journal for 2003-06-07
nemo
We just saw Finding Nemo. It was great.
Ok, so it’s no Toy Story, but it was still great. The graphics were phenomenal. They managed to be mostly cartoony, but still pay attention to really little details. The tiny tiki statues in the fish tank were awesome. In one scene, two of the main adult fish are shown in close-up, and I thought I saw scales. I looked more closely and squinted a little, and I could see that the somewhat cartoonish body of Nemo’s father was actually covered with innumerable scales that all seemed to reflect light at a slightly different angle. It was awesome.
In scenes featuring no characters, like wide shots of Sydney harbor, the rendering was easily photorealistic. I cannot imagine what it’s like to be an artist on this stuff.
What really makes it fantastic is that not only do they have (I’m guessing) at least a man-century of technical work done on the visuals of the movie, but they also have a good script and good performances. Pixar keeps making movies that are not only beautiful, but also good!
play
I beat Yoshi’s Island today. Huzzah!
I suppose I should try to beat Super Mario World, next, but I’m just not too enthused about it. I think SMW has the giant boot, though, so I’m trying to look forward to that.
What I probably will work on beating, soon, is Zelda. Or, to be more precise, I’ll work on beating this current boss. Then I’ll play through the overworld missions for a while. I also want to finish out Golden Sun.
I ordered GBA Chessmaster yesterday, but I’m not sure when I’ll get it. The guy (on half.com) said he’d mail it by Monday, and he’s mailing it media mail, which means it could take two weeks or something. I’m pretty much assuming it won’t take longer than five days, though. I guess I like setting myself up for disappointment.
I played a good bit more Chessmaster on the PS2 and I like it, still. I’ve found how to save most of the preferences that matter, like board and movement style, and that’s good. I’m working my way through the tutorials, and I’m a little embarassed by how much I didn’t know. I should try to work through my chess books, too.
misc
Most importantly, though, I need to work on my SwashComp game! I have enough time (I think) to get it done for the comp, but I need to actually work on it! I want to write a full game, especially one that doesn’t suck. I think it would make me feel more legitimate, or something.
I read that Radiohead has a new album this week, and it sounds interesting. I’ll try to pick it up Tuesday at Play It Again.
I haven’t made any progress on doing neat Vim stuff, though I wanted to. I did, though, begin making a CVS repository for my configuration files, which is good. I’ve given the makefiles and learned (basically) how to use install(1). I need to make the makefiles cooler, though. Mostly I want to remove repetition from my muttrc by writing some scripts to build the mailbox data. More on that when it’s done.