January 2004
- 31 -
Stupid Windows ME!
You know, this operating system
is really starting to bug me. Well, not starting, but continuing
to bug me because this has been a problem since day one. It's always
running out of system resources! I'll have a few programs open, like
Internet Explorer and Acrobat Reader, and suddenly everything will get
all slow and act funny, and I'll look at the system properties and it'll
say that there are only like 5% of the resources left. That's just
ridiculous! I don't mean to brag, but my computer has 512 MB of RAM
and two 60-gig hard drives, and you're telling me I don't have enough resources
to run programs? What's taking up all those resources anyway?
I hope I don't have a bunch of spyware on here that I don't know about.
Lately I've been feeling kind
of tired, and I'm having trouble getting started on anything. That
includes today's Sine Wave update. I'll be back tomorrow or maybe
next month, you know, when people can actually see what I'm writing without
clicking on the January 2004 archive link.
This translation of Japanese
technical passages is so tedious! I have to look up words all the
time and try to figure out the order that the words go in, and it's crazy
sometimes. Right now we're reading about sound and acoustics, and
many of the passages we're covering jump between topics without going into
really extensive detail. In one sentence they'll be talking about
sound radiating from a source in the form of a spherical wave, and then
they'll discuss the equations involving the amplitude and intensity of
planar sound waves. Also, in many of the passages, they'll list different
topics related to the subject of the passage, and sometimes I can't find
a definition so I have to guess using the kanji.
There are already thousands of
political blogs out there and most of them actually keep up with politics
rather than get all their information from late-night comedy shows, so
I won't talk about the candidates anymore. So what's been going on
in my life, you ask? Oh wait, you didn't ask that. Hmmm...
well, I'm going to tell you anyway. I've got some computer programming
assignments due in a week or so, and I just can't seem to get motivated
to do them.
The New Hampshire primary is
over and it looks like Mildly Amused Kerry won, followed by Angry Dean,
and behind him comes Indecisive Edwards and Confident Clark, and it looks
like Melancholy Lieberman couldn't keep his Joe-mentum because he came
in fifth. All right, I said I'd cut out the adjectives, and I'll
do that right now. It looks like people have been following the campaign
signs, because they had a nice date with Dean, but he was too much of a
bad boy and not really long-term relationship material, so they're marrying
Kerry. Actually, maybe Dean was more like an experiment. Yes,
I'd say mid-to-late 2003 was kind of like college, and the public decided
it would be fun to experiment with Dean to see how it felt, but only until
the graduation that was the Iowa caucus. After that, the public put
their wild past behind them and settled down with a nice Kerry. Now
that I put it in that light, I can certainly see why Dean is so angry.
The public liked to say they were Deanie Babies or Deansters or Dean Queens,
but they were really just Dean Voters Until Iowa Caucus, or DVUIC for short.
Meanwhile, the real Dean voters are left in the cold, knowing that so many
of the people thought to be kindred spirits earlier really only thought
of their candidate as a fun little experiment that wasn't to be taken seriously
at all. Well, I think it's time to shed these labels of Dean voter
and Kerry voter and just vote for the candidate we like best. Me?
I'll be voting for whoever runs the spiffiest campaign ad.
Some people have been saying
that the only reason someone would be a liberal or vote for a Democrat
is because they hate America, and I wasn't going to say anything before
they mentioned it, but now I feel I should make a confession. All
my life I've supported the Democrats and held liberal positions, and the
reason I've done that is because, well, I guess I really do just hate America.
Yeah, I know America's been pretty good to me, and I've lived a good life
here, but I can't help but just feel a real hate for America, and I guess
the reason for that is because of all the freedom that America has.
It's just not right that a nation should have all that freedom. Whew,
that's a great burden I've lifted off my chest. This November, I'll
still be voting for the Democrats because I hate America, but at least
I won't be lying about my motivations anymore.
Oh, that Howard Dean is just
so angry! He's like a big angry guy who's just going on a rampage
all the time! I mean, we should have seen the foreshadowing when
he was the first one to run ads against Bush, just like Queen Amidala should
have seen the foreshadowing of Anakin Skywalker's imminent transformation
into Darth Vader when he told her that he slaughtered all those Tusken
Raiders. Dean's going to California, and then to Texas, and New York,
and his path of destruction won't stop until he's in the White House!
Seriously though, this Dean
Scream phenomenon has spread more quickly than All
Your Base, and it looks like the media is playing up the "Angry Dean"
image. I wonder which candidate will be next to have a perpetual
emotional state ascribed to them. Will it be Melancholy Lieberman?
Indecisive Edwards? Outraged Sharpton? Mildly Amused Kerry?
I'd better stop before I plant these descriptions in people's minds forever.
Well, I finally beat Dungeon
Siege: Legends of Aranna. That is, I beat the Aranna campaign in
single player. I might go back through the game using only one character,
but it might get boring to go through the same old areas again. There's
only so much Dungeon Siege you can take before it grows tiring. It's
not like one of those new console games I have waiting for me at home,
untouched and collecting dust while I'm learning oh so valuable lessons
at college. Nope, it's a good old hack and slash clickfest that's
right at home on the PC. Why can't there be more games like Ratchet
and Clank on the computer? There are a ton of first-person shooters,
strategy games, and MMORPGs, but very few action-adventure kind of games
lately. Speaking of MMORPGs, everyone seems to be talking about Final
Fantasy XI these days, and I must say, if there's any one of those persistent
online games I might be interested in, it's that one. I've played
through all the other FF games except for 2, 3, and both of the Tactics
games, so why shouldn't I be willing to spend a little money and give FFXI
a try? But then again, I'm still waiting for that Exyst game they're
talking about on Surreal-News, so maybe I'll wait until that's finally
ready to launch.
Here at college I use the version
of Netscape Composer that comes with Communicator 4.76, and at home, my
dad has the new Netscape 7.1 installed, and that includes a version of
Composer that is totally different from this one. Why am I still
using Netscape 4, you may ask? Well, first of all, if it's good enough
for Gene Ray (compare the top part
of the source of the Time Cube page to the source of mine), then it's good
enough for me. Second of all, my primary browser is Internet Explorer,
so I don't use Netscape except while editing this site. Anyway, it's
quite a pain to switch between the two Composer versions because all the
new stuff I write seems to be formatted in a different way, and I had to
set up the text and background colors, as well as the background image,
all over again when I went back to the 4.76 version. Why can't developers
be consistent with their formats? Of course, you might ask why I'm
so behind the times, but I really try not to be most of the time.
Sometimes I just come up with
weird images and things that are inspired by a random silly thought in
my head. Here I will showcase some of my masterpieces for you to
see. Prepare to be amazed.
Image 1: Salix Does Thomas Kinkade - I mean "does" as in making a quick interpretation of his style, not any other connotation of the word, so get your mind out of the gutter please.
Image 2: Salix Does Britney Spears - This time, "does" means something different! Specifically, it means just copying a line from one of her songs and adding some other junk. What did you think I had in mind?
Image 3: Salix Does a Sign - All right, I'm going to have to stop saying "does" because I know you just can't keep from snickering whenever you read it. Also, I know I did a bad rush job with the image editing so don't submit this to Something Awful for placement on the Page of Shame or anything. In case you're wondering, this is the inspiration for this image.
I just tried loading this page
in Internet Explorer, and there was an extra space at the top and the text
alignment was all wrong. To fix that, I went through the HTML and
deleted all the div and caption tags, and now it seems to be working fine.
There might be some redundant information in the head of the page, but
I stopped caring about keeping the file size of this page low a long time
ago. By the way, the Ars Technica forum changed server, and Surreal-News
seems to have abandoned its front page and now it's just a forum, so I
updated those links.
It's so cold around here that
these days, from January 10 to January 22, have been compressed into a
single day. There's an argument that tries to reconcile the Biblical
view of creation with the scientific explanation for the formation of the
earth which says that each day of creation wasn't a day at all, but was
actually equal to thousands or millions of years, so if that argument is
viable, then I think I can compress a mere 13 days into one and get away
with it. Well, maybe not. I guess I'll have to face up to my
laziness one of these days.
Another game I've been playing
is Starfox Adventures. It's more of a Zelda-style adventure game,
but there are a few spaceship shooting sequences that are like previous
Starfox games. Most of the game takes place on Dinosaur Planet, where
the evil General Scales has taken control, and your mission is to go around
the world and bring all the Spellstones and Krazoa Spirits back to their
rightful place so that the magical flow of energy of the planet can be
contained. You might have seen the Penny
Arcade comic about this game, and it's true, you'll be collecting a
bunch of items and gizmos to help you on your quest and get past areas.
There's some exploring to do, but most of the time you're restricted to
one course of action that you have to take next. For example, to
get into one section, you have to pay a number of scarabs that's larger
than the maximum number you can carry until a fixed point in the game at
which you get a larger bag to carry scarabs, and it is only after you get
this bag that you are able to enter this area. One interesting thing
about this game is that there aren't any loading times in between different
areas of the world, just like in the Jak and Daxter games and also Dungeon
Siege, but there are these small areas between levels where you have to
pass some obstacles, and it's very clear that these zones are where the
loading of the larger areas takes place.
Guess what I've been playing?
I'll tell you, it's Castlevania: Lament of Innocence. First of all,
I'll get a few complaints out of the way: first of all, I miss the leveling
up system found in other recent Castlevania games, and it would be nice
to have at least a little control over the camera. But then, I guess
a lack of leveling up is a way to avoid having monsters in earlier parts
of the game become trivially easy later on, and also to avoid a proliferation
of useless items like so many of the weapons and armor in Symphony of the
Night. There aren't as many items in this game, but there is a more
advanced fighting system, where you can string together different whip
attacks and come up with powerful combinations. You learn new techniques
as you defeat new enemies, and you can pick up items and increase your
maximum health, magic, and hearts, so you do get at least a little stronger
over the course of the game.
Now I'm playing Final Fantasy
X-2 and I don't have very many of the missions done, but so far the game
seems to be more nonlinear than the first Final Fantasy X. It's a
welcome change from just walking along a path from the south to the north,
fighting fiends along the way and watching cutscenes. The sphere
grid system has been replaced by a version of the job system featured in
Final Fantasy 3 and 5. It's kind of weird to be visiting these places
in such a different context. I visited the Calm Lands today, and
as I walked down from the cliffs to the main area, I couldn't help but
think of how this was the very same path I raced chocobos down in order
to get the Caladbolg for Tidus, and how frustrating it was to try to get
under 0 seconds by getting the balloons, and how mad I got at those birds.
This time, there's probably no chocobo race like that, but there's still
probably a bunch of minigames that you have to do in order to get the ultimate
garment grid or something. But for now, I'll just play the game and
leave the stat maxing for another time.
I did some checking and found
that it's really Wally Bear who leads the No! Gang, not just Wally.
We apologize for the mistake and would like to stress that we at the Sine
Wave are dedicated to getting only the most factual and objective information.
Our motto is "We say stuff, you choose what to make of it" and our slogan
is "The Sine Wave: Even and Centered," so you know we have to be good.
I just made up those phrases now, and I certainly didn't take the slogans
used by any news networks and think up synonyms for the words they use.
By the way, "Even and Centered" is my trademark slogan so don't use it
or I'll see you in court.
If you guessed the Nintendo superstar
team of Wally and the No! Gang, then you're wrong, because that winning
team is sadly fated never to return to video game stardom unless some miracle
happens. But if you guessed Shalo Kitie, then you're right, because
he, along with me and Super Explodo Reptile and the rest of the Wave Bunch,
are back in action and ready to go! Lately I've been really busy
because Christmas has come and I got a bunch of new video games.
I've been playing Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando, and it's even better
than the first game. There are tons more weapons, and this time you're
actually encouraged to use all of them because they power up if you use
them enough, and one of the skill points involves getting all the weapons
and powering them up. Also, your maximum health increases as
you defeat enemies, so it's kind of like leveling up. There are lots
of challenges, like a battle arena and spaceship sequences, and on some
worlds you get to explore a vast landscape looking for crystals and moonstones.
Some of the old Ratchet and Clank 1 weapons make a reappearance in the
sequel, but they're not as powerful as in the original. Either the
weapons must have worn out and become weaker, or the enemies in Going Commando
are that much stronger. I know that some enemies, like the yetis
on the ice world, can withstand several hits from even the more powerful
rocket launchers. Other games I got include Final Fantasy X-2, Super
Mario Sunshine, Viewtiful Joe, Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, and Starfox
Adventures. For the PC, I got Star Wars: Jedi Academy, Max Payne
2, and The Simpsons: Hit and Run, but I don't know if this computer will
run them because it's an old Pentium III with a speed of 500 MHz.
It has the Radeon that used to be in my new computer, and we had to get
a new hard drive, but most of the other stuff is over four years old.
