Blessed by the Potato

Wow, do I feel like a dickhead. After blasting AreaMan & Baum for not updating, I went over a week on autopilot without an update myself.

After thinking that what I really wanted was a mech game, I went and got a copy of Heavy Gear 2 to play. It’s an old game, but this is my first time playing it. Back in the day, I was a big Heavy Gear fanatic, and actually got into some pretty heated arguments with one of the guys working on this project (the early screenshots were all distorted like viewing through a fish-eye lens), and Craptivision had really dropped the ball on supporting the original Heavy Gear and MW2: Mercs (they made a patch, they beta tested it, but as far as I know never actually released it).

There were a lot of other reasons why I didn’t end up buying the game at the time: I knew from the description that they were taking the story off Terra Nova to focus on a group of pilots attacking Caprice, striking into the heart of the NEC. To me, that sounded really dumb. Here we had fallen in love with Terra Nova, a fairly well-fleshed out world with a large cast of interesting characters, an unstable geopolitical situation with a simmering cold war, as well as a rich past to mine for historical campaigns… and they chose to take all the action off-planet within the first few missions. It was, simply, a betrayal.

In the intervening years, I’ve pretty much given up Heavy Gear. I’ve forgotten the characters, story arcs, and game system. My books are gathering dust somewhere back at my parents’ house. (I still have my minis on display, but that’s because they look independently cool.) So now I can accept the zany plot without an emotional response.

The other big reason I never played the game was because it was buggy and required rather steep hardware requirements for the time (by which I mean, my computer wouldn’t run it). The bugginess has actually gotten worse, as the game simply won’t run for long under Windows XP. I can play one mission to the end, and it will usually crash before the debrief screen, and always when trying to launch the next mission. I don’t know why I’ve been torturing myself with that sort of nonsense for the last few days, but there you have it.

So, with all that negativity around the game, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The Gears did handle fairly well, and as contrived and dumb as it was, the space scenes were fun (as people said at the time “a gear would be decent in space, but a star fury would be better”). I was severely disappointed by the range of the weapons (a grenade can be thrown something like 25 m, but a mortar only goes 250), and at the lack of combined-arms or terrain use (it seems like a throwback to mechwarrior, where anything over a 30° slope can’t be climbed). I doubt anyone will ever bother to try it now, given the severe bugs, but it was more fun than I had thought it would be.

Of course, it just serves to make me want another, more modern game that much more. X-wing, Mech, Gear, I’m not too picky. Just some sort of shooter that isn’t quite the twitch-fest many FPS’s are.

Moving away from the dead horse, I saw Predator on the weekend with some friends. It’s still a very good movie (for what it is). Like Netbug before me, I really yearn for a decent Aliens vs. Predator movie. As we were talking about on the weekend, it really shouldn’t be that much to ask for: just set it anywhere other than Earth, put in some marines, and some acid blood. How they managed to screw that movie up so badly I will never know.

Finally, I read through the archives at XKCD. I don’t know how to describe it, but I liked it.

I recently had to restock basically all of my dental care products, having simultaneously run out of floss, mouthwash, toothpaste, and been long over-due for a new toothbrush. It’s pretty cool to see the confused look on the checkout girl’s face when I come up with $50 worth of stuff to prevent cavities, and 3 bags each of chocolate nuggets and Skittles.

I have really terrible teeth due to a number of issues (genetics, stress, diet, etc.) and buy any toothpaste that promises to help reduce tartar and gingivitis (so usually Colgate Total or Crest Complete — both contain fluoride and a mild antibacterial). While my teeth could be whiter, I generally avoid the innumerable whitening toothpastes since the whitening agents can weaken gums, and I just can’t risk that. This time, I saw a new product: Colgate Enamel Hardening toothpaste, and was immediately intrigued. However, the only ingredient it listed was old-fashioned fluoride, at the same concentration as Colgate Total (0.243%), so I have no idea what might make it “enamel hardening”. I actually asked the pharmacist (much to her obvious annoyance), and she said she’d never heard of this new toothpaste, and so couldn’t tell me one way or the other. I played it safe and bought more Total (which was also on sale; the new stuff wasn’t).

It’s still been bugging me though. Is it just a marketing gimmick, since almost every kind of toothpaste does something in addition to “fighting cavities” now (tartar control; whitening; plus mouthwash; etc.), did they just re-label their plain toothpaste, relying on the fact that regular fluoride toothpastes harden enamel (their old-fashioned cavity-fighting mechanism)? The Colgate website doesn’t have any information on this version of its toothpaste, and a Google search didn’t help either. Anyone know what the deal is? I’d hate for someone to be fooled into buying regular toothpaste when they might be marginally better off with another type.

Some quick site admin stuff: Area Man & Jonathan, both of your sites were last updated in mid-April. Until you can meet the admittedly onerous demands of blogging once a month, I’ve taken you off the links list. Likewise for my left-wing political parties: see you next election! Note that I will leave the link up for Fair Vote Canada, since we’ve actually got a referrendum coming up in just over a year (though, AFAIK, the citizen’s assembly has yet to be formed). Bakarocket doesn’t appear to have renewed the domain… This has left my links section very sparse, but I kind of like it that way. Topical links are generally provided within relevant posts, and most of the other sites I visit regularly don’t need the link (does Penny Arcade, BoingBoing, or The Weather Network really need a link?).

Highlight of my week: Answering “Did you go to Western before you started your PhD here?” with “Yes, I did my Master’s here.”

Low point of my week: I think I might have accidentally sold my soul last night for some sleep. I was really tired, and actually went to bed before the sun was fully down. I woke up a bit before 1 am though, and just couldn’t fall back asleep. With increasing delerium and sweating, I think I was actually begging out loud to just fall asleep; I’d do anything for sleep. Then there was a hint of a foreboding presence, and I fell asleep again (around 7 am). It could just be the sleep deprivation talking, but I’m really afraid that some dark transaction took place in those final moments that preceed unconsciousness, those seconds that you can never quite remember no matter how hard you try.

Breyer’s ice cream is one of my favourite brands. It is, in my experience, the creamiest brand of ice cream you can buy to take home. There are slightly better tasting ones, but they tend to be much more expensive, and there are slightly softer ones, but despite being softer they aren’t as tasty or creamy. Note that this only applies to the Breyer’s in the blue packaging (the “classic” ice cream). They also have Breyer’s in a black package (which I believe is all-natural or somesuch) that is cheaper and not nearly as good. What’s interesting is that while it ususally costs about $4.50-$5.00, it often goes on sale for less than $2, which is a really decent discount: less than a small cone at an ice cream parlour. So, it’s on sale now and I picked up some. The problem with ice cream, particularly good ice cream sold in 2 L containers, is over-indulgance. Particularly since I just know that if I leave it too long, it’ll get all nasty and freezer-burned and it’ll just go to waste. So the huge sale really helps in just not feeling guilty about eating part of it and letting the rest sit in the freezer until some future chocolate emergency (or fridge cleaning day). Of course, that raises another problem: that Wayfare might find it and eat it all since freezer-burned or not, she figures ice cream is ice cream.

Dominion is also having a sale on “bulk” Glossette Chocolate Covered Peanuts (I put bulk in quotation marks because they’re actually packaged treat-sized packs, rather than completely loose peanuts). The sale is even better because none of the cashiers seem to know how to ring them up. Unlike regular bulk candy, which is sold by weight, these Halloween packs are sold by count: 10 for a dollar. However, the cashiers just enter the bulk tag code and it rings up as just one pack (for 10 cents). This is a bit of a scam, yes, but my conscience is clear: I only bought a few, I bought lots of other groceries, and most importantly, I tried to correct them twice before just giving up and letting them sell them to me cheap. First, the guy rang it up as a single unit (for 10 cents). I told him that was wrong and they were sold by count rather than weight (and that I had 30). He looked at me, then cancelled the charge and rang it up again, and it came out to… 10 cents. I stopped him and told him again that no, I had 30 of them, so he looked at the screen for a really long time, then went and entered the code two more times so that it came up to 30 cents. I thought about correcting him again (to bring it to $3), but then I was afraid he’d never figure out how to do it right and just enter it in individually 30 times and my ice cream would melt.

So today’s been a really quiet day. I’m back in Toronto to see my family and friends, but no one is around today. My parents are at the cottage, my brother left the house before I got up this morning (as usual, I use the term “morning” rather loosely) and, at nearly 4 am now, still hasn’t come back from wherever he went to. I’m pretty much just eating ice cream and taking a little break to feel sorry for myself. It’s not good for my diet, although I did buy cones — small cones — to make the servings smaller, and add some cone filler (the cones can’t be worse than the ice cream, can they?). And in all truthfulness, I’m not even a quarter of the way through the carton, so that can’t be too bad. Otherwise, my diet hasn’t been going so great. I have managed to maintain some measure of willpower and cut back a bit, but it’s obviously not enough since I haven’t lost any more weight after the few pounds I dropped in Cancun.

Netbug’s barbeque was mostly over by the time I got there, but it was still pretty fun, and gave us the wonderful quote “What now, Mat Leave?” :) I got to watch Other Ryan talk about his art for a bit, and it’s clear that he is a pretty talented guy, and that I should give storyboarding more respect. He does, however, need to learn a few synonyms for “pop” ;)

It was also interesting because there were people there who I don’t really know (or know a little, mostly from WoW) who claim they read my little site here. It’s flattering, for sure, and also a little weird. Until Baum mentioned Sarah’s site, and we talked about how we both read it because she’s a very entertaining writer even though neither of us have met her, or know much about law school. I hope this site is as entertaining for the people who come by who don’t, you know, find that I’ve surreptitiously put the address in their bookmarks after visiting their house and thus have to read it out of duty or pity.

Anyhow, I hope Netbug puts up a summary of the barbeque on his site since I missed so much of it (especially after putting up so many posts trying to sort out the timing). I’m going to try to see that pirate movie tomorrow, and I hope I don’t talk like a pirate for too long afterwards, because that can be a bit embarassing.

Sorry for the outage today, I got a new IP from Rogers (first time in over a year that they’ve served me a new IP). Once again, this might be a tip to go and get some real web hosting… stay tuned…

As far as customer loyalty programs go, I like Air Miles. It’s used across a number of stores (so I don’t have to carry a separate Shopper’s Optimum or Bay Rewards card), and the rewards actually rack up at a perceptable rate (partly due to the fact that you get them from a number of stores, and partly because they don’t suck as hard as Shopper’s Optimum points). Almost every year, I’ve redeemed for three or four “Night Out” passes for the movies, so it’s very easy to see the benefits.

However lately I’ve seen some concerning things happening lately that I just want to briefly mention. First is that they’re starting to depreciate the points by making rewards cost more. I had thought that it was a good system since it was pretty much inflation-proof: you get a certain number of Air Miles per $20 spent, and 125 points gets you a $20 gift certificate. As inflation occurs, you spend more in dollars, getting more Air Miles, but they’re automatically worth less as a $20 gift certificate buys you less. In simpler terms, an Air Mile was worth about 16 cents. It was also a handy measure for determining if you were better off paying cash for one of their merchandise rewards and using the miles on something else. Now, however, the cost of the gift certificates is going up, and thus the value of the miles is coming down… not by much, though, just to about 14 cents, but it makes me a little worried, remembering my Dad having accumulated enough Aeroplan miles from travelling to Edmonton for work every other week that he boasted he could travel around the world three times; then they depreciated the points and he couldn’t even get 4 seats to PEI in the winter. What’s strange is that $20 gift cards to different stores cost different amounts. It seems like the stores where you might give the certificate to someone as a gift (such as clothing stores) come with a significant premium relative to gift certificates for grocery stores, even though it’s all $20 in the end. This either arrogantly speaks about how they measure the intelligence of their customers, or is a brilliant marketing scam. Either way, I’m just a little bit frightened.

Speaking of scams, I decided to see what it would be like to actually use some Air Miles for… well… air travel, rather than movie popcorn. It would be a bit better to find a student rate and pay cash, but even with the peak season premium it wasn’t a huge waste of my accumulated rewards. What was scary though was that if I didn’t have enough reward miles to cover the whole flight, I could use cash to make up the difference… at a rate of 30 cents per Air Mile. That strikes me as nearly criminal, since the value of the rewards (particularly for the gift certificates, where it’s patently obvious) is less than half that when you redeem them. You can take that “option” if you have at least half of the required miles: at that exchange rate, you would pay the entire cash value of the ticket, plus lose a bunch of air miles in the deal.

The last thing that’s been concerning me is how much more slowly I earn the points now. For a few years there, A&P/Dominion was really pushing the bonus Air Miles. I’d earn about ten times as much as I would from their normal 1/$20 spent offer from the bonus miles, and it would (almost) all be on stuff I would buy anyway. Buy a cucumber and get 2 points; three packs of toilet paper would get you 15 (hey, it keeps); two blocks of cheese for 5; five cases of water could get you 25. There have been a few of those around still, but not nearly as many, and they’re a little more ridiculous (buy four canteloupes and get 2 bonus points — the sort of thing that it’s hard to stock up on without wastage, and without much incentive).

All that said, it’s still a better program than Shoppers’ Optimum, which I’m thinking of dropping out of once I get to the next points level and redeem. I’ve carried that stupid card in my wallet for almost 8 years now, and I still haven’t redeemed anything. While it is only one store, I shop there all the time (and it’s been 8 years!). I’m still a few months away from the $55 reward level (at least now they let you actually just get $55 of stuff for free; the first incarnation would have required something like a $140 purchace that you would get 40% off of).

As much as I wish I could shop at Pharma Plus more (by far the best Air Miles sponsor), Shoppers is just such a good store in its own right: they’re close to me (actually, Pharma Plus isn’t much further, it’s just in the opposite direction, away from the grocery store and everything else), they have excellent candy selection (Resse’s pieces and mini cups; they used to be the only place to get Allan sour fruits; and all kinds of other goodies), they’re open late (24 hours in the case of the one by me), and have all kinds of cool seasonal stuff for Halloween and Potatomas. While their prices have been rising faster than inflation lately ($3 for Skittles?!), they also have decent sales on a fairly regular basis, particularly on Coke. In fact, aside from a great sale at Sobeys two months ago, I haven’t bought pop anywhere other than Shoppers in the last year. At least 2 weeks out of every month it’s on for 3×12’s for $11, and at least one week it’ll go down to 3 for $10; last week even saw 4 for $12. For comparison, I used to buy pop in cases of 24 (what the heck happened to two-fours for pop anyway?) for $6 each, then briefly at about $7 each before they stopped selling them in that format (and these are prices from 4 years ago or so). Now, the A&P sells pop at $4.50 for a 12-pack, and hardly ever puts on a sale. Price Chopper still sells 24 packs, but in the old school flat cases (not the “cubes”), and that’s still $8/case.

Anyway, I don’t really have a point, so I’d like to conclude by saying that I really like turning in Air Miles for the Night Out passes, because they let me go to the movies without having to pay cash so I don’t sit there the whole time thinking about how I’m being ripped off to watch a glorified video game. Oh, and how I wish I could keep earning Air Miles so the flow of passes can keep up with the flow of movies (not too hard this last year…).

Oh, and never bother redeeming for the alternative Cineplex/Air Miles 2-for-1 passes: while the Night Out ones count as cash when getting your tickets, the 2-for-1 deals count as passes/coupons, so you can’t use them for any new movies, and moreover, can’t use them on Tuesdays, matinees, or weekends (never mind that Tuesdays are no longer cheap days, or that the free ticket would have also cost less). I redeemed for 4 of them last year, and only ever got to use 1 before they expired, they’re so restrictive!