Adventures in Apartment Hunting

Now that I’ve got a job, it’s time to get an apartment. I hadn’t thought that finding one would be as much of a pain in the ass as finding a job had been, but it’s still in the running.

I did find a place about 20-30 minutes from work. It’s a two-bedroom apartment with an enclosed front porch, combined kitchen/dining room, laundry room with washer/dryer hookup, one and a half crappers and some storage on the second floor.

The rent is $700/month, which is fifty bucks more than I was paying for a one bedroom/one crapper apartment in Waterbury, CT. It’s right off a main road, so getting to work is straightforward.

Catherine and I are going to check the place out tomorrow. I hope it’s right for us; I want my own place.

Renaissance 2009

I came home from work early yesterday afternoon to find that my wife and I were going to go to Harrisburg, PA with my parents to see Renaissance. Of course, it was only Annie Haslam and Michael Dunford with some other musicians, but they’re still worth seeing. They played plenty of classics, including “Prologue”, “Carpet of the Sun”, “Northern Lights”, “Black Flame”, “Running Hard”, “Ocean Gypsy” and “Mother Russia” — and saved “Ashes are Burning” for their encore.

My father had turned my on to Renaissance as a kid; he was always a big fan, and would play their albums whenever he had time to sit back and crank up the stereo. He also had a crush on Annie Haslam, to my mother’s chagrin. Unfortunately, the band fell apart after 1983, so I never got to see them as a kid.

As I got older, of course, I made a point of getting my own copies of Renaissance’s albums, but my collection is not yet complete. So much rock, so little money. I turned my wife onto the band early in our courtship; one of the first gifts I gave her was a copy of their Tales of 1001 Nights compilation.

Renaissance even has had an influence on my writing: I came up with the idea of Crowley’s Thoth by wondering what Renaissance would sound like if they did heavy metal, and Naomi Bradleigh owes a bit to how I imagined Annie Haslam on stage back in the 1970s.

So, being able to see Renaissance perform live means a hell of a lot to me. Thanks, Dad.

Here are some videos of Renaissance:

I’m goin’ to Zombieland!

Catherine and I just got back from seeing the new Woody Harrelson movie, Zombieland. It’s funny, it’s violent, and even though it doesn’t use Romero zombies, it’s got the most plausible explanation for the zombie apocalypse’s cause I’ve seen yet: mad cow disease mutated into mad human disease.

Go see it. Now. And if you don’t trust me, Ebert gave the movie three stars.

Holy shit! Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize!

While checking Slashdot on my lunch break, I saw this headline: “Barack Obama wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize”. I don’t believe it either. The man has only been in office for eight months, and while he’s made efforts to engage the rest of the world, particularly Iran, he has yet to pull the US military out of Afghanistan and Iraq. However, it says so on nobelprize.org, so it probably isn’t a prank.

I’m not the only one who has doubts about this: the first paragraph of this BBC article says that “In awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian committee is honouring his intentions more than his achievements.”

In fairness to President Obama, he himself acknowledges that he is not yet worthy of the prize in a speech published by the Washington Post. Besides, less deserving people than Barack Obama have won the Nobel Peace Prize, such as Yasser Arafat.

So, while I think the prize should be awarded for accomplishments, not intentions, I offer my own congratulations. Perhaps Obama did accomplish something simply by being the first President of the United States to not be a rich old white guy.

Back in the Saddle Again

Here I am, blogging on my lunch break on my second day working for Conduit IT. I’ve already impressed the boss to a small extent, and have gotten to work with some interesting tech. I’m working on extracting data in XML format from a client’s parts catalog files (which were done in QuarkXPress 7), so that I can use XSLT to massage the data and standardize it so it can be imported into a RDBMS.

I’m not starting at as high a pay rate as I had hoped for, but it’ll do for now since I haven’t paid my dues yet. To be fair, the boss was receptive when I made my case for a higher starting rate, but she doesn’t have the authority to sweeten the deal. That has to come from the owner of the company. At least I’ve gotten more than a foot in the door, the cost of living in Pennsylvania is supposed to be lower than that of Connecticut, and the work has been interesting thus far.

A new twist on the Nigerian Scam?

The fun-loving, enterprising criminals of Nigeria appear to have come up with a new scam. This one is aimed at people desperately seeking work, but promises to be a new way for somebody half a world away to “chop your dollar”. If you get an email that reads like the following, don’t believe a word of it. Instead, report it to your ISP as spam and a phishing attempt.

Dear M—— G——–,We would like to tell you about a newly opened vacancy of Transfer Manager at our Company for US citizens. We are large firm registered in Finland, Stockholm. We are engaged in the business of buying, selling and exchanging of various Internet currencies. In list below you will find job description and general requirements for the vacancy. If you find these compatible with your temper and personality, and consider that you meet our requirements, we would be pleased to offer you a new career, competitive compensation and opportunity to work at home.

Job description: Position of Transfer Manager requires part-time work from the candidate. The job consists in receipt of funds from our US-based customers. Our customers make transfer with payments directly on the bank account of our Transfer Manager. These funds should be retransferred to our Company via Instant Money Transfer Systems or Wire Transfer (Western Union, Money Gram and etc.). You will be provided with detailed information for each transaction. All the fees and relevant side payments are paid by our company.

Our best candidate should:

• be a responsible, honest and punctual individual
• be US citizen or US permanent resident of full age
• have basic knowledge of PC

Our company offers you following opportunities:

• High salary and rewards
• Lawful tax-free activity
• Availability to work at home with a flexible working schedule
• Hospitable and professional team

To get additional information and file an application please visit our site and register. Our managers will contact you promptly and provide you with all the information you might need.

With regards,
HR manager

Figure 3 Use of cashless payment instruments within the EU-25, based on total number of with an integrated online communication function). It does not require the use of specific, protected hardware for 68 See for instance table on �National rules related to the right to provide payment services�, in European Commission, identity of the originator accompanying the transfer. The aim is to assist authorities in combating services. Payments initiated through mobile phones etc. are called mobile payments. They are a sub-group of have a fundamental impact on their future market structure (e.g. on competition and cooperation coordination of e-payments in the market, and to disseminate structural insights and theory, and refers to a business strategy based on a combination of cooperation and competition, derived from an direct debit transactions in euro both cross-border and national.� European Payments Council, Communication on The main traditional payment instruments in the European Union currently being used or further

I knew there was a reason I said something about “chop your dollar”. There’s actually a song by a dude named Osuofia called “I Chop Your Dollar”. Here’s the video:

Unemployed no more!

YES!! I’ve got a new job. Last Thursday, I answered an ad on Craigslist for somebody who can do QA (Quality Assurance) and training. Last Friday, I was contacted by a lady named Sue Seybert and asked to come to Conduit IT this afternoon for an interview.

I start this Wednesday at 10. It looks like I’ll be starting in QA and by helping process a bunch of Quark Xpress files into a sane format so that it can be exported into a RDBMS. Since I’ll be using XSLT, I’ve ordered a copy of Doug Tilbert’s XSLT, 2nd Edition.

I actually ended up meeting the founder of the company in the building’s lobby; he told me that I was overdressed in my jacket and tie. Knowing that I can continue to wear my usual work clothes at this job simplifies matters; I’ll just want a pair or two of jeans once I’ve saved up some money.

I’ve still got to negotiate compensation, but I’m content to have the job offer. I look forward to starting. This is a great opportunity to stretch myself and learn some new technologies. Besides, I’ve been idle for far too long; I miss working.

Are you sure cats don’t like water?

I found another video of a cat playing in water. Here’s an adorable Maine Coon cat playing in a bathtub. I bet he’s cuddly when he’s dry.

Have I dodged a bullet?

Well, I just got a letter from BLaST IU #17. They’ve decided not to hire me. It’s unfortunate, but dealing with rejection is part of the job search. I could have avoided rejection by remaining with my old job, but then I’d still be in an abusive relationship.

Speaking of abusive relationships… I had been contacted by an outfit called SetFocus a couple of weeks ago. The representative, A.H., had caught my interest by claiming that they did recruitment, training, and placement. Her offer was deceptively attractive: prove that I’m worth SetFocus’ time, and I can enroll in a short training program, and, after I’ve completed the program, work directly for them as a consultant for two years or 2,000 hours — whichever comes first. And if that option is not palatable, SetFocus will be happy to arrange a payment plan and place me with one of their many partners.

There’s just two problems. To begin with, the short program (13 weeks if done full time) costs $19,000. Though the program is centered on Microsoft technologies, you do not actually take any Microsoft certification exams as part of the program. Furthermore, SetFocus’ training school is not accredited. It is simply a private school located in Parisippany, New Jersey. Second, SetFocus cannot guarantee that graduates of its programs will find employment with their partners, so unless you agree to two years of indentured servitude as a SetFocus employee after completing one of their programs, you could still be unemployed and have almost twenty thousand dollars in debt to pay off.

It’s tempting to call SetFocus a scam, and suggest that their methods are fraudulent. However, I cannot prove that SetFocus is a scam operation, or that their methods are illegal. However, they strike me as unethical and predatory. If you’re reading this, and looking for work, I would suggest that you be extremely careful if they contact you and make a tempting sales pitch.

Persona on PSP: First Impressions

I just finished my first playthrough of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona on the PSP this afternoon. I got the bad ending for the SEBEC route. I figure now’s as good a time as any for a review of sorts. Keep in mind that this is a first impression based on about 20-30 hours of gameplay.

I’ll start with the graphics and technical aspects: for the most part, the graphics in Persona are identical to the original PlayStation edition, but Atlus has cleaned up the interface and modified the game to take advantage of the PSP’s widescreen aspect ratio. The original PS game suffered from 30 second load times every time the player ran into a random encounter. This loading time has been reduced to a much more reasonable two to five seconds. The encounter rate also appears to have been increased, which may prove annoying to some players.

The soundtrack by Shoji Meguro doesn’t disappoint, though most of the tracks clock in at at most two and a half minutes. Longer tracks might have been nice, but might not have been practical given the limits of the PSP hardware. The short tracks may be repetitive to some, but I suspect that most of those who bought or will buy Persona aren’t buying the game just for Shoji Meguro’s rocking soundtrack.

The story begins with a group of high school students playing a divination game in an empty classroom. Some of the students believe, some are just there for the fun of it, and others are openly skeptical. Nothing happens at first, until one of the characters sees a ghostly figure of a young girl who weeps and says, “Help me”. Some of the characters, including the patented Atlus silent protagonist, are struck by lightning from the ceiling light fixtures and collapse on the floor. (I’ll refer to the main character as “Hiro”, as in “Hiro Protagonist” from now on. Hopefully Neal Stephenson won’t come and kick my ass.)

The player is then treated to a cinematic scene where a masked figure named Philemon introduces himself and asks the player to name Hiro. Once the player has done this, Philemon grants Hiro the power of Persona: the ability to call upon images of gods and demons buried within every person’s soul. He then warns Hiro that he will need this power soon.

After Hiro awakens in the school nurse’s office, he’s sent to the hospital along with the other students who had been struck by lightning. While at the hospital, the characters decide to visit an ill friend of theirs. During the visit, the ill girl has a seizure. Soon afterward, an earthquake occurs, the structure of the hospital is somehow distorted into a maze, and the characters are attacked by demons. As the player, your task is to guide and develop the characters as they find out why demons have invaded their town, and where their ill classmate figures in all this.

The player has a fairly wide variety of options when facing demons, which are defined in the Megaten universe as any sort of preternatural entity who can cause harm to humans. Combat is turn-based; you command your characters at the beginning of each round, and hilarity ensues as soon as you’ve confirmed your choices.

In combat, the player’s basic choices are to fight the demons, attempt to negotiate , or attempt to run. When fighting, the player can have each character attack with a melee weapon, with a firearm of some sort, or with his Persona.

There is also an auto-battle option which allows you to replay the commands you used in the previous round (or even a the previous battle) if you found them effective. Auto-battle also allows the player to have all characters attack with melee weapons, firearms, or a user-defined mix of the two. Auto-battle allows the player to breeze through routine battles, and can even simplify boss battles once the player has identified an effective tactic. Pressing the “start” button also turns off battle animations to speed up battles even more.

However, fighting demons isn’t the only way to deal with them. Sometimes it isn’t even a good idea. To get stronger Personas, you need spell cards. The only way to get spell cards is to persuade demons to give them to you. To persuade them, you must speak with them. Demons have four emotional states during negotiation: anger, fear, happiness, and eagerness. It is up to the player to use his characters’ conversational gambits to make demons eager to deal with the characters. Once a demon’s “eagerness” has been maxed out, the player can demand spell cards, items, or simply command the demon to leave. Make the wrong choices, however, and you can enrage demons instead, which will end negotiations and give the demons the upper hand in battle.

This makes combat in Persona more complex than battles in many other RPGs made since the game’s original release in the late 1990s, though some players may find it tedious. In fact, some players may find Persona itself to be tedious; it’s an unapologetically old-school Japanese RPG, and a Megaten game in the bargain. Still, I think that Persona rewards patience on the player’s part, and is a worthwhile purchase. This a new favorite of mine, and I need not be embarrassed to recommend the game now that it finally has the localization it should have been given back in the 1990s.