The Shining

While we're in Colorado, we'll be staying at a house called Kingstone, just above Estes Park. It was the mountain retreat of one Kenneth King, Denver industrialist and man-about-town. Since his death, it's been used for retreats, meetings, reunions, and so forth. That's the normal part. Now for the rabbit hole.

For all I know, Mr. King was a very nice man in person, but as an architect, he was insane. No two rooms are built in the same style. Log cabin alongside Southern plantation house alongside '50s ranch style alongside Victorian parlor. One room has blood-red carpeting and walls covered with Civil War memorabilia. Another has all the woodwork minutely carved with the insignia of King's college fraternity. Still another has a boulder coming through the wall.

All of that would be bad enough, but it also feels like Mr. King is still there. Despite being in heavy public use for fifteen-plus years, nearly everything is pretty much where he left it. There are things in the back of the pantry older than I am. I swear I found his yearbooks sitting on a shelf. And of course, several larger-than-life portraits of the man stare down at you from unexpected corners. It's as close as I'll ever get to staying in the Winchester Mystery House: it's like he couldn't stop building, without any plan, until the day he died.

I took a few pictures on our last trip; they don't really capture the full horror, just details here and there. But look at them all, then remind yourself that they're all in the same house. Oh, and lest I forget: this place is just a few blocks from the real-life hotel that inspired "The Shining". Isn't that nice?

Go west, young man

I'll be in Colorado over the New Year's weekend, chilling out mostly. Boredom might strike when I least expect it, so feel free to give me a jingle.

I was hoping to read a few books while I was there. Specifically, the Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World, all by one of my favorite authors, Neal Stephenson. Come to find out that there are precisely four copies each in the entire Kansas City public library system, and they're all checked out. Meanwhile Lincoln, a city one sixth the size, has twice as many copies. Shameful. I also feel vaguely dirty having to ask my brother to check out books for me...

Random shout out to Will Norton and his acapella group, whose CD I'm listening to right now. It's good stuff.

Loot, Part 2

Cool stuff that I received from other people:

• From my parents: A sort of granite candle
• From my brother: A modernist fountain
• From Bob: two bottles of Van Gogh Vodka
• From Matt: Pit
• From many sources, but particularly my parents: a stunning amount of alcoholiana, including wine, wine glasses, wine charms, coasters, shot glasses, corkscrews, bottle openers, and so on. I swear, my friends and family are trying to turn me into a wino.

Loot, Part 1

Cool Christmas gift stuff (in my opinion) that I found for other people:

• Mom: Balsamic vinegar, imported from Modena and aged twelve years
• Dad: Diet root beer from Historic Williamsburg
• Brother: Olympus D-540 digital camera
• Bob: True Love Waits, a CD of classical Radiohead covers
• Derrick: The Mill's coffee-of-the-month club
• James: Gabe's Pac-Man shirt in Penny Arcade
• Jesse: All the necessary ingredients to make spiced ale
• Justin: A replica of Sting, Frodo's sword in The Lord of the Rings
• Matt: Hermione's Time-Turner from the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Rusty: An ocarina, along with a songbook of Zelda tunes
• Tom: The Presumption of Liberty: Restoring the Lost Constitution

Note to self: don't repeat these next year, and if possible, top them...

Eureka!

I think I've finally figured out why my father is conservative (and possibly incidentally, Republican):

1) He is incapable of cynicism. I can't recall him ever finding something trite, saccharine, sentimental, overdone, insincere, or otherwise unworthy of being taken seriously.

2) He is unaware of the passage of time. He consistently behaves as if consumer prices, social attitudes, even musical styles have changed not at all since he was in his early teens. I know plenty of people who don't like the way things have changed since their youth, but few who simply ignore them.

3) He is incapable of becoming bored with things. The same dish tastes just as good the tenth time; the same joke just as funny the hundredth. The usual rules of operant conditioning fall apart; behavioral extinction never occurs.

Put them all together and I believe you have the perfect conservative. He will always be perfectly happy with whatever the status quo is; and he will always act to preserve it, because for him, it has never and could never change. But how do you talk to a person like that?

Stille Nacht

Ah, Christmas Eve. In my family this entails, roughly in chronological order: delivering gifts all over town, having Valentino's carry-out for dinner, going to church, and opening most but not all of our gifts. A bit curious, but it works for us.

I don't know if it was a good year for retailers in general, but things were certainly busy over at Walmart. Busier than I've ever seen it, in fact. A useful tidbit of information: 4x6 prints of digital photos are $0.19 there, but 5x7 prints are $1.47. That's an expensive inch, that is.

The service for the evening was "A Festival of Lessons and Carols", a format first popularized (and now broadcast worldwide) by King's College in Cambridge, I do believe. Bible readings alternating with Christmas carols and that's about it. It's an enjoyable way to spend an evening even if you aren't the slightest bit religious. It also reconfirmed my belief that Greensleeves is the best song ever written. But original lyrics please, none of that "What Child Is This?" nonsense. Silent Night would be a close second.

Home for the holidays

Finally broke down and bought the Zelda Collector's Edition for GameCube, which includes the Legend of Zelda, the Adventure of Link, the Ocarina of Time, and Majora's Mask. Probably one of the best investments I've ever made. They're all just so infinitely replayable, I'm not sure I'll ever get tired of them.

For reasons unknown, my apartment complex has been frantically remodeling of late - first a few hundred new lighting fixtures, and just recently, a stone tile floor for the previously linoleum lobby. Which forced me to use what I like to call the "decoy" door: it looks like it ought to be the main entrance, and gives the building its address, but there's no way to buzz visitors in. If you ever stop by, don't be deceived!

The parents passed through on Tuesday, with my brother in tow and - surprise! - a kitten that they managed to buy during their twenty-four hours in St Louis. A Maine Coon, to be exact. It's an adorable little thing, that wandered my apartment and ripped up my carpet while we went to dinner. I hope she manages to make friends with the cat we already have...

Last night, saw the Phantom of the Opera with Matt, Steven, Rusty, and Stack. I thoroughly enjoyed it; but then, I'm also a big fan of the musical it's based on. It's really more like an opera, as the name suggest: nearly everything is sung, with little flat dialogue. But if you don't mind that, and you like Andrew Lloyd Webber's music, then I would highly recommend it.

I've gotten an astonishing number of Christmas cards and letters, considering I didn't think that many people had my new address. If one of them was from you, gentle reader, my sincerest thanks. I'm headed back to Lincoln after work this afternoon, and will be there for most of the following week, so give me a jingle.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

There are many sounds one might expect to hear in a Kmart parking lot, on a frigid December day, in the middle of Kansas. The sound of gulls is not one of them. Yet there they were, circling overhead. Eyeing the corpse of a fallen Christmas shopper, no doubt. A curiosity: how did I recognize, immediately and without looking, a sound that ought to be very unfamiliar to me?

I saw Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events today; the rest of this post concerns it, with relatively mild spoilers. Overall, I guess I'd say I liked it and recommend it, but in a bewildered sort of way, with reservations. The opening monologue by the "author" warns us that this will not be a happy film; but it's played for laughs and the audience obliges. By the end I realized how serious he was. It isn't a dark comedy, it's just dark. I'm not sure I would let children see it.

For example: it's easy to laugh at a melodramatic villain and his bumbling attempts at murder, particularly when that villain is Jim Carrey. But it becomes much harder to keep laughing when the villain is entirely and cold-bloodedly successful at some of those murders. You're just left cold after that. An added insult is that, though there's nothing wrong with leaving yourself open for a sequel, Unfortunate Events makes less of an attempt to tie up any of its storylines and mysteries than any film I can recall. Cinematic blue balls, if you will.

On the other hand, the whole film really is a delight to behold, on a par with any of Tim Burton's films. Quirky details are tumbling out of every corner. The closing credits are particularly stunning, and should be watched in their entirety. Possibly under the influence of your favorite mild-altering substance.

I guess that's really all I have to say. It is a good movie, but on the whole, the trailers have deceived you. It's a romp through the macabre, an exercise in how many tragedies you can bear to watch befall perfectly good people. If that's your cup of tea, go for it.

Pseudo Otaku

It's a strange thing to be a fan of a particular artist's music for years without realizing it. But such is the case with Yoko Kanno. She's written the music for a number of different anime series, including Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, and Escaflowne, all of which I love and have downloaded in large chunks. She's like my personal Japanese John Williams.

In unrelated news, I've put my older-than-the-hills personal webpage back up on my home computer, at least until I think of somewhere better. I really need to start over with it, but in the meantime, it lets me link people to various things (notably photo albums). Online whenever I am.

The perils of independence

I got one of those DVD cases in the mail today, and did a double-take when I realized it was an installation disc, not for AOL, but for Netscape. Granted, it's a wholly owned subsidiary and all, but still a nice change of pace. Purely out of habit, I went to zap the disc in the microwave. Then I realized that I'm living in my own apartment now, and it's my own microwave I'd be stinking up. I'm obviously still getting used to this...

Speaking of which, I pulled up the satellite photograph of my neighborhood today. Check it out if you find such things cool.

Flotsam

Bob and Sean were in town for a concert last night, and we went out to the bars afterwards. A nice evening all around. But, we were out until 3:30, so I sorta took the morning off work. It was well worth it. Come back any time.

Funny things today:

* On my way to work, I saw what appeared at first to be a police cruiser. But then I saw the side: "Kansas City Missouri School Districts", and below that, "TRUANCY". I found it extremely amusing, for reasons I can't fully explain. I mean, I knew such things existed in some cities, but the idea of a cop devoted to dragging kids back to school...

* A few rows down from me, there was an avalanche of hundreds of balloons, completely blocking the aisle. Someone's birthday apparently, but still, wow.

Less funny things today:

* I was calling around to used video game stores today, looking for a particular item. Now, there are several chains of them in town, each with several locations. But none of them, including GameStop/Babbages, had the ability to search the inventories at other locations. I'm sorry, but in this day and age, that's just inexcusable.

* Someone thought it'd be fun to call in a prank bomb threat, thereby cutting Cerner's large, lavish, company-wide Christmas party a good hour short. A disgruntled former (or current) employee, I can only guess, but it's still a pretty shitty thing to do.

Belated tolerance

On the Travel Channel tonight, I finally saw the United Church of Christ commercial that NBC and CBS both refused to air. I think that it expresses an attitude that Christians - and organized Christianity - ought to adopt far more often then they do. Check it out.

An article I read on the controversy had some wise words: "Though it has more than 1.3 million members in about 6,000 congregations across the country, the UCC, headquartered in Cleveland, is widely unknown. Focus group testing revealed that only a small handful of participants said they knew something about the denomination. Random testing also uncovered strong negative feelings about churches in general, regardless of denomination. A large percentage of respondents said they held churches responsible for past hurts in their lives, and many traced their feelings of inadequacy to negative church experiences. Many congregations, they said, left them feeling unwelcome, financially inadequate and inappropriately dressed. The television ad is geared toward those people who, for whatever reason, have not felt welcomed or comfortable in a church."

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm a little biased. First Plymouth in Lincoln is part of the UCC, and it's also my mother's church, so I've been exposed to it more than most. Nevertheless, I have to admire their stances on certain important social issues.

EE

Finally got to see The Return of the King: Extended Edition with a couple of coworkers last night. We kept our mouths shut for the new scenes (which are mostly pretty excellent), but for much of the rest of the film, we MST3k'ed it. Which is to say, we made fun of the characters and their cliches, made sexual innuendos, told vaguely related stories, and generally took the movie to pieces.

That might horrify a few of my friends, but we had all seen it several times before, and it is excessively solemn and self-important sometimes. It's a sign of love, really. Also, the folks at New Line won me over by offering the box for the set separately, for those of us who've already bought all the films, at a mere $3. Frankly, it's something I wish more studios did more often.

My landlord has been slowly but surely replacing all of the hallway light fixtures in my building with much, much brighter versions. I'm not sure I care for it. Previously, they had that almost-but-not-quite dim ambiance of a hotel, or even Kauffman. But now it's like being in an interrogation room. Not much fun for my poor eyes in the morning.

A final tidbit for my friends from the Kansas City area: this spring, they're closing the I-35 river bridge. For up to nine months. Guess how I get to work in the morning? Gah...

The most wonderful time of the year

I've spent a small mint on Christmas gifts this year, and much of that online. I'm sure the Internet retailers are pleased, but really, I'd just as soon do my shopping in person if I could. It's just that I tend to be in the market for more obscure or unusual items, and it's hard to find them in local stores at a decent price, if at all. In other words, I'm addicted to obscene variety.

I have noticed an disturbing trend in the not-quite-top-tier sites, the ones that SlickDeals and Froogle send you to because you can get a deal. When you place an order, they require you to call in and "confirm" the order before they start processing it. Ostensibly a security measure, the only real purpose is to give them a chance to sell you additional items beyond the ones you actually bought. Upsells. It's probably been happening for years, of course, but it seems like it's becoming more widespread. And it sucks.

Unrelated:

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."
- William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"

Employ

Some ironies grow richer with age, like a fine wine. For example: quite a few of my friends from college ended up working at General Dynamics, a military contractor. Meanwhile, I ended up at Cerner, a health care company. Killing people at one extreme, saving them at the other. I honestly don't mean that as a judgement, it's just what I think about sometimes.

Fire alarm at work today, the same hideously annoying variety that Kauffman has. I was amused at the number of managers who just closed their conference room doors and continued with their meetings. And even more amused at the good 15 minutes it took a fire trunk to arrive, long after the false alarm had been canceled and everyone had gone back to work. Makes you feel safe, doesn't it?

I'm going to be so poor by the end of the month, between Christmas presents, my remaining furniture, and the sales tax on my car. Donations welcome.

Ugh

I was awoken an hour early this morning by a particularly horrific sound: my next-door neighbor, screaming at the top of her lungs. Just on the other side of the wall from my bedroom, not ten feet away. Needless to say, it's the sort of sound that we're hardwired to respond to.

I was able to pick out the tone of her voice first. She wasn't in any trouble, and since no one else was speaking, she wasn't having an argument. Next I started making out words, but I though I could hear them perfectly clearly, I couldn't string them together into meaning because I had no context for what she was talking about.

By the time I was awake enough to try to understand what was going on, she'd been interrupted by a neighbor who came running down the hall to pound on the door and ask if she was okay. She probably managed to wake the entire floor. I only retain the faint, almost dreamlike impression that she was cheering at something, like a sporting event or a game show, and somehow managed to forget that she was in her own @#$% apartment at 6:00 AM.

My neuropsychology-inclined friends will take note that the sequence of understanding I just mentioned exactly parallels the brain's actual processing of language: sounds, then words, then meanings. If I were a little smarter, I could probably make some fascinating insight out of the fact that they seemed to become active in order. Oh well.

Strangeness: On my way to work I saw a car whose license plate read, simply, "4". A few blocks later I saw a car with the plate "7". It was like being in an episode of The Prisoner.

Look into it

A few of the questions I ask myself actually have empirical answers, like this one: what is the degree of correlation between the length of a word, and the frequency of its occurence? You'd want to measure both the number of letters and number of syllables. And get big samples of text in various styles: formal, casual, oral, writen, etc. But overall, I suspect that the coefficient would be quite high.

I can count on one hand the number of sunny days in the past two months. But today, by some one-in-a-million conjunction of atmospheric conditions and solar geometry, there was sunlight on my cubicle. For about five minutes, but still startling. I didn't even know what many of my neighbors looked like in natural light. I'll have to mark this date on my calendar for next year.

Wierd: I got a text message from a number I don't recognize in Tampa. An empty text message. Huh?...

Roots

Lately I've found myself (re)discovering an interest in genealogy. It combines my love of researching things with a potentially endless project scope if I so choose. But it's also been reminding me of some of the odder aspects of my family tree:

My mother's parents both died before I was born, and she never discusses them. As a result, I don't really know what year they died, where they're buried, what killed them, or even their first names. It seems strange, even to me, but my maternal line just stops.

I know a whole lot more about my father's line, since both my grandparents survived into my teens. They were both German immigrants, so I can trace my family immediately back to Germany. That's half the fun, in my mind - I was able to find the village they came from, and someday, I hope I get the chance to visit it. The odds are pretty good that I still have some close relatives in the area.

Actually, come to think of it, I already know of at least one relative in Germany: Christa Hermann, who I stayed with when I visited Munich. I think her father and my grandfather were brothers, which would make us first cousins, once removed. I should double-check that...

Bah, this is all extremely boring to other people anyway. We'll leave today's moral at: if digging up information turns your crank, genealogy is good stuff, and you'd best get a start on it now before your relatives start dropping like flies.

Yin and Yang

Things are so much simpler when one person Knows and the other Does Not. My mentor at work is a far more experienced programmer than myself, and knows a lot of things about Cerner's systems that I don't. But I knew at least one thing he didn't: in Java, the default constructor of a superclass is always called from any constructor of a subclass. In my case, this was causing a circular call stack that eventually caused the JVM to die, suddenly, quietly, and without exception. But since we both had pieces of the puzzle without the knowledge of the other, we wasted a good hour of unnecessary debugging. Alas.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but Holiday Spice Pepsi is really, really good. Cinnamon and ginger. Yum. Give it a try; I'm going to stock up while it's still available.

If it's late enough and not too icy, like tonight, driving home through the snow is awesome.

Finally

Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we've no place to go
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Headed back to Lincoln this evening for Thanksgiving; I'll be there til Sunday. I know a lot of you will be out of town yourselves, but if you make it back in time, look me up.

When Themes Attack

And I thought that Selleck's holiday meals were crazy. I glanced at the company cafeteria's menu for the day, and they've reached a new high (or perhaps low): chipotle turkey, teriyaki turkey, turkey fettucini alfredo, turkey croissants, and... sweet jesus, pumpkin bisque. I might have to make someone a wager to try it. Couldn't be worse than Fireworks' carrot jalapeno bisque...

Gekko

I saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.

No, seriously, I did. Their rates were way lower for me than anyone else I could find. In fact, somewhere around here I have a sheepish email from a local Allstate representative, admitting and suggesting that I should I go to Geico, while he proceeds to give me a quote that's three times higher.

Also? It's the only company I've ever dealt with where there's no voice menuing system. It doesn't even ring; call their number and you're connected to a human being instantaneously. Why aren't more companies like that?

Da Bruckheimer Code

So I saw National Treasure tonight. I'm forced to admit that it wasn't nearly as wretched as I'd feared. In fact, it was pretty darn decent, saved in no small part by the fact that it's hilarious. And like all good conspiracy theories, it paid meticulous attention to historical facts while it wove a totally implausible tale around then. Keep an eye out for the word-for-word, shot-for-shot homage to Indiana Jones, too.

Speaking of history, I've always thought that the ancestral home of the Whiddens ought to look a lot like Gormenghast.

Need to find myself something to do for the weekend. Is a drinking buddy really so much to ask for?

Miscellany, as usual

Still enjoying Third Age. Helm's Deep is brutally exhausting, as it should be. Facing four Fell Beasts in a row without a save point is cruel; facing the Witch-King of Angmar alone is scary; and summoning Gwaihir is just plain sexy.

The skill point thing really is ridiculous, tho. I'm going to reach the end without unlocking half the skills available to me. I figured out it would take well over a thousand turns, per character (you can only use three of the six at a time), and there aren't enough battles in the game. I refuse to level for leveling's sake. Maybe I'll get lucky and there's a New Game+ where I get to keep the stats.

I'm still searching for Kansas City's version of, as a friend once termed them, the Nexus of All Worlds. Where dimensions cross and the unlikely becomes likely. Lincoln's was the Mill, where the probability approached 100% that you'd run into someone you know but didn't expect to see. I've read accounts of such places in other cities, so there's got to be one here somewhere.

Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis have both been renewed, for their ninth(!) and second seasons respectively. New episodes for the current season resume in January. Very nice.

Cans of brake fluid bear a disturbing resemblance to Liquid Schwartz.

The Third Age

Had a really good weekend, about which more later. But what consumed me last night and today was The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, which I finally managed to find a GameCube copy of. Anyone who's not a fan of RPGs can move along.

Plot: The game is basically a Tolkiensque version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: you lead a sort of second-string fellowship, with members of the various races, that follows in the footsteps of the real Fellowship. Sometimes you're clearing the way for them; sometimes you're cleaning up their mess; from Moria to the Pelennor Fields. It lets the game follow the plot of the book, in a rough sort of way, but still introduce new locations and perspectives.

Chapters: Each chapter (which correlate to geographic areas) has a series of objectives you have to finish; complete them all to move on to the next chapter. If you missed a chest or want to level up, you can come back to any chapter you've finished.

Battles: As many sources have pointed out, it's precisely the battle system that Final Fantasy X had. That's pretty much it. There are two indicators on the world map, which indicate when you're getting close to a mandatory/scripted battle (blue) or an optional/random battle (red), the latter of which are limited to certain parts of a chapter.

Items: Gained only from chests, enemy drops, or later in the game, from crafting. No stores. The chests are absolutely everywhere and not marked on the map, so you have to keep your eyes open. Gives the game a bit of a... Krondor-esque feel, for lack of a better comparison.

Skills: Each character has a number of skill trees; learning one in a level opens up the next level, so you can skip ahead and then come back later. Each time you use any skill in a given tree in battle, you earn one skill point. Earn enough to learn a skill and move on to the next. Oddly, skills tend to take 30, 50, even 100 skill points to learn. So you find yourself using nothing but skill attacks. Plain old attacks are available, but I don't think I've used one the entire game.

Modes: Easy, Medium, and Hard. They can be changed at any time, and live up to their names. Why don't more games do this?

Evil Mode: After you've finished a chapter, you can go back and play the key battles again - this time, as the enemy. Pretty difficult, as you're trying to beat down the same party that kicked your ass before. If you manage it, you get some really nice (and otherwise unavailable) weapons/armor/etc. All in all, a rather brilliant idea. It's unbelivevably satisfying to be the Balrog and beat Gandalf to a pulp.

Overall: A lot of fun, if you have any love whatsoever for Tolkien, RPGs, or preferrably both. At minimum, worth a rental, as you'll know within the first few hours whether you want to finish it. Me, I'm pretty satisfied.

Lingua Franca

I think we've all got a mental blind spot that causes us to overlook familiar things, even when they occur in unusual contexts. Case in point: a few years back I was watching home video of a friend's trip to Russia; in it, he's conversing with a local through a translator. Suddenly, the native switches to fluent English. The translator notices immediately, but continues "translating" English to English, and it took my friend several minutes to notice what what was going on.

Or take the show Iron Chef. The host's fractured French is pretty noticeable; "allez cuisine!", which is roughly "go cook!". But it took me literally years to notice that, even on the original Japanese soundtrack, he sometimes says "iron chef" in English. It just went right under the radar.

Tidbit #1: Food Network will be resuming Iron Chef America with new episodes this January. Now, I had assumed that when the show's host referred to the host of the original show as his uncle, it was a little theatrical throwaway, the same sort that had made the original host the fictional chairman of a fictional gourmet academy. But no: apparently the actor who played Kaga really is his uncle.

Tidbit #2: There was a door hanger from Papa John's when I got home, announcing that their pizza is "now being delivered" in my neighborhood. Implying, apparently, that it didn't use to be. Kinda scary. I guess that pizza delivery really is the last step of gentrification.

Thank you for pressing the self-destruct button

Though Cerner's orientation program is focused into an intensive first week, it continues in a more leisurely manner through the first six months or so. Thus, I got to take a tour today of Cerner's data center.

Now, I should mention that we store absolutely no client data whatsoever at our main campus; nor do the vast majority of employees (including me) have access to client systems once they're deployed on site. But in the past few years, Cerner's gotten into the outsourcee business, becoming the IT department of a lot of hospitals. So now we have a data center. It's on a different site, but I suppose I ought not mention where. Security through obscurity.

Anyway, if you've seen one data center, you've seen them all. I have, and I have. But it's still a very nice data center as such things go, a Tier IV if you're familiar with them. Maybe it's my inner tester, but when I'm told that a facility lacks any single point of failure, I immediately begin to search for one. Mentally, of course...

Also? Biometric systems of any kind make me horny. We actually had a discussion with our tour guide about how the handprint scanners wouldn't work properly if you tried to use a severed arm.

Drove home through one of those otherworldly, distractingly stunning sunsets we get on the plains sometime. Couldn't take my eyes off it, even though I was endangering life and limb.

Annoyances

1) The Wal-Mart near my house invariably has one very lonely case of Boulevard, or none at all. In Kansas City. It's disgraceful.

2) The various poker shows always explain the rules; and when they show how to break a tie between flushes, they invariably show two different suits. Even though such a situation is not possible in Texas Hold'Em.

3) My apartment has developed a cold draft from an unidentifiable source, and my heat doesn't seem to want to come on.

Not-Worst Not-Birthday Ever

The day started off so well. The build magically fixed itself as mysteriously as it broke. I finished my (supposedly) all-day training session, helped some of my co-workers and the instructor with the lab, and still left early.

Then I got a flat tire on the way home.

If it's not one damn thing, it's another. I pretty well destroyed the outfit I was wearing putting on the spare, and then blew my evening getting a new tire at Wal-Mart. (I know, I know, but it's cheap and open late.) You'll be impressed or puzzled to know that, despite cooling my heels there for a good ninety minutes, I didn't buy a single thing. I consider it some sort of twisted achievements.

Yesterday, I briefly entertained the notion that Bush might improve in his next term, but it took less than a day for him to prove that he's learned nothing. To wit:

"With the campaign over, Americans are expecting a bipartisan effort and results. I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals." If they shared your goals, they wouldn't be your opposition. Being bipartisan means reaching out to people who might have extremely different goals, and managing to find common ground anyway. It's a much harder thing to do.

"Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it." Where to even begin. First, campaigns spend capital of all sorts. There's the literal kind; many of the people who gave you money expect something in return. Moreover, you have to lay out your entire record, and convince people you've done a good job. In the process, you remind all the people who never did approve of you how much they don't like you.

If he imagines some sort of across-the-board mandate... he's nuts. I would value his political capital at approximately 3.5 million, in a nation of 300 million. I hope he spends it wisely.

In happier news, I'll be back in Lincoln tomorrow night. Stop by, say hi.

Worst Birthday Ever, Part 3

How could I forget the crowning glory? A few weeks back I made a rather paranoid post on my own apparent ostracism. Today I discover that a fellow in my hiring class has a grudge against me, for a mostly-imagined slight nearly a month ago that I barely remembered. And has been doing his level best to exclude me from anything and everything he can. With all due respect to any female readers, I hate it when men act like women. If you have a problem with me, for heaven's sake, say so.

Worst Birthday Ever, Part 2

It's the ultimate white elephant gift (forgive the pun): four more years of George W. Bush. I'm about as delighted about it as you might imagine, but for once I'm going to try to make a case for myself.

First and foremost, I must lay the increasingly poisonous atmosphere towards gays at lesbians at the feet of Republican party members. As I've said before, they have drawn on people's worst fears and instincts for political gain. If you don't believe me, Google for Sen. Ken Blackwell's comments on gay marriage in Ohio - let's just say the term "barnyard" appears more than once. And ultimately, I must therefore lay the blame on President Bush. Is it fair to hold him responsible for the actions of his party? Well, yes: he is its leader, and like the leader of any organization, bears ultimate responsibility for the organization he leads.

I do not believe it's a coincidence that most of the state amendments (not to mention the federal one) have occurred since Bush took office. His rhetoric condones and encourages them. And they're getting worse. Several of the ones passed yesterday could (depending on court interpretation) ban everything from gay marriage to civil unions to domestic partner benefits to hospital visitation rights to joint ownership to mutual wills; all of these constitute legal agreements between same-sex couples. There exist those who won't be happy until every last faggot is in a concentration camp somewhere; and they have the ear of the White House.

But I do have other political concerns. Read, if you haven't, Bush's victory speech. In particular, this passage caught my attention: "Reaching these goals will require the broad support of Americans. So today I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent: To make this nation stronger and better I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation."

Let me start by asking a deliberately naive question: why, exactly, does Bush need the support of a large majority of Americans, or even of the other party? He's not up for re-election; his party has a majority in both houses; and the Republicans have demonstrated twice now that they're perfectly capable of getting elected and getting business done with a slim-to-no majority. (As have the Democrats in other decades, to be fair.) Why shouldn't the Republican party simply do what it plans to do, with or without their opponents' support? It'd hardly be a political novelty.

But I don't have to be so cynical; I can take the man at his word. How, exactly, does he plan to do this? A hint: "Because we have done the hard work, we are entering a season of hope. We'll continue our economic progress. We'll reform our outdated tax code. We'll strengthen the Social Security for the next generation. We'll make public schools all they can be. And we will uphold our deepest values of family and faith."

More worries here, in my eyes. One of the things I concluded from this election is that the candidates didn't differ so very much in their plans; it was more question of priorities that sent people one way or the other. The above are apparently Bush's priorities, but a necessary step to truly courting the other half of the country will be to reshuffle those a bit, to pull some up the list and push others down. Is he willing to do so? I truly wish I knew.

I hear quite a lot that Bush's presidency has been the most divisive in recent memory; certainly it's true in my memory. I think the reason why is quite clear: he truly is confident and stubborn to the point of near arrogance. I really do admire that quality in some, but my political leaders are not among them. It's difficult to imagine a man modulating his position one iota when he routinely invokes divine providence to support them. If religiosity remains the strongest deciding factor in our elections, we're in deep shit for a long time.

Yes, I usually vote for the Democratic party, but not out of any particular alliance. The best explanation I can give is that I'm economically conservative but socially liberal. It'd be nice if I could find similar people to represent me, but they are a rare hybrid. When they do pop up, it simply seems to be more often in the Democratic party. I can't think of the last such Republican politician I've seen; maybe John McCain on his better days.

They say that an election is always a referendum on the incumbent. Did I approve of the last four years? No. All political rhetoric aside, I truly don't expect the next four years to be significantly different from the last. No one on either side of the aisle has given me reason to believe so. The best I really hope for is not to be wearing a pink triangle by that time, but we'll see.

Worst Birthday Ever, Part 1

I'm sure you all know the really awful birthday present I got, but I'm going to do this in parts. This part is purely technical; if you're not a computer scientist, move along.

So today, for the first time, I broke the build. As most of you know, this is a bad thing, and if you work in a vital part of the company (which thankfully I don't), it's a really bad thing. And the worst part is, it wasn't particularly, or at least solely, my fault.

I checked in changes to a number of files, one of which had been modified by someone else not long before. My changes depended on their changes. Now, we also have a pipelined system, where changes must be actively promoted from stage to stage. It's supposed to detect version dependencies like the one I caused, and not allow me to promote code to build until the earlier code has been promoted. But for whatever reason, it didn't notice, and neither did I. The result was that the build servers got a "half-version" that included my changes to an implementation file without the other guy's changes to the corresponding interface file. Kaboom.

Easy to fix, I thought. But no. It's not possible to pull code back to a previous stage; the code that's there stays there. And it won't build. And it's blocking about twenty other projects. I can't just check in the interface file myself; if it's identical to the highest current version (even the current unpromoted version), the source control system silently ignores it. I inserted spurious whitespace to force a new version, but I don't have the permissions to cause a build to happen. Everyone who does went home long ago.

So the end result is that it's still broken, and I'm scheduled to be off-campus at a traning session all day tomorrow. I've explained everything to my boss in the hopes that he has the necessary mojo to fix it, but otherwise, I'm very much on the hook.

To cap the night off, I went to see "The Corporation", a film I'd very much wanted to see. And it was really good; at least until about halfway, when the projector broke and the theatre sent us all home. I got a refund, at least, but still: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

Ju-on

So I saw The Grudge last night. I can't say it was an awful film, but I would hardly encourage anyone to go see it. I realize I'm probably being silly by asking for plot in a horror movie, but at minimum, I think they're better when (at least in hindsight) the killer has some sort of motive. As a favorite writer of mine once put it, even a ghost needs a MO. What follows is spoilers, so don't read if you plan to see the movie itself.

The film opens by quoting a Japanese belief that, when a person dies in the grip of strong emotion, the place where they died will sometimes become cursed. Thereafter, death will haunt that place, and leave a stain upon any who visit. Their word for this is onryou, vengeful spirit, and this belief forms the basis of nearly all Japanese horror films.

In the film, the curse hangs about a house where a family was murdered three years ago. The husband discovered that his wife was obsessed with another man; in a fit of rage, he strangled her, drowned her in the bathtub, and stuffed her body in the attic. Their son... well, we never quite find out, but apparently he was killed too, along with his pet cat. And afterwards, the father hung himself. Anyone who so much as sets foot in the house is doomed to die, soon, and violently, at the hands of the spirits that inhabit it, no matter where they go.

All of this makes for a very nice setup, but then the whole thing goes to hell. It's the wife's spirit who kills; we never see the husband, even though he is the source of the emotion and therefore, according to the prologue, the source of the curse. Sometimes she kills in similar manners or places to the original crime; sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes the son shows up as a warning to victims that his mother is coming; sometimes he doesn't. Some people are attacked almost immediately upon entering the house for the first time; others live there peacefully for weeks. Sometimes the spirit kills several people at once; other times certain people are allowed to live. It's all totally arbitrary.

And of course, there's our heroine, who alone manages to have a chat with the son's ghost without any attack. Later, she gets a full-body flashback of the original tragedy, which is useful for exposition, but why would the spirits bother? Particularly in light of the fact that they kill her almost immediately afterwards. Compare the ending of the highly superior Ring, where the heroine discovers the perfectly logical reason that she alone was spared. It's probably the most chilling moment in the film. By the end of that film, at least, I felt like I understood why things were going on. But not so here.

If you just like being scared, though, by all means go. There are a dozen victims in a 100 minute film; that's a death every 8.3 minutes. Unlike some horror films that work up to a few major scares, this one keeps them coming almost nonstop. If you're not totally immune, you should be pretty well drained of adrenaline by the end. So if that's all your looking for, you'll at least be startled.

In Memoriam

An old friend of mine died this week. His epitaph can be found here.

Claritin Clear

Nebraska City was an almost unbelievable contrast to Kansas City. Not only was it a perfectly clear, sunny day, but every color on every tree was eye-popping. It was seriously like those Claritin commercials they show on TV, where a smoky film is lifted away and suddenly everything is more vibrant. When I came back here, I realized what a washed-out world I've been living in compared to the countryside. It makes me kind of sad.

The whole town was swarming with Asian ladybugs, which are hard to tell from the normal kind - visually, at least. But instead of being relatively sedate, they constantly fly through the air and land on your skin. Instead of being unobtrusive, there are millions of them. And they bite. Nasty things; I hadn't seen them much before, and I hope it doesn't become an annual occurrence.

Saw a Hummer H2 with the license plate "JIM COX". Does this remind anyone else of when Homer Simpson changed his name and got "MAX POWER" monogrammed in full on all of his shirts?...

Driving a car with busted cruise control turns out to be really dangerous: I drive much faster than I otherwise would. On a related note, thank god I turn 25 next year, because this $1200 a year car insurance is going to kill me yet.

The Fog

Wow, it's been much longer than I thought since I posted. Not an extremely eventful week, but as usual, a few oddities to report:

The first strange thing was that I passed up an afternoon off (at a local pool hall) for my entire team. Obviously, I would usually jump at that sort of thing, but it was partially a reward for a month of deadlines and 60+ hour weeks. I got hired just at the end of it, and I decided I'd feel like a huge tool if I took the reward for things I didn't do - playing hard without working hard, if you will. Of course, I also missed opportunities to network and socialize away from the office. Which I need to do more of. Not quite sure what to think, in hindsight.

The second strange thing was the inverse of the first: I got a nonvite, an unvitation, to drinks after work. The attendees (I discovered afterwards) were nearly all folks I got hired with, and consider friends. But, the organizer was someone I didn't know. So snub or oversight? Wish I knew. I think I'll err on the optimistic side for now, but I hope that excluding and/or forgetting me doesn't become a habit. Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate that.

And the third strange thing was that the Arby's near work doesn't have chicken strips, or indeed, chicken anything. They're the best thing on the menu; the only reason I go there! This had better not be some sort of freakish citywide thing. I must investigate.

So yeah, that fall color I was complaining about earlier is finally starting to come in, but you could hardly tell. I can count on one hand the number of sunny days we've had since I got here; otherwise, it's overcast, foggy, or raining. It's like living in... I dunno, Seattle? London? Maine? I even like wet weather, but it's starting to get a bit old. Hard to appreciate natural beauty when you can barely see it.

Oh, and my old friends' social lives continue to be Dramatic, with a capital D. You know who you are, so, what in blazes is going on?

Headed back north this weekend - as far as Nebraska City, at least - to see my mother for her birthday. I'll make it all the way back north two weeks after that. Patience, young ones.

Addendum: holy shit, the game tomorrow is radio only. I don't even own one. Time to drive around town for a few hours?...

...Takes Its Toll

What an absurdly busy weekend it turned out to be, a bit of a nonstop party. I'll try to do a brief recap while I can still remember it all...

Saturday: went with the guys to the Boulevard Brewery. It's pretty much Mecca, as you might expect, and I had quite a few beers I hadn't known they had. I also didn't realize how much expansion they have planned (a lot). My souvenier was a jar of their Pale Ale Mustard, which you must try if you ever get the chance. If you ever want to take a tour with me, they're every Saturday at 11:00, 1:00, and 3:00.

Then we went to Arthur Bryant's, easily the most famous BBQ restaurant in Kansas City. People kept warning me about how it was located in a "ghetto" neighborhood, but by day at least, it's not bad at all. The food was simple, plentiful, and absolutely delicious. I may never look at Wonder Bread the same way again.

After that, we saw Team America: World Police. I'll admit that the movie was funny, but that's really all that it was. Please don't go expecting political commentary. To quote from Roger Ebert's review, "I wasn't offended by the movie's content so much as by its nihilism. At a time when the world is in crisis and the country faces an important election, the response of Parker, Stone and company is to sneer at both sides -- indeed, at anyone who takes the current world situation seriously. They may be right that some of us are puppets, but they're wrong that all of us are fools, and dead wrong that it doesn't matter."

Later that evening, after the guys got back from Lawrence, we went to Tanner's again. And guess what? Got our tab paid, again, but by someone else this time: the groom, whom Mark had been in town to see. We begged him not to - all this drinking for free was starting to get embarassing - but he snatched the check and wouldn't give it back. Ah, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Sunday: Off to the Renaissance Festival, along with Sam and Meagan. It is, as advertised, gigantic, not to mention in a forest, so I spent most of the day being thoroughly lost. I did manage to find a nice bit of jewelery for my mother's birthday, and a few other items that won't be mentioned, because the recipients are reading this. :) I plan to go back next year, maybe more than one weekend, so let me know if you care to go.

Dinner with Rusty, Sarah, and Rusty's parents. Dessert with Sam and Meagan as well at a place on the Plaza called The Melting Pot, which is a fondue(!) restaurant. Pricey but, sweet jesus, it's delicious. I can't even imagine what the rest of their menu is like. Yet another place I'll be happy to go with you if you ever come to town.

So, to summarize: partying and heavy, heavy drinking at my place every night this weekend, three nights running. I'm exhausted and slightly hung over, but so, so contented.

Madness

So, Bob and two of his friends are in town tonight. After going to a concert in Westport, they headed up to my place. I took them to a really nice bar near my apartment, called Tanner's. It's a collegiate, Cheers type place with a kitchen that's open late, and it's only five blocks away.

So, we're hanging out, having our beers, eating our food, when we're approached by a gentleman from a nearby table. His name is Mark Jones, native of Atlanta, in town for a friend's wedding. In honor of the occasion, he offers to buy us all a round of drinks.

More conversation. It transpires that he is an alumni of the University of Nebraska, graduated 1986. Played football for the Cornhuskers. Got a degree in computer science. These days, he's a vice-president of Hitachi America. And of course, he learns that all of us are current or recent students at UNL.

What follows is a lengthy and honestly facinating lecture on his time at UNL, his love for Coach Osborne, his career, and perhaps most importantly, how to get ahead in the business world. Bob was practically drooling at the prospect of an internship. And before he leaves, he pays our tab for the entire evening, won't take no for an answer. Incredible.

So yeah, an amazing evening. Met a cool fellow, ate and drank for free. He said he'll be there tomorrow night - after the wedding reception - and wants us to come back. Champagne for the entire bar, and perhaps tequila too. His treat. I think perhaps we might have to go back, at that...

Lawrence

Went out to the bars last night with a couple of coworkers. They decided before I arrived that we would be going to Lawrence (about forty miles west of here). The reasons for this remain a total mystery to me; not one of us is from there or went to school there. We had no idea where anything was or where the parties were. But it turned out for the best in the end: KU had beaten Kansas State earlier that day, so the whole town was one big party.

We ended up at a place called Abe & Jake's Landing. It turned out to be really awesome, a huge place that spanned several floors. Besides the main dance floor, there were four bars, some very elegant quiet areas, a pub/cafe area, a balcony patio, and really good music. The whole place is an old factory along the banks of the Kansas River, which results in a strange combination of loud and peaceful. Anyway, a great place, better than any I'd been to in a while, so I recommend it if you're ever there.

Didn't end up finding any house parties, though. It is possible to find them when you're from out of town and don't know anyone; but it's difficult and far from a sure thing. I guess hope just springs eternal.

On the way home, I saw the stars for the first time in a long while. Particularly Orion, my favorite constellation (don't ask me why), which only rises in the winter. It was nice.

The quote of the evening was between two fellows who just moved here from Florida and California, regarding the Midwest:

"It seems like everybody you meet here is attached, like they get engaged and married really quickly, really young, you know?"

"Well, it does get very cold in the winter here..."

Myst IV, Part II

So I've spent some more time playing through Myst IV, after a kind soul helped me get past the aforementioned evil puzzle of death. I've got a few more things to report.

First, the bad: the game's "help" system is so comically useless even at its highest levels that I'm beginning to think the designers deliberately sabotaged it in a fit of indignation. Among other issues: It refers to areas, animals, and people by name even when they haven't been named within the game. It does not state the goal or reasoning behind most puzzles, only the rote steps necessary to solve them. It only lists the steps to solve a puzzle from its initial state, for puzzles that can't be reset to their initial state. It contains inaccurate (or at least misleading) maps of the levels, and makes no mention of where to find important switches/levers/buttons etc. I no longer have any compunction about looking at any of its spoilers, because I know they'll only leave me more confused than I was before.

But there's also some good:

* I found out that the developers are working on their first patch which, aside from other technical issues, will adjust the timing on the puzzle I found so awful in my last post.

* The game's last level, Serenia, is utterly, endlessly gorgeous. But more than that, it's far more "Myst-like", inasmuch as the puzzles are far more like what I like. They fall into two basic categories: logic puzzles, where your objective is clear and you need to determine the correct algorithm; and engineering puzzles, where the level is a giant broken machine that you need to diagnose and debug. All of that, I like.

* Towards the end, the plot and tone of the game take a left turn into the realm of the artistic and abstract. It's a bit jarring at first, but also very pretty, and provides some of the game's (IMO) cleverest and most interesting puzzles.

* There appear to be as many as three different good endings, somehow based on your play style, though I'm still not sure what the variables are.

So I guess my recommendation now would be to a) wait until the patch is released, and b) maybe just borrow the game from me. Don't feel bad about using hints (albeit someone else's) on the game's obtuse middle levels, if only for the joy and wonder of the first and last levels.

Oh, yes, and I finally got paid today. Yay!

And All That Jazz

Went with some people from work to a bar called the Phoenix that's literally a block away from my apartment. It bills itself variously as a jazz or piano bar, with live music most nights; while we were there, it was a blues guitarist. Really, really nice atmosphere, reminiscent of the bygone Brazen Head (may it rest in peace), just the sort of place I longed for in college but rarely found. If you come to town, I'm very likely to take you.

A big shout-out to my co-worker Gabriel, whose webpage and blog I recently discovered. And he plays Settlers of Catan! Will wonders never cease. Speaking of which, I found out about a number of rules to that game just before I moved that I hadn't been aware of previously:

* Development cards can be played before you roll the dice.
* Trades where one person gives cards to another for free are against the rules.
* It's possible for another player to do something that causes you to win the game, but you can't actually win until it's your turn. Thus, it's (rarely) possible for someone else to win first!

We haven't had much luck at finding other players here at Cerner, so if you're reading this and you come to town, you might get drafted.

Ten Ten

If you watched the Olympics, or follow international news at all, then you're aware of Taiwan's tense and strange international status. Keep that in mind.

So tonight, I attended a gala banquet at the Marriott Hotel, not far from my apartment. The occasion? This week is the National Day (but really Independence Day) of Taiwan (but really the Republic of China), and the party was hosted by their Economic and Cultural Office (but really Embassy) in Kansas City. Both the food and the entertainment were, appropriately, a mix of Eastern and Western tastes. We did, of course, have to sit through a number of speeches that centered around their achievements as a people and their continued persecution by mainland China. I can hardly blame them, though. In their position I suppose I'd bring my plight up at every opportunity, too.

The evening was capped off with a toast of gao liang jiu, a potent variety of Chinese white wine, made from sorghum, that the Americans affectionately referred to as "White Lightning". It's only a small step above moonshine, actually. It'll put hair on your chest, a bounce in your step, and a hole in your liver.

My parents were also in town for the banquet, so they dropped off a number of items that I'd forgotten at home. Most notably, the rest of my movies, books, liquor, and furniture. So I guess my place is pretty much done now, and ready for guests. Come on down. :) A few shout outs:

Rusty: The Chinese side of the buffet was catered from Bo Ling's. Yum.

Derrick: There is a Folgers Coffee factory directly across the street from my building. If I'm walking home at the right time of the evening, say around 9:00, I can smell it on the production line. I don't even like coffee, but still yum.

James: If you come visit me, I've got a little something for you. And not what you just thought, either.

Town Hall

So today was Cerner's Town Hall, a (bi?)annual meeting of all associates to discuss the upcoming year. And it was kind of a trip:

3,500 people. Held at a rodeo arena, the American Royal. A live band doing covers of country music as you enter and leave. Your ID scanned as you arrive, to make sure that you came (and that you're not the press, I suppose). A stage with a ranch-like set. The CEO rides in on a horse. The projection screen tumbling over onto the executive board. Footballs being thrown into the audience to decide who gets to ask a question - and win $50 by doing so. The CEO betting his board $500 that they can't hit a particular person in the audience. Copious quantities of free beer and barbecue afterwards. Trying to drive through the center of the city at rush hour, while not losing the person who's following you home.

Fun stuff.

I'm back at Riverport (the old casino) all this week, this time to get training on Cerner's quality control procedures and client/server framework. Wish me luck.

The Surreal Life

Well, my first full week at Cerner is over, and it was mainly... well, strange. Let me say in advance that I realize it won't always be like this, but in the meantime, I'm a little wierded out. Allow me to present a few tidbits:

* The cubicles are arranged in rows, so I have a clear view of five from where I sit (the two adjoining and three across). And they are all empty. Oh, there are nameplates, papers, other artifacts of work. But I've only seen a human being in one of them, and that briefly. The others might be working elsewhere this week, they might have transferred to a different group, they might have left the company. There's no way for me to know.

* I've seen my manager precisely twice, last Friday and this, and only for an hour both times. He's a friendly enough fellow, funny even. But where does he go all day? He's never been at his desk ever. I'm afraid to ask, or perhaps afraid that I wouldn't understand the answer.

* Somewhat unbelievably, my team has no recurring meetings of any kind. My team lead, though friendly, prefers to communicate through email and instant message. Combined with the isolation of my cubicle, I could easily work the entire day without speaking to or even seeing another human being face to face. There have been a few days when I did just that.

* Friday was my first Beer Friday, a monthly event where Cerner provides free beer (Miller Light, ugh) at the end of the day to all its employees. It reminded me uncannily of a Kauffman party: a bunch of geeks, mostly men, sitting around and drinking. It makes them more talkative about the subjects they talk about anyway; and they only talk to those people they already know. A bit sad, but a good way to end the week all the same.

I did finally coax a little information out of my manager and team lead about what I'll actually be doing the next few months. It's pretty much what I expected for a new hire: some more training, some support work, a bit of development (particularly writing tests). The sort of stuff that's mildly tedious but needs to be done and provides a good introduction to the company's system architecture. Not bad, for what it could have been.

The Puzzle from Hell

So I've been playing Myst IV: Revelation for the past few days. It seemed quite good at first; really gorgeous graphics, dramatic music, intriguing story, all that good stuff. But the game is flawed, in ways that are becoming more and more obvious to me. Worse, the flaws are centered around puzzle design, which is the heart and soul of the adventure genre.

For starters, quite a few of the puzzles have no feedback whatsoever when solved. There's no way to tell when or if you've done something right. This is a sharp contrast to all the previous games in the series, when a completed puzzle would usually lock itself down to prevent further changes. It makes it essentially impossible to take a level in stages, which is IMO a bad move.

Worse, the solutions to some of the puzzles has crossed the line from careful observation and deduction to pure mathematics and, in some cases, pure madness. The game offers a three-tiered help system: small hint, pointed nudge, and outright solution with explanation. It should tell you something that in several cases, even after reading the full, step-by-step solution including how you were intended to find it, I still can't figure out what the hell they're talking about. I'm no genius but I'm no fool either. If you thought the animal noises from Riven were obscure, you ain't seen nothing yet.

All of which brings me to the puzzle from hell, which has stopped me cold at a relatively early point in the game. The following is spoilerrific, but I don't really care much anymore:

The puzzle consists of three vertical sliders, each of which can be set from 0-12. A correct setting on all three sliders causes a lock to release; there are a total of four locks to release with four different combinations to complete the puzzle.

The sliders, of course, are not numbered in any way. The only way to determine their setting is to move them up and down and observe a row of lights above turning on and off. Moreover, they don't "snap" to the nearest setting like, say, a Windows slider; rather, you must nudge it past the next higher setting before it will stick.

The hotspot to control each of these sliders is only a few pixels square; when you find it, you must wait for the usual hand cursor to change to a grasping mode, which takes a noticeable second or so. If you click too soon, or are off by only a little, you'll simply wave at empty air.

Next to the sliders, left and right, are the four locks that you're attempting to open. These are "details"; they can be zoomed in upon. This serves no useful purpose except to give you a close-up view of the lock's current state, but that state can be seen while zoomed out as well. The hotspots to zoom in on the locks are only a few pixels over from the slider hotspots.

Now, all of this would make the puzzle poorly designed and tedious, but not a major challenge if you have the correct combinations. However, there's one final point I should mention: the entire thing is TIMED. Each lock stays open only for a limited amount of time, and each shorter than the last. All told, you have about thirty seconds from the time you finish entering the first combination to finish the puzzle. Me, the best I can do is to be entering the third combination at the time that the first one times out. And that's after hours of practice and trying over and over again.

There are plenty of games out there that test your manual dexterity, your ability to move your mouse around quickly and precisely. I don't care for them, and wasn't intending to buy one. Anyone want a slightly used copy of Myst IV: Revelation?

A Sticky End

It's official. I'm a yuppie now; a young, urban professional. Who'd have thought it would come to this?

Fun thing to do to amuse yourself while slogging through endless CBTs: put your laptop power brick up to your ear. Really, try it. Mine makes this awesome crackling electrical noise that sounds precisely like the equipment in Dr. Frankenstein's lab.

I now have a company credit card, a Diner's Club. I have absolutely no idea why, as I don't exactly entertain clients. I'll use it maybe once or twice ever, if I go on a trip to a client site. Still, it's pretty.

Poll: how long will it take for my body's clock to adjust to the new schedule? I can hardly sleep at night and it's killing me.

Odds and Ends

Looks like most of my coworkers are married with children, or shortly to be so. Which means we might have somewhat different tastes in weekend and after-hours activities. It's not a huge problem, but it does mean I'll have to reach a little further out into the company to liven up my nightlife. Oh well. I can do it.

I hadn't immediately realized just how wooded the campus was: if I walk over to the window and look down, all I can see is endless treetops along the creek bed. Really, really pretty.

Turns out that Cerner uses Rational ClearQuest for bug tracking. All you Design Studio alumni can say a little prayer for me.

Used Uncle Ben's rice bowls go rancid with astonishing rapidity - just one of them managed to stink up my entire apartment after just a few days.

Any of you I haven't heard from since I moved down here - why the hell not? It's not like I've got much to do all night long.

Bah

It's too bright in Kansas City. I can hardly see the stars, much less pick out constellations.

I have a futon and a bed now, and I'm hard pressed to decide which is more comfortable. Also went on a pretty decent shopping spree this weekend, acquiring the rest of my furniture and significantly augmenting my wardrobe. There's more to be done, of course, but I think I can put together a pretty passable apartment at this point.

Word of the Day: My bank tells me that one of my purchases was made in Overloverland Park. I'm not kidding.

Any Port in a Storm

Finally met my boss, and found out (in a general sense) what I'll be doing. It seems that the Advanced Architecture folks do the interfaces, APIs, web services, and other such glue between the existing Cerner Millennium backend and the new web-based frontend. My sub-group now has a grand total of three people, including me, so I have a feeling that they need all the help they can get. That, and they said as much.

Turns out that said boss is the very same man who first interviewed me for the job a few months back. I'm on his team because he specifically requested me. Which is, for starters, extremely flattering. But the reason why is even more intriguing: I'd mentioned to him (in all honesty) that I really enjoyed teaching and prided myself on my ability to explain things in an understandable matter. Unsurprisingly, people who write middleware have to do a lot of that for the engineers writing the layers immediately above; and equally unsurprisingly, a lot of the current geeks don't much care for it. So yay me, I guess.

He also made the well-no-kidding suggestion that I ought to max out my annual 401(k) contributions, particularly in light of Cerner's stock matching. But, when I looked into how much that would be, the answer is a full 25% of my gross income. Gulp. I'll probably do it anyway, but I really need to do some more budgeting and figure out how much I really need to, y'know, live.

At least renter's insurance turns out to be cheap - I can live with $18 a month.

Looks like I'll be mostly using WebSphere Studio Application Developer, which is a superset of the Eclipse IDE that I (and maybe some of you) are already familiar with. So that's a help.

In marginally more interesting news, the weekend of UNL's fall break could be interesting: Rusty and Jesse might come down, but I also got a request from the Three Wierd Sisters to stay at my place while they go to the Kansas City Renaissance Fair (to which I can get cheap tickets if anyone else wants). Wonder how many people I can fit in my apartment. Guess I'll find out.

Donations of posters or other accessories for my uber-bare apartment still welcome.

Sweet, Sweet Silicon

I have a laptop again! Yay! I went almost an entire five days without one, and it almost killed me. A Dell Precision M60, very nice. (I can't tell you much about the software without getting, y'know, fired or something.) True, I can only use it for business purposes, but still, it's the thought that counts. Being able to get work done from my couch is invaluable.

Finally get to meet with my manager tomorrow and, with any luck at all, find out what I'm really supposed to do. True, he hasn't actually managed to send me a note saying when/where to find him, but I have great faith. At least I have all the important things in hand - an email address, my network passwords, an access card for the door, that sort of good stuff.

I haven't found myself too overwhelmed yet, despite the vast quantities of information, and repeated assurances by the Cerner trainers that I ought to be. Maybe I'll feel differently once I finish with the approximate month of CBTs (Computer Based Training) that I have in front of me. The prerequisite structure resembles a fractal. Interesting sidelight on the Cerner culture: they think that if you're at any one job longer than two years, something's wrong. I'm not sure but I think I like it.

Yesterday was the official Autumn Equinox. I noticed as I was driving to work that the sun was rising in the dead center of the street as I drove east, just as it should be. Too bad it doesn't feel much like fall yet. Needs to cool off.

Furniture finally gets here Saturday (some of it, at least). Anybody want to help me assemble a futon? Please?

011000

I'll get to the other stuff in a second, but the important news first: I have Associate Number 011000. For a brief moment, I thought they were assigned in binary (24?), but no, I just got extraordinarily lucky in sequential assignment. I feel like I ought to get some sort of door prize. It's a very good omen regardless.

So apparently I'm going to be in the Advanced Architecture group of the Applications Architecture division. I have absolutely no idea what that means, nor am I likely to until this Friday. Presumably it's a bit more prestigious than Beginning Architecture...

For a company whose goals include eliminating needless paperwork from the health care industry, they sure do make their employees fill out a ton of paperwork relating to insurance. I hope they appreciate the irony.

I didn't think through things clearly: I commute to work against the main flow, out of the city center in the morning and back into it in the evening. So I never really have any traffic. It's awesome.

Far be it from me to stare out a window during orientation, but there's such a gorgeous view outside. All you can see is the river flowing past and the trees on the opposite shore. I'd want to build a house there; if there wasn't already a conference center, that is. It's the old Sam's Town Casino, if any of you Kansas City types care.

Note to self: drink something basic, like milk, after eating a pizza, lest you go to bed with a nasty case of acid reflux.

Wish You Were Here

Just a quick dispatch to let y'all know that I arrived safe and sound. I've basically spent the last two days unpacking. I don't own nearly enough stuff to fill this apartment, or even make it look like someone lives here. Everything had vanished into cupboards and closets already. Need to buy some more posters, I think.

The comedy of furniture continues; my dresser and nightstand will be two weeks late. It seems that a hurricane hit their factory. At least I'll get my bed and futon on time. And speaking of which, I think I'm going to put my bed against the interior wall, as I'm tired of hearing my neighbors' televisions. It's not that the walls are all that thin, but they both have their TVs up against the common walls, and watch them until the wee hours. Oh well. Screaming children would be far worse.

I've been unable to locate any decent grocery stores nearby, so it's time to start asking around. The nearest Walmart and Best Buy are each about ten miles away, which sucks. But that's not too awful of a trip by interstate. Until today I hadn't been to a Walmart before, say, midnight in months, so I'd rather forgotten that other people shop there.

I scoped out my training site today, which is at Cerner's riverfront conference center, not the corporate campus proper. I had thought it was in a converted riverboat, but it's actually in a converted power plant. An extremely gorgeous location, regardless. Looks like my commute will be about 15 minutes (without traffic), and I can avoid the interstates if necessary. There's also a ton of fast food places on my way to/from work, so I'll be able to grab some dinner there if need be. Maybe I should look for a grocery store in that neighborhood, too...

But mainly, I've been bored out of my mind, and will likely continue to be so for a few weeks. So please, please give me a call or instant message sometime.

Equinox

My flu's getting better, I guess; it's migrated down into my throat. Every now and then I open my mouth to say something but nothing comes out. Which, on further reflection, might be a good thing.

We're finally, finally entering autumn around here. It's my favorite season by far, and it's high time. You walk outside and it's cooler than you expected, but not quite cold. The wind always seems to be blowing, and it's clean and refreshing. I think that the color of the leaves in the fall is one of the most beautiful things in nature. Maybe I'm just biased because it's the season I was born in.

Actually, it's more than that. I think it's much easier and more enjoyable to get warm when it's too cold, then to get cool when it's too hot. Wrapped up inside a blanket is like my natural state. In fact, though it'll sound freakish, I get a bit of a thrill during that stage of a flu when you can't regulate your body temperature properly and you feel too hot/too cold by turns. Being out of control like that reminds me of being drunk or being on a rollercoaster. Terrifying, yet awesome.

It occurred to me the other day that I'll be living in an area with no trees in sight, yet working on a corporate campus with so many trees that it's practically a forest. How's that for a reversal? At least there's trees somewhere. I think I'd go nuts if I couldn't look out a window and tell immediately what season it was. That's why I could never live in one of those parts of the country that don't really have seasons. How is my mind supposed to mark time?

The final move to KC is this weekend. I hope I can manage to get some sleep and readjust my sleep schedule; it's 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM each and every day. Maybe once I find out who my boss is and what my project is, I can readjust my hours a bit. 9 to 6 sounds far more palatable.

Assuming my desktop and cable modem end up working properly, message me next week, please. I'll be super-bored in the evenings, with nothing much to do except put things away, and no furniture of any kind. Not to mention bored in general, at least until I can manage to meet some people. It's not nearly as easy as I think I sometimes make it seem...

Nearly the End of All Things

Went to Kansas City this weekend and unloaded much (actually, most) of my stuff there, but came back to Lincoln to a) care for the cat while my parents are out of town, and b) say goodbye to my friends. Not necessarily in that order. For the sake of privacy I'm not going to post my new address and phone here, but if you don't have it yet, mail me directly.

So yeah, my new loft. If it were somehow possible, I would definitely hump it. It turns out to be very nice. Not huge (around 850 square feet), but it feels like it, thanks in no small part to the 12 foot ceilings. Somebody get me a trampoline. Everything is modern, as it was renovated only five years ago, and apparently in very good condition. For $650 a month including utilities and parking, I think it's a pretty decent deal for downtown KC. With any luck at all I'll be pretty happy there.

I bought a bed and futon (and other stuff) up at Nebraska Furniture Mart in Omaha. Now, they have a branch in KC, so they can deliver anywhere in town, only $45 for up to seven pieces of furniture. A good deal, I thought. Then I discover that the NFM down there doesn't offer twilight delivery - that is to say, after 5:00 PM. And guess who's going to be in training every day until at least that time? That's right. I get to spend the first week in my apartment sleeping on the floor, yay! The employees up in Omaha couldn't believe it, and neither could I. After dropping $1,200 you think I could get a bit better service.

Some things in life, however, are immediate: there was already an AOL disc waiting for me when I got to my apartment.

Coming down with a cold, as is everyone in Kauffman, probably not coincidentally. So I get to have watering eyes as I drive south, and sniffle/sneeze my way through my first week of work. Wonderful.

As I was walking home from dinner on Saturday night, there was a violinist playing next to the Broyhill Fountain. I found it quite pleasant, even if James decided they were playing a dirge for the (losing) Husker team. UNL has always suffered from a surplus of crappy outdoor bands, and a shortage of good individual performers. Somebody should fix that.

C'est la vie

Been too busy living life lately to talk about it. But these things are cyclical, and I'm sure it won't last.

Leaving for Kansas City tomorrow to take the first carload of stuff down; there'll be another next week. Be back Monday night.

Urban Spelunking

I've always had a passion for places that are out-of-the-way and forgotten, or are abandoned entirely. I got to experience both in the course of the evening.

I spent most of the night with Jesse at the State Fair. Now, the fair is pushing 150 years old, and most of the buildings feel as if they've been around nearly as long. They've got nondescript architecture, plain interiors, the sort of cracked and peeling look that comes with the benign neglect of only being used once per year. Or not neglect even, just a total lack of the renovations that one usually sees in other buildings of similar vintage. And the whole park's like that, so large that nobody can really be familiar with all of it, with lots of areas that are rarely seen or whose purpose has been largely forgotten.

At one point, we found ourselves sitting in a remote corner of the beer garden. I noticed a row of folding chairs neatly stacked along the wall - and covered with cobwebs. Later, I noticed that all of the ugly, ugly tables (barely more than planks) were resting atop the frames of antique sewing machines. Marvelous.

Later, I was walking back to my car from Kauffman at around 2:00 AM. I managed to walk all the way to the Haymarket without seeing or hearing another living soul. Now, bear in mind that the home football season begins tomorrow, and I walked right past the stadium, so signs of preparation were everywhere. Traffic cones were up, food vendors were in place and ready to sell, the stadium lights were on. But no people at all. The banquet was set but no one had yet arrived to eat it.

It's strangely exhilarating to walk through a huge section of an urban area and find it utterly abandoned. I've only done it once before, and that was in Venice. If you are the only person in a place, then you own that place, as surely as if you held the deed.

Beermann's Guide to Barhopping in Downtown Lincoln

So yeah, a lot of my friends will be turning 21 this year, and many of those while I'm not in town. To save me making the same speech over and over again, I'm going to set down my basic tips for going to the bars. Most of them probably apply everywhere, but you never know. Here goes:

1. Get the special. You should always ask what the nightly special is, and you should usually get it. Unless you're a complete snob, it should be something pretty drinkable, and far cheaper than anything else you could possibly buy. After a while, you'll start to develop a mental map of which bars have which specials on which nights of the week. Use it.

2. Get the specialty. A lot of bars have a particular drink that they're known for, and they're known for it because it's really good. So if the place you're at has one, try it.

3. Beware covers. There are only three reasons a bar should ever have a cover charge: live music, dancing, or an utterly incredible special. If none of these appear to be going on, you're getting ripped off. Moreover, you should be going to the bar specifically to do whatever it is they're charging cover for; if you don't care where you go, keep walking. Most bars that are going to have a cover start charging at 9:00, so if you arrive just before that you get in free.

4. Beware lines. I can assure you that whenever there's a long line outside a particular bar, whatever it is they're all waiting for probably isn't worth it. So if you see more than a few people, keep walking. You came downtown to drink, not stand around outside for half an hour.

5. Keep going back. Many of the bars downtown have backyard patios, upstairs, downstairs, or areas that are not otherwise visible when you first enter. They also tend to be a lot less smoky and crowded than the main bar area. So it's usually a good idea to keep moving towards the back to check things out.

6. Chill out. It's no sin to stay at the same place all night, particularly if your goal for the evening was to sit and talk with your friends. So don't feel the need to move along until you're not having a good time anymore.

Housekeeping

My CSE account is officially dead, which means that mbeerman@cse.unl.edu is too. I can no longer receive any mail sent to that account, and it'll start bouncing soon. I'm going to miss it after these five long years. In the meantime, you ought to use mbeerman@yahoo.com instead.

Chinese fortune cookie I received today: "You have an unusual equipment for success, use it properly."

Stranger in a Stranger Land

I stopped by the Health Department this morning to get the results of my annual HIV screening. Still negative after all these years. Yeah, I know, condoms and all, but they aren't foolproof, so it's still a good idea. Interesting yet disturbing: along with the results, they give you a free, ten minute phone card. Wonder how many minutes you get if you're positive?...

Anyway, in the waiting room, a social worker was talking to two men and their families. I think they may have been from Sudan, but it's hard to say, as Lincoln is an INS resettlement community for a number of different countries. They were fresh off the proverbial boat; only one of them spoke much English, and neither seemed very clear on where their new houses were or what state they were in.

It seems they were there to receive complete physical examinations, the results of which they'd have to take to the social worker next week. The children, she warned them, would have to receive five immunizations each. And they'd probably cry.

The sociologist in me was facinated by all this. Despite living in a community with a large immigrant (and refugee) population, I haven't had much contact with them. How does a person cope with the culture shock of moving to a new country, much less fleeing to a new country? What are the legal hoops they have to jump through? What are the steps necessary to acclimate them to their new lives, and whose job is it to do so? How do they go about finding jobs? Do they like it here or not? I wonder such things.

Fun fact: there are two, four-way intersections a block apart in the Haymarket. One has four stop signs reading "FOUR WAY STOP"; the other, four stop signs reading "ALL WAY STOP". I feel as if we're being test marketed somehow.

In Full

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

A Beginner's Guide to Atlantis

There's absolutely no good reason for this post, other than (as the description of my blog says) to exorcise something that's been knocking about in my head for a while. So without further ado, I give you an introduction to Stargate: Atlantis.

Millions of years ago, there existed a race known only as the Ancients. They were basically human in appearance, though they possessed certain powers that we do not. They might be our distant ancestors, or simply a previous evolution of the same form. Regardless, they called Earth home, and from our world they explored the galaxy.

Wherever they travelled, they would create colonies. Each world was connected to every other by a system of artificial wormholes that can transport matter instantaneously over almost any distance. These are the "stargates" that form the focus of the movie and television series.

Eventually, having completely explored our galaxy, the Ancients turned their attention elsewhere. They decided to visit what we now call the Pegasus galaxy, after the constellation where it appears. And not being ones to do things halfway, they took an entire city from Earth with them. This city, capable of interstellar flight, was known as Atlantis.

When they reached the Pegasus galaxy, the Ancients settled upon a watery world and began to explore again. As before, they established many colonies and built a network of stargates to connect them. But eventually, they explored too far, and encountered a vampire-like species known as the Wraith.

The Ancients' pride was their undoing. Never expecting to meet their match, they were unprepared for the Wraith, whose technology was equal to their own. Moreover, the Wraith were vicious and amoral, difficult to kill and nearly immortal, feeding upon other intelligent beings to sustain themselves. A long war ensued, lasting untold centuries. One by one the colonies fell, until only the original city of Atlantis remained.

Knowing their doom was imminent, the surviving Ancients chose to enclose their city within a vast energy shield and sink it to the bottom of the ocean, in the hopes that it could escape destruction. Then they fled back to Earth through the Atlantis stargate, the only one which could reach our galaxy, here to live out the remainder of their days. It is from them that the legends of Atlantis began, a great city that fell beneath the waves in a single night.

In the years that followed, the Wraith gained total domination over the Pegasus galaxy, thanks in part to the Stargate network. The Wraith hibernated for centuries at a time in their hive-ships, occasionally waking to "cull" millions of innocent lives. They subjugated the various human worlds, which they referred to as their "feeding grounds", and made certain that none would ever advance far enough technologically to threaten them again.

Ten thousand years passed. Through a series of events too lengthy to recount here, the people of Earth rediscovered the Stargates, the Ancients, and eventually, the location of Atlantis. A team of scientists from around the world was chosen for an expedition to the lost city. Their enthusiasm was tempered by the knowledge that, because of the tremendous amount of extra energy required for an intergalactic jump, they might never be able to return home again.

Upon arriving, the team found the city intact and perfectly preserved, just as the Ancients had left it. But their arrival posed a problem: as the city reawakened and powered up, it strained the nearly-depleted generators which had maintained the energy shield for so many centuries. When it failed, the water would rush in and destroy the city for good.

Luckily for the team, the Ancients had forseen this possibility. As the generators began to shut down, a last failsafe kicked in: the city raised itself back to the surface of the ocean. After so many years, Atlantis saw the light of day again.

But all was still not well: during an early mission, the Atlantis team managed to awaken the Wraith - all of them - years ahead of schedule. The scientists of Earth lack the technology to recreate the Ancient power sources, leaving the city unprotected. It is only a matter of time before the Wraith realize that their old enemies (or the descendents thereof) have returned, and come to Atlantis to destroy all who stand in their way.

This sets the stage, then, for Stargate: Atlantis. The series follows the adventures of the Atlantis team as they explore the Pegasus galaxy and search desperately for a way to defend themselves from the Wraith... before it is too late.

Both Sides

Republican National Convention started today. I really think that they missed something by not nominating Senator McCain four years ago, or even this year for that matter. It's very possible that I would have voted for him.

The questions I ask my friends are often the questions that, consciously or not, I want to be asked myself. Sadly, none of them ever figure this out.

In a society that permits free speech, there's really only one thing that shouldn't be permitted: detachment or indifference on topics of great importance. Grow opinions, people.

Here's one now: you deprive yourself of much in life if you can't enjoy a thing without comparing it to every other such thing you've ever experienced. Recent example: certain acquaintances of mine who are unable to visit or even discuss the Nebraska State Fair without comparing it to other state fairs, amusement parks, exhibitions, and god knows what else. Just loosen up and have some fun, seriously.

Tom, they still carry a torch for you back here in Lincoln.

Save the World Entire

For a long time I've been fascinated by the "Righteous Among the Nations", a title given by the Yad Vashem foundation to those who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust. It is, I believe, the highest honor that Israel can confer upon a non-citizen.

Of course, the concept is much older than that. In the Jewish tradition, Righteous Among the Nations was an acknowledgement that even among the Gentiles, there were plenty of good, honest, honorable people. Perhaps they even believed in the same God, just in a different way. Christian philosophy (sometimes...) admits the same point, but it's hazier and I can't think of a succinct term for it.

I worry more and more that this simple realization is being forgotten in modern politics. Any time someone issues a blanket condemnation of a large group (liberal, conservative, or whatever), they're essentially denying that there could be any righteous people among those that they disagree with. I know I harp on this a lot, but it preoccupies me: how can there ever be constructive debate when you don't respect the person you're debating?

Sometimes I tell a friend that they're a "good person". I don't think they realize I'm referencing a much larger concept. Really, it's the greatest compliment I could possibly give.