I finally got internet. It occurred to me that I don’t actually need a technician to come and set it up. I have all the supplies and I am quite capable of dealing with stuff myself - just activate the service! I told Cox as much, and they obliged.

Now I can record all the things that have been going on with my apartment and at work. It’s the middle of my second week! Things have been going fairly well. Last Friday there was a planning meeting (happens every two weeks) where I got assigned about four tasks, none of which are super-hard, and I was set up to pair (read: work with) on them with an established guy, so I’ve got a fairly light load. Six seems to be about the norm.

Most of the things I’ve been working on have been moderately interesting. I pointed out a way to cut certain parts of the code in half, which we’ll probably start working on next iteration (two-week cycle of development). Some of the changes I’ve had to make have been, in my opinion, stupid. Overall it’s been good. The people I work with are nice, and about half of them play ping pong, and all that do are better than I am. One of the guys, Kip, has lots of songs on his computer and I can stream them on mine through iTunes. He has good taste, and it includes “Plans” (Death Cab for Cutie), whose lead singer I first heard in Such Great Heights from the album “Give Up” by The Postal Service. Coloration and linkage courtesy of ecto, my blog editor for Mac OS X.

And speaking of OS X, it now runs on Intel! Really! But only a MacIntel. Apple unveiled a new iMac and a new PowerBook dubbed the MacBook Pro… ehm, not such a good name, I think. So the nomenclature goes like this?

  • iMac G5 => iMac
  • PowerMac => Mac
  • iBook => MacBook
  • PowerBook => MacBook Pro

This is as suggested elsewhere on the internet, and it seems accurate, though I think having the PowerMac become just the “Mac” would be too ambiguous. I say that I have a Mac, but I mean my PowerBook, not a desktop monster. Mac Pro then? Who knows?

Despite the bad name, I like the MacBook Pro. It has an iSight built-in, it is one inch thick, it’s sexy, it has the illuminated keyboard, side-ports, and a new magnetic power cord. “Magnetic?”, you ask? Yes. And it’s a darn good thing too, as my last power adapter suffered a cruel death at the legs of Sarah and my PowerBook’s power port is, well, slightly off now. The magnetic one would just come right out when it gets tugged too hard. At least that’s the theory. They don’t ship until February.

Oh, and it will be able to run Windows (though from what I’ve heard XP may be a challenge, though Vista should work fine). I’m not sure that’s a big selling point for me, personally, but I’ll sure as hell use it as a selling point for others (yes, that includes you mom).

My apartment is a mess right now. I took (almost) everything out of the boxes on Sunday and tried to put it all away. There were not enough hours in the day, nor could I work up the motivation after work the last few days, so there’s lots of stuff still strewn about. Getting internet has lifted my spirits some, so I may conquer some of the task again tonight. Guess that means Sarah’s gonna help me with it.

As promised, a few pictures: work and apartment.

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