Weekly Project Update (August 15 - August 21)

Here's the creative projects I worked on this week (August 15 - August 21):

• Monday -
• Tuesday -
• Wednesday -
• Thursday - Blogging
• Friday - Drawing
• Saturday - Blogging
• Sunday - 

Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 139)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we go to war, fall in love and learn not to trust anyone with a bucket full of icy water.

• First we have Jesse Cox's Let's Play of Valiant Hearts. I found this to be a really interesting game, as it's used to explore the history and impact of the First World War. I like seeing different ways games can be used to teach and engage people and I think Valiant Hearts is a worthwhile experiment.
• Next, you should know that Pomplamoose is "All about that (Super)Bass".
• Finally, Destin from Smarter Every Day took a little science to his Ice Bucket Challenge. The primary results is that his cat is smart enough not to trust him and his son is fearless and also that thanks to sponsorship he was able to make a good donation to help research into ALS.

Weekly Project Update (August 8 - August 14)

Here's the creative projects I worked on this week (August 8 - August 14):

• Monday - Drawing
• Tuesday - Nothing
• Wednesday - Blogging
• Thursday - Blogging
• Friday - Nothing
• Saturday - Blogging
• Sunday - Nothing

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 138)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we believe, get stuck and colour some magic.

• First, Pomplamoose covered Believe and just makes me really happy. I love that song (and that album) more than I probably should and I love Pomplamoose just as much as I should (which is to say, a lot), so it's a definite ray of sunshine.
• Next the Fruity Ukeladies are Stuck in the Middle with You. And also this post, I guess.
• Finally, Dave Bulmer starts in on the Discworld journey he told us about in the last volume, starting on the first five books.

Weekly Project Update (August 1 - August 7)

Here's the creative projects I worked on this week (August 1 - August 7):

• Monday - Nothing
• Tuesday - Nothing
• Wednesday - Blogging
• Thursday - Blogging
• Friday - Blogging
• Saturday - Nothing
• Sunday - Nothing - And I posted this.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos, (Volume 137)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we share a pizza, get some luggage and go check out our local comic book store!

• First, Dave Bulmer, shares his thoughts about how (and why) to make a good Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. And he does it by breaking down what makes the Ninja Turtles, why the 90s movie worked in the day and what's important when you're trying to tell a story. I think it's also a good point to keep in mind when you're trying to adapt a story from one medium to another.
• Next, Dave unveils his bookshelf series (which eventually became its own channel), talks about why we should talk about the things we're enjoying and embarks on reading through all of the Discworld books. (Don't worry he hasn't gotten that far yet, so now's the perfect time to jump in). I've been kind of delighted since I started reading Discworld in order just before this and it's nice to have someone to read along with.
• Finally, the very awesome Amy Dallen sings about her comic book store (because that's where the books live, but it's also much more!). Also features a bunch of the Geek and Sundry vloggers in their LCBSes (including mine!)

Project 1: The Blog, Season Six

Apparently this is the first time I've actually written the post late, but here we are, I'm writing the "Happy Blog End and Start" post.

So Happy belated Blog End and Start!

I've been happy with the "blog as project" this year and I'm happy to do another year of it.

I think this last year has been pretty good, although it was a lot of "Favourite YouTube Videos". I'm hoping to step up the types of things I blog in the coming year and I'm hoping my new plan of "do one creative thing a day" will help with that. (It will double the number of posts on the blog at least since I'll be posting a creativity update each week.)

On the topic of Favourite YouTube Videos, I'm still really enjoying posting them since it gives me a chance to go back through and rematch all of my old favourites (since the series pulls from my own favourite's list on YouTube, remember when that was a real thing?). It's an interesting journey into two years ago and I think at the moment it's going to stay about that far behind with me posting about three videos a week.

I will also be updating the video games I've played this year. I've managed to keep on keeping track, I just need to put the posts together and I'll try to do that over the next little while. I think that's been an interesting project as well and it's made me think a lot more about what and how I play.

"Monthly" posts on what I've been playing also cut down on the number of "Video Game Thoughts" posts I've been thinking of making. There's a lot of games that I won't (or can't) finish and some that I just don't have that much to say about. So hopefully I can cut down on thinking about things that I don't want to spend too much time thinking about. It will also hopefully open up time for me to come at the games I'm thinking about in a different way (and hey actually maybe get off my ass and start making some too).

I've also had fun with a spreadsheet of my blogging "progress".
You can find a permanent link to the blorgress page here.

So, over all I'm happy, the blog is staying nominal and that's about it until next August.

Thanks for reading if you do.

Oh and I also figured out how the automatic scheduler works, so I'm pretty happy.

Administrativa: I Just Broke a Bunch of Links

Oops.

Sorry about that. I undertook to properly capitalize my labels/tags a couple of months ago aaaand I just realized that any link to those tags is now going to be broken. Tags themselves at the bottom of each post are unaffected, but any link in text will now go to a "there's no page for that".

I'll work on fixing this as I can, but it's going to be a while. I'm going to start on recent posts and work backwards.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 136)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we go to a concert, chill in Sweden and get lost in people's dreams.

• First, Hank talks about the 13 things you need to know about being cool at concerts.
• Next, Mr. Smooth McGroove takes us to Sweden and gives me all the nostalgia and feels for Minecraft.
• Finally, Brentalfloss shares his first ever composition with us and it's pretty damn cool.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 135)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get invaded, get help and get dressed up.

• First, on Tested, Adam Savage gets rid of a Zeebler and we get to look at Marty Cooper's animation.
• Next, The Fruity Ukuladies get by with a little help from their friends.
• Finally, Dodger walks through all the links between cosplay and theatre and argues that theatre and cosplay are two fields that should be going hand in hand.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 134)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we think about sex, wander a mountain and then fly off into the sky.

• First, from Sexplanations,  Dr. Lindsay Doe takes a look at how we figure out what sex we are.
• Next, Kristina Horner and Eia Waltzer show off their "Frozen" cosplay on a frozen mountain.
• Finally, Laura Shigihara lifts our spirits covering "Where No One Goes" from "How to Train Your Dragon 2".

Project Update: July 2016

So the last few months have been a pretty busy time for me. I taught a full course for the first time (by which I mean a full-half course, because my University is funny) and it took over my life pretty heavily. Beyond that I still have a lot of things that need doing for my PhD and I'd like to get that wrapped up sooner rather than late.

Can't say for sure that I feel excited, but I certainly would like to get the PhD made.

Projects have definitely fallen aside (include the blog-as-blog), but given the other things I've had to do I'm not that disappointed. Even if it's now taken me a really long time to write a few hundred words.

I'm at a point now that I'm going to get some free time. The keyword being some. I have quite a bit of work to do on my PhD and I've accepted another teaching gig for the fall (which will need to be done without me grinding to a halt on my PhD).  So given that I have some free time I'd like to get back to getting something creative done.

I also seem to have a problem where in I don't work on a project because I "should" work on another project, but I can't, or don't want to, work on that project so in the end, I do nothing. I'd like to get a handle on that if I can. Previously this is why I tried to have a lot of projects "open,"  but it's basically the same problem I tried to address in January by cutting back on the number of projects I was working on at one time.

So I'm going to try to reorganize a little bit again. My thought now is that at the beginning of each month I'll make a list of things I'd like to work on and then each day I'm going to try to do "one creative thing" that might or might not have anything to do with what's on the list. Each week I'll post an update to see how things have gone and what I've worked on. And I'll still keep the project updates to look at projects over all.

The goal is to get things done without stressing myself out and to keep working on things even if it's only a little bit each day.

Here's to getting excited and making things.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 133)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get excited and watch Dodger build a table.

• We've seen Dodger build a couple of things in the past, but this time she decided to go big and built a table out of a pallet and wood burned the logo from Monster Hunter Tri into top. 
• The first video is focused on building the table top out of an old pallet.
• Next they age steel pipe to make the legs out of.
• Then it's time to burn the tabletop with the logo. (Over head projectors are your friends!)
• Finally, It's time to build the table all together.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 132)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we try not to die in space, get a little angry and then drive off down a rainbow road.

• First, Belated Media talks about Alien and Aliens and the (very different) ways in which they're both excellent. I like Alien better (it has more SPACE in it), but rewatching this video I just want to watch them both again.
• Next, Pomplamoose is too mad to watch 30 Rock tonight. But they just need a little time to cool down.
• Finally, let's end by sailing off into the skies with Mr. Smooth McGroove singing the Mario Kart 64 Rainbow Road Theme a capella. This is one of those songs with a really specific association in my head, of a sleep over with a friend and racing on this course when we were super tired and falling a sleep. Definitely a great song to relax to (but maybe not drive to, if you're going to fall asleep).

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 131)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we talk about the web then go back in time with two very nostalgic video game themes.

• First, Michael from VSauce wants to talk about how and why we surf the Web (and why the web is not the net).
• Next, Caitlin and Vaughan take a trip back in time with the Menu Theme from Wolfenstein 3D.
• Finally, Mr. Smooth McGroove straps into his Ar-Wing and takes us back to the SNES Star Fox. Goood luck!

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 130)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, it's music day. Wake up, suck up and chill!

• First, get up, and don't forget to wake Pomplamoose up before you Go!
• Next, Brentalfloss flosses up the theme to Luigi's Mansion. So grab your vacuum and get to work (although I don't recommend listening to the cover if you're planning to play the game in the near future, the ear worm quotient is ... high).
• Finally, CalebElijah plays "Sub Zero Snow Field" from Seiken Densetsu 3, which I think may be one of the most beautiful pieces of music in video games. Certainly the cover is absolutely gorgeous. 

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 129)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we pull out or magnets, bang our air drums and then try to catch them all.

• First, on Sixty Symbols, Professor Phil Moriarty shows off the fun you can have with a slow motion camera, a strong magnet and some ferrofluid.
• Next, Hank Fucking Loves Science. (There's also a clean version if you need one.)
• Finally, Michael from Belated Media invites Alex and Kellz from The Dex to talk about Pokemon: The First Movie.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 128)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we figure out who we are, why Yoshi is cool and why you should be careful when you're feeling fancy.

• First, Micheleh takes a few minutes to look at who he is through the lens of media and passes on some very sage advice at the same time. Then stick around for his DVD extras, where he rants (very well) about "Content" and why it's a useless and insulting term.
• Next, Josh talks about how Super Mario World is Really Freakin' Clever. He touches on how Super Mario World has a lot of flexibility (more than many of the following Mario games) and how Yoshi is integral to how we understand the game (and how he's an aspect of the game, not just level design). He also talked about how easily Mario game communicate what the rules of the game are and I was reminded of this video from Jamin from PBS Digital Studios Game Show.
• Finally, if you need a little dose of weird this week, Pomplamoose, covered "Puttin On The Ritz." Remember folks, always keep your trip hazards under control or the lemons won't stop singing.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 127)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, it's a music volume with space ducks, menu songs and one take feelings.

• First, Caitlin and Vaughan are taking ducks to space, with their cover of The Moon Level from Duck Tails.
• Next, Mr. Smooth McGroove is ready for a fight, in the menu (from Super Smash Bros. Melee).
• Finally, from their Season 2, Pomplamoose cover James Brown, "I Feel Good" and it feels good.

Blog: Video Games of March 2016

I seem to have split my time a little more between a few games in March than I did in February. Partly at least because I finished XCOM and really didn't feel like picking it up again and partly because most of the other games I was playing really limited the amount you can play at a time.

My top five games of the month (by play time) were:

1. Stardew Valley - I resisted playing this game because I usually end up feeling a little empty after playing any of the open farming kind of games, and also because I tend to play games like this a little too intensely (cough, 17 hours in 7 days, cough). But a few friends were interested in it and I watched how excited ProJared and Pushing up Roses were about the game and I somehow found myself buying it.
   
   
   

   

   Down on the farm, where the cat watches all.

   
   
   So far I've really enjoyed it. I think it has a little more to it than the Harvest Moon games I've played over the years and I think it also smooths out some of the hichoughs that most of the Harvest Moon games have too. You can see the amount of care and polish that went into the game and continues to go into the game.
   
   I've also tried to play the game in a very gentle way. I try (although I don't always suceeed) to keep the play sessions short and I've also worked to avoid min-maxing any aspect of the game. I'm working on roleplaying just a guy who needed a break from life and got a farm and I have to say I think it's really helped me relax while playing. My only real complaint with the game is that there's no save option except over night, which occasionally makes me keep playing after I'd really rather stop.
2. Super Mario Maker - I really hadn't expected to play this much Super Mario Maker. I spent quite a bit of time (for the first 3/4 of the month) playing a little bit each day. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to make better levels and I think I'm getting better. The problem is that it's so difficult to get your levels played by anyone that you end up shouting into the void.
   
   
   

   

   The levels from Nintendo are also usually really great to play, here you played the same level 3 ways to get the three starter pokemon.

   I finished my "First World" with 1-3 and 1-4 (completing 1-1 and 1-2) and I think they're okay, if not great. The did inspire me to start trying to do things in a more creative, less linear way and so I came up with I Ain't Afraid.
   
   I've also been playing a bit more and I think that's helped improve my platforming and it's been fun (for the most part) too. I think the new components Nintendo has been introducing are pushing people to create levels that are more playable and less kaizo or automatic. Also, I think it stands to reason that at this point people who really like making levels are the ones still playing.
3. Final Fantasy VI (or 3) - I finished it. Finally. I'm working on a thoughts on post on the game. I enjoyed it over all. I thought the story was interesting and it has a lot of interesting types of game play.
   
   
   

   

   I'm not sure what it is, but we're fighting it. Also Setzer? Really? - From GameFAQ's user KeyBlade999

   
   
   Sadly it also has combat, and that's the thing that makes this game a real slog. I think my play-time was totalled at about 60 hours and much of that was trying to wade through the combat to get the right spells on the right person at the right time. It's still worth it, but I'm glad there are newer games that are a little easier to play.
4. Marvel Puzzle Quest - So, usually the casual games don't make it this high on the list, but between trying to keep up for the Alliance and the fact that the revitalized the progression system, I've managed to play quite a bit of Puzzle Quest over the last little bit.
   

   

   Match 3. Punch Robots. (or Ninja or Purple Guys or Melty Guys, or Soldier Guys or ....)

   
   I'd hit a point where I didn't want to play that much since I wasn't playing enough to get the high level characters, but they changed the way you level characters up and now it's been worth while and more fun. So one bus ride at a time I've manage to rack up the time on this one (it's also my game with the most play sessions for the month by a wide margin).
5. Europa Universalis 4 - So ... I started playing this again. Um, I guess my ill feelings faded and both Extra History and Hardcore History have been talking about the Middle East and it left me feeling like it was time to try to lead the Ottomans to glory again. At least I seem to have my play times down to a more manageable length of time.
   
   

   

   It's not that we're the centre of the world. It's just that we're the centre of the world.

   
   

I also started to play Mass Effect again this month. I was a little influenced by all the talk about Andromeda, and it's also just been a really long time since I played. I only played a few hours (since the game is much much slower than I remember). I'm still finding some of the charm that I remember from the first time(s) I played the game, but it definitely hasn't aged as well as I'd have hoped. My last play through I played he-shep Calrin, so this time I thought I'd play fem-shep Maria (who looks really unfortunately exactly like Ashley). I also had forgotten how bad the character models were for the first game in the series. Still it does feel a bit like home after all's said and done.

That's my Normandy. Also how effing hard is it to take a screen shot Mass Effect?

I think that tracking my play time has been good. I think I've been more mindful about what I play and how I play it. I think I've also felt a little more comfortable playing less, which is good since the next little while is going to be pretty busy.

Here's my total play time for games in March:

And here's my total number of play sessions:

Finally, here's the graph of my play time / day:

So it turns out that google is really weird about exporting charts. I'm not just bad at it.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 126)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we throw stones, get in fights and then get serious about consent and how we talk about sex.

• First, in a topic near and dear to my heart, Destin from Smarter Every Day takes a look at the highly non-intuitive physics of curling. This was before the new directional sweeping craze that seems to have taken over high level curling this year, so I don't know what's changed in the research landscape since then. Still Destin does a great job explaining the more technical matters of curling.
• Next, Caitlin and Vaughan are ready for Morrrrrrrtttttaaaallll Kooooommmmmbbbbaaaaatttt!
• Finally and most importantly, Charlie talks about sex and consent. 

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 125)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we take a look at the fancy computing of yore, learn to draw bunnies and then figure out how to produce a very successful six season television show.

• First, we start out with some of the history of the Apple Macintosh from Computerphile. The original Mac was definitely a departure from how computers would have been seen up to that point (see the smiley face when it boots), although I would love to take the chance to compare it to the Lisa which Apple was also producing at the time. If you're interested in more Macintosh history, checkout folklore.org which is a collection of stories written by the folks who created the Mac.
• Next, we stop in to learn how to draw a bunny with Simon Tofield of Simon's Cat.
• Finally, Adam Savage takes an hour to talk with Vince Gilligan, just at the end of Breaking Bad. I've never watched Breaking Bad, but I'm always kinda interested in stories of TV production. There are probably spoilers, but it has been more than two weeks since then.

Project 14 - Sketch Fiction: 46616-C

This is the third of six sketch stories. It's unrelated to the first two.

You can expect the next sketch story on March 29, 2016.

---

46616-C

Transcript - 46616-C

House: "Are we recording?"

Communications: "Yes, Sir."

House: "Very Good. Sit Rep 46616-C, is called to order."

"Package A is inbound from Incident 46616. Estimated time of arrival, T minus 35. Package A includes, Agents Blue, Red, Green, Black and Violet. Primary mission objectives were achieved with minor complications. Medical, can you give us an update on the members of Package A?"

Medical: "Yes, Sir. Agents Red, Green and Violet are all nominal and teams are standing by to provide standard medical debriefing for each. Agent Black has received minor injuries from physical projectile weaponry and received field treatment. Agent Black will require minor surgery to repair damage to the right shoulder.

"Agent Blue was struck by a non-standard energy weapon. This weapon has caused negligible physical injury, but does seem to have caused Agent Blue to speak in an unknown language. Agent Blue will require a full medical examination, as well, we suspect, as significant further investigation from both medical and science branches.

House: "Very Good. I believe Communications has secured assistance from our partners at Organization F to assist in matters with Agent Blue."

Communications: "Yes, Sir. A linguistics team from Organization F will arrive by 0800."

House: "Very Good. Security?"

Security: "Yes, Sir. The external security indicator is low. Given that Agent Blue is demonstrating unusual behaviour, internal security is being stepped up to manage a rogue agent situation."

House: "Very Good. Housekeeping?"

Housekeeping: "Yes, Sir. Catering and laundry services are standing by. Rooms are made up for all non-resident agents arriving. Resident agents' domiciles have been prepared. Staff are standing by to assist all agents. "

House: "Very Good. Science?"

Science: "Yes, Sir. A lab has been cleared and prepared to investigate Agent Blue. Funding has been established under the project code S-46616-B, and the project has been codenamed "Surprise Translation". We are ready to proceed as soon as the Agent and the linguistics team have arrived on site."

House: "Very Good. Then finally we can receive Transportations report."

Transportation: "Yes, Sir. Envelope A received minor damage during the incident, although none of it affected flight-worthiness. We have teams standing by, and believe Package A should be fully operational again in thirty-six hours. In the mean time Envelopes B and C are ready and on standby."

House: "Very Good. We seem to be operating by the book and, in good order. Please ensure that all staff are prepared for the returning agents and in particular not to react unduly to Agent Blue's condition. Emergency Sit Rep 46616-C is now closed."

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 124)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we cut to the chase, drink tea and attend a play.

• First, this Video. (from Mike Rugnetta)
• Next, Charlie talks about his patriotism, how to be patriotic when you're British and how wonderful hot leaf water is.
• Finally, dust off your Greek classics and watch John Green talk about Oedipus on Crash Course Literature.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 123)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we play some video game music and take some video game facts out of the guts of a PlayStation.

• The first video is from, Caitlin and Vaughan, of Geek and Sundry Vlogs, playing "Into the Wilderness" from Wild Arms. I've never played Wild Arms (I had a real it's not an RPG if you don't have armour and a sword thing going for way too many years), but the music's good. 
• Next, Ben Chan presents his arrangement of "Wind Scene" from Chrono Trigger. This music always grabs me, and I like his performance and his improvisation in the second half.
• Finally, on VSauce 3, Jake takes apart a PlayStation and finds out that it's full of interesting facts. 

Blog: Video Games of February 2016

XCOM 2 came out this month and that's really all you need to know about the video games I've played in February. Beyond that I've had fun keeping track of the games I've play for another month. I think it's been interesting to be mindful about what I'm playing and making sure that I'm getting the most out of my XCOM ... I mean games.

My top five games for the month (by play time) have been:

1. XCOM 2 - I played 42 hours of XCOM 2. That's ... a lot of playing. A bit of that is that at $80 (CAD) it felt really expensive, so I felt like I really should be getting my money's worth out of it. The other part is that the game is pretty great.
   
   

   

   The wanted posters are a really great part of XCOM 2.

   
   I found XCOM 2 really hard in the first little while. I mean really, *really* hard. Eventually I knocked the difficult down and it got to the point where I could at least play it. The game was still pretty tough but now that I've played a lot (and I think I'm near the end) it seems to have balanced out (to a bit easy, which is good since I was playing on the easiest level). The new easiness seems to be one part the XCOM hill (oh wow aliens are hard to kill, oh wait this is a new gun, hahahaha take that aliens) and a bit that I've figured out what the designers were going for.
   
   I will say that I really like what they did with XCOM 2, in most missions now there's an imperative (usually a ticking clock, but not always) that you have to push your soldiers out into the field and take on the enemy. That combined with the new generated maps has kept me really enjoying the game. I feel like there should maybe be one more set of enemies to fight, but it's a little hard to say how far along I am, so I've got not complaints right now.
2. Final Fantasy VI (or 3) - It's interesting that this game is the "runner up" for the second month in a row. I had intended to play a little more of it and to try to play more games with narrative. It's suffered a little bit from three problems. 1) XCOM 2 2) I'm tired of random encounters and 3) the Final Fantasy game decompression.
   
   

   

   Looks perfectly safe to me - From GameFAQs User KeyBlade999 

   
   The decompression happens in a lot of final fantasy games (but it sticks out in my mind in VI and VII particularly. Because the games are so heavily based on narrative for the first part of the game (half, two-thirds maybe) when they get to the "open world" part at the end, it can be difficult to feel like you're doing anything other than ticking off the items on the list to make sure that you're as powerful as you can be to beat the boss. I think later games in the series did a better job of fusing side quests into the story, but at this point I have three dragons to kill and I'm not that excited about it.
3. Hearthstone - It's jumped up the list to third but I've actually played a little less this month (again, have I mentioned that XCOM 2 is good?). I've been trying to take more meaningful breaks from work during the day and I can play a round of Hearthstone in about 15 minutes so that works pretty well.
   
   

   

   I've really got to remember to take these screenshots during the month. #imbadathearthstone

   Oh! Also I can now say, "to hell with you Dr. Boom!" I'm looking forward for the switch to standard (where old sets will be rotating out). I had a long layoff from Hearthstone, and while I don't play enough to be totally stocked with legendaries in any event, I definetly am missing the most cards out of Goblins and Gnomes. Also could someone please explain to me how these got to be "the old cards"? This time travel thing is rough.
4. Super Mario Maker - I'm still chugging along with this. It runs a little towards the work end of gaming, between the thought necessary to build a good level and the thought necessary to play through all the other levels pushed out there. It's still a little rough, with some levels being really unplayable or trolling you after several minutes of play, but I think the "meta" is levelling out to produce a bunch of pretty fun levels.
   
   

   

   Jitter and Jump

   I've been messing around with making more playable and fun levels. The one thing the game is a little short on is players, so it's a little tough to see what's interesting and what's not. I'd also love to see the game give you a little bit more information about how people have played your level. If you're interested in playing some of the things I've worked on I'm interested in my 1-1 and 1-2. Apparently my most popular is Jitter, so I'm also trying to follow up with that.
5. Mini Metro - Well I'm definitely not as addicted as I was in January. Mini Metro is good, but I'm not terribly good at it, so I find that a lot of my play sessions end up about the same way. I've also played through all the pre-made maps and now time I play is also a little the same. Stations appear in random locations, but the rules for each area are still the same.
   
   

   

   I'm sorry to all the shapes who live in this town.  You are going to be late for shape work.

   
   Still the game is good and it's fun. I definitely don't regret playing for a few minutes each day. It's also interesting how the achievement "Play the Daily Challenge Each Day for a Week" has kept me coming back. I keep not making it, so I've stuck with it. It seems to have slid into a nice niche with Bejeweled and Zuma Blitz.

So that's the top five by play time. I also tracked the number of sessions which left me with a top five of Bejeweled Blitz, Mini Metro, XCOM 2, Zuma Blitz and Hearthstone. I think this stands to reason, it's mostly the games I play for a couple of minutes at a time ... and XCOM. January had about the same results.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about Diablo 3. I've basically never played Diablo or Diablo 2... (It's ok, you can pass out from shock. I'll wait).

Xin is mostly glad she found pants over the course of my play-through.

(Are you back? Great!) So you can play the first bit of Diablo 3 for free and since I have the Blizzard launcher open often enough I was finally tempted to install it and play the demo. I had fun, but I'm not about to jump in and play the full game right now. One reason is XCOM (surprise) both the money I put into that was my video game budget for the mont (and then some) and it also took most of the playing time. 

Another reason is that the game ends the demo really oddly, instead of popping up a message going, thanks for playing the free part now you can play more if you pay us, the game just stops generating new content. So you can run around all you want, but the world just doesn't do anything. I actually ended up googling to see why the game was broken and even there it wasn't communicated very well (mostly it was people trying to figure out why they got the demo when they'd paid for the full game).

So, I think that's it for the second month of game tracking. I'm still having fun, so I guess you'll see more next month.

Here are my total play time and play sessions for February.

Project 14 - Sketch Fiction: A Morning Disrupted

This is the second of six sketch stories. It's totally unrelated to the first, except that I wrote it and it's supposed to be short and simple.

---

A Morning Disrupted

He came out of the dark smithy stretching and brushing out his beard. He looked up the road as far as he could see, finding no sign of Stera and breakfast.

He ducked his head back in the smithy, "Don't rush boys, no sign of the hot-cart yet."

The air was crisp and clear, and the sun was glinting off the city's colourful roofs. He took a drink from the water barrel, and sighed as he sat down, enjoying the feel of the sun on his face.

He pulled out his pad of sketching paper and started roughing in a sketch of the smaller lamp fittings Green Marlin had ordered for the new fishing boats.

He heard unhurried hoof-steps and looked up to see a young woman wearing blue courier leathers riding down the road. He shifted a little to slide the sketch under his apron, and nodded at the woman as she went past. Once she was out of sight, down the curve of the road, he pulled his paper back out and continued sketching.

He lost track of time as he sketched, but was suddenly called back to reality with a crash and raucous yelling. Jumping up, dropping his paper, he saw two young men on dark horses canter past, while up the road Stera's cart was tipped over, with her gear spread out all over the road.

Old Korin was standing in the middle of the road waving his cane at the the retreating riders and shouting "Ruffians!" while Stera was looking over the mess of her cart.

"Damned fools," Stera shook her head as he came up the road to them, "Not sure where they thought they'd get in such a hurry. The one of them turned his horse right into my cart, trying to get around Old Korin here! Knocked it clean over! And not a glance back to see what they'd done even! The poor horse!"

Several other neighbours had gathered by then and there was enough muscle to set the cart upright and gather up the mess.

"Ah well," Stera said, shaking her head again as she checked over her equipment and supplies, "Nothing's a day but challenges, I guess. Doesn't look like anything's too much the worse for wear. Glad I wasn't carrying fresh eggs today. Give me a minute to straighten up and then I'll get back to feeding you all."





 

Project 14: Sketch Fiction - Update

So again, I'm past a project deadline and I don't have five stories to post.

I'm still struggling to sort out how to keep myself productive creatively and still manage my actual work for my PhD at the same time. In January I started by cutting down on my giant list of projects and focus on one thing at a time. At that point I started to focus on my sketch fiction project and hoped, at a pace of one a week, to get five out by early February.

While I definitely haven't pumped five stories out over the last two months, I have at least been a lot more focused on writing. I think over all that's been a good thing for me. In my last update, I said I had progress on four stories, and while that's true, I want to do some more work to make sure they're good. At the same time a lot of the point of the project is for me to JUST ACTUALLY GET STUFF WRITTEN AND OUT THERE, so there's a push and a pull.

I have one story finished and in a state I'm happy with. That will go up in the next post.

The rest I'm going to take my time with, but try to keep myself on a deadline of one every two weeks. The goal is to have something that I can put out, even if it's not perfect. Two weeks feels like a really long time to take to write a few hundred words, but given that I've taken months already it may not be that unjust an estimate. And as an added bonus, if I feel like I've finished early then I can be ahead of schedule rather than behind it (what a weird idea).

So my next project is to put out another piece of sketch fiction by Wednesday, March 15, 2016.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 122)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get ready for adventure and the weekend all with the great things of video games and music.

• First, I've been having trouble getting going, so it's really nice that we get to start with Mr. Smooth McGroove pushing us out Into the Thick of It. So grab that rusty sword out of the stream and go fight the fluffy evil of your to do list. (Or at least that's my plan.)
• Next, Josh would like you to remember that Star Fox was Really Freakin' Cleaver. I like his point that the world and the sense of journey is the reason why Star Fox has stayed memorable. I remember being a kid, spending hours fantasizing about how amazing a Star Fox II could be, especially imagining it letting you pick different paths and having more complex interactions with your squad mates (like having them actually shoot things). I think a lot of that came from how well the world grabbed me.
  Also, I have been creeping out my friends for years by saying  good luck like the flight controller in the beginning of Star Fox.  (Actually they've probably never noticed, but hey, I like doing it anyway.)
• Finally, Hank is ready for the weekend, playing half a century's worth of music all with the same damn cord progression.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 121)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we look at the shells we build for ourselves, the shells people gloop on to our heads and strawberries. (If he'd used peas I'd have had a chance. Thanks a lot John.)

• First, Ze Frank reads "If you are in a shell" and Harry Shum Jr. dances. If you have the time, stop what you're doing and put this one full screen (and I think bigger screen is better). It's very touching and I had one of those discovering my hands moments after I finished watching. And if you are in a shell, then this video is a nice reminder that you can always move.
• Next, somewhat in contradiction to the first video, we watch Frank Ippolito put Norm Chan in a shell, so that later, they can build a shell for him. Or actually, make a life cast of him, which is more cool. This is part of Tested.com's Zoidberg project.
• Finally, we check in with John Green for an update about things. This one is a video from an interesting time and it's nice to reach back and feel all the excitement when The Fault in Our Stars was starting production and Esther was getting published and the Dons were getting sponsored by Nerdfighteria.

Project 14: Sketch Fiction - Update

You may or may not have noticed, but I haven't uploaded any sketch fiction since my last project update. That's not great, but I am pleased to say that I have been writing and you should start to see new fiction posted pretty soon.

Of the five sketches I still have to finish I've mostly written 4 of them. I still need to finish and edit them, but I expect to get them up fairly soon now. The last one, well I haven't been too sure what to write, but I guess it's time to make the iron hot by striking.

So, I hope to post most of the sketches in the next week or two. I'm going to push my deadline to February 23, 2016.

Blog: Video Games of January 2016.

A little while ago, I decided that I'd like to put together a "Game of the Games I Played this Year." This tends to be a little difficult though because I never actually remember what I've been playing after a little while. So, I thought it might be fun/a good idea to keep track of what I played this year.

I seem to have pulled it off, so far, and now, by time played, I have six "top" games for the month:

1. Europa Universalis 4 - I played a lot of EU4 and I did it all in about 4 days (see the chart below). I don't think it would be weird to say I have some very mixed feelings about it, and not just because I'm now terrified of the Commonwealth.  
   
   
   
   
   I like EU4. It has a lot of depth and strategy, (which I'm still miles away from mastering) and the AI is good and not cheating too obviously.  Whenever you sit down to play it's always engaging and you get to make interesting choices and plans.
   
   It's also the worst "one more turn" game I've ever played. I've sat down to play an hour or two and stood up four or five hours later feeling a bit like you've lost control of your life. I found especially I'd only quit after the game punished me badly for making poor choices (see Polish Commonwealth) and so I'd leave with a mixed, my life sucks because I've played one damn game all day, and my life sucks because I just killed 100,000 troops and had to give up six provinces.
   
   EU4 also gets into your brain. I found myself spending a lot of time thinking about plans for the Ottomans and how I was going to expand, or fix a treaty, or get those damned provinces back from the Polish. This tended to make it a little to easy to fire up EU4 and start up again. I had to make a pretty conscious effort to put it away so I could a) actually get real work done and b) play anything else (like Final Fantasy).
   


2. Final Fantasy VI (or 3) (for Super Nintendo) - Since I broke up with Ogre Battle (which I'll write a post about some day), I still feel like the dark days of winter are the days when you're supposed to play fantasy RPGs and Final Fantasy VI is a great game in that category.
   
   
   
   
   I was playing on my original SNES. Which gave me the full Woolseyized text, son of a submariner and all. I tend to think of the SNES version FF3 (with the arabic numeral) verses Final Fantasy VI (with the roman numerals), which applies to the later versions of the game. That may be a crazy thing to do, but it's what's been going on in my head for a while.
   
   Generally I've been having fun. The story feels a little strangled by the translation, but generally is good and once you get going is fun. Combat is good, but random encounters are evil (especially when you're trying to tell a story). There are slightly too many characters for the game to manage and not quite enough reason to trot them out in any quest. There's a button you can push that makes a ninja drop from the ceiling and you can fight him. (Also why are all ninjas undead?)


3. Dishonored - I really like Dishonored (which should really have a u in it somewhere). It's fun and it's easy to slip back into, even if I haven't played in a while. Beyond that I'm feeling excited that we'll get to see Dishonored 2 some time this year (hopefully) and I also want to try my hand at a Let's Play and this seems like a good game to start on.
   
   
   


4. Mini Metro - Holy crap! This little strategy game where you manage a metro system on a metro map is awesome. I played it a little bit when they had the web-only beta version running a while ago. Then it came out for real. I lost a day (oops) to the web-only version on my laptop then looked it up again when I got home and realized that the Steam version was on for $10 (CAD). So since then I've played a lot. I seem to max out most maps at around a 1000 passengers, but I like the variety of maps they have and the daily challenges. The only problem I seem to have (other than the lost day) is that it seems like you can't do the daily challenges all at once.
   
   
   


5. Super Mario Maker - I don't usually set out to play Super Mario Maker that often, it tends to be a game where I see the box sitting by the TV and think, "Oh, I should play an hour." I really like designing levels as an exercise in thinking about game design and I also try to spend at least a little time playing other peoples levels since I think the game is a little low on players vs creators. Since I'm thinking about it, I do have two levels that I made recently that I'm kinda proud of, New Buzzy Lair and Always a Way. You can also see my profile page.






6. Hearthstone - I don't play Hearthstone everyday, but I do like to play at lunch when I can and then occasionally while I'm watching the hockey game or as a way to wind down before bed. I'm not good and I'm lacking a lot of the high end cards to really get me moving (one day, Dr. Boom, one day), but I still have fun. It may not be exactly fair, but I do enjoy that feeling of watching your opponent make a mistake and leave you the opening to get your board control up and stable so you take the game over.
   
   
   

If you're interested, here are my total times in January for every game I played:

The units are in hours, I'm still a little baffled about pivot tables.

and I have a chart of which games I played on which days:

Sorry this looks janky, I'm definetly still trying to figure out how to embed google docs.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 120)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get awesome, get science and get musical.

• First, the vlogbrothers host the Project For Awesome every year and this video is (a few of) the highlights from 2013.
• Next, Hank enjoys some holidays and his favourite, nothing to do day, thing, answering science questions. #amI1percentnacho
• Finally, Ben Chan, as a guy in four boxes, plays a parody on the themes from Final Fantasy.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 119)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we reverse engineer our own typesetter and answer real questions about real vlogbrothers.

• First, we have two videos from Computerphile looking at "The Great 202 Jailbreak". This is a good look at the spirit of inventiveness that makes computer science interesting and at how complex a thing that seems simple, like printing*, can be.
• Then to round out the volume Hank Green did Question Tuesday with his parents. Answering the most important question, how was John Green as a child.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 118)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, it's time to feel the music.

• First, it takes fourteen instances of Mr. Smooth McGroove to cover "The One Who Bares Fangs at God" from Xenogears.
• Next in the further vein of video game music to make the hair stand up on your (well, my) arms, Caitlin and Vaughan cover Time's Scar from Chrono Cross
• Finally, Slamacow produced a video to Laura Shigihara's "From the Ground Up" which tells a beautiful story about love, life and rebirth.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 117)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get out our sciencing tools and get our feet wet.

• From Sixty Symbols we see what happens when physicists decide they want to do something interesting on a Friday afternoon. The science is interesting, and the visuals are awesome, though I have to confess to some jealousy since if I go outside on a Friday afternoon I'm probably goofing off.

January 2016 Project Update

Somehow, it's been six months since my last project update. I've been pretty busy for the last six months, but mostly on things for the PhD and teaching. Around here I haven't managed to get much done.

As far as the "actual job" goes. I'm hoping to finish the PhD this year, although it'll be December if I do get it all done this year. I'm getting closer though and I've reach the point where I really just want to get it done and and get on to anything else.

The teaching has also been interesting, since my last update I've been working primarily on new ways to teach new computer scientist the basic tools that we expect them to be able to use (like text editors and the Unix command line). That has been a lot of work but I think may also lead to some things that I'd like to do in the future. You may even see me talk about it more here in the next little while.

As far as getting projects done, I haven't. I've managed to do a little work but really haven't managed to put anything to bed. Finishing things is definitely not my strength.

Granted finishing things is never easy:

The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.^[1]

— Tom Cargill, Bell Labs

(Stolen ... borrowed ... excerpted ... from Wikipedia)

I think I also sometimes distract myself by giving myself too many options about what to work on *looks at the two page todo list*.

I'm going to try for the next little bit to focus when I'm working on my project stuff. I'm also going to try to make sure that I put the bulk of my time into getting the PhD done.

To manage that I'm going to try to have one active project at a time (well two, but hold onto that thought). For now, I'm going to focus on finishing the sketch fiction first. I'll get to the perler projects (coasters and sprites) when I have a little time, but for now we can call them "on hiatus".

Also I have absolutely no idea what those other two and a half projects were going to be. I should really consider writing things down. On that note, if I come up with more brain crack*, then you might see a project post for a project that I'm not really going to start on.

The "other" project is going to be "blog as blog project". For the last year I really tried to get two posts out a week. Over all I haven't done too badly, but I feel a bit like I use the blog as an excuse to not work on other things (like my PhD and other projects). I'm going to scale back to only one "YouTube Favourites" a week (on Friday). This was always technically the plan with the assumption that I'd be filling Tuesday and the other days with other posts, but that hasn't been the case and that's okay.

I'm going to set the deadline for the sketch fiction for February 9th, 2016 and in the mean time you'll have a fresh batch of favourite videos on Friday.

* he says if as though he didn't have another page in the todo list of "long term" projects in the book with the todo list.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 116)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we swear, we share and we care (honestly that was the best I could come up with using the thesaurus... sorry).

• First, Michael from Vsauce has some bad words to say to us.
• Next, John Green talks about how the Vlogbrothers and Nerdfighteria handles the phrase Don't Forget to Be Awesome, how trade marks work and how not forgetting to be awesome doesn't become less awesome when it gets shared.
• Finally, Yungtown needed to put some words about his crushing crush into song. Which he did along with the very awesome Satchell Drakes.