Cap'n John's Blog

Mary, Mary, quite contrary

2011-12-12T20:12:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's just me, but the title of that Nursery Rhyme makes no sense. Other than for the sake of rhyming, why is Mary quite contrary? Nothing in the Rhyme itself indicates she is particularly argumentative or inclined to do the opposite of what is expected.

My father-in-law, however, IS quite contrary, deliberately and stubbornly so. If he's right there is no arguing otherwise; he's right and that's it. Don't think you can agree to disagree or say, "Well, that's your opinion," because his opinion is not just his opinion; it's The Truth.

We had dinner at their house a couple of nights ago, and after dinner the mother-in-law produced a bunch of bananas and offered me one. Or maybe my 7 y/old daughter brought them to me and asked if she could have one. I forget which, but somehow I ended up with a bunch of bananas in front of me.

I like bananas. I like them soft and pungent, and I like them firm and barely ripe. I've also eaten, partially, a green banana that was not quite ripe and was still fluffy & bitter in the middle. Bite into an unripe banana once and you never forget it. I haven't, and that was over 20 years ago.

I looked at this bunch of bananas with their bright green tops and bottoms, and the streaks of green running along the sides of skins, and as much as I like bananas I declined, stating that they were a bit green.

As soon as I said this the FIL said "No, they're not," lunged across the table and grabbed the bunch of bananas from in front of me.

(As well as being stubbornly contrary he also lacks table manners and if there's a dish or item he wants he will reach across the table or across your plate to get it. Don't bother protesting or arguing with him; he's "right" so he sees nothing wrong with doing this.)

Pulling a banana off a bunch is tough unless they're ripe, and these bananas were not ripe but green, really green, so their skins were exceptionally tough. The FIL ended up tearing the bananas almost in half in order to get them off the bunch. He ripped one free for my daughter, then as if doing so proved they weren't green tore a second banana free for himself.

Midway through her banana I saw my daughter stop chewing and screw up her face and I knew what had happened; she'd got a mouthful of green banana. Green, furry, bitter banana. She stopped chewing and I could tell she wanted to spit the banana out and I couldn't blame her.

She looked around at us and noticed I was the only one looking at her. "Go spit it out," I said to her, and she rushed over to the trashcan.

"What's the matter?" asked my MIL.

"The banana's not ripe," I told her.

"Mine was fine!" said the FIL, contrary to the last bite.

I can has PS2 ?

2011-11-19T22:55:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine (who is a little bit better off than me) has a Wii, a PS3, and an XBox 360. His Wii is set up in the living room, his XBox is in the spare room, and his PS3 sits out in the guesthouse. I asked him if he still actually uses his PS3 and he said he's planning to, because a couple of his other friends are playing the PS3 version of Modern Warfare 3 and he wants to play with them.

I don't use my PS2 though, he added, which is how I acquired a PS2 and a dozen games. He apparently has more PS2 games scattered around his house but he gave me (gave, as in freely, not sold) what he could scrape together at a moments notice. This included Time Crisis 3 but no gun :( and a DDR Dance Pad but no actual DDR disc. With my friend being a gun nut (like me) several of the games were FPS games, and several others were racing games (he's also a bit of a petrol head). I prefer my FPS on a PC (I might be biased but WASD + mouse-look still pwns gamepads) and aside from Mario Kart I'm not really into the driving games. In fact as I flipped through the discs my friend had given me I realized his taste in video games is quite different to mine. Still, a free PS2 and a DDR Dance Pad are nothing to sneeze at, even if I didn't have a DDR game to go with the Dance Pad.

I decided to resolve that situation and went online to see what were the best DDR games for the PS2. Apparently DDR Extreme 2 and DDR Max 2 both came highly recommended. As there's a Gamestop just a block from where I park my car on my commute into work I decided to stop in on my way home. There was no DDR Extreme or Max 2, but there was Final Fantasy XII and Dragon Quest VIII. I also decided to grab God of War II for $10, then promptly put it back when I ran across a second GoW II case with a $7 price tag. At the counter the cashier noticed the sticker on the God of War II box was for the first God of War game (bugger), then because I had two very lengthy RPGs and one (apparently quite short) Hack & Slash, he actually suggested I not get GoW II at all. A downsell? How refreshing! Then he couldn't find the DQ8 disc so I ended up only buying FF XII. He looked up which of the nearby stores should have DQ8 in stock, then handed me not just FF XII but the DQ8 case. No point us having the case but no disc, he said. What a nice fellow.

Earlier that week I'd been talking to a couple of coworkers about my "new" PS2 and DDR Dance Pad, and I lamented how I didn't have a DDR game. The next day one of those coworkers came into work and handed me a shopping bag. I opened it up and there inside awas another Dance Pad, along with a DDR game and the original Rayman Raving Rabbids game. No, she hadn't bought it for me. Apparently a friend (who she lost contact with) had once loaned her his old PS2, and when he'd taken it back she had (inadvertently) kept DDR & the Dance Pad (and Raving Rabbids). His loss was my gain.

I now had a DDR game (although it wasn't DDR Max 2) and FF XII, along with the games my friend had given me (which I'm unlikely to play) but I decided I still needed more variety in my new PS2 library. Some online research turned up a few lists along the lines of "Best Looking PS2 games of all time", "Must Own PS2 titles", etc.

I already knew I needed to track down a copy of DQ8, and I'd already acquired FF XII, and both of those were on the list. I also figured I had to have both a Ratchet & Clank, and a Jak & Daxter title. Not having either of those would be like having a Nintendo with no Mario or Zelda games. Sacrilege! So R&C:Up Your Arsenal went on the list, along with Jak 3, allegedly the pick of the bunch for those series. The last one to make the cut and the #1 title on a couple of those "must have" lists was God of War II. The cashier might have been nice enough to give me the empty DQ8 case, but judging my video game preferences based on a couple of titles was erroneous, to say the least. I also wanted a Tekken title, and Tekken 5 is apparently very highly recommended, but it was also $15 and none of the other titles on my list were over $10. I'm sure it will eventually come down to $10, or maybe I'll buy it at a later date for $15, but not just yet.

Gamestop games come with a 7-day money-back guarantee, so the first thing I did once I had the time (being today) was to check that my new, pre-owned discs all worked, and they did. FF XII and DQ8 both looked as good as I had anticipated, Ratchet, and Jak were as cutesy as your standard Mario title, but the winner and the first game I played (after DDR ;) was God of War II, and I was still playing it when my wife finally got home from her errands.

Lengthy RPGs like FF XII and DQ8 are all well and good but sometimes you just want to jump into a game for some mindless slaughter, and God of War not only delivers that in spades but looks damn good while doing it. Not bad for a game on a 10 year old system.

Skylanders:Spyro's Adventure

2011-10-24T11:42:00.000-07:00

Penny Arcade have been doing a pretty good job of plugging the attractiveness of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, and they piqued my interest enough to check it out. After learning more about the game, and with my daughter's 7th birthday coming up, I thought "This is the perfect gift for her!"

R i i i i i i ght. For her. S u u u u r e it is.

Yes, you're right. It would make a better Christmas present for my 11 y/old son.

Riiiii... Okay, okay! Enough! Yes! I wanted it, too.

So what if the boy doesn't know it exists? When he does learn about it, he will want it. This, I know.

Last Sunday the cat woke me up early, as she does most mornings (even on my days off. Stupid cat. Don't you know it's Sunday?) so I got up, retrieved the Times from the doorstep (Hooray for early delivered papers) fed the cat, made myself breakfast, then sat down to read the paper. Which for me means separating the comics and mountain of catalogs from the rest of the sections, reading comics, then browsing the more important of the catalogs, Big 5, Best Buy, Toys R Us, etc.

And I saw that Toys R Us were running one of their "Buy Two, Get a Third Video Game/Accessory Free" deal, with a big "We have Skylander figures!" plug at the bottom of the page.

The Skylanders' Starter Pack retails for $70, which might seem a little expensive except that most new, full-price games sell for $60, so that's only $10 more, and you also don't get just the game in the Skylanders' Starter Pack. Included is a Skylanders Portal, which being somewhat (absolutely) necessary to play the game one could argue it should be included anyway at no additional charge (and I'd agree with you).

You also get three game figures (yes, actual figurines) which are also necessary to play the game. However, Activision could have done the bare minimum and included just one figure in the Starter Pack and still charged $70 for it, so if you factor in that those two figures would normally cost you $8 each now you're getting two "bonus" figures at a 33% discount. And I'm okay with that.

When placed on the Skylanders Portal those figures appear in the game as your playing character, and as each character has different powers they do add value & variety to even a single-player game. Additionally, there are numerous 'bonus' areas in the game which cannot be accessed unless certain characters are present. You can play through to the end of the game and beat The Final Boss using just the 3 characters in the Starter Pack, but you'll have to skip certain areas along the way because you won't be able to access them. Long story short, each figure/character belongs to one of eight different Elemental Groups, and certain areas can only be unlocked by characters from a specific Elemental Group. You don't need a figure from each Elemental Group to beat the game, but if you want to complete it 100% you will.

In addition to being your playing character, the figures serve additional purposes. They come with a memory chip inside them, and everything you achieve in the game for that character is automatically saved to the figure itself. As your character levels up & gets stronger & finds/buys new weapons, etc., those changes get saved to the figure's memory chip. And for the first time that I'm aware of (and I've been around for some time) these figures are cross-platform compatible, meaning you can take your figure to your friend's house, pop it on his Skylander Portal, and even though you've been playing on your Wii and he has a PS3, it doesn't matter; your character will appear in his game. Also by visiting your friend's house with your Skylanders' figures, or vice versa, you can help each other unlock those otherwise inaccessible areas.

Because I recently won the Office Weight Loss competition and picked up $400 for my trouble I had some extra cash burning a hole in my wallet, so with my mind made up I trotted off to Toys R Us and picked up the Skylanders' game. Because they had the Awesome! "Buy 2, get 1 Free" deal I also added two 3-character packs to my cart, saving myself $20 and reducing the price per figure to a shade over $3.

So now the Skylanders' game and nine figures/characters are waiting for a lucky young boy to open them on Christmas day. Except he doesn't know about Skylanders yet.

(And in case you're wondering I took my daughter on a shopping spree at Toys R Us. I am not a bad father.)

This weekend after a family outing we found ourselves at the local Mall, and while the wife went shopping the kids and I wound up at Dave & Busters. After playing several games and "winning" a bunch of tickets we cashed them in and entered the prize room. My daughter picked out one of those plastic echo-micophones but my son decided he wanted to save up his tickets. D&B also have a small selection of video games available at the checkout counter and while waiting for the cashier I was surprised to see they had a copy of Skylanders, for the Wii no less.

It was at the end of their glass cabinet so we could see the back side of the box, and my son's eyes lit up when he saw it. It's a big box, maybe 12"x18" in size, and it's colorful graphics are very eye catching. It is a boy magnet. It was also 15,000 tickets and we have just half that. The cashier took the box out of the cabinet so we (the boy ;) could look at it a little more closely. She also said she thought it looked pretty cool (or maybe she was just being a good salespeon), and said how much fun we would have playing the D&B games together and saving our tickets up.

To his credit the boy was financially savvy enough to recognize that buying the game outright was a better deal than paying $20 every few weeks to "win" 1,000 tickets. He was also sharp enough to notice that while the game box contained 3 figures, the pictures on the box showed a whole lot more.

We stopped at Gamestop on the way out of the Mall and after viewing the small display they have there (it has nothing on the wall of figures and adventure packs at Toys R Us) the hook was well & truly set. The boy knew Skylanders existed, and he wanted them. Like I knew he would.

Later I told Liz that the boy had seen his Christmas present, he just didn't know it. Then again he's pretty smart. Maybe he does ;)

He'll also possibly talk Skylanders up among his friends. Some of who may get it before Christmas, some for Christmas, and some may miss out altogether. I'm anticipating it to be a hot-ticket item this Christmas, in demand not just by young boys but those young-at-heart, and from talking to salespeons in both TRU and Gamestop that IS what I'm hearing, that 20-30 y/old gamers are buying it for themselves. This 42-year old gamer did...sort of :P

If Skylanders is the hot potato that I expect it to be, come Christmas time demand for the cross-platform compatible figures alone is going to be through the roof. And in the weeks after Christmas, maybe even more so.

"Daddy! There's a locked room in my game, Daddy! I can't get in without a Fire Skylander! Daddy! I need a Fire Skylander! DADDY! I WANT FIRE SLINGER, DADDY!!!"

Well played, Activision. Well played, indeed.

Magic: Steam review (Demo version)

2011-10-20T20:39:00.001-07:00

I'm running Windows XP SP3 and playing Steam's Demo version of Magic:Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 on an Athlon 2600+ w/ 2GB of RAM and a 512MB AGP (*Edit* not PCI as first thought) GeForce 6200, and it runs like a 15 y/old dog with Hip Dysplasia.

Seriously???

It's MAGIC:THE GATHERING!!! It's a CARD GAME for Pete's sake!!! Even Wizard101 runs better than Steam's Magic:TG. If my experience is anything to go by, don't bother trying to play it on anything more than a few years old.

The game itself looks good. The layout of the playing field is well designed and everything fits on the one screen without it getting cluttered. The cards are colorful and look just like Magic cards, with the exception that they're on your monitor and not in your hand. Then again this IS the computer version so I can't really fault it for that. The UI is very user friendly and I thought it rather intuitive, and I liked being able to mouse-over cards and use the scroll wheel to zoom in, which is how you activate your cards' abilities.

Except...one of my creatures had an ability that if I Tapped it and one Plains Card I was supposed to be able to Tap an opponent's card. Despite having a Plains Card untapped I was not able to access this ability. I wanted to Tap my opponent's sole Untapped Creature so he couldn't defend but the game pushed me straight from the Play a Land phase into the Attack Phase. Attacking with that card (a 1/1) was certain death as the Computer opponent had a 4/5 Defender. Instead I was forced to wait, then Block him (& die, but not lose Health) instead of being able to Tap his Attacker first. I still won that particular match but it was literally a "sudden death" game where I won with just 1 HP left.

That leads me into something I really didn't like: the Tutorial.

I played the Tutorial just to get an idea of how the UI worked (although as I said it was fairly intuitive), and I did not like how the Tutorial frequently forced me to Attack immediately after drawing a Card from my Deck. Before I even played a Land card the Tutorial insisted I Attack.

Now in my books the correct order of play is Untap any Tapped Cards, Draw a Card, play a Land (if you have one), summon creatures/cast spells/play Equipment, etc., THEN Attack. And I find that a very logical order in which to do things.

Why? You might have a creature with Haste, which does not suffer from Summoning Sickness. If you Attack prior to Summoning your Creatures then this particular Creature cannot make use of its Haste ability, and as the only time Haste comes into play is the Turn in which a Creature is summoned it seems extremely stupid to summon it AFTER Attacking.

No! You can't play a Land right now. OR Summon that creature. Why Not? Because I told you to Attack! Stop clicking that damn Land card!

So -1 points for poor AI/programming.

How many points is that? -1? Huh. That can't be right, because aside from the stupid lessons taught to you in the Tutorial, Steam's Magic:TG actually seems like a decent game, or it would be if I was playing it on a machine which could run it smoothly. That's probably my biggest complaint. It's a card game, and yet it seems to require a reasonably new machine in order to run smoothly.

The Full Version of the game on Steam costs $10. Would I pay that for it? I don't know. Probably not. That $10 would buy me 3 Boosters of real Magic cards, and I'd buy them before buying the Steam version of the game. I only downloaded the Demo version to see what it was like. Would I pay $5 for the full version? Yeah, I probably would, but only after buying a $500 PC that will actually run it :D

*EDIT*
I installed the Demo on my other PC, which is now the wife's PC. It's a dual core Athlon 4200+ and like my archaic PC it's also running Windows XP SP3 with 2GB of RAM, but unlike the older box it's equipped with a GeForce 8800GT. On this rig the Magic:Plainswalkers Demo runs as smooth as silk.

I need a new PC.

285 Magic TCG cards for $20? SOLD!

2011-10-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago my son and I were in Target with the wife, so while she wandered off to do her thing we stopped by our favorite section (or maybe it's the second favorite, after the video games) of Target, being the Trading Card aisle.

We saw the 2012 Magic: TCG Fat Pack, which comes with two deck boxes, 80 Land cards, and nine 15-card boosters, being 215 cards total for $40! That's a lot of cards for $40 (at $3-$4 each the nine boosters alone are almost worth that) and I was seriously contemplating getting it. Then we saw the 2011 Deck Builder's Tool Kit.

It didn't have any deck boxes (meh), but it did have 100 land cards, another 125 random Spell cards, and four 15-card boosters, for a total of 285 cards. Woah! Even MORE cards! But unlike the Fat Pack it did not have a price sticker.

"It's got to be at least $40," I said to my son, "maybe even $50. Let's see how much it is."

So we picked it up and walked further into the store until we found a price scanner, and when it rang up at $20 we could not believe our eyes. It has a third more cards than the 2012 Fat Pack, but for half the price. Crazy! So of course we bought it. (Yes, it's the 2011 series. So what?)

We didn't get any OMG! Awesome! Foil cards from the Booster packs, but using the strategy recommended by the booklet (and some of our other spare cards) we did throw together five 60-card decks, being 24 Land cards plus 36 Spells, Creatures, etc. to go with them.

And then we Dueled.

I went with a poison-filled Black/Red Deck, while my son chose a Blue/Green Deck with several Elementals and Wyrms. The Wyrms are High cost Creatures but they're hard hitting game changers and when they get into play an unopposed Wyrm can kill you in two-to-three Turns.

So far we've played 7 games with these two Decks and he has been kicking my arse, and when I say he's been kicking my arse I really mean it. Out of those 7 games I've won just 2, and one of those was really just due to the luck of the draw (as in bad luck on his part) where he had a bunch of Green Spells/Creatures in his hand and nothing but Blue Lands. So he couldn't summon much of anything, and whatever he did summon I quickly shut down. I finished that particular game completely unscathed, still at full health.

In the other game I won it seemed like everything finally came together for me. I got the right cards out at the right time, I was able to weaken his stronger Cards, and I didn't steamroll him like he's been doing to me, but it was still a decisive win.

I also thought I might have him in the most recent game we played as I'd used a spell to Destroy his 4/4 Creature (the strongest he had on the table, at the time) and after a pitched battle we had one Creature each in play and mine was the stronger. Yay!

Then he summoned a Wyrm.

On his next Turn he cast Sleep and Tapped my solitary Creature so I couldn't Block even if I wanted to, and on his final Turn used an Instant to return it to my hand. I have to give him credit where it's due, he does know how to use his cards effectively and strategically.

I still think I need to tweak my deck a little though, so I can be more competitive against him. You could say we've Dueled two times, playing four games the first time, and three the second, and I won just 1 game in each of those two sessions.

My Deck's strength appears to be my Black Cards which can Poison (-1/-1, or worse) and debilitate his Creatures, even his 7/7 Wyrms. When it works, it works well. The problem is I don't seem able to get my cards into play fast enough, and when I do I'm overwhelmed.

Could it be a "Rock beats Scissors beats Paper" kind of thing? That my Black/Red Deck is just not strong against his Green/Blue Deck. Does that exist in Magic TCG? I assume it does, else everyone would just try to have THE Uber Pwng Deck that nothing can beat.

I don't have powerful Creatures like his Wyrms, which usually require 6-7 Lands to Summon. Most of my Creatures require 3-4 Lands and some need just 2, or even just 1.

It's not that I don't have Lands in play because we both have the recommended 24 Lands in our Decks.

Actually, maybe I don't have enough Lands.

With a majority of low cost Creatures in my deck maybe I should increase my Land count to 30 cards, with the strategy being to be able to play one Land every Turn (and never stop playing them), meaning after the first, uneventful 5-to-6 Turns have passed I'll be able to Summon more than just one Creature per Turn. That's assuming I have Creatures in my Hand and it's not filled with Lands. That's definitely something to think about.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to crush the boy. He's only 11 and he has a lot of fun playing Magic with his old man. Likewise I'm enjoying the time we spend together, too. (Who knows how long that will last?) It's not even that I mind losing to him; one of my favorite time wasters on my phone is Solitaire, so I can accept losing game after game after game. I don't mind losing to him, but I'd at least like to go down fighting.

The Proof is in the Pudding

2011-10-02T13:18:00.001-07:00

After slaughtering 50,000 damage worth of lvl 22-24 Ogres (being approx. 75 Ogres @ 650hp each) in Duskwood's Vul'Gol Ogre Mound, my level 20 Arms Warrior armed with the 2H Reef Axe from Blackfathom Deeps averaged 82.5dps, as seen in the below screenshot. (Yes, I cut & pasted the Recount Window into a second screenshot.)

After repeating the experiment and terrorizing the Ogres a second time, this time as a Fury Warrior but still with the exact same gear, I averaged 94.6dps. As you can see from the second screenshot the passive buff from the Fury Tree's "Precision" skill, being +3% to Hit and +40% to Autoattack, provides a significant boost to my base/white Damage, and definitely helps to explain the almost 15% increase in overall DPS.

I ran Shadowfang Keep as an Arms Warrior in between the two attacks on the Vul'Gol Ogres, and with all of the group buffs and the passive buff from using the Random LFG Tool I managed to pull 100dps, being the same as what I managed on my own as a Fury Warrior.

After respec'ing Fury, traditionally a dual-wield Build, I first equipped two Baron's Scepters and slaughtered a dozen or so Ogres, just to see how well Fury worked when dual-wielding. In short, it didn't. Using what are probably the best two 1H weapons a level 20 Fury Warrior can get my DPS averaged in the mid-70s. It did jump into the low 80s when I got in a string of Crits, but would just as quickly slide back into the mid-70 range when my Gnome went nose-to-kneecap with the Ogres for longer than a few seconds, which as a dual-wielding Fury Warrior it usually did.

In fact fighting the Ogres as a dual-wielding Fury Warrior felt almost exactly like fighting them as an Arms Warrior, with combat usually lasting at least 5-6 seconds. I noticed I missed many attacks, and also got Parried a lot. Even with the combined +4 to Hit buff from wielding two Baron's Scepters, the lower damage output meant I was still in combat for a lot longer than when I equipped the Reef Axe (as Fury). The bonus to Hit from not dual-wielding meant a lot less of my attacks got Parried, and thus a lot more of my attacks landed, and when you're hitting Mobs with the Reef Axe they know they've been HIT!!! As a Fury Warrior wielding the Reef Axe it was not uncommon to rush into combat and lay out an Ogre within 2-3 hits, and with the first three attacks being Victory Rush, Autoattack, and Bloodthirst, those 3 attacks could all land within 2-3 seconds. If even one of them was a Crit it was usually lights out, but if the Ogre was still standing and Execute hadn't lit up I'd throw in a Heroic Strike and that would inevitably get the job done.

The end result from terrorizing the Vul'Gul Ogres is what I've argued all along, that at lower levels Arms is a sub-par DPS build to Fury, and that even if you have two of the best one-handed weapons available for your level you're still better off using a comparable 2H weapon instead of dual-wielding. In my case, 15% better off.

The PUG from Hell that wasn't

2011-09-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight I ran Shadowfang Keep on my Hunter in an attempt to get the mats for the Hunter Quest Crossbow. After waiting a while we finally got a group together, and the Healer turned out to be surprisingly chatty. I don't mind that. Likewise if folks want to do a silent Run, that's okay, too. Get in, get the job done, get the fuck out. As long as everyone knows their role, if folks want to chat, or not, I'm good either way.

Except this particular Healer mentioned she was not only new to WoW but it was her first Instance. Just like that our Group was missing a Tank. We had a Cat Druid who switched to Bear so we went in and took down the Trash. Then the Healer asked why was the Druid a Bear.

"Because if he wasn't a Bear we'd all be dead." I replied.

The queue hadn't found us a Tank so we moved on and the Bear rushed the first Boss. We actually succeeded in bringing him down and despite being new to Healing I thought our newbie Healer did just fine. Just after the Boss died we got a replacement Tank, who was puzzled as to why our DPS Druid was in Bear form. I made the mistake of complimenting our Healer on how good she was doing for a first time Healer, and just like that our replacement Tank went AWOL. Oops.

We moved into the courtyard, cleared it, then wiped in the kitchen. As we ran back in the Healer DC'd, a Kick Vote prompt came up, and now we were three DPS LF Tank & Healer. I declined to choose a role, deciding I'd rather wait for a brand new group. And I imitated our first two Tanks by dropping out.

Rather than sit on my arse in Stormwind I got out and ran a few quests and it didn't take long before I was in a new group. This time we had a female Dwarf who, like our Healer, confessed that she was new to Tanking. At least she had close to 1,000 HP and she appeared to know what to do to hold Aggro so the Run was fairly uneventful, right up until the final Boss, Lord Godfrey. Caster extraordinaire, definitely not someone to be taken lightly.

Attempt #1 = my bad. Open with Serpent Sting to get my Pet attacking, followed by Aimed Shot. Steady Shot + Steady Shot for Improved Steady Shot. Arcane Shot. Arcane Shot and...why is the Boss targeting me? Oh yeah. MQoSRDPS is not a good thing when paired with a new Tank who has not established major Threat.

Attempt #2 = Noob Tank mistake. Note to future Tanks: do not begin a Boss encounter while your Healer is still running back from a Wipe.

Attempt #3 = Warlock Mistake. Note to Warlocks: do not bring a Voidwalker to a Boss fight.

The Party explained to the Warlock that Voidwalker is for Tanking and he's asked to summon Imp or "The Demon Lady with the Whip". Warlock doesn't respond. Warlock summons Voidwalker. I ask Warlock to summon Imp. Warlock still doesn't respond. Healer says he thinks Warlock is a Bot. I Vote to Kick Warlock for being a Bot. LOLs ensue in Party Chat and the Vote passes. Warlock is replaced with a Shadow Priest seriously decked out in Heirloom Gear. Cool. DPS should not be a problem. This time Lord Godfrey is going down.

The Tank states that this is going to be the final attempt because she needs to get to bed. The SPriest is informed that we've been getting our butt kicked by the final Boss so if he can help with Heals (if that's possible) to please do so. And with that the Tank runs up the stairs to the Boss's platform and begins the encounter. I wait. The Tank runs down the stairs to get under Boss's platform.

Note to future Tanks doing SFK: just jump off the platform, do not take the stairs back down.

The Boss makes it halfway down the stairs before stopping to cast. That's good enough for me and I begin my rotation. The Boss actually summons little guys. Being Ranged DPS I'm suddenly cognizant of just how many little guys he can summon. Wow! There's a lot of them! I start picking them off then resume DPSing the Boss...who summons more little guys. Again I target them and they die pretty quickly this time. Someone else must be killing them too.

And then the Tank dies. And I draw Aggro. Of course I do. The Boss runs toward me and when he's halfway up the stairs to my position I jump off. It's Kite time. If you read my Kwazimoto vs the Demon story then you know this is my game. I hit the stairs on the other side and head up to the Boss's platform. The Boss takes the long way back down the first set of stairs and I'm hammering him with everything I've got as he crosses back over. I'm hoping my fellow DPSers are doing the same. They must be because his health is definitely dropping. Somewhen during all of this he summoned more little guys, and they may be little but there's a lot of them and they sure are scary when you know they're gunning for you.

The Boss crosses the floor, flanked by his little army, and heads back up his stairs toward me. Just before he gets to me I leap off his platform, hit the floor, and head back over to the first set of the stairs. Once again the Boss takes the long way back down while I'm running away and jump shotting like a mad Hunter about to die.

This is a first for me. Normally I'm holding my breath and silently cheering on my party members as I watch this kind of thing from the floor where I died due to some Noob mistake (or a careless or slow-on-the-button Healer) but this time I'm in the middle of it and I don't. Die, that is. The Boss does, though. It was crazy fun.

Yes, we might have wiped a few times but it wasn't as frustrating as you might think. It may not be End Game Raiding where you play Simon Says while trying to beat the Boss's Enrage Timer but it was still a lot of fun. In the end I got the mats I needed for my new Crossbow and my Tooltip DPS went up by about 5 points while my actual DPS got a 10-point boost. And when it's all said and done, isn't that what Raiding is all about? Tiny little Stat increases? So what if it's Level 20 Raiding :D

Raiding in WoW at Level 20

2011-09-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

Is there any real, major difference to "Raiding" at 20 vs the End Game?

You're still running Instances over, and over, and over again looking for that elusive drop that is barely an upgrade to what you already have. You still get Rogues rolling on Tank/Warrior Gear, like Silverlaine's Family Seal, a ring with +5 Strength and +3 Stamina. You still get Hunters rolling on everything, such as SFK's Haunting Blade, a 2H sword with +8 Strength...okay, and +6 to Hit. And you still get Know-It-Alls telling you to Learn2Play.

I decided to roll a Warrior because there's the option to Tank PUGs if one is feeling particularly masochistic or just desires shorter queues. But good Tanking gear is hard to come by in the game world, so you need to run as DPS then decide whether or not it's acceptable to Need Roll on a Shield if the Tank just Greed Rolls. Logic would dictate that if the Tank doesn't "Need" it, then it should be okay for you, as a wannabe Tank, to Need Roll. But there's the stigma of being seen as a Ninja if you do so, despite the fact that you've passed on every other thing that dropped so far. Plus most people think that if you want to Need Roll Tank gear you should queue up as a Tank while conveniently ignoring the fact that it's kind of hard for a Warrior to Tank without a Shield.

Now some items like the SFK Ring are no brainers. It's clearly a ring for anyone who can benefit from Strength & Stamina, whether that be a Paladin, Druid, or Warrior. Yes, like most classes a Rogue can also benefit from the +3Stamina (not sure how Strength affects a Rogue's AP though), but a Rogue who Need Rolls on a +Stamina Ring before the Tank rolls, or who Need Rolls after the Tank Need Rolls is just being a douche. (IMNSHO)

Likewise a Hunter Need Rolling on a 2H Sword with +8 Str just because it also has +6 To Hit is...okay, that's sort of understandable. Although I confess that when I saw the Hunter had Need Rolled I decided to hit Need myself, even though it probably wasn't an upgrade. And I won it, too, so take that, stupid Hunter! Almost 7 years on and Hunters still think everything is a Hunter Weapon :P So what if it turned out I was right and it wasn't really an upgrade. How was I to know how it would affect my DPS until I had it in my greedy little paws? Besides, it's a pretty cool looking sword :D

Speaking of DPS, I'm a tad miffed that there are no mid-level Target Dummies, at least none that I can find. There are lvl 1 Dummies in the Lowbie area but a level 20 demolishes them with a couple of whacks. This means aside from the Character Sheet, the only way I can verify my DPS is by actually running the same Instance twice, once with each weapon, and comparing my Recount stats after the two Runs. This also means if I want to compare Arms DPS and Fury DPS I have to put up with scrubs in PUGs telling me "2H Fury Warrior = Fail LOL".

That's why I got Recount, to verify what I suspected. That the combined +3% To Hit, +5% to ALL physical damage, and the +40% Autoattack Damage buff from the Fury Tree, more than offset the +15% 2H Dmg from the Arms Tree. Even with the two Blue 1H Maces from Shadowfang Keep it was clear that for a level 20 DPS Warrior the Cold Iron Pick is king. Which also sucks. Because it looks like a Mining Pick. That's great if you're a Dwarf, but for aesthetics (& humor value) I prefer Gnome and Tauren Warriors. So now I have a 10' tall Tauren Warrior running around clobbering things with a Mining Pick while Know-it-all Mages are telling me to Lrn2Play because I'm spec'd Fury and wielding a 2H Weapon. Never mind that it's arguably the best level 20 melee weapon in the game and that Fury at 20 pwns the crap out of Arms.

That's why I really got Recount. So I could throw that back in their face.

Hey, Mr. Know-it-all Mage, see the Damage Meter? You just got pwned by a Nub Warrior with the wrong spec wielding a fucking Mining Pick!!! How does that feel?

With nothing but Quest Rewards and Dungeon Drops I'm pulling 100dps, which doesn't sound like much but at lvl 20 I'm second only to Heirloom-equipped characters, and even then I'm giving them a run for their money.

Hey, Mr. Know-it-all Heirloom-wearing Mage, see the Damage Meter? Yeah, that's right. PWNED!!!

Yeah, "Raiding" at 20 really isn't that different from End Game. You still have to put up with people like me. Happy Hunting ;)

Further early morning adventures in downtown L.A.

2011-09-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

This morning on my walk to the office I was greeted by four inhabitants of downtown L.A., and not one of them asked me for spare change.

I'm a little reluctant to refer to them as homeless because there's a good chance they're not; most of them probably have a home somewhere, even if it's little more than a room in a $150/week hotel. Yes, they exist, and no, you probably don't want to stay there on your next vacation, as cheap as it may seem.

Around 4th & Los Angeles I encountered a lady and a gentleman having a chat across the width of Los Angeles St. The lady was on my side of Los Angeles and walking toward me while the gentleman was crossing Los Angeles from the other side. As I approached they seemed to conclude their chat, and the lady turned, saw me, and wished me a good morning, and I returned her greeting. Unexpectedly, she did not ask me for spare change.

The gentleman had finished crossing to our side of Los Angeles, and having witnessed the brief exchange between the lady and I, while I was still about 30-feet away called out to me.

"Yo! What's up?"

"Hey! How you doin'?" I called back, then added. "Cold one this morning." (Which it was.)

He said something in return which I didn't catch but I knew meant that he hadn't quite heard or understood what I'd said. As I got closer he repeated, "Whazzat?"

"She's a cold one this morning," I said.

"Ooh yeah," he agreed.

And on I walked, again without being asked for change.

As I approached 5th St. I saw it was a hive of activity, much like last week. For some reason everyone seems to be out early on Friday morning. Maybe it's the excitement of the approaching weekend, I don't know, but at 5:30am on a Friday morning the place-to-be in downtown L.A. appears to be 5th St. and Los Angeles.

As I crossed 5th St. a large, middle-aged black woman standing on the opposite corner snarled loudly at a passerby, "What are you looking at?" Then she turned, saw me, and greeted me with a cheerful, "Morning, baby. How you doing?"

"I'm doing well, thank you," I replied. "How are you this morning?"

"I am going to make it," she said. She had such a positive outlook that I knew whatever curveballs life threw at her she would take it all in stride.

"That is really good to hear," I responded, with as much sincerity as I could muster.

Just a little further down was a young, quite stylishly dressed black man who, if the lady I'd just spoken to was a lady of the night, and I'm not saying she was, may - or may not - have been her agent. Or he may have been a gentleman of the night himself. He was quite well dressed. He had clearly overheard my conversation with the large black lady and he caught my eye and grinned at me as I approached, and then he smiled and wished me a good morning.

The incongruity of a white boy like me in that neighborhood at that time of the morning probably contributes to the warm reception I received. That I'm not just a white boy but a white boy from a small country town in rural Australia walking through downtown Los Angeles at 5:30 in the morning only serves to further enhance the absurdity of the situation.

This is not to say downtown Los Angeles is erroneously portrayed in the media and is actually a delightful place for an early morning stroll. I'm an Aussie country boy in Los Angeles. I am who I am. YMMV.

Sorry? Why are you sorry?

2011-09-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

As part of my weight loss plan I've been walking from Union Station to the office and back each day, a distance of approximately 2 miles each way. I can walk at a decent pace so this takes me about half an hour each way. Given the route I take I'm also passing through a slightly seedier part of downtown L.A. so my morning commute frequently takes me past quite a few homeless folks, most of them are asleep but sometimes one or two are awake and getting ready to face another day in paradise.

I'm used to being asked for spare change and aren't bothered by the homeless folks, although the LOUD jumpy ones are definitely worth keeping an eye on as they're the ones who sometimes like to hit passersby.

This morning I'm pretty sure I passed a couple of drug dealers, and while I might look like a cop and sometimes be mistaken for one I think these guys were streetwise enough to realize I wasn't the real deal. Which is why one of them didn't hesitate to take something that may or may not have been drugs and/or cash out of a broken newspaper vending machine as I approached. Likewise I was savvy enough to not even look at them as I passed by but continued marching along at my pavement-eating pace. Fast, but not running. Not scared, but not acting like a bravado either.

Further down the road I saw two guys standing in a doorway, engaged in conversation. As I drew closer one of them began walking off while the body language of the second indicated he intended to talk to me. Physically he looked like your typical street dweller, but he appeared more mentally alert than the average brain-addled homeless guy. This is the kind of thing you need to be aware of if you plan to walk the streets of Los Angeles, especially at 5:30 in the morning.

I was prepared to defend myself in case he turned out to be the loud, jumpy type, or wanted more than just spare change. I was also ready to turn the guy down if he did ask me for change. What I wasn't expecting was for him to produce a block of chocolate and offer it as trade for a cigarette.

Realizing that although he had not asked for change that he was still actually begging, sort of, my mouth spat out "Sorry, man" before my brain could provide it with a more appropriate response.

And on I walked as my brain tried to process the absurdity of being offered a block of chocolate by a homeless guy in exchange for a cigarette at 5:30 in the morning on the streets of downtown Los Angeles.

Then from behind me I heard him say, "Sorry? Why are you sorry?"

Are you serious? Do I need to spell it out for you?

Apparently my mouth thought it did, and I called back to him, "I don't have any cigarettes...*pause*...sorry."

That really doesn't make that much more sense, said my brain. Why are you sorry that you don't have any cigarettes? That's not a bad thing. Even if you did, you don't want that guy's chocolate anyway.

Wisely, this time, my mouth stayed silent.

The mysteries of the Interwebs

2011-09-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

Apparently over the past few days our IT Department switched us over to a new Proxy server because the old one was having problems, and IT are too short-staffed to troubleshoot it so they just set us up with a new Proxy server.

Except the new Proxy server is also having problems, from running slow to not working at all, and because our office uses Google's GMail, when the proxy server is down we cannot access our email. This has been causing headaches for my office's System Techs because administering the Proxy server is IT's responsibility, and they're in another office, in another building, a dozen blocks away. So when the Proxy goes down and we can't access our email, Systems can't actually do anything to get us back up. And who do we run to when our computer don't work? Systems of course, because they're right here.

Certain websites are also blocked by the new Proxy server, websites which were not blocked before. Now it makes sense to block certain websites, except they're not the sites you might think. Or maybe they are, but I'm not checking those sites.

For example, I can still get on Facebook, and...yep, MySpace is still good, too.

I can access my Yahoo email but the click-thru links in my MyPoints emails do not work because MyPoints.com has been blocked.

I can also access my blog here at Blogspot (as long as the Proxy server is up), and yet...I cannot access Tobold's Blog, which is also on Blogspot. It shows up in Google when I search for it, but any attempts to access it are denied. Very strange.

I don't believe in going on a diet

2011-09-13T15:01:00.000-07:00

Because going on a diet implies that at some point in the future you will go off the diet, and if you go on a diet and lose weight and then go off the diet, and if nothing else has changed in your life, then the weight you lost while on your diet will most likely return. With friends.

In order to lose weight and keep it off you need to effect a lifestyle change.

Instead of going on a diet you need to change your eating habits. Instead of eating three pork tacos for lunch, you'll eat two. Or perhaps you'll eat two chicken tacos, or two fish tacos.

Instead of riding the bus to the office, given the time you'll get off several blocks early and walk the rest of the way, and in the afternoon going home you'll do the same.

And if you want to keep that weight off those are not things you'll do only until you've lost X pounds, after which you'll resume eating 3 pork tacos for lunch while riding the bus all the way to the office. If you want to keep that weight off you need to continue doing the things that helped you lose the weight in the first place. In other words, you cannot go on then go off your diet.

That said, for the past few months I have been on a diet. I make no pretenses about this. I am on a diet. I have been denying myself certain food products in order to lose weight, and once a certain date has been reached, being October 5, I will absolutely and unequivocally go off my diet. After October 5th I will have a donut from the box that occasionally appears in the office. One donut. I will sometimes order the ribs instead of the fish or salad when we eat out. And I will have those deep fried jalapenos, the crispy fried noodles, and the pork burrito, thank you very much. But not all the time.

Because once October 5th arrives my Office's weight loss competition will be over, and hopefully I will have lost a large enough percentage of my starting weight to be declared the biggest loser. That's my primary goal. To lose enough weight to win the Office weight-loss competition.

Currently I'm the front runner, as per our weigh-in last week and now there's just 3 weeks to go. I weigh approx. 175 lbs, having lost 12.2% of my starting weight of 200 lbs, I'm wearing size 32" pants (which fit well, and are not snug at all), while my body fat is approx. 15% (it used to be around 22-23%). I'm in great shape for a 42-year old guy. Knee pain & arthritis aside I'm even in better shape than when I graduated from High School. So I can honestly say that once this is all over, even if I'm not the biggest loser, I am a winner.

However, just because I'm going to go off my diet on October 5th doesn't mean I'll balloon up to my former weight of 200-210 lbs. Yes, I'll have the burgers and ribs and beer and jalapeno poppers, and all the other foods I love but which I've been denying myself these past few months. But I'll eat them in moderation. I said earlier that winning the Office weight loss competition was my primary goal. My secondary goal is to maintain (to a moderate degree) my healthier lifestyle and to continue working out. But rather than continue with the cardio I've been doing to lose all that weight, I'll be lifting weights to regain the muscle mass I know I've lost.

In 3 months I've lost 25 lbs and dropped my body fat from 23% to 15%. I'm not going back on another diet; I'm going to make changes to my eating and workout habits in order to capitalize on what I've accomplished these past few months.

I don't plan to bulk up and look like Captain America, but I still want to look good.

Correction: I'm already looking good, I want to look great.

Dead Island

2011-09-08T16:47:00.000-07:00

I read a couple of reviews of Dead Island and it sounds interesting. I like the thought of playing it in the First Person. That definitely puts you more into the game versus playing it in the Third Person and guiding a character around. The use of Stamina, a depletable, slowly regenerating resource used for pretty much every action in the game from punching a zombie to swinging a bat to running for your life is a great way to generate suspense. Sure you can fight, but not indefinitely. Yes you can run, but you can't run forever. You need to seek refuge. You need to rest and recover your strength. Because you are only human.

I even like the character being able to gather resources and use them at various Work Benches scattered around the island to improve, enhance, and upgrade their weapons. What I don't like, is that the resource you use to upgrade your weapons is money.

Seriously? You're on a zombie-infested island with just a handful of survivors and you're "buying" weapon upgrades? Come on! There's no merchants, there's no commerce. How can you possibly spend money to upgrade your weapons? I know, I know. It's a game about zombies. It's not meant to be realistic.

I respectfully disagree with you. I say of course it's supposed to be realistic. We're supposed to become emotionally invested in this game, particularly in this specific game given the level of emotion invoked by the Trailer.

The Devs expect us to believe in this world, but for us to believe in it it needs to be realistic. Okay, somewhat realistic, given it's a world/island overrun by zombies. But even in a fantasy world where the dead can rise, walk, run, and try to eat your brains, you still could not use money to upgrade weapons unless you were paying someone to upgrade them for you. But there's nobody else involved in the upgrading process, so you cannot be paying anyone, thus money as a resource to upgrade your weapons is?

Highly illogical, Capt'n.

Thank you, Mr. Spock.

Had you been finding & accruing not Money, but Spare Parts, or Bits & Pieces, and at a Work Bench you used X number of Bits & Pieces to upgrade your weapon from Level N to Level N+1 I would have totally accepted that. It's a quite plausible, valid premise, even though nothing has changed but the name of the resource. You were using Money, now you're using Bits. That simple name change changes everything.

A wise man once (allegedly) said, "What's in a name?"

Another wise man responded (although perhaps not immediately, nor to the first man), "Names have power."

Versatile Blogger Award

2011-08-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

Apparently I've won an Award of sorts. Or had it bestowed upon me. Same thing, sort of, although this award comes with rules for accepting it.

Like linking back to the Blogger who gave it to me, being Memphis Steve from Steve's Nude Memphis. No, he's not naked, or even a nudist, just read his Blog and you'll get it. Or not.

The second rule is to share seven things about yourself, and the third is to pass the award on to 15...FIFTEEN!!?!? recently discovered Blogs. I think I'll fail that part, but first...

1. If I like you I will deliberately insult you, and the more I like you the more I will insult you. The problem is I'm socially inept so I usually cannot tell when I've gone too far, and what should be a bit of light-hearted teasing among mates often comes across as very offensive.

2. I like to walk places. I once offended my Dad when I said I needed to go into town, he offered to give me a lift, and I said I could just walk. It was only about a half hour walk into town. No big deal, to me. Dad was pretty pissed off though. When I first came to the States I got a job in the local Mall about a mile from the in-laws home (where we lived for the first year or so after we were married...does that count as Number 3? I think so. I'm going to count it.) and the mother-in-law was visibly shocked when I told her I was going to walk to the Mall.

3. After the wife and I were married we lived with her parents for about a year. I told you I was going to count it.

4. I believe in ghosts. I believe we don't see them because we've learned how to close our minds to them, and that children whose minds are still open can still perceive them. I believe that in some cases the crazy homeless people we see having conversations or arguments with thin air are crazy but their minds are no longer closed and so they're actually talking to and arguing with ghosts.

5. (a) In High School I copied an entire book on Ned Kelly for a History assignment. This was before Referencing and Bibliographies were expected. I got an A+.
5. (b) In College, when only one of the girls in our group understood a certain assignment she let four of us rewrite her essay so we could all pass. We all made sure to write it a little differently, use our own words, etc., so the Professor wouldn't suspect us of copying. When we got our grades back the girl whose assignment we copied from got a B, and everyone else got a C, except for me. I got an A. Sometimes cheaters do prosper.

6. Back in High School, I was reading the winning entries for a State-wide short story competition when I came across a very familiar story about a boy and his new bike. At home that afternoon I searched through numerous editions of Reader's Digest until I found the issue with the story about a boy and his new bike. The next day I showed my English Teacher the winning short story, along with the corresponding Reader's Digest. A few weeks later my English Teacher told me that he had learned that the student had been ordered to return his prize. I don't remember what it was. Probably money.

7. I have a genius-level IQ, which doesn't really mean anything other than I'm very good at solving logical puzzles. I do very well in maths-based tests, but anything requiring critical thinking, reading comprehension, etc., I usually fail with flying colors.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for! Or not. My nominees for the Versatile Blogger Award. Of which there most assuredly will not be 15.

1. 6 Inch Move is a Blog written by several table-top wargaming friends. I think this counts for as many extra Blogs as I need to make up my 15 :P

2. The Food In My Beard is, obviously enough, a food Blog. It's written by a guy who loves to cook for himself and his friends, and he appears to be pretty damn good at it, too. Features lots of delicious photos. Do not read while hungry.

3. Carrying A Cat By The Tail stars Spuds, a self-proclaimed "cool guy". If he actually says and does even half the stuff he says and does (and I have no reason to believe that he does not) then he is, indeed, a very cool dude.

4. A Quick Succession of Busy Nothings is written by an Aussie girl who moved from Melbourne to Canberra for work, before regaining her senses and moving back to Melbourne. That's Melbourne, Australia, not Melbourne, Florida.

The following Blogs have been classified by Blogger as Adults-only. Whatever that means.

5. Perception is Everything is written by KittyCat and is probably one of my most favorite, newly discovered Blogs.

6. Fun and Dirty Thoughts is written by a pretty hot guy named Marcus who still seems to have trouble charming the pants off his wife.

7. GoodWill (Bad Will) is written by Good Will, but sometimes he's Bad Will, and as the saying goes, when he's good he is very, very good, but when he's bad he's even better ;)

That's all, folks.

To Spruce Grove, and beyond!!!

2011-08-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

That title doesn't look terribly witty. I should probably stick to my day job. Not like I plan to make any money off this Blog anyway...unless I put a Paypal donation button on the side. I wonder...if I did that...would anyone actually use it??? I wouldn't do that anyway, I despise beggars because most of them don't need the money anyway, or if they do, they only need it because they're not making any attempt to actually do anything with their life. That said, I do admire the work ethic of some of downtown L.A.'s perpetually homeless folks. I pass through Union Station at approx. 5:30am and there are already beggars hitting me up for spare change.

I get off the train at Pershing Square and walk a few blocks to the office and the other morning I ran into a woman who could have been my mother. I don't mean she looked like my mum, but she was in her late 50s to 60s, quite well dressed, clean, well groomed, in other words she looked like your typical middle-class elderly woman. When she said "Excuse me" I stopped to hear her out because she did not look like your average beggar, and then she asked me for change, and I said "Sorry" to her and walked on. I had another early riser hit me up one time but as soon as I heard him say, "I live in Santa Ana..." I cut him off. "No change, buddy."

Looking at the title of this entry this was not meant to be a rant on homeless people and I'm pretty sure I've done that already. Oh, I see how I derailed myself, so, back to the actual topic.

This past weekend was supposed to be the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower. When my Mum was here this time last year we sat out in the backyard and tried to see some meteors, but we were SOL - too much ambient light - so I promised my son that next year (being now) I'd take him camping and we'd see some meteors for sure. Although apparently the ones you see are really meteorites, if I recall my High School Astronomy correctly. Meteors are in outer space, meteorites are the ones that enter Earth's atmosphere.

So it was this time of year again (isn't that a redundant saying? Isn't it always "That time of year"?) and the annual Perseid Meteor Shower was passing by so I decided the boy and I would head up into the Angeles National Forest and go camping and maybe see some meteors.

I got off work early on Friday, and after dicking around at home getting everything packed (we were going for one fucking night and it still seemed to take forever to get our shit together), plus a trip to the hardware store for a hatchet, followed by a trip to the market for a packet of hotdogs, we were finally off. Fortunately the entrance to the park is not far from home so by 4pm (or so) we were parked at Chantry Flat (in the last freaking space in the lot, at 4pm, on a Friday afternoon. Incredible!) had our packs on our backs and were heading into the wilderness.

I'd come down here a few weeks earlier with the family, and I'd planned to do the 4-mile roundtrip via Camp Hoagee, except we missed our turn off and wound up at Sturtevant Falls instead, which for a family hike was actually a much more pleasant destination than 4 miles of nowhere. I'd also been to the Falls a couple of times before but had never gone any further. Fortunately I had a map, and the trail had decent signs pointing the way, so I was pretty confident we would find the Spruce Grove campsite. However, having never been past Sturtevant Falls before I was not prepared for what was in store for the boy and me.

The boy is 11 now. He does Tae Kwon Do a couple of times a week, plays golf with me (occasionally), and lately has been taking tennis lessons once a week with his uncle. He's not fat, not at all, in fact he's in pretty good shape compared to many of his friends, but he had never been on a hike like what I had planned for us.

We hiked the 1 1/2 miles along the trail to Sturtevant Falls until we came to the Spruce Grove turn-off, and then made our first decision. Did we want to take the "Horse Trail" (so called because the packmules which supply Camp Sturtevant come that way) or did we want to take Upper Falls Trail which took us, obviously enough, above Sturtevant Falls. We went with the Upper Falls Trail and it was...interesting.

And here's a picture. Actually, here's a few. As always, you can click 'em to make 'em bigger.
This is the edge of the pool at the base of the Falls. There are people down there. We're pretty high up. Not like thousands of feet in the air, but definitely vertigo-inducing, if you're susceptible to that sort of thing.

This shot was taken pretty much from the path itself, I just leaned over a tad. There were sections of the path so narrow that you could not put both feet down side-by-side, and the drop-off at those sections was not unlike that in this picture.

And then there were sights like this cave. At least I think it's a cave. We didn't go in there, or even stop to take a closer look; we were in a race with the sun. I knew we were close when I smelled smoke from a campfire, then we crested a hill and although the scenery didn't change, it opened up a little, and the sight that greeted us was very welcoming.

Several of the camp spots were already occupied but the one closest to where we came in was free so we quickly claimed it. For a campground 4 miles into the forest it was actually quite decent. Each site had a cleared area to pitch your tent; a picnic table with bench seats; and two fire places, one a fire pit with a hinged grate (which could be swung onto the fire, or lifted out of the way), and the second an almost enclosed fire place (with a chimney) and a flat piece of griddle-like iron on top.

Dinner that night was beans with hot dogs, grilled the traditional way on a forked stick. The dogs, that is; the beans were heated up in a frying pan that I carried in my pack, along with the tins of beans, hot dogs, bowls, etc. The boy carried his pack but he just had a few bottles of water, his sleeping bag & sleeping mat, spare socks and a warm sweater. I had the same in my pack, too, but I also had the tent. I planned to weigh my pack before we set out, but I forgot, and that's probably a good thing. I know the military do crazy hikes with 60-100 lbs packs but they train for that shit AND they get paid to do it. I was doing this for fun...sort of.

Baked beans and grilled hot dogs. After a 2 1/2-hour hike that simple fare tasted unbe-fucking-lieavable! It was seriously good. The boy ate 1 1/2 dogs and not quite a full tin of beans. I added the remnants of his beans to my own tin along with 2 1/2 dogs. After the dishes were done (washed in the nearby & apparently freezing cold stream) we lay down next to the fire, stared up at the sky, and looked for meteors, while silently berating the City-boys in the next site over who insisted on shining their super bright flashlight all over the place. We lay there looking up at the night sky and saw lots of stars but no meteors.

"Want to keep looking, or go to bed?" I asked the boy.

"Keep looking," he replied. So we did.

A while later I repeated my question and this time he chose "Bed". Not surprisingly. I'm sure even without the food his pack was still pretty heavy. For the next few hours I tossed & turned, dozed off & woke up, until some time after midnight when I finally managed to stay asleep until 6am.

Wanting to get going before it got too hot I woke the boy up, and 45 minutes later we had the tent packed up, had eaten breakfast (granola bars), and were on our way. The return journey was not back out the way we came but further in, past Camp Sturtevant, up Mt. Zion, down the other side, through Camp Hoagee and on to Chantry Flat, being a total distance of approximately 5 1/2 miles.

Again the boy did amazingly well and we were back at the car by 9:30am.

"Want to do something like this again?" I asked him.

"Maybe," he said, "but not quite as long."

I know how you feel, son ;)

Wii Fit

2011-08-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

Not really a review. I did that already.

The long face the animated Balance Board has each time I tell it "No, I don't want to hear one of your Fitness Tips" still amuses me.

We have carpeted floors in the new place. Wii Fits aren't entirely that accurate on carpet.

It came with four little rubber extensions (for the feet) for when it's to be used on carpeted floors, but even with them I still don't believe it's as accurate as it would be on a solid wood floor.

I have a piece of chipboard that is just a shade bigger than the Balance Board, although all that does is distribute the weight load over a greater surface area. The carpet still depresses beneath the chipboard so any measurements still have to be taken with a grain of salt.

I deliberately did a Body Test without the chipboard, and without the feet extensions, and I "weighed" 15 pounds lighter than what I know I am. Think the Balance Board with the long face is funny? I found it's flabbergasted reaction to me losing 15 pounds in one day highly amusing.

I'm 41 years old (42 in 2 weeks time), I'm 5'11, 182 lbs (or so), with approx. 15% Body Fat. I am NOT overweight so Fuck You, Wii Fit! Don't go telling me "That's overweight" in your little condescending tone when I take a Body Test.

Having "lost" 15 pounds the Wii Fit now has me in the Normal Range for the archaic BMI and so my Mii has a slender body. Well, not slender, per se, but he's not rotund anymore either.

I'm still working out but I'm not going to take any more Body Tests. My new test is to look in the mirror. Yeah, I'm looking good, but I could look better. That's my Body Test.

What a crock

2011-07-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

I've long suspected that my digital BF% Scales are not as accurate as they could be, not for digital scales which, one would assume, should be quite accurate.

Although I don't believe in them yesterday could be considered my "cheat day". Liz drove into downtown to join me for lunch and we ended up at the Eastside Market where I consumed an entire sausage & meatball sandwich. I've been pretty good for the last few weeks and my voluntary commute change means I now walk 2 miles to work and back, plus daily workouts on the Wii Fit, so it's not like I undid the past few weeks work.

This morning, post workout, I weighed 185 lbs. I got dressed, shorts & t-shirt, then weighed myself again. 187 lbs. Really? Okay, I'll take your word for it. I hit the button to measure my Body Fat (allegedly via Bioimpedance) and the scales said I was at 22%.

I'm sorry. 22%? Yesterday, at 182 lbs, you said I was at 20%. Now, I weigh 5 lbs more and you say I'm back up to 22%? I decided to conduct a very simple test, grabbed a 5 lb weight and my two 10 lb dumbbells, and returned to the scales. With 5 lb weight in hand I stepped on and now I weighed 192 lbs. Ok, fair enough. I stepped off, grabbed my two 10 lb weighs and stepped back on.

209 lbs.

I see.

I hit the button to measure my body fat, the scale ran it's alleged bio-impedance test and a few seconds later the number 27 appeared on the screen.

Really?

Because while I might "weigh" 20 lbs more than before, I'm pretty sure that's not an extra 20 lbs of fat, so my body fat percentage should have not changed. In fact, if anything, it should have gone down, because now the fat-to-weight ratio has decreased...or increased, depending on how you look at it.

So the Body Fat Calculator doesn't really calculate your actual body fat via bio-impedance but simply goes off your height and weight. What a fucking crock.

I also know the scales are not entirely accurate either. I can weigh myself prior to using the toilet, then immediately afterward, and the scales will give me the same weight. I can drink a large glass of water between weighings and the scales will tell me no change.

FWIW, this was a Taylor Body Fat Analyzer & Scale, Model #5564, which are no longer available.

If you have a combination Scale & BFA, I'd like to ask you to conduct this simple test and post the results in my Comments section. Weigh yourself and calculate your BF%, then weigh yourself again while holding a heavy item. Does your BF% change? If so, which way?

Wii down! Wii down!!!

2011-07-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

A few years ago we got our Wii and while it's not an XBox or a PS3 it's still a lot of fun, and aside from a couple of glitches which never required anything more than a reboot to resolve we never had any problems with it. Until this weekend.

So a few weeks ago my office decided to have a Weight Loss competition.

Wait! Weren't we talking about your Wii?

Yes, we were. We'll get back to that.

So my office weight loss competition is being held over 3 months with a $20/month fee, and the winner & Biggest Loser takes all at the final weigh-in on October 5th.

Last year I lost almost 30 pounds in a couple of months, going from 210 down to 180, simply by watching what I ate (and watching less of it ;), and using my Wii and Wii Fit Boxing. I got down to 180 but then stopped working out as diligently, and my weight slowly crept back up. Fortunately it never went over 190, which is healthy for a 5'11", 41 year old guy who doesn't work out that much, but I could do better. According to my scales I've got approx. 20% Body Fat, so let's do some math, shall we? No? I don't care. My Blog, my rules.

I was 210 lbs with 25% Body Fat. That equates to ~52.5 lbs of fat. Last night I weighed 183 lbs and my scales told me I was at 20% Body Fat. That equates to 36.6 lbs. Doing the math we see that I've lost approx. 16 lbs of fat, but my weight has dropped by 27 lbs. How did I lose that extra weight? Muscle mass. I lost approx. 9 lbs of muscle. But that's okay. I'm a big guy but I don't need to be. I don't play any sports other than golf, and I work in an office, not on a construction site. I don't mind losing a little bit of muscle. However, I don't want to lose too much, either, because muscles burn calories. Even just sitting still, if you're a buff guy, you naturally burn more calories than the flabby guy next to you. The more muscle I shed the less muscle I have to burn calories, which is one of the reasons people hit a plateau when they're trying to lose weight. They don't just lose fat, they lose muscle; lose enough muscle and the calorie deficit you created (aka "diet") has just been negated. Now you need to work out even more to continue losing weight. But unless you know exactly what you're doing and are consuming sufficient protein and carbs and essential fats you're going to lose muscle along with the fat, making it harder & harder to lose more & more weight.

And in order to win this weight loss competition I need to lose weight.

I don't necessarily want to add bulk because muscle, being denser, weighs more than fat. Sure, I can tone up and get lean by working out, shedding fat, and adding muscle, and I'd look great, but I'd still weigh 185 lb, if not more. I'd look great, but I want those Benjamins, so I need to accept that some of the weight I'm going to lose will be muscle. I'll lose fat, sure, but I'm going to lose muscle, too, and if I want the money there's nothing I can do about that.

Our initial weigh-in was 3 weeks ago, on July 6th, being right after July 4th, and the wife had already mentioned that uncle was having a BBQ at his house. So that was a great opportunity to stack the scales in my favor by stuffing my digestive system full of yummy, bbq goodness, then holding onto it until Wednesday. Sorry. TMI?

Watching "The Biggest Loser" a couple of months ago I'd also stumbled across a trick to gain a lot of weight really, really quickly, and in a manner much akin to how you can lose weight really, really fast. H2O aka Water. One 16oz bottle of water weighs 1 lb. Two 16 oz bottles of water weighs? Yes, 2 lbs. And so on.

I weighed 190 lbs. I was 20 lbs lighter than last year, but that's the easy weight to lose. Oh sure, I knew I could get down to 180 fairly easily, but anything past that would require a seriously dedicated effort. What to do? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet. And so I did. I ate a lot during the week or so leading up to the weigh-in, and on the morning of the weigh-in? I drank. Of course you can only drink so much water without suffering the natural, foregone conclusion of being sufficiently hydrated, if not overly so. Fortunately my boss got in early so I was able to check in with her and my official starting weight was duly observed by a credible witness. With a bursting bladder I weighed in at a staggering 199.6 lbs. And about 10 minutes later I'd lost my first 3-4 lbs :P

Precisely one week later we had our second weigh-in, and knowing I'd already lost a decent amount of weight I again drank a couple of bottles of water prior to weighing in. Don't want to lose too much too fast and scare off the competition. In one week I "lost" 3.51% of my starting weight. One other guy in the office lost 3.54% and I would later learn that he also waterloaded prior to his first weigh-in. The things people do for money ;)

Just like last year I'd been working out with the Wii and Wii Fit Boxing, but this weekend I hit a snag.

Friday afternoon the boy was playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and when I went to join in the Wii crashed on us. I actually forgot it did that, but as I mentioned earlier it wasn't the first time, and as it was almost time for the boy's swimming lesson I turned the Wii off and thought nothing more about it. I wouldn't use the Wii again until Sunday but when I turned it on and inserted the Wii Fit disc nothing happened. The Wii started up, the Wii Home menu appeared, but the disc refused to load. I tried a couple of other discs to no avail. None of them would load. This did not look good. I know my way around the inside of a PC, but a Wii? Sure, it's a computer, but Nintendo do not make it easy to get into them. And even if I did get it open, it's not like I would have the spare bits & pieces lying around like I do with my PCs.

Nope. A malfunctioning video game console is bad news to all but the most experienced tech geek. Fortunately the Wii did tell me that it couldn't read the disc, and as it couldn't read any of my discs I figured it was either a dirty laser lens reader, or...something more serious :P Also fortunate was that Nintendo sell a Laser Lens Cleaning Kit for $10 plus S&H, which is usually another $10-$15.

Hmm, they must sell these things in Toys R Us though, right?

No, they don't.

Best Buy?

Nope.

Target? Walmart? Gamestop???

Nope.

A few clerks knew what I was talking about but their replies were all the same: We haven't carried them for a few months now.

I see. To this paranoid conspiracy theorist it appeared that Nintendo stopped supplying the brick & stone stores with these Kits in order to maximize their profit on them. Probably because people bought them, used them, then returned them. Which may not be that far from the truth. Now I wouldn't necessarily have done that, not unless it didn't work. But without it being available in my local brick & stone store I didn't even have that opportunity to see if cleaning the laser lens might solve my problem.

We've had the Wii for almost 4 years now, which is a pretty good run for a console, even though our Gamecube works just fine, as does the N64 (after a spot of blowing on the cart and in the slot ;), but that means the Wii is well & truly out of its warranty period. I went online, and initiated a repair request via Nintendo's website. $75 for the repair, plus tax, plus S&H, for a total cost of $92. IF I could buy a new Wii I could probably get one, just the Wii, for approx. $100. But Nintendo don't sell just the Wii. They bundle them with Mario Kart, or Donkey Kong, or Mario Bros., and they retail them for $150. I'm not spending that much on a new Wii, and the wife said "Screw that!" to their $92 repair charge. Instead we borrowed the in-laws Wii and promised to return it for the weekend when the kids come to visit.

In the meantime I went online and started researching Wii problems, specifically how to disassemble a Wii and clean the laser lens. I found a Youtube video where the guy didn't pull his Wii apart, instead, he used an old CD and built a replica Nintendo Lens Cleaning Kit, which is essentially nothing more than a disc with an absorbent pad for applying cleaning solution, and a handle so you can both remove the disc from the Wii's disc slot, but also use the handle to jiggle the disc around to clean the laser lens. That's what Nintendo wanted me to pay $25 for; a plastic disc with a cleaning pad and a handle.

More useful was that the video creator said that a month after he used his homemade lens cleaning disc and got his Wii reading discs again, it stopped working, again, and this time no amount of cleaning got it working. So he put in a ticket to Nintendo and told them he had been playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl when it stopped reading the disc, and Nintendo offered him a free repair inc. free S&H! Now that's a price not even the wife could turn down.

And that's when my son reminded me that the Wii had crashed on us Friday afternoon while he had been playing Brawl.

I went online. I put in a ticket to Nintendo. I reported that the "failure to read disc" error was attributed to Brawl. And this time Nintendo offered me a free repair, inc. free S&H.

The only caveat was that along with the Wii, I had to include our copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I told the boy that Nintendo would repair the Wii for free, but we had to send them our copy of Brawl, as well.

"Will we get it back?" he asked.

"Of course!" I reassured him. "And if we don't, there will be hell to pay!"

On Nintendo's website was a quote from a happy customer who claimed he got his Wii back within a week of sending it in for repairs. Nintendo themselves say to allow up to 8-10 business days. Let's see what happens.

Bloodbowl '11

2011-06-22T22:18:00.000-07:00

"Dad, can we play the spiked football game?" the boy said. It took me a few seconds to realize what he meant, because we hadn't played Bloodbowl for quite some time.

I dragged everything out and laid the teams out for him to choose from. He went with the Orcs so I tossed in an unpainted Varag Ghoulchewer, then decided to choose the more completely painted (but no less poncy) Wood Elves and their star player Jordell Freshbreeze, over the hardier but lesser painted Dwarfs.

The Elves won the toss and elected to receive, forcing the boy to set up his Orcs first. Not knowing how to play to their strength he started with his two Black Orcs on the bench, and I took advantage of his inexperience, sending one of my fast & agile Catchers up the left wing on my first Turn, and scoring a touchdown with him on my second.

I scored another quick Touchdown within the next two Turns when I was able to bring down the mighty Varag and strip the ball from him, although the huge Orc's armor prevented me from doing any serious damage. The high Armor Value of the slow but tough Orcs would be a boon to the boy as I brought down Orc after Orc, only to see them get back to their feet on the next turn. Meanwhile, my nimble but far less armored Elves were taking a beating. The low point of the first half was a ball-carrying Jordell being caught by a solitary Thrower mere yards from the end zone. A series of lucky rolls from the boy not only brought my star player down, but took him out of the game permanently.

Meanwhile, back on the line of scrimmage, the rest of my Elves were not faring any better. It was my own fault for teaching the boy the flanking maneuver that begins with the end model Blocking his opponent and freeing himself up to Assist his neighboring team mate with his Block, and so on down the line. The results speak for themselves.
In case it's not readily apparent, of the 9 Wood Elf models in this picture only 4 of them are still standing.

We put up a valiant fight but the Elves are not made for stand-up, knock down fights, not against Orcs. They're good at the second part, but not so good at the first. The boy was able to keep control of the ball and so control the play, and as the first Half drew to a close a lone green Lineman ran into the end zone while his team mates looked on (and probably gave the Elf at their feet a sly kicking for good measure).
The Elf's dugout was a sad and miserable place at halftime. It's hard to inspire the lads when almost half their team are Knocked Out, Seriously Injured, or worse.

Note: This is not the way to coach the Wood Elves to victory. Maybe the Dwarfs could hold on in this position long enough to scrape out a victory, or at least play to a tie. We're three turns into the Second Half, and Varag has the ball again, but this time he's flanked by his team mates as he prepares to stomp his way to victory. Not even the three Elves who ganged up on a prone Orc behind the play were able to slow down the green tide of destruction.

This game is not over yet, but the best I can probably hope for is a draw.

Mini-vacation

2011-06-13T21:41:00.000-07:00

My son graduated from 5th Grade & Elementary school last week, which resulted in me having a mini-vacation from Wednesday through Monday, during which I:

inflated and tied over 100 helium balloons, blistering the side of my finger in the process (something I didn't realize I'd done until the blister burst around the 90th balloon);
ran security/crowd control on 200+ proud parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., all intent on getting a photo of their little angel receiving his/her "diploma" while being completely oblivious to who they stood in front of to do so;
co-chaperoned 100+ screaming 10 y/olds at a graduation 10-pin bowling party, where I discovered 10-year old kids not only know the words to Gaga's Poker Face, Taio Cruz's Dynamite, and Katy Perry's Firework but how to dance along to them, too...except for my son. He's a chip off the old block, he is ;)
helped my 6 y/old daughter finally beat Kirby's Epic Yarn, Lego Batman, and Mario Galaxy. (Note: we only beat them, we didn't complete them. I later returned to Mario Galaxy and collected a few extra Power Stars but turned the game off when the Developers confused "challenging" with "frustrating".)

I don't honk when you're in MY lane

2011-06-07T20:47:00.001-07:00

The right-hand lane which I use to enter the bus station's parking lot is not a right turn-only lane, so cars are free to use that right hand lane to continue straight ahead, and most vehicles in that lane do because they prefer to park in the next lot, or they're heading for the Freeway just a little further down. I find this annoying because in California, unless there are signs saying otherwise, you can make a right-hand turn on a red light, and if I don't catch the green light inevitably I find myself stopped behind someone who wants to go straight ahead. But as it's not a right turn-only lane they're doing nothing wrong, so I sit patiently and wait for the green.

Unlike most Southern Californians I always use my turn signal, and sometimes I'll pull up right behind this car, barely inches from their rear bumper, but slightly off center so if their mirrors are angled correctly my blinking turn signal is being reflected in their right-hand mirror. At times like these I'm even tempted to honk my horn at them, as if to say, "Come on, turn already." Except that's rude. They don't have their turn signal on, and if they wanted to turn they would have done so, so I sit there, patiently waiting for the light to turn green. Of course when it does there's always a couple of pedestrians from the parking lot waiting to cross the road to the bus station, so as a courteous driver (for the most part) I now feel compelled to wait for them too.

And the situation I've just described is exactly what happened this morning.

When the light went green the car in front of me drove on, straight ahead, and I pulled forward, turn signal still blinking, just like it had been doing the entire time I sat there waiting patiently for the light to turn green, then I stopped. I stopped because George, the old man who rides my bus, who had a stroke a few years back and so now walks with a pronounced limp/shuffle, good old George had stepped down into the crosswalk and was slowly hobbling across the road into which I wanted to turn.

Now I'll admit that maybe I didn't pull forward quite as much as I could have, but as far as I'm concerned yielding to pedestrians does not mean stopping your car halfway into the crosswalk so they're forced to walk around you. As far as I'm concerned, yielding to pedestrians means coming to a complete stop before your car even enters the crosswalk, and so I did.

For some reason this offended the driver of the car behind me. At first I wasn't sure if he'd flashed his headlights at me, but then he honked his horn, and then he flashed his lights again.

"Hello!" I said to myself with malicious glee. "Yielding to Pedestrians here. FUCKING wait!"

The horn honked again, accompanied by more flashing of head lights.

Now I don't know about you but when I'm being a courteous, considerate driver and yielding to pedestrians in a crosswalk, particularly slightly disabled pedestrians, specifically, slightly disabled pedestrians who I happen to know, and you're a rude, impatient, arrogant prick of a driver behind me honking your horn and flashing your lights, you've just accomplished the complete opposite of what you were trying to achieve; you've just made damn sure I'm going to completely yield to the pedestrian.

Which is what I did.

When there was enough room for me to pull forward, and even drive through behind George as he hobbled across the crosswalk, I didn't. I sat there. I would say I ignored the honking and flashing of lights, but in all truth they amused me as I waited to make sure George was well & truly clear of my path before finally driving through behind him.

Yes, I deliberately pissed this other driver off, but I don't care. I don't honk at drivers blocking my path just because I want to turn and they want to go straight ahead. If you don't want to sit behind me while I yield to pedestrians, don't drive in MY lane. It's that fucking simple.

New monitor

2011-05-19T20:06:00.001-07:00

Ok, so it's not new, we've had it for a couple of years now. But it's never really been used as a monitor until recently.

Say hello to my little friend ;)

(If you click it, it gets bigger ;)

IT'S ALIIIIIVE!!!

2011-05-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

This weekend I dug out two old PCs which I seemed to recall had died on us (several years ago), warranting the purchase of new PCs.

Contemplating making one working PC from the two, I pulled the sides off both boxes and took a look inside. I know my way around the inside of a case, and I'm also pretty efficient at salvaging dead PCs, so one look was all it took for me to realize that I was lacking several critical pieces, like RAM, and hard drives.

Fortunately I'm also a hoarder, so the RAM sticks and hard drives which no longer resided within these cases were still within my possession. As were several old Video Cards which I'd burned out (or so I thought) playing games that were a little bit too graphic intensive for them. I'd need one of those video cards because the mother board of one of those PCs does not have an on-board GPU.

But first on the agenda was upgrading my daughter's PC. She got 50% more Ram and a new (old) video card. Old, but still a two generation upgrade over what she had. I also uninstalled AVG. As much as I like anti-virus programs they tend to bog older systems down (as well as some newer ones). Her computer definitely seemed to run a lot faster with those simple changes. Cost? zero dollars.

Then I turned to the PCs. The first thing I noticed was of the remaining RAM sticks, the two largest were two 512MB sticks and they would only fit one of the MoBos. So it got a full Gig of RAM. I also dropped in one of my two 40GB HDD then, out of sheer curiosity, plugged it in and fired it up. To my amazement not only did it work, but it booted up into Linspire.

ASIDE: Earlier this week at my mate's house we watched United which he'd...er...borrowed(?) from a certain website which let you download...borrow. I did say borrow. So this website lets you borrow all sorts of movies which, if you've got a TV hooked up to your computer, rather than watch these movies on your piddly little computer monitor you can watch them on a much bigger screen (such as that found on a 50" Plasma TV). We already have Netflix, which lets us stream movies through our BluRay player, except that Netflix's 'online' service is sadly lacking. It does have a reasonable selection of some older movies, and some of the newer releases, but for the older or more obscure classics, and the latest releases, you still have to request a physical DVD. I understand what they're doing, but I still think it sucks.

So I hooked up this new PC with Linspire to my 50" Plasma, booted it up, and the POST loading screen came up, followed by the Linspire loading screen, and then? As it booted into Linspire's desktop, my TV screen went dark and the words Invalid Format began floating around the screen. Having encountered this situation before with the BluRay player I knew what was going on so I hooked up a monitor to the Linspire machine to set its resolution to one of the handful of true 16:9 widescreen resolutions. Except Linspire didn't offer any of those particular resolutions to me. Yes, I was using a widescreen monitor, but even when I told it to show me resolutions not supported by my system none of the 16:9 resolutions were listed.

Fortunately I had a second 40GB HDD so I unplugged the Linspire HDD and plugged in the second one. It booted up into Windows XP (as it should; I only have a 98 SE CD, and an XP Pro CD), and XP let me set the resolution to a proper 16:9 resolution. Unplug the monitor, plug in the 50" and the Windows desktop appeared larger than life (that's assuming you're smaller than 50", which I'm not, so technically it's not larger than my life, but I digress).

I unplugged the LAN cable from the BluRay player and hooked it up to the PC, which was good for updating the video drivers, but not so good for the BluRay player. But one of the other gadgets I had in my possession, which I had no idea why, or how long I'd had it (years, I'm guessing), was a 5-port Switch. As I'd gone through my box of PC Bits & Pieces I'd come across the Switch and despite not recalling ever seeing it before and not being 100% sure what it was, in typical Bloke-fashion I'd thought to myself, "I might be able to use this." A quick Google search revealed that indeed I could use it, and for the purpose I'd had in mind, too. Back into the box of Bits & Pieces I went where I extracted two 6' CAT5 cables. Plug the LAN cable into the Uplink port on the Switch, plug in both 6' cables then plug their other ends into the BluRay and the PC, and now both machines were online. Cost? Zero dollars.

Finally I turned to the last PC. This thing is old. It has an Athlon 1.2Ghz CPU. Years ago that was fast. Now? Not so much. It also only takes PC133 RAM. I had, according to their stickers, two 128MB sticks of PC133. I plugged them in, plugged in the Linspire HDD, and one GeForce MX4000, being the fastest of the old video cards I still had. It all booted up, except the Linspire HDD wouldn't boot. Which made me wonder if Linspire was not on the Hard Drive itself, but buried in an EPROM chip on the other PC's Motherboard.

Fortunately I had my XP CDs handy, as well as an old DVD drive which I promptly plugged in. It was then a simple matter of installing XP, and catching up on some reading. Then downloading SP3 while doing some more reading.

The only problem is there's one essential part of a computer which I don't have any spares of, and that would be monitors. The first PC doesn't need one because it's hooked up to the 50" Plasma, but this second PC? It needs a monitor. It also needs a new MoBo, faster CPU, more (& faster) RAM, a faster Video Card, and a bigger power supply to keep all that stuff running. In other words, I need a new computer ;)

"This axe? Why, it's been in the family for generations. Had 4 new handles, and a new blade, but it's just as good as the day my great-grandpappy bought it, all them years ago."

And I thought they were tough

2011-05-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

This morning I dragged the wife and kids out of bed at OMFG o'clock to come support me on my 5K Gladiator Rock 'n Run. Actually I didn't need to drag them out of bed. The wife claimed she had trouble sleeping last night (as did I, a little nervous I guess) so when the cat woke me up at my usual workday time of 4:30am and I realized I needed to use the loo, doing so woke up the wife, and she got up, even though there was an hour left on the alarm. I decided I might as well stay up too, and the boy was awake when I stuck my head in his bedroom door. So it was the only the bunny who needed waking up, and unlike a school morning, despite it being almost 2 hours earlier than her usual "wake-up" time, she was out of bed in seconds (vs the typical "I'm tired!" whine followed by rolling over and burying her head in her pillow).

After breakfast, and a 45-min drive we arrived at Irvine's Hidden Valley Park.

We also, eventually, managed to hook up with 4 of my coworkers, all who are a few years (or 10 years) younger than me. The original plan was to run together and help each other out, but when the first obstacle, a balance beam affair, split us up I was now running with a female coworker a few years younger than me, and a male coworker 13 years younger. The guy managed to trip himself up on the second obstacle, a tire run, and sprained his ankle, but he sucked it up like a true Gladiator, ran it off, and we continued the race.

When I noticed that my pace was a little faster than theirs I tried to slow down to stick with them, but eventually my competitive nature said "Fuck it" and I never looked back.

At the obstacle titled "The Fools' Spools" I leaped up onto the first one only to find the competitor ahead of me was slower than I expected. Instead of landing on top of it as he leaped off the other side I was forced to check my momentum or get a face full of arse. As I fell back I grabbed the edge of the spool to hang on and...Oh shit! My right tricep screamed at me that I was the fool! When I pulled myself back up onto the top of the spool I agreed with it, but I was doing this race to test myself, to push myself to the limit, not drop out at the first sign of an Owie! (Definitely a pulled tricep. I rubbed Bengay into it when I got back home but its still pretty sore, and will be for a few days. Meh. I'm a GLADIATOR!!!)

I vaulted over the remaining spools and finally caught up to one of my first two female coworkers (she's 10 years younger than me) at the muddy uphill slope, with a rope if you needed it to ascend, which I did (Ow, said my tricep. Shut up, I replied.) followed by a water slide back down to the cargo net. I managed to generate too much friction on the water slide (don't ask me how) and I found myself slowing down, then stopping 3/4 of the way down. Knowing other competitors were coming down right after me I tried to scoot down to the bottom of the slide but I wasn't quick enough and got nailed from behind by a competitor with a lower coefficient of friction. Fortunately that gave me the boost I needed to complete the slide. Unfortunately it provided me with too much momentum, and when I hit the muddy pool at the bottom I was forced to dive across it and roll out the other side.

It was only while standing in line at the cargo net that I realized I'd acquired a war wound from my spill, but being literally covered in mud from head-to-toe I could't tell how seriously I was hurt. And I do mean literally. My face was covered in mud but I couldn't wipe it off because my hands were covered in mud, and I couldn't wipe them off because every other part of my body was also covered in mud. I figured I was still standing and it wasn't hurting much so it can't have been serious. And it wasn't.

I don't look it there, but I was not the only one a little pissed at waiting in line for the cargo net/container obstacle. I was even more pissed when it was my turn and I finally climbed to the top, only to see scores of competitors running past the cargo container. "Cheaters!" I heard someone call out to them. "That line is too long!" one of them called back. Like that's an excuse. Enjoy your hollow victory, wannabe Gladiators!

Down the other side of the cargo container and on I ran with my female coworker, helping her across the vertical wall (she's considerably shorter than me) then sticking with her as we ran up, up, up the long hill. But when we came down the hill and she started to lag behind it was once again "Every Gladiator For Himself!" and I pulled away and left her behind. I never saw the second girl, but my first two coworkers found her, somewhere, because she finished the race with them, but that was long after I was done.

When I know my final time I'll post it, but for now I think I finished in approx. an hour.

A 5 kilometre race, through mud, over 14 obstacles, and I was the first AND oldest of my coworkers to finish. And I thought they were tough.

OFFICIAL RESULTS

My time: 47m 11.8s

Mens 36-42: 148/306 (I'll be 42 in August)

Mens Overall: 854/1819

Overall: 1367/3715

I'll take royal weddings for $32,000,000, Alex...

2011-04-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

The Royal wedding is the talk of the town, in particular the cost to John Q. Public. Apparently the Royal family is picking up the bulk of the tab but you don't have to be an economist to know where they get most of their wealth from. Investments? Yes, okay. But where did they get the money from to invest? More...investments? I see. This could take longer than I thought.

When one of my friends made a comment on FB about the Royal wedding one of his friends referenced the figure $32,000,000, which a little research revealed is the approximate cost (in U.S. dollars) of security for the wedding. Just security. It doesn't include the flowers, or the food, or booking the chapel, or sending out the invitations, or the bridesmaids' dresses, the open bar at the reception (which probably cost a lot more than US$32M). The cost of security alone was estimated at US$32M. So this figure was referenced by my friend's FB friend, along with the comment that "you could feed the world" on US$32M.

The global population is estimated to be approx. 3,915,000,000. Dividing $32M between 3,915,000,000 people comes out to half a cent each. Now I know that two people can eat as cheaply as one, unless one of those two is a pregnant woman. Seriously. Have you seen what they can put away? There's a reason Home Town Buffet tried to ban pregnant women from their restaurants. No, they didn't. I'm kidding. April Fools! What? It's still April. Who says April Fools has to be limited to just the first day of the month? Have you ever tried fooling someone on April Fools Day? Good luck! You can't fool anyone on April Fools' Day because they know it's coming! What idiot thought up "April Fools" then decided to limit it to one, specific day? That guy was the real April Fool. Amiright?

So, back to two people eating as cheaply as one, which we know is a crock. If two people can eat as cheaply as one, then four must be able to eat as cheap as two, right? And because two can eat as cheaply as one, logically that means four can also eat as cheap as one. It makes perfect fucking sense IF two really can eat as cheaply as one. But because four cannot eat as cheaply as one then two cannot eat as cheaply as one so forget this argument because it holds about as much water as Jesus' cupped hands. (I can't believe you went there! I thought you were going to reference the Loaves & Fishes thing!)

So, back to feeding the world on $32M, or 1/2 a cent each. Let me know how that works out for you.

This leads into the real problem with the world today. There is not enough money, not enough food, not enough resources, not enough anything to take care of everyone living on the planet. You can throw all the money you want at the problem but it won't solve a thing. Sure, a few people will live, but many are going to die and nobody can do a damned thing about it because there's just too many of us. Some of us need to die. A lot of us. And the rest of us? We need to let them die.

What's that? I should start by killing myself? Riiiiiiight. I'm a producer (and yes, a consumer). I'm living in a First World Country, with a job, making money, and providing for my family. Other than my employer nobody is giving me money to buy me food, or clothes, or a computer. I've got a daytime job, I'm doing alright.

But all those Third World people sitting on their arses in the dust, just existing (not living, I'm not calling that living because they're alive but they're not living; they're existing) they can die. Because they're not producing. They're not working, or doing anything to sustain themselves, because Karma dealt them a handful of crap and they literally cannot survive without a handout because the land cannot support them. Give them a fish today and what does that accomplish? Nothing! You've fed them for one day. Aah, so teach them to fish, I hear you say. Wise you are, grasshopper, for if we teach them to fish, at least they'll have a hobby to keep them occupied rather than sit on their arse in the dust all day. /sarcasm off

This is the truth: There are far too many people in this world, we cannot help them all, and complaining that the money spent on the Royal Wedding could have been used to feed them is a pipe dream. Okay, maybe just counting all the starving Third Worlders, maybe $32M could have fed them for one day. Maybe. But what do they do for the rest of the year? What about the other 364 days? Anyone got a spare $11,648,000,000 lying around? You do! Excellent! Let's have it. Oh, and if you could come up with $11,680,000,000 by the end of the year, that would be great, yeah.

People need a hand-up, not a hand-out, but if the country will not sustain them at their current population even a hand-out is pointless. You'd be better off letting them die then plowing them into the soil. If nothing else, at least they'd make good fertilizer. Finally! They're producers! /black_humor off

Don't be offended, accept the truth; the world is grossly overpopulated, millions of people need to die, and we need to let them. It's okay to be a dreamer, but we live in the real world.

/end rant

Blu-Ray, HDMI, and LOTRO @ 50"

2011-04-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

As much fun as it is to stream Netflix videos via the Wii and it's Wii-Fii (???) the novelty quickly wears off when the LAN bogs down and the movie needs to buffer every 5 minutes. Watching movies at the Wii's 480p was also not what I'd become accustomed to after watching HD Cable for a few months, so the wife and I decided an upgrade was in order. Queue in a Blu-Ray player with its glorious 1080p, hard-wired into the LAN (no Wii-Fii here). In the Wii's defense it could have been hardwired into the LAN as well, but it would have required the purchase of a $30 "dongle" to plug in the Cat-5e cable, whereas the Blu-Ray comes with a more sensible and LAN-friendly RJ45 port.

So the Blu-Ray arrived last week and the first thing I did, even before plugging anything in, was RTFM. Yes, I did. Which is how I read that Blu-Ray players apparently like the faster, Category2 HDMI cables. So off to Target I went, armed with a $25 Gift Card provided by my thoughtful wife, where I found 3' cables for $30, and 6' cables for considerably more. Best Buy were next door, and while their online store said the brick & stone store did not carry the el cheapo $10 HDMI cables readily available online (& for in-store pick-up, if you want to wait a week), I thought I'd check there anyway. I left empty-handed when I saw their cheapest 3' cable was $40, and made my way across the road to that bastion of the working class man, Walmart, where I picked up a 6' cable for $20. Hooray!

Back home I got everything plugged in, tuned the TV to HDMI#2 and...the words "Invalid Format" appeared and began floating around the screen.

Invalid Format? Whaddayamean Invalid Format???

It took a day and a couple of visits to an online forum for my Blu-Ray player to work out that my 50" Plasma HD TV is not 1080p like I thought, but only 720p (which sucks, but I'm old, so my eyes probably can't tell the difference anyway) and solving my "Invalid Format" problem was as simple as telling the Blu-Ray to output a 720p signal.

That was all it took to get high quality Netflix movies streamed to our HD TV without pauses to buffer every few minutes. A bonus is that the Blu-Ray will also do Pandora, Hulu, and other streaming media sites, including Youtube. I now have the ability to watch Youtube videos on my HD TV, which means when BBC-USA wants to edit & cut episodes of Dr. Who so they can get in more commercials, we can watch Dr. Who on the 50" TV via Youtube. Another bonus is BBC-USA sometimes delays airing certain episodes, sometimes for a week or more, but considerate fans will often record those very same episodes & upload them to Youtube literally the second that episode has aired in the UK.

Getting the Blu-Ray hooked up and streaming Youtube also piqued my curiosity about hooking up one of our PCs (albeit temporarily) to the 50" TV, which I initially thought I could do via DVI. Except even though the HDMI#1 port (for the HD Cable) is labeled HDMI/DVI, the 50" TV doesn't actually have a DVI-in. Curiouser & curiouser. What it does have, however, is an RGB port, being the current industry standard PC video plug. Awesome. Unlike the Blu-Ray, hooking up the PC was as simple as plugging it in and switching to the appropriate Input. Okay, so there was also the issue with turning off & unplugging my son's PC, then dragging it downstairs, then getting it all hooked back up again, including unplugging the Cat5e from the Blu-Ray so I could have wired Internet access on the PC. After that, it was simple :)

And that was how my wife found me, kicking back on the sofa, playing Lord of the Rings Online on our 50" HD TV. Additionally, rather than rest the keyboard on my lap, I'd dragged over our two small side tables and had the keyboard on one and the mouse on the other and had my legs stretched out between them. If you currently have a mental picture of someone piloting a starship a la "Flight of the Navigator" you probably have a good idea of what I looked like.

I was only able to get in a few hours playing like this before the boy was due back home and I wanted his PC back in his room before the in-laws dropped him off (I didn't want him to get any funny ideas...maybe as a special treat, maybe ;) but those few hours of playing LOTRO @ 50" was awesome, and very, very comfortable :)

As for streaming Netflix, I'm in two minds over that. While it's great having a ton of movies-on-demand for a very low price (we have the cheapest 1 physical DVD at-a-time package), the selection of movies that can be streamed is somewhat limited. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of movies you can watch, including some relatively new releases (the bunny was watching Astroboy last night), but many of the movies I'm interested in are only available on DVD, like Clint Eastwood's two classic "Clint & Clyde" movies, Peter Seller's "The Party", and Terrence Hill's obscure but hilarious "Trinity" movies. I'm happy to have streaming Netflix at 720p, but not happy that many of the movies I want to watch are not immediately available.

One fine evening, down at the running track

2011-04-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

Among the 20 or so runners/walkers at the local High School running track were:

An elderly Chinese man running the wrong way. No, I'm not saying there was something wrong with his technique. I mean he was running clockwise while everyone else was running or walking counter-clockwise.

One couple strolling along together, side-by-side...hand-in-hand. Nothing wrong with walking on the track, lots of folks do, and at least they weren't walking on the inside couple of lanes (track etiquette dictates that the inside lanes are for runners) but they looked they were out for a casual romantic Sunday afternoon stroll rather than serious walkers getting their laps in at 8 o'clock on a Monday night.

Two ladies walking together. One wearing a faux fur vest (it wasn't that cold), the other with her jacket tied around her waist, a black & white leopard print silk (or faux silk) scarf around her neck, and an umbrella. No, not a compact umbrella. She was walking around the track carrying a full-sized 2 1/2'-long umbrella. Wow!

And me? Why, I was a picture-perfect fashionably-dressed runner, of course. With my grey & black Under Armor t-shirt, my red basketball shorts with black "racing" stripes, and my coordinated white, red & silver Nike runners w/ matching ankle-high white socks.

What?

Fun with Voicemail

2011-04-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

For several years our office never had voicemail, except for the receptionist (and maybe our Program Manager). Then we moved to a new office, with new phones, and a new phone system, and we finally entered the 21st century and had personal voicemail. Hooray!

That's actually not as exciting as it sounds. The novelty quickly wore off, and the red LED on our phone's handle signifying we had voicemail quickly became a thing of dread, especially when you handle a lot of problem calls. Some people took to covering the handle of their phone with a sticky note, which was rather obvious if you looked at their desk. I went one better. I discovered the LED was not in the handle but beneath it, and that a clear lens through the entire handle allowed the LED to shine through. One expertly applied piece of paper later, and the red LED disappeared from view. No red LED, no voicemails, right? Yeeeeeeah, it didn't quite work like that.

But out of sight out of mind, did. The problem then was forgetting to check the voicemail for a couple of days, and when you eventually logged in hearing, "You have 56 new message."

O_O

But there was also a trick to handling that. Alternately pressing the 3 & 1 keys quickly reduced that number to zero.

What?

If it's really important, they'll call back.

Besides, if I go on a 2-week vacation and set my phone message to inform any callers to call me back in 2 weeks, or that for immediate assistance they can call "Jack Black" on 555-1234, then I'm not making any promises about returning any messages left during those 2 weeks that I'm gone. Either call Jack Black now, or call me when I get back. That's how it works. I've been gone for 2 weeks. I've got a ton of work to catch up on. How am I supposed to get any work done if I'm returning calls all day?

If it's important, they'll call back.

Then there's those voicemails left on the front desk phone, which the receptionist listens to, then forwards to the appropriate person/section. Except she doesn't. Oh, she listens to them, but she doesn't forward them to the appropriate person.

She forwards them to me.

Even though the caller doesn't actually ask for me, nor do they ask to speak to someone in my section. In fact sometimes the caller doesn't even mention why they're calling at all, but she still forwards the message to me.

Why? Because I get in early o_O

Apparently her sole criteria for deciding who is the correct party to forward a caller/message is based on who is physically present in the office at that time.

I just now slipped out for coffee, got back to my desk, and there's the red LED (I felt guilty about not being able to see it, and you can only delete 56 voicemails so many times without repercussion). I was actually expecting a call because I'd just sent out an email to a couple of folks and I want a response from them, but I want it in writing so I have something solid on which to base my decision. So I check my voicemail and it's not an outside call, well it is, but it's an outside call forwarded from someone else's voicemail box. This is not the voicemail I was looking for. Heh heh. What? That's gold, that is.

I listen to the message, twice, and I have no idea what the caller wants, or why the sender forwarded the message to me. So I hit 4 to reply to the message (which sends it back to the person who forwarded it to me, straight into their voicemail box. Karma, baby.). "Yeeeeeah," I say, in my best Lumbergh voice, "this is your Cap'n speaking. You forwarded the following message to me, and I don't know why. The lady doesn't ask for me, and she doesn't mention my section or what we do. I have no idea what she's even talking about. So if you could just go ahead and call her back, that'd be great. Yeeeeeah."

Two minutes later my phone rings, which is about enough time for someone to notice the red LED on their phone, listen to my message, then call me. I glance at the caller ID and lo! It's the morning receptionist!

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
(You have to say that like Gomer Pyle, otherwise it doesn't work.)

Me and her...let's call her Pyle, shall we? So Pyle and I, we have a good old chat, and she tells me it was her (she?) who forwarded the message to me, as if I didn't know that. (Actually I didn't realize it was her, but I should have) Pyle proceeds to tell me that she listened to the message, twice, before deciding to forward it to me. I tell her I listened to it as well, twice, and that the woman didn't ask about our section, never mentioned what we do, or said anything even remotely related to my job function.

Pyle tells me she knows that, but that she can't call the woman back because she doesn't have a Long Distance-authorization code and the caller is in the next county (We need to enter this code when we dial in order to authorize long-distance call). Actually Pyle does have an LD code, but she says she forgot it.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

And she forwarded the message to me because?

She knew my coworker wasn't in the office.

Surprise! Surprise! Sur...wait. What?

My coworker, who works in my section, who has the same job function as me, and for whom the call would also not be relevant, was not in the office at that time, and Pyle knew that, and so she forwarded the call to me instead???

Surprise! Surprise! Sur...that actually gets old really quickly. The perils of working with a Gomer Pyle, I guess.

I know M is not in yet, Pyle says, so can you call the woman back and ask her what she wants?

Perhaps you should call HR and ask them for your LD code so you can call her, I reply.

Eventually I work out why the caller was calling and she did call the correct office, and Pyle didn't completely screw up because I actually used to work in the Section the caller needs...3 years ago!!!

PYYYYYYYYY-LE!!!

Hey, buddy, can you spare a dime?

2011-04-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

I'm not terribly fond of beggars, for reasons which I've elaborated on in the past.

I pass a couple of homeless folks on my way to the bus stop each afternoon, and they're always there, every day, and have been for years. When the weather took a turn for the worse a couple of weeks ago they acquired a tent from somewhere (not that a cheap tent will do a lot to protect you from the elements) but for the most part they have their cardboard box bed layered with blankets, and a nearby shopping cart filled with their junk. From my perspective, over the past couple of years they've made no attempt to better their lot in life, other than the acquisition of a tent.

The L.A. Mission is not far away and there the Priests will provide the needy with a warm meal, clean clothes, and a shower, shave, & a haircut. So when you're wearing the same filthy clothes day in & day out and you haven't had a shave or a haircut for months if not years when real help is within walking distance, why should I help you?

My wife will say No to you and not even spare you a second thought. But me? I tend to over-analyze things.

This weekend we were down in San Diego when a guy approached us in the parking lot (for the U.S.S. Midway) asking for help. He was dressed just like the average tourist about to board the Midway. Clean, freshly shaven, polo shirt, bermuda shorts, & sandles. He even had a lanyard around his neck from which appeared to hang a tourist ID badge, although I didn't look terribly closely. And he wanted help. Then came the spiel of your typical, heart string-pulling beggar, laced with the personal touch they all give.

In this guy's case he'd discovered he'd left his wallet in his jean's pocket and now he needed $2.80 for the train to get back to his hotel & his wallet.

Sorry, I can't help you, I told him, while my wife just said, "No".

And off he walked, saying "sorry to have bothered you." And that bothered me. Him saying that. Because now I worried whether he was just a beggar, or if he genuinely needed our help and really did need $2.80 to get back to his hotel.

Except in addition to leaving his wallet in his other pants he'd apparently driven his car to the Midway, because in fleshing out his story he also mentioned locking his keys in his car, thus being unable to drive back to the hotel. Not that we asked. It was just additional information he volunteered.

Now if he drove in, what happened to the people he came in with? Did none of them have $2.80 to loan him? Or did he come by himself?

If he came by himself, how did he pay to park his car without his wallet? Shouldn't that have been the "OMG! I forgot my wallet!" moment?

If he really was a tourist, how did he know the train cost $2.80?

If he'd found out the cost of the fare at the train station, why wasn't he still there? Why did he come back to the Midway parking lot? Surely there were a lot more people at the train station who could have given him the change he needed.

As I said earlier, I tend to over-analyze things, but now that I have there appear to be numerous holes in his story, which all seem to indicate that as clean & well dressed as he was, he was still just a beggar. A beggar with a really good shtick, but a beggar nonetheless.

When he walked away while apologizing for bothering us, that made me feel like crap, because maybe he had genuinely needed my help. But now, having over-analyzed the situation, I don't. He deliberately picked the parking lot to the USS Midway because of the prevalence of people like us, a family of four, being adults more likely to respond positively in front of their children, especially to someone perceived as a fellow tourist.

He didn't look homeless, and he didn't act homeless. He succeeded in passing himself off as someone in genuine need of help, not someone living on the streets trying to bum a quarter. And if he can successfully do that then he's talented enough & smart enough to succeed in a more legitimate line of work. Instead, he chooses to hit up strangers for spare change, and he probably does quite well at it, too. He's not down on his luck. He's right where he wants to be because he's smart enough to recognize when he's on a good wicket. That's his job, tugging on heart strings and playing to people's emotions, and when he realized he was getting nothing from us he immediately cut his losses and walked away.

My wife said No, and went right on with living her life.

I said No, felt like a prick for doing so, then over-analyzed the situation. Eventually I arrived at the same place as my wife, I just needed to put in more work than her. But even now, there's still that niggling speck of doubt that says, "What if you're wrong, and he really did need help?"

Then I'll have to console myself with the thought that someone gave him $2.80 for the train, because he and his cause were believable. If he really was someone in genuine need of help then someone helped him that day, it just wasn't me.

Insert Title Here

2011-03-24T07:17:00.000-07:00

I quit WoW (again) almost a year ago but have since been playing the somewhat misleading Free-to-Play Lord of the Rings. While it is possible to play casually for free, if you want to gain access to some of the higher level areas (or just not be nerfed when you get there) you're almost compelled to shell out a few bucks. Which I already did by picking up two copies of the Collector's Edition of the expansion Mines of Moria (on Amazon for $10 each) which granted me & my son VIP-status (& all the associated perks) for one month, then downgraded us to Premium status when I didn't continue our 'subscription'. But the perks of being a Premium member are still slightly better than for Free Player. (The perks listed on the linked page are out-of-date. Premium players actually get a better deal than what's listed, for example, I can have 5 active characters per Server, not 3.)

When I first tried LOTRO (shortly after release) I was not overly impressed, but at the time WoW had just got its hooks into me so even though I liked the mythos of Lord of the Rings, I was not enamored with its translation to MMO. But times change, games improve, and with it now being a mostly F2P game vs. WoW's $15/month that's a hard price to beat for the quality you get. In fact there are several, quite decent F2P MMOs out there.

Like Blizzard, Turbine know how to keep you hooked, and the makers of LOTRO have greatly embraced the concept of Titles & Achievements. Start killing a few critters for a quest and suddenly you "discover" a deed, where if you kill 30 or 50 of these critters you earn an Achievement and a Title to go along with it (Wolf Slayer, Spider Foe, etc.) Continue killing those same critters and you may unlock achievements which in addition to the snazzy Title, can also result in permanent Buffs to your character.

Another Title you can 'earn' is achieved by making it to level 5 without dying, which is not a difficult task by any stretch of the imagination. In fact it's so easy to survive to level 5 that I would even argue that dying before then should be a Title-worthy achievement, especially given that your lvl 5 Title is "...the Wary." Seriously now? I followed a couple of characters through the Tutorial (which you can skip, by the way, and thus probably start playing the game proper at level 4), killed a few bandits, a couple of spiders or other critters, and bam! There I was at level 5, titled Cap'n John the Wary (well I would have been if my in-game name was Cap'n John.)

If you can make it to level 10 without dying you get the more awe-inspiring Title "...the Undefeated." which in my opinion is the wrong way around. Making it from level 5 to 10 without dying, unassisted (as in playing on your own, unaccompanied by a high level friend) is a more daunting task than hitting level 5. In fact I'd hedge my bets that the average player who makes it to level 10 without dying probably played a little more cautiously, and thus "...the Wary" or even "...the Cautious" is a far more appropriate title than "...the Undefeated." Sure, they didn't die, but you know they also didn't take a lot of unnecessary risks. Then there's the lvl 14 Title "...the Indomitable" which I actually rather like, a lot more so than the level 17 Title "...the Unscathed". I've been fighting critters for 17 levels now. No, I didn't die, but I'm not exactly unscathed, either. The final Title for not dying is awarded at level 20 and is, appropriately, "...the Undying". Now that's a Title worthy of making it to level 20. Although I still like "...the Indomitable" and will probably wear it until something better comes along.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." - Inigo Montoya

Things that piss me off

2011-03-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

aka Come to the Dark Side.

We all have a dark side (well, most of us) and it's our ability to not give into the dark side which separates us from the Serial Killers (I think). It's the part of us we repress when we encounter displays of sheer arrogance or stupidity which make us want to scream out loud and beat someone to death, preferably with their own bloody arm which we've just torn off at the shoulder.

Like the woman at the check-out ahead of you, who stands there, purse on her shoulder, watching as the clerk rings up all her items, one by one. And it's only when she's finally told the total that she takes her purse off her shoulder and start digging around in it for her wallet. Wait. No. She's taking out...her checkbook?! You're freaking kidding me!!! AAarrghh! Have fun writing out your check...with NO ARM!!!! BITCH!!!

* EDIT - Just to clarify, in case it's not abundantly clear, it's not that she's paying by check which pisses me off. She could be using a credit card, cash, etc. What pisses me off is that she waits to hear the total before she even starts to rummage through her purse looking for her checkbook/wallet.

Then there's the old people who come up to a pedestrian crossing just as it changes from Walk to Don't Walk, and what do they do? Do they walk up to the curb then patiently wait a minute or so for the light to cycle so they can cross? Hell NO!. They run (okay, they're old; it's running to them) those last few metres to the curb, hop down into the road, and then? They resume walking at their doddering old pace across the road, in front of all those cars which are now facing a green light but can't go because there's a fricken' old person crossing in front of them!

I had an old woman do this just last week. I could see the lights from where I was sitting in my car and just as this old woman stepped down into the street the Don't Walk light stopped blinking and went a solid red DON'T WALK. And the traffic light changed to yellow. And what did she do? Did she take two steps back up onto the curb behind her? Yeah right! With 6 lanes of traffic ahead of her she started running. Just as the left-turn lane got their green turn arrow and the first car hit the gas she darted out in front of him, and he slammed on the brakes so hard they locked up and this old woman freaked out at the sudden screeching of tires right beside her, which fortunately caused her to run even faster. And we laughed and yelled (to ourselves) Run! Run, you old bitch! Run! Fall! Break a hip or two! RUN! RUUUUUUNNN!!!

I see teenagers do this sometimes, too, except the arrogant shits don't run, they slowly saunter across in an arrogant "I've got aaaaall day to cross this road." kind of way, and they walk so slowly that even though they started to cross when the light first changed, it changes again on them when they're only halfway through. Do they hurry up when they see the light changing? HELL NO!!! They know nobody is going to willingly hit them, and they continue to stroll across at a snail's pace, but now they're wearing this arrogant, shit-eating grin that makes you clench your steering wheel in a white knuckle death grip and grit your teeth because the Dark Side desperately wants to wipe that grin off their face with your front bumper! Please let us do it! Pleeease!!!

But we don't. We don't tear people's arms off and beat them to death with the wet end (and it has nothing to do with how physically hard that would be to do), and we don't run down old ladies or teenagers crossing against the light, no matter how much they deserve it.

But we do give into the Dark Side and kick the car which didn't stop for us even though we were already in the crosswalk.

We also punch the rear window of the van whose driver waved at us as he almost ran us down in the crosswalk. As if a wave made it okay to risk committing vehicular manslaughter.

And we also stared down the guy in Cheesecake Factory who not only didn't step aside for the wife despite being asked twice, he then got up in her face when she said he was rude. That's when we let the Dark Side come out (but only a little bit) and we stepped up and stared him down. And as he stared back and his eyes twitched from one side of our face to the other, betraying his nervousness, the Dark Side smiled (on the inside, where it couldn't be seen), until finally his teenage son grabbed his arm and dragged him away from an arse-beating. Okay, because the arse-beating never actually happened, to be honest we're not sure whose arse would have ended up being beaten and/or arrested. Which is why we should avoid yielding to the dark side, even if they have cookies.

So, what really pisses you off? What makes you want to give into the Dark Side, tear someone's head off, and shit down their neck?

Coffee House loitering

2011-03-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

What's the protocol for loitering at your local coffee house?

Is it acceptable to set up shop as soon as the doors open, snaring a table next to a valuable power outlet, then sit there all day, typing away on your laptop? Or are you just being a jerk?

"But I'm a customer! See my cup? So what if it was a $1.50 cup of coffee and I've been getting free refills every hour since then. HELLO?! CUSTOMER?! We're always right, remember?"

What if you buy a sandwich at lunchtime, and a pastry or three throughout the day when your blood sugar drops? Is that okay, then?

So the wife & I stopped by one of our local Starbucks last week. There's a couple in the neighborhood but this particular one is close to home, and it's on a fairly major road which gets very little foot traffic so for some reason I don't think of it as being very busy, yet it is. It's also kind of small, as far as Starbucks go, with about half a dozen tables w/ chairs, so it doesn't need to be busy to look busy. When we walked in and looked around for a table we quickly realized we'd be getting our coffees 'to go'. Every table was occupied and almost all of them had a laptop sitting on them. Even the obligatory table w/ two armchairs had a laptop on it.

It reminded me an Improv Everywhere stunt at a New York Starbucks where they had several agents each bring in and set up a desktop PC. The thing about IE's stunt which I found most intriguing was despite Starbucks never having provided PCs for their customers (at least not to my knowledge) some customers assumed the PCs were there for their use.

We naturally assume an unattended laptop is someone's private machine, but an unattended desktop PC? That's fair game, right?

Push that button!

2011-03-09T15:42:00.000-08:00

People who continually push crosswalk buttons amuse me. Why do they do it? Is it a form of OCD? They stand there repeatedly pushing the button as if it will make the light change sooner. But that's not going to happen, is it?

I walked up to this one crosswalk, hit the button once, and about 10 seconds later a woman walked up and hit it several times. Then she stood there for a few seconds, and when the light didn't immediately change she began pressing that button as if her life depended on it, until finally it changed. I don't know how many times she pressed it though; I lost count.

Hello?! It doesn't change any sooner because you're impatient, and it doesn't keep count. There's no Imp inside saying to himself, "Jeepers! Dat's 28 of 'em! I better change da light!" They don't work that way.

Or do they?

The Perfect MMO?

2011-03-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

I wonder how much fun an MMO would be where you skipped the time-consuming-and-apparently-boring-but-necessary-to-recoup-our-development-costs level grind, and went straight to the "end game" with its gear-grind?

With no zones, no exploring, and no leveling up to do, players would not have the opportunity to gradually learn how to play their class, so the classes would be limited to the bare minimum required, being three, with each of the three classes reduced to their simplest form. Players would also be able to switch classes at will , and to facilitate this and preserve valuable bag space the character's "paper doll" would be able to hold up to three different outfits, one for each of the three classes, being:

DeePeeNes: Named in accordance with current MMO class stereotypes, DeePeeNes have 3 Damaging abilities or attacks.

Take this! - An Instant Cast attack with a 1-second CD (Global CD) which severely damages a single target.
And this! - An instant Cast, high-damage attack with no CD, but which can only be cast on the recipient of a Take this! Critical Hit.
And that! - An Instant Cast moderate damage attack with the 1-second GCD which affects all opponents within 10' of the Target.

For simplicity's sake the effective range on all DeePeeNes attacks is 0' to 65-yards, allowing players to play melee or ranged DeePeeNess based on personal preference.

The Tank: Like DeePeeNes, The Tank also has 3 attacks or Aggro-generating abilities, also with o' to 65-yard range.

Hit Me! - An Instant cast attack with the 1-second Global CD. This ability targets one Mob and greatly encourages it to hit the Tank;
Everyone! Hit me! - An Instant cast attack with 5-second CD which encourages all Mobs to hit the Tank. Does not encourage Mobs to hit the Tank quite as much as Hit Me!, and;
HIT ME! NOW! - An Instant cast ability with a 25-second CD which forces one target to attack the Tank for 10 seconds. Works even better than Hit Me! but only works on Mobs not currently attacking the Tank.

The Healer: In keeping with the perception that Healers are a hard class to play, Healers get a couple more abilities than DeePeeNes and The Tank.

Little Heal - Does what it says. Heals the target for a small amount but makes up for it by being instant cast with the 1-second Global CD.
Big Heal - Heals the target for a larger amount than Little Heal but has a 1.5-second cast with a 5-second CD.
Lotta Heals - Heals everyone in the Healer's party within a 30-yard radius of the Healer for H/X, where H is the Maximum Heal (modified by +Healing gear) and X is the number of characters being healed. Has a 10-second CD but also has a small chance to apply an additional 5-second HOT.
HOT - Single-target, instant cast heal with a 10-second CD which applies a 5-second HOT (modified by +Healing gear).
GET OVAH HEAH!!! - Immediately teleports the targeted character to a spot 6-feet in front of the Healer. No Saving Throws, no Resists, no chance of failure. In combat or out, it doesn't matter. It works all the time, every time. Can be used to save the Healer by dragging The Tank to their location, or to save stupid DeePeeNes by yanking them out of the fire. Through strategic use of terrain can also be used with hilarious effect to drag & drop annoying players off cliffs, into lava, etc. Works especially well on characters with giant mounts standing on top of important NPCs.

With no levels there are no zones to explore, only the starting City where you'll spend your downtime & gold, and the game's Dungeons where you'll fight Mobs and find new, better gear. In keeping it simple you don't get to choose the Dungeon, instead the Dungeon Runner tool will automatically assign you to a group and a dungeon based on your character's gear or iLevel. Characters can also form parties of their own and enter Dungeons via the DR tool, but the Dungeon will still be chosen at random based on the lowest iLevel character.

As you conquer each Dungeons' denizens and find & equip better gear, you'll gain access to new Dungeons, with tougher foes and even greater rewards. Play long enough, conquer enough Dungeons, and you just might acquire enough gear to gain access to the Most Uber Dungeon of them all.

New cartoons

2011-02-26T11:36:00.001-08:00

Daddy! We wanna watch the new cartoons!

Ok, what channel are they on?

Boomerang, daddy!

Boomerang, huh? Okay, here we go.

Yay!

Is that...Top Cat???

Yeah! Ooh, the Jetsons are next!

New cartoons? These cartoons are older than me.

*giggling*

The Jetsons come on and I start preemptively singing the theme song.

Daddy! How do you know this?!

I told you. These cartoons are older than me.

You're funny, daddy!

Incredible!

2011-02-23T07:29:00.000-08:00

By which I mean, incredibly incompetent.

Today my office is having their March of Dimes fund raising bake sale.

After being off both Monday and Tuesday I got into work this morning, logged into my email, and the first email that catches my eye has the subject "Quarters and other coins".

No, it's not spam. It's from one of the girls organizing today's Bake Sale. It was sent at 4pm yesterday afternoon and it says: "Can I give you some dollars bills for coins? I did not have time to get change today - need it for tomorrow's bake sale."

What am I, a bank?

I've mentioned before that as I manage the office coffee fund my coworkers are often hitting me up for change, and in some cases it's not a simple request like "Can you break a twenty?" (which usually I can) but a more demanding "I need two tens." and usually it's the same woman who makes requests like this.

"I need a ten, a five, and five ones."

That's not a question because she doesn't ask if I can make change. She just hands out a twenty and demands change, in specific quantities of specific denominations.

How about twenty ones?

My response is met with the incredulous look that her own demand should have received.

"Can I give you some dollars bills for coins? I did not have time to get change today - need it for tomorrow's bake sale."

I give my response more effort than it deserved but long answer short, No, you can't. I have no change.

Now we get to the fun part, which is actually short for inFUriatiNg,

With my daughter's Girl Scout cookie orders arriving this weekend I actually came into work on Monday (even though we were closed for the President's Day holiday.) because my ~~greedy~~ generous coworkers bought 45 boxes of cookies from me, and I'd be damned if was bringing that many boxes of cookies with me on the bus.

Now while most of my coworkers paid in advance for their cookies, nine coworkers did not. Knowing most of them would probably not pay $4 or $8 but would have $5 or $20 bills and so expect change, I came into work this morning with a wallet full of one and five-dollar bills so I could make change. Because I'm a former Boy Scout so I'm Prepared.

So you can imagine how irked I was to see the email from my coworker requesting I make change for her because she didn't have time to get to the bank herself. Hell-fucking-O??? Isn't there a bank right across the road from our office? Why yes, I believe there is. And yes, I know Monday was a President's Day and thus a Bank Holiday, but hell-fucking-O??? Have you not heard of delegation? If you, personally, are so busy that you can't take 10 minutes to walk across the road to the bank to get change...send someone else! Geez, Louise! Good golly, Miss Molly! Etc.

So here I am, at my desk this morning, and one of the girls comes up to me and asks for change. She has a twenty and she wants change. No, not for her cookie order. She wants change for the Bake Sale. I pull out the coffee fund tin but I already know there's no change in there (I looked earlier) so she asks if I can make change. As in me, personally.

Actually yes, I can, I reply, but I need this change for my cookie orders ("Because I'm fucking Prepared! I scream. Silently. In my mind.)

We go back & forth and I'm very reluctant to hand over all my change (all $20 of it) but in the end this woman out passive-aggressives me and I reluctantly hand over my change. Reluctantly, because I already know what's going to happen. The first couple of customers at the Bake Sale are going to pay with $20 bills, because today is payday, and there's an ATM in the building's lobby. So those first two customers will pay with $20 bills straight out of the ATM and take all of the Bake Sale's change (by which I mean my change) and the next 20 customers in line behind them? If you think they've come straight from the ATM and all have $20 bills too, then you'd be right.

And naturally, as I type this, I just had the second person come by asking if I had change for the Bake Sale.

No! I fucking don't! You already took all my change! Get the fuck out of here!

By which I mean I politely replied, No, I don't have any more change. Now fuck off. Oops. Did I say that out loud? Of course I didn't, because I'm a professional, at least I am at work. This Blog doesn't count.

Toyota cleared by NASA scientists...

2011-02-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

"Armchair Physicists" know better; still blame Toyota.

20 years ago I was a young, inexperienced driver and I was backing out of my parents' driveway one evening with my sister riding shotgun, and rather than using the mirror to see, I was looking back over my shoulder. In doing so my head was turned away from our neighbor's house and so I didn't see that he had parked his car at a slight angle across our shared driveway. We lived in a rounded cul de sac and the bottom of our driveways at the curb were positioned at a slight angle to the actual driveway...hard to describe, so here's a crappy, ascii-art picture:P
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\x\ \
Our drive is on the right, our neighbor's was on the left, and his car was parked at the bottom of his driveway (x), which meant his car sort of blocked our driveway, or at least it prevented me from being able to back straight out into the road.

As I was backing up and looking back over my right shoulder (Australian, remember? Steering wheels & drivers are on the left.) my head was turned away from the neighbor's drive, and so I didn't see his car was blocking my exit.

But my sister did.

She yelled at me to STOP! and in such an urgent voice that I panicked and jammed the pedal to the floor. Except I floored the gas pedal, not the brake. As the engine rev'd and the car leaped backward I immediately realized what I'd done, and despite being a new driver I reacted with the typical lightning-fast reflexes of a teenaged video gamer, switching pedals I jammed the brake pedal to the floor. The wheels actually locked up and left skidmarks in our driveway, but we stopped in time.

This was not in a Toyota. This was in a Ford, but that's irrelevant because it was ALL driver error. All mine. That's the difference between me and all those other Toyota drivers who fell "victim" to "stuck" accelerator pedals. I'm willing to admit that I was at fault.

Floor mats getting bunched up and stuck under pedals? That's driver error, too. Why do I say that? Because part of driving is being aware of your surroundings, including noting the condition of your car. If your floor mat is loose, sliding up, and bunching up under your gas or brake pedals, whose fault is that? The car's? The manufacturer's? Riiiiight. It's your fault! It's your car, you're responsible for maintaining it, and keeping it in a safe, drivable condition.

Unfortunately for Toyota the damage was done and their reputation took a dive, which is what makes me wonder if this was not so much a case of our sue-happy nation jumping on the anti-Toyota class-action lawsuit bandwagon, or something a little more sinister. Corporate espionage, perhaps? Who knows. From here on out, it's all speculation, regardless of what NASA has to say.

*Apparently there were a few cases where accelerator pedals actually did get stuck leading to uncontrollable acceleration, but those were few & far between.

Mongolian BBQ & Tips

2011-01-19T14:01:00.000-08:00

Over on Tesh's Blog a culinary discovery led to him making a comparison between Mongolian BBQ and MMOs, which I promptly rerailed into a rant on Tipping.

If you're not aware, Mongolian BBQ is where you start out by grabbing a bowl (that's you, personally, who grabs the bowl) and filling it (usually to overflowing) with your choice of ingredients. You pay the cashier who takes the bowl and hands it off to the cook (sometimes they're the same person) who empties the bowl onto a large (very large) hotplate, stirs the mixture with over-sized chopsticks until the food is hot and any meat ingredients are cooked, before scraping it off into a second bowl which he hands over to you.

At some point I guess you're supposed to drop a dollar into the Tips jar, conspicuously placed on the counter next to where you're standing waiting for your food.

But why?

What service have you been provided that warrants a Tip?

Not only have the cashier and cook done nothing more than some other fast food places, they've actually done less.

You yourself "took" your own order by gathering together the desired ingredients. And while the staff had to put the food items out for you to be able to do that, but they did no more than the servers at Quiznos or Baja Fresh, who keep the salsa & condiment bar stocked with fixings.

All the cashier did was ring up your transaction, just like the cashiers at every other Fast Food establishment.

All the cook did was cook/heat up your food, and while he did so right there in front of you, he did nothing more than the guy at The Steak Escape who cooks your cheesesteak sandwich right in front of you.

Do you leave a Tip at Quiznos, Baja Fresh, or The Steak Escape? I don't. Why should I?

Now don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't believe in Tipping, because I do IF the service warrants it.

The waitress at Leroys? She takes my order, brings me coffee, refills my cup, brings me more creamer if I run out, and checks if I need anything, homemade salsa or marmalade, napkins, etc. She takes care of me. She works for, earns, and deserves her tip.

But the guys at Mongolian BBQ? What did they do to earn a Tip? What did they do above and beyond every other Fast Food place that makes them so special that they deserve a Tip? Merely working in the service industry does not warrant being Tipped. Just because you made my lunch does not warrant being Tipped. In my opinion if you want a Tip, you have to earn it.

Now maybe I'm wrong here, but if so, explain how.

Explain to me why I should leave a Tip at Mongolian BBQ, but not at Quiznos, The Steak Escape, and Baja Fresh?

What about McDonalds? Shouldn't I Tip them? Because let's be honest here, the staff at McDonalds do more to enhance my dining experience than the staff at my local Mongolian BBQ.
McDonalds provide me with a clean restroom, Mongolian BBQ doesn't.
McDonalds prepare my food for me. I have to do that myself at Mongolian BBQ.
McDonalds provide me with tables & chairs, which they keep clean; Mongolian BBQ don't.
McDonalds provide my kids with a place to play so I can relax and begin slipping into a food coma. Mongolian BBQ don't do that.

What does Mongolian BBQ do that their staff deserve to be Tipped?

Registered Sex Offender list

2011-01-15T15:22:00.001-08:00

I saw a news article last night on some people getting upset about discovering a Registered Sex Offender was living in their neighborhood, and it made me stop and think as to whether or not the Registered Sex Offender List constitutes cruel & unusual punishment by facilitating discrimination against those offenders who have done their time and are now, to all intents and purposes, just trying to get on with their life.

"But wouldn't you like to know if there's a Registered Sex Offender living in your neighborhood?"

To be honest, as a father of two young children, yes, I would. But if we put emotion aside, why do I need to? Wouldn't you like to know if there's a convicted Murderer living in your neighborhood? Why do we only have a Registered Sex Offender List? Why not a Murderer List? Or a Mugger List?

Is it because unlike convicted Murderers, Sex Offenders cannot be rehabilitated and will always pose a permanent threat to society? That then leads to the question of why release them at all?

The only positive purpose I can see that The List serves is it gives the police a place to start looking in the event that a Sex Crime is committed within that neighborhood. Note that this means it doesn't prevent those crimes from happening, it only facilitates them being solved.

So that's a good reason for the police to have access to The List, but why do we, the public, need access to it? If the Registered Sex Offenders have been rehabilitated by their time in prison and no longer pose a threat to us, why do we need to know where they live?

And if they still do pose a threat to society, why have they been released?

Finally, if they cannot be rehabilitated and do pose a permanent threat to society, why should we waste valuable resources locking them up for Life? Why not remove them from the Game of Life altogether?

It's an interesting jump to go from not liking how The List facilitates discrimination against Registered Sex Offenders and may constitute Cruel & Unusual Punishment, to advocating use of the Death Penalty.

Immersion in Single-Player games

2011-01-05T08:36:00.001-08:00

Although your character may play an integral part in the game world, and while the game itself may revolve around your character, the game world cannot, and for the purpose of immersion, should not.

MBP has been playing Mafia II lately, and is a little disappointed that unlike in the first Mafia game he cannot hail a cab or catch the train.

I remember being able to catch trains in both the very first GTA and GTA3, and unlike in some games featuring public transportation the GTA trains were not always waiting for you at the station. Sometimes it was you who had to wait for the next train, but this only helped to add immersion. It made the city seem more alive if things were happening when you weren't there. Clearly the trains weren't just sitting around all day waiting for you; they actually had a schedule to keep. And that's how a game world should be. NPCs need to have lives of their own. Even if it's little more than driving or walking to the store, talking to the NPC store owner, then going back home. It's little things like that which make the world feel alive, rather than random people, standing around in random spots, doing nothing.

How often do you see people in the real world standing on a street corner all day staring off into space? Except for homeless people, hookers, and the occasional alien invasion, probably never.

One immersion-breaking part of Mafia II was being unable to enter all but the most game-crucial buildings, such as Gun Stores and Diners. Fortunately this meant I was able to take refuge from the police (just a big misunderstanding, really) by hiding in a Gun Store. Unfortunately a roving officer found me, and he too entered the store. Unfortunately, for him that is, he came in with his gun drawn, and the Gun Store Owner responded to this apparent threat by shooting him. Amusing. Unrealistic and immersion-breaking, but amusing in a random kind of way.

Also unrealistic but not quite so amusing was the very strong bias of the Police to ignore any crimes (misdemeanors, etc.) where you were not the perpetrator. If you struck a pedestrian with your car the police would chase you relentlessly, but if you were the pedestrian victim of a Hit & Run, even if it occurred right in front of the police (yes, I deliberately set one up as a test), they would turn a blind eye and go on their merry way. Unrealistic, immersion-breaking, and not quite so amusing.

Single Player games which try to immerse you within their game world, such as the GTA and Mafia series, need to ensure that world feels as real as possible, but when your character is the only person in the world whose actions seem to matter, the only thing that does for immersion is break it.

18:25

2011-01-01T19:32:00.000-08:00

Tonight I ran the 2 miles in 18m25s. I finished my first 400m lap in 2:12, while the second & subsequent laps were ran at a slightly slower (& saner) pace of ~2:20 each. Amazingly I ran my final lap faster (just) than I ran the first, in 2:08. Yes, after running almost 2 miles at 6mph I actually had enough left in me to finish strong. Tomorrow? I am wisely choosing to rest & recover.

Despite having preexisting injuries of a dislocated ankle, two torn ACLs, and one slightly torn hamstring (injuries which never heal 100% & leave life-long impressions) I'm actually not that sore.

Bring on that 10K Mud Run!

(But not too soon ;)

1 mile in 11 minutes, 2 in 20

2010-12-31T22:33:00.000-08:00

This time last year I weighed approx. 210 lbs with 25% body fat. Now I weigh 180 lbs (my High School weight), with approx. 20% body fat (which is definitely not my High School BF% ;)

When I found out my son was running a mile on Fridays in Gym at school, and was finishing it in around 14 minutes, I was not happy with him. That's 4 miles per hour and I practically walk that fast, so there's no way my 10-year old son was running a 14-minute mile unless he was walking most of it, too.

My local park has a walking track around it, and using Google Maps I measured it to be approx. 1/3 mile around, so I headed out and ran three laps, finishing in approx. 9 minutes. The next night I went out with the boy and together we ran the mile in a little over 10 minutes.

"I never knew I could run that fast!" he exclaimed, excitedly.

That Friday while running his mile he slipped over rounding the baseball diamond and skinned his knee on the gravel. Apparently he finished his mile in 10:30 with blood running down his leg. I was pretty proud of him when I heard this, although he was mad at himself because recovering from the spill slowed him down so he didn't break 10 minutes (his goal). Hearing that made me even more proud of him :)

Over this Christmas break the boy has been taking it easy but when I discovered the track at my local High School is open to the public after 6pm I took him out to run an accurate mile. Not having had much exercise in 2 weeks other than a class or two of Tae Kwon Do I practically had to drag him across the line. Time? A shade under 11 minutes.

Knowing I could run it faster, and having jumped at the chance to take part in a 10K Mud Run with 4 coworkers this June, with the boy spending this New Year's Eve with his grandparents I headed out to see what I could do without a 10-year old anchor holding me back.

Bravely (or foolishly, depending on your point of view) I decided to see if I had it in me to run TWO miles.

I did.

Mile 1 = 2:15 + 2:26 + 2:28 + 2:29 = 9:38

Discounting that first faster lap I was surprised to see how consistently I ran the 2nd, 3rd & 4th laps. But then Mile 2 happened.

Mile 2 = 2:29 + 2:29 + 2:29 = WOW!

And yes, I know I'm missing a 4th (or 8th) Lap there. Unfortunately I was using my cell phone's Stopwatch App to time myself, and I hit "Stop" when I finished rather than "Lap", which resulted in my final Lap time not being recorded. And when I hit Stop all I saw was that the first couple of digits was a 1 and a 9, i.e., 19 minutes-something, and as I was pretty happy to run two miles in less than 20 minutes (my goal) I never looked at the seconds.

I am pretty sure I ran that final lap a little faster than 2:29 though. I definitely stepped up my pace during the last 100 meters. Not quite to a full sprint but definitely faster than the 6mph jog I'd been maintaining for the past 20 minutes. I might have done that final lap in 2:25 ;)

All up I was pretty happy with myself. But if I'm going to do a 10K Mud Run in 6 months time I need to be able to run more than 2 miles. I need to be able to run 7 miles in less than 2 hours, but that's 7 miles of running through mud, climbing over walls, crossing streams, & crawling through tunnels. In other words, I need to step my shit up, fo'shizzle!

Or something like that :P

More Plumbing woes

2010-12-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

The hot water tap in the master bathroom would sometimes not turn off completely, like it did (or...didn't do???) Tuesday morning.

After trying for 5 minutes to get it to stop running I attempted to turn the water off beneath the sink. I say "attempted" because not only did that not work but turning the tap beneath beneath the sink resulted in it starting to drip. I turned it back and I thought this new leak stopped dripping, although the water from the top faucet continued to run(dribble, really) so still not having had breakfast and now looking like being late for work I closed the bathroom door (so the running water wouldn't disturb Liz) and finished getting ready.

Midway through the morning I got a call from Liz. A rather frantic call. Apparently there was water coming out from beneath the master bathroom sink. It would appear that the leak from beneath the sink had not stopped when I'd turned the tap back on. Oops. I could tell she had me on Speaker and figured she was heading outside to turn the water off at the Main and sure enough, after giving her instructions on what to do, I heard the explosion of water gushing from the tap immediately above the Main, followed by Liz freaking out that there was all this water!

"Quite normal," I reassured her, "that's just the water draining from the pipes in the house. It will stop shortly," and it did. "I'll be home within an hour," I added, and I was.

And that's when I discovered that the shorter two hoses I still had - left over from my previous plumbing repair jobs - had a 3/4" fitting on one end and a 7/16" fitting on the other,. And the one remaining faucet I had in my work cupboard? It had a 7/16" fitting, too! I actually had the parts I needed to fix the leak without going to Home Depot! Amazing!

*Note* I needed two faucets to finish the Sink installation, and that hose with the 7/16" fitting was too short for that job anyway, but for an under-the-bathroom-sink repair it was just right.

After a generous bead of Plumber's Putty was applied to the flange on the copper pipe, and strips of Teflon tape had been wrapped around every thread, I had everything back together and it was time to test my handiwork. After opening the bedroom window so Liz and I could communicate without yelling (too loudly) I crawled under the sink and sent Liz outside to turn on the water Main.

I heard the water entering the pipes a second before Liz called out that she'd turned it on. No leak. Excellent. But, just to be on the safe side, I decided to stay under the sink for a few minutes. And it's a good thing I did. After a minute or two I caught the movement of a drop of water falling down.

"Where did you come from?" I asked the now, non-existent drip.

A minute or two later I identified its source, but Being Prepared (like a good Boy Scout), and suspecting that this particular joint was the weaker joint (Goodbye!) I also had the correct sized spanner handy and I tightened the nut a tad. Then I waited.

Drip.

Tighten.

Wait.

Wait.

Drip.

Tighten.

Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Waaaaaait.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait.

You know, I can probably come out now.

But just to be on the safe side I slipped a plastic container under the hoses, which checked an hour or so later. But there was no water in the tub, not even a splash mark or two.

Excellent.

When I was growing up my Dad used to do all sorts of repairs around the house like this, and regardless of what I was doing at the time Dad always made sure I was there helping him, whether I wanted to or not.

Thank you, Dad.

Plumbing over Thanksgiving

2010-11-30T08:46:00.000-08:00

After moving into the new house the wife missed the pull-out faucet I'd installed for her in the old kitchen, so Thanksgiving morning found me underneath the kitchen sink, can of WD-40 in one hand, spanner in the other, trying to remove an old, rusted out faucet so I could install the shiny new one we'd bought at Lowe's earlier that week. Eventually it came free (as all things must in the face of WD-40, for it is truly the Irresistible Force), showering me with rusty debris in the process.

After carefully following the instructions (and too bad if that means I'm meant to hand in my Man Card, because this is one guy who (sometimes) reads instructions and stops to ask for directions) I had the new faucet installed and just needed to hook up the water pipes.

Except the existing water pipes are these horrible, semi-flexible metal hoses that Contractors apparently love (probably because they're the cheapest on the market) and which appear designed to be attached to one faucet, and one faucet only. Meaning when you bend these semi-flexible metal hoses to one side in order to remove said faucet, then bend them back to hook them up to the new faucet, they protest by cracking, and leaking, and spraying water all over the place.

Unfortunately you cannot just replace the hose, you need to replace the faucets beneath the sink as well because they're all part of the same unit.

Fortunately I had several hoses with me from similar plumbing jobs at the old house (I replaced pretty much all the faucets in not just the kitchen, but the 3 bathrooms and 1/4 bathroom, to boot).

Unfortunately, I had just one replacement faucet and the top attachment was the wrong size (7/16" and I needed 3/4").

Fortunately Home Depot is just a few minutes away.

Unfortunately it's the morning of Thanksgiving...so they're closed. All day. Until 5am the next morning when they open for Black Friday.

Liz tells me she told me they were closed. I claim I didn't hear her or I wouldn't have started the job because I knew I would have to make a trip to Home Depot. We now have a new pull-out faucet in the kitchen sink but it has no water. I turn the water back on to the house and discover the faucet beneath the sink is leaking....slo-o-o-o-wly. Drip. By. Drip. I throw the bucket underneath it. The bucket I've got on hand just for catching leaks like this one. Because I'm a former Boy Scout and I'm Prepared. (Except when it comes to Home Depot being closed on Thanksgiving Day. I mean really, what are the odds?)

Then Liz begins preparing the Thanksgiving meal which we'll (fortunately) be eating at her parents' house.

This leaves me with some spare time. Time I use productively. Meaning I dig out Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles ;) And yes, it does look as good as I remember, if not even better.

After dinner with the in-laws, during which Liz gives the MIL detailed instructions on what to do at our house (feed the cat) and what she cannot do (use/flush the toilet) while we're in Vegas for the weekend, we head back home where dishes are piling up in the sink. Mostly pots & pans.

We get up early'ish the next morning for breakfast at Leroy's where I regretted experimentally ordering the Cottage Fries instead of my usual Tater Tots, then returned home for a pitstop where the water was briefly turned on, then back off again, then off we went to Vegas.

VEGAS
The MacShack. For a fast food pasta place, it actually wasn't too bad.
The Luxor. Decor is very interesting, but the angled elevators are something else.
Peter Lik photography. You have to see it to really appreciate it, and it needs to be displayed properly. The MacShack had a few of his pieces on their wall but those on display in his studio at the Mandalay Bay were simply amazing.
Excalibur buffet. Nothing to write home about. Only plus was the All-Day All-You-Can-Eat pass.
The Hoover Dam. Very impressive, especially considering when it was built and the resources available at the time. It's the Pyramids of the 20th Century.
The Hoover Dam Bypass. Even more impressive (IMO) is this 2000-foot long bridge, 900-feet above the river, supported by a handful of columns and a 1,000-foot wide arch. Like Peter Lik's photography, much more impressive in person.
Not leaving Las Vegas until lunchtime on Sunday on Thanksgiving weekend? Not one of our best ideas.

Monday morning was my RDO so after taking the kids to school I came home, turned the water back off (again), unscrewed the beneath-the-sink faucet from beneath the sink, then headed off to Home Depot. I found a clerk and together we found the faucets I needed then it was back home to finish the job I'd started several days ago. The hoses I had hooked up to the sink faucet were just fine, and when I turned the water back on they showed no sign of leaking, nor did the cold water "beneath-the-sink" faucet. But the hot water "beneath-the-sink" faucet was leaking, and not slowly this time, either.

Back under the sink I went (and fortunately this one gave me plenty of room to work, once I was under there) where I discovered tightening the faucet's nut not only didn't stop the leak but exasperated the problem.

Crap.

Slide out from under the sink, rush outside, turn off the water to the house, then back in under the sink again (after mopping up the water), where I managed to jab myself in the forehead with the bottom of one of the bolts holding the sink faucet to the counter. I stared up at this 4" long, brass rod protruding downward from beneath the sink, and I wondered how it was that I hadn't stabbed myself in the head with it before this. Then I thought of how lucky I was that the bolt wasn't longer, or it might have been my eye that got poked and not my forehead. Chalk up another close call to the Cap'n retaining his 20-20 vision and not having to wear an eye patch. Ya-har!

Aside: About 20 years ago I worked in a factory that made Flue Kits (for stoves & heaters) and one morning I was cleaning up the shop floor of trash & debris. This included the 1/2" metal packing straps used to secure the pallets of sheet metal during transit. The end of one strap had jammed itself under a pallet and rather than lift up the pallet I simply pulled on the strap until it came free, at which point it tried to return to its original, rectangular shape (as a result of being tightly wrapped around pallets of sheet metal). This meant the loose end flew up and tried to rejoin the end being held in my hand but it found my forehead instead, which is how I suddenly found myself with a cut about 1/2" above my eyebrow, or to put it another way, 3/4" above my eye. No, I was not wearing safety glasses, and no, the seriousness of the moment was not lost upon me, either.

Meanwhile. Back under the sink. After rubbing my forehead for several seconds I took off the hot water "beneath-the-sink" faucet, wrapped some Teflon tape around the thread, rolled a bead of Plumber's Putty around the pipe (why I didn't do this the first time I don't know, especially as I'd done it for the cold water faucet), put everything back together again, slid back out, turned the water back on, stuck my head back under the sink and...no leak! Excellent!

I lifted up the lever to turn on the kitchen faucet and...no water.

Well, that's odd.

I turned the lever left, I turned it right. I lifted it to the top, I pulled out the head so its extension hose came out. I pushed the button on the end of the faucet to switch between spray & stream. No water.

I pushed the faucet's lever back down then turned to the instructions (and no, I'm still not turning in my Man Card). Please don't tell me I did all that, missed a step, and now I have to disassemble everything because there's a plastic grommet in there somewhere that I didn't remove. Nope. Nothing remotely like that in the instructions. So what could be wrong?

I stuck my head back under the sink and looked at the new 1/4-turn "beneath-the-sink" hot & cold faucets that I'd just bought at Home Depot, then I reached in and gave the cold faucet a quarter turn. The hose attached to the cold water faucet gave a slight shake, as if it had been empty but was now filled with water-under-pressure. I reached over and gave the hot water faucet a quarter turn, and the hose attached to the hot water faucet also gave a slight shake, as if it too was now filled with water-under-pressure.

Emerging from beneath the sink I stood up, stared at the sink faucet's lever for several seconds, then slowly, cautiously, lifted it up. Water began flowing. From the end of the nozzle. Like it should. I am so much happier when my achievements can measure up to my ego. The wife is happier, too, especially as she once again has a pull-out faucet in her kitchen sink.

At least she was happy, until she discovered our washing machine wasn't pumping water at the start of the cycle.

I was curious if it had been because I'd repetitively turned the house's water on & off that morning, and yet I'd done plumbing repairs prior to this which hadn't affected the washer. A quick Google revealed that Microsoft apparently make Washing Machines now, so unplugging them for a while (rebooting them, one might say) can sometimes cause the machine's computer to "reset", thus fixing some problems.

After unplugging the machine I stared at it and thought, "Isn't it a little lopsided?" My spirit level showed that it was. It had a decided lean to the left. I got down on my hands & knees and looked under the front of the machine. Although both front legs were resting on the floor, the left leg was almost level with the base of the machine, whereas the right leg was screwed almost all the way out. That would explain the lean to the left (and it was nothing to do with it being a Californian washing machine).

I lifted the front of the machine up (so I could get to the left leg to unscrew it) and was surprised when its weight shifted ever so slightly. I sat the machine back down and looked at the spirit level still sitting on top of the machine. The bubble was now in the middle. The left lean was gone. How odd. I looked back under the machine and saw the left leg was now sitting an inch or so off the floor. And then I remembered reading how many newer model washing machines (although at 8 years old it's not like our machine is new) have self-leveling back legs which are "activated" by lifting the machine. I screwed the front left leg out until it met the floor, plugged the power cord back in, turned the Cycle-select knob to the start of the cycle, and heard running water. Lifting the lid I saw water was now flowing into the tub like it should be. Cool. I'd "fixed" the washing machine without even trying. Although I wasn't sure if the wife was too happy to have it working again. She'd already been online looking at new machines, and had even picked out a front-loading job for just $400.

I'm not claiming to be the next Bob Vila, but I do like being able to perform small repairs around the house, even if by accident ;)

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles

2010-11-24T07:40:00.000-08:00

After reading the fun Anton is having with this old Gamecube game, I'm actually tempted to drag my copy out as well. Especially as I can now play it on the Wii (good ol' backwards compatibility) over my 50" Plasma where it will hopefully still look as good as I remember, if not better.

Unfortunately I'm not sure where both our GBAs are, so I don't know if the boy and I can multiplay like we used to do (back when he was 4), although if I can find them I'm pretty sure I can lay my hands on the GBA-GC connector cables.

I seem to recall that "leveling up" the craftsmen in your village needed to be done a certain way, at least if you wanted access to the best weapons & armor in the game. The completionist in me is turned off by this.

Why can't we just play games anymore?

Why do so many games have us do so much outside the game when we're not playing (online research, etc.) in order to maximize our enjoyment of the game when we are playing?

Sure, we don't have to do that, but if you don't then there's a good chance you won't experience everything the game has to offer. It's almost enough to put you off playing. Almost. If we didn't already have plans for this Thanksgiving weekend, I'm pretty sure I know what I'd be doing over the holiday weekend ;)

Canceling DISH TV

2010-11-15T20:47:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago we moved and canceled our cable TV service (Dish TV), which we had originally subscribed to as part of a package deal through our phone company ( AT&T).

When I called Dish earlier this month and told the rep we were moving he was quite persistent about getting the service transferred to our new location, but I was equally persistent about canceling. Finally he said he would mail some boxes for us to pack our Dish equipment into, boxes that we would use to mail the Dish equipment back to them. The Rep took down our new address, a couple of weeks went by, but no boxes arrived.

Today I called Dish back to find out where the boxes were, and right from the start it was obvious there would be problems.

"Thank you for calling Dish Network. If you are an existing customer or have technical issues, press 1. For all other inquiries, press 2. To repeat this Menu Press * ."

Yep, that was all the options I had.

So...2...I guess.

"Please wait while we direct your call to the agent who can best assist you."

Tum te tum te tum.

"Thank you for calling AT&T. Is the number you're calling about xxx-xxx-xxxx (my new home phone number)?" asked the automated system.

AT&T? WTF? Er..."No!"

"Please enter or say your 10-digit phone number associated with your account."

Rather than confuse the voice recognition program with my Aussie accent I keyed in our old phone number.

"Thank you. I'll just look that up."

Queue in little, clicking, typing-type sounds meant to make us think the computer is actually typing on a keyboard.

"Okay. Now in a few words, please tell me the reason why you're calling. For example, to add Caller ID service to your account, you could say 'Add service'."

I spoke into my phone as clearly as I could - DISH TV

"Thank you. Please wait while we direct your call to the agent who can best assist you."

Tum te tum te tum.

"Thank you for calling Dish Network. If you are an existing customer or have technical issues, press 1. For all other inquiries, press 2. To repeat this Menu Press * ."

o_O

I guess it's 1 then.

"Please wait while we direct your call to the agent who can best assist you."

Tum te tum te tum.

"Thank you for calling AT&T. Is the number you're calling about xxx-xxx-xxxx (my new home phone number)."

What? Again??? "NO!"

"Please enter or say your 10-digit phone number associated with your account."

Grr.

I keyed in our old number, again, queue in more clicking, typing sounds, and finally a woman answered...just as my In-laws chose to call. So as the Rep was trying to talk to me my Call Waiting was beeping and obliterating her every other word. Eventually we confirmed that she couldn't help me because she was with Sales and I needed Equipment Returns. She offered to transfer me and I explained that I'd been back & forth a couple of times so could she please make sure I got to the correct department.

I guess that was the wrong thing to say.

"Thank you for calling Dish Network. If you are an existing customer or have technical issues, press 1. For all other inquiries, press 2. To repeat this Menu Press * ."

I think I pressed 1 again, I forget now. My brain is trying to repress this period of my life. Finally I managed to speak to another Rep, this one a man with an Indian accent, who began every sentence with "I apologize...".

(If your Rep has a foreign accent, constantly apologizes, and uses phrases like "Let me access my resources" chances are you're dealing with someone who probably cannot help you, but will merely "refer your issue to the research department".)

I gave this fellow the benefit of the doubt, and my old phone number, at which point he accessed his resources to find my account, then told me I needed to wait 7-10 business days for the Return boxes to arrive.

I told him it had already been 7-10 business days and we still hadn't received the boxes. He apologized (yet again) then said he would have new Return boxes mailed "to your address..." at which point he began to recite my old address.

"No! That's my old address." He ignored me and continued to recite my old address. "That's my old address!" I said, shouting him down. "We moved. We're not there any more."

He apologized, again, and that was it. "Just transfer me to your supervisor," I told him. "All you can do is apologize! You can't help me so transfer me to your supervisor."

"I apologize..."

"Supervisor!"

Hold music came on the line. Hold music, with a Hindi influence. I was pretty sure I could hear a sitar strumming away. Interesting. I was on hold for several minutes and Liz said, "they're not picking up. They want you to hang up."

"I'm not hanging up," I told her, and that's when my phone beeped. I looked at the screen and saw 'Call Ended'. They had hung up on me.

Bastiches.

I guess it's time to take a trip to the old place to see if there are a couple of Return boxes waiting for me there, because apparently if you don't return their equipment they like to charge you for it, and that stuff ain't cheap.

Weird emails

2010-10-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to find a home for my dog so I post fliers on each floor of my building, email the folks on my floor pics of the dog, including a description about her, and even get a couple of former coworkers to send out an email blast to their contacts.

A few people respond but in most cases they need to check with a spouse, etc., and when they next get back to me it's to say, "Sorry. No can do."

Someone else emails me and says, "Can you please send me the pics of the dog. I'll call around."

So I forward him the email I sent to my coworkers.

Unlike most of the other folks who emailed or called me, I cannot find this guy in our internal directory. I punch his name into the To: field in my email client but it can't find him, either. Which is odd. I wonder if he's one of the Security Guards, because they're not in our office directory, but using his email address I find him in Facebook and his face doesn't look familiar, and I know almost all our Guards by sight (if not by name).

Several hours later I get an email back from the guy. Subject Line: My address.
And indeed it contains nothing but his address, but it's just a street address & unit number. No city; just the street address & unit number.

I Google his address and because of the unique street name it turns out he's not only not in L.A., but he's almost 50 miles away. The unit number is #45 which is also pretty high. Does he live in an apartment? Because my dog is not exactly suited to apartment living.

Google Satellite shows me it's not an apartment but a densely packed group of condos, aka PUDs (by those in the Biz). I zoom in and see the condos are practically on top of each other with no sign of any private backyards. Does the guy intend to keep my dog in his condo? Does his HOA allow dogs? I have a crate for her to sleep in at night but she gets to go outside during the day. You leave her inside, home alone, and "house broken" will take on a whole new meaning.

I email him back and ask what's going on. I tell him I can see he lives in a PUD with no backyard so does he have someone that will be home with my dog during the day? Or does he plan to crate her during the day then let her out when he gets home?

He emails me back, "This is my address to clean carpets."

o_O = WTF?

If you're saying you clean carpets, WTF does that have to do with finding my dog a home? And if you think I'm offering to clean your carpets, that isn't happening, either. I decide communication with this one must cease.

Then I get an email from one of my contacts, who posted my dog's picture & description on her Facebook, and who had a cousin of a friend show interest in my dog. Not only is she interested, but she wants her. She really, really wants her. How much does she want her? She lives in England, and she wants my dog, sight unseen.

Get her to me! she practically screams at her cousin (via email). Make it happen!

o_O

I email the two cousins and say if they really want my dog I'll bring her to them, at least I'll bring her to the local cousin, the Angeleno, and they can make arrangements to get my dog to England, but that's on their time and their dime.

It cannot be cheap to transport a dog from the US to England, yet this crazy woman seems intent on doing just that. Don't they have animal shelters of their own in England?

Flabbergasted, is what I am.

*edit* A few of my coworkers had expressed interest in taking my dog but in the end it was one chap who was interested in her for his parents who finally stepped up and said he would take her, for himself rather than his parents (who are getting on in years). He lives in an apartment but it's close to Griffith Park (the huge park surrounding the Los Angeles Zoo) and he runs in both the morning & the afternoon so my...his dog :) will get plenty of exercise. It's not an ideal situation, but it beats spending the remainder of her life in a Shelter (life expectancy, two-to-four weeks).

Shots in the night

2010-10-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke around 2am and while lying there, from somewhere outside I heard...

Pop!

Pop-Pop-Pop-Pop-Pop-Pop!

And I thought to myself, and rather casually I might add, "semi-auto, probably a 9mm."

For a little while I contemplated calling 911, but what would I tell them?

"Shots fired. 9mm pistol. Somewhere within a block of 123 Main St." Not exactly helpful.

If anything it would bring squad cars with wailing sirens waking up the neighborhood, and maybe we'd even get a helicopter flying around overhead for half-an-hour. I'm sure the neighbors would appreciate that at 2:30 in the morning.

Nope, I thought to myself, if anyone is calling in the local PD it will have to be someone who heard gunfire right outside their window, and as that wasn't me I rolled over, snuggled back up under the blankets, and went back to sleep.

Early this morning I heard gunfire in my neighborhood, and I rolled over and went back to sleep. I don't think there's much 'country' left in this Country Boy.

Computer down! Computer down!

2010-10-14T15:01:00.000-07:00

The wife's PC finally died on her. Her LCD said it wasn't getting a signal so my first (hopeful) thought was the video card. Alas a quick switch from the video card to the onboard GPU did not work. So I crack the case, pull the card, reboot and...nothing.

Bugger.

That didn't narrow the problem down, it just eliminated one possibility. With Liz's PC being quite a few years old, the cost of trouble-shooting and getting it up & running would probably be more than the cost of a new PC. So I went the cheap route: I pulled her hard drive and dropped it into my PC.

Unfortunately they're making cases smaller & smaller these days (or so it seems) and with my BFG of a video card (an 8800GT or something cutting edge a few years ago) tucked in I had a hell of a job sliding her HDD into my drive bay. After unplugging a few cables I finally got it in, hooked everything back up, then hit the power button.

Nothing.

Oh, shit.

I/O Power switch on the PSU? Flipped it. Nothing. Flipped it back.Still nothing.

Oh yeah. One of the cables I unplugged was the power to Mother Board, and yes, after getting the IDE ribbon cable plugged in I forgot to plug in the MoBo's power cable. With that plugged back in my computer booted up, then rebooted itself. That's odd.

Windows failed to start properly on the last attempt.
Safe mode?
Safe mode with Networking?
Normal?

Huh? Oh, okay. Let's push our luck and shoot for Normal.

No dice. Reboot, and...Windows failed to start properly on the last attempt.
Ok, ok. Safe Mode?

Reboot.

I hit F1 went into BIOS and reconfigured the Boot order. Save & Exit.

Reboot, but this time I meant to do that.

And the familiar XP loading screen came up. Cool.

Windows loaded. Opened My Computer, and there was a bunch of drives (I have a built-in flash drive reader that will accept pretty much any standard flash card), followed by a new drive. A J: drive. Opening it up revealed it was the wife's hard drive, so I had access to her files. Cool. (Fezzes are cool, too.)

I shut my PC down then switched her non-working case with mine, because the printer/fax/scanner is on her desk and it refuses to network with the LAN. Stubborn piece of tech.

When I booted up my PC, or Liz's new PC rather, it detected the Printer and after a minute or two it had installed the drivers. Then it detected the Printer again. And wanted to install the drivers, again. Wha??? Oh, I see. It's a Printer/Fax/Scanner so it needs to install it three times. Fine. And so it did.

Today Liz called me up in tears because she'd opened up Firefox and it was my Firefox. With my bookmarks, logins & passwords. Then she opened up Thunderbird and it was empty. No emails. No addresses. Nothing. Nada. Zip. She was a little distraught that everything was gone and it took a while to calm her down. It's not gone, it's on the J drive, I told her. But I might as well have been speaking Kobold, or COBOL (which sound the same), for all the good it did.

Fortunately a few minutes searching found a website where, hopefully, I'll be able to restore her profile, including emails & email addresses, from the Thunderbird folder on her old hard drive.

So now I currently have no computer, but oddly enough, I don't really care. After quitting WoW, again, and playing LOTRO for a bit, I've discovered I've lost a lot of my desire to play games on my PC. Or maybe it's that Dragon Quest IX has sucked me in ;)

*edit* Mozilla Profiles restored, and now Liz has her Firefox and Thunderbird back. Hooray!

Blizzard ban themselves from WoW

2010-09-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

Over at Two & Two Half Paws, Dammerung said:
"Speaking of Horde. I'm liking how realID has freed me from having to play alliance to chat with my friends who are allies. It is nice to be able to play whatever faction I want and still talk to my buddies when they get on."

From WoW's Terms of Use,
9. Code of Conduct
B.) Rules Related to "Chat" and Interaction With Other Users.
Communicating in-game with other Users and Blizzard representatives, whether by text, voice or any other method, is an integral part of the Game and the Service and is referred to here as "Chat." When engaging in Chat, you may not:
(viii) Communicate directly with players who are playing characters aligned with the opposite faction (e.g. Horde communicating with Alliance or vice versa);

Is it just me, or are Blizzard saying their own Terms of Use aren't worth the pixels they're not printed on?

The weekend

2010-09-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday arvo I had a dentist appointment so I dropped Liz at Target then went to see my Dentist. After the regular cleaning and a check-up he informed me that everything looked great and that while I didn't require any new work, he was recommending a *shudder* deep cleaning. He did two quadrants a couple of years ago but then we did more work, a root canal, some fillings, etc., and he never got around to the other two quadrants, which I was sort of glad about because even with the local/topical anesthesia a deep cleaning is a rather painful affair. I consider it penance for not taking good care of my teeth.

After the dentist I headed back to Target and found Liz in the cafeteria with a bowl of nacho cheese in front of her. There were nacho chips in the bowl, too, they were just hard to see because there was soooo much yellow, gooey, delicious nacho cheese. MmmmmMmMmm. It was good. Liz had a cup of Root Beer too and OMG! After eating reasonably healthy for most of the week that saturated fat & sugar tasted sooooo good. I know some people might view this as my Cheat Day so it was okay but I don't believe in 'Cheat Days'. Then again I also don't believe in Diets.

A Cheat Day is not a "reward" for eating healthy & working out for 6 days. A Cheat Day is exactly what it says it is: a day in which you cheat yourself out of the real reward, being a healthier you. And did you notice I didn't say 'dieting' and working out? That's because the word diet is commonly preceded by the phrase "I'm starting a..." or "I'm going on a..." If you look at a 'Diet' as something you "start" or "go on", then you'll also think of it as something you "finish" or "go off". I don't go "on a diet", I adjust my eating habits. I try to be conscious of what I'm eating and make healthier choices when possible. I may not always succeed, as happened Saturday, and then again on Sunday when we lunched at Top's Burgers on Colorado in Pasadena. One Reuben on toasted Rye, thank you very much. That said, I washed my Reuben down with a lot of water (no soda this time) and we split a small Fries between us, but trust me, a "small" Fries at Top's is bigger than a large at most other Burger joints. But in no way did I consider these 'rewards' for eating healthier throughout the week.

Sunday afternoon we hooked up with some friends and played Badminton for a few hours. And I do mean a few hours. We started around 4pm and it was 7pm by the time we were done. Conscious of what I'd eaten during the past couple of days I played as many games as I could. It helps that I love Badminton and am pretty good at it. Not as good as my friend Jimmy who managed to beat me in every game we played, including the doubles matches, but I still manage to give him a good run for his money. Not that the cunning sod runs that much. Jimmy is good enough to know what he can get to and what he can't, and he won't go for the shots he knows he can't reach. Me? I'm pretty sure I can get them all so I'll try for them all. Jimmy is aware of this, and good enough with his shot placement to have me running all over the court.

And for that, I thank him.

Monday morning I weighed myself and IIRC was approx. 195 lbs. I ate my usual 4 Weetabix for breakfast accompanied by approx. 2 cups of Soy Milk, then took the Highlander to the dealer for a service which took 2 hours. There I would drink two cups of coffee and eat a slice of Starbuck's Banana Walnut Loaf, take a Mustang GT for spin (through the parking lot, because I'd managed to leave my Driver's License at home) and become enamored with the Scion cT. Later at home I would have two Styrofoam Cakes (aka Rice Cakes) with Blueberry Cream Cheese and drink several glasses of water. After we picked up the kids from school we stopped for some frozen yoghurt where I had my usual small'ish portion loaded with fruit, while dinner would be half-a-dozen boiled Pork & Veg Dumplings followed by a Pomegranate w/ some vanilla yoghurt. And yet more water. It was bloody hot yesterday.

This morning after getting up I weighed myself and almost couldn't believe the scales. 189.6 lbs w/ 23% Body Fat. Under 190 lbs (barely) and Body Fat down 1% I know your morning weight can be lower due to body water lost during the night through respiration and perspiration but I actually felt good this morning and (TMI?) my output looked good, too. Not clear, but also not the yellow of someone a little dehydrated.

I found one of my Blog entries from several years ago where I mentioned I was at 22% so I'm getting back there, but I also recall that when I first came here I was approx. 14%. Of course that was 20 pounds and 12 years ago. I suspect that to get back down to 14-15% I'm going to need to go past the 180 I weighed then, when I was much more active, and shoot for a weight around 170 lbs. Before that can happen I need to hit 180 and before that I need to get down to 185. And before I get to 185 I need to keep off the weight I appear to have lost during the past couple of days.

Small steps. Because a significant amount of weight lost gradually in small steps is easier to keep off than a large amount lost abruptly, such as by someone "going on" a "crash diet".

*edit*

4 Weetabix for breakfast and a Sunshine Breakfast Muffin (from Subway) for second breakfast. English muffin with a few pieces of Ham & 1 slice of cheese, plus 2 Styrofoam Cakes with a smear of Blueberry Cream Cheese for lunch. One English Muffin, toasted, w/ BCC for a snack when I got home. To drink I had 1 16oz cup of coffee which I never finished, and several 16oz bottles of water. Afternoon pre-dinner weight? 192.2 Not too shabby :)

Weighing in

2010-09-23T16:17:00.000-07:00

I'm 41-years old, 5'11", 195-200lbs, with 24% Body Fat. The archaic BMI rates me at 27.6 which is halfway into Overweight, and I'd agree with that. I am over weight, I do have a "spare tyre", and could definitely stand to lose a few pounds. However, based on the archaic BMI the medical recommended weight for my height is 135-180 pounds. This is why I'm not a huge fan of the BMI, because it puts that upper limit of my 'normal' weight at 180 pounds. That's what I weighed in High School when I was very active & fit (marathon fit), and when I look at some of those photos from that time I didn't look trim & athletic, I looked thin.

If I get down to the middle-of-the-road BMI 'Normal' weight for my height, being 155-160 lbs, people would be talking behind my back and asking Liz "Is John okay?".

If I got down to ~170 I'd be a lot healthier, and a lot happier, but people would probably still be wondering if I was okay.

According to this rather excellent site (although I say that without any knowledge of how accurate it is) based on a desired goal to go from 24% Body Fat to 15% Body Fat (see what I did there? I'm not concentrating on weight loss, but a reduction in my body fat %) I need to lose ~25 pounds.

If I start working out I will shed fat, but I'll also add muscle, so I might hit my target of 15% Body Fat but will still weigh in at ~180 pounds. According to the BMI that's borderline overweight, and yet I'd actually have a very healthy Body Fat %

So, what can I do to accomplish my goal of lowering my body fat percentage by 10 points?

My daily commute (being a bus ride) sees me walking approximately a total of 1 mile to & from Home to Bus Stop to work, & back. Hardly strenuous.

At Liz's urging I've recently taken to doing Sit-Ups and while the first night was a fight to get my torso up off the floor the second night was easier, the third night I did 2 sets of 10, and last night I cranked out 20 Sit-Ups in one hit. Sit-Ups alone won't do much more than strengthen and tone up my abs & lower back (I'm doing the twisting, elbow-to-opposite-knee crunches) but it's a start.

If I throw Push-Ups into the mix that will help but I'll still need to do more than that.

I need to start doing the Wii-Fit's Expert Boxing Routine again - at least two 10-minute Reps each night - plus run a mile or two at least 3-4 nights a week. Unfortunately I picked a bad time to start running again as within a matter of weeks Daylight Saving Time will end and it will be dark by the time I get home. However, a quick check at Google Maps has revealed that one lap around our home block is ~1 mile. This is useful to know because it means I can run/walk/jog/hobble one mile without crossing any roads, and if I want to do two miles I just do two laps, and so on.

What about 3 miles? When I take the dog for her walk down by the river that's usually at least a 3-mile trip. I'm not saying I'm going to run 3 miles straight off the cuff, but the option to do that is there, and I did do that a couple of times a month or two back when I went out with my daughter. She rode her scooter and I ran, and walked, and she got ahead of me and I needed to run again. It took us a little over 30 minutes for the trip and she was starting to complain that her leg was sore (from all the scooting), but we got there in the end.

That's what I need to start doing again if I want to get rid of this spare tyre. And if I notice people are starting to give me concerned looks or are talking about me behind my back...that will be a good thing ;)

Impressive!

2010-09-12T17:28:00.000-07:00

Last week Mike called me up and said his wife had told him I was home (I had the day off work) and asked if I wanted to go shooting with him. We already had an IDPA-style shooting event planned for today and Mike wanted to get in some practice before then, so we met up at the La Puente Firing Range. Mike had warned me that the owner was pretty chatty, but that he really knew his stuff, was a very competent gunsmith, and also helped train LAPD.

After a few minutes chatting with the owner we hit the range and proceeded to murder some paper targets at 21' For someone who doesn't shoot often enough I was still shooting pretty well, although there were quite a few times where I'd drill the center with my first shot but the follow up shots would go several inches low. My groups were good but off target. By contrast Mike was shooting the center out of his targets, and I mean that quite literally.

After we were done Mike suggested we talk to the owner about getting a holster for me (I'd need one for the event) and maybe get some advice about why I'd drill the target dead center with my first shot but had a tendency to shoot low with my subsequent shots.

The owner asked me to show him how I shoot, so I did, and he told me that I was pretty much doing everything wrong. Everything. Right down to how I was holding my Beretta. He had me do a simple exercise where I stood, relaxed, gun by my side, and with eyes closed raised the gun up and pointed it ahead of me, then he asked me to open my eyes and look where the gun was pointing. It was not pointing straight ahead. It was pointing downward.

He had me change my grip then repeat the exercise. Eyes closed, relax, raise the gun up and out and open my eyes and...my Beretta was pointing straight ahead. Talk about opening your eyes. My eyes were opened! (As were my ears) and for the next 30 minutes I listened and watched and learned how to shoot a firearm all over again.

Then I went home, and each night I took out my Beretta and practiced with it. No shooting, just bringing it up, using my 'new' grip, and pointing it straight ahead. Back down, breathe, relax, and do it again.

Friday we met up with Mike and his family for dinner but before we could eat the women sent us out to run some errands. As one of our stops took us close by Turners of Pasadena we stopped in to see if they had a suitable holster for me. I checked my Beretta with the young man (I'm 40 years old now, anyone 30 & under looks young) and told him I needed a suitable holster for an IDPA-style event. We hit the holster section but none of the molded, hard holsters would fit my 96G. Finally we settled on a nylon holster with a magazine pouch attached to the front. That was a bonus because it meant I didn't need to shell out another $10 for a magazine holder.

Then we completed our errands.

The next day I strapped on my holster, loaded up both 10-round clips, and for the whole day was armed (except when I left the house) and let me tell you, two 10-round clips loaded with .40S&W and a Beretta 96G makes for a pretty heavy weight to be hanging off your hip, at least until you get used to it. I figured I'd spend most of the next day at the range carrying that weight so I wanted to get used to it.

Sunday morning we were up reasonably early and JE and I joined our friends at Burro Canyon above Azusa where we'd rented one of the private ranges for the day. After a lengthy practice session where the newbies learned how to shoot, and some were shooting for the very first time, my son and his friend went head-to-head.

JE was shooting his H&K USP CO2-powered BB gun which, at a distance of 12 feet, was more than capable of sending a BB straight through the Clay Pigeons we were using for targets. With California restricting civilians to 10-round magazines and with Mike's son using his .22LR 1911, and because we didn't want the boys doing magazine changes, we limited them to three stations with one Clay Pigeon target at each. So they had to shoot the first Clay, move to the second Station & shoot the second Clay, then move to the third Station and shoot the last Clay.

Mike's son was pretty accurate, but like all 10-year old boys he had a tendency to get a little too excited and shoot a little too quickly for his own good. JE, by contrast, was slow, steady, and didn't waste a shot. Mike's son went rapid fire, used most of his 10 rounds, and broke his third Clay just as JE broke his second with his second shot. I gestured to JE to finish and he moved on to the third Station where he broke his third Clay with one more shot, but Mike's son still won Round 1.

In the next Round Mike's son went fast again, but this time his 1911 jammed and before he could clear it JE broke his third Clay and won Round 2. Round 3 would be a repeat of Round 2 with yet another jam and more accurate shooting from JE.

The ladies stepped up and had their turns, then the newbie guys who did pretty good despite (allegedly) never having fired a handgun before today.

Finally it was our turn but first, the targets were moved out to approx. 21-feet. Like everyone who had shot before us we would be competing head-to-head but we had a few more targets. Our first man-sized target had two Clays, one at chest height, one at head height. Both would need to be broken before moving on to the second Station where we had to knock over a Bowling Pin (yes, by shooting it) before moving on to Stations 3, 4, & 5, each with a single Clay. Station 6 was three Bowling Pins which could all be knocked over with one well-placed shot, but all three pins needed to be knocked down to win the Round so you needed to finish off the 'Spare' if you didn't shoot a Strike.

After acquiring my new Holster I'd practiced drawing, but I'd also practiced magazine changes. If you were counting along as you read the previous paragraph you'd know we had 6 Stations but a combined maximum of 9 targets: 5 Clays, and 4 Bowling Pins. Miss too many times and a Tactical Reload would be need to be performed mid-Round.

In the first Round, thinking "IDPA" I did a Reload with Retention, meaning I drew my spare magazine, ejected the empty, slammed home the fresh magazine, then stored my empty magazine before resuming shooting. It didn't take as long to do as to read that, but it wasn't lightning fast, either. So you can imagine my surprise when I moved onto Station 6, knocked over all three pins with one shot, and was declared the winner. How...? What...? I am? How did that happen??? I asked, incredulously.

Mike won his first round as well and so we found ourselves facing each other. Mike, who'd been shooting out the center of his targets just a week before, was my next opponent.

"Shooters, are you ready?" I heard Paul say behind me. I nodded, as I stared at the target ahead of me.

"3...2...1...Go!" Mike and I drew our pistols as we stepped up to the rope barrier and Station 1. Pow! I shot the first chest-high Clay. Pow! I shot the second, head-high Clay. 2 rounds, 2 hits. I stepped sideways to Station 2 and the single Bowling Pin. Pow! One shot, and it went down. Step sideways to Station 3. Somewhere in there between Stations 3 and 5 I missed a target or two, but I remember calmly telling myself to concentrate on the front sight. The Clay at Station 5 burst and I stepped sideways to Station 6 and its Three Bowling Pins where I took careful aim at the lead pin. Pow! It fell and knocked the back two Pins down and I held up my pistol. The slide was locked back and as I withdrew my spare magazine from my Holster, which was still full, everyone realized what I'd just done. I'd shot all 7 targets (Station 6's 3 pins together counting as one) with just 10 rounds.

Paul was the only other Shooter to have won 2 Rounds so we faced each other to determine the overall winner. Paul is among the handful of non-sworn Californians to hold a Concealed Carry Permit, and because both his business and his life depend on it, he shoots a lot. He was the most experienced shooter, and the one who had organized today's event, and I was now going up against him.

"Shooters, ready! 3...2...1...GO!" We stepped up to line, drawing, aiming, & firing. Clays burst apart and I stepped sideways, taking aim again. Firing, moving down the line, and then I was taking aim at the lead pin at Station 6. One shot and the pins fell and my Beretta's slide locked back. I stepped back from the line holding my empty Beretta high and, with a grin from ear to ear that I just couldn't suppress, drew my still-full spare magazine from its pouch in front of my holster. 7 targets with 10 rounds. Yes, I'd done it again. No, I couldn't believe it either.

Clay Pigeons are approx. 4" in diameter. Last week, at 21 feet, I'd been barely able to keep my shots within a 12" group. Today, I'd been hitting 4" targets at the same distance with practically every shot. Finally, my Beretta and I were shooting like I knew we could. Okay, I'd always known my Beretta was accurate, but now we were able to shoot well together. Finally I was a shooter worthy of my pistol and I'd just proved it three times in succession. Of course all that means is I'll have to prove it all over again at our next shoot.

*edit* Photo from Paul of my FHuge "I did it again!" grin.

Paul reloading. I'm still shooting.

Mike and me. My single Bowling Pin is down, Mike's is still standing.

What happens when you shoot a watermelon?

Can "Piracy" be justified?

2010-09-07T14:19:00.001-07:00

Obviously I'm not talking Piracy as in Yar, Maties! or the more modern-day Somalian Pirates, but rather software piracy.

As a long-time video gamer with a preference for Nintendo's games, I have at various points in my lifetime owned:
2 of the original-style Gameboys;
2 of the remodeled Gameboys, (in the U.S. known as Gameboy Pocket)
1 Gameboy Advance
2 Gameboy Advance SPs
4 Gameboy DSs
1 NES
1 SNES
1 Nintendo 64
1 Gamecube
1 Wii
Plus numerous games for each system, anywhere from at least 10 titles (per system) to...24 carts for the N64, 27 Gamecube games, ~30 DS carts, & 22 Wii games.

Does this large support for the games industry justify me owning an Acekard (actually three of) and downloading DS Roms for which I do not own the actual game?

If you said, No, No!, Hell No! (or any variant thereof) I actually agree with you. No amount of purchases and past support for a games company justifies a current practice of pirating software.

But let's take a look at Dragon Quest IX.

In the vein of one of Nintendo's other largest selling franchises, Dragon Quest IX is a single-player game. Yes, I know it allows for multi-play using the DS's Wi-Fi capabilities, what I mean is once someone such as my son starts playing his copy of Dragon Quest IX nobody else can use his cartridge to play the game unless they delete his saved game file, or play his saved game.

But what if I don't want to play my son's game, and I don't want to delete his game? What if I want to create my own character and start from the start of the game?

Then I can wait for my son to grow bored with his copy of the game so I can delete his file and start my own. And hope that in a week or two he doesn't ask for it back.

Or I can buy a second copy of the game. Either a brand new copy which directly supports the developers, or a second-hand copy which doesn't directly support the developers but still lets me play the game myself.

Or I can download a ROM of DQ IX, which not only doesn't directly support the developers with a second purchase of their awesome game, but is like throwing them the bird for (IMO) being greedy pricks and not allowing multiple save files per cart, which was a common industry practice up until a few years ago.

In this particular case I went with Option No. 3. I downloaded a ROM for which I own a first-hand purchased, legitimate copy of that particular game.

Now for the sake of the argument we shall limit this discussion to this particular situation, and not include those situations where I may (or may not have) downloaded ROMs for which I do not own an actual copy of the game.

So, when the developers of a game deliberately limit the functionality of their game in a deliberate attempt to force a family to purchase multiple copies of said game...IF the family purchases at least one legitimate copy of the game, is it now justifiable for them to download a ROM of the game so the rest of the family can each play their own copy of the game?

What if, in the case of DQ IX, the game includes a feature whereby the family can multiplay with each other, and they do so using 1 legitimate copy of the game and 3 ROM versions? (I'm not actually sure it's possible, but I don't see why not. I'll let you all know later.) Is it still justifiable because they own 1 legitimate copy of the game? Or should anyone who wants to multiplay purchase a legitimate copy of the game?

In this case I would agree that anyone who wants to multiplay DQ IX with their family should buy a legitimate copy of the game. But if everyone is quite content to play the game on their own, why should we have to buy multiple copies of the game when it's a very common industry practice to have 3 Save Files per Cart?

So if we own a legitimate copy of the game, I consider downloading a ROM of said game for immediate family members to use to be an acceptable practice, even if the law disagrees with me. Because while Section 117 of the Copyright Act makes it acceptable to make & use back-up copies of legitimately purchased & owned software, it's not acceptable to download copies of said software; apparently you must make the back-up copy yourself. Too bad that making a back-up copy of a DS cartridge is beyond the means of the average consumer.

I guess I'll just have to continue to be a Pirate. Yar, Maties!

Anyone got any match sticks?

2010-09-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

This morning my alarm went off at 3:30am and it wasn't that my clock was confused and thought Daylight Saving Time was over. Today was when reservations open for the Park where my son's Cub Scout Pack has their annual camp, and according to the former Pack Master and the Ranger assigned to the Park people started lining up at 4am to make sure they got the date they wanted.

After performing my morning ablutions I staggered downstairs and outside to where the father-in-law's car waited for me, sans FIL of course (I'd borrowed the car, not him as well). I made good time getting to the Park entrance and inadvertently blinded the drivers of the few cars already waiting as I blew past with my lights on High (so I could see any coyotes, not that I did, but I might have). Dipping the lights I turned around and drove back to the entrance, pulled another U-turn and got into line.

It was only 4am and there were already 4 cars ahead of me, but either I'd miscounted in the dark or one of the cars was carpooling because when the Ranger turned up at 5:15am and started handing out the tickets I received ticket #6, not #5.

I heard her say she hoped to start processing folks at 7am, and I thought about heading back home, fixing myself some breakfast, and relaxing for a little while, but while we live close to the Park, we don't live so close that it was a no brainer, and after a few minutes I decided to drop my seat back down and try to catch up on some more sleep. I'd dozed off a couple of times earlier and woken myself up snoring. How I did it, I don't know, but twice I woke up to a rattling sound that stopped when I evened out my breathing so it was obviously coming from me.

A little before 6am the Ranger opened the gate and the convoy started up and drove down into the Park. Again I tried to catch some zZzZzZ's but now folks were walking around and talking and dawn was starting to break so I got out of the car, grabbed my bag, and followed some stragglers into the Ranger's office. Well, not quite her office. First there's a small room featuring some of the local fauna, stuffed and alive, plus a living reproduction of the wilderness outside, including a small pond surrounded by local flora. Off this room is the Ranger's office. I sat down, took out my current read, and settled in.

At 6:50 the Ranger emerged and called out "Number One? Who's lucky number one? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?" (Okay, so she didn't do the Bueller bit). She went outside and found number one, probably asleep in his truck (Of the first 10 vehicles in line mine was the only sedan; everyone else was driving an SUV or a truck.) Meanwhile, back inside, I overheard one woman talking on her cell phone. "Yeah, I've got number 11," she told the person on the other end of the line. "I was here at 4:30 and I'm number 11," she said incredulously.

Lucky Number One emerged from the Ranger's office and Almost Lucky Number Two went in, to emerge five minutes later, according to one fellow who felt inclined to time the reservation meetings. When Number Three emerged and Number Four slipped into the Ranger's office I packed up my book, picked up my bag, and took my place near the door behind the young lady I thought was probably Number Five, but wasn't.

Finally it was my turn in the Ranger's office. I headed in armed with three dates, one early June, just before school lets out, and two in May. The June date was preference number 1, and the later May date preference number two. Both were already spoken for but preference number three was still available. The Ranger handed me the card to fill in with the contact information of the person in charge of our camp. That would be our camp I'd just scheduled for May, 2011, being after my son takes part in his Arrow of Light ceremony and moves on to Boy Scouts, which is when I will step down as Pack Master. I'd just lined up at 4am to reserve the campground for my son's Cub Scout Pack's annual camp which we won't be attending. I knew that going in, but I couldn't put my own Contact info down as they'd send the reservation packet to me and I'd prefer it to go to my current Assistant Pack Master who will take over from me at the Arrow of Light ceremony.

I grabbed my phone, ran through the directory and found my APM's name. Hit Dial, and my phone said, "I'm sorry, John; I can't do that."

No signal.

"You can use my phone," offered the helpful Ranger, pointing to her desk phone.

Fortunately it was now 7:20am which is early, but not so early that you can't get away with calling someone at home. My APM answered and I quickly got his address and cell phone number, filled out the card, and bid him a good day. Handing over the registration card I thanked the Ranger, who replied, "That's it. Thank you. Number 7?!" and away I went.

Next year my APM will do the same thing, also for a Camp which he, too, will not be attending. Of course that's all part of the Scouting Movement; doing good turns for others.

Is Penny Arcade redefining Piracy ?

2010-08-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

"If I am purchasing games in order to reward their creators, and to ensure that more of these ingenious contraptions are produced, I honestly can't figure out how buying a used game was any better than piracy." - Tycho, Penny Arcade

Wow! Those are strong words.

They're also true.

Now before you start ranting make sure you understand what Tycho is saying, or rather, what he's not saying, because he's not saying buying a used game equals piracy, even if that's what you think he's saying.

Tycho is saying that if your intention is to reward a designer for making an awesome game, buying a used copy of the game has the exact same effect as pirating the game, because if you buy a used game the developer will never see a dime of your money. (Click here for currency conversion rates)

If your intention is to reward the designer then buying a used copy of the game sends the exact same message as if you pirated the game. That's all Tycho is saying.

Mafia II - Demo review

2010-08-20T17:43:00.000-07:00

I like it, but then that's to be expected. I like the GTA series and Mafia II is essentially GTA Mafia.

The Demo offers you 10 minutes of play (or you can hack the Timer for...er...a more thorough review? Yeah, that works. Nothing like a good rationalization.) within a small portion of the game world, and if you go outside the boundary you "lose" the Demo's linear mission. Fortunately the 10 minutes is the only timer in the Demo so once it's no longer counting down you pretty much have free reign within the Demo, or at least within the Demo's playable area.

One of the things I didn't like was the biased, heavy-handedness of the police. Rounding one corner I had a minor fender bender with another car. The police were perhaps 100 yards ahead of us and both myself and the other car came to a complete stop, but as I looked on the police car's lights came on and the built-in police scanner announced a Hit & Run. The cop car's doors opened and the police began running back towards us, guns drawn.

A Hit & Run? What Hit & Run??? We'd both stopped our cars. There was no Hit & Run!

Then I was being pulled from my car and arrested at gun point, for a non-existent Hit & Run.

Later I would deliberately run in front of a car traveling in front of a police car, and despite being struck & injured and the offending car continuing to drive on in a classic case of Hit & Run...the police did nothing.

Another thing I didn't like was being forced to install Steam along with the Demo. I don't really have any rational reason for not liking Steam, but I object to having to install & run a third party program to play the Demo when that program has absolutely nothing to do with the game (yes, yes. I know Mafia II can be multiplayed via Steam, but that's Mafia II the GAME, not Mafia II the DEMO). That's actually almost enough to turn me off buying the Game, if I'm forced to play it via Steam. And yes, I know I can tweak Steam to run it in Offline Mode but why should I have to? If I only want to play Mafia II as a Single Player game, and only as a Single Player Game, why do I need to install & run a Third-party peer-to-peer client?

But the game is good, or at least the Demo is, and by inference the Game must be, too. After all, it's GTA Mafia. What's not to like?

I liked how 'Cover' worked in combat, with the ability to use Mouse Look to scope out the situation prior to Right-Click/Leaning out to shoot. I also liked that cover wasn't always bullet proof, and that you could still be shot while 'taking cover' if you weren't careful.

If you don't care one way or another about Steam, and if you liked the GTA series, particularly those from III onward, you'll probably like Mafia II. I like it too; I'm just not sure I like it enough to overlook the forced bundling of Steam along with it, even if I do understand why it's been included. Personally, I think the User should have the option of not installing Steam, and being able to play Mafia II as a Single Player-only game.

The Demo isn't enough to convince me to pay full price for Mafia II, but it has reminded me that I never bought GTA IV, and with it being available now for just $20 I might finally add it to my library.

*edit* I did find this amusing. I was experimenting with the hand-to-hand combat system, which is fun, even if it's not Tekken. In fact it's just left-clicking or right-clicking for a light hit or heavy hit, but your avatar does throw combos as you gain the upper hand, or your opponent if you're losing the fight, which is a nice touch. After beating up on a few guys I drew the attention of the police, managed to resist arrest (by beating up the arresting officer), then successfully fled the scene of the crime. However, I was still a Wanted Man and thus prone to attracting attention if a cop saw me, which one did.

While playing you come across the odd tip, and one Tip said to be careful brandishing weapons in Gun Stores because Gun Store owners are armed themselves.

Now it just so happened that I attracted the attention of the local constabulary while outside a Gun Store, and with it being one of the few building you can enter I quickly ducked inside and hid behind the counter. When the cop chased me inside he drew his gun and shot at me...and was promptly blown away by the Gun Store owner.

I doubt the Gun Store owner has become a Wanted Man now himself, but I did find it an amusing touch that he was willing to defend himself against a perceived attack by shooting a police officer.

W101: 60,000 Crowns for US$60

2010-08-13T19:28:00.000-07:00

For the next 10 days you can buy 60,000 W101 Crowns for just $60.

According to Tesh that's enough Crowns to buy every zone currently in the game. In other words, for the same price as a 12-month Sub you can get permanent access to every zone currently in the game (I say 'currently' because a new zone is already in the works). But don't take Tesh's and my word for it, check for yourself.

Wizard City = 3,000 Crowns
Krokotopia = 11,895 Crowns
Grizzleheim = 9,975 Crowns
Marleybone = 12,000 Crowns
Moo Shu = 10,800 Crowns
& Dragonspyre = 10,800 Crowns

That's a Grand Total of 57,470 Crowns.

Two years ago I quit playing World of Warcraft, and for less than the price of two 6-month WoW Subs I bought my son and I each a 12-month W101 sub. I find it amusing that I just quit WoW for the second time, and once again am considering replacing it with a Wizard 101 subscription, but this time with what is essentially a life-time sub.

Greed and Dishonesty

2010-08-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

One of our favorite places to visit, especially during the hotter weather, are the self-serve, Soft-Serve Yogurt Houses, where you get to create your own Soft-Serve Yogurt Sundae with as much or as little Yogurt and as many toppings as you'd like, within reason of course.

The way these places work is you grab yourself a tub, fill it with the yogurt (or don't, as in don't fill it) of your choice, or yogurts if you want to mix flavors. You add some toppings - or not; it's your choice - then the clerk weighs your sundae because you pay per ounce, so the more you cram into your tub, the heavier it is, and the more you pay. Quite fair, in my opinion. Just want a little? Pay a little. Want to pig out? Then you'll pay for it, now and later.

We always get the smaller of the two tubs which might hold a pint of yogurt if you filled it, but we never do. (The bigger tub is probably around 50% larger than the smaller one.). Sometimes I've filled my tub a little over halfway but for the most part we'll put a couple of coils of yogurt in the bottom then throw a few toppings on, and between the four of us we'll usually pay around $6-$8.

We frequently see other patrons also taking the smaller tub, but unlike us they'll fill it almost to the top with yogurt then hit the toppings bar and by the time they've finished you'd think there had been an earthquake. They've left so little room for toppings, but are so determined to get toppings on and, I guess, "get their moneys worth" that they'll scoop on the toppings only to have them fall off every which way (but loose. Great movie, by the way; one of my favorites). So they fill their small tub up with yogurt until it's almost overflowing, then add toppings until it is...and why are we always surprised when their single tub of yogurt rings up for as much as the four of ours?

You look at their concoction and wonder why they don't just take a big tub and half fill it instead. They'd still pay the same price for the same amount of yogurt and toppings but it wouldn't be spilling out all over the place. Except you also know that if they did take the bigger tub they'd still do exactly the same thing. So they either have no self-control - which is doubtful or they would use the bigger tub - or their greed has them convinced that by overloading their smaller tub they're "sticking it to the man"

"You're not ripping me off, Mr. Yogurt-Man! I'm filling my tub to the top. You hear me, Mr. Yogurt-Man? To. The. Top! Yeah!"

The cafeteria at my work has a salad bar. It's the kind where you get your own box and make your own salad, and like the Yogurt Houses you used to have to pay for however much you took.

But then Management made a change and suddenly a small carton of salad was just $4 while a larger carton was $6, for as much salad as you can cram into it, within reason of course. But 'reason' is overrated because just as greedy people overload their yogurt tubs, my greedy coworkers would likewise fill their salad carton so full that the cashier couldn't close the tabs on top. It was understood that the tabs needed to close or you'd pay extra but I guess some of coworkers still filled their carton To. The. Top! By which I mean over-filled it so the tabs couldn't close.

So Management replaced the cartons with clear plastic boxes. The kind with a hinge, with equal sized top & bottom (or is it bottom & top?) It doesn't matter because whichever way you flip it your box still looks the same, with the same sized bottom and the same sized top. The price is also the same but if you figure you now get less salad for the same price because the 'top' is now just halfway up the container, you'd be right.

I mentioned that to my cashier when I got my salad today, that the box is smaller now.

"No, it's the same size," she said.

I explained to her that we couldn't fill it like we could with the old cartons and that's when I learned of my greedy & dishonest coworkers who tried to "stick it to the man" and deliberately over-filled their cartons. And when those greedy, dishonest people came in and saw their cartons had been replaced by plastic containers, and they realized they couldn't get as much salad as before, that "the man was ripping them off!" do you think they still got a salad? Probably not; they probably went somewhere else.

In the short term they might have "won". They got a few extra pieces of lettuce or tomato at no additional cost, but in the long term they will never see deals like that $4 salad. Their own greed has made sure of that. They still lose, just like we all do.

He who dies with the most toys...still dies. - Random T. Shirt

How much time, part II

2010-07-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

Continuing from last week's post.

On Sunday, July 11th, I played for three sessions of 130 minutes, 184 minutes, and 177 minutes, or for the mathematically-challenged 8 hours and 11 minutes. With the next day being a work day I logged out at 10:35pm.

I didn't play at all on Monday and on Tuesday put in just 70 minutes, logging out at 8:30pm when my attempt at Tanking Utgarde Keep on my properly spec'd, def-capped Death Knight crashed & burned. That was also the end of my week's WoW time.

So this past week I played for a shade under 9 1/2 hours, with almost all of that time being on Sunday. Compared to last week's 41 hours this is also not really an example of my regular playing habits, rather an average of the two is more realistic, or it would be if I hadn't canceled my subscription.

Walking out

2010-07-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

No, it's not another "I'm quitting WoW" post :P

Today the Bunny had a playdate at a friend's house so Liz gave JE a choice of tagging along to a playdate with three 5-year olds, or coming in to work with me for the day. He chose work and so he was up bright & early, catching the bus and riding into downtown to spend a day at the office with me.

I set him up in the empty cubicle next to mine where he started on his homework. Around 8:30 we took a break and walked over to the Subway where he got a 'free' Oatmeal & Raisin cookie. (Free because I'd eaten lunch there earlier this week, and if you take a brief online survey about the experience then write down the code proving you took the survey you can get a free cookie on your next visit.)

I let him play his DS for a little while as he ate his cookie but after half-an-hour or so it was back to homework. When he'd finished his run-on sentence exercises we took a second break before returning to his homework. He wasn't too happy because he now had to rewrite a 5-paragraph essay, but double-spaced with 1" margins on each side so his teacher had room to correct any mistakes.

"It's so much!" he protested.

So I asked him, how do you eat an elephant?

With that he started writing, one sentence at a time, one word at a time, and I returned to my desk. When I checked on him a little while later he was talking on the phone to Liz, who wanted to join us for lunch around 12:30. When she hung up I showed the boy that I had another coupon for another free cookie, and said if he had 3 paragraphs of his essay done before Mom got in he could get another cookie.

When Liz called to say she was almost here he was starting on the fourth paragraph, so we quickly packed up and made our way to the Subway for another cookie. It took a couple of minutes so Liz was waiting for us by the time we got out.

We decided to eat lunch at Panini Cafe, on 9th & Hope, found parking one block away, and despite it being 12:30pm were seated right away. Unfortunately the table at which we were seated was immediately beneath a slowly rotating fan beneath a rather bright track light, which resulted in a very unpleasant strobe effect bouncing off our table.

At our request a Waiter stood on Liz's chair and turned up the fan. This sped up the strobe effect so it wasn't as obvious but after a minute or so of being subject to a now high-speed strobe we decided it was still unbearable. Fortunately a table in the corner was not beneath a fan (there were numerous fans throughout the restaurant) and the four gentleman seated there had just paid their bill, so we grabbed our Waiter and told her we'd like to switch to their table when they were done; she said that would be fine.

Then I heard a Waiter behind me telling another customer they would be seated there when the foursome left. I turned and told this Waiter we'd already asked to be moved to that table.

"I'm sorry," she replied, "but they've been waiting longer than you."

"That's fine," I said, putting my menu down, "we'll leave then." I'm fairly easy going and laid back and so have never done anything like this before, but Liz was right there with me as I stood up and to his credit the boy didn't protest or complain; he immediately stood up and followed us out.

"Let's just go across the road to the Ralph's," I said, "they have a pretty decent Deli section there." And so we did.

Later I said to Liz, almost in disbelief, "I can't believe we just walked out of the restaurant!"

She said she'd been about to suggest doing that herself.

Had we stayed Liz would probably have suffered a severe vertigo attack, and I do mean severe; if she watches me play Super Mario Galaxy even for just a few seconds she'll start to get motion sickness. I'm the gamer so I'm more tolerant to these things but as we'd walked out of Panini the relief I'd felt made me realize the strobe had been affecting me too, and I'm sure it had made the boy uncomfortable as well.

The food at Panini cafe is quite good. It's a little pricey but it's still good food. That said, if one has advance knowledge that their meal is not going to be enjoyable, for whatever reason that may be, and attempts have been made to correct the situation but to no avail, one should never be too embarrassed to just walk away.

Very few meals on this planet are worth suffering for.

Thursday

2010-07-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

Roadworks at my normal stop meant I had to walk up to 7th Street so I missed the 2:40pm bus, and the 2:50pm bus never came. The 3pm bus was running a few minutes late which didn't make Liz happy when I called and told her, and she already wasn't happy that I'd missed my usual bus because it meant plans had to be changed. Grr.

So instead of picking me up Liz dropped JE at basketball practice and then picked me up at the Bus Station at 3:35 (normally I'd be there between 3:10 & 3:15pm). We drove back to the park where JE had basketball, Liz jumped out to stay with the boy and I took over and took the Bunny to her Gymnastics class. As Gym started half an hour later and finished quarter of an hour later than Basketball, I left the Bunny at Gym and returned to Basketball in time to get Liz and the boy, then back to Gym to get the Bunny, then it was on to the Mall for a very late lunch/early dinner (the kids got frozen yoghurt).

After shopping for a while we returned home and the kids played outside on their bikes, scooters, and skateboards. Rain clouds were blowing over and it did rain, briefly (typical for Los Angeles); the ground was so hot that the drops dried up almost as soon as they'd touched down.

Random Fun of the Day: Quake Cottage was set up at my office this morning so I took a spin to see what an 8.0 earthquake feels like. Apparently Quake Cottage still doesn't accurately simulate what a real 8.0 would feel like. We only rode for 30-seconds whereas a real 8.0 is predicted to last for up to 2 minutes, if not more. (That was a loooong 30 seconds though). A real 8.0 would also set off other Fault Lines so you'd be getting hit from all sides; Quake Cottage is a linear, front-to-back rolling wave. It still tosses you around, but not like what a real 8.0 would be like.

I went on it twice :)

It's now 9:40pm and I'm contemplating logging into WoW but on my Hunter, not my DK. There's a couple of old friends whom I'd like to say goodbye (again) to, if they're on. Re: leveling another Paladin to 70. My Mum will actually be here in a shade over 2 weeks. It would take me most of those 2 weeks to hit 70 and I'd probably need to play for a couple of hours every night. I'd rather not do that. Instead, if I do log in, I'll just putter around for a bit, relax, and have fun. I mean that is why we play games, right? To relax, unwind, and have fun? That's probably even more important after a day where I rode out an 8.0 earthquake, even if it was simulated ;)

Rant against MyPoints

2010-07-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

followed by vindication.

MyPoints, for those who may not be aware, is an online spam program where you sign up to get spammed and you click the links in the emails for points and after clicking a bazillion links you finally earn enough points to get a $5 Toys 'r' Us gift card. (Actually it's not that many emails, and the rewards are pretty decent, but unless you shop online at their affiliate's sites don't expect to be getting a gift card every week, or every other week, for that matter.)

I've been a MyPoints Member for quite a few years now (maybe 8-10?) and I've happily clicked through their emails and slowly accrued my MyPoints...which the wife cashes in for Gift Cards and spends, all without my knowledge. Meanwhile I continue to happily click through their emails and accrue more MyPoints, and so on. The wife also has a MyPoints account and she probably signed our son up, too. Nothing wrong with that, except there's probably an age requirement to be a MyPoints Member. Meh.

Last this week I clicked one of the MyPoints emails in my Inbox and as the page loaded I returned to the MyPoints folder, deleted the first email then clicked the link in the second. When the 'offer' pages loaded, instead of seeing their 'offer' I was presented with a message that said "Account closed due to violation of Terms of Service".

Huh?

Ok, I knew what that meant, but still. Huh? What violation? What did I do that violated their Terms of Service?

So I emailed them asking "What did I do?", and the response I got back appeared to be a simple Copy & Paste from the company manual, listed several possible ways to violate their Terms of Service, and didn't really tell me what I did wrong.

So I emailed them again and said, "Dude! Skip the copy & paste and just tell me what I did wrong."

This time they replied and said, "Dude! Are you fucking stupid or what? You got multiple accounts, and that's some bogus shit, dude!"

Ok, so they didn't say that exactly, but that was the gist of what they said.

So I emailed them back, again, and said, "Dude! WTF? Multiple accounts, dude? What multiple accounts?"

Ok, so I didn't say that either, but I did mention that HowManyOfMe.com can find almost 100 people with my name, 20 in California alone, and that when I tried to become a member at the downtown L.A. Library I had to use my full name because there were two people with my name already in the system. And I had to use my full middle name - not just middle initial - because the 'me' who had used his middle initial (to differentiate from the first 'me' ) also had the same middle initial as me! (Bizarre or what?)

I added that not only did I know of at least 5 people with my name in the Greater Los Angeles area, but that my son and I also share the same name (as we do with my father, his father, my great grandfather, and so on, for at least 10 generations as far as I know) and my son still lives at home (he's still a bit young to think of moving out) and that he probably has a MyPoints account just as my wife and I do. So if you're claiming I have multiple accounts because you're seeing two MyPoints accounts with the same name at the same address, I concluded, that would be me and my son.

I never heard back from them, but this morning I had a couple of MyPoints emails in my InBox. They were the same as all the other MyPoints offers I've received over the years. When I clicked them the page with the offer came up, rather than an Alert message that my account had been closed due to violation of Terms of Service.

Mondo radical, dude! Score one for the little guy!

Wednesday

2010-07-14T22:11:00.000-07:00

Rode the bus all the way home, made myself an Iced Coffee when I got there, then settled down to play a bit of Super Mario Galaxy 2. I realize with the Mario games that it's tradition that each 'chapter' be called a World, and that each World is then broken up into 8-10 levels, but it makes no sense to maintain that naming policy with SMG, especially when each World contains multiple Planets, and in some cases a Galaxy or two.

The boy joined me on the second controller and SMG multiplay proved remarkably more cooperative than the new Super Mario Bros. game, except for a couple of occasions where he would freeze a moving critter just as I was leaping into the air, and instead of coming down on top of its head I'd find myself landing in front of it and losing some health. Still, together, we managed to beat World 3, including Baby Bowser. The bunny read his dialog before he does battle with Mario, and the haughty tone she gave him as she read cracked the boy and I up.

After dinner I took out the trash and the bunny wanted to come with me, then she wanted to play frisbee, then she wanted to ride her bike, so on went the helmet and up and down the drive she rode. After several laps she started showing off by standing up while pedaling. She's 5 1/2 years old, never had training wheels, and she's now standing up pedaling. I freaked out at first but after she showed no sign of wiping out I calmed down then called out to Liz to come and watch (so she could freak out too, which she did ;).

Liz went back inside but the Bunny and I stayed outside until the sun had set and it got too dark to ride. Tonight's bedtime story was a Christmas gift from my older sister, "Josephine Wants to Dance", and near the end when Josephine was being applauded for a successful perfomance, I noticed several familiar faces in the crowd. I asked the bunny if she recognized anyone but she didn't, at least not until I pulled out her copy of Pete the Sheep-Sheep. Then she noticed the wombat sitting next to the dogs, pointed to him and excitedly exclaimed, "And there's him! From the book with Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday!" (aka Diary of a Wombat.)

Now it's 10:30 and I have no desire to play WoW. Although I have been contemplating whether or not I can level another Paladin to 70 within the few weeks I have left, because I'd like to see if I can Tank UK with a properly Def-geared Tankadin, or if my Tanking efforts will once again end in frustration.

What I really want to do right now though is find my copy of Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island. I'm a little over half-way through it and it's the perfect size to read on the bus, but I've gone and set it down somewhere and now I can't find it. Grr.

I bet as soon as I post this and the wife reads it she'll say, "Why didn't you tell me you were looking for your book. Here it is."

* Edit - Yep, she did.

Tuesday

2010-07-13T22:45:00.000-07:00

Liz picked me up from the Bus Station, I dropped her and the boy at basketball practice, took the Bunny to the MIL's (who would take her to piano practice then keep her for the night), then returned to Liz and the boy with time to spare to watch him run a few drills and even sink a few baskets. Not bad for a kid who has only played a handful of games. After practice we went to the market and got a few things for dinner (and the next couple of days' dinners) before returning home.

After dinner I logged into WoW and decided to try Tanking Utgarde Keep on my Death Knight. Like my Paladin I'd Tanked my way through the Burning Crusade's Instances on my Frost-spec'd DK, but unlike with my Paladin (who bombed in UK) I'd picked up my DK a complete set of lvl 70 Cobalt Armor, so with a few +Defense enchants I was now Def Capped for UK (490@70) with a shade over 500 Defense. After party Buffs I also had over 14,000HP, which should have been more than enough to successfully Tank UK.

On the first Pull we managed to grab both the left and right packs at the same time. I didn't intend to do that (and I'm not sure I did) but I quickly picked up all the Mobs and held Aggro. My Health went down a spot, then back up to full, Mobs were dying and I thought we were doing alright, then I died. One second I had a full Health bar, the next second I was dead on the floor. Followed seconds later by the rest of the Group.

WTF??? was the general sentiment expressed as we ran back in.

The Healer was copping some flack from the DPS but as they were a Druid Healer (my favorite) I stuck up for him. To their credit everyone laughed it off as we ran back in, rebuffed and continued on.

"Pull more," someone said. (There's always one Go! Go! Go! More! More! More! Faster! Faster! Faster! person in every group)

"Like that first Pull?" I asked.

"More than that :D" was the reply

Other than the two almost side-by-side packs, for the most part the first few packs in UK are spread out, so I decided to pull one group deeper into the Instance in search of the next Pack.

"Stop moving them!" came the indignant cry, probably from DPS channeling an AoE spell on the spot we'd just vacated.

"I was looking for another group," I said.

"Finish off the ones you have first," was the response. Some people are never happy.

We got to the first Boss who is preceded by 4 linked Mobs. No problem. I ran in, picked up Aggro, and as I saw someone say, "Pull them back!"...I died.

Naturally we wiped again.

As we ran back in it was stated that this pack Bombs, a lot, so with only one ranged DPS I needed to pull them back to the doorway and Tank them there, away from the Boss.

We got back to the pack, rebuffed, and I pulled and began moving towards the doorway. I didn't make it. Somehow I died yet again. Even though I'd come in more prepared than I had with my Paladin this was still turning into a repeat of my first attempt at Tanking UK. Seriously. WTF?!

Before we could regroup and try again the Druid dropped group, as did two of the DPS. The Hunter took his chances and stuck with me. Wise man. The Instance queue is shorter for Tanks. We requeued but it would still be several minutes before we would get another group.

I took the time to look through the DPS meter, which includes Damage taken as well as that dished out. As expected, being a Tank I'd taken the brunt of the damage. The Paladin and Warrior DPS had each taken around 15,000 which really isn't much (and could be explained away by damage taken during the Wipes), while the Hunter had barely been scratched. IMO that meant I'd done a pretty good job of holding Aggro, which meant maybe, just maybe, the Healer had not done his job properly.

It's not that I was looking for someone else to blame; I was trying to work out why we had wiped, if it was something I'd done (or not done), and if so, how could I prevent it from happening again.

So with the available evidence appearing to point to the Healer (and thus out of my control) I was somewhat mollified, although I still didn't like having Wiped three times before we even got to the first Boss.

After waiting for several minutes we finally got a new Healer (another Druid! Hooray!), and two more DPS, including a 72 Warrior who had signed up to be Tank or DPS, and expressed surprise to find himself assigned to DPS rather than Tank.

"I'll Tank," I said, "I'm spec'd Frost so my DPS sucks."

Back in we went, up to the first Boss's room where 3 of the 4 Mobs still remained. We rebuffed, went in, I pulled the group back towards the door, and died. Again.

You have got to be fucking JOKING!!!

I wasn't pissed off; I was just very, very confused. I had more than enough Health. I was Def Capped, and although DK's can't wield Shields my combined avoidance, dodge, parry, etc., is pushing 40%. I'd been backed up by Druid Healers (my favorite flavor), and in spite of all this we'd just wiped for the fourth time.

Fail once, shame on the Healer. Fail twice (well, four times), shame on me.

I just didn't understand what I'd done wrong. I wasn't a Noob. I'd successfully Tanked my way through BC's Instances so I knew what I was doing. I'd picked up a full set of Tank Armor and was Crit Immune. I had plenty of Health, or thought I did. And yet I'd still bombed in a spectacularly horrible way.

As we went back in, without saying a word, the 72 Warrior switched to Sword & Board, made the pull on the 3 Mobs and began Tanking them. In his Tank gear he had 15K Health, which not that much more than my own, and yet he did fine. He not only did fine but before the 3 Mobs were down he'd also pulled the Boss and was Tanking him, too! And with that I was relegated to DPS for the rest of the Run.

It was very demoralizing. I wanted to Tank not just because Tanks have shorter queues, but because there is a shortage of Tanks and I've always played DPS. Not wanting a repeat of my Paladin's first foray into UK I'd taken all the steps I thought necessary to successfully Tank the Run, and yet I'd still not been able to do it.

With the Run over I was not in the mood to play so I logged out and actually turned off my PC. Before 8:30 even! Incredible! With the boy almost finished his homework (from summer school) I decided to watch Shaun of the Dead. Sure it's Rated R, but he's seen Zombieland and Ninja Assassin, and by now he's probably heard all the curse words at school (although it is an English movie so there were probably a couple of new ones ;)

After the opening scene I kept trying to place Kate Ashfield, who plays Shaun's girlfriend Liz. It wasn't because I've watched Shaun of the Dead a few times before. I knew I'd seen Kate in something else, but what?

It wasn't until after the Zombie outbreak, when Shaun has gathered together his Mum, his Step-dad, and Liz and her two friends, that I finally realized where I'd seen Kate before. Kate plays Mzzz Hardy (as Richie Twat, aka Rik Mayall, refers to her) in Guest House Paradiso. When I finally realized this I was even more amused to recall that Bill Nighy, who plays Philip, Shaun's Step-dad - but you probably know him better as Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, or Viktor from Underworld - is also in Guest House Paradiso where he plays Mr. Johnson, aka, Mz. Hardy's boyfriend.

In other words the actors who play Shaun's girlfriend and Shaun's Step-dad are a couple in Guest House Paradiso. Small world :)

Monday

2010-07-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

Got home a little before 4pm, caught up on some Blogs, watched some Youtube videos that don't stream at work (so I can't watch them on my lunch break), then got sucked into an episode of The Closer where Brenda had to 'close' a case against a female Detective who had accused her husband of beating her, a husband who was later shot & killed by a police officer who responded to a 911 distress call the Detective placed.

After Brenda got her man (or in this case her woman) we went to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory (had some Gift Cards burning a hole in Liz's pocket), got a free book at Borders for the Bunny (for reading 10 books since the start of summer break), then bummed around the Mall until closing time.

Came home, got the kids ready for bed, read some more Blogs, and now it's Bedtime for Bonzo...or something like that ;)

Once more unto the breach

2010-07-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

Or...here we go again.

The reason given?

WoW's Terms of Use, S10 "Security of Login Information" makes me "responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the Login Information". I stated that as RealID was an Opt-Out program and not Opt-In, I felt this amounted to unauthorized disclosure of the Login Information for which Blizzard had made me responsible, and so I no longer wished to continue my subscription.

I now have a few more weeks to play, until August 7th, and then my WoW subscription will once more lapse.

How much time???

2010-07-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

Part of becoming my own parent through WoW's parental controls was being able to request a copy of the amount of time played/signed in to my WoW account.

I know I play a lot, especially when I have days off/weekends and I don't need to do any Dailies (Weeklies?) to grind Spousal Rep. Today I got confirmation of how much I play, being a record of the amount of time I'd played on my account last week, the number of minutes logged in, and what time I'd logged out.

On the 4th of July (the first day of my report) we joined friends for barbecue dinner and fireworks so I logged off at 3:50pm after playing for just 85 minutes. After we got home I logged in again and played for 160 minutes before calling it a night/morning at 1:50am. Because the 4th was a Sunday and I get all the Federal Holidays I was off on Monday the 5th, so logging off at ten-to-two on this particular Sunday night/Monday morning is not that big of a deal.

What's funny about my play time on Monday is I had 3 session that each lasted almost exactly 100 minutes. Two at 99 and one at 98. Combined with the evening's play session I racked up a little over 7 hours for the day.

Tuesday I played a much more moderate 2 hours (literally. The report says 121 minutes. Ok, 2 hours and 1 minute. Happy now?), logging out at 11:25pm. Wednesday I played just 1 hour (or 61 minutes for you nit-pickers) and logged off at 10:43pm.

But Thursday?

The wife called me on my way home and said the boy had basketball practice, the bunny had gymnastics, and afterward she was going to the Gym and wouldn't be home until after 6pm. She confirmed that the kids would be staying with her parents (no need to make dinner) so I rode the bus all the way home (instead of her picking me up at the Bus Station) where I emptied the dish washer then reloaded it, picked up dog poop (from the backyard!), took out the trash, vacuumed the stairs, then sat down to play at approx. 4:30, logging out 110 mins later at 6:20 (probably when the wife got home). I wouldn't log in again for another 3 hours, but when I did I racked up another 200 minutes between 9:30pm and 1am when I called it a night (or the wife called me to bed ;) So between 4:30pm and 1am, a period of 8 1/2 hours, I played for 310 minutes, being 5 hours, 10 minutes (for the mathematically challenged).

Friday was another day off (yes, I worked just 3 days last week, flanked by two 3-day weekends) but the kids stayed with their grandparents while Liz and I spent a lazy day at home. I actually only played twice this day. I logged off at 7:07pm after playing for just 572 minutes, (a little over 9 1/2 hours :P), but it was clearly an idle-out while grabbing something to eat because I logged in again just minutes later and would stay logged in until quarter-to-one, Saturday morning. Two sessions, one at 572 minutes, one at 333 minutes, for fifteen fucking hours.

I got up Saturday and despite attending my son's basketball game, among other activities (such as shopping with the wife), racked up another 7 hours in-game.

Total time played for the week (thanks in no small part to Friday's 15-hour marathon session)? 2,498 minutes, or 41 hours, 38 minutes.

With the extra days off and the kids spending much of their time with their grandparents this was not a typical week, but I'd still expect to play for at least 20 hours in any given week. Let's see what this week brings. Will I let this inordinate amount of in-game time affect this week's play time? Or will I still play for 20 hours, if not more?

Facebook, WoW, and RealID

2010-07-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

"Facebook is the only (big) place where people interact, play games and spend time by their real name, not behind some avatar..." - Okrane S. commenter on Spink's Blog

Except for many of those 'games', Zynga's games in particular, you need at least 501 friends WHO ALSO PLAY if you want to be 'successful' in them.

In Mafia Wars, if you don't have 501+ people in your Gang, you're guaranteed to get attacked by other players. Having 501 (or more) doesn't mean you won't be attacked either, but having less than 501 means you certainly will.

So you have two choices:
You can spam the message boards asking hundreds of people to add you as a Friend while you also add as many new 'Friends' as you can;
Or you create a second Games-only account where you don't use your real name or picture;

I did the first but slowly grew frustrated at having my wall filled with countless messages from all the games all these Friends-I-hadn't-met were playing. The final straw came when my brother-in-law posted a status update commenting on his broken foot, I asked what had happened, he said he'd crashed his car a week ago...and hadn't I seen his status update?

No. I hadn't. Because my FB Wall had been filled with the random crap of countless strangers. (In my defense I do live in another country, 8,000 miles away.)

So I pruned my Friends List and went the second route, creating a Games-only FB account using a fake name and picture, and started over.

With the speed at which you can level to Cap in WoW these days then Epic-out your character via the LFD Tool, starting over is not the set back many might think. Sure, there's the $100+ to purchase WoW, BC, & LK all over again, but by starting over and using prepaid Game Cards you can give yourself a brand new name, which seems to be the concern of many. So that's one way to bypass RealID.

While creating a fake FB account (and likewise a fake WoW account) may be against their Terms of Use (if they even have one, and I can't be stuffed looking), there are thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of people with Game-only accounts, accounts created by people who didn't use their real name and/or picture. For the most part it's easy to tell if it's a Games-only account, especially if their profile pic is a centerfold, or a graphic from Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc. In my case, I trawled a random guy's pic off the 'net, gave him a name, and even created a fake profile/history for him. What's really funny (not 'Ha Ha' funny) is he gets well wishers posting on his Wall on his 'birthday'. But he doesn't exist. He's just an avatar. My avatar. My avatar which I use to play Facebook games.

That's what Facebook and Blizzard need to understand: Many, many, MANY people do NOT want to use their real name when playing computer games, and their reasons for doing so are numerous, varied, and quite often valid.

RealID has set the 'net ablaze. Many are angry about it, some blasé, and some creative types have produced humorous responses (dryly ironic, but amusing nonetheless).

I liken this to those who say, "If you have nothing to hide, why can't the police come in and search your house? I'd let them search my house if they wanted to."

Fine. Let them search your house then, because even though I have nothing to hide, that doesn't mean I'm prepared to let the police poke around in my private belongings. I value my privacy, thank you very much, so I'll share what I choose to share and when given the choice, I'll keep private what I'd prefer remain private.

This is why I enabled Parental Controls on my account last night and deactivated RealID, or I would have, if it wasn't already unchecked once I got in.

By coincidence my 6-month sub expired yesterday and my Mum is coming to visit for several weeks next month so when I renewed WoW last night, rather than buying another 6-month block at $12.99/month, I just bought 1 month at $14.99. I don't intend to play during August so why pay for it? Sure, July cost me $2 more but I'll save $13 in August so by that reasoning I'm $11 ahead. I need to cancel that 1-month recurring Sub before August because I don't want to continue paying $15/month so when I cancel it, in protest against RealID, I intend to state it as the reason why I'm doing so. Who knows, with LOTRO apparently going free-to-play in a couple of months, maybe I won't even renew WoW after Mum leaves.

And in the meantime? I still have both Mario Galaxy games to complete, along with Zelda: Twilight Princess, Muramasa, Sky Crawlers, Zack & Wiki...the list goes on. So many unbeaten Nintendo games. I'm getting slack in my old age ;)

AFK Fun in the Blood Furnace

2010-07-05T22:47:00.000-07:00

I've been leveling up a Death Knight Tank (just for something to do) and this weekend I did numerous Ramparts and Blood Furnace Runs trying to get either Hellreaver or the Warsong Howling Axe, but neither of them would drop. (Which is a blessing in disguise, because it also meant I didn't have to lose them to a Ninja Hunter). There are a couple of other low 60s weapons which are more easily obtainable, but none that could really be considered an upgrade as far as Tanking goes.

For the most part the PUGs have gone reasonably smoothly. There have been few (if any) cases of Go! Go! Go! and while I'm still getting the hang of DK Tanking, learning what I can (and cannot) safely Pull, the Runs are also going reasonably quickly. While I'm not doubtful of my Healer's ability to keep my alive, I do want to keep the Pulls to a size with which I'm comfortable holding Aggro. Which would you rather: The Tank play it safe & take 20-25 minutes for a Wipe-free Run? Or you drop out because they're going too slow, then have to endure the 30-minute debuff? (Sure, you could hang in there for 15 minutes to avoid the Deserter Debuff, but in just 5-10 more minutes the Run will be over so why not stick it out? DPS are easily replaced anyway. It's no skin off our nose if you bail on us, first 15-minutes or not.)

On this one particular Blood Furnace Run we lost one of our DPS on the wave of Orcs preceding Broggok (or perhaps between Wave #4 and Broggok). No problem, DPS are easily replaced. A Hunter zoned in as I grabbed Aggro on WoW's equivalent of a Beholder and 20 seconds later he went down, dropping the Legion Blunderbuss. Everyone Greed rolled except the Hunter...who didn't roll at all.

I was in the middle of typing "Hunter, Need roll on the Gun if it's an upgrade" when our Priest said, "WTF Why is the Hunter following me?"

I stopped typing and brought up Recount. The Hunter's name was conspicuously absent. He'd zoned in (something you can't do without clicking 'Accept' and immediately AFK-Followed the Priest). I deleted what I'd just typed and replaced it with "No sign of Hunter in Recount". Someone else threw up their Recount showing it wasn't just me; the Hunter was AFK-Following the Priest, and had been AFK throughout that entire Boss fight. (With all due respect, he was a NElf Hunter)

Right-Click Hunter. Vote to Kick. And? This player cannot be kicked for 12 more minutes.

I announced this to the group.

"Just keeping going and we'll kick before the Boss," someone said. That appeared to be the general consensus so off we went, 4-manning Blood Furnace. Fortunately Death Knights are OP so it's not like we were wanting for DPS.

In the room immediately before Keli'dan we decided to try and get the still-AFK Hunter killed. It should have been easy as the Felguard Annihilators in this room often ignore the Aggro table and attack party members at random. It was working too, and I was silently cheering as the Hunter's lifebar started dropping, and then...he Potted. Or Feigned to drop Aggro then Bandaged, or something. But his Health shot back up and just like that he was running all over the place and no longer AFK-Following the Priest, who in an ironic turn of events was the only casualty of the fight.

WTF? Did the Hunter Heal? someone asked.

He's pulling the Boss!!! someone else yelled.

And indeed he was.

The Hunter had run into Keli'dan's room and aggroed the Warlocks, starting the encounter.

Well sure, you can do that, I said to myself, as I watched the Hunter run back out of Keli'dan's room, Warlocks in tow, but good luck taking the Boss down with no Healer or Tank. (I'd moved back to the far wall and was having no part of this fight.)

The Hunter was also not stopping to finish what he'd started and was running back the way we'd come. With no additional incoming damage the Warlocks eventually reset and ran back into Keli'dan's room.

Idea!

"Running back to the start to pick up our Healer," I announced in Party chat. "Don't want to risk stray Pats or respawns."

Also need 5 more minutes until we can kick this bastard Hunter, I whispered the Priest.

The Timer was ticking down but the Priest hadn't zoned back in. I wondered if he was delaying, hanging around outside. I decided to give him a valid excuse for 'wasting time'.

"We're in the top Instance," I typed. "The one up the ramp and along the wall."

"Oh. Never mind," I added, as the Priest laughed and zoned in beside me.

As we passed through Broggok's room the Hunter's 15-minute Immunity Timer finally expired and within seconds he was Kicked and almost as quickly replaced...by another Hunter! No!

This one was a Dwarf though, so that was alright ;) He also responded when I mentioned we were on the final Boss, thus confirming he wasn't AFK-Following us. I did a quick Inspection of his gear and he had my Axe! :( Actually that was a good thing, if it would just drop already! (Side note. An earlier Inspection of the AFK-Leech had revealed he was wielding the Heirloom Bow Feel free to interpret that how you will.)

Into Keli'dan's room we went. The Warlocks went down. Keli'dan went down. And...still no Axe :( That made five Blood Furnace Runs, and Orion only knows how many Ramparts Runs, and still no weapon upgrade.

But after all that (& questing to boot) I'm now also 65 and thus able to attempt the Ring of Blood chain in Nagrand, completion of which will reward me with the Honed Voidaxe. Finally! A(nother) weapon fit for a Death Knight! I just need a group, or a couple of über friends, and the Honed Voidaxe will be mine. Oh yes! It will.

Beef Brisket

2010-06-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

After spending a day at the beach in San Diego we stopped at Kula Sushi in Irvine for dinner, then decided to hit the Korean market next door. While I was looking at the beef briskets Liz asked me if I knew how to cook it. "No," I said, resignedly placing the packet back into the refrigerator. But just as we moved on impulse hit me and I grabbed it back out and threw it in the cart.

Back home I wondered "Just how does one cook a beef brisket?" so I decided to hit up someone I was pretty sure would know. The Man came through, suggesting that because my cut was the Flat (lacking the layer of fat along one side) I should do a beer marinate to keep it tender while cooking (the role the layer of fat normally plays when one barbecues a brisket). He also recommended I slow cook this cut in the oven, covered or wrapped in foil, to keep it tender.

Alternatively, if I didn't mind a tougher cut, I could still marinate it and barbecue, but glaze it, and glaze it, and glaze it some more. That sounded like a lot more work than I was prepared to do. Not that I'm not afraid to stand out over the barbecue, tongs in one hand, beer in the other, but I'm rather partial to the "slap it in the slow cooker and forget about it until the house smell delicious and you start drooling" method of cooking.

Of course a beer marinate is not as simple as it sounds. What kind of beer are we talking about here? Lager? Ale? Draught? Bitter? Stout? It turns out Guinness is one of the most preferred beers to use as a marinate, as are English ales. Problem is my house currently has no beer, but we'll probably go shopping later so at least now I know one of the things we'll be looking out for. I also now know how to cook a brisket, but more importantly, how to shop for one. Thanks Daniel!

Quick Review: UFC Undisputed 2010

2010-06-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to play the PS3 demo of UFC '10 at Best Buy on the weekend, and I liked it. It was very quick and easy to pick up the basics, especially as it used Tekken-like controls with each of the 4 primary buttons being for left punch, right punch, left kick, & right kick. It made it very easy to string combos together while also demonstrating the infeasibility of throwing right roundhouse kick after right roundhouse kick after right roundhouse kick, etc.

Being UFC the game is more than just striking and fighters do go to the mat and can attempt submission moves. Not knowing (at the time) how to get out of a submission (or apply one) I settled for knocking my opponent the fuck out! Hey, it's UFC, right? It's not figure skating. So for the most part I was throwing combinations and going for a knock-out punch, and if I happened to knock my opponent to the mat I'd move in and hammer him with left-right-left strikes to the head until he pushed me away and the referee broke us up, or I broke through his defense, broke his nose, and knocked him the fuck out!

To demonstrate the engine's eloquence and subtlety my son took his turn and made it through the first round after cutting his opponent up (strikes to the head can cut while blows to the body leave nasty looking welts). When the bell sounded to start the second round my boy slowly backed away from his opponent while throwing several big, right hands that found nothing but air. But the fourth or fifth punch he threw finally connected and it must have found the sweet spot because his opponent went down like a poleaxed steer. One punch and Bam! (And we're not talking Margera) Knock out. Lights out. Game over. Thanks for coming.

Unlike my victories which came after several devastating head shots this was one, perfectly thrown punch that just knocked the recipient out for the count. So you can brutally beat your opponent into the mat, you can finesse your way to victory, or, as I'd find out in one of my matches, you can yield to an arm bar or some other various submission hold.

It's apparently getting quite high reviews and having played the demo I can understand why. It's controls are easy to pick up and it's probably loads of fun at a LAN party or just when you get a few mates around, but it also hints that if you're prepared to put in the time it could rival the fighting games of yesteryear for depth and complexity.

If I had a PS3 (or XBox), this is definitely one I'd be adding to my library.

How Country are you?

2010-06-10T07:30:00.001-07:00

If you're real Country, you know what usually happens shortly after the lambs drop. If you need a subtle hint, think Barbecued lambs' tails and Rocky Mountain Oysters. What? That's subtle. Country subtle ;)

Many years ago, after getting the lambs into the holding pen there wasn't anything left for us boys to do so we decided to play Rodeo with the Ram that had been locked up in the nearby stable.

My mate climbed on top of the Ram and grabbed a couple of handfuls of wool, but the Ram just stood there, chewing some hay, probably wondering what was going on and why this fool of a kid was sitting on his back.

Now being a Ram he was not only responsible for impregnating the whole flock of sheep all by himself, but he needed to get the job done in a real short space of time. In order to tackle a big job like that all by himself a Ram needs a big set of tackle, and our Ram was no exception.

As my mate sat on the Ram's back and kicked his heels trying to get the Ram to start bucking, the Ram moved around and two things became very obvious.

And I got an idea how to get this Ram Rodeo underway.

I stretched out my foot and tapped these two things with my toe (really, it was just a tap.) and the Ram exploded. He leaped into the air and spun around and my mate went flying and as he crashed to the ground my mate's little brother and I roared with laughter.

We each took a turn riding the Ram and it didn't matter how good a handful of wool you got, each ride ended with the same result. That Ram did not like anyone touching his tackle, but who could blame him? With what the men were doing to the lambs outside maybe he thought it was finally his turn, and over the years he'd probably become real attached to his balls ;)

Imagine a dirt road, full of pot holes
With a creek bank, and some cane poles,
Catching channel cat.
I’m a little more country than that.
- Easton Corbin

Review: Warstorm on FB

2010-05-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

Warstorm is neither your typical Facebook game nor your typical card-based war game. (It also has a browser-based version but I'm not sure how well that works.)

Unlike Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc., you don't need 500+ friends to get maximum value from Warstorm, so it doesn't require you to create a second Facebook "Game" account, spam a load of strangers with Friend requests, or fill message boards with ADD ME!!! LOL!!!. And yet in spite of this the typical comments on the official Warstorm Facebook groups are still "Add me!!!" Go figure.

With that said, it does help to have a couple of Friends who play because every now & then the game gives you a bonus 'Rare' Card. But it's not for you, it's for your friends, and in the typical FB Game spammy fashion you can't just Send it to them, you have to post a message on your wall so your Friends can Click the link and collect the Card themselves. Likewise your Friends can post Rare Card messages on their own Wall that you can click and collect. But there's a catch. You can only collect one Rare card every 24 hours. Not one Rare Card per Friend per day; one Rare Card per day, period. So having hundreds of friends spamming your Wall with Rare Card posts every day is no more useful than having just a couple, as long as they're regular players of course. (Which makes me wonder how the browser-based version works, unless you can somehow add people as your Friends...perhaps via email?)

As you play the game and win battles/duels you earn Silver which you can use to buy more Card Packs, and when you do buy and 'open' a pack you will sometimes get a Bonus card. Unlike the Rare Cards these can be Sent directly to a Friend but only to one Friend, and you can only send one Card to each Friend every 24 hours. The game does ask you to post a message on your Friend's Wall so they know they got the Card, but in this case I don't think posting is actually necessary. I believe your Friend still receives the Card whether you post a "Hey! I sent you a card!" message or not. Now while you can only collect one Rare Card every 24 hours, and you can only send one Bonus Card to each Friend every 24 hours, if you have 100 Friends they can obviously each send you one Bonus Card if they get them, but! Do you really think someone is going to send a Bonus Card to you, a complete stranger, when they have Real Life Friends who also play? Of course not. You only get Bonus Cards from opening Packs, or from buying Hero Cards via RMT, so unless you spend real cash you just won't get that many Bonus Cards to give away. Are you going to send some stranger a Bonus Hero card you only got because you spent real money? Or will you send it to your Brother/Cousin/Best Friend4Life? Yeah, I thought so.

That's a big plus to Warstorm over the other FB Games: you simply do not need to add a bunch of strangers as Friends in order to play the game. Of course your Real Life Friends still need to actually play.

I said earlier that it's not your typical card-based war game, and it's not. In MTG and other games of its ilk you build your deck then duel other players by, usually, dealing yourself a hand, then playing out the game and using your cards to the best of their ability (and your own) to defeat the other player and their cards, in a process requiring a combination of both luck and strategy. In Warstorm, the only strategy comes from the deck building itself, because once a game starts you're even more of an observer than someone playing a low level Paladin. Yes, once a duel begins you'll do nothing more than sit back & watch, and maybe hit the Fast Forward button if you want to speed up the pace a little, which I did.

This may sound boring and/or frustrating in not having any control over how your cards are played ("No! Don't give the Sword of Power to the Mage! He's going to be killed on the next turn! No! Don't Zap the Troll Hero! Target the Flying Imp!") but it's a lot easier to accept that style of play once you realize it's actually a very fair way to resolve combat. You're dueling a random player's deck, not an actual player, meaning they're not actually present to manage their own cards, so letting you control your own cards and Zap their low HP Imp instead of the high HP, regenerating Troll Hero would be giving you an unfair advantage over your opponent.

Here's an example of a Hero Card:
There's already descriptions for the bottom numbers and they're self-explanatory for the most part, although just for clarification purposes your Turn and your opponent's Turn makes two Turns, so a card which readies in 10 Turns will be ready within 5 of your own Turns after being drawn. The three numbers in the top right corner of this Hero's card mean his Squad will be comprised of 6 Units, but no artifacts or spells. A Squad is always a Hero plus 6 Cards so you may also get a Hero who commands 4 Units but takes 2 Artifacts into battle, or 2 spells, or 1 Artifact and 1 Spell. I've not yet seen any Heroes who have more than 2 Artifact and/or Spell cards.

As soon as a Card is Ready it can be used immediately to attack, heal, etc. There is no Tapping or Exhausting of cards. Your cards attack and use their special abilities (if they have any), then your opponent's cards do the same, then your cards, and so on, with the goal being to reduce your opponents Morale from 30 to 0, or destroy all of his units/cards. Morale is reduced by cards attacking unopposed, through Spells or Artifacts such as the Drums of Despair, or via special abilities like Demoralize.

When you start you'll play through a Tutorial which both introduces many of the special abilities in the game, and rewards you with cards with the same. So after beating a Squad of Mages with the Blast Ability you'll receive a Mage or two with Blast, and so on. This makes it very easy to learn how combat and the cards work, and what cards are effective counters to other cards. Unfortunately it also makes the game appear rather easy, so the first time you play a real opponent you might be in for a very rude shock.

After completing the Tutorial you can continue to play the Single Player campaign, which gradually rewards you with more powerful cards, or you can try your luck against other players. But as those players tend to already have the more powerful cards, or even RMT cards, it's advisable to build up your Squads before engaging in the Warstorm equivalent of PvP. I say Squads because if you have sufficient Heroes and Squads you can do up to 4v4 Duels, being 4 of your Squads versus 4 of those from another player. Personally I thought 4 Squads took too long (and usually resulted in my Defeat) so for the most part I'll do 2v2 where my chances of success are much greater and the battles are usually over a lot faster.

Now even though, once you hit Start and the cards start coming out, you become no more than a participant, there's still a lot of excitement from watching a battle unfold as you cheer desperately for certain cards to come out, knowing there's nothing you can do but watch the battle unfold. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you get creamed and wonder just why the hell your opponent seems to have so many cards, and other times the cards go all your way and you're the one with a seemingly invincible army carving up everything your opponent's deck throws at you.

If there's anything negative to say about Warstorm it's that (for me) there was a wall around level 10-12 that I needed to crash through where I just couldn't defeat the next stages in the Single Player campaign, and where I likewise went from seeming to win most of my PvP Duels to just getting crushed in almost every single game. It almost seemed intended, as if to convince me to engage in RMT to advance, instead it made me want to throw in the towel. But I stuck it out, and even losing duels got me silver, and eventually I was able to buy some more card packs, tweak my squads a little more, and I started to win a few more duels. That was also when I accepted that "You can't win 'em all", which made the game more enjoyable as well.

All up I'd say check it out, at least to level 10 or so, to see whether it's your cup of tea. It's free to play so you really have nothing to lose but an evening of messing around. And even if you don't have a Facebook account you can always give the Browser version a try.

WoW: Food for thought

2010-05-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

Raid-geared players spend their downtime running Heroics on their Mains so they can get Badges to buy Heirloom gear for their Alts so they don't have to spend as much time playing their Alts. I know, I know. Leveling their Alts, it's the same thing.

Here are some questions to ponder.

How many Heroics do you need to run to obtain enough Badges to buy the Heirloom +XP pieces? How long does that take? Factor in not being a Tank (or being able to queue with one) and spending time in queues.

~~If your Alt changes Armor at 40 (Leather to Mail, or Mail to Plate), factor in enough Runs to buy multiple sets.~~ Actually I just read that Mail Heirloom Gear apparently reverts to Leather when worn by sub-40 Hunters and Shamans, while Plate Heirloom gear does the same for sub-40 Warriors and Paladins. That's a nice touch but you'll want to buy a set of Leather Heirloom gear anyway for your Rogue and Druid (two Sets if you're leveling a Caster Druid), and don't forget a set of Cloth Heirloom gear for your Squishies. How many Badges is that? 8-10 pieces at 40 each, or 320-400 Badges. And don't forget Weapons for everyone. At 65 Badges per weapon that's another 300+ Badges.

How many Runs will it take to acquire 600-700 (or more) Badges?

What about one Alt? How many Runs will it take to collect just 145 Badges?

And how much time does Heirloom gear really save while leveling Alts?

A level 1 character needs 24,067,200 XP to get to level 80. Whether you run to the nearest Mailbox at level 1 or just complete the starting area quests and get there in due time is a moot point. You need 7600xp to get from level 1 to level 5 (the average point at which a character reaches their first Inn & mailbox) and so a 20% bonus to XP by that point has netted you just 1520 extra XP, or a little more than 1/3 of the 3600 needed to get from level 5 to level 6. It takes approx. 20-30 minutes to get from level 5 to 6 so taking 5 minutes (or so) to run to the nearest Mailbox to get your Heirloom gear at level 1 saves you about 10 minutes.

But we're looking at The Big Picture® and in the grand scheme of things a 20% bonus to XP means you don't need the full 24,067,200XP to go from 1 to 80 but rather 83.3% (recurring decimal) of that. That's 20,056,000 XP, an amount which would put you a little over halfway into 77 if you didn't have Heirloom gear. That's what your 20% Heirloom gear really saves you: that last grind from 77 to 80 which would probably take an experienced Player (and if you have Heirloom gear, that's you) about 2-3 days/evenings questing, running PUGs, etc. Naturally a more casual-paced player is going to take longer to do that last 77-80 grind, but they'll also take longer to gather the 80 Badges for the Heirloom gear, so it all evens out in the end.

Plants in Aquariums

2010-04-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

We were at one of our local Pet Supplies stores recently. Not a PetCo/PetSmart, not that I have nothing against them, just this local supplier can do better deals on Blue Buffalo and Wellness pet food than I can get at PetCo. I asked the cashier if they carried live plants for aquariums, because I hadn't seen any plants and their fish section was quite small (they don't actual stock animals, just the supplies, feed, etc.) They didn't but she did tell us that there was an aquarium store just up the road.

How we didn't know about it before I don't know, because it was huge! At first I thought it was a pet store because it was so big and it was called PTF Pets (PTF = Pasadena Tropical Fish, btw), but inside were wall-to-wall tanks of fish. But not just fish; crabs and other marine critters and even some strange things that looked like 5-legged Octopus...would that make them Pentapusses? Pentapie?

I asked the lady running the show about plants and she escorted me to a tank with a dozen or so plants floating around the bottom (are they still floating if they're at the bottom?) and I picked out a couple of lively looking sorts (Narrow Leaf Chain Sword, and Red Wendth), then asked her about the proper method of installing them in my tank, because I'd put plants into my tank before which had not survived. Then again, that was probably a combination of the Snail infestation that came along with them, and me being a Noob and not following SOP for planting aquarium plants.

Growing out of the bottom of one of the pots were these lovely long roots and yet when I asked the lady about how to plant the plants she recommended I cut those lovely long roots off. She said if I bent the roots over to bury them in the substrate that it hurts the roots and the plant, and that's not good. That was probably one of the Noob mistakes I made last time. The other was trying to bury the sponge surrounding the roots in the substrate, because...I don't know why, I just did. It didn't work, because it's a sponge and it wanted to float, even when covered by rocks.

This time around I carefully cut the plants out of their little plastic pots and carefully pulled apart and removed the foam sponge surrounding the roots, then I carefully separated the plants because while it wasn't obvious at first glance each pot actually came with more than just one plant.

There were two Chain Swords in their pot, but I'm sad to report that their roots were very brown and I didn't like the look of them (the roots, not the plant itself). I still planted them because (as you'll see from the picture below) their foliage was green and looked quite healthy, so I'll just hope for the best with those two.

From the Red Wendth pot I got over six individual plants (this was the one with the beautiful, long roots) and the boy and I carefully trimmed their beautiful, long roots back to about half an inch before planting them in the tank, too.

Oddly enough, as Pike has noted on her Blog about her fish seeming happier after a water change, my Tetras likewise seemed excited (or at least more active) with the new addition to their tank, as they now have a small underwater forest (of sorts) in which to hide and swim through. Then again, I also did a 25% water change (I have a 2.5 gallon bucket so I siphon out a bucketful of water from my 10-gallon tank then add a bucket of water), partly because it had been over a week since I'd done a water change, partly because I needed to take some water out so when I stuck my arm in the tank it didn't overflow, and partly because I deliberately stirred up the substrate so there was a lot of fish crap floating around. It was so murky that even though I changed the filter prior to the water change, it was covered with junk within minutes and water was backflowing out of the filter. After topping the tank back up to 10-gallons I rinsed even more crud off the filter (yes, again), then later in the evening rinsed it off one more time.

I checked on the fish this morning at breakfast and we still had a tank full of fish, still alive and still seeming to enjoy their new underwater forest home. If they were going to die from something brought in on the new plants, with it being such a small confined space I'd expect the first deaths to occur within hours. But they were alive this morning and they're happy as clams now, 24 hours later, so obviously they've survived the addition of the plants. Now I just need the plants to survive being transplanted into their new home.

Finally, here's a picture...

Click to make FHuge!

Tanking in CoS

2010-04-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

I've been slowly upgrading my Tanking gear via the Auction House, with Drops (when the Tank doesn't Need them), and Badge items, but despite reading how easy it is to hit 540 Defense I'm still at approx. 480. But that still doesn't stop me from offering to Tank in a pinch when we really need to, such as on a recent Heroic CoS.

The Warrior Tank was clearly new to the game and expressed unfamiliarity with the CoS Instance, and we lost & replaced two Healers and two DPS before we finished the 10 Waves. (There were not going to be any Bronze Drake Reins dropping on this Run.) After hooking up with Arthas and our third replacement Healer and DPS we got to the top of the stairs and once again things went south in a heartbeat.

Lying dead on the floor I quickly whispered the Druid Healer not to drop group, that we'd kick the Tank and I'd take over. I knew the Hunter who'd stuck with me through this would kick the Tank if it was put to the Vote, and just like that the Tank was gone. I switched to Prot, donned my Tank gear and, to his credit, the Druid did not take one look at me and immediately drop group, although he did whisper me and ask if I had any more +Def gear.

This is it, I replied, but I do know this Instance and what I'm doing.

It's okay, he whispered back, I'll keep you up.

We restarted the Arthas encounter and everything went a lot smoother, although I did forget the third wave that ambush the party in the short corridor immediately before Epoch. That was certainly an 'Oops!' moment as I ran through to Epoch's room then stood there wondering what was keeping the others. (So much for knowing the Instance.) Back into the corridor I went, laying down Consecrate and doing everything I could as fast as I could to grab Aggro. We survived. Arthas makes for a good Tank in a pinch and Druid Healers are my favourite. I'm not saying they're better than the others, I just seem to have smoother runs when I'm backed up by a Druid.

After taking out Epoch and running the last gauntlet of Undead before getting to Mal'Ganis the Healer whispered me "OMG this is horrible!"

I whispered back, "But maybe just a little fun?" (Healers secretly love it when we overpull and give them something to do ;)

"Maybe ;)" was their reply.

We got to Mal'Ganis, Arthas and he had their chat, then I ran through my rotation and like I knew he would the Druid healed through my deficient Defense and the Demon Lord went down. But not without casualties. The Druid (or perhaps it was the other DPS) had whispered me earlier about the Hunter sucking but I'd chosen to ignore that whisper. Well the Hunter had died during the Mal'Ganis fight and he was not very happy about it, especially when the Druid told him to learn to DPS.

"You need to learn how to heal!" he retorted.

"Go die in a fire! :D" replied the Druid.

I looked at the Hunter, lying dead on the floor, and I just couldn't help myself.

"I think he already did :D" I typed.

Tanking: Perspiration, Inspiration, Perception.

2010-04-20T22:38:00.000-07:00

After the first Heroic Random of the night I like to do a Heroic Normal. Not because I need the gear but because the Run is usually more relaxed, I get 2 Emblems of Triumph just like doing a subsequent Heroic, and I get more 50% more Gold. (I know, I know. Heroic sub-Bosses often hand out Triumphs like candy to trick-or-treaters, and Heroic vendor trash is usually worth more than Normal trash, yeah yeah. Normal is just relaxing, usually, okay?)

So I sign up for a Normal as Ret, wait a few minutes, and eventually find myself in the Pit of Saron. Everything progresses smoothly until we get to Tyrannus when the Warrior Tank starts throwing knives at him while he's flying around on his dragon waving his ePeen at us. Now pissed off and having had his say the Scourgelord refuses to come down and play. The Warrior says "bugged" (No shit, Sherlock), LOLs, and drops group, forcing us to wipe to reset the encounter, now sans Tank. Thanks for nothing, buddy.

While waiting I hit up the WoWWiki on Tyrannus and read through it. I can do this. I tell the group I'm dual-spec'd Ret/Prot and have reasonable but not fantastic Tanking gear. With DPS being easier to replace than a Tank my offer is accepted and we re-queue. Several minutes go by. No DPS. I re-read the the Boss strategy to make sure I know what I'm doing. Tyrannus is an easy Tank & Spank fight, as long as you avoid the splash damage from his dragon's ice breath and, if possible, drag him through his own mount's icy drool puddles. I'm not Def Capped (I have some +Def pieces, including this baby) but this is a Normal Run and I'm wearing almost all Purples. Nothing to it. Hopefully.

Still no DPS.

"Let's do this. 4-man it," says one of my comrades-in-arms.

And so we did.

It was intense. Really, seriously, freaking intense. My health got low at a couple of points but we got through it. Normal Tyrannus. 4-manned. Tanked by yours truly.

As Jaina started on her spiel our DPS finally showed up. Sorry buddy, you're too late. The party's over.

Next night. Halls of Reflection. Again a Normal Random PUG.

I dropped in mid-way through the opening battle, picked up what was going on (after a few seconds, it's rather disorienting to zone into the middle of a brawl) and started doing my Retadin thing. We downed Marwyn and apparently he didn't drop what one of the DPS wanted, so he dropped group as we ran down the corridor towards Arthas and Jaina. Then the Tank dropped group. I guess he didn't want to wait for a replacement DPS, even though the hardest part of the Run was already over and DPS are usually easily replaced.

After re-queuing and waiting a few minutes I offer to Tank the rest of the Instance in Prot spec, and again state that I don't have fantastic gear but it will do the job (for the content we had left, and if you know HoF you'll know we already had the worst of the Run behind us). The Healer and other DPS accept my offer and as we re-queue I switch to Prot, but when I don my Tank gear the Healer speaks up.

"Please tell me that's not your Tank set," he says.

It is, yes, I reply. Before I can add that it had done the job on Tyrannus the night before the Healer says, "F**k you both," and drops group.

"What an arse," says the remaining DPS.

We decided to hang out in the queue for a little while longer to see if we can't pick up another Healer and 2 more DPS but after 10 more minutes, with DPS coming then going (or at least their spot being filled out in the popup at the little eye on the Minimap) we decide there's no point throwing any more good time after bad time. We call it quits and bid each other adieu.

Next night. Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle. We head in with a Warrior Tank with almost less Health than me, and at 25-28K (depending on buffs) that should have been a sign. He manages to Tank the first room, then we head outside to Raven's Watch where we wipe on the first pack.

We regroup, run back in, rebuff, run out to Raven's Watch...and Wipe again.

The Warrior drops group and almost immediately a new Warrior takes his place. This guy has almost twice the health of the first guy, but the gear does not make the man and we wipe again in the very same place. This Tank doesn't wait for a second shot, drops group and almost immediately is replaced by a Tankadin. Finally we have a guy who knows what he's doing and we clear the Instance in almost record time, missing out on some sort of Speedy Kill achievement on Skadi the Ruthless by literally seconds.

Email Headers: Internet Detectiving 101

2010-04-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

Time for some gibberish (for most of us, but not for some).
This is the full header of a recent Phishing email I received.

From wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com Thu Apr 15 07:49:15 2010
X-Apparently-To: me@yahoo.com via 67.195.8.205; Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:33 -0700
Return-Path: sylve@hotmail.fr
X-YahooFilteredBulk: 65.55.111.76
X-Originating-IP: [65.55.111.76]
Authentication-Results: mta1059.mail.sp2.yahoo.com from=hotmail.fr; domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=blizzard.com; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO blu0-omc2-s1.blu0.hotmail.com) (65.55.111.76)
by mta1059.mail.sp2.yahoo.com with SMTP; Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:33 -0700
Received: from BLU0-SMTP93 ([65.55.111.71]) by blu0-omc2-s1.blu0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:12 -0700
X-Originating-IP: [222.94.32.217]
X-Originating-Email: [sylve@hotmail.fr]
Message-ID: BLU0-SMTP9322D8F095F0D27C44F50ECF0F0@phx.gbl
Return-Path: sylve@hotmail.fr
Received: from vlpxfrcn ([222.94.32.217]) by BLU0-SMTP93.blu0.hotmail.com over TLS secured channel with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675);
Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:49:10 -0700
Sender: sylve@hotmail.fr
From: "wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com" wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com
To: me@yahoo.com
Subject: World Of Warcraft-Account Instructions
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:49:15 +0800
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0E74_01A76424.11700BC0"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5512
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5512
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 15 Apr 2010 07:49:11.0296 (UTC) FILETIME=[22DEE000:01CADC70]
Content-Length: 5211

At first glance it looks like the email came from wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com but then you notice the Return Path has a different email address, from France. Sourges to be precise (I found the guy on Facebook via his email). But did Sylvain Borreda really send this email? Or did someone hack his email account?

The earliest and most reliable record of the email entering cyberspace is the bolded line, Received: from vlpxfrcn ([222.94.32.217]). Googling this IP brings up a couple of pages, almost all being reverse IP Lookup pages...except for one, a non-existent page at: http://nj.livingchina.cn (A Chinese website. How cliché.)

If you're following along at home and you clicked the actual link on your Google search page you'll see that the specific page at livingchina.cn no longer exists/cannot be found, etc.

But back on the Google search results page we can see that along with the IP there is additional identifying information. There's a phone number and an email address, and if we now Google gftaiyq@163.com we discover the apparently true identity of Mr. 222.94.32.217 aka Guofang Tao, a Real Estate broker in Nanjing, China. (Go figure.) But is Guofang Tao really our Phisher? He is Chinese, but that doesn't automatically make him a Chinese Gold Farmer/Phisherman. He's like a Tootsie Roll Pop: the world may never know, because this is as far as my Internet sleuthing skills can take us.

Can you Ninja with a Greed Roll?

2010-04-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

After getting all my gear back (some time really early Monday morning, according to the emails in my Inbox), I reinstalled WoW, BC, & Wrath, then commenced patching, and after about 4-5 hours I was logging in to play. (Despite having DSL my WoW patch DL speeds are not terribly fast. "Why, you seem to be behind a Firewall!" the Downloader will report, as if that's a bad thing)

My first Heroic on Monday night brought my Emblem of Frost total to 30 (I got all my badges & emblems back, praise Orion!) and I promptly spent them all on the i264 Libram of Three Truths.

Tonight I queued up for another random Heroic and found myself in the rather fun (at least I think so) Culling of Stratholme. I've done this one a few times on Heroic and seen a couple of Reins of the Bronze Drake drop. Some people Pass while others gleefully Roll, so I take my queue from those who do. When people roll Need I roll Need. Other times they'll roll Greed so I'll follow suit. On tonight's Run the Drake was mentioned just once as we ran through, with someone asking if we planned to do it. (Barring running out of time I wasn't aware it was optional, but apparently it is.)

We got to the Corruptor and killed him within the 25 minutes so naturally he dropped the Drake. Someone said Gratz and the first three rolls were Passes. I sat there watching the screen for a few seconds. I didn't need the Drake. I wanted it, but I didn't Need it. The fourth player rolled Greed so I followed his lead and hit Greed as well. He rolled low, I rolled high, and with that I had myself a new Epic Flying Mount.

As the group moved on to Mal'Ganis I was almost expecting to be booted from the party for being a Ninja, but it didn't happen. The player who lost the Roll never said anything, neither in Party Chat nor Tells, and if he had I was prepared to hand it over to him, even though I'd won the Roll. Not because I didn't care to be labeled a Ninja, simply because I didn't really need the Mount. But nothing more was said and we moved on and defeated Mal'Ganis.

The first time I got the Culling of Time achievement BIL and Steve congratulated me and asked if I'd won the Drake. When I told them I'd rolled Greed like the others they were stunned. "Dude! You Need Roll that!" they said to me, but I didn't feel right Need rolling on a Vanity item when others were just Greed Rolling.

Now I'd won the Vanity item with a Greed Roll and I still wondered if I'd done the right thing. Sometimes I think I'm a little too much like Melvin Smiley.

Wii: MySims Agents

2010-04-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

After quickly checking out a video review on my phone (you might think I'm crazy, but if you really believe we're not fast approaching The Singularity then I say you're the delusional one, so there :P) I decided MySims Agents was worth 10,000 of our 27,000 Dave & Buster points and having played it for several hours over the weekend, including watching both my kids play it (5 y/old daughter, 9 y/old son) I'm still in agreement with my earlier decision. This game is definitely worth getting, and not only if you have youngsters. Apparently you can pick it up new for $20 but we already had the D&B points so it was sort of like it was free. Either way it's good value.

The first mission, determining the owner of a dog, teaches you the basics without feeling too much like a Tutorial. You talk to people, get leads from them and make 'notes' in your Notebook, which you can review if you get lost or have to Save & Quit and can't return for a while so forget where you were at (which is more likely). You also interact with items in the game world like prying open boxes with your Crowbar, fixing/repairing/salvaging items with your Wrench, or finding clues/footprints, etc, with your magnifying glass. All three tools get upgraded over the course of the game, gradually allowing you to perform a greater variety of tasks like moving boxes around to create steps to access new areas, picking locks, repairing broken items, or analyzing items of note. All of these activities are completed in minigames by you, the player, not automatically by your avatar, which makes this more than just a simple, point & click adventure game.

You pick locks in a manner very similar to the puzzle game 'Rush Hour' and while the first couple of puzzles were easily solved, as I expected they would they quickly ramped up in difficulty. Nothing taxing, yet, but I'm only halfway through the game. (Actually I'm halfway through as far as Missions go, but last night's Mission took me several hours to complete compared to the first which was solved in barely an hour. I did do a lot of exploring and I'm sure I could do that Mission a lot faster now that I know what's going on, but if the Missions continue to get more involved I'd hazard a guess that I'm maybe only a third of the way into the game.)

Repairing broken items is a basic (so far) version of the classic PC game The Incredible Machine, and requires you to get the 'colored' parts on the board moving, using a limited number of pieces to connect batteries and wires with cogs and belts.

Analyzing items could best be described as a Molecule builder game. Sometimes you start with an empty board, sometimes you'll have a couple of atoms already in place. In either case you'll also have a 'bank' of atoms that all need to be placed on the board, some of which will only connect to 1 other atom while others will connect to 2, 3 or 4 atoms, and this is the mini-game that has been the most challenging so far.

The mini-games serve to both involve the player in the game, and make it more than just a case of walk around, talk to everyone, click on everything, now see if anyone has new dialog. Considering that's what even the most hardcore point & click adventures often boil down to, that's not necessarily a negative for those who like this type of game. If you're looking for action, you've come to the wrong town. This game requires to stop, read, & think about what to do or where to go next. And while you do have your Notebook and could just skip through the dialog ("Yeah, yeah. Kill 10 rats. Got it! Shut up already!") and consult that, unlike your quests in an MMO there is no end game in MySims Agents; the Journey IS the game, so I see no point in rushing through the game (it's short enough as it is!) Yes, it is a short game, but at $20 it's also a cheap game. Without a doubt you could rent it and beat it in a weekend if you cared to, so to add longevity they've included a 'collection' game, of sorts.

Scattered throughout the game are chests, boxes, and various 'easter eggs', and finding/opening these rewards you with clothing, accessories, or costumes for your Agent, or furniture or decorations for your Headquarters.

What's the deal with decorating your HQ?

Each of the items comes with a bonus to one or more of five attributes (off the top of my head, Science, Charisma, Nature, Sport, & Paranormal), and when placed on one of the four floors in your HQ (five including the lobby, but you can't decorate that) those bonuses increase the appropriate stat/attribute of the Team you have housed there.

The Team? Isn't this a game about your Secret Agent?

Well yes, it is, but as you play the game and complete Missions you'll meet various characters, and when a Mission is over you can recruit some of these characters, who will also have a combination of one or more of the five attributes. Some of them are fairly well-rounded and will have 1 to 3 points in 2 to 3 attributes (5 points total), some will be more specialized and will have 3, 4, or even 5 points in a particular attribute. Assigning similar characters to the same floor (maximum of 3 characters per floor) creates a team strong in one or two areas (and naturally weak in others), so placing items that enhance that team's dominant attribute will make for a team very strong in one or two areas.

But why Teams?

Because you can send these Teams out on Missions of their own, and their chances of success are based on how relevant their skills are to the particular mission, from Poor to Excellent. Successfully completing these Team Missions unlocks harder Team Missions and also rewards you with new items.

The Teams also don't just go out on their own, they'll check in with you from time to time, and often at an annoyingly inconvenient time, ("I'm walking across an I-beam 3 stories up here! You think you could call back later? No? Fine, what is it?") requiring you to make decisions possibly (still not sure if it's random or not) affecting the outcome of their Mission. For example, one Mission has your Team trying to get a Client to the movies (exciting stuff for Secret Agents, I know) and the battery on their phone is running out (so they called you and drained their battery even further. Smart Team you've got there.) They have enough power to check movie times or traffic conditions, and they want to know what to do. (Pop Quiz, Hot Shot! What do you do? What. Do. You. Do?) In my case I told them to check the traffic, so what happened? They called back to say "The traffic looks fine." Now I was worried that I should have checked the movie times in case there was a later showing, but I worried for nothing because they made it on time. Well of course they did, because they didn't encounter any traffic problems.

You're not really micromanaging your Teams on their missions. Usually you'll make 2-3 decisions per Team Mission at most, but when you've got 4 Teams out on Missions that adds up to 8-12 decisions you might have to make. Throw in that the Teams will often call in just to let you know there are no problems, and you literally can be balancing on an I-beam when a call comes in. "Everything is fine? That's great! Can I get back to trying not to fall 40-feet to my death now? I can? Thank you!"

Actually you can't die, at least not that I've found. So if you ever do fall off a rafter, I-beam, etc, you'll either land on the ground below or miraculously reappear at the beginning of your rafter, I-beam, etc. This is a MySims game, after all. It's designed for the kids, but it's sufficiently well done that it has a lot of 'grown-up kid' appeal, too. It doesn't have flashy graphics or gratuitous cleavage shots, there's occasional clipping in the animation, and it can be rather linear, but it's still a very well done adventure game that's fun for the whole family (except maybe 13-year old Jimmy who'd rather be playing Soul Caliber, and I can't fault him for that ;)

Hacked

2010-04-10T10:36:00.001-07:00

More than once I've tried to log into WoW and got the 'incorrect password' message, and a chill always runs up my spine at seeing that, but when I re-type my password slowly (and correctly) I always get in.

This time I fired up WoW to log in and instead of 'incorrect password' I see 'Please enter your authenticator key'.

My what now? But I don't have an Authenticator!

And that's how I knew I'd been hacked.

I immediately retrieved the two emails I'd just deleted which, like the ones I've been getting every day for a month or two now, tried to warn me that I'd been hacked. When I moused over the URL in one of them it showed Blizzard's real URL. I actually had been hacked.

I called Blizzard and got "We're experiencing a high volume of calls right now. All operators are busy and we cannot take your call. Please try again later. *click*"

What the fuck???

They're so busy taking calls I can't even wait On Hold for the next available Operator?

To me that says they've got a majorly serious problem.

Here's the rub.

The password I use is not one I've used for anything but World of Warcraft.

The only person who has access to my WoW account is my wife and my 9 y/old son, and that's via my PC.

My PC is also pretty much used for nothing but WoW. Ok, there's the checking of email, Facebook activities, reading Blogs, etc, but for the most part I play WoW and that's about it.

I do visit sites like WoWWiki, WoWHead, Thotbott (or however it's spelled) but I'm also a security freak and have numerous anti-spyware programs like NoScript, AdBlock, AVG, Spybot S&D, etc.

I also doubt anyone could call Blizzard pretending to be me and satisfactorily answer my Security questions, not unless they're someone who knows me really, really well. And no, my wife wouldn't do this. That's not her style. She'd just log in on my account and Delete my characters. And she wouldn't clean out my sister's Guild Bank like this person did.

I don't have a keylogger on my computer because the software I listed above is not all that's in my arsenal, I have others, some specifically designed to find keyloggers, and all scans came up blank.

This means it was not someone close to me who hacked my account, and it (most likely) wasn't a case of me being hacked/keylogged.

In my opinion this was an inside job from someone inside Blizzard, and this is apparently what many people who have been hacked have claimed for a long time. Of course nobody has any proof because the only proof is an absence of proof (as in once you eliminate the impossible, all that remains, no matter how improbable, etc etc etc...) and that's not good enough. Not for court. It's good enough for me and for those who have been hacked but it still brings you no satisfaction. If anything it makes you wonder what's the point of playing Blizzard's game when they can't protect you from themselves.

After calling back numerous times I finally got into their automated help line and was able, eventually, to talk to someone who removed the Authenticator from my account and got me back into my account. The Rep also informed me that the hacker apparently had access to my email account, so when I got in I not only changed my password but I created a brand new email account and linked my WoW/Bnet account to it, rather than my old email.

I will be very curious to see if this email account receives any sort of Phishing emails and if so, how? If it's a brand new email account, not used for anything but accessing WoW, and so the only record of it being a WoW-related email is within Blizzard's own database...how do the Phishers know to target it? We'll see if that that happens.

Finally I logged into WoW, and this is what I saw...

That's a far cry from the character model I displayed a week or so ago...those Spaulders are the Heroic badge-bought shoulders. They're worthless as far as vendoring which is why I still had them. I also had the badge-bought necklace I'd picked up literally a day or two before but everything else was gone, including most of my badges (& I was 2 Frost badges or one Heroic away from getting my new Libram!).

I logged in and my Pally immediately began falling, falling, falling. A window popped up with Accept or Cancel but there was no message accompanying it. I wasn't going to Accept anything without knowing what I was accepting. I fell for several seconds until being automatically zoned out and re-appearing on a ledge in Sholazar Basin, naked. Well not quite naked. I still had my Badge-acquired Shoulders and a Mining Pick. As a Miner/Skinner I used to carry a Gnomish Army Knife which the Hacker vendored (for 22-silver. Wow.) opting for the cheaper Pick. They then went Mining, on my character. They sold all of my bags bar my original Pack and one other, and both were almost full of Ore & Gems. When my character raided their Guild Bank my sister put in a ticket to a GM that I'd been hacked, and eventually my account was closed down. The hacker had been caught in the middle of Mining run.

Fortunately, with Pets and Mounts now being built into the paper doll and not carried like inventory, I was able to fly back to Dalaran where I checked my bank and saw it had been stripped, too. I put in a ticket to a GM to (hopefully) get my gear restored, then with trepidation logged out to check my other characters. My old toons on Kilrog (Kwazimoto & Co.) had also been stripped. I returned to my sister's server and clicked my Bank Toon. He was still clothed but none of the Auctions I'd listed before going to bed last night were up, nor was there any Gold waiting in the Mailbox for me...or in my inventory. And every other character was the same. Many still had random items in their packs but practically no Gold to their name.

I am willing to start all over again but I'd rather not if I don't have to. Naturally I'd like to get my gear restored and get my sister's stuff back, but I have no idea how long that will take. Do I just play a low level Alt for a week until Blizzard do something? What if it takes them several weeks to restore my gear. What if they won't restore it, or only partially restore it?

And then my own security measures got the best of me. I forgot my new WoW password. And I forgot the password to my new email WoW-only email account. And to be ultra security conscious I'd used my work email as the secondary email and I can't access that until Monday. So this weekend has been a sad, WoW-less weekend.

Fortunately! The kids and I went to Dave & Busters on Friday and I ended up cashing in 10,000 points (the boy and I save them up for the BIG prizes) and getting MySims Agents for the Wii. You can apparently buy it for $20 but it's not likely we'll save up our points for the 85,000 X-Box, so why not spend some of the points on a game for a system we already have.

It's a cute, point & click-style adventure game with a bunch of mini-games (puzzles) to play as your Sim Agent gathers evidence to crack each case. There's also things to find if you're prepared to look around, like new outfits and decorations for your HQ. It's a fairly typical MySims game with lots of customization available, but the way it's presented with you as a Special Agent solving cases means you need to actually think as you play. And I like that. I'm giving it an 8/10. It's not the perfect game but it's well done and is a lot of fun :)