TwoPennies

Another House Update

The tile and carpet installation in the new house is complete.  I've posted photos of the new look on this page for you to check out!

By the way, the repair of the ceiling turned out pretty well, much better than I expected.  Unless you know exactly where to look, you certainly wouldn't notice anything odd.

And, I just ordered my fridge from Home Depot today, it'll be delivered next Saturday.  I bought a kitchen table and an entertainment console from RC Willey yesterday, those will also be delivered next Saturday.  Once I get a bedroom set and have that delivered, I'll be ready to actually move in to the place.  Probably around 2 months after I actually bought the house.  Eh, what's the rush, right?  :-D

Logos can be funny little things...

From Andrew Sullivan, by way of Jack Bog...

When the British government wanted to rebrand the Office of Government Commerce, they came up with a new logo:

Do you see what's wrong with this (dirty) picture? A little help after the break...

A Little Oooopsie...

So the new house has been painted and otherwise worked on over the past month... and the latest upgrade has been tile (about twice as much as I originally intended) and new carpet (also much more than originally expected... but it's all for the best).

With my trip to San Diego getting in the way a bit, scheduling has been a bit tricky.  The tile guys came out Friday, and were expected to be done by Sunday -- I made it clear that I was going to be out of town so they needed to finish in time.  Then the carpet guys would arrive on Wednesday to finish the flooring.  No problem, right?

Well, Sunday came and went, with no word from the tile guys (different installers than the carpet) that they were done -- or that they were ready to return my key to the place.  So I dropped by the house Sunday afternoon to check in, since they told me Saturday that they'd be done Sunday morning.  Nobody was around, but the tile was all installed as expected.  I did notice that the hose from the wall valve to the toilet in the upstairs guest bathroom was broken off (sitting on the tub in that room, actually) and the valve was wrapped up.  So I naturally assumed that they were intending to fix that issue before they returned my key.  No problem, if they can wait for payment on the job, I can wait for them to finish.

I got a call from the tile install manager on Monday while I was in San Diego, asking if the tile was done to my satisfaction and could we arrange payment.  I explained, since he apparently didn't get the word somehow that I would be unavailable until Wednesday, that I was out of town.  But I pointed out what I'd seen on Sunday when I checked, and he didn't know anything about it.  He said he'd check up on it and get back to me, and we could then meet on Wednesday to finalize everything.

Tuesday night when I returned from San Diego, I stopped by the house to see if they'd fixed the toilet yet.  Imagine my delight to find that not only was the toilet not fixed, but the valve had been leaking the whole time (they tile guys apparently put a little clear plastic cup under the leak on Sunday, which I hadn't noticed before).  But after 3 days of inattention, that little cup had overflowed -- and there was about 1/4" of standing water on the new tile floor.  After unleashing a string of profanity, I grabbed the paper towels to begin sopping up the water... and when the first roll ran out, I had to head downstairs for another.  That's when I noticed the lovely hanging pouch of water bulging from the ceiling in the dining room, easily sagging a good 3 inches down.  Fortunately (I guess) that pouch hadn't leaked, but it was obviously trouble and certainly ruined the new paint job in that part of the house (never mind the potential for mold after sitting for 3 days...)

So I popped on the phone to the tile manager right away, and explained that not only was the toilet not fixed, but he had some significant water damage to take care of ASAP.  He was nice enough about it and assured me that he'd be over first thing in the morning, and they'd take care of whatever needed to be done to fix the problem.  Doesn't excuse the problem in the first place, but at least he had the right attitude about taking responsibility.

Anyhow, this morning I met up with the tile guys, while the carpet guys started their work -- they fixed the toilet right away, and told me that they wanted to wait until the family room ceiling dried out, then they'd just scrape away the paint pouch and "touch up" the ceiling.  I suggested in no uncertain terms that after an extended soak, perhaps a "touch up" would be insufficient.  So, they agreed to cut out the surrounding drywall and install a new piece, then repaint the resulting patch.  We'll see how that goes...

This evening (Wednesday night) I took a quick picture of the gaping hole in my family room ceiling, for your viewing pleasure...

On the bright side, the tile itself looks fantastic... and the carpet ain't half bad, either. I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as I get a chance to take some in the daylight.

The show's over, folks...

The National Indian Gaming Association trade show, that is... I spent Monday and Tuesday in beautiful San Diego (though, alas, I didn't get to see much of it... about 3 blocks from the convention center at most, and a little bit of the 3rd base at PETCO Park, visible from my hotel room) helping a bit with setup the first day, and helping a bit with manning the booth the second day.  Of course, I and all of the engineers in the company have been spending the last several weeks (if not months) working feverishly to get products ready for this show.  To friends and family who wonder where the hell I've been, that's why you've not heard from me for so long.

I even pulled an all-nighter last Thursday, trying to get my own game ready to be loaded on the truck Friday.  Haven't done one of those in a long time (not work-related, anyhow...) and I'm definitely getting too old for that kind of stunt...

But the results of all that work paid off nicely once the public got to see our exciting new products.  There were a few hiccups along the way, but mostly things went pretty smooth, and the response to the games (and the oversized cabinets) was very encouraging.

Here are a few pictures I took of the booth Monday afternoon, after the games had been set up.  At this point the place was still a bit of a mess with packing materials and other miscellaneous stuff cluttering the floor, but at least this will give you an idea of the layout and the dimensions of the games themselves.  The people in these photos are various coworkers of mine, who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent...   ;-)

This picture is a bit overexposed (I seem to have serious flash issues with my camera) but it certainly shows off the booth itself -- the truss system with banners covered almost all of the 20' x 40' booth space that we had.  Above the truss (not pictured here) was a rotunda with our company logos highlighted, visible from halfway across the convention floor.

This shows off 3 of the 4 game types we had on display.  In the foreground to the right, we have our 42" touch screen display games.  Center booth are the two 46" non-touch screen games in massive ("Colossal") cabinets.  And in the background to the left you can see a couple of our dual-screen 26" display games with LED light boxes around the top monitors, used in the bonus rounds of the game.

The picture below is the same basic shot, but taken without flash entirely.  The booth is a bit dark but the game monitors came out much better, and you can see the light boxes on those 26" games in the back (they're in the middle of animating, which is why not all of the boxes are lit at the moment).  Those lights are pretty impressive, each box can be backlit by an LED grid capable of displaying one of more than 65,000 unique colors, which really sets our machines apart from others you might see in a casino.

The picture below shows off the 4th type of game configuration that we displayed, a 5-reel mechanical machine (similar to the "old school" slot machines when physical reels spin around rather than a video display of reels).  Ours also happens to have a 26" video touchscreen mounted above the reels, which we use for bonus modes and other display purposes.  The cabinet configuration is flexible enough that if we wanted to, we could mount the same LED light box / vertical video display seen in the 26" video product above, on top of the mechanical reels.  The lighting in this photo makes it hard to see, but those are 3 white reel strips in the middle, with a red strip on the left and a blue strip on the right which contain bonus and multiplier symbols.

This is a shot of the title that I've been working on for the past month or so.  It's another 5-reel mechanical game with video top bonus.  Again, there are three white reels in the middle, and a couple of black reels on the sides for bonus and multiplier symbols.  This configuration also happens to have a small 6" display set just below the reels, for showing the player's credit balance and current wager information.

This photo shows another angle on the 26" video product in the background, with a pair of 42" video games on the right and just a bit of the 46" Colossal cabinet on the left.  Lighting is again problematic, but hopefully you can see the LED effects in the bonus boards of those 26" games (and also get a sense of the scale of these cabinets, with a real live person in the picture for comparison!)

Here's another shot of the same end of the booth as the picture directly above.  Unfortunately I didn't get a non-flash version of this angle, so the screens of the games are not clear at all.

Finally, again a shot of the center of the booth and those massive 46" cabinets.  The person in the foreground is standing about 10 feet away from that game, more or less -- I believe those cabinets are about 9 feet tall.  We've actually been unable to place them in some casinos because their ceilings were too low to handle the machine!  This is a "specialty" cabinet, so most casinos would only put one on the floor.  Some of the bigger places, with thousands of machines, might place 3 or 4.

Anyhow, now that we've gotten past the show, hopefully things will settle down just a bit.  Of course, there's always the next deadline... but at least I won't be personally trying to code a game for that one, so I might get home before midnight once in a while...

Victory for Victims 8k in Encino, CA

Race day.  I was both excited and nervous about doing this; excited about doing something competitive for the first time in about a century, and nervous because I have no idea what I’m doing and I don’t know how hardcore people are going to be.  I woke up about 6 times last night like a kid waiting for Christmas.

The weather was great and it was a pretty easy trip to the park.  There were parking enforcement officers directing traffic, which was nice.  It turned out to be a pretty big event; it was managed by W2 Promotions, who seem to know what they are doing.  There were quite a few booths for fitness clubs, restaurants, etc.  The Laker Girls and Rafer Johnson (former Olympic decathlete) were there, and some radio DJ was the emcee.  The Laker Girls warmed up the crowd and then we gathered by the starting line; I was right behind actor James Remar, so I had a celebrity sighting for the day.  The only tough part was that the 5k run/walk people also started with us, so there was quite a crowd in the start area and many of them would be slow.  I managed to weave through that bit without spraining an ankle (my initial fear) and trotted on.

The run went well for a while, but then my left knee decided to start hurting before I had even made it to the first water station about 1/3 of the way into the race.  I managed to grab a cup of water but some dude ran into me in the process and I nearly dumped water on the poor race volunteer.  I’m sure she had worse, but I felt bad.

My pace got worse and worse as my knee started screaming at me.  I thought about walking every so often, but I didn’t think I would want to run again if I broke stride.  The pain got so bad, though, that I did slow to a walk at the second water station at 2/3 completion (another dude ran into me then as well).  I didn’t walk far, but it really sucked trying to run again.  I managed to run/hobble slowly the rest of the way, finishing in about 54 minutes.  Not great, but if my knee wasn’t so bad I think I would have been happy with my result.  I’m not sure if I beat James Remar; he was around me much of the way, but at the end I was only thinking about that blasted knee.

I got some water and a banana at the finish, and could have had some food and even ice cream (Ben and Jerry’s was there) if I wanted to stand in line.  I did score some assorted health drinks to go with the free mechanics gloves (weird, but kind of handy), shirt and water bottle that were in the goody bag.

I finished and I did not die, so I accomplished my objectives.  I may have no cartilage in my left knee, however, which is not at all fun.  I’m working Tylenol, Sportscreme and ice like an old football player, and I’m serious need of a massage, but I feel awesome.

It was a pretty cool experience for my first race.

Paint Job Complete

The painters finished my house earlier in the week, and I've finally had a chance to get over there in the daylight to take pictures.  I've posted the before and after shots on this page.  Let me know what you think!

I Want to Run, I Want to Hide

I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside.  Cool song.

 

I am going to run my first road race tomorrow—the Victory for Victims 8k in Encino.  I’m hoping to finish the race and not die.  I have never been a runner; I played plenty of sports, but never ever was excited about running for no reason.  In fact, I really hated any sort of plain running at all, and never understood anyone who enjoyed it.  Naturally I am concerned that I have gone insane.   

Painting the House

I'm getting ready to have the interior of the new house painted, and I've got pictures of my color choices posted here.  There's one decision yet to be made, so if you've got feedback let me know right quick -- the painters begin work on Friday, so I only have a few days to nail down my plans.

UPDATE:  Since posting this item, I noticed the automatic page name given to the permalink for this entry.  I wonder how many search hits THAT'S going to generate for me???  :-D

Video Link

So, there's a bit of a mess in the Democratic Party these days...

It's Official!

About 5:15pm this afternoon, I got the keys to the new house.

Hello, house payments through April, 2038...

...about 5 years before I'll actually be able to retire at age 73...

Buying a House

It's been a long time coming, but I'm finally almost a real live homeowner!  We had the house inspection this morning, which was the last major potential roadblock -- I was very concerned that there would be something seriously wrong with the house, since it's been on the market for a long time.  But fortunately, after a very thorough inspection, we got what my realtor described as one of the cleanest inspection reports he'd ever seen.  Nothing at all serious to speak of, just a few very minor cosmetic cracks, and a minor leak in the jacuzzi.

So now I'm just waiting for the loan docs to be processed, and I should be good to go.  There's a good chance that I'll close by Friday, otherwise it should be next week.

And then I too can participate in the expense -- er, JOY that is home ownership.  ;-)

For those who are interested, I've posted a page of photos that I took during the inspection.

This is what I'm talking about...

A while back I got into a discussion about the "cult of personality" surrounding Barack Obama.

By which I mean, a large number of the man's supporters are exceedingly enthusiastic for him, personally, without regard to his policies (in many cases, without actually understanding his policies).

This article from across the pond highlights perfectly what I'm talking about.  Especially with regard to the youth vote.

For example:

Sitting in the audience, Alex Dukeman, 17, says that she expects Mr Obama to introduce universal healthcare. But isn’t his plan voluntary while Mrs Clinton promises a compulsory mandate? “I just think he is a likable guy and he inspires people,” she replies.

...

Donny Murray, 21, says that Mr Obama “has definitely got a better plan” for tackling global warming. How so? “I’m not sure about the specifics, I just think he’ll get more people involved,” he says.

Notice that?  When challenged on their assertions about what Obama would actually do, they fall back on "I just think..."

Except that apparently, they don't.

But hey, why worry?  If GW Bush has shown us anything, it's that who we elect President doesn't really matter, right?

Happy Grammar Day!

Pedants Unite!!!

(Tip o' the hat to KimY)

Trying to make things interesting...

Ralph Nader is jumping into the fray again.

The Democrats have been dismissive of Nader, while at the same time claiming that his 2.7% of the vote cost them the 2000 election.

Nader, of course, doesn't have a prayer of actually winning, nor even breaking out of the single digits if he makes it all the way to November.

But nationally, this year is not going to be the "landslide" for Democrats that Nader claims it should be.  I think the Democrats have an edge, but it's still going to be close no matter what.  And in that environment, if Nader can pull even 2% of the vote away from the Democrats, it may in fact make the difference.  Of course, if he gets only the 0.3% that he achieved in 2004, he won't likely be a factor -- depending on which states give him better numbers.

Gotta love Side Show Ralph's tenacity, at least.  You'd think after two previous disastrously ineffective attempts, he'd maybe get the message.  But he's stuck on this belief that there's essentially no difference between Democrats and Republicans.  On some issues he's right about that, but there are plenty of differences on important issues that it really does matter which party is in control (or, ideally, that both parties must share control).

Here's my theory -- assuming that he actually does get on the ballot in a significant number of states, I think he does better than 2004's showing, but not quite as well as he did in 2000.  Reason being, he had novelty going for him in 2000, and we had yet to fully understand what direction GWB would take the country.  In 2004, there was a more concerted effort to oust Bush (resulting, interestingly, in a greater margin of victory for the President in the popular vote) and Nader had trouble getting on the ballot in all states.

But this time around, after 2 years of a Democrat-controlled Congress, that august body enjoys lower approval ratings than the President himself.  A certain segment of the population may have come to believe Nader's assertion that the Democrats and Republicans are essentially interchangeable.  Certainly there's significant dissatisfaction with Congressional Democrats after 2 years in the majority, and that may manifest itself in more protest votes from the far left wing for Nader.

If Clinton somehow pulls out the nomination, I guarantee that Nader takes enough votes to hand the election to McCain (though I don't think he needs the help in that case).  With Obama, Nader is not likely to be as much of a factor, but still could play a decisive role.

Next up... wait for Ron Paul to decide to run as an independent candidate, and watch 10% of the Republican base swing over to him.

From the Department of Redundancy Department

So, what do you suppose the folks at Old Spice think "and/or" means, exactly????

(Seen in an online ad at The Onion)

The Huckster's In Play

So the final tally isn't yet available, but it's looking like Mike Huckabee has trounced Mitt Romney as the #2 guy for the Republicans this Super-Duper-Tuesday.

Of course Arizona Senator John McCain was the big Republican winner this evening, surging into a commanding lead in the delegate count, though still only about halfway to the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination outright.  And the big loser was Romney, who had been trying to position himself as the "conservative" alternative to moderate McCain.  Voters in most states appeared to see Huckabee as the conservative alternative instead, although Huckabee's major wins occurred in the South among evangelical Christians, who may have had more of a problem with Romney's Mormonism than anything else.

At any rate, it seems to me that given the generally warm relations between McCain and Huckabee, and the strong regional showing by Huckabee in an area where McCain is relatively weak, this may be a setup for an eventual McCain-Huckabee ticket in November.

I can only hope...  McCain-Huckabee would have a very good chance of beating Obama-Anyone, and would virtually guarantee a victory over Clinton-Anyone.

But then, that would be the smart thing for the Republicans to do -- so I'm not holding my breath that it'll happen. 

It would also be good for the country, by the way, as McCain is more of a fiscal conservative while socially moderate, and Huckabee seems more of a genuinely compassionate conservative, than prior Republican occupants of the White House have been.  Such an outcome could signal a revival of the Republican party as a reasonable, moderate force in American politics.

Like I say, I'm not holding my breath.  But if that day comes when the Republicans nominate forces of (relative) moderation, I just might be able to register as a Republican again.

Don't ya hate when this happens?

Gross, yet compelling (hat tip to Jeffy D):

McCain's Victory

Senator John McCain managed to defeat his close rival Mitt Romney in the Florida Republican Primary on Tuesday, putting him in the lead in delegate count towards that party's nomination.

He also demonstrated a very important point -- prior wins for McCain came largely in states with relatively open primaries/caucuses, where Independent voters were able to give him an edge.  The Florida contest, however, was closed to Republicans only, and many people expected Romney to do better among the "party faithful" since McCain is not particularly well-liked by the Republican party apparatus and is subject to criticism for being too moderate.  That criticism may be intensified by the reported endorsement of McCain by soon-to-drop-out Rudy Giuliani.  Giuliani has been consistently knocked by social conservatives for his relatively moderate stands on abortion, gun control and gay rights; Giuliani and McCain have both been knocked for their stands on immigration as well, so it remains to be seen whether Giuliani's endorsement will help or hurt McCain in the remaining primary season.  It likely will help in the general election in November, however, if McCain makes it that far.

I liked McCain in 2000, and was sorry to see him forced out of the running that year.  I watched him court the Bush camp over the past 8 years with some distress, as he apparently was trying to establish himself as "next in line" in the Republican party after Bush.  During this campaign he's been all over the board trying to be moderate enough to appeal to Independents but conservative enough to try to gain the support of the far right.  It didn't look like that approach would work out for him, but after Florida, it just might.

And I'll go out on a limb here: the outcome in November will be determined by the Republican nomination alone, no matter what the Democrats do.  If McCain gets the nod, he'll beat either Clinton or Obama, whichever one the Democrats choose.  And if McCain doesn't get the nod, then whoever does will be defeated by Clinton or Obama, whichever one the Democrats choose.

I'm feeling a great deal more optimistic about 4 more years of divided government than I have in a long while.  Let's hope McCain is able to pull it off...

Do you suck at Photoshop?

Yeah, I do.  But fortunately there are helpful tutorials available online (videos after the jump, not necessarily safe for work)...

How fast can you type???

This one's tough because it measures speed & accuracy of your typing skills at least as well as how quickly you can name the 50 states.  Plus, they give you a freakin' map as a guide, so I would hope you could get all 50 states when you're lookin' right at them!

(Hat Tip to Bojack)

In 2m 11s

Click here to Play