Wednesday, July 28, 2004
  • It seems that I have been rather handily bested in the undeclared website update contest for July, given that Jeremy has been on an updating tear of late.  He has had the good grace to not taunt me over my shortcomings, though since he is currently ahead by around one hojillion page updates, Jeremy may not even formally recognize the existence of a competitor.
  • Using Excel, I have produced a bar graph depicting my humiliating defeat.
  • However, my surrender for this month is no excuse for Jeremy to post updates for a year from now.
Thursday, July 22, 2004
  • According to this /. poll I am not alone in suffering from a debilitating condition known as photic sneeze reflex.  The symptoms are largely benign, at least when you factor out the verbal mockery received every time you walk outdoors in the summer.
  • Much as I'd like to pretend it's a sign than I am more highly evolved than my taunting peers, it sounds like it's a congenital brain defect.  You win some, you lose some.
Monday, July 19, 2004
Friday, July 16, 2004
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
  • It seems that journalists are irritated by Michael Moore also.  Though none of the television news anchors quoted condemn him outright, it's fairly plain that they find his methods appalling.
  • In the meantime I have to find a candidate worth voting come November.  I cannot vote for a president who enthusiastically supports torture, and I will not vote for a candidate lacking any political credibility whatsoever.  Most likely I will vote for Ralph Nader, even though I think he would make a terrible president.
Monday, July 12, 2004
  • I've been pretty busy lately "testing" the new auction house feature in World of Warcraft by selling a bunch of tailored bags.  Over the weekend I've sold around 20 of the new 12-slot bags, and a handful of the 10-slot variety.  My total profits are around 20 gold, most of which went towards purchasing my level 44 spells and retraining my brain-damaged imp, Thullos.
  • I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday and picked up a new book: The Philip K. Dick Reader, a collection of short stories whose author should be obvious.  As the back cover and countless reviewers go to great lengths to point out, quite a few movies have been made from his material.  I'm a sucker for the short story format in general, and I'm enjoying the heck out of these.
  • UNC has made tech news after a professor and a graduate student in the Computer Science department created FaceTop, a cool video-conferencing application.
Thursday, July 8, 2004
  • Late last night a new World of Warcraft patch was released.  Key points seem to be a nearly comprehensive removal of the rest state system, awesome talents (for two of the classes), and some new tailoring patterns.
  • I've been a sucker for tailoring in this sort of game ever since Ultima Online made me loathe it.  No, that doesn't make much sense to me, either.  I think it functions as a litmus test for fun: if I can enjoy sewing shirts and skullcaps together, then I can take pretty much anything else the game throws at me without quitting in disgust.
Wednesday, July 7, 2004
  • I've added two new movies to the World of Warcraft Gameplay Movies page.  The Scarlet Chapel movie in particular is pretty cool.
  • I'm doing a bit of experimenting with multi-pass DivX encoding, so the quality of the movies should be higher, though they're still not wonderful.  I'm playing the game at 1280x1024 resolution, and recording the video at 800x600, and I don't think Fraps handles the conversion as well as it might.  I'll try switching the game resolution to 800x600 before I record to see if that helps.
  • If there's anything in World of Warcraft you particularly want to see, email me and I'll make a movie for you.
  • The layout's been updated with a bit of CSS trickery to make the two-column format actually look like two full columns.  I think it's a substantial improvement.  Oh, and I've added a new poll.
Monday, July 5, 2004
  • Yesterday we went to see fireworks hosted by the Town of Lewisville, NC.  Overall, it didn't seem to be as thrilling as last year, but that may have been because we were delayed in our arrival by people who didn't seem to realize that parking in the middle of a lane with dozens of people behind you says uncharitable things about one's intellect.
  • That said, it was still worth seeing, and the awesome acoustic/visual onslaught from the finale was quite memorable.  I expect it was one of the better fireworks displays in the state, though UNC has hosted some pretty good ones.
Friday, July 2, 2004
  • I saw Spider-Man 2 last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  On the whole the plot was much more character-driven than the first time through, bordering on excessively so given the material.  Dr. Octopus was a great villain who was allowed far more depth and humanity than the big bad guy is usually allotted.  My only gripe is that the ending rather heavily foreshadows the inevitable return of the Green Goblin in the third movie, due out in 2007.  I just hope Spider-Man 3 doesn't turn into a rehash of the original movie.
  • I don't ordinarily go see movies the week they open, but I see it as a vote with my wallet for the kind of entertainment I want, or rather against the sort of execrable lies that are an alternative.  I want to be perfectly clear: I am not pro-Bush, I am anti-Michael Moore.  Michael Moore is a masterful propagandist, to be sure, but he has an appalling track record when it comes to the truth, and that is a grave shortcoming in any political figure.  Our democracy is based on an educated populace making informed and rational choices.  Michael Moore's goal is clear -- the removal of President Bush from office -- yet his methods include outright fabrication and deliberate misrepresentation.  Such appeals to prejudice are the worst sort of political games and demonstrate a brazen contempt for the intelligence of the American public.
Thursday, July 1, 2004
  • All updates from last month have been moved into the June archives.  I updated on 22 of the 30 days in June, setting a new page record.  Unfortunately I had less than 75 unique visitors last month, so it's not clear that updating more actually increases my traffic.  Even so, I plan on persevering with my frequent update schedule for this month, at least.
  • I've set up a new page for my World of Warcraft Gameplay Movies, featuring hot orc on demon action!
  • Larry has begun documenting his fictional life on his new site, Larry's Lies.  Truly an inspirational approach to keeping a journal.