idonotlikepeas, posts by tag: geekiness - LiveJournal (original) (raw)

08 June 2004 @ 11:13 pm

Slay that mail

It's not much, but I wrote a small utility and put it on Sourceforge. Oddly, I feel as if I've accomplished something. There is also a FAQ.

Current Mood: accomplished

Current Music: Flash Gordon Theme (Queen)

07 May 2004 @ 08:01 pm

Yet another mishmash

The other day, Willow pulled herself up on a plastic box, then smiled at us, then let go of it. About a second later, she fell on her butt.

It is the beginning of the end.

So, let me talk about computer games instead.

girlgonemad got me Final Fantasy X-II. It goes a little something like this:

( LJ-cut, saving your sanity since 1899.Collapse )

So, anyway, I like it. I've also been playing Starflight, because I miss the eighties. And frankly it's a lot better than things which I didn't get for free, like Ruins of Myth Drannor.

There's a new load of anime on the cartoon network, too. Summaries:

Foolie Coolie (aka FuRi KuRi, aka FuLiKuLi, aka Fooly Cooly, aka FLCL) is entirely incomprehensible, even after two episodes. There's all kinds of stuff with robots coming out of some guy's head and a magic guitar. I'm pretty sure it's Kazuya Tsurumaki and Yoji Enokido's attempt to choke us to death on their massive... symbols.

Inuyasha has new episodes now. And they're pretty much just like the old ones. Now let's release the Tetsusaiga's ultimate attack!

Trigun is like an anime Firefly. Or, really, Firefly is like a live-action Trigun. Except Trigun mixes in a lot more silliness, except in a good way, and they're not on a ship. I'm upset; there are only 26 episodes.

Wolf's Rain is kind of unpleasant and upsetting, but I'm interested. The physics of the werewolf transformation are tricky, though... it seems at some times like their human forms are insubstantial, and sometimes they actually have hands. Well, whatever.

Also, I'm up to Aubrey/Maturin #3, HMS Surprise. The series continues to provide interest and amusement; O'Brian has a rare gift for just not writing about things when they lack interest, instead of slogging through a bunch of dull transitions.

I might say something about the Iraq situation once I organize my thoughts.

Current Mood: nerdy

Current Music: Roses (Outkast)

01 April 2004 @ 12:36 pm

Excerpt from an official report I wrote today

RT is filled with magic fairies that wash your car and mow your lawn. It is love.

Current Mood: geeky

Current Music: Spring (Vivaldi)

31 March 2004 @ 11:13 pm

Cast in the Name of God -- Ye Not Guilty

I'll skip the usual thing about how long it's been since I've updated. Just imagine I said it.

So, on March 13th I shaved for the first time as a birthday present for girlgonemad. Most people are surprised by that, because of my age, but I always wanted a beard, so it seemed kind of pointless to shave as a right of passage thing. Anyway, it wasn't a lot of fun, and I'm letting the beard grow back. I will probably mess with it, though, since I liked several of the intermediate half-clipped states.

Willow now has a tiny little tooth-bud thing. Never has such a small item caused such excitement, except maybe when atoms were discovered. She's a bit overdue to start teething, and it's cool to see the little things there. Everyone keeps saying how we'll like it less after she bites us with them, as if they all had little tape recorders implanted in their heads. Eh. Also, she's trying to walk. She doesn't quite crawl, but that doesn't seem to bother her. And she's taken to clawing at my face.

I've progressed a bit on the game development. Basically, I found a prebuilt game engine that will take care of the basic map functions and things like that. So I've eliminated the programming work (which I'm good at), and all I have left is writing, art, and music. Which... uh... moving right along.

Been watching more anime lately, which I'd been meaning to do. Unfortunately it's the dubbed crap on Adult Swim, but I can always get the subtitled version later if it's worthwile. In that vein: Witch Hunter Robin is so awesome that new slang needs to be produced to explain precisely how awesome it is. Inuyasha is a stock anime story, schoolgirls included. Big O has the worst theme song ever. (It goes like this: "Big O! Big O! Big O! Big O! Big O!".) It's OK, though, if you like Batman: The Animated Series with giant fighting robots. Which I do.

Current Mood: lazy

Current Music: Big O Theme (Big O)

01 March 2004 @ 11:34 am

Weekend, and so on

Decent weekend. There was originally some conception that we might go to a party on Saturday, but we didn't because of the baby's late fussiness with inactivity and because of incipient housework. As it happened, Saturday's amazingly nice weather forced us to abandon the second reason via blunt force to the head. We took a nice walk and figured out some geographical things, like the fact that we're about 30-45 minutes from the science museum. While we were there, we picked up a membership (a thing we've been intending to do for a while). Willow did, indeed, get fussy while we were inside, and didn't calm down until she started being moved again. Also, some random little girl walked up and kissed her a couple of times, which was slightly odd.

( And here are some quizzes.Collapse )

And an open letter to game developers: thank you for all the action/RPGs. We have enough of them now, though. Please go and make some things that are just RPGs again, because I'm tired of playing new versions of Diablo.

Huh. This is all out of order and difficult to read. Oh, well. I'll post it now and edit it later if I feel like it.

Current Mood: rushed

Current Music: Pedestrian Wolves (Oingo Boingo)

17 April 2003 @ 08:35 pm

Mmmm...

I love the smell of fresh DSL.

Current Mood: satisfied

Current Music: Scrubs Theme Song (Scrubs)

13 March 2003 @ 04:00 pm

A Fortuitous Event

Today, thanks to one of our Peons, I got to meet Richard Stallman. People who have no idea who that is may want to visit the GNU web site or his personal website, but the short version is that he's: a) probably the best programmer in the world and b) the inventor of the premiere license for Free Software and Open Source Software (the GPL - the Livejournal code is licensed under it, in fact). Thank you, Peon J. Your services are appreciated. Anyway, here are my impressions in no particular order:

First thing's first. If you've heard of this guy, you've heard of his collection of bizarre personal habits. Everything is true. He sits there curling his hair around his hands, then pulling out split ends and tangles, then spends several minutes gnawing on the back of his finger. Whenever something requires him to remain motionless (such as waiting for a red light), he dances around... and not in a nervous way, but in a trained folk-dancer kind of way where he does bizarre things with his legs and feet. He frequently says things like "So" or "Anyway" without anything else attached to them; we were unclear as to whether he was losing his place in the conversation or simply signaling that he wanted to stop discussing the current topic.

We went to get Indian food. I had eaten this several times before and been unimpressed, so I figured I was going for the company. In actual fact, due either to the selection of a specific restaurant or the selection of specific dishes (both of which were (mostly) done by RMS), I was extremely happy with the food as well. I've never liked lamb before, but it was excellent this time. I hope I can remember some of these dishes for the next time I eat Indian. (And there will be a next time.) Some of my other coworkers expressed similar feelings.

The thing that struck me most: this is one of the most depressed people I have ever encountered in my life. He mentioned a few times that he would never find love, that he used to cry for a few hours after he woke up, and that the only thing in his life that gave him any pleasure was food (since an injury prevents him from dancing and he isn't in any kind of romantic relationship anymore). He also mentioned depression in his personal crusade: "If it'd been anything apart from Freedom," he said, "I would be happy with our progress. But right now, it's not the number of people that are using Free Software that's important; it's the number of people that aren't using it." And yes, he pronounces the capital letters. One gets the feeling that if there were twenty people in the world using proprietary software, he would still consider himself a failure, or at least not a success. Several of us seemed to be struck by urges to cheer him up, but in a post-lunch discussion back at the office we realized that nobody had any better suggestions than injecting him with hard drugs.

We also discussed politics. He's comfortably liberal. There were also some discussions of recent cell phone technology; he doesn't have one because he doesn't like the idea of being locatable at any time. Although, during lunch, he did consider the possibility of getting a phone and taking the battery out of it when he didn't want to use it.

Puns: he likes puns. A lot. And also deadpan jokes that involve interpreting what you've said too literally. More on that in a second.

After lunch, most of my office went to three bookstores to help try to convince them to carry his book (the social one, not the technical manuals). One of them had a copy of his biography, which was used to good effect. "Well, you have a copy of my biography here, and here's my picture on the front of it. Why don't you stock the book that I actually wrote?" Two of them agreed to it, and one gave him contact information for their technology book-buying person. In the same store where he displayed his bibliography, he was asked for his publisher's number. He replied "They're numbered now?", then pretended to realize that the clerk meant the phone number, and handed it over.

Most of the people I know have met him at least once, so this will be old hat for them. Well, whatever. Hell with you guys. I may post more about this if and when I have some time and further thoughts.

Addendum: yes, they had peas.

Current Mood: geeky

Current Music: The Spirit of Radio (Rush)

08 August 2002 @ 06:40 pm

Hey, another test.

You are 75% geek

You are a geek. Good for you! Considering the endless complexity of the universe, as well as whatever discipline you happen to be most interested in, you'll never be bored as long as you have a good book store, a net connection, and thousands of dollars worth of expensive equipment. Assuming you're a technical geek, you'll be able to afford it, too. If you're not a technical geek, you're geek enough to mate with a technical geek and thereby get the needed dough. Dating tip: Don't date a geek of the same persuasion as you. You'll constantly try to out-geek the other.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Current Mood: amused

Current Music: In Walked Bud (Thelonius Monk)