TerraVirtua.com

blogging is a funny thing

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:46:47 PST

so today, i did something i almost never do, and gave out the url to this blog. i almost never do it for a few reasons: i figure i dont talk about stuff thats very interesting to anyone other than me. i dont post all that often to begin with. most of what i post is really vanity posting of the worst kind, like tweeting but even more vapid. but above all... it doesnt paint me in a very good light.

the few of you that read this regularly have known me for that entire 10 year span, or longer, and know im not the same person i was when i started this thing, but it wasnt until this evening, when i went back over the archives for the first time in a loooong time and kind of started clicking around at random, that i realized both the degree to which im not who i was, but just how RECENTLY it has happened.

ive been getting steadily less angry (and correspondingly more happy) over the entire course of the last 10 years, as i adjusted to my divorce, to a year-plus period of unemployment, to the hard reality of my own mortality (and that of those i love), and to the ego bruising realization that im not half as smart as i like to think i am about a lot of things... but even so, it appears to me that the most significant changes came in the last few years, and as i rewind my memory, ill be damned if i can pinpoint WHY... what it was that kicked me out of my funk and into... whoever it is ive become. whatever it was, i wish it had happened a lot sooner, because while i remember BEING the guy that gave birth to so many rage-babies here, i dont like to remember the state of mind i had to have been in to produce them. i wouldnt go back to that for all the money in the world.

i guess on reflection it must have been my grandfather's death that really moved me along. i loved and respected my grandfather more than any other man ive ever met, and after he was gone, i was stricken with the thought that while i certainly wasnt a bad guy, i wasnt the kind of man i ought to be to honor his memory. i wasnt the caliber of man HE was. i think thats when the idea of "being a better man" became my primary daily goal... to be better today than i was yesteray, and better tomorrow than i am today.

which is a great goal, but unfortunately, theres no manual to being a better man. figuring it out as you go is hard work, and the work is never done.

so, i ask you few readers, my good friends, the people who stand outside my life and so can see it more clearly... what do you think it was? when do you think it happened? or even DID it? im sure im not deluded when i say im much less angry and much more happy, but its a difficult thing to evaluate myself as to whether i am the SAME. i dont think so but... i could be wrong.

either way... its a little bit embarrassing to think it took me 35+ years to stop being an angry emo turd :)

edit: so i realized as i rambled on that i never even got to my main point, which is that blogging is a funny thing because it gives you a weird sort of external perspective that you wouldnt otherwise normally have. maybe theres something to that "journalling" thing after all :)

dogbert the financial advisor

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 20:26:09 PST

im not even sure how to describe this...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:24:21 PST

ok so, i know i said i was going to post more. and when i said that, i meant i would post actual stuff, not just youtube videos... and i know i just posted one, so i should probably not post another one right away... but... god damn. this is just so... weird looking. and amazing.

so easy, even a game show host can do it...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 20:26:56 PST

steam thanksgiving sale is on...

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:18:16 PST

and one of the daily deals until noon tomorrow is fallout new vegas for 5 bucks... this is another one of those "its a crime not to own this game at five dollars" kind of games... ive got 85.9 hours in the game, and i didnt finish the main storyline until around 80... im working on the DLC expansions now, and ill probably get another 40 out of that stuff as well...

the blog, and me...

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 08:05:45 PST

so the maybe two readers i have left have probably noticed i havent posted much for the last 8 months or so... just wanted to let anyone who follows know that im fine, in good health, just been very very busy. as you know, i got a new job about the same time i stopped posting, and its kept me busy to the point that a) when i get home i just dont feel like typing any more than i already have during the day and b) im honestly too busy to have much energy left for strong opinions :)

but everything is going well, after 7 months at the job, i went from the new guy to the guy in charge of all development, technology, and IT. i didnt actually get any more money, so that really just means "im responsible for 3x as much shit as i was when i started" but thats ok, being the guy who gets to decide how things are going to work is worth a whole lot. i never was much of a follower :) all those times id grind my teeth and think "this is not the right way to do this" have now turned into "holy shit, i hope this is the right way to do this, because its my ass if it isnt" :)

of course, im the most consistently right person i know, so im not sweating it too much :)

im going to make an effort to post a little more regularly, like once a week, just to get me back into it, and stop being such an online hermit like i have been lately...

light on defensive weaponry...

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:28:48 PDT

everyone needs to go buy this game

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:06:12 PDT

right now. seriously. i mean, it costs less than a combo meal at a fast food joint, and it is CRAZY GOOD. its Dungeons of Dredmor and is the best new roguelike game ive played in a long long time. check out this video review then click, buy, and play.

OMG its a post!

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 21:12:48 PDT

i know i havent posted for a long time... ive been working my ass off in this new job, and the last thing i want to do when i get home is post in the blog. it isnt because i havent had things to post about, i have. i just... cant make myself do it.

but this... this is too amazing not to post... i LOVE this guy's response to the mainstream media branding independence day a "right wing holiday" recently...

http://doubleplusundead.com/2011/07/02/so-this-is-what-being-a-rightwinger-is-all-about/

best line: "Freedomfuck you with the flying fuckeagle of freedom."

i almost loled myself right out of my chair...

How its done.

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:27:54 PDT

Mississippi Shows How You Handle Westboro Freaks

although id like to see more beatings involved...

anyone want an andrioid tablet?

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 16:36:21 PDT

so we're looking at doing an android version of our iphone stuff at work, but no one has an android tablet. i volunteered to get one since i kinda wanted one anyway... got one of the 10 inch viewsonic tablets, and its great. fast, pretty, lots of memory... and too freaking huge. i thought id like the larger size for laying around in bed before i crash watching some tv or something on it... but no, its just too big. so now im looking to offload it, either sell it, or trade for a smaller tablet like the samsung galaxy. anyone want to buy it?

update: i no longer have the crappy gtablet. instead, in fine ferengi fashion, i wheeled and dealed my way into a samsung galaxy tab. i relisted the gtablet on craigslist, resulting in a trade for a new (still sealed in box) mytouch 4g phone. i then listed the mytouch and sold it for $425, netting me a $125 dollar profit. THEN i found someone selling the galaxy for $365... subtract the $125 from the profit on the previous trade, and i picked up the galaxy for a net $240... which is damn cheap considering that $365 was the cheapest ive seen a galaxy tab listed so far.

and for what its worth... i LOVE it. beautiful screen. perfect size. very fast and responsive, smooth as silk. excellent battery life. everything i wanted in a tablet... gonna start playing around with writing apps for it at some point this week...

i actually laughed out loud...

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:42:43 PDT

received this in my email, from cnn breaking news alerts... and this is a direct quote of the message in its entirety:

-- U.S. intelligence source: CIA is operating inside Libya to help U.S. increase "military and political understanding."

so you might have noticed i havent been posting much lately...

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:01:59 PDT

theres a good reason for it. a combination of reasons, actually.

the last 12 months have been some of the hardest of my life. ive been under tremendous stress from a lot of things, some big and some small, but they all add up and i started to feel buried by them. both my cats died in the space of about 6 months, after 16 years of their constant companionship. checks from work started bouncing... and thats when id get them at all. i was at least two weeks behind in pay for the last several months, and more recently, between 4 and 6 weeks. things have been going wrong around the house (as things will) and i dont have the money to take care of them, because ive been husbanding my savings just to try and ride things out. id been looking for another job for about 6 months, with no success. finally, at the beginning of the month, with my savings run almost completely dry, i had to have a serious talk with my mom and brother about moving in with one of them, and i started packing up the house.

im a pretty strong person. it takes a lot to significantly throw me off my game. and i tell you... i was worn the fuck down. to a nub. id go so far as to say i was genuinely, clinically, depressed. i was in pretty bad shape.

well, fortunately, things look like they may be breaking my way a bit for a change. i interviewed for a position last monday, and received an offer the same day. yesterday was my first day on the new job. my first "first day on the job" in 7 years has proven to carry its own set of challenges, ive been kinda chucked into the deep end without a rope on this position, but im sure as i adjust to the new environment and procedures and people, things will settle down. ive come to the conclusion after 20 years that every company is in a state of barely managed chaos, but that no two are alike, they each have their own... texture. and until you learn how the currents flow and where the turbulence is, youre gonna get tossed around a bit. nothing about the position is "hard" or even anything *close* to outside my competency... but the kind of "meta" aspect of it, the people and processes and where stuff is and who does what when... the "soft" skills side of it... its kicking my ass. im not a "people" person, i just want to sit in a hole and code, and having to interface with all these strangers just to even get STARTED doing anything useful, is stressing me out something fierce. never mind the pressure to perform.

but... ill be getting at least one paycheck... hopefully ill be able to adapt to the new environment fast enough to keep them coming :) im sure i will... pretty sure. mostly. ugh.

once a sniper, always a sniper...

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:18:45 PST

a former WWII sniper, 84 years old, shoots a 3-shot 5-inch group... from 1000 yards...

1 minute of angle is 1 inch at 100 yards, if i remember correctly... so thats, what, .5 MOA? from 1000 yards... damn.

hey cvdveer!

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 19:35:41 PST

just noticed you posted some comments... where you been, man? its been... years since ive seen you around here... whats shaking?

big numbers

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:18:14 PST

wow. i knew that 100 million is a miniscule portion of nearly 4 trillion... but he's right, its difficult to visualize just HOW miniscule it is...

do want

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:55:12 PST

Tron: Legacy

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:50:56 PST

so after getting knocked down by the flu on opening weekend, i finally was able to see tron legacy last sunday... and ive got to say, i liked it. it wasnt awesome, but it wasnt AWFUL either... mostly im just glad it didnt shit on one of my fondest childhood memories. its worth a matinee for sure, although i dont think it was worth the $15 imax 3d ticket i paid...

also... how can i get into a computer world like that? because evidently, its full of hot chicks... i want to get me some of that latex-covered hot program action :)

just cause 2 is $7.50 today (and maybe tomorrow) on steam

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 12:18:18 PST

just cause 2 is one of my favorite games... prolly the best "open world" game ive played. think grand theft auto, but nix the "urban gangster" theme and replace it with a "tropical despot" theme. there is a pretty thin storyline whereby you are a CIA contractor hired to overthrow a dictator blah blah blah. doesnt matter. what DOES matter is you have a fucking arm-mounted grappling hook and a sweet-ass parachute... the hook can actually be used in conjunction with the parachute as a ludicrously fun (and utterly illogical) mode of transportation, sort of like a parasail. it can also be used (again in the face of all sense) to grapple two things together. this might not sound that interesting, until you try grappling a guard to a passing car. or maybe to a conveniently placed cylinder of propane gas... which you can then shoot, and watch it rocket off into the sky, dragging the unfortunate guard along with it, until it eventually explodes dropping said guard to his hilarious death. or grappling a car to a helicopter, then flying around using the car as a wrecking ball. or grappling a guard to the ceiling then beating him like a pinata until all the wonderful red candy falls out. or... well, you get the idea.

really, when i think about it, this game is all about that hook. i absolutely cannot over-emphasize how stupidly fun that damn hook is. but if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video has to be worth like... a million? i couldnt find just one that i liked so see them all here... anyhow, bottom line, totally worth $7.50...

the most amazing gaming headphones i have ever used are on sale today

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 09:33:03 PST

first let me emphasize "gaming headphones"... audiophiles are not going to want these headphones for listening to music. of course, audiophiles ALREADY have headphones they love, so this doesnt really apply to them, i just make the point because audiophiles also tend to be among those special kinds of jackass that will piss and moan about how whatever you like is actually shit and youre just too inferior to recognize it because you have shitty, untrained ears. so audiophiles, fuck off. these arent the cans for you.

now that that is out of the way... the logitech g35 headset is on sale today for $64 with free shipping when you check out with the coupon code logi_g35_112310, direct from logitech. this is actually 10 bucks cheaper than i paid for mine, and about 50 bucks cheaper than normal. i know your first reaction is probably "WTF$129HEADSETWTF???" and if it isnt, well, that was MY first reaction when i heard about these headphones... but after owning mine for about 6 weeks i can say without a doubt that they were worth every nickle of the $75 i spent on them, and would be worth every nickle at TWICE that price. seriously.

ive been meaning to post about this headset for the last month or so... ive been playing a lot of online games with my brother lately, and the old crappy headset i had both sounded like shit and crushed my huge melon such that after 30 minutes i felt like someone had hammered a spike clear through my head from one ear to the other. not fun. the g35s, on the other hand, i can (and have) worn for hours and hours on end and completely forget im wearing them. except for the ear-sweat, anyway. this alone makes them worth the money.

of course, the reason most people would get them is the dolby 7.1 surround feature. i was skeptical at first. i thought, how can a pair of headphones produce a surround soundfield? evidently theres some kind of fancy perceptual encoding stuff going on that translates positional audio sources into something that tricks your brain into sensing the directionality of the sound. the amazing thing is... it works. it works really, really well. however, because its a "perceptual" thing, the results will vary from person to person because no two people perceive sound in the same way... and based on what ive read, some people get no directionality out of it at all, it just sounds weird or distorted to them. and to those people i say "it sucks to be you" because if you DO get the effect, its goddamned AMAZING. i was going to describe just how fucking amazing it is here, but after typing a bunch of shit i realized i cant really describe it, youve just got to experience it for yourself.

its also got a great microphone on it that auto-mutes when swiveled up, a nice feature. the sound quality is very very good from the mic, or so my gaming buddies tell me. no distortion, crackles, pops, etc... so this is a nice plus if youre going to use them for playing online at all.

however, be aware that these headphones are really REALLY good at blocking out outside noise. as in, a bomb could go off right beside you and you probably wouldnt hear it. so if youve got kids you need to keep track of or something... probably not the headphones for you. on the other hand, if youve got kids you wish would shut the hell up, theyll be absolutely perfect :)

im not sure if this sale is only good for today, or a week, or what... and i realize odds are the two or three people that read this probably arent in the market for a new headset right this instant... but what the fuck, i havent posted in a while :) if you DO get these, let me know what you think of them after youve had them for a while... i think youll find them amazing...

Courage

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 14:09:40 PST

Bad Company 2 has dropped to $20 (pc)

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:51:24 PDT

one of the best games i have ever played, battlefield: bad company 2, has permanently dropped in price to $20 on the pc (sorry console guys, its still $40 for you)... if you dont already have the game and can meet the system requirements

Minimum:
OS: Windows XP
Processor: Core 2 Duo @ 2.0GHz
Memory: 2GB
Graphics: 256 MB Video Card (GeForce 7800 GT / ATI X1900)
DirectX: DirectX 9, 10, and 11 support
Hard Drive: 15 GB

then you seriously need to get it. its absolutely amazing, and ive been playing the shit out of it for months and still havent gotten sick of it. actually let me clarify, the multiplayer portion is amazing... the single player game is ok, but its only about 8 hours long, tops, and not that great. i wouldnt buy it just for single play. but the online play is absolutely sublime... and i HATE online games in general. also, i suck horribly at this game and i STILL love it. typically, i hate anything i suck horribly at :)

if anyone decides to get it, comment or send me an email, my friends and i play almost every night, and we could use a 4th player to round out our squad... also, before playing, watch "how not to be a noob in bad company 2" :)

also, the top 10 reasons BC2 is better than modern warfare 2:

amazon's free track of the day today is worth downloading...

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 09:23:16 PDT

every day amazon has a free mp3 track to download, and 99.9% of the time, its total shit (which is not surprising when you consider 99.9% of all the music available is total shit) but today's free download is actually really good... its metric's "gimme sympathy" from the album "fantasies"... it isnt the track id have chosen from that album, but it really doesnt matter because the truth is, there isnt one bad track on the whole album... which is pretty amazing, really. if you like the song consider getting the whole thing, its one of my favorites and money well spent...

isnt that just a pretty picture?

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 23:47:47 PDT

this is both sad, and hysterical...

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:03:55 PDT