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Obits: And, wellerer. What to take away, what has been learnt, and facing the music.
Tue, 31 Oct 2006

Like so many recent episodes of Battlestar Galactica, I shall start at the end and work backwards. (Apologies to the walking souls on this Halloween Day for having miraculously tied Battlstar Galactica to funerals. Point, game.) This is the last in this series of Obit posts.. a quick walk through the funeral that was yesterday. I had actually written a more sorrow-oriented opener to this entry yesterday right before leaving for the funeral, so that my writing style shift from begin to end would be more obvious.. but this next morning my spirits about the matter have so changed that I cannot keep it. With the passing of the funeral has gone the period of mourning and my eternal happyness is returning so I cannot write in that same frame anymore. I am sorry to see that emotional context gone, but it is my way -- it is time for the living now.

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Rant: Say no to crappy usage licenses (re: Windows Vista et al)
Tue, 31 Oct 2006

I've probably ranted many times on how when you buy a car, you can open the hood (so far..) and mess with it, or buy a muffler can to put on the back to make it sound grumblier, or attach goofy blue lights to the bottom should you like to drive a UFO around. You have choices. You bought it, its your car, and you can do whatever you like to it provided it follows the guidelines required of you by law (safety, etc.) Well and good. We're all very wary for when they (the man, OS vendors) start requiring micropayments to operate an OS (can't wait to pay 10 cents to turn on the PC for the day!) but we all know that will come too. And we all know (don't we?) that various versions of Windows in the past required you to re-buy them after updating your machine (Windows XP Home Edition IIRC only lets you upgrade your PC 2 or 3 times). But where will it stop? Not with Vista, thats for sure.

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Gaming: How Warcraft killed role-playing games.
Sun, 29 Oct 2006

While I'm not really in the mood for gaming right now, I do have issues of Retro Gamer arriving every few weeks and forming a pile, ever reminding me I'm a fan of the industry :) To the left, even mentioning in a blog title that beloved Blizzard could do wrong will likely get me lynched, so we'll see how it goes. To the other, people will mention that with Blizzard shipping the World of Warcraft expansion late (after Christmas) they're returning a holiday back to the addicts and letting other titles have a chance -- but I still think they've damaged the PC gaming ecology as a whole (just as GWAR damaged hairspray sales in California.) Oh, if you don't know what WoW is, no worries .. just go watch the South Park episode about it -- utterly accurate.

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Obits: And, weller. More private notes for me to read in the future.
Sat, 28 Oct 2006

I've been away from a PC for a day or two now (amazing!), but I do see a few brave folks posting comments to my prior entry. I figured the material was too personal and heavy to touch with a 90-foot pole, but I very much appreciate them :) At any rate, permit me some grammatical mistakes and so on with these more emotional and unedited posts.

Yesterday I popped by to visit with my mother, and then over to my grandparents place - to begin picking things up, to start packing up, and gather some heirlooms for my little family. I thought it would be difficult to see my mum or enter the grands place, that seeing any number of items might set me off .. but it was .. not like that. I guess my mum has the hardest job, of writing a eulogy, but I figured this visit would be tough as well. (At least the eulogy needn't be sad, but can be a goodbye instead, since really it is a joyous occasion we had the grands for so long compared to many other people.) It was a little surreal of course, entering the place, but maybe because she passed after my grandfather and was somewhat expected to pass, or maybe because I'm older and wiser now, or maybe because some others perhaps nabbed trigger-items I don't know - but I just found it .. dry instead of difficult. In a way it was comforting to know that when it came to it, the items and things held little value, that it was really just her, and them, that had made it a warm place to visit. Of all their many years, they didn't have so many things really but it was their showing up at soccor practice, or visiting them in Florida and Disney Land, or staying with them for a couple weeks every summer as a child -- that was value. I tell you -- in my 20s (and now?) when I was working my tail off for 50-80 hours a week, I wasn't so wise enough to know what life was about but somewhere around .. now maybe, I've started to figure it out. Kids just cannot get it and perhaps they're better off for it :)

Value is when my brother, grandpa and I were going to hop in a little aluminum boat and go fishing in some little lake; it has a sand bar.. some mountain of sand erupting out of it -- has to be manmade and should be locatable with Google. I was the youngest, so he asked if I'd gone to the bathroom and was good to go. He dressed me up in the life jacket and we loaded up the tackle and paddled/motored out into the middle of the lake.. I remember the sound of the water lapping against the boat and how far out we'd gotten. Then I had to pee. Value is -- when he didn't toss me into the lake, but took me back to the trailer or cottage :)

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Obits: And, well. Private thoughts. Read only at your own risk.
Thu, 26 Oct 2006

Really, read on only if you want bare uneditted immature crap. This is one of those sad moments, while I've been fine for hours since I got the call. This is that moment of sadness after someone dies, and then I'll be good forever again as this passes.

See, its weird. When some folks pass on, you barely know them; others you've known your whole life but still do not effect you much. Lastly, there are those that when they go, for some unknown reason, for a few minutes once in awhile you feel like a little kid again - wondering what the heck happened and if you should've - could've - done anything differently. I suppose this note is not so much for anyone else, but for me to read sometime later and think back on what it was like this moment. I'm sure I'll be ashamed for posting it, since I'm a 30-something and not a 'tween' :P

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Gaming: One word - Civgasm
Wed, 25 Oct 2006

As my browser (Firefox 2.0 ftw!) is wont to do, it toddled over to Penny Arcade. Now, like any sane adult, my eyes instantly blanked out that area of the screen normally reserved for advertising .. but in that brief 1-hertz of time my cranium told my click-finger to stop in no uncertain terms - and I read the advert. Pause. I clicked the link, like a mouse reaching for the cheese, and and read the text like a 10 year old seeing How To Make Pipe Bombs for the very first time. While the product appears not to include Civilization IV expansions or the very recent Civ City, this single package - Civilization: Chronicles - like the Rush album of the same namesake - includes nearly everything of importance.

Thats all I'm going to say; I'm still in shock. I can only hope my wife takes the proximity-to-Christmas seriously.

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Homebrew: Why not? A Meagre Update
Tue, 24 Oct 2006

I guess while I'm blogging away I could add a bit about some of my little projects as some are curious. Its been a good few months, and I admit I've been trying to squeeze more time in with my wife to take care of her and just be there and be more chatty -- shes got the hard job, so the least I can do is try to make it more pleasant. (Yep, every chance I get from now until maybe 2 years from now, I'll have baby-on-brain. Perhaps I shall make a consious effort to not go on about it in the blog, but permit me a few gushing entries, okay?) I've also been getting in a few games, for escapism, and because .. why not? I was a gamer in the 80s, and then didn't touch one for 10 years (unless you count C compilers as a game..) so I'm making up a bit of time this year, before I'm stuck on diaper duty ;) But onto the homebrew..

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Obits: Too soon you find yourself growing up again..
Tue, 24 Oct 2006

I know I know, three-quarters of the folks visiting this blog (thus suggesting I have 4 or more readers, woowoo ;) are looking for geekery I bet, and theres been too much personal stuff lately; it comes in waves, so don't worry I'll geekout again soon. I do consider making half the blog posts private, just for myself, and leaving only the impersonal stuff out here.. but like so many millions of people (mostly twelve?) here it is, laid bare, fool that I am.

People are always amazed when I mention I still have three grandparents left (and the one only passed a few years back.) I suspect this will be a bad year for all of them however. Thats okay, they have lived long lives and I don't have too many regrets, and I guess it is the way of things -- with a little one on the way its the universes way of keeping balance.

What is awful about the current situation is my one grandmother is almost certainly going to pass on this week.. today, tomorrow, the next day. Now, its nice her children are there with her, but I can barely stand the status reports they pass along -- each morning being awoken by the dreaded phone - you reach for it assuming the worst -- but its just another status update and instructions where to find maternity wear. I'm just not the sort to handle that sort of mental assault daily, in the early AM. Daaaaaamn. Guess I'm a wuss. Shes a tough old gal, told she wouldn't make it another year many years back, but the cancer has got her number this time for sure.

She's a good woman; Old folks always seem like superheroes - cut from another cloth. Decent, strong, always there for you. I always assumed its just because you were tiny and they were old and wise, but it still bends your world a little when they go. Yeah yeah I know, I'm the emotional sort. Guys can be tough and still have a few emotions. I blame my wife for finding them :P

So what do you say to her? Anything? Last time I called, the other day, she wasn't able to speak so I had a message relayed to me. She's pretty close, so we're on good terms. She knows I care. But with mere hours or days to go I have an opportunity to say or pass along something .. but for the life of me I have no idea what I should say. So far I guess I'm just .. taking status updates, since I know my mum needs to get them off her chest.. I just don't have much input back.

On the phone over the years, my grandmother always said "Give my love to your wife." at the end of each call. This time, the message relayed was subtely different, and with her being a very intelligent woman despite the morphene haze I expect she meant it as her last words to me: "Take care of your wife."

Maybe I read too much into it, but that one phrase breaks me up.

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Day by Day: Full Shell Peanut
Sun, 15 Oct 2006

Ahright, I bet about 3 people will catch the reference :P

This is my peanut butter.
There are many like it but this one is mine.
My peanut butter is my best friend.
It is my life.
I must master it as I must master my life.
Without me, my peanut butter is useless.
Without my peanut butter, I am useless.
I must eat my peanut butter quickly.
I must eat faster than my anti-peanut campaigner, who is trying to stop me.
I must eat him before he stops me.
I will.
Before Crom I swear this creed: my peanut butter and myself are defenders of my
breakfast, we are the masters of those campaigners, we are the saviors of
my waistline.
So be it, until there is no campaigner, but breakfast.
Amen.

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PSP: Review of Star Wars Lego II: The Original Trilogy
Tue, 10 Oct 2006

Getting a new car, working long hours, visiting with family etc etc has conspired to keep me from finishing a few blog entries that are nearly done - yes, sometimes I hack away at an entry over the space of a week in scraps of time; not that this imparts editorial quality, just so you understand me.) I've got a new gp2x project three-quarters done and some reviews for that little platform, but alas you shall have to bear with me for this quickly written review.

But first, as I must do for any review:

Pulling droids apart
Force-flinging them all about
Beats Mario Kart

Star Wars Lego II: The Original Trilogy is really really good. A fusion of action-shooting, platforming and puzzling could be bad - but not here - and with a Star Wars plotline is almost too much to handle. Further, with the Lego theme thrown in you've pretty much taken even the most half-shaven Matrix-wannabee geeks brought, Spartacus-like, to their knees.

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Rants: Freight, Or, How the Auto Dealers Trim the Marks
Mon, 02 Oct 2006

With a little one on the way, it is time to upgrade from my twelve year old beater of a car; while I love that old go-kart, we need more space and a little more safety, but after talking to a dealership I think I've narrowed in on at least one of the thirty-seven ways they attempt rip you off.

But first, a piece of wisdom that cannot be left unspoken: 

A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?

        And the Master answered:

        It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.

        It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City
to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns
have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.

        And that is Fate?  said the priest.

        Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.

        That's all right, said the priest.  I wanted to know
what Freight was too.

                -- Kehlog Albran

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