Music Anesthetic and the Gamer

Spoiled

2008-09-28T07:47:31Z

I finally got around to watching the new season of Heroes, and I couldn't get over how many characters didn't die. There were like 3 people who were supposed to be dead who popped up again. Well, okay, one might be a hallucination, and one was seen in a vision, but still! And last season, they almost killed off Noah Bennet, but then he got brought back by miracle blood. And now Nathan gets brought back in basically the same way, although I guess we don't know exactly what the miracle was this time. But that's the second time someone has actually died and then bounced back.

Okay, yeah, it's a TV show, and yeah, people being resurrected is probably one of the more believable things. But it's gotten to the point where when you see someone thoroughly killed, you just think to yourself, "Hmm, wonder how they're coming back" rather than actually being worried about them. I suppose some minor characters seem to be gone for good, but the major ones just keep coming back! It worked in the first season, like when Peter was dead for a while with a shard of glass through his head, but by now, it's become obvious that the main people are sticking around.

I think I read somewhere that the original plan with Heroes was to introduce completely new characters in each season, and I think that would have been better, because they would have been free to do whatever they want since they're not really coming back anyway. But of course, when you have a big hit like that you're not going to throw it all away, I guess. And I have to say, I'm glad Sylar is back in action.

But this character non-death thing is something that really loses its punch when it becomes obvious that they're bluffing. And that's where I think I've been spoiled by Joss Whedon. That man is not afraid to kill anyone or anything, usually with a sharp thing right through the chest. He is an absolute, horrible monster, and it's even worse because he creates really interesting characters that you fall in love with before they get Death-Ray-shrapnel'd or Reaver-spear-thing'd. In Serenity, where just before the climactic battle, one of the main characters just gets killed mid-sentence, no time for a final speech, didn't go out heroically, just dead. Bam. That's not only really powerful, it makes the big fight even more intense. He just killed someone like it was nothing! What's he going to do during the battle, when it's even more likely? For the characters, death is a very real possibility, and now it is for the audience too. When someone gets hit, you really wonder if they're going to make it. It bucks the movie norm that the actors live to film another sequel, that everything comes back full circle.

There were some other things that bugged me too, mostly Mohinder, and the fact that pretty much everyone are idiots when it comes to their powers. (Why didn't Claire just jump out a window when Sylar was horror-movie-style hunting her down? She's not going to get hurt. Nope, much better to hide in the closet, that's what always works in the horror movies!) Why the heck does Mohinder need super powers (except to teach him the lesson of "Be careful what you wish for") and why does he want them at all?! The whole time he's talking to (and having random sex with...sigh) a woman whose super power is basically uncontrollably killing anyone she's close to and he wants in all of a sudden? Come on, he's smarter than that. Not to mention how he saw first hand in the first season how someone's out of control powers nearly killed millions of people.

Yeah, I think they've pretty much jumped the shark (Sylar, I am your mother zomg!), so to speak, but they're jumping it in a very flashy way, so I'll probably keep watching. Like I said, Sylar's back to being a badass, and even got a hilarious line ("Eat your brain? ...Claire, that's disgusting." In fact, that was pretty much the best line of the series.) And of course, everyone loves Hiro.

/me really doesn't watch that much TV...honest...

Assembly

2008-04-28T07:16:49Z

In my Models of Computing class for the past few weeks, we've covered assembly language. It's kind of interesting, but annoying at the same time. Basically, it's the "lowest level" language there is. To get any lower, you have to write out the 1's and 0's (the machine code) of a program directly (which we actually did, a little bit).

It was very educational, but also very tedious. The version we used (Pep/8) gives you exactly 39 commands, and none of them do very much on their own. For example, in order to add one to a number in memory (which in most languages is a single command, name++) you have to load the number from memory into the accumulator, add one to the accumulator, and save the accumulator back into memory into the same spot. That's three commands to do one simple thing.

You have to think about aspects of the computer that are usually hidden. In this case, the fact that the CPU is the only thing that's really capable of doing math, so any number you want to change has to be in the CPU first. Other languages make it feel like memory and the CPU are part of one cohesive unit. There's no boundary between the two. You can do tons of calculations without worrying about "where" the numbers are. In fact, from your perspective they never move at all.

It was especially hard to write a flexible program, when you couldn't guarantee what you were dealing with, just because assembly is so absolute and rigid. In other languages, usually you can get the length of a list of numbers. In assembly, there isn't even a concept of a list of numbers -- you just store them right next to each other wherever you want, and you have to make sure you deal with them like they're a list. In fact, if you were to make a very wrong turn in your program, or forget to stop it when you're supposed to, that list of numbers could get executed as if they were more instructions for your program! There's no difference between 1's and 0's that tell the CPU what to do and 1's and 0's that are simply storing numbers. So keeping track of the length of a list becomes very important, because otherwise you can easily go past the end and into other important things.

One good thing was that there was no uncertainty about what was going on, simply because there were so few commands and they were so basic. When I typed "LDX 0x0012,d" I could be absolutely positive that whatever was at memory address 0x0012 was going to be loaded to the index register. That's it, there's nothing going on behind the scenes because this is the scene. Higher level languages come with libraries of functions that do things for you, but you typically don't go looking into the library to see exactly what's going on, you just trust it.

So I thought I had written about this next part, but now I remember that it was actually a conversation I had with someone in real life. At the time, I had kind of felt like I had missed out on the "glory days" of computers -- the days of people making incredible new discoveries, laying the foundations for the industry today and generally doing legendary things. I guess I still have that feeling, but it's not as strong anymore, now that I've seen and used what is nowadays mostly a piece of history. This section was unique in that it's the first time we've actually gone "backwards" so to speak. It not only teaches you more about how computers work and what's actually going on, but it also helps you appreciate what you don't have to do anymore.

Summer

2008-04-18T06:09:58Z

Good news, everyone! I got a job for the summer that doesn't require me to be in another state! I got a research grant to work for one of my professors over the summer, and all of next year, and I can live at home and do my work online. Ha ha, I'm so excited! I'm so glad that I get to actually spend a summer hanging out with my friends, instead of just seeing you guys every two weeks for a day.

Plans

2008-03-03T08:35:18Z

The old plan: Look before you leap, think before you act. Adopted after making a few pretty stupid decisions without considering them carefully at all.

The problem with this plan is that it doesn't work well under pressure. That is, it began to feed upon itself, until I was practically applying the scientific method to, say, whether someone liked me or not. Even though I knew that all the "evidence" that I was collecting was far from valid, I felt compelled to try to make sense of it, to weigh each side and never managed to draw a conclusion. That was the real problem, I guess, there wasn't a logical conclusion to be found because nothing substantial was going in in the first place. Garbage in, garbage out. Well, I'm getting sick of garbage and I'm sick of worrying about what to do and whether to do it. For an analytical person like me, this plan is begging me to over think, and I am. Besides, things like this aren't logical anyway.

The new plan: Let things go. Don't worry about things that aren't under my control. Don't try to force my life to be a certain way just because I think I want it, be content with where I am now. Plan ahead without panicking about uncertainties.

I think I put too much stress into finding somebody to love. It's important to me (obviously since I seem to always write about it), but it shouldn't be this all-encompassing desire that prevents me from fully enjoying my life the way it is now, because my life is enjoyable now. I've got great friends at this great school, and even more great friends scattered across the globe, and I'm happy. So now instead of carrying a torch, watching at a guarded distance, and fretting "Does she like me, or is she just nice?" and "Should I ask her out?", I'll just wait for the opportunity to come up naturally, and when it seems like the natural thing to do I'll do it. I don't want to be completely passive and wait for someone to ask me out first (sadly, it seems that guys are still somewhat expected to take charge most of the time) but at the same time worrying about it is doing me no good. Of course, there is the problem of waiting for it to be the natural thing to do, since casually asking people out is not my specialty.

We'll see how well it works. The hardest thing will be staying calm and centered when I could be analyzing my life to little bits in an attempt to see what's going on. And already the back of my mind is asking "But what if you miss out on someone because you wait endlessly for a 'natural moment'?" to which I am responding "Then it wasn't meant to be." Making it public will hopefully keep me honest, too.

Blurbs

2007-12-12T08:00:12Z

Classes:
Bleh, finals are coming up. I've got 3, but they're spaced out one per day. I'm not terribly worried about them. I've been rocking my Algorithms class, and I'm doing well in Music Theory III despite, um, not doing well? I guess I haven't felt like I'm doing well, but I still have an A. Can't argue with that. I probably should be worried about World Politics (I thought I had done really well on the midterm and ended up getting a low B) but I'm honestly not that interested in the class. I'm taking it to get an International Perspectives requirement or something out of the way, and that's it. In fact, I've basically zoned out of the class completely recently. Oh well, I'll study like I did last time, and probably get a B again, which is fine. I am completely and utterly apathetic about that class.

Life:
Man, I miss you guys. I can't wait for break. Obviously I've got friends here too, but we're not as close. It's not the same type of friendship. That and we've only known each other for a year and a half, at the most.

I got an application to be an RA for next year, so we'll see how that turns out. There's a lot of competition for about 15 spots, but a lot of my friends from last year became RAs, so I might have a chance, right?

My Christmas shopping is done for my family! I less than three the Internet. I still have to get something for Ali's party though, hmm.

Love:
Um, none. I don't really have anyone to even focus on; anyone that I like or am interested in is either completely unavailable or plainly uninterested. I think this is the first time in a while I've felt like that, that there's no one even worth pursuing. It is a bit liberating, though. If you have only one option, then you know it's the right one to take. There's nothing to debate about, no one to obsess over, no tiny actions to analyze.

Video games:
I finally beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time this week. It's generally regarded to be one of the best video games of all time, and with good reason -- it's almost timeless, like a piece of classical literature. The graphics aren't even close to decent by today's standards, and it follows a fairly basic story, but it's just done so well. It takes a formula that was used with great success in the earlier, 2D Zelda games and translates it almost directly into 3D. When you think about it, it's almost exactly the same game as its predecessors, just with one more dimension. That might be why it's so revered; it earned a place as a shining example of "How to bring your 2D game into 3D" at the time and therefore became legendary, a piece of video game history.

I've been getting into the Zelda games recently, about 10 years too late... As a child, I was deprived of video games mainly because I lived in the middle of nowhere, and even if I had access I was a Sonic/SEGA fanboy and wouldn't have even considered a Nintendo character. Now that I am older and wiser, I've got a lot of catching up to do. Problem is, I don't actually play video games all that much. I almost feel like it's an obligation rather than an activity. I think I'm just more interested in computers and programming than in gaming. Although I am excited for Super Smash Bros Brawl. It has Sonic and Mario! Fighting each other! It is my grade school dream come true.

I like to think that my grade school self would think that my present day self is pretty much the coolest guy ever. I mean, I have my very own computer, and a ton of Sonic games, and I know some stuff about programming... That kid would want to come over to my house every single day. And then we'd go climb a tree or something. That would actually be a good arrangement for both of us, because he'd drag my lazy butt outside once in a while to go play, which I don't really get to do anymore.

A cool dream I had a few months ago, which probably has a ton of symbolism in it:
I was at some sort of ranch, playing quite possibly the world's strangest song. It had a section that depended on a gate that opened up randomly, and when it opened the cattle and performers were supposed to switch and eat blueberries on one side if they went to that side. At first I was confused about it, but it made more sense while I was doing it. There was a ghost there as well. He had worked on the ranch almost his whole life, living in a stable next to one of the horses, and was somewhat angry about something. I talked to him for a while, and he became happy, and another ghost came to take him away from the mortal world. The other ghost didn't like being in the mortal world for long, so he was in a rush. The man left a smiley face made out of rocks, and rode away on a small horse. I thought about why he took a small horse, and decided it was because he didn't want to take one of the bigger horses and leave the ranch without one of their best.

Later on in this dream, I was in my dorm room at 3AM, thinking about how I should get to sleep because I wanted to get up early, when I woke up. That was a weird moment.

Calling

2007-11-20T06:32:37Z

I guess I will also answer Ryan's call for updates as well...

Um. Well, there's not much to say, I guess. That's why I haven't updated, I suppose. Music Theory's been kicking my butt lately, partially because it's just harder, and mostly because we have a different professor this year who's been asking a lot more from us. In fact, I have to go in tomorrow to finish a test because it was too long for one class period. Ugh. That, and I've had to learn some piano, which isn't much fun.

Let's see, what else? I guess I don't have that much to say. I've actually been a little down the past few days, although that's probably just from stress from all this theory stuff. I feel like I don't really know what I want, nothing really seems like a great idea. I don't know, it's hard to describe.

Protesting

2007-09-28T05:02:15Z

I believe I witnessed the end of a tradition tonight.

There is a field between the two 'big' freshmen dorms on campus here. It's sort of an anti-hill, actually. It slopes down around all the edges. In the winter, though, they make it into a sort of ice rink by spraying water into it and letting it freeze. Because of this, we usually refer to it as a body of water, not a field, even in non-freezing seasons. The specific name depends on one thing, one event.

The tug of war.

Specifically, a tug of war that takes place between Independence Hall and Gay Hall during Homecoming. This has been going on for quite a few years, since the 1970s, I think. There's a trash can lid that serves as a trophy, that has a record of all the victories. More importantly, the hall that wins the tug gets to name the lake for the rest of the year. They are typically unimaginative and name it either "Gay Lake" or "Indy Pond". While Indy had traditionally been in the lead, in recent years Gay has stepped up their recruiting campaign and had caught up. Last year Gay tied it up, so this year was the tie breaker.

I live in Pine Hall, the 'other' freshmen dorm (it is obviously open to returning students as well), which is completely excluded from the competition. There have been attempts in the past to voice displeasure at our disenfranchisement, including trying to disrupt the event, but last year our hall managed to strike a chord. We protested the war, with a banner reading, "Pine for Peace."

I unfortunately was not there, but a few people went, and brought their sign, and protested. The effect was profound. There was a surprising amount of anger, to the point of one person actually forming a noose with the rope and showing it to the protesters.

So of course we did it again this year.

We had a lot more people this time, because we were better organized and prepared. We made signs, and planned chants. We tried to recruit people from the non-freshmen halls. We even had someone with a guitar and a harmonica playing some Bob Dylan. I formed the "I" in a PINE4☮ shirtless male line up. At halftime during the Powderpuff game, practically the entire crowd took to the field for the tug, and we stood in the middle and protested. We were vastly outnumbered. The two teams were easily more than 100 each. But during the game we had been just as loud or louder than any of them, shouting out slogans and singing songs.

Unfortunately, the war began despite our best efforts. The two teams dug down and pulled with equal might. For a few seconds, the knot in the middle shifted slightly back and forth. And then....

POP!

It sounded like a large balloon popping. Both teams fell back. We started cheering, because something had obviously gone wrong. From the back of both lines, people started celebrating, assuming that they had won. In truth, of course, the rope had snapped. It was chaos, until people started figuring out what had happened. Then we saw that some people who had fallen down hadn't gotten up. The sheer force of the rope snapping and then being pulled by people in the back had ripped the rope from the hands of the people in front. The rope was also unraveling as it flew back at high speed. Eventually, we all cleared the field as ambulances began to show up. One person that we all know from Pine last year who pulled for Indy couldn't move his fingers, and they were beginning to turn black and blue. There's a freshmen living in Pine who had been second or third in line, and got taken to the hospital.

It's the talk of the halls now, and I'm sure will be for some time. There's a lot of questions about what the result is going to be, how the people who are hurt are doing, and what will happen next year. It's pretty clear that things are going to change. I suspect that they'll reduce it quite a bit, probably have designated teams instead of having everyone who wants to participate. It's one of those things, though, that you know was important. At least locally. It's interesting that it happened now, of all times. It's a bit odd, that the record was tied, and our hall was preaching to everyone that we shouldn't have a war, that we should seek peace instead. I suppose our message takes on a bit of a different tone now.

Party

2007-08-20T03:26:43Z

Umm...http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4666213612

*points furiously at above URL*

Devil

2007-08-14T23:02:47Z

By somewhat popular request, a tale from the F&PW portfolio that you may not have seen before:

Devil

Satan sighed as another mound of paperwork fell upon his desk. Would it ever end? Form after form went past His Evilness, all tedious, all horribly complicated. He longed for the old days, when he had free reign over the darker side of men's souls. Oh, how he would tempt the righteous ones, deceive the gullible ones, and generally have a good time making others miserable.

It has been discovered, however, by powers even higher than God himself, that the universe and its laws are dictated largely by irony. Satan found this out the hard way. Now he suffered like a common mortal, slaving away at forms and procedural documents, and he didn't even get paid for it. An unexpected outcome of the Apocalypse, for anyone who wasn't properly informed.

Human beings, in their lowly state, see God and Satan as two giants constantly fighting it out, with motives beyond mortal understanding. And for the most part, this is true, at least from their point of view. However, as is usually the case with humans, they have the right idea but manage to mess it up in horrible ways. For example, they consistently delude themselves into thinking that God, as the representative of all that is Good and Holy, is always the winner. This is not exactly true. It just so happens that being evil lends one to making stupid mistakes which often cause nothing but trouble for the evil one in question. The good side, of course, makes stupid mistakes as well, but these tend to be smaller and less catastrophic.

Humans also make the mistake of assuming that the final battle between Good and Evil will be a spectacular supernatural clash of the titans, bringing a final end to one side and eternal victory to the other. They presume God to be the victor, of course (see above). This particular mistake can largely be attributed to the movie industry, which has trained their audiences to expect that sort of thing at the end of any conflict. What really happened at the Apocalypse was much simpler, and so subtle that no one batted an eye. Even the Pope missed it, and it was his job to be looking out for that sort of thing.

God simply outsourced the job of being Supremely Evil. Instead of one supernatural being, now thousands of businessmen and women, CEOs, and politicians were responsible for causing misery among the human race. Satan himself was pushed into a small cubicle deep in Hell and forced to process paperwork for Heaven for the rest of eternity.

And so here he was, years later, still doing the same thing. Up there all those mortals were having fun ruining other people's lives, and he was stuck here. He thought about giving the Angel of Death a call. They had always had a good time together, although in Satan's personal opinion Death did not have any capacity for subtlety. It was always kill, kill, kill with him. No pranks, no tricks. It must have just been his nature.

A single form dropped on top of the huge pile already in front of him. Odd. They always came in impossibly huge loads, as if to emphasize the difficulty of his new job. Curious, Satan carefully pulled it from the top of the tall pile. "Possible Order for Total Destruction."

He read the form. A look of astonishment began to spread across his face. This was no ordinary act of evil. No wonder this had fallen to him. This was a job for a supernatural being. A demon. The demon.

Satan grabbed his hat and pitchfork. This would have to be dealt with personally.

Finally! A chance to get out of that stinking cubicle! Satan practically jumped for joy as he stood in the elevator. But wait. He had to compose himself. He hadn't been out in a long time. Obviously he couldn't let the Earth just get destroyed. There would be no fun for him after he escaped from his prison of paperwork. But that didn't mean that he couldn't have some fun in the meantime.

The elevator came out, for various reasons, in a small elementary school in Kansas. Perfect, Satan thought to himself. He decided to start small and warm up by frustrating some children.

He went outside to the playground, where the third grade class was having recess. He found a kid sitting by himself reading a book. Satan suddenly had an idea. He'd thought of this one about 20 years ago, while watching Brady Bunch reruns. It was quite possibly his most frustrating creation.

"Hey kid. Solve this thing in, oh, an hour, otherwise the Earth will be destroyed." He put on his most menacing grin as he handed the cube over to the startled child.

"Sure," the kid replied, as he took the colorful object. Satan watched in amazement as he quickly and deftly manipulated the sides, and solid colors began to form, starting on top and quickly spreading towards the bottom. After a minute of fiddling, the kid tossed the cube back to Satan. "I learned how to solve Rubik's cubes last year. The three by three ones are easy. The five by five ones are trickier."

Satan gaped at the child for a moment, then quickly vanished to avoid any more embarrassment. But not before he changed the trajectory of a football towards a certain smart-aleck kid's head.

Shaken by his failure in Kansas, by a little kid no less, Satan decided to up the ante a bit. He teleported himself to a random house, and found a man sitting at a computer playing some video game. With all his might, Satan created a fiery glow around him and used his deepest and most evil voice. "I demand of you, mere mortal! Tell me the the exact area of Australia, or the Earth will be destroyed! And, I want it in square furlongs! Muahahaha!"

The man jumped and turned to look at Satan in all his fiery glory. He rubbed his eyes and muttered, "Too much Diablo 2," before facing his computer again and typing at the keys again.

Satan was not happy with this reaction. "I grow impatient! Answer me! Or the Earth will be destroyed!"

"Yeah, yeah, hang on a sec, here it is." He pointed to his screen. Satan was dismayed to see the correct answer staring back in front of him. "But...but...how?"

"It's called the Information Age for a reason. Google knows everything. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a character to level up. Hey, wait a minute, Diablo's not on this level! He killed my character!" The man turned back towards Satan, but he had already disappeared again in a cloud of disgust.

The entire day continued to be unfulfilling for Satan. To be sure, he always got his revenge on those who dared complete his impossibly difficult challenges. The problem was that they weren't proving to be as impossible as he had hoped. As the day dragged on, he placed the weight of the world on dozens of people's shoulders, only to see them causally shrug it off.

Finally the deadline came. The Possible Order for Total Destruction form had to be filled out, and Satan had to decide whether or not to let the asteroid headed strait for Earth to hit or not. Sitting on a park bench, after watching a man successfully eat 30 hot dogs in two minutes (saving the Earth once again, but suffering some supernatural indigestion afterwards) he ticked the little box next to the word "Denied" and casually put the asteroid on a new path, which would cause problems on another world in a few hundred years. The Earth, however, would live to see another day.

Pausing only to knock a nearby child's ice cream off of its cone, Satan headed back to Kansas to catch his elevator. His return to triumph would come soon enough. But for now, there was work to be done.

I still think it's pretty good, although there are a number of things I would change/add now that I read it again. The weirdest thing is that I read it, and it seemed like something I would like to read, not something that I would actually write. Hmm.

Cabin

2007-08-14T01:29:33Z

Hey, I've been home for almost 24 hours now! What a concept!

Also, my elbow is very horrible looking. The tubing was a bit too intense, if that is even possible. (It is.) And we got a free meal on the way home, if by "free" you mean "the price of sitting and playing cards for a few hours while the rookie waitress messes up your order, but you then get your food free of charge." And really, isn't that the best kind of free?

Yes, a fun time is always had at Kelly's cabin. Now I relax at home, until I go back to school. Oh, wait, no -- first I plan and execute my birthday party. Hm.

chaos750 @ 2007-06-28T23:01:00

2007-06-29T04:13:11Z

Poke forward and poke back
In and out with Facebook friends
Like sex, with no mess

Plans

2007-06-26T02:35:25Z

I will be coming home Friday evening, and will be home all day Saturday.

Please plan your weekend accordingly.

Herzl

2007-06-16T04:29:28Z

Work, work, work...

I think I'm starting to get the hang of things around here now. It's been pretty easy so far, but we start working full time on Sunday. Hopefully I'll do okay with the campers and all. A bunch of stuff changes, including time itself. We set our clocks back an hour, in order to let the kids stay up later or something. That's going to be fun to work out.

The people here have been pretty nice overall. Quite a few interesting characters, including my boss, who's a fun guy in general. We routinely rock out in the kitchen thanks to the sound system they've got set up in there. It's been pretty fun.

I've been trying to break the habit of putting two spaces after punctuation at the end of sentences. Apparently it's a bad one, a relic from the days of typewriters and monospaced fonts. Well, monospaced fonts are still around. Anyway, I always thought that it was easier to read with two spaces, but one revelation caused me to reconsider: Web pages don't show more than one space, even if you type them in. Example: There are about 10 spaces before this sentence. Look at the HTML source. And this isn't a LJ thing, it's an "every browser does this" thing. Since I've never even noticed it before, I figured it must not make that big of a difference and I may as well do it right.

I did some awesome hacking yesterday. Well, not hacking in the break into a computer, criminal sense, but in the doing something cool with a computer sense. Um, it's kind of hard to explain why it's awesome without getting technical and dull. Basically, there's a program called VMware, that lets you run a computer inside your computer. I managed to figure out how to get it to do something that the designers hadn't really intended, just through what I know about computers! It was one of those, "Hey, I know what I'm doing" moments, where everything sort of worked out as I went along. I think I was just amazed that I pulled it off without having to consult anyone or misunderstanding anything.

The cool thing is, now I can run Ubuntu and Windows from Mac OS, all at the same time! Yay for me.

Job

2007-06-08T22:54:01Z

I'm done packing, pretty much. So I'm leaving tomorrow for Webster, Wisconsin in case you want to spy on me with satellites. Whee!

Rush

2007-05-20T06:10:09Z

EDIT: Wow, this really turned out to be more of an essay than an entry. I'll hide most of it so it doesn't clutter stuff up too much.

Picture this: You are driving in your car, going quite fast down the highway. As it turns out, too fast. You fly up a hill, only to find that the the road has decided that it wants to go down for a while. Your car respectfully disagrees with this change in pace, and continues upward, launching itself into the night sky. Another party, this time a large building, wasn't expecting this rather rash decision, and fails to get out of the way. Your car nicks the building and begins spinning through the air, doing barrel rolls, front flips, and generally being too acrobatic for its own good.

At about this point, gravity enters into the mix, and while it understands your adherence to Newton's first law, it decides that enough is enough and pulls you back to the ground. With a series of sickening crunches, you and your car begin to roll to a stop. As things start to slow down, you are able to begin processing what is going on, and marvel at the fact that you are still alive. You look out the driver's side window, and see pavement rolling itself down the side. The car toys a bit with being on its side (an unusual state of being for most cars) before finally deciding to settle down. Upside down.

As the roof slowly touches down on the pavement, the car explodes.

If this sounds familiar, chances are you've played the game San Francisco Rush 2049, or had a Rush-esque car crash. For your sake, I hope you've played the game. This is an unsung masterpiece of a game, although the reason is similar to the way Snakes on a Plane is a cinematic triumph. That is, it's really not. Regardless, this game holds a special place in my heart, even if it is somewhat ridiculous.

It all started when Kendall and I were messing around with my good old Dreamcast. I didn't have many games, but I did have a brief subscription to the official Dreamcast magazine, which included demo discs with every issue. We toyed around with Virtua Tennis, Dead or Alive, some Looney Tunes racing game, and I think a UFC fighting game, among other things. But one demo commanded our attention far more than any other.

The first game doesn't really come to my mind, actually. I can't remember whether we were at my house or his, or our scores, or even the first crashes. There are only a few specific rounds of Rush that I can really remember (and one that I can't forgive Kendall for) but what I do remember is how the game evolved for us. Maybe it was because of the mystery of the whole thing. Since it was a demo, we had no instructions other than the screen that appeared just before the demo loaded, telling us the controls. And it has always seemed like a game where a player's fate isn't necessarily determined by what he or she does. There is a sensation that the game is playing with you, deciding whether a player lives or dies.

The first thing about Rush is that it's not a great racing game. The race mode is pretty dumb, actually. Where this game shines is in stunt mode. It basically boils down to this: cars with wings, doing tricks and flips off of half-pipes. Where fate comes in is the most crucial step: landing. If the game decides to let you land safely on your tires, you get points. If it doesn't, your car will explode in an orangey-yellow, crudely-rendered fireball. The thing is, it doesn't matter if you landed at 200 MPH or slowly rolled over onto your back. Either way, your car becomes a smoldering wreck instantly.

But why? Our theory went something like this: The only reason a car would ever explode would be if its gas tank ignited. The Mythbusters have shown that this is harder than it looks in the movies, but we'll let this pass -- it is a video game, after all. And a car crashing into the ground from 100 feet up certainly has the capacity for fiery destruction. But what about the roll over scenario? The only logical conclusion is that that is where the gas tanks are located! I am confident that whoever designed these cars would be amazingly bad at any job, but just so happens to design cars in the year 2049.

If there's one element of these games that sticks out in my mind, it's the gratuitous explosions. Somewhat related, though, is the role of fate when playing this game. You have some control of how you spin, via the convenient glider wings attached to your car. Sometimes, you manage to land flat on your back instead of your wheels, and feel stupid as your car gleefully destroys itself, apparently by design. Sometimes you'll make a perfect landing, leave a series of skid marks, and accelerate towards the next ramp. Sometimes, you'll just be going too fast, and blow up instantly no matter how you land. But occasionally you'll roll. Since you get points for spinning in the air, when you land you'll probably be bouncing and spinning quite a bit. When you finally come to a complete stop, sometimes you'll be on your side. You have a chance to fight for your life, and your points! You slam the control stick in the desired direction, hoping to convey to your car that you want fall away from the gas tank on the roof. Sometimes, your car responds, and you fall awkwardly onto your four wheels, get the points, and drive on your way. Other times, the game simply decides that you aren't going to live. No matter how hard you push, you watch your car slowly tilt the wrong way....and spontaneously combust. "I was pushing the other way, stupid!" you exclaim, but to no avail -- the game was pushing back, and since it's rendering all this for you, it gets to decide.

Our strategies have evolved a bit since those first days. At first, we simply spun as fast as possible, hoping to get as many spins in as possible and earn points, while still managing to land safely. Then one of us, I think it was Kendall, figured out that the game rewards players who do more than one type of turn/trick. Doing barrel rolls in both directions and front and back flips, with a wheelie at the end would net you a multiplier bonus. This discovery radically shifted both of our strategies.

Keep in mind that this was all with the demo. Not the full game. We did all this on the one level that the demo gave us. It was only much later that we got the full game, and got to see a place other than the "Disco". In 10 years, both of us will probably be able to draw a pretty accurate map of that level because we played it so much.

The reason for all this nostalgia is that I just got a copy of Midway Arcade Treasures 3, a compilation that just so happens to include the Dreamcast version of Rush 2049, so now I can play it on my Wii via GameCube emulation! In fact, I think almost every Dreamcast game I've liked has now come out for GameCube, and now that NiGHTS into Dreams (THE game for the ill-fated Sega Saturn) is coming out for Wii...well, I'm a pretty happy nerd right about now. Now all I need is Guitar Hero for the Wii, and maybe some of the older Zelda games... For someone who doesn't play video games too much, I'm getting awfully excited here.

Employment

2007-05-09T20:09:56Z

I got a job for the summer! I'm going to be working at Herzl Camp in Wisconsin, serving up food to the Chosen Children. Sorry, I don't know why I think it's so funny that it's a Jewish camp, I just do. I think it's going to be interesting though, and it should be a lot of fun too. I'm working with three other people in my dorm, and rooming with one of them. So it should be a good time. Also, I should be done just in time to go to Kelly's shindig!

Let's see, what else? I've got finals this week, but I've only got one more that I'm even slightly worried about (Linear Algebra...ugh) so it shouldn't be that big of a deal. Ummm....I guess there's a possibility that I'll be eating some words that I may have said at the beginning of April. I dunno. I don't want to worry about it, and it's getting so close to the end of the year anyway, that it's not a big deal, I guess.

I have just about had it with the student email list. I get dozens of emails each day, almost all of them about either getting a ride home, selling something, wanting to buy something, or going to some club I have no interest in. Leave me alone! Although it might be useful to have...I think I'll set up a filter that deals with the messages so I can still go back and look through them without having to see them build up in my Inbox.

Oh yeah, gotta call my new roommate for next year, too.

Image

2007-04-22T07:01:54Z

I have discovered an inconsistency in my self-image, which can only be a bad thing. Actually, it's an inconsistency between my self-image and a basic assumption I make.

1: I would make a good boyfriend. I am caring and loyal, and try to be a fun guy. Not the most exciting person ever, but I try not to be boring. I'm not OMG HOTT, but I don't think I'm ugly. I don't know of any mannerisms that I have that are especially annoying or unappealing.

2: Girls just do not like me. It just does not happen. One of those universal things, like gravity.

One of these must be wrong. I know that, in an upper-level sense. Either I am wrong about myself, and I come off as an awkward nerd who consistently gets the "Oh, he's nice but I'd never date him" label, or I'm right and just haven't found the right person yet. Of course the second option seems ridiculous. And it probably is. But the fact remains, that in the back of my head there is always a voice saying, "She doesn't like you. It's impossible." Always. The problem is that it's right at least some of the time, if not most of the time, and so if it's wrong I'll have a hard time accepting it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...And now I sound like a whiny attention whore. "Waah, no one likes me! Everyone leave me a comment so I feel better about myself!" Ugh. It seemed more interesting in my head. But I don't think anyone outside of my head cares. I know I wouldn't.

I do like my journal being a chronicling of my life though. I was reading through it a few weeks ago and it really is interesting to remember some of that stuff. So I guess this goes up not because it's particularly good but because it reflects a part of me right now. It just happens that right now I'm a whiny selfish adolescent.

Color

2007-04-17T07:00:07Z

I wish color was distributed differently. Not based on electron absorption/emission of different materials or wavelengths of photons, but based on importance. The more color something has, the more significant it is to you. Of course, most of the world would end up being in black and white, but imagine the effect on important things, standing out bright on a drab background. The joy of seeing your lover, or best friend, as they literally bring more color into your world. Or small things that your subconscious suddenly decides are important, that others see as a monochromatic blur.

There are people and things in my life that don't deserve the bright colors they're given, and many others that deserve more.

Classical

2007-04-12T01:53:15Z

My music theory teacher said something that I thought was really interesting the other day, about how when music gets old, the stuff that remains becomes classic. It's really bizarre thinking that today's popular music may someday be referred to as "classical" or even studied by students taking music classes. It sounds far-fetched, but what about stuff like jazz? Jazz was so radical that some people thought it was the music of the devil (improvisation? catchy rhythms? Good heavens!) and now you can take Jazz Theory classes. If you had asked those people, they would have laughed to think that their work would be studied and analyzed as intricately as a Bach or Mozart piece!

Do the music theorists have groups like The Beatles to look up to? Will a serious music class study Stairway to Heaven? Or how about the relatively unknown groups? There are many examples of composers dying decades before they become popular. Maybe there is some indie band out there, putting out a few albums on their own budget who, it turns out, are geniuses that are years ahead of their time.

Even more amusing for me is the thought of "classical" ensembles. A "Symphonic Band" or "Wind Ensemble" for rock. "Oh, you're one of those band nerds, huh? Who plays guitar anyway, that's totally not cool."

I wonder what the future will bring....

Trip

2007-03-25T01:32:10Z

Yesterday's sunrise was very good, except it ended too quickly. The regular daytime sun slipped in and replaced the orange sun in a matter of minutes, just like that. Sunset, however, wasn't that great. The sun just turned orange and sank into the horizon, with almost no cloud changes. It was like a big long sun solo, while the clouds just sat back and listened...

The reason I was awake to see the sunset in the first place was because there was a Computer Science field trip to the IBM offices in Rochester, and I had to be up at 6 in the morning. I actually have some pictures, I'll upload them to Facebook sometime.

The trip was a lot of fun. It's weird being in a group that thinks the same way. We could talk about computer stuff, Internet jokes and generally nerdy things and everyone knew exactly what we were talking about. I didn't even know most of the people very well, but we still seemed to have a fundamental connectedness, as if we had the same brain, just with different memories. IBM itself was for the most part entertaining. They seemed to be treating us both as potential hires and potential customers, so we got a lot of "Why IBM Is The Best Place To Work Ever" and "IBM's Soul-Crushingly Powerful Servers" type presentations, which makes sense. After all, they want us to work there, and if we work somewhere else they want to sell us servers. But there was some cool stuff too; they showed us the Blue Gene supercomputer (4000+ processors...so basically more powerful than God) and we got to see the chips that go into all 3 video game systems.

For some reason I've had my face turned towards the sky the past few days. Maybe it's because there's something to actually look at besides gray now that spring is starting to show. The change in seasons has given me an itch to change other things, and I don't exactly know why. I changed the keys around on my keyboard to Dvorak and I've been trying to learn it. The basic idea is that all the commonly used keys (vowels, d, h, t, n, s) are on the home row, so you don't have to move your fingers too much. It's not going quickly, it still takes about a full second on average for me to find a letter. It makes typing "th"es a ton of fun, though. The keys are right next to each other (where k and j are on Qwerty) and it's oddly entertaining. There's a few others too, but "the" is such a common word that it's the first one I noticed.

I also changed my watch to 24 hour time, because I realized I was looking at the digital display and not the hands each time (my watch has both) and digital only requires you to be literate, not any actual thought. For some reason that bothers me, so now in the afternoons at least I have to engage my brain when I want to know what time it is.

And now I want to switch my bed around, so that my feet are where my head used to be. I originally had it the way I did because I had a light on one end, and it needed to be plugged in, but now that I've brought it home (I never used it at school, and whenever I was home I'd want to have it) there's no real argument for either side.

Hmm, after some Googling I've found that Mark Twain already figured out what's going on, so I'll let him explain it:
"It's spring fever.... You don't quite know what it is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"

Weather

2007-03-22T01:12:28Z

My idea of a perfect day, weather-wise at least, would be this:

4am - Rain. Not pouring rain, but a good amount.

7am - The rain stops, and a thick cool fog fills the air.

11 or 12-ish - The fog dissipates, the sun finally gets it's chance to shine. It warms the air to that crucial temperature that makes office workers spontaneously get out of their chairs, grab the nearest frisbee-shaped object and run for the nearest park as soon as they look out the window.

7pm - As the sun sets, big cumulonimbus clouds on the horizon make it clear that the game is done for now.

7:30pm - The storm rolls in. Not a dangerous tornado-spewing storm, or one that strikes everything above 20 feet tall, but a flashy storm nonetheless. Lots of noise and lots of light, with no sirens to spoil the music.

9:00pm - The clouds clear, revealing the night sky with no moon, perfect for star-gazing.

Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Stocks

2007-03-07T07:15:00Z

In a day of low to moderate trading, shares in Hope are up 19% after reports of a positive meeting with an outside third party. Pessimism, Inc. suffered a sharp blow after the results of the meeting were released, dropping by 28%.

A representative for Pessimism stated that "we were expecting things to come tumbling down, and sure enough, they did. Oh look, a half-empty glass of water." Pessimism also asserted that investing in Hope is "short-sighted" and that Hope is "simply a bubble waiting to burst."

Hope was unable for comment due to the fact that the entire company was out celebrating.

Voices

2007-02-15T21:43:08Z

I was reading my friends page and thinking about how different some people "sound" when they write as opposed to when I talk to them in real life. What is it that changes in the translation between thought and speech that is different than from thought to paper? Is it just because they have a chance to hit the backspace key or use their eraser? Is it because they don't have a face to look at, just a blank page? I know when I write I feel like I'm doing it for an unseen audience, and so I make sure to get it just right before I put it on stage to be judged. It seems different than just sitting around and talking with friends, although I know that's basically what I'm doing. After all, as far as I know no one else reads my LJ, and only people I've marked as friends on Facebook can see the note that gets imported. It is visible to the world though, it's on the Internet for all to see...

Or is the problem in the perception? Does hearing a voice as opposed to reading a paragraph really affect the ideas entering the brain? We obviously make the connection between person and text on a higher level, but I wonder if the brain subconsciously wants to separate these into two separate entities. "Oh yeah, that sounds like something LiveJason would say" without really believing it's actual Jason saying it until later, when we meet in real life and someone brings it up. "Oh, right, I suppose that was actually him, wasn't it?" I've caught myself doing that before.

Some people articulate their ideas better, others worse. Some change from deceptively quiet individuals into a master of writing, holding you captivated in a way they never seemed to do in real life, others seem vapid and unimaginative, a shadow of their "real life" self.

I wonder what I sound like? I personally feel like I write about myself too much (but that is the point of a live journal, isn't it?) and try to sound more insightful and thoughtful than I do verbally. I'm more comfortable writing about deeply personal things than I am talking about them, but at the same time I think I complain about love/lack of love too much.

Maybe we even do it ourselves when we think, separate ourselves into our real life persona and our online persona...hmm....

Learning

2007-01-27T03:47:15Z

Through a combination of friends' DVDs and, um, certain other ways, I've finally gotten to the latest episode of House. Pretty sweet, right?

Wrong.

Apparently the "industry" has a different way of distributing than I'm used to. Something called "television." Now I'm acquainted with the device, of course -- it's what I play video games on, and sometimes when I flip through the "channels" it turns out that The Daily Show or The Colbert Report or The Simpsons is on, and I think to myself, "Oh, how convenient, I think I'll watch this."

But it turns out that it's not as convenient as it seems. For example, did you know that if you want to watch a certain show, you have to be *at your TV* and on the *exact* right channel? Not only that, but it only plays at a certain time! It won't even wait for you to go pop some popcorn or anything. It's like it just hits the play button for you. And refuses to rewind. Or even pause, for that matter.

There are these breaks that you can use, though. They're like built-in pauses, except instead of just stopping it shows you a whole bunch of ads before hitting play again. I mean, I guess it's kind of nice that they let you run to the bathroom every now and then, but if they just let you pause it wouldn't be a problem at all, now would it?

The "industry" wonders why people are downloading shows? I think it's obvious!

Arrgh!

2007-01-20T02:20:35Z

From FedEx Tracking service:

Destination
Morris, MN
Service type
Home Delivery
Pieces
1
Weight
9.0 lbs.

Status
Delivered
Jan 19, 2007 2:57 PM
Morris, MN

From http://www.mrs.umn.edu/services/post_office/ :

UMM Post Office hours are 9:00 am-3:00 pm, Monday - Friday.

Craaaaaaap!

Oh, by the way, listen to me and a friend on our radio show tomorrow, 4-6pm! Central time, of course. http://www.kumm.org