Skystrideria

Friday, September 30, 2005

In my last post I said that I would be driving up to Puyallup on Tuesday. I did, and I don't have too much to say about it. The trip was the first test of our new GPS, which worked pretty well. It's route-finder prefers highways, so it messes up near our house, but other than that it is nice. On another tangent, we started typically late, meaning that I taxed Washington's ten mph speed margin. Anyways, three hours of driving was an interesting experience, one that I am not eager to do again soon.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Today I did several remarkable things. The first was eating a slice of Jalapeno cheese. I have never eaten any jalapeno products before, so this was interesting. However, I didn't find the spicyness very disturbing, but the taste really stinks. So, one more mini-milestone in my life has been passed.

I also just finished "that game made up by the B's that you play at night." (Memo to the B's, we need a much better name if we want this to spread) It takes after FPS scenarios and flashlight tag. The basic idea is too have a team of people that try to accomplish four objectives. There are either one or two guards with flashlights who guard the objectives. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so here is a map of our scenario.

The troops unload off of their transport at point A. The landing area is protected from guards by a battleship. However, once the troops move beyond point B, a house, they are open to enemy fire. Objective one is in the shed (point C). The rolling door must be opened to allow alied forces access to the area in future raids. However, this door is a large sliding one, so any attempt at moving it makes a sound quite similar to thunder. Point D is a ditch that runs along the side of the map. Objective two is blowing up a small outpost. There is a vulnerable point on the wall opposite the door that must be hit by a special laser weapon. Point G is a large, open area that is partially illuminated. The third objective involves hiding weapons in a chicken coop for later operatives to use. Everyone would like to know what those later operatives will do, but we do not really want to know. Point F is a large pile of brush that is useful for concealment. Point E is a stand of trees, as. The two lines down the middle of the map is a driveway. Across from point E are more trees and objective four. Actually, objective four is in flux, as playing the game has revealed problems with the prior arrangement.

Overall, the game is insanely fun, yeah, umm, you will probably like it, also. Moving on:

Tomorrow I am going with Dad to some conference up north. This duty has usually been assigned to, "Number Two," but I have been tasked with it this time. I expect it too be, interesting.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Does anyone know how to make multiple user profiles in Firefox without reinstalling it?

Friday, September 16, 2005

School has finally, really started for us. We began doing school a few weeks ago, but real crunch is only starting now. Well, that is all I have to say. I saw that many people have gone on a blog-posting rampage today, so I decided to join them.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Well, I have played the demo. It is as fun and as cool-looking as the screenshots suggest. The buildings fall apart, the soldiers load there rifles accurately, the flocks of geese fly across the screen. It is beautiful. But you barely notice that when playing because it is so incredibly fun. Performance wise, it seems to work great on our year-old Dell. The processor and Ram work with it well, though the video card doesn't give anything close to optimum detail. The minimum requirements are 1.5 Ghz with 256 RAM, though any spyware would probably send that kind of system to the floor. AOD--the best AOE yet.
Guess what happened yesterday? The Age of Empires III demo has been released. The download is rather large, 374.6 MB, to be exact. I know it doesn't seem like I am too excited, but I am :)

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Parties and the Boringness or Unboringness thereof

Over this summer I have gone to various parties. Some of them were fun, some of them weren't so much fun. Actually, I was bored at quite a few of them. So, having observed that I have more fun when I am doing something at least semi-productive, I have come up with a plan for the perfect party, according to me, at least, hey, I can overuse commas, quite nice, I should think, I don't think you have noticed that this is a run on sentence yet, oh boy.

The Perfect Party (According to He Who Moveth Across the Sky)

2:00 PM The party begins. This is the time when I rave at everyone for being late while cleaning up the house because I began that job late. See, something productive already.

2:30 PM Someone arrives. Luckily it is one of my best friends and he helps me finish cleaning the house. Productivity doubled.

2:45 PM A steady stream of people flows in. I hand out tools and send someone to buy more because everybody forgot to bring their own.

3:00 PM Oh! Did I forget to tell you what the main event of this party would be? Well, I will tell you now. Concrete Busting! Skillet is turned up and we mosh with the pavement. (okay, musical compromise could be arranged, as long as "hard" bluegrass exists)

6:00 PM Work ends, eating begins. Nuff said.

7:00 PM We have an Ultimate-Volleyball-Basketball-Football-Soccer-AndFreezeTagWithABall-Tournament. You score by whatever way is most convenient at the moment. Is the tall guy blocking your way to the hoop? Do a somersault on the end-zone! Don't think you can make the spike? Toss it to your teammate so he can swoosh it into the net! Oh, and if the guy on the other team with that other ball gets you, you are frozen. Boo-yah!

8:00 PM We send the injured people to the hospital and proceed to play various games in the dark..................................In our woods.................................while getting stalked by coyotes.

12:00 PM This is the part where it gets really crazy. At the stroke of midnight, we grab various items of sugar and caffeine, chomp them down, and start a:



































Gileskirk Lecture! Yes, what could be more fun than taking notes for a Gileskirk lecture while being really tired (remember the concrete busting) and guzzling pop? Few things would compare.