Portal

I had been reading Metacritic last week, as I often do trying to find the next best game to devour. The top of the Xbox 360 list recently held a new development from Valve, the makers of Half-Life. Rated #1 mostly because it's the most bang-for-the-buck, is 'The Orange Box'. The Orange Box holds Half-Life 2, HL2 Episode 1, Episode 2, and Team Fortress 2. The best part of the Orange Box in my opinion is Portal.

Portal, if you haven't already heard is an awesome First Person Puzzle (FPP?) where you take on the role of a test subject at the Aperture science facility. Specifically, you're testing the new Portal Gun. You have the ability to open portals on just about any flat surface to solve the puzzles. I can't even really describe it other than, "This game is awesome."

Unfortunately it's quite short, the 19 levels took me about 4 hours to complete. Those four hours were spent entirely in front of the TV, without moving. This is something I consider a testament to the game's kickassery.

Anyway.... check the Portal link. Watch the trailer video and experience a little bit of the humor, and awesome gameplay that is to be had in Portal.

The cake is a lie.

Piaggio MP3

just thought this was cool. parked outside my building.

for buff

yeah thats your beer, your office, your desk, and your computer - but it's me sitting there drinking.

art in the pearl

i snapped this pic driving back from kpb. recognize the statue?

Word of the Day

I have a meeting-plagued Friday... so I'll just leave some food for thought.

Over the past few weeks I've made an attempt to broaden my vocabulary by building a sentence based on Dictionary.com's Word of the Day.

Today's word is 'beholden'.

My sentence: I felt beholden to the transient after reading the sign that read, "Need Dough for Beer."

mobile blogging is hot.

I sent this from my mobile phone. Within 35 seconds it was posted to my blog. How cool is that?

For those curious - this is a 2.5 y/o Eco-Sphere sitting on my desk at work. (3/4 shrimp are still alive)

Fusebox

For all of you PHP or CF developers out there, check out the Fusebox Framework.

I just finished writing my first application here at Kaiser using this framework. It's a bit of a detachment from the established ColdFusion way of doing things, especially having to do with security. (Plugins anyone?) However, once you build a few things you'll grow to love it.

I build everything as modular as possible. I don't have a single template more than 20 lines of code, yet when rendered it's a very rich experience. Unfortunately I cannot show you the product, as it lives internally at Kaiser.

Anyway... I stress that if you use PHP or CF, give this a try.

Out from under the weather!

Feeling much better today. Just in time to miss a meeting I had completely spaced at work. Oh well.. it's Thursday. I didn't have anything too exciting to write about. Unless you consider my crew taking down Bahamut at all interesting, which most people do not. Yeah.. I had a productive sick leave. :)

A call to parents.....

I actually had this thought during a dream last night. Between petting cross-eyed bats and recharging a cell phone with a bicycle, I thought about my blog. Specifically I thought about what good my blog could possibly do when parents raise children who think people like Larry the Cable Guy are actually funny. I'll give you one "Borat is funny." admission if you never subject me to the senseless laughter Larry causes ever again.

I am asking parents to please educate their children. Make them read books like Everyone Poops. Take them to plays where they may see a breast or two. If kids grow up without thinking these things taboo, then people like old Larry won't be able to make people laugh. Then maybe he'll fix my fucking cable like his name implies.

Fil is a Poll Dancer

Please check out the following
Poll.

I voted for Robots... if you didn't then you're high.

Under the weather...

Hey all. I've been feeling like I was hit by a truck for the past couple of days. I have a feeling I got it from my coworkers who've been calling in sick on and off for the past two weeks. Or perhaps it was the haunted houses I went to over the weekend. Either way.... UGH! I normally wouldn't even write about something like this, except that I am bored as shit.

On another note - "Scream at the Beach" was pretty good. The asylum was easily the best one.

The Store

Sandy and I finally got her new store up and running. We were using GoDaddy's "Quick Shopping Cart" product. It was 30 dollars a month for 50 products. We easily exceeded 50 and were unwilling to upgrade to the $100/mo plan.

I instead set up a Zen-Cart. Super easy to get working... and it came with a good suite of modules for paypal and what not.

My only complaint so far is that because it's a community project, there is no single way to modify the layout and look/feel. CSS, PHP, templates, images, are scattered all over the place. It's quite messy.

Once we get it customized, I don't foresee changing it often.

Check it out here: store.skgdesigns.com