Geek Test
Posted on November 7, 2008 - Filed Under Geek
Posting this from my iPhone to test the Wordpress blog app. It appears to work well, but typing this out on my phone is a pain in the butt.
Voting In South Tacoma Was A Disaster
Posted on November 5, 2008 - Filed Under Election, Events, Life, Tacoma
So our designated voting station was a complete mess yesterday.
Throughout the day, people were told different things. At one point people were given numbers and told that it would be a 2 or 3 hour wait and to come back. When they came back, the number system was removed and they were told to move to the back of the line.
I had heard about 2-3 hour waits all day long and was not looking forward to heading out after work to vote.
I arrived with my wife to the Bethlehem Lutheran Church around 4:45pm with a line that stretched outside. Once inside the lines moved quickly and things were looking good until we got into the basement and it was actually time to vote.
The first problem is that I was not on the list, but Toni was. I’ve been registered to vote for years, even got a new card the past month telling me where to vote, yet my name was not listed when I arrived. That meant I had to go into another line to fill out paperwork to get a provisional ballot. Fun.
When that was done it was time to find and space to sit and fill out the ballot. The basement was a large open area with tables a ZERO private space. We sat at lunchroom style tables next to other folks that were packed in the basement trying to vote. The lines to the check-in table were winding all through the basement past the open tables, again zero private space.
Once we started to fill out the ballot sheets we noticed that mine was much different than what Toni had. In fact mine had things listed on it that hers did not. There were folks at our table that had a difficult time even finding the area to vote for President on the ballot sheets. A complete mess.
Throw in the new Ranked Choice Voting system and you can imagine how bad it was. Not only did it ad confusion to the ballot sheets, it was throw on us during one of the most important elections in our history. What a complete lack of planning by the Pierce County Auditor and the people that allowed this to happen.
I want to go in, place my vote for someone and leave. I don’t want to rank them in order of preference and then let the machines decide who gets the leftover percentage of votes. Of course the RCV also meant that the results from Pierce County were not ready early, because the machiens used to help tabulate the results crashed. Again, complete lack of planning.
More Fallout 3 Thoughts
Posted on November 1, 2008 - Filed Under Games
After sitting down with Fallout 3 for roughly 4 hours tonight I think I finally know how I feel about the game.
It isn’t the Fallout that I wanted (iso view, turn based combat like Fallout 1 and 2) however… It’s still a damn good Fallout game.
It takes some time getting used to the fact that this is a first/third person title set in the Fallout universe. I’ve spent so many hours playing the first two games over the years that I had it set in my mind that Fallout 3 was going to be crap.
I still think the review scores are too high, but this is a pretty neat game, warts and all.
Fallout 3 - Why The High Review Scores?
Posted on October 29, 2008 - Filed Under General
Started playing Fallout 3 last night and I’m not sure why the game is getting such high marks in most reviews I have read. I’m not a hardcore Fallout fan like the folks at NMA, but I enjoyed the earlier Fallout series for what it was.
You can tell the the game has it’s roots in Oblivion by Bethesda. Same engine, same stiff animations and sadly I think some of the faces look like the same faces that were in Oblivion.
The start of the game is similar to Oblivion in that you are underground or inside, have to fight your way out of a situation and then open a door to go outside, where the “world” is revelaed to you. This worked well in Oblivion because we had not seen it before, and it was done well. In Fallout3 it feels like a cheap knock off of what was done in Oblivion.
I’m going to give it lots of play time this weekend to see if my opinion changes but for now things just don’t feel right witht the game. It honestly feels like they slapped Fallout on top of Oblivion. :(
The 2 Year Checkup
Posted on October 28, 2008 - Filed Under Baby Life, Life, Year Two
Alex completed his 2 year checkup with the doctor yesterday. He had a Grade-A meltdown according to Toni.
Last time he was at the doctors office, he got a flu shot and was not happy. They put him in the same room this time around and he knew what was coming so that triggered the meltdown. He was due for a hep-a shot but that will have to wait. He was so upset and furious that they didn’t bother witht he needle thing.
Generally speaking, Alex is doing well except the speaking part. He is still behind when it comes to talking and the doctor is concerned enought that she wants us to see a specialist to make sure there we don’t have any learning problems with Alex. Hopefully things will work out ok. Travis was similar in that he would point at things when he wanted something, and didn’t start talking until later.
We found out that we are not letting Alex get enough sleep which is a huge issue that could be related to his speaking. Doctor says at his age, he should be getting in the 12-14 hour range of sleep per day. He currently gets maybe 10 hours a day, including the naps! yikes!
This explains why he is always a pain int he butt when waking up, and why he has been crying and having fits more the past few months. We were bad parents and didn’t pay attention to the signs that he was giving us. At least we know now and will let him get his sleep.
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