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.

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.

Some of you may recall that my remote for my VCR/DVD combo was officially kaput after that bad battery acid trip,  and that my original plan of replacing it with a universal remote wound up being a nice and big fluffy ball of fail. I finally resorted to ordering a replacement from Sony a couple of weeks ago, and was just starting to wonder about it when I received a message this morning from DHL. It read, and I quote:

Hello!

The courier company was not able to deliver your parcel by your address.
Cause: Error in shipping address.

You may pickup the parcel at our post office personaly!

Attention!
The shipping label is attached to this e-mail.
Please print this label to get this package at our post office.

Please do not reply to this e-mail, it is an unmonitored mailbox!

Thank you.
DHL Delivery Services.

Since I had been just wondering about my delivery, I assumed this was the issue. I couldn’t remember if the shipping company had been listed when I made the order, so DHL was as good a thought as any. Attached to the email wasa zip file, and while I thought that was odd that a printing label would be in a zip, I opened it up to take a look.

That’s when I saw that there was just an .exe file inside. Oh sure, it said something like DHL Tracking Label or something, but still.

Now, granted, I had literally just gotten out of bed five minutes ago, and I’m never my sharpest at such times, but even I know when to hit the delete key. And honestly, if I hadn’t been thinking about the remote, I might not have ever gotten to the point of opening up the attachment. After all, another re-read of the message shows that the person who wrote it A) doesn’t have a functional spell-checker, and B) likes exclamation points a little bit too much for their own good.

But the really ironic part about this is that later on, at around 11 AM, FedEx Ground stopped by to drop off my remote. Talk about interesting timing. I have to wonder if the hackers knew about my incoming delivery and scrambled to throw something together really quick in hopes of duping me before the real McCoy arrived. That’s unlikely, but hey, you see stuff like that all the time on TV, right?

Too bad for them, though. The plot was foiled.

Oh, and yes, I checked — the new remote works just fine. And this time, I take the batteries out after using it.

Much like the ancient Romans, Target employees who fall asleep while on their shift are beaten to death with carts by their coworkers.

It’s a good sign that I am ever more mindful of my cash flow when I’m actually following up on returning items that don’t work.

Earlier today, I had picked up a universal remote from Target to replace the one that had succumbed to the deadly battery acid corrosion disease. I selected a Sony brand one, as given that I had a Sony brand VCR/DVD combo, I figured that it would most likely have the needed code to operate the component.

I am but a naive babe in the woods.

After getting it home and spending about 90 minutes trying all of the code combinations in the book (I had a bad feeling when I realized that while their were codes for DVD players and VCR players, no codes were listed for VCR/DVD combos), scouring the Internet for any types of leads I could find, and finally calling the support line for Sony — which first told me to call another number, then hung up — I find reached the bummer conclusion that indeed, the remote would not work with my VCR/DVD player. Oh sure, it could turn on my PlayStation2, but apparently the VCR/DVD combo players are the shunned crossbreeds that no respectable Sony remote will touch with a 10-foot infrared beam.

So, for one of the few times in my life, I returned it to Target to get my $15.50 back. In the past, I would have probably just written off the loss as a learning experience, but hey, I’m a bit more economically-minded these days. And this is a good thing, really; I hope that I maintain such tightwad–er, pragmatic sensibilites going forward.

Besides, the money I recouped will just be going to getting a replacement remote direct from Sony online.

What sucks about all of this is that the combo player works fine. It’s just that about 9/10 of the functions are tied into the remote. And I never liked that, for expressly this reason.

When are we going to just all be cyborgs and not have to worry about losing remotes? Not soon enough, I say!

I haven’t been on LJ for a bit, and let’s face it, a large part of that is that Wordpress is, honestly, the cool new toy I got; it’s the Buzz Lightyear to LJ’s Woody. After I work my way through the “new-ness” of Wordpress I might start posting more on LJ, but I admit that the ability for me to be able to upload and basically control all of my own content, as opposed to relying on other sites, puts the 300-pound gorilla — or even more awesome, Mr. T — in Wordpress’ corner.

Beyond that, though, that past few days were spent in idyllic Wisconsin for my cousin’s wedding. A good time was had (that will eventually be a Fireside Chat Log), but now it’s back to the dirty business of finding employment in the gaming industry. And yeesh, this is not for the faint of heart. Today has been productive, at least, with a couple more resume’s sent out, an attempt at getting a meeting arranged, and (still to come) a follow-up phone call.

The personal game project with The Wizard and Curly is likely going to be the main focus for the rest of the year, though. Whereas when job-hunting you’re often at the mercy of the unknown-yet-perfectly-nice folks in the respective HR departments, at least with our own little project is something that I have much more control in; in fact, I spent a fair amount of time this past weekend working on (gulp) math equations — dear God, what have I become?!

Actually, I need to work on yonder equations some more. It’s all about balancing out the units, and while it looks like it may work, I really want to see these in practice ASAP.

In other news, with the Tampa Bay Bucs having won their first game, it’s not surprising that the Browns are now, officially, ranked as the worst team in the NFL. And really, how can you argue otherwise? As I’ve stated many times before, it’s not that they Browns are losing, but are so utterly non-competitive. Current rumor is that Quinn takes the field again on Monday Night. Frankly, I do not believe that it will make a difference, given that the same issues will still exist in terms of the rookie WRs, the right side of the line, the lack of a running game, and Brain Daboll’s highly-suspect playcalling. Browns fans now find themselves in an odd position: do you hope that the Browns continue to implode so that the case for a “strong, credible football” man gains enough momentum that Lerner is forced to let Mangini go if that football guy demands it, or do you hope that the Browns actually improve and win a few games in the remainder of the season, which will ease the pain, but weaken the case against Mangini? (For the record, I would like to see what Mangini can do if he just focuses on coaching (he had more success in NY with that approach, after all), but that would require a football-guy hire within the next week or two, which I am doubtful will happen).

Oh, speaking of football, I missed the last game of my rec football league, and have heard that while they had some nice plays, they lost, and again did not score any touchdowns. Given that I was the QB for most of the season (and we lost all but 1 game, and only scored 2 offensive touchdowns), I admit that I feel better in knowing that it was not just me.

I attended an iPhone Developer’s Meetup group earlier this night (well, it’s 3:10 in the morning now, so maybe I should say “last night”) with two of my former coworkers. We had been talking about starting a small game, just for the fun of it really, for the iPhone. Never mind that none of us currently own an iPhone or iTouch (doesn’t that sound like cause for a harassment suit?), but the artist of the group mentioned that he would be looking at getting one soon.

The meeting was of no help for me or Mo, not surprisingly, as it dealt with the coding side of things, of which neither of us have no training in; instead, we took the time to doodle and sketch. Our programmer, however, also didn;t really get much from it, because despite him not knowing the codebase, he was not only able to follow the discussion, but even correct the speaker on a few points because, as he later said, “the topic was really pretty basic stuff.”

Afterward, we had a nice brainstorming session in the highly-overpriced atmosphere of Starbucks, and came up with an intriguing idea.

The bad news is that a few hours later, we got an e-mail from the programmer saying that he was going to have to back out. The problem is that while he could pick up the code, it would be the 4th code set that he would be juggling at the time, and since he programs on a PC, he wasn’t keen on installed Mac OS just for iPhone development.

So, the options now are:

1) Change the platform from iPhone to Flash. I have no issue with this, but since the artist was the one who started this whole thing in the first place, I would want him to make the call.
2) Continue the search for a iPhone programmer who would be willing to, basically, work for free. Which is not that difficult, but I suspect that finding programmers in this sense is just like finding roomies through Craigslist — it’s a total crapshoot.

Either way, the programmer and I were already talking about collaborating on another project, and since I’m not employed at the moment, it’s easy for me to load up on projects. The sad thing is that I was actually getting interested in the game idea, and while the artist and I can carry it forward, it would be sad to do so without the programmer.

I think I’ll ping the artist tomorrow and let him know that regardless, I’ll spec out the game idea, and we can make a decision in terms of staying with the iPhone platform or moving to Flash.

Regardless, it’s something of a bummer.

The Death of Geocities

I normally am not a big fan of Pollak’s work, but I got a kick out of his take on the apparent demise of GeoCities. It brings me back to the days of Netscape, gray backgrounds, and learning HTML by looking at the source code of other sites and reverse engineering what they did.

Not as cool as it looks

Back in 2007, I was hit by a car because I was foolish enough to assume that the driver would:

1. Yield to a Pedestration in the crosswalk
2. Not attempt an illegal turn on red, and…
3. Spend .5 seconds to actually look to see if the coast was clear

So I got to hobble around on crutches for a while, and learn new meanings of pain that I had not known existed. Turning this time, I decided to put a photo I had to take of myself for insurance purposes to some good use by doing a quick satire of the iPod marketing campaign.

I did not send in this particular image to the insurance company, but now that I think about it, maybe that was a mistake.