I had just gotten motivated to work on game development, and my SSD died. I had to RMA it, so I stuck it in the mail a few days ago and am waiting for a response. In the meantime, I am running an installation of Ubuntu without my preferred programming software, and I couldn’t get it running on Wine, so while I really love some things about Ubuntu, I won’t be able to use it as my primary operating system. That leaves me fumbling with unfamiliar software (which I tried) or putting the project on hold. Bleh, productivity down the drain.
Bad Timing
Sep 15
Irene
Aug 28
So Hurricane Irene has come and gone. Twas only a tropical storm by the time it reached us, but the rain and power outages were plenty to deal with.
Thankfully our power stayed on through the rain and for hours afterward, but our luck ran out three hours ago. Jo’s parents have an extra generator which they kindly offered us to get our sump pump going again, and given the rapidly rising flood in our basement we gladly accepted.
We went to meet them halfway, but it turned out Western Ave was closed, so we picked another rendezvous point. Tim showed us how to use it and we headed home.
Now, about a quarter mile from our driveway we ran into a road block, and here’s the interesting part. There didn’t seem to be any trouble there. No downed power lines, fallen branches, nor accidents. Nope, just one cop car and four flares in the way.
So I got out and asked “What’s going on?” He replied… “A hurricane” and stared back at me.
So I told him we lived just a little down the road, he asked how far. I, mystified, stated just a few hundred feet. He challenged that it better not be past GI Road, and bitterly moved his car while saying “Seriously I’m not kidding there’s a hurricane.”
I bit my tongue from saying 1) I know, 2) that doesn’t change my need to get home, and 3) why the fuck are you setting up a roadblock where nothing has gone wrong when so many people need help right meow
Snack before bed
Aug 25
So I always do this. I do my computer thing until I’m ready to go to bed, then I stand up and realized I’m famished. Today I opted for a PBJ, and then came back into the office to be entertained during the two minutes it takes me to eat.
I finally made a little progress on the Facebook integrated login utilizing PHP SDK 3.1.1. I got it to where simply clicking the Facebook login button will either log you in or instantly create an account and log you into it – but at that point things stopped working. Oh well, some progress is far better than the NO visible progress from the prior two evenings.
Sandwich done, time to rush off to bed before I am compelled to make and consume even more snacks!
Here we are again
Aug 24
Always with the new beginnings. It seems I’ve been a fan of new beginnings for quite some time. I was telling my friend Erika today how I used to, oddly, look forward to moving. A new home to decorate, a new room to settle into, and a new opportunity to find somewhere to fit in. I wasn’t so good at that last one, but thankfully I got it figured out on our final move.
Today I am working on a new beginning in programming. I have a concept for a game that I believe could appeal to a larger number of people than SoulXchange, and thanks to the furlough at work I am now motivated to get it done in the interest of increased income.
One problem with this, however, is that a project of this magnitude is a lot for one person to take on, and programming endeavors are solitary. Johanna will not be pleased with the amount of time I will need to spend on this, and hey – I don’t really like spending so much time alone. I become listless very quickly when I run into roadblocks… like right now for instance.
I have a user registration and login system completed, but I failed to get Facebook integration to work the last time I was working on it. I have decided to start my project this time by finishing that feature, and it has now been entirely pleasant. I think I jumped in a little too gung-ho. I did not take my time to understand the components I was cutting and pasting into my code and so, when I was done, it worked unreliably. So I immediately deleted it all and started over.
Bah. I need this blog to complain about this, because there is damn sure nobody else I know who will want to listen.
Pyr
Jan 12
So I have another reason to thank the random fellow who introduced me to Joe Abercrombie. Pyr. I was on the lookout for new authors to read and noticed a few who shared Abercrombie’s imprint. Intrigued, I put them on my Christmas wishlist and am delighted with the results. Specifically, James Enge has impressed me with his downright enjoyable tale of the Crooked Man starting with Blood of Ambrose. While nothing special in prose or storytelling, the story itself is just a lot of fun. I’ve read a couple others from Pyr and they are consistently enjoyable.
Shower lyrics
Jan 6
Let me show you how I do,
I’m brand new and tight as glue
Coming through
like Shamu, I’ll crush a foo
2011
Jan 6
A new year is upon us. The holidays went well, we enjoyed time with friends and family, and now here we are in 2011.
My mom’s birthday is in a few days… Should definitely get her something soon.
I’m updating this from my first smart phone, the Samsung Focus. It’s great, but not the best way to type long journal entries. This WordPress app is pretty dope though.
I’ve been reading, watching Voyager, making music, and otherwise relaxing. The usual… All is as it should be.
Epic All The Way
Jul 28
Double Rainbow Guy is epic:
This is hilarious enough on its own, but Collegehumor took it one step farther in their parody:
Phantom poop
Apr 26
So I just delivered what I was certain was going to be one of the longest single poops in my recent history, but when I went to flush there was nothing in the toilet! How does that happen!?!?
Haha, so I decided to google it and one of the comments answering the same question says:
Totally normal. Sometimes the poop hits the water just right and the momentum carries it up over the S-bend! Some cultures believe it signals good luck.
Awesome! I’m going to have good luck!
Oh shit, the next comment says:
It’s probably demons coming out of your ass and going back down to hell before you can see them.
Hey, fuck it, that sounds like good luck too! The less ass-demons the better.
So Jud called yesterday while we were making dinner and asked me if perhaps he left his cell phone at our house. Specifically, he thought perhaps it might be outside under our deck. I thought for sure it was just wishful thinking on his part, but sure enough when I went outside it was right there… not under the deck, but beside it. Just sortof laying in the grass in the rain.
Now it was damn well raining when Jud was out there working, so I have no idea why he would store it there in the first place. So I asked him… he said his friend kept texting him annoyingly. Well, mystery solved. The next question: what the crap is wrong with that boy?
When I finished my “Dead To Me” track the other day, I wanted to burn a sample CD of all my tracks to put in the car, but I realized that I had previously initiated some tweaks on the other tracks and hadn’t finished them so I started tweaking them some more. Ultimately, I decided the beat that inspired the whole 99% Nerd track was unusable for the intended purpose — the song had the lyrics of a dance track but a beat that did not lend itself to dancing.
So I started reworking it from scratch. I tried a few styles and I just wasn’t coming up with anything that made me want to move. Finally I did the most utterly basic bass line and worked from there, and I’m actually super-pleased with what I’ve come up with. I was dancing to it for like 15 minutes…by myself… in my office… at midnight.
*cough*
It’s not a perfect dance track, but I super-love the chorus and the rest is good but missing a little something. I sure hope I can come up with a few final tweaks to get that track under my belt. It would be great to have a song I could put on at parties for people to dance to. I actually like it so much I’m feeling like it’s not long enough — it’s only 3 minutes, and now that it actually sounds good I’d like it to be longer. I might just add some dance-related babble at the end and extend the song out. A pure instrumental would not lend itself to non-dance listening.