Death and a funeral

Last weekend my wife and I went to visit an elderly couple that's been friends of her family for several years. The husband, Fred, had been battling cancer for two years and it was finally catching up to him. He had been in the hospital over the weekend and when he left they put him in a hospice room.

By all accounts, he shouldn't have been alive this long. I think it was esophageal cancer. When he was diagnosed two years ago the doctors gave him 6 to 8 months. He went through chemo and radiation treatment, which seemed to make a big difference. But when he went in for a check up, the cancer was back -- and then some. It had spread into other parts of his body.

We saw him on Sunday. On Tuesday we got a call from my mother-in-law saying Fred was doing worse and likely wouldn't make it through the night. Wednesday we got a call that confirmed it -- he had died around 2 AM Wednesday morning. The next Sunday we went to the viewing.

It was very touching seeing both Fred and his wife Shirley while he was still alive. They seemed like such a nice, loving, couple. Fred knew what was going on, and reminded Shirley he wanted to be burried in his dartball shirt along with $1.25 in his pocket (the amount they put into "the pot").

Sure enough, when we saw him at the funeral the following week, we was laying there with his dartball shirt on instead of a suit or something. Several other men at the funeral, Fred's teammates, were also wearing their dartball shirts. It was quite a sight to see.

God bless you Fred and Shirley. I'm glad you were able to attend our wedding. I just wish I had had the time to get to know you better.


-- C.

More on EverQuest and gaming

EverQuest (EQ) is celebrating its 7th year as of March 16, 2006. I've been playing for about 4.5 years. How many games have you played that have held your attention for that long? Granted, they release expansions about every six months now, so they are always adding something new. For some people (like me), that pace is too fast. I don't play often enough to keep up with all the new cities and dungeons (otherwise known as "zones").

There was the original release, then came Ruins of Kunark (RoK), Scars of Velious (SoV), Shadows of Luclin (SoL), Planes of Power (PoP), Legacy of Ykesha (LoY), Lost Dungeon of Norrath (LDoN) [Norrath being the name of the EQ world], Gates of Discord (GoD), Omens of War (OoW), Dragons of Norrath (DoN), Depths of Darkhallow (DoD), and finally Prophecy of Ro (PoR). I started somewhere between SoV and SoL. [No jokes about what else SOL stands for.]

So you can see how it's hard to keep up with all that unless you're a college student or something, and have 20+ hours a week to play.

I'm currently in a guild that's going through old content from PoP. There's a series of progressions you go through; roughly 4 tiers with 3 or 4 paths each. The fourth tiers are the elemental planes (Air, Earth, Water, and Fire). When you complete the quest in these zones you gain access to the Plane of Time. In order to complete the quests in these zones, you need to coordinate 50-70 people in a raid to kill certain monsters (and even the gods of EQ themselves).

There are numerous web sites to help you keep track of all this information. EQAtlas.com for maps was very handy until EQ added maps inside the game. There are sites for each class (warrior, cleric, rogue, ranger, magician, wizard, monk, paladin, druid, necromancer, shadow knight, shaman, bard, enchanter, beastlord, and berserker). There are also sites to look up information on the thousands of quests and items available.

In combination with your class, you choose what race you want to be when you first create your character (human, dwarf, high elf, wood elf, half-elf, gnome, ogre, troll, dark elf, barbarian, iksar (lizard-like), vah shir (cat-like), and froglok (take a guess). Not every race has access to each class. For example, there's no such thing as a troll monk or dwarf necromancer. Some races are good, some races are evil, and some have a mix of both.

Once you have your race and class you can start the game. There's really no way to win at EverQuest -- you just keep trying to better yourself. If you get bored with your current set up you can always start a new character and try it out.

One way to better yourself (the main way really) is to gain levels. You do this by getting experience points (XP). When EQ was first released you could only get to level 50, but later expansions increased the limit to 60, then 65, and now 70.

You can set other goals for yourself, like doing trade skills (smithing, fletching (bows & arrows), tailoring, pottery, jewel craft, baking, brewing, and tinkering if you're a gnome, alchemy if you're a shaman, and poison making if you're a rogue). A great site for trade skills is EQTraders.com.

Anyway, last night my guild gathered 60+ people and took on "Coirnav, the Avatar of Water" in the Plane of Water. You have less than 15 minutes to take out three waves of average-toughness creatures, three "boss monsters" that are very tough, and then Coirnav himself (itself?). We've tried 7 seven times and hadn't won, but last night we finally did.

It's interesting that you can get more than 60 people together from all over the world - people who have never met and will likely never meet - and coordinate them into a raid like this. It takes timing and cooperation.

So that's your brief (heh) introduction to EverQuest.


More later,
-- C.
PS: Here are some screen shots on my flickr site. I'll add some screenshots from last night soon.

Cool music site: Pandora

Pandora is part of the Music Genome Project. You can enter a song/artist/group you like and it will find others with a similar style. They have been running since 2000 and have quite a selection.

If I had more time, I could waste a lot of it here.


-- C.

Bad movie decisions

I'll confess. I made a bad decision to see a movie I didn't know much about. Actually, turns out I didn't know anything about it (I confused it with a different preview I saw).

My wife and I were at the theater trying to decide what to watch. Nothing really interested me much, but she suggested "16 Blocks." I should have left it at that; I would have been happy to see it. But another movie drew my attention. I thought it was about Casanova and was a light-hearted humorous movie. It was called "The Libertine" and starred Johnny Depp. Hmm, can't be that bad if it has Johnny Depp in it, can it? Had I checked the rating I might had had second thoughts (it's R). (The movie I was thinking of is called, cleverly, "Casanova" and stars Heath Ledger.)

We went in and sat down. It was Sunday afternoon so I didn't expect a crowd, but I didn't expect there to only be five other people in the theater either. I knew something was wrong after the first five minutes. Mr. Depp was "The Earl of Rochester" (who was a real historical person). After the prolog (which was a little explicit), it showed him riding in a carriage with his wife and was soon, um, how do I put it politely? Molesting his wife? After that scene two people left the theater and I never saw them return. After about 15 more minutes another man left, never to return.

I didn't think it would get worse, and it didn't. But it didn't get any better either. The Earl was known for his sexual escapades and speaking his mind, no matter what. Johnny Depp turned in a good performance, as did the other actors, but I can't recommend this movie to anyone. There's nothing to gain from it and a lot you'd really don't need to know about this man. The language was pretty vulgar and it deserved its R rating.

As soon as the credits started I apologized and said she can pick the next 10 movies we watch.


-- C.

Free Credit Report!

Apparently "Free Credit Report" doesn't include "Free Credit Score." At least, not from Equifax. It'll cost me $7.95 to get my credit score (or $6.95 depending on which page you read).

I guess your credit score isn't part of your report. That bites. Isn't that the main thing you want out of your report?

Maybe I should go ahead and check with the other two companies to see if they include it for free before I pay money to find out what other people think about my money-spending habits.


-- C.

Learn how to tie your shoes

Yes, yes, you've probably already learned how to do this. But did you know there are as many as 16 different ways to tie them? Check out Ian's Shoelace Site. I tried one of the ways and it seems to work well. He claims to have cut his shoe-tying time down to 1/3 of the time. Not that tying shoes is time consuming, but it's kinda neat doing it differently (original link was found in Seth Godin's blog).

As far as saving time where it doesn't need to be saved, I wonder if anyone else does this. Microwave instructions often say to set the timer for 30 seconds or 60 seconds. Since my finger is on the "3" button, I just hit it twice instead of hitting the "3" button and then the "0" button. It's not like an extra 3 seconds is going to blow up your lunch. If I'm warming something up, I'll often use times like 1:11, 33, or 22.

It's not like any of this will change your life. But hey, if you're in to saving time, check out the "Mr. Show" skit regarding mayostard and mustardayonnaise. (You can see it on YouTube.com if you sign up. Apparently the skit is of "questionable" content so signing up is required)


-- C.

Four-year-olds and vocabulary

Last night we had our four-year-old nephew over for dinner, along with Paula's grandmother. Brock was eating his spaghetti and somehow, as four-year-olds often do, got sauce on his forehead. I asked him to clean it and handed him a napkin. He started wiping the top of his head. I said, "No Brock, on it's on your forehead." He just giggled and kept rubbing the napkin on top of his head. "No, it's a little lower than that." He kept on wiping the top of his head.

"Brock, you have sauce on your forehead. You should use the napkin there. On your forehead."

He laughed, grinned a big grin, and said, "No...it's only ONE head!"



Great. Now my nephew thinks I'm some kind of idiot that can't count and doesn't know anatomy.


-- C.

Cartoon music

Do you remember watching Saturday morning cartoons? Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, and Daffy Duck? Do you remember the "assembly line" music? I also associate it with construction scenes in the cartoons (pile drivers almost smashing poor innocent characters).

It turns out that music was scored by a professional composer by the name of Raymond Scott. He was a talented musician as well as an electrical engineer. He combined his two interests and by 1948 had his own electronic sound generator. But even before that he was working for Warner Brothers and Looney Tunes, and "contrary to the composer's intentions, all generations since have heard his works as 'cartoon music.'"

How do I know this and why do I bring it up now? Because the Philmarmonic is going to perform "Powerhouse" (the "assembly line" music) on the 18th and we already happen to have tickets.

Ooo, I'm so excited. I always loved that bit of music, but they never played much of it in the cartoons. Now I get a chance to hear the whole piece all at once!

Also that night will be "Grand Canyon Suite" by Grofe and Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini." (I just wanted to say Rachmaninoff and Paganini.)

Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out some of Scott's work here.



-- C.

Because you just can't forget the taste (Jones Soda redux)

AdRants.com has a little say on Jones Soda's bad flavors.

"Make A Disgusting Product. Get Publicity, Revel in Revenue"


-- C.

Old movie I recently remembered

I was reading an article about black holes on Slashdot yesterday and someone mentioned the old 1979 movie. I liked it at the time, especially the three robots, Bob, Vincent, and Maximillian. Then I started remembering more about the movie, the sentinal robots, S.T.A.R., the humanoid robots, the funky guns they used, and the special effects they used for the black hole itself.

I think I'll have to go out and buy the DVD soon and remind myself of what all happens, and to see if it's still any good.


-- C.