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altoids game

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Play the Altoids Factory flash game! Trust me, it's fun.

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Cozumel Pics

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

I uploaded about 30 pics from the Cozumel trip to my flicker account. This is me, my younger brother and my older brother. We are all dorks.

Enjoy.

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inKrabble

Sunday, December 17, 2006



I was searching for more tablet programs, just to see what else I could find, and I found this: inKrabble! inKrabble is a terrible name, and there area few key features missing that I may email the developer about, but finding a free, functional version of Scrabble for the tablet means only one thing: addiction. As for what's missing, my mayor complaints are that 1) you can't rearrange your letters in the "rack", 2) you can only play alone against the computer, 3) there is no pause for the timer, and 4) you can't see any details about your score. 3&4 are minor, but not being able to rearrange your letters is a big annoyance, and it'd be nice to have a multi-player component, especially something using the internets. But it's free!

For what it's worth, I've been a pretty big scrabble geek lately. As always, it started with Chet insisting we do something that didn't involve staring at a screen. We had a few of the rules wrong, though. We thought that words had to always be at right angles... but you can use parallel words as long as they connect to one or more pre-existing letters on the board, like"whit" and "icy" or "bane" and "ire" on the board above. Another thing we thought you couldn't do was add a letter at the end of a word and play off of it, like having "adoption" on the board, and adding "novas" putting the "s" on to end of "adoption." It makes a huge difference. It also makes it pretty much necessary to learn a whole list of 2-letter words.

Speaking of 2-letter words, that's one more short-coming of "inKrabble" ... the dictionary is only so-so. But, it's just a text file with a list of words, so you can add to it pretty easily... but it'd be nice not to have to.

One thing I've figured out is that you can often find combinations like ire/bane by looking for words that end in vowel-consonant or consonant-vowel, rather than 2 or more consonants. Little tip for ya...

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post cozumel

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

I'm not a big fan of planes. On the way to Houston I was in the last row of the plane in a seat that didn't recline because the back is against a wall. The flight back has been ok so far... when I checked in I changed the seats on both of my flights to unoccupied rows. That doesn't guarantee that someone else didn't switch themselves into my row, but my chances are at least better than they were. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't stuck in the back row again. I ended up with such a backache.

I'm back in the Memphis airport, which is kind of a depressing place in that it just feels very dated. But, on the brighter side, the power outlets aren't hidden like they are in some other airports, so I'm able to recharge my laptop during this layover. I don't know what the deal with my battery is, it seems like I'm getting barely any charge out of it lately. It's not all that old -- less than a year. My brothers and I were playing a lot of Virtual Pool on the cruise (I think I managed to get them hooked) and I swear I could only get like 2 games of pool out of a full battery. That game taxes the CPU a ridiculous amount.

Ok, where did I leave off on Friday? Cozumel, for the most part, other than the beaches and the ruins, was just tourist-junk shops, "flea markets" and restaurants. You can buy four things in Mexico, from what I saw: liquor, jewelry, tobacco products, and trinkets. My brother picked up a box of 10 Cuban cigars, but my uncle scared him from taking them off of the boat with tales of fines for each cigar. My mom bought 3 cartons of Kools for $35. Most brands were 2 / $35, but how could you pass up a deal like dat? I had trouble even finding souvenirs for the kids.

The following morning we docked at Costa Maya which I don't really have much to say about. Costa Maya, I think, is fairly new on the tourism scene so they don't have a lot of infrastructure to support it. At the pier you get off the ship and walk to what is basically a Mexican strip mall with a salt-water pool in the center. And that's pretty much it. There are paid "excursion" tours and stuff that you can do, but if you just feel like walking around, checking out the beaches and the jungles or whatever forget it. There are these huge walls on either side of the mall keeping you from walking down the beach, and a fence around the back side with a guard keeping you from leaving. If you want to get out of the mall area, you have to pay. There was a $3 bus that I'm guessing drove you to the place next-door with the palm leaf umbrellas and beach chairs that I considered paying, but after half an hour my brother and I decided to just go back to the ship and chill out. My sunburn was bothering me too much in the heat anyway. Stupid skin.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful, with the exception of the gale-force winds and 15 foot waves we sailed through on our trip back to Galveston. Our room being in the very front of the boat, we felt every pitch of the boat, up and down the waves, but we were taking Dramamine, so who cares. It was really pretty fun, since we hadn't planned on sleeping that night anyway.

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cozumel

Friday, December 08, 2006

I should probably be more tired than I am. I should definitely be less sub-burned than I am, but that's mostly faded away now. We spent quite a bit of time in the sun on Wednesday, my brothers and I. The boat docked at Cozumel at about 6:30am, so we woke up early, had some breakfast, and headed out of the boat for a while to run around and play. We rented scooters as soon as we got off the boat; we didn't even hassle with haggling on the prices, we just paid the guy and took off.

Cozumel is a fairly small island, so there's only so far you can go. There is a road that circles the southern half of the island and the port is right in the center on the west coast. We took a left out of town and headed south, riding along the coast, checking out the beaches and the occasional restaurant or "gift shop" along the road. Not far out of civilization the road work starts, where they're obviously trying to build a newer road that I expect would be far nicer than what's there now. There are tour "excursions" that involve people renting jeeps and driving in a caravan to their destinations. We managed to insert ourselves in the middle of one of these jeep caravans, then hit a rough spot in the road where there were potholes every 5 feet. The scooters could cruise pretty fast, but trying to dodge and weave around constant potholes on a sandy road going 40mph was a bit of a challenge. Eventually the jeeps all passed us and reached their destination, so we had the road all alone. We stopped in a few places to check out the beach to grab some calcified coral and sponge from the beach (souvenirs for the kids) and check out the turquoise water. My older brother and I had our cameras out, taking pictures of ourselves riding along the beach. He even got a bit of video, which is quite funny to see... for us. The world of internet video says, "Whateva, it's just more guys on scooters in Mexico taking pictures of themselves riding, willingly placing themselves in peril for a cheap temporary thrill. How American."

As we rode I started keeping my eye out for a place I could get some sun screen. Though, this is an island in Mexico, there aren't places like that. But there was Bob Marley's home-away-from-home bar, grill and giftshop at the point where the road turns West to cut through the middle of the island, back to town. We stopped there and my older brother got some chicken nachos. I wasn't lucky enough to find sunscreen.

When he was done eating we headed West back toward town and found the entrance to a park with Mayan ruins. My younger brother and I decided to go while my older brother went off on his own to do big boy things. By this point I was obviously getting sun-burned and started trying to figure out a strategy before the misery set in. We bumped into a few relatives at the entrance to the ruins, but they had no sun-screen with them. There were a few gift shops there, but they looked like all the rest – full of trash, t-shirts and stone pipes. We went for a walk through the ruins, which were mostly uneventful. There wasn't a pyramid there, just the remains of some old buildings and structures.

It was a beautiful day outside, probably about 80-85 and very sunny. We had expected it to be overcast and maybe even rainy, so we didn't really account for the potential effects of the sun. Mostly it was just that we were excited to go out and play. So, walking around through the ruins we decided that we'd be better off sweating through long-sleeves then being fried to a crisp. Of course, on the way out we stopped in the gift shops and found the damn sun-screen.

My sun burn is just starting to fade now.

Even with the sun burn, Cozumel was a lot of fun. After the ruins my younger brother and I took the long way to town, back around the island. The "city" is full of taxis and other scooterists and everyone just kinda zips around each others. So we zipped too. We enjoyed zipping so much we didn't stop when we reached the scooter rental return, we just kept going.

And with that, I'm going. I'll post more later.

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tuesday on a boat

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Apparently, playing Virtual Pool 3 is pretty processor-intensive; my battery is paying the price. It's about quarter till 4 Tuesday afternoon and I'm in my room on the boat, messing around while my younger brother does a bit of school work. There is never truly a break from real life, but it's a welcome diversion. As he can not get away from studying, I suppose I can never truly get away from playing pool. Honestly, I brought the game because I knew my brothers would want to play, in lieu of a real pool table. I was hoping there would be one, but hadn't really considered the idea that we were going to be on a boat... rocking.

The up-and-down of the boat hasn't been too bad, though I've been taking Dramamine proactively just in case. Our room is in the very front of the boat, which I hadn't even thought to consider when I was booking. What do I know, I've never been on a cruise. I never wanted to go on a cruise. So I wasn't aware that the front moves with waves a bit more. But it's not bad, it has the slight effect of being in a hammock.

The story behind the trip is that, basically, after my grandpa died the family thought to take my grandmother on a cruise. My grandma is a very worldly person, though not widely travelled. She's very well read, and I think has always thought of herself as a writer, though she's not really "published." She taught English and Journalism in a Catholic girls high school in New Orleans in the 9th Ward, at Holy Angels. She was one of those teachers that the students loved because she was kind and giving; she's one of the teachers that you keep in touch with, or that look up when you're 35 just to say "this is what I've become, thank you for the inspiration and helping me to believe in myself." She is published in the sense that she was the Year Book editor or publisher, whatever the title may be, so she has many books to her name in that sense, I believe around 30. My brothers and I would sometimes go to school with her in the summer when we were young as she went to put the final touches on that year's book with the student yearbook staff. We would run around in all of the old buildings of the school, trying our best to get lost for just a little while. Sometimes we'd run across a classroom full of girls in summer-school classes. Suckers. Othertimes we'd hang out in the computer lab, dissecting digital frogs on their Apple II's or whatever old computers they had. My brothers and I were pretty good at getting around on computers -- cause we had a Radio Shack TRS-80. Or we would hang out in a classroom next to the one my grandmother was working in, drawing and writing things on the chalkboards.

So that's why we're here--to be with our grandmother. It's a huge group of us--like 24 people, almost a family reunion afloat in the Gulf of Mexico. Though, I believe when we reach Cozumel we will actually be in the Caribbean Sea. The boat is kinda funny... it's about what you'd expect. There's a small casino that's kinda sad to walk through, really. It's bright and loud and colorful. People sit there smoking, hitting little buttons on the slot machines over and over, watching their credits go up and down. My mom won $40 today. Woohoo! The food is pretty good, and very free (or at least, included in the room price), and the staff are all quite good. Professional. They are from all over the world and all extremely polite. The seemingly work non-stop. Last night at dinner we were trying to do some table swapping to get my mom, my brothers, and I all seated with the rest of the family at the big tables. What they offered was a small, four-person table within throwing distance to the family's two main tables. We're at the kids' table in the other room, at the kitchen table, while the adults eat in the dining room. Really, when you're in a huge room full of people eating with other people that they don't know, what could be better than having a table for four in the corner? We're all introverts, but for my mom, so it suits us quite well. There are a lot of people on the boat, but it manages not to feel over-crowded. At least so far. My younger brother and I managed to sleep till noon. The curtains block out all of the light from our 4x5' window; when I woke up it could've been 8:30 or 3:30. I had no clue. We missed breakfast altogether. We were going to do room service breakfast (you just leave an order hanging on your door handle), but we decided we didn't want anyone knocking at the door if we just felt like sleeping in. When we finally did wake up we went down to the WINDJAMMER CAFÉ (what an awful name) and were mobbed. The Windjammer Café. You know, nothing on this boat is low-key. Nuance doesn't exist. But that's alright, you don't come on a cruise to be melancholy and self-aware. Though I did manage to apply a bit of moderation to my lunch at the buffet.

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cranky, in an airport

I'm on a layover in Memphis right now, on my way to Galveston via Houston. I'm in a posted "wifi zone," but when I tried to get online I was notifed that it would cost me $9.95. It just reminds me how sick I am becoming of capitalism lately. It's not that I expect that a wifi connection should be free, though I would appreciate the cost of the service a bit more if the posted signs didn't imply that it were free. Does it really imply it? By omission, I think so.

I was complaining to kim last night, while watching football, about the level of product placement in our lives. Of course, there's no way that I'm going to watch a live televised sport without a high level of constant advertisement, I'm aware of this. But I'm still frustrated by it. I don't need these constant reminders of all of the different things I can buy, and moreso all of the things that I can't. I often think, when I'm having technical problems with my wireless router or something, "how can computer neophytes possibly get these things to work?" Similarly, how can the poor possibly stand to sit and watch all of this crap that scrolls past constantly without the pangs of want driving them insane. I grew up relatively poor, though I wasn't really aware of it. We always had food to eat for the most part, though my teen years after the divorce were pretty scarce at times. I know what it's like, though, to see these images and not even fathom actually having access to such things. I mean, what do people DO to give Lexuses as Christmas gifts? I wonder, really, what percentage of the population those ads really speak to.

So we were watching football -- college football, actually -- and there appeared on the field a Home Depot logo, super-imposed over the field the way they super-impose the 1st down line. Why do things like that have to be there? Why does every stat line need to have a sponsor? I know that nothing is free, football has to be paid for, the production costs are phenomenal, yet I can turn the TV on and watch for free. But I guess the difference, to me, is that it is not truly free. When I drive to work I have to see advertisements along the street. Our society is ad-supported. "But you reap the benefits." I guess I do, but I didn't choose this system. And the larger point is that I can not escape it. I could get Tivo, I can download TV shows and games, but I can't choose not to have such a pervasive level of selling.

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tuesday on a boat

Monday, December 04, 2006

Apparently, playing Virtual Pool 3 is pretty processor-intensive; my battery is paying the price. It's about quarter till 4 Tuesday afternoon and I'm in my room on the boat, messing around while my younger brother does a bit of school work. There is never truly a break from real life, but it's a welcome diversion. As he can not get away from studying, I suppose I can never truly get away from playing pool. Honestly, I brought the game because I knew my brothers would want to play, in lieu of a real pool table. I was hoping there would be one, but hadn't really considered the idea that we were going to be on a boat... rocking.

The up-and-down of the boat hasn't been too bad, though I've been taking Dramamine proactively just in case. Our room is in the very front of the boat, which I hadn't even thought to consider when I was booking. What do I know, I've never been on a cruise. I never wanted to go on a cruise. So I wasn't aware that the front moves with waves a bit more. But it's not bad, it has the slight effect of being in a hammock.

The story behind the trip is that, basically, after my grandpa died the family thought to take my grandmother on a cruise. My grandma is a very worldly person, though not widely travelled. She's very well read, and I think has always thought of herself as a writer, though she's not really "published." She taught English and Journalism in a Catholic girls high school in New Orleans in the 9th Ward, at Holy Angels. She was one of those teachers that the students loved because she was kind and giving; she's one of the teachers that you keep in touch with, or that look up when you're 35 just to say "this is what I've become, thank you for the inspiration and helping me to believe in myself." She is published in the sense that she was the Year Book editor or publisher, whatever the title may be, so she has many books to her name in that sense, I believe around 30. My brothers and I would sometimes go to school with her in the summer when we were young as she went to put the final touches on that year's book with the student yearbook staff. We would run around in all of the old buildings of the school, trying our best to get lost for just a little while. Sometimes we'd run across a classroom full of girls in summer-school classes. Suckers. Othertimes we'd hang out in the computer lab, dissecting digital frogs on their Apple II's or whatever old computers they had. My brothers and I were pretty good at getting around on computers -- cause we had a Radio Shack TRS-80. Or we would hang out in a classroom next to the one my grandmother was working in, drawing and writing things on the chalkboards.

So that's why we're here--to be with our grandmother. It's a huge group of us--like 24 people, almost a family reunion afloat in the Gulf of Mexico. Though, I believe when we reach Cozumel we will actually be in the Caribbean Sea. The boat is kinda funny... it's about what you'd expect. There's a small casino that's kinda sad to walk through, really. It's bright and loud and colorful. People sit there smoking, hitting little buttons on the slot machines over and over, watching their credits go up and down. My mom won $40 today. Woohoo! The food is pretty good, and very free (or at least, included in the room price), and the staff are all quite good. Professional. They are from all over the world and all extremely polite. The seemingly work non-stop. Last night at dinner we were trying to do some table swapping to get my mom, my brothers, and I all seated with the rest of the family at the big tables. What they offered was a small, four-person table within throwing distance to the family's two main tables. We're at the kids' table in the other room, at the kitchen table, while the adults eat in the dining room. Really, when you're in a huge room full of people eating with other people that they don't know, what could be better than having a table for four in the corner? We're all introverts, but for my mom, so it suits us quite well. There are a lot of people on the boat, but it manages not to feel over-crowded. At least so far. My younger brother and I managed to sleep till noon. The curtains block out all of the light from our 4x5' window; when I woke up it could've been 8:30 or 3:30. I had no clue. We missed breakfast altogether. We were going to do room service breakfast (you just leave an order hanging on your door handle), but we decided we didn't want anyone knocking at the door if we just felt like sleeping in. When we finally did wake up we went down to the WINDJAMMER CAFÉ (what an awful name) and were mobbed. The Windjammer Café. You know, nothing on this boat is low-key. Nuance doesn't exist. But that's alright, you don't come on a cruise to be melancholy and self-aware. Though I did manage to apply a bit of moderation to my lunch at the buffet.

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Tablet toys

Sunday, December 03, 2006

I was looking through the programs installed on the tablet the other day and found Inkball, a really addictive game specifically for Tablet PCs. I've read that it's going to be installed on Windows Vista, but it seemed a bit unclear if its just for Vista tablets. Whatever. The object is to get colored balls into same-colored holes. you draw lines anywhere on the board and the balls ricochet off. It's like Arkanoid taken to its next logical step.




After finding Inkball, I decided to look for more tablet-specific applications on Microsoft's website.There's the "PowerToys" page, but really they mostly suck.There's also the "Experience Pack" that has a few cool applications included in it. The coolest by far, though, is an art program by a company called Ambient Designs.The Experience Pack includes a version called Ink Art. There's a better version on the company's site called Art Rage 2.




The full version of Art Rage2 is only $20; the demo version is limited in the tools that you can use but no more so than in the free "Ink Art" version. Only, Ink Art doesn't display the tools you can't use. It's not limited to tablets, but I can't see it being the same with a mouse. The paint looks like paint, the markers look like markers... I'd like to see what the spray gun looks like, but it's locked.

I was talking abort the program briefly with an art director at work, showing him a bit of what it can do, and he raised the point "yeah, but it still doesn't have that hands-on aspect..." going back to our conversations about the illustrator drawings I've done. He's right, of course, it's not like digital paintings are ever going to replace real paint. But that's kinda beside the point. It's not like drum machines are ever going to get rid of red drums either. But they've got a legitimate, place in music production. I could see digital paintings going a long way in replacing the water-color "sketches" artists often do prior to starting a final piece. Either way, even if you have no intended serious use for it, I hate to say it, but it's just neat.

Yeah, neat.

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