Ultranormal

  • The tide is turning, and it’s headed right out my nose

    I learned an important lesson last night. It was hard-won and therefore I’m going to share it with you. If you have a serious sinus infection and you take serious antibiotics long enough, there comes a point when the snot loses its purchase in your face and decides to turn tail and head for the exits. If you’re smart or lucky, this will happen during the day, when you’re home on the couch with crappy action movies and several boxes of Kleenex. I’m apparently neither smart or lucky. The mass mucous exodus started at about 10 last night and lasted until about 3:30am this morning. It was an amazing technicolor display of reds, oranges, greens, yellows and some clear viscous liquid I seem to remember from many months ago as normal non-infected proto-boogies.

    I spent a part of this time on the couch with a roll of toilet paper (because I couldn’t find the Kleenex enclave) and the garbage can, watching the rest of Ghost World, which I just didn’t get. The relationship between Enid and Seymour was interesting, and Thora Birch was unendingly cute, but I just didn’t get it. Maybe this is the snot talking, but I think maybe it only works if you read the comic book the movie was based on (which I didn’t). The rest of the night was spent watching re-reruns of the Olympics on NBC and cursing my nose.

    So, don’t ever ever ever get a sinus infection. And, if you do, go see a doctor right away or else you’ll end up on the couch in the middle of the night trying to figure out exactly how much snot your head is holding and why it has to leave in such an unorderly fashion. I mean, couldn’t it stand in line until I was ready to open the doors?

  • For whoever it was that

    For whoever it was that searched for “amon tobin bmw”, the name of the song from that commercial was Get Your Snack On from Supermodified, which is an amazing album. The same song was also used in a Coke commercial. And, if you watched the latest Clairol commercial with Heather Locklear, the song they used was Boss on the Boat by Tosca (can’t remember which album it’s on).

    There, I’ve done my part to make the world a more informed place. Now, I’m going back to my TiVo and decongestants.

  • I know there are things

    I know there are things you say and do that you can never take back. But, if you could see it in your heart, could you please make it a cheeseburger? – Lyle Lovett

  • Into the fray

    I have a big meeting in fifteen minutes where I have to defend a whole platform against a roomful of people. I doubt the folks who write AOLserver will even show up, which will leave me all alone to defend it. I have papers and figures and drawings, and it probably won’t matter. They’ll make the switch and then they’ll realize that they can’t do everything they used to, and feel bad for not listening to me. I would much rather they listen to me now than realize their mistake later when it’s too late to turn back.

    If I have time today, I’m going to write an essay about national cultures, but don’t hold your breath for it. I’m still sick, and work is really busy. I went to bed at 9:30 last night and barely woke up when the alarm went off.

  • Just when I post my

    Just when I post my Civ3 missive… they go and release a new patch that fixes some of my complaints!!!

    • They fixed the railroad bug

    • They added unit grouping (yes!)

    • and lots of other fixes

  • It’s crack, but it could be so much more addictive

    I’m addicted to Civ3. I was addicted to Civ2 and still played it regularly until Civ3 came out. The game is addictive, and since I’ve been sick and alone in the house, I’ve played a lot. Civ3 is a great update of the previous game, but it’s missing a lot of the stuff that made playing more convenient in Civ2. I’ve come up with a little list of things I’d love to see them add back to the new game.

    • The Go to city command for units. It’s a pain in the butt to have to drag each little unit individually to a city.

    • The “Upgrade All Units” that Leonardo’s Workshop used to give you. If you’ve got cash in the game, there’s no real reason to build it.

    • Build Railroad doesn’t work with the R key like it’s supposed to.

    • I haven’t played enough to have tried putting the barbarians past the second level, but they never show up. I have yet to see one.

    • Ou est le cheat menu?

    There are also some things that other strategy games do that would make the game a lot better and more than a facelift.

    • In Command and Conquer and Age of Empires, granted they’re both real-time strategy instead of turned based, you can group units and move them together. Why oh why can’t we do that in Civ3? Towards the end of a militaristic game when you’ve got hundreds of units, moving them all individually is a waste of time that doesn’t improve the game experience.

    • Better special units. I’ve only played the Americans and Zulu’s so far, but the Impi is a horrible unit. Once you’ve got Spearmen, he’s useless, other than looking kind of cool.

    • Swordsman should be upgradable to Musketmen, or at least Infantry. I never build them now because you can’t upgrade them at all until Mechanized Infantry (which only take 1200 years)

    • I’m not sure anyone else does this, but how about a different leader over the years? No one’s emperor lives for three thousand years, although I guess in the game, the player is the leader. It would be interesting though to see Abe get older, and then be replaced by Kennedy, then maybe Reagan.

    I was thinking about this yesterday on the way home from work, through my swollen face, that the diplomacy in the game is just a little more complex than in Civ2. Trading and making deals through the diplomatic screen is great. But, I’d love to see more nuance. I know it would be incredibly complex, and be a game within itself, but wouldn’t it be cool if you could nurture your advisors, make them act like real people, put them in charge of trade altogether, military operations, etc. That way, you could concentrate on the parts of the game that interest you without completely dropping the others. Also, it would be great if there were a system of back channels. Clandestine meetings with other countries’ advisors instead of going to the leader, with each nationality getting a different set of unique advisors (for example, the Greeks would have a killer Cultural advisor, the Americans would have great military and trade, the Romans, a great military advisor). Also, it would be cool if you could recruit away the Greek’s cultural advisor to improve your civilization’s culture. Yeah, that’s complex, but would add a new dimension to the game that I think it’s missing. Now, it’s “Hey, want some stuff?”, “Want a map?”, “Die, scum!” and that’s about it. There’s no real way to intimate sabre-rattling without sitting a bunch of naval units inside their borders until they declare war on you (cuz I don’t like to throw the first punch).

    I’m not saying Civ3 isn’t a great game. It’s an excellent turn-based strategy game. It’s held up well over the years, and this installment adds some nice wrinkles. I just think it would be nice if they didn’t remove some of the nice utility features of Civ2, and added some more complexities.

  • Someone at work actually noticed

    Someone at work actually noticed that I’ve lost weight. First time someone other than an immediate family member noticed since I started. Damn, that feels good.

  • New Geekery entry: Linux Newbie

    New Geekery entry: Linux Newbie Tips and Tricks.

  • All Alone

    After a marathon Saturday getting Jen and Max to the airport, circumventing a gigantic accident on the Beltway, navigating through a less than pleasant neighborhood in downtown DC, managing to get everyone to the airport, checked in, to Security, back over the beltway, wrong way first, U-Turn by FedEx field, getting antibiotics from nice old pharmacist at Safeway, coming home to an empty house to wallow in sinus pain.

    Jen and Max made it to Tucson safely. Max was an angel and slept for two hours on the plane and then played quietly the rest of the time. I was prepared for horror stories of inflight diaper disasters, grumpiness and general pandemonium. Max gets a pony when he gets back, I think.

    I slept through church on Sunday. I slept for 14 hours straight, and was still tired when I finally dragged my butt out of bed, downstairs to the couch where I had a cold bachelor pizza lunch and wondered why the olympics didn’t start until 7.

    It’s no fun being sick unless I have someone to feel sorry for me, so here I am at work where I’ll do the “I’m sick, but aren’t you impressed that I’m here anyway” and try to avoid as much actual work as I can. The problem is three projects are at their apex of pain right now and that means I get to do eight things at once, answer thirty IMs at once and juggle ostrich eggs all at the same time. That’s pretty tough when I’m well, much less when I’m swimming in a facefull of bloody snot.

  • Spent today being sick and

    Spent today being sick and playing with Max, and watching Jen pack for their trip. Now, I’m printing directions to the airport to combat last-minute mind-losing. Must go to bed now, head is full of snot.

    Tomorrow – drive to airport, help corrall the kid while in line for security, drown sorrows in Super Troopers and Vietnamese food. Wallow in my sinus infection in front of Iron Chef.