New York City?!

Get the rope.

Actually, get me stuff to do! I'm heading to NYC from July 24th-29th. I'll be hanging out with my sister some of the time, but during work hours on the weekdays I'll likely be on my own. I'm sure I'll go hit all the museums and such, but I want to hear about cool places to go and things to do that are rarely (if ever) in a guidebook.

Lay it on me, while I go get me some Texas salsa.

My perfect cup of coffee at work

I'll admit it: I'm cheap. If I can get free food, I'll take it. So if I have the choice between free hot coffee and pay-for cold soda, I'll take the coffee. The problem here is that I don't like hot coffee very much. I do, however, love iced coffee.

There are a few ways to make iced coffee, the easiest is to just drop a bunch of ice in a hot cup of joe and be done with it. This is terrible, unless you like weak, diluted coffee.

I take a long, drawn out route, but the results are exactly what I crave (and it's free). Here's how I do it:

1) Pour hot coffee into mug (I prefer less caffeine, so it's half decaf and half regular)
2) Add sugar to taste [optional]
3) Stir the heck out of the coffee while you work until it's cooled
4) Place mug into refrigerator until cold (10 minutes)
5) Place mug into freezer until really cold (5 minutes or so)
6) Enjoy!

Although the entire process takes over an hour (using a nice coffee mug hinders the cooling process a lot), what comes out at the end is a perfectly strong, ice cold cup of coffee.

So tell me, coffee drinkers, what laborious route do you take for your perfect cup of joe?

Yvonne's Original No Streaks Microfiber Cloth

I recently attended the Back To The 50's car show at the Minnesota State Fair grounds. At one of the vendor booths there was a simple product called "Yvonne's Original No Streaks Microfiber Cloth." They had a plain old window, a bucket of water, and one of their cloths. My father and I tested them. I even had the guy wipe my glasses with them. It appeared that the product worked! We were guaranteed that the product would live up to our expectations, or our money back.

I decided the best test would be on my bathroom mirror. It needed a little cleaning anyhow. I did a thorough cleaning with my trusty sponge. My mirror looked beautiful and streak-free. Then I did a very simple wipe with the cloth (lightly damp, as directed). My mirror looked exactly the same. I wasn't disappointed, but the fact that my sponge was just as good left me feeling like I'd been had.

But that was only part 1 of my experiment.

Part 2 involves the one thing that always kills a beautiful window: fog. Every time I clean my car, I'm always thrilled at the results...until it gets too humid out. Then I can't see anything but streaks. So to simulate this, I closed my bathroom door and started a hot shower. This is really where the truth comes out. My sponged side was the usual, broad, flat strokes of streaks. And Yvonne's Original No Streaks Microfiber Cloth?

Well, I guess you can't call them streaks. But the promise on the package of "spot free" isn't exactly accurate. The way water dries from the cloth wipe is in tiny little specks of water. Each and every one of these comes out when the glass gets foggy.

Was this better or worse then my sponge? That's a good question. Initially, the microfiber side looked like it wasn't even picking up the fog; it was amazing! The space between the specks was clean and clear. As the fog became more dense, the broad, flat streaks from the sponge became evenly covered in moisture, whereas the specks from the microfiber cloth stuck around. In the end, I was more easily able to see myself in the half of the mirror that the sponge had wiped.

The final verdict? Although these cloths are not pope-sanctioned miracles, they do provide ease of use and protection against minor fogging. I'd recommend them to anyone who is looking for a simple solution to cleaning glass, but doesn't need to polish camera lenses for a trip to the rainforest.

Update: I own a professional-grade CRT monitor that has a glass coating on it that's very delicate. This has always been very hard to clean properly, because you can't use anything but water, and even then you don't want to accidentally short the tube. Yvonne's cloth cleaned off all the fingerprints, left the coating intact, and a quick wipe with a cotton cloth made my monitor look like new. It was worth it right there.

Updates: Movies VS Games

When George Lucas re-released Star Wars, he replaced bad rubber puppets with fancy CGI, added more scenes, and changed others. This led to nerds around the world crying out in anger (much like Darth Vader in Ep III) because the movie from their childhood was modified and thus ruined.

This never happens to video games.

When a game is updated everyone is happy. In fact, most gamers want to see their favorite games updated for the next-gen consoles. Who doesn't want to see the flat, pixel-ridden Mario from Super Mario Bros. changed into a beautifully drawn cartoon Mario? Heck, add in some extra levels too. Why don't we toss in some new enemies while we're at it? As long as Nintendo kept what was good about it (the gameplay), so very few would ever be bothered by the update. And those that were bothered are probably content playing the original anyhow.

What is it that makes video games different? Why do we mourn the loss of our childhood when a movie we liked gets a fresh polish, but cheer when we see a new update come down the pipe for our favorite game?

Getting spun-up on piracy

Nothing gets me more frustrated than people sticking their fingers in their ears because it's easier to maintain the status quo than to admit they might be wrong and change something. Today's frustration comes from the video gaming industry.

This here is a long-winded article discussing why PC game piracy isn't the real problem. Please take the time to read it. Maybe someone with some clout in the industry will read it and take a stand. If nothing else, perhaps it will help garner enough support in the general populous to get some positive changes made.

Quasihemidemisemiquaver

Let us welcome the 128th note's full name into our vocabularies. "Billy, do play this group of sixteen quasihemidemisemiquavers; it sounds lovely."

Two heads are better than one

When two people are paired correctly, pair programming works beautifully. There's always that second set of eyes, The Nodding Dummy, sitting right there with you, ensuring that your stupid, little mistakes are fixed as you write the code.

As opposed to later, when you're busy tearing your hair out, and praying you don't get fired for incompetency.