You have no idea how happy I am these days that I figured out how to set my e-mail notifications from Wordpress so that I no longer receive alerts every time that I need to approve a comment.

That was a clunky sentence, so let me break it down:

Previously, each time someone new posted, I would get an email saying that there was a new comment waiting for approval. Once approved, the same poster would not need to be approved again, and can just post freely.

The headaches this method caused was due to spam; each spam comment triggers an email alert, which means that, in a way, I was spamming myself. And what really kicked me in the shins was that since I have my email routed through to my Blackberry, there were days when it was buzzing every 5-7 minutes for 2-3 hours.

Now, thankfully, I have figured out how to set it up so I’m only notified of posted comments from pre-approved posters. All unapproved comments wait for me to check in to the site; true, this means that any legitimate comments have to wait a little longer to get posted, but so far, all of the unapproved comments that have been waiting are all spam. In a way, being a small blog with small readership is good, as it means as I don’t have to worry about getting around to checking the comment folder all that often.

Anyway, just something that still makes me happy.

A friend of mine pointed out a site, www.myveryworstdate.com, which — as the name implies — is a collection of bad dating experiences submitted by the users.

First, the important news: I am not on there. Not yet, anyway. While I don’t think that I ever did anything that bad during a date, it’s not hard to see how a date that you might have thought as “disappointing” being considered by others to be “horrendous.” And, as I look over some of the things that girls have written on this site, it wouldn’t surprise me if one of my past dates is posted. Fortunately, I don’t think it would be very highly rating by the users given that:

• I never got smashed on a date
• I never threw up on a date
• I never asked a date to pay for the whole tab
• I never asked a date to marry me/said I was in love/etc. the first time we met
• I never overslept past the meeting time
• I never got arrested during the date
• And, perhaps most importantly, I have never lied about my height.

Some of the submissions say as much (if not more) about the person writing them than the date. In some cases, the people fully admit that they were the cause if the “bad” part of the date, and in still others, you get the sense that the person who is being written about was, in fact, the lucky one to escape. I recall one a guy wrote about trying to salvage his relationship with his girlfriend, but in the end, he inadvertently shows why he was such a loser to begin with: he drank too much, drove while drunk, and in general, took his girlfriend for granted. He thinks that she broke up with him because he threw up on her and accidentally set her on fire (which is a good enough reason by itself, really) but I think even if he had avoided both of those disasters, the relationship was doomed regardless.

The site also got me thinking again about the whole issue of a guy being expected to pick up the tab on the first date. I have long felt that this was a deeply flawed system (largely because I never seem to have the spare cash to do this on a regular basis), but it has also become a strong litmus test for me. Now, if it’s something like a coffee or just a drink, then it’s not a problem. But if it happens to be a full-fledged meal, then the question always arises for me: “Do I like this girl enough that I’m willing to spend xx for just the chance to see her?” Because, you see, this is the point: there’s no guarantee that she’s going to want a second date. It’s entirely possible she’s just looking for a free meal. So it’s not as if picking up the tab (i.e. spending money on her) will ensure a second date.

And, more to the core of me, if I really like a girl, I’m going to want to do things for her, regardless.

So, I finally got my taxes done; for those not aware, chasing down my W2 from Rebel Monkey (or, to be more precise, the company that handled our tax forms) was a long, arduous process which probably had a lot more intrigue and drama going on that I didn’t know about. Which, I suspect, is for the best. Since the W2 was the last piece to my refund puzzle, I went through tonight an online tax preparation site to take care of things.

I was surprised to have a refund, as I’ve been hearing from many different sources that the government was going to tax the America population back into the stone age, so I was fully prepared to have to check off the boxes which stated that I did have gold inlays in my teeth, and that some large, burly man would be down shortly to forciably remove them to fund the new health care bill. Amazingly, however, that didn’t happen, so I’m guessing that that part of the legislation doesn’t go into effect until next year.

My refund is bigger than last year, which is what I guessed, considering I made quite a bit less than last year, but I have to admit that I basically finally caved in and paid to have my returns, both federal and state, efiled by the website. This was not cheap, trust me, but in the end I justified it to myself in that the state refunds basically paid for themselves, and the convenience of both getting everything done at once, as well as not having to go back over a vast sea of forms that would need to be tracked down, was worth the price of admission.

I think that it is safe to say that the tax refund will, mainly, be going into savings account; that poor bloke really took a beating last year, and needs quite a bit of help before he’s fully standing on his own two feet. However, I also think that I will allow myself to buy a video game, and, probably even more likely, a gamecube controller to plug into my Wii so I can start into the vast array of used GameCube games that I bought last year.

In both cases, I need to make sure I keep the receipts, so I can plan on deducting them from next year’s taxes. As a game designer, after all, they are considered “business expenses: research.”

Good times, my friends. Good times.

I was looking through my photos on Facebook for some inane reason, when I suddenly realized that one of the photos that was of me and Bambi was no longer there. This was a photo that she had up on her profile, and so, naturally, I was curious if she either de-tagged me, or (more likely) removed it. I was guessing the latter, as when we were dating, she deliberately kept some photos of us off her profile because she didn’t want to upset her ex too much (don’t say it; I already know).

However, doing a quick search for her came up empty.

Puzzled, I went back to my photo page – there are a couple of shots with her that one of her friends took, and I wanted to see if there was still a link to her profile from there.

No tags in those photos, either.

Finally, I did a quick search using her name to see if I got her Facebook page as a hit.

No dice.

This leads me to believe that she has erased her profile from Facebook.

True, she may have just adjusted her privacy settings so that I can’t see her, and neither can anyone else who is not on her Friend list (I am not, having removed myself the day she broke up with me, for obvious reasons). In all honesty, though, I doubt that this is the case. While things didn’t work out for us, she and I did trade some friendly e-mails shortly after the break-up, and while I may have a density that threatens to create a local event horizon, I don’t believe I have done anything that would cause her to suddenly decide to ban me.

Hence, I’m a bit worried; I’m hoping it’s just a result of being oversaturated with being constantly plugged into the world that caused her to decide to erase her account. Still, she was very media-savvy, and it just strikes me as surprising that she might suddenly decide that she no longer wanted/needed the account. Then again, I haven’t heard from her for a couple of years, so she may have embraced the Amish lifestyle for all I know.

Whatever the case, I just hope everything is all right with her. I know that I’m supposed to be still bitter and writing angst-ridden ballads that even Morrissey would say are too depressing, but that was never my style.

All right, the quick-ish catch-up drill:

1) Last Thursday we had our semi-finals in basketball, and lost. The upside, however, is that we also had more fun out there, and overall played better than I suspected we would. Part of this was, I think, the fact that our two best players were missing, so we all had a bit of a more relaxed feel when we played, and also that we tried some different things out there as well. Regardless, it was definitely a good team effort. If we were in the NBA, I’m sure we’d be the group people would be saying, “A good, young team to watch out for in a year or two.”

2) On Saint Patty’s Day, I had a chance to hang out with some of my fellow basketballers and their friends, over at a bar that one of them knows so well that about half the staff knows her by a first name basis. During the evening, I had one really nice “moment” where a cute girl (with the magical combo of dark hair, dark eyes, and a petite frame) was passing me, and glanced at me briefly. I smiled, being the nice fellow I am, and it was good timing, as she then took a second glance, and this time gave a very sweet smile in return. Now, perhaps if I was a “playa” I would have attempted to make a move, but cripes, I was happy just to get a second look.

3) Saturday saw me and about 10 of my fellow Zogsports footballers gather at Central Park in the afternoon for a bit of practice, so everyone had a chance to get accustomed to the rules in Zog. It was warm, sunny, and we played for about 2 hours before people decided to call it quits (not me, of course, as I was ready to play for another 5 hours). It was very much a fun time, and something that I’m hoping we can pull off again. Afterwards, we hit up a Pub that was nice, but turned out to be a massive amount of fail as they were so severely understaffed that 90 minutes after we ordered our food, it not only hadn’t arrived, but we were told that the kitchen “wasn’t even close to getting it started.” Oh well — at least the free appetizers showed up only 60 minutes into the wait.

4) Then, on Sunday, we had our actual game. I headed over early to volunteer ref the game before ours, and really got into the role as I not only called a touchdown catch out of bounds (didn’t have control, alas), but also took a football to the face. It was an accident, of course. When our team took the field, it was basically a complete reversal from the last team I played with — we won 44-0. I didn’t play much on offense, but was basically a ball hawk on defense, snagging 4-5 interceptions, including one returned for a touchdown. Woo! True, it helped that other team had never played before, either, but honestly, I think it was just the practice we had beforehand that really made the team work better. That, and this time we actually had some good quarterbacks (last season it was me, basically the Brady Quinn of Zog, only with less muscle definition).

5) Last night, then, I spent some time on World of Warcraft, first running through an utterly fatal 3-man attempt of the Shadow Labyrinth, and then jumped over to my main warrior guy where I, at long last, received the Loremaster achievement! Woo! For those not in the know, the award is obtained upon completing something like 4000 quests with the character. Now, I’ll just need to see about getting into some more of the raids, especially the older ones, which may be a bit more tricky, given that finding people who do those is rather difficult at times.

I started a new file on my EeePC that I call “Train of Thoughts,” which is mainly to jot down notes and random thoughts I have while on the train/subway. To be fair, often these are things that I have noticed earlier, but didn’t get around to writing down. Anyway. here’s the current batch:

[ S H I E L D B R E A K ! ! ! ]

The floor my office also has a few law firms on it, and so we all get to share the one bathroom. The layout, itself, is somewhat odd as only one person can stand by the paper towel dispenser, and even then, he’s blocking the door. However, what’s really odd are some of the blokes who share the bathroom. My one coworker, for example, was somewhat disconcerted to overhear a guy talking on his cell phone to his girlfriend while the gentlemen in question was parked in a stall “doing his business.” My coworker, being the courteous guy he is, flushed the toilet in the stall next to the guy, just so the girl would be aware of the circumstances of the conversation in case the guy had neglected to mention it.

My own personal favorite event was entering the restroom to see a man standing at the urinal, using one hand to “guide his sword” and the other to tap away a text message on his Blackberry. I can only imagine what that Tweet read.

[ S H I E L D B R E A K ! ! ! ]

You know that it’s getting warmer in the city when the tour groups starting coming out.

[ S H I E L D B R E A K ! ! ! ]

How come we haven’t had a movie that uses the word “deliver” as a threat? Think about it:

Imagine a film about a homicidal maniac working for a courier company, killing the customers that he visits. Right before he disembowels one, he says, “I’m going to de-liver you….”

[ S H I E L D B R E A K ! ! ! ]

My friend Renata had tweeted a quote about leadership she had gotten from a manager or something, which said something like, “Leadership is bringing about events that otherwise would not have happened.”

It’s a good example of why I’m pretty leery of a lot of these management quotes and books; as I posted back to her: “So I’m providing leadership when I call in sick to work so I can stay home and watch TV?” I mean, based on the logic of the statement, the answer would be yes.

I followed up by proving that I could come up with a better quote, using something I thought up during the 5-minute commute into the city:

“Leadership is inspiring ordinary people to extraordinary accomplishments.”

I like mine much better; heck, I’m probably qualified to write a management advice book now.

[ S H I E L D B R E A K ! ! ! ]

I have gained a new covert to the “Tron” film. My coworker had sent me a link to the “Tron Legacy” trailer, and during the ensuing discussion, i learned that he, himself, had not yet seen the original. Resolved to rectify this injustice, I lent him my copy of it, and the following Monday when he returned he merely said, “Awesome movie; now I really gotta see the sequel.”

Another human has seen the light of truth, and has thus been saved. Hallelujah!

[ S H I E L D B R E A K ! ! ! ]

Finally, there were some discussions last week about the Go-Bots and the Transformers, back in the 80s. And it’s funny, because I distictly remember being a bigger fan — much bigger, in fact — of the Go-Bots and wouldn’t give the Transformers the time of day.

Then I saw the Go-Bots movie.

Afterward, I pretty much never watched another Go-Bots episode or bought another toy. In fact, that was when I started going entirely to the Transformers for my shape-shifting robot needs.

Besides the movie just being dull and boring in general (and remember, I was a kid at this time, so my demands of movies were far less than they are today), I also am still struggling to comprehend which executive thought it was a good idea to have the new line of robots introduced be able to shift into the form of rocks.

To paraphrase a scene from the movie “Big:” I mean, here you have all these other robots that change into cars, and jets, spaceships, and now you have a line that transforms into… rocks. I’m sorry, but the excitement of a bucket of rocks doesn’t quite match that of a bucket of futuristic planes, cars, and cities.

Part of my job is researching games; this is actually a frequent request from clients: “Hey, we just played this game and think it’s cool: can we rip off anything from it for our game?”

Recently, I had a chance to look at a game called “Empire Craft.” This is a standard Evony/Quest for Camelot/etc. style game, where you build up a city, recruit heroes, and basically spent about 90% of your time waiting for building projects to be completed. Now, I have to admit, I had a really hard time taking this game seriously, largely because it was painfully obvious that the game was rushed to market without a lot of QA time: overlapping text, buggy UI, and — my personal favorite — translations that range from embarrassingly bad to outright hilarious. The game is originally from China, and I get the feeling that they just ran it through an Internet translator. Case in point is the “Game Info” blurb which is actually on the game’s official website:

The background of Empire Craft tends to western fantasy which an exigency of war world composed of a variety of race. There are Human, Dwarf, Orcs, Merman, Harpy and Devil in the world. For a clash of cultures and interests, there was a state of war between the rivals in a long period. In the age of world to be cruel ruled by Devil, Human Hero player will lead the troops combine with other races to confront Devil and overthrow their rule in the end. Player acted the commander in independent crack force of Human, effort on survive and develop during wartime and join with other players overthrow the rule of Devils.

Ye gads.

“In the age of world to be cruel ruled by Devil….”

I’m still not entirely sure what that means. It’s sort of like a statement Tarzan would make when he’s drunk and has been hit in the head by several heavy, blunt instruments.

So anyway, yeah. Just wanted to share that piece of gold!

Oh, and did I mention that I saw a number of icons that they blatantly ripped off from World of WarCraft? Consider it mentioned.

Normally I post from my apartment in New Jersey, but in this case, I’m in New York City, posting from the office (maybe not the brightest thing to do, but I never claimed to be all that wise).

Anyway, last night was basketball, and I have to admit, this was the first time in a long while when I left not feeling good about things. As long-time readers know, it’s usually very easy for me to have a blast even when our team is blown out in all the games. But last night several things combined to make it a “meh” kind of evening:

• We lost 2 games, tied 1, and won 1. This is pretty minor, really, but still didn’t do a lot to boost the Happy Time factor.
• We, as a team, didn’t play that well. More disappointing then anything, really.
• It was getting very chippy out there, and a little uncomfortable. A couple of people were getting visibly upset with me when I was covering them; more on that later. In another game, there were actually a couple of tense moments in which it almost looked like a shoving match was going to get started. Considering this is supposed to be a rec league for fun, those moments always take some of the wind out of the sails.
• The ref was not doing a very good job. Now — everyone playing knows that the refs are going to miss a call here and there. There’s only one, after all, and that person can’t watch the whole court, and sometimes can’t see things too clearly. Still, last night the ref was not calling fouls (and all teams) nearly as much as he should have. I came to realize at that point just how important it is to call fouls on a regular basis: it prevents people from getting too physical. I honestly believe that the reason it was getting so chippy out there was because people were (whether consciously or not) seeing just how physical they could get. That, and sort of the mentality, “Well, if the ref isn’t going to call that as a foul, then I’m going to start doing it as well.” One thing that I should mention, though, is that this ref is new, and so I think is still learning the ropes. At the same time, this was the first time that I heard a ref threaten to call a technical foul on the next team that argue with a call/non-call.
• Finally, and most importantly, I just don’t think I played that well last night. I actually did well on defense later in the night, basically shutting down the guy I was covering (who, in turn, thought I was playing too physical), but I just don’t feel like I was ever really all that comfy out there. More to the point, I wasn’t having that much fun playing. Odd.

Next week are the playoffs, which I suspect will be just as intense, if not more so. I remember hearing about some of the plays from last season, and there was not a lot of “carefree fun” taking place on the courts.