Sometimes life's OK

Here's the part where I make some dumb excuse for not posting to my blog in a month. You see, I've been so busy doing really fascinating and important stuff that I just haven't had ten minutes to sit down and type. I swear.

So last weekend I managed to con my parents, who were passing through Chicago, into stopping at Molly's Cupcakes and pickup up an assload of cupcakes for me. You see, ever since I visited Molly's when I was in Chicago a few months back I've been talking it up to anyone who would listen. In particular, I've been touting the Ron Bennington cupcake as the most delicious food item ever created. I managed to get a few people to stop in to Molly's on their own trips to Chicago (I never realized so many people went to Chicago from Philly), and I got several other people drooling over these mythical cupcakes without ever having tried them.

So anyway, I had my parents buy me a few assorted cupcakes that sounded good, along with twenty Ron Benningtons. First of all, I remembered these cupcakes being so delicious that I was actually a little worried that it couldn't possibly taste as good as I remembered. But as soon as I hit that peanut butter center my fears disappeared. God damn are those things delicious. I then gave out a few Benningtons to some friends and the reviews were universally and overwhelmingly positive. One person said that it was so good that it must have come from another dimension. Another person said it was heavenly. So the cupcakes were a big hit.

Of the other cupcakes I got, my favorite was the cookies and cream. It was a chocolate cupcake with fluffy oreo creme-like icing and half an oreo cookie on top. But the best part was the filling. It was this creamy, chocolately substance that I can only describe as oreos ground up very finely into a delicious paste. It was so rich and delicious that I wish I had gotten a few more of them. Luckily, I have a box of Benningtons in the freezer that I plan to thaw out in two or three weeks to get another dose of goodness. I hate to have to freeze the poor things, but the ones I ate earlier in the week survived a week in frozen stasis and were no worse from the experience.

So if you're one of the few people I know who I haven't yet pimped Molly's to, get your ass over there the next time you happen to be in Chicago! Their cupcakes are unbelievable.

Going Mobile

Work is still well underway on Ichiban. I've run into some snags lately in the development of one of the more important features, but I have a plan and hopefully things will go more smoothly with it from here on out. Hell, I might even get it working today. Once I get this one big feature finished, I'm hoping that things will start moving more quickly and I can start implementing some more of the cool and fun ideas that have been sitting on my to-do list for weeks.

I recently took a trip to Ocean City, MD, which is easily my favorite beach destination. They have a great boardwalk and good places to eat. One of the arcades on the boardwalk, called Marty's Playland, has a bunch of pinball machines. I love pinball (even though I pretty much suck at it) and Marty's is one of the few places I know of that still has any pinball machines. They did however have a lot more machines a few years ago than they do now, so I really hope this downward trend doesn't continue. Somehow, I managed to avoid getting severely sunburned on the beach despite my pale computer-geekness. All around, an excellent vacation.

Football season is slowly starting up, beginning with my usual mixed feelings about the preseason games. They're almost always incredibly boring and I know this very well, however I still watch them because I'm such a degenerate football-starved addict. The Eagles have looked pretty decent in their two games so far, but we all know that preseason means pretty much nothing as far as the regular season goes. All you can really do is hope for no injuries and look forward to the start of the regular season.

One of the bigger stories in the NFL lately has been the very public, very bitter, very emo-kiddish breakup between the Green Bay Packers and Brett Favre. Personally, I think that the Packers have done pretty much everything right in this situation. They stood by Aaron Rodgers, their promising young quarterback, and stood up to the indecisive and aging Favre. He put the team in a tough position by retiring in March but then expecting the Packers to throw out all their plans and welcome him back as their starting quarterback on a moment's notice. If the Packers had done that, it would likely have destroyed their relationship with Aaron Rodgers and put them in a very bad position not just for next year, but likely for many years to come. The Packers took this bad situation and basically ended up in the same place they were before Favre started all the drama, but with the addition of a draft pick that they otherwise wouldn't have had. Meanwhile, Favre dragged his reputation through the mud, damaged his legacy in the eyes of many people, and ended up on the awful New York Jets.

It's amusing to see the reaction from some Jets fans who think that adding a soon-to-be 39-year-old QB to their awful team somehow means automatic Super Bowl win. It's also fun to see which Packers fans are actually Packers fans, and which were actually just Brett Favre fans who thought that the team should have blindly indulged his every whim even if it meant ruining the team's carefully-planned future in the process.

Some of those who call (or called) themselves Packers fans have no appreciation of the good job that the team's management has been doing over the past few years at rebuilding what was an aging team and preparing for the future. Aaron Rodgers looks like he'll be a pretty good player, and they have an all-around solid team with some young talent and some true potential stars like Greg Jennings and James Jones. I wish the Packers the best this year, particularly Rodgers who I hope has an excellent season to shut up all the haters. Unless, of course, they're playing against the Eagles in which case I hope the Packers have the most miserable game in their history. :)

Ichiban!

It's obviously been a while since I've posted. The main reason is because the time I normally would have been using to write something here has instead been dedicated to my latest project, Ichiban News. It's a social news site where stories are submitted and ranked by the site's users.

I started Ichiban for a few reasons: 1. I wanted to learn Python, 2. I wanted to try out Google App Engine, and 3. I thought it would be fun. So far it's been a success in all three areas. Python is a great programming language, especially when coupled with Django, App Engine is a very cool and easy to use platform (aside from some shortcomings of the database), and working on a social news site is fun.

So if you haven't checked out Ichiban yet, please do. Post some stuff, vote on some stuff, leave some comments, and watch as new features are added right before your very eyes. :) The site is still a work in progress, but it's coming along nicely so far.

In other news, I got my iPhone 3G when it launched back on July 11. I waited in line at the Apple store for like 4 hours like a complete moron, which I normally would not have done but I had 3 friends with me so it actually was fun just hanging out and having an excuse to not be at work. Even still, I said several times that "this is the stupidest thing I've ever done". In the end, though, I'm glad I did it because the new phone is sweet and they're still really hard to find a few weeks later.

The new 3G phone coupled with the 2.0 firmware and app store makes the iPhone even more like a pocket computer than it was before. There are all sorts of cool apps and games that you can download, many of them free and many of them for $5-10 or so. It's amazing how high-quality some of the free apps are, particularly Aurora Feint which is incredibly addicting. Another great one is MotionX Poker which is very simple, very addictive with lots of little things to unlock and achievements to earn, and only costs a measly $5. I've already gotten my money's worth many times over. I highly recommend both of these games.

You may or may not realize this, but NFL football starts this Sunday. Sure, it's just the hall of fame game...not even preseason, more like pre-preseason. And Peyton Manning isn't even playing because of his recent surgery, so the game will be terribly boring. But I'll still watch it because I'm so football-starved. The following week starts the actual preseason games, which means that it's only about 5 more weeks until the regular season starts. I'm so psyched.

Finally, I promise I'll try to be more consistent about posting here in the future. The longer I put it off, the easier it becomes to keep putting it off, so I just need to stop being lazy.

Video games, Wall-E, and Pitzy

Lots of exciting happenings in the world of video games lately. First, Blizzard announced Diablo 3 over the weekend, and boy does it look fantastic. There are a few videos on the official site, one of which is a 10 min+ demo and overview of the game. It points out a lot of things that have been changed and improved, as well as many elements of the previous games that will return. The big thing is that it will have the same isometric look as its predecessors, only it will now be powered by a sweet 3D engine with real physics and all that fun stuff.

You can get the major details from the site yourself, but some of the highlights that got me excited were:

• The same basic look and gameplay as the previous games
• Badass gothic medieval setting, very gritty and gory
• Each piece of equipment will have its own little graphic
• No more need to spam potion buttons all day
• Destroyable environments and environmental traps
• HUGE boss monsters
• Still online co-op focused, as it should be

I loved the first two Diablo games and spent a huge amount of time playing them, so I see Diablo 3 sucking up a large portion of my free time when it comes out. Unfortunately, they haven't announced a release date yet. Knowing Blizzard, it will be a few years before it's released, but it will be amazing and well worth the wait.

The second exciting piece of news is the announcement of Rock Band 2. The first Rock Band is ridiculously fun and I still play it to this day even though it came out last fall. The sequel is looking like it will be better in every way, and will continue to stay a few steps ahead of all the other music games.

Some of the cool stuff:

• All the downloadable content from the first game will also work with this one
• All master recordings, no cover songs
• It was heavily hinted that it will have online support for Band World Tour
• All the instruments from the first game will work with this one
• There will still be new instruments that are higher quality and quieter
• Other manufacturers will be permitted to make their own versions of the instruments
• It sounds like there will be a bunch of new game modes

In other news, I saw the movie Wall-E over the weekend. It's the latest Pixar movie and it had been getting overwhelmingly positive reviews. I've never had the huge attachment to Pixar movies that so many seem to have, so I was a bit skeptical, but I'll add my positive review to the pile.

I thought it was outstanding, and not just as a silly animated time-filler, but as a movie. It was funny but also had an interesting plot, and it accomplished all this with very little dialog since the two main characters are essentially incapable of speech. The visuals of the ruined surface of earth were stunning, and there were a lot of clever ideas and designs for the various robots. They did a great job of breathing personality into these little metal beings even though most of them couldn't talk or even make facial expressions. That's pretty damn impressive.

I was also very impressed with the musical score. Considering the small amount of dialog in the movie, the soundtrack had a big role to play in setting the mood and it did a great job of it. The music fit the scenes very well and really added to the experience. So if you're looking for a good movie to go see, Wall-E is definitely worth checking out.

Finally, farewell to Ron and Fez producer Pitzy, who paid off a bet by leaving the show after losing to Earl in a loser-leaves-town match of Spin the Hits. Spin the Hits is pretty much the greatest game ever. The contestant sits in a swiveling chair and gets spun around 12 times fast. Then they have to get up and stumble across the room to the computer, find whatever song is being called out by my personal hero Ron Bennington, and play it on the air. The two competitors each do this once and whoever gets the song started in a shorter amount of time wins.

The other producers all hate Earl, and as Pitzy said, he put it all on the line to try to get rid of him. But he just couldn't get the job done against the proclaimed master of Spin the Hits, so he manned up and paid off his bet by leaving the show. To be honest, Pitzy never made much of a mark on things, at least not on the air since he was mostly a behind-the-scenes guy. But it's still sad to see him go since he's been a part of the show for so long. I always enjoyed his angry ranting about Earl's incompetence, his tendency to openly insult his chick Toothpick Vick, and just the fact that he always sounded pissed off no matter what he was talking about. Farewell Pitz, and good luck!

It's like ray-eee-ain on your wedding day

On my way home from work, I was stopped at a red light and noticed that the car in front of me had two bumper stickers.

One of them said "Got Hope?" in big letters, and I knew even before reading the smaller text underneath that it was a Barack Obama sticker.

The other consisted of the following fantastic quote, which happens to be one of my favorites:

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Oh, the irony. I almost wanted to get out of my car, tap on his window, and ask him if he knows that Barack Obama voted to renew the patriot act a few short years ago. The patriot act is pretty much the embodiment of what Franklin warned against, and the fact that this moron had both of these bumper stickers on his car shows that he lacks a basic understanding of the things he so proudly claims to believe in. I've found that most Obama supporters either don't know about his vote for the patriot act or have deluded themselves into thinking that it was somehow ok for him to completely compromise what he claims to stand for.

I also would have liked to point out to him that Obama is failing again by supporting the latest FISA bill and by refusing to stand against the attempts to grant retroactive immunity to telecom companies for cooperation with illegal warrantless wiretapping.

If you follow the link above, take note of who voted nay on the re-authorization: particularly Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd, both of whom have also been opposing the recent FISA bill and telecom immunity attempts. Not just opposing it with words, but opposing it through their actions. I'm quickly gaining respect for both of those men. They're showing what it truly means to be a leader in Congress and to stand up for what you believe is right. Obama could learn a lot by watching them.

DC vs. Heller

Today was a landmark day for civil rights as the supreme court upheld a lower court's invalidation of the Washington DC gun ban in the DC vs. Heller case. Not only that, but the majority opinion issued by the court specifically and indisputably affirmed that the second amendment protects an individual right to own and use firearms, not just a collective right. It's about time that the court put this issue to rest, as they've been dodging having to address it for a long time now. They also stated that the right is not just limited to the purposes of hunting or sport, but is also meant for self-defense.

This is pretty huge and not only has the immediate effect of getting rid of DC's ridiculous gun ban, but also provides ample ground on which to challenge many other moronic gun laws around the country, such as those in New York, California, and Chicago. It also eliminates some of the more annoying arguments that the anti-gun crowd have attempted to use, particularly the claim that the second amendment somehow does not refer to the people as individuals like the rest of the bill of rights, but was really intended to forbid the government from disarming itself. That was a moronic argument to begin with, and now it's been completely torched to a smoldering heap by the supreme court itself.

The downside is that the court left a lot of issues vague and in need of future litigation and judgements for clarification. However, this is somewhat understandable since they are only permitted to rule on the issues that are directly relevant to the case at hand, which was whether the lower court was right to throw out DC's ban. Also, this decision is a firm foundation on which those future legal challenges can succeed.

It is also frightening that the decision was only 5-4. So there are apparently 4 supreme court justices who lack basic reading comprehension skills, or who chose to completely disregard the meaning and intent of the constitution in favor of trying to push their own ideas and agendas. We were only one vote away from having the supreme court claim that the bill of rights does not guarantee the right of an individual to own and use firearms, which is a sobering thought. But as lots of people keep saying, a win is a win, and this is just the beginning of the road to getting more of this bad legislation thrown out and preventing more from being created in the future.

The SCOTUS Blog has some good write-ups and information about the case if you want to read more about it. The High Road's legal forum also has a lot of good information and interesting analysis.

So as I said, this is a landmark decision, the Roe vs. Wade of gun rights, and I hope that 20 years from now we can look back on this as the day the tide finally turned against the erosion of civil rights, and gun rights in particular. Thank you to the supreme court for getting it right (although just barely), and thanks to all those who were involved in challenging this law in the first place and making all this possible.

UH! said the man to the lady

Due to a combination of laziness and busyness, I haven't posted anything substantial in a little while now. I was going to post something tonight, but I ended up spending the small amount of free time I had playing the entire Doolittle album by the Pixies on Rock Band, which was just released today as downloadable content. They wanted a ridiculous amount of money for it, but I love the Pixies and I had been looking forward to this release since they announced it a few months back. I'm digging it so far.

I've also been spending a large chunk of my free time lately learning Python, a web scripting language. I'm very impressed with it so far. It seems to be pretty efficient, logical, and easy to use.

I'm also still addicted to Team Fortress 2, which remains one of the most well-designed, balanced, fun, and addictive games I've played in many years. Valve just released a new patch last week that added a bunch of new content for free, which they totally didn't have to do, but they did anyway. Why? Because they're a kickass company who understands that treating your customers well and keeping them happy will build loyalty and lead to them continuing to purchase your company's products in the future. Yay Valve! There are many other companies who could learn a few lessons from them about how to treat your customers.

Finally, I'm a day late but for anyone who hasn't heard, George Carlin died yesterday. If you don't know who he is, I'm not going to sit here and try to explain how awesome he was. But he was one of the great ones and it sucks that he died. Well, it sucks for us anyway...he doesn't really know or care one way or another, since he's dead and all. His death wasn't exactly a shock since he was 71, but he just never seemed THAT old because he was still touring and doing all kinds of stuff, and he didn't look like an old geezer. He will be missed. So yeah, that's my touching eulogy. Thank you and good night.

Hey, look! I was just going to make a quick post but I ended up writing an actual blog entry. I feel so productive. Oh, and if you don't know who the Pixies are, well, they're probably not your type of music or you would have found them by now. But give them a listen anyway.