both been a part of my life, well, as much as any celebrity can touch us. It’s just weird to think that I no longer share the planet with them. Here’s hoping that tomorrow I get a step or two towards employment...and no one dies. That would be a good thing.

I missed my post yesterday as I had promised myself (and all three of my loyal readers) I would do. But in my defense it was a busy day: I made it to the tire place without incident, Tony following me in case I had a blowout, and I have two shiny new front tires. He also brought me this ginormous mylar balloon in honor of the new Transformers moving coming out today. Nerd! Chloe is a little afraid of it and truthfully, so am I.

In the afternoon I had a phone screen for a job I would really love to have, and I think it went well. I hope to hear something soon about the in-person interview, so wish me luck!

I’m not going to any of the midnight showings of Transformers 2 tonight, but I will be catching a matinee tomorrow. I know it will very likely be a suckfest but you know...giant freaking robots! That’s all I’m after here.

Speaking of which, here is reason #2,158 to live in Japan: a life-size 1:1 scale Gundam. Swoon!

In my last post I said I would post every day for a week, so here we go!

Today I did my walk at the track: 2.92 miles averaging 19.27 minutes per mile and burning 592 calories. Go me! When I was done a voice came on my iPod and said “hello, this is Lance Armstrong. Congratulations on your longest workout to date.” It was totally cheesy but I still smiled.

In the afternoon I was heading to Tony’s when I heard a thumping noise coming from my front passenger side tire that got more frequent the faster I went. That can’t be good. I came back home and checked, and my front passenger side tire was starting to come apart. Lovely! After calling around and talking to Tony, he hooked me up with his “tire guy” who is making me a deal. So tomorrow Tony is going to follow me...slowly...to the tire place. I hate unexpected expenses like that and it couldn’t come at a worse time but I have to have my car, so there we go. More on that little adventure tomorrow.

After the tire shenanigans, I’m coming home for a phone interview that I’m really looking forward to. Tomorrow should be all kinds of fun, so wish me luck!

I haven’t posted in a while because I got the Klappe! OK not really, I’ve just been incredibly lazy and have been posting things on Twitter and Facebook. I tried moving the site to Wordpress so I could remote post, but that was an epic fail: turns out my ISP does not support the most recent WP version so after the blood sweat and tears of getting it installed, it wasn’t running as it should. Sigh. I will revisit it and I will eventually make the switch (until Rapidweaver allows for remote posting, that is) but it won’t be anytime soon. Until then, I will blog on...look for more posts coming soon, as next week I’ve dedicated myself to one blog post a day for seven days. Huzzah!

My good friend Briana Lowe, aka DJ B.Lowe, invited me to the Weiden & Kennedy Radio booth this week to hear her play some tunes and have me talk World of Warcraft. It was a ton of fun, and a great way to rock out with my nerd out. I think I scared her a little. But it was fun and something I’d do again in a heartbeat (hint hint.) In case you missed the live show, you can get the podcast from iTunes here or listen to it streaming off the WK Radio site here.

For the Horde! (That’s WoW nerd talk for “Fuck Yeah!”)

This still is from one of my favorite Anime of all time, Azumanga Daioh. It centers on a group of high school girls and the wacky shenanigans they get into, and this features Osaka (standing) and Sakaki, with Osaka pointing out that she “knows about the internet” as they go online to look up some information. Yep, Osaka knows about us!

I bring this up because I had an encounter today at my part-time job that left me a little perplexed. A customer came in with his daughter and wanted to know if it was possible to order a computer without a wireless card and without an ethernet port. He wanted a computer but never, ever, ever wanted it to be able to be on the internet. Ever. I tried my best to appear open minded about his request (short answer, no, you can’t) but I was thoroughly confused by his reasoning. He went on about how the internet is evil and full of sin, and that no good would ever come from it. In his words, the internet was the beginning of the end of the world. He proudly showed me his internet-free cellular, which was roughly the size of a brick and appeared more like something from the Fisher-Price My First Cellphone line. His daughter rolled her eyes behind his back and made the “yada yada yada” motions with her hands and told me later that she uses the internet all the time, but she just can’t get her father to accept it. I respected his choices and his reasonings, but since I rely on the Internet so heavily all I could do was feel sorry for what he was depriving himself of. Sure there is a lot of smut and garbage on the web, but you don’t typically find that unless you go looking for it. And look at some of the good things the internet has brought us: eCommerce, social networking and you know, global communication to name a few. The internet is how I do my banking, my shopping, communicate with relatives, and look for a new full-time job. I relax with online games, on sites like Twitter and Facebook, and I do a huge amount of research on the web. Just the other day I used it to find out how to hard boil an egg without getting the grey yucky stuff on the yolk. It’s how I write this blog. To not have the Internet is something I don’t even want to think about, let alone consider depriving myself of on purpose. Lets face it, I’d go insane.

It wasn’t my place to champion the internet to this guy, or try to point out the error of his thinking as I saw it. I respect his choice and his beliefs but I couldn’t give him what he wanted, and in the end he left. Not only will he never benefit from all the wonderful things the world wide web could give him, he would also never know the joy of owning a computer because of it.

The opposite side of this example of web bias happened later when a regular customer, an elderly woman I’ll call Florence, came in to buy a wireless mouse for her computer. Florence is proud to tell you she’s 78 years old, and she loves her new laptop. She takes classes, reads books, and does everything she can to learn about her machine, and I just adore her. She’s completely in awe of everything her computer can do on the web, and her enthusiasm is contagious. She told me she had just set up a Flickr account but wasn’t sure how to use it yet, and since she had iLife ’09 I showed her how she can upload her photos to Flickr through iPhoto now. She peeped at me over her bifocals and said “oh my gosh, that’s perfect, that’s just beautiful. And my Grandkids can see these now? Gosh, that’s just marvelous!” And all I could do was smile like an idiot because when you let it, technology (and the internet) can be pretty damn marvelous indeed. :)

**Do not read this if you haven’t seen the finale of Battlestar Galactica, for beyond this space there be spoilers!**

Friday night was the series finale of Battlestar Galactica, a series I have watched and loved for the last two years and some change. I was late to the BSG party, not discovering it until it was in it’s mid second season, but it was a great ride. And now that the show is over, I’m going to sound off about how the finale made me feel, and whether I got the closure I wanted. There are a lot of posts going around the blogosphere on this same subject, and these are just my two cents to add to the pile.

I’ll state it openly and nerdily: I love this show and I love it’s characters. Not since Star Trek The Next Generation have I felt so involved in the lives of fictional characters on screen. And BSG didn’t have to be set in space just to guarantee I would love it, either. The writing, acting, and characters were so good it could have been set in the modern day world, following a post apocalyptic fleet of ships carrying the last human survivors across the oceans in search of a mythical island where humanity could start anew. But it was set in space, and it was based on a show I watched and loved as a kid, so I was predisposed to like it.

So how did the finale hold up to that kind of expectation? I’ll break it down below, in no particular order.

I liked the concept that “Earth is where you make it”, and that the recurring theme throughout the show that “everything has happened before, and will happen again” came full circle with the last few minutes. They found Earth and they prospered, and the human race was born...again. Would the cycle repeat itself? Only time will tell.

Once on Earth I didn’t like the idea of the group splitting up, starting with Galen going off by himself. I wanted to see the “family” stay together. I loved that Ellen and Tigh were together as well as Gaius and Caprica Six, and Helo and Athena. But I wanted more closure with them and I wanted to know that they all stayed together and would be ok. Sappy I know, but true. I was sad that Adama went off away from the group. Why would he leave Apollo and everyone else behind? How far away did he go? Did he go back later? Lee and Kara confirmed to each other that he wasn’t coming back...but why? He told Lee he didn’t have long, but what did he mean? Did he mean he didn’t have long with Laura, or didn’t have long himself? And with Starbuck and Adama gone, was Lee going to be all alone? It didn’t seem fair that he should lose them both after all of that. After going through so much together, the idealist in me really wanted this group of people to stay together. I also thought that Laura’s death should have been handled differently. She should have died in Adama’s arms, or after they had their house built, or something. For her to slip off quietly with no goodbye and no closure just slumped in a raptor was undignified and made me feel a bit robbed. I loved her character and her story arc, and think her death should have been more poignant. But at least she made it to earth, and her last words of “So much life...” choked me up.

Now on to Kara Thrace, AKA Starbuck. She was the driving force behind the entire story line, but her fate left me with more questions than answers. What do I think happened? I think she died on the radioactive earth, and that it was her corpse that we saw in the cockpit. So who was the Kara that came back and led the fleet to the end? Instinct tells me that she was an angel similar to the Six and Baltar angels that we saw throughout the show. There was a lot of higher powers at work here, so maybe she was sent back to lead humanity to Earth. Or maybe she was a “one-off” Cylon, resurrected and sent back with “programming” to complete her destiny. She clearly wasn’t fully corporeal, vanishing like that at the end, and hers is another death that I felt wasn’t handled with enough closure. As cheesy as it sounds, I would have almost rather seen her go off in a teary eyed speech to her friends and ascend to the heavens than just vanish like that. And what about her being the “harbinger of death” that the hybrids were always referring to her as? I saw no evidence of that: in fact, she led everyone to Earth with that final jump, so how is she the harbinger of death? Unless they mean that by leading them to Earth she starts the cycle again, thereby dooming everyone to another loop around the cosmos. But if that’s the case, why did they send her back to do exactly that? A lot of questions and no answers, and I felt Starbuck deserved better.

All in all, I think the finale was bittersweet. It gave me closure on some things, feelings of conflict on others, and in general sent me off to bed that night feeling angsty and emotional. In short it did exactly what good writing and good television should do and I salute the cast, crew and director for accomplishing exactly that. Well played. And did I cry? Hell yes I cried! But not as much as I expected I would. Despite my mixed feelings on how they were handled, I teared up when Laura died and when Starbuck vanished, and hearing Adama talk about the house to Laura’s grave. And even tho I was fully expecting it, The Adama and Starbuck exchange of the “What do you hear, Starbuck?” “Nothing but the rain” lines really started the ol’ water works going. Hey, goodbyes are hard, ok? I also got a little emotional when I heard the original BSG theme song as the fleet flew into the sun. Yeah, I’m a big sap all right.

I’ll miss the show and the story, but I will revisit the whole thing again on DVD and start all over. I wonder if it will have the same impact on me knowing the outcome as it did the first time around? We’ll see. The Plan looks like a good concept (that link contains spoilers, be warned) so I will cross my fingers for it and any other BSG spinoffs. Star Trek did it so why not this franchise?

And I’ll be there to support it in whatever incarnation it takes, remote in hand. Ready and willing to revisit this amazing group of characters again and again.

So say we all.

OK not really, but this was still fun. It’s a little thing that started on Facebook, and I liked it so I wanted to share.

First, go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

Then go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

Then go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Lastly, use Photoshop to put it all together. E-mail me any that you make, I’d love to see more! :)

Yes, the recession monster has bitten my full time job square in the ass: in two weeks I will be in the same position as millions of of other people, not to mention a good chunk of my friends. Fortunately I have some warning, some severance, and some good friends to lean on. Did I see it coming? Sure. Am I sad? Kind of. It was a good job, but ultimately it was not a career path for me to consider long term. The good news is that not only do I qualify for the max amount of unemployment benefits, but I can keep my part time job without impacting it. The two combined put me at what my full time gig was paying so I won’t be hurting, and I can keep all my stuff. Yay!

Those of you who know me know how much I love to work (I have two jobs, for crying out loud) so working just one day a week at my part time job is going to drive me up the wall. I like to be busy, and an idle Mike is a slowly-going-insane Mike. The last time I was unemployed was in 2001 during the .com bust, and I was out of work for three months, the longest time in my entire life. By the end I was depressed, unmotivated, had dropped thirty pounds and was so stressed out of my gourd that that I was in a sorry state indeed. Panic attacks were commonplace and once I even started driving myself to the hospital thinking I was having a heart attack, only to turn around halfway because I realized I was being a big drama queen. But you get my point...I do not handle being idle very well.

So this time around, I intend to handle it differently. Of course looking for a new career is my top priority, but I also want to put in some volunteer hours someplace. I’m going to make the most of social networking outlets like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to meet new people and work contacts. I’m also going to exercise daily: I’m going to join the gym at our corporate rate before I leave the company, and being free most of the day I can go in during low traffic hours. I know this will help me deal with stress immensely. There are always my regular hikes at Tryon Creek to resume now that the weather seems to be getting better, and the track at Duniway field is also calling my name. Money will be ok, so while searching for a new job I’m going to take a bit of time out for me, and I think dealing with one will help the other. In the meantime, if you know of anyone looking for an Apple Certified Support Specialist (shameless plug) please keep me in mind. :)

I posted a while back about a friend I grew up with, Derrick, who passed away in 2002. We met in junior high and went through high school together, him one year ahead of me. Among many things, one item we had in common was that we were both complete hams and attention whores, and we both wanted to be in the entertainment field when we grew up. Derrick had a very unique laugh, one that sent me into fits of hysterics just hearing it, so often I would try to make him laugh just to hear him laugh, then laugh at his laugh, until both of us were almost sick. We were always doing skits and mock interviews, inventing silly voices and personalities, taping ourselves for hours on end and laughing at everything until our stomachs ached. We started saving all of this insanity to an audio tape (calling it simply "The Tape") and we filled one, then another, and by the time we graduated from high school we had filled thirty-two cassettes. We always talked about “making it” in Hollywood, even though we never really knew exactly what that meant...we were just kids, after all. And as it happens when you are young you begin focusing on life as it comes at you, and dreams like that kind of fall by the wayside when “grown up” stuff starts to happen. We moved to different cities and grew slowly apart, and sadly we lost touch for the last years of his life. By the time I had heard the news that he had passed away it had been almost ten years since we had last spoken, and he was already gone.

This weekend I got a phone call from Derrick's mother, Pearl. Aside from a brief call when I learned of Derrick's passing, it's the first time we have spoken at length in over fifteen years. I always adored her, not only because she was a wonderful person but because she and her sisters were all named after gemstones: Pearl, Ruby and Opal, and I thought that was the most awesome thing I'd ever heard of. After catching up with one another she began telling me about things that Derrick did in his last years, and I was amazed. He had started singing and writing songs. He had written sitcom pilots. He had two poems published. He had done his best to try and make his dream from our childhood happen. Pearl told me that to Derrick never gave up on that dream, and as he got older he kept rushing and rushing to make it happen: it was almost like he knew he would be leaving this world early and he had to live his dream while he could. When he died he was very sad and frustrated with the delays his artistic interests had taken. He wanted to attend film school, to create, and it just wasn't coming together quickly enough and he ended up pushing himself too hard. He wanted it to happen so badly but in the end he left, off to whatever awaits us, to see his dreams fulfilled in the next life.

And yes, big baby that I am I cried with her as she was telling me this. And after hearing everything it struck a huge resonance with me in my own life: I need to kick myself in the hind end, personally and professionally, and to take an example from Derrick to try to make some good changes happen. We only get one shot at this. And while I had moved on to the nerdier career pursuits in life (and I have no regrets), Derrick held onto his dream and did his best to make it come true, and that’s something I think anyone can take something from. And the best way I feel I can honor him is to do my best and to give it my all...and so I shall.

The photo above is the back of Derrick’s resting place...I paid my respects to him shortly after I learned he had passed. It’s a photo of him enjoying one of his favorite pastimes, fly fishing, and was laser-etched into the back of the marble. I didn’t feel it was appropriate to show a picture of his entire plot, but I felt this small personal glimpse would be ok. I miss ya, buddy.

Yeah I know, it’s been a long time since I updated...I suck at this. I have two excuses, and they are called Twitter and Facebook. Both have been robbing me of my blogging energy: it’s so easy to throw up a tweet with a link to something or a quick status on Facebook that sums up your thoughts of the moment, and then you’re done. I have been tracking my site metrics and I’m getting a fair number of hits (689 in January, WTF, why?) but I don’t see any comments. Of course, posting more than once a month might help, so I’ll work on that. Wordpress has also reared its head in my life, promising to take over my blog, but I’ll admit I don’t understand it. I need to learn more about how it works. If I could watch it being installed start to finish I think that would make me feel better. If I lose everything and have to start over, that’s fine too, I don’t really care about preserving past content. I know you have to create a database and link tables and all this other crap, and call me lazy but that just sounds like work. When I originally envisioned this site I wanted it to be something I updated daily, something I would fill with posts about the Apple community and voice acting and photography and my life as a nerd and becoming one of the million pseudo-technorati out there in the blogosphere, but instead I post about things like syphilis tins and World of Warcraft once a month. Can I turn this blog around? Yes I can!