Calls of Duty

I played Call of Duty 3 for a few minutes this month, before getting tired of the whole thing. I think I would play a good video game, but COD 3 is a good example of why I don’t enjoy the genre more. First of all, the screen jerks around constantly. Just loading the gun a few times is an exercise in nausea. Second, the game has a couple of “holes.” For example, if your Jeep gets stuck, you just sit there, forever. None of the characters (yourself or virtual) ever get out of the jeep to move it, no Germans show up to kill you. You just sit there forever.

COD 3 is also different from COD 2 in one more subtle way – it’s too zoomed-in. You have zero peripheral vision, and as you look around it’s too easy to miss details. Combine this with the jerky graphics, and it causes nausea much faster than the last version of the game.

This American Life

During the month, I listened to several episodes of the “This American Life” podcast. Very enjoyable. I look forward to seeing the TV show, which recently finished its first season on the Showtime network. Of course, I’ll wait until it comes out on DVD … I don’t like it enough to spend a lot of money on it. But the radio show podcast is free (one episode a week), and older episodes are only a buck on iTunes. Click the icon to go to the show's web site.

A Book Review

While in Phoenix, I bought a Christopher Moore novel. I thoughtI had read one book by him (God is My Broker -- but that was actually by Christopher Buckley). Practical Demonkeeping was entertaining throughout. It wasn’t killer funny (not in the way that Christopher Buckley can be), but it had a story that kept my interest. Back in Atlanta, I purchased and read Coyote Blue. Mid-way through, I thought it the better of the two books. But the author’s hatred of Christianity was jarring towards the end. Moore is firmly in the camp that everything that whites do, and everything that Christians do, is bad. I ended up tossing the book when I was done, and I have no plans to read another.

iPod Madness

During the month, I “won” an iPod Shuffle at work. Actually, this was part of an award from October of last year, but it only caught up with me this month. It’s a great device, with simple controls – perfect for using while driving. It charges directly from the USB port of a laptop, and it has twice the memory (512M) of my old iRiver. But there’s always a “but.” It intermittently loses connection to my laptop. I took it to the Apple store, and because Honeywell purchased the device in January of 2006, it’s out of warranty. So I bought a second-generation Shuffle, got it home, and had exactly the same problems.

When I went to the Apple store, my first iPod wouldn’t talk at all to my laptop. Later that day I synched it on Jim’s Mac, and sense the it will talk occasionally to my laptop. For now, I’m going to keep both, but if I continue to have these problems, I’ll take the other one back and give the first one away.

Someday, computers are going to work reliably. It will be a freaking revolution. Seriously – so many large software projects fail. We don’t have a good way to visualize very complex systems and projects – like large computer programs, genetic codes, etc. Some day we will find a way and it will revolutionize many seemingly unrelated fields.

Bring me 13 shrubberies!

On the 18th, I trimmed another branch from the tree in my front yard. Some lessons for next year: First, I need to know what to do with the branch once I cut it off the tree. Last year, I cut it up and put it in the garbage can. This one is a little thicker – I’m not interested in cutting it apart. Second, buy a new saw before tackling the next one. And do something to it so it doesn’t rust. Pushing the rusty saw through the green branch was a chore.

Also this month, I got my lawn guy to plant some more shrubs on the hill behind my house. I’ve done this twice before, with just a few shrubs. I never watered them, and due to neglect (and, I’m convinced, weed eating), they died. This year I told George to fill the space in completely, and I’ve watered the new shrubs every day. I’ll live with the weeds, if it gives the shrubs a chance to get established. Eventually, I would like to have enough coverage so that I don’t have to put in pine straw or weed the area at all.

Next month, George is going to replace the pine bark around my flower beds with river stones. That should set me back a few bucks.

Finally, the moss in my yard is getting pretty bad. I did some reading on the web, and now believe that the cause is either compacted soil or “sour” soil, that could be fixed with calcium. To find the exact cause would require testing the soil, which I will probably never get around to. Instead, I may ask George to put calcium+moss killer+fertilizer on the grass, and aerate the soil.