timesink

Well, because of a last minute change of holiday plans, I was forced to travel and pick up my copy of World of Warcraft yesterday. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Far from it. I was finally able to get back into the game last night and level my primary character up to level 7 in a few hours.

This game is incredible. I've been hooked ever since I was fortunate enough to get into the open beta a few weeks ago. If I were to sum the game up, I'd have to say that it's very much like Everquest, except with all of the major flaws fixed. Leveling up doesn't take ages, which is incredibly nice for players like myself who don't have time to spend eight hours a day in-game. I can play for a few hours and still feel satisfied that I've accomplished something. The quest system is incredible, because it gives you something to do aside from hacking and slashing monsters. Many of the quests may be trite, and considered "gopher" quests, but they add a lot of value in terms of gameplay simply because it breaks the monotony of killing things for experience. I also love that there is no experience loss on death! This has driven me insane in other games because I'd log on to play for an hour or two, end up dying, and then be worse off than I was before! Bravo, Blizzard, for not forcing me to waste hours upon hours of my life for getting my character killed. And that's another thing, dying in WoW is actually somewhat entertaining because you get to become a ghost in order to retrieve your corpse. The screen even goes grayscale and your character takes on a ghostly appearance.

I got the Collector's Edition as well, as I mentioned a little earlier, and I highly reccommend that. The art book is wonderful and the soundtrack is quite good as well. I'm even impressed with the cloth map which everyone else seems to not like so well for some reason. I've gotten cloth maps as omake in other game packages, and this one is by far the best.

[Listening to: Duskwood (Ambient) - Jason Hayes - ]

wow:ce

At last! I will have a copy of the World of Warcraft Collector's Edition. It occurred to me that Best Buy allows you to purchase things online and pick them up in the store. Their questionable business ethics aside, I decided to place my order, and lo and behold, I have a copy waiting for me that I should be able to pick up on the way to visit family tomorrow for Thanksgiving.

The thing I hate most is that I was a part of the beta, so I already have the software installed on my machine. I've also already purchased the game. But I don't have the stinking authentication key that would have me in the game tonight. And because I'm visiting family, it means that I won't even get to play the game tomorrow, but will have to wait until the day after Thanksgiving. Ah well, at least I'll have the art book to look at and the soundtrack to drive my wife crazy with on the car ride up there. I suppose I'll even bring a laptop along so that I can watch the behind the scenes DVD. Now I just have to hope that there's still a server or two out there on which my character names will not be taken...

denied

I went to Wal-Mart early this morning to pick up my copy of World of Warcraft Truth be told, I went in with the expectation of disappointment. Wal-Mart, especially the local one here, does not seem entirely keen on catering to special-interest gamers like myself. I went with the intention of getting the Collector's Edition, because I'm that much of a geek. I nearly caved and bought one of the two remaining standard versions that they had, simply to get back into the game and start playing again, but I restrained myself. I want the Collector's Edition. My only hope is that the stores will not be completely sold out tomorrow night, which will be the first chance I will have to shop outside this silly little small town that has no other place to buy games.

ronald never looked so good

My guess is, we won't be seeing this commercial in the states anytime soon.

pen of the gods

The little things in life are often the things that bring up the most joy. I bought this pen last week on my way to a user group meeting. It is far and away the smoothest writing instrument I've used in recent memory. It is a Uniball Jetstream for any interested parties out there.

new setup

I'm trying out a few things with this post. First, it's my first time moblogging from my new camera phone. It's also my first use of Flickr for image hosting. Hopefully I've got everything set up correctly. Pictured is my new office setup at home. I was forced to move things a little sooner than I anticipated so the place is still a bit of a wreck.

super mario bros on ice

Scary stuff here. Super Mario Bros. On Ice hosted by Jason Bateman and Alyssa Milano. I was really into Nintendo around this time, but I think I still would've found this the most ridiculous thing ever to be put on television. This makes the movie seem Oscar-worthy by comparison.

one step closer to skynet

I don't know about you, but this is downright frightening. A group of scientists in Florida have cultured the brain cells from lab rats and created their own brain-in-a-jar. This "brain" is essentially a living computer that could "someday be used to fly small unmanned airplanes or handle tasks that are dangerous for humans". Great. Only one problem...isn't this a setup to some Hollywood blockbuster? My geek nature is both amazed and horrified by this technology.

One part of the article really got me, too. "Though the 'brain' can successfully control a flight simulation program, more elaborate applications are a long way off." Come on, I can hardly successfully control a flight simulation program. And we're moving this thing up to "more elaborate applications"? Get ready, the machines are about to take over the world.

revenge of the ladybugs

The little red demons have returned. They are swarming around the office and seeking entry as I speak. If you ever need a reason to truly be unscrupuously evil to someone, just subject them to a ladybug infestation. Gonna have to order myself a button, I think.

[Listening to: Sunday Bed-Curl.mp3 - 01 - ]

new toy

Just placed my order for the parts to build my new computer. I'm extremely excited about this one because I should finally have enough of a system to keep up with the games that are coming out, at least for the next few years. Here are the parts I've ordered.

Jetmaster Jr. Case
Asus K8N-E Mobo
AMD-64 3400+ CPU (yeah, I splurged a bit here)
512 MB DDR RAM (2 sticks)
250 GB Hard disk (ooh...SATA!)
CPU Fan
GeForce FX 5700 LE
16x DVD-ROM drive
DVD+-RW Drive (I wanted dual layer, but didn't want to pay for dual layer. Maybe that'll be a later upgrade.)
500 Watt Power Supply
UV-Reactive EIDE Cable
Blue Cold Cathode Light Kit
SATA power connection adapter
Translucent blue SATA drive cable
Creative Inspire 5200 speakers

No additional sound card on this one since the motherboard ships with 8 channel sound. If I find I have enough money left over from my birthday, I may splurge on the Audigy 2ZS with a Live Drive a little later. Another accessory I think I'm going to go for right away is the Beyond TV/Firefly PC Remote bundle I found last night while surfing around looking for cool stuff. I can't wait to have a PC that can act like a PVR, especially one that doesn't require a monthly fee like TiVo does.

Now, hopefully I haven't left anything essential out that will delay my building this monster! ^_^

it's a boy!

Monday, we went to the doctor's office to have our first ultrasound of the baby. It was a completely entrhalling experience for both of us. We spent about a half an hour watching the screen in amazement. We got to see, for the very first time, our new baby. We also found out that we're expecting a boy. It amazed me that we have the technology to do something like that. We were watching our little baby, not more than 5 inches or so long, kicking and moving around. He is evidentally as stubborn as his father because he was upside down and pretty well refused to move from that position; the technician had to poke and prod at my wife's abdomen to try and get the baby to move where he needed him.

After the ultrasound and the following doctor's visit, we ran a few errands and then got to returning things. My wife had already bought lots of baby stuff (boy and girl items). So we had to go return all the pink things. We ended up spending everything we got back from the return and then some on more boy stuff though. This baby is probably going to have enough clothes to get through kindergarten at this point.

new views

A couple of days ago, one of the bosses came up here and gave us all brand new chairs! Though I can't understand the logic, considering we just had our old chairs reupholstered, I was thankful to have a new chair that hadn't been broken in by anyone else. It's actually quite comfy, and more like the one I have at home, which is also nice.

In addition, I decided to rearrange my office from the way it had been for over a year now. This also gave me the chance to go through a year's worth of junk and get rid of stuff I didn't need anymore. Plus, the way my office was, the door was to my back. That, coupled with the fact that I usually code with headphones on and the volume turned way up, meant that someone could walk into my office, stand directly behind me, and watch over my shoulder without me realizing it. I hate when that happens, and it was starting to happen far too often.

My new arrangement has me facing the door (or rather the same wall as the door), so that I can see outside my office in my perhipheral vision. It has noticeably cut down on my paranoia. Plus, it just feels more cozy in here for some reason. I've definitely created a bit more space in here too, so I can actually fit another person in here comfortably if they need to work with me on something. Of course, now that I've switched everything around, I've still got to get used to everything being essentially in the opposite location of where I expect it. ^_^

old new chair

Well, I got my chair back finally, only it's not really my chair. I knew this would happen. Turns out they sent all the chairs of that type off to be reupholstered, whether they needed it or not (go figure). So now, we get the chairs back and nobody knows who each chair belongs to. The people in the other office got to choose first, and then we basically got the last three that weren't chosen over here in my office. I was here early enough that I got to pick my preference out of the three, but none of them was my old chair. Of course, nobody would probably notice or care except for me, I guess. Makes me wish I'd labelled my chair or something. Maybe if I'd known it were going to be stolen, I would have.

potty humor

Here's an example of what passes for humor in my office. I found these posters taped to the wall in the restroom a few weeks ago. I figured they were humorous enough to share with the world. A coworker evidentally picked them up while he was out visiting one of our clients and saw fit to share them with everyone else by posting them in only the most obvious place. For the curious, I believe that these are the posters they use in the fields to remind the workers of sanitation regulations.

Always remember, when working on a farm, it is inappropriate to drop trou and squat in the field. ^_^

the chair thief

So I come in this morning to find my desk chair missing. Someone has stolen my chair. It sucks too, because it was a really comfy chair. Plus, you know how you just kinda get used to a particular chair? I've been sitting in that chair for over a year now; it's my chair! The culprit must be found and brought to justice!

The only clue I have is from someone who was here when it happened. He said that someone came in and took them so they could be "redone", whatever the heck that means. There was nothing to "re-do" about the chairs anyway. The only chairs that were taken were mine and another just like it in my coworker's office. They were the last two in the batch of really nice chairs that we got a year or so ago (everyone else has since broken theirs). Are we being punished for keeping our nicer chairs than the others? Has management come to the conclusion that chairs with armrests confer too high a status for us to sit in any longer? Help, I'm trapped in Office Space!

So now I'm stuck sitting in this piece of crap chair that I stole from another office. Stupid chair with no armrests and no back support. I sit and wait, hoping for the return of my chair, but I can't say that I'm overly optimistic about it. May it collapse under the weight of it's new owner!!! (If I can't use it, nobody should.)

irony

We got some goodie bags today as a result of an order we made from Office Depot. Inside the bag was an assortment of things, including a pen, paperclip holder, sticky notes. Also inside the bag was a staple remover. I find it quite amusing that the bag the staple remover came in was secured with a staple. But then again, simple things amuse me.

first day of class

Today was the first day of the college Tae Kwon Do class that I assist with. I always enjoy the first day of class because it gives us the opportunity to get to know a new set of students. I've been assisting with this class for at least three years now and I never get tired of it. It gives me a sense of satisfaction to be able to teach someone else a new skill. It's also interesting to see the different dynamics that are present with each new group of students. Each group we work with has a different "personality".

This will be one of the smaller classes that I've assisted with, and I have the feeling that this fact alone will lead to a very distinct group attitude. Hopefully, it will also allow us to become a little more personal with our students. With large groups, it is sometimes easy to remain detached and not get to know the students personally. With small groups, it's usually much easier to attain that familial repore with everyone.

Anyway, here's to a great new semester of class!

creature of the night

I have yet to determine exactly the reasoning for the negative effect light has on the productivity of a programmer. All I can do is attest to the accuracy of such a claim. I do my best work after dark it seems, because that seems to be the time of day that it just feels right to be basking in the glow of the light emitted by a computer screen. I find the same is also true of days like today; it's rainy, cold, and dark. Perfect coding weather. If anyone has a reason for this phenomenon, please let me know.

[Listening to: Flower - Moby - Play]

playing for the other team

I've been tempted. Tempted by the allure of half-priced albums. Maybe it's the DMCA-hater in me, but I completely have to side with Real in their latest tiff with Apple. Apple (and their army of zombie monkeys) claims that Real crossed the line when they reverse engineered Apple's DRM to allow songs purchased from Real's online store to be played on the iPod. If you ask me, this is completely ridiculous; competition is only fair. I've been a fairly avid Apple supporter ever since iTunes came to window, but Real is right on this one. You shouldn't only have one choice when it comes to purchasing music online to use on your iPod.

Normally, I'm not all that keen on anything from Real. They left quite the bad taste in my mouth several years ago with their ad-ridden software. But I really believe that they're cleaning up their act. There are still quite a few ads scattered throughout the software, but it's really not nearly as bad as it used to be. But as I said, it's the price cut that's gotten me to download two albums so far. When the prices return to normal, I can't exactly say which store I'll choose to shop at more, but it never hurts to have options.

Of course, the whole format thing doesn't concern me much at all either. So long as I can burn it to CD, I don't care. If it's in a format that I hate, I'll just burn it to CD, rip it to a format I like (like MP3 or Ogg), and be just as happy. I'm just insanely skeptical of any DRM. The first thing I do with any music I buy online is to burn it to CD. That way, if someone happens to want to, say, change the terms of my license, I can always rip the CD to a non-encumbered file format. Yes, I know, the quality might be slightly less, but I never was that much of an audiophile to care anyway.

like a christmas tree

I've been working lately on a unit conversion library with several tricky little calculations scattered about it. I just have to say something about the tool that's allowed me to keep my relative sanity. NUnit has saved me by catching at least five bugs that would've taken me hours later on to track down. TestRunner has also saved me some time by allowing me to run my unit tests from within the IDE, and jump straight to any lines that cause the tests to fail. Not to mention the fact that I can debug my unit tests as well using it. I'd used TestRunner before, but it sucked back then. Fear not, though; it is much improved since then and the only problems I have with it now are when I'm debugging every now and again.

There's just something satisfying in watching those little icons for each test light up like a Christmas tree. Green, green, green, green, RED! Oops! More work to do!

[Listening to: PlayStation - Ending Theme (Gaming FM - Modern Console) - Final Fantasy VIII - ]

one of those moments

It actually happened. Yesterday, I had a moment where I really needed some information to write some code, and should've known the answer. I was trying to remember how to use density and/or specific gravity to convert between volume and mass units. This was obviously one of those things that I learned, way back in high school math or science, and thought to myself, "I'll never need to know that in the real world." I hope I never utter or think that phrase again.

For the record, to convert volume to mass if you know the specific gravity, and the volume you want the mass of has been converted to liters (here's why), then you can find the mass in kilograms by multiplying the specific gravity by the volume. Thanks, Google!

return to angel land

So, I got a little bored this evening and sat down to play some GBA. Tonight, I was feeling especially old school, so I started digging through my collection of really old, original Game Boy games. The game du'jour, as it were, was Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, a game I hadn't played in many, many years. I was amazed, however, when I found myself unable to put the thing down. I played through the entire game in just a few hours (granted, there are only 14 levels in all). It was still a blast, just as I remember it. And it got me thinking, why did the franchise die after two games? Nintendo tends to be the kind of company that milks it's franchises for everything they're worth. Don't get me wrong, it's very, very rare for one of big N's franchise-based games to be anything short of phenomenal. This particular series just seemed to me to be rather short-lived, especially since it was tons of fun, and continues to be one of my more fondly remembered games of the 8-bit era.

Of course, I can't really imagine playing Kid Icarus in a rendered 3D world and being much fun, but hey, I thought the same thing about Metroid before I actually got to play (no, make that experience) the beautiful Metroid: Prime. At the very least, the original Kid Icarus should have been included in the Classic NES Series for the GBA. I mean, come on, we get Ice Climber instead of Kid Icarus?! What gives? Who's gonna pay $20 for Ice Climber? Anyway, I did run across a rather cool (and nostalgic) website dedicated to Kid Icarus, if anyone's a fan.

easy on the eyes

Ran across an awesome monospaced font earlier today that is perfect for programming and related tasks. Check out ProFont.

[Listening to: Fallen (Feat: Rani) - Delerium - ]

sick days

Ugh, what a week. I came down with a cold on Monday and it completely knocked me out of commission for three days. Nevermind the fact that I have no clue how I got a cold in the middle of August. I'm finally recovering a little though, so I've been back at work since yesterday. I did get to play plenty of DragonBall Z Budokai 2, which I picked up in Nashville last weekend for just twenty bucks. That game's a blast, but they did butcher the story quite heavily, but I suppose it was neccessary to sacrifice story for gameplay in this particular game genre.

In other news, I found out yesterday that I've been chosen for jury duty starting at the end of this month. Not that I mind actually participating as a juror, but it just seems like a huge inconvenience. Supposedly, I won't know until 7pm or so the day before whether I'm supposed to report to the court or not, which makes it completely impossible to plan anything with certainty. This in itself would not be bad if it weren't for the fact that the summons states that I'd be on call for four months. That just seems an inordinate amount of time to have to put your life on hold, regardless of whether I am ever actually even selected to be on a jury. Nevertheless, I'll bite the bullet and endure it; it is after all, my civic duty, is it not? And who knows, maybe I'll find out later on that it's actually not quite as bad as the stories that typically surround it.

[Listening to: Love at First Sight - Kylie Minogue - Fever]

beautiful day

Today is one of the more beautiful days I've seen since my vacation in May. I love days like today because they put me in a perpetually good mood. The only thing that could make the day better would be if we had a picnic table outside that would allow us to work outside. It'd be awesome to drag some extension cords out there, plug in the WiFi cards, and code all day while enjoying the nice weather. I'll settle for turning the AC off and opening windows though.

nostalgia

It just hit me that for all the wonderful things the Internet has to offer, I find myself reminiscing back to simpler times. Times where NetCentral was one of the coolest places to chat online, before the commercialization of the web led to Yahoo! and Microsoft and their ilk buying up or snuffing out all the cool, non-commercial sites. Netscape was still at the top of its game, PowWow was the "hot" instant messenger-like technology, and Trumpet Winsock was the gateway to the world wide web because at that time, Windows was surprisingly agnostic when it came to the Internet.

This is not to say that we didn't have our share of problems back then. After all, there was the dreaded <blink> tag (which I could've sworn today's web browsers didn't even implement anymore).

Great...now I feel old again. :)

making a port

I was browsing around the other day and ran across the infinitely cool Dashboard application for Gnome. This application basically throws up a window that displays contextually relevant information to the user. For instance, if the user was chatting with a friend on an instant messenger, the friends contact info, along with recent IM conversations and e-mails would be displayed in the window. Written in C# it is, in my humble opinion, quite a testament to the robustness of the Mono platform. After marvelling at how incredibly cool the app is, I realized that there was not a Windows version. A quick glance at the source code revealed to me that it would actually be relatively easy to port a large majority of the code over to Windows. And so, after two or three days of hacking away at it, I've finally produced a relatively simple Windows port of the application. Perhaps one day, I'll actually find somewhere to host it.

The core engine is not all that impressive in terms of complexity, but it does allow for a fairly robust feature set. The application is driven by three items, a frontend, a backend, and a renderer. The frontend is the bit that monitors the source applications and sends messages (clues) to the engine. Once the engine receives one or more clues, it queries each of the loaded backends for the given keywords. The backends are the pieces that scour their respective data sources for matches to the clues. If any are found, the results are sent back to the engine to be rendered using a renderer specified by the back end. That's it! So far, I've managed to port most features of the engine, as well as a Google searching backend, a Mozilla bookmarks backend, and a simple frontend that sends clues from the commandline. There's still lots of frontends and backends to be written, and I imagine that they are going to give me quite the crash course on programming plugins for various Windows apps, but I look forward to the challenge! And I'm probably attacking the most difficult plugin target first: Miranda!

what's in a name

We sat down for quite some time last night browsing through BabyNames.com trying to think up some good baby names. I've always liked Lana myself, but my wife doesn't care for it, preferring instead to tack an "A" onto the front of it making it Alana. Two names that stood high on our list (or at least mine) were Ethan Riley Sharp for a boy, and Alana Hope Sharp for a girl. We've still got plenty of time to decide on a name, of course, but it was nice to start planning for that aspect of the coming baby, at least.

creepy crawly

Just found a huge spider in the bathroom here at work; the thing had to be 2-2 1/2 inches across. Wish there were actually some decent sites out there to identify spiders, because I hate knowing that he's lurking around and wondering whether it's a poisonous one or not. I can't exactly Google for 'huge frickin spider' and turn up any decent resources. The best I can tell, our little eight-legged friend is a wolf spider, but I didn't dare get close enough to see if he was hairy or not. (I really hate spiders.) Besides, even if I knew, I still suck at identifying things like this, and I'd probably still be wrong. For now, as long as he doesn't make the trip to my office, we're cool. I'll just be using the downstairs bathroom for a while. :)

i, robot

No, not the movie. I just ran across this uber-cool biomorphic robot they're selling on ThinkGeek. It doesn't really look all that special until you see it in motion, so be sure to check out the movie [Quicktime] of it in action. I think I may have found something for my Christmas list...

[Listening to: Gamecube - Metroid Prime Title (Gaming FM - Modern Console) - Metroid Prime - ]

syndication

I've had the standard blogger Atom feed available at the bottom of every page. Well, now I've also signed up for a FeedBurner account, which means that your feed reader need not neccessarily support Atom. FeedBurner is able to convert my Atom feed to any other format, and then intelligently decide which format your reader can use. I've added the link to this feed at the right hand side of the page using the standard orange XML icon, so it should be immediately noticeable. I'm not really sure how many people actually bother to syndicate this site, but at least now, more people can if they want to.

vs.net 2005 express beta

I just downloaded the Visual C# 2005 Express Beta a few hours ago, and I have to say that I'm impressed. There are features in there that over the past 6 months could have saved me days, if not whole weeks. I'm finding that if we ever do convert our projects over to this version, we'll have lots to do to start making our app take advantage of the new features, but in my opinion, it would be well worth it. Besides, everyone needs to refactor now and again, right?

One of the more talked about features that I think actually lives up to the hype is the auto-expansion features that have been added to Intellisense. One of my most despised programming tasks is creating properties for private member variables. This is perhaps one of the more tedious things that I have to do on a day-to-day basis. With 2005, I simply type in "prop", hit the tab key, and then I get to fill in the blanks to create a property. Wow. It's just that simple. And there's plenty of other timesavers like this in there too.

Thank God they finally saw fit to include a proper webbrowser control as well. That old COM interop stuff was just garbage; it worked about half the time, and you were always wondering when your form layout would get hosed just because you wanted a web browser on it. The flow/grid layout panels are also a welcome feature.

Finally, I have to say that my favorite feature so far is something I haven't heard a lot of talk about. That's the ability to add a settings file to your project. It's a very simple concept, but if we'd had this one feature six months ago, we would've saved ourselves a few headaches. You can add a settings file to any project, and specify whether each setting should be scoped at the application or the user level. It took us a week to figure out our settings object and learn enough about Serialization in .NET to make things work the way we wanted them to. C'est la vie. At least we learned a lot during our time creating our settings object, so the time spent was not all for naught.

There's lots of other things that are really cool too; far too many to name here. There's also some things I hope they get fixed before these are out of beta as well (most notably the moving of panels; what moron thought to only allow moving by clicking the box in the top left corner?). At any rate, I can see I've got a lot to learn about the Framework changes that are coming down the pipe. Maybe this time I'll be on top of the changes rather than learning about them two years late!

[Listening to: Playstation 2 - Excelsior (Gaming FM - Modern Console) - Dead Or Alive 2 - ]

thump, thump

My wife is about 10 weeks along in the pregnancy so far, and we went this morning for her second pre-natal doctor's visit. What was especially exciting about that was that we were first able to hear the baby's heartbeat! It was amazing to stand there and listen to the thumping sound of our baby's heartbeat. It was very rapid (they say that the baby's heart usually beats at around 160 bpm at this stage), but very strong. The doctor said that it sounded very good, and reassured us by telling us that when you can hear the heartbeat, the chances of miscarriage are drastically reduced.

Now, I can't wait for the next two months to pass. In two months will be probably the next big milestone when we get to have an ultrasound done. By then, we should also be able to determine the baby's gender, which both my wife and I are eagerly anticipating. We definitely want to know the gender so that we can begin to plan by getting the nursery ready. We also need to know so that we can return half of the clothes my wife and mother-in-law have already bought! They got a bit excited a few weeks ago and bought lots of clothes, half boy's and half girl's, and said they would return the half we didn't need after finding out if the baby was a boy or girl.

[Listening to: Suteki Da Ne - Nobuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy In Concert]

summerfest in vana'diel

 

It's Summerfest in Final Fantasy XI! I've been having lots of fun watching the fireworks and getting all sorts of special prizes for going on moogle quests. Check out Karatina's yukata; pretty sweet looking, if you ask me! :)

only one space after a period

This is something I saw a few weeks ago and have only now remembered to mention. I never had a clue that there was only supposed to be a single space after a period when typing. Turns out that it is simply a holdover from the days of mechanical typewriters. In light of this, I've been trying to change my habits of putting two spaces after a period. Breaking this habit is much, much easier said than done.

don't use our service

Seems like the hot new thing to give away to make people interested in buying a particular products is a DVD player. I've seen Sports Illustrated and at least one other magazine publisher giving away a player as a promotional gift for buying a subscription. When you think about it, it's a really great marketing scheme. I mean, DVD players (the ones they give away, at least) are dirt cheap to manufacture. But I think I just saw the most ironic free DVD player giveaway yet. I saw a commercial for a satellite TV company (might've been DirecTV, but I'm not sure) offering a free DVD player as a gift for switching from cable to their service.

Basically, it's like they're saying "Get great satellite TV 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We offer so much more interesting programming than cable. Oh, by the way, here's a free DVD player to watch stuff when there's nothing else interesting to watch." Strange....or maybe it's just me.

good tunes

I find it amazing how finding the right music can make you so much more productive. At least that's how it works for me. I just recently got my hands on the soundtrack to Jet Set Radio Future, a game I've never had the pleasure of playing, and likely won't unless they port it to a system other than XBox. I'd heard several of the tracks on GamingFM a few times and loved them. I've already listened to the entire album several times through. It's definitely non-mainstream music, which is perhaps why I like it so much. But it's just the right music to put you in a good mood, being very upbeat. I'm glad I found it, since it's single handedly pulled me from my recent bout of apathy. :)

[Listening to: Like It Like This Like That - Hideki Naganuma - Jet Set Radio Future]

you like ninjas?

I ran across Ninja Jeopardy a while ago surfing the web. Ninjas rock!

a must read book

I can't believe I've never read this book until now. The book in question is Tuesdays With Morrie, which I added to my Zooba reading list as I mentioned earlier. I happened across a paperback version while in Books A Million this weekend and decided to go ahead and pick it up instead of waiting for it. I started reading it later that night, intending to read just a few chapters. Before I knew it, I'd read nearly three fourths of the book, and finished it earlier today. I knew it would be good, because I'd read The Five People You Meet In Heaven a few months back and was enthralled by it. But I never expected it to be that good. It truly lives up to every bit of praise that is showered upon it on the back cover of the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

Just for a brief synopsis of this book, it contains just two principal characters: the author, and his old college professor, Morrie. Yes, that's right, this is a true story written from a firsthand account. Perhaps it was this fact that makes the book so incredibly endearing. Morrie has been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gherig's disease) and the author is able to meet up with him in the last few weeks of his illness before his death. The two meet on Tuesdays and discuss many different aspects of life ranging from aging to money to marriage. This book will completely change your outlook on a lot of life issues.

hooray for reading

I just finished The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene yesterday. That book has completely enthralled me; so much so that I'm now 70 or so pages into The Fabric of the Cosmos, also by Greene. Both books describe superstring theory and the scientific revolutions that preceded it, including Einstein's theories of special/general relativity and quantum mechanics, in a way that is both entertaining and easily grasped, even by those without much inclination towards physics. I loved physics in high school and college, but only after reading these books have I gained that fascination with it that encourages me to continue my studies outside of a classroom setting.

In other reading-related news, I stumbled across an interesting site called zooba.com, which seems to be a very interesting book-of-the-month type service. It actually reminds me quite a bit of Netflix in the way that it lets you create a personalized reading list. For a $9.95 monthly subscription fee, they're going to send me the #1 book on my reading list, usually in hardcover format, and don't even charge shipping and handling fees! If I were to want more than one book a month, I can buy them for another flat $9.95 charge each, again with no shipping. Their selection may not be overly complete, but they do seem to stock most of the recent bestsellers and other popular books. I've already picked out my next 9 or so books, including Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie, which I've been anxious to read for some time. And getting each for just under ten bucks is a pretty good deal as far as I'm concerned!

pot noodles

I'm not quite sure what pot noodles are, but this chick's got a problem! It was good for a laugh or two though, so I thought I'd share.

[Listening to: PlayStation 2 - RuLude Gardens (Gaming FM - Modern Console) - Final Fantasy XI - ]

having a baby

We found out on June 26 that my wife is pregnant! Both of us are extremely excited about the news; not to mention the excitement of our family. My mother-in-law has already been out shopping at least three times for baby items; even took my wife once. They bought both boy and girl items and claim that they'll keep the receipts and return whatever they need to. Of course, the coming of a baby means that we're really going to have to buckle down and clean up our extra bedroom to make space for a nursery. Right now, it's a storage room, and I have no clue where everything that's in there is going to go!

I think my mind has been slipping lately after hearing the news. I can't concentrate on much anymore, and things tend to run together. I was on the phone telling a friend the date of baby's arrival and slipped up saying something like "the release date will be...". I caught myself soon after saying it; guess I must have been reading too many gaming magazines and websites or something!

Anyway, the due date that we were given is February 21, 2004, which seems a little early, but works out based on the way they have to count the days. Since hearing the news, I've been reading all the information I can. I've found that Baby.com has some pretty good resources available, especially for soon-to-be dads. We've also been given quite a few magazines and other paper materials to look through as well, so I guess I know what my literature will consist of for the next year or so!

[Listening to: Playstation - Song of Mana (Ending Theme) (Gaming FM - Modern Console) - Legend of Mana - ]

that which shall not be named

Well, I've gone and done it. Went and ranted about [the diet that shall not be named] a few days ago. Now it seems that the Google AdSense script that generates the ads at the top of the page has picked up on it and seen fit to show nothing but ads for [the diet that shall not be named]. Wonderful....

[Listening to: Going Under - Evanescence - Fallen (0:-1)]

are you in?

So, I've been running around lately, signing up for every Google service like they were Pokemon. Up til' two days ago, that included Blogger, Google Groups 2 (beta), GMail, and the Web APIs. But Orkut was wildly elusive for me, and I didn't know anyone who could get me in. I must've spent four hours searching for someone to give me an invite. Finally, fortune smiled upon me and some incredibly nice soul invited me to join the party. At last, I'm in the club. :)

I've had the chance to play with Orkut for the past few days and I can definitely say that it is a very nice service. It's a pretty gated community, so you can feel pretty safe in knowing that you're not going to be bombarded by ads and spammers. I also love the various communities. So far there has yet to be a topic that I can think of that doesn't already exist as a community. And I take comfort in knowing that if I do happen across a discussion topic for which there is no community, I can create it myself. All in all, I'm just about as impressed with this service as I am with GMail. If anyone happens to want an invite to Orkut to try it out, just leave a comment with your first and last names, e-mail address, and a description of yourself and why you should be invited. Then maybe, just maybe, you'll get to try it for youself!

[Listening to: Experiment 626 (D I G I T A L L Y - I M P O R T E D - European Trance, Techno, Hi-NRG... we can't define it!) - Broken Toy - (0:-1)]

wimbledon

Well, today is the first day of competition at Wimbledon. Bless IBM for providing such a wonderful site to keep track of everything I'd ever need to keep track of. They've even got me considering paying the extra $9 or $10 for the Wimbledon Plus package that lets you hear more audio and watch entire videos until next year. At least then I might be able to watch a match or two. We really need a TV out here. Either that or I need a Tivo. I'll definitely be rooting for Roddick and my two fave ladies Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati.

the cult of the low carb

Alright already! Enough of this Atkins craze! You know, it's fine and good that America in general is trying to lose weight, but now I can't even go into a restaurant without having to be inundated with the plethora of new low-carb items (which are all items that were previously offered anyway with shiny new marketing strategies behind them). Look, you're on this diet, shouldn't you know what you can eat and what you can't? Is it really so hard to decide that the fried chicken with a buttermilk biscuit on the side is probably not on your diet? I mean, come on, fast food restaurants have low carb menus now. They never seemed to care before; why now?

Not to mention the fact that so many people are putting themselves on this diet like it was sent from heaven. Sure, it may help you lose weight fast, but do people ever consider that the diet might actually be bad for them? Now don't worry, I'm not going to open that can of worms too far, because there's enough fodder on both sides to start a war. But seriously, there is still an ongoing debate on whether there are serious health risks or not. It seems to me that it would be prudent to wait until conclusive studies can be done to decide on whether the diet is a good idea or not. But most Americans, anxious for that "quick fix", have jumped head first into these low-carb diets without any more than a marketing scheme to tell them that they're doing a good thing.

Look, you want to lose weight? How about trying the tried-and-true method? Stop eating so much and get out there and excercise!

indie films

Just by happenstance, I stumbled across several movies and shorts created by independent artists. I'm sure these are probably old news, but I was amazed by them just the same.

First is a short CG film that was created by one guy with his 1.4 Ghz Athlon PC and a few rendering computers. It's called This Wonderful Life and can be viewed at CGChannel.com along with an interview.

The second film that I was wowed by this morning is a fan-made Star Wars movie named .Star Wars: Revelations. I've heard of several of these in the past, and I'm not sure if this was one of them or not, but after looking at the trailers, I am thoroughly impressed. I'll definitely be checking this one out when it becomes available next spring.

a good day

Last night made yesterday probably one of the better days I've had at work in a while. I ran into a problem with the licensing tool that we purchased a while back and had almost convinced myself that it would take forever to get it resolved. I went ahead and fired off an e-mail to their support desk last night close to 5 pm and didn't really expect a resolution until today at the earliest. I was literally floored when I received a response to my e-mail in two minutes. I figured that it was an automated e-mail for sure. But upon reading it I found that it wasn't automated at all; in fact they had even answered my second question, which I half expected them to ignore. And they were completely friendly and professional to boot! After sending a second e-mail to provide additional information, I stepped out to grab a bite to eat and by the time I got back, my issue was resolved. No runaround, no hassle. Talk about making a developer's day! I am definitely impressed, and if anyone out there is a .NET developer in need of a licensing framework, check these guys out.

But that wasn't the only good thing to happen. One of my co-workers stumbled across , a company that creates components for .NET applications. We downloaded the demo and played with it last night. It was almost like Christmas; we played with it and were continually oohing and ahhing with each new feature that we came across.

To top it all off, Blogger has had a facelift (yes, I only recently noticed this), so I was able to give my blog a cool new style and finally include a commenting tool that works. All in all, yesterday was a great day! :)

back from vacation

Well, it's been a week now since I've been back from vacation, and it's taken me as long just to get back into the swing of day to day activities. I've yet to get any pictures online yet, but that'll be coming in the next few days hopefully. We went for a 5 night cruise to the western Caribbean and it was completely awesome! Our ship stopped in Key West, Cozumel, and Belize City, and we did all sorts of things like snorkeling, kayaking, parasailing, and exploring the Mayan ruins of Xunantunich. We even got to swim with a dolphin named Amaya.

Life on the boat was incredible also. There was always something to do, and we probably didn't do half of what was available. We had the two most incredible waiters there ever were. Ravi and Nerise, you guys are awesome! The entertainment was nothing short of amazing either. The singers and dancers they have on that ship were easily on par with some of the better Broadway shows that I've seen. Hopefully I'll have some pictures of all of this to share soon!

[Listening to: Captain Kirk - Bob Schneider - (3:11)]

nap time

I have been fighting the urge to fall asleep all day today it seems. I suppose that listening to this excellent kyotaku (Japanese zen-flute) music isn't helping me stay awake much either. Nor is the fact that I've worked two 13.5 hour days in a row and am prepping for another long one today. It's only nine more days until I leave for my long overdue vacation, though. I'm ready for a week of doing little-to-nothing! The sad fact is though, that if my wife would let me, I'd probably be content to bring a computer along and code all week just the same.

I've been studying up on some Japanese. One of these days, I'm going to get to the competency level that I need to be able to watch anime without the need for translation and play Japanese-native video games. But I fear that time may be a long time from now. I just don't have as much time to study as I would like. Not to mention the fact that I'm quite the cheapskate when it comes to purchasing the study materials I'd probably need anyway. I did pick up a book to assist me in my studies; now if I could just find the 45 minutes a day that it says I need to learn the material in 6 weeks, I'd be set. :)

[Listening to: Chinese Princess-Tilopa.mp3 - 02 - (5:41)]

the quest is over

By luck I have stumbled on perhaps the only convenience store in my town to purchase Bawls Guarana. I still need to visit the others just to see if perhaps I can get a better price, but I have at long last found a place to feed my addiction. :)

I think I am finally coming out of my latest bi-monthly burn out session. Lately, I've tended to enter these periods of apathy about every other month or so in which I have to force myself more than normal to concentrate on things I should be doing. It's really not a matter of a lack of productivity though, rather it's just my mood during that time. Lately, I've been loathe to get myself out of bed in the morning, but finally I'm getting to the phase where I enjoy doing what I do again. :) Maybe it's just because of the onset of spring, perhaps it's because I've gotten a hold of several new songs that I'm rocking to, or maybe it's just because I've finally found a source to feed my Bawls addiction. Who knows; I just hope it sticks around a little longer this time...:)

[Listening to: Where Do We Go From Here? - Jamiroquai - Synkronized (5:13)]

need...more...bawls

So, I finally got the chance to try out BAWLS Guarana this weekend. We were passing through Paducah on our way to visit family for Easter and I just happened across a gas station that actually carries them (something I have yet to find here in Murray). Anyway, it instantly became my favorite caffeinated beverage. Now, I just have to find somewhere more local that carries them. I've started a hunt through several convenience stores all over Murray but have turned up nothing yet. I'm just rather reluctant to spend the $40 (after shipping) at ThinkGeek to order a case of 24. It's strange...it would actually be a little cheaper doing it that way, but in my mind, I can justify spending $1.99 for one at a convenience store but not $40 for 24. I guess I have the feeling that I'd go through all 24 too quickly to get my forty bucks worth...:)

I'm trying out a new blog tool also. I'm giving w.bloggar a try, and so far it seems to do everything I want, and more. I guess this means I won't be writing one myself...ah well. Guess I'll have to try and find some other project to work on in my spare time. :)

[Listening to: breath - Bamboo Forest - Bamboo Forest (8:02)]

waiting for the weekend

The weekend cannot get here fast enough. I don't even have anything extraordinarily exciting planned for the weekend either, I'm just ready for a couple days off. My colleague and I have been racking our brains for most of the week trying to understand a data object library that wraps ADO.NET; a library with a very spartan outlook on documentation. While the documentation was technically complete, there were certain aspects of it, such as how to use the thing that were notably absent. Needless to say, it was a two and a half day adventure into the underpinnings of a system we had little to no information about.

I've been absorbing as much Naruto as humanly possible the past few days. I got hooked on the manga and ended up spending quite some time downloading and reading every chapter available on the web. I'm now completely caught up and can't wait for the next episode or chapter to come out. Dark will be the day that they license this anime in the states and I have to wait for some US group to sub it. (And sub it they had better; the seiyuu couldn't be better in the series, and I'd hate to have to hear another voice for any of the characters.)

the belt i wear is black

Well, I finally received my black belt in Tae Kwon Do this weekend. I've been training for almost four and a half years to reach this point. Saturday wasn't really quite as bad as I previously expected either. When we got word that my instructor's teacher would be coming in for the test, I feared that the test would be unduly long and excruciating, but that turned out to not be the case. No, in fact, the test was very much like most of the other tests I have been through. In fact, although it was a black belt test, the students from one of the college white belt classes were also testing, so this helped to ease the situation a little bit.

During the test, I broke both a board with a spinning wheel kick, and a concrete block with a downward palm. We also did a bit of sparring and some forms. Of course, the previous Saturday was the true test of our physical prowess. Last Saturday, we ran 2 miles, ten 150-yard wind sprints, jumped rope for 10 minutes, did ab workouts for 5 minutes, and finished off with a review of all of our material. That was quite grueling, but surviveable at least. Perhaps I really do need to start running more often. I actually seem to be improving a bit. :)

invasion of the pigs

Our parking lot just got taken over by seven pigs. I guess that's what you get for having an office all the way out in the middle of "farm country". I've never seen any this big before though. All I can think of is bacon....mmmmmmmm.... :)

xslt is a fickle, fickle friend

I'm spending this weekend learning the ins and outs of XSLT. I got to thinking earlier this week that this RSS Reader I've been working on could really benefit from only having to parse one style of XML. So now all I have to do is create some XSL transforms that will convert from the nine different formats of RSS into my desired XML format so that my application can read various types of feeds. It amazes me how many various forms of RSS are out there, and with barely any similarity between most of them. I'm concentrating my efforts right now on RSS versions 0.91, 1.0, and 2.0 since they seem to be the most popular.

I've never had a reason to work with XSL and XSLT before, so I'm also having to learn that as I go. I think it's perhaps XPath and the concept of XML namespaces that's given me the most trouble so far, but after a fair amount of study this morning and plenty of trial and error, I feel that I might be starting to grasp the basics. XSLT is a really powerful technology, but it's surprising that there aren't more tools out there to assist in creating the documents. Perhaps I've just been spoiled by some of the IDEs I'm accustomed to working with...:)

Later today, we're going to try to go see 'The Passion' movie. I stress the word try because I've heard that many of the local churches are buying up entire showings for this movie. I'm really excited about seeing it, so hopefully we'll manage to get a couple of seats!

the pragmatic programmer

I cannot fully express how completely wonderful this book is. I bought it on a whim the last time I was in Nashville and am thrilled that I did. This book, unlike many other technical books, does not espouse any language, technology, or platform as the be-all-end-all to the programming community. Instead, they emphasize the fact that programming is more of an art than a methodology. Any coder can glean something immensely beneficial from this book.

One concept that I have found most useful during my reading is that of a "Knowledge Portfolio". The authors state that in order to stay competitive in a very competitive sector, we must constantly treat our repository of knowledge as an investor might his stock portfolio. They reccommend things such as learning a new language every year, and reading technical and non-technical books regularly. Sounds like common sense, right? But having it put in words does something; now it has become a goal. In keeping with this goal, I'm currently evaluating which language I'm going to learn this year. Technically, I suppose I could count C#, but I'd like to get a jump start on this goal by learning at least one other language this year. I'm leaning a little towards Ruby, but I'd also like to pick up my studies on Java as well, since that's a language I started learning several years ago. Plus, having become a recent convert to C#, my learning curve would be slightly less steep with that language.

On another note, I've been whittling away at an RSS reader in my spare time. I've got a basic implementation coded up and running, but it was done quickly and has a rather hackish nature to it. I'm hoping to go back and rethink/rewrite the core libraries as I have free time, but I've got a few other projects that I'd like to get started on as well. I'll never understand why I can never keep just one project...I either have no ideas for projects or a ton of ideas for projects. Guess I'll just have to prioritize them and decide which to keep and which to push off til' later....

too much to do

I've come to the conclusion that I am far too busy these days. It's funny, really; back in high school, I used to think I was busy, and that I'd have more free time when I started college because I wouldn't be involved in as much. I was dead wrong there. In fact, I think I got myself involved in even more time consuming things during college than I did in high school. Because of this, I again made the foolish assumption that I would have more time to do things after college. After all, I would only have a job to concentrate on rather than school and work. Wrong again. Of course, most of the things I want to find time to do are pretty trivial and meaningless. Like finding more time to play Final Fantasy XI or Crystal Chronicles.


Ah, Crystal Chronicles...what a wonderful time sink. Although I don't imagine that it will take me that long to finish the single player mode. I sat down in about two hours and completed what was probably 15-20% of the game (and I thought I was taking my time at that). I'd really like to find someone else to play with so that I can try out the multiplayer mode. Of course, nobody I know (save one person) owns or has any interest in owning a Game Boy Advance. So I will probably be relegated to playing the single player mode.

On another note, I also picked up a copy of Lunar Legend for the GBA last weekend. I was completely shocked to find it at an electronics store in Nashville. I mean, I didn't even know this game existed, so it was quite a pleasant surprise. I'm a little at odds with the game though since they do change several key plot points. The sprites and in-game graphics are amazing, however, even rivaling some of the in-game graphics of Silver Star Story Complete. Lunar always has been one of my all-time favorite RPGs, so this was a must-have for me.

I'm still studying for the MCSD tests, hoping to take the first one sometime in the next few months. I'm working my way through a couple of books that I picked up a few weeks ago. So far, I haven't run across anything I didn't already know, so maybe this test won't be as difficult as I was led to believe at first. I just need to find some time to make it through the rest of these books.

Just today, I decided to start messing around with the Managed DirectX Framework for .NET. I've programmed a little in C++ using DirectX 7, so I was slightly familiar with the framework this go around, but I've still got a lot to learn. Hopefully I'll be able to find some good examples and tutorials around that I can use to familiarize myself more with how things are done under this system. I'd love to be able to write some games of my own, even if they'll never be commercial quality. I had a few small games and demos coded up in C++ that I might try to translate to C# given the time.

Tomorrow, we're heading up to Paducah to have a nice lunch and also to attend my uncle's wedding, so it will be good to get out of the house. We really need to clean up a little bit, so there's nothing like a good excuse to push that chore back a little longer. :)

enter the dragon

Wow, what a busy weekend. I've pretty well been going nonstop since Friday. Don "The Dragon" Wilson (11 time world kickboxing champion and star of several martial arts films) paid a visit to our Taekwondo school this weekend. He taught two seminars on self-defense and kickboxing which were very enjoyable. I really enjoyed the fact that he focused on the basics of punching and kicking; something we probably don't do often enough. It's so easy to get into the habit of just throwing a punch or kick or triple spinning tornado kick that you forget about the dynamics of how that attack gets its power and accuracy. What's more, I even got the chance to bowl, eat dinner, and even go to church with Mr. Wilson, since my Taekwondo instructor also attends the same church I do.

Sunday afternoon was quite the trip also. I finally convinced my wife that we need a digital camera and so we headed to the local Wal-Mart to pick one out. After about 30 minutes of looking, comparing, and discussing, we finally settled on a particular Kodak camera with 3.1 megapixels, so we asked the sales person to get it for us. They hunted for another 15 minutes before coming to the conclusion that they were out of stock. So we ended up making the half-hour trip to the next nearest Wal-Mart to purchase the camera. Talk about a wasted afternoon. But the camera we picked up is supremely cool (or I'm just completely naive when it comes to digital photography, which is an equally plausible case). I took a few pictures last night and uploaded them to the computer. I was completely taken aback by the quality; I guess I'm just accustomed to seeing sub-1 megapixel photos from digital cameras I've had in the past. I'm sure we'll definitely enjoy the camera...now I just have to teach my wife to use it! :)