"Oh...will save vs almond roca! ...failed..."
---Brian

I've got a whole ton of work to get done today, so it is likely I shall be unresponsive. To assuage your anguish over this, I give unto you pictures, possibly to be joined later by better pictures Sarah is putting up. We shall see.

From our recent snow week:

The house. Later all that snow near my car turned into a 2 inch sheet of ice I couldn't get out of.

First Street looking towards Dixwell.

Warren Street looking away from the house.

And from the balcony across the backyard.

I'm just going to blatantly copy Whir's latest post, here.

First, however, a message from our sponsors: Enjoy sleep in a normal fashion, normally.

If you thought that that was my favorite line from Fumoffu, you'd be mostly right. "Fumoffu!" beats it out, but only because it's accompanied by the appearance of Bunta-kun, who wins all comedy known to mankind. However, if he didn't win something, it would likely be won by Suzumiya Haruhi, whose anime wins on enormous levels. Just trust me on this.

I also watched the Shogun miniseries again. As many of you know, I like the story just a little bit. A touch. Some. Maybe. All I'm saying. Except that one of these days I want to own a katana.

Anyway. Moving on to the true purpose of this entry, which is to be annoyed at BF2 a lot. Let us examine:

It's not so much that the guns aren't accurate, because they actually ARE half the time, unlike in BF1942, where you had to aim slightly high to the left in order to snipe guys, which maybe worked. The real issue is that when you shoot them, it does no damage to them. Which leads to me shooting guys 8 times in the face with an M4 to put them down, and never mind hitting guys on burst. The bots seem to be a lot better at overcoming this, which annoys Whir to no end.

Even prone, the SAW and RPK are useless. You may as well not even be shooting at guys they're that bad.

They made the choppers a lot harder to drive, let alone jets, and I'm pretty sure the blast radius on rockets is a bit larger than 2 feet. Seriously, you're better off with hand grenades.

I seriously, seriously miss having a good battle rifle like the M14 or FN FAL. I miss being able to aim and actually hurt guys. The M16 tries, but.

But be that as it may, that's not really what I wanted to complain about. What I actually want to discuss are the maps, which are, well, way too damn big, and way too vehicle-ridden to be super fun. This is basically true 90% of the time. As Whir notes, it's seriously unfun to trek halfway across the universe to get to some base, and then get shot by a bot 30 seconds later and have to do it again.

There are exceptions to this. Strike at Karkand and Sharqi Penninsula are awesomely fun, but it's pretty hard to go wrong with urban maps. Mashtuur City and Road to Jalalabad aren't quite the greatest, but are still excellent. Kubra Dam is a great mix of infantry and vehicles, and may be, with Operation Hastings, one of the best maps of the sort in any of the games.

There's 9 other maps, though. And another 6 in Euro Force and Armored Fury, of which EF's Great Wall is awesome, and Taraba Quarry and Operation Smoke Screen are boring tank fests of the worst kind; while AF's maps all fall into the "sorta ok" range. On the other hand, there's Special Forces, whose 7 coop-capable maps are all fun, almost all the time.

Yes, I'm an infantry player. I make no apologies for that. Battlefield 2 has the potential to be a great infantry game, but for sheer excellent infantry action, Battlefield Vietnam is still the best game in the series. Actually, in all honesty, Battlefield Vietnam IS the best game in the series, and the only reason we aren't playing it right now is because the AI in BF2 is that much better, technologically.

So, what do I want to do about this? Get some infantry maps. While I'd like to see almost any level from BFV, the ones that were funnest and most within my grasp to recreate in BF2 are Operation Hastings and both Hue maps. I would like to recreate both Quang Tri maps (the final word in awesome city combat), but lack the models. Something like Operation Flaming Dart would be awesome, and of our custom maps, Last Stand and Village Assault are both in reach and fun. Honestly, I thought BF1942s maps failed, most of the time, but I do miss Market Garden. Part of me wonders what Omaha Beach would be like in BF2, but then I remember how Whir slaughtered my ass at Dalian Plant last night, and I stop thinking about it.

Any work done on this will be despite the editor, which is basically shit, and I assure you that calling it that is a great disservice to shit. It's seriously that bad, but that's another rant for another time.

In a bizzare mood today. Not enough sleep, thinking. Caught the view out my window, and kinda liked it, so I decided to share. This is Sarah's fault, though she doesn't yet know it.

Just because I did this tonight and I think I've worked it out, let's talk about food and the cooking thereof.

1. For pepper steak marinade, you need about a packet and a half or maybe two packets of marinade. Two is probably enough to cover the steaks properly. Probably need about 2/3 of the vinegar they recommend - tonight's came out pretty vinegary, though good.
2. Shaw's thin steaks are definitely not as awesome as Safeway's.
3. Broiling is totally the pro move on my oven. Unfortunately my oven sucks. I miss electric.

Now, on the supposition that you were going to fry some potatoes to go along with these steaks, no problem. If you start frying them about the same time you put the meat in, it should work out. Just, for the love of edibility, use dry, non-refrigerated potatoes. Just saying here.

And if you should be wanting to have rice, Mom's special rice recipe is:

2 parts water
1 part rice
1 tbsp or so of butter

Cook water for 10 min. Add rice. Cook for 10 min. Let sit for 10. Remember to stick some paper towels in the microwave, because it WILL run over.

For those of you who eat at my house on a semi-regular basis, these things may be worth remembering.

And seriously, if I could remember tongs and some parmesan next time I'm at the store, that would so totally help.

[22:20] Tonto_Marechal: No. The ONLY DOS games I ever played were Doom (i & ii), Duke Nukem, and Wolfenstein ... might have been two of those too ... but yeah. Only DOS games I ever played. Unless Oregon Trail counts. =p
[22:20] Dwip: Apple IIe Oregon Trail for the win.
[22:21] Dwip: Your attempt to ford the river has failed.
[22:22] Tonto_Marechal: lol. Lotta memories... not so much of making it to Oregon though.
[22:22] Dwip: Do it by the end of lunch if you didn't mess around hunting too much.
[22:23] Dwip: OTOH, hunting WAS that fun.
[22:25] Tonto_Marechal: Hunting was amazing.

Like ... like as amazing as the first time you liberate Holy Jerusalem from the despotic, godless, infidel grip of the Mohammadan robbers. It's just that good. =D

Because who can resist a good Marechalism?

This is Jason's fault, actually, for finding a good abandonware site and thus releasing in us a tidal wave of nostalgia for the games of our youth. Let us prod a few of them.

Empire Deluxe - After the original Empire and the Civilization series, maybe my most played game ever. Because there's an awful lot to be said for conquering the world. I spent a lot of time using my Jane's American Fighting Ships of the 20th Century to name my cruisers and things before sending them off to destroy the computer.

Fantasy Empires is what spawned this whole trip back in time, and for good reason. We used to play, well, utterly stupid amounts of this game after school and on weekends, because there was no greater thing than to take your enormous hero and run down somebody's army. It's so fun, I don't think Jason has entirely been with us in days.

Heroes of Might and Magic II - I'm trying to think of how many times we played this game, and in much the same way as Fantasy Empires, I don't think I can. There were entire weekends where we didn't even move from the computer because we played this so much.

Martian Dreams is a game that I kind of remembered being hard yet awesome. And upon replaying it, I realized that yes, it IS awesome, because honestly, was anything Origin ever put out not awesome (with the exception of Ultima IX)? I forgot how freaking hard it is, though. My party is almost dying in minor skirmishes. It's really hardcore, in a way I don't think games can get away with these days.

Sim Farm. Because oranges are awesome. And so are Sim games.

If you get the idea that 1993 was a good year in gaming, that's because it was.

Champions of Krynn, Death Knights of Krynn, and Dark Queen of Krynn - Back when RPGs were RPGs and the fights were awesomely scary. I don't even think BG2 had this level of tactical combat in it. The end of Gateway to the Savage Frontier was...well, epic.

I'm always going to have a mental image of a cleric with a staff sling in my mind from these.

Anyway.

So in the discussion threads for my management class, I spent a fair amount of time talking about my job at CC in relation to how management through fear does not, in fact, keep the peasants in line. Fair enough, I guess. Nice actual job experience.

And then, in the thread about participatory management, I wrote quite a bit detailing my experiences as Head Builder for Alsherok, and how to motivate one's employees to contribute ideas and suchlike.

I can tell you right now, when I was 17 and getting my assistant KL gig on Shard, I did not think to myself "Wow, this will totally be valuable management experience later on in life!" For that matter, I didn't exactly think that when I was Head Builder on Alsherok, either. But there you go.

Too, my cataloging class reminds me of area building, and I'm pretty good at the formatting for it, too. I'm going to blame the hundred or so times Tek and I crashed the Shard tmud with Celsea for that one. Tildes gain a lot more importance after that sort of experience.

But let us examine a chunk of MARC record:

020 159158230X|b(alk. paper)
020 1591582350|b(pbk : alk. paper)
040 DLC|cDLC|dBAKER|dAFQ|dCTN
042 pcc
049 CTNN
050 00 Z693|b.W94 2006
082 00 025.3|222
100 1 Taylor, Arlene G.,|d1941-
245 10 Introduction to cataloging and classification /|cArlene G.
Taylor ; with the assistance of David P. Miller

(That's a bit of the MARC record for my textbook, for the, uh, record)

And now for an old SillyMUD format object:

#23
amulet burgundy~
a small burgundy amulet~
You barely notice a small amulet discarded in the corner.~
~
11 200 5
0 0 0 0
1 1000 3001
A
1 2

[EDIT] And for even more fun, here's an AFK version 20 format object, which is closer to what I spent my building years working with. Often by hand, because I'm that guy.

#11011
quest item warrior helm~
A Warrior Quest Helm~
A Warrior Quest Helm. Any Immortal seeing this is to purge it immediately!~
~
armor~
glow magic bless onlywarrior~
take head~
~
10 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 9999 0 None None None
A hitroll 1
A damroll 1
A strength 1

And for kicks, an AFK 2.0 format version of our friend the burgundy amulet:

#OBJECT
Vnum 1405
Keywords burgundy amulet~
Type armor~
Short A small burgundy amulet~
Long You barely notice a small amulet discarded in the corner.~
Flags magic~
WFlags take neck~
Values 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Stats 1 10000 -2 9999 0 None None None
#ENDOBJECT

.nuf si sdrawkcab gniklat esuaceb

[/EDIT]

Miss that |d? It's gonna be really pissed off at you. Miss that ~? You're in a world of hurt.

Moral of the story? Gaming teaches you to be a useful and productive citizen! Game more!

Since I kind of talked about doing this in the last entry, and since the last entry has descended into a food fight, well, I'm just going to blather about what's on my reading list these days. The rest of you can just feel free to pimp your own reading lists or something.

In the recently read pile:

Joe Haldeman, The Forever War - An interesting little book, sort of Starship Troopers-esque, though parts of it remind me of Ender's Game. Our protagonist spends, well, a long time fighting in space. I liked it, though as with all SF of the same sort, I always giggle at the obligatory coed infantry units which are rampant orgies in the off time. I'm no professional, but I'd imagine you won't be seeing that anytime soon. I treat it sort of like fanservice in anime. It's part of the admission price, so giggle and get on with life.

Anyway.

Daniel Da Cruz, Boot - A refugee from Laurent's bookshelf, this is about a bunch of Marine enlistees in the 80s journeying through Parris Island. To be sure, this sort of literature is nothing new to me - when I was angling towards my own trip through the Army version, I read a bunch, and you can find plenty of blogs on the subject, from both ends.

I'm struck by the author's blatant nostalgia for the good old days of the 60s, where men were men and boys were scared, but maybe it really was that bad in the 80s. I dunno. 20 years ago and all.

Eric McAllister Smith, NOT By the Book - This is the memoir of an Army intelligence officer in Vietnam. I picked it up because I'm in the habit of collecting new and interesting memoirs from that war. It was interesting. Learned some things about something you don't hear about that often.

SM Stirling, A Meeting At Corvallis - Readers of this blog know that I'm a big fan of Stirling, and especially of the ISOT books. I thought the premise of the entire Dies the Fire/The Protector's War/A Meeting At Corvallis trilogy was more than a little strange, but I ran with it for a bunch of reasons.

1. I've lived in Corvallis and I spent 25 years in Oregon. That by itself makes these books cool.
2. Post-apocalyptic novels are cool. When they're set in places I know, featuring people in semi-fuedal settings running around with swords and longbows, it's hard to go wrong.
3. I do love the characters.

I'd like to talk about the plot, but I won't, because you really need to read the others (and the ISOT books too) beforehand. If this seems like an endorsement for said books, it is, because they are all awesome. Now if we could just get an ISOT sequel trilogy.

John Scalzi, The Android's Dream - Readers of this blog also know that I wholeheartedly endorse everything Scalzi's ever written, and his blog is on my daily reading list. So I liked the book, as I was predestined to. I'm not sure I liked it more than Old Man's War or The Ghost Brigades, and I definitely still think Agent to the Stars is his best, but there's some good stuff here. Like shoes. The shoes are good.

Moving into the currently reading pile...

Neal Stephenson, The System of the World - I've much to say on these books, because I've been reading them for like two years now, but really you have to have been there. I could describe for you the plot, or some of the things I find amusing, but it is all so much drivel if you aren't part of the club. So go get the entire Baroque Cycle, get Cryptonomicon, and go for it.

I'm about a third of the way through System. I swear I'll finish it soon. Really.

Peter Wright, Spycatcher - Another refugee from Laurent's bookshelf. I like it, because MI5 in the Cold War must be interesting, though the man does have an ego, and the Cuckoo's Egg this book is definitely not.

H Beam Piper, The Complete Paratime - Because I heard it talked about somewhere, and I think time travel stories are awesome, so here I am. I like it a lot. Sometimes a little obviously Cold Warish, but really good stuff, though I'm pretty sure you won't find any characters named Garnan of Roxor in this day and age, for the obvious reasons. Though yes, he does kind of roxor, in his way.

Haruko and Theodore Cook, Japan At War, An Oral History - I'm really only about halfway through, but I've been looking for something like this book for years, as part of my quest to find things written about wars America was in about, you know, the other side. And this book does that. And does it well, giving what would appear to be a perfect look at wartime Japan. Going to New York was worth it, just for this book. ;)

I have way too many books on the to read pile to talk about individually, so:

Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass - Sarah indoc. Which I might read when she reads Byzantium.

Stephen Collins, Caesar's Legion - More Sarah indoc. Romans are cool.

Charles Sasser, Raider - Again with the new and interesting war stories.

Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis, 1635 - Cannon Law - I should talk about this whole series at some point, because I love it.

James Kirschke, Not Going Home Alone - Another Laurent's bookshelf refugee.

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President's Men - Because I haven't read it and should.

Clive Cussler, Treasure of Khan - Even if he's scuba dived the shark, I still like Dirk Pitt novels.

SM Stirling, The Sky People - It's who it's by. Of course I'm reading it.

Juliet Barker, Agincourt - Hi, 3 for 2 Border's history book sale, we love you too.

John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War - Again, hi Borders. And because Sarah might even have the chance to take a class from this guy.

William Manchester, Goodbye, Darkness - Because I can't leave Powell's without a stack of military books.

Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August - Hi Borders. Always wanted to read this.

David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas - Because Powell's is Powell's and David McCullough is awesome. I listened to two people on the plane back from OR talking about his books, and resisted leaping into the conversation.

And as to the "I didn't get these for Christmas but still need to read them" pile:

Stephen Ambrose, D-Day - Got this fall of '04. Like all the oldies, it keeps slipping through cracks, though I've read its successor and most of his other works.

Joseph Ellis, His Excellency, George Washington - On the list since Christmas of '04. Largely pre-empted by a slew of library books, work, and going back to school.

Thomas Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem - Jason got this for me for birthday '05, which in hindsight was a tragic time to be getting me books.

Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat - I got this in September '06, so I can feel ok about not having read it yet.

Stephen Pressfield, Gates of Fire - Laurent gave me this how long ago? In my defense, I tried reading it while sick, and just couldn't do it. And now it waits.

Jared Diamond, Collapse - Since October '06. And which one of you bastards has my copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel, anyway? Give it back.

Peter Ackroyd, London, the Biography - Thanks, Sarah. I swear I'll get there sooner rather than later. Honest. London's cool.

William Shirer, The Rise And Fall of the Third Reich - Because I started this in 7th grade and never actually got back to it.

John Keegan, The Face of Battle - Since Christmas '05. A really unfortunate time for reading, to be sure.

This is to say nothing of other books still boxed in OR.

I'm really typing this so I don't need to read my homework, so be warned I guess.

[05:49] Dwip: *sigh* Mac people.
[05:50] Dwip: Also Linux people.
[05:50] Whir: Eh?
[05:52] Dwip: Oh, reading people talking about Vista. The comment thread is overrun with people going "omg win0wz is teh sux0rz lol"
[05:52] Whir: Pft.
[05:52] Dwip: Mostly people going "Yeah, OS X is the shit."
[05:53] Dwip: You know, I've used OS X about twice. How people actually get anything done on Macs is beyond me.
[05:53] Dwip: Then again I have the most bizzare desktop setup known to man.
[05:54] Whir: You do, actually.
[05:54] Whir: I can do stuff in OSX, it's not too bad.
[05:56] Dwip: I tried on Laurent's laptop a couple times. I guess you might use it for things, but I fail to see the fuss.
[05:56] Dwip: And Linux people, well, let us not go there.
[05:56] Dwip: Also I just feel the need to rip on Apple for the one button mouse thing.
[05:57] Dwip: In 40 years, when everyone's using thought controlled computers, I'll still be ripping on Apple for the one button mouse.
[05:58] Dwip: "Right, ok. So hold this key on the keyboard down, and drag things with the mouse. It's such a good move."
[05:58] Dwip: No, really, it's not. You're fucking high.
[05:59] Whir: They don't have one-button mouse anymore.
[05:59] Dwip: And let's be honest. Appleworks has always sucked.
[06:00] Dwip: You think reality matters to me in a case like that?
[06:01] Dwip: I mean, fuck. It's a mouse with one button. It's like saying "Ok, guys. There's the barbarian hordes. Take this wooden sword. Good luck."
[06:01] Whir: You have issues.
[06:01] Dwip: Just noticed that did you?
[06:02] Dwip: Besides, what are people doing with Win XP that's so goddamn unstable, anyway?
[06:02] Dwip: Which seems to be half the problems people have.
[06:03] Whir: I have no idea.
[06:03] Whir: Works pretty well for me.
[06:03] Dwip: Like, I might have made it BSOD once.
[06:03] Dwip: Actually a few times, but that was because my laptop's HD ate itself.
[06:03] Dwip: Every so often a program crashes.
[06:04] Dwip: And, uh...that's it, really.
[06:04] Dwip: I mean, it's not like it's WinME here.
[06:05] Dwip: "You glanced at your monitor. Windows must crash to maybe possibly update settings. Or maybe it's really eating your registry. Who knows?"
[06:05] Dwip: Or Win95. "You have moved your mouse." *BSOD*
[06:06] Dwip: I obviously need sleep.

Brought about by this post of John Scalzi's, a dose of this review that was linked somewhere, and childhood scarring brought about by an Apple IIe.

To be honest, of course, this is just me randomly poking things with sticks. It's pretty unlikely I'll be getting Vista any time within, say, the next couple of years. Because, honestly, XP Pro does everything I need it to do, and does it in a way that I'm very comfortable with. About my only complaint is that it doesn't save folder views in Explorer very well. And you know? I can deal with that. I'm ok with that.

I'm wildly curious, as I alude to in the IM, about the number of people who think XP is a buggy, crash-prone thing. Because seriously, I do a lot of stuff with my computer. I game on it, I use it to type documents, look at photos, you name it. I use all sorts of bizzare 3rd party applications. And you know how many times I've had any issues at all?

1. On the laptop, I kept getting BSODs and eventually had to reinstall. This is because my hard drive destroyed itself. XP is nowhere to blame.

2. Had to reinstall on my desktop once. Why? I rebuilt the entire system with more or less all new components. Not Windows' fault.

3. Bootup issue #1: Power got cut suddenly, comp went off, took two tries to get XP back up. Marginally XP's fault.

4. Left my flash drive in. BIOS tried to boot from it. Not XP's fault.

That's in about 5 years of using XP, since 2002. How this compares to my experience with Windows 98 and 95 is best left unexamined for the sake of those older OSes.

Now, all jesting aside, I guess Mac people are happy with what they have, and Linux people somehow deal with what they have. I already know that I'll be going to Vista at some point. It's really like this:

1. I've been using MS operating systems since like, MS-DOS 5 or so. All my stuff works on Windows.

2. I'm a gamer. No matter what they try to claim, Macs and Linux lose right there. All by itself this is the biggest reason.

3. MS Office. No, Open Office and anything I've ever used on a Mac, you lose. Sorry about that. But as much as I love to hate Access, I actually like Office fairly well.

4. I have yet to meet an Apple OS, including OS X, that I like. I was also traumatized by the one button mouse, but. The less we talk about the abortions that I find Linux interfaces to be, the better. Here's a hint, guys: Command line interface? SO 1980s.

5. Also, I'm a gamer. I may have mentioned this.

Now, as regards Vista, my biggest issues are:

1. Does it do anything I really gotta have right now? If I read that review right, not really. Maybe security. Since I basically have zero trouble ever with that sort of thing, I am not so worried as I might otherwise be. I could really care less about it looking awesome, because, well, let's be honest here. Windows Classic UI pretty much exists for me. Sideboard? Media center stuff? Couldn't care less. Maybe search, maybe explorer if they didn't fuck it up completely (I'm that guy that was using File Manager until they took it out in XP, and was horrified by My Computer).

2. Can I run Ultima VII on it? Presumably on the 32 bit versions. Jury's out on 64. Since 64 is the wave of the future, I am unhappy about this. Yes, I have an irrational love of games that are going on 20 years old.

I should probably do homework now.