It Goes Up To Eleven

Tomorrow is our 11th Anniversary. In honor of this feat, our friend posted the following as his "Quote of the Day" email thread. Enjoy.

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

- This is Spinal Tap

The truly fun part is that we've dubbed this the "It goes up to 11" Anniversary. It's a much better year than boring old 10. Why? Because, it goes up to 11!

Kids Grow Up

In what feels like a lifetime ago, I was a young, direction-less 20-something living with my parents again, doing a bit of volunteer youth ministry at Bethesda Lutheran in New Haven CT, while working 2 part-time jobs. Looking back, it was one of the best & worst times of my life. I met amazing people (including my wife.) I was also feeling the brunt of shame coming from crawling back home to my parents. But I digress...

Amazing people...

One of "my kids" from youth group came to visit us this weekend. She's now an adult trying to make her way in the world. I, apparently & unfortunately for her, had a great deal of influence on her innocent mind. Twelve years ago we had a "passing conversation" about faith. Today, she points to that single conversation (which I couldn't even remember when we talked about it) as a major turning point in her life. It lead her to seminary and a call to ministry.

Remember: Watch what you say to children. They remember stuff!

At some point over the weekend, it became obvious that this "kid" I helped teach Luther's Catechism and treated to pizza is now an adult. She's a world-traveler and is currently doing hospital ministry in Tennessee. During a dinner conversation Friday night, she totally impressed the hell out of me. First, she properly corrected my paraphrasing of one of Paul's letters. Then she proceeded to make my point for me. (Damn, know-it-all kid!)

The other really cool part of her visit is some music she shared with me. During my time at Bethesda, I got to know several of the really little kids. One of them is now a talented musician & songwriter. Only 16, he's got a band that's got an old-school punk-rock edge. I was really impressed. I would pay for his music and he's still in high school. I got a real kick listening to his music and reminiscing about my time in New Haven.

It made me feel real good to see my friend all grown up. It was amazing to be reminded that I helped give someone direction even at a time when I had none. We can give so much to each other even when we think we have nothing to give.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to add some music to my iPod's alternative & punk playlist.

The Dreaded Highlander Stormtrooper

Saturday, we took our house guest to the Carolina Renaissance Festival. It was a great day. Sure it was overcast, but that kept the temp down.

We caught several comedy shows, watched some jousting, saw some friends who perform at the show. It was great.

It was also Halloween. Festival guests who dress up tend to run the gambit of outfits. Very few are "traditional" Renaissance garb. Some is well-done from other periods or catch the wave of fantasy genre. Add Halloween to the mix and stuff gets a little weird? How so? What about a Stormtrooper in a Kilt?

I'm torn between having a Highlander/StarWars Mashup quote or a Braveheart/Starwars Mashup. Is this some sort of special unit? Whatever, it was just wrong. BUT, funny enough to be picked on in the one comedy show we attended.

Still, I'm lost on this one. What about?...

"There can be only one, but strike me down and I will become more powerful than..."

Or Perhaps

"I've got a bad feeling about this, they may take our lives...."

But I digress...

It was fun!

Things that Don't Make Sense

Our town's recycling truck is the beat up 20+ year old monstrosity that spews smoke every time the driver hits the gas. He hits it hard every 20 feet.

I'm sure the value of recycling outweighs the impact of this monster, but it's just plain stupid.

Good Customer Service Still Happens!

I got an email today from Netflix saying that my next DvD isn't available at a local center, but is shipping from another part of the country. Bummer right? I won't have a new DvD for days. Except, Netflix took care of that issue. They added a 4th DvD from my queue that will certainly arrive tomorrow.

I bet this was all automated. It's still great.

Too often I've seen companies fail their customer when things go wrong because they do not have effective measures for dealing with problems. Customer service doesn't have to mean that someone has to go out of their way. Good customer service means that a company has a system in place to provide good service to customers.

This is a very simple example of the right way to do business. Take care of your customer before they even ask. It's the kind of little thing that keeps me as a customer & makes me tell my friends about a business. It's true for a local store as it is for an online shop.

NBA League Pass for Broadband

Until November 3rd, the NBA is offering free access to it's online streaming service. I'm hoping the service blows me away so I can ask for it for my birthday. Then I can watch the Sixers (and several other teams) this season.

Check out the service at NBA League Pass Broadband.

Note: Go Phillies! What a great game 1!!!

Awesome Nod to Firefly

Dear Firefly/Nathan Fillion Fans,

Goto Hulu immediately and watch the opening sequence of this week's "Halloween" episode of Castle. You will not be disappointed.

If you don't watch Castle, why the F#^$% not?

RSS or Visit the Page?

Today, Gamer Geek and I were reminded why visiting a website is still important. XKCD, a favorite webcomic of ours, redesigned the entire page to look like an old-school Geocities website...complete w/ under construction signs & broken links. If you've been on the web long enough, you've seen these pages (heck, you're probably had one of these pages. I know I did!)

RSS is great for reading blogs & news, but you can miss out on the creativity of a site. There's also been a long debate that RSS kills the very sites you're reading. Why? By not going to the site, you cause them traffic but fail to bring them ad revenue or ever buy their stuff. I'm not going to debate this point, I'm just mentioning it.

BTW: Just RSS my blogs. I don't care!

Browser War

Something interesting happened this week. (Maybe sooner, but I only noticed it last night.) Netflix stopped requiring Internet Explorer to operate it's "Watch Instantly" online service. This is a significant thing for me. It means that I can stop using 2 to 3 different internet browsers. Frankly, it means I'll be finally moving (almost) exclusively to Google Chrome.

Before today, I've been alternating between Chrome & Firefox for my routine browsing then swapping to Internet Explorer for Netflix. I've been a big supporter of Firefox, but Chrome feels so amazingly fast in comparison. My unscientific stop-watch tests support this theory. On average, new browser sessions load twice as fast on Chrome over Firefox. Internet Explorer seems to taken it's place in the middle of the pack. It also feels more stable than either FF or IF. This again, may be subjective.

What about other Browsers like Safari & Opera? Mostly, I don't use them because neither seem to offer any additional benefits for swapping. Safari's bookmark management is really convoluted and when I first tried it there were some security holes. I'm sure they've been plugged, but there's been no reason to go back. My experience with Opera was fine, but there wasn't anything eye-catching enough for me to keep using it over Chrome or Firefox.

I'll keep watching for a reason to return to Firefox. I miss Foxmarks (great multi-computer bookmark sync) and No Scripts (which lets you manage the scripts on pages you visit. Great for visiting new sites.) Sadly, neither of these add-ons are enough for me to stick with Firefox.

The good news, IMHO, is that all browsers seem more secure and reliable than they were a few years ago. I think this is the value of competition. I used to worry about family and friends using Internet Explorer. Microsoft seems to have stepped up their game with IE8. I think this is a direct result of the pressure from Mozilla & Google.

This means, I no longer care which browser people choose. They're all good. Just keep your applications up to date, run a good spyware scanner, & clear your browser cashe on a regular basis.

New Fall Network TV Line-Up is a Complete Bust

It's Fall and that means that new shows are here & old shows are returning. Here's some highlights...

The Good:

Castle - Castle picks up where it left off. It's good. The characters are well-developed. The mysteries are always interesting. The actors have chemistry. Nathan Fillion is quickly becoming my favorite actor.

House - I hate that I like this show. It's well-written, well-acted and it's just good TV. The premier was yet further proof why House is a great anti-hero.

The Bad:

Heroes - This season's villains are Carnie freaks? Really? Sigh. I keep wanting desperately to love this show. On one hand, we have House (which I should hate but love) and on the other we have Heroes (which I should love but hate.) Can't win.

Flash Forward - Epic fail! The pilot completely failed to capture the grand scope of events. The lead actors have the emotional depth of paper bags. They clearly wanted to rush forward to the broad plot of the series. In doing so, the show misses everything. The first episode should have played out like a disaster film. ER's should have looked like MASH centers. Lights should have failed to work. Cell networks should have been down for weeks. National Guard troops should have been everywhere. And really, some lowly FBI field agents are in charge? Pass...

The Ugly:

The Forgotten - Huh? Really? Regular citizens solving the unsolvable in no-time flat. Wow. That sounds really, um... Concept good. Holland Tunnel-sized holes. Pass...

NCIS LA - I love NCIS. It's almost a guilty pleasure. I laugh every time the shows tries to pretend that NCIS is some "other-spy" organization, but I accept it because the character acting is great, the plot moves along nicely and it establishes rules that conform with the Hollywood version of reality. NCIS behaves like a law-enforcement arm of the US Military. Domestic Spying was never the focus of the show's makeup. It's more of a byproduct. The spin-off, on the other hand, is all about domestic spying. The intro/cross-over episodes of NCIS last season were the worst episodes of the season. The changes for the season premier actually made things worse. The fact that the first episode started with a dead navy officer is irrelevant. It's a spy show. The premise sucks. The show sucks. The chain of command makes no sense. Their place in the grand scope of things is confusing. They have no place even in the NCIS version of reality. Don't just pass, RUN AWAY!

Play Ball

We're home from Turner Field. It was a wet, but fun time. Our first "real" trip to Atlanta and I never even really saw the skyline. It was too foggy and rainy whenever I looked that way. In fact, I never really saw anything aside from Turner Field & our hotel. We did drive through the Olympic torch site. Maybe if we go back next season, we'll actually spend time seeing Hotlanta.

Anyway, here are some highlights...

Turner Field

Turner Field attempts to merge that throw-back feel with the modern. It does it very well. The entire exterior is the same brick with green metal-works that give you that old-school feel.

Entertainment

The real gem of the park is the entrance area with live entertainment, the best food at the park and the big shops. The BBQ sandwich was really good. Unfortunately, this area has no sight-lines to the ball-field due to the position of the main scoreboard.

Breast Cancer Awareness Night

Saturday night was breast cancer awareness night. Hundreds of survivors took the field and released pink balloons. YES, it made me think of Karen.

The other thing to notice on the above photo is the giant Coke Bottle and Cow. In Philly, we have the Bell. At Turner Field, they have a Cow that does "the Chop" and a really amazing Coke Bottle that lights up, changes colors, displays all sorts of messages & shoots fireworks. I'll still take the Bell.

The turnout Saturday was great. This helped us to experience the full force of "the Chop." When something big happens, the Cow chops, every screen has giant chopping tomahawks, and ever fan chops and chants in unison. It's something to experience. I felt like General Custer.

Of course, the "stranger in a strange land" feeling we got from the Chop was nothing in comparison to when the entire crowd launches into "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" during the 7th-inning stretch.

First Pitch from Our Seats on Sunday

Saturday was fun, but the Phillies lost. Thank goodness for Sunday. The Phillies were aggressive from the get-go. Victorino got himself ejected when he was called out at 2nd. His outburst was in response to a bunch of questionable calls (I checked with iDad, who triple checked the play(s) from home.) The guys were fired up from there.

There was a long rain delay during the 5th inning. Knowing we had a 4-hour drive ahead of us, we were really worried that we would have to leave before the game ended. But, the game resumed just in time for us to get home at 11PM.

Will we go back? Absolutely. I can see us going to a weekend match-up next season. I doubt we'll splurge for the really expensive seats, splurge on dinner at the Chop House or buy Tomahawk beer next time.

Note: This trip was our "It goes up to 11" anniversary present to each other. It's hard to go see a baseball game in November.

Weekend @ Turner Field

Joel, you wanna know something? Every now and then say, "What the fuck." "What the fuck" gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future. - Miles, Risky Business

Miserable 2-weeks here at our house. It started with my feet being a mess, making it hard to walk. (Yes, it's all related to my Fibro.) Then Slick got utterly hammered at work. She even brought the dreaded black bag (the one with the laptop in it) home last weekend. She worked all-day Sunday then followed that up with multiple days of getting up at 5AM to get to work early.

This morning, while looking over the Phillies boxscore from last night, I noticed that they would be at Turner Field all weekend. Miles pops into my head. Before I noticed, the wife and I have hotel reservations across the street from the stadium and really good seats for Saturday & Sunday's games.

Happy early anniversary to us.

I Still Won't Buy Norton, But A Great Ad Campaign

Cover Art

or Why Google Should Go Ahead And Organize The World...

One of the most hyped parts of an iPod Touch is the "Cover Flow" view. This is supposed to allow me to visually skim through my music library. There's only one problem. Huge portions of my library is missing cover art. And not just because I have "free" music. Most of my music collection is still from CD's the wife and I accumulated over the years. No, iTunes hates collections, movie soundtracks, greatest hits and all sorts of random songs. And of my music with cover art, some of it isn't even the right cover. For the longest time, one of my Green Day albums didn't have cover art. Why do I mention this? Because, Mindy Smith had the missing Green Day art.

So, I started my cover art project. Sometimes, it was as simple as deleting the current wrong cover and having iTunes search again. Sometimes, I had to fix the album title or artist name. Slowly, I found myself with three categories of music still missing covers. 1) Old MP3s missing tons of info. 2) the dreaded "collection" and 3) all my Beatles music.

Today, I made my big leap forward by downloading art from other places and manually matching it with my music. This may seem like a pain, but I wish I had just done this from the begining. It's easy. Go to to a place like Amazon, search for the song/album, save the cover art and then copy it to your album/song info page.

This is the part where Google gets my vote for organizing the world....

Time and time again, Amazon would give me a "can not find" message. I would then google the item in question, only for the top choice to come up as...you've guessed it...Amazon. How can Google index and track info on Amazon's website better than Amazon? That's not a question for Google, but one for Amazon.

Of course, none of this is surprising or important.

No, what's important is that I finally have cover art for Abby Road when I decide to listen to the Beatles.

Which is quite often because Abby Road is - as my niece would say - awesomely awesome!

Week One: Eagles vs Panthers - Sigh

The Eagles won. It's what I wanted. So, why am I so miserable?

My "home town" team vs my "home" team was great...

Until it wasn't.

Having lived in Charlotte for 5 years, I've earned the right to pull for the Panthers in all things except when they play against the Eagles. So, what I wanted yesterday was a hard-fought, exciting matchup where the Eagles won late in the 4th quarter. Instead, I got uncertainty.

Delhomme was horrid. Sure, the Eagles defense had a lot to do with it, but he was horrid. I was excited and worried when I saw a clock-draining opening drive from Delhomme and the Panthers. The Eagles responded with some great play on defense & special teams. In the first quarter, the Panthers took over 8 minutes to score 7 points. In the second quarter, the Eagles took less than 5 minutes to pour on 28.

If I could have stopped the game there, I would have been happy. But NOOOOO... We had to play a 2nd half. Delhomme had to stink it up even more. The Panthers were just horrid. But that wasn't the worst of it.

Donovan's got a cracked #@%@ing rib. It was like a movie drama. The "hero-king" gets hurt and the screen flashes to the once exiled friend who's next in line. Is that concern on his face or is he coldly calculating his position? The audience is spell-bound. This is money in the bank for the NFL. It's painful for the fans.

So, now I get to watch and wait as both teams figure out what to do with their quarterbacks before week 2. Sigh!

Oh Happy Dog

Friday was beautiful. I spent most of the week with my feet up because they hurt. But on Friday, they felt better and I couldn't resist the weather. It was a comfortable 82 degrees, sunny with a pleasant breeze. It was perfect. Nothing to do but take the dog to Cane Creek for some hiking and rolling in the grass.

Letting Go of World of Warcraft Blogs

The following is a repost of my post from today on OrdoSerp, the Lord of the Rings Online blog I participate in.

Funny thing about giving up World of Warcraft...

It's life-altering.

I "forgot" to cancel my subscription last month. Part of me kept thinking I would hop back on and play. But, then I saw that I hadn't logged on since early July and I realized that my wife & I had wasted a combined $90 for July, August and September. It got easier to hit the cancel button after that.

My RSS feed contains a lot of WoW blog. It's hard to let go. But it's time to say goodbye to them too. Here is a list of the blogs & podcasts I will miss the most. (Yes, there are more. Yes, I'm pathetic.)

Goodbye Daily Druid, druid-news aggrigate extreme. I even appeared in your listings once or twice. I haven't glanced at the feed in months, so it's not a hard break for me.

Goodbye Flyv. You were a guild-mate and a teacher when I started to learn to feral tank. You've also moved on from WoW. But, your direction and my interests have drifted apart. It's time for me to accept that and move on.

For months, I really hoped Phaelia would return and provide us with more Resto4Life. Now, I'm glad you didn't. You helped make my wife an amazingly awesome tree and amused her endlessly. She had so much fun reading your blog that I started reading it and eventually tried to learn to Boomkin & Tree when the dual-spec option happened.

Goodbye Pike, reluctant leader of the hunter community. Most hunter-blogs flare bright for a while then burn out. Yet, Aspect of the Hare goes strong. Elitist Jerks may have taught me how to raid, you taught me how to enjoy it. After I swapped to full-time feral druid to off-tank for my little 10-man guild, I kept reading your blog. Now, sadly, we have no place in each other's lives. I may miss you most of all.

Goodbye Kalon and your blog ThinkTank. Think tank is the ultimate tanking (mostly feral) blog around. Yours may be the hardest break. How is it that 2 months have gone by since I last played Rhus, yet I'm still reading your theory craft? Why do I care about the Feral loot-tables in the Coliseum? Why would I care if I should keep T8 cat gear or not? (Especially since I slowed and then stopped my progression before getting any T8 gear for my cat.) Your blog is like catnip rolled in honey. What feral off-tank (current or retired) can resist you?

Goodbye Randydelux & Scott. Last week when I caught myself loading your latest podcast on my iPod before a hike, I knew it was time to stop. There are no LotRO podcasts that can even hold a candle to the Instance. I've seriously considered listening to your show just for the fun of it. It's not going to happen. ExtraLife will continue to be part of my day and I'll be tryingExtraLifeRadio.

I continue to follow and support Andrew over at Of Teeth and Claws in his game-blogging endeavors. I'm glad that he's branched out from WoW to write about all things gaming. I think his latest crusade against subscription MMO's is thought-provoking. I have a lot to say about subscription MMO's and why they work, but that's a different post.

Goodbye World of Warcraft, I've canceled my subscription, deleted all the theory-craft sites from my bookmarks and now, I'm not even going to read blogs about you.

My gaming time is now taken up by Lord of the Rings Online, Mario Kart & Rock Band 2.

A Funny Thing Happened...

...on my way to write new posts this June. I started having the best summer I've had in years. I felt good, the weather was great, my wife had a lot of vacation time and I just didn't give a rats-ass about blogging. Sure there were a lot of times when I considered posting about our Summer adventures. Our multiple bear run-ins while hiking in the Shenandoah National Park nearly got me posting. My 10-year-old niece singing a near perfect "Eye of the Tiger" on Rock Band 2 also ranked up there. And let's not forget getting to see Tiger Woods roar back LIVE at the Bridgestone Invitational. But all that's in the past.

Now, with Labor Day upon us and remaining vacation time limited to Thanksgiving and Christmas, I'm thinking about getting back to my normal routine. So, what about this blog? Good question. Do I even have any readership anymore? Some folks probably neglected to delete me from their RSS feeds. But then, this blog has never been about "readership."

When I stopped posting this spring, I joined Facebook at the behest of some friends. I found it a mixed bag. On one hand, it's a virus-laden, time sink. On the other, I reconnected with dozens of high school friends. Unfortunately, it made me realize that highschool was 20 years ago. Yet, instead of reminding me of all my highschool horor, Facebook has helped me rediscover the good times. For that, I'm glad to have joined. Just don't expect me to do anything on Farm Town or Mafia Wars. I've got a lot better games to play.

My Facebook experiment can't/won't replace blogging or other online-networking in my life. Facebook isn't about close friends or deep thoughts. It's about broad, social networking. I don't have 80+ close friends. I have 80+ "friends" from multiple phases of my life.

Oddly, the biggest news in my life since starting my blog-break is probably our exit from World of Warcraft. After over 3 years, WoW stopped being the best MMO for us. So, the wife, our friends and I all moved over to Lord of the Rings Online. The gameplay is similar enough to make the transition fairly painless, but different enough to breath fresh life into online gaming nights.

Now, before you worry that we simply replaced wow-addiction for LotRO-addiction, rest assured that Slick and I have moved past the 7 nights a week MMO insanity. Our group officially tries to meet 2 nights a week. I expect that we'll have some weeks where that number will be more like 3-4, but gone are the marathon Warcrack days.

Our main recreation source is still online videogames. But instead of just playing the MMO de jur, we're doing more stuff on the Wii. We've got an online Rock Band 2 group and I've been trying to organize weekly Mario Kart Online night with my college friends and hope to start a weekly session this month.

We've also been getting together with our neighbors for dinner, trying to make friends with other couples on the block & even make friends with some of Slick's work friends.

So, that's my quick recap.

Let me finish this post with a shout out to my friend, Pobble over at Pobble Thoughts. She's been going through a blog-writing crisis much like the one that lead to my taking a break from blogging. Her plight was a major reason why I decided to finally get this first post back out of the way. I've been close to starting back up for weeks, but avoiding it. This is my lame attempt at solidarity with her. Good luck Pobble!

and now to hit publish without spellchecking or proofreading. Why? Because I'm tired and I feel like it. Night all! And welcome back me.

Miss Me

Don't make a big deal about it, but...

Urge to post rising...

Dun dun dun...

Exercising My Demons

I've not been posting a lot lately. There's a lot to say about "why." It started with writer's block. I would find a subject to write about and become completely inarticulate. Posts, even bad ones, would not flow. Then in turned into a disinterest in posting about anything.

This blog, first and foremost, has been a place for me to channel my frustrations about my health. Even posts having nothing to do with my fibromyalgia often flow from it. The blog is my outlet. It's been a purpose in a purposeless existence.

No, I'm not trying to depress you.

My mother-in-law, the wise woman that she is, suggested something profound to me recently. The writer's block is a good thing. I forget her exact words, but it boils down to this...

I needed to talk and now I don't.

What does that mean? This blog has been like a therapist in my life. It was my "keep a journal" project. I had finally found the right job, our lives were headed exactly where we wanted to go, things were great and then my health made it all go away. I gave up "everything" to get healthy and focus on the things that matter. It was a very painful decision, but continues to look like the right one.

And so it happened. I stopped having to talk about "it."

Unfortunately, that's also meant that I don't need to vent about the economy, comment on the new "first dog," or share my sadness on the passing Harry Kalas. I see this writer's block as a good thing, but it's also created new concerns.

This blog has always served three purposes.

1) A place for me to work through things, "exercise my demons."
2) A place for my family & friends to check up on us.
3) A place to write.

I'm done exercising my demons through this blog. I can find other ways of writing. But what about my readership?

My plan is to go silent from blogging for a month or so. There are other things I've been devoting my blogging & feed-reading to - mostly exercise.

Exercise - daily - focused - even when I'm in a lot of pain or suffering from fatigue - but careful exercise has become the next major step in managing my health. It's the one post I still have left in me, but doesn't need to be written.

Simply put: the Wii Fit is an amazing piece of technology.

When/if I return, this blog will probably undergo a face lift and become focused on things like "vacation photos" and blurbs about home-improvement projects. I may even look for another online home.

This is not goodbye from blogging. This is shalom.