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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Month: September 2008

  • Newfangled Contraptions

    I’ve been… busy. Making contraptions, that is. Intermittently. After work, mostly.

    Allow me to show you my bizarre creations, won’t you? Note that the only contraptions I’ve bothered to save are those which satisfy some “above and beyond” quirk of mine. For instance: Don’t Stop completes the goal in mere seconds, but the fun part is watching it climb the hill and throw itself off the side. Four Plus 1 is an exercise in very, very slowly removing all four of the accessible orange balls. As with all of my creations, the trick is to click the “back” button when prompted as the goal is reached.

    For her part, Erica managed to get three of them in the same challenge with her Push and Roll. That’s right, I hooked my darling daughter on Fantastic Contraption. You know what? She’s not doing too badly. Her solution for “Mission To Mars,” Chain Reaction, elicited a forehead slap from me. “Why didn’t I think of that?” (My solution to that puzzle didn’t warrant posterity, I assure you.) Her Push-Over is a much more creative contraption to solve “U-Turn” than what I’ve done so far, too. (I have an idea, I just haven’t been able to make it work yet. Argh.) Erica showed promise right from the start with her straightforward yet amusing LastMinuteSave.

    Other contraptions of note that I’ve cobbled together include Brick Bridge, Goal & Clear, Latch & Chain, Tilt & Go and the Humpmobile. I’m probably not done yet, either…

  • Summer Music Project 2008: Week Thirteen

    You can blame a cheerleader for this one.

    Back when I possessed even less of a clue about life and love than I do today, I met a girl and she introduced me to her favorite band. To be fair, she introduced me to several of her favorite bands but most of them didn’t grab my attention. She was my first love, and I fell like a lead brick. Our relationship spanned two states, crossed the mighty Columbia, and lasted a couple of months.

    I was a complete wreck for twice that long afterward. As I said: Clueless. Also: Wholly unprepared. I was replaced by a local jock on Christmas day, so some of it was justified. Let’s say, oh, two or three days’ worth. The rest of it? A total waste of energy. (Sorry, Dad. You had to put up with me. No jury in the world would have convicted you, when you get right down to it.)

    While it lasted, we traded mixtapes on the handful of occasions when we could meet. I sent her an assortment of stuff, mostly Pet Shop Boys if I remember correctly. (PSB comes to mind because their excellent album, Behaviour, formed most of the soundtrack during my terribly “emo” recovery period.) In return I received a significant portion of her Depeche Mode library. Violator was one of the biggest albums around at the time, but I also received a well-rounded ‘cheMode education covering all of their studio work and some live material and some videos and so on.

    You shouldn’t be surprised to learn, knowing all of this, that Depeche Mode is the only band from which I have more singles than the Pet Shop Boys. I’ve only picked up a couple of their albums post-Violator and they’re decidedly hit-or-miss, but I don’t regret having them take up so much space on my shelf. They suit a particular kind of mood that I suppose most people use NIN for. Too bad I can’t really get into NIN, eh?

    I didn’t actually set out to select songs whose titles all begin with the letter ‘S’, but here you go anyway. Please enjoy “Stories of Old” from Some Great Reward, an outtake from Violator called “Sea of Sin” and Playing The Angel‘s “Suffer Well.”

    We’re almost done, folks! I wonder if any of you can guess who’ll be closing out this little series…

  • Verizon xv6800 Upgrade: The Good & The Bad

    I received a text message early this afternoon with the news that the long- (long, long, long) awaited software update to Windows Mobile 6.1 is finally available. So, like the versionitis-afflicted waterfowl that I am, I hurried off to upgrade. There were some difficulties at first, such as the USB connection to the laptop going sour early on in the first attempt, but eventually the update installed and ran.

    The upside? Overall, WM6.1 evens out many of the rough edges from the at-release version of the OS on this phone. Among the nifty new items is a built-in feature that you used to have to hack in: The ability to configure the “X” button so that programs actually quit instead of merely hiding in the background. On a device with not nearly enough RAM (is there ever enough?) to run more than a few apps, this is a gift from heaven all by itself.

    The downside? Somewhere in the process, my phone’s authentication code with Verizon got wiped out. I can’t send or receive calls or text messages. Even better: In order to fix the phone, I have to call from… another phone! Since I’m not about to try juggling two cellphones, I think I’m going to simply wait until I get to work tomorrow.

    Here’s hoping that there aren’t any personal emergencies in the next eleven hours…

  • Summer Music Project 2008: Week Twelve

    How about an anecdote?

    Picture me in a used record store, late in 1991. I’m looking for my usual fare, rare or imported singles, special editions, what-have-you. One question on my mind is, “Are there any new singles from Robert Plant’s latest album?” I’m delighted to spot something with part of the album’s name on it… but the joy is short-lived. It’s just some CD from some goofy Seattle grunge band. I mean, the album cover features a naked baby in a swimming pool? Whatever!

    I briefly owned a copy of Nevermind some years later, and overall I didn’t think it half as good as Robert Plant’s Manic Nirvana. Different strokes, I suppose.

    I grew up with a sort of background-radiation level of exposure to Led Zeppelin, but after hearing “Little By Little,” the single from Plant’s third solo album, I started paying attention to his post-Zepp career. He’s hardly one of my idols, but during the 1980s and into the ’90s his music fit in nicely with my styles and sensibilities. Well, the sound of it, anyway. You know me, I don’t pay attention to the words much… and with Robert Plant you’re not always guaranteed understanding even when you can make them out.

    With that in mind, please enjoy “Down To The Sea” from Fate of Nations, the aforementioned single from Shaken ‘n’ Stirred, and “Watching You,” the closing track from my preferred dose of Nirvana.

    Next week we’ll tackle some dark and moody music for which I get to blame a girl.

  • Not Incredible, Not A Machine

    The Fantastic Contraption, a Flash-based device-building game, is a suitable facsimile of The Incredible Machine. It’s good enough for my purposes, anyway. I spent some time building machines that achieve the goal plus a bit of something extra for fun. Please, allow me to demonstrate (in some cases the full amusement value requires clicking the “Back” button once the challenge is technically completed):

    • Kick The Can – A nudge and a bridge. I could’ve just flung the ball straight over, but what’s the fun in that?
    • Carrion Luggage – Everything must go! Well, everything in my machine’s path…
    • The Ball, Too – Who says you can’t take it with you? This one took more time than you might think, but c’mon. I had to do it!
    • The Ball, Also – I couldn’t leave it alone. I mean, it was just perching there. Mockingly, I might add. If I was crazy.
    • Roomba Falling – Once I got onto the “orange ball” kick, I couldn’t just take the easiest way out of this challenge.
    • Backflipper – Not only did I clear all of the orange balls in the path, I even collected four of them within the build area, leaving none on the field elsewhere. Hah!

    There may be more to come, or I may grow bored before getting a chance to stretch my brain further. Still, I hope you enjoy my silly contraptions. What can you come up with?

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