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Went to see Unbreakable the other night. It was awesome! If you have ever been a fan of comic books, this is a must see movie. It was beautiful from beginning to end. Don't listen to the nay sayers. Find out for yourself. Awesome!

Got my bonus, went shopping and all I bought was a lamp for the front porch. I am definately in need of something but lord knows what it is.

Laters --Jeff
posted by Jeff Gatlin at 11/30/2000 10:34:00 PM

Something is Broken

If you haven't noticed, the date showing the last update on the main Mooville page is broken. For some reason, the folder date is not getting updated when a file in that folder is changed. That's why it appears that my page and Steph's page hasn't been updated in awhile. Investigations with the odd tech problem have begun.
posted by Jeff Gatlin at 11/28/2000 10:30:00 AM

Inspiration

While hanging out at the bowling alley with friends, I came up with an idea for a game. It's not a (fingers curled in air)"Massively multiplayer role playing game" (btw isn't it time someone came up with a better name for that?) and it's not any of the other pidgeon holes made for describing games. It's just a game and the next time I mention it, it will be done and playable.

I finally got around to adding a wish list link to my wish list on Amazon. It's stuff with a mix of expensive junk (cause there's a contest to win your wish list at Amazon) and more reasonable stuff. There's not a useless thing on it! ;)

Whatever more I had to say did not survive till end end of this entry. Later. --Jeff
posted by Jeff Gatlin at 11/27/2000 10:11:00 AM

Fun, Friends and the Grey

Spent an enjoyable evening with friends on Thanksgiving. Special thanks to Melissa for opening her domocile to the tromping of many! Thanks to everyone who brought food and stuff. It was all great! I even managed to contribute with a dish I shall call Jeff's Pecan Bourbon Yams (i'm sooo creative). I claim the recipe as mine since I modified the original recipe (from the net) by way of extra ingrediants and some substitution. For those that are interested, the recipe is below after I jabber a bit more.

Played some new game called Acquire or something. Kind of a business stock building selling options thinger. It was pretty cool. According to Suz and Bruce, the session we played went completely different than other sessions. This was likely because 3 of us (Johnny, Russ and myself) were all newcomers to the game. Glad I could help bring some variety into the mix.

Spent most of Friday playing NFL2k1. I've managed to take the Rams thru a 12-4-0 season so far. Aside from football, I also played some Thief 2, killed a couple of dwarves in EQ (I hop in and do this once a month or so to see if I still am bored with it. Mostly I am still bored.) Also watched a rather amazing anime, Ninja Scroll. They had some of the coolest bad guys I've ever seen. Very original talents. Great show alltogether.

Steph's outa town so you might think when the Steph is away, the mice will play but it's really more like When the Steph is away, the world seems grey. It's odd cause I've spent the day doing lots of stuff but its just not right without her wailing at me for saying the wrong thing or hearing her laughing for no reason I can fathom cause she's on the other side of the house. Ah well, maybe she will chastise me on her site for being a whiney goob.

Enough whining Louis, on to the recipe!

Jeff's Pecan Bourbon Yams

1 big ass can of yams (the one about the size of one of those HI-C cans. If yer not sure, just set the can in front of you. If it doesn't look tall, that isn't it.)

1 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup butter (the real stuff)

1/2 cup bourbon (preferrably from Kentucky, at least 7 years old)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (bonus if you have some from Mexico)

1 cup chopped or crushed pecans

Optional: 2 cups mini marshmellows.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pour yams into a baking dish. It should be big enough so that all yams are on the same level (no piling).

Combine butter, bourbon, brown sugar and vanilla extract in a sauce pan. Stir and heat till boiling. Add in pecans and stir for about a minute. (Don't let it boil too much else we move into a new realm of science).

Pour the sauce over the yams.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes till yams are soft.

Optional: 15 minutes before yams finish baking, pour marshmellows on top and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes. This part varies so ya gotta watch em. If you prefer your marshmellows more marshy, cook em less. The longer you cook em the more chance they either 1. burn or 2. dissolve. Their still pretty good either way.

posted by Jeff Gatlin at 11/25/2000 01:42:00 AM

The Question Mark

What makes people fight for their dreams? What makes people give them up?

I watched an anime last night called Kite (that's kee tay for you string pullers). It was ok. Violent, the usual juvenile artist fascination with a girl's lower half, and a fair demonstration on how vigilanties are usually no better than those they kill. Anyway, the best part was this one bodyguard. You didn't really like the guy, after all he was trying to kill the heroine (who is the shows most sympathetic character) but you have to respect him. He was shot, kicked, beat up and bleeding and he simply refused to die. He kept getting back up and trying again, refusing to accept defeat. Ya gotta respect that.

Of course, his final solution was to grab the heroine and jump out of a 10 story building. Dramatic but short sighted. When your near the end of the game, never let spite call the plays.

----------

On the Dreamcast front, although I have managed to get the thing online, I have not manage to play NFL2k1 online. My last attempts informed me that it could not find the server. What I am not certain of is, could it not find the server because the server was actually down like it suggested, or because something about my connection setup isn't happy. The battle continues...
posted by Jeff Gatlin at 11/21/2000 09:55:00 AM

Dreamcast Lovin

I had this entire entry written in with my Dreamcast. HAD is the keyword. After I wrote it, pressed the wrong link and lost everything, then rewrote it and carefully moved the screen back up to the Post button, I click post and it says THERE IS NOTHING TO POST!. My entry stays on the screen mocking me but my Dreamcast browser apparently doesnt support the fancy javascript thing that allows the post to work. Lesson learned: Test functionality with a short sentence, get verbose later.

So for the third time (first for all you readers), I have spent the last two weekends installing and reinstalling Linux so that I can use my Dreamcast with my existing DSL setup. SOmehow I kept messing up my install, breaking the mouse or trashing the browser or some damn thing. Finally I got it installed to my satisfaction. Then I configured this and that for a couple of hours and leaned back for my first attempt to get the Dreamcast online... and it worked the first time!

My attempt happily connected and loaded up the Sega Dreamcast website. Way cool.

The Internet on a Dreamcast is a brave new world. Everything is slow (The DSL is piped through a 28.8 modem to make it all work), big cause there aint no such thing as high res and console hooked up to TV, and way far away from the cutting edge (cause Dreamcast doesnt support any of the latest versions of anything).

All it's got is web browser (HTML 3.2) and IRC client. The IRC client does at least work with all IRC servers( ok I just tried two of them but confidence is high). Sadly, I could not trick the IRC client into working with GemStone III, but I am certain something will come along to give me another shot at it. Ya don't spend two weekends installing and configuring linux and give up that easily!

Ok my fingers are tired from typing this entry three times. This better work. --Jeff
posted by Jeff Gatlin at 11/19/2000 09:15:00 PM

Publish dang it!
posted by Jeff Gatlin at 11/17/2000 07:24:00 PM

Leisurely Update

I've been avoiding the casual updates due to laziness. So in the interest of not being lazy, here is a casual update.

As a side project of my recent Dreamcast purchase, I have been trying to get the Dreamcast hooked up online, without having to get a dialup ISP. Currently the Dreamcast can only connect by the 56k modem that comes built in. There is an Ethernet adapter being made for it, but that won't be available till late December or January. Well I'm not one for waiting.

So I've been trying to rig up a setup that allows me to directly hook up the Dreamcast modem to a PC modem to connect to my PC, then allow it to share my PC's DSL connection.

Windows 2k has this ability. SO after installing it on my PC, I find that the documentation for dialup ppp is sparse, and the one article I had with pictures and everything, is inaccurate. Either I don't have some part of the needed software or the guy was using some wonko version of Win2k. IN any case, even when I did manage to get a dialup connection installed in a fashion, I had no way to send a signal to the modem to make it send a RING signal that tells Win2k to send the answer the phone string to the modem. Bummer.

So, I installed Linux Mandrake on my machine because I know I can force the modem to answer with a single command. But my install refused to identify my network card (or so I thought). After two or three failed installs and many a day, I finally discovered it was indeed installing the correct network card drivers, but it was setting them up on Eth1. Eth0 was some other damn thing I have no idea what, but all the internet stuff was trying to use Eth0 while the driver was hiding on Eth1. I fixed this puppy and wala, Internet.

Right now I'm in a several day configuring process. Basically I read HOWTO's change settings etc... till I'm blue in the face or just too tired to keep fiddling. I also get sidetracked by installing Netscape 6.0 (instead of the inferior netscape 4.71 which can't do the right fonts). All kinds of problems though. The install went fine but I then had both versions of Netscape and all the extras that I would install went to the older version instead of the newer.

Managed to get sound working without doing anything. It just worked which was a miracle considering I have an SB Live.

Next up is seeing if I can get the dialup part workin. WIll advise, this ramble has gone on too long. --Jeff
posted by Jeff Gatlin at 11/17/2000 10:59:00 AM

Sports Geek... uh what?

Hi. My name is Jeff Gatlin... and I am a 'gotta-haveit-now-aholic'. I've bought many a device, usually studying up on them, working upa nice froth until something occurs that causes me to go into a 'must have' frenzy. It's an internal thing, so aside from some a few extra sentences or other gabbing about the object of my desire, you wouldn't notice I'm frothing. When the froth reaches it's highest point of intensity, only two possible outcomes occur. I head out and buy the fancy shiny object, or I head and to buy it and by some miracle talk myself out of it, usually walking away empty handed, dejected and slightly irked. But it's the aftermath that is the scary part. When I do make the purchase, it's often with limited funds. This most often results in many a meal of mac n Cheese, chicken soup or other cabinet delights. I scrounge up quarters and head to the Box for a nutritious 99 cent chicken sandwich. I suffer drinking water instead of soda. Whoa is me. (you may blow your favorite rasberry at this time)

So blah blah blah, I know I'm stupid, I'm working my way out of the hole I dug, It's a slow climb and I am sticking to it and in the meantime I still make frivilous badly timed purchases. Perhaps I'll justify my illness in the future when I am making 'gotta-haveit' purchases of blue-jeans and school supplies for my future kids.

In the meantime, I have made my bed and am sleeping in it. But when I'm awake, I'm playing NFL2k1 on a shiny Dreamcast. That's right, Jeff, you know, the guy who doesn't follow sports, could care less who wins what, doesn't even know the names of his local teams, is totally hooked on a sports game.

I've got a friend who is a total sports game nut (Yo Keefer). I always found them a bit boring. But NFL2k1 has broken the veil! For those who haven't played it, just imagine your watchin a football game on tv. That's what NFL2k1 is like except that your calling the plays and guiding the players during the show. It is a total blast!

The best part was I was totally kicking ass, winning against the computer all day Saturday. I was football king! Then Sunday, I discovered the difficulty settings, switched it from default Rookie to Pro. And now it's my ass being totally kicked. 30 to 0 in the first quarter is not a happy game. Ok, so after mucho cursing and a few days, I've figured out some of my errors in play style and have managed to only get my but kicked instead of smoked and tossed in an ashtray. I'm losing games but scoring now. But I am still taking my barely learned talents to the AllGames NFL2k1 online competition (which was a major contributor to the most recent froth).

And now comes that portion of the night where I pass out without composing a moral to the story. Maybe next time... --Jeff
posted by Jeff Gatlin at 11/15/2000 01:35:00 AM

Brave New World

A new day is upon us and the world will never be the same again. That's right folks, I bought a new computer chair!

Oh joy! Oh sweet life! I now have a chair that is not only solid, vomfy and new, but it is also 'Jeff sized'. That's right, no more chair handles digging into my legs cutting off much needed blood flow. But, you say, what about the cost? Such a chair must have sent you to the poor house? Fah! Fah I say! This chair of dreams was a mere $130 bucks, that's 70 cheaper than my previous chair. Whee!

Even better, Florida had nothing to do with my decision to get this chair.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled browsing. --Jeff
posted by Jeff Gatlin at 11/08/2000 12:19:00 PM

On Strike?

I am considering going on strike and refusing to move through time until we get more hours in a day. So for now, it will remain Halloween. -Jeff
posted by Jeff Gatlin at 11/03/2000 11:58:00 AM