Ralph Melton

The Triple Undisputed Burger

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:19:52 GMT

I'm linking to http://www.pioneerlocal.com/lakezurich/news/1842862,megabites-wiener-triple-undisputed-102909-s1.article mostly for a few choice quotes:

Schreiber went to work, becoming the first person I have ever seen get meat on his ears.

After two hours, 15 minutes and two Marlboro reds, Schreiber declared himself the conqueror of the Triple Undisputed. Paschalis and I pretended not to notice the uneaten top bun and the bits of meat hidden beneath it. After all, Schreiber had done something neither of us would ever do.

Because we want to live.

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:40:25 GMT

Just woke up from a fascinating dream.

It was a hard-boiled mystery story, printed as a cheap old paperback whose yellowing pages broke from the binding as I read.
The first-person protagonist was a drag queen named Chakodray, who was navigating a seedy underbelly of Chicago. My mental picture of Chakodray was that he was black, stout, and bald, and clearly unfeminine despite wearing women's clothes.
Clues I remember: both the original victim and the she's-probably-going-to-die-too witness (referred to in the book as a "Sine", which I assumed was slang for prostitute) had a black eye. The original victim had had a baseball bat nearby; the sine said she had picked up a telescope by mistake.
The fusillade of gunfire through the door that had interrupted the interview with the sine had apparently been a warning to her--but my mystery-reading instincts thought that it would turn out that the real purpose was to kill the black dog outside.
Chapter 3 had just begun an uncomfortable interview with the police when I was wakened.

[Pandemic] Sorry about that, Africa

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:13:28 GMT

Today, we made our first attempt at playing a four-player, six-Epidemic game.

For most of the game, we were doing okay. We were doing an agressive job of keeping trouble spots under control, because we've learned that it's much easier to keep things under control than to fix them once they start to go pear-shaped.

Africa was starting to heat up, a bit, so Andy headed down there and built a research station.
At of his actions, there were two cubes on Johannesburg, two cubes on Kinshasa, and one cube on Lagos.
Over the course of his infection phase and the infection phases of the next two players, drew Kinshasa and Johannesburg again, putting three cubes on each.

Then I drew an Epidemic, putting each of those two cities at "could outbreak" danger levels.
Then, for my infection phase, I drew Kinshasa as the first card: a chain reaction of two outbreaks, which also brought Lagos and Khartoum to two cubes each.
As the second infection card, I drew Johannesburg: another chain reaction through Johannesburg and Kinshasa. And the two cubes from the chain reaction made Khartoum outbreak.
And Khartoum's outbreak pushed Lagos into outbreaking as well.
Total: six outbreaks in one infection phase.
We managed to survive until the next outbreak, but it was pretty much a foregone conclusion from there.

Jack-o-lanterns 2009

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:20:33 GMT

So, I had claimed that I'm not an Apple fanboy. But this may force me to admit I've been wrong:

(Though a big part of the motivation was that it's a very simple and iconic design, like the biohazard logo I've done in years past. Unfortunately, I think a big hole does not work so well--a jack-o-lantern doesn't show at its best when you see the candle.)

More images at http://gallery.me.com/ralphmelton#100047&view=grid&bgcolor=black&sel=2

Leaves

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:14:17 GMT

It's actually not all that common for me to see really glorious autumn leaves. It requires a special combination of leaves at their peak color, weather that shows off their color well, and me being available physically and emotionally to see them. (Of these three, the last may be hardest to achieve.)

Last week, we entered a sudden eye in the long storm of our work, and we were urged by management to take Friday off.

I started my lazy day with a walk around the neighborhood. From our doorstep, I saw this:

That provoked me to take some more pictures as I walked around:

The view from the street coming up toward our house:

A tree a few blocks away:

After my walk, my plan was to head into Squirrel Hill to buy cheap CDs at The Exchange. But as I drove across the bridge whereby Forbes Avenue crosses over Frick Park, I was awestruck by the splendor of the hillside there. I considered stopping to take pictures, but there was no place to park, and so I drove on.

The parking lot in Squirrel Hill was full. All right. Sometimes I can figure out what I really want in only two tries. I drove back to Frick Park.

The hillside that make me turn back:

Forbes Avenue, just west of the bridge:

Looking down into the park from the bridge:

The Frick Park playground:

More photos and larger versions of these photos are available at http://gallery.me.com/lorimelton#100024&bgcolor=black&view=mosaic . I'm not delighted by many of them--they don't seem to capture the rich lustrous colors that I saw. Even so, the process of taking these pictures nudged me to look at the gorgeous leaves more than I might otherwise have, and bringing me into the moment that way was a very good thing.

I took these pictures with my iPhone, and that's been a bit frustrating; I'm still having trouble taking great pictures. It's clearly able to do both overexposed and underexposed, so it seems that just right should be an option, but I'm having trouble finding it. However, the iPhone does have one major virtue as a camera: unlike other cameras, I actually carry the iPhone with me and take pictures with it. (And some minor virtues, like location-tagging pictures.) I dither about whether it would be more effective towards getting good photos to try to develop the habit of carrying a better camera with me, or to learn to take better pictures with the iPhone.

(A question for my photographically-clueful friends: can these pictures be improved with digital manipulation? (My handiest set of tools would be those provided by iPhoto.) Keep in mind that I have not developed much eye at all; I can barely explain that something is wrong, much less explain what the problems are. So I might very well be delighted by cheap tricks that would make better photographers scoff.)

Monday's leaves are not nearly as nice as Friday's were--many of the most brilliant trees have already shed their leaves, so blazing reds and oranges have given away to golds and rusts. I'm glad I happened to see the leaves in their full glory then.

Repo! the Genetic Opera

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:12:23 GMT

Lori persuaded me to watch Repo! the Genetic Opera with her.

It was crap.

I suppose that it wasn't all bad. It had at least one character one could care a little about, if only one or two. It did have one decent song, if only one. It had a plot that had some similarities to a good plot, in much the same way that Bugs Bunny in drag resembles a beautiful woman.

It did have a good amount of attractive women in gothy outfits... but the rest of the movie dragged that down below the waterline.

Bleah.

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:24:16 GMT

A little story of a mental glitch:

Lori's been pretty sick this week. Coughing, fever in the low 100s, chills, et cetera.
This morning, I realized that I'm starting to feel sick too.
I thought "I hope that Lori recovers by the time I'm really sick."
Then I realized that I had something better to wish for that was equally plausible: "I hope that I don't get really sick."

I know that I'm not perfectly rational, but I'm far from reconciled to it.

Roadfood Eating Tour -- Hasty Notes from Sunday

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:32:00 GMT

- First: Beef on Weck at Schwabl's. We have the restaurant all to ourselves, and they've hired extra carvers just for us. The beef on weck is delicious, and comes with delicious German potato salad. The coleslaw is merely excellent, so we manage to avoid eating much of that.
- Ted's Red Hots. Nice hot dog with just a little snap. Pretty good thin onion rings. Loganberry juice tastes like Kool-Aid.
- Across the street to Anthony's Frozen Custard. We share a Pumpkin-vanilla twist cone. Very nice.
- To Anchor Bar, the most-named site for the origin of the Buffalo wing. Michael Stern sits at our table. We consider ordering a single beef on weck sandwich for the whole table, but by the time we have a chance to place the order, we have eaten too many wings. Good wings.
- Bus ride back to the hotel. Surprise! Jojo proposes to Mike on the bus. Much cheering.
- Another trip to Antoinette's. "Mint-pineapple" topping on the menu leads us to a vanilla sundae topped with pineapple, green mint syrup, whipped cream (piped from a pastry bag) and peanuts. Mint-pineapple verdict: slightly odd, but very tasty.

Roadfood Eating Tour -- Hasty Notes

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:35:43 GMT

My hope is that I'll expand on these notes to larger entries, but given my posting history, it would be reasonable to doubt that. But hey, better than nothing.

Friday:

- left Lori's school promptly at 3, drove up 28.

- stopped in Bethlehem for the New Bethlehem Peanut Butter Festival
-- got cookies and pastry from Uzi's, whom we've loved in Brookvile. Purchasing cookies to share with Roadfooders turns out to be carrying coals to Newcastle.
-- sampled the peanut butter hot dog. Not very peanut-buttery. More info: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06162/697385-34.stm

- beautiful views and beautiful weather near Allegheny National Forest

- Dinner at Eddy's in Salamanca, NY. Good fish fry, bleah salad bar.

Saturday:

- met people at 9, boarded bus at 9:30

- first stop: Dinosaur BBQ in Rochester. Tasty ribs, good pulled pork and beef brisket. Introduced to salt roasted potatoes.

- walked to Nick Tahou's Hots. When the organizer tried to explain to the proprietor Alex Tahou that it wasn't all one check, Alex said (more or less) "being in Roadfood has brought us so much business over the years, it's on the house." So we put a lot of money into his children's charity bucket instead. Had the cheeseburger garbage plate: hash browns, macaroni salad, cheeseburger patty, mustard, meaty sauce (called "hot sauce" but not a hot pepper sauce) all piled on a plate. Pretty tasty, excellent atmosphere--felt really familial.

- Surprise! Greg Marshall, from visitrochester.com, has come on the bus with apples picked yesterday. Excellent apples, though Lori's wasn't perfectly ripe. Also, nice apple cider and/or Genesee beer.

- LDR Char Pit. Tasty steak sandwich (thin slice of steak with melted cheese and onion on a hamburger bun--not like a cheesesteak). Tasty Red Hot--hot dog-like sausage split, grilled, served on hamburger bun. Rick Palermo, proprietor, also said "don't worry about it" when we sought to pay.

- around the corner to Abbott's for frozen custard. Lori got butter pecan and pumpkin custards--very tasty.

- Surprise! We're going to the Orleans County fairgrounds for Cornell Chicken prepared by the East Gaines VFD (at no additional cost to us). Cornell Chicken (marinated in spices, cooked for 3+ hours and basted often): so good. Homemade pineapple cream pie: so good. Homemade apple pie, with local apples: so good, with amazingly flaky crust. I aspire to make pie like this.

- back to hotel. Subset is going to Antoinette's ice cream / candy shop. Lori has vanilla ice cream topped with french chocolate pudding and whipped cream. Ralph has bananas foster ice cream topped with butter-rum sauce. Both tasty. Note: whipped cream is hand-piped. Other interesting toppings on menu include mint-pineapple.
Ralph walks back 3 miles to hotel, burns off small fraction of ice cream, much less other food.

To Sap and Impurify Our Precious Bodily Fluids

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:05:54 GMT

I got told by a doctor recently that the average sperm count for men in Pittsburgh has declined by 50% over the last four years, due to artificial hormones making their way into the water supply.

That's a startling drop in a very short time.

Brainloading is Fundamental

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:58:33 GMT

This post from fadethecat has been making me think about the way I read. (Not very deeply at all--I envy fadethecat and artbroken the deeper reading they describe.)

That led me by the usual train of digressions to the following thought experiment:

Suppose that in the recognizable future, scientific understanding of memory formation has progressed to the point that we're capable of implanting memories of a text.
In a few minutes, you can get artificial memories that are comparable to the memories you would have formed by careful, thorough study of the text. You can recite memorable passages, recall details of good bits, and understand subtleties of the development of themes.
Other than the reduced time cost, the costs and risks are comparable to those of reading.

Would you want to get texts brainloaded that way, or read those texts in the traditional way? Are there circumstances that affect your answer?

For technical texts, like programming books or RPG materials, I'm all for the brainloading.
Similarly, for most of the books I was assigned to read in college classes, I'd be happy to get the knowledge implanted as quickly as possible.

But there are some books that I read for an emotional effect. I'm not sure that the feeling of dramatic tension and resolution would be satisfactory if it was only encountered as a memory.
And experiencing erotica only as a memory instead of "live" just seems weird and unsatisfying.

What if the "text" isn't a book or a movie, but something like a gourmet meal? (Ignoring questions of nutrition; this is just about the experience.) I'm not even sure what my answer is there.

I tend to believe that once a thing has happened, its only residue is in my memories... but apparently I'm drawing some distinction of things that I want to experience instead of just remembering. I'm having trouble explaining this distinction, even to myself.

Of Deep-Fried Butter and other things

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:54:02 GMT

I came across a news story today about the fried food competition for the State Fair of Texas, whose finalists include deep-fried butter:

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2009/sep/01/eight-finalists-best-fried-food-2009-state-fair-te/?refscroll=985

That article mentioned the previous year's winner: country-fried bacon. That led me to Wikipedia's article. I shall quote Wikipedia's section on "Health Issues:"

Since the dish is rich in saturated fat, many health experts suggest consuming it in moderation or not at all. Sally Squires of the Washington Post acknowledged chicken fried bacon's appeal to the palate, but suggests moderation.[9] Other experts note the dish's low nutritional benefits: "They've taken fat, they've double-coated it in fat, they've fried it in more fat, and then they've served it with a side order of fat." Jane Hurley, senior nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C., stated she's "never heard of anything worse."

That led me to the blog http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/ .

That led me to the page on the Meatini. In their words: "full English fried breakfast served in a cocktail glass made of bacon"

Edit: This is Why You're Fat also led me (via http://insanewiches.com) to http://www.fancyfastfood.com, which reconstructs fast food meals into beautiful gourmet-looking dishes.

Malygos

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:09:32 GMT

We finally downed Malygos last night.

For a while, we'd been trying to kill him in a desultory way, attempting him every month or two. In the last few weeks, though, we got serious about trying to kill him, and beat our heads on him twice a week or so.

Focused effort paid off--we finally got him down. It does feel like a real achievement.

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:51:50 GMT

Running high on impostor feelings right now. Doesn't mean it's true, of course.

Ah well. If I'm as much of a fraud as I feel, it's relatively unlikely that this particular moment will be when it all comes crashing down.

Pandemic: Total Victory

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:44:31 GMT

Mike, Lori, and I played Pandemic this evening. (4 epidemics, because it was Lori's first game.)

We had three diseases cured and two eradicated, with only one outbreak and the board well under control. We made a plan for curing the last disease, and checked that we would be able to cure it on the last turn of the game.

Then we realized that we could do better: with some careful planning and use of special event cards (and some very good luck with epidemics coming out in diseases that we'd already eradicated), we managed to completely eradicate all four diseases on the last turn of the game.

Woot!

Pandemic

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:36:33 GMT

My "Origins game" for this year was Pandemic, which I was introduced to by sailormur and yogcmarthoth at the Colorbox's party. (It won the Origins award, so I'm not alone in my enthusiasm for the game.)

The premise of the game from the cover copy:

You and your companions are highly skilled members of a disease-fighting team waging a battle against four deadly diseases. Your team will travel across the globe, stemming the tide of infection and developing the resources you need to discover the cures. You must work together, using your individual strengths to destroy the diseases before they overtake the world. The clocking is ticking as outbreaks and epidemics accelerate the spread of the plague.

Pandemic has a virtue that I don't have a good name for: it feels like it is about its putative topic. (Not all games have this virtue--Ra is my canonical example of a game that lacks it.) This primarily comes from two elegant rules:
- when a city that has three cubes in it corresponding to a particular disease is asked to add more cubes of that disease, it has an outbreak, and instead one cube of that disease is added to all the neighboring cities.
- there are Epidemic cards spaced irregularly through the player draw deck. When an epidemic card is drawn, the the bottom card on the infections deck is drawn and loaded with three cubes of disease, and then the discards deck from that pile is shuffled and placed back on top of the infections deck. This means that there is a locality of infection cards--a city that has been infected once is likely to come up again and again.

The other rules for moving around and treating diseases are clear and simple. They are probably better than what I would have come up with. But I don't have the same "Wow" at how apt those rules are as I do with the outbreak and epidemic rules. A quick summary to make my record of games intelligible:
- it's a cooperative game.
- on each turn, you can spend actions to move, treat affected populations, discover a cure for a disease, and so forth.
- You win by discovering cures for all four diseases. You lose by exhausting the player draw deck, getting eight outbreaks, or by needing more cubes representing a particular disease than the game provides.

Pandemic seems to have a virtue of favoring close games, and because of this, I'm able to remember the games I've played pretty well. My record so far:

June 27, 2009 at Origins:
- The first game I watched seemed well in hand, with a plan for victory, when an unlucky infection phase set off two massive chain reactions of outbreaks that pushed the outbreak count from two to eight in one fell swoop. (Basic difficulty, four players)
- I played in the next game; we won because I constructed a careful plan that involved the final cure being discovered with the final action of the last turn before the player deck was exhausted. (Basic difficulty, four players)

August 1, 2009 at Kevin's:
- One game at basic difficulty, a fairly easy success. (Basic difficulty, four players)

August 10, 2009 at Kevin's: Three games with Kevin and Seth, all solid victories. The first game was at basic difficulty; the next two were at normal difficulty. One of the normal games was such a strong success that we had no outbreaks at all. This night may have lured me into a false sense of security.

August 15, 2009; three games with Dave, Kevin, and Andy.
- the first game was at basic difficulty, and was a solid success.
- the second game seemed in the bag; we had two of the four diseases completely eradicated, and we only had a couple of hot spots. Then we got an epidemic and a maximally unlucky infection phase that led to us running out of black disease cubes. Boom! (Normal difficulty)
- the third game went badly from the start, and we eventually succumbed to too many outbreaks. (Normal difficulty)

August 21, 2009:
- Dave, Kevin, Andy, and I played at normal difficulty. It was an exciting nailbiter of a game. We were on the edge of running out of blue disease cubes for quite some time. We finally got three diseases cured, and had the fourth disease ready to cure in three more turns, and we were starting to breathe a sigh of relief--but an unlucky infection phase gave us two more outbreaks, and we lost.

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:18:30 GMT

After yesterday's country-song pondering, I woke up with the title going through my head of "Duct Tape Can't Fix a Broken Heart".

In the shower, I came up with a chorus:

For fixing rips and tears and cracks it's been my truest friend,
I've fixed a hundred things with it--even ductwork now and then.
But now that it's not working, I don't know where to start--
I've learned that duct tape can't fix a broken heart.

Real song titles that I discovered while checking whether that title was already used:
"Booze is the Duct Tape of Life"
"Seal My Lips With Duct Tape"

Bad Country Song Titles

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:38:10 GMT

I've been rereading through the archives of Questionable Content (which I highly recommend).
One characters, Sven, makes a living writing cheesy pop-country songs. Some of his titles include "You Stole My Heart, You Stole My Dog, But You Ain't Gonna Steal My Chevy", "She dumped me so I had her trailer towed", and "Me an' You an' a Gun-Rack for Two".

This got me thinking about far-fetched country music titles. Of course, when working in a genre that's given us titles like "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" and "Dropkick Me Jesus (Through the Goalposts of Life)", it's hard to come up with a title that is too farfetched to be true.

So it seems to me that there's some opportunity for a game there that consists of a) trying to construct the most far-fetched song title possible, and b) taking the title seriously and coming up with a song (or approach to a song) that fits the title.

The first bad song title I came up with was "Fluids are Leaking From My Eyes."

When I started thinking about this title, though, it seemed pretty easy to come up with a treatment:
The singer is an emotionally unavailable man, who can't acknowledge that he's crying. So he's describing his grief after a breakup as if he's telling a doctor about his symptoms. The chorus begins:

So I told him...
Fluids are leaking from my eyes all right
And my chest hurts when I think about you at night
...

So here's the game:
With each reply, give a treatment for the song title that you're replying to, and then add a cheesy song title of your own for the next person to reply to.

Starting title: "Nothing For Me, But a Beer for my Dog". Take it away.

Alaska Trip Notes

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:10:33 GMT

I'm being really slow about posting entries about the rest of my Alaska trip, so I'm posting my notes. This might help me post entries from a different computer, and it might help me remember things once if I don't get entries posted.

7/4/09:
Fireworks

7/5/09:
DosBox for Frac
Celebration

7/6/09:
all-day flying

7/7/09
Palmer Museum
Palmer Colonial House museum
Musk Ox farm
Reindeer farm
halibut dinner - halibut baked in cracker crumbs, halibut grilled with cajun seasoning, halibut with crazy salt, halibut in foil with onions,
Headline: "Yup, it's hot: Tuesday hits a record 80 degrees"

7/8/09
Alaska Native Heritage Center
Aurora film
dinner at Sourdough Mining Company -- barbecued brisket for Ralph, fried halibut for Lori
Alaska Wild Berries--chocolate fountain

7/9/09
Iditarod Headquarters
Hatcher Pass
Independence Mine
moose near the road on way back
halibut tacos

7/10/09
Anchorage Museum of Art and History
Lunch: Muse (museum cafe) - golden seared scallops on angel hair pasta for Ralph, roasted beet salad and smoked salmon BLT for Lori
Anchorage shops -- Oomingmak, gift shops
Phyllis's - seafood salad for Ralph, crab cakes for Lori.

7/11/09
Train trip to Denali National Park
Bartender with curled mustache, guide who had yachted around the world
Breakfast on train: eggs, potatoes, reindeer sausage
Steward, Alaska: "husband gets elected every year, but he screws up and the wife impeaches him"
Lunch on train: reindeer chili, "key lime torte" for dessert
Curry, Alaska
Cantwell, Alaska: electricity -> TV in the bar -> America's Most Wanted -> bartender is wanted felon -> mayor gives tour to FBI agents -> mayor arrested for real estate fraud
Joke about railroad employee in moose suit
Denali: walked from WAC down to Glitter Gulch for horse carriage tour (which we missed), did shops, weighed down by gym bag
Dinner: Salmon Bake: King Crab Legs and pecan pie for Ralph; halibut crusted with parmesan and asiago, peanut butter brownie torte for Lori
To hostel

7/12/09
Breakfast at Creekside Cafe: eggs, reindeer sausage, hash browns for Ralph, pancakes and ham for Lori
Shuttle bus tour to Eielson: saw specks that might be sheep, caribou, grizzly bear with cubs. Didn't see Denali
Lunch of snack food
Dinner at Overlook -- charred burgers
Dessert at Creekside Cafe: "Wilmer Family's special strawberry and rhubarb coffee cake" for Ralph, carrot cake for Lori

7/13/09
Breakfast at Creekside Cafe: Oatmeal with blueberries and brown sugar for Lori, biscuit and gravy for Ralph, giant cinnamon roll shared
Sled dog demonstration
Train to Anchorage -- no air conditioning
Lunch on train: seafood salad sandwich for Ralph, smoked salmon spread for Lori
Dinner on train: Cod tortilla soup and fettuccine with vegetables for Ralph, pork ribs for Lori; dessert: fruit of the forest pie

7/14/09:
Trip to Seward
Lunch: Fred Meyer
Alaska Sealife Center
Tiny house in Seward
Dinner: Chinook's: Seafood Sauté plus $7 king crab for Ralph, Smoked Salmon Pasta with $7 king crab for Lori
Trivial Pursuit

7/15/09:
Sea life cruise
Captain missing two arms
Lunch: bagel and tasty smoked salmon
seabirds
sea lions
glacier
whale with calf
porpoises
sea otter
Dinner at Apollo: (see iPhone)
trip to lodge
broken car door
lodge

7/16/09:
Halibut fishing cruise
Captain Travis and Adam
Joe and Hector
massive seasickness
"I've put more into the ocean than I've taken out, and I might still be having more fun than shopping with my wife."
58-inch halibut
beating halibut to death "not more halibut than you can shake a stick at"
Dinner: Sourdough Express in Homer: burrito for Ralph, grilled salmon for Lori. Dessert: bread pudding for Lori and Frances, Rhubarb-strawberry crisp with raspberry for Ralph

7/17/09:
Jaden crawling
Adam: "Thanks for the crabs and the fishin' and baitin', thanks for the Meltons and the Graves and Jaden"
Drive back to Anchorage/Wasilla
Lunch: Summit Lake Inn: Halibut tacos for Ralph, ranch chicken sandwich for Lori
Dinner: Glacier Brewhouse: wood-grilled salmon on rice cake with roasted corn and grilled asparagus for Ralph, wood-rotisserie chicken quarter for Lori. Dessert: bread pudding for Ralph, peanut butter pie for Lori

Alaska Trip Day 2, 3, 4: Still in Texas

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:21:07 GMT

July 4:

For the second day of our visit, we mostly just hung around my parents' house.

In the evening, we went to see Richardson's fireworks show. It was a pretty good show. Because of the flat land of Texas, we were able to see distant parts of ten other fireworks displays.

July 5:

Again, we hung around my parents' house instead of venturing out into the summer heat. (100°F or so.)

I managed to develop an IT solution for a problem of my father's. He is deeply addicted to a game called Frac, a Tetris-like packing game with three dimensions and pieces that are all X*X*Y boxes. This game was originally developed for DOS in 1990. It had worked fine until a lightning storm clobbered my parents' computers, and the new system dragged them into the 21st century with Windows XP.

I downloaded a DOS emulator DOSBox for Windows XP, and that ran Frac successfully. But it didn't support the mouse the way my father is used to. To handle that, I downloaded a mouse driver and ran it within DOSBox, and that gave him the mouse control he'd been missing.

Dinner was at the Celebration with the Guilds. Jaden Guild (Allison's new baby) was a very happy kid, with plenty of admirers. This turned out to be a sign of things to come.

July 6:

We spent most of the day in flight to Anchorage (with stops in Salt Lake City and Portland). Jaden was as well-behaved as one could hope for. He slept through every takeoff and landing. He got fans on every flight who were happy to hold him and play with him.

Alaska Trip Day 1: Flying to Dallas

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:55:28 GMT

From July 6-July 18, we took a trip to visit my aunt and uncle in Alaska.

We started this trip by flying to Dallas, Texas on July 3. Dallas is not really en route to Alaska, but we went to Dallas for a couple of reasons:
1) My parents are there, and it's good to visit them.
2) My cousin is there, and was going to be flying to Alaska with her 7-month-old baby on July 6. Detouring through Dallas let us go along with her and help out if needed.

This is how Lori got us travel vouchers:

We arrived at the airport with plenty of time for our noon flight. We headed to the gate early, because we still needed to get seat assignments for the flight. The gate had a very long line; the guy ahead of me said that he was in line waiting to be rescheduled from a canceled 8am flight. (We later learned that there were 140 people scheduled for that flight.)
After a while of waiting in a slow-moving line, an announcement came over the loudspeakers that our flight was moved to another gate. I hustled to that gate in order to be at the head of that line.
It didn't help, though, because no airline employee came to that gate. After twenty minutes of waiting in line, at the time when boarding needed to start, a harried employee came over. She started boarding for those with boarding psses, but still didn't start handling those of us who did not.
Lori read over the shoulder of a teen posting to Facebook: "If we don't make it to this cruise, I might die." So Lori offered to the harried gate clerk, "You know, our plans our flexible."
The gate clerk gave Lori a look as if she'd thrown her a life preserver. She quickly tapped some keys, and said "I can put you on a direct flight at 4:30." We accepted and left the line, and things proceeded smoothly from there. The rest of the plane boarded, and she set up new tickets for us and gave us vouchers for future travel.
It was only then that we realized that though our original tickets were for Delta, she had rebooked us for American Airlines. The ticket price listed on the tickets was over $1000--comparable to the price we'd paid for the whole three-city trip. My conclusion: she was caught up in a domino chain of crises cascading from the one cancelled flight, and she was willing to pay over $2500 of Delta's money for us to break the chain.

We got to Dallas in a fine way, and got a barbecue fix from Dickey's Barbecue.

Roadfood Eating Tour

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:19:04 GMT

While I'm talking about Roadfood, I want to mention that Lori and I have signed up for the <a href="http://www.roadfood.com/Store/NewYorkEatingTour/">2009 Roadfood Eating Tour</a> in Buffalo and Rochester in September.

It's a whole weekend of touring Roadfood spots in the company of other foodies. I am so excited about this!

Origins 2009

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:11:35 GMT

We didn't do much actually at Origins this year. We mostly skipped the con itself, but we drove up on Saturday for the Colorbox's party, and went through the dealer's room on Sunday.

We drove out on Saturday, with a stop for Roadfood at Michael's Beef House and Coleman's Fish Market. Summary verdict: Michael's was not that special, but vastly better than Arby's. Coleman's was not worth a second visit.

The Colorbox party was a good party. I ended up playing Pandemic, which I quite enjoyed and intend to purchase. (One down side of this game: it brings out my bossy streak, since at the end, I found a way to win that required everyone to follow my plan exactly.) I also ended up playing a game of Goldbrau, a game of money-making through stock ownership in beer gardens and breweries. I won, but I didn't feel any great aptitude for the game.

Sunday, we went down for the traditional Sunday brunch with Origins friends, then bought a $3 dealer's room pass and walked around there. I didn't see that much to covet there. The most covetable sight was Geek Chic, who make heirloom-quality gaming tables and other accessories. Utterly droolworthy.

I noticed a few dealers with smaller displays, particularly Koplow Games and Out of the Box.

Digression: I noticed a lot of iPhones this weekend. In the room with the Pandemic game, almost everyone had an iPhone, and I saw a bunch in the convention as well. And lots of people had customized their phones with apps that served them--for example, a doctor's iPhone had medical references, and the Out of the Box president was using his iPhone to do credit card transactions. Apple really does have something solid here.

After the dealer's room, we went back to visit the Colorbox for a bit, and then left for home. We tried to stop at Mehlman's Cafeteria for another Roadfood stop, but a combination of getting off late and GPS error prevented us from dining there. But it often happens that when we seek roadfood, we find it, even if we don't find our original target, and that happened this time as well. We spotted a sign for Kirke's Homemade Ice Cream, called to learn that they were open late but didn't serve dinner, and visited there after a low-key dinner at Bob Evans.
I got a cone of black cherry rum ice cream that was <i>splendid</i>, with a wonderful rich rum taste. The ambiance was excellent also, because we were able to eat outside at a small gazebo and enjoy a beautiful sunset.
One particularly nice note about Kirke's was their size policy, as expressed in a sign that read (more or less) "You are the boss. We will serve any size you want, from marble to basketball, and charge you by the ounce." I like this a lot, because I am often pleased with smaller portions of ice cream.

The worst part of computer security is the people

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:21:30 GMT

So someone sent a message to the Apple list for discussing WoW that went like this (paraphrased):

I noticed a scam today.
I got a message about ... and to visit http://www.scammer-url.net (not the real URL) for more info.

Three people admitted that they had clicked on the URL in the message before the "scam" part of the message set in.

These are Apple employees, capable of thinking about these things. And the message was unambiguously claiming that the linked website was a phishing scam.

We just run on autopilot so much that we are vulnerable to such things. (I believe that I am not an exception, and that I am myself vulnerable.)

Fractal Pecan Pie

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:34:27 GMT

This quote from http://www.instructables.com/id/giant-fractal-pecan-pie/ reminded me of eub:

the thing they don't tell you about fractals is just how sharp and dangerous they are. i mean, you think you have a pretty good grasp of the mathematical analysis but until a piece of metal with a very high perimiter to surface area ratio tears into your flesh, you're really missing intuitive appreciation for objects that lack continuous derivatives almost everywhere.