So, it’s been a touch since I’ve updated the blog. What’s been up? Not much, really. Work is work – kind of a mix of fun, frustrating, interesting and stupid. I guess most jobs are, but whatever. FINALLY finished watching Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica (eh, it was alright), and starting to get through Heroes (which, as of maybe halfway through the season is awesome). Halo 3’s out, which is obviously pretty big news. It’s more Halo, which is more or less exactly what I wanted. Multiplayer’s super fun, single player’s more of the same, but much prettier.

People have been complaining about the graphics. It’s almost funny, except it’s also kind of tragic. Halo 3’s about as good as I can imagine Halo looking. The people’s faces and lipsync aren’t all that great, I’ll admit, but the environments, the scale, the textures and the Master Chief all look *spectacular*, and there’s a lot of really nice lighting effects that look *right*. They don’t look next-gen for next-gen’s sake. They don’t have random bloom. They aren’t brown. They’re very impressive, but remarkably natural, and subtle looking (even if they aren’t natural or subtle). The game looks great.

The sad thing is, what it really shows is that people aren’t thinking about graphics based on some absolute. The bar’s been raised by games like Gears of War, and it’s only getting higher. The problem is, there’s only a few companies that can deliver graphical quality like that. Most game developers simply don’t have the resources to even do half, or a third of what Bungie or Epic can do – and if gamer’s expectations are so high that something like Halo 3 can be classified as unattractive, it really speaks volumes about how difficult it is to keep up with the Joneses these days. Literally, I guess (and if you get the reference, you’re at least as big a nerd as me).

Have you ever heard a presidential speech with more straw men and logical fallacies than Bush’s speech today? “Some say (something ridiculous). I say (obviously desirable whatever)!” The entire speech was basically nothing but straw men, bullshit spin, and utter nonsense. I’m sure there are some outright lies in there, as well – 36 nations helping in Iraq? Come on.

But the most stunning thing was simply how far we’ve fallen. Political speeches are often distorted – that’s not something new – but I’ve never heard a speech that I found more desperate, or blatantly, utterly devoid of sincerity as today’s address. The Democrat response to the speech by comparison was so straightforward and free of the idiotic condescension that Bush seems unable to avoid that it was a breath of fresh air.

It’s amazing that this is our “leader.” I doubt he could lead a row of ducks.

So, over the last week, as a couple of you already know, I built a stone path in my backyard. Ei-Nyung, Sean, and a friend from work helped out – Sean and M. helped move more than two tons of rock from the driveway to the backyard, and Sean helped move another whole mess of gravel. Without the help, there’s no way it’d have been done in time, but with the help, the path was finished in a week (to within two hours).

It’s basically a path of bluish-greyish gravel and pinkish-orange stone that runs from the base of the backyard, in lazy S-curves all the way up to the loquat tree in the back. I used our electric tiller to create the pathway, then poured down two coats of gravel, placed the stones, poured on gravel to fill the cracks, soaked the thing with water, then added more gravel where it’d settled.

On the slope between the first and second tiers of the backyard, I found some rebar and a collapsed retaining wall that had to be removed. Over the course of about two days, I dug out the wall, used an electric jackhammer to break up the concrete, and a sawzall to cut out the rebar to the point where it was well below the surface. I used the tiller to create a smoothed out slope, soaked the dirt with water, and jumped around on it to compact it at least a bit.

All in all, it’s turned out pretty well – it divides the backyard up neatly into more manageable chunks, makes the whole thing much more accessible, and lends it some much-needed perspective. That is, it used to be that you could look at the backyard and have no idea how big it was – now, when you look at it, you can see from the path how far it goes back.

It was definitely a week well spent. The project was immensely satisfying, dramatically improves the back yard, and though tiring, was really … fun.

Not something I want to do again for at least a while, but there’s still some gravel to haul to the back. Maybe another hour or two of work, just to clear out the driveway. Good times.

So, I’m a little torn. On Saturday, I had a pretty good customer service experience. I walked in to the Apple store for a Genius Bar appointment I’d made the day before. I explained my problem, the guy helped me quickly, courteously, and the problem was resolved absolutely to my satisfaction. Everyone was very friendly, the atmosphere was great, and overall, it was a really pleasant experience. So far, every time I’ve had to bring an issue to Apple’s attention, it’s been handled very gracefully.

On the other hand, I’ve never had a laptop with this many physical problems. So far, the case has spontaneously cracked in three places – once on the wrist rest near where my right wrist sits, at the edge, and this time, in two places – on the bottom part of the case near the front left on the side, and again by the USB port on the same side.

I haven’t been treating this laptop any differently than I did the VAIO I used to have, but that thing’s case was magnesium, and I could probably have dropped a truck on it without it breaking. So, on one hand, Apple’s customer service is stellar, but on the other hand, Apple’s products force me to use the customer service, so it had *better* be stellar.

I don’t think this really evens out, unfortunately, it’s really a tick not in Apple’s favor, in the same way that the new extended warranty for the 360’s RROD problems isn’t really all that positive a thing for Microsoft.

That said, I’ve had the laptop for a couple months now, and I *really* like it. The physical design of the case is really leaps and bounds above any other laptop I’ve ever used. While the Macbook was in the shop, I used Ei-Nyung’s ThinkPad, and it really felt quite alien. The keys felt really odd, and it just had all these bits and bobs that made it look … inelegant.

I hope that this is the last of my problems with the MacBook, but I’m not gonna cross my fingers. I’ll definitely have to get AppleCare for this thing before the year’s up.

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On a totally different note, the project I’m working on is chugging along nicely. About halfway done with two steps in the process, with one step starting tomorrow. I think I’ll have it done by the end of the week, but we’ll see. I think the last step is going to be a bit more time consuming than I think, even though I think it’ll be pretty time consuming.

It’s freakin’ TIRING though, and damn, it’s hot these days.

Started a project. I don’t want to say specifically what it is, ’cause I want to surprise the ‘rents, who are coming to town next week. It involves a ridiculous amount of physical labor, though, and holy moly, it’s tiring. It’s coming along nicely, but honestly, I wouldn’t have expected I’d need a jackhammer. Thanks, S&H! Without that, the thing I was able to do today probably would have taken two solid days alone. Yeesh!