Dream Log (2011/12/18 - 21): School Locker Room

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 2011/12/18 - 21 (one of those nights)

Located in a middle or high school which had this prestigious feeling about it.  I was in a locker room with other students and we were preparing for an event in the gymnasium. Both boys and girls were in the room, but it was really huge so you'd have to walk a bit and go around a corner before seeing the others. I guess they were almost all 11-13 with a few boys slightly older than that. I was about the same age as the older boys, maybe older.

I walked to the entrance to the gymnasium which went through the girl's section of the locker room. A female supervisor was there. No exchange of words or anything; I just took notice of her presence. Aside from that I kept my head down but glanced up once. The girls were around a bench wearing white shirts and jeans. As I exited I stood near the end of the hall before it completely opened up to the gym floor. The low ceiling was also gone near the end. People were already performing out there.

There must have been some confusion...three girls from the locker room walk by me naked but stop before they're really out in the open.  I see them by accident but quickly avert my gaze to stare off in the distance like I'm contemplating something else, like I didn't care. Mainly to put on a show to the people out on the floor and maybe in the bleachers, the ones who could see me. It felt nice to be (act like) a modest, upstanding person. I head back inside and glance over every now and then. No one seems to be clothed anymore, or partially at the very least (but it still left some parts completely exposed).

Dream ended shortly after.

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There's that feeling you get when you see someone. It really touches or warms your heart to see that person.  I had that feeling when I saw those three girls (I think they all looked the same) even though I can't really visualize them, and maybe I'll never be able to. It's an ideal.

I wasn't sad over the dream finishing off like that, but it did leave me feeling sad in a different way.  You know, because I should expect it to never happen (meeting someone like that).  And I put on the same appearance in that dream as I would in life.  Never trying to interact.  It's just reinforcing what I've always thought.

It left me longing after waking up, but that's over soon enough. Until something similar happens next time, whenever, in a dream or outside.


Oh, I forgot I was looking for an image.

It was the best one I could find after a few minutes of searching.  That's pretty much what it looked like where I stood, but indoors.  And a smaller field and laminated flooring.

First Experiences with Programming (Part 3)

I'm always forgetting to mention things that should go with previous posts, like during the second part where the GUI project deadline was extended two weeks or something equally ridiculous.  Collective will, that.  Can't draw a conclusion from one occurrence, though.  It could mostly fall on the professor.  And then I'm sounding mean and elitist when I'm only looking at the smaller picture, and I'm only a trivial person.  Just cease those thoughts and keep learning.

"Find something to drive you along while you learn something".  I'm pulling that quote from nowhere in particular, but it sounds like a common piece of advice.  A goal, simply enough.  The chapters in the book were ordered so you'd be learning about classes following methods and receive a basic intro to GUI following classes.  I had just about finished reading chapter five on methods when the professor skips that and the next few to get into arrays in chapter eight.  Okay, learning about arrays now...and then something clicked.  I want to say I went crazy for the notion at the time.  I wanted to try and create an RPG.

(So unique.)

Creating games wasn't some lifelong dream I held.  I'd hear about it every now and then when I was younger ("Hey, you like playing games.  Why don't you get a job making them when you're all grown up?"), and in return I'd mentally roll my eyes.  They made it sound like I was capable of being a one-man team (playing only the larger titles in my younger days I wouldn't be aware such people existed until later).  It's not like I was brimming with ideas.  I don't have any plans for this to be anything more than a hobby; I'll have to wait and see what happens when I develop more skills.  Oh, but I'm always waiting and not doing.  Such a bad thing to practice.

So back to the arrays, I was having my little epiphany.  "With this power I could store stats for a character!"  And so I built it up from that, asking myself what functions one would expect to see and making use of my accumulated knowledge to accomplish the task.  As I went further in the book I'd look for ways to apply new concepts to the game.  Man, look at that synergy!

After concentrating on it at full force for a short while I'd run into some road bumps soon enough.  Like...oh, I don't know, the creative aspect of the project.  I felt compelled to engage in creative writing at two instances in my life.  One when I was six or eight, creating a book about the kiwi bird, complete with illustrations.  Another when I was 14, stopping after 20 or so typed pages for reasons I don't remember, and they're probably gone (I wish they weren't).  I might share the kiwi story later, just because.   

I have several ideas floating around to see through the general progression of the story, and right now it would be a matter of jumping into the writing and making changes as seen fit.  Initiating the writing, simple as that.  Shouldn't it be?  But here I am facing a number of untouched plans.  Habits.  Need to learn new habits.

More on the side project (and a few others) will be set aside until a post arises to be dedicated to them.

Classes started this Monday.  I planned on finishing the rest of the programming book before then (what a great use of money for the course), but my work ethic isn't up to par yet and I'm left with four chapters to go.  All fired up since I'm around students again.  There's no telling yet what skill level they're at; I'll have to try my best to leave a good impression on the assignments so I'm not crushed under my sense of worthlessness.  Out there in the world I wanted to be no one so badly, but not here in this class.  I'm not going to be just an invisible student this time.  Not if I can help it.

Small-time problems for small-time people.  Downplay everything.

I guess this will be the last part.  Left out some interactions but they can go under a different title.

Oh right, and the professor from the previous class gave me an award certificate thing.  I think it was more of the "feel-good" type of achievement rather than something special, though.  Even though I was the only one in the entire course section to receive it (and two others who took the course above me) there was this huge list of a few dozen people for some math course when I looked at the pamphlet at the party.  What's the mantra?  Downplay everything (no seriously, I'm pretty sure it's valid this time).     

Dream Log (2012/05/08): Touhou Scoring Replay

 A little introduction first.

I'd say last October/November was the last time I sat down and concentrated on producing a series of scores in general.  Most of it was in October with the final PCB Extra run with Reimu-B finishing up November 7th (wait no, I went back and updated Reimu-A and Marisa-A again a few days later).  About a week after that I felt shooting for two billion in PCB Normal which had been on my mind for a while, but I've been barely motivated for a long time already (I wouldn't have refreshed my Extra scores if not for HS参謀 introducing a new route for Reimu-A).  So I'm playing a little each day with Marisa-A, improving...right up until I get a good run where I take notice that I failed to set up Flowery Soul to graze inside the explosion (because I didn't practice properly), and when I finish the run I end up with 1.997B.  I don't think that run was the cause, but for one reason or another I didn't feel like playing anymore.  Also, I think 2B with Reimu-B would be easier (I'm more comfortable playing with her anyway), but I always do this thing where I cycle through all the other shot types so my experience culminates at the Reimu-B run and I can make it extra good.  Playing with Marisa-A was nice, though.  Always good to try something new.

Way later starting on May 5th this year I feel like going for 2B again.  I play for an hour to two hours each day and feel bad when I die to silly things.  The pressure (and delayed gratification) starts mounting.  I hear dreams tend to be about stuff you've thought about recently so I guess the subject matter of this one was inevitable.  And they seem to be more prevalent at a time you don't normally sleep.

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2012/05/08, before 19:10 (evening nap)

Watching the PCB Normal/Marisa-A record set by HS参謀.  Something happens after Yuyuko’s third spell or fourth noncard where it ends as though it timed out.  The bullets disappear and nothing happens for a few seconds, then the battle resumes as usual.

As he’s finishing up with Resurrection Butterfly I look at his score and notice there’s still over 300M to go to match up with the record (so it's in the 1.7B range).  After the endgame bonus is tallied the score is only 1.79B.  While I’m sitting there confused at the score the game hasn’t ended yet, running for about 20-30 seconds.  And then the announcement for Resurrection Butterfly starts again and I immediately realize that he picks up the remainder of the score from bugging out Yuyuko.  I was a little disappointed because the old score I made was 7M over his (except it was really 1.997B, not 1.797B) without ever bugging the fight and I heard the question echo in my head, “Did I really surpass his run at some point?  At least in stage four I’m still behind.”  No items spawned during Resurrection Butterfly, and after capturing it his score was 1.815B.  In my mind I’m thinking that there’s still two spells to go before he reaches 2.137B.

Next up is Deadly Dance, and he doesn’t employ the usual circling tactic.  I’m thinking it’s because the pattern is now backwards (but that means you should still be able to do it, but you know how dreams are).  The pattern he employed was making long slightly curved sweeps across the screen, shooting the entire time and slowly being pushed down.  I knew there were more bullets but my focus was only on two parts for each sweep which served as markers for me.  One of them is simply passing by a wave of five arrowhead bullets lined up, and the second involved some sort of squeeze between another wave like that and a lone arrowhead bullet.  Like you’re supposed to push through them before going in the other direction.  I thought it was taking a while for the spell to end even if he’s not shooting Yuyuko directly all the time.  I look at the spell bonus and see it at 26M and counting.  Still a bit of a way to go before the sweeps reach the bottom of the screen.  Dream ended there.

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I had another dream of this type that would crop up in the middle of a playing streak, back in 2010.  I'll get to it some other time.

I still remember how this version of Deadly Dance looks, but I'm still too lazy to do a sketch of it.  I'll put that off for later as well.

On May 11th I reach the target and feel another amazing high I didn't think would surface from a goal like this.  Jumping, fist pumping, all that stuff I don't normally do.  I guess the creeping nervousness helped with that, performing less confidently during the final battle and suffering a few close calls.

Of course in retrospect you'll realize how bad the run really is, but at least it doesn't take away from the initial moment.  Like this fatal mistake in the beginning of stage five where I die and the entire first half of the heavy point-carrying fairies get away.  All because I didn't practice the move, and that's unbelievable.  Oh, I guess I got to that stage once the other day and pulled off the trick so I expected to wing it, but not this time.  I can't believe it never crossed my mind to practice that.

The climb to 2B this time was mostly a matter of catching up to the level of execution I held in the 1.997B run.  The only thing I chased after was the status on stage four before the boss fight since most of the deviations will appear at that checkpoint.  573M, 877 point items (wait, I didn't include the CherryMax?).  After that I could catch up with better milking on a few spells.  The situation with the score transition from stage four to five is interesting because of that stupid mistake in the 2B run, but I did get a higher score from Youmu's midboss spell (still not as good as previous runs and a little close to the edge), and I forgot that I died to her final spell in the old run.  The cherry value penalty was felt during the stage six item spam and both scores evened up after that.

For the sake of this post feeling complete I'll put in links to the replay files.

PCB Normal/Marisa-A 1.997B

PCB Normal/Marisa-A 2.002B

And then I'm still perturbed by the bad Yuyuko fights.  Obviously, practice mode is where it's at.  This is what a stage six run should look like:

PCB Normal/Reimu-B Practice Stage Six 475M 
(I sort of run around with different handles)

I think it could at least go for 484M.  T (who motivated me through competition) did a better job with Flowery Soul, pulling off extra explosion grazing in the middle of the spell.  I only squeezed ahead because of Resurrection Butterfly.  I also forgot to pull off his redirection method for Yuyuko's opener to make it more graze-friendly.  Then there's other little minor things that add up, and some missing tactics. 

Dungeon Siege II Underway

First time not posting at 3:00 or 5:00 in the morning.

Act 1 was just as difficult if not worse than I remember.  Sure you could work towards whatever specialization you'd like with anyone, but I think I wanted to stick to their initial preferences back then.  Which means I'm running around with two melee characters, the main one wanting to be a tank (by my own preference) but lacking the feats and gear to last more than a few seconds in a group of mobs.  I eventually give him a bow to kite everything and finish burning down the rest of the towers.  As I leave town for the next quest I run into the next party member who defaults as a ranger, and I have to wonder if she was there the first time.

I ran into some difficulties with group management after picking up the healer.  I don't remember what I did last time, but I thought the rampage formation worked pretty well.  Now some of them (like the main character) will move back to the group as soon as I issue the command and stand there, maybe taking a few hits before retaliating.  In the end I went with the mirror formation and controlled the ranger most of the time.  Otherwise, if I were moving back with the melee characters and started attacking again it would drag the healer to the middle of the battle since the active spell was a healing one, and the autocast healing spell wouldn't override the initial command to move to that spot.  After picking up the mage I controlled her more often due to the shorter range of her spells putting her near the heart of the battle and pulling enemies.

The game really picked up near the end of Act 1.  By then the tank was a real tank and I wouldn't have to run back so much.  Shortly into Act 2 after picking up the mage I had my old group composition back, but during Act 1 I considered discarding the tank role and turning him into another ranger.  I think I would have soon grown weary of all the kiting, though, and there would be competition for drops.  Maybe not that much competition; I wouldn't mind equipping more defensive items among all the members.  Still, one character who ridiculously outranges everything is enough for me.  And I like the traditional composition.

Get the ranger to engage then continue watching the Olympics.

The other members just happened to be female, really!  The order is like male warrior -> female ranger (bow/x-bow) -> female healer -> male ranger (throwing, shorter range) -> male warrior -> female mage -> female warrior...and I think a male ranger with bows shows up later.  Then I used him when I had an extra slot while playing a little bit of the next difficulty, but I could buy another right now since I'm trying the beta 4s hotfix mod.  Act 2 is nearing completion.  One more to go.

The question is why am I even conscious about gender preference / balance unless I had something to hide.  Heck, what about this name I'm using (not the guy in the game; I called him Isaac)?

Tried out Skyrim for a few hours the other day.  One freeze a minute into the beginning but no other issues so far.  A little bummed out over the lack of attributes and the clunky interface.  It'll just have to be fixed up with mods as usual.  I tried out SkyUI and it's an improvement, but I'd like to see if there's anything else out there.  When I think about Morrowind's inventory system it might supposedly be worse because you aren't presented with the names upfront, so I can't tell if it's nostalgia that's preventing me from really believing it.  I miss the item icons, and the ones in Oblivion look too simple.  Oh, I guess Skyrim has a model for you to look at but you need to have the item selected.  The interface in Morrowind just felt more homey.  Just right click and bam!  Numbers and stats and stuff to look at everywhere.

I don't have any saved games in this one again so I picked it up from Google Images, and then I saw that the site it came from had a rant about the very thing I'm talking about.

Still, what I'm looking for hasn't gone anywhere.  It's right there in Morrowind, and with a better computer I can take advantage of the graphical overhauls (always played without mods, save once) out there as well as explore new areas, including ones I haven't seen that have been there since the game was shipped out.  Just a matter of time before I rotate back to it.

Also took a walk the other day and enjoyed the nice, cloudy skies.  Quite humid still.

Which Game to Play?

Starting late June I stopped playing games for a about a month.  I think most of it can be attributed to focusing on the coursework near the end of the summer semester and reading from the programming book during my free time.  After a while of that the desire went away...but a week after class ended I felt too dull to continue my days reading the book.  I had no drive to do anything else and boredom settled in.  In an effort to dispel those feelings I played a single credit of Perfect Cherry Blossom which I hoped would feel like a beginner's experience after not touching that genre in over two months, but it was too soon and the effect was spoiled.

A few days later (7/28) I built my first computer (with some help from my father deciding on a few of the parts).

$700(ish) rig, not counting old components.

I wouldn't consider myself to be someone who plays a wide variety of games or picks up new titles as soon as they're released (with a few exceptions).  World of Warcraft aided in consuming my free time and keeping my interest in one spot, and after abandoning it in the middle of 2008 and drifting for a few months I found Touhou Project as a substitute for my singular focus.  That slowed down as early as late 2009, but I still played more than I should have.  With the discovery of programming this year I'm finally ready to enjoy it (more) casually, clocking only around 30 hours these past eight months compared to over 2,000 spent overall playing/watching replays.

Aside from those crazy instances I usually rotate between titles.  Play for a few days, probably finish the main story, put it up.  That sounds normal, maybe?  I don't think it's the right time to dump a list of all the titles.  They're usually PC games and RPGs.

To kick off the test run I installed S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat.  Maximum setting goodness.  Installed Fallout 3 after that.

I'm one of those people who didn't play the first two Fallout games.  I also never experienced the Elder Scrolls games prior to Morrowind, or Might and Magic before VII, or Heroes of Might and Magic before III, or Final Fantasy before VII.  Well, I did watch my father play FO2, HoMM2, and all of Might and Magic VII.  Anyway, thanks to all this, hearing that Fallout New Vegas is more faithful to the Fallout universe didn't mean much to me as I cared more for the exploration and atmosphere of FO3.  At least, based on someone else's opinion that FO3 is more centered on exploration.  I think the preference is heavily influenced by Morrowind.  Also, I haven't experienced more than an hour of New Vegas because I still want to finish up FO3.  The older computer had a say in that (NV, not FO3).

I'm just a sucker for urban settings with cloudy skies and dirty streets and sidewalks.  I didn't pick up and play FO3 until last November, but I watched a relative play it on the Xbox during fall of 2009.  And I had this to help keep my imaginations afloat:



I was overjoyed when I was able to get it to run on the older computer.

Picked up Skyrim the other day; by sheer coincidence I told myself I'd start checking regularly for deals and it so happened to be 50% off.  I would have liked a physical copy, but soon enough I'll forget I ever worried about it.  Haven't touched it yet (I guess I should make sure it starts at least).

In a few days I plan on starting a new playthrough.  The first time around was quite vanilla with a few tweaks, but this time I want to include an overhaul mod.  And then the dilemma...what sort of character to play?  Sure, let's be another goody two-shoes.  Let's be another cookie cutter build with the exact same race (maybe switch gender) in Morrowind.  Let's start another fire/light/cold sorc or summon necro.  I decided on a not entirely evil unarmed specialist knowing that I still have my first character's save file where mostly everyone isn't screwed over.

But first, it's postponed for a few days because of an urge to play Dungeon Siege II.  Not much else to say about that; I'll probably only do the first difficulty again and probably won't pick up the expansion.  And I'll use the exact same party composition.  Nevertheless, it holds a special memory.  I don't remember when we got it but I remember being put off by the graphics.  Didn't proceed much into the first act after my melee party of two got beat down.

For some reason or another I picked it up again in the summer of 2007.  The house was sold and we were ready to move; just waiting on my father to finish his last year in the service for a bonus.  Rather than stay in the regular-sized housing on base (where we lived before buying the new house) we moved into billeting.  The order when moving to the US would be billeting -> apartment -> on-base housing -> real house -> billeting again.  Two rooms; the bedroom and kitchen/living room space.  There I played the game with laptop and mouse on my couch bed (it doesn't extend into a bed).

It wasn't just the game that made it memorable.  A few things were happening at that time (maybe I'll cover it later), and it was a humbling experience to live in small quarters again, with its own scent.  Doing laundry outside the house.  I had long walks on the field, appreciating the massive, detailed cloud formations displayed magnificently with little to no obstruction.  One of them one late afternoon spanned across with tops standing high.  It could be the makings of an empire.  I enjoyed those last days before we moved out of state.  It was all my fault.

First and Last School Dance

During the 7th grade I continued to live in an air force base.  I came to know two girls in the neighborhood who were friends for several years and counting.  The mother of one of them always shopped at JCPenney for her daughter and received an automatic 20% discount.

They convinced me to show up for the school dance since you didn't need a partner to enter.  It was held in the late afternoon in the cafeteria, and upon arrival I saw an area to the side with games and went straight there.  There were several projections on the wall, and I think it was running on the PS2.  I don't care much for realistic-looking racing games, but that's what they had so I played solo.  It wasn't bad at all, really.  They served pizza, but I only bought a drink and continued playing.  Club music was running.

This doesn't last more than half an hour.  Getting up to depart early I cut through the crowded dance floor and make a beeline for one of the two exits.  Suddenly, someone grabs my arm and I turn to face him.  There were two boys with one girl in the middle.  I can't recall if either of the boys were dressed, but the girl was.  Wearing black, maybe shimmering a little.  Straight, dark brown hair falling slightly below the shoulders.  She was thin and an inch, probably two inches shorter than me.  Or more.  Caucasian.  Her face was cute; thin, but not gaunt.  Maybe even calling it thin is too excessive.  I don't know anything about facial structures.  I just know her cheeks weren't puffed or that she had a round complexion or anything.  I'm probably making it worse.

The expression she held...well, I'm a guy so there's only so much I can understand.  That and I'm not looking into people's faces most of the time.  No experience reading them.  She looked like an introvert.  That's all I can say with confidence.

"Hey, do you want to dance with her?"  The person who initially grabbed my arm asked the question.  The other boy looked on.  The girl just stood there looking up to me from three to four feet away.  Nothing on her face told me whether or not...well, who knows.  She looked timid (using that word again).  The boy probably pulled me over because I was walking through without a partner.

I certainly didn't arrive with the intent to dance, and I wasn't prepared to suddenly change my mind about leaving so I shake my head and say somewhat loudly, "No thanks."  I had to say it twice because he was still asking, "Do you want to dance?" so I probably wasn't heard the first time over all the noise.  I should have accepted.  Looking back on it I feel sorry for her; maybe she was supposed to go with someone and he never showed up.

I wonder how she's faring.  I wonder how people from childhood are faring.