We own a house!

We’ve got to get Christopher off to school, then run over to the bank at 8:30 to get a certified check, then over to the new house at 9:30 for the walkthrough, then off to the offices at 10:30 for the closing…

Once we’ve closed we’re going to start moving. We don’t actually get the U-Haul until tomorrow, but there are plenty of boxes we can stuff into our car, and we don’t really have that much time to work with.

Most of the utilities should be hooked up today… The gas company is going to be showing up around 2:00 to set up our propane tank. The electricity, cable, water, oil…all that should already be set up. Our Internet is getting hooked up tomorrow morning, and that’s when Lowe’s is going to deliver our washer & dryer…

Unfortunately, the weather finally turned wintery. We’ve had a very mild winter so far… So mild that the local winter carnivals had trouble with their ice sculptures. There was no snow on the ground for weeks and the temperatures were hovering in the 40′s. Then, Saturday, winter arrived. Snow, wind, and cold – all in one fel swoop. Great weather to be moving in…

Still, we’re extremely excited. Can’t wait to get in there. I just hope nothing else unexpected comes up…

Of course nothing related to this house purchase can go smoothly. We had our final walkthrough today… We were supposed to get in to take a look around the house, make sure everything looks ok, and decide whether there was anything else that needed to be corrected at the last minute.

We showed up for the walkthrough, but were unable to get into the house. The key they left in the lockbox did not work on any of the doors. I don’t know if it was a recently-made duplicate that didn’t quite fit…or if the doors were just cold…or what… But we couldn’t get in for the walkthrough.

We took a look around the outside of the house… There’s still a tree down on one side of the yard, but I’m honestly not that worried about it. The swingset is still in the back yard – they probably can’t move it since the ground is frozen. And there’s a huge semi trailer sitting in the driveway, presumably full of their belongings. Obviously that trailer’s got to go before the closing…and we’ll have to work something out with the swingset… But given those small surprises I’m now very curious to get inside the house and see what other unexpected discoveries await.

We’ve rescheduled our walkthrough to tomorrow morning at 9:30… Not exactly ideal since we’ll be scrambling as it is, but I guess it’s the best we can do under the circumstances.

Finally got a closing date today… They sure like to drag things out. We’ve been in a panic for the last week or so since we need to be out by the end of the month. We keep calling around, begging for a firm date so we know whether we need to find someplace to live… Nothing. Day after day of nothing. Finally, today, a closing date.

February 28.

Last day of the month… Not exactlly a whole lot of time to move. Good thing our landlord is very understanding and has agreed to give us an extra day or two to move.

So, now Terri is calling around to get utilities switched over, reserve a U-Haul, figure out Christopher’s school arrangements, etc. All with just a couple days of lead-time.

Slashdot | University Bans wi-fi as Health Concern

Absolutely idiotic… While the jury may indeed be out on this one, the consensus seems to be that it’s highly unlikely you’ll suffer any ill effects from a wireless AP. The energy levels and concentration needed to cause cancer just aren’t present in today’s wireless equipment.

If it were actually a genuine concern about EMF causing cancer he’d have to start banning a lot more than wi-fi too… Television, radios, cell phones, cordless phones, microwaves, computer monitors, microwave ovens…hell, just about everything that uses electricity generates some type of EMF radiation…many of them stronger than that generated by wi-fi.

I guess I’m not terribly surprised to see an idiot banning something he knows nothing about…that happens all the time… I am somewhat surprised to see the head of a University banning wi-fi though… Seems that might adversely affect his school.

Just finished Stubbs the Zombie, and I have to say that I’m terribly disappointed at how short the game it. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the gameplay…and upon completion my only thought is “I want more.”

The gameplay is very obviously geared more towards the console… There’s a dance minigame that is basically impossible on the PC since the blinking lights indicating the dance moves correspond to the colors of buttons on an Xbox controller. There’s also a slew of different attack buttons, rather than an inventory you scroll through… And a profile & checkpoint system that’s very common on Xbox games. Still, it plays very well on the PC once youv’e gotten used to the oddities.

The graphics are wonderfully bizarre… The whole thing has a haze over it, complete with visual artifacts, that simply screams ancient movie reel. The settings, the characters, all ripped right out of some classic 1950′s science fiction.

The gameplay is very easy to pick up, and hilariously fun. There’s something downright delightful in turning a city’s inhabitants into slavering zombies. While the basic mechanics of combat are very simple the later levels ramp up the challenge in unique ways… Rather than provide bigger enemies with more hitpoints, they provide enemies that are out of your reach, or have to be made vulnerable first. The whole thing begins to evolve a more puzzle-oriented style of gameplay about halfway through.

I think my only complaint with this game would be its length. We picked up Stubbs the Zombie at EB yesterday afternoon… I played for probably 8 hours yesterday, and another 2 hours or so today – roughly 10 hours of gameplay. I suppose that’s actually fairly normal these days… And unlike many of the games out there, Stubbs the Zombie only cost $30. But, just the same, I really wish there was more to this title.

Slashdot | Has World Oil Production Passed Its Peak?

Regardless of whether we actually hit peak last year or not, oil is a limited resource. Oil is basically gooped up, fossilized dead animals – stuff that’s been dead for millions of years. There’s no way we’re going to suddenly come up with new oil out of nowhere. Sure, we might find another field somewhere, but we aren’t going to produce new oil – just find existing oil we didn’t know about.

Despite this fact, absolutely nothing is being done about energy consumption on either side of the debate.

The left mutters about conservation and accuses folks of being in bed with the oil companies… But you really don’t see tremendous effort being put into conserving energy. It’s like all the folks driving their enormous SUVs around with Sierra Club stickers on the back. You can talk all you want, but what is really needed is action.

On the right, the whole thing has devolved into some kind of idiotic waiting game. Nobody denies that the oil will run out eventually… But we don’t have to do anything about it, because we’ve got plenty to last for the forseeable future. It will run out…but it just isn’t their problem.

And eventually, regardless of which projection or simulation is right, we will run out of oil. It may be next year, or it may not be for hundreds of years, but it is going to happen. And if things keep going like they are now, we are going to be cought completely unprepared for it.