Natural Selection

I started playing Natural Selection again a couple nights ago. This game kicks so much ass, because:

• It's a quasi port of the movie Aliens, which is one of the best all time Sci-Fi flicks. So right there you know it's going to be awesome.
• You can play either side, everyone likes to play the bad guy once in a while.
• It combines two of my favorite game styles: FPS & RTS. Which others have attempted but miserably failed.
• It's a mod for the original Half Life. So it's non-profit game created by gamers for gamers. Plus almost everyone has a copy of HL1, if not it can be purchased for $9.95 through Steam. And HL1's system requirements are minimal. So everyone can run this game.
• The development staff are dedicated to constantly fix bugs and develop new enhancements. The mod was initially release approx four years ago and today it's on version 3.1.3, and have developed two game play modes: Combat & Classic. Combat is good for when you don't have much time to play or just want to play quicker matches. I usually play a few rounds when starting to get warmed up.
• It's got voice communication! How novel is that? I'm still shocked by how many games are released with out this. Especially when they are military strategy type FPS. So you can actually bark orders during a heavy fire fight instead of retreating to a safe house to type chat.
• There's a variety of weaponry, gear, and offensive/defensive structures for the marines. As well as a variety of alien species with different attack methods, and different offensive/defensive structures. This really helps keep the game interesting. Imagine walking into a room that appears empty, only to find that it's actually full of cloaked aliens. Alternatively, being rushed by jet pack enabled flying marine troopers.
• With a myriad of online servers around the world there is always someone to play with.

Dang this list is getting long! Really I could go on and on about how awesome this game is, but honestly you should try it for yourself. It's a ton of fun. That's why it's one of our regular games at our LAN parties. If you aren't getting invites to our LAN events and would like to attend, drop me a note. I'm even more stoked about this game as the development group are actively pursuing a production version of this game on a higher gaming engine (like maybe HL2?)

Giving up the Egg Hunt

Many "Christian" holidays have rooted themselves in American culture. Commercialism has embraced this since the advent of the printing press. And today there is a rise in non-traditional and unstructured religious beliefs among descendants of the last couple generations. So considering all that I'm not surprised at the congealed mess holidays have become. Most Christian holidays are now becoming more secular in celebration. However is there really validity to a secular Easter? Easter is a core Christian holiday, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. How the heck did it go from that, to becoming a day praising an "Easter Bunny" that brings kids candy/toy filled baskets and hides candy filled eggs around the yard? Click here for some interesting info debating that issue. I especially love this quote:

The Pope suggests that converting heathens is easier if they are allowed to retain the outward forms of their traditional pagan practices and traditions, while recasting those traditions spiritually towards Christianity instead of to their indigenous gods.

-- Wikipedia Some people prefer not to analyze why these traditions exist and instead choose to go with the flow. Stating things like "Oh but it's so much fun for the children!", "I did it when I was a kid", etc ... Sounds like some good slogan's for commercial advertising. Think it'll help sell a million more Peeps? On top of that I'm not so sure I agree with the religious elements of the Easter celebration. I wasn't raised with Christian Easter celebrations, instead we observed the Christian Passover, referred to as "The Memorial". Since the purpose of Jesus' earthly service was to redeem mankind from the "perfect life lost" it seems the focus for remembrance and celebration should be on his act of sacrifice and not on the resurrection. Especially when biblically Jesus put emphasis on this himself with the events of the Last Supper.

Burningman 2006

I've known of the Burning Man event for many years, and thought it was just some pyro fetish art event in the middle of the desert. However recently I've done a bit more research on it and found that it's a whole lot more then just that. It's an attempt at a non-regulated communal city (Black Rock City, NV USA Zip: 89412), where all things commercial are banned. Money has no value all things are bartered or traded for. All commercial logo's are covered, removed, or altered. TV networks that would use footage of the event for a commercial interest and banned from attending. It's not a spectator event that you buy a ticket to and then kick back and watch the show. It's an experience, you go to be apart of it. To be apart of the freedom experiment. To live in a temporary city filled with people who are free to express themselves in whatever manner they feel fit: showcasing their artwork, burning stuff, wearing crazy costumes or body paints, wear nothing at all, some even coordinate to setup theme camps (including one that is a replica of Thunderdome ala Mad Max). For more pics of the event check out the Flickr Burningman Cluster. The more I read about the event the more I'm intrigued. I think it would be an interesting experience and a chance to see a lot of cool, crazy, wacky, and maybe even borderline insane things. It would be a brake from the usual mundane vacations I take. One of the biggest selling points for me was finding out that the event really isn't that far from me. Occurring near the town of Garlach, NV it's only about 500 miles away from home. Easily drivable, making it a possibility. Anyone else interested in going with me? You can track my trip planning here.

What Happened to the Design?

It's Naked CSS Day! Why? Because it's comical in a geeky bandwagon sort of way. Plus it gives me a reason to implement dynamic CSS file styling. Now I can do overrides on my styles on the fly. How? I've implemented some PHP code to automatically comment out my CSS file inclusion if/when the day happens to fall within the 48 hour global window of April 5th each year. So next year this will all happen automatically. Pretty slick!

Review: Craigslist

If you don't know about Craigslist or don't use it regularly, you are missing out on one of the greatest web resources. I've been using craigslist or the last three years or so, and I'm always amazed at how valuable it is. Just yesterday I was once again taken back by it's power. In the process of cleaning out my garage I found a bunch of old baby items from when Logan was little. I decided it was time for them all to go, so I posted them up w/pics in the free section on Craigslist. With in 15 mins I had about 30 emails asking for the items. I immediately closed down the ads and sorted through the emails. I told them all to come pick up the items between 6pm-9pm, and by 7pm all the items had been picked up (4 different people). Something very similar happened a few months back when I posted up an old washer/dryer set. I've also found some killer deals on merchandise myself. All but one of my arcade machines were found on craigslist, as well as my Blazer, as well as tons of misc auto parts for the Blazer and my Neon. I could go on and on about all the deals I've found or others I know have found. So if you have something to sell, try craigslist first. If you're looking to buy something used try craigslist first, and then eBay.

What Happened to the Design?

It's Naked CSS Day! Why? Because it's comical in a geeky bandwagon sort of way. Plus it gives me a reason to implement dynamic CSS file styling. Now I can do overrides on my styles on the fly. How? I've implemented some PHP code to automatically comment out my CSS file inclusion if/when the day happens to fall within the 48 hour global window of April 5th each year. So next year this will all happen automatically. Pretty slick!

Review: Rainbow Playground Depot

I attended a birthday party for a friends daughter at the Rainbow Playground Depot. They have a large indoor showroom with several small to extra large big toy type play structures, and the entire floor is padded with thick foam tiles. They also provide a couple small rooms for birthday activities and refreshment. The kids had a blast playing on all the structures. All of which had unique designs and toys that you won't find at the local school or park playgrounds. The best part was the entire thing is inside. Which is very important here in the north-west. So the showroom gives the building double usage, they can show off their innovative designs by giving kids hands on experience, and to help raise revenue they rent it out for birthday parties. Which is also free advertising as the attending kids get a couple hours to play on the structures and then beg their parents into buying one for them at home. To help plant that bug further, there is no shortage of catalogs. Every 10ft there is a another large bin full of 1" thick catalogs. At the end all the kids had a great time, and I was glad to see another kid birthday party location option. Something besides the usual Chuck E. Cheese echo "";

Review: Urban Fondue

To understand what type of restaurant this is, you first have to understand what type of place NW 23rd & 21st is. The area is often referred to as "Trendy 23rd", and rightly so. The streets are lined with some of the trendiest shops in town, wannabe fancy overpriced restaurants, tons of coffee shops, and all sorts of nick-knack stores. Only tourists really come to this area for an retail intentions. For locals this has become the place to be and to be seen. People cruise by in fancy cars on weekend afternoons, motorcycle groups gather in large numbers to pose, girl groups parade up/down under the premise of "shopping", and people sit in outdoor café's to people watch. And with the lack of parking, it's become a traffic nightmare. According to census records one of the highest residential densities in Oregon occurs near 23rd. And with all those people there is only limited curb parking throughout all the cross streets. It's nearly impossible to find a parking spot without stocking shoppers that appear to be returning to their cars to leave. For these reasons I avoid this area like the plague. However last Friday night was one of our friend's birthday's, and she chose Urban Fondue as the dinner location. We headed out a little early so we had some time to look for parking. After combing every street within a 1-mile radius I was so frustrated I almost just left to go elsewhere. However we found a very small parking garage a couple blocks away. The garage likely had enough spots for 15 cars at the most, but they had a couple spots left so we took one. As we were about to pay for parking a lady who was pulling out offered to give us her old parking ticket. It saved us $4, but more importantly it helped give me a better impression of the people who inhabit this area. It was a nice gesture. We hoofed it two blocks to the restaurant and were extremely surprised to find that mostly everyone was there on time. We were however a little perturbed when we found that it had been decided that we were all going in on a $25 per person pre-packaged meal. While that may have been a good value for the food, I had only planned on getting a small appetizer and then getting some real food later on. We didn't want to ruffle any feathers so we went along with it. After dealing with the aggravation of parking I really needed a good stiff drink. I found their drink menu and ruffled through it. I was amused to find that almost the entire list of drinks were all martini variations, cleverly so as the adjacent bar was Bartini. The rest of the drink menu comprised of various wines & champagnes (how trendy is that?), and 3 beers (hefeweizen a seasonal micro, and Coors light). I just started things off with a good old whiskey sour, and ordered a hefeweizen (as I knew it would take forever for her to come back for round #2, and it would take them forever to find the beer, as it's likely not something they serve very often). As expected the waitress forgot to bring my hefeweizen three times, each time we razed her about it. Finally she remembered and brought it out, upon which I immediately ordered a second. Stating that I would be finished with the first by the time she got around to bringing the second. That time she got on the ball and brought it right out, likely only because I challenged her. Soon after they brought out the food. The appetizer was garlic & olive bread with three separate fondue cheeses (sharp cheddar, swiss, and ??). All pretty good, and once we finished our bread they brought out more until all the cheese was gone. I was pretty impressed with that. The main course was a tray of various meats: lobster, prawn, scallop, salmon, sausage, beef, chicken, and pork. They brought out pots of broth in which we would individually cook our own meats, and little hour glass timers so we could tell when they were cooked. While this was mildly entertaining I really had a problem with slow boiling my own food. As we joked, for $20 more bucks I could really slum it up and do my own dishes. It would have been a lot better for the foods to have been precooked and different cheese or other alternative fondue sauces to be present for dipping. All the cooking took so long (3 minutes for each piece of meat) that we didn't even eat it all. I was pretty disappointed. For desert they brought out pots of chocolate for dipping and a plate of cookie dough, cheese cake, brownie, and various fresh fruits. Even though I don't eat a lot of sweets, I did try a few pieces of cookie dough. It was pretty good. In the end it wasn't a horrible experience. What food we did have was good and the $25 per person charge wasn't too bad for the value of the meal you get. I would have liked to see more variations though. Maybe a few different types of bead, and some more sauces for the meat. There wasn't much to dip the meats in once cooked. We ended up eating most of it raw. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, if you are in the mood for fondue I would go to Gustav's or the Rheinlander instead. You'll get a lot more food for your money, and they have more the three beers to choose from.

Project Update (4/3/06)

I've made a lot of progress on many of my projects. Since I don't have a proper site update feature created yet, I decided to post a blog entry to summarize my accomplishments. MAME Arcade: I finally finished assembling my 4-player control panel for the MAME arcade. I was up till 4am on Sat 3/25 trying to get it finished in time for our March B-Day Party. Since then it's been thoroughly enjoyed by all, especially the kids. I need to buy a new soldering iron as my old one is crap. Then I need to solder up the El-wire, LED's for the pushbuttons, and the trackball. Lots left to do, track my progress on this here. Bumper Pool: I found an awesome deal on an old Bumper Pool table off craigslist. Heath and I went to pick it up on Saturday afternoon. We tied it down pretty good in the back of his truck, however once we got on the Glenn Jackson Bridge we found out otherwise. Right after we passed Government Island the high winds caught the lip of the table and flipped it over. Fortunately we routed one of the tie downs through the legs, that held it until Heath was able to pull over. It scared the crud out of me as I was following right behind. If it had fallen out, it would have hit me and likely caused a nasty accident on the bridge that would have closed it down for a while. Phew! Eventually we got it home and had to remodel the basement bar to make room for it. We played a few games after getting it all setup. It is a lot of fun to play. However it does need some TLC and a few modifications. Follow my work on this here. Blazer: I've been scouring the web for new parts and mods for my Blazer. On Saturday I met up with a guy in Gresham to get some 2nd gen seats. On arrival it turns out the Blazer was only a 1st gen. However I was able to find a rear window with defog & rear window wiper and some really nice lighted sun visors. Sunday I decided it was time to paint my dash components so they all match. Took me about an hour to remove them all, and I found a couple more components were need of repair. Eventually I got them all sanded, cleaned, and applied a first coat of dark grey Krylon Fusion Textured spray paint. I'm letting them cure for 24 hrs before I re-install them, however that meant driving into work this morning with my dash all ripped up. This week I'm going to remove the headliner and run wiring for all the new components: overhead console, power sun visors, rear window defrost, rear window wiper motor & spray pump, and cargo area accessory power port. For pics and a full write-up on the modifications check here.