1 Nov 29, 2004

Nov 29, 2004: At a great surprise, my mom just got me a satellite system for my room plus other areas. Also, I've been reading one of my old scripts, the one supposedly used in my game I'm developing.
#1 Satellite system: On Nov 28, my mom just got me a satellite system so I can watch satellite TV in my room (the typical things like cartoons and other educational shows I tend to watch often). It was on Nov 30, tomorrow, that the guys were supposed to come and install the system. However, I'm faced with one rather large problem. I have no idea where to put some of this stuff. My TV has to be next to the computer so I can extract songs from video games as I please as the microphone only has a cord so long. This puts the TV far from any useful "ledge" or platform the satellite box could go on. The top of the dresser (about 3 feet away horizontally) is about the best that can be done as far as I know. Another problem I have is that the guys are supposedly to come at 2:00 PM, and I'm about 10% likely to be awake by then.... Hopefully I can get to bed early enough and not get too involved with something.
#2 Back to past - an old script: Starting around 9 or 10 days ago, I took out my old script I was supposedly writing a long time ago. This script is the longest I've ever written. If this script was to be formatted in the real style of a movie, it'd likely end up over 700 pages long (a 11 2/3 hour movie) which is just crazy. So far, I've spent probably around 13 hours reading it and I'm only on page 270, just a tad over 2/3 complete. The beginning is grade F and totally needs to be reworked. Past page 100 (1/4 of the way through the story), the story line is much better. I'm now on page 250-something. This story is likely to be fully rewritten almost from scratch, just as I had done with "Rise of Atlantis" (now known as "The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters"). However, there's more to this story if it's going to be used in my game. I'm probably going to end up with over 1100 pages worth (movie style with the extra add-ons). Toss in some other features I have planned for the game, this is likely to be over 1600 pages.
#3 One new dream recalled: I have recalled yet one more dream. It's about a building having many shops spanning over many floors, including the main thing: a 16th floor grocery store. This dream is seemingly about 10 years into the future by the way the building designs and stuff looks taking place in a huge city.
#4 Less than 500 plays to go!: Still on my quest to see what happens when I play a single song more than 65535 times (as from a 16-bit unsigned variable), I'm now just a bit shy of the goal. If this program shows a number like 65603 plays, I can tell that the idea of the program using a 16-bit variable is busted. If so, the next possible limit is 99,999 (as from a max of 5 display characters), 999,999 (from a max of 6 display characters), or as high as even 2,147,483,647 (as from a 32-bit signed integer) or 4,294,967,295 (as from a 32-bit unsigned integer). Once I pass 65,535 plays, I'll just change on to another song as I'm not even going to attempt 4,294,967,295 plays (No human could live even close to this long that easily, a 100-year-old human is 3,155,692,600 seconds old. The song is about 5.9 seconds long each loop (can be trimmed to 2.45), but even with that, I'd still need 10 billion seconds of play, and this assumes nonstop play 24/7 as well (computer problems, sleeping and eating may mean a longer wait, let alone an electric bill costing in the tens of thousands for all this).
#5 The big story almost completed: Starting a long time ago, I began writing a very long story based on the weird things I do in my mind game. Of the 12 events, 11 have been completed. Just checking Windows Explorer, I found that, up to where I have it, the file size of this story is 87,914 bytes (85.8 KB). It's expected to reach around 110,000 bytes.
#6 Pizza Hut pizza: I've just realized that, when I get extra cheese for my pizzas when I order from Pizza Hut, I've noticed that the cheese lover's pizza has about the same amount of cheese as a standard cheese pizza without extra toppings. It's a weird encounter, so, if you want a cheese lover's pizza, I highly suggest that you get a normal cheese pizza and two extra toppings of cheese. This has about, probably, 2.5 times the amount on the cheese lover's. I don't, however, know the pricing difference, but, as far as I can tell, the two extra toppings is a bit cheaper than the cheese lover's which has much less cheese. It's a weird discovery I made. If you don't believe it, order a pizza with two extra toppings of cheese one day, then, after a week's wait (to aid the experiment, otherwise they may do it for real), order a pizza that is a cheese lover's. Take pictures of both pizzas as well so you can later compare them. I found this out when, on my last order about a month or so ago, I noticed that the pizza hardly had any cheese and costed $16-something. Then, I wanted to try the Full House pizza, and got standard cheese with one extra topping of cheese. There was a lot of cheese on that pizza and it costed like $12-something.
#7 Still didn't get the replacement: Though I returned the monitor for replacement, I still haven't got it back yet. I was expecting around Nov 25 that I'd get it (as from calculations and based on known facts I had). It's going on Nov 30 and I still don't have it. Though, due to the holiday, there could've been a long delay with it. It should be either Nov 30 or Dec 1 that I get it. If I don't get it by Dec 2, I'm contacting the company to find out what's going on. Though I do fear that I did something wrong or forgot to do something, this still bothers me.
#8 Dream document link reworking: To make it easier to update the dreams documented, I revised the link system so that way, when I need to add another page or break up some of the dreams in the other category to a more defined category, I don't have to reprocess every single page. It's in the same format as the blog.
#9 Funny Windows screenshots: Though I still have the idea of uploading many of those funny Windows screenshots I have taken over the years, I just don't seem to get my mind at doing it. It's probably a 30-minute task, mostly typing the descriptions then hunting for bugs I may end up encountering.
#10 Just 5 hours: Well, so far this month, I spent just five puny hours away from the house. That's right. Just 5 hours of the 720 hours of November was spent away from the house. I guess my estimate of 10 out of 720 was way off. I say that it's more like 8 hours instead of 10, meaning for every 90 hours that go by, I'm out of my house 1 of those hours and in the house 89 of those hours.
#11 Celestia Craze: About 3 days ago, I just checked the main website for Celestia to see if they had any sort of update and it so seemed that they did have an update for Celestia. I downloaded the update and since then, I've been playing around in Celestia. What is Celestia you may ask? It's like a flight simulator, only for space and is more explorative than control-complicated. Though the program has a lot of controls, it's like a planetarium with realistic distances between objects like stars. It's a very good program and definitely a good idea to use for education. Everything is realistically to scale and you can zip across the galaxy to another star 25,000 light-years away in only five seconds or so! You can warp to other galaxies as well (but they don't have stars in them). If you're interested in the program, this is the place to go and check it out. It's freeware and it's about 11.5 MB or so (a 1-hour download on a dial-up connection).

2 Nov 26, 2004

Nov 26, 2004: Thanksgiving, for me, was almost just like any other day. Also, I've got one reply from the query letters I sent out.
#1 Thanksgiving: Of all the US holidays, only two I focus more attention toward. These two are Independence day (July 4) and Christmas (December 25). All the other holidays seem like any other day to me. Inluded in this huge group is Thanksgiving. However, there were a few differences. This year, like the last, like, two or three years, was about the same. I don't eat with my family because I don't like much of the food prepared. About the only thing I ate was some of the turkey (salt was needed) and like three of the biscuits. After eating, I played a game of Balderdash with all but one of the family members (one got up too early and went to bed). The game was quite boring with three players. I can't imagine how boring it might've been if only two players were playing. The more players that game has, the better and more fun it gets (though to a certain point). Anyway, after the game was over (I wasn't even to the double-score block yet and there was a winner....), we were going to watch a movie, however, it was a movie I've already seen. I just went off to play Super Monkey Ball 2's golf game.

#2 142 combination shots in SMB2: On Nov 25, I wanted to really go crazy with combo shots, any kinds I could. After the game was over with, after 36 rounds of play, I managed to get the stats on exactly what I had. In all, I had 224 combos (comprising of 34 cannon shots (these are easy to make), 142 combination shots, and 48 kiss shots (these are very hard to make and are always accidental or unexpected)), 23 fouls (all but one was from accidentally pocketing the cue ball, the other was because I was trapped and couldn't hit the correct ball in any way possible), and I made a total of 412 shots. The COM player made just a bit over half the number of shots I made. However, I didn't achieve the goal I was after. I wanted to know what would happen if I had more than 255 combos (of all kinds). Will a problem occur (as from an 8 bit, unsigned variable), or will the true number be displayed (as from using a 16-bit variable). I guess I'll have to go at it again, this time for 45 rounds.
#3 First reply from query letter: I got my first reply from my query letter dated the 24th. However, it seems that I'm unfortunate again. The company it was sent to wasn't a filmmaking agency.... I now have a feeling that I'll get this same problem with the other 16 agencies.
#4 New monitor number 2: Sometime on the 22nd or so, I got notice that my new monitor is coming. Since the stupid weekend is here and the holidays, it may be until Monday that I get the package. I still fear that I didn't do something right (particularly how the product was repackaged by myself as I spent a long time trying to figure out how all that cushining went in) or forgot to do something.
#5 Three new dreams added: Though they've been popping up in my head a few times, I finally was able to recall three of the dreams. However, there's still at least one more popping up in my head. This pushes the dream count over 100 (102 is the current). Also, since I like the design of the pagination of my blog stuff, and I expect the dreams page to list hundreds of dreams 5 years into the future, I'm thinking of applying this same method as well. However, what if I can create a decent-sized category from the other dreams category? Then what? In this case, I'd have to change every single dream page's set of links to include those. So far, I don't know of any fix to this, but currently, it's not that big of a problem, but the more nothing is done about it, the worse it'll get as more dreams come in....
#6 What's that white stuff?: Just during the night of Thanksgiving, our first snow came. Often, before even Holloween, there's quite a bit of snow on the ground. This year is very different. Clear up to Nov 25, the ground has not one bit of snow anywhere. Just all of a sudden, there's snow when I wake up. Now, let's just hope that I don't get those -70°F wind chills like we had last year! Yowsers that is cold!
#7 Song stuck in my head: Since, I think, the 21st of November of this year, I've noticed that I've been humming one of my favorite songs from Super Monkey Ball 2. This song is World 7's background music (from story mode), particularly the ending part with the string instrument playing the same note 8 times consecutively. I don't memorize the beginning parts of the song, however.
#8 58,000 plays and still going: Still on my quest to see what happens when a single song is played more than 65,535 times (as from a 16-bit unsigned variable), I'm nearly there. However, to speed things up, I'm playing the song at a faster speed. Lately, I've been hoving around 54,000 Hz (108% of the true speed), and it doesn't sound that bad (only with the high frequencies turned down a lot and the lower frequencies turned up some). This shortens the song to 6.1020377358490566... seconds in length per loop. Why all those decimal places? Well, the song itself has 323,408 samples. You're playing the song at 53,000 Hz (samples per second). Do the division and this is what you get. Of course, I could've said 6.1 seconds, but like randomization and lots of decimal places....

3 Nov 23, 2004

Nov 23, 2004: Two new dreams recalled pushing the count one shy of one hundred (99).
#1 One more dream to a milestone: Currently, with the two new dreams added, I'm just one shy of a milestone marker: 100. I've still got like 3 or 4 dreams that pop up in my mind that I don't think I've mentioned yet. If I can recall any of these, I'll be sure to pass that milestone.
#2 47,000 plays and still counting Still on my quest to see if the play count limit is 65536 (as from a 16-bit variable). I'm now about 72% of the way to the goal.
#3 About two days to go: It'll be about two more days (estimated) before my replacement monitor arrives from the exchange. I'm still worried that I did something wrong....
#4 Latest mind game events: Lately, I've been copying what I do on Super Monkey Ball 2 a lot. That is, I get thrown up really high from a very fast-moving spinning board. I often get 800 mph to even 1800 mph in my mind game, depending on how long I make the board. The longer, the faster it'll get, but to clear the ground, I need to have it have more height. The limit is about 2200 mph or so. With this, I can watch the sky, while I'm going up, darken. I'm often doing this in an area near the US/Mexico border, but sometimes in a jungle region with a river reflecting bright orange light.
#5 New discovery about spell-casting: I've just found out that 3.8 megajoules of energy per unit of spell power is WAY off. I just went to onlineconversion.com and tested the idea out. 3.8 megajoules is, if I can remember right, 1 1/18 kilowatt hours. To simplify this, if you burn a 60-watt lightbulb nonstop, it'd have to burn for about 17.6 hours to come up with one unit of spell power. The simplest fire spell takes 400 spell power root value. This would mean that the light bulb would burn nonstop for (assuming it had infinite life) 7040 hours, which is 293 1/3 days. That is way less energy than I thought it was. In fact, one unit of spell power should be more in the way of 500 to 2000 megajoules. This would mean 38596 1/2 days of nonstop burning of that light bulb (105 2/3 years) for the energy equivelent of a simple fire spell. Ultima6 would need something in the way of 23,248,212 years of this light bulb running, which seems a lot more reasonable (Though it still seems a bit low, this is based on the low end of the more probably end.).
#6 Looming website plans: I've still got several website plans for the future yet. One of which is to have a "favorite links" section. Another is to post some of my funniest Windows screenshots that I've accumulated over the last, like, three years. I also have another thought of replacing the current animated image in the mind game report with something else I do in my mind game, what I've been doing recently. However, I have a hard enough time just keeping at it. I stop in the middle of it and just can't get myself to keep at it or return later on. I've got like dozens of unfinished projects, small and large....
#7 Norton Antivirus: Because I thought that I may have a virus on my system that AVG is dull enough to not detect, I installed Norton Antivirus. It, too, didn't detect any viruses or anything, however, since I installed it, my computer won't turn off. It just lags at the "Windows 98 is shutting down" screen forever not doing anything. If this keeps up, I might as well ditch Norton and return to AVG....
#8 I'm switching to Firefox: After hearing about all those security issues with Internet Explorer, I'm switching to Mozilla Firefox. Even though I've been with IE for about 4 years or so, I still don't seem to notice much about it. As far as I know, a browser is meant to just display webpage content. However, security and features do play a role as well. Since I switched, I've noticed that Firefox is much faster, not affected by those annoying connection stalls I get with IE often, and the page content displays much faster. When you have tables, the full table has to be downloaded first before IE displays it. In Firefox, the table appears right away where it's needed without having to fully download it. So far, I've seen a lot of advantages about Firefox. However, the only disadvantage I can think of is that I don't get that "tick" sound that I'm dependent on. If I don't hear it, I know the link hasn't been clicked. If I hear it, I know with 100% certainty that that link has been clicked on instead of dragged a bit. I can only tell by watching those two monitors that indicate your internet connection (found in the task bar just next to the clock). If they both remain off, I can tell with high certainty that I didn't click the link. If they both lighten up, there's data transfer and I know that the link has been clicked.

4 Nov 22, 2004

Nov 22, 2004: Going on to 97.... Yep, three more dreams added to the long list. Two from before I woke up today (the last mud dream, and the last other dream), and one I recalled from long ago (the last video game dream). It just seems like I'm racing toward that 100 mark or something (going 200 mph).... Just three more to go to reach that.

5 Nov 21, 2004

Nov 21, 2004: The dream count has reached 94 from the night's dream. See dream 6-15 for details.

6 Nov 20, 2004

Nov 20, 2004: Nothing new really has been going on. However, I just made a new addition to my website, that archery game I am still able to recall. It's fully completed and ready to go. See category 5 for details.

7 Nov 18, 2004

Nov 18, 2004: Mega division of the dreams document finally accomplished! I've returned the defective monitor to the place where I got it from, so now I'm back to using my old monitor. Yet, I found a way to get up mega high 2 out of every 3 attempts on Super Monkey Ball 2! The dream count now reaches 90.
#1 93 and still counting: From 89 to 93, I've added four more dreams to the list. However, knowing so much I had to break up that document as it was getting way too big, I split it up into categories and those bigger categories into pages of 10. I worked almost from 9:20 AM clear until 2:35 PM when I finally finished all that. It had to be done, especially if I'm going to be adding more dreams later on.
#2 Out with the defective: That new monitor I got was shipped back to the company. Since it took 3 days for it to arrive where I'm at and two days for the business to process the order, it may be until the 25th before I get my monitor back again. Luckily, I still have my old monitor. However, failing to revert the resolution back to 1152x864 made me have to do some extra computer repairs. For some reason, when I set the resolution to 640x480 in safe mode, it couldn't find the driver for my system. So, I had to uninstall the driver then reinstall it again. It's no biggie to me, however.
#3 New heights with ease in SMB 2: Yep, here we go again, only this time, twice the height and 50% more speed, and with a 2 in 3 chance of success. I typically get 1350 mph straight up now instead of the usual 850 to 930 from the old way in World 3-1 (advanced stage 11). This new method uses advanced mode stage 8 (inchworms as it's called). Yeah, it's the old theme park setting, but, however, I can look around the world anywhere I want! There's no side barrier up really high! Strange as it is, none of the buildings are solid. You pass right through them like they weren't there. Yet, 1350 mph seems more like 80! This feat is also possible in world 2-8, but your chances of success are about 1 in 25, thus not really all that worthwhile, but I've gotten shot up at 1400 mph here too. If you want an idea just how fast that is, try this. Open world 2-7 (gravity slider) and, from the top, intentially roll over the edge and stick close to the vertical wall without touching it. Watch just how fast that vertical wall goes. Now picture it going three times faster! That's just how crazy that is. If you think about it, I've gotten 4000 mph from World 5-5 (bead screen), to simulate that, imagine that going by 8 times faster! It's incomprehensible especially to the 40 mph you get while on a flat surface!
#4 39,200 plays and still going strong: Still on my quest to break Winamp from having too many plays of a single song, I've now reached and passed 39,200 plays. However, from listening to this same 8-second song this intense number of times, I've discovered a few new interests in it. The speeds from 30,000 to up to 32,500 Hz (60 to 65% true speed) are perfect. In Winamp, having the 3K frequency maxed out along with the 170 (the 310 is almost maxed out), the song sounds very nice. The compatibility has shot up from, I think, 700-something to now over 930, which is also helping me keep motivated to reaching this big goal. Yet, I've also thought of a test I could try: Play the song in Winamp with the settings as they are, and record in WinDAT. Then, play that recorded WAV to further amplify the best parts of the song. I don't know if it'll work, but I've cross recorded MIDIs to WAV before, which is how I got my special remix of Winter Zone in WAV format.
#5 new plans and thoughts: A new thought I've been having is a new animation for the mind game pages. As far as I can think of, it'll be of that orange river I often see after getting thrown up in my mind game. It's a glide at 800 mph constantly with some mountains in the background faded to an orangish color, as from a sunset (sunrise I'm unsure of). The idea of video game secrets and stuff still remains as well as posting some of my best Windows screenshots.

8 Nov 16, 2004

Nov 16, 2004: Mailed and ready to go! Just now did I mail the queries out to the agencies. They were put in the mailbox at 12:28 PM. It took about an hour to process (print, address, etc.) 17 envelopes.
#1 My script: Just this day, I mailed my query letter to 17 agencies that I found at Writer's Guild that someone pointed me to. Now, here comes the waiting business again. There's only 86,400 seconds in the day, which isn't all that much to me. If you look at 100 of something, it seems more like about 70. If you look at 1000 of something, it seems more like 700, much less than it really is. In a sense, it's like there's 61,000 seconds in a day to the 86,400.
#2 Scene 11 of storyboard completed: Scene 11 of my story board is now fully completed. It includes my first-ever forest scene. My parents think that it's more like a city than a forest, but it's only my first one I've done. However, it came with about as many calculations as would fit 3 sides of standard writing paper! It's no biggie to me, as I like math.
#3 Another dream recalled: I managed to recall one more dream making the total count at 89. Although 90% forgotten, I do remember the setting and one of the puzzles involved. The image is quite vague, about that of saving a photo with a JPG quality of 25 (if 100 is the best possible).
#4 Super Monkey Ball this, Super Monkey Ball that: Yep, I've gained an addiction to Super Monkey Ball. I often imagine that I'm playing the game with common house hold objects as the level. Now, as from what I love doing in Super Monkey Ball 2 (getting shot up at 999 mph plus then watching the ground "grow" as I accelerate toward it on the way down), I'm repeating this in my mind game. Doing so, while a storm was forming, high above the ground, I noticed that lightning was flashing extremely rapidly. Another scene I often play with is a scene of a river reflecting a bright orange light and a small forest surrounding the river. I get up very high because I cast create and make a special board appear. I jump up into this board and it swing around extremely rapidly and often throws me straight up at around 1200 to 1500 mph.
#5 35,200 plays and still counting: Still on my quest to see if I can break Winamp from having too many plays of a single song. The thought of the limit of 32768 (as from a 16-bit variable with one bit as a signed integer (telling if it's positive or negative) is busted as I've passed this value. A far more feared limit is 65535 (as from a 16-bit variable). I'd be quite surprised if it allowed more than that many plays. The next thing that hits my mind is 99,999. I'm a tad more than half way to the 65535 value.
#6 I may have attention deficet disorder: I heard from an advertisement on TV about adult attention deficet (sp.?) disorder. I have about 90% of those symptoms so I'm quite certain that I have Adult ADD. It's probably why I'm losing interest in doing things, seemingly can't complete projects (you can probably tell from older times that I've had videos planned but never got much past 5% complete), I tend to forget appointments very easily, even if they are written down, I can't get motivated to do something, anything, etc..
#7 New, even longer story in the works: Well, based on athletic events and what I do in my mind game a lot, I decided to write a story based on the weird things I do in my mind game. There are 12 athletic events planned and six of them have been completed. I feel that this file may end up being about 70KB of pure text.
#8 New monitor came, but defective: Well, I got my new monitor and I like this 1600x1200 resolution a lot. For web browsing, it took me quite a while to get used to the mega stretching from having to fit all the contents in one page. However, this won't affect your viewing of my website. My website is intended for 800x600 resolution and it will remain this way.
#9 Funny Windows screenshots: Ever since about 2001 or so, I've been snagging every screenshot in which something funny occurs such as glitches, weird errors, strange display view, etc. It's crazy just how many I've accumulated over the years. I spent about an hour browsing through about just half of them! I think I might share a few here. However, since many of my screenshots are either 1024x768 or 1152x864, I'll post the image but shrink it down to half the dimensions and make it link so you can see the full scale version of it. I've picked out about 15 of the best 142 looked at! I have 234 files taking up 561 MB total. There's probably a few others scattered around. Video game screenshots are a different subject, however.

9 Nov 10, 2004

Nov 10, 2004: Here we go again! This time, I managed to recall 7 old dreams, plus the night's dream included pushing the count of dreams next to 90.
#1 8 new dreams added: Just when I woke up today, I had a worthwhile dream worth noting. Plus, I remembered two mountain-climbing dreams from the past. Then, when I started to type up all these newly remembered dreams, more past dreams flashed in my memory and, before I forgot them, I just jotted them down! It came as a shock. Boy, that 61 KB or so file definitely needs to be broken up. With 88 or 89 dreams documented as a grand total, if each page was to have 12 dreams, I'd need 8 pages! It's crazy! Yet, more will come.... I've added like 4 travel-related dreams [the last four in the list], 2 water-related dreams [the last 2 in the list] and 2 other dreams [the last 2 in the list]. No mud dreams out of all that! They just kept on piling up in my mind and anytime one did pop up, I inserted it stopping in the middle of a thought in the dreams I remembered beforehand.
#2 Testing out my new idea: Before I went to bed around 6:30 AM or so, I started to test my new idea on how to do all those outside terrains. However, there seems to be an odd problem. The terrains are being rendered when they're clipped away and wasting memory because of the unneccessary rendering.... I still don't know if it's possible to make my map like 900,000 quants wide or so, but there is a possibility.

10 Nov 9, 2004

Nov 9, 2004: Four of seven images for scene 11 have been completed. It also includes my first ever forest scene, something I've never done before in standard 2D graphics!
#1 My script's storyboard: Starting around 2:00 AM this day, I've started back on my storyboard again. However, as it so seemed, I have 7 images planned for this scene. Because two images were practically identical, image 11-2 and 11-3, this went rather quickly. Image 11-1 was also quite similar to 11-2, but it's just a simple rotation of the camera 180°. Ever wonder how I do all that perspective stuff so precisely? Math is why. I could write a small article explaining all this. Most of it is just proportions. For example, if the camera was 4 feet above the ground, and a character was 70 inches tall (Ivan in this case), and if I knew exactly where I want to place him, say, 39 pixels below the horizon, I set up some proportions and solve them. In this case, Ivan would stand, without his hair, 39÷48×70 or 56.875 pixels. Because I can't have a fraction of a pixel, I use 57 as the height. Now, if the height from the bottom was 57, a close-up, I'd have 57÷48×70, or 83.125 pixels, or 83 pixels high. Pretty simple really.
#2 My script: That Nov 10 send out marker is coming and fast. If I don't have a reply about my query letter by then, I'm sending it out as is to those 20 or so agencies. I've got the stamps and envelopes all set, just gotta wait to see if the query letter can be improved any.
#3 A video for Gamestudio: Starting on, I think, the 7th, I began working on an animation, 3D, for Gamestudio. I'm still waiting for some replies on how it is and what may need to be changed before I do the big process. It's about, I'd say, 70% finished....
#4 New dream recalled: With the new dream recalled about a flooded garden (flooded with 4 feet of water), I now have reached 80 documented dreams. Yet, two more have flashed in my mind, but I didn't bother to write them down :(. Dream 2-16 in the other dreams page is the dream.
#5 Another idea for game development: Just in a flash of an idea, I think I may have the solution on how to work on all those outside terrains of the main area. However, I haven't bothered testing it though!
#6 Here comes another long story: Well, to attempt to regain motivation on working on my game again, I thought I'd create a document telling everything about the game. Sort of like a manual, but with a ton more details than what a normal manual would contain. This document contains just about every aspect of the game. It will, however, contain the very story for that game. This, however, will mean that I'd end up with a 500-page document or somethin' like that....
#7 Just maybe: Also, if the program doesn't forbid me, I could expand the size of the map to about 600,000 quants (close to about 18 miles on a side; the quant is the unit of measure in 3D video games). It's nothing but a hog of terrains out there and it would be really close to mimicing my mind game. At that kind of size, even at 800 mph, it would take over a minute to cross the diagonal distance! Now, this is only if the program doesn't forbid it. The limit of 100,000 quants seems to deal with blocks, but I once placed a terrain file so it spanned 131,072 quants from edge to edge. I may actually be able to do it! That means, instead of having those mountains when you get up really high, you can actually climb all over them! The possibilities are almost endless! For now, I can only dream... and test it out.

11 Nov 8, 2004

Nov 8, 2004: I remembered 3 new dreams and had a fun dream when I woke up at 3:00 PM yesterday. Also, I found a weird thing about world 3-1 (advanced stage 11) in Super Monkey Ball 2.
#1 4 new dreams added: If my list of dreams isn't already long, it's gotten even longer! Yep, four new dreams have been added to the list. Two old mud dreams I can remember from long ago, one I had yesterday, and another travel-related dream. I definitely got to break up that dreams list big time. Maybe twenty dreams per page or something like that. Boy, even like that, I'll still have 4 full pages of dreams! Yowsers!
#2 Another secret found in SMB2: Remember from a short while ago that I found a new stage in Super Monkey Ball 2 in which I can get shot up super high? Well, the extreme height also allowed me to find a new interest in World 3-1. Twice now, I've managed to come to a full stop without getting fallout in that area where the fish is. I saved the replay when I played around in here and accidentally got fallout. Now I have proof that I've been in that fish area. Too bad I can't show screenshots of it as I have no TV-in/TV-out card (whatever the difference is, I get mixed up with the two).
#3 A fun way to win 8-ball on SMB2: Playing around with Monkey Billiards 2, I've realized that, if your opponent is Gongon, he's quite likely to pocket the 8-ball when he's not supposed to giving you free wins. It's fun watching him lose because of stupidity using hardshots (let alone getting quite a few fouls from pocketing the cue ball).
#4 My script: So far, I still haven't mailed the query letter yet as I'm waiting for a reply on it's quality. If I don't get the answer I need by Nov 10, I'm sending the query letter out as I have it.
#5 Yet another idea for my website: Ya know, since I do all sorts of odd things when I play games, finding bugs and stuff, I'm thinking of posting some bugs, fun things you can do, and some screenshots of what I've done.
#6 New monitor on it's way: For a long time, I've dreamed of running Windows in 1600x1200 resolution. Now that dream is about to become a reality. I'm getting a new 19 inch monitor. However, the only problem I have about it is a physical limitation of myself. The monitor weighs 70 pounds. I can, at the very maximum, lift only 50 pounds. In case you're wondering, it's a CRT monitor, ya know, the kind that get very heavy. If you're looking for computer parts, I'd recommend Tigerdirect.com as that's where I got my monitor from.

12 Nov 6, 2004

Nov 6, 2004: Scene 10 is now ready for viewing! I stayed up clear until 2-something AM to finish my image I was working on and finished it mostly as I forgot to add windows.

13 Nov 5, 2004

Nov 5, 2004: Finally, back to working on my script's storyboard! Also, it seems that I'm slowly gaining my motivation back toward game development.
#1 Back to the storyboard: Obviously, when I started showing others my script's storyboard and how well it looked, I seemed to have regained my motivation toward completing the storyboard again. As far as I've got planned, every time I finish a scene, I'll post it on my website here and make an announcement about the update. Scene 10 has 4 pictures and, since regaining my motivation, I've done two. One of which was done well before hand meaning that I've got only one image left. Once I finish that, I'll do a test on each image to see whether GIF or PNG compresses the image more (I still can't predict that well). Then I'll upload the version of the image which has the smallest file size plus the HTML document and check it for errors and things. After that, I'll make the announcement on my website when I'm set to go.
#2 Slowly regaining motivation to game design: Here's a fact: A game is fun when it is playable, right? Currently, you can't do anything that's really all that fun in my game. No 90-foot jumps, no 800 mph gliding, nothing. So, I've decided this: model the main character for the game and try to script the big jumps and the such. I love acceleration (blame it on Super Monkey Ball 2 for giving me that big interest), so I should include some acceleration and deceleration. Do this, and I would have a strong motive to add more to my map so I can play around differently. This would give quite a motivation, but not just with designing the game, but to start hunting for obvious bugs in the game, something I'm very good at. Just one problem though: I need to figure out how to do deceleration and acceleration at 60 fps. I've found it on the first try for 10 fps, but I need 60, not 10. This, currently, is an unanswered question, but I'll eventually figure it out given my good math skills. I know some powers and roots are involved somewhere.
#3 Two times thus one hour: I finally got my chance to go with an old friend I nick-named "Bill Nye", not once, but twice! From this, I've spent one hour away from my house near the end of October and another hour just today. So far for this month, 1/6 of the way through, I've got one hour logged outside my house. Hopefully I can bust 10 hours....
#4 New dream remembered: Featuring a canyon and a river made entirely of mud, I've added another dream to the list. However, being confused on the count of my number of dreams, I recounted and realized that I totally forgot the area where the list was meaning I've got five more dreams documented than I thought. 28 mud dreams and 47 other dreams means that I've documented a grand total of 75 dreams, more than six dozen. It's amazing that I've documented so many dreams. I've had like another two or three dreams worth documenting, but I've nearly forgotten them. One was a Zeliard-like dream (again) featuring water and in 3D. This dream was so realistic, I could actually feel everything myself!
#5 New stage for big heights: As I usually am, I'm attracted to heights in video games and I realized that world 3-1 (organic form as the stage name) is an area in which you can get tossed clear out of the ocean with plenty of room to spare. In fact, if done just right, I have gotten shot up at 950 mph like twice already. And, by the way, that's straight up at 950 mph. The only other stage, besides bead screen, is inch worms that I can get this fast being shot straight up, but on inch worms, I haven't quite found the secret to higher success rates. I have about 1 in 80 chance of 700 mph straight up, but I have had a 1400 once, somehow.
#6 My script: I'm currently waiting for a reply on how my query letter is as I have it from a third forum I rarely visit (I keep getting logged out every time after about a week or so, which I find annoying. Anyone been to ezboard.com?). Once I get that confirmed, I'll be mailing that query letter out. Then, again, it's another wait to see if I get any replies. If I don't get anything, it's off to finding one of those services that allow you to submit a single query letter to thousands of motion picture companies. If that fails, I'll just make a book out of my script....
#7 So close to a new monitor: Now, if only I can find a monitor costing no more than $80 that supports 1600x1200 resolution, I'd be on my way to getting a new monitor. However, I'm gonna need to find some space to put it along with my printer, the tower [the computer itself with the cards and fans, motherboard and processor], and my speakers. I could just put the speakers on top of the monitor. Afterall, it'll be quite large anyway....

14 Nov 2, 2004

Nov 2, 2004: If only I could get some transportation....
#1 storyboard expanded to acts 2 and 3: On Nov 1, I decided to finally declassify the storyboard as far as I've made it out, which is all of acts 1, 2, and 3. The bug that I thought was present in all of the storyboard, however, wasn't present as I thought, which was the one thing keeping me from doing anything with it. However, I didn't bother to add the other images yet. I've only completed the first of four images for the tenth scene, so, until I finish all four images, the tenth scene is unavailable. The scene and act numbers reflect the incorrect version of my script, not the version in the true format.
#2 New story on it's way: I've decided to write another mind-game-generated story but not based on a dream unlike any other mind-game-created story, this story is based on one of the strange things I do in my mind game just for fun.
#3 Transportation = progress: In my case, this is very true. Without transportation, I can't get to the post office to mail my script, send query letters, anything. The post office is about 6 miles away so that rules out walking and even biking (especially in cold, 50° weather). I can't drive legally as I have no license (and don't really want one either).

15 Oct 31, 2004

Oct 31, 2004: At last, two long-set challenges have been met with Super Monkey Ball 2. Also, as from the luck graph, Sundays mean bad luck, but this day was luckier than even the average Friday!
#1 My script: Ah, and it was so close! Unfortunately, my script has been rejected because the agency I was with found my script too high-tech for them to do and they didn't have much success in the high-tech field [as from the letter I received]. I don't see much that's too high-tech in the story, besides just a few spell effects and what the ground does upon encountering a master monster. However, not to be discouraged, I have several backup plans. I found a list of about 20 new agencies worth looking at that accept new writers. I just need to send my already-written query letter to each of those agencies and see what I get. If that doesn't work, I'll try to see if I can find a service which mass-submits the query letter to tons of agencies. If that doesn't work, and since I've already done it (by accident), I can just publish the story as a book instead. As you can tell, I've got quite a few backup plans for rejections. I do expect to get some rejections though, and I'm not too concerned about it, especially since I've got all those backup plans....
#2 A hypersonic discovery in SMB 2: At long last I've figured out how to get thrown straight up at hypersonic speed with a high probability. It's so high, that, in order to see the ground, you have to stop the game clock or you'll run out of time still with 999 displayed on the game's speedometer. You accelerate, in this game, at 75 mph per second, close to 3.5 times Earth's gravity [Earth's gravity does 21.9 mph per second]. Now, just how fast do you get shot up? 4000 mph! Putting this info into the distance-acceleration formula, that's the equivelent of 156444 4/9 feet, just shy of 29 2/3 miles. How do I know it's 4000 mph? Simple. When you bounce off the ground, your speed is cut in half. I have confirmed this as, just before the ground, I had 960 mph. I unpause the game and quickly pause it again and a bounce occurs between the pauses. I note the speed dropping to 480 [more precisely it was about 475 or so]. Upon the hypersonic launch, I had to successfully land on the ground (it comes up so fast that it is nearly impossible to judge where your impact will be). This bounce sent you up still much faster than 999 mph. Even from this, I had to successfully bounce on the ground once more, in which I landed straight on the pause switch. This bounce had the speed at 999 for only a half a second, so I just multiplied 1000 by 4 to get 4000. Saving the replay [and I did make the goal after all that bouncing without the boards pausing as they should] yielded something way different than what actually happened. The replay doesn't show your speed any faster than about 800 mph or so, which comes at my disadvantage as I cannot truly show what happened to anyone who may want to see it. I'm stuck going the hard way if this rare thing would ever occur.
#3 125 combination shots in Monkey Billiards 2: Yep, the second thing I've long wanted to do. Playing the rotation game mode, I tried to see what happens when I exceeded 99 combo shots. A quick way to get big time combos is always to use a hard shot at full power with the cue ball heading straight into the target ball as much as possible. Doing so will send that ball, and many others, flying around the pool table, often causing the ever-common "combination shot" notice. You basically have a 2 in 5 chance of getting this and the more balls, as I believe, you have moving, the better your chances of getting this. Fortunately, the game does allow more than 99 combo shots. I've gotten 125 combination shots, about 45 cannon shots and 35 kiss shots [totalling 208 for real, but unsure on how many cannon and kiss shots I got]. The next worry point is 127, then 255. Why these numbers? Computers use binary numbers, 0's and 1's. Using a set of 7 of these binary digits yields 128 possibilities, from 0 to 127. Using a set of 8 yields from 0 to 255. 8 is more common, far more, but getting 255 combos is next to impossible, even if I can get myself to play that game for 10 hours straight....
#4 9 hours outside the house: Since that log I've made, the log in which I log how many hours are spent away from the house, For the entire month of October, I've spent roughly 9 hours outside my house. I theorized 710 hours of 720 hours were spent inside my house. In this case, it's more like 735 of 744.
#5 Event-path theory report: I've started to write the report about the Event-path theory, however, it doesn't sound all that good. Maybe I should just stick with the UFO theory and other stuff I had. Oh well.

16 Oct 26, 2004

Oct 26, 2004: There goes another boredness 3rd place record! Since the last, I think, two or three days, I just absolutely cannot make up my mind on what to do and when I do something, I can't keep involved for more than 15 minutes.
#1 Boredness extremities: Back in summer of 2003 [or was it 2002?], I have had my all-time record boredness. Just in the recent times, I've been hovering still quite far from this record of all records, but rather very close to the third place and, on the 24th, I set a new third-place record. Second place is very close to the first place and third is quite far from first and second....
#2 My complete list of songs: From seeing a post in the Gamestudio forums, a post asking about the top 83 songs, I decided that, since I wanted to reply to it, I compiled the entire list of every single song I've got [and no, it's not even past 70, unlike a thousand]. Though the page could be better organized in a huge table, but oh well. Unlike most music lovers, my songs come from video games. Their sources are explained as well as other facts about the songs. Also, they've been listed in order of their compatibility [rating]. See category 4 for the link.
#3 My script: So far, I haven't heard back from the agency, so I have no idea whether the script is accepted or rejected. Given the sheer length of the script, I do expect them to take quite a long time to look through that entire script.
#4 Game development: Having lost my motive to game design [likely because I found scripting very frustrating], I haven't made one bit of progress in my game's development for about two weeks or so by now.
#5 Video game progress: On my quest to finding out what happens when you reach a million dollars in the Looney Tunes game, I'm just now passing $310,000 and I found a way to get $800 in about just 5 minutes! In the Las Vegas level, choose the third challenge, the chimp chase. Instead of going after the monkey, grab all the big bills lying around. Yes, Bugs Bunny CAN actually grab the money in the water without dying! Just do a standard jump, then jump just before splashing into it and Bugs will do his jump in mid-air, possibly grabbing the money in the water. Don't forget that there are two gold bullians (sp.?) available! Just ignore the coins to save time, getting them only if you have time to spare. Of course you'll fail, but after each fail, the money comes right back ready to be recollected.
#6 Super Monkey Ball 2 secret refound: After suddenly realizing that my chances of success were virtually disappearing on getting shot straight up at 1000 mph plus in World 5-5 [story mode], I figured out what was going on. After the initial launch, at 300 mph, I was going way too much toward the fast-spinning boards. Even for just 1000 mph, you only need to be like 1/4 of the way across the spinning boards (in the direction of the goal). I was aiming for about 1/2 of the way across, which answers why I was failing practically every time. Going 1/3 of the way across is the best for successes and speed together. Closer to the start, the successes increase to a certain point, but toward the goal, you get a lot more speed (thus height).
#7 Elections: Some of you might be wondering who I'd vote for. Well, I have absolutely no opinion and don't really care much about politics. I'd just roll a die and see what I get from this setting the standards before rolling.
#8 Just 7 hours: I've kept a log on just exactly how true the 710 concept really is. That is, I thought that I spent 710 of 720 hours in a month at home [technically it's more like 731 and some fraction for an average month]. So far, for the entire month of October, having 744 hours, I've only been away from my house for just 7 of those hours so far! I was amazed to realize that. That's a pretty sad fact and I wish it could change. My sister was away from the house for probably 50 hours [not including her job].

Go to another time:
Earlier than 2005: Earlier than Nov 2004 | Nov 2004 (and late Oct 2004) | Dec 2004

Year 2005: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2006: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2007: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2008: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2009: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2010: Yet to arrive....

The news entry headlines in bold are color-coded for a reason. They tell how big the event was for the headlines and how good my day was for the daily entries. From May 2006 onward, a slightly different system is used, of which has triple the precision. For dates prior to this that use color coding, from the white color, skipping two to red and so on is used. Here's what each color represents (for updates to before May of 2006):

	Extremely major event / Very good day
	Extremely major event / Very good day
	Major event / Good day


	Somewhat major event / Somewhat good day


	Normal event / Average day


	Somewhat minor event / Somewhat bad day


	Minor event / Bad day


	Extremely minor event / Very bad day
	Extremely minor event / Very bad day

Footnotes:
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