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What have you been up to in December of 2006?


If you want to understand the blog and how it's laid out, go here.

Because the headlines span over a period of 2 months, they have been included for the Dec 2006 and Jan 2007 period together (as an SHTML include to speed up downloading).

Jan 24, 2007



Jan 24, 2007: Major computer issues left me 2 1/2 weeks without the computer. I finally have ABR MP3 encoding available along with some other changes to my music processing such as the 48-step speed system. I also received 3 very weird and suspicious phone calls. 2 decent Action Replay codes, one I've been after for over 2 years, made Super Monkey Ball 2 fun again. I got 3 new songs and upgraded the quality of 2 of them, one of which is third best making OWTLI and Winter Land pushed back further. I just about to the point where I can make games in C programming. Visions of George Game 13 are getting a bit overwhelming. My full list of songs on my site has been updated as well as my 2D game's future plans and 3D game's overview. 27 new dreams have been added to my dream journal putting me at 530 dreams. I'm also involved with Gamespot. I'm now 23 as my birthday came and went.

#1 Major computer issues: You've probably noticed that I suddenly disappeared for quite a long time. Well, on December 24, 2006, I was having major issues with my computer. At first, the day started completely normal. I had my computer running for 2 or 3 hours then ate leaving my computer off for 2 hours. I returned to computer as I've done for many years and after 30 minutes of use, the computer hard froze. A hard freeze is where nothing responds on the computer and the reset button on the case is the only way to return. I was using the start menu to look for the program I wanted to use then my computer froze during this time. I first thought Windows just had a severe crash so I booted into Windows normally and just resumed what I was doing and it hard froze again. At this time, I figured it was not Windows at fault, but rather something hardware-related. When Windows Task Manager loaded as part of my startup, I noticed that, instead of the usual 7% CPU usage it normally has, it was using 23% of the CPU and things were running very slowly. I pressed the reset button and checked the BIOS for the CPU temp. It was running at 83°C, way high. I don't overclock as two things make me not do it. First, I don't know how it's done and second, I know that doing so causes the temp to go up a lot more. I'd rather underclock, but I don't know how to do that either (considering I don't do much in the way of CPU-demanding activities). Third, overclocking voids the warranty. I don't know if underclocking voids it though. I was told 75 to 80°C was normal but later found it 60°C was normal. The unusual thing is that the computer hard froze within the BIOS where I was merely just watching the CPU temp. I pressed the reset button on the case and this time it wouldn't even run the power-on self-test (no beeps occur like there would normally be (usually as a single, short beep)). Nothing displayed on the monitor either. I just pressed and held the power button to turn off the computer. I waited a few minutes for the CPU to cool down some. I started up my computer afterwards and it booted normally. I watched the CPU temp rise and once it got to 66°C from 50-something, it hard froze in the BIOS again. I used my dad's computer to post a question on the HWW forums mentioning all this. From what I got, it appeared to be the CPU at fault. Despite removing the dust around the area, nothing I did worked. Feeling that my CPU went corrupt, I got a new replacement from Newegg and had to wait 7 days for it to arrive, longer due to the holidays and the weekend. With nothing to do for so long, I had no choice but to play my games. 7 days later when the processor came, I installed it without any trouble, but it wouldn't boot up at all. The new one is otherwise identical to the one I had before with the only difference being that, instead of 3.0 GHz, it's 3.2 GHz. Feeling out of luck, I convinced my parents to drop it off at some local computer service center. I had a few other issues as well - getting the floppy cable connected properly (since pin 1 wasn't indicated on either the motherboard (its manual included) or the floppy drive itself), and getting the CPU temp down. At first, it didn't go nicely, mainly because my dad didn't want me to do so. I had to resort to my old tricks. I got mom to take me there on Monday. I spent a while explaining the history of events and a few other minor issues I had. Two days later, I got my computer back and, as I did before, I checked the CPU temp and watched it. Even after 50 minutes, my computer didn't freeze and it soon went on to 3 hours. The temp balanced off at 76°C. Seeing that it still didn't hard freeze, I started Windows normally. Some startup items were missing and the resolution was set to 1280x1024. Fixing this is nothing new to me as I've done it for many years. I returned it to 1920x1440 and added those startup items (Winamp, Windows Task Manager, and my sound card's volume controls/equalizer, of which I frequently use), ran the Windows updates and other updates I got behind on as a result, and was back in business. I first extracted the songs I wanted to check to see if I can run things the way I was before and with the 7 songs processed in full without any hard freezes, I was confident I was back in business. I thought of my website and posted a notice on why things have taken so long. From there, I caught up on things I fell far behind with - checking E-mail, the forums, etc..
#2 ABR encoding at last!: For a while, I've been restricted to only constant bit rate (CBR) encoding for MP3 which is okay in some sense but I've long wanted to use ABR but couldn't find any programs that would actually work that met my needs, as follows in order of importance:

  1. It must support any sample rate, not just the standard ones. This is commonly supported and it's not uncommon to have sample rates clear up to 150,000 Hz (400,000 in the case of Target Zone, quadruple the true speed (and it's upper limit)). Audacity supports this.
  2. It must be able to resample the source to a standard sample rate, usually 12KHz or 16KHz. This isn't all that common but still fairly common. Audacity supports this.
  3. It must not cut off any part of the song, not even a tenth of a second. Earlier, this was always a problem as it chopped off 5 or so seconds, mostly at the end. I've cropped the songs so they don't have the gaps and loop indefinitely. Audacity supports this.
  4. It must be free and without the trial effects. Audacity supports this.
  5. It must not convert mono to stereo. Only one program I've had did this and it just drops the quality and then some. Audacity supports this.
  6. It must have a batch converter. Audacity supports this, but it's not readily apparent.


The program, dBpowerAMP was the closest I could get, combined with the Generic CLI using lame.exe. However, no matter what I did, I always kept getting errors and no file is created. It was only with the assistance at Winamp for getting a BAT file that I could use to get this. All I need is this code (credit goes to gaekwad2 on the Winamp forums for it):

for %%i in ("C:\My Documents\Songs for MP3\source files\to convert\*.wav") do "C:\My Documents\Special Programs\WAV to MP3 converter\lame\lame.exe" --abr 16 -h --resample 12 "%%i" "C:\My Documents\Songs for MP3\source files\to convert\%%~ni.mp3"


For the 16 KHz sample rate, I'd have ABR at 21 instead. 18 Kbps for ABR at 16 KHz is the point in which distortions are not detectable. Anything below that, I can hear distortions from the compression artifacts. I settled with 21 Kbps to counter any possible odd cases that may arise and since it's 2/3 of my CBR setting of 32. For the 12 KHz sample rate, my theory predicted I needed 16 Kbps (which is about 3/4 that of 21 Kbps since 12 KHz is 3/4 that of 16KHz needing 3/4 the data). 14 Kbps was the lowest I could go before hearing distortions and settled with 16 Kbps, both of which predicted correctly. By using ABR, I get the same quality with 2/3 the bit rate meaning that, instead of 128 Kbps for CD's, it'd be about 85 Kbps for ABR to approximate it. By using this, the conversion process goes about 5 times faster than Audacity. Audacity would take about 40 to 70 seconds whereas this takes but 8 to 14. I was amazed at just how fast it was. Audacity is just slow, period. It seems like many of the open source programs are rather slow. My WAV file generator program writes as fast as 55 megabytes per second generating 85 MB WAV files in 1.6 seconds and nearly 2 minutes to write a full stash of 73 WAV files for a 50 to 140% true speed range, the fastest I can get my hard drive to go. Audacity takes about 8 seconds to write the same file.
#3 C programming - just 3 things left: I'm now about ready to make my first program for download here, in C. You may recall the first program I made in January of 2005 being something very simple. Well, that's what my first program in C will be of. I only have 3 things left to figure out. The biggest one is getting the frame rate synchronized with the monitor's refresh rate without using DirectX and to work with Windows 95. It appears as if I use WaitForVerticalBlank32() for this, but it's a DirectX function. From reading other sources, it doesn't seem worthy, but this source seems to have a better answer that I have yet to try out. Having a function called upon pressing a key (such as the control key to call the jump() function to, well, jump) as well as getting the game to run in full screen mode rather than just Windowed mode. Master just these 3 things and I'm well on my way to remaking my 2D game. First is remaking the interactive animation program, the easiest program. Then it would be turning that into my 2D game (although I'd rather update much of the scenery rather than just reuse what I have (except maybe for testing), particularly the lighting with the mountains and hills). Before I add slopes and objects though, I'll need to figure out how to do collision and that pinball game I dreamed up in 2002 would be a good practice ground as it's not only simple to make, but the addictive gameplay may make it worth it. Not only that, but I also made a useful program for myself as well automating the process with the hex edittor for when I process my songs for my MP3 player.
#4 The new 48-step speed system: Earlier, I was using a 17-step speed system. I've used it since around 2003 or so, or whenever I got my CD-based MP3 player. With the 17-step speed system, there was a lot of difference between the way the songs sounded between just one step's range. From 70 to 73 1/3% true speed is where the largest speed difference is. Plus, the system was rather awkward. I first thought of 24 steps which isn't that much of a difference, and even 30 steps. I tested 30 and there was still quite a difference but not as bad as I was expecting. I went with 48 and was pleased in nearly every aspect. The 24 and 48 come from the musical scale. One octave has 12 steps. If I used a 12-step speed system, the difference in pitch would be that of increasing or decreasing the pitch 1 step on the musical scale. It's like going from C to C sharp (I don't know which notes have flats or sharps but this is the general idea). With the 24-step speed system, I'd go one half of such a step and with 48, it's only one quarter. Even with 48, I can still easily detect a difference, but the gap at the greatest much more closely matches how I change speeds on my computer. Unlike the 17-step speed system, which doesn't really follow the logarithmic scale, the 48-step speed system is very close to it and follows my original intentions when I made the 17-step speed system - it was simple and easy to memorize. However, using more steps meant spending a lot longer processing one song and with having to use the hex edittor to change the sample rate like crazy, I'd not only lose motive from getting bored of having to do it with 64 files instead of the previous, more managable 23 for the standard 50 to 125% speed range. OWTLI, for example, has a range from 25 to 125% true speed, a range factor of 5. From 25 to before 50% true speed is 48 speeds right there alone. From 50 to before true speed is another 48 and from true speed to 125% true speed, that's a further 16 speeds. For 112 files, it wasn't tempting and considering I'm prone to unwanted mind drifts causing lengthy pauses and sometimes even mistakes as a result of this, it wasn't worth it. I needed automation of processing this but no known program allows me to change the sample rate short of a hex edittor. So, why not add to my practice and skills with C programming to do this instead? I spent a while writing the code and troubleshooting issues with the fread and fwrite instructions (used to read and write files). Since I already knew how to change the sample rate before I even started to learn C programming, and that bytes 0x18 through 0x1F are the only things changed, the program should be quite easy to write. I eventually got it working and made a few tests fixing bugs then went on to the real thing. This program since became my first useful program in C. Now with full automation on the part of getting the speeds saved as WAV files, writing one file in 0.8 or 1.6 seconds, depending on the sample rate of the true speed. Audacity takes 8 seconds to write the size of files my program does. My program wrote the 112 output files in roughly 3 minutes (100,000 Hz is true speed and thus the 1.6 value is used, which does vary some). Audacity, however, was the last obstacle as it didn't have a batch converter that I could see. I tried opening multiple files, but it just opens multiple windows instead and only one file could be converted and this would've taken a very long time to do. I later found how Audacity can batch convert and I used it. With 60 to 150 minutes of waiting for this, I commonly took out my games while the lengthy conversions took place. OWTLI took around 70 seconds to convert and a further 15 seconds to open each file and for 112 files to process, this would take a good fraction of a day to do. This is one of the downsides to the 48-step speed system and I wanted ABR to counter the file size issues that would certainly come up from being restricted to CBR. When I got that resolved, and with the converter now used, which is 5 times faster than Audacity, it now takes a little over half the time to process the 48-step speed system than it did with the 17-step speed system. Instead of an hour processing the standard range of 50 to 125% true speed using the 17-step speed system, it's about 35 to 40 minutes to process the same range with the 48-step speed system. For an in-depth look at my new method of how I process my songs, see the updated "how I process my music" article.
#5 3 suspicious phone calls - 2 of which adult oriented: On Dec 14, 2006, I received a phone call supposedly from one of my website's fans at, get this, 6:40 AM. I had a call quite a bit earlier from one of my website's fans, but that call was nowhere near what these 3 were. The first one was otherwise okay. Someone was interested in my 2D game, at least downloading it. As soon as I mentioned that Windows was needed, a very common operating system, he was disappointed since he appearently didn't have Windows. He mentioned of a 90 megahertz processor but was able to view the animation on my mind game's page at it's true speed in sync with me. This told me that 90 megahertz wasn't it, but probably 900 megahertz. Considering the animation needs quite a bit of memory if the browser fully expands it, and systems running 90 megahertz processors are so old with maybe 4 MB of memory tops (from the late 1980's), either he's not knowledgeable with computers at all or he's faking it. He once asked me for my copy of Windows - I rejected that and told him how he can get a copy for himself - ordering it from Microsoft. Knowing license agreements, it is against the terms to sending him a copy of my license. It's one of the most common things in license agreements - even the one for my 2D game has something similar (the free edition being an exception but still restricted). I was later on instructed to go to his/her website. This website caused a window to bounce around in a diamond-shape pattern and otherwise crashed the browser and had to use Windows Task Manager to shut it down. Fortunately, I had nothing going on at the time. In the background was someone playing with the phone messing up the conversation. The call was placed around 6:40 AM or so, way early suggesting either an early-riser or someone toward the east in another time zone (east is X-positive and thus forward hours - that's how I remember it). Given that the east coast of the US is only +1 hour from me (making it 7:40 AM which is still a little early for placing calls), the most likely case is that it's across the ocean such as the UK or some other such English-speaking area. The call lasted about 40 minutes. From there, I just continued on normally. However, in the morning the next day, I got another call mentioning of an order for an adult video. My motive for getting something like that is around -250 or so, so deep into negative territory, there's a chance smaller than that of a 4-of-a-kind hand in Poker that I'll get such a thing. It's been nearly 2 years since I've last cleaned my room and with -49 as my motive (yes, it's a slight increase), the chances of getting that kind of thing is only 4% that of cleaning my room. The third call occurred after this with someone mentioning that something highly adult-oriented was on my forum I once had. I have a -23,000 motive for getting involved with it, so low that I'd rather clean the whole house alone, including the basement and the entire yard 5 times over and without a single break. My record high end of 3190 (causing me to listen to the same song 107 days straight from the same source and 46 days straight in all) isn't even enough to counter this, even if amplified 7 times further, it's still not enough. I'd rather listen to a neutral-rated song 7 years in a row and the same speed/equalizer settings for over 1 1/2 years in a row than get involved with that kind of stuff. I'd rather listen to my favorite song, Battle Zone, for 70+ million years in a row than get into that if I live that long to even begin with. I'd rather be with Mrs. Hall a little over 20 times longer than this and man did she cause a lot of trouble for me. I check my forum at least 10 times a day, sometimes as many as 30 times a day and not once have a seen anything like it, just the usual spam in the form of advertising car insurance and the like. Considering my forum was getting nothing but spam and was dead for months, I figured I'd just delete the whole thing all together anyway. Although I do have ways of at least getting evidence of this but would require a simple 30-second experiment to test some things. Once I deleted the forum, I was told to go to this one website that I deliberately mistyped. Behind the scenes, I was actually doing a Google search for that website. When I saw things like "crashes browser", "do not visit [website URL]", etc., I then mentioned that it crashed my browser (freezes with 100% CPU usage) and faked using Windows Task Manager to close it. As a result, I was told to use IE instead. IE != secure. Because of this, I refuse to use IE for anything web-related unless required by a known and trusted authority and this case is extremely rarely encountered. Shortly after this, I started a silent countdown from 5 and when I reached zero, I abruptly hung up on him finding things things highly suspicious. I waited a few seconds for the call to be "cleared" then began calling other places to get it so he couldn't call back. The first call and the third call were strikingly similar. Both of which had someone in the background making strange sounds (the third call had them earlier) leading to my suspicions that the the third call is from the same individual as the first. I never heard the second call, only one of my parents did.
#6 2 new codes for SMB2 - the game is now much more fun: There were 4 things I've always dreamed of having in Super Monkey Ball 2. Never having "fall out" in practice mode, having the ball rise like it does right after getting the goal (the inverted gravity), being able to roam around on the background scenery and play around with it, and being able to make my own little courses. I found the "moon jump" code which is like the ball rising thing, but it's a slow rise at 26 mph according to the game (I'm used of 500+ mph on that game and I've exceeded 4000 mph (hint: bead screen).). I was disappointed but at least I was able to view the worlds I've been wanting to see how they looked from very high up. Views like this is nothing new to me (note that this screenshot is from 2003 and the TV capture card I had was low-grade and somewhat defective, the main reason I don't like getting stuff off Ebay...):

Views like this in Super Monkey Ball 2 are quite easy to get


Note the speed - 999 mph. It doesn't display anything above that, one of the annoyances in the game. I know that I've gone 4000 mph because I've studied the game's mechanics in great depth. At this height, you can't even see the stage at all, even if the view wasn't blurred. I've been up so high that the whole stage is actually outside the maximum draw distance by more than double. That's what I get for going 4000 mph straight up. I even have a video of this (until I reach level 10 on gamespot, I will not post this video as I do not want others to use it instead of me). This video, too, was made in 2003. Back in 2003, however, I didn't know about using stages like "inchworms", the one I have the highest success rate for and the second-fastest, "organic form", "pendulums", and some others, only bead screen where, although I may get the fastest, the success rate is barely 5% on a lucky run, more around 2% normally. The success rate with inchworms is about 60% normally with 80% on a lucky run as I once had 7 consecutive successes. With the moon jump code, I can get views as shown in the screenshot and video on any world. I've had them with worlds 2 (inchworms - very low success rate in this version of it), 3 (organic form - moderate success rate), 5 (bead screen (low success rate) and inchworms (high success rate)), 9 (pendulums (bead screen always fails since there's a top border)), and 10 (dizzy system - faulty collision caused it only once and seems to be otherwise impossible to reproduce but did save a replay of it (which didn't save properly due to yet another bug in the game)). The other code is for the debug system. The game has 150 stages readily available to the public in the main course plus a few others from the party games giving about 190 or so. There's actually 420 stages, including numerous weird test levels and some duplicated ones. One level featuring a single black and white checkerboard without the background with a goal on it is as simple as the stage called "simple" and is featured nearly 30 or so times. Ever wanted to play the golf courses in challenge-mode style (of the main game as shown in the screenshot)? The golf courses are huge compared to the stages, close to 10 times larger than bead screen. By playing stage 174 and 175, which equate to holes 14 and 15 in the golf game, with infinite time and the moon jump code enabled, I found a way to get thrown up at nearly 6800 mph, roughly 5/3 as fast as I've got with bead screen at the fastest. The coordinates are my favorite feature. The ball is about 1 coordinate unit (CU) in diameter. When you're going 134 mph, you are going one ball diameter each frame or 60 ball diameters per second. 1000 mph on the speed indicator is 7.45 CU/fr (±0.002). The frame advance feature is also fun to use. I discovered that, with Monkey Target (the source of the song Target Zone), if you can somehow get faster than about 350 mph, you can fly infinitely high with the right tricks and fly at 1400 mph giving a climb rate of 5.4 CU/fr or about 725 mph, nearly the speed of sound. The height meter is actually in the game's coordinate units and you are at +147.5 CU at the very top of the platform. I can see the "pos.y" and "spd.y" values to indicate vertical travel (and I thought the Z coordinate was the height). If 1000 mph was 7.45 CU/fr, it works out that 1 CU is about 3.281 feet. One meter happens to be 3.28084 feet - what does that tell you? Given the behavior of the digits when very far out of the level (snapping to multiples of 1/8 when over 1,048,576 CU from the origin on an axis), the positions appear to be a 32-bit floating point value. By using this to study the game's design, I went back to other areas I've had trouble with and improved a little on them, but quite well with Monkey Boat. Having all this fun stuff caused my compatibility with the game to nearly double allowing for about triple the sustainability.
#7 Get those visions of GG13 outta my mind!: Since the start of the year, I've been having so many visions of my 3D game, George Game 13, that I haven't worked on since September of 2005. I keep envisioning the city and desert/train worlds and I just can't get these visions out of my mind or prevent them. It may be because it's been so long since I last did anything with the game in terms of progress, but it's that UV mapping issue that gets in my way. Well, that may be a thing of the past. Nope, not with Gamestudio (throw that in the "things to no longer use" bin). The fix will be with C programming and I'm seeing even more advantages with using C than with Gamestudio. You may remember the first version of the city world that I had and the low frame rate I was getting. Sure only 60,000 polygons were visible, I was barely getting 24 fps, but from tests, that could be 150 fps with Gamestudio. With C, that can be further boosted to a monster 400 fps, at least from what I've read. A million polygons rendered in one frame while sustaining 60 fps. With Gamestudio, it's only 390,000. That is a huge boost. Although, before I can even begin making the game with C, I would need to make a modeller/level builder as well as a game engine complete with lighting, collision, texture-mapping, and other things. Unlike with Gamestudio, I'd have to fix bugs I wouldn't normally fix with Gamestudio (as, if there's a flaw with the collision system or the modeller is crashing, I'd have to fix that myself rather than someone else). I've got quite a few of the algorithms, but this, at the moment, is too advanced for me, but by the end of this year, that may be a different story. Oh how I can't wait to float-run up and down hills on an island at 700+ mph, glide from the shampoo section to the candy section reaching 300 mph along the way dodging signs, or test out the level creator, not from playing my mind game, but as a real game rendered and displayed on my real computer monitor. My 2D game will be a good first step and if I keep following the law of experience, and that my motive keeps out of negative territory, this will indeed be possible very soon (at least starting on it). With motive at -1.1 at the moment for using Gamestudio and a very high 140 with using C programming, the temptation is rather strong (but against my record high (with Battle Zone) at 3190, that's only a small fraction, but anything above 100 is extremely high and very tempting to do.
#8 Full list of my songs updated: It's been probably 2 years or so since the list of my songs has been updated and since then, I've added many more new ones and more than doubled the record for the most consecutive days of listening to the same song that I had at the time. This version is much more detailed than my previous one and lists all 81 songs I've got. 81 may not seem like much at all to you and many other music-lovers, but when you take into account that I change the speed, this is otherwise decupled to about 800 which is still rather low. Note that there are 15 other songs I want to get as well.
#9 Replacement monitor received: It was on Dec 4, 2006 that I finally got my replacement monitor, but I never realized I got it until Dec 6 since it was dropped off in a very unusual location. Usually, packages are delivered near the entrance of the house in the garage, but this was at the other entrance - the porch. The box was mistaken for something that has been discarded (as from the house cleaning that's been going on for over a year). Two days after it was delivered, I was about to get it, but I couldn't find it in the garage and it was hidden onto the stairs (and blending in very well) which made it very hard to see it. Because it was on the stairs, it was almost impossible for me to get so I had to wait even longer for my parents to come home to get it, but since I got too tired before they came home, I had to check it out when I woke up. I did indeed check out the monitor and the results have pros and cons. The only downside is that, when the monitor is rather bright, the image blurs far more than the old one did (an offset of 3 pixels instead of 1/4). But, because I hate bright, and turning down the brightness setting got rid of the blur, I resolved the issue from using my comfortable brightness setting (although a little darker than before). The clarity after fixing this was just amazing. 1920x1440 resolution as I envisioned it. I made a little image that I printed out to explain to the company the defects I'm seeing and printed it out. I included that along with my old monitor I've been wanting to replace for a while, and sent it out within a week. Of course, there was that case of having to spend an hour calibrating my monitor (trapezoid, parallelogram, side curves, and that kind of stuff), but that's a one-time thing only. I also set it so that it was running at 144 dpi. I have no intentions on returning this monitor since I see no defects at all with it and the one it has doesn't apply to me since I hate it bright.
#10 3 new songs, 4 upgraded songs: From the unintended high usage of video games and the debug code for Super Monkey Ball 2, I encountered 2 songs I've never heard before, even though I've had the game almost as soon as it came out. Both of which are from Monkey Boat. I have only played the beginner course since as I've always had trouble with turning around corners coming in dead last (and then some) in the beginner course. I never liked it as a result, but little did I know that there were two songs of great interest one of which competes well with OWTLI pushing OWTLI into 5th place. With a much greater understanding of the game's mechanics, I felt as if I stood a much better chance. I won the beginner course somewhat well and came in third place of four in the advanced course. I came in dead last in the expert course although I got to second place once but fell back due to difficulties with the turning system (when I press the L button to paddle, I expect to turn left, not right - this messes me up). I first heard the songs in the debug menus than with the actual game itself. Plus, I could also clearly hear the intro part of Target Zone, a song where it sounds good clear up to quadruple the true speed. Two of the new songs come from Monkey Boat, that of the advanced and expert courses. The expert course one is the one that pushes Winter Land into 4th place and OWTLI into 5th place leaving only Battle Zone and FF1 World higher. At 2180 for the compatibility, I almost immediately gained an interest in it and wanted to extract it. I named this song "Go Sailing Along", or "GSA" for short. It has 5 parts with the first and third parts being my top favorites (tied) and the fifth part a close second. The first part starts right after the intro and it seems from 65 to 90% true speed is the best area with 70 to 85% being the sweet spot. When I listened to the song, sail boats on a large lake came to mind which is how I got the name or stage 5 in my naming process, the last stage. The other new one is the song from the title screen where you see "press start". The four upgraded ones are Target Zone, and Worlds 6 and 7 from Super Monkey Ball 2 and Delfino Plaza from Super Mario Sunshine. The one thing to note about Target Zone is that, still sounding good above 3 1/2 times the true speed, and that true speed is 100,000 Hz and it's 24-bit, if I played it, it'd be playing at a rate of one megabyte per second.
#11 How I process my music - updated as well: A near-complete rewrite of the "how I process my music" was also made. From being able to use ABR encoding and the program to automate the process I once used the hex edittor for, my process has since changed quite a bit, even the parameters used have changed (not 11,025 Hz, but 16,000 Hz and not 24 Kbps but 32 Kbps (21 Kbps for ABR)).
#12 Winamp play counts update: Ever wonder how many play counts I have in Winamp at the moment? Yeah, you're probably expecting a few thousand plays on the new song, but see for yourself with this updated screenshot.

Ulillillia's play counts in Winamp as of Jan 24, 2007


With SMB2 Title, 67% true speed is the best and with the equalizer settings I've got, the best frequencies are amplified. Since I have two equalizers (Winamp and the one from my sound card), I have both of them together in this screenshot. New songs, 7000 total plays - that's nothing new to me.
#13 2D game future plans and GG13 overview updated: With C programming now as the future of my 2D game instead of Lite C, I updated my 2D game's future plans list. With C, there are things that even Lite-C in Gamestudio wouldn't even offer. Dynamically altering the images (fog intensity and fog color), movement so smooth only screenshots and the color picker tool can pick out any differences between frames, ground fog much smoother than the current 54-channel system (hint: try thinking of 1000-channel fog (!)), no use for 3D hardware or even DirectX, and more. With the game as I have it today, if you change the scaling of the mountains so they're much closer or much more distant, the fog effect is much more unrealistic. With C, the fog intensity can be set based on the scaling rather than being static at what the default is. All the flexibility and the features C seems to promise just keeps cranking up my motive. Not only that, but with C, even GG13 can be made far better than what Gamestudio could offer. I read on the C programming forum that it's possible to get one million polygons rendered per frame at 60 fps with modern hardware. Gamestudio didn't even break the 750,000 mark for the highest (polygons per frame at 60 fps) I've seen with my benchmark tester. One million seems much nicer, but then again, I don't know what hardware was referred to (GeForce 7600 GT, like what I've got? Gamestudio peaks about 390,000, barely past 1/3 of a million). Seeing this and the many other advantages C gives for me along with finally resolving the issue with UV mapping that stopped my progress since September of 2005, well over a year ago, GG13's future is not Gamestudio, but C. Although I'm faced with issues like building an engine, a modeller, and that sort of stuff, I have full control. I updated my 2D game's future plans section and GG13's overview page as a result, to denote this.
#14 History with my game development now available: Ever wonder what my first attempts at game development were? They don't start in 2005 as from the first program I made or even 2004. They actually start much, much earlier. Ever wonder what the first version of my RPG game was like, around 2002 or so? Before my computer troubles began, I had this document written.
#15 Another song with a month straight? Uh oh!: Although it hasn't happened yet, it seems like the newest song added to my collection, Go Sailing Along, will get to about 33 days straight. If my theory holds true, 33 days in a row for GSA is within reach, but is still two weeks shy of my record 46 days. Parts 1, 3, and 5 are the most liked. See the updated list of my songs for more details about it, one reason I was tempted to update it. However, reaching a month straight was overshadowed by the high motive for listening to SMB2's title screen music, but still managed an impressive 12 days, barely past 1/4 of my record 46 days. It was parts 2 and 4 that were really having a big negative impact on this as well as the rather narrow good speed range of 70 to 85% true speed, causing me to want to change songs and with my temptations for SMB2's title screen music with compatibility reaching 1540, the crossover point occurred. 14 or 15 days in a row is the expected upper edge with SMB2 Title.
#16 Involvement with Gamespot: Searching for stuff on Google (action replay cheats?), I ran across Gamespot, which had a review for Bubsy 3D. I saw that you can write reviews and that I liked the system used. I wanted to write a review for that game so I looked at the registration details. I saw that I needed to be on level 3 for that for the free version but wondered what that meant. I began by searching around the forums. I later registered as a free user to see I started on level 1. I wanted to get to level 3 so I can write reviews and as soon as I was on level 3, I went at it. Just a day after, my computer became unusable and had to abandon it until my computer was working again. Since then, I've been involved, but not strongly. It's now going to level 10 that my next point of interest comes, but that ain't going to be until mid February. That's when I can upload user videos (such as the one for getting super high in Super Monkey Ball 2 posted in news item #6). The things in the paid versions are of little or no interest. Looking at the comparision chart:

List footnotes:
* Affectors tell how much of an impact on my motive there is for a particular feature. 1 is neutral and has no effect at all. Above 1, it has a positive effect making me want to get it and below 1 (negative), it deters me from getting it. Combine all the affectors and you get my motive for that service. I use the one with the highest motive. -1.6 is otherwise the same as a +0.625 when it comes to calculating things.
** This is a feature of both the paid services and not the free service.
*** This is a feature of the total access service only.

The free service has a motive of +11.1, the plus service at +6.7, and the total access service is at +2.3. The free service wins by an overwhelming margin. -1.4 doesn't mean multiplying by that, it means to divide by the positive counterpart, or divide by 1.4. -2.8 isn't double that of 1.4, it's more around triple as, if you multiply 1.4 three times, you'll get close to 2.8 (dividing by 1.4 three times is roughly the same as dividing by 2.8 just once). Double the price, it takes four times the compatibility/motive to counter it and with nothing in the paid versions of much interest, they stood no chance.
#17 My take on the newest game systems: For those of you into games (I once was), you may be wondering about my take on the newer systems. I have almost no interest in them at all. I don't like the way you use the Wii's controller and thus seriously drops my motive. Plus, it's wireless further dropping it. Wireless means batteries and when the battery dies, all kinds of problems start. It's also the case of far too many T and M-rated games. Sports games, of which are of negative interest to me, are the most common E-rated games I've seen. This is one of the biggest reasons why I lost interest in playing games. It's either classic games (early Playstation era and before) or I make my own games and it seems that the latter will be my case. The downsides to the Wii, however, aren't enough to put it in third place, but rather second place. It's the extreme cost of the Playstation 3 that forces it into third place. As of what I have, my motive for getting the newer systems are double-digit negative. The Playstation 3 is the lowest with -90 and the Wii at a very close second with -85. The Xbox 360 at a distant first leaving the others far behind with a rather low -40 motive. This doesn't take into account what games there are, just based on price, usage, and general design. Being in the mid double-digit negative area, it may be even two years or more before I even think about getting one of them and with the Xbox 360 leading the way with more than twice the motive, it'd likely be the first one I get, if I ever do. By then, my 3D game, George Game 13, may actually be playable and I'd be hooked on it far more than almost any game I've played. Even though the Playstation 2 and Xbox have gone down a lot in price, they aren't interesting enough for me yet as it's still a -3.5 motive at best. Sure I may have once been a gamer, but I almost entirely lost interest. Only making my own games and listening to the games' music have remained strong.
#18 Neighbors in loud heated argument: On Dec 27, 2006 starting at 1:55 AM (±3 minutes), while playing FF2 (again), I heard the neighbors to my west in a very heated argument that was outside. I heard a car engine being revved up very high (like 4000 or 5000 RPM or something) and the sound of the tires being spun in place causing a very loud screeching sound. The woman was screaming so loudsly that I could hear it (and the car tires sound) very well over my game with my TV volume at my usual 15. It was so loud that I found it suspicious. Not only that, but it occurred 3 times with 80% certainty (4 at 15%, 5 at 3% and 2 at 2%). I heard a voice loud enough that, over my now-muted TV, was heard moderately well and had something in the way of "get outta here". At 2:08 AM, the one left and I saw the car turn toward the east. With trees blocking my view, it's tricky to make out any details on what things are. Only 30 seconds later, I saw the first of the cops come (since my mom ended up calling them as it was disturbing to those trying to sleep). This wasn't the type with the blinking lights. The type with the blinking lights came around 2:25 AM. I watched some of the events on what was going on, but with the trees in the way, it's hard to make out any detail. About 4 or so cop cars came and some other box-like vehicle, probably an ambulence. An hour after the cops first appeared, they left. I jotted down notes just in case they may come in handy. There hasn't been anything since.
#19 Christmas of 2006: On Christmas of 2005, I was told that no money was available and thought I wasn't going to get anything at all. In the end, I did end up getting stuff, much more than I was expecting. As a consequence for telling me this, I didn't get anything for anyone and I was disappointed. Christmas of 2006 seemed almost the same at the start, but given last year, I was tempted. I had to plan things around my awkward sleep-wake cycle and perform a few calculations. It turned out that I'd get two chances to go Christmas shopping. I went when I had the first chance - Dec 10. The next chance I had was on Dec 24. I wanted to go as soon as I could. Dec 24 was cutting it a bit too close for comfort. In the end, I got everyone roughly the same in dollar value in gifts, around $40. When Christmas came, I sorted out the gifts giving them to those with their name tag on it. I got one of the three things I was wanting - ten pairs of underwear. The others were 3 shirts (since I had only 2 or 3 left (technically, it's more around 15 to 25, but those are all stained - useless)), and a 300-piece puzzle. I got a puzzle last year and I haven't even opened the box yet. This would've been great around the March 2005 area where I was hooked on puzzles (and TV). Other things have since taken over such as my 2D game and 3D game. Two things I wanted but didn't get were a TV capture card (see news item #23 below) and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Standard. The major computer issues I had pushed these back (and then some; see news item #1 above for details).
#20 My birthday came: 22 is my unlucky number, but 23 is neutral. On Jan 10, 2007, I finally turned 23. The day was nonetheless the same as any other... with one exception. I had my computer back from the repair shop and the service fee payback was a birthday gift. Instead of being hooked with SMB2's debug system, I could at last use my computer again after 2 1/2 weeks without it.
#21 27 new dreams added - record rate returned to normal: It's been over 50 days since the last update and I recalled another 27 dreams. My record recall rate slew down a bit at first but returned to what it was with having recalled the night's dream several consecutive days, but it then returned to the normal rate after this. I may have 700 dreams by the end of this year, a prediction I successfully made for that of 2006, but 700 is the new forecast for 2007. 530 dreams... yowsers is that a lot. Yet, several categories are about to get another page added since they have a dream count equal to a multiple of 10 (and the travel dreams about to reach page 10 since there are just so many of them). I'm also thinking of two other enhancements for my dream journal. The first is that, instead of using the old, outdated, and confusing half-step technique, I should use the much-easier-to-understand times-better-than-neutral system. So, instead of seeing "7.5" for the fun rating, you'd see it as a 4 instead. Instead of a weird rating of 9, you'd see it as 100. Instead of a nature rating of 3.5, you'd see it as a -2 instead. Instead of my traditional 10% margin of error at the best, I'll likely use 20% instead. This makes it faster to process but is still roughly 70% more accurate than the current system, but the good thing is, it doesn't reduce my motive for adding that. That is, you'll see a bunch of ratings like these: 1, 1.2, 1.5, 1.8, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, and so on.... The 6 would have a single exclamation mark, the 2.5 as double, and the 100 as triple. A rating of 6 or higher in the fun, weird, and scary categories would cause them to go to the fun, weird, and nightmares categories with a rating 4 and 5 only being there if the dream doesn't fit the other categories as from those with a 7.5 rating in there now (which converts to a 4 rating in the new system). The other change is having a twelfth category for the dreams in the other category that fit multiple categories, known as multi-category dreams. This wouldn't mean having to process all 530 dreams to getting them in the new category, but this idea is still undecided. I'd like to have a twelfth category, but I have yet to decide on this. The travel dreams is really getting bloated since I'm getting dreams where I'm in foreign areas, but otherwise not exploring them (and thus don't belong in the exploration category). With now 90 dreams in that category, it may end up being the first to reach the triple-digit mark, but it may be until April of this year before that happens given the usual rates.
#22 Scientific American magazine: You may recall in my November 2006 blog that I wanted to subscribe to either Astronomy or Scientific American. I decided on Scientific American and starting in early January, I got my first issues. Oddly enough, I got 4 issues in a very short time span, but still didn't get the January 2007 issue. I got those from Oct, Nov, and Dec of 2006 and the one for Feb 2007 in a time span of just two weeks. I can explain the Nov and Dec issues of 2006 since those spanned over the time I had to wait for the order to be processed. I don't understand why I ended up with the Oct 2006 issue. Since I first got it, I quickly head to any article involving astronomy, my top-most-liked field of science. When done with that, I go to my next-most interested-in article and so on until I've cleared the issue. From there, it's "GG13-ifying" it, turning the issue's design into a game related to George Game 13 (only one of the first versions before the concept of GG13 came about). So far, my compatibility has hovered around 12. Although it's nothing to my music, for books/magazines, that's rather high. I like the charts, graphs, and diagrams, things involving math.
#23 TV capture card - the next hardware upgrade: During 2002 and 2003, I had a TV capture card, but it had many defects and limitations. First, it was always full of static not present on my other TV. Second, it used that of standard definition TV, that of interlaced format rather than progressive. Third, it would only record video as 320x240 resolution maximum and at just 20 fps. Fourth, the brightness/contrast was off and could never be fully corrected. If I darken it to get the brighter colors at the right brightness and lighten it to get the darker colors back again, I'll just keep going back and forth. Fifth, colors from the Sega Genesis displayed incorrectly. Look at my screenshots of Sonic on the Oct 2006 blog, the two on the bottom. Note how far off the colors are from the bottom than that of the top? With a progressive scan type, I get screenshots like those at the top - no artifacts from the alternating scan line updates. The colors in the top two screenshots are exactly what they should be (well, close to it anyway), and those in the bottom are far off, particularly with brighter colors. For a few months now, I've been wanting a TV capture card that wouldn't have these limitations. This is the one I'm looking into but I can't tell if it has progressive scan or not. I figured I'd get it and by the time I updated my website, I'd have it available. The downside, according to the reviews, is the software provided. Of course, the driver is a definite must, otherwise the hardware wouldn't work at all (unless XP Pro SP2 has one presupplied), but why bother with it or downloading some other software when I can just practice my programming skills and write programs myself to do what I want. Yes, that means recording at 60 fps as an AVI (or BMPs within a folder if extremely long) and taking/saving screenshots as BMP images. Then, with yet another program I intend on making, sort of like a plug-in, it would reduce the frame rate of an AVI and merge the frames together to give the feel of 60 fps, but run at 15 or 20 fps. This is easier for me to do than saving screenshots, much easier. I already know the algorithm - I tested it with Gamestudio, and, even before finishing this update to my website, I already have enough knowledge with C to do so. It's just "grabbing" whatever is in the back of the video buffer that I don't know.
#24 Two mind game events - music and clouds: In recent times, starting around early January of 2007, I've had two common mind game event occurrances. The first one is where my relatives come over to visit and it's supposedly a few days into their visitation time. They get confused wondering why I haven't changed songs and wonder if I ever do. I mention something like "5 days is only a small start toward my record, try lasting for 9 times longer to get into the realm of my record" and the like. Of course, I haven't seen my relatives since my last vacation now 6 1/2 years ago. The other common event, three times as common, is where I have a ramp and I'm using a weaker version of the speed blast toward it (which allows for faster charging and better energy control, but only 400 mph instead of 760) to launch straight up (sort of like the half pipe, but sliced in half and levels out at the bottom so you have a vertical edge at the top). While I go up, I'm looking at cumulous clouds above which start rapidly "growing" since I'm approaching them at 400 mph (but decelerating at 80 mph per second). The clouds fill about 4.5° of my field of view and are about 5000 feet up. Because I only reach around 1450 feet of height, I don't get above the clouds, but they certainly get "bigger" filling up roughly 6.5° of my field of view. At the top of the climb, I begin looking down at the fairly small ground below. Upon impact, I bounce up now going 200 mph straight up making the clouds filling just 5° of my field of view, but I can still notice the changes, especially at the start of the bounce. A few bounces later, and I'm back on the ground ready for another one. I do a few speed blasts up the ramp then use the spinning board to get 1200 to 1600 mph or so straight up (or at least as straight up as possible). With that, I watch the clouds "grow" very rapidly even getting above them. At the top of a 1600 mph run, getting 16 times higher than that of the 400, the cloud I watch only fills up 1.25° of my field of view and it takes around 300 mph before any changes are noticeable and of course, several bounces later, I come to a stop ready for it again. At the top of the 1600 mph climb and when I look down at the tiny ground from 4 miles high, I can see a city just toward the upper area of my field of view, but it only takes until I reach around 150 mph before I notice anything changing since it's so far away, but once I reach 999 mph, it's fun watching the cloud just coming up extremely fast and just whizzing by and 4 seconds later, it's a bounce where I'm going up at 800 mph watching the cloud "grow" again.



Daily Events



Dec 1: Yay! A water dream, and a good one! Another big "leap" forward in C. Not only have I figured out how to display images, but other things like how to play audio files like WAV files. I've learned quite a bit but ran into an unexplained problem - it won't compile a Windows application due to a bizarre-sounding error. I first checked my E-mail and the forums, as usual. I then ate watching TV. Near the end of watching TV, (during the ads), I processed a test sample song to see what effect other sample rates had. Audacity wouldn't encode to MP3 if a nonstandard sample rate was used like 15 KHz and 20 KHz. Since the battery was almost dead by then, I needed to wait for it to charge up. After a while troubleshooting the issue with the compiler errors, the forums died - I began playing those games again. This lasted for about 4 hours. At the end, I bulk-transferred those test files and when in bed, I checked them. 11,025 Hz has 1.378046 as the adjustment factor. 12 KHz is more extreme with about 1.5. 16 KHz and 22,050 Hz, my other two tests, seem to play at true speed. Next is a time synchronization experiment to find the offset with 16 KHz. I can tell a difference between my old one and this one, mainly because the good stuff is in the high frequency range. I'm still at Mountains So Far Away, at 82% true speed. Woke up at 3:49 PM and went to bed at 7:23 AM.
Dec 3: Well, there's another exploration dream. Even into December, the high recall rate continues on and it's a page in detail too! Is this a Christmas present or something? I first watched TV and ate watching TV. I then checked the forums and E-mail. I then processed a few test subjects for my MP3 player. The tests are for the 16KHz and 22,050 Hz sample rates. They include MP3 encoding artifacts (32 Kbps for 16KHz and 40 Kbps for 22,050 Hz - no artifacts found), of which none seem present. Other tests included an upsampling conversion test (song at 14KHz speed resampled to 16KHz and 22,050 Hz - no defects), a frequency distortion test (the distortions of frequencies to sample rate offset - 16KHz and 22KHz have no defects, but 11KHz does as I can clearly hear them with Mountains So Far Away. Due to the bug in the MP3 player, 11,025 Hz is more like 8000 5/11 Hz permitting a maximum pitch of 4000 2/9 Hz), and the last test was a time synchronization test. Because of the ever-so-slightly faster layback, I need to make adjustments. I ran the test overnight, but realized a crucial mistake. The song only went for 10 hours. I'd otherwise not make the full test so I started the test 2 hours prior to going to bed. 160 minutes in, I have an offset of 4.2 seconds, a 90% reliable value. Because the conversion to MP3 took a half hour, I took out Sonic and began to drown foxes. After the long conversions, the first thing I did was begin preparing the other three tests. While doing so, I played around with Winter Land. By amplifying from 800 to 5000 Hz 36 decibels and deamplifying the rest by 90 dB, all my favorite parts are included with the lesser-liked parts essentially muted. I wanted it for my MP3 player but didn't bother processing it further since I needed the results of the time synchronization experiment. I rechecked the forums then went to bed. 190 minutes in, there's an offset of 5 seconds and a 95% reliability. I also took a shower at 1:00 AM, which is nothing new to me (in terms of the time of doing so). Woke up at 7:26 PM and went to bed at 8:23 AM.
Dec 4: You guessed it... nope, no dream this time. 3 main things make up the day. The first was TV, lots of it, plus I ate during this time. Then it was checking the forums and E-mail. I had the answer for setting up Visual C++ 2005 Express. I didn't understand the first step. This was also the first time I saw an XML file (given the first line anyway). With the forums dead, I processed the muted bass version of Winter Land, trying the 30-step speed system. The part with the hex edittor was starting to get very boring so I knew I needed some better alternative than this. The song was decent, but my old 17-step method is 2.3 times better in compatibility, especially the area from 50 to 70% true speed (and the doubles and halves from that). What next? There's still quite a difference between the speeds. Maybe I need 48 steps? The big plus to the 30-step one is that it matches the logarithmic scale almost perfectly. The experiment results are in. I thought I was only going to get 3 1/2 hours. I managed to reach 290 minutes. I used the spreadsheet to analyze my results. I got -0.0456 as the adjustment factor, smaller than expected. I rechecked the forums - dead. Out came Sonic and drowning that fox. I swapped between drowning the fox and the forums until the end of the day. I'm still at Mountains So Far Away with 82% true speed on my computer and 95 then 105% on my MP3 player. Woke up at 6:17 PM and went to bed at 8:58 AM.
Dec 5: Yay, I recalled another dream, taking a half page in detail. I first tried the methods to resolve my issue with Windows program compilation. I got it all working. I ate after this then began trying to add other Windows elements, first starting with centering a window, but ran into a problem. This isn't a compiling problem, but a run-time problem. Here we go again.... While waiting for replies, I played Sonic - yep, glug, glug, glug goes the fox. I also made another Carnival Night fox drowner and tested it too. I also examined the 48-step speed system and tested it with my current song, Mountains So Far Away. The boring part is using the hex edittor to write all those WAV files. Since all but 8 bytes are the same, it may just be better if I wrote a program to automate this. This is slightly above my current skill. Store the full 90 MB source file in memory then write the output with only the 8 bytes changed. I also found out how to batch convert with Audacity. I watched "Magic School Bus" at the end then, when about to go to bed, mom made me open cans. I'm still at Mountains So Far Away with 82% true speed on my computer, but variable speeds on my MP3 player (I can't make up my mind). Woke up at 8:49 PM and went to bed at 11:30 AM.
Dec 6: Boohoo! No dream recalled. I first checked TV, but nothing much was on - CNN being the odd exception (after 1:00 AM though). I checked my E-mail and the forums. I then tried making a Windows-style menu, but found the documentation very confusing. With the forums otherwise dead, again the fox went splash in the blue then glugged away (i.e. I drowned the fox). I used the design in Carnival Night I made yesterday. I ate when the game froze (due to one of numerous bugs I've run across in the game), and watched Assignment Discovery, the only thing outside CNN that was even on. I began trying to process another song for the new 48-step speed system - Desert Zone. With more C programming skills, I tried getting into working with files. I spent a long while writing the code to make the few changes needed to otherwise automate the process I do with the hex edittor which will get very boring. I ran into unexplained errors with strcat - cannot convert "char" into "const char". I used yet another forum, of which resolved the strcat issue. I fixed the bugs I found then tried testing the file instructions. I got nearly identical errors to that of strcat, but which was quite randomized with the fread instruction. 3 of the items worked without problems, but 4 didn't. There's also fwrite instructions to test. I found another worthy forum. MSDN is extremely slow (and I thought HWW's response rate was bad). With supposedly quadruple the activity of HWW, and dedication to C programming, I definitely went there. I resolved the strcat issue from here. My replacement monitor arrived on Dec 4, but put in a highly unexpected area. I couldn't get to it due to the stairs. I hope it's not ruined as a result of being out in the snow and cold for so long (packages are normally delivered/dropped off in the garage near the house entrance, not the front yard by the porch. I should have it when I wake up though, hopefully. I'm still at Mountains So Far Away, but have intentions on changing songs. Woke up at 12:00 AM and went to bed at 3:59 PM.
Dec 7: Yay, a dream, 1/3 page in detail. 5 main things make up the day - TV, program, processing 2 songs for my MP3 player, drowning the fox, and making a "simulation" of the effects I see on my old monitor. At first it was working on that program I made to automate the part with the hex edittor to get the resulting speeds. This vigintuples my speed with the hex edittor - 0.8 to 1.8 seconds per speed versus 15 to 30 seconds. Taking about a minute or two per song to convert WAV to MP3 and usually 64 speeds per song with the 48-step speed system's default range. I got the program working and fixed the bugs. I ate between the times I worked on the program and finished it. I finished the program and began using it to create the speeds I need then Audacity to batch convert everything to MP3. It was the first program in C that has use to me. This took a very long time. I processed Desert Zone and OWTLI using the recent 24-bit WAV files at 100 KHz true speed. These two alone gave almost 200 MP3 files. OWTLI used 112 due to it's wide speed range. Since this took several hours, and that "Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase" was on, I watched it while the lengthy conversions were going on. When over with, having watched it for the third time now, and since the conversions had a ways to go, I began drowning the fox. When done with both songs, I began making a simulated view of the old monitor's defects. I have yet to try out my replacement. I'm still at Mountains So Far Away, but now at 72% true speed. The speed of OWTLI on my MP3 player varies a lot. Woke up at 2:00 AM and went to bed at 7:06 PM.
Dec 8: Of course, what would you expect I recalled? I'm really smashing past 500.... I first checked forums and E-mail then began to process the history of my game design stuff. I reached section 1.3 then ate. I watched "Scooby Doo Pirates Ahoy!" and processed Battle Zone using the 48-step speed system while watching it. The remainder of the day involved my games. It was the fox and the blue at first, for 4 hours, then Crueball for 6. I processed 12 or so of my songs and while waiting for this, I played my games. 96% of the the time is spent waiting for the computer. Of course, drowning the fox is nothing new. Crueball isn't either, but it is new in terms of being mentioned on my website. It's a pinball game. On the bonus round, I had one case that went on for an extremely long time and had 742 hits, almost double my previous record of 380-something. The score was being added to for over a minute. I also finished the game with over 100 extra balls (they're too easy to get once you reach level 2 and especially 4 and beyond). It's that guard that goes back and forth over the gate and when it goes fast, due to faulty collision detection, the ball gets stuck in it doing one hit each frame and it's quite easy that, after 4 such cases of doing this, I have the extra ball and a new one comes just ready for me to do it again. I finished the game with 1,027,782,000 points (it overflowed ten times since it only goes up to 99,999,999, one of the many annoying things I intend on not having at all in any of my games). At the end, I had a 50-something million bonus with a held 9x multiplier giving an easy 450 million points. At the end of the day, I transferred the songs and printed out the simulated view of the old monitor's defects. My computer is still at Mountains So Far Away at 72% true speed and my MP3 player is at Bahamas Zone, one of the newly processed songs, at 90% true speed. Woke up at 4:55 AM and went to bed at 10:45 PM.
Dec 9: 1 1/4 pages of detail are in what the new dream I recalled had. It's a well-liked one as well. First it was checking out the replacement monitor. The first thing I noticed were distortions: stretched, skewed, off center, etc.. I expected that. The general controls fixed this, but, the good news is that I don't have those distortions the other monitor had. Even with the same conditions I had before, I cannot see the blur effect. The bad news is, if the monitor's brightness is rather high, a big blur occurs in the center, but since I hate bright and by turning the brightness down, the display is very clear everywhere and I could easily notice the difference. Next was eating while watching TV. I was about to take a shower but noticed I had to wash my clothes first. With another delay, I began working on the game design page I started yesterday then took my shower. I resumed it when done and eventually finished it. I went to bed after this. I'm now hooked with Bahamas Zone, from 75 to 95% true speed is my focus range. I was at it for 90% of the day. My computer had Carnival Night playing for a bit but then switched. My MP3 player always had Bahamas Zone running. Woke up at 9:08 AM and went to bed at 1:52 AM.
Dec 10: Nice! A weird dream recalled taking a page in detail. I woke up after 4 hours of sleep and needed 40 minutes to fall asleep again. I barely got 7 hours' sleep. Just 10 minutes after spending 45 minutes writing details on the dream, I left to get groceries and do some Christmas shopping. All this otherwise went well. I was back home at 4:20 PM. Before that, a stop at my sister's place then for gas. I was shopping for about 2 hours, 90% of which was deciding on what gifts I should get. I had a hard time getting something for my sister. 2/3 of the time was spent there for my sister, 1/4 for my mom and the last 1/12 on my dad since I already knew what to get him. I returned home, put stuff away, then ate watching TV. I packed the gifts while continuing to watch TV since lots of good stuff was on. I then checked the forums and my E-mail. When done, I tried to see if I could use DrawDibDraw. I ran into 2 issues. I was beginning to feel tired so I had to go to bed. I'm still changing the speeds of songs quite often. I go 30 plays, change speed, 110 plays, change speed, 60 plays, and so on. 300 in a row is more typical on the low end of the common range with 800 overall as the typical and my record is around 3000 (based on 2-minute loops - Bahamas Zone is 3 1/3 minutes). Woke up at 12:10 PM and went to bed at 12:15 AM (±1 minute).
Dec 11: Ya, sure! Another dream recalled. This is getting ridiculous. 3/5 page of detail isn't all that bad though. I first checked the forums and E-mail then tried figuring out how to use DrawDibDraw. I encountered a problem - 12 missing bytes from the file header data. I ate after this but since nothing was on on TV other than ESPN's Monday Night Football, I watched that. I'm not much into sports, except when played mind-game style (i.e. use the flash attack to dash across the football field for a touchdown from the other side of the field in 3/4 of a second going 100 mph, but crashing into the wall). I went on with rechecking the forums but got nowhere. I started to update my blog finishing most programming-related stuff. With still no answer and a temptation to play Crueball, I did just that. I was mainly after a big score - the bonus stage offered that. I reached 250 million in about 2 hours or so. Having gotten bored of it and not wanting to wait for 23 million bonus to be added from losing a ball (ultra annoying), I began drowning the fox. While playing my games, I tried the 24-step speed system. I didn't like it as much as the 48-step speed system. Now, if only I could use ABR, I could use 24 Kbps or something and save on space. I'm still song swapping on my computer with Battle Zone being the longest-lasting, but 5 hours is almost nothing on my record 46 days (less than 1/2% even). My MP3 player is at day 2, a scratch on my record 107 days from that source. Woke up at 1:08 PM and went to bed at 5:38 AM.
Dec 12: One more day, one more dream, and it uses 3/4 of a page in detail too. I first checked the forums and E-mail. Still no answer on the case with DrawDibDraw and the 12 missing bytes. I'm still not sure on the "Dst" and "Src" values and what they're for. An experiment or two could answer that, but there's still the case of 12 missing bytes that's stalling my progress. Get this and just 2 other important things are left - synchronizing with the monitor's refresh rate and calling a function upon pressing a key. Then I could remaster the "interactive animation" as I'd then have enough skills. 3 scenery elements is simple compared to my 2D game with over 120 scenery elements (80 if ignoring the ground). I also got quite a bit further with using ABR for my MP3's but not quite. I ate after the forums were dead and good stuff was on on TV. I ate watching it then returned to the forums. Once recleaned, since nothing happened in 15 minutes, fox plus blue water equals splash and glug, glug, glug. I got bored of it and with still no answers, I installed "Zapper", a PC game I once got 1300 lives with. I played it for the remainder of the day finishing it. I completed worlds 3 and 4 in full with the first 2 not quite done. Yep - 200 lives. I'm still involved with Battle Zone. Woke up at 12:38 PM and went to bed at 6:34 AM.
Dec 14: Despite using 1/4 of a page in detail, another dream was recalled. I first checked the Winamp forums to see if I had the solution with encoding to ABR - same results. I'm beginning to suspect lame.exe is the culprit. Then again, after 200 or so screenshots to catch the text that flashes on screen, I got a new lead. With no response to anything, I played Zapper again and finished the game 100% again. I then played the expert level and found it surprisingly easy, much easier than I expected. I finished that, too, 100%. With nothing still going on, I modified my desktop background showing 4 screenshots of my 2D game and my logo. When almost done, I got called by one of my website's fans at 6:40 AM or so. He was interested in my 2D game and had other questions as well. There was a lot going on in the background and it was often tricky to make out what was said at times. He apparently had very little knowledge with computers. He mentioned of having a 90 MHz processor, but he can view the animated GIF at the top of my mind game's pages without any problems (and I was watching it with him). No 90 MHz processor could handle it and those things have been around during the late 1980's or so, extremely outdated. He was also amazed at my 2D game's graphics. If he did have a computer that old, running in either 2 or 4-bit color, possibly 8 on the very high end, you couldn't see the details well at all. He also once asked me for my copy of Windows and I refused that knowing EULA's. He asked if I'd visit his site and entered it which caused a window to go in a diamond-like pattern and otherwise crashed the browser from using 100% CPU usage and when I got there, I heard a loud sound (like having a microphone next to a speaker and the infinite amplification that causes). I hung up and used Windows Task Manager to close my browser, but thankfully, I had nothing going on as it was. Like the previuos case, it, the call was not threatening and not of much concern. I played Sonic to, you guessed it, drown the fox. I'm still at Battle Zone. Woke up at 5:44 PM and went to bed at 10:12 AM.
Dec 15: So how many dreams in a row has it been that I've recalled? The new one took 3/5 of a page in detail. ABR at last! I began by testing for the best ABR. I first thought 12 Kbps was decent, but, over my noisy computer fan, the distortions are otherwise impossible to pick out. By 18 Kbps ABR, the distortions are otherwise absent. Since 21 approximates 2/3 of the CBR values I've been using, I figured I'd just use it. I began processing many of my songs making a few changes to my code. The batch converter works well. I drowned the fox several times then began game swapping. During this time, my dad told me of a call about an order for an adult video being ordered. I'd never get such a thing knowing I'd never get something rated R or NC-17 and very rarely PG-13. I resumed the conversions then went to check my E-mail and stuff. Then, another call a little after 9:00 AM from, apparently, the same one who called before. The voice was otherwise identical with sounds in the background with the same voice used as before (although no where near as noticeable as the last one was. I was told that something extremely adult-oriented was on my forum, even though I checked it 5 times in the last 4 hours or so and saw nothing like it. Since my forum was getting nothing but spam, I figured I'd just delete it to prevent such a thing (and other spam as well). He/she also asked for my username and password - I immediately refused to give that away. As before, I was told to go to some website to report that I got rid of it. I faked going to it, but, secretly behind the scenes knowing the previous case, I was doing a Google search for it. I saw that it crashed the browser and it was dangerous. I used this to explain the effects I'm getting to convince him/her I was actually viewing the website, but little did he/she know, I was actually looking at Google search results. As soon as I mentioned of my browser crashing, of which it really didn't as I was looking at Google search results instead, I started a silent count down from 5 counting one each second and one second after mentioning "zero", I just hung up on him. I waited a few seconds for the call to fully be cancelled out then called the bank to check for any suspicious account activity shortly after to prevent him from calling back. I continued processing more of my songs as ABR. I realized I made mistakes with 3 songs. Winter Land had bad looping at the start due to an incorrectly cropped intro source. Oh What a World had the wrong speed and Mountains So Far Away had bad looping for the same reason as Winter Land. Woke up at 8:45 PM and went to bed at 2:29 PM.
Dec 16: No dream recalled. Like yesterday, almost all day was spent processing my songs. I got stumped when it came to one song as the looping was not making sense. I took a shower around 8:00 AM while waiting for the conversions to process. I had the conversions running while eating and watching TV. I left to go to the grocery store, but before going there, there were other stops, none that I needed - bank, utilities store, Miracle Mart, then finally the grocery store. While at the grocery store, I got my usual. The last stop was getting gas. I returned home to wash my blankets and process more songs, then went to bed. I had to wait another 30 minutes for my blankets to get dried. I'm hooked on the high frequency part of Winter Land - nice beat and my favorite background part most audible during part 4. Woke up at 10:13 PM and went to bed at 3:18 PM.
Dec 17: No dream again, boohoo! At first it was processing more of my songs, but only 2 though. I then ate and tried getting going on my Windows program - displaying an image. I resolved a few errors but when it didn't recognize "hwnd" in another function, even though it did in one, I found out many useful things and learned quite a bit. Most of my day was spent on this. At one time, I had 58 errors and 30-some warnings. It took a long time to sort through them but I soon did. No image was drawn and I spent a while investigating the cause. Even using sprintf and things to see what the vars were didn't work; they were read properly. I tried a few changes but no image would appear. I'm using my scaled down 512x384 logo which has a black background and it's being rendered on a white background so it should be extremely easy to spot, along with all those colors it uses. Woke up at 3:24 AM and went to bed at 4:32 PM (±1 minute).
Dec 18: Yay, a dream with a page in details! I first processed Mountains So Far Away since I apparently forgot to fix the mistake I had since the intro was not properly cropped. This took 30 minutes and I found another bug in Audacity (open an 8-bit WAV file, then save it as an 8-bit WAV file and compare the two - they are definitely not the same). I ate afterwards. I then got to fixing the issue with the image displaying stuff. I finally know how to display images. The mistake was forgetting to assign pointers to the info head and the image data. 2 things now remain, oh so close! I only need to figure out how to synchronize the frame rate with the refresh rate of the monitor. I tried getting at the frame rate stuff and saw the clock function. I tried it but found it to be extremely inaccurate, rounding to the nearest 1/64 second, far too imprecise. Accuracy to within 1E-04 (a ten thousandth) of a second is the lowest accuracy I'll accept and 1E-05 (ten millionths) is preferred. While waiting for replies, I took out Bubsy 3D and climbed around on the mountains in the second level as I tend to do and applying the bug I found 2 weeks after one of my dreams hinted at it. With still no answers on this, I began trying to make a Christmas card, but soon lost interest. I then got into redoing my logo for bigger text and got quite far. The noise map I made is the best one yet, almost perfect. As a consequence of making the very decent noise map, I also made some progress with my 3D games, but nothing direct. I have just the stars and city-in-space left. I'm still swapping songs quite a bit, especially on my MP3 player. Woke up at 12:55 AM and went to bed at 3:07 PM.
Dec 19: I had a dream, but when I woke up enough, 45 minutes later, I forgot it entirely. Oh well. I first tried out various suggested timers, including a high resolution timer. At first, the timer didn't seem to run and it caused strange things to happen. If I can get it to work, then the only thing left before remaking the "interactive animation" program I released in January of 2005 is having it so that, when a key is pressed, a function is called and I've already got a few worthy leads on that. It's just the matter of detecting the state of a key (either on (pressed down) or off). After trying the timer system, and since I needed to wait for replies, I ate. When done, I repeated the case of checking replies, trying the suggestions if there was a reply, then playing Bubsy 3D. As I usually do, I jump around on the mountains. The coordinate XCAUYVINAA is the highest accessible point in Bubsy 3D with the YV being the height (Y position) and the C being the level (for level 2). The coordinate XUACO1ACD3 is for playing the 2-player game in 1-player mode (and from this point/area, you can go absolutely anywhere, as long as you don't save your progress (from activating checkpoints). You can collect nearly 200 atoms here. I'm also beginning to wonder if I'll end up falling asleep at 3:00 or 4:00 AM on Christmas day causing a major delay in opening gifts. I'm now at "Sno", hovering around 75% to 85% true speed. Woke up at 3:23 AM and went to bed at 5:33 PM.
Dec 20: A video game dream was recalled with a half page in detail. I first checked for replies about the timer. I fixed the code and got the timer working. Even though it's working as expected, debug values show strange results. I ate after this. Only keyboard-related things remain. When done eating, I had the fix for the debug values not displaying properly - not %d, but %I64i and not %f but %lf. I began testing the timer system but was disappointed to see the exact same results I had with the Sleep instruction, but in an earlier case, leave that out, and it takes 5 minutes to close the program since it uses 100% CPU. When I had the sleep instruction at the time, the timer wasn't working properly but now it is. I continued on with the remake of my log of finishing all the stars, but with a disappointment. The new design is 1/3 as good as the old one. With still no answers, I got at playing Bubsy 3D again doing my usual. I wanted the code for teleporting. Seeing a review system at Gamespot and wanting to write a review for Bubsy 3D, but had to register which is not much of an issue. It wouldn't let me write a review until I was at level 3, defeating the purpose of visitting. I later got involved with looking at games I've had or played soon looking at NES games. Woke up at 5:10 AM and went to bed at 1:23 AM.
Dec 21: 1/5 page of detail is all I recall of the new dream. It's also the winter solstice. First it was checking the forums and browsing Gamespot looking at various classics. I ate shortly after then returned to the forums, Gamespot, checked my E-mail, then with nothing on on TV for a bit, out came Bubsy 3D. Others on Gamespot have "10 hours or less" play time, but I've got on the order of 700+ hours and still counting (just shy of a month). I agree with many of the low ratings on the game, but with so many bugs and self-made challenges, and the fogging effect I like a lot, I'm hooked on it. I reached another super high spot with the mountains near the exit. The height is U? where I don't know what the 1's digit is. It's only 1/4 the highest I've been though. I've been high enough that you'd have to fall for 7 seconds before landing. Later on, I went on with drowning the fox in Sonic. When "A Haunting" was on an hour later, I watched it and 2 more hours' TV. I went on with rechecking the forums a little and prepared to go to bed. Since my MP3 player's battery was not charged, I played Ristar, a game I'd almost certainly give high ratings toward. I went through the entire game in normal mode losing only one life and getting all 12 treasures. I tried the "superb" password I saw on Gamespot to see it's effects. I also finally found out what the "onchi system" actually is as, in the many years I've had the game, I never found out what it was for as it didn't seem to have any effect. I'm also thinking about reprocessing some of my songs as 12 KHz (which plays back about 2/3 as fast on my MP3 player) as many don't have good frequencies above 3KHz, especially in slown down versions. This would reduce the file size even more and allow for many more songs. If my hypothesis is correct, I can have tiwce as many songs - 10 to 20 Kbps (or 7 to 13 Kbps with the effect from slower playback due to the bug). When in bed, I thought about using the 12KHz sample rate to utilize the benefits of the bug and save space - time test tomorrow. Woke up at 9:33 AM and went to bed at 12:23 AM.
Dec 22: Rats, no dream. Seems like the recall rate dropped. Between Gamespot, drowning the fox, Ristar, TV, and other things, not much happened. With Ristar, taking up about 2 1/2 hours, I played hard mode, got all 12 treasures, and lost 6 or 7 lives (with 34 left), then tried the super difficulty. One hit with that and it's game over and there's no way to get extra lives or extra hits, just continues. I made it through the first world reaching the start of undertow, but lost interest because the fox goes glug, glug, glug, glug. At times, I watched TV, but nothing was otherwise on. As with Gamespot, I found many games I once played that I still want or miss a lot. I have quite a few. I also, at the end of the day, set up for an experiment, a time synchronization experiment for the 12KHz frequency. I also tried finding out what ABR I needed - 16 was predicted, but seems a bit low (I can pick out distortions at 16 ABR). Woke up at 11:49 AM and went to bed at 3:48 AM.
Dec 23: Yeah, I can tell my recall rate dropped as no dream was recalled yet again. I first checked my E-mail, then, now at level 3 on Gamespot, wrote a review for Ristar. I ate afterwards. When done, I wrote many more reviews - 6 for the day. I also got my experiment results in with 5 reliable results. I just got the numbers but I have yet to analyze the data. I also prepared the ABR test for what Kbps value is best for 12 KHz sample rate since my previous one wasn't making sense. My theory predicts 14 Kbps as the lowest I can go before hearing distortions. I was still getting them with 20 (3/4 the data used, 3/4 the bit rate - 21Kbps with 16KHz should mean using 16 Kbps with 12 KHz). I indeed found a somewhat surprising result. 14 Kbps has some distortions but 15 Kbps is the lowest safe point. I was right - 16 Kbps it is. Because the player plays it back 2/3 as fast, that's 11Kbps actual. Nice! It takes 1 1/2 seconds real time play to play back 1 second of the actual song in the song's time. Now to fix/update the songs that don't have much above 3KHz pitch. This is especially the case with the slower speeds. Once that's done, I intend on updating my website since it's, again, been almost a month. Like yesterday, I'm still at Winter Land. Woke up at 12:58 PM and went to bed at 4:04 AM.
Dec 24: Christmas Eve! I first checked the forums and E-mail as usual then ate watching TV. When done, I rechecked the forums, but suddenly, my computer hard froze. This occurred at 8:40 PM. For details on this, see news item #1 on the headlines. Without getting anywhere on why this happened, I took a shower an hour after and played Sonic doing you know what - the fox. I got bored of it and wanted to play the NES, but couldn't find the TV-connector cable for it. I tried the computer after a bit, but got nowhere. With nothing to do, I got into wrapping 4 gifts. This, thankfully, added more time, but when boredom is thrown in, tiredness settles in as well. I had a feeling it would happen and it may be until 2:00 PM that I open gifts. I'm still at Winter Land at 108% true speed. Woke up at 3:03 PM and went to bed at 4:06 AM (±5 minutes).
Dec 25: Yay, a dream! It's been a while since I recalled even one dream. The dream takes 3/5 of a page in detail. It's Christmas and the first thing I did after writing details on the dream, was open presents. I got 10 pairs of underwear, 3 shirts (one of which useless due to a big hole in it), and a 300-piece puzzle. I got a puzzle last year, but never bothered touching it (short of just moving the unopened box). This was due to negative motive and even to today, it's still negative. I don't know about the case with Visual Studio and with my computer still down, it's meaningless at the moment. When done, of which I got 4 photos of (2 actual, 2 retakes as backups), I went off to play Sonic. Nope, no fox went glugging along in the blue, but rather, I just messed around in Sandopolis Act 1. While my family had ham, mashed potatoes, and other things, I had my usual - pizza. The others had "poison" (red wine) to drink while I had my usual lemonades. They (sister unsure, except the food part) had their stuff while I was messing around in Sandopolis and using debug to cause massive falls. I ate shortly after. Mythbusters was on and showed a few episodes I've never seen before so I watched 5 or so hours' worth. I then got involved with FF1 and levelling up to level 48 with Gnoma reverting back to my previous save before the boss of the Terra cavern. I wanted to play FF2 again and I did, for the last 2 1/2 hours of the day. Yep, I'm already at the area with the warlock and ogre. I'm hoping I can get the Gamecube from my sister tomorrow for a few days. It appears as if I need to replace the CPU and this means a few more days without the computer. This has yet to be seen though if this really is the case. I wanna play Super Monkey Ball 2 though as well as Super Mario Sunshine. I also keep getting very vivid images of George Game 13 in my mind and it sometimes makes it tricky to concentrate. I've reached the end of Winter Land and again, I'm swapping songs. Woke up at 2:31 PM and went to bed at 6:03 AM.
Dec 27: Great! Another dream recalled, but one related to my current events with the computer. It was FF2 covering almost all day. I only briefly checked the forums on my dad's computer for replies. At the end of the day, I've got 3 characters with over 1000 HP (Maria is not over). I've been battling antlion, chimera, and sand ray. I didn't get the Gamecube as I was hoping for. I wanted to play Super Monkey Ball 2. I've got "Misty Bog" playing on my MP3 player, the level in the fourth world of the original Spyro. The speed ranges from 65 to 80% true speed. At about 1:55 AM (±3 minutes, I was hearing a very loud argument with some of the neighbors. See the headlines at news item #xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for more details on this. Woke up at 5:37 PM and went to bed at 6:58 AM.
Dec 28: Yay, a page full of details for a dream! Between TV (at first) and FF2, I didn't do much else. At first, it was TV for about 3 hours. A ate during the last 2 of this. From then on, it was FF2 with one odd exception. The exception was browsing Newegg on my dad's computer for a replacement CPU. The one I've got is nearly identical to the one I currently have. Nearly as in, the new one is 3.2 GHz instead of 3. The FSB (front side bus), L2 cache, general features (hyperthreading and 64-bit support), socket type, and even the box design are all the same as my current one. Now it's a week-long wait. This means it'll be 2007 in January before I can even start updating my website. I'll either have to post the updates for January leaving December with only daily entries or include events as they were in December or place a pointer to the headlines in January. This delay was not entirely intended. On Dec 24, I intended to process my experiment results, then reprocess some of my songs, supposedly including the updating of the "how I process my songs" document, then it would've been updating my website calling for an update during the end of December. As with FF2, everyone but Firion now have over 2000 HP. I've reached Mysidia to get the best weapon and armor available for a long while. I've been playing around with spells to increase each character's MP for usage of cure spells, which boosts HP (from all the enemy attacks), spirit (from occasional cure spells), intelligence (Firion and Gus were both down to just 1), and some others. I still haven't done anything with Semitt Falls, just 10 steps inside was as far as I got. I went in as I was after stronger enemies, but found them too weak. The enemies just due west where the forest meets up with the mountains was my training grounds for a bit. I'm still at Misty Bog on my MP3 player - from 60 to 70% true speed seems the best area with 2/3 being the current. Woke up at 6:25 and went to bed at 9:08 AM.
Dec 29: No dream this time. FF2 makes a huge chunk of the day. At first, however, it was 3 hours' TV, 2 of which from eating. From then on, it was FF2. Everyone is now over 4000 HP with only Mindu over 5000. Firion has just over 400 MP, Maria with around 330, Gus just below 300, and Mindu over 650 (and maxed cure). I got level 7 fire, ice, and bolt using the old-fashioned method. I made no progress with the story at all. Yep, nothing but battling enemies like werewolf, dark flan, ghost, gigan rhino, etc.. I'm still at Misty Bog on my MP3 player. Woke up at 8:25 PM and went to bed at 10:14 AM.
Dec 30: Eat and TV, FF2, grocery shopping, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Monkey Ball 2 make up the day. With FF2, I got Firion and Maria to over 5000 HP, Gus over 6000 and Mindu over 7000. Again, no progress with the story, but I spent a while levelling up holy, fire, ice, and bold to the maximum level 16. Once done, I focused on gaining HP. I took a shower so I could go grocery shopping. Along the way, a brief visit to my sister's area allowed me to get the Gamecube. I first played Super Mario Sunshine then Super Monkey Ball 2. After having been awake for 24 hours, it was the last thing. Woke up at 9:37 PM and went to bed at 8:30 PM.
Dec 31: It's the last day of 2006! As soon as I woke up, I played Super Monkey Ball 2 for about 2 hours then Super Mario Sunshine for 12 hours. It was cut short and suddenly due to mom wanting the whole family to play a game of Yahtzee. The box for it couldn't be found so we had to make up our own score cards and use the dice I've had for Hit-a-bump. I recalled almost all of the details. I wasn't sure of the score for the full house and the two straights, but was sure on how it worked. I knew there was a bnus when you reached a certain amount for the numeric scoring (the top part), but wasn't sure (it's around 60 with 99% certainty), but that's it. There were 2 games played. When done, I ate watching TV for 2 1/2 hours, but lots o' junk was on. Once done, I went straight back to Super Mario Sunshine and that lasted for the rest of the time I was awake. It's 2007 now! Another 31 1/2 million seconds later and it'll be year 2008. I was awake for about 27 hours, barely half of my record of 53 hours. Woke up at 6:33 AM and went to bed at 8:06 AM (+1 day).



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

Year 2011: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2012: 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
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


Footnotes:
None