Okay, well – it hasn’t REALLY begun yet. No one’s come and actually done anything seriously different to the kitchen. But Ei-Nyung and I have been moving the various bits and bobs that are movable from the kitchen into the “gym”, clearing it out for when these guys start going to town on Tuesday.

It’s pretty strange. As messed up as this kitchen has been, it’s been *our* kitchen for the last five years (in various incarnations – thanks to Colin for a number of improvements). Now, it’s about to be completely destroyed and rebuilt basically from the ground up.

I’m really, really excited, as is Ei-Nyung. The new design is so much better, from a usability perspective, that it’s hard to believe given the original shape of the kitchen that this isn’t what they did from the start. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if it *is* what they did way back in the day, and it was only the bizarre ’70’s remodel that made it a completely ill-conceived, non-functional space.

The other thing that’s strange is that we have a stunning amount of useless shit in our kitchen.
Okay, you’ve been to our house, or you know us, so maybe that isn’t a huge surprise. But it’s not our fault! When you’ve got housemates, you tend to accumulate some random crap. Stuff we’d never, ever buy – like canned chicken. So, we’re clearing some of that stuff out as it goes out of the kitchen, and some of it will undoubtedly get cleared out as it comes back in.

The only appliances we’re replacing in this go-round are the microwave (changing from a standalone box to a micro-hood combo) and probably the fridge. While the dishwasher/stove don’t match each other, frankly, they’re both completely functional, and it seems a waste to replace them right away. The fridge is still functional, but we’d like a different form factor, and the nook it’ll be placed in is a different size than our current fridge. The dishwasher and stove, on the other hand, are the same size as future upgrades, so there’s no pressing “need” to upgrade now.

Man. Crazy stuff.

So, in Washington State, the caucus was called for McCain before all the votes were counted – 13% of the vote remained uncounted, despite only 1.8% separating the two candidates. The race was called for McCain by the state party chair Luke Esser, based essentially on his certainty that the state would go McCain’s way. You can read a little more about it here.

The interesting thing to me is that Huckabee had beaten McCain in two contests earlier in the day. Kansas was his in a landslide, and got more votes in Louisiana. Then, Washington is called for McCain. Imagine if Huckabee had beaten McCain in all three states? What would the headline that night have been? What were the headlines for Obama?

Instead, this is the kind of thing that gets posted on CNN:

“McCain gets mixed message; Dems deadlocked after contests

Republican voters in Louisiana and Kansas told John McCain they weren’t ready to support him. Washington state, however, backed the Republican front-runner Saturday over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, according to state party officials.”

Instead of “Weekend Blowout” or “Huckabee Sweeps McCain,” it’s “McCain Gets Mixed Message.” That’s what people see – it’s not momentum for Huckabee – momentum that appears, by rights, to be his – two states and one that’s extraordinarily close, it should be more “McCain on the Run” than anything else. But because the state chair called the race, unreasonably, for McCain, that’s now the status quo, and Huckabee has to overturn what people will accept as a general truth.

This is EXACTLY what happened in 2000 – by framing Bush as the victor, the media tilted the election in his favor. Instead of Bush being unjustly installed by the Supreme Court in a contested election that was both obviously defective and too close to call, they called Bush the victor, handing him the de facto victory. Once he was crowned, Gore had to work to overturn the “valid” result of Bush’s victory, instead of the genuinely neutral or Gore-favored *REALITY*.

So, it’s interesting to me that McCain’s people, or the GOP in general are not only above stealing elections from their opponents, but from people within their own party. Talk about being fundamentally corrupt. Sure, you can lay the blame at the feet of Luke Esser, the guy who called it, but you have to also lay the blame at the feet of McCain, the entire GOP, and anyone even remotely involved in the election who isn’t *insisting* that the votes be properly counted.

I’d hate to have Huckabee as the nominee, simply because that would mean we’d have some (however remote) chance of having that nutcase as President. I despise McCain’s party-line obsequiousness as well – I’d rather have a rancid piece of cheese in office than either of those morons. But I suppose it’s interesting, seeing again how powerful framing can be – all you need to do is announce the victor in an authoritative manner, and people will immediately adjust to that victory being the status quo. Essentially, the Dems need to learn to put that out there right away – announce victory, however tenuous, as early and loudly as possible. Presume you have won, and in many ways, that’s all you need to do.

Man… every time I hear Obama talk, I want him elected more.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/08/bush.speech/index.html

‘WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush, in a rousing speech to fellow conservatives, exhorted his ideological cohorts to “fight for victory and keep the White House in 2008…”‘

What does that mean? Does “Conservative” at this point mean someone who is a fiscally completely irresponsible, in the pocket of big business, a religious flat-Earther, scientific know-nothing (okay, a redundancy there), homophobic, racist, xenophobic warmonger?

I mean, I guess I’m curious – if Bush is “one of you,” philosophically, at what point do you look at yourself and say, “Holy shit, what have I done with my life?!?”

Permit for kitchen remodel obtained.

Excellent.

So. Hillary takes CA. I suppose I’m not all that surprised, but honestly, I’m a little disappointed. While I think Hillary will, if she’s nominated, be a fine candidate, I’ve always found her to be a bit too much of an opportunist. Though it’s by no means anywhere on the scale of “important issues,” anyone who takes the stage with Jack Thompson loses substantial points with me. Not because videogames, in the grand scheme of things, matter as much as something like Iraq, but because it shows that she’ll take a firm stand on something despite being completely ill-informed or ignorant on a subject.

That said, either candidate is such a vast, vast step up from the entire Republican field (and the current administration) that I will happily, happily vote for either of them. I’m actually really looking forward to the Republican nominee getting utterly obliterated. I hope it’ll be a crushing, humiliating, ignominious defeat. I hope McCain, if nominated, is completely undone by his obsequiousness to the current administration. Feh. Screw all of ’em.
—

In other news, Ei-Nyung and I are going to the Permit Office on Thursday to get a permit for the kitchen! Exciting. Also exciting, though in a more “abject terror” sort of way, is the fact that I have no idea what the current state of the house permits are, because I have no idea what state Mike Mohsini left the other renovation permits in. It’s been something that’s been weighing on me for the last couple weeks. I wish I could ignore it – I just want nothing to do, ever, with that guy, or anything he’s ever done or will do, again. So, hopefully it won’t be too bad. I guess we’ll find out Thursday.

*sigh*

Still, progress on the kitchen front is good!

At work, things are going alright. Today was a bit contentious. Part of the issue is that we’re doing a lot of re-evaluation of the game’s core with a really stripped down team. This means I’m not working with *designers* on the design, I’m working with artists and engineers, some of which don’t have any design experience. So, I’m trying to listen to them and take their input, but there are also some aspects of the process where I want to just say, “Okay, enough. I’ve got the experience and judgement to make the call.”

Still, it’s good to get a taste of my own medicine. I’m usually the skeptic, or the one who’s critical. This time, other people are critical of me. It’s fine, I can take it, and hopefully in the end, the game improves as a result. The process can be tiring and frustrating, though.

Looking at picking up Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles for the DS, but I haven’t been able to find a review anywhere, and from what I hear, Ubisoft embargoes reviews that aren’t stellar until after the game’s release date. Which means no news is bad news. We’ll see, I suppose. If it’s not great, it’s probably a good thing. Professor Layton and the Curious Village comes out Sunday, as well, and that’s probably even more up my alley.

Spent this evening watching TV. Still a bit under the weather from a cold that kept me home Monday. I wish I could get up the will to go paint the Mini, but it’s damned cold in the garage, and painting’s sort of a pain in the cramped quarters of the garage. When I was doing this over the summer, I’d open up the garage door – makes a world of difference. Ah, well – I suppose it’ll wait ’till the Spring.

Roofers might come tomorrow, too. Pretty strange.

Yeah, this post is really disjointed. I also started reading The Prestige, by Christopher Priest. We saw the movie over the weekend, and it’s really, really good. The first time I saw it, I was disturbed by how weak the end of the movie was, but I think I “get it” now. The structure of the movie is astonishingly well realized, and the actors do a really spectacular job of developing some really complex characters. There’s at least four or five interesting parallels in the movie, and one of the tricks the movie’s able to pull is how direct, how straightforward those parallels are, but how complex and nebulous they appear to be. Great stuff – I’d highly recommend it. Though most reviewers seem to think of it as merely “entertaining,” or a diversion, I think it’s a really interesting depiction of what obsession means to a person obsessed.

And it’s got a really cool, vaguely steampunk aesthetic, plus tricks!

Right. I’m really out of it. Good night.

Well. Met with Jim Duncalf tonight, and gave him a check for 50% of the kitchen work. Thursday, Ei-Nyung and I will be going down to the city to get a permit for the work, and hope that not too much of a mess was left by the previous contractor. I know there’s at least one permit that wasn’t closed out properly, but I don’t know if there are others that are still not finished…

So, the kitchen’s officially underway. We’ll see what Thursday holds.

So, as a followup to a post about pulling the trigger, one trigger has been pulled (the roof), and the other bullet is in the chamber (the kitchen). Ei-Nyung and I spent a bit today looking at granite. We’ve narrowed it down to four basic sample bits we brought home, and it’s probably realistically down to two.

One’s sort of a mid-level grey with hints of blue and silver, and the other is a much darker, “chunkier” green with some very, very faint hints of a dark yellow – almost black. We’re gonna have to try to find somewhere that has larger chunks of these things, because the samples we looked at were only about 2 square feet, and it’s hard to imagine a huge countertop (and we’re looking at a LOT of counter space) in these colors with these patterns.

The roof, on the other hand, is basically on its way. We signed the contract, and are somewhere on the schedule – should be done I think by the 6th. Basically got screwed by the contractor who fixed the top of the roof, and it’ll cost us two grand to fix, but at least it’ll be done, and under warranty for the next two years.

The only thing I’m worried about re: the kitchen is that when we get permits, I have no idea what the status of the old permits are. Did Mike Mohsini close them out properly? No? If not, what happens? Gah. It’s been years, and that guy still haunts me. At least the jackass who “fixed” the roof will be out of my hair permanently in a week.

*shrugs* Well, either way, we’ll have to deal with it. Putting it off even longer is just going to cause even more problems, so hopefully it doesn’t cost too much if there’s stuff left to be resolved, and that’ll be that.

Good times.

I think I have a problem. Or rather, I think I’ve figured out a problem. The roof leaks probably don’t stem from the repair that Sierra Roofing made last year. It did rain, and the leaks stopped at that point, except for one window. It doesn’t make sense that all windows would leak equally, the same way they did before.

Except that we got a repair done after the fact. One of Sierra’s guys came by after the repair, and said that he could do a repair on the area at the top center of the house for cheaper than Sierra said they could do it for. When we had that one window that continued to leak, and we found the area where the leak came from, we asked him to do the top of the roof as well, since he threw it in for cheap.

THAT is where the new leaks have got to be coming from. It’s the only thing that really makes sense. It’s not Sierra’s fault, it’s this guy’s. I’ve gotta call him and get him to come out and take a look before Sierra comes out.

I made this realization while half-asleep at 4 this morning. Fun.

Not a lot going on. Work’s in sort of a weird period. Stuff’s in flux, basically, and there are opportunities to move things I want forward, and reshape things that were previously un-reshapeable. So, those are good things. Does take a bit out of you. I’ve found that in a day, I’m good for about five hours of hardcore productivity. Once that time has passed, I hit a wall, and unless I’m really fired up about it, basically become completely useless.

Today, I had a monster headache that came on around noon, and stuck around until two ibuprofen knocked it down at around 10pm. Good times.

Otherwise, not a lot going on. I cleaned up the downstairs patio, which was a long time coming, took Mobius to the vet, have a fitting for new contact lenses on Monday, finally got to play Undertow online with friends, knocked down the “perfect on expert” achievements for vocals, bass and guitar in Rock Band (only drums left to go), and did some cooking (a prosciutto & basil pizza, cooked Heston Blumenthal-style) on a weeknight, which was a nice change of pace.

On the house front, I sent the signed contract off to the roofers, so they’re getting us on their schedule soon, and we’ve committed to get some feedback to the kitchen guy by Friday, which means tomorrow night, we have to do a fine detail pass on the kitchen plans to send off feedback to the contractor.

Man. Crazy stuff. I’m *really* excited about the kitchen. It’ll really make a huge difference in our day-to-day lives.