Since I’m doing some hobby game development and have zero experience in the graphic arts, I have to do something similar. If I try and make something like a 16-bit era Zelda or Final Fantasy II clone, I’m doomed. I can write the code, but I cannot do the artwork. In college I wrote one of these, but ‘borrowed’ the tile sets. That’s not right. I want whatever I produce next to be my own for better or worse.

I have to start small and simple, and am therefore setting my ‘canvas’ resolution to 320×200 at 16 colors - the same as the classic EGA mode Sierra adventure games. 16 colors may not sound like much to work with, but the heroes of old were able to do some magnificent things.

• Brett and I now have 20 gallons of beer brewing in my apartment. Wow. We bottled a batch this morning, have one in a secondary fermenter, and just cooked up two new ones. Saweet!
• My favorite album these days is Cassadaga by Bright Eyes. This is Conor Oberst’s best album yet. His vocal style has matured, but still invokes that somewhat uncomfortable feeling in the listener as if they are prying in on someone’s personal life.
• I just finished The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. One of the more interesting parts of the book is his explanation of incremental vs entity learning styles. Those who treat a given problem as a challenge that can eventually be overcome with the right application are incremental learners. Those who make all or nothing statements such as “I am good at computer programming” or “I am not a good artist” are entity learners. Judging from myself, it appears that I do a bit of both. I love tough challenges in technology, but do lock myself out of certain other skill sets.
• I have familiarized myself with the basics of the Allegro C game library, have made a silly sample application, and am ready to do something more. I have the basics of an idea, but don’t have any artwork to start prototyping. I would normally say ‘I am not good at graphic design’, but since I’m going to try and wipe out those patterns (see previous bullet point), it is time that I start working to create my own pixel art.
• I have been doing daily meditation for over six months now, and an abbreviated yoga exercise for two. There have been definite changes in my psychological and physical state. My acid reflux and dry mouth (both of these have been with me for over 10 years) have vanished. My stress level has been generally reduced, and I am learning more and more about myself all of the time. All of this for about 30 minutes a day.
• I think that I’ll be safe to start some vegetable seeds in my windows next weekend in preparation for transplanting them outside. This is my first serious attempt to do this sort of thing, so we shall see. Perhaps this will turn out to be like my beer brewing experience: you start out stressed about the details, and over time you begin to mellow out and just make it happen.
• A plan is being formulated to migrate Michael on Security to a standalone Wordpress installation (rather than the Wordpress.com hosted platform), and there is a possibility that I’ll eventually collapse it into Styled Bits. One step at a time, though.

I found myself giggling and thinking about Funions on my trip home.

OK, that second part is a lie…

That’s all I got.  Good night.

The evidence suggests that weekend evenings are my most productive. I haven’t been able to turn out bad-ass-sure-things like Paul’s yet, but I am able to get a few workable structures laid down here or there.

I hope to throw the last of my ideas out this weekend, and then move on to refining our existing tracks.

In the end, no matter where these tracks go, this has been a great experience. Realizing that I haven’t lost the musical aspects of my personality has made me grin and adds some balance to my day-to-day life.

All in all - Rock Band is a helluva lot more fun that I thought it would be.

I’m embarrassed to note that it never occurred to me that I may not be watering them enough. I thought that I surely was. I always gave them what I thought was a generous amount, but this morning I stuck my finder in the soil and noted that it was extremely dry.

As of now, in a daring attempt to rejuvinate the survivors, I am giving each box a full watering can’s worth of water. I’ll check the soil midweek and see where we stand.

Second, I rediscovered Ellis Paul. Check out his essentials on iTunes. It is just fantastic. I had the good fortune of seeing him live nearly ten years ago. He was an amazing entertainer, and extremely humble. He was nice enough to talk to us aspiring musicians and show us how he makes it happen. Again, check out his ‘essentials’ on iTunes. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

This is easily to avoid.  All one has to do is write up a document describing how a production switch must be configured in their environment, do the work, and then audit the switch to make sure that they complied with everything.  It just has to be a basic checklist.  Yes, it adds work, but it will certainly improve the quality.

It’s all too easy to forget these things and to just focus on solving the obvious problems of the day, but we must temper ourselves.

Tomorrow I’ll spend some time trying to understand the notation used when describing moves in the game.