Still Plays With Toys

Starcraft II Campaign Footage

2010-02-16T18:36:00.000-06:00

Getting very excited for this.

We had a LAN party recently, and once again, we played three games of Starcraft. This game just has enormous staying power, and I have no doubt that Starcraft II will be the same way.

Flash Game Friday

2010-02-05T15:25:00.000-06:00

Every once in awhile, you come across a flash game that is light-years ahead of most fully produced games. It is always a bit odd.

4 Differences

Check this out, please.

The premise is extremely simple, it is a 'spot the difference' game. The presentation... well, the presentation is absolutely beautiful. The music, the settings, the animation, everything points to someone who truly has a vision for what they are creating. The game gets difficult at some points, but please see it through to the end, the last level is something to behold.

Planning for the Zombie Apocalypse

2010-02-03T16:21:00.000-06:00

What better way to plan your lifestyle once the undead hordes claw their way out of the ground than to do it in lego!

See the whole flickr set here

My personal favorite:

Pure genius. Even down to the minifigs.

Flight Director

2010-01-28T14:33:00.000-06:00

Similar to Flight Plan on the iPhone, the next awesome thinghy on the Android market:

So much fun. Well worth it.

Lego Universe Preview

2010-01-13T12:01:00.000-06:00

Over at Ars Technica:

"You can focus on earning bricks and building objects to play with, and in fact there is a programming language built into the game so that you can build an animal and tell it how to react. One of the developers had a mushroom garden on a hill, and with a few clicks made them hop when players walked through. An elephant was built and taught to patrol a spire. You can focus on the minigames, such as the racing or the shooting challenges. Or, you can play the game as a straight platformer, taking challenges and fighting the chaos."

How sweet is that. I'll be interested to see how robust the virtual Lego assembly tool is!

Lego Universe

2010-01-11T14:29:00.000-06:00

This sent chills up my spine, this might be the MMO that actually brings me in!

Regarding Legos

2010-01-05T15:23:00.001-06:00

I got myself some Legos this Christmas.

Nothing big, mind you, and it was mostly on accident. It was meant to be a White Elephant gift, but the exchange did not happen, so I humbly accepted it into my life.

It has been at least 10 years since I last opened a real live Lego set, and I tell you now, the happiness has not dimmed.

It has gotten brighter.

About 15 minutes after tearing the cardboard I was done, but the completed set still stands to this day; proudly on the coffee table in the front room.

Yes, I am being melodramatic, but that it the way it feels to play with toys after so long a drought! Video games are a good approximation of the fun that we had with toys, but they are ultimately lazy. We play with the things on the screen because the act of organizing a similar experience in real life with people near you would take a lot more effort.

So, thus, I exhort you: Play with something this year. Real play, not toying with a dongle like an adult. Boardgames, drawings, Legos, tag, hide and seek, whatever.

I think that is what I am going to dedicate this space to from here on out.

Google Has the Best Sense of Humor:

2009-11-24T13:24:00.003-06:00

Type "Google Space Station" into google and this is what pops up first:

Google Copernicus Center is hiring

"Google is interviewing candidates for engineering positions at our lunar hosting and research center, opening late in the spring of 2007. This unique opportunity is available only to highly-qualified individuals who are willing to relocate for an extended period of time, are in top physical condition and are capable of surviving with limited access to such modern conveniences as soy low-fat lattes, The Sopranos and a steady supply of oxygen."

Hilarious.

Must... blog...

2009-11-10T16:35:00.003-06:00

I need to take a good hard look at what this blog is...

If I don't keep it updated, it is pretty much dead space. If I fill it with links and images not created by me, it just becomes noise.

I guess I have some contemplation to do, and some re-organization as well. This whole site needs to be externalized a bit more; photos need to go to Picasa, Videos need to go to YouTube, and I need an actual usable website portfolio.

I'll get right on that.

Hee hee!

2009-09-22T11:53:00.000-05:00

Adam in 50 Years

2009-08-10T12:45:00.001-05:00

superpoop.com

On the merits of organization:

2009-07-14T14:05:00.002-05:00

Alan:
bookshelves!

Adam:
Noononononooo
You just toss the books around.
make a pile.

Alan:
on the floor!

Adam:
Yes!

Alan:
ooooooooooooor...get shelves?

Adam:
hmm.
I hadn't thought of that.

Alan:
wooden shelves
not even wooden shelves made of reconstituted wood

Adam:
That might keep them up off the floor

Alan:
real woods and all
yeah!

Adam:
And help keep them away from being stepped on.

Alan:
no more stepping!

Adam:
But wait.
How do you put a pile of books on a shelf?
They would spill all over the place!
Alan you clearly haven't thought this out all the way.

Alan:
hmmm. Could I stack the books side by side?
maybe in an organized fashion?
possibly by genre?

Adam:
Oh snap.
I didn't think of that!
Jeez, this sounds like the type of thing that I might want to do in my own home!

Alan:
and all it took was a small discussion to work out the kinks in the plan

I jumped out of a plane.

2009-07-13T13:05:00.002-05:00

And it was awesome.

Literally awesome, as in the real original definition of the word.

Awe-some.

I was filled with Awe.

4 minutes of the most intense and fantastic experience of my life. Like packing a weekend at Valleyfair into 4 minutes.

Everyone that has ever had an inkling or a thought to do it should DO IT.

Jesus Effing Christ, Hells Yes.

2009-07-09T16:05:00.001-05:00

Yes Yes Yes.

Huge Effing Robots

Yes Yes Yes.

Epic Conclusions

Yes Yes Yes.

999 Hoyt!

2009-06-23T10:33:00.001-05:00

We bought a house!

We have not closed on it yet, so nothing is FINAL-final, but barring any tornadoes or loss of employment, it will be ours.

More pictures will come soon, it has been a very interesting couple of weeks.

999 Hoyt

[adam]

Adam on MPR

2009-06-02T15:55:00.002-05:00

'Short sales' a foreclosure alternative, but process can be difficult

'Adam Leistico can relate. He's not trying to sell a house, he wants to buy one.

He and his wife looked at more than 40 houses, but they fell in love with a little blue rambler in St. Paul.

"We felt something we hadn't felt in the other places," Leistico said. "Both of us were grinning throughout the entire walkthrough and we finally just decided: This is the one. We're going to wait and see what happens with this place." '

I want this in my basement

2009-05-21T11:57:00.001-05:00

I am featured!

2009-05-05T16:30:00.002-05:00

MPR's site on gather centered around the MN Economy has a post up inspired by me!

Pretty exciting, here's an excerpt:

"With job security, low debt and a bright economic outlook, Adam Leistico sees this as a great time to buy a house. The potential boost from the $8,000 federal home buyer credit makes it even more alluring."

Here's the full article.

My frustration laid bare to the world! I keep on getting a little adrenaline rush every time my phone starts vibrating, I want it to be news on the house.

Experiment: Part Deux.

2009-04-17T10:17:00.002-05:00

For my week of laid-back-driving here are the results:

372 miles on 13.9 Gallons.

That gives me an average of 26.76 MPG.

Not bad for a car rated at 23 MPG. last tank I did 23.85 MPG, and that was under normal acceleration. I wonder what it would look like if I drove like a madman; probably about 19 or 20 MPG (I am not going to test that, I want to LIVE).

So, by altering the way I drive by just a little bit, I can save a bit over 10% on gas. At current prices, that works out to about 50 bucks a year. At $4 a gallon, it is over $100.

I consider that worth it. This also proves that I really need a new car, I could be saving about $15 a month on gas.

In conclusion, if you see someone driving slowly, or accelerating slowly, please try not to get angry at them. They might just be trying to save some cash.

Experiment

2009-04-01T10:07:00.003-05:00

Very loose controls, essentially just a localized thing.

I am testing the difference that moderately aggressive driving has on gas mileage.

For this past tank of gasoline in my 1995 Grand Prix, I have been driving the way that I used to in High School, above the speed limit, accelerating quickly.

I went 322 miles on 13.5 gallons.

That gives me 23.85 Miles to the gallon.

Not bad, certainly better than I had expected for that car.

The next couple of weeks, I am going to drive like a catatonic old lady, similar to the way I have been in 2008.

Stay tuned for the new numbers!

Stunning

2009-03-26T17:27:00.000-05:00

World Builder

Why I liked the BSG Finale

2009-03-23T12:32:00.004-05:00

I get that a lot of people didn't like it.

I didn't like it a whole lot right away either.

(Don't read any further if you are trying to avoid spoilers)

I have altered my perception somewhat over the weekend, however. I absolutely loved the entire first hour of the finale. I was literally gripping the arm of the couch and holding my breath. When they jumped the Galactica out of there, and you see it torquing around... I can truly say that I had feelings for that damn ship.

Then things started going awry. The first huge clue was when Lee started spouting off about ditching the ships in space. A huge suspension of disbelief was needed there to accept that the remnants of the human race would be willing to give up all of their technology.

From there, it got more and more heavy-handed. "God" started showing his hand everywhere, Starbuck disappears, we find out that the natives are essentially a genetic match to the humans in the fleet, and we are shown that Hera is in fact the common genetic ancestor of all of us modern humans.

Yeah, pretty weak.

HOWEVER, I have had something of an epiphany as far as this story is concerned. In the same way as 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou?' was a retelling of 'The Odyssey', 'Battlestar Galactica' has been a retelling of the biblical myth surrounding Noah and his ark. The flood in this new version just happens to be a few hundred nuclear weapons.

When I look at it from this perspective, I find that I can get a lot more enjoyment out of the series. The overt religious and anti-technology sentiment that reared its head in the finale seems less egregious when one is aware that the narrative is a cover for a more religious message, and I can file it away in the folder marked 'myth' and the preachy aspects of the show. It makes it much easier to keep thinking of it as a great show, in the same way that the bible is a great example of ancient literature.

Essentially, it is very easy to like the show as a retelling of the popular myth of Noah's Ark. In my perception, the angels are characters, they are not meant to mirror anything real, the same with this God dude that they bring up all throughout the series. They are all fiction, and it makes for a pretty good (if heavy-handed) ending to an absolutely amazing show.

My favorite character? Saul Tigh.

The Beard Song

2009-03-13T16:18:00.000-05:00

Andy Richter wins.

2009-03-12T10:51:00.001-05:00

HAAAAAhAHAhahahahahaaaaa

Hack! Hack!

2009-03-12T09:59:00.003-05:00

My PayPal account got broken into.

Technically, it did not get 'hacked', because there was no problem on PayPal's servers, and no-one broke any of their user databases. I have gotten over being angry at PayPal, they have actually been the paradigm of excellence through the whole ordeal. I will relate why in a bit.

Alan dredged up a news item that Monster.com got hacked. They had a major security breach and a ton of usernames and passwords were shown the light of day. Normally this would not be a big deal, but two things conspired to make this a bigger problem. The first was my own damn fault, in that I had used the same username and password for so many of my site registrations. The second was Monster's fault, in that they did not send me a notice saying that their servers had been hacked, only notifying me after the fact when I went to login after hearing of the problem from Alan.

In essence, the first sign that I had that something was wrong was when I got a 'Fraud Alert' email from PayPal. Here is where PayPal starts saving my ass. I got four emails from paypal last Thursday, which initially I thought were phishing scams. Reading closer, however, I noticed that there were no links therein, and that they looked surprisingly real. Just in case, I figured that I should probably check out my PayPal account.

$885 was withdrawn from my bank account.

I should clarify, they attempted to take $885, PayPal actually caught the biggest one, so they only actually got $385. PayPal stopped the final $500 transaction before it was taken out of my account, so it is in there waiting for me presently. The remaining three I put claims in on immediately, and had Wells Fargo do the same. As of yesterday, I received emails saying that the money would be returned to me within 5 days, and as of right now, the $885 is back in my PayPal account, waiting for me to unlock the account and transfer it back to Wells Fargo.

Thanks, PayPal. You truly were a massive help on this one. Initially, I had thought about closing my account with them, I was kind of scared and angry. After talking to some folks and thinking about it, I have realized that PayPal did a masterful job handling the issue, and that it was my own fault for doing three things stupidly:

I used the same username and password for multiple accounts
I attached PayPal to my PRIMARY bank account, the one that has all the money in it, instead of a secondary acount.
I assumed that this type of crap only happens to non-computer-savvy folks.

So, take this as a massive endorsement of the PayPal system. I could have lost a lot more, and they could have made this process MUCH harder than it was. I don't use PayPal often, but I know that I will not kill my account, only change it to be more responsible.

Also, Monster.com can suck it. They were the LEAST useful job search engine that I used when I was looking, and they clearly have security and customer service issues.