Coast to Coast AM

I am a big fan of science (space, physics, technology, etc), the future, conspiracy theories (UFOs, aliens, political, etc), the paranormal, and things of that sort. There is a radio show that talks about all of these things and more called Coast to Coast AM, but it only comes on at 1:00 in the morning. I recently bought an online subscription that allows me to download previous shows in MPG format. If you have an interest in things like this I suggest you try it out. It will set you back about $7 a month ($4.50 if you buy a year at a time) which I think is high considering they are only past radio shows. It is still worth it if you find this type of thing interesting. Every day the have the previous night's show archived so there is no wait to hear new shows.



Not all shows are about crazy topics like UFOs or conspiracies, they often have (and my favorite shows) respected experts on things like space or theoretical physicists talking about their latest book and new innovations in science, space, and technology. They also have futurists, PhDs in metaphysics, and other people from various fields on talking about all kinds of different subjects.

Makings of a cheap poker table

I decided to post a picture of my felt covered dinning room table and my cheap poker chips. This set up costs me a whopping $17. $10 for 200 7.5g plastic poker chips and $7 for a 72x48in sheet of felt fabric which is currently draped over the table like a tablecloth. When I am not playing, it gets folded up and put in the closet.



Sometime in the future I am going to buy a set of 500 11.5g clay poker chips. After that I hope to add a removable padded railing around the outside of the table that can also be put in the closet when I am not using it.

Poker and Poker Accessories

I have been getting into poker lately so last night I bought a tabletop poker playing surface from Wal-Mart on sale for only $17. I got home and opened it up and it was pretty poor quality, so I quickly returned it. I am not exactly sure what I was expecting. I think I am just going to buy some cheap green felt and lay it over my dinning room table. I am not sure why I want a green felt surface to play on. I guess somehow it seems to make the game more fun when you build up the atmosphere and mood by using good chips and a good playing surface. Perhaps I can pull the felt tight and tape it to the bottom of the table. That might be better than the table cloth look of just draping the felt over the table. Then when I am finished I can simply roll up the felt up and store it.

Unfortunately I don’t know enough people who have an interest in poker to get games together myself. I usually have to wait until someone invites me.

*Update* 2/10/2006
I went to a fabric store today and bought a sheet of red felt (72x48in) for about $7. The shade of green they had looked kind of cheap so I went with red which I think looks really nice. Perhaps at some point I will look into a cheap method to make removable padded railing. This will also be used to tighten and hold down the felt.

Template: Vette

Name: Vette
Version: 1.0
Description: Red and black corvette theme.

Screenshot: (Click to view larger image)

Dawn of War

After a long dry spell of playing PC games I finally found new one worthy of my time and my lowered ambitions to do much else. The last great RTS game in my mind was Starcraft. It had near perfect balance of power and a large range of diversity in its races. I waited for years for Blizzard to come out with Starcraft II, but they never did. After almost giving up hope a co-worker told me about a game called Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. It is very similar to Starcraft in many ways and adds its own uniqueness to the game such as commanding infantries (squad of units) instead of single units, a complete 3-D world where you can pan around for a 360 view, seamless zoom to watch the battles up close, customization of the army’s look (change the colors of the units and buildings), and more. If you can overlook the lame story about humans worshiping a dead Emperor the game is pretty fun.

The different races in Dawn of War are not as diverse or balanced as they are in Starcraft, there are a few units I believe are too powerful, I find the game a little too fast-paced, but in general it is an all around good RTS game. I recommend it to anyone who likes RTS games.