Archive for December, 2003
I’ve been using “Jay Allen’s Moveable Type Blacklist”:http://www.jayallen.org/projects/mt-blacklist/ plugin for awhile now but I have yet to see it actually stop a comment spam until now.
Two spams from two different IP addresses were stopped within an hour of each other yesterday with the help of the plugin. Unfortunately another one did get through but I deleted that post within a minute of it being added and then sent the offending domain to the “Spam Clearinghouse”:http://www.jayallen.org/comment_spam/ for addition into the blacklist.
Thanks for the awesome plugin Jay, I can honestly say it really works 
December 28th, 2003
It’s finally here… Christmas. Hard to believe that the year is almost over. The kids are all tucked in awaiting the arrival of Santa, although Aiden doesn’t know or care about Santa at the moment. Should be fun though as Aiden loves the presents (he keeps trying to open the ones wrapped under the tree) and Autumn is getting excited about Santa bringing her some new toys.
Aiden turned 11 months old on Christmas Eve and I do have a lot of photos to post but I think I’ll wait until after Christmas when I’ll have even more
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
December 25th, 2003
It’s Sunday night so I’m a little late with the “Friday Five”:http://www.fridayfive.org/comments.php?id=111_0_1_0_C but hey, I’m a busy guy.
1. List your five favorite beverages.
This one isn’t so easy since I’m vegan and I drink much other than water. But I do enjoy Crystal Greyser juices, Odwalla Super Protein, and a Jamba Juice with soy sherbet. Oh and coffee, damn, I still need that morning jolt are I’m a basket case.
2. List your five favorite websites.
Apple (”http://www.apple.com”:http://www.apple.com), Inside Mac Games (”http://www.insidemacgames.com/”:http://www.insidemacgames.com), Mac Rumors (”http://www.macrumors.com”:http://www.macrumors.com), Fourhman (”http://www.fourhman.com”:http://www.fourhman.com), and Penny Arcade (”http://www.penny-arcade.com”:http://www.penny-arcade.com).
3. List your five favorite snack foods.
Odwalla Peanut Crunch bar, almonds, sunflower seeds, turtle tracks soy ice cream, and Trader Joes flat breads.
4. List your five favorite board and/or card games.
Go Fish (Autumn loves it), Monopoly, Risk, Pictionary, and Battleship.
5. List your five favorite computer and/or game system games.
Halo (Mac), any Zelda game (Nintendo), Chrono Trigger (SNES), any Mario Kart (Nintendo), and Warcraft (Mac). Picking five was a little difficult but I think if you asked me this question again in 5 years at least 4 of them would still be up there.
December 21st, 2003
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, “Halo for Mac”:http://www.macsoftgames.com/products/halo/MacSoft-Halo.html is now available at your fine local “Mac selling retailers”:http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/initial.woa/wa/browse?ptm=WXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX507601&lprd=http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=T8340LL/A. I’m too busy playing to post but hey, just wanted to let you fine people know.
“They’re everywhere!”
December 15th, 2003
“‘Nuff said”:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20031214/ts_nm/iraq_dc.
December 14th, 2003
If there is one “cool” thing that I’d like to see happen while I inhabit Earth would be to find life on another planet. I’ll not talking about the silly looking space Martians that have big oval eyes and points sticking out of their heads. I’m talking about finding organic life which may bring some clues as to how all of this started i.e. Earth. Something even cooler would be able to actually travel through space and live on another planet. No?
To further my hope, “NASA has announced”:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/09/MNGON3J5RN1.DTL that they plan on sending a giant nuclear powered spacecraft to the Jupiter moon Europa to explore. They don’t plan on launching “JIMO”:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jimo/ anytime soon, maybe as early as 2012.
Yes, I’m a “Big Bang theory”:http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/universe/b_bang.html believer. I just don’t see one person waving his hands and creating Earth. I hope I didn’t disappoint anyone, but that’s just the way I see it. BTW, there is a new theory dubbed “Brane-Storm”:http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/bigbang_alternative_010413-1.html that is similar to the Big Bang yet centers around a 5th dimension. Yeah, ok, whatever.. Would somebody just figure this out already 
December 9th, 2003
Ever since I first played the “original SimCity”:http://simcity.ea.com/play/simcity_classic.php on a black and white Mac Plus I’ve been addicted to sim-style games. SimCity 2000 was released in 1993 with full 256 color. I played SC2000 to death and I’m actually still playing it now via the Game Boy Advance (although I don’t recommend the horrid GBA port).
Most recently I’ve been playing “Impressions Games”:http://games.sierra.com/games/impressions/ “city building series”:http://games.sierra.com/games/impressions/citybuilding.html which includes “Caesar III”:http://www.sierra.com/product.do?gamePlatformId=289, “Pharaoh”:http://www.sierra.com/product.do?gamePlatformId=121, and “Zeus”:http://games.sierra.com/games/zeus/. Unfortunately those games are only available on Windows (except for Ceasar although I don’t own the Mac version) so I’m been missing city building as I stopped using Windows last year when I got my iBook.
Enter “Zoo Tycoon”:http://www.microsoft.com/games/zootycoon/ and “SimCity 4″:http://www.simcity.com on Mac. I can’t seem to get enough of these two games. Zoo Tycoon reminds me a lot of the Impressions Games due to the pixel style graphics (which I love) and SimCity 4 is sim gaming on graphical steroids.
Zoo Tycoon also has an expansion pack available for the Mac entitled “Marine Mania” and includes some awesome new features such as animal shows and game interface improvements. Something I discovered while browsing the official “Windows versions web site”:http://www.microsoft.com/games/zootycoon/, there are some downloadable animals available. I fired off an email to Aspyr (publishers of the Mac version) and they told me that these where not compatible with the Mac version. Not believing them I tried some for myself. While all the .ztd (Zoo Tycoon Data files) are compatible with either version, the Mac version can not use the language files ending in the Windows only .dll format. So, you can download some of the animals like the “Yeti” without any problems, but other animals that have an included .dll file will work but you won’t get any of the text information related to the animal. Kind of a bummer I know but after peaking through some of the Mac source files, it looks like these .dll language files where converted into .lang files on the Mac. Oh and if you do “download the animals”:http://www.microsoft.com/games/zootycoon/downloads.asp#bonus that do work, make sure to put them into the “Updates” folder under the root Zoo Tycoon folder.
SimCity 4 actually has a very active user community. The main resource I’ve found for new content is “Simtropolis”:http://www.simtropolis.com/. This site is huge! There are downloadable lots (new buildings), mods, and regions. Some of the regions are very cool including scaled maps of various countries to start your own cities on. A lot of these downloads will work on the Mac but some won’t. It’s mainly very trial and error and I’ve found that the user community is very helpful to new users so don’t be afraid to ask for help in the forums.
December 4th, 2003
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