Agent Cooper's LiveJournal Entries [entries|friends|calendar] Agent Cooper [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ] [ milestones | livejournal highlites ] [ photos | some of my photos ] "I am easily satisfied by the very best" - Winston Churchill "Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined." - Albert Camus

[05 Dec 2004|11:41pm] [ music | CCR - I Put A Spell On You ] I've posted a sampling of my favorite photos at flickr, if you're bored. Click here. (Wasta and Zusty, this is for you) post comment

[05 Dec 2004|03:20pm] The crew went on a wine tasting tour of Yakima Valley yesterday. We were on the road from 9am to 9pm, but I think a good time was had by all. The wine and company were nice counter-points to the weather outside. The vineyards were barren and everything was eaten by fog and ice. (photos by agentcooper and wasta) Sheridan Vineyard was one of the more intesting stops. They were very accessible and no-nonsense; the "tasting room" was a table in the corner of a barn. Wine barrels were stacked to the ceiling, and a forklift was parked in the corner. The owner, Scott Greer, poured us a sample straight from the barrel - that particular wine won't be available to purchase for a few more months. It's cool to walk inside the operation like this. post comment

[24 Nov 2004|11:18am] "WHAT HAVE I DONE?" he asks, as 30 looms. I bumped into a guy I know on the bus last night. I was leaving work at 7:30, which is neither late nor early for me. We chatted about our mutual friend and I said, "Man I need to call him back, I haven't seen him in a couple weeks. Not since you came out drinking with us." And he said, "That was, like, two months ago." "No way. Three weeks, tops." "No. Two months." But when I get home from work the last thing I want to do is go out bar-hopping. Especially when it's cold, windy, and black. And on the weekends I feel compelled to sleep in, watch movies, and hack. Lately I try to "make room" for playing Half Life 2 or, God forbid, reading. Nowhere do people fit into this equation. 1 comment|post comment

[17 Nov 2004|12:12am] Well, there appears to be a serious incompatibility between Half-Life 2 and my video card. Or perhaps some textures have gone missing? There are entire segments of the world that are corrupt, replaced by a shimmering orange-green insanity. It looks like those hidden 3d image posters that used to be so popular. Note that the cylinders behind him shouldn't look like that. Note also what should obviously be a magnifying lens in the foreground. I also see this effect on top of the black gates surrounding the city, and even on the occasional door. This is double-plus annoying because it's a Radeon X800 Pro; it's one of the top two cards on the market, so it's not like the game hasn't been tested to hell and back on it. The installer warned me to upgrade my video drivers, so I followed the link to ATI and did so. The drivers are only two weeks old for fuck's sake. I missed the entire opening scene between "Half-Life 2" and standing on the train. I could hear the G-Man speaking, but the screen was all multicolored snow. And when Gordon has the mishap with the teleporter, entire frames were missing or overlayed with the orange static. I guess now I have to start turning off FX one by one until it goes away. Not. Happy. 12 comments|post comment

[16 Nov 2004|10:02pm] [ mood | wait wait wait wait wait ] I have now been waiting over an hour for Half-Life 2 to install. WTF? And there's not a single goddamn piece of artwork to amuse me while it does this. And this is not a wimpy machine.... 6 comments|post comment

[15 Nov 2004|11:49pm] [ music | Kenny Loggins - I'm Alright ] Happiness is a bottle of rum and watching Caddy Shack in high-def on a 42" TV. post comment

Consumer [10 Nov 2004|03:11pm] I hate to post such a materialistic note after so much silence, but Comcast is rolling out a spiffy new cable box that has Tivo's stock sailing downwards. I'm having mine installed on the 15th, the day it comes out. Since it runs an MS OS, we even get a discount. Specs for the DVR. The bling bling: Dual HDTV tuners so I can record two shows at once, or record while watching something else. Can record High-Def!! And I don't need a satellite dish. Slim, integrated DVR and cable box. I had to wedge the TiVo sideways into my little TV stand. Cheaper than TiVo - only $5/month on top of my regular cable bill.* 120gig disk vs. 40gig in my TiVo. The blues: I don't own the box, so I can't rip it open and upgrade the drive. I probably can't extract shows from it and burn them to DVD. Not that I've done any of this with my TiVo, but I could. The box has more USB and firewire ports than my PC, but they're all disabled. For now. The fear, of course, is that Microsoft and Comcast will totally fuck up the end-user experience. My TiVo isn't perfect - playback even stutters sometimes when switching shows - but basically it Just Works. I probably won't post again for awhile because, hey, I have cable and no life. * Until Comcast jacks up the price 300%, as they inevitably will do. 10 comments|post comment

[04 Nov 2004|01:13am] [ mood | depressed ] I wonder if America will ever recover, or if this is really our Rubicon. Time for me to read up on the decline of the Roman Empire. I have all these associations with the word "American," but they have little reality after last night. The America in my head is a myth, a rumor. It no longer exists. How can I even call myself an American, when the majority are so alien to me? Sure we can "take it back" but for now, America is not us. America is a foreign country. We control most of the port cities. Pro: We can blockade the heartland. Con: We'll suffer all of the losses when al Qaeda float nukes into our harbors. The ignorant scab-eating peasants of middle America will watch it on TV. I'd like to hide in a fantasy of civil war and secession. A shimmering fever-dream where I receive combat training in the new Blue Militia, and then march on Ohio to the sound of cannonade and Carmina Burana. 9 comments|post comment

[31 Oct 2004|12:16pm] This has been going around, but in case you haven't seen it: 10 comments|post comment

[28 Oct 2004|08:59pm] Can't decide if I should be a big dork and wear my costume to work tomorrow. There are no official Halloween activities, but the breeders are bringing their children to trick-or-treat throughout the day, and people were pumpkin carving in a conference room tonight. 10 comments|post comment

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