Happy Birthday Jeremy

When we were leaving his office (home of our weekly D&D game now), I forgot to wish him a happy birthday last night, but better on time than never right? Last year we joined him for dinner at Fuddrucker’s and he was in great spirits; his new business doing data recovery (Heroic Efforts) was going great guns, still is in my opinion, and he has another business with a third in the works.

Anyway, Jeremy is another living example of how friendship is made at odd times and places. Making a good friend at work is not that unusual (he used to be on the phones at Apple-Austin), it was the introduction; I monitored and rated one of his tech calls when I was a backfill manager in 2000. I honestly don’t even remember the specifics of the call, it was probably good since Jeremy pretty sharp and the disastrous ones are unforgettable. His reaction to the evaulation was the priceless part, something along the lines of “who the heck are you?” We weren’t in the same buildings, ah the gulf of that parking lot. I think he was one of the agents stuck in managerial limbo then too (sometimes employees get shuffled frequently during growth and it’s impossible to know who reports to whom). Despite the awkward introductions, our paths crossed again later that Summer as Third Edition D&D was appearing. We were both looking to start up a campaign then and as the cliche goes, the rest is history.

We’ve been friends for many, many other reasons outside of D&D though. We’ve gone to movies, dinner with spouses and general socializing. Once again demonstrating how gaming is just an old, analog version of social networking, the point I was hoping to make in the recent movie I was in (still waiting for a copy of this).

Meanwhile, wish him happy birthday or better yet, keep Heroic Efforts in mind if you lose data on your computer’s hard drive (he can rescue more than Macs) or read his posts on ungenius, the site for former Mac Geniuses.

Posted in Birthday, News | Leave a comment

Happy Birthday Kris

Can’t believe I totally overlooked her birthday last year! It’s right there in my Now Up2Date calendar with an icon of Melissa Joan Hart as Sabrina Spellman! Well, I probably forgot then because I was busy helping Somara install our ceiling fans on the same day.

A while back Kris had “retired” from Apple and I hope she was enjoying it. Thankfully she is back; it’s nice to see a familiar, friendly face anywhere, especially at work. I’m sure the people who hired Kris back needed her expertise and “can do” attitude. In all the years I’ve known Kris, she has always been in demand so I’m confident it took mucho convincing to have her return, unless retirement was dull.

Anyway, I have mentioned my friend Kris before, namely in the tenth anniversary stories regarding PowerComputing. She was definitely one of the instrumental people in making my time and career there a good memory. (Never thought any of us would ever be writing such a thing when the Dark Times began.) Even outside of PCC, Kris was a great friend. She sold me one of her PowerBook 5300s for a nice price and let me pay her in installments. While I was “exiled” for a year in North Carolina, she wrote me back frequently to tell me how she and her daughter Kelly were doing. Best of all, when Apple needed to ramp up its support for the new iMac’s launch, Kris called me right away to see if I was interested. All was forgiven between Apple and PowerComputing’s support techs and she knew I wanted to return to Austin. The rest is history as the cliche goes. I would like to add that she saved my life personally: I seriously missed Austin’s features.

Outside of her incredible diligence at work, Kris is the only person I know who comes back ahead every time from Vegas. We’re talking seriously ahead, not chump change or enough for one-plane-ticket-ahead money (what I always consider a victory). I think she has more expertise at video poker than she knows. Not like Rain Man, intuition describes it better.

How hold is Kris? You’ll have to ask her. Remember my rule never to disclose a lady’s age, something imdb.com doesn’t seem to follow. Then again, celebrities’ ages must be for the public record or under FOIA. Observation aside, wish a happy birthday to Kris if you see her around physically or online. If you don’t know her, you still should because this nice person has been one of my guardian angels and I owe a big part of my life in Austin to Kris.

Posted in Birthday, News | Leave a comment

What happens when Shin-chan uses his parents’ iMac

You may be more familiar with the Shin-Chan reference if you’ve been watching Adult Swim lately or you’re an anime fan. Anyway, when Helen told me about her sons’ antics with Photo Booth, the iMac’s built-in iSight camera and her bed, I was laughing for a while. Talk about an unexpected use of Apple technology! Until I received the pictures, I had been impressed with the boys’ timing since the software only has a three-second countdown. Either Helen doesn’t know the definition of mooning or I misunderstood her, I’ll go with the latter because she’s my friend and not clueless on slang. Helen is puzzled as to why her boys are obsessed with this. I had to reinforce what Paul has said, mooning is a classic of male humor at any age. Right there with farting and slipping on banana peels.

Hmm, mooning attempt or parody of George Michael?

Paul must be present to give the boys some helpful pointers. I recall he was quite an expert in the dorms while in college.

Posted in Pictures | 1 Comment

NHL Playoffs, Round Three, the Conference Championships

I didn’t do too badly on Round Two in my opinion, I got three out of four since New Jersey was upset by Ottawa. Upset is an accurate assessment because New Jersey had scoring with their EGG line (Elias, Gomez and Gionta) along with others, solid D and Brodeur in goal. I was looking forward to a New Jersey v. Detroit rematch since those two titans only faced off in 1995 after the abbreviated season.

Still, Detroit finally prevailed last night and I get to keep my Stanley Cup beard (38 days) for another 10 days unless Disney on Ice succeeds.

Again, couldn’t find a poll from ESPN.com, as if they really care about hockey anymore.

For the East:

#1 Buffalo v. #4 Ottawa: Buffalo Sabres in six.

This is definitely the year for the Sabres. They deserved the President’s Trophy for the most points because they were the top team all season. Last year they only were defeated by the ‘Canes due to injuries. Now they’re healthy, they’re fast, their roster from last time is relatively intact and Dallas robbed ‘em in 1999. The Senators may have proven they were hungrier than the Devils last round but Ray Emery just isn’t that solid of a goalie. Ryan Miller for Buffalo is equally questionable yet he has more help from the D, the Sens have nothing after Chara fled.

For the West:

#1 Detroit v. #2 Anaheim: Anaheim Ducks in seven.

I hate to share my friend Brian’s pessimism on the Red Wings, don’t get him started on Datsuyk, yet this number one seed took too long to defeat the underwhelming Flames and the Sharks gave them a good scare. Injuries have been a problem, especially with Schneider going out for the count. Hasek’s goaltending isn’t what it used to be and Gigeure is doing better despite his lack of 50-inch pads from the 2003 run. The Ducks have stumbled more often than the Sabres on pushover opponents this season (Coyotes, Kings, Flyers) but they buckled down for the playoffs. They want it more than the Red Wings and steamrollered over the Canucks and Wild to get this far.

I would’ve preferred an all number one Stanley Cup this year and if my prediction goes through, I think I will have to defer to Buffalo even if they humiliated my Flyers this season. I don’t bear any malice for it, Philly had it coming thanks to Clarke’s miscalculations.

Posted in Hockey | Leave a comment

Jose is getting married and this time he means it!

I recently got this cleared with Jose. Cleared? Well, I didn’t want to steal his thunder because it is his life, future, wedding, etc. Click here to see that it’s official. I’m pretty excited since I hope many of our mutual friends of the last 20 years will be converging in Orlando for this in December. I’ve been to Central Florida in December-January, it’s usually quite nice and warm. Phoenix in November was nice too (Rad’s wedding) but very different, especially in the evenings. This will also give Somara and me a chance to check out the Nickelodeon-themed Holiday Inn we so wanted to stay at when he was engaged to the previous person who-shall-remain-unnamed. Jose wants to have a bachelor party around October in Las Vegas as well. I think I can swing it and possibly tap the timeshare for it.

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Car-themed birthday cake

I feel the wife really topped herself on this one. Sure you can get a cake with the road on it at the local grocery store but it wouldn’t be a separate layer and it would taste the same as the rest of the frosting. It is unusual to see the road extend over the sides to me yet I defer to her judgment, she’s the honors graduate from culinary school, I’m the guy who does what the package tells him to do. 
 
We’re both waiting for a response from Mark and Kathleen [Evan’s parents] to see how it went over with all the guests, anything with sugar is a hit with children, and a picture with the cars they put on it. The chocolate road was laid out to Hot Wheels scale.

Posted in Somara's Cakes | 1 Comment

Yankee Doodle Dandy, a window into the past

Here’s another masterpiece from TCM but I recorded it during the night some actress from The Sopranos was the guest programmer. Much like Singing in the Rain, I’ve always wanted to know what the fuss was, namely with my grandparents, they always knew the lyrics to these types of songs.

Yankee Doodle Dandy is a psuedo-biographical picture about the multi-talented George M. Cohan. Despite the story being a tad inaccurate chronologically and factually, it’s more of a propaganda piece to motivate everyone to fight the Nazis, hence its release in 1942. This doesn’t mean it’s an awful film, quite the opposite; it’s a more like a Greatest Hits video compilation with stretches of story and dancing to fill the gaps between numbers. It’s upbeat, it’s the story of the little guy beating the odds, so on. It’s a movie that reflects the time period it was made in and would flop on opening weekend in contemporary times. It also does offer a good, indirect explanation of how Cohan laid down the foundations to the modern Broadway musical. Now if Broadway could recapture the spirit of originality, it would stop remaking movies into musicals because The Wedding Singer was the last straw.

Cagney’s dancing and singing are supposedly the big surprises here, at least that’s what the common stories are. Seems he was the Christopher Walken of his day. I never had such a bias because I’d seen him play Cohan before in Bob Hope’s movie about Eddie Foy. I’d also watched him as the foil in Mr. Roberts and as an authority figure in Ragtime (his last movie role) long before I ever heard of Public Enemy Number One. Cagney’s tap dancing is pretty impressive, especially at his age during the principal filming. His singing was a bit more confusing, it sounded more like talking. My guess is that he was trying to emulate Cohan’s style.

This flick will never be on a Tarantino list yet I’m glad I saw it. I was very entertained by the window on the past it gave and it may have shed some more light on the world my grandparents lived in.

Posted in Movies, On the TV | Leave a comment

Happy Birthday to Hoser 2007!

Today was the Hoser’s birthday. Was? Well, by the time I’ve posted, it’s pretty much over. Again, it’s up to him to disclose his age but since he’s one of my best friends from college, it should be relatively easy to deduce.

The year that has passed since I last blathered on about him have been quite dramatic and if you know him, drop him a line. I am sure he is working out the details after his father’s death last year. I know it took some time for the deaths of my grandparents to really sink in after they were such constants in my life. The better development has been the new girlfriend, Nancy. It’s up to him as always to discuss the details over Natalie but I’m glad he didn’t marry her and I say it knowing what he told me, not as some jealous college buddy suddenly getting ignored because Hoser is dating and I’m not. Should everything go according to plan, Hoser will join the ranks of his married friends dealing with all the joys and grief we have: Nelson, Paul & Helen, Phil and me.

I wish there was more I could do for his birthday but I’ll have to make it up to him later until I’m no longer under the weather. I must emphasize again, if you know him, drop him a call, an e-mail or visit his site.

Posted in Birthday, News | Leave a comment

What’s with the colors and anything else?

It goes with this month’s phrase, the 30th anniversary of Star Wars hitting the theaters. There’s no third color sadly. More about this later in the month. Trust me, it’ll be positive because back then, the first movie really did have an uplifting effect on so many things.

Meanwhile, I’m out sick thanks to all the rain happening in Central Texas. My favorite symptoms: sore throat (occupational hazard), sinus pain (right behind the eyes) and achy joints. I know, boo hoo for me. Probably some stress from the latest bout of car troubles, Somara’s truck now, and it won’t be cheap: water pump, coolant and maybe a cracked radiator. I finally did cheer myself up with some good news. After finally correcting all transactions involving my car from late 1996 to 2001, I got a pretty accurate tally of how much I’ve spent keeping my VW running since it was paid off. Drum roll…despite some really painful repair bills, it costs an average of $868/year to fix. Certainly cheaper than $3780/year when it was new.

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Grindhouse: Must See and Alamo Drafthouse worthy

Personally, I never heard of the term grindhouse until this movie came out (it was mentioned in the my recent Joe Bob Briggs’ book review and I still didn’t remember). In the Midwest, these movies were shown at drive-ins up to the early Eighties and sometimes HBO to fill time in the late evenings. Back when I lived in Champaign-Urbana, there was this older kid named Charlie who always managed to see such “classics” as The Car, It’s Alive, Food of the Gods and Shock Waves. He had everyone’s undivided attention as he retold the plots, gore and other great parts. Well the duo of QT and Rodriguez make their latest tribute to trash cinema through the double features of Grindhouse, complete with trailers, commercials, film scratches and conveniently “missing” reels. If you want the horrible smells, sticky floors and other unpleasantness associated with actual grindhouses, you’re on your own but I’m sure the dollar theater in Round Rock is pretty close.

The first feature is Rodriguez’s Planet Terror. It’s really a knockoff of every other flesh-eating zombie movie ever since Romero’s 1968 original. What separates his from the pack is its general goofiness, especially Rose McGowan’s antics with her machine-gun limb and the ending. To me it was a more gruesome version of a personal favorite B Flick: Night of the Comet.

The second feature is Tarantino’s Death Proof. At first, it has a painfully slow start because the trio of women that begin the movie ramble on in Tarantino’s signature banter. This was amusing 15 years ago in Reservoir Dogs, it was tiresome by the third time I watched Pulp Fiction. Thankfully Kurt Russell finally shows up as the villain Stuntman Mike and demonstrates how he has more talent than the entire cast combined. The second half is another gaggle of women talking like Tarantino’s male characters but a car chase sequence compensates until the sudden ending.

If you don’t like the two movies within the movie, the four trailers (one at the beginning, three in the middle) are good for some laughs. I thought Don’t was the best one from the Shaun of the Dead people and Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving slasher flick was spot on, right down to the scracthy-voiced announcer.

Despite all the intentional and unintentional flaws of Grindhouse, I can’t help but like it. I hope this movie succeeds too because if there’s a sequel, the production company should go with a different pair of directors who bring their own stories that fit the title’s theme.

In closing, if you live in a city with an Alamo Drafthouse, Grindhouse is best seen there. The people who run those theaters keep up the energy and excitement by showing additional trailers that inspired this. The funniest one was Night of the Lepus which is a movie I think that depended upon the audience’s ignorance of Latin for it to work. Their polite reminder of “don’t talk during the movie or else they’ll throw your ass out” was touching since it was former governor Ann Richards punishing the boorish offender.

Posted in In Theaters, Movies | Leave a comment

Belated review of Tyrants of the Nine Hells

Tyrants of the Nine Hells is book number two of the Fiendish Codex series covering the Lawful Evil Outsiders; Devils getting their due (pun not intended). Unlike the previous book on Demons, this one opens up with two pages of fiction no one asked for. If I want poorly written fantasy fiction, I’ll buy one of their many uninteresting novels or find it on the Internet. Thankfully Tyrants quickly redeems itself with the first chapter explaining the “economics” of the Nine Hells which is pretty elaborate as well as logical. Then it proceeds to make Devils more than just Lawful Evil pests with at-will powers and different immunities and vulnerabilities; The authors explain how these Outsiders are motivated and use discipline, cunning and contracts to acquire souls, followers and victims. There’s a whole section of on faustian pacts: the devil who seals the deal receives some kind of points toward its status depending upon the powers granted to the recipient. How Devils perceive their enemies of Good alignment is refreshing; they’re not hated, there’s just contempt for Good because it’s weaker. One key sentence in the book sums up the differences pretty well, “Demons want to destroy the world; devils want to conquer it.”

As always, it’s a 3.5 WOTC book which means it has chapters on matters related to Devils the game doesn’t need: spells, feats and prestige classes. There is a section including additional types of Devils not in the Monster Manual series. I didn’t recognize any that have been missing since the First Edition days unlike Hordes.

The ongoing Blood War is given more of an explanation here: the tactics used by Devils to defeat the more numerous Demons; a little history; and how the Hells’ rulers perceive the non-Evil planes as a bunch ungrateful residents who don’t appreciate the sacrifice Devils have made in the eternal conflict.

The infamous nine Archdevils get their 3.5 makeover in Tyrants: Asmodeus, Mephistopheles, Belial, etc. that overrule whatever was published in The Book of Vile Darkness. There’s only nine layers with ten rulers (one layer has a duo) so it’s easier to capture the entire essence of the plane unlike the Abyss. A new wrinkle is added to the game for DMs to use or not; the Archdevils can have cults, temples and followers operating in the open; similar to the evil god Hextor in the PHB. Works for me because it means these villains will appear to obey the local laws but they’ll still be scheming to find loopholes or employ acts of sabotage that can’t be traced to them, like the Romulans on Star Trek or Lex Luthor. Bad guys like these force players and DMs alike to be more creative instead of resorting to the easier kick-in-the-door/slay-all-the-monsters style of play.

Bottom Line: Tyrants is a worthy companion to Hordes of the Abyss since it explains or creates the contrast between Demons and Devils. DMs now have data to help them choose one over the other as the situation arises and characters should be more prepared when either fiend is summoned. Is it worth of its hefty price tag of $35 for what is mainly an advice book peppered with monster stats, feats, spells, “geography” and prestige classes? Is it a must buy? For the players, an emphatic ‘no.’ For most DMs there’s a ‘yes’ with conditions:

  • Devils have become boring and routine
  • The DM wants to introduce the subplot of a PC or NPC making a faustian pact
  • The DM wants to run an adventure with the PCs rescuing someone from the consequences of a faustian pact or damnation

This book certainly makes Devils more than two-dimensional opponents for the players to kill then gain the XP. More importantly, it creates a different series of possible adventures for the DM to run that will be distinct from the ones involving Demons. Now if WOTC would publish a series of adventures involving a campaign to defeat the machinations of an Archdevil since the Demons Lloth, Graz’zt and Demogorgon have been stealing the spotlight for 30 years.

Posted in D & D | Leave a comment

First Austin bus ride in 11 years, I think

Cap Metro has got some spiffy passes.

I pushed this story back a couple of days because I wanted to have a stream of “content” going and I didn’t want to overwhelm my readers (all two) with any more than three in a day.

So as you may or may not recall, my aging VW Golf was having its Summertime Blues early this year which is usally the enigmatic Check Engine LED, always the head scratcher for my mechanic Toby. If that weren’t enough, the speedometer started to fail intermittently until it was permanent. It then cascaded into stopping the odometer and when a car is as old as mine I highly doubt 105,000 miles versus 150,000 really matter should I trade it in. Due to the cost of a new instrument cluster (the technical name of the -meters in the dashboard), I tried to put it off until the Wicca situation was stabilized. No dice, the tachometer started going out two weeks ago and if I can’t read what the engine’s RPMs are against which gear I’m in, then I have no clue how fast I’m going. Call me a paranoid but I only have one speeding ticket in my entire history and I want it to stay like that—my route to work has three school zones in it too.

After I dropped off my car, it finally hit me, I should have a bike then I could pull it out of the trunk and complete my errands around Austin. That will be the plan later this year, the repair was almost $500 (still cheaper than a monthly car payment). Meanwhile, I had my first ride on Capital Metro in 11 years. There’s been some improvements lately too. For a mere buck, I scored a pass to take up and down Lamar Avenue. I didn’t have any luck getting aboard the bus with the free wireless access, even if I did, my trips were too brief to bother. Overall, it was a decent experience and I am going to use a day off to try out the Park & Ride spot near my house, see where the bus goes exactly. Should it go near downtown, et al., I might treat the trip the same way a train ride into Philly from Lansdale was like, a day trip into the city without the grief of parking.

I used to ride the bus frequently in Austin from 1995-96 because I lived in Hyde Park, didn’t own a car and I no longer worked primarily at University Towers. As frustrating as it could be with part of the trip being on a mediocre route (the infamous 39), I still completed a lot of reading, lost some weight, saved money (and I thought the price of gas was high then) and managed my time better. All down the tubes when I bought my car in 1996. I don’t regret having the car entirely since it helps with getting groceries, day trips to San Antonio and when I wasn’t married, meeting women. Austin continues to grow and the routes are expanding with it. I even see buses coming as far north as Wells Branch now. Capital Metro still has a long way to go outside of central Austin before it stops me from envying the systems my friends have access to in Washington DC, Chicago and Seattle.

Posted in Factoids | Leave a comment

Fusion from sharks with laser beams attached to their heads!

The world of Science just got a bit more exciting today when I read about an alternate way to jumpstart a fusion reaction. Oddly the article is dated April 19th but I know it didn’t pop up on the site until today because I skim their main page every work day. Anyway, if using lasers works out, then Scientists are closer to the ultimate goal, a fusion power source which is much, much safer than traditional fission-based nuclear reactors and it could finally lay down the path to beating Global Warming. I’m still cheering on the huge, joint effort being built in France that will still use the traditional means through magnetics. Other than the cleaner and less dangerous aspects of fusion (the radioactive effects have a shorter range in distance and time), the amount of energy produced could also be applied to making more durable spacecraft or probes.

Posted in Physics, Science & Technology | Leave a comment

A worthy rebuttal to the audiophiles’ complaining

For the last year or so, there has been a slug of articles about how awful digital music, remastered CDs and currently manufactured CDs are. Personally, I think the authors are full of crap and are more likely whining, aging Hippies and/or Boomers who aren’t keen on the march of technology. Finally, someone more honest published this on Salon.com stating how the critics use rather subjective descriptions. As if “warmth” is an absolute with audio. I loved vinyl when it was one of the three dominant formats up to college. However, I will never miss vinyl’s short-comings: skipping, dust, scratches and brief format. I still hope to buy a USB-based turntable to transfer some records we have that will never be turned into CDs or digitized for downloads.

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

Maybe Vulcan does orbit 40 Eridani A

Somara mentioned this discovery while I was half awake watching a throwaway episode of Enterprise on the DVR. I went with Dr. Plait’s site because he gives the best no-nonsense explanation about the possible planet. The American Media tends to fumble or gloss over key details when it comes to Science, see Stem Cell Research.

An earth-like world is exciting news though. If our astronomers can spot these with the means at our disposal today, imagine what the near future holds as the technology and quality of information improves.

Gliese 581c doesn’t seem very habitable due to the estimated gravity being double on Earth so I don’t think anyone will be in a hurry to build a colony there. Someone said I was negative for mentioning such a fact. No, the upside is this, conventional wisdom in Astronomy has always been that habitable planets, let alone earth-like, existing in solar systems with red dwarfs are impossible for numerous reasons. Usually F, G and sometimes K type stars were branded as the best shot because our sun is a G2. Now if Gliese 581c proves to be the rule and not the exception, then habitable worlds with conditions closer to Earth (without all the pollution) may also be more common than originally thought. Definitely changes up the outcome of Drake’s Equation, see the second and third categories since I don’t know how to do subscripts in HTML.

Now comes the contest on what to name the new world!

Correction, Apr 25: Turns out the planet has the designation of 581c from the further reading I’ve done. I guess the ‘c’ stands for ‘third object from the star it orbits (every 13 days).’ I was also wrong about Vulcan’s location, although Epsilon Eridani has been used in the past, the general consensus is 40 Eridani A.

Posted in Astronomy, Science & Technology | Leave a comment