It’s almost that time again …

As I’m sure most of you have noticed, I’ve switched to the Roll Tide Roll theme. I’m sorry I had to switch off the Theme Switcher. It seems that WP-Cache was interfering with it, so I’m hoping that will be resolved soon so that those who enjoy using the other themes will be able to access them again.

Alabama’s first game is next weekend, against Hawaii … though it’s PPV (yes, I’m still grumbling about that one *grrrrr*).

In my most recent fit of Google addiction, I decided to dump the iCalShare calendar feed from my Google Calendar for Alabama’s playing schedule and decided to make my own. It’s incomplete, but I will fill in the times and stations as soon as they’re published to the University’s website. (also available as XML or iCal link)

Work’s still really busy … and stressful. We’re well into our “busy season” … that, and I’ve purposefully NOT blogged about several happenings lately due to many reasons. The biggest being that I’ve noticed referrals coming in from search hits via searches by who I believe are either clients or members of management. There are several “touchy” subjects I’ve tossed out into the open and/or set on fire lately, and I think I’ve pissed off enough people for now … so better safe than sorry. (for now)

I will say this … if the next few days to couple of weeks go well, I may not have to worry about that anymore. *crosses fingers!*

Crime Stories – Game Review

This quick posting is aimed at those who love mystery/murder and solve-it based games.

I’m sad to say that I’m disappointed in my latest acquisition: Crime Stories. I bought it Friday at CompUSA and finished the game in just a few hours’ straight play. In short, I can sum everything up into 3 words for y’all: Save your money.

I had been eyeing this game for a few months, but knew little about it. From the images show on the box, its enclosures, and the website, this game looked really promising. I thought maybe I had stumbled across another jewel — like Still Life. (Whatever my qualms with its ending, it was and is a VERY good game, and highly underrated!)

Funny enough, the two are published by the same company: The Adventure Company. Crime Stories is nowhere near as easy to maneuver as Still Life was, nor as challenging. Sadly Still Life was limited by outdated graphics, or I think it would have done a LOT better. Crime Stories had slightly better graphics, but there were too many bugs to overlook:

• Too many items were mislabeled. For example, a mouseover on a statue would say “Police car”.
• Conversations flowed as if William Shatner wrote them. “I can’t believe … *pause* … this is really happening … *pause* … to me!” — I shit you not, this was the most annoying feature of the game, IMO
• The very beginning of the game leaves you feeling a bit clueless because you don’t know what to do to get started. Most games will at least give you the right direction. i.e. get this from said person for this to happen, or you need this to gain access to this building.
• Moving around in the game is awkward at best — there were several scenes where I had to keep adjusting where the player stood so that it would stop moving the view from one place to another in order to achieve my objective. BIG ANNOYANCE!
• My biggest complaint would be the lack of challenges. If you don’t count having to figure out what items to combine for certain events and/or access to sections of the game to occur, there were only 3 puzzles in this game — the answer to one of which was included on a slip of paper in the box.

The game as a whole is way too short, the dialog needs some serious grammar and spell-checking, and IMO they should fire their QA/beta testers for not catching what were blatantly obvious flaws in the game.

Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the Law and Order and CSI games. Those have great graphics, and tutorial levels so you can familiarize yourself with how everything works first. Plus, a major thing they had that Crime Stories doesn’t: realistic looking dialog scenes — the mouth moves only when the character is speaking, and generally matches the syllables and sounds. (Rather than looking like a really bad 70’s Godzilla movie style dub!)

But that’s just my $.02 … and a waste of $20.00.

… I wish I had bought the City of Villains special edition DVD set instead — at least it came with toys!!

Random stuff about moi

I smurfed this from a friend’s MySpace:

1. Who is the last person you high-fived?

Jessie

2. If you were drafted into a war, would you survive?

Doubt it, I seem to have a knack for pissing off just the right people in power.

3. Do you sleep with the TV on?

Every night.

4. Have you ever drank milk straight out of the carton?

Hell no, that’s gross.

5. Have you ever won a spelling bee?

Came close … received 2nd place. Zac Willis beat me. :cry:

6. How many times have you been engaged?

Once. Like my ring?

7. How fast can you type?

Around 70 wpm … now ask me how accurate I am. *g*

8. Are you afraid of the dark?

Depends on your definition of “dark”

9. Eye color?

Mostly blue unless I’m wearing green or brown.

10. Worst fear?

Drowning. Or something happening to Jim/Jessie.

11. When is the last time you chose a bath over a shower?

Whenever I had the time for it. (READ: too long ago for me to remember when, LOL!)

12. Do you knock on wood?

*smirk* I don’t think he likes it when I do that.

13. Are you drinking anything right now?

Mtn Dew

14. Do you think you’re attractive?

I’m no Aphrodite, but I think I do alright.

15. Can you hula hoop?

Not in front of crowds.

16. Are you good at keeping secrets?

Yes — which is why Jimmy Hoffa’s body still hasn’t been found.

17. What do you want for Christmas?

A new job. (Or a Nintendo Wii )

18. Do you know the Muffin Man?

Why of course! Drury Lane is just down the road from me.

19. Do you talk in your sleep?

Yep. And I’m told that I sometimes hold complete conversations with myself.

20. Who wrote the book of love?

Wasn’t me … because I would have proofread that shit a little more!

21. Have you ever flown a kite?

Yes.

23. Do you consider yourself successful?

Successful at what?

24. How many people are on your cellular contact list?

None, I don’t have one.

25. Have you ever asked for a pony?

Nope.

26. Plans for tomorrow?

Work.

27. Can you juggle?

Nope.

28. Missing someone now?

Nope … my aim is a lot better than it used to be!

29. When was the last time you told someone ‘I love you’?

Last night.

30. When was the last time someone told you that?

This morning.

31. How are you feeling today?

Better than yesterday.

32. Are you black?

HAH! Let me put it this way … if I were any lighter, I’d glow in the dark!

33. Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school?

Nope, came close once.

34. What are you looking forward to?

Pay day.

35. Have you ever crawled through a window?

Yep.

36.Have you ever eaten dog food?

Commercial, no. But then again, my dog had “people food” so would that count as a ‘yes’?

38. Can you handle the truth?

Almost always, and prefer it.

39. Do u like green eggs and ham?

I hate eggs. Ham’s good fried though … with gravy and mashed potatoes.

40. What 3 things can always be found in your refrigerator?

Pickles, mustard, hot sauce.

41. Any cool scars?

On my left hand where I nearly took off my finger. (still hurts if you put pressure in just the right spot!)

42. Do you like or have a crush on anyone?

My fiance. Shhhhhhhhhh! Don’t tell!

43. How many kids do you plan on having?

None.

45. Have you ever been in love?

Yes.

46. Do you talk to yourself?

Every damned day.

47. Do you like dancing?

Yep.

48. Three of your favorite foods:

Chinese/Japanese, Mexican, Thai.

49. Three things about the opposite sex that appeal to you the most:

Eyes, smile, arms.

50. Who are you thinking about right now?

My fiance.

51. Who did you last talk to on the phone?

A client.

52. Where is your phone?

I don’t have a cellphone.

53. What was the last thing you ate?

A taco salad from Habaneros.

54. What is (are) your favorite color(s)?

Blue. (Black if it’s clothing)

55. what is the last movie you’ve watched?

Talladega Nights

56. What song do you currently hear?

None, listening to talk radio.

57. Are you currently suffering from a broken heart?

Nope.

58. Would you ever date anyone on your friends list?

I don’t think my fiance would like that, do you?

NOTE: Did anyone notice there’s no # 37? lol

Ricky Raccoon’s Rabid Rampage

Growing up in north-central Alabama, I saw and learned to track many different types of wildlife — from deer to quail to coyotes and so on … game was always abundant, all you had to do was know where to look. Raccoons were never in short supply. We had a small creek that ran behind our house fed by the Warrior River — I can count on one hand the number of times I saw it dry.

I could always count on seeing their prints in and around the creek (after all, crawdads could be easily found!), around my mother’s fruit trees encircling our house. I’m sure they probably nipped a bite or two from my dog’s food dish as well … over all, they were never a problem.

… not like these …

Holy Mother of Masked Marauders. :shock:

I love animals. I love all living things. (well, except a few…) I love all things cute and fuzzy, and that most definitely includes raccoons. How could I not? After all, like the guy in the article says “They’re cute as a bug’s ear”.

But if one ever attacked my cat … I’d be grabbing my gun faster than you can say “Reach for the sky, bandit!”

Tonto predictum weather

It was autumn, and the Indians on the remote reservation asked their new Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was an Indian Chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets, and when he looked at the sky, he couldn’t tell what the weather was going to be.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared.

But also being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, “Is the coming winter going to be cold?”

“It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed,” the Meteorologist at the weather service responded.

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared.

One week later he called the National Weather Service again. Is it going to be a very cold winter?” he asked.

“Yes,” the man at National Weather Service again replied, “it’s going to be a very cold winter.”

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every mess of wood they could find.

Two weeks later he called the National Weather Service again. “Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?”

Absolutely,” the man replied. “It looks like it’s going to be one of the coldest winters ever.”

“How can you be so sure?” the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, “The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy.”

Funny LOTR phone joke

This struck me as so funny I had to smurf it and post to here for y’all:

ROFL!!

Chemistry geek humor

So one atom is walking down the street and stops to ask another atom what he is doing.

The second atom replies “I’m looking for an my electron!”

First atom: “Are you sure you lost it?”

Second atom: “Yes, I’m positive.”

hehehehe :mrgreen:

Oh, and by the way …

I’m posting this from within Firefox via the lovely Performancing for Firefox (or, PFF).

I love XUL.

This thing is neat. It supports multiple blogs and works quite nicely with WordPress. I found it while looking up reviews for Microsoft’s new Live Writer app. This Firefox plug blows it out of the water IMO.

The only thing that it doesn’t do (or I haven’t figured out yet) is upload images to my server like WordPress does. But PFF does have a nice user/support forum, so guess where I’ll be heading next.

Ok, smurf that — it has FTP. However, I have noticed something else that I’m not particularly fond of: when I post something, it keeps all of the categories checked.

I would prefer everything be unchecked by default, but that’s just because I’m a picky wiener.

EDIT: I’ve been hanging around their forums ever since reading the review which lead me to PFF. The dev team and regular forum posters have been most helpful in answering my questions regarding this extension.

(Reminds me of the WP forums!)

I’m lovin’ it so far and highly recommend PFF to anyone looking for a multi-blog posting solution! I’ve been able to post to all of my WordPress installs and my WordPress.com blogs. And it also supports other software packages/hosts. (Hello LJ and MySpace users!!!)

I love akismet

I don’t remember why I never installed it, but a few months ago I finally installed (or rather, activated) Akismet for WordPress.  Actually, now that I think about it, I think it was because I didn’t have an API key … but anyways …

It’s been a God-send.  Don’t get me wrong, Bad Behavior has been a good little soldier too.  But it couldn’t catch everything, and was unfortunately blocking a lot of valid traffic.  BUT, after installing Akismet, my spam comments and trackbacks went from a steady stream to nil.  I did notice, however that I had received a bit of an “attack” … over the past 48 hours, there have been over 400 spam comment post attempts — I say ‘attempts’ because they had slipped through Bad Behavior, but Akismet caught ‘em. 

Check it out, over the last 3 months, it’s blocked exactly 1000:

Sweet.

Week/Weekend Agenda

I’m going out of town tomorrow for a M$ tech conference. Friday we are celebrating Jessie’s and Jim’s mom’s birthdays — his mom’s was the 2nd (she was out of town at the time) and Jessie’s is today’s, but we won’t get her until late tomorrow night. Saturday is a LAN party at Moporoco’s, but I don’t know yet if I’m going. We’ve got a lot of shite going on at work, so it will depend on how I feel this weekend.

Anyways, I’ll be out of pocket for the next few days. If anyone NEEDS to reach me, hit up my Google Mail account and I’ll get back to you when I have internet access.

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