Strange Visitor

Quote of the Day

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:49:36 GMT

I've kind of made it a policy this year to not talk too much about books I'm actively reading, as the whole point of keeping a reading log is to focus on finishing. But last night, I ran into a quote I had to share.

"To be a Westerner and call oneself a Muslim, or even a Hindu, makes some definite statement about your beliefs and perhaps your actions; calling yourself a Buddhist in the West, however, does not define your identity in any fixed way. Western Buddhism resembles Unitarianism without the harsh dogma."

From The Bloody White Baron, by James Palmer

Apart From The Kindle

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:55:26 GMT

It's been a couple of days of pure suck. Yesterday was spent babysitting a very difficult Blackberry Enterprise Server installation at work. Despite having the word Enterprise in the title, it has nothing to do with Star Trek. It had a lot to do with frustration and wiping and re-activating Blackberrys while our consultant shook his head a lot and talked to Tech Support (according to him, the first time in eight years of being a RIM Partner he's had to do so). Finally, at 5:30, we finally got my boss's and mine on the new service AND able to send and receive emails, so we thought we had the problem licked.

Hah.

Hah.

This morning, I tried activating one of my users. FAIL. Not a massive fail, but a fail nonetheless. Oh, and while he could receive emails, he couldn't send them. The next hour and a half was spent trying and failing again, then wiping the damned thing and rebuilding his old profile so he could still use it to do his job. This afternoon, we repeated the process with another user and got precisely the same result. So, the new BES install will extend into a third day, and probably next week as well. Joy.

Driving to lunch, I stepped down hard on the brake and something on the left side of my right ankle popped. Given that I had to do a lot of driving today, I'm in a fairly substantial bit of pain right now, though there's no obvious swelling or anything.

The one bright spot was lunch. Pizza buffet at Candelari's. A bit pricey and certainly not something I'd do every day, but how often do you find gorgonzola-prosciutto-arugula pizza on a buffet table?

Kindle DX - First Impressions

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:44:36 GMT

OK, so I've had a few hours to play with it. I haven't even begun playing with the internet and wireless capacity, so this is just a review of the most important feature - the e-book reader.

In short, it's excellent. I'd heard some worrisome things about converted PDFs in the earlier versions of the Kindle, but the DX's native PDF support is pretty damned solid. I've found a few minor bugs based on how the PDFs are created, but I know enough about such things to get around these problems without jumping through too many hoops. Transferring files is as simple as plugging it to the computer with a USB cable and dragging them over.

I've taken a few pictures of the screen with my cell phone camera. They're not great, but I think they do show off the level of resolution.

First off, a shot of the screen in portrait mode. On display is a page from New Wave Requiem:

The text is entirely legible, even if it's not in the picture.

Next, the same page in landscape mode. The screen auto-orients itself:

This also gives a bit of a look at the keyboard. It's small, but it's not meant for much beyond some limited web browsing so it'll do.

Next, let's see some graphics. For this, I chose Freedom City for Mutants & Masterminds. How would the DX handle graphics-heavy pages?

Pretty. Damned. Good. That's how. Yeah, it may be black and white, but who cares?

Finally, a really heavy bit of graphics:

A detailed map from the same book. In Landscape mode, even the tiny text in the legend is legible.

I'm sure I'll find some things that bug me, but so far, it's made of pure win.

Kindle EEEEEEEEE!!!

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:14:03 GMT

It's here! It's nifty. I will play with it tonight and post a proper review.

Readings

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:05:47 GMT

I read the second of Carrie Vaughan's Kitty Norville books. Despite being pretty obvious supernatural chick-lit, I like the world-building. It's fluff, but it's quality fluff.

Also, due to lunch the other day, I've found myself suddenly interested in medieval things for the first time in a while. A few weeks ago, we found The Knight and the Squire, by Terry Jones, of Monty Python fame and illustrated by Michael Foreman. It's a young adult book about a boy who runs away from home in the mid-14th century and ends up having all sorts of adventures in the company of a rather unsavory knight and his squire. While bits of the story are a bit fantastical and the ending is a bit abrupt and contrived, so much of it is grounded in good history, I really didn't mind. Mr. Jones, of course, is a Cambridge-educated historian who's made the 14th century a bit of his bailiwick in recent years, and his copious knowledge of social history comes shining through without ever overwhelming the narrative. Any time a kids' book can teach me something about a period I know pretty damned well myself and do it in an entertaining fashion, I count that as a win.

Also, in typical Monty Python fashion, there's even a prominent character who's a cross-dresser. Win.

There's a sequel, The Lady and the Squire, which I'll probably pick up as well.

It's That Time Again

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:54:23 GMT

The Fantasy EPL RPGnet Cup is now open for players. I'm posting this here because a couple of the players are more likely to see the news this way.

To join, go to http://fantasy.premierleague.com

If you've played in the past, you know the drill: Sign up for this season, then go to Leagues and enter the invite code.

This year, there's a new feature: a head-to-head league (The Tangency FA Cup) as well as the traditional format (The RPGnet Cup).

RPGnet Cup - 12687-4285
Tangency FA Cup - 12687-4297

Competition doesn't begin until August 15, so there's plenty of time to start agonizing over the merits of a 6.5 point Defender.

Hoody! Also Hoo!

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:52:29 GMT

Last night, I got an email from Amazon saying the Kindle DX Jane had me order for my birthday will be shipping out earlier than anticipated. So, rather than getting it sometime between July 31 and August 7, it will arrive either tomorrow or Thursday.

Emo Superman Cries, Not For Me, But For The Hobby

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:33:48 GMT

I don't think I've mentioned this, at least not directly.

I've given up comics. As in buying and reading them. At all. In any way, shape, or form, for the foreseeable future.

The tipping point was realizing that I had two weeks' worth of accumulated purchases sitting unread in the shopping bags from the store and no desire whatsoever to look at them. DC and Marvel have both lost me, and I don't buy that many books from outside of the big two. The only exception I might make is for "Artesia," and the re-start of that series is still at least a month away, if it comes out on time.

I'm sure there are some things I'll miss out on, but honestly, if I decide to scratch the itch again, I can always go buy trade paperback collections. In the meantime, I'm putting the extra thirty bucks or so a week into the GenCon fund.

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:07:38 GMT

Had an lovely lunch today at the Hobbit Cafe with ellorac and the awesome M. Real friends are the folks you don't get to see for years on end, and when you do, it's like no time has passed. Much good SCA reminiscence followed immediately by a foray into the Houston heat, reminding me of why we don't do that anymore.

I'm now watching "Weapon Masters" where they're featuring the Scorpion, one of the coolest pieces of Roman engineering.

Second Verse, Same As The First

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:08:24 GMT

We went out to dinner at 5:30. When we got back around 6:30, the power was out again. I sent Jane and C over to her Mom's and decided to wait things out for a while downstairs (because after last night, I have no desire to spend another on the in-laws' guest bed).

Things came back on at 7:55, so at least the outage wasn't as long as the last, but this is getting really old.

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:47:52 GMT

Last night, at about 9:30, the power went off for the entire block. We called it in and got an estimate of restoration by midnight. As yesterday featured triple digit temperatures, we decamped to spend the night at the in-laws. On the plus side, there was air conditioning, and C-Monster spent the night in the bunk bed they have for him over there. On the down side, in our haste to get out of the house in the dark, Jane didn't grab her sleep medication and I didn't think to remind her about it. The guest bed is small and kind of cramped and she and I pretty much kept waking each other up all night long.

We came home at 6:30, as C was awake and neither of us was going to get anymore sleep over there. According to the clocks, the power didn't actually come back until 2:30, so we certainly made the least worst decision in spending the night over there, but it doesn't feel like it right now.

Then, it only took about half an hour to get the computers in my study working properly again, thanks to a KVM switch that freaked out when the power dropped. Bleah.

I'm Corpse Grinder, Baby

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:22:24 GMT

This morning has already provided its share of minor annoyances. Having cleaned up the messes (mostly), I'm now sitting in my office training a new Pandora station I call Hee-Haw Hell. Psychobilly and Cowpunk FTW!

EDIT: Here's a handy link. At least I think it is. Let me know if it works.

A Quarter Century Of The Dead Channel Sky

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:29:59 GMT

William Gibson's Neuromancer came out 25 years ago today.

October 20th will mark the 20th anniversary of the release of NIN's "Pretty Hate Machine"

I want the grotty future I was promised.

w00t!

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:07:52 GMT

I knew my review wasn't going to be terrible, but I didn't expect it to be as good as it was. Bossman did not mention the certification tests at all, focused on everything I had accomplished in their stead, relayed compliments about me from other senior staff people and generally told me "Good work, keep it up."

I felt completely justified in a celebratory sushi lunch.

Awkward Dad-Fail Moment

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:37:44 GMT

So, C-Monster is a bit of a timid soul when it comes to anything remotely scary. He also hates spicy foods, but that's a different matter. For now, we'll dwell on spooky things and scary things, which make it very hard to take him to a movie that features loud noises, cool explosions, or non-cartoony CGI monsters.

I've been on a bit of a mission lately to convince him that scary things can be fun, when administered in the proper dosage.

With Michael Jackson's recent death, the "Thriller" video has been front and center. I decided that the full version, with its lycanthropic transformation and dancing zombies might be a good introduction to a (very) mild scare-fest, so I brought it up on YouTube and sat him down.

The scares bugged him, but he weathered it OK. At one point, I said, "He sure could dance."

"Who?"

"Michael Jackson. Right there."

"Dad, that's a black guy!"

Which led to a rather awkward and feeble attempt at an explanation.

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:32:35 GMT

Yesterday: Board games with the Saturday gamers (we played White Wolf's Monster Mayhem, which was rather entertaining). Dinner with the family at Chili's. Watched "Citizen Kane" with Jane. She'd never seen it, I hadn't since I was fifteen or sixteen.

(For those who note such things, yes, we skipped marching in the Pride parade. It was too damned hot and, because of the way things were handled this year, it meant parking, then walking a mile and a half just to get to our assembly point, in order to then walk the two miles of the route. With C-Monster, that just wasn't going to happen.)

Today: Watched the US lose valiantly to Brazil in the Confederations Cup final. Cleaned my study (sort of). Watched the first three episodes of "The Dresden Files" on Hulu. It's not a bad show, as long as you turn off all your knowledge of the books. Drove down to the gas station at the end of the block to get barbecue from a mobile kitchen. Tonight, a new episode of "True Blood."

Tomorrow: Install BES Server software on a machine at work, and cross my fingers a lot.

Since My Last Post Involved Books - A Book Meme

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:54:05 GMT

Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman and S. Morgenstern
Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
A Distant Mirror, by Barbara Tuchman
The Pyrates, by George MacDonald Fraser
The Medieval Knight, by Frances Gies
Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight, by David Edge and Miles Paddock
The Phoenix Guards, by Steven Brust
Jhereg, also by Steven Brust
The Medieval Soldier, by Geoffrey Embleton and John Howe
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Book of the Courtier, by Baldessare Castiglione

Sports Names That Won't Fly In The US

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:52:58 GMT

New Zealand's national rugby team are called the "All Blacks" (due to their uniform: black shirt, black shorts, black socks).

Their national basketball team are the "Tall Blacks."

The Calm Before The Slog

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:05:45 GMT

I took today off to help Jane with some stuff. It's going to be one of those weekends where we're completely at other people's disposal and not likely to be fun. Tomorrow is Jane's grandmother's 100th birthday celebration, which would be a pretty cool thing if not for the fact that Jane's grandmother makes Iggwilv, the Witch-Queen of Perrenland seem like a nice person.

(Sorry for the obligatory uber-geeky reference, but this is not a nice woman. She hasn't been for many a year, and the entire party is likely to be more of an ordeal than a celebration.)

And while Sunday is ostensibly Fathers Day, it's also the Littlest Nephewim's first birthday. Attendance is similarly obligatory.

On the plus side, I did score some serious RPG bounty at Half-Price Books today: Open Grave for 4e, Werewolf the Forsaken, Night Stalkers for Hunter and Spirit Slayers for Hunter. Given that we've begun talking about doing something WoD flavored for our Saturday afternoon games, I consider this a sign.

Five Words

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:20:12 GMT

Courtesy of daydreamweaver

So the deal is, you ask for words, and I give them to you. Then you have to explain the words.

Hero: The cop-out here would be for me to talk about Hero Games or the Hero System, or something gamerly. Failing that, superhero comics. But I won't. To me, a hero is someone who knows the odds, knows what he or she is up against, and, because they know it's the right thing, does it anyway. It's not an original notion, but it's an important one. One doesn't become a hero just by virtue of putting on a uniform or a badge. It's what they do with it afterwards.

Parent: If we learn from our mistakes, I must finally be getting pretty good at being one. I'm reconciled with making the errors, as I firmly believe the child becomes an adult when they overcome (or at least come to terms with) whatever their parents burdened them with.

Ideal: Perfection is a road, not a destination.

Beauty: This is a hard one. There is nothing more subjective, nothing more fluid, I find, than my definitions of beauty. If anything, my definitions are much broader than when I was younger.

Wild: In so many ways, this word is my antithesis. I am a city boy. I am also a fairly calm and sedate individual. To me, going wild is synonymous with losing control, something I've always been a bit wary of. I'm not impulsive. I like consensus. As to going out into the wild, it's not that I dislike it, it's just that I do notoriously poorly in the local environments, where heat (and the promise of heat-related illness) is almost a given.

The Reading Thread

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:54:34 GMT

My reading pace seems to have slipped quite a bit lately. I had a couple of false starts; books I began but found I just couldn't bring myself to continue, so that certainly contributed to it.

Today at lunch I finished Charles DeLint's Moonheart. Technically, I finished it for the second time, since I originally read it when it first came out in paperback back in 1984, though I remembered virtually none of it. Moonheart is one of the seminal Urban Fantasy novels, a tale of magic intruding into the lives of a small group of people in Ottawa. It's an interesting convergence of time, place, and author, as the book is very 80s, very Canadian (lots and lots of Native American influence in the magic), and very Celtic Folk-y (DeLint is a folksinger and the cult of vague-Celt-worship you get in those circles is strong here). None of which makes it any less compelling. It's a good read. One part mystical journey, one part quest against evil, and one part police procedural, I was generally quite happy with how well the story holds up in the face of the genre tropes it helped spawn.

There is one thing that bugged me quite a bit, though. This was a newer trade paperback edition (published by Orb) that I picked up because I'd long ago misplaced my original copy. The copy editing in this thing is atrocious. The heroine's last name switches between two different spellings (Kendall or Kendell) with alarming frequency, and another character named Kieron's name is mis-spelled Keiron on a number of occasions. There are a number of other similar typos. Of course, I don't have the older copy to go back to for comparison, but I'd be shocked if these errors were artifacts of an earlier mass-market edition. It's not a major quibble, I suppose, but it bugs me.

Also, those damned Canadians keep spelling color wrong. :-p

tfbretz@yahoo.com — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:39:00 GMT

It's been a relaxy sort of day, precisely what was needed. I managed to sleep in a bit, even with the inevitable Saturday AM lawn mowers. Hit Half-Price Books at lunch and found a 4e D&D book I'd been putting off and a book of Keith Parkinson art.

Dinner was sushi at Little Miyako's, and we took C-Monster to see Ben Stiller's latest effort, which was better than it deserved to be.

Not a bad day, all in all.