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They call me Cuban Pete
I’m the King of the Rumba beat
When I play the marracas
I go chick-chicky-boom
chick-chicky-boom
(Cuban Pete, by Desi Arnaz originaly I believe)

Cuban Pete is the enemy at the moment. That statement alone should explain the depths of insanity that I’ve fallen to. I’ll get into that after a bit… 😉

Just got contacted by a company wanting to do some visualization stuff for real estate. They are sending me a ‘house’ they build in full 3D, and I’ll import it into Torque, and create a quick demo (a day or so job) and send it back for them to experement with and see if it fits thier needs or not. Mo money, if they buy it – a good thing 😉 The best part is, of course, that it’s thier idea, not mine, so they are much more likely to buy the idea since it’s thiers.

Had an interesting experience that kinda reminds me that sometimes how you act really is noticed by others. Went to the courthouse to pay property taxes today. I treat the people who work behind the counters with the maximum amount of kindness – these are people who get verbally abused from time to time, people hate ’em about half the time (they are collecting fees from taxes, and also do double duty as the place you pay state and county court fees and fines), and generally get treated like shit. So, I treat them well – it’s not thier fault I have to pay taxes. They don’t make the rules, they are just there to make sure someone takes my money, and it gets processed right. (Actually, I’ve gotten to the point I treat everyone but phone solicitors that way. The later get a whole different attitude 😉

Anyway, I step up, tell her who I am and why I’m there, and chat with her for a minute while she looks up my info.

Then she turns and asks “What do you do for a living?” That caught me off guard, and I told her “computer programmer, system administrator, and I own my own game company on the side.” She didn’t take any notes, so, I waited a moment, and asked her “Why do you ask?” She said “Well, you have such a positive and friendly… (shrugs) outlook I guess. I just don’t see that very often.” I explained that I try and be friendly to just about everyone anymore, and try and make people smile. We chatted a bit about it, and she basically patted me on the back for the way I treat people.

I think that’s the first time that’s ever happened. Interesting – and kind of cool.

I have a new toy – two Dance Dance Revolution pads. Imagine a dance version of karaoke. Instead of singing to the music based on the lyrics that show up on the screen, you dance to it, on top of these pressure sensitive pads, and they show what steps you need to take. (NOTE: If you try and dance like this at a club, someone is bound to laugh at you. This is not graceful – but it does have rythm. It’s a game, not real dancing.) It’s fun and highly addicitive. Oh, and a hell of a workout.

We started with one working pad on Friday, and last night I added a second pad and a new controller, etc., making it all work perfectly. Took some hardware hacking on my part with a soldering iron – complete with my wife mocking me a good amount of the time after I burned myself. What she didn’t realize was *HOW* I burned myself – the iron slipped, and instead of letting it hit the pad and melt a $19.95 pad, I grabbed the iron in the air, and burned two fingers. I can’t figure out why I didn’t get damaged worse than I did, to tell you the truth – I grabbed it with two fingers in air, and it made that wonderful ‘sizzle’ noise as I transfered my grip. I have one blister – my thumb didn’t blister, and the skin on it is really thin. Got lucky 🙂

The game is even more fun with two players – Heabo and I started playing after I got the pads working, and we had a blast. Oddly enough, I do better with her playing with me – I had one song that I had a AA rating on. (Performance rating for a song goes from F to A, AA, and AAA.)

Then I had to try something new – Dual Mode. This is where ONE player plays on both bads, trying to coordinate moves between the two pads. Very… interesting. Not sure if I like it, but, it’s a hell of a work out trying to keep up.

As for the comment about Cuban Pete. One of the songs I have in Step Mania (the DDR program I use) is Cuban Pete, performed by Jim Carey in The Mask. This is A BITCH to try and pull off – I don’t think I’ve managed to finish the song once without it failing me yet. The steps for it have a lot of change ups, and double hits, etc. Very complicated, but, I’m determined that eventually I’ll pass it, and finally get an ‘A’ rating for it.

The DDR pads (and machine) are confirmed to go to Meredith’s NYE party, and will probably also be goin’ up to Colorado to show off also and provide amusement factor 😉