Alabastard

I was pretty shocked that the Apple store just replaced my beat-up 12in G4 Powerbook with a brand new Macbook. I’ve been busy the last few days replacing all of my power pc programs with universal ones and spending a great deal of time playing with Parallels Desktop for Mac. I had it all set and ready to go until I realized that I don’t have anything that needs to run on Windows so I scrapped it all. I even found this really cool script that lets me use my Blackberry 8100 Pearl as a bluetooth modem.

The only downside to my new MacBook is that my PowerBook (Long-Dong Aluminum) had a Superdrive and Alabastard has a standard combo-drive. But the fact that I exchanged a 3 year-old piece of obsolete technology for the new hotness, easily helps me get over it.

Obituary Courtesy of the LA Times

Dave Cockrum, the illustrator for the landmark 1970s overhauling of the X-Men that turned a relatively obscure Marvel Comics title into a 1980s publishing sensation and eventually a major film franchise, died Sunday. He was 63.

Cockrum died after a long battle with diabetes and related complications, according to a statement from Clifford Meth, a family friend and an organizer of fundraisers to assist the artist and his family during his protracted medical care.

Cockrum designed or co-created many signature characters for the wildly popular comic book series, and some of them — such as Storm, Mystique, Nightcrawler and Colossus — went on to become part of Fox’s X-Men films, which have grossed $607 million at U.S. theaters.

We did that so well that 25 years later it’s still the best-selling comic in the business and has become the basis of an entire financial empire based on toys, cartoons, action figures, video games and, recently, the big-budget film, Cockrum wrote in an undated recollection posted on his Web site.

The son of an Air Force officer, Cockrum was born in Oregon in 1943 but moved around as a youngster. His interest in art was set aside during a stint in the Navy, but then he went to New York and eventually got his big break drawing the Legion of Super-Heroes for DC in the early 1970s.

He moved over to Marvel, DC’s major rival, and, along with writer Len Wein, was handed a group of moribund characters. The X-Men had been created in 1963 by comics pioneers Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, but the premise — a group of young outcasts enrolled in an academy for mutants — failed to capture fans the way Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four had done.

Wein and Cockrum took the existing team’s mythology, added their own heroes and delivered Giant-Size X-Men No. 1, published in 1975, which became one of the most important collector issues of the decade.

Don’t know why it took me a week to sit down and get this done, well actually I do, but that’s a story for next year. Anyway I have one of my items posted on ebay: my Sirius Satellite Radio. For the last 3 months my radio has been collecting dust because when I use the service, I use the Internet radio version. So since I’m cutting back, why not change my account from receiver (no Doogie Howser) to Internet, save some someny monthly and hock the equipment. Here’s the auction link.

And I hope everyone has a safe holiday. I’ll be spending mines volunteering at the Salvation Army in Chicago, sleeping and watching gawful television marathons.

The title is about as random as this entry.

It’s another week and another payday where I show my circus prowess and juggle money. In retrospect, having my mother move back into the house doesn’t look so bad anymore but I digress.

I’m seriously thinking about getting a roommate or getting a second job. But no one I know wants to live in Indiana or hire me knowing I won’t be there for month then 3-4 months. My mom sort of cursed my out (jokeingly) when I told her what I was thinking. Of course after stating that I put her in a week of therapy.
I spent $140 for the GE man to a wad of lint and hair out of my washing machine, but I guess it’s still a better trade then having to deal with a laundromat.

After cleaning out my closets I realize that I have a bunch of junk people might actually want like my Griffin Roadtrip, a modified Motorola Razr and an iCurve to name a few. Expect to see them on eBay within the week.

I can see that organizing the regional conference for my frat is going to be a big headache.

Apple wasn’t able to fix my 12-inch G4 Powerbook aptly named Long Dong Aluminum. Well actually the parts were back ordered and they just decided to simply replace it. The exact sentence used by the ARS Genius was “We decided to replace your Powerbook with a new MacBook. Maybe I’m over analyzing the words because I seriously doubt they’re just gonna to exchange a 3 year notebook with a different model. Apple has hooked me up before but not like that. Too bad I don’t know when I can make it out to Oak Brook Illinois.

Things have been fairly stagnant here at Phillybred.com mostly because I’m finding it more and more difficult to sit in front of computer nowadays. Ironically I work in technology and sit in front of a monitor all day. My days have been filled with 3:30am wake ups, long work days, ibuprofen, Sickie-Deez, pledge sessions and early bed times. And not only has all of that caught up with me, it has surpassed me and lapped me twice.

So within the last few days, I have yet to speak to my mother, not because I don’t want to talk to her, just don’t know how to go about it. I’ve also been getting the house ready for the winter which only led to more problems like my washer blowing up in the midst of doing my whites and trying to get my cub appeal together by raking up falling leaves to only have twice as much leave fall the next day and various trash from my next-door neighbors. Been trying to eat out less and cook more, but I guess I should attempt to put food in my fridge so I would have something to cook. And atlas the gut gets bigger and bigger. But none of this has gotten me down, since I really don’t have any time outside of work and fraternity to dwell on it. Actually I don’t have much time period, I’m sure there are some folks who I’m pissed off by not calling.

Speaking of calling folks, I when out of my way to go and get the new Blackberry Pearl, which I love by the way and I barely talk to people on the phone. I guess it’s another situation where my inner-technophile beat out my common sense. Yes, I admit I don’t use the common sense I was born with but isn’t admission the first step of recovery.