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No, seriously.

First of all, I’m posting merely a week after my last post, even though I’m clearly in the middle of a self imposed blog drought. Hey, I’m not the only one. The whole blogging world has gone crazy with non-posting lately (at least, the little corner of it that I visit regularly).

Secondly, and I’m going to depart from my usual rambling to ramble about something other than me, AMD announced that they are merging/buying ATI. Now I realize this is pretty geeky, but you all know that’s who I am, so whatever. Now why is this a “the sky is falling” moment? Well, mostly because of what it means to the whole landscape, especially at the enthusiast level, of which I a member. Over the last few years, you’ve had a pretty steady competition between Intel and AMD in the processor market, and NVidia and ATI in the graphics market. The beauty of it was, things were fairy level. Sometimes Intel was on top, sometimes AMD was. Sometimes NVidia was, sometimes ATI was. NVidia makes (soon to be made? Too soon to tell) a great line of motherboard chipsets for AMD processors. But you could still use an ATI graphics card in such an arrangement. ATI makes (soon to be made, no question mark) a line of motherboard chipsets for Intel processors, though you could of course use and NVidia graphics card with such a setup.

Now I’m not saying that you won’t be able to use an NVidia graphics card on an AMD/ATI system in the future. That’s, at least for now, pure nonsense. The interface that the graphics card uses to communicate with the rest of the system is a well defined industry standard. But there are already actions in motion to chill some of this interoperability. Intel, for example, has just canceled ATI’s license to make chipsets for use with Intel processors. Personally, this isn’t a huge loss, as I never thought the ATI chipsets stacked up that well against the NVidia ones (and I wasn’t the only one). What I’m more concerned with is the possibility of AMD denying NVidia the right to continue their excellent NForce line of chipsets for the AMD processor (which, in the enthusiast space, is probably the most used chipset for AMD processors… at least, it’s my choice lol).

From a business perspective, I’m not sure what to think. AMD obviously thinks it makes sense, paying almost 25% over the closing stock price as of Friday 7/21 for the ATI shares it’s buying. I’ll let the analysts argue it; they’re good at it. But what I do know is, the AMD fanboys don’t seem to be united in praise of the move. And that’s possibly something to worry about.

Continuing on a geeky note, even though it’s not a falling-sky issue, was I stumbled across this today. Now it’s nothing new or even very impressive, but it’s kinda cool. He’s hosting that webpage on a webserver running on an olllllllllllld Mac LC475. That’s right, 33MHz of pure speed (any uber-geeks out there will immediately realize that it’s been upgraded from the factory 25MHz processor (no, I’m not that geeky, I didn’t remember it right away)) of 1993 computing goodness. Of course, since that’s about the time that Apple’s mid-late 1990’s slide was about to shift into high gear, maybe it wasn’t so much computing goodness.

More geeky stuff, but back to the-sky-is-falling stuff, Blizzard has announced that in the upcoming WoW expansion, Alliance players will be able to play a Shaman, and Horde players will be able to play a Paladin, both classes that were previously exclusive to the opposing side. I feel sorry for any of you on a PvP server that happen to run across a Shaman and Palading duo-ing in contested territory.

Did I mention that it’s been rather hot out here in Cali? Kayte, I’m sure, is loving it. Personally, I wish it’d just got back to the 70s-80s. They’ve already had some power issues up in the Bay area due to increased air conditioner usage. Fun times.

And finally, the final the-sky-is-falling moment for the day, Kelsey finally got a cell phone. A real one! (aka not the rejection hotline number that she had up on her away message a few weeks ago as her new cell #) (I will admit it was pretty funny).

Ahhh yes, the familiar routine where I only post once every 2-3 weeks… gotta love it. In my defense, I’m posting now not because I was nagged into it (as I often am), but simply because I felt like it (and now you see what happens if you wait until I feel like it instead of nagging me). One could say that the inclusion of the following line in a friend’s blog was, in fact, an indirect nag:

I just wanted to give you a little update of where I really have been and what I’ve really been doing since I last posted… just in case you care and just in case I feel like pressuring someone else to post something on his/her own blog.

Given that this person knows that I frequently read their blog, and given that this person is usually one of the people that nags me to post, I think there’s an element of truth to the indirect nagging theory.

Or I’m over analyzing things again. As usual.

In other blog news, one of my other friends randomly decided (at least, I think it was just a random decision) to delete every single post on his blog, and switch from hosting his own blog to using Word Press. To make matters worse, he didn’t even bother to write a simple explanation post for over a week, instead leaving the default “Welcome to Word Press” post.

Yeesh. These blog things are too much of a hassle. (And yes, I like one sentance paragraphs).

So anyway, the simple explanation for my lack of posting is that not a whole lot has been going on (and I’m lazy). Now you might think that the second probably has more to do with it than the first. Not that you’ll believe me, but that’s really not the case. There just hasn’t been much going on. Now some of it’s my fault (like the fact that I still have hardly any furniture… because I’m too lazy to go shop for a bed and some living room furniture). But some of it is just that I’m kinda in a holding pattern at the moment. Work is going… but it’s still pretty slow for me (though as I tell friends and family that ask, there’s the promise that thing will pick up soon). It’s hard to say much about work, because I’m not sure how much I should say, at least on something as public as a blog. I mean, you hear about people getting fired for things like that. I’m still trying to figure out where the line is…

One good thing is that I finally got paid. Yep, the bank finally decided that I could have the money that I had deposited checks for, so I actually have some money to pay bills, or even go furniture shopping with (if I weren’t so lazy). So that was pretty sweet. Writing my first rent check, on the other hand, was not so sweet. Stupid California, so expensive (the fact that I’m in a two-bedroom by myself when a one-bedroom would have sufficed has crossed my mind).

Unfortunately, I don’t think a rent reduction is in my future, unless I decided I’m ready to have a roommate again. Especially since I’ve talked to a few people that have managed to get reasonable apartments within a few blocks of the beach. Now granted, they both have roommates, and cutting rent in half can make a big difference when it comes to beach accessible rent. But it sounds pretty sweet. I’m about 10 miles from the ocean, so going to the beach means driving, and even more painfully, finding a place to park. Preferably where the ground isn’t littered with automotive safety glass (you know, the kind that’s all over the ground when someone smashes in your window and steals your stuff).

More good news is that I’ve found a church out here that’s, to borrow a phrase, pretty sweet-izzle. I’m pretty excited about it, still meeting people (as is to be expected, I’m not a get-to-know-everyone-at-once kinda guy), but it seems pretty awesome, the worship band is a lot like the band at the church I went to in A2, the people are all friendly, and I get to wear shorts and flip-flops to Sunday morning service. Heck yeah! I’ve also been to the men’s summer bible study a few times, and I’m really enjoying the chance to hang out with some other Christian guys and get to know a few of them that I’m in a small group with. All in all, I’m pretty excited to see where this takes me.

Now you know that I’m bored at work when I start thinking about college favorably.

Favorably as in wishing I had taken more of those EE classes that I was able to dodge as a CE (230, 306, 320, etc). Now in my defense, I didn’t know at the time that I’d be working in a position where I’d be surrounded by EEs, and would feel a little out of the loop at times because of a lack of background knowledge. Not that I’ll need any of the EE stuff for what I’ll be doing, but still… it’d be nice to know.

Favorably as in starting to seriously think about what I need to do to apply to grad school. The closest grad school for a master’s in CSE or ECE (computer science and engineering, or electrical and computer engineering) is UC – San Diego, and they’re also fairly highly ranked (top 20), so that is certainly an attractive option. The bad news is, they receive about 1500 applications annualy, and they accept less than 10%. Of course, applying to grad school also means taking the GRE, and since admissions are so strict, doing very, very, well on it, which probably means actually studying for it and taking in multiple times. It also means writing a statement of purpose (i.e. why I’m in the field, why I want a masters, what I plan on doing / getting out of it, etc), and getting letters of recommendation.

Basically all the things I hate about applying for schools, jobs, scholarships, or anything else. Also, they only take new students in the fall, so I’d be applying for fall 2007, and the application deadline is Dec. 1, 2006. Now I could take some classes this year with instructor’s consent as part of their “Extended Learning” program that I could transfer to my degree if I were accepted into the grad program, which would probably be a pretty smart thing to do.

And of course, the other thing about all of this is that since I’m working, I’d have to take late afternoon/evening classes after work, which I have to believe would involve a major restructuring of my days and weeks, and would combine the worst part of working (being at work for 8-9 straight hours a day) with the worst part of school (getting home and having homework to do).

But, with all of that said, getting my master’s is something that I want to do, both personally and professionally. I’m just not sure if I really want to sweat all the details right now. On the other hand, as my career progresses, and as I possibly have a family, it’s going to be harder and harder to get it done.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog posting blackout, already in progress.