This past three-day weekend was a blast. Jenn, Stuart, Tiffany, and I all went up to Seattle on the train.



Three days and two nights of chaos and mayhem. Among other things, we saw Pike Place Market, Experience Music Project, and the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.

EMP and the Sci-Fi Museum were my favorite stops. The two put together took us pretty much an entire day. EMP sucked us in with the tons of cool exhibits and hands-on demonstrations of musical concepts, and the Sci-Fi Museum was a blast with all sorts of science fiction paraphernalia. From movie props to original novels scripts, they had it all. I even got a picture of myself next to Gort. (For reference, I'm 6'2" tall; Gort dwarfs me.)



Honestly, normally I do the whole play-by-play of all the things we did, but it was so much I don't even know where to begin. I'll just say it was a lot of fun and a great weekend to decompress.

Only downside: too much walking. I think the next vacation's gotta be lying on the beach drinking umbrella drinks. Give these tootsies a rest.

I admit I'm all about merchandising. I mean, I can't not buy Star Wars toys. But the Star Wars patterned fabric? I think that's a bit much.

I think Stu says it best, so I'll just let you check it out over there.

I called NEW (the warranty company servicing my TV extended warranty) since they were supposed to have called me back this past Friday to tell me what's going on with my TV - as it's unfixable, are they going to replace it or refund my money?

I talked to Dave over there, who is perhaps the most unhelpful customer service representative ever. Not sure if you've talked to a Dave before, but these are the customer service reps who use their position as an excuse NOT to help you.

Dave told me that NEW was waiting to hear form the TV repair place that my TV was not fixable. I asked what could be done to help the process along.

Dave: They need to fax us their report that says the TV can't be fixed.
Me: OK. So can you call them and ask them to fax that or should I do that?
Dave: They need to fax us their report that says the TV can't be fixed.
Me: Right. Who needs to tell them that they need to fax you that information?
Dave: Normally what happens is they determine the TV to be unfixable, then they fax us their report and tell us that so we can send it to authorization.
Me: I've got that. Who needs to call the repair firm and tell them to fax that? Can you do it?
Dave: I'm sorry, I'm just the customer service rep.

That's great, Dave. Thanks.

Turns out I called the repair place and they sent in their report like two weeks ago.

Time to get irritated...

I love my Roomba. LOVE IT. I may have to get a second one because we love it so much.

I heard rumor they might be coming out with a floor mopping robot. I laughed that it would be "Mopba."

Turns out it's real. It's actually called "Scooba" and it'll be out for the holidays. I must have one.

After much deliberation, Jenn and I have decided not to get full season hockey tickets for the Winter Hawks this year. We love hockey, we love our seats, and we love the people we sit by. We just can't make it to 36 home games over the course of a season, and we can't justify spending the money on the tickets anymore. The Hawks have taken too long to "rebuild;" there are too many Memorial Coliseum games when they should be in the Rose Garden; and we always tell each other we'll go on vacation when we have the time and money... but with 36 games to go to, there's no time, and at the prices they're charging, there's no money.

This was actually a really hard decision that we chewed on for several weeks. We really do love our seats - right on the glass! Front row hockey action! And the people we sit by are really good friends - we couldn't ask for better seat neighbors. Those were the two factors making us reluctant to not get the season tix - the seats and the people. Sadly, the factors against (money, time, etc.) barely outweighed and now we're going to step down for a partial season ticket package instead.

I'll be honest - the real push for me was the time. I do love the hockey. 36 home games, though? It's like every single night you're having to haul ass downtown. I've really been enjoying not having to run around so much during the off-season and I really just can't see getting back into that crazy shuffle. Six or seven times in a season? Sure. Twice a week for several months? Too much. Far too much.

So we'll lose our seats, which I'm sorry to do, and we'll have to run down to visit our friends during intermissions. But we'll actually plan and go on a vacation this year, which, I think, will make up for it. Cancun? Disneyland? The sky is the limit!

I'm not sure why it is, but Star Wars is like lube for my wallet. I am compelled - like at the soul level - to buy Star Wars toys. Not just any old merchandise, mind you, but action figures and vehicles.

I've seen episode III twice since Friday. This weekend I bought like five figures and two of the vehicles. I'd probably have bought more had the store carried the rest of the vehicles. And to be honest, I have no idea why. It just makes me happy.

Just seeing the opening Star Wars logo and hearing the fanfare makes me smile. I think that, combined with the fact that I never really had any Star Wars toys growing up (and those that I did have got sold out from under me at a garage sale) sort of adds up to me buying toys I probably don't need but really, truly want.

I saw more on Amazon that I want but I realize I should probably not indulge much more. Jenn's already told me to stop buying the toys. But I'm an addict! Just one more figure!

I've seen this twice now - once with the folks from work on Friday, once with Jenn on Sunday. I'd see it again.

A lot of people out there seem to be complaining that they didn't get what they wanted out of this one. Let's put this into perspective:

This is a science fiction movie series about people who have some sort of telekinetic powers given to them by a mysterious "Force" in the universe. People fly spaceships. People duel with swords made of contained laser beams. Everyone in the universe speaks English except Chewbacca. And you're complaining about plot holes?

I look at Revenge of the Sith like this: Coming in, there are certain plot points that need to be addressed to bridge the gap between Episodes II and IV. Anakin has to turn into Darth Vader. Chancellor Palpatine has to become the Emperor. Luke and Leia need to be born. Yoda has to make it to Dagobah. And on and on. If you were paying attention to the other five movies, you know what's going to happen in here. It's like watching Titanic: Is the ship going to sink or isn't it? You know the ending already - you're just along for the ride.

Thinking about it like that, this movie was awesome. I loved it. The action was great, the story moved along fairly well (maybe a little too quickly toward the end, but that's okay), and all of the loose ends were sewn up. Every plot point that I wanted to see addressed got addressed. Plus - and this is a huge bonus - there were no "cute" characters like Jar-Jar Binks or the Ewoks to mess it up. It stood on its own without selling out.

I'm still not a big Hayden Christiansen fan. I don't feel him as Anakin. I'm not sure why, he just didn't sell me. The rest of the cast did a good job.

The effects were good, too. The battles were great! Why couldn't they have done that sort of stuff in the last two movies? This was what I was waiting for this whole time and I wasn't disappointed in the least.

Maybe I'm not a "true fan." I didn't think The Empire Strikes Back was the best of the original three - I liked Episode IV best. I didn't get all worked up about the little plot points that some of the more obsessed fans get worked up about. I was happy to see characters I loved on the screen. I was happy to see the plot points I was hoping to see addressed get addressed. I was happy to see great effects and I was happy to have a good time watching it.

Go see it. You'll like it.

I was messing around the other day with ASCII text generators like this one when I thought I'd combine that with the power of MSN Messenger. But how to address the font kerning issue? ASCII text art needs a fixed-width font.

The solution? Draw in emoticons! The Emotifier was thus born.

Let's use, for example, the word "JAM" - Emotify it, paste it into MSN Messenger, and you get:



How crazy is that?

Here you go - try it for yourself:



A couple of notes: First, due to the max length of a Messenger message, it turns out you can really only get four characters in there, so I've limited the above demo to four characters in length. The script itself will do more. Second, it only supports letters, numbers, and space, and the following punctuation: !@#$%^&*()

One other (sort of important) note: The recipient's chat window needs to be opened wide enough to see the whole width of the message or it may come in garbled because of line wrapping. Sorry, guys, there's no "nowrap" I can throw on this one.

Like it? Want it? Get it.

Right-click and Save As: emotifier.js

We've gotten to that QA stage in the project where for the last several days all I've done at work is fix minor typographical errors and, like, the alignment of columns in tables.

Somehow, that's not too exceptionally stimulating. Particularly when the errors are all in bits of code that I had no part in writing. Fixing a small thing becomes a painful ordeal - search through the code to find out where the errant bit is (keeping in mind that each developer on the project does everything differently, so there's no real consistent pattern to any of it), make the update, fire up the app and verify the fix, then do the "paperwork" of filing the defect resolution and such in the defect tracking system.

All that means a 15 second fix takes half an hour.

In the meantime, my mind is totally wandering because it's about as exciting as data entry. There's no problem to be solved, there's no new code to write (and in many cases, it's not a code fix at all, but a resource file fix - so it's updating XML, not code).

I'm having a pretty difficult time. I think it'd be a little better if I was fixing defects in my own code, but I'm not - it's other peoples' stuff. (At this point there are no open defects filed against my stuff, otherwise I'd be doing those.)

As I go through this, I'm realizing that once a problem is solved - even if the code isn't totally written - I'm done being excited about it. My fun is in solving the problem. Sometimes that ends with the solution architecture. Sometimes it involves coming up with a slick way to implement the thing. But the nitpicky stuff - no joy there.

Now, that said, I'm almost as big on closure as I am on problem solving. I like finishing things. When a significant module is done in a project or when the project is done, I'm pretty stoked about it. That drive for closure gets me through the rote parts of the bits I'm working on.

The problem I'm having here is that fixing typos neither offers problem solving nor closure.

Perhaps I am not caffeinated enough. Maybe I should address that.

Last night Jenn and I decided to try out this little Chinese restaurant that's kind of close to our house. We'd seen it, but we're not terribly adventurous folk, so not knowing the type of food (Cantonese vs. Szechuan - we like Cantonese better... lots of deep, lots of fried...) or quality made us wary. We decided to take the jump last night.

It was actually pretty good. The fried shrimp was different than I'm used to - it had a flaky breading with some sweetness to it instead of having been battered. The pork fried rice had (gasp) actual, visible pieces of barbecued pork in it (and it was very tasty). I had the General Tso chicken and it was tasty - the spiciness was just right.

The experience, though, was in the environment. The place is very obviously a house that they tore the inside out of and converted to a restaurant. You order at what looks like a fast food counter, with a giant color menu behind the register. The dining area had four tables of mediocre quality - our table had absolutely no stability to it, and the table diagonal from us was held together with cardboard and aluminum foil. There were these random posters of Chinese women on the walls... like fashion models or something. Fake ivy plants hung at intervals along the wall, with plastic fruits coming out of them (bananas, oranges, apples). I was previously unaware that ivy bore fruit, but I guess I was misinformed. A small TV/VCR unit was mounted in the corner of the dining area playing a rerun of Malcom in the Middle.

The whole thing was very surreal. The food was good (and reasonably priced), the environment interesting...

I'll totally eat there again.

My fortune (all spelling and grammar exactly like this): "Today it's up to you to created the peacefulness you long for."

Awesome.

I'm looking at different blog packages and trying to determine what people like and don't like about their current blog software. If you have a blog (or if you would like to have a blog), please take a sec and fill in my six-question survey to tell me what you think is good or bad about their blog packages. What do you like? What don't you like?

I think my new favorite restaurant is Quizno's. I'm not even really a "sandwich guy," but I never really get tired of eating at Quizno's. I went there for lunch today, and if Jenn told me we were having it for dinner tonight, I'd be cool with that.

It's actually been kind of a staple in the new diet that Jenn and I have been on for a couple of months. I think we eat at Quizno's once or twice a week at least. And I'm doing well - I checked last night and I'm down like 10 pounds in the last month. I'm going to be, like, the Jared of Quizno's. They should just give me my sandwiches for free and in return I'll pimp their stuff.

Since I haven't heard for a week on what the story is with my TV, I called the warranty company to find out.

I ended up speaking with Dolores, a very nice lady who was probably the most helpful person I've talked to yet in this ordeal.

Apparently, the warranty company hasn't heard anything from the TV repair shop confirming that the set is unfixable. Dolores submitted a request for a status update from the "authorizations department" and I should be getting a call back by Friday. If I don't hear from them, I should call them to find out what's what.

I inquired about the whole process, and here's what I understand it to be:

If there's something wrong with your warranty-covered appliance, they first try to repair the unit. If the cost of repair will be greater than 85% of the cost of a new unit, they first do a bunch of research to see if they can get the parts and such at a lower cost and bring it to under 85% of the new unit cost. Failing that, they move to "buyout/replacement." At this stage, they have a week to evaluate whether they can find a "comparable unit" to replace the broken item with. If they can, you get a replacement item. If they can't, they refund your purchase price with applicable sales tax, excluding the cost of the extended warranty proper.

So: repair, replace, refund. That, as Dolores's Great Uncle Enoch would say, is "the whole schtick."

We're in buyout/replacement phase, so I should already have heard back. Something has slipped through the cracks, so we're nudging the authorization department to get them going on this.

In all honesty, I'm hoping for the refund. I've been researching TVs like mad lately. I joined Consumer Reports online to see what they say about TVs, I've been reading the AV Science Forum to see what other owners have to say...

I've pretty much settled on LCD-based technology. I don't fancy the screen burn-in that plasma can provide when gaming, and the DLP "rainbow effect" has turned me off of that. I'd go with LCoS, but it's so expensive there's no way. So, LCD. I considered a direct-view LCD, but the most I can afford would be like a 32" one, which is too small. So I'm in LCD rear projection land.

Looking at those sets, I'm liking the Sony series. The existing owners seem pretty happy, and I do have a certain brand-affinity for Sony. Aside from this TV issue of late, they've never let me down, and I'm hesitant to really blame Sony for this one - it's a technology issue common to sets that size, not limited to Sony. The leading sets right now are the KDF-55XS955 and the KDF-60XS955, 55" and 60" sets, respectively. The Live Color feature on the XS series sets seems to be a make-it-or-break-it feature for many of the existing owners, and the ability to do gamma correction and whatnot in the user menus (that is, without having to wade through the service tech menus) is a big plus.

I've never been a fan of the whole rear projection thing, but I've seen these in the stores and they're pretty nice. It's unfortunate that there's really only one [very expensive] LCD set on the market that does a full 1080 resolution natively (without scaling down), but I don't have the $13K to drop on that right now. These sets are, if I recall correctly, 1386 x 788, so the 1080 hi-def images get scaled down, but the rest actually have to get slightly scaled up.

Jet Li is one of the baddest ass guys out there. Followed closely, though in a different fashion, by Luc Besson. So when I saw a movie coming out that involved the both of them, there's no way I could pass it up.

Unleashed is the story of Danny (Jet Li), a guy who has been brought up like a dog - collar and all - by a British loan shark named Bart (played by Bob Hoskins) and is used to help in collecting on overdue accounts. Primarily this involves beating large numbers of burly guys to a pulp in what looks like an effortless fashion. Eventually Danny escapes and befriends a blind man (Morgan Freeman) and his daughter (Kerry Condon), who help him re-learn what living a life is.

It sounds sappy, but it was really cool. There was just the right amount of action - really cool action, I might add - mixed with story such that the whole thing felt very balanced. You don't come walking out of the theater thinking, "Man, the story was so light," or, "Man, there definitely wasn't enough fighting in there."

That, plus some great acting on the parts of all of the cast, combined to make one of the best movies I've seen in quite some time.

Those folks who like to overanalyze movies will definitely find some holes. Like, why would a blind guy who has no idea who this 40-year-old man in the dog collar is decide to take him in and treat him like family? But don't overanalyze the thing. Just roll with it. It's a good ride, and you'll like it.

I'll definitely be picking this one up on DVD when it's out. Highly recommended - go see it.

I'm working on resolving defects for the current project I'm on. One of the defects is that, intermittently after a reboot, a particular machine configuration can display something a little odd under certain circumstances.

Gotta reproduce, so that means reboot, reboot, reboot...

I got a puzzle called "Masterball" from my aunt like a month ago. (This will all tie in, just wait.) It's sort of like Rubik's Cube, but a sphere instead of a cube. I mixed it up and have been messing with it on and off ever since.

The defect resolution:

Both rebooted and logged in/out several times in succession. Solved "Masterball," a puzzle similar to Rubik's Cube, while doing that many reboots, but was unable to reproduce the noted defect.

Very, very stimulating stuff.

After two seasons of utter coolness, yet another of the few shows I watch has been canceled. Goodbye, Carnivale, you will be sorely missed.

The weekends, lately, have generally brought with them yard work. Several people, including my parents, impart pithy phrases like "Welcome to the joys of being a home owner!" when I say this, but I think they're missing the point:

I don't think the yard work is necessarily all that bad. I'd much rather do the yard than have to put up with neighbors in attached units who double park you in or smell like freshly pissed pants. Yard work is a cake walk in comparison, and I am happy to do it if that's the price I must pay for dwelling independence.

Anyway, yard work. We've been killing/pulling the weeds, then putting down anti-weed cloth in the flower beds that, hopefully soon, will be barkdusted over. Unfortunately, the nice weather is primarily during the week, so on the weekend, when there's time to actually do the work, we're constrained to a couple of hours prior to the rain setting in. A little at a time isn't hurting us, but it'd be nice to really just make some progress.

In other news, for insurance purposes I've been cataloging my comic book collection with ComicsPriceGuide.com. Just from a curiosity perspective, it's interesting to see the stats it's coming up with, like the publisher I have the most comics from (so far it's Dark Horse). Very keen.

I haven't heard from the TV folks on what the story is with the TV "buyout" going on, but I'm starting to investigate what's out on the market as far as TVs are concerned. It's a toss-up between LCD and DLP, and in the LCD arena it's more of an "LCD rear-projection" than an "LCD direct-view" sort of thing because giant LCD panels are a little cost-prohibitive at the moment. Pending on how long I can push out the purchase, maybe the price will go down. That said, not having a TV in the main room is sort of a pain.

I'm realizing that sequences of emoticons in MSN Messenger can sometimes tell entire stories:

I went in to check out the TV and it's not fixed. I mean, they put a new tube in, but even the repair technician there says he still sees the problem and there's nothing else they can do.

I called the warranty company and they tried to foist me off on the place I bought the TV, but when I explained the situation, they finally told me that the repair place needs to contact them for "buyout." Not sure if that means they're going to ship me a new TV or if it means they're just going to cut me a check. Either way is fine with me, I think, though the check would be better.

Either way, I was told not to accept delivery of the TV because, well, there's no point in a broken TV sitting around my house. I concur. Now I wait. Some more.

According to a phone call I received via voice mail from yesterday at 4:58p, my TV is fixed and awaiting delivery back to my home.

The interesting thing is that on Friday, April 22nd, I heard from them that they had gotten a new tube for the TV and were replacing it. Interesting because the repair technician had told me he didn't think replacing the tube would fix it, so I'm a little skeptical that it's actually fixed. This after they told me they "couldn't reproduce the problem" and when I got down there and pointed it out, they totally saw it.

I guess I'll call them back this morning and see about making it down to the repair shop to look at the new tube prior to accepting delivery of the thing.

As I've gone through this rigamarole, I've come to understand a lot more about TVs and the inherent relative display precision of the various kinds. In particular, I've noticed that no tube-based TV displays with perfectly straight lines. I mean, they get damn close, but especially toward the edges, things get dicey.

A minor sidetrack that will tie in shortly:

Several years ago I bought a movie on videotape. I brought it home and, as I watched it, I noticed the display was not terribly crisp. I had noticed it before, but it got to a point where the lack of precision and clarity in the display, not to mention the staticky audio, had finally broken me down.

I took the tape back and exchanged it for the same movie, again to find the quality was crap.

It was then that I went out - that same day - and bought my first DVD player. I couldn't handle the imprecision of videotape any longer.

What I'm coming to find is that I may have grown beyond the "tube TV" stage now, too. I notice the imperfections all too much - and in everyone's TVs, not just mine - and it may be time to move to something digitally precise. An LCD or DLP set, for example.

Of course, I don't have the funds to spend on it right now, and if my tube is fixed and looks good enough that there's no glaring imperfection, I'll be fine for the next couple of years. When it eventually goes out - and it will - then will be the time to upgrade to the next generation of set.

But first things first. Gotta call the repair place and schedule a time to check it out.

On Friday Jenn and I went to Sayler's Old Country Kitchen for Jenn's grandma's birthday dinner.

Now, keeping in mind that Jenn and I are trying to eat right and exercise and all that... Sayler's is one of those places that breads and deep fries pretty much everything. If you look wrong at the menu you gain three pounds. It's old school cooking, and it's very popular with the older crowd. Heavy, heavy meals.

On their sign outside is a picture of a steak. Their menus are shaped like steaks. There's a picture of a steak on damn close to everything in there. Why? They offer a 72oz. "steak challenge." Eat it in an hour - with all the "trimmings" (baked potato, etc.) and it's yours free. Fail the challenge and you pay $50 for it.

The steak sits in a glass case up front on ice. Jenn got a shot of it:



Apparently you have to call ahead if you want to take the challenge because the steak takes so long to cook.

They've been doing this since like 1948 and they keep a running tally on the wall. Something like 220 men have failed and 110 have succeeded. Four women have failed and two succeeded. Unreal.

I hate book-to-film adaptations.

I really do. The problem is that adapting a book to film implies that certain things will get cut due to time constraints, the general inability to illustrate a concept visually, etc. When they do stick to the book (like the first two Harry Potter movies), I love it but the critics hate it. When they deviate from the book (like the third Harry Potter movie), I hate it but the critics love it.

I always hope they'll stick to the book because the whole reason I want to see the film adaptation is to see the story I know and love brought to life on the screen. One of my favorite stories ever is The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and I was more than excited to see that it was going to get its time on the big screen (not counting the previous time, which, admittedly, I haven't seen).

Ugh.

I mean, seriously. Ugh.

There was stuff that happened in the movie that never happened in the book.

There was stuff that happened in the movie that happened in other books in the series.

The worst bit is that I've read the books and I got lost. Jenn hasn't read the books and was more lost than me.

I think they were trying to get somewhere they shouldn't have tried to go. They tried to get "creative" with it or something. They tried to somehow change or improve upon the story and it didn't work.

I liked Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent. Mos Def as Ford Prefect was... well, he wasn't what I pictured when I read the books, but I bought it. Zooey Deschanel was a great Trillian. Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast was perfect (and has my vote for most accurately represented character in the movie).

On the other hand, Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox left something to be desired. He felt too... flashy... and not enough "used car salesman." The rendition of Marvin the Paranoid Android was not remotely how I had pictured Marvin in the books. And the spaceship Heart Of Gold had pretty much no bearing on anything I had imagined.

The Vogons, who are an interesting set of characters, were not major players in the books. I mean, they were there, but they didn't show up every 10 seconds. In the movie, the Vogons filled in the "villain" role and were on screen almost more than the humans.

I won't even get into the fact that the dolphins played like NO role in the first book but somehow made it to the opening credits of the movie.

I really hope they don't try this again. I won't even be picking this up on DVD, it was so bad. Sorry, Hollywood, you really lost me here. Now I'm going to have a hell of a time convincing Jenn to read the books.