Daggumity! Apparently the first episode of Battle Bots was broadcast last night on Comedy Central, and I missed it. For those who don’t know, Battle Bots is the heir apparent to Robot Wars, a competition in which people build remote controlled robots and have them fight to the robotic equivalent of death in an arena together. This is one of the first times in the last 5 years of self-induced television deprivation that I’ve regretted it. More info on the show, which includes Bill Nye on its cast and is therefore Good, is available at Comedy Central. Would one of you kind souls with cable like to tape Battle Bots for me? Please?

I’ve long said that I’d love to go back and work at a University again if it weren’t for the pay. I loved the creative, diverse people, the pleasant and fun atmosphere, and the loose dress code. After 3 days at Origin, I think I may have found a good alternative. Origin seems to have most of the advantages of the University environment, and I’m settling in well. My boss here even reminds me strongly of one of the people I used to work for at UNT. And the free games don’t hurt either. They’re also looking for some more web application developers and other skilled folks, so if any of you are in the market, let me know!

I honestly don’t remember how we ended up adding The Dinner Game to our rental
queue, but I’m awfully glad we did. The comedy revolves around a group of
friends who have a monthly dinner together. To add some spice to their
evenings, they have a contest to see who can invite the biggest idiot as a
guest. When Pierre Brochant discovers a man who works at the Ministry of
Finance and builds matchstick models of famous engineering achievements,
he’s certain he has a winner for the next dinner. The film is uproarious,
and well worth seeing if you enjoy situation comedies at all. My only
complaint was that there wasn’t an English audio track, but listening to the
French while reading the English didn’t diminish significantly from our
enjoyment.

Back when Realbasic was in its first
incarnation, I created a nifty little object for graphing data. It was
called ChartPart, cost $20 for most people, and garnered me about $80 in
licensing fees. I’ve since decided to go ahead and open source the thing,
since I think it had some nice utility, but wasn’t making me much money. So
I’ve set up a site with the good folks at Source Forge, and invite you RB
programmers to come visit, download a copy, have
fun with it, and share any interesting improvements you come up with.

The latest family update is up at the home page. Much of it will be familiar to you Ruminations readers, but there’s some new stuff as well, plus the ubiquitous photos. Enjoy!

Tonight we were down by the river having a swim when a hispanic fellow with bad burn scars on his hands came up to me out of the blue, shook my hand, and said in broken English “You look like that wrestler, Stone Cold Steve Austin.” He went on to point out my shaved head and goatee, and rambled on about WWF for a minute or two. I assured him I wasn’t Steve Austin, and that the only wrestling I did was with the kids, who I indicated to him. He seemed unconvinced, but eventually lost interest in the conversation and wandered off again. A very odd experience indeed.

I haven’t read any Ian Fleming since I was a
teenager, and back then I gave more time to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
(which I still love, incidentally) than to the Bond stories. But when I saw
this in the books on tape section, and thought about how much I enjoy the Bond
films in a kind of check-your-brain-at-the-door way, I decided to give it a try.
I was very surprised to find a quite different Bond in this story than one is
familiar with in the movies. The tale revolves around a single shooting
assignment, and has a grand total of only about 5 characters. Most of the time
is spent just waiting for the actual shooting to take place. Strangest of all
for those of us who cut their teeth on the film version of 007, he seems to
actively dislike his job, at least the shooting-other-people bits. So,
Bond fans, is this typical of the books? Have the movies led us astray? Or was
Fleming just getting crochety in his old age or indigested or something of the
sort?

One of the time honored rituals of my misspent youth was the Saturday
Evening Lineup: 10:30: The Twilight Zone 11:00: Star Trek 12:00:
Battlestar Galactica. When I joined Netflix, I discovered that they had
the complete Twilight Zone and Star Trek collections on DVD,
and have been having a self-indulgent relapse to childhood by renting them
and watching them with my kids. The most interesting thing about this
experience has been seeing how well each of the shows has held up over time.
The original Star Trek looks downright silly these days, though the
experience is a bit more fun than it otherwise would be now that I know that
James Doohan is missing a finger
and watch carefully to see how they hide it. (Thanks to Robert for tipping
me off.) But the Twilight Zone episodes have held up remarkably well, and my
wife and kids are quite enjoying them, in spite of the fact that they’re not
hooked by the nostalgia in the same way I am. I think the difference is due
in large measure to the fact that Star Trek relied heavily on special
effects and visuals, where in The Twilight Zone, most of the interesting
action occurs in the characters’ or the viewers’ minds. (In fact, the
weakest point in The Odyssey of Flight 33 was when you get to see the
stop-action dinosaur out the window.) Maybe they’ll get the Battlestar
Galactica episodes out soon, and I’ll be able to complete the tour.

I’ve been considering documenting my experiences with various vendors for a while so that others can avoid the places I’ve been stung by and encourage the businesses that provide good products and services. Today I implemented that functionality on the site, and would welcome feedback from anyone who has had experiences with the vendors I mention. I’ll post new items here, and will accumulate them all on the Vendor Experiences page as well.

Late in the evening on August 7 I placed an order with shopaudiovideo.com
for a camcorder. I promptly received an email acknowledgement of the order.
The next morning, I found another vendor which had the same camcorder for
$200 less, so I immediately sent shopaudiovideo.com an email request to cancel
the order. They still haven’t replied to my request to cancel the order 5
days later, and they took the liberty of charging my credit card the full
amount for the order on August 8 as well. They have made no effort to
communicate in any way since the initial confirmation of the order. I will
be sending another email today to request a refund. So far, my experience
with them has been uniformly bad, and I would steer others away from ever using this vendor. Update: The camcorder arrived on August 15 in spite of the order cancellation, but Shopaudiovideo.com has still not responded to any of my emails. Update The Second: Shopaudiovideo.com finally contacted me on August 22, 2 weeks after I sent my first email, which they were unable to locate. They say they’ve arranged for UPS to come by and pick up the package.