After a birthday party

Just finished sending off everyone from my house. Feeling dead tired, but it was fun. Seeing everybody with their significant other made me cold and lonely inside, haha. I'm going to finish reading a fantasy novel by Phillip Pullman before I go to bed. Got a borders gift card as a present, so maybe I'll buy it's sequel tomorrow. ;)

Coding again

A couple of friends asked for help with their projects, so I spent the whole afternoon working on Java applications. Which makes me very tired and grumpy. This is because Java is very syntax heavy, requiring far more typing of symbols than most other languages. Everything must be specified in great detail before you can even run the program. Maybe this is great for enterprise level software and other professional code, but it's really too unwieldy for an amateur like me. I kept skipping the usage of brackets and forgetting to put semi-colons. Been using too much Ruby lately I guess.

Ruby on the other hand, has it's own set of problems for me. So far I've only used it for simple shell scripting, transferring files into my Palm and so forth. I can't seem to do anything major with it though, like 3d programming. It's performance is nowhere near Java or C level. But I think the real reason is I don't really have a focus, like a particular software that I really want to write. Lack of motivation has probably been the story of my life so far.

It's really loud outside. People in my condo are throwing a new-year's party, accompanied by lots of shouting, screaming and music. Happy new year.

Web Apps

I've been trying out a lot of web applications lately. Web applications look like normal web sites, but they provide functionality equivalent to desktop software. For instance, I'm writing this post using Writely, a web-based word processor. It features spell checking, formatting tools and the ability to save your work in Microsoft Word format. It runs totally from my browser without installing anything, and anything I write is stored on their server as well. Some other cool features include auto-saving, direct posting to a blog and allowing multiple users to work on the same document together.

Another application I've used recently is Ta-da List. The name may be a bit goofy, but it's fast, free and easy to use. Basically it keeps track of your to-do lists, allowing you to share them with others as well. It may sound simple, but simplicity is what makes it good.

Of course there's Google Maps too, which surely doesn't need any introduction. I've not used it other than as a novelty item, but it's extremely cool nonetheless.

There's a ton of other applications out there. Music sequencers, photo editors and even a functional operating system! I hope someday I can write cool software like this for a living. </dream>

Dead beat...

after coming back from a christmas gathering. The venue was at some guy's place from my church. The place was huge... I heard it cost a cool 2.5 mil. Well, at least I had a brief taste of how the rich live during my lifetime. I got to meet a lot of people from my church and talk to them, which is funny because I don't normally socialize in my church so I'm getting introduced to all these faces which I see week in, week out... as if we'd just met.

Oh btw, merry christmas.

Sitex? What Sitex?

Went to Expo today with a Poly friend to see "Big Boy's Toys". Basically it was like an issue of FHM brought to life. Flashy sports cars, sleek motorcycles and even some skating stunts show to watch. I guess it was an okay experience for my $10. The skimpily clad models beat next door's Sitex girls hands down, and I could have killed myself for not bringing a camera.

Sitex was relatively empty this year. At least I didn't have to jostle and barge around just to move an inch forward. Didn't even see a Microsoft booth... and I'd hoped to see the XBox 360 too. Some guy at the Razor Gaming mice booth was playing 1v1 Counterstrike vs a 6 yr old boy then later some 10 yr old girl. It was a open category to anyone, but I bet he felt like less of a man after thrashing both of them. Anyway his prize was a Razor mouse and pad, so I guess it was worth it.

Slow Week

I did nothing but play games this week. And go out with my family too, which was good. I hardly talk to them on my normal weekends.

Games I played or tried:

DOTA

Shining Force Neo

Shadow of the Colossus

Star Wars Battlefront 2

Space Rangers 2

Space Rangers 2 is a crazy russian space game where you just travel the galaxy in your ship and do whatever you want. There's turn-based strategy, RTS (warcraft style), Arcade action and even text adventures all rolled into this game, therefore it owns me.

Long week over

Whew, I just came back today from a damn long week, thanks to guard duty last Sunday and a parade today. Spent the day cleaning up my computer desktop and reading up on some web sites. Sadly my actual room is still a mess. I don't know what I'm gonna do this week for block leave. I hope I don't waste the whole week away on playing games.

Flock

Trying out this new browser has given me a chance to update my blog again. Flock is based on the Firefox code base and features integration with various web services, such as Blogger. So now I'm posting using the browsers built-in interface, and it's a bit unwieldy but a lot more convienient than the web page interface. Not that I write a lot here (too busy with this).

Edit: Ok I just saw that I can view all my previous posts and edit them with Flock's interface. Just changed a few errors in my post. I'm never using the old Blogger site to post again.

Testing some desktop stuff

Just finished a few hours of Dungeon Siege 2.. it's the digital crack I never wanted. Didn't do much today, but spent quite a bit of money still. Random crap like a 2-pin AC plug and music cd. Also, watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (not to be confused with a certain 80's musical). Very surreal, certain parts were very amusing and creepy, and it completely destroyed the impression I had from my naive childhood memories of the book. Thank you Tim Burton! Willy Wonka certainly has got some deep-rooted angst! Flaming gnomes!

I was surprised to see one of my company-mates in the news today.
Link.
Damnit, he's smart.

I've changed the title of this blog to better reflect the content.

Programming programming programming.
Ok.

Using a combination of Ruby with RUDL, I've been trying to develop a simple GUI. My first goal is to display a window that can be dragged around the screen. Other interface elements include buttons and a text field.

I also have some idea for a simulation game, but still not sure where to start. That's why I bought the Pragmatic Programmer book, maybe it will give me some wisdom to begin with.

Virtual Cobwebs

Damn, this place has become abandoned, even more than my usual tardy standards. I've been on some army courses lately, but that's just an excuse... I simply haven't got any energy to write, and even my own programming projects have fallen by the wayside. Over the weekends I've been playing a lot of games, to recharge my batteries. Now that the course is coming to an end, I have yet another one coming up! This time it's only a two-week engineer course, hopefully it's a bit more relaxed.

I brought a whole bunch of music cds to camp this month, and I've finished listening to most of them. The ones I like the most are by the Flaming Lips. I have 3 of their albums and they all rock. Among my other favourites are the White Stripes and Badly Drawn Boy. The CD I'm listening to right now is Bodily Functions by Matthew Herbert, and it is good.

So..

Why no updates recently? That's because I've been having little to gripe about. Life has been pretty good in the army ever since I got my injury! Getting excused from physical training rocks, I can always go to the gym on my own anyway.

Err anyway, I sprained my ankle while playing soccer, and I've had difficulty walking ever since. I've gone for western and chinese treatment to make it heal faster, but only now (4 weeks after injury) my leg is starting to recover. I'm not too sure whether that's a good or bad thing.

Guild Wars has also been taking up a lot of my weekend time, I can't even get started on my programming project. Damn my lack of willpower!

What I have been doing the entire weekend

Ritual
Originally uploaded by Eugene Tan.

Link.

Wargames

This week, our brigade conducted a wargaming exercise. Basically a war strategy game held on computers.

Although my trainer described it as 'being like Starcraft', I found that difficult to swallow, because the graphics are minimal at best, the gameplay is boring as hell, and one Starcraft mission lasts 2-4 hours, while one Wargame mission can last 2-4 days.

It's a pity I didn't get to catch a glimpse of local celebrity Tay Ping Hui, who was locked inside the opposing forces room. After seeing the carefree manner in which our commanders expended the troops during battle, I can only hope that those great military leaders use us a bit more sparingly in the event of an actual war.

Flickr

FYP Presentation Day
Originally uploaded by Eugene Tan.

Just testing out my Flickr account, a service for storing and sharing photos. This photo shows my final year project group during those fun-filled poly days. That's me in the back, looking hip n' all.

Weekend

This week was even more monotonous than the last. Besides SOC, which I failed to complete again, there were no other activities of note. For some reason, a bunch of guys brought their guitars. So we had a near-continuous stream of pop music in our bunk all week. I went to Borders today and bought a bunch of new rock albums, to help cleanse my ears.

Before that, I had lunch at Hotel Meridien with my family, to celebrate Mother's Day. It was a pretty glam affair, because Minister of Development Mah Bow Tan was there.

Sadly, I didn't get the chance to work on my game project. On the other hand, I finished watching the 1st season of Bleach, and I'm now starting on Beck, which is cool! ^_^

2 days left...

I started on my weekend project today. Woke up early, around 10 a.m., then surfed the net for some information on Ruby (which is the programming language I'm using). Then my mother wanted to use the computer, so I had to wait. After lunch, I went out to play soccer.

Came back around 10 p.m. Didn't really get to do much work today, haha. Right now, my shooting game looks like some red blood cells are attacking white blood cells. I'm going to plan out a list of to-do items here:

1. Implement the controls
2. Create the scoring system
3. Put in a few types of enemies
4. Figure out how the game ends
5. Steal some nice graphics from sites like this
6. Put those graphics in the game, and some background
7. Make a main menu
8. Package everything into an exe file

Seems like a lot to do. I'll get to it tomorrow.

By the way, I've been using this bittorrent site a lot lately. It kicks ass, because the anime episodes are packaged in complete series, and they have manga, plus live-action movies too. If only it were updated more often. You need a user account though. Get one from here.

Slack

This week was quite a good week, and we had quite a bit of time to rest and relax. There was an IPPT test again, which I somehow managed to pass. That leaves SOC to clear. Finished watching Constantine on my palm. It was fairly entertaining, despite Keanu Reeves. It's crazy how much content I can fit on my Palm, I almost have to force myself to go through them. Maybe I will start writing some reviews of comics and anime. :)

There's just so many distractions around me. I still remember when I first came to BRC, I set a few noble goals for myself:
1. Learn Japanese
2. Learn Ruby
3. Improve my guitar skills
4. Make a video game
Ok, maybe they're not so noble, but at least it's a lot more productive than... whatever I'm doing now. 10 months into national service, and I'm still no closer to achieving anything. I really do need to focus a lot more, and treasure what time I have.

Weekend project
I had this idea of using the coming long weekend( due to labour day ) to focus and build a small game. My chances of success are slim, but even if I can't meet the deadline, I hope to learn something and gain a small measure of satisfaction. If it gets done eventually, I'll write up a "game diary" of all the steps taken, which I'm sure will be lots of fun.