This was a good weekend in college football, with another Top 5 team losing, and Miami looking better (because Tech will look better defeating an undefeated #1 team). Even though the Hokies gave up way too many points late in the game against Boston College, they looked pretty good in the first half and won 35-20.

My computer's become pretty unstable from trying to rip so many scratched and marred CDs from the library. Although I love VisualAge as a Java environment, its database structure isn't great with frequent crashes, and I've already lost good chunks of code twice now. Because of this, I'm postponing PRIMA until I have time to do another reformat of the entire system...probably around Thanksgiving or Christmas time.

Last night I had a long and pedantic dream in which I wrote the third section of my thesis from start to finish. There was no MIDI in the dream, I just wrote on paper with pencil and it played from somewhere. Of course, when I woke up, none of it was done and I couldn't remember a single note I'd put on the paper.

"The Daily Evergreen would like to sincerely apologize for an injustice served to the Filipino-American, Spanish-speaking and Catholic communities on the front page of Thursday's Evergreen.

The story 'Filipino-American history recognized' stated that the 'Nuestra Senora de Buena Esperanza,' the galleon on which the first Filipinos landed at Morro, Bay, Calif., loosely translates to 'The Big Ass Spanish Boat.' It actually translates to 'Our Lady of Good Hope.'

Parts of the story, including the translation above, were plagiarized from an inaccurate Web site." - Daily Evergreen Online

Muse's Absolution is a pretty good CD. Its style is a mix of overdramatic 80s rock opera, Romantic era chord progressions, and a slight hint of heavy metal. I'm not a big fan of heavy metal or square wave distortion, but Muse dabbles just enough in it that it's not obnoxious (except for one song). For a sample of Muse, see my September 20 news update.

Friday Fragments

I recently read this article saying that IKEA would be more successful if they raised their prices a bit and made the service more high-class. This might be true for some stores, but I think IKEA is fine for what it is -- a big-box store with do-it-yourself furniture selection that needs no service. In fact, lower the prices and get rid of all the employees and I'd shop there even more.

Another recent story I read involved people who want warning labels on milk for the lactose intolerant. This is ridiculous. Drinking milk when you are lactose intolerant will make you gassy, not give you cancer. If you lack the common sense to realize that the milk is giving you the farts, then a warning label probably isn't going to do you much good.

How do you counter an old lady with a house full of 200 cats? With a man who has 300 birds, of course. It's like a ecological version of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Yesterday's search terms:
good puns for the royal fireworks, how much to tip bathroom attendant, scary godmother porno, eaten by the couch

Chad Darnell's 12 of 12

9:33 AM: Sunday Sleep-ins.

9:50 AM: Obligatory post-shower pic.

10:08 AM: Rebecca has cereal for breakfast.

11:31 AM: Making another chocolate cake for a visit to relatives.

12:32 PM: Studying diligently (five chapters down this weekend!)

1:35 PM: Tasty, greasy buffalo wings for lunch.

2:47 PM: Driving up to Silver Spring to visit Rebecca's relatives.

4:47 PM: Killing time by visiting the local Silver Spring thrift store in search of costume parts for Halloween.

6:29 PM: Visiting Mike (of Mike and Chompy) in Glover Park, having just walked back from Starbucks.

6:47 PM: Rebecca meets Chompy.

8:00 PM: Anne arrives with a hat for the birthday boy.

9:20 PM: Trying to teach all these clowns how to play Settlers of Catan.

See more 12 of 12ers at Chad's site!

Happy Birthday Dan Shiplett!

Sick Day

Review Day cancelled for migraines.

I would prefer to be alerted to changes in the weather by a creaky knee, or maybe an Atom/RSS feed.

Vocabulary Friday

I'm up to my preferred height in preparing briefings this week, so I did not have time to write a Fragments column last night. Here is a recent game of Scrabble instead.

Chad Darnell's 12 of 12

6:42 AM: Cats stealing footspace.

7:14 AM: Breakfast bagel and the newspaper.

8:04 AM: Playing Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.

9:38 AM: Back from Costco with swag.

10:00 AM: Reading the work leadership book club selection, Good to Great, while it starts to rain again.

11:00 AM: Playing video games that purport to teach children how to make difficult decisions.

11:48 AM: Rainy day inside with the family.

12:42 PM: Costco's crispy honey chicken for lunch.

1:33 PM: Folding party.

2:42 PM: Cheese, tiger, and How I Met Your Mother party.

5:52 PM: Ahlbin dinner party (spot the kitty).

8:30 PM: Games with Anna and Ben.

Truth in Advertising

According to the guidebooks, this is what we will see when we visit the Pacific Northwest.

Memory Day: Snapshots

This picture was taken six years ago today, on October 14, 2009.

As the "crazy thing we wouldn't normally do" during our Kauai honeymoon, we went on a Jack Harter Helicopter Tour, which cost a few hundred dollars and lasted about an hour. The weather was wonderful on the island, but we were bundled up here because of the blustery conditions in an open-air helicopter. The Tour was definitely a high point, and the guide gave us a well-polished monologue while lingering over the various sites for long enough to take great pictures.

Afterwards, we had dinner at a Japanese sushi restaurant and tried crazy sushis, including a "fried hand-roll" which turned out to be like a waffle cone full of fishies.

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

KIN by KT Tunstall:
The good KT is back after the disappointing, overly mellow Invisible Empire / Crescent Moon album in 2013. This album is full of catchy hooks that will get stuck in your head.

Final Grade: B+

Architect by Wallis Bird:
Wallis Bird strays away from her folksy guitar sound into electronica here, and the result isn't particularly exciting. There are a few good songs interspersed, but overall, the production is cold and forgettable.

Final Grade: C-

Stranger Things:
This series was fun, but not nearly as amazing as hyped. It's a pleasant homage to every 80s movie ever made (like ET meets the Goonies) and has a nice story arc that's just the right length. Winona Ryder's shrill performance is exactly what it's supposed to be, but it gets annoying after just one episode. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: B

Dell XPS 13:
Although I miss my HP Folio 13, which started having random keyboard failures (and sometimes the failing key was part of my login password) and graphics issues, this has been a great replacement so far. It has a normal amount of bloatware that comes off fairly easily but a much thinner profile than any laptop I've had before. The screen is still 13", but extends all the way to the edges, and boasts a very sharp picture with an unnecessarily high (but appreciated) range of brightness. One area it surpasses the Folio is its matte screen covering, as glass makes it nearly impossible to use a laptop outdoors in the daytime. Windows 10 is annoying as expected, constantly readding apps I removed and making poor UI choices like forcing "All Apps" into the Start Menu.

There are three minor annoyances, none of which are deal-breakers:

• There's no bezel on the edge to help you open it with one hand. The form is so thin that you're going to need two hands unless you want to risk dropping it.
• There's no HDMI port, so you'll need a $15 USB-C to HDMI convertor which looks bulky compared to this tiny piece of technology.
• The backlit keyboard (a feature I didn't know I needed in my life until I had it) turns off after a few seconds of inactivity. There's no way to have the keys backlit all of the time. I found a Dell utility for it, but it was designed for Windows 7 and crashed on 10.

Chad Darnell's 12 of 12

12 pictures of your day on the 12th of every month

6:13 AM: Showered and ready for some early morning work.

7:18 AM: Breakfast.

9:00 AM: She woke up and quietly started reading a book this morning.

10:55 AM: Not happy about the missing piece in this Goodwill puzzle. "Daddy, find it."

11:41 AM: Sitting in on the stool of an animal at SterlingFest 2019.

12:15 PM: Petting zoo.

1:14 PM: The best part of SterlingFest.

2:38 PM: Exercising and rewatching Serenity.

5:34 PM: Simultaneously prepping dinner and poker foods.

6:33 PM: Someone won this interesting sweater in a SterlingFest raffle!

7:50 PM: Poker Night.

8:25 PM: Larry is first to go out, with pocket Kings. (Final Ranking-- 1: Larry taking over for Jack's stacks, 2: Chris, 3: Rebecca, 4: BU, 5: Kathy, 6: Larry)

Meanwhile, At the Beach... Day

First Impressions: Overwatch 2

Overwatch was my favourite game for over 2 years, and a rarity in my gaming library as a competitive game that I could actually hold my own in (at least in the plebeian Unranked bracket). I finally stopped playing in May 2018 (with my account at level 1201 and over 1200 hours played) because the variability of real-time match lengths didn't work well with Maia's nap schedules, and I couldn't carve out enough time to practice enough and maintain my desired skill level.

It's from this nostalgic background that I decided I had to try Overwatch 2 at least once, in spite of the downward spiral that Blizzard's reputation has been in for many years, the departure of the well-liked game director, and the long delays and changes made to the vision of the new game.

Overwatch 2 has a weird identity. They shut down Overwatch to make way for the new game, and the key pieces that were supposed to be in it (lore-heavy PvE campaigns) are indefinitely delayed. So really, it just feels like a big content update for Overwatch with slightly fewer features, slightly fewer maps, and tons of cosmetic items locked behind a "Battle Pass" system where you pay periodically through the year to unlock extra rewards. It seems like no one is happy with the Battle Pass system and most of the extra rewards don't really seem worth paying real cash for.

That said, the GAMEPLAY in Overwatch 2 is very fresh -- featuring smaller 5-player teams with 1 fewer tank, rebalanced heroes and skills, and a new game mode. Games feel faster and less grindy now (will fewer tank shields to fight through) and it seems like it's a little easier to sway the course of a match as a solo player.

The new heroes (both those just introduced and those that came out while I was on hiatus) all feel pretty fun although I've gone back to my classic mains while I relearn the game. A lot of my precision skills (like Roadhog hooks) came back pretty quickly. A few of the tanks seem a little TOO tanky, but that's probably just because I'm unaware of their weaknesses.

Overall, I'm happy with how matches feel and looking forward to seeing how this game evolves. It may not take over my entire gaming life as it did back in 2016, but it's fun enough for a match here and there!

Chad Darnell's 12 of 12

12 pictures of your day on the 12th of every month

6:19 AM: Showered and ready for the day.

7:37 AM: Bagel for breakfast.

10:44 AM: Building factories in Satisfactory.

12:08 PM: Lunch.

12:43 PM: Replacing the walking belt on my 12-year-old treadmill.

1:57 PM: Finally successful.

4:44 PM: Relaxing in the middle of the day is possible when the kids are away.

5:58 PM: Date night at Local Provisions.

6:18 PM: The best flat iron steak.

7:35 PM: Wandering through Reston Town Center during the free performance of The Bacon Brothers.

7:38 PM: Several degrees of separation between us and Kevin Bacon.

8:54 PM: TV time after a run to Trader Joe's for wine and tea.