dork's demesne

Voiding my Warranty

2011-03-19T19:41:00.006-05:00

I dedicate this rare blog post to my father, who taught me everything I know about sawing the useless bits off of expansion cards so that they'll actually fit in the goddamn motherboard. Thanks, Dad!! :)

I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC

2009-10-20T21:16:00.011-05:00

For the past couple of years, I haven't been a PC; I've been a Mac. I got a MacBook Pro some time ago, and gave my PC to my dad. And, so we're clear, it's been great; I love the Mac platform, the Mac hardware, everything.

But, I recently decided I missed something about the PC. The games, the modularity, the upgrading and reading about new tech...there's something there that I'm not getting with the Mac. So, while I haven't switched (and have no plans to do so), I did go ahead and buy the parts for a new gaming PC.

I think I'd sort of forgotten how much there is to such a project: learning about, and then selecting and buying, a case, motherboard, CPU, hard drive, optical drive, graphics card, power supply, and some good ol' RAM...plus, if you're serious (and boy, was I serious), an aftermarket CPU heatsink and fan. Ah, and, of course, an operating system (man, I love Linux, but the sad reality is that you need Windows for gaming), and we might as well throw in a KVM switch so I can have both my MacBook and my PC plugged into my big-ass Apple Cinema display. I mean...just look at all that stuff!

So, anyway, the last of it arrived on Monday, and I set to putting it all together. It had been years since I'd done anything like this, and so I was a little rusty. I sat for a minute with parts strewn all around me, wondering where I should start. In the end, I recalled the words of the immortal Captain Ron: "If anything's gonna happen, it's gonna happen out there." I grabbed the motherboard, half at random, and set to installing it in the case.

The only problem that arose there is with the fact that I'm not entirely sure Lian-Li wasn't telling a bald-faced lie when they claimed that the motherboard tray in their otherwise very spiffy case was removable. I still have no idea how that thing would detach from the case. Oh well. I got the board installed anyway.

Next went the CPU, an Intel Core i7 920, which I chose over the AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition only because I live not far from a Micro Center, and (at the time of this blogging) they have an outrageous discount on the i7 920: $150 off, for a total price of $200, just $10 or so above that of the AMD processor. Nice. No problems getting that in, either. It was a bit crazy, though, thinking about the whole quad-core processor thing. Last time I did this, we had one core (in fact, I don't think we even really used the word "core"), and we were happy in those days!

Then, the heat sink and fan. You see, the stock cooling apparatus that comes with the i7 920 CPU, being roughly the size of a Volkswagen Golf, is clearly inadequate for the task of keeping any serious system from overheating. Thus, we turn to the Cooler Master Hyper 212+.

The whole thing astounds me. Tiny little CPU, stonking great big heat sink and fan. I remember when the heat sink was barely bigger than the processor itself. Anyway, so, yes, this thing is huge. Thermal grease (helpfully included with the Hyper 212+ kit) goes on the CPU to help conduct heat. Then we screw the heat sink into the motherboard so it presses down on the CPU a bit, and then we attach the fan to the heat sink via some rather arcane wires. Oh yeah, and we swear loudly at whoever thought it was a good idea to have the Hyper 212+ installation instructions be composed of virtually nothing but overly detailed (but very small) line drawings. Very helpful, with the lines, and the other lines, and the near complete lack of depth. Thanks.

Anyway, I eventually figure out how to get the fan going. Keen. Now it's RAM time, and I easily install the OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 Gold Low-Voltage Triple Channel kit. 6 GB of memory (the very thought still dazes me a bit), done and done. Time to stick in the power supply, and start hooking things up!

Dear God. When I opened the box to the power supply unit, I swear to you, power cables sprang out at me like tentacles at a Japanese cartoon schoolgirl. Yet another thing I don't remember from my earlier days of computer construction. Talk about a snarl. Fortunately, my case came with a little cable organizer thing near the PSU that I could push the unused cables into to keep them out of the way. Applause, Lian-Li.

Graphics card time! I went with the Diamond Radeon HD 5850. The 5850 seems like a great balance of performance and price, and it seems the rest of the world agrees, seeing as how it's one of the only ATI-based cards that retailers can't seem to keep in stock. I have no particular brand loyalty to Diamond, though they do nice enough work; it was just the first brand of 5850 I found that I was actually physically capable of purchasing.

Anyway, that's not half so interesting as the expansion card slot management system Lian-Li's case has going on. Normally, the blanks for the slots in a case are held in by screws, and you have to unscrew it, remove the blank, add the card, and then screw it in. In this case, you just pull up the lever, remove the blank, add the card, and push the lever back in to clamp the card into place. Very clever! Applause again, Lian-Li.

Now, the main OS and programs disk drive (an OCZ Vertex 120 GB solid-state drive) and the data storage drive (a Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB drive). It's my first time installing SATA drives, but I figure it out easily enough. Then the DVD drive; it's an IDE/ATAPI drive, and old hat. No worries.

I start connecting the case switches, fan power lines, and LED lines to the motherboard. Just one little snag: the motherboard expects the power LED line to use two pins (PLED- and PLED+), but the case demands three (PLED-, N/C, and PLED+). Ugh. Quickly, Robin - to the Internets!

I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, but Someone Else had a similar problem, and they just poked the PLED+ wire out of the line with a pin, and stuck it the N/C (no connection, i.e. unused) hole in the plug, and then everything fit all right. Works for me! I still don't know why there was this inconsistency -- isn't the ATX standard supposed to prevent stuff like this, or something? But, whatever. I have better things to do, like finish this installation!

I'm just about done. All I need to do now is install the I/O port panel shield, and I'm ready to go!

You should have heard how I swore when I realized the shield needed to go on the inside of the case, before I installed the motherboard. Mom would have been proud. ;)

Well, nothing for it. I unscrewed the motherboard and moved it just enough to be able to put the shield in, fought with the alignment for a while, and finally managed to get everything to fit right. Screw screw screw, all good!

Anyway, from there, it was more or less all gravy. The KVM switch I got works pretty well, although I need an audio cable extender or something so I can fit it 'round the side of my MacBook. Windows 7 RC installation went smoothly, and it's pretty quick. Getting the graphics card drivers to work right was a bit of a bear, but I eventually managed that too. A couple of not-exactly-bleeding-edge games (Orange Box and Painkiller) run perfectly at the highest available settings, which is nice! Also ran a memtest to prove that all six gigs of RAM are fully functional. Stick a fork in this big black 2001-reminiscent obelisk: it's done.

More pics! Enjoy!

Final system configuration:

I am the Walrus

2009-09-13T21:43:00.004-05:00

Since I am insane and think I have more money than I really do, I bit the bullet today and drove down to Best Buy and bought a Playstation 3, along with The Beatles: Rock Band.

It's crazy. I've played Rock Band before, at a friend's place, and so I knew it was a good time. But this game brings it to a whole new level. Not only is it all Beatles music (thus making it consistently and unfailingly awesome), but there's harmonizing -- you can hook up three microphones and sing it like the Beatles really did. I don't have the mics to do it, but I could. Crazy.

It's also kind of fun because I know the songs well enough that I can do both guitar and vocals on Easy mode at the same time. Which I did. Because I want to be everybody except Ringo. (Sorry, Ringo. I still love you.)

I also picked up Assassin's Creed, because it was relatively cheap and I'd heard good things. I'll have to try that now, since my throat hurts too much from Rock Band to keep playing that. Anyway, for the Rock Band Beatles game, two thumbs up.

New and Interesting Things

2009-06-18T18:37:00.002-05:00

I am surprised to find that, after having owned my MacBook Pro for almost two years now, I'm still learning new things about it. Like, for instance, this:

If you place two fingers on the touch pad while you click, you'll make the context menu pop up - just as if you'd command-clicked or right-clicked on a two+ button mouse.

Found that out by accident the other day. I wish I'd known a lot earlier - that's useful!

iPhone, weeeeeeee!

2009-02-07T18:25:00.002-06:00

After finally hauling my butt to the gym, I took advantage of the lovely Spring-like weather and took a nice, relaxing drive, with windows down and sunroof open, to the Apple store to buy an iPhone, from which I am blogging this very post.
Hence: weeeeee! :)

This just in

2008-12-17T11:58:00.002-06:00

I have rosacea. Weeeeeeee!

On the bright side, this means I'm just like Bill Clinton and Mariah Carey. Bet you didn't think that was even possible.

Moving on

2008-12-15T21:50:00.003-06:00

So, the company I work for is in the process of moving its offices, and last Friday was the last day I would work in the area in which I've spent most of my waking time for the past seven years. I knew it was coming, but it was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be. I really had to take a moment to say good-bye.

The new office space is very nice, and I'm sure I just need to get used to it...but the old place was home. I'm going to miss it.

MCS: Break-in complete!

2008-11-29T16:57:00.003-06:00

Finally hit 1,200 miles the other day, which completes my new MINI Cooper S's break-in period. Now I can rev it up past 4,500 rpms. I mean, without feeling a little bad about it. Which is nice. It's just so much fun.

I've had the car for about three months now, and I still totally love it. I sometimes wish I'd bitten the bullet and bought one with a manual transmission instead, and just taught myself to drive it...but, to be honest, the automatic transmission is pretty awesome. I love using the flappy paddles, and when I don't feel like shifting, I can just throw it in automatic mode and not worry about it.

Now all I have to do is get the driver's side butt-warmer fixed and figure out how to take it to a track so I can drive absurdly fast. You know, without breaking the law and endangering innocent people.

What a dream I had

2008-09-20T10:50:00.007-05:00

It has come to my attention that many MINI owners are so obsessive about keeping their cars in pristine condition that they put them in a garage during the winter months, and drive an old beater car instead, thus protecting their Coopers from the salted roads and such.

While I have no intention of doing this, I had a dream the other night in which I decided I needed to similarly go out and buy an old beater to drive. And my choice? This:

A new BMW 3-series. That's right -- my "beater" was a beautiful sports car that costs, base, about $4,000 more than the (heavily-optioned) car it was meant to protect. I think I need to be really rich. Or to stop eating pizza before bedtime. One or the other.

Speaking of my car, though, I've got nearly 300 miles on it, and it's been an absolute dream. Gave myself quite a fright driving down Lakeshore Drive a few nights ago, when I hit two potholes right in a row -- I've read about people ruining their run-flat tires and even their rims doing that. Fortunately, all seems well. The little guy's tougher than I thought! It must be the stripes.

MINI Commercials

2008-09-09T08:03:00.002-05:00

Kossan.se

Heh heh. :)

2008 MINI Cooper S, Yo

2008-09-08T17:28:00.004-05:00

Wow - it has been a long time since I've blogged! Since last I posted, the 2008 Olympics have come and gone, I took a couple of weeks off work to slack off, and I bought a new car.

Here, gentle readers, is my 2008 MINI Cooper S. Some say these cars are gay; I say they are freaking awesome.

I've never had so much fun driving a car in my life. These things are crazy. Nimble, fast, and no slouches when it comes to fuel economy and gadgets! A brother could do worse.

iPod, uPod, we all pod for iPod

2008-05-08T20:13:00.008-05:00

So the other day, my iPod, a 4th generation 20 GB model from a few years back, started flaking out on me. It froze up, which didn't worry me, since it had done that before, and all it took was a quick reboot¹ to bring it back to life. This time, however, that procedure sent the poor device into an endless cycle of rebooting - a cycle I could do nothing to break.

Fearing the worst, I ran a few diagnostics² to reveal the problem: hard drive failure. Excellent.

Well, I'd been thinking about getting an iPhone for quite some time, because they're so damn cool and stuff. If this wasn't an excuse to go out and nab one, I don't know what was...except that, according to the rumor mill, a new version of the iPhone, one supporting 3G network connectivity, is due out sometime this year - possibly within the next few months - and I truly hate buying expensive equipment only to have it become second-rate immediately afterwards.

Anyway, I needed an iPod to tide me over until I was ready to take the plunge into iPhone-land. I could have gotten an iPod classic for about $250, but then I'd have felt like a chump if the next iPhone model came out a month later. The Shuffle was another option, since I mostly only use my iPod to listen to a single playlist in shuffle mode while working out anyway - and at about $50, the price was certainly right. On the other hand, I knew I'd get frustrated with it if the new iPhone took more than a few months to come out.

So, for about one-fifty, I went and bought myself a nano.

Dear, sweet Lord, is this thing tiny. I put it in my jacket pocket for a little while, and I had to keep touching it to make sure it hadn't fallen out. It doesn't come with a clip, so I bought a nice little incase sleeve/belt clip for it, so that I don't have to hold it in my mouth while I work out, which I could easily do, by the way.

The model I bought was the cheaper, 4 GB model, which is fine; not enough to hold everything in my iTunes library, but certainly enough to hold what I generally feel like listening to in this phase of my life. The screen is gorgeous, bright, and colorful - it's my first color iPod, so I'm still not used to that.

I was skeptical of the whole "watching videos on a two inch screen" thing, so I spent a couple bucks on a TV episode at the iTunes Store. I'd have expected my eyes to be hurting after forty minutes of staring at that tiny little thing, but I was perfectly comfortable the whole time. I'll chalk that up to the nano's sharp, vibrant image. Seriously, I'm impressed.

Oh, yeah, and it plays music good, too.

So, in case you can't tell, I like it, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a music player in that particular specific price and feature space. I think it will tide me over until the iPhone 2.0 comes around beautifully. :)

¹ To reboot a 4th-gen iPod, simply hold both the center button and the Menu position on the clickwheel simultaneously for several seconds.

² To enter diagnostics mode, reboot the iPod so that the Apple logo is visible on the screen. Then, hold both the center button and the Rewind position on the clickwheel simultaneously for several seconds.

Now THAT'S a Fortune

2008-03-22T21:35:00.002-05:00

How to Celebrate St. Patty's Day Whilst Coding

2008-03-18T22:54:00.001-05:00

AWWWWWWW YEAHHHHHH

2007-12-23T13:34:00.000-06:00

AAA, beeyatch

Ahem. Sorry. Never done that before!

Tattered Curtains No More

2007-12-09T08:53:00.000-06:00

So the curtains that once hung in my living room were in pretty awful shape. I guess it was the afternoon sun beating up on them day after day. They were virtually translucent in parts, and outright torn in others. That sort of thing might have been appropriate in October, but Halloween's over, and it was time for a change.

Mmmm....Fluxy.

2007-11-08T18:39:00.000-06:00

Hey, kids! It's time for my semiannual blog post! Be prepared for the sheer, uncompromising nerdity that is to follow. If you have children, you might want them to leave the room.

Some of you may be aware that, a while back, I got totally hooked on the video game Dance Dance Revolution -- or, as I like to call it, Crack for Twelve-Year-Old Asian Girls. I thought the game was ridiculous until I actually played it at my parents' house some time ago. Next thing I knew, I had my own copy of Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova for the Playstation 2, and was spazzing the night away myself.

Until my dance pad, the flimsy one that came bundled with the game, crapped out on me a couple of months ago. The down arrow just stopped working. So I headed out to Best Buy and bought the only dance pad they had, the React Universal Dance Pad. It was one of those soft pads with the foam inserts. It was all right, but not as sensitive as it could have been, and it was hard to keep it from sliding all over my floor.

I did a little research, and found that there is, in fact, one dance pad that everyone seems to agree is the best there is: the Cobalt Flux. It's a metal pad, not unlike what you'd play on in an arcade, and while it cost a hefty chunk of change -- three hundred big ones -- everyone says it's worth every penny. So, I decided I liked playing this game enough to invest in one.

It took them a solid month to get the pad to me. Why? Because they carefully build each one by hand, and then test the ever-loving crap out of it. And they're sturdy, too. Don't believe it? Watch what this crazy son of a bitch did to his. This thing will be the only thing left intact if the terrorists strike.

So, today, it finally arrived. I unpacked it, and, like all things packed in styrofoam, it was covered in the stuff. A little vacuuming helped that. About the first thing I noticed about the pad is that the sumbitch is heavy. I mean, I knew it was going to be -- the box says it's 45 pounds -- but I didn't really understand until I hefted the pad out of its packaging. Cleaned it up, slapped the four pieces of 3M Safety-Walk grip tape it came with on the bottom, plugged it in, and I was ready to rock and roll. And, by "rock and roll," I mean spaz out like an epileptic coke addict.

It's going to take time for me to get used to it -- it's way more sensitive than the soft pads were, and I'm not used to playing with my shoes on. But already, I can tell that this pad is really, really good. I never understood how people could play some of the harder songs and difficulty levels; it just seemed like you'd have to move your feet impossibly fast. After playing a few songs with the Cobalt Flux, it doesn't seem nearly so impossible. Once I grow accustomed to the pad, I get the feeling my game is going to improve like crazy.

Also, it doesn't slip, even just laying on top of my rug! I'm shocked and delighted. I assume the bugger's just too heavy to slip.

So, anyway, if you couldn't tell, the Cobalt Flux rates an AAA for me so far. If you're a DDR nerd like me, you won't go wrong with this guy.

Some pictures for you:

See if you can identify all the various pieces of evidence of my ridiculous geekdom in this photo.

Styrofoamy.

The control box...uh...box.

The pad comes with this thin white film protecting all the buttons. Kind of a pain to peel off, but the buttons sure are purty underneath.

The control box, which houses all the electronics that translate arrow presses on the pad into controller button presses. It's separate so that if it fails, you can just replace the control box instead of the whole damn pad.

And, finally, the Cobalt Flux in its unpacked, gleaming glory.

Just blow out the candles, and have a piece of cake!

2007-08-20T15:53:00.000-05:00

So last night my sister took me out to the Genesee Theater in Waukegan to see "Weird Al" Yankovic in concert. And damn, can that guy put on a show.

He did a lot of songs from his newest album, Straight Outta Lynwood, which I expected, but he also kicked it old-school, with such past hits as Fat and Amish Paradise, and he included a medley of many of his songs, past and present.

The coolest thing, I thought, was that he was in-costume for virtually every song. While he sang Amish Paradise, he was decked out in black, hat, beard, and all. He dressed like Kurt Cobain did in the Smells Like Teen Spirit music video when he performed the classic Smells Like Nirvana, like Obi-Wan Kenobi for The Saga Begins, and like Luke Skywalker for Yoda. He even put on the old Michael Jackson fat suit (minus the make-up) for Fat. Crotch-grabbingly good. In between costumed numbers, video interviews were aired -- doctored interviews, in which Al pretends to interview celebrities, using clips of previously-recorded interviews done by others, to hilarious ends. He really tore K-Fed a new one, which was, obviously, awesome. You can see most (all?) of the interviews on YouTube.

For an encore, he busted out the ludicrous stream-of-consciousness Albuquerque, which was awesome. I was impressed with how Al sang for pretty much two hours straight, without missing a beat, only breaking for costume changes, and then used possibly his longest song as an encore. Plus, he made it even longer still, by padding the infamous doughnut scene ("You got any guacamole doughnuts??" "Nah, we're out of guacamole doughnuts!!!").

Words really can't express how awesome a concert this was. If you're an Al fan, and you get the chance to see him live, YOU DO IT. You won't be disappointed.

Here's a photo I took with my cell phone, to prove how awesome it was.

Pretty great, huh? Oh well. Just trust me. It was great. Thanks, sis, for the fantastic birthday present!

Earth's Mightiest Linux Distros

2007-07-26T21:19:00.001-05:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I've updated, hasn't it? Since my last post, I've started my sabbatical, bought a sweet new Apple computer set-up (which I'll blog about soon), learned that an ibuprofen-vicodin-melatonin-nap cocktail works great for killing migraines, and came across this in the latest issue of Marvel's The Mighty Avengers (#4):

Wait a minute. Is that...? Look a bit closer...

That's right, nerds! Lithuania's Plokstine Missile Base uses Ubuntu Linux. On the one hand, this is awesome publicity and just plain fun to see. On the other hand, with the speech balloon "Someone's hacked right into the system," maybe it's not such great publicity after all. ;)

Fortified With Eleven Essential Vitamins And Nutrients

2007-04-25T21:10:00.000-05:00

I have certain friends who keep bitching about the fact that I never update my blog.

Now, were I a lesser man, I'd leave this post at that, and chuckle to myself at how funny I am. Instead, I'll tell you that my nose is healing nicely, I got a lovely 10% raise at work, and they now make Diet Coke that is good for you.

For those wondering, it tastes to me very much like normal Diet Coke. A little different, texture-wise; my friend Ed called it "smoother." It's as good a word as any.

I can BREATHE!

2007-03-04T11:20:00.000-06:00

Only through my right nostril so far, though. I think those doctors are sitting on some crazy good decongestant sprays.

I even managed to sleep a more or less full night last night. Color me heartened! And, happily, still no pain. :)

Septa and turbinates and nasal valve repairs

2007-03-03T16:26:00.000-06:00

Strangely, I'm feeling basically no pain, although I do have a lovely prescription for Vicodin. Mostly I'm just dribbling blood and unable to breathe through my nose, although the latter seems to be abating slightly -- hopefully entirely, soon. No pics, I'm afraid...just the hope that all this will turn out to have been worthwhile. The doctor said everything went perfectly, so my fingers are crossed!

Surgery and Sabbaticals

2007-02-07T19:14:00.000-06:00

So, I've finally bitten the bullet and (tentatively) scheduled my septoplasty...I go under the knife on Friday, March 2. After that, I get a whole week off of work (woo-hoo) during which I can feel like crap. Oh, well. I'm still looking forward to being able to breathe properly.

In brighter news, I've also (nearly -- still need to turn the form in to HR) scheduled my sabbatical! July 2 through August 10. No idea what I'm going to do with it. I'm sure I'll spend some time with family, some time with friends, and some time slacking off all on my own and doing nothing. I should fly myself to Vegas or something for a week or two of debauchery. ;)

From the Makers of Willie's Angry Chicken comes...

2007-01-21T20:26:00.000-06:00

...Willie's Angry Beef!

I thought I had chicken, but I was wrong. So, I cut up a couple of steaks and threw it in my wok with a truckload of veggies. I have never used so many veggies for this recipe in my life. The photo really doesn't do it justice. I had to improvise with making more sauce to cover it all, since I felt too lazy to measure everything out. A splash of soy sauce here, a few squirts of chili sauce there, and another generous splash of chili oil...and it worked out very well! Go me!

And now I'm stuffed and have a couple of meals' worth of leftovers. Couple this with my having actually gotten to the gym today (gasp!), and I've had a pretty productive day!

Deviant septum

2007-01-02T19:49:00.000-06:00

Wow...it's been a while, huh? Sorry about that. I've never been good at keeping up with stuff like this. Oh, well!

So, the most recent big news with me: I've been diagnosed with a deviated septum. Fun! For those of you not in the know, the septum is the part of your nose that separates your two nostrils. Sometimes it becomes deviated, such that it horns in on one or the other of your nostrils, making it tough to breathe through your nose. I had a nasal endoscopy done the other day, wherein a small camera mounted on a thin tube was threaded up my nose, into my sinuses, and down my throat, all of which felt about the same way it sounds. Thanks to the monitor that was in front of me, I also know it's one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen.

Then, I got a CT ("cat") scan done today, which is kind of awesome, because now I know what my skull looks like. I think I can see my BRAIN. Check it.

My Girlfriend is an Awesome Person

2006-08-09T19:39:00.000-05:00

When she went to Cosi the other day to buy a salad for lunch, and she then saw a homeless guy digging through the Dumpster in the alley by my condo, she gave him the delicious, delicious bread that came with the salad. She loves that bread, because it's delicious, and she gave it to him. Then, while I was dorking out and spending a truly profane amount of money on comic books on Saturday, she was doing volunteer work, taking children from group homes to a museum because they don't have anyone else who will take them.

In conclusion, these are just two examples of many of why my girlfriend Laura is a wonderful person who doesn't get the props she deserves. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

P.S. I deeply apologize for my egregious use of the word "props" in the preceding paragraph. I hope the reader will find it in his or her heart to forgive me.

Comic-Mania

2006-08-09T19:22:00.000-05:00

Time for a bunch of updates! Went to the Wizard World comic book convention this Saturday with my little sister and my honorary little sister. It was my first time, and it was pretty awesome. And tiring! And way more social than I would have thought, what with all the indie artists and creators barking at passers-by to please buy their stuff. I ended up spending most of my time buying comics. Of course, I went in with a list of things I specifically wanted, and ended up buying everything in sight...oh well. Now I have a load of great comic books to read! I even went to Chicago Comics on Monday to buy more. It would appear that I am a great big comic book dork now. Thanks a lot, Sis -- I was wondering what I was going to do with all this money I have now that I'm not buying D&D books and video games every week. That was a close one!

Anyway, I wish I had taken pictures at the con...not sure why I didn't. I always have a hard time overcoming photography inertia for some reason. Anyway, it was about what you'd expect...really crowded, lots of people wearing costumes they really shouldn't, and a few wearing costumes they really, really should. The highlight had to have been Robin, complete with bare skinny geek-legs and green jockeys. That takes balls, and you could pretty much see them.

As far as celebrities go, I briefly glimpsed Priscilla Barnes, better known as Ivana, the topless, three-nippled fortune teller from my favorite movie Mallrats. WWE Superstar Al Snow was supposed to be there, but he evidently canceled. In his place, I saw former WWE Superstar "Grand Master Sexay" Brian Christopher, which was kind of cool, though I didn't get a photo or autograph or anything.

Overall, it was a very good time...count me in for next year!

Drawing: Angel

2006-08-02T22:40:00.000-05:00

Well, an angel, anyway. Diverging slightly from my usual superhero schtick, I thought I'd go a little bit fantasy. I actually did this one fairly free-hand, with much less use of reference pictures than usual. Not too shabby. I got a bit lazy with the wings; turns out, details bore me! Not much shading either. Overall, though, pretty decent, I think.

On the High Seas of Lake Michigan

2006-07-27T22:11:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday, I took a little cruise with my crew at Morningstar aboard the Tall Ship Windy, followed by libations and comestibles at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. at Navy Pier. Good times -- it was a very pleasant day for it. Several intrepid photographers numbered among our crew, and the following pictures were among those taken.

Preparing to batten down the hatches, or shiver me timbers, or something.

Me trying to help raise the sail without elbowing poor Mindy in the face.

Chris, Andrius, Andrey, myself, and Cliff. Yarrrr.

Drawing, 2006-07-26

2006-07-26T22:06:00.000-05:00

Green Lantern! Actually, I think this is my best work yet. The shading could use some work, though. And man, it took me a good four or five tries to get the head and face anywhere near close to right. Also, sorry about the glare from the lighting, making the shiny pencil all glarey and crap. Damn, I need a scanner already!

Anyway, this one's for you, Dad. ZAP!

Older than Dirt

2006-07-25T07:05:00.000-05:00

Did you guys know that Haley Joel Osment, the cute little kid from Sixth Sense and other movies, is eighteen freaking years old?! Man. I feel old.

Drawing, 2006-07-24 part 2

2006-07-24T19:29:00.000-05:00

Behold: Cap! Again, still needs work on proportion. You can see the guidelines I drew, in accordance with the age-old eight-heads-tall rule. I need to get used to that; I have a tendency to draw characters too short, closer to six or seven heads.

Also, let me say right now that my complete lack of 1337 coloring and shading skeelz is not the point of this drawing! I need to work on form first. The coloring was more of an afterthought -- really, it's an excuse to try out my expensive new colored pencil set. :)

Drawing, 2006-07-24

2006-07-24T17:38:00.000-05:00

Here's a little pic of Superman I did yesterday. The musculature and proportions are a little off -- they're my #1 sticking point right now. Practice makes perfect!

Pumping Iron, 2006-07-24

2006-07-24T17:30:00.000-05:00

Here's what I managed today. All weights are minus the weight of the bar, which varies. Anyway, it's not the absolute weight that's important, so much as the relative weight between sessions; if the numbers are generally going up, I'm happy!

(Also, "e" means the empty bar. Generally used for warmup sets.)

Squats	e x 12, 100 lbs. x 9, 7
Pullups	1, 0.7 (not quite all the way up!)
Bench presses	e x 12, 55 x 7, 6
Deadlifts	e x 12, 90 x 7, 8
Military presses	e x 12, 35 x 6, 4
Bent-over rows	40 x 11, 10 (on these, my legs were all a-quiver near the end of each set...I'll have to be careful.)

Starting over

2006-07-24T17:05:00.000-05:00

Needless to say, I have been extraordinarily derelict in my blogging duties! This isn't surprising to me, but I think it is good for me to get some writing in. So, here's what's going on:

1. Birthdays! I turned 28 on July 16th, and Laura turned 23 just two days ago. Happy day of birth to both of us!

2. Dieting. I certainly don't consider myself fat, really, but I do have a little somethin'-somethin' that I could stand to lose. So - all aboard the low-carb express! I'll start probably Thursday, after I get some groceries.

3. Exercise. I just got back from the gym, in fact. Been lifting the weights -- a good idea whether you're trying to build muscle or lose fat, since in the latter case, it reduces muscle loss, which is important! Maybe I'll start keeping a log here.

4. Drawing - I'm getting back into it. I don't have a scanner - I need to get one - but I do have a nice digital camera. I'll post some of the work I do here, so you have pretty things to look at.

Let's see if I can't keep this going. On your mark...get set...

Ugh

2006-04-05T20:20:00.000-05:00

Honestly, all you folks with regularly-updated personal blogs—I don’t know how you do it.

When I started this thing, back in…wow, late October of ‘05, I was afraid of one thing: that I wouldn’t have enough to say. I’d tell everyone about this blog, and even try to attract readers I didn’t know in real life, and then I’d just go blank. And surprise, surprise, that’s pretty much where I am right now.

Oh, I’ve got plenty of excuses. I’ve been working a lot lately, and rarely feel like pounding out a blog post when I get home. My free time is valuable and all too scarce; I try to establish a delicate balance between spending time with friends, spending time with my girlfriend Laura, and spending time alone (which is important for introverts like yours truly). Furthermore, I can be a very private person; particularly since people I know in person sometimes read this blog, I often don’t feel comfortable writing about every little thing that happens to me.

So, yeah, excuses abound. But a lot of the time, quite frankly, I just can’t think of a damn thing to say. Focus is a big problem. After all, when you run across a blog that’s about programming, IT, movies, games, and personal stuff, all rolled into one…well, unless you’re me, you’re probably not going to be all that interested. Throw infrequent updates into the mix and you’ve got a blog that nobody cares about—including yourself.

The whole thing kind of makes me feel inadequate. I have a problem with starting things and never finishing them. I've got a million creative projects on my computer hard drive—programs, games, short stories, and so on—that I've abandoned for God knows what reason. It's a flaw of mine, and it drives me batty sometimes.

Anyway…I’m not saying I’m giving up on this sumbitch or anything. But I figured that one thing blogs are good for is venting, so I might as well take advantage. Any excuse to post something, eh?

-Will

AutoHotkey Takes Names, Kicks Ass

2006-03-11T12:25:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to take a moment to give props to my new favorite open-source program, AutoHotkey. It's basically a scriptable global macro program. You can set it up so that it sends certain combinations of keypresses or mouse-clicks to other programs, and the scripting features make this even more powerful. I use it at work when I have to type out long, repetitive strings of text, and to type in the current date quickly. It's great. I hold the Window key down and hit N (for "now"), and out comes the date: 03/11/2006. Basically, this is the sort of thing you're either going to think is entirely useless, or the most useful thing ever invented by anyone, ever. I'm of the latter opinion. (Well, okay, that may be overstating things a little. But only a little.)

Bienvenidos a Miami

2006-03-11T12:15:00.000-06:00

Well, Thursday morning I returned home from a three-day vacation in beautiful South Beach area of Miami, Florida. The downside of the trip: I came down with Laura's cold about a day into it, and now my ears are kind of messed up (thanks a bunch, airplane); also, it was a little expensive. The upside: blue skies, warm sunshine, 75-degree weather, sandy beaches, good food, and the conspicuous lack of any need for me to work. Oh, and topless sunbathers. Yeah, it was a compromise worth making. ;)

-Will

HNY

2006-01-01T01:49:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year, everyone!!

Installing Apache on Ubuntu

2005-12-17T13:59:00.000-06:00

A certain someone I know asked in a comment to the previous post how easy it is to get the Apache webserver running under the sublime Ubuntu. Turns out it’s pretty easy indeed. Here’s what I did:

Fired up Synaptic Package Manager, which is really “just” a lovely front-end for apt-get.

Marked “apache2” for installation.

Inserted Ubuntu install CD when prompted and clicked “OK.”

Done!

Check this screenshot for proof. Piece of cake!

In fact, it was a lot harder just uploading the screenshot to my iDisk under Linux. Well, okay, it wasn’t that hard. I just installed (again, using Synaptic…tasty) a utility called davfs2 that lets you mount a WebDAV server under your filesystem. Works like a charm…in fact, I think I like it even more than the lousy WinXP utility from Apple that serves the same purpose.

Allow me to reiterate: Ubuntu kicks ass. Thank you.

Ubuntu: Linux…for People

2005-12-15T12:50:00.000-06:00

I’m sure everyone is waiting with baited breath to hear more of my computing adventures since the apocalypse a couple of weeks ago. What’s that? You weren’t? Tough. I’m going to tell you anyway.

As I said in an earlier comment, I installed CentOS on the advice of my dad, who is wise in the way of such things. It was nice – very polished, and it installed super-smoothly. However, I couldn’t get the drivers for my wireless network card, an Intel PRO/Wireless 2200, installed; I was never even able to successfully compile them from source. Then I tried to install a media player, and found myself wandering the excruciating labyrinthine halls of what Windows users refer to in hushed, frightened voices as “DLL Hell.” I can’t install this component without these six dynamically-linked libraries, which won’t install without six more libraries, and so on until you just don’t care anymore.

I whined about this to my old boss from work, Luke, who is one of the smartest sons of a gun I’ve ever known. He chastised me for not using Debian, whose package management system, he said, was the bee’s knees. All right, I made up the “bee’s knees” bit, but he did indeed speak very highly of it. So I burned a copy of the network install disk, and away I went.

It installed less smoothly than CentOS. It had a text-mode interface, rather than a nice X-based GUI like CentOS had, and I got confused at some point; it started asking questions about my “monitor,” which didn’t really apply to my laptop’s LCD screen, and I think it interpreted my attempts to go back a few steps in the install process as a desire to just go with the defaults, and so once the installation was complete, I couldn’t even start X up. Bleah.

OK, so then I thought I’d try Ubuntu like Ross and Scott suggested in their comments to my previous post. I went to their home page, and immediately started laughing. Don’t get me wrong – I love the site…I think it’s put together very well. But Ubuntu’s slogan, “Linux for Human Beings,” brought to my mind the fake charity fabricated by George Costanza in an episode of Seinfeld as a way of giving Christmas presents to his office coworkers without spending a dime. “A donation has been made in your name to The Human Fund. Money…for People.”

Anyway, enough tomfoolery. I burn the install disc and give it a whirl. It’s got a text-mode installer like Debian -- which, incidentally, Ubuntu appears to be based on, which means you still get the sexiness of apt-get -- but without all the questions. Let me tell you: it installed like a dream. Not only that, but it detected all my hardware and installed all the drivers without even asking me. Including the wireless adapter driver, which works, by the way, like a charm.

The aesthetics are nice, too. I like the default Gnome theme, with its earthy browns and simple composition, but I like the feel of kubuntu, Ubuntu’s customized KDE package, even better.

I also like the MacOS X-like approach to administration. Instead of su-ing your way up to root when you need super-user privileges, you just use sudo, and enter your normal account password to gain access. It’s part of the “root accounts are dangerous” meme, and I think it’s a good one. Also, fewer passwords to remember = good.

Anyway, it’s up and running and flat-out awesome. I haven’t tried to get my printer, a stupid, old Brother HL-1440, working yet, but I’m sure it’ll work out with a little elbow grease.

In conclusion, I’d like to send out a big “thank you” to my homeys for recommending Ubuntu, and I’d like to propagate that recommendation. Ubuntu kicks ass, and unlike The Human Fund, it exists. Use it.

Ubuntu. Linux…for People.

Happy 100 Page Views!

2005-12-06T08:24:00.000-06:00

Granted, most of them were me. I think somebody should buy me a present anyway.

Deja vu

2005-12-03T11:22:00.000-06:00

No luck. Found a few viruses and spyware "programs," but I'm still having wonderful problems with the Windows svchost.exe process consuming 100% of my CPU resources. Also, Firefox keeps opening random webpages. Bugger.

To hell with it -- I'm backing up my documents over the LAN and wiping the hard drive. My poor, immaculate laptop has been defiled; time to make it a born-again virgin. This time, with a nice, healthy Linux partition for me to dwell in while I'm not playing games or developing Windows software.

I feel so dirty.

2005-12-03T00:39:00.000-06:00

It all started, as so many things do, with geekery.

It’s been some time since I’ve played with Linux. I had a good time with various versions of Red Hat back in the day, but I left her for Mac OS X and Windows XP some time ago. I’m not sure what makes me miss that flagship open-source operating system, but miss it I do.

So, after confirming that my laptop—a Dell XPS Gen 2—would run Linux, I headed straight to fedora.redhat.com to pick up ISO images of the Fedora Core OS. A night of BitTorrent and an hour of CD burning later, and I’m ready to roll.

First things first: repartition the hard drive. I rummaged through my older desktop PC’s harddrive, on which I knew I had stored a copy of Partition Magic 8.0. I’ve always liked—and used—Partition Magic, so I confidently copied the zipped program archive onto my USB flash drive and then from the flash drive to the lappy. It installed without a hitch.

Running it, however, would not be so easy. As I start up the program, it kindly informs me that it will run in “demo mode” until I “activate” the program. I dimly remember being e-mailed a serial number for the product when I bought it from PowerQuest online. A quick search through my Yahoo! e-mail account turned up the message and the serial…

...which fails to activate the program. Hmm. And this is where things turn ugly. If you have a weak stomach, you may wish to leave the website. Put your children to bed before continuing.

I followed the program’s instructions for manually activating the program, which first involves a trip to PowerQuest’s website. Turns out, Symantec acquired PowerQuest some time ago, and PQ’s old activation website is now defunct. I spent a while searching Symantec’s site, trying to figure out how to activate this lousy program (which is, supposedly, still sold and supported by Symantec). After several minutes, I got bored, and decided to just crack the damn thing.

I admit it: I’ve used cracks—or should I say crackz—before. In the vast majority of cases, it was only to remove some irritating “feature” from a product I’d legitimately acquired, like the part of most computer games that requires you to have the CD in the drive while playing, even though every bit on that stupid disc has been copied to the hard drive by the installer. Anyway, I never had any problem with that in the past, and I considered this to be in the same vein.

I’m sorry—please give me a moment. This is hard for me. I generally consider myself to be a smart guy, and wise in the ways of tech, which makes all the more surprising—even to myself—what I did next. I Googled for “partitionmagic 8.02 crackz” and soon found a site that claimed to have a cracking program for exactly that product. I download the file and give her a double-click.

Then all hell broke loose.

A tool tip popup popped up in my system tray, informing me that Windows had become infected with spyware! Oh, no! Fortunately, all I had to do to fix things was to click on the tool tip. This initiated the download and execution of a program called SpySheriff, which purports to seek out spyware and remove it. What it really does, however, is pretend to search your computer for spyware, all the while making everything go haywire. Which it did. Rogue processes were running all over the place with my CPU clock cycles. Other processes started crashing violently. Browser windows popped up and loaded seemingly random commercial webpages. It was just plain weird.

Then I realized something odd about the tool tip warning that Windows had given me—and was continuing to give me, over and over again. An uncharacteristic grammatical flaw in the text—something along the lines of “Check as much options as you can.” Say what you will about Microsoft, but you know as well as I do that they speak better English than that.

Google again, this time for “SpySheriff.” Here is where I learn that it does more or less the opposite of what it claims to. Further Googling—this time in Google Groups—turns up some Usenet posts about how to get rid of the parasite. A kind fellow named David H. Lipman recommends the use of a little program called SmitFraud to clean infected systems, and I found others who vouched for its efficacy as well. Granted, it’s just some guys on the Intarweb, so who knows?

What the hell, I thought. What’s the worst this SmitFraud program can do? Break my computer?

It’s basically a zipped archive of a bunch of littler programs. It uses good old wget to download virus definition files, and another program to run a command-line version of McAffee Virus Scan, which it also downloads for you.

I rebooted into Safe Mode with Networking, and started it up. I am writing this from my desktop PC as it scans my laptop’s hard drive. It has, so far, found and removed five nasties, including the “StartPage IH trojan.” Currently it’s scouring my Cygwin directory, so this will probably have to run all night.

Ah, well. It’s nothing more than I deserve. And to think I call myself a geek…

A strong, almost overwhelming desire to abandon Windows altogether for Linux and/or Mac OS X is the only thing that assuages my guilt. Maybe I can keep my membership card after all.

I’ll let you know how the cleansing goes. Until then, I think I’ll sit and contemplate the irony of my situation: contracting a virus because PowerQuest was purchased by, of all companies, Symantec.

forever blowing bubbles all the way

2005-11-25T15:52:00.000-06:00

I'm not ashamed to admit it: I want a bottle of this stuff. The bubbles are stunning, and the dye disappears with time and friction -- very cool.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. (I define "good" as "ate yourself retarded," for the record.)

"ummm...thanks mapquest"

2005-11-02T09:38:00.000-06:00

The title of this post is a quote taken from my lovely girlfriend, Laura. I'm heading out to the quaint town of Galena, IL this weekend with her. Should be a nice relaxing time. One thing we weren't expecting, though, was for this trip to point out some glaring deficiencies in our beloved Mapquest. Have a look at the directions we were given:

Hopefully, you can read that. Now, I've had trouble with Mapquest in the past -- primarily when trying to get to my buddy Scott's parents' place -- but I've never seen this little gem before. As my dad said, "It might as well say, 'Drive 86 miles west, turn left where the barn used to be, then ask.'"

Oh, well. At least it'll be dark out, thus maximizing our chances of getting lost -- but minimizing the chances that anyone will see our shame!

On a completely different note, if you read Penny Arcade on a regular basis (and, forsooth, you should), you'll be familiar with Tycho's penchant for ending each post with a short phrase from whatever song he's listening to at the moment. I kind of like that, and thought I'd steal it for myself, nefarious evildoer that I am. So, here's my first: mouse over the text to get a tool tip explaining what song and artist the lyric is from. Enjoy!

send my love to you

Kids Make the Darnedest Crap -- In China

2005-11-01T08:43:00.000-06:00

My good friend Beuk, who moved to China last month, notes in his blog something that I just had to make sure you guys saw:

Yes, that is a little kid preparing to take a dump in the middle of the sidewalk. This is evidently common over there, as is the split in the tyke's pants that permits such an undertaking. I guess Shenzhen is just too business-oriented; I spent two weeks there and didn't see a single toddler squat down and squeeze one out in front of God and country. Wow.

Su Doku Fever!

2005-10-31T10:22:00.000-06:00

I, like so many of you, have finally succumbed to Su Doku Fever. This pandemic is the weird-looking numbers game originating from Japan that now appears in newspapers, books, and websites everywhere.

For those few of you who have not yet been exposed to this virus, the game works like this:

You are confronted with a grid of eighty-one squares, with a certain number of squares populated by a number ranging from one to nine. When the puzzle is solved, each row, column, and three-by-three section of the grid will contain the numbers one through nine, with no duplicates. The difficulty of each game varies with the number of numbers you're given to start with, and with the placement of those numbers. It's like Minesweeper with numbers.

That's it. I've wasted God knows how much time on this lousy game already, and I don't show signs of stopping. If you're ready to give it a try yourself, I recommend the following sites:

Web Sudoku
The Times Online

First Post!

2005-10-31T09:26:00.000-06:00

And with this post, I christen this blog the dork's demesne. Here I shall post any manner of geekishness I see fit. Neither video games, nor anime, nor computers, nor Dungeons and Dragons shall be beyond the purview of this webspace. I may even venture off into other, non-geekish matters, such as work or relationships, if the whim strikes me. If it should come to pass that I have enough proclamations to make about various subjects, I may even choose to split this into a multitude of blogs, such is my power.

Cast your eyes upon me, and tremble; for I am Dork.