Two days ago, my friend was diagnosed with a serious illness. Luckily, his doctor prescribed him some medicine to cure him!

He was given two bottles, one containing Antiaflaxian, and the other with Bratubalizine (we can call them A and B for short). Each bottle contained exactly three pills, which, oddly enough, are exactly the same in color, weight, smell, etc. He has been instructed to take one of each pill and swallow them together, once a day for three days. Taking only one pill without immediately taking the other, or taking two of the same pills would immediately be fatal.

So yesterday, he took one of each pill, and found himself feeling a bit better.

Today, however, he called me with a crisis! He went to take his pills, and dropped them! He managed to keep one of the Anaflaxin pills in the bottle, but the other three pills (one A and two B) spilled out on the counter in front of him.

What can he to to make sure that he takes his medicine as prescribed? Email me the answer to earn some Adam Points! :)

In other news, there's not much other news. Today is December 1st, which means my birthday is coming up! I find it weird to have a birthday near the beginning of the month, because it always seems to sneak up on me. In spite of my wife's polite reminders and my pleading parents, I've been a bit remiss in updating my wishlist and coming up with gift ideas. I guess part of that is that I don't really feel like I need or want a bunch of stuff, so I guess anything I do get will be unexpected and appreciated.

I've got a couple holiday parties as well as a birthday dinner with my parents coming up. Diana and I are going to her school's first basketball game tonight, and that should be fun. It's a great time to be a Chargers fan, for once, and I look forward to their games every weekend. So far, December is looking pretty bright.

While searching for something else, I happened across a pretty cool website that describes a basic framework creating your own CCG. (Mom: CCG is "collectable card game", which more or less means a card game that uses custom cards rather than standard playing cards). The basic rules say that you have cards that are Things, and cards that are Actions. You put Things down on the table (or on other Things), and you play Action cards to affect the game somehow (discard Things, look at opponents hand, etc). So I'm trying my hand at making a game for folks here at work (suffice to say, it's a software project themed game for geeks). It's a fun little project, but who knows if it will go anywhere.

That's about all I got for now.

 

I rule! 

Guitar Hero 2 was officially released yesterday, and I am a happy man.

The forums have been buzzing. Although stores received their copies a week or two ago, they weren't allowed to sell them until yesterday. However, various Targets and Walmarts across the country mistakenly started selling copies early. People with early copies alternated playing and posting reviews and stories and videos online (YouTube rocks). Needless to say, the fires were stoked.

I met up with Baditude at lunchtime in Mira Mesa, and soon enough had my very own copy of GH2, complete with the new cherry red Gibson guitar controller. Returning to work for the afternoon, knowing the ROCK that waited for me in my car was difficult. In fact, I even bailed out a little early.

I got in a few songs before dinner time... just enough of a taste to keep me going.

After dinner, as arranged, I headed over to Baditude's house. Little Buhr was there, and we played a great game called "Tikal". It's a strategical game that involves uncovering and exploring ancient Mayan ruins. Anyone who found Puerto Rico interesting would probably like this as well. I thought it was really great.

After the game, Little Buhr hit the road, and "Satanic Panic" hit the stage. (Eryn went to see someone speak when he was in collge, and the person used the phrase "Satanic Panic". Eryn told me he turned to his friend and said "That would be great name for a metal band." And so it is.)

We warmed up with a couple multiplayer co-op games. Guitar Hero 1 had only a single guitar track, that was shared across both players. Guitar Hero 2 has a lead guitar for all songs, as well as either a bass or rhythm track (depending on the song). So both players get their own, full track of notes.

After a few multiplayer games, we decided we needed to unlock some more songs, so we started a "Medium" difficulty level (read: yawn) career mode, and started playing through the list. Even though it was pretty easy to get through 'em, it was still fun to hear the songs. After we had enough unlocked, we went back to multiplayer and continued to rock the house.

The multiplayer is simply brilliant. The experience of holding down (or, in my bass playing of Primus' "John the Fisherman", trying to hold down) a steady bassline while your buddy is standing next to you, wailing out a screaming solo, just WORKS. If playing single player is Fun, then playing co-op isn't simply twice as fun, it's Fun squared. Playing on Baditude's ginormous plasma TV with the sound cranked up didn't hurt the experience, either.

We were all giggles and smiles and high-fives for the next three hours or so. Not very "metal", I know, but what can you do.

Around midnight, we called it quits. Exhausted and elated and looking forward to next time, I came home and crawled into bed. When I closed my eyes, I saw falling notes.

Good times.

Iwan made a little joke about how sad it was to be so excited about a game. While I take it as just a friendly little jab, I can certainly see that side, and in the big picture GH2 is just a fun diversion. But at the same time, I've come to the conclusion that when we find something that brings us happiness, we should embrace it and revel in it, and take it all in while we still are able. So call me a geek and a loser if you want... just don't take away my right to ROCK.

So I got a migraine last night.

I was doing a little work on the computer, and all of a sudden realized that, as I was typing, I couldn't see the letters that I had just typed. I had a small blind spot just off to the left of where I was focusing. Immediately I got that feeling of dread, like "I know what's coming."

When I was younger, migraines felt like a death sentence. I had some medicine, but nothing that really worked very well. The only thing I could do was lie in bed, literally moaning in agony, for about 6 hours. The pain was deep and throbbing, but at the same time, it felt like my brain was hot... like my brain was actually heating up. So, you can see why I get a little panicky when I first notice a blind spot.

Last night, as soon as I noticed the blind spot, I took my medicine. 50mg of Imitrex and 2 other pills that are some mix of caffeine and some pain killer. Then, nothing to do but lie down in a dark room and wait for it.

The blind spot grows, starting out as a small spot on just one side of where I'm looking, and expands towards the side of my vision, moving sideways as it grows, until it's a weird big flashing crescent.

Try this: put your left hand straight out as far as you can reach, straight out in front of your face. Keep your eyes looking straight, and move your hand about 1.5 feet to the left and waggle your fingers. Even though you're not looking at them, you can still easily see them out of your periphal vision. That's about where the blindspot starts. Now move your hand more to the left, still keeping your eyes straight ahead. You should be able to still see your waggling fingers until your hand is just about straight out from your sholder. During the migraine precursor, for me, most of that vision is gone.

So if I can't see, what's there? It's weird how your brain fills in the blind spot with information. If you've never done it, try this blind spot test. The affected visual area kind of flashes and pulses. It's definitely not a big black area, that's for sure.

And as quickly as it started, the blindness goes away. Without medicine, the pain then would start. With medicine, that agonizing pain is reduced to a moderate discomforate. Last night I got in bed, buried my eyes under the covers while Diana worked on the laptop next to me. My head still gets a bit of a burning feeling, and I get a moderate headache, but totally manageable. That lasts for about 2 hours or so (by this point, though, I was asleep for the night).

Today, I called in sick and have just been lazing around all day. My head hurts if I bend over or if I sneeze, and I generally feel a little foggy, but nothing that can stop me from playing some Guitar Hero or doing the dishes. By tomorrow, I should be right as rain.

So, there you go. Everything you didn't want to know about getting a migraine.

It struck me recently why I have such happy memories of high school. I had a lot of friends. Some were "best" friends, and some were just friends, and some were just acquaintances, but regardless, I got to see those people every day. As a grownsed-up person, the idea of having lunch with all my best friends, all together, every day of the week, is pretty much the coolest thing ever. And pretty much impossible, unfortunately. I don't remember any really significant problems or bad times in high school... just a lot of fun times with good friends.

After work on Friday, I met Diana at her school and we went out to dinner and killed some time before heading over to the Torrey Pines Homecoming football game. Just the week before, we were driving by TPHS and stopped in and walked around the campus, and it brought back a flood of memories. Going to the football game that night was a lot of fun. Not only did TP kick butt, but it's fun to watch the kids be kids, and to revel in my own nostalgia. I loved going to the football games back in the day, and cramming into the stands with all my friends. We'd do silly cheers, and have a million inside jokes, make fun of cheerleaders, and generally be self-centered jerks (which is actually a really fun thing to be until you develop a consciousness that is bigger than yourself... after that, it kinda sucks). Anyways, Diana and I stayed until about half-time, and then bailed out.

And speaking of good friends, I had a great night on Saturday night. A whole group of us got together pretty spontaneously on Saturday night for dinner. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood. Eryn had just gotten back from a torrid Brazilian vacation, and was the fuel for a lot of "over-under" wagering and general joking around (I hope he didn't think this joking was at his expense, because I don't think it was intended that way at all!). After dinner, we headed back to Little Buhr's pad and played some games. The first was a game where a trivia question is asked, and everyone writes down an answer. Everyone reveals their answer, and then wagers can be played, roulette-style, on the various answers, and the correct answer wins you money. A nice, light game. We then played a game of RoboRally, which is possibly the nerdiest game ever, involving "programming" a robot (by playing cards on it), and trying to maneuver through an environment, touching flags in order. With 8 robots all trying to touch the same flag, chaos ensued. I think everyone was having fun, but the game was dragging a little and it was getting late, so we threw in the towel. All in all, though, my cheeks were sore from laughing and smiling all night, and it was from nothing more than being around some folks that I enjoy (half a dozen drinks spread out through the night didn't hurt, either! :) I just felt giddy the whole night. If I had my way, my friends who are outside of San Diego would all move back, and we'd all get together every day for lunch and games... But until that happens, I'll take what I can get when I can get it.

So I recently pre-ordered a game called "Defcon". I'd read about it recently and thought it sounded interesting. Pre-orders were only $10! What a deal.

Defcon is ripped straight out of the movie WarGames (which is going right to the top of my Netflix queue, so help me!), and they nailed it on so many levels.

In the movie WarGames, our hero Ferris (whatever) is a high school gamer who can't wait for the next big game to come out. So he attempts to break into the software company (online, not physically) and grab an early copy. He finds some computer system with games on it, and assumes it's the right one, and begins to play "Global Thermonuclear War" ("How about a nice game of chess?" the computer asks. "No... I want to play... global... thermonuclear... war" Ferris responds, speaking as he types. "Fine" says the computer. Classic!).

The game that subsequently begins is the basis for Defcon. A huge world map, drawn in vector graphics, scrollable and scalable. Each player controls one of 6 territories, and begins by placing radar, missile silos, airbases, and naval fleets. And then the Defcon counter begins counting down, from 5 (peace) to 1 (let the nukes fly).

Both games (Defcon and GlobalThermoNuclearWar in Wargames) simulate a full-world nuclear war. Defcon simulates WarGames' primative vector graphics and glowing screen. There is this really creepy mood music playing, and you can't help but imagine that you're in a secured underground bunker somewhere. The tension builds during the game, as players create and break alliances, secretly move hidden subs right off each others coastlines, and eventually all hell breaks loose as Mutuall Assured Destruction comes to pass. When a nuke hits a city there is a white glow, a single, brief piano note stands out from the constant mood music, an almost inaudible rumble, and a message pops up: "London hit, 5.1m dead". The juxtaposition between the massive violence of the game (if measured by "body count") and the graphical quality of that violence (which is to say, completely non-existant) is really moving. It's eerie.

In WarGames, the game that Ferris started running was actually a military simulation, and that simulation begins looking for the winner of a nuclear war, trying tactic after tactic. The simulations run faster and faster, the screen going crazy with flashing lights as the world destroys itself over and over again.

US first strike. Winner: none.
Soviet first strike. Winner: none.
China first strike. Winner: none.
China-US versus Soviet. Winner: none.
China-Soviet versus US. Winner: none.
India (Soviet ally) vs Pakistan (US ally). Winner: none.
Israel vs an Arab state. Winner: none.
... and a hundred more.

Finally, the screen goes dark, and the computer says "A strange game... The only winning move... is not to play."

A Defcon game ends after everyone has shot their nukes off. There are a few different game modes which modify how a winner is determined (either most kills, most survivals, or a hybrid of both). As the game ends, we are left with a mostly obliterated world map, glowing green fallout clouds covering most major population centers, and the message that no one really wins the game as much as everyone loses, but someone loses the least, becomes clear.

I've played games where I've killed zombie demons with chainsaws or gunned down UN security forces trying to defuse the C4 bomb that I planted, and worse... who'd have thought one of the most thought-provoking images of violence would be a single spot of white light on a map?

---

I was listening to the radio on the way to work, and there was a commercial for real estate loans. A while back, they'd advertise how low their rates were, especially getting an adjustable rate mortgage at like 3%. Now, they say "Stuck with an ARM that is going through the roof? Refinance now with our low 30 year fixed..."

Those guys are bastards.

---

For the past few days, I've been obsessively thinking about this Netflix programming contest. The idea is that they want to improve their recommendation system. They are offering $1 million to anyone who can improve their user->movie prediction by over 10%, or $50K a year to anyone who can improve it by 1%. To do this, they provide 100 million data rows looking like (userID, movieID, rating). They also provide a test... that is, about 3 million users and movies, but withhold the ratings. Our job is to try to predict what the users actually rated the movie.


The main strategies appear to be as follows (given user U and movie M)

1) Find other users who have similiar tastes as you, based on ratings over common movies, and find what those users rated M. Take the average of that, and there you go.

In other words, if I trust my boy Iwan (meaning, we share a lot of common ratings), and Iwan tells me he really liked movie M, I will probably like it too.

and/or 2) Find movies that are similiar to M, and find out what users rated those. In other words, if movie M is a lot like movies A, B, C, and D, and I liked all those, I'll probably like this one as well.

Pretty interesting stuff. It's an easy problem to wrap your brain around, but not easy to solve. The first obstacle has been dealing with 100 million data points. The second obstacle will be finding solutions for 3 million rows. If my algorithm takes 1 second per row, that's still over 3 days of processing time. Ugh.

I have a date with a workboy tomorrow to see what we can come up with. I've got some good ideas, and he's a pretty smart guy, so we'll see how it goes.

Ciao.

So today is International "Talk Like a Pirate" day...

Normally, I enjoy and embrace my geeky heritage, but honestly, hearing a bunch of computer geeks trying to sound like pirates has crossed the line of what I can stand. It's like a bad Rennaiscence Faire (with an 'e') right in your own office! Good times.

In other news, a while ago I wrote a program that tracked mouse and keyboard movement. I didn't know what to do with it, so I converted pixels moved to actual distance moved (using a combination of screen resolution and physical monitor size). So, it was pretty neat at the end of a day to see that your cursor travelled 0.348923984 miles. I talked to a friend of mine at work and asked if he had any cool ideas, and he thought doing some sort of art program would be neat.

So, I added some basic drawing stuff to the program, and let it run in the background for a little. Dots are drawn when the mouse is moved, and when I click, a larger circle is drawn. Colors are incremented, again based on movement. I'd like to add more features (different responses to keypresses and dragging, for example), but I'm pretty stoked on the results.

Here's my first hour or so at work...

Just a couple quick hits for you.

I got a spam email this morning. The subject was "eastbound diaper". For some reason that cracked me up.

Thank to Norm for bringing this comic strip to my attention. Funny stuff. I'll definitely be cheering for my people of European descent in Survivor.





We found a dead mouse in an old trap that we'd set and forgotten. We found it via sense of smell. Gross.

Diana and I started watching "The Virgin Suicides" last night. Diana fell asleep. I finally said to myself "You know, I could be doing something much less boring than watch this movie", so I turned it off and stared at the walls for half an hour. I like to think I'm not a big "explosions and mayhem" kind of guy, and can appreciate subtle movies, but jeez, I need SOMETHING to happen to keep me interested!

I've been playing Guitar Hero still, and I can't seem to progress anywhere. Texas Flood and Crossroads feel like they should be 5-star'able (with Frankenstein shortly behind), but I just can't seem to get it all together. I haven't even touched CfH or BatM... Ugh.

I was away this weekend visting my mom and relatives in Montana, which was a lot of fun. It was my Mom's (and her twin brother's) 60th birthdays. My dad had the thought that it would be fun for my brother and I to fly out and surprise my mom, which we did. We were supposed to fly out, meet in SLC, and fly the last leg together, but his plane was late getting in, so he missed the connection. Bummer. As it turns out, the President was landing in SLC at that time, and that delayed a bunch of flights since they completely clear the airspace around his plane. I got to see Air Force One land, which was kinda cool, I guess.

Anyways, I got to my parents house, and my pops got me to a bedroom without my mom knowing (this was at midnight). The next morning, I got up before she did, and when she came out, I said "Hey! What's for breakfast?!" She pretty much turned into a blubbering mess. It was cute. :) My brother got the earliest flight, and again surprised my mom by showing up for lunch that day. Pretty cool. My mom's twin brother was there, as well as her older brother and his wife, who are a ton of fun to hang out with. It was really great to see them. Hopefully Diana and I can invite ourselves up to P-town sometime soon to see them and my cousins.

S'about it for now. FOOTBALL starts tonight, which is awesome. It's been a long wait, but finally, it's here. I'm excited.

Smell you later.

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So I've really enjoyed having this time off from work! As I posted earlier, Mike was in town for a week, and Fwats cruised down for a couple days, and it was a ton of fun to see both of them again. We played lots of games (football, Guitar Hero, RoboRally, Puerto Rico, etc, etc...) and held our annual fantasy football draft. All good times. Click the picture above for more pics.

Diana and I have taken some time to fix up our other, non-landscaped side yard. We cleaned up the dirt area and planted some new plants (including veggies!), and I'm excited to see how those grow. And where they removed the brick against the house, we laid down some flagstone and filled in around those with loose river pebbles. It looks pretty good. Maybe not perfect, but not bad, either. Those were fun little projects.

Iwan, as it turns out, is in Vegas for a couple days on a work trip, and has a hotel room with a spare queen bed. Diana and I, not having anything to do for the rest of the week, are going to bomb out there tomorrow morning and see if we can't have ourselves some fun. I'm not sure how long we'll stay (one or two nights), but we'll just kinda play it by ear.

I return to work on Monday. That will be a change. It seems like forever ago!

  

So, I'm back.

14 plane flights in about 5 weeks. It's been a crazy summer, and while we've had a ton of fun on all our trips, it's nice to be back home.

Montana was great. We spent a lot of time playing with little Ben and hanging out with family. I didn't catch any fish, but had fun trying. A really good time.

Discostup is in town, and Fwats flew down for our big Fantasy Football draft over at Papa Roston's. As always, an absolute blast. It's great to have Doc Mike in town. What a guy. I hope he's having fun before he has to head back to the war.

That's it for now. More news and pictures later.

Back from Tahiti!

We're home for less than 12 hours before flying out to Montana, which is a little overwhelming, but no complaints here!

Tahiti was really, really great. Perfect weather. Perfect snorkling. Lots of reading and relaxing. A really nice time. Leaving Tahiti and landing in nasty, smoggy LAX is kind of a downer.

Now we're back. I've dumped pictures, and will put up a hastily thrown together slide show. Click the pic to get there.

Hope things are good with all of you!

Woo... just after settling in, we're leaving on another vacation. We've rented a car to drive up to LAX (a PT Cruiser!), which we do this evening in time for an 11:45pm flight to Tahiti! I think we get in local time at like 5 or 6 in the morning, then take a hopper to Bora Bora. I'm really looking forward to the trip.

We've enjoyed our time here at home. Diana's worked on some of her summer graduate classes (with just a couple one-unit classes she moves to the next pay scale), and I've been playing "Ultima Underworld" again. For anyone who has never played it, I HIGHLY recommend checking it out. Download "dosbox" (a free DOS emulator), and "Ultima Underworld" from some abandonware site, and you're on your way. Good times.

We've also changed our Montana trip a bit. We used to have a week or so between Tahiti and Montana. Now, we've changed it so that we get home, have about 24 hours, and then back to the airport to Montana. So, we'll be back early enough to catch Discostup on the San Diego leg of his R&R. Hopefully, at least. Changing plane tickets, uh, sucks.

That's about it for now. Gotta go take care of last minute stuff before the trip(s). Take care, everyone!

So, we're back from the first of our three summer vacations.

There's really too many pictures and too many thoughts/memories to do it justice, but here's a bit of an overview.

We first flew to Maryland and stayed with Dave and Elaine and Ben. In spite of the weather being pretty rainy, we had a great time hanging out. Ben is such a fun little guy. He's very interactive, and just fun to watch him run around and do stuff. Memorable parts of the trip were when the basement flooded, and we ran around in a lightning storm trying to get pumps working to clear the water out. Fooling around with electricity while standing in 6 inches of water didn't seem like the safest thing, but we soon got it all squared away. Diana and I also took a little day trip to Gettysburg, and drove around the battleground while listening to a CD-tour. That was really interesting.

We then jumped on a plane to Gothenberg, Sweden by way of Copenhagen. I was pretty giddy to be in Europe (Adam: "I can't believe how many SWEDES there are around here!" Diana: "Ok, that's enough..."). We'd rented a car, so I got to drive around a foreign city in a stick shift after a sleepless night. That was pretty crazy. Anyways, we made it to Alicia and David's apartment, and it was great to meet up with them.

That first day is a total haze. We stayed up as late as we cool, walking around and seeing the sights of Gothenberg, and ended up going to bed at around 6pm, and sleeping for about 12-14 hours. Nice.

The next day, we drove up to David's mom and step-dad's farm in the countryside, and had a very nice evening up there. They live on some estate that was established in the 15- or 1600's. The house has obviously been updated and so forth, but it was still pretty impressive. We spent the evening with their family, eating and playing a game that was kind of like horseshoes.

The next morning, Diana and I parted ways with everyone, and drove north to Olso. I was a bit nervous to head out on our own (Alicia now speaks pretty fluent Swedish, which was obviously handy, and a lot of fun to watch), but we made it through without any problems.

We got to Norway, and got on a train which headed across the country to Bergen, which is on the west coast of the country. The train ride was pretty incredible, going up over the mountains and showing us some really nice sights.

Bergen was a beautiful little city. Our train arrived at around 11pm (but since it was full dusk out, it felt like 6pm), and we were able to find our hotel and get settled.

The next day was the big "Taste of Norway" tour. I thought it was going to be some big organized tour, but it was actually a series of tickets that took us on trains, a boat, and busses around the area. The boat trip through the fjords was pretty cool. It reminded me a bit of Glacier National Park. Just beautiful. That tour lasted all day, and then it was back to the hotel for the night. The next day was hiking around Bergen (especially the cool twistly little streets), exploring the fish market (I tasted a free sample of whale meat. It was pretty good. I hate myself), and then back on the train to Oslo.

Oslo, by the way, was a mess. We had a hell of a time finding our way around, getting lost, etc. We finally pulled off the main road to look at our map, and found we'd pulled right up to our hotel. Sweet. Similiarly, we couldn't find our parking garage until we basically stumbled right into it. We didn't have much time to explore, just spent the night and drove back to Gothenberg the next morning.

Back in Gothenberg, we returned the rental car, and spent the next 5 days hanging out with Alicia and David, staying at our hotel at nights, and cruising around the city in the day. Alicia, as I said, is basically fluent in Swedish, which I found really impressive. The days were all very active. We went to various museums and parks, as well as a mini Magic-Mountain type fun-park. We took a boat tour along the canals of the city. We went to an "ice bar" in the fun-park, which was pretty neat.

David and Alicia had just moved into a new apartment when we first arrived, so by the time we got back from Norway, they were mostly moved in. They have a nice little setup. Their apartment is up on the top of a hill, which made for tiring walks to get there, but beautiful views when we took our dinners outside to eat.

Alicia hosted a Fourth of July party for about 10 peeps, and that was a lot of fun. People from multiple countries were there (Sweden, France, South Africa, Austria, US). Everyone spoke English, and it was really a lot of fun to talk to people about various cultural differences between countries. I tried to rationalize why American's didn't embrace soccer as much as the rest of the world, yet can watch baseball (arguably "boring") or football (commercials every 30 seconds seemed like a pretty big deal to the guy I spoke with). Another girl said that she understood that talking about money (like, someone salary) was kind of an uncomfortable or rude topic, and how it's totally not in Europe. All very interesting.

For the party, Alicia asked people to bring something "American". People brought Budweisers and Cokes, and someone busted out an American football. I showed some of the guys how to throw it, as well as the basic rules of two-on-two street football (though we didn't actually play). We played a game of "water balloon toss", where you throw the balloons back and forth, getting further and further apart each time. It was all very nice.

It was sad to leave, but we said our goodbyes and made it back home without much problem. All in all, a great trip. Gothenberg, to be honest, isn't really a hot tourist destination in and of itself, but seeing Alicia and David was great, and we had a lot of fun every day. For my part, just going to the grocery store, or sitting in a park watching people, and just being in a foreign country was cool.

I have a little subset of pictures to put online, as well as a host of other memories and experiences which are too intricate to try to type out here.

Now, a few days rest, and then a brief trip to Tahiti. We leave in the middle of the night on Wednesday, and are gone for a week or so. Woot!

I know, I know, more pictures. But we're excited! Click the picture for more before and after pics.

So I go to the bookstore to buy a book for our upcoming vacation. While walking by the magazine section, and noticed a girl (young teen, probably 14 or 15) reading a magazine. I happen to glance down and see the bold print title of what she's reading: "62 Ways to Blow His Mind in the Bedroom" Awesome. I can't help but make the comparison: somehow this seems more dangerous to me than a 14 or 15 year old boy playing a violent computer game.

I bought "Tai Pan", apparently the next book in the Asian Saga (following "Shogun") by James Clavell. I can't wait to read it. I'm halfway through "Planiverse", and in spite of hearing good things about it, it's just boring me to hell. It's about a professor and his students who happen to make contact with a two dimensional universe (the humans view the universe from the side). It has some interesting bits about how life and society might work in a 2D universe, but is high on minutia and low on "cool". In my opinion, at least.

So why did I buy "Tai Pan"? We're leaving for the first of many journeys on Saturday!

Here's the rough schedule:
San Diego to Maryland to visit Dave, Elaine, and Ben.
Maryland to Sweden to visit Diana's sister and boyfriend.
Sweden to Norway to see the sights. We're taking some train across Norway which is supposed to be incredible.
Back to Sweden for more visiting.
Home July 8th.

Then a few days later, off to Tahiti for about a week. That's going to be some wacky time changes, Sweden to SD to Tahiti.

Then, home for another four days or so, and off to Montana for a week. Then back to San Diego, off for a few more days, then back to work!

It's going to be pretty crazy, but should be lots of fun. I might try to add some vacation time to the end, just to have some time at home to recover before going back to work. We'll see.

And we're leaving just as landscaping is getting all tied up. Today they are putting in lights and grass, which I believe is the final step, aside from planting a few more bushes and stuff. I can't wait to see it when I get home.

So, that's about the size of things. I'm not sure what my net access will be over the coming weeks, but I'll be taking lots of pictures and will post something up when I can. Smell ya all later!

Oh, by the way... Someone hit the fire hydrant right outside our building the other day. It created a five storey high geyser, a TON of water, and ended up flooding out the bottom of the underground parking garage. Here are some pics:

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So I've been watching a fair amount of World Cup, and while I really enjoy watching soccer, I really dislike one particular aspect.

Cheating. Intentionally breaking the rules and trying to get away with it.

The games I've seen are chock-full of players playing a weird sort of meta-game against the ref, where they try to get away with anything they can. Any replay will show players grabbing the hell out of each other. If someone is barely nudged, they'll take a flying leap and roll around grabbing their ankle. And everyone knows they're doing it. It's pathetic, and somehow it's an accepted part of the game. The fact that there is a penalty against taking a dive just proves my point. It's out of control.

Another prime example is when the player is awarded a penalty kick at some random spot in the field. Almost invariably, the player will grab the ball, and when they bend down to place the ball, they actually throw it forward with backspin so that they get it an extra five or ten feet up the field. But what's the point? In 99.9% of situations, an extra couple feet on a penalty kick will make no difference. But yet that kinda of cheating mentally seems to be so ingrained that it's just natural. (Now that I think about it, maybe I should start doing that when placing my ball to putt in golf. Just toss it forward a few feet and hope no one notices).

I'm probably an idealist, but it really bugs me.

There's a popular phrase "if you're not cheating, you're not trying", but I think that's BS. Games, by definition, need rules and structure. I agree that a third party (read: referee) is almost always needed for impartial judgement, but players in any game need to have some sort of self-control.

Otherwise, it just turns into chaos.

I was playing CounterStrike last night, and we had an obvious wall-hacker on. For those not familiar, a wall-hacker is someone who cheats by using software that allows him to see through solid walls. Because you can jump into the head of any player and see everything from their point of view, I was able to observe him looking into a blank wall, track sideways to the corner of the wall, and then shoot the player as soon as he appeared at the corner. Stuff like that. His record was like 28 kills to 5 deaths, which certainly isn't unheard of, but is pretty damn good.

Just makes me sad.

Statistics crack me up... During the Ghana/Italy world cup game today, after Italy scored the first goal, they talked about how they've previously lost games where they were the first goal scorer. They also said that "only 14% of teams that score the first goal go on to lose, so it just shows you how important getting that first goal really is." The commentator was all into this critical stat.

But they made it sound like getting the first goal was more like a random choice, like flipping a coin to choose sides, and whoever got it had a big advantage. But what I think is more likely is that there is a strong correlation between "getting the first goal" and "the team with the better players".

There was a recently a Slashdot article written about how a random phone poll was conducted, and those polled were not that concerned about the recent reports that phone companies had turned over all their call records to the NSA. Someone made a very insightful comment that there is probably a correlation between [people who don't care much about their privacy] and [people who respond to telephone polls]. To put it another way, people who DO care about privacy probably don't participate in telephone polls. To put it even ANOTHER way, 100% of the people polled said that they participate in telelphone polls. Get the idea?

Diana was really the person who opened my eyes to not just reading statistics, but really understanding and questioning the entire issue. Statistics can seem really cut and dry, but often deserve a closer look.

In other news, the progressive-thinkers in Oklahoma have passed a low to make "inappropriate" video games akin to pornography, with regard to displaying and sales to minors. Inappropriate games are ones that "feature glamorized or gratuitous violence" (uh, that's like, half the games right there), and "trivializes the serious nature of realistic violence" (oops, there goes Counterstrike, or any FPS that allows you to reload your game when you die), and "uses brutal weapons designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain and damage" (I guess Doom's chainsaw wasn't a big hit), "or depicts lead characters who resort to violence freely" (So, World of Warcraft will apparently have to include some sort of diplomatic, non-combat solutions to solving quests and getting rewards). Awesome.

I'm certainly not saying that all games are appropriate for all ages. But I AM saying that we already have a non-governmental group, the ESRB, who issues ratings for games, just like the MPAA does for movies. I don't want to get all Big Brother here, but do we really want the government to start rating our movies for us? What about TV shows? Books? News broadcasts?

Luckily, I believe I read that the case isn't over, and since games may or may not be protected by the First Amendment, then states don't have the right to override that. So, we'll see what happens.

Sorry. I guess I had that all bottled up and needed to get it out.

In case you missed it, here's another magic video!.

Also, I figured out how to do another one that is REALLY cool. I'm currently practicing it, and hopefully will video-ize it soon!

PS: Iwan, I want Sara's comments, please! :)

Diana apparently has a magician in her class, and she showed him my previous YouTube magic videos. He wrote me a little message on YouTube, and I got inspired to make another movie.

So, digital camera films the movie. Got it. Picasa grabs it and sorts it. Check. Windows Movie Maker, which I've never used much before, was a breeze. Download the "Dating Game" theme, which should be a pre-requisite for ANY magic video, says me. Upload the whole deal to YouTube.com. I notice a little "Embed" tag, which I just cut and paste below to get the video embedded into my blog.

Easy peasy. I'm pretty much in love with technology right now.

UPDATE:

So, it turns out that if I embed a YouTube video in my blog, then my blog address is visible on my YouTube page. And since one of Diana's students is aware of my YouTube presense, and she really doesn't want students to be in here, I've removed the video.

Yesterday, while waiting on something at work, I wrote a program to track keyboard and mouse usage. Why? I have absolutely no idea. But it seemed like a fun thing to do. I'd never writing something that lives in the System Tray before (down by your clock in the lower right), and the technology that allows it to intercept keyboard and mouse action even while in the background (keyboard and mouse hooking) is interesting and useful. So, it was a fun little exercise.

Today is 06/06/06, and news heads are all yammering about it. But they're not yammering about anything useful or relevant. They're all making a big deal about people making a big deal about it. Dumb. As if the antichrist were really stupid enough to show up on 06/06/06... In related news, the previews of the new "Omen" movie REALLY freak me out. I don't like scary movies.

In even other news, Netflix is about to ship "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure". I can't wait!

Sooo, buttons.

The weather is getting pretty nice out, and luckily I've had some opportunities to take advantage of it. My work peeps had our quarterly "team building" event, where we went to see a Padres game last Wednesday. The first cool thing was that we sat in one of the suites in the Western Metal Supply building out in left field, which was pretty cool. Nice box seats (in the shade!), with free dogs and stuff. Good times. The other cool thing was, in spite of a relatively boring game, we pulled out to a lead, and in the top of the 9th, the bells started tolling and Hoffman made his sloowww jog from the bullpen in center field, all by himself, out to the mound, while the crowd was going crazy. 10 or 11 pitches later, the game was over. That guy rocks.

Yesterday Diana and I headed over to our boy Andy's apartment, where we met up with Eryn and some other peeps for a little frisbee golf and BBQ'ing. That was a really good time. I think frisbee golf is pretty fun, in spite of the frustration of missing little 10 foot "putts". All in all, a good time with good peeps. My frisbee throwing muscles are a bit sore today!

The house is still coming along. It's now a different color! We painted it a medium green color, with white trim. It looks pretty good. I don't think it's EXACTLY right, but it's certainly not awful enough that we'll have it redone. I'm a little concerned with how the new stone facing looks against it. The stone looked awesome with the warm-y peach color, but it's not quite as good up against the cool green color. But, it'll probably have to do, but it's just not quite right. With the painting done, and the hardscape/tiling mostly done, I think that just leaves planting and final landscaping, and it'll all be done! Woot.

My latest invention in Second Life, which allows players to create and speak their own languages and which I thought was going to be a huge hit hasn't sold many copies at all. I'm disappointed. I need to get in the game and try to generate some buzz. I bought a workboys PS2 and a copy of Guitar Hero, and Diana and I have both been jamming out. It's really fun to watch her get better and better.

So, there's the state of my life in a nutshell. :)

Saw this on Slashdot, thought it was funny... You probably won't, but hey, start your own blog. :)


(The screen is white, two men stand, full view, in front of the camera. One is middle aged, and wearing a suit. The other is wearing jeans, a "Think Different" T-Shirt, and an iPod. The suited guy is holding a joystick, and making reflexive movements)

Suited Guy (PC): "Woah... out of the way... bang, gotcha! Hahah! Oh no. Oh no! Dudududududu! Ha! Who's your paternal-figure? Hey? Hey? Who's your paternal figure?"

Hip Young Guy (Mac): "Hey dude, whatcha doing?"

PC: "I'm playing a really awesome game. You play a secret agent, and you have to shoot the henchmen, and... hold on... woah! Ok, you want a turn?"

Mac: "Oh, come on! Surely you could be doing something productive, like, erm, burning DVDs? I can burn DVDs. Yeah! Make your own movies, it's cool"

PC: "Yeah, I did that once. Hold on... woah! Gotcha! Haha! Gotcha, what's behind the wall? Oh... hey, it's multiplayer if you want to join in."

Mac: "Oh, games. Aren't those what games consoles are for?"

PC: "Depends on the game. This is an mod someone did for Doom 5, so you'd never see it on a console. You just don't get that kind of innovation on closed platforms like consoles. Hold on, I got it! I got the papers! Now, how do I get out? Er..."

Mac: "You know, you ought to be sorting through the pictures on your digital camera which I can do really easily with iPh..."

PC: "Yeah, that'd be a real fun time. Real. Fun. Time. Yeah. Sure you don't want a game? Hold on... blam! Gotcha! Where the hell did he come from anyway? Ok, through this wall..."

Mac: "Oh no, games are such a waste of time. I'd rather do something productive like, erm, manage my iTunes collection. That's something I'm good at..."

PC: "Me too, you do know I run iTunes right? Aw come on, let your hair down a little. I thought I was supposed to be the stiff."

Mac: "No."

PC: "Wait... I think there's a hidden passage here... read it in a forum somewhere... oh yeah, next to the pot plant, got it, extra health, excellent. Anyway, why not? Why don't you want a go?"

Mac: "I don't want to talk about it."

PC: "What?"

Mac: "I said I just don't want to talk about it, ok? Ok?"

PC puts the joystick down for a moment: "You can't play games. That's what it is, right?"

Mac: "Right. Ok. So I can't play games. What's the big deal? Nobody plays games anyway."

PC: "Sure. Nobody does. Right. Yeah, just me. Just boring, suited, me. Not like I play more games than all the games consoles put together. Right."

PC falls on floor, rolling with laughter.

Mac: "Ok. OKAY! Now let me turn this photo slideshow and jingle I put together in Garageband into a DVD. Not a waste of time like playing games is."

Mac walks off in huff. PC picks up joystick and continues playing.

Fade to black:

"Apple Macintosh"

"The Computer That Can't Play Games"

"But That's Ok Because Nobody Plays Games Anyway"

BEFORE:

(Man, I can't believe how overgrown it was!)


AFTER:

New stonework to cover the bricks...


More...

The new fence...


Looking down the side yard...

Where the new patio will be... The spa will move over by the dining room.


We replaced the bricks in the concrete with slate.


The courtyard will get poured soon.

Won't someone think of the children!

Here's a nice article/graph regarding the amount of violent crimes committed by teenagers.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/offage.htm

I wish I could overlay that graph with number of video game units sold in the same time period... Kind of takes the wind out of the "video games create violent children" argument. (Or maybe we're just better at covering out tracks! Muhohhahahah!)

Activity!

I awoke this morning to a flurry of activity outside. There must have been a dozen workers doing various jobs. There were a couple guys putting up stone over the brick on the column and either side of the garage. There were guys building a fence to separate the side yard from the front yard. There were guys to replace the brick embedded in the concrete in the back with slate, as well as cap the back retaining wall with the flagstone that used to be in the side yard. It's going to look a lot different when we get home tonight. I'm excited!

This morning, on the way to work, there wasn't much traffic, and I was cruising along at probably around 75 mph (in the slow lane). All of a sudden I see a motorcycle cop with a radar gun, kind of hidden off the side of the freeway behind the slope of an on-ramp, and I think I'm busted for SURE. I mean, he was pointing the guy right at me. I didn't even bother to hit the breaks, knowing I was busted for my first ever speeding ticket. But either I wasn't going fast enough, or he was aiming at someone else, or something, but he didn't come after me. I have to say that sinking feeling of "I'm busted" is very unpleasant.

Speaking of "I'm busted", I posted (and since deleted) a message that contained a comment on how Christians and Jews don't agree on some matters regarding Jesus. A reader emailed and commented that my statements were a little unclear and came off as anti-semitic, which might be the last thing in the world I'd like to be called. I think I'm slowly learning that posting about sensitive subjects in a casual manner can be dangerous.

Written communication is tough. I have a hard time with it. Baditude and I had a nice little back and forth online over some stupid miscommunicated issue that, if we were discussing it in person, would have cleared up within seconds. Maybe that's why legal documents are so hard to read? Because they need to be so precise? I wonder. But something about writing something down makes it so *permanent*. Words float away in the air and are quickly forgotten, or easily modified. Words on paper (or online) stick, and saying something wrong the first time around can be hard to overcome.

Anyhoo, that's about it for now. Work is going well. Iwan and the King bro's and I golfed it up yesterday evening at TP, and that was awesome. I really had a good time, and can't wait to go back!

"Last night, I dreamt that a hamburger was eating ME!"

I dreamt that I was walking around a shopping mall, and there was a guy I recognized as the mascot character for Guitar Hero (even though there really isn't such a thing as such). He was dressed in rocker clothes and a trenchcoat (he actually kind of looked like Jack Sparrow). But he was on stilts and like eight feet tall. Anyways, he and I posed for a picture together. I did my best rocker pose, complete with tongue out and throwing the goat, but I had something around my neck that was covering my face a little. It turns out it was part of my CounterStrike uniform. Anyways, I got that squared away, and got the picture taken.

I play too many games.

Last night I had a softball game. Softball is good, clean, mildly sporty fun. Our team is crap, but it's nice to socialize with work peeps that I don't normally hang out with. Someone on the team we played last week (who crushed us) asked if we were "an office team". I have to think that that is some thinly veiled insult in the hardcore world of amateur softball. Anyhoo, we won easily, and it was a good time.

I got home and Diana was crashed out. I was happy to see her asleep in bed at a relatively early hour. I played a few rounds of CounterStrike (which, like Nethack, keeps pulling me back, year after year). On this particular server there was a player named "Blondie", and another named "Jess". People starting asking if they were girls, and they both said yes. They started telling them to "prove it", and get on voice chat and stuff.

To me, this is a fascinating topic, and has been at the forefront of my mind for a month or two: how to tell if someone is the gender they say they are simply from instant messages. (This spawned from playing Second Life, and seeing about 90% female characters, and having the gut feeling that not all of them were actually female.) Maybe we can call it a Turing-ette test? Turette Test? Ha.

So in chat I asked if there were any questions that most girls would know the answer to, but not many guys would know the answer to. The "girls" responded that yes, there were many. I said "Maybe 'what is TSS?' or something?" Blondie responded with "lol ew" and "well, maybe a doctor would know that". That pretty much locked it up for me. She later got on voice chat, gave out her myspace page, and a couple guys fell over themselves trying to get in her virtual pants. After what I saw last night, I think if I were a chick CS player, I wouldn't tell anyone.

Which leads into the whole topic of how to make gaming more accessible to girls, which is a whole 'nother can of worms that shall wait for another day.

Lunchtime chess time! Smell ya later.

This might sound like a stupid statement, but I like it when I truly enjoy something. It seems that most popular forms of entertainment are just passable. Movies, TV, games, books... the majority, for me, are good, but not really all that great. It makes me profoundly happy to come across something that just stands out. I know it sounds obvious, but there it is.

So, as the picture indicates, I successfully complete every song in Guitar Hero on Expert difficulty. I'm quite proud of myself. Especially considering how I felt when I was new to the game, watching Eryn power through "Bark at the Moon" on Expert, thinking to myself "There is no WAY I could do that." But hours of glorious practice and hard work, and I feel like I've accomplished something. Diana actually got into the game as well, and it was a lot of fun to watch her skills progress. She had pretty much dominated Easy and Medium, and was doing pretty well in the easy songs on Hard. And I'll tell you one thing: My respect for the dextrous skills of my boy Baditude has skyrocketed. Even though we've both completed the game, his high scores were consistently 1.5x or 2x mine. That guy is good. It was hard to say goodbye, but I returned the game to Eryn this weekend. Guitar Hero 2 comes out in November, so I might start saving my nickels and dimes. It seems silly to buy a PS2 just for one game, but maybe I can find a used one.

Speaking of having fun, as well as my boy Baditude, we've been having fun playing board games recently. There appear to be a number of really fun games that fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between party games (totally accessible to everyone) to role-playing games (only for the true geeks). The other night, after watching the Suns beat up on the Lakers, we played a rousing game of "Mall of Terror" (I think it's called). It involves players stuck in a shopping mall as zombies are invading. Every turn, zombies show up, people have to move around, and if there are more zombies than players, the players vote on who gets thrown to the zombies. We also recently played some Carcasonne, which I think would be fun in a group, as well as a two-player strategy war-game. All good times.

In other news, Diana and I went with our contractor (who, by the way, saw the guitars and said he played the game... we were BFF at that moment) and landscaper to go to a nursery and look at plants. It was surpisingly fun to walk around and pick out stuff that we liked. They are going to bring some samples by today, I think, and put 'em in various spots so we can see how we like things. There's something very appealing about picking stuff out and having someone else do all the legwork. Unfortunately it has certain drawbacks as well...

That's about all the news for now.

So I thought I'd post up some Before and After (well, "middle", technically) pics of our landscaping project. Pretty exciting!

Oh! And here's a bonus... a magic trick for your viewing pleasure.

So, Diana is gone for her spring break. She took a little roadtrip with a friend of hers to Palm Springs where it sounds like they're getting some much needed R&R. It sounds like she's having a good time, and I'm really glad she's taking this time off to relax. For my part, it's pretty weird when she's gone. I tend to think that our lives are obviously closely joined, but we are not completely inseperable. But when she's gone, it becomes very obvious what a huge part of my life she is. I take for granted that I get to see her everyday, and talk and laugh about stuff, sing silly songs, and so on. I'm looking forward to having her back.

That said, I'm taking this opportunity to totally veg out with video games. As I noted in my last post, I got my hands on a PS2 and a copy of Guitar Hero, and have been rocking out for hours on end. I swear, that game rules me. I've repeatedly said "Ok, just one more song... one more level... one more hour..." over and over again. My left forearm is sore and gimpy from working the buttons. I had some weird nirvana moment when I was playing Unsung by Helmet and hit a complicated series of chords on the first try. I actually shouted out in joy, alone in the house. Few games have had that effect on me.

In other news, our landscaping is in full effect. Cement is being jackhammered up. Plants are being ripped out, moved, planted. It's all very exciting to finally see it all underway, and fun to come home every night and see what has changed. After doing only a small amount of yardwork in my life, it's pretty amazing to see what three or four dedicated workers can get done in a day.

Oh yeah... I'm withdrawing all my funds from Second Life. Not quitting, per se, but at least getting out of the casino hosting business (so I don't need to keep any significant funds in the game). Total net profit: $123.19

So I'm getting over a cold. Nothing too serious, but I took a day off from work this week to rest. I played computer games, and took a bath and read my book. As I was taking my bath, I wondered if taking a bubblebath by myself would make me have to turn in my Man Card. Is a guy taking a bath metrosexual in a hip, in touch with my feminine side kind of way? Or just plain fancy-boy? Either way, it was just what the doctor ordered.

I'm reading Shogun for the second time. Best freakin' book EVAR. I can't believe how fired up I am to be reading it again. It's even better since, after the first time I read it, I bought the TV miniseries on tape and watched it. That was a long time ago, though, but as I'm re-reading, I have a much better visual sense of what's going on, and names and places are more familiar. Highly recommended.

Since today is Friday, Diana is officially on her spring break, which is great. She's taking a brief road trip with a friend of hers to Palm Springs. I'm going to miss her, but I'm glad that she's taking some time off to relax, and nice that she's reconnecting with an friend she hasn't seen often. Coincidentally, I've arranged to borrow a Playstation 2 (thanks Norm!) and a copy of Guitar Hero (thanks Eryn). So I should be all set.

We just watched a movie called "The Station Agent". It's about a dwarf whose best friends dies, and he moves into an old abandoned trainstation place, intent on being a hermit. But he gets to know his neighbors and humor, heartache, and generally touching moments ensue. Good movie, if you're looking for something to watch.

S'about it for now. Smell you all later.

So...

Not a whole lot of news to report, which I suppose is a good thing. Go read Discostup's blog if you want to read some really interesting, insightful, emotion stuff. Relatively speaking, my life is pretty boring.

Our landscaping is getting started! At the end of last week, I was greeted each morning by a couple workers in the yard, and we've come home each evening to fewer and fewer weeds. It's amazing what a couple of dedicated workers can get done in a couple days. It's also really nice to see the yard as a blank slate. With all the brush removed, we can kind of see where things are going to go and how it's going to turn out, and are excited. It's also nice to know that the fundamentals like irrigation and drainage are going to be taken care of properly, as those have been sort of a problem.

Speaking of expensive, all our summer vacation plans have been firmed up. We're going to Sweden for 10 days to visit Diana's sister and see the sights. Then back home for a couple days, and then to the other side of the world to relax at Bora Bora. Then back for a bit, and then another trip to Montana. It's going to be busy, but should be a ton of fun. I'm looking forward to all three trips individually.

I'm recouping those expenses as I can (ha!) via Second Life. I have a couple products up for sale, as well as a Let It Ride game on a casino floor, which I'll put up for sale soon, as well as a couple other ideas in various states of development. My account is up over $100, which is pretty crazy to me. I should set some goals, maybe, and reward myself with the earned funds. We'll see. I actually busted out with some Counterstrike Source as well, which I hadn't played in forever, and that was pretty good fun.

Poor Diana was sick this weekend, but we were able to hang out with peeps to watch basketball on Saturday. It's funny, because the day before, it had occurred to me that I hadn't heard any news about the NCAA tournament for a while, and it was quite possible that the whole thing had ended without my knowing about it. Not that that would bother me at all, but I thought it would be funny to tell Norm that that had happened. But alas, it looks like the cave I live in isn't that deep. :) Diana and I started watching "All the President's Men" last night. Good flick. I also saw "Inside Man" recently, and really enjoyed that a lot.

I guess that's about all I got. Work is going well. Things are good.

More Second Life fun...

As I think I said earlier, if I'm not working on a project in Second Life, I'm not that interested in it. Lots of people hang out in dance rooms, chat, meet people, etc, but that doesn't interest me much.

So, I've been trying to keep busy.

As you'll recall, my first foray into Second Life was doing scripting work for a guy. He paid me what I think now was way too much to make some casino games. His shop has since disappeared, and I haven't heard from him, in spite of him saying that he had big plans for more games. Oh well.

I then made my own game (well, based on a Vegas game that Iwan described to me), and rented out a spot at a casino/club. The rent was supposed to be for a week, and that time has since expired and I haven't heard anything, so there it remains. The game doesn't get played that much, and it appears to be about breaking even, so no big news there. I had the game listed for sale at L$1500 (about $2.50 USD) on a Second Life shopping website, but no buyers. I reduced the price to $500, but still nothing. However, I just got a message in the game, though, from someone who was interested in buying it, so I immediately went to the shopping site, jacked the price up to $1500, and told him that was the going rate, but if he wanted to buy directly from me, we could work out a deal. What a sneaky bastard I am. :)

Apart from that potential sale, the casino game business is mostly a flop (so far). I decided to switch markets and create an Easter Egg Hunt system. That has done relatively well, selling 6 copies so far at $1 USD apiece. Woo hoo (did you hear the sarcasm?) I'm hoping that, because the hunt is meant to be played by a lot of people, it will get some exposure and interest will be sparked. Not holding my breath, but it's fun to hope. Maybe as Easter approaches.

After that, I needed a new project. I had two working ideas that I wanted to harness. The first is that player-vs-house gambling games seem to be less popular than player-vs-player games where the house takes a cut (texas hold'em is a good example). The second idea was a commission-based product, where the creator (me!) gets a cut of every pot. This game could be passed around for cheap or free, and I would get paid based on it's performance.

So I created the Cutthroat Lottery Ball. There are a lot of "lottery" systems that others have made, where everyone puts money into the pot, and after a certain amount of time, a winner is chosen, they win the pot, and the process repeats. Totally stupid, but people love it. Also, owners typically add money into the lottery to attract customers. The twist that I added (the "Cutthroat" part) was the concept where the last player to donate money wins a portion of the pot. It's configurable, but something like 25%. The idea, hopefully, is that players will see who the last player is and exactly how much they'll win, and keep donating to be the last one in the pool (kind of like "sniping" in eBay). More donating means bigger pots which means more money for the owner (they can take a cut) and the creator (me!)

That's the theory at least.

I released the CLB in two versions. The first is free, and I get 10% of every pot. The second costs money, but the creator commission is waived. I put them up for sale last night (and an hour later, while lying in bed, thought of a critical bug that I had to get up and fix before anyone bought one!), and so far two of the commission versions have been sold (well, "sold" for $0). So, any minute now, the 10%'s should come rolling in!

The hooks have been baited. The lines are in the water. Now, it's just a waiting game. (Or, more likely, time to start baiting more hooks!)

If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears...

Diana saw some students playing a game at school, and thought it would be fun for us. It's a crazy game. It's called "Polarity", but I think we've dubbed it "the magnet game". The object of the game is to force the other player to screw up. The only think you're allowed to do on your turn is attempt to place a magnet in such a way that it "leans" up against magnets already on the mat. So you place them as dangerously as you can, in the hopes that when your opponent plays they knock them down (you score points when this happens).

It's good fun. We're still figuring it out. Here's a picture of a recent game.


 

Hail!

Dude, it hailed like crazy the other day. I'd never seen anything like it. I got outside and snapped some pictures... there must have been half an inch of hail everywhere! Pretty incredible. We even made a little "Hail Man"!

Enjoy...




 

Norm emailed me a while back, after reading my latest blog posts (I'm pissed I lost the furry post... oh well!), and said that it looked like I was playing a lot of Second Life. The truth is, at the time, I wasn't playing that much. When I don't have some specific project to work on or something specific to do, I'm not all that interested in it. It's just that the stories from the game have been so fresh and on my mind that they needed to be shared.

A week or so ago, Iwan and Sara and Diana and I met up with Norm and Teri at their house for dinner and to play some games. We had dinner, but ended up having so much fun just hanging out that the games never made an appearance. Norm and Iwan and I talked a bit about Second Life, and Iwan, fresh from a Vegas trip, told me about a game he saw called "Chuck-A-Luck". In roulette, you place bets on numbers, or red/black, odd/even, etc, and see where the ball ends up. Chuck-A-Luck is similar, except three dice are rolled. You can bet specific numbers (1-6), and get paid based on how many times that number appears on the dice. Or, you can take the sum of the dice and bet if it will be "over 11" or "under 10", or in ranges 3-7 or 13-18.

I thought it would be a fun game to try to make in Second Life. So I did. I made the basic physical (well, "physical") framework of the game, and then wrote all the code for it. When it came time to do final artwork, I gave it a half-assed effort, and then asked around for help. Whenever I'm tasked to do something artistic, I kind of panic. Anyways, unable to recruit any immediate help, I gave it more of a try. I have Photoshop, but I downloaded a copy of The Gimp, which is a great free-ware graphics program, very similar to Photoshop. Within a few hours, I was able to make a pretty decent backdrop for my game.

I got it all uploaded, and it all worked great. But now that I have this game, I don't really know what to do with it. I don't own any land, and even if I bought some plot of land somewhere, there's no reason that anyone would ever go there. So, I searched for a few casinos, and tried to contact the owners to negotiate selling the game or renting floorspace, without too much success. One lady said she'd put it up, and I offered L$250 for a week, and she basically said "done" (meaning, I probably got screwed). But, my game is live and on the floor of a nearly empty casino. It hasn't really been played (except for a tester or two), but it's still pretty exciting.

I also put the game up for sale on a Second Life shopping website. Hopefully that will generate some more interest.

With that project done, I was left looking for something else to do. In spite of my recent flurry of posts about SL, I'm really not that into it for the same reason most others are. I don't care about chatting. I don't care to meet new people online. There's gambling (with game dollars, which are exchangeable for real dollars) on unregulated machines, which is about the dumbest thing I can think of (in spite of being an author of said unregulated machines). So I decided to look into custom clothing.

Flashback: When I played the original Grand Theft Auto III on the PC, I found that the clothing, face, and hair of your character was all stored in a flat graphic file, available to be edited. All you needed to do was replace the picture of his shirt with your shirt, his face with your face, etc. Diana had the idea that I take pictures of my "comfs" (a generic term of the comfy clothes we put on after coming home from work). We both thought the idea of being a gangster, running around doing crimes while wearing a SpongeBob T-shirt and doctors scrubs was pretty funny. And it was. I took a screenshot, but it's on an old hard drive that I can't find. I'm pissed.

So, I decided I'd try to import my SpongeBob shirt, my scrub pants, and my house-shoes into Second Life. I took pictures of 'em all, and got those onto the computer. From the SL website, you can download templates that show where you're supposed to put the graphic items for shirts, pants, shoes, etc, so I worked for a bit and got that all done. I uploaded my new textures, and tried making a new outfit, and it totally worked! Rockin!

Also, recently, I'd seen people running around in the game with wings sprouted on their backs, and I thought it would be fun to try to make some wings based off the Luna moth, so I did that a while back. I even scripted 'em to randomly change position while you're on the ground, or spread open when you're flying. Pretty neat.

So, last night, once I had all this up and working, I tried on my new outfit! The result is about the gayest (I cringe to use the term, but can't think of a better one) thing I've ever seen in my life, but whatever, it was fun work and I'm proud of it!

Enjoy...

"FAB-u-lous!!"

PS: With my new wings on, I decided to have some fun. I found a popular casino/club where people were dancing on a dancefloor with a big discoball. I teleported in and yelled "AHHH, a moth!" and flew in a circle around the discoball, over the heads of the dancers. Unfortunately, I didn't get much of a reaction, but I just told this story to a workboy and we were dying laughing.


Good times.