Look what the Matt dragged in...

Found out about FoxyTunes.com today via Twitter and Matt Paddock. Cool site... with a lot of great artists, including...

They Might Be Giants

They Might Be Giants (commonly abbreviated to TMBG) is an American pop/rock duo consisting of John Linnell and John Flansburgh, collectively known as "the two Johns" or "John and John". Known for their experimental / pop music, they have been popular on college campuses and earned a reputation as "intellectual rock" or "nerd rock." The band has maintained a loyal following over its 20+ years of existence, enough that fans rushed an online poll and got John Linnell voted one of People Magazine's "Most Beautiful People" in 1998 . more...

[via FoxyTunes / They Might Be Giants]

...who give one of the best live performances I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. Awesome artists and awesome performers.

Merry Christmas, Check! Fiery Inferno in Kitchen, Check!

While having three inches of snow destroy our new outdoor canopy or having a hurricane knock down approximately half of the trees in our neighborhood really would have been enough excitement in 2008, we had the (mis)fortune of managing to have a reasonably sized grease fire in the kitchen this past weekend.

We were having a holiday get-together, with Kamber O' Blythe, Ravebaby, J.R.Nip, Psibabe and myself (Geck0) all chillin' at the GameVorplex. I made a stack of funnel cakes for the crew, but Kamber and Ravebaby had to run out on an errand, leaving us to eat their funnel cakes. When they returned, Psibabe started the oil for me to make some more and informed me, but I had told her I didn't want to make any more, not to bother. She didn't hear that and began playing Tomb Raider: Underworld for review. When I came out of the office, J.R.Nip was trying to help her work through a puzzle, and I sat down to help them figure out where to go next.

A couple of minute later, Psibabe said it smelled like something was burning and realized it must be the oil. When we rounded the corner into the kitchen, it was not just burning, but flaming at least a foot in the air. It wasn't just oil, it was a LOT of oil. You deep fry funnel cakes. It would take a while for the oil to burn off.

A lot of things run through your head when you find yourself, suddenly, staring at a lot of hot flame. In your house. The first thought, of course, is oh-my-God-that's-not-supposed-to-be-there. Then, you start trying to think of ways that you might put it out. My immediate thought was that I could post a question on Yahoo Answers and in three days, I should have a good answer. Of course, my immediate realization was that I would probably need to find an answer a lot QUICKER than three days. Minutes would be nice. I also thought about running to the office and looking it up on Google, but I decided that, as quick as I am at searching for things, I needed to figure something out then and there. Someone suggested a fire extinguisher... which would be a good idea... if we knew where it was and if it was the right type for grease fires. Of course, we didn't, and I'm pretty sure it isn't.

Something then occurred to me that I had learned from watching the special features of some movie: there are two white powdery substances commonly found in a kitchen. Flour and Baking Soda. One of them will put out the fire, the other will burn quickly when aerated and, so, will cause a fiery flash, making things worse. At the time, I couldn't think of which was which. FOR THOSE WHO NEED TO KNOW: BAKING SODA CAN BE USED TO PUT OUT BURNING OIL.

The very next thing that occurred to me wasn't how to put out the fire. It was exactly how much the three of us, all intelligent, level-minded adults, reminded me of The Sims when they have their cooking mishaps. We were, for all intents and purposes, waving our hands around and jogging in place, much like The Sims do. I've always thought that The Sims reduced life to something that can be looked at with a passing glance, but I had hoped that the reaction to a kitchen fire was more exaggerated than it evidently is.

Other suggestions were thrown in by the others and I had thought of a couple, myself. Throw water on it... no, that would be BAD. Throw ice on it? No, Ice is water, too. Put a wet towel over it? Well, that's still water, and if the heat steams off the water quick enough, we have a flaming towel. Too risky. I thought about putting it in the oven and letting it consume all of the air, I mean, hey - the oven's designed for high temps. The only reason I didn't do that one is because I wasn't sure how air-tight the oven was or just how hot that oil was burning... and I was rapidly getting to the point I was going to try it, anyway. I was later told that doing so could have destroyed the wiring in the oven, but it would have been a way to stop the fire from spreading and contain the smoke, so even looking back, that would have been my preferred solution, after fire extinguisher and baking soda. The other thought I had, and the one I was ready to go with, was to get the biggest, deepest pot we had (preferably over a foot in depth), dump the flaming mess into it and carefully, yet quickly, escort it out of the house and into the back yard.

However, before I could put this plan into action (before I could remember where the big pot was kept), J.R.Nip decides to be the hero. He grabs the skillet of flames and turns to run out the back door, which he had opened earlier to vent the smoke. This could have been a great idea. I had wanted to do much the same thing, except with higher walls on the pot, so liquid fire wouldn't fall onto anything. The only problems were that there was a large dining room table in his path. And carpet. And the fact that he's typically pretty clumsy. That would be why Psibabe shrieked when she saw that he was going to make the attempt. He instantly aborted his heroic attempt and went to return the flames to the stove top, but the sudden change in direction caused some of the flaming oil to spill to the ground... and his awaiting bare feet. The fallen fire quenched instantly, but it goes without saying that it was still very, very, very hot oil.

With the pan back on the stove and half of the grease out of the way, the flames had died down a bit, so we went with my larger-pot-and-rush-out-the-back-door plan. The flames died out and, currently, the pot is still out there.

We rushed J.R. to the Urgent Care facility and a mere hour and fifteen minutes after burning his foot, he got medical treatment. He says it only hurts when he puts pressure on it, now, but the blisters are... the stuff of horror-films. With luck, it should heal with very little scarring, if any, but it's too early to tell for now.

It was an eventful Saturday... the kind that makes me remember an old Chinese curse, "May your live in interesting times."

Long Time, No Posts...

Well, life has done it again; distracted me with all of the general stuff and kept me from posting to this blog. Since I last posted, I've cut down half of a tree for my Mother-in-law, replaced a large section of my fence and worked with my team at work to win the Halloween trophies for Best Decorations and Best Food.

I have also been swamped with things to review, both in games and movies. Currently, I'm trying to get the GameVor'Plex in shape for Thanksgiving, which means clearing the floors so that our new Roomba can ferret about doing our dirty work and then cleaning everything besides the floor.

As before, I will try to post more frequently, if only so I can refer back to this to try to remember what in the heck I've been up to.

Till next time...

oO , oO, oO, oO, stayin' alive, stayin' alive...

I seem to have weathered the storms, but, in the process, ended up under the weather, myself.

We had to tie everything down for Hurricane Gustav's arrival, and then cross our fingers and watch the news intently for Hurricane Ike's passing. Baton Rouge got some heavy winds and rain and even lost some street lights - and Ike didn't even hit us. That storm was massive. At one point, I remember hearing the reporter on the radio say that it was dropping rain as far north as Mississippi and as far south as Cancun, Mexico. That's HUGE.

Luckily, the GameVorplex didn't take any damage. We were out of power, cable and, therefore, touch for a while, but the only threat of property damage hangs in the balance in the form of a huge branch that is broken and hanging over my office. For the moment, I can't find a way to get up to the limb to remove it (30 feet up), so JRNip and I used several ropes to secure it in place, Spidey-style. Hopefully, that will catch the limb or slow it down sufficiently if I can't get someone out to take care of the limb before it falls.

We did, however, lose some fish to the storms. My beautiful blue Betta, Dudey, had a recurrence of "velvet," but due to lighting conditions, I didn't realize that it had returned until too late. I started an antibiotic treatment, but it was too late. Also among the lost was a new small blue fish that we assume Fluff ate when it actually got completely dark when the power was out (you see, he is a nocturnal predator and the other fish, well, wasn't) and our beloved lawnmower blenny, Milton, who did a great job of keeping the tanks clean for so long, but was found one day after the storm, missing his head. We're not sure if the decapitation was causal or postmortem, but we will miss him. Without electricity to keep the tanks cooled during the day, the temperature will rise in the house during the day and will raise the temp in the tanks, as well. With increased temperature comes increased aggression, in fish, just as in people. Think about that next time it's a hot summer and you're biting someone's head off.

Battening down the hatches...

So it's been a while since we've really had a bad hurricane barrel right down on us. The last one that affected me was Katrina, although I was lucky; Rita did a good bit of damage that same year.

Now, it looks like Mother Nature may just be making up for lost time. Hurricane Gustav is headed straight for us with all of the computer models in general consensus that it's not turning until after it's made landfall. And, it's not a small, wimpy storm; it's currently a Category 4 storm, and it's waltzing through the Gulf, which gives it the opportunity to gain strength before its arrival, which, according to the forecasts, is due to mess my life up this Monday. Happy Labor day! I brought you some rain and wind! Ug.

As if that wasn't bad enough, it looks like Gustav has a girlfriend that may be showing up to the party, albeit a few days later. Hanna is currently a tropical storm, but it appears that she is making a bee-line towards the Gulf of Mexico. I am personally hoping that either she changes course or Florida knocks the wind (and rain) out of her. We really don't need a couple of hurricanes within a week of each other. That's just poor scheduling.

For anyone who was afraid that I might climb up a tree and cut my limbs off, I wasn't able to go into Harahan, due to traffic from people evacuating. Hopefully the tree won't fall into my Mother-in-Law's house before I can get down there and remove it. I did, however, spend all day today and yesterday preparing my house and my neighbor J.R. Nip's house for the coming hurricane. I had to round up all of the small things that were outside and put them in storage, and take all of the larger things, such as outside furniture, and put them all close together in my carport and cable them all together so they won't go flying out of my yard. Will that work? I dunno... it worked last time, but time will tell. I have about one more day of preparation and about one more day before it hits, so it should work out. I'm also trying to get as much of my reviews and other site work done while I still have power and Internet access, as these become scarce commodities when a hurricane hits.

Until later, this is the Geck0, signing off.

Appending to event functions in javascript

So, Google Answers is a Google Product (feature?) that has come and gone, evidently. I was looking up some information on how to do something specific with JavaScript and Googled into a JavaScript question that someone had posted, asking how to go about "Appending to event functions in javascript".

Well, this was not what I was doing, specifically, but along the same vein of what I was looking into. Anyway, I was sad to see that I knew the answer and yet, with Google Answers closed down, I wasn't able to post a response, even though no one had answered the question.

Anyway, I am posting a code snippet below for anyone who is interested in adding javascript function calls (or, for that matter, other javascript executable statements) to the document.body.onload after the page has started loading.

This comes with no guarantee or warranty, but may be fun to play around with. Please note that the alert that says "This fires first" fires ON LOAD, as do the others, but it fires before the "page has loaded" alert, because it is being PREpended to the top of the list of things to do on load. This allows you to include something later in the file that needs to be done before other things. Using this same concept, one could build a more elaborate set of functions that allow you to insert statements into the list of statements to be executed in a specific, desired order, sort the statements in some fashion or specifically delete or modify a single statement, but I don't know if that would really serve any true purpose. This is more of an academic exercise.

The code:

<html>
<head>
<title>Changing Onload via JavaScript</title>
<script>
function onload1()
{
 alert("page has loaded");
}
function addedFunction()
{
 alert("Added Function successfully");
}

function prependOnload(statement)
{
 insertOnload(statement, true);
}
function appendOnload(statement)
{
 insertOnload(statement, false);
}
function insertOnload(statement, isPrepend)
{
 var oldOnload = document.body.onload+"";
 var startOfOldStatements = oldOnload.indexOf("{")+1;
 var endOfOldStatements = oldOnload.lastIndexOf("}")-1;
 var instructions = oldOnload.substring(
            startOfOldStatements, endOfOldStatements);
 var newOnload = (isPrepend)?
     (statement+instructions):(instructions+statement);

 newOnload = new Function(newOnload);
 document.body.onload = newOnload;

}

</script>

</head>
<body onload="onload1();">
<script>
 appendOnload("addedFunction();");
 prependOnload("alert('This fires first');");
</script>
</body>
</html>

Notes on the code:
The main work-horse here is insertOnload(). The first thing it does is gets the current value of onload as it stands. This is a function, not a string, so in order to manipulate it, we have to force a cast to string, hence the +""... add a string to something and it becomes a string. Sneaky, no?

With the contents in a string form, we then peel off the function definition, leaving us with a list of instructions (again, as a big ole chunk of text). We can easily either add our new statement to the beginning (statement+instructions) or to the end (instructions+statement).

Now that we have the statements that we want executed, we have to create a new Function containing this new list and then assign it to document.body.onload and we're done.

Gustav, the unwelcomed caller...

...Then I'll huff and I'll puff and...

Well, we've managed to dodge the bullets pretty well since Katrina ripped New Orleans so badly. Unfortunately, Tropical Storm Gustav is looking like he wants to go to Louisiana when he grows up...

...and they grow up so fast, these days.

Where does that leave me? Well, hoping that the storm is small, waving my hands in the hopes of shooing it to one of our neighboring states, stocking up on batteries and canned goods that taste good cold (yum... green bean salad) and planning a trip to scale and cut down (from the top-down) a tree in my Mother-in-law's back yard.

Yup, these sort of things end up my responsibility, as they are no one else's, yet must be done. So, I have a brand-new Ryobi rechargeable chainsaw, a protective hat with a visor, some rope to help pull limbs and tree parts away from me and I'll be renting an extension ladder to do the job. It's looking like it's going to be Friday or Saturday, weather permitting.

If you never hear from me again... well, it might be that I'm bad about updating blogs.

Until later, this geck0 has to prepare to climb a tree.

I want your vote...

...to count. I really do.

I know that people say that the kids today are just too darn apathetic to get out and vote. I think the problem is that people thing that their votes don't count. Or, more specifically, I feel that people would vote if they could vote their mind when they actually make the effort to head to the polls.

The problem with the voting system, as I see it, is that you can only vote FOR someone. That's great if there is a candidate who sees the world the way you see it. However, more often than not, it's not a matter of strolling to the polls to vote FOR the candidate you want to see in office; it's trying desperately to choose between two people you wouldn't let babysit for you and wouldn't trust to balance your checkbook.

When it comes right down to it, I think a lot more people would actually get out and vote if they could say, "I DON'T want this person in office," even if that was all they put on their ballot. In essence, a vote against one candidate is a vote for all of the other candidates, but not with the full weight of a vote.

If there is a candidate or candidates you would like to see in office, you should be able to vote for them. If there are others you don't want to see in office, you should be able to vote against them. If there are candidates you don't feel strongly about either way, simply don't vote either way for them.

Our technology has come a long way since this country was founded, and it seems to be that we should be able to count the ballots just as easily using this method of voting as the current way. It's more data, but it better captures the will of the people. If anyone else out there is concerned with the fact that we are electing presidents into office and they are subsequently having unbelievably low approval ratings, then let's change the voting system so that negative opinions are taken into considerations before the candidates are elected.

I honestly don't understand why this is not the way we vote for candidates already.

Blogger me this...

So, today's task is to make a "Label Cloud" for use on this blog and on the "Backstage at GameVortex" blog. I am rather surprised that there's not already one out there. I'm basically trying to reproduce the old familiar "Tag Cloud" look, but using the blog's labels instead of reader-assigned tags.

I suppose the work will come in handy, as I am considering adding a "Tag" system and a "Tag Cloud" to GameVortex and, perhaps, PSillustrated and I'll need to know how to create these from scratch, I would assume. Unless there's a really generic "tagging" system out there. Hmm... that might be worth looking into, actually.

Anyway, I am finding the gadgets (or widgets) for Blogger to be rather limited and stubborn to deal with. The problem seems to come with wanting to have access to the blog page's data and wanting to be able to work with the data in any real way. What I need to be able to do is determine the minimum and maximum values for data:label.count, but my attempts to pass them into a javascript function or set up a variable and set it while looping through the items seems thwarted at every turn.

So, in the mean time, I've basically hard-coded a version. I'm certainly not happy with it, but at least it's something that proves the idea for now.

GameVortex: Collector's Edition ?!?

So, I've decided to "compartmentalize" a little bit.

Originally, I had planned to blog pretty much whatever here, including the extra stuff that doesn't make it into my reviews or other content on GameVortex and PSillustrated. While that's still pretty much the plan, I just made a separate blog, "Backstage at GameVortex," that's specifically for offering a "behind the scenes" look at GameVortex.

To this end, I have just finished moving three posts that were labelled 'Content "Making of"' to the other blog and, in the future, will be posting those there. Hopefully, other reviewers will also make use of this ne blog. I think it could be a cool way for our readers to get to know us better.

Aquatic Calamity

I like fish. I like to watch fish go about there activities, interacting with each other and exploring their environment and so forth. I find it peaceful and relaxing.

My wife and I maintain two 55 gallon marine aquariums in our home, as well as a 90 gallon pond in the back yard. Additionally, we have a 10 gallon freshwater tank on the bar area to rehabilitate one of the pond fish who had a falling out with the others. Finally, I have a small "executive" aquarium for a blue Betta fish named "Dudey," who recently came down with velvet and I've moved him home so that I can better control his environment and properly treat him.

Which leads me to my topic. We have had the worst time with disastrous "events" with our pets this year, especially our fish, but it actually goes beyond that; one of our outside cats was attacked in our yard by a dog from down the street... and that neighbor is beyond negotiation and animal control can't do anything unless we basically gift-wrap the dog for them.

Anyway, when we came back from our Gatlinburg trip, one of our pond fish, "Lucky," who, to that point, I was sure was the luckiest fish in the world, was dead, without any obvious cause of death. I got this fish from a coworker who couldn't keep it. He had been experiencing fish loss in his small pond in his back yard. They weren't turning up dead, they were simply not there anymore. Then, one day, he sees a snake slithering away from his pond with a lump in it. He kills the snake, slits it open and out comes Lucky, none the worse for wear. That's where the legend began, but since that time he outlived his pond mates in two locations and survived a mishap in our pond where all of the water got pumped out and the bottom floated up, causing the pond to become wrinkled and malformed. One of the smaller fish that my wife loved died in that event, but Lucky lived through it, swimming in place in an area that had less than an inch of clearance around him. And he was nearly a foot, nose to tail-tip. He was an amazing fish. And I don't even know what happened to him. JRNip was watching our house for us and said he had seen him the afternoon before we got home and he was fine.

We have one porcupine puffer in each of our two 55 gallon marine tanks, and a lawnmower blenny in each to help clean the tank. Well, as far as we can determine, one of those blennies apparently went after a piece of food that the puffer was going after and got the business end of a poisoned spine. We assume that, since his mouth swelled up and wouldn't close and his head turned dark in coloration. He was unable to eat for a few days, but we took care of him to the best of our ability in a hospital tank and after about a week, he was good enough to return to the marine tank.

This same hospital tank is now occupied by my fish-away-from-home, Dudey. I'm dosing him with Maricyn 2, keeping his temperature constant and slightly elevated, and covering the tank with a black T-shirt to slow the growth of the velvet.

Additionally, my wife's porcupine puffer was acting all sick and lethargic yesterday. I was trying to determine if he was trying to look pale so he could blend in with the sand to better prey on the new little blue fish we added to the tank or if he was sad or in pain or what. (Puffers are smart... that's the problem with smart fish... they can actually get upset or even mad at you and behave strangely based on that. When we first separated the male from the female to give them each a larger tank, he pouted and pined for her for a week, until we put him in a small tank next to the female's tank for a few hours so he could see that she was still around and then moved him over the course of a couple of hours back to his tank, a few feet at a time and then 15 minutes between moves. After that, he was cheery again.)

Luckily, after a couple of hours, the male puffer seemed to be over whatever the issue was, so perhaps it was something he ate. I just wish that fish would all get better and stay that way. I suppose we've been fairly lucky up until this point; we would have the occasional emergency, but they were never stacked up on top of each other all at the same time. Hopefully they'll soon get back to a sense of normalcy. I'm hoping so, because just the maintenance on four aquariums and a pond is a lot of work and it's mostly heavy lifting, so it's pretty much up to me. I get to clean the pond filter this weekend, by the way. (yay.)

Whoa... How long was I out?!

I would like to say something here about how I simply stepped away from the Internet for a few years, just as a sad attempt at humor, but since I just got back from a recent trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee in which I had virtually no Internet access, it somehow seems like something I'd rather not even joke about.

The truth of the matter is that I've been busy, busy, busy attending to a lot of other things, far from the least of which being working on GameVortex.com. For one thing, my darling bride has not been able to keep the sites running up to the level they used to since her New Beetle was rear-ended by a couple of 18-wheelers (yes, she lived and yes, we still have the car... three cheers for German engineering). Since she's operating at a slower pace these days, its been up to JRNip and myself to try to automate and streamline processes to take up the slack.

In addition, Google changed all the rules "while I was out," requiring us to scramble to change the way we do things so that our pages were actually indexed in Google. That, however, is another story... for another post... or perhaps a book.