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

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...for next 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"

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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!

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?

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

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!

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...

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 ;)