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.