today i bought zero video games

Today's Kind Of A Big Deal if you didn't already know. Two big games came out today: Mortal Kombat and Portal 2. I tried to come up with a clever title combining the two. While I did come up with it independently, I did a Google search and apparently I'm not the only person who thought "Portal Kombat" was clever. Over 99k other websites agree. Next I tried "Kortal Pombat" taking it one step further. This one only resulted in one Google hit, but that was still one too many for me. So instead I just gave this post a factually correct title. How nice.

Today I bought zero video games. I did not buy Mortal Kombat because I don't have a lot of interest in it. I think I can get everything out of it that I would ever need just by watching a couple YouTube videos or this. While the game looks comically brutal and entertaining to play with friends, the fighting system just doesn't look that interesting to me. It looks *too* similar to the old games (read "pre-MK3"). I'm afraid I've been conditioned by Capcom and MvC3 and every other game in the "vs"/X-men series before that to only like one kind of fighting game, and the new MK just isn't it. I think. I have to add that qualifier because I do not know that I don't enjoy it, and I probably will never find out for sure, so all I have to go on is what I guess.

I am interested in Portal 2, though. I see myself buying this game as soon as I have the spare change and I've cleared out a bit more of the aforementioned backlog of games. The big question about this game for me is this: will I be able to avoid spoilers until I am able to beat the game myself? I hope so. I'm not going to go to Markus Persson levels of net deprivation, rather I just hope (maybe futilely?)that I'm able to play it before I find out that Snape kills Dumbledore all over again. Speaking of which, I do not recall if I read Harry Potter 6 before I found out about that spoiler, or if I knew all along that was going to happen when I first read it. Either way I enjoyed the book and I'm certain I'll enjoy Portal 2.

So yeah, today I bought zero video games. I'm not sad about it. I'm still working on my backlog and doing school stuff. I'm actually kind of taking a small break from researching so that I can finish off a class project for the Last Class I Need To Graduate (you know the one, right?). I still have my research on my mind, but I'm just not doing anything about it other than writing down little notes here and there. Until next time.

BTW, I wrote this while listening to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTTrXAE7OPU

border rage

No, not *that* border. I was just trying to come up with a clever title that reflected how similar the environments in Borderlands:

http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-borderlands-pc/17-1552/

look to id's upcoming game Rage:

http://www.giantbomb.com/five-minutes-of-rages-dead-city/17-4026/

Now sure, there are some important stylistic differences. Rage doesn't have Borderland's cartoon-y cell shading, and Borderlands doesn't have Rage's nasty organic quality to the monsters. When I saw the Jeep-ish car thing in the Rage trailer, though, I called shenanigans. The environments, the settings look pretty similar to me.

At first I couldn't tell how Rage was supposed to be an id game. By that I mean that I wasn't absolutely blown away by the graphics at the very beginning of that trailer. It wasn't until the video showed wide shots of the gigantic city where that part of the game takes place that I realized that, yes, this was an id game, graphics and all.

Graphical quality in the previous decade was defined by lighting models (shadow volumes, "HDR," and whatnot). I think the coming decade will be defined by scale, scope and animation. Included in animation is physics (perhaps the most important animation of all). Now, the animation in Rage hasn't put me in awe yet, but it didn't offend either.

The scale of that city, though, did blow me away. It all *looked* explorable, although I'm sure it won't be. With graphics all you *really* need to do is create that illusion and then make me never need to fully explore the environment. Better if I'm so pre-occupied having fun that I never even want to explore it all.

Anyway, it looks very interesting. I'm much more interested in Rage as a tech demo than I am as a game. I don't really play that kind of game any more, but I do still enjoy me some pretty (or gross) graphics.

moving back to diamond

I have a large backlog of unfinished video games. I'm more of a game collector than a game player. I'll buy a new game, play it for a few hours, and then ditch it. Last night, though, I actually "finished" a game I'd bought months ago. The game? Pokemon Soul Silver. Yeah, pretty nerdy, even for a video game.

The quotes around finished are there because I didn't actually exhaust everything I could do in Soul Silver. I only got the first 8 badges, beat the elite four, and got the second 8 badges (all 16 in the game in total). I didn't go back to the elite four for round 2, and I didn't fight Red (played by Kurtwood Smith, I think). I also didn't collect any of the legendaries, other than Lugia. A while ago I told myself that collecting the 16 badges would be enough to "beat" Soul Silver, so that's all I set my sights on.

So I'm pretty proud of myself. Not that beating any video game (especially a Pokemon game) is a big accomplishment, but that I didn't totally waste my money those many months ago when I bought the game.

This scratches one off the backlog list, but there are still a few I need to tackle. I'm just restarting Pokemon Diamond right now (which I also only made it a fraction of the way through), and other than that I'm going to knock out Final Fantasy 13 and Super Mario Galaxy (the first one). After I finish those 3 games, at least, then I will consider buying a new game. I just don't want to continually add to my collection without adding to my list of completed games.

how the project is going

So I wrote a few posts ago that my current research project at school has run into a few dead ends. Since then, it's run into a few other dead ends. I still haven't given up hope, though.

I go through lots of ups and downs with this project. I frequently lose and regain faith in it. The loss of faith comes from the poor results I generate through simulation. The regaining of faith comes from nothing. I don't have any good reasons to have faith in the project any more, but I still do. I think there are at least a couple really unique and interesting contributions that I can make to this area of research, so I think this paper should be published, but it'll be hard selling that to anyone else. For now, I'll stick with it.

This project is one that I stumbled upon by myself with no spurring from my advisor. I don't feel any pressure from him one way or the other. He thinks the topic is interesting, but hard to publish in (like I just said). I think he's just glad I'm doing something that *could* lead (maybe) to a publication. Honestly, if I weren't working on this current project I don't know what else I would do. Maybe latch on to someone else's work? Help in some way and get my name as a 4th author on some paper? That's not too bad of an idea, but I do like being in control of my destiny, for now.

I still don't feel like talking about the project's specifics, but I will say that I'm getting more and more familiar with how valuable last level cache hits are.

the doctor

Not that doctor. Or that doctor. Or that one. Soon after I posted about YouTube, another video appeared in my subscription box that I enjoyed, and I realized I didn't give its creator due credit as running one of the still-watchable content producers on YouTube.

His name is Dr. Stuart Ashen, and his YouTube name is ashens. I have to really stress the "doctor" bit. He's not a medical doctor. Instead, he holds a PhD in ... I don't know. But he claims it's real, and I think anyone who has, will have, or claims to have a PhD deserves the utmost respect. In fact, you should probably just send me some money out of appreciation for what I may do someday.

Anyway, ashens is one of the great YouTube personalities. His videos are characterized by shots of a ragged brown couch, in front of which he places things and films them with his disembodied hands extending from behind the camera, waving around. That's about all there is to it. Well, he does also show off the items he's filming, and talks about their virtues (not much) and shortcomings (much). And THAT'S all there is to it.

The funny part is that he shows off terrible products in his videos. It's kind of like Jay Leno making fun of advertisements, except instead of Jay you get a British guy with a funny accent, and instead of advertisements (this time, pronounce it Britishly in your mind's ear), you get the actual products. He has covered many, many "PopStation" products, which try to play off the popularity of the PlayStation brand and design, but really are just terrible old Tiger Electronics-esque LCD games. They are terrible. Also, he shows off things that can be found at "Pound Land" ("pound" as in the money, so it's like a dollar shop).

These videos are very entertaining, but unfortunately not everything with ashens is great. Sometimes ... well, sometimes he goes in front of the camera. When he's behind the camera he just ad libs everything he says and it's great, but in front of the camera he seems to always follow some kind of script. This is a bad idea. It doesn't work for him. Maybe he just needs more practice. I don't know, but it just doesn't seem to work.

It's even worse when he has to be onscreen with another person. However, he recently interviewed someone while having a lightsaber battle with them, and that was pretty good. In general, though, ashens is at his best when he's by himself behind a camera complaining about PopStations (again). For that, I recommend him greatly, although if you run into him in any other format, please try to forgive him and remember what makes him one of the best personalities on YouTube.

listening to the shins

I was first introduced to The Shins 5+ years ago. That's a good way to say that. The first album I heard by them was "Chutes Too Narrow," their second album. This defined for me what they were "supposed" to sound like. My friend who introduced me to them knew them from their first album, which he claimed to love. The differences between the two albums weren't enough for him to be put off by their new sound, but to me this was their only sound. I didn't hear their first album for a year or two after my first introduction to them.

When I finally did buy "Oh, Inverted World" I was not very impressed. I loved The Shins because they were crazy and fun, and their first album just wasn't. Well, it wasn't AS crazy and fun. So I stuck with "Chutes Too Narrow" as my go-to Shins listening experience. This didn't change until the release of their third album, "Wincing the Night Away." The radio push had prepared me to buy the new album as soon as I could after its release, and that has since been the most-listened-to album in my iTunes.

I've always appreciated The Shins for their wackiness, their upbeat tempo (when that applies), and their absurd lyrics, but one important element that I probably didn't appreciate as much years ago and that's growing on me now is how subtle and insightful some of their songs are. I don't feel like giving any examples right now (just go listen to their music and I'm sure something will pop out to you), but sometimes their lyrics make me stop and think about what circumstances could have prompted the writing of such an odd line, and it gets me thinking.

I think this change in sensibilities on my part is what has led me to kind of rediscover "Oh, Inverted World" lately. What drove me away from it in the first place was the down-tempo songs, like "Caring is Creepy," "Weird Divide" and "Your Algebra." I still don't really dig those slow songs, but some tracks on their album are sticking with me lately, like "One By One All Day" and "Girl on the Wing."

It's not reasonable to expect that every song on every album will be a home run. My sister and I were talking about this recently and concluded that if 40% of the songs are great on an album, then that is one amazing album. Even the greatest artists and bands don't reach this level very often. Most good albums have 1-2 great songs, 2-3 good songs, and the rest blah. I guess that's fine. I don't need to love 100% of their tracks for The Shins to perennially be one of my favorite bands.

tired of youtube

I'm not really tired of Youtube, but I am tired of my subscription list. I'm subscribed to about 45 Youtube channels, and only four or five of them produce any more content I'm interested in right now. Why don't I unsubscribe? For many of those channels it wouldn't make a bit of difference because they haven't produced content in years (or at least months). For others, I either recently became disinterested in their content, and my interest may wax again, so I'm keeping them on board for now.

There are a few channels that produce videos I'm very interested in watching, plus a bunch of garbage I don't care about. Examples of these include SSoHPKC and paulsoaresjr. SSoHPKC is a Chicago-area guy who plays lots and lots of videogames and talks while he goes. Most of the games he plays I don't care about at all, but he does play Super Mario World hacks, and treats those videos like a personal vlog (Mario hacks are fan-made games that use the SMW engine with custom art and/or level design). The Mario hack videos are great, but he also plays lots of FPS games and RPGs that I don't care for. paulsoaresjr plays a lot of Minecraft, with a few other games mixed in periodically, but many of his videos are of him playing the game with his family, which I just don't care about. He's much more interesting by himself. chuggaaconroy is another guy who has made video series in the past that I enjoyed, but I don't care much about the game he's working on now (Okami).

Anyway, here are the Youtube channels I'm currently digging on (and the types of videos that channel puts out):

motortrend (yes, the car magazine)

paulsoaresjr (video gameplay with commentary, especially Minecraft)

roadflytv (more car reviews, kinda like motortrend)

SeaNanners (some Minecraft, lots of Call of Duty, but mostly I just think he's an interesting guy to listen to)

SSoHPKC (video gameplay with commentary, many types of games but his Mario vlogs are the best)

Surelog (mostly Minecraft commentary and mod reviews, although he just announced that he's shifting his focus away from Minecraft, so we'll see)

And that's it. Most of my ~45 subscriptions go wasted by me either not caring about them (which I'll purge eventually if the trend continues), or stopped producing content years ago (lovethechad, whatever became of you!!!???). I've been subscribed to digitalfilmmaker for many years, and my reluctance to remove them from the list has paid off in recent months as they recently started posting "Ask a Ninja" videos again. Maybe that's why I'm reluctant to remove subscriptions, because I hope that they will revive themselves. I miss you Matty (I think that's his real name, although it's hard to know for sure)!

since last time

The following has happened to me since my last post:

I got married (hi, honey!).

I graduated from college in computers.

I didn't go to law school (but I almost did).

I did go to graduate school for more computers.

And here I am. I'm finishing up my 3rd year of graduate school. I'm working on a Ph.D. in computer science. My focus is computer architecture. Some people think that's not real computer science, but I'll show them! What is it supposed to be if it isn't CS? Computer Engineering? I think I would know about electricity and electronics if I were getting a CE degree, and obviously I don't. So as far as I'm concerned, computer architecture is computer science. I do kind of see where they're coming from, though. I don't actually have to know math to do my research, or anything else usually associated with computer science.

That makes me stop and think. As far as I can tell I'm pretty good at computer architecture. However, I can't identify any particular skills or attributes that would make one person good at it and another not. I can't look at myself and say "quality X makes me qualified to research computer architecture." Maybe anybody can do it, but it's just so boring to most people that nobody gets into it. That's as likely an explanation as any. It seems like to do computer architecture research you have to just be familiar with the state of the art, and then think of new things nobody's tried before (or at least that nobody's published *lately*). I guess I'm good at coming up with whacky ideas. Sometimes they work out.

I don't want to discuss the particulars of my current research here, because it's super secret (duh). I will say that a while ago I was going through a dry spell of innovation. Hopefully that's over. My current project has run into a few dead ends, but I think I can maneuver well enough to avoid any more. I will of course talk about it after it's published or abandoned, but right now I just don't think the time is right.

I have some programming ahead of me today. Hey, wait, computer scientists program computers, right? I feel validated.