Thought Box

One of the things I’m most looking forward to post-wedding is having Hayley live with me rather than downstairs in a different apartment. The status quo presents several frustrations that I am more than happy to be rid of.. No more guessing and worrying about whether or not the other is actually awake and out of bed in the morning (which was a FAIL this morning as I showed up for morning prayer and Hayley was still sleeping). No more “oh crap, I left that pan down at my apartment!” revelations as we’re speedily trying to prepare a meal. No more staying up late so I don’t feel like I’m abandoning Hayley as she does some internety things at my place late into the evening when I would rather be sleeping (NOTE: she doesn’t have internet access at her apartment – she mooches).

All things considered, it’s an extremely excellent thing that she’ll be moving in. There are, however, a few minor concerns I’m trying to wrap my head around..  (Be aware that I’m not directing any of my thoughts/complaints/reflections at Hayley – I’m just trying to get used to a new reality.  And I’m trying to be funny about it.)

(see if you can find the easter egg in the image)

#1) Closets

I won’t use an actual picture of Hayley’s closet, but I think this one is a mildly decent representation of what it looks like. Essentially, it’s full of clothing. Lots of clothing. Take this picture and add in another 50% more and we’re just about there.

Women have clothes. I get that. It may be annoying to me on some levels, but I recognize that women think and function differently than men do when it comes to the amount of clothing they have. Women have skirts or blouses that one work in combination with only one other skirt or blouse – this is not something men deal with, and thus the plethora of clothing can be considered somewhat reasonable for the fashionable woman.  Simply, women have “outfits”..  Men only use that word when referring to military units.

I do, however, have one major concern with this situation.. Where am I going to put all of my clothes? I have 4 pairs of jeans, 4-5 slacks, 1 suit, a couple dozen dress shirts, a dozen polos, and a bunch of t-shirts.. Add in socks, gym clothes, undergarments, and ties; I need a little bit of space as well. Not a cavernous closet of my own, but I do need to hang up something!

Well, once the wedding bells have rung, I think I’ll be living out of boxes for a few months.  We don’t have any bedroom furniture (currently), so I can’t just fold up everything and place it in a dresser.. We will go purchase a bedroom set at some point, but even then I’m a bit concerned about the direction I’m heading in.  I feel like I need a separate storage unit just to manage the SHOES!  OHHHH, THE SHOES!

I’m certainly being dramatic for the fun of it, but I am really curious as to how this will work itself out.

(MAJOR NOTE: This issue of enough space is also a concern when it comes to the bathroom, balcony, and the apartment in general for that matter… It is going to be crowded!)

*sigh*

#2) Decorations

I know I currently live in a glorious bachelor pad, and with a woman moving in things will change. But.. I don’t know that I’m ready for a million pillows on my couches.

Hayley is already excited to start sewing some pillow cases that we can use to have a ton of pillows around the living room…  Then she wants to find some really classy art stuff, work on setting a theme (potentially using a grass-green as the base color), and essentially destroy my soul as a consequence of all this femininity.

I will have a great deal of patience with new decor if our place looks nice (according to my standards of nice), but this is one of the few areas where Hayley and I have disagreements.  Hayley is a little more glamorous than I am, I suppose; I mean, she did request we season pass Gossip Girl on the TiVo… My dream home is a large and spacious lodge with huge windows, wooden furniture, big comfy couches, and lots of earth tones.  Hayley would be much happier in the classic colonial mansion with very fashionable drapes blocking out significant amounts of natural light..

I think there is enough overlap where we can be happy, but we have honestly not yet discovered enough overlap to assuage my fears.  Part of this is just me being stubborn about losing my man-cave of an apartment, so of course I recognize my thoughts as pretty ridiculous.  I do, however,  wonder if I’ll one day wakeup to find ruffles on everything…  This sounds like a potential nightmare for me!

#3) Relaxation Habits

I will keep this short: I don’t like cuddling while I play video games. It’s distracting, I get warm really fast, and someone keeps bumping my arm.. Cuddling while playing Red Dead Redemption is like mixing milk with Mountain Dew – it can be done, but no one enjoys it.

I think this is something every man needs to get used to though – the Mass Cuddle Effect.  I hereby swear that I will cuddle during all chick-flicks, episodes of Community, and before bedtime as long as I can avoid my husbandly duties during game time.  I think this is the most fair thing I’ve ever agreed to.  :)

— And now I will subtly retract my tongue from my cheek region.

Noooot really, but we like to joke that I am. Jason likes to joke that I am turning into a mini-HaX0r since I tend to know workarounds for just about everything he wants to do these days, but since I almost universally refuse to touch code, Jeff != HaX0r Really, all I did this time was jailbreak the iPhone.

Simply put, this was long overdue. Travis sung the praises of a jailbreak over a year ago, but I hesitated because I viewed it as a hassle when it comes to installing firmware updates and things of that nature (which I still haven’t quite figured out how all that will work, but I will). Since then I have felt the frustration of all that the iPhone doesn’t (thanks Droid ads for pointing this out over and over again), I have gone ahead and done what was necessary. I now introduce you to, Jeff’s iPhone 2.0:

(FYI – I was charging the phone when I took these screenshots)

Kinda neat, yeah?  Nothing mind blowing, but I love that I can run multiple apps (notice the radio icon in the bottom right corner as a “waiting” tab on it, meaning it’s running in the background), have 5 apps in the dock down below, a theme/skin (custom icons, a background other than black, my own name instead of AT&T in the upper corner, etc…), a simplified lock-screen…  Simple stuff that’s apparent right away, and very very nice!

The jailbreak process is incredibly straight forward.  I used the Pwnage Tool (google it and you’ll find a plethora of information), made sure I had current backups in iTunes (which is essential if you wanna keep your Apple App Store applications where you left them), and followed a couple different tutorials (one for when I worked on my phone and a different one for Jason’s – only really because I lost the first link).   This is why I can’t call myself a HaX0r…  The real geeks made it easy for schlubs like me!

Really, a key feature is being able to run multiple apps at once – something the phone SHOULD be able to do but Apple keeps it from happening..  I installed an app called Backgrounder (off of Cydia, the jailbreak app store) to run the multiple apps, and another called ProSwicther which gives me the fun look and feel of a Palm Pre when switching through applications, including the same touch gestures (see below – to close an app you can hit the (x) or slide it off the top of the screen).

While some of that stuff is just aesthetics (btw, did I mention my ring-tone is now the hidden door sound of the original Legend of Zelda? Major shout-out to Derek Christensen for the idea), there are some serious tweaks going on in the background.  To name a few, I’m running open SSH to gain access to my file structure, NetaTalk (uses Apple Protocol) to allow wireless access to my iPhone’s file structure, 3G Unrestrictor which gets past the “You Can Only Use This App on Wireless, not 3G” stuff, and SBSettings (see images below) to have easy access to turning features on and off as well as free up memory or kill applications.

(Note the “Available Memory” in the first image.  I hit “Free Up Memory” and it cleared a considerable amount that was being wasted.  Also note that the SSH toggle on the right only exists because I have Open SSH installed)

Finally the iPhone is what it should have been, arguably, from the beginning!  Does everything work perfectly?  Surprisingly, it’s pretty close!  Apple continually spews lies about how running multiple apps will kill the battery or destroy the memory management, but it seems pretty obvious that the jailbreak community has figure some of this stuff out.  MAYBE my battery dies a bit faster than it would otherwise, but I have to charge it every night anyway…  And with the ability to quickly turn off 3G, location awareness, and wifi in SBSettings, it’s really easy to actually conserve more battery that way.   This is the only reason I have some hope for the iPad – Apple made a fail of a product, but perhaps the jailbreak community can actually make it cool!

Oh, and my favorite jailbreak app?

WHAAA?!  You mean I can haz texts in appz?!  (Sorry I’m using you as an example Aly!) I didn’t take a screen shot of the actual reply function, but essentially I just hit that reply button and an overlay of the texting screen pops up and I can immediately respond without going to the texting application (don’t fool yourself, it’s an app like the others but with a push notification like setup – it is NOT like the phone or email clients that are constantly running).   This is a HUGE plus for me!  HUGE!  I get text messages throughout the day, and I hated having to close whatever I was working on to reply.  Granted, now that I can run multiple apps I could just move from app to app, but this streamlines the process even more!  Why does this not exist in the native iPhone OS?  Ask El Jobso, cause it freakin’ should!

All in all, I’m happy as a clam.  Yes, the novelty of it all has kind of worn off, but that doesn’t mean I’m not super happy about it.  Really, truly, this is the kind of stuff the iPhone should already be able to do.  If Apple adds a majority of these improvements to the standard OS then maybe I’ll switch back at that point, but right now the jailbreak community has figured out how to truly unlock the power of the device.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had an over-the-top action movie with a killer (pun intended) cast and some serious action. Tropic Thunder doesn’t count.

With respect to the awesome action flicks of the 80′s and early 90′s, I present to you Sly Stallone’s latest project: The Expendables

UPDATE: Thanks Jason for pointing out that the older video wasn’t working. Hopefully this embed works for the time being…

UPDATE: Looks like the internets just can’t handle such a sweet movie trailer. Look for it yourself, somewhere else. I don’t know why it keeps getting pulled, but I know I’m not going to repost it every five minutes.  Here’s a picture of a kitty that exemplifies how I feel: