Channel Zero

Posted By Zero on July 23, 2010

This past weekend, I went along on a great bachelor party trip for Dan.   I flew to Albuquerque on Thursday, then we got up and drove 8 hours to Lake Powell, UT.  We camped on Friday night and then picked up a houseboat to spend two days out on the lake.    It was a great time.  It did not change my firm belief that camping sucks, but I am willing to do it if it enables other fun things.   Here’s a list of the things I learned while on this trip:

There are only 2 kinds of signs along the mountain roads leading up to Lake Powell:

This one means “Warning Cows”

This one means “Road does crazy shit.”

If you are being pulled behind a power boat on a raft and you let go of the rope you will skip across the water approximately three times before you begin to sink.

If I sleep for only 2 hours and then swim and drink all day, when I fall asleep I will snore really loud.  Nothing will stop this snoring, including being poked by a mop.

If you have to do a physics problem to determine if its safe to jump off of a rock, it’s not.

All houseboats come with a button on the control panel that will completed disable your engine.   This button will be labeled something completely innocuous, like “trim up.”

The fridge in a houseboat is propane powered and works slightly less well than an ice chest.

If you soak the potatoes in soapy water, they will fire much further out of the cannon.

An inflatable dolphin can withstand many trips down the water slide but cannot hold up to a close range shot from a potato cannon

An inflatable sheep cannot handle even one trip down the water slide.

That’s all for a bit, Nikki and I head out for our vacation tomorrow.  We’ll be cruising to Jamaica, Cayman Islands, and Cozumel!  I’m sure I will learn a lot there too.

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Posted By Zero on July 14, 2010

Well for those of you waiting in anticipation (for uh two weeks..), we did get the A/C fixed, for the low low price of only $2400.   It’s working now, as well as the A/C ever does in the middle of summer in TX.

After my birthday Nikki and I headed out to Arkansas to see her family and celebrate the 4th.  Her Aunt and Uncle live outside of Hot Springs, far enough that you can shoot off fireworks.    We ate lots of bad food (by which I mean really really good food that was bad for us), and shoot off our share of the fireworks.

Last weekend was our one weekend “off” in July.   We spent Saturday running errands, met Marc/Shannon for dinner and spent Sunday hanging out in the pool. I also watched some of the World Cup Final, and I have to say I just don’t get it.  I know its really popular and all but dang was it boring. There was an exciting part where one of the players from the Netherlands dropped-kicked a Spanish player in the chest.  I think that’s just me though, I can’t sit and watch basketball or hockey on TV either.    I can sit and watch football no problem, and sometimes baseball but that’s about it.  I’m just not a “sports on tv” person.

This weekend starts my whirlwind of vacations.   I leave tomorrow for Albuquerque, NM to join my friend Dan and a bunch of his buddies for a weekend of Houseboating on Lake Powell, Utah.   It’s gonig to be quite the trip.  Fly to ABQ tomorrow, drive 7 hours out to Lake Powell, 2 days on the house boat, and then 7 hours back to ABQ to fly back here on Tuesday.

Then we’ve got 3 days till we leave on our cruise of Jamaica, Cayman Islands, and Cozumel.   Nikki and I sat down this morning and decided on most of our excursions.   We’re doing a Catamaran with snorkeling and stingrays in Grand Cayman and a “swim with the dolphins” in Cozumel.   We haven’t decided what we are doing in Jamaica yet. Possibly some kind of beach party or snorkeling expedition.

Whew, and that pretty much finishes out July, and then we have DragonCon and  Dan and Betinna’s wedding.

I agree with Ninsianna, I think the year is almost over.

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Posted By Zero on June 30, 2010

Well yes…I’m not quite sure why either… but here goes. June was very busy for us. Nikki’s family including her Aunt and Uncle were hardly ever see and both our niece and nephew came to visit the weekend of the 12th.  We mostly just hung out at the pool.  There were quite a few folks here so the only trip out that we made was to the Bavarian, and that required 3 separate cars.  The Bavarian was great and everyone had a good time.

The next weekend was our weekend “off” so we went out to see Cherry Crush and the Lollie- bombs perform with lots of friends in tow.   We did dinner at Urban Taco, then hung out at Trinity Hall, then the show, then back to Trinity Hall till they made us leave.   Nikki “won” the drawing.  I’m not see she really wanted to win, since she had to go up on stage but she managed.

I flew to Chicago on Monday the 21st for a training class.  I got back on Friday and lots of people had already arrived for my birthday party on the 26th.  (My birthday isn’t the 26th btw, that’s just when we had the party, my birthday is July 1st.)  This was the 6th annual cancer-free party so it was the big one and everyone had a great time.   People were still swimming in the pool long after the sun went down.

Nikki bought me an awesome PS3 for my birthday.  I’ve been playing Red Dead Redemption and Valkyria Chronicles so far.  She also bought me White Knight Chronicles and Lost  Planet 2 but I haven’t even had a chance to try them out yet.  Of course, since the ps3 is also a blue ray player that means I need to update my receiver to HDMI now.   It needs to be updated anyway, the old one doesn’t have enough plug-ins for all he video game systems.

This week was less exciting so far.  Monday I determined that the downstairs A/C wasn’t working properly.  The evidence being that it wasn’t cooling the downstairs and a large block of ice had formed on the lines on the outside unit.  So far the repair hasn’t gone well. The first repair guy couldn’t fix it after replacing the freon and a capacitor and referred it to a second crew.  They were supposed to be here today but have yet to show. It’s a good thing the upstairs A/C is functional or the house would be a sweatbox.

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Posted By Zero on June 8, 2010

As you can see it did not take me a few days to get Channel Zero back up. It took maybe 2 hours, and most of that was spent fighting with Movable Type to get it to export my old blog entries. I am a total Word Press convert now. Every time I had to upgrade or install Movable Type it was a nightmare of broken templates and cryptic fixes. Wordpress was easy to install and even easier to covert my blog over from the old software. Alright so that’s enough about blog software.

I also did my second real bike ride of the season last Saturday. Nikki wasn’t feeling well enough to go, so Marc and I went and rode the 47.5 miles of the Mesquite Rodeo Ride. It was great ride but boy was it hot.

Nikki and I have been in home-improvement overdrive the past month. We have people staying with almost every weekend in June. Last weekend Grady and Crystal came down again before flying off to Playa Del Carmen and this weekend Nikki’s whole family is coming for a visit.  The last weekend of the month is my birthday party and a whole host of people are staying with us.

In preparation for the visits, I installed 2 new outdoor ceiling fans on the patio, one of which maimed me.  I had it hanging on the mount to wire it and the mounting broke. Causing the fan to gash my arm and smash itself all over the patio. I’m fine the fan was not. Lowe’s got more of my money for a third fan.  I also fixed 2 of the 4 toilets in the house. The other 2 had been repaired previously, or I probably would have to had fixed them as well.

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Posted By Zero on June 7, 2010

This is the new Channel-Zero.  The site will have a “work in progress” look to it for a few days.

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Posted By Zero on June 7, 2010

I’m converting the back end blogging engine from Movable Type to Word press today. This probably isn’t interesting at all unless you are into blogging software, movabletype has just become too cumbersome to use. The site will probably have an “in progress” look to it today as I get the new software setup. If you read the site through RSS you will need to update those links. I have the new RSS link up as soon as possible.

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Posted By Zero on June 1, 2010

The wife said “You need to blog, you haven’t written anything in a while.” Actually, I’ve written quite a bit. It’s just all been for my Serenity game.
I’ve been listening to Will Wheaton’s “Memories of Futurecast” podcast while cycling latley. It’s pretty funny especially if you are a Star Trek fan. The last episode was his recap of “The Long Goodbye.” You know the one where Picard dresses up as private eye Dixon Hill and plays an interactive murder mystery on the holodeck. As I was listening it struck me that, according to Star Trek at least, the future of entertainment is LARPing. At the time, that seemed like a pretty big leap, but with interactive entertainment (video games) rapidly over-taking non-interactive entertainment (movies) it doesn’t seem so futuristic now. Bottom Line: Holodeck RPGs would be awesome.
We had a pretty busy Memorial Day weekend. Grady and his family came down and we went to Scarborough Fair on Saturday. Our nephew Aiden is a little bundle of energy so we had a great time. I think he rode every animal and pirate ship there was to ride at the fair. That night, we had a cookout/pool party. This is the first Memorial day weekend in a long time where its been warm enough to swim in the pool. Looks like it’s shaping up to be a hot summer, it’s supposed to top 100 this week.
Sunday afternoon we went over to Phlome and Ninsi’s house for another cookout. I feel you can’t have too many on Memorial Day. That evening we went out to the Church in Dallas. We seem to make it out about twice a year, Memorial Day and Halloween, which, really is more than enough for me.
Monday morning we managed to drag ourselves out of bed and go for a 30 mile bike ride before it got too hot. We probably could have done more this weekend but I’m not sure how.

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Posted By Zero on May 17, 2010

Yard work seems to be what we have been doing lately. Nikki and I have spent at least 3 weekends now working to get the yard in shape, mowing, trimming, planting etc.
We set aside money every year to do some kind of home improvement project. Last year it was the game room remodel. This year we decided to replace the fence on the east side of the house. Unfortunately, when I went to talk to the neighbor about it, he pointed out that our yard was sorta “flowing” into his, and we would need to build a retaining wall before a new fence could really be put in. He also said he couldn’t pay for any of the fence, but I didn’t really expect him too. Splitting a fence with your neighbor is kinda like a game of chicken. Which one of you can stand to look at the falling down fence before one of you offers to fix it. Since he had already reinforced his side with 2×4 bracing to keep it falling down, making his side look like crap, I declared him the winner and decided to get it replaced myself.
Step one was to get a retaining wall built, which after 3 weeks of wrangling with fence and wall contractors got done today. It looks pretty nice, of course once the fence is up, you won’t really be able to see it from our side. The fence will go in later this week.
The pool is now open as well, though its still a little to cold to swim in. This year was the easiest pool opening I’ve ever had. Usually it takes about 3 weeks for me to get the pool in shape but I was able to do it in just a few days this year. With the torrential downpour last Friday its a little green right now but that’s normal. Hopefully it will warm up some towards Memorial Day and we can swim in it.
This past weekend we did our first bike ride of the year, The Wild Ride, in Richardson. Pretty late start on cycling for us, 3 years ago we had already done the MS-150 by this time. It was a great ride though, and neither of us had too much trouble with the 40 mile route even though our training has been slacking this year as well.
We also went to the Hot Rods and Heels Burlesque festival Saturday evening. It was a great show. Our friend, Cherry Crush, who needs a website so I have something to link to, was in the show, so we always have fun going to hang out.

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Posted By Zero on May 7, 2010

It’s so odd, back when I was in high school, video games, anime, star trek, star wars, and RPGs were all “nerdy”. Heck using computers was nerdy. That’s not really the case anymore is it? Almost everyone plays video games, I bet you’d be hard pressed to find a teenager who doesn’t watch anime, and most of the folks in my high school class are on facebook so I’m guessing using computers is somewhat more common. This is not really the case for RPGs, unless of course you count video game RPGs. (Did you know World of Warcraft subscribers now outnumber the population of Scotland?) RPGs are still pretty nerdy. I’m telling you this because this entry is going to be about RPGS and some pretty niche ones at that. So ya know, if that’s not your thing. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”
As I mentioned in the last blog entry my latest fascination is the FATE system. It a sort of build-your-own RPG system. It’s based on FUDGE, which is an somewhat older build-your-own RPG. I first read about FATE a few years back when Spirit of the Century was released. It’s a Pulp action game set in the 1920s and 30s. Pulp is a subgenre that includes things like Indiana Jones or The Rocketeer. I’ve never really been all that into it so I didn’t immediately pick up SOTC. Last year, another game based on FATE, Starblazers, was released. Now this RPG is not about the Japanese anime of the same name, it’s based on some pretty strange Britich Sci-fi comics. I didn’t get it right away but eventually picked it up when we were on vacation in California back in April. I was really surprised by how good it is and how well the system works. I’m not sure if I will ever run it, the setting is very odd, but a lot of the info on how to structure a game and create adventures is amazing.
I started poking around for FATE RPGs and found the Dresden Files RPG. It’s not even out yet, but if you pre-order it, Evil Hat sends you the PDF. I did and spent the next 2 hours reading the PDF. It’s very good, and I might even run it in the future. (Ah yes another game goes on my “list”) I wish the book was out so I could read it somewhere other than my pc.
After reading both Starblazers and Dresden files, I thought that a FATE fantasy RPG would be really cool. I don’t think I woudl actually play it, but there are so many good ideas for Sci-Fi games in Starblazers I knew that a fantasy game would be a gold mine. Well last night I found just that, Legends of Anglerre. I haven’t bought it yet, but I soon will. (And soon may mean after I finish writing this.

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Posted By Zero on May 5, 2010

Last Tuesday was the five year anniversary of my completion of cancer treatment. I had to look that up in my blog to figure out the actual day. I knew it was sometime around the end of April but I didn’t know the exact day. I’m keeping up the Channel Zero tradition it seems. I posted about it a day late 5 years ago and over a week late this time.
(Side Note: In that same entry I mention that Star Wars TV show, which has not come out now five years later.)
So what does it actually mean that I am Cancer free? Is that the same as remission? Well yes technically I am still in remission. What the five year date means is that statically, five years out from treatment, the chance of my Lymphoma returning is below the chance of anyone getting it in the first place. In the medical world that’s as cancer free as you can get.
Last week was hugely busy. Most of the Dallas Crew went and saw David Sedaris last Monday. I’ve always wanted to see him live. I missed the chance the last time he was here. I thought he was pretty funny. I’m not sure everyone else agreed. I think he’d do better if he just told stories about being a writer and do less readings, but ya know it’s his show, and what do I know.
Tuesday, I had planned a happy hour to celebrate the 5 year anniversary, but since it turned out to be my only free night that week, I rescheduled. I drank a scotch at home, possibly more than one.
Wednesday was the second session of my new Serenity campaign. It’s a nice change from the more combat intensive D&D.
Speaking of RPGs, my latest fascination is the FATE system. It a generic RPG system based on FUDGE. Which is , well yet another generic RPG system. I should probably stop there otherwise this will become an entry on the FATE system, I’ll do that later.
Thursday was our last softball game of the spring season, we lost but ended up with 2 wins overall for the season. Summer season starts in a few weeks, I’m looking forward to it. Cycling season has started without me this year but I’ll find a way to fit both in. My goal is to ride 100 miles a week. So far this week, 20 miles and it about killed me.
Friday Nikki and I headed out for Oklahoma to see nieces and nephews and our families. We had missed Aiden’s birthday last month so it was time for a trip home. The summer is rapidly filling up and we may not get a chance to come home till August at this point.

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