That Rocked!

I just got back from the laser tag place, and let me just say, that was awesome. In the end, only about 12 people showed, so I decided to invite anyone else who was at the place to join us, and we had some big 32 person games. I personally claimed second place every time... and lost to the same 8 year old kid every time...

Anyhow, since it was so awesome and all, I'm thinking a second trip is in order. No frantic planning this time, just show up there some Saturday and have some fun. Let me know if you're interested. The more the merrier!

It's On!

Ok, so I finally called the Laser Quest place and I made the arrangements for Monday, June 28 arriving at 7:20 PM. It's a group reservation, so it'll be just us. The more the merrier!

They told me they no longer offer that great group rate, so the price is locked at $18 per person, bring your own cash. On the upside, there is no longer any cap on how many or how few people to recruit.

If you want in, please let me know and I'll try to keep a running list here of who y'all will be shootin' at.
Edit: If you can transport people, let me know that, too. It could become an issue, since my car only seats 4 people, and 2 of them will want to kill themselves. Carpooling is good.

I think I'm going to have people gather here at my house around 5:45 and leave at 6:00 to try to combat rush-hour traffic. This is me being ultra-conservative, but then again, it's also my credit card being held hostage if we don't show up.

Exact Location:
Laser Quest Danvers
139 Endicott St.
Danvers, Massachusetts USA 01923
978-762-8778
(directly behind Endicott Plaza Shopping Center)

Current Confirmed Targets:
1. Jeremy F (Transporting: Ryan P, 2 seats open)
2. Ryan P
3. Dave M (Transporting: 4 seats open)
4. Kevin H (Transporting: 4 seats open)
5. Angela W
6. Kris W
7. Jeff F (Transporting: 4 seats open)
8. Albert H (Transporting?)

GMail madness!

Ok, the four of you that asked me for invitations should be all set. I've got 2 more, so for all you who want a free, invitation only web-based email account with 1 GB of storage, you can begin fighting for my attention... now. Have a nice day!

Thanks, Clive!

After reading the latest post on www.collisiondetection.net, I decided it was time I got a GMail account. If you're not up on the whole GMail craze, think of it as Hotmail, but offered by Google, and with 1000 MB of storage space. For free. For the moment, the only way to get your hands on one of these wonders is to beg somebody that already has one for an invitation. Since he had boasted the fact that he had gotten an account in his post, I decided Clive (the author and owner of collisiondetection.net) would be my first target. I pointed out that even though he had half jokingly criticized the invitation system, he now probably had several invitations to give.

Surprisingly enough, he answered my email almost immediately, and by the end of the day he had done some social networking and as a result I can now be reached at cooldoctorj@gmail.com. w00t!

USATODAY.com - Batter-coated french fries now a fresh vegetable on USDA list

Woohoo! I got all excited about this... too bad it was too good to be true...

The article:
USATODAY.com - Batter-coated french fries now a fresh vegetable on USDA list

I'm trapped in a bad time-travel movie.

So, I had to set up a new computer at work today, and I desperately needed a keyboard to complete the thing. After much wandering around Engineering, I wandered into a vacant cubicle and behold! A new Dell keyboard, sitting nicely wrapped up, and it had a sticky note on top.

Normally, I wouldn't think twice about something like this, but on closer inspection, the note read:

"I recieved your ticket in Help Desk. Here is a new keyboard from I.T. storage. -Jeremy, I.T."

It's been more than a year since I've worked for I.T. Help Desk, and now I work in a completely different department. No other Jeremy has ever worked for NetScout.


Why couldn't I have sent myself some cash?

Laser Tagteam

There's a cool laser tag place in Danvers called Laser Quest. On Mondays they allow entire groups to take over, and the pricing is lowered significantly if you can get enough people. My question to you is: Can I convince 30 people to come with me sometime this summer? Here's the logistical info:

Groups can be up to 30 people
The flat group rate for 3 rounds is $350
350/30 = roughly $11.66 (A normal triple-play is $18)

To play 3 rounds will take 2+ hours.

Who's interested? Anyone who thinks they can make it to Danvers, MA on a Monday night, let me know so I can start organizing this thing. It'll be a blast, I promise :-)

Do I Have a Spanish-Speaking Second Personality?

Okay, this has been bothering me for awhile now. About a year ago, I logged into MSN Messenger for the first time by using my old email account, gerami@hotmail.com. I was surprised to find that I apparently had lots of friends from South America who somehow had me on their buddy lists already. Needless to say, my Spanish skills fell through in about 5 minutes and I haven't used MSN since. Now, today I started playing with the "Find buddy by email address" feature on AIM, and when I jokingly put in "gerami@hotmail.com" it returned myself, "Gerami7" and "grincom". Who is "grincom"? To make things worse, putting "grincom" into Google only turns up a bunch of Moldova websites.

Did I miss something here? I don't get any emails addressed to this guy... In fact, the only thing that comes into that email account is spam. I think I'm going to set up a "buddy pounce" and interrogate the sucker when he comes online.

Any thoughts?

All Systems Are Go

Okay... It looks like I've finally got all the details ironed out, so you all can expect updates whenever I feel like it.

Since I feel like typing right now, I guess I'll lay down some of the ideas I've been kicking around for this thing. First off, while I will most likely be posting some personal thoughts here, I don't think I'll be putting up anything that might potentially cause me personal embarrassment (e.g. anything about myself that I wouldn't want to be common knowledge, or my feelings, positive or negative, toward people who might potentially be reading this blog.) We'll see how that goes.

Another idea I had was to post links and comments to websites I find interesting. It seems like I'm always sending something to people on AIM, and it would be so much simpler just to put it in a central place where it's not interrupting anyone. And it would be archived forever :-)


Questions? Comments? Concerns? Donations?
Comment away...

collision detection: a blog of clive thompson

collision detection: a blog of clive thompson

This guy's blog is what got me interested in having a blog of my own. He finds the coolest stuff, writes some of his own, and on top of that, he's entertaining to read.

First Post!

Alright, so I finally decided to hop on the bandwagon and try one of these things out. I can't say how often I'll be posting, but it should make for an interesting few months until I lose interest. Maybe I'll even find it useful.

Here's to yet another new beginning.