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[11 Jul 2009|09:36pm] |
It's really neat when two problems on something you're working on cancel each other out, or at least you can solve them both with the same process.
Adventure of Sam world 1 was way too God damned big and pushing the filesize limit even as it was, so working in the overhaul I'm trying to give it on top of everything else before moving on to world 2 was going to be a trick. Also, I felt the content in a lot of places (particularly Smylia City and the Underground Village) was too spaced out, with too few things over too many boards, requiring the player to walk too much between them all.
So I compressed the content for the player's sake and then deleted the now-unused leftover boards for mine, and the file dropped from 281 KB or so down to 267. Go me.
Also, those of you keeping track of my ever-waning heterosexuality will be delighted to know I've actually reached the "there's this cute guy at the gym..." threshold.
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[10 Jul 2009|02:25am] |
I normally don't link to my dream journal because no one cares what my dreams are, but this last one was epic enough that I kind of want to do something with it now. Maybe. It's a really intriguing setting and execution and I'd like to see adapted into a creative work of some sort, but I can tell it will be nigh-impossible to do so as effectively as it was in my own head.
Step one, I guess, would be to start Googling to see if I'm in the clear on the concept or if I accidentally and unknowingly ripped off something, and step two would be to work with the actual idea. I like where it starts, but I may downplay the afterlife aspect just a bit, as one example. (It's rather uncomfortably in Jack territory as it stands, and since I freaking hate Jack, that's really not a good place for it to be.) Also, there are a ton of details to be filled in. Everyone's names, for example, and the subsequent issues, and more details and back-stories and such on the issues we already have.... I see the leader turning into a frequently-appearing main character despite having died almost right out the gate simply due to there being flashbacks and extrapolations on his influence on the others everywhere. I've got some ideas for his back-story and such already, as well as some good stuff for the big raven guy and the other whatever-he-is guy. Still a ways to go, though, of course.
Medium will be an interesting challenge. The dream was presented to me in the form of a manga or comic and I really think that's what it's best suited for, but everyone knows I can't draw. I could try to write it out, but it would be exceedingly hard to pull off all of the stylistic approaches in text.
Eh, or maybe nothing will come of this. Who knows.
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[06 Jul 2009|06:51pm] |
Got myself two health-related appointments: one to get my insurance (which is basically just Medicaid, and is a free for low-income people type deal) renewed, one for an actual checkup. Nothing's wrong with me to my immediate knowledge, but since it's been years since I've seen a doctor, I figured a checkup/physical/etc. couldn't hurt just to make sure I'm still healthy, especially because God only knows what I may or may not be overdue for as far as immunizations and such.
There was an unholy labyrinthine phone system to get both of those, thanks to the fact that literally none of the numbers I had actually went to where they were supposed to go (what it claims is the number for my primary care physician right on my insurance card? Yeah, that goes to the accounting department of a different clinic,) I got ping-ponged back and forth when department A wanted to transfer me to department B, even though that's where I just came from, and absolutely no one had useful information. I was told I couldn't get an appointment because the doctor to which I have been assigned isn't accepting new patients, even though I have already been assigned to her, and was told to start calling around for someone to claim again. I actually finally found someone with a brain on my first attempt to do just that, basically saying that what I just said about needing a doctor even though I've already been assigned one is wrong, whoever just told me that is wrong, and screw it, let's get you an appointment right now. :D Though in a final twist, it turns out the doctor to which I have been assigned isn't the one it lists on my card anyway, and neither my pretend nor actual assigned doctors are going to be the one to see me in this upcoming appointment anyway--that's going to be handled by basically some random doctor who was available that day. At that point, I really didn't care anymore--I technically have a doctor assigned to me, and therefore I can technically be seen by someone, and that's good enough for me.
Gigantic clusterfuck aside, I actually still maintain a fairly positive view of government-provided insurance and hope the whole health care reform deal with a public option passes. This is because I have an extremely negative view of private insurance. Could mine be improved? God, yes--just reread that previous paragraph. However, last time I had that TIA/miniature stroke/whatever it was, I got an MRI (among other things) for nothing more than a $25 copay, so I feel like they're pretty much entitled to make a policy of sodomizing me with a red-hot poker in the waiting room from now on and I'll still be coming out ahead. Besides, it's not like private insurers are any better--![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) yiffyraptor still can't get past the "find a doctor who's taking new patients" step to even get as far as I am. (Well, actually, maybe he could if he was willing to take someone way on the other side of town or didn't give up as easily in the red tape maze. Or maybe not. My observations as an outsider, could be wrong. My point is his private insurance deal clearly isn't better off than my Medicaid. Anyway....) And really, I'd rather have a faceless red tape labyrinth that doesn't really care than a faceless red tape labyrinth that is actively against the idea of helping you (paying claims costs them, after all) and has access to tricks like turning down claims and raising your premiums to compensate if you ever actually use them. (Oh, which reminds me, I don't have premiums. Like, at all. That's pretty cool.)
TL;DR: Navigating phone menus and such when it comes to health insurance is harder than Myst, but fuck it, I have a free doctor's appointment in about a month, so public health care is still awesome.
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[05 Jul 2009|05:28pm] |
As far as grocery store chains go, Whole Foods is a little too hippie even for me, and anyone who knows me knows that's saying something.
My sister likes them because they actually have all sorts of things that even she (a vegan with a wheat-gluten allergy) can eat, and I like them because they have the absolute best peanuts ever (which I stocked up on to a rather alarming degree while I was there, because I hate shopping any more frequently than I have to and therefore like to alter my diet to consist of non-perishables and then get a 4+ month supply of everything) but...they have a homeopathy section. :(
Also got some new nail polish...Smith's didn't have the blue I usually get and I kind of felt like a change anyway, so I picked up a sort of lavender one. It's getting harder and harder to pretend there's any heterosexuality left in me.
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[26 Jun 2009|12:19pm] |
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For those who care enough to acknowledge miscellaneous details of my characters' lives, according to the in-character canonical info and such, yesterday (June 25th) was Sara's birthday. She is now 27. To celebrate, I made a new Sara icon out of that awesome its_a_trap Seduction illustration.
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| Kjorteo's Video Blog ep. 3: Parents' House Edition |
[05 Jun 2009|05:06pm] |
I'm off housesitting for my parents, so I took the opportunity to make a video blog entry from here.
Today's topics include their house, weaving, and the differences between my parents' weaving loom and mine.
I'm a spaz and accidentally stopped the recording about five seconds too early--I meant to conclude with "For now, this is Kjorteo, signing off," but instead I got as far as "For now--" before abruptly ending. Since that's all I was getting at, though, you can rest assured that you didn't miss anything important. Also, the incoming light from the window messes up the lighting in the video sometimes, depending on how far back or forward I'm leaning at any given time. Sorry about that.
No clever captions this time because I couldn't think of anything to add.
( Read more... )
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[02 Jun 2009|07:43pm] |
Greetings from Santa Fe!
Housesitting for a little shy of a week while the rest of my family is off at the memorial service for my grandfather, who passed away last time I was housesitting. They had him cremated and then held on to the ashes until everyone's individual schedules and the weather and so on all aligned properly and they could all get together for a little private ceremony on my parents' property up in the mountains.
I have Quicksilver for computer access and my mom's weaving loom to do some weaving while I'm here, so it's basically just like being at home, only it's much much much bigger and more scenic, counterbalanced by the fact that my friends aren't within walking distance anymore and I have to take care of things (the dogs are...a handful.)
I may try to get some pictures, but in the meantime, you still have the ones from the last few times.
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[31 May 2009|02:04am] |
Mark my words: if I ever happen to break up with yiffyraptor, it's going to go down something like this.
(Thanks to yiffyraptor for the link, even if he's always rampaging and eating people and never taking the relationship seriously :()
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[28 May 2009|12:15am] |
Thanks to slither for the awesome link.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Coolio_Niato/light-bot
Level 10 in particular requires some particularly horrible workaround logic. ("I need to walk forward one space and turn a light...I have a function that walks forward four places, jumps, takes another step forward, turns right, and flicks a light...there's a wall in front of the light so he'd just be harmlessly walking against it and jumping in place and it won't actually hurt anything, and calling the function gets the light in one move whereas walking forward and flicking it directly takes two, so let's call that function! :D" As a theoretical made-up example.) If you can beat it, then you are clearly an expert at mangling your own code in the name of compression (it's horrible and unreadable and the robot spends half the time dancing around in place like an idiot, but the other half actually solves the level and it's small enough to fit in the size limit and it technically works God damn it and that's the important thing) and therefore you should start making ZZT games immediately.
(I beat the entire game, because I'm an insane coding mad scientist-type due to my ZZT background awesome like that.)
( My solutions for the last three levels (hidden behind spoiler text, don't worry) because I'm proud enough to show them off )
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[23 May 2009|12:01am] |
Regularly running so slowly that I literally couldn't tell whether it had frozen or not and had to guess whether waiting long enough would make something happen... regularly dealing with times as high as a minute and a half between when I right-clicked something and when the context menu actually appeared... un-fucking-acceptable, especially for a laptop I named Quicksilver.
Used the Toshiba disk that formats and restores to its out-of-box state. Will see if that helps. It seems better so far, but I really haven't done anything with it yet (even connecting to the internet and getting all the Windows updates made since the factory image,) so it's way early to declare that the issue has been inarguably resolved. Sigh.
Having to uninstall all the Toshiba junk the thing comes with and fix the "by default the DVD drive completely doesn't work until you get in the registry and fiddle with the key that fixes it" issue again, along with reinstalling all my actual programs, won't exactly be the most fun I've ever had, but unless the reformat did absolutely nothing to the speed issue, then dealing with setting everything up again couldn't possibly be more annoying than just dealing with the thing in general was before.
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[19 May 2009|01:59am] |
Furry bait video games.
I don't normally crosspost or plug things I said on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) videogame_tales here, but 1) I still need to occasionally remind everyone that we need more members, etc., and 2) in case anyone was curious how I got to be such a total degenerate.
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[12 May 2009|02:18pm] |
Sign that you probably haven't been working out enough before: when you finally start, after a while, you do your usual stretches and such before jogging, and think "whoa, my upper leg/thigh areas are kind of bulgy. That's weird. Are they misshapen? Should I maybe get that looked at? I hope it's not...wait...hold on, I think those might be muscles."
I'm not exaggerating, either. That thought process actually happened. :(
Now if only that could happen to the chest/stomach area since that's what I'm trying for and still haven't gotten anything in yet, but any results anywhere are better than nothing, I guess!
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[30 Apr 2009|12:08pm] |
And now, your daily dose of death by cute video game.
Thanks to ravenworks for the link.
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[29 Apr 2009|03:22pm] |
I just got one of those massive CD-holding book things (hint: if you're looking for any sort of case at all, from this to a laptop-carrying backpack or something, anything by Targus automatically wins) and moved my CD collection into it. The experience reminded me how schizophrenic my tastes are...I really want to say that a lot of it is because I used to be into different genres and my tastes have changed since then, but that's not entirely true. After all, I do have a few truly awful CDs that I've either grown out of or received as a present despite never wanting in the first place (anything by Creed, for example) that I chose not to move to the book. Thus, everything in the book is at least "I haven't listened to this in years but I probably wouldn't mind hearing it again" level and goes up from there.
Let's flip to a random page and see what's on just that one page alone, shall we? And yes, I took the time to alphabetize the CDs within the book; shut up.
Pearl Jam -- Lost Dogs (Discs 1 and 2)
Rage Against the Machine -- The Battle of Los Angeles (One of a small handful of albums I was really on the fence about--I am almost positive I will never ever actually listen to it again, but I just couldn't bring myself to not include it for some inexplicable reason.)
Red Hot Chili Peppers -- Californication
Red Hot Chili Peppers -- By the Way
Rhapsody of Fire -- Triumph or Agony
Romantic Piano Music
Sonata Arctica -- Ecliptica
I really have no suitable explanation for this, either.
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[27 Apr 2009|12:29pm] |
Apparently my sister was struck with appendicitis and had to go to the emergency room sometime last night. They performed a relatively routine appendectomy with no complications, and last I heard (which was about 2:30 AM last night) she's on a Morphine drip and more than a little out of it, but will be fine.
I've said it before, but this just reminds me how much respect I have for doctors, medicine, science, and the overall advancement of human knowledge. Appendicitis, of course, is 100% fatal (in an extremely horrible-way-to-go sense, no less) if untreated. If detected somewhere in the "oh God my abdomen is in the world's worst pain, to the hospital NOW" phase before the appendix actually bursts, treating it is an extremely routine procedure with no more risk than any other surgery. (There's always the possibility of sheer random bad luck in the form of a bad reaction to the anesthesia or something, etc., but that's about it.) They took something 100% life-threatening and turned it into the equivalent of having your wisdom teeth out.
My sister now literally owes her life to the fact that we as humans figured this stuff out.
Actually, if you want to go back farther than that, my sister and I were both extremely complicated labors that didn't go right at all, so my sister and my mom and I would all be dead if doctors hadn't known what they were doing. Twice.
Progress.
(In unrelated news, the fact that I can post this message on a website and have it instantly reach all of my friends--from the ones as close as living in the same apartment complex to the ones as far away as Wales--is pretty significant as far as human achievement, too.)
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| Music post |
[22 Apr 2009|10:19pm] |
Here's one from the other album I got for my birthday. I chose this one because the song is simple, relatively sane, and hauntingly beautiful (Sharon den Adel's voice is phenomenal,) yet the music video...well, it's not an insane video in and of itself (it's not Rhapsody or anything, at least,) but the concept of the video is so far mismatched from the concept of the song that it's almost hilarious.
( Read more... )
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| HSOGA |
[17 Apr 2009|02:23pm] |
Fun fact: The very first place in the Pokemon series that allowed you to breed Pokemon, the daycare in Gold/Silver, is located on Route 34.
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[15 Apr 2009|01:41am] |
mr_silvers and I share a birthday.
Thanks for all the happy birthay wishes I got from everyone. I counter with a happy birthday to mr_silvers!
He gave me my present (Journey's Greatest Hits) today. It was awesome. Thank you!
My present for him hasn't arrived yet, even though I ordered it a while ago. I am sad for this, but promise to deliver it as soon as it does.
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