My Showboat Coin Cup

I've been doing some heavy cleaning this week. While cleaning, I moved the well-faded Showboat casino coin cup - which I keep all my loose change in until I turn it into a Starbucks card - and set it on my desk. I've been looking at said cup all week and thinking about my college friends. Why?

It's the only remaining souvenir I have left from my bachelor's party 11 years ago. I love my friends, but admittedly didn't enjoy my party much. The party all made sense of course. We had free access to a beach house just 20 minutes from Atlantic City. It was a bachelor's party for goodness sakes. There was just one unfortunate detail: I don't like gambling.

And yet, the cup - when it's not sitting on the floor of my computer closet - is a constant reminder of their efforts that weekend and our friendship which has endured since freshman year nearly 20 years ago.

I don't miss those times - I was a rudderless person back then - but I do miss the company.

I cherish my stupid showboat cup.

My Money's on the Man in the Yellow Hat

Sometimes Sheldon cracks me up.

E A G L....sigh

The pain of the Eagles horrid finish has left me frustrated for the most unusual reason: I got a ton of new Eagles gear over the holidays. My Eagles hoody is the most comfortable sweatshirt I own, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to wear it.

Well, screw it. The Eagles are still my team. It's hoody time!

Feeling Minimalistic

Layout change.

Posts have been flowing so infrequently in the past year that I've got this urge to make this simple. Maybe a fresh start will encourage creativity.

Weekend Planning

Attached is a copy of an email I sent to my friends warning them that I would not be available this weekend...

I'm sorry, but you will be losing me to football Saturday night. The Eagles vs Cowgirls is scheduled for 8pm. Since the Eagles will be winning the Super Bowl (hope springs eternal) there will be other weekend schedule conflicts over the next several weeks. I may desire to watch the other games as well. I will attempt to pry myself from the TV as much as possible.

Exception Clauses:

- In the unfortunate and unlikely event that the Eagles lose, I will be a lot less interested in football.

- If the universe decides to crap on me and the Cowgirls (that's right, it wasn't a typo) were to make it to the super bowl, no one is permitted to mention the word football again until June...maybe August.

Turn Tail And Run

We're up at "the Farm" this week (Slick's Grandmother lives on the family farm way up in Potter County, PA) for Christmas.

Max and I were out hiking in the snow this morning (brisk 17 deg) when we came across a confluence of fresh tracks at the tree-line. Because of the blowing snow, any tracks we found were from today. We studied them intently. The fist-sized tracks were probably bear. The multitude of dog-like tracks were probably the coyote we've been hearing about. Max found this very interesting. He sniffed and sniffed. He dug at a few tracks. And then...

Max head snapped up and looked into the tree-line. He stared intently, sniffed the air, sniffed the tracks and proceeded to drag me down the hill with all his might.

I've never seen this kind of response from him. He's a "charge headlong" kind of dog. It's part of the reason I usually have to leash him while hiking. I once lost him for 30 minutes when he bolted after a deer while hiking in SC. We've been in the woods in question many times. He's flushed grouse & turkeys from the fields. He's chased deer into there so fast that my in-laws' collie had to go find him for me. But, run away? This was a first.

At first, I was going to make him stop. Except, well... His tail was tucked as far as it could go between his legs. His ears were as tight against his head as he could get them. He kept whipping his head around looking into the woods. He kept dragging with all of his might.

I couldn't see anything, but the tracks were there. It was cold. AND, the dog was completely freaked.

So yeah, I decided to trust his instincts on this one. We came down off the hill.

Video Hardware Hell

I'm really hoping that posting this will make me feel better. I keep reminding myself that my problems are nothing compared to the problems of others. Doesn't make them any less infuriating.

Over the last year, I struggled with outrage at the apparent "lemon" of a video card I got with my Dell Inspiron 530. My wife got a 530 just two months earlier and loves it. So, I shopped the deals and got the same system (only my video card was an ATI card and her's is an NVidia.) After months of agitation I finally decided to upgrade. That process was not without it's pitfalls. Most new cards require bigger power supplies than my system has. But, I eventually found a 1Gig card that runs of a 350Watt Power Supply. For 2 weeks, I learned about all the cool things I'd been missing from Lord of the Rings Online.

And then today my 20" widescreen Samsung display died. It binks on/off once every few milliseconds. It's painful to watch. There's no fix out there that I can find. I've tried all sorts of variations, it's as much a lemon as that stupid card was.

I fought back the urge to toss it out the window (it would be my own yard I would clean) and proceeded to make an old 19" standard res LCD monitor work. I'm "in business." I hate it, but it works. Time to take stock of the situation.

15 hours ago, I selected to use my big "super giftcard" to get gifts at REI & B&N books. I didn't need these items. But knowing now, I wish I hadn't bought new exercise gloves, attachments to use my hiking stick in snow, and books. I could have applied the whole amount at Tiger Direct I would have covered the bulk of the price of a new monitor. Everyone would have been happy. BUT NOOOO.

So, now negotiations will have to begin w/ Slick for me to get a new video monitor. I'm so accustomed to wide screen display, I'm not sure I want to go back. This sucks. I can't emotionally or financially justify the monitor. I loved my old one (before it broke) but I don't need it.

Sigh!

Nope: Don't really feel better. Ah well.

Can I Upgrade to Windows 7?

Microsoft has a nice little utility to download to examine your computer for Windows 7 portability.

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

The Advisor scans your computer and lists compatibility issues and suggestions for the move. Our computers are mostly ready for Windows 7. Unfortunately, I will need to do a clean install in order to move to the 64-bit version.

Microsoft also has a support page for that.

Performing a custom installation of Windows 7

I'll pass along any additional tidbits if I find them. I'm eager to get started, but I need to find a copy of the Windows 7 "Family" pack (which is out of stock everywhere.) Still, it's forcing me to research, backup, plan and hopefully avoid making mistakes.

Vanilla Ice Ruined My Life

In the early 90's a hack named Vanilla Ice wrote a song that sounds like the opening to the great Queen song "Under Pressure." Nearly 20 years later, when I hear the beginning of Under Pressure, I think someone has essentially Rick Rolled me with "Ice Ice Baby!" I get confused, I reach to change the station or fix my Pandora feed. EVERY TIME!

"Khaaaaaaan!"

Damn you, Ice!

"To the last, I will grapple with thee... from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!" - Moby Dick

Because I'm a Frackin' Toaster!

Some friends blew into town for the weekend to geek out with us. Years ago this would have meant a marathon weekend involving D&D books, character sheets, cold pizza and a few gallons of Mountain Dew. We still geeked out. We just did it with better food and more sleep. Our gaming has also shifted from D&D to a combination of Rock Band (Wii) and cooperative board games like Arkham Horror.

This time around, Cainam brought Battle Star Galactica the Board Game. Everyone chooses a member of the crew, fight off toasters & spin up the FTL drive in hopes that our next jump will lead us home.

The game has one twist: Someone may be a Cylon. In fact, before the game ends, there will be at least one Cylon. Who is it? Who's working against us? Is it the Admiral? The President? Boomer?

Last night (actually the whole weekend) I was the cylon right from the word go. Whenever possible, I sabotaged the crew's efforts. Choose the better of two cards? I think not. Add extra support when victory is assured? Absolutely! Anything to throw off suspicion.

And then Cainam got a card that let him check my loyalty. Crap! What do I do? Bluff, of course! In fact, I bluffed us both into the brig long enough for the game to spiral out of control. (My job as the toaster after all!)

Note: I really only pulled this off because of a combination of luck and Cainam's reputation. I'd been the cylon in every game that weekend. So, it seemed unlikely that I would be it AGAIN. Cainam had done a number of things just before calling me a cylon that, put together, seemed suspicious. It's totally in his character to be the cylon and accuse someone else to throw off suspicions. So, he called me a cylon and I called him a lying liar. Can't believe it worked.

At some point in the game, I got officially revealed and disappeared to the resurrection ship - where I wrecked even more havoc - but not before I we able to change my wife into a Cylon too. She proceeded, in a masterful stroke, to lock everyone else up in the brig. Before they could right the ship and kill her off, Galactica was just too far gone. I was so proud!

BSG the Board Game is a total win for people who like long-play co-op games. It requires at least 3 people to play. It really takes 4 or more to make it good. Three people makes it a lot easier to find the hidden Cylon.

Disk Space Math

I got a new 1.5 TB (Terabyte = 1,000 Gigabytes) external backup drive today...

300 Gigs of music, video and downloaded videogame content is just too much to backup via DVD ROM. (And that's not including the wife's PC or the multimedia machine.) The drive was on sale at my local Costco for $110. The cost was much better than New Egg & Amazon. Reviews are mixed, but I'm sure it'll do the job just fine.

Except, as all computer geeks know, it's not really 1.5 TB. The actual disk size is 1.36 TB. This is in keeping with accepted hard-drive space calculations. My head understands this. My heart, however, feels robbed out of 140 GB of space. That's a hard drive worth of space. It's one thing when my 16 GB iPod Touch is 14.5 GB. (Well, actually, I sometimes run out of room.) It's another mathematical beast when we start getting into Terabytes.

A few years ago, the EPA changed the fuel economy standards. Car nuts & fuel savers have known for a while that the sticker estimates were based on out-dated calculations. Guess what, the world continued to spin AND consumers were better protected. Why can't we have truth in advertising with disk space? As disks get getting bigger and bigger the "lie" is only becoming compounded.

I, for one, would welcome the change.

Anyway, full backup scheduled for tonight. This is all in prep to move us to Windows 7 sometime this winter. I need solid backups either way, but I really want them before upgrading. My plan is to get the family 3-pack license. Just trying to decide if I want to wait until after holiday expenses are dealt with.

Note: Have you noticed that car commercials now don't talk about the city/highway mpgs? They only talk about highway mileage. It sounds great when a car gets 30/mpg. Except that you've got to catch the fine print at the bottom of the commercial to see it's misleading.

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.