Well, I definitely can't say "not much!" New job, new car, new home audio system, three new computers, three new phones, and a partridge and a pear tree! Dang, it's been a while.
Since I can't think of anything else to say, here's some mini-reviews on everything listed, complete with my usual tact:
New JobI now work as a web developer for a local eyeglasses manufacturer. It sure as hell beats supporting a buggy, piece of shit medical software package that can't even reliably keep track of what prescriptions a person is on (totally not a health hazard), not to mention always being on the hook for helping my co-"workers" remove their heads from their posteriors.
At my current place I mostly work with classic ASP, though we are slowly starting to make the switch to ASP.NET. Within my first couple of months I prepped three new servers for our website and helped bring us from Windows Server 2003 with SQL Server 2000 to Windows Server 2012 with SQL Server 2012. I've also gotten us set up with a proper version control system using Mercurial. Now that things have calmed down on that front I've been finally able to do that whole "web development" thing.
I've been cutting back a lot of our particularly messy JavaScript blobs (I brought one down to a third of its original size) and cleaning up some of the database calls so that our pages load a lot faster.
In addition, I also help out the server admin (hay guiz, remember Armegeddon? Yeah, it's him). Definitely not a bad gig!
New CarWell, two of them, technically. At first I bought myself a used 1998 Saturn SW2 (standard shift) after the automatic transmission in my 1995 SC2 became increasingly terrible (Saturn S-series cars have notoriously bad automatic transmissions; after a while they start to slam into gear or refuse to shift when cold).
I had fun with that for a while, but my newly retired dad offered to trade me his 2012 Honda Civic Ex for the SW2, mostly so that he wouldn't have to get a post-retirement job right away to pay for the car payments. So, right now, I'm driving a blue Civic. I do miss driving stick, but aside from that I really like the car. Managed to get 40mpg even through western Pennsylvania highways (quite hilly!), so I definitely can't complain about that. The sound system is pretty decent, but the rear shelf subwoofer is a bit lackluster. The mids and tweeters do a fantastic job, especially for a stock system. The sub isn't bad, but its frequency response is lacking (I estimate ~35hz as being its low-end cutoff). It's pretty easy to wire up a proper subwoofer to those cars, though. That's going to be one of my Spring projects, methinks.
New Home Audio SystemIt sounds incredible.
I have my old Logitech Z-2200s (bought those way back in the a0.com days!) hooked up to my TV now. While they obviously don't compare to the aforementioned system, they still sound significantly better than TV speakers.
New ComputersDell Inspiron 17R SE: Fuck this laptop. The specs seem decent enough (Ivy Bridge Core i7 @ 2.4GHz, 8GB DDR2, 1TB HDD [upgraded to 120GB SSD + 1TB HDD], Intel HD 4000 graphics, with a dedicated GeForce 650m, 802.11n, 17" 1600x900 display), but it's seriously just a piece of shit. I can't use the Bluetooth without getting a BSOD at some point. Since upgrading to an SSD I can't put the system to sleep without it BSODing when I wake it up (this happened through two different Windows installs). The system also gets so fucking hot that if I make the mistake of playing a game with the system on a desk it'll hit the thermal cutoff within a minute and shut down, mostly because they have an i7 and a 650m sharing a single, nickle-sized fan. Really, Dell? The battery life is also the worst I've ever experienced in a laptop. Even if I'm not playing a game or doing anything like that, the most I can get is two and a half hours. If I actually try to
use the system that drops to around the hour and a half mark.
Gaming Tower: I built this last May, so I don't exactly have most of the model numbers committed to memory, but here goes: Asus UEFI mobo, i7-3770, 16GB DDR3, GeForce 680, 180GB SSD, tons of mechanical HDDs, Corsair 900W PSU, CoolerMaster StormTrooper case. Even now I can still fire up games, crank all of the settings, and they'll still work well. I figure I'll probably replace the GF680 when the 9xx series (or its equivilent) is out. I can't see needing more processing power, especially since I bought a...
Late-2012 27" iMac: Yeah, I switched in July because Microsoft has been consistently shooting themselves in the foot with an RPG lately. Between all of the stupid issues I've been having with Windows 8 (and believe me, it's not the UI) and the fact that Windows OEMs simply don't care anymore (see "Dell Inspiron 17R SE") I figured that this was a good move to make. I have it equipped with an i7-3770, 24GB DDR3, a 3TB HDD, and a GeForce 680MX (same CPU as my tower, and the high-end laptop version of its GPU). It doesn't do too badly for games (Diablo III maxed at 2560x1440: 60fps), but I generally use the aforementioned tower for them, since I have that hooked up to a 47" TV now (I finally joined the HD generation!).
New PhonesIn chronological order:
Nokia Lumia 920: What a disappointment. I was a fan of Windows Phone 7 because of its clean UI, extremely responsive OS, amazing battery life. I had an HTC HD7 (through T-Mobile) and a Samsung Focus S (through AT&T) and made the jump to Windows Phone 8 on release day. What a mistake. Between a metric fuckload of OS bugs (some of which still aren't resolved to this day -- a year and a half after release -- confirmed on my dad's HTC 8X) and the build quality of the 920 itself being subpar (it had a poor dust seal, so dust would get into the case through the headphone jack and block the front camera and proximity sensor, making it difficult to hang up calls...a Nokia rep denied the well-known issue and refused to replace my handset). I wound up switching back to my old Focus S due to the handset and OS's reliability. Finally, I bought an...
iPhone 4: Used from a former co-worker, for $100. Wow, what a difference. The fucking thing actually worked properly, for one! It was a bit sluggish due to its age, but it did everything I needed it to without too much stuttering. It definitely wasn't like the old iPhone 3G that I had used at one of my previous jobs. That...didn't age well at all. I waited until I was due for an upgrade and bought an...
iPhone 5S: Yeah, I chugged the Kool-Aid. Whatever, I really like this phone.
The music player took a half-step backwards with iOS 7 in some ways, which kind of bites. Outside of that, it's amazingly fast, has great battery life, and the screen is just the right size for me. 4.3" is as big as I prefer to go for one-handed use; even the 4.5" screen on the Lumia was a bit large. 4" is pretty much perfect for how I use my phone. Touch ID is pretty convenient, too.
Partridge and a Pear TreeI burned down the tree, shot the partridge, and fed it to my cat. Apparently it was pretty delicious.