Atomic Nerds

Another post subject stolen from someone else, this time Tam, this bit of abstract machine-generated poetry got caught in the spam filter:

Lights from the aircraft dexter missouri banks would seem unusually bright and appear
orange because of the daily limits that have been put in place in some of the slacks taking
place. Please note that even though I didn’t do my shopping early like I normally do. Court documents say Creagh, who is an amazing guy.

Better poetry than some of the crap I had to read in high school, at least. Maybe I’ll keep a copy in this pretty, intricate little box I found…

So, as we’re clearly in the filler-or-nothing mode of content, still, it’s my turn to dust off the keys for a bit. For those of you who aren’t warcraft/gaming nerds, go ahead and just pretend it’s status quo and there’s no post. For the rest of you, if you’re happy with your gaming set up, you can probably do the same, because all I’m going to talk about today are mice.

For those who do like warcraft, you’ve probably noticed, “Hey, there’s a metric shitload of things I would like to have quick access to!”, possibly during a raid while a boss is nomming on your face, possibly during pvp while a rogue is making your life miserable. I too found myself in one or both of those situations, and so when I saw the Razer Naga I was all over it. Once integrated into my setup, it quickly became indispensable, though over time it was not without its flaws. The thumb-grid was extremely useful and after a bit of practice reasonably intuitive, but the scroll wheel flat-out sucked on ice; this was the naga’s biggest flaw. Frequently using the wheel to scroll a web page down, the jittery little shit would wind up scrolling up. There was also no side-to-side tilt on the scroll wheel, which is not a dealbreaker, but incredibly useful for in-game movement.

As the naga was first to the scene with this enormous raft of helper buttons, I accepted the limitations and went on about my way. Until one day, Amazon made an actual useful suggestion with their “other people looking at X liked Y” section, the Logitech G600. What’s that? A giant raft of buttons, plus a couple more, and a tilting scroll wheel from a company that specializes in mice and keyboards? Oh hells yeah.

So I jumped on it. And overall, I have to say the logitech is the superior shitloads-of-buttons mouse. For starters, the scroll wheel is not even a little bit flakey, and the tilt function to it covers that shortcoming from the naga. Otherwise, it’s basically the same mouse but with a few minor differences that manage to change and improve the quality of life surprisingly well. Where the naga’s thumb grid is laid out on one convex grid, the g600 instead uses two concave depressions on the side to arrange slightly larger buttons. After getting used to muscle memory of “slide two buttons back, one over to do _______” with the naga, this new arrangement made finding the right button even faster. This also means a couple of buttons I didn’t use for much of anything on the naga were now easier enough to find to take over Vital Functions. It also feels somewhat larger in the hand than the naga - that’s a pro for me, but probably a con for the smaller handed.

Neither mouse really wins in the configuration software department, but the logitech sucks less because you don’t need to create an account to configure anything, or be online, and the profile is stored in the mouse itself, rather than in the software. In the minus column for the logitech, one of the buttons is, for my use at least, more of a pain in the rear than an asset. The far right button, the “g-shift” key, is designed to be essentially like the shift key on a keyboard, and be a on/off to modify the function of other keys. Out of the box, it changes the mouse’s sensitivity on the fly, which, uh, sucks, to put it mildly, when your nice zippy responsive mouse suddenly drives the cursor like molasses in January because you cycled out of the top end of the sensitivity and back down to the sludge setting. The two buttons behind the scroll wheel did the same thing, which was particularly festive when configuring VuhDo for my priest to use those for healing. And it’s ridiculously easy to hit by accident. Even with that button remapped to something more innocuous, I still find myself brushing it occasionally while holding my push-to-talk button and cutting myself off mid-instruction/rant/dirty joke.

Both mice are nerd approved on the grounds of the thumb-grid. The naga’s scroll wheel, after getting back to one that works properly on the g600, would now definitely be a deal breaker for me though, and the current iteration of razer software utterly blows. Got a lot of skills or macros you need in a hurry? There’s worse ways to go about getting to ‘em.

Ok, don’t get your hopes up that we’re coming back full time. I’m going to try to post more frequently, but those of you who still stop by have probably noticed that hasn’t been going so well. But tonight, tonight I wound up with a special snowflake I just had to share with everybody. As the title implies, I may have gained some inspiration from everybody’s favorite Texas cop LawDog (or he’s your second favorite and you prefer someone else, there’s room for differences of opinion).

Partway through this afternoon, my very own little close-enough-to-prepaid cell phone, FUT*, alerts me to an incoming text message.

Hola amor

Fine. It’s a wrong number, I will just ignore it. An hour or two later,

Amor I got a new number

Terrific, skippy. I guess you didn’t import your old phone’s settings. More ignoring. Finally, many hours later, as it grew late and I grew weary of a world of idiots,

Amor I got a new #

This was around 11pm. Thank you, but that’s enough. I engaged, and replied

Sorry, Mario. Your amor is at a different number.

Things did not improve from here.

Who is this

I’m the wrong number you keep calling amor. I know love is blind but this is pushing it.

But who r u

It’s a little early in the relationship to get that metaphysical.

What…I’m just asking who u r

At this point, it was late and I was bored. I popped the number into google, and came up with the president of a small tax business in Santa Fe. In the grand tradition of TV psychics, a theme that will come up again later, I ran with it.

I’m a thought experiment, Andrew. I’m the answer to the question “What if the wrong number is bored?”

What do u do
What r u doing

I have a very particular set of skills. Skills that make me a nightmare for people slow on the uptake. But I do my own taxes, so I’m good there if you’re looking for business.

What do u mean a nightmare for people slow on the uptake

I dug a little further on the info I’d found.

Well you’d think by 54 years old one would have learned a) what a wrong number is, and b) that Andres and Ray might appreciate a bit more technological savvy from a partner.

Andres and Ray were listed as the vice president and treasurer of the company.

Ooooo so what r u dedicated to

Wheeled performance analysis delivery. Everybody needs a hobby. Y’know, besides this.

What? I love derby reffing.

Besides what

See what I mean about “slow”? Crystal says good night. Take care, amor. I grow bored again.

I threw the net a little wider and found another probable hit on facebook, so I figured there’s nothing really for me to lose in this, let’s see if Crystal gets a hit.

Wait I don’t think we r done talking…What do u mean slow…and who’s crystal

Swing and a miss. Oh well.

You ever see those tv shows where psychics talk to people’s dead relatives, Andy? Do I really have to draw a map here?

Yea u do…I’m slow

Admitting it is the first step. You with me that we don’t know each other, that I’m not amor? Follow up, do you know what a “wrong number” is?

Nop

Those of you in NM hearing a sudden thunderclap with clear skies, that would have been the sound of my facepalm.

To which question? Specificity is the soul of good communication.

The second question

Jesus, really?

What is it?

Apparently an anachronism. It is a term which means you have (historically) dialed, or more currently, texted, a number that is not correct to contact the person you desire. It puts you in contact with an arbitrary stranger, who may just be bored enough to mess with you if “wrong number” is too complicated. Good night, Andrew, now go away.

At which point I put the number on ignore. Fifty bucks says this idiot votes, too.

*Fucking Useless Toy. It never works when I need it to, so functionally it is a toy.