“The Internet was conceived as a utopian ideal, designed by nonprofit researchers in 1990 as an undiscriminating conduit for information.” — Ripped, Greg Kot, p. 25.

There’s so much wrong, I’m almost inclined to put the book down and not pick it up again, only I have to review it =P

This book is about how the Internet has changed the music industry, but if the author can’t even differentiate between the development of WWW as just one part of the Internet… I’m scared, mommy.

P.S. Turns out that my previously described PC problems are still happening, and it’s not outlet related. Upgrading the video card. Hopefully that will help =P

Recall two months or so ago my PC became infected with malware, Trojans, and this weird green thing that Nic seems to have become infected with *shivers*

Around that time my computer started shutting down spontaneously. Cam and I sat down one day and we did some diagnostics, but everything seemed fine. Then I couldn’t turn my PC on. To be specific: power was going to the motherboard, fans and the like, but nothing would boot. I couldn’t even get into BIOS.

Assuming the worst, I bought new hardware: mobo, RAM, SATA (btw, I LOOOOVE new Windows installs. Very sexy). Same problem was happening, but then it went away.

This weekend I had another shutdown, and I decided to swap out the PCU. Maybe there was a power issue.

So there I am, in bed, reading my sexy kindle, when the cat runs under the bed and my computer powers down.

That’s when I realized what’s going on. I have an extension cord running from an outlet from behind my bed to my desk, where I have all the power strips plugged in. The extension cord sometimes gets loose in the outlet from the beds movement (e.g. when I change the sheets). Because it’s blocked by the bed, I don’t see it, so I didn’t even think that that would be the initial cause of my problem. Viruses can do nasty things, so I, and my friends, assumed it was virus related.

*CRIES*

I SPENT HUNDREDS OF MY MOM’S DOLLARS FIXING MY COMPUTER WHEN I JUST NEEDED TO MAKE SURE AN EXTENSION CORD WAS PLUGGED IN!!!

I mean, I’m happy with my more powerful computer, but that could have been medication money or money to help pay off my medical bills or something 

from an email i just sent my brother Jay:

I’ve not yet had a lot of time to work with it as I’m pulling some OT today. The buttons will take a little getting used to, I think, as will the little control stick (the k1 has this roll thing button). It’s comparatively smaller, but the K1 is angled down from the left, which makes it more ergonomic. the k2 is flat.

crisper screen, and the increased number of greys really does help. i just loaded up a NY Times front page image and it looks like a picture from the paper, not some blah image on a windows 3.x machine.

the keyboard is nicer, and when i was typing my info to register the kindle it didn’t take me 9 years. page load is slightly faster, still with the black screen, tho.

my previous purchases were in a “folder” called archived (but i don’t yet know if folders are an option on the k2, i don’t think so but i hope so). downloading them onto the new kindle was easy, but i had to go onto the amazon site and manually set my ny times subscription to go to the k2.

amazon also doesn’t track any samples you download on the customer’s kindle page so i will need to go back and request the samples again.

after I spend more time with it (I named it Balthazar), I’ll write up a real comparative review.

I decided to start a games blog.

twobitgames

first two articles are up:

• designing around limitations - about the book racing the beam (Atari VCS)
• remembering the little professor

I’m so full of updates of late =P

this one is for the friends i recently re-connected with via Facebook. there’s been a few “what have you been up to,” and since I’ve not seen or spoken to most of them in 20 years (yes, Cristina, I graduated high school 20 years ago, and yes, we had electricity back then =P), I figured I might as well blog about what I’ve done since graduation.

Not much. No, seriously. I’m really quite the bum, which isn’t a surprise to me, or my family. But I can’t say I’ve really done anything truly spectacular cure cancer and AIDS and create masterful pieces of art or anything special like that. Which is fine by me. I’m a lazy bastard anyways.

After high school I immediately went to Hunter College, where I bummed around for six years. At first I was going to major in Biology, but I felt that was the easy choice for me as biology came naturally to me (I wanted to specialize in genetics, which completely fascinated me). I tried English, but realized I hated writing papers. I settled on Theatre, even tho I had zero theatrical experience. My focus was on directing, and I think as a student director I was pretty darn good and may have had some form of off-off-Broadway success had I not chickened out and got a real job to support myself post college (btw, I left without picking up my degree; it wasn’t important to me at the time).

I worked in New Media until Christmas 2000, when I got fucked up the ass by the bursting of the Internet bubble. Because it was difficult to find work where I was in northern VA, I moved back to NYC. Because it was difficult to find work in NYC (this was 2001), I wound up moving in with my maternal grandmother (the German) who was still in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. I cared for her for over six and a half years until her death last October. That was, perhaps, one of the most difficult journeys I have ever taken. Alzheimer’s is an absolutely horrid disease, one I would not wish on my worst enemy (I would, however, wish that they would be forced to care for an Alzheimer’s patient for a week as that’s difficult enough!).

I did wind up going back to Hunter, although for health reasons I’ve had to take some time off. I’m currently studying Media Studies, and have done some game design classes there as well. My interest is to eventually get a Masters in Cultural Studies or something similar. Lord knows if that will ever happen with my medical debts and all, but hey, I’m still young, and I look even younger (thanks, shiny eyebrow ring!)

Many of you may remember that I was a prolific creative writer during high school. I think I stopped writing creatively in my third year at college. That would be around the time I really started studying theatre, which is a collaborative creative process. I still write, but mostly here or about gaming.

Ah, yes, gaming. I’m not only an Internet addict, but also a gamer. Not as hardcore as some of my friends, but it’s a big hobby of mine. What’s interesting is that unlike many of my friends, I never really wanted to break into the industry, but an opportunity came by that was perfectly timed, and not only is one of my best friends my bosses boss, but the company I work for (CCP, an Icelandic company) is completely amazing. I truly love my job, and haven’t had anything to complain about. It wouldn’t surprise me if I didn’t come up with something. I work with amazing people, doing amazing things that keep me occupied without annoying me. I have an amazing team and a boss that completely rules. And I also get to work in my pajamas, at home, with my cats crawling all over me while I’m trying to write something profound that our players would enjoy. Okay, I guess I found a complaint: I can’t keep Hija off the freaking keyboard!

Oh, I’m also an aunt. Jason has two children and a step-daughter, and Alicia (she was a toddler back then) has two kids as well. They all live in Virginia, and I talk to them quite often and love them all to death. Mom remarried and is living in the Victorian she always wanted in Jersey City (meh). Her health is horrid (heart, lungs) but she’s happily surrounded with her cats and Battlestar Galactica.

I have four cats, live in my grandmother’s house in Cambria Heights, enjoy reading (sci-fi, but mostly non-fiction), listening to music (80’s new wave (some things never change), alternative, classic rock), sleeping, and photography. I’m an information junky. And my favorite color is grey

Questions?

I successfully set up the new HDD with WinXP and ran scans on the slaved drive that had been infected with rootkits and trojans and all sorts of evil overnight and that drive came up clean. So it looks like I’ve been successful, although I’m still cautiously optimistic.

As promised, here’s the info from Kaspersky on what started it all. I don’t know what site it was that had the bad advertisement, but at least you can block the URL below and whatnot:

3/1/2009 1:36:07 PM    Detected: Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Agent.aihr    WJQS.EXE        http://www.buyincomeproperties.com/adv.exe

after this, all the fun started happening. Interesting how Kaspersky “caught” it and “denied” it and yet I still wound up shits creek and several days, billions of hours, and various scanners and removers later…

well, you know the story already, no need to rehash.

I sent this to NY-Lisa a few mins ago…

here’s a little backstory. since last friday i’ve been trying to get my primary care doctor’s receptionist to call in a VIP prescription for me. Asacol is the colon medicine, and without it I run the risk of relapse. I left 5 messages over the course of the week, and finally got her on the phone and said “listen, i’m out. i really need this, i’m relapsing. please call it in.” she said she would.

the fucking cunt DID NOT.

she doesn’t realize that not only did i used to work for her boss, but that i’ve known him since i was 18. i don’t trust her anymore to give him my msgs, so when i next see him he’s going to hear it from me.

so i’ve relapsed. not too bad, but bad enough where the doctor re-upped my prednisone to the level i was getting at the hospital and is giving me 6-MP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercaptopurine). he’s also upping the asacol to hospital levels, but is dropping my iron intake to 1/day. i still have to take the prilosec.

i feel fine, but my poop is telling me otherwise. but don’t worry. i’m not going to go back into the hospital

when i went into hospital I weighed 103 lbs./47 kg.

as of this moment, 3 Mar 09, i weight 126 lbs./57 kg.

I owe this all to the steroids, which have given me a HUGE motherfucking appetite. Am I complaining? Fuck no. My target weight is 130 lbs./59 kg

this is for my IRC friends who may be wondering where I’ve been for the last couple of days.

first, let me allay your fears: no, I’m not in the hospital again.

my PC got infected with a rootkit on Sunday from a bad ad on some regular job Web site I had visited. I’ll try to post an update later (if i remember to) with the URL of the infected ad location (i don’t know what Web site I visited that had it, tho), so that you can block it.

anyway, rootkits are bad. they are like opening up all your doors and windows and screaming out your front door “hey everyone! i have a million dollars sitting on this table and I’m going to the store… help yourselves!” courtesy of said rootkit, my PC has also been infested with malware and trojans.

the good thing is my regular files are not affected. i’ll be hooking the PC to the Mac and then moving things over to save them. then i’ll have to write zero’s to the drive a few times (that means i’ll be completely erasing the data, and for extra measure i’ll do it a few times to ensure that there’s nothing still hiding).

of course, i’ll have to let my pc sit around without the battery for a while in the mobo to ensure that evil is hiding in the hardware. the usual stuff.

then i get to have the pleasure of rebuilding the OS. i actually own a legal copy of Win XP (it’s okay to be shocked). I’ll have to “acquire” some applications and reinstall a SHITLOAD of stuff, but that’s the price you pay for using Windows being on the Internet.

now, you may ask yourselves what went wrong… don’t I have tools to protect me? Yep. I always have a firewall and scanner running at all times, and I keep them, as well as my operating system, constantly updated. but script kiddies are smart and no matter what you do you will never truly be able to stay ahead of them and protect your system 100%. shit happens. oh well.

i’m just glad there’s no data loss. i’m just looking at some bad files that can do bad things like send, oh, my bank password to some Russian cocksucker who will sell it for five bucks to some Filipino hacker kid who downloads goatse pr0n on his mother’s 486.

oh, so i’m currently using two rigs: the Asus EEE, which has Windows (need it for work), and my Macbook Pro, which I’m also using for work. With the help of RyanD, CCP’s intrepid CMO, I was able to get VPN running on the Mac, but it’s retarded. i can only hit work servers and nothing outside of that when I’m logged into our VPN. this sucks, because i can’t do things like hit our own forums (which is outside) or heck, even run the game or MSN. so on the Mac I have to constantly toggle between VPN and my regular connection in order to do things like, well, post this to my blog.

but, you know what: this is what you do to keep things secure. and as we now know, maybe it’s a lesson I should learn from considering my Sunday experience

there’s been a lot of questions, concerns and worries of late of where I had been for ten days. because my mobile was out of juice, i was only able to leave a cryptic message via facebook about my being in the hospital (i think… i was on dilaudid at the time). the lack of information was so intense, becky started calling area hospitals looking for me!

anyway, this blog post is meant to answer questions, especially because it’s getting a little redundant on the response part for me. but feel free to ask questions after reading, even tho the post will probably be a tl;dr for many of you.

it’s no secret, really, that i’ve been ill for quite some time. back in may 08 i got sick with a mystery ailment that my doctor could only pin to as some form of travelers diareah that kicked my ass for a month. on and off since then i’ve been experiencing symptoms ranging from extreme weakness to some abnominal funkiness.

earlier this month i started having another major episode. i had to miss several days of work because i was just too ill and weak to do anything, and that says a lot about my state because i work from home and can easily prop myself up on my bed with a laptop and type away and stuff. but i really couldn’t get myself together for that.

eventually i ran out of food, and spent two days in bed waiting for my stepfather to bring me groceries (he didn’t want to make the trip/didn’t think i was really, really sick… and still didn’t until about half-way thru my hospital stay). when i got the food i started to get my strength back, and felt that i was going to make a good recovery.

[oh, before i forget, i don't have insurance, which is why i was reluctant to get major health care]

i had started feeling some abnominal pains and had been sleeping on my back for a few days, when around 1a on the 18th i woke up in severe pain and was puking. i tried to have some dried toast but it didn’t help. i was bunched up in pain, and extremely weak. i knew i had to go in to the hospital.

i grabbed a bunch of underpants and deodorant, a book, and shoved it all in my bookbag. my laptop was right there, but i didn’t even consider bringing it, or my ipod with me (total proof of how sick i really was). god dressed, and called the ambulance. that whole thing doesn’t seem like it would take a long time, but i was so weak and in so much pain that it took me almost an hour to do all of that.

i waited for the ambulance outside, in a fetal position, in a hail storm. seriously. hail was falling, but it wasn’t bad. took them about 15 mins to get there, and they took my vitals and took me to franklin hospital, which is in valley stream (nearby).

in the ER they drew blood and discovered that my hemoglobin was too low (6), and i had to consent to a blood transfusion. they gave me 2 pints of blood (I was told once I was O+, but it turns out that I’m actually A+). they gave me a shot for my stomach pains, but it didn’t work. nor did the tylenol. eventually i got a bed and was moved upstairs to a ward.

i gave my infos to the nurse, and she was able to get the doctor to give me dilaudid for my pain. i never had dilaudid before, but i wouldn’t mind having it again (and had to have it for the next several days, tho i only took it during the night hours so i could sleep). i was still getting blood, and still quite weak, so i slept, a lot.

i had a CT scan the next day (barium shakes suck fucking cock, and the iodine injection makes your entire body feel oddly warm, but the veins only), which determined that i had pancreatitis, which is a swelling of the pancreas. they didn’t know why i was having the attack, and the only way to cure it is to totally flush out the system until the symptoms subside.

translation: i was not allowed to eat nor drink, at all, until thursday afternoon.

most of my time was spent recovering from the pain, pooping a lot, and being stuck with needles. i was on an IV, so i was not hungry at all, but, not surprisingly, i didn’t actually have an appetite anyway. psychologically, tho, not eating is very rough. i could smell the food cart as soon as it hit the hallway and would have to change the channel if a food commercial came on the tube.

my cousin angela (and her grandmother) and aunt teeny visited me when i was there. sadly, angela’s grandfather was also in the hospital, and then was placed in the on-site hospice. he had terminal lung cancer, and one week after i was admitted. my godmother/aunt anna also visited, which was a shock because it’s said that she doesn’t like hospitals since she got lymphatic cancer last year. aunt pat, my dad’s sister, also paid me a welcomed visit, sadly the day angie’s gramps passed. i didn’t expect or care if anyone came, but it was a nice, welcome surprise nonetheless. family rules

christian and val, and even ned, called to check up on me, which also made me feel loved. i love my job, and not because they sent me a wonderful bouquet (which is STILL ALIVE!). even tho we’re all over the world, it’s really a family, and i’m so greatful to be a part of it

thursday was endoscopy day. i was put to sleep for that, which i didn’t expect. this was actually the important test, because they wanted to find out if my colitis (swollen intestines) was the cause of the internal bleeding that cause my anemia and all the other non-pancreatitis symptoms that i have. this test came back with a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, and in talking with my aunts i discovered that this is quite a common problem on the McMahon side of the family.

after the test i was finally allowed to eat, but clear liquids only. that meant tea, broths, and these nasty jello cups. on saturday i was allowed REAL FOOD, and i pigged out, even tho i was warned to take it easy. i was just so hungry and my body, surprisingly, was handling real food quite well. but i still had to stay for observation and whatnot, despite the fact that i was feeling good and moving around and being jolly.

monday morning was french toast day. if you know me, you know about my spiritual relationship with french toast, only the BEST FOOD EVER. then anita, my nurse, informed me that she just learned i was getting another CT Scan, so i couldn’t eat. i had to drink barium again. god. that stuff is horrible. i did cheat and peck a little at the food, but i got caught and they took it away

monday night my attending told me he was discharging me, and i finally got the IV out. being on an IV for so long sucks, because your body begins to retain a lot of fluids. i jiggle like jello. it’s amusing.

so, you’d think i’d have been home on monday night… nope. my GI told the attending that he wanted the CT results back first, so my discharge was pushed back to tuesday morning. the attending didn’t tell me… anita did. bastard. i was disappointed, but happy to get the IV out. i celebrated my misery by having a grilled cheese sandwich sent up with yogurt after my dinner of roasted chicken with a baked potato (my appetite has gone up exponentially!)

tuesday i met with the GI doctor after having a HORRIBLE last breakfast of what was an attempt at a western omlette and the worst croissant ever. we spoke about my medications, especially the steroids and how i need to taper off over time so that my body will begin producing on its own again. i’ll also be taking asacol for the rest of my life to treat the ulcerative colitis. then i went home. home sweet home.

but i also want to take a moment to talk about my care. for the most part, i was blessed with a wonderful team of caregivers who were the most important element in getting me well. especially during my first 4 days or so, when i was at my weakest and most vulnerable. they looked out for me, made sure i was well, and just made me feel good. during the inauguration, several nurses and aides hung out in my room watching it with me, and it wasn’t unusual for them to just stop by and chat with me on their breaks. my room was the fun room to be in, especially towards the end of my stay when Zina, a project manager from Siemens who was also suffering from colitis (we were referred to as the colitis room), became my roommate. we spent a lot of time laughing, watching the same shows together and having a good time. everyone commented on how great it was to treat us because we had really wonderful dispositions. so despite being trapped in a hospital, i wound up really enjoying my stay there.

to the women of 1B… i can’t thank you enough for your generosity, patience and care. thank you.

so that’s pretty much a summation of what happened to me. where i am now is another story…

i feel 1000x better. my strength is back, as is my appetite. i can do things for myself. i do have to take a shitload of pills (15/day), but that’s the price i will gladly pay for my health. i’m not sure about my financial future, as not having insurance will suck, but i’m not going to kill myself worrying about it. right now i’m just glad to be well-ish, even tho on the inside i’m still quite sick.

 tl;dr?

• severe abdominal pains sent me to the ER
• i had a blood transfusion (2 pints) for severe anemia
• the pains i felt were caused by pancreatitis
• the anemia was caused by ulcerative colitis
• i’m still alive

one of the VERY BIG DEALS regading EVE Online is that we pretty much have one server (really single shard with multiple servers for those of you who prefer the old school MMO way of describing things) for all players to play on. EVE has close to 250,000 accounts, and all 250k players play on Tranquility, which really isn’t that tranquil if you consider all the Alliance battles we have going on all the time (not to mention pirates and the like… they are, believe it our not, people, too!). Single shard allows all players to have the opportunity to play together, which is an extremely shocking concept, apparently, in the MMO industry, which tends to fall backon the multiple shard idea of “we really can’t/won’t spend the time figuring out l337 technology like EVE does, what with it’s StacklessIO and EVE64, and so we’ll just have our players fragmented across various shards called “Muttonchop” and “Dingo Baby Eater.”"

EVE, therefore, is relatively painless in its downtime. When ops needs to add something, they’re not running around trying to get stuff uploaded on hundreds of hundreds of servers across several different continents; they’re simply battling snowstorms in one location.

I’m currently checking out Warhammer Online, which is an MMO by Fairfax, VA developer [EA]Mythic. I’m really enjoying my time in WAR. Mythic has brought some things to the table, such as public quests and open Realm v Realm combat, which makes me smack myself on the forehead because these are such obvious design elements it shocks me that they’ve never been seen in a major MMO launch before. These are duh mechanics, as in “duh, why didn’t you think of this before.” This is because I am, truth be told, dumb.

As I write this, it’s 7:13 in the AM on a vaguely snowy Sunday. The previous storm’s ice and snow still blankets the area, and my heat has been working overtime for the last few days. During the week at this time, I can be found working: answering petitions, checking out the forums, abusing my boss… typical stuff. But it’s the weekend, my weekend, and I tend to do whatever I want with it. Normally, that’s either read or play games (which is, coincidently, exactly what I do when I’m not working!). But now I write. And in a bit I will read. Why?

because fucking Warhammer Online is undergoing an emergency server downtime to hotfix their bugs [Update: they estimated 4 hours, but it took half that time. bravo]

See, if they were cool, like EVE Online is, they wouldn’t have people across a couple of continents scrambling around installing server updates on hundreds and hundreds of machines for several dozens of shards. They’d have launched with similar technology that EVE has that would severely limit the number of shards required to handle their customer base, and would have very cool technology that would help limit severe lag in super busy hubs.

Mythic is not CCP, so I’m now waiting FOUR HOURS to play their stupid game! At least I dinged 22 right before downtime began =P

and my boss. truly.

i’ve been blessed with a great job, one that i really love and enjoy tremendously. i work with a great team of passionate, smart, intelligent, funny people who also love their job. and i have a great boss who is amazingly wonderful. and i’m not saying any of this because: my job performance review is due or because my contract is up for renewal at the end of the month =P

i’m actually saying this because it is true. for years i heard nothing but how great the company is from Val, and i always took it with a grain of salt. but i can totally see that she’s not as completely insane as i thought she was. and that ccp is a fucking great company to work for.

case in point: a UPS delivery. my birthday is sooner than you think, and in general i don’t celebrate it. always something crazyfuckedup happens. for my 24th, katia and i went to the movies (i think we saw kate winslet’s first film) and found out my grandfather’s cat’s head got squashed by a car. that’s a good summation of pretty much all 36+ birthday’s i’ve witnessed in my lifetime.

so generally i play the bday downlow. i rarely ask for gifts, and am happy if i get a phonecall from friends and family.

therefore i was quite surprised when i was woken up late this afternoon by some pretty severe pounding at my door. it was the UPS guy with a delivery for me. only i hadn’t ordered anything. the box itself was not only extremely HUGE, but extremely light. that was because it was holding a large gift box. it took me a second to realize what it was, because i was fairly unawake still. I opened the card, and this is what i found:

Happy Birthday! You’ll fit more images on this card. - Christian

ohmygodwhatthefuckbarbeque

i’m still shocked, surprised and other “s” words. this man is amazing… he got me a 16 gig SD card for my new camera!

but i’m ahead of myself. here’s the unwrapping…

this big box isn’t full of empty, but it is full of more unwrapping

yay! happy birthday!

thank you SO much, Christian. this is the best present EVAR! and thank you for being such a wonderful and surprising boss

well, not really a saga. more of a chronicle. i’m not going to be here long enough to do any viking dramatic battles with great gods and mythological beings.

as many know, i’m in iceland because of my work. this is not only my first trip to reykjavik, but only my second trip outside of the US. unlike my first trip, which was to paris, i am not a tight ass, high strung, omfg they don’t speak english asshole. i’m taking it all in stride, which is really great and refreshing for a general douchebag like me.

i arrived quite early saturday morning. because we had some turbulence throughout the flight, i didn’t get a chance to sleep, but it was really a nice flight despite that. i don’t fly too often, but my flights have always been plagued with delays, mostly of the passenger kind. everyone takes their sweet ass time getting to their seats and fighting with the overhead compartments and whatnot, so take off usually takes a while. icelanders are no joke. they get to their seat, stow their shit, and we’re off. my flight actually arrived ~45 minutes earlier to keflavik than scheduled. nice.

the road from keflavik to reykjavik was, well, dark. despite arriving early in the morning, iceland is subarctic, and so sunrise wasn’t due for a few hours. i was shocked/amused/offended to see a subway sandwich shop, although i think my response was more tempered by that fantastic fucking subway i got the night before (a feast… that’s actually what it’s called: feast). the drive was about an hour or so through what i believe is fields of long-dead lava. there were few buildings, and even less trees, on my way to the city. i did pass some sort of large metal refinery complex, which i believe is a big industry here. and many bonus stores. bonus is a chain of discount supermarkets, and i’m completely in love with their mascot: a large piggy bank. iceland, from my little experience, is filled with quite a lot of rather cool logos.

when i got to the hotel on saturday, i was surprisingly met by val. she wasn’t expecting to see me, and i wasn’t expecting to see her, so after checking in and putting my suitcase in my room, i joined her for a great and very welcome breakfast in the breakfast room. then i went upstairs, unpacked, and promptly fell asleep. she woke me up to see if i wanted to go to the office, but i opted to sleep a few more hours. around 1p or so christian called from the desk, and after stumbling around my room, i made my way downstairs to have lunch with some of my  co-workers.

it was an american style restaurant. i had a chicken burrito, which wasn’t a real burrito, but tasted good. the highlight for me was that i got to meet Dr. Eyjo, who is the game’s economist. he is a brilliant man, and i’m greatly impressed with how he has legitimized MMO games simply by existing. with us at lunch was also ned and kelley, who i’ve met before and emailed from the home office in nyc. it was an extremely good lunch.

then i got a walking tour of sorts to the office, along reykjavik’s waterfront to the wharf where our building is located. being from a city of islands, i’m most comfortable by the water, and really enjoyed the walk, especially because all these great boats were docked. val pointed out a really great irony: a whale watching boat across the dock from four whale hunting boats. iceland is a great place for such dichotomies

photos don’t do the office justice. it’s an amazing place filled with IKEA, large windows and decks that overlook the harbor. i loved seeing the very “fleet” of ships that participated in the infamous [wikipedia: cod wars] docked right outside our office. one ship is actually on blocks, and because we were at low tide i could see this. the ship itself is in great disrepair, rusting and weeds growing on her deck, but i was amazed at it’s majestic beauty. i’m weird like that.

before sunset, we treked to a supermarket (not Bonus, but i forget the name). if this is a typical icelandic supermarket, wow. it was clean, filled with large aisles, but overall much smaller than your typical american supermarket. it was clean, everything was in its place, and efficient. this  is a great country

i wound up sleeping on sunday for pretty much the entire day, except for breakfast, getting dressed (which is how i know that i didn’t really intend to sleep ALL  day), having my room made up etc. i was a little tired, and wanted to nap for a few hours because it was one of those lazy, rainy sundays. but i wound up sleeping pretty much until 10p or so, and couldn’t fall back to bed, no matter how hard i tried.

that would have been a good opportunity for me to check out some lazy icelandic culture, but the tv in my room doesn’t work, and there’s no alarm clock for me to check out what goes over the airwaves. yes: a hotel room without a click. i don’t understand this either. i hope to get my television fixed today so that i can watch the election results, or whatever.

monday was my first day at the office proper with other co-workers, and it was a little overwhelming seeing so many people and whatnot, in part because i haven’t worked in an office in YEARS. i got to meet nic, who is one of our forum reps (meaning: he and i are teammates), and phil, who works in our shanghai office but is not a CCP employee. (he’s also an american living in shanghai, so i had a shitload of questions for him, and still do! nic is british living in guatemala, so i have less questions for him, heh).

lunch was some sort of fish stew thing, so i happily stayed down at the desk that i’m squatting at. dinner was with phil, nic and val at a fish and chips place across the street from the office. i only had chips, which completely shocked the cook because i’m probably the only person ever who’s requested fish and chips without the fish this apparently jinxed out meal. the waitress arrived at our table with glasses and soda bottles for phil and val, and promptly broke a glass. then val’s soda exploded when she opened it. sorry for the jinx, guys.

on my way back to the hotel i took some night photos. not many tho. since this is my first trip (of hopefully many, knock on wood) i’m really just doing the hotel-office-hotel tour.

many have asked about the weather. is it cold? yes, but it’s kinda like NYC in december, so it’s been perfectly easy for me to deal with the chilly wind. rain has been visiting quite often, and the streets have been slick with north atlantic rainfall. in fact, it’s raining right now. but icelandic weather is notorious for quickly changing, so one moment it could be a fine mist, and the next moment the sun breaks through the ever-present clouds, and then it starts raining up. clouds and wind. that is how i’d describe icelandic weather. but it hasn’t penetrated my soul (yet?).

i also quickly appreciated those who have been born and raised here. this is a rock that really demands that you’re rugged, hearty, and loving it. seriously. every native here that i’ve met has just had the best disposition. iceland is a country filled with just wonderful things, and if it wasn’t that i know that the weather gets much, much colder, and the days considerably shorter, i could totally see myself living here.

the game programming class is tasked to hand in a second game project next Thursday, and I was going to hand in a newer version of Outlaw, but while I have movement down, as well as collision detection, i don’t actually know how to “fire” a gun yet. so i came up with the idea of Space Hookers, a scroll game.

here’s the basics that I pasted in response to Christian’s query on facebook:

yes! the emperor has come and made a surprise visit to your sector. his fetish is to hire prostitutes and read them Vogon poetry. When they respond negatively (and they always do), he air locks them.

You are a lowly space garbage collector, and you’ve been tasked to collect the “debris” in your jalopy of a space garbage ship.

All the while avoiding asteroids that for some reason I tossed in for the heck of it

I will preface this by saying that I am not a Daily Kos reader, although I am aware of its presence. I am, however, a progressive liberal, which will probably mark me as a target, but so be it.

The subtitle of “Taking on the System” is “Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era.” While Moulitsas does provide some bullet points on what one should or shouldn’t do in order to be a proactive citizen in the United States, he limits these “rules” to the start of each chapter, as a sort of here’s-what-you-want-to-do brief guide. He then uses examples of situations, both political (e.g. campaigns) and cultural (e.g. Fiona Apple’s “Exquisite Machine” album debacle), which demonstrate successfully, or unsuccessfully as the case sometimes is, the “rule” in question.

This is what actually made the book interesting for me. I was thoroughly interested in reading Moulitsas’ take on recent political and cultural history. While liberally slanted, he does toss in a positive conservative example here and there, making the book a bit more balanced than I think some more liberal Kos fans might appreciate.

I do have to wonder where this book will be five, ten years from now. Will it just be some forgotten manifesto that has no bearing on the future, or will it simply be used by the occasional cultural scholar as they research how people thought about their era. My feeling is that “Taking on the System” will be used in the latter form. Regardless, I found the book interesting and entertaining in the current era.

there’s a lot of squawking about david blaine, the so-called stuntman who likes to say he’s a magician or illusionist (he’s neither). people are pissed off that he’s taking breaks at pre-determined times, rather than struggling thru all 60 hours of hanging upside down straight.

getting into guinness has given me some insight into this so-called controversy. the guinness book of world records requires all endurance participants to take short 10 minute breaks at specific intervals. for example, if you’re trying to make/break the record for the longest time playing poker (which the author did), you have to take a 10-15 minute break every two or three hours, else the GBWR will disqualify your attempt, even if it’s successful, because you are putting yourself at serious risk. the same is true for, say, distance rolling an orange with your nose on your hands and knees, and, no doubt, hanging upside down for an unreasonably long period of time.

now, i’m no fan of david blaine. i think he just does stupid shit for attention. he’s most probably a mashocist. who else would entomb themselves in a block of ice, or hang upside down, for any period of time, except for this moron. but to me, if the GBWR allows a person who is trying to make or break a record the opportunity to take short breaks for excretion of wastes, stretching yourself out, and taking in a little gnosh, then that’s not cheating at all. that’s playing by the rules. even for morons like blaine.

I primarily picked up this scanner because I want to digitize my photos via their negatives. I was also pleasantly surprised by some of the other things that I can do with this scanner as well. But first: putting it together.

It’s fairly easy to set up the scanner. Simply take it out of the box, plug in the plug to power the top of the unit (if you’re using this to scan negatives, you’ll need this backlight, for everything else you can keep it unplugged), plug in the power cord and get the USB ready. Note: there is a lock that covers the USB, probably to help protect it if you were going to be traveling a lot with you scanner (who would do that, I don’t know, it’s too big for easy travel), so you will probably have to slide that over so you could access the USB port. Be sure to take off all the blue tape, both outside of the unit as well as on the inside cover of the top. Also note that the inside top cover has a lock as well; this is for the scanner head, and you may have to unlock it prior to actually scanning (I did).

Before plugging in the USB to my computer, I installed the various driver and application components on the CD. This actually took a lot longer than expected. I have a fairly fast PC with a 52X ROM, and it took close to five minutes to install the various applications (Creativity Suite, FineReader 6.0 Spirit (an OCR program), the scanning application and the User’s Guide). There is also an accompanying CD with Adobe Photoshop Elements (4.0 for Windows, 3.0 for Mac), but as a Photoshop CS3 user, I didn’t bother to install this.

Registering the product is fairly easy. The unit’s ID can be found on the back left of the unit. Be warned that you will be taken to a Web page offering a discount on an unrelated product with a big download button; you don’t actually need the product and don’t need to download more stuff.

Since I purchased this primarily for scanning negatives, this was what I first tried with the unit. The scanner comes with two holder plates, and you can do 35mm film negatives and slides on one plate, and medium film on the other. I was scanning 35mm color negatives, and so I placed them in the appropriate holder and snapped on the top of the holder. Scanning the negatives straight away is fairly straightforward. You simply press the scan button on the front of the unit. This will start the Epson Scan application, and you’ll be able to set various things that will allow you to get the best scan possible (more on this below).

I’m going to take a break here and detail the error I made in my first attempt to scan negatives so that you, kind reader, do not make the same mistake. After putting the negative holder on the glass, I removed the reflective back from the top of the unit to expose the light area (fairly simple to remove it and put it back on, even has a handy little handle at the top, too). What I didn’t notice was that each section of the holder has a letter corresponding to where you should place the tab on the corresponding indent on the unit. 35mm negatives use the “A” section, and I had placed the holder on the “C” section. I kept getting an error message saying that it couldn’t see that there was a document to scan. This confused me for a bit, and I wound up using the Home and Professional modes to see if I could get my negatives to scan. When I had unchecked the thumbnails feature for preview, I saw that only the slides area was being scanned. I then realized my error, and adjusted the position of the holder on the tab indents accordingly. The top unit only has a small glass area for the top light, and so the scanner, obviously, will only scan that small area. You can actually see this in the photograph of the unit on the Amazon page. Once I corrected my error, I had no problem scanning my negatives.

Back to the Epson Scan application. There are three options for you to choose from: Auto, Home and Professional. Auto simply auto-detects the type of document you are trying to scan and uses default settings to produce the preview of the document. Home and Professional are for photos and negatives. The difference between the two is that Professional provides you with more options to choose from so that you can get the best scan you require for your needs. Unless you’re into heavily working your photos, your best bet is to go with the Auto feature.

Scanning photos and documents is also quite easy. You need to make sure that the reflective piece is on the top of the unit. This will also ensure that your document does not move around on the glass. Scanning, again, is simple as pressing a button.

I wanted to try out FineReader with this unit, as well as the PDF button. For FineReader, I loaded up the program, and pressed a button within it (Scan), to get the document scanned and loaded into FineReader. I was easily able to get the OCR to work nicely with the document without problem.

For PDFs, I simply pressed the PDF button. This brought up a different PDF-specific application with a different dialog than the scanning application. Because the unit does not have a feeder, you will have to manually scan individual pages yourself. Creating the PDF then requires you to simply press the finish button; the document is then placed in your My Pictures directory if you are a Windows user. It would be nice to be able to state where you want the file to save, but that’s a minor flaw.

I also attempted to import a scan within Photoshop. I’ve done this before with other scanners, and Photoshop had zero issues with the scanner application, and everything worked smoothly.

There is a third button for email, by the way, however, I don’t have email set up on my machine and so I did not test this feature out.

I’m very pleased with this product. I found the scans to be quite sharp, and the scan process to be intuitive. I can see a novice with scanners not having too much of a problem with this unit, save for the holder issue I discussed earlier.

(btw, i got this for free from the Amazon Vine program that I belong to.)

I just learned Dutch Flash artist extraordinaire Hans Hoogerbrugge (http://www.hoogerbrugge.com/) has finally published a book and DVD combo focusing on his work called Modern Living. Hoogerbrugge is well-known for his Modern Living series (2001 - http://www.hoogerbrugge.com/ml/), Nails (ongoing - http://nails.hoogerbrugge.com/), and the extremely odd Hotel series (2004-2006 - http://www.hoteloscartangoecholima.com/). His art can be macabre, confusing, and yet always amusing.

I’ve been following his work for years, so the news that his book is finally out, and includes a DVD, totally makes me happy.

Firstly: whichever marketing “genius” decided to promote this book as a retelling of Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” should be publicly humiliated. After reading the first chapter of the book, the reader, especially if he or she has even the slightest knowledge of Chaucer’s classic, will clearly see that, aside from the fact that this book takes place in the Middle Ages in England, and a group of strangers wind up traveling together (towards completely different locations) telling each other the occasional tale, “Company of Liars” has nothing to do with Chaucer and his stories. Trying to push this circle into an ancient square only does “Company of Liars” a disservice. It deserves to stand on its own two feet.

Having gotten that out of the way, I loved reading “Company of Liars.” Karen Maitland does an excellent job of bringing us into the world of the Black Death and our heroes, nine strangers who band together in an attempt to outrun the plague. Each character, a Camelot (our narrator), a master musician and his pupil, a magician, a journeyman painter and his pregnant wife, a crippled storyteller, and an extremely odd runecasting child, are all wonderfully fleshed out and unique. Each has an extreme secret they hold close to their breast, and as the story progresses they are somehow inspired by circumstance (don’t want to spoil too much) to reveal their secret, sometimes clandestinely, right before their mysterious deaths. And along they way they are hounded by a never-seen wolf who is tracking them, haunting them with cries in the night.

At first I wasn’t sure if I would like the book. I had once taken a nightmare of a class in university where we read Chaucer in the original (hence my admonition at the start of this review against the unnamed marketer), nor do I have much interest in the period of time in which the story takes place. But I could not help but be enchanted by the wonderful writing and how Maitland subtly encourages reading with her glimpses of mystery that inspires the reader to wonder what secret a character is keeping.

I rather enjoyed reading American Savior by Roland Merullo. I found it to be an extremely entertaining read, and while the literal doubting Thomas theme did irk me a bit as it threads through the entire novel, it didn’t detract from what is an extremely timely novel.

Jesus has returned to earth and, dismayed by how the United States has used Christ’s message and distorted his teachings. He has revealed himself five months before a general national election and tossed his hat into the circus that is the run for President. He chooses thirteen disciples, all from the Top Ten television city called West Zenith (get it… our civilization is just past its zenith). Russ Thomas, a jaded, cynical local news television journalist, his fiance and family (including the wonderful Stab, Russ’ brother living with Down Syndrome) the two families affected by the two miracles Jesus performed as a way of introducing himself to the world (Russ covered them on the news), and Russ’ boss and girlfriend are all hired to work for the campaign. They are amateurs, which is perfect for Jesus, who is going out of his way to not play the politics-as-usual game.

We follow the campaign across the country through the eyes of Russ, Jesus’ security chief and former television reporter, who has been chosen by Christ to pen a book based on the campaign and his observations of Jesus (aka a Gospel). As mentioned before, Russ is a doubting Thomas (literally: his last name is Thomas), which, while at times a bit annoying, presents Jesus in a clearer light than had he been a complete believer. He presents a likable Jesus, one who is more teacher and guide than a religious figure. This results in a novel that is not at all preachy, which one may assume it would be considering its topic.

At the same time, I have to wonder about the longevity of the title. Certainly, in a major election season, it is topical. But how will the book fair years from now? Will it be a novel of the times, or one that’s completely forgotten down the road. I hope the former, as this really is quite a good read.