Dhivael/Anne’s Hyperactive Blog

I came across an interesting concept for a site yesterday called Charity Arcade. Seeing as how it’s only a month old, they haven’t yet made any donations. It’d be great, however, if the site does eventually take off. After all, you’ll be donating by doing something you’d be doing already; playing games online.

There are other similar-ish concepts out there, like The Hunger Site and a closer match at FreeRice, but this is the first site I’ve seen with actual games to play.

The Hunger site has given away more than 500 million cups of food and FreeRice has given away approximately 1.1 million kilograms of rice.

Can Charity Arcade beat or top those totals? We’ll see.

I posted previously about sewing house shoes and how you might make them waterproof. Taking my own advice, I started sewing a new pair of shoes.

Duct tape is a lot stronger than it seems. It’s very hard to poke the needle through. The adhesive also tends to cling to the needle, making it a bit sticky. Another part of the problem is that I decided that the off brand duct tape I had would be too slippery for actually walking around in, so I used white glue to to glue regular fabric to one side. I figured that this would help with traction and the glue would help keep out water (it’d take a prolonged soaking to even begin to remove all the glue).

Glue saturated fabric is hard. Even if there isn’t much glue involved.

I actually managed to break a needle this way.

Into three pieces.

So be careful when you’re sewing!

I haven’t posted in… ever so long. I’m still alive! Just been doing stuffs. Can you believe it’s nearly Christmas already!?

So I’ve decided to hand-make some Christmas gifts this year. I’m not sure why, since I hate hand sewing and that’s what these gifts call for. Ah well!

One of the things I’ve decided to make is homemade slippers. Houseshoes, really. I started to make a pair a couple years back, never finished them. So I think it’s time to finish the set. These are relatively easy to make, and inexpensive too! Depending on what you have around the house, they’ll cost you about $0 to $10 per pair and they’ll be unique.

These instructions will make an approximately size 9 womans’ bootie. Depending on cut and size, you may need slightly more or less materials.

What you’ll need:

• 1 large bath towel. Nobody will see this fabric, so it can be stained and/or slightly worn - as long as it’s clean and still fluffy. A beach towel can be used, but this won’t be as fluffy. If you haven’t got a towel you can use, substitute a layer of fleece or a double thickness of thick t-shirt material. Won’t be quite the same, but should work okay.
• 1 yard of ‘fashion’ fabric. Aside from the fact that this is what people will see, it really doesn’t matter what kind of fabric you choose.
• 1 yard of fleece. Walgreen’s (and some dollar) stores have fleecy 30″ x 30″ baby blankets for $1. This should be plenty. Walgreen’s also has fleece throw blankets for sale for $4. (One of these should make several pairs of houseshoes, should you be so inclined.) You could also use a thick t-shirt material or another towel. The wearer will see this fabric, so pick something nice!
• 1 roll of duct tape and anti-skid bathtub stickers (if you intend to make the houseshoes suitable for outdoor use, such as fetching the paper) or a non-skid fabric (if they will be for indoor use only).
• scotch tape, pen/pencil, paper (copier paper will work fine), scissors, needle, thread
• Optional: 1 yard of 1 to 2 inch wide ribbon that matches your fashion fabric or a 1 yard strip of 2 to 4 inch wide fabric different from above.
• Also optional: If the recipient of the gift is a different shoe size than you, you may wish to get or reference a pair of shoe inserts that have the sizes printed on them. But since these aren’t meant to be fitted shoes, making a “size 8″ for someone who wears size 7 should be fine - the reverse is obviously not true, however.

Unfortunately, I’ve not got any pictures so you’ll have to make do with my explanations.

Preparation: If you are going to use ribbon, you can skip this step. Take the strip of fabric and place it wrong side up so it lays vertically to you. Like a | line. Fold the left side in 1/4th of the way, to the middle, and then fold the right side in to the middle as well. Now, fold the whole thing in half. You may wish to iron the fabric now so it’ll keep its shape. Otherwise, you may have to re-fold later.

If these are to be for “occasional” outdoor use, or you simply don’t want them automatically soaking up spilled coffee, start by making a piece of duct tape cloth that is approximately 18″ square. Many colors of duct tape are available, but I would suggest black if you can get it. Once this is done, or if the houseshoes are for indoor-use only, you can start work on the actual houseshoes.

1. Place your larger (one foot is nearly always just a little bit longer than the other) foot on a sheet of paper. If your foot is longer than the paper, you can use two sheets securely taped together. Trace LOOSELY around your foot. If you trace closely, you’ll end up with uncomfortably tight houseshoes. Of course, you may want tighter houseshoes if the recipient has smaller feet. Either way, the resulting shape should be more oval than exactly foot shaped. Add approximately 1/4″ inch to all sides of this shape to make it less foot shaped and to give slightly more ‘wiggle room’. Cut it out along this new line. This will be the pattern for sole pieces.
2. Sitting crosslegged on the floor, place your foot sideways on a second sheet of paper. Trace VERY loosely around your foot. It should look something like an L shaped sock, with the top being approximately where you want the houseshoe tops to be. This is the start of our upper pattern.
3. Taking this new pattern, make the bottom of the foot flat. Add an additional 1 inch to the toe, making the toe square on the bottom and the new toe line straight instead of curved. This straight line should be approximately 1.5″ to 2″. Square off the heel as you did the toe, adding an additional inch to the back length. Make the top of the houseshoe a nice, flat, line.
4. Starting at the top of the new toe line, draw a graceful curving line towards the front of the ankle line. It should roughly, within an inch or two, follow the outline of the foot you traced. The result should more or less resemble a larger size houseshoe with square toes. The resulting pattern should be about 2 or 3 inches longer than the sole pattern. Cut this out from the paper now.
5. Compare the sole pattern to the upper pattern by pretending to fit them together. Does the upper seem to fit to approximately half of the sole? If so, nothing else is needed. If it’s just a little bigger, that’s fine. Is the upper way too big? Trim off a little of the toe or heel, but not too much. Keep the edges straight and square. If the upper is just a little bit too small, you can tape an addition to the toe or heel. Otherwise, you’ll have to trace a new, longer, version on a new piece of paper and completely redo the curving line.
6. You can skip this step if you want, but it means you’ll have to sew at least one extra seam as well as cut out two uppers for each houseshoe. Once you’ve got the upper good, cut out another upper from another piece of paper. Tape them together along the back heel line with as little overlap as possible. Place your foot on the sole pattern and try to roughly fit the upper pattern to it (helps if you’re sitting on the ground). Does the ankle opening seem wide enough to get your foot in and out? If not, you can cut the pattern along the tape seam and add in a strip of paper to make it wide enough. Now check the toe. Trim if there is excessive overlap, or add a little if required. Otherwise, you can leave this for now.
7. Now you can start cutting out the fabric. Cut two soles for the inner fleece layer, cut two soles for the middle layer (4 if you’re substituting thick t-shirt material) and two soles from either the duct tape cloth from earlier or your non-skid cloth. For the uppers, cut two fleeces layers, two middle layers and two for the outermost layer. Unless your sole shape is a completely generic oval, you may want to flip the sole pattern over to make both left and right soles and keep track of which is which (doesn’t matter if you’re using a double-sided fabric).
8. Starting with the left soles, place the middle and outer layers WRONG sides together. You can pin them, but I would suggest taking a couple of basting stitches instead. Losing a pin in this project accidentally could be very bad! Do the same with your left upper pieces, wrong sides together and basting.
9. Align the heel of the sole with the middle of the upper piece, right sides together, and start sewing towards the toe. You will be sewing through four layers of potentially thicker fabric, so this may take awhile. Do not sew all the way to the end. Leave the last 2 inches, at least, undone. Go back to the heel and start sewing the other side towards the toe.
10. Once you’ve got the second side sewn, now is the time to check for any leftover fabric at the toes. If they’re both going to overlap greatly, now is the time to trim BOTH sides evenly to make them shorter. Slight overlap is fine, this is seam allowance. When the toes are the right length, sew the toe ends together. just the straight edge.
11. Go back and finish sewing the uppers to the sole.
12. Now you can start stitching the tops of the curving line together. Start from the toes and work back.
13. When you get to the ankle, you’re finished (for now) with this houseshoe. Go ahead and turn it right-side out.
14. Go ahead and do the other houseshoe the other way.
15. Two parts down, you’re about half done! Place the lining material right-sides together and sew each one as you did for the outer parts above. Do NOT turn them right side out when finished.
16. When you’re done with the lining, slip the left liner into the left houseshoe and the right liner into the right house shoe.
17. Take a couple of stitches, at the toe, sides and heel of each house shoe, to tack the liner to the outer part.
18. Cut a piece of ribbon or the fabric strip from earlier so it is 1 inch longer than the house shoe’s ankle is around. Fold the ribbon in half or slightly unfold the fabric strip to go over the ankle of the house shoe and then tack the end down. For the left shoe, do this on the right side. For the right shoe, do this on the left side.
19. Using whatever stitch you think looks best, start tacking one side of the ribbon or fabric strip to the outside of the houseshoe and the other side to the inside. The point of this is to hide the rough edges of the three layers of houseshoe. When you get near the end of your ribbon, tuck the rough edge under, so that it still overlaps the first end, and keep sewing.
20. Yay! You’ve completed a bootie! Now, go do the same to the other one.
21. Finished pair! Give as gifts or wear them yourself.

Couple of ideas:

Use lighter weight fabric to make yourself a pair of summer moccasins. Using the duct-tape sole, you should be able to superglue an old pair of your sandals to the bottom to make them more suitable for every day wear. Cut off the sandal straps first, of course.

Use faux suede and woolly fleece to make something that resembles certain styles of “UGG” shoes. The ‘Bipster’ comes to mind, but you could possibly think of other variations.

It’s possible to skip the ribbon step by leaving part of the liner sole unsewn and then sew the house shoe as if it were a stuffed animal. I leave that part as an exercise for your imagination. Mostly because I can’t take pictures of the process at the moment.

So, there you go! House shoes for (almost) free and a little bit of time. If you do it properly, they’ll be cuter than what you could buy in the store, too.

Many game companies are opposed to the very idea of ‘abandonware’ games. It is, after all, their intellectual property and they don’t like to see people using their ideas for free.

Some companies try to halt abandonware by re-releasing the game, possibly in a “classics” CD package. I gather that this doesn’t work as well as most companies would like, since I don’t think these re-released games stay on the market for long. After all, would you pay $20-30 for a game that was obsolete 10 years ago, or would you rather spend that on a newish (from the past year or two) game?

Yeah.

So if people aren’t going to buy your obsolete games, what are you going to do?

Well, game makers could do what EA has done. You can play the original SimCity online, for free. It’s been turned into a nifty little Java game that (somewhat unfortunately) seems to only work in Internet Explorer. It’s missing the sounds and the complaints that tell you what your disgruntled citizens want, but otherwise it is the same as the original. You can even save your games, to reload later. Nice.

As you play, a scrolling message across the top suggests that you might want to play the newest SimCity game, which is just fine by me. And what better advertising is there, than right there with an already interested audience?

One thing kind of bothers me, though. The scrolling message also says that you’re playing ‘your daddy’s SimCity’. I’m old enough to have played the original and, even if I had kids when I was 18, they wouldn’t be old enough to play SimCity yet.

But, the point is, game makers could do a lot worse than emulate EA in this regard. Creating an online version of their classic games to be played on their website would be good for everyone all around. Advertising for them, fun for the rest of us.

I know I want to buy SimCity 4 now; I hadn’t realized that they were still making SimCity games.

Actually, I came back on Tuesday night but I’ve been rather beat since then. I spent the Labor Day weekend in Vegas. I didn’t go to party, though, but to go see the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton before it closed. I did that the first day and I had a good time at that.

On the second day, I ended up going to see various things in Vegas. I wish I could’ve stayed much longer so that I could see more without my feet feeling like they were going to fall off.

Food in Las Vegas is delicious and I’d love to be able to go and sample everything.

So here are some reviews, some ramblings and whatnot.

The first day, I had the breakfast buffet at the Plaza. The food was pretty ordinary, but good. There was biscuits & gravy, French toast with strawberry topping, pork chops, some sort of fried potatoes, cheese omelets (rolled), Denver omelets (also rolled), scrambled eggs with cheese, plain scrambled eggs, sausage, ham, honeydew melon, watermelon, yogurt (vanilla & strawberry), blueberries & whipped cream… and I don’t even remember what else! There wasn’t anything ‘out of the ordinary’ to eat, but it was certainly worth the $7.77 paid. As for beverages, there was coffee, soda, milk, Pepsi (or was it Coke?), Mt. Dew or Sprite (I think), and then the fountain also had apple, orange and cranberry juices. WOO!

Didn’t have lunch, but did go to dinner at the Sahara at about 5pm. The line was fairly long but moved swiftly. Although the dinner buffet normally costs $12.99, if you sign up for their players club then it’s only $6.99 for dinner. Totally worth it. They had a carving station with real prime rib as well as turkey (roll, but it didn’t look like the cheap kind). There was some Chinese food available (fairly decent) and a taco salad bar (didn’t try). A pizza & pasta station was also in one corner; didn’t try the pasta, but the pizza was GREAT. Real cheese and actual toppings you could see! So much better than delivery. Salad bar. Fruit. If I tried to list all the food available, including various kinds of cakes and pies, I would be here all night. Ice cream (like McDonald’s) was available. This place was, I think, the best food I had in Vegas. There’s a little something for everyone, including sugar free desserts. They also had cranberry, apple & orange juice in the fountain for drinks, along with some flavored waters (I wish I had tried) and various sodas. I think they also had coffee.

Skipped breakfast the second day.

For lunch, ate at the Paradise Buffet in the Fremont. $7.49 for lunch. Very nice decor, you could forget that there’s a casino a few steps away. There was nowhere near the selection of food available at the Sahara, but there was a decent amount and it was very good as well. Second best food. There was ‘American favorites’, Italian food, Mexican food and Chinese food. There was a carving station with roast beef (delicious!) and Italian sausage. My brother had the fish of the day, said it wasn’t very good (but it could’ve just been an off day), but everything else was delicious. There was a decent salad bar as well. Plenty of pies and cakes. I had a custard pie (blech! I thought it was cheesecake and ended up not liking it at all) and pecan pie which was great. As for beverages, they had coffee and ‘Coke products’. The host/hostess(es) bring you the drinks here, unlike the serve-yourself places. If you don’t mind having to detour through the casino, the buffet is a great place to take a family to eat. Indeed, I saw more families here than in other places in Vegas. I’d definitely like to try going back there for dinner.

After lunch, it was time to take pics of touristy things. Went to the Venetian (beautiful!), Caesar’s Palace (disappointed I missed the fountain show), Bellagio (saw the first fountain show of the day here, it was wonderful!), Luxor (grand, but actually kind of boring). Also passed by/took pics of Paris, New York-New York and Excalibur.

Before dinner, ‘Teri burgers’ were procured from Aloha Specialties inside the California Hotel, for breakfast the next day. They came with a rather disappointingly small portion of macaroni salad, though the burgers helped make up for that. Real beef, somewhere between 1/3 & 1/2 pound (I believe) worth per burger, drizzled in teriyaki sauce. Each burger came with a slice of tomato and a piece of Romaine lettuce. It was a bit pricey for $3.50, considering that you barely got any macaroni salad (which is fairly cheap to make) and I’m not sure that the teriyaki sauce was mixed into the burger patty (probably not). But it was very filling and much better than a McDonald’s Value Meal that costs the same price.

Dinner on the second day was at the Plaza. Again, it was fairly simple fare but good. There was roast beef, shepherd’s pie, steak fries, mashed potatoes, gravy, Mahi-Mahi (which I’m told was much better than the fish at the Paradise Buffet), bread pudding w/ vanilla sauce (looked/tasted like a soggy cinnamon roll; not terrible, though), orange chicken, kung-pao beef, vegetable (pork?) stir-fry, chow mein. There was a good quantity of cakes and yet more ice cream. The ’soup of the day’ was chili con carne and nachos. Again, it was $7.77 for dinner. Certainly good.

I definitely would like to go back and try even more of the buffets available in Vegas.

Hotels were… hit & miss.

The first night, I booked a room at the Hilton. It was decent, though my brother apparently discovered it was just a bit grubby. The beds were comfortable, with plenty of fluffy pillows. The bathroom wasn’t what I am used to, with the toilet & shower being separate from the bathroom sink. The shower was… meh. It was either on or off. You could not turn it (or the bathtub, since it was a bath/shower combo) on medium with mostly hot water. Nooo… you had to turn it to a torrent before you could turn the dial to hot. I much prefer separate hot/cold knobs or handles. Oh well, at least the water was hot almost instantly. $75/night with taxes was worth it if you want a nicer place to stay.

The second night at the Plaza was chosen both for its price ($25/night after taxes) and its proximity to the bus depot. It is, quite literally, about 10 steps away though it’s slightly further to actually get between the two doors. It’s an older hotel and the rooms show it. The tub was a bit rusty around the drain, it had a dining set with mismatched chairs, the entertainment center/drawers was missing a door and the beds were a bit on the hard side. For a place to stay a night or two, it’s a decent place and at least feels safe. If you don’t want to party out on the Fremont Experience, ask for a room above the 16th floor and/or facing away from Fremont. On the 16th floor, I could still faintly hear the music and the room looked out almost directly over Fremont.

A few warnings if you’re planning on going to Vegas: carry chapstick & water! I didn’t think this was as required for me, since I’m from Arizona and frequently go out in 100F+ heat. It’s taken over 3 days for my lips to stop being chapped and I’m finally feeling completely hydrated again. The water does not, to me, taste funny in Vegas. But if you want to get bottled water, there is a Walgreen’s on Fremont and I think it’s Las Vegas Blvd. Just leave the Plaza hotel and walk down Fremont until you get to the Walgreen’s on the right side of Fremont. If you’re staying on the Strip, there are at least two Walgreen’s on the Strip itself. Otherwise, it’ll cost you at least $3 for a bottle of water from a hotel. If you’re desperate for cold water downtown, there are several souvenir shops on Fremont that sell bottles of water 2 @ $1. This is cheaper than Circle K sells water for around here! There are also people that sell water around at least Treasure Island, the Venetian, & Bellagio for $1 a bottle.

Comfortable shoes are a must. The only place that actually has places to sit is Caesar’s Palace. They have nice comfortable seats with cushions and everything. Otherwise, in order to sit somewhere besides your hotel room, you’re going to have to order food, take a bus or gamble. The Sahara also has one metal bench just inside the entrance on Sahara & Las Vegas Blvd. But don’t count on finding many other places to sit. If you don’t mind possibly looking silly, you might want to carry a ‘cane seat’ around with you even if you’ve got strong legs. Being able to have a handy seat would make, for example, watching the fountains at Bellagio much more enjoyable. Just don’t block the sidewalk!

My main regret in going to Vegas is that I wore shoes for 99% of the trip. Actual sneaker shoes. I’m not used to this, since I much prefer flip flops. I wore shoes the first day, my feet were on fire by the end of the day. I wore shoes the second day, I don’t think my feet could have hurt any worse. I actually had to sit down on the floor of the Luxor at one point, I was way away from the slot machines, and pretend I was looking something up in one of the touristy magazines.

I’ve had my feet hurt when wearing flip flops, but it was never this bad. Ever. And more than three days later, my big toes are numb where they can touch each other if I put my feet together. They don’t hurt, just numb like they’re asleep. Not good! All of my other toes are perfectly fine. Apparently, this is somewhat common when there’s a pinched nerve somewhere. I don’t think that this would’ve happened if I’d been wearing flip-flops. I just hope there’s no permanent damage.

All in all, I would love to go back to Vegas to be able to see the things that I missed. And to spend more time there, so my feet don’t feel like they’re going to fall off.

I just got finished (I hope) with the move to the new subdomain. I had to change a whole ton of stuff to not point to the old address anymore, but now… Everything seems to be working alright.

There was a lot more stuff to change than I anticipated and I had to go edit the raw SQL stuff, even. Bleh! Glad I don’t have to do this every day!

Okay, maybe not, but that’s what it felt like when I upgraded WordPress earlier and, instead of getting the upgrade page, I got the install page. Oops! A quick refresh, though, straightened things out.

Still planning on moving this to blog.annelions.com soon. I just thought I’d get the upgrade out of the way so I don’t have to deal with both at once.

So. Off to make sure nothing’s broken!