i hope i wake up in six hours

just woke up super thirsty.  went to the fridge in the garage.  (my parents recently cleaned out my room, so they fridged some mountain dew cans i was collecting.)  i find a mountain dew voltage.  expiration date june 21, 2010.  i drank it.

mountain dew is always a good idea.

Faster Than Light is a wonderful indie game where you command a ship, with your own crew members, and take it through the galaxy on a mission. You’ll encounter other ships, do battle or bargain with them, and upgrade your ship+crew along the way.

After 45 hours played, I beat this game for the first time today. It’s not a long game, rather, it’s arcade-style, so when you die, you lose, and then you restart. Each “round” takes at most an hour, less if you die, obviously.

I bought it about a month ago when it was on sale for $5, and it’s on sale for $5 again, for this weekend!

I highly recommend it. It has a wonderful space theme, leaves a lot of room for planning, analyzing, optimizing, and micromanaging. It has lots of fun choices to make, different strategies to use to venture through the galaxy, and strikes that wonderful balance of luck and strategy. This game is different every single time you play it.

Also, I like that the game is challenging. Now, I would certainly call myself a gamer, and I know my way around game mechanics and strategies, so believe me when I say this isn’t a walk in the park. This isn’t even like a mile run. This game is tough! When I say I beat the game, I mean on Easy mode. I played Normal mode a few times when I first got it, switched to Easy mode shortly after, and haven’t gone back yet. The difficulty of the game is a welcome breath of fresh air, considering how many other games these days baby you or walk you through them. This game gives you a very intuitive and in-depth tutorial, making you think you’ve gone it, and then you venture off into space and your ship gets boarded by Mantises that slaughter your crew. Space is so unforgiving. (Restart!)

I am most impressed by the polish of the game, as well as all the little details that have gone into making the experience immersive and enjoyable. There are nine different ships, each with its own room layout and secondary layout, six+ species of crew members, tons of different weapons and ship augmentations to pick from. There are bunches of things to unlock, achievements to do to unlock them, and the sense of progression is fantastic. You can even name your ship and starting crew members! (Top choices for my space crew are Maverick, Goose, and Iceman.)

This game is on sale this weekend for $5 (off the regular price of $10), and I highly recommend that you pick it up if you want to experience a fun, creative, polished, replayable, and challenging game.

spray some nos .. or windshield wiper fluid

"i had to get new spray nozzles, so i looked on ebay and found ones that also looked cool." - my dad

check out our suped up suv mannnn.  okay, my dad is pretty cool.

water and electronics

picture this: it's a few nights ago.  a full cup of water is sitting on my desk, as usual.  i reach over to my bed to get something, not a usual motion.  on my way back, i knock over the cup of water with my elbow.  the whole cup spills, but my desk doesn't get that wet..  how convenient that my mechanical keyboard (of about a month's age) is right there to catch it all!

a few water droplets get on the monitor screen, and i wipe most of it off, but whatever, MY KEYBOARD!

i freak out about the keyboard, turn it upside-down to shake out all the water, and then i remov every single keycap, dry off what i can, and then put the keycaps back on.

moment of truth.  i plug it in.  i type.  IT STILL WORKS!

i manage to type all of this, which still sits in a word document on my desktop: I just spilled water on my keyboard!  And removed all the keys.  And dried it out as best as I could with napkins.  And put all the keys back on.  And it still works!  Woohoo!  :D

i take this time to bring my focus back to what other things require my attention, such as wiping the few remaining little droplets of water on my monitor that i missed.

and then..

my computer starts tripping out.  like, as if i'm holding the shift key down continuously.  and the usb beepy sound happens a few times.  uh oh.  oh, and by now, the keyboard is non-responsive.

i tinker with it a bit more.  yep, it's dead.

my computer doesn't recognize it, other computers don't recognize it.

well, i'm sending it in under warranty now.

so is the story over?  nope!

the next day, my monitor is brokes.  how is it brokes?  no better way to describe it than with some pictures!

yep, a few water droplets seeped into the bottom of the screen, damaged something or the other, and now those vertical lines are permanently on my screen!

no warranty business for my monitor, because a) it's unbranded, and b) i've had it since my freshman year (september 08).

well, i guess it's time to finally upgrade from this horrible 22" 1680x1050 ppi.  (pixels per inch)

tl:dr - a few nights ago, in one swift motion, i owned my keyboard and monitor.

so i just got a call..

me: hello?
guy: hey, choobies?

LOLOL there's a first time for everything.

(i just joined a ugc highlander tf2 team and my clan leader called to ask if i was on my way to a scrim)

no 1-UPs in mario kart..

just found out the multi-boost mushroom in mario kart 64 isn't green.

next stop: stanley cup final

game 6.  devils lead the series 3-2.  adam henrique scores in overtime and the devils beat the rangers to advance to the stanley cup final.

seeing the reaction of the entire prudential center.  almost shed a tear.  so beautiful.

xxi

just found out what forever 21 means...  IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE.

games :]

David Sirlin has helped me to better understand a little more about what it is that I enjoy so much about playing games with other people.

Competitive games are a means of expression as well. Players seem to have trouble approaching a game differently than they approach life in general. The way they take in information, the way they make decisions, the aspects they value, and the skills they excel at are usually similar inside and outside of the game. In fact, many people, myself included, have come to understand a lot more about who they really are through the way they end up expressing themselves in games. There are many forms of expression in the world, but one of the advantages of competitive games is that they force you to test your worldview against the worldviews of others. It’s easy to develop highly unpopular theories about life in general that you have no real way of testing, but competitive games force you to jump in, get dirty, and see how those ideas really stack up. If you are an unconventional genius, you will prove so beyond all doubt. If you are a confused quack, that too will be borne out, and you will have the opportunity to learn from others and change your ways.

"Final Thoughts" from http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/

His Playing To Win book (free on his site!) is highly recommended reading if you play any kind of games at all.

two instances in two days

so i realized i have this bad tendency.

when i'm in a public place, put on the spot, and i have to respond to someone of the african-american descent, in the heat of the moment, i tend to blurt out something ghetto like, "yeh it's all good."

last night, at livingston dining hall's mongolian grill, there's an awesome black guy who cooks the food.  here's how the conversation went..

me (thinking): alright, next step is to tell him what kind of sauce i want.  i'm so ready to say spicy duck sauce, 'cause it's so good, mmm spiciness, yeahhh
him: what kind of sauce do you want?
me: i'll have spicy duck!
him: sorry, we don't have anymore.
me (thinking): AHHH PANIC AHH WHAT AHH OKAyAHH
me: oh, uh, i'll have teriyaki then.
him: yeah, sorry we ran out of duck.
me (in a slightly ghetto tone): haha it's all good
me (thinking): WAIT WHAT DID I JUST SAY WHAT THE WHAT I'M SO DUMB

then again tonight..
i put my bike on the rexb bike rack.
the black bus driver gets off the bus and shakes my bike.
him: just wanted to make sure it's secure!
me: haha yeah it's all goood
SHOOT.

._____.