Holidays..... OVER!

01.03.2005

The '04 Holiday Season is now officially over. Most of the time I'm glad once X-mas/New Years have come to pass. This year though, I'm kind of sad to see them go. Last year turned out to be a really good year for me. There wasn't any one particular thing or event I can point to and say "that was a great year", but just reminiscing back the year as a whole was a good one. The only thing that I would change (if I could) would be for Gerry to still be here and healthy.

This brings me to look at the new year with anticipation. I didn't waste my X-mas vacation and got much on my chore list done. As with any good chore list, I didn't get enough of it done, so some things still await me in the short term:

• Finish cleaning out the garage - this will take me longer than it seems it should because I've got way more garbage in the garage than I thought, and I'm going to have to wait for the garbage truck to catch up with me. This will all lead to....
• Parking in the garage!
• Finally put up the 3 light fixtures I bought back in April.

Once those are finished up, the pressing things on the list can be marked off. Everything else on the list is either a dive back into the independent web business or something fun to do:

• Make my MAME machine - Jerry got me a book for X-mas on how to build your own arcade machine. This is one of those things that's just a given that I would eventually do, and the book seems to have the step by step instructions on how to do it. This is more of a slow, take your time and do it right project than a whip it together over a weekend project, so I'm looking forward to getting started at a leisurely pace.
• Make my wrestling game. I can't start of using the Torque game engine to make my game right off the bat, I've got to learn how it works. So the first step will be to go through the book I've got for the tutorials and make a FPS game along the way. Being realistic, I might be able to actually start the wrestling part of the game by the end of the year. If I'm lucky.

The other minutia of what I want to do to kick of the year the right way is way to boring to put here, typical of New Years Resolutions made by many. But I think '05 is gonna rock. I even remembered to put '05 as the year on the checks for the 4 bills I just readied for mailing!

Permalink rambling random

X-mas '79

12.20.2004

Christmas is always one of those times to wax nostalgic about the good old days. Although I've never quite grown up (I still enjoy a good trip to Toys R Us), I still have some Christmas memories that still give me a good smile when I think back. Christmas of '79 was one of my favorite Christmases. Christmasi?

Once Christmas break started from school I would be excited and ready for Christmas day. Traditionally Santa would bring me 3 cool presents as I slept fitfully due to my excitement on Christmas Eve. How 1 10 year old kid could have so much adrenaline over a couple of new toys I'll never know. I remember trying and trying to go to sleep, but never quite making it. I think I started to try to sleep at 9:00 that night, but I remember still being awake, and frustrated, at 1:00. But I finally did make it to sleep, and at 4:00 in the morning I crept into the living room to see if Santa had made it (I had even left out milk and cookies, and even a life insurance policy from a company a friend and I at school had started - I was even a dork at 10!).

I looked under the tree, dark, without my glasses, and thought I saw toys. TOYS! The life's blood of a 10-year-old! I scampered back into my room and put on my glasses. Another scamper back to the tree and I dived into my Christmas booty. The first thing I saw was a Star Wars Imperial Troop Transport. This was one of the things on my list! There were slots to carry 6 Star Wars figures, plus 2 drivers. Or a driver and a co-pilot. Or a driver and a co-driver. The thing could carry 8 figures any way you looked at it. Plus, it had little noise making buttons on the top that would make laser sounds, or R2-D2 beeps and whistles. Unfortunately, beeps and whistles might wake mom and dad at 4:00 in the morning, so I limited myself to pushing it around silently.

I then managed to push the transport into the next Star Wars toy: an Imperial Tie Fighter! Yes, I always seemed to like the bad guy toys more. The Tie Fighter had pop-off wings that could simulate the fighter being shot. I had nothing to really shoot the wings off, so I had to rely on the imaginary laser cannons embedded in the couch to take care of the Tie.

The next thing I saw - I had no idea what it was. The box said "GIRDER & PANEL ACTION BUILDING SET INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT". It was like Legos, but different. Little blue girders would snap together, and you had plastic outer walls (with either windows, or bricks, or some signs) laminated on so that you made a complete building. After mom and dad woke up (I think around 6:00), mom showed me how to put the things together. Looking back, this turned out to be one of my favorite toys. Plus, I kind of like how mom had to show me how to put it together. It turned out to be one of those jewels that I didn't know I wanted until I got it.

I had gotten my 3 Christmas day toys and was happy. I thought that was it, and was playing along. Then dad told me that maybe I needed to look behind the tree. What did he mean, "look behind the tree"? I had 3 presents. I had been getting 3 presents as long as I could remember. Why would I look behind the tree? Well, behind the tree was a 3-speed bike. This made it 4 presents! Wait, that's just wrong, that screws up tradition. But, a toy is a toy, so we pulled out the bike and I tried to figure out what to do with 3 speeds on a bike on a quick trip outside - because it was cold and I needed to get back inside and build buildings, transport troops, and fight Ties.

Permalink action figures/toys random

Topdog. Russ Jer Russ!

12.19.2004

While avoiding some of my self imposed household chores over the weekend, I kept dwelling on how Jer had shot down more planes than I while playing Topdog. He was still the Spiritus Champion. It shouldn't bother me, this is a flying game, not a driving game. And it's especially not a wrestling game. But bother me it did. It secretly ate away at my desire to regain the coveted Spiritus championship that I had managed to hold for those precious moments when shooting down 31 bad guys was a feat only I had accomplished, until the magic number of 43 was announced by Jerry.

So with chores at the wayside, I committed myself to beating Jerry's record. I started to take off in my first plane, and it was shot down. I started to take off in my second plane, and it was shot down. Damnable Tumminello Gambit was not working for me! Luckily, I was able to get off the ground with plane #3 and down went the first of the bad guys! And then another. And another. 10 were down. 20 were down. Then 30. After 15 minutes, my personal best of 31 was a thing of the past. 40. 50. 60! I was well on my way to the hall of immortal champions!

In my excitement, I had managed to change my hand position on the laptop ever so slightly. My thumb managed to tap the touchpad, and instead of a screen full of doom, I saw a page of available games from Teagames. I HAD SCROLLED DOWN! My plane! My plane! I scrolled up in time to see I had taken a header into the runway of doom. I had racked up 67 kills. My run was over.

But I've managed to best Jerry and can once again proclaim myself as Spiritus champion!

Permalink video games

Holiday Hosting

12.17.2004

My goal was to finish my holiday shopping by Thanksgiving. My goal was to do most of my holiday shopping online. My goal was to avoid the general populance as much as possible while doing all of this. I've learned I suck at reaching my goals.

At least I have managed to complete a good 90% of my holiday shopping. I say 90% because I think I'm done, but once I stop to think about it for a day or 2, it'll hit me that there's some person I managed to leave off my list. Damnable stragglers!

This year will be a little different from previous holidays in that I'm not going to see Mom (who used to be 7 minutes away), but she is now coming to see me (now that she's moved 2 hours away). For the first time I'm to be a host. It's debatable as to whether that counts with family, but I now have that hurried sense of needing to make sure bathrooms and kitchen are clean.

Permalink

Topdog. Russ Jer

12.16.2004

One of my mutant abilities is to find ways to not only waste my time, but that of my valued coworkers as well. A while back I managed to stumble across a Flash games site called Teagames. The games were simple to learn, yet challenging enough to keep you coming back. It started with a golf game, then there came a BMX game. The BMX game served as the start to getting others addicted.

Lately they've released a BiPlane game which is reminiscent of Sopwith 2, one of the early addictive games in the era of CGA graphics. Once you've figured out how to get your plane up in the air without getting shot down, the game can quickly become addictive. In the beginning, we were lucky to shoot down 4 or 5 enemy planes before being shot down. Now that the majority of the office has been sucked into trying out the game, we've gotten strategies! I managed to get my personal and company best of 31 kills, which lasted most of a day before that bastard Jerry decided that he could get 43. I started to go back and beat his new found record, but thought that this once, I would let him enjoy his glory as the newly crowned Spiritus Topdog.

But his days are numbered.

Permalink video games