MMORPG-ing

05.04.2004

I have finally taken my first step into online gaming. I installed City of Heroes Monday night and have managed to put off most other things while I was at home. I've always been intrigued by super hero games, and this one being a dedicated online game was a good excuse for me to expand my horizons.

Since I'm pretty much learning from scratch, I've picked a big, stupid, smashing character. To have fun, he's big and blue (definitley Tick-ish) and named "The Big Blue Yonder", because I figure all the Tick puns would get old after a while. I've managed to waltz around the map, bludgeoning thugs, leveling up, all the things you're supposed to do in a game like this. After a couple of hours, it's all the same routine. I really don't see how people get hooked on these things (like Everquest).

My moment of the most fun came last night when I started noticing how many Ticks there were, and then I would go stand beside them until they ran off, just to see if anybody noticed. Most of the Tick costumes are pretty good. One, Blue Justice, had the perfect feel of the live action series. I started to laugh when I saw a conversation between two other people about how many Ticks there were running around (and I even got a compliment on my costume design). One guy said he had seen 10 different Ticks in the past 2 days. I'd seen 2 others and only been on a couple of hours.

So, it's a fun little game. Server lag for me is kind of annoying, but I chalk that up to being in the boonies. Maybe I should make a different character, one that shoots fiery electro-coils of doom or something!

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PHP Freading

05.03.2004

A couple of weeks ago I added a little weather scroll to the top of the page, mainly because I had been playing around with some code and it was a fun little mental excercise. Much to my surprise, a couple of people actually liked it! Much to my chagrin, after moving servers last week, the weather scroll seemed to be broken.

Basically the weather scroll comes from me reding a file from the Weather Channel, parsing it until I find what I want, and then printing that section out. After moving servers, I would only intermitantly (I have got to get a spell checker!) find the results I wanted. Having only moved servers, I wasn't sure what the problem was.

Well, it all boiled down to PHP and how I was reading in the file. I was reading it this way:

$fh = fopen($counter_file, 'r');
$somebuffer = fread($fh, 30000);


And then trying to parse through the results. It turns out that the page I was reading was big enough that all of it wasn't getting read into the buffer, even though it was under the filesize I had specified (something to do with network packages and streams - I only make web pages, I don't know everything behind it!). So, to fix it all I had to do was:

$fh = fopen($counter_file, 'r');
while (!feof($fh)) {
$somebuffer .= fread($fh, 8192);
}
fclose($fh);

This reads everything into the buffer all at once before any parsing begins. It's one of those things that makes obvious sense, it's just that the code behind it all didn't exactly work like I thought it did. But know I know. And that's half the battle!

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Server Buddies!

04.28.2004

You may have noticed that the site has been a little messed up the past couple of days. Thanks to the hazards of my web host getting more popular, I've moved to a newer, faster server! Even better, I'm now on the same server as my good close personal friend Jer! He's not happy about it, as he says I'm using up all of his bandwidth. Phi on you Jerry! Phi I say!

And if I can't say Phi, then a hearty Up Yours!

Yeah, I just love that guy.

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Wrestling Storm

04.27.2004

Lots of wrestlers have their own websites. One of my favorites for the past 3 or 4 years has been Lance Storm's site. My favorite part has always been his weekly commentary, be it about things going on in his life, something new in the wrestling biz, or his passion for reading that he's managed to spread to others. It's this type of weekly message that lets you feel like you know someone who you have never actually met just a little bit better.

This week Lance stated that he is moving from in-ring worker to a trainer in OVW, WWE's developmental territory. While I'm sure that Lance is going to do a great job, it's got to be a little intimidating to switch jobs after 14 years.

I first noticed Lance when he was in ECW. I don't think he ever said a word (at least it seemed that way), but the story lines he was involved in with the ECW Tag Title caught my interest. It started as one of the old fashioned "teamed together even though they don't like each other" scenarios with Chris Candido. But then, after a few months, Lance managed to turn heel and became a cohesive team with Candido.

Lance showed up again in WCW not too long afterward. He headed up a pro-Canadian faction of wrestlers, again playing the heel. I never really bought into the whole "Canadians are Bad Guys" routine, but I liked watching Lance in the ring regardless. But I have to admit, Lance winning the US title and putting a Cancadian sticker on it was a pretty nifty gimmick.

WWE bought out WCW, and Lance made the move too. His biggest success came with the "I have no personality" gimmick that never works for long (ask Steve Blackman). Although he still had the moves in the ring, there was just never the right story line for him to fall into. So I guess that he's picked the right time to make his move. He still has the moves and desire to keep going, so making the move to trainer should both be good for him, and good for the up and coming talent in OVW. Yep, this has got to be a good thing!

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Grilling Goodness

04.26.2004

After a year of being in grilling limbo, I finally replaced the old grill with a new grill! Straight from the assembled grill section at Lowe's, I've got a new grown-up toy.

I tried out the new grill Sunday and quickly learned that I'm going to have some adjusting to make from the old grill. The new grill gets hotter, faster. I used to cook steaks 12 minutes and the would be med. to med. rare. After 10 minutes on the new grill, they're more med. to med. well. This just means I'm going to have to force myself into more rigorous testing. And cooking. Gotta hate that.

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