September 2002

+ Saturday - September 28, 2002

For some reason I think this is one of the coolest pictures I've seen.

+ Friday - September 27, 2002

Mac OS X is really changing the way people percieve things. I used to be the only guy in my group of friends who owned a Mac (at least since Scotty left to go to the dark side). Of course with my devotion to the Mac came a lot of teasing and taunting, which is to be expected.

The thing is, ever since OS X came out, everyone seems to want on the Apple bandwagon. Jason bought an iBook and Brian just got an iMac. Wilkie is now wanting an iBook as well. There seem to be a lot of others tinkering with the notion of making the switch also.

While it would be easy to say "I told you so", that's not really fair. OS X is so much better than OS 9, you really can't even compare them. And it really has less to do with an afinity for Apple, and more for just a really great Unix based OS. Either way, it's really nice to see. Perhaps now we can get an old school game of Marathon going like it was meant to be.

+ Sunday - September 22, 2002

**WARNING** **WARNING**

vlaminck.com has posted an update. I believe this is the universal sign of armageddon. Everyone run!

Aieeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

+ Saturday - September 21, 2002

One of the cool things about working at the Walker is that I now have a Mac running OS X as my primary computer. Recently I've seen a lot of people pissing and moaning about OS X. However, for myself, ever since I've installed it, it's been pure heaven.

Sure, there's a few little things that bug me here and there (which are mostly transitional things, and just getting used to something new), but what OS doesn't have any issues? For my money, OS X is the best OS I've ever used, bar none. And this is on a G4 400mhz machine no less. I can't even imagine what this thing is like on a dual 1ghz Mac.

Perhaps there's issues w/ upgrading from OS 9, I'm not sure. I chose to reformat and install only OS X (10.2). I don't have OS 9 on my box, nor can run Classic, but I haven't looked back. Every app I need is at the very least Carbonized, or I've found an alternative app to replace an old one. I understand not everyone can do this. Nor do a lot of people care about the UNIX foundation in OS X (for me this is a huge deal). But count me in as a believer. There are so many great things going for OS X, it's very hard for me to dwell on a few nitpickings.

+ Friday - September 20, 2002

I've just updated the XML file for vitaflo. I've been using Net News Wire to view various RSS XML feeds from sites and it works great. However, most feeds just have a short excerpt of a post and make you click to the site to read the rest of it. I wanted to be able to have the entire post shown along w/ links, etc. So these are the changes I've made. Now if you're using Net News Wire (not sure if this works on other RSS apps), you can view the entire posts contents and click on any links I link to. Much better.

+ Thursday - September 19, 2002

Finally picked up Animal Crossing, and while the begining of the game is a little slow, once you get into it, it takes off real quick. The further I get into it, the more I love it. I already have an NES to play in my house (with Balloon Fight) and a nice swank couch to sit on. I'd really like to pay off the loan on my house quick though so I can move into a bigger place. So, if anyone else has the game, I'm willing to trade items. I've got tons of oranges, so if anyone has like, cherries or peaches or something, hook me up. Here's my info:

Name: Gus
Town: Pembine

+ Monday - September 16, 2002

Today was the first day on the new job. It went like any first day really. Meeting tons of people who you'll never remember, not really knowing what you're doing or where you're supposed to be, getting adjusted to the florecent lights, lots of nodding and smiling for no aparent reason. For being utterly clueless most of the day, it went as well as a first day can go I suppose.

+ Thursday - September 12, 2002

Finally got my hands on a Magnavox Odyssey 2. I've added it and the games that came with it to my console collection page.

+ Wednesday - September 11, 2002

While today may not be the day for celebrations, I'll keep this one short. I was offered, and accepted the job at the Walker. I start on Monday. Wish me luck.

+ Friday - September 6, 2002

Well here's the solution to the little brain teaser that I gave a few days ago. The first thing you want to do is figure out the equation to solve:

A + B = 91
A = 3(B - x)
2B = A - x

The key here is really the A-x, B-x parts. We know there's a comparison of ages in the past, but we don't know when in the past that is. x will tell us this. So, first we need to express A and B in terms of x and then solve for x. Substitute A for B first:

2B = A - x
2B = 3(B - x) - x
2B = 3B - 4x
-B = -4x
B = 4x

Then substitute B for A next:

A = 3(B - x)
A = 3(4x - x)
A = 12x - 3x
A = 9x

Now substitute x for A and B and solve for x:

A + B = 91
9x + 4x = 91
13x = 91
x = 7

Now it's just a matter of substituting 7 for x and getting the answer to the original equation.

A = 9x
A = 63

B = 4x
B = 28

A + B = 91
63 + 28 = 91

Thus Ann is 63, and Bill is 28.

+ Thursday - September 5, 2002

Just got done w/ my interview at the Walker. I think it went alright, although I really couldn't tell if I impressed them or not.

After hearing about the place, I think it would be a good fit for me, allowing me to be creative in the way I like to be creative. The problem was I think there was a bit too much talk about programming in the interview. See, there are so many designers that don't understand that programming, coding, information design, usability, etc are just as important to the creative process as the conceptual and visual part, I wanted to make sure they understood that was my philosophy.

Unfortunatly I think I came across as having programming/usability, etc being more important than conceptual or visual (I think they all add to the overall design in different ways). This was certainly not my intent and I hope they can see past that. I'm sure I babbled on endlessly in circles about different things as well. There are definitly things I'd like to rephrase or explain more, but such is life when you're on the spot.

Anyway, I did what I could. For being my first interview in almost 2 years, I think I did alright, and I learned a lot from it, which I think is the best thing. The ball is in their court now. We'll see what happens.

+ Tuesday - September 3, 2002

The other day Annette brought up a good idea, in that it would be good to keep our minds active. Obviously doing the same thing every day starts to give one brain rot. So I dug into my closet and pulled out all my brain teaser books and Mensa cards, and decided we should probably try a few of them. Of course the first one I picked out had to be one of the hardest ones:

The ages of Ann and Bill now add up to 91. Ann is now three times as old as Bill was at the time when Ann was twice as old as Bill is now. How old are Ann and Bill now?

If you can figure out the equation (and know how to solve it) it takes about 2 mins. I couldn't get the equation right away so I had to use the "Gustafson Method" (process of elimination). After that I went back and figured the equation out and then had to figure out how the hell to solve it. All in all that took over an hour. I'm not sure if this prevented brain rot or gave me more of it. Hopefully next time Ann and Bill can just tell me how old they are from the begining and save me some grief.