Bungie Halo 3 Humpday: “It was revealed that one of the Halo 3 gametypes that the EGM guys got to play had altered gravity. As it stands, gravity can be increased or decreased as easily any other gameplay setting. In this instance of rockets on Snowbound, we set it to 50%. It was ridiculously fun.”

Since I got tagged by Dwight, here’s my list of things you may not know about me:

1. I know what a Xenon decay constant is. I spent 4.5 years in the US Navy in the nuclear power program learning how the Navy uses nuclear power on board it’s ships. The training facilities are incredible and there a things about them I just can’t say, but they are fantastic. It ended badly, mainly due to my immaturity, but I retained most of the knowledge, the learning techniques and an honorable discharge.

2. I used to get late-night phone calls from Crispen Glover in 1991. He read me (and my roommate Bert) weird poetry.

3. I am afraid of rabbits in the way that most people are afraid of snakes. Put one within five feet of me and I get nervous. If it gets within three feet, I’ll get up and move. I can’t tell you why but I feel like they are about to leap at my neck and bite into my jugular vein. Seriously.

4. I’ve helped pull a newborn calf from the mother’s birth canal, once with a winch device called a “come a-long”. It’s just as gross as it sounds.

5. I am irrationally shameful that I never went to college. I somehow feel like less of a success because I didn’t pay through the nose for four years of lectures and hazing. I can’t shake it–no matter what my achievements–and I consider it one of my character flaws.

(whew!)

Veerle: “Like in any aspect of design the attention to details makes a good design perfect. So when all furniture is in place you’ll need some accents to finish it off. It doesn’t come to mind at first instance but there is a fragile beauty called glass. I’ve found a perfect Belgian designer called Anna Torfs that has a gift of breathing life into her colorful glass pieces.”

Here’s a shot of the bathroom–almost done…

Copacetic » Blog Archive » Everything you needed to know about cycling in Dublin: “Yes, if you manage to negotiate the telegraph pole, that is a waste bin behind it.”

Darren Barefoot: “Now, of course, Star Wars borrows heavily from Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. All art is part theft–I just thought Eragon was a particularly egregious example. It’s a pretty bad movie. Malkovich, Carlyle and Irons chew the scenery into sawdust”

Usually the city requires a certified electrician to repair weatherheads–the place that your electrical line connects to your house or building–and that’s been a concern. Today, the mayor said that “the City would not be an impediment to getting your electricity back on” which was great to hear.

Normally, the city utility wouldn’t hook up/reconnect/power up your electrical connection unless a certified electrician inspected the weatherhead and the city approved it. The mayor signed a proclamation that helps to eliminate much of the certification process. That’s not to say that the rest of the inspection isn’t needed, but at least for the next 30 days, a competent electrician can get “certified” by the city and get people helped.

The reason this is so important is underscored in this example:

Four homes are powered by one transformer. Three of the homes have no weatherhead damage but one does. The three homes that are fine would have to wait until the fourth house is fixed before getting power back.

I’m in that situation now. On person has to get their weatherhead fixed and based on what I’ve seen, I won’t get power for at least another week.

I want to cry.

http://www.ci.springfield.mo.us/community/tv23/index.html

Get your news updates directly from the city. They’ve been digitizing the updates and posting them pretty quickly. I’m at work right now so I can download these for later.

Daring Fireball Linked List: “Did you notice the nice ring tone Steve Jobs demoed on the iPhone during the keynote? DF reader Andrew Neesley translated it and made it into a MIDI file. I dig it.”

BTW, I downloaded this direct to my Treo 650 to tide me over until I can get iPhone’d…

Zarah writes of her sixth day without power: “Luckily we’ve got a warm place to stay, but I’m worried about the pipes freezing, and it’s really inconvenient not to be in your own house, and now they’re saying on the news that thieves are breaking into the darkened homes, so I’m worried about that too.”

I can sympathize. We’re on day seven with no real end in site and snow is definitely on the way. As far as looters, two police cars caught someone in our neighborhood last night–doing who knows what–and it required two police cars to get them “moving along”.

As far as patience, I’m out of it. I’m not angry with the utilities or the work crews, but I need to go back to my routine out of concern for my sanity. One of our cats cried all night, keeping Tammy and I from getting more than an hour of sleep at a time. Now I know how new parents must feel…