Steve

Smith & Tinker is Jordan Weisman's new holding company for ex-FASA intellectual property, if I have that quite right; I do know he (through the company) has reacquired the rights to the Battletech universe from the wreckage of FASA Interactive and Microsoft. So they and Piranha Games look to be creating a new MechWarrior game, set before all the others in the "old" Inner Sphere days of 3015. Which, by the by, is the era I played the most in my misspent college days...

-- Steve's eagerly awaiting more.

PS: Apparently battletech.com is going to be releasing MechWarrior 4 as freeware to mark the 25th (!!) anniversary of Battletech. Cool, but man I'm starting to feel old again.

edited to add: More details available at the Escapist, including the juicy tidbit that they're looking at including battlefield roles for all classes of 'Mech in multiplayer and that you can gain experience for playing the same type of machine over time... so it's not just a long grind up from Locust to Atlas, and even the little guys can win out against the big-bads. *chafes hands* I can't wait.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=news&link=ReconHunt

For those unable to participate in the Bungie vs. the World playlist but still wanting a crack at earning Halo 3's Recon armour permutation, try the link above.

-- Steve thinks it should be like old times for ARGers... though he isn't certain that the puzzle is intended to be a collaborative one.

Back in the office after a brief visit with family, now. I did do some catching-up yesterday (and was alarmed to see 24 top-priority messages in my inbox, though all were about an issue already resolved so no panic required) so today's fairly routine.

Apparently Dad got me a set-top digital-to-analog signal converter on my folks' last trip to the States, and gifted it to me as an early Birthday present. It looks nifty, but there seems to be an issue with my indoor antenna now that it's hooked to the DTV box and can only pick up one station at the moment. (And my analog reception's gone south, too, even when I take the box off.) I may have to get a replacement for the old antenna; it's over a decade old now, come to think of it, and the adjustment dials don't mesh too well anymore. Still, DTV is very pretty, near-DVD quality is nice to see from an over-the-air signal.

Tomorrow is Bungie Day, 7/7. This year won't be as elaborate but there are still fun things to do to mark the occasion. Alas, I seem to have mangled my left thumb's ball joint again while schlepping luggage so teh Haloz are contra-indicated until the inflammation goes down. Yay.

More later, but break's over.

-- Steve's delving into the telephone mines again.

-- Steve's still pondering what to do with the rest of the day; well, at least the part between brunch and dinner that is.

I just ordered a whole whack of reservations for train travel over the summer... and got some rather good prices too for ordering in advance.

The big prize is my trip to Montreal this August; I got the "supersaver" discount for advanced purchase plus the delightful 10% convention discount, and I may even have gotten the 10% discount for paying with my Visa card... so my return fare for Business class seating (meals and taxes inclusive) was $243.81. (Hee, I just noticed that I even got window seats each way.)

If it'll get you to where you need to go, rail just works.

-- Steve's wondering if these'll accrue points to his just-requested Via Preferance account, or if he should've signed up for the points program first. Oh well, it had to be done anyway.

-- Steve'll remind folks that there are plenty others there, including this week's tips on how to take down the office bully.

Just looked in the mirror and noted that I forgot to shave this morning, thanks to the insanely-fast onset of summer here^*. While examining the stubble I heard, in my head, Bruce Campbell's voice ordering, "dos mojitos, por favor."

-- Steve thinks that there are worse afflictions to suffer.

^*Over the past week temperatures have risen by ten-twelve degrees Celsius. For those still shackled to the primitive Fahrenheit marks, think of the daily high temperature going from mid-60s to high-80s over a five day period. Oh, yeah, and the relative humidity shot up to a fer-gosh-honest 99%. It certainly feels Miami-ish in comparison to the cool and drizzly spring just a week ago. In any case, the sudden temperature change makes it tough to sleep... especially since I haven't cleaned and checked the air conditioner yet. Argh.

Ursula Vernon has turned her all-seeing eye upon one of my hobbies and granted upon us a hamster suitable for the dark future of Warhammer 40,000.

-- Steve doesn't play the Dark Templars chapter, which of course makes rendering them as hamsters all the more amusing.

In a fit of weakness last Tuesday, I picked up the second season set for the TV series Burn Notice. As this fit of weakness struck the very first day of sale for the set, and I picked up the last copy on the shelf, I might as well come out right now and say that this is going to be a favourable review.

If you're unfamiliar with the series, my elevator pitch for Burn Notice would be that you blend Magnum PI and MacGuyver until smooth, season with a little The Prisoner, then garnish with a twist of Miami Vice.

Micheal Weston (played by Jeffery Donovan) starts the series as a US government agent on assignment discovering that a "burn notice" has been circulated on him cutting off his government support. Beaten to a pulp when his mission goes sour, he manages to escape, only to pass out on the airplane and then wake up in a seedy hotel in his home-town of Miami. There he meets Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar), ex-IRA ordnance expert and gun runner and ex-girlfriend, and the boozy retired Navy SEAL and covert operative Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell). Weston reaches out to them to help find out why he was "burned". In the mean time he finds he cannot avoid dealing with his mother, Madeline (Sharon Gless), and his abusive father's legacy while trapped in Miami without travel papers and with FBI surveilance, arrest warrants, and vengeful foreign spies dogging him. Out of monetary necessity and a frustrated sense of duty he turns to helping people in Miami deal with the usual troubles you find in a TV "private eye" show.

What draws me to this show isn't its novelty; frankly, the concept itself is nothing new. I am drawn, however, by the obvious love of the craft shown by the show's cast and crew and writers. It's a smart show; though the villains are disappointingly prone to driving with their gas tanks full of foamed napalm, the schemes are less fanciful than the usual ruck and actually look like they could work. (Indeed, many of the criminal plots do appear to be drawn from real life cases.) There is obvious attention to real-world spy tradecraft, right down to a sardonic voice-over by Weston directed at the audience as if to explain to a novice class of spy-trainees the merits and pitfalls of the action on-screen. There is also a real love for the recurring characters, in that they do develop as the show progresses.

The structure is a bit different than the usual, in that though each episode has the traditional "A" and "B" plot familiar to viewers, one of those plots is the ongoing story arc of Weston fighting against those who burned him... and making progress, which removes the awful "episode reset syndrome" that haunted The Fugitive (or Gilligan's Island, for that matter) and gives the show's premise that much more verisimilitude.

It's also fun to spot favourite actors from other great shows cropping up; two West Wing alumni, two from BSG, two from Stargate SG-1, and many others familiar from TV and film. The show draws A-talent, but it also fosters new actors too and I look forward to seeing them in future shows on other series.

The editing and cinematography is stylish; sometimes it's obtrusive, but never overly so and frankly it works. The fight choreography is great, assisted by Donovan's own martial arts expertise.

Argh, out of time... maybe I'll follow this up later with more. In the mean time, just let me say that Burn Notice is worth watching if you can find it. Season 3 is airing now 9pm Eastern Thursdays on the USA Network, which (for some reason or another) doesn't find it's way here to Canada, plus episodes are available on the US-only Hulu service.

-- Steve will also recommend their official site, which sports (among other nifty things) their "Ask A Spy" section wherein Donovan (in-character as Weston) answers fan questions about tradecraft in 1-minute short films. The "how do I escape from a Turkmenistani prison?" segment is particularly amusing.

Alright, as gripes go this one is fairly trivial, but I do want to get it off my chest.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming Halo 3: ODST game and likely will buy it upon release. (Sept. 22 this year, FYI.) Indeed, there's no reason I shouldn't pre-order it to reserve a copy, and a very good reason to want to; there's a bonus offered by participating retailers to include in pre-ordered copies a code for a Sergeant Johnson skin (with combat dialog!) usable in the game's cooperative multiplayer Firefight mode. For those who have played the Halo games, you know exactly how awesometacularly fun it would be to play.

Alas, so far as I can find, no Canadian retailers are yet participating.

-- Steve's wondering when, or if, someone around here will drop sufficient testicular endowment to be worthy of my pre-order dollars or if they're all going to be ball-less maggots.

PS: It'd be nice if the stores would even mention the possiblity of stocking the Limited Edition, with it's themed Xbox wireless controller, too. So far, none in Canada seem to even know of its existance.

I've posted before my adoration of Pixar, and how much I respect their respect for their art and craft. Now, to chalk up another reason to love these guys, they do a private, home showing of Up to grant the last wish of a dying child. The classy part is that Pixar did this without prompting from a national group or any publicity, and indeed won't even speak to the press about it. The only reason the world knew is that the parents wanted to thank Pixar in public.

-- Steve thinks the world of these guys.

spotted via mightygodking

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iovN3SY651-awcKmIjXAkyb8z5RwD98T640G0

The pilot of Continental Flight 61 died over the Atlantic Ocean. Co-pilot and flight engineer look to be about to land the aircraft, a Boeing 777 carrying 247 passengers, any time now in Newark.

-- Steve's starting to think that trans-Atlantic ocean liners might be a good idea after all.

I think I've figured out why I've been in "snarling badger" mode lately; there's a story hatching in my brain. It is, alas, not a happy story... it's more of a wild-haymaker-to-the-limbic-system story, with all the pain the metaphor implies, and it promises to be a rather unpleasant one to write. It seems to want to be in 2nd person present tense, too, sort of a voice-in-your-head story with a lot of sensory content and not a lot of imagery or other poetic touches.

So now to find some more resources to do some background reading on proposed Mars missions, and what life is like on ISS and was like on Skylab and Mir.

Also, the story is predicated on the Mars mission taking two identical landers for redundancy; should both birds be cleared for landing status, one would land the crew for the primary mission and the other landed near the end of the mission at a different site to serve as a long-duration teleoperated lab. Is this practical, or would the weight penalties be prohibitive?

-- Steve hopes that putting this blasted thing down on electrons will stop it from eating its way out his skull.

This morning's launch of the shuttle Endeavor was scrubbed due to a leaky valve on the hydrogen line. Looks to be a minimum 4 day delay, just to replace the valve, possibly longer if the mission gets "bumped" by an upcoming lunar orbital mission.

-- Steve was really looking forward to starting his day by watching history.

The space shuttle Endeavor is scheduled to launch tomorrow at 7:17am EDT (11:17 GMT) for the first docking of a full shuttle mission to a fully-occupied International Space Station. The weather forecast is good (better than 90% chance of an on-time launch) and should make for a great backdrop.

NASA TV will of course carry it live, as may some news providers. As before, I'll be catching it from NASA's live web feed. This time, though, it'll likely be on my Origami minislate while consuming First Coffee of the Day.

-- Steve still watches this stuff as eagerly as he did as a kid... indeed, as he used to watch commercial and military aircraft at runways as well. There's just something special about manned flight that never loses his interest.

edited to add: It's an extra-special event for fellow Canadians interested in the space program, I should mention. Julie Payette, who last visited the space station ten years ago, will be riding Endeavor up to meet Bob Thirsk, one of Canada's first astronaut class who is now part of the first six-man crew of the ISS. So for the first time in our history we'll have two Canadians in orbit, and they're even from different missions to boot.

I love living in the future.

-- Steve loves the Internet, sometimes.

Found via The Bad Astronomer

Just noticed, while combing my greying hair back into place, that a honkin' big zit has ruptured on the tip of my nose.

It's not fair.

-- Steve can deal with the tribulations of youth or the portents of impending agedness, but not both at once dammit.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/06/08/f-payette-q-and-a.html

CBC interviewed Canadian astronaut Julie Payette for her Shuttle mission next Saturday, and in it she says one of the fun parts of being in the space program is coming home from a mission simulation and bringing left-over meal packets so her 5-year-old can eat space food.

-- Steve doesn't remember the actual act of eating freeze-dried ice cream from the KSC gift shop, but remembers how awesomely cool the idea of eating real space food was.

This post would be more cogent, maybe even themed, but last night the trees had surprise-sex with my face and so I'm a tad groggy. Part of the reason I'm posting this is to jump-start my stalled-out wits in a very dead office... it's hard to focus on monthly paperwork when you're half-way to shuffling around with outstretched arms and moaning "braaaaains...."

Thanks to Ozy and Ubersaurus I picked up Red Dawn and the first season set for Babylon 5 out of the bargain bin over the weekend. I've watched the first two discs of B5 and will probably devour the third tonight after work. (Haven't touched the Wolverines yet... I'm saving that for next weekend, when I can have ample beer and popcorn to-hand.) I'm pondering doing an episodic review of the series after I get the nostalgia out of my system; I was a huge fan of the series in first-run, when I could get it, and rather active in its Usenet fandom at the time until catastrophic job loss made it impossible. I will say that the cleaned-up audio in the DVD set is nice but the sound design seems a tad dated now, and that computer graphics and set design have come a long way in the past fifteen years... I seem to be less critical of the actors now than I was back then, too. But more later, when I can put my critic hat on and leave my fan hat aside.

James Nicoll was pondering if there was a term for "idea that strikes in the shower", and I too would be interested... physics wonks please speak up about this "i.t.s.i.t.s."; is there a way to tell the difference between "dark matter in our universe" and "gravitational attraction due to gravitons coming from other branes?" The whole concept of dark matter post-dates my unsuccessful delve into astrophysics and seriously croggles me. (Please keep mathematics down to brain-damaged hamster level; what little numeracy I had back then has atrophied horrifically in the intervening decades.)

I wonder when spring will truly arrive here? The weather's been so weirdly cool for the season, I'm still wearing my leather jacket to handle evening chills when in other years I've retired it to the back of the closet for at least a month at this point.

Well, break's almost over. Back to the telephone mines.

-- Steve's marginally more alert than before, but maybe some more OJ would be handy.

http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/full_story.asp?StoryNumber=39706

Algoma University's Dwayne Hammond at Sault Ste. Marie, ON, is looking for funding to help complete a video game designed to help stroke victims relearn how to speak; the reasoning is that games are able to encourage folks to continue trying much more readily (just one more turn / just a few more XP 'till I hit 60 / etc) than traditional therapudic techniques.

-- Steve likes the kid's t-shirt in the accompanying photograph. It seems apropos.