Jeran's Den

EQ2 DoV/Drunder/WoZ progression

2011-11-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

My thoughts on the progression:

On the heroic side, you're expected to start with the PQs, work up through the DoV instances (Tower first, then Velketor's, then Kael), and finally have the gems from Kael to get you into Ry'gorr armor. That'll let you get into the Drunder instances, which'll get you the Drunder crafted armor. You'll also be in a position to run the Tower x2 raid zone, which'll get you good jewelry.

On the raid side, Ry'gorr armor and Tower x2 jewelry is enough to let you start raiding the DoV x4 zones. You're expected to work up through the 3 zones in order of difficulty, and the normal-mode DoV x4 armor and jewelry gives you enough to start on the Drunder x4 zones. The armor and jewelry from those in turn is enough to get you into the Plane of War x4.

There's two crossover points from heroic content into x4 raid content. When you get Ry'gorr armor and Tower x2 jewelry, you can jump to the x4 content at the start of the DoV zones. Once you're in the x4 content, you can go from the end of the DoV x4 zones to the start of the Drunder x4 zones and from those into PoW x4. When you get Drunder armor, you have enough to jump over to start the Drunder x4 zones. The Drunder x2 zone also gives armor that's just a hair below normal-mode DoV x4 armor, so it makes a good alternative to either Drunder crafted armor or normal-mode DoV x4 armor.

Notice here that there's no way to skip progression. If you expect to skip the DoV x4 content and jump directly to the latest Drunder or PoW content, it won't happen. And if you expect to skip directly from SF raid content to DoV, again it won't happen. There were too many complaints about a lack of content, mainly coming from people who skipped over the majority of content going directly from one expansion's raiding to the next. The devs seem to have designed things this time so you can't skip content, you need to work through all of it to gear up (or have a toon already working the higher-end raid zones who can get loot for your alts).

No, I'm not dead

2011-07-27T01:21:00.000-07:00

I'm still around. I just haven't had the energy to post anything extensive lately. Having my legs messed up (still) also messed up the rest of my life, and I'm thinking I've got a case of depression going on from having had this going on for so long. I'm definitely in a mental state that isn't good, witness the fact that I'm having a hard time mustering the energy and enthusiasm needed to do something about it.

I do go for a physical therapy evaluation in the afternoon. Hopefully I've got enough nerve function back that there's things they can recommend to help me get flexibility, strength and motion back in my feet and ankles. The warm, stable weather's doing wonders for my pain level, that helps a lot too.

Osama bin Laden is dead

2011-05-02T10:36:00.001-07:00

It was announced last night that Osama bin Laden is confirmed dead.

Net effect on the national situation: a lot of lobbyists spent a sleepless night and will be laboring today to come up with explanations why this doesn't change anything and the government money flowing to their agencies and companies in the name of national security shouldn't be reduced.

Net effect on the world situation: pretty much zip. The Middle East's already in an uproar, the increased uproar won't even be noticeable. Al Qaeda will rattle some sabers, but if they could hit the US itself with anything they'd've done it before this. Suicide bombings... will continue in the usual places at about the rate they've been for the last few years, because that's all the extremists have left.

Kristine Rusch on publishing royalties, e-book and otherwise

2011-05-01T12:10:00.001-07:00

http://kriswrites.com/2011/04/13/the-business-rusch-royalty-statements/

http://kriswrites.com/2011/04/20/the-business-rusch-royalty-statements-update/

This could be bad for publishers. What she's found is that the major publishers who handle her books are consistently under-reporting sales on her royalty statements, both e-book and print editions. I suspect she's right: technology has changed, but publishers have stuck with old methods that estimate sales and those methods are inaccurate. The big tech change is Bookscan, the system that tracks sales of books at the register. In the 80s and before it didn't exist, so there wasn't any way for an author to double-check the sales figures. When it did start, authors didn't have ready access to it's data so they still had no way to audit the publisher's numbers. But now any author can get Bookscan data. It's not a complete check, since Bookscan only covers about 50-70% of book sales. But it does provide one check: it should be physically impossible for the sales reported on a royalty statement (adjusted for reserves) to be less than what Bookscan reports. If an author's royalty statement shows sales less than what Bookscan reports for a title, the royalty statement is simply incorrect.

If authors start checking sales and demanding audits, things could get very sticky for the major publishers.

$2000 to clean up a couple drops of blood

2011-04-07T13:39:00.001-07:00

http://www.truecrimereport.com/2011/04/teen_taylor_petz_receives_2000.php

So, the kid cuts himself. And happens to drip a few drops of blood on the sidewalk while waiting for the ambulance. The city attorney decides, on his own, to call in a hazmat team from another city to clean it up, and sends the resulting $2000 bill to the kid. Talk about asshattery. Kemp's head's so far up his gastrointestinal tract, he's got to open his mouth to see his own colon. I mean, really. Yeah, it's blood, there's possible contamination issues. A gallon jug of Clorox bleach and a push-brush will deal with that, then wash the sidewalk off with a garden hose. Should take 1 janitor, 15 minutes of time and no more than $50 worth of materials (assuming you've got to buy a new brush, bucket and jug of Clorox).

Neurologist appointment again

2011-04-04T11:29:00.001-07:00

On the 18th I've got another appointment with the neurologist, followed by another IVIg session. I've got to set up an appointment with my primary physician, too. The feet are improving, but the improvement means they hurt more. Now it's not the pins-and-needles neurological pain, more and more it's just plain bruised-and-battered physical pain. The pins-and-needles mostly comes from shifts in the weather making things act up.

I need to talk to the doc about 2 things mostly. One is the fact my feet and calves are just stiff. I'm starting to get movement even in the right foot, but everything's so stiff it's not funny. And my toes aren't bending right. I think I need to go back to the physical therapist to have them have a look and see what I can do about this. The other is my weight. Mostly I need to get my primary to stop harping about it. I know it's been going up, and I know it's higher than it should be. Low activity levels do that. I've got the eliptical, I'm working on increasing the workout time as much as my knees will allow, and I'm going to get some light dumbbells and a simple bench ordered soonish to help with the arms, sit-ups and such.

Neurologist results

2011-01-25T22:52:00.001-08:00

Went to see the neurologist yesterday. The good news is it's not just my imagination, he's seeing tangible improvement in my feet over last time (before the start of the IVIg therapy). He's going to continue the therapy and have me come back in 3 months to see how we're progressing. I'm hoping the IVIg keeps things improving, because the next step up is immunosuppressant drugs and I really don't want to go there if I don't have to.

Things to look at: more PT, X-rays of my toes to see if they're really dislocated, massage, check on the spa and pool down at the Mission Valley YMCA (their pool's heated, nice when it's too cold for the one in the complex), weight bench and dumbbells to help with strength and exercise in general.

Sleeping, lack thereof

2010-12-18T03:07:00.001-08:00

Gah. It's not that I can't sleep, it's just that these days I don't seem to want to. Partly it's just stress. Partly it's frustration with my legs. In large part it's fear.

It's coming up on the 1-year anniversary of my coming out of the induced coma. Though I wouldn't call it a coma, really. I was too aware of things. And I'm finding more and more nights involve flashbacks to that. Why would that make me afraid? Google the product "Dignicare". Warning: NSFW. In fact, probably not safe for your personal comfort in general. And that's not the worst of it. What, you thought just because you were in a coma that your body stopped processing and producing waste products? It doesn't, and hospitals have to have a way of dealing with that in patients with no voluntary motor control. And I remember all that going in and coming out. I... really would rather not, thank you very much, and especially not in extra-vivid Technicolor. Also replays of things like my hallucinations of being parked in an out-of-the-way area by a doctor who had no intentions of asking my consent for anything he wanted to do, nor any compunctions about lying to everyone to keep me isolated. It didn't happen, but that doesn't make the memory less disturbing. And memories of them taking the ventilator out of me, only to have to replace it because I was dying without it. That got mixed up with memories of some of my role-playing characters over the years, all rolled up into a scenario of me being turned into them to save my life. Another one involved my doing a motorcycle tour of the US as a busker at RenFaires, accompanying a couple patently lifted from some locals. That one gradually transformed into a high-tech VR-heavy world where I ended up as a sportscaster (mainly because I could keep track of lots of information streams at once and spot the anomalies, and ESPN was paying well). And then there was the Institute for Advanced Science and Research, which was a thinly-veiled copy of the UCSD hospital right down to people repeatedly asking me if I knew where I was and what date it was. Another part involved research into marine ecology and it's effects on the global economy. Don't ask me where that one came from, I'm not sure I want to know. Scratch that, I'm pretty sure I do not want to know.

If you've managed to stay with me this far, you can understand why having all this shoving it's way through my head on a regular basis, when I know it's all bogus but can't stop it, makes sleep a less than attractive prospect. But I need it anyway, I don't stay sane without it. I'll be happier when it's spring and the sun starts chasing the depression and mental instability away again.

Reasons to mistrust Republicans

2010-11-08T11:08:00.001-08:00

Mark Hurlbert is a classic example of why I distrust Republicans, beyond the Religious-Right/Teaparty aspects. He's the District Attorney for the 5th Judicial District in Colorado. He's run for US Senate in his district as a Republican. To quote from his biography on the DA's Web site:

"As an experienced prosecutor, Mark knows it is important not to simply secure convictions, but to seek justice. He makes victims a priority and is dedicated to providing victims a strong voice in the justice system."

To quote from the About Mark section of his Web site (which starts to give hints as to his real positions:):

"It is through his time as the District Attorney that he solidified his belief in a small, efficient government and working with various interests to reach effective solutions."

He's quite happy to charge bicycle racers with fraud when one who was injured lets another one user her registration materials to get into a race.

But what happens when someone rear-ends a bicyclist, leaving them with major and permanent injuries including to the brain and spinal column? Well, apparently they get off with misdemeanor charges instead of felony. The reason? To quote Mr. Hurlbert, "Felony convictions have some pretty serious job implications for someone in Mr. Erzinger's profession, and that entered into it.".

Hence why I distrust Republicans. When push comes to shove, they're quite willing to put business and money above almost everything else.

Prediction about the 2012 elections

2010-11-02T20:10:00.001-07:00

I predict that Republican control of the House will, in 2012, produce the same result as it did the last time the Republicans took control of the House under a Democratic President: remind people why they voted the Republicans out.

Fiscal sanity? Yeah, right, remember exactly which party not only initiated handing out billions of dollars to banks to bail them out of their own ~~bad~~ ~~stupid~~ utterly insane lending decisions, but also vehemently opposed attaching any sort of restrictions to those bail-outs on the grounds that those banks, not the government, knew best how to apply the money.

No, I'm not voting Republican

2010-10-30T00:44:00.001-07:00

Neurology results

2010-10-27T15:06:00.001-07:00

Well, I had my appointment with the neurologist this morning to go over the test results. He called it "profound sensory and motor nerve loss" in the lower legs. No duh. He also said it's got to be more than just atrophy from the ICU stay, that should've shown more improvement by now than it has. Indications are an autoimmune response, basically my immune system got triggered by something during the hospital stay and hasn't backed off, and it's attacking the nerves themselves (eg. CIDP). He's going to recommend IVIG therapy, and see if the insurance will approve it. I'm hoping they do, the side effects there are fairly mild. The alternatives are some fairly nasty drugs like prednisone, whose side-effects give face-huggers nightmares. So, more blood tests next week and we'll see what the insurance says.

Summer still?

2010-09-27T12:20:00.001-07:00

Looks like it's trying to still be summer, despite being the end of September. It's in the mid-90s here and looks to be getting a bit warmer this afternoon. We've been on the cool side most of the year, I should've been expecting a late hot spell.

EMG/NCS results

2010-09-07T17:53:00.001-07:00

I was in for an EMG (electromyography) test and nerve conduction study today. Preliminary results are mixed. Good news: in my left leg the nerves are talking to the muscles and the muscles are reacting, and while the right leg's not showing reaction there's no sign it's got any more neurological problems than the left. Bad news: the muscle reaction's weak (and practically non-existent in the right leg) and there's little strength and no stamina in the muscles. That isn't really uncommon, but it means recovery's going to be slow. All I can do is work on trying to move my feet around, get the muscles to start moving so they can build strength, and wait it out.

Insanity?

2010-08-12T16:59:00.001-07:00

I look around at the Tea Party, the birthers, the Sovereign Citizen movement, the Proposition 8 folks, and I have to wonder: Is it just me, or are we seeing more batshit-insane people these days? It's like certain folks just can't handle the idea that someone out there disagrees with them. And it's getting to the point where I just want to slap them. Faugh.

Back from FanFaire

2010-08-09T22:41:00.001-07:00

AUUUUGH!

Back from FanFaire in Vegas. I'm a day late, and far later in the evening than I'd've liked. Cause: cascade failure leading to a blown coolant line. More later, I'm too tired right now.

EQ2:X: avoiding a train wreck

2010-07-30T16:54:00.001-07:00

[Originally a note on Facebook.]

I think the EQ2:X idea's going to be a train wreck for one reason: the need for Platinum membership to get T9 combined with the one-way wall that allows movement from regular to F2P servers but not the other way. New players aren't going to level up to 80 and then decide to start over on the regular servers, not when they can't move their 80 over. And existing players are likely to migrate to F2P as new people they introduce and want to play with start there.

How to fix things? Remove the wall and apply EQ2:X to the regular servers with just a few tweaks:

Remove all stat gear equal to or better than Mastercrafted gear from the SC Marketplace on the regular servers. Appearance items, fluff items, mounts, XP/AA potions, those can all stay, but gear and equipment that affects gameplay can only be bought for money on the EQ2:X servers. Race and gear-quality unlocks, extra character and bank slots also remain available.
An active retail or digital-download key and standard or Station Access subscription net you Gold access with all races unlocked and all levels and content unlocked that your keys would unlock and all the character slots you'd normally be entitled to available. This would apply to both regular and EQ2:X servers. So for existing players nothing would change, except you can pony up cash for more character and bank slots if you want them.
Transfers are possible between EQ2:X and regular servers. This would be in addition to the proposed one-way character-copy service, which would remain unchanged. Moving characters to an EQ2:X server would move your entire inventory including coin and items, but wouldn't move anything in the shared bank. Moving from EQ2:X to a regular server, any items bought from the SC Marketplace that aren't available at the destination would be removed from your character and destroyed.

In addition, I'd reduce the cost of character transfers from the current $35 to something like $10.

Guillain–Barré syndrome

2010-06-29T13:56:00.001-07:00

Guillain–Barré syndrome. The neurologist keeps mentioning this. I really don't need that crap, and it doesn't seem to fit well with my symptoms, so I hope this isn't what's wrong with my feet. But I'm supposed to schedule an EMG test once the insurance clears it, the neurologist wants to make sure the EMG and NCS tests they did in the hospital didn't miss it (they might've been too early to catch it).

Why you shouldn't trust polls

2010-06-29T12:42:00.001-07:00

The Daily Kos has been running a series of State of the Nation polls for the last year and a half. Today they announced that those polls appear to have been complete bunk, the results at least manipulated if not completely made up. This was only discovered by statistical analysis of the data about the polls and polling process the Daily Kos published along with the poll results.

Now, the polls weren't from some fly-by-night operation. Research 2000 was one of the most respected polling houses in the business. But the one thing that strikes me is that, despite that, they simply had a lousy track record at actually correctly predicting outcomes. To me it seems obvious that if the polls are being done right and are accurate then they should closely match the actual outcome, and if they don't match the outcome then the rest doesn't matter because the polls are useless for prediction. If anyone's reporting those polls knowing about their track record, they're using those polls for something other than simply tracking actual sentiment on an issue.

My advice: never trust a poll unless the data underlying it is published for independent review. And never trust a poll or the use of that poll when the polling house doesn't have a good track record of getting the outcomes right.

SOE FanFaire in Vegas

2010-06-27T12:50:00.001-07:00

OK, FanFaire's handled. Drive up Wednesday evening, stay until either Sunday afternoon or Monday morning depending on what's going on. Dean and Lia will be going with me, so whether I can handle the gas and brakes on the car isn't an issue.

The failure of Ponzi

2010-06-23T15:38:00.001-07:00

Everybody knows Facebook has games. One of them I've been playing is Ponzi. It's a fairly fun, fairly addictive game. The gameplay itself is simple: you set the employees of your company to doing jobs to earn money. You use the money to buy bigger offices and furnish rooms in them, and to hire more employees. You compete against your friends to see who can earn more money faster. It's fire-and-forget: once you set the jobs running you can go away and not come back until the jobs are done and you need to collect your money. Early on jobs take minutes to run, but fairly quickly you graduate to jobs that take an hour or two and then into the 5/10/15-hour jobs later in the game. So, while it's fun it's not going to eat up a lot of your time. And the competition is addictive. You start playing it, and pretty soon you're hooked and having fun. And after playing it for a few days, you'd find yourself thinking (as I did) that this is worth $10-15 easy.

And that's why it's closing down: because I'd only spend $15 on it. It's not big enough to justify my spending even $5 every month on it. And the addictive part comes from the competition with others. This game works only because it's networked. If I couldn't see how I was doing relative to my friends and interact with them in various ways (eg. send them a parade to brighten their day, or leave Mr. Dino snoozing on their lawn), it'd be dull as dirt. That networked aspect means central servers with their ongoing costs, but players aren't going to be willing to set up Yet Another Subscription and pay enough every month to be worth it.

So, R.I.P. Ponzi.

Mage cloth armor

2010-06-09T00:52:00.001-07:00

Note to game designers out there: THIS is mage armor.

Obama extends Federal benefits to same-sex couples

2010-06-03T10:59:00.001-07:00

Obama widens the range of Federal benefits extended to same-sex partners. I'm sure the Religious Right is going to go ballistic over this. Me, I think they need to get over this nervousness about their inherent attraction to members of the same gender, loosen up and get on with more important things than trying to ban their temptations so they won't be tempted anymore.

SOE FanFaire

2010-06-02T01:23:00.001-07:00

I'm hoping I make FanFaire in Vegas this year. We're trying to get a bunch of our EQ2 guild together there. I've got my membership bought and my hotel room reserved, the problem will be my feet and driving. If Dean gets sent up it'll be no problem, I can have Lia drive up with me. If Dean doesn't get sent, I have to decide whether it's worth 2 round trips worth of gas. I don't want to fly up because my feet just aren't going to handle the airport/airline bullshit involved.

If I go I want to see if I can wrangle Toraneko into coming to dinner one night. Especially if Tiff and Brea make it, Tora might have fun talking renfaire shop with someone who fights with live steel (and appropriate armor).

BP knew about DH well problems 11 months ago

2010-05-30T12:22:00.001-07:00

Ouch. Apparently BP knew about indications there were problems with the Deepwater Horizon well up to 11 months before the incident occurred. IMO the government should simply find BP negligent in ignoring all those indications and hold them 100% liable for all costs of repair and clean-up. And then slap the industry as a whole with regulations requiring all those things that BP ignored or didn't want to do that could've prevented the blow-out, plus increased inspections and oversight. And give the inspectors the power to order the work done directly, with the company being billed for it, if the company doesn't want to do it on their own.

Cleaning and dust

2010-05-26T11:14:00.001-07:00

One thing I've noticed about the new apartment is the dust. Here there's very little, even with the doors and windows open, and it's all a light-grey dry powdery stuff. The old apartment always had lots and lots of a nasty black stuff that accumulated fast. In a week it'd be as if I hadn't cleaned at all. And this stuff wasn't dry, it was kind of oily and adhered to things so you needed soap or a cleaner to get it off (plain water just pushed it around and made a mess). I thought it was carbon from cars in the city, but down here I'm right beside a fairly major road and I'm not seeing any of it. Makes me wonder more about the building I was in.

Political wackos

2010-05-25T18:37:00.001-07:00

You may have thought the birthers were crazy. But no, that's nowhere near as crazy as the fringes get. This is how crazy they get. Seriously, clones? I don't know what these guys are on, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to. Nor do I want anything to do with this Restore America Plan of theirs, not if it involves America being in any state they'd be comfortable in.

Voter registration change

2010-05-17T18:39:00.001-07:00

Well, it's official. I used to consider myself a Republican, way back when. Then, as the Republican party changed, I wound up registering as non-partisan/independent. The recent antics of the Republicans and their supporters have finally convinced me: I've opposed them for years, but it's time to make that opposition official.

I'm changing my voter registration to Democrat.

If the Republicans want to know why they've lost me: go look at your own supporters, your own policies. Go look at your own screeches of outrage over how dare anyone disagree with what you want.

Deleting a Facebook account

2010-05-14T13:26:00.001-07:00

Normally Facebook just has you deactivate your account. It still exists, all the data's there, it's just not accessible. Sounds like a bad idea to me. If I leave Facebook, I'd prefer my account really be gone, or as close to it as Facebook will allow. Unfortunately that may take jumping through some hoops:

Delete all your Wall posts.
Go through your photos and delete all of them, and any albums you've made.
Go through your profile and clear everything out of it.
Remove access to all applications you've allowed to access to. Remove them from the list entirely.
Go into your account settings, Edit Friends, look on the left for Lists and select the Friends list. Remove all your friends from this list. Clear out any other lists you've got too.
Wait for a week.
Finally, go to https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account which displays the real "Delete account" form. If you're truly sure you want to be gone, hit Submit.
After having deleted your account, clear all facebook.com cookies from your browser. Don't go back to Facebook or try to log on to it for 14 days (2 weeks).

Hopefully at this point your account is solidly deleted.

It's quiet. Too quiet.

2010-05-08T13:56:00.001-07:00

That pretty much sums it up. The place isn't quite mine yet, if that makes sense. The apartment's bigger than the old place, I'm kind of rattling around. And I haven't quite settled in yet. Everything's not quite where I'd've put it, it'll take a bit to get to where everything's natural to me. Feels weird. But I'll manage. A week or two and the place'll be mine.

Now I just need to get slippers that aren't too long that I can actually get over my heel at the same time.

Aircraft DSW

2010-04-25T11:55:00.001-07:00

Adapted from a true story by an SR-71 pilot:

Our SR-71 was on a routine training flight over California, listening to ATC chatter. Most of it was general aviation checking in, things along the lines of "Tower, Cessna Tango 195, what's my altitude and ground speed?" "Tango 195, tower. I have you at 105 knots at flight level 100.". For the uninitiated, that's 105 nautical miles per hour (about 121 mph) at 10,000 feet altitude.

Then over the radio came "Tower, this is Dusty Five Two, requesting an altitude and ground speed check. Over.". Dusty 52 was the lead element in an F/A-18 flight. We knew they were just trying to impress the civilians, F-18s have a ground speed indicator and don't need the tower to tell them that. "Dusty 52, tower. We show you at 575 knots at flight level 450." came the reply.

Just as I was about to make a remark, I heard the click of a mike being keyed and the laconic drawl of my back-seater. "Tower, this is Aspen Two Zero, requesting altitude and ground speed check please. Over.". There was a pause, and then came back "Aspen 20, tower. We have you at 1982 knots at flight level 800.". "Thank you, tower. Aspen 20 out.".

There was no more traffic from the F/A-18s.

So you need a typeface

2010-04-23T14:03:00.001-07:00

Courtesy of Caprine on LJ: the flowchart for choosing a typeface. I have to agree about the path to Comic Sans, although the path to FF Din is amusing too.

Sudden rainstorm

2010-04-20T18:36:00.001-07:00

All of a sudden we've got another rainstorm outside. This is weird, it's been a long time since we've gotten this many rainstorms this time of year. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

Testing a cross-post

2010-04-20T10:43:00.001-07:00

Let's see how Windows Live Writer works. I've got it configured to cross-post to LJ and IJ as well as posting to Jeran's Den. WLW may be from Microsoft, but it's one of the first editors I've seen that looks like it allows straightforward cross-posting of entire entries.

I've also got Live Messenger set up, now I need to collect, confirm and configure my ICQ and AIM identities. I seem to have forgotten passwords.

New coffee maker

2010-04-18T00:05:00.000-07:00

The Keurig B40. I got the extra cup+filter that lets me use regular ground coffee in it, so I'm not limited to the pre-packaged K-cups. I've also concluded that I don't like French roast coffee. I've got the rest of the sampler pack to go through, and a couple of bags of ground coffee to hold me over until I can get whole-bean from Henry's.

Avatar and earthquake

2010-04-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

Went to see Avatar yesterday with Dean and Lia. The previews were punctuated by an earthquake. Magnitude 7.2, centered south of El Centro. It happened right during a part of the Clash of the Titans preview that had lots of bass, so we weren't sure immediately if it was an earthquake or just the sound system.

As far as the movie, it was good. The most impressive thing is that you can't really distinguish the CGI from the live action. The CGI doesn't have the traditional CGI look, it looks like live action. Of course you can't find actors 9 feet tall, and I dare you do to an ikran live, but it doesn't look computer-generated. Oh, you can spot it when the CGI and live-action characters interact, small things like skin doesn't depress like it really should when a CGI character touches a live actor, but you have to look really really close to spot it. And as Dean said, if you're looking that closely for flaws you're missing the point of watching this movie.

I did notice a lot of parallels with Aliens beyond just having Sigourney Weaver in it. Selfridge is an awful lot like Carter Burke. Trudy Chacon reminds me, both physically and personality-wise, of Pfc. Vasquez. Jake Sully reminds me a lot of Cpl. Hicks. I shouldn't be surprised considering who directed both. It works, though.

One thing you'll notice is that the avatars really do resemble their actors. Much of that's from the way the CGI was done. It's all motion capture, but taken to the next level. The capture uses a lot more reference points, and unlike traditional mo-cap it also includes capture of the face. And all this is used to completely drive the CGI models. The end result is CGI aliens that look and move realistically, even down to the fine movements of facial expressions. That realism is one of the things that makes the CGI work as well as it does.

All in all, I recommend seeing this movie.

April Fool's Day

2010-04-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

And so it begins. Hint, guys: if you're a news site, flooding your front page entirely with April Fool's stories is not funny. It's just annoying. Yes, Slashdot, I'm looking at you. A few stories sprinkled in, that's funny. Nothing but joke stories, that's just going to make me shake my head and go elsewhere for the day.

Computer assembly, done

2010-03-27T16:26:00.000-07:00

And I'm back up. A small glitch with the monitor not wanting to work at full resolution, but that's fixed. EQ2 now runs at 35fps even in Sundered Frontier where I was getting 6-8fps on the old machine with lower-quality settings. A bit of work on Ventrilo left and transferring the last of the software, but I think I'm there.

Computer assembly

2010-03-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

OK, here goes nothing. I've got the new machine set up software-wise, all that's left is the G15 software that I can't install until I've got the keyboard moved over. So, I'm ready to power down, shift the keyboard/mouse/monitor to the new machine, set up the spare keyboard/mouse/monitor on the old machine and bring things up. Point of no return, once I start moving the hardware I'm committed to going to the new machine. I'll still have the old one available by remote desktop, but I won't be able to game on it or anything.

New computer

2010-03-22T12:26:00.000-07:00

I've got my new computer assembled and I'm installing software. One glitch: the SATA controller only works right in Windows in IDE emulation mode. The native AHCI drivers cause a STOP 7B as the Windows setup disk is loading drivers. Ah well.

There's a ton and a half of Windows updates to apply. And I'm having to check all of them to make sure none of the nasties slip in. Then I've got to transfer my files and settings over from the old computer, which means figuring out the tool to do that. We'll see how it goes. I don't want to lose my Firefox password database, for instance. The big one will be installing all the EQ2-related tools properly.

New usable heatsink

2010-03-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

The Cobra D984 came in. That heatsink's got enough capacity to cool my CPU, and is light enough to not crack the motherboard in a tower case. Now to get it installed, shift the drives around to clear the rear of the video card (I think I'll move them completely into the lowest bays) and I should be set to start installing Windows XP (no Windows 7 for me yet).

New computer

2010-03-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

Blast. The heatsink I ordered for my new computer's too heavy for a tower case. It'll warp and break the motherboard. So I have to order a new one. One good thing: the one I'm ordering goes in the stock retention mount, so I can use the stock AMD heatsink temporarily to get the machine up and running and then swap in the new heatsink when it gets here. I hate crud like this.

First day back working from home

2010-03-08T11:12:00.000-08:00

My first day back, working from home, looks to be shaping up like I expected: all day spent getting accounts working and logons logging on properly. After getting my Windows password reset my computer had to reboot after updates, and now it's getting stuck logging me on. After they get this cleared up I have to deal with issues with resetting the Unix passwords. Joy.

SOE FanFaire

2010-03-05T15:44:00.000-08:00

Well, FanFaire is on. Location: Bally's in Las Vegas. Dates: August 5th through the 8th. Standard rooms (south tower) are at $65/night for the 3rd through the 5th and the 8th, $85/night for the 6th and 7th. Upgraded rooms in the north tower are $20/night more.

I've got my reservations for the north tower Wednesday through to Monday morning, 2 queen beds (just in case someone needs crash space).

Test results

2010-02-27T12:36:00.000-08:00

Last week I had the comprehensive blood/urine workup that my doctor ordered done. I just got the results back. Vitamin D deficiency, mild high triglycerides and borderline anemia. Joy. The triglycerides aren't a major concern since all the other cholesterol numbers are OK, but other two need some work. Part of the vitamin D deficiency is probably because I haven't been out in the sun nearly as much as I ought to be, and I think the iron deficiency is because I've been slacking off on the multivitamin supplements I normally take. That may also explain the lethargy, come to think of it. I may need to add an iron supplement to my list too.

Computer room

2010-02-14T16:15:00.001-08:00

The computer room is basically set up and all the computer are running. Yay! I have my normal working environment back at least.

Doctor's visit

2010-02-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

Visited my primary care physician today for the first time. Went well. I'm off the Pepcid and Lopressor, they were just carry-overs from the hospital who give them to prevent problems while you're there. I'm also tapering off the Neurontin, cutting the dose in half every 7 days over the next 4 weeks. Hopefully I won't need it anymore.

I'm also scheduled for a bunch of lab tests and a visit to a neurologist to check on the nerve weirdness in my feet. I'm hoping this won't turn up anything bad.

Moving day

2010-02-06T19:38:00.000-08:00

We got the big stuff from the old apartment moved to the new one today, and got the furniture delivered and set up. All we've got left to move is some small stuff from the old apartment and what's at the hotel. But there's still a few glitches with the new apartment, some leaks and a missing dishwasher (appliance-company screw-up, what they delivered wasn't what the management ordered). We're not sure whether we'll start staying there tomorrow night or early in the week. We'll see how things go.

Why we need health care reform

2010-01-25T16:45:00.000-08:00

I got my bill from UCSD. This isn't the full treatment, it's just the bill from the hospital. It doesn't include any of the doctors, and it doesn't include any of the rehab at Sharp.

Total billed: roughly $348,000
Negotiated price with my HMO: $250,000

This for just a case of pneumonia run wild. If you don't have insurance, how are you ever going to pay that bill? All you can do is declare bankruptcy and leave the hospital holding the bag. This is why we need to do something about how health care is handled.

Oh, and for those who scream about how much it'd cost, let me ask you this: how much does not covering everyone cost? Do you really think that if we don't cover them they won't get sick and won't use the emergency room? No, they're going to incur those bills anyway, they'll just leave the hospital holding the bag, and the hospital will raise their prices until the people who can pay are paying enough to cover it.

Oh, my cost? I pay $250, the insurance covers everything else.

Major health disaster: killer pneumonia

2010-01-22T21:23:00.000-08:00

Back on November 22nd I posted about my bout of flu. Well, it turned out to be a bit more major than that.

On the 23rd, I had Dean take me to the ER because of the fever. They gave me azithromycin and sent me home. On the 25th, I ended up calling 911 for an ambulance because I couldn't walk 10 feet without being out of breath and I was running a 103.something fever (104 is the point where it starts being physically dangerous). The last thing I remember is the ambulance wanting to take me to Scripps Mercy because it was closer and me insisting I had to go to UCSD Hillcrest because they were in my insurance network and my primary care physician was there, and UCSD finally saying they could take me. The next thing coherent I remember is slowly coming out of the drug-induced hallucinations on December 23rd. Yes, that really is a gap of a month.

According to others, UCSD admitted me to the ER and immediately sent me up to the ICU. The ER nurse says I was coherent and seemed OK except for the shortness of breath. 3 hours later I wasn't breathing and they were putting a ventilator tube down my throat. I was in bad enough shape that the doctors weren't giving odds on my surviving even 12 hours. Obviously they were wrong, but I definitely burned another life there. From there I spent the next 4 weeks in an induced coma and on paralytic drugs to stop me from fighting the ventilator tube, with only one break where they tried to take the ventilator tube out and had to put it right back in. The immediate cause was runaway pneumonia, but they never did figure out what was causing it. They knew it wasn't bacterial or fungal, all the cultures were coming back clean, so all they could do was throw every antiviral in the book at me and hope something stuck. I had by all accounts about 15 IVs in me most of the time. The hallucinations from this period are something I hope never to repeat.

When they finally managed to get me off the ventilator near Christmas, I amazed them by being able to talk clearly 5 minutes after the tube came out. In a whisper, sure, but normally people just aren't talking at all at this point. From there I quickly went to Sharp Rehabilitation for inpatient physical therapy. My muscles were atrophied so bad I couldn't hold a spoon, and my nerves were just as bad. I had almost no control over my legs, and pins-and-needles from the waist down. It finally took 800mg of neurontin every 6 hours to control the nerve hypersensitivity. But once PT started I amazed the therapists by how fast I recovered function. Within the first 2 weeks I'd gotten my upper body completely back and most of my lower body. The only thing I was lacking was from the ankles down.

They discharged me from Sharp on 1/18. I'm currently in a hotel waiting on my new apartment to become available (should be on 2/10). My old apartment just wasn't feasible long-term, the stairs are too steep and the bathroom's too small and not arranged well, so I had to find a more modern one. I start outpatient PT at UCSD Hillcrest Monday. Hopefully I'll make good progress there. I'm already seeing some progress. I can push down decently with my feet, and I can feel the muscles moving when I try to pull up even if the feet don't move. On Wednesday I began to be able to wiggle my toes, something I hadn't been able to do. I take these as signs the nerves are knitting slowly but surely.

So, if you've been wondering where I was, that's the story.

2009-12-26T04:39:00.001-08:00

I joined the purple-bar club and all I got was this drafty hospital gown.

What's behind that door?

2009-11-23T21:04:00.001-08:00

"Sarge, what's on the other side of that door?"
"Private, some day you'll have a chance to find that out. And on that day, you'll remember this conversation and say to yourself "Well, Sarge was right, I didn't want to know what's behind that door."."

Recovering

2009-11-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

I'm slowly recovering. What I'm eating is staying down now, that's making a world of difference. The fever flashes seem to be fading. I think I'm going to stay out from work Monday, though, to make sure I don't spread this junk and to give me a bit more time to feel healthy.

Down sick

2009-11-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

Being sick sucks. Wednesday afternoon I started feeling a bit off, tender joints and the like. By night it'd gotten serious. Thursday I was running a fever of 100.5 most of the day, peaking over 102 a couple of times. Today the fever broke around noon, but I'm feeling like I was run over by an entire freeway worth of traffic. Eating is a major chore, and I'm spending more time in bed than not. Bleh. Hopefully I'll be feeling better by tomorrow.

Presumptuous boss

2009-11-17T19:56:00.000-08:00

Tallk about gall. My boss (well, actually the overall manager of the department) wants to schedule a dinner to celebrate a project. Fine and good. But this afternoon he wants to know if tomorrow evening's good. And he has the nerve to act shocked when I tell him I won't be able to be there, and to ask why I can't clear my schedule. Well, technically I could rearrange things, yes. But I have a rule: there are only a few people who get to ask me to clear my schedule on 24 hours notice. Family. A handful of close friends. A manager at work is... well, not in either of those categories. So even if I could theoretically clear my schedule, on general principles I'm not going to. On 2 days notice, maybe, if I don't have anything critical already scheduled. But 24 hours notice for a non-emergency? Not happening.

Comic Con sold out

2009-11-12T17:23:00.000-08:00

Gah. Comic Con's sold out of 4-day memberships for 2010. And it's still 9 months or so until the con, only 3 months since this year's.

Instrument calibration

2009-11-11T16:37:00.000-08:00

"I've recalibrated the bogometer twice, and it's still reading off-scale high."

When did I become Cassandra?

2009-11-09T15:48:00.000-08:00

I warned them.
I warned them that we'd modified the FAX-modem code.
I warned them that we probably didn't want to upgrade it unless something was actually broken.
I warned them that, if they upgraded to the new Hylafax code, they'd need to figure out exactly what we'd changed in the old code and make sure we either made the same changes to the new code or didn't need to make them.
I warned them this wouldn't be trivial, and it wasn't something to be handed to someone who wasn't willing or able to get intimate with the internals of our app and Hylafax.

They assigned the work to the outsourced devs in India anyway.
And those devs ignored my warnings.

You can probably guess what's broken. And while you can probably guess how badly, your guess is probably far short of the reality.
And I'm not even going to estimate how long it'll take to fix things. It's Not My Problem. I have a full plate of my own, let the India dev clean up his own mess. And if it screws up the schedule, well, that's Not My Problem either.

Computer assembly

2009-11-07T15:08:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to assemble the router box. It's basically a collection of leftovers: a KN8 motherboard that turned out not to be needed, a cheap Opteron dual-core CPU, a SATA hard drive I dropped and while it works I'm not comfortable putting it in someone else's computer, a SATA DVD burner that turned out not to work with another computer's motherboard. With a little luck, I should be able by next weekend to be able to replace the ancient K6-3 machine that's currently shuffling packets between my home and the outside world.

So far the Antec 300 case is working well. Fairly easy to work in, bottom-mounted power supply, 5x 120mm fans (2 front and a side intake, top and rear exhaust) and cheap. I'll see how it works once the machine's powered up and all the fans are running.

Outdated as it is, it'll out-power my current desktop. Hopefully not for long.

Addendum: mount the CPU heatsink before installing the motherboard.

Addendum 2: the case is done. All that's left is to get one more fan for the side intake, and get a cheap LCD monitor. Then I have to bring it up without blowing a circuit breaker, and rearrange the network to move the cable-modem drop out to the living room so I don't have all the computers on one electric circuit.

2009-11-01T16:04:00.000-08:00

To Michael Duvall, and his ilk among those politicians who paint themselves as exemplars of family values:

see more Lol Celebs

Printers

2009-10-01T12:48:00.000-07:00

I need a new printer. The old Deskjet 895 is starting to go. This time, I'm buying a real laser printer. No more inkjets. And preferably a color one. Brother makes some decent-looking color lasers in the under-$400 range, and all of them seem to do at least PCL6 which should mean no problems under Linux. And some of them are network-capable. It'll be more expensive to get right off, and toner cartridges cost more than inkjet cartridges, but I'll get more pages out of a single set of cartridges so long-term it should be cheaper than the inkjet. And better print quality.

The effect of Windows on computer prices

2009-09-29T18:22:00.000-07:00

People scoff at the "Microsoft tax". Let me put it into perspective: the motherboard, CPU and memory are pretty much the heart of a computer. A retail copy of Windows costs more than those three items combined. You can throw in a video card and still have spent less on the hardware than on Windows, if you aren't building a gaming system. That's a pretty big chunk of a system's price going solely to the operating system.

Yes, I know, OEM copies of Windows are cheaper. But then, OEMs can get better prices on the hardware too.

Falling over

2009-09-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

Bleh. Went for a nap last evening, planned for a half-hour or so just to refresh myself. Woke up at 2:30am long enough to use the bathroom, then crashed again until the alarm went off. I hate that.

Computer parts

2009-09-28T14:08:00.000-07:00

Oy vey. Priced SATA hard drives. Hitachi, 500Gb is $55, 1Tb is $80. I expected good prices, but not that good. At those prices it literally isn't worth it to put less than a terabyte of storage in a new system. Geez.

Subway

2009-09-27T18:03:00.001-07:00

I noticed yesterday that they've put in a Subway a few blocks down Adams from me. It's not Quiznos, but it's a decent alternative when I want something to munch on and don't feel like cooking.

Plans for the weekend

2009-09-25T18:56:00.001-07:00

First, don't go anywhere. The Adams Avenue Street Fair will be running, so parking will be utterly insane.

Second, assemble the new gateway box. It's all sitting there except for the display, it's high time it got put together and gotten ready to go. If I do have to go out, I'm going to stop by Fry's and pick up the cheapest display I can lay my hands on. Otherwise I'll get the display Monday evening.

Third, start pricing parts and assembling a shopping list for the new computers. Priority #1 is getting 3 copies of XP SP3 before Newegg has to stop carrying them.

Tonight is Fire & Ice, followed hopefully by a shard instance or two.

Computer builds

2009-09-20T17:21:00.000-07:00

OK, Newegg has AMD Athlon II and Phenom II 3.0GHz dual-core CPUs for about $100 each. That's pretty good. They're Socket AM3 chips. So, the plan is to get the best motherboard I can find in AM3 that'll support the highest-end quad-core chips. Then populate it with the dual-core chips with an eye towards upgrading to quad-core as prices fall. I want 3.0GHz because Everquest 2 is CPU-bound and needs all the clock cycles and memory it can get, so in the short term I'm better off trading cores for clock speed and more memory.

I've decided to go with the Antec 300 case for the systems. It's shorter so it'll fit better, it's got a bottom-mounted power supply, and it's cheaper. With a little appropriate arranging of where to put the boxes, the filters shouldn't be too hard to get at.

I also need a laptop. I've pretty well settled on the HP dv7, but desktop boxes are a higher priority. Now to start arranging the money.

Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction

2009-09-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

Ye almighty gods, they're still obsessing over that. It was what, 5 years ago? Let it go already. I know the Religious Right like to scream about even the slightest hint of secondary sexual characteristics (at least female ones, male ones seem to be just fine by them), but it's high time to tell them to get a life.

Definition of gun control

2009-09-05T00:57:00.000-07:00

Gun control: a 1-inch diameter group slightly above center-of-mass.

Lottery

2009-08-25T00:16:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow's Mega Millions lottery draw is for $252 million dollars. A quarter of a billion. That's a lot of money.

Threes

2009-08-22T17:56:00.001-07:00

"Three things never trust in:
the maiden sworn as pure,
the vows a king has given,
and the ambush that is sure."

Filksongs

2009-08-22T17:49:00.000-07:00

I got a bit of money from Mom back when I was helping her deal with the last of the stuff at Grandpa's farm for the auction. I blew a bit of it on a USB-interface tape deck so I can transfer some of my old tapes over to MP3. A lot of these are old, late 80s and early 90s. I'm worried the tapes themselves will be going bad, so I want the music copied over.

Typically, the "easy beginner's" software that's supposed to make things simple fails to work at all. The "advanced, don't use this unless you're an expert" software, by comparison, is dead simple to use and records without a hitch. I'll have to enter all the album and track information by hand, but then I didn't expect Gracenote to know diddly about Bayfilk tapes anyway.

Next item to get: one of the USB-interface turntables so I can copy some of my old LPs (including a bunch of Kiss albums from their first incarnation, and some C.W. McCall) over.

Funny Republicans and the stock market

2009-08-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

It's funny, but back in February and March the Republicans were all over Obama because the stock market was continuing to fall, even though he'd only had a month or two in office and hadn't had a chance to finish getting set up and start actually doing things. But now that the market's back at 9400 and steadily climbing, it's all "Oh, the stock market doesn't matter, it's the real economy that's still bad.".

Lost day

2009-08-19T23:42:00.000-07:00

OK, this hasn't happened in a while. I seem to have lost a day this week. It's Wednesday, but my internal calendar's saying it was Tuesday.

2009-08-17T01:15:00.001-07:00

"Knife? Son, he ain't even the sharpest spoon in the drawer."

2009-08-03T16:42:00.001-07:00

Oh joy. A bee colony, not a major problem. A colony of Africanized bees right in the columns around the office's front doors... Big problem.

Printer

2009-08-02T14:54:00.001-07:00

Grumble. Looks like I'm going to have to buy a new inkjet printer. My old one (HP DJ895) is finally deciding to not feed paper right and generally starting to break down. Of course, it's around 10 years old, so this shouldn't be a suprise.

2009-07-31T19:16:00.001-07:00

OK, let's see how blogging via SMS works here...

Oooogh

2009-07-25T21:53:00.001-07:00

ComicCon's massive exhibit hall + SOE block party = my legs hate me now.

Wicked, the musical

2009-07-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

Wicked is playing in San Diego during the month of August. Tickets start at $30, which isn't bad. Afternoon and evening showings. And the story idea appeals to me. I ought to see about going to see it. And maybe wrangling tickets for Dean and Lia.

Brasse's new home

2009-07-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

Huzzah. Brasse is now working for SOE. I so need to introduce her to Arrogant Bastard at the block party.

Sarah Palin resigns

2009-07-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin's resigned as governor of Alaska. My guess: someone was getting too close to a real scandal. There's been a lot of charges of her abusing her position to cover up things or help her friends. Most of those were dismissed due to evidence not being there or no cooperation from witnesses. It's possible someone was getting close to some real evidence that those charges were really valid and someone connected to Palin scuttled the investigation somehow. With her out of office, there'll be a lot less pressure to dig deep into that. And then she's had some weirdness in her personal life, especially with her daughter and grandkids. There could be another personal scandal brewing that someone was getting wind of. If she's out of office it'll be a lot easier to let that blow over without it making national headlines. In both cases, by the time it's time to start a Presidential campaign for 2012 all the scandals will be old news and it's much easier to deal with old news and a hiatus from political life than it is to deal with a live records of "just one thing after another".

Either that or she's decided that she just can't face the constant digging into her personal and professional life that goes along with a political career these days and is quitting politics entirely. Up until her vice-presidential candidacy she's had mostly to deal with local politics in a state where even state-wide politics more resembles small-town politics than anything else. It's entirely possible she simply had no clue what getting into national politics would entail, and once she'd gotten some experience with it just decided she wanted no part of this.

Michael Jackson scandal

2009-07-03T18:48:00.001-07:00

Apparently they've found some powerful sedatives in MJ's home. Not just powerful, really powerful. The kind of powerful that's usually used in operating rooms as an anesthetic and delivered intravenously. Methinks Michael was taking a few things he shouldn't've been and overdosed.

Eyeglasses

2009-07-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

Got the eye exam done today. I've been having some problems focusing, everything's clear but it's like it wants to split in two. We found the reason: the prism adjustment in my lenses was off. My eyes want to focus a bit behind the object I'm looking at, and the prism adjustment to compensate for that was off. The new lenses should correct that. I'm also changing frame styles back to a full-rim titanium set, and having a full nosepiece put in instead of the two separate pads. That should make the glasses more comfortable. This pair gets the full prescription plus photo-grey, anti-glare and everything. Towards the end of the month I'm going back to get a second pair for close-up (reading and computer) work. Those won't need the photo-grey or anti-glare coating so the lenses'll be cheaper

Lightsabers

2009-07-02T07:21:00.000-07:00

Grumble. Parks Sabers has discontinued their original line of EL sabers in favor of the new Phase models. Problem is, the Phase line doesn't include the old designs that I liked and wanted. Grumble.

Rover astronomy

2009-06-29T08:29:00.000-07:00

It seems the Spirit Mars rover has a new job: astronomer. It's currently stuck in loose soil and not able to move, and a recent gust of wind cleaned off it's solar panels so it's got more power than it can use. So rather than wasting it, mission control has set Spirit up to stay active overnight and photograph the Martian sky.

Republicans know all about foreign affairs

2009-06-24T13:26:00.000-07:00

The governor of South Carolina went MIA for a week. The first thing I question is, how could anyone possibly think it acceptable for someone in that kind of position to go missing like that for that long. It shouldn't matter why, you simply can't drop off the map like that when you're responsible for an entire state. Drop out of public view certainly, if it's a sensitive matter, but your staff at least should know how to reach you if it's neccesary.

The real kicker, though, is why he went missing. It turns out he was having an affair with a woman in Argentina. I find this amusing, because for all their preaching about morality we seem to be seeing far more Republicans than Democrats caught having affairs. At least in this case the affair was with a woman, not another man. I think the Republicans need to take a long hard look at themselves and why they seem so prone to doing exactly what they condemn in others.

Back home from PA

2009-06-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

Blargh. I made it back home. Between errands I had to run and getting unpacked and everything back in it's place I don't feel like I've slowed down yet. I had lots of stuff to deal with back there, and lots of "That'd be nice to keep, but I don't have anywhere to put it or use it." going on. And tomorrow it's back to work to find out how many disasters are waiting for me. Feh. What else is new.

Things I won't work with

2009-06-16T17:20:00.000-07:00

While I'm killing time, some chemistry fun:

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/

Things that make nitroglycerin look downright tame. You know those old leather coats they show steampunk chemists wearing? There's a reason for those, OK? They weren't just made-up, real chemists wear those when working with reactions that sane people don't work with. This collection of stuff goes downhill from there.

Pennsylvania trip 2

2009-06-16T16:52:00.000-07:00

It's not 5 yet and I'm just about ready. Most of the bags are packed, I just have to put the toiletries in the main bag and it's done, then put the stuff in the carry-on bag. Last-minute addition: digital camera. This may be the last time I get a chance to take pictures of where I spent the first 5 years of my life. Mom's got her laptop there, so I should be able to upload photos from the camera and put them on USB drives to bring back. A few places I want photos of:

The house and the trailer where we lived. Word is the trailer's pretty much collapsed though.
The old Bottorf place.
The rail yards in Renovo where Dad worked.
Hyner Run bridge. Good fishing there.

Off to finish packing.

Pennsylvania trip

2009-06-15T21:09:00.001-07:00

Just about ready for the trip back to Pennsylvania. Tomorrow's list: do laundry, pack bags, clean car. Then in the evening I get a ride to the airport, and I'll be back on Monday evening. I'll be pretty much cut off, no cel-phone coverage, no Internet and we're not entirely sure whether phone service will be on or not.

I hope this all goes OK. There's a bunch of paperwork about the farm to deal with, and the memorial. Some of the family have been real twits, it may take some work to avoid telling them off.

Chrysler

2009-06-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

Well, the deal is done. Most of Chrysler's operations have been sold to Fiat, and a good third or so of their dealers are no longer dealers. Most of their debt load is gone, and their pension obligations are too which reduces their labor costs. But that's not going to help Chrysler too much.

The portion sold to Fiat is going to take at least a year to pick up steam. Fiat isn't a well-known brand in the US, and the kind of sub-compact they make is smaller than the popular size here too. It's going to take them a year to get the factories re-tooled, ramp up production and start actually getting cars into showrooms, with no guarantee people'll buy them over more well-known brands. The portion that remains Chrysler is in even worse shape. It's line-up is still heavily skewed towards large trucks and vans and SUVs, exactly what's not selling well anymore. It's going to take them at least a year, maybe two, to get new designs more in line with consumer demand into production. And both of them will be competing with GM's new models, with Ford's existing line-up, and with Toyota, Mazda, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Acura, Nissan et. al..

Normally I'd consider a bail-out of a company in this bad a shape as an all-around bad deal. But to be honest the point of the bail-out isn't to save Chrysler the company. It's to keep the majority of it's employees on the payroll, to keep the factories open and buying parts from suppliers, to generally stave off the complete dissolution of a major US auto manufacturer until the stock market isn't wavering and economy isn't ripe for any small push to send it tanking further.

I'd note that this is something the Republicans seem to be forgetting. The choice here isn't between good and bad choices. 8 years of Republican policies has left us with choosing between bad and horrible. It's like a tourniquet: it's a horrible idea, one of the worst things you can do as first aid, topped only by letting the patient bleed out. So when you can't stop the bleeding any other way you put the tourniquet on anyway, knowing you're likely costing the patient their leg but at least he'll be alive long enough to worry about that.

Laptop

2009-06-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

I'll be spending about a week back in Pennsylvania, with 12-hour plan flights each way. I was looking at getting a laptop to keep occupied on the plane and keep up with e-mail and such while I was there. The problem is the ones I really want are just a hair out of my price range and it turns out I won't even have cel-phone coverage where I'll be. Lack of coverage means no Internet connectivity of any sort at all, laptop or no. And while I can find laptops within my price range that'll do, I'd rather not spend money on "it'll do" unless I absolutely have to. So, I think I'm going to find a couple of books to read on the plane and save the money for later.

Two US automakers down

2009-06-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official: GM has filed for Chapter 11 (reorganization) bankruptcy. They join Chrysler who filed back in April. Chrysler plans to sell most of it's assets to Fiat, and it's union will end up owning a majority stake in what's left. GM will be selling off at least half it's brands (including Hummer), and the majority of it's stock will end up being held by the US government (the majority, as security for loans), existing bond-holders and the union. In both cases, pre-bankruptcy shareholders will likely end up with nothing. They may still own shares, but they'll have been diluted so much by the new equity being issued that they'll be essentially worthless. GM plans on closing a large number of it's manufacturing plants and idling several more. That'll hurt employment figures. The only positive part is that, unlike Chrysler, GM will still be building cars when it's all over. They'll be half their former size, but they'll still exist. Chrysler looks to be a shell after everything goes to Fiat.

That leaves Ford as the only US automaker still in full operation. And even they're paring things down quite a bit, eliminating lines that aren't selling well and cutting dealerships with overlapping territories.

Foreclosures moving on up

2009-05-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

The mortgage meltdown has been painted by some as a meltdown of the subprime mortgage market. That's starting to change, as the number of foreclosures on prime mortgages to people with good credit records is starting to climb. 6% either in default or in foreclosure, in California it's 7.5% in default and 3.5% in foreclosure. Those numbers are disturbingly high, considering. And for the first time prime fixed-rate mortgages are a larger percentage of new foreclosures than sub-prime or adjustable-rate mortgages.

The bottom ain't here yet, folks.

Family

2009-05-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

You can choose your friends. You can even choose your enemies, to some extent. But family... you can't even return the remains to get your deposit back. Some of them back in PA are being supreme asshats. They've known since January that Mom's having everything that's left at the farm auctioned off, and that they'll have to get their stuff moved. The auctioneer's tired of not being able to tell what he can put in the auction and what belongs to someone. But have they done anything? No, not a thing. It took Mom finally having to write a letter saying "You have 1 week to get your stuff off the property. Anything left after that will be taken and sold." to get them to finally clear things out. 4 months, and they're complaining about having gotten no warning.

Not that that's new. Case in point was some relatives down in Mill Hall ages ago. The whole bunch of them worked at the same paper mill. Mill isn't doing well, and finally tells everyone "We can't stay in business. We figure we can keep running for 9 more months, so come March of next year we'll be closing the doors.". Come January they told everyone "We've managed to stretch it a bit, we can keep you on until June but that's the final date.". And come June, those relatives to the last one were complaining about how the lay-offs were so sudden and they'd never expected anything like this to happen, and there's no jobs to be had now 'cause everybody else from the mill already took them. And they aren't unusual for back there, everybody has that kind of attitude.

You can see why I don't care to ever move back there.

David vs. Goliath

2009-05-18T22:10:00.001-07:00

When and why David can win. None of this is news to me. I've always held that you never, ever fight your opponent's fight on his turf by his rules if you have any alternative available. Never attack his strengths if you can attack his weaknesses. Redneck said it: "Take a stick to a fistfight. Take a knife to a stick fight. Take a gun to a knife fight. Stay out of a gunfight.". Old Shin'a'in proverb: "If you find yourself in a fair fight, you've obviously screwed up your planning. Learn from this, and avoid making that mistake again.". All of them are making the same point. And it's a good one to keep in mind. Your opponent isn't going to just hand you any advantage, why should you hand him one?

Padres

2009-05-15T08:12:00.000-07:00

Attendance at Padres games is down. I can't understand why. The economy's in such sterling shape and people have so much excess money to burn. The Padres have such a great record, they've managed to win 4 of their last 23 games. And the beer at the games is such an incredible steal at $5 a bottle for Coors and it's ilk. If people don't start coming to their senses, how are the Padres going to pay off their Shiny! New! Stadium?

Feh.

Stupid mob

2009-05-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

We got stuck last night in an instance in EQ2. The mob there should be a push-over if you handle him right. But last night he was just not behaving. Normally he gives an emote and then casts his spell, and you have to interrupt/stun him when you see the emote to keep his spell from going off. This time he was casting, then giving the emote. With no cue, it's impossible to keep him from frying the group and healing himself. And he was memwiping all over the place, no way the tank could keep him under control. I think the devs did something with him, personally.

By the time we called it, I was getting seriously into J's attitude: "Right. His health or my armor, one of them's hitting 0% before this is over."

Keyboard error

2009-05-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

Error: wrong type of frog on keyboard.