General on John's Random Review

PKHunter Postmortem

Sun, 30 Apr 2017 23:19:37 +0000

After a long run, Asheron’s call has finally shut down for good. As such, I’ve also shut down the data processing for the 2 related site’s I’ve run for ~15 years: TrophyHunter and PKHunter. Here’s a post about statistics, info, and details about PKHunter. At some point i might do a similar post about TrophyHunter. There’s a little less stats involved there, but the final kill map looks a lot more like Dereth than the PK-only kill map

MetalCloak “Gold Standard” lift install

Sat, 22 Oct 2016 22:57:00 +0000

For a while, I’d been looking at options for a “small” lift for my jeep. Nowadays, there are an infinite amount of options, from leveling kits, to suspension lifts, to body lifts, offered by tons of different vendors. After setting a budget and evaluating all my options, I’d eventually settled on something. And then a post on wranglerforum.com changed my mind.

MetalCloak adopts the “Gold Standard”

Every once in a while, MetalCloak has done this special package where if you pay with 1 ounce of gold, they’ll sell you a 2.5” – 3.5” lift kit at a pretty good discount and give you free shipping.

Fun with Spray Paint

Sat, 30 Apr 2016 21:53:52 +0000

In a random ad email from Extreme Terrain, i saw a star grill insert, and had an idea to go with the theme of my jeep. I thought: "We have red and blue spray paint..."

So i ordered one, and busted out the masking tape…

Can you see my silly mistake in masking? i see saw it as soon as i finished spraying. You’ll see it in a second when the masking tape is removed… :|

What I (used to) work on: CodeMap debugger integration

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 05:10:48 +0000

Every once in a while, you run into one of those problems while debugging where you just don’t get what’s going on. you’ve stepped through the debugger 10 times, and you see it happening, but you just don’t know why.

I ran into one of those a few weeks back, while porting one of my apps to windows 10, where sometimes, when you clicked the back button, nothing would happen. if you clicked it a second time, it went back to the page you were on. And when this state was occurring, there were some other strange things going on that weren’t quite right. I’d been stepping through it over and over, and i got to a place where the same breakpoint was getting hit 2 times, with the same stack when i navigated to the page in the first place. This seemed like a very strange thing. i couldn’t for the life of me figure out how that was possible. did i find some strange subtle bug in the Win10 UWP framework? I figured that to be highly unlikely, i was certainly doing something subtle myself. So i thought, “Hey, self, you used to work on debuggermap, i wonder if there’s something i’m not seeing here..”

What I’ve been working on: Open Live Writer

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 18:32:35 +0000

It was announced this morning that what used to be Windows Live Writer has been forked, modified, and open sourced under a MIT license as Open Live Writer. Prior to Facebook, i used to post a lot more stuff here on my blog, and when i did, i did most of that posting using WLW. Microsoft stopped actively developing it after the Windows Live Writer 2012 release and most of that team was moved to working on making apps for Windows 8. I still used WLW after that, but slowly over time the plug-ins i used stopped being supported, and it became a little bit harder to use. And Facebook made it easy to post little things, and life always has a way of finding other things to do. I always mean to post more stuff here, and i probably have 10 or more unfinished drafts either as WLW .wpost files, or saved as drafts in WordPress.

Random Review: Deadpool

Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:48:47 +0000

I randomly got Deadpool for xbox 360 from my gamefly.com queue. I have no idea when I added it, I’m presuming a long time ago since this game was released more than 2 years ago. But it finally came up to the top of the queue, so I played it. Went in with low expectations, since it was so old…

It was hilariously awesome…for adults!

My kids love Deadpool in the Lego: Marvel Superheroes game; he has lots of funny animations, and quips like “I’m not dead. I don’t have a pool.”, and so my children will just say that, for no reason at all while playing. But there’s no way I would ever let them see me playing this game. It is brutally violent, has tons of swearing, and lots of sexual innuendos, hence the Mature 17+ rating. Playing this game made me super excited for the upcoming movie with Ryan Reynolds!

Random Review: Dragon Age: Inquisition

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 02:30:07 +0000

Simply stated: Dragon Age: Inquisition is the best game I’ve played in a long, long time. It was so good, that now that I’ve finished, (twice! After I finished the first time, I loaded a save from several days prior and did several companion quests, finished up some loose ends, and finished the main storyline a different way), I am kindof on a Dragon Age hangover. I really just haven’t been in the mood to play anything. Since I’m not in the mood to play, I figure I better write about it!

Pretty, Pretty Quiet!

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 20:39:29 +0000

Almost a decade ago, I posted my original review of my springfield 1911. Over the years, little mods have taken place, like different grips, a different magwell, etc. The newest piece is a modification to the gun to enable an addition. I replaced the standard barrel with a threaded storm lake barrel, so that I could attach a suppressor! And yes, silencers are legal!

Random Review: Dead Rising 3

Mon, 24 Feb 2014 01:12:35 +0000

Way back when the XBox 360 came out (2006!), I did a review of Dead Rising. It was a great game, one of my favorites of that first generation of 360 games. When Dead Rising 2 came out in 2010, it was lost in a sea of other games, so I never ended up playing it. I did play through part of their free “preview” game, Dead Rising: Case Zero, but I never finished that either… When the Xbox One released a few months ago, Dead Rising 3 was one of the launch titles. I didn’t buy an Xbox One right away, instead I waited for the holiday drama to subside, and watched for people selling consoles they might have bought only to flip to people that were desperate for one during the holidays. And indeed, I did get a great deal on a bundle with an extra controller, Dead Rising 3, and Lego Marvel.

What I work on: CodeLens (VS2013 RC!)

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 17:19:18 +0000

As of yesterday, the Release Candidate of Visual Studio 2013 is now available! (And, MSFT changed its mind, so if you have an MSDN subscription, you can also download Windows 8.1 RTM!)

The feature my team (and others) has been working on, CodeLens, has undergone some major updates and cleanups since the preview. To see the most of it, you can go to MSDN’s page about CodeLens.

Here’s just one little picture including some of the new stuff. for the rest, go to the MSDN link above!

What I work on: CodeLens!

Wed, 26 Jun 2013 17:19:11 +0000

Today at the //build/ conference, Visual Studio 2013 was announced and shown in preview form (and download!). And once again, my group (well, my group plus our larger team) made the front page of visualstudio.com:

In Visual Studio 2013, when doing c# and vb, you’ll get extra “indicators” above your methods that give you kindof a “heads up display” of things about that class/method/property. The first one shows you references to the method, if you’re also using TFS it will show you which people have touched that method and in what changesets. Its tfs history on steroids! If you’re also using the built in unit testing features, that method will also show you an indicator that shows which tests test that method, and how many are pass/fail. If you click on any of the indicators, you’ll get a popup that shows you the details, and each details popup window has more useful info and actions you can do with that reference, or that changeset, or that unit test!

Now on Azure!

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 04:56:19 +0000

So as an MSDN subscriber, you get up to $150 / month of credits on windows azure. And azure supports wordpress, so… I created a site on azure in like 5 minutes, exported the content from my garage based server, imported into my new azure site, and blammo, it’s back up. Admittedly, it took some time to re-install all my plug-ins and find a new theme (the theme I was using hasn’t been updated in 2 years, apparently?), but other than that it was a pretty painless process. Then I tweaked some DNS things (which required overnight to propogate), and everything appears to be working. So far! I’ve been looking for a way to move all of my hosted stuff off of the server that’s running in my garage, and the combination of this, azure’s VM service, and the MSDN credits might finally be a solution!

What I Work on: Code Map Debugger Integration

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 19:48:05 +0000

In the last “what I work on” post, I talked about the Code Map feature that was new in Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate (Update 1). It has turned out to be a very popular feature (as it should) because it is super useful!

After people have used Code Map for a while, one of their first requests is “how do I get debugger information into this map?” There are ways to do it, where as you step through code, you keep manually doing “show on code map” on the method you’re in, but that gets very tedious.

I Love my Surface!

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 17:40:36 +0000

I’ve had a Surface (RT) since the Surface launch day, and I love it. (Note: I am a Microsoft employee, and recently they did give each employee a Surface for primarily business use, with personal use allowed, primarily for evangelism purposes. The launch day surface is my own personal surface, purchased with my own hard earned money). Since buying the Surface, I haven’t used my laptop! Here are just a few of the things that I love about it.

What I Work On: Code Map

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 06:17:06 +0000

Yesterday, Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 shipped! So I can officially talk about what I just worked on. Much of it has already been available in preview form and CTP releases and such, but you don’t want to get in trouble! :)

I joined the Visual Studio team back in April, just as work was finishing up on Visual Studio 2012. As part of that release, the VS team was moving to much more agile release schedule for updates, so here we are, about 4 months after going gold with an update with lots of fixes and cool new features!

Random Review: Lego Batman 2

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:01:25 +0000

It should almost be called “Lego Superman,” as he’s probably the best character in the game :). Most of the Justice League makes appearances in the game, but they don’t have much importance in the story, which is a shame. hopefully it’s a setup for a full fledged lego justice league game? (related: why is there no lego:Avengers game?!!?)

Easton and I have played through several Lego games now, and of all of them, this was definitely the hardest. In most of the other games, you have to learn how to move the characters. In the first Lego Batman, you also had to drive some vehicles, but that’s it. Lego Batman 2, you have to learn how to:

After Action Report: Tough Mudder Seattle

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 05:02:43 +0000

If I had to describe Tough Mudder in 2 words, the nicest version would be “holy hell”. If you don’t already know what it is, Tough Mudder is an adventure-style race. It’s generally 10-12 miles, littered with obstacles. And the obstacles are crazy.

Laura and I were on a 4 person team, “Birthday Cake”, as it was one team-member’s birthday. Beside Laura and I, the other two ladies on the team (Buffy and Erinn) are women we know through Columbia Athletic Club, the gym we go to. Well, actually, one of the ladies on our team is a trainer at Columbia, who Laura sees regularly, and who I’ve been working with once a week since the “spring challenge” starting in April. Anyway, back to the ~~race~~ challenge!

Funny Things Easton Says: Part 2

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 04:50:09 +0000

Easton is now almost 4. I figured I’d have a “part 2” to follow up on the original part 1 before this, but, you know. Things. They come up. So I’m a little behind schedule on this one. :)

“Gwirl” (rhymes with “Squirrel”. This is how he produces the ultra simple word “Girl”. It is one of the funniest things he says. sometimes I try to correct him, and he says “no, it’s gwirl!” If you didn’t hear it all the time, you probably wouldn’t notice it. but now that I’ve pointed it out, you’ll hear it too.
“my friend pogo-stick” – for a while, we think easton had an imaginary friend that he had named “pogo stick”. no idea where it came from.
“my friend robin” – now he’s in a HUGE superhero kick, so now his imaginary friend is robin. So that’s a good thing, it means that he’s the lead, and he has at least one sidekick. So tonight before bed, he was looking through his books, and said “I don’t want to read this one, I just want to look at it to see if Robin wants it for his birthday”
“This sounds like a job for [superhero]!”, where [superhero] is whichever super-hero shirt or pajamas he is putting on.
A whole set of words where he just drops the first (few) syllables. I’m not sure if this is just the hip new thing that kids his age are doing to save typing on twitter or what:
- "-chine" for "machine"
- "-cado", for “avocado”
- "-nected" for "connected"

Of course, there are a bunch more, but now that I started writing them down I can’t think of any!

Project: Toy Car Garage

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 06:00:26 +0000

Like I said last time I built something, every time Laura and Easton (and now Barrett) go somewhere for a week,

I end up doing some project that consumes all of my free time, and half of my sleep! I finally have some time to sleep in and relax, but no; I do a woodworking or home improvement project instead.

This spring, same thing, for the third year in a row. The project this time was a “garage” for all of the toy cars we have.

Trying out TFSPreview

Thu, 31 May 2012 06:09:36 +0000

For my home development projects, I’ve been using the “Basic” setup of Microsoft Team Foundation Server for years. I have it running on my “server” box in my garage, but pointed at a Sql Server Express database instead of a full Sql Server install. (Apparently, there’s going to be an explicit TFS “Express” version in TFS11?)

Aside: why am I not using something like github? To keep my stuff private, I’d have to pay ~$7/month for 5 repositories. the way I have things setup in TFS right now, I’d have more than that, requiring their $12/month plan.

Ben Avery Review #3: Lotsa-shotguns edition

Sun, 06 May 2012 06:02:53 +0000

They say, “Variety is the spice of life.” That’s almost the perfect description for my 3rd trip to the Ben Avery shooting facility during our annual spring break trip to Arizona.

This year, Jimbo, Art, and I shot trap again, but rotated through a set of shotguns to see which one we liked (or which ones liked us) better.

The trip to Ben Avery is always one of my favorite parts of the trip, even if it is only a couple hours of our week. This year, I even remembered to bring my earplugs and shooting glasses. One of these years, I’ll have a trap gun of my own, and maybe I’ll bring that along as well. And maybe by then, Easton will be joining us. But that’s a long way off :).

Updating my office, again!

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 06:52:32 +0000

About 5 years ago, we redid my office. Well, now that there’s another little being on the way, my office is transforming back to bedroom form. So i had to update my office again. This time, there ended up being a little… well, consolidation. An entire room of stuff is now in this:

Over the years, “Nerd Central”, as my office was once known, has slowly gone from 3 computers, 2 monitors, 2 printers, a television, surround sound receiver, a small mixer to manage the sound output to one set of speakers, and a huge random assortment of other electronics down to just a single desktop computer and xbox with a single monitor and computer speakers, and the 2 printers (one inkjet, one photo)

Project: Theater Cabinet

Mon, 30 May 2011 06:03:11 +0000

I don’t know what it is, but every time Laura and Easton leave for a week, I end up doing some project that consumes all of my free time, and half of my sleep! I finally have some time to sleep in and relax, but no; I do a woodworking or home improvement project instead. Last May it was redoing the stairs. This year it was a cabinet for the theater room for dvds, games, books and things. We couldn’t use a floor standing one, as that corner of the room has an electric fan forced heater that requires clearance space. So the cabinet had to be a wall mounted one. Sounds like a project!

Random Review: Alan Wake

Mon, 30 May 2011 03:10:24 +0000

Alan Wake was one of the most interesting games I’ve played in a long time. The story was an actual story. Well, it was really a story about a story, in the form of a game about a story.

A lot of companies have tried to do some kind of “episodic” game, and of any, I think this game could have actually pulled it off if it had been released that way.

Random Review: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 05:17:49 +0000

The game begins in disappointment: you’re forced to install a console game. So before I can even do anything, I’m forced to wait 8 minutes. Great initial experience there.

During the install I’m forced to watch a dude on screen chain smoke the whole time. Some of the “hints” it gave during this install (emphasis/commentary added):

konami is not responsible for any damage resulting from misuse (misuse of what?)
this game is intended for use exclusively with the PLAYSTATION3 system. (no crap, really? is that why its only available on the PS3? where else would I play it?)
cigarette smoke has detrimental effects to you and those around you, particularly infants and children.
put litter in its place. dispose of ashes in ashtrays.
ensure that you play in a brightly lit room and sit as far away from the screen as possible (except sony makes this impossible, as I need to charge my ps3 controller, and the cord they give you for that is like 3’ long, and apparently the controller only charges if the PS3 is on!)
avoid playing when you are tired
be sure to take a 15-minute break every half hour
if you begin to feel ill, stop playing immediately

THANKS MOM, for the life coaching while waiting for your game to install.

Happy 1911 Day!

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 06:05:56 +0000

On March 29, 1911 the army adopted the John Moses Browning designed M1911 pistol. And today, 100 years later, the 1911 is still used by some of the special forces groups of the military and is still one of the most popular handguns in the world.

The first gun I bought was a 1911 pistol. It is still my favorite handgun to shoot, although shooting a lot of .45 gets expensive! So I bought a Marvel Precision .22 LR conversion that allows me to shoot .22 LR, and then I bought another (used) 1911 so that I didn’t have to keep swapping the conversion on and off. The collection has grown, but I still shoot both of those pretty often. I’ve even used the 45 in pistol league a few weeks, and it’s a lot of fun!

Ben Avery Review #2: The Shotgunning Edition

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 05:37:18 +0000

Last year, Art took us to Ben Avery Shooting Facility to shoot some of his guns, and we had a grand old time.

In what has become an annual tradition, we went again this year during spring training. But this year, instead of rifles and revolvers, this year was all about: Shotguns!

Jim and Art used over/under Browning shotguns, and I used a browning single shot. We then each shot ~60 birds of trap shooting. Ben Avery is a huge place, with something like 18 trap fields, so the 3 of us had a trap field to ourselves. This was good since neither Jim or I had shot trap before, and we didn’t want to slow anyone else down.

Random Review: Torchlight

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 02:32:02 +0000

While Torchlight has been available for the PC for a long (long!) time, it just came out last week on Xbox 360 as an arcade game. And it is a great game! It’s probably the best value for an Xbox live arcade game so far. I can’t believe how much stuff they fit into that ~400 meg download!

It wasn’t the best story ever, but I thought the story made more sense than Borderlands! The side quests were ok, but I think I “broke” some by going through the area and doing something before I got the quest for it. There were other things where I swear I scoured the whole level, and the thing that was supposed to be there wasn’t there. And I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time looking when there was so much other stuff to do.

Random Review: Medal of Honor

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 07:11:42 +0000

This is one of the few sequels that doesn’t have a number or subtitle. It should be something like “Medal of Honor: Tier 1” or something, as the game was mostly following some Tier 1 special forces operators through the storyline.

Like the Call of Duty series, I played through MoH on the hardest difficulty (until I saw the “Tier 1 mode” or whatever that I didn’t go back through and play). But unlike recent CoD games on hard, I didn’t see any real “bugs” with the “good guy” AI. And the special forces guys in this game could shoot. While you, as the player, still have to do the majority of the work, the computer controlled players could at least draw fire and provide cover so that you could flank the bad guys. So for this game, I don’t have to write a version of my “letter to my idiot squadmates” posts. The effectiveness of my squad did make the game feel a little easier than CoD, but it did make me feel like a good player on a great team, instead of the great player on a crappy team. However, the game not being as hard didn’t make the game any less enjoyable.

Random Review: Call of Duty: Black Ops

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 07:19:24 +0000

This is the (by my count) 7th game in the Call of Duty series. Of the recent ones (since CoD:Modern Warfare), this one had the best story.

It had a very interesting psycho-drama going on, with the main character being captured and interrogated by someone, causing flashbacks. The missions occurred in the flashbacks, not entirely in order, and interestingly, sometimes without clear beginning or end. I liked that. Several times you’d be what you’d assume 3/4 of the way through something, and then you’d see something that didn’t make sense, and you’d get shocked back to the interrogation. I thought I had figured out what was going on, but I hadn’t. I like it when a game keeps me guessing.

Random Review: Red Dead Redemption

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 06:05:52 +0000

Red Dead Redemption was one of the best games I played in 2010. Well, I’m finished playing it in 2011, so it might be the best game I played in 2011 too :). If you haven’t played it, its Grand Theft Horse, basically. Same developers, same engine. But the story in RDR was a lot more interesting to me than GTA was. I think when you set a game in modern day, you really have to get every little detail right, because people’s brains are so used to seeing that stuff, that you will notice if the cars are too shiny, or the windows don’t reflect right, and all kinds of other things just won't look quite right. But when you set a game in the wild wild west, not a lot of people are used to riding horses, or herding cattle so you aren’t going to notice little things that are incorrect.

Random Review: Assassin’s Creed 2

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 06:31:50 +0000

AC2 was probably one of the best games I’ve played this year. Most of the time sequels aren’t as good as the original, but this one was as good, if not better than the original. Yes, it was a little formulaic, and there was a fair amount of repetition, but I really liked the story. It had one laaaaaaame moment, but I’ll let it go and see if AC3 cleans it up. I thought the addition of the interaction with Leonardo Da Vinci was pretty clever. There’s also a part now where you kindof run a city in a very minimal way, so that was an interesting way to make money. Towards the end I had so money I didn’t know what to do with it all, so I wish there would have been something else to do with it :D

Why I'm buying a Kinect

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 06:26:52 +0000

Now that Kinect for XBox360 has officially released, i’m allowed to say that we participated in the beta program for Kinect, and that we’ve been playing it now for a few months. (i even got a avatar t-shirt and a 0 point achievement, yay!)

There’s a very simple reason that i’m buying it: Easton can play it. He’s only 2, and doesn’t have the dexterity to do anything with a wii-mote or an xbox360 controller, but he can run in place, and he loves to play Kinect. Supposedly, the recommended minimum height for players is 3 feet, but for the most part he can play some stuff.

Funny things Easton says: Part 1

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 05:04:27 +0000

Well, probably more accurately, “things which easton says or mispronounces that i find funny”. Right now all the ones i can think of are single words. he’s starting to form sentences so i’m pretty sure there will be funny phrases for a future installment.

“Zune” is easton’s word for “phone”. I really wish i had my zune still (lost it on an airplane…) so he could be even more confused.
“Bean” is easton’s word for “beer”. “Daddy’s bean” is what he says whenever he sees a glass bottle of any kind. even though he says other words that end with the “r” sound, he will not say beer, he just says “bean” louder if you try to correct him
“Coshee” is easton’s word for “coffee”, although i think last weekend he started saying it right. He loves to run the coffee machine weekend mornings, and seems to enjoy the taste of even black coffee. I don’t know if its because he likes to copy me or if he really likes the taste. He does like raw garlic and onions though, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he likes the bitterness of coffee.
“Shark” is easy’s word for “fork”. sometimes its just “sark”. The weird thing is that he can say the “f” sound, so i don’t know why he won’t say fork.
“Fi-fi” is what easton calls Felix Hernandez. But most of the Mariners call him that too, so that’s okay.
“Pay-pay” is what easton calls Peyton Manning. I’m generally pretty anti-Peyton, but he’s my fantasy QB this year, so i root for him, but against the Colts in general.
When he sees cats, or squirrels or other small animals outside, he will generally say their name, then say “eat”. The conversation goes like: “Meow. Cat! Eat?”, “no, we don’t eat cats.” “eat? no eat.”

Random Review: Pistol League @ SSNW

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:49:29 +0000

I’ve been going to a pistol league at Shooting Sports Northwest for a few weeks now. I’ve never competed in any gun related things before, so this is a first for me.

There are 3 events every week, and you shoot each event twice.

The first part is called “zombies”, and is worth the most points. 10 rounds, 9 targets. the back row of 3 poppers pops up, and is up for a few seconds. Then the middle row of 3, then the front row of 3. The zombies are scored on distance; the back row is worth 20, 18, 15, middle 12, 10, 10, putting the front row at only 7, 7, 7. Most people will use as many rounds as they can to get the back row.

Random Review: Bioshock 2

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 07:14:11 +0000

Hey, that rhymed! The story in Bioshock 2 wasn’t as quite as good as the original, but was still very good. Helping the little sisters harvest was pretty cool. The big sisters were a clever idea. the most interesting part was the part where you see what the world looks like through a little sister’s eyes. That was pretty cool. Like the first game, the art direction and theme were magnificently done.

Mariners 2010 Commercial Jinx?

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 05:04:33 +0000

It’s not as exciting as the old Sports Illustrated Cover jinx, nor as cool as the Madden Cover curse, but I think this year the mariners have created a “mariners commercial” jinx.

The Mariners 2010 Commercials:

Immortalized: A commercial about a composite painting of all of the bullpen pitchers as a “cohesive” unit. Bullpen 2010: Mark Lowe: Traded. Bunch of the guys: injured. Bunch of guys: DFA’d. The rest, marginally effective.

Random Review: Dragon Age: Origins

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 07:28:41 +0000

Dragon Age: Origins is probably the best RPG I’ve played since Lunar on Sega CD. Or maybe the Might and Magic series on PC. Or *maaaaaaaaaaybe *the original Final Fantasy on the NES.

None of those had the kind of character development that Origins had though. It was simply amazing to me how many conversations a pair of characters would have in the background. I’d be walking around town or the woods or whatever, and two of the characters in the party would start bickering. so I’d have to stop and turn around so I could watch the full conversation. Some of the characters did not get along at all!

Random things about working at Microsoft for a year

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 06:27:02 +0000

While I’ve only worked there for a year, because I was “acquired” in an “asset” in an acquisition, I have 11 years of “service” for things like vacation and office placement, so that’s handy. In no particular order:

I've installed Windows a lot in a year. 2 different versions of Windows 7 a total of 9 times, 2 different versions of Server 2008 3 times. (And 3 Win7+1 Server2K8R2 installs at home!) Although i haven’t installed windows in several months, though.
I’ve installed Visual Studio 2010 even more. Probably something like 20 different internal builds on 3 machines and several VM’s. Although since the RTM version was available, i haven’t had to install that anymore either. Visual Studio 2010 is so much better than 2008. After using Eclipse for years, i’ve gotten used to so many of the built in features there that i was really surprised that visual studio doesn’t have similar functionality. There are some add-ons that add a lot of the refactoring things and other tools, but like visual studio, most of them are not free.
It's amazing how many IM conversations i have. At rosetta we would have just gotten up and walked over there instead of using IM. Communicator at MS works way better than it did at Merck. Even the desktop sharing works really well. At Merck, the old version of netmeeting we were using was pretty finicky.
I’ve had 4 different offices (not counting the conference room we worked out of for a week+)
There’s an email mailing list (or 2) for anything and everything. The email alias often has a name that makes no sense unless you know what the codename of a product was 5 years ago. And with all the email, there are still a ton of people with no email etiquette whatsoever. And there are people that have 30 lines of crap in their signature.
Across 4 computers and 2 VM’s i’ve had exactly one bluescreen, and it was in the windows2008 server installer. (apparently it didn’t like the USB headset i had plugged in!)
I use OneNote all the time to take notes. I’d never used it before. And the 2010 version of OneNote makes some other things even easier. I only write on paper now when i go to meetings and don’t take my laptop, or if i’m sketching out paper prototypes. Sadly, it looks like the mobile version of onenote is pretty crippled compared to the full version. i only see numbered and bulleted lists, when i use the other tags like checkboxes and colors all the time.
C# as a language (and the .net framework in general) is pretty awesome. Especially LINQ and lambdas. Likewise, WPF + the xaml language and bindings makes it trivial to do a lot of things without much (or any) code. The visual GUI designer tools in VS2010 and Blend are the first ones i’ve used that don’t generate horrible horrible code. And the binding functionality makes hooking data up to controls trivial.
Expression Blend + SketchFlow are pretty awesome. I need more time to learn them both, as they’re way more powerful and useful than i’m using them. But there are some things that take like 2 seconds in Blend that are painful in visual studio.
There is a HUGE amount of available training. Classroom, online, books, everything, and most of it that i have used as been very very good.
like half the people I know have iphones. windows phone 7 looks cool at all, its just so far behind/away. Apple has released 4 hardware revisions and major OS versions in the time its taken MS to do 1? Since my first gen iphone is effectively a dead end now that it is no longer upgradable, I’m waiting for it to be worth my time to buy a new phone…
The company meeting at Safeco field is crazy. Last year had lots of great stuff, with Windows 7 and Office 2010 coming. This year’s should be interesting, with Win Phone 7 and Kinect coming soon. It would also be cool if they gave some more Windows 8 details.
I’d say like 33% of the people I know/have met are hardcore pro MS people. Another 33% are just there for a job that pays the bills. Another 33% are pro MS but realistic about the areas where we could be doing better. That last 1% is a crazy rabid anti microsoft bunch that thinks we’re on the wrong track completely about everything we do no matter what it is. We could be curing cancer and they’d still be upset.

Random Review: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Thu, 13 May 2010 05:03:55 +0000

Recently, film critic Roger Ebert said (again!) that “video games can never be art.” He has obviously never played Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. It was one of the best games i’ve ever played. If I’m not going to say it was the best i’ve ever played, because it did have some repetitive things and some other weird issues. But this game is art. There’s no way it ***can’t ***be. As much as I respect Roger Ebert, he’s just plain wrong on this one.

I would buy an iPad if...

Fri, 07 May 2010 04:07:07 +0000

Now that courier is dead (i’d link to that gizmodo article, but being a microsoft employee, i’m supposed to link to that instead), i’m looking at a new laptop or something.

I’d buy an ipad if it had “case” that made it like a my old clio. my horrible ‘shop: (aside: what do you call a “photoshop” that isn’t done in photoshop? this was done via paint.net)

It lets you hide/protect the screen, and yet lets you use the keyboard when you want, or use it as a stand to watch stuff without holding it, but you can pop it out when you want the lighter screen to do stuff with.

Random Review: Ben Avery Shooting Facility

Mon, 03 May 2010 05:51:56 +0000

While in Arizona for spring training, my step-dad Art took my brother and me to the Ben Avery Shooting Facility outside of Phoenix.

Here's the panorama view from where we were sitting. I should have gotten a couple more shots to the left, though!

Here's the view from space:

The main 200 yard range is just eastnortheast a bit of where the orange dot is on the map. If you zoom in you can see what 200 yards looks like from space. Then zoom back out and see HOW HUGE that place is! It was awesome! Weather was nice, not too warm, not too cold. A little windy, but not so much that it really affected us at the distance we were shooting.

Random Review : G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 20:31:52 +0000

Just finished the game G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra on Xbox 360. The idea of the game was good. The execution was rather….meh.

The game is kindof a 3rd person top down/isometric shooter. but you have absolutely no control over the camera! In most of the games like this you have at least some control over the camera. you might not be able to rotate the full 360 degrees, but at least you can move it so you can see your characters on the frigging screen! there were several places in the game where you had to make a left or right turn to go around the corner. and for several seconds, you couldn’t even see your characters until the camera caught up with you! That’s just insane. Instead of having the right thumbstick control the camera, it controlled what you were targeting. I would have much rather had camera control and then use the left/right bumpers for target control.

Random Review: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:49:23 +0000

I really liked the first Ultimate Alliance, and the sequel fixed almost every problem/annoyance that i had with it. Ultimate Alliance 2 was, in a word: Awesome.

It’s a top-down action game with RPG elements, reasonable multiplayer, and comic book heroes (and villains!) galore. It has a good story with a great moral dilemma, which is (mostly) meaningful to the story. The pace of the game was good, the story was really good.

Random Review: Dine Around Seattle

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 05:44:54 +0000

During March, Laura and I hit two restaurants as part of the Dine Around Seattle program. From March 1 to March 31, a bunch of Seattle area restaurants do a Sunday through Thursday, 3 course for $30 special offer. Some of the places are pretty high end that you might never go to. Thankfully we found a good babysitter, so we’ve been able to go to two! If we hadn’t gone to AZ on spring break, we might have hit more!

Spike's Tactical AR-22: one year later.

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 05:05:05 +0000

I’ve now had my Spike’s Tactical AR-22 for more than a year. Its now on a different lower than it originally was, has some different accessories, and has lots of ammo through it!

Go to the original review.

In 2009, i put more than 2300 rounds through it, with only 27 failures. And of those 28, 15 were on one day early in February, where i tried to use CCI Mini-mags. Lets just say that it doesn’t like those! I also think i went through a bad batch of ammo in January, where i had ~100 light strikes or duds. It happened with 2 separate lowers, so I don’t think it was hammer or spring related.

Random Review: A piece of history

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:02:42 +0000

I recently received this amazing piece of WWII era history through the Civilian Marksmanship Program:

A Springfield Armory M1 .30 Caliber Rifle, commonly called an M1 Garand.

The serial number is in the 278xxxx range, which, according to Fulton Armory (via Scott Duff), makes its manufacture date in March of 1944. By the proof marks on the stock (pics to follow!) it looks like the stock is much newer, either HRA or IH from the mid to late 50’s. Either way, i think it is the oldest thing i own!

Random Review: Overlord 2

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:08:04 +0000

The first few hours were very enjoyable, much like the first Overlord was. I didn’t see much new stuff, other than that the minions could have mounts that would let them get to other places.

I really liked the original Overlord, and in fact while i was playing it, Laura was pregnant with Easton. In one of laura’s first ultrasounds, easton looked just like the overlord, so that was funny timing.

Now I want an ACOG even more!

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:23:22 +0000

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

-- From ABCNews.com

I love how all of a sudden a marking like JN8:12 is a “Secret Jesus Code”, instead of a passage in the bible.

This whole article is fully of quotes so hilarious, it should really have been published by the Onion:

Random Review: Modern Warfare 2

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 06:13:31 +0000

Fastest review: Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare was better.

The AI might have been crappy in the first one, but at least the story made sense. Yes, there was a controversial section in this one. But it should have been more controversial that it was horrible horrible writing. Hey, I’m standing here with a fully loaded machine gun, and the world’s most wanted terrorist and his dudes, I could end this whole story RIGHT HERE and be the hero of the world. But instead, i think i’ll let some terrorists waste a bunch of idiot tourists who just stand there. Um, no. And you’re telling me that airport cops in Russia are armed with pistols? God, i hope not.

Random Review: Ghostbusters (the video game)

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:18:57 +0000

I really liked it! It had a few glitchy things at the beginning, though.

You’d think that if you were making a game about ghosts you would maybe maybe write your code in such a way that said ghosts don’t get stuck in the environment. Several times i’d get to a spot in the level where nothing was happening. All of the other ghostbusters are standing around, obviously waiting for something to happen. So i had to run around in the whole level, looking for that one stupid ghost that was stuck somewhere. On one of the first levels, he was stuck between a building and a car. Other times, having the ghosts stuck somewhere turned out to be very convenient, as it meant that there was one less ghost to deal with.

Halloween this year, not like the others.

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:26:08 +0000

The thing I misses the most since the tragic end of Rosetta Biosoftware will be not having a real Halloween party tomorrow. And not just because someone in the carpool had won either Best Costume, Best Group, or the Golden Frankie for like the last 5 years. The best thing was probably seeing your managers, directors, etc, dressed up in costumes. Microsoft has kids over and trick-or-treating, but it isn’t going to be the same as having Yelena forcing people to wear whatever costume things she brought for the people who didn’t dress up!

I would buy this thing instantly.

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:33:44 +0000

I’m going to need to start emailing around Microsoft Research now that i work at Microsoft…because i’m intrigued by this thing:

Microsoft Research’s Courier

This new device, called “Courier” showed up on Gizmodo today, and i don’t know why it hasn’t gotten more press. Maybe because its still in a “late prototype” phase and everyone assumes there’s an apple iTablet thing due any time now?

Random Review: Mirror's Edge

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:27:55 +0000

In haiku form:

mirror’s edge, the game
it is a jumping puzzle
and that’s about it.

Well, maybe it had other things, but i never found them. I just couldn’t get into it, because it was just jumping puzzles, so i gave up. I’d just finished Tomb Raider before that, and at least it had puzzle puzzles. And swinging puzzles, and fire puzzles and shooting puzzles, etc. There are just too many other games out to play something that pisses me off.

Hardware pain!

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:32:25 +0000

I’ve spent a couple weeks now trying to get this server back running and have had the wierdest problems…The network keeps disappearing! After a few hours, the NIC just stops working. Device manager still shows it, but the link light is gone, and the activity light stays off. I’ve updated bios, drivers, tried another NIC, same problem.

If i uninstall the driver, and reinstall the driver, sometimes it just magically comes back…looks like i might need to get Win2k8 server R2 when it comes out, see if it fixes some of these things… We’ll see how long the machine stays on the network tonight!

Random Review: Fallout 3

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:36:13 +0000

Fallout 3, by Bethesda Softworks is probably the best game I’ve played so far in 2009. Personally, i think the world felt a lot bigger and a lot more immersive than GTA4.

There was so much to do, and so many places to go, i found myself just wandering unexplored areas of the map to see what i could see. There were some great quest chains, and other not so great, but on a whole it was a great mix of RPG and action. There were some quests that were secondary that could be completed regardless of the main quest, and then there were a fair amount of “mini” quests that don’t show up in the quest list, but showed up as notes instead…which was annoying. Some of the mini-quests were literally seconds long: a dude ran up to me in the middle of the wasteland, and said

Hardware upgrade, websites (mostly) back to normal.

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:06:21 +0000

After a hardware disaster, corrupted backups, professional data restoration, a hardware upgrade complete with more hardware failure (somehow a new power supply i bought at FRY’s was DOA!), everything is mostly back to normal. Everything is running on newer builds of php and mysql, with 4x the processing power and 4x the RAM. I’ve seen mysql crash a few times already, though, so we’ll see how that goes.

If you see somethinng missing or broken, let me know!

Can it be?

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 03:26:19 +0000

I was browsing random crap on ebay today…and on my profile, saw this:

Member since: Feb-16-99 in United States

Holycrap, really? I’ve been buying stuff off ebay for a decade? I thought that ebay would die a quick death, like some of the other auction sites that we bought computer stuff from in college….

The president is not supposed to be your friend.

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:34:44 +0000

I’m sorry, but the President is not supposed to be your friend. Going on TV with a NCAA bracket? Going on Jay Leno while being President? Neither of these things is Presidential. The former is a thing that a 23 year old high school teacher right out of college would do to be friends with high school girls. The latter is something you do on the campaign trail. We get it, you’re cool. Now get over yourself and get to work.

Random Review: Too Human

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 06:29:49 +0000

Very weird game. It ended in the middle of the story. It took me a while to get a hang of the controls and equipment, and then about the time i was really getting into it, a cutscene ends, and the credits start rolling…

The lack of any kind of in game map was a giant pain, especially in the “cyberspace” thing… which should have had a better name. I mean, to most people that word has a meaning, and that meaning is not “lush green forest”.

Hey mom! I'm famous!

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:56:34 +0000

See for yourself!. Click + to zoom in.

I’m doing rock fingers, jay is doing the robot. We just barely saw him going by on our way to lunch. That was like 6 months ago? It was cold enough to wear a jacket…

Here’s another view that pete found:

We were just coming out the ping-pong-plaza door.

Would nature sort things out?

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:49:03 +0000

I came across these two videos at the bottom of a story at kirotv.com, a local tv channel’s news website.

If we could combine these two stories into one, which problem would be solved?

Cougar Prowling Streets Of Olympia

The hunt is on for a cougar seen prowling the city streets of Olympia. More Details

+

Park Officials Try New Approach To Stop Graffiti

A graffiti spree over the holiday weekend is prompting the Seattle Parks Department to try a new approach to stop the vandals. More Details

Random Review: The most expensive meal we've ever eaten...

Fri, 30 May 2008 00:36:09 +0000

For Valentine’s day (weekend), Laura and I had dinner at The Herbfarm restaurant. It definitely gets into the “Top 3” of meals I’ve ever eaten, but does not get the top spots. It was the most elegant, well prepared, fanciest, and most gourmet meal we’ve ever had, though.

For reference, #1 is Steak for lunch in a tiny little family restaurant in Porvoo, Finland, #2 was J P’s in Cannon Beach, OR, the dinner the night before we got engaged. Interestingly, the herbfarm is #1 of the “non-steak” dinners.

This should be a SAD FACE!

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:51:51 +0000

This should be a sad face, not a happy face, you TiVo jerkface.

And you thought it took a long time for a TiVo to restart on a normal day.

We’re watching live TV through the 360 via media center. Thanks a lot, TiVo.

"I was tied up at the time..."

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:56:50 +0000

During tonight’s republican debate, McCain actually just said that he had voted against a 1 million dollar package to fund a “Woodstock museum”. He claimed that, woodstock might have been an important cultural moment, but:

…I wasn’t there…I was tied up at the time.

That’s good stuff. If you don’t get it, i can’t really explain it to you. I wonder how long he’s been saving up that quote? :)

I agree: "Vista isn't that bad"

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 19:24:11 +0000

I found this article at TechReport via a post at Daring Fireball, and i agree completely. I’m not sure who all these people are who are using vista that say it sucks. I recently upgraded my computer to a new HP, and i had the choice between a Dell with most of what i wanted and a choice of XP or Vista, or the HP, with everthing i wanted and Vista Ultimate. I got the HP.

The BEST picture from our wedding!

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 02:06:36 +0000

Just got emailed this today from my uncle perry:

Go to flickr for the full size image, and see if you notice something…. strange! Stranger than your initial reaction!!

The Inn at Discovery Coast

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 04:01:29 +0000

Currently in Long Beach, WA. It’s windy and raining. But isn’t that a given here? :) anyway, we came over to the LB-WA to see the sandcastle building competition and have a weekend to ourselves before Laura jets off to Australia. We’re in “The Loft” room of the Inn at Discovery Coast, and its pretty sweet. Its more like a one bedroom apartment with a huge bathroom and euro style kitchen than a loft! And having a restaurant 43 steps (literally!) away is awesome! The Inn is 2 buildings, one with 9 rooms closer to the beach, and another building with the office and restaurant downstairs and our loft upstairs. We ate at the “Beach House” both nights, getting different things each time. Laura wants to stay for like 4 more days so she can try everything. When we went in tonight, the waitress asked us if we wanted “our usual” table, and we said “sure!”. that was pretty cool. Laura recommends the salmon, i recommend the rib-eye. I barely ate much of it, though, as i ate too much bread and salad beforehand… We’ll put some pictures up on flickr later, when i find a chance! The whole trip has been good, aside from the 2 hours it took us to get from Seattle through Tacoma. ick. we didn’t get up to the posted speed limits until we actually got to the 101. Now its time to lay down and enjoy the movie that we snagged from the office, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. We also got Stratego at the office, and i beat laura 3 times, and now we’re never, ever, ever going to play Stratego ever again. I need SOMETHING that i’ve beaten Laura at to stay that way!

Great Timing!

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 18:16:52 +0000

So yeah, after driving through some pretty crazy rain squalls, getting to the airport at ~11:30 pm when the main road to the airport is shut down for construction, we get a flat tire. right at the airport. At least it wasn’t raining in the hourly parking garage!

There’s yer problem right there!

Ah, military motivators!

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:02:44 +0000

Man, i love some of the milblog sites that are around today. particularly the Military Motivator site.

That’s a keeper! Its about time we used the “but its for the children!” line to support the war.

I wonder if they still give these out today?

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:35:47 +0000

Here’s a link to a scanned version of a little booklet that the US “War Department” gave to soldiers who were being sent to Iraq (i-RAWK, according to the book, where Iran is EE-RAHN) back during WW2.

http://digitallibrary.smu.edu/cul/gir/ww2/pdf/w0025.pdf

Its kind of interesting that for a lot of it you could just search and replace “Hitler” with “Al-Queda” and almost everything would still apply!

I found this from the Wired “Danger Room”, via www.blackfive.net. Blackfive is awesome!

And you think your wife is a neat freak?

Wed, 30 May 2007 14:24:49 +0000

You think your wife is a neat freak?

Has yours ever vacuumed the back yard? :)

I laughed when i saw her doing it, and i needed to get an “out of context” picture for laughs. She was vacuuming up a larged amount of broken glass that was left after a patio table was inadvertently destroyed when our house was re-roofed. Good times!

The best analysis of the VT-Massacre

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 19:38:15 +0000

After reading so much crap (literally, crap, everywhere) about the massacre, this post at Zen of Design is by far the best thing I’ve read. It has some very good links to videos about Jack Thompson’s anti-videogame craziness too.

Blogger's code of conduct?

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 04:05:50 +0000

So there’s a big brouhaha on the intertubes about this whole “Blogger’s Code of Conduct”, as proposed by Tim O’Reilly, et al. Apparently they never learned from the Comics industry…

At least they aren’t proposing that there’s a single authority that will patrol all these blogs and approve posts/comments. Although who knows, maybe “draft 2” of the code will include that…

Want an overpriced Resolver?

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 05:41:37 +0000

I never thought that i’d see anything i worked on would show up on ebay. Well, mostly because i work on software for a living. And its very specialized software. And it isn’t really something you look for on ebay. Well, hopefully someone does… and hopefully they have a fat checkbook. And if you really want a real Rosetta Resolver®, let me know, because i can get a bonus for the sales lead (i’m not in sales, so i don’t get a commission! :) ), and i can get you a new one for probably cheaper than that!

"E-gate"? you have to be kidding me.

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 06:50:41 +0000

According to king5 news here in Seattle, some port of Seattle police officers received or sent or forwarded on some porn or “racist” emails (the “racist” email they used as an example was a video (probably a link to a video) of some guy picking up some Hispanic day laborers, and instead of taking them to a job, drove them to an INS office). According to the King 5 investigators,

Over a two-year period, 32 officers either received, saved, or passed on more than 175 inappropriate e-mails.

Now Reading...

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 05:18:49 +0000

Hooked up and installed the Now Reading plug-in for Wordpress. So now on the right side you can see the books i’m reading/read lately. I might go back and backfill some other books i’ve read lately as i find time. If you’re reading this via an RSS feed, you wont see any of that stuff, though, so here’s a link to the library. I’ll have to see if there’s a RSS feed plug-in for the “now reading” plug-in!

What's up with BN.com?

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:09:11 +0000

So I got some Barnes&Noble gift cards for xmas/birthday this year. I went to their website, and not only are the things i was looking for more expensive than Amazon, i get to the payment page, and i see this:

Only one Gift Card or Certificate can be redeemed per online order. To redeem multiple Cards or Certificates, select the Pay by Phone method below.

Brilliant. Well, B&N isn’t getting my money today, i don’t have the time or energy to call anyone. I just bought a bunch of stuff from amazon using 4 gift certificates that i had. I wonder how much $$$ B&N loses because people give up like this when they get all the way to the ordering page?

The best lunch video ever.

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 20:44:54 +0000

During lunch today i watched the most amazing thing ever. I watched live coverage of 2 spacewalking astronauts messing with a solar panel on the international space station. What a marvel of technology we have nowadays: I can sit in my office, and via the internet watch 2 guys at work in outer space, banging on stuff with a scraper, or shaking a solar panel to make it open, seeing it all through the camera on the astronauts’ helmets. All the while listening to them talk. My job would be so boring on a camera.

Winter in Seattle...

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 23:15:18 +0000

Every once and a while, it actually snows in the seattle area. From the Seattle traffic cameras, it doesn’t look like much of Seattle proper got any snow, but we live in what is called the “puget sound convergience zone”. So when seattle doesn’t get “it”, we get it instead. We got between 2-4" of snow yesterday and today.

There was enough snow, and it was wet enough to make snowmen and everything. Leave it to the neighbors to take it up a notch…

Another test Pete will get 100% on.

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:02:20 +0000

I only got 77.8% on this one, and that was right in the middle of the curve. Some of them i tried too hard on!
Are you tone deaf?

After listening to them again at the end, i could probalby do better if i took it again.

High School Quiz!

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:07:21 +0000

I just took this quiz thing online, it was pretty funny! I’m surprised i did so well!

You paid attention during 91% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don’t get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?

But then again, i was pretty nerdy! Was???

The Disney Princesses.

Sat, 04 Nov 2006 01:17:10 +0000

So last year i went as a bobblehead of myself for halloween. See this post from last year for details on that :)

This year, our carpool planned a group costume that was a huge secret. We came as the disney princesses!

From left to right:

Jeff - Belle
Jay - Cinderella
Me - Jasmine
Andrew - Snow White
Mark - Ariel

Aren’t we pretty? :D You should have seen the doubletakes we got while driving to work in in costume. Last year i won a $50 gift card to Best Buy for best costume, this year the 5 of us won $100 to the brand new Whole Foods opening up nearby work next week. Jackpot!

update: added a couple more pics after the jump

Ball Squad makes the Seattle Times!

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:17:48 +0000

SCOTT COHEN / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Our “work” kickball team, the “Ball Squad”, made the Seattle Times “lifestyle” section today! In the print edition of the paper, this picture is on the front page of the section, huge and in color! A second picture of Jay pitching (b&w, though) is on page 2. On the web version of the article, both pics are in color. For all the info, see the article at the Seattle Times website

Updating my office!

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 04:45:36 +0000

Since the FIOS guy was going to have to, in all likelihood, drill a hole in the wall to install our super high speed innerweb, we were going to have to move everything in my office. Since we were going to have to move everything in my office, we decided to paint my office, too. Once the office was mostly empty, we saw how horrible the carpet was, so we looked into redoing the floor with new carpet, or maybe some laminate floors. We settled on some blue colors to match the world map on the back wall, and some “hemse” laminate “click” flooring from IKEA.

To see how it all went, follow the link!

Verizon FIOS

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 01:28:07 +0000

Today was my install date for Verizon’s FIOS - the new super high speed fiber optic broadband. Well, it was supposed to be 9/12/2006. Then it was supposed to be 9/14/2006. Then it was supposed to be today, then it was supposed to be 9/21/2006. Imagine my suprise when i got to work today and had voicemail from the verizon installer at my house…

Once i got home, a challenge in and of itself, the installer came and had everything set up in a few hours. According to speakeasy’s speed test, this is what i get:

YOWZA! For more details, follow the link!

The Wedding!

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 19:44:18 +0000

Laura and I were married on August 19th, 2006, in a beautiful ceremony at the Paine Art Center and Gardens in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The bride was gorgeous, the weather perfect for an outdoor wedding, and the day could not have gone smoother.

The pics are all up in this Flickr photo set. Have a look see!

MY Dead Rising Review

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 19:27:49 +0000

Awesome. The best game i’ve played since Lego Star Wars last year. Best story since HL2. We’ll see if Lego Star Wars 2 can top Dead Rising! Follow the jump to read more specifics, including some things i’ve found that weren’t mentioned in any of the walkthroughs. (nothing that exciting… :))

Usability Week 06

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 06:23:11 +0000

This week I had the opportunity to go to Neilson Norman Groupâ€™s (NN/g) Usability Week 2006 conference in San Francisco, and attend a 3 day usability training seminar by Bruce “Tog"Tognazzini, of â€œAsk Tog â€œ fame. The Tog seminar was titled “Interaction Design: Three-day Immersion”, and it was fantastic. Iâ€™ve been reading Togâ€™s “AskTog” website for a long time, so I was pretty sure it was going to be good, and I was not let down. More after the jump!

Office 2007 Beta?

Thu, 25 May 2006 07:06:25 +0000

Iâ€™m trying out the “Blogging” feature from Word 2007 Beta 2. Setting it up with wordpress seems to have been trivial so far, but what happens when I actually try to post is another thing entirely. So far, I have to say that 2k7 looks gorgeous. The default Word background has a very Apple look to it with the blue curvy line thing going on.

I canâ€™t seem to find the “more” tag though. And I have the smart quotes turned off, but it seems to insert them anyway. Thatâ€™s what beta software is for, though!

Kickball!

Wed, 24 May 2006 04:36:07 +0000

Yes, you read that correctly! Kickball! Some friends from work started up a kickball team in the local “Underdog” Seattle coed kickball league! Who knew that a game we hated in 4th grade (at least those of us who weren’t very athletic in 4th grade!) would be so fun now! And boy do the little kids at the park seem confused when they see adults kicking that playground ball! To keep up with our team, keep an eye on the schedule page

Game Nerds.

Tue, 23 May 2006 05:41:28 +0000

A status page for us to see what everyone is up to from one place.

My XBOX360 is cooler than your XBOX360!

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 22:08:05 +0000

Because my XBOX 360 is autographed by Steve Balmer! So there!

I won this autographed XBOX360 at a charity auction for Clyde Hill Elementary school in Bellevue, WA. It is the pro version, with an extra wireless controller and the media remote, and PGR3 and Kameo. HD Gaming here I come!

Reviews of the 360, Project Gotham Racing 3, Kameo, and the new Ghost Recon game after the jump.

My XFire "Gamercard" hack.

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 23:09:11 +0000

With Xbox Live, you can get yourself a snazzy little “gamercard” for your website/whatnot by inserting a little html. XFire has the same kindof thing with their “miniprofiles”, but i like the look of the live version better, so i did a little hackery.

XBox Live version

A famous person's gamercard.

My Xfire version

XFire Gamercard

Specifics after the jump! bonus points if you know what “famous person” HiroProtagonist is. :p

Marvel Precision .22LR 1911 Conversion Review

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 07:30:17 +0000

I previously posted a review of my Springfield 1911, and after using my Marvel Precision Unit 1 1911 .22 LR conversion kit for a while, here are my notes on that. This is a continuation of a previous article, about my Springfield Armory black stainless 1911.

This is one of the most popular pages on the whole site! For more information, you can also see the update to this review, one year later, and another update, the two year review!

Paper mache Bobblehead halloween costume

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 05:18:20 +0000

Our paper mache Bobblehead halloween costumes were the best halloween costumes EVER! About 40 hours of work, several weeks worth of newspapers, 2 giant balloons, 20 little bottles of paint, 5 lbs of flour and some hot glue make a pretty good costume! More details and pics inside!

Multiplayer Game Architecture Done (Game Development Class 4)

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 18:26:30 +0000

The fourth and final class of the UW Extension Game Development certificate program is done! More later!

Advanced Graphics Class Done (Game Development Class 3)

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 05:31:28 +0000

Just finished up the third class of the Game Development certificate program offered by the University of Washington Extension system.

The adv graphics class was, like the first class, taught by Bretton Wade, who works in the XBox group at Microsoft. I don’t know exactly what his title is, but he’s neck deep in the graphics part of the X360, so he’s in the know. (If you google him, you’ll find all kinds of papers and stuff. He’s the BSP tree FAQ maintainer too.)

Other details, as well as my final presentation with screenshots and all that is available after the jump.

xfire?

Wed, 01 Jun 2005 06:55:56 +0000

Since the STEAM friends stuff hasn’t been working lately, my friends and i are trying out this cross game browser (didn’t gamespy used to do this? are they just a website now?) that we can use to find eachother when playing counterstrike…

Here’s my profile thing (click it to see more info about what i’ve been playing):

To get more info, go to xfire.com for downloads and all that. So if you want to play along, now you know how to find me!

AI Class Done (Game Development Class 2)

Tue, 05 Apr 2005 02:58:08 +0000

Just finished up the second ‘mester of the Game Development certificate program offered by the University of Washington Extension system.

The AI class, taught by Steve Rabin of the AI Game Programming Wisdom series of books, was pretty awesome! We added debug graphics, a real time profiler, a state machine system, flocking, A* pathfinding, coordinated behavior, terrain analysis, and gameplay to our game engines created for the first class. More details about the content after the jump.

Game Development Class

Sat, 18 Dec 2004 07:44:26 +0000

I just finished the first ‘mester of Game Development certificate program offered by the University of Washington Extension system. System? Whatever. Anyway, the first quarter is over and i learned more than I can type here! If you want to see how stupid my stuff ended up, there’s a link after the jump. Now that the quarter is over maybe i’ll have more time to update this silly site. But probably not!

Mt. St. Helens!

Tue, 07 Sep 2004 03:45:45 +0000

Went to mount st. helens this weekend. Took a buncha pics. Too bad it was cloudy (the norm!), so there were no “spectacular” pics. There were quite a few good ones with sun rays, though. Here’s a panorama, though. this is at 8%, its 8 pics wide. The full image is 10444x1471!

When i get some more time i’ll post up some more, though.

New Office

Wed, 25 Feb 2004 21:57:06 +0000

During the previous week, the company i work for, Rosetta Biosoftware, (a wholly owned subsidiary of Rosetta Inpharmatics, (a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck, the pharma giant)) moved offices from Kirkland, WA (the “east side”) to the South Lake Union area of downtown Seattle. Well, not just biosoft, all of rosetta moved into a new 4 story building in the new “biotech mecca” of south lake union. The University of Washington has a building next door, and the “Hutch” is just down the street. Paul Allen and Vulcan Ventures own almost all of south lake union now…

This brings about all kinds of interesting changes…

Blogging is lame!

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 21:46:45 +0000

This item is added. This whole page is set up. wahoo!

And we begin!

Mon, 26 Aug 2002 05:35:10 +0000

bought the car! got lucky that the exact options i wanted were on a car that someone else just cancelled their order for. :D

DSL!

Sat, 07 Apr 2001 03:57:24 +0000

A little quicker update! The fun news now is that i got DSL! 1.5mbps SDSL! Its pretty damn sweet! Justin and I have been playing Unreal Tournament every night so far. My win2k machine has been set up as the server. Tons of fun! So if you have UT, look for a server with the name “Cool Guys Inc”, its usually running ~8pm CST. iknow, thats a little late for you central time zone people, but thats too bad!

Updates

Thu, 22 Mar 2001 03:51:09 +0000

Again, its been a while since i’ve updated this thing! since the last update:

Updates

Thu, 14 Sep 2000 03:46:29 +0000

Been a while! So what’s gone on lately?

Aino had a Baby! (July 10)
Rosetta went public! (Aug 3? Something like that)
The Family went to Finland to see Aino, to see Aino and Aleksi get married, and to meet the newest addition to the family, Elias! (Aug 30 - Sept 9)

Whew! thats a lot of stuff! If you want to see pics from finand, etc, they are all here: [Finland Pics](broken link!) It is a 5 meg zip file with tons of pictures in it. All of the pictures are half size, so if you want the full size ones, let me know. I’m going to be making a cd that has pics and movies on it, so let me know if you want one of those too! (i would have unzipped the file and just had the pictures on the site, but the unix machine that the stuff is on doesn’t have the ability to unzip zip files! eeek!