Wallpaper, Wedding, and WoW

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Apr 272010

Cody’s going out of town for business, making tonight out last night together until Sunday. This is very sad. There is, however, a silver lining. I get to “surprise” her1 when she returns by presenting a de-wallpapered pantry, ready for painting. She has been on me to finish de-wallpapering it…well, pretty much since we stopped major housework after finishing the kitchen walls. So, while I’m not looking forward to doing it, I’m looking forward to having it done and making her happy.

Speaking of done and happy, the wedding website is finally live.

A random collection of WoW-related thoughts follows.

  • After spending several hours researching and implementing a customized UI for Jakosta, live use made it clear that it was a big pile of fail. With some more research, a few more addons2, and some alterations to existing addons, I think I may have something truly awesome. Won’t have a chance to test it until tomorrow, though.
  • Speaking of Power Auras, I got absurdly excited about it once I first tried it out. I immediately started wondering how I might apply it to Deowyn as well. After running my heroic for the day, I realized that it would be useful for at least two reminders: when I’m in combat without the Glyph of Life Tap buff active, and any time that Fel Armor isn’t active. Might also be worth having one when Haunt is available for casting, though I think the Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text notice I have for that is sufficient.
  • Every time I hear “Everybody’s trance dancing tonight” from the DMB song “So Right,” I think “Everybody’s stance dancing tonight,” and want to make up some alternate, WoW-themed lyrics to the song.
  • I think WoW has become my favorite hobby, which is amusing. Every time I worry about it, I just think about Jace’s “I Play W.O.W.” song and feel better. That said, I’m hoping to do some novel editing and guitar playing while Cody’s away, too.

I’m tempted to rant about driver etiquette, but have lost the gumption for the time being. My urge to write such missives tends to peak while I’m, y’know, driving, which is a somewhat inconvenient time to compose them.

  1. It’s not really a surprise when I’ve already declared my intention to do it. [↩]
  2. Power Auras FTW! Holy crap! [↩]
Posted by McC at 10:41 Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Vocabulary Atrophy

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Apr 232010

“Obviate.” I know this word. I have encountered it in the past. I’ve used it. I also cannot currently recall what it means1.

This happens to me often. I’ve encountered thousands of words2, but I simply don’t retain them all due to use atrophy. It’s a problem with my primary language, but even more evident in my secondary one, German. Every time I hear spoken German, I can understand about 25% of it3, definitely don’t know about a third or more of it, but the remainder consists of vocabulary that I recognize, and at one time did know off the top of my head4, but no longer do due to disuse.

This problem tends to constrain my vocabulary. To some, it may sound like I indulge in excessive, multisyllabic verbiage. To me, I always sound as though I’m faking clever vocabulary by repeatedly returning to the same core group of so-called “big words.” I wonder: is there a remedy for this?

A related linguistic anecdote from high school springs to mind when this topic presents itself. During my sophomore year, my family and I hosted a German high school student5. He reacted with surprise to vocabulary homework in our English class. He understood having it in our foreign language classes, but to have it in the class ostensibly dealing with our primary language prompted an “Americans are stupid” expression to cross his face6.

That said, he probably had a point: his English vocabulary and comprehension often seemed to exceed that of many of my classmates.

  1. Dictionary.com remedies that, of course and now having written that sentence, I am refreshed on what it means. [↩]
  2. Across several languages, no less. [↩]
  3. Being generous. [↩]
  4. I just had a moment where I asked myself, “Isn’t there a single word for ‘off the top of my head?’ Case in point. [↩]
  5. This isn’t the sort of year-long hosting that one often means, but rather a short two-week visit sponsored by our respective foreign language classes. [↩]
  6. Or at least, that’s how it seemed to me. This might have been my own self-conscious, guilt-ridden reading of a much more innocuous reaction. [↩]
Posted by McC at 12:12 Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Flying discs, drugs, dragons, and laying out

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Apr 222010

It seems that the heavy breathing that accompanied playing frisbee1 on Tuesday over-exposed me to allergens to a sufficient degree that I had a sinusitis flare-up. Normally, once my allergies have come and gone, they stay gone. With all of the wonky weather, and the resultant effects on pollen distribution, I guess it’s not all that surprising. Fortunately, Claritin and Sudafed2 appear to be working their biochemical wonders adequately enough to keep me largely human.

Had a very smooth Sartharion run last night for the weekly raid. Five guildies and five pugs. No one died, and our resident tank and the pugged tank both rolled 100 on one of the items that dropped3. I’m getting close to happy with Deowyn’s UI, but I still feel like I have a long way to go before I have an adequate tanking UI for Jakosta. It doesn’t help that Jakosta doesn’t really do any tanking yet, and so I’m not just creating a UI that makes sense for leveling, but also one that makes sense for tanking in the future. This might be foolhardy, but the last thing I want to do is try to learn to tank while also learning my way around a retooled UI. So far, this is the best tank UI I’ve seen. It’s too cluttered for my taste, but it has a lot of elements that I do like. It’s also widescreen, which means even a direct adaptation would take some juggling.

I’ve spent more time fiddling with Jakosta’s UI lately than I have actually playing her. Maybe I’ll get a chance tonight.

  1. There’s a large contingent of 38 employees that utilize their lunch breaks for playing Ultimate Frisbee. I have been an infrequent participant thus far due to my damn allergies hitting more or less right when I joined the company and the weather got nice. [↩]
  2. Real Sudafed, not that placebo Sudafed PE crap. If it doesn’t have Pseudoephedrine HCl in it, don’t buy it; it doesn’t work. [↩]
  3. Our tank then won the roll-off by 2, so yay for her! [↩]
Posted by McC at 13:18 Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You have already been assimilated

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Apr 202010

As mentioned yesterday1, I designed a new folder schema2 in the hopes that a simple, logical, planned hierarchy would make organization and maintenance easier. I started moving files this evening. This is no small feat when it involves around half a terabyte of data3. Fortunately, all of the path-critical stuff4 moved without any complaints.

My parents came to visit this past weekend. With them, my mother brought me a bluetooth headset that she originally purchased for herself, but never used. Having used it today to chat with her and my dad on my drive home from work, I have to say that I’m impressed. It’s a pretty awesome device for something so small. And I admit: tapping my ear and saying “Call <x>” to make a call makes me feel pretty futuristic. There are still some problems in the whole voice recognition department5, but that’s par for the course.

Speaking of technology, and coming to the actual observation that prompted this post, I walked by the living room just now where Cody was watching Glee. She had her laptop set out in front of her as she watched. After a few incidental thoughts about how curious it is that we, as a society, are no longer content consuming media in one form at a time, I thought back to an article I read many years ago regarding the integration of humans with their electronics (i.e. cyborgs). The author of this article proposed that we were already cyborgs; it was just a matter of degree.

We are often tied to our computers. The Internet is the conduit through which many of us communicate, inform ourselves about current events, and educate ourselves about the world6. Many of us now depend on computers as part of our ability to execute our profession successfully. Many of us depend on computers for the existence of our professions7.

None of this is to say we would be non-functional without them8, but rather that they are thoroughly entwined with our day-to-day existence. With that in mind, will actual electronic-body integration be all that remarkable a thing? A technical achievement, absolutely. But will it truly revolutionize anything? Or will it be just another progression from room-sized computers to tower PCs to laptops to netbooks to smartphones? It’ll be hard to get smaller than the current smartphones9 without impairing their usability. The only place left to go is in — inside your head, integrated with your eyes and ears, etc.

But is that really all that different?

I am, as it may be obvious, not someone who is particularly intimidated by technology’s progression. I think it does far more good than harm10 and it’ll only get better. Sure, there’s always risk, and as the technology advances, so too does the risk. Risk doesn’t mean danger, though. It just means that you stand to lose or gain in varied measure.

The other day, I had a narrative scene pop into my head11 wherein a group genetically/biologically “perfect” humans squared off against cybernetically-augmented humans. The face off was more or less a pissing contest, and went something like this:

“We are pure and perfect. Your capabilities may infrequently exceed ours, but at least we don’t have machines defiling our bodies.”
“Yeah. Too bad for you on that one.”

I think that sums up my feelings.

  1. Okay, technically this morning. [↩]
  2. The plural for schema is schemata, not schemas, by the way. [↩]
  3. Admittedly, I probably don’t need to have half a terabyte of data just sitting around on my disk drives, hence the effort to organize. [↩]
  4. Mainly, my internal home webserver that I use for proofing out ideas before they go live [↩]
  5. “Call Home.” “Did you say…Send a Message to Voicemail?” “…no.” [↩]
  6. For good or for ill; that’s not really the topic I’m addressing [↩]
  7. I certainly wouldn’t be a technical artist without computers. The position wouldn’t exist. [↩]
  8. Though, admittedly, much of our modern society relies on computers for smooth operation. [↩]
  9. Without some kind of virtual projection technology, anyway. [↩]
  10. It’s the anti-religion! [↩]
  11. This happens quite often. If I recorded every one of these scenes, I’d have volumes of material. [↩]
Posted by McC at 22:14 Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Whoa, a post!

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Apr 202010

So, yeah. My profuse apologies for being so lackadaisical about posting for the last, oh, four months. Quite a bit has happened that’s kept me otherwise preoccupied.

First, there was that whole winter holidays thing. Second, upon returning to work following the winter holidays, I was informed (along with many, many others) that I no longer had a job. Downsizing, division cutting, etc. Basically, the company retooled itself into something completely different. C’est la vie. First thing I did when I got home was start working on my website/resume/etc. By the end of that week, I’d already sent out several inquiries.

Fast-forward through two months of hand-wringing, and a lot of WoW-playing, and I find myself working at 38 Studios. I can’t say enough about how awesome a company 38 is. You’ll have to read about it for yourself. I will say this: it’s an incredible feeling to be working on something that excites you. I can’t provide any details, I’m afraid, but I can’t wait for our game to come out just so I can play it! The only downside is the hour-long commute1, but audiobooks are helping me get through that2. I’m so jazzed to get to work every day that the commute really doesn’t matter. I end up voluntarily working 9-10 hour days, without even realizing I’ve done so until I look at the clock and it dawns on me that I should probably think about going home at some point.3

Wedding planning has continued, though sluggishly. We’re starting to pick up steam now that I’m working again, though, so that’s good. We finally got rid of our rattling, rumbling, not-at-all-working dryer and purchased a new, awesome dryer4. I did the first lawn mow of the year today, with much success. Mower seems none the worse for wear having spent the winter in the shed.

Still haven’t finished5 editing the novel I wrote in November, but now that things are settling back into something resembling normalcy and I’ve had a chance to recharge my batteries, I’m ready to dive back into the little world I created. I’ve also speced out a new system that I plan to upgrade to in the near future6. In preparation for that, and because I’ve been meaning to do it for a while, I pre-designed the file structure that I plan to use for my new system. Hopefully, it will keep me somewhat organized.7

Since the weather is finally getting nicer, I’m also getting the itch to finish off the various house projects that remained incomplete once the cold weather set in. Chief among these are finishing the pantry and repainting the upstairs bathroom. Once those are done, I want to replace the screen doors on both entrances with ones that actually open in a logical direction. I may replace the back door altogether. It’s fine as a barrier to entry, but it’s pretty drafty.

As if all that weren’t sufficient, there are a ton of weddings and other events on the horizon: my friend Jen is getting married in May, our friends Keith and Lisa are getting married in June (and I’m in that wedding as a groomsman), my birthday and bachelor party are at the end of July, I’m getting married in August (and Keith is in that wedding as a groomsman), and our friends Christina and Alex are getting married in October.

To top things off, also spurred on by the improving climate, I’m considering actually tackling some of the costume-making ideas I’ve had kicking around for years.8 I have no idea how I’m going to fit all this together.

Somehow, I always manage.

I’ll also be making an effort to write more here. Ideally, I want to post once or more a day, just so that I’m writing something every day. Practically, of course, that’s not likely. Ah well.

Thanks for reading!

  1. And that’s one way! [↩]
  2. So far, The Mote in God’s Eye (Niven, Pournelle), The Last Colony (Scalzi), American Gods (Gaiman), Zoe’s Tale (Scalzi), and about half of The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger. [↩]
  3. Fortunately, Cody is so happy that I’m happy about my job that she doesn’t mind at all. [↩]
  4. They even delivered it the next day, and hauled away our old one, all for free! [↩]
  5. Okay, I admit it, I haven’t actually started the editing process in any concrete way. Lots of brainstorming, but no tangibles. [↩]
  6. My current machine will become our house server, running Ubuntu of course [↩]
  7. Knock on wood, and all that. When it comes to organization, I’m a contradiction: I’m always disorganized and I can’t stand disorganization. Mm, self-loathing. Tasty. [↩]
  8. Yes, stormtrooper armor is on the top of that list, thank you very much. [↩]
Posted by McC at 01:11 Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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