Mackenzie's Weblog

I’m afraid my camera batteries ran out before I could take a new photo this week, so we get a slightly older one:

With the cold weather beginning again, I think this will be a much more common scene.

I’m Reading:

Have a great weekend!

Reviews of Spore are popping up all over.  I’ve been looking forward to getting this game, but I’m beginning to have second thoughts.  I may wait a bit.  We’ll see.  Here’s the most in-depth review I’ve seen so far, from PC Gamer US.

Last year, Neil Gaiman’s publisher offered American Gods for free online.  Well, they’re at it again, and this time you can actually download the novel as a PDF.  The book is Neverwhere, a fantastic modern fairy tale.  The download is still time limited—it will self-destruct in 30 days.

Generally, I’m not a fan of on-screen reading.  There’s just something about the feel of holding paper that can’t be replicated.  Of course, I say this never having seen a Kindle.  Anyway, I don’t see this as a chance to read the whole book, but rather a chance to see if you like Neverwhere.  If you do, go to your local bookshop or library and check out that and his other work.  You won’t be sorry.

After a harrowing day or two, I finally managed to get my Movable Type installation working again. I had to delete the prior installation in its entirety, but it appears that things seem to be working nicely. I can even post from the web, an ability I lost around version 3.1 or so.

Given my problems in the past, I'm quite relieved that it worked. I like MT, but my facility as a web programmer is limited, so upgrades can be trying.

Anyway, it's to bed I go.

Lots of technological ups and downs today.

I tried installing the newest version of my blog software, MovableType 4.21.  I got a crippling error immediately, so I downgraded to my prior version.  It’s a good thing I backed up before the ‘upgrade.’

But better, I installed Google Chrome.  For those not in the know, it’s the new open-source browser that Google has released.  My preliminary impression: I kind of like it.  I can’t really speak on all the back-end improvements, like stability and such.  But I can say that it certainly seems fast.  Really fast.  Its pretty nice.  I won’t make the switch until there’s a portable version, if then, but for now I enjoy playing around with it.

I spent a fair bit of time this weekend monitoring the Hurricane Gustav situation.  Overall, it appears things went fairly well, though it was disconcerting when a couple ships in one of the canals came unmoored during the storm.  It looks like power will be restored in fairly short order and everyone will be able to return to New Orleans and the surrounding areas.

There’s no telling how MackenzieMom’s house has fared just yet.  She suspects it’s probably fine, with the only worrisome area being a top-heavy tree that may have fallen over.  My best friend J is staying there for the duration of her AmeriCorps service, so she prepped the house, boarded up windows, etc., and then evacuated.  When she returns, that’s about the first that we’ll be able to tell.

Overall, though, I think it worked out.

• I made my first Borscht last night, from this recipe.  I was dubious—I’m not a huge beet fan, or a huge cabbage fan.  But I’m happy to report that this recipe was quite delicious—enough so that I’ll use my other three beets to make it again in the next few days.  My only change was to use plain yogurt instead of sour cream, a substitution I make often.
• This driving website is scary.  I discovered it from reading Traffic, and it shows how awful we are—including you and me—at actually driving.  Check it out.  Some of the videos of the crashes are positively chilling, like the taxi driver who apparently fell asleep at the wheel.  He wasn’t wearing a seat belt and got tossed around the inside of the car when it crashed (I think a rollover?).
• This one’s a little old, but it’s about reply briefs.  My take?  In our court, reply briefs are limited to times when the appellee raises a new argument.  In my experience, they’re rarely used correctly.  Usually, I don’t see them when they might be useful, and I do see them when they’re irrelevant.  But a good reply brief can truly be helpful, so it’s best to figure out when to file one.
• Salman Rushdie is coming to a university near me.  I may go.

This article reminded me that I need to plug this show.  It’s really fantastic.  And I don’t want to see it go belly-up like Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, and other good shows that just don’t get advertised by the network.  Check it out.

Oh, it’s so much easier now that I have my replacement monitor!

Here’s Sebastian, using his collar in an unconventional way:

And I’m reading:

Have a great weekend!

I’ve just been informed by Feminist Gamers that a company has just released a free VGA port of Quest for Glory II.  Get it here.

This is fantastic news.  The Quest for Glory series is one of my all-time favorites.  It’s absolutely hilarious, and for its time, cutting edge.  Notably, you can play through the entire series of five games with one character, which is imported into each successive game.  Actually, the games hold up quite well.  The writing especially stands up quite well.

This version comes at an interesting time.  I’ve already mentioned that Sierra may be going away.  The QFG series was one of their flagships during their heyday.  You can still find in some places the anthology that contained episodes 1-4 (which I have, natch).  That anthology was released pretty much because of a huge campaign by the fans to do so.

I haven’t installed the new QFG2 yet, but it is downloaded.  In this week before Spore comes out (I’m very excited) I may play through all five episodes for old times’ sake.

I’d like to tell you a heartwarming little story.

____________________________________________________________________

Once upon a time, about a year ago or so,
There was a boy who’s computer wouldn’t go.
“It is time,” he said, “to build a new one.”
“It could be a blue, green, white, or blue one.”
He scoured the world to find the right parts,
Using Amazon searches and other Dark Arts.

When the time came for the monitor, he was in for some trouble.
He didn’t know monitors—he’d lived in a bubble!
But he saw a review of a Dell 2707WFP.
When he saw the raves, he said, “That’s for me!”
“Oh, it’s from Dell,” he quietly mused.
“What if something goes wrong once it’s been only gently used?”
He took the risk anyway and was pleased with his find.
Little did he know that his hardware was mined.

One day he found the SmartCard reader was flawed.
(He used it to post pictures of cats to his blog.)
He did find a workaround, but it wasn’t much fun.
He chose to call Dell before shooting it with a gun.
“What’s wrong?” asked Gayle (that was the tech’s name).
He said, “I can’t upload photos—I’m quite off my game!”
“No problem,” said Gayle, “a replacement’s on its way.”
“Thank you for calling and have a nice day.”

On Saturday he called, our hero, this boy,
On Tuesday it arrived—new monitor ahoy!
“Man that was fast,” the boy said to himself.
That guy Michael Dell must be a jolly old elf!

Now the new monitor’s in place, as easy as pie.
The boy is as happy as if he could fly.
(That’s not really true, as I’d guess you could imagine.
He’d really rather fly but there’s no way that’ll happen.)
The new boy can see—the picture might even be better—
every pixel, every icon, every email and letter.
He’s grateful to Dell—they treated him right.
Now he can post pictures of cats every night!

_____________________________________________________________________

(Don’t worry—I’ll keep the cat photos to Fridays.)

I had a pretty good birthday weekend.  MackenzieMom and I went out for drinks and an appetizer when I got off work on Friday, then went to dinner at a relatively nice restaurant (for Cheyenne).  I made out like a bandit on gifts, too.  Hand-woven kitchen towels, hand-crocheted mesh grocery bags, a new pair of cufflinks, a first printing of The Supreme Court in United States History by Charles Warren (1922), and a signed advance printing of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust (1999).  The rest of the weekend, we pretty much sat around and finished watching Dexter, which my mother had not yet seen.  All in all, a good time.

In other news, my orchid is beginning to grow a flower stem, which means It’ll bloom in a few weeks.  That hasn’t happened in quite a while, so I’m looking forward to it.