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Sunday, November 15th, 2009
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The mouse that the cat brought in to the basement was still weakly shuffling along the floor after I chased the cat away. I wasn't sure whether it was more merciful to kill it or to put it outside, but it was way too cute to kill, so I put it in the shed under the pile of sticks. It wasn't actually bleeding anywhere I could see, so who knows, maybe it'll survive.
I have also discovered that if your son gets a science lab-y thing where you chip away at a block of compressed sand to get at the stones inside, it is a good idea to cover the resulting pile of sand after one is done for the evening, lest the cats mistake it for their litter box.
*shakes head*
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Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
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Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
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A few days ago, a mostly-deflated helium mylar balloon declaring "You're Special!" showed up on the ground near my morning bus stop. After a couple days of seeing it sit there, I finally sighed and decided to throw it away myself. I picked it up, and as I was deflating it, I noticed that there was a ( note attached to the string: )
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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This last Sunday, 'Club Floyd' (a group that plays IF games collectively on a MUD I frequent) played my own game, "The Edifice", a game I wrote when I was in grad school in 1997. This game, and the article I wrote about it, turned out to be instrumental in getting me a position at the UW years later as a post-doc: Mary Kuhner, my new boss, had happened to play and review the game back in the day herself, and the article proved to her that I could program.
Happily, the group managed to get through the whole game without resorting to hints, and the general consensus was that it held up well. The transcript of people playing the game is up at the Club Floyd site, but of course you will find spoilers there. If you haven't played the game yourself and are interested in doing so, you can try playing it online directly using Parchment, or you can go visit the IFDB to download the game file directly and get an interpreter (click the 'Show Me How!' button in the upper right).
It was fun watching people play the game--back when I wrote it originally, it wasn't yet common for testers or players to send transcripts to the author, so this was only the second time I've seen a full transcript at all, and the first time I've seen anyone play through in real time, complete with extraneous comments and chatting about what they were thinking. I was generally happy that it didn't take too long for people to get the idea for how to solve the puzzles relatively quickly, and that most of the time, when people had an incorrect but reasonable idea, the game would respond appropriately. It didn't all the time, of course, and those times were really annoying for me--I wanted to go back and fix it!
Sara keeps telling me I should write a new game, and I have had a few ideas over the years that are languishing in some state of not-actually-a-game-yet-ness. It'd definitely be fun. And who knows, I might need a new job someday.
I should also remember to thank Rob Wheeler for the cover art, and Emily Short for hosting the IF Cover Art Drive which inspired Rob to make it. Thanks again, you two!
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Monday, February 16th, 2009
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Monday, January 12th, 2009
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I got halfway through the followup post about my cat dying and stalled, so while I'm working on that, here's a stupid meme.
( The icon meme )
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
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Monday, November 3rd, 2008
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Monday, October 13th, 2008
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Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
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I'm back from vacation! I had a lot of fun, but first things first. I have to know what was in ( this truck )
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Dr. Horrible, Act III is up. I'll probably post spoilers in a different post, but I will mention on Yoon's behalf that there are more prominent PoC this go-round.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, July 17th, 2008
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It's Y2K week here at lpsmith central, which means we post nothing but links! First up, an absolutely astonishing Iron Man (the movie) fanfic, The Kids Aren’t All Right", written as a Vanity Fair article by that reporter woman. Well-written, insightful, funny, and pretty long. Highly recommended.
On the other end of the superhero spectrum, we have Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog", Act I and Act II. Saturday should see the posting of Act III, and it's all going away again Sunday, at which point you'll have to buy it on iTunes or the inevitable DVD or something if you want to watch it.
I was pretty meh about Act I. The great thing about the Buffy musical was that all the characters were established already and the songs were really insightful. Act I had to introduce everyone, and the songs were all surface-level. While there were some funny bits, it mostly left me flat. But maybe it's just that Joss isn't that good at introductions, because Act II was much, much better. Now we know what's going on, the songs are more layered, the dialogue is snappier (and more trademark Joss, somehow), and everything is working together much more smoothly. From the opening shot on, I was hooked.
Just to check, I went back and re-watched Act I after seeing II to see if there was any foreshadowing or something that would make me appreciate it more. But no, still left me flat. Act II rewatches have been interesting every time. (Also, pay attention or rewatch Act II 1:30-2:00; there's an extra bit in there that both nothings and I totally missed the first time.)
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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So, I requested and received the Orange Box set for Christmas, mostly because I had heard it had this cool game called 'Portal' on it, and that there were also other games on it that were probably worth playing. I played and greatly enjoyed Portal, but don't have a lot more to say that I haven't already read somewhere, so I'll just note that it was a lot of fun, and that the technique they used of hinting at a backstory without being very explicit about it was very effective.
But after I played Portal, there were these other games in the set from a series called 'Halflife 2', so I went ahead and played them too. I'll admit that half the reason I played them was because I had heard that it explained some of the Portal backstory. And it did, but it turned out that it was also pretty fun! The first time I played it I gave up in frustration, and then a few weeks later decided to give it another shot and gave up in frustration *again* (though after progressing a bit more), and then I found out there was a cheat code that would keep your minimum health at 1, so I figured with that I could at least wander through the game ignoring all the annoying people who were shooting at me, and gave it one last shot. I never did use the cheat code, but I finally figured out how to play the game, and after that I breezed through the three games on the disk: Halflife 2, HL2 Episode 1, and HL2 Episode 2.
But what I really want to talk about is the character of ( Alyx. Spoilers ahoy! )
The upshot is that Alyx is a remarkable character, all the more so for being in a game. I'm looking forward to Episode Three (which is supposed to basically wrap up the story from One and Two), partly because it's just been a fun set of games, but also just so I can find out what she's going to do next. If you're a game designer, there's a lot of thing here you could do worse than emulate, and if you're a game player and haven't played it yet, I think you're in for a treat.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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I found a pocket-sized notebook at the bus stop this morning. I'm going to try to track down the owner, but in the meantime, here's what's on the first page:
Hemingway - Tom Robbins * Pie
Pope - Fallwell * Cake
Marquis De Sade - Larry Flint * Pie
Nixon - McCarthy * Cake
Clinton - Thomas Jefferson * Pie
Beatles - Willie Nelson * Pie
Yanni - _________ * Cake
Weird Al - Ice cream cake
Richard Pryor - Sam Kinison * Pie
Wedding day may cut cake - will eat pie
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Thursday, March 13th, 2008
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So, not all that long ago I read the book "Story" by Robert McKee, which is a book about screenwriting, and last Monday I saw "Juno", which is a movie. Both were good, and I found myself thinking about "Juno" in terms of "Story", so I'm going to talk about both of them.
( Read more... )The upshot; Juno: recommended, if you like things that are intelligent and sweet. Story: highly recommended if you're a screenwriter (which you're probably not), somewhat recommended if you're a roleplayer (which given my friend's list, you may well be), but mostly recommended for insight into how films work. I would have liked Juno just the same without having read 'Story', but I appreciated it a lot more because of the book.
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Thursday, January 24th, 2008
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Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
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So! This last weekend I got to be Charlie Brown in our church's production of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" and it was awesome. I've been telling people that it's always nice to work on something with two key features: First, the people working with you are competent and fun to work with, and second, you feel like you're making a significant contribution yourself. Due to some casting changes partway through our rehearsals, our director ended up taking the part of Snoopy, and we got a new director (Donna) who was the friend of our Lucy and Sally. Donna has worked in community theater for many years, and has directed several shows, and it was fantastic to get to work with her on this.
And it, uh, didn't hurt that she thought I was fantastic. I mean, I've had people complement me before on my acting and singing and stuff, but typically it's from a 'layperson' perspective. I knew that I was decent enough to be entertaining, and I have fun doing it. But having someone who actually knows what she's talking about tell me I'm great means a lot.
And thinking about it, I've been in choirs from being a kid through college, and was onstage or practicing every week for almost 10 years in ComedySportz after that, so I suppose I do have a fair amount of experience, if it comes to that.
After I played Joseph in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" back in 2004, it was fun, but I was done; it scratched my acting itch for the nonce, and anyway we had barely moved into our house and Ellric was still 4. But at this point, we're more settled, Ellric is 7, I did just start a new job (um, not that I mentioned that here. In brief: I'm now a Research Consultant in the Department of Bioengineering doing more computer stuff.) but there's no particular stress there, and, well, I really enjoyed it and I'm apparently good at it. So I think after a bit of a break, I'll start nosing around the local community theater scene. And when I mentioned that to Donna (when she asked), she spontaneously volunteered to help coach me on how to do auditions, which would be great.
So hey! Yay me. Further bulletins as events warrant, and I'll try to get some pictures up soon, too. There may even be video; hopefully the quality is decent.
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