Anyway, a little searching turned up some help in the WordPress forums, so hopefully this is all fixed up now.

I have been now to the Multnomah County Library, although I paid no fines.

I’ve existed in this city now for about 10 hours. It’s a pleasant place, green but with the machinations of men all around. Bridges and stone cut buildings and boats and factories and trains. Trains everywhere, only drowned out by the continuing fireworks.

I’m not sure I really have the feel of the place. It’s resolutely casual, oddly androgynous and conforming in its non-conformity. But everyone smiles here, just like in the Midwest. Even the harsh looking skater who guessed my feint to the right would be a feint to the left on the narrow sidewalk of the bridge issued kind apologies on our not-quite-colision.

The fireworks – it’s for Cinco de Mayo – they seem to be at an end and the train whistles are back, my lullaby for tonight.

When I started, the annual membership covered 6-7 presentations at which dinner was served. In the first season, they were at Mediterrano, and they were wonderful. The speakers were good, the food was fantastic and there was a cash bar. Then they moved the meetings to what’s now the basement at SPARK. It wasn’t as nice, but they had good catering and offered free wine and beer. And then they moved to Conor O’Neill’s, which was better, but then they went out to a hotel at the mall, which was abysmal. Now they’re back to the hideous SPARK basement. And as for dinner, the last meeting I tried to attend, I arrived 20 minutes late and there was no food at all present. None.

Dinner wasn’t the only benefit, though: in the first couple years, I got a number of clients from cold calls off the membership list on the website. It paid for my membership, in fact. I haven’t gotten any calls in the past couple years, though. Today I went to the Ad Club website, and tried searching for my listing, typing in ‘Mitten Artworks’ – all I got was an error, not my listing. No wonder there’s no business coming through that way.

I wrote a note today to let them know their member search was broken. Apparently, they’ll fix it this summer and if it I want it sooner, then I should volunteer. Well, um, no – I don’t think so. I pay dues and those dues are supposed to provide me benefits. If I’m not getting dinner and I’m not getting exposure, then what, exactly are you doing with my membership dollars?

So, no Ad Club next year. Maybe I’ll join the Chamber, but the more likely path is that I’ll be a member of a coworking space and put my money to good use there.

A picture of Keith, Jack and Sam, looking very much like The Cat in the Hat and Things 1 and 2

A sticker which says “MAKE THINGS BETTER”

A picture of Keith and Johnny smoking cigars

A postcard version of a Mouvement Dada Paris poster

A sticker from lxord.net (use Safari)

A small blue and yellow ceramic piece by Sam, hanging from a ribbon

A pieced together panorama of grey waves in Santa Monica Harbor

A Not An Employee badge

A webcam picture of Keith on the phone, silhouette style, black and red

A small blue cocktail monkey

A polaroid of Anthony and Lucy at our wedding

A postcard from the Jen Bekman Gallery in NY

My Top Roping permit from Planet Rock

A Parisian postcard from Konfell (sigh, still)

A signed picture of B.B. King

A collaged photograph of construction cranes, by yours truly

A brown tassle, complete with ‘2002′ charm (the brown doesn’t bother me so much anymore)

A postcard picture of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, circa 1955

Casino membership cards from Wynn, MGM, The Venetian and The Sahara (left the one from Caesars in a slot machine)

A postcard for an exhibit by a very favorite professor

A small painting, author unknown, on paper and newsprint

[For a historical perspective on what shifts and doesn't shift on my noteboard, see this post and this post.]

So we picked up Viva Pinata 2: Trouble in Paradise when it came out, and I was kind of excited to see what they had added. Unfortunately, I think they’ve broken it. It’s not fun anymore.

You see, in the first game, there were bad guys who would come in and break your decorations or smash your pinatas. Once you got to high enough level, however, there were enough tools at your disposal to ban all these bad guys from your garden and let you play in peace. You could do all sorts of fun decorating and landscaping, and you could raise very valuable rare pinatas without worrying that one of these bad guys would smash it all.

However, in the second game, they’ve changed the behavior of the head bad guy, Professor Pester. He comes into your garden once a ‘day’ (about every 15-20 minutes of game play) and smashes one of your most valuable pinatas.

Yes, I realize that it sounds ridiculous that I would be concerned enough about smashed pinatas to write a blog post. But it takes time and effort to get the good pinatas, not to mention in-game resources (chocolate coins). And thus, it is very frustrating to lose them.

And there’s the problem. There is no way to block Professor Pester forever, no matter how high a level you’ve achieved. There are two ‘normal’ ways to keep him at bay: you can  keep one of two very large pinatas in your garden, but that means fewer other pinatas, and it won’t stop Pester from smashing your buildings and decorations. Or you can buy an expensive decoy pinata – but that only works once, so you have to buy one every ‘day,’ which is brutal in terms of cost. There’s apparently a way to use a fence to trap him in one part of your garden, but then you have to listen to his grunting the whole time you’re playing. Blech.

Sorry Rare, but you’ve you screwed this one up. I suspect you just wanted to make the game a bit more challenging, but this has crossed into outright frustrating. The new romancing games and mini-games, as well as all the new pinata, are plenty challenging. It used to be really fun to build outlandish gardens full of crazy pinatas. But now that I either have to grind for cash or lose my best pinatas every time I play, it’s not fun anymore. You broke it. Please fix it. Give us a tool to keep Professor Pester out for good.

I’ve been in love before, a number of times for real for true, but never like this. We spend the greater part of most of our days together – with two freelancers in the same house, it’s just how it works out. You’d think that when he goes on a trip, I’d welcome the breathing room (and the quiet). That’s true for maybe for a day or two, but after that, I am simply lost at sea. Completely useless. Hanging by a thread.

I love you, honey, I think maybe even more now than on our first anniversary. Come home safely tonight, I miss you. 

PS. We do have a delayed celebration planned in Feb. See you in Vegas, baby!

• Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Weblog, short fiction, art, and discussion – Beautiful comic. Would make a great short film.
• ikea hacker: Craft table for 4 – Nice idea for a co-crafting table. For our hacker space. Someday. Yeah.
• kyle van horn dot com –

• re:group – re:branding gone astray – The rest of the article is pretty Meh, but I liked this group of definitions: "It’s not that there aren’t enough name options out there. “Descriptive” names like Mr. Clean have obvious meanings or associations. “Associative” names like Zest or Blockbuster use real words related to the product. “Coined” names that are invented words that sound appealing, like Kodak or Coca-Cola. There are “Egocentric” names, named after an owner or parent company, like Ford or Ben & Jerry’s. And lastly there are “Arbitrary” names, which are real words with no immediate connection to the category like Apple or Amazon."
• Interoperability Happens – Windows 7 + VMWare 6/VMWare Fusion 2 – Maybe something to play with on Friday?
• Appendix – Workers Comp – Should probably ask a lawyer about this. What happens when an LLC contracts (1099-wise, not W-2-wise) with another LLC?