Kelly inherited one of those free-standing room air filters from me a year or so ago when I bought a larger one for the den. Now it will occasionally go into a thrashing fit and wake her up -- I guess the bearings are going on the fan. I told Kelly that she'd have to live without a filter, since it was just an inherited hand-me-down anyway.
"I can't sleep without a fan now. 'Cause otherwise I lose sleep with the explanation cycle."
"What," I said, "is an explanation cycle?"
"Well, it's when I get woken up by a noise in the middle of the night, and I'm scared, and I have to think about what caused the noise, so I can go asleep. I can only go back to sleep when I've explained what made the noise."
So the explanation cycle is the list of likely causes for a nighttime noise she goes through until she finds a suitable explanation, and can go back to sleep. I'm going to add this to the Kelly lexicon.
Monday, March 31, 2003
Appliances
Oh, and the washer smelled like it was burning this weekend, and the dishwasher makes a funny whining noise. On the plus side, Jean found the GBA SP at Toys 'R' Us for $99.99 and bought one each for me and Tom. So it's not all clouds 
.
.Ants
I forgot to mention, that before the garage incident raised it's ugly ... door, we already had a pending life interruption event. With the warm weather have come the ants. And they are appearing in our house without a visible entry point. The bug guy is supposed to come this Thursday. So before we could even resolve one of those little interruptions of life, another has queued up. Gotta love that stinkin' home ownership.
Life As Interruption
Here I was all excited that tonight was my first night returning to the routine of studying topics on my own after work. I'd been out of my office in a meeting, and when I returned, I found a message on my phone. It was Jean. "Can you come home? There's something wrong with my garage door, and I need you to see if you can fix it."
Jean and I have been together for twenty years, and she still makes this fundamental mistake. She thinks that because I'm a guy, I have some magical ability to make hardware work. Despite numerous examples over the years to the contrary. When we first bought our current house, she bought a faucet set for the bathroom, and asked me to install it for her. I basically laughed at her -- politely. "Fine, I'll do it myself!" That afternoon I got a phone call at work. Jean wanted to know if it was okay if she called a plumber to install the faucet.
So it goes. I drove home, looked at the garage door, and by examining the other door, was able to spin a theory of what had gone wrong. Two cables had snapped that attached to the bottom of the door on one end, and to a large, evil-looking spring at the top. I guessed that the spring cancelled out most of the weight of the door. On my door, which was still okay, and newer than the broken one, was a tag: "Warning, trying to mess with this spring will get you killed. Call a professional."
Below it was a phone number for the local garage door company. I called them up and the receptionist said she'd have somebody call me tomorrow. God I feel so masculine!
Anyway, this fits the pattern I've observed before. I told Jean about it. The pattern goes like this: something goes wrong that requires a repair, an interruption to your day, or both. You take care of it, and think, "that's over." But it isn't. Life is actually marked by a series of interruptions. Just get used to it.
Jean and I have been together for twenty years, and she still makes this fundamental mistake. She thinks that because I'm a guy, I have some magical ability to make hardware work. Despite numerous examples over the years to the contrary. When we first bought our current house, she bought a faucet set for the bathroom, and asked me to install it for her. I basically laughed at her -- politely. "Fine, I'll do it myself!" That afternoon I got a phone call at work. Jean wanted to know if it was okay if she called a plumber to install the faucet.
So it goes. I drove home, looked at the garage door, and by examining the other door, was able to spin a theory of what had gone wrong. Two cables had snapped that attached to the bottom of the door on one end, and to a large, evil-looking spring at the top. I guessed that the spring cancelled out most of the weight of the door. On my door, which was still okay, and newer than the broken one, was a tag: "Warning, trying to mess with this spring will get you killed. Call a professional."
Below it was a phone number for the local garage door company. I called them up and the receptionist said she'd have somebody call me tomorrow. God I feel so masculine!
Anyway, this fits the pattern I've observed before. I told Jean about it. The pattern goes like this: something goes wrong that requires a repair, an interruption to your day, or both. You take care of it, and think, "that's over." But it isn't. Life is actually marked by a series of interruptions. Just get used to it.
Sunday, March 23, 2003
Fry's Got Greedy
Well, Fry's lost out on my business today. I was at work doing a little overtime and swung by the store on the way home to see if they had the Gameboy Advance SP yet. There was an endcap display stating that they had them in stock, but that they would only be sold in 'bundles'. "See a sales associate for more information." Yeah.
So I asked a salesthing what the deal was. Turns out they won't sell me a GBA SP unless I also pay for a bunch of accessories I don't want or need. A rather shabby looking case for the console, a car power adapter, a magnifying glass fer crap's sake! The list goes on, and of the items, only the headphones are something I'm likely to buy on purpose. Total price for the 'bundle', $130, only $30 more than buying the console alone.
I said, "what colors do you have?"
"We have both colors on hand, sir."
I picked up one of the accessory packs, turned it over, fingered the cheap magnifying glass, and said, "boy, you guys..."
"It's not my choice, sir. If it were up to me we wouldn't have included those."
"So who decided this scam?"
"Our buyers down in California."
"Hmm. Okay. Yah know, I think I'm gonna wait." It's bad enough they wanna gouge me for $30, but that they insult me by trying to pawn off a bunch of junk worth $10 or $15 at best to try to justify their greed... Take a hike, losers.
I walked out, went home, and called Toys 'R' Us. They're selling the consoles separately at $99 a pop, no nonsense. They don't have 'em in the store but hope to have more in stock tomorrow. Even if it takes awhile, I'm gonna wait. No way I'm going to put up with the Fry's Tax.
So I asked a salesthing what the deal was. Turns out they won't sell me a GBA SP unless I also pay for a bunch of accessories I don't want or need. A rather shabby looking case for the console, a car power adapter, a magnifying glass fer crap's sake! The list goes on, and of the items, only the headphones are something I'm likely to buy on purpose. Total price for the 'bundle', $130, only $30 more than buying the console alone.
I said, "what colors do you have?"
"We have both colors on hand, sir."
I picked up one of the accessory packs, turned it over, fingered the cheap magnifying glass, and said, "boy, you guys..."
"It's not my choice, sir. If it were up to me we wouldn't have included those."
"So who decided this scam?"
"Our buyers down in California."
"Hmm. Okay. Yah know, I think I'm gonna wait." It's bad enough they wanna gouge me for $30, but that they insult me by trying to pawn off a bunch of junk worth $10 or $15 at best to try to justify their greed... Take a hike, losers.
I walked out, went home, and called Toys 'R' Us. They're selling the consoles separately at $99 a pop, no nonsense. They don't have 'em in the store but hope to have more in stock tomorrow. Even if it takes awhile, I'm gonna wait. No way I'm going to put up with the Fry's Tax.
Friday, March 21, 2003
Replay
I've had my ReplayTV box for about two and a half years now. I said when I bought it that it was a geek toy, a bleeding edge gadget that could stop working at any time, as the idea might not catch on, and the linkage to an online television directory, essential for it's operation, made it vulnerable to failure of the operating company.
Well, it looks like that day may have arrived. The current owner of ReplayTV, Sonicblue, has filed for bankruptcy. I've got my fingers crossed, as I still enjoy the box, but my outlook is skeptical. If it stops working, I won't be getting a replacement right away, as I (a) don't have the cash right now, and (b) think Tivo, the only viable competitor, could fold fairly soon after Sonicblue, if the market conditions affecting one hit the other.
So I may be playing a lot more PS2 games soon...
Well, it looks like that day may have arrived. The current owner of ReplayTV, Sonicblue, has filed for bankruptcy. I've got my fingers crossed, as I still enjoy the box, but my outlook is skeptical. If it stops working, I won't be getting a replacement right away, as I (a) don't have the cash right now, and (b) think Tivo, the only viable competitor, could fold fairly soon after Sonicblue, if the market conditions affecting one hit the other.
So I may be playing a lot more PS2 games soon...
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Wastrel
As you know if you've been following my posts, I've had a string of annoying problems which all seem to contribute to my lack of sleep. This isn't entirely true, as I actually slept more while fighting the flu than I had before. Now that the flu is pretty much gone, I'm apparently reverting to restless and choppy sleep, given last night as an example. I don't know when or if this condition will correct itself.
The upshot of this is that I concentrate all my mental acuity into the daylight hours at work, and by the time I arrive home, my brain is pretty much ready for a vacation. I've postponed my self-study evenings for this reason and the reason that I've been on call to act as math tutor during my wife's classes. But while I can handle algebra problems, I'm not in the mood for really tough mental acrobatics.
So where am I heading with this? Simply that I've been buying a few 'clearance sale' console games to fill the odd evening hour without a lot of thought. A few weeks ago I bought the Playstation 2 Winter 2002 Jampack, which is a sampler of playable demos and video previews for various games. This was a great purchase at $8, as I got to sample several games I was curious about without dropping list price for the full versions.
Kelly and I tried out Wild Arms 3, which looked like a cute premise, but had disappointing gameplay. Also on the disk were Mark of Kri, which has beautiful artwork and some interesting game mechanics, but overall didin't really grab me. I was very interested in the preview for Primal, as I'd just read a lengthy positive review in Play magazine. In the end, I think it's pretty clear that this is like Oni, a great idea, with an interesting story, but slanted toward someone with much faster reflexes and better coordination than I...
There were also a couple of platform games included. One, Sly Cooper and the Thievious Racoonus, was just too hard for me, so we gave it a pass, moving on to... Ratchet and Clank. I've got to say, if this didn't have so darn much blasting the bad guys built in, the platforming aspect would have made this a real winner. Kelly played it over and over, concentrating on the platforming, and throwing the controller at me whenever it came to fighting. She told me if I "wanted to buy the game, it would be okay by her." Sorry Kelly, you'll just have to make do with the demo.
The only other playable game I tried was SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs, which looked like an interesting game for it's stealth aspect, but overall didn't grab me.
Then I read a gushing review of Herdy Gerdy, a platformer with virtually no violence, and thought I'd get a copy for Kelly and I to play. So far we've just covered a couple of levels, but I think we'll be revisiting it on any given idle afternoon.
For my own entertainment, in the past month I've bought Onimusha, on sale for less than twenty bucks, and Silent Hill 2, also on sale.
Onimusha is interesting, and feels sort of like Resident Evil in medieval Japan. This right down to the 'auto-aim' Bushido blade! I kinda stalled out when I bought the Jampack mentioned above, but I'll be getting back to it eventually.
Way back when, I played the original Silent Hill, and it is probably my favorite console game of all time. It's certainly my favorite survival horror game. So I have high hopes for SH2. However, I don't have the brainpower or reflexes to take it on full force, so I've started the game in 'begginer' mode, where the monsters generally can't do a lot of damage, to spare myself the stress of trying to ax them before they bite my head off.
It's made for some amusing play. The first variety of monster I've run into is a sort of zombie-in-a-straightjacket shambling around town. If they're in a straightjacket (it's creepier than that, really), how do they attack? By bowing out their chest and spraying you with what I presume is poison. But since I'm playing beginner, it doesn't hurt my character so much as disgust him. It puts me in mind of the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the Black Knight is hopping around on his remaining leg trying to get Arthur to fight him one more time. " What are you going to do, bleed on me?"
In fact, I'm afraid that the game is a little too gentle in this mode, and I may have to restart at 'normal' level. For the nonce, I've taken to referring to my sessions with SH2 as "strolling around Spooky Town." Which can lead to trouble, as the second time I used the phrase to let Jean know I was going downstairs, she acted confused, then burst out laughing. "I thought you were using some weird figure of speech!"
Lastly in my pile of gaming distractions, I've begun revisiting my little stack of Gameboy Advance games, probably in preparation for the new GBA SP when it comes out. Lately I've been playing Tactics Ogre: The Knights of Lodis. This is a turn-based strategy game, with limited role-playing aspects. I really enjoy this kind of game, but seldom have the time to play it for any length.
The other game I've begun to revisit is Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. This is a platform adventure game, and as such can be put down pretty much anytime, provided you can hie thee to a save room first. But the reason I put it aside is that it is generally too full of detail for casual play. This game is directed at the idle fan who can try every variation of every level until they know the magic combo to unlock the next area. That's generally more work than I want to do on a handheld game, so I've let it sit idle.
Maybe I'll invest in a new game when I buy the GBA SP. Two candidates are Zelda: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, though the latter may not be out in North America on the GBA SP release date. I'll cover that when I buy the unit.
The upshot of this is that I concentrate all my mental acuity into the daylight hours at work, and by the time I arrive home, my brain is pretty much ready for a vacation. I've postponed my self-study evenings for this reason and the reason that I've been on call to act as math tutor during my wife's classes. But while I can handle algebra problems, I'm not in the mood for really tough mental acrobatics.
So where am I heading with this? Simply that I've been buying a few 'clearance sale' console games to fill the odd evening hour without a lot of thought. A few weeks ago I bought the Playstation 2 Winter 2002 Jampack, which is a sampler of playable demos and video previews for various games. This was a great purchase at $8, as I got to sample several games I was curious about without dropping list price for the full versions.
Kelly and I tried out Wild Arms 3, which looked like a cute premise, but had disappointing gameplay. Also on the disk were Mark of Kri, which has beautiful artwork and some interesting game mechanics, but overall didin't really grab me. I was very interested in the preview for Primal, as I'd just read a lengthy positive review in Play magazine. In the end, I think it's pretty clear that this is like Oni, a great idea, with an interesting story, but slanted toward someone with much faster reflexes and better coordination than I...
There were also a couple of platform games included. One, Sly Cooper and the Thievious Racoonus, was just too hard for me, so we gave it a pass, moving on to... Ratchet and Clank. I've got to say, if this didn't have so darn much blasting the bad guys built in, the platforming aspect would have made this a real winner. Kelly played it over and over, concentrating on the platforming, and throwing the controller at me whenever it came to fighting. She told me if I "wanted to buy the game, it would be okay by her." Sorry Kelly, you'll just have to make do with the demo.
The only other playable game I tried was SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs, which looked like an interesting game for it's stealth aspect, but overall didn't grab me.
Then I read a gushing review of Herdy Gerdy, a platformer with virtually no violence, and thought I'd get a copy for Kelly and I to play. So far we've just covered a couple of levels, but I think we'll be revisiting it on any given idle afternoon.
For my own entertainment, in the past month I've bought Onimusha, on sale for less than twenty bucks, and Silent Hill 2, also on sale.
Onimusha is interesting, and feels sort of like Resident Evil in medieval Japan. This right down to the 'auto-aim' Bushido blade! I kinda stalled out when I bought the Jampack mentioned above, but I'll be getting back to it eventually.
Way back when, I played the original Silent Hill, and it is probably my favorite console game of all time. It's certainly my favorite survival horror game. So I have high hopes for SH2. However, I don't have the brainpower or reflexes to take it on full force, so I've started the game in 'begginer' mode, where the monsters generally can't do a lot of damage, to spare myself the stress of trying to ax them before they bite my head off.
It's made for some amusing play. The first variety of monster I've run into is a sort of zombie-in-a-straightjacket shambling around town. If they're in a straightjacket (it's creepier than that, really), how do they attack? By bowing out their chest and spraying you with what I presume is poison. But since I'm playing beginner, it doesn't hurt my character so much as disgust him. It puts me in mind of the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the Black Knight is hopping around on his remaining leg trying to get Arthur to fight him one more time. " What are you going to do, bleed on me?"
In fact, I'm afraid that the game is a little too gentle in this mode, and I may have to restart at 'normal' level. For the nonce, I've taken to referring to my sessions with SH2 as "strolling around Spooky Town." Which can lead to trouble, as the second time I used the phrase to let Jean know I was going downstairs, she acted confused, then burst out laughing. "I thought you were using some weird figure of speech!"
Lastly in my pile of gaming distractions, I've begun revisiting my little stack of Gameboy Advance games, probably in preparation for the new GBA SP when it comes out. Lately I've been playing Tactics Ogre: The Knights of Lodis. This is a turn-based strategy game, with limited role-playing aspects. I really enjoy this kind of game, but seldom have the time to play it for any length.
The other game I've begun to revisit is Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. This is a platform adventure game, and as such can be put down pretty much anytime, provided you can hie thee to a save room first. But the reason I put it aside is that it is generally too full of detail for casual play. This game is directed at the idle fan who can try every variation of every level until they know the magic combo to unlock the next area. That's generally more work than I want to do on a handheld game, so I've let it sit idle.
Maybe I'll invest in a new game when I buy the GBA SP. Two candidates are Zelda: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, though the latter may not be out in North America on the GBA SP release date. I'll cover that when I buy the unit.
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