On The Matter Of Contractual Obligations

I mentioned in yesterday's screenshot-laden post that I'd taken on quite a few contracts in the Call of Duty: Black Ops multiplayer arena, but didn't provide much in the way of details. Now seems like a good time to correct that.

For those who haven't played Black Ops yet, the development shop responsible for the game - Treyarch - introduced a rather ingenious concept with this edition of Call of Duty. You can, at the cost of a small number of Call of Duty dollars, purchase contracts that represent specific objectives and which pay out multiples of their cost if you complete them. So, for example, you might buy a contract for "Get 3 kills without dying within 40 mins of game play", at a cost of 25 COD$, and be awarded 100 COD$ if you do indeed get 3 consecutive kills without dying in a game over the next 40 minutes of playing online. For some of the harder contracts, there are also XP rewards that you'll earn along with the COD$.

To see how the purchase of certain contracts can change your style of playing, I bought the "TDM Massacre" contract this afternoon. It costs 150 COD$, requires that you get at least 20 kills in a single Team Deathmatch, gives you 40 min of game time in which to complete it, and pays out 1100 COD$ and 1100 XP! Quite the return on your investment, if you can pull it off. I was in my 3rd game before I had a real shot at it, and I just barely managed to do it, finishing with 20 kills and 13 deaths. In order to do that, though, I had to play like a madman: always running directly toward the biggest fire fight, not bothering to lay down Claymores because it slows me down too much and I'll probably die before any could be triggered anyway, and generally throwing all of my usual stealth and caution to the wind.

I actually like that the contracts cause me to change things up, but that doesn't stop me from turning the air blue in our living room when I'm on one... as Vicki can definitely attest to!

Best Quote Of The Year?

OK, probably not. But still a really good one to end the year on... Director David Fincher (The Social Network), talking about potentially filming Arthur C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama:

"‘Cuz we want to make a movie where kids go out of the theatre and instead of buying an action figure they buy a telescope."

If only more directors thought like that!

Second Time Lucky

So it took me just over a month - Nov 10 to Dec 12 - to reach level 50 in Call of Duty: Black Ops the first time. At that point I decided to prestige, after which I was right back to level 1 again.

Tonight, I reached level 50 for the second time, and it only took me 18 days to do so. I've raised my KTD to 1.42, but it would've been even higher if I hadn't taken on so many Contracts that required me to play more aggressively. I'm currently 231-6 in terms of Contracts (completed to failed).

Here's a longshot kill:



And here's one that's much more up close and personal. That poor guy picked the wrong place to climb up to:



I played this particular game with wild abandon, as I knew I was close to reaching level 50. Below you can see a couple of enemies charging into the room where I'm crouching, just seconds before I'd blow them both away. I finished the game with 22 kills and 3 deaths, which is just how I would've scripted a match in which I'd get my final promotion!



Anyway, I don't think I'll prestige again. I'm probably close to burning out on the online portion of the game, so running through the 50 levels a third time doesn't appeal right now. But we'll see.

A Call For Metrics For Predictors

This is the time of year when we get two broad categories of articles/features: retrospectives of the year gone by, and prognostications for the year to come. I've already read a few of the latter type, and I've come to realize that there's almost always an element missing from most of them that I'd like to see added: what kind of job they've done in the past.

If you're in the habit of making predictions for the upcoming year, then I think you owe it to your audience to give some sort of indication of past performance. So, for example, I just finished reading a comic-based article called "11 for '11: Things to Watch for in the New Year (Series / Graphic Novels)". In it, the author gives 11 series that he thinks will be worth reading in this new year, along with reasons why. I happen to recall that last year there were similar lists entitled "10 for '10", along the same lines. While I'm sure I could find them if I really made the effort, I would think that part of the act of establishing some "street cred" for such an article would be recounting what 10 series were highlighted at this time last year, along with a brief description of how each panned out. In that way, we'd have some notion of whether this is coming from an empty-headed, hype-swallowing bozo, or an enlightened observer.

What I find, though, is that predictors rarely seem to do this. Perhaps that's simply a reflection of the fact that most of them are lousy at their job, or even that they never bother to actually measure their own performance in that way! In either case, it makes me less interested in what they have to say.

2010's Nearly Over... So Did We Make Contact?

If you believe the title of the film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two novel, this was supposed to be the year in which we make contact... with something! In the movie (and book), mysterious things begin happening on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, and it all goes kind of crazy from there. Here in the real world, scientists discovered Arsenic-based (microscopic) life in 2010, which is pretty darned cool but not likely to immediately lead us to making contact with anything intelligent.

I haven't decided just yet how I feel about 2010. Usually around this time, I'm ready to say "good riddance" to the outgoing year as I usually feel that it's worn out its welcome by now. And sure enough, when I think of the medical issues that Vicki and I each had this year - nothing catastrophic, but also not a particularly good run - then I'm hoping 2011 will treat us better. On the other hand, Vicki and I made a great new friend (Julie) in the past several months, and that sort of thing doesn't happen very often, by any stretch. I was disappointed that I didn't get more consulting gigs this year, but my tutoring business took off to the point where Vicki had to pick up some of the work that I couldn't do! The comic books of 2010 were pretty lousy, but I've read a ton of terrific books over that period. So it's been an uneven year, which I suppose is the way that most of them go.

I guess that just means that I'm ready to check out 2011... and discover just what it has in store for us!

One Christmas Delayed

Tonight was supposed to be our Christmas with Julie, as the three of us were to enjoy dinner together, exchange some gifts and watch 49 Up, the final (so far) installment in the Up series. Like just about all of our December plans this year, however, things were destined not to follow the script.

Julie, who in her mid-30s has bragged to me that she's never had the flu, came down with none other than a nasty influenza bug early this morning! A few other members of her family are similarly afflicted, but for once it got her in its sights, as well, and did a real number on her usually-sturdy frame. Vomit counts have already reached double digits, apparently. Poor kid!

Considering how long it took to find a night for 49 Up that fit Julie's busy, busy schedule (7 weeks and counting), maybe we're just not meant to see it together?

What Santa Brung

Well, Christmas 2010 has now come and gone, and it was completely unlike what we had planned, for a variety of reasons. It wasn't the surreal experience that 4 years ago was, when both of my housemates were down with the flu for the day. However, a good friend of ours who had hoped to spend the day with us has had an ailing parent take a turn for the worse, wiping all yuletide thoughts from her mind, unfortunately. As a result, Vicki volunteered to make an impromptu trip out of town to deliver some essentials to the friend in need. Of much lesser import, Tammy and I didn't get our hoped-for Christmas Day walk in with Julie when her schedule didn't accommodate it, but instead decided to go on it by ourselves... only to bump into Julie and some relatives of hers on the trail! It was just a strange day full of unexpected twists and turns.

But gifts were still exchanged, and my haul included the following:

• Books galore: The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, Earth: The Book by The Daily Show staff, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, Look at the Birdie by Kurt Vonnegut, The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris, Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin and The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins (which I've been particularly-eagerly awaiting!)
  
• Video games: Alan Wake and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, both for the XBox 360
  
• a Daily Show / Colbert Report T-shirt from their Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
• The Hurt Locker on DVD
  
• 2 Lois Lanes and 1 Superman comic, all lovely and from the 1960s
• a homemade pillow and pillow case (superhero-themed, of course!)
• a Future Shop gift certificate, some yummy chocolates and other sundry treats

Vicki got some books, as well, along with snuggly PJs, a Doctor Who DVD (with the David Tennant specials), Lush cosmetics, gift certificates from a craft store and a plant nursery, and a new work bag and genuine African scarf and pottery bowl (courtesy of world traveler Tammy). Tammy wanted cash this year so she was forced to answer trivia questions of our devising in order to win various amounts, and made out just fine.

In other words, the three of us all did great, as usual. That much, at least, went according to the script.

Where's Santa?

Check out the time on this post... Way too late on Christmas Eve / Christmas morning for me to still be up, but here I am.

Time to finally head to bed, though. Merry Christmas to all! And to those with young kids in the house, chances are you'll be in up in about 3 hrs anyway to start unwrapping all those gazillion presents.

Your Trivia Answers

Thanks to Vicki, Tammy, Boneman and Jimmy Hinckley for playing our Trivia Game this holiday season (and shame on the rest of you who didn't!). They all did well, given the eclectic nature of the questions. Jimmy picked up 8 Blog Points for his 16 correct answers, Tammy and Vicki each got 7 BPs and Boneman wasn't far behind with 6 BPs (including a small bonus for making me laugh). Leaderboard standings should be updated momentarily.

For those who'd like to know the actual answers, I've provided them below:

1) Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina, told his aides he was "hiking the Appalachian trail" while he headed down south to Argentina for a tryst with his girlfriend there (his wife would later leave him). (2 of the 4 respondents got that right, to some degree)

2) It was the Texas Rangers, formerly owned by George "Dubba Ya" Bush, who lost to the Giants in this year's World Series. (2 right answers)

3) DC Comics' Green Lantern was front and centre for this year's Blackest Night event, just in time to get prepped for his leading man role in next year's GL movie. (2 right answers)

4) I'm currently - almost literally so - playing Call of Duty: Black Ops. Too easy! (4 right answers!)

5) It was poor Rascal who had to be put down this fall. (3 right answers. "Patches", Boneman? Really?!?)

6) I currently have just over 28,100 comics, so 28,000 is the winning answer here. (only 1 right answer to be found)

7) Pi is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. (4 right-ish answers, although part marks were deducted for misspellings of "pie" and "pii")

8) KTD = Kill to Death, as everyone knows who reads this blog. (4 right)

9) It was Roy "Doc" Halladay who pitched a no-hitter this October in his first ever postseason appearance, of course. (1 right)

10) Arsenic and old lace go together, but who knew that arsenic could be a building block for Life? We do, now! Well, some of us do, anyway. (1 right)

11) 2011 is the year of Thor, Green Lantern and Captain America movies. (2 right)

12) Robin's secret identity is apparently very secret, as no one knew that Damian Wayne (illegitimate son of Bruce Wayne) is currently wearing the costume. (0 right)

13) Back to back shutouts for the respondents here, as nobody seemed aware that the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic is just around the corner, since it went down in April 1912! (0 right)

14) Chris Nolan's first film, which Vicki and I watched not too long ago, is called Following and is quite the weird little gem. (1 right-ish, although Vicki got the title partly wrong)

15) Only one Star Wars fan knew that The Hidden Fortress is the Kurasawa film that George Lucas borrowed so heavily from for Episode IV. (1 right)

16) Branding apparently works: everyone knows who Brown is: UPS! (4 right)

17) I guess only a comic fan would remember that Tony Stark's father's name is Howard, although after he appears in next year's Captain America film, maybe more will. (0 right)

18) The Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, despite being blogged about here not long ago, confounded all but one of our respondents. To quote Boneman, it's "when you are in a sitcom for one episode, and only ever referred to from then on" (hey, close enough!). (1 right)

19) Not surprisingly, nobody recalled that Pedro Martinez started off as a Los Angeles Dodger, before being traded to the Expos and making his name there. (0 right)

20) On the other hand, everyone knew that James Ford took the name "Sawyer" after a con man by that name caused the murder-suicide of his parents. (4 right)

21) Only one true film buff named Roman "Hey little girl, wanna party?" Polanski as the director of Chinatown. (1 right)

22) Much to my amazement, no one tagged 1919 as the year of the Black Sox! (Maybe we'll get another scandal of similar proportion in 2020?) (0 right)

23) Probably the toughest question of the lot involved the given name of Captain "Sully" Sullenberger. Jimmy came closest with "Chester", for which he got part marks. Right answer? Chesley! (1 right-ish)

24) Surely only surly Sean Connery could deliver the line about bringing a knife to a gun fight, as two of our respondents knew. (2 right)

25) Steve Rogers has better name recognition than I'd expected, as everyone ID'd him as the Star Spangled Avenger, Captain America! (4 right)

26) Who could ever forget the 5 notes that the aliens played for us in Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Well, apparently some could, as only half the people got that right! (2 right)

27) Almost everyone (surprisingly) knew that Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird! (3 right)

28) When do we get a leap year? In any year that's divisible by 4 but not divisible by 100 unless it's also divisible by 400, of course! So 1944, 1996 and 2000 each got an extra day for their troubles! (3 right)

29) What kind of people don't remember that it was Doomsday that killed Superman back in 1992? Apparently your kind of people, as no one got this right! (0 right)

30) And last but not least, it's of course my lovely wife Vicki and my wonderful walking buddy Julie who join me for frequent Movie Nights, as most of you knew. (3 right)

I hope you all enjoyed the trivia, even if you didn't take part!

Time's Running Out For Trivia Answers

Remember: you only have until midnight tomorrow to get your guesses in for the Holiday 2010 Trivia Contest. I've gotten results from 4 people so far, but I'm sure there are others out there who'll want to get in on the action. So don't delay too much longer!

Here's a teaser for when the submitted answers are revealed: Boneman provided a very original guess for anything he didn't know! I just might award him an extra half a Blog Point for the act of making me laugh!

New Camera, Just In Time For Christmas

Higher resolution, lighter, smaller, sleeker... and considerably cheaper than the six year old model that it's replacing! Ain't technology wonderful?

Greatest Game Trailer Ever?

I don't know for sure but this trailer for Portal 2 just might be the pinnacle of gaming ads. I laughed out loud several times, and it's not even 2 minutes long! Cannot wait for this game to hit (release date is 4 months from today).



[Update Dec 22/10: Looks like Portal 2's release date is now Apr 21, not the 18th. No biggie!]

The State Of The Comic Industry

Brian Hibbs, who owns the Comix Experience store in San Francisco (which Vicki and I visited in 2007), also periodically produces an online column called Tilting at Windmills at the Comic Book Resources site. His latest article in that forum, entitled "Time's Up", so perfectly sums up my own feelings about the comic book industry right now that I urge anyone who cares at all about that medium to go check it out and thus save me the trouble of yet another bloggy rant.

He makes many dead-on observations, including:

"The movement of focus of the market from “mostly long-term ongoing series, with a few minis and one-shots” to “mostly mini-series and one-shots” has led customers to be skittish about new titles and makes every “jumping on” point a “jumping off” one instead.

The trend of “deconstructed” storytelling, where writers aren’t as focused on writing jam-packed single issues, but, rather stories paced for the “inevitable” collection, when coupled with the incredibly stupid and greedy price increases has directly conditioned many buyers to look for reasons to not buy a new book."

I could not possibly agree more enthusiastically with those statements. That's exactly how I feel, and precisely why my monthly purchases have been waning over the last several years.

Holiday 2010 Trivia (3000 Posts Later!)

Hey look, it's my 3000th blog post!!!

As promised, here are some trivia questions to help us all celebrate the milestone. Please answer from memory, rather than looking things up. Provide your answers in the comments. I've turned comment moderation on, and will hold off publishing any relating to this contest until after it closes, at midnight on Wednesday, December 22, 2010. If nothing else, this should provide some pre-holiday distraction and shake things up a bit on the Blog Point Leader Board.

And so, without further ado, here are 30 questions in random order, spanning a wide range of topics. Each correct answer will be awarded a 1/2 Blog Point:

1) Which American politician inspired the recent euphemism for stepping out on your spouse, now immortalized as "hiking the Appalachian Trail"?

2) Which team lost the 2010 World Series?

3) Which DC Comics superhero was at the center of the company's Blackest Night event in 2010?

4) What video game am I currently spending much of my free time playing?

5) What was the name of the pet that Vicki and I had to euthanize earlier this year?

6) To the nearest thousand, how many comic books do I currently own?

7) What symbol represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter?

8) What does KTD stand for in First Person Shooter games?

9) Who began his professional postseason career in 2010 with a no-hitter?

10) What element surprisingly formed the basis of a new life form discovered in Mono Lake recently?

11) What three big name superhero movies are scheduled to be released in 2011?

12) What is the secret identity of the Robin currently appearing in the main Batman titles published by DC Comics?

13) In what month and year did the Titanic sink?

14) What is the name of Christopher Nolan's first feature film?

15) Which Kurasawa classic is said to have provided inspiration to George Lucas in creating Star Wars?

16) Never mind figuring out "What Brown can do for you?"... who the heck is Brown?

17) What is Tony Stark's father's given name?

18) What is the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome?

19) On which team did Pedro Martinez begin his Major League Baseball career?

20) Why does James Ford go by the name "Sawyer" on the TV show Lost?

21) Who directed the 1974 film Chinatown?

22) In what year did the infamous Chicago Black Sox scandal occur?

23) What is Captain "Sully" Sullenberger's given name?

24) Which Academy Award winning actor slammed his on-screen opponent for bringing a knife to a gun fight?

25) What is the superhero name that Steve Rogers usually operates under?

26) How many notes comprised the initial musical message offered up by the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

27) Who wrote the novel To Kill a Mockingbird?

28) Which of the following were leap years: 1900, 1944, 1962, 1986, 1996, 2000?

29) Who killed Superman back in 1992?

30) Who are the two women with whom I enjoy Movie Nights?

Good luck to all!

Coming Up This Weekend: Trivia!

As hard as it is for me to believe, the very next post here will be this blog's three thousandth! That's a mind-boggling amount of blathering to have produced over a 50-month span, and yet it's true.

So keep your eyes peeled for a bunch of trivia questions coming your way over the weekend. You'll have a few days in which to provide answers in the (temporarily moderated) Comments section and earn truly (un)valuable Blog Points! I hope this can at least provide a momentary bit of distraction as we all brace for the coming Christmageddon 2010!

Woman And... Uh, Woman's Best Friend?

To go along with the photos from last week's snow-walk, here are a couple from today's, this time highlighting my walking buddy, Julie (and Cooper, of course... he's such a ham!). It didn't look like all that exceptional a day when we headed off (shortly after noon), but before long Julie and I were walking in yet another winter wonderland. The snow just continued to stream down, and the woods looked even more beautiful than last time. Here she's snuggled up to Cooper while he stares down an imaginary squirrel off to the side.
Our second shot shows off how low the overhead clearance was at times, as the branches were bent over with the weight of lots of snow. There were spots where we had to go along on our hands and knees, which just added to the adventure. I don't think the photos quite capture just how incredible the transformation of the woods has been over the past 9 days, but at least it provides a sense of it. While I haven't much enjoyed driving on the days that we've been socked in, the walks have more than made up for it. I wish Vicki were feeling well enough to join us, but she's still on the mend. Maybe later in the winter she'll get to see it all firsthand.

Prestige Me!

In just over a month (32 days, or about 36 hrs of gameplay) I leveled all the way up in Call of Duty: Black Ops multiplayer. That means that I took my online character from level 1 all the way to level 50, with each promotion requiring more Experience Points (XP) than the previous one.

When I was in a similar situation with Modern Warfare 2, I decided not to Prestige. For those who don't know, that means starting all over again at level 1, with all of the best weapons and equipment once more being locked out until you re-achieve the higher levels. There's no huge incentive to do this, other than bragging rights and the desire to re-challenge yourself with the most rudimentary loadouts. I played a few games after Prestiging this afternoon, and have been promoted 3 times already... but again, the lower ranks are the easiest to pass through!

I didn't realize that my Call of Duty Points (the currency you use to buy stuff for your character) would be reset to zero, or I might've thought about it a little longer. I had over 150,000 CoDP at my disposal, and they're all now gone. I'm already wanting to buy Claymores and my 3 favourite perks, but am seriously short of the points I need for them right now.

I doubt I'll get all the way back up to level 50 again, but we'll see. At least I'm still playing the game!

And Now We Have A Date For Resistance 3!

Thanks to the debut of the latest Resistance 3 trailer on the Video Game Awards show tonight, we finally have a release date for the long-awaited game:

September 6, 2011

And if that live action scene toward the end, where Capelli is holding onto the big-ass hammer, reminds you of anything else I might've mentioned recently, well that's just a coincidence. Maybe hammer's are now the hot weapon?

With just a little less than 9 months to wait now, I can already barely wait to see this baby arrive!

Hey, This Actually Looks Pretty Good!

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from the Thor movie that's due out next year, but now that we've finally gotten this nifty trailer, I'm a bit jazzed! It looks like a healthy mix of Asgardian and Midgardian action, which is always the secret to doing Thor well ("Midgard", for those who don't know, is how the gods of Asgard refer to Earth). I like their choice of the Destroyer (the big metal dude) as one of the villains, and of course half-brother Loki, the God of Mischief, will be causing all kinds of trouble for the Thunder God.

This could turn out to be quite a fun flick!

Total Mastery Of A Game

For anyone who's played the amazing Portal, you have to watch this video of someone completing it in under 10 minutes! I've never seen anyone show such a complete and utter mastery of a game environment as this individual demonstrates. It will make no sense whatsoever for any strangers to the game; but for the rest of us: wow!

Something To Look Forward To

I'm now only 7 posts away from 3000, counting this one. At Tammy's suggestion, I think I'll post a long overdue trivia quiz to mark that occasion. (The Blog Point Leader Board at the top of this page hasn't changed in ages, so it's clearly time to do something about that.)

Therefore, keep an eye out for post # 3000, sometime between now and Christmas. When I run it, I'll turn Comment Moderation on so that any and all readers out there can submit their guesses - without spoiling it for anyone else - and be awarded invaluable Blog Points! Invaluable does mean "not valuable", right? Yeah, I thought so! :-)

It's No-Show Day!

I thought I had 3 tutoring sessions to do today, but each of the first 2 were no-shows! In each case I think the parent involved was confused by a change in schedules (my 2 Thursday afternoon students usually alternate weeks and each was here last week).

Anyway, what looked like a busy day when it started has been quite the snooze fest in terms of working! I managed to get a little Black Ops in, boosting my kill-to-death ratio up to 1.30 for the first time, as well as reaching level 45. Fortunately my ability to wield the Famas and Strela-3 was not a no-show today!

Man And Man's Best Friend

Here's how I spent a good part of this morning: on a walk through the woods with Julie and her dog, Cooper. The very narrow path you can see is what we walked along, when we weren't having to make the path ourselves! It was a much nicer day than Monday, with the sun shining and warmer temperatures, but we both agreed it was actually more work today because it was so uneven: sometimes we followed in others' footsteps, other times we hit virgin snow, and even the depth changed from area to area.

As an example of that last point, consider the following photo:



Yes, the snow really was that high! And Cooper's a big dog to be that out of sight!

Some Tidbits About Resistance 3

Although it's still nearly a year away from release, news is slowly emerging about what to expect from Resistance 3, the followup to 2006's Resistance: Fall of Man and 2008's Resistance 2. A nice summary, from Insomniac Games' Creative Director, Marcus Smith, can be found here.

Of most interest to me:

• the return of the weapon wheel, so that we won't be limited to just 2 guns at a time
• a 2-person Coop mode for the campaign, available both locally (split screen) and online

In both cases, this seems to reflect Insomniac listening to the feedback of those of us who loved the first game but were frustrated by some of the changes made for the sequel. As I'm always quick to point out: I still loved Resistance 2. But it could've been even better if it had stuck closer to the feel of its predecessor in a few significant ways, including the two areas listed above. So kudos to Insomniac! I can't wait to see what this game ends up bringing to the table.

In the meantime, I continue to enjoy Black Ops. I'm a level 44 (of 50) now, and am toying with the idea of prestiging at least once. And then at some point I need to continue the single player campaign, into which I've only gotten about 20 minutes!

All Hail The Mighty Boneman

I watched an amazing replay this morning: Boneman going 24-1 (24 kills, 1 death) in a Team Deathmatch on the Array map of Call of Duty: Black Ops! He was on fire, decimating everything in his path that had the poor misfortune to be on the opposing team. He called in 3 Attack Helicopters, thanks to some killstreaks and lucky care package contents. He collected a few kills with well-placed Claymores, and mowed down enemy combatants with his gun of choice (a Galil, maybe?). About the only he didn't achieve, as far as I could tell, was the Game Winning Kill... but maybe he even did that!

I've never had a game result that impressive, so I bow down to the Boneman on this day.

Snow Day!

I have to say, today was a pretty wacky day in these parts. Vicki's aunt and uncle from Baltimore braved the localized snowstorm to get back on the highway toward the States after spending the night with us (and having a fabulous visit with us); I had my first "winter walk" with Julie and her dog Cooper, most of it in snow that was up to my knees (the route that would normally take us about an hour lasted just over two hours, I think); I then had a long nerve-wracking drive home that covered about 3 kms but took almost half an hour to complete with several points threatening to leave me stuck in the snow; and I shoveled a whole lot of the white stuff here at home before and after my adventure on the roads... and still didn't keep up with the amount moved by Zac, our teen shoveler!

Vicki wisely stayed home (Monday is usually her day to go into the office on her current contract) but still managed to get 5 hrs of work done (a long day by our standards these days). I read tweets about people pushing stuck cars and delinquent buses (Julie and I participated in one of the former at the end of our walk, and she apparently did 2 more this evening on her own) and lots of folks worked from home. I was glad that I didn't have any tutoring scheduled for today as I would've worried about whether they'd be able to get here and I wasn't really in the mood to work anyway.

In other words, it was a very topsy turvy day. Here's hoping we get back to normality soon... cuz today was nuts!

Crazy For Snow? You're Probably Happy Right Now!

Winter arrived with a vengeance today, just in time to complicate the plans of Tammy, as well as Vicki's aunt and uncle from Baltimore, all of whom were here for a visit. This was the weekend when all would converge on our house for a long-overdue family get-together, and so of course Mother Nature threw everything she could at us. The relatives had a terrible time finding their way in to town because of the whiteout conditions and I shoveled the driveway twice today before finally bringing in some 'professional help' in the form of a neighbourhood teenager. Tammy left earlier than planned - missing out on dinner, unfortunately - and our other guests are staying with us overnight unexpectedly (making for a nice long chance to catch up).

So basically we're now just making it up as we go along, which always throws me for a loop. At least we're all safely out of the weather, though, and that's all that really matters.

Two Tales To Sadden Our Friends At Microsoft

Nightmarish "support" stories like this one, in which a consumer buys a new XBox 360-with-Kinect system, has it break right away (on the first day of use), and then spends weeks trying to get support for it while being told something different at every turn, tend to seem hilarious to everyone except the parties involved. I remember when Vicki and I worked at the bank back in the 90s we would hear the most atrocious tales of tellers or call centre operators providing crappy service, but fortunately such things were extremely rare. I'm not sure that's quite as true when it comes to Microsoft, though.

Speaking of whom... I have a mildly amusing MS story to share, now that I think about it. I've paid the annual Gold XBox Live membership cost ($59.99?) for the past several years, so that I could play the odd 360 game online with friends. My most recent subscription was due to expire in mid-November, and I had toyed with the idea of canceling it. To be honest, I've probably only played three or four hours of XBox 360 online so far in 2010, and considering that the PS/3 equivalent is free, it's hard to justify $60 for so little return. However, I'm a notorious procrastinator, and so I did nothing about it.

Eventually, I got the e-mail telling me that MS was renewing the subscription "for me", as they've done each of the past several years since I bought the box. Sigh. Oh well.

But wait! Then I received an e-mail saying that the credit card I'd used for that account had expired, and so I should please go and update the details so that I could get my subscription renewed and not miss out on the chance to play online with my friends! How perfect! Now I could procrastinate and actually get what I wanted, which is exactly what happened: I no longer have a current membership in the Gold XBox Live club, and have saved myself $60! This story, at least, has a happy ending!

[Update Dec 12/10: Sadly, I just saw on my credit card statement that the Gold XBox Live charge did go through, after all. So much for that good news story!]

Wow, That's (Not) A Lot Of Blogging!

As November closes down and makes way for the last month of 2010, I see that I'll have hit another new low in terms of monthly blogging (probably 25, unless I think of something else to write about in the next 3 hrs). I have to admit that this month flew by, so it's not too surprising that my output was so meager. I did a lot of walking (with Julie), Mad Men watching (with Vicki), Black Ops playing (some of it with Boneman), yoga (3 classes last week!) and have been busy reading quite a few books. Lots of living but not that much of anything worth blogging about.

For those who weren't following the blog that long ago, you might get a kick out of checking out what December 2006 looked like hereabouts: 175 posts! Yes, you read that right... 7 times the output that I managed in the current month!

Also worthy of note, I suppose, is that I'm closing in on 3000 posts here on Kimota94's Place. Sometime before Christmas I expect to hit that milestone which, given my pathetic blogging rate of late, might be the last one for a very long time.

Mythbusting Black Ops

The following three and a half minute video is pure joy for any Call of Duty: Black Ops fans out there. I especially enjoyed discovering whether or not you can actually dive over a Rocket Propelled Grenade!

Netflix Vs The Internet Providers

It won't surprise anyone who's been following such things, but it looks like the battle between video-streaming service Netflix and the cable and telecom companies who provide Internet access to most North American homes is starting to heat up. The battleground is obvious: bandwidth. Before the streaming of video became ubiquitous, bandwidth utilization was relatively flat - excluding increased market penetration, which is something that yields correspondingly higher revenue - and well within the parameters the ISPs were comfortable with.

With the introduction of a streaming (DVD-less) version of Netflix both here and in the States, however, longstanding bandwidth limitations have started to be put to the test. Roger Ebert tweeted recently that Comcast is at least considering some idea around charging Netflix for the use of "Kabletown"'s Internet pipes (more info here). There are also rumours floating around that throttling of Internet traffic will be imposed strategically, with the goal of either killing the streaming services or forcing them to pay for 'preferential treatment'. It won't be long before such stories become rampant, I suspect.

Anecdotally, I've been monitoring our own household Internet use, ever since we signed up for Netflix and a friend mentioned that his family had to up their monthly allocation as a result of using the service. We have a 60 GB (up and down) limit that we've had for ages. In the past, we usually averaged around 15 GB use each month, meaning that we were only utilizing about 25% of what we were entitled to. In the current billing month, which is really the first one that has seen us visiting Netflix on the PS/3 on an almost-daily basis, we'll probably finish in the 50 - 60% range. In other words, our use will have increased by somewhere between 100% and 140%! And I'm not even convinced that we won't go higher, since we only started watching Mad Men on Netflix partway through the month. (On the other hand, of course, we may not find many more attractions there as compelling as Season Two of that show has been.)

So if we're in any way typical, we should expect to see some significant tremors begin to rock the world of the Internet providers, any time now. My best guess is that we'll see some sort of across-the-board rate increases passed along to the customer base shortly, 'justified' by the sorts of statistics I've outlined above from our own experiences. Or maybe the ISPs will go after Netflix, YouTube and other big-use streaming companies, as Comcast is said to be. Or probably both!

[Update Dec 4/10: Our monthly total for Nov 4 thru Dec 3 came in just under 40 GB, slightly exceeding my 50 - 60% estimate (at 67%).]

And Don't Call Him "Shirley"

R.I.P. Leslie Neilson, immortalized for an entire generation thanks to Airplane! and a whole raft of campy movies. Little did they know that he actually used to do serious TV and movies before that.

The Sporting Wife

Just to mix things up a bit, today I asked Vicki if she'd be willing to play a little Call of Duty: Black Ops with me. I know that, when it comes to video games, First Person Shooters are not her cup of tea at all, but occasionally I can twist her arm into trying one out. I guess I caught her in a particularly good mood today!

We started off with some multiplayer (Team Deathmatch) Combat Training against Artificial Intelligence bots, the skills of which I'd dialed down to their lowest level. We played several maps but for whatever reason, the game kept putting us on opposite sides (must be a setting, but I couldn't find it). That wasn't particularly fun so then we opted for Zombies, instead.

This was a better choice for Vicki, and we enjoyed about four or five matches before Vicki was done in by the stressful and nausea-inducing action. We played online with two strangers each time, and so our success varied a fair bit as a result. I think we got to level 5 at our peak (I've gotten to level 11 or 12 when playing with 3 random partners before, once or twice) but Vicki was really getting the hang of it by the last game. She says she's up for more another time, so we'll see how that that goes.

I definitely have not gotten into Black Ops like I did Modern Warfare 2, at least not yet. It's fun, but not nearly the addictive experience the earlier game was. I can't put my finger on what the difference is, or whether maybe it's the fact that the two games aren't different enough that's to blame. Still and all, I'm certainly getting my money's worth, unlike earlier purchases of Left 4 Dead 2, Halo: ODST and Halo: Reach.

Krugman Speaks Truth

I always enjoy economist Paul Krugman's Op Eds, but his recent piece The Hijacked Commission is especially impressive. In it, Prof Krugman very succinctly lays out what's going on in the U.S. right now as they try to come to terms with their deficit. I often think that living in that country must absolutely frustrate liberal-leaning individuals like him, as it's so obviously becoming a conservatively-run nation, despite the recent election of its first black president. That's not surprising, I suppose, considering that the rich and powerful have all the loudest voices, and they've never been richer or more powerful than they are right now. I guess the citizens there are really just getting the governance that they deserve, as it's a country more clearly founded on the principles of capitalism and "looking out for # 1" than on the "liberty and justice for all" ideal that gets all the lip service.

Anyway, I'm glad to be living in Canada!

Back To Work Day Tomorrow

For the afternoon tomorrow, at least, I'm a working stiff once again. I'm off to the university to facilitate a Retrospective, my first paying gig since... the last time I was there, doing the same thing (roughly a year ago)! I'm looking forward to seeing some of the same friendly faces again, plus a former co-worker from my last full-time job who's arrived there since my last visit. It'll be fun to flex my Agile muscles again, as well, just so long as I don't pull one of them! (With all the exercise I've been getting recently, pulled muscles have become a daily hazard, I'm afraid).

Anyway, that's what I'll be up to on Thursday afternoon, just in case any Jedis out there detect a disturbance in the Force and wonder WTF is going on...

The All-But Forgotten Math Book

When Vicki came home from "the office" recently (she mostly works at home on her current contract but occasionally heads downtown for some face time with her boss) and informed me that she'd sold a copy of No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math (How Parents Can Help) there, I was delighted, as always. But when I went to update my accounting spreadsheet for that product, I discovered that hers was the first sale in about 6 months! Yikes! I knew it hadn't been selling, but that's ridiculous!

Now, as luck would have it, another book request came in just a day or two later, so things are moving again, but... just barely. Of course, I assume all responsibility for this sad state of affairs, as I haven't been advertising or even promoting it like I should. The truth is that sort of thing has always made me feel uncomfortable, and it doesn't seem to get any easier with practice.

As it stands right now, I think we're about 20 sales away from breaking even. I obviously don't think we'll make that mark before the end of the year, meaning that - for the first time - I'll have a net loss in terms of publishing costs within a calendar year. Both AgileMan books achieved profitability quickly, but they were also printed in smaller numbers initially, thanks to some chickening out on my part. Live and learn, I guess.

(An Almost) Happy Birthday To Boneman

It had all the makings of a very special 41st birthday today, when he found out that he had to travel to Tampa with his boss on business at the same time his beloved Bruins were visiting the Lightning. Sure enough, they got tickets and headed out to the game tonight... what a great birthday present!

I first knew that things weren't going well when I got a text reading "This game blows" (which I initially mistook as coming from Julie, my usual texting-buddy, making me wonder just what game she was watching!). After being down 3-0, the Bruins pulled a little closer but the game ended 3-1. As I texted him back, that's the kind of game I usually get when I make the mistake of watching the Rangers live: they get behind early and never have a lead! Oh well... at least he got to the game!

Mad About Mad Men

OK, maybe not quite "mad", but definitely enthusiastic. We've finished the Season One DVD that I bought and have now started watching Season Two via Netflix. It's certainly well written and engaging, although both of the concerns that Tammy expressed as to why she thought I wouldn't like it were valid. I guess I'm just able to get past them better than she'd expected.

There's also something to be said for watching the early episodes with someone who's seen them already (Vicki) and being able to bounce ideas off of her as to where I think things are heading, when she knows more about what's going on than I do. I'll give my wife top marks in not spoiling anything so far, which is better than I could do if the situation were reversed, I'm sure.

I'd say the 2nd season hasn't started off as strongly as the 1st one finished, but that's understandable as those last couple episodes of the inaugural season were pretty damned impressive. We're now at the point where we typically watch one each day, after starting much more slowly than that. Netflix should get us through Season Three, and then after that I'll have to figure out how best to get current so I can start watching them "live" (or, PVR-live). Thanks to all those who encouraged me to give Mad Men a watch.

The Matrix Meets Inception?

Check out the trailer for Source Code, and tell me if this doesn't feel like a cross between two of cinema's science fiction touchstones of the past decade (ish, since The Matrix actually debuted in 1999):

The Art Of Not Being A Liability To Your Team

As we work our way through the second week of Call of Duty: Black Ops, I'm already reaping the benefits of having played some Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer just before its successor came out. In the past, when a new game has arrived and I've ventured into its online arena, I've always seen the same pattern: my kill-to-death ratio takes a beating while I learn the game and its maps, and eventually have to make a concerted effort to push that stat up over 1.0 (meaning, have more kills than deaths). I've chronicled this in the past with Resistance: Fall of Man, Resistance 2 and the aforementioned Modern Warfare 2, , and it's often a long, arduous journey that requires me to play quite defensively in order to keep my deaths low. In fact, I've had some very frustrating sessions within each of those three games where I've been trying my damnedest to simply knock out a few more kills than deaths, only to hit a dry spell where I'm just spawning and dying.

With Black Ops, though, I only briefly fell below the 1.0 KTD mark early on, while I was stuck with a substandard gun (M16) and had yet to unlock my preferred perks (Ninja, Ghost and the quick reload one). Once I'd upgraded to the Famas assault rifle and adopted those perks, I quickly got back into the positive and am already up over 1.2. I think he highest I ever got in Modern Warfare 2 was 1.24, and that took ages to achieve. Besides the recent warmup with MW2 (which is a very similar game with identical controls), I've also been doing some Combat Training sessions in which I play the same maps but against AI opponents. That's helped me to learn the maps more quickly, and I've ramped up the quality of the enemy AI almost to the top, which has forced me to play better even while training.

As a Team Deathmatch fan, I like the fact that I've rapidly moved from liability to asset, in terms of doing my team more good than harm. That's a great feeling that this team player appreciates achieving so early on.

10 More Years Of Newspapers In Canada

... if you believe this article, anyway. Canada's newspapers will disappear in 2020, 3 full years after our neighbours to the south lose theirs.

AgileMan's Off To School... Again

Tomorrow I do my semi-annual pilgrimage to the local university so that I can guest lecture to a 2nd year class of Comp Sci neophytes on the basics of Agile. I've updated the slides to include a bit of late-breaking developments within that very campus (at the business school where my good friend is CTO) but otherwise it's the same ol' dog and pony show that I've done about a half dozen times now. I guess the fact that I keep being invited back every semester must mean I'm doing OK at it, but it does start to seem old to me after awhile. I suppose that feeling is a good indicator that I was smart not to go into teaching as a profession way back when!

The Game That Keeps On Giving

Not surprisingly, I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty: Black Ops of late. Yesterday, when Vicki was out of the house for all but a couple of the waking hours, I probably put in about 10 hours of online play, which is about as much as I can handle in a day. I got my kill-to-death ratio back up above 1.0, although the leaderboard stats seem to be screwed up, as it's showing me right now with over 13,000 kills which is off by at least an order of magnitude.

So one thing this latest game has introduced is an easy way to review your online game play, via an option called "My Recent Games." The video and audio are saved on a Treyarch server, apparently, such that you can replay the game in spectator mode anytime you like. You can also select up to six of the games to place on your "player card", from which anyone can view them. I've loaded up four so far, each of which showcase my... umm, unique playing style! They're quite hilarious to watch, and I encourage anyone reading this who owns the game for the PS/3 to check out my selections. You'll likely laugh out loud a time or two if you do.

For The Call Of Duty: Black Ops Fans

There's a very nice COD:BO weapon summary here. I found it quite informative, and I probably won't even use most of the guns available in the game!

Fun Distraction

While I'm busy playing Call of Duty: Black Ops, please feel free to entertain yourself with this. It really puts things in perspective... literally! (In case it isn't immediately obvious, that's an interactive application, activated via the light blue slide bar at the bottom.)

Temporarily Closed For Renovations

(If "renovations" means what I think it does, which is the non-stop playing of Call of Duty: Black Ops!)

Best Buy Fail!!

Well, I put my faith in Best Buy, pre-ordering Call of Duty: Black Ops back in September. They shipped my copy out yesterday, but there's been no sign of it today. They used Canada Post, which is probably the real reason it's not here. Not only did they not manage to get it here from Mississauga in 30 hours (a 2-hr drive!), but they haven't even updated their tracking information once since this time last night.

I think this means I'll never rely on Best Buy again, when timely delivery matters. Sigh. I think if it hasn't arrived by dinner time tomorrow, I'll go out and buy a copy somewhere else and shove the Best Buy copy back down their throats when it finally gets here.

Cat Women

Vicki and Julie are heading to a cat show this afternoon, while I stay home to fight the good fight (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, to warm up for Tuesday's big Call of Duty: Black Ops release). Vicki's been to several before, but this is apparently Julie's first. They started talking about it after we watched Best in Show for one of our Movie Nights, and it just went from there. I'm not sure if they'll also try to find a dog show at some point, as Vicki's not all that much of a dog person. But maybe.

If they return with any awe-inspiring photos, I may post them here later. I just hope they don't come home with fleas!

Update later that day: Not sure if this qualifies as "awe-inspiring", but it's the winner being named for the Kitten category, a "Scottish fold" (which apparently means the ears are folded back, or something like that):



And here are the happy cat show gawkers, when they returned home afterward (sans fleas, as far as I can tell).

The Cooks Source Affair

In case you didn't hear about this over the past week, we've just seen another interesting example of crowdsourcing: when the magazine Cooks Source stole a tart article (tarticle?) right off a woman's blog, the author went public with the rather assinine response that she received from the magazine's editor. That sent the heaving masses both into flame-mode (which is always fun to watch!) and into virtual search parties, scanning Cooks Source's online postings for other instances of the magazine's bad behaviour. Not surprisingly, they found many, many other similar offenses, all of which are now well-documented.

There's nothing else quite like the power of the Hive Mind, when it's fully deployed like that!

[Also, there's this take on it.]

Isn't That Typical?

I was prompted to fill out an online survey when I visited the Bell site this morning in order to check out my Internet usage now that we're Netflixing again. The survey was a bunch of questions about their website layout, which I've always found counter-intuitive and annoying. So I carefully answered each multiple choice query, and wrote up some more descriptive responses where allowed. Feeling quite good about myself, I clicked on "Submit" only to have it fail with an error message indicating that the site couldn't be contacted! The irony of that result is almost too on-the-nose...

Superman: Earth One: Worth Every Penny

When DC Comics announced their new Earth One line of stories in December of last year, many of us were surprised - and not necessarily in a good way - to hear that each tale would come in the form of a 100+ page hardcover graphic novel. That's a pretty expensive way to launch a new line, and a price point of $20 obviously eliminates some potential sampling by fans on a limited budget. It seemed an odd choice, to say the least.

Having just finished the first release, Superman: Earth One, I can absolutely see why they went that way. The re-imaging of the Man of Steel, from the mind of writer J Michael Straczynski and the fingers of artist Shane Davis, is truly breathtaking. Its pace is quite a departure from what we're used to, given the 22-page serialized form of most comics, and it benefits greatly from that freedom. It takes its time introducing its young Clark Kent, who's both like and unlike any version we've seen before. He's still a noble spirit who grew up under the loving guidance of Jonathan and Martha Kent, but he's more multi-dimensional than we're used to in our Man of Steel. His major motivation is to provide for his adopted mother after the death of Jonathan, and he resists for the longest time any urge to don the red-blue-and-yellow jumpsuit that's been prepared for him.

In fact, it takes a full-on alien invasion of the Earth before he accepts his role as super-protector, and even then he makes it clear that he's not there to do the job of police, fire fighters or other heroes. He doesn't want to take away Mankind's sense of self-determination, but rather to field the problems - like marauding aliens! - that our regular response teams just aren't set up for. And hey, I give Straczynski major kudos for going balls-to-the-wall with Kal-El's coming out party. There's a very "9/11" feel to the scenes where the alien armada begins targeting Earth cities for destruction, and that's about the largest canvas imaginable for the world's greatest superhero to debut upon.

The portrayals of Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen were superb, although neither of them were terribly-well developed in what was clearly Clark's story. I liked all of the nods to modern newspaper realities, such as dwindling circulation, online presence and the need for real-time updates. Assuming that we see more of this new "universe" in the coming months, I look forward to finding out where JMS will take the trio of intrepid reporters.

Still to come is Geoff Johns' Batman: Earth One, but I'm having a hard time imagining that it'll beat the standard set by JMS here.

Working The Wife Again

I've neglected to mention hereabouts that Vicki's now on a work contract once again, albeit a much better one than last time. This one has her working from home most of the time (yay!), at a part-time pace (double yay!!) and for someone who's both a friend and a wonderful person to work for (triple yay!!!). It's actually almost too good to be true, but I guess maybe we were due some good luck after all those house-related headaches earlier this year.

Contract work continues to elude me, but my Math tutoring will probably get me fairly close to my 2010 "salary target" of $10K, so that's OK.

The Giants Win The World Series While George W Bush Quietly Weeps

I don't know for sure, but it seemed to me that every time George W Bush - former owner of the Texas Rangers, I believe - showed up in his front row seat in Arlington this postseason, the home team lost. They definitely lost both times in the ALDS against the Rays, and it seemed like they did whenever he was there while the Yankees were in town. Last night and tonight he and Laura were on hand to watch back-to-back losses, 4-0 and 3-1, sending the Giants to their first championship since leaving New York in the 1950s. I'm sure I wasn't the only casual viewer of the playoffs this year who started rooting against the Rangers just because W was obviously pulling for them. That guy's legacy lives on!

Anyway, congrats to the Giants. They played 3 great series and deserve the title.

Chilly Halloween Doesn't Affect Turnout

While it's still possible that we'll see another ghost or goblin before the night is over, this year's tally of 18 kids is looking fairly safe right now. I'm amazed at the consistency of late:

2009 = 19
2008 = 19
2007 = 18
2006 = 12 (a statistically-significant poor turnout at about 66% what we've had since)

No idea if it's the same kids every year - hey, they're in costume! - but it's funny how we've had 4 consecutive years of almost identical numbers.

How Do You Like Those Odds?

Probability fans will no doubt have had a field day with this story about an Israeli lottery that drew the same 6 numbers as had come up 3 weeks earlier! Investigators claim there was no rigging of the results, which of course wouldn't be required for this to happen; it's just really, really unlikely!

Of course, if there were shenanigans involved, it's not like those who waste their money on lotteries don't sort of have it coming to them anyway.

And Now, A Public Service Announcement

Why, hello there! If you're like me, you've chafed under the necessity of pressing the Guide button twice on your remote in order to get the TV Listings screen up on your SARA (Scientific Atlanta Resident App) guide ever since Rogers introduced their ridiculous application-launch screen all those months ago. No one does fuzzy white text on a black background quite like Rogers, and they proved it once again with this "innovation" when they jammed it down our throats way back when. Ever since, I've trained myself to press Guide twice whenever I want to survey what's on TV or set a recording, thereby shortening my natural lifespan through the use of unnecessary keystrokes.

However, there is relief from this nagging irritation! McChicken, during his Movie Night visit last night, schooled me on the remedy, and I'm here to do the same for you! If you go into the Rogers screen that launches on the initial Guide press, arrow down until you find the "Self Service" option - conveniently not visible unless you scroll to it! - then you can select it, select "Change GUIDE Order" and change the Guide button's function back to what it used to be (by picking "TV Listings first"). It's just that easy! Unfortunately, after you make that change, a 2nd Guide press will still take you to the stupid Rogers screen; however, if you use Exit to leave the Listings screen, you won't even encounter that slight annoyance.

Yes, you're welcome!

Footloose And Fancy Free, That's Me

Vicki's on the train to Toronto to visit Tammy for the weekend, leaving me to my own devices for the next 48 hours or so. How much trouble could I possibly get into in such a short stretch of time, I wonder?

Tonight a couple of friends, including McChicken, are coming over for a special Halloween-themed Movie Night. I don't yet know what we'll be watching, but I suspect it'll be scary.

Tomorrow morning Boneman is kindly dropping by to change the bandage on my back before I entertain a potential new tutoring student and her parent(s). I'll be assessing this Grade 9 to see how I can best help her prepare for her first high school Math course, scheduled to begin in February.

I have no idea what I'll do to pass the afternoon, although video games may be part of that equation.

Tomorrow night is World Series Game 3, which will probably provide some good distraction for me for awhile.

Sunday morning has no plans associated with it yet. By then I'll be eagerly awaiting Vicki's return, I'm sure, which is scheduled to come about during the afternoon. And then we'll be handing out candy rewards to our dozen-or-so trick-or-treaters by sundown.

That's my weekend, at a glance. Unless more interesting stuff happens, which is always a possibility. If you're similarly at loose ends, give me a shout... unless I don't like you, in which case never mind!

Hitler Finds Out No Quickscoping Allowed in Black Ops

I guess it's no big surprise that a world class douche like Adolf Hitler would be a fan of quickscoping (the art of zooming in with a sniper rifle for less than a second before firing). Check out his reaction to finding out that Call of Duty: Black Ops (out in just 11 days now!!) won't support it.

[And for another treat, you might want to watch this Inception trailer made using Halo: Reach characters and sets!]

Speaking of CoD:BO, I was disappointed to learn this week that the PS/3 version won't allow online coop play through the campaign. XBox Live users will get that appealing feature, but not those of us running the game on the PlayStation Network. That sucks!

Today's Homework Assignment: The Chuck Cunningham Syndrome

I'll going to come right out and admit it: I love when I learn some new, completely-useless bit of trivia.

In this particular case, it was a reference to the "Chuck Cunningham Syndrome", which I just had to find out more about. Cue the Internet, and I quickly had my answer: he was the older brother to Richie Cunningham on Happy Days who headed upstairs at the end of one season and then was never heard of again!

That's so awesome! I think the same thing happened to my "girlfriend in the States" when I was a teenager...

Proof Of Time Travel?

I love this meme making the rounds: that a 1928 Charlie Chaplin video shows a person on a cell phone! Doc Jensen covers it here, and the YouTube video awaits you below.

My Latest Gift To The Wound Fetishists

You know who you are...

This is what the location of this year's boil looks like now, following yesterday's surgery (and that's a blurry quarter, aka 25-cent-coin, beside it for scale). Yes, it's sore, but nothing like it was when it was infected back in the summer. With the cyst cut out, I'm hoping that means there's no chance of it ever returning. And that just leaves all of the other spots on my back upon which a new one could develop.

You Call This A Pitchers' Duel?!

The marquee matchup to start the 2010 World Series - Cliff Lee of the Texas Rangers (8-0 in postseason play over his career) versus two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum of the Giants - has turned out to be nothing of the sort. Lee was chased in the 5th inning after he'd given up 6 earned runs, and Lincecum looked merely mortal for most of his time on the mound, including early on when he blew a chance to make an out when he caught a Texas base-runner in what should have been an easy rundown. Right now, in the 7th, the Giants are up 8-4 (thanks to a monster, 6-run 5th inning) and both starters are out of the game.

Final score: 11-7 Giants. More like a slugfest than a battle of premiere pitching staffs.

Didn't See That One Coming: The Dark Knight Rises

We now know the title of the third Christopher Nolan Bat-flick: The Dark Knight Rises. That's not one I would've put any money on, simply because it doesn't follow any predictable pattern from the first two. In fact, it would've made a more logical name for the second one, following Batman Begins. In other words: name for the hero + verb. But The Dark Knight stopped that train, leading me to expect something like The Caped Crusader or Batman Triumphant for the final part of the trilogy.

Oh well, based on Nolan's track record so far: it'll be great, no matter what the title is.

How Are The San Francisco Giants Like The Philadelphia Flyers?

It occurred to me today that the Giants, who will shortly attempt to win their first World Series title since moving to San Francisco in the 1950s, have something in common with the NHL's Flyers of 2010: both teams are playing for the championship after making the postseason on the final day of the regular season!

In the Flyers' case, they won a last-second shootout last April (against my hapless Rangers), catapulting them into the first of four rounds of playoffs before finally falling to the Black Hawks. For the Giants, they needed a win against Western Division rivals San Diego Padres in their 162nd game to avoid facing a tie-breaker scenario in order to make the postseason.

Put another way: fans of both teams went into the close of the season facing the very real possibility that each franchise might miss the playoffs entirely this year, only to both avoid disaster and eventually vie for the ultimate prize. Talk about a dramatic turnaround!

Back To Back Surgery

Tomorrow morning I head into the hospital for a 7:45 surgery on my latest boil, as promised back in July when I had it drained (and then spent the next five or six weeks recovering). This is supposed to be less traumatic, thanks to the fact that the area is not currently infected... but I'll believe that when I don't experience searing pain during the surgery, as I did both of the other times.

And if this is the last blog entry ever posted here, then you can draw your own conclusions as to the success of tomorrow's scalpel work...

New Spin On Some Great Old Characters

Vicki and I watched the first installment of Sherlock last night, entitled "A Study in Pink". This is a recent British miniseries (three 90-minute episodes, apparently) from Steven Moffat, one of the masterminds behind the current incarnation of Doctor Who.

I was dubious going in, as I wasn't convinced that anyone could transport Holmes and Watson to the 21st century without losing what made them so special in their gaslight-and-buggy setting. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong! It was entertaining from start to finish, and managed to be both original and faithful to the source material. I kept thinking, "If Arthur Conan Doyle were creating them today, this is probably how he would have envisioned Holmes and Watson!" Its modern setting and sensibilities almost certainly make it more accessible, as I'm sure there are people out there who wouldn't watch stories set in the 19th century just on principle. The remaining two episodes should air on PBS over the next couple of Sundays.

Placebo: The Great Cure-All?!

I've been reading quite a few Science books and websites recently, and they often describe the double-blind testing method within which two groups of patients will be observed: one taking a new, potentially-effective drug, and the other taking a 'placebo', essentially a non-medicinal do-nothing pill. In each case, neither group knows whether it's getting the real thing or the placebo (nor do those administering the drugs, if it's truly a double-blind test), and therefore the differing results - if any! - can be measured objectively.

As I came across the umpteenth instance of this sort of thing, I thought of the perfect Onion article:

Placebo: The Great Cure-All!

In a shocking turn of events this week, scientists have discovered that the material contained within placebo pills is actually a miracle drug! Long used in testing new pharmaceutical offerings, the placebo was always assumed to be ineffective and therefore the perfect contrast when looking for positive effects from a new medication. However, that belief was stood on its head this week when careful analysis of the supposedly-benign substance revealed that it has beneficial properties for nearly every affliction known to man! "It's unbelievable," stated Dr Stephen Colbert, lead scientist at Prescott Pharmaceutical. "For years we've thought placebos were worthless, and here the whole time we've had a wonder drug right under our very noses!" Dr Colbert went on to speculate about just how many failed drug trials of the past several decades were incorrectly slandered when they produced no better results than the now-highly-touted placebo treatment. "The mind boggles," Dr Colbert concluded.

Is Science Sexist?

Here's an interesting take on how the long-established "scientific method" may, in fact, be biased toward the way in which male brains work, at the expense of excluding the greatest strengths of female brains in the process. The blog post is written by Alexandra Jellicoe, a self-described "globetrotting scientist", and my attention was drawn to it via one of my Twitter followees.

Nice To See Some Rangers Team Doing Well!

It's too bad that it's the team from Texas instead of the one in Manhattan, but congratulations nevertheless to Nolan Ryan's Rangers for making it to their first ever World Series this year. They had to beat the most storied franchise in baseball to do it, and that's a nice way to make the big time.

Tomorrow - or possibly Sunday - we find out whether they'll be playing the Giants or the Phillies. Vicki thinks it'll be the former. Me? I'm done predicting!

Could I Ace My S.A.T.s?

I happen to be working with a student right now who's prepping to take his S.A.T.s (which I think once stood for Scholastic Aptitude Test) in order to gain acceptance to an American university. I've obviously heard of these before now, and Vicki would've written them back when she was in high school (in Michigan), but they're mostly a new concept to me. What I especially wasn't expecting was just how easy most of the Math questions seem to be!

Now, I'm doing "S.A.T. prep", via an online site, so who knows if the questions my student and I have been using are truly representative or not... but they're advertised as such. Because they're used for university and college admission, I had always figured they'd be somewhat similar to the Descartes or Gauss Math contests that I've seen in the past from University of Waterloo, for example. Those suckers are hard! And the theory behind them seems to be that anyone short of a genius will find them intimidating, and therefore you'll have a wide range of results across which to evaluate the candidates.

What I see in these S.A.T. questions, on the other hand, are rudimentary challenges like converting fractions between improper and mixed form, solving trivial algebraic equations and understanding how things like exponents and averages work. So far I haven't run into a question that took me more than about 30 seconds to figure out how I would solve it. Maybe the test itself is so time-constrained that I wouldn't really be able to get a perfect result, but short of that: it's not challenging at all.

One particular shortcoming of the test, in my opinion (again, basing it on these prep questions which may not be appropriate), is the large number of missed opportunities among the multiple choice answers. In other words, I see my student start to go down an obvious wrong path in solving a question, and yet the result he comes up with is not among the 5 choices he's presented with! I learned all about that particular trick while taking Physics at Waterloo, and since then I've always assumed that any reputable institution using multiple choice answers would employ it. Without it, exam-writers often realize their mistake simply because their answer doesn't show up among A, B, C, D or E. Naturally, you'd rather test their ability to either do it right the first time or recognize the wrongness of their result. Weird to not see that employed here.

Texas Vs San Francisco In The World Series? Really?!

OK, so maybe it's a bit premature still to be assuming it'll be the Giants vs the Rangers for the 2010 Major League Baseball championship, but things are definitely leaning that way at the moment. SF has a 3-1 stranglehold on their best-of-7 National League Championship Series against the Phillies and can advance to the World Series with a home win tonight, while the surprising team from Texas is up 3-2 on "the stinking Yankees" (as Boneman calls them), with both remaining games in that series (if two are necessary) set for Arlington over the weekend.

Prior to this postseason, Texas had never even won a playoff series. The Giants, along the same lines, are still awaiting their first championship banner after relocating from New York more than 50 years ago. In other words, these are not perennial favourites by any stretch. The two teams they may end up knocking out, on the other hand, are: New York won it all last year, and Philadelphia took home the trophy in 2008! So it would be quite the shocker if those two end up coming so close, and yet so far...

Oh, and I can't believe I've gone this far into the current ALCS matchup without mentioning that it's the "New York/Rangers" series... Well, it is!

A Quick Halo: Reach Update

I hadn't played much Halo: Reach after the first few days of owning it as it really didn't grab me, but recently I've given it another try. I'm finding that it has a good variety of gameplay even just within the single player campaign (which is all I've tried in it so far), including some outer space battles the likes of which I don't recall from any previous Halo offering.

But nothing else quite compares with my favourite thing to do in a Halo game, which is to discover just how far I can take a Warthog (the game's main Jeep-like vehicle). Yesterday, while Vicki looked on, I maneuvered the turret-mounted buggie around some concrete blockades in order to get it up a set of stairs on the outside of a refinery building. From there, I could drive it along various catwalks, allowing my AI buddy to use the turret's rockets to quickly and effectively clear out all enemies that awaited us. Eventually I had to drive over the edge of an elevated platform in order to access a lower level, and from there I headed - Warthog and all - down through a hole in the floor into yet another area, also infested with bad guys. I remembered playing this portion of the game earlier with McChicken in Coop mode, but hadn't at that time tried to bring our ride with us. I can now attest to just how much easier the whole "clearing out" part is when you have infinite ammo on a rear-mounted rocket launcher to use for that purpose! Huzzah!

With less than 3 weeks left until Call of Duty: Black Ops takes over all of our lives, now seemed like a good time to get back into Halo: Reach. We'll see if it continues to hold my interest for the next little while.