Bloof. Just got home from the gym. I think these workouts are starting to have some kind of effect; like, I’ve got more energy or something… When I got towards the end of my time on the elliptical (12 min., maintaining a heartrate of 140 bpm) I wasn’t constantly thinking “OMG this is so hard, I just wanna stop, OMG, etc. etc.” like usual.

Something I thought of today: I remember hearing a guest on the Colbert Report (it was the author of Stumbling on Happiness, I think) say that we’re more likely to be happy when our choices are limited. He gave an example of a guy buying some piece of clothing, like a sweater or something. If the guy buys it from a store that doesn’t allow returns, he’ll probably be pretty satisfied with the sweater. But if he buys it from a store that does allow returns, he won’t be as content. In other words, the more options a person has available to them, the more unhappy they’ll be with their current situation.

So doesn’t this mean we’re all going to become less happy as time goes on? Every decade we’re given more options — more new products, more free time, more personal wealth (on a broad scale), more culturally-acceptable lifestyle choices… The longer you live, the more it feels like you’re “missing out.” (Because you are!) I wonder if the Amish are generally more happy than the rest of the country? Judging by the difference in suicide rates it sure seems like it.

Anyway. Brett and I were in Spokane this weekend from Friday evening to Sunday morning. On Friday, we played Sequence and Ticket to Ride with his parents. Then on Saturday we went to Merlyn’s (a big comic shop), where I got Knights of the Dinner Table #126-130, the first Goon TPB, and the new 4th ed. GURPS Ultra-Tech. (Their graphic novel selection wasn’t that great IMO, but they had a ton of hard-to-find GURPS books.) Then we had lunch at Raw (a sushi place); good salmon, great snapper, decent eel, fantastic rolls (esp. their “Da Bomb” roll).

Around 6:00, we headed over to the Big Easy concert house for the Bright Eyes thing. The opening act was awful — some incredibly whiny solo artist whose name I couldn’t catch because he practically swallowed the microphone. The guy did, like, six songs. The Bright Eyes stuff was better, but still hardly my preferred genre. Brett liked it though.

On the way back to the car, around 10:00, we were approached by a couple — a blonde in her late thirties (think Fran Drescher’s mom from The Nanny, but prettier) and a younger black guy (who looked like he had Apert’s syndrome). We had a brief exchange that went like this:

Guy: (with his arm around the woman) Haha, hey, you guys think my lady looks nice?
Brett: Heh, yes, she’s pretty.
Me: Yeah, very nice.
Guy: Yeah, haha, wouldn’t you want to take her home?
Woman: (smiles, looks embarrassed)
Brett: Haha, no, that’s okay.
Me: Um, heh…
Guy: Haha, you guys! Have a nice evening!

After we’d walked about a half-block, I said to Brett, “Boy, that’s a funny couple, huh?” And he goes, “Haha, yeah, that pimp was pretty polite.” And I was like, “Whaaaat? No way! They were– she was a… Haha, what? Really?” In hindsight it’s pretty obvious, of course. But I was floored for a second — there are some things I just never expect.

We met up with my parents on Sunday morning (they were in Spokane for a polo game). They gave us an air conditioner like Andi’s, a new Magic Bullet (Brett’s broke a few months ago), and some really good huckleberry mini-muffins.

Anyway, that was the weekend. Not a whole lot’s happened since then except we finally lynched someone in my mafiascum.net game (and he was mafia, which was critical since we’d entered LyLo) and I got my Louis C.K. DVDs (finally got to see the first part of Shameless — very, very funny). Oh, and tonight I made baked spaghetti for dinner. It has onions, layers of cheddar and parmesan, and a havarti (over crumbled Ritz crackers) topping. Very filling.

Blarg, this was a long post.

I bought into the Peggle hype. (If you’re not familiar, it’s kind of like pachinko or Plinko from The Price is Right.) You can download the game for free here. Fun and addictive; it’s the new Bejeweled. Check it out — I managed to totally clear stage 1-4:

You know MSNBC put Peggle in their “Top 5 Adddicting Games” list? They also had Doom, World of Warcraft, Everquest, and Tetris. I think my list would go: World of Warcraft, Armadillo Run, Alpha Centauri, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Lumines.

We made a ton of stew last night. Because we overestimated the amount of meat and veggies necessary, we ended up having to make a second big pot (luckily, I had a quart of vegetable broth in the pantry for the second batch). Both stews came out very thick. Ingredients: Cabbage, corn, tomatoes, barley, stew beef, carrots, green beans, onions, celery, red potatoes, orangetti squash, and various seasonings. We put a lot of the best batch in the big Mason jar I got from my mom so we can take it up to Spokane tomorrow to share with Brett’s parents.

I have a PowerColor Radeon X800GTO (256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16) video card in my primary system and I absolutely loathe it. It’s caused me more problems than just about any other component and it’s not even defective (not by the manufacturer’s standards, anyway). I’ve tried tons of different drivers, dozens of settings combinations, reseated the card twice, researched the problem on AnandTech and other such forums, talked to my very video card-savvy IM buddies… and nothing’s worked — I still have display problems with the thing. Sometimes when I start up the system, or anytime I exit (or alt-tab from) a fullscreen game, or under some other conditions, my screen will begin flipping between its normal display and black. Every couple seconds. The only way to fix it is to restart. (And it’s not the monitor — I don’t have this trouble when I connect it to my laptop.)

Anyway, this vexation will cease very soon. I’ve finally purchased a new video card! It’s been surprisingly hard to find one that benchmarks better than my current card for around $100 (even though this X800GTO is more than a year old). But the PNY GeForce 7900GS meets my (apparently narrow) criteria. Goodbye, crappy ATI Catalyst control center!

Unbelievably tasty discovery of the week: The Häagen-Dazs Pomegranate & Dark Chocolate Ice Cream Bar. They’re kind of expensive at $5.19 for a box of three, but they’re incredible. The ice cream is tart, but not too tart — matches the chocolate perfectly.

Okay, off to bed. Worked out tonight (Thurs. 9/13).

Steve Jackson Games products sure attract a weird bunch of people. I’d compare the fanbase to MetaFilter’s, but with more Europeans and less vitriol. Some of them are damn funny too. Take this reply I got from Hitekwaiter on UltraCorps, for example:

> Excellent, then it’s settled: We won’t attack each other until the vile Senitron and filthy Jbnimble are dead. (Also, I won’t take Madiis and you won’t take Oktober.)

> Long live the Volkspider-Hitekwaiter Non-Aggression Pact.

DA COMRADE.

AND VE ATTACK POLAND TOGETHER…

WWII REFERENCE.

Maybe it’s just my peculiar sense of humor, but that made me roffle. I love the all-caps explanatory note at the end. It’s strange how negotiation has emerged as one of the more enjoyable aspects of UltraCorps.

Boy, autumn sure has dropped on Pullman like a ton of bricks. It’s supposed to reach 80 °F today and 38 °F tonight. Doesn’t that seem like an unusually wide temperature range?

BTW, there were like six people at the gym tonight. At 12:40 AM! Where were they last week? Could be that SNAP Fitness’s membership is just growing very quickly. They did start their “official grand opening” promotions this week, after all. (Free iced coffees and balloons; not that big a deal.)

Urban Dead’s been fun lately. Today me and a dozen other zombies managed to take out the barricades at a police station. Much feeding ensued. Check out all these chumps I infected:

Okay, time for bed.

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: I added that FEEDJIT live traffic map to the sidebar. It looks kinda cool, but I probably won’t keep it. (Google Analytics does the same thing anyway.) Just wanted to try it out for a little while.

When my parents came on Saturday they brought appliances; an air conditioner for my sister’s place upstairs and my birthday present: A portable, island-style dishwasher! It’s a Maytag. Very easy to use, too — just roll it near the sink, plug it in, and connect the hose socket to the faucet. Here’s a pic of where the cable and hose store away on the back of the unit:

So while she was here my mom instigated a cleaning frenzy the likes of which this apartment hadn’t seen in many a month. She and dad were only here for, like, five hours, so it wasn’t quite enough time to hit everything, but between myself, her, and Brett (before he left for work), we got the toilet scrubbed, the patio swept, wisteria trimmed (and lots of leaves and twigs bagged), lots of dishes done, and a lot of garbage taken out (esp. pizza boxes). Today, six loads of dishes later, I finally finished totally cleaning up the kitchen. Behold:

Also, while my dad was at the hardware store getting stuff to install Andi’s air conditioner he picked up some hooks for the pegboard next to my stove. Dunno why I never thought of that… Anyway, I think it looks really cool with all the kitchen equipment hanging up. Makes the utensils and so on a lot more accessible.

My mom also brought some super thick ribeyes from the Yolk’s back in Pasco. You just can’t get meat of this quality in Pullman. Anyway, I grilled them the night before last. Served ‘em with some mashed potatoes and pasta. Huge steaks. End-product:

I think that’s about it. Not a whole lot else going on… I bought a two-year subscription to Wired because some slick business major was selling them door to door and I’m weak. Still going to the gym regularly. I’m going again tonight (as soon as I finish this post, in fact)… this’ll be visit #4 since we got the membership last Wednesday. My intent is to go every other day (3.5 times a week) for the first month, 4x/wk. the second, and 5x/wk. the third. To keep myself accountable, I’ll be logging my visits here. (Just something simple at the end of posts, like “Worked out 9/9, 9/11.” I wonder if there’s a WP plugin I can use for that…)

Okay, I’m off.

I was just thinking how screwed up our month names are. It’s September now, right? But “septem” is Latin for seven and this is the ninth month. (Of course, before the Julian calendar reform of 46 BC, the year started in March and September really was the seventh month.) So we should be calling September November (since “novem” means nine). Following this system, we’d have to change October to December, November to Undecimber… actually, while we’re at it, we might as well redo the entire calendar, right? It doesn’t make any sense to only give the last four months number names. Here’s my improved system:

I’ll admit, some of those don’t really roll off the tongue. And “Sexber” will probably generate more crude jokes than our seventh planet has. But won’t you sleep better knowing we have a throroughly rational calendar month nomenclature? Someone start a petition.

Anyway. We made corndogs last night and the night before. They were better than the last ones we did. This time we used Ballpark Franks, a slightly different batter recipe (more corn meal and spices), canola oil for deep-frying (instead of vegetable oil), and Alton Brown’s double chopstick method (our last ‘dogs were stickless). The result:

Wednesday was a big day. Besides making corndogs, we got haircuts (apparently men’s cuts are discounted $3 on Wednesdays at Fantastic Sam’s), ate at Golden Teriyaki for the first time (it was okay), and got a family membership at SNAP Fitness. SNAP Fitness is a new 24-hour gym that just opened on Grand Ave. towards the end of August. It’s really well-equipped in terms of variety and quality of the machines, maybe even moreso than the $37 million Student Rec Center over at WSU. I went last night at 1 AM so I could avoid people (it’s surprisingly crowded at 9:30 PM). The family membership is a pretty good deal, BTW. No contracts, $49.95/mo. (compared to the single membership @ $34.95/mo.). Works out to, like, 83¢ per day for each of us.

I’d go on, but I’ve gotta clean the house up a little. My parents are coming to visit Andi and I tomorrow morning.

I think I’ll lead with food pics again:

Left to right: The pizza we had Saturday night — an extra-large spinach alfredo with bacon and a large thin-crust sausage from Papa John’s. Boy, were they generous with the bacon! Next, tonight’s dinner: A turkey sandwich. These sandwich rolls are pretty good. I would’ve gotten baguette, but the store was out of ‘em. And finally, tonight’s dessert: Peach yogurt with gingersnap granola. As part of their ongoing remodel, the local Safeway added a whole bunch of these self-serve granola/grains/beans canister things. They have like seven different kinds of granola. (So far Brett and I are both big fans of the gingersnap variety.)

Oh, and on Sunday we went out to eat at the Fireside Grille. Brett had a salami/prosciutto panini and a mojito, I had the special — beef tenderloin tips in a bernaise sauce. It was ridiculously good. I tried to recreate the dish the following night, but I cheaped out on the meat and couldn’t get my bernaise sauce to emulsify properly. At least the braising (in white wine and onions) yielded some terrifically savory juices; I strained and refrigerated them for later use in a soup or stew.

I’ve been playing a few web games lately (besides mafiascum)…

Left to right: Steve Jackson Games’ UltraCorps, Urban Dead, Ticket to Ride Online.

UltraCorps is pretty fun. It’s basically like OGame, but much less chaotic, a little easier to learn and use, and turn-based (as opposed to real-time). It also has a bunch of different races with unique qualities, incorporates ground-based units, and (in some games) changes the price of units based on demand. The screenshot above is from my solo game. The solo games are good for learning the rules (since your homeworld can’t be invaded) and a mandatory requirement for playing in the “real” games.

I’ve talked about Urban Dead on here before. I forget what made me want to revisit it, but I did so earlier today and was surprised to see that my old (i.e. inactive for ~18 months) account still works. (Maybe that’s one of the perks of donating?) So I had my level 15 zombie stand up and kill some guy named spamspam. +61 XP, woo. Looks like they added a bunch of new skills during my absence. Next skill to buy: Tangling Grasp.

And what’s left to say about Ticket to Ride Online? It works just like the board game. There’s a karma system that determines the games you’re allowed to participate in and penalizes you for leaving a game in progresss, but it doesn’t affect actual game play.

In addition to these no-major-commitment web games, I’ve been playing Luminous Arc on the DS. It’s a blatant ripoff of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Only with worse controls, a more predictable story (with lots of useless dialogue), and a lot less variety (in missions, classes, etc.). Just how shameless was Marvelous Interactive in stealing from FFTA? Well, just compare FFTA’s “Marche” to Luminous Arc’s “Theo”:

Really pathetic. That said, I’m still playing it. It’s a workable, if depressingly mediocre, diversion until FFTA: The War of the Lions comes out for the PSP (October 9th). (At which point FFTA:TWotL will become my stopgap until FFTA A2: The Sealed Grimoire comes out for the DS — which will probably be sometime in early 2008.)

BTW, saw this piece (micro-essay?) on Slashdot (I think; it was presented as copypasta wherever I found it). It’s pretty funny:

Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels.

Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the “loser,” and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3×5 card reading, “Please use this M&M for breeding purposes.”

This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this “grant money.” I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion.

There can be only one.