If you take the oat, the whole oat, and take off the hull but leave the bran on and don't process it any further, you have a groat. When I eat groats I usually toast them in a little butter then simmer for at least 30 minutes. These are good but chewy and take a while to cook. They're good but take a lot of effort, sort of like brown rice. I hear they're good in haggis too, but I'm far too chicken to try one.
Scotch oats, Irish oats, or pinhead oats are what you get when you take a groat, remove the bran, then send it through steel cutters. These are also called steel cut oats. I love these: toast in butter until they smell nutty, then simmer for a while adding salt and cream at the end. What you get if you do this is a pretty awesome hot porridge which I think is pretty magical--tasty, kinda chewy, with a nice creamy texture even if you don't add dairy.
Take the same groats, remove the bran (usually), then mash 'em flat and you have rolled oats or "old fashioned" oats which is typically what we think of when someone says "oats". You can cook them in the microwave but they've lost the awesome; convenient but iffy. If I have to, this is what I buy when I want oats and can't find any steel cut oats or don't have the time to cook them (say, at work). These are great for things like oatmeal cookies and granola which I almost always make myself because it's a) dirt cheap, b) kinda fun, and c)I have a nut allergy.
"Can you process them more? Well, sure!"--Alton Brown
"Quick oats" are those that are cut, par-cooked, then mashed even flatter. They blow away in a stiff wind. They cook in a tiny fraction of the time, like a couple minutes of nukeage. They don't get nutty. They don't get creamy. They don't, in fact, taste all that good at all, these "instant oats". I'm not sure they're terribly good for much of anything beyond being convenient. I hate these and almost never buy them.
I almost never buy them. In an attempt to eat healthier, I bought a big carton of Quaker Oats. Guess which kind I got.
2007/09/17
2007/09/11
Free Software
I'm always on the lookout for stuff that will make my computing experience better. And Lo! I have found not one, but two such things in times recent.
The first, is paint.net which is a wonderfully full featured image editor. It reminds me a lot of an ancient program I used to use called PhotoFinish crossed with an equally ancient version of Photoshop (3.0). It does layers and has an unlimited command history. Want the source code? BAM. How bout a blog with details of the development and business side? Got that too.
If only I'd known about this before I'd shelled big cashmoney for CSR2. MS Paint quakes in its boots in mortal terror.
The other one is ToDoList which is exactly what you might expect from a program of that name. As it turns out, this kind of thing is pretty rare in the software wild for whatever reason. This one has all manner of sorting and searching and you can set recurring tasks and priorities and all 'a that. It's swank. The only downside is that you'll need codeproject.com logins. Goodness lives here.
I'm using this to track features, bugs, and development of my home projects as well as tasks at work. And for those of you playing buzzword bingo: it stores its files as XML.
The first, is paint.net which is a wonderfully full featured image editor. It reminds me a lot of an ancient program I used to use called PhotoFinish crossed with an equally ancient version of Photoshop (3.0). It does layers and has an unlimited command history. Want the source code? BAM. How bout a blog with details of the development and business side? Got that too.
If only I'd known about this before I'd shelled big cashmoney for CSR2. MS Paint quakes in its boots in mortal terror.
The other one is ToDoList which is exactly what you might expect from a program of that name. As it turns out, this kind of thing is pretty rare in the software wild for whatever reason. This one has all manner of sorting and searching and you can set recurring tasks and priorities and all 'a that. It's swank. The only downside is that you'll need codeproject.com logins. Goodness lives here.
I'm using this to track features, bugs, and development of my home projects as well as tasks at work. And for those of you playing buzzword bingo: it stores its files as XML.
2007/09/04
Beyond the Big Bang
Spacetime. Nuts, isn't it? One thing, not two. You've probably heard of the guy who came up with this.
The History Channel seems to be at the end of it's series
The Universe, which is both fascinating and well written. If you have more than a passing interest in this kind of stuff, I highly recommend this series (yes, I just bought it).
The History Channel seems to be at the end of it's series
The Universe, which is both fascinating and well written. If you have more than a passing interest in this kind of stuff, I highly recommend this series (yes, I just bought it).
2007/08/31
Technology Gone Horribly, Horribly Wrong
From my inbox:
I could be missing something here. I'm not properly caffeinated yet (yeah, it's Friday, give me a break already), but I gotta say: W. T. F.
I got this from Amazon. Amazon?!
I can't make this shit up.
As someone who has purchased or rated books by OpenGL Architecture Review Board, you might like to know that Red Letters: Living a Faith That Bleeds will be released on September 1, 2007. You can pre-order yours at a savings of $2.80 by following the link below.
I could be missing something here. I'm not properly caffeinated yet (yeah, it's Friday, give me a break already), but I gotta say: W. T. F.
I got this from Amazon. Amazon?!
Book DescriptionIn many Bibles, Christ's words are set apart with a red font. It should be obvious, but this distinction helps remind us that when God becomes Man and that Man speaks it's probably something we cannot afford to miss.
I can't make this shit up.
2007/08/09
Elements of Computing Style
Usual disclaimers apply here: I'm not an authority on, well, anything, so take away what you will from any of my postings.
I also fully realize that not everyone is a computer enthusiast of the same 7th dan that I am. I always expect to have specialized machines around to do whatever nefarious bidding I require and use specialization as a reason (excuse if you prefer) to have a bunch of machines around. So with that as a setup, I have to say that I vastly prefer small laptops. Or notebooks. Some people prefer "notebooks". Feel free to do the appropriate mental substitution. There's just something magnificent about a machine that you can take with you.
Aeronauts, Unite!
One Andy Carra is particularly more responsible for my views on laptops than most. He introduced me to this machine. Yeah, I know that it's far more en vogue to use a pop can for scale but, I, um, didn't have one. Luckily, MacGuyver isn't my patron saint for nothin'.
This was before I really understood hardware or how to make it go. The Compaq Contura Aero is a 486sx 33MHz with a base 4MB of memory expandable to 20MB (max). It came with a 170MB or so hard drive, a proprietary PCMCI floppy drive, and a 7.8" 640x480 16 color passive display LCD. It weighs in at about 4 pounds with a footprint of 10.25" x 7.5" x 1.5". It's a thing of beauty.
It's surprisingly solid for such a small machine with a plastic shell. The trackball is tiny but still manages to be usable. The screen is compact but still readable. It has no internal fan so it's completely silent beyond the hard drive and the clicking of the keys. When you use it for a while and it starts to get warm, it has a very distinct odor--not an unpleasant one, but also not one that you'd expect to come from a computer. Most of the other Compaqs that I've encountered over the years have been junk, so I usually refer to the Aero as the "Greatest of the Compaqs". I don't think you can sum up in words what all makes the Aero cool, but if you sit down to use one, you know right away that it's a quality machine.
I bought one and modded it. It should be noted that the guts of the Aero were never intended to be mucked with by mere mortals. At some point I broke the infamous right hinge. For a short while anyway, I held the record for the biggest hard drive ever put into the tiny Aero (6GB circa about Y2K). I can't be mad at the guy who beat my "record" since he put up a kick-ass site about the Aero.
I still have this machine and it still works. It currently dual boots Win95 OSR2 and OpenBSD 2.8 (I think). Watch this space! for future hackeries with this, one of my favoritest machines.
Dark Sony Days
My first laptop was a godawfully heavy 13.3" Toshiba Satellite which I bought in grad school. It was (roughly) 12 pounds which doens't sound heavy unless you need to carry it around all day and with textbooks. With the right clutch of my Aero out and sans a battery that could run it for more than 15 minutes, I really really wanted another machine that I could take with me. At the time, and I did my homework for this one, the Thinkpads and the Vaios were the big names in subnotebooks. I bought a Vaio and it served me well. Specifically, a PCG R505DL boasting an at the time impressive 1GHz P3, 30GB hard drive, and 384MB of main memory. It's got a 12.1" 1024x768 passive display and sans docking station, weighs in at roughly 3 pounds.
This Vaio is a lot larger than the Aero but at the time, I don't think that Sony sold a smaller one (10" screen) with the appropriate power for a reasonable sum. It's a very full featured machine with a single PCMCIA slot, a DVD/CDRW, a floppy drive, built in Ethernet, a couple USB ports, and a Sony memory stick slot that I've used exactly twice in seven years. The dock and battery can be hotswapped in Windows if you're so inclined.
For as sleek and thin as the machine is, it's amazingly solid. The corners don't give, and you don't have to baby it to move it around. The base with all its ports is nice for folks who want to leave the optional bits hooked up to a workstation and take the machine for strolls. The base itself isn't terribly heavy so if you want to take the entire thing on a trip, it's not a big deal. The keyboard is compact but not too tiny to type on effectively and has a really nice feel. As an interesting data point to that effect, I think I've written more code on my Vaio than on any other machine I've ever owned including two engines and probabaly seven games/prototypes/tech demos.
It's a good machine, and I'm a little sad to be retiring it. Except that it means I have a new machine.
Humanizing Technology
With the sale of my house in Wisconsin, and a burning desire to buy something cool, I bought one of these. It's 10.6" x 7.5" x 0.9" with an 11.1" 1366x768 display and weighs in at less than 4 pounds. It's a low voltage core 2 duo and currently has 1GB of ram and a 120GB hard drive. The memory upgrade is already on the way though I suspect it'll be a while before I try to replace the drive (solid state drives need to come down in price a bunch).
Now, I'll be the first one to say that I was skeptical about the leather binding thing as well as Asus' current marketing campaign, but I have to say that the S6Fm is a high quality machine and it really wouldn't seem as cool without it. They really went out of their way to make it exceptional and that's something I can definitely appreciate.
Given that there are exactly two machines that fit my specifications available right now, I think I made the right choice. I thought that the price was high until I received it and found that with the machine I also got:
- a high capacity battery in addition to the normal one
- a matching optical mouse
- a mess of accessories which are by no means necessary, but definitely very thoughtful of them to have included
It's light, solid, and reasonably powerful for its size. Everything is built in and modern. I've got very few complaints. Course, I did just buy it and I haven't really had a lot of time to get used to it either, but I'm happy to have found an appropriate spiritual successor to my beloved Aero.
I also fully realize that not everyone is a computer enthusiast of the same 7th dan that I am. I always expect to have specialized machines around to do whatever nefarious bidding I require and use specialization as a reason (excuse if you prefer) to have a bunch of machines around. So with that as a setup, I have to say that I vastly prefer small laptops. Or notebooks. Some people prefer "notebooks". Feel free to do the appropriate mental substitution. There's just something magnificent about a machine that you can take with you.
Aeronauts, Unite!
One Andy Carra is particularly more responsible for my views on laptops than most. He introduced me to this machine. Yeah, I know that it's far more en vogue to use a pop can for scale but, I, um, didn't have one. Luckily, MacGuyver isn't my patron saint for nothin'.
This was before I really understood hardware or how to make it go. The Compaq Contura Aero is a 486sx 33MHz with a base 4MB of memory expandable to 20MB (max). It came with a 170MB or so hard drive, a proprietary PCMCI floppy drive, and a 7.8" 640x480 16 color passive display LCD. It weighs in at about 4 pounds with a footprint of 10.25" x 7.5" x 1.5". It's a thing of beauty.
It's surprisingly solid for such a small machine with a plastic shell. The trackball is tiny but still manages to be usable. The screen is compact but still readable. It has no internal fan so it's completely silent beyond the hard drive and the clicking of the keys. When you use it for a while and it starts to get warm, it has a very distinct odor--not an unpleasant one, but also not one that you'd expect to come from a computer. Most of the other Compaqs that I've encountered over the years have been junk, so I usually refer to the Aero as the "Greatest of the Compaqs". I don't think you can sum up in words what all makes the Aero cool, but if you sit down to use one, you know right away that it's a quality machine.
I bought one and modded it. It should be noted that the guts of the Aero were never intended to be mucked with by mere mortals. At some point I broke the infamous right hinge. For a short while anyway, I held the record for the biggest hard drive ever put into the tiny Aero (6GB circa about Y2K). I can't be mad at the guy who beat my "record" since he put up a kick-ass site about the Aero.
I still have this machine and it still works. It currently dual boots Win95 OSR2 and OpenBSD 2.8 (I think). Watch this space! for future hackeries with this, one of my favoritest machines.
Dark Sony Days
My first laptop was a godawfully heavy 13.3" Toshiba Satellite which I bought in grad school. It was (roughly) 12 pounds which doens't sound heavy unless you need to carry it around all day and with textbooks. With the right clutch of my Aero out and sans a battery that could run it for more than 15 minutes, I really really wanted another machine that I could take with me. At the time, and I did my homework for this one, the Thinkpads and the Vaios were the big names in subnotebooks. I bought a Vaio and it served me well. Specifically, a PCG R505DL boasting an at the time impressive 1GHz P3, 30GB hard drive, and 384MB of main memory. It's got a 12.1" 1024x768 passive display and sans docking station, weighs in at roughly 3 pounds.
This Vaio is a lot larger than the Aero but at the time, I don't think that Sony sold a smaller one (10" screen) with the appropriate power for a reasonable sum. It's a very full featured machine with a single PCMCIA slot, a DVD/CDRW, a floppy drive, built in Ethernet, a couple USB ports, and a Sony memory stick slot that I've used exactly twice in seven years. The dock and battery can be hotswapped in Windows if you're so inclined.
For as sleek and thin as the machine is, it's amazingly solid. The corners don't give, and you don't have to baby it to move it around. The base with all its ports is nice for folks who want to leave the optional bits hooked up to a workstation and take the machine for strolls. The base itself isn't terribly heavy so if you want to take the entire thing on a trip, it's not a big deal. The keyboard is compact but not too tiny to type on effectively and has a really nice feel. As an interesting data point to that effect, I think I've written more code on my Vaio than on any other machine I've ever owned including two engines and probabaly seven games/prototypes/tech demos.
It's a good machine, and I'm a little sad to be retiring it. Except that it means I have a new machine.
Humanizing Technology
With the sale of my house in Wisconsin, and a burning desire to buy something cool, I bought one of these. It's 10.6" x 7.5" x 0.9" with an 11.1" 1366x768 display and weighs in at less than 4 pounds. It's a low voltage core 2 duo and currently has 1GB of ram and a 120GB hard drive. The memory upgrade is already on the way though I suspect it'll be a while before I try to replace the drive (solid state drives need to come down in price a bunch).
Now, I'll be the first one to say that I was skeptical about the leather binding thing as well as Asus' current marketing campaign, but I have to say that the S6Fm is a high quality machine and it really wouldn't seem as cool without it. They really went out of their way to make it exceptional and that's something I can definitely appreciate.
Given that there are exactly two machines that fit my specifications available right now, I think I made the right choice. I thought that the price was high until I received it and found that with the machine I also got:
- a high capacity battery in addition to the normal one
- a matching optical mouse
- a mess of accessories which are by no means necessary, but definitely very thoughtful of them to have included
It's light, solid, and reasonably powerful for its size. Everything is built in and modern. I've got very few complaints. Course, I did just buy it and I haven't really had a lot of time to get used to it either, but I'm happy to have found an appropriate spiritual successor to my beloved Aero.
2007/08/01
One House Off the Market
In a stunning display of complete and utter ineptitude, my house is now officially off the market. I'll save up the ranty goodness for another day because right now, I hold in my hands a check the size of which I've only seen once (not coincidentally, when I sold my last home).
Like any good geek coming into a pile of money, visions such as these now fill my every waking moment.
Like any good geek coming into a pile of money, visions such as these now fill my every waking moment.
2007/07/26
Hack: Impossible?
[insert theme music here]
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to hack the following upgrade card into a workable machine sizing less than a breadbox and drawing under 50 watts of power at idle. Said machine should be capable of running OpenBSD 4.1 as a server or WinXP.
The target: one Powerleap upgrade card. Model: PL-Renaissance/R370S fitted with a 256MB stick of PC-133 SDRAM and an Intel 733MHz Pentium III Coppermine processor.
You have as much time as you need and a budget of $200. Beyond that, you may scrounge for parts around your workshop.
Good luck.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to hack the following upgrade card into a workable machine sizing less than a breadbox and drawing under 50 watts of power at idle. Said machine should be capable of running OpenBSD 4.1 as a server or WinXP.
The target: one Powerleap upgrade card. Model: PL-Renaissance/R370S fitted with a 256MB stick of PC-133 SDRAM and an Intel 733MHz Pentium III Coppermine processor.
You have as much time as you need and a budget of $200. Beyond that, you may scrounge for parts around your workshop.
Good luck.
2007/07/17
Old Hardware
Most of the people who read here know me well enough that this isn't a surprise, but for everyone else out there: I have a problem with obsolete computer hardware.
The problem is that I seem to accumulate it at an alarming rate (i.e., greater than zero) and have a real hard time getting rid of it. Currently I own seventeen machines in various states of disrepair. The vast majority of those are functioning but without a real purpose. I never take a machine that I don't intend to use for some purpose of varying nefariousness and while I did use most of them, most of those uses are no longer necessary. That makes me sad, not in the least because I get bitten by the "must have new hardware" bug about every four months.
I don't think there's anything that depreciates in value quite like computer hardware except maybe automobiles and my stock options. Computer equipment just doesn't die that often if you take care of it. Oh sure, you'll have a hard drive or two die but for most parts just don't stop doin' they thang. Some of my (vast) collection I still have uses for but that leaves about a dozen machines I need to offload.
This is where y'all come in. I need help getting rid of these but I'm particular about where they should go. I don't want them in a landfill; I want them in the hands of someone who will put them to use doing whatever or at the very least recycled. So if you know of a good or even slightly disfunctional home that could use an old machine or three, drop me a line.
The problem is that I seem to accumulate it at an alarming rate (i.e., greater than zero) and have a real hard time getting rid of it. Currently I own seventeen machines in various states of disrepair. The vast majority of those are functioning but without a real purpose. I never take a machine that I don't intend to use for some purpose of varying nefariousness and while I did use most of them, most of those uses are no longer necessary. That makes me sad, not in the least because I get bitten by the "must have new hardware" bug about every four months.
I don't think there's anything that depreciates in value quite like computer hardware except maybe automobiles and my stock options. Computer equipment just doesn't die that often if you take care of it. Oh sure, you'll have a hard drive or two die but for most parts just don't stop doin' they thang. Some of my (vast) collection I still have uses for but that leaves about a dozen machines I need to offload.
This is where y'all come in. I need help getting rid of these but I'm particular about where they should go. I don't want them in a landfill; I want them in the hands of someone who will put them to use doing whatever or at the very least recycled. So if you know of a good or even slightly disfunctional home that could use an old machine or three, drop me a line.
2007/07/11
Betterer Followup
Don't try this at home. Make sure you download the full version (about 30 megs) rather than just watching the preview.
And if you absolutely must watch it in crappy low rez, well, I feel for ya, but here ya go. You won't get a lot of the more subtle effects; just sayin'.
No hobbits were harmed in the making of this film.
And if you absolutely must watch it in crappy low rez, well, I feel for ya, but here ya go. You won't get a lot of the more subtle effects; just sayin'.
No hobbits were harmed in the making of this film.
2007/07/02
Bad Followup
As it turns out, I've been kind of busy lately, but not with anything that could have prevented me from posting something meaningful here. I just didn't know how to follow the last one. So here's a whirlwind update of what's gone on in the last two months.
Stuff:
- Looks like I'm finally selling my house in Madison
- I'm finally able to exercise my Activision stock options
- Got my fast machine in a proper case
- Playing Civ IV (for obvious reasons)
- Played Vanguard
- Played LOTRO
The last two are deserving of posts of their own which I'll leave for another day. The first two mean I don't have to eat ramen and mac&cheese every day (assuming all goes well, anyway).
Also: tasteh.
That is all.
Stuff:
- Looks like I'm finally selling my house in Madison
- I'm finally able to exercise my Activision stock options
- Got my fast machine in a proper case
- Playing Civ IV (for obvious reasons)
- Played Vanguard
- Played LOTRO
The last two are deserving of posts of their own which I'll leave for another day. The first two mean I don't have to eat ramen and mac&cheese every day (assuming all goes well, anyway).
Also: tasteh.
That is all.
2007/05/03
Thoughts of WoW
If you don't like long posts, you can stop reading now. It might get a little sappy in here: you have been warned.
I'm in the process of fixing, reinstalling, rearranging, etc. all my machines. On this particular machine (laptop) I found the WoW videos I'd downloaded seemingly ages ago. In the process of going through them deciding which to keep and which to toss, my thoughts were again drawn to far away Azeroth.
I played nigh unto religiously for a really, really long time but only now many months after calling it quits have I finally come to terms with it. At one point I changed servers to Greymane with a few good friends. We were kind of fed up with all the BS that goes along with dealing with people and just wanted to have fun again. At some point we got into PvP and did a whole lot of it.
This time around, I played a mage which is pretty atypical of me; I usually play tanks or healers and had just come off a year gig as a paladin (yeah, sorry). For those who haven't played WoW, mages can be kind of squishy and for a good spell in the 30s and 40s brackets, I had been having kind of crappy luck and really seriously considered rerolling or finally quitting for good. I mean, shit, it had been a year and a half and it's not like I didn't get my money's worth.
I don't remember where I found it (probably the uber-useless mage boards) but I found this video and everything changed. Cliche, but true. I mean, jeez, that guy rocked. He has some serious gear to be sure, and a build that's all about making highlight reels, but still--daaamn. I figured I'd never see that kind of gear ever (I was wrong) but if you could do that, then it was something to shoot for; something far beyond the doom and gloom of the mage boards.
I respecced, busted up to 49 and we hung out there for a good couple months and went pretty much undefeated. I even made a PvP video (I'd link it here, but FileFront isn't playing nice this evening). We met a lot of great people and had a mess of fun. And little did I know it at the time, but that was the platform upon which the rest of our success would be built.
Me, Zura, and Vain were the last of the few that came from our previous server. If you look close, it's us three and a couple others in group 2. Despite my rantings and ravings and general malaise, they stuck with me (for better, I'd say). We did a lot of awesome things and got a lot further than anyone thought we would, myself included. These were the folks I counted on to stay sane when nothing was going right (pretty frequently, as I remember) and who sadly took most of the brunt of my bad calls (of which there were many).
This particular shot was just as we'd gotten some success in raiding; before it got too busy to PvP often. This was the second match we'd won after I dinged Exalted with the Defilers so I was sportin' some nice shoulders and an Ironbark: some of my first epics. Greymane was pretty godawfully one sided; if you smacked an alliance weenie real good, they'd just about rain epics like a goddamn pinata. It was terribly frustrating to lose because they had better gear which made our wins over such teams that much more satisfying. For months I'm sure I grated on folks nerves with: "What are those chumps gonna do when we start gettin' epics?" The above screenie contains the answer.
This is me and Hypo kicking ass in AV. The thing to realize is that even though the horde in general had better PvPers, they almost never showed up to AV once they got their shineys and the alliance (in general) had way better gear. The end result is that we lost a lot--but we looked damn fine doing it. I owe the top part of whatever skill I had to Hypo since he always pushed me to play better than I really could. He's an uber mage; probably the best I ever played with. Favorite story: at one point he respecced to fire like I was when we were working through MC to up our raid DPS.
This is probably one of my favorite raid shots. We had our raid firsts of Ragnaros and Onyxia pretty close together which established our position of prominence on our server. What you can't see in that shot is how we struggled through personnel issues when we couldn't get 30 people together to do a big raid or doing Lucifron shorthanded with only two priests (sorry, but you kind of have to know that encounter for the significance of that to sink in). You don't see the hours of frustration as we wiped due to server lag or just plain bad luck or the infighting that eventually drove the group to split up after I'd gone. You don't see the blood sweat and tears that went into the organization or the flak that we took for "just a game".
In the end, you don't see a lot of things in that shot, but that's the HRG I remember, the one I led: mature, determined, unstoppable.
My days as a mage came and went--memories that I might not have had if I hadn't found that one video. I met a lot of great people, many of whom I'm still in touch with today. Maybe Azeroth isn't as far away as I thought.
I'm in the process of fixing, reinstalling, rearranging, etc. all my machines. On this particular machine (laptop) I found the WoW videos I'd downloaded seemingly ages ago. In the process of going through them deciding which to keep and which to toss, my thoughts were again drawn to far away Azeroth.
I played nigh unto religiously for a really, really long time but only now many months after calling it quits have I finally come to terms with it. At one point I changed servers to Greymane with a few good friends. We were kind of fed up with all the BS that goes along with dealing with people and just wanted to have fun again. At some point we got into PvP and did a whole lot of it.
This time around, I played a mage which is pretty atypical of me; I usually play tanks or healers and had just come off a year gig as a paladin (yeah, sorry). For those who haven't played WoW, mages can be kind of squishy and for a good spell in the 30s and 40s brackets, I had been having kind of crappy luck and really seriously considered rerolling or finally quitting for good. I mean, shit, it had been a year and a half and it's not like I didn't get my money's worth.
I don't remember where I found it (probably the uber-useless mage boards) but I found this video and everything changed. Cliche, but true. I mean, jeez, that guy rocked. He has some serious gear to be sure, and a build that's all about making highlight reels, but still--daaamn. I figured I'd never see that kind of gear ever (I was wrong) but if you could do that, then it was something to shoot for; something far beyond the doom and gloom of the mage boards.
I respecced, busted up to 49 and we hung out there for a good couple months and went pretty much undefeated. I even made a PvP video (I'd link it here, but FileFront isn't playing nice this evening). We met a lot of great people and had a mess of fun. And little did I know it at the time, but that was the platform upon which the rest of our success would be built.
Me, Zura, and Vain were the last of the few that came from our previous server. If you look close, it's us three and a couple others in group 2. Despite my rantings and ravings and general malaise, they stuck with me (for better, I'd say). We did a lot of awesome things and got a lot further than anyone thought we would, myself included. These were the folks I counted on to stay sane when nothing was going right (pretty frequently, as I remember) and who sadly took most of the brunt of my bad calls (of which there were many).
This particular shot was just as we'd gotten some success in raiding; before it got too busy to PvP often. This was the second match we'd won after I dinged Exalted with the Defilers so I was sportin' some nice shoulders and an Ironbark: some of my first epics. Greymane was pretty godawfully one sided; if you smacked an alliance weenie real good, they'd just about rain epics like a goddamn pinata. It was terribly frustrating to lose because they had better gear which made our wins over such teams that much more satisfying. For months I'm sure I grated on folks nerves with: "What are those chumps gonna do when we start gettin' epics?" The above screenie contains the answer.
This is me and Hypo kicking ass in AV. The thing to realize is that even though the horde in general had better PvPers, they almost never showed up to AV once they got their shineys and the alliance (in general) had way better gear. The end result is that we lost a lot--but we looked damn fine doing it. I owe the top part of whatever skill I had to Hypo since he always pushed me to play better than I really could. He's an uber mage; probably the best I ever played with. Favorite story: at one point he respecced to fire like I was when we were working through MC to up our raid DPS.
This is probably one of my favorite raid shots. We had our raid firsts of Ragnaros and Onyxia pretty close together which established our position of prominence on our server. What you can't see in that shot is how we struggled through personnel issues when we couldn't get 30 people together to do a big raid or doing Lucifron shorthanded with only two priests (sorry, but you kind of have to know that encounter for the significance of that to sink in). You don't see the hours of frustration as we wiped due to server lag or just plain bad luck or the infighting that eventually drove the group to split up after I'd gone. You don't see the blood sweat and tears that went into the organization or the flak that we took for "just a game".
In the end, you don't see a lot of things in that shot, but that's the HRG I remember, the one I led: mature, determined, unstoppable.
My days as a mage came and went--memories that I might not have had if I hadn't found that one video. I met a lot of great people, many of whom I'm still in touch with today. Maybe Azeroth isn't as far away as I thought.
2007/05/02
2007/04/29
Hazards of the Infrequent
A long (long) time ago, I did 3D modelling. It was a long forgotten day when my 386 with its 16MB of system memory and 4.2GB of disk was a serious amount of computing power.
By today's standards it's pretty weak, but in a day when hardware acceleration hadn't quite reached consumers it was pretty awesome.
Hazard: I have these stored in RD4 format (I upgraded). Nothing in the modern era seems to be able read these files. God knows that even if I had an install disk for the program that made those that it'd be a miracle to get a machine together that will even run it.
The good news: the files are in ASCII. The bad news: the format was written by a "real programmer" and is unintelligible. Yeah. Awesome.
Sooo....my options are looking like:
fiddle through the data to try to piece together the geometry
keep looking for something that can import them
rebuild the models from the source sketches assuming I can find them
Woo.
By today's standards it's pretty weak, but in a day when hardware acceleration hadn't quite reached consumers it was pretty awesome.
Hazard: I have these stored in RD4 format (I upgraded). Nothing in the modern era seems to be able read these files. God knows that even if I had an install disk for the program that made those that it'd be a miracle to get a machine together that will even run it.
The good news: the files are in ASCII. The bad news: the format was written by a "real programmer" and is unintelligible. Yeah. Awesome.
Sooo....my options are looking like:
Woo.
2007/04/19
Half a Rant
I got a package today. This has learned me four things:
- the mail carrier chick is hot
- either my angry calls to the post office or my judiciously applied handwritten nametag worked
- my doorbell also works (didn't know I had one, the random assortment of pizza doods that have been here always knock)
- my legos are no longer lost in the mail
That would be all except for my half a rant.
I spent two days trying to get Linux installed on a spare machine to be a) a non-windows platform to cross compile on, b) an always on place I can drop the multitude of files I want to keep, c) an X server I can break (no X on my firwall). Gentoo did not play nice. This morning after many hours of not being able to get xorg and fluxbox installed properly, I got pissed off and installed OpenBSD instead. It was installed with X before lunch with xorg and fluxbox no less.
Gentoo definitely seemed cool after about an eight year hiatus from anything Linux. If I cared more about the operating system, I probably could have spent another couple days getting it to work. Then I realized that I'm old and cranky and have got better things to do and...hey! Durn kids! Get off my lawn!
- the mail carrier chick is hot
- either my angry calls to the post office or my judiciously applied handwritten nametag worked
- my doorbell also works (didn't know I had one, the random assortment of pizza doods that have been here always knock)
- my legos are no longer lost in the mail
That would be all except for my half a rant.
I spent two days trying to get Linux installed on a spare machine to be a) a non-windows platform to cross compile on, b) an always on place I can drop the multitude of files I want to keep, c) an X server I can break (no X on my firwall). Gentoo did not play nice. This morning after many hours of not being able to get xorg and fluxbox installed properly, I got pissed off and installed OpenBSD instead. It was installed with X before lunch with xorg and fluxbox no less.
Gentoo definitely seemed cool after about an eight year hiatus from anything Linux. If I cared more about the operating system, I probably could have spent another couple days getting it to work. Then I realized that I'm old and cranky and have got better things to do and...hey! Durn kids! Get off my lawn!
2007/04/18
Adventures With Legos, Part 1
This one is dedicated to Mr. Brian's weiner cat who sadly can't play with legos due to a distinct lack of opposable thumbs.
Step 1: Pretend to be able to draw with any kind of perspective (yes, the torso part was hacked from a different scan to save your eyes some pain).
Step 2: Get drunk off your rocker and watch TV for five days straight in a pile of legos. Kids: get your parents' permission first!
Step 3: Build:
Depending on which one you saw first and/or your particular loyalties to the respective brands, this is either:
RFL3N-Rifleman from Classic Battletech
==OR==
Raidar X Battloid from Robotech
==OR==
ADR-04-Mk.X Destroid Defender from Macross
I swear that I've run across a blurb about how FASA settled in court with the Macross doods on Classic Battletech but for the life of me, I can't find it now.
Action pose!
And just in case you think I'm way out there, this dood will actually sell you a lego mech.
Step 1: Pretend to be able to draw with any kind of perspective (yes, the torso part was hacked from a different scan to save your eyes some pain).
Step 2: Get drunk off your rocker and watch TV for five days straight in a pile of legos. Kids: get your parents' permission first!
Step 3: Build:
Depending on which one you saw first and/or your particular loyalties to the respective brands, this is either:
RFL3N-Rifleman from Classic Battletech
==OR==
Raidar X Battloid from Robotech
==OR==
ADR-04-Mk.X Destroid Defender from Macross
I swear that I've run across a blurb about how FASA settled in court with the Macross doods on Classic Battletech but for the life of me, I can't find it now.
Action pose!
And just in case you think I'm way out there, this dood will actually sell you a lego mech.
2007/04/06
Stupid Ebay Tricks
A sane person might think that paying rent in one state, mortgage in another, and being out of work for the better part of a month would prevent me from buying crap on Ebay.
Ebay is evil; that is all.
Ebay is evil; that is all.
2007/04/02
Now Reporting LIVE From Maryland
For those wondering: I did indeed make it though not in record time. That said, I'm pretty glad I took two days to make the trip with a totally loaded car than just doing it in one.
Since arriving in town late afternoon yesterday I've scouted out the appropriate places:
- an appropriate establishment to buy beer
- a place I can get food
- the local EB Games
- Chipotle
The cable doods were here this afternoon and I've appropriated one 72"x30" folding table and a folding chair on the cheap so it's almost like civilization again.
Since arriving in town late afternoon yesterday I've scouted out the appropriate places:
- an appropriate establishment to buy beer
- a place I can get food
- the local EB Games
- Chipotle
The cable doods were here this afternoon and I've appropriated one 72"x30" folding table and a folding chair on the cheap so it's almost like civilization again.
2007/03/29
I Hate Moving
So Monday they came and took most of my stuff. That means I have no chairs or tables which means that I've been either sitting on the floor or standing for the last five days (ow). Even worse yet, today the carpet cleaner guys came and things won't be dry until sometime tomorrow. So now I can't even sit on the carpet anymore and I've had to relocate my sleeping accomodations to the kitchen (hey, it was either that or the bathroom).
Fun. And by that I mean "not".
I'm so buying furniture when I get the keys.
Fun. And by that I mean "not".
I'm so buying furniture when I get the keys.
2007/03/25
Moving Miscalculation
Today the movers came and got all of the stuff that I won't be tossing, putting in storage, or taking in my tiny little car. The house is now mostly devoid of anything but dirt, spiders, and cobwebs--perfect for the kind of cleaning that I need to do (well, minus the spiders anyway). The bad part, the miscalculation from the title, is that I have neither a proper desk, nor a proper chair, and my microwave is now on a semi bound for Florida. I have no idea why Florida is on the way to Maryland but hey, I don't drive a truck either.
So I can't really warm things up to eat without firing up the stove and my back is rapidly cramping thanks to the contortion that I'm doing to type and see the screen.
I had a grand plan of cleaning and playing a few days of Supreme Commander. The cleaning part is sadly unavoidable, the last part I just don't see happening anymore.
So I can't really warm things up to eat without firing up the stove and my back is rapidly cramping thanks to the contortion that I'm doing to type and see the screen.
I had a grand plan of cleaning and playing a few days of Supreme Commander. The cleaning part is sadly unavoidable, the last part I just don't see happening anymore.
2007/03/18
850 miles is a hella long way
It's 850ish miles from Madison WI to Towson MD for anyone who's interested. That's a long goddamn way. I managed to make it in roughly 13 hours including stops (tolls, food, etc). I've done this kind of driving before; it's about the same distance from Fairfax VA to Madison as well--yet another set of one day drives I don't recommend to anyone.
How did I make it so fast? Suffice to say that if I had gotten just one ticket for every state I travelled through today, that the total citation sum would be two to three times as much as I'm paying to stay at this crappy hotel for two nights. At least the hotel has wireless.
I think I'm going to pass out now.
How did I make it so fast? Suffice to say that if I had gotten just one ticket for every state I travelled through today, that the total citation sum would be two to three times as much as I'm paying to stay at this crappy hotel for two nights. At least the hotel has wireless.
I think I'm going to pass out now.
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