Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

It’s Sunday and again we are not doing much. I edged, trimmed, mowed the lawn and Michele took the kids to Target for a new mop. I asked the girls if they wanted to go to the play, but they didn’t want to go. We didn’t go yesterday and I was hoping we would get a chance today. No luck.
Mira wanted to play with her new Barbie and Zoe wanted to play her new Pacman videogame.
Zoe has made a clubhouse in the girls room. Here is the sign on the door.

“What is password? Roll the dice!”

(clockwise from the left) Kleenex, stuffed animals, books, pillow, makeup head, blanket, rock collection, money stash

In my girl’s minds, the week is divided into school days and home days. Today is a home day. I plan on a quiet morning and am going to take the girls to a play of the 3 Little Pigs this afternoon.
Planetside
The last two days I’ve played Planetside. It’s damn good. They’ve taken the best of Tribes converted it to a MMOAG (massively multiplayer online action game). There’s no role play, just combat.
The experience you gain helps you raise your certifications and gain access to more and more hardware. The skills go in a few different routes. You can rais eup on vehicles or armaments or on utiltiy hardware like hacking and repair tools.
There’s not big delay on getting to a fight. There’s an Instant Action button that takes you directly to a combat zone to reinforce the people already fighting. The actual fighting is good, but not great. It allows for traditional FPS skills, but lacks the fluidity of Quake and UT. Lag does not appear to be an issue. I see occasional lag burst while running from once place to another, but never in combat.
I think I’m hooked.
Pinging
Once again I’m going ask those people that read Cruft to make sure that they ping weblogs.com or blo.gs or blogrolling whe they update their own weblogs. Yes, I’m taking about you Keith, Yoshi, and Travis.
Reading
I’ve been reading The Tranquility Alternative by Alan Steele, which I found on sale at a bookstore in Burbank. Good so far, but predictable. I’m sure there’s a few twists coming, but I’m on the scent of what’s going to happen.
I subscribed to Asimov’s Science Fiction, the pulp style sci-fi magazine. Amazingly, the latest issue has a story by John Varley, one of my favorite authors.
E3
I still haven’t finished the pictures from E3 yet. Too much gaming. I hope to finish it today and post ’em.

Over at Metafilter is more fun with the button stuff. Tay McKnight’s page is mentioned and there is a link to the Kalsey Auto-magic Button Generator-matic. The Generator is extremely fun.
You can make things like this very easily.
Enjoy.

Tonight instead of putting my girls to bed and goofing off, I went to a City Council Meeting.
In South Pasadena, my town, we have a law that prohibits parking from 2AM to 6AM without a permit. Many towns have the same thing. In the past, it was simple for me to get a permit. In 2001, they changed the conditions to get a permit, and I started getting denied. It sucked.
I got a letter from the Police Department telling that the Overnight Parking Ordinance would be discussed at tonight’s council meeting. Michele and I agree that I should go. Those that know me can attest that I can be somewhat of a bulldog in discussions and arguements.
The meeting started at 7:30PM. The part I was interested in was #20 on the agenda. Yuck. I had to sit through quite a bit of business.
The first big deal was the ‘tree crisis’. Evidently at my daughter’s school, there are two trees that an arborist determined should come down ASAP. A second arborist agreed. Simple eh? Not so. THe Board of Education and the City Council came into conflict over the tree issue. If the BoE cut down the trees without consulting the Natural Resources Committee of the Council, there was going to be hell to pay.
The plan was to cut down the tree this Saturday as long as the Planning Commission agreed. At somepoint the Council got so frothed up over the issue they were discussing whether the threat was some dangerous that we ought all run over to the school with chain saws right now so that we wouldn’t have to wait until Saturday. The City Manager, the sanest of the bunch said, “I think the trees have another 24 hours in them.” I see the trees every day. We probably have 5 years before they posed a danger.
After the tree crisis, we moved onto the dramatic issue of filming on Hanscomb. They filmed a movie scene up there and parked two trucks near the filming. A guy who lives on the street, Dr. Yet, was very, very upset.
He did a lot of stomping and blustering. The City Staff knew he was going to through a hissy fit and had all their rebuttals lined up. Dr. Yet was not happy. No matter what they said he got redder and redder in the face. Anger++
Next a guy sat down in front of me with a laptop. He turned it on and linux popped up. No Gnome of KDE for this guy, looked like oldschool window managers for him. I’m wondering what he’s doing and I see him bring up EMACS. EMACS? He then proceed to start fixing code. He did this for two hours while the meeting rolled on. Now I can see taking a laptop to surf or blog in the meeting to kill time, but coding? Wierd.
Finally we got to the parking issue. There were about 10 people asking for changes so they could get permits and 3 people asking for no change so the ‘aesthetics’ would be preserved. I said my peace and sat down waiting to see what they would do.
After much blustering about why change was bad, one councilman presented a compromise plan to allow each household a minimum of one parking permit. More wrangling and talk of garages, bad neighbors, and who’s awake at 2-6AM.
Finally at 11:30PM, FOUR HOURS after the meeting started, the council voted 3 to 2 to modify the ordinance to the compromise. Victory.
You can fight City Hall.

On the way back from lunch the other day we were discussing places to get coffee. The place we had just been, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, had refreshingly clear names for things like Small, Medium, and Large for sizes.
We soon launched into assigning geekness to coffee places. Here’s what we came up with.
Starbucks is Windows
Peets is Mac OS
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is Linux
Doughnut shops & gas stations are DOS
Work coffee is AS400 mainframe
Wrong? Right? Better suggestions?

I’m up an hour too late. I should be sleeping, but instead I’m in front of the computer.
We must be nearing the weblog apocalypse. My Mother has got her weblog groove on and is posting now. Today, she wrote about my brother’s post. I have no idea where this is going to end up.
Think about it, my 60-something year old mother is BLOGGING.
I went to Fry’s today at lunch and didn’t buy a thing. I joked that what I wanted to buy was more time. Time to do things. I was checking out the new micro-rockets that need 50 ft to launch into. Maybe next time.
A few days ago I posted about the icon buttons I made in the mold of Tay McKnight’s. I made a Powered by Linux button for my own use and it got post on the main Steal These Buttons page. Today I saw someone using the button I made at HitorMiss.org. I felt happy that someone liked the button enough to use it.
Night all.

It’s Saturday morning and the kids are playing up front. I’ve got some time to write about E3.
First of all, what I looked at is what interests me. PC games, specifically PC games with multiplayer. I don’t really care much for console games, not because they are bad, but because I don’t play them much. So don’t ask me why I didn’t update you on Mario Kart 4 or Final Fantasty XXVI. I don’t effing care about those games.
I took a number of photos, but haven’t whipped them into shape. You can see the pictures later.
In no particular order:
MaxPac – A transportable PC. Not a laptop. This PC is size and shape of a briefcase. Slip off a side cover and there’s a 17″ LCD screen backed by top of the line CPU & video cards. Looks to be great for LAN parties or even takign it places where you want to do video editing.
World Cyber Games – It’s the Olympics of video games. Players from all over the world compete in various games heading toward the World Championship. From Counter-strike to Starcraft to Age of Mythology to Halo, all gamers can find something they can relate toin the WCG. The US finals are at the UGE this summer.
Ultimate Gamers Expo – Imagine E3 for the general public? The UGE is going to try to through a convention for the gamers, not the gaming industry at the LA Convention Center on August 15-17. I’m going!
Halo for PC – Yes, the game looks great on an Xbox and i did have much even when it was released. I played the game on PC. It’s OK, but still feels like a slow, chunky console game. There’s no precision ala Unreal Tournament or smoothness ala Quake. There isn’t really much that distinguishes Halo from the horde of other FPS available on the PC. I’ll probably still end up buying it, but my enthusiasm is low. Still undecided if they will have a co-op play mode fr the game like Serious Sam. Also, there’s no commitment yet to a mod SDK.
NVidia – The NVidia booth was great. They had demos of most of the great games on the floor in one place. When I first walked up, there was Gary Coleman talking about video cards with an NVidia guy. I saw demos of the FX series of cards and they are simply unbelievable. Smooth as glass and great textures. Too bad they are going to be $400+…
Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII – BF1942 is a great game and deserved all the Game of the Year awards it garnered. The new expansion is basically fantasy stuff that might have been on the drawing board in WWII. I played the demo for about an hour total at the show. The secret weapons are all a blast. I dig the rocket pack the most. The cargo plane is cool because it becomes a mobile spawn point once in the air.
Uru – I hated Myst. I’m gunna hate Uru. Utter garbage.
Coaxsys – Coaxsys systems makes system that converts the coax wiring in your home into a 100 megabit ethernet network. With a hub adapater and seperate adapters at each end you want ethernet, it appears to work seemlessly with cable TV. At the Coaxsys booth, fatal1ty was playing UT2003 against all comers. Noone had killed him once all week. Amazing.
Play TV – Radica has a PlayTV line of games that are standalone. You plug the game into the video and audio in of your TV and you are good to go. Each game is designed for kids and is a physical object. The fishing game is inside a toy fishing pole. The snowboarding game is inside a snowboard.
Star Wars Galaxies – I saw this at the NVidia demo booth. All they showed was a guy running around in his underwear. They need to do better than that. I can run around in my underwear already.
Lineage II – I tried playing the original Lineage a while ago and was unimpressed. I saw the demos of Lineage II and the graphics are much better, but I saw nothing that would differentiate it from any other MMORPG. I know the Koreans love it, but I don’t.
Tron 2.0 – I saw the Tron demo last year and it ws impressive. It’s almost ready for release now. The graphics look good, but lack any texturing like other FPS games.
Toontown – Disney’s version of an MMOG for children and Disney fans. I tried the beta a while back and it wasn’t for me. It’s tightly controlled to protect children from anyone that would try to interact with them in an inappropriate way. Looks like a blast for tweens to play with other kids online.
Wireless Controller for Gamecube – I don’t know it took E3 for me find the solution to our problems. The girls like playing the Gamecube, but the controller cords are always a problem. With the new wireless controllers, it makes things much simpler.
Dark Age of Camelot: Trials of Atlantis – Seeing the Mythic developers demo the new Atlantis expansion for DaoC was fun. “Show me how to ride a shark. Show me how you swim.” and they did. I haven’t played DaoC in while but the new expansion look pretty fun. Instead of riding a horse you can ride a shark. They haven’t came up with an explanation of how everyone breathes underwater, but they are working on it. I suggested a James Bond style mouth gadget.
Worlds of Warcraft – Holy Crap! This game looked GREAT. I was really suprised when I saw the demo at the show. The graphics are fantastic, like Warcraft 3, unlike the standard graphics in EQ/DaoC/Shadowbane. Smooth and fluid, the action looked arcade-like with all the options and flexibility of MMORPGs. I hadn’t thought I would look forward to WoW, but I do now.
Guild Wars – NCSoft, makers of Lineage, showed a new game called Guild Wars. This MMORPG attempts to do awaya with the constant leveling and running from place to place that exists in other games. Evidently you’ll be able to group instantly and jump into the action easily. Amazing concept, making a persistent world game that is more play than work. If you can distract a few of the EQ players from their food pellet levers, this game might catch on.
Magic the Gathering Online – Back in 1995 I started playing Magic the Gathering, the collectible card game. For several years it consumed my free time and my thoughts. I played in tournaments and collected box after box of cards. Unfortunately, Magic was a game that you needed to play in person. As I became a father, I found my time for playing severely crunched. Eventually my attention drifted to video games I could play from home and away from Magic. The online version of the game looks like perfection. Collectibility, rule adherence, and a good engine make Magic Online a great game. I met a guy from Wizards at the show and we discussed things a bit. I’m energized to give it a try.
Half Keyboard – I’m n ot sure why I’d want this, but it’s done well. The company founder, Edgar Matias, explained the halfkeyboard to me personally. Smaller than a PDA, you can type on the thing in a somewhat familiar way. While I tried to type on it, I could feel my mind snapping as I tried to mentally flip the letters in my mind. Edgar can type very fast on the halfkeyboard. He had a few other products like full size keyboard that let you type onehanded when you wanted and two handed at other times. The wearable one hand keyboard that goes on your sleep looks like something straight out of cyberpunk fiction.
City of Heroes – NCSoft is publishing the game that appears to actually be headed for shelves. The game looks interesting, but in the limited test of combat I tried, the NPC kicked my superpowered ass easily.
Good things about E3: Pizza vending machines, booth babes, and Datafloss in full effect
Bad things about E3: Sold-out pizza vending machines, neckbone chicken and rice, Nazi registration folks
Games that were hyped but sucked: Black 9, American Idol, Tomb Raider: *.*, Sims Expansion 27, Mario anything, driving games, Counterstrike on a console
Companies that sucked because I could not play demos: id for not having playable Doom3, Valve for not having playable Halflife 2, Activision for not having a Return to Castle Wolfenstein booth
Companies that sucked because of their booths: Infogrames/Atari since their areas was appointment only. Sony Online Entertainment for their black box booth that made you wait in line to enter like a friggin Hollywood nightclub. I hope they lose money on all their games for their attitude.

It’s a little after 2AM and I just got home. I met up with TWELVE friends at the movies to see the Matrix Reloaded again. It was fun being out with so many people.
On the drive home, the highway was deserted. I could have easily done 120 on the highway but didn’t. I only did 90…
At this time of night, dear old South Pas is empty and the town is quiet. I roll down the windows and listen to the silence.
When I get home I step out in the street and feel the calmness around me like a cool breeze. There’s nothing else like the middle of the night. I love the feeling. Maybe it’s the idea that everything is not so busy, or maybe it’s just hearing the rustle of leaves.
I walk into the house and kiss the girls, soundly asleep. It is a good day. Good night.

Today I’m off from work and will be going to E3 in a couple hours. Zoe and I walked to school together and Michele is taking Mira to preschool. The house is quiet and I have a few minutes to collect my thoughts.
Caffiene
Today is day 6 of no caffiene for me. Several people have asked why quit? I’ll explain. I had been drinking a cup of tea or coffee in the mornings for a while. No big deal. I started also having a soda pop at lunch and sometimes a cup of coffee in the afternoon. Multiple cups of caffiene became the norm. I wasn’t drinking 6 uber-supra-grande mocha lattes per day.
After a while, I found myself getting that caffiene headache in the evenings. Nothing an Excedrin wouldn’t handle, right? I thought about the fact that I was feeling ill because I was using (for me) so much caffeine. I know others that drink three cups of coffee before 9AM and don’t feel a thing.
So I quit. While I love me a can of iced coffee, it’s best I lay off it until the effects clear my system. And while I’m atthat, I guess I should start exercising more and eating better…
Books
Last week I finished the John Barnes book, The Sky So Big and Black.
I’ve enjoyed John Barnes’s novels for a while now. This novel takes place in the future laid out in the previous novels Kaleidoscope Century and Candle. In this future, the concept of Memes that can control the human mind are central to the story. They aren’t memes like an idea that spreads across the internet and becomes part of the culture. We are talking about the concept of a method by which a Meme can take over and control a human mind.
In Barnes’s future, the Earth is completely taken over by the Meme called One True. The rest of humanity, spread out in space on the Moon and on Mars try to make do without the Earth.
This story takes place on Mars with a group of ecospectors, ecological prospectors. Rather than hunting for valuable minerals, they hunt for ways to terraform Mars by releasing water or identifying other organic resources.
Mars is cast in the light of the seminal Heinlein Libertarian society. Few laws, much personable responsibility, and a huge focus on trust and reputation. It very much harks back to ideas from Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Without giving out any spoilers, the Martians face a tragedy are must make choices between their lifestyle and dealing with One True for help. Barnes looks at how the libertarian world (Mars) and the socialist world (Earth) can interact and what price are the libertarians willing to pay to keep their way of life.
I recommend the book. It’s a fast read and has plenty of neat technical ideas interspersed with the storyline.

Yes, I saw The Martix Reloaded this morning.
I won’t reveal a thing except to say that the movie is great and noone will be disappointed.
Amazing effects and action. A great job. I can’t wait until November for the finale.