Category: halloween

Found this site linked today, and was simply blown away. This guy has completely re-written Grand Theft Auto III for the original 8-bit Nintendo. From scratch, including bitmap art, maps, etc. Check out the amazing time and effort that went into this thing by looking at the map/street layouts he drew up, and the several complicated software development tools he wrote to aide in his coding. Besting himself, he’s even created a dang development NES system to test his ROM builds on. I mean, it’s an entirely new system, his design, his schematics, developed to his needs. I have so much respect for this kind of creativity, it makes me jealous of the awesomeness these people possess. Honestly, I’d hire the guy without ever talking to him based on the project… I mean… unless he’s an ass or something. Intro paragraph over.

I was thinking today about the whole weblog thing, and wondering how long I’ll do it. From way back in high school, I’ve kept a journal on the computer – and only a little over a year ago moved it online. At first, it seemed like a good idea… some of my friends read it, and people would egg me on by telling me it was funny, or interesting. I liked the whole exhibitionist angle, and it gave me an everlasting excuse to tinker with webpages. The bottom line though, is that I enjoy writing, and I think as long as that’s the case – I’ll keep doing it. As it is, I don’t see a stopping point in the near future. In fact, I think that doing it online motivates me to write more – which is good.

I’m so used to writing now, that I constantly find myself thinking about how I’m going to capture things in words – even as they are still going down. When I see something funny, I’m already writing one-liners and stringing together sentences in my head. If I come up with something I particularly like, I’ll sometimes scribble down a sentence or two on paper, or go right online and draft it up. I’ve gotta do it that way, record it immediately, because I often have a problem remembering things. More like a selective problem, but still – I tend to forget things pretty easily. In fact, that was one of the main reasons I started keeping a journal way back when – so I wouldn’t forget my own stories. Really though, the things I tend to forget are relatively meaningless – and for the most part, I remember the stuff that matters.

Actually, I know exactly why I forget stuff – it’s because I’m rarely ever 100% mentally engaged on something. It’s a bad trait of mine. My brain is ever “multitasking,” and I’ve always got a bunch of junk colliding and fighting for short-term space up there. I pay attention selectively, listen selectively, and dedicate synapses selectively. It’s like I’ve taken the concept of speed-reading, “skimming” content for important themes and ideas, and applied it to everything I process. On the other hand, it’s not rare that I stop and give something my dedicated attention, but I don’t think it’s the way I prefer it. I like the somewhat chaotic jumble of thoughts… the “challenge” of keeping it all organized and rational impresses me. Kind of like flying by the seat of the pants (what the heck that means I have no idea, but I know the idea it represents) – not having one thought steady-on is more interesting, more spontaneous.

Wow, that paragraph managed to sound completely insane and egotistical, not at all what I was going for.

What’s up with the quality-control of pirate MP3s lately huh? Several of the albums and EPs I’ve been hotly anticipating not buying have been leaked, and quite of few of them suffer from common MP3 maladies like blipping, blooping, clickyness, scratchiness, hopping, and even bleeping. What’s going on? Big brother inserting digital errors into rippers so I go out and buy stuff? I mean, I’ll get over it – buy the real CD at the show or something, I’m just saying, to all you crews out there, get on the ball man. My new Bright Eyes EPs, the Stars’ new LP, where does the madness end? Who says consumers of stolen goods don’t have a right to complain?

Today at lunch, I came home and made and ate a sammich while watching a great vintage Twilight Zone. Then I took off to Costco to get some Halloween (why’s it capitalized?) candy and soda (I’m a regular health-nut). While I was there, I noticed that they already have their Christmas stuff out in full force. I mean, in my opinion, it’s kinda early to get all Christmas, but I gotta admit I liked it. I actually took time to leisurely stroll up and down the Christmas aisles… against all my “surgical strike” shopping principles.

For some reason, Christmas stuff makes me feel good. Just like Halloween stuff, and Thanksgiving stuff… I just associate those holidays and times of year with something good. I’m sure it has some psychological ties to my childhood or something, I dunno. Anyway, I walked the aisles of Danish butter-cookies, fake pine wreathes, completely wrong-looking Santas (black and “pointy”), inflatable light-up snowmen, and mechanical grazing reindeer – and I was eating it up. In some ways, I’m a big sap.

Fellow nerds, I know it’s extremely B-list, but I just took my first real look at the Google Labs Aptitude Test tonight. Man, they are looking for people that are a lot smarter than me…

Dang, I’m looking through old posts and realizing that, during the conversion to WordPress, some of my commas or ellipses turned into question marks. Now I’ve got random question marks throughout my old entries. Crap.

And that’s about it for tonight, time to hit the sack. G’night, Dave out.

Rainy day in California; kind of welcomed, actually. Cold, gloomy, and wet – good sweater-weather. Sometime this week I’m gonna bust out my DVD of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and give it its once-a-year workout. I love that special, it’s just not Halloween until I’ve seen it.

I saw Apple announced the new iPod today, the iPod Photo. It comes in a 60GB flavor, which could hold a nice chunk of my digital tunes collection. Not all of it, being somewhere around 150GB, but probably a big enough chunk that I could tote around with me everything I regularly listen to (the obscure stuff could be loaded on demand when the mood strikes). The only thing that makes me nervous about the iPod is its high cost-to-size ratio. You know what I’m talking about? Really small things that are really expensive just make me worry about losing them. $5000 Rolex, $1000 cufflinks, etc. – too easy to lose such a large investment I guess. Whatever, I think I could get over it for this 60 jiggabyte thing… the new iPod looks rad.

So, I don’t think I’ve written about it – but I got some news at work the other day that really got me excited. A proposed business trip next year: 4 days in Moscow followed by 3 days in Amsterdam. I never get to go to Europe for work, it’s usually always China or Taiwan – so I was super happy to hear the news. If all the travel gets cleared with management, I’ll be flying out sometime in April. It would be my first time in Europe, so I’m pretty excited. I’ve got my fingers crossed…

Changing subjects, I’m disgusted with the house right now. It’s so messy, so disorganized, I sometimes want to just tear through it with a garbage can. I get a little obsessive-compulsive like this at times, and just go on cleaning rampages to try and straighten things up. Taking the world’s #1 slob as a wife didn’t help, it’s like living with a child who hasn’t learned to pick up after himself – but one you can’t punish. If my teenager were as messy, I could ground them; but with a wife, there’s not much you can do. So I do my best to show my frustration in little ways, throwing things away – whatever they may be – if they’re left on the floor for more than two days. Putting all discarded clothes that aren’t hung up or put away into the dirty clothes, regardless of whether they’re straight out of the wash or not. Going through the house and putting all “loose crap” in a large bag and leaving it on her side of the bed, etc. I make lots of piles. When the level of flotsam is just too much, I’ll often pile it all in the center of the room – where the sheer volume of it can no longer be ignored. These are my tactics, this is what I’m reduced to. Can someone help me?

Wanna hear something crappy? Less than a week before the big Halloween party, and the Pac Man machine decides to crap out. Won’t even boot most of the time, acting really funny. I made a half-effort at debugging it tonight, but it seems entirely random – which is never good with computers. Owell.

Dave out.

With Halloween just around the corner, and it being my most-favorite of the three year-end holidays, I’m getting antsy for some time off. It seems like I say that quite a bit, but I don’t care. It’s lunch time right now on Monday, and I came home to eat a sandwich rather than spending $10 on lunch out. Watched a couple TiVo’d episodes of the Twilight Zone ca. 1961, which were great. Now I’m listening to some Al Stewart and sitting in front of the computer again.

I’m so pumped, I ordered the complete 1st and 2nd season of The Land of the Lost on DVD the other night. We were all sitting around Anthony’s and somehow the show came up, only myself and two other guys remembered the show at all – so I started surfing the ‘net for some info. When I saw a package deal for both seasons on Amazon, I had to bite. I think that show played a huge role in my “stranded survivalist” fascination, and I can’t wait to watch some of it again. I know, the acting is gonna be super disappointing – but I just wanna see how much I remember. What a great show.

Also in the “getting excited about something coming up” category, I’m really anticipating the Arcade Fire show in San Fran in early December. With a debut album that, in my mind, is the best thing released this year – I’m looking forward to seeing them live. There’s quite a bit I’m looking forward to in the musical arena, including new albums from Bright Eyes and the Decemberists early next year – which with any luck, will be leaked sooner. We’ve also got the Blonde Redhead show next month, with Helio Sequence opening – a local show too, which makes it all the better. Even with all that to look forward to, there’s new stuff out right now that demands attention: new Hot Hot Heat and Bright Eyes EPs, and that darned Arcade Fire album that just won’t get out of my CD player…

Ben came over tonight and we built a fog chiller for Halloween, we followed the plans on this site – judging this to be the most “heavy duty” of chiller designs. What we got was crap, pure crap. The mega-fogger I bought this year seemed to push entirely too much fog through the chiller too quickly, not giving it a chance to cool sufficiently – and last year’s wimpy cooler did the same thing. Fog escaped from the lid hinges, the lid itself, everywhere – and none of it stuck to the ground. It was a horribly disappointing $70 “experiment,” and I’m pissed it didn’t work. Maybe we can do some tweaking and make it usable… but I’m not holding my breath. To top it all off, the rain tripped the GFCI circuitry on my not-really-for-outside-use Halloween lighting and mechanics, killing my display for the evening. Bummer.

Good night all, it’s past my bedtime and I’m getting fussy. Dave out.

Pulled off my other toenail last night, now Mt. Whitney has claimed them both. Hope you had fun Whitney, but my big toenails are a small price to pay in defeating you. You may have the toenails, but I bested you my friend – and I’d do it again even if the price was the same. If there is a “next time” though, you can bet I’ll get some better fitting shoes. Intro paragraph over.

Today I got a mail from my moms, and, like a bolt out of the blue, she dropped this bomb on me:

How do you feel about Christmas in Oregon with us?? Seriously! Dad has decided out of the blue that he’s ready to move – now. We have some movers coming today and tomorrow.

What?! My mom e-mailed me to tell me that they’re moving, to Oregon, like right now. I understand some people are impulsive, y’know, maybe get the sudden urge to take a day off or go for a walk or something; my parents get the urge to move out of state. So, looks like we’ll be headed to Oregon for Christmas this year – which actually kinda excites me. I like the idea of my folks in Oregon, I travel there a little bit for work – so there’s a chance I could see them when I’m up there on business trips. Plus, I really like Oregon, some great camping and outdoors stuff – would be nice to have a place to stay if I’m ever up there “frontiering” or something.

Guys, the witch has beaten me. Although she looks cool as all get out, she won’t be flying around my yard this Halloween. I admit, the project was ambitious. From an engineering perspective, there were quite a few hurdles to get over. Time ran out, plans failed, ideas dried up, ad enthusiasm waned with each little setback. So, for this year at least, she’ll be a static prop. Perhaps she’ll fly around next year, who knows. It saddens me, but I know when to cash out and walk away. Hopefully she’ll still be impressive as a static prop, with the right lighting and maybe some fog. Still wish she’d by flying and cackling though? bummer.

Today’s my Friday, as I’m taking a vacation day tomorrow to work on the porch. I hope I wake up motivated and ready to work. Too often I put on my work-clothes and head out to he backyard with the best of intentions, only to mostly stand around and beam with pride at the work I’ve already done. I have a real problem with that. The closer to completing a project I am, the more time I spend stepping back and admiring how it’s coming together. It gets so bad sometimes I end up in a “do one thing, then look at it” loop, which takes 2x as long as actually working. Usually, for me to knuckle under and do non-stop work with no “admiration breaks,” I need someone helping me to motivate me – or just to be in that rare work-only mood. I’m hoping that happens tomorrow, but that remains to be seen.

Here’s an interesting commentary from Dwight D. Eisenhower’s son, a good read. And, for the other side of the crowd, here’s another article I found interesting, although perhaps a tad paranoid (but remember, I read it through my liberal-tinted glasses). Enjoy.

A short one today, but I don’t care. Dave out.

I kinda glossed over the events of this weekend in yesterday’s entry, mostly because I had the 80s cover-band bit pre-written and just wanted to push “go” and be done with it. The weekend was extremely productive though. Once upon a time, I had promised myself I would have the backyard done in time for our annual Halloween party, but with other projects getting in the way and a trip to Taiwan that blew the head of steam I was working on before – I lost the drive and stopped working. This weekend, however, Erik came over and helped me work a bit – devising a practical system for large-scale leveling the base material for the paver stones. After we got a large swath leveled, it was as easy as bringing back pavers as fast as the we could fill the wheelbarrow and place them.

We got about 95% of the porch form paved, and now it’s all about “cutting in” the curved edges. I’m borrowing a buddy’s rock-saw this week and taking Friday off to get the job done. In addition, I ordered some more decomposed granite to make the base material for the sidewalk leading around the house to the gate. It gets delivered tomorrow, so I’m going to try and form up the sidewalk tonight in preparation. Once I get the sidewalk formed, filled with DG, and leveled, I can bring the remainder of the bricks back and compete as much as possible before having to cut bricks to fit edges. I figure, with a little sweat, I can have the porch done and cut in by the end of this weekend. Then one day to prep the dirt for topsoil (killing weeds, picking up too-big rocks, etc.), a day to bring in said topsoil, and then a full day to lay sod and cut sprinklers to height. That means, if all goes well, after this weekend I only have about three more days work before I can have a backyard complete with grass. That also means that, if the bank account permits, my original pre-Halloween target completion date is totally achievable.

I know the subject of “working on my backyard” isn’t the most exciting thing I could write about, but when the words keep coming that tells me I’ve picked the right subject. Every time I’m out there busting my ass working, I’m thinking how I can’t wait for the epic project to finally be done. I mean, it’s going to be a huge source of pride for me. It’s all my hand, all my work, sweat and muscle. The whole thing: landscaping, retaining wall, earth-moving, irrigation, grass, pavestone porch and sidewalk, and the plan as a whole – it was all me. I mean, I did get some help along the way from some friends – but for the most part I worked alone.. after work, on weekends, whenever. And to tell the truth, the more I see it coming together, the more I think it’s really going to look good. Impressive even. When it’s finally done-done (plants, some benches, etc.), I’m going to hold a freakin’ party. A “good lord the yard’s done” party, so everyone can relish in my accomplishments.

When we bought our house, it came pre-wired for an alarm system. However, early on we decided that we didn’t want to pay $30 a month for a monitored system. I mean, we have insurance, right? We already pay them in case our stuff gets stolen, and whatever they do steal, we could just buy again, right? Anyway, while I was installing our new blinds this past weekend, I noticed the pre-installed magnetic contacts on all the windows, and that got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be cool to just have an unmonitored system that would notify me when one of my windows/doors was opened? All I’d want is something that would call on my cellphone if someone was in my house when they weren’t supposed to be. Lo and behold, they sell a gadget that does just that. And, since all my doors and windows are pre-wired, all I’d have to do is buy it and hook it up.

So I’ve been toying with the idea of a do-it-yourself security system It would ring my cellphone if a window/door was opened when we’re gone, or if any of the smoke detectors are tripped (it can also sound real alarm, if you want). Plenty of companies sell “packages” that include the dialer, control panel, wireless keypads to arm/disarm the alarm, and even additional motion detectors for indoor/outdoor. So for $200, I can have a system call me, or Sharaun, or anyone (four numbers in succession if it doesn’t get someone) if our house is getting burgled. Haven’t decided yet, I’m still unsure if I really want this because I want some kinda security system, or because it sounds like a fun electronics project. Man, I really am addicted to projects.

In fact, right now I have a backlog of projects. The foremost being the backyard and the Halloween display. But also on the list is: painting some rooms in the house, replacing the exhuast manifolds in the truck, replacing the seats in the truck, the center console, cleaning the truck… yeah… the truck has turned into a “work vehicle” over the duration of the backyard project. I have to fix up the front yard, mulch, weedblock, plants, etc.

Sometimes I get torn when I write entries like this one, which are, admitedly, boring – being only accounts of “what I did,” and “how I felt.” Torn between writing like this and writing something topic-based or funny. I guess it’s all really luck of the draw though, because often when I sit down – on or the other seems to come out. My current stance is, it it’s writing itself – it must be what I want to write about. The ones that are forced are the ones that suck. So if I can write three or four or five paragraphs about working on the backyard, and how it makes me feel… whatever.

Changing the subject, I just found out that my work has “identified” me as a person who’d benefit from on-site university courses in the Chinese language. I’ve been enrolled in a one-month class that will teach us “the basic constructs of conversational and business relationship Chinese.” It’s four hours every Friday, and an hour on Tuesdays, for one month. I’m actually extremely excited about this. Not only does it count for college credit (why I care about this, I don’t know), but it’s free and should be really interesting. My only hope is that it’s a quality class where I can really learn something, as I’d love to be able to interact better with the customers in Taiwan.

Well, I’m off to fool around online some more… I’ve been working on the t-shirt store a buddy of mine and I have been trying to start for a while. I think I have a much better solution than the previous way I was approaching things…

Dave out.