a continuing chronicle of the decline of Western civilization
[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Tim Showalter" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
|
02:56 am
[Link] |
California Extreme summary
Fun as hell.
Here's a picture of what you missed (Friday night before the show was open).
I brought games for the first time. Surprisingly enjoyable, actually. I say "brought" but I mean, I begged Chris to take my stuff to the show for me in his company's truck, and he was gracious enough to do so.
Speed Rumbler and Millipede made it there and back unscathed.
Millipede, if positioned directly in front of the giant TV with laserdisc jukebox, will not get played much. Actually, the cocktail section in the middle of the show floor is just unfortunate.
A.P.B.'s gas pedal broke, apparently sometime Sunday. Part of the mechanism slipped out of a groove. In fixing it, I think I improved the positioning of the potentiometer, so maybe it'll work well for another seven years.
Standout game of the show had to be "The Act", which is kind of like Dragon's Lair on modern hardware. Unfortunately, the game was apparently abandoned by its developers because it turns out Dragon's Lair on modern hardware still plays like shit. As a demo, though, it drew a consistent crowd for the whole show.
"Teeter Torture", an unreleased Exidy prototype, may be the only Exidy game that I actually like. Then again, Crossbow, Chiller, and Death Race were all absent as far as I could tell.
I failed to get the King's Ransom mode on BK 2000 (the big carryover feature) even though I was spotted R-A-N-S-O. Chris came in and nailed it the next game. I suck at pinball.
I want to buy a System 11 game and an early '80s Bally. And a bunch of other stuff I can't find space for.
Next year I'm bringing at least four games.
Tags: arcade
|
|
06:04 am
[Link] | California Extreme is this weekend.
CAX is, basically, the best arcade in the known universe, and it exists for two days each year.
All the games are on free play and there are about 400 of them, ranging from the really good one that ate all your quarters when you were 13*, from at least fifteen you've never heard of or seen, and probably a couple that were rumored that you've never seen.
It's a little pricey — but it's worth it.
Hope to see you there.
* This year, I'm bringing the game that ate all my quarters when I was 13.
|
|
01:36 pm
[Link] | I have a DNS server running at home, and I'd like to pay someone to run it somewhere else.
Anyone know a hosting service that will do this for me?
I know how to edit a zone file, etc., and my ideal would be some server, somewhere, replicated and multi-site, where I could occasionally log in edit my zone files.
|
|
12:46 pm
[Link] | What can't Emacs do?
(via reddit)
Code for your .emacs:
(defun donuts ()
(interactive)
(message "Mmmmm, donuts."))
|
|
07:00 pm
[Link] | Artichoke Joe's asks for time every half-hour, which used to be at the time of dealer change. Now dealers change every 40 minutes. Hilarity ensues. The record for forgetting to ask for time is 17 minutes.
Highlight's of last night's session, which was most excellent: ( Read more... )
Tags: 1-2-2, artichokejoes, nolimit, poker
|
|
05:51 pm
[Link] | ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) bayareajenn needs a new laptop.
All she wants is the thinnest laptop possible with a big hard drive and play the latest games.
What options does she have from Apple, and if not a Mac, what are the best options out there? Is Alienware any good? (I have had bad experience with Dell and would rather avoid them.)
The MacBook, which is (probably) the right size/performance pick for her, has an Intel GMA X3100 graphics system. That sounds a little sucky, but maybe it's still the right pick.
Anyone have any data?
Tags: computer, jenn, laptop
|
|
12:24 am
[Link] | George Carlin is dead.
|
|
02:47 pm
[Link] |
Colbert
Cookie Monster did a cameo on The Colbert Report last night.
I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it, but ( Read more... )
I find any appearances from the Sesame Street muppets in adult contexts incredibly welcome and charming, even if I'm pretty sure Cookie wasn't being manned by Frank Oz for this one.
|
|
07:05 pm
[Link] |
general gambling update
Light week for poker after my record spew last Thursday.
Looks likely that I will miss BARGE due to family obligations. On the upside, Wheeling Island is open 24 hours and has a perfectly adequate poker room with more dead money than Binion's full of BARGErs.
I'd like to make a Vegas trip sometime this year anyway, though, and am toying with that idea.
I did manage to play one home tournament, PLO, last week. I played reasonably well, got my money in with the best hand (overpair + flush draw) and lost to a backdoor flush. I made my money back in a three-handed NL game where I played bully, lost a little, and crushed a dear friend for $40.
August 8, 2008 is coming up. 8/8/08 has to sound lucky to people who like eights. I intend to be playing somewhere. Some of the local Indian casinos are promoting themselves, but I'm guessing the loosest poker money won't bother to make the drive and am thinking I'll be in town somewhere.
Tags: poker
|
|
06:39 pm
[Link] |
Kung Fu Panda
CGI kung fu movie with furry animals. Funny. Go watch it. It's a little predictable, because it is a kung fu movie, but it works.
Tags: movie
|
|
06:58 pm
[Link] | Cracked.com on the lawyer suing the casinos, in an article about stupid lawsuits:
At first, it's hard to know who to root for in this contest between two businesses based on weaseling money out of stupid people. But then you remember the casinos have a buffet.
|
|
12:25 pm
[Link] |
an Emacs question
I'm toying with switching to Emacs from XEmacs, but I've run into one stumbling block.
For many years, my XEmacs init file has had this line:
(global-set-key [(return)] 'newline-and-indent)
This function causes enter in code-editing buffers to automatically indent. Works great -- in XEmacs.
In Emacs, it causes grief. I can't open files because hitting return inserts an extra line in the minibuffer.
How do I get this behavior in Emacs on a global basis? That is, when I hit enter in a perl, C, lisp buffer, I want to be indented without hitting TAB.
I don't want any of the other electric modes, and I don't want to have to tweak multiple hooks or keymaps.
Tags: emacs, xemacs
|
|
11:02 am
[Link] |
presidental handicapping revisited
I did this before a few months back here and here. Hard to believe those are already well over a year old. I tried to write up newer stuff, but I didn't really know. Democratic nomination: Clinton 20%, Obama 40%, Edwards 20%, field 20%. This was my second number. My first guess was 20%/30% for Clinton/Obama, but I gave the field 50%. I think I expected some governor to pop up and run over everybody, but it never happened.
I never really liked Hillary as a candidate. I thought she was running on Bill's credentials. As a nation, we know her, and we're not real fond of her. She has tended to run on her experience, but the Clinton presidency was like a train wreck that managed to still get the train to the destination.
But I don't remember disliking Hillary as much as I do now. The sniper-fire gaffe should have ended her as a candidate.
I really expected Edwards to make a better run.
I had a hard time picking Obama, because it just sounded wrong. I really like where he's going. Restoring discourse to politics is important, and I have the impression that his positions are not resolute. But apparently we're willing to vote for a black guy with a funny name. Who knew? Republican nomination: Romney 40%, McCain 10%, Guliani 10%, field 40%. I gave McCain 35% but backed off when he was getting killed in the polls. I should have stuck with my first guess.
McCain made so much more sense as the candidate. He's genuinely conservative. He has the right credentials in terms of spending. He's supportive of business. He's not what the fundamentalists want, but he'll do, particularly running against the black, Muslim-looking guy.
I was pulling for McCain, as he seemed like the only sane one of the bunch, but I think the GOP goofed. A good moderate southern governor should have been able to pick this up easy against this field. Maybe there aren't any.
Of the major Republican candidates, McCain is the best choice, and I think the one the Democrats will have the hardest time against.
Last year I put the odds at 4:1 for any DEM over any GOP. Now I'd have to offer 5:2, because the Republicans managed to pick the guy who was actually electable. Obama is not completely vetted, and he has a lot of cosmetic blemishes. McCain will attract a lot of people voting on domestic issues. I'm not booking more action over LJ in any case.
I am wondering about VP nominations. Neither candidate is a white southerner, and no one gets votes from the south like white people. McCain is clearly at an advantage among the stupid racists.
I want to say that the GOP will pick a white southern ex-governor, but apparently none of them want to be President or they would have run. If they do go this route, Huckabee might be an interesting choice. The only problem is, McCain is old, and then Huckabee might be President. That should scare pretty much everybody, so I guess it can't happen.
Anyone associated with the Bush administration is out.
I guess this leaves a senator from a swing state.
For the Democratic nomination, I think they'll go through a little dance with Hillary to try and mend fences, but no one wants Hillary to be the VP. Edwards seems possible but I kind of doubt it. I think they've got to find a bland candidate from a swing state to balance out the ticket. Hillary is not from a swing state and she's incredibly polarizing, so, yeah, not Hillary. Actually, I'm thinking Richardson has to be looking a little better now.
I took a look at Electoral-Vote.com, and decided to pick a swing state that I thought had a candidate with national importance. Jim Webb came to mind, but he's been in the Senate for even less time than Obama, and his election was quite marginal. But he's got real defense credentials, and he's made some inroads nationally.
From the Rove playbook: the recent California Supreme Court decision to legitimize gay marriage under the CA Constitution should provide another round of get-out-the-right-wing-vote measures to re-affirm one-man-one-woman marriage. That measure is already headed for the ballot here in California, where even the people that do vote for that will end up voting for a whole slate full of Democrats anyway.
Barring something bizarre, in November, a senator will be elected President. This hasn't happened since JFK.
West Virginia voted for Hillary by like a 3:1 margin. I'm embarrassed. "Did you know," they whisper, "that he's a Muslim?" The Daily Show had the great clip of a woman saying, "I've had enough of people named Hussein." I'm ashamed of this. West Virginia has a proud tradition of Democratic politics within the state, but frequently goes Republican in Presidential elections. Fine. But to have the election decided on something so stupid, and wrong, is sad.
One other thing I like about Electoral-Vote.com is its accounting for House and Senate races as well. I worry about all-Democratic control less than I worry about all-Republican control, because the Democrats are not nearly as good as force-feeding legislation to America. But I don't think it's really good. It would be nice if the Senate could pass anything. I think that if the Senate went 58/42, as predicted, that would be just swell: a good Majority Leader would be able to pick off a couple Republicans to get cloture, and the Senate might be vaguely functional again.
Tags: election, news, politics
|
|
12:03 pm
[Link] |
when Unix gets sarcastic
$ whoami
nobody
$
|
|
01:13 am
[Link] | bayareajenn has come home! Hooray! She graduated about seven days, two hours ago. The house is already cleaner, and the cats are much happier. She has finished Guitar Hero 3 on easy, and has switched to Final Fantasy XII.
As we all knew it would, my time spent playing poker has dropped dramatically. I played four times in the last week, but tonight I knocked off around 11.
The Mustang has over 6k miles on it already, and got its first oil change Thursday.. I figure about 3200 are probably round-trip from going down to see Jenn. The car is still fun. However, all of the trees in my complex are dropping pollen. I got it washed at a gas station car wash and the next morning it was covered in white dust. I sprayed it off at a self-serve carwash and the next morning it was covered in dust. I drove to San Brumo tonight and probably parked it in fog; the car didn't look dusty but now it looks like it's covered in spots.
dmorr got his pinball machine back, but it is still impossible to get a car into my garage.
I bought a BBB Arduino clone at the Maker faire a couple weeks back, but have yet to get the cable so I can program it. If anyone has played with any of these before, please let me know. I did build the "electronic game" which is actually a Simon knockoff. I was a little sloppy but it plays okay.
My DSL died a couple weeks ago due to load coils on the line. Last time it was bridge taps. Apparently the local phone company just hates DSL resellers. It's working now, sluggish as always.
|
01:13 am
[Link] |
sold a pinball machine
I sold a pinball machine on Sunday, that is, yesterday. I bought it Saturday. I had owned it for less than 21 hours, and in the time that I owned it, it was being exhibited at a pinball show the entire time. Because I figured I'd have a chance to play it later, I ignored it at the show and played other games.
The game was a Firepower II. I'd like to find a Firepower, but a Firepower II is a similar game with a slightly different set of features. I bought it at an auction because I figured if I could get it for $320, I might as well give it a shot. Well, it went for $320.
Sunday afternoon, Chris called and told me that if I had buyers' remorse, I could sell it for $400. I had just told bayareajenn that I'd bought it, and it would come home as when the garage was clean, but probably not until after California Extreme in any case. I thought about it, and decided that a small profit, plus not having to get it hauled home, was worth it. I understand it is going to have a home next to its new owner's Firepower.
It's the first pinball machine I have sold, and the first game I've ever turned a profit on.
Tags: pinball
|
|
02:12 pm
[Link] |
my DSL died
If you were hoping to contact me for any reason, I highly suggest the circut-switched telephony network, the postal service, or a personal visit.
|
|
07:20 pm
[Link] | The ATM at the 7-11 near Artichoke Joe's gives out 20s and 100s, no fifties. How cool is that?
(I am now always surprised when I see anyone using a 50. Being around poker players will warp you like that.)
Tags: inane, poker, stupid
|
|
11:29 pm
[Link] |
MacOS X 10.5 update
X11 under 10.5 is much improved, and now, I don't hate it. I am still not convinced everything works right but at least it's livable.
After a couple months, my Time Machine partition ate itself. I had to start over, but I didn't lose any data other than the backups. I actually heard back from Apple on this bug report but I'd nuked by data by then because iw wanted my backups back.
After another couple more months, my disk physically died, and I replaced it with a Drobo with multiple disks. That has worked okay, except I booted Windows in Boot Camp, and now that parition is also trashed and must be restarted. (Fortunately I have backups.)
I had to reformat and re-install my internal disk in order to get it to repartition. I suppose it's remarkable enough that resizing partitions _ever_ works.
The Drobo is cool. It's a USB-based external enclosure that presents itself as a big-ass disk, but without using RAID. It's okay to drop in different size disks, and it will allow you to upgrade disks internally indefinitely. That's the good part. The bad part is I'm pretty sure it's just a glorified piece of software, something like LVM done in a shiny black case. But it _does_ just work, mostly. It had problems with my bad disk, and it just ate my backups. Also their "dashboard" software lacks a little polish. I'd also like more visibility into how the product works, but it is so black-box it lacks a _power switch_.
I am finally setting up Windows on this box; not for any good reason, just because I can.
Tags: geek, mac
|
|
04:29 pm
[Link] |
Carnival
Ok, so I have plane tickets, a hotel room, and a rental car, and I'm coming to Carnival.
A couple questions:
Anyone got crash space so I can cheap out on the hotel room?
Which activities to I skip? I want to spend some time visiting family, too.
|
[<< Previous 20 entries] |
