Rorschach.net

One year ago today I arrived in San Diego to live here. Time flies I tell you what. I can’t thank my wife enough to trust me and move halfway across the country (again) on something of a gamble. It’s been new and interesting and fun. Sometimes you just have to chuck it all in the bin and start over so to speak. Thanks to all the family for coming out and visiting. To the remainder of family who haven’t visited yet and friends back in KC, the guest room is still open. Comic-Con starts July 19th you know and costs $50 registration for all four days if you register early!

It’s Friday night. The celebrated end of the work and school week. In my youth, a night revered for going out and going crazy. As I write, hordes are dancing to the beat, groups are gathering around dinning tables eating and first dates are starting to think about the second.
At the Tobia household, a load of laundry whirs in the background. The scent of artificial pine and lingers on the cooling night air as the vacumm quiets down. The bills are paid, the check book balanced and the only thing left on the chore list is to wash the floors and the dog. The floors could be done tonight but Roe requires a great deal of sunshine post-bath. And until he’s dry, the floors remain at risk so I think we’re done with Friday night chores.
It may sounds like I have become a “no-fun-nic” doing such drudgery on Friday nights. Paul may need your sympathy but I have a plan. I figure I am tired and cranky anyway. So I might as well complete the worst of the weekend chores on Friday night. Saturday, I awake to the joy of free time to do whatever I want.
I’ve always had the problem of being unable to relax until my chores are done. I have no idea what sophisticated methods of psychological training my parents implored to accomplish this devious programming. Those of you with children probably want their phone number. But even though I do it, I still don’t enjoy cleaning the bathroom.

Happy Friday night from the squeaky clean Tobia house!

You may remember back in December I started hosting a wiki for an upcoming PC game called Sword of the Stars. We also travelled to Vancouver in Feb. to visit them and get an idea of how they make games and see what they’re up to. Now the game is getting nearer and nearer to completion and my pals over at the development team have hooked me up with a preview copy.

So as you can expect it’s been a couple of late nights around here. My wife still recognizes me, but I think the dog thinks I’ve become a piece of furniture. But I must say I’m having a blast with the game. It’s the logical progression of strategic space games like Master of Orion and tactical space games like Homeworld. Strip both of those general ideas down to the bone and build them back up meshed together with a spiffy multiplayer interface and that’s a start to what SotS is about.

If any friends/family out there are interested in the game I can get you more info on it and answer any questions, but it’s currently scheduled to be out June 1, so there’s some time yet before it hits general release.

Alton Brown did a recipe for Pad Thai this week. It’s on Sunday night and very early Monday morning.

Sometimes things are cool for cool’s sake. I can’t say I have a burning need to have a terabyte of network attached storage on my home network. But for $999, how can I not? RAID 5, easy to set up web interface, firewall and VPN router all built in for the price of a dollar a gigabyte. Anyone who says storage isn’t cheap never saw one of these. It’s half a million 2MB videos, or 60,000 hours of music, or 175 DVDs.

My gym has a never-enforced rule that states there is a 20 minute time limit on all cardio equipment when the equipment is full.

The biggest problem with the rule is that 20 minutes is a ridiculous time limit. I’m supposed to do 45 minutes 5 days a week and have recently upped to 50 as my results have slowed. Since I pay the gym for my wonderful trainer who TELLS me to work out this long, doesn’t that mean the gym is giving me permission to ignore the rule as well?

The second problem with the rule is that it is not specific. Does that mean if the elliptical machines are all full and yet there are plenty of treadmills and stair climbers the rule doesn’t apply? Is it all “like” equipment that must be full or just all equipment? I saw the 20 minute rule get enforced yesterday by a cranky man who apparently decided that the ellipticals with arm holds are the ONLY piece of exercise equipment sufficient for his needs.

There were other machines – dozens of ellipticals (like I was using), stair masters, mountain climbers, treadmills, rowing machines, bike – all completely rejected for these machine of which there are only 3. After standing around for 10 minutes watching folks work out and trying to remove them from their machines with his eyes, He walked over and faced a woman who was going into minute 40 of her 45 minutes and informed her she needed to get off the machine. She was in violation of the 20 minute rule. She looked at him (as did all of us) like he was a bit mad. So, he went downstairs to tell the gym staff. It would have felt like kindergarten, but Mr. Sourpuss looked like the principal instead of a student.

Ironically, Mr. Sourpuss had the look of a man who’s doctor prescribed a gym membership to lower his blood pressure. He’s probably not going to have found the gym very relaxing with that attitude. The gym, like much in San Diego requires a “Zen” state of mind.

I’ve realized that Southern Californians do not become laid back because of the water. It’s a combination of 1 part excessive sunshine and 1 part evolution. With the traffic, parking and housing being incredibly unpredictable and crowded, the attitude of accepting the whole mess and being “laid back” has developed in response to the alternative, county wide prescriptions to Prozac. By refusing to let the traffic, the gym parking (or lack of), full lockers and crazy members get to me, I am simply practicing good mental preservation. It is crazy. It will remain crazy. And I must accept the crazy and treat it like a tourist viewing a quaint local custom – interested, but not involved.

Stu ran across the FM94.9 radio widget and she asked me if the station was in fact the “best radio station in the world.” Surprisingly I answered yes. Let me give you an example of the artists that just played in the latest set:

• Rancid
• Led Zepplin
• White Stripes
• Filter
• Porno for Pyros
• Foo Fighters
• Cracker

If there’s a better radio station out there, I’d like to hear it. If you do the yahoo widget thing I recommend the download and giving it a listen. If not you can try streaming it from their website.

Taught myself some CSS this week and tried it out on my fanboy website. I didn’t completely come up with the design, it’s based off of the game’s interface. The must have for this kind of work is the web developer extension for Firefox. Who know’s if I’m bored I may try to spruce up this site a bit, I’m still not completely happy with the layout.

I had a hair maintenance appointment Saturday. That translates to “bang trim.” Since I was going downtown, I lured Paul along in hopes of having an adventure in the big city. We spent the afternoon wandering around the Gaslamp District. We’d been before to meet people for dinner, etc – but not during the daytime. It’s a fun area for walking and such. We found some interesting shops and had delicious carnitas with margaritas while sitting outdoors watching the folks pass on buy. After 4 hours of sunshine and walking, I needed a nap.

The sunshine out here has intoxicating properties which make me sleepy after prolonged exposure. I keep saying that because the alternative is that I am getting old and/or lazy. After walking through enough clothing stores showing 80’s revival clothing – I am thinking the old option has merit. My bangs were 4″ tall in the 80’s – not my most proud moment.

I was told by a prospective client last week that “time” is the new currency of luxury. According to her, being able to have free time and do what you want with it has become more valuable than posession in terms of status. My first thought was “it’s about time” pun heavily intended. That being said, I had a luxurious Saturday but since house cleaning, the gym and such are on the agenda for the rest of the weekend, my status has returned to normal.