LANGDON X DOT COM

There Goes the Neighborhood

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:01:00 EDT

A year or more ago, some shitty neighbors moved in next door. They were and still are loud, messy, and generally annoying. A short list of offenses include (1) throwing loud parties on their back patio until 1am on various week nights, (2) leaving Halloween decorations out almost 2 months past Halloween, (3) learning to play drums in their garage at night, (4) tearing up the blinds on their front window, (5) leaving trash on their porch and lawn for weeks, and (6) tossing an old moldy blow-up pool over their fence after replacing it with a bigger one. Some of these things would be acceptable if our neighborhood consisted of houses and not attached condos. We live in a neat and friendly newer neighborhood, you'd think that people would be respectful and try to take care of what little they are responsible for to keep the area clean and uniform.

Last week, the cops apparently had to show up and crack down on some folks across from us. It was likely a domestic dispute between parent and child, because some loser kids have been hanging around lately working on their shitty VW Gulf and they've been gone ever since the altercation. Good riddance to them, I say.

And just last week as I pulled out of the driveway, I noticed a young boy (maybe 4 or 5) walking around and acting strangely in his front yard. I was curious as to what he was up to, so I backed out slowly and then crept down the street, eying him in my rear-view. He was quite fidgety and was wiggling around as if he was on meth or something. He was also watching me as I drove away. When I got to the end of the street, I paused for a moment to observe more of his behavior, when all of a sudden he pulls his little man out and proceeds to have a piss on his lawn. It was unbelievable. I wish I had put the car in reverse, backed up, and shared with him some choice words, but I was so shocked at the time I wasn't really thinking straight.

And last, but not least, due to some awful law that the City or State have supposedly passed, our pool isn't open on weekdays until 2PM (it used to be open from 8AA to 8PM), and also has to be "monitored" by someone.

Due to all of these lame happening (and growing pains and market conditions), I'll be looking to move maybe in the new year. I hope to be able to find and afford a place twice as big, in the same general area as I live in now. We'll see how that works out. I'll be stalking Trulia quite avidly.

Also, two friends of mine (on separate occasions) told me that the changes I made to my web site made them think for a split second that I let my domain expire and someone squatted on it. So I guess I should do something about that.

Good Game Update

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:13:00 EDT

Eh. They were OK. NYTimes agrees.

The coolest thing I saw from Sony was the their movie service, which unlike the Microsoft/Netflix partnership, Sony's is already fully operational. They really seem to have done it right as well -- you can rent movies from $2.99 or purchase them from $9.99. You just get on the PlayStation Store, browse their movie catalog, choose a film, and download/stream it off the internet. They have both standard and high definition movies from the likes of Disney, Fox, Warner Bros, and (obviously) Sony Pictures. You can even transfer and watch them on your PSP, had you one.

Sony showed some expected titles like Resistance 2, Killzone 2, and Little Big Planet, but also God of War III, Resistance for PSP, and "MAG" (Massive Action Game) which is a first person shooter capable of hosting 256-player games. They actually used Little Big Planet as a presentation tool, like PowerPoint, to show off what Sony has been doing. You should watch the video -- it's terribly clever. There was no mention of any Square-Enix titles, including FFXIII, which I guess isn't surprising. I wonder if it was related to the Square-Enix/Microsoft partnership.

As for Nintendo, they've finally realized that the only good game they ever released for Wii was Wii Sports, so they're bringing us a sequel called Wii Sports Resort. Which actually requires an additional hardware purchase... for every controller you already own... for $50 each!

Wow. This whole "inexpensive" thing they're trying to push is complete rubbish. Sure the Wii itself costs $250 (which includes 1 controller set), but if you add on all of the hardware additions to make the console worth owning, it's no longer inexpensive. For example, who do you know that doesn't have at least 3, if not 4 controllers for their Wii? Considering the controller combo costs almost $60 ($18 + $40), that's an extra $180 you're going to spend taking your $250 up to $430 (only $20 less than 80GB PS3 with an additional DualShock 3 controller, because let's be honest, no one plays PS3 with 3 extra dudes). So, not only that, but let's say you want to play any of the Super Nintendo, N64, or Sega Genesis games they offer on Virtual Console -- then you need a classic controller for $20 each. What about playing racing games like Mario Kart? You might want the Wii Wheel for $10 each. A balance board will run you another $80. And finally, who knows how much all of the batteries you'll be using will cost.

Good Game

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:35:00 EDT

Microsoft hosted a mind blowing E3 press conference earlier today in Los Angeles. So mind blowing that I'm having trouble imagining what Sony and Nintendo can possibly bring to the table tomorrow that will be the least bit impressive. They both have their work cut out for them.

I was actually expecting a lot from Sony this year... to name a few: Final Fantasy XIII, PlayStation Eye, PlayStation Home, PlayStation Network, some hot new exclusive-games on the PlayStation Store, a movie download service, SingStar, and maybe some hot new Square-Enix IP.

Well... Microsoft already announced all that... and more. They had answers to everything big that both Sony and Nintendo already have and more; in order: "A version" of Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the Xbox. Microsoft has their own webcam now that you can play games with. Avatars is Micrrosoft's answer to Home (and Nintendo Miis). A ton of new games are coming to Xbox Live, including some exclusive Portal content. Microsoft announced a partnership with Netflix. Lips is Microsoft's answer to SingStar (and Karaoke Revolution). There are 3 pretty great looking Square-Enix titles coming out on Xbox (either exclusive or timed-exclusive): The Last Remnant, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and Infinite Undiscovery. The only thing Microsoft doesn't have now is motion sensing controllers -- which technically they do, because the Lips' microphones can sense the motions.

So with all that, what new and fresh can Sony possibly show off tomorrow? Sadly, probably just some PlayStation Portable rubbish. But maybe, if we're lucky, they will be able to pull off some amazing announcements regarding PS3. Perhaps God of War 3, Kingdom Hearts 3, or maybe a Final Fantasy 7 remake?

And Nintendo... eh, who cares? I'm not really interested in playing a game where I run in place in my living room, or in games with dated visuals, poor animation, or predictable AI.

Delightfully Surprised

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:04:00 EDT

You may-should-probably know that I have a 30 second memory. So this morning when Jeff showed up in my office at work, I was supremely delighted. I had completely forgotten that today was going to be his first day. I even saw him on Saturday evening, where I was again reminded (after forgetting) that Monday was going to be his first day.

I forgot to post my bowling scores from last week. It was all-you-can-bowl from nine to midnight, so we were able to fit in 5 games. I bowled 'em straight though, because somehow I forgot how to roll the spinnin' balls. Maybe I'll be able to re-learn this week. After shaking off the dust, I didn't do all that bad, although I did lose 4 bucks.

96 99 143 146 116

Not Funny, And Then Funny

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:31:00 EDT

Webcomics have been around for a great while now, but in more recent years have become popular with the creation of gaming webcomics. The sad part though is that none of them are funny. This is certainly credited to the fact that if any of them were actually entertaining, they wouldn't exist on a medium that costs nothing to publish on, and as a result wouldn't be "webcomics" (one word, apparently).

Yesterday, Ben Croshaw (someone who is funny) put perfectly into words and a short video my feelings for these webcomics. If you're actually planning on watching the video (which I'd wager that half my readers (all 4 of you) will not), then you should know some history to enjoy it better. This awful piece of shit webcomic that has never been funny decided to try out a serious plot line (ref. 1, ref. 2). Armed with that knowledge, I present to you:

Zero Punctuation: Webcomics.

So, even if you didn't watch the video, the gist of it is that anyone can make a webcomic, they're not funny, and should you try yourself to create one, Ben offer's his advice: "So, your gaming web package comic is complete. All that's left to do is gather it altogether and throw it in a fucking bin, because you're a talentless cultural pollutant who deserve to suffocate to death on a bag of porridge." I mean even this parody, albeit *EXTREMELY* distasteful, has more humor in it than the entirety of the ctrlaltdel, penny arcade, and vgcatz archives combined.

Also, I'm going to the pool tomorrow.

It's Over

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:48:00 EDT

It ended like it began: I missed the first day and missed the last day.

I will leave you with this piece of cinematic genius.

Rate it highly and pass it around to all your mates.

An Old Friend

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:59:59 EDT

Today, my pal and Ameer and I were talking about Diablo III. He was saying how he was excited about the game's release and wanted to play Diablo II in preparation. I told him that Diablo II was too old to enjoy unless you're playing it for the nostalgia factor, and suggested that we play Titan Quest instead. Titan Quest is an old friend of mine. I used to play it solo and sometimes with my pal David when it first came out. It was a great adventure.

I literally said "if it it's on Steam, I'll buy it". And it totally was. We both bought it the game and the expansion for a mere $20 at the same time. We had it downloaded and installed within an hour, although Ameer's went quicker because most of Europe is serious about internet. We played the game for almost half of the day (almost literally half). We played through the entire first Chapter (Greece) and half part of the second chapter (Egypt). I neglected some things I shouldn't have, but when gaming is this good, you just don't want to quit.

Now I need to sleep. Desparately.

On a side, but related note: Steam is seriously the most amazing system and software ever created. They increased their game library ten fold this year and added some fantastic features to their service. I added WarCraft III as a "non-steam" game to Steam today and found out that I could access the Steam community and friends list while inside of WC3. It works flawless and is some seriously impressive codes. Yea, I bitched about GameOverlayUI.exe earlier this month, but now that I understand its power, I love.

Omar and his Carriage House

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 11:59:00 EDT

Had dinner with Amber and Drew tonight at Omar's Carriage House. It was pretty damn good, I had some Sea Bass Rockefeller (wasn't called exactly that).

Blizzard announced Diablo III recently. That's some fairly exciting news, but I was really hoping the teaser on their site was for the StarCraft II beta. Oh well.

Now now I'm out of time.

Today Is Almost Over

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:44:00 EDT

Since I've run out of topics, this is more or less turning into What Langdon Did Today™. So let's get it over with.

Since I accrued so many hours this week at work, I only put in 5 total today. It would've been less if it wasn't for a very important meeting that I didn't want to miss. After work, I swung by old faithful to pick up Tactics A2, which I can't play yet because I haven't beaten Crisis Core. =X

Afterward, I picked up Sharon at home and we headed over to the dock beside One Fish-Two Fish for some boating action with some pals. The weather started out good, but turned foul within 30 minutes. It lightened up after another 30 minutes and turned out right nice. We did some diving, some swimming, and of course the ladies did some chatting. Props to the gracious hosts for inviting us out. And apologies to the Ungvarsky's for the inadvertent double booking and subsequent cancellation. =/

Success

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:03:00 EDT

We made our fixes in the morning, pushed our build out at 1:00 PM, patched it up over the next few hours, and pushed it out again at 5:30 PM. It went pretty smooth and was rewarding when it was all said at done. It's by no means perfect, but it's still classified as beta. We've got the next 6 weeks to tighten it up and really perfect it. It should be fun stress testing it and finding out what it's capable of.

I didn't get a chance to pick up Tactics A2, but there was no time to play it tonight anyway. We played our last kickball game tonight. We lost, but made the best of it and had fun because we didn't expect to win anyway. I had to referee the late game which was pretty ridiculous. I think purple wanted to fight me. Now that kickball is over, I can get back to my bowling pals on Thursday nights and keep more stats (1, 2, 3, 4)! Woot!

iHop

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:22:00 EDT

I just had IHOP. It was good. Indeed. Especially after a 12 hour day of work, which was preceded by a 15½ hour day of work. Tomorrow should be better though. We make a few fixes in the morning, start pushing a release to our development server around noon, and call it a day a few hours later.

If I can get off at a reasonable hour tomorrow, I'll go to the gym and then try to pick up a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (trailer). I remember playing the shit out of the original one... I must have put something like 70 hours into it by the time I was done with it, and I recall a lot of those hours being put in at work when I used to sit behind my pal CJ.

Look at how I cased the subject of this junk, like I'm some asshole @ AAPL.

I need to go to bed before I get even more pissy. Sorry to my pal "SimilarCases". I didn't mean it.

Literally

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:32:00 EDT

I'm at work.

I told u I was hardcore.

Work, Work

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:23:00 EDT

I've got to put much work in over the next few days to get some silly software released at work. It'll most definitely be frustrating, but also fun and rewarding. I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but I'm also not dreading it. Coding is something I still seriously enjoy -- surprising right?

Over the past 6 months I've had the awesome opportunity to get fairly familiar with the latest Microsoft.NET offerings (WCF, LINQ, LINQ to Entities, and the 3.5 framework). And while C# and the .NET CLR have come a long way since the early 2000s, I would never personally choose to write something (or pay to have something written in) the Microsoft.NET framework when given a choice. It's hard to explain exactly why I feel this way. I think I could write a list of 1,000 reasons if given the time, but I what it probably comes down to is that when given the choice, I like to come up with simple and elegant solutions instead of complex and cumbersome ones. I don't think Microsoft has ever subscribed to the KISS Principle.

It's all really just a matter of personal preference, but it's interesting hearing about other people's feelings on the subject (more so from people who know both sides =P). A guy at work, who recently transitioned from writing PHP to writing C# absolutely prefers what he's doing now (C#) -- I can't quite understand it.

More brilliance can be found here. Especially "premature optimization is the root of all evil", and "fancy algorithms are buggier than simple ones, and they are much harder to implement".

To Done

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:45:00 EDT

I managed to actually make some good progress against my to do list today. The weather was rubbish again and I had my fill of Team Fortress II earlier in the weekend, so I put some honest work in.

I've been working on a sort-of PHP framework over the past few months, which I originally started after getting some inspiration from Luke. The sort-of framework, in addition to new DPC stuff makes up the majority of my to do list. I've been having a great time with it so far, and at the same time, I'm doing a bunch of other new stuff as well. Currently, I'm trying to get used to VS.Php because of all the wonderful benefits it brings to the table (remote debugging, intellisense, code outlining, TODO tracking, PHPDoc support, auto-complete, auto-format, easy deployment and project management). Unfortunately right now there are two things that are driving me crazy (and may eventually cause me to go back to TextPad 5):

(1) The default indention level is 0 (no indention) and it doesn't consider when indenting. So when I finish writing these 6 lines of code, I'm left with the following:

    if (1)
{
    print "hello";

    die;
}
?>

The entire code block (with exception to the if) indents back over when I complete the statement by typing }. Additionally, indention gets rewritten whenever I make a line have valid code on it (by typing close parens, a semicolon, whatever). This is probably pulled over from the standard auto-formatting in C#, but the difference with C# files is that there aren't any silly
(2) The second thing is something that I can probably overcome, but still annoys me. Auto-format adds tabs on empty lines! It shouldn't be that big of a deal, but it pains me to know that a tab or two exists on what should be an empty line, and I'll always have to waste my time cleaning up the stray characters.

Event with those annoyances, it's still a great product. I'm still on v2.4, but v2.5 was apparently released a short while ago and has some great new features. Maybe they even fixed the indention "bug"?

Side note: I was looking to see if I ever mentioned vs.php in a previous entry and came across a link to this website. Good times, but it's in need of some updates. ;)

Strike Two

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:45:00 EDT

Fifteen minutes until deadline. I had a pretty good day today and did manage to get out of bed at a somewhat reasonable hour (I think it was 10:50). I didn't make it to the pool due to thunderstorms, rain, and the lack of any sun, but the laundry is pretty much all done, with exception to the things still drying on the banister.

I watched Scarface for the first time ever tonight. It was pretty good, but not deserving of the 172nd spot on the IMDb Top 250. It was definitely entertaining though, to say the very least. I also enjoyed an amazing meal from Carrabba's while watching.

The weather looks pretty awful tomorrow, so I won't be getting to the pool then either:

Strike

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:59:59 EDT

It's actually 3am on the 21st -- Luke didn't post yet and neither did I.

Call it a strike.

Hopefully I'll have some energy tomorrow to get out of bed and make it to the pool if it's nice. If I don't get to the pool (or the beach!), I do have one goal that I would like to accomplish tomorrow: the laundry. There are a shit-ton of clothes (both dirty and clean) to be tended to at my house. I shall look to overcome them tomorrow.

Tripler Header

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:34:00 EDT

We had a damn triple header tonight at kickball. The three games were supposed to start at 6:30, 7:30, and 8:30, but they all probably started late, and we didn't end up finishing until 10:00 PM. Ugh. It was fun though -- mostly because we had a little cookout beforehand, but also because we won the majority of our matches. First game was maybe 4-2, the second was something like 3-1, and the last was unfortunately 0-5. We have one more game next week and then the season is over. I hopes we can win this last one. Here's a picture of our team and the current standings.

If we lose next week, it won't be so bad, because we'll end up being 6-9!!

I need to bring my camera next week... I was doing a good job of it earlier in the season, but not so much lately.

Machines

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:59:00 EDT

My machines are not properly cooled. I was playing Team Fortress 2 last night and my machine just shut off in the middle of playing. When I turned it back on, it froze... so I took the side off, blasted some canned air in there, and gave it 60 seconds before turning it on again.

When I got back into Windows, I downloaded a copy of SpeedFan and found out that my processor was running at 62° C, which Google would tell you is 143.6° F. I should probably buy a new CPU fan.

Fun pictures for you:

#1: Dude killed me, and as soon as he did, Ameer (on the bottom right in the red) blasted a rocket (on the bottom left) and exploded him (all the parts in the middle).

#2: nUI's face. We traded rockets... that's all that remained of him after the exchange.

It Didn't Happen

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:33:00 EDT

I "went to bed" early... but I ended up just playing Crisis Core in bed until midnight or something. Senseless, I know, but it was definitely fun. And now it's 11:35 PM and I haven't yet wrote on this piece, haven't yet scheduled any challenges, and haven't brushed my teeth yet.

A friend showed me PicLens tonight. Normally I'm not so hot on downloading useless stuff like that, but the supported partners list made it more intriguing. I tried it out and enjoyed it enough to implement it on DPChallenge (results and photo search). It was pretty simple -- I almost did both and fixed a bug in the photo search in under an hour. Stupid htmlentities() crap was stored in the database though, and made the XML not validate. =/

Maybe I'll Go To Bed Early

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:09:00 EDT

Ever since early/mid-May, when I got back from sailing, I haven't been getting any sort of decent sleep. I haven't made it to bed earlier than midnight more than 1 night in a row in longer than I can remember. So tonight, it'll be different. I'll go to bed when I'm done writing this and see how I feel tomorrow. And then tomorrow night, I'll try to do the same thing again. It'll be hard though, because there are so many things I want to right now instead of sleep. =[

I more-or-less wasted almost 3 hours of my night tonight at Michael's getting a print framed (and then Harris Teeter getting groceries). The lady who arrived at Michael's shortly before us literally had 9 or 10 prints framed and was picky about every damn one of them. I got to spend the time with Sharon though, so it wasn't totally wasted. Except I tend to get on her nerves because I get a little overzealous when I'm with her. =[

Also =[.

Father's Day

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:29:00 EDT

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there. Yea.

I feel like I wasted the day, even though I did a bunch of different things here and there. I guess I feel like it was wasted because I didn't really work towards doing anything on my to do list. Here's how it went down: woke up around 10, played 4 games of WarCraft III (won 3, lost 1), talked to Ameer and Dan for way too long (like a couple of girls), helped Jeff with SQL Server, called my Dad and talked for a bit, went out and got Sushi at one of the only Sushi places open on Sunday (Domo), ate the Sushi with Sharon and watched License To Wed (fun, but not a favorite), played Final Fantasy VIII for 15 minutes, talked to Ameer and Dan more while taking care of some things on DPC and playing Team Fortress II, and wrote a dumb entry on this thing.

And here's what I would like to say I did today: woke up around 8, went to Waffle House with Sharon and had a great time, went to the pool and relaxed for a bit, helped Jeff with SQL Server, called my Dad and talked for a bit, went out and got Sushi and ate it with Sharon while watching Be Kind Rewind (or There Will Be Blood) which she really loved, worked on and completed an item from my to do list, wrote a great entry, and went to bed early.

Oh well, here's to hoping! Maybe this week will make up for a lazy Sunday.

And I didn't have any night terrors last night as far as I'm aware..

Smoky Saturday

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:58:00 EDT

Some woods was lit the hell up last night or this morning, because the air was thick with smoke on the way to WEDDING class this morning (last one, yay). The air was pretty bad, but the class wasn't really at all. We were a lot more comfortable this week and all three teachers were fantastic (very charming and engaging). Sharon was even sweet enough to say that I listen well sometimes (she said it out loud in front of everyone!!). I need to send my epal the photography contract now and figure out the damned honeymoon. The rest is up the Sharon. ;)

Since I beat Final Fantasy VII in April, and Grand Theft Auto IV in May, I decided I needed to embark on a new adventure (what F'd up priorities I have). I played Final Fantasy VIII (that's 8, not 7) for more hours than I wish to admit tonight. The characters look a little funny when I have the settings cranked up on the latest version of EPSX. The game is actually more fun than I remember it being. I'm looking forward to beating it this time. I never finished it before, because I hated drawing magic and waiting on stupid GF animations in battle, so the fast forward key is coming in handy.

Hardly related, but why did they decide to misspell smoky when they made Smokey the Bear?

I'm going to have a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats now so I can go to bed with a full stomach, have some night terrors, and freak Sharon out. Update: Haha, this guy has some great night terror videos. I need to start recording mine. I've had some pretty good ones.

Preparation

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:08:00 EDT

For marriage class tomorrow. I need to go to sleep now. It stinks.

I had a fun night at the Tabors with the Tabors and the Johnsons, although it was much too short and too few activities went on. Chris brought Crossbows and Catapults though which was very enjoyable.

It's Friday the 13th, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. Traffic was good in the morning, but was awful going home (likely due to all the peoples wanting to get to the beach to start the summer off right).

I want to see The Happening which came out today. I like Wahlberg.

Adios Teachers

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:27:00 EDT

Traffic is about to get real good in the morning, starting tomorrow. Every year when school is over, morning traffic decreases substantially. Inversely of course, things get worse when school starts back up. I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning's commute. And coincidentally I'm also looking forward to spending this summer with a lovely teacher of my own. She's twice as cool during the summer months.

But right now I have a headache, I'm tired, and I'm feeling very defeated. Cheerio.

Not Much Doing

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:02:00 EDT

I wasn't feeling so motivated tonight, so I really didn't do much. I got home around 5:15, ate some cereal, read my marriage book, tried to work some, played some Crisis Core instead, tried to work some more, and ended up playing Guitar Hero III instead. I decided to try and get 100% on a song, so I chose easy and picked my favorite -- Talk Dirty To Me. It took me two tries. Great success.

My apologies to Luke who took the time to comment on my 2+ monitors post and got cut off because the codes I wrote in 2003 were sub-par. I've fixed them now, but couldn't recover his (or my) comments.

While fixing, I found this hot script in the root of my web. Change the player names if you know of any other ones, or just click submit at the bottom to see how much more skilled Konador is. It's slow because community.guitarhero.com is slow (it makes 3 requests to the site). Be sure to click on the track titles to see the lovely expanded details. Konador designed it all, I just wrote the codes.

Two or More Monitors

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:17:00 EDT

This is long. If you get bored, just go read the last two paragraphs. If you do though, you'll miss out on some good tips and a proper schooling.

I've never been a fan of using more than 1 monitor. Everyone at my current job has 2 monitors on their desk. This has always struck me as odd for 1 main reason: what possible benefit can a project manager or someone in HR achieve by having more than 1 monitor on their desk? I'm not even convinced that developers necessarily *need* two monitors. My only guess at this point as to why our company decided to spend an additional $150,000+ (assuming they even got a decent deal) on seconds monitors for everyone is because someone higher up in the food chain must have read this article.

"adding an extra monitor will give your output a considerable boost � 20 percent to 30 percent, according to a survey by Jon Peddie Research"

You've got be kidding me?! This is, by far, the most useless statistic -- not only is it completely arbitrary to try and measure someone's "output" when using a computer, but also it's so poorly worded that it would lead you to believe that you can add 3 additional monitors for potentially a 90% boost in output. Or perhaps you've a network administrator and your "output" is web pages on your web server. Slap another monitor on your web server, and they'll output 20-30% faster! Unbelievable! I mean, technically adding an additional monitor of the same size gives you exactly 50% more output -- and that's a fact, jack... albeit another completely useless one. I think the article must have been funded by Dell, HP, or someone trying to stimulate the economy.

"So now, while I am editing this article on my main screen, the screen beside it shows the outline or earlier draft I am working from � and, sometimes, Web sites or other documents I keep referring to."

Maybe instead of spending an extra few hundred dollars on a monitor, someone could learn some keyboard shortcuts. Even if you use a mouse, which most people do, your left hand is ALWAYS planted on the left side of the keyboard. Your thumb and your pinky finger can easily hit ALT+TAB in a split second, your eyes can then read your reference material, and when you're done (your left hand shouldn't have moved), you hit ALT+TAB again. This is, without a doubt, no slower than moving your head to view your reference materials (which is generally required with 17"+ monitors). Hell, even Chris Johnson can ALT+TAB like a pro, and he doesn't even have a pinky on his left hand.

That said, as of last week, I have two monitors on my desk.

I was fine with having only 1 since I started working there in 2005, but the problem I had is I had a 17" ViewSonic that could only do 1280x1024 and wasn't the most vibrant thing available. I asked on multiple occasions to get a larger monitor, was promised one, but was ultimately turned down. That in itself is actually pretty funny and worthy of its own write up. How can you tell someone "no I will not buy you that $289 monitor, but I will buy you these two $189 monitors instead"? Either way, now that I've had the two monitors on my desk for a while, I've discovered some things that I'm just not a fan of.

Now, I'm not trying to sound arrogant, but out of all of the people I know, I would consider myself to the fastest person at navigating a PC with Windows on it. I'm not saying I can type the fastest out of everyone I know, I'm just saying that I can make the most efficient use of the mouse, the keyboard, and general shortcuts to complete a task the fastest. That said, here are some issues I have with running two monitors:

Sometimes to close a maximized window, if my hand is already on the mouse, I'll snap the cursor up to the top right corner of the screen and single click (or to the top left and double click, if it's closer). With two monitors, you lose out on one of these options depending which screen you're on (unless you've decided to stack your monitors vertically, then you lose out completely on the bottom monitor). I use this technique in Visual Studio as well to pull out the side-docked tabs, but having two monitors messes this up as well. It would be nice to set boundaries on the seams between the monitors and disallow the mouse to pass through certain areas or maybe have a setting that only allowed it to pass if a key was held down (CTRL probably).

For some reason, a particular window can span through the two monitors without any problem, but the mouse cursor cannot. It's kind of annoying to see the mouse sort of flick over when you reach and pass the seam. It should move smoothly between the seams. This is doubly annoying when you're trying to click a side-docked tab on the edge of a seam and miss.

New windows should open on the screen that I am looking at. Haha seems impossible, right? No.. new windows should simply open on the screen where the mouse cursor (or keyboard cursor) is, because that's generally where the user is looking. The keyboard cursor could be on a separate screen from the mouse cursor, but in that case an option should be provided to let the user choose which overrides which.

The ALT+TAB interface should also appear on the screen that the mouse/keyboard cursor does.

Need more task bar options. The only task bar option you get is to span it across both monitors, which simply looks awful (does anyone actually use this feature?). It would be nice to have an identical task bar in all monitors -- with an additional option that allowed you to show every window in all task bars, or only windows that are displayed on that monitor in the matching task bar.

And this is the only hardware issue I have -- monitor chrome. It's way too thick on most monitors and makes having dual monitors a lot less seamless. Lessen the chrome so there's not a 2 inch gap between my screens.

As I was annoying myself with all of these little things, I did a few Google searches to see if I could find some solutions. The best thing I came up with was UltraMon. It's a pretty helpful aid which partially solved a few of my complaints. For example, it'll put additional task bars in every monitor (but it's not a real task bar, a limited one they created). Also there are some hot keys that I defined earlier today:

CTRL+` - This will lock the cursor inside of the active window, allowing me to snap my mouse to either corner and close it. Remember how you always have your left hand on the keyboard -- it works pretty well. Also, once the window is closed, the cursor is no longer locked, so you don't need to "unlock" it.

CTRL+ALT+UP - This will maximize the window across all monitors (even if your monitor settings don't normally allow this). It's pretty helpful when viewing long-ass lines of configuration files or code.

CTRL+ALT+LEFT/RIGHT - This will move the active window to the next or previous monitor. This one is really great if I'm staring and my right monitor, hit WinKey+E which opens Explorer on the left monitor, and I can quickly CTRL+ALT+RIGHT to move it where I'm looking already. It even works on maximized monitors, which is really the best benefit -- before you'd have to double click/restore, click, drag, release, double click/maximize.

Really, I just don't see the huge draw to more than 1 monitor. There is one though, and for a lot of people. I remember Noah being one of the first people I knew that had two monitors. He spent a small fortune on the monitors themselves, and also some state of the art video card that would support them (back in 2000 or 2001). Even Luke, I know, spent a very large sum of money on two 24" wide screen monitors in 2006 or 2007 while running some ancient 1.3ghz computer.

All I'm saying is that you need to learn a hot key or two and save yourself some money. At the end of the day, your output is limited by how quickly you can type, how quickly and accurately you can move your mouse, how fast your brain functions, and how much you have to wait on your computer. One, two, or even three additional monitors will not increase your productivity no matter how much you think it will.

Discovery through Last.FM

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:46:00 EDT

I'm surprised that in the four years since Drew introduced me to Last.FM (then AudioScrobbler), I haven't used its features to discover new music more often. I've been listening to the absolute hell out of Escape The Fate recently, which I only discovered from Last.FM a month ago (by way of The Used). Listen to My Apocalypse if you're feeling up for it, but their whole Dying Is your Latest Fashion album is awesome. It's pretty hardcore, so if you don't like that sort of music and don't like this, I won't be offended (Sharon really loves it though).

Sorry about using a video to provide only music, but I really didn't want to attempt to share a song I liked using this piece of horse shit as my presentation. What kind of fucking asshole uploads that on YouTube? I'm tellin you. Even reading his profile, he says "i take vids at concerts and upload them so u can watch em for free..yea thats right free". BFD free -- you can't even watch that trash.

It's so easy to find things to write about!

Back to the point though, I also found two other good artists through Joshua Radin that I want to hear more of: Joe Purdy and Brett Dennen. Admittedly, I instantly liked Brett Dennen's sound, but feel like I could warm up to Joe Purdy. That's the thing with music for me lately -- just because I don't instantly love it (like I did Joshua Radin and a bunch of other arists), doesn't mean I won't love it after a second or third listen. You end up hearing things you didn't hear after a second listen and can come to appreciate hidden excellence. Give Ain't No Reason (Brett Dennen) a listen -- don't worry, it's like the polar opposite of Escape the Fate. Plus the video is killer.

Beach Day

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:22:00 EDT

I spent a lovely 4 hours at the beach today with some good friends. Normally I'd call them co-workers, but I really like the people that I work and think that friends describes them a bit better. The weather was absolutely perfect as far as beach weather goes (it was probably in the upper 90s), and even though it's still early in the season, the water is already warming up. We had some pot luck foods along with some Ultimate Frisbee action. I could have stayed until it was dark. Sadly I don't have any pictures, because for some reason I've gotten out of the habit of carrying around my camera. =/

Unfortunately, that's about all I really had time for today. I stayed up late last night watching Along Came Polly (until midnight), and then after that was over I got sucked into A Lot Like Love. Ashton Kutcher does good work, and Amanda Peet is great.

Now I'm debating on whether or not to go out to the grocery store at 9:30 PM on a Sunday so I can have some ice cream and get stuff for lunch tomorrow. Update: I went and now I'm eating some Blueberry Morning before I eat my Breyer's Caramel Praline Crunch. Do yourself a favor and watch the review.

Wedding Class #1

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 22:28:00 EDT

It wasn't so bad really -- the four hours we spent there went by fairly fast. I'm sure we got more out of it than we realize at this point in time. If anything, it was probably mentally draining, because I mean... look at the after-photo.

Something happened to the 450W power supply on my file server. It had been running for almost 4 years non-stop (literally) and earlier this week it was shut off when I came home from work. Pressing the power button would spin it up for a second, but it would die thereafter. I unplugged 2 out of the 7 drives inside from the power and it booted up fine. I'm not exactly sure how power supplies work, but I found that behavior to be very odd. I ordered a cheap 430W replacement ($40) from NewEgg and got it on Friday. I had no problems installing it, and now I'm back up and running. A happy ending!

Pretty Sweet For A Friday

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:44:00 EDT

Sharon and I took a few hours tonight to read through the first two chapters of Before "I Do": Preparing for the Sacrament of Marriage this evening in preparation for our... well, our marriage, but also for the marriage classes we're taking tomorrow. We have to wake up WAY early tomorrow so we can make it to the church, a mile down the street, by 9:00 AM. I'm not looking forward it, but I have accepted that I must do it.

Hey! Sacrifice! That's what marriage is all about, right? I'm pretty smart! Maybe I can test out of the classes? I'll ask them when I get there in the morning.

Guitar Hero

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:26:00 EDT

I bought Guitar Hero III back in January and played the mess out of it. I completed it on Easy, and then Medium, and then Medium Co-Op with Sharon (with me on a normal game controller and her on the guitar), and then I went back and tried to beat it on hard, failing at 80%. At that level, the game just got way too hard and became no fun at all. This was probably back in February or March, and I really haven't played much of any Guitar Hero III since then.

Earlier this week during lunch,I played Guitar Hero II with Chris and found myself really enjoying it. Afterward, I had a real desire to to play through Guitar Hero II and Rock the 80s at home, but Sony apparently doesn't know how to make the old PS2 Guitar Hero games work on PS3 with the new PS3 guitars. It was very disappointing.

What's probably more disappointing is the realization that the fun I had while playing Guitar Hero was attributed to the person I was playing it with. If only I had like... a roommate... you know -- someone that lived with me... that could play games like Guitar Hero or Rock Band with me sometimes. That would be great.

HoeKey

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:51:00 EDT

Hang on, it's going to take a minute to get there..

I started my first real job in 1999 at a place called Gyrus Systems. I worked for Gyrus part-time in 1997 and 1998 (2-3 days a week after school and then remotely at college during the second half of 1998), but I was only doing their web stuff then (the Nexus site was actually backed by a pretty hot Perl script).

In 1999 when I was looking for a summer job, I had an interview at Gyrus for a full time "Programmer Analyst" position. The position required knowledge of Visual Basic v5.0, which I had, but what I knew, I learned myself, and experience with SQL, which at the time I don't even think I had heard of (all my stuff was built around writing data to text files or Putting/Getting data in/out of binary files). I rolled up into the interview with a fairly unimpressive resume and a URL to a web site with a bunch of screen shots. In the interview, I had the guy pull up the web site (which was hosted on my home computer at the time, on some desktop web server whose name I don't recall, but it wasn't PWS or IIS). We ran through the screen shots, which were of applications I had developed, and I described each one (why I made it, how I made it, and what it did). Last year I was delighted to find that directory on a backup CD:

http://home.langdonx.com:8000/archives/1999-06-07_vb_scrn_shots/

I ended up getting the job (obviously), which really was one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It kick started my career and opened many doors. I only worked there for a total of 9 months, but during those 9 months I learned SQL (using Oracle, MS SQL Server, and Sybase SQL Anywhere), I further strengthened by Visual Basic skills, I learned ASP, I learned how to play Foosball, I obliterated the office at Quake II, and I met some really great people. My boss, who is/was probably the greatest boss I've ever had, not only taught me SQL, but also shared with me an awesome application that I've been using since late June of 1999:
WinKey v2.8.

Well, I was using it up until two days ago -- it doesn't exactly work in Vista x64. It actually doesn't work that well in Vista x86, but I was willing to edit registry entries to manually configure when I originally installed Vista in January. Last night I took some time to search for a replacement. I had searched out replacements for WinKey a few months ago, but couldn't come up with anything. Last night, I made a great discovery:

HoeKey v1.13

HoeKey really blows WinKey out of the water and has accelerated my navigational skills with its advanced offerings over WinKey. The author, bCheck, is a truly amazing for coming up with and developing such software. He has other downloads, though none as great as HoeKey. He writes software like I had mentioned I wished I could write -- low level shit that doesn't have awful dependencies like a 100MB CLR. Keep on, bCheck... keep on.

Team Fortress 2 and GameOverlayUI.exe

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:20:00 EDT

Haha, this is going to get old quick..

Last night, after successfully installing all these great applications and making sure that they were fully functional on my 64-bit operating system, my Steam download of Team Fortress 2 was just finishing up. This was really the moment of truth you see, because if my computer can't run games, it's ultimately useless to me.

It got pretty scary at that point though, because as soon as I launched the game it started hanging. Shortly after the hanging, came the crashing. I almost cried a little bit and really thought it was over. I tried again and experienced the same result. I did some Googling and couldn't find any other people discussing similar incompatibilities between Vista x64 and Team Fortress 2. The first two times I had clicked the black screen and immediately got the "This Application is Hung" message, so I decided to give it one last try and not click anything this time around.

Trying it the third time, it ended up in some seemingly endless loop of black screen flickering. I waited as long as I could and then instead of killing the application, I checked Task Manager. I noticed "GameOverlayUI.exe" was running and at first glance, I assumed it was some awful side-effect of using the Vista Aero theme. I killed it immediately and as soon as I alt-tabbed back into Team Fortress 2, all was well again.

Upon further investigation it seems GameOverlayUI.exe is a part of Steam. Steam could be the greatest things to happen to PC Gaming since the development of arcade and console emulators back in the 90s. This is the first time Steam has wronged me -- let's hope it's the last.

The Luke Challenge And The 64-bit OS

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:17:00 EDT

Yesterday when I read the new addition on Luke's blog site, I thought he might be again attempting to publish a new blog article every day for the month of June. Luke tried and succeeded in doing this way back in August of 2004. I coincidentally tried and failed during the same month.

I considered joining him in what I assumed were his efforts, but then decided it would be too difficult. Instead I had planned on just enjoying the fruit of his labors, but now it's 11:15 PM on the 2nd of June and there's nothing new at his web address. So I've come up with my own challenge: I'm going to post every day that Luke doesn't. Come 10:00 PM every day this month, I will check Luke's Uniform Resource Locator and if there is nothing new, I will then post something of my own on my internet destination. So without further ado, here's day 1.

It's a 64-bit world now, and as of tonight, I am totally compatible. What's this mean exactly? Not a whole shit of a lot. You see, I installed Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit earlier this evening. You? You're probably running a 32-bit operating system. Don't worry though, you aren't missing out on anything great. I mean, sure my version Windows boots up twice as fast as yours, my applications run at double the speed yours do, and my internet hypertext markup language streams at speeds your computer isn't even capable of processing. So maybe it does in fact mean a whole shit of a lot. Look on the bright side though: your next operating system will probably be 64-bit and you'll enjoy all the great enhancements I've been enjoying for the past few hours now.

PS: If you didn't get a chance to read the May In Review post, now's your chance!

May In Review

Sat, 31 May 2008 23:26:00 EDT

Can't have a month go past without having written anything, so let me try to sum up what happened in May in a few short and sweet bullet points.

Andrew Ungvarsky was asked to be my best man and he accepted. This technically happened in April, but I hadn't yet announced it, AND it's hot news.

Birds tried to nest all up in the exhaust vent of my downstairs bathroom and I swiftly put a stop to that nonsense.

I went on what was to be the ultimate sailing trip with my father and my brother, but the weather was total shit and ruined our plans for glory. If you were bored, you could view the trip map (follow along on the left), view the trip pictures, and/or view the trip videos. Either way you win.

Attended the wedding of Jeff Elder and Sarah.. uhm.. Elder. I took a pretty great photo at it too.

Had a lovely Memorial Day cookout... at Drew's place. Hehe. Also drank some Bud Light with Lime there, and crushed the womens at some board games.

Played a round of Golf at Ocean View Golf Course with Ben, Alan, and Andy. I played poor on the first 9, but made up for it on the back (57 and 43, for a total of 100 -- should've shot in the 90s).

Watched There Will Be Blood and afterward, drank some people's milkshakes.

Got an awesome recipe for Salmon from my mom and applied it twice in one week. It's incredible -- I should have you over and make it for you.

The person that I spend most of my waking hours with had a little baby boy.

I beat Grand Theft Auto IV (78% completed) and saw both endings. This list is subject to change pending any memory jogging that happens in the few days following the original post date.

GTA IV

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:51:00 EDT

Hahaha, it's so freaking good. I picked it up at twelve-twenty-ish, wished Dave a happy birthday while doing so, and got home around twelve-forty after filling up my car for fifty F-ing bones. The installation process took a good 5-10 minutes, which is just something you come to expect from decent console games these days. After installing it, I tried out the single player game for a good 2 hours (the story is awesome). I tried to play it all cool and drive slowly to my first destination, following all traffic signs, signals, and patterns, but as soon as I got out of the car, I just had to hit somebody. I walked down the street and some old guy was mouthing off at me, so after figuring out how, I popped him one in the face. The cops were not happy with my actions at all, so after pulling their car over and knocking me down with it they arrested me. It took a little bit to get situated with the controls (they're pretty different now).

Around 2:20, I figured I should call it a night, but then I found the multiplayer option (!). I tried to find two deathmatch games, to no avail, so I ended up in a Free Roam game with 2 Mexican dudes who apparently were good friends. We had some fantastic times. The game is seriously amazing.

Chewing Gum Part II

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:42:00 EDT

Would've been an easy 22% if I did it...

Wrigley

To Midnight Release Or Not To . . .

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:41:00 EDT

That's the question... should I go up to Gamestop tonight at midnight and grab Grand Theft Auto IV, or just wait and get it after work tomorrow (and also skip the gym to play it)?

The hype for this game has been incredibly massive. The difference this time though, is that unlike Assassin's Creed or Halo 3, GTA IV is apparently revolutionary. At the time of this writing, it scored 100/100 based on 14 industry reviews according to Metacritic.

Horribly Depressing

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:11:00 EDT

But great anyway... kept me up until 1 AM:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446755/

Quick Update

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:30:00 EDT

There's not enough time in life. It was all I could do to spare 30 minutes out of my busy weekend to write something here so that later on in life, when hopefully time isn't so precious, I'll be able to look back at all the fun things I did.

Sailing Update: It's getting closer! My Dad emailed out the itinerary, so to get a better visual I plugged it into Google Maps (follow along on the left, here is last year's itinerary). I'm really hoping I can avoid getting sick again. I plan on bringing both cameras this time -- my new point and shoot for some casual shots and my D-SLR with Tripod for some more daring shots (we'll see how ballsy I feel when I'm out there).

Kickball: The hot kickball team I'm on, Recess Rejects, won their first game on Thursday. I think the score was 3-1. I'm proud to say that I had absolutely nothing to do with the victory as I only got up to kick once, getting some girl out as a result of my kick, and I only fielded twice without ever touching the ball. I rule.

Ultimate: We've been playing the hell out of some Ultimate (Frisbee) during lunch at work on Fridays and sometimes Thursdays. It's really been a blast -- I didn't expect it to be as fun as it is. There's even been talk of finding a league to play in. I'm posting up pics from our games ~weekly (I don't think I actually took any of them though): http://picasaweb.google.com/langdon

Final Fantasy VII: I bought a PlayStation in 1997 in anticipation of the release of Final Fantasy VII later that year. When it finally came out, I only ever played through the first 10 hours or so and never beat it. This was either because I had a girlfriend at the time or because I was more interested in writing VB3 codes to hack AOL. Either way, I've always wanted to finish it, and so I did just recently. I played it on an emulator and turned on frame skip (fast forward) during the a lot of the scenes. The game said 42 hours, but using the frame skip feature, it probably only took me 25 or so.

Here are some lovely scenes from the final moments of game play: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6

Paramore: I've been listening to Paramore non-stop for the last month. That's all.

Vodka

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:27:00 EDT

My old friend! I've missed you.

<3

Chewing Gum

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:35:00 EDT

Over the past 6-7 years, chewing gum manufacturers have been stepping up their game. Before 2000, it was pretty simple -- you had your Wrigley, which makes almost every popular adult brand you know (Juicy Fruit, Doublemint, Big Red, Extra, Winterfresh, and more), your Trident, and your kid brands (Bazooka, Bubble Yum, Bubblicious, Double Bubble, Hubba Bubba, and Fruit Stripe (my fave)).

The past 7 years have seen crazy advances in gum "technology" with instant-greats like Eclipse, Orbit, and 5 (Wrigley-owned), and also Trident White, Trident Splash (rip off of Freshen Up), and Stride. They've also been much more daring with their flavoring lately with flavors like Extra's Cool Watermelon, Orbit's Mint Mojito, and Trident Splash's Strawberry with Lime. Why just tonight, I picked me up some Tident White Cool Colada... it was spectacular.

I don't know why I'm writing this, or why I spent the last 15 minutes researching gum on the internet. I guess it's just very fascinating to me. I should probably invest in Wrigley tomorrow, seeing as they own most every good brand of chewing gum.

IV Bowled

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 22:47:00 EDT

Forgot to add my scores from the last two bowling sessions...

From March 20th, 63, 88, 138, and 135.
From April 3rd, 128, 169, and 88.

I'm pretty inconsistent. =/

Shit Yea

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:16:00 EDT

It's on:

From May 9th to May 12th, the Oliver boys will be settin' sail in the old Chesapeake Bay. It should be fucking awesome.

PS: I got back from 4 nights in Vegas last week and didn't write shit about it. Shame too because it was seriously in the top 3 vacations I've ever taken. The problem with epic vacations is that it's near impossible sum up their true glory using the words on my blogsite. Sharon and I might need to delay these baby havin' plans for a bit to have more awesome vacations next year with Amber and Drew.

PPS: I tried to speed shit up, but she wasn't havin' it. Awesome photography by Drew.

PPPS: If you ever go to Vegas, you should really do your best to watch out for those shareable monorail tickets. They'll get you every fucking time.

<3 Lindsay Campbell

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:12:00 EST

MobLogic.tv

Also, be sure to watch this one to see what sort of idiotic people live and breed in New York ("CAUSE HE BLACK" and "da supa bowl").

III Bowled

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST

Bowling was nuts tonight -- it was down to the wire at the end. The first game, worth $1, we won (126), the second game, worth $2, we lost (107), the third game, worth $3, we lost again (119), so we played a fourth for $4 to make our money back. We had teams of four, and it all came down to the 10th frame -- we were virtually tied up 560 at the start of the 10th. We pulled out a victory (111) by 10 or 15 points and collected an entire United States dollar.

I bowled my first and second game trying to spin the ball, but the pressure was too much on the latter games so I had to go with a more consistent approach -- the straight bowl. It didn't really work out so well, I basically just sucked after the first 5 frames of the first game.

Also we played Ultimate Frisbee at work today. I didn't really expect it to be, but it was a ton of fun. There was a surprising amount of running involved and as a result was an excellent work out.

Distant Worlds, Rosemont, IL

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:27:00 EST

Sharon and I headed to Rosemont, IL this past weekend. While there, we did a number of things: rented a G35 Sedan and somehow forgot to take a picture of it, stayed at a Westin, went to Medieval Times, took the train into Chicago, ate at Mike Ditka's Restaurant and DRANK FOOTBALL BEER, went up in the Hancock Observatory and saw Chicago, took a death-defying nap, saw a Maseratti, consumed one of the best steaks ever at Morton's The Steakhouse, took the G35 into Chicago and shopped at some rubbish places, turned Sharon onto an awesome game, and lastly ate at a Chili's in Chicago O'Hare.

While all that was fun, the pinnacle of the entire trip was going to the Rosemont Theater to see Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy (pic!).

The concert was amazing. It's the second Nobuo Uematsu/Final Fantasy concert that I've been fortunate enough to attend (the first was in Atlanta in 2005). I failed to post a review in 2005 after seeing the first show (Dear Friends) because I don't have the vocabulary or the creativity to really describe how wonderful the event was. This experience was just as wonderful, during the concert, but even sweeter afterwards because I paid a little extra for the hot-shit tickets that got me a CD of the music (recorded by the Royal Stockholm Philharmoic Orchestra), a super-high quality program book, AND I got to meet Nobuo Uematsu (the composer) and Arnie Roth (the conductor):

I wasn't as starstruck as I suspected I might be, but the experience was definitely enhanced since I was able to meet him, give him my gratitude, get an autograph, and capture the experience digitally ensuring I won't forget it.

I also took some videos of the show. If you can stand the sound quality, enjoy the Terra Theme.

Hottest Song Ever

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:09:00 EST

My sister turned me on to the movie Once a few weeks back. A week after her recommendation, I watched it, and absolutely loved it. Loved it enough to immediately Google the artists, read all about them, and purchase the Once soundtrack and another album, The Swell Season, off Amazon's DRM-Free MP3 Download site (which is also awesome).

The movie was extremely inspiring, uplifting, and a generally wonderful experience. I spent a few nights last week learning how to play (and sing) one of the songs from the movie -- Falling Slowly. I've only performed it for Sharon, who hasn't given me any constructive feedback, which either means I'm god-awful at it (and she's being nice), or just average (and she's got nothing to say).

Anyway, the song won an Academy Award last night... it's all on YouTube, but if you haven't seen the movie, you shouldn't spoil it by watching the video. Kind of like how you shouldn't have listened to Jonathan Coltrane's "Still Alive" if you never played the game -- you get an exponentially more wonderful experience if you experience it after playing the game (or in this case, watching the movie).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pPe-1CBgng

Update: The twats at the Academy Awards apparently don't want videos of their show on YouTube, so I'll just paste the inspiring acceptance speech that I yanked off of the AA's web site:

Glen Hansard:
Thanks! This is amazing. What are we doing here? This is mad. We made this film two years ago. We shot on two Handycams. It took us three weeks to make. We made it for a hundred grand. We never thought we would come into a room like this and be in front of you people. It's been an amazing thing. Thanks for taking this film seriously, all of you. It means a lot to us. Thanks to the Academy, thanks to all the people who've helped us, they know who they are, we don't need to say them. This is amazing. Make art. Make art. Thanks.

Marketa Irglova:
Hi everyone. I just want to thank you so much. This is such a big deal, not only for us, but for all other independent musicians and artists that spend most of their time struggling, and this, the fact that we're standing here tonight, the fact that we're able to hold this, it's just to prove no matter how far out your dreams are, it's possible. And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream and don't give up. And this song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are. And so thank you so much, who helped us along way. Thank you.

II Bowled

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:45:00 EST

First Game: 96 Second Game: 101 Third Game: 104 Fourth Game: 94

I tried out some sweet spin-action this time, since I didn't have any monies to lose. I forget the last game, but I know it was totally under 100. Bowling is hard. =[

Victory for Sony

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 01:28:00 EST

From start to finish.

It's over. Now maybe my fucking SNE shares will go back up to 57 and beyond.

Happy Valentines Day

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:35:00 EST

Happy Valentine's Day to all the girls (and boys) I love.

Snowshoe

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:10:00 EST

Oh yea. I'm heading up to Snowshoe on Thursday night to ski all day Friday, Saturday, and half of Sunday with Sharon and my parents. I am fucking excited. I have been working out my shoulder since early January, so hopefully I won't come back with a torsion story (2000), a dislocation story (2002), a laceration story (2004) or some other awful horror story. I'm also going to bring my 20D this time and hopefully get cooler pictures than I could with my C-700UZ.

Sadly I'll miss a gym session, Thursday night bowling, late night chats and possible WC3 game with Luke Bilger, and a fun lunch with everyone at work. =/

I Bowled

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:01:02 EST

From my memory of my bowling scores, which if you love me, you know is pretty poor:

First Game: 94
Second Game: 130
Third Game: 124
Fourth Game: 145

Happy February!

I Wrote Some C Plus

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:41:00 EST

I wanted a Winamp Plug-in that would tell Skype what I was currently listening to when I was currently listening to stuff. Jeff told showed me one that required I run an entirely separate application and was otherwise very lame. I then decided that I was both talented and intelligent enough to write a plug-in myself that would carry out this simple task. Side Note: The irony of this past sentence is that as soon as I typed "intelligent", I questioned it, and hit spell check to make sure I had gotten it right (I so totally did).

Knowing already that I was going to have to write the plug-in in C++, I started searching the web for some sample codes to change Skype's personal message field (which I later found out was called Mood Text). I fairly quickly found Skype's Developer Zone, and shortly after that, a C++ example. I was able to compile the example and run it with no problems. There was no intellisense help, so it took me a little bit to take the example and figure out ->Set->MoodText() was what I needed.

After that, I grabbed the official Winamp SDK and tried to jump right in to the generic plug-in sample. I couldn't exactly get the thing to build -- mostly because it was written in C -- and I was frustrated at that point, so I gave up.

A few days later I picked it up again and after more searching, I found the Winamp Beta SDK, which contained a working example, but was still written in C. Convinced I could find a working C++ example, I searched more and finally found this thread with a fully working example. I was in business.

On and off over the next two weeks I googled for help a ton, gave up a few times, and struggled a great deal developing what really is an extremely simple routine: get the song Winamp is playing, tell Skype about it, wait 15 seconds, and repeat. I learned a bunch of different things through my struggles:

how to allocate memory

how to free up that allocated memory

exactly what happens when you don't free it up

sizes of different data types

what wide characters are

how much of a bitch trying to cast from different data types is (thanks Tolley)

threading in C++ (thank god for Boost)

different linker and compiler settings

string handling in C++ (thanks Noah)

dll dependencies (thank god for Dependency Walker)

side-by-side assemblies

In the end I was successful. It took me 14 days total to finish it, which is a useless statistic because of how many times I quit and how few hours I was able to put towards the project. It has a bug (my Stopped/Paused detection doesn't work), but I'm using it both at home and at work with great success.

I've always felt like I wasn't a real developer because I wrote/write the majority of my codes in (chronological order) Visual Basic 3, Visual Basic 5, ASP, PHP, and C#. I mean really, any asshole is capable of writing these types of codes. Sure I've written bits of C++, Pascal, Perl, and probably some other rubbish along the way both in and out of school, but not to any extent. Also, I really didn't retain any of it and it was all retarded stuff like the solving the *ultra-complex* 8 queens puzzle! Sometimes I want to code some hard core C++ and feel like I'm actually doing something unique-ish, but the return on investment while writing your C# or your PHP is too great to give up. I need some rich company to pay me 6 figures to write them some serious C++ codes -- I think I'm worth it.

Another side note: I found my one of my first web applications, written in Turbo Pascal back on (or at least deployed back on) December 10th, 1997. Check out them hot-shit codes -- it was nothing more than a comments form (post your name and a comment, and display all comments posted). I've gotten a lot better since then. Honestly.

A Date Is Set!

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:35:00 EST

We've set a date: October 11th, 2008. This will likely become the most important date in my entire life. So I've written it here to aid my forgetfulness.

INSERT INTO BRAIN_MEMORY VALUES ('MOST IMPORTANT DATE EVER', '2008-10-11');

One For The History Books

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:42:00 EST

SHARONX: i wanna play rock band

Happy 2008!

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 03:15:00 EST

Bitches.

Just kidding, you're not bitches. Very hard to believe that it's already January.. these past 3 months have gone by quicker than any set of 3 months I can remember. An unfortunate side effect of staying busy and always having things to do. At least I can say that I haven't complained of boredom since I was a wee lad. It's better to be busy than bored, probably.

I've got some resolutions for 2008... I'm going to buy one of these pull up/chin up bars and excerise at home, more often. I'm fairly confident that all I need to do to stay well fit are (a) pull ups, (b) push ups, (c) running. I may toss in the occasional sit up or squat as well, but we'll see how it goes to start. I figure this will be a lot more convenient than getting to the gym, and there won't be any reoccurring fees.

I also want to find a good piano teacher close to home (on the way home from work, or like 5 minutes from where I live). If I can't find a decent one close, I'll just have to attempt to practice a lot and learn more on my own. Piano is such an extremely desirable and valuable talent to me. I hate that I let it go for the past year+.

That's about it. I hope to see all you bitches in 2008. ;)

Mercedes C230

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:34:00 EST

Sharon and I went to Fort Myers, Florida this weekend for some hot vacation action. We flew out of ORF on Thursday evening, had a brief stop in ATL, and finally landed at RSW around 11:00 PM. We then proceeded to pick up the hottest of rental cars:

the Mercedes C230

It was pretty expensive, but absolutely worth it. It was a joy to drive around for 4 days and almost 700 miles. We drove it to the top of the keys on Friday Night, back on Saturday Night, and all in and around Fort Myers and Sanibel Island. The sweetest features were the variable speed windshield wipers that could tell when and how hard it was raining, and the digital cruise control. Other notable features included the fully electronic seat adjustments, steering wheel radio controls, and automatic ... wait, what the hell am I going on about my rental car for?

I proposed to Sharon on Friday night! And she said yes! Actually she said "well, yea, I guess", but that's at least an affirmative response, right? I'm very excited about moving on and writing the next chapter in our lives. It's a shame I waited so long, but this way, I know she's the perfect fit for me.

We're shooting for August 2008, but that might conflict with another pal's wedding. Preferably, I'd like it to happen on August 10th, so we can share that day with another hot couple, but Sunday isn't the greatest day for weddings.

Until next time.

Workhorse; Slave Driver

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:49:00 EST

Just kidding -- she fluffed out more branches than I did (it's fake), hooked up the mantle with great decorations (not pictured), and put half the balls on the tree (also not pictured).

I was feeling pretty bah-humbug-ish on Saturday morning when we went to set it up, but it turned out to be an enjoyable experience. I wasn't looking forward to hearing any sort of Christmas music, so I started out with an OCRemix playlist much to Sharon's dismay (she didn't complain though <3). I was jamming out to Laser Squad Mission Recalled, and then I remembered the awesome remixed Christmas tunes I've heard in all those wonderful stores at the mall. So I found a suitable one on Amazon: Christmas Remixed: Holiday Classics Re-Grooved. Hit preview on the 2nd track (Happy Holiday).

So those tunes really got me in the holiday mood, and I had this idea to get a time-lapse of the tree set up. Unfortunately, I realized this too late to really pull anything of worth off, but I did it all the same. This pathetic specimin will serve as a reminder for next year to do it right (1 frame every 15-30 seconds from nothing there, to a completed tree).

That's us in the end, dancin' to Joy To The World (track 5), cus da lord done hath cometh.

I'm Getting The Band Back Together

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 17:30:00 EST

I'm such a klepto...

South Park Almost Sold Me

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:16:00 EST

I caught up on some TV tonight with a 4-episode marathon of Scrubs and a single episode of South Park. The South Park episode, entitled Guitar Queer-o, was an extremely well-timed and poignant episode about the release of Guitar Hero III. Feel free to enjoy the best scene from the episode. S'brilliant. Real guitars are for old people.

I had no intention of buying the game, since I already had my fill at work playing Guitar Hero II on PS2 with my pals, but the music they selected in the episode made me really want to go out and buy the game immediately. I was seriously considering it, until I realized that they just selected all of the best tracks from four different Guitar Hero games (I, II, Rock the 80s, and III). They even used one that wasn't ever in a Guitar Hero (Skid Row - I Remember You).

Since I have a PS3, I could just go buy the new game, the whole back catalog, and a new guitar, but I'm not about make a $200 investment on Guitar Hero. So until every song from every Guitar Hero game ever is provided as DLC on PSN (downloadable content on the PlayStation Network) for a nominal fee, I'll just have to learn the solo for Every Rose Has Its Thorn on a real guitar.

Great story right?

Things I'd Do If I Retired

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 23:02:00 EST

I had dinner with my parents and two of their friends a few months back. The topic of retirement came up in conversation since 4 out of the 6 people at the table were actually of the age to retire and only 1 out of 4 of those had actually done so. The lone retiree, my Dad, mentioned how great it was and how free he felt, while the others listed their reasons for not retiring yet. I chimed in with how much I'd absolutely love to retire as soon as possible, and how I'd retire the next day if possible. They were taken aback by my desire to retire so young and inquired about what I'd do exactly if I did retire tomorrow.

That's when some extremely stupid shit came out of my mouth and I pretty much embarassed myself. You see, I'm horrible under pressure. Not that questions coming from my parents and their friends constitute as `pressure`, but the focus was on me to explain myself. Any time the focus is soley on me to do anything, I crack and crumble like a scared kid who just got caught stealing. So then my answer:

Duhh, urrhh, well of course I'd play some video games.

That got some chuckles, which threw me off my train of thought causing me to not be able to come up with anything substantial thereafter. The conversation quickly shifted so that I was never able to redeem myself. Seriously though... play fucking video games? That's all I could come up with? I have way more desires than to simply sit around and play fucking video games all day, every day. Not that I wouldn't play my fair share of games if I did retire, mind you, but I have a lot of other interests in my life.

I've probably thought about that conversation and my pathetic response at least once a week since that dinner. Over the weeks I've remembered all of the things I remember day dreaming about when I considered early retirement over the past few years. My two biggest desires include picking the piano back up (I remember I used to be able to play this, but flawlessly), and learning to read, write, and speak Japanese. Those two items alone would've made me come across a lot better than I did by blurting out "VIDEO GAMES!". I also want to lift weights regularly, improve my photography, get better at golf, find a regular tennis partner, run more, learn how to dance, get better and singing and playing guitar simultaneosly, and most importantly work to improve DPC and bring it to the next level.

So why don't I just do these things while holding down a career? Simple: Doing all these things at the level I want to do them at could fill a few lifetimes. There are only 24 hours in a day, and at best, a mere 5-7 hours in the evening of free time. There is only so much energy one has in a given day to perform, and most of that seems to get used up in the day time during `career` hours. You have to prioritize your interests and personal goals, and unfortunately my available time just doesn't allow me to appease my insatiable appetite for life.

Plus, I'm going to die soon.. so why bother anyway?

Completely off topic, this is my favorite song.

Farewell

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:11:00 EDT

Farewell, I say, because there's a chance that I might die this day. I could die any day this month, actually, due to the curse that has been placed on my condo. The condominium building that I live in has exactly 6 homes within:

 ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ 
| A | B | C | D | E | F |
 ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ���

I live inside of "C", which makes me the next on the list of people to die according to the Final Destination Theory. The original lady, "the curse bringer", who occupied "E" moved in after becoming a widow. Her husband, who was in the Navy, died in a freak and very unexpected accident in November, 2002. A married couple moved into "D" a few years ago after the husband, "victim 1", was stationed for the Army at Fort Story. Just last year in November, the husband died in another freak and very unexpected diving accident.

I gather from all of this that the curse is heading my way. I figure I have 4 years at the most, but since a pattern can't be determined from only 2 instances, I could have less time. It sucks being marked for death, but I have a few ideas on how I can potentially break the curse:

I'm not in the Army or the Navy, but I do work as a contractor for both of them. I could to break this tie and find a new job before death finds me.
Since probably the greatest loss of all is losing a spouse, I could stay single, never get married, and then maybe avoid matching the criteria that death is searching for.
I could move and flee death's grasping grip.

I was reminded of this curse this morning when I woke up and realized that it was suddenly November. Time fucking flies. I was further reminded on the way to work as bus number 616 passed right in front of me.. surely that's a sign?

If I don't make it home tonight, or even to the haircut appointment I have this afternoon, then consider this goodbye.

Portal: Best Game Ever

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:54:00 EDT

Probably not the best game ever, really, but certainly the most refreshingly original and satisfying game I've played in many years. I beat it last week, after roughly 4 hours of play time. Normally you hear a number of complaints following the release of a game that only takes a mere 4 hours to complete, but I feel that it was the perfect length. And perfect difficulty. And they included some achievments, bonus maps, and challenge maps giving you the perfect replayability.

That said, I think I'm done playing it for now. I'm giving up on unlocking all of the achievements, due to the fact that I'm not skilled enough to complete some of the near-impossible challenges they've set out. I'm pleased with what I was able to unlock. What's not shown there are 3/6 challenge maps completed with at least Silver in all three categories. The other 3 maps are retardedly difficult to even consider doing in as little time or steps as possible.

I suck at words and everything above doesn't give the game proper credit. Enjoy this Zero Punctuation Review of The Orange Box. The guy is a genius.

If you're a quitter like me and have already beaten the game, or never plan on playing it, LLCoolDave is the best Portal Gamer ever. Check these two videos: Chamber 18 - Least Portals and Chamber 13 - Least Steps (4).

This one, from another guy is fucking cheap, but effective.. I tried for 5 minutes to do it, but couldn't manage: Chamber 17 - Least Portals (0)

Funny note: At the time I wrote this, I checked my spelling of mere by googling for `mere 4 hours`... the first result? Portal Gameplay to last a mere 4 hours � The Xbox Domain.

Distant Worlds

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:48:00 EDT

I just bought tickets for the March 1st showing in Rosemont Illinois of Distant Worlds: music from Final Fantasy. I'm very very excited! Nobuo Uematsu will be there this time! Sharon's excited too, because we've never been to Chicago -- and while she won't appreciate the Final Fantasy concert as much as I will, she'll enjoy hanging out in Chicago for a long weekend.

We're seated in Section 102, Row F, Seats 1-2. Hopefully these seats will be better than last time, where we couldn't really see the whole orchestra.

I'll probably post here again in March, so until then..

Sailing Trip

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:12:00 EDT

My dad and I chartered a 30 foot sailboat last weekend and sailed it in and around the Chesapeake Bay. I made a map of our route on Google Maps and added notes of our progress:

Father-Son Sailing Trip, September 2007.

The table of contents, if you will, is down the left side. Just click each item and the map will snap in place and you can read about that particular section. Be sure to shift+click any pictures or links you see to open them in a new window (it's annoying if you don't).

Today

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 09:44:00 EDT

Will someone please shut Kanye West the hell up? I'm sick of hearing him spew racism and cry about the terribly difficult life he leads. He's almost worse than Jesse Jackson at this point.

Also, despite my intense hatred for GameStop employees, I'll be heading over to my local store after work to pick up a copy of Heavenly Sword. If you have a chance you should watch the Heavenly Sword Animated Series. It's incredibly well-done and reminds me of Ninjai a bit. I look forward to picking up where the video leaves off, later this evening.

Edit: Turns out when I said I'd be picking up Heavenly Sword "Today", I really meant Thursday the 13th. Phooey.

Boom

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:15:00 EDT

Boom, a new 52-week high for GME. Too bad I got scared last week and sold some shit, missing a nice 13% rebound on AAPL. I need to stop listening to my old-ass bearish co-workers. It was pretty impressive though, I literally sold it at the bottom of this dip... =/

I saw Superbad last night with some pals. I didn't have high expectations, but it really was (in Superbad fashion) fucking hilarious. It was the funniest movie I've seen since Borat, and Wedding Crashers before that.

That's about it I guess. Even though I'm enjoying it, any details of the rest of my life would probably bore you. Not that the first two paragraphs didn't.

Fuck Around, Lose Your House

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:57:00 EDT

This is one fucked up pie graph:

And this is Jim Cramer losing it on National Television: CNBC link. He's a pretty awesome guy, I want to hang out with him.

I'd be very upset if I wasn't already up 20% this year (which is probably more like 10-12% after these past two weeks). The majority of my brokerage account is in AAPL and GME, which I plan to stay in for at least a year.