Robin Harbron

I’ve kind of taken this week off from my “game of life”, but I still do need to post about the previous week. Later.

I keep a text editor open all the time on my laptop, and jot little notes down in it whenever I have a thought. Sometimes weeks go by between computer reboots (hooray for WinXP) but when the time comes, I have all these unsaved text documents to look through and decide what to save and what can be tossed.

So, here’s something I figured out a couple weeks ago:

When you’re:
11.41 years old, you are 100,000 hours old.
19.03 years old, you are 10 million minutes old.
19.18 years old, you are 1 thousand weeks old.
27.40 years old, you are 10 thousand days old.
31.71 years old, you are 1 billion seconds old.
83.33 years old, you are 1000 months old.

I chose the biggest nice “round” number that fit in a regular human lifespan. Did I miss any? Fortnights seemed a little silly.

Oh, and check out the comment I recently received. Jeff, thanks for taking the time to share your well-worded thoughts. For what it’s worth, my wife did spend some money at that store to support ma-and-pa. My words may have been unfairly cynical, but surely the store owners did name the store in an attempt to “tap into” (a less cynical way of putting it?) the “Little House” tourists, even before the museum was established? I don’t think they’re “con artists” or “preying” on anyone. Thanks for the feedback. I’ll probably reword the old post after my reader(s) have a chance to weigh in.

94/100.

I got exercise in 5.5 of the days. I find it easy on the days I’m working at that telephone place: I’m quite eager to take my break, and since I’m sitting around, stuck to the phone the whole time, I really feel like moving and go for a walk. When I’m at home for the whole day, it seems a lot tougher to get a chance, and it’s usually dark outside by the time I get a chance. VRT has become a bit boring, and so I’ve been reading a book about something similar by John E. Peterson (a guy who’s in amazing shape in his mid or late 50s) but boy it seems like more work than what I’ve been doing.

I’ve continued practicing some songs on guitar: Low, and Country Feedback by R.E.M., and a few of my own. I also played a few songs with KK since we were together.

I did some more sorting in my room, tried to fix a broken DVD player and just got a puff of smoke for my efforts (literally!). I beta tested Loadstar issue #249 which was good fun. It had a neat game called “4 Duko” which is just a fun 4×4 Sudoku puzzle. My kids liked it quite a bit too. I ran the church business meeting, and it went a lot smoother than I expected, and I was thankful. I sorted through my C-64 collection of car battling games, comparing it to the list I’ve compiled over the last few years of all known games in the genre. I was then able to go through the long list of games from a fellow in Norway who is selling off his large C-64 software collection, and make intelligent, non-duplicitous choices.

The kids and I kept up the pace on playing Super Luigi Galaxy (81 stars as of today) and watched some more eps of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. Also, I took Rianna to the music festival where she once again placed second. Like always. Ask her about it sometime.

I finished reading Exodus and read the first 18 chapters of Leviticus. Nearly done On The Edge (the book about Commodore) now. I think I’m going to keep alternating with fiction and non-fiction, so it’s fiction next. I’m thinking either Flatland or The Postman is next. They keep leering at me from my bookshelf when I walk by.

Carla and I finished watching season one of Battlestar Galactica. Boy, was it good. We need to borrow season two from my good friend Tim shortly. Otherwise, we’ll end up watching Stargate SG-1.

Tim and I went and saw “No Country For Old Men” at the extra-cheap theatre. I really liked it. It took several plot twists that I wasn’t expecting, and being set in 1980 was a bonus. Lots of cool 70s vehicles, including a 1977 Mercury Monarch that I identified immediately. My first vehicle was a ’76 Monarch. The fiery fate of the car was sad, but the car got a lot of screen time and attention, so I was very pleased.

I got quite a bit of work in on some C-64 projects. I helped a bit with the “4 Doku” game for Loadstar, and also helped a friend with a Spy Hunter-like game for the C-64 that will be a pretty big deal if it gets finished. I owe both of them more help, but I’ve been rushing to meet a milestone on the paid game work this week, so that’s had to wait. Today was a good day of work on the game though; things I’d been fighting with for a few days finally worked, and just in time. I’m feeling pretty good about my co-workers too. And I got paid for my first month’s work, plus the bit owing on the previous project.

I’m almost certainly buying myself a new laptop tomorrow; just waiting for the new prices from Dell Friday morning.

77/100. Oh well.

I got off to a good start with exercise the first 4 days, but a bunch of midnight shifts allowed the cold I had been dodging for more than a week to finally get me, and I just didn’t have the energy after that. I’m mostly over the cold now; feeling pretty good today.

I’ve been trying to learn a few new songs on guitar this week. I played along with some MJ Hibbett (“A Million Ukeleles” and “She Tastes Like Sugar”) more Midnight Oil (“Real Thing” which is actually a cover) and R.E.M. (“Low” – what a great song). I also worked on my scales. It was just KK and I doing the music at church this week; we both played acoustic guitar (usually I play bass) and took turns with one leading the rhythm and the other doing something “interesting” like arpeggios.

The “sort/fix” category has further expanded to include things that I’m doing solely for the benefit of others. That included helping to cut Ben’s hair (he really needed it, and there’s no way he’ll sit still for a stranger to cut his hair) and a church business meeting. More enjoyable activities included sorting through my music CD collection, and testing/sorting some of my latest thrift store purchases, including a Spider-Man plug & play gamestick that was a lot more enjoyable than I expected. $3!

The kids and I continued watch the Super Mario Bros. Super Show DVDs, and have now rescued Peach for the first time with Luigi in Super Mario Galaxy. We’re up to 64 stars now, though we’re playing less frequently as I think the kids are finally starting to get a bit bored of it. But I think we’ll push through to finish the game with Luigi as I hear there’s a couple extra bonuses as a reward.

Reading-wise, I read Exodus chapters 18-38, and continued with “On the Edge”. I’m into the chapter about the Commodore 128 now.

Carla and I watched some more episodes of Battlestar Galactica (nearly done season one now). I also watched Mats Sundin’s not-last home game with Toronto with friends and had some good over-coffee talking afterwards.

I finished my current assignment for the paid game work. I had a good time making a little demo to show it off; with some google image searching and a bunch of Paint Shop Pro massaging I made some NDS-ready graphics that followed a written description of an example cut-scene in the game design document, and put it all together. The producer seemed to like it.

I didn’t really get any work done on my own projects, but I did come up with a new idea that I really like, and I’ve taken a bit of time tonight to start researching it. It’s Autoduel meets Strategic Commander, and it had me reading through my old Graph Theory text book from university.

88/100. Getting back there!

I exercised every day this week, except was really slack one of the days, so I lost a point there. Mostly VRT, and got some walking in 3 days.

All week I practiced the same 3 Midnight Oil songs: River Runs Red, Arctic World, and Sometimes. Then on Sunday night I played them at a coffee house in Richard’s church basement, accompanied by Richard. It was fun taking the lead vocals again. I was a bit nervous, but it’s a very forgiving and familiar audience, and once again some friends were quite encouraging about how it went; they’re the type to tell it like it is too.

I did less fixing/sorting/helping than in past weeks. I put new strings on my acoustic guitar for the first time in way too long, I fixed a badly clogged sink (yuck), attempted to help a friend with a VB.Net/SQL Server problem (and mostly didn’t succeed in the short time I had) and helped set up the (my) sound system for the coffee house. Alex: no, I didn’t find any new magazines last week, but you’ve got first dibs if I do!

I played more Super Luigi Galaxy with the kids; we’ve got 50 stars now, so just 10 short of rescuing Peach for the 3rd time. We also watched another 4 Super Mario Bros. Super Show episodes. And I brought my two oldest girls along to the coffee house, so Mr. Lappala could teach them a new word.

I finished Genesis and the first 18 chapters of Exodus this week, and continued plowing through On the Edge; I’m about 2/3rds done now.

Carla and I had a good night out on Valentine’s Day. Food at Montana’s, and wandering around Staples/Future Shop/Winners/Chapters after.

I’m looking to get a new laptop, but it seems I’m going to have to get it from Dell. I want a Core 2 Duo T7500 processor (it’s the cheapest one with a 4MB cache) but it appears to be too high-end still to make it into most consumer laptops. Also, for professional reasons I need Windows XP on the computer, and that’s getting difficult to find. It’d be a waste of money to pay for Vista then erase it, plus you never know if there will be some hardware in the computer that doesn’t have a WinXP driver.

I did do a little bit of work for my math game idea; we received some more math books in the mail and I read through some of them looking for ideas, and got a few more good ones. I got quite a bit of work done on the paid game work; I’m making a scripting language for the story/cut-scene parts of the game. It’s something I’ve never done before, so it’s pretty fun, and I’m learning a bit of Lua at the same time.

78/100. Big drop!

7 points were lost in exercise. I hurt my shoulder during VRT early in the week; it wasn’t enough to affect regular life, but it made further VRT too painful to do until the end of the week (I had a really good workout last night again). Work, weather and a bit of laziness conspired against me doing more walking to make up for it too.

I also didn’t get any of the 10 points allotted to my game/homeschool project this week. It might have been possible to squeeze this in somehow, but I had very little time because I started working on paid game work this week. I spent a lot of time getting my computers set up, and studying the new code base I’m going to be using for all the menus and front-end stuff. I had considered letting paid game work count, but then I’d be resigned to not getting anything done on my own personal projects for the whole eight months this contract is supposed to last. So, my scores are probably going to be lower for a while, but maybe that will provide the incentive to still press forward and find the time somehow.

The kids and I finished Super Mario Galaxy this week, but we’re playing through it again as the new character that becomes available. We also finally watched a bit more of the TV series DVDs I have been meaning to watch with them: “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show” which they find amusing but somewhat unsettling too. The slight majority of the show is a cartoon Mario Bros. adventure, which seems to be based on the Super Mario Bros. 2 for the NES era. But bookending the cartoon is a live action Mario Bros. “comedy” about the brothers running their plumbing shop. Sgt. Slaughter (of old-school WWF fame) was the guest this week… bizarre!

I’m about half-way through On The Edge, and still really enjoying the stories of Jack Tramiel and Chuck Peddle among others. I also read Genesis 30-47, and I’m looking forward to getting into Exodus as I have a game/story idea set in an alternate-history version of that time.

Music-wise, I continued practicing Midnight Oil songs, and got together with Richard to work on 3 of them together for the coffee house in his church basement Sunday, Feb. 17th. Looks like we’re doing River Runs Red, Sometimes, and Arctic World.

Fixing/organizing I did a variety of things: set-up the tax receipt database program for another year at a local charitable organization, fixed the church computer, got a bunch of personal finance stuff straightened out, organized more of my game and magazine collection, and installed fancy new wiper blades on the vehicles!

100/100. To elaborate:

I did my VRT exercises every day last week, and supplemented with some walking two of the days. Boy it was cold this last week, so I didn’t walk more. I found I was even able to do the exercises in my cube at work during my 3 midnight shifts; that was great!

I practiced a bunch of Midnight Oil songs this week: River Runs Red, Lucky Country, Whoah, Arctic World, Sometimes, Bedlam Bridge, Bushfire. I also practiced with KK and SK during the week, and played at church Sunday a.m.

The scope of my “sort/fix” time was expanded a bit this week. On Monday I assembled Carla’s 5th six foot bookshelf for the school room. On Tuesday (the crazy icy road day) I rescued Carla *twice*. The first time, the van was stuck at the bottom of a valley on Boundary Drive. The second time was about 15 minutes later, with a wheel off in the ditch on Boundary Drive. On Wednesday I disassembled the nearly-working $15 digital camera I bought at Salvation Army. On Thursday, I failed to get it together again. On Friday I fixed the vacuum. Somehow, it had a giant 1.5″ bead stuck in it, and could only vacuum when you were lucky and the hole in the bead was facing the right way. On Saturday I sorted and tested all the other stuff I bought at Salvation Army and Value Village on my shopping date with Richard and Tim, on Tim’s birthday. I got a bunch of good stuff, including two Fighting Fantasy books I didn’t have, and a bunch of Atari 2600 cartridges, including River Raid II and Ocean City Defender; I didn’t have either of those either. On Sunday I cleaned up my computer storage closet which was still quite messy from my attempts at fixing my Atari ST keyboard and converting a Commodore 128 power supply into a C-64 power supply a few weeks ago. Whew.

I played Mario Galaxy with the kids every day. Just today we got the 120th star, so I guess we’ve nearly beat the second part of the game. Good stuff!

With reading, I finished up the book of Job, and got back into Genesis, reading chapters 12-29. I’ve also been reading through On The Edge, and it’s very enjoyable. At the pace I’ve been going I think it’s going to take me a couple more weeks to read; it’s a big book!

The monitor on my desktop computer died, and that’s where I was getting all set up to work on my SuperCPU game. So instead I continued on with the math program I’ve been working on in BlitzMax on my laptop. I got a fair bit done Monday and Tuesday, and Richard confirmed on Wednesday that it works fine in Windows Vista.

Besides the couple church related activities, I also went and saw “Atonement” with Tim and friends for his Birthday Movie Night. It really enjoyed it, and it was the kind of movie I wouldn’t normally see since it doesn’t involve muscle cars, Gyro Captains or Dinky-Di Dog Food.

I have to think of more imaginative titles for these posts.

99/100: a really good week; I just ran out of time on Sunday to get my daily sorting/fixing activity in.

I’m still really enjoying the daily walks. When it’s warmer outside (like, just -5 or -10C) I find all sorts of creative ideas come to mind. When it’s -35C with the wind chill like earlier in the week, I still enjoy the walk but my thoughts tend to centre around the more basic “boy it’s cold” and “I have to keep moving to stay kind of warm”.

I played acoustic guitar at home 5 days this week. “River Runs Red” is getting pretty polished, and the 2 octave scale I’ve been practicing is getting noticeably faster. I practiced bass with KK Thursday night and then we played those songs at church Sunday a.m.

Sorting/fixing this week:

• I searched through a bunch more of my unlabeled 3.5″ disks
• I took apart my truck’s remote car starter since it was acting up, and found it was just a low battery, but I was surprised they made 12V batteries that small
• further sorted my “car battling” game shelves
• sorted my C-64 books and was surprised to find a book I didn’t know I owned. In fact, I had asked on the Lemon64 forum if anyone could look up something for me in that book!

The kids and I finished Mario Galaxy, but were pleased to find that even after you find 60 stars and the game “ends” you get to continue. We’re up to 85 stars now, and shooting for 120 to get a second ending, or something. I haven’t been reading about this game at all as it’s fun just being surprised. But boy it’s a good game!

I read Job chapters 17-39 this week. I also finished Manga Messiah, and now I’ve started On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore. I got it for Christmas 2006 and have been meaning to read it ever since. It’s been really good getting to plow through some of these books.

I didn’t do any work on my game projects until Saturday, but then things went faster than I expected. By last night I had accomplished my first set of goals in a math program/game I’ve been thinking about working on since spring. I’m using BlitzMax and it’s amazing how fast you can get some stuff done in it. It’s a proper Object-Oriented language which sort of intimidated me a couple years ago when I bought it. A couple commercial C++ projects in the meantime has made it an awful lot less scary.

98% for my first week playing my game – and I didn’t entirely fail on those last 2 points either; if I was awarding half-points then I would have earned them.

One of my daily activities is sorting and fixing stuff. I found my old Pac-Man and calculator watches. My Pac-Man watch came back to life briefly but died again. I assume it must be shorting out somehow. But my calculator watch is working pretty good, except for two buttons that I haven’t managed to get working again yet. It was very interesting to Ben and Kyla.

Some other highlights included starting to read the Bible in a year. I chose to read it in more-or-less chronological order, so I’m into Job now and really enjoying it. I’m also spending some time everyday working through my backlog on my bookshelf. I finished The Book of the King (The Wormling) last week (it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected), and now I’m reading Manga Messiah.

I watched some episodes of (new) Battlestar Galactica with my wife, and we’re really enjoying it. I bought the first 3 seasons of Stargate SG-1 from a bargain bin at SuperStore so I think we’ll watch that once we’re done with BG.

I practiced ukelele the first few days of the week until I got my acoustic guitar back at home, then started practicing some of my own songs and some Midnight Oil songs. Maybe Rich and Shroom would like to perform a cover of a song or two of theirs some day. I also started teaching my daughter Heidi guitar instead of piano since she wanted a break.

I got all my exercise in. Either walking or VRT or both so it adds up to at least 30 minutes each day. VRT is “Visualized Resistance Training”. The goofy sounding way of explaining it is “imaginary weight lifting”. A better way is that you train yourself to use your opposing sets of muscles against each other so you can create your own resistance instead of using weights.

I managed to spend time with 4 friends during the week, including watching a post-apocalyptic zombie-ish movie from my “to watch” list with one friend, getting in my walk with another, and an especially enjoyably geeky time over coffee with another.

It was a long process, but I managed to get the Myst-like demo for the SuperCPU I had shown at the Chicago Commodore EXPO back in 2000 transferred over to my Windows machine. I now have it building on that side, and it can be transferred back to the real hardware via ethernet with UDPSlave. Still lots to do; my eventual goal is to make a new demo of it that I can distribute over the Internet. Short-term goals there are to modify UDPSlave so it can transfer files directly to the SuperCPU’s high memory, set up a Perl script so I can convert a bunch of .jpg or .bmp files to IFLI at once, and re-work the part of the game that described the clickable zones for each game location and where each leads to. It seems that part was lost.

Boy, it seems I could have turned this post into a whole week worth of posts, and gone into a lot more detail in some areas.

I don’t think I’ll be putting my scorecard up on the web; it’s all kept on old-fashioned paper, and it’s occasionally a bit personal too.

Oh, and pretty good news tonight; it looks pretty likely that I’ll have a new game programming contract shortly. I just finished my work on the EU version of Crayola Treasure Adventures and was starting to look for work again.

I’ve made a little game that I’m playing against myself. I wrote out a list of daily things I want to do, and a bunch of things that I want to spend time on at least once each week too. I sorted the list out and assigned points to each area so each week I’ll have a score out of 100. They’re all really important things to me, and if I put in at least a bit of time consistently on them, I think I’ll really have something to show for it at the end of a few months.

Daily items include exercise, practicing music, and reading a book. Weekly I need to put in time on at least one of my bigger game or homeschool-related projects, spend time with certain people, and yeah, blog.

Tonight I’ll be done my first week, so perhaps early each week I’ll be posting at least my score, and hopefully there will be some other interesting stuff to say about the week. We’ll see how it goes.

I meant to post about this way back when I got it in June or so, but never got around to it. Ben and Kyla were playing it today, and I had the camera ready, so it was a perfect opportunity.

I’ve wanted an arcade cabinet for a long time, and when things seemed to work out perfectly, I went for it. I was going to the 2007 Midwest Gaming Classic near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and didn’t really have any choice but to take my truck this time. So, I had the vehicle, I had the route, and I put out a call on the AtariAge.com forum to see if someone had a cabinet for sale. I guy I had talked to online a couple time had a Tetris machine up on eBay right at that moment for a really reasonable $200. Not only is Tetris the one video game my wife likes, but it’s also a JAMMA cabinet. JAMMA is a standard that makes it really easy to swap games out. All the connections: electrical, video, audio, controls, coin go to one connector that can be removed and put on another board in seconds (or minutes if you take the time to properly secure the new board).

For some reason, the younger kids call games “game-gas”, and this is “The Big Game-Ga”. It gets played quite a bit.