Ryan's Journal

Sometimes people need to go to Vegas. And then when they get there it’s FREEZING, and because those people came from LA they didn’t bring coats, and so they end up walking a mile along the Strip and turning into icicles. And then those people go to P.F. Chang’s for dinner, and the wait is an hour and a half, so they play the slot machine with the UFO on it (it’s the best one). And then they finally get seated and they do animal impersonations while eating, and it’s actually really hard to think of animals to impersonate after the first six or seven. And then the next day they go to the Bellagio buffet (it’s the best one) and they eat a lot, and then they find another slot machine that lets you play a video game when you get enough wilds. And then they go home broke and happy.

New year, but not too much in the way of new news. Work at DirecTV is continuing, and it looks like I may be there for a while. JAMWiki development has been slowed a bit due to having a nine-to-five (misnomer!) job, but it’s still going along well. There have already been more downloads this month than in any other month, and the project has gotten contributions from people hailing from places ranging from San Francisco to Ukraine to Mongolia.

Also, here’s a quick geek announcement: for anyone looking to buy Microsoft Office, have a look at Open Office.org, which is free (Microsoft Office runs at least $200). Having used it for a few days now my impressions are:

• I’ve been able to open and save all of my old Word and Excel documents without problems.
• The menus are the same as Office, so there’s no learning curve.
• The biggest downside is that it’s slower than Office, especially during startup.
• It’s not quite as polished, but it’s close.