Slashdot has an upcoming interview with Sid Meier, the designer of the ever-popular Civilization computer game series. You can post a question you'd like to have Sid asked and, if it gets moderated high enough, it will be one of the 10 questions posed to this distinguished game designer.
Back in high school I discovered Civilization I; it was installed on a computer in one of the classrooms I was doing computer work for. When Civilization II came ought, I bought that had spent only God knows how many hours on that game. I wonder, collectively, how many man hours Sid Meier is responsible for “wasting.” :-)
Over the years I've tried out some of the free versions of Civilization - FreeCiv and C-Evo. I really liked C-Evo, and spent too many hours on it, as well, over the past several years. I picked up Civilization III a year ago or so and played it for a couple weeks before losing interest. (To be fair, I haven't played C-Evo in quite a while.) Civ IV is slated to be coming out soon... don't know whether or not to give it a shot. Probably will eventually, once the price comes down.
Oh boy, did we have a lightning storm last night. I've never heard thunder so loud in all my life, it was setting off car alarms up and down the street and causing Sam to freak out like we've never seen her freak out before.
From Lightning strikes cause minor fires:
As of 6:30 a.m., more than 3,300 people were without electricity due to 17 localized power outages, according to San Diego Gas & Electric officials. The majority of those outages were in San Diego's beach neighborhoods, where police reported traffic lights out in several locations.
Sounds like LA got hit worse - up to 20,000 customers left without power.
Still a bit on an adrenaline high as I write this, so it's probably a bit discombobulated and jerky. Oh well. Plus it reads like a teen's diary, a lot of “He said, then I said“ in here... you have been warned...
Had a meeting with some colleagues for lunch today, which went well. Upon arriving home, though, something totally odd occurred - I got punched. I usually park in the alley back in my reserved spot, but there were some SDG&E trucks back there working on a powerline, so I parked on the street. Walked up to the building where I live - there's seven condo units - and got my mail. You've got to walk down this path to get to get to your door, so I start down and there's one of my neighbors standing there on the phone with a Coors Light in hand.
I say “Hi” as approaching, and then he gets off the phone and blocks my way. He starts mumbling something about how I owe him money, which I have no idea what he's talking about. This guy is a bit bigger than me, maybe two inches taller and 50 pounds heavier, a big guy. I ask him to move out of my way, and he says not until I pay him. His breath reeks of cheap beer.
I tell him he's drunk and he needs to get out of my way. He tells me I'm an asshole. Hrm. So I try to walk around him through the grass, and he blocks my way again. I tell him again to get out of my way and he lets me pass. But as I pass the guy shoves me from behind.
I turn around and give him a few choice words and tell him to go sleep it off. I start walking to my door and he follows me, telling me I'm an asshole. When I get to my door, he pushes me again. Ok, enough of this, I give him a good shove back and tell him to get out of my face. I turn around to open my door, and as I'm turning, WHAM, a blow right to the face. A good, solid hit, didn't even see it coming. Knocked me off balance, is gonna leave a black eye. It took me a sec to regain my composure and turn around and he was running back to his place.
Weird. So I went inside and called the cops. This guy's got a wife and a 6 month old baby at home, so I figured if nothing else should make sure they're ok, too. The cops show up about half an hour later, take a statement, ask me if I want him arrested. I say, “No.” This is the first time this sort of things has happened, and he's been here for a year. I figured something must have gone wrong today, like he lost his job or his wife left him or something. Never seen him drinking, except on Sundays when he watches football.
We've always kind of had some tension, as he's rented out his place to some rowdy tenants and I'm the HOA president, so I've had to deal with him in that manner many times before. But there's never been any fines or whatnot, so I have no idea what he was rambling on about money I owed him. We've never yelled at each other or been anything other than socially polite... granted, there was some tension, so maybe a few too many Coors, some bad news regarding family or job, and he decides it's time to kick some Scott ass.
Anyway, he didn't answer when the cops knocked on his door, so they just said they'd file an incident report so if something like this happened again, there would be some history. Hope his wife and kid aren't home or, if they are, they're not catching the brunt of his anger.
I hope the guy apologizes. I'd forgive him if he just came up to me after he's sobered up and sincerely apologized for being an asshat. This just was so out of whack, because I've never seen this guy like this before. Good thing it was me, and not, say, my wife. I don't know how I'd react if he had assualted her. I'd like to think I'd stay rational... really I don't think I give a flip if someone insults me... now if they hit me, that's another thing, but someone could stand there and insult me all day long and it wouldn't bother me, but if someone insulted my wife, that would be another story. And if someone attacked her, or our dog, or started stealing my stuff, I don't know how I'd react.
There were two things that were particularly disconcerting about today's little run in with the neighbor:
- It came totally out of left field. Imagine coming home from work, walking toward your door, and this happened. What was funny was in my car on the way home from the meeting I was thinking how it was nice to live in such a safe neighborhood.
- It happened at my home. You're suppose to feel safe there. My wife said I should have just walked away after he wouldn't let me pass, and I probably would have done that if I was out on the street somewhere, but if some guy's standing outside your home and threatening you... I dunno, it's like your home is to be protected. Granted, all I did was shove the guy, but I was “ready to rumble“ after he decked me, even though I probably would have gotten the living hell beaten out of me.
So in the end, hopefully this all ends nicely and he just mans up and apologizes and we can get on with our little lives.
It's kind of funny, because tomorrow the wife and I are driving up to LA to visit with the inlaws and have dinner, and now I'll have a black eye to explain. “Hi, hi. Oh, yeah, this, yeah, the neighbor beat me up yesterday.” :-p
Proof positive that spending years in Washington will make you out of touch with reality. From The Washington Times article DeLay declares 'victory' in war on budget fat:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said yesterday that Republicans have done so well in cutting spending that he declared an "ongoing victory," and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget.
Mr. DeLay was defending Republicans' choice to borrow money and add to this year's expected $331 billion deficit to pay for Hurricane Katrina relief. Some Republicans have said Congress should make cuts in other areas, but Mr. DeLay said that doesn't seem possible.
"My answer to those that want to offset the spending is sure, bring me the offsets, I'll be glad to do it. But nobody has been able to come up with any yet," the Texas Republican told reporters at his weekly briefing.
Asked if that meant the government was running at peak efficiency, Mr. DeLay said, "Yes, after 11 years of Republican majority we've pared it down pretty good."
Excuse me while I vomit all over my keyboard. If a company's books were run like the Federal governments, that company would be in business for all of a week. Yet the Republicans have “pared it down pretty good,” huh? They've only spent, what, ~$195 billion on the war in Iraq? They've only appropriated how many hundreds of billion dollars at “homeland security?” They've “invested” how many billions in streamlining the response between Federal, State, and local governments to enable prompt responses as we saw in NOLA?
Got it pared down, you say? Then why is there a nearly eight trillion dollar debt? Why is the yearly budget in the red? Arg. This is frustrating to hear rhetoric like this. I fear that eventually there will be a day of reckoning, a day when foreigners are going to stop buying our bonds and allowing for such debt levels. Meh.
Whenever disaster strikes, the American populace is often very willing to give its time and hard-earned money, and with the environmental disaster of hurricane Katrina in the Gulf coast, now is no exception. Thankfully, donation-giving is easier today than it ever has been in the past, thanks to ways to give directly online. Have an Amazon.com account? Head over to this page and you can make a donation to the Red Cross using the credit card information you already have on file (over $7,000,000 dollars collected as of the time of this blog entry). Have a PayPal account? You can make a donation to The United Way from this page.
Even if you don't have a credit card on file with Amazon.com or a PayPal account, you can still easily make a donation online directly from the Red Cross's website (or The United Way's website). (Of course, for those luddites out there - and, hey, what are you doing using the Internet! - you can always call the Red Cross's toll-free donation number (1-800-HELP-NOW) or even - gasp - donate via the US postal mail.)
I heard on the radio the other day that experts are estimating that the Katrina relief effort is costing $500 million dollars per day. Cripes, that's a lot of dollars, so every bit obviously helps.