CREATIVE, Manga

Super Happy First Storm Manga Group Hey!!

Okay, so I got a little silly with the title…

First Storm Manga is a group of artists and writers that I joined recently.  We get together on Saturday nights at the La Taza coffee shop to go over various projects that we are working on for self-publication.  Our stuff is going to be done in the manga style of Japanese comics.

Well, the artists, stuff, anyway…since I can’t draw, I suppose that makes me a writer-slash-idea man.

I am working on a project right now, though I can’t say much beyond that.  Its neat to have a creative outlet and to meet and work with other Creative Types.  Its also like herding cats in terms of trying to keep things organized, and I admittedly don’t make things much easier, but we solider on, and if all goes well, we’ll have something to show for all our work.

I’m pretty excited about it, though, the thought of seeing something I created in words come to life in pictures is an exciting one!

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JUST SAYING

Land of McConfusion

Why do people place complicated orders at McDonald’s?  Frankly, I think its just asking for trouble if you go to Mickey D’s and ask for more than two things to be done to your sandwich.  No onions?  Fine.  No onions and extra pickles?  Okay.  No onions, extra pickles, and hold the mustard?  You’re playing with fire there, bub!

Case in point:  I was at a McDonald’s a few weeks ago standing in line behind a woman who was making a pretty intricate order.  I could tell the guy behind the register was having trouble keeping up.  Sure enough, after getting it all down, he would repeat the order to verify, but there was always something wrong with it, which resulted in them starting over.  To make matters worse, the woman was trying to tell the poor cashier how to fix it which only made him more confused.

Incidentally, telling ANYONE in any restaurant how to do their job is just asking to get the “special sauce.”

A second cashier noticed the delay and took my order.  I paid for it, got my food, filled my soda, grabbed some ketchup and napkins, sat down…and the woman was STILL at the register placing her order.

Sometimes you just have to let it go.  I’m not saying, I’m just saying!

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Apple, TECH

Mac and Me – Networking

For the first time in awhile, I have two computers at home: my new iMac, and my HP Mini 1000.  In addition to being my “on the road” computer, the Mini comes in handy for when I want to do something PC-ish but don’t feel like waiting for the iMac to boot into Vista.  I have been using a 1GB SD card to transfer files from one to the other, which works okay, but I’d like to think I can improvise something better than the old “sneaker-net.”

Prior to obtaining the iMac, I made an observation to one of my Apple-loving friends that Apple had a tendency to “make the easy things easier, but the hard things harder.”  I had yet to experience this in my thus far, but it came out bright and clear when trying to get my PC and Mac to talk to each other over the network.

The Mini had been set up for sharing with the Gateway prior to its demise, and so I figured the Mac should be able to see it.  Of course, I had to be able to find the option to connect to another computer first.  This took much longer than it should have.  Going by my not-quite-eliminated Windows instincts, I went to System Preferences and selected “Network.”  I was then greeted with general network setttings, none of which I thought needed to poke at in order to get this to work.  I then figured I should use the Help facility to find out where the option was hiding.

My Google-fu is strong (or at least I like to think so), but  my Apple-fu is not.  After typing in quite a few search terms into Spotlight, I couldn’t get a satisfactory answer, so I found it on the tubes.  Curiously enough, the option was in the Finder, I guess I haven’t quite picked up on Apple’s moon-logic quite yet.

Once I typed in my PCs address, I could see its files.  It turns out that it was pretty simple after all, once I found the right option.

Getting the PC to see the Mac was another matter entirely.  I doubted that I would actually use it, but I was feeling good after getting the Mac side to work.

That small victory appeared to be a fluke as I tried to get Windows XP to see the Mac.  Everything LOOKED okay, but it just wasn’t working.  I Googled and Googled to no avail.  Apparently there used to be an “Allow Windows user to login from Windows” option that was removed somewhere down the way.  Yeah, thanks, Apple.

I was all but ready to throw in the towel and then I realized that XP was probably looking for a domain name and I had not set one up on the iMac.  Given Apple’s tendency to do everything for you, I figured it had been already set and thus I had to find it.  The “Network” option under System Preferences turned out to be what I was looking for, and after giving it my current domain name, my stubborn PC finally acknowledged the Mac’s presence.

While I was eventually able to get everything to work, it was certainly more trouble than I had anticipated.  Apple’s help (both local and online) proved to be pretty useless because I was not on the same frequency as they are.  Perhaps with time the Apple way of thinking will permeate my Windows-hardened skull, but for now I have to stumble along.

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Apple, Computers, TECH

Mac and Me – Not Quite A Mighty Mouse

I like buttons.  They’re fun to push, and they usually make something that I want to happen, happen!  Heck, a standard keyboard (a standard PC keyboard anyway) has over 100 of them, whee!  Apple, on the other hand, does not like buttons.

Seriously;  the one button on the iMac is hidden in the back, the mouse that came with it does not appear to have any at all, and  I’m sure that somewhere within the bowels of Apple, some engineer is scratching their head trying to figure out a way to get rid of the single button on the iPhone’s face.

As I mentioned last week, the Mac’s Mighty Mouse (seriously, that’s what Apple calls it) is the one part of the Mac experience that irritates me the most.  It lacks a distinct right click button and refuses to acknowledge my futile attempts at right-clicking.  After another week of missed right-clicks and re-right-clicks I finally replaced it with a $20 Logitech wireless mouse.  Its colored black, so it ruins the aesthetic of my workspace somewhat, but I’ll gladly take functionality over fashion.  Actually, I’ll take anything over fashion, but that’s a discussion for another day.

I tossed the Mighty Mouse into my netbook bag where it will ruin the aesthetic of my HP Mini 1000, and thus, the balance of the universe is maintained!

Once I adjusted to the Logitech’s heft, all was well.  Now if I could just figure out a way to get my keyboard shortcuts back, everything would be PERFECT.  I may also give Safari another shot, I’m hearing good things about the beta.

It has been two weeks since I took the plunge and my Mac has been treating me pretty good so far.  I’ll boot into Vista occasionally to play a game or work with Microsoft Money, but otherwise all is well with Mac and Me!

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JUST SAYING, Uncategorized

Flu On You!

I have an tendency to catch colds frequently, so it came as no surprise to me when I started coming down with something a few Tuesdays ago.  I wasn’t running a fever, so I figured it was just a case of the sniffles that would go away after a few days.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case.  The bug hung around, and by Thursday I was feeling pretty crappy.  Not crappy enough to stay home from work, mind you, but certainly lousy enough to get the attention of my coworkers.  Sharing the same floor with former and current healthcare providers means I can’t be sick at work.  Coming in sick means getting no end of grief about how I should see a doctor, and questions about why am I at work instead of at home.

All that badgering usually results in me seeing a doctor and taking a day or two off from work.  This most recent bout was spiced up by the hype over the swine flu.  As I had been near the Mexican border recently for a family get-together, I figured that I should see the doctor and ensure I wouldn’t become San Antonio’s Patient Zero.

I had a feeling this visit was going to be extra fun when I shared the elevator ride with one of the nurses, and she made mention that they were all wearing masks at the doctor’s office.  I signed in at the doctor’s office, and was given a mask since I had flu-like symptoms.  It was a little uncomfortable, and started to smell kind of funky after a few sneezes and coughs, but hey, it was for the public good, so I rolled with it.

While waiting for the doctor, I got bored enough to snap a few pictures of myself with my cell phone camera, and was informed by the doctor that I had a sinus infection, and that I should take a few days off from work.  I was mildly disappointed, but I quickly got over that feeling as I spent the next few days hacking and coughing my guts out at home in bed.  Them’s the breaks, I guess!

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Videogames

Army of Shadyness

My gaming days started on the Atari 2600, so I’ve been through most of the videogame era, save for the paleolithic Pong days.  I enjoy playing the oldies, and modern games made in the old style (done right, of course) still find their ways into my consoles.

While role playing games are not a main part of my gaming diet, I will occasionally indulge when I have the time.  My favorite series is Dragon Quest, mainly because the plot and gameplay have remained basically the same: Evil Dude is trying to end the world, you and your merry band of adventures have to find him and take him out.

RPG’s, particulary the Japanese ones, have their own set of odd tropes and cliches (many documented here).  The majority of them feature the ability to resurrect player characters that have kicked the bucket along your travels.  It makes sense, because it would suck to spend a boatload of time building up a character only to have them killed off halfway and then have to start over again with a new one.

In any event, I was playing Dragon Quest VII, and inevitably, a character perished in battle.  At that point, “high-tail it to the nearest town” became the top item on my “To Do” list.  As I fled from each battle, hoping that I wouldn’t crap out of one of the many virtual twenty-sided die throws, I saw that a casket had taken the place of the recently deceased.  I figured we were dragging around his remnants so that there would be something TO resurrect once we got to town.  I imagined that lugging a casket around must be a pain; the weight, the smell, and innkeepers probably would charge extra for that sort of thing…”That’ll be an extra 10 gold coins for the corpse, Mac.”

At that point, I had a great idea:  wouldn’t it be great if we could bring that character back as a ZOMBIE?  I don’t know if it has been done before, but I think it would be cool.  To compensate, the character would be a stat hit, maybe less experience could be gained, and spells probably would be out of the question.  I figure half a character is better than none, especially when you’ve got four Evil Knights staring you in the face.  Maybe they could even have special zombie attacks, and once you get into town to see the priest/wizard/alchemist they can un-zombify the character for half off!

Zombies are like bacon, the number five, and The 1812 Overture: they just make everything better!  I think it could work!

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Apple, Computers, TECH

Mac and Me – One Week Later

My new PC-free desktop!

It has been a week since I took the Apple plunge, and I my iMac/OS X experience has been pretty good so far (the one big fark-up was my fault).  I moved the files from my PC’s old hard drive last night, so its time to “move in” to the Mac for good.  My thoughts so far:

SCREEN

I have to start by talking about the iMac’s screen, it is gorgeous. I’m not sure what is different about it, but everything just looks better; more sharper, more vibrant.  The 24″ of real estate is a dream to work on.  Why have multiple monitors cluttering the desk when one honkin’ HUGE one will do?  I have yet to use the camera and mic as of yet, but I’m looking forward to trying them out.

The DVD drive is a located a little farther back than I would like, I’ve already dropped a disc trying to find the slot, and the occasional not-quite-perfectly-flat disc can get a little noisy, but that’s true for all DVD drives, so I can’t knock it too much for that.

The built-in speakers are the worst part of the screen/CPU/whatever Apple calls it.  I’m no audiophile, but they sound pretty bad to me, I quickly plugged in my basic 3-piece Altec Lansing set and Huey Lewis sounds just as good as he did on my PC.

KEYBOARD

The small keyboard freaked me out at first, especially since I like using the numeric keypad.  It is just bigger than the keyboard on my HP Mini 1000 netbook, with more space inbetween the keys.  The action on the keyboard is nice and typing is pretty quiet. I’ve had to re-learn typing shortcuts, due to the lack of HOME/END and PGUP/PGDN keys, but it hasn’t been too painful.  That cord is just too damned short, though.  I was taught that it was a bad idea to be sitting so close to a computer screen.  A USB extension cord fixed that problem easily enough, and I placed a USB hub on the end of it, because you can never have too many ports.

MIGHTY MOUSE

The mouse took some getting used to, particularly due to the lack of distinct buttons.  The Mighty Mouse is not Apple’s worst mouse ever (that distinction goes to the “hockey puck”) but the right-click is pretty finicky, and the “4th button” (pressed by squeezing the indentations you see on the sides) all but drove me bonkers.  I don’t exactly have basketball-player sized hands, but I am accustomed to having my hand covering up the entire mouse.  At random intervals this would activate the 4th button and I would be yanked out of whatever I was doing and taken into Expose, which shows you all open windows at once.  Very distracting, especially when I’m trying to beat my Bejeweled Blitz high score.  Disabling Expose fixed that problem, and I’m not sure how useful I’m really going to find the 4th button.  Much to my surprise, I have had no problems with the teeny scroll ball.  If worse comes to worse, I’ll drop $20 on a new Logitech mouse.

PERFORMANCE

I haven’t really put the iMac through its paces yet (i.e. video editing) but so far it seems to handle multitasking quite well.  As I type this into Firefox, CDs are being ripped into iTunes and I am also IMing a friend.  Everything runs without any hesitations or hiccups so I guess that’s pretty good.

OVERALL EXPERIENCE

I have to say, the Mac life is pretty good.  I have yet to experience any of the frustrations that I have long considered to be the “facts of life” of using computers:

No more defragging, no more anti-virus, no more anti-spyware, no more hunting for old driver CDs, no more wondering why the CPU fan is still spinning even though the computer is in sleep mode, no more long boot times, no more waiting for that last program to close when I’m shutting down, no more wondering why flash drives and memory cards won’t unmount even though they aren’t being used, no more wondering if removing that startup program or changing that Registry entry is going to blow the whole thing up, and no more farking annual re-installations of Windows!

I plug in my camera, and up comes iPhoto.  I plug in my printer, and a minute later, I can print.  I drag an external drive to the Trash to eject it, and it unmounts.  Stuff just works! Heck, even Windows Vista works well now that I have enough horsepower to make it happy.

While I’m not sure I will do everything “The Mac Way” I’m looking forward to spending less time maintaining my computer, and more time actually DOING stuff.

After all, isn’t that the whole point of having a computer?

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BUSINESS

Blockbusted

Blockbuster has been on my “companies I hate” list for some time now because of a screw-up on their part some years ago where they all but labeled me a thief for supposedly not returning a game.  Thus, the news of their slow death (mainly at the hands of Netflix) has filled me with glee.  I am only disappointed that they didn’t buy Circuit City before they imploded; two crappy companies could have been taken off the map at once.  I’ve been noticing signs that The End Is Near for both Blockbuster and Hollywood Video for some time, as various locations in the neighborhood have been closing.

In terms of value, Netflix kicks Blockbuster to the curb: For $10 a month, I get a movie a week from Netflix in the mail AND an all-you-can-watch buffet from their Instant Watch service…or I can rent two first-run movies at Blockbuster for two nights.

The impending demise of Blockbuster and its ilk was made much more apparent to me when I took a trip to one yesterday.  In the past, the lines at Blockbuster on a Saturday evening are as long and as slow as the ones at the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Yesterday was different; there were just over half-a-dozen cars in the parking lot, and just as many people inside.  Instead of the hustle and bustle of familes, couples, and kids sorting through the movies, and debating the merits of Shrek 3 versus Finding Nemo, all was quiet save for the rustling of the employees and my size 14s tromping throughout the store.  The line was nonexistent as I went to the counter to pay for my movies and get my foot-and-a-half-long receipt.

As I walked out, I thought about the company I used to work for.  I thought about the movie “Other People’s Money” and the speech given by Danny DeVito’s character:

“We’re dead alright, we’re just not broke…and do you know the surest way to go broke?  Keep getting an increasing share of a shrinking market.  Down the tubes.  Slow but sure…”

I’d like to say its been nice knowing you, but don’t let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you, Blockbuster.

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Apple, Computers, TECH

Mac and Me – VistaMac!

As it turned out, I had screwed up my Mac by trying to install a version of Windows that could not “see” the newly created Boot Camp partition.  Thus, my retail boxed copy of XP was pretty much useless; I would need an XP Service Pack 2 disc.

Fortunately, I had one handy that I “borrowed” from one of my previous employers *evil grin*  Sadly, it would not accept the retail license key I had, so I had to punt and install Vista instead.

My previous experiences with Vista were less than pleasant, but then again I was installing it on a two-year old machine.  Vista just was not happy running on my Gateway’s single-core CPU and 1GB of RAM.   Even after I bumped up the machine’s RAM to 2GB it plodded along, and I could hear the hard drive constantly crunching away while I computed.

I hoped that running it on more capable hardware would provide a better experience.  I figured it should be happy running on a 2.66Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM.  Sure enough, everything went well except for having to sit for about two hours downloading and installing various updates.

I wonder if at some point does it just become cheaper to mail everyone update CDs?  Bandwidth ain’t cheap!

Anyways, once the updates were done and the Mac drivers (and the anti-virus…sigh) were installed, Vista ran like a dream.  After I got Vista up and running, it was really late, so I couldn’t do much else.  Next, I will transfer my PC files over from the Gateway’s old hard drive onto the Mac.

That’s when things should get really interesting!

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Apple, Computers, TECH

Mac and Me – Just Like Starting Over…

Well, THAT was a close one…apparently I got a little too button-happy during the Boot Camp process and farked up my iMac’s hard drive…oops.  The fact that I read ahead in the Boot Camp instructions just a teensy may have contributed as well.

Luckily, I found a solution after digging around Apple’s support website for a bit.  I just have to reformat the hard drive and reinstall OS X, which should be done about the time I wake up tomorrow…argh.

Despite the setback, I intend to try Boot Camp again, hopefully the second attempt will go better (frankly, I don’t see how it could go worse).  Nothing lost but time.

I had taken the liberty of not deleting the pictures from my camera in the event that something went Horribly Horribly Wrong.  It probably says something about me that I planned for something going HHW, but hey, learning the hard way is still learning, so onward and upward!

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