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QotD: My Game of the Year

nobody@vox.com(bandicot) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:57:13 -0800

For me, 2007 is the year of the roguelike text adventure.

I ascended Nethack this year with a Chaotic Orcish Rogue. I was totally spoiled by the Nethack, uh, spoilers. My character was two-weaponing, spell casting, and generally laying waste to the alphabetical hazards. I don't RPG in real life. Only on computers and only this year: perhaps I felt my geek credibility was in jeopardy. Proof of ascension is on alt.org. I'll never do it again. I doubt I'll even attempt it again. If I do attempt again, I'll kill Vlad the Impaler with a carrot, as is the emerging custom. Rock!

Nethack-usual-cropped

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urban hawk

nobody@vox.com(bandicot) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:07:26 -0800

I've been bird watching with the boys recently. Bird watching. The idea of it clashes somewhat with my self image, but I'm learning to be flexible. We haven't taken it (yet?) to the point of tromping through the woods, listening for feathered friends. Our bird watching occurs mainly at meals, watching the bird feeder through our windows.

Until two weeks ago, I knew the basics. I knew that birds could fly. I also knew that their beaks were a reflection of their eating habits. Those two facts were basically the extent of my knowledge. I don't know much more than that today, but I can identify the handful of bird species that frequent our yard. When I can't, Miles and I do some bird research on the Internet. [We found and printed a helpful (PDF) guide to common Seattle birds from the Audobon Society in Seattle. We also found a good photolog of common birds in the Seattle area, assembled by a man in Bellevue.]

Yesterday, we were sitting by the window watching some Dark-eyed Juncos (ground-feeding), Black-cap chickadees (suet snacking), and a Bewick's Wren (executioning spiders in our stone temples). Miles was using the binoculars. (The birds are roughly 15' away, but our 7x50 Nikon binoculars give an intensely good view, even during dark winter days.) Suddenly, all the birds scattered. This behavior was a bit unusual. We're used to the birds arriving and leaving by species; rarely do four species suddenly bolt simultaneously unless something scares them.

Miles paused for a two-count and then put down the binoculars. At once, a juvenile Cooper's Hawk swooped in to our yard and perched in our tree - also 15' away from our windows. He (she?) was clearly hunting the birds that were congregating around our feeders. He stayed in our tree for a few minutes as Miles and I passed the binoculars back and forth. He was a spectacular bird and I'm still feeling the thrill of seeing him so closely. I understand that the big yellow eyes are a clear indication of a juvenile. I wouldn't have been able to differentiate an adult from a juvenile by size alone; the bird in our tree was pretty substantial. I didn't have a camera nearby, but there is a good picture of a Cooper's Hawk here.

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Clinton blinders: ON

nobody@vox.com(bandicot) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:05:26 -0700

Waiting for my bus five minutes ago, President Clinton walked past me with a dozen police officers. I was watching the police, silently commenting on the waste of a dozen cops in the same block. Then Clinton breezed by me. Then i came to my senses and realized: the ex-pres is scheduled to have dinner with family Gates tonight. At Troiani. Thirty feet from my bus stop. Curses.

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One down

nobody@vox.com(bandicot) — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 14:25:24 -0700

We're one meeting in to our four meeting trip. I'm jittery from the coffee and the receding illness. One more meeting this PM. Then sleep. I hope tonight's rest is more restful than last's. Perhaps Sushi Ron for dinner?

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The myself mallet

nobody@vox.com(bandicot) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:37:54 -0700

Long call

The polycom display says, "05:35:40". That's the duration of my current call. We're designing IP network training curriculum for a technical call center somewhere in southwest. I'm expecting the pain to end when the phone reads, "08:11:23". This is like sitting in trans-continental traffic, but I'm in a cube.

Given how much time I have, I've been thinking about backstories for spam headers (inspired by Lex's post). Appropriately timed with the day, I just received a message with the subject "The myself mallet."

Backstory:

Andrew gazed at the relic. It was prized and dearly bought: the one artifact which outstripped all others. Alien and light; perfectly balanced, though a bit large for his human hand. Its insignificant mass made perfect sense, given the device's purpose. For proper scientific inquiry, it was unacceptable to be knocked out on the first swing.

He ran his fingers along the etched symbols on the head. It was five years after initial contact before the marking were finally understood. The Dwarn race had no concept of the individual, so the translation was a bit rough: "The we mallet," or, as humans came to call it, "The myself mallet." The manner of use was clear, but the effects were still unknown.

Andrew faced the television camera, smiled, and swung the mallet.

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Planning for spring: blackberry pie

nobody@vox.com(bandicot) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 22:10:47 -0700

I have five extra minutes and a blue post-it in my hand. Fellow aikidoist Erin brought an extraordinary blackberry pie to to a semi-recent potluck. (She's now hiking with her husband to the Aleutians Islands. They started in Seattle. Ambition has a new name.) She gave me the recipe. It's not a traditional pie. It's more like a pie crust filled with a blackberry mousse. Check it:

- One pie crust; bake ahead of time; you're on your own on pie crust; choose your own adventure
- One large yogurt container full of fresh blackberries; de-seed in a food mill
- Sugar to taste (between .5 and 1 cup)
- 2 Tbsp butter; melted
- 1/3 cup corn starch; dissolved in water

Cook on medium, stirring constantly, until thickened. Pour into pie crust. Set in fridge.

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To g-nan's

nobody@vox.com(bandicot) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 17:05:01 -0700

Trip to g-nan's house today. High and textured clouds, punctuated by bursts of sunlight. G-nan's place isn't especially prepped for the boys. Lots of things to break within two feet of the ground. Heirlooms and such. Paintings painted by the great-grandmother's mother's aunt. It's a high stress zone for parents.

The Japanese screen was just hung. It's as I remember it from her old house in San Francisco. Comforting but alien. Jack liked the butterflies. We planted a daphne and a rhodedendron. Back to the house for quiet time. (Adult downtime.)

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Late night with 6682

nobody@vox.com(bandicot) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:03:25 -0700

Typical: about to shut down for the night when one of the adverts for the nokia n93i catches my attention. Of course it does, but I'm not reasonably going to shell out the cash right now. I've replaced half of my appliances in the last month. For reals. So I'm stuck with my 6682 for a bit longer. So tonight is the night that I installed vox mobile. This is the inaugural movox posting. Damn i need to sleep.

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first look - sugar shack

nobody@vox.com(bandicot) — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 14:34:02 -0700

The Sugar Shack Baking Co. just opened in our Seattle neighborhood. Until a few weeks ago, the windows have been covered with brown butcher paper. Now it's open and busy. Thankfully, it's not elbow-to-elbow, but a steady stream of people came and went while we visited. Miles tried a cupcake: pink flavor. Lisa and I shared a brownie. Espresso for the adults. Their cakes are moist and delicious. Ditto the brownie (just a bit bitter for my taste, but spot-on for Lisa). My americano was not legendary, but it was solid. It seems that they make full-size cakes, too, but we didn't see any on offer. The case was pretty well picked over by 1:30pm on Saturday. Still, I could subsist on cupcakes, coffee, and brownies exclusively. I saw a "sammich" pass by with perfectly toasted bread. I'll save that experiment for the next trip.

It seems that the Sugar Shackies are trying to figure out the supply/demand curve for their goods. Perhaps we'll start seeing more pies and cakes in the cases. The menu looks promising, with Red Velvet Cake and Chocolate Key Lime insanity.

I'm glad for a new [bakery] coffee shop in our neighborhood. Cafe Vita leaves me cold; perhaps it's the fact that they share a mini-mall with a check cashing outlet, a tanning salon, and a dry cleaners. Plus, Vita's baked goods are standard coffee shop offerings. Blah. Sugar Shack makes the neighborhood feel more like a neighborhood and less like an opportunistic commercial district on Lake City Way.

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RSS Readers and False Permanence

nobody@vox.com(bandicot) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 20:56:14 -0800

Spent a few hours tonight learning keyboard shortcuts on Google Reader (out of beta now and mos def worth a look). I played with rojo in its early months and do like it, but my life works better when I minimize daily-use technology platforms. (It brings to mind that death-knell of Netscape: the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. At the dawning of 2007, google's application landscape is clearly on the same order; instead of a desktop OS, they own the world's most used search engine. A leg up, perhaps?) My daily behavior is core-meshed to my search habits, my gmail, and my personal [google] homepage. So, eh, I gravitate towards Google's products by default. I drift away when I'm annoyed. It just happens that Google Reader is a double-plus good read widget. It brings the FAST and I am forever in love with a company that will labor to make sure that I can use a tool without my fingers leaving the keyboard. Keyboards > mice.

Reader offers a "Star" feature, which allows a user to identify interesting articles so they can be quickly located at a later time. This feature lends an air of permanence to any starred article, suggesting it will be available for review forever. I'm certain that the metadata isn't going anywhere, but articles on the internet do have a tendency to move or evaporate. Del.icio.us, digg, and a host of other content management [content evangelism?] platforms also tempt me into thinking that starred/saved/digged content is, literally, forever. This isn't true of course. It's also not google's problem (or delicious', digg's, etc). But it does make me think: to the extent that there are people actively working on internet archival and www content permanence (Internet Archive, for example), it could prove valuable for such people to have insight into what content real people have identified as important.

A quick request for Vox:
I played with the sharing capability of Reader tonight. When selected for sharing, the article will be added to a personalized RSS feed of content I'm sharing. I'm not hooked, but I am intrigued. Maybe I'm missing it, but it would be nice if Vox had the capability of displaying external RSS feeds in the context of your (my) blog.

On another note, my letter to the editor got published in Jan 25-31 issue of The Stranger. It was a silly little thing, so I'll try hard to pretend that I'm not somewhat pleased.

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