For aspiring world conquerors everywhere

I’ve been playing Tropico again.

For those of you who may not remember, Tropico is like SimCity, except you’re on an island and you are not a paltry mayor, you are El Presidente, so everyone must bow to your omniscient view from the sky. You also start the game with a palace.

First off, Jon figured out how I could play the game in Parallels on my MacBook. My mac is all for world domination, but sometimes the island music gets to it, so it prefers not to run Tropico directly.

Then, I opened up the game, set up my dossier to scale things towards total success in farming (I NEED my goat farms) and began my regime.

59 years into it, I was voted off the island.

See, generally you get a nice note every decade or so, reminding you to hold a free election. I must have picked a dossier that turned this feature off, or else the game has changed and you no longer get these reminders.

Apparently, not holding elections for 59 years has a slightly negative impact on your people’s feeling of liberty.

I figure, it’s good to find these things out in a virtual setting, before actually trying it on, say, France, and losing all the time and resources it took to conquer.

So, tonight I started a new island, this one concentrating on mining and building churches. (You have to build a lot of churches, or people get angry.)

I had another one going, but it was based on tourism, and all the tourist avatars are so fat and sassy that you just want to encourage the natives to eat them.

Unfortunately, there is no “Eat the Tourists” edict. Also, while that would probably raise your local population’s food-related happiness, it might strain your relationships with the US and Russia.

In any case, if you’ve never tried this game, I recommend it. Everyone should get the experience of watching teeny virtual papaya plants grow, and also the sheer awesomeness of building 10 construction offices and watching 50 little workers go to town on your apartment complex.

More on the new version of Tropico here.

Image credit: tropico and goat, cathedral & tourists.

7 more weeks to go, give or take a week. Here are some things I’ve discovered about myself and pregnancy:

I’ve reached the point where I wake up in the middle of the night and I swear I can actually feel the baby growing.

Rolling over is an immense challenge – I start by rubbing my sides to get him to unstick himself from my ribs, and then he kind of reluctantly lets go and slides with gravity, and I can get in a comfortable position.

It’s pretty neat – when I eat or drink, it has a direct effect on his movements. If I have tea (doctor approved in small doses), he’ll start kicking around about 5-10 minutes after I start drinking it.

Although I love going to work (I don’t do well when I’m at home during the days), I’ve started looking forward to maternity leave, just so I can get some more sleep.

Being this fat has been great for my ego – seriously. It’s hard not to be aware of your weight gain or loss in our society. Initially, I was worried about what the pregnancy might do to my self-image, but it’s actually rather fantastic. You have an entirely legit excuse to be a seacow.

Baths are great and relaxing, but removing myself from the bathtub is becoming kind of a challenge. If they ever had a 7-Month Pregnancy Survivor, the challenges would be the most boring ever – The Stair Climb. The Snack Eating. The Attempt to Roll Over In Under 15 Minutes.

Finally, I have become reconciled to the fact that they will probably not invent baby teleportation before my labor date. I’m a little disappointed, but feel as though many people have done this before, and 200,000 years of evolution has to have gotten something right.

Recap

In a post last February, I decided to buy a Speck SeeThru Hard Shell to protect my Macbook Pro. I promised to follow up with a review once I’d tried it out for awhile, so here is the review.

Summary

This case is actually pretty awesome, as cases go.

Heat

I run a lot of programs on my laptop at once, and I use it all day – 8 hours at work, and a few more at night. The case hasn’t made the laptop noticeably warmer, and I haven’t had any problems with it overheating (knock wood). The 74 vents in the bottom (I actually just counted them, and I came up with 75) provide enough ventilation to keep your laptop comfortable and running smoothly.

Port Access

The holes for the ports on the sides of the laptop are aligned correctly, so you don’t risk damaging your machine when you plug in your mouse or headphones or whatever weird things you like to attach to your laptop. The holes in the front allow you to access your disk drive and open your laptop easily.

Open Angle

Although you can’t open your laptop as far as you can without the case, there is ample space in the back. You can open it up enough to view the screen comfortably, far over 90 degrees. It is easy to view the screen sitting or at a desk – no problems here.

Attaching Your Case

The case is easy to put on, and it snaps into place. I haven’t yet tried to remove it, but it seems pretty similar to a hard plastic iPod case, where you wedge a penny or a credit card between the case and the machine and carefully pry it off. Again, I haven’t tried this yet.

Case Surface

It is a little more slippery than the actual laptop, so if you’re carrying it around, just be careful not to let it slide. Likewise, if you place your laptop on a slick surface, I doubt it would slide off, but it’s slightly less secure than without the case. This is not a reason to avoid this case – just don’t be an idiot about how you handle your laptop and you should be fine.

Price

Price was pretty good – after discounts and coupon codes found online, the case cost $21.82 including shipping.

Attractiveness

If you’re into that kind of thing, there’s a decent variety of colors. I’m happy with my Aqua case, although it’s been suggested that I buy one to match my outfit each day. Which, considering I’m currently wearing maternity clothes and thus don’t have many choices about my wardrobe, is actually feasible. But unlikely.

Finally, the case stays pretty clean, seems to be sturdy (no scratches on it after a month), and is streamlined & light weight. Your covered 15″ MacBook Pro will still fit into the average laptop case, and will not attract any more cat hair (fun when it sticks to the surface) than before you put on the case.

Recommendation

All in all, I’d rate the Speck SeeThru Hard Shell as a worthwhile purchase at a good value. It accomplished what I needed, which was to protect my MacBook from dings and scratches without slowing or preventing any of its functions.

It took about an hour and 15 minutes for poor Jon to troubleshoot this issue remotely for me.

Google had several tutorials on how to add images to your gmail signature, but most of them referenced Firefox add-ons that no longer supported this function, like Better Gmail.

Open Firefox, go to Tools > Add-ons > Get Add-ons, type in “greasemonkey” then download the add-on and restart Firefox. Or, you can download it here.

Then go back to Tools > Add-ons > Get Add-ons and type in “wisestamp” and install. Restart Firefox. Or, you can download it here.

Go to Tools > Add-ons > Extensions. Select WiseStamp and click Preferences. This window will open. (Fields will be blank.)

If you have an HTML version of your signature, paste the HTML into the editing window. You can make adjustments to your formatting using HTML.

If you don’t have an HTML version, click on the Visual button above your editing window. This will let you make changes in the editor, which is similar to the visual mode in WordPress or even Microsoft Word.

Make sure any images you use are uploaded somewhere. If you use the HTML mode, just use regular HTML code to insert the image. If you use the Visual mode, use the insert image icon and enter the image URL.

You can also add any social services (LinkedIn, Flickr) or contact methods (IM, Skype). These will appear below the information you entered in the editing window.

If you don’t want to promote Wisestamp, go to the Settings tab and check off Hide WiseStamp statusbar icon and uncheck Promote Wisestamp Project.

Use the Preview button to test your signature, and be sure to save your work. Log into gmail and click Compose. Your signature should show up automatically.

Thanks again to @jonheller for finding the add-ons and figuring out which ones worked the best. If you use this tutorial, please tweet him and tell him he’s great!

Good luck with your signatures and please feel free to post any questions.

Recently, I received a notice from Citibank:

Important Security Message

This is to inform you that your account may be at risk for unauthorized use. To ensure that it remains protected, we have:

• Restricted Account Online access for this account number.
• Issued a new Citi Card to you.

Okay, I thought, it’s annoying that I’ll have to change any recurring payments, but it’s good that someone is paying attention to my card’s security.

Next step, I called the 800 number to activate the card. I keyed in my information as requested and was told to stay on the line until the activation was confirmed.

Now, I abhor using telephones.

Just ask any of my friends – they all know if they are lying bleeding on the floor, if they don’t email me with that information, help will be a long time coming.

Likewise, if zombies take over the earth via phone signals, like in Stephen King’s book “Cell,” I will be totally unscathed, until Jon catches up to me and eats my brains.

But since stupid company policies are rarely the phone representative’s fault, I always try to make an effort to be pleasant. I maintained this attitude throughout the call, even though the representative tried to sell me two different plans that would cost me money and provide a service I didn’t need. That’s fine, it’s part of his job and he probably doesn’t want to have this call anymore than I do.

Having been assured that the account was activated, I went online to check my balance. I couldn’t access my account, which I figured was normal – I’d just register my new card and we’d be back in business.

Unfortunately, the only way to register your card is to log in using your security word, which I apparently asked for when I requested this card.

This is when I started to get irritated.

I did not request this card, Citibank, you compromised my account information and issued this card to me. After several unsuccessful attempts, I checked my Citibank emails, just in case. No security word.

My emails did however, tell me to go to the website and click Contact Us, which would let me email customer support. Unfortunately, this is what happens when you try to email customer support with this issue:

I sighed, and picked up the phone again. After a nice conversation with Arthur, who could not help me, I spoke to Ryan, who handled the web support. By this point, we had figured out my security word, but unfortunately, Ryan also could not help me, because at that point, I’d made too many attempts and was locked out of their system.

Instead of resetting my account, or, god forbid, setting up access for me while they had me on the phone, they suggested I wait 24 hours and just try again. Ryan also shared with me the fact that the reason my card was compromised was because one of their credit card processors had accidentally rendered a whole mess of card numbers insecure.

This truly inspires confidence.

While I was typing this rant, I received another email from Citibank, instructing me to log in to my online account, because it’s been set up. In fact, I am “all set to manage my Citi card account online.”

Hopeful, thinking, “I will have to eat my words, but that it’s worth giving them one more chance,” I went to the registration page and tried setting up my account.

We’ve had a problem processing your request.

I hate you, Citibank. That was just taunting and unnecessary.

Now, let’s review. You want me to stick with you after you’ve locked me out of my account so I can’t pay you, the 3 representatives I spoke with can’t help me, you’ve sent me 2 meaningless emails asking me to log into an account I can’t access, and this is all because you let my credit card get hacked in the first place?

Screw this, I’m using my Amex card from now on. You can even activate their cards online.

Image credit: zombies, Citicard images courtesy of their awesome, awesome sites.

Guys, for $4,250.00, I can purchase my very own complete L-75 package.

According to my awesome new Scandinavian associate, this includes:

• 1.pcs. Line thrower L-75
• 1.pcs. Bucket Holder
• 1.pcs. Fastening Pipe
• 1.pcs. Heaving Line (3mm x 110metres)
• 1.pcs. Throwing Ball
• 1.pcs. Bucket
• 1.pcs. Air Hose Connector
• 1.pcs. Hose Clip
• 1.pcs. Users’ Manual (English)
• 1.pcs. Drawing of Assembly
• 1.pcs. Spare Part List

I am particularly excited about the Drawing of Assembly and the Spare Part List. What spare parts will be included!? Another bucket?

And a “Drawing of Assembly” suggests that not only do they trust me with owning this potentially lethal piece of equipment, they also trust me to put it together.

Oh, my friends, I must immediately begin fundraising for several hundred of these for my fortress of evil. Boiling oil? Gatling guns? No way. It’s the Line thrower L-75 all the way, because not only will we prevail in any firefight, we will also be able to rescue each other on deep sea adventures.

Clear win, either way.

I’ll close today with “Vinarligast!” which, according to the L-75 representatives, is how you say “Best Regards” in either Danish, Finish, or Icelandic. Or, whatever it is you speak on the Faroe Islands, a previously overlooked region which has moved up considerably on my list of places to conquer.

After all, if they can come up with the Line thrower, what else lurks in their nefarious minds?

If you’ve missed the previous post and don’t quite understand the excitement factor here, go back to: Shoot Up Your Ceiling with the L-75 Line Thrower.

VINARLIGAST!

Image credit: Bucket

We’re doing some wiring in our office, and one of the contractors, Daniel, kindly took the time to explain how they got the wires from one side of the office, through the ceiling, and then back down the other side.

Apparently, you can fish it across by opening the ceiling panels every few feet and climbing into the ceiling.

Or, you can use a pole to pull the wire through.

If you are sending the wire through pipes, you can actually suck it through with a vacuum, which is pretty awesome.

But the coolest method of all is that you can shoot the wire to its destination. Yes. I’m thinking harpoon gun, but one that you can legally use at work while pretending to be productive.

Fascinated, I googled a bit, and found some pictures of line throwing guns.

Now, I discovered, not only are there construction line throwers, but you can also get one for the rough seas, which is considerably larger and consequently better.

This one can be used to “bridge chasms and to reach building and cliff tops” as well as for “water rescue, and building and ski slope evacuation.”

Well, that clinched it. I wanted one.

I emailed the manufacturer of the L-75 line thrower, and asked for pricing in USD.

Sadly, no one has responded yet. Should I hear back, I will be sure to continue negotiations and post them here.

Image credit: linegun and harpoon gun.