Come Sail Away

While driving to work this morning, watching the sunrise and listening to the Trance Euphoria podcast, I flashed on a fantasy that’s been with me since I could drive, if not before.

In that fantasy, I’m cruising down the Interstate at standard driving speeds, waiting for a nice gap in the cars before and behind me. At the right moment, I reach down to the center console and hit the switch that activates the repulsor pads in the undercarriage.

As the aft thrusters warm up, I feel the small jerk that tells me that the wheels have lost contact with the ground. I hit the button that folds them away into the fenders, bring the thrusters up to 200 MPH, and climb into the sky, arriving at work in 15 minutes instead of 50.

That little vignette hits me on almost any drive longer than 20 minutes. I love visiting all sorts of places… it’s the actual getting there that I often find so tedious. Needless to say, mine would be the only car that could do this, otherwise there’d be flaming wrecks scattered across the landscape. (And not always other people’s fault, either: last night I almost broadsided someone because I was thinking about my grocery list rather than the road. Bad Borg.)

Protected: Nervously checking the green lights

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Basic misunderstanding of the game

EDIT: Short version of the rant that was in this spot:

Many commenters on Slashdot are fools.

Now I will go and try to write something else that’s actually interesting.

CQ … CQ …

I technically have Internet now. “Technically” meaning that I keep losing signal temporarily. I think something’s wrong with the wireless router – even the wired machine seems to be having issues.

Anyway, I have a lot of email and online errands to catch up on. I also have many hours of housework I’ve been putting off, so we’ll see how that all goes.

Protected: Saga of a Net Connection

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Digital dysfunction

Due to the red tape of services transfer, I will not have Internet at the house tonight or tomorrow. Not the end of the world, but nevertheless an annoyance.

Also in the FAIL department: instead of the nap I’d intended, I spent 30 minutes finding the old TeeFive character sheet, another 60 locating and installing the legacy software on an emulated OS 9 machine to open said sheet, and then another 30 looking for and failing to find the ACTUAL document, which I’m beginning to fear I no longer have.

Feh.

See if you can find him on the monitor

Oh, speaking of Freecycling, I’ve got a flatscreen TV in the apartment that neither Starr nor I want to carry downstairs, much less haul out to the house. It’s a 27″ (or 29″, I can’t remember) Philips HD television that handles 1080i (and I think 1080p). It’s got an HDMI input, S-Video and composite video on the side, and coaxial and 2 or 3 composite inputs in the back.

We bought it off the Philips website as a refurb for about $500. It came with a power board issue that would cause it to spontaneously turn off, but it could always be turned back on in 2 or 3 minutes or so, and the problem hasn’t recurred in about 6 to 8 months. It’s a flatscreen, not a flat panel, so it still has a nice heavy picture tube, and that’s why I’m not interested in moving the thing. We have Craigslisted it, but everyone interested so far has been a no-show.

Anyone willing to come over and haul it off can have it for $200. We have two nice flat panel TVs that Starr’s parents are leaving with us, and are planning to just buy our own flat panel when we move again.

Takers?

On The Move

It’s been a heck of a week, and I haven’t had much opportunity to post. Let’s see if I can catch up a bit.

As of Wednesday evening, Starr and I began sleeping at the new house. This was slightly impeded by the fact that our bed hadn’t been moved yet, and Starr’s parents had returned for some of their stuff, so we had to share a twin bed in a guest bedroom. Note: no matter how cuddly the other person is, tucking two people into a twin bed gets old quickly.

I’m now getting up at 5:30 every morning to get out of the house by 6:30. My efficiency’s improved, as it was taking me up to 90 minutes to get showered, dressed, and moving, but it means I have exactly enough coherence to drive safely and not a bit more. The commute’s indeed an hour; thank goodness for podcasts.

Each day last week, I stopped by the apartment on the way home to grab some more stuff. Slowly, all the vital necessities of life have been put in place at the house, such as transforming Macross toys and Lensman paperbacks. By this weekend, I expect to have the silly stuff moved like cooking gear and clean underwear. (Okay, I *am* kidding about the underwear; that was high-priority.)

Starr’s parents left on Friday – or was it Thursday? – but returned once more on Saturday for more stuff, and so we could take her little sister to Nekocon. We only stayed for a few hours Saturday afternoon and evening; I had no idea that the con was so HUGE. 3,000 people were claimed in one press release, and it sure looked like it. I could not believe the number and variety of hall costumes! (Of course, I forgot a camera.) Starr dressed as a loligoth, while her sister wore an InuYasha costume. Many pictures of them were taken, but I have seen none posted; me, I was grumpy that morning, and didn’t wear a costume. By the end of the evening I regretted the decision, but oh well.

Tuesday, I had the day off, and I headed back over to the apartment to collect more stuff. Our downstairs neighbors are both military, and were also home; when they found out what I was up to, they instantly volunteered their two pickups, and pitched in on the packing. Thanks to them, we’re about 70% done with the move, and should be able to finish this weekend; I had reason to appreciate our veterans even more that day! They were awesome folks.

We’re switching the house from Verizon to Cox for our internet and phone, and were surprised to learn the the cable junction box is across the street. Shortly after we learned this, we learned that the underground line to our house is bad, and they’ll have to bore a new conduit for us this week. The cable, phone, and Internet at the apartment was disabled on Wednesday, so communications have been impaired. Right now my cell phone and work Internet are my main connections to the world.

Midori has been introduced to Tigger and Precious, two cats we’re inheriting from Starr’s parents. They seem to be more amused than anything else by her hissing and posturing, and she seems to be slowly understanding the uselessness of making all the fuss. With any luck, they’ll civilize her a bit.

This Saturday, I hope to have everything out of the apartment that isn’t tucked in my office. Sunday, I’ll pack all the little figures and toys and books and such I have on display in my office, and move that over, and at that point the actual move should be about done. We can then spend a week or so cleaning up the place nice before we hand over the keys.

Then… maybe… perhaps… a rest. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable reward!

Ludicrous Speed

Yeager crewmembers: on this day, 61 years ago, Air Force Captain “Chuck” Yeager flew the Bell X-1 in the first verified supersonic flight. Decades later, there are no civilian aircraft in service that attain this speed in normal flight.

Little powdery people

WoW FigurePrintIn case you hadn’t heard, we have indeed invented the Star Trek replicator. Of course, it’s expensive, slow, and only works on solid objects, plus the results are a bit fragile. But, one step at a time, right?

A company known as FigurePrints is using this first-generation technology to sell gamers unique figurines of their World of Warcraft characters. The service is so popular that they’ve had to establish a lottery for accepting orders, even with round-the-clock production. Customers dress their characters in their favorite gear and submit the orders; the figure company retrieves (with permission) 3-D model information from Blizzard, then does a little touchup to cover gaps and clipping artifacts. In a bath of extremely fine powder, something much like an inkjet printer head sprays layers of colored glue, and after some hours, the figure is gently removed from the bath and cleaned up a bit. The result looks like the picture on the right (click it to embiggen).

So, if you play WoW, would you pay $130 for one of these? Does your character have the outfit you’d want to see it in? Would you get one if it were available for another game? Would you get one when the technology gets a little better? Expound!

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