PAgent’s Progress

1. When you’re about to beat someone in a fight, they will rapidly flash between red and their normal skin tone.

2. Chickens are easy to pick up.

3. Tennis is really easy.

4. Hockey is almost entirely about checking and fist-fights.

5. Most people don’t say anything of interest.

6. On any given day, a 16-year old girl can beat up a gigantic bear, or an old man can beat up a robot.

7. The best way to open a container is to destroy it.

8. When you enter a town, the person closest to the entrance will welcome you to the town and tell you its name.

9. When driving, a full 360 flip is routine, provided you land wheels down.

10. Pay attention to shiny things.

11. All ninjas will try to kill you on sight. Unless said ninja is a super badass ninja who refuses to talk. That guy will run away after saying “…” But beware–he’ll be back.

12. Parachutes are standard issue for all soldiers, regardless of what they’re tasked with on the Battlefield.

13. Food heals all wounds.

14. Eating typically takes one or two seconds, and can usually be accomplished by standing on top of food.

15. If you run out of bullets, you die.

16. Everyone, everywhere, at anytime is capable of jumping at least 5 feet straight up.

17. Eating mushrooms can make you grow taller. Eating flowers let you shoot fireballs out of your hand.

18. Female martial artists are either little girls in Japanese school clothes, or scantily clad vixens with ginormous boobies.

19. The Web was basically built for people to play puzzle games and tower defense.

20. Windows sucks.

21. Your thumb is your most powerful weapon.

22. Pokemon, though vicious fighting animals, will only attack other Pokemon. Even the biggest, nastiest Pokemon won’t hurt a human.

23. Princess Peach really needs a security staff.

24. And so does Princess Zelda.

25. Most people don’t mind if you wander into their house unannounced. They also don’t care if you go rifling through their chests and barrels looking for items.

26. A large number of doors and gates are controlled by elaborate pulley systems involving statues and clay tablets.

27. Barrels with radioactive signs on the side will explode if shot.

28. Hemorrhaging head wounds can be healed by standing on top of any box with the red cross symbol on the side.

29. Bad guys and monsters tend to enjoy carrying around the same types of bullets your guns use, even if they themselves are not armed.

30. Big ass boobs are great. 3D big ass boobs with a proper physics engine behind them are even better.

31. Massive boobs do not, in anyway, interfere with physical and athletic performance.

32. Most cities, though appearing large, are composed of small alleys and single streets blocked off at both ends by garbage, fences, cars, or mysterious invisible barriers.

33. 90% of all doors are completely fake. They’re just painted onto the wall.

34. Solid Snake’s co-workers are completely incapable of shutting the f**k up.

35. Turtles come out of their shells if you press down hard on them. Additionally, turtle shells are really slick on the bottom, and thus they slide around on normal surfaces as though they were ice.

36. For the most part, jumping on something’s head will kill it. If it does not, then throwing a dead animal at the thing will do the job.

37. All adventures will take the protagonist through an “ice world.”

38. If you get poisoned, you won’t die as long as you stay still.

40. Grenades are easy to locate in major metropolitan areas. And in fields. And in suburbs. And in airbases. And in hotels. And on the bus. And in schools. But if you find grenades in a military base, they’re probably fake and don’t really exist.

41. 95% of all computers, desks, tables and chairs are exactly the same.

42. Killing people makes you stronger.

43. When someone dies, their body will decompose within 5 minutes of death.

44. Dead people, after decomposition, tend to leave behind weapons, food, or keys.

45. Bad guys like to build elaborate mazes around their headquarters.

46. The head guy involved in anything is usually trying to destroy the world.

47. Bad guy managers are usually far stronger than any of their underlings.

48. If a bad guy is really really big, you’ll have to flip a number of switches in order to damage him. These switches will always reset within 30 seconds of being hit, making Mr. Big Baddy invulnerable again.

49. The more you kill, the better the stuff you get.

50. All store owners will buy any old crap you have in your bag, no matter how much of it you own.

51. If in combat, your enemies will usually stand around and wait patiently as you go through your rucksack looking for your rocket launcher.

52. A knife in the back beats three bullets in the face.

53. When you go to bed at an inn, a 3-second jingle will play before you go to sleep..

54. Hedgehogs do not have blood flowing through their veins, but giant gold rings.

55. The greatest of warriors often communicates in childish aphorisms.

56. Clothing only comes in one size.

57. If you come across a locked door, you have to find the key, even if it’s a brittle piece of wood that a grenade should be able to obliterate.

Horked shamelessly from GamerHelp

I was at CostCo this evening, and as I was standing in the checkout line, I couldn’t help but notice the gentleman in front of me in line.

He was transferring three items from his shopping cart to the conveyor belt.

They were:

• 5+ lbs of beef tri-tip
• a Magnum of champagne
• a huge cheesecake

I told him he was my hero.

We Portlanders know that this city is something special, particularly in its incredibly energetic and inventive local food scene. But it’s an entirely different matter when the New York Times agrees with you.

Go read “In Portland, a Golden Age of Dining and Drinking” at www.nytimes.com.

via Slashfood

Today is Miss Cellania’s birthday!

If you don’t know who Miss Cellania is, she’s the hardest working unemployed blogger that I know. She contributes to Neatorama, YesButNoButYes, and MentalFloss. She’s also a frequent visitor here at PAgent’s Progress, and has been very generous with link love.

So, go wish her a happy birthday. Remember, she’s blonde, so type slowly.

I came across a disturbing picture today. It was part of a feature at the National Geographic website called Living With The Bomb:

What this is, is a gallery of guests of the U.S. military observing a nuclear blast on the Enewetak Atoll in 1951.

Look at them. They’re sitting on Adirondeck deck chairs, for God’s sake. Legs crossed, dark goggles on. They’ve been assured that what they’re doing is “perfectly safe”.

In reality, the Pacific A-bomb blasts produced significant fallout. We didn’t fully realize the hazards associated with radiation exposure in 1951. There’s no telling how many of these folks died a horrible lingering death from cancer in the decades to come.

But they had comfy deck chairs. And a story for their children.

I’m tempted to see this picture as a metaphor for what our country is doing to us right now. We’ve been assured by our leaders that the actions they take are making us safe. They sit us down in comfy chairs. We put the goggles on and marvel at the destruction happening over there. Not realizing that by sitting idly by, the seeds of horrific future struggles and agonies are being planted. Planted, fertilized, and nurtured.

Bah. I need a drink.

Sweat was dripping down my face. I had a bandana wrapped around my mouth and nose, which made the heat in the attic even more unbearable. I was sprawled face-down in the blown insulation, staring at the pool of light cast by my headlamp. What a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Not.

Let’s backtrack a bit. When we bought our house, it had a doorbell. The chimes were located in the hallway near the bedrooms, and they were completely wimpy. We were lucky to hear them in that half of the house, and if we were at the other end of the house, there was no chance at all we would hear them. In fact, several times we had visitors who either rang and rang, then gave up, or came wandering around the back of the house looking for us.

We decided that we needed a louder doorbell. Or maybe a second bell to ring in the other part of the house. I started out by trying a repeater unit, that sent a radio signal when it heard the chime and activated a satellite unit. It didn’t work. Our chime wasn’t loud enough to trigger the unit reliably, even when the microphone was IN the chime unit itself.

Then we tried a brand-new wireless door chime. The wireless button was supposed to be able to trigger the three units we had plugged in around the house, including one with a strobe light. They worked, kind of. Sometimes the remote units wouldn’t trigger. More irritating were the false triggers, at random times of day and night.

In disgust, we pulled the doorbell button off the house, and decided to live without a bell at all. This was a little inconvenient, but not terribly so. Then we got new siding put on the house. We didn’t tell the workers that we weren’t using the doorbell, so when they saw the wires sticking out of the hole in the siding, they dutifully drilled a hole in the new siding and pulled them through.

So now we had a hole in our new siding.

With the onset of another winter, the Wife started complaining about having that hole in the house. I decided to try and fix the doorbell one more time, this time by putting a new button on the house, and a new chime unit. Heck, even a quiet chime would be better than nothing, at this point.

So Saturday afternoon, we picked up a nice loud two-note chime unit, and ordered an illuminated button we liked. That afternoon, I removed the existing chime unit, and installed the new one. I wired it up exactly the way the old one had been wired, then went outside and shorted the wires for the button.

dink!

And that was it. An anemic little thump from the chime unit. I was profoundly un-impressed. It should have at least given us a two-note chime. Irritated, I did some searching online, and in an effort to get a ding-dong, I decided to try putting a short jumper between the front door chime and the back door chime. But now, when I shorted out the wiring, I didn’t even get a dink! In fact the striker barely twitched at all.

At this point I came to the conclusion that the chime unit simply wasn’t getting enough power to energize the electromagnet. That in turn meant that the transformer wasn’t doing its job. Door chime transformers put out 16 Volts, but you could choose between 10 amps, 20 amps, or 30 amps of current. If I assumed the existing transformer was a 16V 10amp unit (the most common), I figured I should get a 16V 30amp unit to replace it.

Thus began the official runaround. I began at the Home Depot nearest our house. They had 16V 10amp units, but nothing higher. Noting an empty box for another type of transformer, I asked an associate if it was a higher current unit, and if any were in stock. He was both jovial and helpful (“What, are you trying to run a whole trainset? Geez!”) but couldn’t locate any other transformers, or even verify if the missing transformers had a higher current rating.

Then I drove to Lowe’s, where I found two empty boxes where the transformers should be. I asked a passing associate if there were any in stock. His reply was “I don’t know why anyone would buy the transformer for $14 when you could get the button, the chime AND the transformer for $10 if you get that kit.”

I replied through clenched teeth “Because I already HAVE a button and a chime.”

He shrugged. “It would be cheaper to get the kit.”

I didn’t reply, because I somehow sensed he wouldn’t be interested in my theories regarding the level of quality of components in a “Everything you need in one box” type of kit. So I left.

Then I went to a second Home Depot. This one actually had transformers, including a 16V 10amp unit, and a 16V 15amp model. At this point, beggars certainly couldn’t be choosers, so I grabbed the 15 amp model and ran home.

Now I just had to find the transformer. I started tracing wires, which lead me to conclude that there had been at least three distinct doorbells in our home at different times. After going through closets and along floorboards, and poking and prodding, I decided the transformer had to either be in the attic, or in the crawlspace.

I climbed up in the attic, and started looking for it. Unfortunately, our attic was full of blown-in insulation, which covered everything in a layer of what looked like filthy snow. Finally in frustration, I measured over to a point directly over the chime unit and started digging. In just a few inches, I hit wires. And they were the right color.

I started following the wires, and found the transformer less than a foot away. It was attached directly to a junction box. And it was buried under about six inches of insulation.

Now, I’m no electrician, but I have a strong feeling that you shouldn’t bury transformers in insulation. I decided to abandon the project until I felt more manly on Sunday.

We had some fun and hijinks on Saturday night. We kept hearing a cat crying. After hunting for several minutes, we found our cat Seeker up in the rafters above the garage. I had no idea how he got up there, and getting him down was rather exciting (and a bit bloody, at least for me).

Less than half an hour later, we heard him crying again. In disbelief, we found him in the rafters above the garage again. Ah, but this time he had telltale bits of insulation on his whiskers. The little furry bastard was going down the hallway, climbing up the stepladder, and making the four-foot jump straight up to get into the attic, where he would make his way down the length of the house into the garage. Just to torment me.

I closed the access hatch.

On Sunday, when the time came, I tripped every breaker in the panel, put on my multi-pocket vest and loaded it up with every tool I thought I might need, put on a headlight, and climbed up into the attic. That’s how I found myself sweaty and prostrate, doing the wiring.

I removed the old transformer, and screwed the new one to a beam above the level of the insulation. Then I wired the existing doorbell wires to the transformer. Then I wired the transformer into the mains at the junction box. I closed everything up tight, and climbed back down the stepladder. Before testing the chime, I removed the jumper I had installed. Then I went outside and shorted the doorbell wires.

DING-DONG!

Success! Another do-it-yourself project that didn’t end in either fire or a trip to the emergency room. By God, I think I’m actually getting handy!

I try not to think about the possibility that, if we had just replaced the transformer initially, it’s likely our original doorbell would have been plenty loud enough. No it doesn’t do any good to think about that, at all.