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08-03-99 The Blair Witch Hot Dog
08-02-99 Sanity break!
07-26-99 Control freak? Moi?
07-20-99 Gettin' belligerent about Linux
07-08-99 Easy come, easy go
06-29-99 Screenshots and reptilian thoughts
06-27-99 Cut me some Slack
06-14-99 A new site for a new game
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The Blair Witch Hot Dog
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| 08-03-99 |
The Blair Witch Project should come with a warning... or maybe the hot dogs at a certain
theater in St. Charles should. Do not go see this movie if you're exhausted, hot, annoyed
at your car's sudden inexplicable overheating, and just ate a bad hot dog -- the camera is
shaky, sometimes out of focus, sometimes sweeping around wildly, and (possibly the worst
sin a camera jockey can commit) all too often pointed at the ground while walking. I found
I had my eyes closed through about half of it and had to go out to the lobby twice, not
because of the scary factor but because I had a serious case of motion sickness, or some
kind of sickness anyway. I had a nap, it's 5 hours after the movie ended and I'm still kind
of queasy, so I suspect the food more than anything -- but the movie didn't help. Jeff (who
didn't have a hot dog) made it all the way through without turning green. But Rowan (more
exhausted than me, and also having had one of those icky hot dogs), after a quick dash
away, came back and informed me it was better after throwing up.
Sounds like a great endorsement, eh? Still, I recommend this one -- provided you're feeling
good, haven't eaten or drunk anything too funky, and if you're at all prone to motion
sickness Dramamine might be a good idea. I find I want to see it again, to catch what I
missed and so I can feel more of the impact of the movie and less of the impact of the hot
dog.
It's seriosuly scary -- but not in a scary-movie way. I hate to sound like a marketing
weenie, but it really is a new breed of horror movie. It doesn't take the usual cheap shots
(startling, gore, hordes of insects, million-dollar FX monsters, etc.). But it does expose
you to the characters' raw emotions: paranoia, hysteria, frustration, anger, denial,
despair. It gives you the heebie-jeebies. It makes you wonder what you would do in that
situation. It just plain makes you wonder. It's extremely simple, but it goes to some very
deep places. If you're the thinking kind it will probably scare you more after you've seen
it than during. It comes back to haunt you... so to speak.
But then, so did the hot dog.
And just because I hate stupid rumors: <rant> the Blair Witch
Project was not actual footage found years after some actual event -- some of it was filmed
in Maryland and some in Florida. (St. Augustine has its own ghost stories, but nevermind
that for now.) The story was written by a writer, the people in the movie are actors. It's
possible that there really is a legend about the Blair Witch, and without looking into it
I'd guess it's possible that there really was some psycho in the 1940's who killed a bunch
of kids. By all means, if believing that all this stuff really happened enhances your
enjoyment of the movie (and I can see how it might) then go ahead and let yourself believe
it -- but don't go all over the internet telling people that you know for a fact it really
happened, unless you have documented proof that outweighs all common sense. Ignorance is
unfortunately a contagious disease. </rant>
Now I kinda want to go into the difference between "real" and "true" but
I'm not sure the Blair Witch Project is the best place to start, and food poisoning (if
that's what this is) and philosophy don't mix. Just go see the movie.
On another note, as I walked the quarter mile from my apartment door to the nearest parking
spot I'd been able to find this afternoon (that gets to be lots of fun in winter,
especially when we've got "black ice") I saw a meteor. Clouds, light pollution from St.
Louis, and all couldn't hide this puppy. I've only seen one that was brighter than that,
and that was out camping in the middle of nowhere (not in Maryland, thank you) and was
big/close enough to look like a bright orange tailed fireball. Tonight's wasn't quite that
impressive but it had some coloration and a serious tail, it wasn't any wimpy little white
dot. I checked online, and we're about a week into the Perseids meteor shower season which
should last another 3 weeks or so. Isn't the internet great?
I never did find the exact sort of notebook thing I was looking for, at either Wal-Mart or
OfficeMax. I wound up buying a Mead Five-Star "Fat Lil' Zipper Planner" and replaced its
guts with a "Fat Lil' Notebook." I like the result (it's the right size for holding CD's
too!) but I don't like the extra expense and waste. I now have this goofy
schedule/assignment thing that I had to pay for and will never use. I used the feedback
form on Mead's website to let them know. I'm sure this is just terribly exciting to all of
you...
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Sanity break!
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| 08-02-99 |
I'm going on vacation for a week. I need it. I have things that I need to spend time
thinking about, and other things I need to spend time not thinking about.
It strikes me as kind of odd that I have a Hero's Journey page on which there has been no
Hero's Journey news. Maybe I should just call it my personal page and get over it (still
including whatever HJ news I feel like including), maybe not. We'll see.
From the "Has anyone else ever noticed this?" Department: mini-Dayrunners and
"student planners" and "personal organizers" and things like that are just sort of neat. A notebook
with a velcro or zippered cover. Problem is, it seems nobody makes them that aren't full of
calendars and address/phone books and dictionaries and metric conversion tables and all
sorts of other crap. They sell refills, but it's very, very hard to find empty ones, or
ones with just plain note paper in them. I don't want to write out a schedule, dinner
plans, phone numbers, shopping lists, my personal goals, etc. -- or maybe I do, but in the
midst of notes from Java class or staff meetings or shorthand for rythyms I thought I could
use or mindless doodling (which is usually what I really wind up doing with notepads at
meetings). Not on those goofy forms.
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Control freak? Moi?
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| 07-26-99 |
New layout. I decided I liked horizontal nav frames better than vertical ones after all.
I'm still undecided about Linux. I like it, sorta, but it's not the answer. It's supposed
to be more stable than Windows, but it crashed on me while running
seti@home overnight, and it took out
a few system files with it. Win95 has never, ever trashed important files on me in a
crash, and it's never simply crashed in the middle of something without some kind of
user input. OTOH, Seti is most definitely much faster in Linux than in Win95 -- about 30
hours vs. 85 hours per work unit, on the same hardware. One wonders if that's because of
the much simpler text mode vs. the fancy graphics of the Windows version, or if there
really is that much of a difference in performance between the two OS's.
Anyway, something better will come along someday. Like Simu's doing with HJ, some developer
is going to come along and build an OS that makes all existing ones look shabby. Or so we
can hope.
Meanwhile I found I really do prefer LiteStep (Win95) to KDE (Linux) just because of the
control it gives you over things. Currently I'm running a minimalist theme with muted
brown-grey and grey-green colors that's easy on the eyes, and no interface stuff except a
right-click popup menu. It looks decent and really is noticeably faster than Explorer.
There's just not much of substance there to actually call a theme and upload somewhere. But
I've been pondering ways to emulate the KDE Panel in LiteStep, which could get interesting
:)
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Gettin' belligerent about Linux
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| 07-20-99 |
Figured I would update just so when Rowan nags me about updating her link, I can get all
belligerent. Lame inside joke.
I'm having a Linux encounter. I think I like Mandrake Linux 6.0 (which is sort of an
enhanced Red Hat) and KDE, but setup has not been painless. Linux hates my lame-o network
card when it's in PnP mode while Windows hates it when it's not (I think I finally have a
Windows driver that it'll live with though). Netscape is pretty much the only full-
featured, graphical, not-in-some-weird-alpha-phase browser out there for Linux, and if I've
never mentioned my opinion of Netscape before, now's not the time to start. The Linux
version suffers from chronic font problems, turning a well-designed web page into what
looks like an ant farm, if you don't mess around with a lot of settings (and even if you
do, it's still ugly).
So why am I bothering? I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Getting a new OS is kinda
like getting a new computer. Right now it's still sort of a toy. Except for telnet (and
that's dubious) there's nothing I can do in Linux that I can't do better in Win95. (Except
you can run a screen saver as the wallpaper, which is just too cool but doesn't really
promote productivity.) Maybe if I force myself to learn The Gimp (Linux's most powerful
and/or popular image editing program) it'll be worthwhile. Maybe once I get sound working
and start playing MP3's stored on my FAT32 partition. Maybe once I start running
seti@home on Linux and turning in
data a zillion times faster than I've managed in Win95 so far. Maybe if Microsoft ever
releases a Linux version of IE... <chortle>
Someone anonymously started an anti-Simutronics thread on
HJVault. (It's probably dead by
the time you read this -- even hot topics are pretty short-lived on those boards, and this
one was lukewarm.) The content doesn't matter, and I'm not saying that because I'm trying
to hide anything but because if you've read one anti-Simu post you've read them all: (A)
some things have changed, (B) other things haven't changed, (C) Simutronics is a capitalist
corporation.
But the interesting thing was that Anonymous described himself (or herself) -- as most of
the people who write posts like his -- as a "long-time Simutronics customer." (Seven years
in his particular case, so Anonymous was playing GS before I even owned a modem.) Which
means that, despite his opinion of the company, he still finds the product worthwhile. So
we're doing a lot of things right.
The reason this comes up now is that this is how a lot of people feel about Microsoft. My
experiences so far with Linux have made me really appreciate Win95. It's far from perfect,
mind you, but it's damn good. Raise your hand if you've ever cursed Bill's name, declared
that Microsoft sucks, played Bill Gates Head Hockey, or thought the Bill scene was one of
the best in the South Park movie... but you use Windows or DOS (or an emulator) on a
regular basis? Yeah, there's lots of us.
Is it hypocritical? Maybe. Is it irrelevant? Maybe. But before I crack Bill Gates jokes
again I'm gonna think about what people say about Simu, and about how good Win95 really
is.
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easy come, easy go
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| 07-08-99 |
Decided that a news archive made more sense and was a lot more interesting than a redundant
"page history" thinger. Faster load time on the main page this way too.
Last night I came in to see what was up and maybe play some Worms: Armageddon.
Turned out DW was taping a demo of Hero's Journey to send out to some companies. It
sounds easier than it is, especially without a real studio or proper equipment. Maybe
the out-takes will make their way to SimuCon? :)
That new starter turned out to be rather more expensive than I thought. The bill for
starter, serpentine belt, towing, general diagnostics, parts and labor came to about $450.
The next morning I realized that I'd forgotten to account for tax in estimating my overtime
pay -- it turned out to be less than the repair bill. So now not only am I not upgrading my
computer, I'm eating a lot of ramen noodles this month.
I'm still hooked on the idea of getting a reptilian pet. The smart choice seems to be a
leopard gecko -- they can be housed in a much smaller (and cheaper) tank, and since they're
nocturnal they don't need an expensive UVB light (they'd just hide from it anyway). I've
got nothing against beardies, they actually seem to be friendlier and form more of a bond,
but I'll work my way up to that. I had the chance to watch some leo gex at the local PetCo
a few days ago. One was shedding its skin and eating it as they usually do, and another
darted in, grabbed a chunk and ran off with it. :)
I've got 13 new wallpapers this time around, 5 of which are full-screen 800x600. I started
messing with Bryce 3D recently -- but I've been avoiding doing countless images of
mountains poking up out of an ocean that goes off to an infinite horizon. It's too easy and
been done too much already. Instead I chose unusual views, looking through glass spheres
rather than at them, or heavy processing in Paint Shop Pro. My dad was a photography major
in college, so maybe his stuff influenced this a little.
I tried a few renders of the Hero's Journey logo in Bryce, but none of them were quite what
I wanted. But after playing around with them a bit in PSP I came up with one that looks as
if it was sketched -- not fancy, but nifty just the same.
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screenshots and reptilian thoughts
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| 06-29-99 |
For the benefit of the people who don't read this news stuff anyway, and you know who you
are, the DragonRealms Spell Lists have moved to the official site. I'm not
maintaining them anymore, so don't expect to find them here. :)
More personal news. I've been thinking about getting either a bearded dragon or a leopard
gecko. Today's my day off (Product Developers are currently on a 4 days on, 4 days off
schedule, 10 hours on weekdays and 12 on weekends... hopefully that's temporary) so I
headed over to PetSmart to see what they've got. Having never been there I didn't know what
to expect, but while they don't have actual animals (except fish and small rodents) they do
have plenty of reptile supplies. Most importantly they have dry formula food and freeze-
dried crickets, which make life easier for people like me (and their landlords). Satisfied,
I got back in the truck to head to the mall... but it won't start. Looks like I need a new
starter, so there goes my plans for upgrading my PC next week. Oh well.
Couple new screenshots of my two desktops:
Hopefully in the coming months I'll be able to post Hero's Journey screenshots instead of
just my desktop. :)
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Cut me some Slack
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| 06-27-99 |
David Whatley's been doing a lot of traveling and showing off our HJ prototype/demo to
various people. It's not hard to get publishers excited about this game. Meanwhile, the St.
Louis office staff had a day of fun at Six Flags
-- will there be steam-powered, dwarven-built rollercoasters in Hero's
Journey? <grin>
The design docs for the new DR professions are moving along. Not quickly, but then, rushing
this part could ruin all the rest of it.
I've been doing a lot of messing with shell and desktop customization. I even installed
(only briefly) ZipSlack, a mini-version of Slackware Linux that doesn't require
repartitioning your hard drive. I didn't get it to recognize my network card and got
frustrated enough to kill it... I figure I can wait for my new computer, with a nice big
hard drive, and install something easier like Red Hat or Caldera if I want to play with
Linux.
But anyway, I went back to LiteStep on my personal machine and I'm trying out NextSTART on
my work machine. (They didn't like it when I ran LiteStep, but NextSTART is easy to figure
out and you can switch back to a normal taskbar with a couple of mouse clicks.) Here's a
screenshot (click the thumbnail to enlarge):
I've added a bunch of links to shell/desktop customization sites on my Links page. Also,
there's some new goodies on my Wallpaper page.
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A new site for a new game
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| 06-14-99 |
For those who've followed my page through the transition from Shalnhh's Hive to Hall of the
Xindhi, I hope this page is everything the old one was. Except, of course, for the
DragonRealms spell lists -- which will soon be a part of the official DragonRealms site.
And for the rest, welcome!
The stuff on the Wallpaper page has nothing to do with Hero's Journey or DragonRealms or
any other game for that matter... but it's become a sort of tradition for my sites. Enjoy.
At this time, HJVault is the best source of news and information on Hero's Journey -- but I
hope these pages will prove to be useful or at least entertaining, particularly once the
process of building the game gets fully underway. :)
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regulars:
moo
third
chat
kimbered
logic
shades
on a whim:
orisinal
bilbanan
smurf
bang
lobster
yugop
skin
wood
rhythm
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