Yoinked from kyoht, this song is ridiculous…but dangerously catchy.
I am mostly captivated by the animation on the wolf, I love it!
Category Archives: Personal Blog
Entries from my personal journal
Hopscotch, final version
After 5 iterations, I got my hopscotch redesign to turn-inable quality (meaning that I ran out of time, there’s always “one more thing” you could have done).
Really, though, I’m proud of it, as my playtesters seemed to really enjoy themselves for this final go!
I am most amazed at how radically different this version turned out than my initial concept. I think it’s easy to assume that ideas are born in totality, but there’s quite a bit of teardown and reworking and…well…iterating involved in this sort of thing.
And so, I give you my ruleset and analysis for…
Cloverfield
The Bandology consensus on Cloverfield:
Andy: Cloverfield is the second movie ever to give me motion sickness.
Edmundo: Cloverfield gave me a hangover
Me: Cloverfield almost gave me a freakin seizure
The conclusion being, don’t take those warnings at the ticket counter lightly
Game Design and Hopscotch
After a very relaxing break, and a very rewarding trip touring companies on the west coast, the semester has started and I am back in action!
My project group is awesome, I can tell, but I’m also taking Jesse’s Game Design class, which terrifies me. Usually, when I take a class or do something, I feel like I have some knack for it going in, but Game Design is something I have NO idea if I’ll be any good at or not. It’s a scary thing! The last time I took a step into something I had no idea about was when I took my first computer programming class at Centre…
…and then, of course, I ended up reveling in the challenge, majoring in it, and supposedly being rather good at it. So, who knows!
Anyway, our first assignment is to redesign hopscotch. No easy feat, let me tell you! We have to go through and document a particular process with this, and Jesse is all about establishing the problems that your design will attempt to solve. So, after playing a round of hopscotch with a classmate on a crudely made court of masking tape, here are some problems with hopscotch I’ve come up with:
1) It’s too easy
2) waiting to take turns is boring
3) if you fall behind early on, your only hope is that the other people will also screw up, otherwise you’re screwed
4) even if you all play a perfect game, whoever goes first will win
5) turns are self-contained, there’s no real interaction between players, they don’t affect each other
6) the more people play, the bigger the downtime-to-playtime gets, and the more boredom is able to flourish
7) punishments (losing turn if falling or stepping on lines) but not much in the way of rewards (you get to keep going, woo?)
I think I am most interested in solving problems 2 and 5, because I think they could be solved together. On to the brainstorming!
Any thoughts are welcome.
Renewed
So, as a follow-up to my WoW respec worry post, I am feeling much better about being a prot warrior. Will, Scott and I have run Botanica and Arcatraz with some pick-ups, and both went REALLY well.
I also took charge of the marking, and felt I did a rather good job of that. The trick to all this, I think, is for me to research ahead of time, and then give the group as much of a feeling that I know what I’m doing as possible. Though Scott will tell you that I was double-checking everything with him almost constantly 🙂
Either way, I feel much less stressed about holding aggro. According to Will, we were in Botanica with two top-tier DPSers and I held aggro just fine. Hooray!
Of course, it also helps to have very clever groupmates. We’ve been lucky that our pick-ups have been really on top of things. Perhaps Heroics are not so far out of sight afterall!
In other news: Pink Door, Jersey Mike’s, and Gumbo-a-go-go have been checked off the Food Tour list.
Food Tour continues…
On a less dorky and less melancholy note, I’ve knocked two more places of my Food Tour list. Today I am enjoying a delicious sandwich from the liquor store deli, and on Friday night we ate at Lynn’s. Granted, all I had there was a huge plate of sweet potato fries, but that’s all I really wanted anyway.
I also got to see Strother. Hooray!! Strother is one of my all time favorite people, and I am thrilled that we got to hang out!
As for the rest of the Food Tour, I’m scheduled to eat at Vietnam Kitchen on Saturday with Ken (anyone else is invited). Pink Door and Gumbo-a-Go-Go still need to be worked in, Jersey Mike’s I can grab for myself for lunch some day, and the bakery will surely sneak up on me one of these mornings.
Hooray for fooooood!
WoW woes…
After WoWing for about a year and a half now, it’s finally happened. I always knew it would, some day, but I got by with just putting it out of my mind. But no more.
I have to respec full prot.
Now, my warrior was my first WoW character ever, so my spec is quite homemade, and probably not efficient at all. It is, as I like to imagine, held together with duct tape and patchwork. The reason I started out on the arms track to begin with was because it took me to my 30s to realize there were 2 other tabs to choose from…
So I got by with this flimsy arms/prot build that was wonderfully multipurpose. I could solo just fine, and tank just fine, and hold my own in pvp if it came down to it. My friends claim that I am a very skilled tank, and have the technique and theory down quite well. But technique and theory can only carry you so far, and lately I’ve been struggling like mad to hold aggro, even with all my tricks and a clever, cooperative group. If I have any intention of doing heroics, my homemade talent build has to go.
Will empathizes with me deeply, as it reminds him of the day he realized he would have to take his priest full holy spec. He was a brilliantly clever healer, but just couldn’t heal to kill Terrok in Skettis. I suppose it is for the best.
I am also training up to be a more responsible tank in general. My server is apparently dreadfully tank-depleted, as everyone is always needing one. I’ve been making myself to do the marking, rather than rely on Will to do it, and take more of a leadership role. I think, mostly, I just need more confidence in myself.
…but oh, I am going to miss Mortal Strike so much!!
Louisville Food Tour continues….
Mayan Cafe and Maido can be checked off my food tour list. Hooray!
And, in a shocking display of daring, at both places I tried something I DON’T NORMALLY GET!! (gasp!) At Maido I tried their udon soup, which was quite tasty, but the helping was huuuuuge. Granted, everything else I got was normal (miso soup, shrimp tempura, and one of about 4 sushi rolls that I repeatedly get), but the udon was different.
At the Mayan Cafe I got the Shrimp Invasion, which was deliciously tasty, and fried plantains of course. Though it was tasty, I will probably revert to my always getting the Uxmal Salmon, because it remains my favorite.
Now to approach the rest of the list…I would almost certainly have liquor store deli for lunch today, but I am carless, and thus stranded. I shall have to arrange otherwise.
In other news, the ballers played Apples to Apples last night, and it was predictably enjoyable. I’ve been sleeping and reading for leisure on my break days, and have begun poking at Actionscript 3 to prepare myself for the spring semester.
I’m trying not to work too hard, though.
I often praise Louisville for its delicious food opportunities, and since I’m in town for a bit, I intend to do a food tour. It’s a trick to be on vacation, actually, because I’m still making a list and accomplishing tasks. Let’s see what’s on the agenda..
1) Penn Station — CHECK! Scott and I went for lunch today
2) Maido
3) Mayan Gypsy
4) Pink Door
5) Gumbo-a-go-go
6) Lynn’s Paradise Cafe
7) Nord’s Bakery
8) Jersey Mike’s
9) Vietnam Kitchen
10) Liquor Store Deli
Am I forgetting anything?
Silliness
Best Rock Band quote from last night–
Brendan: Aw, man, I have to drum for Iron Maiden.
Will: Just use one hand!
Brendan: … THAT’S DEF LEPPARD!