We'll start out with the easy bits:

Wednesday:
Arrived and Registered about 1PM.
Watched last 30-45 minutes of Geekin'
Watched The Gamers: Dorkness Rising

Thursday:
Played a round of The Settlers of Catan
Played a round of Hey, That's My Fish!
Helped out with the smithee_awards' Buttons on the Breezeway.
Played a round of Morton's List
Dinner with the Smith-ka-teers

Friday:
Catan seminar, found out about The Kids of Catan.
Geocaching seminar, found out about the art of Tupperware Hide and Seek.
Dealer Room Spelunking
smithee_awards
Post-Smithees until 3AM

Saturday:
Advanced Dimensional Green Ninja-Educational Preparatory Super-Elementary Fortress 555: The Movie!: The Trilogy! (...or NAMBLA </JonStewart>)
North Market lunch
Dealer Room Spelunking
Dinner with the Smith-ka-teers

All in all, I didn't really get much done in the way of playing this trip, but there were so many mistakes with the events in the book that it's hard to say what actually took place. The Smithees were in Ballroom 3, then the Hyatt Ballroom, then Ballroom 3... The book said 8PM, but it actually started at 7. sgtrocknroll showed up for a Buffy: The Vampire Slayer game, only to find out that it wasn't Buffy in any sense. It was a D&D 4th Ed game with no High-School aged vampire slayers involved.

But the weekend is almost over, and other than wanting to stick around later than sgtrocknroll wants to in order to hit the Art Gallery and see if I won a Mayfair drawing in the Dealer's Room, I got to hit most of what I wanted to that was listed in the schedule. But based on the game selection this year, I would say I should be able to just run pre-printed Hero and D&D 3rd Ed modules and have nearly-full tables. Most of the games seem to be Call of Cthulu or Gurps or the same 2-3 Shadowrun games over and over. There is the occasional odd system, but definitely bent towards the horror or D&D-but-more-complex-or-at-least-just-different-dice genres.

And the album is one step closer... I have the artwork for the front cover done, and explosiverain should have the disc and the artwork for the inside cover done or very close. If I get the order in tomorrow night, we should have the disc by the 8th, so long as there is no shipping mistakes. Cutting it a little close for taste, but it works.

So, here I am in Columbus again!

Grabbed my badge and booked it back to the hotel room to relax for a while and go through the catalogue. But the whole floor layout is all wonky due to new construction... A Tornado scare last year has people walking through a temporary bridge (yeah, that's safer...) to get from the food court to the convention center because the all-glass breezeway is "unsafe" and being remodeled. (Never mind that there are sections of the temporary bridge that give enough I worry about its safety at as busy a 'con as this.)

If anyone else is here for the 'con, drop me a reply (screened) and I'll get you contact info so we can arrange gaming and free time and such.

So this summer is rapidly becoming as unproductive as last year's. The garage has become uncleaned and a garage sale has been unplanned. My camera is unfunctional, so my short is still going unfilmed. And if the slowness at work is not undone, trips after the one for the 4th of July may go untaken.

But while it may be unproductive, it is certainly unstressing. The album is unstuck and sounding good. I'm slowly becoming unindebted, and moved to a new cell company that leaves me unencumbered with a Verizon contract.

So, for those not uninterested, what do you want to know about?

( Meme! )

Redshirt as 3rd Place? Really?

Not that anyone cares, but:

( B'z Checklist )

Dear Eric,

What can a little sister say about her big brother? So many things to say and no more time to say them. You taught me how to tie my shoes, ride a bike, TP a house. You told me that when I started to lose my teeth that if I touched the ones growing in they'd turn to gold. I avoided touching them like the plague. You were such an amazing brother. For all the wrong turns you took, the mistakes you made, you never let it get in the way of your love for your family. We were always close when we were younger, but over the past two years our relationship had really blossomed and you told me that I was your best friend. My last gift from you on Christmas was a card where you told me that I was your very best friend. I wanted you to know that you were my best friend too. I stare at my phone waiting for you to text me. Saying, "R U at work?" or "When will u be off?". You knew that I always had time for you. I was so proud of you when you admitted yourself into rehab and started to get your life together. No, that's not just it, I was always proud of you. From the day I was born you dubbed yourself my protector. From bullies to stalkers, you wanted to handle and take care of them all for me. I'm happy that my last memories of you were ones laughing and having a good time. I'm happy that the last thing I said to you was that I loved you. Our blood runs deep and the kind of connection I had with you, big brother, is irreplaceable. When we hung out we could always make each other laugh so hard that my cheeks would hurt. I'll miss that laugh, because it always made me feel at ease. You had an addictive personality, people couldn't help but like you. I can't fathom a life without you there. I can't comprehend not having you to run to when I have big news and for you to be just as excited as I am. For you to be there if the big news turns into bad news and make a joke but also have a shoulder there for me to lean on if the giggles didn't work. I know that you cherished me and I know that you knew that I cherished you. Like you would say, "At least I left a pretty corpse." You certainly lived a lot of life in 25 years, more than most people do in 55 or more. I will tell stories of you until the day I am laying on my death bed. I'll miss you so deeply, so wholly, and keep that place in my heart that's claimed as yours safe and sound. Only the good die young and the rest are left with a sour bereavement of what was or could have been.

With all the love in the universe,
Your little sis,
Heather

drd2be has had a migraine since Sunday afternoon.

I take the morning off of work to take her to the doctor. She still has a migraine at noon so I login to the webmail at work and shoot off an e-mail to our HR and our CEO letting them know that I'm going to stay at home in case she needs taken to the ER and will telecommute for the remainder of my shift.

THREE HOURS LATER, HR informs me that I will not be paid for my efforts, as I was not given permission in advance to telecommute. At this point, were I to go to work, I would be able to work for 1 hour.

During the three hours:

• Cleaned up and revised our nightly cleanup script to clean temp files out of roaming profiles and changed it from a cron job to a crontab job that runs after each shift.


• Modified Apt Sources list on main server to draw from Debian 4.0 so we are not forced to upgrade to Debian 5


• Ran an Apt upgrade on the main server to bring various libraries up to current and apply security patches.


• Processed all of my e-mail as it came in, including sending several things that needed to be available as hardcopy to my printer at work.


• Monitored the trouble ticket software throughout the duration.


• Walked my assistant through an RMA of a premise wiring box that needed exchanged.

Not a TON of work, but given that I had to set up the remote printer and some other things to be able to work from home in the first place, not horrible either. But I did all of it and unless the CEO overrides HR (which I am 90% sure he will), then I did all of it for free.

Keep in mind, our CEO, Operations Manager, 3/4 of Sales, and our HR/QA Manager's assistant all telecommute. I'm the one who is responsible for the VPN, setting up the laptops appropriately, etc.

EDIT: Okay, after meeting with the CEO, I am going to get paid. I am not allowed to telecommute in the future, however. He doesn't think I can fix anything from remote, for some reason.

(And just think, that's fan-made.)

A pair of my friends like to watch Metal Mania on VH1 Classic and rate how "Metal" the videos are. This involves each video starting at a perfect 10, and points (full only) being deducted for things such as overly pretty lead singer, pianist being featured on-camera, etc. Spinal Tap videos all rate a superlative 11 by default, and having a member from Brimfield, OH gets an automatic 1-point deduction. (The penalty for throwing our band out of town, or something.)

So this morning I was thinking about how my own Metal Points™ system would work, and realized that there was an entire subcategory of Metal in my mind that I had no name for... Until it hit me. Or rather, I almost hit an old 60's van that wasn't very well taken care of. Rust™.

Now, what qualifies as Rust™? Any song or musical element in the genre of Metal that I feel degrades MY overall enjoyment of the genre. This includes, but is not limited to, screaming, guitar parts that make my ears hurt because everyone is playing full chords on identical Marshalls with 0 mid-range, and gargling hot asphalt.

Now, just as the rules for Rufus & Twitch's Metal Points™ change from time to time to suit Rufus' whims, my rules are not hard and fast. There are times that gargling asphalt works. See Marco Hietala in Nightwish, or even Disturbed's David Draiman. They find appropriate points (usually) to break out a tar and gravel mouthwash and are able to still hit notes that are pleasant to the ear while simultaneously sounding like their vocal cords have been paved.

So, until I find a better term, anything Metal that does not strike me as pleasing or a reasonable difference in opinion is Rust™.

EDIT: Wrong -tucky...

So winter break is over and I am back in class... Both classes were taken because of theoretical ease (Intro to Logic should be simple after Discrete Math, which is just Intro to Logic and basic Set Theory crammed into one, and last time Software Engineering was taught, the entire grade was one book report.) but both classes are looking to be a bit more difficult. (80 pages to read by tomorrow and I read about 40 pages/hour, less if it's really dry like my Software Eng. book is supposed to be.) However, my Logic prof gets bonus points:

"I'm on loan from YSU, so I don't have an office. Therefore, here is my home number. If you get my daughter or my wife, do not hang up. If you call on Tuesday between 8 and 9, hang up or lose 10 points off your grade. Can anyone tell me why?"

(Squeaky, quiet voice from the front row) "House?"

"That's right. House is the only time during the week where I have an hour of zero distractions. Spoil my Hugh Laurie time, and you spoil your own grade."

---

Other than that, things are just dry and boring all around... Not much done around the house, nothing done on personal projects, though the new web/email server for the band should be up soon.

Here is the list of all of the providers that are showing "June 9", or as some providers decided to list it... "9 June". (International Title? I dunno...)

Armstrong

Bend

Blue Ridge

Cameron Communications

Charter

Cincinnati Bell

Click

Community Television Company

DISH Network (DVRs connected to broadband required.)

Guadalupe Valley

HTC Conway SC-Telco

INS

Iowa Network Services

Massillon

MUS Fiber Net

OneSource

Puerto Rico Telephone Company

RCN

San Bruno Municipal Cable

Verizon

In Minnesota for the week helping out a friend of drd2be cope with losing her spouse last week. The fun of a group of people sitting around sorting through bills to put together a list of what gets paid when... I feel rather useless in this, but that's because everything that I could do has already been done or is being done by closer friends.

At least there is some good news... the movie I was in way, way, way long time ago is finally out... It's on pay-per-view on Dish Network, Massillon Cable, Charter, RCN, Verizon, Cincinnati Bell, and a few others. Problem is, my Google-fu is weak... I can't seem to find any confirmation on Dish's website as to the channel, can get no confirmation at all as to whether or not Comcast has it, and once I get back to Ohio, I no longer have access to anything but Time Warner, who definitely does NOT carry the movie.

So, my mission to the few people that I have read my blog regularly:

Find the movie.
Rent the movie.
Watch the movie if you want.
Let me know what network you found it on, and what channel it's located on.
If you have the ability to record the movie and get it to me, that may be requested if I cannot get ahold of a way to watch it directly. (The cast DVDs have been delayed, no premiere occured, etc. I've not seen the movie at all.)

Things have been abnormally hectic this semester.

Assembly (programming) and Intro to Psych have been kicking my ass rather handily. Luckily, I've blown away the averages on tests and gotten good grades on my projects in Assembly (which curves), and currently have something above a 90% in Psych (which does not curve). With any luck I'll have no problems on these last three tests (2 in Psych, and they drop the lowest overall) and finish out the semester on a high note.

However, I've been exhausted from everything going on... Being Prez of the ACM chapter is more work than I anticipated, and that's with an apathetic chapter that doesn't really want to do anything. I'm missing work from being exhausted, and having to leave early to take care of things on campus. This week represented my first bit of overtime all semester.

The overtime means that I just could finally afford to send out $1600 in bills that were coming due very quickly. While only $1100 of that was mine (hooray splitting mortgage), it still hurts. A lot. I have 0 cash for this week, but I paid off almost all my recent debt on our shared card, which helps. It means that I've got a little room free on my card to put gas in the car, too. (Hooray $1.799!)

But I am getting to play a bit of Starcraft here and there, and on Friday the ACM is getting together and playing SC and Unreal for a while. Hopefully relaxing and not stressful. But we'll see for sure then, won't we?

JBP
"Suddenly I want a Dune remake like that."
"They bring out the the Death-Alternative Test to see if the prince is human..."
"And the Holy Mother says... "Would you like cake or Death?""
"And the prince is like, "Death. Wait, no! Cake!""
""Ahh... you said Death first!""
""But I really meant cake!""
""Oh, all right, you can have cake. I guess you're human. Go save the world from your Father's tyranny.""

hiromasaki
"Forget Frank Herbert's Dune, I want Eddie Izzard's Dune"

JBP
"It would be brilliant."

hiromasaki
"It would be."
"Perhaps we could con him into even acting in it?"

JBP
"Totally!"
"He could be Paul Atreides!"
"Comes up to Emperor Shaddam... "I'm sorry, you can't own this planet anymore.""
""Why not!?"
""You haven't got a flag.""
""What?""
""No flag, no planet. Can't have one.""

http://devonandchad.shutterfly.com/

Devon found the hosting for them... She's got a Flickr account, and a Google account, but she used Shutterfly? I think it's because they offer print ordering and could handle the massive upload.

Anyway, enjoy!

So... 4 weeks, 1 day, and 20 hours ago, I got hitched.

And during the hitching, I took my camcorder out of its bin (with all of 25-30 hours of use on it), charged the batteries, dusted it off, and gave it to my sister to record the ceremony. When she turned it on, the HUD (Heads-Up Display, the battery meter, time, etc) came up, but showed nothing but black.

So she double-checks the lens cap, and she remembered to take it off... Checks the White Balance, light settings, the whole 9 yards. The CCD is shot. (I found out a few months ago the CCD in this particular model was crap and prone to failure anyway.)

So, now that you have the long, protracted background, here's what I need help with:

I need a new camcorder.

I didn't use the old camcorder very often because I often didn't have tapes (I have 5 leftover from the wedding now, but meh) and it had grainy static when shooting in low light. Add to that that my hands shook more than the anti-shake mechanism in it could correct for, and it was not my finest purchase...

So, I was hoping to let my friends do some product research for me. :P

Here's what I want/need:

Needs:
- Digital Storage (MiniDV tapes is what I have, HDD is also acceptable, not DVD-R's)
- Firewire or eSATA storage transfer to PC (Mac Compatible greatly preferred)
- Good Shake Reduction OR Shoulder-rest size. (Think VHS or pro-grade size)
- Decent in low-light. (Doesn't have to be amazing, but shouldn't look like 70's BBC productions. :P )
- No mechanism noise in microphone pickup.
- Sub-$500 (If it's REALLY good, I might be able to worm a bit more than that out of my budget)

Wants:
- New (Obviously, not required)
- External Mic / Light hookups. Powered Mic hookup even better.
- >1 Hour battery life.
- HD (720p + ) resolution
- 16:9 and 4:3 options
- Nightvision, Green or Color

Obviously, I know how to use Google and epinions, so I'm not looking for links to review sites... I'm looking for any first-hand knowledge, any good technical reviews, lists of what features I should be looking for, where to buy/avoid buying from, etc. Keep in mind, the DV camera was an impulse buy (on sale for $150 off, regular $400, I had wanted a camcorder for a while) so the last time I knew what features to look for on a video cam was 1998.