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September 30, 2007
Good hearts find good hearts.
Today I helped out a friend, and for the first time in a long time I feel proud of myself.
velveeta shells and cheese
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September 29, 2007
Busy music day
I spent all day traveling around to listen to my favorite bands today. It started with Sake of Reason in Rochester doing a charity event. The event was held in the Rochester Opera House so the acoustics sounded fantastic. There where quite a few songs that I had not heard with such clarity before. Sake of Reason really needs to get into a studio and record these songs.
Next I drove myself and a few other fans up to Portland to see Boring Kind of Guy. That show was great, but a little far away.
However I still go back in enough time to go out in the town with Mike.
It can be tough to schedule this much fun into one day, but with a little preparation anything is posable.
Posted by binhqx at 11:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 28, 2007
Dover Pub Crawl
I decided tonight was perfect for a pub crawl around Dover. I took all of the guys out and we hit as as many bars in dover as we could. I would tell you about each of them, but my memories are a bit fuzzy.
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September 27, 2007
Dysfunctional week
This week has been entirely dysfunctional. I have not felt motivated to do anything. All I have been doing is following my old weekly routine. If not for that I would probably just stay in bed all day.
I am not going to lie, work and game development have been suffering from my lack of motivation. I have not even be updating my blog at regular intervals.
I have been thinking about why I lack motivation recently and have come up with a theory. I am not every good at controlling my moods. I the past there where many things that would "lift my spirits" or "recharge my batteries." Playing video games, eating, hanging out with friends, exercising, doing creative work, or just about any activity that I enjoyed. However, recently I have not been getting much fun out of these things, and if they are not much fun, why would I want to do them? Hence, I end up not wanting to do anything, lack of motivation.
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September 26, 2007
Halo 3 multiplayer at Mojitos
Mojitos just finished some new renovations including a new projection screen. They decided to have a Xbox360 hooked up for some head to head Halo 3 action. Cap and I played a but to night. Hopefully we can get some more people to join in.
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September 25, 2007
Up all night playing Halo 3
Cap and I stayed up all night playing Halo 3. Now I am having trouble keeping my eyes open.
So far the game is great. However, I am reserving my review of this greatly enticipated game untill I have finished it.
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September 24, 2007
Nekonabe!
So cute it will make your head explode!
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September 23, 2007
MDMA and government knee jerking.
I was cleaning around the kitchen and wanted to listen to something educational while I was working. I booted my laptop and opened google video. I randomly found a documentary about MDMA by Peter Jenning called Ecstasy Rising. I knew nothing about MDMA, a.k.a Ecstasy, other then it is a illegal.
I hit play and kept on working.
I was expecting another anti-illegal drug documentary; listing out all the horrible effects with a montage of narratives about lives destroyed. However it was just the opposite. The documentary described in detail about the history, uses and effects of MDMA, it was all impartial. There was no judgment about how bad the drug is. Then came the the first hand accounts given by people who had used MDMA. Their narratives gave nothing but positive accounts of the usage of MDMA.
I was confused. I thought that Ecstasy was one of those horrible drugs like heroin, amphetamine and cocaine that destroys the lives of people and the lives of people around them. That is why the government is putting so much money into stopping this drug and imprisoning the people involved with it. Then the documentary went on show that the scientific studies that the government policies are based on are not reputable. So we have money being spent and people in jail for a drug that is not known to be dangerous.
Actually the ban on MDMA has made it dangerous. Because it is illegal, it now passes through black market channels. In this situation, it is very likely that MDMA will be mixed with other drugs like LSD or PCP that will make it dangerous. Good job government.
What conclusion should we take from this? Policy about public safety should not be made as a knee jerk reaction. The time should be spent to study and verify public dangers. Then policy should be made through the normal litigation channels.
So please, if they are going to legalize every mood altering substance that people consume recreational, then put alcohol right at the front of the list. That is a substance that causes a lot of problems. Then ban tobacco because it is addictive, and caffeine because it causes headaches.
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September 22, 2007
lolwolf
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September 21, 2007
2 AM soccer
Monkey and I where out on the streets of Dover taking a "walk of sobriety." While out we found a fun bunch of people kicking a soccer ball around. We joined in and played for a hour or two before the cops said we are making too much noise.
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Dan is back from Iraq
Our friend Dan is back from a long tour in Iraq. So tonight we are taking him out drinking. What better way to celebrate?
Posted by binhqx at 8:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 20, 2007
Complete List of International Calling Codes and Area Codes (FREE!)
Here are all international calling codes. This is some useful data if you want to know how calls are being routed internationally.
Posted by binhqx at 5:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 19, 2007
I little metal get me going.
All week I have been operating at a low level of energy. I have sort of been drifting from place to place, doing what I need to do. However, Boring Kind of Guy was playing at the Dover Brick House for their Wednesday metal show. So I stoped by and just soaked the show in.
By the way, it worked. After the show I was pumped up. There is nothing better then high energy, live, music to get moving.
Posted by binhqx at 11:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 18, 2007
Working on graphics at Medaverse
I spent all of this afternoon working with Adam on the Wii graphics systems. It is a bit overwhelming at first, but as we work through it starts making more sense. It is one of those "This was done for a good reason, but I am going to let you figure out why." things. I am sure we will have this thing fully figured out in a few weeks.
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September 17, 2007
Daft Punk: Interstella 5555
For some reason I came across Interstella 5555. It is basically a a hour long music video that covers the entire Discovery album. It uses the old Leiji Matsumoto anime style.
There is is something about this that I can not put my finger on. I like it, but I do not know why.
Posted by binhqx at 6:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 16, 2007
One bad apple.
Les had his first day off in a while so he decided to through together a little party for a few friends. He had been working non-stop for the past few weeks. Cap and I did all of the heavy lifting for Les to put this thing on. It obvious that he was burnt out on cooking for a little while. We shopped, cooked and served with Les just supervising. It was a good experience Cap nor I had ever prepped this much food for a party before.
This started getting good when a group of young lady guests arrived and Cap started employing them as kitchen help. We where all cooking and drinking hand having a lot of fun. However, there was this one guy at the party who was just bring everything down. I have a feeling in my gut that I did not like this guy from the moment I saw him. He had arrived with the young ladies and seems to be doing nothing but agitating one of them. It seemed to work like a chain reaction. Next thing we know, no one is having any fun. The whole mood of the place just died.
They did not stick around for much longer after that. Soon about half the party just went to their cars and left.
It only took one bad apple to ruin the whole batch.
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September 15, 2007
Hit the town with Cap.
Tonight was pretty much like last night, except it was Cap and I hitting the town. We ended up catching up with Jessica. She is a local film maker and all around very cool person. Check out Coffee Break to see one of her short films.
We also meet the owner of the China Palace in Rochester. Apparently on Monday nights there is a special on Mai tais in lounge. I will need to get over there at some point and check it out.
Posted by binhqx at 11:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Windows are nearly done!
Ok, the project to get the windows in the house replaced was supposed to be over Tuesday. However, due to various delays and excuses it is taking all week. The work is getting done, all be it very slowly.
There is just window left to be done now. With any luck it will be completed today or tomorrow.
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September 14, 2007
No trouble, but a few new people.
I did not find any trouble tonight, but I did meet some new people.
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Find some trouble by myself.
I was planning to go out with the guys tonight, but everyone flaked. Some stay at the office and worked, others just wanted to stay in and watch a movie. I am not in much of staying in mood.
So I am just going to go out by myself tonight and see if I can find some trouble. Perhaps just something interesting if I just wander around for a bit.
Posted by binhqx at 7:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 13, 2007
Rub my belly!
I just upped my sit-up count in my daily workout routine and now every muscle in my anterior abdominal wall feels like beef jerky. It hurts to do amy action involving my belly. This includes laughing, sneezing, sitting up, laying down, just about everything.
It feels ok if I am up and moving around. However once I stop and sit for a while then move again, I can feel the muscle tissue snapping like a dried out rubber band. I need someone to just rub my belly for a while.
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September 12, 2007
Find X
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September 11, 2007
Cisco hardware failure? For shame!
Yesterday, for no apparent reason, one of our Cisco routes just started acting weird. It was not passing calls and was returning a error type unknown. I tried everything I could to fix it remotely, but nothing would make it work. Eventually we decided to reload the IOS by sending a remote reboot command.
The router never rebooted. It just died. So I grabbed everything I needed and drove to BayRing with SB. I hooked the console up to the switch and found it continuously rebooting after encountering some type of bus error. Then it was just a process of pulling components out to figure out what had failed. Eventually we found that one of the card bays was the culprit. Whenever any card was installed into it, the router would not boot.
The whole router needs to be replaced. However as a temporary fix, we just rearranged the components to not use that bay. Everything appears to work now. It is so strange. Cisco hardware is considered to be rock solid. I have never seen one just randomly fail like this.
Posted by binhqx at 1:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 10, 2007
New windows at LaTour part 2
So the first day of window installation is done and I have been able to check them out. These are not like our old windows at all. These one actually open, close, and even lock. The third and second floor are done. Now all there is left to do is the first floor.
SB and I where pleasantly surprised by how little mess the installation is making. These guys have been meticulous about vacuuming up every little chip of pain that is created when the old windows are pried out of their frames.
Everything should be done by tomorrow. It is not a moment too soon. The cold fall showers are starting to come down and it is only about 65°F out right now. The ability to close up the house will be useful real soon.
Posted by binhqx at 2:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 9, 2007
New windows at LaTour
Our landlord has decided that it is time to replace our old single pane windows with new, energy efficient double pane windows. This is fantastic for us because it should save a lot of money heating the house this winter.
The only downside is the installers are coming in at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning. Before that happens we need to move all the furniture away from the windows and cover anything that may be damaged by sawdust in the air. All our computers and other electronics need to be protected.
I am hoping that everything will be done by the end of the day tomorrow.
Posted by binhqx at 2:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 8, 2007
LOURDS at the Dover Brick House
photo by : Dee
Another exceptional show by LOURDS. Though I thought the best part of it was chatting with Lourds Lane and the other members of the band as they where packing up to leave. Just light conversation about haw much I enjoy there work. That sort of thing.
Posted by binhqx at 11:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 7, 2007
Then he said "I'm her brother."
So toward the end of the night I was chatting with a girl I had met at Mojito's when I was approached by a burly gentleman. He comes right up to me and says "Hey! I'm her brother," and then suggested that I go away. In the past I would have scampered off in intimidation. However I am a bit different now.
I looked him straight in the eye and said politely "Hi, my name is Rob, what is yours?" and held my hand out to shake his. Obviously the out come of this interaction was not what he was expecting. He looked confused and frustrated and I just stated talking to him. I told him that I thought it was cool that he is out looking after his sister and tried to make small talk about what he does for a living. Turns out he is a truck mechanics. I do not know anything about trucks so I started asking questions about it.
Now the guy started ignoring me. I do not like people attempting to intimidate me, and a really do not like being ignored. So I wold not leave this guy alone until he treated me with a little civility and respect with a proper handshake. Eventually he did. Then I said goodnight to him. I told the girl to that she is lucky to have such a protective brother and bid her goodnight as well.
The point is that I am not the type to be pushed around or ignored. However, a little respect and civility will go a long way.
Posted by binhqx at 11:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Done working for the week.
It has been nothing but work all week. Now I am done for the weekend. From here till Monday it will be just chilling out, relaxing, and occasional partying. As soon as Jack gets back from work, Darrel drives with Nick from Raymond, and Monkey drives in from ... wherever; we are going out for the night.
Posted by binhqx at 10:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 6, 2007
It has been a busy week.
I have not been posting too much this week because I have been absurdly busy. On Tuesday the Wii development kit arrived from Nintendo. Since that all my free hours away from work have been going into video game development.
I have been learning so mush interesting stuff. However I can not talk about most of it because I am under a nondisclosure agreement that prevents me from sharing technical information about the Wii.
I will back fill this week with other little tidbits of stuff I have been doing. I just have not had the time to write about it.
Posted by binhqx at 11:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 5, 2007
Memory management is easy on PCs
PC programers do not realize how easy that have it. All they need to do is call new or malloc() and they are given access to as much memory as they want. The OS handles all the nasty work under the hood. So to the program it looks like there is a vast unified sea of memory.
However, in imbedded systems this is not always the cast. There can be many places for the program to pull memory from and these different memory pools have different strengths and weaknesses. This can make programs work better, but it is more work for the programer.
Posted by binhqx at 8:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 4, 2007
Walk to work
It is so nice to have a office that is less then a mile from home. It is close enough for us to just walk to the office when we need to get to work but still far enough away to keep work and home separate environments. Between home and the office is downtown Dover NH. There are plenty of placeless to stop along the way for food, drinks, etc. We have put together a realy nice setup.
Posted by binhqx at 8:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 3, 2007
Labor Day
Did not do too much this Labor Day. I just hung around the house tidying up. I also put some more work into the planning stages of Gravitonix.
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September 2, 2007
Metroid Prime 3: Mission Complete!
I power gamed through Metroid Prime 3 and got the 100% complete ending in just under 20 hours.
Over all, this is my favorite Metroid Prime game. The controls of using the Prime lock-on system ad still being able aim freely around the screen works very well. Lock-on is not the "I WIN" button you might expect it to be. Many enemies have a quick doge move that will break out of your lock-on.
One of the biggest differences from the other Prime games is Samus does not lose her suit components that the player has to re-gather. This time all the upgrades that are found bring new abilities (or classic abilities) to Samus' suit.
I was happy to see the return of a few classic Metroid moves like Screw Attack and ledge grabbing.
Through out the game there is a fantastic balance between combat and puzzles. The bosses are a combination of both.
The biggest complaint about the other Prime games was the amount of backtracking. Metroid Prime 3 attempts to alleviate with the command visor. This allows you to call Samus' ship to ant landing pad you find. This saves a lot of time.
There will be quite a bit of backtracking if you want to find all of the suit power-ups. If you are patient enough to wait till Samus finds al of her ability upgrades before hunting down the difficult to acquire pick ups, you will only have to revisit most locations twice.
The story if good, but I do not want to say much about it. It is a lot more fun to discover it for yourself.
The game is a must buy for any Metroid fan or someone who likes FPS with strong platformer puzzle elements.
Posted by binhqx at 3:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 1, 2007
Les's party and the pig that got away.
Today is September 1st, making it Les's birthday! His is throwing a big party at his place. Because this is Les, the food there is nothing less then gourmet. Yesterday, Les acquired two live pig to eat today. Nothing says 'happy birthday' like slaughtering a pig.
When I drove in to his place this after noon, I found Les in the yard with one pig freshly cleaned and slaughtered, ready to be cooked for dinner. However, the other pig was nowhere in sight. When i asked where the other pig had gone, I was told that it has pushed the crate open and run off. Not just that, but it had run across Rt. 125 without becoming road beacon. Some where on the other side if the highway was the luckiest pig ever.
Dinner reparation what on as normal, just with one pig. Then as Les was prepping the oven, the missing pig came trotting down the driveway. It may have been lucky, but not very intelligent. Like it was asking to be eaten. So we all when outside and had a impromptu pig scramble. This little things can move fast. it managed to allude our locative grasp over and over again. It took a little while but I manage to herd the pig so it was cornered by the house. All I had to do then is keep myself between the pig and the tree line. If it got past me and into the woods, we would loose it again. A few minutes for dodging and weaving and the pig was starting to fatigue (thank you DDR for giving me more stamina than a pig). Then another person pounced on it.
In the end, Les decided to keep the pig. Perhaps he will fatten it up for another party later this year.
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