Since I started school I practiced with the team for a week and a half or so, did two fairly easy workouts and then the left achilles gave out. I guess I really screwed myself up over the summer.
I started biking last week and the last time I biked was right when I got home from California. I noticed I felt a lot stronger this time. Before I would go up a small hill and feel exhausted after I got to the top. Now, I get tired, but then recover quickly.
I noticed recently that I am becoming more motivated again. For awhile I didn’t feel like doing anything but now I’m getting back into doing schoolwork, games are becoming more entertaining and can hold my attention, and little itch-scratching project ideas are returning. For example, I wish RSS feeds/sites would display the full text of their articles. That way I don’t have to look at a page jammed with irritating ads flashing crap all over the place. In addition, links and other text and images that I don’t want to see would also be gone. I could create a condensed report from all my favorite sites, print it out, and read it when I am somewhere with no computer. So, the challenge would be to recognize news/post article text while discarding everything else. The RSS partial feed would help identify the start of the full text, but some web pages cram in ads and other formatting inside the article text. An HTML parser would help some, but some kind of language recognition would be needed to detect something that doesn’t fit with the rest of the text.
So, I’ve been on my own most of the time since school really seems to have picked up. Biking takes a lot more time than running and it’s nice to be able to do things when I want to (in the morning if I can) and not screw around. At the same time I really miss going to the meetings and talking to everyone. It’s a lot easier and more enjoyable to run and bike if there are other people to go with.
I got a bunch of stuff to do for class projects which has been taking up a big portion of my time, but it’s better to get started early than to cram everything in at the end. I also spoke with one of my professors about a Master’s project which I can get started on anytime. I’ll probably wait until winter break when I don’t have all the other classes bearing down on me. Everything is about set up to work with the people at Ames from school and I’ll get some kind of plan as to what to do this week. Unfortunately, everything got set up just as all the school work started.
So, I am starting to get things done. It’s hard to get started on stuff, but once you get going it isn’t too bad.
Over the past month, I’ve played and beat Bioshock. It was the first game I’ve played through in a long time. It was a solid game, but was missing much of the RPG element I expected. System Shock 2 had much more of that in it. I liked the game mostly because the atmosphere and gameplay were different than the average FPS. The plasmids and weapons were unusual and made things interesting. The ability to hack stuff and change your abilities with different plasmids made things fun too. Some of it was dumbed down from System Shock though. The plot, however, was almost exactly like System Shock. The same exact plot twist happened at the same exact point in the game. I knew it was coming from the start.
I also started on Tiberium Wars this weekend and so far it’s another sequel that keeps the spirit of the original. The cut scenes really help with the whole C&C vibe and I recognize a ton of the actors from other TV shows/movies, which usually isn’t the case in a video game. I’ve played a few missions as GDI and so far it feels very similar to the first C&C as well as Red Alert. Tiberium Wars seems to be a bit faster paced, if not chaotic. I tend to build a bunch of units and then wind up hurling them at the enemy base or protecting my own if I’m under attack. Many times I find it hard to build a reasonable strategy since it seems things happen so fast. Air support is underrated, though. I’ve used it several times to sneak past enemy lines and take out objectives and win without a direct assault on the enemy base.
Apparently my dad got an Xbox along with Halo 3 so that might be the impetus to go home again this weekend, given my achilles holds up. Home cooked food is another enticement. I’ll also be able to see Sarah again. I just have to make sure I am on top of my work. I get most of my computer games from him when he finishes them, but I’m surprised he got a console. The xbox is probably the best choice out of all the consoles in terms of hardware and games that interest me, especially since most cross platform games seem to run and look better on the console from what I hear. Then they do a crappy port to the PC.
That brings back another memory. I remember we were the first household I knew of to set up a LAN, I think it was in late 1995 or 1996. It used that coaxial cable like the TV cable uses and was decentralized in such a way that you didn’t need a hub or router, 10 Base-T I think. The first thing we did with it was play games. I remember Mechwarrior, Quake, and Red Alert took on a whole new level of excitement with multiplayer, especially since dial-up was so slow for stuff like that. It’s probably why I liked the original C&C games so much. I would play long battles with my dad and middle school friends and it was a huge change from playing against dumb AI opponents. Plus you could hear the screams of someone in the next room when you pummeled them with a rocket launcher or steamed a fleet of cruisers alongside their base. But now, multiplayer is the norm, and so some of that excitement has worn away. I just wish some of the people I knew played computer games. Plenty of them play console games, so maybe I should convert.
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