"To Be Happy Like We Always Thought We're Supposed To Be"

So I downloaded the Windows XP Service Package 2 last night. It installed itself, ran all its whatevers, had me reset, and then suddenly ate up a gig of hard drive space.

At least, I'm pretty certain I had a gig more of free space before I downloaded the thing. I could be wrong.

On the positive side, the package came with a pop-up blocker for IE, something the browser sorely needed. It even recognizes the difference between "pop-up that came up because something is trying to sell me something" and "pop-up that came up because I opened a link in a new window."

It also put some Security monitor thing in my taskbar, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I mean, the thing flagged certain programs on my computer as potential risks, or something of that ilk, and made me have to tell it to not block that program. The first program I'd noticed it did this to was AOL IM, a program I virtually always have on. And yet Windows wanted to block it. I sense a bit of messenger rivalry hostility here--they were gonna block it mostly because it wasn't a Microsoft program, I think. Ah well.

Hung out with Jess and Dom this evening for a while. Dominic picked up 007--Agent Under Fire for the Gamecube earlier today, and we game it a spin. The multiplayer is worlds beyond what Goldeneye was (I never liked the Goldeneye multiplayer too much, because the auto-aim feature always annoyed me. You can turn that off this, and set up the controls just like I always have 'em in Halo, which means I was actually able to play well). Not the greatest game ever, and the multiplayer's biggest drawback was that the characters are so damn tiny on the split-screen, but beyond that it was fun (and a lot easier to play when we did it two player instead of three).

Before we played videogames, though, we went to eat at Hideaway Pizza. Good pizza place, though the one in Stillwater (the original one, if I'm not mistaken) is better. The problem was this--Hideaway is on the other side of campus from me. It was 6.00. There was something going on up at the stadium. The easiest route to Hideaway (the one that doesn't take me all the way around the campus, which would have taken about an hour with traffic at that time of day) runs right past the stadium. It took me 30 minutes to get from my apartment to Hideaway. It should have taken five, maybe ten. That's how long it took to get back, at least. I still say that the worst part about still being at OU is that I have to suffer through another football season. Stupid football.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Wilco, "Hummingbird"