Eriq’s Blag

Stayed up late watching Farscape. Slept late, watched some more.

I went to bed at four and was woken up at eight on the dot by screaming children outside my room. The dining room is the next door over. After giving up on going back to sleep. I got up and went to breakfast. I made the mistake of saying I wanted tea. I don’t like tea. Then I noticed the orange juice. My mom said she’d be back later and we’d go to the camera obscura that overlooks the Avon Gorge, but that didn’t happen. I played TFTwo until Trung went to sleep. Then sat around for a while before looking for a towel so that I cold take a shower. I got in the shower and tried to close the door, but it decided to fall off its rail so I tried to put it back on, but it didn’t work. I ended up closing it and hoping it would fall on me. Then I sat around some more. Eventually, I went looking for my mom, who decided to come looking for me as well. We went to lunch at a cafe. I got a tuna melt and a ginger beer. Again, ginger ale is nothing like ginger beer. I came back to the hotel and started working on a model that I’ll likely never finish. Around six my mom came back we set out to meet my dad somewhere for dinner. That’s what I thought. Turns out we were meeting him at a reception after his conference. This put me in a foul mood because I didn’t want to stand around and wait for him; I had been working. We eventually got dinner at a posh restaurant called The Shed. The burger was meh, but the chips were good. Still pissed, we walked along the harbor to find some ships my mom wanted to see. We eventually found them. They weren’t all that exciting. Though the replica sailing ship was tooling around the harbor with people on it. On the way to catch the bus back a group of teenagers passed us. One of them attempted to engage me by saying he liked my glasses. Maybe that’s some English insult, maybe they were just stupid. I ignored them. I found out that Fringe is back, but to watch it on Huku I had to install an automatic proxy finder cause it’s only available in the US and the proxies I tried didn’t work. That’s something to look forward to.

I forgot to write something last night because I had to get up early to catch a coach to Bristol. No big loss, I didn’t do anything noteworthy. Today I woke up feeling shitty from not enough sleep. Got ready to go. Took the tube to Victoria Station (every time reminds me of the Tommy song). Walked to the coach station. Got some ice cream and waited for the coach. Sat on a cramped coach for two hours with my ass asleep and a twenty-something talking audibly on the phone the entire way (got some pointers for my accent). Caught a cab to the Bed and Breakfast where we are staying. Got my own room, but the wireless doesn’t work. Had to get a power line adapter. Went out for walk. We went to a cafe. Got lip and a shitty muffin. Then went to look at a suspension bridge from the eighteen hundreds. We passed where a funicular had been, but was now bricked up. I scraped myself trying to throw money into a donations bucket. The fifty pence went too far. It was a bridge alright. On the way back on the other side we saw some people on a metal overlook sticking out of the side of one of the gorge walls. Turned out to be the exit to a somewhat disappointing cave which one had to pay to enter. I’ve seen better and I did not trust the balcony. Got some more ice cream when we came back up. On the walk home we discussed how one goes about finding hedgehogs. I saw a squirrel. Walked back into town to find a place to eat. Smelled something good. Weren’t sure, but figured it must have been the Indian restaurant we passed. Either way it was good. Continued to walk along the high street. My mom kept stopping. Got back and found a cute girl and her parents waiting for the proprietress. Was worried I’d have to try and play TFTwo on my lap. Realized I could move the set of drawers. Played for a while till Trung and Sofa left. Watched Farscape until three in the morning.

Stayed up late again and slept in. Didn’t go with my dad to drop off my application for a tech internship, but apparently it’s a chopshop where they take recycled computers and rebuild them for non-profits. Dismantling and rebuilding computers? Hey that’s what I’ve been dong since I was six…at least the dismantling part. Our landlord finally gave me the DSL info so I fucked around with the routers and managed to get the newer one working. Yay! My dad also got a wireless printer, which was unnecessary because the router has a networked printer server setup thingy. It was easy to set up on my laptop, but I wasn’t able to just pick it up on my dad’s netbook so after fifteen minutes of fucking around I had to share my DVD drive and then fuck around some more because I had to turn off password protection on shared folders. Got that working and then tried my mom’s laptop. Unfortunately there’s no Linux driver for the printer and no substitute, so she’ll have to use the netbook if she wants to print. Then I finished off Batman:TAS. I started watching episode eighty-six and realized something was wrong. Right off the character art style looked different and not in a good way. Something was missing, maybe they were less detailed. Whatever the case it was wrong. I looked it up on Wikipedia. After eighty-five episodes they stopped. They went on to other projects like Superman:TAS. Then a while later they came back and made twentish new episodes, but this was The New Batman Adventures. It really was new. So I stopped. Wasn’t worth watching a cheap knockoff even if it was by the same people. On to the next series: Farscape.

It was hot and sunny today. This fact disappointed me. We had lunch with my dad’s cousins, their children, and their parents. They belong to one of those country clubs. My parents got somewhat dressed up, but told me that jeans and a t-shirt were fine. Turns out it wasn’t the kind where they turn you away or give you dirty looks if you don’t look the part. My second cousin is sixteen, but is now taller than me. For dessert I had a Mars Bar ice cream bar, this requires further examination. After lunch we went for a walk around the club. In the process I realized I had lost my day pass for the train. When we got back the the clubhouse I found it where it had fallen out of my pocket when I had taken my tablet out. I promptly lost it again in the same manner, only realizing half-way back to the tube station. Next we visited my Father’s colleague whose family we are friends with. On the way we found a grounded adapter for my laptop (using it now). That was rather uneventful. By this point I was over the heat/sunny weather. On the way home we went through Brick Lane and had dinner at a Bangladeshi restaurant. Just about every restaurant was Bangladeshi and just about every one was completely empty. After we got home I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how to fix the wireless. I thought that I needed to turn the modem/router into a gateway so that the wireless router would give out IP’s. I took a break while my mom checked her email (this was on my dad’s netbook) and plugged in my laptop and hooked it up to the HDTV. I tested Farscape and Batman:TAS. Despite the fact they are very low resolution they both looked just fine which is sweet. I then spent another few hours trying to get the wireless to work only to realize there was nothing I could do and that, in fact, it did work, but it was very flaky/finicky. Then I played some TFTwo. My laptop can play it at ten-eighty on full settings, but sitting on the couch, I can’t actually see anything. The lag wasn’t too bad, but because of the flaky internet, it looks like I might have to deal  with frequent random disconnects. Seeing as it’s three thirty in the morning, I should probably go to bed.

I watched the “final cut” of Bade Runner tonight. It’s been a while since I saw the original version and I have to say, I didn’t see all that much difference. It was brighter, that was really the only thin that stood out. Also, I thought that the line “It’s too bad she won’t live; but then again, who does?” was delivered outside Dekker’s apartment, but according to Wikipedia, it wasn’t.

My mom thought it would be fun to go to the Grand Canyon over winter break, she was wrong. I’d really like to write a long post about the many occurances, but I’m too fucking lazy. Here’s a summary:

I got sick week before.

Dad got sick over weekend.

Mom sick by the time we reached phoenix.

Spent some time with my aunt, cousins, uncle.

Got to the GC.

Lots of tourists.

Fucking cold.

Saw the bid hole. A lot.

Last day there it snowed in flurries.

Back to Phoenix.

More time with aunt, cousins, uncle.

Came home.

Weee.

Today I got to finish Portal. It was so fucking awesome. The stuff GLaDos says is so funny, as was “Still Alive”. If you haven’t played and plan to do so, don’t watch the following video.

Today I saw two movies. I saw two because the first one was less than satisfying. First, “I Am Legend,” it started off ok with a short news clip foreshadowing the future, then it cuts two 3 years later where everyone on earth is either dead or a bloodthirsty mutant and Will Smith is an immune scientist trying to fix everything. The first half was good, with some nice aerial shots of NYC completely deserted (except for the deer and lions) and overgrown. Then, the mutants are introduced with a suspenseful scene in a dark apartment building. Throughout it all you see flashbacks of the panic just before the end. It was in one of these flashbacks that the movie took a sharp downhill dive. Smith is saying goodbye to his wife and daughter who are boarding a helicopter and his wife then starts praying for God (no not god, we all know which one) to keep him safe. [SPOILERS FOLLOW] Later, he is rescued by a woman who heard the message that he’s been broadcasting and she tells him that it was God that told her to come meet him (no it wasn’t coincidence), thankfully Smith calls her on this bullshit because by now he’s lost the faith. However, later he discovers the cure (while under siege by mutants) and decides that the only way he can make sure that the woman and a boy (who may be her son?) make it out alive is to blow himself up with a hand grenade, when she asks why he tells her God told him to…bullshit. The woman and the boy make it to a camp of patriotic survivors (in an SUV that my dad pointed out to be absolutely spotless). Overall disappointing end. Because of my dissatisfaction, I decided to rent “28 Weeks Later.” I had seen “28 Days Later” not too long ago, which was very good, and hoped this one would be as good. It was. It starts out with an asshole leaving his wife behind to be eaten by zombies. Later, when the infection is all gone, his children come back to England (from some refugee camp) and discover their mother, still alive, in their old house. She has what appears to be a codominant gene which apparently makes her an immune carrier. The idiot father then goes to talk to her in quarantine (before they discover she’s infected), kisses her, becomes infected, goes mad and kills her (graphically). Then goes on a rampage, which leads the American soldiers to go on a rampage killing anything that could be infected (everyone). One defect sniper decides that he can’t take, it ignores his orders, and attempts to rescue a few survivors (including the two children, which the medical officer believes hold a possible cure). Later, an attempted helicopter pickup goes wrong when the pilot refuses to take all of the survivors with him. Instead he goes after a horde of infected chasing his fellow soldier (the sniper), cutting them to bits with his heli’s rotors (graphically…wow, was that an arm?). Eventually, the only ones left are the two kids and the med officer all in a car being attacked by an apache heli, they decide to escape into the subway (are you shitting me?). They trip on some dead people and get separated. The med is then killed by none other than the father (he just doesn’t give up). The father bites the son and the daughter kills him, turns out that the boy is also immune. They get picked up by the helicopter and fly off. [28 days later] Infected are running out into the light and down some steps, the Eiffel Tower in the background. All in all, much better. However, it was missing that English charm that counter balanced the bleakness in the first one.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/12/scotty_role/

Not that I’m necessarily a trekkie (not that I don’t like the…umm, whatever Star Trek has become, just haven’t watched much of the original series), but Simon Pegg as Scotty? Fuck yeah!

So last night I thought of what I thought would be cool use of my 3D engine: make Asteroids in 3D. I thought of some cool things I could do, including giving it a plot. So, today at work, I started to write a plot for it…at least that what I meant it to be. However, now it seems more like a short story then the plot for a flash game, maybe a more complicated game, but I don’t know that it would be good for Asteroids 3D. Here is what I have written so far, tell me what you think:

A lone craft floats lifelessly among the asteroids. The field spans seven systems, the nearest system is a class three; a red giant with four planets in deep orbit. A space port is in near orbit and is currently on the far side of the sun relative to the vessel. It is a small craft; with room enough for maybe two people including the pilot. Who is currently face down on the dash with a trickle of blood running down from his forehead, where the two met, and onto the controls. There is a small pool at his foot. The wound is not serious, but he has been out for hours; long enough for him to drift from open space into the outer edge of the asteroid field. Some debris from a similar craft floats by. A red light begins to blink on the dash; the label says: “Aux. Power.” After a time the light turns green and the flashing stops. Suddenly, lights across the dash start to glow and flash. A crackle emanates from a speaker embedded in a panel on the right of the cockpit. A jagged heads up display springs into existence on the forward window; quickly smoothing out as thousands of bright red dots appear on the screen. Red letters begin to flash at the bottom of the screen: “Proximity Alert.” Suddenly, the sound of nails across a chalkboard tears through the cabin. The pilot jerks up, splattering blood on the HUD. He regrets this action.

“Aww, FUCK!”

Groping under the dash he pulls out a small fabric case. Tearing it open he digs through its contents. He pulls out a tube labeled morphine, a small white bandage, and a roll of bandage tape. Jamming the tip of the tube into his right leg, he starts to bandage the wound on his head when the contents of the display registers.

“Fuck.”

A long scratch stretches from the upper left corner of the cockpits front window to the lower right. He flips a switch on the left side of the dash and a set of blast shields close over the window locking at the center. The HUD adjusts accordingly and the red dots are replaced by red outlines of each asteroid in the view field. The pilot types something into the conveniently placed QWERTY keyboard located in the center of the dash. A console window appears in the lower left corner of the HUD. He types in: “sysdiog” and presses return. More quickly fill the window as the computer spews out values and status messages. His eyes dart back and forth as text speeds by. The final line reads: “System Status: All Systems Operational.” Unsatisfied he enters another line: “print log.” More text is spewed onto the display. One line catches his eye: “EMP sensor triggered > initiating emergency shutdown to preserve system.”

“EMP…what the fuck happened?”

“Our s-ship was hit-hit by a combination EMP conc-cussion rpg. Commander.”

Starting, the pilot spins around in his seat. Hunched on the floor of the cabin is a metallic figure. Where the left arm should be a cylinder slowly spins back and forth among a mass of torn wires. The arm hangs limp from handlebar protruding from the left wall of the cabin. As the android forces itself upright, the commander notes that left side of its face is misshapen and the eye is not as bright as the right.

“Shit Marvin, you scared the hell out of me!”

“I am su-sorry Com-mmander, some of my int-internal circuits were aff-fected by the EMP a-as was my hardd-drive. I am currently rebuilding the damaged sec-tors.”

“I didn’t mean the way you were talking, I just wasn’t expecting someone to answer me.”

“Y-you forgot that I wa-s here? Tha-that is unu-usual for you.”

“Well incase you missed the pool of my blood on the floor, I’m not all here either.”

“I wo-uld have to disa-disa-disagree Commander, from my scans it wou-ld ap-pear that you are in one piece.”

“I meant mentally. There’s a good chance I have a concussion.”

“My sc-ans show that t-o be truuuuuuu…”

The android’s eyes dim and go out. The left arm’s stub stops moving.

“Marvin?”

Eyes lighting up once again.

“I’m sorry, Commander, the repairs were completed and a restart was required. One of the many follies of having intelligence based on Windows.”

“Tell me again why we still use that piece of shit.”

“To put it simply, our government is not willing to spend money on a better OS.”

“In other words they’re cheapskates. You know, I don’t give a shit if you bad talk our “government.””

“Well then, in your words: Out government is made up of a bunch of fucking cheapskates.”

“Hey! Since when do you swear?”

“Since my reboot. I keep a log of words that are not in my database and when I rebuild it they are added.”

“I see.”

The commander turns back to the dash and looks at the various displays.

“So tell me again, what happened before I blacked out?”

“We were defending the carrier from a group of Confederacy battle cruisers. In fact, you see that chunk of debris in the upper right corner of the HUD?”

“Yes.”

“According to my scans, that is the front half of one of them. Looks like the carriers main cannon tore it right in two.”

“Wait, were we defending the carrier? I remember something about making sure we weren’t caught killed. Were we carrying something important?”

“You may be correct. It appears as though some of my memory files could not be recovered. That may be the reason they only hit us with an EMP instead of something more powerful.”

“But what were we doing?”

“I’m sorry Commander, I cannot find that data.”

Now I’m going to go watch 300…for the first time.