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Rembrandt |
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8/23/2006 4:12 PM |
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Mindless rantings of a dizzy geek. |
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After the first 36 hours or so .. you really don't notice it as much. |
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By Rembrandt on
12/22/2006 10:37 PM
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I'm talking about sleep deprevation, if you couldn't guess.
Over the past two to three nights, I have been burning the midnight candle on all three ends. Up at 7:00 something, work until 6:00 pm ish, spend time with my wonderful and understanding wife, until she drops from exhaustion - then go back to work until 2:00, 3:00, or last night .. 6:00 - and repeat the process.
Why do you ask ? I don't remember, the lack of sleep seems to have purged that information from my skull.
In all honesty, myself and Christosch the Greek, are trying to get www.patentmonkey.com launched .. launched, standing on its own, and making monkey. Fame! Fortune! Vestial Virgins! Although, sometimes I would be perfectly happy to settle for 'working'.
Over the past week, we have really been dusting off the bottles, so to speak. There have been a bunch of code revisions to increase speed, the main databases were put through their paces to include all the USPTO data current to .. well .. yesterday. Lots of hours, hopefully to good effect. You see .. Google - *MYSTERIOUSLY* launched Google Patents five days after googlebot first cached our site. I'm sure its a just one of those wierd things - even if google patents is very 'thrown together'.
Regardless - Google entering the space just adds validity to what we are doing, and makes us seem less crackpot-ish. Besides, our tool looks cooler :)
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Back into the Trenches - and out of them |
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By Rembrandt on
12/21/2006 12:23 PM
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First off, let me just mention that apparantly wearing your father's police academy ring might get you out of a ticket if :
- You were going 45mph in a 30mph zone
- Your front licence plate (which is a funny word) is missing from the car
- Your registration is old [but I *DID* find the new one a min later]
The officer was nice enough to give me a warning. The fine wouldn't have been that bad, it was just nice to not have one .. I wasn't paying attention .. on the phone and lack of sleep. Still, I would prefer even an expensive ticket to an accident .. and I told the officer as such. [He looked puzzled but smiled anyways.]
Last night .. at about 1:30 am .. while I was waiting for a server-job-that-would-never-end to finish, I fired up the Xbox 360. I few days ago I finished ALL the gaps on Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, and was so frustrated when the 100% achievement didn't fire off - that I just saved my game and powered down.
I mustered up the courage to go back in and try to find whatever stupid little thing i missed to get it over and done with, when much to my surprise, as soon as I loaded the game - *ding* achievement unlocked. Cool.
So I dug Call of Duty 2 out of the box instead, and played through one of the missions I needed to do on Vet. Latley, with 3 new games (one even bought at RETAIL) in the wrappers, I have been on a 'finish-all-the-old-games' kick .. who KNOWS how my brain works. But after countless weeks of skateboarding, shooting Nazis was a nice break. Ask me again in 3 weeks, after I try to do Hill 400 on Vet :(
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Nightmares about Dogs |
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By Rembrandt on
12/18/2006 1:07 PM
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Last night Vincent woke up at about 2:15 .. he had a nightmare about the dogs I think. He said something like 'Mercy got out of fence .. hit by school bus .. Maddy tried to go after her .. not right.' Then he woke up and called for me.
I brought him downstairs, got him a bottle, changed him, and took him back upstairs by 2:30 .. but for the next 1/2 hour every time I tried to put him down, he just stood up and hugged me again. No whining, no crying, just wanted to fall asleep on me.
He eventually zonked out at 3:00 .. I didn't have the heart to put him down again until then.
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A few day's summation : |
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By Rembrandt on
12/18/2006 1:01 PM
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Well .. 'Dig the Ditch Day 2' happened on friday, and we now are the new proud owners of a five foot wide, one and a half foot deep, swale that run s from 3 lots over through our property. The Landscapers also built up the area between the swale and our house, and filled in a depression in our back yard that also flooded.
Hopefully that takes care of the water.
Over the past few days I have been trying to finish Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, in case my brother-in-law (Who is getting an x-box 360 for Christmas) might want to borrow it. [Having no games, and a brand new system .. sucks.]
Let me tell you .. this last achievement is a bear. In order to hit 100% in the game, you not only have to beat it multiple times (once each level) but then you have to find EVERY single gap [a place where you get bonus points for doing a trick] in the game. Even with cheating and downloading a guide to where they are off the internet, you still have to *DO* the tricks. Its been almost a week of this .. not a week steady, but all my video game time (as much of it as there is) over a week.
Sheesh.
Anyways, I only have to do the Skate Ranch Gaps (43 !!) and 10 more on Oil rig, but the descriptions for the Oil rig gaps are horrible, which is why i skipped ahead.
Maybe I can get em done in the next day or so ?? Hope So.
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This shouldn't make me so happy ... |
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By Rembrandt on
12/14/2006 11:28 AM
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Currently, yet again, a crew is digging up my back yard, to make a deeper swale through it, in an attempt to control the raging river of doom that happens every time it rains. The crew has been out before, and now I know the owner by name. Jim, is a nice guy - just doing what he is hired to do. The builder .. well .. that is a different story. This guy is like a slippery eel, EVERY time the county tells a crew how they want them to fix this problem, he tells them to do something else.
Lets think about this for a second. The county, the people who *PUT* the stop work permit on all his properties, the people who decide when to lift that permit, the people who are in *CHARGE* of zoning, planning, and water control, tell you how they want something fixed.
Do you :
- a) Fix it their way, exactly to their specifications
- b) Ignore it completely, hoping the problem will go away
- c) Tell you crew to do it a cheaper way, which basically assures that the county will not pass it, and that you will have to spend MORE money later to do it all over again.
I can give you three guesses which one of these this builder *HAS NOT* tried.
Regardless, what should NOT make me so happy, is the fact that he is out there right now cursing up a storm, it sounded like he tried to tell the contractor what to do, and the contractor told him that the county inspector already told him exactly what to do. I heard phrases like 'This shit will never fucking get fixed no matter how many times they have me come out here." and "I don't know what their problem is" as he kicked at pieces of dirt.
I laughed gleefully to myself, because the tone in his voice said that he was pissed *BECAUSE* he has to fix it right, not that he wasn't going to.
Sheesh, had he just done it right the first time, [I even pointed out to him that there was going to be a problem as he was *building* the house next to us.] then he wouldn't be out here for the *FIFTH* time on this same problem.
Go figure, anything to save a buck I suppose.
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Do kids make your heart bigger ? |
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By Rembrandt on
12/13/2006 1:19 PM
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I know that as a father, I am a different person .. kinda. I have old friends who tell me such. My wife notes occasionally that I am slightly different. I certainly look at life differently .. but who knew it could go so far.
I'm like a totally sappy dad.
Radney Foster recorded a song "Godspeed" in 1999
Later his wife suggested sending it to the Dixie Chicks because Natalie Maines had just had a baby:
"Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)"
Dragon tales and the "water is wide"
Pirate's sail and lost boys fly
Fish bite moonbeams every night
And I love you
Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams
The rocket racer's all tuckered out
Superman's in pajamas on the couch
Goodnight moon, we'll find the mouse
And I love you
Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams
God bless mommy and match box cars
God bless dad and thanks for the stars
God hears "Amen," wherever we are
And I love you
Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Godspeed
Godspeed
Sweet dreams
Now everyone out there knows I'm not a religious man - so ignore the angel references etc, its the tone of this song - and the fact that Mrs. Maines' version - I mean you can just HEAR that she means it. In some strange way, if I let it, this song could reduce me to tears in seconds.
Regardless, I love my kid more than I ever thought was possible, and now I'm sappy dad :P
On another note - my brother-in-law is also expecting, [well his wife is anyways] and has started blogging, maybe we can start a 'sappy dads club'.
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Skate till your face is blue. |
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By Rembrandt on
12/6/2006 2:45 PM
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The xbox 360 is very very cruel on these 100% game deals.
In Lego Starwars II, it required MORE than what the game said was 100%.
In Tony Hawk American Wasteland, it required that you play EACH difficulty level to 100%. [which you need to do to finish said level.] but here is the catch, NONE of the stats carry over.
So, when you finish normal mode, and then difficult mode, then go to easy mode .. you have two less missions, and I worry that its not going to mark it 100% after i do this crap all over ;P
Thankfully I saved just before i started this new game.
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Gaming Catchup |
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By Rembrandt on
11/10/2006 11:21 AM
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Not like I have had a lot of time recently. But since my last post, I played a bit of 'Just Cause', and I either got frustrated with the controls, or something - because I just couldn't 'get into' it as much as I thought I might.
I might have just been the mood for a different game. So .. I broke out Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, [Ebay $10] I've always been a sucker for these games, and this one is pretty cool. I got through 44 of 45 achievements, the last one being .. of course 100% completion .. which means I have to play everything all over again at 'normal' settings, and then play the stupid story AGAIN, at 'easy'. I don't see the point of it, its not like the plots will change, only the 'point' requirements on scores and stuff in levels. *sigh* I'll do it, but it will be between other games. [Another quirk, I needed LIVE to do about 12 of the achievements. thank goodness they were easy ones, because there was like NO ONE playing this game on live.]
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance being one of them. I splurged, and acutally bought this retail. (I was in Target buying 'Cars' for my son.) I've played the first mission through, and its pretty cool. I've always liked the RPG/Action games on platforms. Although so far it seems pretty much linear on the RPG stuff. I got some silly unlock code for Daredevil with the game, but no instructions on how to use it or where to use it to unlock the character .. great .. talk about great marketing. The inter-web doesn't say much either.
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Star Wars Is DONE ! Viva La Revolution ! |
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By Rembrandt on
10/25/2006 11:36 PM
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Finally finished the last 4 missions in Lego Starwars II. Some 55 hours to finish the game 100% with all 1000 gamer points on xbox live. thats less than .50 cents an hour in entertainment costs :P
I've moved on to 'Just Cause', another e-bay win for $20 under retail. At first I wasn't convinced it was as good as I was hoping for, but its growing on me. Oddly enough, I seem to be wanted by the police all the time.
Overall, I find the gamer system for xbox live to be interesting. For any new game there is about 3-4 hours of play time where you really just establish what the hell your doing. Gamer points come slow. Then there is a middle phase, where you pick up a bunch of points quickly, as various stuff that has been stacking up as you 'learned' catches up to you. After that you hit the tedious 'end' phase, like in Star Wars Legos II, where it takes like 3-4 days to get the last 100 points or whatever.
Tomb Raider Legends followed the same curve, but was a lot more enticing to 'keep going' so to speak. I found it to be very easy to WANT to play through to get the last few awards. Star Wars Legos II was fine until i hit the last few, eyes-bleeding because I have played them 100's of times already, levels.
Just Cause, is a little wierd, it seems a little disjointed, its cool from the go anywhere - do anything stand point, but at the same time - the 'story' missions are pretty weak, I find i'm not as 'involved' in the story as I was in Tomb Raider.
Time will tell.
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Star Wars Legos II - coming to a close |
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By Rembrandt on
10/2/2006 11:50 AM
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After about 3 weeks of plugging away at it .. the end of Star Wars Legos II is coming into focus, Last night I racked up about 230 points out of the 1,000 in about an hour. [Finishing up a bunch of missions I had open, and hitting 80% of the game done.] I really have only clean up work on Return of the Jedi to do - which should go fairly quick.
The last 80 points, doing the remaining four 'flying' missions without dying, those are going to be the hardest.
So in a week or so I should be back to killing zombies, unless I decide to finally 'finish' call of duty-2 by doing the remaining levels I have to do at the 'ultra-hard' setting.
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