At least, not yet.

So, what's up folks? For myself, I've changed jobs and moved off of Nonoba. I also find myself playing tons of TF2 and anxiously awaiting Civ V. And when I say 'tons', I mean 'bits and pieces here and there when I'm not watching OSM'. Also, I quit politics.

You may possibly see an influx of new users. Be sure to greet them with sharp pokey sticks.

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Why? Because you need to hear more. Okay, maybe you don't need to hear more. Maybe you don't even care that such a game exists. Whatever. I'm just ranting about other people ranting.

There's quite a few folks that are 100% convinced that FFXIII is the worst Final Fantasy game ever. In fact, it might not be an RPG. It might not even be a game. I was one of those folks before I bought the game. I am now convinced that anyone who says such has not played the game.

So, common arguments against?

1. There are no towns!!1! Let's be honest here: who cares? What was the purpose of a town in an RPG? You go buy stuff, you save, and you occasionally have some annoying sidequest that requires you to talk to everyone in the universe. Yes, there was the occasional 'funny guy' in town, but that guy was only there because towns are boring. Oh, and that buying thing...yeah, better hope you're in the town that sells what you need. Oh, you're not? Well, waste some time traveling to the next town. FFXIII eliminates all that. You buy stuff from something equivalent to the Internet, except shipping is instantaneous. No more jaunts through NPC-infested territory or trekking across wastelands just to buy something. To me, this is an improvement.
2. The dungeons are linear!!1! Then you didn't play long enough. It's true; FFXIII has the longest tutorial ever. It lasts for 10 chapters (which took me about 25 hours of game time). For people used to playing RPGs, it can drag. However, I'm totally willing to forgive this. This is an RPG for people that may not have ever played RPGs before. The first 10 chapters are pretty story-heavy, so if you're blazing through combat, at least the story is coming together faster.
3. OMG what are all these made up words?!?!1!? Did you even look in your menu? There's a datalog right there. It explains things. No, the datalog is not an encyclopedia of all knowledge. Entries are added to the datalog as you go so that you're not overwhelmed. Basically, if things don't make sense yet, just keep playing. It'll make sense eventually. And read the datalog.
4. There are no mini-gamez!!11! Um, go play some Flash games on the internet if you need some mini-games. Keep your arbitrary and meaningless tasks out of my RPG, TYVM.
5. I can only control ONE character at a tiem!!11! I fail to see how this is bad.
6. Auto-battle ARGLE BARGLE!!11!! You mean the Auto-battle command automatically selects good command sets for you? I still don't see how this is bad.
7. All I have to do is press X!!11!! Hmm. FFVIII, attack is overpowered, so you select Attack and mash X. FFX, attack is (generally) overpowered, so you select Attack and mash X. FFXII, you set up gambits and then don't have to mash anything! I still don't see how this is a bad thing.
8. If my party leader dies, GAME OVER!!1!! Then protect your party leader? Really, you can't have it both ways. You can't argue that there is no strategy, and then complain that if your leader dies, you lose.
9. The level up system sucks!11!! I've heard it compared unfavorably to the Sphere Grid of FFX. IMO, it's better. In the Sphere Grid, you could go in pretty much one direction. In the Crystarium, you can level up in 6 different directions at once. How is that more linear? It's true, you can't customize the Crystarium. Thank goodness for that.
10. It's not a ROLE playing game. I don't get to make any DECISIONS. Name a single FF game in which a decision you made significantly affected the game. That's right. There are ZERO.
11. There's no replay value!!11!! I haven't played an RPG yet that actually has replay value. I play an RPG, I break it, and then I move on.
12. I don't like the characters!!1!! I'm sorry.
13. I just want to whine because this game [isn't exactly like | left out my favorite part of | is different from] FF#. I know.

Is the game perfect? Nope. Is it a good game? I think so.

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You know what happens when you start a new job? You get busy.

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So, tipping. I'm not talking about tipping over elderly folk; I'm talking about that quasi-obligatory money that you spend every time you eat at a slow-food restaurant. (Side topic: what do you call restaurants that are not 'fast-food'?) So, I've heard lots of arguments for why you should almost always tip the server (all servers in this article will be male for pronoun simplification). "Oh, it's not the server's fault that ." "Those poor servers only get paid ." "It's rude to not leave a tip!" (By the way, this goes for pizza delivery also. This page pretty much sums up every 'reason' I've ever heard.)

Basically, you can take all those reason and shove 'em.

I don't care about all the crap that might be happening inside a restaurant. I don't go to a restaurant out of obligation or to become a 'part' of the restaurant machinations. My interaction with the restaurant is at a single point: the server. If something happens (food doesn't come, food is wrong, food is cold, etc), I'm not going to complain to the manager; I'm going to dock the tip. Why?

What's the value added to the consumer by complaining to the manager? You might get a discounted meal, though this happens rarely. You might get a gift certificate for the next time you visit: "Sorry about the bad service! Come back again and experience more bad service!" You might get a line about reprimanding someone, but that's of no value to the consumer. You might get someone fired, which still doesn't help out the consumer. Really, the consumer isn't helped out much at all by taking it to the manager.

Meanwhile, docking the tip is instant value to the consumer. It works every time. Understand that by docking the tip, I'm not saying that the server is at fault. If the server is a good one, the server can probably tell you exactly who is at fault. If so, then the server needs to go to that person and say, "Hey, you owe me my tip."

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While we're on the topic, I thoroughly despise bicyclers. These come in two varieties: the "I'm going to pretend my bicycle is a pedestrian, so FU" kind, and the "I'm going to ignore all the rules of the road, so FU" kind. If you're going to ride your bicycle in public, then LEARN THE RULES. The most IRRITATING kind of bicycler is the one that argues "Hey, my bicycle is just like a car on the road, so treat it like one!" and then rolls through stop signs.

If I ever see a police officer ticket a bicycler for ANYTHING, I will give that police officer every dime I have on me at the time.

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In video game news, I successfully put Disgaea, FFVII, and FFVIII on my PSP. In case you didn't know, PSP's rule. Also, FFXIII may have the longest tutorial ever (the first 10 chapters), but it's a freakin' sweet game.

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a.k.a. What No One At Google Seems To Know

For the record, history was always one of my least favorite subjects, not because history is boring, but because history teachers are boring. Yes, I know some of them might be awesome, but I didn't find any.

Go back to early 1990's. Were you using a computer yet? If you were, were you using a spreadsheet program? There was pretty much only one to go with: Lotus 1-2-3. Then another company came along. Their product was pretty good. It had all the features that Lotus 1-2-3 had and then some. However, the most important feature is one that you might think of as nothing big, yet this was the only feature that could possibly allow it to gain traction in a monopolized community: it could read and write Lotus 1-2-3 files. That product is Excel, and that's why practically no one uses Lotus 1-2-3 any more.

It's about barriers to entry. Since everyone in the world was using Lotus 1-2-3, it didn't make sense for anyone to switch to a product that couldn't work with Lotus 1-2-3. If Excel hadn't added this feature, it would have been dead in the water 20 years ago.

(You can read about Excel vs. Lotus 1-2-3 in greater detail at Joel on Software.)

Fast forward to today. Google has twice tried to introduce products into a saturated market, and twice they've come up short. Google Chrome is a pretty sweet browser from a technical standpoint. It does lots of things right. You know what it doesn't do? Use Firefox addons. You know why Google Chrome is (and will remain) a marginal browser used only by fanatics? Because Firefox users won't switch away from their addons.

And then Google Android. Yeah, it's a cool phone. Once again, they did a lot of things technically right, yet they made the same mistake. Why can't the Android be compatible with iPhone apps?

In both cases, you've got a "chicken and egg" problem. Who wants to develop addons and apps for platforms that aren't used? And who wants to use a platform that doesn't have the addons and apps that you're used to using?

My prediction: the winner in the browser market will be the first one that can use plugins designed for any browser. Similarly, the winner in the 'cool phone' market will be the first one that can use apps designed for any phone.

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"Menja bé, caga fort i no tinguis por a la mort!" might be my new favorite saying.

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Today the heat went out. The wife and child are at a friend's house. I'm waiting for the repairman. It's a little chilly. Also, a piece of the roof fell off. Oh, and we need a new mattress.

The house is falling apart.

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I saw a magazine article titled something like "How to Make Your Kid 88% Safer". I thought, "Well dang, 88% is a goodly amount. I better read something like that." The article was about bicycle helmets. By that logic, I could make my kid 100% safer by keeping my kid off of bicycles.

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PSP's are awesome. Sure, the game selection sucks, but once it's hacked, it rocks. I put a SNES emulator and a wide selection of games on there. It runs them all at 60 fps. That's right, I can play FF3, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Super Mario All-Stars (with Super Mario World), and Earthbound on the go. I tried Super Mario Kart, but the emulator couldn't handle it. I didn't think any SNES emulator could run Super Mario Kart. I thought about adding a NES emulator, but I couldn't think of any NES games I actually wanted to play.

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Our neighbor used to let her dogs out (two of them, both rather smallish) to pillage the cul-de-sac. Note, used to. These two yappy blockheads would bark at EVERYTHING. Seriously, they ran around like they owned the whole cul-de-sac, barking at anything and everything that moved. Or didn't move. And they were bold little bastards. They'd bark at you, following you all the way up to your porch, even getting ON your porch.

So, I had to go next door and ask her (very politely, I might add) to please keep her dogs under control. I didn't bring up the fact that your dogs are always supposed to be on a leash in our neighborhood. I did offer to help setup a dog run for them, because I think it's nicer when you're not just making demands and when you are trying to be an active part of the solution.

Acting like you're offended that I asked you to control your dogs or offered to help does NOT make me feel bad in the slightest. Almost makes me wish I'd been rude.

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If you have EVER played a table-top role-playing game, you are required to watch The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. Hilarious, but only if you have the experience necessary to understand why it's funny. I suppose non-geeky people might find some part of it funny, but I can't recommend it.

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The new job is awesome. The office is still getting setup, which means I work from home. One of the things being setup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ Yes, my job is cooler than yours.

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Specifically, non-solicit and non-compete clauses in employment agreements.

These are bad. They're bad for you. They make the business look bad.

The exploded view:
A non-compete agreement basically means that when you leave your current job, you can't work for a competitor doing a similar job for a certain period of time. Some states also require a certain geographical area. The effectiveness of these sorts of agreements vary wildly by state. For example, non-compete agreements almost NEVER hold up in Georgia.

First, what is the motivation for the company to make you sign this agreement? It's not any sort of non-disclosure; if you need one of those, you'll probably sign it. The only motivation is to try to lock you into your job. If the only thing holding you to your job is a non-compete agreement, then your workplace must suck.

A non-solicit agreement means that when you leave your current job, you can't entice other people to leave and take another job. After all, a company would probably prefer that their employees leave one at a time rather than en masse.

Of course, that's not what they're REALLY worried about when they make you sign this. They don't want you and your fellow employees to look at each other and say, "You know, we know how this business should work. We should start a business that does what this one does, only right." As soon as one of you figures out that he or she should start a competing start-up, you better believe the managers on high will be watching real close to see if anyone else leaves to go work for it.

What do these agreements have in common? It's a vote of no-confidence in the ability of the company that's requiring you to sign them. It says, "You know, we may not do so well at making our customers or employees happy, but if you work for us, you'll just have to accept that." Who wants to willingly work for a company like that?

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Some people might think this is a New Year's resolution post. Obviously it's not, since it's almost a week after New Year's.

This year I want to:

• Have a garden, even if it's just one tomato plant in a 5 gallon bucket. An herb garden would be nice too. Having a garden would get me off my tail and outside.
• Get in shape (a bit). After all, I'm going to have to keep up with little OSM.
• Work some wood. Making some wooden board games sounds like a fun hobby, and that new bench-top belt sander is ready to work.
• Make a board game. The Game Crafter. Enough said.
• Make a video game? Maybe.

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When I was 6, my Uncle Allen started making wooden Christmas stockings. That year, all the nieces and nephews got a wooden stocking. As more nieces and nephews were born, Uncle Allen made a stocking for each of them.

While dating Lisa, I'd told her about our wooden stockings. She thought it was kind of neat.

Our family has the tradition of all sleeping in the same house Christmas Eve so that we can enjoy Christmas morning together. On our first married Christmas, Lisa woke up to find a wooden Christmas stocking with her name on it. My dad had made it for her; she was touched.

Last Thanksgiving, my dad and I went down to my granddad's woodworking shed. He showed me how to make a wooden stocking out of a single piece of wood. The pattern is so simple that you don't even need one: you can derive it with a ruler and an ordinary disposable plastic cup. That day I made the wooden Christmas stocking for Oliver. My dad said I had one more job to do: "Teach him to make stockings too."

It seems like in today's fast-paced, incessantly distracted society, we don't look back at where we came from. We scoff at tradition as being old-fashioned and stagnant, a relic to be left behind. Similarly, we fail to look ahead. We think it's all too far out to have a plan, and you can't really depend on any plan working out in the end anyway. We live only for today.

I think it's nice to have an anchor in the past to keep us steady as we aim for the future. Merry Christmas.

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