Geek Bearing Gifts

in which i breakdown….

2009-09-13T10:17:00.001-04:00

…and finally buy a real cellphone.

I should have a brand new Samsung Rant on the Sprint Network on Monday. For 70 a month, I’ll get the nw Everthing Data plan with Unlimited mobile to mobile calls, unlimited text, data and IM, and 450 anytime minutes.

Considering I use my cellphone more than my land line, I’ll be using it as my primary. Which is new for me – I’ve always had a landline. But I’m paying $40 a month for a landline, and I’m rarely using it. All my friends call me (or text me) on cellphones, and it makes no sense to have the landline, when I can have a cell and it won’t cost me anything to call them.

So I’ll be dropping the land line at the end of the next billing cycle (but keeping my internet), and my phone number will be changed. I’m really looking forward to it.

Grrrrr....

2009-08-27T08:45:00.001-04:00

I can understand my work blocking certain types of websites.

Porn, gaming, gambling, cloud based storage sites (like DropBox), - They have no business being in a work environment.

But why block Google Reader? I used it to read news sites and tech news in the morning. And now it’s blocked. I guess I shouldn’t have been using it in the morning.

I’m actually curious as to when they will COMPLETELY cut off people from the internet all together. It’s really only a matter of time before TPTB decide “You know, people don’t need breaks from the workflow at all during the day, let’s get rid of this whole Interweb thing – they won’t mind at all!” I understand that some people abuse using the internet at work. I’ve seen it happen. But just because a few people are irresponsible, they shouldn’t punish the ENTIRE company, should they? I feel people will only get frustrated when they decide to take a break from working, and go to a site that they’ve been able to access before, only to find that it’s blocked.

And it’s not just sites like that – I know for a fact that YouTube is blocked (understandable – that can be a time sink), as is Facebook, MySpace, and eBay. By why block The Skeptics Guide @ www.theskepticsguide.org? It’s a Science blog about debunking the nutcases who believe they can read minds and bend spoons. Yes it talks about those, but when it’s classified as “The Websense category "Non-Traditional Religions and Occult and Folklore" is filtered”, that make no sense!

I really understand that the bank has to protect its network. The LAST thing the bank needs is for a virus, or worm, or keylogger to sneak on the system and compromise the security of the millions of people that we do business with. But they way they choose to block websites is kinda random. For instance, you can’t visit Google Documents (an online Word/Excel type bank of apps), but you can’t visit Google Calendar. I can visit skeptics.org, but not theskepticsguide.org.

So I think they need to do one of two things. Either give us a select few SAFE and SECURE websites that we can go to for news/weather/info for when we need to take a breather from work, or get rid of internet access completely. We don’t NEED the internet here – it’s not a necessity for us to use it on a daily basis. But people do need to take the occasional break from the work flow. And continually changing the rules about where you can go doesn’t help.

in which i find out my new a1c level....

2009-08-25T11:34:00.001-04:00

6.0 Baby! WOOT!

The plusses to my visit? 6.0 a1c (obviously), my doctor told me I can now test 3 times a week instead of twice a day (or when I feel I need to – which is awesome on the budget!), and she is very happy my blood sugar is officially under control.

But the downside to the visit – I have to start taking a cholesterol medication (Pravastatin), and she didn’t take me off any of my diabetes meds. Oh well – I’d rather play it safe than stop taking them and see things spiral out of control again.

Next up – need to look into lower cholesterol foods… Do I see flavorlessness in my future?

The Syndicate is coming...

2009-07-29T11:00:00.001-04:00

Recently, I have been recording 2 minute audio segment for the World of Warcraft podcast “The Instance”. Called “First Levels”, it’s a segment that deals with the beginning player of WoW and tips and suggestions for the player.

This caught the attention of the DM of a guild called Monkeys With Spoons (an awesome guild name, btw). Stacalm (that’s his toon’s name in-game) approached me with the idea of creating a new hourly podcast about WoW. After exchanging a bunch of e-mails, we finally Skyped and have 2 ½ hour conversation about the possibility of creating a podcast.

The results were very positive. We have some interesting ideas percolating, with a unique twist to the podcast. I won’t give any details here, but soon I’ll be posting a new Wordpress site and a GMail contact for the show. One thing I CAN mention right now is the show’s name:

“The Warcraft Syndicate”

More coming soon!

in which I get OT - Woohoo!

2009-07-22T11:22:00.001-04:00

I really love my job. Lemme ‘splain.

This past week, 3 things happened. 1) I got a promotion – I’m now the Team Lead of my department. 2) I got a raise because of the promotion. And 3) I got another raise, because they miscalculated my first one. Pretty sweet, huh?

Now on top of that, they have offered my co-worker and I overtime to help out another department. 10 hours a week until they are caught up with the overflow work.

Hmmm now lemme see. Extra money for a couple hours extra work a day? Yeah… I’ll take that.

In. A. Heartbeat.

in which i go to quahog… sorta.

2009-07-13T09:01:00.001-04:00

I is in Rhode Island! (pardon the grammar, I’m on vacation)

But really, I’m in Rhode Island this week visiting my good friends Rob and Cate. For some inexplicable reason, they’ve decided to put up with me for 7 days, so I guess I had better behave myself while I’m here.

We are planning on doing a bunch of stuff this week. Today, we are heading to Battleship Cove, Rob and I may catch a movie tomorrow, and it’s off to Providence for Fire and Ice, Dave and Busters, and Providence Place on Wednesday.

I’m so stoked to be here for a week. I’ll try to post more later.

Oh and check out my flick page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/geekbearinggifts/) and see me almost lop my toes off at the Great Northeast War!

Our dogma got ran over by someone’s karma…

2009-06-21T16:35:00.001-04:00

Well. This was an interesting day.

Stayed the night at Chuck and Heather’s house and set out for Funtown. We were having a great time, and we got there and… It was closed due to the weather. Which I call bullshit on. It was overcast – that was it.

So we shake off the disappointment of the Non-Funtown day, and decide to goto the Children’s Museum in Portland. we get there and… you guessed it… Closed.

So we figure, might as well go to the Maine Mall. As we pull up to the mall at 11:30, Peaches says, “Watch the mall not be open until noon, and we end up waiting for a half-hour. And LOOK! New Mall Hours sunday 12-6…

Sigh.. But all was not lost. Annie got a build-a-bear (technically a lamb named Lilly), Charlie got a Guinea Pig Webkins, and I got me a new laptop bag.

But I REALLY wanted to ride Excalibur……

Seriously, PETA?

2009-06-18T08:41:00.001-04:00

You are making a huge flap over a fly? A common household insect that people for centuries have been killing using flyswatter and newspapers?

I understand your position, I really do – I don’t like seeing animals being abused or hurt because of incompetent owners. I don’t like inhumane treatment of animals.

But, C’MON! It. Was. A. Fly.

Let me put it this way. 1 million African babies and children die from malaria spread by mosquitoes every year. There is NO CURE for malaria. If you were in a room with malaria-infested mosquitoes, are you sure you wouldn’t kill them to save your life? I know I wouldn’t hesitate to swat a few.

How about lyme disease? A tick-borne disease that, if not caught in time, can lead to a life of memory loss, sleep disorders, hallucinations and decreased consciousness. Would you kill a tick to prevent yourself from years of suffering?

Again, I’m all for humane treatment of animals. But there is a fine line between reasonable and irrational.

WOOHOO!

2009-06-16T16:58:00.001-04:00

Announcement!

http://www.geekbearinggifts.com is live!

To anyone who wants to read my blog and earlier entries can go to geekbearinggifts.com to access my piece of the web.

It took a while to setup, but it’s finally redirecting to the right place.

And the price for the domain is only $9.99 a year. Not bad for a little piece of the internet.

in which i perform major surgery… of sorts..

2009-06-13T15:51:00.001-04:00

Chuck’s laptop died.

Won’t boot. Can’t reset to factory defaults. Dead.

So I’ve been working on removing his hard drive, hooking up to my desktop and recovering any data off his computer.

So far so good. We managed to do that, and take his laptop back to Best Buy for repairs.

Hopefully everything will work out, and they won’t have to reformat his hard drive to recover his computer.

Listmania – Favorite Atari 2600 games

2009-05-25T23:05:00.001-04:00

Been listening to old episodes of retronauts lately. Been reminiscing about the old Atari 2600 games that I played when I was growing up, and which ones were my favorites. So without further ado….

Armor Ambush – Call it Combat 2 (even though that exists), or even Combat Advanced – it’s an awesome tank game.

Asteroids – I’m geekily proud to say I’ve rolled the score over 7 times in a row on 2600 Asteroids.

Combat – There’s nothing quite like shooting your friends with tank, biplanes or jets.

Enduro – One of the first racing games I REALLY enjoyed playing. I distinctly remember getting this for my birthday the year I had chicken pox

Kaboom! – one of the few paddle games that I was actually good at. One of the first twitch games.

Missile Command – This is one of the original great games.

Pitfall! – One of the best games. Ever. I spent days playing Pitfall, eventually getting enough points to send away for one of the sewn-on patches that Activision was giving out. Was really the precursor to today achievement points on the Xbox.

Raiders of the Lost Ark – After enjoying the movie, I have great (but frustrating) memories of trying to solve this game. Still haven’t done it.

Solar Fox – If I’m not mistaken, the object of this game was to maneuver a ship over squares to change their colors within a time limit (or avoiding lasers – one of the two).

Yars’ Revenge – This was the first game that I ever played where I found an Easter Egg. At some point during the game, if you destroy Qotile in Swirl form in flight, and then maneuver Yar on the line, the initials HSWWSH appear on the screen, ending the game. HSW are the initial of Howard Scott Warshaw.

in which i appreciate history

2009-05-25T21:50:00.001-04:00

The last time I went to the Maine State Museum in Augusta was at least 20 years ago.

I believe it was a 5th or 6th grade trip, where we all went up to visit the museum.

And I was bored to death. The one thing I do remember about it was that there was a long hallway that went into the exhibits, and a booming voice came over a speaker welcoming you to the museum. My friends and I figured out what tripped the voice and kept setting it off – probably to the dismay of the people there.

But Saturday, I went again. And I really appreciate it.

I mean, obviously I’m older. I realize what history has passed and why we as a society need to preserve it.

And the amount of.. stuff… that the Maine State Museum is amazing. I have stuff over on my Flickr Page that don’t even begin to show some of the incredible stuff from Maine’s history.

The only downside is the admission.

Not that it’s expensive. Admission to the museum is $2 for adults, and $1 for kids. But the sad thing is that the museum doesn’t see a dime from the admission. All the admissions go directly in to Maine’s General Fund. And the museum gets a paltry sum from the general fund each year. I think it’s deplorable that the museum doesn’t get the funds it needs from the state, when it’s one of the few places that is actively preserving the state’s incredible heritage.

I’m planning on writing the governor/senators and see about changing how the museum gets funds allocated to them.

They deserve more that they are getting. And we need to make sure they get the funds they need.

Podcasts for Geeks 101

2009-05-05T22:46:00.001-04:00

I love podcasts. I have posted about podcasts before, but never followed up on it. Here’s a list of podcasts I love, and the reasoning behind them.

* This American Life – I found this podcast on ITunes. It is continually in the top ten podcasts, so I decided to check it out. Incredible documentary-style radio stories produced weekly, and it is a great listen.

* Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me – NPR’s weekly news quiz. He-larious. It’s the only current event podcast I listen to, and it’s a laugh riot. Peter Sagal (and the writers) are geniuses, and I love “Not my Job”

* This Week in Tech – a.k.a. the Twitter Show. Seriously though, the flagship podcast of Leo Laporte’s TWIT network is a great listen. John Dvorak, Jason Callacanas, Kevin Rose, and a host of other regulars bring the news to your ears.

* The Instance – It’s the World of Warcraft podcast so you don’t have to. Whatever that means. Scott Johnson and Randy Jordan (and occasionally Curt Schilling) put together a very informative and entertaining show all about WoW and it’s ins and outs.

* Extra Life Radio – Scott Johnson’s flagship podcast (along with Obsidian and Brian) about all things pop culture. Comic books, games, movies, TV, internet, etc. Awesomely funny.

* Retronauts – 1up.com’s retro gaming podcast. Saved from 1up’s buyout, it’s a fantastic retro-gaming podcast. Everything from Akalabeth to Zelda is covered.

* NPR’s Playback – It’s only once a month, but it’s a interesting look back 25 years into NPR’s archive for interesting, funny, and informative clips from our past.

* MacBreak Weekly – TWIT' Networks Mac Podcast. Just because I’m a PC user doesn’t mean that I don’t like to hear about the dark side of computing. Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Andy Ihnatko (dang that’s hard to spell), Alex Lindsay, and Scott Bourne are the regular pundits on this awesome podcast.

* The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe – If you are into logic, atheism, science and facts, this is the best one out there. Scott Novella of the New England Skeptical association heads this outstanding science podcast.

* Windows Weekly – TWIT Network’s look at the evil empire. Paul Thurrott and Leo Laporte look into all things Microsoft. Zune, XBox 360, Vista, Windows 7, etc.

I’m always on the lookout for new things to listen to. Any suggestions?

the reason

2009-05-05T22:43:00.001-04:00

It’s not easy.

Even though I have numerous ways to post to this blog, I’m starting to find it difficult to find things to blog about.

I mean, I’m not a reporter, musician, celebrity, or politician. So I’m really limited to the things I know about – like video games, movies, books, comics, tv, RPG’s and World of Warcraft. Granted this is a personal blog (I have no illusions of grandeur), but I was hoping to be a little more deep than just pop culture.

But then again, pop culture is what I know – and when you ask a writer “How do you figure out what to write about?” – I’d say 9 times out of 10, they’ll answer “Write what you know”.

So I’ve kinda come to terms with what I decide to put out there on the web for all to see – even if no one ever sees it. This blog is autoposted to Facebook, so all my friends (all 42 of ‘em!) can see what’s on my mind – beyond the blurb that’s on the main page. In fact my last post was probably one of my more introspective posts – I usually never talk about my personal/work life – but I think putting this stuff out there is very therapeutic. Kinda like a psychiatrist without the weird questions and the lighter wallet.

Just the ability to vent, either about work or home life, is great. I don’t vent to people face-to-face, only because I usually speak my mind, and end up putting my foot in my mouth. And without any seasoning, it’s not a really pleasant taste.

So here, I can take my time, and take a deep breath before I put anything down on paper (so to speak).

So will this be an thoughtful, philosophical place where great minds meet and discuss world issues? HELL NO. But I’ll occasionally be funny, thoughtful, mad-as-hell, and downright weird. THAT I can guarantee.

in which i recover…

2009-05-05T22:35:00.001-04:00

I’ve been really sick lately, but am recovering. Started off with a sore throat last week, and ended up with congestion and a runny nose.

Now how is it possible that the human body can produce more mucus and gross stuff that’s physical possible? It boggles my mind.

On the geek side, though, I finally got around to copying a bunch of audiobooks to my laptop so I can convert them to m4b files to play on my iPod. I should have done this a few months ago when I got the laptop. I have it setup beside my work computer so when I’m not processing work, I’m converting mp3 files. Finally.

ups and downs

2009-03-26T21:08:00.001-04:00

12:00 noon - Feeling a bit better today.

Part of it being that I actually got in touch with my sister, Sherry last night through Facebook. Sherry is one of the few people in my family that I’ve talk to in the past, and I’m really looking forward to getting back in touch with her and getting to know her again. She’s surprised that I’m 35. “You’re Old!” – that’s a direct quote. :)

I’m hoping that this’ll help me get out of this awful funk I’ve been in over the past week. I hate feeling depressed. I hate acting depressed and getting other people down. I hate the thoughts that run through my head when I’m down (they aren’t fun). Like I said, this happens every now and then, which is odd. For the most part, I’m a pretty positive guy. I’m not a optimist by any stretch of the imagination (I consider myself a realist), but I try to either be positive or at least put on a good fake face if I’m not.

But lately I’ve felt that the fake face isn’t cutting it. Not talking at work. Not singing along with music. Not laughing at George Carlin (hard to believe that last one).

I’m positive that it isn’t a chronic condition – I usually pull out of these funks after a few days… but this one kinda feels different… which worries me.

So what do I do? Medicate? God I hope not. I have enough meds to worry about, and taking “happy” pills doesn’t exactly appeal to me. It would be just another expense that I don’t need to pay. Do I ignore it? I could, but that might not be the best course of action – although in the past that’s worked.

9:07 – feeling a lot better. Talked with Peaches, and getting ready for my goddaughter birthday pj party! And just feeling good. Which is better than I have been feeling…

ugh

2009-03-24T20:02:00.001-04:00

I had a really sucky day.

It seems that this happens in every job I’ve ever held. No matter what I do, I always end up doing something that…

I don’t know how to explain it. I love my job. But there are days that I just don’t give a flying fuck about it. Today was one of those days. I do my best to make sure the department runs smoothly, and it seems that I ALWAYS end up fucking things up and inserting my foot in my mouth.

I was depressed all day… I didn’t eat lunch (which is a bad thing for me)… I was mad at myself for being so down, and I know I didn’t come off as being in a good mood. I wasn’t pissed or anything, but I didn’t talk all day (until I got reeled into a pizza conversation… which I’m kinda getting tired of – I don’t even work for Domino’s anymore)…

I don’t know why this happens. I’ll go months without being depressed. But then all of a sudden, it’ll hit me, and I can’t do a damn thing about it. I don’t think it’s clinical depression, only because it’s not all the time. I’m pretty sure it’s normal to be in a funk, but for it to be such a deep funk so quickly… I don’t know what to think….

QuakeLive

2009-03-17T22:55:00.001-04:00

I have one word to say about it.

Unbelievable.

I signed up for QuakeLive today, on a whim. I’m a decent FPS player – not pro by any stretch of the imagination – and I like to play Quake or HL2 on occasion.

Then I heard about QuakeLive, and decided to give it a shot.

And it rocks. For a browser game, it set the bar so high, I don’t know of any other game that can come close to the professional quality that these guys have pulled together.

The first 10 minutes of the game is actually a tutorial. Which also disguises the fact that while you play it, it’s 1) downloading the rest of the game and 2) assessing your ability so it can match you against players of your caliber. Pretty sneaky.

But through in a worldwide leaderboard, a friends leaderboard, chat functions, achievements, and statistics up the wazoo, and you have an excellent experience.

But throw in one of the smoothest browser shooters I’ve EVER seen, and you have yourself a very incredible experience.

in which I get a review, and some interesting news…

2009-03-05T18:47:00.001-05:00

Well my yearly review at the bank was yesterday.

Thank God it’s over.

The crazy thing is that I worry about them. I know that I am a valuable person in the department, and I feel I am well compensated for my work. I truly love my job, and can’t think of any other job that I want to do.

That being said, I hate reviews. I always get nervous, or worried that I’ve done something completely insane or wrong. The sad thing is that it’s a complete carry-over from working in the fast food/food service industry.

You see, working in fast food is a very precarious career path. Work Politics, performance, customer relations, speed of service, your ability to make change, all of this is woven into your performance review. And I have held jobs where if you fail at a performance review, you gone. Right then. No chance to work on your problems, no chance to at least see if you agree or disagree with your manager, no chance to improve your performance. The majority of fast-food managers cut their losses and find someone to replace you. It’s a very basic "If we don’t like you, you are gone” type of situation.

And even though in all my jobs, I’ve had decent to incredible reviews, there is always that sense of “I could fired today”. that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to completely shake off.

So with that being said, My review was outstanding. I’m getting a raise again this year (which will help out, now that I have medication to buy), and my supervisor gave me some interesting news.

We are foreseeing a substantial increase in the amount of work that we will be getting once the merger between Commerce Bank and TD Banknorth happens this fall. And increase of work more than likely means an increase in staff. And when that happens they will need a “Team Lead” to be the liaison between the management and the monetary staff.

And Hope told me that when (not if) the monetary department needs a team lead position, that I’d be the Number One contender for the position. Which is fantastic. It would mean the title “Team Lead”, and an increase in pay, which is always a good thing.

But to be honest, I don’t know if I’m ready for that type of responsibility. Even though there isn’t much difference between what I’m doing now, and what the Team Lead does, I don’t know if I’m up to the task.

When I was a manager at Domino’s/Burger King, I was a horrible manager. I freely admit that. The job is way to stressful for the amount of shit that goes down in a restaurant, and dealing with both idiotic customers and staff was just too much for me. Back then, I was young, immature, and very stressed out. Not exactly the ideal management material.

But now that I’ve really settled into my position at the bank, I have almost no stress, my attitude toward people has greatly improved (considering I don’t deal directly with the public, it’s easy), and I love what I do. So when Hope tell s me that I’m pretty much a shoe-in for Team Lead, I get apprehensive. I literally almost told her, “No, I don’t want it.” But I stopped myself.

“I have been getting better dealing with my stress,” I told myself.

“Yeah", my brain answered. “But you still have issues with dealing with stupid people.”

“I know,” I replied. “But I can’t stay in the monetary position forever.”

My brain thought this over for a minute. “Then you’ll need to do some learning this year.”

So I voiced to Hope my concerns (without telling her that I was arguing with the voice in my head). Which was totally the right thing to do. She also recognizes the fact that although I’ve made tremendous headway in my inter-personal relationships at work, I still have a bit to go before I take the title of Team Lead.

So, basically, I have a bit of work to do this year. I’m confident that I’ll have Team Lead by this time next year.

I lost my hat

2009-02-22T17:17:00.001-05:00

Which I found in the trunk of Chuck’s car.

I have this nasty habit of always forgetting at least ONE thing at my friend’s house or in their car. This week it was my hat.

Over Christmas, it was some clothes that I changed into.

But the ultimate “I lost…” was when I thought I lost my keys.

Here’s how it went down. I was over at Chuck and Heather’s, and at the end of the night, I grabbed the bag i brought with me that had snacks, work shoes, soda, etc. and I walked home.

When I get home, I go for my keys, and they were gone. No where to be found. And to top it all, it’s raining. Ok at this point, I don’t have access to my phone (this was before I had a pre-paid cell). So I walk over to Domino’s (where I worked at the time), and ask if I can get a lift over to Chuck and Heather’s to get my keys. Luckily, there was a delivery going to the same building, so I hopped in the driver’s car and away we went.

So I get to Chuck’s place, and knock on the door, and ask them If I left my keys there. Chuck says he didn’t think so, but I hear Heather go “Oh No.”

Oh No? That’s not good.

“What do you mean ‘Oh No’"?”

“I put your keys in your shoes!”

In my shoes? I open my bag, and inside my left shoe was my wallet, and in my right shoe…. were my keys.

She had taken my keys and wallet and put them in my shoes so I wouldn’t forget them. And then forgot to tell me that she’d done it.

So basically, I walked all the way home with my keys on me – thinking I left them at my friend’s place.

So now whenever I misplace something at Chuck/Heather’s place, they always say..

“It’s in your shoe.”

CTMod and keybindings

2009-02-22T17:06:00.001-05:00

I use an awesome mod for World of Warcraft called CT Mod.

This mod allows me to have up to 9 extra Bars of my screen… You know, I’ll be easier just to show you…

On the bottom left, are 6 rows of button that replaced 3 different mods. I have all the buttons I use for game play, but the best thing about the mod is the ability to assign keybindings to specific icons.

I for one have a few bindings that I use regardless which computer I’m on. Every character’s Hearthstone is bound to my HOME button. Easy to remember and very apropos.

My feign death for my hunter is bound to the “`” key. Easy to reach with WASD keys. My pet’s attack is bound to the Z key – which is normally used to Sheathe/Unsheathe your weapon (used mostly in the RP realms, I assume). Again, it’s easy to reach with the WASD keys, and is easy to remember.

Another great thing is that when you get daily quests that involve items (think Quel’Danas), you can have specific items bound to specific keys. Which is awesome.

pigging out

2009-02-20T19:29:00.001-05:00

I’m re-re-re-watching “10 Best Places to Pig Out” on Travel Channel.

Now I’m all for eating comfort food. Tacos are my comfort food, and whenever I really feel down, I try to get to Taco Bell to have 3 or 4 tacos.

But the food served at the top ten places are insane.

A 72-ounce steak dinner in Texas, where if you finish the steak (and it’s fixing) and it’s free.

Think about it. 72 Ounces. That’s a freakin’ HUGE steak. I mean, the largest steak I’ll eat now-a-days is maybe a 6 ounce, and to me that’s a lot of food.

But forget the huge-ass steak. If you are a sadist or masochist, try the 911 Wingers at Cluck-U, a chicken wing franchise near a lot of major colleges and universities. 6 chicken wings are soaked in a sauce made from 16 different peppers (including the habanero). Eat 6 in 5 minutes, and you get a t-shirt and your picture on the “Wall of Flame”. The kicker? You have to sign a liability waiver before taking the challenge.

Well if you don’t like wings, how about a pizza? Pointer’s Pizza in St. Louis, Missouri, and it’s called the Pointersaurus. It’s a 28-inch pie. 4.5 pounds of dough, 2 pounds of cheese, and 3 pounds of meat. But again there is a challenge. Finish the pie with a friend in under 60 minutes, and walkaway with 500 dollars. It’s a 50 dollar investment, too.

I could go on, but my point is this. Why is it that places will concoct these insane food items? I mean I understand that some people are into these food competitions. But to try to consume that much food? It really makes me kinda sick to my stomach. I think it’s because I’m not the kind of guy that likes to waste food. Don’t get me wrong, the food they show on the program LOOKS like really fantastic comfort food. But can you imagine the carbs/calories/sodium in some of these? Since being diagnosed, I really have to look at food differently. 5 years ago, when I watched this the first time, I really wanted to go to Eagle’s Deli in Boston to have one of their burgers. Or to Pittsburgh, to the Primanti Bros. for one of their insane sandwiches.

Now? I would still go to these places, but not for their signature sandwiches. Maybe for a smaller version of the food, at least to say “I was at Eagle’s Deli”, or “I was at Lambert’s Cafe”.

in which I patiently wait at the doctor’s office

2009-02-12T18:27:00.001-05:00

There are days that I can’t stand waiting.

I especially cant stand waiting at the doctors office. It only builds up insane anticipation on news, either good or bad.

For example, I’m waiting for the lab results from my latest A1C, and I really really want to know how I’ve been doing keeping my blood sugar in-line.

Sitting in the office waiting DOESN’T HELP.

But the plus side to this is that I can watch a bit of a movie and type this blog entry out as well. I figure if I’m going to be stationary and just waiting, I might as well be pseudo-productive as well.

Update: My A1C is 6.2! Below 7 is the target, and I shot a bullseye!

in which I list my movies

2009-02-11T19:25:00.001-05:00

Time for my quasi-pseudo-annual list of movies I want to see (but will probably have to wait until they come out on DVD)

February – Taken.

March – Watchmen, Race to Witch Mountain, Monsters vs. Aliens.

April – Nothing…

May – X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Star Trek, Angels & Demons, Terminator Salvation, Up.

June – Land of the Lost

July – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Taking of Pelham 123,

August – G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Inglorious Basterds,

September – Nothing yet

October – Nothing yet.

November – The Wolf Man, 2012

December – The Lovely Bones

So if this year is anything like last year – I’m going to be going to the movies at least 6 times in 7 weeks.

in which something good and something bad happens….

2009-02-07T14:27:00.001-05:00

Well a couple things happened this week.

First the bad. What started out as a possible girlfriend ended in disaster. Why anyone would go and post a profile on a dating website, and then say to me “I don’t think I have enough time to pursue a relationship” is beyond me. It makes no sense to me. So basically, I spent 2 weeks communicating with a woman, to basically get the “I-just-want-to-be-friends” speech. Oh well.

Next the good.

I got my income tax return and got myself a brand new 32” HDTV. I gave my old TV set to Chuck (after his TV broke during the move), and I needed a replacement. And what a replacement it is. Gorgeous picture, incredible colors.

I also bought a new DVD player that has HDMI capabilities – It’s an awesome DVD player.

But even thought the TV and DVD player is incredible, the coolest gadget is the new Logitech Harmony 610 Remote. This remote is a great piece technology. You take the remote, load the software, and plug the remote into your computer via a USB cable. Run the program, and the software asks you what make/model of TV, DVD, etc. you use.

The software then loads the remote with all the correct functionality for all the remotes that you have into one cohesive unit. And it’s awesome.

in which I may have a girlfriend

2009-02-04T00:09:00.001-05:00

And her name is Belinda.

We met through plentyoffish.com, and we really hit it off. To be honest, I posted a profile thinking “Nothing will happen because of this… I’m just wasting my time.

But lo and behold, not 45 minutes after I posted my profile, I got my first e-mail.

And we started chatting. And chatting. And chatting.

From Monday the 26th to the 30th, I was up until midnight chatting away with her. And on Wednesday we chatted on the phone.

I haven’t met her face to face yet, but I cant wait. We have quite a lot in common, and I think we’ve connected on a really good level over the past week.

I’m definitely keeping my fingers crossed on this one…

In which I finally get the laptop working

2009-01-25T23:19:00.001-05:00

Well I finally got the laptop to the point where I want it.

I added a bunch of software to it, including (yes I’m gonna list them!)

Mozilla Thunderbird (I can now access my e-mail from everywhere)

RocketDock – a GREAT docking program similar to the OS X dock. Cleaned up my desktop so it looks great.

VLS Media Player – an excellent replacement video player, much better than WMP.

Winamp – of course

4 Console Emulators – For playing NES, SNES, Genesis, and Game Boy games – and they run perfectly on this laptop.

Windows Live Writer – which is what I’m using now to write this post

E-Tools and AD&D Core Rules 2.0 – for actually using this computer as a portable DM.

Quackle and Zyzzyva – Scrabble Programs for helping me get better at my game.

and OpenOffice 3.0 – so I can type regular documents.

I’m really loving this laptop. I’ve finally got used to typing on it. And now that I have e-mail access on it, it’ll be easier to communicate – which is really cool…

It’s finished!

2009-01-24T23:31:00.001-05:00

Well, after 3 weeks, and having a lot of insulation around, the electrical work is finally finished.

Bob and Rob when above and beyond on this project. What started out as a “Hey can you fix my outlet so I can actually use my microwave?” expanded into a “Ok, we need to actually go in and separate each of the rooms onto individual circuits and re-wire the entire apartment”.

And even then they went in and added lights in each of my closets, added GFI’s in most of the outlets, and added a fan/light fixture in my living room.

It looks great, and I appreciate all the work that both of them have done for me over the past 2-3 weeks.

In which I shoehorn

2009-01-19T00:33:00.001-05:00

Amazingly, I managed to shoehorn Wow onto my laptop.

And, It runs at about 20fps in the non-city areas – which is amazing when you think about it.

I think I’m mainly going to use the laptop for my alt – using auctioneer, and maybe the occasional quest with my main. It’s not built for extreme gaming, but it’ll do the job.

In which I ditch a monitor

2009-01-17T20:08:00.001-05:00

I love having a dual-monitor setup. It gives me lots of screen real-estate to work on and is a neat trick to show friends. I like having my game running in the LCD and a FAQ in the secondary.

But there are downsides.

One is the fact that when you are playing a graphics intensive game (say….oh… World of Warcraft), The graphics card has to render BOTH monitors at the same time. So if you have a Firefox window with Wowhead or Thottbot running, the computer still has to render that screen, even though there is nothing happening on it. Which decreases the frame rates of any games that are running on the main monitor.

Another downside is the fact that I had an LCD for my Main monitor and a CRT for my second. The blaring difference is the quality of the picture. I have a really hard time working on a computer that has a CRT monitor. It’s fuzzy, grainy and really hard to read.

So my solution is easy. Now that I have my laptop, I run my ventrilo software and any browser on the the laptop, and my desktop runs my main programs. Just removing the second monitor increased my frame rate by at least 25%. I’m getting 25-30 FPS in unpopulated areas, and It’s running fantastic.

Oh! And a HUGE shoutout to Damastus for lending me the gold for my Epic Flying – I still owe you 1650 gold. :)

Chuck/Heather are awesome

2009-01-16T06:46:00.001-05:00

I love my friends.

Yesterday, I came home to my disorganized apartment to find that the landlord started to do the extra work on my electricity.

We agreed that he would install 3 new overhead lights in my apartment – One in each of the bedrooms, and one in the living room. “Fantastic” I thought. “Now I can get rid of the lamps that I had to buy.”

Only one problem. Although they had enough forsight to cover my computer from the dust/debris that came out of my ceiling, they neglected to cover my ceramic heater that I use to heat the bedroom.

So here I am at 8:00 last night, no heat, and Chuck just dropped me off from his place.

So I call him back, tell him my plight, and he was nice and gracious enough to come BACK over, pick me up and take me to Wal-Mart (which didn’t have any heaters) and then to Lowe’s (which did, and I got there 1 minute before closing), to get a new heater for me.

I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t been able to give me a lift.

Chuck, Heather, Charlie and Annie – you guys are a godsend, and I love you all.

Review – Acer Aspire 4730Z

2009-01-15T21:24:00.001-05:00

Ok – this is probably an untimely review. After all, this computer isn’t the latest powerhouse to come down the block. For the most part, it’s a decent computer. Here’s the breakdown.

1. Screen/Graphics

The 14.1” screen is really nice. The contrast is good enough to make digital photo really pop from the screen, and the text is big enough to read without having to lean in toward the screen.

Graphics are on-board (as are most laptops), and so far it seems to be holding up very well. I haven’t decided whether or not to shoehorn World of Warcraft of the system yet (I might do it as a test), so I don’t know what the 3d capabilities of the computer are. It also has a VGA out, so I could hook up a monitor to it to use externally.

2. Sound

The built-in speakers are very tinny, but the sound output from the headphones is very clean. No popping or distortion, and the jack is located conveniently on the left hand side of the computer.

3. Hard Drive

250 GB. Plenty of room for movies, music and pictures.

4. Keyboard

The keyboard, for me, is hard to get used to. I’m very used to have the springy tactile response from a regular computer keyboard, so typing on the laptop feels like I’m light touch typing, and it’s not easy to get used to.

5. Touchpad

It’s sensitive. And the ability to scroll using the right side of the pad is cool, but not easy to control. I’ll be getting a small laptop mouse for this computer.

6. DVD Drive

It as one, and it burns fine, albeit slower than a desktop’s would. I haven’t ripped any CD’s off of it, so I don’t know how the read/write speed is yet.

7. Networking

The wireless access is great. I get faster downloads over wi-fi than I do wired on my desktop. Whether that is because the computer is new, or because the signal is faster, I’m not sure. It also has a port for a direct wired connection, and – in a quaint 1990’s gesture – it has a built in 56K modem.

8. Vista

Well… It’s Vista. Despite the bad publicity and general crapped-on-ness that it’s got, it works fine. I’ve used Vista at my friend’s place of and on, but I haven’t had any significant time to delve into it and see what it can do.

9. Overall feel

It’s a great machine – I like the fact that I have it setup to do e-mail websurfing. One of the few downsides is the battery life – only 3 hours. I’m going to try to find a 6-cell battery to replace the current one so that I can get a few more hours of time on it.

I find it great that I can plug in my headphones and use the laptop as my Ventrilo computer, so I can squeeze a few more frames out of WoW while I’m running it.

All in all, a nifty little package.

Between this and my home computer…

2009-01-15T21:22:00.001-05:00

… I should be able to post to my blog much more often.

Which is what I hope to do. I mean, I do have things to say – granted they might not be extremely witty/funny or insanely profound – but at least I have a way to post pretty much whereever I am.

Which is totally awesome.

Setup my first network yesterday. Actually, it was really easy. I thought I would have to jump through 7-8 hoops, but it was literally, plug in the router, plug in the internet, load the software, set the password, and viola! It’s done. And my wi-fi signal is awesome even though walls.

First post on the new machine!

2009-01-14T23:49:00.001-05:00

And I really have to learn how to type on this thing. It’s not easy.

Woot! I gots me a laptop!

2009-01-14T20:59:00.001-05:00

And I got a nice one as well.

At first I was hoping to get a netbook - you know one of the small, ultra-portable ones that is just used for mail and web surfing. But as I browsed the offerings at my local Best Buy, I noticed that there were not any that had more than 16GB of hard drive space - And I've seen them with at least 120 online. Turns out that Best Buy doesn't stock the ones with more HD space. So I started to look around for a different computer.

I found one for $500, which was $100 more that I wanted to spend, but It had features that I liked. BUT, there weren't any in stock, and I was gonna walk out of there with a new laptop anyways. So I asked if I could get the floor model. They said maybe, and then told they could give that one to me, but at no discount. And then they did something extraordinary. The guy then said that he could look out back and see if he had anything comparable to the $500 model. So he did.

And what a find I got. An Acer laptop with Vista Home Premium, 2GB of RAM, 250 GB hard drive, DVD Drive, and wireless. For $449.

Talk about a great buy. Granted, not what I was planning to buy, but a great little computer nonetheless.

Now all I have to do is wipe the crapware off of it, install a few essentials, and I'm in business.

No dual-specs in WoW 3.0.8

2009-01-14T12:40:00.001-05:00

Which is a bummer if you ask me.

This feature is something that has been asked for, and has been in the works for a while now. In WoW, you have talent trees – you earn points when you level that go towards talents that give you bonus powers. You also have the ability to “re-spec” your abilities if you are unhappy with the way you speced in the first place.

What this feature will do is allow you to have 2 different versions of your spec. Which helps for those who use one spec for PvP (Battleground, etc.) play and one for PvE play. One thing that is still in the dark is how it will be implemented. As is stands now, you need to go to your trainer, and play x amount in order to respect. I’m wondering if you’ll have a cooldown timer on the skill, because I’m not sure how they can make it work out outside of your trainer.

Either way, I think it’ll be worth the wait.

Cheers to iTunes!

2009-01-07T14:49:00.001-05:00

To paraphrase Peter Griffin – “It’s about freakin’ time!”

Apple announced that by April, 80% of it’s music library will be DRM-Free. No copy protection. You can do what you want with the files. On the flipside, tiered pricing will be making an appearance - .69, .99, or 1.29 for songs purchased through iTunes, set by the record labels.

Either way, I think it’s the final death knell for DRM. At least they are starting to treat their customers as customers and not criminals.

The Demise of 1up

2009-01-07T09:14:00.001-05:00

Wow this sucks.

I’ve been a fan of 1up.com’s podcasts for about a year. I love listening to Retronauts, Legendary Thread and 1up Yours. But today I found out that UGO bought 1up.com and EGM basically for the name recognition (and the site traffic), and laid off at least 1/3 of their workforce. Including people that I have tons of respect for. Skip Pfister, James Mielke, Shane Bettenhausenm Ryan Scott, Phil Kollar, just to name a few.

Does UGO NOT realize the amount of talent they let go? These guys have been reporting on the gaming industry for years, and they are being tossed by the wayside.

They are even stopping the podcast production of all the shows they were producing. No more Retronauts, 1up Show, 1up Yours….

I think UGO bought the right company for the wrong reason…

The agony of Yahoo!

2009-01-03T17:55:00.001-05:00

Yahoo! to me is a mixed bag of technologies that may or may not work at any given time.

For instance, flickr is a great website that I've had absolutely no trouble with whatsoever. It just simply works.

Messenger on the other hand...

I've been using Messenger 9 for about 4 months and I love it. The ability to watch youtube video within a chat window is great, and I use Yahoo to keep in touch with my friends. However... For some odd reason, over the last couple days, I've been unable to view webcams. ANY webcams. It's simply just not letting me. And it's very frustrating.

But if I uninstall YM 9 and re-install YM8.1, I get the ability to view webcams, but lose the other functionality of the newer version.

I don't know what I did that caused 9 to malfunction. But if I ever find out, I'll be writing Yahoo and giving them a piece of my mind.

in which I sign up for a social network

2008-12-17T19:48:00.001-05:00

After my rant on the complete non-understanding of social networks sites like myspace and facebook... I signed up for facebook.

I know, I know... I said that this blog and the flickr account are the ONLY things I needed to stay in touch with the world.

But I realized that if I'm ever going to come out of the insular shell that I'm in socially, I'm gonna have to start SOMEWHERE. I figure if I can find friends on facebook, then at least there some commonality to it. I'm a very sociable guy, just not in traditionally sociable places. I'm more likely to strike up conversation with someone at a bookstore than I am in a bar or club. I don't drink and the bar/club scene has never been one that I've felt comfortable in.

Basically, I'm trying to say that if I'm ever going to make my way in the world, I have to be connected to world in more ways that I am now.

And I think that facebook is going to be a good start.

Banker's Hours

2008-12-16T13:32:00.001-05:00

I work in a bank.

I work “banker’s hours”

Not anymore.

The bank that I work for is switching from “2 weeks vacation/paid holidays/5 days sick time/2 personal days” to Paid Time-Off.

And I’m not sure if I like that yet. We may or may not have to work bank holidays. If we don’t work the holidays, we HAVE to use our PTO. We can’t take an unpaid day off so we can use that time somewhere else. I won’t be getting 3 weeks vacation (like the old system). I could take 3 weeks vacation and holidays, but I wouldn’t have any sick time to work with.

I really think it sucks, and it’ll take some getting used to. I’m thankful I have a job that is steady and won’t be going anywhere, but at the same time I feel like I’m getting screwed over on my time off. I signed up to work in an office environment, not a retail store. I signed up, knowing that 5 years in that I’d get 3 weeks paid vacation. I kinda feel robbed. I really feel that the time and work that I’ve put in at the company has been for nothing – no reward for the years of service I’ve given them.

But at the same time, I do like the complete flexibility that PTO offers. I might not want to work President’s Day, and I could use that time that I would have used and use it on another day. If I want to take every last Friday of every month off, I could. It’s better than most retail/food service. Most other jobs I’ve held offered NO vacation/sick time/benefits, so I should be grateful for what I have.

But I still can’t shake the feeling that I got shafted.

In which I rave about DOSBox

2008-12-11T15:40:00.001-05:00

I love retrogaming.

There is something about old PC games from the 80’s and 90’s that you just don’t get in the current run of titles. The only downside of being a retrogamer in this day and age is the fact that computers are too fast to run anything written 20+ years ago. Couple that with the fact that the Windows platform makes it nearly impossible to get even Windows 95 games up and running on a modern (XP/Vista) computer.

But there is hope. And hope comes in a package called DosBox.

What DOSBox is, is a x86 emulator that runs on XP/Vista that allows you to run old DOS programs. How DOSBox works… well... that’s beyond my technical expertise. But the end result is one of retrogaming bliss. Tack a frontend to the program (like D-Frontend of DOG), and you have the best way to run DOS games.

Take the classic exploration game Starflight. It flat-out WON’T run on a Windows Machine. Period. I tried for months to try to tweak settings in XP to run it, and it just wouldn’t work. I downloaded DOSBox and DOG, and within 5 minutes, I was playing one of my favorite childhood games, with no errors or slowdown. Now couple that with the plethora of abandonware sites out on the internet (Home of the Underdogs and Abandonia come to mind), and you, too, can experience the treasures of computer gaming past.

I strongly recommend that if you download DOSBox that you also download a frontend. DOSBox’s command line is ancient compared to what current users are used to, and unless you learned how to operate DOS back when it was the operating systems of choice (remember c:\ = the stick shift of operating systems), it’s a very difficult thing to wrap your head around. The frontend allows you to go in and actually tweak setting for each individual game, giving you the ability to setup profiles for each game, and making the experience virtually pain-free.

DOSBox + a frontend = Gaming Bliss….

To quest or not to quest...

2008-11-14T11:24:00.001-05:00

Well, after much anticipation, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King released on Thursday.

And therein lies a dilemma. I’m still 4000 gold short of buying my epic flying mount, and (sadly) the great run of daily quests in QuelDanas have had their gold rewards drastically reduced. So what do I do? Wrath is geared for high level playing and end-game content, but what about new players or players that are just getting back into the game? Getting an epic flying mount help tremendously in Outland, but getting 5000 gold is going to be tough, especially since Blizzard dropped the gold rewards on the Level 70 daily quests. So how am I going to make any money?

I really wish I had transfer onto the PvE server earlier – I could have had my epic already! J

And it’s been less than 24 since Wrath’s launch and someone on the EU’s Drek’thar server ALREADY HIT 80! Ten level in less than 24 hours? Do these people even have lives? I mean, it’s a fun game and all, but jesus – get out and breath some fresh air every now and then!

I’m beginning to wonder if Blizzard even thought the whole level progression through. 80 in less than 24 from 70? Maybe it’s time to rethink XP in the game. Either stop giving the Rested XP bonus after 70 if you are in the inn – or maybe extending the amount of XP needed to level. I’m wondering if these people in their rush to 80 even bother to enjoy the game that Blizzard worked hard on creating. They are in such a mad rush to be the first to 80 (by way of achievements) that they skip quest lines, and just grind and/or quest until they achieve their goal.

And I’m not the first to say this, but I wonder how unhealthy this type of behavior is. I am a believer that video game/internet addiction exists, and players like these prove it. I, for one, have a life outside of the game. Don’t take that as a slam against ALL MMO players. I know plenty of people that have a job, family, friends and still play WoW. But there are people that, sadly, WoW is their life. That’s all they do. And to me, that paints a sad, sad, picture of today’s society. When a computer game can eclipse real life as a priority – I begin to wonder about humanity ability to thrive.

My new home...

2008-11-08T23:33:00.002-05:00

Well, Sorta.

I finally decided to take the plunge, and pay to transfer my level 70 Hunter off the PvP-Bleeding Hollow server, and move it to the PvE-Trollbane server.

And I couldn't be happier.

I was able to, in one hour, run 20 daily quests and get over 100g for my time. Something that would have taken me at LEAST 3-4 hours (if I didn't give up) on the PvP server.

The process was pretty painless as well. From the time I put through the request to the point at which I could actually play on the new server was about 45 minutes. So 25 dollars and 45 minutes later, I was actually having playing again.

I also took the gold and purchased a Guild Charter, got my 9 signatures, and started up The Dragon Guard on the new server. So when Damastus, Pipsie, Rellas, Ransue, Grothen, and Arlilith get the money to come over, the guild will be ready for them to go.

You know, I really am looking forward to running the guild for the time being - Most of the people that signed are low-level characters, so I think it'll be great to help them out, and hopefully they will like the gameplay that we (the guild) are accustomed to.

In which I find out I can suspend a service...

2008-11-05T12:01:00.001-05:00

I’m actually saving money this winter.

For the last 3 weeks, I think I’ve watched a total of 8 hours of TV. Not that I don’t like watching TV – on the contrary – I love it. NCIS, Heroes, Criminal Minds, Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, these are a few of the shows I watch on a weekly basis. But lately, because of winter starting to settle in, I’ve been watching movies in my bedroom. Which is the only room I heat during the winter, due to the fact I have to heat using electricity.

So I was agonizing over the fact that I wanted to get rid of my cable. I haven’t been watching it, and It’s 70 a month that could go to heating this winter. So I bit the bullet and went to TWC’s website to go about disconnecting my service.

But a cool thing happened.

I found out about the Seasonal Suspension Plan.

Here’s how it works: There are a lot of older folks that live here in Maine during the Summer and then go to a place further south (usually Florida) during the winter. So TWC created a way to suspend your cable service while you aren’t living in the state! Awesome! It’s only $5 a month to suspend your cable, and then you choose the time when you want it turned back on. So I figured I use it to suspend my cable during winter (when I’m not watching TV in my cold living room), and then turn it back on in April when it’s warming up again.

I’ll be saving $420 over the next 6 months – and it’ll all go to heating an medications.

I voted.

2008-11-05T11:48:00.000-05:00

After some confusion on which Ward in Auburn I reside in, I finally made it to Auburn Middle School to vote (huge thanks to Chuck for carting my butt around last night).

And now that it’s over, I’ll say I voted for Obama/Biden. The reason? I honestly think that we, as a country, can’t take 4 more years of Bush-style politics in the White House. We need a new direction in our economy. We need to re-think our strategy in the Iraq War. We need to change – and I think we are now on the right track for that change.

And as an aside, is it me, or does McCain look like a “Mini-Me” to George Bush’s “Austin Powers”?

6.8!

2008-11-04T15:58:00.000-05:00

Woot!

My hemoglobin A1C tests result came in – 6.8%! 6.0% or less is normal, and my doctor wants mine at least at 6.5%. We think the reason it’s a bit high is because the test incorporated some of the pre-medication blood sugar (+500) so it skewed the result slighty.

My Cholestrol is 162 – Blood Pressure 128/70 (Awesome) – and my doctor said she was impressed with my results over the last 3 months.

And to be honest with you – so am I J

Finally!

2008-10-22T11:38:00.000-04:00

After 6 days, Blizzard finally got around to returning my mounts to me.

I can finally get back to doing daily quests in Shattrath, and I can also try to finish off some of the achievements that I’m near completing as well.

Headless Horseman FTW!

2008-10-20T12:37:00.000-04:00

Epic.

It was just plain epic.

After traveling to Southshore – fending off the Horde from killing a brewmaster, riding to the Scarlet Monastery, and wading through the Gauntlet of Horde that was in the entrance hall to the instance – the Level 70’s in our group finally went to defeat the Headless Horseman.

After finally reducing the Horseman to 1 HP, we figure out that we need to target and kill his head to defeat him. Well after our 5^th TPK, we almost called it quits. But I piped up. “I think we need to do one more run. What do we have to lose except time?”

And so began the defeat of the Headless Horseman. On our sixth time, we finally kill the beast, with only 1 casualty (our Guild Leader). 2 Achievements, tons of Tricky Treats, and a few loot items (Arlilith got the riding broom), and we called it a night. An epic way to finish off a weekend.

Still no word on my mounts/pets. Grrrrr…. L

ArkInventory - Why didn't I get this before?

2008-10-19T10:37:00.001-04:00

Ok, I don't think I've ever posted this much about WoW before. But with the recent patch, the headaches, and the cool stuff about it, I figure if I'm going to blog, I'll blog abut stuff that interests me.

ArkInventory is a incredibly cool add-on that basically allows you have and infinite number of bags at your disposal. It doesn't give you extra bag slots (that is control by how many bags you carry and the amount of slots in each bag), but it does allow you to create inventory slots in a new panel based on your criteria.

For instance, I have a slot for Cloth/Leather, Potions, food, Ammo, quest items, and one for weapons and armor drops. It takes your existing inventory slots and gives you a fully functional way to sort them in a way that's easy to manage.

And it's not just your personal inventory that can be sorted. Your personal Bank slots and the guild bank can also be sorted in this fashion. Another bonus is that if you open your Bank, it saves a copy of the contents. So someone decides to ask me to craft something (like Grothen did yesterday), I don't have to travel all the way to a bank to see if I have the materials available to do it. It pops up as a separate window, and I can see if I need to farm the materials, ask for them, or buy them off the auction house.

A really amazing add-on.

Muppets! (Cheers!) and Mounts (Jeers..)

2008-10-18T21:25:00.001-04:00

Well I finally found a program that will convert my Muppet Show DVD's into iPod movie format - without the annoying 6 second audio delay. DVDFab is a great conversion utility that allow you to basically convert DVD's into ANY format conceivable. And it works like a charm, and I'm planning on finishing off the 7 DVD's I have left.

My mounts on the other hand are still nowhere to be seen.

I received an in-game email from Blizzard saying that I would be receiving an e-mail with all the mounts/vanity pets that I had. That was over 36 hours ago. Now it's not something that I'll quit the game over, but it is something that annoys the frickin' hell outta me.

The Achievements however are starting to be a lot of fun. Today I basically toured Azeroth and Outlands, collecting Hallow's End Candy (and 3g 75s on the side from each inn) , and I earned 50 achievement points. 10 points for all the inns in Outland, Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, and a bonus 20 for completing all there. It's pretty dang fun. :)

Trouble in Azeroth

2008-10-16T19:35:00.001-04:00

With the latest patch (3.0.2.), Blizzard introduced many new features and classes, tons of new things to create, and new ways to manage our characters.

Sadly, it seems, they have been have a tremendous amount of difficulty getting it to work. Considering it's the basic groundwork for WotLK coming next month, it needed to go smoothly.

It's been anything but.

Among the affected things are vanity pets and mounts. I loaded up Gillrisper (my Level 70 Night Elf mohawk), and proceeded to put all my mounts (all 5 of them) and my vanity pets (all 6 of them) into the new Mounts/Companion window. This allows you to carry an almost infinite number of mounts/pets in the game without taking up any of your valuable inventory slots as it used to.

The problem came when the server crashed. It crashed, and when I logged back in, ALL my mounts and pets were gone. Not just a couple. ALL of them.

So I opened a GM ticket and told them what happened. Turns out it happened to a LOT of people.

That was 2 days ago. I'm still mountless, and I'm really hoping they fix the bug before this weekend. I'm not buying a mount to ride (I'm not wasting money) - I want my mounts!

Now I see a lot of people on the server blaming Blizzard. Yes, they are partially to blame, but run the numbers.

They pushed a 1.2 GB patch (the largest in MMO history) to 11 MILLION players. Everyone downloaded it, installed it, and then logged in and started doing new stuff. I figure Bleeding Hollow was completely full 2 days ago - the servers crashed. All of them. And Blizzard knows that they have a lot of fixing to do.

So to all the people complaining to Blizzard - cut them some slack. They are working as hard as they can to fix the problems. The least we can do is show a little patience. After all... it is just a game.

Patch 3.0.2 nerfed?

2008-10-14T21:30:00.001-04:00

Unreal - I just got finished installing the lasted patch for World of Warcraft, and sadly, I haven't been able to log on to my server for 2 hours.

According to WowInsider.com, most if not all servers are still down. But all of them are listed - except the server that I play on Bleeding hollow. Which is terribly frustrating.

It is mentioned that this patch is probably the largest in MMO history (over 1GB in size!), and that this probably wasn't going to go off without some pain involved. Even still, Blizzard is hyping us up for Wrath, and I'm hoping that they iron out all the glitches in 3.0.2 quick. I'm really looking forward to some of the UI and Hunter changes!

Trackmania Nations Forever

2008-10-06T13:23:00.000-04:00

I accidentally loaded up Steam last night. Normally, I don’t load Steam when I’m playing Portal or any of the Half-Life games, only because it’s a hassle to wait to get up and running.

But I accidentally click on it last night, so I figured I’d see what they had available to download and play. I found a great racing game called Trackmania Nations. It’s not realistic at all, and the controls are as simple as you can get – up arrow to accelerate, down arrow to brake, left and right arrows to steer. It’s pretty simple. But the game is a really fun, really fast, racing game with tons of level and a thriving on-line community.

Not only does it have a bunch of tracks to win medals on (an subsequently unlocks more tracks to race), but it has a full-fledged level editor, which allows you to create, validate, upload and race your own tracks of your own design. Tons of track pieces, obstacles galore and lots of features, it’s a great download. And the best part is that it’s completely free. The only downside is the clunky UI, but other than that it’s a great, simple, racing game that can provided unlimited hours of entertainment.

Retronauts Redux

2008-10-03T12:22:00.000-04:00

Well, I’m now listening to the new and slightly improved Retronauts from 1up.com.

My fears were for nothing! Woohoo!

Turns out that the “new format” was just a tightening of the subject matter of the current format. Instead of tacking an all-encompassing vague-ish subject (like Adventure Games), they are focusing on one particular game per show. Episode 51 is all about the original Fallout game (in relation to Fallout 2 being released later this month).

I like it. Even though 1up no longer has a PC game side to their website (which is a damn shame), having them focus on one game make much more sense than trying to do “histories” or “evolutions” (although I still think that an Ultima History podcast would have been cool).

Here to another 50 Retronauts episodes!

Testing... testing... 1.2.3... (take 2)

2008-10-03T08:04:00.000-04:00

Sadly, my work has pretty much closed off ALL social networking sites (myspace, facebook, flickr), including blogger.com. I can’t even READ a blog now.

But thankfully, blogger has a “mail-to-blog” feature that should work. Unfortunately, yesterday I attempted to mail a test blog to the e-mail address they provided, and….

NOTHING.

Nada. Zilch. 6 hours later I got the dreaded “Undeliverable E-mail” e-mail. Turns out I was trying to e-mail to blogspot.com and not blogger.com.

So hopefully this one works!

Retronauts last gasp?

2008-09-25T09:09:00.005-04:00

The latest Retronauts podcast was an interesting one.

For those not in the know, Retronauts is 1up.com's retro-gaming poodcast. After 50 episodes, Jeremy Parish [sic] has said the format is changing because he doesn't know enough about retrogaming. But after saying he doesn't know enough about retrogaming, he then announces that Retronauts is going to a weekly podcast. Considering he also said that he was having a hard time thinking of topics, it make me stop and think about the viability of the podcast from here on out.

Now, Retronauts hasn't been the most reliable podcast to listen to. In fact there were times when it updated every week for 3 months, and then nothing for a month. They tried going every other week, but even that fell through. So how are they going to make a weekly podcast viable?
I have no idea. Hopefully they will keep it interesting, because I think the podcast is funny, insightful, and very informative.

And as for topics, they've done 50 (although 3 of those were repeated - Castlevania, DragonQuest, and MegaMan). And personally I thnk they haven't even scratched the surface of retro-gaming. For the most part they have stuck to console gaming, but PC gaming has been around longer, and there is treasure trove of info to be mined. I have a few topics that come to mind.

1.) History of the Ultima Series
2.) The evolution of the 1st person shooter
3.) Atari 8-bit games
4.) Colecovision/Intellivison
5.) The evoultion of the 4x game genre
6.) Multiplayer gaming
7.) Puzzle games
8.) Movie Based Games (a crapfest, with few exceptions - but would be a great bitch-fest)
9.) Tomb Raider
10.) Bard's Tale
11.) Star Wars games
12.) Rogue-likes/NetHack (evolving to Diablo)
13.) Construction Set Games
14.) PC RPG'S (non-Ultima)
15.) Tetris/Tetris Clones/Tetris Spinoffs

And that is just a start.

I'm just hoping that Retronauts doesn't change to much. I like my Retrogaming goodness.

Scrabble for the iPod - Review

2008-09-24T13:36:00.006-04:00

I love playing Scrabble. It's one of the best board games that exists, and has withstood the test of time. 50+ years on forming words with tiles.

So imagine my joy when I found that Electronic Arts created a official Scrabble game for the iPod. So $4.99 later, I started playing the game on my 80GB iPod.

Plus Side: Graphics - Considering the small-ish iPod screen, I'm impressed that it looks as good as it does. It uses the current Scrabble motif - the reds and pinks, and the tiles can be read easily.

Word list - The dictionary used is the current Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, 4th edition. This one doesn't have all the naughty words (that is reserved for tournament players), but it has every word that I know, and a tons of obscure words as well.

Stats - Statistics tracking is neat. It shows how many games you've played, your win percentage, highest scoring play, highest scoring game, best bingo and number of bingoes played.

Neutral Side: Game mechanics - The click wheel is a semi-burden in the game. It's very sensitive to where you place you tiles on the board and sometimes if you are listening to music while playing, you may accidentally pause the track or skip to the next track. Annoying to say the least.

The Zoom - Maneuvering tiles around the board is easy, but when you zoom into the board, it only zooms into one part of the board at a time (whereever your cursor is), but then after the play, it zooms out to the full board. There is no way to zoom into the board and keep it zoomed in. It needs a Zoom toggle.

Down Side: Challenging - Challenging plays is non-existent. It basically follows the British "single challenge" rule, where if you play a word that is not valid, you get to take your tiles back and try again. Which basically makes it easy to just put as many words on to the board until you find a good one. It's not conducive to learning strategy and new words this way.

No game recap - Sadly there is no way to see a recap of the game (what the plays were, what the blanks are, etc.)

The other huge down side is the "Best Word" function. "But wait", I hear you say. "That helps you find words in your rack! How can the be a down side?" Easy. First, for those who want to use this version of game to help their real-life game, there is NO way to turn off this function. Personally, I find it hard to resist the temptation of just hitting the "Best Word" function. Second, it only finds the highest scoring word, and doesn't take into consideration your rack leave. Sometimes the highest scoring play isn't necessarily the best play. You have 4 uses of "Best Word", and it's far to easy to use them and outscore the computer AI.

Overall impressions: I like the game. It's a decent implementation of the game for the iPod. For living room players and casual gamers, it's great. But it falls short in areas that tournament players would like to see.

Grade: B+

On Cryptograms

2008-09-23T14:40:00.002-04:00

I love puzzles.

Any type of puzzles, really. I love Word Searches, Fill-ins, Sudoku (technically Dell's Number Sums), and especially cryptograms.

It's one of the few things my Mom got me into while growing up. She got me into doing word searches, and I slowly graduated into doing Fill-ins and other word games. But it was when I was in High School I finally realized how to solve the elusive cryptoquiz/cryptogram.

Cryptoquizzes are easy (at least now they are - back then it was a triumph for me to solve them), It's usually a list of words (usually 10-12) that are encrypted. And all the words have a common theme. Like "Oscar Winning Movies" or "Frozen Foods". Since the words all have a common theme, it's easy to spot patterns in the words and solve the quiz.

The cryptogram, on the other hand, is a bit tougher. Normally it's a standard substitution cypher, where one letter is substituted for another (T is replaced with J, etc.). But the challenge is finding word and sentence patterns within what looks like nonsense. For example, if I see the cypher - DJKD DJU - I'm 99% positice that the real message is THAT THE. You can see the DJ combination at the beginning of both words and follow the logic from there. Or noticing that if the quote ends in a question mark, I can be sure that the first word is usually WHO, WHAT, or WHY.

And I really believe that growing up with all these puzzles that have challenged my brains over the years have helped me throughout my jobs, especially here at the bank. Seeing the patterns of numbers, looking for logic behind outages, and just letting the logical portion of my brain take over when something has gone wrong.

And to top it all off, I can get Daily Cryptograms and Cryptoquizzes in my RSS feed on a daily basis. Much easier than buying a book and forgetting to bring it in to do at work :)

Thank god I love salad...

2008-09-22T18:55:00.001-04:00

Because if I didn't, my food choices would be sorely lacking.

Being newly diabetic, I've had to undergo a lot of changes, mostly in my diet. I'm restricted to 240 grams of carbohydrates a day. Considering a normal person needs 300 grams, it's akin to skipping a meal for me, even though I eat 3-4 times a day.

So I'm trying to eat healthy, but I also want to watch my sodium intake as well. And sadly, I do eat a lot of pre-packaged foods. I'm a single guy and I find it hard to actually cook a meal at home, because I usually end up throwing leftovers out. And I for one HATE wasting food. So I tend to lean towards quick, easy pre-packaged meals that I can toss in my microwave and then chow down on it.

I'm still trying to find that balance of eating healthy and eating what I like. It's a happy medium thing right now, at least until I figure out what is good for me and what isn't. But I'm nailing those down too. I like chocolate every now and then, but I try not to eat an entire candy bar in one sitting. Weight Watchers puts out a low carb Peppermint Patty (by Whitman's Chocolate) that is really good. So I'm also starting to find substitutes for all the crap stuff I've been eating over the last 30+ years and seeing what I like and don't like. For instance, I got a Healthy Choice soup with Beef and Noodles. Ugh. The combination of the two sat on my stomach like a lead pellet. But the Chicken Noodle Soup? Delicious :)

Soda was the tough one though. For the longest time, I went without soda or caffeine. I think I went at least 3 years without touching a caffeinated drink. But slowly I started to drink Pepsi again. And that's pretty much what did me in, diabetes wise. so I've switched to Crystal Light type drink mixes that have no carbs at all, and they taste pretty darn good. No more Sweetened Iced Tea from 4C. But I do occasionally will drink a Diet Pepsi. I still don't like the taste of diet soft drinks, but I can live with it.

WoW update!

2008-09-22T10:32:00.002-04:00

Well it took over a year, but I finally hit 70 two weeks ago.

And now I'm trying to figure out the best way to make money, because I'd love to get my flying epic mount.

The pseudo-easy way is to run the daily quests in Shattrath and Quel'Danas. The Shattrath quests are fairly simple - and not that time consuming.

Quel'Danas on the other hand, is a pain in the ass. It's basically a free-for-all PVP area that guarantees someone will gank you within 5 minutes of leaving the main areas. But the monetary rewards for completing quests out there almost outweigh the constant dying.

Not only that, I decided to go back to the starting areas of Ironforge, Stormwind and Exodar and grinded rep with each of the factions. The starting quests are so easy it took me literally an hour to get through them, and the reputation bonuses (150-500 points) made it super easy to finally get Exalted status with all but the Gnomes. Why not the gnomes? Because I'm a Night Elf, I'm "too big" to ride the mechanical chickens. Oh well. No big deal - I now have epic riding mounts from 4 of the 5 major Alliance Factions. You know, I'm not really in a huge rush for my Flying Epic. With Lich King just around the corner, I'll be on my way to level 80 soon enough - I figure that I should be able to get more money once the expansion hits.

So for now, I'm going to try to grind reputation with some of the other factions (Argent Dawn comes to mind), and run dailies when I can, and just have fun now. Also try to level my Rogue up to 20 :)

Moving aftermath.

2008-09-22T09:32:00.001-04:00

It's pretty much finished.

On Saturday, I ended up moving my bed, headboard, dresser and clothes into my computer room for the winter. After 4 hours of moving, cleaning and re-arranging, it's done.

And I've moved everything around so I can access my books and my closet. As long as I keep the room clean, it should work for the winter. All that is left to do, is to get plastic and tape and tape up the windows for the winter and I'll be all set.

It's Private...

2008-09-20T16:49:00.001-04:00

I really despise election/voting seasons.

Now before anyone clamors on me for not liking it, let me explain.

I've had no less than 15 calls in the last week from various political/lobbyist groups asking me how I'm going to vote this election year.

I have 5 words for all these people.

IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Now, I understand that these people believe strongly in the people or propositions that they are representing, and they really want said people/proposition to get through.

But the whole point of the secret ballot (and how all political voting is done in the US), is to protect the voter's political privacy.

To quote Wikipedia:

"A vote is an individual's act of voting, by which he or she express support or preference for a certain motion (e.g. a proposed resolution), a certain candidate, or a certain selection of candidates. A secret ballot, the standard way to protect voters' political privacy, generally takes place at a polling station."

Whether or not I decide to vote (which is another matter altogether), my vote is just that. MY vote. I may tell my family or close friends, but no one has the right to know how I plan to vote this coming election.

Plans for Saturday

2008-09-20T07:56:00.001-04:00

This is going to sound really boring.

But It's time to winterize my apartment!

I rent a 2 bedroom apartment, but I have electric heat. Which gets very expensive over the cold Maine winters.

So I move my bed into my computer room, and only heat one room during the winter.

But (there is always a 'but'), the process is not easy. First I have to clean. Now I'm not a complete pig, but I am a single guy living on my own. So I tend not to keep my apartment sparkling clean. So today's agenda looks like this.

1) Clean my computer room, and move my bookcases into the living room.

2) Move my headstand, bed, and dresser into the computer room.

3) Arrange the computer room so it's not a complete disaster area.

4) Collapse in bed and watch some QI on the computer.

Tomorrow, I'll post my results! :)

Trip Details - sorta...

2008-09-19T14:06:00.002-04:00

I'm really excited for the trip to Florida next year.

Moreso than any Florida trip I've taken over the past 10 years. I normally go by myself to Daytona for 2 weeks, hang out with my friends, and relax.

This year, it's different. It's the first "family" vacation I've taken since my family was all together. The last time I had a family vacation was back when I was in high school (1989-1990), and we went down to Florida and went to Disney.

This year, it's my new family. Well, new to the internet/blog world. Chuck, Heather, Charlie and Annie are my family. I might not be related to them, but they are the closest thing I have in the world that resembles a family.

So this trip is going to be cool. I'll be experiencing Disney World 3 ways. First, this will be the first time I've ever visited Florida and stayed on Disney Property. Normally, I would stay in Daytona, and then my friends and I would go to Disney (getting up at 5:00am and driving 1 1/2 hours to get there). This time, no driving, no waiting in long line, no paying for a rental car/parking. It's gonna be darn conveinient.

Second, I'll be experiencing the park for the first time in over 10 years. A lot has changed to WDW. Some rides have come and gone, some new attractions, heck - even a new park has opened up. And I'm going as an amateur photgrapher as well. Being able to take pictures is going to be awesome.

And thirdly (and kinda most importantly), I'll be experiencing Disney through the eyes of kids. Charlie and Annie have never been to an amusement park of this size. Charlie's been to Canobie Lake Park, but Disneys is on a scale that's exponentially larger and more grand. I'l never forget my first trip to Disney/EPCOT. It was an incredible, awe-inspiring feeling. To see the grandeur of the parks and the size of the buildings, I literally felt like I was walking into a new world, a new dimension. That the outside world didn't exist and there was something cool or surprising around every corner.

And now that Charlie and Annie will be able to experience it for the first time, I can get to experience it with them.

And maybe - just maybe - I'll feel like a kid again.

I don't get it.

2008-09-18T09:52:00.013-04:00

Not about diabetes today.

I don't get mainstream social networking.

I have colleagues and friends that say "You need to have a mySpace/Facebook page".

Why? I have 2 "presences" on the net. My Flickr page, and this blog. The MySpace's and Facebooks don't appeal to me at all (although I wish I were on Facebook during the heyday of Scrabulous - I would have loved to play multiple games at the same time), and Everything that happens in my life (that I feel comfortable sharing with the entire world) can be found at these 2 sites.

And to be quite honest, I've never seen a good-looking MySpace page. Most of them have garish, ugly backgrounds, and weird text color/backgorund combinations that cause my eyeballs to dry out just looking at them.

Why the need for on-line social acceptance? I'm not knocking anyone who uses mySpace/Facebook. If it works for them, then more power to them. But the fact that some people have thousands of "Friends", but how many do they actually know? I mean I have 5-6 really close friends, and I know them pretty well. But to say "I have hundreds of friend on my mySpace page" is ridiculous. For instance - Leo Laporte (of This Week in Tech, and the TWiT Network) is in a friendly "friend race" on Twitter (another thing I don't get) with John C. Dvorak and Kevin Rose (the founder of Digg). Why? They have literally tens of thousands of people following them. Now I know that they have a certain geek celebrity status, so the rules aren't quite the same for them, but for a normal person to say there are thousands of people following there every word? Hehe.. to me it's almost like high school - it's a popularity thing, and I've always hated popularity contests :)

So to all the people that have been telling me to join a social network - please stop. I have my blog, and I have my Flickr. I might not be on the leading edge of Web 2.0, but I'm happy where I am.

Wow Addons Part Deux - a relief to the insanity

2008-09-18T09:52:00.012-04:00

Back in January, I posted about my unbelievable frustration with maintaining the addons for World of Warcraft. Finding the right places to download mods, installing them correctly, making sure all the libraries are up-to-date... it was a mess.

Now my friends have shown me the light - WowMatrix.

Here is the best, easiest, and by far most conveinient way to download, install and maintain AddOns for World of Warcraft.

And it's easy - Go to the link. Download the program (no install needed, it's self-contained), extract the zip to your desktop, and run it.

It scans your AddOn Directory, matches up what you have with what it has in it's database, and tells you if you are running any outdated AddOns. Click on "Update All" and.. Viola! Instant upgrades for all your installed mods.

You can also download new mods from the program, but the only downside to that is you have to go online to get screenshots to see if it's something you want to install.

I found 5 new mods that I now can't live without, and I'm really glad my friends pointed me to that program.

The whole diabetes thing...

2008-09-17T18:16:00.002-04:00

I'm still trying to figure it out.

My BGL (blood glucose level) has been up and down more often than an elevator in the Empire State Building.

In the morning after I wake up it's about 120 - a bit high (the high morn is 110), but manageable.

The weird thing is I eat a 45-60 carb breakfast, a 30 carb snack at 10:00, a 60ish carb meal for lunch. Then I test my levels at 5-6 pm and I'm somewhere between 70 (which is the bottom of the range for BGL, and 90).

So what is causing my high levels in the morning?

I'm thinking I must be bottoming out over night, and my pancreas is compensating by pumping out the sugar to level me off, and byt he time I get up it's gone over the normal high.

I was told by the nutritionist that I should eat a 30 carb snack before going to bed, but I noticed my levels would skyrocket to 135-145. so I'm not sure if I'm eating to many carbs (therefore naturally increasing by blood sugar from the food) or not enough carbs (therefore increasing my blood sugar through pancreatic secretions).

Needless to say, it's something I'll be talking to my doctor about when I see her in November.

Diabetes - Month 1

2008-09-16T11:16:00.002-04:00

Well those of you who don't know about my Flickr account don't know that on 8/8/08 (lucky day my ass..) I fell down a 1/2 flight of stairs, taken to the hospital, and then subsequently diagnosed with Type II diabetes.

So, basically my world has kinda been turned on it's side.

I'm on a carb-restricted diet (which isn't all that hard to follow), and I'm on 4 types of medication to control my blood sugar (Woohoo! NO needles!). I test my blood sugar twice a day, and take meds twice a day as well. And I've basically cut all non-essential foods out of my diet.

The plus side to this (trust me there is one) is that I have more energy, I'm sleeping through the night, and I'm starting to lose weight. I'm down to 250 pounds (I was over 300) and I'm feeling healthy again.

Some days it's really hard to keep a stiff upper lip, but for the most part - I'm doing well. Heather, Chuck, Charlie, and Annie have been a tremendous center of support for me, and without them I don't know what I would have done. Heather especially is great, because she has type 2 as well, and know what I'm going through.

I'm also keeping my job at TD Banknorth. With the merger of Banknorth and Commerce, there was a period of time when our little department didn't know if it was staying or going. We found out last week, and it's relived a huge amount of stress off me.

And next July, I'm headed to Florida with Chuck and the gang for a week's stay at Disney - On property. I'm really excited for this trip, and the fact I get 3 week's vacation next year as well.

Legends who have passed so far

2008-06-25T15:36:00.002-04:00

Legends who have passed so far
Originally uploaded by blgbadvv0lf.

Chuck did a good thing - He composed a Flickr photo showing all the legends that have passed...

The Mole is back, but I hate Adobe and ABC...

2008-06-10T20:19:00.002-04:00

Ahh.... The Mole.

My favorite show is back - and the deception is on.

BUT (and this is a HUGE BUT), for some insane reason, ABC choose Flash 9 and an in-house (I'm assuming) codec in order to play full episodes on the ABC website.

But why make it so damn difficult to get the video up and running?

It took me an hour and a half to get the thing up and running so I could catch last night episode of The Mole. It was such a Pain in the Ass. Now that I got it running, I'm happy.. but because ABC is so paranoid that honest people are going to steal the shows, the make it way more difficult to actually view the video...

Stupid ABC....

I'm impressed

2008-05-14T18:13:00.002-04:00

Uncle Sam actually gave me $600!

The last "Economic Stimulus Package" the government put out, I got about $200 bucks - the norm was about $500. So I was not expecting any more than $300 to show up in my account.

But on Monday I was pleasantly surprised when $600 was present in my checking account.

So I did what Uncle Sam wanted me to do - spend it.

I bought 12 new work shirts ($140), 3 new pairs of pants ($60), A Bluetooth iPod Transmitter ($80), Bluetooth Headphones ($50), an iPod Charger ($25), 3 movies a couple comic books and a nice dinner for my co-workers. And I still have money left over, which is good, because I'm going to see Narnia this weekend and Indy 4 next weekend.

And Speed Racer was great - incredible special effects, and a decent story. Acting was kind of wooden (but then again so was the anime it was based on), but John Goodman made up for it. 8.5/10 from me.

Tony Stark FTW...

2008-05-03T00:38:00.002-04:00

Iron Man rocked!

It's probably one of the top 5 action movies I've seen in years, and an awesome comic-book adaptation to boot.

SFX were... unbelievable. Incredible CGI, believable physics (not comic-book cartoony physics), and really funny.

I went into the movie with absolutely NO background info on Iron Man, Tony Stark, or the origin story (with the exception of the fact that the Iron Man suit was really really cool). And I absolutely enjoyed every minute of it.

Worth the $8 I paid for the tix, and I'm DEFINITELY picking the DVD up when it comes out.

Buzzed!

2008-04-19T18:02:00.002-04:00

Well, it's done.

After letting my hair for at least 18 months (as far as I can tell I haven't had it cut since at least September of 2006), I finally had Heather do the honors of cutting it for donation to Locks of Love.

So now I hope to grow it out again - so I'll be posting photos of the growth this time. I'll use my webcam so it'll be easier to get the shots to look the same.

Trip Post-Mortem...

2008-03-27T22:25:00.002-04:00

Well.

I took a 2 week vacation to Florida earlier this month, and I had an absolute blast. It only rained 2 days out of 14, and was at least 75 degrees every day. Ahh, warmth....

I FINALLY after 3 visits made it to....

And what a day that was - finally rode some decent rollercoasters (the Hulk coaster was worth the wait). And just had a fantastic time.

Also I went to a concert - which I wasn't planning at all - and had a blast. Get Back is a Beatles tribute band, and they sounded great.. HUGE thanks to Shane and Amanda for getting the tickets for us.

And just hanging around Daytona was pleasant and relaxing. Got some great photos of the beach and an INCREDIBLE orange sunset.

Bought a bunch of books and comics, and a fun card game called Fluxx.

But for the most part, I relaxed, listened to books, played videogames, and watched movies.

And I ate. A lot. Great food in Daytona - they have a huge variety of restaurants that we just don't have up here in Maine. Tijuana Flats (awesome chimichangas), Deck Down Under (awesome seafood), Checkers (best fast food burgers on the planet), Ruby Tuesday, Cici's Pizza, and Sonic. All great places to eat in Daytona.

All in all - a great trip!

80gb of iPod goodness, Florida bound, and a battery backup...

2008-02-13T22:07:00.002-05:00

Well my old Zen MP3 player broke a few weeks back. So I took some of my income tax refund, and purchased a 80gb iPod. I was hesitant at first (I didn't want to get locked into iTunes). but after downloading iTunes and organizing my ENTIRE library - I decided to go ahead and buy an iPod.

I can honestly say I love it. And I wish I had bought one a year ago. Sadly, a year ago, the 80gb iPod was much more expensive.

I'm Florida bound in March. I can't wait.

And my battery backup actually works. The weather here has been absolutely atrocious lately. And my UPS has pulled it's wait. My power fluctuated a few times and my back up either shut down my computer or gave me a chance to see what happened.

Awesome...

WoW AddOns - The Truth behind the insanity

2008-01-23T23:05:00.002-05:00

I love playing World of Warcraft.

It's a fun game with loads to do. And it has a thriving 3rd party scene that create AddOns for the game that either make the game easier to manage or give you information about the game.

For the most part, AddOns are easy to use. Download the AddOn, install it into the Interface\AddOns directory, start WoW and off you go.

I have 2 AddOns that work extremely well - TitanBar (which is a useful tool that tells you all about how much gold you are making, how much XP you need to get, etc.) and Auctioneer (which helps price items going on the Auction House). They work flawlessly and are easy to use.

Now Cartographer on the other hand is a different story.

What Cartographer does is allow you to add notes to the map and reflect Points of Interest. Great for someone who is just starting out and has no Idea where anything is. Just Shift-Right click on the map where you want the note to be, type a description, and POOF! Instant Map note.

But the downside of Cartographer is that if you decide to download extra Modules for it, you may need an AceLibrary in order for them to run. BUT, nowhere in any documentation of any of these extra Modules does it say that you need AceLibrary!

So you go through the frustration of trying to figure out why Cartographer_Mailboxes (a Module that shows where Mailboxes are on the Zone Maps and the Mini-Map) doesn't work at all when it was recently updated.

So after 2 hours of searching websites, checking forums, and even going as far as logging onto a IRC channel to find ANY help, I finally figure out on my own what exactly needed to be done to get Cartographer working again.

A night wasted (I could have hit Level 59 by now), and a few lessons learned. Oh well, Live and learn, Right?

ARRRGH!

2008-01-14T21:11:00.002-05:00

Yet again, my glasses have broken!

Cleaning my glasses this morning at work, and POP! The frame breaks. In the same place that my LAST pair broke about 2 years ago.

So I called my optometrist to get my prescription in case I need to get new lenses. The receptionist tells me that my prescription has expired, and I'd need to get my eyes re-examined in order to release the information!

Wait... WHAT?!?!?

It's MY prescription, and my eyesight is good with my current specs. I have NO NEED to get my eyes re-examined. Yet in order to get my lenses replaced, I'd have to go in and spend $$$ to get my eyes checked again.

But I found 2 loopholes.

Loophole #1 - I called ProVision center in the Auburn Mall (where I got my last pair), and THEY have my current prescription on file. So if I needed to get new lenses, they have my script.

Loophole #2 - Mike (my friend since grade school), was able to track down a duplicate of my current frames. So therefore, all he has to do is pop my old lenses into the new frames. VIOLA! New glasses without all the expense.

It just irks me that I can't get my own eye prescription from the doctor.

Not Menacing Enough

2008-01-05T10:49:00.002-05:00

Yahoo was smart to put the first episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" up for everyone to watch yesterday.

I liked it. Lots of action, and the threat of T-1000's showing up was done very well. I won't spoil the opening plot for anyone, but I will say this.

The guy that plays the Terminator isn't menacing enough. I mean he looks the part (makeup helps in this case), but compared to Arnie's 3 performances and the Liquid Terminator's in T2, it wasn't quite up to snuff. Hopefully something that we will see change over the season.

What do I listen to? Podcasts...

2007-12-30T13:34:00.002-05:00

Podcasts aren't new - in fact they've been around for about 3-4 years. I listen to my fair share - and here's the list of what I listen to on a weekly basis.

1) TWiT - This week in Tech - Hosted by Leo Laporte and a motley crew of pundits (like John C. Dvorak dvorak.org/blog). A weekly dive into the plethora of tech news.

2) MacBreak Weekly - Again hosted by Leo Laporte, this podcast is all about (GASP) Mac's and everything Apple. Now why, do you ask, do I listen to a Mac podcast when I'm a PC user? Because computing has gotten to the point that it really doesn't matter if you are a Mac or PC user. I like to keep up on what's happening in the Mac world, and this podcast is a fun way of doing it.

3) The Instance - It's the World of Warcraft podcast, so I don't have to. They've been going strong for quite a while - and they talk about pretty much EVERYTHING WoW related. From patch news, character builds, Addons, tips and tricks, and even a segment from a 10 year old talking about how to enjoy WoW as a kid. And excellent podcast for those who enjoy playing World of WarCraft\.

4) 1UP Yours - From the halls of Ziif Davis (the guys behind EGM) comes the show about console gaming that's NSFW (not safe for work). They swear quite a bit (definitely rated MA/AO by the ESRB), but it's always an informative and engrossing conversation about the state of the console side of gaming.

5) Retronauts - The gaming podcast for old people. For those who remember the days of the Atari 2600, NES, SNES, SMS days. For those who remember that gameplay is WAY more important than graphics. An awesome (albeit erratic) podcast about retro gaming.

And that's only half of what I listen to....

World of Warcraft Part Deux

2007-12-09T01:32:00.002-05:00

Well It's been a month or so since I made my initial WoW post. Here's an update.

My Night Elf Moha... err... Hunter is now Level 42, and I'm currently try to raise gold to get my mount, so I can actually keep up with my guildmates. I have just purchased the Riding ability (which was 76 gold - and where the majority of the money went), and I have about 3 gold left. AND, I only need 9 gold to purchase my mount - SO CLOSE!

Basically, what I've been doing is farming the Deadmines. The Deadmines is an instance in the game that if taken at the level it was meant to be taken at (levels 18-24) you would need a 5-man group in order to make it. I, however, am at level 42, and I soloed it easily. And there are a lot of Green drops and a bunch of Epic drops (that soulbound, sadly, so I can't sell them at the Auction House), but I figure, I'll auction what I can, and probably someone will want the equipment.

I'm almost there. Once I get the money for my mount, I can start doing quests again. And keep up with the rest of my guild.

My Eyes Hurt..

2007-12-05T18:42:00.002-05:00

Seriously.

My eyes have been getting steadily worse since I was 8 years old. I've worn glasses pretty much every waking moment of my life. And I have no problem with that. My glasses are part of who I am, part of my personality.

But recently, my eyes have started to hurt. Not just fatigue (an I get eye fatigue often), but shooting pains in what feels like the backs of my eyeballs. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night and stepping on a tack or stubbing your toe. It feels NOTHING like that.

It's almost as if someone is taking the backs of my eyeballs and clamping down on them with vise grips. Yeah it's bad.

It doesn't help that when my eyes feel this way, I'm extremely light-sensitive. It was painful working today today at the bank, looking at my monitor and staring at paper all day.

As soon as income tax rolls around, I'm gonna have to get a new prescription anyway, so hopefully I'll be able to get a reference for an ophthalmologist that's local. And pray that my insurance covers any exams.

Sweet! It worked!

2007-12-03T20:53:00.002-05:00

And now I can go about blogging without have to log into Blogger every time I want to post something.

Like a picture, for example....

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago. And using LiveWriter - it links directly to my Flickr page as well.

The more I use this program, the more I want people to look at my blog - odd ain't it? But since all I have to do is fire up LiveWriter, I think I'll be posting MUCH more than I used to.

Ok - First time with Live Writer

2007-12-03T17:43:00.002-05:00

Hello all!

This is my first post using the new Windows Live Writer. I heard about this on The Tech Guy podcast with Leo Laporte. He was saying that he uses it to post to his own blog, and loves using it.

So I figured... why not?

And so far, I'm liking it. It's a pretty straightforward word editor, but It can post pictures, movie clips (embedded) and sounds as well, so I might be able to use this full time as my online base of operations. No more Yahoo 360! But I'm keeping flickr.

So. I'm gonna hit the "Publish" button and hope for the best!

Sing the folowing to the tune of "We Just Got a Letter" From Blues Clues..

2007-11-03T15:12:00.001-04:00

I just got my credit card...
I just got my credit card...
I just got my credit card...
And I'm happy too!

Woot! $1000 credit limit!

Ouch.

2007-10-29T12:48:00.001-04:00

Ok.

I'm not one to post about sports at all, but this is worth it.

First, if you live under a rock, the Red Sox won the mis-named World Series last night, sweeping the Rockies 4-0.

But the Patriots played an INCREDIBLE game last night, beating the Redskins 52-7. Next week's game vs. the Colts will be interesting indeed - both teams going in undefeated, and both at the top of their game.

I love Best Buy

2007-10-26T21:53:00.001-04:00

500 GB + $90 = woot!

Sweet!

2007-10-18T08:34:00.001-04:00

Quite a while ago, I posted something about Dr. Divx.

Now that version of Dr. Divx no longer exists, but smarter people than me have created a NEW open-source version of the program.

This program is awesome. It allows you to convert most video files to DivX. But if you have DVD Decryption software, you can copy VOB files and convert the source material DIRECTLY into DivX format.

That means, I can take my favorite movies from my collection, and convert them to DivX files, and then copy them to my Zen Mp3 player and watch them whenever I want to. This'll be great for watching tv shows and movies at work :)

Sigh... It was BOUND to happen...

2007-10-01T11:47:00.001-04:00

I blame Hope.

Hope being my supervisior.

And blame meaning she sent me a 10-day trial to World of Warcraft.

And now I'm play a level 21 Night Elf Hunter on the Bleeding Hollow server. And actually, I'm loving it. Blizzard has always had a knack of making good games that anyone can pick up and play, and caters to the casual and the hardcore gamer. I'm really impressed with the amount of detail that is in the game, and it's a blast to play. And it's 20 bucks for the original, and Walmart is selling Burning Crusade for 20 bucks as well. And since you can get game cards to redeem instead of using a credit card, it's really easy to get cards to use (and game cards make GREAT Christmas/Birthday Presents).

And I always thought it was weird that people had formed WA (WarCraft Anonymous) groups. But after playing the game for 3 weeks (give or take a day), I can fully see why some people take the game to a bizzare level of obsession. Blizzard made the game so easy to pick up and play, but so deep that you could probably play it forever and not be bored with it. I can understand how some people have lost their jobs, their spouses, their kids, their friends, etc. to the game. It's addicting. They combined the cool weapons and armor like you'd find in Diablo II, mixed in the world they created and then make it a MMORPG. And made it so simple to play that once you start playing, it's not easy to stop.

During the week, I actually have to force myself to stop play around 10pm, because I have to work the next morning. And actually, it works out great. That way, I know that I have X amount of hours (usually 2-3) of game time, and that I'm not letting the game take over my life. So far, it's been working out great.

Now if I could just level up to 22, i'll be all set :)

Borg Truck

2007-09-29T17:52:00.002-04:00

Borg Truck
Originally uploaded by WilWheaton.

This is too damn funny....

In Russia, cell phones provide you!

2007-09-06T14:30:00.000-04:00

Or something like that. (With apologies to Yakov Smirnoff)

At 1:41 this morning, I received a call on my cell phone.

The number was +7495781xxxx (just in case some tries to call this number).

Now, after a few minutes searching Wikipedia, I found out that +7 is the international dialing prefix for Russia and Kazakhstan. and the 495 is the prefix for Moscow.

Yeah... MOSCOW. The Kremlin, KGB, etc. That Moscow.

I don't know ANYONE in Moscow, and only a handful of trusted friends know my cell number.

Just a bizzare thing to see on my cell at 2 in the morning...

Why do I even bother?

2007-08-12T16:06:00.001-04:00

Can anyone out their tell me why women are so fucking duplicitous?

I'm tired of women telling me that I'm "A Nice Guy", and that They can "Tell me anything", yet the minute I show any interest in getting to know them any better (i.e. dating or what-have-you), I get the fucking "I just want to be friends" shit.

Actually - I think I need to be more of an asshole to women.

I've noticed that women tend to date people that treat them leek shit, and yet "They love them".
WHY? WHY? WHY? I can't wrap my analytical logical brain around that fact that women like to be treated that way, and - even worse - that they fall "in love" with guys who treat them like that.

How stupid can you females be? You say you want to be treated kindly and with respect, and you want someone that's caring and nurturing and is willing to listen. Then why in the name of Hell do you date the EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU ARE FUCKING LOOKING FOR?!?!?!

And to the ASSHOLE guys out there - thanks for ruining it for us nice guys. They say "Nice guys finish last"...

Well I'm certainly proof of that.

Posting at Work....Shhhhh.....

2007-05-24T08:31:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I'm posting at work... I didn't think I could do this, but I looks like WebSense doesn't block this site. :)

I finally broke down and purchased a new DVD burner yesterday. It's prety cool, It burns all forms of Media INCLUDING the new Double Layer 8GB DVDs. which will come in handy once I get some.

And LOST finaled last night. And I'm kinda ambivolous about it. I like the fact that it was a Flash Forward, but I'm curious as to whether Ben was telling the truth or not...

Oh well...

Teeth....

2007-04-26T14:29:00.000-04:00

Well I finally wound up going to Dr. Kippax and had a couple of teeth extracted.

Usually I can get by with taking some ibuprofen and apply some OraGel. But today, it was UNBEARABLE... So I called Dr. Kippax and they were able to get me in at 1:00 pm.

Dr. Kippax got me in and out with 45 minutes. The actual procedure only took 5 minutes (which astounded me), and I'm pain free - for now.

And with my insurance, it only cost me $81 for the procedure, and $15 for the meds (Vicodin.. Yay!)

I'm just kicking myself in the ass for taking so long to get my teeth taken care off....

Kermit the FORG...errr GORF... ummm FROG!

2007-03-12T20:49:00.000-04:00

Well worth watching :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT-2dkJxomM

$pending Money...

2007-02-25T20:09:00.000-05:00

Well, I finally got my car's battery recharged. Bob looked at the alternator belt, and the belt is completely chewed up. So because the belt has no gripping power, it's not spinning the alternator, and therefore not recharging the battery.

I'm hoping that all I need to do is replace the belt. But I'm planning on setting aside the money to replace the alternator.

Books, Cars, and Day Break

2007-02-22T20:49:00.000-05:00

Well... There's a bit that happened this week.

First, I won't be able to go to the BAT this year. My car started to overheat on Monday, so I ended up going over to Triangle Auto, to get it repaired. That was fixed on Tuesday. But then, this morning, my car wouldn't start - I think it's my alternator belt - I'm PRAYING that my car will start tomorrow, and I hope that they can fix it cheap.

I did happen to manage to get up to Barnes & Noble before my car died. Managed to pick up 4 books, along with the Complete Wordbook, by Mike Baron - One of the best book on Scrabble to date.

AND - ABC has finally aired the rest of "Day Break" on line - so I'm glad to be able to finally watch the rest of the series.

Something new, Something used...

2007-02-11T19:21:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my greatest bestest friend in the world, I have a 5.1 surround sound setup now. And I'll never go back to listening to a movie on a TV. Ever. It's only a 720 watt system, but that's PLENTY of power for my small apartment. It's a great system, and the movies sound incredible. As do TV shows as well.

And thanks to my landlord, I now have a second monitor hooked up to my system again. It's another 16 inch monitor, and it looks fantastic. It's nice having my Matrix setup going again.

A very late post....

2007-02-03T09:01:00.000-05:00

Due to the fact that for the last 6 days, I've had the absolute WORST case of diarrhea I've ever had in my life. After last Saturday's Scrabble tournament (4W-3L... but more on that in a bit), I came home, and was feeling fine, but Sunday night - well... let's just say my ass exploded. Multiple times. And it did that for 5 DAYS! I'm on antibiotics now to help cure what ever is in my system, and yesterday I had my first NORMAL looking poo in a week. At least I'm getting better.

Onto the tournament!

I went in seeded 14th out of 20 and finished in 9th place. I'm rated at a 692, with 4 wins and 3 losses. I Bingoed in 5 out of 6 games and had my best game ever with a score of 448 points.

Here's a list of my bingos:

Game 1 - played PLANETS for 91 points on a TWS.
Game 2 - Two bingos! NAILERS for 66 and vAINEST for 77
Game 3 - Three bingos! (you see a pattern?) Phonied a bingo PELTIN(G)S for 69, FOCUsED for 83, and then I had my best play of the game - I bingoed out with ENSNAR(L)S on a TWS for77 points.
Game 4 - INcITI(N)G for 66
Game 5 - D(E)FICITs for 61
Game 7 - HuNTERS for 74

All in all an excellent tournament. The next one is on June 9th, and I'm planning on attending that one as well.

In other news, I finally - after years of waiting - bought a real MP3 player. It's a Creative Labs Zen Vision:M 30 GB mp3 player. But it also playes Movies, Music and photos as well. This little piece of equipment has a TON of features.

It has a built in radio, microphone to do dictation with, it can import contact info from Outlook, you can use your own images as wallpaper. It plays Movies (Divx, Xvid, MPG and AVI - and if the format isn't compatible, it'll convert it so it is), music (which I already have a bunch on there), and photo slide shows. 250 bucks at Walmart, and it's quite the little package. My only concern is that the touch pad you use to navigate with is very sensitive - make for selecting what you want to do a bit frustrating at times. But other than that - a great mp3 player.

Why do people do that?

2007-01-20T15:14:00.000-05:00

I haven't figured this one out.

I chat with people on line (who doesn't), but I've run across this phenomenon.

I've actually received and IM from someone that said "Hi", I said "Hello" back to them, and then they tell me "Can't chat now, can we chat later?"

Now.... If you contact ME and say "Hi", I assume that you want to chat. If you can't chat, then why do you IM someone in the first place?

Like I said, I haven't figured it out yet.....