I have now entered WalMart three times in my life.

Before I go on I should mention that I really don't have time to be shopping today. I am moving today and tomorrow. I have other things to do.

Yet I was a WalMart today at 4:10 am. The prospect of a $378 laptop was too much to resist. There were about a hundred people in line in front of me. Assuming that they didn't all want a laptop I figured that I would be ok.

Wrong.

So I found the Apple iTunes developer stuff. Contrary to what I remembered it is free to download the API for iTunes. While they give you working code, it is pretty ugly as far as being a visualization. I have hacked it a bit to get a feel for it and have re-implemented the effect that I created way back when by rewiring an Apple // monitor and running my the wires to my stereo speakers through the coils.

After much hassle with FedEx the Mac mini showed up yesterday. The box it comes in is smaller than any desktop I've seen other than the Cappuchino that I never use.

I plugged everything in and it worked as expected. I began to see the beach ball quite a bit though when multi-tasking, so I decided to go ahead and buy a gig of ram for it.

This has been mentioned by others. It has happened to me before. Yet I will complain anew!

FedEx was supposed to drop off my Mac mini today. Instead they left a note on the door. No ringing of the doorbell mind you, just a note on the door. I was home, waiting for it. Why can't they ring the bell? Is it that hard? I called less than ten minutes after the note was left and asked them to come back. They said they would. They never did.

I have only bought two computers myself. I certainly didn't have the cash to buy the Commodore 64 that my dad brought home when I was in 3rd grade. This is a bit strange, given that I am one of the bigger "computer nerds" that I know. I have a CS degree and I work for big blue. Anyhow, back to the story.

In this journal entry pudge and jamie trade barbs as usual. I don't agree with much of what pudge says, but I think his positions are well thought out and well explained. He also is actually willing to point out when Republicans lie! Shocking I know.

After a long pause I have updated my Java Applet Pacman game. There are several improvements, the most notable of which is that the Ghost is much smarter. Also the graphics shouldn't flicker on slow systems. Now I ask you, dear reader, to give it a whirl and tell me what you think. Are there bugs? Odd behavior? Have a suggestion? Please let me know!

Newest version of the game is here.

Nobody will read this, and even if someone does, they won't post!

That said, I have a new version of my Pacman-inspired game up. It is improved over the version that has been linked to in my sig for a while now.

I have grown a bit bored programming wise and I am going to commence writing a new 3d game. It will probably be a space combat game, since those don't involve animating models, which I don't have the patience for.

Just got back from a Wednesday night showing of The Matrix Reloaded. I am at a conference and Schlumberger was kind enough to be handing out tickets at their booth. I am helping to staff the booth across from them and they gave me a ticket. Can't complain much about free tickets to a movie a day before it comes out. To top it off, we got the best seats in the house, five rows up (stadium seating), right in the middle of the row.

Here are three interesting things that have happened lately.

After modding up the Post Of Doom (and one of the responses to it) I lost the ability to moderate. I guess that one or two bad moderations was enough to get you banned. It seems that everyone that modded the post up got placed by hand on the blacklist, which kept you from moderating or even meta-moderating.