According to the stats, Germany and Russia are reading my blog. So I just want to say, CRIMEA ISN'T WORTH FIGHTING OVER! WE FOUND THIS OUT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND IT'S STILL TRUE. Also, why THE Ukraine? Is there some OTHER Ukraine we might be confusing it with? This bothers me almost as much as the Crimea thing. (Crimea also has a definite article, but at least it's a peninsula.)
Tell everyone you know, particularly Putin, and get back to me.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Baseball stuff
Downtown U. (a.k.a. the University of South Carolina) has a very, very good baseball team. They won consecutive national championships a few years ago and then played in the championship game the year after that. This year I don't think anyone was exactly expecting that kind of performance, but they have surprised us pleasantly, hanging around the top 20 all year and more recently clocking in at either #1 or 2.
Friday was an inclement weather day in town. The baseball game against the University of Tennessee started late and was dogged by rain all evening. Tennessee led all game but the Gamecocks (Downtown U.) caught up by the ninth. The teams played three scoreless innings until the rain picked up. Officials started a rain delay at midnight, which struck me as crazy. Not surprisingly, the game was eventually postponed until Saturday.
Saturday, the game resumed. There was another scoreless inning and then the Gamecocks won it in the bottom of the 14th on a home run.
The regular Saturday game started an hour later. Our coach made a very unorthodox move by having the regular Saturday starter pitch the completion of the Friday game and then start the Saturday game, too. This didn't look too brilliant when Tennessee went ahead 6-0. But in the end, it worked out. By the 9th inning, SC had scraped back to 6-3. Max Schrock hit a two-run homer to pull within one. Then with two outs in the bottom of the ninth (as we used to say), Grayson Greiner hit a grand slam to win it 9-6.
Now anyone curious about South Carolina's baseball fortunes can look up the scores on the Internet. I'm not actually writing all this to publicize the team, but for back story. (Hey, at least I skipped the batters between the home runs, right?) I had two points.
First, I ran an errand during the late innings of the official Saturday game. The Gamecocks were trailing, but they're the much better team, they've already shown a capacity for late-inning heroics, and they're playing at home. Nevertheless, I passed near the stadium four times and all four times I was stopped by police to let fans in garnet and black (our colors) leaving the stadium cross the road.
Not that they were leaving in vast numbers, mind you, but the stadium only holds 8 or 9,000. And neither am I criticizing them for leaving early. No, my point is that NONE of these people are ever going to admit that they weren't there for the game-ending grand slam! Instead I imagine that some multiple of those 9,000 will claim that they were there.
The second point is that the Gamecocks won two games without ever having the lead until the very last at-bat. Today, though, Tennessee has us right where they want us. We've been leading all the way. They've finally figured it out!
Friday was an inclement weather day in town. The baseball game against the University of Tennessee started late and was dogged by rain all evening. Tennessee led all game but the Gamecocks (Downtown U.) caught up by the ninth. The teams played three scoreless innings until the rain picked up. Officials started a rain delay at midnight, which struck me as crazy. Not surprisingly, the game was eventually postponed until Saturday.
Saturday, the game resumed. There was another scoreless inning and then the Gamecocks won it in the bottom of the 14th on a home run.
The regular Saturday game started an hour later. Our coach made a very unorthodox move by having the regular Saturday starter pitch the completion of the Friday game and then start the Saturday game, too. This didn't look too brilliant when Tennessee went ahead 6-0. But in the end, it worked out. By the 9th inning, SC had scraped back to 6-3. Max Schrock hit a two-run homer to pull within one. Then with two outs in the bottom of the ninth (as we used to say), Grayson Greiner hit a grand slam to win it 9-6.
Now anyone curious about South Carolina's baseball fortunes can look up the scores on the Internet. I'm not actually writing all this to publicize the team, but for back story. (Hey, at least I skipped the batters between the home runs, right?) I had two points.
First, I ran an errand during the late innings of the official Saturday game. The Gamecocks were trailing, but they're the much better team, they've already shown a capacity for late-inning heroics, and they're playing at home. Nevertheless, I passed near the stadium four times and all four times I was stopped by police to let fans in garnet and black (our colors) leaving the stadium cross the road.
Not that they were leaving in vast numbers, mind you, but the stadium only holds 8 or 9,000. And neither am I criticizing them for leaving early. No, my point is that NONE of these people are ever going to admit that they weren't there for the game-ending grand slam! Instead I imagine that some multiple of those 9,000 will claim that they were there.
The second point is that the Gamecocks won two games without ever having the lead until the very last at-bat. Today, though, Tennessee has us right where they want us. We've been leading all the way. They've finally figured it out!
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Hey, the upgrade upgraded something!
I still haven't noticed many changes since the massive Windows Phone upgrade, but in one regard it really is an upgrade. The phone camera has a zoom, but it was very frustrating. You would unpinch to zoom in, but it would only work maybe one in four times, often as not snapping an unwanted photo instead. When it did work, it was very jerky, going straight from zoomed out to zoomed in. Now it zooms much more smoothly. Granted, the pictures are about the same, which is to say grainy when zoomed in. But at least it's a lot frustrating.
The very alert reader will remember that Paul and then I discovered after an embarrassingly long time that our smart phone cameras would zoom. It occurs to me that we may not have been such dumb bunnies as we had thought and that possibly the zoom feature had been added to both phones on an earlier update. I mean, you have a new phone and you like photography; you're probably going to try everything, including pinching and unpinching the screen to zoom the camera. Of course, I'm relaxed about being a dumb bunny and reckon that Paul is, too, at least for comedy purposes. I for one look forward to the next upgrade, which will allow my car to fly and also fold up into a suitcase.
The very alert reader will remember that Paul and then I discovered after an embarrassingly long time that our smart phone cameras would zoom. It occurs to me that we may not have been such dumb bunnies as we had thought and that possibly the zoom feature had been added to both phones on an earlier update. I mean, you have a new phone and you like photography; you're probably going to try everything, including pinching and unpinching the screen to zoom the camera. Of course, I'm relaxed about being a dumb bunny and reckon that Paul is, too, at least for comedy purposes. I for one look forward to the next upgrade, which will allow my car to fly and also fold up into a suitcase.
Friday, March 28, 2014
More thrift store blithering
I'm grumpissimo today, so bear with me; I'll try to behave.
Latest all-cotton shirts purchased from Goodwill rumpled up pretty good after washing, defeating my brilliant strategy. That was to buy used cotton clothing figuring that that way I would find up how it holds up after washing. The shortcoming in this strategy is that apparently not everything in Goodwill is used. (I mean, I know the stuff that still has the original tags from the original store is new, but apparently other stuff is new, too.) Either that, or some nut was getting their flannel shirts professionally laundered.
So I figure I'll just keep buying shirts until I find more that will machine-wash and come out relatively unrumpled. I would think it's a fool's errand if I hadn't already found a few. Perhaps I should just save time and effort, declare those a miracle, and just order from J. Crew like the '80sist I am. Anyway, I'm still finding interesting stuff at the thrifts, so as long as that goes on or until I get bored, I think I'll carry on.
One thought I had was how to profit from the weird concentration of good big & tall men's clothing at thrifts. I should go around to a vintage store, see if they already have a B&T section, and whether they do or not, see if they're interested in lots of that kind of merchandise. Because what's really frustrating about shopping in thrifts is finding all this great stuff, especially on clearance racks, that I can't possibly wear. If I could resell it at a profit, though, hunting through all that stuff would suddenly be a lot more fun, or anyway interesting and profitable. A thought, at least.
Latest all-cotton shirts purchased from Goodwill rumpled up pretty good after washing, defeating my brilliant strategy. That was to buy used cotton clothing figuring that that way I would find up how it holds up after washing. The shortcoming in this strategy is that apparently not everything in Goodwill is used. (I mean, I know the stuff that still has the original tags from the original store is new, but apparently other stuff is new, too.) Either that, or some nut was getting their flannel shirts professionally laundered.
So I figure I'll just keep buying shirts until I find more that will machine-wash and come out relatively unrumpled. I would think it's a fool's errand if I hadn't already found a few. Perhaps I should just save time and effort, declare those a miracle, and just order from J. Crew like the '80sist I am. Anyway, I'm still finding interesting stuff at the thrifts, so as long as that goes on or until I get bored, I think I'll carry on.
One thought I had was how to profit from the weird concentration of good big & tall men's clothing at thrifts. I should go around to a vintage store, see if they already have a B&T section, and whether they do or not, see if they're interested in lots of that kind of merchandise. Because what's really frustrating about shopping in thrifts is finding all this great stuff, especially on clearance racks, that I can't possibly wear. If I could resell it at a profit, though, hunting through all that stuff would suddenly be a lot more fun, or anyway interesting and profitable. A thought, at least.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Paradise
I mentioned it last week or so when I bought two PC game bundles totalling 9 games. Essentially though, there were only two games, the two by Benoit Sokal, Paradise and Syberia 2. Back when Alice and I first lived together, I interested her in point-and-click adventure games, especially those by Sokal. She went on to The Sims and then to Wheel of Fortune on the phone. I don't know if she stayed a gamer or not post-John. I rather hope not; I feel like a bad influence.
Either way, Sokal makes these lovely, if frustrating games. As I mentioned before, one (or anyway I) frequently has to resort to walkthroughs online. This isn't so much because the puzzles are difficult, but usually because the item you have to act on on the screen is hard to see, or doesn't appear unless you talk to somebody first, or other tricky stuff like that. But in the end, they are fun games. Mostly.
I appreciate that comparatively few people are likely to pick up a PC game from 10 or so years ago, but somebody might. And I'm certainly not going to write another walkthrough or post a lot of spoilers. But if anyone out there is thinking of playing Paradise, whether because you're a Sokal fan or because you found it cheap, you probably should know in advance that almost everyone you meet in the game winds up dying. This game is not for children. Granted, the deaths are off-screen, but in some ways that makes it worse. Or maybe cheaper. This is the Greek tragedy of PC games. I'm not sorry I played, but the ick factor is noticeable. I won't likely play it again, but I hardly ever play this kind of game again, so that probably isn't a result of the deaths. And yes, I was warned that the game is set during a civil war. But I was kind of expecting to stop the bloodshed. Anyway, there you are. If anyone is surfing about thinking of buying Paradise by Benoit Sokal, just be warned. It's good, it's worthwhile, but it's disturbing and not necessarily in the good, thought-provoking way. Also you hardly get to play with the leopard at all.
Either way, Sokal makes these lovely, if frustrating games. As I mentioned before, one (or anyway I) frequently has to resort to walkthroughs online. This isn't so much because the puzzles are difficult, but usually because the item you have to act on on the screen is hard to see, or doesn't appear unless you talk to somebody first, or other tricky stuff like that. But in the end, they are fun games. Mostly.
I appreciate that comparatively few people are likely to pick up a PC game from 10 or so years ago, but somebody might. And I'm certainly not going to write another walkthrough or post a lot of spoilers. But if anyone out there is thinking of playing Paradise, whether because you're a Sokal fan or because you found it cheap, you probably should know in advance that almost everyone you meet in the game winds up dying. This game is not for children. Granted, the deaths are off-screen, but in some ways that makes it worse. Or maybe cheaper. This is the Greek tragedy of PC games. I'm not sorry I played, but the ick factor is noticeable. I won't likely play it again, but I hardly ever play this kind of game again, so that probably isn't a result of the deaths. And yes, I was warned that the game is set during a civil war. But I was kind of expecting to stop the bloodshed. Anyway, there you are. If anyone is surfing about thinking of buying Paradise by Benoit Sokal, just be warned. It's good, it's worthwhile, but it's disturbing and not necessarily in the good, thought-provoking way. Also you hardly get to play with the leopard at all.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
What THAT was all about
What all that smart phone disagreeableness was about was that it really really really really REALLY wanted an update. It kept checking, too. It was like a little kid needing to pee: "Gotta go NOW!" Finally, I changed the settings such that it wouldn't check for updates anymore nor try to get one. I mean I wouldn't mind, but it kept checking and then saying that I had to connect to WiFi to download the update because of my settings, even though there isn't any place to change those settings to get the phone update via the cellular network.
Not that I would have wanted to. Today, I finally went to Barnes and Noble and spent the morning feigning interest in the printed word while letting my phone use their free WiFi to update itself finally. This took, and I only exaggerate slightly, 113 years. So presumably it would have taken somewhat longer via the cell network.
Best was when it was all downloaded, and then another 100 years of solitude went by while it was getting ready to install, then it was 100% ready to install. This was another little joke on the part of Microsoft or Nokia (yeah I know, same thing) because it was another geologic era before it was in fact ready to install. By then I had become fed up and in fact went home to feed, period; the OK Really Ready message came in the car. Then the actual installation took all of lunch, and now finally I'm good to go. So far Lumia Black doesn't seem any different than Lumia Amber (and no, I'm not making these up); I'm just relieved that the darned thing works, particularly my WiFi hotspot.
So the blog lives on. I know how relieved both of my readers must be.
Not that I would have wanted to. Today, I finally went to Barnes and Noble and spent the morning feigning interest in the printed word while letting my phone use their free WiFi to update itself finally. This took, and I only exaggerate slightly, 113 years. So presumably it would have taken somewhat longer via the cell network.
Best was when it was all downloaded, and then another 100 years of solitude went by while it was getting ready to install, then it was 100% ready to install. This was another little joke on the part of Microsoft or Nokia (yeah I know, same thing) because it was another geologic era before it was in fact ready to install. By then I had become fed up and in fact went home to feed, period; the OK Really Ready message came in the car. Then the actual installation took all of lunch, and now finally I'm good to go. So far Lumia Black doesn't seem any different than Lumia Amber (and no, I'm not making these up); I'm just relieved that the darned thing works, particularly my WiFi hotspot.
So the blog lives on. I know how relieved both of my readers must be.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
A cunning plan
I've been of two minds for a year or more about the car situation. The problems are many. For one thing, I really like my now 20 year old car, but it's hideous. Also, it would be better if I drove a car with better head and leg room because Dad is so tall. So I have dithered and dithered and meanwhile the old car has accumulated more and more miles and thus needs more and more work. I keep putting it off (as it's preventative maintenance rather than anything leading to imminent danger), thinking I'm probably about to trade it in anyway.
The vehicle I most want to buy is a Scion XB. They are little, itty and bitty, yet have astonishing head and leg room. But the only useful test drive is to take Dad to dialysis in it and I'm not sure that Toyota/Scion would really be enthusiastic about a test drive for that purpose. Although I'm sure it could be arranged, I thought of a better plan. I could lease the Scion for a month. If after a week, I find we love it, I could go ahead and buy it. If not, I could get the repairs done on the Camry, but with no "gotta get it done immediately! I gotta take my Dad to dialysis tomorrow!" pressure. I know nothing about car leasing except that it's usually over a longer term, but it's worth investigating. Anyway, I like this plan!
I am writing this on Tuesday, but the phone (and thus its WiFI hotspot) is being very disagreeable. So it may not appear on Tuesday. But I didn't skip a day!:)
The vehicle I most want to buy is a Scion XB. They are little, itty and bitty, yet have astonishing head and leg room. But the only useful test drive is to take Dad to dialysis in it and I'm not sure that Toyota/Scion would really be enthusiastic about a test drive for that purpose. Although I'm sure it could be arranged, I thought of a better plan. I could lease the Scion for a month. If after a week, I find we love it, I could go ahead and buy it. If not, I could get the repairs done on the Camry, but with no "gotta get it done immediately! I gotta take my Dad to dialysis tomorrow!" pressure. I know nothing about car leasing except that it's usually over a longer term, but it's worth investigating. Anyway, I like this plan!
I am writing this on Tuesday, but the phone (and thus its WiFI hotspot) is being very disagreeable. So it may not appear on Tuesday. But I didn't skip a day!:)
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