A Kjorteo draws near!

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:38:32 GMT

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.

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:29:45 GMT

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.

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:13:45 GMT

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--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.

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:31:48 GMT

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.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:20:40 GMT

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.

Sex filter

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:45:19 GMT

I make one of these calls every time I get enough new watchers of my journal that probably missed the last one. If you've been through a million of these before, then no, I'm not trying to badger you or anything--just asking the newcomers, is all.

So. I have a sex filter where I talk about sex stuff. It's basically an opt-in deal for your protection, because I pretty much don't care about that sort of thing getting out, except that I do care about not being too in the face of people who genuinely did not want to know. I'm open, but I still respect others' TMI thresholds!

Entries are roughly half personal RL stuff and half furry porn links and such. I use it very rarely (maybe like three or four posts a year) but I do use it sometimes--in fact, I made an entry just today! (Which was admittedly my first one in ages....)

If you want in, respond to this entry and I'll add you. Comments are screened, so you can request an invite anonymously. However, comments are not screened in the sex filter entries themselves, so if you say something on one of the actual filtered entries, you'll be exposing yourself to everyone else who happens to be in on the filter already. (But this entry is screened, so you can opt in and then lurk if that's more your style, I guess.)

Kjorteo's Video Blog ep. 3: Parents' House Edition

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 23:09:25 GMT

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.

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:47:47 GMT

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.

Sun, 31 May 2009 08:05:19 GMT

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 :()

Thu, 28 May 2009 06:25:17 GMT

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:

Level 10:
Main method:
F1, F2, F1, Counterclockwise, F1, Clockwise, F2, Counterclockwise, F1, Clockwise, Jump, F1

Function 1:
Forward, Forward, Forward, Jump, Forward, Counterclockwise, Forward, Light

Function 2:
Jump, Jump, Clockwise, Jump

Level 11:

Main method:
F1, Jump, Clockwise, F1, Jump, Clockwise, F1

Function 1:
F2, F2, Counterclockwise, Jump, Counterclockwise, F2, F2, Clockwise

Function 2:
Light, Forward, Light, Forward, Light, Forward, Light, Forward

Level 12:

Main method:
Forward, Jump, Clockwise, F1, F1, Counterclockwise, Jump, Light, Jump, Light

Function 1:
F2, Counterclockwise, F2, Counterclockwise, F2

Function 2:
Light, Jump, Light, Jump, Light, Jump

Sat, 23 May 2009 06:09:52 GMT

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.

Tue, 19 May 2009 08:00:40 GMT

Furry bait video games.

I don't normally crosspost or plug things I said on 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.

Tue, 12 May 2009 20:21:35 GMT

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!

Fri, 08 May 2009 04:26:12 GMT

New 2022!

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:08:59 GMT

And now, your daily dose of death by cute video game.

Thanks to ravenworks for the link.

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:34:13 GMT

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.

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:35:56 GMT

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.)

Music post

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:35:43 GMT

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.

Artist: Within Temptation
Song: Angels
Album: The Silent Force
Visuals: Official music video

Within Temptation hails from the Netherlands, which is an unusual point of origin in a genre in which at least 75-80% of the biggest names are either German or Finnish. They went through a few different attempts to pin down a style during their formative albums (Enter, for example, was the high clean soprano/low growly bwargh death metal style, and was almost completely unlistenable.) Mother Earth was sort of a transition from then to now and has a few good songs on it, and one can see the beginnings of the current style in hindsight, but The Silent Force, I think, is where they really found a style that works for them and finally established themselves. What is this style, you ask? Basically, it's what would happen if Evanescence didn't suck. It's hard rock/metal instrumentation with a rock-oriented female vocalist, only instead of Amy Lee having that weird grating voice that almost sounds like she has a permanent bubble in her throat or something, Sharon den Adel's vocals are absolutely perfect. Stylistically, there are some similarities between Within Temptation and new Anette Olzon-era Nightwish (only without Marko,) though the latter uses symphony orchestras more and they're way more gothy.

So, Angels. The song basically focuses on the end of a relationship in which the subject accuses the target of deception. (You took my heart, deceived me right from the start/You showed me dreams, I wish they'd turn into real/You broke a promise and made me realize/it was all just a lie.) So, how do you capture that in a music video? Well, Sharon gets picked up on the highway by an evil priest who turns out to be a disguise-shifting serial killer (with the flashes to his evil sailor/construction worker/clown/doctor forms) who chloroforms her and drives her off to the most obvious and least subtle "this is where all the bodies are buried" location ever, only for her to reappear along with the entire rest of the band as angels who then summon the spirits of all the other victims and make him explode and turn into ash with the power of rock, concluding with Sharon going off again in search of her next target. Naturally.

It's a good song, though, and while the concept of the video is insane, they did a good job actually filming it--I'm not sure what effects were employed and how they did it, but they definitely did a good job making the evil priest look so demonic at times that I can almost accept that the presence of angels would make him explode into a pile of ash the way he did like that. (On the other hand, though, the fact that most of the rest of the band's angelic forms still have Matrix shades is a little off-putting.)

Someday I'll do Memories--it's off the same album, the vocals are even more beautiful (if you can believe that,) and the video actually makes sense. For now, though, I figured you guys just had to see this.

HSOGA

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:24:24 GMT

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.

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:44:06 GMT

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.

Kjorteo's Video Blog ep. 2: Retro Games

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:14:03 GMT

Also, videogame_tales DO IT

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:45:38 GMT

I need an outlet for short outbursts regarding whatever video games I'm currently into and am too lazy to sign up for Twitter. I toyed with an alternate account, but teodreams is enough of a pain to deal with as it is (which is why I haven't updated it even though I have like three dreams saved up now) and the idea of this exercise is a convenient way to get little things like "I WOULD LIKE IF EVERYONE IN MY AC:WW VILLAGE WOULD QUIT CALLING SARA A WHORE." There's no way I'm going to keep doing it if every time I want to post is a matter of having to log out and back in and back out and back in again to switch between accounts and all that good stuff. Arg.

Edit: Actually, never mind, I'll just keep an alt account logged in with Chrome. That's easy enough that I can actually stick with it, I think. Behold, teogames!

Music Post

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:01:05 GMT

Since I got two albums on my birthday dinner yesterday, I was inspired to do a music post from one of them. It was not easy to pick an album, let alone pick a song. Expect everything else to also get featured later, because it's all awesome.

For now, I went with possibly one of the stranger songs Edguy has ever done, and that's really saying something. Basically, it is the distilled essence of power metal: it's bombastic and over-the-top, completely ridiculous, and almost infectiously catchy. One wonders what Tobias Sammet was on while writing this (ground-up dragonflies, possibly) but it's still awesome. One isn't necessarily sure whether he or she is rocking out at the bouncy melody or laughing at the utter absurdity of it all, but the end result either way is that it is uplifting and puts a smile on one's face. In this sense, it is perfection.

Artist: Edguy
Song: The Pride of Creation
Album: Tinnitus Sanctus
Visuals: Album cover

There's something suspiciously encouraging about the "Oh, you're the pride of creation, yes you are!" at the end. I almost expect it to follow with "who's a good boy! Aardvark go walkies?"

Tobias Sammet dropped this quote in an interview, which is about as good an explanation as one is ever likely to get regarding the meaning of this song: "I feel a little bit like God, he doesn't take himself as half as seriously as his fans do, that's what those two clowns, god and me, have got in common. Have you ever seen an aardvark? Check it out and then tell me, do you really believe God has no sense of humor?" Um, okay.

Birthday dinner + haul

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 03:44:37 GMT

My birthday isn't until Tuesday, but since this was the closest day during which everyone would actually be available and able to make it, we had my birthday dinner tonight. The actual dinner was quite good, but apparently the restaurant we went to has one of those "free cake if it's your birthday at the cost of having the waitstaff sing and be as embarrassing as possible" policies, so I got some sort of strawberry cake on top of that, which was amazing. Very happy with this.

Loot:
Video games:
* Retro Game Challenge (Nintendo DS)
* Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers (NES) complete with box and everything--even the manual, dust sleeve, styrofoam block to go between the NES game and the rest of the box, Nintendo Power ads, Coupon for $10 if I send in proof-of-purchase for six Capcom games (it expires in 1991 so I'd better act fast) and ads for current and upcoming Capcom games (sneak preview of Adventures in the Magic Kingdom--I can't wait!) complete with a picture of the totally rad Nintendo Power kid.

Music:
* The Silent Force (Within Temptation)
* Tinnitus Sanctus (Edguy)

Other:
* Black polo shirt with blue stripes
* $170
* Some really sweet and touching birthday cards :3

I also got an awesome commission from yiffyraptor which I forgot to mention just because I got it a while ago and was preoccupied with my haul tonight, not because I hate it or anything. It is actually quite lovely, possibly the most accurate Teo drawn to date, and I'm sure some of you have probably seen it already and remember me showing it to you and going on about how awesome it is. For those who haven't (because I'm dumb and forgot to put it in my journal at the time,) here it is, and yes, it's awesome, again.

I AM HAPPY.

Video blog

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 03:51:15 GMT

I have no idea why I'm doing this, other than that I blame its_a_trap. She recently started doing the whole YouTube webcam video blog thing, which I thought was a dumb idea at first, but then I remembered my laptop has a webcam built in and was randomly tempted to try it out myself. Now it's probably still a dumb idea, but now I'm doing it too.

Well, maybe. I made the one, anyway. We'll see where it goes from here.

If there are any questions or stuff I forgot to mention on what I covered already, or suggestions for other topics, or otherwise anything at all you want to hear, let me know and I'll see if I can work it in next time. Assuming, you know, there's going to be a next time.