God of War PlayStation2 Sony Computer Entertainment Mature

The first time I played this I was very unimpressed. Critics everywhere were heralding it as the greatest game since the bread slicer, but I found it to be trite, gimmicky, and a big hard to stomach.

I gave it another chance. This time I played it a bit farther than last time and found that the "hack and slash" play that dominated the first part falls away quickly to a "hack and slash and solve puzzles" game dynamic. Sure there was still tons of blood and gore and a bit of gratuitous nudity, but once you look past that, this is a really good game. After having to put up with dozens of GTA rip offs, I'm actually looking forward to a slate of God of War ripoffs...

Forgot to update this after my last trip:

create your own visited countries map

And I'm so jealous of some people:

• Chilln' Travel
• Democratic Veteran

I'm sure there are more people to be jealous of, I just can't seem to find them. Perhaps they are too busy traveling to make up these maps...

You cannot resist the über-cuteness of Hello Kitty! Cuteness factor 10, full ahead! She'll surf into your heart, and surf away with your money. Bow down and kowtow to her eternal cuteness. You think you are cute? You can't handle the cute!

Seriously, it's like printing money. And now they are combining 2 of the 3 great loves of 11 year old girls everywhere, Hello Kitty and Build-a-Bear Workshop. If they can tie in to Libby-Lu's, we're all up the creek.

Example:
:args *.[ch]
:argdo %s/\<my_foo\>/My_Foo/ge | update
This changes the word "my_foo" to "My_Foo" in all *.c and *.h files.  The "e"
flag is used for the ":substitute" command to avoid an error for files where
"my_foo" isn't used.  ":update" writes the file only if changes were made.

[ Vim documentation: editing ]

This one item is the timesaver that is my "killer app" for using vim above all other editors. If you combine this with searching in windows for all *.html files (or some such) and then right-click and "edit in single vim" you can set up the args to be all the files in a webroot or somesuch. Perhaps for changing links everywhere.

spent the day picking lemons and pruning back the lone lemon tree in my friend cyrano's backyard. we picked over 500 lemons--something like 8 milk crates of citrus.

[ meet me at the corner of third and fairfax.: lemony thicket. ]

Apparently after picking that may lemons, you can then make lovely delicacies like this:

 

Props to Slash Food.

Get downloads for Internet Explorer 7, including recommended updates as they become available. To download Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 in the language of your choice, please visit the Internet Explorer 7 worldwide page.

[ Internet Explorer 7: downloads ]

It seems to dislike the Google Toolbar, or the IE Developer's Toolbar, or both.

Or alone:

One of the things that I’ve been missing in Visual Studio 2005 is the user-configurable sound that played when the build succeeded or failed. In VS 2003 I had set up the sounds so I could switch over to another process while the build happened, and the sound would tell me when it was done.

From reading newsgroup posts, blogs, etc, it seems that the VS2005 just doesn’t support these sounds (even though the sounds can be set via Control Panel | Sounds). It just makes for a quiet build.

[ Silent Visual Studio 2005 > Codefez > Blogs ]

At least not on this subject. It drives me bonkers, I just want my "ta da" when it is successful and a "buzz" when it isn't. Not too much to ask I don't think. I had to alter the macro a tiny bit. I used the commenters suggestion to use the registry settings, which seems more finesse; and I altered the replacement to replace "==========" with "~~~~~~~~~~". I'm not sure why replacing 10 equals with 11 would do anything but loop endlessly (which is what mine seemed to do).

Update: I see now why they altered the 10 ='s to 11, but that doesn't explain why it just hangs with 11 =, but with my modified code it will not hang until the 3rd build or so. Any which way the code eventually (and usually quickly) causes my IDE to freeze, so I am on the hunt for another method to "fix" this.

Apparently there is a lot that I don't know about gateways for clearing credit card transactions. I was under the impression that there were only 2 real players in the space, Verisign and another which I could never remember. Apparently I was off by a few, and apparently John Conde is willing to share his notes with me:

I've researched some of the more popular gateways; I'll break down their features, costs, strengths and weaknesses...

Some of these gateways offer different features -- charge different prices -- depending on which method of integration you choose to use. I've listed each of these offerings separately, classifying each as its own, unique product for the sake of easier comparison.

[  eCommerce ]

If only I wasn't under a deadline, I'd have time to absorb this. Perhaps if I blogmark it, I'll remember to return and read the whole thing.

I wonder how you just read that. I read:

My 'o-t&-mO-"bEl and 'mO-b&l phone allow me to be 'mO-"bIl. (pronunciation guide).

And I'm guessing that most Americans, excepting Southerners, would do similar. I'm also guessing that most English speakers outside of the US would not.

Why? I don't know the answer to that, Yaty, however I will agree that it is totally inconsistent.

I have outgrown my current living space, and I require more. This means moving to a larger place, and it is the ideal time to relocate if I ever plan on doing it, before Iman makes so many friends that it becomes painful to move. After an exhaustive search of what is out there, how much things cost, what kinds of schools there are, etc. etc. I have come to the conclusion that I wish to live in Twinbrook, which is in the southeast corner of Rockville, MD.

I have found some very nice places to live there, and I like the feel of the neighborhoods. The area seems diverse, and the schools are the at the top, nationwide. There are a few requirements that I have, which I have become accustomed to, and do not desire to live without (or at least a suitable replacement). Some I have already located:

• My bank
• Favorite restaurants:
  • Taco Bell
  • Chipotle
  • Pollo Campero
  • Shilla Café
  • Silver Diner
• Plenty of Korean Markets
• The Metro

What we still don't seem to have found are:

• Pho as good as Saigon Citi
• Kabobs as good as Food Corner
• Thai, but it appears there are plenty to try
• Mexican and/or Tex-Mexican, though there is a Guapo's in Bethesda, but I've heard it's not as good as the one in Shirlington.

So any and all suggestions by people in the Rockville area are welcome.

And in this case DC gets to keep the best:

The man named two weeks ago to be the new editor in chief of the Village Voice has announced he will not take the position.

Wemple said he will remain in his current job as editor of Washington City Paper, a position he has held since January 2002.

[ Wemple Decides Against Voice Editor Job ]

I had the fortune to work with Erik in the past, and I can say that the City Paper has one of the finest editors that it could ever hope for. I certainly hope that the WCP doesn't take this serendipity for granted, and works on making Erik pleased with his choice.

Props to Tom for noticing the article and asking, "Is that THE Erik Wemple" or something like that...

Right in the midst of some work, I lost Internet connectivity again.

Looked to the corner to see if there was another truck gone crazy, nope just the cables on fire. I'm not sure how something like this happens. This morning when I left the house there were 2 trucks working on the repairs with large quantities of cable, and a "fiber optic toolkit". Wonder what else can happen to the wires on my block.

Working from home today, and this is what the "wall" of my "home office" looks like.

'course if it were raining, I think I wouldn't be right next to the railing...

Update: New View

Some truck drove down my block hitting power lines all the way. Big bang, bright light, and no cable. Thus no Internet. So I've relocated to the Panera, I figured I'd try their new pizza-thing. Pizza-thing only available after 4^pm. Crap. Got salad. Also not so impressive. Green tea is pre-sweetened? Crazy. Something about this Panera just doesn't make much sense to me...