mekjoo and such

Quiet lately, an update, then more quiet

2008-09-08T21:10:00.001-07:00

Things have been really quiet on this blog lately, but as I think about the reasons why (while I'm typing), I can't really say for sure. I've convinced myself that I've just been too busy, but I can't recall actually accomplishing anything in the downtime since my last blog post. For the most part it has been laziness and procrastination. There have been several times recently that something has happened or I've been involved in a discussion and I tell myself that I should write about it tonight. We've seen where that has gotten me lately, zero posts. Ultimately, it comes down to my ability to discuss something worthwhile compounded by my ability to write well. Sad to say, that scenario comes up very seldom. Unlike some people I know, I don't feel I have the knack to contribute something worthwhile to the world/blogosphere/intartubes on a regular (or daily for some!) basis.

As far as an update goes, it's not much really.

1. In July, I finally attended the Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon -- it only took 10 years to find a job that would pay for it! OSCON was a truly excellent convention and definitely something I want to make sure I continue to attend.
2. Speaking of conventions, PAX 08 was last weekend. I had fun as expected, but it is growing at such a rate from year to year that it is hard not to worry about the affects said growth will have on the community.
3. I'm quite upset at myself for failing to get much backpacking in this summer. I really have NO excuse other than the afore mentioned busy state. Then again, that is no excuse at all. I'm determined to get in two trips, plus a campout, before the snow starts showing up.
4. I'll be in Arkansas three times before the end of the year. Unfortunately, this year we won't be able to spend as many days visiting as we did last year. With more trips, the saved up vacation time at work runs out quickly. Of note, a visit in October will be for my sister-in-law's wedding!

Finally, I have to figure out what to do with this blog. It's fine, I guess, but as I've stated in earlier blog posts I'm not too keen on keeping my stuff out there in the perverbial "cloud". So, one of the reasons I've been quiet is because I've been getting back into software development on a personal basis and am working on my own site. It should be up shortly. And by shortly, I mean as soon as I can. Within a month or so. If I get around to it. Maybe. Before the end of the year. Until that time, this blog will pretty much be going silent. See everyone then!

Oh, and make sure you vote. Vote your hopes and dreams, NOT your fears!

Getting out of Cloud(s).

2008-08-12T11:19:00.000-07:00

As a followup to my last post, we can now point to an example of where users are S.O.L. now that their data is gone. Linkup, an online storage service that keeps their user's data in the perverbial cloud, has lost as much as 45% of said user's data.

Unfortunately, there is nothing the affected users can do about it and it doesn't seem that Linkup can (or will?) do anything either.

For all the (right) reasons

2008-07-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

OSCON was a bit of an eye-opener for me. For years, we in the Open Source community have been trying and trying to get companies to open up their code; to shift the paradigm that software and information is and should be free. What I had failed to recognize is that it goes much beyond that. I heard it several times while attending various talks, from different people, but always the same message -- THE DATA MUST BE FREE.

This hit me like a ton of bricks so I had to, of course, delve deeper into this. After all is said and done, what I have come away with is much like we have worked to ensure that software and the code behind it is open and part of a larger community involvement we must also make sure that the hardware, networks, protocols, services and most importantly the data is open and free.

Every day, I use various services as part of my daily routine: Google, Yahoo, Twitter, etc; and all of this sits in giant data centers that I have no access to, over networks that I have no control over, with software that I can't personally audit, and via trusts that I have no way to verify.

The scary thing is that I don't live by all of these social networks and services nearly as much as a lot of people I know. What I have to ask myself, and everyone else for that matter, what would you do if one of the companies that controls the service(s) you use just closed up or went away? For a lot of people, that would be a huge deal. We call keep an enormous amount of our lives out there with very little actual control over the data itself.

Luckily, there are alternatives -- you can get your fix and still have control. It's not everything, but its a start.

Identi.ca -- Just like Twitter, except that it's Free Software, uses the open XMPP protocol for all of it's back end communications, doesn't crash all the time, and supports logins via OpenID It runs the Laconica microblogging software, so if you feel like it you can run your own installation and it will link up with other sites because it IS open. I will be keeping my Twitter account for the time being, but only for keeping up with my friends that haven't switched yet. I'm ryanc on identi.ca.

The second alternative, I was initially kind of sad about. I've been a big fan of Mugshot for a long time, but unfortunately they don't seem interested in opening things up and their updates are really slow. In fact, my last update to show up on my page their is from five days ago. What is disappointing is that Mugshot is run by RedHat, an Open Source company. I've looked around and places like FriendFeed offer great functionality, but they all suffer the unacceptable (to me) problem of not being open. So, I was very happy to come across Whoisi. What is particularly interesting about Whoisi is that you don't log in; anyone can go on the site and type in anyone else's name and then add sites (blogs, photo sites, etc) to their profile and start following them similarly to the way Mugshot does. What is better is that it is a very simple site and doesn't require proprietary plugins such as Flash. In order for you to come back later and see your page and who you are following, you are given a unique URL. This site introduced and interesting bit of trust on the community as anyone can add/remove resources from your profile. Then again, that is a misnomer; the "profile" isn't really yours so much as it is a public timeline of things associated with your name. Give it a try. I'm ryanc on whoisi.com.

My last bit to talk about deals with hardware. I've been using OpenBSD for my server for quite a while now. OpenBSD has the interesting reputation of being zealous towards openness, a reputation that I am happy to be a part of. Long story short, a few releases back, OpenBSD decided that they would completely remove any and all hardware drivers that weren't completely open. What this meant is that any hardware vendor that hadn't been proactive with providing documentation, APIs, etc to the community in order to help develop open drivers would be removed from the official distribution. The side effect was that with this released, the project actually went backwards in total amount of hardware that they supported, but also gained in terms of being truly open and took a hard stance where no other open operating systems have been able to. This alternative of mine was a bit different, because it cost me money. In this case, however, I was glad to do so. I replaced my 3ware 9650SE-2LP RAID card for an Areca ARC-1200 RAID card. I did this because Areca is a big supporter of the Open Source community, whereas 3ware has decided to be luke warm at best and only distribute their drivers in binary only -- very similar to how Nvidia and ATI choose to do. The only thing I gained from this move was a good feeling.

Oh! I almost forgot, apparently my new RAID card is not just a true hardware card, but a Ture hardware RAID card...and it's from the Future!

lighttpd + FastCGI + Perl

2008-07-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this down for my own future reference, but I'm sure someone else might find it useful.

I'm starting work on a web application that I've been wanting to write for a while now, so last night I started experimenting. I had already made up my mind how I wanted it designed from an architecture point of view, I just needed it to work. I've used lighttpd in leiu of bigger and bloaty-er web servers for a while now and the use of Perl was a no-brainer as it is my goto programming language of choice. I had used FastCGI in a past project with PHP with some success and liked the benefits it provides, so I just had to figure out how to hook it all together.

Needless to say, there seems to be about 1,327 different ways of doing this, but I wanted to keep things clean, flexible, and most importantly simple. Fiddling with it for a while has yielded the following bits:

FastCGI-related parts from lighttpd.conf

fastcgi.server = (
    "" => (( "socket" => "/var/run/fcgi_test.socket" ))
)

Run the FastCGI spawner provided by lighttpd:

$ /usr/bin/spawn-fcgi -f /path_to_your/public_html/handler.fcgi \
                      -s /var/run/fcgi_test.socket

handler.fcgi (goes in your document root, dispatches requests):

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use WebApp;

my $app = new WebApp;

$app->run();

Finally, your actual code for your web application. In this case, I've called it WebApp.pm (make sure it's in your Perl library search path somewhere):

#!/usr/bin/perl

package WebApp;

use warnings;
use strict;
use base 'CGI::Application::FastCGI';

sub setup {
    my $c = shift;

    $c->start_mode('mode1');
    $c->run_modes(
        'mode1'    => 'hello_world',
        'AUTOLOAD' => 'error_mode'
    );
}

sub hello_world {
    my $c = shift;
    my $q = $c->query();

    my $output = '';
    $output .= $q->start_html(-title => 'FastCGI test');
    $output .= "hello world.\n";
    $output .= $q->end_html;

    return $output;
}

sub error_mode {
    my $c = shift;
    my $q = $c->query();
    my $intended_mode = shift;

    my $output = '';
    $output .= $q->start_html(-title => 'FastCGI test');
    $output .= "invalid mode: $intended_mode specified.\n";
    $output .= $q->end_html;

    return $output;
}

1;

This will allow me to code up my web application, keeping all of my code actually outside of the document root of the web server. For my application, I've chosen to use CGI::Application, which is an excellent yet simple framework for "building reusable web-applications in an object-orientated and extensible fashion." I'm pretty happy with it so far, it supports templates, has many available plugins, and seems simpler than many other frameworks available (which I've already stressed before is important to me).

Small bites

2008-06-28T19:48:00.000-07:00

To eat: tomatos marinated in olive oil, red wine vinegar, basil, salt/pepper spooned on ciabatta and covered with proscuitto; fresh mozzerella marinated in olive oil, basil, salt/pepper, lemon juice; artichoke hearts tossed with chives, parsley, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt/pepper.

Sorry for the poor picture folks.

And with that, in addition to an awesome Korean meal I had tonight, I will proceed to reboot my diet. Much like I did three years ago that helped me become much healthier, I need to re-focus on what I put in my body. I'm not saying the above is bad for you...just don't do it all the time :)

Attention web developers

2008-06-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

I have historically only had three requirements out of people who code for the web, in no particular order they are:

1. Don't make me have to install third-party plugins in order to view the content on your site (this does not apply to attached media such as music and video).
2. Similarly, don't make the navigation on your site dependant on Javascript.
3. Code for standards, not for a specific browser.

Let me quickly elaborate; I'll start with number 2. HTML is meant for content, CSS for styling, and Javascript for additional functionality -- please keep it that way. I don't know you, therefore I don't trust you implicitly and I sure ain't going to just let you execute whatever code you may have embedded in your webpage. So, please don't assume that I have Javascript and other things enabled. An example would be visiting a site and there being zero navigation becasue your fancy-schmancy menu didn't show up due to me having Javascript disabled. As a result, I browse away from your site and never come back. Regarding number 1, it can be seen as similar to number 2 in that requiring users to have something that isn't part of the standard DOM in order to view you site is not only stupid on your part, it's limiting. I'm sure you can see a trend by now, number 3 is essentially the same, just dependant on proprietary and browser-specific functionality.

All this said, I have a new requirement, bringing the total to four:

4. If you set a background color in your CSS for an object (or the entire page) please, for the love of all that is good, also set a text color that contrasts well.

What is my reasoning behind this? In the absense of a specified color, most browsers will use the colors from it's theme when rendering a page. This is all fine for most, but what if the user uses a dark theme (light text on dark background)? You get something like this...

Can you see the text? I know it's hard. In this case, the site has set a background color for the text input window, but not a text color. Therefore, the browser is using my system's default.

The bottom line is, you have everything you need in the DOM to make simple, scalable, usable, cross-browser compliant, and yes even beautiful web pages and web applications. Javascript, Flash, whatever is for extra functionality, not baseline content and navigational delivery. If you adamantly disagree with the above statements, I take that as you making excuses -- excuses for your inability to develop well. Number 4 is more of just a nitpick, it ususally occurs from developer laziness or just simply being overlooked. That's why you should always validate your code.

As a web developer, you have to ask yourself who your audience is. Is it a very limited and specific set of people that you have predefined requirements with (i.e. a company intranet) or are you making something for the wide world? If it is the latter and you fail to address the above points you are limiting your audience. If you are the type that simply doesn't care and insists that everyone should be running IE in 1024x768 and has their entire site implemented in a Flash app, you've kind of missed the point of the internet. I implore you to rethink your development decisions.

Oh, and before I forget, every web developer worth his or her salt, should have both Firebug and YSlow installed.

What to do with all these pictures?

2008-06-09T23:36:00.000-07:00

I've been taking a lot of pictures lately, but I haven't posted anything in a long time. I figure it has something to do with not knowing exactly how I would like to keep things organized, but I can't procrastinate any longer. So, without any further ado, here is what I'm going to do:

1. Organize all of my photos in F-Spot.
2. Anything worth sharing will head up to my Picasa Web site without any corrections, modifications, etc.
3. Any pictures that I personally really like or that I receive feedback on will get some personal attention (i.e. fixing levels, balance, etc) and sent up to my Flickr site.

This whole Flickr thing is big to me. I've had the account for a long time but I've never, ever used it. For some reason, I feel a bit of trepidation placing my photos up there because I know how critical a lot of Flickr's users can be. Then again, if I'm not ready to receive said criticisms about my photos now, I probably never will be.

In reality, I shouldn't be worrying about it as I'm definitely no professional nor will I probably every be. I'm just going to go forward, happily snapping as I wander along -- and maybe someone, somewhere will get something out of a picture that I had fun taking. The thing to remember (as with most things in life) is that if you are going to do something for your own enjoyment, make sure you are actually doing it for yourself, not to impress someone else.

Adventures in Focaccia

2008-05-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

After mentioning it so long ago, I finally got around to making my focaccia recipe. Probably the reason it took so long is because making it, in fact, takes so long. Three days -- no really! First you have to make a primer; then the next day do all the mixing followed by 3-4 series of resting and rising; finally getting to the last day where you do some more rising, addition of last minute oil and herbs, and eventually the baking.

I wondered how well it would work out. Better than I had hoped, actually -- so well that I didn't get a picture of the whole thing completed. All I got was this dinky picture of about 1/4 of what was left. Thats alright though, I'm just glad it turned out so well, especially after all the time invested.

So, what can you do with all this bread? The simplest thing I can think of is to just serve it with dinner along side some Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar (get a fruity one from the Mendona region of Italy). I happen though, to like making sandwiches with them. Try some of these combos: Turkey, English Cheddar, and really spicy mustard; or how about Prosciotto, Arrugola, fresh Mozzarella, and tomato sauce; or my personal favorite, Chicken, Havarti, basil pesto (make it yourself!), and sun-dried tomatoes.

Mmmm-hmmm!

A Beautiful Day

2008-05-24T23:12:00.000-07:00

Wow.

click to make a little bigger...

This is what I awoke to today (and no picture really does it justice). While you can see it was pretty cloudy over the Olympics, the day was as clear as a bell over the city. This just made me more excited for my backpacking trip next weekend.

I took quite a few pictures while I was out on a near day-long bike ride that I'll try to get up sometime this weekend.

On A Good Grocery Store

2008-05-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

I love Whole Foods (or Wild Oats, whatever), who doesn't? I like that I can go in and, for the most part, not have to worry about the source of the food items I buy. I also like completely blowing my entire paycheck, but that's another story (read problem).

However, our local co-op, PCC takes it up a notch. By being local and small, they can make announcements such as, "We are no longer carrying ANY product that contains High Fructose Corn Syrup". See the article here. Pretty awesome if you ask me.

So today, both because I needed some parchment paper and I wanted to take a long-ish ride, I decided to ride up to the nearest PCC, which is located about 4.5 miles away in the neighborhood of Fremont (the Center of the Universe). What was surprising is that it wasn't so bad. The route to and from PCC can almost entirely be done via streets with dedicated bike lanes and to top it all of, the weather was great.

I think that from now on I'll ride over to the PCC in Fremont for my grocery shopping unless I'm just in a humungous hurry. Besides, all the PCC stores are great and have an equally great selection of goods -- this one is just in Fremont, which is an awesome neighborhood to start with.

An evening with Vista

2008-04-21T19:41:00.000-07:00

"What are you doing?"
"What do you mean?"
"You are wasting your time with all of the extra crap in the box. Why don't you get to the good part?"
"Oh, I will. I'm just making sure everything is in here."

Or something very similar went the conversation between Mary and me regarding a just delivered box from UPS. She just didn't understand -- it wasn't her fault, she just didn't understand why I was taking so long. You see, this was (is) the very first personal laptop that I have ever owned. I had had laptops provided by jobs in the past, but never one spec'd out how I wanted and from whatever manufacture that I desired. For that matter, this was the first personal machine I had had in about 4 years. So yes, this was a big deal to me. I wanted to be absolutely sure that everything had arrived and was in the box.

I proceeded to take everything out and inspect the machine for another 5 minutes before I ever even clicked open the latch and raised the lid. I think this also bothered her. A few minutes later though everything was open, on the desk, and hooked into power. This is where things started going downhill.

10 minutes later, the screen finally came up. Another 7 minutes and I had managed to get it through the initial setup screens. This was painful, without a doubt. I then had to proceed through the Vista setup stuff. Let me tell you, the dialogs were rubbish, especially for setting up accounts. For instance, it looks something like this:

Name (For example: John):
Password (recommended):

Just for grins, we typed in 'John' for the username and 'recommended' for the password. The sad thing is, as we lauged about it, I'm sure there are people out there that actually do exactly that when setting up their new machines. About 25 - 30 minutes after I turned on my machine, I finally had a screen that I could do something. Don't let this fool you though, this is a Windows platform and the disk was thrashing in the background as usual.

It was at about this time that Mary quipped, "I see why XP is Vista's big competition. This is terrible!" I couldn't agree more. The more I sat and dug through the interface, the worse it felt. I understand they were trying to make changes to the better, but it seems badly done. The gloss is just way too overdone, there is too much junk running, and the blasted confirmation dialogs (everywhere!) won't leave me alone!

Realistically, I only really have two big qualms with Vista. Firstly, is the amount of resources used. After I had been fiddling around a bit, I enabled the fancy-smanshy system resources applet in the sidebar. What? I'm idling at 17% CPU usage and 37% memory usage?!? I didn't believe it, so I rebooted the machine thinking that all the initial setup stuff had used up a sizable chunk of my system memory. Nope. After rebooting and logging back on, things were all the same. After just a few minutes of use, memory usage was up to 40%. The thing is, this machine isn't a brute, but it's specs are too shabby. Out of 4GB of memory (Vista only sees 3GB though), 1194 MB are used up. Holy crap, this is just unacceptable -- there are currently 13 icons sitting in the System Tray! I would understand if all that caching was helping out, but the whole interface is very sluggish. When there is something to be drawn on the screen, the CPU usage has spiked as high as 45%.

My second complaint has to be with the interface itself. For a platform that has had a good track record of keeping things consistent while updating things every few years, I was very surprised how much things had moved around. They've gone out of there way to make certain things easily accessible while simultaneously buried other things that a typical power user would want to get to. For instance, it took me 8 clicks plus a authorization dialog, to get in to change the network properties for setting up a static IP address. It seems as if they were trying to hide certain advanced settings, a la Mac OS X, but if you ask me it was done very poorly.

Considering how much I've complained, I feel it is only fair that I wrap up this long-winded post with a few things that I think Vista has done OK with. It took me a while, but here's what I've found:

1. The new Start Menu is an improvement. Although I don't like all the extra default animations, having a quick search entry at the bottom is nice.
2. Some of the graphics eye candy is a marked improvement, although as I said earlier, sometimes the gloss is a bit much and a bit heavy.
3. The redesigned Explorer interface works, I think. Specifically, having the hard set column widths that don't get pushed out by a long filename, etc.
4. It is nice to see some more flexibility in the themes and interface settings. I would like to see Microsoft take a chance and allow themes that can completely redesign the interface. Something like E isn't necessary, but something more than 'Vista' and 'Windows Classic' in the default install would be nice.

Tomorrow will be a much different day though, there is a shiny CD of 64-bit Arch Linux sitting on my desk just waiting to get used.

One more thing. I haven't liked UPS in a while -- they used to always lose or damage packages sent to me -- and now I have even less reason to do so. They managed to deliver my machine to the wrong address and introduced quite a bit of stress to my afternoon.

Where in the World is Carmen Semolina?

2008-04-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

Semolina; I know it exists because I've used it so many times in the past. Yet, for some reason, I am having a terrible time actually locating it here. It's not exactly a *rare* thing, ya know? It's just the grainy particles left after making flour from durum wheat, but it's pivotal in making certain types of pasta (and bread). I have this killer Focaccia recipe that I want to make, but the semolina is pretty much required.

This shouldn't be difficult, I used to get the Semolina from Bob's Red Mill. It looks like this:

I've been to four grocery stores now and have struck out. They all have about 20 *other* products from Bob's and other equally fine establishments, but no semolina.

Alas, I'll try another tonight. Once I do capture this sleuth of an ingredient, I'll be sure to post my Focaccia adventures.

One-shot competitions

2008-04-13T22:05:00.000-07:00

This post just proves that I need to focus my energy and spare brain cycles to something useful.

I must admit that one of my somewhat embarrassing indulgences is the show Top Chef. I pretty much can't stand reality TV, but this one I think is decent enough to steal away some of my time.

One thing that is common with a lot of reality TV, is the idea of a one-shot competition. I don't know if that is an official or even real term, but that is the term I use for those style of competitions where at the beginning of each round, every contestant is on equal footing and they are given one shot at not being sent home.

This got me thinking. I don't like these style of competitions. In fact, thinking back, I never had -- I had to deal with this back in high school and college! The problem, in my opinion, is that the best person in the competition and have a bad day and be sent packing. That's it, no second chance. So, instead of actually determining the best person in the competition, it's more about who has the most luck (slipping by under the radar) and hope that the better competitors have a bad day.

I'll use my self as an example. My freshman year of high school, I went off to band camp, went through the requisite try-outs, and made 2nd band/2nd chair. Not too shabby for a 14 year old. The following year (10th grade) I went through tryouts and made 4th band/next to last chair. That means I was the next to last worst saxophone player at the entire camp. I was devastated and pretty much hated the entire week of camp. In 4th band, I would be playing music meant for beginners. Was I worse than I was the previous year? Had everyone else progressed that much further than me since the last year? It's not that I sucked, I just had a bad day. We all have them from time to time.. I knew I was a better player and actually proved it through the following week at camp; I went to sectionals for the entire camp and got placed in the first group; During rehersals for the 4th band that week, after the conductor was flustered with the 1st chair player during a solo, he proceeded to have everyone re-tryout and I got placed in the 1st chair. Afterwards, he asked me why I was in the 4th band and all I could say was that I had had a bad tryout. He responded with, "I understand" and, "That's too bad". He then proceeded to follow it all up (with and evil grin on his face), "Well, I'm glad that I get you!"

So, what is my point? What is the point for all this rambling? I think these types of competitions are a bad idea. In the case of a show like Top Chef, I think the following would be a better system.

1. At the end of each round, give each contestant a score based on pre-determined criteria.
2. Don't eliminate anyone for a couple of rounds to allow for some point accumulation.
3. After the first couple of rounds, send home the person with the lowest overall score at the end of each round.
4. Allow bonus points for specific achievements and/or goals.

With this system, the best contestants will bubble to the top. Having bonuses will also allow a good contestant to recover from a bad round.

Wow, that sure was a lot of thinking and time used up for something that means absolutely nothing in grand scheme of things... :)

My next bouldering target.

2008-04-01T16:48:00.000-07:00

Over the past year I've gotten into bouldering. Though I don't get to do it as often or as much as I would like (especially with the weather), I thoroughly enjoy every time I get to go. I'm looking forward to the summer as it will give us more chances to go out and boulder for real as opposed to just doing it in the gym. Lately, I've been thinking about taking some supplementary lessons to help up my skill level and help with confidence (something I'll need more of when the only thing between me and the hard ground is a dinky crash pad).

I know I've had a change of perspective since taking up the sport, because when I see pictures of rocks I immediately start thinking of ways to solve the problem. So, when I saw this picture, you could probably guess how much the gears started turning.

The only problem? It's on Mars...and I might die if I fall.

An hour for the Earth

2008-03-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

We're dark right now, are you? Cities around the world are turning out the lights in buildings and places from 8pm - 9pm local time. By doing so, for the hour that things are turned off, we will reduce carbon emissions by 10%.

Even if you've missed your local hour, go ahead and do it when you can. It'll make a real difference -- you don't really need all those lights, electronics, and appliances on do you?

Earth Hour

Being a mooch

2008-03-17T23:01:00.000-07:00

I wanted to quickly share with everyone a great site I stumbled upon not too long ago. Book Mooch is a great site for sharing books that you have read and wish to pass along and for acquiring books that you would like to read. There are many reasons why you may want to get books via trade; for me, it is because I would rather read a used copy than buy another new one and kill more trees.

To get going on Book Mooch, it's pretty easy.

1. Go to the site and sign up.
2. Add books to your inventory that you wish to give away via the ISBN number.
3. Look up books via Title, Author, or ISBN number to add to your wishlist to read.

That's it really. When you add a book, you are given points toward "mooching" books off of other people. Also, people that want books that you have in your inventory are notified when you add them. If they have enough points, they can mooch it. Most books cost just a point or two. The only cost to you is the money it costs to ship the books to the people that request them. It's the same for everyone else, the owner of the book pays for shipping. When you mooch a book, you pay nothing.

This past weekend, I sent out my first batch of books -- 5 in all, all going to different corners of the US. This weekend, I'll go back, but this time I have two books heading to the EU.

The worker at the Post Office, when I told him about it, thought it was simply amazing that people were doing this. I couldn't agree more. He contacted me later saying that he signed up as soon as he got home.

2009 digital TV conversion

2008-03-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what I think of the required FCC conversion to all digital coming in February 2009. Is it a good thing? A bad thing? Once upon a time I thought it was a great idea, but the more I think about it and the closer the supposed deadline gets, I'm not so sure anymore.

Recently, I listened to a radio show (on a great listener-supported, free radio station) and they were talking about just this topic. They didn't talk long about it, nor did they really delve into what could and would possibly happen, but they did all seem to think that the whole thing would be a train wreck. The discussion focused primarily on the fact that there a lot of people that still depend on antenna to pick up their local stations. Many of those same people live in areas that are quite far from the originating towers, and sit on the very edge of analog transmitting distance. I can speak first hand to this fact; when my family moved to the Ozarks in Arkansas, we were no less than 150 miles away from the TV station towers in Little Rock. On a really good day, in the winter with absolutely no humidity and no weather to speak of, with the leaves off the trees, we could pick up the big three affiliates. Most days, however, the channels were down right terrible. Now, take this problem and apply it to digital transmissions. Not only do digital transmissions not travel as far, but if they don't arrive completely intact, you get absolutely nothing. At least with an analog signal you got something -- it might be a bit snowy, but you could make it out.

My biggest worry, however, is not with the technical difficulties but with the environmental and social problems that arise. What about all the old analog equipment? Where will it go? Most likely to the land fill and that really bothers me. Our country is not near where it needs to be for electronics recycling. Some communities do well, I can't argue with that, but I'm pretty confident in saying that most don't go nearly far enough.

What happens to the people that don't want or are unable to afford to upgrade? Seems they will be SOL. Sure, there is a assistance program, but does it go far enough? On the other hand, why is the government encouraging people to watch TV anyway?

What about the soon to be available spectrum that will be freed up by the no longer used analog TV signals? The 700 Mhz radio spectrum that analog TV uses is going up for auction. Ideally, it should remain open and public -- it would be nice if a free and non-commercial TV community would pop up, one with actual decent and worthwhile programming on it. In this country though, as long as there is a buck to be made, we know that some company will shove aside the greater good in the name of profit. It seems our only chance for a somewhat open use of the spectrum is with the help of Google. They are using their immense capital to "force" the adoption of open use on the spectrum by basically threatening to buy up the entire C-block. Doing so would shut out the big telcos entirely from a very lucrative market. At this point, we can only wait to see what the results of the auction will be.

So, good or bad? Only you can decide how you feel about it. I just seem to have more questions now than when I started regarding how people will be affected, our society's fixation with TV and media, and the free and open access of communication (or lack thereof).

Time to think -- and change.

2008-03-04T10:21:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in over a week and that is mostly on purpose. I wanted to take some time to rethink what I do and why I do certain things. I'm not rethinking my life or anything, but certainly some introspective into oneself is good from time to time. This time, at least, I'm just going to concentrate on this blog. I've lived with the personal rule -- that I don't regret the things I do -- for a long time. Specifically, things I've said or written about that I sort of wish I would have kept to myself instead of going off about them. However, I'm not going to go back and delete old blog posts just for the sake of pretending like I never did it.

I've noticed a trend (disturbing to me) as of late. A majority of my posts are politically charged, they bring out arguably the worst in me and I really don't like it. The biggest problem is that they make me angry and I'm not one to get angry very often -- friends have told me that I let too much slide. I get angry so infrequently, that when I do, my wife just thinks it is more weird than anything else; she knows that it had to be something pretty bad to get me upset in the first place. So, my first change will be:

1. No more blog posts concerning politics unless it spurns such a reaction that I can't keep myself from saying something about it.

I would like to push this to the point that I never, ever post about politics and that is what I will actually be aiming for.

When I was younger, I had a big problem with saying things without first thinking about it. It was such a problem to my Dad that he bought me a sign. To this day, that sign still sits in my old bedroom in my parent's house, "Make sure brain is in gear before engaging mouth." It seems as relevant today as it was back when I was 12 years old. Lately, I've made tremendous efforts to thoroughly think things through before expressing my opinion. However, as is apparent by posts on my blog, I haven't done as well as I hoped. This leads me to my second change:

2. Blog posts that are serious in nature must be completely thought out and researched.

My last change requires the least explanation. There are a plethora (plus) of tools out now that allow users to easily share links, quip about anything, notify others of what they are doing, etc, etc. I use some of them, and that is the problem. Often I find myself blogging about something I shared through Google Reader and that I also quipped about on Twitter. Enough; no more:

3. No more babbling, redundant, useless, or otherwise pointless posts. If a post doesn't genuinely add to the content of the site and/or the benefit of the viewers, it doesn't belong.

For everything else, that's what all these handy-dandy tools and social networking sites are for. Anything I feel worthy of sharing with everyone else will go there and be tracked in my Mugshot. Heck, I've even got it in the sidebar of the blog.

I'll finish up this rather long and babbling post now with a strip from my new favorite web comic Garfield minus Garfield. I said that I'm not currently rethinking my life and that is the honest truth, but I'm not exactly sure where I am. I am, however, currently in the process of setting up several things in my immediate and long term future that I think will make things all the better. Until then, I just feel like I'm in limbo.

So, consider this blog reboot #1.

so important, I posted it twice

2008-02-22T09:31:00.000-08:00

I have talked to friends, family members, etc about this very topic as far back as a couple of years ago, but it seems that some members of the media are finally talking about it. What is it, you ask? Well the direction this country is going and the fact that "big change" might not be enough.

"A little radical, don't you think?", a phrase I've heard more than once when bringing this up. But before you write me off as a crazy person, I would just like to ask you to read this article that came out today. It's downright scary to think about it, even more scary to acknowledge that the "stars are lining up", so to say.

A short excerpt for your perusal -- then go and read the entire article.

Way back in 1962, Caltech sociologist James C. Davies published an article in the American Sociological Review that summarized the conditions that determine how and when modern political revolutions occur. Intriguingly, Davies cited another scholar, Crane Brinton, who laid out seven "tentative uniformities" that he argued were the common precursors that set the stage for the Puritan, American, French, and Russian revolutions. As I read Davies' argument, it struck me that the same seven stars Brinton named are now precisely lined up at midheaven over America in 2008. Taken together, it's a convergence that creates the perfect social, economic, and political conditions for the biggest revolution since the shot heard 'round the world.

And even more interestingly: in every case, we got here as a direct result of either intended or unintended consequences of the conservatives' war against liberal government, and their attempt to take over our democracy and replace it with a one-party plutocracy. It turns out that, historically, liberal nations make very poor grounds for revolution -- but deeply conservative ones very reliably create the conditions that eventually make violent overthrow necessary. And our own Republicans, it turns out, have done a hell of a job.

I promise my next blog post WILL NOT be about politics. Really.

mmm...cheese.

2008-02-21T00:55:00.000-08:00

There are many food things that I miss now that I don't live in the South anymore. Growing up down there, certain food becomes part of your life, you expect it. Fortunately, I am (or could be) capable of making what I "need" or crave when it comes to Southern food. However, one thing that I (we) have learned is that trying to get queso at a Mexican restaurant up here is just met with strange looks. This is mostly due to the region in Mexico it seems most Mexicans that have migrated to the area come from...which would be a more coastal region.

Anyway, enough geography, we're talking about food here. We decided that what we really needed, in order to get our fix, was cheese -- queso specifically...oh and something to eat to go along with it...like...burritos! So, we found a queso recipe that turned out to be pretty good, grilled up some chicken and veggies, and made some guacamole (courtesy Mr. Alton Brown). You can see the result here in it's disassembled form.

The final product turned out quite well. Throw in a good bag of blue corn tortilla strips and a couple of beers and we were quite happy -- no more empty stomaches and gone was our hankerin' (hankering just doesn't sound right ;)

Seems this is my first food blog-like post, and I have to say that I had fun with it. I do get tired of hearing myself rant about everything, as I'm sure everyone else does too.

Off to bed now, I've stayed up way too late now.

someone in Congress does actually care

2008-02-20T00:24:00.001-08:00

I received a letter from my Representative in Congress today, and it made me feel just a little better. It may be a canned response, but I hope its not. I'm just glad to hear that someone in Congress does actually feel the way I do.

I am adamantly opposed to the retro-active Telecom immunity for their involvement in the NSA's illegal and warrant-less wiretaps that have become almost common since Congress granted too much power, too hastily, to the Executive branch after the 9/11 stuff. The Senate version of the FISA update contains the immunity along with other not so savory things. So far, the House version of the bill does not have the immunities and in fact goes a little further with additional checks and balances. Which, if I must remind everyone, is one of the cornerstones of our style of government -- or at least, it used to be.

So, without further ado, the letter...

Dear Ryan:

Thank you for contacting me with your opposition to revisions to the Foreig n Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the possibility of granting immunity to telecommunications companies. I oppose retroactive immunity. In this case, the problem with immunity isn't just that the phone companies would n o t have to pay damages; it's that no cases would go to trial against the phone companies and we will never find out exactly what happened. I believe that the Administration is more concerned with protecting its own actions from scrutiny than with the possibility that the telephone companies will lose a lawsuit and have to pay plaintiffs.

In recent years, the White House has repeatedly convinced a majority of lawmakers that legal rights and clear oversight should be sacrificed in the name of national security and the prevention of terrorist attacks. Such was the case when Congress rushed through the passage of the Protect America Act. I voted against this piece of legislation, which broadened the government's authority to eavesdrop on citizens' electronic communications.

The "Protect America Act" that the Senate-passed inclusion of retroactive immunity for the phone companies, along with a number of other changes to FISA, requested by the Bush Administration. I am proud that the House did not go along , and refused to pass this bill despite the President's hollow threats. T he President is talking as though Congress has destroyed the ability of U.S. intelligence agencies to collect important information. In fact, the underlying FISA law has no expiration date, has worked for decades, and will continue to work in the absence of a "Protect America Act" package of revisions. The difference between eavesdropping with warrants issued by expert FISA courts and eavesdropping without warrants is the difference between decisions about grave matters balancing privacy and law enforcement being made by the Bush Administration alone or - as the Founders envisioned - being made by both the Judicial and the Executive Branches, operating under laws made by Legislative Branch. This is the balance of powers that has protected America for over 200 years. I will continue to defend this balance.

Sincerely,

M

Jim McDermott
Member of Congress

Thank you, Mr. McDermott for actually giving a damn about the 4th Amendment.

summer of '93

2008-02-13T22:46:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching a lot of Beavis and Butthead episodes, it has brought forth a gush of memories that I need to dump somewhere.

Summer of 1993; heat in Arkansas; Ozark Mountains; swimming in Sylamore Creek; trails in the woods; forts; running through the field; Shetland Sheepdog following me, brother close behind; run, run, run; climb the big oak tree; up to the neighbors; inside, outside, make up your mind; outside to play basketball, inside to play NBA Jam and Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis; Dr. Dre's The Chronic played in the background; run, run, run, back down to our house; parents at work, home by ourselves, lets eat Totino's pizza; throwing baseballs in the driveway; inside to play everything on the SNES; Mortal Kombat II, Zelda, Mario, Metroid, the greats; Grunge Music at our house -- Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, STP; Hip-Hop catching on on the radio; back outside, off to somewhere else, who knows where...; got to mow a lot of yards; mow, mow, mow, in order to go to the National Jamboree; off to the Jamboree, what an experience; summer is ending soon, back to school.

The next summer would be equally memorable but completely different -- the last "free" summer and one I would spend the majority of away from home.

what gives the US Administration the right?

2008-02-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

Warning, I strongly voice my opinion in this post and use not-so-great language.

I don't usually post so quickly, right after the other, but this just pisses me off. Evidence obtained through torture is illegal and immoral, I don't care who or why it is. What has happened to this country? What has happened to this being the land of the free? Why have we allowed the current administration to usurp our freedoms (and everyone else's) and get away with whatever the hell they want?!?

The Torture of Mohammed Al Qahtani
Military Commissions

All of this in the name of the "War on Terror" is just pure FUD so that we will continue to allow the Administration to use their 'blank check', known as the Patriot Act, to do whatever they feel like. What gives them the right? Oh yeah, they gave it to themselves. Bullshit.

At this point, if you aren't speaking up about, you are contributing to it. Get on the horn and call your Reps and Senators. This country signed the Geneva Convention in good faith and at one time, we were the pillar of the free world. Not so anymore.

Welcome to the American Empire.

programmer laziness?

2008-02-11T15:04:00.000-08:00

Steve Yegge has an excellent article appropriately title 'Portrait of a N00b'. I had a particularly enjoyable time reading it, all the while commenting to myself of how spot on he was. I must admit, when I first started coding/programming, I was comment crazy. I still comment my code heavily, but back then...damn, I told entire narratives to go along with it!

The crown jewel, in my humble opinion, of his article is the following bit about Perl/Python/Ruby:

Perl, Python and Ruby fail to attract many Java and C++ programmers because, well, they force you to get stuff done. It's not very easy to drag your heels and dicker with class modeling in dynamic languages, although I suppose some people still manage. By and large these languages (like C) force you to face the computation head-on. That makes them really unpopular with metadata-addicted n00bs. It's funny, but I used to get really pissed off at Larry Wall for calling Java programmers "babies". It turns out the situation is a little more complicated than that... but only a little.

The thing that gets me, and Steve is trying to get across, is that projects that are done in C++ or Java, I've seen the team(s) involved spend 90% of the allotted project time abstracting, modeling, etc, etc, etc -- all in the name of standardizing things so that when people actually get around to do something, there is all this stuff to tell them how they are supposed to be doing it. *gunshot*

Now, I do abstract a bit and write class type stucture into my Perl code, much to the disbelief of many, but I never let it stand in the way of actually getting the job done. The point is, all these things are good, just keep it in perspective. A little moderation goes a long way.

say 'cheese'

2008-02-05T16:16:00.000-08:00

I've often wondered why we say this phrase before taking a picture. I mean, it seems fairly obvious and all searching as lead to the same basic conclusion; no one really knows where it came from, but it's purpose is to make your mouth form a shape somewhat reminiscent of a smile. There are a number of different things said around the world to accomplish the same thing, but the commonality is that they tend to end with a 'ee' sound.

Here is the Wikipedia article on it, because I have nothing better to cite.

Needless to say, while at lunch on Sunday, we were near a Latino family taking a picture. They all lined up, arms together like they actually cared for each other, and the family member behind the camera paused and yelled 'Queso!'.

No kidding, really. I wonder how the picture turned out...

best quote about games in a LONG time

2008-01-31T22:01:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try to convey an opinion about something and try not to draw it out. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but concerning the current generation, I grow quite tired of hearing that unless a console has HD graphics, "serious" core games, and all this other crap the console won't last. I've often called BS and will continue to do so. So when I read an interview that Luc Benard, a professional artists/fairy-tale creator turned game developer, felt similarly to me I was delighted.

I think art direction is what makes a game good looking, not more polygons, video games are getting more and more boring and I’m sick of the “I’m a big muscle bald headed man saving the world from mutant hamsters from outer space”. I’m sick of the movie and music industry also, so I’m making something that I would enjoy playing, watching as well as listening to.

This is great and exactly the attitude we need in game development, otherwise by the next generation all we'll have is first person shooters and/or games that have absolutely nothing to draw us in.

Read the full interview

in search of a decent camcorder

2008-01-31T09:54:00.000-08:00

I'm in a bit of a bind here. I need a camcorder and I need one fast. Problem is, I'm picky about everything I spend money on. The camera will be primarily used for some videos I'm shooting for a podcast with my good friend Chad, so ideally I would like to get the same exact one that he does. His camera has turned out to be no less than camcorderinfo.com's 2006 Camcorder of the Year, the Canon Elura 100.

For the price, this model is simply amazing. Not only does it sport a 1/5" CCD, but is threaded to take optional lenses (e.g wide-angle, etc), and has a microphone port. Not only that, the thing is quite small and very easy to handle. Needless to say, Canon (in all their infinite wisdom) decided not to carry on the line this year and instead replace it with some models in their low-end ZR line. The problem with the ZR line is that that have smaller CCDs, no way to attach other lenses, and no mic port -- the three main requirements I have. I would go on about how manufacturers (in all industries) seem to enjoy arbitrarily moving/removing features from products lines, but I'll save that for another time :)

Can you still get an Elura 100? Sure, if you don't mind paying near twice the original MSRP, so about $600 now. It seems that the retailers that still have new ones in stock realized how prized this little marvel of Mini-DV history is and have subsequently jacked up the price.

So, what are my options? I can certainly get a comparable camera, but they either seem to be A) significantly more expensive, or B) Sony. And since I refuse to buy crap from Sony and the idea was to not spend that much, I seem a bit stuck.

I know no one reads this blog, but I'll still ask. Does anyone know of a nice and small handheld that has better than a 1/6" CCD and a real mic port? The ability to take extra lenses is a nice to have, but optional. Most importantly, I don't really want to spend much more than $300 - $350 max.

Zelda, oh how I've missed you.

2008-01-28T12:59:00.000-08:00

It's been almost a full year since I played The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and I don't know why. Before we moved, I had played completely to the very last dungeon and for some reason, something drew me away from it. Was it work or life? Who knows. I got an itch late last night and decided it was high time for me to finish it. So, at 11:00 PM I started -- for the next 2 hours, with various breaks here and there (to clean, mostly) I worked towards the end.

I did finally finish, and I'm so glad that I did. In fact, I now look back and wonder why in the world I stopped playing it in the first place. The game is just so incredibly good...I think it is my favorite of the series now. The final fight sequence with Ganondorf is alone worth it.

My only complaint, is that so far I have been unable to figure out if there is a way to continue playing in the game after you win. It seemed my only option after the ending credits was to go back out to the main menu...I couldn't save the game post-win!

Perl is a viable web language

2008-01-25T11:54:00.000-08:00

The author of the article, You Used Perl to Write WHAT?! is fairly accurate in his opinions of what Perl is good for, in my opinion. However, I absolutely don't agree with his #3 entry for what Perl is bad for, "As a Web scripting language". He compares it to the "out of the box Web support" of PHP and Ruby on Rails -- he obviously has never seen or used Jifty, It's stoopid easy to use. I'll just leave it at that.

why do you hate me so, Dennis Kucinich?

2008-01-24T17:14:00.000-08:00

Everytime someone asks me about the Presidential race and who I will vote for, I whole-heartedly endorse Dennis Kucinich -- then they ask me who I really will vote for, and I said Dennis Kucinich. I then go on a several-minute tirade about why he is THE person for the job and how no other candidate even comes close.

Well, it looks like he has decided to drop out of the race. This pains me to no end as no other candidate seems worthy of my vote...that doesn't mean for a second that I won't vote though. When it comes down to it, Dennis had an incredibly hard time because all of the major news outlets that ran televised debates started to bar him from attending, claiming his "low polling". Complete and utter bull, I say. They didn't like him because he talks of real change and not bending to the will of the lobbies, etc.

I am truly sad that this has happened...I can only hope that he will be picked up by a somewhat decent candidate as the running mate for Vice President.

why I ride my bike

2008-01-16T16:11:00.000-08:00

I actually have a lot of reasons, but I figured this picture would be better than an essay.

absolutely nothing in Denver

2008-01-14T19:13:00.000-08:00

I never posted about our unexpected and completely unplanned stay in Denver over the holidays; and I figured I needed to, so here goes.

The morale of this story, upfront, is DO NOT fly on United Airlines.

I first received word that United was having "problems" via an email on the 20th of December -- mechanical problems, workforce shortages, pilots over their allowed maximum hours in the air, increased demand due to the holidays, and "weather" thrown in for good measure. The funny thing is, none of the other airlines were reporting any similar problems. The others weren't running late on a large number of flights, they weren't canceling up to 50% of flights on a given day. I figured that by the time we needed to fly back, after the New Year, things would have been different or fixed maybe. What a naive little consumer I was.

Needless to say, our flight originally scheduled to leave Little Rock for Denver at 6:40pm didn't arrive until 7:30pm and we didn't take off again until 8:20pm or so. According to the staff, a member of the crew just didn't show up. Oh, and the weather was bad too...they like to cite that it seems. We arrived so late into Denver that our flight to Seattle had left an hour beforehand and we were directly sent to the Customer Service desk.

United did come through on one thing, they gave us a hotel and bumped us up to First Class. Still though, we got in to the hotel so late that the only thing opened was the bar and the accompanying grumpy (who are all these people that arrived 10 minutes before I close???) bartender.

Our flight out wasn't until 2pm, so we sat around a lot -- the hotel was a 40-minute drive via shuttle from the airport. We made it back eventually, but quite late the night after we were supposed to.

On another note, Denver seemed deceivingly pretty. All the snow-covered mountains were quite beautiful, but the vista was fairly tainted by the large amounts of smog hanging over the city.

testing and stuff

2008-01-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

Please disregard -- I'm testing some blog posting software.

OK, that last one sucked...how about this one? Neither seem to support tags.

Nevermind...

blogger templates

2008-01-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

I'm quite disappointed with the selection of templates to choose from here at Blogger (or Blogspot, whatever), yet I won't spend the time to customize one to my true satisfaction. So, technically, it is my own damn fault.

Shortest. Post. Ever. I think.

VC wish list

2008-01-08T15:11:00.000-08:00

updated with links to all the games

If the following titles were released for the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console, I would be set for life:

1. Pro Wrestling (NES)
2. Rush'n Attack (NES)
3. Mortal Kombat 2 (SNES)
4. NBA Jam (Genesis)
5. Metal Slug (Neo Geo)
6. Some version of Gauntlet

The first two on the list I never actually owned...my brother and I just completely owned them on the PlayChoice 10 machine that was at the local Pizza Hut when we were younger. Numbers 3 and 4 were staples during summer; times in which we would spend most of the days outside running around in the woods behind our house, but the scorching Arkansas heat would force us inside to cool off in the A/C at least a couple times a day. The last two were games that I frequented on the rare occasion we found ourself in a town big enough to sport an arcade.

For my brother's benefit, I would have to add these last few titles to round out the list:

7. Rush (N64)
8. Bionic Commando (NES)
9. Double Dragon 1, 2, or 3 (NES)
10. Metroid II (Gameboy)

I realize #10 probably won't get released unless Nintendo decides to do some sort of portable VC for the DS. Still, it was a great game and worthy of this wish list in my opinion.

the hookup

2007-12-05T20:35:00.000-08:00

It seems that every time someone learns that I have a hookup in Nintendo, they want me to "help" them with Christmas. While I'm more than happy to help a few of them, the sheer number of requests is a bit overwhelming. I did go to the Nintendo store at their Redmond office today...it was also my first visit to the museum thingy. Needless to say, I was a bit in geek heaven -- I was having a lot of memories from my childhood resurface. I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially seeing the older stuff and in general, all of the non-public stuff that is sitting around in people's cubes and offices.

I never got to play a Virtual Boy back when they were originally out, but I did get to play one today...tennis, in fact. I was actually kind of amazed at how well the goggles can trick your brain into thinking there is something actually 3D going on on those tiny little screens. I played for a while and after that said while, my head started working. I think it was all the red.

Back to "hooking" people up -- for one person I have supposedly "saved Christmas". I really hope his kids are happy :)

Battlestart Galactica: Razor

2007-11-24T23:02:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching the 2 hour special 'Battlestar Galactica: Razor' and as usual, it raised more questions than it answered. In true BSG fashion (a la Season 2) it was very well done and we did learn a few new things about some of the key characters. After my mixed feelings about Season 3, I truly am excited about Season 4. That is, if we get to see all of it. I have no doubts and I fully support the WGA, but I was scared there for a moment :)

dig looting

2007-11-19T10:57:00.000-08:00

There are certain things in life, that make me mad. Two of the things that make me madder (sp?) than most are 1) taking bribes, and 2) looting archaeological digs. So, when I say that I just read about a local Army Captain that has been accused of both, I want you to understand how perturbed I really am.

...[accused of] accepted as much as $40,000 in bribes to help Iraqi citizens win U.S. government contracts in Iraq and stole an artifact from an archaeological dig in the city of Ur, reputed to be the home of the biblical figure Abraham.

grrrr...

laser fingerprint scanner

2007-11-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

funny, I saw Nick using a portable laser fingerprint scanner on the season premier of CSI last night. The article is dated the day after the episode aired. This feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone...or Back to the Future...or something.

too. many. games.

2007-11-13T21:27:00.000-08:00

... not that I'm complaining, really. I was just remarking that I almost need to take some time off just to get some play time in. I can't convey how nice it is that there are some really great titles coming out or have just came out for the Wii. Up until now, a LOT of people have been complaining about the lack of AAA titles for the Wii. What they fail to remember, is that ALL consoles lack a lot of AAA titles in their first year. For instance, how many AAA titles can you name that came out for the Xbox 360 it's first year? Gears of War? No, that was in it's second year. My point is, just be patient. The good stuff is here or is coming soon.

I have no less than four new titles for the Wii to play through: Battalion Wars 2, Guitar Hero III, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, and of course Super Mario Galaxy. The problem is that they are all so great, I can't seem to dedicate myself to just one for more than a couple of hours! It also doesn't help that 1) I'm still playing Mario Strikers Charged online, 2) BWii and GH3 are also online, 3) I'm still spending time tweaking my new server, 4) and sadly, I haven't finished Metroid Prime 3 yet (shame on me!). Oh, and Geometry Wars comes out next week.

And then there is the DS. There are only a couple of new ones I've just started on, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, The Settlers, and Sim City. However, there another two that steal a little bit of my attention at least a couple times a week: Puzzle Quest and Planet Puzzle League.

Poor me...the guy with too many games to play.

[rant] Now is the time to stop reading if you don't want to hear me rant about...

All of these new titles have one thing in common, their amazing quality and production level. I have seen my fair share of really hastily and poorly put together titles for the Wii and frankly it's just depressing. All of these games prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that great games can be made for the Wii and they don't look "Last Gen" at all. After this holiday season, ANY publisher that puts out a game that looks like it belongs on the PS2 is only publishing that title for one reason, QUICK MONEY. These publishers are NOT making games for us gamers, they are just trying to make a quick buck. You should not support them with your money! Anyone who states that a title "can't" come to the Wii because it is incapable of delivering a quality experience either doesn't know what they are talking about, or are unwilling to or incapable of spending a decent amount of time in producing it.

Who I really feel sad for are the developers being forced and pushed to put out crap titles by their management and/or publishers. Being someone who works in the computer/network/IT/whatever-you-want-to-call-it industry, I would personally HATE to have my name attached to some of the terrible titles I see on the shelves at the local game store. If you are a developer working for someone who just doesn't "get it", I hope you soon find yourself working at a better place and for someone who understands that a quality title with a rabid (but maybe niche) following is FAR BETTER than the current year's edition of Sports Game 200X that sells a million copies.[/rant]

slapping programmers

2007-11-06T10:42:00.000-08:00

I'm a new and fairly excited follower of the Coding Horror Blog. If you fancy yourself a programmer or even if you just dabble in programming from time to time, you should keep up with this site. Some of the stories the author(s?) relay to us, the masses, about really terrible coding, bad design, stupid engineering, or just general WTF moments are just sheer brilliance -- and at the same time make you embarrassed to be part of the programmer community.

The story, aptly named "Why can't Programmers .. Program?" is just that sort of story. Go ahead, read it. If you are a programmer, coder, developer, etc you will understand the title of this post better. The author states, "That's a slap in the face to anyone who writes software for a living." ... better yet, have you seen the latest slew of V8 commercials? The ones where people are slapping others on the forehead for not eating their veggies?

yeah, that's how I feel right now toward the people that claim to be a "programmer" but can't even demonstrate the 'FizzBuzz' problem described in the above article.

what's going on outside my window?

2007-10-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

The intersections are blocked, there are cops everywhere, traffic is being rerouted, and they are spraying down the streets with water. Sounds like some sort of chemical spill or something, right? No, that's just GM shooting a new Cadillac commercial. Never thought I'd see that happening.

Sorry for the really blurry shot, but I intentionally turned of the flash so they wouldn't catch me :) The blurry red thing is a new Cadillac CTS-V and the big black blurry thing is an old Chevy truck with cameras, lights, and booms all over it.

Yes, I had nothing better to do than take pictures of a commercial shoot. But, by the looks of it, neither did a lot of other people standing around.

weather, it is a changin'

2007-10-21T22:06:00.000-07:00

Ever since we moved, we've been blessed with one of the mildest, sunniest, and generally nicest summers Seattle has seen in a long time. We knew the weather had to start changing toward the typical "Seattle" weather soon, though. Seems fall has arrived and we haven't seen a purely sunny day in a couple of weeks. Don't get me wrong, the sun does come out and when it does, it is truly gorgeous.

These pictures are a couple of weekends old, but it still seems relevant. So the story goes, I woke up relatively early (for a Saturday) and was greeted with Autumn seemingly rolling in on us. It was kind of weird...but then again, I've never lived near the ocean before.

The fog started off pretty thick in the morning. You wouldn't know it, but across the water, there is a decent sized mountain chain. In fact, it just plained look like the edge of the world (the Earth is flat now. Didn't you know that?) I walked around a bit and took some more shots for your viewing pleasure.

It might sound weird, but I'm actually looking forward to the cold and dreary weather. I've had too many recent years of "winter" that only got below 50 during a freak cold front in February. I do have to make note of the last weekend of January 2007 in which I went on the last backpacking trip of the season with my good friends. It got down to 17F on the OHT...we were just a tad bit cold.

waves in the sky

2007-10-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

if you didn't know already, I'm a big fan of meteorology -- especially interesting weather patterns and phenomenon. The picture below is a Doppler radar image of a weather pattern called Undular Bore waves. They are a type of gravity wave that are caused when a fast moving system runs into a very stable and cool air mass. The result is a type of ripple that can be seen both visually and via radar.

This particular storm occured 3 Oct 2007 over Des Moines, Iowa. Undular Bore waves may play a significant part in forming severe storms and even help fuel larger tornadoes. They are truly an interesting weather pattern and one in which we don't know much about yet. With time, hopefully we can learn more about their formation and what impact they have on the surrounding atmosphere.

Don't forget to click on the link above. There is a shot time-lapsed movie of the storm shown in the above radar image. One interesting thing to note is the direction of the waves against the overall direction of the incoming storm. From this, you can tell that the air mass that turned into the waves was stagnant and sitting still until the approaching storm slammed into it and, for lack of a better term, caused it to ricochet off in another direction.

On a less excited note, since I moved and am no longer in "Tornado Alley", I never get the pleasure of seeing really big spring/summer thunderstorms anymore. I do miss the tree-snapping wind, car-denting hail, gully-washing rain, and awe-inspiring lightning. Although the wind storm we had yesterday in Seattle was really nice :)

buddha machine

2007-10-11T14:17:00.001-07:00

While out at lunch I stopped by my local music store and happened upon something I've been looking for, for quote a long time. several months ago, I obtained a copy of Jukebox Buddha, a collection of electronic/ambient remixes based on the 5-40 second loops found on the FM3 Buddha Machine. I like the album, a lot and always thought it would be neat to eventually get an actual Buddha Machine. When I originally got the album, an employee told me that they actually get one in very, very occasionally...as in maybe 2 a year.

Like I said, I went to the music store today -- they had one -- I got it. This one happened to be pink. I'll post a picture later.

In other news, me and security guard at a certain place downtown have been going "round and round". I have an access card to get in this building, it was given to me by the owners of the place that I'm trying to get to. However, it has someone else's name printed on it...a fact that I was very aware of. The owners don't care, but this guy does. He won't let me in. I'm going to go by again today for the third day in a row to see if he ever has a day off.

Wish me luck!

hobbits among us

2007-09-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

a couple of years ago, I presented a report on a new find on the tropical island of Flores. There, archaeologists had unearthed several specimens of tiny, yet adult, humans. The timing of 'The Lord of the Rings' movies was uncanny. In my report, I presented as much evidence I could find that both supported and made arguments against whether these specimens were an offshoot of Homo Erectus, or just a pygmied population due to Insular Dwarfism. while I always hoped that the specimens really were hobbit-like, there just wasn't enough concrete evidence to go either way at the time.

well, things have changed now. new analysis of the wrist bones in the specimens, now know as Homo Floresiensis, suggest that they were indeed a distinct species.

i should have been an anthropologist...

server migration, part 1

2007-09-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

I finally got my new 1U box into the colo yesterday...it was a bit of a rush. After sitting on it for a while, yet complaining that no one was returning my emails about moving in to the colo, things began to move VERY fast. I jumped in to IRC and to my surprise, everyone in the colo was in there. I mentioned something about moving in and was promptly replied to, asking if I could move in later that day.

So, I ran home, threw Arch Linux on there, setup networking, some basic config, and locked down iptables for minimal connectivity from my house as fast as I could. I literally crammed the machine and associated hardware (rails, screws, cables, etc) into my bike bag and set off, in a flash, downtown.

I bet I was a strange site; guy on a bike, with a server hanging out of his bag, going down the street...during rush hour.

happenings of late

2007-09-06T22:15:00.000-07:00

it's been a while since I've posted, so I'll spend some time catching up. like usual, I meant to make several posts, but alas life gets in the way. the following events in my life are listed in no particular order.

I just got back from my second backpacking trip in the Olympics, it was truly magnificent. I won't go into too much detail since a trip report has already been written by my hiking partner. needless to say, it was a great trip and my first trip where I spent the majority of the mileage above the tree line. one good development from the trip is that I think I have truly found a great sock/shoe system for me: Golite Spike Tail, Orange Superfeet, Injinji mini-crew Tetrasok, and Bridgedale Trekker socks. Lots of miles and not a single hot spot or a bit of soreness. I am very happy.

I caught a Seattle Sounders game recently. it was my first professional Soccer (Football to the rest of the world) game. I had a blast, but unfortunately missed the only game of the match as I was up getting something to eat for Mary and I. speaking of food, the food available at Qwest Field (where the Seahawks and Sounders play) just plain sucks compared to what is available at Mariners games in Safeco Field. the Sounders won 1-0 over Puerto Rico. I have pictures somewhere, but I can't seem to find them. I'll post them when I do.

let's see, what else? oh! Bela Fleck and the Flecktones were in town and gave a concert at Woodland Park Zoo. I can't tell you how many times I have heard Victor Wooten play his famous rendition of Amazing Grace on bass guitar, but hearing it live is so much more impressive. besides truly enjoying the music, there were some other good things at the concert -- the free fruit, weird little Clif Bar-branded car, and all the beer drinkers corralled into a small fenced in area.

coming up soon is the grand opening of the I-5 Colonnade mountain bike park. I'm super excited as it will give me a place nearby to practice technical mountain biking "stuff" more often than the occasional trip outside the city.

finally, and I'll finish up here, PAX was at the end of August. PAX is not just another gaming convention, it is the only one where the community of gamers is the focus, NOT the industry. I have a few pictures of the convention, but frankly Mary's are better. Wil Wheaton's keynote was simply amazing, he hit so many good points in such a short amount of time. I really wish everyone could of heard it. oh yeah, you can! trust me, it's worth the time to listen. we saw a lot of cool stuff, played a lot of cool games, and in general had a great time with people just like us. our good friend Lance flew up from Arkansas to go to the convention...it was nice to see and hang out with him again. btw, I was schooled when I took up an offer to play Puzzle Quest via wireless multiplayer on my DS while waiting in line for the keynote. I've been playing it nightly ever since...I forgot how fun that game was! Oh yeah, if you had a portable gaming system other than a DS, you were seriously in the minority :) that last photo (albeit very dark) is of one of three open handheld wireless areas, complete with giant bean bags to lay on and completely dominated by people playing with their Nintendo DS.

P.S. playing World in Conflict almost makes me want to get a PC, but not quite. I need it on Linux (maybe via Cedega) or a native port to Mac would be nice.

crappy hardware

2007-08-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

when I think back to when I was younger and new to the world of computers, the primary players at the time were Acer, Gateway, and Packard Bell. Packard Bell, specifically, was huge and it seemed that everyone else (I built my computer) owned one. What, with all their bundled software, interesting case designs, and cheap prices who could blame them?

shortly thereafter, I think everyone realized what hunks of junk they were and I can't recall many people buying another Packard Bell for an upgrade, but I can recall that Packard Bell left the US market in the mid to late 90s. This sort of fate was very similar to several other manufacturers like Acer, although Gateway had a bit of resurgence in the late 90s with their cow-box themed stores.

the news over this past weekend was that Acer is buying Gateway for $710m and the result will create the 3rd largest PC manufacturer in the world. rumor is, is that they are also vying for Packard Bells' operations in Europe to better compete with their rival, Lenovo.

regardless, crap + more crap + even more crap != good PCs

so full...

2007-08-18T22:39:00.001-07:00

today I had one of the best meals that I have had in a long time. maybe it was just that I haven't had Korean food since we moved. maybe it was my internal yearning to eat something that felt like home. incidently, I've also been yearning for some serious, real southern cookin' lately.

when it was suggested that we drive 15 miles to a place in another county that had been recommended by someone I didn't know, I initially had hesitations. however, once we stepped into Ho Soon Yi in Edmonds, WA I realized that we made a good decision -- I was the only white guy in there, an obvious good sign if you want authentic Korean food.

the Pah Joon (seafood pancake) was amazing, the Jae-Jee Bulgogi (hot pork bbq, although they called it Dwae-Jee Bulgogi, probably a regional pronunciation difference) was spot on, and the ten or so dishes of various Pan Chan (including 4 different Kimchees, potato, sprouts, sauce, Muk (gelatin), fish cake, etc) really hit the spot. needless to say, this meal was exactly what Mary and I needed -- I said it already, but it really hit the spot.

turns out that Ho Soon Yi is not a Korean BBQ place like more Korean restaurants in the area, but a Soon Doo Boo (or Draft Tofo Soup) place. so, we also ordered the Kimchee Soon Doo Boo with Beef.

I am so incredibly glad that we got out of town to go here! I am already looking forward to our next visit...soon hopefully.

happy b-day GNOME!

2007-08-15T10:54:00.001-07:00

10 years ago today the GNU Network Object Modeling Environment, better known as GNOME, was announced. I've been itching lately to rebuild my new machine at work -- I need a real OS to get stuff done. I would normally just dive straight into using Gentoo, but I've been reading up on Arch a lot lately and it looks promising. So, I may try that out.

For your viewing pleasure, I have managed to scrape up a couple of screen shots to compare where GNOME came from and where it is today.

s// and other Perl things

2007-08-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

don't ask me why I have two Perl-related posts in a row, it just happened that way. Maybe if I posted more regularly instead of "planning" a collective post on things I've done lately, this wouldn't happen.

anyway, I think I've been itchin' lately to do something in Perl -- yeah, that is the reason.

first, we have this tidbit from use Perl; The author claims that as of 5.10, s// will be faster than unpack! whoa. I guess we will have to wait and see then.

second, and this is just hilarious, we have Acme-Inline-Perl. "Bring the power of PERL programming to your Perl programs."

Perl is Dead. Long live Perl.

2007-08-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

This essay makes a very good case, in my opinion, on why Perl is still a very valid and valuable option in programming these days.

I personally still prefer to do most, if not all, of my programming projects in Perl.

rock climbing

2007-08-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

OK, so this technically wasn't a backpacking trip, but we did backpack quite a good clip up some mountains to get where we wanted to go in order t climb.

All pictures from this trip.

This past weekend a coworker and I decided that we would spend the day getting in some nice climbs. It had been a while since either of us had climbed, so we felt that we would compliment each other well. Our first destination was in Stevens Pass along US Hwy 2. We didn't know exactly where we were going or what the climb would be like, just that it was good and that we would enjoy it -- we winged it. After a decent drive in questionable weather we arrived and after a short hike we arrived at a nice looking rock.

At this point, I commented that I had never crack climbed before and was assured that I would be fine. So we started and I quickly slipped and fubar'd my knee on the granite. Turns out, while we were told that the climb would be a 5.8 after research (the next day) we found out that it was in fact a 5.10a. We didn't spend much time there as neither of us made it very far, the rock was getting wet, and we were getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. Rock - 1, us - 0.

Next on the list was to head to Leavenworth and climbed whatever looked good. We stopped in Tumwater Canyon across the highway from Castle Rock and ate lunch next to the river. The weather was very nice that day, albeit a little warm. We arrived in Icicle Creek Canyon shortly thereafter and headed toward our final destination, a nice bluff line named Pearly Gates. After a steep, dusty, hot climb (although it crossed water several times) we arrived and talked briefly with some other climbers that were taking on some routes that were a little tougher than what we were shooting for. We initially tried to go for a route named "No Room For Squares", a 5.8, but were turned away when we couldn't find an alternate route to the top since we wanted to top rope.

We headed further down the bluff line and noticed some bolts off to the left headed up a nice buttress. Turns out this was "The Dog Ate My Topo", a 5.7 -- perfect. In order to build up our confidence a bit, which had been dashed somewhat from Ramone Rock, we decided to start half way up the route on a nice shelf and top rope from there. This went well and so we decided to go back to the bottom and lead climb the route. I went second and cleaned up, unhooking the carabiners from the bolts as I went along.

By this time, it was getting late in the afternoon and we were both commenting on being thirsty and possible hungry. We packed up and headed back down the mountain, pausing to dip our feet in the ice cold creek...very nice! A quick drive back into Leavenworth and we were in search of a good German place; and by "good" we wanted something that wasn't a touristy place. I honestly don't remember the name of the place (I'm bad about remembering names) but it required us to go downstairs under a building. A good sign that they weren't aiming at being easy to find by tourists! We concluded with Beer and Brats and then the drive back home.

Some observations (and revelations) from this trip:

5.7 on rock > 5.7 in a gym. The gym spoils you with all the nice hand and foot holds of different sizes and shapes. What you really get is next to nothing and almost all of the climbing is crack and fiction/smear climbing.
make the mountains a little smaller and the rock limestone/sandstone instead of granite and the eastern side of the Cascades remind me a LOT of the Quachitas in Arkansas.
speaking of granite, it hurts. I didn't realized it until the next day, but my legs are covered in little tiny cuts, etc.
make sure you try your climbing shoes on WITHOUT socks, even if the sales person says you don't need to. they probably don't even usually work in that department in the store.

Overall, a great trip and some great climbing. I hope to do it again soon and start climbing regularly.

head first into social networking

2007-07-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

OK. wait...give me a second. There are some social networks out there that I really don't like. Why? Because people on their give out WAY too much information about themselves, these services encourage such behavior, and the combination of the two can be dangerous.

I personally draw the line at sites that want me to divulge lots and lots of personal information, but at the same time I find myself more and more drawn to use some of the new-fangled websites. So, before I describe what sites I've decided to use, let's see what kind of information I can find out about myself with the magic that is Google.

I have found out: where I went to school, where I work, where (approximately) I used to live and I now live, and what my hobbies are or were. Fairly scary, and this is without using pay-for services. I'm sure someone with more time and interest could find out even more without paying for it.

The services that I mentioned earlier are useless to me. If I'm going to use a social network or web2.0 site, it needs to have something that is instantly useful for me. Twitter is like a blog, only much shorter. There are times I feel like jotting something down, but it doesn't warrant an entire blog post. Mugshot is nothing more than an aggregator for all the other services that I use -- is it for me to keep track of what I'm doing, or for everyone else? In fact, I've included my Mugshot over in the sidebar.

The point is, the sites I decide to use all are a voluntary dessimination of information. If personal information gets out that I didn't want to get out, it will be my own damn fault. At least this way, I'm in control...for the most part.

That is just my two cents though, YMMV

perfect timing doesn't exist

2007-07-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

amen. I may receive some flack for this one from some people...

UPDATE: a really good friend of mine helped me to realize that things aren't always so black and white. This is more true than I can attempt to convey -- things weren't easy for us to move, everything just worked out. So, while on one hand I give kudos to the author for writing the above article, on the other hand I know that it isn't so cut and dry for everyone. I was being a bit hypocritical in posting this article link without properly acknowledging how difficult it can be for a lot of people.

scary times ahead

2007-07-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

If it's not already all over the news, it should be. While the title of this article plainly states that Bush has 'abolished the Fifth Amendment', it is only in spirit but he might as well.

What the gist of this new Executive Order is is that the government now has the ability to seize the property of anyone that tries to undermine "success" in Iraq. Executive Orders in general should be used on a very limited basis, but what this administration has done is manipulate the emergency powers given to the Executive Branch because of the War and is all willy-nilly in their use of Executive Orders to basically rewrite laws and do what they wish. Its a Neo-Con's wet dream come true.

And if that wasn't scary enough, what is perhaps even scarier to me is that Bush will temporarily cede powers to Cheney while he is in the hospital.

nintendo fan network

2007-07-19T00:58:00.002-07:00

UPDATE: all of my pictures seemed to have vanished off this post. I'll try to get it fixed shortly. Regardless, they are all still here.

Tonight, we went to a Mariner's game and I decided that I would attempt to capture my experience with the new Nintendo Fan Network that has been setup at Safeco Field. I was actually pleasantly surprised as the coverage and signal strength of the network was excellent and the actual software offered more than I expected, along with a useful feature or two.

I will only include a few pictures in this entry. All the rest can be found here.

The software itself installs, very typically, like any other software you would get from a DS Download Station. It will sit and run in memory as long as you don't power off your DS. You can, however, close the lid and cause your DS to sleep and later resume using the software. There are two places in which you can pre-purchase your connectivity: stations at sections 143 and 186. If you don't feel like walking over to those sections, the service does allow you to pay via Credit Card over wifi from your DS.

The network is typical Nintendo, very simple yet offering plenty of things to do and see. Once you have confirmed payment, you register a new username or use an already created one, type in your password, and an optional email address.

Once connected to the network, you are prompted with several choices: Food & Beverages, Broadcast Video, MLB Player Stats, MLB Games in Progress, Fan Network Games, Account Info, and Logout.

Food & Beverages

Arguably the most useful feature of the service is the ability to order and deliver food and beverages directly to your seat. Make note, however, that the menu is limited compared to going to the many local vendors located at Safeco Field and there is a charge to bring it to you.
I'm guessing that Nintendo figured there would be a good percentage of the users to be of a younger age because beverages were divided into "Adult" and everything else.

Unfortunately, all the seemingly "good" beers (especially the local ones that are on tap everywhere in the stadium) were mysteriously missing from the menu. Have no fear! You can still get your Kobe Beef Cheddar Burger and Fries for only $15.75! That's right, add ANY beverage (especially that Pinot you're eyeing) and you've just spent $20.00 faster than you can get that Franklin out of your wallet.

Besides entrees and "Adults" beverages, there is a plethora of snacks and Pepsi branded products to quench your thirst.

Broadcast Video

The video feed is interesting. I'll admit, out of all the things that the Nintendo Fan Network provided, this is the one I used the least. The feed itself was a mixture of the video that was playing on the huge screen out in center field and the same feed that is broadcast over to the TV stations. It was kind of neat to see the game from two (or three) different perspectives. However, the video itself is really tiny and I am not sure whether or not it had an audio stream with it or not. I was checking this feature out at a fairly exciting part of the game and I forgot to bring my DS headset with me. If it is, it would be cool to hear the TV commentary while watching the game live.

Just for good measure, here is a token picture of (part of) me watching a video. Of course, you can't actually see anything in the picture.

MLB Player Stats

This is pretty straight forward. You can see the current season and career stats for each player, both active and benched, for the two teams playing.

MLB Games in Progress

See scroreboard for games across both the American and National Leagues in progress. That's it. Well, this was a handy feature as I found out during the game that the Angels had lost. If the Mariner's win, that is a whole game closer to 1st place in the AL West.

Nintendo Fan Network

Finally, we come to the games! This is the reason we own a DS, right? So, you basically have three types of games: Baseball Trivia Game, Mariner's Word Search, and MLB Match Game. All games are time based -- the longer you take to finish, the fewer points you get. Why would you care about points? You have to, otherwise you won't rise in the rankings compared to the other people online during the game! Obviously, some people are watching the game very much...

The Baseball Trivia Game seems to be where most of the time was spent on the games as there are 5 categories with a total of 250 questions to answer.

The Mariner's Word Search is straight forward as well. I'm not sure how many different puzzles there are, but in the 2nd inning, the network was already on #36. Again, you are awarded points based on how quickly you can solve the puzzle.

The MLB Match Game is a memory-like clone game in which you find matching MLB team logos and as you find them, it uncovers a Mariner's team member action picture. As you can see, I was paying more attention to the game and let the clock run down on me.

So, that is the Nintendo Fan Network in a nutshell. I think I'll go ahead and pay the $10 at the next game I attend to get the season pass. While cheesy, the video feed was kind of neat and it got people around me talking about it and asking me "what that white thing is". The games are a very welcome distraction at times and I think it is very cool to see how everyone else in the park is doing compared to you.

All in all, a good evening, a good product, and a good game. Btw, the M's won!

bad combination

2007-07-17T13:47:00.001-07:00

there are two things that I don't do, caffeine and medications. Last night, I did both. For some reason I decided it would be OK to drink a cup of coffee with dessert at the waiter's insistence. Then I got home, had a head ache (most probably from the caffeine) and took two Tylenol PM tablets at someone else's suggestion.

sleeping last night didn't happen. It was a constant tug-of-war between the caffeine and the drowsing agent in Tylenol PM and I was the rope. I would literally pass out asleep only to be jarred awake by my appendages kicking from the caffeine. I'm tired.

food porn?

2007-07-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

so, I'm sitting here watching another episode of "No Reservations" (Chef Anthony Bourdain rocks, btw) and he is in New Zealand talking to some room full of people that apparently don't understand him very well. He is trying to explain to them his fear of people seeing food as they do porn -- in other words, something they like but would never do themselves.

I can't help but agree with him. While I do really enjoy eating out (Mary and I went out to our current favorite restaurant tonight), I enjoy cooking even more. I guess I include myself with the increasingly trendy home-cook-hopeful-to-be-a-little-more-gourmet group. Meh, I try and I enjoy it, that is all that matters.

Incidentally, he also spends some time hiking across some hills chasing dogs chasing wild boar. He was having some difficulties due to his two pack a day habit.

Chef, next time you are in Seattle, look me up and we'll eat some great food and then go backpacking in the Olympics.