Ramblings
So, the doctor yesterday didn’t exactly have any answers about this condition of mine. I have many of the symptoms of IBS and I’m now on a course of pills to deal with that in the hopes that’s what I have. However, I have a bunch of additional symptoms that are somewhat concerning even though all my tests so far have shown no issues so I’m getting referred to a consultant. Hopefully these pills will sort me out but if not at least there is this consultant to hopefully fix me in the future.
Things have been crazy busy recently but I seem to finally be getting on top of things. Been having fun dealing with git-svn – I’ve been using git locally and syncing to an svn server for coding at work and I’ve found it generally quite nice though working out how to do merges between branches that are tracking svn branches is a bit of an arse. I think I need to be looking at rebase for pulling changes from master (which is tracking trunk on svn) into my development branch (that’s tracking a dev branch on svn) but I’m having issues doing so, which has been annoying and confusing to say the least. I need to experiment more I guess. I wish I was just using a pure git setup but oh well.
I’m also writing this on my phone using the new wordpress android app. It seems quite nice so far, reasonable interface and generally gets out of your way. I also have been using GDocs for syncing with google docs which has been useful. Nice to have a note taking, document writing app that can do that well.
I saw the Sonic 4 trailer the other day and wow, everything I could want about a classic platform game brought to the present day. I generally don’t enjoy modern games and am somewhat indifferent about them. Sonic 3 & Knuckles was probably the last truly great sonic game and I’ve glad to see a return to the roots of the franchise. This is what sonic is about, not this bullshit 3D action games with bad stories and crappy characters. Sonic 4 looks like it is back to focussing on what Sonic games shoulfd be all about – fluidity of movement and speed. Momentum, even. I can pick up Sonic 3 & Knuckles any time and enjoy it like I did the first time around. There are few, few games nowadays I can do the same with.
I feel a little sad because, working at a company that is heavily focused on multiplayer PC gaming, I feel a little off. I’m just not interested in the latest FPS, regardless of the awesome features and enhanced tactics, etc. They all boil down to the same thing for me and I’ve just got bored of the genre. Quake 1 was the last FPS I truly enjoyed and I still have fond memories of it, back when I used to write maps and mods like crazy for it. Quake 3 is fun, and I occasionally play on Quake Live to relive those days but it just doesn’t have the same charm Q1 did.
Final Fantasy VIII was released on the PSN today and so I will be getting that most likely. I enjoy the Final Fantasy games and it is one of the few franchises I’ve found I actually enjoyed the transition from 2D to 3D of. Speaking of PSN, I find I enjoy playing Fat Princess quite a lot. It’s fun, cute and simple, while still having enough bite for it to not be an entirely throwaway casual experience. It’s lightheartedness also makes it easy to pick up or put down whenever you like though and I think that ability to easily engage or disengage with a game is a key feature for any modern game, sadly most in my opinion require more of a long term commitment just to play effectively. I want the challenge to be one of skill, not of who can slog the most hours. Conversely, I also find many games far too short, which is why I tend to stick to RPGs. I can sink easily 70 hours into a quality RPG because of the rich world and storyline combined with the ways battles work and are paced. In most other games I tend to complete them too soon for my liking and end up feeling disappointed. Either that or I end up getting frustrated when games ruin the difficulty curve to force you to grind or otherwise drastically change your play style without warning in order to inflate the hours you need to play. I’m not much of a gamer, and what little gaming I do tends to be console based these days, much like in my youth. PCs are patently superior for certain games such as RTS and FPS games but there are just not enough decent ones that introduce something new enough and interesting enough to make it worth the effort to deal with both Windows and the eternal hardware arms race that seems to exist. I don’t have the money to spend on components I will only use occasionally and need to be replaced when broken. My PS3 is an appliance I can replace relatively easily, it’s convenient. I just can’t be bothered with dealing with things on a PC.
I tend to enjoy more indie/non-mainstream things nowadays as well I find. My music tastes are eclectic and spread pretty wide and I’m open to new things. I enjoy playing oddball, often unheard of roleplaying games and the odd weird indie computer game. I like experiencing the new ideas and expanded boundaries people are creating when making massive profit from majority markets isn’t a primary concern. I think that, most of all, is why I generally play fewer games, especially from the FPS genre, nowadays.
I really need to work on mmy games programming course but I still have next to no spare time, sadly. I hate having a bunch of ideas in my head and no way to express them. I also need to get back into writing. Between doing this judging on protagonize and work I’ve had little time for anything else. Many ideas that need releasing there too. The DRYH game on Google Wave is going well, it’s very enjoyable. The D&D I’m playing on there as well is quite good, though it’s progressing a little slowly. Hopefully things will pick up soon though.
Only a few weeks till Dru and I will be in Canada. I’m really looking forwards to it. I need a holiday and some time to just hang with my wife and my friends so this will be a welcome break.
Anyway, that concludes this rambling test of WordPress for android.