Portal

Wow. Portal's a rare game, and I mean that in a good way. It's good that it's only $5 or $10, because of its length, but I don't know that a longer game would have been a better game in this case... but the base concept is unique and fun, a rare combination in this day and age.

So, the basics... it's a first-person shooter without the "shooter" part. It's really more of a puzzle game, where you have to exploit physics and the game's unique hook, the Portal gun, to advance through various tests and, eventually, try to escape the testing facility entirely. The Portal gun... well, think of the old cartoon standby, the portable hole. Now, separate the two sides of the hole and make them individually placeable on most surfaces (walls, floors, ceilings and the like) but still connected... walk into one wall on one end of a corridor and walk out another wall on the other end without going down the entire corridor, as one example. A more entertaining example... put one end up high on a wall, put another on the floor, and fall through. The first trip through, you have no momentum, so you just fall from the upper portal normally... the second trip, you end up shooting across the room, because your downward momentum is conserved and transformed by the portal into horizontal momentum.

Apart from the physical aspects of the game, the, erm, characters are loads of fun, too... the test overseer is an AI program filled with corporate doublespeak and a naive underestimation of how not-gullible you are. There are also some "turrets" here and there, which will gladly fill you full of holes... but are abnormally cute for the job physically, and sound so very innocent as they try to put you down.

So, if you've got a machine that will run Portal (I know it's on PC, and I think it's on the non-Wii consoles, too), I'd say it's worth getting... it's a great little game, and you will finally know why "the cake is a lie" is the meme it is today. If nothing else, you might want to Google up "still alive"... the credits song at the end (as sung by the destroyed(?) AI) is on YouTube, and has some fun bits that will come through even if you haven't played the game, I think.

Cheap games alert!

I buy my fair share (and then some) of first-run computer games... but, inevitably, some games that pique my interest don't make it home with me any time soon after release. Usually, this occurs because I have a game that I'm currently enthralled with, and I can't justify spending $50+ on something that will only take up shelf space. Eventually, the "cool, new" game supply dwindles, and the price drops on those other games, and I pick up a few then.

The cycle just got broken a bit. I'm still thoroughly enjoying Fallout 3, but Steam just put their entire collection on sale... including Bioshock and Portal for $5 each! If you've never checked out Steam before, and play games on your Windows computer, now is the time... the sale only lasts through Friday.

Merry Christmas

Sure, the weather here in Spokane has been nothing short of crap for the past week or so, but, luckily, not so bad to keep me from the family get-together. We did the Christmas Eve get-together this time around, and had the usual mix of pleasant surprises and disappointments, so I guess a good time was had by all. Here's hoping you and yours have at least as pleasant a Christmas (or other holiday of your choice)... me, I'm hiding from the snow for the duration, if I can help it.

Netflix pick: 30-Second Bunnies Theatre

Looks like it's been a couple of months since I last praised Netflix for their streaming video service, and especially the Roku box that ties into it. One big reason I like the service is that there are things that I would never "waste" a whole DVD rental on, for one reason or another, that are just there, waiting to be watched on a whim, that turn out to be quite worthwhile. I just spent entirely too long watching just such a raft of fun material, in the form of 30-Second Bunnies Theatre.

This isn't the first time I've been exposed to it... a couple years back, I caught a link to the Pulp Fiction episode and found it good for a laugh, but I left it at that, pretty much assuming that there might be one or two more movies that would be good for the treatment. If only I knew. The basic schtick, by the way, is that movies are re-enacted in 30 seconds, by animated bunnies... it doesn't sound like much, but they tend to be rather silly (slapstick is one of the few forms of humor that will fit comfortably in a 30-second frame). It's especially fun to see the lengths they go to in some cases to maintain the purity of the concept... think bunny Jaws or bunny King Kong as quick examples.

So, well, if you've got Netflix, you should at least check out a few episodes... you'll doubtless find a few chuckles in there. Heck, I even found versions of Borat and Napoleon Dynamite that I could stand to sit through... :)

What's cookin': Krumkake

For any poor benighted souls out there that don't know what krumkake is, it's a Scandinavian cookie-ish sort of thing, similar in form to an ice cream cone. Beyond that... well, they're generally sweet, but have a range of flavors and textures, and might or might not come stuffed with some sort of filling. This recipe makes a crisper, lacier krumkake... and, of course, being only a slight variation on my mother's original recipe, it's my favorite.

I won't go into quite the excruciating detail I normally do on these recipes, mainly because it requires specialized equipment (krumkake iron and form) that, if you are not already familiar with, you will have to first hunt down and, once found, would be well advised to read any manuals included to work out how to best use your gear.

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. butter
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 c. flour
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1/2 c. buttermilk
• 1/2 t. vanilla

Equipment

• small pan (suitable for melting butter)
• food processor
• krumkake iron and form

Procedure

• Melt the butter.
• Add the butter and sugar to the food processor, and combine.
• Add the egg to the food processor and combine thoroughly (looking for a uniform yellow color).
• Add the remaining ingredients and combine into a smooth batter.
• Cook your krumkake as usual.

In my case, this made 18 krumkake, of which three were sufficiently malformed that I had no choice but to eat them immediately... :)

One variant that I haven't tried yet... instead of 1/2 t. vanilla, 1/4 t. of ground cardamom might be tasty.

Right, I'm Facebooked now.

I held off as long as possible... I still remember the days, after all, when a thirty-something guy on Facebook could only be described as "pervy". But when your brother makes the request, whatcha gonna do?

So, since I've already got this spleen-venting space set up, I don't know how much use I'll get out of Facebook... but if you know me well enough to have alternate contact info for me, let me know and I'll see about friending you. I mean, I have no illusions that somebody can connect this persona to my Facebook account if they try, but I'd just as soon not make it trivially easy for anybody, either... :)

I weep for the lost math

I decided to stop off for a take-n-bake pizza on the way home from work tonight... and I happened to have a coupon on me for a large, 3-topping pizza for $9.49. Turns out the regular list price for this item is $12.49. The young lady at the till had to pull out a calculator to determine the difference was $3.00, so she could enter the discount into the register. I've seen youngsters with math problems at cash registers before, but rarely so... pathetically obvious, I guess.

Another interesting video toy

OK, this isn't quite as cool as Roku's Netflix box, but it's got some serious potential. It's a "TV HD Media Player" (link) that helps to bridge the divide between computer content and HD content... but, while the idea's cool, I don't know if the market will be there for it to really take off.

For some time now, people (especially younger people) have been downloading or ripping content from discs, and storing it on a portable device, such as a laptop or external USB drive. Of course, laptops have to be lugged about and recharged, and USB drives you have to find a computer to plug into. Now, in the past, I've seen a USB drive with composite TV outputs attached specifically to get around that problem, but they're a marginal oddity, really. The nice thing about this device is that it's a standalone item that you can leave plugged into a TV, either through composite jacks or HDMI (a good thing in this high-def age we're entering), and plug any USB device into it... hard drives, flash drives, maybe your PSP or digital camera... all sorts of possibilites for existing and yet-to-be-made USB devices are there for the playing.

The problem that I see for this is... who's going to buy it? I mean, the two big uses that pop to mind aren't necessarily for the media-holder. You could use it as a relatively easy way to get digital content to older folks... but I wouldn't think they're all that likely to pay $100+ for something that they don't know how to use themselves, and have gotten by without for years. Another great use for this would be for bringing a movie to a friend's house on a flash drive... but that depends on the friend already having this device, and if they're already tech-savvy enough that they're working with digital content, they may well have a network set up with a centralized storage server and some sort of TV media player already. In either of those cases, if the place you're wanting to show/play something doesn't already have this box, you have to lug this thing, and its associated cables, from place to place, which isn't that big of a step above taking a laptop from place to place... and I know my TV already has a PC input, so that limits the market even further.

It's a lovely idea, and I hope it catches on... heck, I kind of hope that this sort of functionality gets built into later TVs, so you just plug your whatever into a USB port on the TV and run with it. At any rate, I do like how it makes media more portable, especially without that "could lead to piracy" tinge that seems to color most cool new media toys.

I'm in technician hell

I try not to write too much about work... after all, if somebody "not in the know" traced me back to my company, anything I write about here could result in problems for my company, my termination, or both. However, sometimes you come across something That Messed Up that I, at least, can't contain myself.

So, if you were reading this back in July, there was a little rant about a sister company screwing the pooch on a Rather Important system, shutting us both down while I could do nothing but watch in disbelief. Well, it took a few months, but, about two months ago, my responsibilities were expanded to cover that company's machines as well... and what I found disturbed me profoundly. To the best of my ability to tell, nothing had been done in that office in the way of Windows patches since around 2006. I don't feel too bad about writing that "in public" now... as of this weekend, I should have the last of the machines brought up to speed... just in time for the next Patch Tuesday, but that's just the usual fun with Windows.

I thought I had things somewhat in-hand... but then, I started dredging through the assorted boxes that had been stuffed into the server room, separating out the chaff, as it were. I finished my initial sort-and-toss today, and discovered that the last boxed copy of our antivirus solution had been bought back in 2005. I haven't found any indications of online purchases anywhere either... meaning that they've been gimping along for over 2 years on outdated antivirus software. I suspect that they haven't had as much in the way of problems as they could have, due to some Barracuda hardware filtering their web traffic and incoming email... but the email filter subscription expired last month, and the web filter expires in mere days.

Now, for the cherry on top... it's a housing-industry-related company, in tough financial times. The head of this company couldn't scrape together the (admittedly high) renewal fee that Barracuda wants for their email appliance... but, when I approached him about the antivirus issue, his take on the problem was, basically, that the company might not survive the month (!), so he wanted to focus on that problem to the exclusion of all others. So, not only do I have security itches that I just can't scratch, now I've got that "your Christmas bonus might be an unemployment check" theme working for me. Mind you, my "real" boss, the guy running the parent company, isn't likely to let me go easily... but I do have to wonder how long he can continue his Quixotic quest to make his company profitable, especially in the face of his own advancing age and his wife's health problems.

Oh well, I guess I just have to soldier on as best I can for now. I've ridden a company to the bottom before... I sincerely hope that's not where this company's headed, and I think it's still a fair ways down if it is, but I'm definitely feeling less warm and fuzzy than I was yesterday.

Apple says "anti-virus"

Common knowledge for years has been that Macs don't need antivirus software, because Macs can't get viruses. As is often the case, common knowledge is wrong. Macs can get viruses, just like any other computer system... but they have been mostly ignored up until now, because they have been an insignificant portion of the market. Apple just came out with a knowledge-base article (link removed, see below) that should put that hoary old chestnut to rest, going so far as to recommend various commercial solutions to virus-checking needs.

Me, I just went and picked up iAntiVirus, which is free for single-machine use. From what I gather, it only works on Intel Macs, and only those running Leopard... but it only scans for Mac-specific signatures, something that I like (others complain about the potential for "forwarding on" Windows viruses to Windows people... people that should have their own antivirus, in my opinion). We'll see how this program works out...

UPDATE: Pride, thy name is Apple. Apparently, that knowledge-base article has been around for a little while, but, once the Washington Post stumbled across it and brought it to the attention of the world, it was quickly removed, since it conflicted with their marketing strategy. So now, they're not saying you don't need antivirus software as part of your defenses, but Leopard's built-in security mechanisms are implied to be sufficient. Me, I'm still recommending the free antivirus... that whole ounce of prevention vs. pound of cure thing is really nice, especially at the price.

UPDATE 2: Right, well, free antivirus is all well and good... supposing it's well-behaved. I'd noticed my computer being a bit sluggish of late (19DEC08), so I fired off a terminal and ran top. The iAntiVirus daemon was sucking up over 90% of CPU cycles! So, I've gotten rid of that beast, and I don't have any suggestions for a replacement. I guess I'm running with Apple's defenses alone for the time being.

Today's random bits

No rhyme or reason to the why of these today, it's just another one of those "nothing worth a whole post on its own" days...

• I hit Best Buy today, because the clip on my cell phone case broke... I don't think I've ever been in there this close to the dreaded "Black Friday". They've got piles of stuff set up in display piles, but all shrink-wrapped, and the "serpentine" checkout line all set up. Looks like they went and rearranged some of the departments while they were at it... heavens forbid anybody should be able to find what they want in a timely manner without tracking down a sales critter.
• I also gassed up on the way home today... for under $15, on a fairly empty tank. I can't remember the last time that happened, honestly.
• You know those little green army men many of us played with as kids? Wouldn't it be cool if they made something like Star Wars stormtroopers available in that size and volume? Maybe a mixed set... little white stormtroopers and orangey-brown rebels, something like that. I know I'd have a fine gift to give come Christmas if that existed... :)
  

Fun dining out

I had a lady college friend hit town today... some of the "old gang" got together with her for lunch, others were expected for dinner. Work's pretty all-consuming these days, so I opted for the dinner get-together... and just as well I did, since nobody else showed up. As such, I got to monopolize her for a good hour and a half while we dined, and much fun was had by us both. The main reasons I decided to write about this:

• We ate at Hill's, which is in downtown Spokane across from Auntie's Books. I've never been there before, and was favorably impressed. It's a place that does daily specials, and the duck proscuitto I had was pretty tasty... and the chicken my friend had looked and smelled pretty tasty, too.
• It's funny, watching people's expectations fall apart. When a gent came with our meal, he was obviously thrown by my getting the "pretty plate" while the lady had the, erm, sturdier fare. The waitress somehow figured that we were a dating couple, even though we were waiting for other people at first... and was similarly taken aback when the lady insisted that she wanted to pay for the meal.

All in all, a good time for all involved... :)

Stones, glass houses, and all that

A few days back, there was a protest gathering against California's Proposition 8... in Spokane, in front of Spokane City Hall. When I heard that, I was all ready to put forth a missive about appropriate time and place... you know, either go to California to protest a California proposition, or at least target something remotely connected to the support for the problem you're fighting. However, something didn't feel quite right, so I mulled it over a bit.

It finally struck me... what those protesters were doing was something quite similar to many of the blog posts I've made on this site. I mean, much of what I write in complaint here is "preaching to the choir", or at least to a napping congregation, or something like that... sure, I could write letters to my local congresscritters, City Hall, or the like, and possibly get some actual results, but I content myself with blogging in a "public" place where, in truth, very few people will ever read what I write, unless I go and do something unexpected to make my name (in)famous. As an added bonus, those protesters got some small sense of community, of being part of "something bigger", which I know matters quite a bit to some people.

So, much as I'd like to, I can't really mock those protesters too much. All I can suggest is that they aim a little higher, and take a little more risk, if they're going to be serious about supporting a cause in the future.

The war against Christmas is over

...and Santa lives on... in space, gathering power! No, wait, scratch that... I'm not here to talk about that particular bit of Invader Zim fun (and oh yes, fun it is). Neither am I blogging about the eternal complaints about The Public not embracing/enduring your particular religion's usurpation of the Winter Solstice festivities (that includes you, Christians). No, this time I'm off on a rant about the other bastardization of a perfectly lovely holiday season, its commercialization and, especially, its creep.

Younger readers might not remember that, even though commercialism around the holidays has been pretty standard for decades, that there was a time, not so long ago, where it was at least contained... that is to say, Halloween might be exploited for a few weeks beforehand, at most a month, then Thanksgiving had its turn (with maybe a slight nod to Veterans Day), then, immediately after Thanksgiving, the Christmas shopping season ripped into high gear. In recent years, there's been a little bleed-over between the separate holidays, but the pattern in whole has held pretty true.

As of this year, Thanksgiving has apparently been demoted to near-Veterans Day status by the powers that be. I snickered a little at first when Qwest and Comcast started dueling Christmas-themed ad campaigns the day after the election, sure that their snowflake imagery would be bad for them, what with the number of people who dread the approach of snowfall and all. But the madness has continued to build... and today, I saw the clincher. I hit my local grocery store for supplies, and found Christmas growing healthily, if not in full bloom... extra toys scattered here and there, Christmas decorations throughout the "seasonal" area, and Christmas-themed DVDs at the checkstands. Mind you, in many places I might shrug it all off... but Thanksgiving, with its heavy ties to food, is a natural for a grocery store to be pushing... instead, I saw a few anemic turkeys at one end of the meat section, and that was about it.

It's sad, really... I mean, I know the economy's in the shitter, but the reaction of the merchandising world at large seems to be to push the need to consume even harder, and please ignore that "be thankful for what you've got" holiday entirely. I know I'm pretty well turned off by the crassness of the whole thing... hopefully, by the time I get around to doing my gift-buying, there will be somebody left that I won't mind buying from.

No, really, World of Goo is pretty cool

I don't normally do "follow-up" commentary on games I've already blogged about... but I'll make an exception this time. On the down side, the end of the second chapter is, well, bizarre, and not necessarily in a good way... but the last two chapters (and, to a lesser extent, the epilogue) make up for it. That's especially true for you Gen-X types and younger boomers when you hit the "Information Superhighway" chapter, which comes complete with "green screen" technology and 8-bit sound in places. Oh, and those "artillery" games I reminisced about last time? You get to play a version of that with the gooballs on that last chapter, too.

Beyond that, well, let this be your guide to how hooked I am on that game... I took the day off yesterday, it being Veteran's Day and all, and figured I'd get some Fallout 3 time in (another worthy game, but a topic for another day)... but first, a little World of Goo. Eight hours or so later, I had finished the storyline, gone back through some of the earlier puzzles to gather more gooballs for my tower, and made more than one attempt to build a stable structure as high as I could. For all that the main game is "done", this is one game that I'm not done with yet... I'm obsessed by the fact that I'm still 2 balls shy of the maximum in tower mode, and haven't built a reliably stable tower to my satisfaction yet (I saw some Canadian got up to 29m high, and I'm sure I can do better than that). I'll be back, again and again... just not on a day that I need to get up and do anything the next day, I'm thinking.

Oh, side note? 8 hours clutching a Wii Remote in an underhanded death grip is a sure way for your body to tell you later that this is something you Should Not Do... but at least it doesn't seem to affect your ability to type or mouse about the next day, like, say, doing the same in most MMORPGs or FPSs would.

MetaPlace Beta

Well, MetaPlace has been in beta for a bit now... and now, I'm part of it. It's got a NDA, so I can't say too much about it so far... but if you're already in, and you know me, you can find me there. If you're not already in, well, there's a lovely link off to the right to apply for beta... supposing building your own games/worlds appeals to you, of course... :)

New president inbound, America shows their class

Public radio's on in the background, and John McCain just conceded. Maybe it's just been too long since I've heard a concession speech on the national level, but I honestly don't remember the winners being booed and jeered while the loser is delivering the speech... *sigh*.

Stay classy, America.

Never underestimate the power of "Free"

It was an interesting day in the Spokane Valley today... a local electronics seller teamed up with Waste Management and... Sony, I think? At any rate, the deal was supposed to be for people to drop off unwanted electronics at their warehouse for recycling at no charge, and also get a coupon worth money off on new gear, or some such. This event was heavily advertised, including a full-page newspaper ad and a "team-up" with a local morning news program.

Now, for those of you not from this area, you should know that "cheap" is a favorite word for most Spokanites, eclipsed only by "free"... normally, this is best demonstrated by the prevalence of buffet dining in the region, and the healthy attendance of store closing sales by the scavengers among us, myself included. It's also a region that, by and large, isn't particularly "well off"... people hold onto things like old computers and TVs on the basis that they might need them as a fallback, should something happen to their current equipment... especially since they don't know how to "safely" dispose of their computers, and trips to the waste transfer station cost money.

Oh, one more note... the group holding this recycling drive didn't establish much in the way of limits on what you could bring in, beyond "no appliances". Care to guess how things evolved from that point?

I was watching the news this morning on the affiliated station... the event was supposed to run from something like 7am to 4pm, it was 9am, and traffic was backed up several blocks to the nearest freeway offramps. The police had been called in for traffic/crowd control, and were pleading for anybody else coming down to use alternate routes. Word from the newsies was that they were looking at needing to bring in more containers for all the junk that people were bringing in, the ones on-site showcasing some of the "vintage" technology that had been brought in (think old record players and wood-cabinet TV sets), the ones further away looking more and more frazzled as the insanity continued.

Of course, I'm not immune to the lure of getting rid of old tech for free... I figured (especially since I had some laundry needing doing) that I'd wait for the afternoon, when things died down a bit, and dredge out my basement's collection of old tech goodies. I made it to the hornet's nest about 2pm, and traffic was still, to put it mildly, nuts... you had to make it all the way in to the center of the madness before anybody told you that they had closed the collection station early, because they didn't have anyplace to put any more junk from people's basements. Of course, there was still signage up directing people to come to the center, nary a "closed early due to popular demand" sign or any such to be seen... just some obviously ragged-out police doing their best to keep the swarm somewhat orderly.

Me, I shrugged, drove off to the transfer station and paid my $7 to unload my bounty (I sure wasn't going to stuff it back in my basement!). I'm thinking this might turn into a PR nightmare for the local companies involved, though... it'll be interesting to see what tomorrow's news has to say about the whole mess.

Halloween lives on

Boy, I was thinking I was going to have to write a "Halloween is dead" post tonight, but I finally got a few trick-or-treaters. Mind you, twenty after eight is pretty late for the first wave, even in my low-traffic neighborhood... but the tradition hasn't quite died in my neighborhood yet.

One down, hundreds to go

So, Alaska senator Ted Stevens was convicted of falsifying documents today (not corruption, because that's harder to prove, I gather). Nicely done, prosecution, I hope the conviction survives the appeals process... but that's not what has me writing, directly at least.

The Washington Post has some initial reactions from various parties at or near the whole mess here, and it's about what you would expect... Stevens proclaiming his innocense, Democrats, watchdogs, allied groups, and the odd Republican condemning him, many more Republicans supporting or neutral... but special attention should be paid to the bit at the bottom of the first page, the reaction of Alaska representative Don Young. In particular, this bit:

"I don't think he had a jury of his peers."

Well now, last I heard, we're a democratic republic, with no person "above" any other... I know I, for one, would just love to hear who Mr. Young thinks is, or is not, a peer to this senator.

Cartoons and politics

OK, first, for those of you not in the know... the final volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection is out now. If you're looking for some old wartime toons, or the phrase "this time, we didn't forget the gravy" has any meaning for you, go forth and consume!

On the other hand, if you're looking for something more contemporary, I just ran across a neat little flash cartoon called "Cup o' Democracy", presented by Captain Capitalism, that's both well done and relevant to this election cycle... click on this link, then on the "watch this movie" link on the resulting page.

Wii Downloads: World of Goo

I have a soft spot for physics games. Ever since I ran across my first Artillery game (back in Apple II days, I think), I've pretty much always enjoyed games where there were fixed physical laws to beat, using a limited toolbox. Unfortunately, most such games don't meet another requirement I have for a "good" game... mainly, a storyline. I mean, whether it's lobbing Funky Bombs in Scorched Earth or building contraptions in one of the Incredible Machine titles of years ago, there was never really any reason to be doing it, other than watching stuff blow up or feeding your inner Rube Goldberg.

Now, out comes World of Goo. I held off on picking it up earlier in the week, because $15 is a little steep for a downloadable title... but all the reveiws I've seen gave it high marks, so I gave it a go. I'm calling it $15 well spent, because the production values are remarkably high for a little indy title... graphics, animation, and sound all mesh together very, very nicely.

Of course, pretty doesn't matter much if it doesn't play well, especially in a physics game... but no fear, this game delivers the goods in playability, too, at least from the first chapter I've played so far. The storyline revolves around a bunch of little gooballs that get it into their heads to explore the world around them, particularly the odd pipes they keep running across. Of course, there's always some challenge that needs overcome... and the gooballs handle that with teamwork. You use your Wii Remote to pick up individual gooballs and add them to the "collective", building towers and bridges and the like to get where you need to go. Think of it in terms of balls and springs... you latch your little gooballs onto their neighbors, and the connections between them are stiff, and try to maintain their original length, but sufficent weight will make them deform a bit. While one connection varying isn't generally a big thing, the effect multiplies the more connections are in play, and the less stable the foundation of your structure is.

Of course, it's not even right to say "foundation" sometimes... just in the little bit I've played tonight, I've had to build out from under an overhang to reach its topside, built within a slow-moving tumbler, and built on a liquid surface (luckily, gooballs floated there). Oh, and I've also gotten to attach balloons to a structure, either to assist in building a bridge in a not-too-high, not-too-low game, or to fly my little gooballs up and away... and built "braced" structures against the walls of a ravine to get them off the ground... and they hint at more strange types of tools in later bits, so it's not like it's going to get dull real soon.

Then, there's the most insidious bit of them all, for you competition-minded types in particular. You see, each stage has a minimum number of gooballs that have to make it to the goal in order to beat the stage. Any extras you get go off to a separate playspace, where you can build them up where and how you like... and, should you choose to build "up", there are little visual toys to see and such... oh, and little clouds that represent how tall other players online have their little towers built, which you can check to see how many balls they're using, how many they've collected, that sort of thing... no names attached, just country flags. You can go back and replay stages you've already beaten to try for a higher score, and you'll get the difference between your new high score and your old high score added to your pool, so you can really get obsessive-compulsive about it, too (in fact, I'm pretty sure that's why I got the "OCD" tag on one stage I played... :)).

It's going to be interesting to see how the story on this game plays out (I'm already seeing bits about the gooballs not knowing how delicious they are...), and I'm really going to enjoy building up that tower of mine (so far, I'm beating everyone I've seen on a balls-used-for-height ratio... one case where an engineering mindset comes in handy... :)). The only potential downside I see so far is that there are only 4 "chapters" in the game (plus an epilogue), and I've already finished one... but, as the challenge increases, I'm sure my consumption rate will drop significantly. I'm calling it a good use for $15, so give it a go.

Coe committed... cor!

It's sad, really, watching our rights slowly slip away. Mind you, I'm no fan of Mr. Coe, but it does no good to not speak out in defense of our rights just because the latest victim is scum.

For those of you not in the know, Mr. Coe is a convicted rapist who has served his 25 year sentence for the crime. He is believed to be the first known serial rapist in Spokane, the so-called South Hill Rapist... I say believed because, for all their attempts back in the day, only one charge stuck all the way through the appeals process. Legally, he is a convicted rapist, but not a verified serial rapist.

Why do I make such a distinction? Well, Washington state has a statute that allows for a "civil commitment" hearing to determine whether a "sexually violent predator" can be committed to a mental institution for up to the remainder of their lives. If, for example, Mr. Coe had been convicted of multiple rapes, that could be used as evidence of his propensity to offend, his likelihood to re-offend in the future, that sort of thing... but he was convicted of one rape. Lacking that record, the prosecutor (at a "civil" hearing!) paraded forth several victims of rape from that timeframe, had them tell their stories on the stand, and basically put forth that the details sound an awful lot like the details of the one rape he was convicted of. How they convinced a judge that this was a permissible standard of evidence in a trial of any kind, I don't know... especially twenty-five years after the fact, it smacks of hearsay.

Of course, the way it's supposed to work is that all the crimes get handled in criminal court, where the burden of proof is substantially higher than "sure sounds like him", and consecutive sentencing ensures the bastard doesn't get out of jail, ever. I don't know if the statute of limitations expired on those crimes, or whether there was insufficient evidence to go after Mr. Coe the "right" way... but that's tough, either way. The prosecutor's office either dropped the ball on this one, or didn't have the ball to drop. Now, because of their "creativity", we get to hold on to this guy, at extraordinary expense, when his stated intention was to leave the state for good anyways, because of fear of retribution... all because, under the right circumstances, he might, maybe, try to rape somebody again, even though he'd have to register as a sex offender pretty much wherever he went, and would have the watchful eye of the local police upon him.

OK, so, for those keeping score at home, that's "standards of evidence" you can add to things like "free speech" and "reasonable search and seizure" as rights you once had. At least we haven't gotten to quartering troops in private homes yet... I'd have to ask the poor guy I got about the oath he took upon entering the military, specifically the bits about defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and we'd both likely get into trouble.

The final debate... finally!

Well, that was silly. McCain brought the angry old man act, and Obama mostly kept his cool, having to spend entirely too long dissecting the barbs and innuendoes sent his way. Also, if I never hear about Joe the Plumber again, it'll be too soon. My takeaway... Obama sure seemed to fill the role of "uniter" much better than McCain. For what it's worth, and all...

Scene from the morning commute

Yes, those of you that live in larger cities will laugh at what I call a "commute"... it's all of about 15 minutes from my house to where I'm working most days, most of that on a large, uncongested non-Interstate highway. However, it's still long enough, and with enough other people, that I run across the occasional oddity.

Take today for example... I come to a red light, and pull up behind an older model Ford Escort, a car even smaller than my Yaris. Inside the Escort is the driver... and hay. At least two bales of hay, to be precise... one laid down in the back seat, one belted into the passenger seat. I find myself at a loss to explain the circumstance where using an Escort for a hay wagon seems like a good idea... or to what purpose two bales of hay would be suitable. I mean, if it's gardening supplies, one would suffice for most purposes... and if it's feed, two bales would seem to be woefully small for any but the smallest ruminants. Maybe the guy's got a pet pygmy goat?

Death, with or without dignity

I just turned on public radio, expecting pleasant music after a long day, only to be confronted with a debate (?) about the upcoming initiative on assisted suicide. There is some pastor on there pushing his agenda in a very non-pastor-like manner, using mischaracterizations suitable for a polititian up for election. On the plus side, it gave me something to write about.

I'm hale and hearty, as far as I can tell... and I can foresee circumstances that I would not want to live through. Heck, in the past I've had headaches that I would have gladly gouged out my right eye with a spoon, if I thought it would help... but, being transitory, I endured and survived. If the day comes where I get even more pain, and the drugs don't work or leave me incapacitated, and death is certain and near, I would really like a relatively painless and stress-free method of ending the game. Lacking that, I would find a way... probably unpleasant and messy, but I would find a way.

So, all you Washington voters, be sure to check out Initiative 1000... unless I find something truly obnoxious in there, it'll be getting a yes vote from me.

Netflix + Roku + Starz = Good Stuff

In case you thought that the streaming video library provided by Netflix was limited... they just announced a deal yesterday where they added a bunch of content from Starz. Something on the order of another 1000 titles are now in the library, from fairly recent titles like No Country for Old Men, Spider-Man 3, and Meet the Robinsons, to some, erm, "classics" like Videodrome, They Live, and Akira. My active instant queue of stuff to watch is just shy of 100 titles now, and it just keeps growing... here's hoping Netflix makes more such deals, especially with Warner, Cartoon Network and the like... :)

Veep Debate - Yawn and Sigh

I won't call this a "fair" review of the debate... I only paid close attention for the first half-hour or so, then left it on in the background, because it was downright DULL. Unlike the presidential debate, where you got some foils crossing directly on occasion, the VP-wannabes talked almost exclusively about the main candidates... not unexpected, but not exactly riveting, either. I mean, if I want to get spun statistics about third parties, there's ads galore on the TV to slake that thirst. The bits I did notice when I was paying attention:

• Obviously, both candidates had been told to rein it in a touch and behave... no major gaffes on either party's part, but neither did they stray far from their prepared points.
• As is sadly normal for such "debates" these days, the "answers" given didn't often have much relation to the questions the moderator asked. In Biden's case, he might start with something approaching the question before curving back around to what he was after at the moment. In Palin's case, she flat-out told Biden and the moderator, in slightly nicer words, that she was going to talk about what she wanted to talk about, whether it related to anything the moderator asked, or Biden said, or not... disrespectful, but not unexpectedly so, again sadly.
• OMG, Palin's another one that can't (or won't) say NUCLEAR properly... ew.

Apart from that... eh, it was there. I'm thinking I made the right decision to do dishes for the last half-hour or so.

What are they THINKING?

For all I love my little Netflix Player box, it does have some drawbacks. For instance, discs you receive in the mail have a link on the website to report problems, while no such mechanism exists for streamed movies (a lack I noticed when trying to check out Shinbone Alley, a cartoon from the early '70s... somehow, they managed to get some "making of" material where the movie should have been). The biggest drawback, though, is that streamed content has to be made available through a licensing agreement with the owner/publisher... normally, that just means that the latest and greatest isn't available online, and, sometimes, content that was available gets pulled back (so if I feel a sudden urge to watch, say, Clan of the Cave Bear ,or Amadeus, I'll have to go to disc for now).

So, it's a pleasant surprise that the current season of Heroes is available as we speak (I gather they release each new episode on Tuesday). In exchange... season 1 of Heroes (which I had in queue for eventual perusal) is scheduled to go offline tomorrow. Never mind that it's the third most popular thing they've had available for the past three months, and second for all time... as of tomorrow, I'll have to schlep discs if I want to start the series. I suppose it's marginally possible that it's some capacity problem at Netflix, but it sure smells like something cooked up by the publisher to me (maybe they're getting ready to release a "collector's edition" of season 1?). Oh well... hopefully, it'll come back one of these days... and hopefully, I won't get a series yanked on me when I'm part-way through.

UPDATE: Season 1 is back, as of 04OCT08... except for episode 3. I watched the first two, and it looks like fun... so I guess I'll just have to find episode 3 online on the computer screen before I revert to the comfort of my living room for the rest. Again... what are they thinking?

At long last, my very own robot

I finally broke down and did it... Big Lots advertised a Roomba for less than $100, so I snagged one. I spent a fair part of today, erm, "testing" it around the house... for those of you thinking about getting one yourself:

• Uncarpeted floors are not its strength... it did a fair job getting the bigger bits up, but left a fair bit of dust behind.
• Regular-pile carpets and open rooms are its strength... at least, it did as good of a job as any amount of vacuuming I would be willing to perform on a semi-regular basis.
• Cluttered rooms and longer-pile carpets tend to take longer... in my case, the brushes actually bound up on cat hair before it considered itself "done", but it still did a more-than-passable job.

As an added bonus, it's somewhat quieter than a normal vacuum cleaner... which, among other things, means that cats won't necessarily run as soon as it turns on. The braver of mine was actually doing the "wading birds at the shoreline" bit with it... you know, "I could probably take it, I'll just stalk it a little... oh hell, it's coming right for me", that sort of thing. A little cheap entertainment plus some fire-and-forget cleaning, I'm calling it a good buy... :)

Presidential Debate #1 in the books

UPDATE: If you're interested enough in the debates to read the following post, might I suggest first taking a look at Statler and Waldorf's take? :)

In years past, I've pretty much steered clear of election-year debates, since I could glean enough of the character of candidates through other means to make a worthwhile decision. This time around, between surrogate talking heads and more-questionable-than-usual ads, and with the whole "economic crisis" fun in play, I figured it might be worth a look. It was much as I expected, including, sadly, both candidates' inability to stay on the question put to them by the moderator. Some of the bits I found worthwhile include:

• Happily, Obama's not dead-set against nuclear power.
• Sadly, McCain does seem to be focused hard on Iraq these days, to the detriment of other problem areas in the world (like Afghanistan)... in spite of his self-touted years of international crisis experience.
• While Obama's willing to say outright that he'd take on targets within Pakistan if need be, McCain just can't make that leap of... honesty? I mean, yes, it's good strategy to stay mum about your intentions, then spank the enemy when they're not looking... but the flip side of that coin is announcing your intentions, then not following through fully, if at all. In this case, what would Pakistan do... move more troops to the area in question to defend against an attack, and possibly catch raiders headed into Afghanistan before they caused problems, or on their way back... or openly support the Taliban? Either would be an improvement, of sorts, over "yes, we'll take your money to fight the Taliban, then not do so" (and yes, I know, this is an oversimplification, and there is public opinion among Pakistan's people to consider (what there is left after supporting Musharraf for so long, at any rate), but looking at different angles to solve problems in times of trouble isn't necessarily a Bad Thing).
• On the behavior/body language front, the moderator tried to get the debaters looking and talking to each other... and, after some obvious reluctance, Obama gave it a go, while McCain seemed dead set on not acknowledging Obama's presence any more than necessary. At the end, Obama headed for McCain for the obligatory post-debate handshake and congratulations... while McCain circled around his podium the other way and made a beeline for the moderator. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that on what level... but it doesn't make me think of McCain as being more likely to "reach across the aisle" to the other party if he gets the top job.

Beyond that, just a few notes about the presentation of the debate... since I'm all over-the-air-digital these days, I picked the station with the strongest signal at my house to watch the fun... which, in this case, was the local PBS station. I'm sure the actual debate would have been quite similar to watch over any station... but the commentary after-the-fact was quite different. I know this because I switched between PBS and CBS a couple of times during that time period. PBS... well, there's no "polite" way to put this, but their news types are universally "funny-looking" compared to their corporate counterparts... what combination of people with a drive for journalistic excellence shunning the corporations versus corporations weeding out non-beautiful-people types produces this effect, I don't know. What I do know is that I'll take those funny-looking people talking seemingly honestly with each other based on their past experience over the pretty talking heads employed by the networks and parties (and their surrogates) any day... heck, CBS even used part of their after-show to go to "Spin Alley", where they give more air time to hacks for the two parties... because that's what they really need for free these days, right?

So, it wasn't a total waste of time, I suppose... I guess I'll have to see about tuning in next week to see the matchup between Caribou Barbie and the Combover from Hell... :)

No, Sweeney was a murderer, not an usurer

Boy, it seems like I've got nothing but complaints lately... but I never tire of ridiculing TicketsWest, so what the heck.

I got a flier in the mail today for upcoming events at the Fox Theater (and no, I won't refer to it by its new "paid" name), including a production of Sweeney Todd, a piece I have some fondness for. However, I'm a cheap bastard, and the minimum listed ticket price of $32 gives me some pause. Just for fun, I check out the website... and the minimum price there is $30, a pleasant surprise. However, the act of selecting the ticket you want takes you off to a TicketsWest website, where $6 in unspecified and unnamed fees are added to the line item for the ticket... after which a $3 "order fee" is added to the total order. There's also a spot for a "delivery fee", if you want to actually get the tickets you ordered for the order fee I suppose.

Last time I looked at a ticket through TicketsWest, they were only trying to double-dip on the fees, and they at least had the minimal honesty to state what all the fees were for... and I still went around them and bought directly from the Symphony, in that case. I'm sure as hell not going to tack on a third again the price of a ticket to line their pockets with yet more, unspecified fees, no matter how tempting the show. I wonder if there's a feedback link on the theater website...

Sales Weasels

There are certain types of people I simply dislike... more often than not because they give no weight to the concerns of anybody beyond themselves. In my experience, people in Sales are much more likely to fall into that group. Just to illustrate, let me tell you about a chance encounter at a local mall.

I was at the mall for lunch, and to see if I could track down a key kiosk that I had used long ago... so, while I'm strolling along with more purpose in my gait than usual, a comely young lass in a mobile phone kiosk calls out to me, asking about the shirt I'm wearing (the "Danger, may geek out with no warning" shirt, for those that have seen it), then asks where I got it... then asks about my mobile phone, and my land line, and starts into a sales pitch for her phone. I politely decline, and... she instantly transforms, her eyes going dead, obvioiusly having mentally dismissed me on the spot.

Now, a more experienced sales weasel might have made a more nuanced exit, on the theory that I might come back after thinking about the offer a bit, or might mention the pleasant weasel I met at the mall to one of my friends or coworkers... but in that single instant, the young lady in question illustrated one of two things. Either she had a genuine interest in the shirt and, having found out what she needed, had no further use for polite conversation, so segued directly into sales banter... or she had no interest in the shirt, and started out on the topic as a sales gambit from the beginning. In either case, my reasons for being in the mall were irrelevant to her desire to make a buck, never mind that I had given no sign that I was looking for anything resembling a phone, never mind that I was hurrying along looking for something not in her kiosk.

I know, it seems like a petty thing to be complaining about to the world at large in a blog... but it's one of those petty evils that, left unchecked, could grow into a much bigger evil, like Amway or used car sales... :)

Fun, annoyance, and downright stupidity

Just three quick observances:

• This be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, for you lubbers not in the ken (link)
• I thought I had the delivery schedules of shippers arriving at my house down pretty well... but I forgot how far down the economy's gone, so shippers are light on work, so FedEx arrived early, while I was still out at the office. No biggie, since they do home delivery Saturday too... but I figured I'd head down to the depot (which is maybe two miles from my house) and pick up there while I was out and about... but that depot doesn't handle home deliveries anymore, so they were on the phone for 10-15 minutes with whoever does handle home delivery, wherever that is... long story short, easier to have it dropped by tomorrow.
• While the nice FedEx person was on the phone with her counterpart, I looked at the counter, where there was one of those pen-on-a-chain things for signing... except it was no ordinary pen on a chain. Rather, it's an antimicrobial pen on a chain. Do you mean to say that you routinely have such nasty customers come in to fetch packages that you're afraid of them spreading their nastiness to your customers and employees through the pen they use? Somebody at FedEx corporate needs to get a grip, methinks... harr...
  

Curiosity is a terrible thing...

I don't know what possessed me to go looking... but, after a little conversation last night, I wondered whether anybody had taken on hamsters in Spore yet... and not only is the answer yes, but one in particular looked oddly "cute"... turns out the creator made it for a machinima paying homage to various internet "memes", including the dreaded "Hamster Dance". Take a look at the silliness here.

Spore - in brief and with broad strokes

Somebody mentioned to me that they were wondering whether Spore was worth picking up, but they couldn't find a review that wasn't overwhelmingly about the "digital rights/restrictions management" (DRM) that Spore uses. Now that I've run two distinct races from cell stage into the space stage (that's my Foosbeast from late civilization days to the left), I think I know enough to give a review a shot.

So, let's get the distasteful bits out of the way right off... first, it's distributed by Electronic Arts (EA). I'm pretty sure that this is the first game I've purchased from them since the days of Ultima Online, when I swore off EA after seeing how shabbily they treated some military members in their test programs. Not that keeping away from EA has been all that hard... the company that started out as a gathering of game programmers that pursued unique and entertaining ideas (Starflight comes to mind) has devolved into a corporation that is loathe to take on any risk, content instead to crank out endless revamps of sports titles and Sims properties. If this game had been proposed by anybody other than the original creator of all the SimMadness, EA wouldn't have touched it with a 10' pole.

But EA did take on the game... however, being the consumer-fearing types that they are, they have locked down the game as rigidly as they dare (they were going to be even more draconian, but community outrage made them scale back... but that's a story for another time). The current DRM scheme makes you register an account with the central office and tie your copy of the game to that account... it's a minor annoyance that's offset by allowing you access to the many creations that people are constantly coming up with, so, in and of itself, it's tolerable. One interesting side effect that doesn't affect me, but that you might care about... apparently, this linking of account to game means that you can only have one account for your registered game, even though the printed manual says otherwise (EA, if I recall properly, is calling it a "misprint"). If you want to have your batch of critters, and your roommate/SO wants their own corral, you'll have to buy another copy, as things stand right now.

OK, with that out of the way, let's get to the game... or rather, let's get to the toy. If you go into Spore thinking it's going to be five great games all rolled into one, you're going to be sadly disappointed. The best way I can think of to describe the whole is a couple of 'casual' games to help you with the creative process for your creatures, a couple of forgettable 'real-time strategy' (RTS) games to give you an excuse to play dress-up with your creatures and build some cars and houses for them (in all fairness, I'm no fan of RTS, so keep that in mind when we get there), and a HUGE space-exploration game to round out the whole. As much as anything, the first four games act as tutorials for later games... except that some of the rules/controls of earlier games change radically, so not so much.

Taking things in order, the game begins with the "cell" phase. Gameplay is simplicity itself... float around a 'flat' world, eat what you like eating, and don't get killed too often. As beasties die in the tidepool around you, sometimes they leave behind useful traits that you don't possess yet... snag those, and use some of the "genetic diversity" you've consumed to add/remove bits from your blobbie (as a side note, I can't help but think of Primordial Soup when I play this stage). The more you eat, the more you grow... get big enough, and you can plop some legs on your blobbie and head for land. Personally, I found the mouse to be the simplest control to use for this stage, but your mileage, as always, may vary.

Once on land, you're in the "creature" phase. Your view switches to 3D, but you're still basically running around in a mostly-flat world (you can jump and glide, but there's no "true" flight that I've seen so far). Collect traits to add to your critter from skeletal remains, creatures that you kill, or from befriending other creatures. Combat is very MMO (for better or worse, depending on your point of view), while "socializing" is a weak flavor of Simon Says... and your success at both depends greatly on what parts you've attached to your critter. As you deal with more and more of the surrounding wildlife, your brain grows and grows, until you finally become (at least minimally) sentient. For controls, you can use the mouse to point and click your way... but I found using the WASD keys for running around to be very helpful.

With the discovery of fire (and side note time... there are some very cute cutscenes starring your critters in their current form between stages), you enter the "tribal" phase. Once you have reached this phase, your physical form is locked down, and has little bearing on gameplay from this point forward. Instead, you now get to deal with clothing your critters for style or gameplay advantage... as well as a couple basic technologies to outfit your people with. Your basic currency is food, used to feed your people (duh!), gift to other tribes (right...), and build more people and tool shacks (???). As more creatures evolve to sentience, you need to either make them your allies or exterminate them to gather their technologies and advance. Since you have no "direct" control over any of your people, you're pretty well stuck with using the mouse to control them... although you can use WASD for some basic camera controls, which I found useful.

With all the lesser races subjugated (it's odd... even if you "ally" other tribes, you never seem to see them again...), your people reign supreme... and it's time for the "civilization" phase (side note time again... for all its simplicity, this is probably my favorite cutscene of them all). Clothing no longer has any substantial effect on things... because you're all to civilized to get your hands dirty fighting each other in person. Now, it's time for cars, boats, and (eventually) planes to rule the day... and, you guessed it, how they're outfitted affects their "worth". No need to worry about tracking down all those parts or anything, though... they're all right there for you to use from the get-go. Instead of food, cash is king... used to build vehicles and buildings of your own design (the insanity's reined in a bit here... there are only 4 major types of buildings to build or import, and their design is purely cosmetic). Use economic, religious, or military means to bring the other cities over to your way of thinking, uniting the planet under your rule... and you'll be ready for space. Controls are pretty much identical to the tribal stage.

One thing I glossed over from those prior four stages... how you get past them matters as much as getting past them, because the choices you make strongly influence how the rest of the game plays out. Each stage has three "bands" of "what you're trending towards", usually as two "rail" cases and one you have to work to accomplish. For example, in the cell phase, you start out with either a carnivorous mouth or a filter-feeder (herbivorous) mouth... you can easily eat your way to either extreme, but you have to carefully balance things if you want to raise an omnivore for the creature phase... and I tried it out, little Rhoddy will, in fact, puke if he tries to eat fruit. It's nice that there's an extended influence for your behaviors... but the influence is strong enough that you have to fight hard to overcome it (e.g. as a carnivore, you have to kill to eat... if you kill too many of one nest of critters, you're headed down the path of aggression whether you like it or not. I don't think it's impossible to work all the way back up to loved by enough people to pass by that route, but it sure wouldn't be easy.).

So, that leaves the space game. Early reports said that this was going to be a 4x style game, but it just ain't so. Yes, you can (and will) explore and expand. However, you are not playing the "grand emperor" of your empire in this stage... rather, you are the captain of your ship, period. As you advance, you can add more ships to your armada, but your focus is irrevocably fixed on your current position, your current situation. You can spend on building up colonies and terraforming planets, but only the one your at, if you're close enough to the action and are so inclined to notice. Luckily, you're not responsible for building anything more complex than the cities you built in the civilization phase, or you would quickly go mad trying to keep track of it all.

As is, you could still have some problems keeping track of it all... you go from flying around on planetary surfaces (I found WASD with mouse wheel for altitude works for me) to zooming out to a solar system view (using your mouse to investigate/fly to different planets) to zooming further out to a galaxy view (similar controls to solar system). The galaxy view's probably the "worst" of the lot, because of the sheer number of stars to deal with, and the fact that, while it's a "disc" galaxy, there is some significant thickness to that disc, so two stars can look to be next to each other, while one is much "deeper" than the other in your screen. Personally, I like the look... but it could be just a bit disorienting for somebody who's been coddled along by the prior four games.

So, that's the game... except it's not. Clever monkeys that they are, EA or Maxis included some other features to draw you in... access to all the builders (so you don't have to play the games if you just want to build something), a "social" page on their servers to keep track of your friends and what your creations have done in other peoples' games (and to look up creators to snag other bits from them if you found something you liked earlier), and a "badge" system that gives you little rewards for meeting certain conditions in your game(s), for all the obsessive-compulsives out there. There may be even more, but that's plenty.

Overall, I'm liking my new toy, and expect to get hours of enjoyment from it... especially since they did such a nice job with the behavior/motion modeling on the critters. I wouldn't use this to introduce anybody to computer gaming, certainly, but, especially for builder-types, I think you could do far worse for $50.

What's this? OVERSIGHT on mobile communications?

I don't do texting... and it's not just because I'm some crotchety old fart, either. My phone supports texting, but I have it locked down to where I only receive messages from my phone provider... because texting is absurdly expensive. Even back at 10 cents a text (I didn't know general prices had gone up until just now), the rate, compared even to still-too-pricey data transmission rates, was so much higher that I couldn't see how it could be justified on technical terms. Now, I gather, the cost of texts is closer to 20 cents per... whatever the market will bear, I guess.

The funny thing is, if the cellular providers had just stuck with 10 cents, they might not have drawn the attention of one of Wisconsin's senators (link). Now, he's asking the major carriers to send him their justifications, by October 6th, of how the price on texts needs to double, in spite of all the network improvements they've been touting recently... oh, and include comparisons to your per-minute voice and per-kilobyte data charges, while you're at it. Mind you, the timing's a bit suspicious... I don't know if his seat is up for election this cycle, but a month or so of "I'm defending you against the big, bad telecoms" could do wonders for a re-election campaign... however, it could also be the beginning of something good, from a consumer point of view. We'll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

Spore's out!

...so far, it's shaping up as a fine toy for me. Note the profile image change over on the right... that's little Rhoddy, as we enter the Tribal stage (note the gold nose rings and other accoutrements that say he's a real, thinking predator now... :)). It's just about time to go wreak havoc on some other settlements for the clan... and you can join in the fun, if you have about $50 to spend, and either a relatively recent Windows machine or a "real" Intel Mac (unfortunately, my Mac Mini doesn't count, because of its bargain-basement integrated graphics chip... although the same chip's supposedly OK for the Windows version... what's up with that?).

The only problem I've run across so far is unlikely to affect most... Spore complains about my dual-graphics-card setup, telling me that my drivers are out of date... even though I just updated them from the manufacturer's website last night, so it's likely a bug in their detection routines. It's a minor annoyance, all in all... besides, it gives me something to play while waiting for Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball... :)

Video Pick: Last Exile

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my Roku Netflix box? This series is a prime example as to why... rather than clutter up my DVD queue with a 7 DVD set, I put it in my instant queue and watched the 26 half-hour episodes one by one, at my leisure.

At any rate, the series... well, it's anime, so take that how you will. The setting is pretty interesting... two nations at war (think pre-Napoleonic concepts of the "proper" way to war) under the watchful eye of a Guild that controls the skies, with steampunkish technology the norm... except for flight, where the technology supports, literally, flying battleships. It's an interesting backdrop for the intertwining stories of the characters... while there are several, the main focus is on a young, dirt-poor pair of couriers-for-hire that get swept up in the events as they unfold, touching on the various strata of society as they go. The story is a bit convoluted, but that's to be expected, given the scope it covers.

Another thing I like about this production is the use of technology. Both 2D (hand-drawn) and 3D (computer generated) animation are used, but they co-exist much more smoothly than in any other animated feature I've seen to date. To be honest, I didn't realize that there was any 3D used until I saw the credits early on... I can only hope that future projects use the technology as well as this one.

Of course, it's not a perfect show by any means... in particular, the ending is just a bit too tidy for my tastes... but it's a fun ride while it lasts. Give it a shot, if anime works for you.

Movie o' the day: The Dark Knight

Normally, I don't bother writing about movies unless I really like or (rarely) dislike them. This movie... well, I liked it well enough, but, frankly, I was underwhelmed. Between a Batman in need of a good gargle, a Scarecrow cameo that doesn't even begin to live up to what the character's capable of, and a grisly Two-Face that dies too soon and too privately (I'll come back to this later), the front-line supporting cast is pretty forgettable. Combined with "toyetic" tools for the Bat (a sticky bomblet shooter? An emergency-escape motorcycle in the Batmobile?), all the makings of a dreadful movie are in play.

Enter the Joker. I don't know why, but, every time a new Joker rendition comes forth, I'm always prepared to absolutely loathe it... yet always get won over in the end. Maybe it's because the base concept of the Joker is just such a rich mine for material that, while different, each interpretation just fits. At any rate, this movie provides another fine Joker, one without the obsession about his appearance of Nicholson's Joker... in fact, he just makes it part of his killing shtick, telling different victims different stories as he sends them on their way. In fact, if I had to choose one defining element of this Joker, it's his utter lack of self-consciousness over his acts while he performs (and I do mean perform... no other Joker that I've seen would have pulled his introductory "magic trick", because it takes the focus off the Joker to the trick).

Of course, the Joker has to play with the other characters, otherwise there's not much of a movie to be had... and he plays all too well the "twisted" portion of his persona. It's nothing short of amazing, however, as to how long it takes anyone, including the Batman, to look beyond "twisted" and "crazed" to see that there's method to his madness, that he has quite the capability for planning and forethought. In spite of his protestations while turning Harvey Dent to the dark side of Two-Face, he is indeed a plotter and a schemer... just one who's more mentally nimble and adjustable than his rule-bound opponents.

This is as good a time as any to bring up the short and hidden career of Two-Face. He kills a dirty cop and a gangster, kidnaps Gordon's family, then prepares to kill again before being taken down by Batman... but, because he used to be the pretty-boy DA who took the mob to court, the public can never know that the Joker broke him? Instead, Batman and Gordon take it upon themselves to martyr Harvey Dent and demonize the Batman? How is this a noble act on anybody's part? For all that the Joker may be wrong about showcasing the "truth" of human nature under dire circumstances, you really want the final message of the film to be that authority lying to the public, and police altering evidence, is a good thing and for the public's own protection? Honestly, especially in a property with the background of Batman, you simply should not reduce the lifespan of a major villain to a backroom deal, even between the "good guys".

So, as you can tell, I'm a bit mixed on this movie. It's worth watching in the theater for the size and sound of it... but it's been run so heavily for so long that you might see some effects on the prints. At this point, I'd say catch it at your local bargain theater, once it starts making the rounds there... they'll probably be able to cobble together a workable print from the whole mess.

Governmental Two-fer

Another one of those neither-is-worth-a-post-on-its-own days... but both of these caught my eye:

• California claims a copyright on their state laws (link). It seems Oregon does too, but I haven't found anything about Washington doing the same, at least. The reason appears to be so that they can charge over $2300 for a full print copy, or over $1500 for a digital copy. Comments I've seen defend this practice on the basis that you can still access the laws for free through your local library (on their schedule) or through the state's website (when it's functioning properly)... but really, why shouldn't a .pdf version be available for download for the actual cost of the download, or be available to on-demand print shops for the cost of printing at the quality level the buyer wants to pony up for? This information is supposed to be as readily available to the general public as possible, right?
• This is really more electoral than governmental, but... I've always had a soft spot for Penn Jillette, loudmouth and blowhard that he is. Here is his take on the current presidential cycle... and it's closer to right than not, in my humble opinion.
  

Google Chrome browser?

In theory, Google has unleashed a beta, Windows-only version of their new browser, with nice features like an engineer-spartan interface and tabs that run independent of one another, so that one crashing doesn't take down the whole browser. I just did a quick search on Google... while their introductory/explanatory comic shows up, no link to the beast itself does at this stage. Just as well... I'm using Firefox at this point, for one overriding reason: I use Windows, Mac, and Linux, and like having a program that behaves the same no matter what foundation I'm running it on. Google says they'll be doing Mac and Linux versions in short order... when they do, I'll check it out.

Comcast Cap Coming

Well, I guess it's official... come October 1st, Comcast will begin enforcing a 250GB/month data transfer cap (that's combined up/download), at least according to this. My Google-Fu's not up to spec, though... I can't find any press release on Comcast's website to back it up, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was buried deep, on the theory that most customers "just won't care".

As for me... I think I'm currently well below that limit, even with my Roku box in play. The problem is that I don't know that I'm below the limit, and Comcast apparently has no plans on producing a "usage meter" that customers can check at will. I'm sure I've said it before (I just can't find it readily), but... if you're going to meter a service I'm paying for in any way, shape, or form, I damn well expect to have access to the meter, both to check my usage and to challenge errors.

Oh well, it's another step down the road of Comcast losing relevance down the road, I'm guessing. Come on, Qwest, get that fiber laid in my neighborhood, plzkthxbai.... :)

EDIT: I stumbled across a link to the official bits... it's not a press release, its an "Announcement Regarding An Amendment to Our Acceptable Use Policy", which can be found here.

Wii Downloads: Helix

OK, this is another one I haven't played all the way through yet... but then, it's an "exercise" game, so I fully expect to drop it before I've conquered every nook and cranny of it. If you've played "Dance Dance Revolution" or "Guitar Hero" or the like, you know the basic drill... make the move the game wants you to make in time with the rhythm of the music being played. The big difference here is that, instead of mashing buttons/footpads, you use a pair of Wii remotes, one in each hand, to mimic moves an on-screen robot shows you to make.

For a $10 download, the game does what it needs to do quite nicely... sure, the techno tracks they use for the rhythm are somewhat forgettable (at least the ones I've seen so far), but the total experience works well... at least, that's what my sore muscles and one joint that forgot it was supposed to bend that way are telling me... :)

The one down tick that I'll make at this point... the game locked up my Wii hard during my first run at the tutorial. Maybe it was a random glitch, maybe it's something I'll run across again and again. If the game pisses me off too much, I'll let you know... :)

2008 Olympics - Closed

Yep, it's done. By past standards, it was a pretty good Olympics, too... while you still had the occasional questionable judging issue, no athletes died, and only one errant Swede got his medal revoked for poor sportsmanship on the podium. The host country got the most gold, we got the most medals overall... a nicely balanced showing for all.

The closing ceremony was nice, but not nearly so awe-inspiring as the opening (not too surprising, considering they only had a few hours to work in the stadium between the end of events and the start of the ceremony). Of course, the snark in me can't go without mentioning the London part of the ceremony... a double-decker bus that transforms into a Chia pet? Spastic dancers writhing to a tortured version of Greensleeves? "Whole lotta love"? I mean, sure, measuring up to China's presentation would have been no mean feat, but... that's the best you have to show for what London's going to give us in 2012? Really?

Blueberry filling/topping

Looking to make some pocket pies, but don't have enough for a full batch, or just want to have a little variety? You could do worse than this:

• 1 c. thawed frozen blueberries, with juice
• 1 T. sugar
• 1 t. lemon juice
• 1/2 t. corn starch

Combine ingredients in a small saucepan or metal bowl, cook and stir over medium-low heat to release more juices from the berries and thicken the resulting sauce, then let cool to room temperature.

The resulting consistency is just a bit too sloppy to spoon directly into the pies... but forking berries into place and drizzling with a bit of sauce works well. This recipe made me enough for a half-dozen pies, with enough left over to spoon over a bowl of ice cream later. Tasty treats all around... :)

Consumer content companies - lacking clue?

I just saw a couple of items on Fark that got me to thinking: for companies dealing with consumer content (music, movies, literature, that sort of thing), there sure seem to be several companies out there lacking a clue as to how the consumer thinks.

The first item up for bids... Internet radio. The organization in charge of setting royalties for various "broadcast" uses of copyrighted music in the U.S. seems intent on destroying Internet radio by setting rates well in excess of what's charged terrestrial radio and satellite radio stations... often to the point that the fees would exceed what the stations bring in. I can only assume that the music companies behind the organization are trying to drive users back to channels that they're "comfortable" with, like CD purchases and such... but is that realistic? This is the Internet we're talking about, after all... and there are many countries out there with less restrictive, yet still legal, licensing structures out there... why wouldn't consumers (and the companies that aggregate online stations for consumers) just look there for their content, cutting the U.S. royalty group out of the equation entirely? Isn't a smaller slice of the pie better than no slice at all?

Next, let's look at Blu-ray video... there seems to be continuing confusion from that camp as to why consumers aren't jumping from DVDs like they did from VHS many moons ago. Here's a hint: video quality is nice, but, past a point, it's not a game-changer, especially for pre-recorded content. DVD has many more benefits over VHS... to name a few: never needing to rewind, chapter search, multiple audio tracks (including foreign language, surround sound, and commentary tracks), smaller and less expensive to manufacture media, more durable media, and quieter players (due to fewer moving parts). If you want to sell higher-quality video, look at that list for a start, and see where you can improve on DVD (for example, one reason I'm loving my Roku box for Netflix video is that, since it streams video from the Internet, there's no moving parts, so no additional background noise). Once you've found what you can improve, price it competitively (another place where the Roku box shines), and it might just sell. Otherwise, you're doomed to fill an enthusiast niche... kind of like Laserdisc back in VHS days.

Movie o' the day: WALL-E

Again, yes, I'm slow about getting to movies in the theater... but warm summer days and a lack of air conditioning in my house combine nicely to motivate me. WALL-E was my choice for the day.

I got to the theater just a bit late, so I didn't catch the entire introductory cartoon... just enough to see that I really, really want to see it in its entirety sometime (stage magic meets Portal, with a cute bunny... what's not to like?). The movie itself... the darker, more cynical side of me desperately wants to label it "Looking for love? Live a hermitile existence for several hundred years, cannibalizing your brethren to survive, latch onto the first being remotely like you and stalk her beyond the ends of the Earth, and love is assured", but that's the same part that calls Princess Mononke "A lovely story of demonic possession", so we'll leave it lay.

Honestly, WALL-E is a wonderful story, all the more so for being told with limited dialog, especially in the early parts. Trash collector WALL-E, the last(?) functioning unit of his kind, continues his assigned task of cleaning up the Earth that humanity despoiled and fled... but, over a few hundred years, he's developed a few quirks, including his collecting habit and his pretty-well-indestructible pet cockroach that eats Twinkies. One day, a probe ship comes and drops off EV, an explorer robot that searches the wreckage for something, but has an itchy trigger finger. The fearless roach ends up getting the two bots together and surviving the process... and it turns out that WALL-E has what EV's looking for, while he's showing her the collection of "neat stuff" that he's found... which results in EV's collecting the item and shutting down.

Undaunted, WALL-E watches over EV while continuing his job... until the probe ship returns and snatches her away. WALL-E hitches a ride on the probe ship to the cruise ship, where his pursuit of EV ends up disrupting the routines of robot and human alike... and that's all the further I'm going to say in any great detail about the movie. Apart from the love story angle, there are two other overriding statements from the film... first is the prevalence of "BuyNLarge", Wal-Mart on steroids (think "global CEO" as a presidential sort of position), and the message on that is glaringly obvious. The second is the role of routine and duty in life, a topic that hits close to home for me, as I do tend to define myself by what I do. The "good" characters invariably honor their directives while they're "working, up to the point that doing so might be injurious to others... the "bad" characters obey their directives at all costs, even if the directive is sloppily provided, outdated, and contradicted by current information, often because by doing so they retain power.

Of course, this is definitely a "suspension of disbelief" kind of movie... especially for somebody technically-minded like myself, it's all too easy to poke at the weak corners and find flaws that take the film out of the realm of science fiction and straight into fantasy (the quick example: humans that spend their lives in microgravity chairs ever being able to stand upright?). Resist that urge, go with the flow of the movie, and you'll have a fun, and maybe even touching, experience of it.

Currency after the fall of civilization

I went to a party last night... not exactly true to form for me, but, well, my friend's headed to Iraq for a year or so, and it was his "farewell" party. Of course, being ex-military and much more extroverted than myself, he has some... interesting... friends, including a few that aren't quite full-blown survivalists, but who have put some thought and preparation into what they might do should society fall apart. One in particular has, as part of his investment planning, taken to collecting gold and silver coinage to use for trade, should the need arise.

I got to thinking about it overnight... currency requires an agreed-upon standard of value, and, at first blush, precious metals seem like a no-brainer. However, to be useful for trade, there has to be enough of those materials around for all the market participants to have a pool of, in this case, coinage to draw on for their purchasing needs, with sufficient excess for sellers to make change on purchases... and a few guys with pockets full of heavy, noisy coinage just doesn't fit the bill. No, a workable currency needs something reasonably plentiful, but not excessively so, that isn't readily counterfeited... and, in a post-modern-tech society, something instantly recognizable from pre-fall days would fit the bill nicely. Also, it should be lightweight, portable, and durable, to allow transfer and use over as large an area as possible for as long a period as possible.

So, for any of you thinking about what to stockpile for trade after the fall of civilization, allow me to suggest... credit cards. Definitely lightweight and durable, made from a material that a pre-industrial society would be hard-pressed to mimic, with stamped numerals and that magnetic strip (at a minimum) to differentiate them from any other random bits of plastic that somebody might try to pass as money, credit cards are practically custom-made for the job. Almost everyone is guaranteed to have at least one to start with... and, as an added bonus, due to the grouping of numbers on the card, they're pre-marked for division into at least four sub-bits for change-making purposes, kind of like the "pieces of eight" of old. Get your local gathering of survivors to agree on the standard for trade first, then branch it out to your neighbors... odds are I won't be there to help you, since I live all too close to a military installation, but I'll be hoping for your success, from the bottom of my biohazard/radioactivity-zombified heart... :)

Moving day - Ow.

So I'm sitting here recuperating from two days of company-moving madness... my company's shrunk over time, our old space was way too big for us, there's a more reasonable space at the other end of the building, kind of a no-brainer. Of course, since the building we're occupying was never intended to be office space (actually, it was built to be a nursing home for Alzheimers patients), there was a bit more physical labor for me than I'm used to. Mainly, I had to pull network and phone cabling through the space (our phone guy just happened to be going on a one-week Alaskan vacation during our move...) and get everybody working in their new offices.

Thankfully, it looks like I'm about done. I've got one more server to place in the new space, and the technology side should be mostly done (I've got a problem with one fax line, but we've got another... so the phone guy can investigate when he gets back). One more day of fun, and then I'll get to enjoy one benefit of the move. You see, the space we're taking over isn't quite wholly vacant yet, so, having no office, I'll be forced, forced I say, to work from home for the foreseeable future... :)

2008 Olympics - Open

Yeah, I'm not much of one for organized sports as a rule... but there are a few oddities that can grab my attention. Take the Olympics for example... even though they don't do the pankration anymore, I can usually stumble across at least a few competitions that will hold my interest. Of course, since this event only happens once every few years, they have to do a whole ceremonial thing to kick it off. I had heard that this opening ceremony was going to be something special, even by the measure of past events, so I decided to watch it for once.

OMFG!

What can I say... if you haven't seen it already, find it online somewhere (preferably not through NBC's systems, but I'll come back to the why of that later). I haven't had anything evoke the feelings of awe and sadness that I got from that performance in a long, long time. Sticking with the awe side of the equation for now, and not getting into too much detail... anything starting with a couple-thousand men beating on ancient war drums modified with pressure-sensitive lighting effects is just intimidating on a primal level. After that, they go into a variety of technologically impressive segments employing thousands of people in perfect synchronization, providing a view of the history and culture of China from ancient times to modern days. It's all outstanding, although there was one section where I had to laugh, since it reminded me a little too much of a bit from "Logan's Run" (the "last day carousel", to be precise). The "artistic" portion of the opening ceremony takes up the first hour and fifteen minutes of the whole, after which comes the traditional parade of nations' athletes.

For me, the parade is pretty skippable (and, if you're so inclined it takes up the next 2:15 of the ceremony)... somebody decided that the parade should be somewhat more formal than in past Olympics, so the athletes dressed up a bit, either in regional cultural garb or tailored suits (that's the path the US took... complete with a Ralph Lauren insignia on it... *facepalm*). Most of it worked well (although the Hungarian look was... erm... interesting), and they even tied it into the earlier artistic portion by having the paraders basically walk over huge stamp pads before progressing across a huge painting created throughout the earlier artistic portion, filling in a large open area with color.

Finally, the speechification was gotten out of the way (and, mercifully, kept short and sweet), the torch was run into the stadium, the flame passed from runner to runner until they used wirework to have the last runner do a sky run around the entire stadium against an evolving animated backdrop to light the fire. If someone were to package the whole on a DVD set, with subtitles for what the participants were actually saying, and maybe include a "making of" piece, I would seriously consider buying it, that's how good the whole was.

Of course, that brings me to the "sad" part of the whole... while I was watching this show, I was all too aware that, in my lifetime at least, I doubt I will ever see the U.S. be able to match, let alone exceed, what the Chinese presented to the world last night. To see why, one need not look much further than NBC's presentation of the whole affair. While the Chinese were presenting us with a thing of beauty, NBC cut in every 10-15 minutes with commercials for McDonalds, Coke, Nike and the like. When they were covering what was happening in the stadium, it was being covered like a sports broadcast, using a "Chinese cultural specialist" (if I recall right) for color commentary. They did so in spite of the event taking place not less than 12 hours before it was going to be broadcast back at home... they could readily have kept the artistic piece intact (I'm sure I missed some fantastic transitions between set pieces) and made up for it by doing more "brief detail" displays of parading countries (which they already did some of to make up for their commercial breaks during the parade proper). Oh, and, just maybe, telling us what's being said by the participants while you're at it.

No, if we wanted to run something anywhere near the scale and precision the Chinese did, well... first off, no one city could afford to do it financially, and no level of government could sell it these days politically. No technology firms would be likely to provide the necessary hardware "at cost" or as a donation... and why should they, when the whole event would be plastered with corporate sponsorship logos, to the greatest extent that the IOC would allow. Beyond that, nobody in show business in this country would have the courage to do something expressly symbolic, for fear that Joe Sixpack wouldn't "get it"... and replace all those children and performers with big name stars and technology... and where are we going to find enough fireworks... and... and...

Erm, well, enough U.S. ranting... the Olympic games are open, best of luck to all the athletes involved... make us all proud!