Monday, August 11, 2008

X-Rays and Jury Duty

I went to the dentist today for dental x-rays, and it turns out my wisdom teeth are still going in sideways (as if they'd suddenly turn the right way somehow.) I'll be getting a referral for an oral surgeon in several weeks, barring some sudden outbreak of excruciating pain.

I got a jury summons in the mail yesterday, and it looks like I'll have to be on call some time in the middle of September. The pay sucks and several people say it's boring, but I'm still kinda curious as to what it's like to be in a jury. I somehow doubt my likelihood of being selected for a jury is very high though.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

10 days since last post. Must post more often!

I figured not too much has happened over the last 10 days, but it turns out I have a good bit to write about. I really should get myself to post more often.

The earthquake last week didn't do much here. I didn't even realize it was an earthquake until about half a minute in. At first I thought that the people in the apartment above us might've been doing something weird, and after a little while, I thought perhaps there was some construction going outside or something, which in retrospect doesn't make too much sense.

TehSkeen is hosting a Wii coding competition, which sounds interesting. Perhaps I should try it. I'll most likely make a game, if anything; I just need to think of a good idea for one. I already have some experience coding for the Wii with the MegaZeux port.

Speaking of which, I'm planning to do a little work on modifying the Wii port of MegaZeux to run on the GameCube as well. Pretty much the only stuff I have to take care of is some Wii-specific input code and build scripts. The libogg/libvorbis libraries are pretty much platform agnostic and libfat has GameCube and Wii versions included already. I don't have a GameCube though, so the only way to test it is to make sure it compiles for the GameCube and that it runs on the Wii when compiled for it.

The results are out for the Summer 2008 DualStream Day of Zeux, and our team got 4th place! Granted, the turnout this DoZ wasn't very good, but still! It's the highest-scoring entry I/we've made so far:
  • Summer 2005 - 17th Place (296/1600) - Entry 6170 - A Space Exploration Game of Some Sort
  • Summer 2007 - 9th Place (623/1600) - Entry 81621 - Incomplete! :(
  • Summer 2008 - 4th Place (810/1600) - Entry 36825 - DoZing Off
If I wasn't busy with the DoZCast, we probably would've done better since we actually came up with the idea pretty early on and had a basic plot outline thought out more or less (or Manani did, anyway.) It didn't really get in because I figured work on the game itself was more important, especially with the specific topic scoresheet.

Space BunnyQuasar also judged the games as backup judge, though his scores ended up being unused. The "purple octopus" is actually Space Bunny, who made its first appearance in A Space Exploration Game of Some Sort as a sort of easter egg (in the ship selection screen, go to the rocket/missile thing and press up.) Also, I'm kinda surprised I managed to trick at least 3 people (Malwyn, Quasar, and Insidious?) on the "Don't Touch!" microgame with the "Save The World" button.

I'll be going back to class August 25th, and I'll end up going to class at 7:30 AM, since the ONLY Computer Science 2 class being taught this semester starts at that time. I'll also be taking English 1A and Psychology 5; we'll see how that goes.

For the radio club, I'm going to be working on getting an Internet radio system set up, with automatic dead-air detection and stuff like that. Hopefully I'll get that done by the beginning of the semester.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

First post! :D Dead batteries! D:

Well, it's about time that I started posting in my blog. Hopefully posting will become a habit and the writing practice will help me with English class and such, which I never really did well in.

My sister, Dad, and I went grocery shopping today, and since Mom was in the Philippines at the time, her car hadn't been used for a while. We decided to take her car to the store so the periodic use would keep the car in good condition/keep the oil from draining off the engine or whatever. It turned out not to be such a good idea.

After we were done shopping, the car wouldn't start; the starter wouldn't even try to run. We then walked for an hour and a half in the California summer sun to get home, and it certainly didn't help that the plastic bags kept breaking. Near the end we kept constantly shuffling the groceries between us trying to get somewhat comfortable.

Once we made it home sweaty and sore, we immediately got back out in Dad's van to get some jumper cables and jump-start the car. Then Dad drove his van back home, while I followed in the car. The problem with the battery seemed to be affecting the engine, as whenever I stopped, the engine speeds would get dangerously low. I still managed to drive it home without it dying on me. However, when Dad brought it to the car battery repair station thingymabob, the engine decided to die right there. Once the battery was replaced though, everything worked fine.

After we finally went home to eat a four-hour-late lunch, a discussion with Mom on the phone revealed that we had a AAA membership that Dad had forgotten about, since Mom was the one who got it, and Dad never really bothers with that kind of stuff. So it turned out that the whole mess we went through was completely unneccessary! I also forgot that I had the number for a taxi service on my cell phone, so walking home was doubly unneccessary!

At least we got some exercise.