The Last Candle

This is going to be a short post, even if the truth is that there’s a lot to talk about. A lot of it has to do with my oldest sister, bro-in-law (both who I haven’t seen and years) and cute 1-year old nephew (who I haven’t seen EVER) visiting for the holidays — plenty involving in itself.

But — dial-up constraints withstanding — I started playing the latest surrealistic puzzle-hunt Uru a couple days ago, and all my “free time” disappeared into linking books and pushing noisy buttons. Here’s a quick review:

• Puzzles: Decent, although there are a couple highly terrible ones that spoil the pot somewhat including an entire age of idiocy. Luckily, in Cyan Worlds games there are plenty of other things to fall in love with, such as…
• Visual Design, Graphics, and Sounds: Why the hell they’re still making still-framed CG mockeries in the form of, say, Myst 4 when they could be making amazing productions like the Ages of Uru is beyond me. (It gets even more puzzling when realMyst, the 3D rendition of the original game, has been out for several years. C’mon, guys: we’ve all got boss video cards these days. 2D backdrops just aren’t cutting it anymore.) (In Myst 4’s defense, I did play a short bit of Jocelyn’s copy, and it wasn’t bad. But my point still stands.) The Ages are gorgeous and beautifully realized, and the sound is even better. The game is worth playing just for the sights and sounds.
• Fireflies: STUPID. [There was once a giant tirade here about the idiocy of this puzzle, but it’s not worth it. If you’ve played the game, you know what I’m talking about.]

Uru was beaten after two days, but today the real meat arrived: Half-Life 2.

That ought to keep me occupied for a few more days, I think. Oh, and LAN party at TODDO’s tomorrow. Huzzah to that.

Let’s get this out of the way:

What better way to announce that I do indeed still have access to my account then posting an image of brawling South Korean politicians?

Turns out the problem with logging in was that the domain I used to login usually — csh.us, since it’s short and easy to type — had been changed to point to IP address of the new server-dealy Rodent’s worked out. Well, I don’t have an account there (yet, and yes, still), but the old server has the same old IP address. I switched to the correct IP, and all of a sudden, protocols were handshaking happily like a family reunion had broken out.

Cleaned my room today; nice to get rid of all the piles of DiffEq work-scrawled paper, assorted scraps and recipts, and a whole bunch of junk like old lip balm containers for my eternally chap lips; runted pencils once put to the dizzying grind of computing derivatives and integrals and how to ruin your grade in fifty-thousand calcuations; a closet-full of cardboard boxes; old bottles for both booze and water); and so on, so forth — all into the big cold garbage bin outside it went. En masse, as the Cheese-eaters say. The room wasn’t so, say, filthy (which reminds me, unfortunately, that I need to clean the bathroom one of these days), just full of unneeded stuff. And out it went.

Deus Ex was beaten again, and this second play-through reaffirmed that this RPG-action-adventure is one of the best games I’ve ever played. The game is so amazingly immersive graphically, audibly, and in particular gameplay element-ally that it’s really hard to stop playing by those facets alone. Add in heavy character modification elements (a la RPG style), the highly intriguing and fairly intelligent storyline, and a massive amount of flexibility in methods of confrontation makes it truly addicting. As a testament to the variability of the game, almost every location I went to I was able to do things differently or see things that I hadn’t experienced before. I’m not talking about finding some extra ammo in a corner somewhere, but whole substory arcs or entirely new plot twists that affect the game’s story entirely. The occasional homicidal rampages are fantastic fun as well. (Video tomorrow.)

Tomorrow: scandal! And eggplants!

FALL2k4schoolsemesterisDONE. In celebration, here's a 25×19 image of Gai from Naruto giving one heck of a hearty thumbs up — in the XPM format! Since I haven't paid the hosting bills yet, I can't upload anything to my account, thus removing the ability to show off fancy-schmancy pictures, audio, hot drinks, or anything else binary I want to use for the page. But why use a binary format when ASCII text works just as well? Thus:

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Ah, that was great. Not having access to the FTP server also means I can't edit my posts, so let's hope the XPM text doesn't foul up the post and cause it to end looking like — well, your ordinary perl script. OH MAN! ZING!

(Dear Rodent: If all goes well, I will pay the hosting bill tomorrow. As long as you take punches in the mouth as currency, that is. Just kidding, my man! PLUR, baby.)

Before I go ask Joe to sock me in the gut for actually putting PLUR in a post, I thought I'd line up my terribly exciting schedule for the next few days. My life is like that of a rock star's — except on the planet where I play, everyone is made out of foam.

• Wednesday: Wake up bright and early to study. (Ha ha.) Go to last exam. (Accomplished with gusto.) Finish train wreck of a fiction assignment (Done, and it was nasty.) Play Halo 2. Scream and howl at sword and rocket-whores in Halo 2. Cup of tea for the throat. Play Deus Ex, count the number of homicidal save-and-reload rages that occur for great humor justice. Play Fatal Frame 2; scream and howl at the ghost children coming out of the walls. Spend the rest of the night trying to frighten Paul as he's trying to spook me out at the same time. End the night with a truce for no scaring, causing us to close our doors simultaneously from across the apartment.
• Thursday: Gee, Wednesday was pretty good. I'll go with the same thing, sans the school stuff. WOOT.
• Friday: Anthony is coming to visit for the night! Apartment turns into a modern Valhalla with bloody fighting, resurrection, and fine Scandinavian dining.
• Saturday: Paul and Joe graduate! Pictures to come of the after-grad party.

And now it's time to pick up on that Halo 2 gaming, since I haven't called/been called enough derogatory names to/from total strangers enough today. Xbox Live's a rough neighborhood, for sure.

Final grade for the live blogging: B-. It was kind of fun in that "wowee, this is new!" kind of way, but it's funny how quickly time passes during an exam when updates to your own stupid web page are done instead of the actual test. And it was strangely irritating to be goofing off instead of working on something I'd spent a decent amount of time in preparation for. But, all in all, it was interesting, um, fun.

Points deducted for (also known as the clarification and nit-picking section):

• Not explaining 2/8 in #3. That was 2/8 points for the question; I had already answered one out of the four parts — thus 2/8 so far. Yes.
• Duplicate #3's. Guess my tally sheet was off.
• Cop out on the last half of questions. But on the other hand, I would have been there for the full two hours instead of just an hour if I had spent a few minutes trying to write something up for every question.
• "Phony" rendering in #6. While I'm sure there are plenty forms of phony rendering methods (I've invented a half-dozen myself), the correct term should have been Phong rendering.

FIN. And now back into my regular scheduled blogging habits.