Webdanzer's Spin

Oh dear...CNN caught in bathroom chat with her mic on

2006-08-29T17:19:00.000-04:00

During prez Bush's speech today, CNN personality Kyra Phillips had her mic on during a bathroom chat:

http://hotair.com/archives/2006/08/29/potty-break-mic-snafu-cnns-phillips-chats-in-the-loo-during-bush-speech/

Among other things, the poor woman describes how while most brothers are protective of their sisters, she has to be protective of her brother, who is married to 'a control freak.'

I don't think her nieces and nephews will be seeing much of their Aunt Kyra any time soon...

Fry Guy

2006-08-02T17:51:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I realize I took a sabbatical for what, about a year and a half? Some big things happened over that time about which I'm sure I'll mention as we go along. The second child we had in November will be kinda hard not to talk about, I'd imagine.

At any rate, I've been Vegetarian for a few months now. I shoot for Vegan, but don't go all crazy about an accidental bite of butter here or there, or cream in my coffee. I'd say I was a 'lax Vegan,' but I don't think that is allowed. People will come knocking on my door for that, I think. Seriously.

Anyway, that lifestyle change occasionally makes eating out a bit more challenging, as dairy products are in almost everything out there. Today's lunchtime choice was the falafel platter at the mall.

"Sandwich and fries?" The platter-assembler (pardon the ignorance of the official terminology) rushed over, intercepting the girl at the register as she tried to accurately enter the order.

"No, the platter."

"This?" She hipchecked the register girl out of position to point to a picture of falafel and fries.

"No." I pointed to the picture of the platter...you know, what I ordered. "This."

"That comes with salad and rice," she said as an attempt at negation.

"Right. That's what I want."

"No fries..." she delivered like a threat, like I was a five-year-old flicking my sister in the back seat of the Buick on the way to Grandma's house.

"No fries."

Dismayed, she allowed the register girl to resume her post.

So I got what I wanted, but see, she had now succeeded in getting into my head. Do I look that much like a fry guy? Maybe the new diet has symptoms of which I've previously been unaware. Eye tremors and facial tics, maybe, when my gaze happens to drift towards the fry station. Or maybe the fries were just so darn good that I missed out on some sort of divine fry experience. I don't know.

And I won't know. I can't go back there and order the fries now. Not after we fought about it in front of witnesses. She'd think she'd won, and I can't allow that. Think of what that would do to the morale of the beaten down register girl.

Fries are really just an excuse for the existence of ketchup, anyway.

A Fun Toy.

2006-07-28T14:29:00.000-04:00

What celebrity is earning a living off of your good looks!?

Upload a pic and find out!

Frankly, though, I and my newly shorn head don't really give a damn.

:)

(Shamelessly stolen from a link on Dubious Quality)

A Few Good Pirates

2006-07-28T14:18:00.000-04:00

My son wandered into the living room during the last five or ten minutes of the History Channel’s True Caribbean Pirates the other day. The kid loves pirates. We have most of the Playmobil collection, and he’s even fine owning and playing with a couple of the scarier Pirates of The Caribbean action figures. Even the Backyardigans pirate episode never ceases to catch his attention. So I let him stay to watch the end of the show, ready to steer him out at signs of any upsetting violence.

The end of the show was like a recap, showing once again the pirates featured in the show: Blackbeard, Captain Morgan, Black Bart, etc. This is what my son saw, and after only a minute or two, he turned around and asked me in consternation:

“Where are all the GOOD pirates?”

I realized I had encountered my first ‘No Such Thing…’ question, and it snuck up on me. I felt a twinge in my gut. Or in my soul, if the soul lives in your gut. As a parent I honestly had not yet decided if I wanted my encourage my children to believe in NSTs, and suddenly here was my first chance to possibly either spawn or slay one.

The twinge wasn’t a full blown crisis, but it was a warning. My back went out in college once. Muscle spasms, and I suffered through one finals day literally bent into an ‘L’ as I waited for the muscle relaxants to kick in. It hasn’t happened since, but every once in a while my back will give me that twinge that lets me know it can happen again. A bad one can still come.

And that’s what the Pirates NST question summoned: One day a big one’s coming, Daddy-O. Think on that.

But that day wasn’t the other day. Not yet.

“Here’s the good pirate!” I answered, digging the dread pirate Dad’s tickle claw into his belly. I was then happy to spend the next few minutes before his bedtime suffering the ‘Arr Matey’ leaping elbow drop from the arms of the couch.

That night we were a couple of good pirates. And though someday I’ll start to answer all of the NST questions, I hold out hope for my son that as he grows and begins his own search for treasure, he can do it while remaining a good guy.

I’m pretty certain that he can.

Context

2006-07-17T12:47:00.000-04:00

I've been playing Chrome Hounds (Xbox 360)

It's a lot of fun.

I woke up thinking about it.

...

And oh yeah. Lebanon.

I didn't sleep thinking about that.

Smile when you are ready...

2005-02-17T13:06:00.000-05:00

...is what today's fortune cookie reads.

For what, exactly?!

...

Comments supposedly now allow you to say stuff without being registered. Try it if you like...

And smile while doing so.

Bathroom Reading Benefits Number Two

2005-01-13T13:53:00.000-05:00

The selection waiting for me today as I entered the john was a plain white hardcover book, entitled:

INTERNAL BLEEDING.

Red smeary letters and all.

NOT an ideal selection for the circumstances.

Bring back Buffet.

Please.

Greg Hastings’ Tournament Paintball Impressions.

2004-11-18T13:15:00.000-05:00

I decided to take a chance and pick this Xbox game up, as I had heard several things about it that piqued my interest…one-hit kills, supposedly innovative new switching hands and snap-fire features, paintballs affected by gravity and wind, etc. I also play the game recreationally on occasion and was interested to see how well they pulled it off in a videogame.

First impressions were fairly good. Right away it’s evident you’re firing a paint marker rather than a gun. You can see the arc of the paintballs nicely, and the spread of your fire is noticeably true to life even when keeping the crosshairs in the same place. Wind curve is noticeable, especially at range, as is the effect of gravity on the balls. The markers (at least at the start of play) are not auto, so you need to pump the trigger to maintain a stream of paint, which is a good representation of how (being too cheap for the autos) I play in real life. :)

The graphics are serviceable. Nothing special, but nothing egregiously wrong. Bright colors, decent animations. Your gaming screen is actually defined by your goggles, limiting your view. It’s odd to see this in a videogame, in that it almost feels wrong to have so much screen space go unused…but after you get over that you realize that they are trying to represent the real-life field of vision restriction, and it works. You forget about after playing for awhile. Another thing that blocks your vision is the paintball hopper on the marker itself, and this doesn’t go away during play…you’re going to have this pod in front of you for most of the game. Again, realistic. I also liked how skillfully using the ‘switch hands’ button helped out in this situation, allowing you to transfer your marker from one hand to another, thus clearing up your vision on one side of the screen. Mastering that while strafing right and left really comes in handy.

I’m always a fan of shooters where you engage the enemy by positioning yourself behind cover and exchanging snap fire, popping out above or to the side of your cover and loosing a few bursts towards the enemy. For some reason, this style of play goes largely unrealized in most online shooters. Some have lean moves, but most are slow and a bit unrealistic in execution. The snap fire works very well in this game, and the range of your motion is determined by an analog push of the left trigger. You can lean out a little bit or jump out a lot, and you lead with your marker…so whatever you do can be prefaced by a hail of paint. You change the direction of your lean using the ‘switch marker hand’ button (you always snap to the marker side) and by using the ‘a’ button, which toggles your snap fire between vertical and horizontal planes. Tie this with the three standard fps postures (stand, crouch, prone) and the guy you have pinned down behind those logs can be popping fire back out at you from pretty much anywhere behind the cover. This is done really well, and it’s pretty cool to see in action.

Moving around is pretty standard for an FPS, although they do have a ‘turbo’ button…which is really just a strangely named sprint. It is of extremely short duration and allows you to haul tail from one cover object to the next…but you can’t fire at all while turboing. Makes sense, and works well. The ‘B’ button is also the dive button, allowing you to immediately go prone from the sprint or from any other higher posture. That too works well. You can fire while moving in any posture or speed other than the sprint, but your accuracy is affected by your movements. You’re most accurate when prone and still…but you’re also a nice target that way too.

Gameplay plays out as it should. Suppression and flanking are keys to winning, just like in real life. Keep enemies pinned down behind cover while your teammates can slip to the side. One hit and the enemy goes down…with a noticeable exception: The Cheat Meter!

While I can’t stand wipers out on the field when I play recreationally, I like this feature in the videogame. (For those that don’t, it can be turned off.) How it works is that when you get hit by a shot, other than in the face –you can’t cheat the big yellow splat across your goggles- A pendulum ‘golf-style’ meter quickly appears on your screen, representing your chance to cheat by wiping off the paint before the ref notices you are hit. If you stop the meter in the ‘bounce’ or wipe zones, you can continue play…but the next time you try to wipe the meter will be much faster. If you really screw up and stop the meter in the penalty zones, you are caught wiping and are called out with one or more of your teammates as a penalty! It’s not especially hard to wipe the first time, but the facts that head shots are unwipeable and if you are shot multiple times before wiping you are called out keep this from having too much of an impact on the overall flow of the play. Basically wiping is useful when you just get hit once, and maybe dive back behind cover for a quick wipe….instances when damn wipers do so in real life. If you are caught in the open, forget about it…multiple hits will take you about without a chance to cheat.

Okay, that stuff was all pretty good. The bad?

*ALL* of the fields are extremely small for multiplayer FPS’s. Most of field’s are small tournament-style speedball locations, full of plenty of cover, but very limited in overall area. Even the woods-oriented fields are restricted in this manner. While the name of this game *is* tournament paintball, some larger woods-style maps would have been greatly appreciated for some variety. As is, matches move quickly in small environs such as these. And I do mean quickly. Both online and off, rounds can be over in under a minute, as a well coordinated attack or plain bad luck can knock one side out really darn quickly. Tournament matches are thus ‘best of’ x rounds’ affairs. While this works, it gives the game a really odd vibe…almost like a sporting event rather than an FPS…but I guess that’s what it is.

Another knock against it is that it pretty much has two styles or gameplay…elimination and capture the flag. Play these two modes over and over again in the same small fields, and you begin to see a problem. While it has many unique features and it really plays a pretty true game of paintball, there is not too much to the actual gameplay…especially when compared to other recent releases such as Ghost Recon 2 or Halo 2. The modes and maps are extremely limited, repetitive, and over quickly. I get the feeling that the game has a great backbone, but its body is woefully lacking. While it can be argued that the game set out to do exactly what it did: capture the nature of tournament paintball, for $10 more and a pickup pf Halo or Ghost Recon, you get a lot more game for your buck. The single player mode sees you buying new (officially licensed) equipment and increasing your skills while progressing to more difficult fields and tougher opponents (including real ‘famous’ players), but you’re still going to be playing the same games.

My verdict after one day is that I’ll keep it for a while, and see what happens. The limited Live play I saw last night was lag-free and fun, with battles of up to 7 on 7. Those interested in paintball should definitely at least give it a rent, but I’d be hard pressed at this point and in this games market to tell anyone to pick it up at $40. $20, sure…but not $40.

Anyway, I found it to be pretty fun for what it is. Anyone who picks it up or rents it, please let me know, as I’d like to give it a spin with friends on Live.

Happy Birthday, Hon!

2004-11-11T09:44:00.000-05:00

You've given so much of yourself to me and our son that you're due far more than one day of special celebration. I hope I make how much we love and appreciate you apparent the other 364 days of the year.

You're the best!

Happy Birthday!

(Now go shopping...)

:)

But Does the Estrogen Make it Lumpy?

2004-10-13T09:34:00.000-04:00

Poking around the office looking for breakfast this morning, I came across an unattended box of what appeared to be simply oatmeal.

Its label, however, was offputting.

Quaker Instant Oatmeal's Nutrition for Women.

Now I'm scared to eat it. Not necessarily because of the 'tailored for women' content of vitamins, minerals and hormones, but for the way I may be forced to eat the thing.

If you've seen commercials for 'women's food products', you know what I'm talking about.

I'm not about to haul off to some flowery field or seaside cliff for breakfast, and if you think I'm going to sit on one barefooted leg while raising the other knee to my chin and threading the oatmeal laden spoon through that leg to get the spoon to my mouth, you gotta be kidding!

Just one of my weird hang-ups, I suppose.

And I'd rather stink up the joint than EVER use one of those pink roll-on deoderants...

Good Life, Apple Pie

2004-10-07T10:47:00.000-04:00

For some reason the family rose and shined in great moods today. Except for me. I'm a horrible morning person. Always have been, always will be. I stumbled down the stairs to kiss my wife and child before I left for work. My wife was crafting an apple pie, my son was sitting next to her on the counter, 'helping.'

My wife is fantastic; she thanked me for helping to provide them with a good life, just the thing I need to hear on groggy midweek mornings.

The son (20 months old) then chimed in with an observational philosophy of his own:

"Good Life...Apple Pie!"

Youbetcha, son! Thanks for giving dad a new 'happy mantra'!

:)

Taking a Dump in Margaritaville

2004-10-06T14:35:00.000-04:00

It’s nice to work for a company with benefits.

You know the usual: Medical, Dental, Life, Vacation, so on and so forth. Most companies offer more or less the same types of perks, to greater or lesser degrees. My current job, though, totally goes the extra mile and provides their employees with the ‘Bathroom Reader Benefit.’ Yup! Every venture into the office’s restroom is rewarded with a selection of periodicals or similar light fare for your perusal while you are in there doing your duty.

[Ew. Gross. Yuck! Fine, those inclined can get those sentiments out of the way and move along]

What a wonderful benefit! And it does so much more than just provide a useful time killing distraction; it is a statement about the office’s culture. ‘Hey! Hang loose! Relax!’ it says. ‘We’re all family here!’ You think I’m kidding? I’ve worked in places where the restrooms were clearly Not To Be Used. They were there, of course, but a vague but potent peer pressure enforced the unspoken edict of repudiation. Sanctions were baleful looks, wrinkled noses, and omissions from the lunchtime posse.

Not here, though, where it has become obvious that not only are the facilities meant to be used, but meant to be enjoyed! And so I do.

And I was today, perusing a copy of ‘Things you Know by Heart’, a CD-sized sample of what I thought was a typical bathroom reader: factoids, trivia, did you know’s…you know, snippets of things that are easy to digest while you are undigesting. But then I’m flipping through the pages, reading numbered questions like:

38. If the phone doesn’t ring, where will you be?
488. What is the best time to look?
746. How do people in the city pass the time?

Thinking myself a somewhat proficient handler of trivia, I froze. What the hell kinds of questions were these? They seemed so simple, so mundane, yet I hadn’t the foggiest idea of their answers.

I immediately feared a possible stroke, or similar head explosion, taking my current activities into consideration. My god, talk about the one thing no one wants to share with Elvis! (Well, there’s that odiously corpulent thing, too…so okay, one of two things.) I popped up to look myself in the mirror and see if my eyeballs had turned red, and I made sure I still knew my name.

Blue eyes. Derek. So things were okay there.

I looked at the book again, trying to see if maybe I picked up the Existentialist’s Potty Primer, or something…but the back cover revealed something far worse.

F’in Jimmy Buffet Trivia.

Some careless parrothead had me staring down my own mortality, the drunken bastard!

So now there’s gotta be payback. Not only for the frightening events of today, but also in retribution for the stinking way that that Buffeteer, whoever he may be, groped my girlfriend, wife, sister-in law, cousin, mom, grandma, or pet in a drunken rendition of ‘Margaritaville’ at that wedding, birthday party, karaoke bar, firefighter benefit, or bar mitzvah not long ago. You all know the type.

And you just don’t mess with the poopin’ man.

Though Pleasant Surpises are nice...

2004-09-23T11:17:00.000-04:00

Chuckle chuckle.

In my Two Minute Drill post I thank a few of you who recommended games that I would not have otherwise checked out, hence the 'Low' expectation titles.

I wasn't thanking you for giving me those low expectations, though it's nice to be surprised like that every once in a while.
:)

Hmm..and looking at those three games I see Fishing, NASCAR, and Demolition Derby...

[cue 'Dueling Banjoes']

What are you people doing to me?!?!
;)

Fall Games two minute drill.

2004-09-23T10:49:00.000-04:00

I both love and hate this time of year for videogaming. At the start of the holiday shopping period, big game after big game is released, all trying to grab that 'gift-buying' cash just starting to peep out from wallets and purses.

Since I spend nowhere near what I used to on these things, Gamefly has been an absolute godsend in helping me keep up with the rush. It's montly rental service that sends games via the mail, and you can keep them as long as you want. Even with the $20-$30 montly charge, I save much, much more than I would by buying the games or renting them from local chains.

Since I've been using the service so much, I figured I'd throw out a quick list of games I've played recently along with a quick rating, to help other gamers navagate the onslaught!

Here goes:

ESPN NHL 2K5

Time Put In: Some
Expectations: Moderate
Reality: Met
+ Fixed super goalies, better CPU offense, decent ‘out-of-the-box’
- Money Goals L, clueless teammates at times, players bounce off of each other too often
Meaningless Letter Grade: B
Quick Comments: ESPN was my least favorite hockey game last year, favorite this year. Very happy with the improvement!

Sly 2: Band of Thieves

Time Put In: Some
Expectations: High
Reality: Met
+ Great Saturday morning cartoony graphics, interesting characters, unique stealth-platformer with a variety of gameplay types
- controls not completely customizable
Meaningless Letter Grade: A
Quick Comments: The original was a modest success, but unlike any other platformer out there. The second adds length and gameplay, while keeping the charm and style. Get both!

Fable:

Time Put In: Some
Expectations: Moderate
Reality: Met (Barely)
+ Fun battle system, Impressive storybook graphics, Great Music
- Can’t live up to massive hype/aspirations, short, good-vs-evil really just a gimmick
Meaningless Letter Grade: C+
Quick Comments: Expectations were lowered after initial reviews, and still only found it to be okay. Pretty much a simplistic action game in a slice of a world that you can just tell was supposed to be so much more.

Def Jam Fight for NY

Time Put In: Just a little
Expectations: Moderate
Reality: Met
+ Best ‘wrestling’ game currently out, good story, fighting fast and fun
- Some camera problems, very poor manual!
Meaningless Letter Grade: B
Quick Comments: IMO, the best ‘wrestling’ game currently out. The Exaggerated high-flying violence is a trip.

Test Drive: Eve of Destruction

Time Put In: Some
Expectations: Low (None, even Thanks Scoop!)
Reality: Exceeded
+ Old school destruction derby fun, decently challenging
- Old school graphics, lack of speed, repetitive
Meaningless Letter Grade: C+
Quick Comments: Not a great game, but fun, and revived a genre for me that I thought was dead.

Nascar Chase For the Cup 2005

Time Put In: Some
Expectations: Low (Thanks PK!)
Reality: Exceeded
+ Great, Great AI racing, Involving Career mode, personally liked the sim/arcade balance
- Mediocre Graphics and framerate problems leave a very bad first impression, Drafting/intimidation overdone
Meaningless Letter Grade: B
Quick Comments: I’m not a Nascar fan, but I will be putting time into a nascar game for the first time ever.

Burnout 3, Takedown

Time Put In: Lots
Expectations: Moderate
Reality: Exceeded
+ Insanely fast speeds and framerate, variety of modes, sweet Live Play, lots to do
- Loading times are annoying, especially in crash mode, EA Live issues
Meaningless Letter Grade: A
Quick Comments: I liked the first two games in the series, love the third. Starts, perhaps, a little slow, but gets better the more you play. Fantastically addictive in the ‘Just one more race’ kind of way.

Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

Time Put In: Lots
Expectations: Moderate
Reality: Met
+ Psi Powers are new and innovative mechanic, great physics, good controls,
- Short, could have had more interesting environments
Meaningless Letter Grade: B
Quick Comments: Innovation does happen, occasionally! The psi powers add so much to the genre. Seems like so much work was done there and on the physics, though, that the game world was cut short. Sequel should be amazing.

Powerdrome

Time Put In: Lots
Expectations: Moderate
Reality: Exceeded
+ Fast, challenging arcade racer, very cinematic gameplay, nice replays
- Early tracks are boring, Live problems, no one else is playing
Meaningless Letter Grade: B
Quick Comments: The best game no one is playing.

Pro Fishing Challenge

Time Put In: Some
Expectations: Low (thanks Granato!)
Reality: Exceeded
+ Great relaxing yet competitive Live play, lots of options, fight with the fish well done
- Below average graphics, very comprehensive inventory of lures, line, etc. with no instructions how to use each
Meaningless Letter Grade: B
Quick Comments: Not a fisherman, but still finding this to be a ton of fun

Star Wars Battlefront

Time Put In: Just a little
Expectations: Low
Reality: Exceeded
+ Captures chaos of battle, most ambitious Live game in terms of players, bots, etc, chill inducing moments for Star Wars fans
- Dumb Bot AI, lack of game modes, lag problems
Meaningless Letter Grade: B
Quick Comments: Must Have for a star wars fan, good game to pop in and blast away!

(Also posted on the DSP forums, where you can get more good info on mainly sports, but often other, games.)

ArrRARRrrRARgh!

2004-09-17T11:03:00.000-04:00

I'm in the playoffs in a head to head yahoo fantasy league, this is the penultimate week. This was my infield mere days ago:

David Ortiz, 1B
Alfonso Soriano, 2B
Khalil Greene, SS
Scott Rolen, 3B

Now Rolen is out for two weeks (basically the rest of the fantasy season) Rookie of the Year candidate Greene is done for the year and Soriano blew out his leg yesterday.

Oh, and Soriano and Rolen are on the 'Can't Drop' list because they were high picks, so they're hogging roster spots.

&^!$#&^*&%#!@*&%$&*!$@!

Good news....Bad News

2004-09-15T13:47:00.000-04:00

So, my son thinks I'm Derek Jeter.

Fantastic!

Coming from a Die-Hard Yankees family, that's a huge compliment. I mean, Jeter's a great role model: Hard Working, Responsible, Talented, a Good Teammate, A Good Leader...

Wow! What a nice thing for my little buddy to say....

...Until I saw how he made the association. We have these little Jeter nesting dolls in the house. He points to this one and says "Da-da!"

Umm..?

I take some consolation that it doesn't look much like Jeter, either.

Raring to Stop

2004-09-10T16:55:00.000-04:00

So some guy started showing up in my front yard this week. I noticed his appearance almost immediately, as I have become suddenly and acutely sensitive to itinerant neighbors walking the sidewalk alongside of our yard. Since moving in I have seen far too much of a woman dog-walker who has assuredly seen too much of me in the mornings as I pull off my nighty-time boxers and head for the shower. (The wife likes to leave every shade in the house open, in her eternal -and apparently hopeless unless we tear off the roof- search for ‘good lighting.’) Coming from what could accurately be described as a ‘country condo,’ I’m not yet used to the idea of joggers, dog-walkers, bikers and such passing by outdoors, so each of these intruders show up as large, menacing blips on my radar.

Don’t get me wrong, for the most part we love this; it was one of the appeals of the neighborhood that attracted us when we were looking for a house. These folks here in town are uniformly friendly, ready to greet you with a smile and a nod. Unfortunately, everyone that crosses my path in the pre 9AM morning before I have the chance to recalibrate my internal IFF system at Dunkin Donuts is universally classified as a hostile. I can’t blame by body; it’s a survival mechanism. I sure as hell can’t make any accurate determinations of my own in those ungodly hours.

Anyway, it was exactly this time that this new bogey showed up. I watched him exit his vehicle from behind my curtain. He strode the sidewalk towards the intersection, a resolute set to his brow. Once there, however, he turned around. A guards pace! He wasn’t going anywhere; he was where he wanted to be! Right in front of my house.

Now, the ground that he patrolled also serves as the base for a neighborhood mailbox, so the thought crossed my mind that perhaps he was guarding the mail. An absurd thought, you think? Well maybe, but only until you consider that my local mail-hub is kinda (in)famous. Maybe the guy was actually a homeland security plant.

Could be too, that he was just waiting for friends. He was an older guy, and my weeks of living at the new joint have enabled me to make the observation that only older people use mailboxes nowadays. The younger generation is apparently all ‘e’-ed’ up…emails, online banking and bill paying, etc. There’s no doubt in my mind that 90%+ of the folks using this mailbox comprise CBS’s target audience, (Murder, She Mailed, anyone?) so maybe this guy was just hanging out at the local hotspot, looking to get a hot tip on the next fiery Canasta gathering going down.

I dressed, keeping a vigilant eye on the guy. Sometime between shirt and socks he must have withdrawn an item from his car, because he was flipping something in his hands as he gazed again across the intersection, a gunfighter staring down a storm. Its haft was cool, polished metal; I could see it glint from my dining room window. A child approached from across the way, and the man sprung into action, drawing his weapon, and stepping out into the street.

Time stopped, and so did traffic, as the stranger held his stop sign aloft.

Holy crow!

“Hey hon!” I called. “We have a crossing guard!” I hadn’t had a close encounter with a crossing guard since like the sixth grade, when one of my friends became a junior CG. He got a badge and everything, and around the pizza pies on weekends he’d shock us with the stories of what words actually came out of the mouths of kindergarteners when they were told to stop.

Ah, the good old days!

This new guy in the front yard didn’t seem to be an ass, though, as my friend assuredly was, drunk off the power of a sixth grade traffic lord. I watched him for a while until it was time for me to go, and it occurred to me that this guy -pacing, prepared, resolute- probably enjoyed his daily duty far more than I. On a good day for me, I can help eke some cash away from monolithic pharmaceutical companies. On a good day for him, he could keep little kids from getting run over by trucks.

The IFF then, even pre-coffee, kicked in, and identified the sashed gentleman as a friend.

Now I only need to work out a deal with him to delay that dog walker for a moment or two…

Xbox Asplode!

2004-09-03T13:02:00.000-04:00

It’d be easy enough, I suppose, to blame the tears that blurred my eyes on the abrasive smoke cloud teeming down the front of my entertainment center and across my shoulders as I stood doubled over, staring at the Xbox in horror. Or, I could assuredly find the piquant, carcinogenic wallop of refried circuitry that I tasted at the back of my ears at fault. Human biology had given me a couple of acceptable outs, should I choose to employ them.

But that, dear readers, would be lying.

No, long after the smoke had drifted out through the hastily thrown open windows into the post-midnight air, and once the DNA damage had been inflicted, I still stood there, sniveling, my yanked-out power cord wilting flaccid in my hand.

The Xbox was dead. I had lost a friend.

The signs of imminent demise had been there for a while, though only now could I accept them for what they were. The Ivory application of denial leaves life’s little tragedies 99.44 percent pure, and it’s easy to ignore the filthy tub when you are deliberately focusing on the spectacle of the floating soap. But who was I kidding? The Xbox had been sounding and stinking like a flatulent dog for a while. It’d sometimes take two or three tries to get the thing going at all, and there was no guarantee that it then wouldn’t crap out in the middle of things. But I ignored the popping and the wheezing; the burning and the sparking; and told myself everything was going to be alright. It had to be. I was a good person.

I had made it through the ‘Thompson Dirty Disk Debacle’ with the Xbox already; that was hard enough to take. Microsoft’s company ethos really revealed itself on that one, though, didn’t it? Let’s design a product with an inherent flaw in the dvd-drive, and then, when it starts to fail, display a message that blames everything on the user:

'It’s your fault, you there staring at the screen. You are dirty. Dirty! '

This problem, though, hit me on a more visceral level. How could it not, when you are treated to a suddenly violent pyrotechnic display performed on wooden furniture when your wife and child sleep soundly upstairs? Yow! The Xbox had been mentioned in many violent news stories of late; headline writers cleverly insinuating that the demonic green box inspired friends to bludgeon friends with baseball bats and such. Had I been wrong in assuming such insinuations to be tripe?

XBOX torches house, three dead!

I could see the headline now. I felt sick.

If the thing was indeed retributively sentient, I guess some people would say I’d have it coming, forcing the laser’s attention on hours and hours of playing All-Star Baseball and State of Emergency. A jury probably wouldn’t even convict if word of that treatment got out.

Still, evil intentions aside, I wanted the thing back. I promised the machine I’d be good to it, playing only EGM gold games, and keeping the wife’s rentals of things like ‘13 going on 30’ far, far away. Do you want new components? I’ll buy you new components!

And actually, that was all that it needed.

I can’t give proper credit because I don’t know where I first read this, but it seems that early versions of the Xbox, in addition to having the dirty disk problem, also had a shoddy power supply unit. The psu’s in many boxes are supported only by solder. Any moderate plugging and unplugging of the system from the back is likely to cause the joints to crack and spark, ultimately causing the supply, and thus the system, to fail. I had been guilty of the ole 'in-and-out', as I routinely bring the machine upstairs and then down, taking it to my exercise room to use as I bike, then back to the living room where I do my late night gaming. Sure enough, that was my problem, and eventually the power supply consumed itself it a blaze of glory.

Luckily, because this story was not completely unknown, I found a few people saying that the problem could be easily resolved by buying a replacement PSU, and doing a simple component swap. I found this guy on eBay, and I figured for $20 (Watch the $10 shipping) it was worth a shot. The part came within a week.

An excellent site showed me how to crack open the Xbox, and in no time, I removed the obviously crisp old power unit, replacing it with the new. If you are comfortable enough with doing things like adding a new hard disk or memory to your pc, then this will be a piece of cake. In less than ten minutes, I had the new PSU installed, and the Xbox hooked back up to the TV.

I powered it up, and it worked like a charm, not a single saved game lost.

Happily, I pedaled my way through an hour and a half of All-Star Baseball, blithely ignoring promises made during a darker, more desperate hour.

Half the promises, anyway. The other half still comes in handy:

“Sorry dear, we just can’t watch 'Win a Date with Tad Hamilton'. We’ll die horribly in our sleep.”

Prelude to an entry on Xbox repair...

2004-08-26T23:17:00.000-04:00

“So what are you going to write next?” the wife asks, having taken a minor interest in this new endeavor of mine.

“Probably about fixing my Xbox,” I reply.

“Oh.” [Lingering pause] “That’s not funny.”

Having recently watched the second season of Last Comic Standing from front to back with my wife, pulling for the same hopefuls along the way, I knew we had similar tastes in humor. I wasn’t then too surprised to find myself in agreement with her assessment

“Yeah, no. Not really. Well, a little.”

The Xbox went out in a series of late night sparks and smoke, electronic antics that I’ve seen comedic hopes hung upon across many a sitcom through the years. Somewhere, sometime the Nielsens must have reported that smoldering appliances struck a responsive chord with the 18-49 crowd to get such play, so chances were good a few people might actually chuckle at the smoking Xbox entry. But would it be a laugh riot? Probably not.

“No.” She reaffirmed. “You should write something funny.”

I realized then that I had probably given my readership unrealistic expectations. I know, I know…what had I written? Two, maybe three posts? On an almost daily basis? You’d think it’d be a stretch for people to use that as a representative sample of what goes on at the Spin, but I guess that’s the reality in the fast paced world of the internet. No doubt hundreds of sites were born and died over the six day span since I started to Spin.

I had unfortunately, -at least as far as my wife is concerned- set a unrealistic standard:

Be Funny. Every Day.

Now for some guys, that’s probably possible. For me, not so much.

Now don’t get me wrong. I believe I may be somewhat blessed to live in a household that so freely and easily generates source material. In fact, the day I wrote about my blog picture, my wife managed to flood our new basement with the washing machine. Twice.

“Well,’ I said, “I guess I could write about the floods.”

“And about me again?” she asked.

“Well, sure.”

“Then people will think I’m some kind of a nut.”

In addition to sharing a sense of humor with the wife, I apparently also share the same comedic taste sensibilities as the majority of the American public. The guy I who I thought was the funniest Last Comic (Yay, John Heffron) did indeed win the title in a nationwide vote. That being the case, I couldn’t necessarily disagree with my wife’s spoken assumption. I stayed silent.

And that abruptly ended the ‘Next Blogging Topic’ conversation…

Friendly 'Jab's

2004-08-26T13:22:00.000-04:00

This is pretty old news by now, but for those of you who have not yet seen it, the political cartoon/animated short ‘This Land’ at JibJab.com is pretty amusing. And pretty innocuous too, so you shouldn’t have much of a problem with it no matter what your political sensibilities. What’s that?!?! Political material online that avoids being mean-spirited? Well, yes! And that distinction alone makes it worth checking out.

Glazed & Confused

2004-08-24T12:12:00.000-04:00

People, people, people.

You need to get OUT of my WAY when I’m going for my morning coffee at Dunkin Donuts. What is the deal, here? What used to be a casual two minute stop for one fricking cup of coffee (Medium Hazelnut, please, regular) is now an interminable odyssey of epic proportions.

I don’t blame the stores per se….well, not much, anyway. Sure, they should ALL institute the express ‘coffee-only’ line that some stores have for those, like me, who just want to fill-er-up and be on their way. I guess that they’re also responsible for introducing their new line of Dunka-Frappa-Mocha-Latta-Chinos and allowing them to be accessible to the public during the morning rush hour.

Don’t get me wrong, I like most of those concoctions, and I understand DD’s need to compete with Uber-beanery Starbucks, but these drinks need to be created and enjoyed in an environment that is anathema to those jonesing for a simple jolt of morning java. You know the trappings I’m talking about: smooth, ambient Jazz, angsty ‘coffee-nista’ employees, T.S. Elliot photos on the walls…that sort of thing. The scene where the bored goth employee stares blankly into your face as she rests her head on her shoulder and leans into the 'frothing-device' lever for what seems like hours while the entire store is treated to the splash and sonance of the reenactment of a house cat dealing with an especially reluctant hairball has no place at all in my morning commute.

But in general, my blame is more directed at the consumer than the coffee-house. It’s my fellow coffee-drinker that causes most of the delay. Heck, I’ll give Dunkin Donuts due credit: Most of their employees can retain your order if you give it to them two, perhaps three items at a time, instead of needing to be marched back and forth one item at a time as most of my coffee consumer compatriots seem to desire them to do. I’d blame this on sadism, if not for the fact that it’s obvious that these folks are often just suddenly deciding what they want to order right then and there.

I’m sorry, what were these folks doing with their two or so hours in line while the froth-machine was regurgitating its second hairball for the customer that mistakenly ordered a Dunka-Frappa-Latta-Mocha-Chino instead of the Frappa-Dunka-Mocha-Chino-Latte that they really meant to get? It’s not like Dunkin Donuts keeps their product concealed until you reach the front of the line, when they flip open a mysterious briefcase for a furtive glance at the goods. ‘Whoa! You mean there are donuts here???’ There’s a whole frickin vertical wall of fat displayed for you, visible from the parking lot! Can you take a moment or two to organize your thoughts before crunch time?

No, of course not. Instead we get these Annie Oakley showman-sharpshooter types like the one immediately in front of me today. After she overcomes the fear evident in her eyes as she realizes it is now her turn on the line, she draws her pointer up from her side, thumb cocked, and starts firing haphazardly at the 6 x 9 pastry grid. 'Black Raspberry!' (Grid Coordinate – E5) 'Uhhh…Boston Crème!' (A2) 'Hmmmm…what’s that?' (D8! You sunk my Cruller!) Meanwhile the poor donut runner (register certification pending) ricochets back and forth from bin to bin like the shooting gallery duck he has become.

Good god woman! Are you new to this country? We need re-education, here! Show the flickering filmstrip of Fred McMurray that we all saw back in grade school, where he patiently and sing-songedly goes over the Taxonomy of DD denizens:

“Now the Bagel Family resides up top, kids, with Donuts down below and Muffins to the right. See how within each Family, the Genus groups together?”

Sings:

“Look at Family Donuts, this is what I mean!
Jellies here!
Glazed there!
Powdered In Between!”

Order by Genus at least, Annie! Save precious seconds and steps!

I won’t even get started on those ordering ‘breakfast sandwiches.’ Those poor folks will have to deal with the consequences of that for the rest of their lives.

So, about the pic…

2004-08-23T00:14:00.000-04:00

‘Why not?’ I figured.

I had chosen a basic Blogger site template and I knew I wasn’t going to be messing around with the HTML too much. That being the case, a pic of yours truly would be the only thing that distinguished the Spin from countless other look-alike blogs out there. I must have something appropriate floating around on my hard drive, right?

Well, wrong, kind of. That proved harder than I had thought it would be. See, when you have an 18 month old and a digital camera, you tend to accumulate pics on your pc. Lots of pics. Lots and lots of pics. Unfortunately, (and unfortunate only for this particular case), they all tend to be of the same diminutive subject. And no way was he getting credit for this too…he’s talked about enough around here.

Undaunted, I opened up a folder my wife had downloaded, figuring there’d be a better chance of me in a picture if I wasn’t the one taking it. (Clever man, I.) There, wedged between gads of shoe and boot pics destined for ebay display, was the beaut you now see at the top-right corner of the Spin.

It wasn’t the first time I had seen that pic pop up on my monitor, but it was the first time that I had pulled it up. One night, several weeks earlier, I happened to catch my wife messing with it on the screen as she pounded away at the keyboard.

“What the heck are you doing with that?!?” I asked, peering over her shoulder. I recalled when she had taken the shot, popping in and snapping it as I exercised on my bike one evening.

“I like it.” She said. “I think it’s sexy.”

Clever reply. My brain almost bought in to the misdirecting ego feed when I realized that that answer wasn’t good enough. My wife never just sat at the computer to look at pictures. Surf the net? Ha! When she sits down at the keyboard, there is always a mission: store hours for Ikea, Directions to the nearest outlets, middle of the night transfers to paypal. (paypal? How presumptuous! You’re not my pal, buddy.)

Anyway, I tuned down the Right Said Fred playing in my head and continued the questioning.

“Thanks, but, uh, what are you doing with it?”

Turns out, the picture had some accompanying text: an application for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I’m guessing she had planned on telling me once the cameramen were on the way? It gets better.

Apparently -and rightly so- the application is supposed to be completed by the prospective ‘make-over-ee.’ (Make-Overy. That sounds emasculatory right there!) Anyway, so not only is she trying to get me on this show without asking me, but also going about it by skirting the rules and regulations devised by the show to prevent, I’m guessing, situations exactly like the example we have here! (Though I do admit to curiosity regarding the penalties assessed if a faux candidate is discovered after he makes the show. Do the ‘Queer Cops’ storm the set, muss your hair and whiz on the Tunisian Baked Lamb?)

Anyway, I argued the shady morality of the attempt with her for a while, knowing that logically it was a far more defensible approach than disproving I actually needed any assistance from the Queer Folk. I think she finally agreed, because that’s the last I heard of it. Of course, she could have sent it anyway and I may have just been rejected, which in and of itself would have been a good thing. So I had made my peace with the deal, until the picture surfaced again for the blog.

So, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, the pic! I used it for the blog because it shows me in action in two of my most prominent hobbies, exercise and video games. (yes, I’m playing a game in that pic, while riding an exercise bike. You won’t see me making that face doing anything else outside of the bathroom.) Family, thoughts, hobbies… that’s what I’m here to talk about, right?

Of course, there could be another reason for using that pic.

See what you’re missing, boys?

Marquis de Scotts

2004-08-21T10:33:00.000-04:00

One of the very few drawbacks in our recent move from condo to house is the whole yard deal. Don’t get me wrong, a yard is exactly what we wanted…fun for the son, fun for the dog, summer meals outside for the wife…that sort of thing.

Unfortunately, coming from a condo meant we had nothing in the way of proper lawn care equipment. And, due to the fact we purchased a vacant property in the middle of a hot summer, we inherited the Worst Lawn on the Block™. I didn’t mind at first, but as dog-walking neighbors turned their noses up at my son and me as we frolicked in the crabgrass between the patches of dirt and fungi, well, I knew something had to be done.

Having missed the contest and not seeing any concerts scheduled at the local hardware store, I figured the best bet would be to drain the bank account and head to Home Depot and start the Scotts treatment, or whatever. Having shared my plans with co-workers and a friendly back-yard neighbor, though, they both convinced me that my first step should be to find and use an aerator.

Having never heard of such a thing, but being impressed by its breezy and lofty sounding name, I agreed wholeheartedly that it sounded exactly like the thing that would bring life back to my yard, a breath of fresh air!

Then I saw what these things look like. Holy crap! And I think I’m in trouble because my son chases my dog around with a plastic lawnmower. I see perforated dachshund in my future. Anyway, I now understand the best way to get results from a reluctant lawn is to torture it into compliance. I plan on taking part in the aerator-rental block festival scheduled for later on this month, where we pass around the hideous device in a sadistic attempt to force the lawn into looking like something approximating the front nine in Augusta.

I have allergies, though, so most of these lawn activities require me to wear a mask. Inspired by this helpful advice, I found a new one.

Knee-Jerk, or maybe just a jerk

2004-08-20T16:24:00.000-04:00

This blog is birthed out of nothing more than frustration, as more and more of my favorite internet communities are simply fading, fading away, with two more falling by the wayside just this week. I enjoy writing about my family, my thoughts, and my hobbies...and if keeping this up means I'll have to do it myself, then by God...

...Well, *maybe* it'll happen.

Watch this space.