The Christopher Estep Experience

Mary Rose is a tired little girl.

2009-01-13T15:16:00.001-05:00

Like Daddy, Like Daughter

2008-11-10T16:24:00.002-05:00

It’s in the genes, no question. :)

Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup Progress Chart has Moved

2008-05-15T10:48:00.001-04:00

It can now be found at my new Detroit Red Wings blog, with other information and articles.

Mitch Albom Shoots One Between The Pipes

2008-05-08T13:03:00.002-04:00

9 times out of 10, I cannot stand Mitch Albom. I think he's generally an overrated hack who's actually built a literary career writing books like Tuesdays with Morrie, et. al. that are tantamount to the Simpsons episode which spoofed human interest broadcasting, ending each news story with "and this...is one of Bart's People. I'm Bart Simpson." His writing is often so sugary it's like he writes every story while drinking a maple syrup smoothie at Waffle House. (For you yankees, that's a southern version of Tim Ho's with ugly waitresses and food that truckers have to think hard before eating and not think about again if they want to keep it down)

I'm not kidding. I could go on for days about how much Albom's irritates me. I've actually considered writing (i.e. programming) a Mitch Albom Writing Kit that can help you write stories just like him. How hard could it be? You pick a phrase and say it 20 times through a story for impact. For example:

Jimmy John blabb blah blah blah blah...

But he wouldn't quit.

The world was against Jimmy and 2 more paragraphs of stuff.

But he wouldn't quit.

You get the idea.

AAAANYWAY, my Ritalin is finally kicking in so I can stop ranting now. He wrote a great and well-deserved piece on Chris "Doogie" Osgood, Red Wing Goalie. It's a good read.

And so he is back to his pretty damn good -- back to where he belongs, Detroit, where he says he will live for the rest of his life.

When they yell players' names at hockey games, it can be a fad, a spontaneous eruption. When they yell "Ozzie" at Joe Louis Arena, it's more like a career cheer, a hometown familiarity, the thing he has wanted more than anything else: to be a key part of this franchise, to hopefully retire in this jersey.

Seven years ago, when the Wings let him go, this is what he told me, before hanging up the phone:

"Make sure nobody takes my number."

The amazing rebirth of Red Wings goaltender Chris Osgood | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

Too cute for Daddy's own good.

2008-05-02T14:37:00.002-04:00

And yes, those cheeks are very kissable. :)

Some Mary Rose pictures

2008-04-25T11:19:00.002-04:00

They grow up so fast...

2008-04-11T16:06:00.002-04:00

Happy Birthday Mary Rose!!!

2008-02-26T09:57:00.005-05:00

Mary Rose Estep turns 1 year old today. It has been probably the fastest year of my life!

Look at those teeth!! She has 5 now, 3 top and 2 bottom.

Mary Rose loves honey nut cheerios, ice cream, and pizza crust. Her favorite person right now is her big brother Jesse. She clings to him like a little monkey and cries if he tries to get someone else to hold her.

She's not walking yet, but she can stand up on her own and balances pretty good. Mary Rose is also a fast crawler.

Her favorite mommy and daddy toys are mommy's phone and the remote control. Her favorite baby toy is a baby book that crinkles when you squeeze it.

Mary Rose's favorite colors are pink and purple because she doesn't have a choice. :)

She's not talking yet, but she makes all kinds of talking-style noises like da-da-da-da and she mimics words pretty good. She's great at saying "ow!" whenever someone gets hurt and says ow!

Mary Rosetta is the youngest of 9 children and she has 4 brothers and 4 sisters.

Happy Birthday, Sugar Bear!

One out of Two isn't bad.

2008-02-04T13:11:00.002-05:00

I was right on President Eyring but the second counselor is Dieter F. Uchtdorf, which is much harder to pronounce, though fortunately his English has gotten better over the past few years, even though he'd spoken English his entire adult life (a requirement to be an airline pilot, even in Germany).

I'm reminded of the saying, "The King is dead, God save the King" that is used in England when a monarch dies. It signifies that death does not leave the country leaderless, nor does it do so with the LDS Church. Upon President Hinckley's death, President Monson assumed leadership as the President of the Quorum of Apostles which became the highest governing body in the Church. President Monson had already had that position for nearly 13 years and Boyd K. Packer was "acting" president. President Packer is now in his own right President of the Quorum of Apostles, though a new Apostle has not been named.

Obligatory First Presidency Prediction

2008-02-04T12:21:00.001-05:00

Since President Hinckley died, there needs to be a new first presidency in the Church. That will be announced in just over a half hour. Since we Mormons just love to speculate on such things, I'm going to give my own "predictions" here.

President Monson will be the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (duh!)

I speculate that he will choose as his counselors Henry B. Eyring and L. Tom Perry (my alternate guess would be Dallin H. Oaks)

A new apostle could also be announced today (but probably in April at General Conference) and my totally "pulled out of my butt" speculation is that it will be one of the following:

Gerald N. Lund
Claudio R. M. Costa
Earl C. Tingey
Marlin K. Jensen
Lance B. Wickman

Again, these are all just guesses. I claim no knowledge (nor prophecy) so when I'm wrong just shut up. :)

In praise and irritation at Steam

2008-01-22T17:04:00.002-05:00

I love Steam. It has made my gaming so much more manageable. For instance, Julie bought me Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Christmas. It's a really great game. But like most disorganized people, DVD's or CD's and I don't really get along. By that I mean that if I buy a game, I'll probably end up either losing or damaging the medium on which I purchased it thereby making my gaming impossible or at the minimum, very inconvenient.

Now comes Steam.

Steam is Valve Software's game distribution network. If you play games (other than PopCap games like my Mom *cough* Zuma :) ) and you've never heard of Valve then you need to come into the 21st century. Valve is the company that came out of nowhere and made what some consider to be the best computer game of all time, Half-Life.

Names like Gordon Freeman and Black Mesa mean nothing to you. I pity you. But I digress.

Steam makes it possible to buy games online quickly and easily. It is downloaded to your computer (while you do other things, if you desire) and when it's ready you can play. It's already registered to you and you don't have to worry about anything like disks.

Here's the really cool part. If you ever need to reinstall it, all you have to do is delete it and tell Steam to just download it again. You can do that on any machine! If my computer crashes and/or I buy a new one, all I have to do to reinstall those games is download the Steam client, log in and it will tell me what games I owned and which, if any, are currently installed. I then tell it to install whatever ones I choose. How cool is THAT?! And if I need more disk space, I can delete games I don't play or aren't ready to play yet or simply not install them (like the Half Life 2 expansions I'm not ready for).

And you can do that for other games like my beloved Call of Duty 4 and even PopCap games.

But there's one thing that irritates me every single day that I use it. Sometimes when you click on a link in Steam it opens up the link in the steam client. Other times, and without warning, it will open up my browser (which may take 30 seconds or more to load because I have a huge session with 30 tabs saved). That really, really irritates me. So my question is this:

How freaking hard is it to tell me when I hover over a link that it will open up my browser?!?!?!

There. I feel better now.

Word of Wisdom Strikes Again!

2008-01-21T15:55:00.001-05:00

I just love this headline:

Researchers Links High Quantities of Caffeine to Miscarriages in Pregnant Women

The study, which published online in the American Journal of Obstetrics and
Gynecology, found that consuming 200 mg of caffeine, equal to two cups of coffee
per day, doubles a woman's risk of miscarriage during pregnancy.

We LDS get a lot of flack for the "No coffee, No tea" provisions of the Word of Wisdom. It's something that Mormons "just do" and to most of us, it's not that big a deal. We keep hearing all of the "latest" science on how tea is just so healthy and how 2 cups of coffee a day can actually be helpful.

Well, not if you're a pregnant woman, it isn't! And if it's not good for a developing fetus, do you really think that it's not affecting you, even if it's at a smaller level?

Hotlanta my Butt!!!

2007-12-17T08:36:00.002-05:00

It's colder than a witch's t** in a brass bra down here!!! It would freeze the b**** off a brass monkey!

Why is it that every amusing metaphor for how cold it is has profanity of some kind? Aaaaanyway, It's cold and I'm whining.

We're moving!

2007-12-12T09:35:00.002-05:00

Not the website or blog (though I did move my political blog to The Whole Bird, check it out!), but Julie and I and the whole family are moving by the end of the month. Our ongoing ordeal with ~~Satan~~ our scumbag landlord is nearing an end. There are a few posts I'll make on that after we actually move, as well as the unethical (and in my opinion, corrupt) behavior of one judge Joan Vaughan Bloom of the Cobb County Magistrate Court. There will also be some nice details about ~~Satan~~ our soon-to-be-ex-landlord, all from personal experience. But as I said, those can wait until the move is finalized and they won't be able to try to screw us over anymore.

The house we're moving to is smaller, but it's in a nice neighborhood and it's quiet. It's also in the right school district now so the kids will be able to ride the bus home from school. Riding to school isn't an issue because the two teens go to seminary anyway.

Julie and I are really happy about this move and while it will make things hectic for the next couple of months, we're excited to get on with this next chapter of our lives.

Crysis is not that great and here's 10 reasons why

2007-11-26T15:56:00.002-05:00

I bought Crysis on the day it shipped. In spite of mediocre placement by Wal-Mart, I happened to see it there and grabbed a copy of what everyone has said is the greatest first person shooter and play it for myself. Sadly, I've been very disappointed. Not because it's a bad game. It's not a bad game at all. In fact I like it a lot, I just liked it more when I played it the first time and it was called Half Life 2.

Here are 10 problems that I think shouldn't exist in a game if it's supposed to be so "revolutionary":

I can hear through binoculars. Apparently the nano-suit connects your ears to your eyes.
Sound is unaffected by the environment. It's not just that the jungle and buildings don't quiet or distort sounds like you would expect. Remember the binocular issue above? Well, you can hear a helicopter clear on the other side of the island if you point it in the right direction.
I was behind a rock with a guy sleeping on the other side and quite a good distance away. His two buddies were looking away. While prone and this rock separated us, I uncloaked and the soldier woke up and started looking for me, talking about "seeing something".
Bad guys don't see the bodies of their friends as something to be concerned about. Picture 3 guys walking around casually. I pop one in the head and he goes down. The other two come hunting for me. After a few moments, one declares that it "must have been an animal". I think if we have animals that are shooting guys in the head, we need to be more worried about them than the aliens.
The game leads you by the nose the same way all of these games do. The only difference is that this is outside so you have more room to work with, which admittedly gives you some options in how to complete a task. But don't let that fool you. When you either kill a certain number of guys, and/or get past a certain point, the game responds the same way.
The only way to take a weapon from a guy in the truck is to blow up the truck. Sure, you use the gun on the truck, but you can't take that one with you. If you want the ammo you have to blow up the truck.
Since when is seeing a soldier "take a leak" a feature? Apparently it is to PC Gamer who touted that as one of its evidences of how great this game is.
Helicopters have miracle vision and radar. I'm pretty sure that if we can come up with the technology to cloak ourselves to the human eye (I'm special forces, remember) then I'm sure we can hide a heat or other signature from a helicopter.
Your interaction with the environment is pretty much limited to "WWHD" or "What Would Hulk Do?" Hulk Smash! Hulk Throw! and that's pretty much it. Some things will allow you to "use" them, but those are pretty obvious. But am I supposed to be amazed that after I blow a guy up with a grenade that I can pick up his at and throw it? That's right. Whatever you pick up, unless its ammo or a weapon, can only be dropped or thrown.
The weapons are boring and unremarkable. I would have hoped that in 20 years or so we could have something more exciting than a gauss rifle.

Be honest with yourself. If you were to take this game (single player) and do it in the Source engine by valve, everyone would be yawning. The graphics are great, I'll admit. But the gameplay is slightly above mediocre and the A.I. just plain sucks, not to mention the omniscience that the bad guys often exhibit when they shouldn't.

Crysis is hype.

Microsoft says "Oops! My Bad" and Reverts

2007-11-09T12:18:00.002-05:00

I've tried hard to like IE7, but I just can't. Unfortunately there are times I have no choice but to use it. For instance, if I want to use the Birds Eye feature of Live Local maps, it won't work unless I use IE. I also have to use it at work.

One of the most annoying things IE7 does is that any time there's an embedded object (like a Flash applet), the applet won't work right away. Instead, it says, "Click to Activate" which is just retarded. I don't mean that as a pejorative either. It is something that must have required mental retardation to come up with.

Thankfully, Microsoft realized after 3 days (that's Microsoft time...it's a year and a half to you and me) that it was really stupid and are removing it, assuming that we know what we're clicking on and don't need Big Brother Bill to to protect us from our own clicks.

It’s important (and cool) to note that this change will require no modifications to existing webpages, and no new actions for developers creating new pages. We are simply reverting to the old behavior. Once Internet Explorer is updated, all pages that currently require “click to activate” will no longer require the control to be activated. They’ll just work.

IEBlog : IE Automatic Component Activation (Changes to IE ActiveX Update)

Sleepy

2007-11-04T11:18:00.002-05:00

Sleepy, originally uploaded by gazelem67.

Amazon thinks very highly of me!

2007-11-02T15:05:00.002-04:00

When I went to amazon.com's homepage I saw the following.

I'm very flattered that they would think that I am Christ, but I can assure everyone that I'm not the Messiah.

Music Review: Carrie Underwood's Carnival Ride

2007-11-01T14:34:00.002-04:00

The new CD called Carnival Ride by Carrie Underwood is the country singer's second album since she won American Idol. While I don't think Carnival Ride will be as successful as Some Hearts, musically it is stronger and more mature. Gone are such corny tracks as Jesus Take the Wheel and Inside Your Heaven as well as the "I'm a small town girl in this big, big world" songs like I Ain't In Checotah Anymore" and Don't Forget to Remember Me. Carnival Ride finally succeeds in leveraging Underwood's greatest asset, which is her strong, clear voice.

Like any recording, there are tracks that can't seem to measure up to the rest, but that's to be expected. I'm not particularly fond of Feet Flat on the Floor and Twisted, but the rest are much better. I was pleasantly surprised to listen to her cover of Randy Travis' hit I Told You So and found it to be faithful to the original without trying to "make it her own" (i.e. ruin it).

The best tracks are All American Girl, So Small and I Know You Won't. They are good vocally and lyrically and showcase her vocal strength, especially I Know You Won't.

The album even has a few funny "hooks" in Last Name and The More Boys I meet.

All in all, it's a very good album and is definitely worth buying.

Steve Jobs the Fascist

2007-10-30T09:11:00.002-04:00

I hope you don't want 3 iPhones or (dare I say it) plan on using cash. Apple has categorically stated that you can only buy two iPhones (ostensibly to thwart hacking) and they won't accept cash or Apple gift cards either (also supposedly to thwart hacking).

Jobs has always had this love/hate relationship with his customers. Oh, I'm sure he'd say he loves them. But he doesn't treat them with love. He's like a king and everyone are his subjects. He's benevolent, but he's also a control freak.

Let me pause by saying that Steve Jobs is completely brilliant. While Bill Gates is merely shrewd, Jobs has vision that most entrepreneurs wished they had. All one has to do is look at what the Mac has done for desktop publishing or the iPod to recognize that. And now back to the show...

One of the reasons for the lack of overwhelming adoption of the Apple platform has been Jobs' rigid control of the platform in every way possible. His animosity toward hackers (in the true sense of the word, not the hacking/phreaking that he and Woz used to do) has held the Mac back in so many ways. Take games, for example. It's the bleeding-edge hacking at the hardware and operating systems that have allowed many games to push the performance envelope on the PC's. Apples don't have that freedom because they lack freedom to go beyond the rigid controls of Apple on the hardware and the software.

The other deleterious effect of his dictatorial marketing and product development style is the penchant he has for exclusivity. He hates giving people options. As I said, he's like a king. He knows what's best for you and because he's a genius (which he genuinely is) you should be grateful that he is telling you what you should have.

The iPods really took exclusivity to heart. If you want to use an iPod, you need to use iTunes. Would you like to pay $15 a month (like I do on my Zune) and get as much music as you want for your 3 PCs and 2 MP3 players? You can't do it on an iPod. So you can use Apple's subscription service, right? Right? Wrong. Apple doesn't have one, because the Fuhrer* has said that individually purchased songs is the way to go.

The concept that is being lost here is that of freedom. This country was founded on the ideas of freedom and liberty and "get out of my business". Over 200 years later and we've got corporations telling us left and right what we can and can't do with the things they sell us. Verizon wants to charge me almost $3 for 30 seconds of a song that I have already purchased on CD so that I can have the portion of the song that they choose to use as a ring tone. Unless you know how to go around it, you can only use certain phones on certain carriers, because they made that decision. The iPod requires that you use iTunes and my Zune requires that I use the Zune software. My satellite dish requires that I use their DVR, even if I wanted to use Tivo. My insurance company requires that I buy all of my prescriptions through them.

We like freedom and we like choices. I'm frankly sick and tired of being told that my choices are "everything behind door number 1" or "everything behind door number 2". That's what you get with Apple and that's why I'll never own an iPod and I'll never own an iPhone. I don't need Jobs to tell me what I need or want. I find it ironic that in the Apple versus Microsoft debate, Apple's supposedly the crusading underdog and Microsoft is the "Borg" seeing to control your life when it's Microsoft and their products which give people genuine choices and Apple does not.

The Associated Press: Apple Imposes New Limits on iPhone Sales

Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody
by Fake Steve Jobs

Read more about this title...

*yeah, I know I spelled it wrong, but I don't have time to figure out how to do an umlaut in WLW. I'm an American. Sue me.

Funniest Google Adsense Ad

2007-10-29T08:53:00.002-04:00

And the good part is that it's an intentional ad, not like some of those "Find AIDS on Ebay" ads when you searched for AIDS. This ad was on my politics blog.

(and if you're wondering, no I didn't press it. That would be a violation of my Adsense terms of service to click ads on my own site)

TGIF

2007-10-26T09:31:00.002-04:00

Toes Go In First

Mary Rose at 8 months old

2007-10-25T09:04:00.002-04:00

Mary Rose at 8 months old, originally uploaded by gazelem67.

Isn't she cuuute?

Saving animals, one lesbian at a time.

2007-10-19T14:49:00.002-04:00

After trying unsuccessfully for about a week to avoid this topic, the sheer mass of coverage has forced me to take the plunge. I'm referring to the debacle where Ellen Degeneres adopted a dog from a place called "Mutts and Moms", gave the dog to her hairdresser and secret police over at Mutts & Moms repossessed it.

Let me say that I think the Mutts and Moms owner is a nutjob. She's been getting threats so I "found" this website where she tries to "clarificate" things a bit. :)

But Mutts and Moms' owners were adamant about their decision, and a spokesman for Batkis said she wouldn't be "bullied around by the Ellen DeGenereses of the world."

FOXNews.com - Ellen DeGeneres Cancels Tapings After Dog Ordeal - Celebrity Gossip | Entertainment News | Arts And Entertainment

How I Won My Wife

2007-10-17T08:32:00.002-04:00

Funniest. Comic strip. Ever.