Shannon A.

Bike Adventure!

Sun, 27 May 2012 04:33:47 GMT

Went out for lunch today, as I often do when I'm free on Saturday. It was so nice out (surprisingly so, given predictions of cool and wind) that afterward I decided to keep on biking. Fortunately, I keep sunscreen in my backpack for such emergencies.

I headed straight north, up the Ohlone Greenway. I now know the best way to get around the construction in Albany. Sadly, I discovered that the trail in El Cerrito is under heavy construction too. And, it's not as easy to go around that. I ended up on either on busy streets or hilly streets, which was no good.

When I reached Richmond, I turned west onto the Richmond Greenway, and took that to its end. There's still a discontinuity in downtown Richmond, but I did see a map today that marked that area as "incomplete". So, hopefully, some day ...

At the end of the Richmond Greenway there's this intersection that always feel full of possibilities. To the east you have the Richmond Greenway. To the north you have continuous bike path up through the Wildcat Canyon intersection and beyond that to the landfill. To the west you have Point Richmond and Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline. To the south you have Richmond Inner Harbor.

It was another spur of the moment decision to head out to Point Richmond. I explored the (teeny) town for a bit and even found the Masquers Theatre that Chris & Marie have taken us to a couple of times. I also saw the recently reopened Richmond Plunge, a gigantic indoor pool (though sadly only the outside & the entrance). Then I biked through the tunnel to the Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline, which was my goal.

I love the Shoreline. It reminds me of Ed Levine park, near Milpitas, where I spent many summer days when I was young. There's lake and grass and brownish hills rising all around. But, bonus, unlike Ed Levine you have the Bay to the other side. I read out there for a while (Locke & Key, Volume 2) and biked around the Park. As in Point Richmond proper, I explored a couple of places I hadn't before. First, I went out to the old Ferry Launch, which is mainly falling down pier & railroad track, but still a neat view into the past. Then, past the yacht club, I biked out on a spit that cuts further into the Bay. It's got lots of fancy houses on stilts out over the Bay to either side. Very pretty.

Nice views of San Francisco all around, and a pretty unique view of just one tower of the Golden Gate, peaking out past Angel Island.

I'm pretty sure there's new Bay Trail just beyond the spit, but if so I didn't spot it. I was getting pretty tired, so I wasn't much for exploring any more by that point, in any case. So I biked back up over the hill that protects the area, then took surface roads to Richmond Harbor and from there through the salt marshes, past Point Isabel, and up more of the Bay Trail before cutting inland near Target and rejoining the Greenway past Gilman. It was a pretty standard ride home from there.

Total time out was about 3 and a half hours. Total mileage was 26. I was quite tuckered out from around the salt marshes, so it was a long ride for me.

Grimoire Games & Amazon

Sat, 26 May 2012 07:17:21 GMT

Finished up a complete draft of my rpg history article on Grimoire Games (and on Dave Hargrave and early RP gaming in the SF Bay Area). It's one that I'm very pleased with, because I think it does a really nice job of shedding a light on what the early RPG hobby looked like, at least on this coast. As I wrote in my intro to the history, it's the first one that I really wished had gone in the book.

This one was slightly exhausting to write because the written record of the company was so scant. I only managed to turn up three Dave Hargrave "interviews"; fortunately two of them were extensive bios in Different Worlds. The third was part of a semi-hit-piece in New West magazine which Greg S. was kind enough to put me onto. I'm aware of one more notable article by Hargrave, in super small-press Abyss #17, from Ragnarok Press. I'd still like to somehow get a copy of that article, but for now I'm content.

Despite the scant primary sources from Hargrave, I was able to get some pretty extensive help from Marc S. (on Arduin and the second edition) and Donald R. (on the early bay area gaming culture), so that was part of what made the article come out pretty good. Greg S., Steve P., and others helped too.! But it was still a lot more work than just reading a pile of interviews and design notes.

The article will show up in two parts in my Designers & Dragons column on 6/4 and 7/9. If you subscribe to the RSS, you should see new articles as they appear.

Amazon is the other company on my mind this evening, for they sadly disappointed me. We'd ordered The Amazing Race Season 4 from them, as they've started pressing on-demand DVDs, and we're happy to finally get to see the old seasons of a reality show we like.

Unfortunately, when we sat down to watch this newest DVD this evening, as a start-of-the-holiday-weekend treat (and also a treat for Kimberly who is sick), we discovered that our 3-DVD set had shipped in a 1-DVD box (indeed, with 1 DVD!). Kimberly called up Amazon and after talking to a somewhat clueless but very helpful service rep, got them to send us a new (hopefully complete) set of the DVD which is supposed to arrive on Tuesday. I have to give that credit as very good customer support.

Well, we can at least watch this first DVD, we decided. So we turned it on ... and found the DVD almost unwatchable, getting all pixelated and skipping several seconds at a time ... constantly.

So that's strike two for Amazon's DVD on Demands program. Mind you, we've got the two previous seasons by this method without problem (though the DVDs occasionally got a little pixelated, showing off perhaps a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time setup). But, if this was my first experience, it would probably be my last as well.

New Bike Computer!

Fri, 25 May 2012 04:04:53 GMT

Got a new bike computer in the mail today. The old one had been failing for a while, and I finally gave up on resetting it again and again a few weeks ago.

The new one is a Sigma BC 1009. Whereas before I got the cheapest bike computer I could find, this time I went with a manufacturer which had many models and got the second one up (as I've seen how much I used the old one).

Setup took about an hour between adjusting the default settings on the device and actually fiddling with the hardware. The display is very crisp, and the mileage seems a bit more accurate than the old one (which I thought might have been as much as 10% low, but I was never sure whether to trust it or Google's mileage). It has a few features that I like better than the old one (like the fact that average and max mph are recorded per trip, not per forever). And I was also able to enter the mileage from my old computer (something like 4427 miles, including all the recent resets). Oh, and where the old computer would have turned over after 9,999 miles, this one is good to 99,999.

To test it out, I took a ride out to Solano and back. And visited Pegasus Books there, of course. A bit too cold to be a really nice ride, but still a good excursion (totalling 5.47 miles, according to my computer, which is slightly longer than Google says, but I wouldn't be surprised if various inefficiencies resulted in that).

Apparently, I can also buy a "dock" to connect the bike computer up to my desktop computer and save data there. I may do that at some point in the future.

Bike!

Wed, 23 May 2012 03:29:22 GMT

Staying home tomorrow evening so that my sister can drop off her cat, so I went for a bit of a bike ride today. Took College to 51st, up over the hill, and back down Grand. From there swung around the east and south of Lake Merritt. Then, over to Smart & Final in Oakland and back home via some of the quieter streets (mostly).

I forget that the over-the-hill route isn't as bad from the north as it is from the south. There are only three notable uphills, and all pretty moderate: up College to Broadway, up 51st, and up Grand past Piedmont. The middle of those, going up 51st from Broadway to Piedmont, is the only one that gives me trouble at all any more (and today I had no doubt I could make it).

While on Grand, I stopped by a used book store that I don't think I've visited before. Walden Pond Books. Fairly big. A bit labyrinthine due to close shelves. Overall nice, though I didn't buy anything.

As always, the trip around Lake Merritt was pleasant. I was pretty amazed at how many people were there enjoying the park ~7pm on a weekday.

On the way back home, I took many routes that I take with some frequency (e.g., a bit of Broadway and a bit of Telegraph), and I was surprised how different they look in the early evening sunlight. Riding that last bit of Telegraph, I was particularly struck by how attractive the Campanile looks, perfectly framed by the street.

Except that its lower half is blocked by Barrows Hall.

Stupid Barrows Hall.

12.5 miles. 100 minutes or so, but with stops at a book store and Smart & Final.

Out and About

Mon, 21 May 2012 03:23:11 GMT

After a somewhat stressful Saturday (plumbing problems; homeless people on bikes threatening me; missing character sheets for Kingmaker), Kimberly and I had a very pleasant Saturday afternoon.

We headed out on bikes northwest, with our first stop being Target. There I picked up a new pair of jeans, to replace my most comfortable biking jeans ... which had been worn away by my bike and turned totally thread bare.

From there we went to the dog park at Point Isabel.

Out at the dog park we saw dogs (of course), but when we moved to The Coldest Hill in the World (overlooking the Bay) ... we saw pocket gophers!! There were two of them, apparently gathering grass and dragging it back into their lair. We thought that they were probably gathering nesting material for little rodent babies. Totally cute!

We had dinner at Rubios in El Cerrito Plaza, then took the Ohlone Greenway home. Sadly, it's still totally messed up throughout almost all of Albany. Some of that Greenway has been closed for like 9 months now!

As we entered Berkeley, the Partial Solar Eclipse overtook us.

Our first sign was all the people standing out on the street corners, looking skyward. Kimberly said that it looked like all those movies where the aliens have just landed, and I agreed.

Then the sky above us started to turn from light blue to dark blue to wine purple, like ink was being spilled out of the west. The light took on a strange and diffuse color. Shadows started to blur and we increasingly saw crescent shapes amidst the trees.

The last 20 minutes or so were a totally cool end to our ride, with the sky just starting to lighten again as we got home.

Final '11-'12 TV Report Card

Sun, 20 May 2012 19:55:18 GMT

We've still got a few dozen shows taped on our DVR from the recent TV season, but I think we've made our final assessments on everything.

We just erased Touch from our DVR after getting about halfway through the fifth episode (or so). Our main problem with it was that the scripting was cliched and talked down to us. I swear they had a script editor whose entire job was to enter lines of dialogue to explain things that particularly stupid viewers might not get. So Kimberly laughed at a line from this recent episode that was something like: "I haven't seen my mom in six years. She's schizophrenic." Like being schizophrenic was the reason this social worker hadn't seen her mom (whereas it was actually offered just to tell dumb viewers that she was, indeed, crazy). The worst was the father constantly repeating the numbers his son gave him, so that dumb viewers could make the connections. In this last episode we saw, about 975, we saw a "Flight 975" and Kimberly said, "the father's going to be mumbling 'Flight 975' sometime in this episode." Five minutes later, he was, and we turned the show off and erased all the other episodes.

We also recently deleted all of our store of Alcatraz. We'd actually stopped watching it months ago, as the serial killer of the week aspect just wasn't that interesting, especially with its oft poorly thought-out logic. My assessment was that they might be doing an of-the-week formula for a season, then planning to open up the show and make it more interesting in season 2 (as Millennium did). I might have been willing to watch the rest of season 1 with the promise of something more, but as soon as the show got cancelled, I was no longer interested.

We still have two shows on our DVR, which we plan to finish watching. Awake is generally interesting and pretty darn good and it assumes that its viewers are pretty bright. Despite the fact that it was cancelled, we're happy to see where the show ends up. (It's only still on our DVR because we didn't start watching it until a few weeks ago, due to how much was on the TV in the Spring.) We also have half-a-season worth of Grimm on our Tivo, but we generally find it good fun when we watch it, despite it being super light.

Beyond that, I think there were only two dramas that we were watching that survived the season for us. We thought that Smash was great, start to end (except maybe when it went too soap opera from time to time). We'll eagerly watch it next season, though I have some concerns they'll dumb it down after season 1's ratings (though it was actually a hit on NBC who still hasn't recovered from their Leno stupidity). We thought that Once Upon a Time was mediocre, start to end, but I became increasingly engaged by the story as time went on. Still not a particularly good show, but its subversive faerie tales often helped hold up the rest of the show. Biggest problem with Once Upon a Time: any scene involving the mayor.

Here's what I wrote about these and other shows in February. The TV tag has a few more discussions way back in September.

Microfilm!

Wed, 16 May 2012 06:24:04 GMT

Used a microfilm machine this evening at the library! I should have taken a picture of the antiquated hardware! It took three (entirely helpful and nice) librarians to get the system working. I think I was the most bemused when I asked where I'd be printing to and the librarian pointed to the printer under the table that was a part of the whole microfilm machinery.

"I think printing somewhere else is a newer network thing," she said, and of course she was right.

The object of the exercise was a sensationalistic and semi-hysterical article that a magazine called New West published in 1980. One hour and eighty cents later, I had it. It offered some nice details on RPG life in the alien world of 1980, and I got some specific quotes and data for the article I'm working on about Grimoire Games.

I am now drunk with microfilm power and planning to see what other mass-market articles I might find when I do a big revision of Designers & Dragons, down the road.

To start with, I've learned that my friend Dana Lombardy did a series of articles in Model Retailer in the late '70s about the emergence of the hobby. That'd be a fine thing to read!

Dreams & Dragons

Tue, 15 May 2012 18:09:34 GMT

Had horrifyingly mundane dreams last night. I was reading GMail, and noticing that some relevant email messages were ending up in my "Unread" area instead of "Important" and thought, "I should mark those as important to retrain this AI."

This morning I keep looking at GMail, feeling like there are email messages I should retrain.

My Top 10 Censored RPG Books column for Designers & Dragons continues to do well. Not only has it been read 4,300+ times, but it's also the first article from my post-publication Designers & Dragons column which has done better than any of the articles from my pre-publication A Brief History of Game column.

(RPGnet has great search engine presence due to its longevity and the frequency of its updates, so any old articles always continue to get great hits over time. That an article 20 or so days old caught up with an article about a year and a half old is thus of some note.)

I wasn't trying to be purposefully provocative or anything when I wrote the censored article; it was just something that caught my attention immediately when I conceived of it, and so I wrote it. But now I'm having performance anxiety trying to figure out what else might be a great topic like that one.

Etsy, Etc.

Sat, 12 May 2012 06:17:22 GMT

On Wednesday at Endgame, Amy C. was handing about postcards about a showing of local Etsy artists at the STUDIO gallery. I knew Kimberly would like it, so I passed on the postcard to her, and we ended up going out there tonight.

The gallery was small, but very pleasant, and they had a huge amount of material from Etsy artists. There was quite a bit that we both found attractive.

Many, perhaps a majority, of the showcased items were "things you hang on walls". Amy had a few paintings variously of squids, tentacles, and cancerous growths. It was cool to see them in a gallery setting. I also quite liked some paintings done of bus routes and local streets, of all things. They were really tight shots, just showing a couple of blocks, and I thought they were pretty cool (not part of the Etsy show, apparently). The thing that Kimberly and I both liked best though were some weird mixed media pieces that were broken glass on some type of colorful background, with words forming a shape in the middle (not Etsy, and I can't find samples of them on the site, which is a pity, as it's hard to describe their attractiveness). We considered buying one, but couldn't find any whose shape and form we found universally attractive (Kimberly later said she thought they were intended as gifts, so the words were supposed to describe the giftee rather than the shape, which might have been our problem). Still, I found some dragonflies and a yellow bird pretty cool.

There was also lots of cool jewelry, which is what Kimberly was looking for the most as she's gotten several necklaces from Etsy. I found many of them quite beautiful, though I'm not much of a jewelry wearer. Still, it was nice to look at them and see the various craft. It was like an episode of Project Accessory right in front of us.

Overall, quite a nice gallery and a fun show to spend 30 or 45 minutes wandering through.

The wander to the Gallery was a bit less nice. We got off at Powell BART and walked about 1.5 miles to the west side of Nob Hill, where the gallery is located (and thankfully not really on the hill, though it was slightly uphill there). On the way there were two or three blocks were suddenly half the businesses were closed and every three feet there was a homeless person slumped against a wall.

So we decided to avoid that bad area by instead returning to Civic Center BART. The 1-4 blocks north of the Civic Center turned out to be even worse, full of drunkies and druggies lurching about. Ugh.

Anyway, we made it there and back safely, but I'm often amazed how the entire tenor of San Francisco can change in a block.

Afterward, back in Berkeley, there was eating out (Chaat Cafe) and grocery shopping (Trader Joe's), but we're now nearly passed out back at home. Turns out 3+ miles of walking (+ biking before & after), half of it slightly uphill, plus a long, slow passage through a gallery in the middle, is more than either of us are used to. So, tired.

No gaming tomorrow. So, relaxation.

Designers & Dragons

Sun, 06 May 2012 07:17:46 GMT

Designers & Dragons, my RPG history book, has been taken up my brain a bit this weekend.

This afternoon, I finished the reread of the (published) book that I started in February on the plane to Hawaii. The goal was to redline many obvious errors, so that they could be fixed in a reprint. The book is now two months out of print, and has gotten pretty scarce on the internet, but there isn't immediate news of a reprint. So, that's work that might be of less immediate use (though I have no doubt it'll be helpful in the long run).

I quite enjoyed rereading the book, and I figure if it was engaging to me, it surely is to other folks as well.

Meanwhile, over at RPGnet, I published my newest Designers & Dragons articles on Thursday. It's The Top Ten Censored RPG Books. I knew that was a good topic that'd get lots of attention, but it's actually done even better than I expected, probably thanks to mentions on icV2 and I'd guess some other places. It's already picked up 2000+ reads and become my fifth most popular article in the new column (out of 15 total). I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up #1 or #2.

The good attention for the article has brought some folks back into the fold who had enjoyed my older history articles on RPGnet ... and they're sadly finding that the book is out-of-print. Alas.

Meanwhile I've started serious work on my next company history, #63, which covers Grimoire Games. I'm using the front-end of it to talk about the early RPG community of the San Francisco Bay Area, mirroring the attention I gave Detroit in the Palladium article. Good stuff. Though any info on Grimoire Games itself is pretty scant, I think I've got enough on Dave Hargrave, the author of all of Grimoire's stuff, to make a good article.

More work on that tomorrow, I'm sure.

Synopsis: A Song of Ice & Fire / Book 2

Thu, 03 May 2012 07:46:38 GMT

I finished my reread of A Clash of Kings today.

I was pretty shocked by how poorly it compared to A Game of Thrones. It's still a great book, mind you, thanks mainly to the depth of its characters and the scope of its plot ... but the writing isn't nearly as good. A Game of Thrones was extremely tight writing, mostly in neat little 10 page chapters. Every chapter clearly had a point, and there's wasn't a wasted page.

Conversely, A Clash of Kings meanders a lot. Chapters flop all over, extending to 20 or even 30 pages with some regularity. Often it feels like not a lot goes on in the chapters and you don't have the same sense of something changing every 10 pages as you did in A Game of Thrones. In short, it read like a book that wasn't rewritten and polished ten ways to Tuesday, as I expect A Game of Thrones was.

After the first 200 pages or so, though, in which very little happens, it still kept me enthralled.

So with that said, I'm going to write-up my cheat sheet for this book, so that I can go back and look over it when book 6 is released, some 5-10 years from now. There will be spoilers, of course, so stop now if you haven't read book 2 or seen season 2.

A Clash of Kings

This book might feel slower because there's less going on.

In the south we have Stannis and Renly both rising up as kings, but Stannis somewhat unexpectedly goes after Renly, and kills him through dark magics. He then attacks King's Landing but is defeated by Tyrion (who destroys Stannis' fleets by filling the bay with fire) and Littlefinger (who arranges a marriage between Jofrey and Margaery Tyrell, resulting in Tywin's forces and the Tyrells [and the rest of the survivors from Renly] coming to save King's Landing).

In the north the Greyjoys start raiding, but then Theon decides to take Winterfell. He does, but in turn is defeated by the Bastard of Bolton, who sacks the castle and leaves.

In the west, Robb spends most of the book off camera, taking the fight to the Lannisters, rather successfully. One presumes he won't be very happy about what's happened north of the Neck in his absence.

Joffrey now seems to have the best claim on kingship, but we presume Stannis has survived, and Robb would be a contender if not for his concerns up north. Meanwhile, Balon Grayjoy might have declared himself a king by now.

The Starks

Ned. Still ead.

Benjen. Still missing beyond the wall.

Cat. Back at Riverrun, now having Brienne as her personal guard.

Robb. Returning from his successes in the West.

Jon. After an unsuccessful sortie into the north where all of his fellows have died, has been forced to join the Wildlings, where he's meant to spy upon them. The wildlings, meanwhile, are preparing to assault the wall.

Bran. Having fled the fallen Wintefell, is now heading northward with Meera and Jojen Reed and Hodor. Everyone thinks he's dead because of Theon's rather desperate flailing.

Rickon. Taken away by Osha the WIldling.

Sansa. Held by the Lannisters. Is no longer betrothed to Joffrey, but has been told that she might not be any better off now as he can just take her as a concubine. Her knight/fool plans to try and get her out of King's Landing on the night of Joffrey's new engagement party.

Arya. Has fled from Harrenhal with Gendry (Robert's bastard, a smith) and Hot Pie.

(It felt like both the girls spent most of the book in stasis; in fact that's true of a lot of people, really making A Clash of King a "middle" novel.)

The Lannisters

Cersei. At King's Landing, sometimes ruling for Joffrey.

Jaime. Still captured at Riverrun.

Joffrey. Still sitting the throne, doing stupid things and putting the whole kingdom in uproar.

Tyrion. Nearly killed in the battle at King's Landing, now abed.

Tywin. Sitting at King's Landing as the Hand for his grandson.

Others

Dany. Is returning with her people to the more civilized lands across the Narrow Sea, upon boats sent her by Ilyrio.

Littlefingers. The hero of the day, having returned to King's Landing just in time with the Tyrells.

Stannis. We haven't seen him since before his armies defeat. Meanwhile we haven't seen his onion knight, Davos, since Davos' ship went up in fire (presumable killing Davos' sons as well).

Theon. Captured by the Bastard of Bolton.

Lucky Duck

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:12:18 GMT

Kimberly and I had a pleasant day, with a picnic lunch out at The Mouse Park, following by the newest Berkeley Playhouse production, Lucky Duck. It's The Ugly Duckling at its core, but lots added on to talk not just about being what you are inside but also about different sorts of people getting along.

Sad to say, it wasn't as good as the other productions we've seen there. The main problem was that the score just wasn't that great. In fact, Kimberly & I were talking about it while we were at the theatre, and we assumed that the play was an amateur effort, put together locally. I was somewhat surprised to learn (when I got home) that it had originally been put on in New York. But, when I heard that it'd premiered as Everything's Ducky, had been recut again and again and finally cut down to the more kid friendly Lucky Duck, it made sense.

One of the problems was probably that kid-friendly bit. There was a lot of over-the-top squawking and dancing (with lots of wing waggling and such) that probably was more fun for the under 8 set. (All of the Berkeley Playhouse musicals are very kid-friendly, but I think this one aimed at a much lower age group as its default audience.)

The other problem was that many of the songs didn't have a lot of soul. They were too on the nose, blatantly saying what they wanted to say without being too clever about that. Contrariwise, some of the spoken lines were laugh-out-loud funny.

With that said, we still had fun, particularly in the second half when things really picked up. (The first half dragged on, and much of the musical felt like an editor going at the libretto could have improved it greatly.) There were lots of really enthusiastic actors, which is always a treat at the Playhouse. The actor playing The Wolf was extremely good. (He also was The Cat in the Hat in Seussical last year, which he similarly dominated the stage.) Kimberly says his name is William Hodgson. The "duckling" also had an amazing voice.

So, as I said, not the best musical there, but still definitely fun. And for folks with kids, I think it'd be even better.

Adventures in Berkeley

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:49:04 GMT

Groceries. Tried out another new grocery store last week, this time the Safeway out on Solano. It was a loser. Their selection was a little snotty and their store design was horrendous, so that for example you can't get through the front of the store if there's anyone in line to check out. The biggest minus, though, was that there are hills both ways between us and the Safeway on Solano. Fairly notable hills if you're biking. I suspect we shan't be repeating that again.

Shakespeare's. Stopped by Shakespeare's Books on Sunday, which is something that I haven't done much in recent years. I was very surprised to find a new energy there. New staff, books priced as if they were competing with the internet, discussions of what was selling and how to make it sell better. It was almost a whole new store. Apparently the owner has brought in a new manager to run the store for him. Which is a good thing, because it had become increasingly moribond over the years.

Trees. Our new trees have leaves again! Buds started appearing a few weeks ago, and this last week they bloomed(?) into leaves. So, I guess we kept them alive through a first winter. Now we just have to keep watering them for another year+ more, and then they'll hopefully be robust enough to get by on their own.

Bike Computer. Figured out the other day why my bike computer has become so unreliable. You see, I read the manual and was reminded that the bike computer is supposed to reboot itself (erasing all its data) if you press both of its buttons simultaneously. As of a few months ago, it started doing that when you just press one button. Whoops.

Sunny Saturday

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 07:57:50 GMT

A slightly busy Saturday.

Today was the annual board game auction at Endgame, so I headed out there in the morning. As usual, Aaron L. was back to MC, so I got to chat with him for a bit (which is one of the reasons that I've been attending the auction in recent years).

Afterward, I sat with Eric V. and Jon S., kibitzed, and watched the first hour and a half or so of the auction. I bid on three or four things, but the only thing I was really enthusiastic about was Wolfgang Kramer's El Capitan. Sadly, I dropped out at $15 or so and it went for $17 or $18.

That was one of the higher-priced euros. Generally, the auction seemed to be a buyer's market today. I expect I'll have less credit than I have in other years, but since the primary goal was to clean as much as I could out of the house, it's all good. (That goal is also why I didn't bid very aggressively on the stuff I bid on.)

While at Endgame, I was happy to receive compliments on Designers & Dragons.

Aaron said he was impressed by the neutrality of the Wizard's Attic mini-history, as Wizard's Attic was a company run by my great friend Eric R. (now sadly gone across the sea). I told him that I'd really striven for it in the book, and that though some earlier drafts of articles like FGU and Palladium came out less than neutral, fans and employees helped me out with that as they read drafts. I've actually seen quite a few compliments about the book's neutrality.

Jon also offered kind words about the book, which he'd quite enjoyed, I believe for its nostalgic value.

I should note how nice the bike riding was today. Nicest day of the year, up in the high 70s or so. It actually would have been a little hot if not for the breezes I worked up by riding. But totally beautiful.

(Aaron said he'd brought the weather from Boston, which was hitting 90 degrees before he left. Ugh.)

I had lunch out, picked up some healthier cat food for the cats (since I hope we can feed them healthier now that super picky eater Cobweb is, alas, no longer with us) then enjoyed the rest of the evening at home.

This evening, we received delivery of a custom built paperback bookcase from Fernand P., a local craftsman who sells bookcases at the Ashby Flea Market. That got installed in the hallway upstairs (where I'd taken away a bookcase for the games closet when I rearranged it a few weeks ago). It seems to fit my paperbacks well and now holds May through Zelazny.

Bolting the bookcase to the wall got me into the home improvement mood, so I also took on a long-delayed task: putting in a second curtain rod for our bedroom. The first was a real pain in the butt, between setting six anchors, then screwing the six screws into those anchors. Finicky, careful work that also took a lot of elbow grease (as power tools weren't useful for most of it). The second was much the same, but an hour later I had new curtains up. Hopefully these will keep Lucy from playing with the blinds in the morning and waking us up (and protect the bedroom a bit more from light, especially as we head into summer).

Tomorrow, I mostly have R&R planned. I've got some tax refund money to spend, since it didn't go to the auction, so I'll be browsing for books, CDs, and comics that I've been wanting, but haven't gotten. Fun, fun.

Pretty Inefficient, Even for the Post Office

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:25:54 GMT

RICHMOND, CA 94804 - April 15, 2012, 9:18 pm
Processed through USPS Sort Facility

CASTRO VALLEY, CA 94546 - April 16, 2012, 6:32 am
Arrival at Post Office

CASTRO VALLEY, CA 94546 - April 16, 2012, 8:08 am
Sorting Complete

CASTRO VALLEY, CA 94546 - April 16, 2012, 8:18 am
Out for Delivery

OAKLAND, CA 94615 - April 16, 2012, 8:19 pm
Processed through USPS Sort Facility

OAKLAND, CA 94615 - April 16, 2012
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Cobweb Appelcline: 1995-2012

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:21:13 GMT

Cobweb is gone. I am still trying very hard to remember that it was a mercy, that she was barely able to move around in the last few days, but it's very hard. So, instead I'll remember her life and the joy and happiness that she brought into my life for 13 years.

She was the cat that welcomed me into the family. When I was still very early in my relationship with Kimberly, we were at her house one day, standing by her ancient Mac, and Cobweb came up to me. Kimberly had previously said that she was a cat who didn't like being picked up by strangers, but we'd seen each other a few times by then. So I very carefully leaned down, and very, very carefully -- like I was picking up antique china -- lifted her into the air. And she looked at me and looked at her mommy, and didn't struggle at all. And so we became friends.

Still, she was Kimberly's cat, first and always. Though Cobweb appreciated me, Kimberly was always her first choice, especially to lay on when we were watching TV.

She was the cat who loved to read with me. I usually read for an hour or more before bedtime, to try and lull my mind toward sleep, and for years I did that while sitting on our bed. For a long time, Cobweb would listen for me settling into the bed, and then she'd hurry into the bedroom, leap up on the bed, and lie down against me, purring. Our routines changed when we last rearranged the house, but when it became obvious that Cobweb was doing worse several weeks ago, I moved my nighttime reading to the bedroom again. Though I had to carry her to the bed, as her legs had gotten weak, until this last couple of weeks, she was still loving my company and rushing over to flop down against me, like she used to.

She was the cat who moused. Not real mice, but her toy mouse. She'd pick it up in her mouth, usually a few minutes after we went to bed, and she'd start going MROW! MROW! MROW! We'd shout, "Good cat!" and then we'd hear the mouse thump to the ground. I never understood what messages we might be passing, but they always seemed to content her, whatever they were.

She was the cat who defended our house. In North Berkeley she constantly threw herself at the siding glass door, trying to kill a cat outside that we dubbed Nemesis. Nemesis would usually lounge about and look unconcerned at the cat violently trying to assault him from just a few feet away. Here in our house, we sometimes have cats visit our garage and look into our living room from the window in that direction. To defend our house here, Cobweb would leap up on the cat tree right next to that window, and throw herself at that window. She'd sometimes wake us in the middle of the night doing so ("THUMP!", "THUMP!", "THUMP!", again and again), and I was afraid she was going to knock the window out of frame. I finally taped up two pieces of paper on the window to block Cobweb's view. On them I wrote "Bad" and "Cat". They stayed up for a month or two and after I finally took them down, the window attacks mostly ended.

She was the cat who loved her sisters. For years and years she could often be found curled up with her sibling, Munchkin. She was always the most felinely social of our cats, the one who initiated bathing with Munchkin and Lucy alike. And she'd keep going and going and going until the other cat got sick of it, at which point the bathing usually turned to (light) fighting.

She was the cat who loved to climb. I'd all but forgotten about that in her dotage, but when we looked at pictures of Cobweb these last few days, I was reminded that in her younger years she'd happily jump up on shelves when we made routes for her to traverse.

She was the cat who loved boxes and bags and bookshelves and anywhere else that she could squeeze her self into and lay down. She drove me crazy for ages dumping out my paper recycling so that she could lie in that bag, eventually causing me to get plastic bins for us to use instead. As recently as last week she was still dumping books off our bookshelves to lie in between them. A couple of years ago I broke down, cleared a place on the bookshelves for her to lie, and put a box there with one of my old shirts. It took her months to ever have interest in that -- not until we rearranged where the bookshelves were -- but suddenly it became a regular lying place. It was where she was lying this morning, before we took her to the vet (though the box had been replaced by a towel).

She was the cat who rested her head. She loved to find pillows to put her head on while she was lying down. Sometimes it was the edge of a box (we even covered the edges of a box with towels in order to help her!) Sometimes it was a fold of blanket. Sometimes it was a sister. Sometimes it was my arm, which made it harder to turn the pages of a book.

She was the cat who dreamed. She'd be fast asleep -- usually in a box, but sometimes on a chair or Kimberly's old papasan -- and suddenly she'd jump up, going MROW! and running to whomever was in the room with her. She then needed reassurances before she calmed down. We always figured that she was having bad dreams ("And I looked around the house ... and no one one was there ... and I couldn't find my mommy or my daddy ... and then I looked at my food dish, and there were predators there because I hadn't buried it ...") and that she needed her people to tell her it was just a dream.

She was, indeed, the cat who buried. Food, refuse, whatever. She'd scratch and scratch and scratch, somehow sure that she could THIS time get through the floor and bury whatever the dangerously smelly object was. "Stop it!" we'd shout at her many a times over the years. But she always alerted us to the fact that there was something that we should clean.

She was the cat who was strong and defiant. She'd leap five feet when we gave her flea treatments. The first time we tried to give her subcutaneous fluids, she leapt right out of Kimberly's hands, leaving behind a huge hank of hair. She was tough to pill too. But whenever we were done with whatever treatment we were trying, she'd just look up at us with her beatific eyes, and wait for the treat that she knew would follow.

She was the cat who looked up at me, right into my face, when it was treating time, and you could see the joie de vivre there, the raw pleasure and love and hope that she was experiencing.

She was the cat with the Hope Box, which sat right between the fireplace and the hallway to our kitchen. In the olden days, before we had to pill and fluid her every night, she'd go there while we were eating our snack. She'd sit there, upright and alert, waiting for us to move toward the kitchen, when she knew tasty food would follow.

She was the cat who loved human food too. If I was ever eating french fries or chips, she'd beg for them, and she'd get a bite of french fry or a tiny little corner of a chip for her trouble. Ever after she was sick in late 2009, she became a vulture at mealtime, sitting on the arm of the couch near Kimberly and leaning further and further in. She especially liked things with tomato sauce and things with dairy, though she didn't get any of those! One day Kimberly read that cats liked corn cobs, and so she offered one to Cobweb the next time she ate at KFC. Sure enough, Cobweb would pick it up in her mouth and drop it, pick it up and drop it, again and again.

She was the handsome cat, who loved to watch herself in the mirror. Over the years, we had old ratty mirrors out and kept mirrors near the ground, just because we knew that she'd find enjoyment at staring into them. Did she see herself? Another cat? Something she couldn't understand? I dunno, but she found it fascinating.

She was the miracle cat, who was supposed to die two and a half years ago of cancer, but kept going and going. She was the cat who laid down to die, but then got up 24 hours later, had a long drink of water from a mug (forbidden mug!) and then kept on. She made her decade and a half. Then two more. She beat out kidney failure for a year. We kept her going, yes, but only because she was strong and stubborn herself.

She was the smart cat. The cat who would look up and mew when you came into the room (sometimes) or when you said her name (almost always). The cat who listened for her name, even when we weren't speaking in the cat voice. The cat who knew that doorknobs had something to do with doors opening, but she wasn't quite sure what. The cat who came first when I whistled. The cat we had to trick when we were giving her fluids, distracting her with singing one day, then talking the next, then not doing anything at all the day after that -- all so that she wouldn't get tense about the oncoming needle.

She was a beloved cat and a loving cat and I'll miss her dearly.

In the last years, especially in the last year, and particularly in the last month, she was diminished. She was sometimes afraid of us, due to all the pilling. She wasn't a climber any more, and slowly withdrew from her sisters and from us. I hope that in the years to come I'm able to again remember the cat who was, the cat who had a wonderful and loving and fulfilling life, and not just how things became hard in her last days.

And I'm very thankful that we got Lucy five years (!) gone now, because in her we'll always see little bits of Cobweb too, remembering how they bathed and how Cobweb touched not just our lives, but hers as well.

I posted a small montage of Cobweb pictures yesterday. Kimberly posted a more extensive set of pictures, complete with comments.

Cobweb

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:10:31 GMT

Cobweb & Stuff

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 07:06:16 GMT

Not the best couple of days.

Thursday night I had bad dreams which left me discombobulated. Then Friday night Cobweb took a very abrupt turn for the worst. She was headed in to get some food, then she just collapsed, largely unable to use her back legs.

She's been hobbling around since, but much worse than before. I've also found her lying where she'd peed twice in that time, and she generally seems unable to get in the litterboxes any more. She hasn't really been moving much on her own at all, for that matter, and I haven't seen her even think about trying to the stairs. Her affect has also been very poor. Mostly ignoring us and everything else. Except when given food. Or treats.

It seems pretty clear to me that she's gone into dying animal mode, and unless there is an equally abrupt (and totally unexpected) turnaround tomorrow, we're going to take her in to be put to sleep in the next couple of days. I'm fairly confident that it's time unless (as I said) there's a super turnaround.

We had seen her just seem to give up one other time, back in 2009, but she had more weight then and fewer problems. She turned around after about 24 hours that time, which we're now coming up on. So, I think we'll have given her plenty of time.

Life does go on. Yes, we're worried about our cat (or at least feeling bad about her), but we've also been expecting this for, well, two and a half years.

Friday night Kimberly and I had dinner again at that Ramon's baja restaurant, out at El Cerrito Plaza. We then shopped at Lucky's for groceries. Prices seemed a little higher on average than Safeway, but within the limited selection of sales, we got good prices. And some variety from the stuff we get at Target and Safeway.

Today I was out and about for a few hours. I saw the revamped library in North Berkeley (very pretty, especially the wooden ceilings), but I'm not sure I'd ever seen it before so I can't make a comparison. I'll be more interested to see how the Southside library is revamped, as I've been in there many a time and it was a cramped and ugly place before.

I also stopped by the Ashby Flea Market. While getting a little high from second-hand pot and walking around people clustered on the ground dicing for money I managed to find a bookshelf maker I'd been looking for. I think he's going to be able to build us a second paperback bookshelf to go in the upstairs hallway but haven't figured out all the specifics yet (as I wanted to check the very reasonable price of ~$50 with Kimberly and he's very hard to get ahold of as he has no cell and no email). Worst-comes-to-worst I'll stop by again next Saturday after spending some time at the auction at Endgame.

Tomorrow, Kimberly and I had planned a bike ride in Lafayette, but that's no longer to occur. We're not actually getting lots of Cobweb time by staying home, as she's so tuned out, but I don't think either of would be happy if we hadn't made the possibility of that time.

Biking!

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 02:02:05 GMT

Kimberly has been wanting to get in better shape, and so that's led us to do a bit of extra biking lately. Nothing spectacular, but fun nonetheless.

On Tuesday night, after work, we biked up the Ohlone Greenway to El Cerrito Plaza.

While there I got some badly needed new shoes. I have a lot of troubles walking through the soles of my shoes, and so this time I got some higher-quality Timberland shoes. I hope they do better than my last two six-month pairs of shoes. (If not it's time to get boots or something with a superthick sole, which will be less comfortable.)

Afterward we had a very delicious dinner at Rubio's Fresh Mexican Grill. It reminded me of the lighter & healthier Mexican fare that we used to get at Baja Fresh before we lost all of ours in the East Bay. Well, healthy until they asked if I wanted bacon on my tacos; I declined.

We also noted on our ride how absolutely terrible the Greenway has gotten due to construction all throughout El Cerrito (Albany?). I mean, it had been bad the last few times I took it, but now there are detours taking you totally off of the path. And the signage was horrible. Once a detour sign pointed us straight at a chain link fence and another time at a wall. Pfah.

At least when it's done it should all be newly paved and it should be much wider, allowing for a separate lane for pedestrians (who have traditionally refused to use the separate trail set aside for them because it's a whole 5 feet away). So it should be a big improvement after a year+ of annoyance.

Today Kimberly and I rode a bit of the Ohlone Greenway, but mostly the Bay Trail out to Point Isabel & back.

We saw dogs there, as usual. One totally, totally weird dog leapt up atop a fence, balanced there, and then pooped off the side. Who teaches his dog to do that!? Kimberly & I were talking about the fence-jumping-and-pooping dog and some ladies nearby said that, yeah, he'd jumped up on their table once and scattered their lunch, then did it again. (Apparently they were just lucky that he didn't have any other ... business ... to do at the time.)

Anywho, we saw lots more dogs playing and barking and getting washed. As usual there was one Pit Bull mix that tried to leap up on the bench with us and give us loves. There were no Cocker Spaniels about, to try and kill us.

Overall, a nice day. Could have been a bit warmer though. The Bay Trail, thankfully, was not messed up.

Oh. and I wanted to write that my bike odometer has again reset itself. This time it was totally spontaneous, while I was gaming at Endgame on Saturday. It had 130 miles recorded when that happened, though that was probably an undercount as I've never got the thing reset right for my tires since it reset last time. So that's 4,097 + 130 = 4,227 now unrecorded.

We'll see if that old odometer holds out until I hit 5,000 miles total, at which point I plan to get a whole new one.

Synopsis: A Song of Ice & Fire / Book 1

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 20:40:45 GMT

When I finished the third and fourth books of A Song of Ice & Fire (in 2004 and 2006!) I wrote up synopses to help me when I read later books in years to come. Having just finished a (third?) read of the first book, A Game of Thrones, I've decided to do the same. Suffice to say, this entry has extensive spoilers for the first Song book / the first season of A Game of Thrones, so don't read it if you still have those in front of you.

A Game of Thrones

The book ends with the initial skirmish for the throne over. The Lannisters and the Starks became embroiled in a conflict that kicked off with the murder of Jon Arryn and the attempt on Bran's life and spiraled out of control when Cat kidnapped Tyrion. This led to the Lannisters trying to take Riverrun and the nearby lands and Robb smashing their army with his own army for the north. With Renly now bringing together an army in the south, this has left the Lannisters between a rock and a hard place, and marching toward Harenhal.

There are currently three contenders for the crown: Joffrey, the crowned king; Renly, who has declared his own kingship; and Robb, who has been named the king in the north. There is much discussion of why Stannis hasn't done anything, when he should be the king before Renly as the older brother.

The Starks

Ned. Killed by Payne at Joffrey's order.

Benjen. Missing beyond the wall.

Cat. At Riverrun with Robb.

Robb. Named the King of the North by the people of the north and the River lands. Leading an army from Riverrun.

Jon. At the wall, after having fought off a wight and having resisted (barely) the urge to go south to fight.

Bran. Crippled, but the current ruler at Winterfell. Having mystical and precognitive dreams.

Rickon. At Winterfell, growing increasingly wild.

Sansa. Held by the Lannisters. Still betrothed to Joffrey, who she now hates. Told that she must mouth the right things that he wants to hear or it'll go badly for her. Her wolf, Lady, is dead.

Arya. On the streets of King's Landing. Recently grabbed by a black brother, who's purpose is unknown (but seems positive). Her fencing teacher hasn't been seen since everything went down. Her wolf, Nymeria, is wild somewhere in the center of the Seven Kingdoms.

The Lannisters

Cersei. At King's Landing, sometimes ruling for Joffrey (except when he decides that he's going to do something his way).

Jaime. Captured at Riverrun (in the Whispering Woods).

Joffrey. Sitting the throne, doing stupid things and putting the whole kingdom in uproar.

Tyrion. Sent to King's Landing by his father to take a better hold of Joffrey them his mum and counselors are doing.

Tywin. Leading his shattered army to assault Harrenhol.

Others

Dany. Has the small nucleus of her own people and three newborn dragons.

Littlefingers. Sitting on the Small Council in King's Landing. Most recently betrayed Ned when he instead brought the soldiers of King's Landing over to the Lannister side.
I'm going to reread A Clash of Kings when we finish watching season 1 of A Game of Thrones on DVD, then I'll write it up here and have all four books in summary.

A Few Writing Notes

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 18:50:36 GMT

iOS. I forgot to note that my second new iOS article for the Safari Blog went up.

I think it's a nice pair of articles that shows off the whys and wherefors of creating new classes in iOS. It also does so via real-life examples of how I've created graphical objects in my iOS games.

Designers & Dragons. While I'm writing about writing, I figured I'd add a note that I'm continuing my redline edit of Designers & Dragons. At this point, I'm not sure if it's going to have utility as Mongoose is still deciding whether to reprint or not. (Meaning: get your copy now if you want one.) If they do, I'll have a redline ready to go, but if not I'd want to do a more comprehensive rewrite to improve the language for a some-day second edition.

Ah well, even if it's not technically useful, I'm actually enjoying reading the book again.

A Surprisingly Good Weekend

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 04:44:06 GMT

Why a surprise? Because Kimberly and I were talking about whether we need to put Cobweb to sleep just before the weekend opened.

The biggest problem has been her regularly peeing outside of the litter box. What I hadn't realized was that Kimberly was interpreting that as Cobweb doing very badly internally, which I'm not certain is the case. However, I must acknowledge that she's also largely stopped purring in the last month or two. On the other hand, she doesn't seem to be hiding. After some back and forth, we eventually decided to do what one of Kimberly's friends suggested, which was to talk to our vet and see if she might be able to offer any pointers as to how our cat might be doing.

While I love Cobweb dearly, I do not want to keep her around if she's at a point where she's not happy living. I actually have a lot of trouble ever accepting death as a better state than life, but in the case of an animal largely driven by instincts and not intelligent enough to understand why she might be sick, I can kinda see why that animal might prefer to not be around. So, I want to do my best to keep Cobweb around if she wants to be, but not just because we want her to be. It's just tough to figure that out.

Hopefully Kimberly's talk with our vet tomorrow will help.

Anyway, on to the nice part of the weekend.

Yesterday, my normal RPG group got canceled and so I decided to do something that I do just once or twice a year: I went to Endgame's monthly last-Saturday boardgame day.

Also unusually, I took BART due to rain. I can't remember the last time I did that, but I'd gotten plenty soaked already in March. It was a nice change of pace, and it allowed me to drag along an entire suit case full of games for the upcoming auction (part of my multi-pronged clean-the-house plan, now underway).

I got to play two longer games while there, the new Lords of Waterdeep (a great D&D/euro, which has gone on my must-buy list, though I have some qualms over the valuation of the quests) and the older western Homesteaders (which I'd brought). I don't think I won a damned thing, but I quite enjoyed the games and the chance to game with some different folks than I usually do (Josh, Brad, a different Eric).

I stayed about four hours and headed out around 4pm, which still gave me plenty of day left. When I got home I went out and biked about 3 miles (as the sun had come out and the day was nicer if not glorious) and then had a restful evening of Chuck,Once Upon a Time and plenty of reading (Captain Britain Volume 1, A Game of Throne [for the third time or so], Stephen King's 11/22/63).

Which brings us to today and our noon tickets to see The Pirates of Penzanze at the Berkeley Playhouse. I think it was my first Gilbert & Sullivan and I found it generally enjoyable, if at times puzzling.

The puzzling mainly came from the fact that there's plenty of satire in this work, and that doesn't always survive the test of time. I also found the music not as easy to understand as in most musicals, I suspect because of the operatic elements.

The directing was absolutely wonderful. I especially loved the rock-and-roll sensibilities brought to the show which gave it a great energy. The pirates themes in particular were heavy metal, which made "I am a Pirate King" in the first act the best song in the entire production. Lots of thumping and guitar riffs -- totally awesome. (Though the heavy rock & roll was part of what made the music hard to follow at times because it sometimes ended up louder than the voices).

As always, there were lots of good actors in the play too, especially the Frederic (who was quite funny) and the Mabel (who was a great singer with a stunning range).

Overall, another fun musical at the Berkeley Playhouse, though Seussical remains my favorite.

Let's see, what else did I miss? How about a picnic lunch of Subway sandwiches before the play. It was a bit chilly, with the wind up, but we got to watch dogs having lots of fun.

We also watched the last three episodes of Chuck season 3 over the last two days. It was another great series finale. One of the things that particularly impresses me about the show is how they ended each season (so far, for us) with real growth and change for the main characters, and then didn't walk any of those changes back in later seasons. Seeing what appears to be a whole new MO opening up for Chuck reminds me of the whiplash changes that that-other-spy show, Alias underwent. Alias was never graceful at all while Chuck has been three years (so far, for us) of believable, graceful, and elegant evolution.

And now it's back to the various clean-ups ongoing (games for the auction, old books for eBay) and probably to A Game of Thrones (with Chuck season 3 done, season 1 of the HBO series is next on our list, so I'll get a double-dose very soon!).

Birth Week Continues

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 05:59:39 GMT

Had the Wiedlins up here on Sunday for a typical birth day get together. We had dinner at La Med, then cake at home. There was much enjoyable talk with all the relatives. Kind birthday checks were also offered. As usual, I took the birth day gifting as a chance to get stuff I wanted but which might have been a bit more expensive than I'd usually put for. So, I got About Time 1 (so I can read about the early Dalek stories, which I'm currently reading novelizations of) and Songs of the Dying Earth and Moorcock's non-fiction collection London Peculiar and a few other things. I've still got about half the money to spend and am going to see if anything strikes me 'specially in the next week or so.

Since then, it's been back to work, except with much cake, as we had the remaining half of the delicious chocolate cake that the Wiedlins brought, plus the remaining super-rich cakes Kimberly and I had gotten at Berkeley Bowl. Whew.

Among the stuff I've been reading lately is A Game of Throne by George R.R. Martin. It's my third read, I think. I'm amazed how damned good the book is. Martin writes each chapter like a little short story with a beginning, middle, and end. Each chapter also gives us a strong moment of revelation or change, usually encoded right at the end of the chapter. The craft is just superb. I dunno how the same person who has written OK Wild Cards stories and nothing else that I know of super note is also writing some of the best-crafted fantasy out there.

Tomorrow: the birthday celebrations continue, as it's Kimberly's actual birthday. Delicious food is planned. At one of my top 3 restaurants. Stay tuned.

Birth Day

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 06:15:57 GMT

I am old.

I shall give up comics and biking and gaming and learn to like beer, champagne, and football. And Masterpiece Theatre.

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

So today was the big four-oh. I don't usually do much for my birthday, but with today being such a notable event and it happening to fall on a Saturday, I decided to go out of my way to do something fun.

So Kimberly & I braved the rain and public transit to head out to the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

There actually wasn't a lot to be braved, as the rain was pretty light all day. The public transit did take some courage though, as hopping onto the 30 near Montgomery we found the most jammed bus I've ever been on. Wall to wall people and it just kept getting more and more crowded ... until we thankfully came to Chinatown a few blocks over and things cleared out. Whew.

I hadn't been to the Palace of Fine Arts or the Exploratium in a long, long time. I'm guessing 20+ years. I'd forgotten how absolutely gorgeous the Palace is. Beautiful architecture and beautiful landscaping alike. If it weren't raining throughout the day, I would definitely have liked to lounge around the park and read and just enjoy the world.

Anyway, into the Exploratorium it was, to get out of the rain. I put on new (dry) socks for the first time in the day.

We kind of wandered, looking at most exhibits, but not necessarily every one. We started out working through electricity and magnets, which was fun. There are a surprising number of exhibits that tell you to shock yourself with light charges. One of them was based entirely on static electricity and I as read how you should shock yourself for the third or so time, Kimberly said, "... if you're a masochist!"

Beyond that was a giant moving pendulum like table [picture I took] which people use to make spiroograph-like drawings. We watched that for several minutes as a dad made drawings with his kids. It was very cool to see them slowly develop.

(Lots of kids at the Exploratorium, of course, but almost all were really well behaved, and there were so many good parents there, really connecting and communicating with their kids.)

Biology was next, and we skimmed that because it wasn't interesting, then sound, which we skimmed because it's all booth based and people tend to sit around the booths and you can't look over their shoulders.

Downstairs, Kimberly left me as she was scienced out. (We were at least an hour into the trip by then.) So I went through optical illusions and vision and social stuff on my own. My other coolest exhibit (the first being that spiro-table) was back here.

It was really simple: two different people sat opposite each other, each with a tray of the same six simple colored geometric shapes. A screen blocked view between the two. One of the people laid out the shapes on his tray, then tried to describe to the other person what he'd done. At the end they compared. It was fascinating being able to watch omnisciently from the side to see exactly where communication went wrong. I think there's a game in there somewhere (though Space Alert already exists as a game that's almost entirely based around miscommunication).

From there I moved through lots more things involving shapes and I'm not quite sure what else. Clearly I was fading by this point. I eventually returned to Kimberly and we headed out, with a visit by the store on the way out. (Not to buy anything, but because many of the toys and stuff they sell there are as fascinating as exhibits. And I was shocked to see Forbidden Island there; good going to that publisher, getting their game into science museums.)

Before I leave behind the Exploratorium, I should note that I really appreciate the occasional touches of classic stuff in there like scary angels [picture I took], thanks I presume to the location at the Palace of Fine Arts. I think that'll be missed when they move to a new location.

Lots more of the course of the day, but nothing else as "big".

We walked about two miles east along the coast (nice despite the continuing rain), enjoying views of Alcatraz and Fort Mason along the way before coming to Ghiradelli Square. Here, Kimberly & I treated ourselves to some birthday chocolate. I got semi-sweet non-pareils, a Ghiradelli treat that I've never seen except in Ghiradelli stores (from them; I can also remember non-pareils at K-Mart or something). I probably hadn't had any in a couple of decades, but they were still great.

We bussed back to BART, then BARTed back to Ashby. On the way home from Ashby BART we stopped by Berkeley Bowl to pick up birthday cakes (because we needed more sweets, clearly) and something tasty for dinner.

I got a very tasty sandwich, which I ate while we watched The Dark Knight tonight.

And that was the birthday day.

Tired now, but looking forward to some reading.

Sun!

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 20:34:26 GMT

Didn't realize quite how sick I was of rain* until I went out to lunch today and it was beautiful, sunny, and warm. Ohmygod, it was glorious. I wish Kimberly & I were considering a bike ride today, instead of on Saturday (my birthday) when it's more likely to be overcast and maybe raining (which will result in other plans).

Ah well.

Still, beautiful.

And now back to work.

* Yes, I've bitched about the lack of rain all winter, but we got a week that was mostly overcast and rainy in Kauai, then we came back here just in time to see a major storm system kick in. The week+ of rain in the Bay Area alone would have been tiring, but adding on a week in Hawaii to that ... bleh