I was recently introduced to a family I had never met. One of the daughters of the family had drawn a respectable looking female head at a three-quarters profile on the paper table cloth. The head was most definitely drawn in a generic anime style with slightly angular eyes and small triangular nose. Everyone near the table was remarking how good it looked and the artist was accepting the compliments well. Amy, who I think was looking for some nerd cred, remarked on its anime style. That's when the girl piped back, "Hey, someone else knows about it!"
And that right there, my friends, is what will perennially bug me about stuff nerds like. As a nerd myself, I understand the mindset. We certainly have a proclivity to dig into a particular topic that we enjoy and mine it until the depths of its caverns are seemingly unblemished by other human interests. Jewels of unique and interesting content remain partially un-mined and sparkling from smooth, unblemished walls, ready to be plucked for our discovery and marvel. It always seems to us, as we dig deeper into aspects of gaming, music, culture, whatever it may be, that no other person could have possibly ventured as deep into the mountain as we have. But it is guaranteed that someone else has done so but that we just don't know it yet. We fail to understand that this path has been worn for some time.
So my initial reaction to the girl's comment was to simply think to myself, "Oh great, one of those." Another budding fan of Japanese pop art and culture who feels as though she is alone in her obsession. Alone in terms of what scope? Her family? Sure, I could see it. My parents didn't and to some extent still don't understand some of things I like. Her friends? Less likely but still probable. But start expanding that scope from a narrow band to a wide, global radius and she will begin to find the kinship of like minds. It's inevitable.
Perhaps as someone who knows of life before the world suddenly became connected with itself, I understand better what it was to know the isolation of the nerd. Not many people I knew would seek out some of the gems that I did. Bulletin-board systems existed during my childhood, but I didn't understand them and therefore failed to see the amazing potential of interconnected machines and databases of information until early in my adulthood. But now that we have the opportunity to perseverate on any topic we so choose simply by powering on our Intertrons, we can easily find others who can share in our interests.
For now, however, we should leave this girl in her perceived wilderness, in her age of wandering. She will find her niche. She may not see it now, but she will find it. She will join us.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
Dude, Where's My Chart?
I received a copy of Uncharted 2 recently for the PS3. I can say wholeheartedly that it is nothing short of astounding in the visual department. The world is rendered in such amazingly meticulous detail that it's almost too much to take in sometimes. The amount of information that it offers to populate the artificial world it creates is sometimes overwhelming in its capacity. I've completed a couple hours of the game and I have yet to get bored with the visuals in any capacity.
One idea that I've held tightly to over the last decade is that graphics do not equal gameplay. You can have the prettiest game in the world and it can still remain quite decidedly un-fun. With Uncharted 2 I was extremely skeptical of my own potential for enjoyment and was worried that I would encounter a very pretty but vapid experience. Actually, now that I think about it, that is true to an extent. It is true to the same extent that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was a completely stupid yet still thoroughly enjoyable movie experience. Basically, playing this game is like playing an action movie. It moves through tropes of the genre as if checking boxes on a list, but the whole experience is executed with such quality that by the time I get to the end of it, I expect that it should have been a memorable experience and one that I've enjoyed.
One idea that I've held tightly to over the last decade is that graphics do not equal gameplay. You can have the prettiest game in the world and it can still remain quite decidedly un-fun. With Uncharted 2 I was extremely skeptical of my own potential for enjoyment and was worried that I would encounter a very pretty but vapid experience. Actually, now that I think about it, that is true to an extent. It is true to the same extent that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was a completely stupid yet still thoroughly enjoyable movie experience. Basically, playing this game is like playing an action movie. It moves through tropes of the genre as if checking boxes on a list, but the whole experience is executed with such quality that by the time I get to the end of it, I expect that it should have been a memorable experience and one that I've enjoyed.
Monday, November 02, 2009
This Again?
I just read this from Friday's Penny Arcade post. It basically puts my exact thoughts on modern PC gaming into very sharp focus. In other words, I agree:
In some ways, I miss the days of the PC's dominance of cutting-edge video gaming. There are some things that can only be experienced by gaming on a full-fledged computer and that, to some extent, still holds true albeit to a lesser extent. But one thing that that platform requires is an occasional spirit to tweak and troubleshoot. As I get older, this is something that I find myself less willing to do. Sure, it's always a learning experience, but sometimes I just want to, you know, have fun. I have a wife, a kid, a job, and other hobbies outside of gaming and I no longer have the desire to spend two hours troubleshooting software when I could be having a good time.
Don't get me wrong (Fool Evan). I still enjoy gaming on my computer. There are lots of advantages to which I alluded before. I like all the indie games that are available. The mods are a huge benefit. But, and this is especially true for the latter, those require troubleshooting most of the time. I still want to play PC games, but I am content with playing smaller, more intimate or sometimes just older titles that I'm sure will work. I no longer have the desire to stay at or just behind the crest of the hardware wave. It can be a much kinder, gentler, and frankly, less stressful place to be.
"I have long since decoupled "having an optimal experience" from "enjoying myself," though for many, many years the two were synonymous. As friends left the Windows platform one by one, a trend I've only recently begun to reverse, it became clear to me that fun is pretty much fun, and fun with friends is amplified, and as a personal edict this has served me better than the earlier, more strident one."
In some ways, I miss the days of the PC's dominance of cutting-edge video gaming. There are some things that can only be experienced by gaming on a full-fledged computer and that, to some extent, still holds true albeit to a lesser extent. But one thing that that platform requires is an occasional spirit to tweak and troubleshoot. As I get older, this is something that I find myself less willing to do. Sure, it's always a learning experience, but sometimes I just want to, you know, have fun. I have a wife, a kid, a job, and other hobbies outside of gaming and I no longer have the desire to spend two hours troubleshooting software when I could be having a good time.
Don't get me wrong (Fool Evan). I still enjoy gaming on my computer. There are lots of advantages to which I alluded before. I like all the indie games that are available. The mods are a huge benefit. But, and this is especially true for the latter, those require troubleshooting most of the time. I still want to play PC games, but I am content with playing smaller, more intimate or sometimes just older titles that I'm sure will work. I no longer have the desire to stay at or just behind the crest of the hardware wave. It can be a much kinder, gentler, and frankly, less stressful place to be.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Green Tunes: Episode 9 - The Avett Brothers
This is the most amazing song I've heard in a long while and I had to share it. This is one of them. It stabs me right in the heart. I hope you can appreciate it like I do. No video, just listen.
Tear down the house
That I grew up in
I'll never be the same again
Take everything that I’ve collected
And throw it in a pile
Bulldoze the woods
That I ran through
Carry the pictures of me and you
I have no memory of who I once was
And I don't remember your name
Park the old car
That I love the best
(The) inspections due and it won’t pass the test
It’s funny how I have to put it to rest
And how one day…I will join it
I remember crying over you
And I don't mean like a couple of tears
And then I'm blue
I’m talkin’ about collapsing
And screaming at the moon
But I'm a better man
For having gone through it
Yes, I'm a better man
For having gone through…
Ever since I learned how to curse
I’ve been using those sorry old words
But, I’m talkin’ to these children
And I’m keeping it clean
I don’t need those words
To say what I mean
No, I don’t need those words
To say what I mean
Tear down the house
That I grew up in
I'll never be the same again
Take everything that I used to own
And burn it in a pile
And, bulldoze the woods
That I ran through
Carry the pictures of me and you
I have no memory of who I once was
And I don't remember your name
Saturday, October 17, 2009
I Just Can't Find the Words
This was the title of a continuing education session that I attended this afternoon as part of my professional development required by the college for which I work. It was the creepiest, most insulting fifty minutes of time I've endured in recent memory. Let me describe the scene.
The speaker's style was breathy and flowery, full of tangential anecdotes that made no sense. He would frequently pause for a few seconds before inhaling deeply and proclaiming "Oh boy," for no apparent reason. He would also take up to thirty seconds to study a piece of paper while the room, thirty colleagues full, sat in silence politely waiting for him to collect his thoughts and continue his presentation.
Style aside, if the presentation was worthwhile, we should overlook these quirks in the delivery method, right? It wasn't. He spent fifteen minutes introducing himself, talking about his youth in Queens, every place he went to college in his entire life, and why he ended up in Omaha. Now, as an Omaha transplant, I understand the need to explain yourself if you've somehow found yourself residing here after coming from, say, New York or Chicago, but the classroom probably isn't the place for that.
He then began a thirty minute stream-of-consciousness ramble about politicians who spoke without considering the ramifications of their words and why that upset him. However, he gave no solutions about how to go about prevent such atrocities of communication in our own interactions. Also part of the thirty minute poetry slam were descriptions of emails with colleagues in which someone said something he didn't like or used a word that he didn't feel was appropriate. Of course, no examples of that behavior were left without a complicated, tangent-filled rant about how he responded to the attack. No one in the room, including me, had the heart to ask him to consider why people reacted to him they way that they did.
Following the descriptions of emails that probably should have remained private, he then began to rail on contemporary mediums of communication like email, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. It was easy to understand how much he detests these things because every time he mentioned one of them he would intentionally mispronounce it, as if he were some kind of incredibly stupid Luddite who couldn't figure out that it's not pronounced "MyBook" or "TwitSpace." His reasoning for the contemptuous behavior? Everything in an electronic medium can be copied and printed, potentially ruining a reputation in the process. I found myself thinking that I could understand why this would be threatening to him.
At one point, he even told an incredibly insulting story about a conversation with a garbage man, which I paraphrase here in his voice:
Then he paused and continued, "But it's the recession so I guess we all have to do what we can," implying that the only reason the man knew such big words in the first place was because he had to take a job below his normal stature because of the poor economy.
At the end of his lecture, he asked the standard question, "Does anyone have any questions?" Of course nobody did because not only were some of his comments, in an unexpected twist of irony, completely inappropriate, but his thought process was so broken, so twisted in its logic, that I don't think any of us in the room could have even begun to decipher exactly what the hell his point really was in the first place.
As people filed out of the room, I felt like I was the only one who found his presentation completely insulting and worthless but as I discovered, everyone else was similarly disgusted by what they'd just witnessed. Thinking back to the event, I wish I'd had a recording to device to capture the insanity I'm attempting to describe. When it comes to describing it in this medium, I just can't find the words.
The speaker's style was breathy and flowery, full of tangential anecdotes that made no sense. He would frequently pause for a few seconds before inhaling deeply and proclaiming "Oh boy," for no apparent reason. He would also take up to thirty seconds to study a piece of paper while the room, thirty colleagues full, sat in silence politely waiting for him to collect his thoughts and continue his presentation.
Style aside, if the presentation was worthwhile, we should overlook these quirks in the delivery method, right? It wasn't. He spent fifteen minutes introducing himself, talking about his youth in Queens, every place he went to college in his entire life, and why he ended up in Omaha. Now, as an Omaha transplant, I understand the need to explain yourself if you've somehow found yourself residing here after coming from, say, New York or Chicago, but the classroom probably isn't the place for that.
He then began a thirty minute stream-of-consciousness ramble about politicians who spoke without considering the ramifications of their words and why that upset him. However, he gave no solutions about how to go about prevent such atrocities of communication in our own interactions. Also part of the thirty minute poetry slam were descriptions of emails with colleagues in which someone said something he didn't like or used a word that he didn't feel was appropriate. Of course, no examples of that behavior were left without a complicated, tangent-filled rant about how he responded to the attack. No one in the room, including me, had the heart to ask him to consider why people reacted to him they way that they did.
Following the descriptions of emails that probably should have remained private, he then began to rail on contemporary mediums of communication like email, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. It was easy to understand how much he detests these things because every time he mentioned one of them he would intentionally mispronounce it, as if he were some kind of incredibly stupid Luddite who couldn't figure out that it's not pronounced "MyBook" or "TwitSpace." His reasoning for the contemptuous behavior? Everything in an electronic medium can be copied and printed, potentially ruining a reputation in the process. I found myself thinking that I could understand why this would be threatening to him.
At one point, he even told an incredibly insulting story about a conversation with a garbage man, which I paraphrase here in his voice:
I don't mean to insult anyone in the garbage collection profession, here, but listen to this story. A garbage man was emptying my recycle bin and mentioned something about the can 'not being able to withstand such an excessive impact'. I was impressed that he used such big words for someone without a lot of higher education.
Then he paused and continued, "But it's the recession so I guess we all have to do what we can," implying that the only reason the man knew such big words in the first place was because he had to take a job below his normal stature because of the poor economy.
At the end of his lecture, he asked the standard question, "Does anyone have any questions?" Of course nobody did because not only were some of his comments, in an unexpected twist of irony, completely inappropriate, but his thought process was so broken, so twisted in its logic, that I don't think any of us in the room could have even begun to decipher exactly what the hell his point really was in the first place.
As people filed out of the room, I felt like I was the only one who found his presentation completely insulting and worthless but as I discovered, everyone else was similarly disgusted by what they'd just witnessed. Thinking back to the event, I wish I'd had a recording to device to capture the insanity I'm attempting to describe. When it comes to describing it in this medium, I just can't find the words.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Unraveling
I haven't finished Braid yet. But I've definitely formed some new opinions and reshaped some old ones in the process. First, I previously stated that I thought Braid got as close to the "games as art" grail that so many have been chasing. That was after the first and second level. Now well into the fifth level, I can truly say that I wish to stomp on Jonathan Blow's scrotum and force him to come clean with exactly what in bloody blazes he's trying to say. See, at the beginning, I thought that the "story" would make itself clear as I progressed, that there would be some natural exposure of the author's intent over my unraveling of the game's challenges.
Nope.
Strictly speaking, the narrative never reveals its purpose (at least of what I know of it so far). It's like reading high school poetry. The author is trying very hard to be symbolic and witty and creative by using imagery that is entirely personal in nature. According to Blow, some people have emailed him with their interpretation of his work and those few have it right apparently. Those of us unwashed who are too stupid or lazy (me) to spend time trying to decipher Blow's hieroglyphics are simply out of luck.
My only other complaint is something that a friend brought up. Sometimes, the puzzles are just too much sitting and staring at the level until you come up with the exact solution that the designer was thinking. I don't mind doing that to a point, but when I only have a half an hour to play, I don't feel like spending the whole time staring at and pondering the meaning of some little fuzzy glowing cannonball. Sometimes a man just wants to have some fun and not be all cerebral about it. Is that wrong?
Nope.
Strictly speaking, the narrative never reveals its purpose (at least of what I know of it so far). It's like reading high school poetry. The author is trying very hard to be symbolic and witty and creative by using imagery that is entirely personal in nature. According to Blow, some people have emailed him with their interpretation of his work and those few have it right apparently. Those of us unwashed who are too stupid or lazy (me) to spend time trying to decipher Blow's hieroglyphics are simply out of luck.
My only other complaint is something that a friend brought up. Sometimes, the puzzles are just too much sitting and staring at the level until you come up with the exact solution that the designer was thinking. I don't mind doing that to a point, but when I only have a half an hour to play, I don't feel like spending the whole time staring at and pondering the meaning of some little fuzzy glowing cannonball. Sometimes a man just wants to have some fun and not be all cerebral about it. Is that wrong?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
The Classroom is Flat
There's so much on my mind this morning. As someone who at this point I am sure succumbs to a very mild form of insomnia, I can tell you that it can be quite liberating mentally. Trust me, I have tried all sorts of techniques to regain my sleep state but none have them has been foolproof. My brain amazes me when I can almost feel my synapses firing and making all kinds of orderly and non sequitur connections and frankly, it keeps me awake.
One of the techniques that has never worked for me is reading a book. I don't read books to be entertained anymore. Fiction is so out. I mostly read to learn and be amazed at things I never knew before. But that doesn't stop me from trying to read a book to go to sleep despite it being an activity that usually activates my grey matter. My latest effort has been Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat," a book I always meant to read when it released but only remembered when I spied it at Half-Price Books for six dollars this past May.
The book now has me thinking about the flattening of education. One thing we examine constantly at my school is the generational gaps between our students and teachers and how we can fill those gaps by better understanding their expectations. Some have said that The Millenials, as they have come to be known, expect products or in our case, knowledge, to be handed to them without much effort. In faculty meetings, this idea usually inspires some rounds of groaning and gnashings of ivory tower teeth at the idea of corporate culture infecting the pristine halls of academia.
But corporate culture has come to be a part of our general culture, like it or not. People expect some service and they expect that provider to meet them at where they are. So I can't blame the current crop of students for having these expectations. How do I meet them where they are at, to use the parlance of our times, while still doing my best to push them to greater heights? According to Friedman, one of the biggest flatteners of our world has been access to technologies that allow us to connect to both people and information at a moments notice and that is what is keeping me awake this morning. I am brainstorming possibilities of what this concept looks like to educators, what sorts of solutions we might already have or that we might find, and what those solutions mean to future of academia.
I have not been a huge fan of academia at any level throughout most of my educated lifetime. I have had some fantastic teachers, however, and I would wager that none of them made any impact on me because they made sure to follow policies and procedures to the letter or to uphold every esteemed tenet ever devised by the system. They made an impact on me because they did something I saw as unique or, in some cases, simply listened to where I was coming from at any given time on a professional or personal level. I'm trying my best to be like them.
One of the techniques that has never worked for me is reading a book. I don't read books to be entertained anymore. Fiction is so out. I mostly read to learn and be amazed at things I never knew before. But that doesn't stop me from trying to read a book to go to sleep despite it being an activity that usually activates my grey matter. My latest effort has been Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat," a book I always meant to read when it released but only remembered when I spied it at Half-Price Books for six dollars this past May.
The book now has me thinking about the flattening of education. One thing we examine constantly at my school is the generational gaps between our students and teachers and how we can fill those gaps by better understanding their expectations. Some have said that The Millenials, as they have come to be known, expect products or in our case, knowledge, to be handed to them without much effort. In faculty meetings, this idea usually inspires some rounds of groaning and gnashings of ivory tower teeth at the idea of corporate culture infecting the pristine halls of academia.
But corporate culture has come to be a part of our general culture, like it or not. People expect some service and they expect that provider to meet them at where they are. So I can't blame the current crop of students for having these expectations. How do I meet them where they are at, to use the parlance of our times, while still doing my best to push them to greater heights? According to Friedman, one of the biggest flatteners of our world has been access to technologies that allow us to connect to both people and information at a moments notice and that is what is keeping me awake this morning. I am brainstorming possibilities of what this concept looks like to educators, what sorts of solutions we might already have or that we might find, and what those solutions mean to future of academia.
I have not been a huge fan of academia at any level throughout most of my educated lifetime. I have had some fantastic teachers, however, and I would wager that none of them made any impact on me because they made sure to follow policies and procedures to the letter or to uphold every esteemed tenet ever devised by the system. They made an impact on me because they did something I saw as unique or, in some cases, simply listened to where I was coming from at any given time on a professional or personal level. I'm trying my best to be like them.
Friday, August 07, 2009
Reinvigorated
I got back on the horse Wednesday with the bike racks. Monday was pretty frustrating, but I couldn't let such a simple project alone. It turns out, the instructions were not clear enough (for me) as to exactly which holes in the pulley brackets the screws were supposed to go. There were circular holes in each corner and that's what made sense to me. But that made the bracket too wide to be mounted properly. What needed to happen was that the screws needed to go in a straight line down the middle placed into the square holes. That, to me, is counterintuitive. Round things go in round holes, etc. Needless to say, both of our bikes are now hanging from the ceiling in the garage.
In other DIY news, my new found inspiration to do all these small projects was that I bought a new drill. I'm certainly not going to drop a couple hundred bucks on a new tool and let it sit in the garage. No way. Since I can already drill holes in things like a champ, I chose to construct rather than destruct. In that spirit here's a short list of other projects I've undertaken these past two weeks:
Well, I kinda fudged that last one. I'm still in the middle of installing the TV wall mount because I've hit a few snags, but I suspect it will be finished by the end of the weekend. I thought our basement walls were constructed with normal studs 16" apart but it turns out they're merely furred away from the foundation with what looks like 2x4s on their wide side spaced 24" apart. That doesn't leave enough space for the lag bolts that hold the bracket to the wall nor does it make it easy to find a good spot for the bracket where it can be mounted into wood and still look relatively even on the wall. It also means that the hard foam insulation back there is going to make running cables a real bear when it comes time to work on the AV cable routes.
In the end, it's going to be a lot more work than I had anticipated to get this home theater up and running the way I want, but I'm really looking forward to the day when I can come home, sit down on the couch, fire up Return of the King in Blu-Ray, and listen to Oliphaunts stomping people into the ground while Nazgul fly around my head.
----------------
Now playing: Herbie Hancock - Watermelon Man
via FoxyTunes
In other DIY news, my new found inspiration to do all these small projects was that I bought a new drill. I'm certainly not going to drop a couple hundred bucks on a new tool and let it sit in the garage. No way. Since I can already drill holes in things like a champ, I chose to construct rather than destruct. In that spirit here's a short list of other projects I've undertaken these past two weeks:
- new and improved shower head in the master bathroom
- magnetic child locks on the kitchen and bathroom cabinets
- ran a new electrical box and outlet in the basement
- reinstalled the baby gate more securely
- those bike lifts
- a wall-mounted TV bracket
Well, I kinda fudged that last one. I'm still in the middle of installing the TV wall mount because I've hit a few snags, but I suspect it will be finished by the end of the weekend. I thought our basement walls were constructed with normal studs 16" apart but it turns out they're merely furred away from the foundation with what looks like 2x4s on their wide side spaced 24" apart. That doesn't leave enough space for the lag bolts that hold the bracket to the wall nor does it make it easy to find a good spot for the bracket where it can be mounted into wood and still look relatively even on the wall. It also means that the hard foam insulation back there is going to make running cables a real bear when it comes time to work on the AV cable routes.
In the end, it's going to be a lot more work than I had anticipated to get this home theater up and running the way I want, but I'm really looking forward to the day when I can come home, sit down on the couch, fire up Return of the King in Blu-Ray, and listen to Oliphaunts stomping people into the ground while Nazgul fly around my head.
----------------
Now playing: Herbie Hancock - Watermelon Man
via FoxyTunes
Monday, August 03, 2009
I Rolled a 1
So that skill point I allocated, or felt like I had allocated as of last post did me no good. We bought a bike hanger for the garage and I tried to install it today. Nope. Too stupid to put four screws into wood apparently. The ceiling is finished which made it a little harder than it would otherwise have been, but I thought I was doing OK. Then, one of the screws wouldn't go all the way into the joist. Then another. I stripped it. Then the other two screws missed the joist entirely and just went into drywall. Dammit. I spent two hours trying to get one bracket up and still couldn't do it.
I'm a complete idiot with this stuff. I have no abilities with even simple DIY projects like this. I should have known that having a little confidence is a dangerous thing. I had plans for a cool home theater but I'm scrapping them today. If I can't put four screws into wood, I shouldn't be allowed to pick my nose let alone install a home theater.
I'm a complete idiot with this stuff. I have no abilities with even simple DIY projects like this. I should have known that having a little confidence is a dangerous thing. I had plans for a cool home theater but I'm scrapping them today. If I can't put four screws into wood, I shouldn't be allowed to pick my nose let alone install a home theater.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Skill Point Allocated
I'm particularly proud of myself this weekend. I've never been much of a handyman and the DIY gene that others seem to possess has been largely dormant in me. But, I've made a vow to myself that I should begin working on these kinds of skills. So this weekend, I found myself installing our washer and dryer while switching out the three prong plug for the four prong one with the ground connection built into it. I also fixed a piece of furniture that got broken in the move from Chicago. I realize that these tasks are certainly not the Mount Everest of home improvement skills but, hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?
The move itself went really smoothly. Normally when we move during the summer months, the temperature is usually in the 90s with a heat index in the hundreds. Not that weekend. It was low to mid 70s all day Friday and Saturday and only crept into the 80s on Sunday. Monday, our actual move day, it rained, but the rain held off while the movers loaded the truck so it was really just cool and breezy. Also, because of the weather, we were able to move all of the boxes and little odds and ends ourselves and only needed the movers for the furniture which cut our cost in half.
The move itself went really smoothly. Normally when we move during the summer months, the temperature is usually in the 90s with a heat index in the hundreds. Not that weekend. It was low to mid 70s all day Friday and Saturday and only crept into the 80s on Sunday. Monday, our actual move day, it rained, but the rain held off while the movers loaded the truck so it was really just cool and breezy. Also, because of the weather, we were able to move all of the boxes and little odds and ends ourselves and only needed the movers for the furniture which cut our cost in half.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Seeing Stars
Our first night in our new house is here. After a dinner out and some shopping for diapers, we were enjoying each others' company. Nicholas was having a blast running the length of the basement chasing his ball. He grabbed a little soft toy elephant and threw it over my head and laughed. He walked over, crouched down near the corner where it had landed and promptly lost his balance and smacked his head right on the corner. It was the worst injury he's had yet. A bruise line formed with a dent and I immediately went upstairs for some ice. To the best of our ability, we kept the ice on his injury for about 10 minutes.
The swelling has gone down and the dent is no longer a dent, just a line, but we need to watch for concussion symptoms. We will be monitoring his sleeping constantly for the first two hours, then waking him up every four hours to make him walk. This will need to be done for two nights. It's a strange welcome gift.
The swelling has gone down and the dent is no longer a dent, just a line, but we need to watch for concussion symptoms. We will be monitoring his sleeping constantly for the first two hours, then waking him up every four hours to make him walk. This will need to be done for two nights. It's a strange welcome gift.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Begin Crazy in T Minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
This is so incredibly ridiculous, I'm almost inclined to believe that it's fake. The text that follows is taken from this site: http://objectiveministries.org/zounds/gaming.html
The review is toward the bottom of the page after the usual stuff about how Christian games are Teh Awzomz (a particularly false statement if you know absolutely anything about the hobby) and Doom is Teh Evul (well duh).
Begin Crazy....... NOW!
______________________
Tetris (Soviet Academy of Sciences, available everywhere)
Tetris
12.10.2008: Tetris is an action puzzle game where the player rotates falling block shapes to make them fit together in a pile. When a row is filled, it disappears, keeping the height of the pile of blocks from increasing. As the game progresses, it continually speeds up until the player starts making mistakes that allow the blocks to reach the top of the game area, ending the game. Tetris is unwinable, you can only put off your inevitable defeat. This fatalistic aspect of the game should come as no surprise since it was originally created in 1985 in the Soviet Union, where the Atheist government taught everyone that there is nothing but a bleak, pointless existence followed by death with no chance for Salvation. It is claimed that the word "tetris" comes from the game pieces all being made of four blocks. In reality, the game was named in mockery of the Trinity by adding a forth hypostasis, the Communist State, to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Because it is simple to program, versions of Tetris can be found on every game, computer, and operating system. There have even been implementations of Tetris done using computer controlled lights in office buildings, turning the lighted windows into the falling blocks. The ubiquity of Tetris is also because it is highly addictive. Its repetitive gameplay and use of a repetitive Russian folk tune causes players to slip into a hypnagogic state, making them receptive to the Communistic themes inherent in the game imagery (everyone is an unindividualistic block that must be made to fit together in Soviet conformity, and sometimes whole lines of people are made to disappear without any explanation). This is intentional, since, like all work done by the Soviet Academy of Science where Tetris was developed, it was part of secret military research, in this case having to do with mind control. (The US military also researched mind control video games in the 1980s, including one called "Polybius", but we never used them during the Cold War, unlike the Soviets who unleashed Tetris into the general public where it's still affecting people to this day.) Because of its fatalistic worldview and the danger it poses to people's God-given Free Will, all implementations of Tetris get ZERO CROSSES. [See our Tetris video exposé on GodTube.]
UPDATE (1.8.2009): The Secular media must be reading my reviews because shortly after I exposed Tetris for what it really is, they started trying to counter my exposé (without mentioning it, naturally) by promoting a so-called "study" hastily printed in some Darwinist online journal that claims Tetris is beneficial to mental health. They say soldiers should play Tetris within 6 hours of being in combat to keep them from having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The only way that could happen is if all our soldiers were equipped with Tetris games in the field! And how did they learn this? They showed subjects some sort of snuff film with like people being killed (where did they get this? do the police know about it?) then had the subjects play Tetris. What kind of sick experiment is this!? Before I was born again I saw a Secular movie called, I think, "the Parallax View", where a shadowy corporation is brainwashing people to become assassins by showing them a propaganda movie that has all sorts of disturbing images mixed with words like "GOD", "LOVE", "COUNTRY", etc. They didn't have them play Tetris afterwards, but I guess that's how they do it nowadays. I asked my Game Theory professor Dr. Holgroth about this and he thinks this whole thing is a plot by the militant Atheists to undermine our military. We try to install a Christian worldview in our soldiers in basic training and military academies, then when they are deployed, anti-Christians sneakily put Communist propaganda in their hands to condition them to associate relief from traumatic stress with a Godless worldview. (For those suffering from PTSD, do not be tricked by crypto-Communists into playing Tetris! Real relief from PTSD can be had by taking beta blockers, SSRIs, and memorizing scripture.)
The review is toward the bottom of the page after the usual stuff about how Christian games are Teh Awzomz (a particularly false statement if you know absolutely anything about the hobby) and Doom is Teh Evul (well duh).
Begin Crazy....... NOW!
______________________
Tetris (Soviet Academy of Sciences, available everywhere)
Tetris
12.10.2008: Tetris is an action puzzle game where the player rotates falling block shapes to make them fit together in a pile. When a row is filled, it disappears, keeping the height of the pile of blocks from increasing. As the game progresses, it continually speeds up until the player starts making mistakes that allow the blocks to reach the top of the game area, ending the game. Tetris is unwinable, you can only put off your inevitable defeat. This fatalistic aspect of the game should come as no surprise since it was originally created in 1985 in the Soviet Union, where the Atheist government taught everyone that there is nothing but a bleak, pointless existence followed by death with no chance for Salvation. It is claimed that the word "tetris" comes from the game pieces all being made of four blocks. In reality, the game was named in mockery of the Trinity by adding a forth hypostasis, the Communist State, to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Because it is simple to program, versions of Tetris can be found on every game, computer, and operating system. There have even been implementations of Tetris done using computer controlled lights in office buildings, turning the lighted windows into the falling blocks. The ubiquity of Tetris is also because it is highly addictive. Its repetitive gameplay and use of a repetitive Russian folk tune causes players to slip into a hypnagogic state, making them receptive to the Communistic themes inherent in the game imagery (everyone is an unindividualistic block that must be made to fit together in Soviet conformity, and sometimes whole lines of people are made to disappear without any explanation). This is intentional, since, like all work done by the Soviet Academy of Science where Tetris was developed, it was part of secret military research, in this case having to do with mind control. (The US military also researched mind control video games in the 1980s, including one called "Polybius", but we never used them during the Cold War, unlike the Soviets who unleashed Tetris into the general public where it's still affecting people to this day.) Because of its fatalistic worldview and the danger it poses to people's God-given Free Will, all implementations of Tetris get ZERO CROSSES. [See our Tetris video exposé on GodTube.]
UPDATE (1.8.2009): The Secular media must be reading my reviews because shortly after I exposed Tetris for what it really is, they started trying to counter my exposé (without mentioning it, naturally) by promoting a so-called "study" hastily printed in some Darwinist online journal that claims Tetris is beneficial to mental health. They say soldiers should play Tetris within 6 hours of being in combat to keep them from having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The only way that could happen is if all our soldiers were equipped with Tetris games in the field! And how did they learn this? They showed subjects some sort of snuff film with like people being killed (where did they get this? do the police know about it?) then had the subjects play Tetris. What kind of sick experiment is this!? Before I was born again I saw a Secular movie called, I think, "the Parallax View", where a shadowy corporation is brainwashing people to become assassins by showing them a propaganda movie that has all sorts of disturbing images mixed with words like "GOD", "LOVE", "COUNTRY", etc. They didn't have them play Tetris afterwards, but I guess that's how they do it nowadays. I asked my Game Theory professor Dr. Holgroth about this and he thinks this whole thing is a plot by the militant Atheists to undermine our military. We try to install a Christian worldview in our soldiers in basic training and military academies, then when they are deployed, anti-Christians sneakily put Communist propaganda in their hands to condition them to associate relief from traumatic stress with a Godless worldview. (For those suffering from PTSD, do not be tricked by crypto-Communists into playing Tetris! Real relief from PTSD can be had by taking beta blockers, SSRIs, and memorizing scripture.)
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The Good Times
First, to add some sort of closure to the last post, I know that I cannot do anything rash. I would love to watch Nick full time and it's a huge temptation for me to deem that the perfect reason to leave my current post, but I must stick with the job at least another year before I make any decisions. Not to say that caring for Nick isn't a good reason because this is an extremely cute time in his life and it is slipping away much too quickly. Needless to say, it's a very difficult choice.
Speaking of Nick, now that he's been around for almost a year and a half, we're watching friends who currently have little ones under one year and realizing for certain that Nick was a more difficult baby than many. So many of them write to say that their spawns have smiled at four weeks, that they laugh and giggle at 8, they rolled over at 16. Nick did none of that. I do not exaggerate when I say that Nick didn't smile until he was at least 5-6 months old. He didn't roll until seven or eight months and didn't crawl until ten. He cried or screamed often. I'm not sure if it was something we did wrong or simply his disposition or a combination of the two, but it is hard not to be a bit jealous of our friends who got smiles and giggles in the first three months when we had none.
He's making up for it now though. His good days are phenomenally fun. He enjoys throwing blankets at me, hearing me imitate Elmo, tackling me on the living room floor, and trying to get past me as I poorly block his way to another room. When I eat his belly he sometimes laughs that hysterical baby laugh that's part yell and part hysteria, the kind of laugh that is probably making him pee in his diaper. He likes trying to make me laugh, too. He has learned to close his eyes on purpose, squinting them shut tightly for a couple of seconds. It almost always guarantees the payoff he's looking for. He'll put a spoon or a sippy cup in his mouth and hold it with only his teeth and looking for my applause. With the spoon, I sometimes bite the other end and pretend to fight him for it. He'll grip it tightly even through his own laughter. On the days that he does go to day care, as I enter the room to pick him up, he looks up, catches my eye, and runs full tilt into my arms to give me a hug and suddenly all the hard stuff we dealt with never mattered.
Speaking of Nick, now that he's been around for almost a year and a half, we're watching friends who currently have little ones under one year and realizing for certain that Nick was a more difficult baby than many. So many of them write to say that their spawns have smiled at four weeks, that they laugh and giggle at 8, they rolled over at 16. Nick did none of that. I do not exaggerate when I say that Nick didn't smile until he was at least 5-6 months old. He didn't roll until seven or eight months and didn't crawl until ten. He cried or screamed often. I'm not sure if it was something we did wrong or simply his disposition or a combination of the two, but it is hard not to be a bit jealous of our friends who got smiles and giggles in the first three months when we had none.
He's making up for it now though. His good days are phenomenally fun. He enjoys throwing blankets at me, hearing me imitate Elmo, tackling me on the living room floor, and trying to get past me as I poorly block his way to another room. When I eat his belly he sometimes laughs that hysterical baby laugh that's part yell and part hysteria, the kind of laugh that is probably making him pee in his diaper. He likes trying to make me laugh, too. He has learned to close his eyes on purpose, squinting them shut tightly for a couple of seconds. It almost always guarantees the payoff he's looking for. He'll put a spoon or a sippy cup in his mouth and hold it with only his teeth and looking for my applause. With the spoon, I sometimes bite the other end and pretend to fight him for it. He'll grip it tightly even through his own laughter. On the days that he does go to day care, as I enter the room to pick him up, he looks up, catches my eye, and runs full tilt into my arms to give me a hug and suddenly all the hard stuff we dealt with never mattered.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Drifting?
What happens when you run out of goals? What does life look like without a dream to drive you? I've never known. I've almost always had a goal of some sort. Sometimes they were quite small. Keep my girlfriend. That's a good one. Complete school. Another good one. Then they got larger. Make something of myself. In my case I wanted to make audio for video games. That one was a huge one. I even remember what year I figured that one out. 1996.
So I worked really hard to get there. I did everything I could to learn what to do and everything within my power to figure out how to get there. That little idea took me a long way from home and a long time to figure out. But even with the effort I put in, I never quite made it. I got comfortably sidetracked with decent jobs that were related but not nearly the same thing.
Now I find myself in a quandary that I haven't experienced for a long time. See, I keep thinking about what I'm going to do with the rest of my life and the strange thing is, I don't know anymore. Things haven't quite turned out the way I'd hoped with my current goals and opportunities. I'm sticking with it for the time being, but I'm just not sure about the long-term potential for satisfaction. The truly difficult part for me to accept is that my goal became my expertise. My whole life for the past thirteen years has been driven by that single directive and after a lot of thinking I've found that I just don't want to do that anymore. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why. One major reason is that things aren't the same. What I wanted to do 8, 9, 10 years ago has completely reinvented itself many times over and I've lost track of the skills.
So what do you do when you the path you've taken has come to what seems like a dead end? It would kill me to turn around and go back. I'm all about trudging forward. But I don't know where to go anymore. I don't know what I want. I don't really know who I am like I once did. It's been a long time since I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. When you're 14, you know you have your whole life ahead of you to figure it out. At 34, you don't have that luxury anymore.
This entry was inspired by a long-forgotten song that came up on the iPod today. It's by a long-forgotten band, The Gin Blossoms and it's called "29".
So I worked really hard to get there. I did everything I could to learn what to do and everything within my power to figure out how to get there. That little idea took me a long way from home and a long time to figure out. But even with the effort I put in, I never quite made it. I got comfortably sidetracked with decent jobs that were related but not nearly the same thing.
Now I find myself in a quandary that I haven't experienced for a long time. See, I keep thinking about what I'm going to do with the rest of my life and the strange thing is, I don't know anymore. Things haven't quite turned out the way I'd hoped with my current goals and opportunities. I'm sticking with it for the time being, but I'm just not sure about the long-term potential for satisfaction. The truly difficult part for me to accept is that my goal became my expertise. My whole life for the past thirteen years has been driven by that single directive and after a lot of thinking I've found that I just don't want to do that anymore. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why. One major reason is that things aren't the same. What I wanted to do 8, 9, 10 years ago has completely reinvented itself many times over and I've lost track of the skills.
So what do you do when you the path you've taken has come to what seems like a dead end? It would kill me to turn around and go back. I'm all about trudging forward. But I don't know where to go anymore. I don't know what I want. I don't really know who I am like I once did. It's been a long time since I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. When you're 14, you know you have your whole life ahead of you to figure it out. At 34, you don't have that luxury anymore.
This entry was inspired by a long-forgotten song that came up on the iPod today. It's by a long-forgotten band, The Gin Blossoms and it's called "29".
Time won't stand by forever if I know it's true
And I've learned not to say never
Or else I'll seem the fool
Twenty-nine you'd think I'd know better
Living like a kid
When my lies may seem less than clever
Is when I fall for it
Only time will tell if wishing wells
Can bring us anything
Or fade like scenes from childhood dreams
Forgotten memories
Some rides don't have much of a finish
That's the ride I took
Through good and bad and straight through indifference
Without a second look
There's no intentions worthy of mention
If we never try
So hang your hopes on rusted-out hinges
Take 'em for a ride
Only time will tell if wishing wells
Can bring us anything
Or fade like scenes from childhood dreams
Forgotten memories
Only time will tell...
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Green Tunes: Episode 8
I was looking for some workout music the other day and came across Motley Crue's Dr. Feelgood which I haven't listened to in a long time in any real way. Sure, the title track and Kickstart My Heart have been on the radio many times, but I hadn't listened to the whole album start to finish in many years. It really stands as a testament to the hair metal formula. It's well written, well produced, some filler, some killer, an overall fun experience and no pretensions to anything more. I can't help but be a little self indulgent with this one because it is still a very fun album after these past 20 years and a lot of takes me right back.
1. T.N.T. (Terror 'N Tinseltown) - This is that filler I mentioned. Just a sound piece to lead into Dr. Feelgood. Skip it.
2. Dr. Feelgood - If you were under 30 in 1989, you've probably heard this one. I like the song, but I like some of the others on the album a lot better. Those ones just aren't quite clean enough for the radio play they needed for this to be as big as it was.
3. Slice of Your Pie - If I remember correctly, Warrant was the other band writing songs about pie in the late '80s. While the Warrant track was a fine single regardless how lame the double entendre is, this track is a slick sex romp, typical of most the Crue's output. The blusey riff, doubled on bass, gives the song a really fantastic low end, which as a metaphor, cannot be a happy accident considering the lyrics. This is a great album cut, but they get better.
1. T.N.T. (Terror 'N Tinseltown) - This is that filler I mentioned. Just a sound piece to lead into Dr. Feelgood. Skip it.
2. Dr. Feelgood - If you were under 30 in 1989, you've probably heard this one. I like the song, but I like some of the others on the album a lot better. Those ones just aren't quite clean enough for the radio play they needed for this to be as big as it was.
3. Slice of Your Pie - If I remember correctly, Warrant was the other band writing songs about pie in the late '80s. While the Warrant track was a fine single regardless how lame the double entendre is, this track is a slick sex romp, typical of most the Crue's output. The blusey riff, doubled on bass, gives the song a really fantastic low end, which as a metaphor, cannot be a happy accident considering the lyrics. This is a great album cut, but they get better.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
So Neo (The One)
I wrapped up my official first year of teaching this past weekend. It was a year. Let's just move on. To be a little more verbose about it, my first year was pretty typical I think. It was a lot of fumbling around, trying to gain some understanding of just what the heck works and what doesn't while trying to keep the avalanche of paperwork at bay. I had some successes, some failures, a lot of minor headaches, one major headache, and some fun also.
So far, being off for the summer has only allowed me the time to try to recover from my severe allergic reactions to whatever is in the air out here. If I just got the sniffles and sneezed once in a while, I wouldn't mind, but I get full on cold/flu symptoms that knock me on back every time. In my last post, I was sick. I'm sick now too. Last year, I wasn't really sure what was going on because I was under a lot of stress and that depletes your immune system. But I'm really thinking this is some allergy and not a bug or mental issue. I mean, I've experienced the same symptoms so many times in the past ten months it's approaching ludicrous.
On a better note, I think we found our house. I went out looking with our agent again yesterday and had "that feeling". Almost everything about the place is exactly what we've been waiting for. It's a three bedroom ranch with a mostly finished, walkout basement and a great view over some rolling grassland. It also happens to be very close to Nick's new daycare facility, which will be a huge plus if we end up buying. We're going to do everything we can during the contract process to try to make this happen. I'm not necessarily looking forward to moving again in a month, but if it happens, this should be the last one for a while.
Oh and it's my birthday. Happy birthday to me!
So far, being off for the summer has only allowed me the time to try to recover from my severe allergic reactions to whatever is in the air out here. If I just got the sniffles and sneezed once in a while, I wouldn't mind, but I get full on cold/flu symptoms that knock me on back every time. In my last post, I was sick. I'm sick now too. Last year, I wasn't really sure what was going on because I was under a lot of stress and that depletes your immune system. But I'm really thinking this is some allergy and not a bug or mental issue. I mean, I've experienced the same symptoms so many times in the past ten months it's approaching ludicrous.
On a better note, I think we found our house. I went out looking with our agent again yesterday and had "that feeling". Almost everything about the place is exactly what we've been waiting for. It's a three bedroom ranch with a mostly finished, walkout basement and a great view over some rolling grassland. It also happens to be very close to Nick's new daycare facility, which will be a huge plus if we end up buying. We're going to do everything we can during the contract process to try to make this happen. I'm not necessarily looking forward to moving again in a month, but if it happens, this should be the last one for a while.
Oh and it's my birthday. Happy birthday to me!
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Buzz Bombs
I was sick all weekend. It started on Thursday night and I felt ok to go to work on Friday, but by the end of the day, I felt terrible. A sore throat was the primary symptom, not a scratchy one but swollen. It is still making it a chore to eat food. I was also experiencing a slight fever and fatigue, but the fatigue was gone by Saturday evening and the fever left earlier. All that's really left is the fever.
The really bad part is that I think Nicholas has it. He's been cutting a few teeth this week so he's been a pretty fussy guy, but today he got really fussy. He was fussy to the point of not being comforted by anything we did. We're taking him to the doctor tomorrow morning. For any family reading, I do not think that this is the current pandemic going around in us right now. It's just unlikely because I hadn't been exposed to anyone with the flu to the best of my knowledge.
In the meantime, while I was trying to focus on other things to avoid swallowing, I rediscovered Jeskola Buzz and have begun working on a new song based upon my frustrations with Puzzle Quest Galactrix constantly crashing to my desktop. I realize its appeal to a very niche audience, but trust me when I say I'm not writing anything for mass consumption here.
The really bad part is that I think Nicholas has it. He's been cutting a few teeth this week so he's been a pretty fussy guy, but today he got really fussy. He was fussy to the point of not being comforted by anything we did. We're taking him to the doctor tomorrow morning. For any family reading, I do not think that this is the current pandemic going around in us right now. It's just unlikely because I hadn't been exposed to anyone with the flu to the best of my knowledge.
In the meantime, while I was trying to focus on other things to avoid swallowing, I rediscovered Jeskola Buzz and have begun working on a new song based upon my frustrations with Puzzle Quest Galactrix constantly crashing to my desktop. I realize its appeal to a very niche audience, but trust me when I say I'm not writing anything for mass consumption here.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Back to the Blog
I haven't written much lately mostly due to my own preoccupations with a couple of new games and Facebook not to mention being pretty busy wrapping up the end of the spring semester. Facebook is OK for quick communication but I miss taking some time now and again to gather my thoughts, reflect, and write something a little less erratic.
I got pretty addicted to the Facebook application Bejeweled Blitz for a while there. It was fun to beat high scores and have a little healthy competition from some good friends, but one thing always bothered me about the game: the luck factor. You could play fantastically, finding lots of good matches in quick succession and only score in the 30K range and then have an equally good game the next round, scoring well into the 100K range simply based on the random gem drops. After climbing to the top of the heap twice, I simply can't bear to play it that much anymore.
I've also been playing Bioshock. It has some great atmosphere and I can definitely see the framework of the System Shock series operating under some of the basic mechanics of the game. But honestly, I'm feeling so very done with these kinds of games. There's really nothing new there. Shoot scary zombie-esque creatures and uncover a mystery, the pieces of which are parceled out in a very scripted and linear way.
Anyway, now that summer is almost upon me, I hope to be able to spend a bit more time in reflective journaling than I have in recent weeks. Hold on, though, I have to twitter... (I don't twitter.)
I got pretty addicted to the Facebook application Bejeweled Blitz for a while there. It was fun to beat high scores and have a little healthy competition from some good friends, but one thing always bothered me about the game: the luck factor. You could play fantastically, finding lots of good matches in quick succession and only score in the 30K range and then have an equally good game the next round, scoring well into the 100K range simply based on the random gem drops. After climbing to the top of the heap twice, I simply can't bear to play it that much anymore.
I've also been playing Bioshock. It has some great atmosphere and I can definitely see the framework of the System Shock series operating under some of the basic mechanics of the game. But honestly, I'm feeling so very done with these kinds of games. There's really nothing new there. Shoot scary zombie-esque creatures and uncover a mystery, the pieces of which are parceled out in a very scripted and linear way.
Anyway, now that summer is almost upon me, I hope to be able to spend a bit more time in reflective journaling than I have in recent weeks. Hold on, though, I have to twitter... (I don't twitter.)
Friday, April 03, 2009
The Attack on the Anti-Amusement Park Hippo League
I hadn't even finished my morning coffee when dispatch radioed with the news. I had to tail it down to the amusement park right away. Some gang of cheap thugs had some serious demands and they would rip the giant foam head off any poor sap in an elephant costume to get what they wanted. I didn't even tie my shoes. I was out the door and speeding toward the park, my coffee left ignored and getting colder on the kitchen table.
When I arrived at the park, the stampede had begun. People were running slowly and steadily past me in the direction of the gate. I thought maybe they were panicking, but when I noticed the sign for the 2K fun run, my heart sank. These folks were just here to raise some money to save their beloved park.
Suddenly, as some poor guy in a green sweatshirt innocently skipped toward the exit, trying to escape any potential violence, we were ambushed at the popcorn stand, the mayhem made all the more ironic as the loudspeakers at the park pumped out some Chuck Mangione style smooth jazz. We were attacked by an airport mechanic and a lumberjack. They were dispatched with ease, but at what cost to our souls? We would soon find out.
What sort of nefarious gang was this? They apparently had their tendrils deep into Airport Mechanic/Lumberjack Local 119. Who knew how far this terrorist cell's influence went? As some local joe in a green sweatshirt tried to skip through our gunfire exchanges, a poor hunchbacked woman on the fun run did her best to finish the race she had begun. Bless her heart, she would save that amusement park at any cost. I hoped she made it out alive.
When we reached the cap shop, all hell broke loose. Gunfire and Molotov cocktails rained down upon our heads as we attempted to secure the area. Thirty seven of those dirty thugs had captured the fifteen cap shop employees working that day and were holding them hostage. The gang had even recruited some secretaries from the dentist's office down the road. I muttered at the nihilism of it all. They would stop at nothing to achieve their evil ends. As a pile of hats with dog doo on the brim tumbled to the ground, a strange thought went through my head. My squad went to Six Flags, East L.A. and all I got was this lousy death!
I chuckled at my witty quip, but my daydream was shattered as we approached the broken merry-go-round. The thing wasn't even operational and still this band of terrorists would stop at nothing to maintain their control. As I tried to aim away from the prancing historic artistry, lumberjacks flanked me at every turn. "Whad'ya think of that?!" they would yell as the ranged assailants screamed demonically, "Yeeeaaaahhh!" Fortunately, my cat-like reflexes were enough to drive them away, but the attackers kept using the carousel as fantastic cover. Amidst another final hail of gunfire, we drove the secretary collective back until they turned tail and attempted a getaway on the Jet Coaster.
The Jet Coaster was a tandem racing coaster, the kind where people laugh and taunt each other as their trains race each other around every curve not really caring that their destiny is in the hands of another, out of their control. Just like today. I don't know how they did it, but the thugs had managed to set up a transport system, something to replace their fallen numbers with ease as they continued to pull the innocent standers-by to their deaths far below. Before I could empty two magazines, the thugs' coaster was ahead! They were winning! But as luck would have it, their Jet Coaster miraculously careened back into the loading area. Amidst all the action, I hadn't even noticed that we'd arrived back at the station.
With all the confusion, my squad never realized that they were just leading us in circles, dragging us by the nostrils to their secret headquarters location. The popcorn stand! Their leader had been under our noses the entire time! As he emerged from his hiding spot behind the soda machine, the portly fellow with the gigantic hips took off his wig. "Whad'ya think of that?", he exclaimed in a slightly more gruff voice.
"I think it's time for you go, hippo," I thought. He began to fire what appeared to be his time gun at me. This technology was unheard of. Where were they getting the researchers for this? How were they paying them? The bullets he fired at me careened slowly from the barrel of the gun as if time had slowed down, somehow allowing me to fire my own bullets at them to send them careening off in another direction. I was surprised that my bullets had much effect at all because this time gun's ammo was incredibly large. For a bunch of cheap thugs, they must have had some incredibly wealthy benefactors.
It was the roughest fight of my life. As my last round was fired, the portly man fell to the ground, the impact of his fall causing the popcorn stand to explode in a cloud of flame, hulls, and creamy butter. But what happened that day was no closure for me. I'd killed the Hippo League's boss and 90 of his accomplices. But I'd taken down three innocent victims in the process. Because of that, the wounds on my soul would never heal. After all, despite our victory, more questions were raised than answered. There sometimes comes a moment in an officer's life when he just can't take another day. That was my moment. Following that event, I retired from the force and pursued the gentle life of an attack dog trainer. The scars of the followers of the Hippo League would never heal no matter how long or far I tried to run.
The only thing that remains is the shoulder-cam video I took of the event. I no longer have a need for it. Perhaps you can learn from our mistakes.
When I arrived at the park, the stampede had begun. People were running slowly and steadily past me in the direction of the gate. I thought maybe they were panicking, but when I noticed the sign for the 2K fun run, my heart sank. These folks were just here to raise some money to save their beloved park.
Suddenly, as some poor guy in a green sweatshirt innocently skipped toward the exit, trying to escape any potential violence, we were ambushed at the popcorn stand, the mayhem made all the more ironic as the loudspeakers at the park pumped out some Chuck Mangione style smooth jazz. We were attacked by an airport mechanic and a lumberjack. They were dispatched with ease, but at what cost to our souls? We would soon find out.
What sort of nefarious gang was this? They apparently had their tendrils deep into Airport Mechanic/Lumberjack Local 119. Who knew how far this terrorist cell's influence went? As some local joe in a green sweatshirt tried to skip through our gunfire exchanges, a poor hunchbacked woman on the fun run did her best to finish the race she had begun. Bless her heart, she would save that amusement park at any cost. I hoped she made it out alive.
When we reached the cap shop, all hell broke loose. Gunfire and Molotov cocktails rained down upon our heads as we attempted to secure the area. Thirty seven of those dirty thugs had captured the fifteen cap shop employees working that day and were holding them hostage. The gang had even recruited some secretaries from the dentist's office down the road. I muttered at the nihilism of it all. They would stop at nothing to achieve their evil ends. As a pile of hats with dog doo on the brim tumbled to the ground, a strange thought went through my head. My squad went to Six Flags, East L.A. and all I got was this lousy death!
I chuckled at my witty quip, but my daydream was shattered as we approached the broken merry-go-round. The thing wasn't even operational and still this band of terrorists would stop at nothing to maintain their control. As I tried to aim away from the prancing historic artistry, lumberjacks flanked me at every turn. "Whad'ya think of that?!" they would yell as the ranged assailants screamed demonically, "Yeeeaaaahhh!" Fortunately, my cat-like reflexes were enough to drive them away, but the attackers kept using the carousel as fantastic cover. Amidst another final hail of gunfire, we drove the secretary collective back until they turned tail and attempted a getaway on the Jet Coaster.
The Jet Coaster was a tandem racing coaster, the kind where people laugh and taunt each other as their trains race each other around every curve not really caring that their destiny is in the hands of another, out of their control. Just like today. I don't know how they did it, but the thugs had managed to set up a transport system, something to replace their fallen numbers with ease as they continued to pull the innocent standers-by to their deaths far below. Before I could empty two magazines, the thugs' coaster was ahead! They were winning! But as luck would have it, their Jet Coaster miraculously careened back into the loading area. Amidst all the action, I hadn't even noticed that we'd arrived back at the station.
With all the confusion, my squad never realized that they were just leading us in circles, dragging us by the nostrils to their secret headquarters location. The popcorn stand! Their leader had been under our noses the entire time! As he emerged from his hiding spot behind the soda machine, the portly fellow with the gigantic hips took off his wig. "Whad'ya think of that?", he exclaimed in a slightly more gruff voice.
"I think it's time for you go, hippo," I thought. He began to fire what appeared to be his time gun at me. This technology was unheard of. Where were they getting the researchers for this? How were they paying them? The bullets he fired at me careened slowly from the barrel of the gun as if time had slowed down, somehow allowing me to fire my own bullets at them to send them careening off in another direction. I was surprised that my bullets had much effect at all because this time gun's ammo was incredibly large. For a bunch of cheap thugs, they must have had some incredibly wealthy benefactors.
It was the roughest fight of my life. As my last round was fired, the portly man fell to the ground, the impact of his fall causing the popcorn stand to explode in a cloud of flame, hulls, and creamy butter. But what happened that day was no closure for me. I'd killed the Hippo League's boss and 90 of his accomplices. But I'd taken down three innocent victims in the process. Because of that, the wounds on my soul would never heal. After all, despite our victory, more questions were raised than answered. There sometimes comes a moment in an officer's life when he just can't take another day. That was my moment. Following that event, I retired from the force and pursued the gentle life of an attack dog trainer. The scars of the followers of the Hippo League would never heal no matter how long or far I tried to run.
The only thing that remains is the shoulder-cam video I took of the event. I no longer have a need for it. Perhaps you can learn from our mistakes.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
A Moment of Pride
I love it when the effort I've put into researching something pays off. After seeing some screenshots of some of the new objects available in the latest Community Expansion Pack for Neverwinter Nights, I just had to have pianos in my module. Historically, I've been very frustrated with the CEP for not cooperating well with certain online play sessions and I was reluctant to add content from it. But, after a number of hours spent trying to figure how to get all the content installed and integrated correctly into the game's toolset, I'm very happy with the results.
The progress on the module is slow but I'm intent to make something that is actually playable and not in some buggy, incomplete alpha state.
The progress on the module is slow but I'm intent to make something that is actually playable and not in some buggy, incomplete alpha state.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
ROM Check OK
A recent Facebook note from iPal Vern indicates that another museum is adding a permanent collection with the goal to preserve the history of electronic gaming. As a lover of the early days of electronic gaming, I continue to applaud these efforts partly because of my appreciation and partly because I am lazy. Allow me to explain.
Because I like old video games, I have a part-time love affair with emulators to keep my collection of games running without the catch of too many legacy hardware problems. Atari 2600, Colecovision, Commodore 64, DOS, and arcade cabinets are all on my PC's hard drive in software form. But again, I am lazy. You see, it takes genuine effort to keep up with the development behind some of these platforms.
For instance, I recently got a MAME itch again that required some significant scratching. So I downloaded the latest GUI MAME client and pulled the old CD-ROMs out of the closet. And there's the catch. The key word in that sentence is OLD. I acquired that ROM set in 2002, a full seven years ago. As the MAME client develops, it requires certain ROMs to update their file sets as well. My ROM set is very out of date. So even ROMs that I have don't work and that requires to reach out to the intarwebs for update downloads. It takes a lot of time for me to find these updates because while some sites have the ROMs available, a lot of them don't keep their sets updated either. And because these things are still copyright protected, that drives the honest preservationists further underground.
So once I figure out that it's going to take way too much work to even keep this tiny little collection of ROMs functional, I give up. Once more, I am lazy. The reason I started feeding off of the the emulation scene in the first place is that I have a strong desire to preserve these games. Their original hardware has a shelf life. It will stop working. But software can fill the gap. Unfortunately, it just takes a lot of effort to keep things working and compatible, so even my modest efforts will be wiped out.
Of course, all of this is simply to state that I applaud the efforts of the true preservationists, the people that are doing their best to see that roots of this new medium are preserved and do not die a slow and silent death trapped in the webs of intellectual property law. To those people: I might not be smart enough to do what you do, but I support your efforts whole-heartedly.
Because I like old video games, I have a part-time love affair with emulators to keep my collection of games running without the catch of too many legacy hardware problems. Atari 2600, Colecovision, Commodore 64, DOS, and arcade cabinets are all on my PC's hard drive in software form. But again, I am lazy. You see, it takes genuine effort to keep up with the development behind some of these platforms.
For instance, I recently got a MAME itch again that required some significant scratching. So I downloaded the latest GUI MAME client and pulled the old CD-ROMs out of the closet. And there's the catch. The key word in that sentence is OLD. I acquired that ROM set in 2002, a full seven years ago. As the MAME client develops, it requires certain ROMs to update their file sets as well. My ROM set is very out of date. So even ROMs that I have don't work and that requires to reach out to the intarwebs for update downloads. It takes a lot of time for me to find these updates because while some sites have the ROMs available, a lot of them don't keep their sets updated either. And because these things are still copyright protected, that drives the honest preservationists further underground.
So once I figure out that it's going to take way too much work to even keep this tiny little collection of ROMs functional, I give up. Once more, I am lazy. The reason I started feeding off of the the emulation scene in the first place is that I have a strong desire to preserve these games. Their original hardware has a shelf life. It will stop working. But software can fill the gap. Unfortunately, it just takes a lot of effort to keep things working and compatible, so even my modest efforts will be wiped out.
Of course, all of this is simply to state that I applaud the efforts of the true preservationists, the people that are doing their best to see that roots of this new medium are preserved and do not die a slow and silent death trapped in the webs of intellectual property law. To those people: I might not be smart enough to do what you do, but I support your efforts whole-heartedly.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Writer's Slack
It is sometimes difficult to get the wheels turning or the gears grinding in my cognitive machinery to write on a regular basis once again. There can be so many reasons for the apparent writer's block, none of which have anything to do with lack of subject material. First, after being gone so long, where would I start? So much has changed that filling in the monumental gap would take time that I quite frankly do not have. Second, if time is of the essence, should I record the major milestones from the minutiae of our existence, simply denoting events that occurred, or should I dig into some mental gewgaw, some philosophical plaything to purge some of that intellectual energy? In time I should get to both if I once again make a habit of sitting down to weave together these pointless threads of introspection that will someday be the only extant map of my existence. Onward.
The minutiae did indeed include some remarkable events during the last two months. We moved out of bucktooth central, our apartment building of six months, and into a house in a suburban Omaha neighborhood. Not so mysteriously, our physical and mental health improved drastically. Also, we celebrated Nicholas' first birthday on the 14th of February. He had a great time visiting with his Grandma and Grandpa B. and Nana (his great-grandma Moore). We did take some pictures, but I will have to find some other time to share them. Finally, Amy and I also celebrated ten years of marriage. It is a significant milestone, a testament to our devotion to one another. Also, we rolled over another number into a higher decimal place on the ball-and-chain odometer, like watching your car hit 50k miles, which is always a good time. On a side note, I find it wholly self-satisfying to not only have our wedding anniversary in such close proximity to a Hallmark (R) holiday but also the birth or our son which allows us the freedom to celebrate more personally meaningful events and avoid the trappings of an otherwise overblown day.
As for the other thoughts I have that I'd like to share, I will save that for later in the week. I am currently on Spring Break and will hopefully have the time to sit and wonder as I wander, metaphorically of course.
The minutiae did indeed include some remarkable events during the last two months. We moved out of bucktooth central, our apartment building of six months, and into a house in a suburban Omaha neighborhood. Not so mysteriously, our physical and mental health improved drastically. Also, we celebrated Nicholas' first birthday on the 14th of February. He had a great time visiting with his Grandma and Grandpa B. and Nana (his great-grandma Moore). We did take some pictures, but I will have to find some other time to share them. Finally, Amy and I also celebrated ten years of marriage. It is a significant milestone, a testament to our devotion to one another. Also, we rolled over another number into a higher decimal place on the ball-and-chain odometer, like watching your car hit 50k miles, which is always a good time. On a side note, I find it wholly self-satisfying to not only have our wedding anniversary in such close proximity to a Hallmark (R) holiday but also the birth or our son which allows us the freedom to celebrate more personally meaningful events and avoid the trappings of an otherwise overblown day.
As for the other thoughts I have that I'd like to share, I will save that for later in the week. I am currently on Spring Break and will hopefully have the time to sit and wonder as I wander, metaphorically of course.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Ol' Antichrist Hitler Ploy
I know I've been absent for quite a while, but this particular video made me poke my head of the hole for a couple of seconds. This is the funniest segment I've seen on The Daily Show for a long while. I don't know who is giving these crazies a legitimate voice but I know that this group must be stopped. Or laughed at. Heartily.
.cc_box a:hover .cc_home{background:url('http://www.comedycentral.com/comedycentral/video/assets/syndicated-logo-over.png') !important;}.cc_links a{color:#b9b9b9;text-decoration:none;}.cc_show a{color:#707070;text-decoration:none;}.cc_title a{color:#868686;text-decoration:none;}.cc_links a:hover{color:#67bee2;text-decoration:underline;}
Based on one of the best movie endings ever, one of my favorites anyway:
.cc_box a:hover .cc_home{background:url('http://www.comedycentral.com/comedycentral/video/assets/syndicated-logo-over.png') !important;}.cc_links a{color:#b9b9b9;text-decoration:none;}.cc_show a{color:#707070;text-decoration:none;}.cc_title a{color:#868686;text-decoration:none;}.cc_links a:hover{color:#67bee2;text-decoration:underline;}
Based on one of the best movie endings ever, one of my favorites anyway:
Thursday, January 29, 2009
These Are The People
The trip back to Chicago went well. I even had an entire row on the plane to myself on the way out. It was good to get a chance to go out to dinner with some of my friends, too. There was a lot to do at the house to prepare. Between Curtis and myself, we shoveled the driveway which was full of snow, especially the end where to snowplows shove all the extra snow from the street. I think there was at least three feet piled up there. I also had to shovel out the garbage cans which were buried very deep next to the alley.
Once everything was loaded, I had about half an hour to wait until my ride to the airport arrived. It was really weird standing around waiting in the empty house. A little sad, a little exciting, there were lots of things to think about while I waited in silence. Every time I heard a creak, I would look around and expect to see Sid creeping around the corner or sitting on the stairs in between the banisters.
My reverie was enjoyable but then I remembered one of the reasons we wanted to leave that neighborhood in the first place when I heard a snow shovel outside. I lightly pulled open one of the slats in the blinds covering the side door window. One of the nearby alley neighbors was shoveling snow back into our driveway from the alley. I don't know why. Nothing was preventing him from getting in and out of his garage. It really was not a whole lot of snow. He glared at me and I closed the blinds. People there were nice enough but it really wasn't a neighborhood, just a collection of houses with people living inside of them. We lived there four years and only at the very end when a young couple moved in next to us to the east did we really meet anybody. They were very nice and we will miss them, but otherwise, there really isn't a whole lot I will miss about that neighborhood.
Once everything was loaded, I had about half an hour to wait until my ride to the airport arrived. It was really weird standing around waiting in the empty house. A little sad, a little exciting, there were lots of things to think about while I waited in silence. Every time I heard a creak, I would look around and expect to see Sid creeping around the corner or sitting on the stairs in between the banisters.
My reverie was enjoyable but then I remembered one of the reasons we wanted to leave that neighborhood in the first place when I heard a snow shovel outside. I lightly pulled open one of the slats in the blinds covering the side door window. One of the nearby alley neighbors was shoveling snow back into our driveway from the alley. I don't know why. Nothing was preventing him from getting in and out of his garage. It really was not a whole lot of snow. He glared at me and I closed the blinds. People there were nice enough but it really wasn't a neighborhood, just a collection of houses with people living inside of them. We lived there four years and only at the very end when a young couple moved in next to us to the east did we really meet anybody. They were very nice and we will miss them, but otherwise, there really isn't a whole lot I will miss about that neighborhood.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Loose Ends
Nicholas has improved over the last three nights. I have now had two out of three nights of (mostly) uninterrupted sleep. What I really want to know is this: what switch is in his little brain that flips after a couple of days of using a timed response method? It's like night and day, on and off, 0 and 1, rather than a smooth downward curve as I would expect. One night he screams and screams. Then, next to nothing. No matter the explanation, though. I'll take the result.
The house sale and rental has hit a couple of small bumps but nothing too bad. Our buyers need a two week extension to let their mortgage lenders take their sweet time because, you know, now that they actually care about their lending practices, it's time to batten down the hatches. On the rental side of the coin, we're still waiting on the lease to be drafted, but we've been promised sometime today. We're hoping that Amy can sign first with me to follow if necessary because I will be out of town all weekend.
I leave for Chicago tomorrow morning. I'll be flying in to monitor the movers on Sunday as they clear all of our possessions from the old property. It will be my first time there since August and the last visit I will ever make to that house. Amy says she's glad I'm going. I can't say that I would disagree if the shoe were on the other foot.
The house sale and rental has hit a couple of small bumps but nothing too bad. Our buyers need a two week extension to let their mortgage lenders take their sweet time because, you know, now that they actually care about their lending practices, it's time to batten down the hatches. On the rental side of the coin, we're still waiting on the lease to be drafted, but we've been promised sometime today. We're hoping that Amy can sign first with me to follow if necessary because I will be out of town all weekend.
I leave for Chicago tomorrow morning. I'll be flying in to monitor the movers on Sunday as they clear all of our possessions from the old property. It will be my first time there since August and the last visit I will ever make to that house. Amy says she's glad I'm going. I can't say that I would disagree if the shoe were on the other foot.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Asi-asi
We heard from our potential lessors yesterday. They sounded eager to get the ball rolling on the rental process, too. They want a 6 month lease with the option to buy at the end. We're totally willing to go along with that. We just need to hear from their agent now. Fingers crossed.
Nicholas decided to be a real stinker again last night. He cried for four hours, not in a row, but FOUR HOURS. He feels fine. He just got used to us holding and rocking him to sleep while he was sick. Of course, he still wants us to stay up all night with him now that both of us have what he had. So tired...
Again, I can't imagine how any of you with more than one get anything done at all.
Nicholas decided to be a real stinker again last night. He cried for four hours, not in a row, but FOUR HOURS. He feels fine. He just got used to us holding and rocking him to sleep while he was sick. Of course, he still wants us to stay up all night with him now that both of us have what he had. So tired...
Again, I can't imagine how any of you with more than one get anything done at all.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Darkness
There have been a few moments these past months when things have been really dark: losing lots of money on our potential house sale, not being able to find a place to buy in time for our move, neighbors that don't seem to care that our building is on fire, Nicholas being sick twice in a row just when we have more work to do than ever to get things done for both work and house, Nicholas refusing to give us a full night's sleep, my school announcing massive budget cuts, no raises in the near future, and the potential to cut low-enrollment programs (i.e. mine) in the coming months. It just seemed to be getting worse by the day.
But there have been good things happening too. For instance, during the first week at least, I'm not finding my job an unending well of stress like I did last semester. Don't get me wrong, it's still stressful. But I can see how things fit together now. I can see the big picture for most of my classes because I've been through them once, so I know what I want to change and how to change it to communicate the concepts more clearly. I no longer feel the need to work 70+ hours a week to keep up. If something goes wrong, I'm trying to let myself write it off as experience instead of berating my lackluster abilities, which is something I've done for a very long time and a hard habit to break.
As for the school's budget cuts, I've been assured by my dean that my program will not be cut. The justification was something that I'd thought about, too, but needed to hear from someone more in the know to believe or trust. Basically, my program is new. They've just dumped thousands of dollars into it and it has the potential to grow rapidly if we can figure out how to best capitalize on the demand. Therefore, music tech stays despite only having about 12 majors to speak of right now.
Finding a place to live has been a giant bummer so far. We've basically resigned ourselves to renting. With the astounding amount of money lost on our house in Illinois, we cannot afford the healthy down payment we need to get the loan we want. We'd pretty much tap our liquid resources to muster 8-10%, which in the current climate, is still not enough for some banks to grant you the loan. So, the rentals we've seen so far have been pretty terrible until yesterday. We found a very nice house that a couple would like to sell but is willing to rent for $1100/month, about the same amount we'd pay in mortgage for anything we could currently afford to buy. It has three bedrooms, a family room with fireplace, a relatively new kitchen, a two car attached garage, and a mostly finished basement. It's very clean and well-kept, something we can't say of most of the other places we've seen. The only catch is that the owners would rather sell. So, we're hoping to get a lease drafted and signed before any potential buyers swoop in and snatch it away from us, not to mention our stuff is moving out here next week and we'd like to put it where we are going to live rather than a storage facility.
Again, I won't lie, things have been looking rather bleak around here. I look at our situation and in some ways it's the same as when we first started out, me working 60 hours a week for the $17K yearly salary that would just barely pay for meager shelter, food, and clothing, while Amy finished her graduate degree. It's certainly just as difficult, we just have higher bills to match the higher salaries. But if we can get out from under the house in Illinois and rent the house that we found yesterday, things will start to look up, some pressure will be relieved. If one thing should fall in our favor right now, we need this to be it. I hope it works out.
But there have been good things happening too. For instance, during the first week at least, I'm not finding my job an unending well of stress like I did last semester. Don't get me wrong, it's still stressful. But I can see how things fit together now. I can see the big picture for most of my classes because I've been through them once, so I know what I want to change and how to change it to communicate the concepts more clearly. I no longer feel the need to work 70+ hours a week to keep up. If something goes wrong, I'm trying to let myself write it off as experience instead of berating my lackluster abilities, which is something I've done for a very long time and a hard habit to break.
As for the school's budget cuts, I've been assured by my dean that my program will not be cut. The justification was something that I'd thought about, too, but needed to hear from someone more in the know to believe or trust. Basically, my program is new. They've just dumped thousands of dollars into it and it has the potential to grow rapidly if we can figure out how to best capitalize on the demand. Therefore, music tech stays despite only having about 12 majors to speak of right now.
Finding a place to live has been a giant bummer so far. We've basically resigned ourselves to renting. With the astounding amount of money lost on our house in Illinois, we cannot afford the healthy down payment we need to get the loan we want. We'd pretty much tap our liquid resources to muster 8-10%, which in the current climate, is still not enough for some banks to grant you the loan. So, the rentals we've seen so far have been pretty terrible until yesterday. We found a very nice house that a couple would like to sell but is willing to rent for $1100/month, about the same amount we'd pay in mortgage for anything we could currently afford to buy. It has three bedrooms, a family room with fireplace, a relatively new kitchen, a two car attached garage, and a mostly finished basement. It's very clean and well-kept, something we can't say of most of the other places we've seen. The only catch is that the owners would rather sell. So, we're hoping to get a lease drafted and signed before any potential buyers swoop in and snatch it away from us, not to mention our stuff is moving out here next week and we'd like to put it where we are going to live rather than a storage facility.
Again, I won't lie, things have been looking rather bleak around here. I look at our situation and in some ways it's the same as when we first started out, me working 60 hours a week for the $17K yearly salary that would just barely pay for meager shelter, food, and clothing, while Amy finished her graduate degree. It's certainly just as difficult, we just have higher bills to match the higher salaries. But if we can get out from under the house in Illinois and rent the house that we found yesterday, things will start to look up, some pressure will be relieved. If one thing should fall in our favor right now, we need this to be it. I hope it works out.
Friday, January 16, 2009
stopstopstopstopstoppleasestop
We are at the end of our rope with Nicholas. Nobody has had a full night's sleep in weeks. He wakes up every night, sometimes multiple times, between 1am and 5am. We rock him, pat him, walk him, everything we can do, but as soon as we put him back down, he cries. This process takes hours and by 6am we need to get up and start our day. This is just about the time he's worn himself out. What really cheeses me is that I had him in such a great pattern last summer, sleeping through the night consistently by five months, but daycare has utterly destroyed it by letting him sleep whenever he wants and for however long he wants. We don't have the energy to put up with Ferber right now but even if we did neither of us feel comfortable with hours of crying in our paper-thin apartment.
The next non-parent who complains about sleep to me is losing their teeth.
The next non-parent who complains about sleep to me is losing their teeth.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Fell On Black Days
Some of my readers, OK my family, have been upset by the general trend in tone of my recent posts. Unfortunately, the new year hasn't really brought much better to report so far.
We finished the waiting game with the buyers in Illinois. Unless something falls through, they're getting the house for $20K less than we paid for it. In total, we're losing about $50K dollars on the deal. On one hand, it will be a relief to be out from under it, but on the other I get sick every time I look at the numbers so I try not to do that too often.
We were bidding on a property out here to close at the same time our Illinois property sold. That fell south yesterday. Can you believe the sellers actually gave us a final offer after only two bids in this market? One of the sticking points was our request for three days early occupancy. We needed that time because we have to move our stuff out of the other house the weekend prior to closing and it would have shown up here a few days later so in order for us not to need storage and an extra mover for a total of just a few days we figured it wouldn't be a problem. It was. We even offered to take it from 72 to 24 hours but no go. In my eyes the paperwork was all in their favor if anything happened. We would have been responsible. I'm not sure even their own agent understood their reticence on the issue.
Anyway, fortunately for them, they have others interested in the property so good luck to them, but our bids and requests were fair and reasonable. I think they expect to make money on a house sale right now and they might, but unless they start bending just a little to the buyer's needs, their house will remain on the market for some time. So, we're still in in the apartment for the long haul, swiping plastic silverware from fast food joints, sitting on camping furniture, and sleeping on the floor.
In other news, Nicholas has been sick a couple of times back to back. The first round was whatever stomach thing has been active recently, which he promptly gave to me. I had to miss my first day back to work because of it. Then, this weekend, right as he was getting better, he caught something nasty from day care. He now has a decreased appetite and a fever of 103 degrees. We've put a call into the doctor. Between Amy and I, we've stayed up all night with him two nights in a row because he won't sleep unless we're holding him and walking. We're both exhausted from taking care of him and an extra bit of tired from all the additional work getting the real estate, banking, and moving situations in order.
Sometimes I feel like we are a virus and Iowa is trying to kill us to make itself feel better.
We finished the waiting game with the buyers in Illinois. Unless something falls through, they're getting the house for $20K less than we paid for it. In total, we're losing about $50K dollars on the deal. On one hand, it will be a relief to be out from under it, but on the other I get sick every time I look at the numbers so I try not to do that too often.
We were bidding on a property out here to close at the same time our Illinois property sold. That fell south yesterday. Can you believe the sellers actually gave us a final offer after only two bids in this market? One of the sticking points was our request for three days early occupancy. We needed that time because we have to move our stuff out of the other house the weekend prior to closing and it would have shown up here a few days later so in order for us not to need storage and an extra mover for a total of just a few days we figured it wouldn't be a problem. It was. We even offered to take it from 72 to 24 hours but no go. In my eyes the paperwork was all in their favor if anything happened. We would have been responsible. I'm not sure even their own agent understood their reticence on the issue.
Anyway, fortunately for them, they have others interested in the property so good luck to them, but our bids and requests were fair and reasonable. I think they expect to make money on a house sale right now and they might, but unless they start bending just a little to the buyer's needs, their house will remain on the market for some time. So, we're still in in the apartment for the long haul, swiping plastic silverware from fast food joints, sitting on camping furniture, and sleeping on the floor.
In other news, Nicholas has been sick a couple of times back to back. The first round was whatever stomach thing has been active recently, which he promptly gave to me. I had to miss my first day back to work because of it. Then, this weekend, right as he was getting better, he caught something nasty from day care. He now has a decreased appetite and a fever of 103 degrees. We've put a call into the doctor. Between Amy and I, we've stayed up all night with him two nights in a row because he won't sleep unless we're holding him and walking. We're both exhausted from taking care of him and an extra bit of tired from all the additional work getting the real estate, banking, and moving situations in order.
Sometimes I feel like we are a virus and Iowa is trying to kill us to make itself feel better.
Whatsoever I've feared has come to life
And Whatsoever I've fought off became my life
Just when everyday seemed to greet me with a smile
Sunspots have faded
Now I'm doing time
Now I'm doing time
Cause I fell on black days
I fell on black days
Whomsoever I've cured I've sickened now
Whomsoever I've cradled I've put you down
I'm a search light soul they say
But I can't see it in the night
I'm only faking when I get it right
When I get it right
Cause I fell on black days
I fell on Black days
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate
So what you wanted to see good has made you blind
And what you wanted to be yours has made it mine
So don't you lock up something that you wanted to see fly
Hands are for shaking
No, not tying
No, not tying
I sure don't mind a change
I sure don't mind a change
Yeah, I said sure don't mind, I sure dont mind the change
I sure dont mind the change
Cos I fell on black days
I fell on black days
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate
I sure don't mind a change
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)