I can’t focus on the lecture at all. The professor’s talking about switches and transistors. My notes are open, but I don’t know what to write down so I’ve written nothing. Twenty-three more minutes.
Author Archives: TheUser
Video Games in Public
SelectButton had a thread about playing games in public, and I thought it was interesting. It was about feeling embarrassed or enjoying it, seeing other people playing, meeting new people, etc.
Original thread
I play both my DS and PSP in classes all the time. It depends on the class, but in a lot of classes I can pay attention and play at the same time pretty easily. Games that you can put down at any moment are the best to play.
While my girlfriend was at a salon recently some kid seemed really excited that my PSP was metallic blue and that I was playing sideways. I was playing Star Soldier.
In general, I feel fine playing on campus but awkward playing anywhere else. Also, I think playing the PSP is less embarrassing than the DS, although I still play the DS more.
One time I stood outside a GameStop using my DS for over a half hour. They were giving away Deoxys. I couldn’t find my copy of Pearl so I filled my R4 with about 20 copies so I could get a bunch of them. It took a long time to do that for every copy.
Two years ago at Anime Expo we had a lot of great Tetris DS matches. It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had gaming. We also did a lot of Pictochatting during AX Idol that year. Last year no one was really playing Tetris. I only managed to find one person with The World Ends With You, but I eventually realized that I was playing the European version, which was why I couldn’t find more people. We Pictochatted during AX Idol again, but it wasn’t as fun. Maybe it was because the people were actually good. Someone did draw a pretty hilarious picture of this really talented black guy with an odd, short, pointed mohawk singing “Rain” from Cowboy Bebop. I also played Elite Beat Agents with my girlfriend and some guy behind me in line while waiting for David Hayter’s (voice of Snake) autograph.
New Computer
I bought a new computer. The parts came in Monday, but it’s not working yet. Whenever I install the video drivers and reboot, Windows hangs while loading. I have to use Last Known Good Configuration to get it to boot again. I’ve tried a bunch of different drivers, and none works. I think the video card could be bad. Sometimes when I boot, I don’t get any video output. I have to unplug the power from the video card and reseat it. Nine times out of ten that doesn’t fix it though. At this point I can’t tell if it really does fix it the other time or if it’s just me trying repeatedly. I get beep codes on boot too but haven’t looked into them too much.
I was also wondering if it was an issue with everything being 64-bit. Despite everything supposedly being compatible, I know 64-bit is relatively new. On top of that, Vista 64-bit is more supported than XP 64-bit. The drivers are for XP x64, but I thought I’d try XP 32-bit or Vista 64-bit.
My only XP CD was old and bad so I asked Collin to burn my legitimate XP Pro with SP2. He said it asked him if he wanted to correct the size of the burn because the disc size was unequal to the image size. He apparently said no to this. The disc didn’t work. It couldn’t find a file on the disc. I burned the same image on gem’s computer and got the same error when I attempted to use it, but the burn also failed verification. Some people on forums had the same error because their discs or drives were dirty, but my drive is brand new and seems to work otherwise (it installed XP x64) and the discs look good.
Next I downloaded Vista Business 64-bit and burned it. It didn’t pass verification either and won’t work at all. No computer can even recognize it.
Eventually, I’ll get another OS on there with which to test the card. If it works, then I know it’s a software issue. If it doesn’t work, it’s most likely a hardware issue and I’ll try the card in another computer. My hardware is after the break.
MSI P45 Neo-F motherboard for LGA 775 Quad-core / Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Duo / Pentium CPUs. FSB 1600/1333 MHz. Intel P45 north bridge and Intel ICH10 south bridge. 4x240pin DDR2 1066 slots (max 16 GB). 1 PCI Express 2.0×16 slot, 2 PCI Express x1 slots, 3 PCI slots. 6 3 Gb/s SATA connections. 8 channel Realtek ALC888 audio. Gigabit LAN. 2 PS/2, 1 COM, 1 LPT, 4 USB 2 rear ports. 4 onboard USB.
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale CPU Dual-Core at 2.53 GHz and 1066 MHz FSM. 3 MB L2 cache, 64 bit support.
4 GB (2x2GB sticks) OCZ Platinum 240pin DDR2 1066 memory. 5-5-5-18 timing.
PNY GeForce 8800 GT at 600 MHz. PCI Express 2.0×16. 512 MB of video memory at 1800 MHz. DirectX 10 compatible. 2 DVI ports and s-video out. Max res 2560×1600.
750 GB Samsung SATA 3.0 GB/s HDD (7200 rpm)
550 watt Antec power supply
Rosewill 802.11b/g wifi card.
DVD-burner
Windows XP Professional x64 installed.
School
I’ve been in school again for over a week! It’s alright. CSE 112 is about circuits and is based on the one class I failed at UCI. We took this test on the first day that wasn’t worth any points to see how we were at the subject. It was kind of hard =/ I think I’ll have some trouble in this class. Today was the discussion’s first meeting. Our professor runs discussion as well. He was annoyed that no one had looked at the homework yet that was assigned Tuesday and is due next Tuesday. He wondered why we would show up to discussion if we hadn’t looked at it and how he was supposed to help us with it. It really annoyed me. How were we supposed to know he was going to go over the homework?
CSE 151 is about VLSI (Very Large-Scale Integrated – integrated circuits). He said he expects us to have taken and be familiar with CSE 112 even though it’s not a prereq. He also won’t let us switch into a discussion because it’s waitlisted. We’re at slots 1 and 2. The discussion in which we’re enrolled conflicts with a class we’re trying to add. The TA doesn’t mind us going to the full discussion, and it’s not like we even need to go! I don’t know what we’ll do about that.
CSE 135A is about signals. It’s prereq is another class I really hated. He wouldn’t let us add unless we passed a test. It was really hard, but we both passed. He signed our add cards, but it conflicts with that discussion. Not sure what’ll happen. Maybe add cards ignore schedule conflicts? If so, we could just not go to discussion.
Lastly, I’m taking senior design project course. I’m working with gem, Corey, and his brother. Hopefully it’ll go alright!
Playing
What have I been playing this week? I played a bunch more Samba de Amigo. I’m getting better at it. The controls still aren’t great, but they’re not terrible. The game’s pretty fun! I’ve also been playing a lot of Kirby Super Star Ultra. It’s still one of the best games ever!
Super Ice
Currently Playing
I was trying to make a post every Monday about what I was playing, but that kind of faded away. I don’t know if I’ll keep up with one a week, but here’s what I’ve been playing lately:
I started and finished Brooktown High (PSP) recently. It’s a dating sim in which you talk to girls, go on dates, study, attend classes, and equip various clothing. Most dating sims I’ve played were only dialog choice games, while this one had a lot of other things to manage as well. It might have been because it was a western game.
I got back into Spore on the day before yesterday as well. The space phase is pretty interesting, but I’m not sure what to do when enemy empires demand money.
Bioshock’s been on my shelf and unplayed for almost a year now. I’m still only a few hours into the game, but I’m enjoying it. It does really stress me out though so I can’t play it for long. I guess that’s good because it draws me into the game. I think I’m too out of shape for video games.
Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars took some of my time. I don’t know if I’ll ever get an A rank. I also played GTA a bit. I think GTA was my favorite game in the series.
Lately I started playing Kirby Super Star Ultra. Funny how such a simple game can please me for so many years. I know it’s not terribly long, but I’m really enjoying it.
Samba de Amigo came out yesterday, and I tried it a little. I haven’t had time to really sit down with it, but it’s pretty cool so far.
Elevator
Andrew [2:33 PM]:
…
I think I’d have an email saying he was gonna be out tho
Peter [2:34 PM]:
hm, that’s true
Andrew [2:34 PM]:
I got an email that “The elevator will be out for next 1-2 days.”
so … maybe his nickname is the elevator
Peter [2:34 PM]:
…
dude that would be bad ass nick name
“You wanna fuck with the elevator? DO YOU?! I’m taking you down!”
Andrew [2:35 PM]:
lol
haha!
wow
that actually kinda works
Peter Anargirou [2:35 PM]:
lol
Bear Sponge
My girlfriend bought this bear sponge earlier this week. Cute, isn’t
it? We’ve been together 47 months today.
UBeat
Today (9/9) I played a new Bemani game by Konami called UBeat. It’s being location tested here in Irvine, CA at a Boomers. According to Wikipedia, it was released last month in Japan. Irvine gets the only two UBeat cabinets outside of Asia!
The first thing I noticed about it was, of course, the aesthetics of the unit. Being a music game, it had to have a light of glowing parts and lights, but it really did look pretty cool. It had a crisp, nice quality LCD screen to show your score and other information, and it had 16 LCD buttons arranged in a grid. As songs play, the LCD buttons play little ~1 second animations to the rhythm. You have to press the button at a particular point in the animation. You can choose from a few animations. I chose fireworks; When the firework reached the top of the button, you press it to see the firework explode. It’s a lot like DDR meets Whac-A-Mole, and it was a lot of fun!
The song list was pretty interesting. It had a good mix of songs that were already known in America and Japanese songs that I assume were from the Japanese version of the game. I played “Take on Me” by a-ha, “Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop)” by Scatman John, and “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People (because what heterosexual guy playing a Bemani game with his girlfriend watching can resist the Village People?). I was surprised and pleased to find Scatman John in the game; He’s an artist I really like.
The game displayed the name of the arcade and a player name although it was set to defaults. It looked like there was a way to store accounts or something similar but that the feature was not implemented. Like other Bemani games, each song had a different difficulty rating between one and ten, and the difficulty could be raised. In more complex songs, multiple panels lit up at the same time, requiring players to press multiple buttons with a single hand, often in rapid succession. The machine itself was very narrow and elegant looking. This is a plus because it means arcades can fit them in easier. From the interface, I think it supports up to four cabinets in local play. The small form factor means it’s more likely to see arcades actually buy four cabinets.
There were two cabinets here so multiplayer was an option although I didn’t try it. It looked like the cabinets were plugged into a router/hub, and when I checked online, I found out that you can play online as well. I’m not sure how that works though. Boomers was also location testing Dance Dance Revolution X, which I haven’t had a chance to try yet. I’m definitely going back this week to play UBeat some more and possibly try the new DDR. Here’s hoping UBeat catches on here in the states!