All Things Weeks

Parents Promote Paunch

2010-09-21T07:51:00.009-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I had an encounter at the grocery store that has haunted me ever since.

I was in the checkout line, and the woman ahead of me was eyeing my produce, sneaking looks at the greens, the fruits, and the like that I was buying.

It was one of those grocery stores where you bag your own groceries, and the woman ahead of me had a lot more groceries than I did, so she was still bagging her stuff, as I was finishing up.

In addition to checking out my purchases, she was a chatty customer, and after glancing once more at my broccoli, said "I've never seen a more healthy batch of groceries in my life." (I guess she didn't notice the refrigerator biscuits). Then she gestured to her own bags of chips, bottles of cola, and the snack cakes, shook her head and said the haunting phrase: "I have kids at home."

I didn't say anything. But I should have said,"yeah, so do I. They are 8 and 16." I wonder what her response would have been?

Or what if I had said, "you are an enabler." I'm sure that would have gone over well.

Does having kids mean you leave your good sense at home when you go to the grocery store? Does it mean you automatically buy junk food?

I'm certainly not immune myself. Despite what my kids say, it's really not like I don't allow my kids goodies. My husband buys corn chips (his one real food weakness). We regularly keep Dove chocolate squares in the house, and we might have 1 after dinner. I occasionally bake, and I make a mean strawberry ice cream. And it's a ritual to go to the Ben and Jerry's next door to Whole Foods when we happen to shop there instead of the more convenient stores. But I'm struggling (and if you know my daughter's sweet tooth, you'd know why I use that word) to instill in them that treats are just that: small and occasional. To borrow a phrase from my own mother: Everything in moderation.

I didn't know what to say to the chatty woman. Her kids are her own business. But they are learning their eating habits from her purchases, and she does have the power to not purchase the junk food. I had a co-worker who told me her 6' 6" tall, 18 year-old son regularly polished off a half-gallon of ice cream at a time, despite her telling him to knock it off. I wondered why she kept it in the house if the kid wouldn't follow the rules. Both women were enabling their kids to eat poorly.

We are a nation of overweight people, and the epidemiologists are predicting that today's generation of children might be the first generation in a 100 years to live a shorter life than their parents. Instead of being treats, those chips, snack cakes, and half-gallons of ice cream, are becoming staples in our children's diets. Is it any wonder that 1/3 of school kids are fat?

I know I'm probably coming across as holier-than-thou, and I'm sorry for that. It has actually been a tough road, getting our kids to eat a healthy diet. They resist it kicking and screaming. But at least they aren't like my son's friend who eats nothing but meat and processed food, and who, as far as I can tell, doesn't like any vegetable at all. My kids'll likely leave my house and eat nothing but crap for a few years. But at least they like veggies and fruit. So when they decide to eat well on their own, they have that safety net to catch them.

150 Years of Protest Music

2009-09-19T10:07:00.006-05:00

So, when I taught 10th grade English last year, I gave my students an assignment: To find a protest song. It couldn't be the same as anyone else's song (in that hour at least), it had to protest SOMETHING (their choice of topic), and it couldn't have profanity. If a student REALLY wanted to present a song that had profanity, they could present it to just me, before or after school. They also had to be able to explain WHAT was being protested.

I had been collecting protest songs on my own for awhile, but the kids found me LOTS of worthy songs I didn't know about, both from modern times, and from the 1960s. It was gratifying when my husband heard me listening to 99 Red Balloons (which was from when WE were in HS) and said "That's a protest song?" Yup, it is.

Inspired by the Disney Animated Robin Hood, where everyone sings "The Phony King of England" (Too late to be known as John the First / He's sure to be known as John the worst / A pox on that phony king of England!), I went looking for historical protest songs, and turned up a Negro spiritual called "No More Auction Block For Me" that dates from the 1800s, but was recorded by a modern a cappella group called Sweet Honey on the Rocks. It's an unbelievably beautiful song.

In answer to the question "did your students like the assignment, I have to say, no, not really. Some did, of course, but many others just found it a hassle. I'll probably do the assignment again, but I have to re-think how to approach it. Early on, all of the students actually followed along with the lyrics up on the overhead, but later , as the end of the school year loomed, they tended to pay less and less attention. But I also caught glimpses of students who cared - they watched me intently, as I listened to the lyrics. I only bought the songs that I liked, and I could see that a few of them were quite gratified when they saw me buying their song. One kid even offered to burn me CD of similar songs from the band he presented (Coldplay).

Anyway, for some reason, not all of my songs made it into the iMix. One of them has never been available in iTunes, so it's no surprise that that song isn't available. But all of the others should be - I mostly got them from iTunes. The missing songs are:

Bomb The World (Armageddon Version) by Michael Franti (the regular version made it - both are from the same album, and both were purchased from iTunes. It's a shame though - the Armageddon version is edgier and better)
Handlebars by the Flobots (another Flobots song made it)
I Ain't Marching Anymore (LP Version) by Phil Ochs
Imagine by John Lennon (probably due to the new Beatles releases)
Jacob's Ladder by Chumbawamba (not available on iTunes)
Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream by Simon and Garfunkel
Lyndon Johnson told the nation (LP Version) by Tom Paxton (an awesome song that even my 15-year-old likes, and bought for himself from iTunes after I played it for him)
Peace Train by Cat Stevens
Teach Your Children by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Travelin' Soldier by the Dixie Chicks (a great song with a controversy attached to it - it was the song they were promoting in Europe, when they made a rather rude statement about the president, and lots of fans boycotted them afterwards - you know - the "shut up, and sing" story.)

Anyway, hope you enjoy the music.

A Tribute to Mary Travers

2009-09-18T17:09:00.003-05:00

I created my very first iMix on iTunes in honor of Mary Travers' death two days ago. These are my favorite songs that feature her as the prominent voice. All but one are Peter, Paul and Mary songs, and one is a solo recording. I tried to pick a variety of songs from a variety of times - some of the earliest songs that display the "crystalline" voice of her youth, and later, the ones that show the deeper voice of an older woman. Some of the songs are children's songs, and others are protest music only adults would understand, but children still love. For what it's worth, I did include "If I Had a Hammer" but the iMix ignored it for some reason. That's OK - it's one of my least favorites of the bunch. Anyway, here's to you, Mary. "We've missed the train you are on, and we know you that are gone..."

Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

2009-08-31T17:05:00.006-05:00

So today was Garrett's birthday, and he requested apple pie. Knowing he also likes fruit ice cream, Kivi and I went to a you pick place, and bought a bunch of wonderfully fresh strawberries. Then I looked up recipes. All of the recipes called for eggs (either 2 eggs or 3 egg yolks) and because I was uncomfortable serving raw eggs, I opted for one that made a custard. Otherwise, I mixed and matched from various recipes, until I came up with this one, and it's pretty good. Well, delicious, actually. And I don't even like strawberry ice cream.

1 pint fresh strawberries hulled and chopped
1/3 cup sugar
juice from 1/2 lemon
zest from 1 lemon

Custard base:
3 egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine strawberries, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour

Combine egg yolks and ¾ cup sugar in a bowl and whisk until thick and pale.

Combine milk, cream, and vanilla in a 2-quart heavy saucepan. Heat, stirring constantly until it reaches approximately 160 degrees, then remove from heat. Spoon cream mixture by ¼ cupfuls into egg mixture and beat between each addition until about ½ of cream mixture remains. Add the eggs/cream mixture back into the saucepan with remaining cream. Return to medium heat, stirring constantly for 4-5 minutes until mixture coats the back of a spoon, and temperature is 180 degrees. Remove from heat and chill thoroughly.

Puree ½ of the strawberry mixture and add both strawberry puree and strawberry chunks to custard base. Add to ice cream maker, and follow the manufacturer directions.

Yes, it was the best strawberry ice cream I've ever had, but there was one big flaw: The chunks of frozen strawberries, which were simply too big, and they were texturally kind of strange in the ice cream. It would be better if you either puree the entire batch of strawberries, or maybe puree 3/4 of it, and then use the shredder blade on a food processor on on the remaining bit, so that there were TINY chunks of strawberry in the ice cream. Either that, or simply serve some chilled (but not frozen) strawberries on top.

Pancakes, Pancakes

2009-07-31T11:55:00.008-05:00

No, I don't mean the book by Eric Carle, which is cute and teaches kids the origins of the ingredients for pancakes. What I do mean, is a new recipe that I sort of invented by adapting an existing one.

My family - with the exception of my husband - love pancakes. To his credit, Chris puts up with them without whinging, but when I find a recipe HE likes, then I know it's a winner.

Now, pancakes aside, I was always taught that the best way to cook was to follow a recipe exactly as written the first time, and then monkey with it after that if you like. However, I'm a vegetarian who actually LIKED some of the meat dishes she used to eat (like Chili con carne), and if I want to even try a meat-based recipe, I must vary it some from the beginning, or else not bother. I'm also always looking for ways to improve the nutrient density of a recipe without sacrificing taste, or better yet improve on the taste if I can. So, that means I fiddle with recipes from the get-go pretty commonly.

One of the things I've discovered is that with pancakes, you can pretty much just use the vegetable oil of your choice (though not olive oil, as the flavor is too strong), in place of melted butter. The end result is very slightly healthier, and the taste is pretty much identical. I've also used soy milk instead of regular milk loads of times, but the pancakes don't rise QUITE as well (though still OK). I've also used whole wheat instead of all-purpose flour, and generally that works fine, too - though the cakes are usually a little denser.

Anyway, I stumbled onto a delicious variation of a recipe that I had to share. This time, my changes were caused not by attempts at better health, but by what I happened to have (or not) on hand. I was attempting to make the Four Grain Flapjack recipe in The Joy of Cooking, but I discovered that I didn't have either milk or enough soy milk on hand. What I had was 3 quarts or so (don't ask) of whole milk yogurt.

"Chris, do you think I could use yogurt instead of milk?"
"Yeah, probably. Try it."
"Will it make it sour?"
"I dunno. Try it."

I also, out of habit used 4 tablespoons peanut oil instead of 1/2 stick of melted butter. And, I couldn't substitute whole wheat for the all-purpose flour as I only barely had enough whole wheat to make the recipe as originally written. So all-purpose went in this time. And, I also wanted blueberries in my pancakes. So I added 1.5 cups of them after combining the rest of the ingredients.

And the result was...wow! Delicious, and not sour at all. I had made this recipe once before with my usual substitutions, but it was so much better this time around. The batter was thicker/fluffier than I'm used to - it didn't spread out as much, which means I had to keep turning them to get them to cook all the way through (cooking longer on a lower heat would also work). Anyway, the full recipe looks like this:

Blueberry Yogurt Four-Grain Flapjacks

1 c. whole wheat flour
¾ c. all-purpose flour
1/3 c. cornmeal
¼ c. rolled oats
2 tbs. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
1 ¾ c. plain yogurt (whole milk or low-fat)
4 tbs. vegetable oil (not olive)
¼ c. honey
3 large eggs
1.5 c. frozen or fresh blueberries

Cooking Instructions

Heat skillet or griddle over low heat.
Whisk together dry ingredients in large bowl.
Whisk together wet ingredients in another bowl.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients & whisk until just mixed.
Stir in blueberries
Increase heat to medium & brush skillet with oil. Pour batter, about 1 rounded tablespoon at a time.
Flip when set (watching for bubbles didn't work so well with this recipe. Just keep peeking under, and when brown, turn).

Oh, and yes, Chris thought these pancakes were really good. So, a winner!

My "past lives"

2009-07-28T20:22:00.004-05:00

I just created a Facebook account. Cathy and Garrett have them. Lots of friends and acquaintances do. So while Facebook seems vaguely creepy to me, I wanted to know for real -- rather than just having opinions in ignorance.

So, having just opened this account, I've been digging back through my past and looking for people that I've known whom I could befriend. In doing this (as some of you may have seen) I've written notes about gathering friends from my "past lives." An old friend, Tim, asked about that wording. And thinking about it, I decided to catalog them. I'm calling the "lives" blocks here.

My life prior to moving to Missouri (1970-79) is basically one block. The only people I might connect with from this time are family. I'd kind of like to find my two cousins and catch up a bit.

I think the next block is something like 1979-1984. During this time, I lived in Webster Groves, MO. I went to school for one year at Clark and then 3.5 years at Classical Junior Academy in St. Louis and half a year back at Hixson. And I loitered at The Shire and The Dragon's Lair quite a bit. There are people from CJA that I'd like to contact. Tim was the son of my dad's coworker and also a fellow Dragon's Lair orphan. I found him. Shawn, Mark, Steve and Mike are peers from this time also -- we also became acquainted around gaming at The 'Lair and I found all of them on Facebook right away. I suppose Paul deserves some mention here too. I met him in the same way, but I really think of him as being later in my life since we weren't yet BFFs (God, shoot me now).

High School (1985-88) must be the next block. I'm not sure who I'd want to talk to from this time. I was friends with the people from the previous block through this time also and most of the people I knew otherwise from HS were pretty casually acquainted. I bet that's not true for most folks...weird. I guess Josh would count from this block even though I knew him from Shawn, not HS (at first) -- I should look for him. And maybe Dawn. And Melanie.

1989-90 were my lost years. I dropped out of college, had like eight jobs and failed to take my community college load seriously. I think I hung out mostly with Paul and Josh and Inkpen as I drifted away or had falling outs with Shawn and Mike and Steve...and hey, Doug...is he around? Oh and MarkS... I did meet Bill during this time, so that was good.

90-91 were spent in Chicagoland living with Inkpen and Mike and Bill. I found Inkpen on Facebook and Jay -- but she hasn't responded yet to my friend request. No Keith, but I'm not sure of his spelling.

In 91 I moved to Columbia to go to school and stayed there until 99. I guess that's all one block. So that time could include ErikJ, a roommate. And coworkers from the Labs. And theoretically my employees at the labs, later. And my wife. :) And Teresa and Beth and David (who fit into the coworkers category). But also, Edmund and Aaron and James and Charles and Avril and Tim and Tim and ... who am I forgetting? Maybe Cathy's family since I got married during that time. I suppose I should count Garrett in that time though he seems to transcend these blocks in some ways. I guess this was also our first Gathering, so Bruce and maybe others would fit there, or maybe the next block.

My next block is the time lived in New Jersey -- 1999-2004. I worked at BMS -- I'd like to find Mark and Rui, maybe Jim and Bill and John. Who else? And we gamed at The 'Realm. Larry, Diane, Nick, Rob, etc.

And since 2004, we've been in Minnesota. So I have a few coworkers here. And my indie-MN group maybe, though I haven't searched for them yet. I have some online friends from this time too. I have to think about how to process them.

It's interesting, to me at least, that it was totally subconscious to allocate blocks, not only based on where I lived, but on who I was friends with and what I was doing.

Trip to the North Shore

2009-07-25T22:24:00.002-05:00

We just got back from Duluth and points north. Fun was had by all.

More uses for kimchi

2009-06-26T11:25:00.001-05:00

So, I had some noodles from the Thai restaurant near work for lunch yesterday. There were enough leftovers to be worth saving but not enough for a full meal. And I have this home-made kimchi -- so I brought it to work and stirred a bunch of it into my freshly microwaved noodles.

Who knew? It worked great! They are astoundingly complementary flavors. It's great that this stuff is easier to use than I had feared.

Tonight or tomorrow I'm going to start a new batch and document the making of it here.

Blogging -- how, where and when?

2009-06-24T22:03:00.003-05:00

If you're one of our three readers, you've noticed that we're crazily sporadic in our blogging. There's the whole "why am I blogging" question, of course, but also some other issues: When do I have time? Where am I when something blog-worthy happens? How is it best to get the notional information into the blog?

Cathy and I have had iPhones for a few months now. Wow. We love them. I'm thinking they should help us blog on the go. I can Tweet pretty easily from my phone, so why not "real" blogging. But after a few hours of looking around and configuring various services, I think the options are pretty lame just now. At least if you're on blogger/blogspot/Google. They don't have a custom iPhone app -- maybe because that would be unsupportive of Android and the combination of other things doesn't add up to a seamless whole.

Here's what I can do:

I can email to the blog. From the iPhone, this can include a single picture and I have to initiate the process from the image -- I can't just attach it from the email client (can you say stoopid?). But this is actually a pretty elegant solution for simple posting while out and about.

I have enabled the iGoogle widget that lets me blog (among other things) from within Safari. It's also an adequate option for low-complexity posts. The good thing with this is that I can save the draft and edit it later. And I can even do it immediately -- this tool provides a quick link in. But no images without following that link. And the tool is a bit hard to use on the mobile screen.

We have a Flickr account under Cathy's name. And there is an app for the iPhone called Flickit. It does a pretty astounding job of getting images from my phone to Flickr. And I configured Flickr so that we can blog right from an image over to here. That's neat. But again, it only supports a single image. You can add more, but it's a hassle on the phone. And actually, what I do from my desktop PC seems to be impossible. Flickr knows that I'm using a mobile browser and present a simplified interface. One of the simplifications includes not displaying the "small" version of the image and not giving out the URLs. So again, it's a pretty hopeless tool for anything but the most simple use-case.

There's also an SMS-posting tool but we're on a limited texting plan and I don't want to go down that route.

So, with this imperfect array of tools, I'm going to try to blog stuff a bit more. Maybe I'll have to come back and edit things when I have a real keyboard or maybe I'll develop a style around these tools.

I keep thinking about buying a new Mac Mini so that I can write iPhone apps of my own. Here's an amazing example of something that needs to be written.

Home-made food

2009-06-24T20:04:00.003-05:00

I've been reading Wild Fermentation lately. Inspired by the book, Cathy helped me make some kimchi. And a few days ago I made a ball of Farmer's cheese.

So...making these things is very cool, but I don't always know what to do with them. Tonight I decided to dive in.

I started by sauteeing the "paneer" with pepper and celery salt and then I dump quite a bit of the kimch into the pan and stir-fried them together. To round it out, I added a package of commercial vegetarian kebobs -- some textured wheat gluten magic.

It was actually quite good.

(Also, this is me blogging from my iPhone for the first time -- it's a bit awkard, but cool.) (And as it turns out, I haven't yet figured out a decent way to add images...I had to come back in and edit...grr!)

Random RPG entry

2009-03-31T09:31:00.002-05:00

Over at Story Games there is a thread about creating random RPG covers. Some of them are really funny. Mine's not so much, but I followed the instructions and got what I got. Behold:

Our lost decade

2009-03-10T11:23:00.003-05:00

Over at Daily Kos, there is a GREAT essay on the last ten years and what we did with it. Go here. Read it. Thanks to JWalt for pointing it out.

Discs looking for a home

2009-02-20T21:22:00.004-06:00

Hi all, we're getting rid of a bunch of old CDs that we don't care about. We'll donate them to the library or school district and write them off for a bit over $2 each. I figured I should offer them to people I know who might want them. So, if anyone wants any of the following CDs for say US$2.50 plus shipping, they're yours (assuming they're not already claimed).

Genre	Artist/Group	Album title	Notes	Composer	Performing group	Conductor
Alternative	Suicidal Tendencies	Suicidal Tendencies
Alternative	Suicidal Tendencies	How Will I Laugh Tomorrow...When I Can't Even Smile Today
Alternative	Sex Pistols	Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols
Alternative	Skinny Puppy	Too Dark Park
Alternative	Pailhead	Trait
Alternative	Meat Puppets	Forbidden Places
Alternative	Meat Puppets	Monsters
Alternative	Meat Puppets	Too High to Die
Alternative	Ween	Chocolate and Cheese
Alternative	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Mother's Milk
Alternative	The Clash	The Clash
Alternative & Punk	Jesus Jones	Liquidizer [Bonus Tracks]
Alternative & Punk	Screeching Weasel	Anthem For A New Tomorrow
Classical	Tokyo String Quartet	String Quartets Complete		Bartok / Janacek	Tokyo String Quartet
Classical		Bernstein Favorites: Overtures		Various	New York Philharmonic	Leonard Bernstein
Classical		Varèse: Arcana; Holst: The Planets		Host/Varese	Philharmonia Orchestra	Leonard Slatkin
Classical		"Grieg: Symphonic Dances, Norwegian Dances, Lyric Pieces"		Grieg	Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra	Neeme Järvi
Classical		Johann David Heinichen: Lamentationes Passionsmusik		Johann David Heinichen	Musica Antiqua Koln	Reinhard Goebel
Classical		"Dvo?ák; Symphony #9, Slavonic Dances"		Dvorak	New York Philharmonic Orchestra	Kurt Masur
Classical	Heinz Holliger	"Handel: Oboe Concertos, Concerto Grosso"			English Chamber Orchestra
Classical		Bernstein Arias and Barcarolles			London Symphony Orchestra	Leonard Bernstein
Classical	Andre Rieu	The Vienna I Love: Waltzes From My Heart			Johann Strauss Orchestra
Classical	Modl & Windgassen	Wagner Tristan und Isolde Highlights
Classical		Romantic Overtures: Wagner and Mendelssohn			Philharmonia Hungarica	"Arthur Gruber, Alois Springer"
Classical		Mozart Orchestral Legends
Classical	Pablo Casals	Casals Early Recordings 1925-1928
Classical	Steven Isserlis	Boccherini: Concertos and Sonatas for Cello		Boccherini	Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra
Classical		Cantus Arcticus		Einojuhani Rautavaara
Classical	Bryn Terfel	Opera Arias			Metropolitan Opera Orchestra	James Levine
Classical		"Copland: El Salón México, Music For The Theatre"		Aaron Copland	New York Philharmonic Orchestra	Leonard Bernstein
Classical		Haydn: London Symphonies			Philharmonia Orchestra	Leonard Slatkin
Classical		Dvo?ák's New World Symphony & Other Orchestral Masterworks		Dvo?ák	Chicago Symphony Orchestra	Fritz Reiner
Classical		Russian Choral Music - Music of the Passion			Glinka Choir Of Leningrad
Classical		Russian Choral Music - Russian Easter			Choir of the Trinity - St. Sergius Laura and the Moscow Theological Academy
Classical		Russian Choral Music - Liturgy Of St. John Chrysostom - Tchaikovsky		Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky	USSR Ministry Of Culture Chamber Choir	Valery Polyansky
Classical		Russian Choral Music - Liturgy Of St. John Chrysostom - Rachmaninov		Rachmaninov	Moscow Chamber Choir
Classical	Russel Brazzel	Twentieth Century Cuban Music
Classical		"Mozart Concerti K242, K365, K466"		Mozart	English Chamer Orchestra	Sir Georg Solti
Classical		Gorecki: Symphony No. 3		Henryk Gorecki	London Sinfonietta	David Zinman
Classical	Itzhak Perlman and Daniel Barenboim	Mozart: Die Sonaten Fur Klavier Und Violine	4 discs	Mozart
Classical	John Williams and Arthur Fiedler	America The Beautiful			Boston Pops Orchestra
Classical		The Wedding Album	Compilation of music played at weddings.
Classical	Carreras Domingo Pavarotti	The Three Tenors in Concert				Mehta
Classical	Koechlin and Zinman	The Jungle Book			Berlin Symphony Orchestra
Classical	Various	Maxiplay: Go For the Gold	"""Greatest Hits"" of classical music. It's a good disc, though many music snobs would dislike it."
Classical	"Cecilia Bartoli, Myung-Whun Chung"	Chant D'Amour - Mélodies Françaises
Classical		"Ravel: Boléro, Rapsodie Espagnole, Pavane, Alborada Del Gracioso, Daphnis Et Chloe"		Ravel	Chicago Symphony Orchestra	Daniel Barenboim
Classical		Sibelius: Syphonies Nos. 2&6			London Symphony Orchestra	Sir. Colin Davis
Classical	The Met Orchestra	Don Quixote and Tod und Verklarung		Strauss	The Met Orchestra	James Levine
Classical		Richard Strauss: Vier letzte Lieder; Tod und Verklärung; Metamorphosen		Strauss	Berlin Philharmonic	Von Karajan
Classical		"Strauss (R): Also Sprach Zarathustra, Don Juan"		Strauss	Berlin Philharmonic	Von Karajan
Classical		Tchaikovsky Symphony #5		Tchaikovsky	Radio Symphony Orchestra	Anton Nanut
Classical	The Soloists From Zagreb	The Best of Vivaldi: 7 All Time Faborite Concertos		Vivaldi
Classical	Nigel Kennedy	Vivaldi: The Four Seasons			English Chamber Orchestra	Nigel Kennedy
Classical	Itzhak Perlman and Israel Zohar	Tradition: Itzhak Perlman Plays Poplular Jewish Melodies			Israel Philarhmonic Orchestra	Dov Seltzer
Classical	"Eveline Schuler, Folk Harp"	Sound of Austria: A Treasury of Alpine Folk Music			Schuler Folk Ensemble
Classical		Music Of Bulgaria			Ensemble of the Bulgarian Republic	Philip Koutev
Classical		The Best of the German Marches II			The Maritime Self Defence Force Band of Tokyo
Classical		Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries	"""Great Orchestral Music From ""The Ring"""""	Wagner	Cleveland Orchestra	George Szell
Classical	Simon Dent	Greatest Oboe Concertos (Die Schonsten Oboenkonzerte)				Vladislav Czarnecki
Classical	Gil Shaham	Violin Romances: Romances for Violin an Orchestra			Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
Classical	Various	The Magic of the Cello		Various	Various	Various
Classical	Charles Gerhardt	Classic Film Scores For Errol Flynn			National Philharmonic Orchestra
Electronica/Dance	Front 242	Geography
Electronica/Dance	Front 242	Tyranny (for you)
Electronica/Dance	Front 242	05:22:09:12 Off
Electronica/Dance	Nitzer Ebb	As Is [EP]	stained case in poor shape. CD fine.
Electronica/Dance	Nitzer Ebb	ebbhead
Hip Hop/Rap	Beastie Boys	Licensed to Ill
Hip Hop/Rap	Beastie Boys	Check Your Head
Hip Hop/Rap	Digital Underground	Sex Packets
Hip Hop/Rap	DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince	"He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper"
Hip Hop/Rap	Digital Underground	This is an E.P. Release
Jazz	"Harry Connick, Jr."	When Harry Met Sally Soundtrack
Jazz	Louis Armstrong	Laughin' Louie
Jazz	Kenny G	Duotones
Jazz	Charlie Parker	Bird: The Original Recordings of Charlie Parker
Jazz	Natalie Cole	Unforgettable With Love
Metal	Twisted Sister	Big Hits & Nasty Cuts
Pop	Neil Diamond	Heartlight
Pop	Elton John	The One
Pop	Phil Collins	Serious Hits… Live
Pop	The New Christy Minstrels	Greatest Hits
Pop	The Mamas and the Papas	16 of their Greatest Hits
Pop	Carole King	Tapestry
Pop	Jefferson Airplane	Jefferson Airplane
Pop	Carly Simon	My Romance
Pop	Generation X	Perfect Hits 1975-1981
Pop	Aretha Franklin	What You See is What You Get
Punk	Danzig III	How the Gods Kill
R&B	Aretha Franklin	The Best of Aretha Franklin	Still in shrink
R&B	Sly & the Family Stone	Greatest Hits
R&B	Ray Charles	My World
R&B	The Drifters	Golden Hits
R&B	Righteous Brothers	Anthology 1962-1974 Disc 1
R&B	Righteous Brothers	Anthology 1962-1974 Disc 2
R&B	Ray Charles	The Best of Ray Charles
Rock	The Association	Greatest Hits!
Rock	B-52s	Cosmic Thing
Rock	Bow Wow Wow	I Want Candy
Rock	Oingo Boingo	Best O' Boingo
Rock	Blondie	The Best of Blondie
Rock	T-Rex	The Very Best of T-Rex
Rock	Styx	Come Sail Away: The Styx Anthology
Rock	Mekons	The Mekons Rock N'Roll
Rock	U2	Rattle And Hum
Rock	The Tubes	The Best of the Tubes 1981-1987
Rock	Steve Winwood	Roll With It
Rock	The Rembrandts	LP
Rock	Men at Work	Business as Usual
Rock	Elvis Costello & The Attractions	Armed Forces [Bonus Tracks]
Rock	Eric Clapton	The Cream of Clapton
Rock	George Thorogood & The Destroyers	The Baddest Of George Thorogood & The Destroyers
Rock	Rush	Moving Pictures
Rock	Rush	2112
Rock	Sammy Hagar	Unboxed
Rock	Don Henley	I Can't Stand Still
Rock	Jerry Lee Lewis	18 Original Greatest Hits
Rock	Jethro Tull	Thick as a Brick
Rock	Jethro Tull	Aqualung
Rock	Jethro Tull	Original Masters
Rock	Various	Punky But Chic: The American New Wave Scene
Rock	Soundgarden	Badmotorfinger
Rock	Creedence Clearwater Revival	Chronicle
Rock	Elvis Presley	The Top 10 Hits disc 2		Rachmaninov	USSR Ministry Of Culture Chamber Choir
Rock	Elvis Presley	The Top 10 Hits disc 1
Rock	Elvis Presley	The Number 1 Hits
Rock	Golden Earring	The Continuing Story Of Radar Love
Rock	The Guess Who	Tack Record: The Guess Who Collection	2 CD set
Rock	Bob Dylan	Under the Red Sky
Rock	Aerosmith	Big Ones
Soundtrack	Various	Pump Up The Volume Motion Picture Soundtrack
Soundtrack	John Williams	Star Wars Original Soundtrack		John Williams	London Symphony Orchestra	John Williams
Soundtrack	John Williams	Star Wars A New Hope Soundtrack		John Williams	London Symphony Orchestra	John Williams
Soundtrack	John Williams	THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - Symphonic Suite from the Original Motion Picture Score		John Williams	National Philharmonic	Charles Gerhardt
Soundtrack		Braveheart Original Motional Picture Soundtrack		James Horner	London Symphony Orchestra	James Horner
Soundtrack		Independence Day Original Motion Picture Soundtrack		David Arnold
Soundtrack		Jurassic Park Original Motion Picture Soundtrack		John Williams
Soundtrack		Mission: Impossible - Music from and Inspired by the motion picture
Soundtrack		Hamlet Original Motion Picture Soundtrack		Ennio Morricone
Soundtrack		Dances With Wolves Original Motion Picture Soundtrack		John Barry
Soundtrack		Wyatt Earp: Music from the Motion Picture		James Newton Howard
Soundtrack		Wolf Original Motion Picture Soundtrack		Ennio Morricone
Soundtrack		Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace Original Motion Picture Soundtrack		John Williams	London Symphony Orchestra
Soundtrack	Various	Music from the Films of Clint Eastwood		Various
World	Buckwheat Zydeco	Taking It Home
World	Hebrew National	Kosher Classics

Charlie's Soap: Best Laundry Soap ever!

2009-02-17T08:46:00.005-06:00

Ok, I feel a bit silly blogging about a laundry soap, but I really like this stuff.

It's called "Charlie's Soap," and it's a small family-owned business. The soap is biodegradable, hypo-allergenic, and has no dyes or perfumes. The clothes come out of my dryer smelling... clean, not perfumy.

I got some of the soap because I'd heard that it actually eliminates the sour smell that comes from leaving laundry in a front-loading washing machine too long. I love my front-loader - it gets things cleaner than any other washing machine I've ever had, but if you leave a load in the washer for more than 4 or 5 hours, the clothes get stinky, and I'm TERRIBLE about starting a load in the evening, and forgetting about it until the next morning. Sigh... all that water savings goes right down the drain if you have to re-wash your clothes all the time. So, I'd taken to using the delay wash feature for when I started a load relatively late in the evening, so that the clothes would actually start washing the next morning. And I try to be prompt about transferring the clothes to the dryer.

Anyway, Charlie's Soap doesn't fully eliminate the mildew smell if you leave it overnight, but it's enormously better. And best of all, once you've used it awhile, you can stop using fabric softeners. Most of the stiffness in the cloth comes from all the chemicals and detergents and surfactants that never really get rinsed away fully (some fiber artists told me that it takes 15 rinses before it's all actually gone).

I asked why it works on the mildew smell, and it's because things like bleach and mildew killers actually kill or dessicate the mildew organism, but don't actually wash it away. So the mildew is still there, just in a dead form. And dead mildew is an EXCELLENT medium for growing new mildew. Charlie's Soap actually breaks up the mildew and washes it away. Mildew, if you leave wet clothes sealed up in the washer for long enough, will still happen, but it takes longer. Leaving the washer open when not in use also helps.

Charlie's Soap has very little suds, and rinses away completely, so no soap is left behind, which is why it helps those with chemical sensitivities, or dry or sensitive skin.

Even the pickiest members of my family agree that the clothes are coming out softer - plenty soft enough that we can discontinue the dryer sheets.

It comes in two forms - Powdered and Liquid. The latter is better for washing Gortex fabrics, but the powdered is great for just about everything else. And best of all? You use only a tablespoon per wash, and it really does dissolve completely. I can detect a faint odor when I stick my nose very close to the powder. The liquid has a more noticible scent, but it just smells kind of soapy to me. I'll be using the powdered most of the time. It's more concentrated, and you can buy it in 5-gallon buckets, which is good for well over 1000 washes (the price ends up being $0.11 per load if you buy it in that quantity at full price (I bought a few other items, which dropped the price on the big bucket even farther), which is better than 1/2 the cost of liquid purchased at a grocery store. I got some of the all-purpose cleaner to use as a spot cleaner.

Shipping is always free on the big buckets. Right now, through the end of February, shipping is free on any item, but it's goes back up to free shipping with orders greater than $25 or thereabouts, in March.

Best book for learning to knit?

2009-02-05T13:05:00.006-06:00

I'm learning to knit.

I've learned one cast on stitch (I think it's called the "slingshot" cast on), and I know one stitch - the "knit" stitch. Instead of doing 10 rows as my learning piece the way the little manual said, I've kept going with it, aiming for 10 rows with no mistakes before going on to the next stitch.

I've found the little books on knitting to be confusing and hard to follow - it wasn't until I watched some videos on Youtube that I was able to figure out how to cast on, or how to do the knit stitch.

There's a video at Amazon that people seem to like a lot (110 reviews, and rated at 5 stars):

My main gripe with this, is that I don't think I'll be going back and re-using it over and over once I've learned the basic items. I like the fact that once I've SEEN how to do something, the pictures in the books all start to make sense. I'd pull out a book and glance back at it regularly, but a DVD is less handy.

And then I found this book:

It's relatively new and so has no reviews yet. But it looks REALLY cool.

My husband says the Teach Yourself Visually books are pretty good:

It's got pretty good reviews (4.5 stars in over 70 reviews) but there are comments that said it was hard to follow the pictures.

Anyone have any suggestions for the best overall book for beginners?

Snow Tubing and Girl Scouts

2009-02-03T21:55:00.003-06:00

Kivi is a Girl Scout Daisy (Daisy is the group before Brownie), and tonight we went to Buck Hill in Burnsville, Minnesota to go tubing for a Girl Scout event. We got the group rates ($12/person), and everyone on the tubing hill was either a Girl Scout, or a family member of one.

It was insanely fun.

First of all, they had a pull lift that towed you up the hill on your inner tube. So that was kinda fun, but a little slow (it took 2-3 minutes to get to the top of the hill). Then you rolled off your tube, and towed it over to the edge of the hill. Then when the attendent said "Go!" you got on your tube and slid down the hill. Really, really fast. So fast that my shoulders, incased in a long-sleaved Tshirt, a sweat shirt, and my Maine Warden Parka from LLBean, got a little cold. So fast that if I'd wiped out, I could have broken my neck. So fast that if I didn't get onto the tube right, and my knees could drag, it was like slamming them repeatedly into rocks (well, ice and snow chunks).

I have to say it again. It was insanely fun. And cold. And tiring. But after 2 hours, I was good to go another few times down the hill despite being 50 pounds overweight, and my 7-year-old daughter was asking to go home (though she asked if we could return the following night). Wow. I could really get into this.

Oh, and my new mittens did a pretty good job - it was 1 degree above zero Fahrenheit, and pretty cold, but my hands stayed pretty warm.

It was really fun. Wow.

Quest for the best mittens

2009-01-28T12:52:00.004-06:00

I live in Minnesota. I have rather poor circulation in my hands and feet. I don't have Raynaud's (and yes, I've been tested for it), but it IS hard to keep my hands warm while in the very cold outdoors.

I've lived near Minneapolis for just over 4 years now, and I've learned a few things:

Thick wool socks (Smartwool is my favorite) and boiled wool slippers do an awfully good job of keeping my feet warm in my house, particularly in my basement, where my computer is. I find the boiled wool slippers warmer and more breathable than shearling-lined slippers.
A foot-of-the-bed warmer (like a bedwarmer, but only across the foot of the bed) does a GREAT job of warming up my feet faster so I can go to sleep (so the wool socks aren't always perfect!). We have ours on a timer, so it comes on at 8:00pm, and goes off at 12:30pm. It only warms the bed to about 80 degrees, but it's great!
Warm boots (sporting good stores have some that guarantee down to -20, and they work!)
Layers. I now own Smart Wool glove liners and ordered a pair of their heaviest weight long-johns.
Gloves or preferably mittens are REQUIRED for outdoors. And not just any ones will do. After awhile you learn to do nearly anything without removing them.

That last issue has proven the hardest to solve. I had a pair of Northface gloves, that cost me $60, and even during moderate activity like shoveling snow or snowblowing, or ice skating, my finger tips would get painfully cold. Northface, which is a fine company, probably has warmer hand wear, but those gloves just didn't work for me, and I dealt with them for 2 years. And then, after two times in as many days of getting excrutiatingly painfully cold fingers, I decided to upgrade.

As I did my research, I found that most people urged me to get something with leather. Lots of people urged wool. As a vegetarian, I try to avoid leather, so I don't get leather purses, though I still wear leather shoes. But I try to care for them and extend their use as best I can (my Birkenstocks are on their way to be re-soled).

And mittens were UNIVERSALLY recommended over gloves. So I tried 3 different gloves in the $80-$100 range (you can find gloves that run well into the hundreds of dollars). I didn't want electric gloves - would rather avoid batteries or disposable chemical warmers.

All three mittens are available in both men's and women's versions, though I show the women's below. The shipping ranged from free to $10 to get them to me, and all three vendors were good to work with and were very nice and accept full returns. LLBean accepts returns forever, and Snowshack asks for them back within 30 days and Backcountry Gear asks for 60 day returns. I don't remember if they have requirements as to sellable condition, but I always expect to return them that way anyway, so any tests I did would not be rigorous, or mark them up at all. I didn't even cut them apart. I bought a women's size large in all three, and one fit, one was too big, and one was too small, yet all assigned my hands(7.5" long and 7.5" around the knuckles) to the same size (I bought up a size in all 3 cases). I have strong, squarish, capable looking hands, that are far from slender. I tend to prefer my gloves to be a little big, rather than small. I don't like gloves to feel constricting.

Now, here are the results and observations about each one. The links are to the vender's page that sold me the mitten.

1. Swany X-Cell II Mittens:

These are the ones I'm keeping. They were the most expensive, and were all leather. I had hoped to avoid leather, but these were hands down the best when all was taken into consideration. They are simply the most comfortable hand wear I've ever felt. They are soft and warm, very very supple, and not very bulky. They are in fact, shockingly NOT bulky, such that you wonder how they can possibly be warm. They are mittens on the outside, but the non-removable liners had separate slots for your fingers. They slide on and right into place. They also have shielded (so wind doesn't go through) zippers on the back to hold change or a key, or a chemical hand warmer. They were the only pair that had that. I CAN put them on over my Smart wool glove liners, but they are a bit tight. Because I couldn't find any reviews of these gloves (or of the previous model) I contacted the company. I saw lots of recommendations for a cheaper model (the "toaster") as being warm, and as these are supposed to be the warmest of their mittens, I wanted to double check that these would be warmer than the toasters. The lady listened to what I had to say about my circulation problems, and she was actually hesitant to recommend their gloves given my problems. I appreciated her honesty, and decided to test them out anyway. The size large was perfect. The gauntlets were a little more minimal on these, and could go either over or under my coat sleeves, depending on preference. I suspect that the glove version would also be delightful, but I wanted the added warmth of the mittens. Maybe I'll treat myself to the gloves in a few years. :-)

2. Black Diamond Mercury Mitts:

I saw LOTS of reviews that said these were some of the warmest mittens they had tried on. They are made of man-made materials, except for the leather palm. They are quite bulky, and were the least dexterous of the bunch, and in fact, I couldn't get my car door open (from the inside) while wearing them - I had to remove them to do it. They are DELIGHTFULLY soft on the inside and fuzzy, and have a "trigger finger" removable liner - the liner has a separate index finger AND thumb, and a third slot for your last three fingers. However, these gloves ran big, and I found myself sliding all 4 fingers into the 3 outer finger spot, AND there was plenty of room that way. My husband who has big hands could get them on pretty well, even. I suspect that over time, I'd get used to how to hold my hands to make my index finger go into the right spot, so I would NOT consider this a deal breaker or even a problem. The liner also velcros firmly into place so they act and feel like an integrated unit, making them easy to get on - no weird adjusting necessary. They also accommodated a Smart wool glove liner with ease and comfort. I suspect that these would have been the warmest, IF they had not been too big. But even if the size had been right, they still would have been bulkier than I wanted. So, I do give these a hearty thumbs up, even if they were not my ultimate choice. If your hands are like mine, I would get these in a medium. The gauntlet cuff was much longer on these, and I believe they are designed to go OVER your coat sleeves.

The test: I wore BOTH pairs of mittens - the Swanys on my right, with the extra mitten dangling, and the Black Diamonds on my left, with the extra one dangling (I didn't disconnect them to avoid making them less sellable). I walked (at a stroll) for 5 blocks to pick up my car. It was after dark, and a degree or two below zero. My hands never got cold under that very light activity, in either glove. Initially the Black diamonds seemed warmer, but as they were too big, cold pockets formed just beyond my finger tips, and to the side of my pinky, and if I shifted my hand a bit, it was like sticking them into a fridge. I really believe this would not have been a problem with a smaller mitten. Initially during the walk, the Swany's seemed ever so slightly cooler, but by the end of my walk, my hand - while not quite toasty, was not at all cold (an ENORMOUS improvement over my old, expensive, and supposedly high-tech gloves), and there were no cold pockets, and my hand was warmer. Then I tried to drive home, and discovered my problem with opening the car door in the bulkier mittens. I could open the car from the outside with either one - it's just that the inside latch was smaller. I also hit my turn signal once by accident due to the bulkiness. I suspect that would also be something you'd learn to work around. I also expect that I will always be doing light to moderate activity while wearing them. Main use: ice skating, and shoveling or snowblowing snow, or walking. Walking is the lightest of the 3 activities. So... Swanys were better when considering bulk AND warmth.

3. Ascent Mittens by L.L. Bean:

Finally, I also tried the LLBean Ascent mittens, which were the only ones to not have any leather at all. I've got lots of interesting things to say about these mittens. LLBEAN service is by far the best. I LOVE L.L. Bean. I buy lots of my clothes there. And I suspect that these gloves, had they fit properly would have been my choice. But, the removable gloves liners, which are made of power-stretch polartec fleece, are just too constricting. I also found it slightly hard to get my hand past the narrower wrist area. They were less bulky and much more dexterous than the Black Diamonds, and similarly bulky but less dexterous than the Swanys. I don't know how they would have rated in warmth with regard to the Swany's, but Bean is sold out of the bigger men's sizes until next fall, so I cannot order the next size up until then. The removeable liners are actually usable as gloves, and would even be pretty good that way - they have a grippy fabric sewn to the index finger, thumb and palm. They felt warm, but were so tight, they simply were not comfortable, and it's completely the fault of the liner (and from the reviews on their site of the men's version, I'm not the only one who found this to be true). I tried my wool liners with just the shells, and they were much more comfortable. I was also concerned that the men's medium, which was very slightly bigger, MIGHT have been too long, and I would have given them a try, but they just aren't available at the moment. Again, I would say that they are likely very good mittens, but definitely get a couple of different sizes or just order up a size. And maybe that's not necessary for your hand type if you have slimmer fingers or hands. Interestingly, I found a Good Housekeeping review of them, where the reviewers put temperature probes inside, and turned the temp down to 30 degrees, and it took 130 minutes for them to cool down to 30 degrees on the inside. So I suspect that these are fine, and quite warm mittens. They just didn't work for me.

Anyway, I hope folks find this useful.

I'm an illiterate boob

2009-01-27T08:57:00.002-06:00

I'm educated. Sort of. I have degrees from university. And I can participate in most conversations. But sometimes I get the feeling that I really have just the tiniest hint of a proper education. The thing that causes that this time is reading through the list of 1000 novels everyone must read as selected by The Guardian.

I've only read 61.

I've seen motion picture renditions of another 20-25 of them, but that doesn't really count.

There are a few more that I started and stopped, but those don't count either.

Compare two text files, an application

2009-01-22T16:03:00.002-06:00

I write tons of little applications (in Windows XP) for my day job. I should share more of them. This one allows you to browse to two text files and perform a line/character comparison. If you want it, download the installer here. Let me know if it does(n't) work or you have any suggestions.

Republicans, Democrats, and the Governor of Illinois

2008-12-10T08:41:00.002-06:00

So unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois has been caught, apparently attempting to sell off President Elect Obama's vacated senate seat to the highest bidder. And he apparently did it, knowing that he was already under investigation for other corruption charges.

A long time ago, Chris used to say "Republicans are evil, and Democrats are stupid. And if given the choice, I'd rather go with evil." He no longer believes that. Now he says that "they are both stupid and evil," just about different things.

It seems that Blagojevich, a Democrat, is a perfect example of being both stupid and evil.

Now, being stupid isn't a crime, but shouldn't we expect better of our elected officials? Shouldn't they be BETTER, than the average Joe? Both in ethics AND intelligence? I suppose it's power that draws the corrupt to run for political office. So how do we go about attracting the smart and ethical folks to office? Hold a lottery? Only those who DON'T want to be governor, should be given the office?

There doesn't seem to be a good answer here. I've always wondered how men like Nixon could record (and then keep) the records of their illegal behavior, or how Governor Blagojevich could openly solicit bribes while already under investigation, and then expect to not get caught.

My seven-year-old is more adept at hiding her crimes than THAT.

So I'll tell Blagojevich and all other politicians who are considering illegal behavior the same thing I do her: "Grow up. Do the right thing. If you'd do what you are supposed to do in the first place, then you wouldn't ever get into trouble."

How to use players' emotions

2008-11-19T13:06:00.005-06:00

I'm targeting a few game developers with this, but welcome input from anywhere.

Let's say that there's a technology -- a module that you can plug into your projects that allows you to access the internal emotional state of the user of your game. How would your game use that? Any game. Any kind of game. What kinds of games would use it in what ways? Are there ethical considerations? As a designer/developer/whatever, would you like to have access to that extra stream of data? And why?

In email, Patrick Dugan wrote:

I'm currently playing with relationship-focused multiplayer interaction and how imperfect information can balance that out, kinda like what Between did but from a different angle. So naturally I'd like to experiment with making that data known to the other player, as well as leaving it unknown and doing some fancy back-end stuff with it. The easiest thing to do, of course, is leave "traps" for players to express emotional extremes, like a sudden gap-up in a market, and reveal things to their counter-player and to themselves that they may not have been aware of. That's the trick, the cognitive construction of choice matrices is powerful enough to mold behaviors behavior and take metrics on it, you don't need direct B-CIs. Of course, the B-CIs would be useful, but the control grid will come in more subtle forms.

That's good stuff for me. I hadn't been thinking at all about multi-user reveals, only how to manipulate the player with adaptive algorithms.

In email, Craig Perko wrote:

The problem with a question like this is that it's a very unsatisfying
thought experiment. The answers are all too basic and uniform because
the question is too wide-base.

Anyone with an ounce of brain can see that it would allow you to make
better games, and they can imagine up the kinds of ways it can happen
for all the various kinds of games. Anyone with an ounce of brain can
also clearly see the ethical considerations.

In order to be an interesting thought experiment, it has to be about
something more specific, something that requires thought. Something
that ten different designers would come up with ten different answers
for.

But if you really want an answer, okay. I would make games scarier,
more touching, more adrenaline-filled, obviously with an eye to player
health and privacy. You could easily develop a feedback system for
stressing the things that affect them most: if Anna makes them more
happy than Bert, you can show them more Anna, or you can strive to
make Bert more likeable. And, of course, that's a simple intro
example, it can get very complex as you apply it to level design, NPC
scripting, and variations in player capacities for emotion...

The problem is that it's a straight run: everyone will give you more
or less the same answers, perhaps flavored with different levels of
paranoia. I imagine these are the same answers you came up with.

Uh, yeah. What he said is what I'm finding.

There are little exceptions. Patrick's multiplayer thoughts are great. James Brown suggested a Rock Band game where audience appreciation matters to your score -- which is a different, easier kind of multiplayer use. He also suggested using the tech to gauge the effectiveness of product placements. That's neat.

Sewing - so what are all of those stitches used for?

2008-10-14T10:25:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I'm not much more than a beginner when it comes to sewing. And when I bought my new sewing machine, a Janome HT2008, it came with 50 different stitches:

(You think that's a lot? There are more advanced machines that come with hundreds of different stitches, and the ability to stitch alphabets and embroider and all sorts of stuff like that).

The problem is that I don't know what all of the stitches are used for. So I created an Excel file with all 50 stitches, the recommended presser foot (that's what the letter below each stitch shown refers to), and pictures of many of the available accessories. The accessory list includes all the presser feet that came with the machine, plus all of the ones I've bought, plus all of the ones I'd like to have. There are certainly more available.

I got all of the stitches and descriptions from the Janome Stitch Learning Center.

Anyway, I created a PDF file for those that don't have Excel, or don't know how to use it. If you have this machine, you might find it useful. You can download it here.

If you want the original Excel file so you can add other stitches (if you have a different machine), or other accessories, then drop me a note or comment, and I'll email it to you.

Crow's-Feet: A Story-Games Contest Response

2008-10-06T14:11:00.017-05:00

I occasionally design games in response to online contests. Some people do it often and produce great stuff. That's not me, but it's still fun. I wasn't really in the make-a-game mode, but something about Jonathan's post at SG kept rattling around in my head and out came the following. I think it's playable in an hour -- even if some people would take longer, I'll try it out and see how it works. I guess I've disregarded the rule about no writing implements at the table — I kind of forgot about that while the idea flowed out of me. I think I'll leave it like that rather than implement some inane replacement like pressing the crow's-feet into aluminum foil with your finger-nail. Also, when I started, I'd kind of expected the graphical role of the illustrated crow's-feet to have a more numeric role in resolution or something but that's not how it worked out.

Crow's-feet
-any of the tiny wrinkles at the outer corners of the eyes resulting from age

Players are expected to be sitting around a table or something. There are the same number of characters as there are players but each character resides between two adjacent players who share it — so that each player has two characters and each character has two players. Each character is represented at the table by a youthful, cut-out face. (To generate these, take pictures, tear them out of magazines, find them on the net, draw them up, use my templates below, whatever.)

These characters that you'll be playing with were in more or less the same clique in high school, twenty years ago. Maybe they're still friends and maybe not. Probably not really; but y'know, friendly. It's a funny time in their lives because high school graduation was such a significant milestone and now they've lived more life after that point than before. And they've seen quite a bit and really lived their lives for a while. Experiences have left tracks on the characters. They've aged.

Aging has good parts and bad and different people react and emphasize these aspect differently. And I think that the way we handle these things has some impact on the way we age. Take crow's-feet; maybe this is myth — though for purposes of this game it isn't: when you laugh and smile a lot, you develop wrinkles radiating out from your eyes in a generally downward direction and when you scowl more, your crow's-feet point more out and up. That's how you'll be recording the story of the characters — by illustrating their crow's-feet. And by calling on those illustrations to influence more of their stories.

So now you're sitting around the table with some friends and you have these cut-out faces lying on the table's surface between you and your neighbors...now what? Grab a fine-point sharpie (or whatever) and the character's face to your right. Write her first name on her forehead — way up high, and put her back on the table. Someone has to start — let's say it's the oldest player. He's going to pick one of his characters and describe a bit of a situation. It'll be either historic or current for the character.

See, the setting of this game is like this: It's late on the evening of their twentieth class reunion — after things have shut down and they've moved, as a group, to someone's house. They talk about the good old days, but more, they talk about Real Life; what's been going on. You're past the bullshit part of the evening and old friends have been reexamining their lives all day. Maybe they've had a few drinks. Now they're confiding.

When it's your turn, you come up with a situation of significance in the character's life; something that helped them to mature. Anything, really. But don't be trying to narrate an outcome — the group will do that collaboratively, just set something up and as play proceeds, you'll learn some cool stuff about the characters.

kid	is	lacking	security
partner	causes	building	satisfaction
job	exacerbates	losing	sufficiency
money		showing	excitement
parent		conflicted	heartache
news		social	anxiety
technology			healing
body			function

You can come up with any kind of situation that will lead to significance, but if you want some help, check out this table. There are four lists of words. you can string them together, adding the occasional "not," changing the tense or form and even adding or deleting a word as you want — this is just a helper. For example, maybe you grab "money causes social satisfaction" and set up a situation in which the character, aspiring to "success" can finally buy into a country club or maybe he hires a prostitute to help fill the gaps in his lackluster marriage. Some combinations won't make perfect sense; just fix them up or choose something else.

So one player (whomever is "on") sets up a beginning situation for one of his characters — describing in a few sentences what's going on: setting, initial actions and goals. Then he holds up the character's face and shows it around. if it is after the first round of play, the character is likely to have some crow's-feet. Each player should let the face inform their narration. (How you do that — seeking balance or considering the prior direction a tipping point, is up to each of you on your own.) From this starting place the players will take turns contributing to narrating what happens.

There are two formats to this: narration and dialogue. Some groups do most of the play as that kind of narration. Others will want a bunch of in-character dialogue. They're both quite nice ways to play.

Narration is as simple as this: the players take turns adding one sentence (or so — one main point, anyway) to the description of actions and reactions. Go clockwise around the table. Say whatever follows most obviously from what the player before you said. Don't take a bunch of time to think of something cool — trust that it'll be most cool by just riding the collaboration. And you want to keep the game moving; keep people engaged. That's narration. (Please note, this character is revealing a story. As such, a few things can't happen in the story -- like the character's death, at least. Usually.)

When speaking for a character, if the character happens to be one of the main characters — the ones on the table, then that character is spoken for by one of her players. (The player with the same left-right relationship to the character as the player who set this situation has with his character is ideal.) If it's some other character, the first person who wants to talk for her can speak up and run with it. If no one does that, it's the first player to the left of the player who set the situation up who isn't already engaged in the current dialogue. You can shift back and forth between narrative and dialogue freely — just remember who narrated the last bit so it can pick up with the next player.

This story-telling/acting round ends when the situation is naturally resolved. This will usually be obvious, but you can also check to see when everyone agrees that there's nothing more to add. In practice, these scenes just run out of steam and then you know that it's time to move on. At this point, the two players of the character for whom the recently ended situation was authored take a moment to reflect on the outcome of the story and illustrate a crow's-foot on the character's face — on the eye closest to the player. If you think that it was a positive growth outcome, angle the crow's-foot downward. If not, then upward. If it was strongly one or the other, curve it quite a bit. If you think the event had powerful impact on the character's life, make the line you draw a little wider/darker/deeper.

When one situation is resolved, the next player (to the previous player's left) chooses one of her characters and repeats the process. Note that you could play two situations in a row for the same character — it's up to you each round. Repeat this cycle until everyone has set up and resolved a situation. At this point, each player will have "judged" and drawn two crow's-feet. Call that a round. You should play the game as many rounds as you find interesting. I'm writing this with no play-testing, so it's only a guess, but I'd hope that after three rounds you'd have an interesting assortment of crow's-feet illustrated and you'd know some things about the characters.

Facial Resources:
I'm not sure what's legal in the way of grabbing images to retouch and present here, but I also didn't want to leave you with merely a mandate to supply big faces. So here's what I'm doing. There's a list of links below that seem like good resources. Either import faces from the following links, into a graphics editor and tweak and resize them for printing or just print them so they fill the page. These should get you started — I'm particularly fond of the first site.

A site dealing with computer-composited faces
One of what must be tons of modeling sites
Another
Another composite face.

Also, the software used by that top link is available here. If you wanted to morph a few pictures together from the net so that any trace of their origin was gone and so that they would be pretty generic, this would be a good tool. I hope to find time to do this in the next few days and I'll post a face or two here if that works out. And if you do that, let me know!

If anyone has suggestions or comments, I'd love to hear them — particularly improvements to the situation-word table.

Recycling old T-shirts into underwear

2008-10-02T19:21:00.013-05:00

So after Chris gave me his blessing on the purchase of the new sewing machine, and then proceeded to hand me a large stack of mending, I've had to learn when to mend, and when not to. The jeans were all worth mending, but the T-shirt I found in the stack was not. It was full of holes along the shoulder seams, around the neck band, and occasional holes peppered the bodice as well.

It was ready for the rag pile, and fortunately it didn't take much convincing to get Chris to agree. The sheer volume of patches would have made it uncomfortable. He did ask that I keep the fabric to use as patches for other mending that needs to be done, and that seemed reasonable.

But then, I found the pattern review site, which for sewers, is pretty sweet: http://sewing.patternreview.com

And you know what I found? That folks over there took old T-shirts and turned them into underwear. Now that is clever, and is a pretty good way to recycle fabric. And everything I read suggests that briefs are pretty easy. So I settled on the highly regarded Kwik Sew 2334 pattern that everyone said was simple and quick.

I also took another step that I've never done before - I traced the pattern onto newsprint paper, rather than trying to cut out the fabric using the original pattern. Newsprint isn't ideal, as it's not very transparent, but it worked well enough:

This pattern probably is easy, but I've never worked with knits before (let alone a limp, worn-out old cotton T-shirt), nor have I ever made any sort of pants before. I'm pretty familiar with the shapes that turn into bodices or skirts or sleeves, but pants? It's a bit like when your third grade teacher showed you one of those really weird maps of the world like this one:

. . . And then claimed that it really would cover a ball. Yeah, right. ;-)

So the first step was to turn the shirt into a flat piece of fabric. First I carefully cut off the sleeves, and then cut them along their bottom seams so they would lay flat. Then I cut the shoulder seams, and removed the neckband, so that I had something like this:

This left me with the bodice, which is essentially a tube of material, with no side seams to deal with. (Excellent!) Because most of the holes peppering the T-shirt seemed to be on the front, I decided to slit the tube right up what was the front of the T-shirt, in the hopes that that would put most of the holes near the ends of the fabric, and that I could avoid them better. Cutting up the front was a happy coincidence, as I'll demonstrate later. But here it is, all spread out:

Next, I joined the sleeves together because I thought (incorrectly) that I wasn't going to have enough fabric from the bodice to cut the long thin strips of material for the leg-hole bindings. If you don't know what I'm talking about, get out a pair of briefs - look at the leg holes. See how there is a strip of fabric sewn around the opening, giving it a nice finished, and reinforced look?

Anyway, I joined the sleeves together by laying one sleeve at a 90-degree angle to the other, and sewing diagonally across them, then cutting off the corner. When you open them back up, they form a continuous strip of cloth, with a diagonal seam in it, like this:

However, when I laid out the pattern, I discovered that that had been an unnecessary step, as the bodice was plenty big enough:

That strip along the bottom, is the leg-hole binding strip. It fit remarkably well. Also, see the U-shaped cut out at the top? That's what remains of the original arm holes. Remember when I talked about the happy coincidence? Well, here it is. If I hadn't cut the shirt down the front, I might not have been able to fit the pattern pieces so well. See how the dip in the arm hole fits into the dip in the pattern? Perfect.

The next issue I had to worry about was grain and stretch. For those non-sewers out there, grain refers to the way the fabric is woven, and it's the "up and down" direction of the fabric. Stretch refers to the side-to-side direction. If you are wearing a T-shirt (though this works with most fabrics), grab the bottom hem, and the collar and gently pull your hands farther apart, and you'll see that it will stretch a bit. It has some give, but doesn't stretch far. Now grab the bottom hem in two places, maybe 8 or 12 inches apart and pull your hands apart again. See how there's lot's of stretch? The up-and-down, non-stretchy direction is the grain, and the side-to-side very stretchy direction is the appropriately-named "stretch" of the fabric. This works for both wovens and knits, though it's much more evident in knits.

Well, guess what? Briefs and T-shirts have the grain and stretch oriented in exactly the same way! Which meant that when I laid out the pattern in the only way it could fit, the grain and stretch were correct. Another happy coincidence. If I'd laid it out incorrectly, the briefs would not stretch properly, or be comfortable. They'd be more like a tight tummy-control girdle rather than stretchy comfortable underwear. For those that don't sew, all pattern pieces are marked whether they should be oriented with the grain or the stretch of the fabric, so that you'll know which way to lay out the pieces on the uncut fabric.

Now, on to the sewing. Once the pattern was laid out and cut, I got to sewing. I'm far from an experienced seamstress. I can certainly follow a pattern, and I've made a few things. But I've never worked with knits, and it took some experimentation to find the right techniques. (There are entire books devoted to sewing with knits). Using the right needle helps, as well as making sure your machine has been cleaned and oiled recently. I also had to improvise a lot - like how in the world do you keep things even when you are sewing across a piece of fabric, rather than at an edge (use the adjustable blind hem foot, that's how!). I also did almost all of my seams using a zig-zag stitch, which is nice and stretchy and stretches with the fabric nicely.

I did find one mistake in my pattern instructions, which is shown at left.

If you don't spot it yourself - it's the third diagram down on this set of instructions. It's shaded wrong. The gray shading indicates the right side of the fabric, and the white indicates the wrong side. The third little drawing down should have the briefs shaded in gray (not white), with the fly flap that's flipped over the top done in white (as it's shown).

This was the first time I've ever spotted a mistake in a pattern before, and given my inexperience with sewing pants, it was very confusing. Other than that, the Kwik Sew pattern was great to work with. The pattern was printed on white paper that's a little more substantial than the brownish tissue I'm used to in Simplicty patterns. The instructions were also nice and clear aside from the mistake.

They turned out OK, though I think I messed up the fly a little - it's rather floppy, more so than it should be (see the final picture at the end of the article). I also have a bunch of sloppy seams and other amateurish mistakes. At least one seam looks like it was sewn by a drunk. I figured out what foot to use for all the other seams, which look a lot better.

But the real problem came when I got out a pair of Chris's RTW (that's ready-to-wear, AKA "store bought" for those non-sewers out there) briefs.

Uh, oh.

I measured Chris, and he has a 42.5" waist, and according to the pattern, he should wear an extra large, which is what I made. Chris's store bought briefs are a size large (not XL), and are tiny compared to the ones I made.

Chris tried them on, and found them very comfortable due to the softer fabric that I used, and while he can wear them (I was surprised that they'd even stay up, but they do), they don't fit well. For one thing, they fit loosely, rather than snugly, which is no surprise. The leg holes also gape in the back. He's going to wear them -- he's awfully sweet about this -- but I'm definitely making a large the next time.

But in the end, we went from this:

To this:

It was a fun little project.

Make the World a Better Place

2008-09-25T19:53:00.003-05:00

Cathy and I have been increasingly discussing how we can make the world a better place. Y'know, we're nobody...what can we do?!? Well, the answer is nothing -- at least if you don't try. So, these ideas that we come up with; what can we do with them? We need to catalog them and share them and solicit other ideas from other people. So we are. Right over here.

Please feel encouraged to stop by, read, let us know what you think, suggest ideas to us or maybe even write a guest column. :)

Darning Jeans

2008-09-25T11:43:00.022-05:00

I got a new sewing machine just after the Labor Day holiday, and I have spent the last week learning how to mend jeans using the buttonhole foot, and a special darning stitch. I set the machine over a hole and start sewing, and it moved the fabric evenly back and forth for me. See my previous blog post about the new machine (Janome HT2008), or read about it on the Janome site.

Note: You can click on any of the photos to get a closer look.

Not all sewing machines do it automatically the way mine does, but many Janome models do, and other brands probably do as well. If you have a sewing machine, check to see if your machine does something similar, and if it doesn't, you can do it freehand (you move the fabric back and forth by hand) using a straight stitch and an actual darning foot (mine is actually the buttonhole foot). But that takes more skill and practice than the automatic darning feature.

Darning is a bit different than just patching a hole, and shows a lot less than patching does. It actually uses thread to cover a hole - almost as if you've re-woven the missing fabric out of thread. And if you do it right, it's nearly invisible. The downside is that patching might be slightly more comfortable (though we haven't found that darning the jeans is uncomfortable).

There are a few key components to darning jeans:

Matching the thread. You must get it as close as possible to the color of the jeans. If it's not the exact shade, getting a thread that is slightly lighter is better than if it's slightly darker. A small spool of thread costs about $2.50 USD.
Matching the patch, if using. Bigger holes (larger than .7cm) require a small piece of fabric to support the new thread. The patch should ALSO be as close to the color of the fabric as possible, and as with the thread, going ever so slightly lighter is better than going darker. An eighth of a yard of fabric rarely costs more than a dollar or two.
A washable fabric glue stick. You use it to hold the patch in place while you are darning. It costs around $3, and lasts a LONG time.

When patching jeans, you normally use double-sided fusible interfacing to glue the patch to the hole. You cut the interfacing around the hole so that the interfacing can't be felt from the back of the hole. It also prevents the edges of the patch or the edges of the hole from unraveling further. I didn't like using interfacing to hold the patches on, for a couple of reasons. It leaves the patch rather stiff. It wasn't really uncomfortable, but that spot never really conforms to your skin the way undamaged denim does. And when you darn across a patch, the darning also leaves the patch a little stiff - there's a LOT of thread being used. So when doing a darning job, I leave out the interfacing in the hopes that eventually the repair will eventually soften, something it won't do with interfacing. I figure the thread will prevent the unraveling well enough, and that's one less layer of stiffness to make the jeans uncomfortable.

Other, less important, but worth thinking about considerations:

Match the thread type with the fabric. If you are darning cotton fabric such as denim, then use an all cotton thread if possible, rather than a polyester thread. That way, as the fabric continues to fade, so too will the thread, hopefully at the same rate. However, matching the thread color is more important to me, and if I can get the exact right color, but only in a polyester thread, then I use polyester thread.
Match the fiber content of the patch, with the fiber content of the garment being repaired. In other words, if you are fixing cotton jeans, then use a cotton patch. This is for the same reason as #1 above. Again, matching colors is more important to me.

This sounds complicated, but it's really not.

I had 8 pairs of jeans to repair, and 3 of them were very faded blue jeans. I took the most damaged pair, and used the fabric to repair the other two. The rest, I took to Joanne Fabrics, and found matching threads and patching fabrics. I think the materials were about $15 to repair 5 pairs of jeans.

Then, follow these steps:

Cut patches for the holes. I make the patches squares or rectangles only. Cut the patch so that it extends at least 1/2 an inch past any edge of the hole. Bigger is better than smaller, because if you don't make it big enough, it's easy to catch and scrunch up the edge of the patch, making a hard lump underneath the fabric. If the diameter of the hole is less than .7 cm, I skip this step entirely. That's about the same size as the width of my pinkie finger at the tip, and is the widest the darning foot will accommodate in one pass. I also do NOT trim the frayed edges if I'm skipping the step - the fraying fabric will help support the darn.
Glue the patch behind the hole on the inside of the garment. I use a washable fabric glue stick. Avoid getting the glue on the center of the patch, where it covers the hole. Wait about 5 minutes for it to set.
Darn the hole using the #9 stitch (shown) and the buttonhole foot. You open out the back of the foot as far as it will go, and you do NOT pull down the buttonhole size sensor for the machine. You position the needle so it's at the lower left corner of the hole, maybe 1/2 a centimeter away from the edge. Do as many passes as you need to, to completely cover the hole and edges of the hole. When done, you can turn it 90 degrees and go over it again, if desired. If the hole is small enough to not use a patch, I try and center it just so. You can also shorten the darning pass for smaller holes.
Remove the jeans from the machine, and trim your threads close to the fabric surface. I then turn the jeans to the inside, and trim the edges of the patch close to where the stitching begins.

Not including the trip to the fabric store, the entire process takes no more than 10-15 minutes per hole. (Well, at least that's how long it took me after I figured out how to do it. The first few tries took longer). And as long as I've done a good job matching everything, the repairs are remarkably hard to see. Not invisible, but only noticeable if you are looking for the spots. I've also found that the process is more invisible on blue jeans, than on other colors of jeans. The reason is that blue jeans are made of two colors of thread in the weaving process - white in one direction, blue in the other, giving the jeans a slightly variegated appearance. That variegation does a better job hiding the repair work (Think about it, what kind of carpet shows all the dirt or crud on it - a matte style, or a speckled style?). Chris has pairs of jeans in black, brown, tan, and olive, and the threads used to weave those denims tend to all be one color. It's even MORE important to match your thread and patch colors when darning jeans that aren't the standard blue.

The step-by-step photos above document a mediocre thread- and patch-matching job. (It was because of that particular pair of jeans that I got MUCH more careful when choosing colors.) The repairs are clearly noticeable. But the poor choice turned out to be advantageous - the repairs do show up nicely in the photos. Below, are some examples where the thread matched nicely.

To put things into perspective - I put 6 pairs of Chris's jeans back into circulation. To have bought them new would have cost $35 x 6= $210. The cost of the sewing machine was $350. It hasn't quite paid for itself, but it has certainly helped. And there are cheaper machines available that can do the same thing. The cheapest machines wouldn't do this automatically, but you could still do it with a darning foot and freehand darning with a straight stitch (though that takes some practice to get right).

I got a new sewing machine

2008-09-25T09:00:00.013-05:00

Back in the mid 1970s, my mother spent an ungodly amount of money on the very first electronic sewing machine. It cost about $1200, and was the Singer Athena 2000. Evidently it was the machine to have. As someone on a sewing message board told me, "I remember when she came out and was the absolute last word in a machine in her day. So revolutionary." I was 5 or 6 years old when Mom got it, and I even used it a little bit growing up - enough that I actually knew how to thread it, though I can't claim to have learned to actually sew.

Mom upgraded to a used Bernina when I was in my late 20s or early 30s, and I just couldn't understand why. What was wrong with the Singer? But, I wasn't going to complain, as she gave me the Singer. It sat around for years - maybe six years - without getting much use ... I think my husband and I dragged it along on two cross-country moves before I ever gave sewing a serious try. But, it came with a sewing table/cabinet and every conceivable accessory (Mom was an avid and talented seamstress), so I was hesitant about replacing it.

I started sewing, and have been sewing somewhat more seriously for about two or three years now. I've made a couple of nightgowns, three capes and Halloween costumes, a dress, and a shirt for my daughter, a bathrobe for my husband and several doll quilts. I've also made valentines for my kids - my daughter got a small puffy heart-shaped pillow, and I made heart-shaped juggling bean bags for my stepson (made from red, white and black bandanna fabric with hearts and flaming skulls).

But the Singer was giving me problems. First, it really handled slippery flimsy fabrics poorly, and to date, I've made two Halloween costumes out of that sort of fabric. Skipped stitches, distorted decorative stitches, you name it. It also had a terrible tendency to suck any kind of thin fabric down into the throat plate, despite using the appropriate needle, and a straight-stitch throat plate (for those of you who don't sew - the throat plate is the small metal plate under the fabric, with a hole in it. The needle goes up and down into that hole. A straight stitch plate has a tiny hole not much bigger than a needle. It's maybe 1 mm in diameter, and it's harder for fabric to be pulled down in there. An all-purpose plate has an oblong hole, maybe 8 mm across, to accommodate stitches like zig-zag stitches, where the needle comes down on the left side and then the right).

Then after 30+ years of often heavy use, the machine was no longer reliable. It would suddenly refuse to stitch anything without forming horrible knots, suck ALL fabrics down into the bobbin area, and jam, and nothing I did - from changing needles, threads, fabrics, and re-threading would make it work. So I'd haul it up to my sewing machine repair guy, and he'd tinker with it for a few minutes for free, get it working again, and I'd go home to start sewing again. This happened three times in a row, right at the beginning of new projects. My repair guy is a nice man, but frankly, I had to drive 30-45 minutes each way, and I was getting tired of it. He also warned me that if the circuit boards went bad, it would be either very, very expensive, or impossible to repair. The boards aren't made anymore, and haven't been for years, so repair guys collect the machines to use for parts. Repairs to that part would run in the hundreds of dollars, if they could be made at all.

A year or two ago, I had asked at a local quilt shop what kind of machines they recommended, and they had given me an unhesitating and wholehearted recommendation for a Janome, just about any Janome. She felt they were reliable and easy to use. I had never heard of Janome (pronounced Juh-NO-mee), but I found out later that they were a Japanese company. I was interested in a Bernina of course, as lots of people (including my Mom) consider them the Cadillac of sewing machines. But the Swiss-made Berninas that I could afford were either new and the lowest end mechanical models, or used but so old, they didn't have the modern features I wanted. My mom's machine was a used Bernina 1130, and it was a nice machine that I could have been quite happy with, but even a 20 year old model like hers (it was made in the mid 1980s) now retails for around $1000. That's just too expensive for me at this time.

When my Singer finked out AGAIN, a friend loaned me a $70 Brother purchased at Walmart. It wasn't a great machine, but frankly, it handled the slippery, flimsy fabric FAR better than my high-end, but old machine ever did. Like night and day. But it was loud, and had none of the more modern features that I wanted. I didn't put it through its paces, but I doubt it could handle multiple layers of heavy fabrics well. That was the last straw. I had found out what a joy it was to sew on a good machine (my mother's 20-year-old Bernina), and then when a cheap machine handled a fabric BETTER than the Singer did....

So, I did some research on Janomes and liked what I saw. No one really had anything bad to say. I also saw a model called the Janome HT2008, which was quite flexible - good for nearly any kind of sewing project - quilting, home decor, and clothing, and had plenty of modern features, and 50 stitches both decorative and utility. The average price paid was around $350.

The next day, I went to my repair guy, and brought him my machine, which he again tinkered with and got running again. I asked him point blank, "Can you make this machine reliable?" And he said "You can keep it running for a few more years, but no, not really." And I said "so what's the equivalent machine in a new Janome? And he said, "look at the heart machine." He didn't have any used machines that I wanted that were in my price range (they were all too expensive!), so I tried out the "heart machine." It's a Janome HT2008 (the same model I'd read about the night before). The HT stands for "Heart's Truth" and it's a limited edition machine meant to raise awareness of heart disease in women. I tried it out, and bought it on the spot. It was $350, but Kurt gave me $30 in trade for the Singer. To put the price in perspective, I saw one new Janome that retails for $8000. I also get unlimited free lessons on how to use the features the machine offers (I've had two lessons so far).

It's got lots of great features, which you can read about it here: Janome's web page and Brochure.

So then I took it home, a bit nervous about what Chris would say. We usually talk to each other when making big purchases like this, and I hadn't talked about it with him at all. While it wasn't exactly a whim, it wasn't far from it! But he was really great about it. He felt that it was a good thing for the household to have, and so the household paid for 1/2 of the machine, and the rest is coming out of my allowance (we both get some money each month to spend as we like). He then gave me a wicked look, and handed me a stack of jeans he'd been saving for at least 6 years and asked me to patch the holes in them. Gulp. I couldn't well refuse since a) I have the time, and b) he really was great about me buying the machine, with money so tight.

I still have the cabinet that came with the Singer, and I'm currently using it with my Janome, which fits in the cabinet perfectly. However, I don't have a bolt that fits the bottom of the Janome, and one would have to be special ordered in the right size and threading. If I did that, I'd just drill a new hole in the bottom of the cabinet. No problem - it wouldn't even show. But, as I don't have a bolt, I can't collapse the machine into the cabinet when not in use. The cabinet has a platform that's below the surface of the table, so that the machine sits down below a bit, with the sewing surface itself flush with the table. Then, when you want to put the machine away, you lift up on the platform to release it, and it tilts down at 90 degrees, and the machine dangles on its side underneath (see why a bolt is needed?). Then you flip the extended table surface up and then down on top of the hole. It's open on the underside though, so if you crouch down under the table, you can see the machine.

This is a problem for two reasons:

I have a cat named Squeaky that LOVES thread, and he will, if I leave the machine out with thread on it, grab the thread and spiderweb it all around the room, and also try to eat it. That's a health hazzard for a cat, and he's already been rushed to the vet once, to have his hind legs untangled from the thread he'd dragged out (he was OK, fortunately). But he was so freaked out, biting and scratching, that I couldn't release him by myself. The open bottom is unacceptably insecure, as it doesn't keep the thread out of his reach.
The machine (like most sewing machines) has what is called a "free arm". You can take part of the base off, which makes it really small. This is great when hemming pants or cuffs. You put the fabric tube AROUND the base of the machine. I do use that feature. On the Singer, I had to collapse the sewing surface to access the free arm, but because the machine was bolted in place, I had to lift up the front panel of the cabinet, collapse the machine's surface, and then sew with my arms OVER that front panel, reaching behind and below it. It was like sewing in a hole. It was a pain in the butt. I suppose I could have unbolted it, and lifted it up to the top surface but that's a huge hassle, too.

Mom's new cabinet has a "lift". You push down on the platform supporting the machine and it lifts up on some sort of hydraulic mechanism, rather than swinging or tilting up. And it's got three positions - Machine fully below the surface of table, Machine partially up, so the sewing surface is flush with the table, and all the way up, so you can access the free arm. The cabinet also fully encloses the sewing machine when not use, protecting it from kitty curiosity and fur. I want one lots and lots, but it's another $350 for a cheap one, and I'm making do with the old one for now.

I'm terrified that somehow someone will hit the mechanism that releases the cabinet platform, and the machine will fall through, but I doubt it's likely. And to put the machine away, I have to either lift the machine up and out of the cabinet, and then collapse the cabinet and store the machine on the floor, OR I leave the cabinet open, and cover the machine with a hard plastic sewing machine case that I bought. I do the latter when I'm just going to pausing for a short time to keep Squeaky from the thread. I'll pack up the machine in the case, and fold up the table, when I'm on one of my longer sewing hiatuses.

I've been sewing on it for nearly a month now, and I really, really like the machine. It's quiet, far more powerful than my old machine and a joy to use. My only negatives are that I find the markings on the throat plate hard to interpret (all Janomes have this same problem - it has both centimeter and 1/8th inch markings, and it's hard to tell which is which), and the machine doesn't have adjustable presser-foot pressure (the one and only feature the old machine had that this one doesn't). I'll get used to the former, and the latter mostly doesn't matter. I didn't change the pressure all that often on the old machine either.

Oh, did I mention the Janome has a darning stitch? You use with the buttonholer, and it darns holes pretty nicely, and I've (as promised) repaired several pairs of Chris's jeans with it, and the repairs are nearly invisible. But that's a subject for another post!

Spore: six hours in

2008-09-11T09:46:00.005-05:00

I preordered Spore from Amazon in December of 2007. It arrived yesterday. I'm talking here about my impressions.

OK, first, I have only six hours of play time in on Spore, so really, these are just first impressions. I’ve played through the first three stages and am poised to begin the civilization stage. My review of it, I’ve come to realize as I wrote the below, is unapologetically positive. I realized, of course, that I was having fun playing, but now I realize that I love the game. It has shortcomings – the controls are hard sometimes, but overall, I’m really enthusiastic.

The creature creators – particularly once you get into 3D (i.e. everything after the cellular stage) are really fun to just mess with. There are game-play repercussions to the choices of what you attach and where, but even without that, just seeing what you can do is awesome fun. In the end – regardless of how Spore lives up to expectations and hype, just the creative acts alone will make it worth $50 if I honestly appraise things (time and money).

At each stage, so far, the game-play changes significantly. It both gets more complex as you advance and also changes how you accomplish things. I’m playing an herbivore and that informs the choices I have throughout play.

In the beginning I was just hunting bits of green stuff and trying to avoid being prey. The way you grow and level (up through strata of the tide pool? down? Or maybe just in that you’re aware of things at a different scale but in the same space?) is a nice gimmick and the play remains the same but the graphics are rich enough that even though there’s not much to it, it’s fun and rewarding just playing the light game and looking around.

When you advance from one stage to the next, you are presented with a history of your development which focuses on what all you accomplished during the last stage but includes the whole history. It’s fun. Just looking at how your body has morphed at each “generation” is kind of neat – particularly since you remember back to how you were making decisions.

When you crawl out of the sea, new parts – arms and legs most obviously, become available. And you gain a third dimension. You can fight or befriend other nests of critters and you have some basic missions to fulfill to gain DNA points (or whatever – the currency that allows you to alter your form). And you can (and must, I think) build a pack of companions that will help you make friends or eat foes. I stumbled upon gliding wings and found that increasing my flight ability made it fast and fun to get around (and out of danger) in this stage. This is also the first area where maneuvering with the WASD keys was hard. Turning is something I still haven’t mastered. The mouse-look doesn’t work like it ought, I think.

This brings me to another realization about Spore. They give you enough guidance to steer you along the right path, but really figuring out how to play has enough holes in it that you’re figuring stuff out. (Now that I think about it, maybe the manual tells more – maybe even too much, I dunno, I only read the first page.) But, so far at least, the figuring out is nicely in what Vygotsky called my Zone of Proximal Development – which means that the learning task is stimulating and not discouraging.

In the third stage your form is fixed and the creator aspect of play involves dressing your tribe; designing their costume. It’s quite fun. The game play was pretty dull real-time strategy play. Harvest food, domesticate pets – though I’m not sure how to use them yet, make babies, outfit your tribe and assign them tools – that sort of thing. And then you can either impress and ally with other tribes or destroy them. I think your strategy at the beginning of this stage depends on what tools you start with. If not, that kind of sucks, but oh well. I befriended two and destroyed three – even with the intent to follow as pacific a course as I could. Destroying enemies is hardish. If you want to figure everything out for yourself, skip the rest of the paragraph.............The strategy that I settled on was to equip my entire tribe with burning torches and just attack their main building. You get slaughtered but suck up tons of their resources. You want to have built up a food supply first because as you die, you’re laying more eggs. Probably you got wiped out, but reproduced faster than them. So now, you outfit the tribe similarly and repeat the attack. This time you win. I actually hope it’s not as formulaic as all that, but it worked like that for me on my first game.

That’s about all I can think of to say just now. I’m having fun with it.

CSA starts to fly

2008-07-15T21:51:00.005-05:00

Two weeks ago I noted what our haul from our local CSA was. I just got back with the next box -- last week was a week off for the harvest. It's a nice, but small, assortment. I got maybe a cup of raspberries (that won't last twelve hours), a few radishes, one nice kolrabi, a humongous zucchini (which is not very flavorful, but will provide bulk to stew or omelette or something), a nice bunch of onions, a small amount of chard -- also a nice amount on a week when Cathy and Kivi are out of town, a bag (maybe six ounces) of spinach and another of mixed greens and two big bags of kale. Apparently the box was supposed to have just one but they had an extra and knew from previous conversations that I like kale, so they gave it to me. Booyah!

Party game design

2008-07-10T17:07:00.002-05:00

1:30 - Using Brenda Brathwaite's article, Easiest Game Design Exercise Ever I decided to make a silly little game quickly. Also, I need text-heavy stuff to do in order to practice working with my new keyboard.

Right off the bat I'm aiming for a somewhat risque party-game since I don't have any experience inventing such a thing.

1:39 - Step 1 - So let's say there are twenty spaces on our track.

1:40 - Step 2 - Must...choose...narrative... OK, so I really prefer an abstract, but I want to follow this exercise. I want to have some social play elements ( so I want it to be social like running for class president or something but kind of more grown up. Um...like a successful party host(es) or something. Yeah, that'll do -- Party Time.

2:10 - Step 3 - My first impulse was to violate the rules here, but I've gone back and decided to *really* follow this as closely as possible and see what I get. I'm going to just "go with dice" but I want there to be three or four sources of movement in step 4 and I want them to be relatively more powerful than the random movement of the dice. I want the dice to result in a distribution with a low kurtosis. What I'd really like is 3d2 or something but I think that's impractical -- flipping coins sucks compared to rolling dice. After goofing around for a bit I think I'll go with Roll three dice (d6) and take the lowest roll as the mechanic. It gives a slight chance of extraordinary movement (six spaces) but you're about 70% likely to move only one or two spaces. This also allows future developments to alter the die-mechanic.

2:49 - Step 4 - Conflict. I'm not sure about calling this conflict but I want a few position-modifying mini-games. Maybe once they're fleshed out the board will just have one of them on each space or maybe they're the result of a card-draw. The trick now is to figure out what they are. I'd like to have at least four mini-games and ideally, more. I'd like them to extensible -- fitting expansions and player-generated content in seamlessly and allowing certain Challenges (I think that's what I'm calling them) to be removed to fit the tastes of the play-group. I'd also like for the Challenges to result in a net movement of <2 spaces -- so some player(s) might advance or fall back up to two spots or maybe some of each would happen but only up to one space in each direction -- and if this were occasionally violated, no biggie.

Challenge 1: Who here has (never) done...? The way this works is that the Focus player (she who triggers the Challenge) selects a question about past deeds for which her truthful answer is "me" (indicated with a raised hand) and presents it to the crowd. (E.g. "Who here has driven over 100 MPH?" or "Who here has drawn a lover's blood with your teeth?" or "Who here has never skied?") Every other player either raises their hand, indicating that the statement is true for them too, or does nothing indicating that it is not. If no hands are raised, the focus player advances two spaces. If fewer than half the hands are raised then the focus player advances one space.

Challenge 2: Color-Match When using this Challenge, a pile of colored cards or tokens or something must be available. (For testing, I'd like to get a pile of color chips from the paint department at Home Depot or something.) The focus player select a color randomly, drawing it and revealing it to all the players. If that player is wearing a garment that is pretty close in color to drawn color (as determined by a consensus of fellow players) then the focus player has two options. If not, skip the first option below and execute the second.

2a: If the focus player is wearing a garment of close color she may opt to apply the color test rules to herself rather than seeking out the closest match as per the paragraph below. If she happens to wear the closest match in the game, then the option is moot.

2b: The player wearing a garment that is closest in color to the selected color must go back two spaces. If that player would rather, he may remove the garment and instead go forward one space.

Challenge 3: Kiss Your Neighbor When playing with this Challenge module, there is a play aid -- a card with five strata each listing one of, in order: hand, arm, lips, neck and tongue, upon which a pawn rests and moves. The pawn begins the game on the lowest (hand) space. When the focus player lands on a KYN space, he must consult the play aid and kiss one of the players adjacent to him -- the one he has kissed the fewest times if applicable, otherwise his choice. If he will not, he loses two spaces. If he kisses the neighbor in a place and manner appropriate to what is indicated in the space with the pawn, he advances one space. The focus player also has the option of kissing his neighbor as per the space below or above the pawn's current location, subtracting or adding one to the number of spaces gained. Further the pawn is moved up a space on the play aid each time a kiss is conducted earning one or two spaces gained on the victory track. The point of the kiss-location track is to escalate the passion and intimacy of the kiss. To play this appropriately, the meaning of each space should be apprehended with this in mind.

Challenge 4: A Round of Greetings The focus player is to address each other player starting with the player to her left and continuing in clockwise order as if she were the host of a party and were greeting guests as they arrive. Each greeting should include physical contact where practicable (maybe only with adjacent players if your game space doesn't permit freedom of movement), direct eye-contact and a compliment. The focus player receives two space-advances minus one for every fellow-player who thought the act implausible.

Challenge 5: Art Contest The focus player names a subject for the other players to draw. Each other player is given a small piece of paper and a pen or pencil and attempts to draw the named subject. This should take just a few minutes. The focus player then collects the drawings and judges them -- selecting a winner. The drawer of the winning picture advances one space. Then, the focus player's judgment is judged. If every player agrees with the judgment, the focus player advances two spaces. If not, but every player agrees that it was a reasonable or plausible judgment, the focus player advances one space. If not, and every player suspect the focus player of gaming the judgment then the focus player loses a space.

etc.

I'm now thinking that the way to do the board is to just assemble a small deck of cards/spaces based on the modules you're playing with and the relative frequencies desired and then shuffle them up and lay them out making a dynamic board.

5:07 - Step 5 - Oh, I'm done. There you go!

Ergonomics

2008-07-10T11:42:00.001-05:00

I recently purchased two new pieces of hardware to improve the ergonomics of my workstations. This decision arises out of the fact that my wrists have been aching more or less constantly for a couple of years. As a programmer, I keyboard for a living and while I keep thinking of career changes that I might undertake, I don't really want to and I don't see how I could continue to provide the same standard of living for my family. Also, I've been holding the degeneration of my wrists back by wearing braces for like ten or twelve hours each day, my fingers have recently started to hurt too.

So, the first of these new devices is the Kinesis Advantage keyboard. Golly, but it's strange. This is the first document that I'm typing on it and some things are interesting. I'll let you read all the specific features and claims made by the manufacturer, but I'll note that the seemingly awkward depression in which the keys lie really does lessen the reach and flex of each finger. I am also starting to believe in the value of this device because in the (painfully long) time that it has taken me to type this short note, my unbraced wrists have been markedly pain-free. So, while it is really hard to get used to the new key-layout, I think I will and I am currently thinking that it's a good thing.

Something unexpected about this experience is that I have identified a bunch of poor typing habits that are deep-rooted in me. Apparently, I hit the Y key with my left pointer habitually. Same with the C! Like, what am I thinking? I took mandatory typing class in 5-7th grades and another semester in high school. And I type nearly as fast as I can compose my thoughts. I should know how to do this all right. And yet, I see that I also use only the left shift key under normal circumstances and I also routinely glance at the keyboard as I type. Bad me! Anyway, neat stuff to observe.

The other new piece of hardware is the Evoluent Vertical Mouse 3. The main idea is that it keeps your mouse-arm more naturally aligned. It seems to make perfect sense that that would be desirable, but it's hard to use comfortably. It is much more like a normal mouse than the new keyboard is normal, but in some ways it feels subtly more awkward. There is a slight ledge on the bottom right of the mouse's body that feels like it must be where to rest your pinky-finger. But when I do, it seems that my fingers don't line up naturally with the buttons. My pointer is on the top button (left-click) and my middle finger is lined up with the second button (I have this set up to switch between open apps) and then my ring and pinky fingers both rest on the bottom button (right-click). The two problems I'm currently experiencing with this is that using the scroll-wheel (between the pointer and middle fingers) is awkward with either finger and then the bottom button feels awkward -- maybe like it's too small for my two fingers or something. Also, these are my impressions after using it for less than an hour -- maybe I'll just get used to it and it will be second nature. Hopefully.

Name-generating algorithm

2008-06-27T15:01:00.004-05:00

I've been dabbling with algorithms to generate new, fictional names for new, fictional cultures for ages. Sometimes I just goof around, sometimes I do real research and sometimes I devise implementations. I've got some code that I've been playing with today and I decided to write about what I'm doing. As you will see, the results are not yet entirely satisfying.

Check out the short wiki article on syllable theory for some basics. There's lots more to read on the web if you want to.

The first step was to build up a potential language. I selected an incomplete, base set of phonemes with which I would work:

Co: b, f, j, k, l, p, r, st, y
Cr: b, d, ph, g, h, dge, ck, ll, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, gh, z
v: a, e, ee, o, oo, u, au, ea, eu, oa, ou, ua, ue

I chose these five years ago when I was first developing a spreadsheet that would generate all the possible syllables of certain configurations. I know that limiting the raw numbers was one concern, but I frankly don't recollect why I kept which ones. It doesn't really matter and I could swap them out as desired.

(I think that Co indicates consonants used in syllabic onset and Cr indicates consonants used in the rime. Note some, but not total, overlap.)

I was writing this up today as an element in a little game that I've been messing with so that pawns would have names and personalities. Because of this context I wanted each game to have a cohesive linguistic feel. I went with those default phonemes above and then for each game-run, limited the available elements by removing roughly 50% of them at random. (Each phoneme had a 50% chance to stay or go so really weird things could occasionally happen.)

In one example (which I'll stick to through this article), the retained phonemes look like this:
Co: j, k, p, st, y
Cr: b, ph, g, h, dge, ck, ll, m, p, r, t, v
v: oo, u, ea, oa, ou

The next step is to build syllables that the language uses. I started out accumulating EVERY syllable possible of three different schemes. But that's too much because it lead to a bunch of over-similar syllables and the language ends up feeling funny. I already had a function that trimmed an array in half as described above, so I just ran them through that.

So the three kinds of syllables that I built are: VC Rime, CVC and CV. using the above-described phonemes and trimming algorithm, I created the following syllables that would be available for use in names (or other words, for more ambitious projects):

R/Rime: oob, oodge, oock, ooll, ub, uph, uh, uck, ull, up, eall, eap, ear, oab, oaph, oag, oadge, oack, oat, oav, oum, our, ouv

CoR/CVC: joodge, jooll, jup, jeall, joaph, joag, joadge, joack, joat, koob, koodge, koock, kooll, kub, kuh, kull, kup, keall, koab, koaph, koag, koack, koat, koum, kouv, poob, poodge, pub, puck, pup, pear, poab, poag, poadge, poack, poat, poav, poum, stoob, stub, stuh, stuck, stull, stup, steap, stear, stoaph, stoag, stoadge, stoack, stoat, stour, yoob, yoodge, yoock, yooll, yub, yuph, yuh, yull, yup, yeall, yeap, yoack, yoat, yoav, youm, your

CoV/CV: jea, joa, jou, ku, koa, poo, pu, poa, pou, stoo, stea, yea, yoa

Then in order to put these together to form words, I identified (some taken from literature and some made up by me) eight configurations that were reasonably likely to produce plausible word-forms. They are:

CoR 'CVC
CoV_CoR 'CV_CVC
CoV_CoV 'CV_CV
CoR_CoR 'CVC_CVC
CoR_CoV 'CVC_CV
R_CoV 'R_CV
R_CoR 'R_CVC
CoR_R 'CVC_R

In my application, I just randomly select one as the pattern to which male names will adhere and one to which female names will. using the above syllables, my app generated the following sixty names:

female names using(CoR_CoV):
koabkoa
koagstea
koatpou
stoatyoa
stuhpu
stupjoa
stulljou
koodgeyoa
poadgestoo
poabpoa
stearku
stubyoa
stoaphpu
poobkoa
kealljoa
koollpu
joatpu
poavstea
stoagjou
stullpu
joollstea
stuckkoa
yullstea
stoatpoo
koodgepoo
stearpoo
poodgejoa
stourjea
yoodgekoa
joadgestea

male names using(CoR_R):
keallup
stoageap
koackooll
joodgeoock
stulluck
kealluh
joatouv
poatoav
stearuh
joadgeoum
yoodgeouv
koockoav
puboack
joadgeoob
yoobear
jupull
joatoat
kulloaph
joackoock
youroadge
yooboag
yoodgeoav
koockup
koackup
stooboum
koumeap
kupub
joolluh
kulloav
joadgeoab

Sadly, these are really, hideous names. They do seem to share a set of sounds and rules, but a horrible one. So, clearly, I have some work to do to avoid Joadgeoum and Koodgepoo, but I'm getting there.

If anyone wants the VB.NET class that I'm using to generate this stuff, here it is:

Imports System.Text

Public Class Language
Dim rand As New Random

Public Co() As String = {"b", "f", "j", "k", "l", "p", "r", "st", "y"}
Public Cr() As String = {"b", "d", "ph", "g", "h", "dge", "ck", "ll", "m", "n", "p", "r", "s", "t", "v", "gh", "z"}
Public v() As String = {"a", "e", "ee", "o", "oo", "u", "au", "ea", "eu", "oa", "ou", "ua", "ue"}

Public R As New List(Of String) 'VC (VCr) Rimes
Public CoR As New List(Of String) 'CVC (CoVCr) Syllables
Public CoV As New List(Of String) 'CV (CoV) Syllables

Public malePattern As wordPattern = rand.Next(0, 8)
Public femalePattern As wordPattern = rand.Next(0, 8)

Public Sub New()
Co = randomHalf(Co)
Cr = randomHalf(Cr)
v = randomHalf(v)
popR()
popCoR()
popCoV()
End Sub

Public Function getName(ByVal sex As gender) As String
Dim pattern As wordPattern
If sex Then pattern = malePattern Else pattern = femalePattern
Dim sb As New StringBuilder
For Each seg As String In pattern.ToString.Split("_")
Select Case seg
Case "Co" : sb.Append(Co(rand.Next(0, Co.Length)))
Case "Cr" : sb.Append(Cr(rand.Next(0, Cr.Length)))
Case "v" : sb.Append(v(rand.Next(0, v.Length)))
Case "R" : sb.Append(R(rand.Next(0, R.Count)))
Case "CoR" : sb.Append(CoR(rand.Next(0, CoR.Count)))
Case "CoV" : sb.Append(CoV(rand.Next(0, CoV.Count)))
End Select
Next
Return sb.ToString
End Function

Private Sub popR()
For Each seg1 As String In v
For Each seg2 As String In Cr
R.Add(seg1 + seg2)
Next
Next
R = randomHalf(R)
End Sub

Private Sub popCoR()
For Each seg1 As String In Co
For Each seg2 As String In R
CoR.Add(seg1 + seg2)
Next
Next
CoR = randomHalf(CoR)
End Sub

Private Sub popCoV()
For Each seg1 As String In Co
For Each seg2 As String In v
CoV.Add(seg1 + seg2)
Next
Next
CoV = randomHalf(CoV)
End Sub

Private Function randomHalf(ByVal a() As String) As String()
Dim output As New StringBuilder
For i As Int16 = 0 To a.Length - 1
If rand.Next(0, 2) Then
If output.Length > 0 Then output.Append(",")
output.Append(a(i))
End If
Next
Return output.ToString.Split(",")
End Function

Private Function randomHalf(ByVal a As List(Of String)) As List(Of String)
Dim output As New List(Of String)
For i As Int16 = 0 To a.Count - 1
If rand.Next(0, 2) Then
output.Add(a(i))
End If
Next
Return output
End Function

End Class

Public Enum wordPattern
CoR 'CVC
CoV_CoR 'CV_CVC
CoV_CoV 'CV_CV
CoR_CoR 'CVC_CVC
CoR_CoV 'CVC_CV
R_CoV 'R_CV
R_CoR 'R_CVC
CoR_R 'CVC_R
End Enum

Conservative Justices -- I choose you!

2008-06-26T13:21:00.002-05:00

Today!

The Supreme Court of the United States, just today, decided a case in a way that, while I think it's butt-obvious, is very, very pleasing to me. Below are some highlights from their decision (some of which I've been arguing for twenty years).

The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

Hooray!

The “militia” comprised all males physicallycapable of acting in concert for the common defense.

Ayup!

SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS,
C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined.

Ouch! I'm usually with the other guys. I still don't like that Alito, but Thomas seems like a good pick -- I wonder how GW pulled that off.

The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, butdoes not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operativeclause.

This is specifically what I've been advocating. My friend Aaaron Hunsley helped me clarify my nascent thoughts on this in the early 90s.

So this is me doing a happy dance!

Our new CSA is starting slowly

2008-06-24T22:00:00.004-05:00

When we were in Jersey, we were members of a Community Supported Agriculture farm-coop that we really liked. The fact that it was a block from the Bristol-Myers Squibb campus where I worked was great too. But when we moved to Minnesota three and a half years ago, I couldn't find one that was a reasonable distance -- Rochester is too far for fresh produce!

But a couple months ago I found myself at the Department of Agriculture web pages and noticed a link to MN CSAs and in that directory, I found a link to The Farm at Prairie Oaks Institute which is on the outskirts of Belle Plaine -- the next town down 169 from Jordan! So I inquired and found that this was their first year doing CSA and Cathy and I decided to join them. Two weeks ago we got a preliminary box with some light offerings and today I picked up our second box of goodies.

There's a nice bunch of onions and cilantro and dill and good-sized baggies of mint and marjoram and a small salad worth of mixed greens (mustard, sorel, arugula and romaine) and wee, cute samples of broccoli and kale. The produce is still slow in coming, but I figure it'll soon be bursting forth from the ground. We also got a dozen eggs.

I need to figure out what to do with the dill and marjoram -- I can always dice and freeze, but I'd rather cook. Hmmm...

Combatting obesity

2008-06-24T10:32:00.003-05:00

So, I'm fat. Pretty fat, but not crazy fat, I think. And I shouldn't be. I know (intellectually) how not to be. I should go vegan -- eating two salads and five fruits per day and also swim for an hour. And obesity is a chronic epidemic -- spreading as the American diet spreads. I guess at some point I'll care enough about my failing health to get serious. Hopefully it won't be too late. But anyway, enough of my background regarding obesity -- I really want to talk about public policy.

Slashdot just cited new Japanese policy that will require employers to inspect waist size of employees and be fined if they are too big. My first thought was that this was a horrible invasion of privacy and personal liberty and yadda, yadda. You know what, though? Screw that! Sometimes the greater good has a cost to be paid and sometimes, a bit of personal liberty is a worthwhile expense. So, I think this would be a really stupid thing for the US to do, not because it's unjust but because it is pointless.

It would cause hostility and discrimination and enhance low self-esteem issues and further marginalize fat folks. Which isn't necessarily all bad if it would motivate people to effect positive change. But it wouldn't. See, most Americans have no clue. There are thirty popular diets at any given time -- all of them telling you (at least a little) different stuff. Not only that, but 95% of the food in the American supermarket is junk. Not just Chef Boy-R-Dee and the candy isle. Rice-a-Roni, Hamburger Helper, canned soup, all breakfast cereal, 99% of the bread, cow's milk and all meat. Everything. And, I hope it goes without saying, it is almost *literally* impossible to eat right eating out. (OK, go to Subway and get a salad -- none of the bread if nutritive and don't get any of the dressings (maybe a fat-free dressing is also devoid of carcinogenic chemicals, but I wouldn't count on it) and that's reasonably nutritive, but not particularly exciting -- it'll do in a pinch, for sure.) If you buy normal flour from the grocer and bake your own bread, it's still garbage. What if you get whole wheat flour? It's rancid and has lost much of the grain's native value. You have to grind your own and bake right then or freeze it (for not too long!).

I don't know what life is like in Japan. Are they living like this now too? It would be dumb to institute workplace fat-checks and maintain the way of life that we have built around e.g. corn syrup. It's a stupid band-aid which entirely fails to address the problem.

If the government wants to address obesity, there are things to remediate. Craft a sensible farm bill. Incentivize small family farms, (the good, permaculturish) organic methods and local farmers markets. For God's sake, how about requiring that schools stop poisoning our children! Tax fast food and give tax breaks to genuinely healthy restaurants. I'm sure there's lots of stuff.

Want $25, free?

2008-05-01T08:57:00.001-05:00

Buttons!: a software toy

2008-04-25T11:07:00.005-05:00

So I've been messing around with an idea that was nagging at me for a game that I could write. Only it's not really a game. I remember one of the early Maxis Sim-* games calling itself a software toy. That's what Buttons is. It's kind of a puzzle and kind of a toy. It may turn out that it was more fun for me to make than for you to play with. And I'd kind of like to make it more of a game. If you have any thoughts on how I'd do that, I'd love to read them.

You'll see things change on the screen as you interact with it. Also note that right now there are two menu options to alter the environment.

Download the Buttons installer (for Windows) here.

MMO class design: reaching balance

2008-04-18T14:38:00.003-05:00

I just read the article at Gamasutra, MMO Class Design: Up With Hybrids! An Economic Argument in which the author analogizes the ecology of classes and player-competition within that to several economic factors. It was a good read. And it struck me that it would be really, really easy to provide one kind of balance to the class ecology by simply applying a reward multiplier (maybe just on XP if that's how your game rolls) based on nothing but the popularity of the class. If everyone detects that the fire/fire tank in CoH is uber and picks that, they might choose something else when they realize that the invul/mace tank earns xp at a rate 1.5 times as fast as the fire/fire. Right? And you could have that dynamically tuned as a weighted average based on the previous week on in-game play time or something. Then, barring stupendous gaffes in design which you've hopefully caught in testing, you can just completely avoid pissing people off when you nerf their class.

Is any game doing this? Why not?

Home Game: map generation

2008-03-21T09:39:00.007-05:00

Right, so I've been working on a map generator between other stuff at work -- like when I have to copy 90 zips from DVDs and then unzip them and deal with the 5% that are either bad media or corrupt zip files. I get a bunch of unproductive time that allows light coding and if I don't have any work-related light coding, at least I'm doing vaguely vocational research. Anyway, I think I've got the map generator to a point where it's playable. I might just build out a map with LEGO to help me visualize. (I guess I should be able to plug my output into LDRAW or something and render it on the PC, but I don't think I'll look into that in the next few days.)

Here's a sample map with a key at the bottom: (Well, grr! So it's only the right quarter or third of the map -- you get the idea.)

+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|....|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|^01^|.00.|~00~|~00~|^00^|~00~|^04^|~00~|~00~|.00.|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|....|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|..1.|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~2~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|....|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|....|wwww|TTTT|....|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|....|TTTT|^^^^|....|wwww|wwww|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|.00.|.01.|w02w|T00T|.00.|T04T|T01T|^02^|.03.|T00T|^05^|.02.|w04w|w00w|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|....|wwww|TTTT|....|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|....|TTTT|^^^^|....|wwww|wwww|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~2~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|....|wwww|TTTT|....|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|....|TTTT|^^^^|....|wwww|wwww|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|wwww|TTTT|^^^^|....|TTTT|wwww|wwww|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|.02.|w01w|T02T|^05^|.07.|T06T|w02w|w02w|w06w|T01T|~00~|T03T|^00^|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|.00.|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|wwww|TTTT|^^^^|....|TTTT|wwww|wwww|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~2~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|wwww|TTTT|^^^^|....|TTTT|wwww|wwww|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|....|TTTT|....|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|....|....|^^^^|wwww|....|....|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|....|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|^00^|~00~|~00~|.01.|T05T|.00.|^03^|T08T|~02~|T06T|T04T|^06^|T06T|.02.|.04.|^03^|w00w|.02.|.00.|~00~|w00w|~00~|.01.|.00.|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|....|TTTT|....|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|T1TT|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|....|....|^1^^|wwww|....|....|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|....|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|....|TTTT|....|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|....|....|^^^^|wwww|....|....|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|....|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|@@@@|....|....|TTTT|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|,,,,|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|....|....|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|w00w|.00.|@03@|.01.|.00.|T06T|^06^|w06w|^08^|^06^|^06^|^05^|,04,|T06T|^04^|^02^|.04.|.01.|~00~|~00~|w00w|T04T|~00~|~00~|^01^|T01T|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|@@@@|....|....|TTTT|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|,,,,|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|.2..|....|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~1~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|@@@@|....|....|TTTT|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|,,,,|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|....|....|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|....|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|~~~~|wwww|,,,,|^^^^|TTTT|FFFF|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|.03.|.03.|~00~|^06^|^04^|F08F|~05~|w10w|,13,|^12^|T10T|F07F|^10^|T08T|^04^|T02T|T06T|^06^|T05T|^03^|w05w|~02~|^03^|^03^|^03^|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|....|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|~2~~|wwww|,,,,|^^^^|TTTT|FFFF|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|....|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|~~~~|wwww|,,,,|^^^^|TTTT|FFFF|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|@@@@|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|,,,,|wwww|FFFF|wwww|TTTT|wwww|FFFF|~~~~|....|@@@@|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|@01@|~00~|~00~|^01^|T06T|^04^|^07^|w08w|^11^|^11^|^13^|^12^|w10w|,12,|w09w|F06F|w06w|T04T|w04w|F08F|~04~|.08.|@06@|w08w|^04^|T02T|^01^|~00~|.00.|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|@@@@|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|,,,,|wwww|FFFF|wwww|TTTT|wwww|FFFF|~~~~|....|@@@@|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|@@@@|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|,,,,|wwww|FFFF|wwww|TTTT|wwww|FFFF|~~~~|....|@@@@|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|@@@@|wwww|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|FFFF|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|wwww|FFFF|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|....|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|@00@|w06w|~00~|w03w|^04^|T08T|F12F|w12w|^12^|^14^|w10w|^10^|w10w|F13F|^08^|w08w|^10^|^07^|w09w|T08T|~04~|^08^|w08w|~00~|^06^|^03^|.01.|T00T|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|@@@@|wwww|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|FFFF|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|wwww|FFFF|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|....|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|@@@@|wwww|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|FFFF|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|wwww|FFFF|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|....|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|....|wwww|@@@@|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|~~~~|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|FFFF|TTTT|TTTT|FFFF|FFFF|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|.02.|~00~|.00.|w04w|@04@|^05^|^13^|T11T|~09~|w10w|^13^|^13^|F11F|~08~|^10^|w12w|T13T|~04~|T07T|F11F|T09T|T09T|F08F|F08F|T08T|~04~|T07T|^01^|^00^|~00~|~00~|~00~|w01w|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|....|wwww|@@@@|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|~~~~|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|FFFF|TTTT|TTTT|FFFF|FFFF|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|....|wwww|@@@@|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|~~~~|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|FFFF|TTTT|TTTT|FFFF|FFFF|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|....|TTTT|wwww|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|FFFF|TTTT|wwww|FFFF|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|,,,,|....|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|.00.|~00~|.02.|T06T|w08w|~03~|w11w|^16^|F15F|^15^|^16^|^15^|^15^|^13^|~07~|F08F|T08T|w11w|F15F|F11F|^13^|^11^|T08T|~04~|w06w|^06^|,08,|.00.|.01.|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|....|TTTT|wwww|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|FFFF|TTTT|wwww|FFFF|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|,,,,|....|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|....|TTTT|wwww|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|FFFF|TTTT|wwww|FFFF|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|,,,,|....|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|^^^^|TTTT|....|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|....|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|.02.|^05^|T05T|.06.|~05~|w11w|^10^|^14^|^16^|^19^|^16^|~14~|F16F|^12^|^10^|T12T|^09^|~08~|^11^|F12F|.13.|~09~|^11^|F10F|^07^|T08T|^06^|^02^|^07^|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|^^^^|TTTT|....|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^3^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|....|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|^^^^|TTTT|....|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|....|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|FFFF|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|,,,,|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|FFFF|....|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|w01w|.03.|^02^|^06^|T08T|~06~|^10^|^12^|F12F|^12^|^16^|^15^|^13^|~09~|F11F|^09^|F10F|^12^|^15^|,14,|^13^|^11^|^11^|F13F|F08F|.04.|~02~|w04w|^04^|^01^|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|FFFF|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|,,,,|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|FFFF|....|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|FFFF|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|,,,,|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|FFFF|....|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|^^^^|....|TTTT|wwww|....|^^^^|wwww|wwww|wwww|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|,,,,|FFFF|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|TTTT|....|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|FFFF|FFFF|^^^^|FFFF|wwww|~~~~|....|~~~~|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|^00^|.00.|T01T|w04w|.02.|^10^|w07w|w08w|w11w|~08~|^13^|F16F|,15,|F14F|^16^|w12w|T12T|T09T|.12.|^14^|^16^|^18^|F16F|^15^|F09F|F08F|^07^|F08F|w06w|~02~|.03.|~00~|T02T|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|^^^^|....|TTTT|wwww|....|^^^^|wwww|wwww|wwww|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|,,,,|FFFF|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|TTTT|....|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|FFFF|FFFF|^^^^|FFFF|wwww|~~~~|....|~~~~|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|^^^^|....|TTTT|wwww|....|^^^^|wwww|wwww|wwww|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|,,,,|FFFF|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|TTTT|....|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|FFFF|FFFF|^^^^|FFFF|wwww|~~~~|....|~~~~|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|....|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|....|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|@@@@|****|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|^00^|.01.|T01T|T04T|^04^|F04F|^09^|^16^|^12^|w14w|T16T|T10T|~09~|^10^|.13.|^11^|w13w|~12~|@17@|*18*|^15^|^15^|^12^|w13w|^07^|^06^|w06w|T03T|.01.|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|....|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|....|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|@@@@|****|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|....|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|....|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|@@@@|****|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|....|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|FFFF|^^^^|~~~~|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|wwww|^^^^|....|~~~~|wwww|@@@@|,,,,|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|w02w|^01^|T04T|^07^|T06T|^05^|F05F|F07F|^11^|~08~|T12T|~09~|w12w|w11w|^09^|.13.|~08~|w14w|@18@|,17,|~13~|w15w|^11^|~06~|^09^|F08F|^08^|~00~|w02w|~00~|.01.|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|FFFF|^^^^|~~~~|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|wwww|^^^^|....|~~~~|wwww|@@@@|,,,,|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|....|~~1~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|FFFF|^^^^|~~~~|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|wwww|^^^^|....|~~~~|wwww|@@@@|,,,,|~~~~|wwww|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|^^^^|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|....|~~~~|....|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|FFFF|wwww|....|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|TTTT|TTTT|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|....|^^^^|@@@@|~~~~|....|^^^^|^^^^|....|wwww|....|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|.00.|~00~|.01.|~00~|^05^|T02T|T06T|~04~|T09T|F10F|w10w|.11.|^08^|T10T|^08^|F05F|T08T|T11T|F14F|^12^|^16^|^12^|T14T|.16.|^13^|@11@|~06~|.10.|^06^|^04^|.04.|w02w|.01.|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|....|~~~~|....|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|FFFF|wwww|....|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|TTTT|TTTT|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|....|^^^^|@@@@|~~~~|....|^^^^|^^^^|....|wwww|....|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|....|~~~~|....|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|TTTT|~~~~|TTTT|FFFF|wwww|....|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|TTTT|TTTT|FFFF|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|....|^^^^|@@@@|~~~~|....|^^^^|^^^^|....|wwww|....|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|wwww|~~~~|....|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|,,,,|^^^^|TTTT|wwww|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|wwww|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|.00.|w01w|~00~|.00.|^05^|^08^|^08^|^06^|w07w|,10,|^06^|T04T|w05w|T04T|^08^|^10^|^09^|T10T|w13w|^10^|^09^|^10^|F10F|~04~|^08^|F08F|w06w|^01^|w02w|T00T|~00~|^01^|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~2~|....|wwww|~~~~|....|^2^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|,,,,|^^^^|TTTT|wwww|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|wwww|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|wwww|~~~~|....|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|,,,,|^^^^|TTTT|wwww|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|wwww|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|FFFF|~~~~|^^^^|FFFF|wwww|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|TTTT|....|....|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|,,,,|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|FFFF|TTTT|^^^^|,,,,|^^^^|....|wwww|TTTT|wwww|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|w01w|.00.|T02T|.05.|.04.|^04^|^06^|^04^|w10w|^04^|,04,|T04T|T07T|^06^|^06^|T11T|F10F|T10T|^09^|,11,|^09^|.05.|w06w|T04T|w02w|~00~|~00~|~00~|.01.|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|TTTT|....|....|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|,,,,|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|FFFF|TTTT|^^^^|,,,,|^^^^|....|wwww|TTTT|wwww|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|TTTT|....|....|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|^^^^|,,,,|TTTT|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|FFFF|TTTT|^^^^|,,,,|^^^^|....|wwww|TTTT|wwww|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|....|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|wwww|TTTT|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|~~~~|wwww|wwww|....|TTTT|....|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|.00.|~00~|~00~|.03.|^04^|T03T|~01~|w07w|w04w|T06T|^04^|w01w|T03T|T06T|~04~|^09^|^09^|^10^|T07T|^11^|F10F|~05~|w07w|w04w|.02.|T02T|.02.|w02w|T03T|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|....|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|wwww|T1TT|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|~~~~|wwww|wwww|....|TTTT|....|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|....|~~~~|~~~~|....|^^^^|TTTT|~~~~|wwww|wwww|TTTT|^^^^|wwww|TTTT|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|~~~~|wwww|wwww|....|TTTT|....|wwww|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|....|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|wwww|....|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|....|wwww|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|....|....|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|w02w|.00.|.00.|T03T|^02^|T05T|^03^|w04w|.01.|T02T|^05^|F10F|T08T|~05~|^10^|.06.|w09w|w04w|^06^|T04T|.04.|.02.|~00~|w02w|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|....|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|wwww|....|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|....|wwww|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|....|.1..|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|wwww|....|....|TTTT|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|wwww|....|TTTT|^^^^|FFFF|TTTT|~~~~|^^^^|....|wwww|wwww|^^^^|TTTT|....|....|~~~~|wwww|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|....|....|~~~~|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|wwww|wwww|....|....|~~~~|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|^02^|~00~|.00.|.00.|~00~|T05T|^02^|~01~|^02^|T08T|^06^|^06^|w08w|~02~|w05w|w04w|.01.|.01.|~00~|T01T|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~1~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|....|....|~~~~|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|wwww|wwww|....|....|~~~~|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|~~~~|....|....|~~~~|TTTT|^^^^|~~~~|^^^^|TTTT|^^^^|^^^^|wwww|~~~~|wwww|wwww|....|....|~~~~|TTTT|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|@@@@|~~~~|....|~~~~|@@@@|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|....|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|@00@|~00~|.00.|~00~|@00@|~00~|~00~|^03^|^02^|^04^|^04^|^03^|^03^|.02.|^05^|^02^|^07^|^05^|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|@@@@|~~~~|....|~~~~|@@@@|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|....|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|@@@@|~~~~|....|~~~~|@@@@|~~~~|~~~~|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|....|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|^^^^|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|~00~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~1~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~2~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|~~~~|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+

The border all around each tile shows the terrain. In the center, the top row shows the elevation and the next row shows any special resources or occupants (if any)

LEGO color	Terrain	Symbol	Possible Special Resources
light grey	rock	^	(metal, flint, ruby)
blue	water	~	(fish, shellfish, pearl)
beige	sand	.	(salt, whitesand, diamond)
green	jungle	T	(exotic plants, exotic wood, emerald)
yellow	prarie	,	(megafauna, farmland, tar)
red	lava	!	(sulfur, hotsprings, steel)
white	ice	*	(coal, amythist, mysterious artifacts)
orange	fungal waste	@	(medicine, mana/isotopes, glowstone)
olive	swamp	w	(peat, exotic animals, methane)
brown	forest	F	(exotic wood, exotic animals, spring)

Home game

2008-03-21T09:33:00.003-05:00

I originally came up for this idea last month as part of Thing-a-Day for a game that I'd orchestrate for/with my family. I've linked to the original context just above but I'm also going to just cut and paste the entire text here so that I have it in a location closer to under my control. So here's the concept document:

----------

A game for my family
February 23rd 6:29 :42 am by Christopher Weeks
tagged game LEGO plan RPG (Daily thing), Getting organized, Little people

This is a project plan and a design document for a game that I'm considering setting up for my family to play collaboratively over time. It is a sort of hybrid simulation/miniatures/role-playing game that will be played over time through face-to-face meetings of some or all of the players and solitaire play, all of which will be rendered in LEGO models and spoken/written narration and conflict resolution. Further, many facets of the game will be computer-assisted or facilitated. The roles taken by a traditional RPG-GM will be apportioned to the software tools and to the players on an ad-hoc basis. Models for game play that I have in mind include: Universalis (story-game, GMless play), HeroQuest (RPG, personal characterization/general abilities), Monster Island (PBM, vague theme), Evil-Stevie's Pirate Game (miniatures, rendering only), Castle World (collaborative fiction, style)

In this game, the characters will be shipwrecked and wash ashore on an island. The island will be comprised of "squares" including an elevation, a biome and features (monsters, people, mysteries, +?). These attributes will be generated by a computer before the game starts. As the island is explored, each square will be modeled as a 4×4 stud LEGO structure that grows with our game-play. A "square" should be understood to be an arbitrary large area: an acre, a square mile, something like that. On a weekly(?) basis, the family will decide what the characters are doing during that turn. We might have some in-character play or maybe just hang out and moderate one another in author-stance. The mechanical systems will be flexible enough to be useful in any kind of play that evolves. While we'll have an island model, we may also model scenes, locations etc, or write, what amounts to fan-fiction. I'm thinking that we'll set up a blog or a wiki to allow posts from all the players as well as a repository for record-keeping, etc.

There are two starting places. The first of these is behind the scenes: generation of the map, building facilitating software, etc. The other starting place is how play begins: creating characters, landing on the island, etc.

I'm imagining that the island will occupy six grey baseplates and thus be 96×144 studs or 24×36 = 864 squares. I'll write an application that generates a grid of squares with heights based on proximity to two "logical peak" locations — that is, the random elevations will tend to be higher as proximity to either of these locations grows and lower as proximity to the outside edge grows. Then it'll crawl across the land and deposit biomes based on elevation, etc. Then it will randomly distribute monsters, people and mysteries.

Regular resources — to the extent that we decide to play a resource game, will be dependent on the biomes expressed on the map. E.g. wood can be harvested from forest or jungle squares, peat from swamp, rock from rock, whatever. Monsters, people and mysteries are special, ill-defined resources independent of elevation and biome. As we play and encounter these special resources, we'll just decide what they are and how we play with them. I'm thinking that each of those should have a 1/60 chance of appearing in any square — giving about 43 special squares (on average).

Because I want knowledge of the island to be blind, the generator will output a data file that is read by an explorer application. All the explorer does is allow us to punch in a coordinate and reveal complete details about that square and elevation/biome of all surrounding squares. My default assumption is that we won't know the special resources of any place that we haven't visited (though that could change in game play — through player preference or special character abilities, etc).

I'm thinking of using either HeroQuest or a mod of a game that Mike Holmes is working on and I got to playtest for character representation and mechanical systems. So we'd start out play by creating characters with a pool of abilities from each of three categories: homeland, occupation and personal. An optional step is to have a fourth "trademark" category spring up as a result of the shipwreck or something else shortly after arrival on the island. This final thing could be entirely fantastic.

Once characters are created, we jointly decide where we're washing ashore and build up the base model to represent the water and land that we encounter. After that, the plan kind of ends. We play. Part of play will be figuring out what play looks like.

PMOG: The Passively Multiplayer Online Game

2008-03-04T12:13:00.002-06:00

So, over at Terra Nova, one of the virtual world/MMO blogs that I read regularly, I found reference to PMOG which is a MMO of sorts that rides atop your browser (if your browser happens to be Firefox) and has you interact with the web and other PMOG players.

I really can't describe how cool I think this is. It's like a whole new technology was just born and in retrospect it seems totally obvious. And actually, I know it's not new -- the first thing like this I used was a service that served adds in the page's margins while allowing you to browse in an iframe. That's from like '98 or so and is essentially a crude version of this used for revenue instead of entertainment. Also, I haven't gotten any response from them about my request to beta, so I haven't played -- who knows if it's actually fun, but what I'm seeing looks so interesting that I'm thinking it has to be fun for a while.

It looks like you start the game as a shoat (which I only know what is from reading Lonesome Dove -- a baby pig), which is your "class" and then you develop a real class as you surf or maybe as you level up.

The comments on that Terra Nova page seem to be primarily concerened with privacy issues. I guess that makes sense -- we oldsters haven't adopted the new-millenium paradigm of a world without privacy that I'm thinking is inevitable. I guess I'd like assurances of privacy too. I don't care about people knowing what porn I check out, but I certainly don't want them to have access to my login information. I guess I want my identity/authenticity protected more than my privacy.

But really, I'm more interested in the game itself. The fun. What's to learn from it? How will it inform the art and design of future games?

Anyway, sweet stuff. Go check it out.

Floral inspiration for our shower mosaic

2008-02-26T14:01:00.001-06:00

Cathy and I are considering lots of subject matter for the mosaic that we're going to do in our downstairs shower (we're remodeling the bathroom). Over the last few days it was trees, seasonal and not, and now we're on to flowers. Maybe that's what we'll do, maybe not. But here are a bunch of images that I clipped from the web:

clipped from us.st11.yimg.com

clipped from images.google.com

clipped from picasaweb.google.com

clipped from images.google.com

clipped from www.citifloral.net

clipped from images.google.com

Shape Wars

2008-02-20T08:34:00.005-06:00

So, I was home sick yesterday. Pretty good fever, horrible head and joint pain, etc. We were afraid it was the flu, but it turned out to be a 24-hour thing. (Hooray!) Anyway, I woke up at 2 AM and needed stuff to do. I watched the Criterion Collection copy of Sparticus, worked on my PC and wrote up this game.

Shape Wars is a quick cardstock/paper game that you can print and cut out and be playing in just a few minutes if you have, and can print to, cardstock. It's way simpler than my original idea which was a cyberpunk permutation of Discwars but retains some of the core features. Download the PDF here.

It's good that I did this because I let my thing-a-day obligation slip Monday night while I mostly just shivered in bed.

Rye

2008-02-09T21:11:00.001-06:00

I've been making whole oat groats for breakfast lately. First we were making steel-cut oats for the increased nutritive and taste value. And I figured if less-processed = more nutrition, why not whole oats? So we mastered that and they're great! But what about other grains? We (everyone) make rice that way all the time, right? And it works for oats very nicely. So when I was buying a bag of oats out of the bulk section at my local natural foods coop, I noticed Rye right next "door." So I got some.

In the end it took over an hour and a half to simmer to the texture that I like and I used about 2 cups of rye...uh...groats(?) or kernels(?) or whatever and ten cups of water. But it's super good. More flavorful than oats or rice -- kind of nutty (and smells like bread), but the texture's not as nice. It was totally worth doing and I'll have it for breakfast in the morning, but I bet that I'll stick with oats in the end.

These three pictures show the rye before, during and after cooking. If you happen to be crazy-interested, click on any of them for blow-ups.

Candlemaking

2008-02-02T22:10:00.001-06:00

Today, the kids and I made some candles. This is something that I did once as a kid, possibly after reading about it in the McCall's Make-it Book or some kids' magazine. I melted wax and added crayons and them filled a tin can. Getting the can off was a bear. So this time, I'm an adult and proceed a little more thoughtfully. First, I got wicks at a Michaels store like six months ago -- I've been meaning to do this for a while. I knew that we'd need molds of some kind so I decided that trimmed toilet-paper rolls would be perfect for the three inch wicks that I had. Needing something on the bottom, Cathy suggested plastic-wrap. It worked!

Once the kids caught wind that I was thinking about candles, they were very interested in participating. So we got our respective crayon collections together and isolated a bunch of broken crayons that we could use. Just pawing through the crayons is kind of fun. :) Of course there had to be a little friction between Garrett and Kivi, but it wasn't bad.

Our execution of this project was pretty haphazard. I decided on the cardboard tubes long before figuring out what should go below. Cathy suggested the plastic-wrap and once it was rubber-banded in place, it was pretty good. Some wax did seep up under the bottom of each and was a hassle to trim up, but not bad. We melted the wax in star-shaped foil cupcake cups that were left over from Kivi's birthday. Half way through the project, Kivi decided she didn't want a pillar, she wanted to just make a star-shaped candle, so that's what we did for one of them.

Here are our four candles. Each one is different. The red one is the first one and had some red, gold and metallic red crayon in it. It's also the one that seeped out the bottom the most which accounts for the funny top shape. The blue one was Garrett's and the second one we did. He included blue and green crayons and they are quite evident when you look at the bottom of the candle. As mentioned, Kivi's candle is the star, which was our third. The bottom of that one is really nice -- deep colors and slick and shiny as glass. In response to our difficulty getting the crayons to melt enough that they were merging with the wax, but not so much that they just dispersed into it, I tried something different with the last one. I broke up a bunch of crayon scraps and layered them into the tall mold with the wick in place. Then, I dumped some wax that happened to have a bit of blue pigment from a previous melting in it all over the crayon pieces and filling up the tube. It's neat, but I wish the pieces had melted more.

Watercolored Paper

2008-02-02T05:08:00.000-06:00

Right, so last night, I made up a batch of watercolor-tinted paper for collage and further paper-making projects. This idea stemmed from some accidental bleed-through that I got with watercolor markers on coffee filters and office paper and was reinforced by a section in Collage Unleashed by Traci Bautista that I ran across. All I used for this was household paper towels, Zig watercolor brush-markers and water. (Please note that using watercolor markers is probably the dumbest and most expensive way to do this -- squeezing a bit of tube watercolor -- though just a tiny bit, or painting from dry blocks would be more reasonable, but I was in a hurry...) Here's how I did it:

1) I allowed the watercolors to soak out of the brush-tips semi-randomly by wrapping the paper around and around the brush-tip and letting it sit with a weight (a bottle of gesso) on it for a few seconds or so. The towel paper is pretty efficient at sucking the pigment out of the pen so you don't want to leave it too long. You can see that I also added a blue line to one of the two sheets in a much more intentional effort. Also, for the two sheets that I worked on, I selected different pallets of pigment to use and the pens I chose for each are shown here with the "finished" sheets.

Once the pages were inked up, I wanted to transfer the pigment from sheet to sheet, spread it around on the sheets that I inked and also increase the number of sheets that I had to work with. There were places where the pigment was so heavy that it was obviously wet to the touch. To make this happen, I stacked two clean sheets of paper towel at the bottom, then one of the colored sheets, then three clean sheets, then the other colored sheet and finally two clean sheets at the top. Based on the results that you'll see below, I wish I'd placed more clean sheets, especially between the two.

At this point I moved from my paper-craft table downstairs to the kitchen counter upstairs since I'd be using water and leaving my work to dry under a ceiling fan. I wasn't sure about how (or how much) to wet the stack of towels but I was pretty sure that I didn't want to just run them under the faucet. I opted for a spray-bottle as the applicator. (And a pizza box to protect the counter -- but I should have put down newsprint instead of being lazy, now we have a bit of pink to our counter.)

I started out gingerly spritzing water onto the top. But a stack of nine paper towels is pretty absorbent and after going crazy with the sprayer for a while I discovered by pulling up a few sheets to look for saturation that it was all kind of floating at the top of the stack. This is what the top looked like after I was done with just spritzing the water. The problem with deciding that it needs more water is that the water-storage capacity of modern paper towels is astounding. Maybe I should have sprayed a bit on each towel as I layed them on the stack or something.

I ended up taking the lid of the sprayer and just pouring water onto the stack. And I got quite a bit too much, I think. I noted above that I wished I'd included more clean towels; that might still be good, but really, I should have used less water. Next time I'll pour it on more gradually and let it soak in before pouring the next bit on and try to reach a saturation without a soak. This is what the top looked like after I was done applying water.

So, once I had the stack soaking, I still noted that the migration of the pigments through the substrate was pretty minimal. And while there were some nice color combination blotchy areas, there was a bunch of plain white paper towel. As skeptical as one might be of using paper towels as an art medium anyway, plain white even makes me cringe. So I rolled the whole stack up thinking I could just knead the colors around -- which turned out to be correct.

The problem with kneading the colors around, at least in part, is that there was all that water trapped in the paper. When I squeezed, huge gushes of water would spill from the roll, carrying the pigment with it. You can see the mess that it was making below (but y'know, at least a mess of nicely colored paper towels is something I can use) where I was working. The real problem with all this water flow becomes evident when you note that after this step there is much less in the way of discrete color blotches. They've all bled together. Which is fine, but kind of less pretty than, especially, that first shot I took of the roll before I started squeezing. Again, less water next time.

So, after wringing the roll of towels out a bit, I unrolled them and picked them apart to spread and dry. All of the above-depicted work was done in half an hour on the evening of 01 Feb 2008 but these last two shots and some final drying are from the early morning of 02 Feb. You can see what I mean about the blotches bleeding together. I'm still not totally complaining about the effect, but more discrete colors might be nice too.

While I was flipping sheets and rearranging them so that they would dry more fully, I noticed lots of little details on many of the sheets. I wasn't really even looking for them, but even with (or maybe because of) the massive integration of the different pigments, a bunch of places where the colors did curious things formed. Of the few that I specifically noted, I particularly liked this one.

Thing-a-Day 2

2008-01-28T11:49:00.001-06:00

So, Thing-a-Day 2. I'm doing it. This'll be good for me to make stuff with some constraints. Also, it'll be good for me to "have" to work on stuff to avoid reneging on a public announceent. And, it'll be good for my blog to give me stuff to post up here with pretty pictures and whatnot. Yay me.

2008-01-16T13:37:00.000-06:00

So, like my last entry, I'm using this as a reminder and an announcement of something I'm going to do. Last time it was read and comment. This time, I'm planning to participate in Thing-a-day-2. Each and every day of February will see me taking a few minutes to an hour to mindfully create something. Anything! They'll be suggesting weekly themes and I'll maybe take those into consideration. Stuff that I might make on any given day: artist trading card, valentine, birthday card, photo-documentary, software, etc.

So, I need to keep this fresh in my mind so that come 21 Jan, I remember to register.

First/Second Person: series of game theory articles

2008-01-11T13:58:00.000-06:00

Over at Grand Text Auto there was a piece talking about these two MIT game-theory projects by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin called First Person and Second Person.

Neat stuff. I put them both on my Amazon wishlist and I've started reading the pieces in the First Person thread. I'm creating this blog entry as a place for me to journal my responses to the articles involved. It could take some time and I'm still figuring out how to blog, but this should be a good use.

It's All About You, Isn't It? Editors' Introduction to Second Person by Pat Harrigan & Noah Wardrip-Fruin

In this piece, the editors of the project mostly map out a bit of the goal of things. The primary take-away point seems to be that you are the consumer of these media. They are first-person experiences. I found the following paragraph of particular interest because I'm deeply desirous of bringing RPG Narrativism (From the Forge) to CRPGS/MMOs:

Our hope is that this collection will appeal to a wide variety of audiences. It discusses a number of playable forms, some of which have been unfortunately ignored by the academy, and all of which are important as we seek to understand our fields' presents and futures. For example, in the last few years there has been much academic discussion of video games and other forms of digital media, but little that acknowledges in any depth the debt many of these forms owe to tabletop role-playing games. Further, it is not too much to say that where academic discussion of tabletop RPGs exists, it is largely cursory - and, not infrequently, wrong."

Between Acting and Narrating: Editors' Introduction to Tabletop Systems, Round One by Pat Harrigan & Noah Wardrip-Fruin

Through the text and one extensive side-bar this piece describes a little bit about the physical and marketting forms of table-top RPGs. I like the fact that they discuss the indie RPG movement in the context of the larger RPG industry, but it seems kind of scattered. Maybe I'd get it more if the contents of this piece and the introduction were rolled together? In any case it provides an introduction for several of the articles included.

Games, Storytelling, and Breaking the String by Greg Costikyan

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Metaplace dev blog fundaments #2 response

2008-01-09T13:30:00.000-06:00

So, I'm trying to grok game design. I've been reading RPG theory off and on for five years at the Forge and diaspora sites. I read stuff written by board game designers off and on and I know several of them in person. And recently, I've been reading computer game design stuff. Several blogs -- you can see some of them in my sidebar at the right. I'm in line to buy Raph Koster's book pretty soon. And I'm watching his new project, Metaplace eagerly.

This morning I read part two in a series of game design fundamentals on the Metaplace developer's blog written by Raph and I thought about it and did some background reading and then posted some questions to the Metaplace forum.

I'm writing this mostly to myself -- under the assumption that no one is reading this. :) If that's not the case, feel free to respond to me either here or at the Metaplace forum. Here's what I wrote:

Do you have to prepare for the challenge?
…where prep includes prior moves? …and you can prep in multiple ways?

Does the topology of the space matter?
…does the topology change?

Is there a core verb for the challenge?
…can it be modified by content?

Can you use different abilities on it?
…will you have to in order to succeed?

Is there skill to using the ability?
…or is this a basic UI action?

Are there multiple success states?
…with no bottomfeeding? …and a cost to failure?

You have to answer yes to all of these for your game atom to be fun. And yes, we mean every atom in the game has to meet these criteria.

There's a lot of this that I think I get, but could be wrong. There's some of it that I just don't. First, I'm just going to ask some questions and then I'm going to try to analyze something using this framework.

Are 'atom' and 'challenge' synonomous to the extent that they bear a one to one relationship?

I sort of understand the basics of mathematical topology -- is that what we're talking about? Or is it being used more generically to suggest some kind of state change? Does the opening move of a Chess pawn change the topology of the board? And is it because of the seperation of the front of pieces or because it changes the way in which the next player can engage the situation? What is the topological significance of the fact that that pawn's move is not reversable? Any? Or does topology in this sense only care about loci of in-game actions and how they're connected?

I'm pawing through Raph's blog archive looking for game grammar stuff to understand core verbs. I found this presentation there (which helps me with topology a bit, too). So I see that e.g. Chess pieces are verbs. Cool. I get that. But uh, "each has associated topology?" Does that merely mean that each verb potentially interacts with a different subset of the game's topology and acts differently (rooks travel from node to node on different paths than do bishops) or is it something more essoteric? Also, what's the significance of a core verb? Am I right in expecting that many atoms will use several verbs?

Are abilites verbs? Is the following true: skills belong to the player and abilites belong to the game (or the player's presence in the game).

What's bottomfeeding?

Then I think that Raph's saying every atom should answer yes to each of those questions. But I think that's impossible and even inconsistent with stuff like "fundamental atoms will be ones demanding no skill, providing no risk of failure" from that same link above. So what is really meant regarding the scope of the application of these questions? Also, how fun is fun enough? How do you account for niche games where people obviously think it's fun but lots of others do not? Are you saying that at whatever the appropriate scope is, failure to meet the above criteria will result in a game that isn't fun for (almost) anyone? (This is what I'm guessing.)

I think I understand atoms. They occupy many different scopes/scales. Double-clicking the armor in a vendor's shop to tell the game that you're buying it is an atom, right? Maybe a "fundamental" atom? Also, the game of knowing which armors work well against what opponents is an atom. Right (I'm less sure about that one)?

So in the case of just using the mouse to buy the armor: Are you getting yes or no to those questions? Are you preparing for the double-click by looking at the screen and figuring out what coords to settle on? And I'm not sure on sophisticated topologies in examples like this -- are there nodes, per se involved? I guess there must be but it's awfully big to grasp. What's the core verb and how can it possibly change? What's the challenge even? What is an ability at this scale? Are multiple in use during this purchase? And I think there's only one success state unless I'm more confused than I'd have guessed. Is the cost of failure the quarter second to redo the double-click?

But it all seems easier in the bigger atom (where analysis should be much harder): There are lots of preparations -- gathering knowledge through experimentation or social means. I guess topology is turning out to be the hard thing for me. Topology must matter in as much as it effects e.g. information gathering, access to armors and enemies using various damage types, etc. But where the information exists in the player's head (or notes) I don't see how it can change the topology (unless we claim that topology can extend out of the game -- which might be useful, but I'm unprepared for. :-). Is the core verb combat or social networking or the avatar or something else entirely? You can, and possibly must, use different abilities to get a complete understanding (the way I'm envisioning things). There are definately skills involved in this kind of analysis. I'd say that there are a very large number of success states if there are even several armor and damage types in this game as incomplete understanding can result in nearly infinite states of grasp. And certainly there are costs of failure even if they are transparent to the players prior to their realization that this atom/game exists.

So, I think the first atom can't be fun but can be necessary to a fun game. The second atom, if sufficiently large, is quite likely to be fun (if not crazy-fun).

Are these analyses along the lines of what the article is suggesting?

thanks a ton,

Chris

Christmas Cards

2007-12-18T20:53:00.000-06:00

So this year Cathy and I decided to send out cards. I have this bad habit of wanting to send out Christmas cards and thus buying a couple boxes and then doing nothing about it. This year was going to be different! But Cathy and I have been doing paper-art/craft -- collage, cards, ATCs, etc. It's a loads-of-fun craft that you can get into for only a few hundred dollars. So we decided to hand-make all the cards this time. (Note to self: start making cards for next year in April -- it turns from a fun pass-time to quite a chore when deadlines loom.)

In the end, we got all the family and friends on our list, but it was a close thing. So maybe next year we'll start earlier and make more!

Anyway, I wanted to show off the cards and maybe talk about their crafting a bit. If nothing else it's a good excuse to document these things we made and practice at blogging. Maybe the recipients of the cards will see this and enjoy their mention.

These cards are appearing here in the order in which Cathy scanned them for me, not the order in which we made them.

I'm also inserting Cathy's comments in purple

At the time when I was starting this card, we had already finished the first few and I was wondering about making some with richer, darker surfaces than those that were coming naturally to us. So I picked this 'handmade' paper out of our collection and cut it down to an abnormal size and started thinking about how to capitalize on that surface while retaining a festive holiday spirit. I couldn't get a white ink from stamps to work on the textural surface and embossing was distorting the flatness too much. So I went with stickers, which I made with a Xyron Create-a-Sticker 150 from some snowflakes that were punched out of a flecked hand-made paper and vellum as well as some silver sequins.

Because this was the only card Chris made that wasn’t made on a card blank, he had to create an envelope for it. There are templates available for that sort of thing, but he merely folded a large piece of paper in such a way that it made an envelope. It was clever, but a little bulky.

The Snowflake card went to Adam Banning -- a friend of the family who was especially in our hearts and thoughts this season.

When we were shopping for card blanks, Cathy picked out some of these window cards. Somewhere along the way we also got a pack of these large, thick cardboard Xmas-tree embellishments. Cathy was envisioning the way we see Christmas trees through front windows all the time when she worked up the design for this card. She also selected the elegant silver stickers that adorn the tree and card and made use of the Happy Holidays stamp that I bought. Another good thing about this project is that I had taught myself how to use grommets on a couple of ATCs I made but Cathy hadn't picked up the skill. So with a little coaching and practice, you can see that she's now an old hand. For some reason, I can't think in terms of ribbon (even if I like buying extra-wide, particularly richly-surfaced stuff), but Cathy does. It worked great on this one. I really like how the silver stickers appear as ornaments on the tree and snowflakes on the frame and tie the two sections together with the common motif.

I really like ribbon cards, but I worry about how well they will go through the USPS. We had them hand canceled, but the postal lady told me that they still go through the machines. Hopefully it made it through the post without being too crushed.

The window/tree card went to Cathy's aunt Cathy in Texas.

This card was pretty obviously designed as a wrapped present. We found some lovely Japanese papers at Paper Depot in Minneapolis but because it was pretty spendy, Cathy selected only a few sheets. The background of this card is from one of those. She actually had several card ideas based on cards that look like presents but this one is the only one that was given life. I think the ribbon was also purchased at Paper Depot, but I'm not sure if she had in mind this construction or was just buying it knowing it would be a useful element. As I look through paper-art magazines and websites, I see tons of pieces using tags as elements. Like birds in dunce-caps, it's a thing right now. I have to admit that I generally don't see the appeal. But the currency of the trend means that tags are ubiquitous at craft shops. Cathy picked up this small pack of colored tags for uses like this. I have to say that a gift-tag on a present is actually a pretty reasonable use and the snowflakes and pine help steer the package from a kind of spring-like wrap toward a more wintery theme.

One problem that cropped up and is something that I've struggled with in a few ATCs is burying stuff on the back of the card. Cathy's ribbon goes into and behind the front panel of what was a folded card. She decided to just glue it shut as a laminate -- turning it into a flat card and handily hiding away the back of the ribbon. But it got kind of rumply and the grommet creates a hard-point on the rear. It's still very pretty, but if you're handling it, it feels less than perfect.

The present went to Cathy's uncle Jim in NYC.

When we started this, we thought we'd be working together on more of the cards. We create pretty well together, and as it turned out we did provide huge card-altering feedback all through the process, but there are relatively few cards that we both touched creatively. This is one of them.

I was stamping those negative Christmas tree impressions on that sparkled vellum using a cheap foam stamp from Michaels -- playing with ideas and trying to make elements for an entirely different concept -- one that died on the vine. And the stamped vellum was sitting around on our workspace for a few days. We both agreed that they were nice and should be useful for something but it took a while for Cathy to put together the design that worked. The blue pigment that I used on the vellum worked nicely with the blue cardstock and the silver text reflects the vellum's base color which keeps the design tight.

An issue arose with this card when over time the vellum curled up and away from the card's surface. It looked nice when it was pressed to the card (or when it was lying flat, at first) but not as much when it puffed up. So Cathy and I played with ways to tack it down and ended up settling on just another couple of grommets between the top and bottom icon. It leaves things a little unbalanced but we didn't have a great alternative and still looks nice. I really like the subtlety of design that this piece presents including the interior continuation of the theme.

I love it when we can collaborate on a card. Mostly, we just made our cards individually, in whatever style of theme struck our fancy. But I really liked some of Chris’s experiments with stamping on vellum, and decided they’d make a nice card. I’m not happy with the way the vellum split at the corners where the grommets were. I wonder how to fix?

This card went to Cathy's cousin Bob.

We had a couple of cards done at this point, including the six-panel raised tree piece and the messy melange of multi-color 'Happy Holidays' cards below. And I liked both of those so I was experimenting with a sort of combination. It's a very simple design but I like how obviously home-made it is without having any flaws, per se. I stamped the text nine times knowing that I was going to put four or five hand-cut trees over it -- wanting be sure that the message was clear enough even though individual instances of the stamp would be significantly obscured. I then cut out six or so trees from various appropriately textured and colored papers and shifted them around until I liked the layout. I used those thick adhesive foam pieces to make sure the trees stand off the surface to give it a pleasing dimensionality. And that's all there was to it.

I think this might be one of my favorites that Chris made. One thing he’s better at than I am, is making chaotic elements look good together. This tends to make the cards look more spontaneous and less formal.

(Please note that she's better at formality and order than me. We're complimentary that way.)

This card went to our friends Teresa and Patrick Tebbe (Garrett's other parents).

Cathy picked out this snowman stamp and used it on a couple cards. It was interesting playing with it as an element with other bits and pieces and background cardstocks coming up with appropriately pleasing combinations. The snowflakes are from a set we bought online and especially embossed in silver on this blue card, they look quite elegant. Note that the snowman 'cartoon' square isn't centered along either dimension. Cathy shifted it around above the snowflakes looking for the right spot and settled on this obviously non-centered location that showcases the right amount of the snowflakes. The snowflake motif is continued on the interior, too.

One of our early ideas -- championed most strongly by Cathy was to develop a list of Seasonal quotes or phrases to include as design elements on the cards. This one has a Thoreau quote that's quite nice and evocative of winter. If I'm recalling correctly -- this was one of the very first cards, Cathy had a hard time getting that stamp to work well and have the appearance of snowy woods. We have scraps on our work table from failed attempts. In the end, she nailed it. On the interior of the window side, "HAPPY HOLIDAYS" is punched out of the same paper as the scenery and glued in place.

I had to practice the lettering on the front 3 times on scrap paper before I got the size and spacing right. I’m so used to typing these days, that my hand was sore from all the hand writing. I then hand painted white pearlescent paint on the stamped image, to get it to look snowy, and I used white glitter modge podge to give it a sparkle (that doesn’t show up in the picture). This card went to a family friend Gloria Banning, who, like her son, was especially in our thoughts these holidays.

I picked up these sparkly trees (I think) at Hobby Lobby in Mankato and wanted to use a small series of them on a simple design. I also had some nice textured card stock that I wanted to use and was really digging some cards in books, magazines and web pages that were using strong gold in Xmas designs. I really like how this turned out. Simplicity is often a great attribute. The middle tree is glued flat to the card and the two side trees are floating on adhesive foam bits. The interior reflects the design with the layered card, but not the trees.

It’s amazing how simple, elegant elements can make for a nice card.

This card went to my Grandmother.

We bought some odd cards like the textured red stock in the one above and these almost black tri-gate-fold cards. Black is funny to work with. Cathy made this card. I love the outside design and also the inside but I dont think they particularly reflect one another. (I secretly think that Cathy was looking for excuses to use new stamps that we bought for the Christmas card project. ;-)

I was worried about using black for a Christmas card – it’s not exactly a traditional color, and I worried that people would think we were in mourning or something. In the end, this was one of my favorites.

This card went to our dear friend, Paul.

These two cards were made for Cathy's brothers, Paul and Sean who are young men now with their own addresses and everything. I like the layering and her use of grommets instead of adhesive. There's a bit of ripple to the paper -- one could call it a fault, but I like to see signs of a thing being hand-made. I think the gold stampwork, even after the embossing kind of falls down a little. Maybe it should have been dark black ink with gold embossing powder.

I was trying for an Asian-themed card. The red and gold paper is another Japanese paper, and the stamps have that simplicity of style. However, these fell kind of short in my opinion. The stamping/embossing didn’t have the amount of contrast that it should have to show up properly. They were pretty, but not as effective as I would have liked.

I think this is my favorite of our cards. Cathy made it fairly early on. I think it was based on a card from a book, but loosely. It's just sweet -- six little trees on their backgrounds, obviously hand-cut, overlapping the background squares. They're raised off the surface of the card to provide depth. I guess if I were looking to say something critical, the lower right tree doesn't contrast well with the background, but the pattern does a substantial job of correcting that. The inside is nicer than most of our interior pieces too, so this card is a big win all around.

As Chris mentioned, I based this loosely on a card I saw in a cardmaking magazine (actually it was a valentine card, with 6 hearts). Mine looks substantially different, and I embellished it differently, but in the end, this is by far my favorite. Here’s something odd: The card was mailed at the same time as the red cards to my brothers, went to the same address, but took 2 days longer to arrive. How weird is that?

The six trees went to Cathy's parents.

here I am trying to combine heavy-handed gold with other elements. I really like rough edges too. The gold pieces are torn using one of those Fiskars(?) rough-edged tear bars. the problem is that they ended up kind of more regular than I'd wanted. but I went with it because the nature of the edge was so nice. The orangy-red pieces were measured to be roughly the same size and then just torn by hand. I like that effect better and will do more of it in the future. I dragged the edges of those six pieces across green and gold ink-pads to reflect other colors used in the composition. The green Xmas-tree background was my fifth or sixth attempt at finding the right setting and I'm pretty pleased with it. I chose the tree stamp for a silly little stamp set that we found because it was the right size and was a tree -- reflecting the background trees.

Chris really struggled with this one. He played with combinations and arrangements of papers, and nothing looked right. So he set it aside a few days, came back to it, and turned out this – and I think it turned out nicely. Sometimes taking a break is the best thing to do when you get stuck.

This card went to my parents.

I like this card way more than I like the scan of it. There is torn vellum that provides a dimensionality to the snow-flake surface when you're holding it in person. You can see a bit of it if you look closely, but it's much nicer in person. Again, you see the snowman that Cathy has a thing for. :) The snowflake grommets are funny. Cathy and I independently picked some out as a great embelishment to have. We ended up picking up the ones I selected because half were bare aluminum and half were white and maybe in two styles. The snow-man and -flake motifs are repeated on the interior.

I painted the snow on the snowman with white ink from an inkpad. I then painted on glittery modge podge, and while it was still wet, sprinkled on fine white glitter. I stamped white snowflakes on the torn vellum (you can barely see them in the scan). The only thing holding the vellum on, are the grommets on the snowman, so it’s allowed curl away from the card a fair amount. This is one of my favorites.

My art has a history of messiness. I like it. My clay is rough and textural and I love complex surface. So here's me doing that kind of thing with stamping. There are about eight pigments in there that I did over three days, letting them dry -- sometimes with heat, sometimes without, between applications. I kept the stamp vaguely vertical so that there wouldn't form too much of a jumble and I think it worked to keep the message quite clear. The interior has "HAPPY HOLIDAYS" spelled out along the bottom in a strip of paper by punching the letters out and another decorative paper showing through. The scan of it that we have is crazily large, but here it is.

Chris had a tough time getting the interior of this card to work with the exterior. The cover is a nice jumble, but the inside needed to be neater, to leave us a place to write.

This card went to my Aunt Kris -- if her last known address happens to be current.

Actually, Cathy made this while I was at work at the last minute and I didn't see it in person.

I played with a stamping technique where you use water-color markers and draw directly onto the stamp. It allows a great deal of control where the colors go on the stamp. I used heat to dry it, which caused the paper to rumple. I wish it had stayed smooth.

This card went to our friend Larry Chong.

Actually, Cathy made this while I was at work at the last minute and I didn't see it in person.

I played with layering multiple colors of reddish ink to get a sunset-like/northern-lights like effect, and I’m pleased with the effect.

This went to our friends Nick and Diane Sauer.

This card was frustrating. I love the base stamp that I used -- applied twice across the long card to create a wide stand of woods. But...then what? I wanted it to be snowy, so I used a Versamakr pen and this two-tone iradescent embossing powder but that didn't do it. I layered on some more: white and clear, trying to build up a snowy layer. Ultimately I wasn't satisfied with the effect. The card hung around for a couple weeks with me on the edge of throwing it out. But I really like to make stuff work and sometimes over-working it can actually make the card. I added silver sticker snow flakes and liked the effect. Then I used a couple of stickers from a scrapping kit that Cathy had for ages. Then I stamped a few trees on and touched them up with some watercolors. in the end, it's not high art, but I'm reasonably happy with it. And I can always fall back on having put more effort into it than any of the others. :)

This card was an interesting one. I love that tree stamp – it really looks like the trees along the interstate in Northern Minnesota, and we picked it to show people the beauty we see every day. However, it was tough to know what to do with it when we did use it. This is probably my least favorite of Chris’s cards, but I am pleased with the depth he captured in the end.

Happy holidays!

Minnesota XO User Group?

2007-12-13T08:18:00.000-06:00

I'm waiting for the two XO Laptops that I ordered to arrive. The first known to the blogosphere came to Minnesota, but I was far from a first day donor -- more like tenth. I'm excited to play with them. I'm equally excited to see what others will do with theirs. And to hook up with them. With the internet, I can do that remotely but there's also good stuff that comes out of old-fashioned face to face meets. I keep seeing stuff about what seems like a big group in DC that meets face to face.

I've been poking around on the web for Minnesota XOs. I'm not seeing much, but maybe they're just not writing about it. So I decided to write this up just in case others were doing the same.

These are the three clear MN-related XO links that I've found:
http://s4xton.com/1632/my-first-experience-with-an-xo-laptop/ : I'm not even sure he's going to have one, but he's in Minneapolis.
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2007/12/12/olpc-follow-up.html : He's got the XO fame going right now and resides down Mankato way.
http://www.analoghero.com/criteria : These folks are giving an XO away to a kid. It's not clear whether they'll also be XO people themselves but they're in St. Paul.

If you're getting an XO and interested in keeping up with other Minnesotans, feel free to comment here and if there's sufficient interest we can get together.