11 - 2004 | ***Dave Does the Blog

Category, please?

The category archives are, in some cases, not loading. This is because, despite going to Excerpts, some of them are just frelling too big. Possible solutions: Create more subcategories, break…

The category archives are, in some cases, not loading. This is because, despite going to Excerpts, some of them are just frelling too big.

Possible solutions:

Create more subcategories, break up largest categories into them. Pro: better organization of the blog archives. Con: it will take forever to do (and just short of that to get to).
Add in one of those funky MT plug-ins to paginate archives (e.g., to restrict an archive page to 60 entries at a page, or something. Pro: relatively easy, I think. Con: no way to do a search within a category (which, to be sure, I cannot do right now).

Still pondering.

Travel tales

Thoughts regarding my trip from Denver to Atlanta: Whoever the hell thought that folks traveling on the Monday after Thanksgiving was a good idea was, ah, nuts. There was a…

Thoughts regarding my trip from Denver to Atlanta:

Whoever the hell thought that folks traveling on the Monday after Thanksgiving was a good idea was, ah, nuts. There was a 15-20 minute wait at both the north and south security checkpoints, among other delays.
The Return of Dave Hill, International Man of Mystery. Yes, my approaching the Delta ticket counter triggered Major Alarums … or, at least, my reservation raised the previously mentioned Evil Terrorist Warnings alert. Alas, it being the Monday after thanksgiving, it took about 10 minutes of sitting on the phone for Joe Delta to determine that I was, in fact, the Good Twin.
My rumored reputation as an Evil Terrorist sort was confirmed by the X-ray. “Excuse me, I need to inspect your suitcase.” Um … okay.
Turns out I had grabbed a bathroom tool kit before I headed off to the UK. No prob, since I was checking my suitcase. But this trip I was carrying my suitcase. And so the X-ray machine noticed …
… sharp-ended tweezers …
… pointy nail file …
… wicked nail clippers …
… a couple of mysterious nail care thangs …
… aha! Little nail scissors, with blades a good half-inch long!
“No, I don’t want to mail them. Go ahead and keep them. My bad.”
I managed to arrive at the airport with $2 in cash (well, and £15). Rrg. Want lunch. McD’s is no-credit-cards. Rrg. The frelling ATM in Concourse C (crickets chirping) is out of service.
Rrg.
So, off to the Cantina, which takes plastic. But, as a result, I ended up on this trip with next-to-zero cash …
On the bright side, Delta has a very good in-flight magazine.
On the down side, they charge money for everything (from headphones to meals). They also have a safety video featuring Zombie Woman and Zombie Child (given their reactions to the oxygen masks dropping in front of them). They also run a second safety video, in Spanish (but without Zombie Woman and Child) after the first.
They also announce an endless array of gate locations, about ten minutes before arriving in Atlanta, and over the last four minutes of the TV show running on the screen. Clever.
Okay, I am a control freak. I like having control over circumstances. Travel to strange places stresses me, but that’s okay, because I trust my ability to find my way, because I print out maps in advance, because I trust myself to figure it out.
Bold, brave, loner. That’s me.
But that wasn’t the scenario here. We’re trying to save travel costs, and I was in charge of the project, so I had tried to coordinate the travel and car rentals here in Atlanta. But the office is on the opposite side of the city, and all the recommendations were for folks to take the MARTA and then a cab from there to the hotel (which everyone was supposed to be in the same one of).
I’d been going to rent a mini-van to take along several folks, and sent out schedules and coordination e-mails and cool stuff like that. Not my favorite thing, mind you. I hate car pooling. I hate being in charge of a car pool. I hate meeting with people at a strange place. I hate being the first one at a rendezvous, standing there, wondering if I was in the right place …
The consensus — once those folk who actually were following the plan actually followed up — was that we all take the MARTA. Oooookay.
Of course, being cashless, it meant that someone needed to pay for the MARTA tokens. And the taxi. And the taxis
Rrg.
Oh, did I mention that my laptop screen wasn’t working when I arrived at the hotel?
And then, of course, being in the hotel, it turned out that, despite the recommendations we got from the office, there isn’t someplace to eat within walking distance of the Hampton Inn. Swell. But the rest of the group (half of which, it seems, ended up at a different hotel) decided that, hey, they were just going to have a few beers down in (their) bar.
Of a mercy, someone who was at the hotel had actually driven into town, so I was able to get a car and go off to dinner with the other person who wanted to get some actual dinner to eat. Which meant eating at the bar at a neighboring restaurant at 10 p.m.
*sigh*
Lest this all sound like a horrific trip, the actual meetings went pretty well today. Which, for a trip where I had very little idea beyond the most general what the actual discussion contents would be, is not too shabby.
We’d talked about going to the yummy Fogo de Chão (been to the one in Houston and would return in a heartbeat) for dinner, but instead went to the not-quite-as-yummy-but-still-fun-and-tasty Tu Tu Tango, a tapas place that not only has an Atlanta location, but also one in Orange County, which may make it a fun place to go to during the holidays.
I am definitely ready to be home. Too much travel, for me and Margie both. Soon …
Pinterest
Reddit
Email
Print

Online at last, online at last …

… thank Hampton Inn and ViewSonic I’m online at last! Whew….

… thank Hampton Inn and ViewSonic I’m online at last!

Whew.

Applicationless in Atlanta

Frelling mutter mutter backlighting on the notebook didn’t survive the trip to Atlanta, so this is the first time I’ve had a chance to sign in mutter mutter mutter. More…

Frelling mutter mutter backlighting on the notebook didn’t survive the trip to Atlanta, so this is the first time I’ve had a chance to sign in mutter mutter mutter.

More this evening, when I lug this 17″ monitor back to my hotel room …

Drifting away

Nothing says, “Better leave SEVERAL HOURS EARLY for the airport” than a few inches of snow on the ground and a paranoid brain. Got both, right here….

Nothing says, “Better leave SEVERAL HOURS EARLY for the airport” than a few inches of snow on the ground and a paranoid brain.

Got both, right here.

Various and sundry non-gaming notes

Two more observations on Kitten: She’s been sleeping in later than usual (though she’s also been staying up late) — eight o’clock or later (quarter of nine on Friday!). That’s…

Two more observations on Kitten:

She’s been sleeping in later than usual (though she’s also been staying up late) — eight o’clock or later (quarter of nine on Friday!). That’s been kind of nice in some ways, but it means that, for some things, we’ve ended up having to set alarms for weekend mornings, since our Little Miss Alarm Clock is no longer reliable …
Christmas is a much bigger deal for her this year than last. She’s been very into Christmas decorations, and gift planning (though she’s not quite yet figured out that she doesn’t get everything she asks for or circles in a catalog, or that some shopping we do is for other people).

And some non-Kitten stuff.

Doyce’s newly tiled kitchen looks great, and is seriously incenting me to start up some floor tiling projects here in the house — though, frankly, that way lies madness, since once we start on the ground floor, we won’t be stopping with just one room …
On the other hand, Doyce’s newly tiled shower, and the tales that go along with it, has made me resolve that, when we redo our shower, we’ll be hiring someone to do the work.
In rewarming the Thanksgiving grub for dinner last night, it was taking a looooooong time, and not being very successful.
Yup, the microwave had given up the ghost. Convenient, that.
It’s been a year-and-a-half since we got the Sharp, in turn replacing a similar Sharp about a year-and-a-half old.
That seems a bit short for a microwave, so we eschewed the Sharps, and bought a nice Panasonic down at Best Buy. Has all the features we want, and, hopefully, will last beyond June 2006. At the very least, it has a sensor reheat, as well as some promising-looking defrost, beverage warming, and keep-warm settings.
It’s also a good four inches wider than our last one (since the controls are not on the door), which is a shame. We’ll see how it goes. Meanwhile, Merry Christmas, honey!
(We could have held off and not bought it today — bringing down the spare microwave from our room where it warms Margie’s footwarmer. But with my being out of town for a few days, I figured she didn’t need any further complications or inconveniences in life — and didn’t need her footwarming stuff to be any more difficult than need be!)
The big assignments for the weekend, aside from Thanksgiving, were Christmas-related:
- Gifts: We’ve got most of these identified, if not yet bought — though we have quite a few “pick up something at Disney World” entries next to them.
- Cards: Rrg. This is my particular annual bugaboo, and we don’t have any of it done yet (nor final decisions on the Twelfth Night invite or the Christmas Letter contents). This one is going to be weighing on me heavily, and I’m going to see if I can get some progress made next weekend.
- Decor: We have most of the tree-related stuff out (as noted above, Katherine has been seriously into Christmas decorations this year, and we’ve regularly had queries of “Can we bring up another box now?” all weekend. As soon as I post this, though, it’s time to do the tree!

On which note, I’d better get at it ….

Various and sundry gaming notes

More weekend miscelleny … Friday night was the wrap-up of Doyce’s Grimm Therapy game (and, for the nonce, Sorcerer). Nice conclusion, as a younger brother was rescued from Faerie (against…

More weekend miscelleny …

Friday night was the wrap-up of Doyce’s Grimm Therapy game (and, for the nonce, Sorcerer). Nice conclusion, as a younger brother was rescued from Faerie (against his will), and the fiendish plots of Doctor Blackheart (who turned out to be an attention-needy demon of my own character’s) were foiled … for now …
When we were done, Doyce said, “Well, that can be the end of it, or we can go one more session, because I can think of something really horrible that could happen.” Hrm. No need to play through Really Horrible Stuff, as far as I’m concerned. And, of course, there’s nothing to say that we won’t come back to this some time in the future.
Saturday was Margie’s game, and that was a lot of fun, too. Some very big battles (three ships against three ships, and, later, 40-odd camel-riding corsairs against the four of us and nine other NPCs), so we ran pretty late — but we were successful beyond any expectation (including the module writer’s), due to (a) truly crappy rolls for the GM, and (b) a web wand that we (mis)used to great effect.
Margie still handled it well (large group actions are never easy, esp. in D20), though we probably needed (a) more use of the battle map, and (b) a bit more sanity on our part.
At the very least it let us get rid of some Thanksgiving leftovers (more about which anon).
In the shuffles between PCs, I’d lost track of the die roller I’d been preferring (Amicron Dice Roller) and could only find one (RPG Dice) that works similarly, but less prettily. I found it again, but also this one (Aroooo’s RPG Dice Roller) that looks pretty nice, and has some dedicated screens for a slew of systems (albeit a kind of clunky Filemaker interface). FYI.
Today (Sunday) we’d dithered between starting a new serial in my IDC game (which was going to be the first one that I’d actually built from scratch). Problem was, I’ve not gotten the module finished. During the course of Doyce and Margie’s games, I scribbled quite a few notes around the first major scene (which would probably run longer than a single sitting, anyway), but wasn’t quite happy about it. Plus, starting a new module with the holidays about to disrupt everything didn’t sound like a good idea.
So Doyce, at the last second (by phone, after Midnight), agreed to finally run us in some Dogs in the Vinyard action.
Alas, snow ensued, discouraging Randy from coming down. And, to be honest, everyone has some RL stuff to get done (and cleaned and buffed and polished and put away and set up). So it’s a gameless day today, and likely just as well. 🙂

For the Record

This story appears to be false. In my defense, it sure sounded plausible, given modern society and politics. And I’m not the only one taken in….

This story appears to be false.

In my defense, it sure sounded plausible, given modern society and politics. And I’m not the only one taken in.

WE DON’T NEED NO … ROYALTY PAYMENTS!

All those kids who sang in Pink Floyd’s The Wall? You remember, the one with the tune, We don’t need no education, We don’t need no thought control, No dark…

All those kids who sang in Pink Floyd’s The Wall? You remember, the one with the tune,

We don’t need no education,
We don’t need no thought control,
No dark sarcasm in the classroom,
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!

Turns out they have learned something: how to sue for overdue royalties.

The pupils from the 1979 fourthform music class at Islington Green School secretly recorded vocals after their teacher was approached by the band’s management.

Now the 23 ex-pupils are suing for overdue session musician royalties, taking advantage of the Copyright Act 1997 to claim a percentage of the money from broadcasts.

I remember this song vividly, as I started college in the fall of 1979, after its release, and it seemed that every now-on-their-own-with-a-dorm-room-and-stereo kid thought it was endless fun to crank up the tune to 11, 24/7.

I find this latest development most amusing.

(via J-Walk)

“Chess is like life”

Aliens, as directed by Ingmar Bergman. Cut to: Military ship. Camera pans over the cryogenic chambers that hold Ripley and the Marines. Various voiceovers: Ripley: Space is cold and vast….

Aliens, as directed by Ingmar Bergman.

Cut to: Military ship. Camera pans over the cryogenic chambers that hold Ripley and the Marines. Various voiceovers:

Ripley: Space is cold and vast. No one can hear you scream. But can infinite space offer protection from our own self-awareness, our own mortality?

Apone: I lead warriors into battle. Still, every battle I wonder: will this be the day I am called into account for my sins, for my cigars?

Heh.

S-H-O-PP-ING

Some observations on Christmas shopping for Kitten this year, deep within the bowels of Toys ‘R’ Us. If there is going to be gender-based name-branding on a toy, it will…

Some observations on Christmas shopping for Kitten this year, deep within the bowels of Toys ‘R’ Us.

If there is going to be gender-based name-branding on a toy, it will (for girls) probably be Barbie. If not Barbie, then Disney Princesses (which latter category seems to include any female protagonist in any Disney film, aspirations to royalty notwithstanding).
For boys, it will inevitably be Spider-Man. Not sure why, or how Marvel has managed that, but Spidey is ubiquitous for boy’s branded items.
Given the preponderance of discount material, I gather that Kim Possible is On the way Out. A pity. On the other hand, it meant some great deals for Kitten gifts.
Everything old is new again. If there was a theme toy you loved as a child 20-40 years ago (especially if you were a girl), it’s back again. Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, Care Bears … yeesh.
Amidst the plethora of Disney Princess toys are “baby princesses” — the various princesses as infants. Which is fine, except …
Why does Baby Princess Ariel have … um … legs?
I mean, isn’t she a mermaid? Wasn’t she a mermaid as an infant? Why would she have legs …
… unless, of course, Poseidon, longing for another daughter, spotted a human infant and cut an unholy deal with Ursula to turn her into a mermaid! Aha! Gives a whole new spin to the movie, doesn’t it?
Of all the brand stamps out there, the least objectionable is probably Hello Kitty. It tends to be, compared to the others, much more subtle, much more design-oriented, much less incessantly in-your-face.
Aside from the execrable videos, it’s the one Girly Brand I could most easily live with.
The big ticket items for Kitten this year were a bicycle and a Leapster.
The bike we ended up buying at Costco. A Disney Princesses bike (sigh). The DPs do have an advantage over a lot of other girly themes — they tend to be purple, as opposed to girly pink or Barbie’s particularly virulent pink.
Anyway, the bike is stashed away and will be dropped off by Santa “while” we are out of state.
The Leapster is the newest LeapFrog educational system, and it has a few advantages over her current “My First LeapPad.” Using an LCD screen, it’s more interactive. And it has a headphone jack. The latter is particularly nice on plane trips.
To that end, in fact, we’ll be giving her that gift before we go to Orlando.
(More Kitteny wish list goodness, for them as are interested, can be found here.)

More anon.

What kind of quiz taker are you?

TemptedYou may take a lot of quizzes, but really, it’s nobig deal. Just harmless fun. Go on, takeanother. One of them’s bound to sort you intoRavenclaw, if you just keep…

Tempted

You may take a lot of quizzes, but really, it’s no
big deal. Just harmless fun. Go on, take
another. One of them’s bound to sort you into
Ravenclaw, if you just keep at it.

What Kind of Quiz Taker Are You?

(via Steve)

Thanksgiving review

Our day started at about nine, luxuriating in being Kittenless, but driven to get up and start moving. And so we did. Margie swung into action in the kitchen, beginning…

Our day started at about nine, luxuriating in being Kittenless, but driven to get up and start moving. And so we did. Margie swung into action in the kitchen, beginning her cooking wonderfulness. I started darting about the downstairs rooms, picking up and putting away and restacking and shuffling items hither and thither, so that when folk came over, there would be places to sit and chat and eat.

Oh, and I started ripping all of our Christmas CDs (once I found them) to that we’d have plenty of good holiday music. Ironically, I discovered most of them in the CD player in the entertainment center, which tells me we hadn’t really done much with musical ambience en masse since last Twelfth Night. Since our DVD player plays CDs, too, it’s where we usually throw in one-off discs.

Folk started showing up around 2 or so, I think. Jackie came over with Justin and Kitten. Stan and Randy showed up shortly thereafter. Food started to appear on the table to nibble on — nuts, crackers and cheese (including a very yummy “cheesecake” hot cheese spread that Margie whipped up, stuff like that. Margie’d brought in some mint from the back yard, still sheltered under the forsythia, and heated up some simple sauce with it to combine with squeezed lemons and rum for mojitos.

We’d toyed with barbecuing the turkey this year, but everyone’s consensus was to go once again with the deep fried, so that’s what we did. We set up on the back deck, with a large set of obsolete drapes as a drop cloth underneath. That was fine, until we actually put the turkey in. Margie’d estimated the amount of oil to put in, rather than use water displacement (since she’d gotten the turkey all dried off). And when I started lowering the turkey in, it began to spatter alarmingly, so I dropped it the rest of the way in pretty quickly.

The result was a large fountaining of hot oil all over several square feet of deck. Eep.

Aside from that, cooking the turkey was relatively uneventful. Doyce eventually made it over, with the dogs, having recovered some from his PC ordeal. More chit-chat, more drinking, chip and guac — and discovering that breakfast room is a much better hang-out place now that the rear doors open outward instead of inward.

Everything seemed to be ready simultaneously, and we initiated the new buffet with a full load of Thanksgiving goodies — turkey carved by Margie, traditional and “harvest” stuffing, some sort of yummy creamy potatoes, spinach, rolls, salad … some ’92 Rafanneli Zin, a number of different whites …

And a long walk around the block (or two) afterwards. At which point it was time for Jackie’s pumpkin rolls and my own pecan pies.

We retired to the living room for digestion, chit-chat about ring-tones, and several quite entertaining bouts of True Colors. (The group consensus seems to be that I’m a traditionalist fuddy-duddy who has a secret pr0n addiction. Ahem.)

People headed on home, we did some quick kitchen clean-up, and off to bed. Much fun, and a delightful evening.

Thanksgiving

Ten years ago (or, rather, Thanksgiving 1994), Margie and I had been dating for a while, and I was going to be heading off to Colorado for my new job…

Ten years ago (or, rather, Thanksgiving 1994), Margie and I had been dating for a while, and I was going to be heading off to Colorado for my new job assignment, and we were over at her folks’ house for dinner, along with various friends and, of course, my folks as well.

And, at some point in the evening, I asked her to come upstairs. We went to her old bedroom — but Jen was there, rocking away with Ana Maria, so we went over to her brother’s old bedroom instead. And there I dropped to one knee, and told her that I’d rather live with her than without her, and slipped an aluminum foil ring over her finger. And she made loud noises, and said yes, and we went back downstairs and let the various friends and family know.

And that was the best decision I ever made. For which I truly give thanks.

Checklist

Jackie and Doyce were watching after Kitten last night whilst we did Christmas shopping (more about anon). And, as it worked out, we ended up being “just the two of…

Jackie and Doyce were watching after Kitten last night whilst we did Christmas shopping (more about anon). And, as it worked out, we ended up being “just the two of us” all night (thanks, guys!), which led to this shower-time checklist of our parenting goals.

“Talks in funny voices?”

“Check.”

“Makes up words to songs?”

“Check.”

“Enjoys 60s cartoons?”

“Check.”

“Interested in gaming?”

“Check.”

“Expresses loud disdain for anyone who puts up Christmas decor long in advance of Thanksgiving, let alone Halloween?

“Check.”

Our work is nearly complete … BWAH-HA-HA!

Two steps forward, three steps back

Just heard back from the happy-peppy offsite computer repair folks. The good news is that, yes, they confirm there’s something wrong with the display on my machine, with its intermittent…

Just heard back from the happy-peppy offsite computer repair folks.

The good news is that, yes, they confirm there’s something wrong with the display on my machine, with its intermittent pink-and-or-cyan ghosting and flickering on and off at odd moments.

The bad news is that, no, they can’t really do anything about it there. IBM will only ship them one, two at the most, replacement warranty parts at a time. They’ve identified at least three things that are (or may be) behind the problems — the LCD, the ribbon cable, and something else the customer service manager couldn’t remember.

So their recommendation is that it needs to be sent back to IBM for depot service. Which is easily a 2-4 week turn-around process.

(That loud, rhythmic thudding you hear is my head pounding on my nice wooden desk.)

Given Thanksgiving, then my Atlanta trip early next week, I can’t send it off now. A week and a half after that, we’re off to Orlando, then California (working holiday vacation).

So I could send it off for repairs after Atlanta, relying on the holidays to minimize my need to use it. Least painful course, perhaps, while I use a loaner notebook. Safer, perhaps, than waiting to see if the thing crashes and burns and dies a horrible death while I’m away in another state. And, on the bright side, it makes for a lighter briefcase whilst traveling. Of course, last thing I need is something else interesting to do in the week before we leave.

But I so do not want to go through migrating between machines again. Words cannot begin to describe. Unfortunately, it sounds inevitable. I just feel like the guy whose house is being remodelled in one, long, constantly-inconvenient nightmare scenario …

Rrg. And, again, rrg.

UPDATE: And imagine my joy, my sheer giddiness, when I picked up my computer, brought it home, powered it up — and no display came up.

Many unprintable words later, and three calls to the repair shop, and a trip down there, I have it back. But clearly I need to get the frelling thing fixed ASAP. I still plan on taking it on my Atlanta trip, but I’ll be sweating little bullets along the way.

Lack of Intelligence

I’ve been fairly lean on political posts over the last few weeks, and I will be the first to admit that I’ve been laying off the political news reading a…

I’ve been fairly lean on political posts over the last few weeks, and I will be the first to admit that I’ve been laying off the political news reading a bit, too. But I have two things to say about the apparent demise (this year, at least) of the Intelligence Reform Bill:

When your enemies aren’t strong enough to be your enemies, you can find plenty of enemies among your friends.
From what little I have read, the GOP basically imploded on this one — House against Senate, Congress against White House, Defense Department against Oval Office, chairperson against chairperson, ego against ego, pork against pork …
It stands as mute testimony against the fears that “Now that the Rethuglicans own the US government, they’ll march in lock-step to Bush’s evil schemes on behalf of his corporate masters!” These guys couldn’t even pull off a slam-dunk like Intelligence Reform in this post-9/11-Commission, post-Election era.
For shame, you idiots.

Why Thanksgiving is fun

It’s a guy thing….

It’s a guy thing.

Leave it to Google

I love the Amazon Wish List, but unfortunately it only tracks things in Amazon (which, of course, is 90% of all manufactured goods in the cosmos, but that still leave…

I love the Amazon Wish List, but unfortunately it only tracks things in Amazon (which, of course, is 90% of all manufactured goods in the cosmos, but that still leave another 10%).

Enter Google, which is beta testing an extension to its Froogle service, the Froogle Shopping List. Just sign in (with your e-mail address), and start identifying links to stuff you like on whatever web sites you can find. It serves as a shopping list of things you want to remember but don’t want to buy just yet, but you can also ID certain items as “public” and turn it into a Wish List. Shiny!

Once I get it working, I plan on doing a bit of extended shopping listing.

(via J-Walk)

Playing games with my head

A set of online Flash games from McGill U. that are designed to promote self-esteem, largely by rewarding you for noticing folks smiling approvingly at you, or for responding to…

A set of online Flash games from McGill U. that are designed to promote self-esteem, largely by rewarding you for noticing folks smiling approvingly at you, or for responding to self-referential info (your name, your birthdate). Interesting, and mildly entertaining, though I don’t know that I feel any better about myself after having played them.

(Katherine might like the Grow Your Chi one).

(via J-Walk)