Well, it's December 26th, and I'm still here. I've survived another Christmas.

Almost, anyway. Savvy ^Desperate merchants are pimping today like a second "Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving, since Christmas happened to fall on a Thursday and a lot of people just got a 4-day weekend out of it. Anyone want to stock up on red velvet things, strings of lights, and wrapping paper you can only use in December (but God forbid you accidentally wrap someone's late-December birthday present in it...) for next year? Yeah, me neither. We put a tree in the condo this year and all it did was dry out. I'll be depositing it in the trash today and attempting to vacuum up the 7 lbs. of pine needles the cats assisted in dislodging from the tree later.

So, yeah. I think we're officially in the holiday season until January 2. That's typically when places tend to go back to their usual hours of business. But Christmas is over, and like I said, it didn't seem quite as horrible this year. Maybe because July was already the insurmountable lowest point of my year... who knows. Did I tell you I almost went for a swim in Tempe Town Lake? With some cinderblocks?

Anyhow, now that I've got the shock-you crap off my chest, let's see... The light rail opens on schedule tomorrow (Saturday). Apparently, they're giving away free rides until New Year's or something. I won't be riding it. I'll be busy working and stuff. But it will be interesting to see the kinds of crowds they draw tomorrow. I'll only be pissy if they interfere with my ability to get to work. Oh, and it's supposed to be near freezing the next two mornings, so... hope people have fun standing on those uncovered outdoor platforms for hours waiting for a chance to catch a ride on Opening Day. Heh heh heh.

I have no vested interest in the light-rail system. It's just been such a massive thorn in my side for the last three years, I'm glad to see it be done and ready to run. You know, of course, where I work, and the tracks sliced right down the middle of Washington. I've had to cross the construction zone 4-6 times a day, five to six days a week, for 36 months. Mbleh. It hasn't been AS bad these last few months, as they finished the parts near the track first since the railyard isn't far from there (the track, 40th and Washington; the railyard is by the riverbed and the 202 just before the Priest exit, and empties out onto the main Washington line just east of 51st Street), and have been completing construction fanning out in both directions from the railyard.

As referenced by my last post here in June, largely they've been running test trains on our section of the line since then, but for the last three months they'd been closing Washington at 44th intermittently to put a bridge across Washington for the future airport People-Mover system.

Their decision made sense -- running the light rail itself through the airport would have made the train ride take forever, waiting for people to get on/off with baggage and every stop, so they're constructing a second, smaller train which will pick people up at the 44th Street station and will ferry them into the airport. However, for some reason, the airport train won't be operational until 2013 and won't be complete until 2020.

Huh?

You'd've thought that for one of the biggest purported features of this train -- "Just get on the Metro by your house and ride it to the airport! No need to hitch a ride with friends anymore!" -- they'd've wanted to have that last link ready to go... but whatever. In the interim, they've constructed a loading lot on the SW corner of 44th/Washington for shuttle buses and will run shuttles from there down into the airport... which I think sounds like a fine idea, rather than building a whole 'nother train... but I'm not in charge.

Anyhow, the airport train will climb up a steep slope and will pass over eastbound Washington, and its loading point will be high atop that bridge, which dead-ends at an elevator shaft whose bottom is at the end of the station platform for the 44th Street light-rail stop. They probably wanted to get that first part of the bridge done while there weren't any trains actually running. But yeah, that's more or less done now, too.

It's official, by the way. I know way too much about stuff that no one cares about.

Let's see, what else... No more radio show, although judging by our numbers, you probably weren't listening anyway, or even aware of its existence. It was far too expensive for the track, who had to purchase the whole hour from the radio station each week AND pay the host/production staff (don't blame me, I volunteered my time). So, I'll be scrubbing that from my profile here pretty quick.

Also, I didn't do choir this semester. I've been telling everyone I was too busy with work and it's been nice getting full rest again, but in reality I just didn't feel up to it. Hell, I've largely quit watching television, I quit blogging... I quit leaving the house for anything but work, really, and when I'm here I just stare at my doggie blogs, as Parks used to call them, and check espn.com over and over waiting for new stories to come up. Meh. I know I'm complaining about something only I can change, but I don't have the strength to do it, so I'll just continue on with it. While I didn't go through with anything back in July, I'm pretty sure something in me died regardless. Work's all right, but I'm just lying to myself. Eventually it's going to collapse, probably sooner than later. Cooking isn't an option as far as starting a new career in this economy. I talked to a few people after that blog post, and this fact was revealed to me pretty clearly. So, I'll keep slugging away doing what I'm doing, and when it's done, it's done, and I'll have outlived my usefulness. I'm a throwback to a different era in a world that just keeps moving forward. Stay in school, kids.

Oh, one other thing. The cats are doing fine. That IS one thing that keeps me coming home every day. Gary, Boo, and Squeak can't open cans of food by themselves, and need someone to sift the poopbox now and again. Plus, the two boys love me unconditionally, like a good dog would (Boo is getting better with me, and will probably be all over me while Jon's in South Carolina for a week here over New Year's, like she was while he was in Italy during the summer).

--CG

Wow, so... let's see... today is Friday, so it's been (checks watch) over two years since I posted here. Neato.

In those two years:
* the site that hosted my blog comments went under (enetation.co.uk)
* the site that had all of my images deleted them (putfile.com)
* all the reasons I had to blog escaped me for some reason.

So, it's still here. Maybe I'll post, maybe I won't. I don't have anything of terrific importance to share with everyone. When it really gets down to it, I'm pretty uninteresting. I just find ways to make my boringness amusing to others.

Blogger made me update to a new template if I wanted people to be able to comment, and I'm nothing if not a whore for validation, so I had to have Comments available. I miss the simplicity of my old blog's design, and eventually I'll work on reducing the clutter on this one. If I decide to actually post, of course.

--CG

Bejeweled 2 Update

Look out, folks. I have thrown my hat into the ring.

I found that you can rename a profile, while keeping all of its stats correct. The only difference is that it does not change the names in the leaderboard. I tried to change "tfg46" to "Ryan defunct", but the high scores still stayed under "tfg46." I noticed, though, that the game said "Ryan defunct" had defeated Puzzle mode (which I have done, by the way... *pats self on back*). I thus changed the name to "46 XLVI 46" and began my quest to place myself on the leaderboards in some fashion. I'd prefer to use my usual handle (tfg46, as I use everywhere else on the 'Net), but this'll do for a back-up.

After a scant half-hour of playing, here is the updated leaderboard. Note that in this screencap, I included the info that "46 XLVI 46" has completed 80 puzzles, better known as "ALL OF 'EM!"

Once again, your players:
Ryan= "tfg46", "Big daddy P"
Jon= "Jonny"
Clifton= "46 XLVI 46"


So, I beat Ryan's best Action score on my 2nd attempt. Oh baby. I got a big head and figured, "This ain't so hard," and switched over to Classic. Yeah, you'll note I didn't crack the top 10 on Classic. I'ma need to work on that one a bit. I posted a couple more Action high scores and called it a night.

I can't wait 'til tomorrow, when Ryan and Jon see this blog. I'm leaving a note by the door where hopefully they'll both see it in the morning, as I'll be at work... come to think of it, it's 2:45 AM and I need to be at work at 6:00. Heh. I'm mature and responsible.

Folks... this is getting ugly.

I bought the full versions of Bejeweled 2 and Zuma several months ago here on the office computer. Of course, in May, Jon and Ryan moved into the condo here (where the office is located). Everyone has access to the office comp, though, and they've both played a little bit of Bejeweled now and again.

Ryan spent a bit of time during the summer playing Bejeweled while Jon was away at camp. Jon recently returned home, and last week he set about beating Ryan's high scores in Classic and Action mode. (In Classic, you just make sets of 3 until you run out of possible moves. In Action, the timer bar counts down and you must make matches to replenish it. The points are tenfold in Action mode.)

Jon was able to take the top spot in Action mode, but Ryan had posted two seemingly insurmountable scores in Classic, and Jon could only go so high as 3rd.

Ryan had Wednesday off -- his first real day off in a while -- and he sat down and decided to re-establish his dominance at the game.

Here's your key to the players. Anything listed as "tfg46" and "Big Daddy P" are Ryan. Jon is "Jonny." The "tfg46" scores are from Ryan's summertime playing -- he didn't know you could log in under different profiles and just used mine. I never played Action or Classic, though; I stuck to Puzzle and Endless (the latter of which being like "Classic" except that the computer guarantees you will never run out of moves. I'm currently on Level 72 or some such nonsense), and thus I can guarantee that those tfg46 scores are definitely Ryan's.

I was enjoying lunch Wednesday afternoon when Ryan shouted, "BIGGIE! C'mere quick, and bring your camera phone!" Ryan had squeaked by Jon's best Classic score, putting him in all of the top 3 spots.

About 15 minutes later, I walked into the office for something or another, and I saw Ryan was pounding away at an Action game. I stuck around, calling out possible moves when he was up against the time limit, and took another picture for him at the end. He had gone past Jon's top score in Action mode by some 52,000 points.

I sent both of these pictures to Jon on his phone. He was running errands with his brother, and they sent back this picture of Jeff forwarding Jon's opinion:

Later that evening, Jon sat down and obliterated Ryan's high score on Action, nearly doubling it. I came home tonight to post these pictures, and I see that Jon was making a concerted attempt today to knock off that 39K high score in Classic, too... but he fell short. Jon was able to beat Ryan's 3rd score (the recent one) twice, but he could not get within 17,000 of the top Classic score.

So, here are the standings right now. Again, Ryan is "tfg46" and "Big Daddy P," while Jon is "Jonny." Side note-- I'ma take a swing at this. I'll create a new profile as "xlvi46." Check back here for updates as they develop on the great Bejeweled 2 Showdown of Ought-Six.

--CG

Whew. It's been more than a year, huh? I've been blogging over at MySpace... not regularly, but occasionally. However, if anyone still checks this one out, I'm back. Totally.

Anyhow, I'm going to crosspost this one thing really quick, then I'll be on my way. I'll try and crosspost most everything else in the future, including a personal update today or tomorrow.

Know anyone with a dachshund who lives in/near Phoenix? Pass the word along... the annual Phoenix qualifier for the Wienernationals is fast approaching.







--CG

(Edited: This is in 2005.)

Hey, all. Just a quick drop in 'n post. School starts again next week, so I'm looking forward to getting back into singing. I mean, I was having fun, but I didn't realize how much fun until after school was over.

I ought to sit and write out a post about all the stuff that's been going on of late... I hadn't talked to Brooks in a couple of years, but came to find out yesterday that he's been working not a block from my apartment for nine months. Go figure. We met up last night after we both got off work and caught up on old times.

I've been seeing a girl now for about a month... she lives in New River for the time being, until a couple of weeks from now when she's getting an apartment in the area of Via Linda and 115th Street. Her name is Maureen, she's 24, she's attending SCC and working in prescription benefit management, and she and her family breed and show English cockers as well as one very personable whippet. And that's the basic nutshell description. :-) Anyway, she's continually amazed at the movies I haven't seen, so by this time tomorrow night, I'll have seen Star Wars-es 1 (IV) through 3 (VI) and the two Kill Bills. My end of the deal is, I have to make dinner. Oh yeah, twist my arm... everyone knows how much I dread cooking.

Anyhow, I'm sitting at my parents' house, and I just remembered the reason I popped on. If anyone's into playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live, drop a line to me (tfg46) and/or my brother (Zandl) online and Friend us up. Yeah, I can't remember if I mentioned we got an Xbox around Thanksgiving, and then Z. and I pooled our Best Buy cards together and bought a router and subscriptions for Xbox Live after Christmas. Unfortunately, now we're hooked. He's pretty good; I'm still a work in progress... okay, I suck. But I know I suck, which is good -- few things are less fun than having to deal with someone who sucks at something but doesn't think they do. Thus, since I know I'm not very good, I still enjoy playing a lot, even if my team's Slayer scores look something like 18-16-14-2 after a winning match (or, occasionally, 19-18-15-minus 2 if we're playing Lockout). About the only things I'm consistently good at are driving a Ghost and wielding a shotgun, which, Zach has politely informed me, pretty much brands me a "N00B". Ehh, like I said, at least I have fun...

Well, it's darn near Christmas again, so I suppose that means I should post an mp3 of me singing a Christmas song, right?

Done!

The TFG Quartet -- Silent Night
http://tfg46.tripod.com/silentnight.mp3
(As is always the case, you have to copy 'n paste the URL into your address bar to circumvent Tripod's anti-remote nonsense.)

Now, of course, this sounds a little better than last year's offering, which you can still download by going back to last December in the archives to your left and looking for the post in which I posted the link. Why does it sound better? Why, because I'm reading off of actual barbershop-quartet sheet music.

We performed this very arrangement of Silent Night during intermission at the SCC Christmas concert a couple of weeks ago. Who is "we", you might ask? Allow me to introduce Biggie & the Smalls: lead Ryan Parks, tenor John Weyant, baritone Clifton Gray, and bass, at the moment, Dr. Steve Meredith. (We were left without a bass when both of the other two basses dropped out of choir in October, and Dr. Meredith, who works alldayeveryday already with various jobs at SCC and in the community-college district, offered to fill in. Naturally, having a professional singer holding down our bottom end helped us out... it was a nice perk.) I'll post the pic when I think to scan it.

Anyhow... no complaints from me. Life's good. I tend to not blog when I don't have stuff to whine and rant about, I guess. Did I mention I'm enrolling full-time at either SCC's Culinary Arts program or the Scottsdale Culinary Institute in the fall of 2006? Yeah, it's a decision I reached a few weeks ago. I'll talk more about it later. I just decided that I needed to have a viable plan for the future, instead of just waiting for whatever to arrive.

First off, the big concerto is at 7:30 PM this coming Saturday night (11/20) at SCC's Performing Arts Center. $5 to get in, I think they said. I'll post more updates on future concerts when I have exact times.

Now, as to the big Jeopardy trip...

For starters, AudioBlog has been down, apparently. I was going to try and post an audio file a couple of times during my trip to kind of give my impressions of what was going on. No could do, though. (Is that the proper past tense for "No can do"?)

Anyhow, rather than force you to skim past a bunch of boring stuff to see what happened, I didn't pass the exam. On the other hand, if you fully intended to read the whole thing and wait with baited breath for the outcome, sorry for being a spoiler.

The trip over seemed to zip by fairly quickly, which is odd... when Zach and I drove to SixFlags last March, it seemed like once we hit L.A. we drove for another 12 hours or so on an infinite loop of freeways. Hell, maybe we did... I went equipped with MapQuest directions, and while they're technically accurate, they have a nasty habit of sending you on the geographically shortest or "fastest" route, while occasionally it would be a LOT easier if you went a little out of your way to stay on main freeways. Um... rant over. Anyway, I was cruising along, and once in California I decided to forego my usual stop in Blythe since I was a little behind on time. I'd seen that "Desert Center" was about 30 miles past Blythe, so I figured I'd stop there instead, and from there it'd be a cinch to make it to Santa Monica, where my hotel was located. Unfortunately... as I neared Desert Center, I was treated to the sad realization that Desert Center consists of one abandoned gas station and a bunch of dead palm trees. It was a good 45 miles to Indio, and my truck was showing a range of 25 miles before it just went to "Low Fuel" and then "Hey Dickweed, You're Gonna Wind Up Standing In The Middle Of The California Desert Trying To Hitchhike Your Way To A Gas Station If You Don't Gas Me Up Now!!!"... or maybe that's what I was envisioning. Luckily, about 12 miles past the remnants of Desert Center, on the horizon shone a beacon... a beacon with "Chevron" printed on it. Chiriaco Summit to the rescue! -- that is, 'til I pulled in and found they charge $2.62 a gallon for plain unleaded ($2.82 for Super). *cough* Apparently, many a weary traveler has crawled into Chiriaco Summit after mistakenly thinking Desert Center was more than just simply the center of the desert. I put in $12 (just over 4 gallons) and rolled on down into Indio to fill up.

Aside from that, 'twas an uneventful journey. Checked in at the beautiful Santa Monica Days Inn around 9:00 their time, ordered some B-list delivery Italian food, and got on up around 7:00 this morning. I snapped a picture of myself all spiffed up for my tryout (look for that on my picture page later) and cruised over to the Sony studios, a pleasant 2 hours early. I was the only one there for a good 45 minutes, and most of the people got there around 9:40ish (tryout was at 10:00). *shrug* I let the computer kick my ass at FiveStones on my phone for a while to pass the time. Anyhow, a coordinator came out and rounded us up, and over to the Jeopardy set we went. We were seated in the audience in every other seat and handed an answer sheet and a pen (and a nice flimsy piece of cardboard to write on), and after a brief video on what we could expect to see on the test, it began.

I thought I did fairly well. Of the 50 questions, I know I had 37 right, with 4 good guesses and 9 lousy guesses and/or blanks. There was one "Words in Quotes" question (ends in "ash": sometimes as brief as a hyphen, sometimes it's 100 yards long... what is a dash?), one "starts with _" question (starts with "M": ... uh, it was so easy as to not be memorable), and one "before and after" question (pure white arctic predator who is gloomy about stock trends: what is a polar bear market? A little confusing, but those always make sense to me anyway). There were a couple current events questions (this Israeli prime minister was assassinated at [some peace summit] in 1995: who is Yitzhak Rabin?), and then about 40 literature and history questions. Oh, great. So, as it turns out, the test is a good deal harder than the show actually is, since on the show there's always the one really hard category that no one wants to touch, and then three decent-strength categories and two absolute softballs (Rhyme Time, anyone?). The ratio was weighted a bit more towards the tough, and I didn't know a few I should have (This author's only novel was "The Picture of Dorian Grey," and all I could think of was League of Extraordinary Gentlemen... dumbass), but I knew a fair amount of them (Freud divides the personality into three categories: the ego, the superego, and this subconscious level: what is the id?).

Aaaaaaanyhow, I don't actually know how well I did, since they don't release the scores. The guy came back in, commented that we'd had a full load of 70 trying out, and then said, "Here are the people who passed:" and read off five names. That was it.

So, yeah, I lost. But so did a bunch of other really smart-looking types, too, and they were a LOT more vocal about it than I. "What the hell? THAT was a bunch of shit," commented one balding old guy. *shrug* I did the math... they have three tests per day (10:00, 1:30, and 5:00), and if they invite 70 to each, let's assume they don't always have a "full house", so 200 per day. If they test for a week, that's 1,000 testees (or 500 sacks, assuming no one's one-ballin'... oh, just forget I said that). I heard the coordinator mention that 5 is slightly above average, that usually they get 3 or 4 per group, so that's about 12 a day, so 60 from one week of testing. Makes sense. That's practically a month's worth of contestants from one week's worth of tests, so the ratio is about right. I just didn't make the top cut.

I won't lie and say I'm not disappointed, nor will I say I wouldn't do it differently were I to try again. (I didn't cram for the test, so to speak, fearing I might forget more than I actually learned... though next time I might consider reading a few boxes' worth of Trivial Pursuit cards in the hotel the neight before.) But at least now I know that, in fact, I HAVE tried out for Jeopardy, and I can officially try again after one year has passed. Don't rule it out. There was a guy there who mentioned that this was his fifth attempt at the test, and he said, "You BET I'll be back again next November."

How many times within the last few posts on here did I say, "Gee, I need to post more often?" ... "Need to" and "will" are two different things.

So where were we? Ah, yes, the last time I actually sat down and put fingers to keyboard, it was the doldrums of summer. I had no idea what I'd be doing, just that I had a vague concept of wanting to do something erstwhile with my free time come the autumn season.

Here it is, officially the autumn season, and things have worked out unbelievably well for me, I'd have to say. As I mentioned in an Audioblog post, I'm into vocal performance at Scottsdale Community College, and I'm in the regular choir as well as eMusic, a performance-arts group involving singers, dancers, audio/video, electronic keyboards and the such. Now I'm also in a little barbershop quartet that we've put together from the choir, and I'm on the tech crew of eMusic since they needed someone to run the computer during performances.

Woo! You have NO IDEA how much fun I've been having. Work has been going well, too, made even better by the fact that I've got a productive outlet outside of work to focus on as well. I just won a stake this past Saturday night -- picture forthcoming to my photo page -- but overall, things have just been rolling along. Lazaro's got Wichita humming, and my dad has built Wheeling up into a veritable force. We're preparing to hit 2005 running, and make it our best year ever.

I've got a concert with the choir next Saturday night, the 20th. It's supposed to start at 8:00 in the Performing Arts Center at SCC. Come on down, why don't-cha? eMusic will be performing on Wednesday, December 15... I don't know the time of that one yet. And the choir will be doing a ceremony of ancient Christmas carols a few times throughout December as well. It ought to be fun. NEXT semester, things really get to hopping with both groups. Somewhere in there, there's a week-long trip to Washington DC planned.

Oh, yeah, and then I'm trying out for Jeopardy on Friday morning. Yes, seriously. I applied back in July, kind of on a whim, and I received word this past Friday night that I was invited to try out this coming Friday (the 12th) at 10:00 AM at the Jeopardy set in Sony's studios in Culver City. So I'm driving over Thursday, and I'll stay the night in Santa Monica and then do the tryout the next morning. Needless to say, I'm excited. This is Jeopardy! I've got my studio pass and everything, so I'm all set to go.

Anyhow, that's a brief overview. As I've said, there's no guarantee how soon I'll post again. I'll be around eventually, though.