Greg Nilsen

Well, with the holidays, I got a little behind on the race.  Fortunately, my wife and I got the time to get caught up on things tonight.

Last week, we were treated to both the mental collapse of Lorena, who decided to repeatedly scream around a startled camel as she tried to milk it, and Shana & Jennifer who acted like the spoiled idiots they seem to be by complaining that Africa was too dirty and gross.  Unfortunately though, it was the sisters Marianna & Julia who fell just behind the pack and wound up being eliminated.

This week, we watched teams spend another full leg in Burkina Faso (which I'm sure the blondes loved), and were introduced to this season's twist: the U-turn.  This season, instead of the traditional timed yield, the U-turn will force a team to go back and complete the other detour after already completing one.  I like the new twist, and I think it is more fair.  Quality teams will be able to complete the other task in a more timely manner, making it less of a penalty.

On this leg, the blondes decided to force Lorena & Jason, already behind the rest of the pack, to complete the U-turn.  Unfortunately, that pretty much ended the drama for the episode, as the pair was ultimately eliminated.  However, the front of the pack got more interesting as Azaria & Hendekea and Jennifer & Nathan ended up making a mad-dash for first, with Azaria & Hendekea grabbing the number one spot for the third time already.  I did find it funny that the result did end up with Jennifer pouting because they were beaten once again.

At this time, I'm actually starting to pick favorites.  Right now, I'm definitely in favor of Azaria & Hendekea, as they just seam like good people who have what it takes physically and mentally to compete the whole way.  As for those in the middle of the pack, my sentimental favorite is the team of Nicholas & Donald who seam like a team that shouldn't last long, but they manage to stick around.

As for the “wish you weren't here” list, I've still got three on the list:

• Jennifer & Nathan – They try to have that “winning” attitude, but they really get on my nerves because they act like they deserve to win.
• Shana & Jennifer – Because they're spoiled and ungrateful to be doing what they are doing.  Need I say more?
• Kynt & Vyxsin – Because when I think neon pink and black, I still think 80's rock…not goth.  That, and Kynt has proven to be pretty much useless.

Now things are starting to get interesting though.  I'm looking forward to when we will see the non-elimination legs…and get back to some longer travel portions.

The Gibson Robot — It tunes itself!  To more than one key!  I can't even think of a way that it isn't a great idea!

Update: Here's another video of the guitar in action.

And that 'S' would stand for 'stupid', as in the recent 'Adults-Only' rating given to Volumes 1 and 2 of Sesame Street, recently released on DVD.  That's right, the loveable, timeless creations of Jim Henson that aired on PBS for 38 seasons, starting in 1969, has been deemed inappropriate for children.

Shame on them for trying to help kids learn and teach them values.  Though times have changed, the lessons found in Sesame Street have not:

• Don't be mean to others (try being nice instead of simply taking more prozac).
• Learning can be fun (yes, as fun as your PSP).
• Sharing is important (even if you love what you share…right Cookie Monster?)

Look, if you sit a kid down and they come away thinking that smoking while reading (followed by eating the pipe, as Cookie Monster did in the Monsterpiece Theatre segments) is a good idea, maybe you need to spend more time teaching the kid about reality and humor.  Otherwise, Sesame Street is still a great series for children.

A happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Americans out there who are hopefully taking time out to celebrate today with friends and family. Enjoy some good food, good times, and remain thankful for all that you have.

Well, after a 3 year hiatus, I've rejoined the Pittsburgh Curling Club!  I'm very glad  to be back and playing, and seeing many familiar faces as well.  Technically, this is old news, as we're already 5 matches into the season, but I hadn't written about it yet, so I thought I'd let y'all know.

In our league, I'm with a group of relatively inexperienced curlers, so we're struggling a little bit.  However, I did get to spare in a few matches this past Saturday and I was reminded that I can throw some nice stones still.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to hit up some bonspiels in the coming year.  It's always fun to meet curlers from other areas (and get a chance to curl on some real curling ice instead of converted hockey ice).

Anyway, if you're interested in curling and live in the Pittsburgh area, feel free to contact the club on their site listed above.  It doesn't matter if you haven't played before, as they'll arrange a session for you to come an learn.  Plus, the leagues almost always need subs, so you could even get into some competition relatively quickly.  So drop them a line and tell them Greg sent you!

When the fall TV season started, I didn't think I had much to look forward to.  Both LOST and 24 weren't going to be on again until the new year started, House is in the middle of reinventing itself, The Amazing Race was a few months away, and all the new shows looked like crap.  I've never gotten into Heroes, so I didn't have that to look forward to either.

Well, after missing the premier, I ended up catching the encore of the premier episode of Chuck on a quiet Saturday evening.  For once, I was actually impressed.  The show was interesting, smart, and really funny.  When there were a million different ways they could have gotten “super nerd becomes international spy by accident” wrong, they actually found one that worked.

Now, if you haven't seen it yet, beware that the show doesn't take itself too seriously.  Some of the spy stuff is a bit over the top and highly improbable, and the fight scenes are old Batman-esque, but it doesn't seem to hurt the show because it isn't the crux of the show.  Like the name implies, the show isn't about all the spy escapades, but about Chuck and his life.

Both my wife and I are now caught up in the show and find ourselves making the occasional “Captain Awsome” references.  It's simply a fun and charming show that most anyone will like.  If you haven't seen it already, now is the time!

Another week, another elimination.  Even though we were treated to somebody's grandfather in his underwear as he struggled to cross a bog (let's just say he needs to switch to boxers), it was ultimately the lesbian “Married Ministers” Kate & Pat, with their “why run when you can walk” attitude, who got eliminated.  Interestingly, that's already two of the teams I wanted to see eliminated gone from the show.

What else we learned this week was that people can't tie knots.  All it took were some quick instructions and following them to make the hoist detour easy.  But there were several teams who just couldn't get it.

However, a few more teams managed to make my bad list this week.  Let's recap:

• Kynt & Vixsin – “Dating Goths” – They're stronger that most teams initially thought, but they should be fun to root against for a while.  Eventually, I think Kynt will be the weak link for them.
• Jennifer & Nathan – “Dating” – I'm not even sure how they're dating.  They don't seem to get along, and Jennifer just breaks down into something mean when she gets frustrated.
• Ronald & Christina – “Father/Daughter” – I really wanted to like them at first, but Ronald just never shuts up and constantly belittles his daughter.  Unless they start getting along more, they're going to stay on the bad list.

There are a few teams emerging as likeable so far, but I'll keep them to myself in case the editors destroy a teams image like they did with Ronald & Christina this week.  Maybe will get a few closer finishes as well, since Kate & Pat were way behind the pack this week.

Oh well, it's still early!

Thursday, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer came down with yet another case of foot-in-mouth disease:

“Google is not ahead of us” said Ballmer, “In the area of search specifically, Google would lead.”

I'm not sure where he's coming from, but if it has just about anything to do with the internet, then Goodle is ahead of Microsoft:

• Advertising
• Online Applications (Google Apps, Blogger, Google Analytics, etc.)
• Video (YouTube)

It's not like Microsoft doesn't rule the roost with it's other moneymakers like Windows, Office and other PC-based application.  However, to think they are even coming close to competing with offerings like Windows Live is just ridiculous. 

It's one thing to be confident in your current strategy, but to not even be able to see things for what they are is what would make me nervous as a Microsoft employee.  This is the kind of attitude that leads to loss in market share and missing developing opportunities.  Whereas Google tends to purchase innovative companies and strengthen them by bringing them into the fold, Microsoft often seems to try to replicate the success of these innovators, leaving them behind the curve.

It's a dangerous road to travel, even with all that extra capital behind you…

For a while now, I had been anticipating the release of Guitar Hero III for the Wii.  I had played demos of the prior versions in the store on the PS2, but my PS2 has done little more than gather dust the last few years, so I decided to hold off on buying the special controllers and everything.

However, last week the waiting ended, and I'm very happy to say that I wasn't disappointed at all.  Guitar Hero III has a great set list, is easy enough to pick up and play on beginner difficulty, but ramps up difficulty enough to push players to their limits.  I'll admit that I'm not great so far, but after coasting through most of the songs on easy, I found the medium difficulty to be quite a step up.  In some ways it's aggravating, but what fun would it be to breeze through all the songs?

Just like I thoroughly enjoyed Frequency and Amplitude, the titles that made music-based gaming popular in the first place, I am very enthralled with Guitar Hero III.  I've found myself losing hours at a time playing the game as I continue to tell myself “just one more song”.  And I haven't even tried the online gaming yet!

If you're up for playing some, feel free to drop your friend code below and maybe we can thrash together!

Well, last weekend, I got my first W2 of the year.  That's right, a bit earlier than usual.  However, there was a good reason for it.  It turns out that my previous employer, Express Financial Services, had closed their doors for good.

Now, I can't say that I'm shocked.  They invested heavily in some custom designed software built by a extremely small company who didn't do a very good job.  In fact, just a few months after deploying the system, they were already encountering scalability issues with the database as some tables already had millions of records, and there were no archiving considerations yet built.  Since I was the in-house DBA, I decided that was a good queue for me to make my way out instead of somebody pointing the finger at me for something I didn't design or maintain.

The irony of the whole situation was that they put over a year into designing and implementing this system to better server their customers, and they ended up losing one major customer while designing because they got tired of the poor service and they lost another one not long after the new system was put in place.

Thankfully, I saw the writing on the wall, though it came much faster than I had expected.  Anyway, I got back to software development in ColdFusion, which I enjoy more than just doing DBA work anyway.

Hopefully all my former co-workers (200+ employees when I left) have or are able to land back on their feet after the closing of the company.