Ammunition > Heroics

Hey, it's my 30th post! Yay?
You know what's cool? I think a good number of people are actually starting to read this blog. I spoke too soon just because I didn't have any feedback. Someone from OC Remix even commented on my post about their site. Thanks for that, by the way!

So firstly, there's a new competition for Yoyo Games. I really want to do this one, and it's right up my alley; the theme is "Ancient Civilization." I could easily wrap up Fafnir-Cola within the time limit (I have until April 24th or something like that) and make it not as good as it was going to be, but I'm just going to put together something else. I already have ideas; I had the idea to do a game where all the graphics looked like cave drawings a long time ago, and I'm going to give that a shot again (The original game in question was an MMORPG thing, which is funny since I despise those generally. I was just trying out this engine, and I figured I may be able to solve the problems I have with the genre. I may get back to it someday). I was thinking something simple and open-ended would work out pretty well. I don't have many specific ideas though.
Anyway, this means I should really start working overtime on A. D. 1999. I really want to actually finish it. Of course, I may be rushing myself. I have a lot of stuff, but no deadline commitment. In fact, in some cases, I've purposely said "This won't be done before ______" because I want them to be good. These cases would mainly be Fafnir-Cola (done no earlier than this summer, but probably quite a bit later since I'm occupied with a bunch of other stuff) and Ring of Eshara (which I will probably still be working on well past when I graduate next year). I think I'll just take it easy. So far I haven't had much pressure; all I've gotten has been "Well, I hope ____ turns out well!" and that kinda thing, although one friend has asked a few times whether Ring of Eshara is done yet.

So I read today that Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo. I don't have much to say about that, except that it should be interesting. They already own so much, and I'd really like to see them try to tackle Google and challenge their Internet superiority. There's no way they'll win in any perceivable definition of the term ("win," I mean). No matter how successful they become financially, Google will still be a verb.
Speaking of which...

I have a dream.
I dream of a day when Photoshop is no longer a verb. I dream that in this day, there will be no such thing as an "industry standard." People won't be expected to pay hundreds of dollars to consider themselves a graphic designer. The only reason that day hasn't come yet is because of jerks. These jerks continue to think that Photoshop is superior. It isn't. The GIMP does all the same stuff, yet it's a different program. Another thing I hate is how people always say the GIMP is a "cheap, freeware Photoshop." It's a totally different program. Its interface is different, the way it runs is different... everything is different. The differences may not always be huge, but they're definitely there. At the same time, though, any feature you may point out that Photoshop has, the GIMP has it too. Also, the GIMP runs on Linux. Does Photoshop run on Linux? I don't think so.

By the way, I "advertise" things like that a lot. I think I should point out that I'm not actually advertising, and I'm certainly not paid or anything. I just either think the thing I'm talking about is really cool, or I think they need more recognition. A lot of times it's both. I like recommending things to people, because people really miss out on a lot of stuff. I kind of consider it my duty or something. It's a thing I really think I should be doing; I really enjoy it when I can recommend something to someone and they end up really liking it. It's sad when people go around just plain not knowing about stuff.

Oh, did you know the Internet connection at our house is working really well now? That's why I didn't post yesterday.
It was a problem with a router, apparently. When one computer was hooked up to the Internet directly, it worked fine. When it went through a router, all the computers suffered. We replaced the router, and now it works fine. I'm hoping it stays this way, but it might not.
As a result of this, I can now play stuff online. If anyone else plays Savage: The Battle for Newerth, let me know so we can play sometime; I love that game. Also, I really want to know people's Friend Codes for DS games.... The Wi-Fi games I have are Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Worms: Open Warfare 2, Rune Factory, Pokemon Pearl, and Final Fantasy Fables. I don't think there are any more, but maybe I forgot one. I dunno. Anyway, all you people who have a DS, email me your Friend Codes so we can play and stuff. If you forgot my email address... well, just ask in a comment to the blog. If you're reading this on Facebook, though, all of my emails are in my profile, so... yeah.

Did you know I'm the biggest pessimist ever? A lot of you may find that hard to believe, but it's true. We were talking about this when we were shoveling the driveway (which is quite a task, by the way; our driveway is pretty big) today. We were discussing how much progress we had made and whether the Comcast guy (or girl, I guess, although it never has been) would come to fix our Internet. I said that we still had a ton to shovel, and that nobody would show up today because the weather was bad. The Comcast people (maybe just the ones near us), as a general rule, are really annoying and not helpful at all. They make me really mad, and I was actually going to report them to the Better Business Bureau (which I've never done before; I was learning about it in Economics) when someone ended up showing up after all, and figuring out that the problem was actually with the router. We were never able to figure this out because we always had to go through the router; the Internet cable couldn't reach a computer. Anyway, as I said earlier, the Internet got fixed, and I'm ecstatic. As it happens, it didn't take long to finish the driveway either, which was nice.
So why be a pessimist? Well, I used to be pretty optimistic, but I'm always disappointed by things. Those of you who know me know that I really could be like one of those people who's always complaining about their life (this really annoys me, by the way), because really mine has been horrible of late, and right now I'm going through really hard transitional stuff (a lot of which I don't talk about, so you probably shouldn't bother asking). But I don't complain, and I've learned to expect the worst, because when anything better happens, it makes me really, really happy. I'd much rather have a good surprise than a bad surprise. Sure, it's still disappointing when something bad happens, but it's easier to deal with when you weren't expecting much.

Anyhow. Those of you who read my most recent blog before this one (and maybe the first one two; I dunno) will remember I used to end with a quote of the day, and even a "proverb of the day" at one point (like "One Indian less, one extra tortilla", a Honduran proverb I convinced Adam to use in a naturalist-opposing Facebook note one time). Ben just started doing that with his blog, and that made me think of doing it again, so I think I probably will. Today's is from Lemony Snicket, which Seth quoted today when we were talking about my pessimism.

"An optimist, after having his arm bitten off by a shark, will say something like "Oh well. At least nobody will ever ask me whether I am right- or left-handed anymore!" Most people, however, would say something like "AHHHH! MY ARM, MY ARM!"

:::Source= Paul M-unit 19.91 MKII
Transcript finalized.