Dominion – It’s What Time At Night?!
AM and I spent the day hanging out, a couple days, err I mean hours at Barnes and Nobel, a trip to the movies to see IronMan 2, home made quesadilla for dinner, and a wrap-up game of Dominon. ‘T’ joined us for the game and before we knew it midnight was just a few measly minutes away.
AM walked away with the victory and beginners luck was on T’s side. He was really getting into it – might be an exciting guy to play Risk with. Good times, good times.
A Day in the Life of a Techie – Post Las Vegas
Ideas, dreams, and long things-to-do lists are bumping around in my head. Most of my ambition for the past month has been preparing for the 2010 Revelation Software User’s Conference in Las Vegas. There is a nice article along with some pictures on the Revelation.com website.
There are more pictures and stitched panorama images waiting for posting to my blog. As one of the designated photographers I took the opportunity to try out some of those “advanced” features on my camera. The end result, nice pictures, most of the pictures of me with my eye’s closed (I sense the flash), and some pretty cool shots. What’s even better, I figured out how useful the correct metering setting is (i.e. 1/4 of the pictures were not the best :).
So much could and should be said about the Revelation Conference and Las Vegas but it comes down to this – you should have been there for yourself.
After spending almost 5 days in the desert my nose was able to smell the color green when I landed in New Jersey. What a rich and wonderful smell.
But just for the record – I came back from Vegas just as chaste, a little wiser, and immensely thankful.
Cataan – A Thrown Defeat
Had a rousing, spur-of-the-moment Settlers of Cataan game with the guys. V, LI, BL, and KM were there. My strategy backfired and the dice failed to land on my numbers.. maybe fail isn’t the right word. Refused? For whatever the reason BL and I were the paupers of the board. Perhaps it was too humid and late for the dice to cooperate. In the end it came down to a sudden death play between LI and V for the win. LI would have had it with a largest army play but V managed to scoop the card up the turn before. In the end I , uh, well, threw the game to bring it to a close just before Midnight on Sunday evening. It only took trading LI for a coal resource so he could upgrade a city. Sorry – my bad. The residents of Cataan thanked me later because they had to plow the fields early Monday morning.
Note to self: Invite Mr. MA (emphasize the Mr. because there is a Mrs. MA too).
International Spectrum Article
The company I work with contributes to International Spectrum. The publication serves the multi-value database community with news and new technologies. It was my pleasure to contribute an article. The second part of the two-part article was recently featured in the publication.
The article demonstrates how BASIC-like languages can be extended using the object oriented programming (OOP) concept of encapsulation to protect private variables. The article covers benefits and provides examples of how these modern concepts can further benefit non-OOP languages.
First part
http://www.intl-spectrum.com/mag/MARAPR.2010/default.aspx
Second part
http://www.intl-spectrum.com/mag/JANFEB.2010/default.aspx
The entire magazine is available for PDF download. No registration required.
Questing for the Talisman
It was a dark and foreboding weekend in the land of New Jersey. Four bachelors, strike that, Three bachelors and a married dude gathered together in my bachelor pad to quest through the regions of Talisman in to gain the crown of power.
As with all my Talisman games, despite additional starting craft and a reduced craft/strength modifier, the game was slow in the beginning but then after a couple upsetting character deaths (like mine *grin*) it became interesting and ended in a glorious dash to the finish.
AM, BL, LI, and I were in attendance. LI suspended his character half-way through and BL swooped in the for the close win.