Beosig's Rambling Thoughts

I’m Thinking Blue

Over the weekend, Kiara and I splurged and spent about $200 on new light bulbs. We bought the fancy CFLs that use about 1/4 of the electricity of a normal incandescent bulb. We spent several hours moving around the house and replacing all of the bulbs. The only ones that we didn’t replace were two outdoor safety flood lights because they are very hard to get to, and don’t work so well when it is cold. We also didn’t replace two outdoor bulbs because the CFLs didn’t seem to want to work out there when they were cold, but the ones in the porch worked fine. Go figger. We also didn’t replace the six that are in closets because we hardly ever use them. The last three that we didn’t replace were the ones over the stairs. As soon as I figure out a way to replace them without killing myself, I’ll swap those out too.

I’ve noticed that it takes some time for our indoor flood lights to warm up and put out decent light. The non-floodlight styles start a little dimmer than normal, but within a dozen seconds or so get to the point where they are brighter than incandescent bulbs. I also noticed that replacing a few 100 watt incandescent bulbs with “60 watt” (really 13 watt) CFLs puts out more light. Huh. Go figger. The light that we’re getting out the CFLs is also more crisp, clean, and brilliantly white than the old bulbs. I kind of like that. It’s easier on my eyes.

We’re hoping that our nearly $170 a month electricity bill will drop to about $150 a month with these changes. If that’s the case, then these bulbs will pay for themselves about the end of the year, and will save us money for the remainder of the approximately five year lifespan of the bulbs.

I just wonder why these weren’t invented and released to the mass market sooner?

Jhianna is going to be so proud of me because I’m thinking green blue about our planet!

RIP : Gary Gygax

I received this link this morning from a co-worker who doesn’t play D&D, but knows that I do. I spent some time searching, and came across here and here as well. Wikipedia also confirms it, but we know how trustworthy that is.

I never did meet Gary in person, but I’ve touched his spirit countless times through my adventures in his many games. I feel a sense of loss for losing the patriarch of my main hobby, but not a personal loss. It’s an odd dichotomy of feelings. I think I should be impacted more, but I’m not. Maybe it’s just sinking in.

As I did when Bobby Fischer died, I’ll tell you a little bit about why I care about Gygax’s passing.

When I was 10 years old and in the Cub Scouts, I got the Boy’s Life magazine. On the back of every magazine was an advertisement for selling Captain O greeting cards. The deal was this: For every item you sold, you could either get a point or a dollar. If you chose to collect points, you could “spend” them on various items from the catalog. This didn’t interest me too much since some of the points were outrageous (over 300 points for a $120 bicycle) and such. Well, one of the items was a red box with a dragon on the cover, and it looked so very cool that I had to have it! I think the point cost was about 10 points. I figured I could easily sell 10 items. In the end, I sold over 100 items, and collected various trinkets from Captain O, but I don’t remember what any of them were, except for that really cool red box.

At the time, I didn’t have a group to play with. I didn’t care. I fell into the game with a fervor that was only equaled by my passion for computers. I would create characters, roles, adventures, evil lords, evil minions, damsels in distress, monsters, maps, worlds, countries, and so much more. I did this on my own until I hit junior high at age 12. That’s when I found a handful of other people that played the games, and things went from there.

We’d game before school (yeah, we got to school early to do this), at lunch, after school, and on the bus home. It was a great time. I still remember J.P., Marc, Van, Roger, and Stephen quite fondly… well… except for Roger because he thought fantasy names like Frodo, Bilbo, Dwalin, etc. were stupid, so he would name his characters Bob, George, Joe, Steve, etc. We all agreed that Roger was the stupid one.

I continued picking up the various box sets as they came out. I went through the Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortals rules. Out of all of them, I really loved the Companion rules the best. It added so much more to the game like having followers, controlling your own nations, tournament fighting rules, and quite a bit more. The Immortals rules were the worst because they took the power level of the game to a quite insane level. It was fun for a while, but after the 5th round in a row of dealing out over 200 points of damage with a single strike you become numb to the numbers.

Then my sophomore year in high school rolled around, and 2nd Edition AD&D was released. I somehow managed to totally miss the 1st Edition rules, but I joined in with a gaming group that lasted from 1989 until about 1993. Not a bad run in those days. Every since then, I’ve tracked D&D through its incarnations, and bought every core book and damn near every supplement that has been released since then. Years ago, I even went back and tracked down all of the 1st edition hard covers, and quite a few of the adventures from that era. They’re all on my shelves next to the other role playing books.

I just wonder what it would take to track down and get my hands on the original three D&D pamphlets that were called Chainmail back in the day. Maybe I’ll do some snooping on them. I had a chance to buy them in their original box back in the early ’90s, but I didn’t have the cash for it back then. I still kick myself from time-to-time for not selling a kidney to raise the requisite money to purchase those. Now that Gygax is gone, I’m sure the price is going to go up a few pennies.

Of course, Gary didn’t have much to do with 2nd Edition back then, and didn’t have anything to do with the 3rd Edition that was released a while back. Now 4th Edition D&D is coming out in March. I’ve seen and heard quite a bit about the changes, and I’m very happy that Gary didn’t live to see his wonderful creation utterly destroyed to ruination…. but that’s a rant for another day.

I still have a book that he published many moons ago titled “Role-Playing Mastery” that’s quite a good read. Maybe I’ll pull it from its shelf, dust it off, and check it out.

Even though Gary is gone his legacy will continue to live on through the millions of role-players out there. I have no doubt that role-playing would have evolved into existence without Gygax, but it would not be the quality experience that it is today without his early foundations and influence.

I’ve seen word that Gygax converted to Christianity at some point in his life. I’m glad for that. It’s one more person at the Heavenly Gaming Table that I’ll be able to take a turn with when my time comes.

Update: Story picked up by CNN.

Update 2: Something I had wanted to mention in my original post, but forgot about until just now… It’s very ironic that the original Dungeon Master died on DM’s Day.

Update 3: Great single-panel comic tribute from Penny Arcade.

Update 4: Some more tribute pages that I’ve come across today:
Dork Tower
Steve Jackson Games
Full Frontal Nerdity
Order of the Stick
I’m sure there are probably others out there, but I’m not actually looking for them. These are just ones that I’ve stumbled on.

If anyone finds decent ones that I don’t have listed here, drop it in the comments, please.

PS: Somehow this morning it all seemed real that Gary is gone. While doing my daily thing, I came across those above sites, and it hit me that a man that drastically changed my life is now gone. While reading the comics and posts, a few tears were shed. Steve Jackson’s words, “And now it’s the day when the best-known GM of all time put down his dice.” really hit me hard. So final. So true. Gary may not be rolling any more, but we can keep his spirit around by picking up the dice, throwing them around the table, lamenting or cheering or laughing over the results, and being with each other. Gaming isn’t about winning. It’s about companionship. I’ve tried to explain this to “outsiders” in the past, but it’s never really become more clear to me in the past than it is right now.

Update 5: Another mention of Gygax. Very subtle. Check out the specials board in the background of the Questionable Content web comic for 2008-03-06.

Update 6: Another one. This time from xkcd.

Update 7: Two more

• User Friendly
• NY Times Article Check out the “flowchart” along the left side and enlarge it. Except for the Harry Potter section, it pretty much sums up my life

Update 8: An article on Wired about the history, innovations, movement, changes, inspirations, and personalities that went into the creation and evolution of D&D. Great article, and I highly suggest reading all seven pages of it.

180 Baby!

Starting around summer of 2004, I went to working nights. When I’d get off work in the morning, I’d drive past my house by about 6 miles and head to a grease diner downtown. They made some of the best food in the world, but it was horribly unhealthy. I’d almost always have “The Grump” which is basically 2 eggs, bacon/sausage/ham (I’d go with sausage), cheese, a potato worth of hash browns, a ladle of country gravy, and more cheese… all piled together.

Can anyone say cholesterol? I knew you could.

In my defense, I would only eat 3-4 of them a week… Only? Ouch.

This went on for almost a year before I changed jobs. By then the damage was done, and I was getting pretty fat. Worse than that, my eating habits were all sorts of messed up. In the end, I tipped the scales at 245 pounds at age 32. To give you a frame of reference; when I was 17 and fresh out of high school, I was a solid 120 pounds. I was over twice as heavy as I was when I was half my current age.

I lived with the weight (about 230-240 pounds) for a year or so, and then my weight started to creep up again, and that’s when I hit the 245 mark. I knew that things had to change, so I started doing some things to help me out. This was around the spring of 2006 that I started making changes.

I started drinking Slim Fast for breakfast. I know their commercials tell you one for breakfast, one for lunch, and a reasonable dinner. Yeah right. Maybe some people can do that, but I was almost passed out by the time I got home if I didn’t do lunch. One thing the Slim Fast helped with was that I was not as hungry as normal when lunch time rolled around, so I didn’t eat quite as much at lunch as I used to.

After a month or two of this, I jumped into Weight Watchers as well. I used their online program to track my points and eating and what-not. It was rough at first to try to control my eating, eat smarter, and pay attention to what I was putting in my mouth. After about two months of it, I got the hang of things, and wasn’t having much trouble doing the dance.

Another two more months went by, and I stopped tracking my points. I was eating right and doing the right things out of habit by this time. Another two more months passed, and I canceled my membership with WW, but I continued to eat right.

Last week I had several people comment on my weight and how much better I look. That’s what inspired this post. I didn’t realize that change in myself until other people pointed it out. I’m down to 180 pounds as of last week. My doctor wants me down to 175, and I never thought I would get close. For a while I told myself to be happy with 195, but when I got there, I realized that I was in sight of 190. I kept dropping my goal weight by 5 pounds each time I reached the previous goal. It somehow made it easier mentally to do this.

Now that I’m at 180, I’m shooting for 175 to make my doctor happy. When I get to 175, I’m going to try to stop losing weight there. If I keep losing it, then I’ll start worrying about my genetics and my family history of diabetes and such. Until then, I’m going to be happy with the weight loss.

All told, I’ve lost 65 pounds over the course of almost 2 years. Seems like a very long time to lose that weight, but it’s gone, and I’ve changed my eating habits to the point that I think it will stay off. Sure, I’ll put on a few pounds at the holidays like everyone else, but it’ll come off once those months pass.

I probably could have lost the weight faster had I exercised. I didn’t exercise hardly at all during the two years. I did have a spurt at the YMCA for 8 weeks (or was it 12?) that I worked out 2-3 times a week. That was very close to the start of my weight loss, so I didn’t see much impact there. If I had done it in the middle of my weight loss, I think it would have helped more. Just a guess, though.

One thing that really helped was when Kiernan was born. The first five days that he was around, he was very happy with being in my arms while I bounced on an exercise ball. All that baby holding and bouncing on the ball really did wonders. In those five days, I dropped from 205 pounds to 190. Heck. Maybe I’d be around the 195 mark now if it wasn’t for those days of bouncing the baby around. I’m just glad (for more reasons than just the weight loss) than Kiernan is around.

What’s the whole point of this? Well, I’m thinking that you’ve heard this before, but…. If I can do it, so can you. I’m very stubborn about many things, but when it comes to my creature comforts (like food) I’m pretty weak willed. I just had to decide that I was more stubborn about losing the weight than I was about adding pleasure to my life via food. It was a long trip, but at no point was it a bad journey. I had expected to suffer, starve, and be weak all the time. There were moments like that, but they were brief. In the end, I’m glad I did it.

Maybe I’ll be posting about hitting 175 in a few weeks!

RIP: Bobby Fischer

The news has broken that Bobby Fischer died yesterday.

I’m very glad that he lived, and I’m almost equally glad that he died. His contributions to chess have hardly been rivaled by anyone in modern times. His contributions to insanity, hatred, antisemitism, anti-American propaganda, and general craziness have steadily grown in the last couple of decades.

Most people like to talk about the first half of his life while ignoring the last half. You can’t talk about the man without considering the whole man. That’s true of anyone, I guess.

The first half:

I learned chess when I was 7 years old from a step-father, and dabbled with it until I was a freshman in high school. At this point, I met Mr. Charles Vetter. He was my history teacher, and sometime during the first week of class, he announced that he would like anyone that knew how to play chess to join him after school on Tuesday of the next week. He was the sponsor and coach of the chess club at my school, and would like to keep the annual tradition of having a chess club going.

I’ve always enjoyed chess, and I always thought I was good at it. It’s also competitive in a mental way, and there’s not much of that in this world. Most direct competition is physical. This was my chance to flex my mental muscles. I joined the team, and quickly established myself as one of the top players. I spent hours in the public library (which has an impressive collection of chess books), and read every single one of them. For Christmas that year, all I asked for was chess books, and I received a good number of them. I still have most of them, and some of them were by Bobby Fischer.

During that school year, I spent an insane amount of time studying chess. I studied openings, middle games, end games, gambits, feints, sacrifices, and all of the strategies that go with it. I also studied the “greatest games in the world” to see what the best of the best did when pitted against each other. Many of these games were Bobby Fischer games. Some of the books just specified the moves of the game with no more details on why a move was good or bad. I had to figure that out for myself, and that was fine with me.

I’m not sure how much time I spent doing all of this, but it paid off. Near the end of my freshman year of high school, I entered the Texas State Chess Championships. Mr. Vetter had managed to get it hosted in my home town mainly because of the huge (about 30 students in our school, 25 in the rival school, and another 20-30 adults) number of people in the local chess club. Instead of busing almost 100 people across the great state of Texas, it was more feasible to have everyone else come to us.

The tournament was a weekend full of chess. I did quite well. I played 12 games in 2 days. I lost 2 games, and had a stalemate in another. The two that I lost were fair and square. I was playing a person better than me, and I didn’t do my best while they did. The stalemate was an embarrassment, though. I remember the guy’s name was Todd, and he was on my chess team near the bottom rungs of the rankings. I got cocky, stupid, and overconfident. I got him to the end game, and was up several pieces. Too many pieces. This makes a stalemate easier to fall into, and that’s exactly what I did. I should have won that game, but I didn’t.

In the end, I came in 4th place. Had I not had that stalemate, I would have been tied with another guy for 1st place, and it would have come down to a playoff game. That other guy was one of the two that had already beaten me, so I probably would have landed second place anyways.

How does Fischer tie into all of this? His mind and mine (at least as far as chess goes) seem to work in the same manner, though he is much more brilliant than I am. This allowed me to take his discoveries and ideas, and put them into play in a very effective manner. While Fischer was creating these ideas and using them to surprise everyone, I was merely following in his footsteps and trying not to stray from the path. I did my best to try to understand why I was doing the moves, and why they worked. Most of the time I did understand, but there were times that I knew that the best move was the best move, but I didn’t know why. Either way, it worked for me.

Now to the second half:

Sometime before 1992 Fischer decided that he didn’t like publicity, being American, or just doing what he loved any more and dropped off the face of the planet. Then he surfaced again in Yugoslavia to play in a tournament that was somehow banned by the United States (I’m still not quite sure about the legalities of that.) Fischer wanted to poke the USA in the eye, and he did so. Of course, when you poke someone larger and more powerful than you in the eye, you’re going to end up on the losing end of the exchange.

Which is what happened to Fischer. After many years of living incognito in the Pacific Rim (mainly Japan), he was discovered, detained (fancy word for thrown into prison without being charged with anything), and almost handed over the US government for playing a few games of chess in another country. Iceland came to the rescue with citizenship, a funky loophole in their extradition laws, and a plane ticket for Fischer.

If I sound sympathetic towards Fischer, I am. I feel sorry for someone that attained greatness in their field, and through a series of missteps, pushing from other entities, and just plain stubbornness they lose it all. Did he bring some of this on himself? Yes. Was some of it forced on him? Yes. Who’s fault is all this? The list is really too long to get into it here, but Fischer is near the top of the list.

My sympathy towards Fischer ended on 9/11. While buildings were still burning (and several still preparing to surrender to gravity and fall into rubble) in NYC, he was on the radio announcing how happy he was about the attacks, the deaths, the harm to the President, the harm to his former homeland, and so much more. I have no sympathy towards anyone, no matter how dire their straights, that exalts the sufferings of other people.

Fischer once again makes headlines with his death, but this will probably be the last time we see this. Unlike other famous dead (Diana, JFK Jr., Elvis, Monroe, etc.) Fischer did not die in controversy, but, rather, obscurity.

Bobby: Thanks for the education of the greatest game ever made. I hope you found peace before your final moments. If you’re in Heaven, set aside a game of Chess960 for me. I’d like to play a game with you.

RSS Feeds: Done With Categorization

I just finished categorizing all of my past posts that had already existed. I know that some of the older posts (but not all of them) showed up in my RSS reader, but I’m really not sure why. I’m sorry if you use an RSS reader for my blog. I didn’t mean to flood your RSS reader.

Things should return to normal now….

PS: I may sneak an extra post in here and there during this month since I’ve got so many things going on right now.

wahine

Random word list:
flavanilin
night-prowling
forepad
trasy
wahine

Word chosen: wahine

Definition: (in Hawaii and Polynesia) a girl or young woman.

Free association word list:
hula skirt
luau
food
roast pig
pineapple
fruit
fruit cake
breaking a tooth
dentist
oral surgery
implants
bone graft
not fun
expensive
broke
paycheck
income
401k
retirement
old age
endless vacation
RV
road trips
travel
good times
summer vacation

Word chosen: Road Trips

Writing:

When I was a kid I spent most summers with my paternal grandparents. There were some exceptions, but not many. During these summer vacations, my grandparents and I would pile into the RV of the year^*. Our destination was always Colorado. I’m not sure why.

We’d trundle across New Mexico heading for different parts of Colorado. We’d head to Colorado Springs, Durango, Pueblo, and various scenic parts of the state. The trip there would invariably take a full week. We’d stop at every little cafe, historical marker, scenic outlook, and tourist trap. Every. Single. Year. It got to the point where I would know what historical marker we were at without even getting out to look at it.

Thinking back on it, I’m sure that my grandfather was just looking for a chance to get out and stretch his legs. He had to sit in the driver’s seat the entire time while I was free to romp and play in the back of the RV. I’d spend most of the time reading books, or coming up with some great^** D&D adventure.

After creeping across New Mexico, we’d finally reach our destination. We’d spend about a week there. I always had a blast hiking, fishing, rafting, walking the small towns, and just hanging out with my grandparents. It’s one of the more innocent times of my life, and I really miss it quite a bit. I can sometimes recapture those moments in memories, but they’re distant and fading.

Maybe with the coming of my son in less than three weeks, I’ll be able to re-experience those wonderful times through his eyes. Everyone seems to want to live vicariously through their single friends that come home with a different hottie every night, but those dreams are behind me. I no longer envy those friends, but I don’t find them pathetic either. They are what they are.

I now look forward to the days where I can recapture a little innocence, wonderment, and excitement at “the new stuff” (even if it’s old to me) through the life of my son. Most people ask me if I’m nervous, anxious, scared, or frightened at the prospect of having a child. I do have a little of that, but it is background noise compared to the things that I’m looking forward to with excitement, eagerness, and longing.

* – My grandfather always seemed to find something newer and better every spring, and he would trade in the old RV for a new one.

** – The word “great” is relative. I’m very sure that my first hundred attempts at creating a D&D adventure were anything other than “great” by any standard. They seemed great to me though. I was always known as the guy that could use the widest variety of creatures in a single dungeon. Of course, there was no logical explanation for the zoo-like collection of critters, but my players didn’t care because even the “wild dogs” that were roaming a 10×10 room on the 4th level of the dungeon came with at least 2,000 GP worth of treasure. Yeah. I know. Pathetic. Don’t scoff. I was in elementary school, ok?

Officiumocopiaphilia

I don’t know what it is about office supplies, but when I walk by them in the store I have the urge to buy some. It’s an addiction, I swear. I’m not entirely sure what’s wrong with me. I have plenty of paper, pens, paper clips, rubber bands, mechanical pencils, pencil lead, erasers, post-it notes, batteries, blank CDs, staples, and all of the other cruft that you find in the office.

Heck, when I start a new job, one of the things that I look forward to most is stocking up my desk with office supplies. It’s a great feeling. It’s like shopping for all new stuff without spending a dime. At a past job, I remember that they gave me a small plastic trash can that was brand new. Then they walked me to this fairly large room with TONS of office supplies in it. The lady told me that she needed to run talk to someone real quick, and she would be back in a few minutes. She told me to help myself to what I needed to do my job. Heheh.. Her mistake. I must have filled, compress, and refilled that trash can twice with stuff. I made sure to leave at least one of each thing in the supply room for other people, but I had at least a two year supply of office supplies in that trash can. Muahahaha… (and the job almost lasted that long too!)

Most kids would look forward to school for the new clothes. Many of the kids in my schools would only get new clothes at the start of school, maybe Christmas, and on the rare birthday. The clothes were a treat for them. Not me. I loved my clothes. I rarely went in on the latest fashions no matter how hard my grandmother would tell me, “But they are all wearing it!” I always asked her who “they” were. She never had an answer for me, so she dropped it. I suppose that if I had friends in school, she could have used them as an example, but that wasn’t the case.

I also looked forward to school for the new stuff: school supplies!!!

Yep. I made sure that every pen, pencil, scrap of notebook paper, spiral notebook, backpack, and other supplies would vanish about two weeks before school started. I never threw it out (unless it was truly ready to go) since I loathed to throw out any office supply. I would stash it away somewhere until we went shopping for school supplies. I would load up on all sorts of goodies. I’m pretty sure I peed a few drops each time my grandmother told me that it was time to go shopping for school supplies.

One of the main schwag items at OSCON was pens. I picked them up all over the place, but never more than one of each kind. I gave a few away, but I still have 10 of them left. Sounds like a small haul, but I’m happy to have each one even though I may never use any of them.

I wondered if there’s a named disorder out there that I have? I did a Google search for “office supply fetish” and found over 2 million links. Some good stuff in there, but no diagnosis yet. I did find Office Freaks that looks like a cool site.

After using this English to Latin translator for a short bit, I finally came up with: officiumocopiaphilia. Yep. I have officiumocopiaphilia. I’m a officiumocopiaphile. I am officiumocopiaphilic.

Try dropping that word on your doctor (or better yet, psychiatrist!) next time you see them.

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

It started snowing here a little Saturday night, and turned into a pretty good snow storm by the time Sunday morning rolled around. Kiara had gone into town early Sunday morning, and I stayed at home in dismay over the weather. I decided that it was time to put the snow blower together. I cracked open the box, drug it out from the box, and grabbed the manual. There were two fairly thick manuals in the bag, and I was worried that it would be Spring thaw before I would have it together. I was in luck. One book was how to take the engine apart, and most of the other one was maintenance and repair. The assembly instructions were about 2 1/2 pages long (with some diagrams), and the entire assembly time was about five minutes.

It took me another 10 to adjust the skid plates to a higher setting, so that I could do the gravel road without sucking up gravel, mud, and pebbles. It took me this long because I discovered that I didn’t have a set of standard sized sockets. I had metric, but not standard. I did have a full set of standard sized wrenches, though, so that got me through. My next tool purchase will be a set of Craftsman standard sockets from Sears. I just gotta get by there to make that purchase.

We had two gas cans at home (a 1 gallon and a 5 gallon) but both were empty. I called Kiara and asked her to buy a two gallon or five gallon tank and put at least two gallons of gas in it. She managed to get close to home shortly after noon. The turn-off on our road is a slight up hill ascent, and it was icy. The problem is that after the turn, you don’t have enough momentum to carry you over the icy hill. Kiara got stuck there, so I threw on my coat, and walked down the road to meet her. I met her about halfway, and carried the gas can the rest of the way.

I got the snow blower gassed up, and then showed Kiara how to operate it. The next step was to clear off our 2200 sq. ft. driveway of the 4-24 inches of snow that had gathered or drifted in the driveway. I wasn’t looking forward to the effort, but within a minute or two of doing it, I was having fun! Yep. Me. Having fun in snow. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The snow blower has 6 forward gears, and 2 reverse gears. In anything higher than 3rd gear, the blower will actually pop a wheelie if you gas it hard. Sweet! I managed to clear the entire driveway (and a little extra around the Suburban) in 24 minutes. Not 23 minutes. Not 25 minutes. Yes. I timed it. I had to know for sure. That’s a vast improvement over the 6+ hours it took me last winter to dig out a single car width path in the snow.

The afternoon brought warmer weather, and sunlight. We waited until just before the sun went down to go get Kiara’s car from the bottom of the hill. We hopped in the Suburban, and I kicked in the four wheel drive. I drove down to her car, and waited to see if she could make it. She managed to get to the house, and I followed along. I kept a good distance between us, and on the way back to the house, I made sure to drive through the deepest parts of the snow that were on the road to see how the suburban would handle it. I manged to make it through some two foot deep drifts and the Suburban didn’t even flinch at it. Very nice!

I think that we’re finally prepared for the snow this year. So long as we don’t get another blizzard following another blizzard following another blizzard (x7), we should be in good shape. It’s nice to know that we’ll be able to make out of the snow in inclement conditions, but I’m still not going to beg for massive amounts of snow. I like a challenge, but not one that could potentially trap me in my house for days on end.

Season Premiers, Part 1

It’s season premier time! Here are my thoughts on the shows that I watched last night.

Just finished watching Chuck. It was a pretty good show. Neat premise, decent actors, good action, and funny comedy. The pilot was a good one, and I’ll continue to watch it for at least a few more episodes to make sure that it’s worthwhile. Jayne from Firefly/Serenity is in the series! I totally didn’t recognize him until near the end of the episode. I think it’ll be fun to see what kind of NSA agent he plays. Yes, the hot CIA agent is fun to look at, so that doesn’t hurt things. I just wish I knew why here eye-teeth were so friggin’ huge. Every time she smiles, it scares me a little inside. I can get over that though. The one big gaff was that Chuck left Stanford five years ago, and he was talking about his old friend Bryce. While talking about Bryce he mentioned that he remembered working with Bryce to write Zork on a TRS-80 while at Stanford. Ummm… Guys? Nice flashback to the past for us computer geeks (reference to Zork AND TRS-80 in the same sentence is nice), but your target audience for that reference (computer geeks) all know that Zork was written on the PDP-10 in the late 70′s. Yes, it did run on the TRS-80, but this was over two decades ago… not five years. Anyway, that one minor bit aside, the rest of the show was wonderful. I can’t wait for next week to hit.

After Chuck came The Big Bang Theory. This promised to be a funny show for the geeks in the world. This is why I watched it. Apparently Chuck Lorre thinks that smart people are horribly retarded when it comes to social interaction. I take offense to this stereotype because it is rarely true once they get out of high school. The really large words that were thrown around were really distracting because it is equally as rare for even the most intelligent people to talk like that in a social situation. I know that characters are supposed to be exaggerated to really be interesting in fiction, but it can’t be a constant thing or it really gets annoying. There were some good lines in the show, and the best line of the show was in response to, “What do you guys do for fun around here?” The line was, “Today we tried masturbating for money.” Worst line was about the Sun’s position relative to the stars at the time of birth determining personality. It’s actually the position of the Earth relative to the stars as we perceive them that has spawned astrology…. Duh. If you’re going to make a show about smart people, then smart people are going to want to watch. Don’t make stupid mistakes like that. Overall, I’m thinking that this show is going to be a waste of time and energy, but we’ll see how it goes… I’ll leave it on the DVR for now, but no promises that it’ll last more than a week or two.

After that was Two and a Half Men. I came into this show with high hopes as it was a tried and true veteran of comedy. The hilarious lines came one after another. Each performer lived up to even the harshest critic’s expectations. If anyone says anything bad about the season opener of Two and a Half Men, then I have a few theories about them:

1. They are horribly stupid.
2. They are part of Al Qaeda.
3. They are part of Focus on the Family.
4. Chuck Lorre did something horrible to them as a child.
5. #2 and #3.
6. They are Denise Richards, and they still hate Charlie Sheen.
7. They hate to laugh because they feel that enjoyment is a mortal sin.
8. #1 and #6.

After this, I caught the last half of Journeyman because it was on. I had no intention of watching it, but I had nothing else that I felt motivated to start working on at this late hour. It was pretty good, but I wish I had caught it at the start of the show. I’m not a big fan of time travel shows because of the horrible paradox holes that most writers manage to blow into the plot. I try to ignore them, but most of them jump out and slap you in the face. As I said, I didn’t catch the first half, but the second half was put together reasonably well. I’m not sure I’ll DVR it. I’ll probably just stumble across it when I have time.

The best show of the night (that I watched) was by far Two and a Half Men. I fully expected this. I’m going to continue to give Chuck my time, but Big Bang Theory only has one more shot to get over the “first show jitters” before I remove the timer from my DVR.

Don’t expect updates on these shows the night after they come out. Life is pretty busy for me, and there may be some lag between the time they air, and the time that I watch them.

PS: If I vanish from the face of the Earth within the next week, check the CIA’s secret European prison system. I just mentioned CIA, NSA, astrology, Al Qaeda, Focus on the Family, and Denise Richards all in the same post. I’m pretty sure some high powered government computer somewhere is digging through my blog as you read this flagging me for vaporization in the near future. What? Yeah. I’m reading 1984 right now. Why do you ask?

High School Memories

I got this from Jhianna who got it from someone else. Looked like fun to answer, so here it is….

1. Who was your best friend?
My freshman year was Curtis. His dad got transferred to somewhere in Oklahoma. I really miss Curtis. I wish I could track him down someday. My sophomore year, I was pretty much in self-exile and avoided as many people as I could. My junior year, it was very, very few people that I could deal with (or that could deal with me.) However, Katie and Heather were there for me through it all. They cared for me like no one had ever cared for me before. If it wasn’t for their love, I’m not sure I would have survived. My senior year, I finally came out of my shell (actually, Heather broke me out of it during the summer between Jr. and Sr. years.) I had so many friends (and we were all outcasts together) that I really can’t pin one of them as a “best” friend, but J.J. ended up being my best friend for several years until the lure of drug abuse sucked him back in. I had to cut ties with him, and that was a very painful thing to do.

2. What sports did you play?
I played tennis until just before my freshman year, and I was pretty good at it. I was as good as the guys that were rich enough to have their own private coaches. I often wonder where I would have gone with that had I had the proper training, and not had my arm mangled in a car wreck right before my freshman year. During the rest of high school, I skateboarded, but there was no “team” or anything like that.

3. What kind of car did you drive?
For most of my high school days, I drove a ’67 Chevy step-side, short bed truck with a rotted wooden bed, off-road tires, and a top speed of 57 miles an hour if I was going downhill. Part way through my senior year, it died a horrible death (transmission), and it was replaced with an ’81 Chevy Citation that lasted me through the rest of high school.

4. It’s Friday night, where were you?
Usually at home doing homework, programming on my computer, reading a book, or planning the next day’s gaming session at Bases Loaded. We’d play Warhammer 40k, AD&D, Paranoia, Champions, or Battletech all day on Saturday. To arrange this, I had to work 5 AM to 10 AM at Albertsons on Saturdays, so I was usually in bed pretty early.

5. Were you a party animal?
Nope. In my senior year, I would go to Larry’s apartment or house, and hang out where there was drinking and the occasional drug use. I would drink a beer or two, but not touch the drugs. I didn’t like most of the people there, and I didn’t want to lose control of my senses around them.

6. Were you considered a flirt?
Hah! Not at all. I’ve never learned the art of flirting. It’s just not in my DNA to be able to woo women in any form. I’m still not sure why Kiara chose to shack up with me. I was too embarrassed to even TALK to girls, let alone flirt with them.

7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
I tried orchestra (violin) for a few years in elementary school, and I was smart enough back then to realize that I had no talent at all for anything musical. I never tried again, but I do tinker on my guitar at home from time-to-time. I’m not any good, and I don’t think that I ever will be. Maybe someday I’ll actually be able to play a whole song.

8. Were you a nerd?
I wasn’t a nerd. I was the nerd of the school. No one was more nerdy than I was. Chess team, Academic Decathlon, Physics club, French club, journalism (which was actually kind of a cool kid thing), yearbook, electronics club. Oddly enough, there was no computer club. It was founded a year or three after I graduated, but I would have been the uber-leader of the computer club had it been around.

9. Did you get suspended/expelled?
Nope. Got sent to the principal’s office once for walking out on a class 10 minutes early because the teacher was being a total bitch. I even called her a bitch to her face. My only punishment was to sit in the office after school for 10 minutes to make up for the missed time. I showed up on time, and the principal (who we called “Coach J” for some reason) made me sit there a whole three minutes before he told me to go home.

10. Can you sing the fight song?
Nope. They did that at the prep pep rallies. I didn’t go to those. Until my senior year, we were allowed to skip them and go to the library instead. I did that. My senior year they banished that practice for some reason unknown to me. That’s when I started leaving the campus instead of going to them. I could have gotten in trouble, but any punishment would be better than sitting with the preps and listening to them talk good about themselves.

11. Who was your favorite teacher?
I had quite a few good ones. Here’s the list:

• Mr. Vetter — Freshman — United States History — Chess Coach
• Mrs. Setzer — Sophomore and Junior — French — Her and her daughter (Katie, see above) really helped me through my dark times on a personal level. She could have sent me to the counselor, but she showed me love and kindness herself. She cared. I knew she cared. I didn’t want to disappoint her, and that is one for the reasons that I didn’t take my life my junior year of school.
• Mr. Landrum — Junior and Senior — Computer Science — This man taught me more than I can ever categorize about how to think logically, how to program, and how to be a GOOD programmer. I would not be doing what I’m doing now without him. I would not be nearly as good at it today as I am without him. Last time I went home, I tracked him down and we had a nice meal together (my treat) to talk about random things. Sure, it was mostly computers, but we talked about school, and teaching, and all sorts of stuff. It was one of the best hours that I had while I was in Texas.
• Mr. Franks — Senior — Economics and Academic Decathlon Coach — Mr. Franks was one of my few teachers that, by default, treated everyone as an adult. We had responsibilities, and we had to meet them. Because of the respect that he showed me up front, I always gave him my best effort. He earned my respect by showing me respect, and doing anything less would be a huge sign of disrespect. He was also very open and friendly. He’s the kind of teacher that I would love to become.
• Mrs. Armstrong — Junior — English — Again, this was the darkest days of my life, and we always did free-associative, creative writing during the first 10 minutes of class. This gave me the bug for creative writing. It also gave me an outlet for my darkest thoughts, and that helped a bit. It also meant that she sent me to the guidance counselor at least once a week for fears that I may hurt myself. She was right. At the time, I resented the fact that she was right and was “intruding” on my life. Looking back, I’m glad she did what she did.

12. School mascot?
Bulldog. English Bulldog if I remember correctly.

13. Did you go to prom?
Hahahahahahahaahhaa…. Fuck no. Not at all. I had no desire to go. No one had a desire to go with me. Most people had a desire to make sure that I didn’t go. That’s probably a good thing. If I had shown up, I would have brought eggs.

14. If you could go back and do it over, would you?
no. No. NO. NO I can think of pretty much any kind of action in the world that I would rather do than suffer through that crap again.

15. What do you remember most about graduation?
I remember getting my diploma, walking halfway across stage, and the crowd applauding… then I remember hearing my mom screaming her head off. There were about 8,000 people in the stands, and I could hear her over everything else. Then I whipped off my cap, and headbanged for a few moments until I heard the principal clear his throat. I knew that was my cue to move on.

16. Where were you on senior skip day?
I was out with John SomethingOrTheOther, and Eric in John’s brand new Mustang 5.0. Yeah. He almost killed us approximately 9.7 times during that day. I’m not sure where we went, but we made a point to be anywhere else but school. One thing that I do remember is that I made it back to school for my computer science class with Mr. Landrum. Yeah. I know. I’m a nerd. I’ve accepted it, now you need to.

17. Did you have a job your senior year?
Not my senior year. I worked from my freshman year right until the start of my senior year. My grandfather wanted me to relax, enjoy my last year of high school, and improve my grades. I did all of that, and the first step was walking away from Albertsons.

18. Where did you go most often for lunch?
Freshman year was on its own campus, and it was a closed campus. My sophomore year, I wanted to be away from everyone else, so I walked (open campus by this time) about four miles (one way) to a 7-11 to buy a nuked burritto and a Big Gulp that I would eat on the way back. There was a 7-11 about 5 blocks from the high school, but that’s where everyone else went, and I wanted to avoid them. I remember a guy that tried to befriend me (I’m really not sure why,) and to get rid of him, I walked faster on the day he wanted to go to lunch with me in order to leave him behind. It worked. My junior year, I had a vehicle, so I would drive as fast as I could to Burger King, eat as fast as I could, and get out as fast as I could. I was usually leaving about the time all the rest of the high school kids were arriving. I timed it perfectly. I’d then drive to a park and sit and read. My senior year, my friends and I would go to the youth center across the street for cheap food. On Wednesdays, we’d pile 10 people into my Chevy Citation and drive to Little Ceasar’s. They’d always ask for a name for the order and all 10 of us would yell out our names. It would confuse the poor people, so Vince started giving “Sid” as the name. When they would ask for a last initial, we’d always give “V.” I still use that sometimes.

19. Have you gained weight since then?
Oh yeah. I was 120 lbs. when I graduated high school. At the end of last year, I was up to 245 lbs. I’m down to 205 now. I never thought I would near 200. Ever.

20. What did you do after graduation?
I tried college, but that didn’t work. I had no motivation. No reason. I should have stuck with it, but I was 18, and wanted to live life, not sit in class. I ended up living life on my own by delivering pizzas. Yeah. I should have sucked it up and stayed in school. Ah well….

21. When did you graduate?
1991

22. Who was your Senior prom date?
Hahahahahahahahahaa…..

23. Are you going / did you go to your 10 year reunion?
I’ve already missed it. I didn’t even get an invite. Stuck up bastards. They’re probably afraid that I’m going to bring eggs. If I don’t get an invite to the 20 year reunion, I’m crashing the party.

24. Who was your home room teacher?
No such critter in my high school.

25. Who will repost this after you?
Don’t know. Probably no one.