bytex64.net

Ashley was kind enough to drop me off at my car, where I affixed the temporary registration to the rear window with four "worthless" 34¢ stamps, or as I like to call it, "the $1.36 solution." I drove around for a while, getting used to the car. Peculiarities so far:

• The rear suspension creaks a bit.
• The radio doesn't work.
• The trip meter is stuck at 199.9 miles.
• The hood must be opened by pulling on the frayed ends of the latch cable with a pair of pliers. The pliers were supplied with the car, at least.
• Looking out the rear glass is bizarre. The curvature and angle of the glass makes it act like a lens, squishing everything behind me. The MR2 actually had better rearward visibility.
• After filling up, the engine refused to start. I popped the hood, but it didn't seem to be flooded. Trying again, it started fine. I hope this isn't a recurring problem (but saying that ensures that it will be).
• It seems to hang on to the throttle for a bit after I let off the gas. This may just be a sticky dashpot, but my dad's 5-speed 1989 Accord had the same problem.

Good points:

• The shifter is one of the best I've experienced, with short, precise throws. It's a joy to use.
• Calling the car nimble is an understatement. It has a turning circle that would make a tricycle envious, and there's little, if any, want of the engine to wrest control from me accelerating out of a corner. It's leagues beyond the Camry in this respect. The Camry would tug at the wheel at the slightest throttle around a curve (but, then, it wasn't really designed for taking curves at any speed). There's nothing like that here.
• There is no power steering... but you only notice it when you're standing still.

Time will tell whether this was a good buying decision, but right now it's feeling good. I took my new ride down to Old Town, the downtown area of Fort Collins that used to be the original town. It's a really nice place, I recommend it. While there, I hit up the local Goodwill, because I'm a sucker for weird T-shirts, and Goodwill always has weird T-shirts. Like this one, which has a jellyfish on it, and spells out "Quarter Horse" with a couple of the thin, stringy tentacles. I have absolutely no idea what it means, but it's awesome. I also found a shirt with Nightcrawler on it, which was sort of strange to find at a Goodwill. There's actually another one there, if you want it. :) $2 a shirt? You can't go wrong.

I'm exhausted from a long day, so I've been sitting here and watching The Muppet Show (which is brilliant) and drinking a Cold One (Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat, which is so-so). 'night, everyone.

I'm typing this from a loaner laptop at the Best Western where Ashley works. This morning I bought a 1988 Honda CRX (not the Si, just the regular model). It cost me $1400, and not five minutes after I get handed the keys, I'm pulled over by a cop for no license plates (or "tags" as they call them here). Worse, I didn't have proof of insurance, so I got a court summons.

Note to self and everyone who didn't know: Arrange insurance before buying the car. Driving without plates is excusable. Driving without insurance isn't, in any case.

So I got picked up by Ashley, and dropped off in downtown Fort Collins at the Courthouse. But I need to go to the Justice Center (not kidding, that's what it's called). At the Circuit Clerk's desk, I was informed that I had to go upstairs to the Municipal Clerk. After that rigamarole, it looks like I can get the ticket thrown out by getting Progressive to fax them proof of insurance... but not for a week, since the ticket won't be processed immediately. *shrug*. Time for lunch.

I ate lunch at HuHot, a mongolian grill. The food was OK, the cook was showy but not terribly skilled, but for $8, you can eat as much as you want and that includes a drink. I went two rounds, and left satisfied.

I went back to the I waited in line at the DMV (which had a very nice automated queueing system), got temp tags good for 45 days, and it only cost me $2.22. All taken care of, I'm back at the Best Western. It's going to be a while before Ashley gets off of work, so I think I'll look around Old Town for a bit.

Browsed through cars today. "1989 Toyota Corolla GT-S. High mileage. $850." I called the guy up. Turns out the car had 240,000 miles on it. That's not unheard of, the 4A-GE motor (also used in the MR2 and older RWD Corolla GT-S) is one of Toyota's best motors, designed to take the abuse of high-RPM racing. Sadly, this one needed new seals, and was leaking oil. Even for a legendary motor like this one, it was clear that its time was just about up. I don't have the money or time to rebuild the engine, so I let it go.

I've gotten far enough in Ridge Racer DS that I've gotten a car known as "Racing Team Peach." As you might suspect, it's got a picture of Princess Peach on it. Fans of the Mario Kart series will find familiar statistics: Good acceleration, poor handling, and a middling top speed. What is unexpected is that when you select the car, a special BGM is available called "MUSHROOM KINGDOM !!" It's the first level theme in Super Mario 2. :)

For those who don't check regularly, I've got some great shots of the mountains up at pix.bytex64.net, including a couple of awesome panoramas stitched together by hugin and enblend.

On Friday I trekked down to the local campus: Colorado State University. I was hoping to find an arcade, but their student center was suspicioiusly devoid of one. "What do these people do?" I asked myself. And then I found the Ramskeller, a bar, in the student center. Who needs DDR when you can grab a pint of Fat Tire in between classes, right? Also an interesting tidbit: Their email kiosks were Sun Ray 170s running nothing but Firefox. Bummed about not finding an arcade, I proceeded to have a scavenger hunt of things you find around a college campus. I've got pictures of construction, ugly art sculptures, and their ugly drainage ditch. (Credit where it's due: James created the Ugly Drainage Ditch Hypothesis)

Saturday, I went to the local temple of American decadent capitalism, Foothills Mall. I had a decent cheeseburger combo at their version of Niros Giros, and found their arcade. They had a DDR Extreme machine, with hacked modifiers, for only 50¢ per play. Nearby was a Ridge Racer 2 setup, and an interesting import, "Gun Survivor 2: Biohazard: Code Veronica," apparently an arcade version of the Resident Evil series. Their DDR machine is well kept, especially from all the use I saw it get from the local high-schoolers. The Ridge Racer machine was showing its age, but despite having worse graphics than the DS version I just bought, the gameplay was much better with a steering wheel and pedals.

Today Ashley took me up into the mountains proper, into Rocky Mountain National Park. While gassing up the car, she tossed me a baggie full of Advil. "Here, take three or four of these," she said. I wasn't sure why until we got up to about 9,000 feet and my head started feeling funny. I'm sure without those Advil, my head would have been pounding. I got some great pictures, including some panorama shots I'll have to stitch together later. I also got to see some elk and bighorn sheep. On the way back, we ate at a little diner called "Sundeck," which had expensive but delicious local fare. It was a fun day.

In slightly less exciting news, I'm getting caught up on my Ouran High School Host Club. It's almost over, I'm downloading episode 25 right now. It's recovered from the mid-series slump, and the latest episodes are pretty funny.

Chevy Nova?

Here's some food for thought. If you adjusted the original prices for each of these game systems to today's (Ok, actually 2005's) dollars, here's how much you'd pay for them. (using The Inflation Calculator)

System	Year Released	Original Price	Price adjusted for inflation
Atari 2600	1977	$200	$649
Nintendo NES	1985	$200-250	$355-$444
NEC TurboGrafx-16	1989	$190	$296
Sega Genesis	1989	$200	$312
Nintendo SNES	1991	$200	$282
NEC TurboDuo	1992	$300	$406
Atari Jaguar	1993	$250	$329
Sega Saturn	1995	$400	$498
Sony PlayStation	1995	$300	$373
Nintendo 64	1996	$200	$243
Sega Dreamcast	1999	$200	$228
Sony PlayStation 2	2000	$300	$333
Microsoft Xbox	2001	$300	$325
Nintendo GameCube	2001	$200	$217

As you might expect, I got most of the information here from Wikipedia, with the rest found with a little googling. One of the interesting things to note here is that Sony's PS3, if it does indeed debut at $500, will be Sony's most expensive system ever, while The Wii, priced at $250, will be one of Nintendo's cheapest (only beaten out by the GameCube), retailing for over a hundred dollars less than the adjusted price of a NES.

I don't know if you're familiar with the style of beer known as a "doppelbock," but as the name suggests, it's a "double bock," a very malty beer having a dark brown to black color and a smoky, almost meaty taste. Apparently monks in Germany used to brew the stuff to drink while fasting in the middle ages, since the stuff packs enough calories to make it a small meal. It also usually packs a higher than normal alcohol content (8-12% typically). Here in Fort Collins, the Fort Collins Brewery brews a "Rauchator Doppelbock," available for only a few weeks in the fall, and I wound up here at just the right time to try some.

It. Is. Amazing. It has so much flavor that you might think you're drinking a smoked ham. Before I left, my family and I joked about "Sparkling Meat Water," but that's exactly what this stuff tastes like. That might sound disgusting to some of you, but I absolutely love it. I can't guarantee that you can get this particular doppelbock in your neck of the woods, since apparently the stuff flies off the shelves pretty darned quick. Badger your favorite beer supplier about it, it's totally worth it. If you can't get it, well, you'll just have to come up to the mountains, and well, that's not really a bad trip. :)

I finally managed to get out of the house the other day. I've been taking it easy after a bike accident (yes, it was beer-related) left me sore. I'm not used to the altitude here. The air is very dry, and the temperature changes are abrupt and vast. It's not uncommon for it to be 75°F in the daytime, and have that drop to 35°F when the sun goes down. The dryness leaves my nasal passages feeling as though I've just gotten a nosefull of chlorinated water. I walked by some sprinklers watering a lawn, and it felt normal for a bit -- 80% humidity is high here.

Still no luck in finding a new car. I found a 1986 BMW 535i being sold for a reasonable $1600, but the guy never called me back. I finally arranged to get UPS to pick up my stuff from Kansas and ship it here, but I fully expect that to be cocked up. I think the only thing I have there that is irreplaceable is R.O.B. It would really suck to lose my PS2, the games, and my IIDX controller, though. And my cast-iron skillet. *shrug*. Only material posessions. I've still got my friends, right? :)

Tomorrow, I'm going to check out the Colorado State University campus, and see if they've got any video games worth playing. I'm getting kind of tired of Sega GT 2002 on the XBox here.

'night.

This entry is going to be a bit long, I've got three days to catch up on. For anyone who was wondering, I'm alive, and doing well. Let's start with September 14th, 10am, at the Salinas, KS Super 8.

I woke up, and followed traffic to the local Wal-Mart, where I picked up some Duck Tape and a $3 roast beef sandwich. The Salinas (pronounced sah-lie-nus) Super Wal-Mart is like any other, except that I'll bet any other Wal-Mart you've been in was not populated solely by white people. Not a single non-caucasian could be found. The town was not without its minorities, it seemed, as my cashier was a bright and cheerful woman named Dawn. I surmised from her pentagram pendant that she was of a Wiccan persuasion. It's interesting how all the pagans I meet are the most cheerful, helpful people. By comparison, Christians seem fearful, cowardly, and distrustful. I filled up the car at $2.07/gal, and headed further west on I-70.

The wind in Kansas is no fabrication, it blows hard and consistently, making sure you keep a good grip on your steering wheel. Towns are spaced far apart, and the land is flat as you can imagine (but if you're from Central Illinois, you won't have to imagine. :) ). Listening to the radio was interesting, with commercials for bovine medicine back-to-back with information about local Ren Faires. On the eastbound lane, a state trooper had pulled over a semi. The trooper's car was a brand-new Dodge Charger.

About a quarter mile past Exit 93, my engine decided that it was time to go, and gave a buzz of increasing loudness until a serious-sounding CLUNK. The engine died, and I coasted to a stop. Cursing my luck, I walked back to the Sinclair service station to query if there was anyone close that could fix a Toyota. "You can ask the mechanic, but if it's a foreign car, he won't touch it." The mechanic told me about Jack's Repair and Towing, rattled off a phone number from memory, and wished me luck. I walked back to my car, and as I was about to call Jack, a State Trooper came to ask me about my situation. I called Jack, and about fifteen minutes later, he came to inspect my car. I popped the hood, he pulled the dipstick, and uttered the worst condemnation of my own stupidity. "Looks like you run 'er out of oil."

I got my car towed back to Grainfield, where I learned that getting the engine replaced would cost me more than I paid for the car, so I pondered my options at the local eatery, the Teddy Shack. I explained my predicament to the waitress, who exclaimed "gosh darn!", and had surmised that my car broke down because "That's how most people come in here." If you ever come by there, eat at the Teddy Shack. They've got good spaghetti and garlic toast, and the best limeade I've ever had.

On Jack's suggestion, I wrote it off as a loss, packed up my stuff to get shipped to Nancy's place in Seattle, and took a bus to Fort Collins, hoping that James could come through via his friend Ashley (originally Chrissy's friend from by-gone horsey days). The bus picked up in Colby, at a McDonalds by the interstate. I waited nearly two hours for not the first bus, but the second; the first was full. As the first bus stopped to let its passengers take a break, one kind woman saw that I wasn't eating and asked me if I needed money for food. I told her that I was quite alright, but didn't think it would go over well if I told her I simply hated McDonalds. As I was waiting, I overheard this joke: "I don't like political jokes. Too many of 'em have got elected." I finally got on my bus, and spent the next four or so hours on a bus to Denver.

I will admit to you freely that I was scared. I was on a bus, with but the barest of my posessions (only three computers! :-P), on a bus headed towards an unfamiliar city with no plan other than the hope that James would get back to me. To make things worse, the bus arrived at just past 1am Mountain Time, and no more buses were leaving that day. I had to spend the night at a bus terminal in Denver.

If there is a hell, it has to be modeled on the Denver bus terminal. Hard floors, metal seats, snack machines that took $1 bills and an ATM that only handed out $20's, and spending this six or seven hours with a group of complete strangers and nothing but CNN to entertain you. You get a meal voucher, good for $5 worth of bus terminal grub, which I spent on a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Croissant, and a Vitamin D milk. It's not a fate I would wish on my worst enemies. Later, when I talked to my mom, she said she'd spent the night at bus stations before, and that it was something everyone has to go through. A rite of passage, I guess.

I got my boxes checked. One was 5 pounds over the 50 pound limit, but the woman at the desk kindly let it slide. About ten minutes later, I finally got a call from James. I explained to him my situation, and he called Ashley. I was expecting nothing more than a room in a hotel, but when James called me back, it turned out Ashely was willing to let me stay at her place, free of charge, since she had an extra room.

I boarded the bus at 8:30am, squinting in the Denver sunrise. There was even a movie. "Rebound," with Martin Lawrence, which was entertaining, but only because most of us hadn't slept at all. About half-way through the movie, it was realized that the bus was getting rather hot. The thermostat was broken, so we cracked open the roof vents. I also got my first glimpse of the Rockies. Sitting in a bus seat, the scene looks just like a picture, so the effect was a little dulled, but it was impressive, nonetheless. I arrived in Fort Collins around noon, and Ashley came to pick me up in a Best Western minivan. It turns out she manages a hotel near the Colorado State campus, and is some sort of tourism kingpin, so she gets all kinds of discounts.

I called my mom, let everyone know I was alive, ate a steak, and went to bed. Today, Ashley and I went shopping, and got a fair amount of food for me. The experience was not unlike shopping with my grandmother, except that she's the same age as I am. I've been overwhelmed by her unwavering generosity, and I don't know how I'm ever going to repay her.

I bought a D-Link DWL-G630, which I can fully endorse as working in Linux with the madwifi drivers, and with the WPA2 in a DIR-635 802.11n draft router using wpa_supplicant. I bought it at a Computer Renaissance, which some may remember existed in Champaign at some point, but went out of business. A couple of funny (to me) conversations in the past day:

Me: Does this 802.11g adapter work in Linux?
Tech Drone: Well, if you go to the webpage for your distribution, they'll tell you what works and what doesn't. Like if you go to RedHat's website...
Me: What if I'm using Slackware?
Tech Drone: Uh, well, if you go to RedHat's site, they'll have drivers.
Me: I just need to know if it's got an Atheros or Broadcom chipset in it.
Tech Drone: Um, well, only the manufacturers will know that.
Me: ... Do you have a web browser I can borrow?

I swear, it was like boxing with a one-armed man. In this second conversation, Ashley is on her phone with a friend.

Ashley: Well, I'm just saying that women aren't very good at being truthful. *turns to me*. Am I right?
My mind: IT'S A TRAP!
Me: Uh... yeah.
My mind: SHIT! COVER YOUR ASS!
Me: You said it, not me!

So everything worked out in the end. I'm not a particularly religious person, but I have to thank my Mom, who was praying for me. If there is a God, I'd like to give him a big thank you, but mostly, I'd like to thank the people along the way that got me this far. Jack, for giving me options when I had none. The ladies at the Teddy Shack, for making me feel at home when I had none. The kind lady at McDonalds, for looking out for me. James, for coming through for me, even at the last minute. And most of all, Ashley, for opening her home to me. And thanks, Chrissy, for worrying, even though I tried to not worry you. :)

'night, everyone.

(this entry is backlogged, since I'm too stupid to remember to renew my domain. The original date was 9-13-2006.)

I woke up this morning and ate breakfast/lunch at the truck stop across the interstate. The TV was showing the local news, and it had a segment celebrating 30 years of Mr. Food. If you're unfamiliar with Mr. Food, he does a quick and easy cooking segment that's apparently syndicated across the country and shows up in your local news at noon or five or whenever. The thing is, they flashed back to his very first shows, and it doesn't look like he's aged a bit in 30 years.

Some of the locals were jawing with the waitress about shooting things. One of them said, "When there's lead in the air, there's hope." Interesting turn of phrase.

I got on I-70 east, and more or less knocked out Missouri in one shot. I stopped once at a rest stop, but didn't stop for dinner until I was in Kansas. After leaving Kansas City, I decided it was time to get off the beaten path for a bit. If you're going west on I-70, get off on the 110th St. Exit, and turn left. Go for two or three miles, and you'll encounter a small town by the name of Edwardsville. Keep going past the train tracks to where the road curves, and you'll find yourself on top of Mac's Place Pub & Grub. They've got friendly backwoods service, they make a great bacon cheeseburger, and they have a Mr. Driller arcade game, to boot.

Back on I-70, I encountered the Kansas Turnpike, a stretch of interstate so boring, they charge people admission to travel it. For nearly an hour of sheer boredom from Kansas City to Topeka, I paid $2.00. I even got the blazing orange setting sun directly in my eyes for part of the trip as an added bonus.

After getting off the Turnpike, however, things started getting interesting. Hills appeared. Not your Illinois hills, gently rolling in a form suitable for a leisurely hike. No, actual hills, high and steep enough to require the road to go through them instead of over them. The first rest stop after the Turnpike was set on one of these hills, nestled in-between the westbound and eastbound lanes (which required a left-hand exit and tricky merge). The rest area wasn't as full-featured as some Illinois stops, but it was scenic and educational.

I'm holed up about half-way through the state in Salina. The Super 8 here isn't as nice as the one in Troy, and it costs more, and I got the only room left -- smoking. The smell doesn't bother you after a few minutes, and I do get a miniature coffeemaker and matches. Don't you just love the smell of sulfur? Anyway, tomorrow, I should be able to make it to Colorado Springs, which I hear tell has a IIDX 8th style machine and Battletech.

'night, everyone.

I got a call at 8:30 this morning letting me know my tire was ready. I promptly fell back asleep until about 12:30. I said goodbye to Mike, picked up my tire, and was on my way. Hearing the guys at Tires Plus chuckle about people who couldn't understand the non-beeping nature of the credit/debit widget made me realize that auto repair has a similar vein as computer repair. They both have their BOFHen and lusers. Great service, by the way. I traveled back to Bloomington to get on Route 66 and headed south.

Illinois has great signage, marking out Route 66 pretty clearly for the entirety of its journey through the state. A little ways down the road I stopped at a Dixie Diner to drain my bladder, fill my stomach and gas tank, and absorb a little bit of what Route 66 used to be. A patty melt with fries and a root beer (billed as an iced tea) set me back nearly $9, so it's not cheap, but the melt was good, and the fries were supernaturally crispy, a trait I enjoyed down to the last ketchup-dredged one. And you get to overhear truckers talk about trucking, old people talk about hijacking a Japanese aircraft in WWII, and the waitress calls you "hon" and "sweetheart." It's also the only place I've ever heard any one order "sweet tea," a southern-ism for pre-sweetened iced tea.

Refueled, I got back on the road. Three hours of driving took me through small towns, big towns, some lined with tributes to the glory of old. At some point, I missed a turn, went through a shithole town, and wound up on a meandering wooded backroad called "Possum Hollow." In the dead of night, "Dueling Banjos" starts playing inside my head. I retraced my path and was rather thankful when I found 66 again.

All in all, Route 66 wasn't really as cool as I thought it would be. The more I traveled it, the more I realized that the road I was traveling wasn't the original road, no matter how closely it followed the original path. I can't ever go back to the way it was. That left me sort of disillusioned, and cemented my new plan of taking I-70 straight to Colorado.

I got as far as Edwardsville before I lost my way again, and decided to find a hotel for the night. I'm currently holed up at the Super 8 Motel in Troy, which is pretty close to St. Louis. I'm currently eating ramen out of the ice bucket (for advanced ramen eaters, only!), and I'm going to shower and sleep. 'night everyone.

Today is the five year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a day when millions of americans sat slack-jawed and helpless as thousands of lives were snuffed out in two columns of fire, smoke, and debris. What did I do to remember this tragedy?

Nothing.

It's not that I'm trying to forget what happened, but I think the best thing to do is to live today like any other day. I'm living today to show that I'm not afraid. That I will not be cowed into submission by either terrorists or our own government. That life goes on.

So what did I do today? I went to Mike's place to pick up my charger and some other things I'd forgotten. I relaxed for a bit, watched Sunday's Family Guy, and Mike cooked me lunch (Fishsticks and boxed rice, mmm...). Mike left for work, and I left to go find the Tires Plus to get my tire patched. (FYI: Punctures in the tread up to 1/4" in diameter can be patched. Make sure that the facility you take the tire to takes the tire off the rim to inspect it. Punctures in the sidewal cannot be repaired.) Tires Plus was backed up with work and probably would not get the tire done that day, so I wandered around the local mall, Barnes and Noble, Best Buy, and such. I tried to get in touch with Dillon, but failed, so I went back to Mike's place.

At Best Buy, I played some demos for Nintendo DS. Tetris Push is a multiplayer tetris where you and your opponent drop pieces on opposite sides of a well, and you push your opponent down (and likewise your opponent pushes you up) by clearing multiple rows at once. Magnetica is Bubble Bobble on rails. No, really, that's what it is. Colored balls follow a track, and you must shoot colored balls at the balls on this track to make them disappear. If the track fills up, you lose. I bought, on impulse, Ridge Racer DS. It is a pretty faithful translation from what I'm guessing is an original Playstation game, and age has not helped what was not really a great racer to begin with. It's not easy to play with great multiplayer like Mario Kart. It's not realistic like the Gran Turismo series. The interface is archaic, there are awful bugs, there are only several variations on three tracks in the entire game. The game is out and out horrible by today's standards. Why do I like it, then?

It's freaking fun. It's arcade racing at its purest, just you and a field of cars you have to pass before three laps is up. The cars don't behave realistically, the AI is all but nonexistent, but damn if I don't have fun playing it. Oh, the soundtrack is pretty good, I have to give it that. I may have mentioned Namco's talented music masters, Aya and Mega, before. They've done some tracks for Beatmania IIDX, as well as a lot of classic Namco games, and tracks from Technic Beat.

Figures the one day I stay, Mike has to work late. I'm tired, I'm going to get some food and go to bed.