Marco!

This summer, aka Hey Isn't It Great That Covid Is Over OH NO DELTA, we've been spending alot of time in the complex pool. 

This is the standard pool in a complex as old as this. Nearly every eye-line is covered with warnings that there are no life guards on duty. There are life saving .. tools? Nearby. Nobody knows how to use them. The list of rules of what can and cannot be done has been crafted and edited to include nearly everything you can think of that would SEEM innocuous until that one family from unit 12 ruins it for everyone.  

There is a changing room, building of sorts. It's been updated enough to let you know that people still use it but not enough for you to mistake it was first designed when the AMC Gremlin seemed like a pretty good idea. 

The pool itself is what you would expect, a vast cement container filled with chlorinated water that gets progressively suspect as the day goes on. But when the temperature is 30C, well, anything that cools you off is welcome. 

Because it's a family pool, there is a defined set of people who frequent it. 

Young(ish) parents (well, let's be honest, usually moms) with their babies to toddlers. These folks usually hang out in the shallow end, make the dreaded small talk; bond over small tragedies and triumphs of child-rearing. The ups and downs which have been lost to me, as my kids are old enough to make snarky comments while watching 'Friends'. I'm  pretty sure that if I was in trouble in the water, they'd be able to pull ME out.

Older parents with their tweens to (rarely) teens*. Again, these adults usually just bob in the shallow end, making small talk about decidedly Adult Things: Sports, listing off (because this is Canada) various Scandinavian names of professional hockey players who may or may not be the hope that this godforsaken team needs; probably the various things we've been trying and failing to keep ourselves sane.

Older folks, who may have had kids, maybe not, but they've earned the right to not give the littlest concern either way. They too, are usually bobbing near the shallow end.

Then there is me, my kids, and my kids friends, playing Marco Polo. The only proper use of a swimming pool. Well, for my kids it's that and swimming laps during the winter because they can't be bothered to be interested in any sports so, laps it is. Oddly enough this hasn't scarred them from enjoying the pool in general.

We mark off our game area by the depth level markers, which we initially thought were 21 meters to 25 meters, carefully reading and paying attention to punctuation has correct that to the 2.1m and the 2.5m mark. Common sense, added to the observation we are not a NASA training facility should have told us there is no part of the pool that's 25m in depth. We still use the wrong numbering system though, because if the United States and Liberia can stick to the Imperial System, we can ignore a decimal.

To avoid being Those Kids (and one weird adult) we will change our markers if there are too many people on the shallow end, who eventually drift into our domain. This is a considerate thing to do, but also I don't want to pull That One Neighbour I Awkwardly Wave To When I Throw Out The Compost into a game of Marco Polo. 

Marco Polo is great, the panic, the frantic swimming, the fooling yourself into getting exercise because you'll be damned if Little Jimmy tags you again. There will always be the odd kid we don't know that we invite to play with us after they sit on the outskirts, mournfully staring at us. The odd kid is usually younger than my kids, and invariably cheats relentlessly. The great thing about this is my kids know, I know, and we just let it slide. I mean, we get it, we've seen the other end of the pool. Who wants to be there, and submit themselves to endless small talk? Or hanging out with the really small kids? It's like a lesser circle of hell reserved for people who play their music outloud in transit and people who have a very strong opinion on how to make coffee.

Sometimes I'll hear a comment that, 'oh, isn't it nice that man is playing with his children'. And I do feel guilty. I mean, yes, Marco Polo is great, but so is avoiding discussions on the third paragraph subsection C on the previous months strata council resolution. It's equal parts playing marco polo and NOT making the tottering verbal bumbles into adulthood that I try so hard to avoid. 

Well, that and being Marco.

*(Thankfully, I rarely see the dreaded surly teen. The kind who, depending on the decade, would likely be sent off to man the Western Front/Protest the Vietnam War/Be aRed Hot Chili Peppers Fan/Protest the Iraq War (etc). The kind old enough to have ideals and young enough to have the energy to act on them. And, depending on the decade, sometimes there is nowhere to direct that burgeoning sense of self, that invincible energy of youth and you just get full, unadulterated, uncut Sarcasm.)

2017 Australia trip: Airports

Airports have this casual affluence to them. People rustling about in leisure wear that's​ just a little too nice to be considered a track suit. In the endless lines for security and customs and all the little declarations that slowly wear on ones paranoia, everyone is clutching expensive active executive totes and tactical all weather jackets that are too Military Grade to be considered something as civilian as a 'jacket', elements shell, maybe.

Nobody outside a visiting dignitary or a tourist from Scandinavia could fail to feel suspect about themselves after all the official and unofficial scrutiny. The forms, the people in official uniforms, endless cautionary signs warnings for explosives and drugs and non-indigenous produce.

It's maybe a little better with kids, people usually give you the benefit of the doubt. You don't always have a lurking suspicion that maybe you are some sort of Manchurian Candidate ne'er do well.

Past all that there is no doubting how mundane this has all become. Flying. Getting to pretty much anywhere in the world if you have enough money and a high tolerance for millenial trustifarians talking about their eco-adventure-fairsource startup. You can tell by how put upon and harassed people look. If we were taking a tourist orbit of the sun you can bet there'd be far less bickering about gate departure times, shoe removal,  and why a super big gulp is hardly the correct choice for a 7 year old.

We are going to Australia, stop over in the US. And you can guess which part of the trip fills me with a nameless, spleen twisting dread. And it's not the part about flying at hundreds of miles an hour in an aluminum crate flew more by software than brains over a trackless, hungry ocean. 

Maybe it's part of the national identity that is so adversarial. A country born of rebellion, drunk on the constant contesting of sports, of political parties, ideals, culture. One can hardly imagine a country more fit to breed soldiers, or lawyers. 

And yet when you look at everyone travelling, expensive casual wear notwithstanding, we're all remarkable similar. Misshapen, a little overweight, vaguely anxious, fuddling through life hoping for the best. The high drama and epic battles over the soul of the country don't seem to be anywhere but talkshows.

This fact calms me somewhat, but I'm nervous and worried by nature. Projecting a laid back calm by only two things. First is that as  a lifelong Pacific Northwester, such a trait is my birthright. Second is I just assume the worst has already happened. A nihilist prescription, maybe. Pretty great for the blood pressure, though.

The kids, thankfully, are blissfully ignorant of all the various things we as parents worry about.  Crossing the border, the many MANY poisonous organisms in the land where even the comical genetic crapshoot of the platypus has a fatally poisonous spur.

Most of the drama surrounds candy. Whether they can have it, if so, how much, how long until they can have it again. Then time. How much longer is the line, how much longer til lunch, the plane. The updates and negotiation keep that nagging worry that they'll say something: in retrospect hilarious , in the present, mortifying, that'll end with me in a windowless room answering questions about my political affiliations and that one time I shared a Mother Jones article on private prisons on Facebook.

And then we are through. And the airport is just a well lit luxury mall with, what I assume, are FAR too many newstands.( A non-trivial percentage of magazines have to be sold in airport newstands.i can't say with any confidence that I've ever seen anyone actually read a magazine outside of say, a waiting room, maybe?). 

Disneyland 2013 Semi-organized Notes

We took the kids, oh, crap, 8 years ago to Disneyland. I made some notes to optimistically make a blog post about it in a timely manner. Well, in a manner, anyways.  I present the notes, with , uh, more notes? 8 years later, certain to be accurate.

"This rocket ship ride, while being quaintly pulp sci-fi circa 1950's inspired, goes I Think I Saw This Machine In "The Right Stuff" too fast." Yes, yes, it was entirely too fast, and gave the controls over to the children, the children! I guess if low brain trauma is self-induced we can't sue? It must have been the combination of being a little bit too fast and my kids being the right combination of far too frail and little and little to less than little sense of danger.

I guess we saw one of the last runs of Captain EO, which was much cringier than I remember. Two things: "Captain Eo has the power to turn all Borg soldiers into Solid Gold dancers; and ANGELICA HUSTON?! #pullingOutAllTheStops"

 

"The (from my childhood memory) pretty spooky Haunted house. Quake with fear kids as a traditional, original classic Disney ride is contorted with the power of vertical market integration and right-size co-synergestic marketing with Nightmare Before Christmas. OooooOooOoOOOo!" It was pretty ham-fisted how everything was shoe-horned. I mean, I guess us nerdy types are supposed to near-worship Imagineers, but, yeah, this looks like a soulless redesign.

"Pinnochio is old school Disney ride made for children who grew up with more than a passing familiarity with starvation or burying close relations because boy HOWDY there is some grade A nightmare fuel in there." It was amazing what they accomplished with paint, darklights, and what I assume are repurposed child sized rails from an era when 5 year olds would put in a honest days work. Back of the napkin, this ride was likely made in the 50's? So the designers for sure saw at least one world war and the Depression. Nobody growing up on Def Leppard and Back To the Future would make this ride, is what I'm saying.

"Splashdown mountain. Adorable animatronics, delightful story, scampy Brer rabbit OH MY GOD FEAR FOR YOUR LIFE relaxing boat ride, enchanting scenery, end." Perfect note.

"Mater ride must really annoy southerners with his over the top relentlesss hokey hick accent , OH WAIT here's a Luigi ride and Italians don't fair horribly well either."

"The only time my children clapped in this multi billion dollar exercise in merchandising and proprietery fairground entertainment? When I bought them lollipops. "

"Jj on rides "I hate that ride, I love that ride, I dont want to ever ride that again, why arent we going on that ride, I hate disney can I go on that ride!?" About the same ride. All within about a minute." The ride was Star Wars. Now he sneaks in prequel memes during normal conversation like an animal.

"Stone cold ride attendant approaches screaming near hysterical toddler in chair swing pre-start. Doesn't mention to dad that, hey, maybe kid doesn't wanna be there. Simply double checks safety belts are in place, moves on. Disney is GANGSTA."

"It's not the chipped fuselage paint or the out of date magazines that had me worried. It's that the bathroom sink sounds like a thermite bomb after use." I have no idea where this note is about or from. But there was always something I appreciated about Disneyland. How everything was meant to run forever. Everything seemed to be made of some form of concrete or an exotic plastic 007 would use in his bullet proof sunglasses. Fun on a neverending hamster wheel of durability.

Cyberpunk 2077

 Like a late 90's webring, replete with link back and hints at an actual relationship with other authors, this is a piece I'd like to say in.. rebuttal is too harsh a term, in reply, to my very long standing internet friend, zompist, where he posts his various gripes with that great sprawling hot mess, Cyberpunk 2077.

Now I say hot mess because that's what the internet at large thinks of it, but me, playing on the worringly over-powered computers on GeForce Now, have experienced nearly no problems. Or at least not problems that bother me enough. Keep in mind I'm the Homer Simpson when it comes to critiquing alot of things. I just like, alot of things. Cheap date, as it were. 

 It might be my hundreds of hours in Bethesda titles and regularly having to look up console commands to debug yet another janked out quest, but it takes a rather large bug to befuddle and begrudge me. Like if a bug repoed my car, maybe, or  told me how much weight I had actually put on during this Covid-19 pandemic.

 I'm not a gamer for story, generally. When you talk story you eventually draw connections with story from film, or story from books, and, as far as I played, there have been nearly none that have matched a really excellent book. But that's just me, I don't play for overarching stories. For amazing .. I dunno, they are always puppets to me. The 3D models, the pathing, the tricks behind the curtain. There have been a few times when the motion capture and acting of the actor behind a cinematic really grabbed me, weirdly enough the main bad guy in Far Cry 3 (the kinda Malaysia one). But over all, no. 

 When we are taking open world sandbox games, of which I've played a few (Fallout 3, 4, Oblivion, Skyrim, Just Cause 3; GTA 3, SA, VC, 4 , 5 etc), I play for the action and small stories. The side missions, the little nuances that attempt to paint a world by inference. And there are so many here. Mostly about the horror of combining the worst of capitalism and technology together. 

There is a story about a lovely dad and son side business, or would be, if they had been selling pretty much anything else. Or a various side missions about migrants, invariably gone horribly wrong. Or a side mission involving scuba gear which is the most affecting bit of gameplay I've ever played.

What are the results if greed and technology continue unfettered? What are the unintended consequences? What are the mortifying, obvious consequences? As a Canadian it's like America Taken To 11. For profit health care is monstrous. For profit security/health care when your body parts can be harvested? Unspeakable.

 That's a whole lot of preamble. On the whole I agree with most of what zompist says, but it's still not enough to deter me, because they dont' take up the majority of the game, or anything near it. 

First zompist gripe, the cutscenes. Yes, annoying. Moreso than other games? I don't think so? Or not so much more that I was losing patience. Again, the main arc for me is just a way to get the next story act. 

The joy of Cyberpunk is in the atmosphere, and in the bizaare/macabre side quests. In ornery characters with hinted backstories. In motion capture and 3D modelling that really astounds.

Zompist has other gripes, world building wise. I've always viewed this game as a East European's take on an 80's American RPG take on the future. So, there's going to be some disjointedness. The fact that the Japanese have risen ascendant and now run the entire world? Pure 80's (Nakatomi Plaza, etc). The tone-deaf transphobic advert? I would say they are being transphobic, but there is a side mission which is surprisingly progressive. Are they making a comment on society in the future? Did the left hand not know what the right was doing?

Now about the stealth gripes. There are options for stealth. They mostly involve hacking, and hacking nearby devices to distracts enemies. It's not the stealth excellence of, say Shadow Tactics. But it's no slouch. You can regain your stealth. You must use hacks though, to track the baddies and take unsuspecting enemies out of line of sight.

I do wish there were more achievements for doing things stealthily. The most you'll get is a comment from a fixer that you did a job smoothly. Going in with guns akimbo and katanas flying rarely gets you that. But yes, in, say, Dishonored, it tracks down to the dropped pin how stealthily you did everything. Would be nice. It is a much tougher option to clear out areas.I would like a big BONUS XP for distracting, katanaing badguys, and storing every body until the last one.

 I can't say I disagree with everything zompist says, he has a much better nuanced, well thought out opinion. I play mostly with my gut, leaving things like 'plot' or 'storytelling' or 'is this actually a good game' to smarter people.

But CyberPunk is a gutsy game. It's a glorious mess. It's a loud disjointed jarring experience. The side missions and atmosphere. Even the NPC dialogue which I usually blow by. All outline a world powered by a capitalist techno nightmare, with real people with completely reasonable hopes trying to live within it. It's the human heart, struggling to survive in horror of humankind's making. The casual references to the natural outcome of unfettered everything. These are the things that stayed with me, that elevated the hot mess to something rather more.

Short Hair

Finally got my hair cut. The Mrs. has always been, at best, tolerant of my really nerdy impression of Conan.But a few weeks ago she said, quite seriously, that more or less I'm losing hair from traction baldness. Either she honed her delivery to really put the fear of god into me, or she really believed it. 

Turning 45, I had to decided which would win, the vanity from having long hair or the vanity from losing all my hair. Well, ever since I learned what a skullet is, obviously I'm going to try and save what I got.

She finally cut it all off on my birthday. Donated the ponytail to wigs for kids. I don't know what kid with cancer needs black, grey, and some white hair with and uneven amount of waviness in it, but there it is.

Now I just look like any other asian-ish man with short hair. I could be an accountant, or, a ... dentist? Certainly not the rebel programmer ideal I have in my mind. I look like someone you could easily copy and paste into a news segment where they ask the respectable public what THEY think of the latest bypass, or tax increase.  The kind of person who has strong feelings about marginal tax rates and current water tables and not, say, the fact we never get to see Wolverine in his super rad brown and orange suit. 

Honestly the one thing I worried about the most is how my kids would react. They've grown up with a dad with long hair. Owlet, in particular, is pretty conservative about change. She once got upset when we gave away a ghetto blaster we had in her room, that we NEVER used, but that she always saw. Owl Jr.was worried more about my general state of aging and decay. Why would I be balding?

They both adjusted well to the change, or have hidden their horror well. Either way, a win in my book! Not getting a skullet, maybe a bigger win. Now if I could just bend your ear a bit about this gondola line  they are proposing to put in....

PS I've told the kids finally about this blog, this might be the first post they've ever read from me,if so, HI OWLET! HI OWL JR.!

A Very Professional Mouse

About 4 years ago I started at this new company. I soon decided, like any self respecting programmer, that I didn't quite like the mouse. I mean, obviously its low DPI rating and the fact it was wireless was digging atrocious inroads into my productivity. 

Asking for a replacement for the tools you work with every day is a perfectly normal thing for an IT worker to do, within some boundaries. But maintaining professional stoicism is, if not essential, at least highly recommended. That goes doubly for programmers a little older, triply so for programmers at a new job. Quadruply so for programmers who've only ever worked at one other company before and isn't entirely sure what the ramifications of making the wrong choice would be. Public humiliation? Being called out at a meeting? The pillory?

The very slight lag in the wireless mouse supplied was irksome, however, as was the fact that every day at around 4pm many of the wireless mice went a bit glitchy in the office. That last bit was less irksome and more 'fills me with unnameable dread', but you get the picture.

So I started to dive in the world of mice. At some point between looking at mice with adjustable weights to those with enough buttons to reasonable simulate and operate a fully loaded 747 passenger jet I got information overload and decided to just ask for the mouse I have at home. A fairly professional all black wired laser mouse. 

I mean, it's made by Razer, and the model name is DeathAdder but the office would hardly see that. Or the fact that this was the sort of mouse made for unbelievable K:D ratios and no miss noscopes. If you didnt' get the last bit, hey you're not an irredeemable nerd. The packaging is the sort you'd expect for a laser blaster in an 80's sci fi pop-synth TV show starring some once massive genre star of a 60's sci fi hit that might have an entire booth dedicated to it at a Tulsa Comic convention.

But the mouse itself could easily be the sort dedicated to negotiation contracts and pivot tables. 

At some point it arrived and I plugged it in, all proud to have made  the correct, professional, adult decision. 

They had changed the design somewhat. Apparently they decided the mouse had to match the packaging and changed it to glow all the colours of the rainbow in sequence. If this was a movie I could EASILY hack into the NSA or enhance that image. This was the sort of mouse who, if it had a wardrobe, would consist entirely of black, and neon. This was the Fast And the Furious version of a mouse. Professionalism be damned. This mouse flew the nerd flag high, attached to a squadron of X-wings, escorted by a Battlestar, and piloted by Riker. 

Luckily we don't have meetings, or so rarely that it counts as never. And, going on 5 years, I've seen no sign of a pillory.

Microwave Burns Out

(draft written 2015_12)
I don't think there is an appliance in my kitchen that terrify me more than the microwave. Oh, no big deal, just a personalized family RADIATION MACHINE to shoot ENERGY BEAMS at food.

Everything else in the kitchen is understandable, and doesn't toe the line of magic and doom. Spinning things with blades, large things that turn electricity into heat. Other heaty things. Sure, they might burn the house down, sure I might sever a lesser used digit. But I'm not going to end up with a laser hole in my torso or a curiously growing tumour.

So it was with some consternation that our microwave/oven vent blew. Just stopped working. My buddy helped me take it down, then even suggested I open it up and look for a fuse. My comfort with hardware never goes beyond assembling components to make a computer. I don't own a solder, for instance. I know OF fuses. I know they have to be replaced when they blow, and that's it. The idea that they'd be in the Radiation Machine seemed a bit far fetched, but he opened it up and voila, there are fuses.

So, looking like, if not feeling like, the adult I appear to be, I went to the local hardware store and picked up right fuse with the right amperage/voltage/whateverage. Brought it back home and plunked it in and wow it worked.

Next morning, blew again. So, getting a new microwave, but happily have not detected any tumour growth.