Since EA gives us vacation from Dec 24 through Jan 2, many people, such as myself, burned 2 days of PTO (Paid Time Off) for Mon and Tues Dec 22+23 in order to have a full 2 weeks off.

I haven't had any real house chores or projects to do. I'm upgrading a computer for a friend, but that's about it.

It's a little hard to not think about work, and at first I had some grandiose ideas on how I could spend my time. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do any of the programming I'd like. Instead, I've been spending my time doing something even better: spending time with Violet and Drake. Mostly we've been driving around Bristow and Gainsville looking at new homes. We're also looking at places closer to Fairfax, but their prices are much higher. Yesterday I had a meeting with a financial rep from Ryan Homes. Given their cheapest house(329k), 5% interest rate, and no options.. the bottom line monthly payment would be around $2,100. I just don't want to spend that much per month on mortgage. Our current rent is 1300, and that's been great for our financial situation. We've gained a little bit of a handle on our bills and debts. Although the loan officer and bank say we're qualified for a lot more than 350k, I'm fairly certain stretching ourselves out that thin is a bad idea. We've sacrificed a lot in order to help reduce our debts, and we're still not outta the red yet. I dislike how dependant our country has become on debt. Credit Cards are the worse offense. A house loan is understandable. A student loan... sure. But credit cards allow you to live beyond your means. This has significantly contributed towards the financial crisis everyone seems to be in. Now, I'm not jumping on some money bandwagon here. I've always felt this way. Part of the reason we're in so much debt is due to my career switch back in 2003 (big student loan) and being laid off twice after getting into the game industry (and selling houses under the price I paid for them, back in 2003 and again in 2005). I'm still happy I made the choice (and had Violet's full support) for my career switch. I'm certainly making a lot more money as a game programmer than I would be had I stayed in the hardware support IT industry. I'm also extremely happy with my job. I look forward to going to work pretty much each and every day. So the student loan was worth it.

So after years of moderate living (buying a few big things here and there, but for the most part doing without "stuff"), our debt has been reduced significantly. We only have 1 outstanding credit card debt, and that's due to the above mentioned loss of selling our house (in Wisconsin). Violet's car is nearly paid off, and mine is within sight. If we become overconfident about our financial status and try to buy a brand new house, which yes would be very nice, we'd be hindering our progress towards debt reduction. Heaven forbid I lose my job again. It's just too much risk. Besides, with the current economy and interest rates getting lower, it's would be better for us to buy a "slightly" used house. Thus far we've seen homes that are under 10 years old, as nice/new as the brand new homes (indeed, some of them were brand new homes, from the same builder), but the owners got foreclosed on. There's a LOT out there. Sucks for the families of those homes. Now is probably the best time to be a buyer. Our lease isn't up until April, so we have a lot of time too. Is buying a (used) house better than renting? Well, I'll leave that that kind of cost analysis to the professionals. Given the incentives, tax deductions, and the "ownership" a purchased house provides, I think its better than renting. Besides, the economy will turn around eventually. I'm thinking 2010 or 2011 at the latest. And while EA is laying off plenty of people right now, and will continue to do so to meet their arbitrary financial profit margins, I am reasonably confidant my job is as secure as it can be these days.

Oh, I've also been playing a lot of the games I've been neglecting. I finished Fallout 3 (I hated the ending). I played some more Half Life 2 Episode 2 and Warhammer Online. I still need to play some more NFS:Undercover and Mass Effect.

Just in case you don't read Violet's Blog, Violet's pregnant again (Yes, I'm the father). That'll teach her to try to diet and lose a bunch of weight again! More news as it unfolds. We're hoping for a girl this time, but we'll still be very happy with another boy.

I think that's enough rambling for now. I hope everyone has a great new year!

This year we all got some holiday chocolates. It was a great selection of mint, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate. I ate about half of [non mint] them, and gave the rest to Violet.

I've just been busy working and babysitting Drake, so I don't really have a lot of updates lately.

Work wise, I seem to be as stable as I can be regarding job security. I know there's a lot of bad news in the game industry (and every other industry) lately, as for a while I was worried. Currently, however, I am strangely optimistic. It must be the subliminal messages in the lights. I'm on loan to the internationalization team (non-English game support). While I myself only speak English, that doesn't really matter when it comes to fixing translation or regional related bugs. The bug reports have screen shots and my PC is setup for Chinese (both traditional and simplified), Japanese, English, Russian, and German. German and Russian translations seem to have the longest words for some reason. Anyway, Most of the work is UI (German word doesn't fit in the space allocated for the English word) or client (code assumes English alphabet or connection to English server). All in all, its a lot of bug fixing, which isn't what I enjoy doing. I prefer creating new and enhanced features. Ah well.

On the homefront, Drake hasn't been going to sleep very well. Poor little guy has had some night terrors too. Tis Boo. As a result I don't get much accomplished around the house in the evening. I pretty much try to watch a TV show or two and then its bedtime already. I get a two week vacation starting tomorrow though so hopefully I'll be able to catch up on some of my game playing. Violet and I went Xmas shopping last weekend though. We didn't get much, but at least we got out of the house for a few hours. Its been kinda rainy and cold lately, and I've been a little sick with some light congestion so we haven't gone out and done much.

I've been trying to sell our old computers on Craigslist. One person was somewhat interested but then backed out. I'm going to give one of them away to one of Violet's friends. What I should be doing is selling a bunch of stuff to try and make some money. I really have no use for a pool table right now, and I haven't had a chance to play it really. Maybe our next house will better accommodate it, but I doubt it. It was a great deal at the time, but in hindsight wasn't worth the cost. We have a lot of gaming books, games, furniture, and generally just "stuff" that we don't need or don't use. When we move early next year, I'm going to have to try really hard and downsize even more. Fortunately, we haven't needed to tighten our belts too much due to the current economy, but I think it would be wise to lower our cost of living (again) just in case. Our major expense is rent though, and I don't see that getting any lower, ever, so long as we stay in Northern Virginia/Greater DC Metro area.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished me to the Third Level of Hell!
Here is how I matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Moderate
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

We went to Washington, D.C. to visit some museums. Violet wanted to see the Georgia O' Keefe / Ansel Adams exhibit before it expired in early Jan. It was cold, windy, and well, cold. We had to park over a mile away (and walk). Our first stop however was The National Museum of American History because it closed before The American Art Museum. There was saw the original Flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner. We also saw the Gettysburg Address, Science in American Life (Which I liked a lot), and Thanks for the Memories Exhibit,which featured The famous Ruby Red slippers. There was a lot more stuff too. The science section had so much stuff in it that I didn't get a chance to see it all.

The portrait gallery was huge. We spent a good 2 or 3 hours looking at the exhibits in the American Art Museum and we didn't come close to seeing everything.

Yes I know I'm behind my blog updates.

I actually had a 4 day weekend since I had Thurs + Fri off work.
Most of my time off was spent babysitting or playing games.

On the PC, I played some more Fallout 3 and Warhammer Online, I also rearranged the frootroom so I could plug my PC into the 50" HD Plasma. I found and dusted off my MS Force Feedback wheel. I had a great time playing Need For Speed: Undercover with this setup. I've been wanting to play a good, recent driving game for a while now. I look forward to playing more.

I also played a bunch of demos on the Xbox 360. I liked Iron Man pretty well. The controls took some getting used to though. Fatal Inertia was too hard to play. Burnout Paradise was pretty good. Armored Core 4 was great if you like arcade style mech games. (I prefer less arcade-ish mech games like the Mech Warrrior series). Undertow was a great little underwater platformer with lots of good graphics and gameplay. I didn't care for Jetpac Refueled. Clever name though. Novadrome was OK, not quite my genre though. One game I played that wasn't a demo was Mirror's Edge. So far I've made it past the prologue and first few scenes. Looks like an interesting game. Apparently, I'm not very good at it.

We went to Friday's for Thanksgiving Dinner. Overall the weekend was nice and relaxing for a change. No work, no trips, no shopping, and no chores (including blog updates). In other news, here's a new webcomic about games I just found out about.

If you were a fan of any Origin Systems product (Ultima, Wing Commander, etc), or are simply interested in gaming nostalgia, read on...

When EA acquired Mythic Entertainment, Mythic inherited Ultima Online. As a result, Mythic got a whole bunch of stuff. Well the guys from WCNews were invited to come document it all. I personally think this is a pretty cool thing.

This is easily one of the strangest videos I have ever seen. Not only is there A MERMAID SKELETON in it, the owners are trying to teach their cats to not mess with it.

I picked up Fallout 3 (CE of course) two weeks ago or so. Nearly all my free time is spent playing it. I just reached level 6. It's a great game and I am enthusiastic about continuing it. I haven't even tried Red Alert 3 yet. I'll get to that game eventually. Heck, I haven't even finished Oblivion (which this game resembles in so much as it uses the same engine and is made by the same company, Bethesda). I highly reccommend Fallout 3. It might become one of my all-time favorite games. Ratings and reviews are very high. Sales are through a very high roof. I'm happy my new system runs it like a charm.

I just found out that Amazon is offering a "Survival Edition". Same as the CE, but includes a life size Pipboy 3000. GAH! Now I wish I had known that prior to getting the CE. Tis Boo.

Well, I guess I know why we didn't get many trick or treaters.
Apparently, it's ILLEGAL in the commonwealth of Virginia. How do stupid laws like these still exist? Do the people who are elected/appointed to do this stuff just sit around plotting how to get more political power instead of doing their jobs? (See stupid law #1)

http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/virginia

Check out some of these winners:

• There is a state law prohibiting “corrupt practices of bribery by any person other than candidates.
• You may not engage in business on Sundays, with the exception of almost every industry.
• Citizens must honk their horn while passing other cars.
• Children are not to go trick-or-treating on Halloween.
• It is illegal to tickle women.

Some of the city laws are even dumber...

• The city of Culpepper, VA:
  A person of color may not be outside or within the city limits after 7 pm.
• Norfolk, VA
  Spitting on a sea gull is not tolerated.
  A man may face 60 days in jail for patting a woman’s derriere.
  Women must wear a corsette after sundown and be in the company of male chaperone.

I bought a bunch of candy for trick or treaters and decorated the front of the house with lights, a lit cauldron, and some hanging decorations. I even left work early so we wouldn't miss any early trick or treaters. Only 2 families came. The first was a guy with a white kitchen trash bag, A woman I presume was his wife, and 3 kids. They were all wearing sweats and casual clothes. NO costume effort whatsoever. Very dissapointing. I already had the snack size Kit Kat's in my hand though, so I gave each kid one. I didn't give the adults any. Then we waited. And waited. And Waited. No one came. Very dissapointing. I also later found a kit kat wrapper on our sidewalk. Bastages littered our yard with our candy that they didn't even earn. Very irksome. I personally think that the dad took a Kit Kat from one of the kids and ate it right there, and then littered the warpper in our yard. Grrrr.

Since the outside lights are tied to the same switch as the frontroom light, around 9pm the outside lights were still on. There was a knock on the door. It was a little late to trick or treat, but at least the family that was at the door were in costume. Not good ones, mind you, but some effort was applied. I checked to make sure it wasn't the same family that had visited earlier.

And that's it. 2+ hours of waiting and only 2 groups of 3 kids showed up, and then only half were in costume. As a result, I ended up eating an entire bag of snack-size reese peanut butter cups(Bad week to go back on my diet) as I played the Witching Event in Warhammer Online...



Which leads to my second complaint. The Warhammer Online Live Event, Witching Night, sucked. Just like the rest of the game, its heavily dependant on people. Since people suck, the event sucked. I got a whole bunch of Gobbo masks, but due to the design flaw of requiring everyone in the rvr area to also be in the PQ area to get kill points towards the Lord boss, I was unable to complete that particular Halloween achievement. The bad guys would typically just run out of the PQ area. As a result, it took hours and hours to get 100 enemy kills. The Lord that spawned in the 2nd stage of the PQ died in a matter of seconds. Since so many people were in our warband, I ranked #24 and got no loot whatsoever for my 3-4 hours of dedication. Figuring I just got a bad roll, I tried the same thing Sunday evening, but once again, after hours of PQing, the enemy just kept running back out of the PQ. I came up with the idea to have everyone in our warband hide behind the hills, out of line of sight, so the enemy would advance, and then we could flank/ambush them. It would have worked but as I mentioned earlier, people are stupid. Guys on our side kept going up towards the bad guys, giving them kills or killing enemies that didn't count towards the PQ kill count. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry. Just know that people suck.

While it was cool to actually RvR, take Battlefield Objectives, defend a Keep, and be part of a max size warband, I worry for Warhammer sometimes, espeically as I read the Warhammer Alliance forums.

Bottom Line: A lot of effort was spent this weekend for very little reward because people suck.

We had our official Launch Party for Warhammer Online a few weeks ago. I've been pretty busy though so I haven't had too much of an opportunity to post about it.

Mythic offered shuttle buses down to this nightclub in DC called Sequoia. Fairly nice place. Probably expensive. They had a LOT of nightclub employees walking around with fancy snack foods. It was also an open bar. I considered getting a flaming Dr Pepper, since it supposedly tastes like Dr. Pepper, but I stuck with Diet Coke the whole evening. I socialized some, but dancing, drinking and socializing ain't really my scene, so I left on the first shuttle bus back to Mythic. Overall a nice party but I'd rather have a piece of whatever it cost them to host it.

Most of the game industry people I've met seem to be gamers that also happen to be drinkers. Or maybe they were drinker's before being gamers. Typically gaming geeks aren't known to be much for such activities, but from my perspective such stereotyping is a fairly small percentage of the gaming populace. For myself, I never understood why consuming something which alters your ability to think and dulls your senses makes you enjoy the activity more.

But anyway, enough of me rambling (See Blog Title). Here's some quick pic's from the event:

Last Saturday, Oct 18, 2008, we went on another Blue Ridge Mountain drive. Last Year, we drove the Skyline Drive starting from the Front Royal (North) Entrance Station down to the Swift Run Gap Entrance Station. This time, we started where we left off and drove down Skyline Drive almost to the end. But instead of exiting Rockfish Gap (South Entrance) we drove back North and exited Swift Gap.
Here's all of the nearly 40 pictures we took.

My opinion of Sarah Palin can be summed up by John Cleese.

After some research, it turns out we didn't need an upgrade. We needed new computers... upgrading just the CPU and a graphics card wouldn't have done the trick. We needed

• New CPU
• New motherboard to support the new CPU.
• New Ram for the new motherboard.
• New graphcis card
• New P/S to support the power requirements of all this new stuff.
• New case to support the cooling requirements of all this new stuff.

With a reccomendation from a co-worker, we went to MicroCenter on Saturday. Here's what we both ended up with:

• MB:    Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R 775
• CPU:  Intel® Boxed Core 2 Duo Processor E8400 (Yes I went with Intel for a change)
• RAM: XMS2 2GB PC-8500 DDR2 Memory Kit (Two 1GB DDR2-1066 Memory Modules 
• VGA: e-GeForce GTX 260 Superclocked Edition 896MB GDDR3 PCIe 2.0
• HDD: Caviar GP 500GB IntelliPower Serial ATA-300 Hard Drive
• P/S: OZC StealthXstream 600 Watt ATX 12V Power Supply (I Think)

When we got home I started building and discovered that the P/S had a fan on the top, but our current cases didn't have a top vent, so I had to go back to the store (~25 min drive 1 way) and buy new cases, which I was thinking about buying anyway. Kinda weird for the P/S to be mounted on the bottom of the case, but whaetever.. better airflow I suppose.

• CASE: Antec Three Hundred ATX Case

For each system I kept our old optical drive and internal hard drive on a IDE channel (Which is one of the reasons I bought this MB, for its 1 IDE connection.. most MBs of this caliber only offered SATA). 

Apparently, I was unable to transfer the Windows XP serial# from Violet's old machine to the new one. It was OEM for her Dell, so I was screwed. Windows XP installed fine on my PC and I was up and running the same night. I went back to Micro Center and bought the OEM Window Vista 64bit version.

After taking forever to load the Vista 64 installer, it told me I needed a driver. OMGWTFBBQ! I struggled Sunday and Monday to install Vista 64, but at the end of it all, I couldn't reasonably do it. I tried using the motherboard drivers, copying the entire Vista install disc to a 8gb flash drive (which I had picked up at Micro Center for a mere $20.00), and using 3 different optical drives.

Since I was having this much trouble just installing the OS, imagine trying to install games and apps! So I borrowed a SATA optical drive from work and went back to Micro Center (again) and exchanged Vista 64 for Vista 32. I went home and everything installed great. Since Violet's optical drive was so old, and to save a IDE slot, I ended up buying a new SATA optical drive at The Computer Place, VA, which is right across from work. They suck. I can't comment on their customer service because they didn't have any. Most of their prices are much higher than Micro Center too. I eventually settled on a good enough optical drive and left. It installed in Violet's PC no problem and seems to work fine.

The only other issue I ran into was restoring Firefox's bookmarks. What a PAIN! I did it on Wed, 5 days after my initial installation start date. Violet was without PC for 3 days, and sporadic access for 2 more. Pretty full of suck. Thank goodness my recent bonus from work helped pay for all this :)

At some point I'll be able to play something on it.

A few weeks ago I took my car in for its annual safety inspection. It failed. Apparently my front brake pads were a bit too thin (They were).

• Inspection cost: $16.00 (State Mandated Fee)
• Repair Cost: $340.00 (Replace pads, smooth & turn rotors)
• Repair Time: Next Day
• Cost to re-inspect vehicle: $1.00

Umm. No. $340.00 to replace brake pads? Are they kidding? I 've been fortunate enough to have my [step] dad Joe show me a lot of mechanical stuff back in the day. So I choose to replace them myself. I've done it a few times before and it doesn't cost $340.00 and it doesn't take over a day.

• High Quality Brake Pads from AutoZone: $45.14
• C-Clamp from Sears which was needed to more easily recede the brake cylinder: $4.00
• Time spent to replace front brake pads (and going to Sears and back): 2-3 hours.

It's an easy job, really.. less work than than replacing a flat tire actually. I didn't rotate the rotors or whatever but they didn't really seem to need it anyway. Car's been working fine for days. I took the car back to get re-inspected and it passed. Hurray! BTW, The repair shop has free WiFi. Weird.

Today, Warhammer Online: Age of Recloning launched. This is my 3rd launch title. People have been asking me how I feel. I dunno. I don't really feel any different. I'm not especially happy, or sad, or anything. I guess I'm curious as to the impact of the game to the market and its hopeful success. I guess if I am anything I am reserved. I'm not holding my breath or anything, but I am still waiting for a month to see if the game is a true success or not. I hope it will be, and some part of me believes it will be, but I'm still a little wary of the whole ordeal. At some point I thought I might be a little anxious, but I'm really not. I don't mean to downplay the significant achievements we've all accomplished. I think we've done a great job. Maybe I'm just too tired to be overjoyed at the moment.

With the game about to launch, and all the features finally in, I get a little bit of a break. From work, that is. :)

This weekend was Violet's Birthday Extravaganza. We went shopping, ate too much food, and went to a Pagan Pride Day event. A hurricane/Tropical Storm warning kept us inside most of Saturday (Preventing us from driving 90 mins to eat at the closest Sonic). Sunday was good though.

Pagan Pride Day was fairly small. A tiny park in the middle of a small city a bit South of DC, the event featured a few live bands (Cassandra Rising was really good, Plastic Sky wants to be good one day) and only a handful of local Pagan groups, some of whom were selling stuff. There weren't really any vendors. There were some famous Pagan authors there too. I didn't know who they were, of course, but Violet seemed excited about their presence.

I must say, P.F.Chang's really goes out of their way to make a customer happy. We sat at the table and waited 8 mins for service. The waitress admitted that our particular table tended to confuse the servers as to which one of them was responsible for it. People.. if it's a reoccuring problem, then fix it. Ack. To make up for it, we got a free appetizer. Also, since it was Violet's BDay, we got a free mini-dessert. I didn't care for mine, but I'm a selective eater. Violet loved her dinner.

Most importantly, I didn't go into work this past weekend. Oh sure, I logged in remotely to check email and ensure all my stuff passed QA (it did), but by and large I spent most of my time with Violet and Drake. It's about time too.

This past week I've been working normal hours and thus coming home at a decent time. There's still a lot of work to do, but I'm not in crunch right now. All my stuff is due soon, but I should be able to finish on time without working anymore OT, hopefully. We'll see how much progress I can make this week. I got a company laptop a few weeks ago and I can VPN in and do everything that I need to do. I hooked the laptop up to the 50" Plasma HD, and it works out fairly well, only a few kinks. Hooked up to the laptop is a cordless Logitech KB and mouse.
Violet decided it would be cool to play WoW on it, so I installed it on the laptop last night and did all the patching and stuff. For some reason I had to click OK after every patch and agree to the EULA 4 times. Lame. Anyway, Violet really liked playing WoW on the big screen, even if she didn't have her preferred input device(ergonomic MS KB + rollerball mouse)

I think I mentioned previously that my XBOX 360 finally reared its ugly Red Rings of Death LEDs. A few days ago I got it back. They also included a Gold subscription card. I've plugged it in but otherwise I haven't touched it.
I haven't had time to play games or do any housework these past few weeks. I work, come home, babysit. That's about it. Drake is doing good and can walk 5 or 6 steps at a time. Usually I will fence the dogs off from the front-room + hallway and let Drake wander around. He seems pretty happy with the freedom. It also gives me a chance to watch TV or tinker around on the PC.
I've pretty much been ignoring my diet this past week. I haven't been counting points, but I have tried, in some cases, to not go too overboard. I plan to get back on the diet this week.
I barely found time last week to mow the backyard (some of the grass was 2' high). I've ignored the front yard lawn for about 2 months now. Thankfully the grass seems to have leveled off around 5" or 6" and hasn't really grown beyond that in most places.
I watched my first HD tv show the other night... Burn Notice. I really like this show. It seemed somewhat grainy though in HD, and I wasn't overly impressed. I wonder sometimes if I should have spent more money on a 1080p HD set instead of the lower rez 720p. Meh. I made the choice that I made... cest le vie.
My folks are coming into town next week. That'll be cool. Grandma hasn't seen Drake for quite a while, and Grandpa Joe has never met him. They're also apparently bringing my nephew Spencer, whom I haven't seen since he was like, 2.
Well, that was a lot more text than I thought I had to type. Ta.

Not much to say this week.. so I'll bullet point what I remember:

• I'm in crunch mode again, working 12-16 hour days.
• I updated some links on the right.
• I'm in the middle of reading Dragon Wytch.
• I finished playing the (1 gig gah!) demo of Space Siege. It's OK.
• I'm very much enjoying Delta Goodrem.
• I'm looking forward to taking a few days off after crunch and spending some time with Violet and Drake.
  

I spent the better part of the weekend suffering and recovering from food poisoning.
I have yet to pinpoint the source, but it was something I must have eaten Mid Thursday (Company lunch via Panera) late Thursday (Tony's Pizzeria) or mid Friday (Team Lunch @ Sakura).
Bottom line, it wasn't fun, I didn't get any chores done, and poor Violet had to do all the work and take care of the kid nearly the entire weekend.

A bit of a recap:
I have a 2002 Buick Rendezvous. His name is "Stanley". I bought it (used) a few years ago while in Wisconsin to alleviate the problem of getting stuck in the snow. It was the cheapest all-wheel drive available except for a Subaru Brat or two, which Violet hated. Anyway, I haven't had too many mechanical problems with it (As many owners have). My major issue came back in January when the fuel gauge stopped working. After a $100.00 diagnosis from the dealer, they determined my level sensor (I think its called) was defective, and its repair would be around $500.00. Ack. At some point I hope to order the part I need, remove the fuel tank, replace the sensor, and put everything back. One day. For now, I'm ignoring it. I keep track of fuel used via the instrument panel (DIC).

What I'm really posting about:
Last week (Sunday or so) I noticed that my car didn't start the first time. The second crank was kinda weak. The third crank was fine and I went along my merry way. Odd.

The next day I went to work and sometimes I had to crank it once or twice but otherwise I was OK. Since I worked until midnight Monday evening, I was a little nervous, but it was kinda OK. Tuesday morning it got worse. I took my Simple Start™ Vehicle Battery Booster which I had plugged in the previous night "just in case". Good thing, because come midnight Tuesday evening (Yes, I worked late again). Unfortunately it didn't work at all. Stupid thing. I had used it with some success on Violet's car last year when I had the same issue, but I always had a problem getting it to work in mine. So I'm at work with a dead battery at midnight. There were about 5 cars in the lot and one guy happened to be exiting, so I asked him for a jump. He said no. Apparently his Saturn requires a jump to be performed via the wheel well or something and that he only had 10 mins to get o where he was going. Nice guy (not). Fortunately the audio guys were working late so I asked them for a jump, which I got. (Last year's fiasco taught me to put jumper cables in my car, which I always have in the trunk now). Car started no problem and I drove home.

On Wed I took Violet's car to work, leaving her vehicle-less. After I got home, I checked the battery terminals for corrosion, but they seemed OK. The belt seemed OK. So I didn't know if it was the battery or the alternator. I assume when I bought the car it still had the original battery in it, so the battery was probably going on 6-7 years old. Still, I didn't want to chance replacing the battery and the car still not work.

Thursday I took her car to work again. My vague plan was to have my car battery tested for free at a local shop. After some discussion with some co-workers though, I decided to buy a new battery on the basis that if the alternator had been bad, I wouldn't have made it home from work the previous night. The Violet and Drake and I had a nice dinner at Ruby Tuesday and then we went to Walmart to buy a new battery. $70 bucks. Ouch.

Thursday was a very bad day for Violet, baby-stress wise. Unfortunately, I had to replace my battery so I couldn't help her out at all. Most car batteries are easy to replace. 30 mins tops. Not so with my car, of course...

Whoever designed the engine layout of the Buick Rendezvous hates mechanics. As you can see in the picture, the battery is located under a large metal support bar, the fuse box, and the windshield wiper fluid tank. Stupid... Stupid... Stupid!. Unless they think only rich people buy these kinds of cars and so just goto the dealer for simple stuff like battery replacement. I don't know how much it would have cost me for them to do it, but I didn't want to find out. I'm guessing hundreds.

So anyway, Thursday evening I spent 7 pm-10 pm replacing my car battery. Yes, a 30-min-job-for-most-other-cars took 3 [frickin] hours. Not only did I have to remove the fuse box and the metal bar, but I also spent a lot of time trying to get to the screws. There's maybe an inch or two of space which made it very difficult to remove most of the screws. Also adding to the fun were bugs. Since the sun was setting, I ended up being dinner for several mosquitoes and ants and who knows what else. I ended up putting on some bug repellent (with DEET), but I'm not sure how well I applied it, nor its effectiveness at keeping the bugs away.
So I finally removed the old battery and put in the new one. Wearing leather gloves to keep from being shocked is a good idea. I highly recommend it. There might have been some way to use the metal ratchet and connect it to the bolt that connects the wire lead to the battery terminal and not have sparks flying all over the place, but I don't know what that way might be.

I finally finished about 10pm and everything started and worked as it should. My gauges seemed ok, the radio worked.. nothing was shorted out. I drove the car to work Friday and everything seemed ok, except for 1 weird thing. Apparently I needed to re-calibrate my car's compass. To do so, I had to drive in a circle. Weird, but it worked and now I know what direction I'm traveling again. A least until the Earth's magnetic poles flip again...

After trying to gather enough people to have some friendly foam weapon combat sparring, I've decided to instead attend the local Darkon practice sessions. People actually show up to those. The family and I went Sunady, though Violet and Drake just watched as I got my ass handed to me more often than not. I'm slightly out of shape and a tiny bit rusty it appears. I did well enough for my first time though, and I was fighting opponents who have been doing this for over a decade. Besides being out of shape and out of practice, the weapons they use are slightly different (more painful, I actually got 2 bruises) and their techniques are much more agressive (light taps are discouraged). Most of the time I was fighting agaisnt experts with spears or huge body shields.
I had to borrow their weapons since mine weren't compatible with their system. My usual techniques of sword and dagger didn't help me too much agasinst these kinds of adversaries. The majority of time was quick friendly bouts with me and one guy (who happened to be the King of the country(aka group) whose practice I was attending versus two other guys. I lost a lot, but once I got rid of the dagger and switched to sword+axe or a sword+ shield, we won the vast majority of the time.
I liked it overall. we were on a rocky trail and my feet hurt due to my poor choice of shoes. I need to get some better shoes... these light slip ons ones don't work well for long walks or for sparring. Another bonus is that they practice every 2 weeks and then on off weeks they usually have a actual game. I'm not too keen on the actual game events per se(I'm not sure I care for their ruleset and game mechanics), but I think I'll attend a few more practices at least. That's what I was looking for anyway.

Signs that you shouldn't be a programmer or are a bad or mediocre programmer.
Fortunately, none of this applied to me. I guess I'm better than mediocre then. Hurray!

Once you figure it out, take the quiz: Serial Killer or Programming Language Inventor?

Well, I re-skinned my Blog (A "skin" is the look, structure, and formatting of something. It doesn't change the content of stuff like the posts or dates or links; instead, it affects the actual placement, font, color, size, etc of how that content is displayed). It turned out to be a major overhaul. On a whim 2 days ago I did a search for "Blogger Templates" and lo and behold, there's hundreds of templates out there that work with Blog Spot (which is also called Blogger.. If there's a difference, I dunno what it is.)

So I decided to re-structure my blog so I can have 2 columns (aka sidebars) of links instead of just the one. My intention is to be able to list my current stuff in one column and my all-time favorites in another column. It took 2 days (Mainly because I was distracted with Violet's and Drake's blogs... more on that later), but I am fairly happy with the results.

In the middle of doing this, Violet noticed my new blog's look (skin) and started looking for one for her own blog. Since updating our blogs over the 4th of July weekend seemed to be the thing to do, I also FINALLY updated Drake's Blog (mostly motivated by the awesome new skin I found for it). Drake's blog took me a good part of yesterday morning.

By the time I was done, Violet had found one that suited her tastes. I ended up spending most of yesterday afternoon and evening editing the XML figuring out how it was all setup and worked. I ended up making her a new, customized header image because she didn't like the one that came with her "Hobbit" themed template. I also made it wider and edited the template images to make everything fit. I think the results turned out well.

The process reminded me of what I do at work, actually. A lot of the work I do concerns the UI (User Interface) of the game, especially this late in the development cycle (I'm mostly fixing bugs and applying polish... most of my C++ code has already been written). I'll edit the XML and reload the UI, just like I was editing the blog XML and reloading the blog sites. I'll routinely add some code or change some numbers to see what changes, just like I do at work. That way I can learn how the system works and then its easy to figure out how to add, edit, or adjust things to suit my purposes. I'm certainly not saying it's the same.. it isn't(For one, our blogs don't use LUA). I'm just saying that overall, I've noticed that there were peculiar similarities.

As an alumni from the first Guildhall graduation class, the curriculum had yet to be accredited. That takes years. Well, now they are. All the alumni who only achieved a Master's certificate can now reapply and finish the degree to turn it into a Masters Degree. All work has to be done by July 2009, and it costs an additional $5,000.

For some reason they are requiring me to take a test to be accepted. Unfortunately, I don't have time right now for such things, and I applied back in April. It would have been nice to know about these things when I applied instead of a week or so before its due. Especially since I've been crunching some this week.

I'll know more Monday if they can extend the deadline for me or not.

I've been working a lot of OT putting the finishing touches on the Guild System, which has finally been announced in preparation for the Guild Beta opening soon.
Check out the Warhammer Online June Newsletter for more Guild and Banner info.

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41743

The Huband will play...

Well kind of.

While Violet and Drake have been in Nebraska visiting family, I've been working overtime, catching up on house chores, catching up on TV (I was 6 episodes behind on Desperate Housewives), and catching up on my current video games. I got Mass Effect via the EA Store, so I've been playing it over NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer. Mass Effect feels a lot like KoTOR, sans the Star Wars stuff, and adds some interesting mini-games and 3rd person shooter tactical combat. I like it pretty well.

Any idea what these things are? I have no clue, but we got a billion of them all over the place. Thankfully most bugs don't get in the house.

Earlier this week there was a tornado watch in the area. Some people apparently saw the beginnings of funnel clouds about 5 miles from where I work. I happened to be in the middle of the building on the top (8th) floor working , so I didn't notice anything, but a bunch of people around the edges witnessed a very sudden and quite massive amount of rain. So much that they couldn't see the building across the parking lot. Another few people had taken the elevator down to the ground lobby floor. As they exited the elevator, a massive wind slightly turned the revolving door at the front of the lobby in such a way that the outside air was sealed from the inside air. As a result of the massive pressure difference and wind force, the glass from the revolving door exploded. I know a few people that ended up with glass shards on their body and in their hair. No injuries though.

Goto this link.

Read the issue if you want, but basically, its a bad idea. I don't know why politics are so difficult. Well, I do know, actually. It's because politicians are people. People with power. It's too bad so often they don't represent the power of the people.

No, I'm not usually political, mainly due to the disgust I have for those in office. And its too much work to figure out where I stand.

Well, on this copyright issue, I know exactly where I stand. I oppose it. As should you. Which is why you should follow the link and email your representative to oppose it. It's stupid, they're trying to sneak it through congress via a bridge bill (What's up with that??), it hurts the artists, and profits the corporations (like Google.. do they REALLY need more money??). I usually see this kind of stuff as some sort of scam to get my email address sent out to spammers. I don't believe that's the case here.

The Orphan Works Act of 2008
Bill # H.R.5889

From a Web comic artist I really like and respect:

Google is behind a move to radically change copyright law so they, and others, can display cartoons (as well as other things) with no regard to copyright. Someone could take one of my (or your) cartoons, remove the creator's name and post it anywhere for profit.

The cartoonist would be responsible for tracking it down. Even then, the violator is only responsible for giving you a small one-time usage fee and is not liable for any damages. And the only way one can protect yourself is to upload everything you've ever done into two or three not-yet-created databases. The idea being that if someone scans those "official" databases and doesn't see your stuff, it's okay for them to use it.

Oh, those databases will be run by for-profit groups so you would have to pay to have this done ... The working number is $10 per image upload. Yes, it's that one sided.

The initial legislation was introduced in the middle of the night tacked on to a bill for funding bridges. Luckily, a lifelong friend to the cartoonist community, Stu Rees, caught it. The initial push was stopped. Several arts organizations, the National Cartoonist Society included, are now fighting back and are having an effect. They've made it amazingly simple for you to respond. It can all be done electronically in seconds. [See link at bottom]

The counterattack is having a distinct effect. But since Google is behind this (initially hiding behind a couple of museum organizations), it's going to be daunting.

Bottom Line: Oppose the Orphan Works Act.

• Family:
  Drake is starting to crawl fairly well now. Check Violet's blog for a video. What's really cool is that a few days ago he crawled over to me as I was lying on the floor (in his nursery) and then he used me to prop himself up into a standing position. He stood all by himself, wobbling just a little bit, for almost a whole second!
  The cats and dogs are fine, though somewhat bored. I haven't been home much lately to entertain them.
  Our neighbor complaimed about Sebastian coming up to the fence in an agressive manner. the fence is a standard chain link fence, about 3' high or so, so Sebastian can get his head and paws on top pretty easily. The neighbor feared for the safety of his granddaughters, and threatened to kill the animal if he ever crossed the fence. He insisted I do something about it. After some conversation we agreed that he didn't care about the dog barking, he just didn't want the dog potentially jumping the fence. He isn't wrong.. if my neighbor's dog seemed agreesive when Drake was trying to play in the yard, I'd complain to. I would have threatened to call Animal Control as opposed to shooting it, but that's just me. Anyway, there are 2 fences. My yard's fence is metal chain link the entire length of the shared border. He has another fence adjacent to mine running parallel, a 6' wooden privacy fence, but its length doesn't run the entire length, it stops about 40' short. I told him I would fix the issue. He mentioned under his breath he should finish his wooden fence, but I felt that he had neither the desire nor the resources to do so. Besides, he's too busy playing horseshoes. That afternoon I went to Home Depot and bought a metal fence mesh and some stakes (about $50.00 all in) and installed it. It's a 4' high fence, but the stakes are 6' so I raised the mesh above the current chain link fence. I then attached the bottom of the mesh to the chain link using strips of baylene (sp?) wire. I'm fairly happy with the results. I'll hopefully take a picture someday and update the blog.
• Home:
  I've neglected most house chores lately. Art isn't on the walls, a dozen or more boxes remained unpacked, and the general organization is still somewhat chaotic. I did however take the time to baby proof Violet's office from Drake pulling on the network and cable wires coming out of the wall and into the deprecated heater vent along the lower wall. he still pulls on it, but it's "safer" now, I suppose.
  One of the support brackets on the riding mower had come off due to a bent cotter pin, which I had discovered by luck. I was actually looking for a missing wheel or something becasue it seemed the cutting deck was lopsided toward the left front corner. This caused some minor cuts into the dirt and uneven cutting while I mowed the lawn. It was easily fixed though and now I'm back in business. The thing backfires everytime I shut it off though, which I don't quite care for.
• Work:
  Well, crunch mode is over now. No more overtime, at least for a while. The next month should be fairly relaxed since I've been lightly scheduled due to having worked so much the previous month or so. More beta players have been invited in, and the forums on Warhammer Alliance (and others) are abuzz with the latest newsletter.
• Other:
  I don't buy music very often.. maybe one or two every year, and then only because Violet hands them to me. I'm usually quite content listening to the same CD over and over again. I tend to keep the CDs in my car for months at a time. So anyway, I recently bought 2 new CDs, Sara Bareilles and Colbie Caillat, based on Violet's suggestion of new music I would like. So far, I do.

My mom visited over the weekend, so I took Fri and Mon off from work. We did some letterboxing and shopping while she was here. She liked it enough to buy her own stamp. Its good for the whole family!

Drake's crawling better and sits up with ease now, which I am happy about.

Otherwise I've just been really busy working on this.

I started reading a new webcomic. It started back in 2003, so its pretty old, but I find it interesting. I also removed the Pet Professional, since that hasn't been updated in forever.

A few weekends ago , like, 2 or 3, I decided to use my mowers bagging system.
This was mistake #1.

Although I'm happy a ton of dead grass isn't lying around the yard, its collection meant that I had to stop the mower every time it got full. Or clogged. which happened a LOT due to the grass being wet and tall. I ended up with about 20 bags of grass. Sorry, I have no pictures because I forgot to take any.

It took 4 HOURS.

The headlights work fine, BTW. It took so long that night fell before I was done.
Important tip.. if you're mowing the grass and don't have the cutter engaged, the grass just lays flat and uncut. Even if you drive over it 5 times trying to figure out why no progress is being made.
That was mistake #2.. probably wasted about 10 mins doing this.

When during the course of mowing history you find yourself wielding a machete(Yes, I have a machete.. what of it?) to cut off low branches from trees and bushes, be wary of random police cars driving by. This didn't happen to me, but it could of. I'm just sayin...

Kitchen bags do not fit (well) inside the mower's bagging system. They just don't.
Mistake #3

You can't trim grass with a cordless trimmer if there's no actual cord in it. This is likely true of corded and gas powered trimmers too.
Mistake #4

Don't wear your normal work shoes for mowing the grass, especially when its wet, and even more especially if the shoes are not water poof.
Mistake #5

The following weekend I bought some cord and spent another 30 mins or so trimming the edges. I'm still not done (I ignored the drainage ditch) though because the battery doesn't last as long as I recall. I have a 2nd charger and 2 extra batteries, I just don't know where it all is.

I just bought new shoes this weekend.

Since I've been in crunch mode (working major OT, like 60-70 hour weeks) for the past 2 weeks, I havent been able to update my blog. I havent really done anything besides work and a few house chores. Yesterday I went home a little early though since I worked until 1130p Sunday. It's a lot of pressure right now. I'm relieved Violet understands, even though she hates my current schedule. It'll be over in a day or two though. Theoretically.

In other news I saw and bought Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer a few weeks ago. Maybe a month ago, I dont know anymore. Anyway, last night i spent about 2 hours making a character. I haven't played the game yet, but eventually.... (sigh)

It's been too rainy to mow the lawn, which could use it.

Apparently there is no warning system or escape plan for tornadoes here. We don't have a basement or shelter or anything like that. Thankfully it's a 1 story house with easy access to the bathroom, which is where we'll all try to head in the case of an emergecny, but with 2 adults, 1 baby, 2 cats, and 2 dogs, I fear that if a Tornado does hit, we won't all make it. A series of tornadoes hit VA about 120 miles south of us.. which is why I'm concerned.

I've totally ignored my diet this month... Bad me!

Shortly after Penny Aracde posted this, THIS appeared.

That is all.

For lawn care, I have a cordless, rechargeable weed eater (trimmer).
I also have an electric lawnmower. Its great, since there's no gas, oil, or maintenance. But it requires an extension cord. And a lot of pushing.
Well, this new house has a pretty big yard. Possibly too big for extension cord use. We also have a front yard.. mowing would take me hours. Ick. So I've been surfing Craigslist and found a good, used riding mower.


IT'S FRICIKIN AWESOME! Mowed the entire front and back in like, 30 mins.
Murry 18.5hp 46", about 8 years old.
$500 bucks. (New ones are 1500-2500 easy, and used ones are 250-750, usually with stuff that needs fixed and are really old). Its a great deal since it runs good, no defects that I know of, and came with a bagging system, mulching cover, AND a snow plow. How cool is that? I may take more pictures later... but now I'm going into work (yes, Its Sunday) with baby Drake so Violet can take a break and I can get some work done (milestones are approaching fast!)

I'm very happy to report that today is Violet and I's 6th wedding anniversary. Apparently I made a very good choice (this time). Our lives are pretty good, despite my blogging to the contrary sometimes. Our son is nearly 7 months old, my career is awesome, and we just reduced our living expenses in order to pay off some debts. And I owe most of it to my lovely bride. THANKS BABYKINS! YOU'RE THE BESTEST!

I'm ashamed to admit that I didnt buy her a card. I had planned to, but then things came up (The move mainly, but we also went to see the Washington Capitals.. they lost 10-7), and by the time we got home, it was after midnight (We took the metro rail into downtown DC). So I failed. I'll have to make it up to her next year I suppose :(

For puropses of downsizing, we've moved into a smaller, lower cost house (I wasn't willing to give up our pets for the sake of saving a few bucks.. we adopted them, they're ours, and I just don't feel right giving them away because they're sometimes encumbersome).
Old House:

• 4 BR
• 2.5 bath
• 2,500 sq ft.
• 25-35 min commute
• $1,800

New House:

• 3 bedrooms (Mush smaller than the previous house, and no master bath)
• 1 bath
• 1200 sq ft, if that.
• 15-20 min commute
• $1,300

Hopefully the smaller house will reduce our utility bill as well. I spent most of my weekends for the last month or so packing, which is why my blog posts have been non-existant. Last weekend was the big move. Thank goodness several of my coworkers helped my on Saturday! I moved more stuff Sun and cleaned Mon night and took Tuesday off work to finish cleaning. It was so much work, I cannot even put it into words because I'm too tired. (And that really says something)

And now, its time to unpack and organize. (sigh)

Happy late Easter. I've been too busy or tired to post.

All I've been doing is working, packing (we're moving at the end of the month), housework, or taking care of Drake. I had to sacrifice some sleep to play DDO during its 2nd anniversary free week of play. I didn't gain a level, but I got closer than I was. They have a 9.99 deal until March 14 I think, if you pay for 6 months at once.

Speaking of lost sleep, I've been having to get up 2 or 3 times every night to put Drakey back to sleep. I'm still sleeping in the nursery for this exact reason. He does OK for a few hours, but then wakes up and realizes his pacifier is gone and starts to fuss. Once I reinsert it he goes straight back to sleep. Then we both wake up around 6am and I cant go back to sleep. So for the last few weeks Ive been averaging 6-7 hours in broken spurts. So I'm kinda tired.

Gwyen had some kinda injury about a month ago, dunno if I mentioned it. She seems better overall, but she isn't eating as much as she used to (and may have lost some weight). Vet thinks its some kinda blunt jaw trauma.

In preparation for the move I tried to get my trailer, but I couldn't get the hitch lock I put on it to unlock. I tried wiggling and did both correct keys, but it just won't turn. I called the manufacturer (Coquent) and they've had some reports of this issue. Even though its well past its 90 day warranty, they're gonna send me a new one. Course, I have to hack-saw off the old one.

That's all I have time to type. Sorry my updates are few and far between.
Check out the Lost Boys 2: The Tribe info. If you dare.

Easily my 2nd favorite web comic ever is Evil, Inc. It's been around for years, so if you haven't read it, do so as soon as you finish reading this post. Do not past Go. Do not collect 200.00. Unless, you know, someone owes you 200.00. But then go read it. It's full of awesomeness.

Another good one is Amazing Superteam. Poor art but good dialog and decent storyline keeps this comic going. I like it a lot.

I turned 37 today.

I went to work. (I have a deadline on Tuesday). I took Drake with me too. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked.

We drove to Vienna and Annadale (30 mins) to look for a place to live. A few are decent possibilities.. We'll see if any of them pan out.

We went to Fuddruckers for dinner. Now I remember why we don't go there.. too expensive. Drake was really fascinated though and was extremely good our entire time there.

The evening was spent trying to organize a schedule for house hunting for tomorrow. And Drake is really fussy this evening so I didn't get much done. I also have to do taxes, not to mention pack. Also, Gwyn has been sick (can't drink water) and after a vet visit 4 days ago, we don't know what's actually wrong with her. But there's blood in her water bowl, so I had to isolate her to the extra bedroom.

That's pretty much it I suppose.

I specifically asked for nothing for my birthday, since we can't afford it. I got some nice cards and an outrageous gift from my mom, which I really appreciate.

Just follow the link, check the video, and sit there in bewilderement. I cannot, in all good conscious, post any pictures.

Pimped Out Powder Room

A few weeks ago I had a full physical. I got the results a week or so ago, and after a lot of non-returned phone calls, I had an appointment today for the follow up.

I'm fairly healthy, normal / average whatever... except for my Cholesterol. It's like one of those commercials with the happy healthly person doing happy healthy things, but then they get hit by a bus or trip or something. I knew that would be me one day.. I just figured it would be after I was 40. I'm not sure when my last full physical was, but it was probably a few years ago, and it was fine. I blame donut day.

Every Wed EA Mythic has "donut day".. several boxes full of awesome donuts. I usually try to avoid them, and as a result I end up only eating 2 or 3 or rarely 4. Every week. For nearly a year. Before that, Mad Doc Software had Pizza Friday.. all you can eat free pizza and soda (well OK, the hot chocolate and soda were always free). I was there for about 8 months. Since I suffer a -5 to Will rolls when it comes to donuts or cookies (mmmm Cookies), and a -5 (cumulative) to free food, it's no real shock that my Cholesterol is high. How high? Very.

Cholesterol can’t dissolve in the blood... it has to be carried by the blood.

There's 2 types of Cholesterol: Good (HDL) and Bad (LDL). The bad stuff is what clogs up your arteries. That's what causes things like heart attacks and strokes (Which my family has a long history of). The good stuff supposedly carries the bad stuff away and into the liver. If your good stuff is too low, and the bad stuff too high, that could be an indication of elevated Triglycerides, a body fat.

Normal Good (HDL) Cholesterol is 40 mg/dl (milligrams per deciliter) for men and 50 for women. Mine was 32. That's bad.

Normal Bad (LDL) Cholesterol is less than 200 mg/dl for a person with no other risk factors. 200-239 is "Borderline" High risk. 240+ is high risk. If I remember correctly, mine was 243. It could have been 234. I don't remember. Either way, it's very bad.

I have to take an aspirin and some medication every evening. I go back in 3 months to see if my cholesterol has lowered without any liver problems. Joy. Now I feel old.

As a result, as of yesterday, I started exercising. I'm doing the Walk away the Pounds DVD program by Leslie Sansone every morning at 8am for 30 mins. I hope to keep up with the program, since it, Weight Watchers, and Violet's use of them both, is largely responsible for my weight loss a year or so ago.

Our lease is up end of March, so I've been trying to find another place to rent. I have high hopes but little faith in the industry I have chosen, so I can't risk buying a house at this point in time. So we will rent yet again.

Having a roof over one's head is easily, and by far, the largest contributor towards our high cost of living. (We spend in excess of $4000 each month). It's very difficult to lower it, as I have been trying to do for a while now. If we could somehow get rid of our two dogs, 1 of the vehicles, cancel the cable and lower our cell phone plan, and then find a cheap (<1400) apartment or condo we'd probably be better off. But I cannot seem to do any of that.

The dogs are our responsibility.. I knew getting them was a bad idea, and I said so at the time of adoption, and I've complained about them ever since.. But I cannot seem to give them up. They are a part of the family now. I was strong enough to say NO when we got them, but not enough to enforce it. Besides, legally I'd have to return them to the shelters... one in Texas and one in Cali, and that's certainly not worth the drive. I tried Pet Finder up in Boston and came very close to giving away Sebastian. I'm pretty sure I blogged about that though.

I can't risk only having one vehicle. If it breaks, we're screwed. And even though Violet drives hers fairly infrequently, its almost worth keeping it until its paid off, which should be sometime this year. Mine isn't worth selling.. I owe more than its resale value is, so I'm stuck with it. Which sucks because the fuel level thingy broke, so I have no idea how much fuel remains. I just refill every 250 miles or so now.

We need internet access, for Violet's job.. that's a need. TV, not needed, but stupid Comcast package deals are such that we wouldn't be saving much by canceling it. Same for our cell phones. We tried eating from home, but I don't think that works. Our grocery bills are 80-150 bucks.. much higher than going out every night.

Sure the kid isn't cheap, but I knew that a long time ago, and the little guy is worth it. Have you SEEN his pics on Violet's blog? D'oh, he needs me right now, so that's gonna cut this blog short. I was gonna ramble about figuring out ways to earn more money since I can't seem to reduce my outgoing expenditures, like canceling my 401K and making my # of W-2 deductions really high. But I'm not gonna do either. For now.

Can't decide what console to get? No problem.. Here's a handy chart! (Courtesy of the Penny Arcade forums)

I'm not sure I've mentioned this before, but for quite a while now I've been enjoying free games courtesy of Kongregate.com.

One of my favorites is Desktop Defense, in which lemming like creatures go across the screen, and you have to place towers to shoot them before they make it across. Its free, fun, and doesn't take a whole lotta time.

Usually, I don't much care for pie. But this is awesome.

The Booby Wall.

Naturally, I approve.

Last week was not a good week for my computer. This tale is a gauntlet of suck. And a long one, which is partly why I'm telling it a week later. Also, this didn't all happen at once. Fixing it wasn't my top priority however, so the suckage simmered for 4 days over the holiday while I occasionally had between 30 min and 2 hours to work on the issue.

Let's begin with my setup.
Windows XP, 300GB hard drive (split into 3 roughly even NTFS partitions), DVD RW, and a external 40Gb drive.

• C: is my main boot, system, and games drive. ~93.1 GB
  
• D: is the DVD-RW (Can't find a link for this BTC-1008IB sucker).
• E: is the 2nd partition. It's where I keep all my stuff. ~93.7 GB
  
• F: is the 3rd partition. It's where I keep all my crap. ~92.5 GB
• And some letter later is my external drive. My DVD-RW has a built in 5-in-1 memory card reader, as does the external drive case, so I never know which drive letter is which.
  

(Yes, I realize that my 3 partitions don't add up to 300GB. That's just the way formatted file systems go)

--------------
I don't know how, when, or why, but all of a sudden I got a pop-up application in my taskbar saying I had spyware. The name of this app was Awola. Not only did it update itself with new "protection", but it also started scanning my drives. It almost looks legit, and after scanning my drives it found a few malware/spyware apps and some other stuff, but not a virus. This was not a good thing. I quickly disconnected myself from the network and used my laptop to check into it. Apparently its linked with a trojan virus and is very difficult to remove. I followed the link's advice, and also ran Trend Micro's online scanner, Housecall (since its free, fast, and fairly effective, in my experience).

I couldn't get rid of it. I tried force quitting apps, deleting executables, uninstalling crap, Booting into safe mode... nothing worked. At this point I instructed Violet to disconnect her PC from the network (Naturally, her Mac wasn't in any danger), just in case. I ran Housecall on my laptop as well, and it was clean. I did a few windows updates, but that didn't work either. I was hosed.

When smart people do dumb things, stupid results occur.
I decided to format and reinstall Windows. I had installed XP on my system, like, well over a year ago, so I was probably due for a reinstall anyway. I backed up my important docs on my other 2 drives, E: and F: (which are part of the same hard drive.. do you see where this is going?)

Dumb people do dumb things:
After I booted to the XP CD, as a reflex habit from doing this so many times, I deleted my C: partition, created a new one with the max remaining size, quick formatted it, and installed Windows. No problem. Then I tried accessing my E: and F: Drives. They didn't exist. Mmm.. that's not good. Must be a Windows issue. I did the updates, service packs, etc.. All was fine. Still no drives. Not good for our hero.

Careless people do careless things:
So I booted the Windows CD again and started over again. Same result. Like, Duh. I kinda sorta remembered something about Windows not seeing really big drives, and after a quick search on Google, I remembered that I had to go into the Windows Disk Management Tool (Which is not intuitively placed) There I saw some avail space, but the numbers were off, and there was only one. I figured 1 partition was better than none at this point, so I clicked on it and set it up. This didn't seem right to me, but it had been so long since I'd done any of this, and I didn't have a lot of free time to really think about it, so I just did it anyway.

Stupid people do stupid things:
That, of course, didn't work. So I quick formatted it. That didn't work anything either. Then I reinstalled windows from scratch a third time, and this time I did a full format instead of a quick format. Needless to say, this didn't solve my problem.

At some point I remembered the Master Boot Record.
Man, did I screw THAT up through all this. Things were not looking good, and they'd get worse...

Crazy people do crazy things:
At some point I finally realized that the partition I was formatting during the XP install was 131 GB. Since my partition was less than that, I found this to be a bad thing. I decided to start over completely, and deleted ALL of my partitions. The data was still on the drives, I just couldn't access it. So I didn't think this was too bad a thing at the time. Time to break out the hacker toolbox...

Desperate people do desperate things:
What I needed to do at this point was get my partitions back in place. I searched and downloaded several partition programs, but none of them did what I needed to have done. Either they were demos, couldn't restore lost partitions, or were too complicated to use.
I eventually found a link to Testdisk 6.8 on an Ultimate Boot CD forum. It searched and found around 6 lost partitions. I had no idea what my drive geometry was, so I guessed. I figured there was a decent chance I had lost everything at this point anyway. I soon ended up with screwed up drive geometry and very weird, very incorrect, partition information. I also couldn't boot using the Window XP CD anymore. Very bad. After fiddling with this program for well over a day, I eventually figured out how things were originally setup.

Then I tried to install XP again. Even with the partitions seemingly correct, XP would only partition and format to a single 131GB chunk. Mmm... that's interesting. I didn't continue installing XP... instead I took the time and effort to do some web research.

Smart people do dumb, careless, stupid, crazy, and desperate things all at once.
To make this long story shorter, I won't go into that whole ordeal. Suffice to say that I ended up using Bart's Preinstalled Environment(BartPE). It's pretty awesome. AND it saw all my drives. Now that I had access to my E: and F: drives, I backed up what files I really needed to my external drive.

So BartPE saw my drives. I tried the Window XP Boot CD again. No luck. Something strange was amiss. Turns out that the original (Pre-SP1) Windows XP install CDs don't recognize partitions larger that 32GB. Pretty stupid. Well, that's bad. I searched and found my other Window XP install CD (I have 2 legal copies.. one for my PC and one for Violet's PC). Using her install CD didn't work either. Sad Panda :(

More research. I discovered from Paul Thurrott's SuperSite that I had to "slipstream" Service Pack 2 onto a new Windows Boot+Install CD. Problem was, I didn't have any burn software to create a bootable CD. More downloads of demos and programs that didn't work. I eventually found my copy of Nero, but it's tied to the device I purchased it with. I tried oldversion. com, but that didn't help me too much. Not knowing if this would even solve my problem, I mostly followed Paul's advice, and used the following:

• Bart's PE Builder, to boot to the PC and run the Testdisk program.
  
• ISO Buster, used to extract out the Windows Bootable image file.
• AShamoo Burning Software , to create the Bootable CD with windows on it.
  

The CD I made didn't boot. I wasted a 2nd CD trying to make another copy of it. Third time's the charm though. I booted to CD with Windows XP and slip-streamed SP2. It saw my partition at the correct size! I eagerly installed Windows, and this time SP2 was built in, which would save me from having to download and install it again. Turns out you can slipstream lots of stuff into a Windows XP installer. Anyway, that's my tale, as best I can remember it, with as short as I care to make it. If you've read down this far, you're really bored.