Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Today happens to also be my parent's 34th wedding anniversary. My mom's got a funny way of celebrating though; she's having surgery today to repair her shoulder which is totally devoid of any cartilage at all. They will get up to Bar Harbor however, for their annual trip to the family house in a couple weeks once she's feeling a little better. In an age when so many of my friends have had their parents break up for whatever reason, I'm thankful I've had such a great example of what a good relationship should be. That's not to say it isn't without it's problems, but the fact they talk about the problems with each other goes a long way to helping to resolve them.

My parents were separated in the mid 70s before I was born because my dad was an alcoholic and my mother could no longer stand to be dragged down by it. She told him that he needed to leave and get his head on straight before she would take him back. Thankfully, this was just the kick in the ass my father needed; he sobered up, readjusted his priorities, and came back a better man for it. My parents got back together not too long after, and I became the fruit of their reconciliation.

Well that was probably more than you wanted to know, but I just wanted everyone (including them), know how much I care about my parents. So happy anniversary mom and dad, and get better soon mom!

2003 at the half-way point

So today marks the end of the 6th month, which can be considered the half way point of 2003. Thinking about it today, 2003 has been fairly good to me so far. Let's compare shall we?

So there you have it. I've managed to completely change my life for the better in 6 months, and I expect things are only going to get better before the end of the year.

Gamecube Gameboy Player

So I finally got my hands on a Gameboy Player yesterday. Hot damn do I love this thing! It plays all veriations of Gameboy (original, color, advanced) games and I can use the extremely comfortable Gamecube controller. That's not to say the GBA is uncomfortable, but for long gaming sessions (over an hour), the pressure on my hands actually made them go numb. Add to this the fact that I haven't really played my GBA out of the comfort of my home, and it became a no brainer when I found out about the Gamecube attachment. Now I can finally finish Castlevania: Circle of the Moon; I hadn't played much because of lighting issues, well documented by Tycho & Gabe.

Moving Day

Shane's started moving his stuff into the apartment. Tomorrow I'll be borrowing my mom's truck to give him a hand. Unfortunately it's hotter than hell in New England this week, and as always, the humidity is high, so exerting yourself becomes that much more dangerous. Just going to have to take it easy, I guess.

3 for Thursday 6/26/03

Second time playing, it's 3 for Thursday:

1. What are 3 embarrassing moments or things that have happened to you?
   
   1. Screaming out "Masturbation is the key to success!" before a class, only to have the teacher walk in and respond, "Maybe in your life, Bob"
   2. Drinking shots of shmirnoff with bud lite chasers out of depression, and black out only to find out later that I had been screaming "Who's got the magic ball!" then later vomited on myself (I've never been that drunk since).
   3. Having my older sister and her friends barge into the bathroom while I was bathing and take polaroids of me in the bath tub.
2. What are 3 phrases or words you say when something good happens to you?
   
   1. Woo Hoo!
   2. Sweet!
   3. Wicked Good!
3. What are 3 phrases or words you say when something bad happens to you?
   
   1. D'oh!
   2. Shithellgoddamnfucksonofabitch!
   3. Go suck a dick!

BONUS: What is something that has happened to you that was bad, but actually changed your life for the better?
Kate walking out on me to go live with another guy. I pretty much bottomed out at that point, and figured out I needed help. Started therapy, got on some anti-depressants, started to feel better about myself. Probably wouldn't have taken getting laid off as well if I hadn't. Who knows, might not even be here to talk about it.

3x Thursday: A series of firsts

Another week, another 3XThursday. Compliments of Missy Williams:

1. What was your first real (no, it doesn't have to be a winblows box) puter in the 1990s? What did you use up until then? What do you use now?
   We got in the 80s, but my family had original Macintosh. We upgraded it over the next couple years (external hard drive, about 50MB is memory serves). I didn't own my first x86 machine until 1994, when I got a 486 DX60MHz with 16MB RAM prefabbed by Dell. I now have a few machines:
   1. P4 2.4GHz with 1GB RAM (my Wintendo box)
   2. P3 266MHz with 128MB RAM (the file server, running SuSe Linux)
   3. mobile P3 700MHz with 128MB RAM (the laptop, running WinME)
2. What was your first (or one of your first) experiences with the internet? When was it?
   Well I remember using FidoNet on BBS's back in the day, but that's not the internet... I'm sorry to say my first real experience with the internet was on AOL back in 1995.
3. What piece of software have you been using the longest? Why do you still use it?
   I think it'd have to be WinAmp. I rode the wave as MP3 and Napster became popular my freshman year of college. As new players came out, they never measured up in my mind to WinAmp. On the other hand, Winamp 3 still sucks. (On a side note, the guy who developed Napster was a fellow CCS student at NU. It was funny listening to the teachers rip him for dropping out while he was making money appear out of thin air. Of course we all know what happened after that)

Bonus: Regardless of what you use now, what's your favorite o/s? Why? Is/was it easy to use? If you could (if you haven't already), would you go back to it? OS X is real slick. It's built on top of UNIX, which from a stability stand point you can't beat, then add the windowing system that is second to none and you've got a great OS. Then there's the added bonus that you can build just about any Xwindows app which increases the software library available. Now, if they would only do a build on x86 hardware...

Back From Hogwarts

It took me a total of about 15 hours over two days to finish Order of the Phoenix. That fact alone should tell you how I feel about the book. It was extremely engrossing, though the ending (like the last book) left a little something to be desired. My problem with Goblet was the cliff hanger (granted I didn't read it until this year, so my pains were quite small), but with OotP I just felt there were some other things Rowling could have done to make it better. I dare not say more on the off chance someone reading this hasn't finished the book yet. But if you have, feel free to e-mail me or post a comment, we'll say that it will be a SPOILER zone... ;-)

Got my book...

...but not without some effort. I ended up not even trying to go to B&N last night, I was too damn tired. I tried to go today, it was a no go. They were only giving them to those who had preordered. Thankfully during a stop at Best Buy while I was out (I was trying to see if the Gameboy Player was available, didn't realize it was out next week) I found a table full of Harry Potter books. Paid a little more for it than I would have on-line, but for instant gratification, I'll do it. Already over 100 pages in, and so far it seems Rowling hasn't lost her touch. I read all of the previous books, including Goblet, in under a week, so we'll see how long this one takes.

I'm such a dork

So it's a beautiful night, but I'm not outside. Where am I? I've been sitting at my computer since I got home from work. I've been working on a few new things for the site, and for myself. Some of them you'll get to see now, but I'm going to hold some stuff back till I get the kinks worked out. To make things even worse, tonight is the release of the new Harry Potter book, and I'm considering going over to B&N and see if there are any copies left.

3 for Thursday

A new meme to follow: 3 for Thursday

1. What are 3 things unique about you?
   
   1. I'm legally blind in my left eye.
   2. I have a gap in my mouth where my right incisor never came in.
   3. I have never spent the night in a hospital outside of the day I was born.
2. What are 3 funny/strange/wacky talents you have?
   
   1. I can make farting noises using one hand and my eye socket. (great at parties ;-) )
   2. I can quote commercials, quite often line for line, after seeing them once or twice.
   3. I am an amazing store of trivial sports information.
3. What are 3 of your best traits?
   
   1. My sense of humor.
   2. My sense of loyality.
   3. My open-mindedness.

BONUS: What is the most outlandish thing you've ever done?
First thing that comes to mind is the time Shane and I drove to, and smoked in, all 6 New England states in the span of 12 hours.

3x Thursday: History Lesson

I'm a little sad that Jake will no longer be doing 3XThursday, but things change, and I for one welcome our new Hair Metal Overlords. Now on to the questions:

1. What's your favorite decade or time period in the past 150 years? Why?
   Well, I've been really nostalgic for the 80's as of late. Not sure how many times I've seen every episode of I love the 80's. I lived through them though, so I have to add that my favorite time period I didn't live through would have to be the 1960's. Rock was still new, the hippy movement was in full swing, I would have fit in perfectly.
2. If you could live in any time period in history, which would it be? Where would you live? What would you do?
   I'd love to live in Europe during the Rennaissance. I'd definitely be involved in all of the scientific experimentation that was going on at the time, probably as an assistant to someone along the lines of Descarte.
3. Who is your favorite person in history? What did they do that was groovy enough for you to admire them so much?
   Part of me want's to say Jesus, but it says history, not fantasy (just kidding folks, don't kill me ^_^; ). In all seriousness, it would have to be Alan Turing. The man is responsible for the field I work in, so got to give him his due.

Bonus: So, with all this fighting amongst our other fellow humans, war has been on the mind lately. What's your favorite war or conflict? What interests you the most about it? Most definitely WWII, but mostly because that's what I've been exposed to the most. My dad is an avid war historian, so growing up I read a lot of his books on the subject and watched all the documentaries on PBS, and more recently the History Channel.

Stupid Busy

Blah.... a week lag in the blog. This last week has been fairly hectic in terms of work, to the point where I have no desire to do much of anything when I get home except possibly drink a beer or smoke. It's finally let up so I have no excuse not to post!

Shane will be moving in a scant couple of weeks. This is very welcome news to my wallet. The money I gain from splitting rent with him will all go towards paying off the monsterous credit card debt I'd accumulated (almost $20k). It's now about 15, and a lot of it is at or near 0% interest, so doesn't hurt quite as much as it used to. I figure by this time next year I should be credit debt free, at which point I can focus on paying off the car early. It'll be a long road to get out of the hole I've been in, but I can honestly say that I'm better for having gone through this myself.

3XThursday : Press Any Key to Play

A day late, but here it is, compliments of 8bitjoystick

1. What is your favorite PC game? Do you have a rarely known game that you love or do you like the blockbuster popular ones.
   I really love RTS games like War/Starcraft or Command and Conquer. I also enjoy turn based games like CivIII. I used to be big into FPS games like quake, but I stopped playing after I felt there was little inovation in the games. Also, like Jake, I love me a little Scorched Earth (it was the first game I ever played on a PC, I owned a Mac until high school).
2. If you were put in charge of a team to design the ultimate PC game for you and your market group what would you have it be like? Who is your market group?
   I would definitely strive for an immersive environment and story line. My biggest problem with a lot of PC games today is they focus so much on multi-player environments they neglect a good single-player story. My market group is obviously like me, tired of the same old massively multiplayer environment filled with 14 year olds with nothing better to do.
3. Do you like to play PC games by using a keyboards, mouse, joystick, gamepad or whatever? What do you think is lacking in the control of PC games?
   I usually lean towards a combo of mouse and keyboard, it allows me to be flexible. Typically when I'm first learning a game, I will use the mouse to select from menus, etc. but as I become more comfortable I'll start using keyboard shortcuts or creating macros and the like. The only thing that is missing from control in PC games is standardization; there's every kind of control you could possibly imagine, but some only work for a very small subset of games.

Bonus: So our relationship with our computers is a bit like our relationships with our cars. If you had to pick one car and one similar PC what ones would they be?
I feel my relationship with computers is actually very different than with cars. I like to have the feeling of building my own computer, and take pride in doing routine maintenance and upgrades. My car on the other hand, I have no interest dealing with other than driving; if it stops working, I take it to someone who can fix it. Luckily, my 2002 Saturn has not had any problems as of yet ::knocks on wood::.

A true mix CD

So Dave was talking about putting together a mix CD for an electronica neophyte. He wanted to keep it small, and try to keep the target audience in mind. At the end, he came up with a decent selection of 12 songs. Shane and I discussed it at length, and decided that Dave's list, while good for it's purpose, could be improved upon. We indepently came up with our own lists (mine|Shane's). We shared a few songs here and there but we the amazing thing was more that we both had made sure to include only one song from any one group.

While I was compiling my list, I thought about my selection process. At first I thought about simply choosing what I thought was the "best" track from any one group. As I started to think about it though, how could I really quantify that? So instead, I tried to put together a CD (or rather CDs) that flowed in a somewhat natural way; not too many high energy songs in a row, nor too many slow ambient tracks. The end result I must say is the best mix CD I've ever put together. I could (and probably will) do this multiple times and come up with completely different track lists (most likely they will be the same group of artists though). We shall see, I think I'll have to get tired of this one before I go through the process of putting together another one.

Friday Link Fun

A whole bunch a links via MeFi.

• New Zealand man claims he can build a cruise missle from readily available parts.
  I believe it, but I seriously doubt this constitutes a real threat when cheaper alternatives like van or plane bombs are much more reliable. I say we nuke New Zealand in response, but I may be the wrong person to ask ;-).
• Guy takes old monitor case, builds a computer inside it.
  That's so cool, one of these days I want to do something like this.
• Enjoy Guinness? Live in a high temperature environment? Make sure you're beer stays cold.
  This is cool, but I would never have a need for such a thing because I drink my beer so fast.
• The game we loved as pre-teens, now available on-line!
  Danger! Could lead to total loss of productivity for the day.
• On-line jealousy test.
  All things considered, I'm surprised how well I did (22,28,11,18,22,28,0). I figured the fact that I have had multiple relationships end in her leaving for another man would scew my answers more than that.

3XThursday : War and Peace in The Global Village

From 8bitjoystick

1. In your own words what is globalization? Just what exactly are we talking about?
   glob·al·ize ( P ) Pronunciation Key (glb-lz)
   tr.v. glob·al·ized, glob·al·iz·ing, glob·al·iz·es
   To make global or worldwide in scope or application.
   global·i·zation (-l-zshn) n.
   Globalization is a very generic term. In this context we're talking about a global economy, which just means that goods and services flow from anywhere on the globe to anywhere else with a minimum of tariffs or restrictions.
2. What are the benefits of globalization? How can this help us as a planet and a people.
   The benefits (according to most economists) would be a leveling of the playing field around the world. This means the quality of life in the poorest of countries should improve, while in countries like the US we can expect a slight decline.
3. What are the dangers and curses of globalization? What is escaping from Pandora's Box?
   As above, there are always winners and losers when you expand the market space. Our own history is filled with examples of the upheaval of a change in the market structure. Look at the Industrial Revolution; today you'd be hard pressed to find people with sane arguments stating that it was a bad idea, but look what we had to go through to get where we are. In the 1800s, people were overworked in dangerous environments for little pay, but with the advent of Unions and labor regulation things improved. We can expect a similar upheaval with the coming global economy (we're not even close to being there).

Bonus: If it truly is a global economy then why don't we care about world opinion?
It isn't, but that doesn't prevent us from continuing our arrogance in stating that we are the best thing in the world and everyone should be like us.

Writing Specs

So this week I started working on Functional Specs for projects I'll be working on for the next major release. This has got to be one of my least favorite things about my job (right up there with meetings that go nowhere). I've got one that's gone through one draft review, one more that's about 20% through first draft, plus probably 3-4 more that need to be done before the end of the month. I suppose I should get back to work... ;-)

OS Personality Survey

Close enough...

A decent weekend

This weekend was a reasonably good one. Friday night, Shane and I headed up to Vermont for a little camping. Unfortunately, because the ground was so wet, we had the damnedest time getting a real fire going. We just couldn't find enough good wood that was dry enough to burn. We still had a good time, and we came back Saturday afternoon. The weather also contributed to my not going to the Cannons game that night. My dad and I had no desire to sit out in the rain on a cold metal bleacher. It's too bad because the Cannons made a terrific comeback (3 points in the final 90 seconds), and won the game in OT. Finally, on Sunday I was suppose to hang out with Mike and Sibi before they headed back to CT. But yet again, the lousy weather forced them to head home early.

Thankfully it appears the skies will remain clear for the next couple of days. This rain was really starting to get on my nerves.