Christmas done

Christmas is all done, and I'm glad. We had a roast at my dad's house on Christmas Eve, a turkey dinner at the in-law's place on Christmas Day, and we dropped by to see my grandmother this morning. I think everyone enjoyed the gifts we got them this year. Jenn and I started shopping pretty early, so we were able to spend some time looking for really nice presents.

Some of the fun stuff I got:

- Some excellent T-shirts (I'll post some action shots once I get to wear them)

- Left4Dead (fast zombies ARE scary after all!)

- a gift certificate that I used to buy a 1TB hard drive to finish off my Windows Home Server

- a large bowl of cookies

- a coffee mug with my pigs on it

I cleaned up this year! :)

When do we get to relax?

This weekend was crazy busy! Errands, baking, cooking, shopping, cleaning, a brunch out, and a dinner in with friends. I'm supposed to go out tonight with a group of people from work, but I'm feeling pretty wiped out. I may just make it a Blockbuster night tonight. Right after I make the bean salad for my office potluck tomorrow. Sheesh.

Certified!

I am now an MCTS, a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist. Is pretty much the easiest certification you can get, but everyone has to start somewhere, right? This was the first out of many exams, so I better get used to it, I suppose.

Since the busses here are on strike, I got up at 5:15am and was on the road by 5:40am, no coffee or breakfast. I was quite surprised when I got to the exam location by 6am. The exam was scheduled for 8:30am, so I went to a nearby Perkins for breakfast, and loitered for a bit. They took me early for my exam, and I was done by 9am. Whew! Needless to say, I am VERY glad that that is done. I was quite nervous about it, and I think I might have been a bit snippy or preoccupied recently. Sorry Jenn. :)

Stress levels

The funny thing about blogs is that if life is busy and interesting, you don't have as much time to write posts. Also, I am lazy.

This Friday I've got my first certification exam. I'm pretty sure the exam is 50 multiple choice questions, and a pass is 70%. That's not too bad. I'm almost done with the textbook, and the questions haven't been particularly difficult. I figure I can finish the textbook and do a few practice exams by Friday morning, and then I should be good to go. This damn bus strike might make it difficult to get in to get write the exam though. I'm just glad I booked it at a location in a mall near me, rather than at the main test centre downtown. If I had booked it downtown, I would just reschedule for the new year. I'll be very glad to get this done, I've been putting it off forever.

Thankfully, I've got all my Christmas shopping done except for two gifts: one for my wife, and one for my grandmother. I know what I'm getting for my wife, but it won't arrive in time for Christmas. I'm still working on something to get my grandmother, but I'm pretty sure she'll love whatever we get her.

Filthy hippies

On Saturday, I was out in the cold waving a Canadian flag in support of our government. I had never been to a rally before, so I didn't really know what to expect. Basically, it was a lot of Conservative MPs giving short speeches, and a very un-animated MC trying to get people to chant. It looked like a lot of the crowd had never been to a rally before either. That's to be expected, since most Conservatives have full-time jobs and get regular haircuts. :P

On Sunday, we lost electricity at our house at 11am, and it started getting pretty cold there by 5pm. So we packed up the guinea pigs and headed out to the in-law's place to spend the night. I didn't sleep well, so I'm feeling pretty rough this morning. 

This week, I hope to finish up my Christmas shopping. This will be a record for me, usually it comes down to the last week before Christmas, and I'm still running around.

Anti-coalition links and information

I've recieved a bunch of emails from people that I never thought saw things my way. But they passed on some good information and links, so I'll share them with you:

Anti-Coalition Rallies - Find one near you, and make your voice heard. Rallies aren't just for filthy hippies anymore!

Anti-Coalition Petition - Usually I laugh at online petitions, but this whole issue has me worried.

The Governor General of Canada - There are email addresses and phone numbers here.

Democracy?

I don't usually blog about politics, but I'm starting to get pretty angry. After claiming that he would never form a Coalition, Dion has gone ahead and made one. There are a number of reasons why this sucks:

1) He said he would never make a coalition with the NDP because of their economic policies. Now he is making a coalition with them so that they can help him make economic policy?

2) The Bloc would be able to demand whatever they want, and the Liberals would agree because they need the Bloc support. The Constitution was nice while it lasted, I suppose.

3) Dion led the Liberals to a humiliating defeat in the last election, and now he wants to lead us out of an economic crisis? People would have voted Liberal if they had confidence in Dion. They didn't, and they don't.

4) Dion is stepping down early next year, so the Liberal party would get to decide who the next PM is without letting Canada vote on it. Yay Democracy!

The worst part is that all of the Bloc, Liberal or NDP MPs are all doing what their party tells them. Nobody has the brains or testicular fortitude to stand up and say "Wait a minute! This isn't good for Canada...".

Hopefully the Governor General can show that her position is still relevant, and can tell Dion And Friends to go to hell.

Certification

A while ago, I decided that I wanted to get my Microsoft Certified IT Professional Certification. I figured that the little piece of paper would help me in my career, and that I may end up learning something while I was going through it. I bought some books, and started studying. That didn't last long, as I ended up getting quite lazy, and chose videogames over homework most of the time.

Now, I've got an annual review coming up, and I was reminded that I planned on finishing three exams by next May. That's going to be tight, but it should be doable if I get going on it now. I've gone through about 60% of the book for my 70-642 exam on Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Configuration, and I was actually doing the lessons as I went. So I've got to power through the rest of it, and get my exam done by December 19th. That's the deadline I set myself for this first exam. The good news is that if I fail it, I can retake it again with this "Second Chance" promotion that they have.

All this, and I still have Christmas shopping to do. Ugh.

A nailbiter!

Yesterday, we played the #2 ranked team in our league, and we won one game out of three. Thankfully, that may be enough to keep us at #4. This means that we would be in the top tier for the playoffs, and we can't possibly go any lower. So at worst, we would be 4th out of 12 teams in our league at the end of the season. Not too shabby!

The game we won was a nail biter. The score was 23-23 for us, and the game goes to 25 points. I was serving. My first serve went over, and our team did a good job of keeping it over there, so we won the point. 24-23 now. I then flubbed my serve. 24-24, next point wins, their serve. It was a good rally that ended with a light tip that dropped it just over the net. Billy wins, 25-24!

This weekend, my buddy Ll4ma is coming down for a visit. Saturday should be full of videogames, beer, and guy movies. Woo!

Manly stuff

This weekend, I put the snow tires on the car. This is the first time I have ever done ANY maintenance on my little Ion. I have done work on my other cars before, like oil changes, brakes, etc. But my Saturn was a NEW car, not an old piece of crap. It's been under warranty, so I've always brought it in to get the work done. If I brought the car in for an oil change, they would put my winter tires on for free. Since the warranty is up, I figured it was time to save myself some money and just do the tires myself.

I went over to my dad's house, since he has a nice heavy-duty jack, and I changed the tires there. The old tires must have been improperly inflated, because I swear it rides better on the snow tires. The snow tires are a bit bigger than the all-seasons too, so the car looks a BIT more badass. Just a little bit.

Weekend

Bah, last night we lost 2 and won 1 in volleyball. We ran away with the first game, but then we stopped paying attention, and the other team won two. I think we'll probably stick to rec league next season too...

This weekend, I get to put the winter tires on in the rain. Then, I get to put in a couple of hours of work on Sunday to make up for time I took off to go to the Ottawa Food and Wine Show. This weekend is shaping up to be an absolute BLAST, let me tell you. 

If I can squeeze it in, I might play some more Fallout 3. I find it absolutely crazy how much content they've crammed into this game. It's an RPG, so technically I should be following the main quest line and playing out the story. Instead, I'm running around a nuclear wasteland hunting down raiders and mutants, and completely ignoring what I'm supposed to be doing. It's great fun. Gears of War 2 is also really good. If I can catch my buddy W3asel online, then we'll play through the co-op mode together. It's great fun if you have a good friend to play with.

Or, the wife and I may go and pick up Lips for the 360. It apparently released on Tuesday, and I know she was looking forward to that. I don't know how enthusiastic she'll be when she sees that the game comes with two mics, and remembers that I can't sing very well. :)

NIN

Despite a crappy opening act, and a slightly long instrumental interlude, the Nine Inch Nails concert yesterday was fantastic. They played a lot of songs from their new album, but they also did a lot of the older ones. It was a good, long concert, too. Their stage was made up of several transparent, interactive screens that they used as drum machines, simulated waterfalls, and other neat effects. If the screens weren't interactive, and were just being controlled by the crew, then they did a fantastic job of faking it.

Busy times!

It's been a crazy busy few days, so I'll just give a brief recap:

Thursday: Lost 2, won 1 in volleyball. We played like crap.

Friday: Took the afternoon off to go to the Ottawa Food and Wine show. Was a lot of fun, cost a lot of money.

Saturday: Saw horses walking sideways from the company box at Scotiabank Place.

Sunday: Relax

Monday: Relax

Today: Nine Inch Nails at Scotiabank Place. They aren't serving beer.

So, still alive, just really busy.

Spamalot

I dragged the wife out to see Spamalot yesterday, and I think she enjoyed it. She complained a little bit on the way out there, but there were some particularly silly parts that she liked. To be honest, I wasn't really blown away by it. I laughed, yes, but there were times when I was absolutely certain that I could do some of the lines better than the actors did. For example, the coconut scene. They were quite unexpressive and boring, in what should be a very funny and memorable scene. The Frenchman and Tim the Enchanter were played by the same person (as it was in the movie), but he kept forgetting his French accent and slipping into his Scottish one. Come on, man. Anyways, I'm glad I went, but It wasn't the best play I've ever seen by a long shot.

Volleyball tonight, and the Ottawa Food and Wine Show tomorrow. I'm not sure what to expect out of that. From all I've heard it's always very busy with long lineups. They basically keep selling tickets, and if you can't get in, that's your problem. I don't really agree with that policy, but we're going earlier in the day tomorrow, so hopefully we'll get in. I'm used to the smaller shows where there are no lineups, and they give you all the wine you can drink. I'm sure it will be fun anyways.

Spooky weekend

After putting up with having the Halloween decorations up for 2 weeks, it's all done, cleaned up, and packed away. I'd definitely say it was worth it, just going by the reactions:

- The smallest children were carried up to the door, and had a mildly fearful look on their faces

- Children that were old enough to walk usually approached slowly and carefully, or tried to run away.

- Slightly older children made it to the door, and jumped when we set the smoke machine off. They usually also told us how scary our house was. 

- The oldest of the kids told us our house was "awesome", "sick", or something like that.

- The adults accompanying the kids told us how much they appreciated the work we put in.

One child even asked if the "guy with the chainsaw" was going to pop out and scare him again. This made me laugh for a few reasons:

1) If we were going to scare you, we wouldn't tell you first.

2) We can't do the same thing two years in a row, or you would expect it.

3) It was a circular saw, not a chainsaw. Dumb kid.

Zombies

So, the disadvantage to so many good games coming out in such a short period of time, is that I will be forced to leave some behind. Unfortunately, Left 4 Dead is going to be one of those casualties.

Normally, this would hold a special place in my heart, since it involves killing zombies. However, they are FAST zombies, so I won't cry too much.

We have another volleyball game tonight! These may be our most difficult opponents yet, since they are 9-0. The score is off a little bit, since they should have played 12 games by now, but they only have 9 listed. In any case, The BWE will play hard, and we'll see who comes out on top. My intimidating facial hair should also help.

Winter vs. Nuclear Wasteland

Winter in Canada isn't so bad, because you're usually prepared for it. Unfortunately, we were fairly unprepared for the 15cm of snow we got last night. I had to change out the mats in the car and find the snow brush in the middle of the storm last night, and I still haven't put the winter tires on because it's supposed to be 15C on Friday. That's too warm for snow tires.

Also, the garage hasn't been cleaned out yet, so I can't even park the car in there. I can't clean out the garage until we're done with Halloween, since we have a large witch in there that I will need to disassemble. Ah well. At least I know what I'm doing this weekend.

Once the garage is clean, then I will have time for Fallout! I found a funny developer diary here. In it, the developer describes how he decided to make up a character as he went through the game, rather than just playing the game. Each time he played through, his experience was completely different. For example, you can imagine that "Bob the Drunken Do-Gooder" would behave a bit differently than "Stanley the Emotionally Scarred Coward".

So many games, so little time!

For our Halloween recap, I'll direct you to my wife's blog. She has all the pictures. :)

This month is going to be hell on my wallet. Fable 2, Fallout 3, and Gears of War 2 are all releasing within a few weeks of each other. So, in order to soften the financial blow of buying 3 games so close together, I'm only going to have TWO pub lunches between now and January 1st. I've been making it a habit to go out once a week for lunch with work buddies, but I need to cut down on that. Cutting out 7 pub lunches pays for two games in full, so it sounds like a good tradeoff.

Bastards!

So yesterday, my work buddy S and I decide to go out for a pint at lunch yesterday, and we go to the Royal Oak on Hunt Club Road. I order the "special", which they tell you is a spicy chicken sandwich, but they mean is raw chicken. And I'm not talking about slightly pink in the middle. I mean, this is what chicken looks like in the meat section of a grocery store. I only noticed by the time I got to the centre of my sandwich, because it was breaded and spicy.

Needless to say, I was quite grossed out, and didn't feel well for the rest of the day. I had a great game of volleyball, though. My team is encouraging me to eat raw chicken more often. Don't bet on it, guys.

Lips

While the name sounds a little dumb, the game looks like one my wife would love. Lips is a karaoke game for the XBox 360, basically. It releases mid-November, and they promise downloadable content for it too. Rock Band is amazing, but if you really just want to sing (and are into pop music) then Lips looks like the game for you. Some of the included tracks:

- Beyoncé "Irreplaceable"

- Rihanna "Umbrella"

- The Jackson 5 "ABC"

- Leona Lewis "Bleeding Love"

I don't particularly like any of those songs. But honestly, after enough beer, I'd probably sing them anyway.

PC vs. XBox 360

I picked up Fable II today, and I will get to playing it as soon as my wife is done with the TV. In the meantime, I figured I would discuss a little bit about my personal opinion on the Xbox 360 vs. the PC as a gaming platform. Everyone has their own point of view about this, but this is mostly for the benefit of my friends that play videogames, but don't currently own a 360.

I work all day in front of a PC. So when I want to relax, I don't really want to be in front of a PC anymore. My desk chair isn't all that comfortable, and when I'm sitting in front of a keyboard, it just reminds me of more work. When I play on my 360, I'm on a comfy sofa. There is no email anywhere nearby, and it's a much more relaxed setting.

Also, things are EASIER on the 360 when compared to a PC. If I have a new game I want to play, I put it in the tray and go. I don't have to install the game, type a key, update my video drivers, reboot, or anything like that. I don't have to worry about DRM installing wierd crap on my machine, either. Again, it just feels a lot less like work.

There is also the whole Xbox Live aspect of it too. A Gold membership costs something like $60 a YEAR, which lets you play online against other people, tracks your game stats, etc. The money is very much worth it, because the online matchmaking service is very good, stable and fast. XBox Live also tracks in-game "Achievements", which is basically just for bragging rights, or gamers would want to absolutely, positively complete everything that there is to do in a single game. Some achievements are quite funny, such as this one in Fable II: 

"The Chicken Kicker: Kick a chicken a good distance, or see one getting kicked."

I guarantee you'll see that one on my gamercard as soon as possible.

Sandvich!

Yesterday, my wife made me a fantastic slow-cooker roast beef. I got the butcher to cut it fresh for me, then we cooked it 8 hours in the slow cooker. The sauce had root beer, ginger and BBQ sauce (among other things), and made the whole house smell good the whole day. When it came out, it was so tender I couldn't carve it, it just fell apart. It was so good, I brought some for lunch today, bought a fresh baguette, and made a fantastic sandwich out of it. If I had a camera at work, (and if people wouldn't have thought I was crazy), I would post a picture of it. It was that good. Seriously.

A buddy of mine has been talking about Fable 2 for a while now, and I think I might pick it up. I haven't bought a game in a while, and there is talk that Fable 2 might get some Game of the Year awards. It's an RPG that (supposedly) combines meaty combat with layers of rich chunky moral choices and tops it all with fresh crusty french bread co-op.

Yeah, the roast was that good.

Under pressure

As you may have already read on my wife's blog, The Billy Whitmore Experience is now 12-0. In our second game of three on Thurday, we were quite far behind. Like, 11-21 far behind, with the game ending at 25 points. We realized we were in trouble, and managed to really crank it up at the end, and brought it to 22-24, with ME serving next. I had been serving like crap all game, and now I couldn't make a single mistake, or the other team would win.

It was stressed out, nervous, pacing, and just generally trying to ignore the rest of the team who was either telling me "Don't screw up!" or "Relax!". Thanks guys. In any case, My three serves made it over the net, and the team didn't let anything by either, and we won the game 25-24. Yay us!

Also, congratulations to the wife for getting published in the Ottawa Citizen. She's a much more diligent blogger than I. :)

Back to "normal"

It's been a while since I posted last, so here's a brief summary:

- Thursday through Saturday, Jenn and I were in Kingston. We did a 3-hour boat tour of the 1000 Islands, ate at some very nice restaurants, and just relaxed in general.

- On Saturday, we went to the 3rd World Bazaar and picked up a wooden fish that I named Mr. Glubs.

- Sunday was a turkey dinner at my brother-in-law's house. She did a good job on the turkey, very well done for her first try!

- Monday was our turn to host the turkey dinner. It was honestly the best turkey that Jenn and I have ever done! Even my carving was better this time. :)

I'll think of something more interesting for my next post.

Sushi Surprise

A small Sushi restaurant recently opened up near the wife and I, so we decided to give it a try tonight. I've had sushi before, but my experince has been very limited. I've had the following:

- seaweed, rice and a little green thing

- seaweed, rice and a little pink thing

Now, I figure that makes me some kind of Sushi Connoisseur, right? I look at the menu to the new restaurant, and I deduce that I have probably had an Avocado Roll, and a Salmon Roll before. I did some research before coming, and I figure that a California Roll (avocado, cucumber, fake crab) sounds good too. So I order an Avocado Roll, a Spicy Salmon Roll, and a California Roll.

When I get it home, I can't recognize anything on the little tray except for the avocado one. Those were OK. The salmon one was some kind of crazy salmon salad instead of a little piece of fish, and the California Roll is made up mostly of flying fish eggs. SURPRISE! MOUTHFULL OF FISH EGGS! Needless to day, most of the dinner did NOT get eaten, and I'm now enjoying a turkey sandwich.

Billy is 6-0 so far!

We won our game last night, 3-0! The whole team played well, but I definitely need to work on my serves a bit. I think I had the MOST flubbed serves out of anyone there. Kind of embarassing, but I pulled my own weight by guarding the net pretty well, and doing a good number of bump-returns. My goals for the next game:

- Improve my serves

- Learn to bump-set instead of just bump-returning

Go Billy!

Pre-Game

I'm really excited about playing volleyball tonight. I mentioned it yesterday, but I'm saying it again now. I'm excited! I'm finishing up my work day by migrating some user data from a remote datacenter to this one. And reading volleyball rules. And checking volleyball standings. And looking at directions to the gym. And reminding myself not to dig. Shit, I forgot about that data!

I have compiled a list of the pros and cons of indoor volleyball for you, since I know you care:

Pros:

- Immune to weather effects

- No chasing the volleyball out of bounds (yay walls!)

- No chance of a stray ball landing in your court (one court in the gym)

- Changeroom/water fountain/bathrooms are readily available.

- Don't have to shake sand out of your underwear, ears, and leg hair

Cons:

- Diving and digging is dangerous (alliteration: always awesome!)

- No tanning opportunities

There you have it. The team we play tonight has a 1-2 record, but that doesn't indicate much after only playing one other team. We'll see how happy and enthusiastic I am after the game.

Billy Whitmore II: Billy Rides Again

That was the name I proposed for our volleyball team's second season. It was shot down in favour of keeping our standard "The Billy Whitmore Experience". The wife and I missed the first game last week (she was on a plane, I was on the ground waiting for the plane), but we're psyched for this game. I have to admit, I'm a little hooked on playing volleyball. To me, the ultimate moment comes when you can nail a block, spike or a dig. Bumps, volleys and serves are all well and good, but they're not cool. We'll see if I can make it though a game in a gym without injuring myself. I'm used to playing on sand, you see.

Bachelorhood done!

So on my last day of temporary bachelorhood, I made burgers. It was the first time I've ever made burger patties, but they turned out okay. I'm pretty proud! The wife is back now, and I'm happy. I can't leave my underwear all over the floor anymore, but I'll adjust.

This weekend was one funeral, and tomorrow is another one. Also, I've been spending some time cleaning up my brother-in-law's computer. He got that damn virus that pretends to be an antivirus program. After trying to clean it for a bit, I gave up and reformatted. Back in my computer-store-working-days I might have brought the computer in to work and really hacked at it, but I don't have time for that anymore.

As far as interesting things happening this week, Hinterland is being released. It's an indie game that only costs $20, but sounds pretty interesting. 

Bachelorhood, day 3

The wife recieved her flowers today, but they were pretty wilty, apparently. Ah well. They came in a mug with hearts on it, and it is the thought that counts, right?

The in-laws took pity on me tonight and fed me, which was very nice of them. My mother-in-law even made me banana bread. :) Now, I'm off to drink some cheap beer and watch a zombie movie.

Happy Anniversary, Jenn. I love you very much, and wish you were here.

Bachelorhood, day 2

Yesterday was cheap steak, fried potato wedges and some broccoli that I belatedly noticed was turning brown. Today was Sausage In a Bun day. That still sounds better than the undercooked chicken my wife had.

I worked late today, and I have more work to do between 8 and 9pm tonight. Oh, joy. At least I'm getting this stuff done while my wife is out of town. If I didn't work late, I would probably just be playing videogames.

In other news, I only recently discovered lolcats:

Awww, they're cute because they can't spell.

Bachelorhood

So, the wife has gone off to the prairies, and I've got to fend for myself. Normally, when she is home, I cook a lot of the easy and quick meals during the week, and she does more of the fancy new recipies on the weekend. I also do the grocery shopping. So, I have no idea why I'm having such a hard time doing a grocery list. So far, I have:

- bread

That's not a lot to subsist on. 

I CAN cook, it's just that I don't see much of a point to cooking if I can't share the meal with my wife. *sigh* Maybe I'll just go to the grocery store and roam.

Cutest baby EVER!

Awww.... little baby C has a blog. What a very cute baby! The wife and I have a busy morning, but we're going to head by to poke and prod him later. :)

I <3 pie, Rocking

Thankfully, the wife found a much easier way to make pie. She made two pies last night, there was no mess, and no more bleeding. It's amazing how much trouble you can save with pre-made dough.

She was done the pie early enough that we had time to Rock a little bit. Rock Band 2 is pretty much exactly the same as Rock Band 1, except that they improved the online play. The good news is that all the downloaded songs from RB1 work in RB2, and you can even import (most) of your songs off the RB1 disc to play in RB2. So basically, Rock Band 2 is 100 pretty good songs to add to your collection, and that's fine by me.

Congratulations!

I heard this morning that my good buddy W3asel and his wife L had their baby! Little C and mother are both doing well, and W3asel sounded very proud. Congratulations, W3asel and L!

Pain!

Before I came in to work this morning, I pulled something in my neck, badly. This is funny for a number of reasons:

1) My wife did the exact same thing to herself a week ago.

2) When my wife hurt herself, I mentioned how I was glad there was no genetic link between her and I, since it seems her entire family was afflicted with various health issues at the time.

3) Our HR department at work just announced that they were going to have an ergonomics specialist come in to talk to us about preventing these kinds of injuries.

Nice.

Spore

I bought Spore on Sunday, even though they've got some pretty crappy DRM on it. The funny part is that the game has already been cracked, so all the DRM is doing is irritating paying customers. Basically, I can only install the game 3 times before calling EA Tech Support. This really irritates me, so I'm a bit happy to see that there were 30,000 people actively downloading the game on Saturday.

The most impressive part of Spore so far was when I installed it for my wife, and then she spent 3 hours playing it, instead of the half hour that she planned. :) My little geek-in-training is progressing well. She designed a little microscopic herbivore, evolved it, and this is what it looked like when it crawled out of the primordial ooze:

That freaky-looking little bastard is MUCH better than my first try. The fun part was after she had evolved the creature a little bit (on her PC), I saw it running around on one of my planets when I was in the Space Phase (on my PC). Her creature was uploaded to the Sporepedia, and downloaded back onto my system. Pretty cool. :)

Chrome polish

Google has retracted the funny bits of their Chrome EULA. This post WOULD now belong to me, except I posted it to Blogger, so it still belongs to Google anyways. But now they don't own my company intranet anymore, so that's good.

I went out to my brother-in-law's bachelor party last night, and it was pretty fun. We hit up the Pro-Am night at a local comedy club, where they razzed him a bit for getting married soon. Some of the amateurs were good, and others were slow-motion train wrecks. In any case, they had the guts to get up there to try to make people laugh, so good for them. Thankfully, the audience was polite with the ones that weren't funny, and there was no boo-ing. I'd go back again, I had forgotten how much I enjoy live comedy.

Tonight will be a busy night. I need to make sure my suit is clean, and pick out a shirt and tie for the wedding on Saturday. I've got to pick up some computer parts for the wife, and see to some things around the house. Then, I have to write out some witty banter for the wedding reception, since I'm MCing. I did get some good advice from an old friend yesterday: "Keep it short". That's the plan! The only other thing I need to do is remain sober enough until the dancing starts. Then my job is over, and I get to be "Just another drunk guy".

Chrome worries and paranoia

There are a lot of people on the internet who read through the Chrome EULA, and found this one paragraph:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

People are panicking, and threatening to not use the browser, based on the fact that anything we view in it (for example, a Corporate Intranet) is now the property of Google. I really doubt that these Terms of Service will last very long, since they make no sense at all.

However, this blog post belongs to Google anyways, since it's posted on Blogger. All my email belongs to them too, sine I have a Gmail account. If I used Google Docs, then all those Docs would belong to them. That's their standard EULA, no joke. What's the alternative, though? I could use another blog/email provider, but then they would have rights to my posts and emails. I could host everything on my own, but that gets to be a pain to manage.

So, I'll just continue using the services, and wait for the lawyers to make Google change the EULA. Life will go on.

Chrome

This is my first post with Google Chrome. In case you're not as geeky as I am, Google just made a web browser. Neat, eh? They made a comic explaining all the things that the browser does differently. It gets a bit technical, but here are the big bonuses, as I understand them:

- Open Source: Everyone can have a look at what goes on under the hood. This means that Google can't get away with anything sneaky, and that there are a LOT of other developers out there that can check it for bugs, and develop new things for it.

- Google made it: There is a HUGE development and test team behind this browser. So it's not like some open-source projects that just plain suck, and won't open pages properly. IceWeasel, I'm looking at you. Google can test their browser against the entire internet, since they have the hardware in place to search the entire internet already.

- One process per tab: If you visit a website that totally screws up your browser, it will only crash that page. Basically, if you have 5 tabs open, it's like having 5 separate browsers running on 5 separate computers. Also, the tabs are separated and "sandboxed", so that malicious websites can't grab information from other tabs. 

- OmniBar: You can browse your history, type a new URL, or run a search all from the same bar at the top. It used to be called an "Address bar", but Google is much to cool to call it that.

That's all I can think of after reading a comic and using the browser for 10 minutes. You try it and be the judge.

Saved by a penguin

I am a Windows SysAdmin at work. I work with Server 2008, Vista, SQL Server, Hyper-V, and many more Microsoft technologies. So, when the hard drive on my wife's XP machine died, I turned to a few tried and true pieces of software to get the job done:

Recuva - I've recovered all kinds of deleted files with this app before, but it let me down this time. It didn't even scan the disk, because Windows was reporting that the drives were unformatted, and were 0 bytes in size. I figured that this meant that the partition table was gone, so I looked for a utility that would recover the partition table.

TestDisk - this software claims to be able to recover a damaged partition, but I guess that wasn't my problem. This utility found no partitions, and no partition backups on the disk. When I tried to recover any files at all, it gave read errors on every sector of the disk. At this point, I thought it was a lost cause.

A colleague of mine suggested that I try ddrecover , a utility only available in Linux. I had nothing to lose, so I downloaded a Knoppix Live CD, and booted into a Linux OS without actually installing it...

So right now, I'm posting from an OS running ONLY off of a DVD, and in memory. This fancy OS is reading the screwed up drive with no problem at all, and I'm recovering all the data that we thought was lost. *whew* I guess Windows just got a bit confused about how to read the drive, and all it took was a different set of drivers to have a look at the filesystem. In any case, my wife will soon have her music collection and family photos all back.

38% done the recovery of the first partition... time for Castle Crashers.

Crashing Castles and Computers

Last night, niether the wife nor I were feeling much like swing dancing. So we skipped out on our last class to grab dinner at a pub, pick up some books, and head home for a night in. "What luck!", I thought. "Castle Crashers at last!". However, when we got home and discovered that her computer wouldn't boot, I had other work to do.

It looks like the hard drive itself completely died. None of the utilities that I tried can find any paritions on it, and I'm getting nothing but read errors. My last hope is to boot off of a Knoppix DVD to try dd_rescue. I'm not hopeful, but it's worth a shot.

I got to play SOME Castle Crashers last night, and I definitely enjoyed it. Very nice art style, and the combat is as simple or as complex as you want to make it. You can mash the X button for quick attacks, or you can try to juggle enemies up in the air, chain together combos, use your magic attacks, etc. It looks like it could be very fun for newbies and experienced gamers alike. We'll see if I can convince the wife.

I'd rather be Crashing Castles...

I don't mind my job at all. In fact, I kind of enjoy it. I have a strong technical supervisor, a Director that can manage very well, and several extremely smart colleagues. I work in a nice office building in a fairly nice part of town, and I can see daylight from my cubicle. However, I just wanted to call in sick today to play Castle Crashers.

I've been looking forward to this game for well over a year, and the anticipation is killing me. It was available for download this morning, but alas, I have to go to work. Then after work, it's swing dancing. I may be able to squeeze in an hour of play before bed, if I'm lucky. Since it supports "offline co-op multiplayer", the wife is more than welcome to join in if she wants. When you take the game style of GoldenAxe, add in a unique art style, over-the-top action, customizable characters and unlockables, you get one excellent game! She will be powerless to resist!

Once I play the game for a bit, I'll post some initial impressions, and then write a full review. I can get pretty passionate about games, so rather than bore my coworkers and wife talking about them, I'll write reviews that people can skip or read at their leisure.

A+++ would camp again!

Camping was great! The weather was beautiful, the trails were nice, and the beer was cold. I got to make a nice towering inferno of a campfire on Saturday night, and we came home early on Sunday for volleyball.

The Billy Whitmore Experience ended up finishing 4th out of 8 teams, and that's OK by me. Everyone played really well in our final game, and we've even signed up for a fall season of court volleyball. There's nothing quite so satisfying as a well-executed spike, and now the wife and I are hooked on it.

Today, my boss suggested that I sign up for the company tournament to round out an IT foursome. Thankfully, we're going to be playing Best-Ball, and I'll be sharing a cart with one of the best golfers in the company. Little does he know that most of his time is going to be spent helping me search the woods every time I tee off. Sucker.

Food Tent Of Shelter +2

Everything was going smoothly for the camping preparations. Last night, we were bringing everything upstairs to load into the car, and my (very astute) wife noticed that the bag with the food tent was very light. FYI: Tent bags are much lighter if they have no poles in them. This was at around 9pm the night before we were going to need to use this tent. After searching my house, and my dad's house, the poles were declared AWOL.

On the bright side, I was able to find a nice tent on sale today. Behold the awesome new tent:

This one has canopies, and that's worth at least +2 points to Shelter.

3 hours to go until I get to take off to the Great Outdoors. I'm looking forward to this again.

Camping prep

You'll notice that the blog is sporting a fancy new theme and title bar, provided by my wife. Thank you, Jenn!

Why is it always so much work to relax? The wife and I decided that we wanted to go camping this weekend, and it's taken us the last two evenings getting prepared, buying food, cleaning and sorting our gear, etc. I tell you, this "nature" thing better be goddamed pristine.

A few things I'm looking forward to this weekend:
- Tallboys of cheap beer
- My camp chair (with footrest)
- A campfire
- A good book

All at the same time, with any luck.

What's in a name?

I feel I should clarify where I got the name "F3rret", since every single reader I have has asked the question. It all started a long long time ago, when I was playing Descent with my good friend and next door neighbour. We had installed the game, and it asked us for a "Pilot Name" to use. Rather than use the names our mothers gave us, we chose "Weasel" and "Ferret". Damn, we were so cool then!

I kept the name "Ferret" for a long time, until I branched out from dialup modem games to playing over the Internet. At that point, I realized that there were a lot of people out there who thought they were as cool as I was, because I found the name "Ferret" was taken on a lot of message boards, game servers, etc. So, I changed a letter to a number and wound up with "F3rret", and I've been using it ever since.

The only unfortunate thing about this name is that I don't particularly love ferrets, nor have I ever owned one. Occasionally people will ask me how many ferrets I have, and they sound very disappointed when I tell them I've never even handled one. Well, they either sound disappointed, or start calling me a fraud and get really irate. The internet brings out the best in everyone, doesn't it?

In any case, these fine fellows are the closest I'll ever get to owning a ferret, and I'm OK with that:

First!

So, after some gentle pressure from my wife, I have started a blog. She blogs frequently, and writes for a living, so her blog is actually worth visiting. My daily writing mostly consists of mocking coworkers over MSN, command-line server diagnostics and frantically hammering out "The Engineer is a spy!". When I pointed this out to her, she suggested that those are all viable topics to blog about, so I figured I would give it a shot. At least I didn't take Google's suggestion to blog about scooters:


As you may be able to tell from the first paragraph, I'm a bit of a geek. My wife, on the other hand, is not nearly as geeky, but she's getting there. She blogs, manages websites at work, and enjoys Rock Band, so it's a start. However, she's never really gotten into videogames as much as I have. Maybe it's because she went "outside" more as a child, or never had a Nintendo in the house. In any case, it's a situation I've been meaning to remedy for a while now. One thing I DO know, is that she and her brother used to enjoy Goldenaxe. That gives me something to work with, at least. Castle Crashers is coming out August 27th, and I think THAT will be the key breakthrough game. The only issue is getting her to sit down with a controller in her hand long enough, but I think I've got that sorted out...

This summer, I've been doing swing lessons. Here's how that came about:

(Dan at work frantically rebuilding a server, Jenn phones)
Jenn: Want to take swing dancing lessons?
Dan: (working hard, mild panic, not paying attention) Sure, whatever you say dear...

(10 minutes later, server fixed. Jenn phones back)
Jenn: We're booked!
Dan: For what?

So, since I'm doing swing lessons, I think it's only fair that she humour me by trying out Castle Crashers. It should play a lot like Goldenaxe, since it is also a side-scrolling beat 'em up. It's got a very nice art style, and we can play co-op instead of against each other. I think I've got a chance at breaking through with this one. Wish me luck.