journal for 2003-04-28
work
Today was Day One of “My Boss in On Another Continent,” the work miniseries that will be running for two weeks. Total net result, so far: not much. I made a fair (though not excellent) amount of progress on MASH D3m1, and I keep finding things that the new structure breaks. It’s nice to get to remake them, but I wish projects were sometimes approved with plenty of time, rather than as emergencies.
int-fiction
Too many works in progress! Labor too divided! Not focusing! Too much exclamation!
I’m reading the Z-machine spec more intently, now, and I think I might be ready to have a second stab at hand-assembling a “Hello, World!” program. I’m also working on several little projects and one or two big ones. The most fun one, at the moment, is a mini-game for the mini-game minicomp. The challenge is to build games under 50K, and I’m doing well so far. This means, of course, no standard Inform library. I’m having fun. My two beta testers alternated between thinking it was neat and that it was annoying and insane. Hm.
oscon2003
I’ve been trying to settle on what I’ll attend at OSCON in July. I’ve got about half my convention time booked. The rest of it is made up of blocks that have more than one interesting thing. I’d like to attend the A-A-P thing to say “Hi” to Bram and see A-A-P in action, but there’s more practical stuff then.
Shawn at work said that I should try to see Mount St. Helens. It sounds like it could lead to good photos. Eric says that “it’s kinda boring … but then, I grew up around it, so.” I need to get s0ren’s opinion!
k and j and play
We went out for a “Yay, No More Crappy Old Job and Yay, New Possibly Better Job” dinner with Katie and Jerome. We hit Nawab, and it was good. I got murgh tikka, which was pretty good, but needed sauce. I should’ve gotten the tikka masala, but that would’ve been pretty predictable. Afterward, we headed back to our place and played Mario Party (4), and it was good, too. That’s good, since earlier in the day I’d decided that Mario Party stank. I guess it only stinks for one player. If that’s true, why is there a 1P story mode that lets you unlock stuff? It’s a stupid mistake, like forcing 1P play of Monkey Ball to unlock multiplayer games. Stupid!
I only rented Mario Party, but I also picked up FF Origins, FF9, XG3, and Def Jam Vendetta. DJV really drives me angrymad. It makes me want to twist the controller into two pieces. Jerome, who played a good bit of it, too, admitted the same. The control scheme is totally weird. After a while (and changing the difficulty), it got easier. It’s still hard and frustrating, but I fundamentally like the game. I wish I could turn on the music lyrics while fighting. More on $gamesite, though, later.