I got to meet Scott Kurtz last night! I'm trying my best to be cool and not go fanboy on the Kurtz. We all met at the lounge in the Hilton here. It was like a continuation of our guild's Teamspeak chat; Scott entertaining all of us with stories, while we all chime in with one liners and such.
It's nice when an artist or writer (or both) that you like turns out to be so down to earth that they will hang out with you like any of your other friends. After a few people left for sleep, some of us went to a table and played poker and pool. I just sat and watched.
We have a good guild turnout, probably more than most. I wish the rest of the guild could be here with us.
In a few minutes we are meeting for breakfast, so I'm off to get some food with everyone.
2005-10-29
Blizzcon pwns!!1!!!1
Blizzcon is today and tomorrow, and after a half day of hanging out with like minded gamers, I can say this: "I love being a nerd!!1!" I'm typing this from the Anaheim Hilton right next to the convention center, and I had a freaking sweet day today.
It started at 05:30 EDT in Long Island NY. At 09:00 EDT I boarded a 6 hour coach flight from JFK to Long Beach CA. I rented a 2005 convertible Mustang and drove to Anaheim. Things were looking up. But an hour later I hopped off the 405 because the trip was taking too long, and it was looking more and more like LA. The reason for that was because I got on the 405 northbound rather than southbound. So I turned around and headed back to cover sadly familiar ground. Just an FYI for anyone that cares, route 22 shares road with 405 for a few miles. This makes it easy to mistakenly exit at the wrong place, and end up on 22 in the wrong direction.
After all that, when I made it to the convention center, I was ready to call it a day. The driving reason for me to go in was the goodie bag. I wanted LOOT!!1!!!
But when I got in, I realized just how much I love Blizzard. They put on a first rate show. The demo's were great, they had top notch cosplayers dressed in seriously cool outfits. The female human mage was particularly well done (and she is hot). They showed us Starcraft Ghost, Starcraft Invasion (which we played), and the WoW expansion: The Burning Crusade, which we played as well!!1!!one!!!
Plus, I was able to meet Mike and Jerry of Penny Arcade, and later tonight a few of us Panda's are going to hang out with our leader, Scott Kurtz!!!1!!!eleven!!!!1!!
This is turning out to be the nicest thing I've done for myself in a very long time. I'm so happy that it feels like an acceptance speech is in order.
It started at 05:30 EDT in Long Island NY. At 09:00 EDT I boarded a 6 hour coach flight from JFK to Long Beach CA. I rented a 2005 convertible Mustang and drove to Anaheim. Things were looking up. But an hour later I hopped off the 405 because the trip was taking too long, and it was looking more and more like LA. The reason for that was because I got on the 405 northbound rather than southbound. So I turned around and headed back to cover sadly familiar ground. Just an FYI for anyone that cares, route 22 shares road with 405 for a few miles. This makes it easy to mistakenly exit at the wrong place, and end up on 22 in the wrong direction.
After all that, when I made it to the convention center, I was ready to call it a day. The driving reason for me to go in was the goodie bag. I wanted LOOT!!1!!!
But when I got in, I realized just how much I love Blizzard. They put on a first rate show. The demo's were great, they had top notch cosplayers dressed in seriously cool outfits. The female human mage was particularly well done (and she is hot). They showed us Starcraft Ghost, Starcraft Invasion (which we played), and the WoW expansion: The Burning Crusade, which we played as well!!1!!one!!!
Plus, I was able to meet Mike and Jerry of Penny Arcade, and later tonight a few of us Panda's are going to hang out with our leader, Scott Kurtz!!!1!!!eleven!!!!1!!
This is turning out to be the nicest thing I've done for myself in a very long time. I'm so happy that it feels like an acceptance speech is in order.
2005-10-26
Online music stores
I fully support artists rights to get paid. I have purchased over 700 audio CD's and have no intention of ever stopping.
But I also feel that the audio I buy online is mine, and I have to right to use it anyway that I want. When I buy a song from iTunes, it will not play in WinAmp or many other media players.
If you are using iTunes version 5 or lower, you can use JHymn to strip the DRM from your legally purchased songs. It's arguable how legal this is, but I've lost no sleep.
And am I missing something about the music stores that let you rent music? The new Napster is the most popular music store that uses this model. I guess you have to think of it as an upgrade from satellite Radio, you pay monthly and when you stop paying, you don't get any of what you used to listen to. But if you have a portable audio device that can use this service, you are really locking yourself into a never ending payment plan. As soon as you stop paying, your player becomes almost useless. Sure you can still play mp3's, but that huge online database of music that you once had is now unavailable. Sucks to be you.
But I also feel that the audio I buy online is mine, and I have to right to use it anyway that I want. When I buy a song from iTunes, it will not play in WinAmp or many other media players.
If you are using iTunes version 5 or lower, you can use JHymn to strip the DRM from your legally purchased songs. It's arguable how legal this is, but I've lost no sleep.
And am I missing something about the music stores that let you rent music? The new Napster is the most popular music store that uses this model. I guess you have to think of it as an upgrade from satellite Radio, you pay monthly and when you stop paying, you don't get any of what you used to listen to. But if you have a portable audio device that can use this service, you are really locking yourself into a never ending payment plan. As soon as you stop paying, your player becomes almost useless. Sure you can still play mp3's, but that huge online database of music that you once had is now unavailable. Sucks to be you.
2005-10-10
Gullible, don't be
Why do people still send me crap e-mail, or as I call it "feces-mail"? (yeah, it's not that creative of a term, but it kinda rhymes with e-mail) I just received one from a co-worker (I'm still at my old job, until the end of this week) about how all new laptops are being manufactured with a hardware keylogger installed, that keeps track of up to 500,000 keystrokes. This is purportedly so the Department of Homeland Security can keep tabs on us, without our even knowing. Sounds real scary, right?
Well it isn't. This is another case of somebody sending on feces-mail because they WANT it to be true. Snopes cleared up the situation for me in under 3 minutes.
The guy that sent this to me is a conspiracy theorist. He's not the extreme case like you sometimes meet, maybe just a 8.5 on a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being "hiding your head in the ground", 5 being a normal person, and 10 being the kind of guy that wears a tin-foil cap to keep the government from reading his thoughts). This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that he brings up from time to time as an indication that we are right on the cusp of a Orwellian style "1984" government. He likens it to the "how to boil a frog" metaphor, where you start with the frog in tepid water and slowly turn the heat up, rather than just dumping Kermit into boiling water. I think you can make the correlation to the topic of government and rights infringement.
Bear in mind that this isn't a dumb guy, he is well aware of Snopes, and he should know better than to forward a mass e-mail without fact checking it! Especially to me, I'm his #1 moderator.
Thankfully, the number of "forward this to 10 people and get a wish/have good luck for a year" crap has distinctly diminished over the last few years. I don't know if I could handle much more of that. Who really thinks that this works? What religion do they subscribe to that allows for such nonsense? And if such a religion exists, how do I get a membership list? Those are the kind of idiots that will buy ANYTHING! I could probably sell their e-mail address' to spammers for $5 per person. Honestly, how much common sense does it take to realize that there is really no higher power keeping track of how many people you forward an e-mail to? If they did, could they really be called a "higher power"?
Of particular interest are the ones that give multiple levels of payoff for how many people you forward to; 1-5 = wish granted in 2 months, 6-10 = wish granted in 2 weeks, 11-20 = wish granted in 2 hours!!! The superfluous exclamation marks are just more proof that the e-mail is TRUE!!! Do these people visualize some e-mail fairy, with their grand checklist firmly in hand, waiting for that 15th name to go into your To: field? "Hooray! Now Billy-Ray can have his wish for a 35¢ raise this week rather than in 2 months!"
On the other hand, if Billy-Ray just delete's the e-mail, this (or these?, I haven't been able to determine) vengeful entity is so pissed off that he/she inflicts poor Billy-Ray with bad luck for a year. Why is it that the circulation, or lack thereof, of some silly Irish friendship poem, barely a Limerick, can generate such a disparity in fortune?
These people also fall into that category of "hoping/wishing/fearing this is true". It's no different than the old-school paper-mail chain letters that we got in the 70's and 80's. The only difference is that back then, we didn't have Snopes.com. For the last few years I've taken the time to research every one of these "too shocking to be true" e-mails, and reply-to-all with the Snopes answer. I think that everyone should do the same. Maybe, in time, we can end this sad perpetual chain of letters that prey on the simple minded.
I used to reply-to-all to these e-mails, so everybody that got it along with me will see what I wished for. And I would always wish for the same thing: I wished to be god. That's right, if these e-mail wish givers are going to hand out wishes, then they are only handing out their own demise! I shall usurp them and remove their wish granting ability, thereby eliminating such a threat to my own sovereignty. Then comes the "fire and brimstone" stuff. You see, I'm a vengeful god, and I fully plan on subjugating you all to do my will. Have you seen the Lord Of The Rings movies? Remember Frodo's vision of Middle Earth if Sauron get's his ring back? Yeah, that's what I picture for my reign. So do yourself a favor and don't e-mail me anything that I can use to obtain easy wishes.
Thinking of these people makes me sad.
Well it isn't. This is another case of somebody sending on feces-mail because they WANT it to be true. Snopes cleared up the situation for me in under 3 minutes.
The guy that sent this to me is a conspiracy theorist. He's not the extreme case like you sometimes meet, maybe just a 8.5 on a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being "hiding your head in the ground", 5 being a normal person, and 10 being the kind of guy that wears a tin-foil cap to keep the government from reading his thoughts). This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that he brings up from time to time as an indication that we are right on the cusp of a Orwellian style "1984" government. He likens it to the "how to boil a frog" metaphor, where you start with the frog in tepid water and slowly turn the heat up, rather than just dumping Kermit into boiling water. I think you can make the correlation to the topic of government and rights infringement.
Bear in mind that this isn't a dumb guy, he is well aware of Snopes, and he should know better than to forward a mass e-mail without fact checking it! Especially to me, I'm his #1 moderator.
Thankfully, the number of "forward this to 10 people and get a wish/have good luck for a year" crap has distinctly diminished over the last few years. I don't know if I could handle much more of that. Who really thinks that this works? What religion do they subscribe to that allows for such nonsense? And if such a religion exists, how do I get a membership list? Those are the kind of idiots that will buy ANYTHING! I could probably sell their e-mail address' to spammers for $5 per person. Honestly, how much common sense does it take to realize that there is really no higher power keeping track of how many people you forward an e-mail to? If they did, could they really be called a "higher power"?
Of particular interest are the ones that give multiple levels of payoff for how many people you forward to; 1-5 = wish granted in 2 months, 6-10 = wish granted in 2 weeks, 11-20 = wish granted in 2 hours!!! The superfluous exclamation marks are just more proof that the e-mail is TRUE!!! Do these people visualize some e-mail fairy, with their grand checklist firmly in hand, waiting for that 15th name to go into your To: field? "Hooray! Now Billy-Ray can have his wish for a 35¢ raise this week rather than in 2 months!"
On the other hand, if Billy-Ray just delete's the e-mail, this (or these?, I haven't been able to determine) vengeful entity is so pissed off that he/she inflicts poor Billy-Ray with bad luck for a year. Why is it that the circulation, or lack thereof, of some silly Irish friendship poem, barely a Limerick, can generate such a disparity in fortune?
These people also fall into that category of "hoping/wishing/fearing this is true". It's no different than the old-school paper-mail chain letters that we got in the 70's and 80's. The only difference is that back then, we didn't have Snopes.com. For the last few years I've taken the time to research every one of these "too shocking to be true" e-mails, and reply-to-all with the Snopes answer. I think that everyone should do the same. Maybe, in time, we can end this sad perpetual chain of letters that prey on the simple minded.
I used to reply-to-all to these e-mails, so everybody that got it along with me will see what I wished for. And I would always wish for the same thing: I wished to be god. That's right, if these e-mail wish givers are going to hand out wishes, then they are only handing out their own demise! I shall usurp them and remove their wish granting ability, thereby eliminating such a threat to my own sovereignty. Then comes the "fire and brimstone" stuff. You see, I'm a vengeful god, and I fully plan on subjugating you all to do my will. Have you seen the Lord Of The Rings movies? Remember Frodo's vision of Middle Earth if Sauron get's his ring back? Yeah, that's what I picture for my reign. So do yourself a favor and don't e-mail me anything that I can use to obtain easy wishes.
Thinking of these people makes me sad.
2005-10-06
I'm changing employers
I'm taking a job offer from one of my current customers. Today I found out that NACT is paying me my PTO (Flex time) and vacation time. Since I have about 188+ hours (combined), my last paycheck that I get on the 21st will be about 5.5 times what my normal paycheck is.
I think it may be time to buy a yacht.
I think it may be time to buy a yacht.
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