Lee Newton

Been watching supernatural for the first time this season, really loving the humor of the show. Anyway, tonight’s episode features a wishing well that grants anyone’s wish. Results in a hilarious moment with a bullied kid tossing a car around screaming “kneel before Todd!”. Get it? I almost pissed myself laughing.

I don’t know what to say, this is either powerfully cheesey or incredibly cool. I’m about as far from the standard definition of the quintessential queer as you can get, but something about this yanks at that sluggish fab gene I know is lurking somewhere in my cells.

Why the hell did I buy this game? I confess I’m surprised to find myself enjoying it, and if you’re prepared for a bit of a ramble… I’ll explain. I first encountered Bethesda when I played Morrowind, the 3rd release in the Elder Scrolls franchise. I played the game fairly extensively, entranced at the time by the pretty pixel shaded water, but I don’t remember ever ‘finishing’ it. I never did feel the game really resonated with me. I went on to play Oblivion for an even shorter period of time. For whatever reason the two games just failed to really grab and maintain my attention. Too much freedom in a game world not realized sufficiently to merit said freedom? Perhaps that was it… maybe my ability to truly invest myself in an RPG has atrophied over time, replaced by the instant gratification of racing simulators and other pursuits less demanding of my time.

So why am I finding myself drawn to playing Fallout 3?  I was (stupidly) a little surprised to load the game up for the first time and discover it is essentially Oblivion with a fresh coat of paint and some tweaked game systems. Doh! I guess I was expecting a bit more of a ground up development for the resurrection of a beloved franchise. I cringed at this realization yet soldiered on with the creation of my character. A process which has been plucked directly from Bethesda’s previous titles.

While I was creating my character two things dawned on me.

1. I’m horribly jaded.
2. Gamers desperately need a new genre of video game.

I’ll save a discussion regarding the festering rotting state of genres in the game industry for another time and focus on my woeful state as a disallusioned gamer. So yes I’ve played the same RPG game with a different name more times than I care to count. Same goes for FPS, RTS, TBS, etc, etc.

This guaranteed sense of familiarity with any new game I play is a wasting illness I’ve been suffering for too long. It’s never really occurred to me before, but novelty has been such a driving force in my ability to immerse myself in a game. Robbed of any real novelty in game mechanics, I’m forced to rely on the presentation and the story to transport me to immersion land (video game stories don’t wow me very often). Fallout 3 is the first RPG title I’ve come across in a long time that can overcome the “been there, done that” feeling of its engine and interface to immerse me in an environment I find myself wanting to return to again and again. I guess if I want to continue enjoying the genres I used to be so drawn to I’ll have to make some changes. I’ll have to learn to embrace the sameness I’ve almost come to despise and learn to extract more enjoyment from what makes each video game unique, the story it’s trying to tell.

Seriously it’s a great night for tips from the drunk boys and we’re sitting here for 20 minutes without a hello

Out on the town drinking, where’s my food?

I’m attending wordcamp toronto this weekend. My first time at one of these events, and what I’m surprised by is the number of people who say they’d be really interested to see me blog about my job at b5media. Optimizing wordpress is the big thing. I guess I’ve always figured all this information is readily available generically on the web, but it’s been brought to my attention that retargetting some of this information at wordpress installations would be well received. To that end I’ll be putting together a series of posts regarding basic wordpress optimization, and scaling considerations. Look for them soon!

So Jason and I are dog sitting for some friends while they are away for the weekend. I love these times because not only are their German Shepherds a joy to be around, they have a barbeque and we do not. This is the sacrifice we made in moving to Toronto and choosing to live in a high rise. Relocating is on the horizon as Jason has recently accepted a new job, and after he’s settled in and past the 3 month probationary period, we’ll be in a good position to choose a new place in the city to live… one with access to or provisions for the owning of a bbq, but I digress.

This evening I took my first crack at barbequing with cedar planks. I’m in love and this is definitely going to be a repeat performance. As soon as I can manage it I’ll be gathering together a group of friends and reproducing what I pulled off tonight.  (If you can’t tell, I’m rather proud of the results).
We bought a couple of beautiful rib steaks, you know those little mini roasts held together with two wraps of butcher’s twine, easily my favorite cut. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about some sort of coffee based marinade for some time, and what follows is what I threw together after a trip to the local grocer’s this afternoon.

Things you’ll need:

1. Cedar plank (you can get this at the grocery, or ask for an untreated piece from your building supply store). You’ll need to soak this, completely submerged in water for at least 4 hours
2. A couple of 2″ thick rib steaks that turn your crank
3. Smoked Pancetta (enough to line the bottom of a small frying pan)
4. Green onions
5. Crushed garlic
6. Minced ginger
7. Red or white wine vinegar
8. Coffee liquor (I used Starbucks)
9. Sesame oil

Alright so the first thing you’ll notice is I’ve included no measurements, sorry I just don’t operate that way. I started by slicing a nice piece of smoked pancetta into 1/4″ thick slices, and rendering it down in a smallish frying pan. While that was taking care of itself I took 3 stalks of green onion and diced them up, including a good portion of the greens.
Once the bacon has cooked down to a nice golden brown, toss in the onion, and follow up with either a clove of crushed garlic and a 2 teaspoons of minced ginger or do what I did and buy a couple of those packs of frozen cubed herby dealys and use 1 cube each of ginger and garlic. Stir this around until the onions have carmelized a bit, then pour in about 1/2 cup of coffee liquor. Let this reduce for a bit then add a couple of table spoons of wine vinegar. Stir again then allow to cool.
Place the steaks in individual zip lock bags, I find the small ones are just big enough to hold one of these steaks with enough room left over for some of the marinade mixture. Pour the marinade mixture into each bag, the close and place in the fridge for serveral hours or overnight.
When you’re ready to grill, heat the bbq up to about 500 degrees. Pull the steaks from the zip lock bags and pat them and the cedar plank dry with some paper towel. Brush some sesame oil on the plank and steaks, arrange the steaks on the plank, and place on the bbq grill, near the front.
Cook for 10-15 minutes a side, then place them directly on the grill for a minute a side to bring back some color.

Enjoy!

Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo

Thanks to Mark Jacquith for passing this link around. Check the HD version here. I’m loving the onset of more and more HD steaming video, and these two guys throwing themselves down a mountain on skateboards is a pretty good use of it. Definitely check this out!

So I didn’t get a lot of chance to blog during the whole affair, and the week after as we cleaned everything up. Was pretty strung out by the end However it feels great to be up and running smoothly in our new home, Serverbeach. There’s been a hiccup or two, but mostly painless.

The path is set now for our migration to wpMU, and I’m spending most of the admin portion of my day fleshing out cacti and nagios. Why oh why didn’t I make the leap to cacti from mrtg sooner? I think I’m falling in love with this product. Nagios lacks a certain flare, but it’s functional and dependable, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what it’s capable of.

More to come!