The art of cheapskating.

Today, the LA asked me to check the tyre pressures on her car. All were in spec, but while I was doing this, the couple across the street set out an air compressor, and not just any air compressor but the kind with built-in wheels because it weighs a heck of a lot. Then they put out a sign saying "Free", and I wandered across to ask if it still worked. Not only does it work, they had all the instructions including the parts listing.

So, over the next week or so, I shall be cleaning it up, ensuring that it does compress air suitably, that the reservoir is reasonably leak-free, and so on, and then I shall draw up a prioritised list of air tools I can use. A compressor of similar capacity and quality would likely run me a good $300 at current prices, so to have scored one for nothing makes me VERY happy.

And of course I shall endeavour to keep it operational for as long as possible, since I want to get plenty of use out of any air tools I buy; and when it eventually does cease to work, I know I shall have to buy a replacement. After all, by then I'll have all these air tools which will be useless without a compressor to supply the air!

Conventional

I go to conventions. However, after the joy of Big Bad Con last year, coupled with the problematic nature of DunDraCon's and KublaCon's game registration setups, and the costs of attending cons, I'm cutting back. This year, I will NOT, unlike previous years, be attending DunDraCon for the entire weekend; now that the entire seminar schedule is out, I can see that there will be most content of interest to me on Saturday, and so I shall attend only on Saturday. KublaCon is off the roster; partially because it's a slog across the bay for yet another con with a shuffler, and partially because I'd prefer to try and arrange for another con in May; Fear the Con has moved to a May convention. I'd like to go to it.

And if there is a Bigger Badder Con this year (I've not heard anything one way or the other), I shall CERTAINLY be attending it. I consider it my convention; I made friends, I had fun, and I hung out with people you may have heard of.

Left 4 Dead 2: A Brief Overview.

So a friend got me a copy of this fun zombie game recently. It's been out a while, so you've probably played it if you're interested, but if you're not familiar, it's the zombie apocalypse you can play with your friends. Three of your friends, anyway, and you'd best choose them carefully, because...

As requested, and no doubt anticipated...

Here is a photograph of me as a US citizen, wearing a suit.

My passport application and voter registration forms are in the mail.

That was a little unexpected.

The LA and I had agreed that, for my swearing in, I ought to have a new suit, since I've never had one before. So, today it was off to Men's Wearhouse, and it turns out they have a sale on. Buy one suit, get a second suit of equal or lesser value free. So now, I have two new suits on the way; one three-piece (for which the waistcoat needed to be bought separately, and which is having to be a rush job on the tailoring; the trousers needed about an inch taken in) and one two-piece. Both are single-breasted two-button, both side-vented, both have slightly wider lapels than is currently fashionable, and both will look rather good on me. We also bought some varying colours of shirt, some ties, and (due to the aforementioned waistcoat and the "buy one, get one free" deal on items of similar class), a rather nice mock turtleneck which will give me a softer look.

I'd still like to go Hong Kong bespoke at some point, but two good lightweight wool suits will keep me covered for years yet.

Allow me to gush for a moment.

I've only ever bought one computer game on release day. That was Half-Life 2; I was working at the Social Security office at the time, and on that cold November day I used my lunch break to go to a game store and buy a copy. Full price. It sat in my bag all afternoon, and when I got home I couldn't play it because the then-new Steam service used to authenticate it had fallen over under the astoundingly huge demand. That game was POPULAR, in a big way. The next day, the load was less, and I was able to play, and the sheer beauty of the game, even on a video card which fell between "minimum" and "recommended" specs (and which, unlike the rest of its line, was unable to cope with the most advanced bling-mapping used then) blew me away. Combined with the most believable NPCs I'd ever seen in a computer game, the effect was almost complete immersion. I was reacting as Gordon Freeman, and the fact that I physically resembled his canonical appearance (goatee, glasses, and according to the first Half-Life a ponytail) was icing on the cake. In time, that particular install of Windows went irretrievably south, and I still hadn't finished the game. It had, however, been a wonderful experience up until then.

Roughly seven years later, I wondered why I'd picked up a dislike of Steam's conditions in the years between my losing my ability to use it and then. I checked, but found nothing more objectionable than most EULAs, and many terms more generous than that. So, I logged in once more (having astoundingly remembered the password to a service I wasn't using for a good long while!) and found that I'd lost my progress. The current version of Steam is exceedingly friendly; I not only have access to my games from any computer capable of running them, I have my preferred control setup, my saved games, and so on, backed up transparently to "the cloud", which is to say a space on Steam's servers. I could, if I so desired, go to any computer running Steam, log in, and play any of the games I own starting from any saved point within them. This wasn't available in roughly 2005 when I stopped using Steam.

Thanks to the generosity of friends, I was given gift copies (another new feature since I stopped using Steam) of Portal, an excellent puzzle game, and Half-Life 2 Episode 1, the abbreviated follow-up to Half-Life 2. I actually finished Half-Life 2 (for the first time!) prior to starting Episode 1; I wanted to follow the story. Around October, Portal 2 became available at half-price for a short while, and the LA and I (having both gotten Portal for free, by various legitimate means) decided to purchase a copy each. That put me back in the ranks of "people who own a game released in the current calendar year", a situation I last experienced in 2004.

And, recently, as part of a sale, Half-Life 2 Episode 2 went half-price. This is the second short sequel to Half-Life 2, and is distinctly improved over Episode 1 insofar as the difficulty curve is better judged, and the environments are less recycled-feeling. It's also introduced a new enemy type, and this enemy type does horrible things to the player's view of the screen. When its characteristic "warning" hits, the screen area narrows down into tunnel vision, colours are somewhat distorted, and there's a distinct faint noise. Somebody at the development studio has low blood pressure; the effects of the Advisor's psychic warning are almost exactly those of a blood pressure crash. I'm very impressed by the realism shown here, and at the point in the game I've reached I can't help but feel that Gordon Freeman must be nursing a very severe headache; it's hit him quite a lot.

In other recent news, I've been given a date for my oath ceremony; on December 14th, four years and one day after I landed in Los Angeles, I shall become a US citizen. I really did hit the fast track. Also, yesterday saw a follow-up appointment with my doctor regarding the x-rays of my lower limbs he recently ordered; it turns out, despite my having had painful ankles since I was about 10, they're fine; despite my knees being painful since my late teens, they're fine; it's my hips, which only really started hurting in my mid-20s, which are arthritic. I wasn't really surprised by the diagnosis; although the blood factors are only elevated normal, the extent and persistence of the pain indicated pretty clearly that there was damage, and it's something of a relief to have that confirmed. There are many good options for managing arthritis, and we're starting with the ones that have fewest long-term ill effects on the rest of my body, since I'm only in my early 30s. There's no cure for arthritis, and little prospect of such a thing ever being discovered, so I shall be living with it for a long time. I just hope the next set of hip x-rays is a long while away; I shall be learning from last time next time I need them done, and taking with me a designated driver and some powerful painkillers. It turns out that arthritic hips really don't like being placed in the positions needed for a good hip x-ray; for a couple of days afterwards, I was barely able to walk, and that only with the assistance of a cane and synthetic opiates.

It's been quite busy of late, all in all. I'm hoping for a slowdown, but doubting its likelihood.

The great Evil that threatens our World

Being an examination of the nature of this Evil, what must be done to Combat it, your part in said struggle, &c.

Many people have a ready answer to which one thing they'd like to un-invent. It can range from Pokemon (not that I have any use for the little blighters, but I don't begrudge anyone the fun they derive from catching 'em all) through automated phone systems designed to keep you from reaching a human (tempting...) all the way up to nuclear weapons. My prime candidate, though, is rather close to home, and almost all of you will have encountered it: the Snooze button.

Why is the Snooze button evil? Simple. It encourages sloth, it annoys anyone who can hear your alarm clock, and it's a device that trains you to do exactly the wrong thing. Alarm clocks are supposed to wake you up; they generally don't. They instead train you to smack the Snooze button several times, until you blearily raise your head, see the time, and realise with a scream that you should have been at work some unconscionable time ago. Why is this? Because you can't count when you're asleep. You don't realise that you've smacked that damned button ten times, because you never really wake up. Then, when you realise you're doing this, you decide "I smack the snooze button n times, so I should set my alarm n times the snooze timer earlier to make sure I get up at the right time". What happens next? You smack the button even more times, and you still get to work late. You're just more grumpy because your sleep wasn't as good, thanks to the regular rises to smack the damn button.

So how do we fix this? Step one: STOP HITTING THE BUTTON. That's trite, of course; how do we stop it? Well, first: go to bed earlier. You need enough sleep, and setting the alarm earlier doesn't help; try to work into a pattern so your natural sleeping habits wake you up around the right time. Second: set the alarm later. I'm not expecting this right away, but your objective is to have the alarm set to go off at your "get up or get fired" time, and wake up before it every morning. You do not want to know what your alarm clock sounds like. Try to break the snooze button reflex. Instead, treat the alarm clock as the last resort it's meant to be. If you hear it, if it goes off, you're doing it wrong.

Believe me, those who live close enough to hear your alarm clock will be grateful.