It’s not great, but it’s there.
Here’s the new pop-art pic of me:

Posted on Feb 03.10 to Life | No Comments »  

Everybody knows that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will be compared to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Now that I’ve played both, I feel qualified to comment on a comparison. While it’s only a demo, the Bad Company 2 demo has already taken up several hours of my time. You get 1 map and 4 classes and it’s still fantastic.

Graphically, I can’t say if it’s better or worse than MW2, but I’d lean toward worse for understandable reasons. First of all, I have only seen one map, and it is a snowy winter map which gives this blue and washed-out vibe to the gameplay. Secondly, the maps are much larger in BC2 than MW2, so some sacrifices, I’m sure, had to be made. Player models are less rich in BC2. Debris is less interesting to look at. There are a few points in their favor, however. Anything that isn’t a player but is moving, looks great. Almost everything in the environment is interactive in some way, even if it’s just blowing it up. When a something explodes in a building, for example, walls crumble and debris goes flying. As it’s moving around, it looks great. The one gripe i have about MW2 is the token flying stuff like leaves and papers tend to have an ugly 2D feel and an unrealistic black outline. Either way, I still give the significant edge to MW2 graphically with an asterisk noting that BW2 is just a demo and has only 1 map at this time.

The most important factor, in my opinion, is gameplay. User controls are really important. They can make or break a game. I mean, that’s one of the biggest reasons that the Wii is so popular — the controls are great. With MW2 and BF2, the controls are really similar. Sure, maybe a different button swipes your combat knife or works your gadgets, but fundamentally similar. However, the biggest difference is strafing. Holding straight ahead with the Left-stick moves you forward, right? Well in MW2, you can lean that to the north-east, or north-west and expect to step forward and to the right, or forward and to the left respectively. Expect to have to work that right-stick a lot more in BF2. I’m sure it’s just because I’ve played more MW2, but its controls seem to be what I prefer. I mean, I’m pretty good. I’m not great, but I must be doing something right.

The bottom line is this — if you want a great team-based, objective-based FPS, you will really like BF2. If you like a run-and-gun shooter with a good deal of chaos, you’ll like MW2 better. Each has elements of the other, but BF2 does tactical better and MW2 does aggressive combat better.

Posted on Feb 02.10 to Technology | No Comments »  

We hit it again last night. Same workout. I’m surprised that every day my muscles ache a little less than they did the day before. It’s true that they ache a bit from the previous day’s workout when I’m getting started, but today I feel pretty good — better than yesterday. Anyway, I thought I’d share another funny quirk that I have. Really, I’ve painted myself into a corner, but here’s the scenario: One of the times I was at the doctor’s office, early in my weight-loss regimen, I had the day off. That means I was wearing shorts, tennis shoes and a tee shirt. There’s no question that the extra fabric in “business casual” adds a few pounds, and while I might not be hung up on the numbers, the doctor uses this number to make diagnostic decisions, so for him they are pretty important. Even if my weight stayed the same between appointments, I could potentially appear to have gained weight if I wore my regular work clothes. So, ever since then, I have taken early-morning appointments and wore shorts, tennis shoes, and a tee shirt — then I change into my work clothes and head into work. It’s silly, I know, but it’s something I do. Now I’m making it public, so feel free to ridicule me if you wish!

Posted on Dec 15.09 to Life | No Comments »  

Wow, that first day of “Jillian Michales 30 Day Shred” really worked me out. I thought I had decent upper-body strength, but realized I could still use some work — because I as hurting (in a good way). Now, I knew that working my abs was an area I could improve upon, but wow…

I did the first workout in the very early afternoon on Saturday. Yesterday was Sunday and that was day 2. The wife and I did it together and it was fun to share that experience. I’m sitting at the low 230s right now. Later this week I will be around 60 lbs lost in around 11 months. Not bad — and this tape is doing exactly what I hoped it would do, which is to break the rut of the same old workout.

One thing that I found to be surprising is that I am actually less sore today — the day after workout number 2 — than I was after workout number 1. I’m also noticing that sharing this publicly is also motivating. It keeps you quite honest.

Posted on Dec 14.09 to Life | No Comments »  

About a year ago, I went to the doctor’s office for a check up. I had avoided it for quite a while — At that point, I was about 27 and I don’t think I had a full physical since I entered college at 18. Maybe I had, but I doubt it. At 27, my twin girls were about nearly 3 years old, and while they were the light of my life, the preceding years of minimal sleep had caused a domino effect. The tiredness caused lethargy, the lethargy caused laziness, the laziness caused me to become quite unhealthy. I could quote countless excuses — my favorite was the caring husband’s sympathy weight — but the bottom line was my lack of effort.

I have since become increasingly fascinated by the human mind’s ability to challenge even itself. There was no question that it was a mental block keeping me from devoting the necessary effort to the cause of getting healthy. Maybe it was the youngest sibling syndrome, maybe it was my own genetic make up, maybe it was my type A personality, but I decided that nobody was going to tell me what I could (or in this case, couldn’t, do)…even my own brain.

As I stepped up on the scale at that check up and saw the numbers 289 flash back at me, I knew I needed to make a change then and there.

So, I committed to getting fit, and have since lost over 50 lbs by hitting the gym a few times a week. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t care what my actual weight is — that’s not my primary focus. At first, it was simple; to not be embarrassed to take my shirt off. The number itself did serve to quantify how out of control my unhealthiness had become. It also helped remind me that my health isn’t just about me — I have a family that relies on me and they deserve me to not only be around for as long as I can, but also be more than just a lumpy space on the couch.

My gym membership ends today. I know Mom and Dad are renewing my membership for Christmas, but until I get the card in my hand, I’m not allowed in the door. In an effort to have no down-time, I’ve started doing this workout tape. I can’t believe I just said I do a workout tape. That’s more embarrassing than saying I used to weigh 289! Anyway, the goal is to do it every day for 30 days. I’m aware that I have Christmas and New Years in the mix, but I’m going to aim high and do my best. My previous success is my motivation — I know I can do it.

The tape says I may lose up to 20 lbs in 30 days, which would put me in the 220s which should look ok on my bodyframe. I hope to build some muscle, too, so I won’t get too hung up on the numbers, but that would be nice.

I have to admit, that I’ve also liked seeing how it has motivated my beautiful wife to join me in getting healthy — for ourselves and for each other. Everybody is a winner!

Posted on Dec 13.09 to Life | No Comments »  

I plan on re-writing this in PerlTK so it has a bit of user interface, but for now I thought this app was pretty cool:
To use this, you’ll need sox installed. While I linked to the sourceforge site, you’ll probably want to get the “sox”, “libsox0″, and “libsox-fmt-all” packages from your package manager.

Anyway, here is my linux command line guitar tuner called ptune.

Posted on Dec 10.09 to Technology | No Comments »  

Got 2 and 1/2 minutes to kill?
Watch me solve a Rubik’s Cube.

Posted on Nov 06.09 to Life | No Comments »  

I love typos. I make them all the time. They’re funny. In fact…

Dear Intern at CNN,
I’m very happy that you got your dream gig. I’m sure that working there is fantastic. I’ll bet you just recently graduated college and are anxious to prove yourself. Young, nimble, tech savvy, enthusiastic — and now you’ve taken sole responsibility for updating the CNN Breaking News Twitter feed. That’s right; you’ll breathe some life into these old fogy journalists, yet. Oh, one more thing, it’s 2009. Even my grandma knows that the colon goes between the “p” and the first slash. Twice? Oops. But, seriously, congrats on the new gig.

http://twitter.com/cnnbrk/status/5210487743
http://twitter.com/cnnbrk/status/5210504847

Posted on Oct 27.09 to Life | No Comments »  

Thanks to Brian for supplying the pictures. They aren’t great quality, but the memory of the event is certainly clear enough. Here are some cheesy photos from the meet-and-greet after the concert! Click to embiggen.

…and since Brian doesn’t have a blog, here is one of his shots of the band during the show.

Posted on Oct 13.09 to Life | No Comments »  

I went to the RCPM show in Indy with my brother yesterday. It was awesome, and they played some tracks that I haven’t heard live in a while. Great show! I got my (dumb)hat signed by all of the guys, too. Oh, they also debuted a new track called “Love is the Road”.

Here’s the set list:

Interstate
Fonder & Blonder
Bury My Heart at the Trailer Park
Mercy
I Know You Know
European Swallow
Mekong
Ballad of Lupe Montosa
Easy
Sonoran Hope and Madness
Sin Nombre
Banditos
I Don’t Need Another Thrill
Down Together
Beautiful Disaster
Nada
Maybe We Should Fall in Love
Never Thought
Mexico
Wanted
Americano
I Do
Love is the Road
Hello New Day
Una Soda
Girly
Yahoos

Posted on Oct 12.09 to Life | No Comments »