by Matt | Aug 4, 2004 | Culture
You see folks, this isn’t Matt’s first rodeo. I’ve beaten a traffic ticket before. And this time it shouldn’t be that hard.
Let me set the scene: A well traveled (meaning medium to heavy traffic) urban street with multitudes of hills. The speed limit is 35mph. As I crested a bridge (large hill) there was a speed trap (cop standing outside his car with radar in hand) immediately at the bottom of the hill. He “clocked me” going 45 in that 35.
Here’s the catch. The hill, while tall, is significantly short, probably no more than 500ft per slope/side. By LAW, in the state of Texas, police officers are required to a) make a visual assessment (guess your speed) before using their radar AND b) be able to provide a stable “radar lock” or between 3 and 5 seconds as a “backup” for their visual assessment. Now, physics tell us that at 1mph a car will travel 1.47 feet a second. At the 45mph I was allegedly traveling I would have traveled 200-330ft before the office would have legal been able to provide a radar lock. Note, this also doesn’t take into account the second or two it would take the officer to see me, select his target and “paint it”. We’re up to about 400ft now. Remember I said that the bridge was no more than 500ft. Yeah, he was at the bottom of it. So, in 100ft, at 45mph, the officer was able to put down the radar, signal me to pull over AND I had the room left to actually stop in time. Remember our math equation… 100ft is about a second and a half. I don’t think so.
Here’s what really happened. The officer never made a visual (with his eyes) assessment of my speed, which he’s required to do. He was also already looking through the radar (illegal) and he painted me as soon as I crested the hill. If he had done all this by the book I would have been with 100ft of his car before even beginning to stop.
I should also mention that, since the hill is rather steep, the reading is probably BS anyway. 99% of radar doesn’t work accurately at anything greater than 25 degrees. Going down that particular hill, it probably was about 25 degrees. It’s quite steep.
I feel more confident about that part of my ticket. That speed was bogus. He was just guessing.
Now for the other fun part. Here in Texas, there’s a state law banning license plate covers. The law, designed to battle those ricer-kids who have the metallic/blurry plastic license plate covers since they would defeat photo-speed-detection devices like those at toll-booths. The law was not meant to ban license plate holders, like the kind that EVERY car dealership puts on your car. I happen to have one. It neither covers, obscures or interferes with my license plate. It’s a border around my plate. This one is going to be hard. The law is VERY vague. The crappy part is that this particular offense is $200. Pathetic. I’m still working on a way to get past this one.
I hate to stereotype, but the county is just out for money on that plate law. It’s complete crap. I’m not even sure of its legality.
Anyway, my court date is the 21st. I’m going to see how the judge is feeling that day, if he’s letting people go or handing out probations left and right, and see how to play it.
I hate court.
by Matt | Aug 3, 2004 | Imported Entry
You traded Nomar?!?! You fucking asshats. What in the hell were you thinking? He went to the Cubs and we didn’t get Sammy F’in Sosa in return? No, we got a shortstop from the Expos and a first-base from the Twins!!! Yeah. Way to upgrade guys. No offense to Expos or Twins fans (if there is such a thing) but what the hell? Sure, trade Nomar for Arod, for Sammy, for Barry GD Bonds, I’d be fine. Damnit. You’d think Jimmy Williams was still there.
Morons.
And, the cherry on this little crap sundae… I got a traffic ticket today. Apparently I was going 45 in a 35 and I had an “obscured license plate”. I don’t even know what the fuck that means. Son of a bitch, now I’ve got to go to court and waste my time fighting a BS ticket. I won’t make the obvious “I wasn’t speeding” statement, I probably was, but I doubt that it was 45. I was in traffic! And don’t even get me started with the license plate thing. The court house web page says it’s a $200 fine. I sure as hell don’t plan on paying that. Heads will roll people. Heads will roll.
*breath*
by Matt | Jul 29, 2004 | Games
Quick little update before I head off to work…
Last night the TCC won a hard fought battle against a very tough opponent, VOD. TCC is now the number one CTF clan in the country… again. We held the spot for some time but slipped down to 3rd and then back to 2nd a month ago. Now we’re back on top and feelin’ good. We’ve also got a few upcoming matches, a Conquest match for 3rd place on that ladder on Thursday and then a BattleField Vietnam Double-Header on Monday night.
I just want to quickly thank VOD on being such a class act and bringing such a good game last night. They’re very talented and I’m sure it won’t be long before there’s a rematch. Anyway, you can check out the results in our forum post, right here.
Matt out… and late for work…
by Matt | Jul 25, 2004 | Imported Entry
A little summer update for all you cats and kittens out there. I’m currently awaiting a call from my Boss to let me know if he needs me to come in today. We’re setup at the convention center downtown this weekend as part of the “Bridal Extravaganza”. Notable the largest bridal show on the planet, or so they claim. So, that’s what we’ve been focused on at work for the past week or so. That and getting Texans stuff ready to go to print. I’m not allowed to tell you what the new poster looks like but I can say that it’s pretty kick-ass. The “magazine” will be equally impressive if not more so in my opinion. It’s really the frosting on the cake. So that’s whats been keeping us busy at work.
Elsewhere in the Marvel universe…
I got in on my first BattleField Vietnam battle of any significance. We won, by a lot. Actually we stomped their asses. Forum post here. We had a scrimmage against the [RN] clan last week. Actually, if I get out of the convention at a decent time, we have another schedule tonight and, what I’m more excited for, an actual league match this week. We’re trying to move up the ladder into 3rd. On the Desert Combat side of things we’re locked in an overtime, sudden-death rematch with another clan ( -VOD- ) for the number 1 spot. They played tough for the required 6 rounds (each round being 40 minutes) without a flag capture and so we go to sudden death. Should be fun. If you’re bored, there’s a forum thread here.
I have to admit that I’m enjoying BF:V more and more. The system is very different and your total score isn’t based on kills alone. For example, look at that BF:V forum link above. I had 17 points, 6 kills and 2 deaths. I have playing defense most of the game. I had 17 posts because I held a control point and captured the next closest one as well. The game also rewards for good team work, which in the end, is really why you play a game like that anyway.
Let’s see, what else. Oh, I picked up Far-Cry. Interesting game. Can’t play it at home because of my graphics card (more about this in a minute) so I’ve been trying it out at work. Very sweet engine and a very “pretty” game.
The main problem I have is the lack of graphics card power. Which is expected since that card is what, 3 years old? Time for a replacement I’d say. Since the bonus check I was waiting for came in, as well as another check, I have enough to buy a reasonably priced card. I’m not going to be buying an X800 Ultra or a 6800 Ultra but I can foresee something like a 9800 Pro in my future.
Here’s my dilemma. I hate ATI. I’ve never liked the company, their drivers or their lack of support for their products. I do admit however, that the Radeon series was a very good products and perhaps they’re turning the company around. So, a 9800 isn’t a “bad” card by any stretch. The other side of this coin is that the comparable Nvidia cards sucked. A lot. They’re plagued with problems, driver issues, heat issues and general lack of speed. The 5900 line really stunk. Also, in an ironic twist, ATI has partnered with Valve for Half-Life 2’s release and Nvidia has joined forces with Doom 3. So, the cards I want (the Nvidia 6800) runs better on the game I don’t have as much anticipation for. ATI and Valve have both said that the benchmark with ATI cards on HL2 are incredible. So, do I get a card from a company that I dislike in order to play a game I love OR get a card I like and live with mediocre performance on my favorite games?
That’s like giving me the choice between a Honda Civic that I can drive to NH or a Porche that I can only drive to work.
Let’s brake down some of this, I need to work it out in my head and this is as good a place as any…
Both the X800 and 6800 series cards are incredibly expensive (read: $500+). I won’t be getting them. That said, I’m left with last summers cards for a bargain at around $200. I should also state that in order to make up for lack of “new spiffy-ness” I’d like to try and find a card with 256mb of memory.
Your average ATI Radeon 9800 Pro runs for about $190 on NewEgg. Something like this Sapphire card for example. THIS card here is a 256mb version for $260.
Compare those to something like this Gainward GeForce FX5900 XT for $190. There isn’t a comparable 256mb card though. The next step up is to a 5950 Ultra, and those are $300.
So, what should I do? Doom 3 comes out in 2 weeks and HL2 will go gold inside of a month. I need to upgrade both the mobo/chip combo and my graphics card. I figure I’ll get more use out of the graphics card immediately so it should be the first buy. If I upgraded my chip I would still have the graphics bottleneck for my games. Sure Photoshop would open faster, but who wants to do work anyways. 🙂
Oh, and lastly, before I go, we saw the Borne Supremacy this weekend. Pretty good flick. Not a 100% Tomato or anything, but a solid 80. A good popcorn flick with classic spy movie elements. Car chases and kung-fu, that sort of thing.
Matt out.
by Matt | Jul 9, 2004 | Imported Entry
The past two days have seen a huge jump in the attempts to comment spam my page. Yesterday someone was even successful. That is, until MT-BlackList kicked in. I ran the De-Spam feature and it nabbed all of the offending comments. After that I updated by blacklist itself. It appears that the 500 or so entries I started with wasn’t enough. I manually added about 1000 more “positive match” domains/email addresses/IPs from the Spam Clearinghouse list and then added about 200 more of my own. So, if anyone wants a super-duper 1700+ entry blacklist for anything, just ask.
Oops, it’s nearly 9am. Gotta get to work. Later.
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