verbosity

I to the D

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But when work is play...?

Freud? Freud to the front desk please. You have a caller on line one. Something about an "Id."

Ingredients: 8oz Whoop Ass

If you're looking to study a martial art with a little more real-world applicability than your standard fare (for example, Taekwondo's focus on head-kicking won't serve you well should you get jumped in a crowded bar), or if you're just looking for a fun cardio workout, I recommend Krav Maga.

Krav Maga is the official self defense system of the Israeli Defense Forces, and has been taught to hundreds of law enforcement agencies and thousands of civilians in the United States. Krav Maga is a simple, effective self defense system that emphasizes instinctive movements, practical techniques, and realistic training scenarios.

In Lincoln, I study under the instructors from Longoria's, though I'm currently taking classes not at their academy but at World Gym, where I already spend time lifting small automobiles for sport. Dan is a great teacher, and I definitely would not exchange harsh words with his wife Patty. She'll kick your ass, boys.

I sincerely hope that I will never have to utilize what I'm learning (pacifist here), but should the worst occur it's always better to be prepared, in any aspect of life. I'm also having a blast, and I must admit that though I'm still a newbie, I'm already carrying myself with more confidence. As a thin guy, I am likely never going to win any battle of strength that truly matters, so my angle must be that I fight better. I'm also no sloth, but I've always preferred the "work smarter, not harder" philosophy. In the matter of self defense, I aim to use my body far more effectively, far more efficiently than my opponent uses his. And if weapons are involved, beware the deadly extension of my body that is The Spatula.

Wiggin' out

A movie is going to be made based on the most-excellent sci-fi book Ender's Game.

If it sucks, I will have to kill somebody. Probably using an entirely inappropriate implement like a spatula. And probably someone who doesn't deserve it, but happens to be convenient. So if Ender's Game does not satisfy, and you see me carrying a spatula, run. I hope you're in shape.

Cracka Money

A scholarship for Whitey only.

Amen. Preach it brothas.

Screw your race. Yeah, you heard me right. Now that we've got that out of the way, how about you communicate to me your value as a person. Even that's too specific; I don't want to rule out any being from any taxonomical group. Should my chia pet become sentient, I will respect his...its mind.

Next up: job openings for those with brown eyes, scholarships for those with polydactyly, and sponsored trips to the moon if you've got a unibrow! Bang, Zoom!

One dolla make ya holla

I've mentioned my favorite gaming community before in Darwin, come to daddy and Ghost-ing, but not on a LAN, so I thought I'd let you know that Tactical Gamer is running a membership special right now:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

16 February, 2004

Tactical Gamer has announced a trial membership program in effect for the rest of February. New members receive the first month's membership for only $1 by simply entering "TGTRIAL" in the coupon code text box when joining. Memberships renew automatically. Cancel any time. Offer ends 29 February, 2004.

Tactical Gamer is an online gaming community of current and former members of various nations’ Special Forces, Military, and Law Enforcement as well as professionals at all levels of experience in all walks of life. The Tactical Gamer community is focused on teamwork and tactical game-play in a mature, respectful environment.

http://www.tacticalgamer.com

A TG membership is not required to play many of the games hosted there. It's only necessary if you want to join the private servers, and some games played there do not have a public server. I suggest hanging out on the public servers, posting in the forums, and getting to know the regulars. If you later decide to purchase a monthly membership, it'll likely be because you love the community and want to support it. I think of it more as a donation than a purchased service, though there are obviously membership perks such as reserved slots on public servers. Nothing is held against you if you don't become a paying member either. As an example, there are several Natural Selection regulars who are students and can't spare the money for a membership. They're still welcomed members of the community. As the banner states: maturity. TG people understand.

Pretty Crappy Service

My first mobile phone service provider was Sprint. I signed on with them not long after PCS was introduced to the Lincoln, Nebraska market. I was cool. The clarity of my calls was clearly the alternative to cellular, which turned out to not matter that much since the other end of most of my calls was somebody's crappy cell service. Yet, the grass was green, the sky blue, and service agreements short.

Big Bad Nextel came to town, and was for the most part ignored. They have this branch of sales called "marketing", and Nextel wasn't performing so hot in that portion of the standardized test. Some consultant then reminded them -- for a fee of approximately mad props -- that their walkie-talkie gimmick was a feature they should stress in their advertising. Marketshare was born. All the trendy young businessmen began to sport Nextel phones. The fad eventually bled into Binary Net, and all over my belt clip.

Here's the surprising part: Nextel's service was great. They didn't have coverage for smaller towns or most interstate systems, but metro areas were blanketed heavily in wonderful cancer-causing rays. The signal was so strong that nearby computer and car speakers would chirp merrily (just like a pulsating lawn sprinker!) while a call was being serviced, and computer mice would orgasmically emit middle-mouse button events.

But Nextel was also expensive. So expensive that when Binary's contract was done, we switched back to Sprint PCS to save beaucoup bucks (slightly less than a mad amount of props, for comparison).

Around the time of our switch, I bought a house. Well, to be pedantic, I had a bank buy a house for me, and agreed to eventually pay them back for it, plus mad props. It didn't take long for me to realize that the PCS signal strength at my new pad was approximately utter crap. I do live near the edge of town, but my neighborhood is not small, and many homes have been around since the 1970's. It's not as if a boy house and a girl house ran off into the corn field and popped out a few hundred baby houses last weekend. So why is Sprint's coverage so poor? Insufficient retransmission antenna setups, obviously. Sheesh, can't believe I had to tell you that; I had hoped my readers were smart. :P

In all seriousness, Sprint is probably working from some formula, waiting until they have N complaints from an area before adding additional equipment. I intend to ensure their complaint counter is swiftly incremented until it reaches N, incremented solely by me if necessary. They claim to cover my area adequately:

(I'm the pink dot at the arrow's tip. Dark-green is "serviced" area. Coverage map provided by Sprint. City image courtesy of the Lancaster County Internet Map Server. Overlay and shoddy arrow done by yours truly using The Gimp.)

but when I can't take a single phone call without my signal fading and the call ending, I don't consider their coverage adequate by any definition. A coworker of mine loses signal in his basement, and he lives near 70th and Holdrege. Nextel had no problems reaching out and touching him underground...

I'll give Sprint a reasonable amount of time to make excuses, kiss my proverbial ass, and actually fix the problem before I bust out "breach of contract" and go back to Nextel, Alltel *shudder*, or some other provider. I'd prefer to catch up with the rest of the freakin' world and get something GSM-based, but last I checked there weren't any good GSM options in Lincoln. If any of you phreakers know otherwise, speak up.

The Trouble with Tribblogs

I enjoy event-driven web logs, especially those that are well-written. I am, however, not too fond of emotional outpourings in a public journal; you never know who's ears that information may fall on. Your friends and family should know of you from more intimate channels, and everyone else should not be able to delve deep into your psyche. If one is comfortable with the numerous risks of bearing all to the world, so be it, but I'm not one to sacrifice my privacy. Today's Diesel Sweeties comic touches on this subject:

If I'm ever guilty of violating my own journal rule, I permit you to slap me around a bit with a large trout.

Your duty as a man

Attention all males. It is your responsibility to know how to change an automobile wheel (commonly and somewhat incorrectly referred to as tire-changing). To fail in this task is to fail in manhood, and your license can and will be revoked. Specifically, make sure you know:

1) how to properly block tires.
2) how to position and operate multiple styles of jack.
3) how to remove and reattach hub caps.
4) of, and how to remove locking lugnuts.
5) which side of a full spare or donut-spare goes to the outside.
6) the proper lugnut tightening order.

There are more details to pay attention to than those that I've covered, but I trust you'll do sufficient research on your own if your knowledge is incomplete. If you've never changed a wheel, I suggest you practice, lest you look a fool when the moment of truth arrives. Otherwise, some bald punk in slacks, a collared shirt, and a leather jacket will arrive and skillfully bail out the damsel in distress that you were so desperately trying to impress, dirtying his khakis because of your ineptitude.

Ladies, I am by no means suggesting that you're incapable of changing a wheel, and I applaud those with mechanical prowess (a girl who changes her own oil definitely turns me on). I am merely addressing the probability that a woman who is not comfortable with changing her own flat will seek assistance, whereas a man will stubbornly refuse help, professing ability that he may not have. That's a recipe for injury or vehicular damage. If you don't want a bruised ego or body, know your basic automobile tasks.

And for heaven's sake, stop and help that poor soul who's stranded on the road. Is your time so important that you can't help another? If you were stuck with a flat or a more serious problem, I'm willing to bet cold, hard Washingtons that you'd dearly appreciate any help offered, and would curse the droves of rubberneckers that gawk as they soar on by to their all-important meeting with the McDonald's drive-thru attendants.

Fabric Origami

For several weeks I've been folding my shirts in the manner shown by this video.

Takes a few viewings of the video and a bit of practice to get down, but it beats the time consuming "retail fold". Well, unless you fold clothes all day, and can whip through a shirt like this lady.

The Rhodium Card (tm)

If you happen to have a mailing address of any kind, personal or business, you are likely inundated with credit card applications weekly. Before long, I expect the credit companies will find out an efficient method to circumvent the mailing-address requirement so that they can also provide 0% Introductory APRs * to transients. For years I have thrown this snail-mail spam straight into the trash, developing an ability to even recognize stealth-offer envelopes, the kind with no obvious bank or credit references on the outside.

I've always had impeccable credit, using my sole credit card monthly for small purchases, and immediately paying the entire balance upon receiving my statement; using credit to build credit history. After about 4 years with CapitalOne (they don't get hyperlinked because I now hate them) on an introductory card with an atrocious rate -- which never came into play since I paid my balances in full -- I decided to ask for a better rate, even though I didn't need it.

The first call resulted in being transferred through 3 departments, finally landing in "Retentions". "Ooh!" I thought, they properly interpreted my statement of "I have offers every week from other companies that crush the offerings of my card through you, can you do better?" You never know if first-tier customer service will pick up on subtle hints like "please me or I'm leaving you." Retentions told me they'd "evaluate" my account, and respond by mail in about two weeks, and that I could call in to check the status of my review after a few days.

Being in no rush, I waited for word by mail. After a month, my patience was exhausted, so I called back. After another triple department transfer, I ended up with some blunt fellow who told me that there must have been some kind of miscommunication. He informed me that all rate reductions and limit increases are computed automatically, that no human makes those decisions, and that if I had not received an offer by mail from them, then there was nothing they could do for me.

Well CapitalOne, I can also do nothing for you in return.

I had saved my last few snail-mailed offers, thinking that a second card wouldn't hurt in case fraud or some other unfavorable action rendered one card unusable, an event likely to happen at the very time a functioning credit card is absolutely necessary. Sifting through the offers, I picked out a few new cards and began applying, which brings me to this post's title tie-in.

Every card offer envelope that I've opened by mistake, and the few that I saved and opened on purpose were for PLATINUM cards. Makes a person feel important, yeah? You're PLATINUM grade baby! A little research revealed this though: you generally can't actually get a platinum card unless you carry a large balance. See, platinum cards are generally just "gold" cards (not nearly as cool-sounding as PLATINUM!) with larger credit limits, so the card issuers don't see a point in giving you a high limit unless you've previously carried large balances, and have a good payment history. They want to make interest off you. I can't disagree with that, but damn it, I wanted my PLATINUM cards!

So, shiny new Bank of America gold card in hand, I shall continue my trend of providing absolutely zero interest-income to a new credit company. That is unless Discover actually decides to send me their PLATINUM card, in which case Discover can get my non-interest.

If they don't, I'm holding out until someone sends me an offer for a Rhodium Card.

Ghost-ing, but not on a LAN

(remember, newest journal entries are at the top, so I recommend reading the previous few entries first for context, although not required)

Ghost Recon is a somewhat older game, which shouldn't frighten you as Half-Life and the Counter-Strike mod are how old?! Just like CS, GR lives on despire its age because it's a great game and has an active modding/mapping community, but the real draw for me comes from the Tactical Gamer players and the immersive manner in which they play GR:

verbose: "Contact. verbose here, I have a patrol of three due West, approximately echo-niner, moving along the echo line. Will be danger-close soon."
leader: "Charlie squad, do you all have eyes?"
charlie1: "no eyes"
charlie2: "visual"
charlie1: "moving..."
charlie1: "eyes on all three now"
leader: "Charlie you are green to engage in 3...2...1...fire."

They take GR seriously, to the point that speaking after you've been killed in a mission is a grave no-no. You're dead after all, and the dead just don't report enemy positions from the Great Beyond. Yet, they're all playing purely for fun, and have proven to be a overall great bunch of guys and girls. Yeah, girls play tactical shooters. Beware boys, Luna in particular is not only good enough to hand you your rear, she's also a GR admin, and is quite frequently voted to lead missions because of her ability.

If you desire more teamwork and realism than CS can ever hope to provide, and would prefer to crawl through brush before planting a bullet in the back of a sentry, instead of charging him with your gun blazing, Ghost Recon or Raven Shield may be right up your alley. A few words of warning though: Your odds of finding a populated game of GR at TG are much higher than one of RvS, mostly because far more TGers play GR. And of greater importance, while there is a public GR and RvS server, the GR/RvS regulars are almost all TG paid-membership folks who play primarily on the private servers. They will, however, frequently jump on the public server to play with non-members, especially for visiting teams or other public regulars who have been known to be pleasant.

If you want to try GR or RvS the TG-way, without dropping coin on a membership first, I'm sure a post in the appropriate TG forum would be plenty to schedule a time for an in-game introduction. Probably better to do that than to hang out in the public server and hope some players come along. I'm not a GR or RvS admin, and I honestly haven't been playing either game for too terribly long, but I'd be glad to provide a hand in getting any interested person started.

Darwin, come to daddy

Some of you may recall my short-lived endeavor to create a Natural Selection gaming community, the goal being the NS parallel to Steakeater's steakeater.net Counter-Strike server (now decommissioned). Not long after commencing operation, I shut it all down. You're probably asking yourself "why?", and if you aren't, you should be or I'll send my axe-toting neighbor to your home. Everything that Verbosity/Verboseness.com was supposed to be -- friendly players, many skilled regulars, emphasis on teamwork, smacktard-free -- I found already existed through Tactical Gamer. A bit of TG's philosophy appears on their front page, and speaks volumes on how the community really exists:

Tactical Gamer is an online gaming community of mature, mutually respecting gamers who are more interested in teamwork and group strategy rather than the typical public frag-feast.

Not only does Tactical Gamer have a great NS following, but their community embraces other games as well: Ghost Recon, Raven Shield, Counter-Strike, TFC, Operation Flashpoint, Savage, etc. You get the idea: most any game that plays better when teammates work together. I believe TG was originally formed around Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, a Rainbow Six style game that I've come to enjoy immensely. More on that in a later post.

I encourage all those who enjoy Natural Selection and desire to play it "how it was meant to be played", or those new to NS who would like supportive, mature players to teach them the ropes, to give Tactical Gamer a try. The NS server (Cheating-Death required) is public and free, so don't let the paid membership section scare you away.

I also have an extra-special reason for encouraging you to play at TG, beyond the obvious TG benefits I've outlined above. Your very own verbose was recently entrusted with the privileges and responsibilites of being an NS server admin. It's now my given goal to make sure your experience with TG:NS will be a good one, and I place myself at your service. I know how it can be easier to voice opinions to a specific, trusted person (you do trust me, right? Remember I have an axeman for a neighbor...) than an administrative body in general, so I invite you to bring any issues, positive or negative, directly to me if you so desire.

Hope to see you all in-game!

May I Axe you a question?

All homeowners in urban Nebraska, and those who've shoveled snow for profit or as a childhood chore, know that the worst thing about removing snow from a driveway is the wall that the snowplow leaves. It's especially bad if the street's snow was packed down by several days of daily traffic before the plow came along; the driveway wall can be almost ice-like in toughness. I had the recent pleasure of using my snow shovel in a very non-shovel-like fashion trying to break down my home's barrier against the road goblins.

Yesterday morning, as I cruised down West 'O' street on my way into work, I saw a man further down the road performing some form of labor involving lots of circular arm motions at the street edge. Nine Inch Nails's Ringfinger was playing on my car stero courtesy of my Rio Karma, and the backbeat was strangely in perfect time with the man's swinging motion. I felt as if I was part of that car commercial where everything from the car's wiper blades to the streetside action was in time with the music. "That was weird."

My preoccupation with trying to remember what car that commercial was for caused me to forget the exercising man until I was nearly upon him. It was then that I finally realized he was wielding an axe, right at the end of his driveway!

He was swinging at his favorite plow-formed, goblin-repelling wall, of course. At first I thought his tool of choice was overkill, but after reflecting on the manner in which I had to assault my personal parapet, I decided that his implement was not only appropriate, but bordering on ideal. As long as one is careful to avoid swinging through a weak portion and chipping their pavement, that is. A chainsaw would work as well, but sometimes power tools just seem to be cheating.

screwball, corner pocket

What better way to start a web log than with an award? Not for this journal, of course. Read on.

While grabbing some dinner and a few beers at my regular downtown hideout, Old Chicago, one of the managers approached me and asked if I'd like to participate in their 9-ball tournament.

"What'll it cost me?" I asked.
"Ten bucks, payable to me," Manager Ron responded.

The manner in which he delivered that line gave me pause, so I cocked my head and shot him an inquiring look. He took my response as a call of his bluff, grinned, and said "cash, of course." Damn am I glad he's an honest guy; he could have had 10 dollars cash from my gullible arse.

After finding out that it was a friendly tournament with a few token prizes, I decided to participate. I'm a decent pool player, and with an entry fee of approximately zilch, what was there to lose besides my dignity? I wear special pants to protect that, in any case.

A few rounds of pool, and about the same number of beers later, I found myself in the final round. I'd only shot so-so up to this point, but had some lucky late-game setups that I capitalized on to win each preceding round. Lady luck was in my corner that night, and she decided to hand me the final opportunity that I needed. A ball-in-hand with two left on the table, I carefully set up my angle on the eight ball to leave myself a reasonable shot on the nine. Dropped the eight, but the cue ball came back slightly too far and left me a rough final shot. The nine was snug on the rail, and for some reason I'm never able to nudge a ball in that position correctly to have it hug the rail all the way to the pocket. Not an easy shot, but a shot that a player in the 9-ball finals is expected to make.

"I never make these shots," I announce to my competitor and the spectators, hoping they won't embarass me too much after I screw it up.

The meek shall inherit the earth, and evidently the first-place Budweiser beer stein as well. I sank the nine, shook a few hands, and scuttled back to the bar for another drink. "Might as well celebrate," I thought to myself. "Not like you'll ever win another pool tourney, small or large." So I ordered myself a beer. I triend to convince Manager Ron to give it to me free in my new stein, but he wasn't buying, figuratively and literally.

Oh well. Here's some horses and a lighthouse in relief: