Month: October 2010

Stepping down from one of my hobbies…

D'Arque Bishop2 Comments

It’s kind of funny how some things begin.

Back in 2001, I was hanging out in an IRC channel called #mortalkombat. It was being run by an alliance of sites, one of which was a site called MK5.ORG. Back then, the future of MK was pretty uncertain; no one really thought that another MK game would come out. Then, near Christmastime, Midway announced they were making Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, the fifth fighting game in the series. One of MK5.ORG’s founders, Scott Howell, knew the game would be at E3, but neither he nor Joey Schorr (the other site founder) could go. So, he asked if I would go, provided I covered the game for the site. I said sure.

I don’t think any of us expected me to become a central figure to the site. However, I ended up being one.

The years since have been great. Once Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance came out, we became Mortal Kombat Online. We became the top ranked Mortal Kombat site. We ended up releasing exclusive news, like the first render from Mortal Kombat: Deception and the revelation of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. We’ve been to many Midway media events. We’ve been to several E3 shows. We’ve done live online chats with the development team. It’s been a blast.

However, lately, I’ve been finding myself with less and less free time. I’ve got a wonderful girlfriend that I spend my life with. My job has gotten far busier. I also have projects of my own I want to pursue. They may not be as popular as MK, but it’ll be my own work, and not my extolling the virtues of someone else’s work.

So, effective today, I stepped down as MK Online’s webmaster, and have moved myself into a purely technical role at the site. Others (namely ~Crow~ and Tyrant-Cenobite) will take over the site’s day to day operations.

I have to admit I’m a bit melancholic. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do, and the site is in good hands. Plus, I want to give my projects the time they deserve. On the other hand, MK Online has been a big part of my life for the past nearly nine years. It’s a bit hard to walk away from it, even if I don’t plan on going anywhere. Still, I know it’s for the best.

So, what are the projects I’m working on? I’m keeping them close to my chest right now, as I don’t want to jinx anything. I hope to announce something within the next couple of months, however. We’ll see.

In any event, I enjoyed my time as MK Online’s head honcho, and am proud of my accomplishments over the past several years. I’m thankful for the opportunities afforded to me, and all in all… I’m content, and glad the site is in good hands. :-)

And speaking of movie theaters…

D'Arque Bishop

In my last post I had mentioned that we have our home theater set up for watching movies at home. We’ve also changed how we watch movies out as well. Up until a few weeks ago we would catch movies at the AMC over at Gulfgate or (in one case) at the Cinemark in Pearland. However, Jennifer pointed out a better option recently that we’ve started to take advantage of.

Pearland has two movie theaters (that I’m aware of). One is the aforementioned Cinemark at 288 and FM 518. The other is a “Premiere Cinemas” further east down 518. A couple of weeks back, we decided to go see Resident Evil: Afterlife at the Premiere Cinemas for a change. It’s a much older theater; it reminds me of the old AMC (like North Oaks 6) or General Cinemas. However, the price for an adult ticket was $4.50. So, for (less than) the price if one ticket at the Cinemark, we both got to go and see a movie. :-)

Of course, it’s not perfect; there are obviously no IMAX screens and they don’t support 3D films. (The posters for Jackass 3D had notices that said “in 2D” on them.) However, it’s not often a film comes out that I want to see in IMAX and/or 3D. For $4.50 a ticket, this theater pretty much provides us the best value for the money. We may end up seeing more movies out as a result.

It’s nice to know we have another good value method for watching movies. :-)

We finally have our home theater.

D'Arque Bishop

One of the things Jennifer was looking forward to when I moved in was the integration of my audio/video equipment with hers. While she already had a DVD player and HDTV, she didn’t have a sound system to go along with it. On the other hand, I DID have a home theater setup, consisting of an Onkyo receiver and Aiwa speakers and subwoofer (the speakers were part of a “home theater in a box”; the original receiver was long destroyed). When I moved in, we put my receiver in place, along with my DVD player (as it was upconverting). While I hooked the DVD player to power and had it ready, we left the receiver disconnected for a few months.

The problem wasn’t that we didn’t want to use it. The problem was that we didn’t know what to do about the rear speakers. Our floors are hardwood, so we couldn’t just run the wires under the carpet. Also, we had NO desire to run wires through the wall. I did that before at my parents’ house, and did NOT like it. That’s also the reason my office at home is linked to the home network through a wireless bridge.

A few weeks ago, however, I came across the perfect solution. A company called Rocketfish had a universal wireless rear speaker system. We picked one up from the local Best Buy, brought it home, and I spent the evening wiring up the receiver to the speakers, TV, DVR, DVD player, and Wii.

The end result was very satisfying. The sound came through very crisp and clear, and the rear speakers were clear as well. Even my friend Mike, who has the most impressive home theater room I’ve ever seen, was impressed by how well the wireless solution worked.

In fact, the home theater setup revealed a weakness in how I had the speakers set up at my parents’ house. When we wired them up at my parents’ house, we put them up by the ceiling, facing out… but not down. The sound as a result was always subpar, and I thought the speakers themselves were probably very low quality. It wasn’t until I listened to them at ground level on the new setup that I realized why they seemed low quality: they projected across the room, but not down to where I could actually HEAR them properly. Oops. At least now they sound great at room level.

Since we put it together, we’ve gone ahead and added a Blu-Ray player to the mix, and use it to watch Blu-Rays and instant viewing from Netflix. We ended up getting a decent little player from Samsung for about $140; a number of people had recommended that we get a Playstation 3, but we didn’t think it was worth it. It cost twice as much as the Samsung (which does everything we’d want the PS3 to do), and we wouldn’t be using it to play games. It’s worked out beautifully so far; the best test was when my parents came over to visit a week ago last Sunday. As I sat Dad down in front of the home theater, he asked if he could borrow my copy of Avatar… and then sat, mouth open, as the Blu-Ray version of Avatar finally finished loading and started showing. He asked Mom for a similar setup, but I don’t think Mom’s going to go for it. :-)

Since then, it’s gotten plenty of use. We still have two movies waiting to see for it from our Netflix disc queues (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Cloverfield), and my entire instant viewing queue. Looks like it’ll be serving us well for quite a while. :-)

Wait, what? My employer’s being acquired?

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-06/robbins-myers-agrees-to-acquire-t-3-for-422-million.html

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) — Robbins & Myers Inc., the industrial- equipment maker with operations in 15 countries, agreed to buy T-3 Energy Services Inc. for about $422 million to boost sales to oil companies.

Owners of Houston-based T-3 will receive 0.894 share of Robbins & Myers and $7.95 in cash for each of their shares, the companies said today in a statement. The deal values T-3 at about $31.80 a share, 17 percent higher than its closing price yesterday, according to a calculation by Bloomberg.

Excluding one-time transaction costs, the purchase will start increasing earnings for Dayton, Ohio-based Robbins & Myers in the company’s first full year of owning T-3, according to the statement. The companies said combining operations will yield about $9 million in annual cost savings.

I have to admit, that was a fun bit of news to come in to work to yesterday. On the other hand, I’m not really worried per se. According to the press releases, there’s going to be very little overlap between the two companies, so layoffs are not guaranteed. In addition, they’d likely need the IT people to help in the integration. I’m fine for the foreseeable future, especially as the sale hasn’t even closed yet and won’t for a few months at the very least.

I suppose we’ll see what happens.