March 31, 2016

mrognin

By Daniel

It took about 20 minutes before I realized I was on the train. Having a hard time waking up, not to mention a delightful sore throat and post-nasal drip. I’m inclined to blame the cold snap that’s going on right now, though. At least nobody’s at the office to infect.

My goal today is to close half my tickets, so 7. I think I’ll be able to manage that, I like the odds. More meetings today that are tangentially related to work; I would much prefer to get the notes later on how it went. Hopefully they’ll be understanding of that.

I’ve been playing a fair amount of FIFA 13, I mentioned a few days ago. Despite their best intentions, and some talented programmers, the “be the goalkeeper” mode in Career mode is terribly boring. Reducing the chess battle to a circle you should stand in, using one analog stick to abstract away all your movement? Both boring and frustrating. I was defending in a crowded 6-yard box, an attacker gets the ball around the penalty mark and gets turned toward me. Due to the way people are positioned I can tell if he shoots it’s gonna be to my bottom-right corner, but I need to hold my spot until he winds up because there’s another attacker to my left. He winds up. In real life, the motion would be a quick wide step to my right and fall forward onto the shot. What happens in the game is I run to the right, I’m in the path of the shot, and then I dive to the right, to get out of the way of the shot. Rage.

And if the one analog stick is too much control, you can hold down LB instead and the guy automatically positions himself, diving for balls, punching away dangerous overhead passes. Your whole involvement in this is being the guy that holds the button that lets the AI work.

Maybe I should see if 16 is any better after all.

I’m really irritated with the housing market in Santa Fe. Not only because the houses are about double the cost of owning in Albuquerque, but also because of the luddite mindset towards cooling. It’s absurd how many houses here not only don’t have even a swamp cooler, they don’t have ductwork or vents should they decide they might need one in the future. In the desert. With global warming setting record highs every year. “It just doesn’t get that hot at 7000 feet.” You mean, it didn’t. It does nowadays. Last year had 4 straight months with an average high above 87. It’s never hit 100 degrees here, but I have a funny feeling that’s changing this summer. I’ve gone back and forth on this, I’m willing to try a swamp cooler, but these places that don’t even have ductwork? Fuck ’em. Those houses aren’t selling in 20 years when the average high is 95 for four straight months. I’m starting to wonder if we’re better off getting a house built, just to be assured it’s got something resembling modern air conditioning.