Nothing-A-Day 17
10/09/21 at 01:20 EST

It astounds me to a degree to say that I had a wonderful time working overtime at work today, as any traces of sarcasm are traces at best - there's a perverse pleasure to be had in contributing to society that self-indulgence of another nature can't provide. All of the Foosball played during the weekend seems to have had a notable effect, however, and that portion of my job description seems to be improving much more linearly than my primary function. The whole communication thing is what's holding me back. You know what I mean?

Added the Projects section to the website. Took me longer to implement than I'd projected, but it was a pretty smooth process. After adding the Projects section, I of course added the project I've been working on for the past week. That's where all of today's content is, so enjoy it.

Fortune smiled upon me once again at the Value Village today: I found a 5-way A/V switcher box. Not 3, not 4, but 5 - and that's fantastic. It even came with console labels on it (most of which were re-purposed). At any rate, changing the channel on my CRT TV to play different consoles is now a thing of the past: combining my 5-way and 4-way switchers, I can support up to 8 consoles (that's n-1 ports if you want them all to use a single channel).

It's late, I'm sleeping.
--------------------
Tagged under: site, work
--------------------
0 comment(s) | Leave a comment

Nothing-A-Day 16
10/09/20 at 00:16 EST

Well, I'm bushed. Went hiking, crawling through caves, wading through rivers, setting fires, and forgetting to bring essentials on a trip yesterday, and still feeling some of the effects today. To be specific on these effects: my shoes are still soaked. Got plenty of pictures from the adventure but I'd like to try and advocate a no-people photo policy on this website - it's arbitrary, but so far it has been a trend. Minus those smiley faces.

At any rate, my little side project has gone off into the wild, free at last from my hands. Will post pictures tomorrow, after I've put together another page on the website to accommodate it. Over the past week I spent what energy I had crafting together a pair of Pac-Man earrings for a friend of mine. The frustrations encountered whilst gathering the resources and implementing the design paled in comparison to the reception they received. Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the whole thing.

My brain has evidently gone flat. I'm going to get some much needed rest. Tomorrow, with any fortitude, it's back on the C# coding train for me. I've got some stuff I want to develop that will put the fun back into function.
--------------------
Tagged under: life
--------------------
0 comment(s) | Leave a comment

Nothing-A-Day 15
10/09/17 at 00:08 EST

It's done. My little side project turned out relatively successful. The last step, the presentation...Well, let's not get into that.

Went to that there Foosball tournament today. It was a fun experience, but to sum it up real quick, there are pros and cons to it:

Pros
-Free food
-Free Beer
-Foosball
-An opportunity to socialize on not-a-weekend

Cons
-Had to drive through Waterloo to get there (I'll rant on this later)
-Had to drive in Waterloo traffic to get there (see previous remark)
-People there were smelly
-Had to rush home to get laundry done before laundromat closed (made it with about 45 seconds to spare, no lie)

Apparently I'm going camping tomorrow (it's not a complete surprise; the idea's been up in the air for about a week) so don't expect to hear a bunch of nothing until Sunday. Coming soon: updates, featuring content!
--------------------
Tagged under: life, work
--------------------
0 comment(s) | Leave a comment

Nothing-A-Day 14
10/09/16 at 00:26 EST

Today was not a particularly good day. It was nice to have plenty of stuff to do at work, and there was a looming deadline involved which I find therapeutic; I tend to work better under pressure, or something. But I've had a sore throat the last few days and as of today a nasty head cold, or flu, or something. It comes and goes in bursts. Irritating, irritating bursts. Headaches, impaired cognition, occasional sneeze-cough, lots of lousy things.

I'll put up with a sore throat if that's the worst of it without any complaints. There's a Foosball tournament that needs to be attended tomorrow and it would be very detrimental to the experience if I was suffering the same condition that I did today.

Birth By Sleep's difficulty has definitely reared its ugly head by now; for the past three or so planets I've been getting my ass handed to me on a silver platter shaped like Mickey Mouse's head. As if certain formerly-wimpy-pushover bosses pulling a coup-d'etat on me at the last (or first) second wasn't enough, I'm now getting the one-hit-KO treatment from kill fodder in the farthest reaches of the ill-defined solar system. Guess the location was aptly named.

This is enough for now. I've been sleeping in far too often lately.
--------------------
Tagged under: gaming, work
--------------------
0 comment(s) | Leave a comment

Nothing-A-Day 13
10/09/14 at 23:52 EST

Slow day, today. Low on constructive things to do at work, but I'm hoping things pick up over the next day or two. We're long overdue for it. No steak and beer today, which means steak and beer next week. Timing kind of works out better this way; I had more time to go on a hunt for the last few materials needed for my little project.

Getting a button from anywhere other than the Fabricland is apparently impossible. Furthermore, bingo chips (my alternative backup material) don't seem any easier. Though the wal-mart did have a big box of small clear-plastic chips, they wouldn't do the trick, so I was forced to be a little imaginative. It's a work-in-progress right now, but so far, so good.

I'm also photo-documenting the process, so I can share my half-baked idea with the world when it's done. It'll be another week from now. Mark your calendars.
--------------------
Tagged under: life, work
--------------------
0 comment(s) | Leave a comment

Nothing-A-Day 12
10/09/14 at 00:22 EST

I went searching for a button today. You know, a small piece of plastic often found on clothing that needs to be capable of fastening and unfastening to something, without the gaudiness of a zipper? Well, apparently I live near everything except for a store that sells buttons; I went to a good four or five, including a couple clothing outlets, to no avail. There's an actual sewing store not far from my dwelling, however, and that's certain to have what I'm looking for. Which is a button. Small piece of plastic. They're tough to come by.

After a bit of brainstorming there may be an alternative to this. We'll have to see.

Stumbled upon a copy of Toejam and Earl for the Sega Genesis. Given the 4 dollar price tag and the 30 dollar street price (give or take) I thought it'd make a good investment, if nothing else. Bit of a strange game, but I was able to make sense of it after ten minutes of play. I'm not sure what to think of it. Reflecting back on it, the game is very slow-paced, cruel, and boring...and yet, I couldn't put it down. I had invested the time to find 3 pieces of the rocket ship, so I just had to find the other 7.

2 hours later, and I'm half past no-time-to-code-tonight already. Well, shit. Time to throw in the towel and get back to Final Fantasy VII.

I may or may not be in for a treat at work tomorrow. Steak and beer? Did I mention that I love my company?
--------------------
Tagged under: gaming, life
--------------------
0 comment(s) | Leave a comment

Nothing-A-Day 11
10/09/12 at 23:56 EST

Decided before posting that I should take the time to do the aforementioned tag update. Took between 4 to 6 minutes while chatting to e-friends so the estimate was pretty good. Also discovered a bug in the tag search that's been around since late May. Oops.

Got my keyboard set up and built a sheet music stand for it. Picking things up little by little again. Considering building an attachment for it so that I can wear it, as it is portable.

Got back to work on the project and have come up with a "good enough for now" solution to the problem I was having, so hopefully I'll be able to build up momentum and progress more quickly on it from here on out. In all fairness, I should add a "coding" tag as coding becomes a more prevalent pastime, but I'm going to leave that as an exercise in automation for a rainy day.
--------------------
Tagged under: music, site
--------------------
0 comment(s) | Leave a comment

Nothing-A-Day 10
10/09/12 at 14:59 EST

I should consider doing a bit of cleaning around here. "Drumming" is no longer a valid tag in my eyes: it's too specific and outdated now that I've added a keyboard to my arsenal of things to half-learn. Mentally stepping through the process, I need to change 5 pieces of code if I wish to adapt the Drumming tag to a more generic "Music" tag. From there, I might as well consider automating the tagging process so it takes 4 seconds to add a new tag instead of 4 minutes.

Didn't get a post out on Friday night as expected, but also didn't get a post out on Saturday night. Oh well, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the website (not to be confused with "many"), I guess. Treasure hunt yesterday resulted in treasure: found a copy of Final Fantasy VII for the Playstation (original black label, to boot) in the corner of a shelf of a Microplay for 20 dollars. Now, last month I had already purchased the PC version of Final Fantasy VII for 15, but the PSX copy of FFVII was the last remaining item from my Leg Vacuum collection. I have now purchased every game on Armcannon's first album. Would be doing pretty good for the second, but Contra is a damned expensive game. If I do stumble upon it for a reasonable price, however, I'd be certain to pick up any and all missing pieces from then on out: Kid Icarus and Super Mario Bros 2. (Doki Doki Panic version for NES. Lost my other copy. Or my brother has it. One or the other.) Not sure how to go about acquiring "The Power Rangers Theme" or Shawn Michaels/Hulk Hogan's theme; one's a TV show and the other is a wrestler's theme.

Well, I have more business to take care of, so it looks like we'll be left with a hole in the schedule. So far my posting schedule looks like n-1. It may end up being n-2 by the end of next week, as well.
--------------------
Tagged under: gaming, life
--------------------
0 comment(s) | Leave a comment

Nothing-A-Day 09
10/09/10 at 02:12 EST

I need a coding tag. I just spent the last 2 hours trying to remember how the hell calculation of an angle, SOHCAHTOA, and other tidbits of trig worked and how they can be applied to the use of displacement vectors in C#. I've got all the theory worked out now, but it's 2 am. What a pain in the ass.

Keeping it short, because it's 2 am. Not posting tomorrow night in all likelihood, as I am currently not planning to be home for that sort of thing. Maybe some actual content will arrive soon.
--------------------
Tagged under: life
--------------------
0 comment(s) | Leave a comment

Nothing-A-Day 08
10/09/09 at 00:57 EST

Oh, another uneventful day.

As if you couldn't guess, I've been playing Birth By Sleep some more, and a couple more surprises have come my way. I'll do what I can to keep things "spoiler free" like a true gentleman of netiquette from here on out. Discovered that the game facilitates online play, in a variety of silly mini-games (including what appears to be a racing game) but what caught my attention was the ability to add "D-Links" (basically, summons) to your command menu for other people. Meaning, you can summon irl friends in battle. Bit of a pity that none of my friends own a PSP, huh. Oh well.

Difficulty curve's been rather volatile. Boss fights seem to have a 50/50 chance of containing at least one attack that, when fully executed, results in a one-hit kill. Other bosses have sufficiently over-powered enough attacks that, while not as immediately fatal, require me to be on the top of my game (read: persistence) to survive. I guess I shouldn't really complain but it gets somewhat irritating when the boss fights are five to ten minutes of gameplay beyond the nearest save point. I'm a stubborn mule and play with the One Life Rule. There is no Continue, there is no Retry. There is only Load Game.

Something really feels odd about the game, though. I'm thoroughly enjoying the combat system, the music is top notch, the graphics are crisp, and the level design has taken a turn back toward KH1, effectively rolling back the mistakes made in KH2. As much as I enjoyed KH2, the levels were extremely narrow and linear; it was impossible to "go the wrong way" the first time around because there was only one way to go. BBS takes a page from its roots and offers you a more open world with multiple branching paths (even if in some cases they are tiny worlds). It was a core part of the experience - you're there to explore strange new worlds, not walk through a script like you're watching a movie.

No, what bugs me is the dialog. Maybe I've become more analytical and picky over the years, but the dialog and overall writing feel less convincing. There are assumptions being drawn that, as far as I can tell, the protagonist should not be able to assert, unless of course s/he grew up watching Disney movies, a possibility I surely doubt is the case. The other thing that seems kind of odd to me is how they dangle the characters from the first three games in front of the player every so often as if we're just running through a maze to get a piece of cheese. I don't know why I feel so discontent with the idea, since last time I checked, that's what I wanted. Characters just seem to pass by so briefly, moving in-and-out just to say "Hey, remember me?". I think what disturbs me is that I get the impression the game is treating me like an idiot, as if I couldn't remember what has happened since KH2. Then again, KH2 did exactly that to the player through the foil of Sora, so I don't know what I'm complaining about.

I just spent four paragraphs talking about BBS. Yay. Suffice to say, the rest of the day was equally interesting (it wasn't). Getting too damn cold to bike to work without a jacket on, and I stubbed my thumb something fierce while playing Foosball. Fierce enough to cause bleeding. For all of a second.

I don't know what's happened, but I've been in remarkably good spirits lately. No, not just in the last 30 hours since I've had BBS; longer than that. The past week or two. I think I've been thoroughly distracted away from my insurmountable failure as a human being for not pursuing any goals or dreams or anything like that. In that respect, about two months ago I took up XNA programming and have been having a lot of fun and success with it up until about...three, four weeks ago? at which time I encountered a particularly difficult stepping stone in my application and left it indefinitely, as I tend to do. Baby steps; I've known what I need to do the entire time but have just recently started actually doing it, and given that it should be the last remaining challenging obstacle in the short-term development, once I trudge through this horrid sludge I should be coasting and loving it again. What am I working on? A couple people know. I've gotten into the habit of not saying what I'm up to in order to address my habit of not finishing what I start. Best not to get any hopes up for a reality that likely will never be.

Oh, and I found out that Legend of Neil did actually get its third season (finally). That is fantastic. I'm looking forward to watching the entire season in one sitting when it's done. And then watching all three seasons in a row in a later sitting. (For those keeping score, The Legend of Neil is a well-done live-action Legend of Zelda parody.)
--------------------
Tagged under: gaming, life
--------------------
0 comment(s) | Leave a comment