*unch

05.03.2013

This post will be of absolutely no interest to Jerry, as he knows all of this.

Today I had lunch with Jerry & Keith, except we don't call it "lunch". At some point in the past couple of years, we developed a short-hand for asking if anyone was available/wanted to go to lunch. We couldn't say "Anyone want to go to lunch on Thursday at the Wendy's on University? Maybe at 11:30?". We instead say "Thunch HOR 1130".

The first part is combining "Lunch" with the day of the week. So "Monday" + "Lunch" becomes "Munch". "Tuesday" + "Lunch" becomes "Tunch". "Thursday" + "Lunch" is "Thunch". Friday is an odd hold out, as it it "Frunch" instead of "Funch". I have no idea why.

The second part is location. "HOR" became the Wendy's on University thanks to the belligerant drink refill lady offering refills seemingly before we would sit down. Thanks to her, the Wendy's became the "House of Refills" which was shortened to "HOR" when texting. No other eatery has garnered an abbreviation, but we've been eating at the Chic-Fil-A on Airport enough that it deserves a special name. I'm thinking "CFAirport", but it just doesn't feel right.

I like our little lunches. They seem to pop up every 2 weeks or so (although invitations may be more frequent). We somehow manage not to talk about computers & programming the entire time.

It doesn't take much to be the social highlight of my week.

Permalink random

Pissed off and fixing other people's code UPDATE

04.29.2013

Last week I was bitching about the Daz3D website and how I opened a help ticket and told them how to fix 90% of their problem. I the following reply the next day:

Your request (#136810) has been deemed solved.

David Sandberg, Apr 23 10:07 (MDT):

Hi Russell,

Thanks for this! I've passed it on to our developers who are grappling with this issue.

Regards,

David

Today I logged into the Daz3D site and saw that the button now works in Firefox.

I've not yet received any payment, coupons, or promotional discounts for my part in this.

Permalink programming/interweb

Pissed off and fixing other people's code

04.22.2013

Today I feel, for some reason, like I'm being taken advantage of. Little things haev lined up, mainly things for which I paid for either a product or a service, and either I get the impression the other person feels entitled to something more (and I'm paying US currency here!) or somewhere along the way something doesn't work right.

Case in point, today I purchased some more 3D models from Daz3D. I purchased lots from them over the past decade. They've recently, since I ordered last month, tweaked the UI on the cutomer admin tools. After the initial "hey, where'd the button to download my stuff" anxiety passed, I found the proper place to download files. The only problem was that their filter for displaying products didn't work in my browser. The filter worked in IE. I don't like IE. I used IE anyway, and sent them a bug report:

Product library sort buttons & Firefox 20.0.1 don't work (can't switch from default of ascending by name). Since this is the only way to download newly ordered products, it's a royal pain to find out I just spent $50 to be a website beta tester.

Normally I don't bitch outright, but I've had a day. A couple of hours later I received a reply:

David Sandberg, Apr 22 18:15 (MDT):

Hi Russell,

Sorry about this frustrating problem. A few other users have also reported this same issue. Please try these things:

* Clear your browser's cache and cookies
* Make sure you have javascript turned on and that your browser accepts cookies from our site. Both are needed to use our site.

If you are still having this issue, please:

* Let us know the browser and version you are using. (Sometimes using another browser helps)
* provide the html that you are getting for the page. You can do this in most browsers. For example, in Chrome, you can right-click on the page and left-click 'View Page Source.' Then copy and paste the code into a text file and attach the text file to your reply.
* Your computer platform (Windows or Mac), if you haven’t already told us in your support request.
* Anything else that you can think of that may be relevant to this issue.

Best regards,

David

Other people have had the problem. Try doing some stupid stuff that won't work and see if it works again. OK, he's caught me on the wrong day, or maybe the right day. As it is, I track down the problem for the Daz3D IT staff. They're using JQuery to treat a <span> tag as a <select>, and there's a JavaScript error when the page loads - once JavaScript finds an error, JavaScript stops working, hence the lack of a drop down list. I sent a helpful reply:

The problem is in Firefox 20.0.1/Windows 7 (64bit). Page works fine in IE, except I loathe IE. Cleared cache, accept cookies as normal.

The following popped up in the J/S error console (and normally J/S quits working once it encounters an error, hence the <span> no longer working as a drop down list afterwards):

Timestamp: 4/22/2013 7:35:03 PM
Error: URIError: malformed URI sequence
Source File: http://www.daz3d.com/skin/frontend/enterprise_daz/default/js/jquery.cookie.js
Line: 25

Line 25 points to the return in decoded(s):

function decoded(s) {
return decodeURIComponent(s.replace(pluses, ' '));
}

Looks like others have had this problem: https://github.com/carhartl/jquery-cookie/pull/166

HTML of Product Library attached

They now know the error, where the error is, and a good lead on how to fix it. Normally I get around $60/HR for my job.

Soon after sending the above reply, I remembered when last Daz3D revamped their entire website with cooler functionality. The customer login page wouldn't work for Firefox. They just hate Firefox.

Permalink programming/interweb

Can't stop watching

04.18.2013

I keep watching the flash intro for K&K Mime. It's everything that's annoying about Flash intro's (sound, loud sound, shaky graphics everywhere, lots of swooshing and zinging), but like a train wreck in the middle of a traffic jam I'm drawn to watch. Even worse, I ignore wrecks and jams, but this thing I just watch.

Repetitively.

Once everything calms down, I start to get confused with the concept of "gospel mime". Part of it is that I automatically equate "gospel" with "gospel music", and there's not a lot of singing mimes out there. They're going with the more traditional "gospel" of stories about Christ.

Jerry would be amazed by my knowledge shown by that last sentence, but I had to use the Google to get past "music". I'm so Sunday School illiterate. Maybe one day I can take my Sunday School GED (would that be a JED?). Or maybe there's classes to take to become a naturalized Christian, can you still become Pope if you do that?

Permalink random

Zombie Mall - Inching Forward

04.15.2013

I've found myself lacking inspiration over the past few days. I'm close to wrapping up Zombie Mall to the point where it's ready for Print & Play publication. The rules are written and the components are printable. Although I've got a website set up to which I can upload files and make them readily available, I've decided to go an extra step and make them available through and online publisher, in this case RPG Drive Thru. RPG Drive Thru is, in essence, a collection of about 5 publishing websites which each focused on a different gaming aspect (for something wargames heavy just head over to Wargame Vault).

Publishing through one of the above sites will allow more people to come across my game, but mainly it will continue my "what's it take to publish a game" journey. I've learned yet more about hoe to properly make a PDF, page layout, DPIs, and other stuff I can't remember right now. It's all educational!

If I've got everything ready, why am I complaining about lack of motivation? I have to make a cover. A cover for the rules. A cover that I can use as a thumbnail. Although I whipped up something that can be used, it's too bland. I've since come up with a design & layout that I like and I think will work, but it's taking some extra effort to follow through since I'm using Poser to create zombies. Lots of zombies - I've got 10 set up up so far and I need to at least double that. Each zombie has it's own textures, clothes, hair, and eventually pose. At some point I'll export the picture from Poser that I'll layout into what will be the cover image (Colorforms style!).

The setup for each figure it's what's so... boring. Each takes time, and there's not much feedback toward progress at any given point. In that, things feel like they're moving at a snails pace and I think of things I would rather do.

I need to make a list to check things off, that usually gets me motivated.

Permalink zombie mall