Fugu Talk

I decided I should have something posted on YouTube, so here’s the McCain Maze (from Fugu Games) one more time (while the campaign is still on!)

I’m a sucker for graphs, including site popularity graphs. Here’s a graph of visits to my web sites from the Compete Site Analytics page:

The technicat site has been pretty steady the last few years, but my personal site didn’t even register. This blog has only been around half a year, but looks like it also might have flatlined except for a late spike, probably due to one day of 4000 hits from reddit, during yet another thread on design patterns.

Lest I indulge solely in web site narcissism, here’s a chart comparing three other sites, Koo’s Corner, Bike Mecca, and WordsEye.

Grudges generally get a bad name, from the Hatfield-McCoy feud to the ongoing ethnic and religious battles all over the world (“your great-great-whoever oppressed/cheated/exploited/violated my great-great-whoever. Now it’s your fault”, “you heathens have maligned our spiritual principles. Death to you.”)

But grudges have their good points. Sports fans, commentators and journalists love a good grudge (“This is a grudge match.” “There’s no love lost between these teams”), and are positively bored if opposing athletes just have nice things to say about each other, shake hands and go out for beers together. Grudges are great for movie plots, too – Payback, for example, gets right to the point in its title.

An underrated use of grudges is in entrepeneurship. A lot has been made of starting businesses to change the world, fill a need, express ones creativity, all the yada yada you see on the business bookshelves and hear from the guests on Donny Deutch’s shows (The Big Idea, Collaboration Now…), but open the skull of any business owner and there’s a good chance you’ll find a tape recorder playing back “I’ll show you…” If corporate vision statements were truthful, most would have the three V’s – vengeance, validation, vindication.

Now, while I have no shortage of professional grievances, I’m not quite energetic or ambitious enough to turn that into the next object of Wired magazine’s hype. I do however find grudges quite useful in saving money, especially in these nervous-finance times. Just last week I walked into a Best Buy on a whim to see the new Apple laptops. Normally, I’d have trouble walking out of a store like that without at least picking up a DVD, and Best Buy had a nice selection of reasonably priced Blue-Ray discs. But each one I was interested in was a Warner Brothers title, and I’m still annoyed that the WB never sent me a check for a mail-in rebate years ago (the rejection later stated that a rebate had been sent in previously from the same address and they only honored one rebate per address – a problem, since this was an apartment I’d just moved into).

So I saved at least $20-$30 right there, but then I passed the Horror section where, in honor of Halloween, several DVD’s were priced at $4. I almost scooped up a bunch right there, and then I remembered that very Best Buy six years ago had sold me an expensive Alienware PC, aggressively pushed an extended warranty on me then left me in line for half an hour to pay, and somehow got me signed onto automatic monthly billing from Microsoft’s Internet service (even though there was no paperwork indicating I had an account). To top it off, I missed out on the resulting lawsuit (though, apparently, it was dismissed and now is back on).

I almost got my money back from Microsoft – I got phone transferred from someone who didn’t know what I was talking about to someone in billing who agreed to refund me to someone in customer support who refused to refund me. In the end, my credit card company took care of that payment, but in the meantime, Microsoft charged me another month, and I just gave up. You can’t fight city hall? You can’t fight Microsoft.

So, while I probably saved another $20 or so before finally leaving the store, I can’t apply the same grudge-based savings criteria to Microsoft. I can live without Best Buy. I’ll have to live in a cave (or an Apple Store) if I don’t buy Microsoft. In fact, for my current contract, I’ve had to purchase two PC’s in less than two years. That TV ad, where celebrities apparently have been paid off to say “I’m a PC” (I mean, why else would you say it?) – they should include one person saying “I’m a PC – because I have no choice.”

A quick dinner from one of the Famima stores (basically, Japanese 7-11′s, but better) in downtown LA. Two steamed buns and a special election edition of Jones Soda – Pure McCain Soda. It’s pretty tasty, get it while it lasts! (I assume until the election, unless McCain wins, in which case, maybe they’ll keep selling it for another 4-8 years)

I’m disappointed at the absence of drinks named after the other candidates. Can I offer you an Obama Kool-Aid? (That’s a gimme) A Palin Wild-Salmon Pepsi? (Ok, stretching) Barq’s Biden Root Beer? (Hmm, I guess it’s not that easy…)

Staying at the hip and trendy Standard Hotel in downtown LA, after making the mistake of trying to swim a few laps in the rooftop pool (really an extension of the rooftop bar where LA-beautiful people hang out – swimming while inhaling cigarette smoke was probably a wash), I fell back to my usual city wanderings and tried to find a good bookstore. The closest I found was Metropolis Books, a nice little indie store with fewer books on the shelf than I have in my home and not open past 6pm, much like the indie bookstore I found in downtown Bend, OR. To me, a proper cultural downtown should have a more impressive bookstore, like Powell’s City of Books in Portland, OR.

Assuming the Borders Express in Macy’s Plaza holds no surprises, I’d have to say LA disappoints on that score, although one could argue the huge LA Central Library provides plenty of literary cred. If you go, be sure to visit the exhibits on the second floor.

But my favorite feature is the steps leading into the west entrance (where a Panda Express is conveniently located)

The library isn’t open after 6pm, either, so it looks like evening activities in downtown LA evening are split among the high-end cultural events (whatever’s playing at the Disney Concert Hall or Music Center) and club-hopping (when the library is closed the Library Bar is open!).

But on my way back through the Historic Core, I found a bit of culture that seemed right at home in LA, the Museum of Neon Art, which I first saw profiled by KCET‘s terrifically loud and entertainingly informative Huell Howser:

Their lease is up, so I hope they have success in finding a new space. Or maybe they could move to Vegas.

Somehow, perhaps confused by the special Thursday election editions of SNL, I missed this Saturday’s show with the much-ballyhooed appearance of Sarah Palin. But here are the highlights I heard everyone talk about (well, I saw the TV election pundits talk about the Sarah Palin segments, and heard a morning talk radio host just as enthusiastically discuss the Mark Wahlberg skit)

On AIGameDev I saw that the latest winner of the Loebner Prize is Elbot. So I decided to have a chat. Here’s Elbot’s reaction to no input:

After I said “hi”:

After I said “I heard you won the Leobner Prize”:

After I asked, “Are you voting for McCain or Obama?”:

What a cop out.