The Right Strategy

My brothers and I just spent the evening playing Star Fox: Assault. I was rather nightmarish as three of us played; but when a fourth person joined in, I began having much more trouble. It drove me nuts, but not nearly as much as the discussion S.Cobb and I had.

I tried to explain why I didn't enjoy the four-player match, and it culminated in an argument over how four players is experientially different than three. Setting aside such issues as whether I am a sore loser or just don't like getting blown up (and how points versus lives matters or how to get the kills you need -- please leave them at rest, SC!), my problem was that there was more to contend with in 4-player, and I had a hard time with it.

I put forth that there are more people to dodge, more people to shoot, more people to keep track of in stats: overall the mayhem increases. Cobb argued that while there are more people for you to deal with, there are more of them to keep each other busy, so what you face individually is no more dense.

He pointed out that he would get shot up just as much in battles with fewer people, and by personal experience there isn't a great difference in strategy as long as you are getting shot and have to shoot others. So how come I had a harder time when he didn't? "You must have been doing something wrong."

Annoying as this explanation is, I realized a certain quality about it. Most simply, I can turn it back on him. He must have been doing something wrong if he didn't have an easier time in 3-player. Or else I was doing something right, that I was better. Of course, I know he'll say he had to deal with me in greater frequency, and I'm the admitted best at the game.

But back to the point: what is the "right" way to do things? Most will agree that there is no single one; you do what works for you. Evidently we have two different approaches, both valid equations, but with disproportionate results depending on the variables. For me there is a need for significant adjustment in how I handle fighting more or less opponents. That is always how it is for any game, in some degree.

I conclude that my problem was lack of experience. It had been a very long time since we'd played the game, and the immediate experience I had was in 3-player. As I can no longer go into a 4-player match as the expected winner, I'll just have to re-formulate how I play those.

Of course, I'm the guy whose gaming skill has the trade-off of extreme accustomization, like being so connected to the controls that I have difficulty adjusting to which fires missiles instead of jumping in another game. So as long as I'm not too lazy to try, my siblings will have a while to enjoy winning. = )

"Gigalypuff" Brawl Glitch

I learned of this glitch rather recently, thanks to seeing it used in various snapshots on brawlsnapshots.com, and I just got home from a party where I had the privilege of showing it off; so while it's on my mind I'll go ahead and post it, lest it join the league of neglected blogging topics.

If you are inside of the section of the Bridge of Eldin when it gets restored, your character gets bumped to the top. Let this happen to Jigglypuff when she's in the middle of her final smash, and it stops the FS process, leaving her enlarged.

Yoshi eating her in this state results in size multiplication.

This method can be used with other characters to achieve different results -- R.O.B. attaining an eternal FS is the only other one I currently know of. Try it out, it's crazy!

P.S. The above snapshots site is a neat and creative place, albeit subject to community vulgarity, both in pics and language. If you just go to the site and stay in the list of "featured shots," you should be safe from most stuff, as these are moderated. I suggest not reading the tags or the comments, just the title and description(/joke/explanation) for each shot.

Mario Kart Love Song

Well, with over four million views, I'm considerably late; but I finally got around to watching this video of an original song about love and Mario Kart. I don't remember why I didn't watch it when I first found it, but anyway, it's pretty good. Seriously.

Mega Man 10

It's official (again): Mega Man X does NOT mean 10.

MM10 is already coming, complete with NES style, intentionally bad promo art, and a robot master that makes me "facepalm."

By the way, there is no way this robot virus can be the Sigma Virus, people! Don't even THINK about it! And I kind of hope the third playable character is Bass or Duo; I don't trust Capcom to invent a new one, and an MMX character would be the end of the world.

Nerd + Too Much Time = ...

This was part of a comment on a site that I will probably blog about sometime. While I have a good amount of other stuff to organize and post when I have the time, I just had to share this now.


"I did a little math today and it would seem that the average adult male eats roughly the equivalent of a tenth of a gallon of gasoline every day. According to a quick Google and a little more math, the average cookie is worth something like 0.0027 gallons.

We burn energy at a rate of 100-200 Watts. Which as it turns out is roughly equivalent to the power used by my computer.

Therefore I conclude that my computer is a person too, which is why I leave its cookies enabled."

I don't need coffee. I need an elixir.

Most people can jump-start their day with a hot cup of bad-tasting caffeine. If drowsiness were my only problem, I might too.

I only got half a night's sleep in all because of my diabetes. First, my blood sugar was low, then it shot high for no reason, and then it was a bit low and wouldn't come up. On top of that, my continuous glucose monitor started acting up, waking me up every hour for, if not my low sugar, a sensor error.

This morning I got up (late) and was 72. I had some carbs and took a shower. When I got out, I was 201.

So here I am, with a big day of homework ahead of me, tired and with high blood sugar. The most annoying thing right now is that I'm hungry. With high sugar, there is little I can eat without making it worse; I really have to wait for it to come down first.

Coffee? Heck, if being alert would solve everything else, I'd go for it. I don't know how many carbs coffee has, but I doubt it would help my 201. This kind of situation reveals how overrated that black stuff is. I'll drink coffee regularly when someone invents a panacea creamer.

Life Update

I really don't know how to go about this, so I'll just list two major points:

• School
• Main computer is busted

That pretty much sums up why I haven't been able to do a lot lately, which is a leading factor in my lack of blogging. No e-mail, no ROM hacking, no access to my idea files, etc. I'll try to suppress the idealist in me and just start posting as if I didn't have some dozens of things I would like to remember and organize first.

So without further ado....

Zelda, Halo Style

I came upon this video a couple of years ago and had forgotten about it until a friend, whom I had shown it to, mentioned it yesterday. Halo Custom Edition, a PC expansion for the first Halo game, allowed fans to design their own maps, character skins, etc., and I like this even more than the Mines of Moria stage somebody created for the Jedi Knight games.

A Typical Kroger Trip

I went to Kroger with my mom the other day. As usual, I did only two things: walk and make picky comments about the products.

"'Baby Peeled Carrots'? It should be 'Peeled Baby Carrots.' They don't grow peeled; these aren't peeled carrots that are still tiny, they're tiny carrots that are peeled."

"Oh, look, next to 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!' they have Yoda's version, 'Butter It's Not.' Except Yoda is actually admitting it's a substitute."

On top of that, while my mom knows the different brands, the price variations for the other quantities of the product, and all the which-one's-cheaper-at-which-store-in-what-size-of-this-brand-with-that-whatever, I turn down the aisle and go, "Hey, we need that! *grab*"

SMB1 By Webcam

This is one of those things I've been meaning to post since ... before I started my blog, sort of. Anyway, this is clever if it's fake and awesome if it's real; such a thing is certainly possible. Judging from the physics of Mario and the behavior of the objects (blocks, in particular), I suppose he coded this mostly from scratch, which is quite impressive.

PS - The related video of level 1-1 in Line Rider is nicely done, too.

Paying Attention? Just Checking.

Two minutes ago I was having a conversation with my younger brother, which ended as follows.

Me: "The meaning of 'geek' has changed a bit since we have the word 'nerd.' Right, dad?"
My dad (on blackberry): "Mm-hmm."
Me: "And if you spill milk, mold grows on the floor, right, dad?"
My dad: "... What??"
Me (laughing with my brother): "I was just seeing if you were paying attention."

Japanese Jump

This is how I jumped into the swimming pool the other day.

What did that say?

Every now and then I see something I would like to take a picture of, but I don't have a camera to do so. Fortunately, all such things that I've seen today are in words, so I can easily share the heightening ridiculousness of them.

First, a sign at a McDonald's building read: "Handicapped Ramp." My reaction: "The ramp is handicapped? It's not in a wheelchair; what's its problem?"

Similarly, I was looking for weed killer in our garage and instead found a windshield washing fluid, which claimed to be a "bug cleaner." My reaction: "No, it's a windshield washer. I don't want to clean the bugs, I want to clean the windshield of them."

And now, the one that absolutely drove me nuts: a LEGO magazine ad for a Bob the Builder show with 3D glasses described it as "4D." My highly predictable reaction: ... never mind, it's highly predictable. I don't need to go on about TV and the dimensions for the second time in a year (the first being about the Super Bowl commercial for a show going 3D in which the guy hits the wrong button and they turn flat, and he says, "Oops. That's 1D." Oh, hey, I should have posted that back then ...).

In case of fire ...

I recently had an appointment down at the hospital, and I noticed that the sign by the parking garage elevator had been subjected to this funny, and possibly ironic, doodle.Side note to you gamers: the flame on the right (which the camera phone couldn't get with the rest comprehensible) appears to have been made into a flower. Is the man with the cigarette responsible for the blaze, or can it be traced back to a certain Italian plumber?

It was a bright and stormy night ...

Man, that was quite the thunderstorm last night! For at least three hours, there was bright lightning flashing constantly, at times accompanied by really loud thunder. The lightning just wouldn't quit; there were rarely any bolts to see, but the whole outdoors lit up in rapid, succesive bursts every two seconds or less.

I wanted to stick warning signs on the windows like you see when you turn on a video game: "If you suffer from epilepsy or have experienced seizures from repeated flashes...."

The quick brown fox?

Remember the pangram, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"? I was just checking out what's new at a certain ROM hacking site, and there was a new section for font files to insert into games. I clicked on one to see what exactly they were, and it happened to use a hilarious example screenshot of the font in Final Fantasy 6. Too bad it doesn't use every letter of the alphabet.

Reality Isn't Virtual Enough

Well, now that I have time to blog that coincides with the internet connection working and my brother not using the computer, I've got something interesting to post.



It seems Microsoft decided to top the Wii as far as interactivity. Other videos show different features and ways they are put to use, but I have a comment about what is shown in this particular one. I think it points to a problem with our society.

The designer in the video stressed two things: the ability to hold a relationship with this virtual person, and how lifelike the system is. My first thought (or perhaps second, after "wow") was: "Why not meet someone in real life?" We (as a culture) don't interact with our fellow man enough, and when we do it is far too often through some online organization. It's rather ironic that the activities with Milo are, or at least can be, so organic. And if one can recognize the value of such experiences, they ought to put the stress on reality, this incredible, nonfictional world in which we live. It reminds me of parts of the movie Wall-E ; such as the moment when two of the computer-rules-their-lives people realize there's an amazing life to take part in, if they simply turned off their screens and looked around; or the captain's utter fascination with farming, dancing, and other activities familiar to the human race back on Earth long ago.

Of course, a common opinion is likely to be that Milo "cares about you, no matter what" and is "a friend without problems." The appeal of this idea is dangerous, to be frank. It is not wise to attach yourself to someone who, artificial intelligence notwithstanding, is not real. As God made us a social people, we are here to walk together.

I'm not saying the technology is bad. Indeed, it is my hope that it will serve as an awakening, a reminder of the importance of these things. As for Milo himself, you can have as much fun with him as you like; just never forget that his existence is a fantasy.

Clean What Won't Be Seen

My second-eldest brother is having a friend from out-of-state over, and my chore this week happens to be trash+bathroom. So I just finished cleaning the bathroom, as per my mother's wishes. I must admit, the sink and mirror look much nicer; but as I was wiping the floor down and did around the back of the toilet, I questioned the necessity. One would have to purposely look for filth back there to notice any. This reminded me, as many happenings do, of a piece from a book I've read. This one is "The Good Bad Boy," an enjoyable little read that is supposed to be the diary of a boy in the eighth grade. The passage I thought of goes:

"Why do people have to clean the whole house when they expect company? Father Foley will only see the dining room and parlor. Besides, Father Foley is coming to eat, not to look for dirt."

If C3PO Talked Like Dr. Suess...

"I would not be flown here or there, I would not be flown anywhere! I do not like to fly, oh no, I do not like to, Han Solo!"

"Wockets? In our pockets? We're in danger! I must tell the others -- OH NO! I'M IN SOCKS!!"

"They're heading in this direction. What are we going to do? We'll be sent to the waiting place and wait for who knows what!"

"We'll have no more of this 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' gibberish! And don't talk to me of your hunch either!"

Squiggly, Green Underlines: I'm not sure what you wrote is what I think you wanted me to read.

Yep, sometimes I just can't ignore MS Word's grammar check. These occurred when I was typing my chemistry term paper some time ago.

"The Real Me"

I recently observed an IM conversation my elder brother was having with one of his friends. They were discussing temperaments and which they were. I had never really taken much interest before then in what temperament I was, and I began to get curious. However, my road has since been becoming rather bumpy, and I've had the tendency to get pretty down about life. I realized that it would be unwise to bother looking into my personality and give it a tag, as I'd likely come out with an incorrect, not to mention undesirable, conclusion. That reminded me of what my brother's friend wrote: her secondary temperament was one thing, but she wished it was another. It only now strikes me that, outside of the temperamental study, I have been making the mistake of viewing myself in that manner: "I wish I was."

The bumps in my road have really been my own unwillingness to accept myself. I've always been a bit insecure about my reputation, but for the most part that was the post-relational doubts on behavior and how I came across. My parents have repeatedly assured me throughout life that my friends probably wonder the same things about themselves and not to worry about it. Then, over the past few months, I became aware of the fact that, in my eyes, I'd been letting my life play it's usual routines without bothering to think about a bigger picture and exercise control over where I wanted to go in the long run. From there I fell into a mess of anxiety and depression and began wishing things were different.

Mind you, nothing had really changed; I was just discontented with how things were, how they had become without my paying attention. My temperament, though I didn't think about it in such a specific way, was not ideal. I wanted to be a different person. Not that I disliked my good points, when I looked at them; but it seemed I'd let myself develop without some awareness or drive that I wanted. I think what triggered these pessimistic realizations was meeting someone who made me look at my future, the rest of my life as an adult, which I suddenly could see was approaching way too fast. I must admit, I'm scared of what the future holds, and I don't know where to go. All I know is I can't hide. And I've questioned my ability to go anywhere as who I am. My struggles and faults have hung in front of my face in a paralyzing fashion.

I think back to my philosophy teacher distinguishing between reputation and character: reputation is what people think of you, while character is who you are. And he commented that his reputation is likely much better than his character. I can hear him saying, "If people knew who I really am, they wouldn't stick around me." I'm sure he was referring, in all seriousness, to whatever private issues he has as a fallen human. But I let that thought go too far in relation to myself. Honestly, who would want to have anything to do with me? I doubt anyone who knows me thinks ill of me: I'm always complimented on my smarts and sense of humor; I have a definite gift for making people laugh. Even my recent hardships have not had much bearing on how I relate to other people. Yet my insecurity when I'm alone has increased. "If they only knew the real me..."

But is that actually a truthful assessment? A spy's secret activities are opposite to the appearance he upholds; one life is a complete fake, a cover-up for his true self. That's not how I am. The very fact that I am distressed is an indication that I know what's right and care about it being that way. To judge my private imperfections as my true character would be as foolish as to mistake a current downswing in my outlook on life for my true temperament. My friends probably know a great deal of the real me.

Unfortunately, I expect too much of myself, staking too much on the idea that I can change; then, when things don't improve, I get down on myself. My dad summed up this problem quite well one time when we were talking: he said, "You want to be a saint now." I do, and yet I haven't had enough faith in myself to get anywhere. The best relief I get tends to be not thinking about anything, escaping the world and myself by wasting the days playing video games, working on piano compositions when I know they're going nowhere, or else doing nothing at all. But life won't stay on hold for me like that. I'm growing up, even though I'd really like to do as Hobbes does when life seems too complicated: take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner.

I hope I haven't come off as stewing in self-pity or anything. I've needed to look at myself as I would if I were someone else. I have a rather compassionate and understanding attitude toward others, and provide encouragement where they'll accept it. For some reason, this doesn't hold true for myself, as I'm almost predisposed to blame myself and get depressed. In order to believe in the great possibilities the future holds, I have to run a logical analysis of my situation from an slightly third-person view. I believe things are getting better, but I need to remain optimistic and give my wholehearted trust to God that everything will work out. While it has bothered me that I've seemingly been short-sighted about life, I think it would be best for me right now to not try to look at a much bigger picture.

So I conclude these thoughts. I write them not for your sympathy, but in case you can get something out of them for your own sake in life. May your road's bumps be manageable with God's grace.

MS Word's Thesaurus Is Too Flexible.

Seriously, you know it's bad when you can't find a good synonym so you give the thing a word and wind up entertaining yourself seeing how off-track you can get from your original meaning. Here's tonight's example. It's not the best, but I find it amusing to see that I accidentally almost came full-circle with this one:

weather

erode

wear away

wear out

exhaust

drain

sap

liquid

fluid

solution

explanation

details

information

in turn

one by one

alone

unaided

independently

in competition

in contention

arguing

in conflict

fighting

war

combat

contest

race

event

affair

issue

problem

crisis

disaster

blow

gust

squall

storm

Note: I've stumbled upon a better chain, which I'll post once it reaches an end. Technically, this one could have gone on, but I got tired of navigating the different storms to find a way on. I've since looked at it and found that "gust" gives you a couple of options....

Why do I want to be a ROM hacker?

So I can do stuff like this! Can you believe these are the fruits of somebody's hackwork on Super Mario World?







And to think that I can hardly edit levels, let alone make all sorts of custom sprites and programming modifications! Why? Because the "community" is a DISorganization that cannot tell me what I actually need to know! Alas, it frustrates me to no end. I suppose they say much of the hobby is self-taught because it HAS to be for any newcomers to learn anything. *Sigh* My hope lives on, though. I've got too many great ideas to waste by giving up. And this guy is one of the biggest pros I've ever seen, so it would be foolhardy to become discouraged by comparison. If every artist did that, we'd only have a handful of paintings, music, etc. in the world because few would make use of whatever talent they had.

I have a feeling that's a lesson I'm going to be hit with again and again throughout life.

If I Made a Rubik's Cube ...

I've had a share of what I consider to be great product ideas, but this one almost leaves me shaking my own head. I half think this is brilliant and half think it's psychotic, so I'm curious to know what others' opinions on this are -- especially if you're a big Rubik's Cube nut. So here we go.

I don't have any first-hand experience but I imagine that as those Cubes get bigger and bigger they just pack on more layers of the same puzzle. Granted, this makes things more challenging, but I'm looking at a different approach. Rather than solving some 30x30x30 monstrosity, I want to make a toy that both challenges one's knowledge of what has to be done as well as their ability to look ahead and formulate a procedure ahead of time.

This Cube would be computerized, with colored lights instead of stickers, so it could jumble the whole thing up automatically and determine the number of moves required to solve it. This number would be set as a limit, and it would keep track of the turns made, counting down until the allotted number was reached. If you didn't solve it at that point, game over!

Here's the best part: the name, which I initially came up with as a joke and which gave root to the whole idea in the first place. I'd call it the "Rubikon Cube" -- once you've started turning it, there's no turning back!

I don't know about you, but I'm glad I won't be getting one of those in my basket this year. Happy Easter!

New DS Zelda ...

... with a steam locomotive?!? How industrial must Hyrule become? And can Link have to do absolutely everything on his own, like back in the pre-Navi days, please? And if Zelda is in this one, how does Ganondorf come into play? Is this a brand-new story, or did the water level drop since Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass? Does Link start out running a train-powered postal service? Is that what's with the one shot with Zelda in the teaser? Did the old postman bite the dust after his accident in Twilight Princess? Perhaps this is in between Twilight Princess and Wind Waker, and tells the story of how the world became a cartoon? Would that explain the big statue Link seems to be controlling in the teaser, which reminds me of those from Twilight Princess that you could move with the Dominion Rod? Does this finally link up Wind Waker with its predecessors by ending in a massive flood because Link melts the polar ice caps with all the carbons his cannon-sporting choo-choo produces? Did nobody ever tell him there's a reason the hero wears green? Oh boy, can we have a political satire of a Zelda game?? At the rate things are moving, the next generation of Zelda titles will have no swords, will they? Or will Nintendo pull the Final Fantasy stunt and throw anachronistic restraints to the wind? When will Link get a Buster Sword, huh?? He's got Power Bracelets, he could wield it, right? Won't Ganondorf eventually forget the Triforce of Power, then, and settle for H-bombs? And when things get that high-tech, will Link's sword be able to shoot beams again, for crying out loud?!? Will it have some built-in laser device? For that matter, at the stage of technology things are currently at, why hasn't Link bought a weed-wacker so he doesn't have to slice grass by hand? Aren't spherical bombs with rope wicks getting a little old-fashioned? How long will it be before magic doesn't exist any more, as there's been less and less of it in the past few games? Golly, is all this modernization the reason the difficulty level has dropped so low?? Does Link have his degrees to operate these things? Oh, but Hyrule doesn't have an education system, does it? That'll be next, right? And has any monarchy in history ever lasted this long? When's the revolution, man? How is the line of princesses continuing when there hasn't been a king since A Link to the Past and Minish Cap, and history tells of no queen whatsoever? Can I take a look at the genealogy of the Hylian royal family, please? Or would it just say, "Zelda, Zelda, Zelda, Zelda, Zelda, Zelda...."? Has this all been fake, and the princess is in another castle? When will the Triforce of Courage be renamed "the Triforce of Blind, Emotionless Adventure"? Does Link really have courage, or is he a retarded instruction-follower? Is that why a side character has to tell him everything nowadays? And why is anyone still trying to connect these games in a timeline? Isn't it obvious now that the goddesses are creating the world over and over again, inducing small differences and bringing about variations of the same events in a quest to get their story just right? Isn't there a Hylian legend that says, "The goddesses saw that what they had made was cool but not good enough, so they said 'Be interesting and multiply ... You shall have dominion over whatever monsters you can overpower ... We shall watch and most likely forsake you, going off to build a new existence when you get boring.'"? When will Nintendo turn the series over to me so I can do things right?

Falcon Punch: Kirby Remix!

During an period of brain-flushing the buried panic of school and the exhaustion of researching aluminum, I came across the following video.



Somebody sure put their time and editing skills to good use. This is meaningless, yet it had me laughing so hard!

Voice-acting, my foot.

See, this is what happens when you give a character gibberish voice-acting that's any more sophisticated than in Star Fox.

Random Update Time!

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Absolutely spectacular.

I just went out driving in our subdivision with my dad, and MAN is our car's gas pedal better than my instructor's car's!

I am still annoyed with the ROM hacking so-called "community" because they only explain pieces of things.

I found this translation hack of Zelda II. Oh, the nostalgia, trying to decipher the Latin with the aid of memories of the original English.

The Powder Game has added a second player ability.

It is the fourth anniversary of my diagnosis with diabetes.

Calvin Cupcake!

As per our family tradition, on "Fat Tuesday" we made and decorated cupcakes. It has always been a good time for family as well as a fun, tasty activity sporting everyone's artistic talents. The creativity seems to escalate, and this year I brought it to a new level of delicate precision.I'm glad we had enough yellow gel! I had to use a toothpick more than once to draw it into the frizzy style Calvin wears because it would spread out gradually. The head, eyes, and mouth are chocolate frosting carefully laid with toothpicks, the eyes swirled into the vanilla background. The tongue and nose are sprinkles. It took some time, but I think I nailed it pretty well (although there's some chocolate sticking up from the border on the bottom-right -- I seriously don't remember that problem outside of the picture. Maybe my dad took it at an angle just different enough from the perspective at which I worked....).

Driving Vs. Calvin and Hobbes

With the exception of crashing (for I have not crashed), the fast pace and amount of things to pay attention to when driving seem to me much like the mayhem our favorite little genius goes through on his engineless vehicles, both loved and hated.

Happy Valentine's Day!

New Powder Game Material

A quick check on the "powder game" reveals the addition of "acid" as of the end of January. Another of the more mobile substances, acid is what it should be: a corrosive that eats through just about everything. It differs from virus in that it doesn't spread cancerously, doesn't phase material identities, and gradually gets used up in the process. It doesn't even trigger explosions, which could be pretty handy (although I feel like researching acids and their effects on explosives in real life...).

"Advent: One-Winged Angel" Lyrics

I finally stumbled upon the lyrics, in Latin and with English translation, to Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children's remix of "One-Winged Angel." So if you're a nerd (like me) who noticed the lyrics sound different but never tracked them down to find out if they're new or just sound new because they're in Japanese (again, like me) ... here you go. Right here in the Final Fantasy Wiki. (Sounds a bit silly to not have looked someplace like this a long time ago.)

By the way, if you happen to find out why there is an "official translation" separate from a "literal translation," let me know.

And while you're there, look up "Sephiroth" and check out the "naming" section. Sephiroth (and his various boss forms) has an interesting share of biblical derivations.

Driver's Ed is Psychologically Unhealthy

I'm finally taking a driving course, but so far there have been more horror stories than educational material. I know things really have to be pounded through the skulls of most careless teens, but I'm coming to class to learn how to drive. I've got the proper mindset and logical thinking pattern, so I want to get straight to the instruction part. The teacher, a former fireman, has already given us a number of life-saving tips for various scenarios, many of which aren't taught in the books; he really cares about his students and has repeatedly mentioned that other schools don't really make sure you learn anything. But the advice given thus far has been through recountings of the accidents he dealt with in his previous career. The gruesome consequences of mistakes on the road, the sad reality of everyday crime, etc. It's not like I'm hypersensitive, but I care, and I really don't think it's good for the other facets of my life. I haven't been scared, but sleep comes with difficulty. My schoolwork has repeatedly escaped my concentration. And I've just not felt particularly happy most of the time. Call me a sissy if you want, but I'm more mature than the average teen, and such an overall interference is not how I want to prepare for getting my licence.

OverClocked Remixes

Here I am, sitting at the computer, trying to write a lab report that's due for chemistry class on Tuesday, watching my blood sugar go back up to the high numbers that make it hard to concentrate on anything, lamenting being sick for the past two-thirds of the week, and praying that the stoichiometry stuff I still need to do will be quick and easy since I have driving class for over four hours tomorrow. It's one of those weekends that would be making me panic if it all weren't so dreary and depressing.

To provide a muffler for the noises and distractions all around me, I am listening to a bunch of fan-made remixes of video game music. And when I say "remix" I'm not talking about just rock'n'roll, techno type stuff. I'm referring to amazing arrangements of one or many VG tunes using a variety of instruments and covering a multitude of styles. Piano, trumpets, strings, some spunky stuff... Adventure, peace, fun, sadness... All made by people who do it because they can. The site (and community) that hosts them is OCRemix.org and they are called OC Remixes (big surprise). Many are synthesized; after all, how many people have a real orchestra at their command? The big deal is the quality, so unless you live by yourself and have a very good microphone, you might as well synthesize your piano pieces as well. That way all you require is the good equipment; no need to worry about keeping your breath out of the recording or anything.

So anyway, on top of everything else, I'm again experiencing the desire to make some of my own. Actually, those that I mentioned four posts ago are some. The problem is, I've needed a good program or mixer to produce them. Well, my dad found a certain Magix Music Studio at Half-Price Books for about $25, less than half of the retail $80. It looks like it could do what I need it to, but it doesn't run smoothly on our computers. Wanting to get a laptop anyway, I figured maybe the way to go would be to get a Macbook and run Windows XP on it. Time to get a job, right? But whenever that looked like a good idea, I had too much else I wanted to do.

On the other hand, since I'm making so little progress as a ROM hacker (that SMW site tells hackers all there is to know about SMW, not how to be a SMW hacker), I'm revisiting the possibility. The sooner I start, the sooner I can work my way towards something. I've realized that, while I spend so much time on various interests, there is often a lack of actual productivity in them. The way I see it, if I want to really get into these things, I need to do it with determination, with a passion. As long as I'm only exploring in such areas, I should make sure something else gets some real attention and effort.


By the way, for a good taste of the variety OCRemix has to offer, try searching for "Predetermination," "The Place We Knew," "Flight of Destiny," "Timeless," "Odyssey Beyond the Falls," "Jamming Loneliness," "Darkworld Jazz," and "A Day in the Life of a Gambler." .....Just to name a few ; ) --though if you're into rock/metal stuff, just click on anything and sooner or later you'll find what you want.

SMW Hacking

I've had plenty of time on the computer lately, so how come I haven't been blogging more? Because I found a website dedicated to Super Mario World ROM hacking. And it's a Mario World unto itself.

One problem with wanting to be a ROMhacker has been the lack of organized information. Having no computer programming experience to begin with, the wealth of terms and workings involved are not so much overwhelming as inadequately explained. Tutorials never seem to say enough; they often assume you already know all about something they refer to, or are inapplicable to half of the existing tools for the area.

I have hope with this place because it hosts as much as is currently known on a single game. There are tools for graphics editing, changing game mechanics, and even inserting music via a text file. They have a ~41% (and counting) complete list of all the ROM addresses, with their byte sizes and game effects. And it's a place to share creations, ideas, findings, and questions.

Or so you'd think. The forums give me the impression that they absolutely hate questions from bewildered "noobs" with the "inability to read a readme." Fine, you bunch of stuck-ups. I'm rather averse to message boards anyway. They demand too much time to partake in, and outsiders will have a hard time finding what they need. That's why, when I require an explanation, I use Google[TM-thing!] and search for specific keywords in a single website; this can usually locate a particular post relevant to my problem.

Anyway, I figured if I really want to learn this stuff, I should start where there is plenty to learn. There will be many differences in hacking other games, but this way I'll gain the background knowledge necessary to see where I'm going. It's like feeling your way through a dark, familiar room as opposed to a dark, unfamiliar room.

All I need is the time-and-determination side of nerdage, which I know won't come for me automatically.

New Chemistry Class

(Hey, a life-relevant post!)

Yesterday I joined a different chemistry class, which meets every Tuesday. I like the teacher, Dr. C, whom one of my brothers learned from back in highschool as well. Due to differences in the textbooks' depths, this class is farther into the subject, but hasn't been covering some parts in quite as much detail. I'm currently a bit rusty in areas that I had down cold in physical science last year, though that should change without a problem.

The main factor in switching classes was our schedule. My brother started going to a community college, and that conflicted with the Wednesday chemistry course. My mom and I actually had to choose between the two classes at the start of the school year, and while I didn't want to miss out on the one my brother so loved, Dr. F (who is a neat teacher, don't get me wrong) provided a more convenient program at the time.

I guess this way I'll have gotten a bit of each!

"Castlevania" music like you've never heard before

I could write a very long analysis of the parameters of video game music, but I'll save that for another time. Right now I'd like to share something truly awesome to hear: a beautiful piano rendition of the outdoor theme from Castlevania II. Never take a melody only one way you hear it. A great thing about music is its versatility, the ranges and styles that can be achieved with a single tune.

I like to work on video game piano arrangements myself. I've currently turned out a short elaboration of the title screen of Shadowgate; a rather moving piece from Solar Jetman accented with another bit from Shadowgate; and a remix that takes from Super Mario Bros., Chrono Trigger, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which will probably become more than piano once I can properly synthesize anything.

Science, Philosophy, and Common Knowledge

Philosophy classes resumed this morning, and we started in on the appetites. The Christmas break reading on the subject got the addition of a newspaper article about a week ago, which discussed shopping and what goes on psychologically throughout. Neuroscientists used MRI scans and found a "war in the brain" between the pleasure over a desired item and the pain of spending money for it.

Through my philosophic eyes: "Yes, that makes perfect sense. The concupiscible appetite's attractions and aversions are blah blah blah...."

Through my everyday eyes: "They needed MRIs to show that? Give me a break."

"Climate change" on the radio this morning ...

As near as I can remember:

"What we're dealing with is climate change..."
"Change?"
"That's right."
"So as soon as it stopped warming, it became 'change'?"
"Look, what I'm trying to say is the climate's changing..."
"Of course it is."
"The temperature is..."
"If the climate never changed, it wouldn't be climate."
"When..."
"If the temperature was always the same, we'd have no concept of temperature!"
"Okay, but when the planet's conditions are altered..."
"Uh-huh..."
"...and the temperature is gradually rising over..."
"It's cold out."
"Mike..."
"More people die from the cold than from the heat!"
"And even more die from tsunamis."
"Tsunamis have nothing to do with this!"
"Listen..."
"Tsunamis are caused by a shift in the Earth's crust..."
"...the plates change, exactly..."
"They don't change because of the temperature..."
"Right, it's because of earthquakes."
"Yeah."
"What I'm getting at is..."
"Earthquakes don't happen because the earth heats up!"
"No, I'm just saying that the world changes..."
"Yeah, but..."
"...and we..."
"Listen, Nick... It's getting colder! So shut up!"

A "3-D CD"

ZMaro, SCobbler, and I were chatting about video games at my late birthday party yesterday, and at some point ZM mentioned that the Playstation was supposed to be a "3-D system," yet there seemed to be as many 2-D games on it as there were 3-D games. "Well, those disks are pretty flat," I joked. "A true 3-D system would have some triangular prism that floats in mid-air and is read by lasers from multiple directions."

As many of our conversations go, this simple, witty comment shot us off on a whole different tangent as we began discussing how a three-dimensional "CD" would function.

SC, being a bit over-practical for the amount of sugar we were running off, pointed out that a pyramid would be almost impossible to spin like a CD and be read; a sphere would work much better. Before I could say more than "A sphere is dull," he added that a cone would be best, because you wouldn't have to deal with the inconsistent proximity of the sphere's surface to the reading laser. I wasn't sure what he was talking about at the time, although now I think he might have been referring to a single laser moving in a perpendicular direction to the sphere's spinning, like a CD player's laser moving from the inside to the outside. If this is the case, a cone would help, as the angle would never change. However, a cone would truly remedy the problem if it was spun on a tilted axis such that the side facing the laser was vertically straight, but if you went in that direction you might as well settle on a cylinder.

I, on the other hand, wasn't thinking of having the object spin whilst the laser(s) moved. I was picturing an object held in the center of a zero-G container rotating (though not necessarily spinning quickly) in any direction so that fixed lasers could read every area. However, I still didn't manage to communicate this because ZMaro took us completely off-guard by saying that the lasers would spin around the sphere. My dad kind of stabbed the idea and left it for dead by exposing the inefficiency of doing that. Then SCobbler practically discarded the whole anti-gravity part by suggesting "rollers" that would turn the sphere (of course, I suppose using a cone might negate the antigrav as well).

I eventually just verbalized the fact that a pyramid would be the coolest, but SC wouldn't go down without a fight. Thanks to him we began rationalizing the dilemma of where information is located. He said that a sphere or pyramid would cause issues with where to start reading and it would be impractical to have "directions" all over the thing to point to what to read next. "Hey," I said, "by the time this is done in the first place, data storage will be so advanced that it shouldn't pose a problem." I think we ended on that note, but it may only have been because ZM had to leave.

So we went from yakking about games to theorizing 3-D optical storage, and all the while our parents stood by watching and waiting for us to finish. As ZM said last night, "Sometimes I forget just how nerdy we sound."

Returning pics lost (from blog transfer?)

I just spent the last hour and a half digging through my files for all of the pictures that go in my posts from September 2008, then placing them in the posts all over again. When I transferred my blog, everything was fine -- until I removed the other user, I guess. I looked at the posts to make sure their pictures were still in place, and they were. As a matter of fact, I think they were there after I deleted my other account. So, what happened? I just found that all of my previous posts had pics that wouldn't display, so now I have to go reinsert them. September took long enough; I don't feel like doing any more tonight (of course, after September and October, I had a considerable slump in posting frequency).

I have a question: do pictures get lost like this at the turn of the year? They really shouldn't, but I suppose that's a possibility. If that's the case, well... I don't know, that's just dumb. It would surprise me if they don't tick off a whole lot of users every time.

The Powder Game

My younger brother's friend showed him this awesome web game just last month. Called the "powder" or "dust" game, it is a simple Java thing with infinite fun and creative possibilities.

The main function consists of playing around with many "powdery" pixels of diverse natures, each having different simulated physical and chemical properties. Some fall faster than others, a few are "solid" and hang in mid-air, etc. A good number of them are flammable, so all you high-school chemistry students who just want to see things blow up should get hooked on this game pretty easily. = ) Almost every substance has a special quality when thrown together with another: for example, water solidifies magma; thunder electrifies metal; torch burns what hits it but is dissolved by water; and the infamous virus eats through and overruns all others, eventually turning back into the first material it came in contact with. Searching for all the unique reactions is part of the entertainment.

In addition to the dusts, you can conjure up boxes, spinning wheels, and edit the indestructible terrain, including the border. The sides of the screen can be set to loop, so that whatever goes off one side comes in on the other. Various visual effects can be selected, such as leaving blurs or showing the direction and pressure of the air. Ah, the air. You can blow stuff around and set up "fans" wherever you want. Combustion can really blast things around, as well.

With all of these features to toy with, you can go anywhere from blowing things up to making interactive works of art (like this soda machine). If that's not enough, there's also a little controllable stick-man who can walk, jump, and acquire abilities from the various dusts (okay, so the laser doesn't behave like a dust), so playable challenges become an option. Pit your friends against a puzzle, or against any number of crazy, kicking, not-too-bright enemy stick-men.

Only registered members can upload their work, but it's possible to save your levels offline. There is a text window above the main game screen that says "Save game" and has two buttons to the right. Click "Get" to have the window display the code for the game's current situation. Copy this and you can stick it back in and click "Set" to get that arrangement whenever you want.

The website itself seems to be a Japanese Java game site that has been mostly translated into English (I find it amusing that the sign-up terms and agreements are still in Japanese characters). The only other games I've tried are "Stick Ranger," a work-in-progress stick-figure RPG, and an orbital gravity simulator, which brings back memories of something we had on our old Mac 2CX (I remember throwing the moon off on a bad trajectory and watching it crash into Earth with a shattering noise...). It looks like everything, including the Powder Game, is always being improved, so I'm going to keep my eye on the place.

SMB2 Hack: Mario's Gaming Dream

Our internet protection service wasn't working yesterday, so I couldn't access the internet to blog. Instead, I returned to my ROM hacking and dusted off the resulting project of my first venture in the hobby:

I wrote this plot (pretty much an excuse to change whatever I want) shortly after learning to text hack, but the work began over a year ago when I first laid a finger on ROM hacking tools. I had read a tutorial on NES graphics hacking that demonstrated the program with Final Fantasy's characters, then tried it myself. Grabbing the knight's various frames straight out of Final Fantasy, I stuck them where Mario's sprites went in Super Mario Bros. 2. The result excited me so much I decided to draw my own sprites for climbing ladders, ducking, and throwing, the only moves that ripped FF sprites didn't cover. I must have played that ROM for an hour, I was having so much fun.
Then the fighter (who grows up to be the knight) took small Mario's place, making things even more complete. Except for one problem: the knight and the fighter both take up the same amount of space in FF, so they didn't work for being big and small in SMB2. In fact, the knight was half a tile short to take big Mario's place, which was really bad for where the top of the character belonged.



Though it took a lot of work, I found the solution. I noticed how the small characters' heads are oversized for the rest of them in SMB2, so I took the head of the fighter and gave it a homemade, tiny body. I was amazed at my own work; I never expected I could do it so well, being such a lousy artist (I still don't think the knight's climbing sprite looks right...). The time I put into it certainly paid off. As for the knight, I just made his legs longer. = )



The verdict at that junction was to overhaul everything and make an SMB2-style Final Fantasy game, but that never saw the light of day because the other FF characters have too many colors. They get away with having one more color than can fit in SMB2 because the battle background in FF is black, allowing transparency to be used for what has to be black in SMB2. That said, the hack "collected dust" while an alternative goal was sought.

I hit upon the idea to use anything that would work some time ago, and later hacked the storyline to be something like what is shown above. Finally, the idea hit me yesterday to use Simon Belmont, from the Castlevania series, in place of Luigi. I'm nowhere near done with this change (he still has Luigi's colors...), but its completion will be a great feat, as Simon is rather sophisticated for an 8-bit figure. Hopefully people won't find it too weird how Simon flutters his legs in mid-air. Luigi did that, so what can I do? Changing such qualities falls under ASM (assembly) hacking, which is a rather advanced branch of the science (hobby? art? science?). Well, I'm using Simon's sprites (with some refinement) from Castlevania II, in which he actually fell rather slowly, so it works out in my opinion.

Unintended Birthday Gift

My birthday was two days ago, and it wasn't a big event. I turned old enough to do nonexistent magic outside of the nonexistent wizarding school, and I got an electric razor. Not much to write about. But then there was something that just happened to arrive that day, making it a sort of birthday treat: the continuous blood glucose monitoring system that we've been trying to get for such a long time!

It occurs to me now that I've never brought up my diabetic condition before. So, to provide the necessary information: I was diagnosed with "type 1" diabetes (otherwise known as "juvenile" diabetes, although adults can develop it as well) in 2005, and have since been checking my blood's sugar levels by stabbing my fingers at least six times a day.

The continuous monitor, the Navigator, has a sensor that remains in my flesh and constantly keeps track of my sugar levels, forming line graphs, showing change rates, and alarming when there's too much or too little sugar. This will be great for analyzing trends and making insulin ratio adjustments, as it fills in all of the gaps left when just testing as the need arises. For now, though, I'm happy to be free of so many finger sticks, especially at night when my parents check on me.

Being such new technology, getting insurance to approve of it took a long time, and we lucked out that they consented before the new year. It also seems like a special blessing that this device came on my birthday, and I'm very grateful for it.

A new year's notice--

Well, now that I'm finally back on my blog, I have a lot to say, most of which I've forgotten, unfortunately. But I do have some good and important news: I finally managed to transfer this blog to the e-mail address I desire. It was a very weird process; nothing happened the way it should have. Since the author invitation approach didn't work, I exported the blog and imported it on my other account, and found that both accounts were listed as authors, despite the fact that it was registered as a different blog. In fact, the account I'd been using suddenly was the author of two blogs. Anyway, despite all of the anxiety and precautions throughout the ordeal, it proved to be a simple and harmless task to delete the first account and blog entirely, leaving these in their places. No posts were lost in the process, and all of the settings were carried over. The only items that had to be reconstructed were the Tome of Randomness, the poll, and the pictures, which I hopefully restored to their original states (except for the poll, which I threw out since it had no voting history). Oh, and my profile has only 8 views...

Now, the greatest importance of this:

This blog's address is now ahspensieve.blogspot.com -- The old address could not be reused.

So, Happy New Year, and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate). I'm off to bed.