The Column

Motto: "September" is an anagram of "Mr. Best Pee" I'm looking forward to September for tons of reasons. September 1st - Labor Day... free vacation. September 2nd - the XKCD: What If? book is coming out. September 2nd - the draft for my first ever season of Fantasy Football happens. September 4th - the Moto 360 and successor to the Moto X is getting announced. September 9th - IKEA opens less than 2 miles from our place September 9th - the iPhone 6 (and maybe other stuff) is is getting announced. September 9th - Captain America: The Winter Soldier is coming out on Blu-Ray. September 9th - Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 is coming out on Blu-Ray. September 19-21st - 43rd Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield. September 23rd - Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 premiere. September 24th - Modern Family Season 6 premiere. Sometime in September - Android L, Android TV, and the next Nexus tablet & phone? Sometime in September - The R...

Motto: Guess I'm Going to Have to Learn Football I got invited to play fantasy football. That means I have to name my team. Here are the choices I've come up with thus far: The Finicky Hobos The Demonstrably Goods Pure Vanilla Cake Rastafarian Pasta Draft Junk Perl Jam Dirty Mike and the Boys (suggested by Jon and myself at the exact same time) Holy Ducks Unicorn Territory Ball Handles Tubbawamba Chumpthumping Mr. Bo Jangles The Kansas City Chafes Cleft Leapord Queens of the Bronze Age This Team Goes Up to Eleven Dibs on Not Dre The Swiss Kababobs Baaaallooooooooga! Steve Harvey Danger Untitled Team That Wins The Rereplacements Half-Dollarback Fight Club Reference Jim Carrey, James Pass Archimedes Garfunkel Buffalo Bill Dauterives The Pathetic Attempts GODZILLA! Spock and McCoy are Drunk The White Keys, The Black Stripes Mitch Risky Biddness I Don't Know What a Touchback is, But... Holiday Win Express Training Bros Dr. Jan Itor ...

Motto: Person aaron = new Person("Aaron",26,80,227); This post was written more because I had the opportunity and less because I actually had something to say. So, there's that. Somewhere around a month ago I started up a Google Hangout with my cousins and the Best Man from my wedding. We've had this awesome running group conversation ever since. When Google+ became a thing I imagined that it was going to change everything. As it turned out, that never really happened (I don't really use any social networks any more). This group Hangout conversation feels like what you'd want from a "Social Network". It's a platform on which we can talk among ourselves, share pictures, and do whatever else we feel like. The best Social Network is one that is constructed in the most similar fashion to regular social behavior. I want to talk to person A, person B, and person C. So I have a conversation with them. I don't have to write on person A...

Motto: I'd make another wheel-based pun, but I won't because I'm 3/4ths tired. Over the weekend Melissa and I drove to Nebraska to see our family, learn about the town in which my sister lives, and watch niece get baptized. We drove through St. Joseph, Lincoln, and a few other cities while listening to iTunes Radio Top 50 songs that Aaron wants to never hear again. We took a tour of the new athletic facility at my sister's University (she is assistant volleyball coach). We chilled out in a hotel lobby and ate pizza. We went to church and I made a joke to my wife about the baptismal font being "Helvetica". She said it wasn't my best effort. It was a good time and we are very glad we went. The real story happened on the way home, though. To get to home from where we were is a 5 hour trip. Just as we entered hour 4, our driver's side rear tire did this: To put it in a less entertaining way, our tire did this: What transpired next was essenti...

Motto: Clean your weight, deary This post isn't a feature. It's mostly a story. It's a nerdy story about triumph. But first... I've made no secret of the fact that I'm an XKCD fan. I recently re-stumbled across one of my old favorite comics. Back in the day, I thought this was funny because it is true. Now, I think it's just awful because it's true. I'm an idiot 80% of the time I'm at home now. Thanks Thor and Loki. Story time. I have a on-again-off-again history with writing code. import english.words; I majored in Computer Science in college for a few months before switching to Electrical Engineering. In 2008 I got a "B" in my first coding class, but the complexity of my 2nd coding class caused me to panic, drop the course, and switch majors. That was the only course I ever dropped. If I had stuck with it I would have seen that, according to my friends who DID stick with it, "that was the hardest class I ever had to ...

Motto: Hello Melissa! Hello Danielle! This post is not for everyone. The first part is for everyone who's at all interested in this game I've been playing a ton for the past 10 months, but I wouldn't suggest reading past the line of hashtags if you don't already know Dominion. After that line I'm going to write in detail a review of Dominion and each expansion. What is Dominion? Dominion is a "deck building game" card game. It's probably more fairly called "THE deck building game", though, it really defined the genre. Deck building games (like Dominion) are similar to "collectible card games" (like Magic: the Gathering or Pokemon) - with a few key differences: 1. You don't have to buy your own, private deck in real life by purchasing randomized expansion packs. 2. Everyone plays from the same set of cards, so there is no chance that a person you are playing can do something that you couldn't also do in that same g...