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What have you been up to in June of 2006?


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

Jun 24, 2006



Jun 24, 2006: It may have been a month delay, but my 2D game is now on the verge of being released for sale, of which the game manual has been released to the public at last. The recent music-related record set just two months ago has been broken again - 41 days and still counting. Another music-related record has also been set and a new record high compatibility has been set as well. I got my first 24-bit WAV file as well. A new motherboard and video card is also coming. I might also be getting a forum. I've also passed the 400 dream count number.

#1 On the verge of release: My 2D game is now on the verge of being released for sale! On Jun 19, I released the game manual to the public for the first time. At the moment, I still have the EULA to write (end-user license agreement), filing a trade name registration, and other legal stuff. Then, after this, I then need to list the game on download.com and this takes a few days to do so. While this is in progress of being listed, I'll release the free edition. There are a few things that have been set for the 2.5 update, however. The game demo is one of them, as I can't seem to figure out how to script it yet. The save/load system is one thing that I currently don't have a solution for as both of my known methods have failed. The traffic is another one, of which I have yet to develop the system. I don't recall how the game was on the last update (May 23, 2006), but I know that I've added the hills, updated the mountains, rewrote the tutorial, updated the challenges, implemented all free edition limitations, redone the game manual, added a navigation enhancement to my menus, rewrote the entire details document about my 2D game, including having the updated screenshots, redesigned the special abilities fixing all known bugs along with it, even allowing for the ground fog's quality to be customized. In just one month, I've done all this. For further details and the updated screenshots, see the game's description document in category 9.
#2 The June 13, 2006 prediction: Since my prediction was for it being *on* June 13, 2006, and that not much otherwise happened besides intensive work on my 2D game, the prediction otherwise didn't come true, but I'd otherwise be a month off or so. Although I've been adding onto my month-long streak of listening to the same song record, I'm still adding onto it as of this update, but this isn't all that special.
#3 27 days? Try 41 (and still counting)!: Just two months ago, I went 27 days straight listening to the same song only changing the speed by changing the sample rate. Recently, this record has been extended and still being extended. If 27 days straight wasn't ridiculous enough, try 41 days, more than a month straight. Yet, I've still got juice for going even further than 41 days, possibly out to even 45 days.
#4 Same song, same speed, same EQ settings, 12 days straight: If 41 days straight for the same song isn't amazing enough, try having it as the same song, same speed, and same equalizer settings for 12 days straight. Yep, that's another record set, nearly twice that of my previous record set nearly 10 or 11 years ago of just 7 days. With three parts of the song spiking past 3000 times better than neutral, astromonically high, that helped considerably.
#5 3190 times better than neutral - an impressive new record: If you've ever played Final Fantasy 9 and listened to the battle music of normal enemies, you'll know the song Battle Zone. The song itself doesn't average much more than 700 times better than neutral, but, for 3 times, the highest spike of 3190 times better than neutral has been recorded. This part is where the quadruple whole note is during the very last 4 measures of the second part. The spike occurs during the first two measures of this part. In particular, it's beat 3 of measure 43, and beats 1 and 3 of measure 44 where the compatibility spikes past 3000, the first case holding the record. This is based on my MP3 player which seems to have a much better sound (40% better even) than on my computer. This screenshot shows the play counts and stuff as of this update. I took the screenshot the moment the spike at 3190 would occur. This version doesn't have the "intro" part, the part not included in the loop. The play count shown in the screenshot below is about 300 less than what it actually is (since the media library doesn't refresh upon use, only when Winamp is closed and reopened), thus add 300 to what is shown. Click the scaled-down image to view the full-size version:

Battle Zone (loopable) shows 15,926 plays and Battle Zone (enhanced), the 24-bit WAV file, shows 7270 plays; click to view full-sized version


#6 Where are my favorite drinks!?: Tropicana Sugar Free Lemonade - how hard is it to find!? Being twice as good as that of Minute Main Light Lemonade, I have a stronger preference for it. I've been waiting and looking around town whenever I go out for it for now over a half of a year and I haven't seen it since. I'm now so despirate for it, I'd almost literally buy 60 cases of it if it ever comes out again (that's 720 cans by the way, 5760 calories - enough to last almost an entire year). Tropicana only seems to have the sugary ones which not only tastes 5 times worse than Minute Maid Light Lemonade, it's got 150 calories per can (rather than just 8) cutting my motive further to 1/3 (thus 15 times less motive, only leaving 2 1/3 times over neutral versus 35 times the motive for Minute Maid Light Lemonade and 75 times the motive (the actual value) for Tropicana Sugar Free Lemonade). This is getting rather annoying to some extent.
#7 My first 24-bit WAV file: 90% of my songs are 8-bit, and all of the rest except one are 16-bit. The exception is my first 24-bit WAV file. Since my computer's version didn't sound anywhere near as good as my MP3 player did, I tried getting the sound from that of my MP3 player because the compatibility was so high. Since I discovered that the angle of which I listen to the song from (by rotating the speakers) seems to have a huge difference, I did several tests to ensure I got the most out of the best part and finally processed my first ever 24-bit WAV file. My X-Fi Platinum sound card made this possible as it supports recording at 24-bit.
#8 Now passing 400 dreams: So far, my prediction of 500 by the end of the year seems quite well on track at the rate it's going. I recalled another 18 dreams (high because of the large time gap between updates) with two cases of having recalled two dreams in one night. When summer arrived, the first day of summer, I ended up with two dreams recalled in one night, a rather weird case.
#9 Imagine a song 4 million times better than neutral: I've been wondering what it would be like to have a song whose compatibility is 4 million times better than neutral, over 2000 times better than Out Where the Lake Is. If you think 41 days straight is a lot, it's just a baby step if it was that high. 1 or 2 years straight would be managable with the upper limit beyond even 3 years. I'd unlikely change the speed or EQ settings for at least a month. I'd even skip over watching my favorite TV shows just to hear it and I'd do almost anything just to hear it, possibly not even being able to get to sleep at all. Even with the compatibility spiking at 3000, it was harder for me to get to sleep than normal, let alone being over 1000 times better. I got this idea when a very annoying advertisement came on whose compatibility is 1300 times worse than neutral and I was listening to the part where the spike gets as high as 3190 times better than neutral, a record high. Combined, the compatibility for the good song is just over 4 million times better than that of the ad. 3000 is high enough as it is, I already mute ads. 4 million would be so high, I'd even mute Out Where the Lake Is, even the favorite part of that song. Listening to the same song at the same speed and same EQ settings for a month straight is the easy part, simply switching songs is the hard part. With 5100 times worse than neutral being the worst on record, this has a range of nearly 16 million.
#10 New motherboard and video card coming: If you've been with my blog back in January or February of 2005, you'd likely know that I was after a new monitor and video card. I ended up getting Radeon 9600 XT. It was the fastest card I could find that could run on Windows 98 SE. Back then, I was actively using Windows 98 SE. It was a whole year later that I finally switched to Windows XP. It's now been about 17 months since that time and if you've been following along with my blog, you may have seen that I've been seeking after getting a new video card, but had a problem. First it was 98 - hardly any new hardware is compatible with it. Before I can officially switch, I had to get a CD burner, of which was important to backup. I got a DVD burner so I didn't have to go waisting a dozen disks for backups. Once I got that, it was a month's wait for my debit card's spending limit to reset so I could get Windows XP. Then, it was another 1 month wait. Next, since 512 MB memory was rather low for what I seem to do, I upgraded my memory to 1.5 GB (tripling it). After yet another 1 month wait, before I wanted to upgrade my motherboard to get PCI-express, I wanted a sound card so I got one. Waiting another month was needed, although I had to return the first sound card due to buggy drivers, of which added a few more days to the waiting time. Finally, I then got to the point where I upgraded my motherboard and video card. Since it was very hard to find a motherboard that had both AGP 8x and PCI-express, it seemed as if I had to get a video card along with it so I did. Yep, good thing I keep track of all these specifications to ensure compatibility. The video card I got this time was the Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT, which, supposedly, is about triple the speed of my current card (estimated - a benchmarking experiment will prove it). Earlier, I proved that I could get over 100,000 visible polygons on the view at once and get over 60 fps. With this card, I could get around 300,000 visible polygons at once and get 60 fps. Thus, theoretically, the city world in my 3D game, of which only has 60,000-some polygons, could run at 300 fps. The last thing on my list is the bigger monitor for at least 1920x1440 resolution. If I don't have to return it, I could have the card for another 2 or so years. The only downside (although not yet certain) is that I may not have a floppy drive any more. With CD's, I could just use them instead. I still have a few CD-R's available. Beyond the monitor, I don't have any further system upgrades, maybe getting better speakers, but they're quite cheap anyway.... A new printer isn't on my list quite yet - I almost never print.
#11 Fireworks central, again: Unlike last year where I couldn't light all of my fireworks (too many fuses in such short time), this year, although I'm expected to do almost the same, I'm focusing after a much smaller fuse count. Last year, if I recall correctly, I had over 1000 fuses and ended up with about 300 to spare. This year, rather than over 1000 fuses, I'm targetting no more than 600 maximum with 500 as the base. The exact plans have not yet been set, but I'll probably do something similar to last year.
#12 If only MED would get two needed features...: I just happened to have noticed that it's been about 9 months since I last had any progress with George Game 13. What's holding me back? Just one thing: MED. Although the public beta was released, it still didn't have two important features that I need. These two features are being able to set a scale for the UV map creations. Without this, I'm otherwise forced to take out calculator and start punching in numbers and I have 50 times worse than neutral motive to doing this, even for a simple thing like a ruler. This feature is of extremely high importance and otherwise can't do much other than simple things and planning without it. The second feature I need is for being able to set sizes for primitives on all 3 axes without the very confusing system used at the moment. This feature, however, is of medium-low importance and can otherwise do quite a bit without it. It's being able to set a scaling for the creation of a UV map that is the big thing. At the moment, it ends up getting stretched in nonuniform ways which causes the textures to look weird and distorted. Along with that, the textures always fill the entire texture area no matter how big or small the image or part being mapped is. The scale tool is extremely imprecise making it not worth having (and it causes textures to get misaligned). Until UV map scale feature is implemented, I'm otherwise going to have little or no progress on my 3D game. A second reason, besides the missing features, is my 2D game. It's otherwise simple in design and so close to finished that it, lately, has been taking higher priority. Along with that, I don't have serious annoyances or limits (besides the range and accuracy of the var) which further adds to the motive. Now being on the verge of release for sale (see news item #1 above for details), it has extremely high priority.
#13 Ulillillia getting a forum?: The last time I had a forum was clear back in 2003 on version 3.x on my site. That was such a long time ago. Back then, I had very few visitors. I still get very few to today. If I get so little traffic, then why bother having a forum you may ask? Compare E-mail to a forum for support for my 2D game. With E-mail, the responses are slower, often taking at least a day, even two days at the far end. Sending E-mail provides a minor disadvantage as well as, for one, if a certain piece of information required is not included, I may not be able to help as well and it could end up in a longer delay for a response. To fix this means having to use a form, but since I don't know any webscripting (just plain ol' HTML, of which a form cannot work on alone), this is questioned and you're still faced with the 1 to 2-day delay for a response. Now, for a forum, there are other advantages and disadvantages as well. First, the responses can be obtained in the matter of minutes for basic stuff and often only a few hours for the less common stuff. Part of this comes from other users being able to help. The main disadvantage is that registration is almost always required. For tech support stuff, I may allow the option to only post new threads. Plus, managing bug reports, suggestions, troubleshooting issues not otherwise mentioned in the manual or description page, or tracking warez users becomes a lot easier to do. Another disadvantage is that at the time I first installed the forums, it took close to a week just to finally figure out how to install it. One case I recall that took at least 3 days to resolve - what's a database? Installation, however, is a one-time-thing only thus, once it's done, I don't have to do it again. Also, forums tend to be a bigger bandwidth hog than a basic form, but since I have 150 GB per month bandwidth, less than 1/2% of my site's overall usage, it's not much of a concern. Both methods seem to be quite equal. It's the speed and increased flexibility that really matters.



Daily Events



Jun 1: That's one more dream recalled. Layer 7 is done. I fixed the space effect as well. For total darkness, pass 500,000 feet, 10 2/3 times higher than the absolute highest possible. I spent too much time on the forums thus didn't get as much done. I finished 3/4 of layer 6 though. This is still one whole layer for the day. Considering I fixed the space effect and tested it, I still made considerable progress. Layers 5 and closer (to layer 1) will be faster because they're shorter and the only thing they have is a solid grass texture with the lighting and fog. It takes 6 minutes for the hill's shape, 1 minute for the grass and fog, and 3 minutes for the lighting - 10 minutes per hill. While in bed, throwing numbers around in my mind, I thought of a possible way to doing the shape part up to 3 times as fast, theoretically, about 50% faster on average. At this speed, I could be done with the next two or three layers by tomorrow where I could even finish the day after. I then thought of a more streamlined approach to doing it taking another 5 seconds off for each hill (and for 40 hills, that's a whole 3 minutes). I'm still going at Battle Zone at the same speed and same EQ settings. That, what, ties the 11-year-old record? Out comes my log.... With the way things are, I should actually finish before Jun 13. The only scenery left is the traffic, of which I don't have shortcuts for. Layers 3 through 12 for the clouds need to be redone, but I'll likely do them in a future update as it has moderarely-low priority (a 3 from 0 to 8). The traffic has a 7 (very high) for the priority. The tutorial has a 7, challenges have an 8 (highest priority), game manual has a 7. Woke up at 2:47 AM and went to bed at 5:44 PM (±2 minutes).
Jun 2: No dream recalled this time. I tested my new shortcut and found that it's about 50% faster doing the last 4 hills in only 30 minutes. Attaching double the motive to the mix, I should be done by tomorrow. The traffic was also a little smaller than I first thought. It's not 90 pixels high for an 18-wheeler but more like 56 pixels. The far end barely reaches 16 pixels. Layer 5 was done at 2:10 PM and layer 4 was done at 6:55 PM. Even with an hour's worth of using the forums and playing around, I spent 3 1/3 hours total doing the fourth layer. At the end, I watched Discoveries This Week as I almost always do. I went to bed right after. It's also the weekend and since I'm on the day shift, the last thing I need is being forced to do housework - it's a waste of my time. Without having to do it, I should finish all 8 layers of hills. Just ten days remain! The tutorial and challenges update should take one day. Fixing up the free edition limitations should take another day. Again, it's the same song, at the same speed, with the same EQ settings. I have now officially broken the 11-year-old record. The version on my MP3 player is 30% better. Two instances spike above 3000 times better than neutral, astronomically high. For more details on these huge spikes, which already set a record, see news item #6. Woke up at 4:36 AM and went to bed at 8:01 PM.
Jun 3: Another dream was recalled, but not a good one. First I cleaned out the forums then took a shower. Once done, I tried X-Fi's audio creation mode to test record. I then left to go do various things. First it was going to Menard's to get sandpaper, a sanding block, and 20 cases of popices due to a major sale. With that, then my dad did a small paint job with sanding prior to painting. Since I figured it'll take a while, I brought along paper so I can plan things out for my 2D game. The plan for the demo is done but needs finalization. From leaving at 9:05 AM (±2 minutes), I finally left to end up having to wait yet again at Wal-mart. Think being out in the car when it's 85°F outside is bad? If only Wal-mart didn't put up all those mirrors blocking 99% of my access to the store, I wouldn't be left outside in the car whether it's -10°F outside or 90°F outside. Next was the grocery store round 1. I got a few drinks but since they otherwise lacked pizzas, I ended up having to go to another store to get them. I picked up Domino's again. I got home again at 1:00 PM (±5 minutes) and began putting stuff away. I ate then tried cropping my recorded thing earlier. I saved the file but Winamp wouldn't play it while other programs could. I used the Winamp forums to submit a bug report. Someone else couldn't confirm it. The one who tried gave suggestions - none of which worked. I then recalled a similar behavior when this happened - the "%1" in the filetypes settings. Although it was there, I forgot to include the quotes around it. It didn't sound anywhere near as good so I otherwise rejected it. While browsing the forums, I got started on hills layer 3. A severe thunderstorm struck which had heavy rain and 60+ mph winds. At one point, the radar returned 6 levels of red (having the first of the violet colors). It got to about 90°F today as well. Woke up at 6:23 AM and went to bed at 9:06 PM (±2 minutes).
Jun 4: I woke up with a bad stomach ache (diahrea (sp.?)). When I woke up, I began cleaning out the forums and checking my E-mail. I then ate the rest of my pizza then began working on my 2D game. I've pondered what it would be like for something to be a million times better than neutral. For details on this, see news item #9. By the end of the day, hills layer 3 and layer 2 were completed in full. Layer 1, the last one, has the shapes of 16 hills done. I've done 16 hills out of an estimated 53. That may seem like a lot, but they're small so they get done very quickly, a hill every 3 minutes or so. Layer 2 had 40 hills and layer 3 had 29. Layer 8 had just 11 but they were much bigger. Anyway, I'm still at the same song at the same speed with the same EQ settings - now two full days past the record. I'm now getting bored of the speed on my computer but not my MP3 player which sounds 40% better on average and 50% better for the best part. Aside from two brief moments of having to do the construction housework, working with some contact cement. I did spend some time on the forums, but otherwise didn't watch TV at all. I still have a lot to do yet. Woke up at 7:26 AM and went to bed at 10:46 PM.
Jun 5: Yes! Another dream recalled, a weird one of moderate detail. All hills are done. I got started on fixing three bugs that would cause the challenges to not work out right. The bug with not being able to glide at 800 mph has been fixed. The bug with no change in height for one frame after just using the fall-glide or glide has been fixed. I then ran across a bug with the walking while fixing this. The character always seems to want to go to the left. The character doesn't even move in mid-air without gliding. I tried 8 or so various methods, all of which have the same thing or even worse. It happens even when no key is pressed when, instead, you'd slow down. I first ate then went on the forums doing my usual daily routine. Once done, I then began processing the last layer of hills. I finished all 56 of them at 6:30 PM. I then went out to mow the grass due to my annoying parents. When I was done, I began working on the challenges first finding the absolute highest you could go. I then began restructuring the game mechanics code which seemed to be the only solution to fixing the two bugs I've known about for some time. I went along and fixed some of the bugs until I ran across an odd behavior where the character was endlessly stopping, even at 0 mph. This was a very stubborn bug. Woke up at 9:52 AM and went to bed at 1:13 AM.
Jun 6: Got another dream added to the list. I first ate then did my usual routine - cleaning out the forums, checking my E-mail, etc.. Once done, I tackled the movement bug. It took another 90 minutes to get it working and this fix was nothing more than adding ten rather simples lines from two if statements to the code. I then had other ability-related bugs to fix but all others put together doesn't take as much as the walking/running bug did, barely even 75% of the total time. Once fixed and tested, I went on to updating the challenges. While testing, I added two new features - best scores per challenge, per difficulty and challenge play counts per challenge, per difficulty. I found one other bug I didn't detect earlier with the challenges. The free edition limitations for the special abilities have also been implemented, but not yet tested. The free edition limitations for the challenges have been implemented, but not tested. I've processed 5 out of the 8 challenges, all in full edition mode. I also tested the menus in the free edition mode as well, of which I didn't do earlier. The only thing left was the snapping of speeds and heights (and scaling). It may seem slower, but I'm doing many things at once in parts and pieces and it all does add up. The save/load system's plans have been set and finalized as well. I'm on a roll! Completion by Jun 10 seems feasible. I have the other three challenges left, some of which require a spreadsheet for test results. I'm still going at the same song at the same speed with the same EQ settings, now 3 days past the record finally with a strong sign of getting bored of it on the less-liked computer version. I'm still strong at it with my MP3 player's version though - it's 40% better. The highest spike so far on my MP3 player is 3175. It barely manages to peak at 2000 on my computer. I'm very likely to change speeds on my computer tomorrow. It's unlikely within 5 days on my MP3 player. Woke up at 10:55 AM and went to bed at 2:53 AM (±1 minute).
Jun 7: The bulk of the day was spent doing the 2D game's challenges. The sixth challenge went okay but number 7 took much longer (over 6 hours) due to making two big mistakes on the charts. The first was that I used the wrong method. This alone costed 2 hours' time. Then, the second mistake was that my data didn't match what I was getting and couldn't match it. This took away another hour. I did finish the seventh challenge, however. The eighth challenge is prepared, but needs to be tested. Then, I need to test normal mode rather than practice mode to see if it behaves as expected. Then, testing in free edition mode follows. Once that is done, I'm off to the tutorial, an easier one. As far as the song goes, 90 more minutes was all I could stand (about 50 more loops). After changing the speed a few times, I settled on 68% true speed. The speed on my MP3 player, however, changed to 62 1/2% true speed, a difference that is very slight. However, the record of listening to the same song is still going and don't have much more to go before setting this record. The highest compatibility spikes is now at 3190 times better than neutral, astronomically high. At that high value, 20,000 loops is no big deal and 50,000 would be the upper limit, a good 5% of the total loops of Out Where the Lake Is, of which as from 900,000 to 1,200,000 lifetime plays. See news item #6 for more details on this record-setting spike. Woke up at 12:48 PM and went to bed at 4:45 AM (±1 minute).
Jun 9: Challenges - done! Free edition ability limitations - done! Free edition menu configuration stuff - done! What progress! I even got a start on the manual. Then, on top of all this, I even got a head start on the document containing more details about the game, of which a considerable chunk needs to be redone. A big chunk of the day, about 3 to 4 hours, was spent cropping photos of cars for someone's site. I took longer to do the challenges than I thought, a whole day and a half longer. I'm still at Battle Zone. Woke up at 2:52 PM and went to bed at 9:13 AM.
Jun 10: 7 lessons of the tutorial are done. I found some bugs as well that slew me down. I also recorded a specialized version of Battle Zone (from my MP3 player) and is now my first ever 24-bit WAV file. The recorded version sounds 30% better than the original on my computer. I even tested methods to filter out the noise. The combination of a box, soft blankets, and lots of distance cut the noise to something that barely even registers, from 0.018 to just 0.004 in Audacity, an impressive 78% reduction. 1 represents the maximum possible intensity. For more details on my first 24-bit WAV file, see news item #7. You guessed it, I'm still listening to Battle Zone racking up thousands more plays.... Three days left! Woke up at 5:28 PM and went to bed at 7:56 AM (±1 minute).
Jun 11: Yeehah! Two dreams recalled in one night! The tutorial now has a done stamp on it. I tried getting a start on the demo, but couldn't figure out just how to do it. I can envision it quite well, just not the behavior. I have yet to establish a system. I've got part of it. I just need to figure out how to get movements chosen and used. I also got the article on Gamestudio's wiki updated, which has updated screenshots (and tons of done stamps on almost every feature). All special abilities and special effects have done stamps. All but one item in a third category have a done stamp. The free edition limitations have not yet been implemented thus the reason. The ground fog and menus don't either. I'm just cruisin' along! The manual, demo, last few free edition limitations, save/load system, licensing stuff, game title, logo, and description page remain. Woke up at 6:14 PM and went to bed at 9:17 AM.
Jun 12: Another dream recalled - I should easily have 400 by now. Just 1 day remains! Done stamp on the document (rewrote), outside the screenshots. I also got a good start on the game manual as well. I still have quite a bit to do tomorrow - I'll go at it all day tomorrow. I've still got a lot left that it seems unlikely I'll finish on June 13. I'm still going at Battle Zone. How many days was that? 28? I'm pretty sure I've set the record now. Woke up at 8:40 PM and went to bed at 12:21 PM.
Jun 13: Today's that day I predicted ten years ago! The manual is nearly done. The game title is done. The logo is also done. I also looked into download.com to see if they are worthy. Everything looks good except for one thing - business. I don't have a business. I searched the FAQ and stuff for things related to not having a business but there was nothing relevant about it. After searching and getting nowhere, I sent an E-mail to them asking about it. 105% true speed seems to be the best on my computer. The best spikes barely manage 2500, still 30% less than that of my MP3 player, but it's still a 25% improvement. I also took a shower at the end of the day - annoying parents. Woke up at 9:02 PM and went to bed at 4:33 PM.
Jun 14: More done stamps, this time on the on-screen data. The last free edition limitation, the ground fog, has been almost completed. It's 80% done - just a few bits of scripting remain and then testing it. That to-do list just keeps getting shorter. It's been almost a month since I last updated my website. I now have 25 pages (13 pieces of paper) in details and still counting. If only I could get all this done. I haven't gotten a response yet about the business required issue on download.com. I started off with about 2 to 3 hours of TV then cleaning out the forums doing my usual daily routine. Woke up at 1:44 AM and went to bed at 8:31 PM.
Jun 15: A school or fun dream was recalled with 2/5 of a page in detail, rather low. Still no response from download.com. The ground fog system now has a done stamp on it. This, in turn, puts a done stamp on the free edition limitations as well. I got a start with the save/load system, but ran into two problems. First, it's very confusing to implement dropping my motive way down. I thought of 3 or 4 different variants of the same method. Along with being hot and sweating during the last 7 hours (it got up to 90°F in my room, of which I couldn't otherwise explain, given that it never got close to that high outside) which made it hard to focus and concentrate. Near the end of the day, I tested the last thought of my design for the system, but the heat made me tired - barely being able to write my log notes for the day. I found a stubborn bug that took 80 minutes to figure out as well. 106% true speed for Battle Zone (and my first 24-bit WAV file) on my computer is very good. Woke up at 7:03 AM and went to bed at 7:58 PM.
Jun 16: A dream was recalled taking a whole page in detail. Manual - done! I tried further with the save/load system and ran into two critical problems running out of ideas otherwise. My old system, of which used file_var_write, doesn't even work right. I set something as 2.4, as an example, of which is treated as 2.3994140625 in the engine, but it gets saved as 2.399 without the other important stuff after it. When this opens, and the file is then reopened, it is opened as 2.3984375 causing the game to stop working altogether making this method useless. Since that was almost certainly out of the question, I looked toward other methods and game_save stuck out. So, I played around with it and again, I run into a big problem. With game_save, it will save everything which won't work or nothing at all. It doesn't even allow for a custom file extention either, of which isn't important. Having it save everything is not allowed in the free edition so for now, I'm otherwise forced to drop this very important feature since I'm out of ideas. I didn't get anywhere with the forums trying to help, and with the motive set in the future plans page at 700, there's over a 99.9% chance I'll implement this feature. If I don't have a solution, I may have to end up waiting for Lite-C to be released, of which will solve several other issues I have such as the complex algorithms I'm otherwise required to use. Boy do I hate the var's range and accuracy - it causes a lot of problems. Anyway, I still haven't gotten a response from download.com yet and since it's the weekend, it's a further 2-day delay. Yes, I hate weekends - they often screw me up. 5 hours of the day were spent on the manual - got updated screenshots and made a few other modifications. I spent an additional hour trying the save/load system, but everything I've tried failed either due to a fault with Gamestudio or a limitation of Gamestudio. Near the end, I worked on the main description document for the game, of which is so big, it should be split into multiple pages, of which I need to finish. After that are the screenshots and then the done stamp on that. Woke up at 5:26 AM and went to bed at 10:15 PM (±3 minutes).
Jun 17: That's the fourth dream in a row recalled, again taking a whole page in detail. I still can't get the save/load system to work. File_var_write is definitely buggy (and insecure as well). I'm completely out of options for it other than waiting weeks, if not months, for the ever-more-needed Lite-C to come, of which will solve many problems and open up the possibility of new features. I guess I'm going to have to put the save/load system on the future plans list with note 3 assigned to it - I have no other choice at the moment. I've nearly finished the document containing more details about the game. The future features and support sections are still left. A big chunk of the day was spent on the forums. I'm now seemingly losing my motive to development. It also seems that I need to file a DBA as well (doing business as). Ever since I got the specialized version of Battle Zone, of which is nothing more than an EQ-enhanced version, I've already racked up just over 5000 plays. I got Domino's again, of which was rather unexpected as my parents wanted pizza and when I heard about it, I wanted it as well since they were already going out. I didn't, however, go. Woke up at 8:59 AM and went to bed at 10:45 PM (±2 minutes).
Jun 18: No dream recalled this time. I first ate my pizza some then took a shower. Since the window was opened and I couldn't directly close it due to the mirror blocking it, I tried getting my parents to. They were outside out of reach of my yelling so I ended up taking a big, heavy bord and using it to whack the handle from quite a distance to slowly close it, of which took a whole 4 1/2 minutes to do. Longer because I have bad aim. I only use this method if I have no other way of doing it, usually my parents. After this, I went out. First it was waiting to get a house's door up and for painting. During this time, someone I met when I was at the least-liked school of all schools I've been to (Central Campus) came over. This lasted for 5 hours. I finally was able to go to the grocery store as I originally wanted. Again, for now about 7 months, two grocery stores in town didn't have my top favorite lemonade. See news item #6 for further details on what this is. Also, Blue Bunny ice cream wasn't available in either of the two stores I went to. Both of which had nothing more than an 8-cubic foot area of space available with Blue Bunny products. Out of about 700 cubic feet of freezer space for *both* stores I went to, just 8 cubic feet was devoted to Blue Bunny products. They were both otherwise empty as well. Because Blue Bunny icecream wasn't in one grocery store, we stopped at a second, of which, too didn't have it and had the same scenario. I got back home again, ate again, watched "Robosapien", cleaned out the forums, and made a few changes to the document containing further details about the future features. All that's left is the support area (I need a script to get the form to actually work), the how to buy section, and saving the screenshots into PNG files from the BMP files already taken. Woke up at 9:29 AM and went to bed at 11:59 PM.
Jun 19: Another dream recalled, a school-related one. The document for further details about the game as well as the game manual have been released to the public. I fixed the bugs present as well. At the start, I first ate then cleaned out the forums. I began reorganizing the FAQ section for the description document. At 2:00 PM, I got involved with having to plant four rose bushes. I dug four holes and began placing one of the four plants in the ground. This went on for 2 2/3 hours. I then watched "The World's Worst Drivers". There was nothing else on after that so I finished up the document while waiting for anything new on the forums. I uploaded it and tested it. I'm still going at Battle Zone, but now I'm finally getting signs of getting bored of it, at least the particular speed on my computer anyway. Woke up at 11:09 AM and went to bed at 1:54 AM.
Jun 20: No dream recalled this time. Just as I nearly finished filling out the form to file the trade name assignment, I had a sneaky feeling that I wasn't using the right form. I found out on the forums that I was indeed using the wrong form. Not the one for "assignment" (as I'm, after all, assigning a trade name to my name), but for "registration", of which have otherwise the same meaning. The one with "assignment" looked cleaner and otherwise had a slightly better format so I ended up using that one. Along with that, the two forms were nearly identical to each other, just that a single question has been replaced by something else and the others are mixed up a little. I got a start on updating my website. The major known headlines plus a few others of lower importance have been added. 6 of about 15 dreams have been added as well. Other than that, I haven't done any further website updates. I also ordered a new motherboard with PCI-express and a new video card along with it. Rather than Radeon 9600 XT, I'm now getting Nvidia's GeForce 7600 GT. This will likely last a rather long time and hopefully MED will get the two features I need so I can begin working on my 3D game (George Game 13, of which I haven't worked on for almost 2/3 of a year by now) again. I'm still going at Battle Zone. I still can't think of a method for the save/load system to get it to work. Woke up at 12:18 PM and went to bed at 2:22 AM.
Jun 21: I woke up at 8:39 AM with a nosebleed (stupid nose!) plus a circus-related dream with the scenery recalled remarkably well. When I officially woke up, I recalled another dream making it two dreams recalled in one night. All but the two newest dreams have been added as well. 3 maps have also been created. I still have the daily entries left, a whole month's worth. If I get a dream during the night, I'd have 410 dreams in all. 400 was reached by Jun 6 (9?). I'm still going with Battle Zone. How many days has it been? 33? I lost track.... When I do the daily entries, I'll then know. I'm extremely certain (98%) that my old record (and set just two months ago) has been broken. I'm back at 60% true speed on my MP3 player, of which is where the 3190 spike occurs. The best spike on my computer is only around 2350. I did watch quite a bit of TV, however, about 4 hours' worth. Woke up at 1:09 PM and went to bed at 4:50 AM.
Jun 22: Wouldn't you know it? Another dream was recalled! All May daily entires are done with the June daily entries started. All of my dreams have been added, a whole 18 of them. That's about 1.7 days per dreams at an average, more than needed to meet 500 by the end of the year. If I recall another overnight (or even the rare case of 2), it'd be a fairly big change. I'm still going at Battle Zone and when I used the find feature in Wordpad, I found that I started Battle Zone quite a bit earlier than expected. I was shocked when I realized it was 40 days straight! I thought I'd have 36 by the time my website got updated. Since the last update of May 23, I went on for over a month without changing the song. Ever since I got that 24-bit WAV file (EQ-enhanced), I've already racked up 7000 plays on it. It's that huge spike that does it. 3190 times better than neutral is 991.15 (±0.05) for the compatibility, after solving an equation. Just imagine if it was a million. 40 days is only a brief start, very brief. I could likely go ten times longer than that easily. Tomorrow, I finish the update to my website. I finished filling out the form for the trade name registration, but encountered a problem - no envelopes and no valid stamps. Not valid as in I only have a single 37¢ stamp when I need 39¢. It doesn't help if I don't have an envelope either.... Woke up at 3:16 PM and went to bed at 6:17 AM.
Jun 24: No dream recalled this time. My website was also updated after a whole month's worth of details. After updating, I processed a sampler version of Battle Zone using the top favorite area. With it, I could repeat this dozens of times to pinpoint the more precie point where the highest spike occurs. For 60% true speed, from the exact rear of the speakers, the "sweet spot" is 115° clockwise (by looking down) and from exactly level, it's 55° down. This is where the spike at 3190 occurred. I got several 3180's and a 3170's, but only one 3190 out of about 30 loops. I still wonder how I can get that 3200 mark. Anyway, I got a small bit onward with the 2D game, trying to do the EULA. The last thing is the key file, of which I'm not sure on how to exactly do it yet. I have two methods for it, but the generation of it is unknown. One is two different EXE's, and the other is having a key file. The key file method allows for faster upgrading (2 KB download instead of something like 4 MB), it'll allow for discounted upgrades, but would require saving the file to the hard drive in the same folder the game is downloaded to. Besides the usual daily stuff, and this, not much else happened. I'm now at 42 days with Battle Zone and still going. Woke up at 5:09 PM and went to bed at 8:41 AM (±2 minutes).
Jun 25: Boohoo! No dream recalled again. I started cleaning out the forums then storms struck making me have to get off the computer. I ate during this time and continued watching TV a little after then returned to the forums. When done, I thought of redoing that benchmarking experiment. Because I'll be getting my new motherboard and video card, I wanted to compare the two. Rather than all the numbers being put on paper and stuff, why not automate it and practice scripting more? 10 minutes for two tests is much better than 4 to 5 hours! Others could also see the test results to help with their projects giving an added bonus. Yet, I also discovered a bug with Gamestudio's kilopolygons per second stat, of which I used earlier. For more details, see news item #3 in the July 2006 blog. With my new video card, I could have even double the current value, maybe even triple. I'm still going at Battle Zone. 9 days to go before my top favorite holiday, July 4 (Independence Day). Still no envelopes or stamps yet, however. Woke up at 6:35 PM and went to bed at 10:14 AM.
Jun 26: There's dream number 411 recalled. I still don't have stamps, but got the envelopes, of which isn't enough. I'm still going at Battle Zone, now about ready to change speeds. 44 days and still going. The new motherboard and video card arrived today as well. At first it was about 4 hours of TV, during which I ate. At one point, absolutely nothing was on of any considerable interest and was left with neutral-rated things. One of which happened to be "Yearbook" on the Discovery Times Channel. Having moderately liked the style/format (3.6 times better than neutral), I watched a second round of it. It covered 1978 and 1988. I then cleaned out the forums and otherwise did my usual daily routine. From there, I tried troubleshooting a strange issue with the benchmarking program someone else had. I couldn't explain it. It seemed like Molebox was the culprit, but couldn't be entirely confirmed. Afterwards, I enhanced the benchmarking tool to add new features. I was nearly done until video_set was not working at all. I only found one other bug. I think I may have found an alternative to getting the save/load system to work. I have yet to test it. I otherwise don't recall anything else. Woke up at 8:55 PM and went to bed at 12:22 PM (±2 minutes).
Jun 27: Yes! That's number 412 recalled! Several things happened. At first, it was eating and watching TV. Next it was cleaning out the forums and my other daily routine stuff. I then modified and enhanced the benchmarking program and released the update. Then it was running backup and stuff. While doing so, since it would take a few hours, I took out the Sega Genesis and started throwing the fox in the blue water to drown, jump into spikes, walk over cliffs into a bottomless bit, and other things I've always loved doing with the fox. For details on the new motherboard installation stuff, see news item #2 on the July 2006 blog. I soon ran into a problem that prevented me from continuing and since I was getting tired, I had to go to bed. Sometimes, I wished I never had to go to sleep. Since I'll be waking up around 1-something AM, and that I need help from my dad on the screws issue, I may have to wait longer. Hopefully I sleep longer than normal to minimize this. Now that I had stamps and envelopes, I finally mailed that form. I just need to wait xxx days for it to be delivered and processed. I'm still going at Battle Zone. How much longer is it going to be!? Woke up at 11:01 PM and went to bed at 2:55 PM.
Jun 28: Boo! No dream this time. The day comprises of three things. One is drowning the fox on Sonic 3 & Knuckles while waiting for formats and program installations. The second was nearly 4 hours of figuring out how to install hardware and the motherboard. I did 95% of it on my own. The third part was installing software programs, even XP. The third part I'm very used to doing. I still have a few other configurations to set up, but the main part is done. A small fourth part is eating and watching TV. This included something about whether or not Pluto is a planet. See news item #8 on the July 2006 blog for more details on my thoughts on this. I have yet to do my benchmarking test with my new video card. Before, it was 19.2 million polygons per second on a good run as the peak. I wonder if I'll break the 60 million mark.... Woke up at 1:47 AM and went to bed at 7:41 PM (±2 minutes).
Jun 29: No dream recalled again. I first ate. The weather forecast showed 91°F as the high. I findally found a solution to the save/load system for my 2D game. For an hour, I worked on it. So far, the file header data, high scores and player positions are done in terms of saving. Loading is otherwise the same, only in reverse. The system is much better in design, no where near as frustrating, as the old system, and it solves both issues I had. Unlike file_var_write, of which is buggy, the new system otherwise has no Gamestudio-related bug. Unlike game_save, of which is either all or nothing and doesn't allow for custom file extentions, full customizability is available. With the motive at 700 for implementing this feature into the game, I'm pretty much 100% certain I'll do it if nothing prevents me from doing it (as with file_var_write that did). An additional advantage is that the file size is even smaller than I expected, even with those several hundred vars being set, the bulk of it has lots of repetition and patterns so I could use loops to bulk set array values. Setting 100 vars for the clouds takes half that in lines of code. I finally switched songs as well. First it was the 1up sound effect from Sonic 3, but got bored of it in an hour so I went to Sonic 3's invincibility music. My MP3 player still plays Battle Zone, however, but the record has been set now at a monster 46 days, 1 1/2 months. That's about 70% longer than my previous record of 27 days! When I ran the benchmark tester program using the same settings, I'm getting a peak of 23.5 million polygons per second instead of 19.2 million. That wasn't as good as I was hoping for, but it's considerably better. GIMP also crashed on me every time I used text. GTK 2.8.18 is the suspect (and likely unstable). So, off I go again with the old GTK, 2.6.10, the one for Windows 98 SE (oddly enough, it's the most stable). From testing stuff for Bugzilla, I soon ended up with 8 instances of script-fu.exe running. I wonder why GIMP doesn't bother checking to see if a previous instance of script-fu.exe is running? It just loads another instance. During 2:00 PM, for 40 minutes, I made measurements to try and find out the area of the living room. Because a monster special was going on (half off for flooring), my parents wanted to know this. But, due to the odd shape with all sorts of odd angles and things, I needed to use my math skills to find the area. I got 281.32 square feet as my result with a 1% margin of error on that. Thankfully there weren't any curves (but then again, area of a circle comes in handy). Woke up at 4:35 AM and went to bed at 8:31 PM (±1 minute).
Jun 30: Again, no dream recalled. A supersevere storm occurred near Dickenson maxing out on Doppler radar (75 dBZ, according to wunderground.com). It even returned the second level violet on the local TV station's radar. 4 parts of the save/load system are now done with panel visibility as a tricky one to figure out. I, around 6:20 PM, mowed the grass due to nagging parents. Next is July, another high-luck month. I'm also getting extremely close to a well-needed feature in MED, through a plug-in. With it, it scales a texture mapping to keep consistancy, an exact texture scale, and is faster for me to work with. It's not possible with the way MED is at the moment. To do anything outside very simple objects, I need this feature. For more details, see news item #5 on the July 2006 blog. While mowing the grass, the mower just suddenly stalled when running fine otherwise and it wouldn't restart. I first thought it was out of gas, even though it was still 3/4 inch deep of the 3-inch deep-tank. Filling it up again didn't help. The cause was a hose connecting to a spark plug - it wasn't connected for some reason. It took ten pullsto get mower running again, of which worked fine afterwards. I also made a sample image for listing the benchmark tester program on the downloads page of Gamestudio's main website. This took about 2 hours where I created various random charts and graphs, typical things when analyzing test results. This took two hours. I otherwise don't recall anything else happening. Woke up at 5:42 AM and went to bed at 9:42 PM.



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

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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