A Series of Tubes

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Pierce) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:40:00 +0000

Yesterday I was briefly interviewed by Aaron VanTuyl, one of our reporters here at The Chronicle, about the sixth game of the NBA Finals. During the interview I confessed I wasn't sure if I was related to Paul Pierce, Celtic's star and now Final's MVP. I said this jokingly, of course. I'm certain there's no relation. (Is it that obvious?)

I've been interviewed a few times since starting here at The Chronicle. I always enjoy it, even when I can't think of anything quotable to say. When writing I get a chance to think about the words I want to use and am able to put them in correct order. Verbal communication is not my strongest trait.

Note to self: Do not run for public office. Ever.

All of this reminded me of my first interview with a newspaper. In early June, 2006, I was interviewed by The News Tribune reporter Debbie Cafazzo for a Soundlife article on becoming a new father. At the time I had just finished a class on parenting that I attended with my father. The class specialized in fatherhood. I was feeling pretty good, having also finished a lamaze class with my wife a few weeks prior. I was ready for the birth and ready to change diapers.

Debbie visited us in our apartment and brought with her one of the News Tribune's photographers, Lui Kit Wong. Both were friendly enough and I tried my hardest to say something profound. I'm saddened to say that I said nothing that I would be proud of today. Regardless, Debbie was able to get some quotes from me. My father, who was also present for the interview, was able to say much more rememberable and inspirational things. I'm glad he was there.

I remember thinking these reporter-folks were awfully strange. Debbie and Lui came in, chatted, took a couple of photos, and left. "Is this how newspapers operate?" I asked myself after they left. It would be another year before I would become employed by a newspaper myself.

It is now June, 2008. The expected-dad-to-be has been replaced with a real dad. The baby who we only knew as a black and white ultrasound photo then is now the joy of my life, a smiling, beautiful girl. My wife is pregnant with our second, hopefully to arrive in the next few weeks. Two years seems like such a short time and like an eternity of change.

Reflection aside...

Standards Compliance; what you say?

The last two weeks have been filled with one thing: Programming. In the period of fourteen days I have worked with no less than eight programming languages.

I mentioned web standards to a co-worker and was delighted to find out that they knew nothing of them but were eager to hear more. I pulled out an old friend, a book that was given to me, and dusted it off. The book was written in 2003 originally, and my copy shows its age. The back cover has fallen off. The pages are wrinkled and well flipped through. It may be a bit old, but it's principals are universal. The internet is changing.

Firefox 3 was released this week, really capitalizing on the sort of language my book, Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman, was arguing needed to be implemented. Five years later, they are. Standards compliant websites have existed for a number of years, but the switch is finally being made to go from traditional HTML to the new standards. It's an exciting time to be a web developer!

Work has begun on a new version of Chronline.com. I've been juggling content management systems and our IT department has been busy at work playing with MySQL databases and transferring files to and from various servers to get everything working. Don't expect the change too soon: I'm shooting to have it up by 2010. Granted, that gives me an 18-month window for completion, but it's not something that our users will see in the next few weeks. Even then, no specific launch date has been set in stone. Everything right now is being kept behind closed doors of course, but my goal is to have the best newspaper website in the state, possibly in the country.

Oh yes, you just read that right.

Back to the code mines I go!

Many Congratulations

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Pierce) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:24:00 +0000

This last Saturday, The Chronicle was honored at the annual Society of Professional Journalists banquet at Meydenbauer Center when it was given 20 awards, including seven first-place wins for its coverage of the December floods and other stories from 2007.

Our entire staff was awarded a first-place win for the Wednesday, December 5 edition of the paper, "It came so fast." I remember waking up on the day of the floods to my phone ringing. Living in Olympia, I was safe. But I knew that work was going to get very hard for the next few days as others, who were in the flood zone, were not safe. I was certain our entire staff was ready and prepared.

I wasn't wrong.

I remember getting directions to take a back road into Centralia with I-5 closed. Our original plan was to have me update the paper from home, especially with the looming concern that the office could be flooded. Thankfully Centralia's downtown was all-but spared. Working from home, however, turned into an elusive dream when internet connection into and out of the county was bogged down by broken lines. The only way to get news on the web was to be at the server itself. I knew how important it was for those who still had the Internet to be able to get the latest updates. I managed to get to the office around 1:30 in the afternoon, two and a half hours past deadline.

Our editors were updating the paper's website with up-to-the-minute breaking news coverage and should be commended. I remember, after getting that day's paper online, heading over to the Buzz to find that the community was active in organizing relief effort already and letting everyone know what roads were closed and who was helping victims. For cyberspace, the whole event was quite awe inspiring.

I'm glad to see so many individuals here at The Chronicle awarded for all their hard work. So much of our younger staff was recognized for their creativity. Hopefully we'll see the hard work our dedicated web staff put into the website recognized this time next year! Congratulations, again, to everyone at The Chronicle.

I Can Has Blog Now?

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Pierce) — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:12:00 +0000

How is it May? I look out a nearby window and I can see faint sunlight piercing through thin clouds. With the length of winter, it is a surprise that summer is so close at hand. I've begun to do simple things without noticing: I've kicked off the heavy blankets on my bed. I'm running the fan on high. I'm wearing short sleeves. I've even considered shorts.

I apologize for the whiteness of my skin. It does, however, make for a good marker for pilots to fly at night by.

I attribute most of the "summer sneaking up on me" to a laden work schedule, freelance work outside of my regular job, attempting to spend more quality time with my family (as a result) and many smaller personal matters that have arisen such as a sister-in-law leaving on an 18-month stay in Buenos Aries and my pregnant wife expecting delivery in just a few weeks.

The Summer Tourism Guide comes as a highlight to my work life. I spent about three weeks developing its website, www.SeeSouthwestWA.com, using nothing but standards compliance web coding (yes, I do all my coding by hand; even this page you're reading was designed by me). The tourism guide website was my first exploration in total standards compliance, which is a designer term for using a code structure that is completely accessible for all users, including the blind or disabled. The entirety of a website is essentially text, and then when applied with a stylesheet, creates a rich and vibrant design. I hope this is something I achieved. Regardless, I am extremely proud of the work put into it and the end result that is displayed on the screen.

Day-in and day-out I find myself regretting putting up the Opinions section for our paper online. I inadvertently end up reading some of what is on that page and almost always sad that I did. It is what it says it is: opinions. A quote my father always said to me comes to mind: "Opinions are like ***holes. Everyone has one and they all stink." He also always said "It's always morning somewhere," when greeting someone in the afternoon with a "good morning," but that has little relevance in this situation.

Assistant Editor Brian Mittge and I had a conversation a few weeks ago as we prepared our lunches in the lunchroom. Some changes were being made to our contributing writers roster for the Commentary section. He asked me my opinion of a few of the current writers and a look of displeasure swept across my face. Needless to say, it was easily readable. I ended up saying how I felt our Commentary writers were "old" and didn't reflect many of my opinions. He told me that we would be hiring another "old" writer, Bill Moeller, who would be running on Wednesdays. I believe I cringed.

I was surprised to read Moeller's first commentary. And equally surprised to read his second, believing the first was a fluke. They're good. They're really good. My apologizes to Brian and Paul, who were my two favorite contributing writers before, but Bill has wowed me and made a fan of his column.

I would urge everyone reading to take a look for yourself.

Griefing, Horrors of the Internet Manifested

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Pierce) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:01:00 +0000

As mentioned on The Buzz recently, I've been playing a text-based massively-multiplayer online game (MMO) called Urban Dead, in which players assume the role of either a survivor attempting to stay alive in a zombie-infested city or that of a zombie, eating brains and laughing at the humans' attempts to flee before the legion of undead.

Players who are killed, either by being eaten by a zombie or shot by another player, are then zombies themselves. Zombies can be "revived" (and life brought back to them) using a strange serum developed by a company known as NecroTech, who apparently brought about this apocalyptic scenario through careless handling of their research.

The game was introduced to me on the 22nd of February by a member of a forum community I belong to known as Something Awful. He brought forth chilling news: this game was populated by gamers who used in-game "action points" for trivial role-playing actions instead of fighting off zombies -- who were, surprisingly, a minority. The game had been running for two years and the survivors were on the brink of finally purging the city of zombies once and for all. More-over, the lack of zombies was allowing for "creative" types to begin establishing institutions, such as bars, in which players ordered fake drinks and talked about Paris Hilton's latest exploits. Zombies were all-but excluded from these events (something about brain rot).

This would not stand.

Today is the 12th of March; it has been almost three weeks. In that time the survivor-to-zombie ratio has changed from 60/40% to 37/63% and growing. Something Awful heeded the call to make this zombie-survival game about surviving zombies and 1,500 players registered with organized coordinated attacks on the various suburbs of this city to eat all humans who stood in their way. We broke the record for the number of suburbs considered "very dangerous" (the highest warning level). We broke the record for the number of malls in the city controlled by zombies. We broke the record for the number of malls to fall to zombies in one day (three, via careful planning). Our group, The Dead, now outnumber our top-ten rival groups. Combined.

The game's wiki, a horrible place where obsessed players frequently post in-character to make updates on the progress of the city, the city's suburbs, and even specific buildings, has been overwhelmed in attempting to keep up with the carnage. The goal of The Dead is to destroy the game. To ruin everything the players who had taken the game too seriously spent so much time building up.

Now let me stop here.

This is the point where I attempted to explain the concept to my wife. She then explained the "concept" was sick. I realized then and there of what I had become: A Griefer.

Griefers are possibly the worst sort of folk you can meet in online games. I've often wanted to become a griefer only to miss out on the opportunity: Second Life griefing is too difficult because the game is terrible. EVE Online cost money. World of Warcraft is too well built. Urban Dead, on the other hand, is just a small game that is free to play. The game's designer, even, is related to the Something Awful community (he may even be a member himself). I often wonder, that given his ability as the single programmer for this game, why he hasn't stopped us (as he so easily could). I have a deep suspicion that he's sympathetic to the griefing, and that because it's not nearly as bad as it could be (I would highly recommend reading the article linked here), that it's breathing life into this otherwise (un)dead game.

I would consider myself a pretty easy-going sort of guy. I'm not very good at games, and I'm okay with that. I'm happy with my skills on the computer in general; I'm constantly learning new things. Lately I've been teaching myself Python, a simple programming language for client and web-based application. I'd like to soon develop my own games for others to play in my free time. I once considered a career in the gaming industry. But I've been playing online games for awhile and have had my share of struggles. I think it's very important that people remember that these are just games and that they need to take them less seriously. This seems to be the underlying mantra for griefers. Some do it for their own enjoyment -- bullying, if you will -- but I believe most enjoy taking a game and bending it to create chaos and havoc on a non-permanent level of destruction.

My earliest exploits with griefers, before they were generally known by that term, was in the game Ultima Online in 1999. I was a humble lumberjack and carpenter who specialized in creating wooden shields. I spent a month chopping trees near Britannia and turning the wood into shields to sell to local vendors with one goal in mind: I wanted a house. Not a big house, but a little house. Something I could decorate and put my stuff in. One day, I finally took my earnings to the bank and discovered I had saved up enough thousands of gold to be able to make the purchase. I was still a bit inexperienced at the time and decided to purchase a deed which, when I found an available parcel of land, would allow me to build a house upon it.

I spent the next few hours searching for an area to build. I brought my deed with me in hopes that the search would be easy. I hadn't even thought of the danger in doing so, as areas outside of a city were not regulated by a local police force and other players were able to kill you and steal your things. By this time, it's easy to see where this is going: I was jumped by a highway robber and my possessions, including the deed I had worked so hard for, were stolen. I was really upset to know that that "player-killer" (PK) had luckily found me, bearing an item worth thousands, and ran off with it only to sell it back to the vendor for its worth.

Anger welled up inside of me for a few hours. After some deep-breathing and reflection, I realized this was just a game and that I had learned a valuable lesson to be more careful with my possessions. I channeled my loss by joining an Anti-PK guild (players who banded together to hunt down player-killers and collect the bounties on their heads) and made some good friends because of it. The whole experience, though started by something upsetting, was quite positive when I look back on it now.

There are griefers out there who are trying to destroy people. Not just their virtual avatars, these players are trying to destroy a person's emotions, even attempting to destroy online businesses and ruining a person's real reputation. I have my reservations about these individuals and most other griefers that I know do too.

But when you spend $10,000 on a virtual spaceship, you shouldn't expect you're immune from being found and destroyed (link not safe for work due to profanity).

Lewis County, Your Roads Are Fantastic!

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Pierce) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:46:00 +0000

Part of my job revolves around maintaining not only the Chronicle's web site but also the Nisqually Valley News in Yelm and the Gazette in Orting. I moved to Orting in 1997 and was warmly welcomed by the community. When I say "warmly," I really mean the slow lingering warmth that sweeps over a dead body.

Orting, situated in south-easy Pierce County, was in the beginning stages of a population boom that quadrupled its size, and still continues to grow. When my family arrived, we were labeled as "new-folk," making it difficult to enjoy school (not that attempting to enjoy the eighth grade is particularly easy to begin with). Perhaps you experienced this sort of thing happening in your communities lately.

The stigma lifted after a couple of years as more and more developments sprang up in the Orting Valley. My wife, Lynette, grew up her entire life in Orting. She watched from the mid-90s on as developments went in, classroom attendance increased, traffic lights went up, and (horror!) a Starbucks came to town. Last night she and I reflected on this growth for awhile, laughing at something we had read on The Buzz.

Our laughter came from the "terrible" traffic on the freeway and how we should be demanding from our legislators that Interstate 5 be widened to three lanes. Now let me clarify: Yes, Lynette and I agree whole-heartedly that the freeway should be three lanes; maybe even four through the Twin Cities. Our laughter comes from the fact that every post we read on The Buzz complaining about people and traffic is completely without perspective.

I can only speak for Pierce, Thurston and Lewis counties. There have been times, possibly, that you have driven to Tacoma or Seattle and, while passing through Pierce County have slowed down. You might think to yourself "There must be an accident up ahead," and then, after a mile or two, traffic will clear up again without any sign of an accident and then slow down again a bit further up. "Maybe it's just today," you say. It isn't. Pierce County is filled with the worst drivers on the planet. The traffic is bad every day. Every day.

Lynette and I laugh because it will take you an hour to travel four miles on Meridian Street in South Hill. Lynette and I laugh because it will take you 45 minutes to travel 10 miles on 512, a major freeway in Pierce County. Lynette and I laugh because it will take you 30 minutes to travel from Puyallup to Orting, where if you're not stuck in the daily traffic jam coming home, you're stuck behind someone traveling 35 mph in a 50-zone. There are other traffic snarls Pierce County residents know to avoid: I-5 southbound through Tacoma; State Route 162 from Kent to Auburn; 410 to Bonney Lake; Portland Avenue exit from I-5; Meridian Street through downtown Puyallup. This list goes on and on.

You may wonder my credibility in being able to claim that I'm sort of "driving expert." I digress: I am indeed no expert. I worked for Pizza Hut delivering pizzas for almost three years in downtown Puyallup. I am neither an impatient driver dangerously swerving around others or an ignorant driver plodding along under the speed limit while I attempt to use my cellphone to name a song on KISS 106.1 so that I can download it as my next ring tone.

It's not solid credentials, but I believe it helps.

Thurston County is starting to experience this growth as it moves progressively southward from King County. Already this month I've seen two Hummer H2s (possibly just passing through), which is the same amount I've seen in all of Thurston County since moving there in September. I believe you can measure a county's inability to drive based on the Hummer H2 count. I call it an "H2 Scale." Pierce County, for instance, is filled with H2s. They converge upon smaller, weaker cars in an attempt to establish their dominance. The greatest among them are coveted for their "phat 22s, yo."

Now, don't get my wrong, I love Puyallup. It's still probably my favorite place to live. I just really dislike anyone who gets into a car there. Chances are they can't drive.

But Lewis County, how I've fallen in love with you. I enjoy being able to travel 20 miles on my commute in a 30-minute timespan. I love that most of you are safe and courteous drivers. I have seen only a single H2 since September. I am certain more are to come; chances are there are several dozen registered in Lewis County (my H2 Scale is purely based on my observation while driving divided by time spent on the road). When the laughter Lynette and I were sharing died, I began to think of all the good things about Lewis County's roadways. Sure, there are some things we universally complain about, but I decided to make a little list of the positive things that Centralia drivers do that Puyallup drivers do not:

1. You turn left at a green turn arrow. Puyallup drivers sit there, befuddled that possibly the traffic across the intersection will jump forward suddenly, even though a giant green arrow to turn is staring them in the face. They don't understand the people across the street have a red light still. This goes hand-in-hand with failing to understand what "yield on green" means, so I'm grouping these two together.

2. You know how to use a four-way stop. There are still lots of four-way stops around town. You know how to use them. Puyallup drivers yield, leap into the intersection when it is not their turn, and then proceed to scream profanities to the person whose rightful turn it was when they began to cross the intersection.

3. You stop at a yellow light. In Puyallup, a yellow light means "go faster, quick!" usually resulting in a stream of cars going through the intersection long-after the light has turned red. (Note: This is beginning to happen more and more in Olympia.)

4. You enter a freeway at an appropriate speed. While I've had my complaints about this a few times since moving here, the majority of you can enter a freeway at 60 mph and merge with the lane next to you. Puyallup drivers will slam on their brakes at the top of the ramp and then jump into the freeway at 20 mph. For shame.

5. You "keep right except to pass." I love this. This doesn't happen up north.

6. You don't talk on cellphones, generally. Last summer, in Puyallup, I was filling up my car between two pizza deliveries and I was watching the cars pass, counting how many were on their cellphone. Every person that passed was on their cellphone. Twenty-one people. One-hundred percent.

7. You don't tailgate the people in front of you. This is one of my biggest pet-peeves, for the sole reason that, when the person in front of you slows down because someone cuts in front of them, you have to slam on your brakes. And slamming on your brakes makes your brake lights light up. And when your brake lights light up that makes the drivers behind you subconsciously put their foot over their brake pedal, sometimes other people then brake without any real need. The whole instance can cause a backup on the freeway, and this is the reason there are so many backups in Pierce County. I don't believe they have accidents: just drivers following too close with their foot on the brake.

8. You don't drive other obnoxiously ugly "vehicles."

9. You don't drive H2s.*

Thank you, Lewis County. You can continue to complain, but don't forget to take stock of all the good things before the development boom reaches here in the next decade and they all go away.

*I'm fairly certain this picture from the Wikimedia foundation was taken outside one of the many Puyallup pediatric offices.

The Trouble With Turkbots

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Pierce) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:40:00 +0000

You may have noticed a severe lack of new postings on "the Tubes," as my co-workers have begun to call this blog. The Tubes' writer has noticed this trend, too. I can assure you that I have two excuses I intend to employ: The firewall went up killing the blogs and I have had writer's block.

I shall now explain each to it's fullest.

The trouble began two weeks ago the day after my last entry. On Friday afternoon chronline.com was hacked by a PHP exploit that we were able to fix fairly quickly. I believe the hacked page was online for around a total of a minute-and-a-half. Take that, hacker! Turns out these hackers, these Turkish Hackers, are usually just robots from Turkey surfing the net and looking for PHP exploits.

I always imagined hacking as kind of a hobby for some people. If you get a robot to do it, what is the point? It's like watching a game of soccer where both teams are robots with no affiliation. Could it possibly get any more boring than that? Only if you replaced the word "soccer" with "sitting on the couch".

Jon quickly surmised a solution to these Turkbots by implementing the firewall to block Turkey. We somehow felt worried about blocking an entire nation of people from being able to access our website until we realized there are about fourteen computers in Turkey (all being used to run Turkbots as far as we know) and that none of them probably is too concerned about the events happening in Lewis County, Washington State, United States of America, North America, Western Hemisphere.

I could be wrong, but I somehow doubt it.

With the firewall up, however, we didn't realize the folly in being able to post blogs until a few days later when our co-workers attempted to update their own. That was an easy fix, however, by simply allowing the Blogger Software to connect to our server through the firewall. Once we added that (and Blogger, knowing this was a common issue, made it easy for us), everything was hunky-dory.

Well, except that I had the flu. Influenza does a strange thing to a person; once you're done retching and feeling as if you're slipping into infinity or that strange monsters are surrounding you, you're left in the recovery feeling very unmotivated. I spent most of last week and the beginning of this week in a stupor. And as soon as I was done with my bout of illness, my daughter and pregnant wife both came down with it. They're both feeling better now, but the Pierce Household has been a proverbial wasteland of illness for some number of days.

I didn't stop coming up with topics to write about during my absence, though. Looking back now, I'm almost glad I couldn't convince my fingers to type because the topics I did come up with are somewhat... lame. Here's what I had:

Anonymous, an anonymous group on the internet (shock!) has declared war on the Church of Scientology; not over their religious practice but over the ways the Church has dealt with dissenters and critics. I'm remaining fairly neutral on the issue, saying that everyone should have religious freedom. But Anonymous does make a point.

Voting for the caucus is the 9th (Saturday). You probably already know this.

Standards Compliance coding is fun, but extremely difficult. I've decided I'm going to stick to Transitional for at least another year. At least this time when I tried, I was able to build an entire Standards site until I needed to actually include content. One step closer, I suppose.

The Buzz is alive and doing well as we ramp-up towards the political season. I've decided that it would be best for me to leave my opinion out as much as possible, but feel that I can still post links to Snopes when some stupid e-mail gets circulated as fact. We're still waiting for vBulletin 3.7 to be released officially and then I will start undergoing the process of upgrading.

Did You Know? Part One: I Am A Rock Legend

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Pierce) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:56:00 +0000

As many youngins do in their youth I participated in the school's band program in Elementary School. It was there I discovered my affinity for long tubes of wood and moving air through them to create sounds -- some called it "music"; I think they were just being sympathetic as they said it through gritted teeth. Unlike most, however, I continued with the program into my high school years.

Protip: Continuing with musical education into high school turns you into a band geek.* Beatings thusly commence by those with inferior musical talent.

It was in high school that I learned that I could not only play three or four different types of saxophones and clarinets, I was able to give my vocal chords a rest by playing the bass guitar. Oh yes -- there I was, Rick Pierce of age 16 -- wielding a bass like some sort of Dwarven Axe (notice the use of fantasy elements to complete the nerd metaphor) whilst rocking out with my peers in a garage. I felt at that time that I was the greatest asset to ever grace the pages of the history of Rock & Roll.

But alas, it wasn't to last. The band eventually disbanded in my senior year after only a handful of shows and I moved onto worrying about girlfriends and college attendance (or lack thereof).

Fast forward to September of this last year. A game, a video game, was released called "Guitar Hero III: The Legends of Rock." I picked it up, having only played Guitar Hero II a few times, and discovered a beautiful thing: I could rock out. I rocked out with my wife. I rocked out with my daughter. I rocked out with my parents. I rocked out with my socks out (I rocked my socks?). And suddenly, as I moved up from easy mode to medium, I started to get better at rocking out. With each song notched under my belt with a series of stars, I soon moved up to hard (which was hard). But I got better. I rocked out more. Can I put the words "rock out" in this paragraph any more times? I just did.

Two weeks ago I decided I was enough of a "guitar hero" to warrant a recording, which I then placed on YouTube to the delight of my fans, a throng thousands strong.

Not my best work, but as described in the video itself I had a small dog distracting me at every measure. I have excuses, which validate the poor performance.

At a recent church gathering for our young men (of which I help with) on the Wednesday before that video was filmed, Guitar Hero III was brought in as an activity. I had not expressed anything other than a passing interest to the teens during class on Sunday that I enjoyed the game. The console was brought out, hooked up, and turned on. Feigning knowledge when it was my turn ("Oh, you push down to make it play noise? I think I'll just start out on Hard and see how far I get.") I proceeded to melt the faces of the teenagers around me with some finger-numbing shreds. I would later go on to describe the experience as "glorious."

Jon came over to my apartment last night, after many day changes (we originally scheduled for two previous Fridays ago). With him he brought the game Rock Band, a game that is similar to Guitar Hero except that it includes a number of customizable features of your character and allows you to play not only the guitar, but a bass, drums, and a microphone to sing into ala karaoke. The microphone was the only instrument unused last night, as none of us thought we were decent enough to carry a tune with others around.

Knowing that neither Jon or Lynette, my wife, wanted to play the drums, I did the gentlemanly thing and offered to play them. To my surprise I had a good time, even though previous attempts to play the drums in the past resulted in people telling me to "stop that noise!" But in Rock Band, I must have found my groove because I was simply awesome. There are no other words to describe my performance. Jon and Lynette did alright.

Our first decision was a name for the band. After a few minutes we concluded that "Delicious Agony" was the coolest name we had ever heard of. It was meant to be. We then each created a character. Mine was "Kevin," a sheepish teen with enough pitch-black hair to cover his face almost completely. After a few shows we had earned enough money that the band let me go buy a new sweatshirt, some jeans, and boots. I also ordered some black eye-liner to complete the look. Any emokid would have been proud. Or sad. Or whatever it is they feel/don't feel. (I have no idea how it works.)

Our fans increased, we earned more money, and soon we were moving from Seattle to the Bay Area and then the City of Angels. We eventually made stops in New York and Boston. My drum solos only got better and that in turn bolstered my confidence. Soon I was clacking my sticks together to set the beat for the band before a song would begin. At the end of a performance I would throw my sticks into the air with a flourish.

And with that singularly defining act, it was secured:

I am a rock legend.

* I swear Wikipedia actually has a band geek page. How sad.

Editor's Note: Needs more cowbell!

What's The Buzz? I Got You King 5!

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Pierce) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:31:00 +0000

I was shocked today when Michael came up to me and told me that Patti Prouty, the Patti Prouty, had registered to the Lewis County Buzz. I remember coming up with a list of individuals I'd hope to eventually see on the Buzz when we began it. Patti was definitely one of those on the list along with King Chuck (who is also a registered member). I'm still holding out for Jim Hamilton.

Admittedly I didn't know who any of these people were before I moved down here. Possibly I should have paid more attention; as it was, my attention was focused primarily on what I was going to eat that night. I suppose in a way it still is. Either way, the idea of creating a forum that existed for the newspaper and outside of its entity at the same time was one of the first things I lobbied for as soon as I came on. I have been happily rewarded with a fun and thriving community to watch over, not as a Chronicle employee, but as another member of the thousands of discussions that are occurring.

There have been tirades and hissy-fits, for sure: It's just to be expected on a forum. I would be surprised if there aren't others in the future. We recently lost our top-posting member because of a disagreement over a vulgar post. These things happen. Whereas those might seem like more pressing matters of a forum, I think the community is better evaluated on the many levels its helped unify our county virtually.

We got to learn about our county's past from older members of the community. The Peterson vs. Lawler campaign was opened up for everyone to see. When the flood hit, our community worked together enabling hundreds the ability to post where help was needed, how to provide it, and the current situation when all other options seemed lost. And that's all within three months since the forum began. Nine months from now, in September, I may look back on the entire year the Buzz has been through and be able to name off many more "accomplishments" of the community I'm proud of. A week ago we passed the 1,000 registered member's mark.

And one of them is Dennis Bounds.

Dennis Bounds: Not A Stalker

He called me last week, but I was out of the office and he was forced to leave a message. He must have begun talking before the beep sounded because he was in mid-sentence when I played it back. I believe it had something to do with my expressed opinion and something about "polls." I can't honestly be sure. He didn't leave a number to return his call. Note to Dennis: Wait for the beep and leave your number. Yes, I'd be happy to come on your news program and give my opinion on your "polls." No, I will not press one at the tone.

Since that time I've noticed several stories on King 5 after returning home from work that appeared to have been pilfered from the Buzz. The last straw came last night, hours after having closed and deleted a thread about a Centralia High School student who reportedly attended a dance intoxicated on Tilt. The article as it appeared on King 5? That's right: The dangers of teenagers getting drunk on alcoholic energy drinks!

The story was then immediately followed up by a cat being rescued from a tree.

Am I calling Dennis Bounds a stalker? No, mostly because I believe that's a form of libel and I think I can get in trouble for that. But Dennis, let me just say this: I'm on to you.

Another MacBook? Oh, And Welcome!

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Pierce) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:04:00 +0000

Steve Jobs announced today in his keynote speech the newest notebook to grace Apple's MacBook line-up: The MacBook Air, this time with thin font.

The MacBook Air: Hover-System not included

You can view the features video provided by Apple by clicking here.

The computer, which weighs less than three pounds, is sure to at least get looks if not jaw-dropping stares. It features a full-sized keyboard and a 13" LCD screen. They even managed to fit back-lighting for the keys in there somehow. What they forgot, and this is important to me, is to include more than one USB port.

That's right, it only has one.

Now, before I start to suggest that owners purchase one for the sole-purpose of gathering them in a large pile for burning (to "rid the world of such evils") I have to mention that some great new features have been added that aren't simply cosmetic. The touchpad has been given an upgrade with new finger commands that can be used, including a pull/pinch and rotate feature for content displayed on the screen.

The most interesting hardware upgrade is the ability to wirelessly connect with other PCs and Macs in your home or office and transfer data or even install programs wirelessly. That, my friends, is the future. The future is finally here*. Now when I get one of these (Jon, I'm looking at you) I'll be all set to transfer all the contents of my current MacBook Pro to the Air and feel right at ease with my customized settings and all my documents. Say goodbye to backing up data or purchasing those transferring programs to move files.

In addition, I also wanted to thank you for visiting my new blog. I'm anxious to get into the blogging sphere here at the Chronicle, able to share another point of view to those of the newsroom who have their blogs already up and are posting. The atmosphere around the office has been quite excited since the blog page launched last week. I enjoyed reading the new posts my coworkers wrote.

On something of a personal introduction I should mention that I recently moved from Puyallup and now currently reside in Olympia. I immediately fell in love with Lewis County, however, and feel quite an attachment to Centralia already. Being a newbie here, I'm still getting to know the local celebrities and events (just learned who John Panesko is). Working for a newspaper, and updating its website each day, certainly makes this task much easier. In addition to updating websites, I enjoy playing games, watching movies, and (possibly my least nerdy hobby) working on cars.

*Flying cars on back order until 2030. The Future apologizes for this inconvenience.