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My wife and I purchased our first house recently. It has just about everything that we could hope for: Larger bedrooms for us and our son, a yard, deck, and front porch on which to hang out, a craft room for my crafty spouse, and a home office for me. This newly acquired property has sparked in me a tremendous excitement about the possibilities.

What started as purchasing a power tool or two to fix things up around the house, has turned into a hunger for do-it-yourself stuff. There are many things which need to be done to make this old house we now own into the dream home we envision. I know that doing these things on my own will be the cheapest way to go. So I have committed myself to installing wood paneling throughout our entire first floor, building several pieces of furniture including a desk, platform bed and shelving, painting, repairing fences and porches, etc.

My first major project is designing a computer desk for my office and a platform bed for our master bedroom. I’m a novice at working with wood and a complete newbie to design software. So after looking around a bit, I decided to learn Google’s Sketchup and use that as the basis of my design work. I took measurements of my new home-office and recreated the room in 3D. Then I went about designing the desk to fit things like dual monitors, a full size MIDI keyboard, speakers and amps, as well as a couple of desktop computers.

The king size platform bed is pretty straight forward. I am making two identical twin sized platforms and locking them together. Each platform has three legs made of 4″ x 4″ posts. The sides of the frame are 2″ x 6″ x 78″ inch beams. The ends are 2″ x 6″ x 38″ beams. The crossbeams are 1″ x 4″ x 3′. I cover them with a 3/4″ x 36″ x 76″ sheet of particle board.

After a couple of revisions I came up with what you see below. I have a few concerns about whether the desk, as designed can be assembled by me, whether it will hold the weight I need it to hold, and how I’ll finish the desktop so that it will be both comfortable and functional. All the framing is designed to be 2″ x 2″ wood posts. The desktops will likely be 3/4″ particle board and the side panels 1/2″ plywood. I intend to use wood screws to assemble everything, after pre-drilling all the guide holes. Joining everything with butt joints makes me a bit nervous, but I think it should work.

If you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to share. I’m posting these models to the Google Sketchup 3D warehouse, so you can view them in all their glory at that site. I’m probably going to first build the platform bed, followed by the desk. Check back here for updates to see how things turned out. I have a few worries about some of the fine details. Hopefully I’ll get answers to some of my questions before the building is done.

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The holidays are pretty stressful. Usually we see lots of people we don’t normally hang out with on a regular basis. So there’s lots of catching up required. Out of courtesy, we pay attention to people for much longer than we’re used to. We buy gifts, act grateful when we get stuff we don’t really want or need and generally just commune with our fellow man while trying not to freak the hell out. At least, that’s what I do.

Now that it’s a good distance of time behind us, I’d like to reflect on Thanksgiving for a moment. My hope is that you’re reading this long before the holiday or long after it has passed, so that I don’t ruin it for you. Anyway, Thanksgiving’s the Thursday each year where we get together with friends and family to carbo-load before the big marathon of shopping which begins the following day. As my fellow blogger Goldieloxxx points out a couple of months ago on MagicButter.com, the name “Black Friday” doesn’t make a lot of sense. But then, neither does trampling little old ladies who stand in the way of you spending all your cash on shit you don’t really need.

Forget about shopping for a second, though. Let’s talk about what Thanksgiving is really all about: turkey! No, seriously that’s what Adam Sandler thinks it’s all about. His “Thanksgiving” song doesn’t even mention the word “thankful” and that’s supposed to be the reason for this whole celebration. This holiday, more than any other, belongs to America. Thanksgiving is supposed to commemorate the first time settlers from England sat down together with Native Americans in peace. Our English for-fathers invaded this great land, slaughtered many of its indigenous people, took over and then decided that we’d have a day in which we broke bread together and said thanks.

The question that most people who celebrate Thanksgiving never really ask themselves is; to who is this “thanks” addressed? When you give something, someone needs to receive it, right? So when you work hard and are able to gather a plentiful bounty of food for friends and family, who are you thanking? Well, given that the early settlers who founded “Thanksgiving” are Puritans, the correct answer would be “God.”

Religion isn’t really my cup of tea. However, you gotta hand it to them for managing to get a national holiday on the calendar for what amounts to, “take some time to thank the Lord for everything you have.” Maybe it’s for the best that we take a moment of solemn reflection before embarking upon a season of gluttony and wild consumerism in the name of Christ’s birthday? I don’t know. For me, it’s just fun to mess with atheists when they say they have, “so much to be thankful for.” I ask, “So, who are you thanking?” In the silence that follows, you can try to press your luck by letting your atheist friend know what you’d like for Christmas that year.

King 0f New York

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Now, close to twenty years later, my weight has topped out at 265 pounds. Carrying around the extra pounds has taken a toll on my stamina, my knees and self-esteem. So I’ve decided to dedicate myself to losing much of the unneeded mass. My goal is to shed sixty pounds of fat within a year. I don’t expect myself to look like I did as a teenager, but I think my health will improve quite a bit if I change my eating and exercise habits.

I realize this post comes close to New Year’s Eve, when many people are claiming to make resolutions for the new year. That’s not the case for me. I made this decisions a few months back. I started doing more exercise and eating better towards the end of October. Since then, I’ve lost about 18 pounds. So I’m well on my way toward my goal at this point. As I sit here on winter vacation in Florida, I know I’ve let myself go a bit. It’s hard to deny yourself during holiday dinners with family. Still, I believe that I will achieve my goals because I am determined to do so. I don’t rule out eating anything because I know that once in a blue moon won’t hurt me.

Being here at my mother’s house and seeing these old pictures just reinforces the desire to get thinner. I can’t wait to take new photos where I look as healthy as I once did.

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I’ve had this domain for about a year now. The posting here has been sporadic at best. Mostly, I just wrote when I found something cool on the net or when I had to vent about something. I know that very few people bother reading here. That’s why I’ve found a new place to blog where a larger audience can read what I have to say.

MagicButter.com is a really cool site. They have some awesome videos, music, contests and even t-shirts, with a great bunch of people working behind the scenes to entertain you. My role there is to add some more content in the form of a regular blog. I am both inspired and motivated by the opportunity. So I’m going to be posting almost daily.

MagicButter has been building for a while. My contributions began last week. You can feel free to check out the fruits of our labors at MagicButter.com right now. There should be plenty of content to keep you distracted for some time. By the time you get through it all, we’ll have more for you to enjoy.

We welcome your feedback, requests and other input. If you hate what you see, let us know how we can make it better. If you like it, spread the word. If there’s one thing the Net is great for, it’s passing along interesting stuff. Be one of the first to discover the coolness of MagicButter. Then share it with a friend.

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Today, I noticed a friend request in my PS3’s mailbox from someone at Quartertothree.com. Mind you, I was banned from that board over ten months ago: unceremoniously discarded like the victim of a frat house gang-rape. So after lashing out at those responsible, I was happy to put the whole thing behind me. Sadly, these angry and bitter people are still talking about me ten months later. After a keyword search, I found that it isn’t just a passing mention either. Apparently, I’m referenced regularly despite the board moderator’s assertion I am some sort of intolerable disruption.

While on the subject, I feel perhaps a clarification of my position needs to be posted. Not all of QT3 attacked me. Some were supportive, and of the ones who did do their best to chase me away, not all were game industry insiders. So maybe it was overly harsh to call them representatives of the video game creation and reporting industry. It’s wrong to lash out at those who make games I love to play because of the actions of some internet denizens with a superiority complex.

In actual fact, the responsibility for QT3 being so terrible to new users falls squarely on Tom Chick’s shoulders. He allows boorish losers like quatoria and sociopaths like Bill Dungsroman to verbally assault and insult people with impunity. To this day, there are new people signing up at his site and getting treated like human garbage for the amusement of the regular members. When a moderator does nothing about the hazing on his forum and actually encourages the offenders, he is solely to blame for any drama that results.

So if anyone from the actual video game industry happens to read this nonsense, I’m sorry. I’m grateful for the games. The people involved with making and reporting on video games that I’ve met in real life have all been very pleasant. I didn’t mean to lump in the good with the bad. Please continue to work for our collective entertainment and I will continue to do my part in supporting you.

I also urge people who are not in the industry to continue signing up for QT3. Eventually, perhaps you all can outnumber the jerks there and force them to accept the opinions of people who disagree with their narrow view.

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Yet another paranoid and ignorant response to technology is being reported by the Associate Press. A congressionally celebrated robotics and technology enthusiast from MIT; Star Simpson has been arrested at gun point in Boston’s Logan International Airport for wearing a circuit board on her shirt with flashing lights on it. Mind you, she didn’t threaten anyone. She didn’t behave strangely. She simply showed up to the airport to meet her boyfriend, asked directions at an information booth, then was surrounded by men with Uzi’s and taken into custody.

From my point of view she has broken no laws. That isn’t stopping Boston’s district attorney from charging her with “possession of a hoax device.” When did computer parts become evil? I missed that part of our country’s history. I was at the towers on 9/11 when those planes were hitting buildings. I watch the endless hours of subsequent coverage. Not once was a circuit board of any kind mentioned as being involved with the events of that horrible day. Since then, not a single circuit board has been involved in any human deaths on the news. So why is everyone so afraid of them?

Boston it seems, is particularly fearful of any technology. A few months ago, they arrested a couple of guys who were guilty only of successfully promoting a cartoon on cable television with cheap, handmade circuit boards and LED lights. I wonder if law inforcement in that part of the country has been trained to suspect any device containing electronics without a visible logo. Has anyone bothered explaining to them that real terrorists won’t have blatantly obvious electronic bombs strapped to their chests as they aimlessly wonder around public places? TV and movie terrorists may have computers and electronics with randomly flashing lights, but real life is different.

Arresting people who have done nothing wrong simply because you don’t know enough to ignore harmless electronics is stupid. Real terrorists will likely hide explosive in common looking electronics like Nintendo DS and Apple iPod. Maybe anyone carrying those items should be stopped at gun point? I’d like the people of Bosten to develop an irrational fear of other common devices which are far more harmful than circuit boards. Start arresting people who are carrying bright red sticks of dynomite or big black bowling balls with wicks on them and “TNT” written on the side. Perhaps we should just outlaw planes since that’s what caused all the terror on 9/11?

With vague charges like “posession of a hoax device” law enforcement is going down a slippery slope. Who decides what constitutes a “hoax device” anyway? Where does the line between harmless, non-threatening electronics and “hoax device” fall? Who decides? Paranoid security guards? Technophobic old judges? Politicians looking for a pet cause to bolster his approval ratings? The whole thing just sucks.

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It was a long and interesting weekend for me. The 10100 guys and I attended the Nor’Easter LAN event in the Boston area. Named appropriately because it didn’t stop raining there the whole time. Among the other stuff that went on, I got to try swimming while buzzed.

How I got buzzed, was by ingesting a plethora of beverages. Among them was Uno’s “WILDBERRY LEMONADE” (All our favorite berries in one glass. Stoli Razberi and Stoli Blueberi laced with a puree of wildberries and filled with lemonade. A slice of lemon floats on top.) and “POMEGRANATE MARGARITA” (The exotic taste of pomegranate splashed into a tequila connoisseur’s favorite, Patrón Silver, mixed with the subtle sweetness of orange and the tartness of lime.) The fact that these two drinks had tons of booze in them seemed to escape the fourteen guys with whom I was drinking. The bright pinkish color however, got their attention.

The following day, ordering a regular pink lemonade during dinner got a big laugh. My face becoming a deeper shade of pink didn’t help either.

I had fun hanging out with my friends, playing video games and acting all sorts of silly in another state. I also got to snoop around a network and sneak into people’s computers to see what files they had this weekend. It made me feel like a peeping Tom. I’d show you pictures, but I didn’t bother taking any. All I got was very little sleep time and a load of funny stories to tell. I’d share them here, but I don’t want to incriminate myself.

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The slogan Merrill Lynch has written on their internal propaganda has been “A Performance Based Culture” for the last couple of years. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to live by this credo. In the last two years, they have repeatedly shown far more concern about where their people work, then who works for them. While the heads of this company get annual bonuses in excess of seven figures, those who bust their asses to keep things functioning are having their jobs taken away from them to save a few bucks.

The people of whom I speak, are employees in Merrill’s technology group who have given the company more than twenty years of their lives. Fortunately, I was only there for a couple of years. So when the announcement came in that our jobs were moving from New Jersey to Florida, I shrugged and updated my resume thinking it’s no big deal. Of course, the people who just purchased new homes during the previous year’s move from New York to New Jersey weren’t nearly as carefree.

I think Merrill Lynch’s behavior as a company is deplorable. Sure, they offer people who are willing to relocate a small chunk of cash. There’s just no guarantee that you’ll keep your job after going to all the trouble of moving yourself and your family across country. In fact the only thing they do assure you of is that your salary will be adjusted down to match the cost of living in Florida, if you decide to move.

I know folks who were two years away from retirement with full benefits that suddenly had nothing to look forward to but unemployment benefits. Others have worked the night shift for more than a decade, keeping offices all around the world up and running while the US sleeps. They must now return to the daytime and look for work to support their families.

At this point, I know that those who read this might be thinking, “Well, that’s business for you. I’m sure the company has a very good reason for moving offices.” Consider this: the function these people and I performed for Merrill requires a decent computer with an internet connection and a telephone line. That’s all. We monitored and supported remote sites from a number of locations equally well. Sometimes, we work from home, sometimes an office. In the two years I’ve work the overnight shift, I never met my manager face to face.

So what’s more cost efficient, to move an entire office from New Jersey to Florida or allow people to work from home and stay where they are? Is it better to keep those who know the job in place, or move locations then look for competent technicians in an area not known for computer jobs?

My opinion of Merrill Lynch is not very good right now. They have demonstrated to me that they don’t care about people. Their motivations escape logic, in my view. Going forward, I will do everything I can to avoid doing any business with Merrill or companies associated with them. I would also urge anyone who considers morality in business an important characteristic to do likewise.

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There’s a message board which few seem to know about called http://www.quartertothree.com where game designers, game players, game journalists and other media people have a little community. On the forums at this site, “industry insiders” discuss everything from games, movies and politics, to personal problems and social issues. Often, the posters will even use their real names. The ugliness that exists on these message boards runs deep and I intend to expose it here. Read on for specifics.

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