August 2008 Archives

• 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.

The birthday edition since, well, today is my birthday.  I’m 32, but I’m at the point where I have to think about it a minute because I don’t really keep track of my age.

This week we have the first photo of the boys together that I’ve had all summer.  Jupiter got a bath, so he sought out a warm place, which it turns out was Sebastian.

Yesterday, the multimedia buttons at the top of my keyboard stopped working for no apparent reason.  I spent hours trying to get it to work last night and this morning, all with no effect.

Usually I enjoy working on computer problems, but this one is different.  First, there’s no apparent reason for this to happen.  Second, I’m apparently the only person in the world who has this problem.  It’s quite irritating.

A reinstall may be in order at some point, but I’m not ready for that yet.  Maybe when I get my next hard drive.

I’m a sad panda.  Apparently, Fox is suing WB with the goal of stopping the release of the Watchmen movie—a film that has wrapped principal photography.  Note that I said stop the release, not just get a cut.

I’ll leave the hefty legal analysis for others, but I note that stopping release of the film seems unlikely.  WB has put in a lot of money and time.  It certainly hasn’t been keeping its production a secret, and Fox waits until now to attempt to enjoin the release?  That looks pretty shady to me.  In fact, it seems to me that filing suit when they did is the perfect moment to give just enough time to make an injunction possible, but late enough to let WB sink as much money as possible into the project.

Given that injunctions are equitable relief, I have trouble seeing how Fox’s tactics here show “clean hands.”  Assuming Fox wins on the merits, I suspect any relief will simply be a cut of the movie.

Of course, I suspect that Fox has no expectation of getting and injunction.  I think its statements are all bluster for the press and for the inevitable settlement negotiations.  Which is how I think this will all work out—WB will pay off Fox.

I have only three hopes out of this whole thing: 1) I hope the movie is fantastic, which seems likely, 2) I hope the movie is released, and 2) I hope that WB makes enough profit on this project to justify taking a risk on another nice IP (NOT a sequel!)

We’ll see what happens.

I love the fact that Weather.com shows that we have a 60% chance of rain today and I can look out my window and see that it’s raining.  Note to Weather.com: 100% chance of rain today!

When MackenzieMom arrived, she decided that Jupiter was too skinny (probably true) and has made it her mission to fatten him up a bit.  So he’s been getting an awful lot of canned food.  After doing some research, I’m warming to the idea that canned food is good for him anyway.  He’s been on a high-acid food for a long time because of kidney problems, and many people say that the higher water content of the wet food renders high-pH food unnecessary.  That would be great.

In other news, Capcom released Bionic Commando: Rearmed.  It’s a remake of the original Bionic Commando, a classic NES game released in 1988.  The original game was one of my favorites—I still own it.  The new version features 3D graphics (though the classic platformer action is still 2D), though the basic game, e.g., level design, hasn’t changed.  One significant difference: you can actually save your game, which was impossible in the original—you had to do it all in one sitting.

It’s fun to play, and it sure brings back memories.

Have a great weekend!

Last night’s dinner: roasted carrots and broccoli tossed with olive oil and red pepper flakes and topped with grated pepperjack cheese; black bean salad with onions, tomatoes, and corn; sweet corn on the cob fresh from the farm.

It is good.

Last weekend, Associate Justice Samuel Alito spoke at our Inn of Court.  It was pretty cool.  Regardless of one’s political affiliation, the chance to hear a Justice of the US Supreme Court is nothing to sneeze at—especially out hear in Wyoming.  Justice O’Connor came to the University of Wyoming about four or five years ago, and Justice Scalia will be speaking at our bar conference next month, but that’s it in recent memory.

Justice Alito was charming and entertaining.  He stayed away from any hot-button issues—most of his comments were simply anecdotes about the operation of the Court.  His significant comments were about “let[ting] judges be judges.”  It was not entirely clear precisely what he meant, but my interpretation is that he was objecting in part to the politicization of the judicial branches—perhaps through judicial elections.

Overall, it was quite a fun evening, and far more intimate than the bar convention will be given that the number of people there was far less than I anticipate will attend Justice Scalia’s talk at our bar convention keynote.

My walk to and from work is rather carefully choreographed in the summer.  Particularly at the end of the workday or if I go home for lunch, I like to stick to the shade.  The trouble is that the shade is not even on the street I walk on.  It might be shady on one block, then brutally sunny and hot on the next.  That’s inconvenient.  So I end up sometimes alternating what side of the street I’m walking on, crossing it two or three times.

My little dance just got a little harder—one of the big trees got cut down a few weeks ago.  It was a huge oak tree and, aside from the shade, it was one of my favorites.  From the stump, it appears the inside was rotten, but I still regret that it’s not around anymore.  It was a cool tree.

MackenzieMom arrived on Wednesday, and fattening Jupiter up has become her project.  So here he is in his favorite spot under the bathtub:

Sierra, a brand I grew up with, is likely to be dropped, and many say that’s not a bad thing.

I have a lot of nostalgia for the Sierra brand.  I first started my PC gaming career with games like the King’s Quest series and, even better, the Quest for Glory series.  In its prime, Sierra consistently released fun games.

That all ended when the founders sold it.  I lost track after a while of who owned the brand.  There were a few good games that came out on that label, but they weren’t that common.  As the founder says in the interview, I just didn’t know what Sierra stood for anymore.

So, as much as it pains me, I have to agree that Sierra must go.  It’s either that or start limiting the branding to fewer, actually good, games.  In truth, this should have happened about a decade ago.

I got a fair amount of gardening finished yesterday, which was nice.  I have a ton of turnips with underdeveloped roots (I’m hoping they just need a bit more time), some immature broccoli, tons of nice basil, and chives.  I also tore out a bunch of lettuce, which ended up in the compost pile, because it had gone to seed.  I now need to think about what to put in the now-available area.  It has to be a late grower, considering the season is particularly short around here.

I had the best of intentions with the lettuce—I was planning on using it all.  But then we got so much from the CSA that I just couldn’t do anything with it.  By “so much,” I’m talking 5-6 heads of various types every week.  That’s a lot, even split between two people.

The lettuce seems to be reducing slowly, something for which I have only joy.  I feel like I don’t want to look at lettuce ever again in my life.  I have no trouble eating seasonally if this ends up being how I feel about  so much of the food that I end up with.  Maybe I’ll be ok with lettuce again by next June.

Anyway, other than the lettuce-stravaganza, I love the CSA.  It pretty much is all my food other than a few staples like beans, onions (we get some, but not enough for me), garlic (ditto), etc.  Plus I’m trying out things I ordinarily wouldn’t get, like parsley.  It’s quite fun.

Soon, though, I’ll need to make my annual roasted chile purchase.  I’m looking forward to that.  I’ll have to check out the farmers’ market on Saturday and see what my options are.  I haven’t actually used quite all my prior order, so I’m thinking I might only get five bushels or so.  I love it.

Yes, I’m a little late on this one.  Unfortunately, the picture card in my camera developed some kind of problem, and I couldn’t get it solved before I had to leave for work yesterday.  But this morning I reformatted it, and it seems to be working fine.  I lost all the photos that were on it, but I’m pretty sure most of those are saved somewhere, anyway.

Regardless, here’s Jupiter chowing down:

As a little addendum to my bar series this week, I was asked to send along this little tidbit:

I have a friend who sat for the bar in a separate room, and with her own proctor.  The proctor was pretty messed up, and didn’t help with the whole “stress of taking the bar” thing.  For example, the room was quite large, and the proctor put the table where my friend was taking the exam squarely in the center.  The proctor herself was along the wall.

But the worse crime, according to my friend, was when the proctor decided to do her nails.  The noise of the file was tolerable, though irritating.  The acrid odor of the nail polish remover, however, was another matter.  Trust me when I say that when sitting for the bar exam and being forced to concentrate for hours on end, that’s not something you want to fill your nostrils.

It all worked out in the end.  My friend passed, as most bar takers will.  And at least at the moment, everyone can breathe a little bit easier just knowing it is over.

Have a great weekend!