I’ve been back from Jonesboro, AR since Sunday, and haven’t updated my journal. Time ta do that, before something else here at the office breaks 😉
Well, the computer situation got resolved. Thanks to help from Darlene and Pop, spare parts that I had laying around, and parts off of the old machine, I once again have a working computer. I won’t bore you with the harrowing tale of actually putting it together – it didn’t go nearly as smoothly as I had assumed it would (I finished it about midnight on Sunday), and there’s still at least two things I need to fix (Hard drive I/O is slow any laggy. Gotta be a driver problem. And well… it decided to swap the C drive with the D drive between BIOS setup time and actual boot time. Does it every time, and it REALLY pissed off Win 2K by doing that, which means there’s a lot of software to reload.)
So what it is? Dual Athlon 1800+, 256MB ECC RAM (woohoo – even better stability), the Matrox Dual Head in it, etc. All in a COOL ASS brushed aluminium case that has so much airflow through that it doubles as a wind-tunnel 🙂 If I count the video and processor fans, the case has a grand total of 9 fans in it now. The power supply is 550 watts. In fact, when I flip the switch on the power supply and the capacitors do thier inital draw, the lights in my room blink. I shit you not. That’s some serious power demand.
Heather convinced me what it’s name is (all my machines get named – Bravo, Bradley, Borg, Jet, Pusher Prop (my libretto), etc. Almost all of the above are dead – Bravo is still in the land of the living, once I can put a hard drive in it some year. Of course, it’s a P 200 – It doesn’t actually run anything with any speed. And well… it’s old and flakey and won’t do certain things anymore. SIGH. Otherwise I probably would have just used it.) I had made a joke to Heabo – something along the lines of “Hand me my processor. It’s the one that says BAD MOTHERFUCKER.” Later, after it was assembled (but no running) I commented on the fact that I needed to name it, and Heabo said I already had – BAD MOTHERFUCKER. So – that’s the name of the machine.
And it’s pretty appropriate. BMF is ungodly fast for games – I haven’t tried a full compile of Trajectory yet to see how it does with that. That should be… interesting 🙂
One of the reasons why I haven’t gotten much programming done with it is that it came with an Audigy card, and two games – Giants: Citizen Kabuto and Deus Ex. The latter is a game that has had some pretty good press, but, I’ve yet to see anything about the game that set it apart from the rest of the FPS genre. Whoops – after playing it, I see why it’s gotten good press, and why there isn’t a appropriate description. First off, the game has a shitload of options, everything you see can be picked up, beat on, used, etc. There is no simple decorations – it’s all usable if you want it. But you can’t pick everything up and keep it in your inventory – there’s too much (think of the real world, and how much you could hold in your hands and backpack. You get a bit more in the game, but, not much.)
The game is a cross-genre type game, somewhere between a classical adventure game and a First Person Shooter. It has a real plotline. How you play the game makes a difference (I’m a straight up, kill ’em all type player. That’s not nessisarily the best way to pull it off aparently!) in how people react to you, etc. VERY intriguing, and incredibly adictive in my opinion.
Fun part is – the interactivity of the environment is what I was envisioning for Jumpman 2. Great to see it in action, and realise that it will work. Just someone beat me to the punch 😉
And of course, BMF runs Deus Ex silky smooth with ALL options turned on, max graphics settings, etc. And the Audigy does help, since sometimes you’ve got to spend time listening to the footsteps down the hall, figurin’ out where the badguys are, how many, etc. *VERY* slick. It’s a Creative Labs product, so it’s got the usual BS with it – I need to grab the most current drivers from ’em, and update it. I like the newest hardware from Creative Labs – not bitchin’ about that. Just that thier stuff usually is buggy at release time, and this one doesn’t seem to be an exception. But – no problem. They usually improve the situation quickly after release time. Go fig.
All in all, the machine ROCKS. I’m going to do some adjustments to Trajectory for people who have big machines like this to take advantage of the hardware – bumpmapping, high-res textures, etc. In comparison to Deus Ex, it looks a bit doggy in places. I still want it to run on old hardware – PII 300 or higher with a 3D card in it.
Once nice thing about goin’ outta town and my computer dying – I got the chance to clear my mind a bit of Trajectory so I’m not quite as tunnel visioned on the design process, and I worked out every day but one. My workouts were between 1 1/2 hour and 3 hours every day (30 minutes in the morning part of the time, then my workout at night with was the long one.) I wish I could do the same at home – I weigh 204 right now, and I’m starting to have definition on my stomach, and it starts to look pretty impressive if I suck in my gut and flex. (To me anyway – it’s a lot better than a big round Buddah belly 😉 My forearms grew a bit, looking a little more impressive than before (I want nice big forearms eventually 🙂 and if I could have kept it up for another week or two, they would have had pretty much perfect definition (right now there’s still that thin layer of fat on top that keeps ’em from showing all the definition that I would like ’em to.)
When it comes to workin’ out, there’s a whole heck of a lotta work left to be done on my body. I figured out that pretty much no matter what I do, I’m going to have a wrestler’s stomach – IE, I’m barrel chested and the stomach is formed so that even the part without fat on it tends to stick out past my chest. I don’t naturally have that v shapped body. So, I’ll have to expend A LOT of effort to built my pecks and upper torso muscles to be larger and give me the v shape I want 🙂
I’m getting more and more into the working out thing, mainly because of the changes I see in my self. I walk upright again, pulling myself up to my full height (which isn’t considerable or anything, just means I look my height again, instead o’ slumping) and am getting stronger. Never a bad thing. But part of the reason is Heabo – I’m really wanting to look tight and good so that when she looks the same she doesn’t wake up some day and realize she’s got a dumpy lookin’ husband who no longer matches her.
Ok, back to work. Spent like three hours off and on trying to make this entry between phone calls (Heabo and I’s friend Nora called me, and chatted for something like 30 minutes – hey, I didn’t say it was work related phone calls 😉 and emails to help Heabo coordinate the party (she took over, mainly due to my lack of time I think, plus she’s got some different ideas on how things should work. Not nessisarily a bad thing 🙂
I generally have the attitude that “Life is Good” (sometimes I have my bad moments) but quite honestly, I think it’s gotten even better than it used to be. The end of this ‘stage’ in my life is finally starting to come into view, and I can see the next one just off on the horizon. I don’t particularly like change in the things around me, but, there are times where I look forward to it – this is one of them.
As for what’s waiting for me in the next ‘stage’ of my life? Freedom, and the life that I’ve been seeking. I’ve got a couple o’ years until I get the full freedom I seek to pursue my own course, but, that next stage becomes to key to getting it. Not just financially, but, in my metaphysical studies, my physical tuning, and in my ‘lifestyle’ (by that I mean, I’ll finally become a country boy again.) And the wonderful thing is, I married someone who I can fully share that with, who understands it, etc. There’s nothing better in life than being able to share that life.
Of course, even that stage is only temporary – it just transitions to the next stage, which transitiions to the next, etc. I think I’m the only person I know who has somewhat mapped out his or her life for the next 200 years (yes, I fully intend to live that long – longer actually. And, if you look at medical sciences, the posibilities are now there to live a life that long, and be healthy doing it. Funny part is, I’ve expected those posibilities since I was a kid, before the sciences of anti-aging slow developed into where they are going now. Go fig. Just knew eventually how things worked had to change.) Yes, my life has a grand scheme, a meaning of sorts (meaning to who is always the question – it’s mainly meaningful to me I suppose.) And no – I don’t intend to share my life plan. Most of it would sound insane to most sane people, ‘specially how I go about getting where I want to go in a very round about way that allows me flexibility and well… pleanty of enjoyment along the way. I must say though, that I never expected Heabo in my life – I never knew somone like her existed 😉
Anyway – probably sounds a bit insane, but that’s just how I am I suppose 😉 But then again – there’s very few life goals I ever set for myself that I haven’t achieved. Some of them have been delayed at times, and some of them would strike people as a ‘no big deal’ type thing but they were important to me. (Good example – I always said I wasn’t going to live in an apartment or rent. Sounds like a small thing, but, it wasn’t to me. And I did just that – went out and bought a house when it became nessisary. HOWEVER – again with the flexibility thing, I lived with Jeff and Wanda for 6 weeks while I found a house and waited for the deal to go through.) Ok, you’ve glimpsed at my insanity, time to go back to looking semi-normal now 😉
Huge thanks to Darlene and Pop for helpin’ out on the computer front (and to Heabo for being so understanding. The day I got back, I didn’t expect to put it together, because I planed to spend time with her instead. However, she encouraged me to follow my madness, and go ahead and assemble BAD MOTHERFUCKER about 30 minutes after I got home 😉 This machine is going to save me SO much time on a recompile, and on animation work (and I’ve finally got something fast enough to do serious music work for the games), and the help came at a perfect time. A heart felt thank you to both of them!