blueZhift Blog

Once again our lawmakers are wasting our tax money rather than trying to solve real problems. Illinois lawmakers are pressing on with a bill that will restrict the sale of violent video games to minors. They are doing this depite the fact that in several states similar bills have all been ruled unconstitutional because video games are a protected form of speech in the same way as other media such as movies or music.

Our state has some serious problems, so why is Governor Blagojevich, who authored the bill, wasting time and money on this? The law, if passed, will be challenged and most likely found to be unconstitutional at the cost of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of taxpayer dollars. In a state that is struggling with budget short falls, wasting money like this makes no sense. This is just politics as usual. Politician A proposes a law that he/she knows is probably unconstitutional, but which will score some points with the local crowd. Politicians B through N go along with it and use their support to make the usual deals, again knowing that there’s no cost because the Judiciary will strike it down. When it is found to be unconstitutional, everyone gets bonus points by railing against the evil Judicial branch.

If they must waste time and money, why not propose a law that would impose fines and jail time on lawmakers who pass stupid or unconstitutional laws? Ironically, such a law would probably be unconstitutional. Damn Judicial branch! Bonus!

I know there have been a few times in the past when a particularly long bout of gaming has led to some really interesting dreams. These include all night sessions of Tetris, Civilization, and Shenmue to name three. Now there is a report on Gamasutra about research that suggests that avid gamers are more likely to experience lucid dreams than non-gamers. Lucid dreams are dreams in which the dreamer is aware that he/she is dreaming and often has some control of the dream itself. Research done by Jayne Gackenbach, a professor of psychology and sociology at Grant MacEwan College, Canada suggests that gaming may actually change the way the brain works.

Well how about that? All these years of gaming may have rewired my brain! I hope this all means it will last longer!

Finally I found (actually my wife…) a soy milk that I can live with! One of my biggest problems with other soy milks was the grittiness and the basic incompatibility with cereal. I’ve never been a big milk drinker due to lactose intolerance (which only gets worse with age), but I do like cereal as a breakfast option. So what to do?

We just started buying 8th Continent soy milk which is just what I’ve been looking for! It’s got a great taste and goes very well with cereal. The soy protein is an added bonus as it may be a cancer preventative. I don’t know where this 8th Continent is, but I like it!

I’ve just returned from the University of Chicago Hospital Center for Advanced Medicine and I am still taking in what I experienced. I’ll preface what I am about to write by saying that the care received from our doctor was, and always has been, top-notch. Unfortunately, the people we had to go through in order to get to him could use some serious lessons in customer service!

First impressions are always an important factor in getting and retaining customers. Upon reaching the hospital for our kids’ appointments, we approached the check-in desk and were immediately ordered to step back away from the desk to a point behind a floor painted symbol about 4 feet away from the desk. This immediately reminded me of the Joliet prison scene near the beginning of the Blues Brothers in which Jake has to stay behind some floor tape while retrieving his personal belongings before being released from prison. This left a really bad taste in my mouth. I know a lot of African American men have been to prison, but I have not and I don’t like being treated that way! This is one of the reasons that I refuse to shop at the Ford City Mall, where customers are practically body searched upon entering and exiting the shops! A bad first impression will almost always drive customers away. Customers of the suburban Woodfield Mall would never stand for this kind of treatment. Well Black people don’t like bad customer treatment either!

As usual, even though we were on time for our appointment, we had to endure a long wait. During this time, the kids immediately went to play Sonic the Hedgehog on a game kiosk in the waiting area. I like video games, and kids do too, except when the controller is broken making the game unplayable. Why not just turn the d*mn thing off rather than frustrating child after child in a waiting area bereft of any other toys or books a young child could enjoy. Again, this is bad customer service! We I later told a nurse that the controller was broken making it impossible to play the game, she just denied it. It was worse than just broken, none of the jump buttons worked on the controller which meant that it was impossible for Sonic to clear any level! For Sonic, this must have been truly hellish, trapped in the same area of the same level, forever. For my kids, it was similarly frustrating. We ended up waiting about a half hour past our appointment time before seeing the doctor, which was plenty of time for other kids to approach the game and be frustrated by it. There was also a television tuned to Nickelodeon, but with the volume turned almost all the way down. What is the point of that? They might as well have just turned the thing off. This waiting area can only be described as pure hell for a child, the enticement of fun, but the reality of broken promises.

Again, our doctor was great, but the service at the University of Chicago Hospital totally sucks. Sucks is not a sophisticated expression, but I can find no other way to describe the service accurately. Needless to say, there weren’t any forms or a suggestion box where I could register my dissatisfaction, so I am writing this here and forwarding it to the appropriate hospital personnel. I know many people suffer bad service at the hospital, but it does not have to be this way. My wife has told me that the service at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and Children’s Memorial Hospital is very good. I’ve also heard good things about the Catholic hospitals in general. So clearly, someone cares about customer service while the University of Chicago Hospital apparently does not.

Sometimes life throws some tough decisions at you. This really wasn’t one of those times. Yesterday, my youngest son got sick and my wife and I had to rush him to the hospital. The good news is that he is okay now (praise God!). The bad news is that I had to miss the Nobuo Uematsu concert of Final Fantasy music that took place last night. I’d been looking forward to the concert for months, having bought tickets within an hour of the initial announcement! I even had contingency plans in case we couldn’t find a sitter! But I hadn’t factored a trip to the emergency room into that picture…

Well, I’m overjoyed that my son is better now! My friends all prayed for him and supported me! One even got me a refund on my tickets. But after it was all over, I was really depressed over missing the concert. This morning though, I stayed home with my son and it really struck me hard that he is more than worth a missed concert! I was sooo scared I was going to lose him, yet here he is as if nothing had happened at all. Now that is a freakin miracle!

Resistance is futile, your technological distinctiveness will be added to the EA… It certainly does appear that Larry Probst and Electronic Arts is assimilating everything in sight lately. They’ve already locked up major video game sports with NFL and Arena football and NASCAR exclusive licensing deals. Now they seem intent on gaining control of Ubisoft having already bought a 20 percent stake in the company. So I decided to give Larry the Borg treatment like Bill Gates,just for fun and to see how fast I could do it. This was done in Fireworks.

Ah so many manga, so little time/money/time ugh! Most of the time I only buy a new manga volume when I have a� coupon, but alas, I am between coupons. So I had to, gulp, pay full price! Oh well, I really had little choice. Fruits Basket Volume 7 and MegaTokyo Volume 3 just came out. Both of these are likely to sell out their consignment at my local Borders, so I picked them up today.

Since most manga sell for anywhere from $7 to $10 per copy, the costs add up quickly so I seek discounts whenever I can. The best discount I’ve encountered so far are the 25% off coupons I get via email from Borders. Just get on their mailing list to get these. Here are the series I’m following right now (in no particular order).

Tsubasa
xxxHolic
Fruits Basket
Comic Party
Boys Be
Negima
MegaTokyo
Suikohden III

I read a lot of other books and manga in between along with tech books and magazines, but the series above are the ones I look forward to. Note MegaTokyo is a web manga which can be read for free, but I discovered it in bound form first and I like Fred so I keep buying them. I also like being able to read a big chunk of the story collected together along with the liner notes so to speak.

It’s funny, as bad as Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Voyager were, I never really gave up on them. Maybe I’m the eternal optimist or just a rabid fanboy (nah), but I always want to see how a story ends. I don’t remember ever walking out on a movie no matter how bad. Sometimes the hope that things will get better pays off. Next Generation, Babylon 5, Deep Space Nine, and Farscape all had less than stellar beginnings, but ripened into very good series filled with characters one could love, hate, and really give a crap about.

So even after getting yelled at by my lovely wife tonight for watching Enterprise, I’m going to be watching until the last show. Enterprise has gotten a little better and there are even some characters that I care a little bit about. But I’m also looking forward to pouring over the repeats like in the old days, digging out every nugget of meaning. I guess the fanboy never really dies!

It’s been said by others on the net and right now I’d have to agree. The new Battlestar Galactica is the best science fiction show on tv. I remember being fond of the original Battlestar Galactica when it first aired, but this new show is a different animal. Hey! Someone got some Babylon 5 in my Battlestar Galactica! Really, I like the new Battlestar because of the same kind of grittiness and realistic characters that Babylon 5 had. I also like the parallel plot lines and all of the conflict and tension surrounding Boomer’s Cylon identity (Grace Park….mmmmmm). This show will rip your heart out with its flawed and conflicted characters. There’s no guarantee here that the good guys will beat the bad guys or that there is always a clear distinction between the two.

Like Babylon 5, my hope is that a complete story arch is planned with a beginning, a middle, and an end, rather than just continuing the series until the ratings drop.

Universal Music Group and Apple have joined together to make popular Chinese music available for download for the U.S. iTunes Music Store. The press release says that this is the first time Chinese music has been available for legal download outside of Asia. It also says that over 1000 tracks will be available for download in time for the beginning of Chinese New Year celebrations.

I was very excited when I first heard about this. I took a look at the available offerings on iTunes last night and must say that my initial excitement was met with disappointment. The songs are located in a Chinese New Year section of World music. Last night there were 37 albums available, most $9.99 to download the complete album. This sounds good until you notice that most of the music is very old. Most of the music is from the mid ’80s and ’90s. And there were no where near 1000 tracks for download. In the end, I bought about 10 tracks which I will be playing at work today to celebrate the new year.

I can only hope that there will be more recent music available. And eventually, I’d like to see Japanese and Korean music there as well. I guess this is a good start though.

Gung hay fa choi! Happy New Year!