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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Dylan Holmes" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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06:54 pm
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Fun with Sam
Lack of entries is due to overwhelming workload, which is keeping me almost entirely off the internet save for checking e-mail and Joystiq. While initially unhappy that I was assigned 200+ pages of Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad for a class this week (obnoxious primarily because samesaid class also assigned 30 pages of theory reading, 40 other pages of HIGHLY RECOMMENDED but not required historical reading, and a 10-15 minute presentation on said theory reading - as if I did not have three other classes!) I am throughly enjoying the book. I have not read Twain before, save about half of Huckleberry Finn in high school, which I did not particularly enjoy; I imagine I would if I were to read it today. Anyway, The Innocents Abroad is quite politically incorrect by modern standards (and, for that matter, standards of Twain's time, albeit in a different way) but assuming once is not easily offended it is rollicking good fun, filled with excellent quotes and snarky observations. From Chapter XXV, while discussing Civita Vecchia:
"The people here live in alleys two yards wide, which have a smell about them that is peculiar but not entertaining. It is well the alleys are not wider, because they hold as much smell now as a person can stand, and of course, if they were wider they would hold more, and then the person would die."
It's one of those cumulative humor things - I start out the day barely cracking a smile, and after reading a hundred pages I'm giggling nonstop.
Edit: In fact, the entire Civita Vecchia section is comic gold: it can be found at http://www.mtwain.com/Innocents_Abroad/26.html, and starts about 60% of the way down the page.
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03:46 pm
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Motivation
So I've been debating whether to go for a swim or not today. On one hand, it's not on my schedule so I don't feel strictly obligated. On the other hand that's a technicality because it was on my schedule yesterday and I didn't go due to extreme weather (it's now 28 degrees and sunny, much more acceptable). I'm such a lazy person about this stuff but I gotta start sometime!
So then my hall neighbor resumes his new habit of playing music loudly with his door open. Guess I'm going swimming, then.
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10:45 pm
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Would it be wrong of me to name my son after Holmes Osborne?
So the semester has kicked off, and with it a record amount of reading (as I suspected). I guess I'll just have to learn how to skim this semester. I was going to post all my reading here but it would be dull. Good news: a (small) part of that reading is two Edgar Allen Poe stories, so that at least should be fun.
On a more mental note, I'm in one of those "disconnected" phases of my life that happens every once in a while - where, even when things are going pretty well and in some ways my life is exciting, I feel like I'm just going through the motions. One reason is just general quirky mental chemistry, but I also think it's A. A disconnect created to allow myself to deal with some of the more upsetting things in my life, and B. My lack of any "social mobility."
I wish I had more interesting things to report right now but I really don't - soon I'll be writing my preliminary Div III and embarking on a few Hampshire Justice Crusades, but right now I need to nail down exactly how long it takes me to do this work so I can schedule other things accordingly.
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07:02 pm
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I Are UMass Student!
Every Tuesday I have a little less than three hours of downtime at UMass (my schedule can be seen here). It's kind of a bitch, and I don't get to go back till 10:15 (and, in the case of longer films such as Mononoke Hime, 10:55!) Some days I'll be at Smith instead, as the two screenings conflict, blah blah blah. Basically my schedule is pretty screwy and I'm going to have to make up one screening a week outside of class in addition to the two I attend.
Normally I'd be using this time to do work, but given that no other classes have started yet I really can't - instead, I get to read the news and ponder about how the United States is going to have a massive economic collapse due to the public's complete failure to grasp basic economic concepts such as the need to balance revenue with expenditure. I honestly don't think this is going to change - if people haven't figured out now that a balanced budget requires the government to either raise taxes or cut programs (and, realistically, it would need to do both) then they're not going to. Unless we had a complete overhaul of the education system, but that would require more money, which would require...raising taxes or cutting programs. So yeah, we're fucked. Glad I get to go to Hampshire now, cause I'm seriously doubting it'll be around in 50 years, and perhaps not even the next 10-15.
On a more positive note, an intern (read: RA) offered to sponsor the movie club as an official student life event, which would make that viable. She's since been reticient to actually get the process started, though - I'll bug her about it in a week once the semester has really kicked off, and if she renegs I'll go back to my plans of doing it solo. It also looks like a board/card games night could resurge as an intern program, which would make me happy. Not that I'll have a lot of time for either of these, much less the TV series and video games I want to consume (Borderlands arrived today, and I'm actually going to break down and buy Mass Effect 2 despite my mixed feelings about Bioware).
I've also purchased some good goggles and put swimming down twice a week on my calendar, thus giving me a specific time I feel the need to do it rather than just pushing it off. I might end up swimming more often than that but twice a week beats the hell out of no regular exercise at all.
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10:02 pm
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chair
So I sit down in my chair and suddenly it buckles beneath me and I fall off. No fun.
Ends up that this little round piece that support the rod of the gas lift has become warped and twisted because...um...who knows why. Possibly because of errors in the re-assembly, because what they don't tell you when you buy this "assemble at home" chair is that you're not really supposed to disassemble it after assembling it (or reassemble it after dissassembling it) which led to various situations not covered in the manual, but also not really user error as there are no warnings NOT to do that. Anyway, this little round piece that holds up the chair is dead.
Good news: The chair has a long warranty (for little parts like this, 5 years).
Bad news: It, of course, requires the receipt, which I did save but has since disappeared in the multiple hectic college moves. I'm hoping that Staples will take my word that I bought it from their store (particularly if I have the box/manual) and if for some reason that is not the case I do have the credit card history, but who knows.
blargh.
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10:25 am
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You Don't Know the POWER of the Correcting Side
So this morning I'm reading Joystiq and their review of Dark Void. Reviewer Justin McElroy wrote, "Developer Airtight Games is staffed by much of the core team that created Crimson Skies."
For no good reason or than my own uptight sensibilities, I commented on the post: "Error in the post: Justin said the team was largely made up of members from the Crimson Skies team. Nope! These were the Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge dudes. Normally it's fine to shorten titles, except that the first (and better!) game is actually called Crimson Skies."
To my shock, Justin soon replied with "Fixed, thanks for the heads-up." Who knew that anyone read comments?
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04:10 pm
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Making Time
So four years ago or so I got a free-with-shipping mod kit for my last computer. This included two green cold cathode lights, one blue LED light, and one blue triple-led light. Back then I didn't like messing around inside the case so I never used em. Now, I do!
So today I decided to install the cold cathode, because it comes with a switch on a bracket and I had a bracket hole that needed filling. Of course, they were made for a full tower, I have a mid tower, so some creative use of space was needed, but I did it. Now whenever I want, an eerie green glow will illuminate my shitty wiring job.
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03:05 pm
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Movie News Folk Can't Read Numbers
Getting really tired of people assigning arbitrary value to big numbers. I just read a news story that Avatar's domestic gross had "raced past" Star Wars's to make it the third highest-grossing film of all time.
Bullshit.
Sure, it's true if you simply look at the dollar figures without facting in inflation - but that robs the numbers of any meaning. They are intended as an expression of the amount of monetary value audiences spent to see the film in theatres - if you simply report them as some sort of algerba problem it has no meaning, and your news story might as well be "NEWS FLASH! 1000 IS A BIGGER NUMBER THAN 900!".
Factoring in inflation on Star Wars and its re-releases (which are included in the aforementioned domestic), it has a value (in 2008 dollars) of $1,298,440,942 - almost three times what Avatar has made. Even ignoring the re-releases, Star Wars had a little over a billion, and it's highly unlikely that Avatar will reach this during its initial run.
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11:19 am
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Oh, Hampshire
So I just got an e-mail from the professor of my Screen Comedies (Smith College) course that he sent to the whole class. I checked the e-mail list and there are EIGHT Hampshire students registered in the class. Which has to be some kind of five-college record (my last five-college class had one Hampshire student other than me in the 50 person class). Another comparison: there is one Amherst student and one Holyoke student, despite both of those being bigger schools.
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11:09 pm
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Twilight Crawled Across the Sky, Laden With Foreboding
Long story short: I figured out the scaling issue, so I could play Max Payne. But then Max Payne's audio is totally fucked on Vista/Windows 7. A bit of googling helped me find out that some nice folks had spent a lot of time laboring to convert all the audio into a format that worked with Vista, and then made an executable that did it for you. It worked, and now I'm all set.
But...the game is ugly. Mind you, this will in no way stop me from playing it again, but it will tarnish some memories. When it came out, Max Payne was (on a technical level) notable for two things. One, for being gorgeous - it won PC Gamer's Best Graphics of the Year award, I recall. Second, for being really well programed such that it would run well on crap computers (the same was true, even more so, for its sequel). Anyway, it was good looking enough that it had perfect visual verisimilitude. Now...not so much. It's aged very poorly, and the horrible Max face texture looks even dumber than it did back then. I imagine the sequel would hold up a lot better. I think graphics are now good enough that we'll be able to revisit the games of this era ten years later, and they'll still look relatively fine - after all, people still look sorta like people rather than blocky aproximations of them.
We'll see how much this (and the now-retro gameplay) tarnish my playthrough of Max Payne, but I'm looking forward to it. At the very least, I'll still laugh knowingly with the script and performances.
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03:27 pm
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This Coming Semester
Things I want to accomplish this coming semester (not necessarilly in order):
1. Get all my work done satisfactorilly.
2. Make new friends and build a comfortable and healthy social network.
3. Get Hampshire to fix its stupid Jan Term policy.
4. Start exercising in some capacity (possibly swimming laps in the pool).
5. Get the Film Viewing Collective (formerly Dylan's Movie-Watching Club) full started up, with semi-regular screenings and a sustainable stable of interested viewers. I plan on making an e-mail list for updates and event stuff instead of solely using Facebook, and will focus more on getting friends-of-friends and people I don't know directly.
6. Go to events on the other campuses.
7. Get a job/internship for the summer (assuming I don't luck out and get a position guaranteed during my Jan Term applications).
8. Iron out a Div III I am happy with and get a good committee for it.
9. Keep my room clean.
10. Eat more veggies.
11. Keep updating my journal.
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08:52 pm
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Rocking the Classics
So today I wiped ze hard drive and installed legit Windows 7 (64-bit) instead of the RC I had been running. Equiped with this, my nice PC, my new sound card, my new monitor, I can play some cutting edge-stuff.
Instead, I'm gonna replay Max Payne.
"The sun rose with practiced bravado.."
Edit: OR I WOULD BE IF FLAT PANEL SCALING WORKED ON NVIDIA'S WINDOWS 7 DRIVERS. This SUCKS. Max Payne is not a morbidly obese midget.
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04:58 pm
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Lists Are Easier
Today, I:
1. Installed a sound card in my computer
2. Discovered that I had a perfectly good sound card on my hands in the form of my old sound card, and pondered what to do with it.
3. Lugged my old desktop over to the recycling center and bade it goodbye, after salvaging the RAM for no good reason (it lights up!) and eight thumbscrews from the case because thumbscrews are AWESOME.
4. Visitied the Merril/Dakin House Office a ridiculous number of times to ask questions and borrow (in order) a Phillips-head screwdriver, an allen wrench (which they didn't have), and a dolly. This is exactly the kind of behaivor one is supposed to be suspicious of under the Bush Administration "Your Neighbor May Be A Terrorist!" program.
5. Stared forlornly at my half-constructed chair and endeavored to find said allen wrench tomorrow.
6. Striped the head of my Xbox Composite/Component cables so I could fit them in simultaneously with an HDMI cable...
7. ...and, after much effort, succesfully ran the visuals through monitor and (the hard part) ran the audio through my new sound card.
8. Realized that I would not be playing the Xbox 360 anytime soon due to a mass of PC games, books, and TV series.
9. Got my second Hampshire Return Hug, and the first one I actually appreciated,
10. Realized that the girl hugging me looked a lot older than the last time I saw her, and felt old myself.
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11:24 am
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I Feel The Warmth
So the first thing I did this morning...well, the first thing I did this morning was take a shower. But the first SIGNIFICANT thing I did this morning was install my new sound card. Unfortunately due to the setup of my PC and the fatass cooling array attached to my graphics card, the sound card is directly next to the graphics card - which would be catastrophic for airflow except that it's a low-profile card, so it doesn't completely block the fan. Still not good, though.
It's also not good in that - like my least card - it is getting some electo-magnetic interference - a slight whine when idle a bit of buzzing when doing stuff on the computer. NOT COOL. Contacting Auzen to see if there is anything I can do.
Good news: neither of these affect the sound quality when it's playing. I just listened to the MGS3 theme - a song I've heard countless times - and it sounds amazing. The seperation of channels and overall balance is such that I'm hearing things I've never heard before. The downside is that the system is so good it highlights the flaws in my headphones (namely their warm/somewhat loose sound). Still, background noise aside, I'm thrilled with it.
Now I have to rebuild a chair I had in storage without tools. Fantastic.
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10:50 pm
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If your desktop is set up, does that mean you're moved in?
Currently back at Hampshire and realizing just how much habit is a part of things. I've been gone for a little less than eight months, but it feels like ages. People look different, I have way more stuff than I remember, and I've completely lost the ability to speedily type on my ergonomic split keyboard and am having to "re-train" my hands to not cross across the board when I'm typing.
Getting to this point has been a frankly awful process, but given my last real entry I figured I'd sit on it for a little bit before recounting that tail. For now things are hunky-dory and I am going to get a good night's sleep before getting up and finishing the unpacking process.
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01:35 pm
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Automation
I just ordered a power cable on eBay and simultaneously received five different e-mails related to the sale. This is a new record.
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10:23 pm
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Potential Div IIIs
Culled from the Division III Title Generator:
The Objectification of Ethnographic Computer Game Theories and Modern Irish Writing
A Fresh Approach to Third World Electronic Music Composition and the Imagined Realities of Documentary Films
Crossing the Boundaries of Pre-Industrial Web Comics
Misappropriation of Comparative Computer Game Theories in Post-Modern Political Justice
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10:34 am
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You Are Late For Work
For anyone stuck in a dead end job and/or who appreciates art games and/or music videos, check out Every day the same dream.
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06:58 pm
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GEEEKDOM
Thanks to a generous birthday gift from my grandfather combined with an excellent deal on eBay, I am now the proud owner of my coveted Auzentech X-Fi Forte, by all accounts the best soundcard one can get for gaming and (if you're not using an external amplifier) the best for music and movies too, thanks to (among other things) its dedicated headphone amplifier. YUM.
Journal entries haven't been happening because there is really nothing to report, short of a review of Brutal Legend that no one would much care about (in short: definitely Tim Schafer's worst game, but even a sub-par Schafer game still beats the pants off most things and as such it was unfairly maligned by much of the press and gaming public). I'm about to finish the 1979 BBC adaptation of John le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy starring the always charming Alec Guiness. And it's really awesome. Other than that, making depressingly slow progress on Div III ideas, which will be presented here once they are ironed out. Did a bit of job scouting but actual applications are being withheld till after the Christmas break. Short story: Pretty much nobody in the games industry offers internships, or at the very least they don't advertise them (Sony Online Entertainment being a notable exception). So I got to bug lotsa folks to see if I can get something, and if not simply apply to Sony when they post the job offerings in March.
Or, you know, volunteer in a thrift store again.
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10:10 am
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A Fun Read
If you're in the mood for something chilling, Ohio has had to keep a detailed timeline of the last hours of each executed inmate since the death penalty was re-instated in 1999. These can be read here.
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