Sierra Kilo

So it’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Life has taken its toll on one of my creative outlets. I’ve found that sometimes it takes too long to write something meaningful and organize my thoughts. Even my Twitter-ing has slowed. Anyway, on to the post.

So the iPhone 3G comes out next week (11th). I won’t be busting the door down, but I plan on purchasing one shortly after the release (probably over that weekend). While I like the customizability of my WinMo T-Mobile Wing, I’ve found that it is a bit slow and cumbersome. I like the fact that I can write .Net applications for it, but I’ve only written a few and hardly use them. Plus, the one I use the most, I’ve basically rewritten as a JavaScript web-app anyway. I’m sure I’ll use the web browser a bit, but I’m curious about how I’ll use the iPod functionality and how quickly the GPS novelty wears off. Geocaching will be fun and I might create a few caches myself initially. Geotagging pictures is an interesting concept, but, honestly, who’s interested in exactly where I take pictures? I’ll probably watch my podcasts on it, maybe audiobooks, but I love my 60GB iPod for carrying my music. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons is on order with Amazon and so far is looking like August for shipping The wife and I played with a coworker of hers and his wife over the weekend and had a good time. I DM’d 2nd Edition for the first time in probably 10 years. My descriptive skills need a little work, but I was able to wing it pretty well with a dungeon I threw together sometime in college (about 10 years ago). For the 4th Edition game, I might put a good interwoven plot together. Laura played a tree-hugging druid, but I think she’d get more out of playing a slightly-evil rogue (my favorite, too). It’s so much fun to cause strife in an imaginary environment when you have to be so good in real-life.

I also installed Vista Ultimate on my “server” box at home. I wanted to play with the Media Center Extender functions with my XBox 360. So far it’s crashed a couple of times and rebooted itself (probably driver issues). I see why the Vista Nanny is getting so much press. As the saying goes, “At least she’s pretty.”

So, after the kid was sick, the wife was sick, I was sick, trying to catch up on work, prepping and stressing for daughter’s upcoming Cochlear Implant surgery, falling behind on mowing the lawn and watering plants, etc. I find that the site’s been down for a week. It looks like everything’s back up and maybe the well-oiled machine will continue to churn after all.

I had a good Father’s Day. Mom and dad came over and I grilled. I had a couple of inch-and-a-half-thick ribeyes, and a couple of equally-thick New York strips. Kosher salt, a little pepper, and they were t-a-s-t-y! I also got some Gulf shrimp, skewered them up, olive oil, red wine vinegar, some crab boil, onion powder, and garlic powder. Those were also really good (and fairly inexpensive at $8/lb of 21/25). Laura whipped up some creamy mashed potatoes. Some peppered cottage cheese and some spicy peppers and I was stuffed. There’s nothing better than a nice, juicy steak and some mashed potatoes.

We watched a little of the US Open, then Laura and I took off to see Indy 4. I’m pretty sure it was the first time I’d been to the theater since Revenge of the Sith. I was amazed at how low-def the picture was. It was good seeing Harrison Ford don the hat and whip again, but it seemed like a large-budget made-for-Sci-Fi movie. Without Harrison Ford, it could have been called “The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and shown on a Saturday afternoon on TV. There were a few cheesy “remember when” scenes (”remember the warehouse at the end of Raiders, that’s where they are now” “remember the girl from Raiders, she’s in trouble again” “remember Indy’s school buddy, he’s dead now”), but it took a large suspension of disbelief. It was an okay movie, though: 3/5 stars. I think I mentioned this somewhere before, but the “holy relic” Indy movies were the better ones, required less suspension of disbelief, and did better in the box office. Hopefully Shia LeBouf doesn’t take over the reigns as the new adventure hero. He was decent, but just doesn’t fit right.

We came home, played some more with the munchkin, finished watching the US Open, I watched “When We Left The Earth,” then went to bed. It was a good day.

I’m not big into reality TV or game shows, but we caught the first episode of The Next Food Network Star last week and it wasn’t bad. When I saw Lisa Chavez Garza, I knew I had seen her somewhere before. I chalked it up to her resemblance to Posh Spice (Victoria Beckham) and didn’t pay much attention. Well, after last night’s episode, I went to bed and realized where I knew her from. We went to the same high school. She was a year ahead of me. A quick search confirmed it. What a coincidence, right? Then, this morning I realized that now makes me separated by 2-degrees from the likes of Alton Brown, Bobby Flay, and Giadia De Laurentiis! Nice.

“Being green is no longer just for granola-loving hippies.” Nope. It’s now for the trendy, “I watch Sex and the City, drive a hybrid SUV, eat organic edamame, and wear $500 hemp sandals” crowd.

I was watching “License to Grill” with my favorite black Canadian grillmeister Rob Rainford on Discovery Home this weekend and found that the channel will be changed to Planet Green soon. When I first heard of Planet Green, I thought it was going to be a new channel. I hope Rob’s show continues elsewhere. Anyway, I have a couple of comments on Planet Green…

They gave a few tips while advertising the new channel. “Ladies, conserve water by washing your hair every other day. Up-do’s are all the rage now!” “Men, conserve water by not shaving as often!” So, in other words, grow a beard and join the rest of us dirty-haired hippies. Not that I have a problem with any of that. I usually shave every 2-3 days (thanks to slow growth), but a shower is like my “On” switch. I don’t feel right unless I’ve done my whole morning shower ritual (including clean hair). It was just very odd that the first thing that came to my mind after hearing those tips was that being a hippie is now the trendy thing. And I hate trendy.

I also saw ads for a couple of new shows. Renovation Nation with This Old House alum Steve Thomas. If you’re going to renovate, why not be environmentally friendly and incorporate new technologies? Wa$ted is like a hippie boot camp game show. They come in and tell you how you’re killing the planet and wasting money, then show you how you could save money by doing more eco-friendly stuff (recycling, limiting electric/water usage, etc). After a month, they come back and see how well you did. The amount you saved over the month, they give you 12x (a year’s savings) in cash. I don’t like the hosts much, though. Greenovate, a commercial, “how can we make money off these hippies” show. As much as I dislike the idea, when I have to replace a light bulb, I’d like to know which CFL or LED bulb to get. Greensburg, a documentary on rebuilding Greensburg, KS after a tornado leveled the town. It’s a model for a sustainable, eco-friendly town. I saw something with Tom Bergeron, too. If they’re jumping the shark on “Green”, they might as well Evil Kneivel it, right?

As much as I hate how trendy the whole “Green” thing is, it will do some good things. Public buy-in means that more companies will do more eco-friendly things like add solar panels or green roofing. It also means that consumer-level products (such as solar power systems and CFLs/LEDs) will become less expensive. When the price difference between an incandescent bulb and a CFL bulb is negligible or adding a solar power system to your house will pay for itself within 5-10 years, the “Green” bandwagon will have proven its worth. Until then, I’m content walking beside it. Do what you can, when you can, I say. Not because of “global warming,” “carbon credits,” “melting ice caps,” or whatever, but because it just makes more sense to use energy that the sun is giving off (it’s going to give it off anyway, why not, right?) than to scrounge around for stuff on the planet to burn. It’s like a guy coming up and saying, “I’ll give you $3 right now for doing nothing, or I’ll give you $5 if you wash my car, but you’ll have to buy some soap.”

…before jumping into things at work:

Laura broke my XBox 360 by trying to watch Disney’s Enchanted (now with “FastPlay” technology). A few seconds into the movie, it froze up. Subsequent reboots resulted in the dreaded “Red Ring Of Death“. Microsoft support was very eager to send me packing supplies, repair my problem, give me a month of XBox Live, give me another 90 day warranty on the repaired box, and give me a 3 year warranty against the “Red Ring Of Death”. So, we’ll be without a downstairs DVD player and no CoD4 or Rock Band for 3-4 weeks as we wait for the repair. I guess we’ll have to live with the Wii for games. I’ve been enjoying some Super Mario Brothers on 50 inches, though. It’s amazing how much you remember from back in the day. My brother-in-law remembered more than I did, though. He made it to the last level thanks to the secret warp zones.

I’m still waiting for that Mac Mini update to come along. It has been 281 days since the last update and the average time between updates is only 188 days, so it’s due. A processor, memory, and hard drive bump are all I’m asking for. A graphics bump that allows dual screens wouldn’t be bad, either. I’m anxious to set one up to handle podcast viewing, torrent downloads, webcam monitoring (I know that dog has parties when we’re not there), some DVR functions, checking weather, browsing the web, and handling some server-type tasks. Eventually, I’d like to set up some home automation functions for scheduling exterior lights and remotely controlling other lights (like turning on entry light via instant messenger so we don’t walk into a dark house). It’s always fun to tinker with stuff like that and it seems to be much easier on a Mac thanks to AppleScript.

I haven’t been playing much of Mythos, but I read the other day that they’re going to make it more MMORPG-y than it currently is. This might be to help differentiate them more from Dungeon Runners. There will be less instancing in common areas, allowing for players to interact more. I also hope they put some downtime activities in such as fishing, mining, farming, etc. As fun as it is to loot dungeons, I’d like to participate in the economy and display trophies (largest fish caught, largest melon grown, etc), too.

We’ve also been busy with Eleanor’s implantation. Research, tests, meetings, therapy, etc. She’s a smart little rascal and she’s a handful. We are usually running around chasing her, playing, learning, or feeding when we’re not working. We’re hoping all goes well with insurance and we can do the implants in August after our family reunion. Fingers crossed.

This is just way cool. I love seeing small spaces organized in efficient ways. A 4-level living space in a normal 2-level. What’s more, the whole thing is made from birch plywood!

While I wouldn’t be able to give up my 1900 square feet of living space, I would sure as heck would like to lay it out differently. As it stands, there is probably 500 sq-ft of wasted space due to poor layout of an “open floorplan” design. Poor wiring placement adds to the poor layout by limiting the arrangement of furniture. Given the outer shell of my house, I would love to gut the interior and redesign the layout. Got a few $k laying around?

…not the SNL-variety.

Friday, a friend and I went to see Rush in concert. It was great! Being in their mid-50’s, they held up very well for nearly 3 hours! They played most of the classics and the best songs from their latest, Snakes and Arrows. Limelight, Freewill, Dreamline, Subdivisions, Tom Sawyer, 2112…all rediculously good. Neil Peart played a 6+ minute drum solo, followed up by Alex Lifeson playing Hope on a 12-string. I can now say that I’ve seen one of the two bands I’ve wanted to see live…next up, Pink Floyd (when pigs fly?).

I got a little time to game, too. I’d been meaning to get on Dungeon Runners and Mythos for a bit and try to figure out what the difference was They’re both Diablo-esque hack-and-slashers. I found myself playing Mythos more. Maybe it’s the Diablo roots, but it just felt more familiar and fun. I wasn’t a big Diablo player, but I liked the idea of socketed items and item rarity. The RPG elements are all there as well as the skill tree. I’m playing a Gadgeteer, which is actually pretty fun. I’m using a shotgun-like musket and sending my little homing spider bombs to collect kills. There are plenty of quests and they’re nice and short. One could hop on for 15 minutes and complete a quest or two. So far, however, I’m missing the MMO part of it. Sure, I see a few people running around the common-area cities and see a bunch of text in the chat window, but it’s felt like a completely single-player experience. Maybe it’s the instanced dungeons? Mythos seems well suited for Achievers with a little for Explorers. As an EASK, it’s not completely lost on me. I would like to see more roleplaying and social elements. Owning a home and defending the city from an invasion would be a great way to give the player a sense of belonging and camaraderie. The crafting quests were slightly fun. More downtime activities could fill the roleplaying void.

Games:
With all of the MMORPGs being developed, why isn’t there one that I really want to play? Granted, there are a couple who have not released enough information (I’m looking at you Bioware and 38 Studios), but from what’s known, I’m a little disappointed in the future of the genre. One player in my disappointment is the lack of console MMOs (specifically XBox 360). I can jump into a CoD4 frag-fest and play for an hour or so in the evening. I’d rather play from my comfy couch in 720p on my 50″ TV than in the upright chair in the confines of my office. Maybe XBox Live is to blame? Is it not possible to develop an MMORPG for that console? Playstation 3 has their virtual world “Home” coming out soon, so it’s not impossible for that platform. It’s not the control scheme. With the chatpad attachment, it would be easy enough to map actions to keys rather than having to navigate menus with the controller.

Right now, I am actually looking forward to Stargate Worlds. It looks like it might be very interesting. I might even be able to get the wife to play with me. Earthrise and Fallen Earth are also intriguing (I’ve been following FE forever). Still, none to be played in my living room

D&D 4th Edition: Pen-and-paper WoW? I happen to like 2nd Edition AD&D best, but the online component to 4e looks interesting. D&D seems to use much less imagination lately, though. With all of the miniatures, rules simplification (yet complication due to the multitude of extra sourcebooks), and multi/prestige/hybrid classes, D&D seems much less about roleplaying and more about gaming. I’m interested to play a 4e game on “D&D Game Day” and read the rules, though.

Gadgets:
No updated Mac Mini yet. By the time they update it, I’ll probably be over the whole Mac in the living room thing.

The Goods:
Hellboy 2 looks much better than the original. Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth comes through a little, which is cool.

Yesterday was my 31st birthday. I celebrated Office Space-style. I did nothing! I watched TV, played games, and that was it. I had grand plans to wash the car, but news of rain stayed my hand.

I played Call of Duty 4, mostly. I gained a few levels and opened up a few new weapons and equipment. I thought about hopping on Dungeon Runners or Mythos, but never got around to it. In hindsight, there were a few other things I would have liked to do, too, but didn’t think of at the time. None would have broken up my day of doing nothing.

I saw a show last night about the 2007 Solar Decathlon. It was very interesting. I love the prospect of modular housing and wish it were more widely accepted. Many modern technologies are modular and upgradeable, so why aren’t homes? If my computing needs call for more memory, I can slap a new stick of RAM in my PC. I’d love to see a neighborhood in my area of North Dallas that consists of modular houses. The area is fairly progressive and tech-savvy, so it would probably do well. SIPs, recycled/renewable materials, energy efficiency, and smart home technologies are something I’d love to have in my house. If I could easily slap on an extra room in about a week for a few bucks, I’d be all about it. All I’d need is some land and money, I guess…

I’ve been a good boy.

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