Huh

Sunday, February 06, 2022

2022.

At least I have

Thursday, December 16, 2010

7.41pm
This post is about fried chicken. Texas Chicken, which is apparently the brand name that Church's Chicken uses outside of the US. I am unbelievably sad because I just had some Texas Chicken chicken and it was dry. So dry.

Back in the US, in Texas (of all places), when we ate at Church's Chicken, biting into a drumstick required a napkin in the other hand or your chin would be soaked in oil and juices after two bites. So good.

So sad.

total blank

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

1.26am
Hello, blog. How have you been.

I vaguely recall freaking out over my exams the last time round, certain of how there was no way in hell I'd pass the paper. I getting straight B's so far, though, so that must have been total bullshit.

I'm on the eve of another paper. Again, I'm sure I'll fail it. But instead of panic, all I have is a strange sense of calm. I wonder what that indicates.

In possibly related news, I'm almost done with my first playthrough of Fallout New Vegas, and finished another six books of The Dresden Files.

I'm going to see how early I can walk out of the exam hall tomorrow.

I wonder if I'll start blogging again.

valctiblizzard

Friday, October 01, 2010

2.55am
I have an article response I need to write. Scratch that, I have two articles I need to read.

TF2 is updating

F
U
C
K

like little gooey hushpuppies

Monday, September 27, 2010

2.16am
My eyeballs are about to fry up in their sockets. I vaguely remember this happening the last time I went on an ebook binge. I need to go out and buy these books. But my Kinokuniya membership expired... troublesome.

In between reading I'm still staring at the screen for schoolwork.
The long awaited Digital Design module is proving more taxing than I had anticipated. They've chosen a program, Autodesk Revit, which frustrates me to no end. It automates a lot of tasks, such as generating detailed plans with inegrated information on materials, and I can see it being a huge asset once I master it.
If I master it. It's infurating because I'm too used to Google Sketchup. I'm a fucking maestro at Sketchup, I say this now with utter confidence and crushing assurance. A fucking maestro. Watch my fucking hands and I fly over hotkeys and shit.
It's those same hands that fuck up my Revit work. Revit's hotkeys are all two-letter combinations. What the flying fuck! Okay, you've got a shitload of tools available. It's still a fucking lot of work to craft simple shapes that aren't walls and a roof.

I'm worried when I enter the industry (holy crap that phrase sounds so fucking daunting) I'll face pressure to stop using Sketchup. Or maybe I won't, I have no idea what sort of tools are used. But Sketchup has a reputation for being kiddy and simplistic. Which is fucking stupid. Just because it's easier to use and I don't have to juggle multiple 3-d workplanes thanks to snaps doesn't mean it isn't a good tool.
This is much like my struggles with photoshop. I'm a novice at photoshop. Fucking rasters. If I'm drawing a picture from scratch, or editing a single photo, sure, photoshop is great. But putting together presentations and arranging different elements... use a vector-based program, dipshits. Why juggle millions of layers in a tiny side window. Fuck.

The new season of TELEVISION has started. Quietly supplanting my old anime watching.
Community was streets ahead. Office is now dead to me. Raising Hope is more white trailer trash goodness. Running Wilde looks like it could be great. If they haven't made a huge mistake.

never ever saw that coming oh no

Saturday, September 25, 2010

1.54am
Reading a new fantasy series. Not really new. The Codex Alera series, by Jim Butcher. Apparently he did another series, the Dresden Files, which got made into a tv series. Familiar name. Never seen it.

This all started when I downloaded I Shall Wear Midnight in ebook format to read on my NEW PHONE YEEHAW
Finished that in a day and a half, because I had to write that 2000 word essay right in the middle. Anyway, breaks my heart because it seems like he's rushing. The epilogue skips a whole year, and throws some plot points out which just ring of finality. But let's not dwell on that. Next book's a Vimes book, even though the last I heard I thought it was a Moist book. So that's a Watch book, and this one counts as a Witch book, and before that we had a Magic book. Next... Death?
I guess I was trying to make a joke but... bad taste.

Anyway, Codex Alera. In short, it's like reading the motherfucking Belgariad all over again. Meaning, I'm experiencing the same fulfillment and enjoyment back when I was first reading it and didn't know enough to know that it was actually pretty shallow. Fun stuff. Lowly farmboy raised by 'aunt' and powerful male father figure. Quiet, sensible. Bemoans his lack of standing in the world. Has HIDDEN BACKGROUND OF MIGHT AND MAJESTY.
"At a Question and Answer session at the 2010 Dragon*Con in Atlanta, Ga, Jim Butcher revealed that the origin of the Codex Alera series was a bet. Another author bet him that he could not write a good story from a bad idea. Jim replied that he would let the other author pick not one, but two bad ideas, and he would write a good story about it. The two bad ideas the other author gave him were the lost 9th Roman Legion and Pokemon."
So yeah, maybe this is just as shallow as the Belgariad. Still having fun.
RIP David Eddings.
...don't die yet, Terry Pratchett.

save and quit

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

7.00pm
Mineshaft CR-2 1x/1d

The mineshaft started out commonly enough. It was a simple 4x4 vertical shaft down into the earth, stairs along the sides and torches every eight metres down, branching out sideways when I heard the sounds of underground streams through the walls. It got its name from the two creepers that made it in from one of the side branches which I thought I had secured. Closer inspection after the incident revealed a corner of dark space, created by a tapped vein of coal, that I forgot to light, which must have spawned the bastards. In any case, they came up behind me as I descended past the side pathway. One blew up, which didn't kill me, but rocked me from the stairway down the remainder of the shaft. The ground was not as merciful, and I died. This was lucky, better to die by fall damage than explosion, which might have destroyed some items. I had four buckets on me to grab some lava, which was the point of the initial trip down.

I trekked back to base and headed down the shaft, to find that a good chunk of the stairway had been ruined, and i headed up again to get some replacement materials. This turned out to be a good idea, as a second creeper had followed the first, and was now chilling out at the bottom of the shaft. Next to my items. This would require careful handling, lest I trigger the bastard into vaporizing what his other chum could not. Pulling out a new stone sword I'd cobbled together after my death, I attempted to lure him upwards to safely dispatch him. His stupid pathing kept making him fall back down, though, and I wasn't about to get closer while he was still jumping in my stuff. I gave up for the moment, and in the end, he despawned while I busied myself fixing the wall his friend had destroyed.

That was the story of how the mineshaft got its name. That was not the orignial point of this post.

Today I broke into another natural cave from the wall of the mineshaft. A vein of iron greeted me, but I resisted temptation and started to spread out and drop torches to the keep the monsters from spawning. That first room was fine. In my head, I'm trying to figure out when it all went bad but I just can't piece out the journey I made from there. I'd prepared nine stone picks and two steel ones, and I'd resolved myself to use them all up before I returned to the surface. Somehow, that first cave... just kept going. I remember at one point I linked back to a previous shaft that had been four levels above me when I'd first entered the first cave. I remember promptly turning around. I remember Side paths upon side paths, holes in the ground leading to vast, unlit caverns, underground waterfalls hiding overhead drops, they just kept appearing as I raced to set down torches, passing by veins upon veins of iron and coal. I remember giving up, and attempting to head back to the vincinity of the first cave, seal up unsecured side paths, and mining what I could.

I remember the earth closing around me. My torches were everywhere - I'd gone through at least 100 of them. My sword was near breaking point after I'd secured a skeleton spawner in a dungeon, with the intent to turn it into a arrow factory. My supply of torches was running low, but I crafted another 50 from some sticks in my pack and freshly dug coal. I twisted. I turned. I returned time and time again to the same room, with six different exits and two giant holes in the floor.

I remember thinking, "Just head up." Simple enough. But never as simple as it seems. The first three paths I picked were dead ends, or looped back to paths that brought me back to the 6-exit nexus. Eventually I made some progress - to a new area. A new room, with a three-metre wide crack in the ground spanning its middle, revealing yet another abyss. A tiny bridge crossed the gap, and across the room a closet-sized hole in stone was visible. After ensuring that the walls of the crack were to steep for monsters to clamber out, I crossed over. Approaching the hole, it was apparent that it held yet another cave system, with a steep drop in front and a shelf of rock above and behind my head. I inched outwards, hoping upon hope that I'd travelled high enough that this was a steep drop I'd seen in an older branch, and a quick climb up to the shelf would lead back to familiar ground.

A creeper dropped on my head. I freaked out, batted it away with the pickaxe I was holding, breaking it in the process. Retreating into the closet-sized hole, I started dropping some blocks to seal off the pathway. I'd gotten a one-block wall down before I'd realised that the creeper wasn't coming. After taking his chomp out of my scalp, my blow had tossed him down the steep drop in front of us. I peered over my tiny, unfinished wall to investigate. Dimly, I could see him scrabbling at the sides of the drop, unable to jump out.

The lucky bastard! He'd found a tiny ledge that extended his blasted life a few more moments. Full of vindictive glee, I took out a bucket of water I'd brought in fell in some lava. Oh, if only I had prepared better for other scenarios. Like bringing a few dozen signboards to mark my way. Anyway, the water. I was going to flush this bastard down the hole from this safe distance. I dumped the water on the ground, it spread towards the drop, and coursed over the edge, right onto the creeper's head.

To my horror, he wasn't swept away. He stopped jumping around as the water streamed over him. He swam, up against the current, over the lip of the drop. Words cannot describe the abject horror that seized me. I panicked. I backpedaled. He followed, hopping over my tiny wall. (Stupid, stupid! The roof was too high!) I attempted to pull out my sword, and swatted at him with a torch. I...

backpedaled into the crack.

The crack, with its walls too steep for monsters to climb. Very steep, in fact. I'm in a new room. Backed into a corner. I've still got some torches. There's a bright lava flow over on my right, a deep, unfamiliar darkness on my left. The creeper fell down with me, he's hanging out near the lava. Hasn't seen me yet. I'm tired and beaten. And hungry.

Save and quit.

Today's blog entry was brought to you by the letter Words words words words words. I just spent all of yesterday writing a 2000 word essay, just to find that the due date was in fact today, and I'd gotten it wrong. First essay I'd written in ages. Surpisingly easy to get words out when you know the topic. Unfortunately it was a two part essay and I only knew the first topic. Got out 1500 words and stuggled to finish the rest. Today's for chillin', gotta start a presentation on sustainable architecture tomorrow.

I was going to write a story about the night I spent in a huge tree after I dallied too long outside chopping wood. And how, as I hunkered down amidst zombie groans and spider hisses, a skeleton jumped off the tall hill beside the tree, landing in the foilage and sending two arrows through my chest while I tried to smack him with my axe.

Then I got lost in a cave, and that seemed like a better story.