Weekend Wrap-up

Sadly I did not make it to Oklahoma this weekend, as I felt like my body needed a couple more days of quietude to fully recover. I was feeling pretty weak as my digestive system had just done a hard reboot, and my sleep schedule was abnormally paced after having slept for nearly 72 hours straight last week -- my body was exhausted but my mind was wired and unwilling to snooze. (Final Weight Loss for The Biggest Loser: 6 pounds)

So, while Rebecca went ahead without me to the land of the Gillises (which, I was told, is not actually the Midwest, because that might offend actual Midwesterners), I stayed home, stepping timidly and taking stock. On Friday night, I watched and partially snoozed through the movie, The Family, featuring Robert DeNiro as yet another gangster.

Saturday was March 1, according to the goat in the tree in my monthly wall calendar, and perfect for a round of Spring Cleaning. In addition to cleaning the entire house, I also reoriented three rooms for novelty and maximum efficiency.

On Sunday, I caught up on homework for my online class, followed the churning upheaval about the upcoming snowstorm, and ate Domino's pizza while watching Amazon Prime Pilots.

Throughout the weekend, I also peeked cautiously into old Blizzard games, including World of Warcraft and Diablo 3. All of that Hearthstone action had made me nostalgic for WoW, but after logging in to find completely revamped skill trees, eighteen more UI panes, and a button bar more moth-eaten than the shirt from 9th grade that I still wear, I was overwhelmed by the implied complexity of ever playing it again and ran away.

My experience with Diablo 3 was a little more positive. The auction house is shutting down, and apparently all of the loot has been retuned to be more sensible (no more barbarian belts full of Intelligence). My run through Act I was enjoyable, finely tuned, and had a few new events. It was a little overkill-y to find 4 Legendary items in that short span, since I only ever got 1 Legendary in my whole game time before that, but it was also more engaging than ever before. They probably knew that I was an influential blogger with a million person gaming audience and coded a few extra Legendaries just for the positive PR.

How was your weekend?

Invention Day: The Pedt Saver

In the days before domestication, dogs and cats knew that our fleetly fleeing feet were often the deciding factor between an empty stomach and a tasty human for dinner. Some of this knowledge has been genetically passed down since then, as pets today know exactly where to sleep on the bed to cut off all circulation to your feet. There is the direct pressure approach, where a pet sprawls directly across your feet and flattens them down into perpetual gymnastic poses, and there's the indirect approach, where a cat sleeps on either side of your feet, tightening the covers into a binding to eliminate any chances for you to get away or get comfortable. These tactics are a thing of the past with my new Pedt Saver device!

The Pedt Saver is a mattress attachment that ensures sufficient space and airflow around your feet at all times. The base is made of metal to prevent breakage, and the arm is made of plastic so you don't accidentally touch cold metal in the middle of the night. Simply insert the Pedt Saver underneath your mattress, and then adjust its height with that classic button-and-hole mechanism that always seems like it's going to hole-punch your thumb. Finally, make the bed normally and enjoy all of the extra foot space it provides!

You will marvel at how much better your feet and circulation feel in the morning after a refreshing night's sleep under the Pedt Saver. It will be the most fun you've ever had pitching a tent in bed.

Support my Kickstarter today!

Memory Day: Snapshots

Even in the olden days, it snowed!

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

My Name Is Earl, Season Two:
The second season of Earl is a funny and often feel-good way to pass my exercise time, although they start to run out of ideas by the end of this season. Over time, the "good deeds for Karma" idea goes stale, but the show is buoyed by the supporting characters, especially Jaime Pressly as Joy Turner.

Final Grade: B

My Name Is Earl, Season Three:
This season was just plain awful, like the fourth season of Community or the almost-final season of Scrubs where the episodes are in the wrong order. Earl goes to prison for a crime he didn't commit, but then gets back out almost as soon as the writers realize that the new setting doesn't give them any new story ideas. The last half of the season follows Earl in a coma, mocking tropes of 80s sitcoms in his coma dreams, and even a guest appearance by Alyssa Milano can't turn things around.

Final Grade: D-

Elysium (R):
This sci-fi tale, from the creator of District 9 is set against the backdrop of a polluted Earth full of poor people, and an orbiting space colony of rich people who want for nothing. It was engrossing, and more sci-fi than action, although the plot gets progressively shakier as the movie rolls. The villain was fun, but a little too over the top.

Final Grade: B+

The Family (R):
This was a sick night movie that I probably wouldn't have watched otherwise, featuring Robert DeNiro as a gangster in witness protection. His family has trouble staying hidden, because they always exact revenge when they've been unfairly treated. The movie drags a bit in the middle, and the bulk of funny moments cluster around the first third (many of them are in the trailer). Overall, it was pleasant enough for a sick night, but couldn't tonally decide whether it was going for comic action, tongue-in-cheek satire, or situational humor.

Final Grade: C-

The World's End (R):
This was the third movie in the style of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, about a group of old friends trying to complete a pub crawl they never finished in their youth, until things go awry. Like all of these movies, there's an obvious shift when the movie changes gears, and I actually liked it more when it was just a buddy movie about going to the bar. The last half is fun but not as engaging, but it was over before it outstayed its welcome. Overall, I enjoyed it, but liked Hot Fuzz more.

Final Grade: B

Random Chart Day: Buying a Space Heater

• Important Requirements
  
  
  1. Hot: Has sufficient heat output to quickly heat up a room. Hot enough that you can't hold your hand against it, but not so hot that your shoes will melt next to it.
  
  
  2. Quiet: Just loud enough so that you don't forget it's on and burn down the house when you leave the room. Does not sound like you are perpetually next to Niagara Falls.
  
  
  3. Well-Engineered: Will not break down after two months. Does not require you to push eighteen buttons for the single setting of heat that you prefer.
  
  
• Chance of Finding One That Satisfies:
  1. Just 1 Requirement: 100%
  
  
  2. 2 out of 3 Requirements: 10%
  
  
  3. All 3 Requirements: 0%
  
  

Weekend Wrap-up

On Saturday morning, while Rebecca worked a partial day, I did some homework for my online Information Security class and then peer-reviewed some other peoples' assignments. I'm not saying that peer-reviewed assignments are of questionable value, but two out of three assignments I graded were identical, plagiarized responses, right down to the pasted Microsoft Word formatting and the broken "IT English" one finds quite often in my field. No one is douchey enough to use "vis-a-vis" in a homework response unless they've pasted it out of a textbook.

In the afternoon, we took a hike at Keys Gap in western Loudoun with Annie and Marc. The trail was packed with melting snow and Boy Scouts, but it was a novel hiking experience in spite of our literally cold feet. We stopped by Doukenie Winery on the way back, and then had dinner at Lost Rhino Brewery. The meal was good enough, although almost every beer was a bitter beer.

Sunday was Tax Day, which entailed continuously telling TurboTax that we don't have dependent children who may have worked as a Somali pirate through July 2013 while receiving additional income from a rental tree house on a nature preserve. We ended up owing extra to greedy Virginia, which is actually fine because no one wants to deal with their stupid refund gift cards. In the evening, I taught Rebecca how to play Hearthstone, and then we finished off the second season of House of Cards.

How was your weekend?

Random Photo Day

Another shot from this past weekend's fun times. We're eating Kirkland imported Brie on Kirkland crackers paired with Kirkland Cabernet Sauvignon.

Chad Darnell's 12 of 12

5:26 AM: Searching for bathroom ghosts.

5:58 AM: Ready to work.

6:57 AM: Back home for breakfast after discovering that the network was down. Our network is down a lot for a technology company.

7:20 AM: Ready to work, again.

8:45 AM: Booty keeps me company.

12:04 PM: The 500 Hats of Marie Callendar.

12:33 PM: Back to work with my typing coach.

1:15 PM: Time for a feeding frenzy.

4:18 PM: Three miles in 40 minutes.

5:00 PM: Playing Diablo 3, but finding that Demon Hunter Vaulting is bugged in the latest patch.

6:45 PM: Reheating leftover corned beef and cabbage for dinner.

9:12 PM: Rebecca is hooked on Hearthstone.

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

DeLonghi HMP1500 Mica Panel Heater:
I got this heater as a replacement to one that was in a slow-death decay period. It's actually much bigger than I expected (about the size of an artist's easel or a baby gate for midgets), but rolls around nimbly. As a non-fan-based heater, it's incredibly quiet and easy to adjust. The heat, however, is weird. It is definitely hot enough, but its radiating action means that it serves better as a room heater than a directed foot heater. It also radiates heat out of the top, which means that sticking it under a desk is probably a no-go. However, it's "good enough" for me until it breaks in a year.

Final Grade: B-

Hamilton Beach Set 'n Forget 33967A Slow Cooker:
We got this slow cooker as a wedding gift and have used it dozens of times in the past four years. Like most modern slow cookers, it cooks too hot -- low is really high and high is really super-high -- but this can be worked around with a little practice. The dealbreaker is the fact that it has now randomly turned off in the middle of the day on three separate occasions, rendering dinner either delayed or chewy. Examination of Amazon reviews shows that this is a known issue with the entire line of Hamilton Beach slow cookers. Having disappointed me for the final time with Monday's corned beef, I'm going to have to drop this to a DON'T BUY.

Final Grade: F

House of Cards, Season Two:
The second season, while still eminently watchable, lacks something I can't put my finger on that hooked me through the first season. While I'm glad to see a show that only rarely stoops to explaining things that the viewer should figure out, it sometimes doesn't quite give enough context to various character motivations. This results in plotlines that meander away more than they tie together (compared to the first season, where all of the various plots intertwined and snowballed to conclusion). The closing scenes played out exactly as I expected them to, but I never really felt that there was a true struggle to get there. That said, I'll definitely watch a 3rd season.

Final Grade: B

List Day: 10 Things Harder to Do While Wearing a Tie

1. Washing your hands in the bathroom


2. Scooping the kitty litter box


3. Eating while standing over the table, trying to read the paper


4. Rapidly going shirtless


5. Going down 2 stairs at a time


6. Blending in with software engineers


7. Tying your shoes


8. Jumping Jacks


9. Mopping the floor


10. Scratching your neck

Weekend Wrap-up

• Friday
  • Grilled Glazed Salmon for dinner with episodes of House of Lies.
  
  
• Saturday
  • Costco run for orange juice, Irish beer, and smoked gouda.
  
  
  • Car wash at home to remove four months of accumulated snow salt since the last car wash.
  
  
  • Anniversary dinner at Maggiano's with both sets of parents.
  
  
  • St. Patrick's Day party at Carolyn's, complete with fake moustaches.
  
  
• Sunday
  • Lounging around the house, reading, and playing Hearthstone with Rebecca.
  
  
  • Afternoon lost to a migraine.
  
  
• Today
  • A solid 8.5" of snow covers the town. Time to telecommute.
  
  

tagged as day-to-day | permalink | 5 comments day in history

Anatomy of a Migraine

I used to get migraines a few times per month, but that tempo has greatly decreased over the past few years. On Sunday, I had the first since June 2013.

Migraines are not the same as regular headaches. Because people often don't understand why people can't just "walk them off", here is a behind-the-scenes look into my own as a PSA.

• Root Causes: Unconfirmed. Often related to changes in weather / air pressure, and sometimes related to computer usage or very bright, burning lights or camera flashes. Mine have never been food-related.


• Phase I (Minute 0 - 10): Miniscule visual artifacts invade my vision like "eye floaters" on steroids. Where I can fling eye floaters around through quick eye movements, migraine artifacts stay in one place, perpetually blocking my sight with pulsating white noise, like one of those disposable cameras that inserts penises into your pictures. The best course of action at this point is to shut everything down -- cancel whatever I'm doing and retreat to a dark bedroom with eyes closed, and hope to fall asleep before the next phase progresses.


• Phase II (Minute 10 - 50): Visual artifacts increase in a positive feedback loop -- my eyes try to compensate for the original artifacts and the eye strain generates more artifacts in other parts of the eye. The white noise crescendoes by example, like a trumpet section following a lead trumpeter who's playing too loudly, until my vision is 100% affected. The faster I can get into a situation where I can close my eyes and be in the dark, the farther from 100% I can stay, which is important in the next phase.


• Phase III (Minute 50 - 60): To equate migraines with World of Warcraft concepts, Phase II is the rogue's Sinister Strike action, gradually building up to the Eviscerate finishing move of Phase III. The amount of stacked visual artifacts I have accrued in Phase II translates into direct damage to one focused area of my brain, usually in the left-central or right-central lobes. All visual artifacts vanish, and my vision becomes almost too clear. The headache portion of the timeline starts now, and the pain is front-and-center, interfering with all mental and physical activities. It's as if my brain pain is talking too loudly, like an advertisement at the gas station pump. If I try to do anything during this time, I will likely throw up or fall over.


• Phase IV (Hour 1 - 4): It can take up to four hours for the primary pain to subside to a level where I can resume normal operations. If I was able to mitigate Phase II / III successfully by napping, I will hopefully just be waking up towards the end of this phase. The bulk of this phase is spent in bed, doing nothing.


• Phase V (Hour 5 - 48): Although the primary pain has subsided, there will still be an aftermath ghost pain for over a day following the event. I can still do normal activities, but it will hurt if I cough or move my head too quickly.

Time-lapsed Blogography Day

Eleven years ago today, on March 19, 2003, I was in my last year of grad school, having just passed my thesis defense on 03/03/03 (at 3:30 PM), and had owned Booty for 11 days. My undergrad friend, Nikki, was staying at my apartment for a couple days while she auditioned for the vocal studio at FSU. My Florida friends kept asking her for stories of times when I was wild and crazy but she couldn't think of any.

While Nikki practiced for her audition, I was busy putting together my lesson plan for my Sightsinging class comparing the subtonics in Nate Dogg's refrain to Eminem's Till I Collapse with the leading tones in Mozart's 40th Symphony. The lesson was going to be observed by Professor Clendenning, so I easily devoted twice the normal amount of time to preparing it.

Meanwhile, President Bush had just declared war on Iraq, and Kathy was pissed because it was preempting The Bachelorette.

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

The Witcher 2:
I picked up this well-reviewed, meaty role-playing game in a Steam Sale, but never made it through the endless tutorial at the beginning. Endless is both literal and figurative here, as a bug in the first combat tutorial had me practicing a killing move on an invincible enemy that wasn't actually supposed to be invincible. I stopped playing right there.

Final Grade: Not Graded

My Name Is Earl, Season Four:
Better than the third season by half a football field, but still not as inspired as the first two seasons. Stop after season two, and you'll enjoy the series much more.

Final Grade: C-

House of Lies, Season Two:
The only similarity between this and House of Cards is that Don Cheadle occasionally talks to the camera. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about this show and there's minimal character development, but it's got some funny lines mixed into all of the nudity and swearing. I was constantly distracted by the guy who looks and acts just like Chandler from Friends -- if Matthew Perry had been twenty years younger, they probably would have cast him instead. Matt Damon guest starring as a really awful version of himself was a highlight in the season.

Final Grade: C+

Mozart in the Jungle:
This is a free Amazon pilot about classical musicians in various New York ensembles. It shows promise, and gains a few points simply by being about subject matter that would never pass muster on any network show. Though fairly unbelievable, it hits a few right notes with the musical asides, and I would watch a few more should the show ever be made.

Final Grade: B

The Rebels:
This is another free Amazon pilot about a widow who inherits a football team and hijinks ensure. There was not a single scene of actual football in the pilot, but it still managed to be funny enough to hold my attention and moved right along.

Final Grade: B

Random Hearthstone Stats

• Favorite Classes to Play: Paladin, Druid, then Mage.


• Least Favorite Classes to Play Against: Priest, Priest, then Hunter.


• Favorite Utility Card: Defender of Argus


• Favorite Legendary Card: Leeroy Jenkins (although I've only found 2 legendary cards so far)


• Currently Play Style: Using the deck on the right as my primary Paladin deck, I try to rush / aggro until my failure is obvious. I then hunker down and try to outlast. It is not super-effective but I like tailoring the deck to my play style rather than picking a pre-made deck off of the Internet.


• Current Weakness: I try to trigger too many moves that look fun to play, like double Knife Jugglers with double Unleash The Hounds on turn 8. The most interesting moves are usually not game-winning, as there are no points for style. This is also why I fail at playing Scrabble with Kathy or Mike.


• Buy a Deck or Play the Arena?: Although a basic home ec class could tell you that buying a deck for 100 gold is a worse deal than playing in the Arena with the chance to win extra decks for 150 gold, I usually end up just buying. Instant gratification is worth 50 gold.


• New Emotes Needed: "Hurry up and play!" and /train. I do like that there's no trash-talking possible between random opponents though.


• New Features Needed: An observer mode where friends can watch each other play and mock while drinking. A way to hide all of the stupid golden cards when building your deck.


• Real People Who Are Playing: Anna, Rebecca, Larry, Evil Mike, 3rd Mike, Mary


• Fake Internet People Who Are Playing: SnowSquall, Klunky, KC

Weekend Wrap-up

On Friday evening, we took an abnormal trip into Arlington for a "Beers + Burgers + Bacon" party to celebrate Marv's birthday. The party took place in one of those modern Arlington houses that builds straight up as a pillar supporting the firmanent and makes all of the surrounding houses look like serf sheds in comparison.

On Saturday, I ran errands, like buying a leg of lamb at Costco for a yet-to-be-determined dinner this week, and closing all of the gutter screens on the roof that had flipped open in the most recent wind storm. In the evening, we went to the Smiths for Game Night, where a round of Telestrations flipped "no brainer" into a man with a pet crocodile eating an Airhead candy.

We picked up Bonchon for dinner (our first Bonchon experience), and were satisfied with the Korean-style fried chicken. As part of the assortment we got 5 wings in the hot sauce, but no one could completely finish any of them. Out of Chris, Ben, and Rebecca, Rebecca got the farthest, but even she had to discard part of the crust for protection.

On Sunday, I did my latest online course homework and then watched the Veronica Mars movie with Rebecca. The evening was spent eating leftover Bonchon, playing Diablo and Hearthstone, and starting Veep, Season One.

How was your weekend?

Weird Search Day

or "How I Stumbled Upon the URI! Zone"

catchy caption for french fried chicken

This ad campaign from Popeyes might be considered to be minimally clever, except for the fact that they (rightly) presume that Americans aren't going to understand French pronunciation. So below this sign in the restaurant they make sure to spell out the joke in the description: Get up and geaux ("go") with our healthy leaux ("low") calorie chicken!

hotties at URI

Memory Day: Snapshots

This picture has been my desktop background for many years. It's the view through a hole in the seawall, across the harbor at the beach town of Collioure, taken on April 10, 2008. Although my knee had been destroyed from all of the walking in Paris, we still managed to make it up to the fort on the mountain top.

Collioure would be a good place to retire, if I knew a little more French.

First Impressions: Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

There are no major spoilers in this review.

I was initially pretty happy with the 2012 release of Diablo III, giving it a B+ in my review a couple weeks after release. However, I had stopped playing it within four months and probably would have given it a C+ if I were to re-review it once Torchlight 2 had been released. Diablo 3 had many flaws that did not surface until late in the game, the most salient of which were:

1. The rate at which useable loot dropped was so low that visiting the auction house to buy gear became a necessity to progress. Fighting monsters to earn gold to buy gear was never as enticing as getting that gear directly from your battles.
2. The difficulty progression required you to play through the inane story from start to finish three separate times, only to dump you into a nearly impossible situation where you spent fifteen minutes kiting a single monster around the map before dying. There should be a few difficulty steps between hard and impossible, because otherwise it's like playing tennis with a brick wall ("they're relentless!").

The Diablo 3 expansion pack, Reaper of Souls, was released on Tuesday for the slightly-too-high price point of $40, adding a new story Act, a new hero class, and alternate play modes. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I played Diablo 3 this month for the first time in nearly two years, and was surprised to find out how much better it had become. I had never really jumped on the "Hate the Game Director" bandwagon that pervaded the Internet in 2012. However, with historical perspective, it's vindicating to see just how many design decisions from the original game director's brain were undone or mellowed out after he was unceremoniously "moved to another project".

I've only played the expansion pack for a few hours so far, but here's a quick list of what has changed and what hasn't. Some of these changes retroactively apply to the original game, so you don't even need to buy the expansion pack to experience what a fun Diablo experience might taste like.

What's Exciting

1. Loot will almost always have usable statistics (no more Barbarian belts full of Intelligence).
2. The auction house is no more, so playing is once again about getting loot, not gold.
3. Legendary items, like my farty pants, are still rare, but much more likely to drop. I've gotten a dozen so far, where I barely saw two in my entire original run.
4. Difficulty can be scaled at anytime so you only need to play through the story end-to-end one time.
5. There is an option to "automatically skip all cutscenes", which lets you bypass the most cringeworthy aspects of the story.
6. You get a free pack of Hearthstone cards with purchase.
7. The music is more memorable, favouring melodies and subtle reworkings of the Diablo 2 themes, rather than ambient sounds.
8. The maps, events, and world design of Act V are top-notch. I can see myself playing these maps plenty in the future. They almost wipe away the bad taste of every desert-themed Act ever created.
9. The smoothest launch day of any Blizzard game ever. Not a server crash or queue in sight.
10. Once you beat Act V, there's an Adventure Mode that completely detaches you from the storyline and gives you random quests on random maps. I may never go back to the story again once I've unlocked this.

What's Less Exciting

1. The Skill UI is still the same, so it's hard to maintain a big picture awareness of the skills you have unlocked and want to assign to slots.
2. The dialogue is still awful, and everyone still wants to run up to you and beat you over the head with the high school play that constitutes the storyline.
3. The game is still "online only".
4. I played a "Crusader" for the first ten levels, and was underwhelmed. Obviously I haven't unlocked much yet, but it plays like a Barbarian with different art. I've never cared much for the melee classes though.

So far, this is a worthwhile (albeit slightly expensive) purchase, and corrects enough of the original Diablo flaws to satisfy me. I'll post a full review in a few weeks!

Random Chart Day: How I Use A Rolling Pin

End-of-the-Month Highlights Day

New photos have been added to the Life, 2014 album.

• Events
  • I missed a trip to Oklahoma but rearranged the house instead.
  
  
  • We went hiking at Keys Gap with Annie and Marc, then hit Doukenie Winery and Lost Rhino Brewery immediately afterwards.
  
  
  • We did our taxes and found that we actually owed Virginia money this year because investments are improving.
  
  
  • We had an anniversary dinner with both sets of parents at Maggiano's, and then went to a fun St. Patrick's Day party in Arlington.
  
  
  • It snowed all over the place.
  
  
  • I had my first migraine of the year and, hopefully, the last.
  
  
  • We went to Marv's birthday party and ate bacon.
  
  
  • We had a Game Night with the Smiths and Ahlbins, and experienced Bonchon.
  
  
  • This weekend, we met the Cranes for dinner at Delmarva's, and also took a rain hike through Algonquin Park, getting thoroughly wet feet by trying to circumnavigate the flooded areas of the park.
  
  
  • Rebecca went to some ritzy art show in a dilapidated church, and started a round table group for her PTA friends also working in nursing homes.
  
  
• Projects
  • No new projects this month, although I'm continue my Information Security class.
  
  
• Consumerism
  • We watched House of [Cards|Lies] and started the third season of Game of Thrones. I finally slogged through My Name Is Earl and am now watching Newsroom on the treadmill.
  
  
  • I've been listening to K-OS and La Roux, with some Lenka occasionally mixed in.
  
  
  • We got two new TVs as hand-me-downs from my parents, and rejected one other TV from them that would have been larger than our house.
  
  
  • On the games front, nothing but Diablo and Hearthstone.
  
  

March's Final Grade: B+