D’oh! Winston Link
In a recent issue of the new, “Look! Lots of color!” Roanoke Times, they decided to show off their color presses by taking some old black-and-white pictures of the area and comparing them to recently-taken pictures of the same area from the same angle.
The problem is that they decided to use black-and-white photographs from acclaimed railroad photographer O. Winston Link as contrast, and even printed small, his pictures are much more visually interesting than the color work they’re compared to.
(Yeah, I have things to say about Matrix: Revolutions, the Eddie Izzard concert, and Rising Star, but I still haven’t gathered my thoughts on any of that yet.)
Hiding sharp objects from myself
There is a mission in the Terran levels of single-player Starcraft that I have been trying to beat for over a year, since we bought the game. I haven’t played a single Zerg or Protoss mission because this level has kept me from finishing the Terran campaign.
Tonight I beat it.
… and then the game locked up before I could save.
Clearly the work of aliens, Scully
The Rising Star meeting in Blacksburg went well; afterwards, jdunson and I got into a lengthy discussion of dot/Hack. When we finally cleared ourselves from the parking lot, raininva and rattrap and rockbender and Bob and myself decided to make a quick run by Fun ‘n’ Games (MechWarrior boosters for the West Virginians and a trading card box for myself) and then grab some food.
Well, as three of us waited outside Fun ‘n’ Games, rattrap and rockbender just plain weren’t showing. Finally ‘Bender showed up and led us to an alley a couple of blocks over, in which his pickup sat on three tires and one rimless wheel. Yes, the lug nuts had all dropped off and he’d scraped his way along the street for 5 yards. Accident? We’re not completely sure.
We finally got it fixed after destroying my jack (gotta get a new one of those!) with the assistance of some nice folks at Hokie House. (A little instant karma for you guys.) Then, after getting our game stuff, we ended up at Macado’s instead because of the late hour. A little more karma to the Macado’s waiter who covered Jerry and David’s drinks for them, since they were clearly in a state.
Yesterday was far quieter. A day of concerted clutter removal and sorting in the apartment, and Rain and I were finally able to uncover carpet in the master bedroom and the living room – and now have several days’ worth of clean clothes to boot!
Addendum to last post…
I’ve just noticed that “plectrum.net” no longer comes up in my web browser. I hope Keith only let the hosting lapse, but kept ownership of the name. We can find new hosting with no problem, but I see no reason to let the site evaporate just because White Plectrum’s taken some time off. Heck, there are websites out there for bands that haven’t released music in half a century!
Issuing a ranged combat “suggestion”
Went to the VTSFFC New Member Picnic Sunday, but missed most all of the new members and just hung with the old ones for a couple hours 🙂 Now, I’ve been attending VTSFFC meetings for well over a decade and a half, and raininva‘s been doing so for about a third of that time; yet as we walk up the path to the Duckpond, someone (I never did find out who) yelled, “Hey, it’s Rain… and, uh, that guy!”
Sigh. As has always been true in fandom, the hot girls get all the attention.
Spent most of the weekend getting my Lexmark printer to work right, and a lot of the rest annotating the MechWarrior:DA rulebook for my own reference. (The firestorm that incautious use of the words “attack” and “order” can cause among MechWarrior players is nothing short of incredible.)
Days of Labor
Quite a long weekend. A pretty good one in a lot of ways, but long nevertheless.
Thursday, raininva left for DragonCon to do some contracting for WizKids. Thursday night, after my afternoon nap, I yanked half of my office out into the living room for sorting and re-arrangement. I ended up with a huge plastic storage tub full of gaming stuff that I don’t want to get rid of, but I don’t have room for in the office. That went to the storage along with another tub of loose items; several empty boxes that were just wasting cubic went to the trash, along with two bags full of stuff that just wasn’t doing anyone any good.
Titanium For Sale
My boss wants to sell his Apple G4 “Titanium” PowerBook and upgrade to a faster desktop. This is one of the original G4 PowerBooks with a 400 MHz Motorola PowerPC, 10 GB hard disk, slot-loading CD/DVD drive, and an 8 Meg ATI Rage Mobility 128 video card. Memory has been upgraded to 384 Megs. It will cheerfully run MacOS 9.1 through the current MacOS X 10.2.6.
Complete stats may be found here:
http://everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/stats/powerbook_g4_400.html
He’s asking $1200 for it. If there’s any interest, drop me a note!
Of small interest
Yes, I too would like to have a 3-GHz Mac on my desktop for $899. However, despite the fact that OS X is quite capable of running on an Intel chip, here’s a nicely thought-out editorial on why that won’t happen soon.
And for those on my friends list who still need a PlayStation 2, Deals On The Web has a Sony refurbed PS2 with a subwoofer tossed in for $129. That’s only $30 bucks more than a PS1 if I remember correctly.
