November 30, 2004
Hey, Hey, 16k
http://custurd.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/
On the list at Yahoo's Most Annoying Flash Animation Contest, or whatever it's called. I hadn't seen the flash for this one, but the song's cool.
November 27, 2004
A funny thing happened on the road to Trinsic
Shenanigans in Britannia, from the Ultima V:Lazarus crew.
November 26, 2004
Impossible games (timeattack!)
These guys have put together a compilation of emulated NES games with extensive use of "freeze" files which allow them to stop the game at any point, in order to beat the game in the shortest amount of real time possible.
Many might have seen the 11-minute SMB3 video. It's here, along with the one where the player bankrupts the computer player at Monopoly in two turns.
November 25, 2004
Oh, and...
Happy Thanksgiving. Eat lots of Pie-thagoras. Then have some salad.
Another "how I'm doing" post
It's not that I'm devoting all my time to this lately, but what time I don't spend working on U5: Lazarus, I spend thinking about it. Lately I've been helping to recruit more writers for NPCs, because I've recently become aware that the project needs, um, a lot more labor than I originally figured getting on board about two months ago.
A project listing for contractors (unpaid, of course) just went up at Gamasutra, and Tiberius (project lead) tells me he's already had two inquiries for the 12 hours its been online. So if anyone wants in on the project, hit the Request More Information From Employer button.
November 17, 2004
Mega64 DVD available!
These guys rock. It's basically Jackass with a video game theme.
Their DVD is now available, published by SomethingAwful.
Half-Life 2
Well worth the $60 and the day-long wait to play it. Steam still has a ways to go before it's perceived as the rock-solid integration of download, billing, authentication and multiplayer matchmaker it was made to be, but as for HL2 itself, it's a worthy successor to the best FPS on rails ever made -- the original HL1.
Though you can't kill the good guys, at least not on easy setting. Which is not great for realism, but oh well. The airboat ride was fun.
More monkey business here.
November 11, 2004
Veterans Day
My grandfather was drafted into the Army during WWII. He would really rather not have gone.
He was an auto body shop worker in southwest Kansas around the time Boeing, contracted by the government to ramp up aircraft production, started building little airfields all across Kansas. He was so good with sheet metal, they put him to work in the experimental aircraft division, working on what would become the B-29 spy plane.
But, he got drafted anyway, leaving a wife and two young sons to sweat it out at home. He was trained at Camp Hood, Texas, then assigned to "California's Own" 40th Infantry Division and shipped off to the Phillippines to fight the Japanese. When he got there, he asked a sergeant where all the officers were. Sergeant replied that they were all dead, picked off by Japanese snipers. Eventually more officers came in, but this time around they weren't given different uniforms and weapons like all the other officers, who were visible from a distance. Slick move, Army.
As the war wore on, his unit's situation became more and more desperate, on the road to retake Manila, and were assigned one final push. Infantry only, it was a suicide mission, and they all knew it. And they were all ready to go, at least the way he told the story. But they didn't go, as the Japanese surrendered after A-bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Enola Gay and the Bockscar, both B-29 airplanes.
My grandmother died two years ago after 63 years of marriage to my grandfather. She had said she had no fear of dying and wasn't going to hell, because she'd already been -- hell were the two years she was left alone while her husband went off to fight the war.
It wasn't until after she died that he told me some of his war stories. My dad said he'd kept a tight lid on it for most of the years of his life. Every time we'd visit, I'd see two Japanese katanas hanging on the wall above my grandfather's desk. I knew he'd got them in the war, but it was only last year that he told me they'd been picked off dead Japanese officers.
Until that time, I never realized he'd seen combat.
Right now he's in the hospital in the little town where he's lived most of his life. He has some numbness in his hands and feet, and his children are trying to decide whether he needs to go to a convalescent home, at least for a while. He might not want to go, but there might not be any other real choice.
So if anyone's in a giving mood this holiday, remember my grandfather.
November 09, 2004
New grass on the field
A week's passed since I updated this page, but it's not as if nothing's been on my mind. Just none of anyone's freaking business.
Today I got my computer back. Well, part of it. The process of figuring out what was causing it to freeze up led Jon at Thunderbox to conclude that the hard drive, though possibly showing some signs of wear, wasn't all bad, but the motherboard, integrated into the mini-box configuration he originally built for me, was bad. So it would need a replacement, which would mean that the whole case would have to be replaced, too, because it was all one unit. And while the hard drive was on warranty, the box and board weren't.
Fuck. But, I'd had the original box nearly two years, which is long enough to go without much going wrong with it. I paid for the new box and the shipping, Jon worked on it over the weekend, and today I got it back.
It's all shiny. The original case was unpolished aluminum, and this one is some kind of metal, but I'd have to read up on what it is. It's a newer model of Soltek's Qbic line, the EQ3, whereas the old 3000 I had before isn't available anymore. The new unit features an internal fan system Soltek calls "Icy Q," and is reasonably quiet, though the noise the box does make is somewhat disquieting -- it's low and grumbly, like an old hungry dog. Weird.
It's working, so I'm happy. Hope I don't have to send it in again anytime soon, and I'm looking forward to installing a DVD burner in it.
Other picture-worthy news:
This is the live album produced by the Minibosses. The "WHAT ARE YOU" was written on the plastic wrapping by someone other than me. I don't know what it means.
November 03, 2004
Fragdolls, woo-oo-oo
The distraction of the week. Links by Lum, threads by Corpnews and Gamerifts, with my entirely biased commentary after a day's worth of reflection at the end.
I've been known to be wrong, and I don't wish ill on anyone involved, but it'll be a miracle if this holds together a year with the original group.