Bees Are On The What Now?

Eye of Judgment

2007-11-04T08:41:00.000-05:00

I picked up Eye of Judgment for the PS3 yesterday as a bit of a present to myself. So far I have to say it's pretty great. I've only played a few games against the computer (and lost every one) but the dynamics of the game really appeal to me. It doesn't feel like any other CCG I've played and I dont think any of my old "skills" in the genre will help me at all. The game feels much more methodical and conservative. Being aggressive wont necessarily get you anywhere. I look forward to playing online and having my ass handed to me by 10 year olds.

Now to find some cards in this city... I am not optimistic.

Dashcode for the Win

2007-10-28T16:15:00.000-04:00

Dashcode is REALLY nice. I am so impressed - Apple has made writing Dashboard widgets so incredibly painless and intuitive for anyone with even remedial Javascript experience. I just threw together a widget to reset my DNS cache (using /usr/bin/dscacheutil -flushcache) with the click of a button should I notice that it's gone stale. From beginning to end it took a total of about 15 minutes. Amazing.

Let Me Fetch My Nerd Hat For a Moment...

2007-10-28T14:33:00.000-04:00

User grief aside the developer candy that comes with Leopard is fantastic. I've been plowing through the Quartz examples for about an hour now and I feel I could do it for another 11 without getting bored. Custom plugin APIs, iTunes visualizers, Dashboard integration. Very cool.

Yet Another...

2007-10-27T10:21:00.000-04:00

Add to the list: bizarre DNS caching. I can currently telnet to pookzilla.net but I can't reach it in either Firefox or Safari - "cannot find server" my ass.

Leopard

2007-10-27T07:54:00.000-04:00

First blush impression of Leopard: it's a bit disappointing.

The upgrade from Panther to Tiger was a clear winner for me. Lots of new value, relatively few complications (at least for me), and the end result was a clear winner. The value of Leopard isn't so clear to me. The changes to the UI are lateral at best and a serious regression at worst - the transparency and homogeneous folder icons aren't going to help anyone. Flyouts from the Dock are kind of nice but nothing revelatory. Spaces is useless to me without the ability to have different windows from the same app in different desktops. TimeMachine may prove useful if I ever get it to work with an AFS share as I understand it should - so far it wont see any of my shares.

In addition to the features of dubious value, there are the incompatibilities. To list them briefly: some fonts in Firefox show with a black background; Quicksilver freezes constantly (though this may be a version issue); my tablet driver was rejected on the Powerbook; the CiscoVPN driver on the Powerbook may be causing the wifi to drop off at random intervals. Unfortunately the Leopard install deleted the Cisco uninstaller.

For a positive, I've noticed that things feel much snappier. Apps seem to load faster, and the boot sequence feels almost instantaneous.

That's it for the first few hours. Hopefully my opinion improves although once I try and use Eclipse for anything serious I fear it'll only get worse.

A Moment of Weakness

2007-10-05T19:40:00.001-04:00

In a moment of weakness (and exuberance at my new-found storage capacity) I decided to download Eve Online and start up a 14 day trial. Getting it to run under Parallels has it's quirks - unless it's fullscreen you cannot reliably use the mouse. Entering the window results in random mouse locations and you have to very carefully click and move until you get the options you want. Once you're fullscreen things tend to get better, but not always. Sometimes the game starts just fine but others you're greeted to sound but no video. Starting the game tends to fix the issue, however.

As for the game itself I am pretty impressed. The depth of the world seems to be fantastic and compelling. I've gone through the tutorial and I feel like I have a remedial understanding of what I can do in the game but absolutely no sense of the amount of effort it would take to get there. I cant imagine 14 days will be enough to truly grasp this game. Truth be told I'd be better off not liking it - I really dont have the time for it. :)

Super Fast Service

2007-10-04T18:39:00.001-04:00

The lack of available space on the lappy harddrive has become critical - I find myself juggling space and purging every few weeks. I broke down yesterday (late in the day I might add) and ordered a 120 GB Firewire Iomega drive from CompuSmart. Thinking it'd be here next week I thought nothing of it again until the receptionist at work told me she had a package for me. Sure enough, the drive was in my possession barely 17 hours after ordering it. That's some seriously awesome service! I used to buy stuff at CompuSmart all the time when there was a store in the Rideau Center and I was upset when that location closed down. Based on my experience with their online store I will definitely bring my computer business to them from here on out.

Ta Da!

2007-10-02T21:50:00.001-04:00

To the guy who added me on MSN just to let me know that my name was coming up as a high hit in google images: THANK YOU. You've helped restore a bit of faith in the until-now mythical "internet man" (not to be confused with "internet boy" or "internet shitface").

New Radiohead

2007-10-01T08:23:00.001-04:00

With the exception of OK Computer (a bloody masterpiece if there ever was one) I can't rightly call myself a Radiohead fan but I fully intend to buy their new album In Rainbows. What they're doing (letting customers set their own price) is very VERY interesting and I want to support it.

My Heart

2007-09-28T17:42:00.000-04:00

Good god. I just had the scariest moment ever playing a video game. I downloaded the Jericho demo for PS3 and I was about 5 minutes into it. Things had gone rather silent except for the music which had taken a turn for the "holy shit be prepared to die." From above drops... something. It was very Clive Barker-ie at any rate. And I almost crapped my pants.

This shouldn't have been THAT scary but it was. Do you want to know why? At my feet, at the exact same moment, Cthulhu and Jack broke into a cat brawl.

It happened almost 15 minutes ago now and I still feel like I could die from a heart attack at any moment. Good lord.

DoW in Parallels

2007-09-18T19:43:00.000-04:00

A very happy sight indeed:

I haven't played too much (I'm doing the patch fight at the moment) but it would appear I can run this thing with all details set at high. I wasn't expecting that at all.

Cookies

2007-09-13T19:19:00.000-04:00

I've been struggling to replicate my mothers shortbread recipe for about 5 years now. Only recently have I seen any measure of success, however. Despite the fact that I think I've reproduced the tastiness of her cookies I simply don't enjoy them as much. I think I really enjoy getting cookies from my mother because it's something she can still do for me. I don't have a lot of contact with my parents and part of me still wants to feel like a kid in some way. What's more kidlike than enjoying your moms cookies?

Battery Woes

2007-09-06T19:43:00.000-04:00

With the help of a co-workers Powerbook I was able to determine that the problem of my non-charging battery really can be traced back to the battery itself rather than the Powerbook it's been living in. I was really hoping that it was the Powerbook at fault - at least then the problem could be fixed under warranty. Now it looks like I need to dish out $160 for another one of these infernal batteries. It burns me to do it - my luck with batteries has been absolutely terrible. I'm afraid six months from now I'll be posting about how my new battery is garbage and how it's no longer covered by a warranty.

I know it doesn't help anything but every time I receive poor service from Apple (and it happens more often than not - I have no idea where their customer service ratings are coming from) I write up a terse email to Steve Jobs and send it off to sjobs@mac.com. It brings me some small sliver of satisfaction to fantasize about him reading my mail and frowning.

I don't know how readily I'd frown if I slept on a pile of money.

Walkthrough of the new Pad

2007-09-03T10:56:00.001-04:00

Walkthrough of the new pad done this weekend just before we had some guests over for some gaming (and pie! although we forgot to offer the pie to anyone - more pie for us!)

I was a bit pressed for time so I was a few shades off of elegant... but still, the gist remains.

Oblivion

2007-08-26T17:50:00.000-04:00

I picked up Oblivion for the PS3 yesterday. I'm about 4 hours into it and I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far although I don't think it's the darling critics have make it out to be. The framerate stutters worse than any game I've played in years and the core gameplay is somewhat one dimensional. It's other strength (the absurd depth of the experience) is also somewhat of a mixed blessing. I have so many options that I honestly don't have the foggiest clue what I'm capable of doing. Still, it'll be good to have - there is so much content that I should be able to keep myself amused until something else worthwhile comes out for the 'ole waffle iron.

Mmmm Big

2007-08-15T19:14:00.001-04:00

Woah. I just hooked the Macbook Pro up to our 1080p Aquos using the new DVI->HDMI cable I ordered. Developing Quartz compositions for that thing is going to be hella fun.

Macbook

2007-08-12T21:05:00.000-04:00

I now worry that the Macbook is also sick. After running an update that touched Frontrow (and only Frontrow) I found the CPU running hotter than normal without any apparent app to take responsibility for it. I decided to reboot and found that a good deal of my apps would not die. After restarting I found that certain characters in certain apps were not printing. Capital C was particularly susceptible it seemed. I ran TechTools without incident and Clam AV is coming up clean except for one false hit for the Oversized.ZIP virus. Another reboot and the font issue is gone but I'm worried. First my spare drops and now my primary? Lets hope not..

Battery Woes

2007-08-12T16:55:00.000-04:00

I seem to have the worst luck with laptop batteries. The battery for our G4 Powerbook is totally dead and it's not even a year old (being a recall replacement). Near as I can tell this is the scenario that caused this to happen.

We were using it off of AC until it was down to around 15% or so. We then plugged it in (or so we thought) and closed the shell. We came back to it the next day to find that the battery had died and it was no longer sleeping. We jam the AC back in, boot it up, and use it for a bit. We close the lid and come back to it about eight hours later only to find that the battery was still at 0%.

I've gone and done all the recommended fixes. I've reset the power management unit, the pram, walked circles around it in a counterclockwise motion, etc. Nada. Either it's dead or the cradle for it is dead. This wouldn't have been such a big deal a few months ago because we only used it as a stationary media box at that point but I've since handed it over to Lexy so she can have a laptop. My plan to convert her to the cult of Mac has been put on hold until this is resolved. Boourns!

Firefox Go Boom

2007-08-11T07:00:00.001-04:00

I switched to Firefox from Safari some time ago. I wasn't sure about it at first but my "need" for greasemonkey ultimately made it happen. At first I was happy with the switch but lately... man... Firefox 2.0.0.6 crashes on me 6-10 times a day, minimum. I dont want to switch back but at this point I am so frustrated that I may have to.

phew

2007-07-30T17:35:00.000-04:00

We're in the house. It took about twice as long as we had hoped but we're here. Cable has been installed, phone has been installed, and the new TV has arrived.

Can I has rest now?

The Infamous Rogers Service - I Now Understand

2007-07-27T06:29:00.000-04:00

I'm one of those people that's always gotten decent service from Rogers. Their menu system annoys me as it annoys anyone else but actual bad service has been foreign to me.

No longer. Rant on.

Here's my timeline:

~70 Days Ago: I call and after circumnavigating their god-awful voice driven menu systems (something that we should have laws in place to protect against) I managed to talk to someone and get a very rough breakdown of what our services would cost. We wanted to go whole hog - cable, internet, landline - everything, so it was somewhat complex. When we were done he couldn't manage to tell me what our "one bill" would actually be. It was only an estimate. I thanked him for his help, got off the phone, and talked to Lexy about it.
~69 Days Ago: I call back to confirm everything we talked about the previous day and to get it all set up. This part was smooth sailing except of course navigating the voice PBX service. When it came time to talk about landline service I had mentioned we were with Bell and that we'd like to keep our same number. Not a problem, I was assured - when he finished Bell would have a request for transfer of our number in their system and any work they thought they'd have to do would be cancelled.
~50 Days Ago: We buy a big-ass TV which comes with some credit towards our Rogers bill. I again navigate their PBX system and manage to get this discount applied.
14 Days Ago: I get an email saying my Rogers bill is ready for payment. I've had my cell with them for some time so I'm not suprised. However, after logging into their website and checking out my account I found a $22 credit in place of an actual bill. Additionally, a new account was available to me that had the full amount of my cell bill owing. They had shut down my old account and created a new one in its place but never bothered to a) inform me b) apply the credit from the old one to the new one. Another 30 minutes on the phone and the credit was moved. I then went to go pay my bill via my bank website only to find out that Rogers "One Bill" is not a valid bill type. More back and forthing with Rogers and they tell me to add it as a wireless account instead.
3 Days Ago: A call from Rogers to confirm my installation time. How nice, I think!
2 Days Ago: A call from an incredibly unfriendly Rogers associate saying that our installation cannot proceed because Bell wont relinquish the number to them. This woman was just plain MEAN and didn't give a shit. She told me to call Bell and sort it out and that they couldn't proceed until I did. She virtually hung up on me. I get off the phone with her and Lexy calls Bell. Bell assures her that the work order has been cancelled but it may take until Midnight until it's resolved in their systems. I then call Rogers back and let them know it's been sorted out. The guy on the other line surprises me by saying that my installation has been rescheduled for mid-September. I express an OMGWTF sentiment which he laughs at. After a bit of finagling he has it resechedule to the original timeslot.
1 Day Ago: A message is left on our machine confirming and installation date for July 25th. Thinking we'd perhaps stepped into some magical time vortex where Rogers can install cable in the past I once again fight through their voice system to ensure that nothing has gone wrong. By this point I've probably spent over two hours on the phone with Rogers since this entire process has begun and my confidence was quite low. And rightly so! My appointment had been moved to Monday from Saturday! How stupid would I have felt if I had been waiting around for them on Saturday like a sucker? Yet again my paranoia and gut instinct that I was being hosed over paid off. Rogers was insisting that Bell hadn't relinquished the phone number for hand over and that's why it had been pushed back. I told her to look again. After about 10 minutes on hold she comes back and says yes, the number was free after all. I then ask for the installation to be rescheduled back to Saturday where it should've been anyway. This is where she turns into a bloody robot. "No ma'am, the earliest date is Monday." I try several other times and phrasings, each getting increasingly frustrated and vocal. I ask to speak to her boss. I am put on hold for another ten minutes. She comes back and says that he's on a call with another customer but that he'll call me back in 20 minutes.

Guess who didn't call back?

I'm going to have to fight their system again today and yell at some more people. And by this point I will be yelling. Why not? They aren't going to help me. The only possible satisfaction I CAN get is screaming at someone. We don't even have their service yet and we already want to cancel it. We only went with Rogers because Bell wasn't able to offer full-speed DSL at our new address for some inexplicable reason. That doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore. I'm angry enough that switching back seems like a reasonable option.

PS3 Impressions

2007-07-20T13:15:00.001-04:00

Some quick impressions of the downloadable content from the Platystation Store.

Super Rub a Dub

An overly simple puzzle game that shows off some pretty water dynamics and the SIXAXIS controller. It probably should've been free as you dont get a whole lot for your money with this one. Having said that, I can barely pry Lexy away from it. Her curses as of late often involve "duckies." From my perspective it's not worth the purchase but I live with someone who might violently disagree with my assessment.

fl0w

Before playing fl0w I was stressed out, tired, and cranky. Somehow an hour passed in front of the PS3 and I was then relaxed, calm, and well. I can't rightly call it a game but it certainly works as a relaxation aid. There is some similarity to Elektroplankton in the vibe it gives off which can only be a good thing. Worth the purchase for me but probably not for everyone.

Calling All Cars

A free-for-all driving game that feels a lot like RC Pro Am with weapons. It's a great deal of fun but I can only think that'd it'd be more fun with another 3 people on the couch. It feels like a Mario Kart kinda party game who's single player experience is a bit shallow. Worth the purchase if you like entertaining (and elbowing) guests.

Super Stardust HD

Oh nelly, this is a gem. It's a frantic arcade shooter who's playing perspective is a top-down view of a planetoid being pelted by asteroids. There are a zillion things on the screen at any given moment, it's gorgeous, and it took an hour to finally pry it from my hands this morning. Definitely worth the buy. Buy it twice.

Eek

2007-07-15T15:38:00.000-04:00

I am the weak, base creature I always suspected I was.

I now own a PS3.

I didn't buy any games and chose instead to get the free Blue Ray disc (Pirates of the Caribbean). I'm running the system update now to 1.82 and my initial impression is quite favorable. The menu system feels quite robust and some of the options bring a smile to my face - Install Other OS in particular. This, along with seeing standard USB connectors, card slots, and even vanilla (opposed to some PS3 specific connector on the backend) HDMI just feel nice.

Aaron, feel free to mock me at your leisure.

Autobots Wage Their Battles Against Campirates

2007-07-07T22:30:00.000-04:00

Wow. X, Lexy, and I just got back from seeing Transformers. That movie is pure Bay - loud, obnoxious, and it looked like the camera was on elastic bands for the majority of the action shots. In its attempt at being a film it was an utter and total disaster. In its attempt at putting big robots on the screen and having Peter Cullen speak it was a total success. I hope there's a directors cut someday with all of the human-only scenes removed. They could fill in the missing time with Optimus reading a phone book or something.

On a more serious note, after seeing the movie Lexy noticed a sign hanging above one of the garbage cans just outside of the theatre doors. It said that management had the right to search my bags and that by buying a ticket I explicitly agreed to this taking place. Funny, because I don't recall being informed of this bullshittery prior to purchasing my ticket. In fact, those posters were only found in areas you could get to after having successfully shown your ticket to someone. We wanted to take a picture of the sign but figured that might result in our bags being searched. Maybe it would've been safer just to rip one down and take it with us.

Lawyer friends, is this legit? I can understand they'd be able to ask you to leave or to have the police search you under certain circumstances, but claiming that they personally have the right to search your bags? Without telling you before you enter? Where's the consent? The ticket says they can kick you out in exchange for giving you your admittance. This seems reasonable because I'm capable of making an informed decision prior to my entering the theatre but this shit about searching me feels quite different indeed.

Harwii Potter

2007-06-29T18:59:00.000-04:00

Lexy is off to her mothers cottage again for the weekend leaving me home alone. I had a real hankering to watch the Harry Potter films but they've been packed in anticipation of our move. To sate my craving I picked up Order of the Phoenix for Wii. I've put about 2 hours into it so far and I'm enjoying it far more than I should. Hogwarts is bloody MASSIVE and just roaming around and dorking about has been quite fun. Spell casting is a bit of a mixed bag. Outside of combat I can cast any given spell without fail but in combat I often find my gestures going unrecognized. That could simply be the result of me being a bit... animated... when under pressure. The graphics are quite nice (for the Wii) but I find it a bit more dark and brown than I'd like to see overall. It should help me kill the weekend nicely.

Bees Are On The What Now?

Eye of Judgment

Dashcode for the Win

Let Me Fetch My Nerd Hat For a Moment...

Yet Another...

Leopard

A Moment of Weakness

Super Fast Service

Ta Da!

New Radiohead

My Heart

DoW in Parallels

Cookies

Battery Woes

Walkthrough of the new Pad

Oblivion

Mmmm Big

Macbook

Battery Woes

Firefox Go Boom

*phew*

The Infamous Rogers Service - I Now Understand

PS3 Impressions

Eek

Autobots Wage Their Battles Against Campirates

Harwii Potter

phew