1/20/2009

Boat and Islands

Seems that I'm not the only one to run strangely semi-linear RPG sessions as a method for keeping both happy players and a semblance of storyline. Gnome Stew has a pretty damned true article on Boats and Islands today that pretty correctly predicts how I run a game.
Mind you, they tend to have a pretty good line in correctitude anywhom.

1/16/2009

Media PC – Should/Shouldn’t.

Oh god, it’s getting too much. My burning desire for having an HTPC is starting to drive me slightly sideways. This post is less about trying to express things, and more about just getting a list of good and bad things about the idea out of my head so I can formulate a plan of what to do next.

So:

Pro:

  • Replacement TV massively better than my current POS, plus surround sound
  • Comfortable Internet browsing
  • Emulator gaming suddenly becomes awesome again
  • Additional storage (I am practically out of space)
  • Recording TV is pretty cool shit
  • It’d be almost as good / actually as good as my actual PC
  • I do technically have the money right now to do this

Con:

  • £900 is still chunky money
  • I haven’t built one before, the form-factor may be tricky

Well, shit. That didn’t help the desire at all. Damn. Now I kinda want it even more.

And I just worked out a build that is better, but costs the same.

Fuck.

1/14/2009

Markan Gaems

I have a new found respect for teachers and lecturers. Marking work is not fun, it is time consuming and bitterly disappointing. I only had to mark practical work as well, with a 5-odd minute video being my only required interaction with the work (although I did go through the map files of the better / less obviously terrible ones to see how well they actually did).

It was disheartening to see how many people ignored the brief and just did anything, or the people who had good ideas and skill, but didn’t put any time into the thing.

Failing people who quite obviously got the idea is a really crappy thing to have to do.

I’m just glad that I didn’t have to read 30 different 2.5 thousand word essays as well as marking the practical. That would have taken a whole world of time, and since there was one guy in the group who couldn’t even spell his own name properly, reading a load of those would only make my head hurt.

In other, lighter news, the Woll Smoth meme has been declared as my favourite thing of the moment.

roshhorbb1

1/13/2009

Unreal Editor, the silent killer

First day teaching the use of the Unreal Editor today, which didn’t go too badly at all. It’s really a very nice editor indeed, with only a minimal amount of people complaining that it was too different from Hammer to get used to. They are wrong, they will get used to it. I did (in reverse), so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Also, Ludology: should be pretty interesting and largely irrelevant to the job I am eventually aiming for, exactly the same as it was last semester. Whoopee. Turns out that we are only having one of the lecturers from last semester for this one, with cameo appearances from the other. Interesting conversation about various things, including philosophy, the education system, game accessibility, and the state of the university’s internal politics.

Had my first university oatcakes as well. Fan-freakin’-tastic. I took a mutant-powers pill to be able to digest the cheese, and then proceeded to try all but one of the variants, the best being the beans version. I will attempt the combinations of the different added extras at some other point. I believe that bacon+cheese+beans+oatcakes for a measly £1.60 is something I must experience for the good of humanity and my delicious sensors.

In other news: the student loan company is a big, dumb stupid-head. Despite the fact that they are actively giving me money for my student loan, they sent me a letter telling me that I’ve got to start repaying it soon. Like, before I stop receiving it. I will send them their own letter as a rejoinder, along with the closest thing I can find to a silly-slap in envelope form.

My urge to buy a media centre PC has reached 5-days-to-live  levels of urgency today. Goddamn.

So, does this thing really work?

Trying out Windows 7, plus this Live Writer thingwad. Seems pretty useful so far. Not that this blog is ever going to do anything. Ah, well.