How to solve a problem like Maria

Recently, my middle brother seems to have taking a liking to the game of Starcraft, and I have been dominating him all day. He's so funny when he's losing horribly...

Last night I was bored, so I came up with a list of about 20 or so new variants for more interesting gameplay in Quake or any other FPS that cares to implement them. I release them out into the world, with the request that if you actually do something with them, you mention me somewhere. Here are some of the more interesting ones:

TimeQuake: Players can jump a second or so back in time, with possible variants of one person can jump player positions back in time, and one can jump object positions back, or timejumping is based on powerups, or whatever. This assumes a good enough physics engine to simulate objects being flung around by natural forces, and probably a very small player limit. It would also be possible to implememt this Soul Caliber style, which would probably be the most interesting.

LavaQuake: More of a level design than a variant, a FPS taking place inside of a lava lamp, using the lava as the playing surface. It would just be cool, especially if the surface somehow reacted to your presence. This would also be fun with the next variant.

StickyQuake: Gravity is local and surface based. I.e. You can walk up walls and ceiling, and stay there. Imagine fighting in a parking garage style level with this, or a two story level with a hole, or a lava lamp, or best yet...ya know that painting by M.C. Escher?

BennyQuake: One of the weirder variants, its potential lies more in combining it with other levels. Anyway, think back on those cheesy cartoons you watched way back in the day, specifically Scooby Doo. Remember how there was always the monster chase scene where Scooby and the gang would run about through doors in a hallway running away from the monster, and they would wind up all shuffled randomly, sometimes chasing the monster or running into each other? I thought this would be entertaining to be doing this while shooting people. What makes this interesting is the sheer amount of random crap that can be introduced into a scenario this way, shopping carts full of weapons, other bots, anything.
More and odder Quake tommorow.

Have a fragment: "I made floating soap today. I think we'll make all of our stock that way." -James Gamble

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Generalized Blog Post Format

I've completed my Biology test, and I think I did fairly well, I'm pretty sure I at least passed. Wikipedia is the best study tool ever! ^^ Now I just need to start working on my BCIS stuff, or I won't graduate! Yay! And possibly write a letter to Reed detailing my growing obsession with the college, I'm sure they'd like to hear about it. I also need to get my blog promoted somehow, it disappoints me that I have only one loyal reader. (Hi!)

I have designed a generalized format for my blog posts, which I hope to adhere to in future posts. It is as follows:
Updates to my life and Meta-comments. (Stuff I've been doing and my thoughts on it.)
Idea. (Whatever ideas I have at the moment. The actual purpose of this blog)
Fragment. (This is a part of some greater work, whether real or implied. That made sense.)
Smiley. ( :), etc. It is my closing remark.)

Any section that I don't have any material for will be left out.

Have a fragment: "Vladimir: Well? Shall we go? Estragon: Yes, lets go. They do not move." -Samuel Beckett

8]

Poof.

Returned from Indiana a while ago, but had to study for a biology test for Credit By Examination. Sorry for the lack of updates.

I recently realized that blogging my thoughts is going to be more difficult than previously imagined, because my thoughts tend to be more rapid-fire than I would like, and that doesn't transfer well to being written down.

Have a fragment: "Horrible in ways too pastel to be imagined" -Bobshush

^^

Indiana

OK, loyal reader: no updates until probably at least Wednesday, am going to go visit Earlham College in Indiana (Indiana, oh you can sail the seven seas, Indiana...), and won't be back until I'm far too sleepy to write on Tuesday. As stands now, I'm currently too sleepy to write anything good, and so I leave you with this final thought: Acccording to Wikipedia, the reason why the inner spelling of 'Wednesday' is so messed up it that is was named after Wodin, Norse god of stuff. Saturday is the only day not named after a Norse god, it is named after Saturn, a Roman god. G'night.

Today

Ah, yes, today was fun, and only partially because it marks the first day of spring break! I may have accidentally made a substitute teacher a huge fortune, oops. I was outlining a random business plan and marketing scheme for some stuff I had thought up, and he seemed like he might actually do some of it...The world is in great danger, my ideas are loose! Just to be able to demonstrate that I thought of it, I'm going to mention it here: caffinated cereal. Wouldn't that be awesome? Yeah. And it's my idea, I own it. Mmm. (C)opyright Me. It was during SAC lunch, so, um, yeah. More proof.

After school, the rest of The Hoard and I went around and did stuff. We have an after school board games group now, and thats really fun. Plus, I get to root around through my old games and play them again. Currently, we like playing Perspective, which is basically 'History: The Board Game'. Seriously, the game is just putting events on a timeline. It has no right to be as fun as it is. We played two rounds of that, and then we spent three hours trying to get organized enough to get food. We're kinda pathetic that way. We eventually wound up getting pizza at Slices & Ices, which was dirt cheap and is some of the best pizza I've ever had. Definitely eating there again. Then we just proceeded to drive around totally lost, which was entirely my fault, but fun anyway. Then we distributed individual Hoard members to their respective houses, and that was my day. More stuff actually happened, such as my car needing to be jump started and the hobo stalking us, but I don't feel like writing about them, so you don't get to hear about them. So there.

Vote for Jesus! Vote for Kinky! Vote for Frankenregan!

100 Hits!

Wahoo! We've reached the hundered hit mark! I feel special. I'm going to convientiently ignore the fact that probably about 80 of them were me.

Design of the Roman Camp

Essay Essay Revolution 2: Electric Boogaloo Madness!

Well, due to an overwhelming number of requests, we've decided to do an article dealing with the Fung-Shui of a standard Roman Camp. (We never knew we were so popular among the soldiers! Keep sending in your letters!)
For those of you who don't know or are purposefully ignorant of the things, Fung-Shui is the barbarian art of placing buildings and furniture so that positive forces are maximised. Our resident Fung-Shui expert, Mufeng, had this to say: ' What you want to do is arrange related buildings and items in such a way that positive energy flows from the entrances of the tents flows around positive chi points of inflection. This will maximise the total harmonic efficiency of the structure.'
We thought he was making stuff up too, so we fired him and analyzed it the good old fasined Roman way: Does It Work? From this point of view, it is remarkably well designed. In three of the corners, we have the troop barracks bunched together for maximum efficiency. However, in case of a sudden attack, the tents are spaced far apart enough that troops are able to file out quickly and efficiently. Immediately below the barracks are the graineries, providing an abundant supply of food for the barrack's occupants.
In the center of the fort is the command headquarters, centrally located for ease of shouting at the garrison, and making it the most defended sector of the camp. The tribune lives in the remaining corner of the camp, and the whole structure is surrounded by sturdy walls.
All in all, this structure works. It provides the maximum amount of defences for a minimum of effort and resources. The buildings inside are all positioned in a well designed vaugely circular fashon, and the structure can be emptied or closed off ao a moments notice.
Once again, our army comes through again with another well designed procedure. We give it 5\5 Decapitated Barbarians.

BTW, There is this guy in my class named Mufeng, he just sort of pisses me off on a regular basis. I felt compelled to add him in this essay.

Seige Weapons

More essay fun!

How many of you have had the problem of nosey or randomly intruding neighbors? The sort who just won't leave you alone, no matter how many restraining orders you give them? Well, these helpful ideas may help you keep them at bay, using the same weapons or troops bravely fighting in Carthage are using!
You may want to try putting one of the newest line of catupults from SeigeCo in or on your home, the Onager. Designed to destroy walls without leaving them even the slightest chance, the Onager is high class neighbor intimidation. Also available are smaller models, the Scorpion and the 'Little Rockflinga'.
However, if your neighbor happens to live in the same block of flats as you, you don't particularly want to destroy load-bearing walls by accident. Which is why you want the Ballista, a rapid-reloading crossbow-like weapon, ideal for taking out small, fleshy, moving targets!
If you have a budget, you might want to invest in a seige tower. While these can be picked up relatively cheap (<2000 drachmas) at a millitary surplus heap, these tend to be spotty and not always reliable. Its much better to have one custom built to suit your own personal needs than to get one used, and tests we have conducted here at Better Rome And Garden havbe showed up to 90% more efficient destruction with newer models. A newly built tower also has the advantage of being new, which adds to the jealosy factor for your neighbors. Using these things is pretty simple, just hide whatever othe conventional weapons under them you need and slowly drill down your neighbor's defences.
Of course, if its just their dog that bothering you, you can always just put up sharp spikes.

Our neighbors at our old house actually did the sharp spikes thing, but they hid them, so if a dog tried to enter their yard, it would impale itself. We think they were schizophrenic. (They had delusions too, but thats another post...)

The Dress of A Roman Soldier

Have to write assorted essays for Latin, The first one is the dress of a roman soldier, they are all written from the perspective of the period magazine, 'Better Rome and Garden'. Enjoy.

When you are assembling your own personal Roman Army Montage (tm), accuracy will be of paramount importance to you, so for your convinience we've provided a short primer on the traditional garb in the Roman Army.
The most common type of soldier in your Roman Army Montage (tm) will of course be the common legionary. Those little floofy hats you see your friendly neigborhood garrison wearing are called galea. For construction, we reccomend a feather glued to a small peice of foil. On the torso, you will want to put on a lorica, or breastplate as its known to our barbarian readers, on top of a simple tunic. Because you will prbably be making quite a few of these, you will want to tend towards cheap materials, get a cheap fabric for the tunic and just cut it into squares, unless you're obsessive, in which case more detailed instructions can be found in the Library of Alexandria. For the lorica, we reccomend more foil, experiment to get the cuts exactly right. Lastly, you will want to make your soldiers some tiny solea, or sandals (barbarians!). We couldn't really find a really effective metod to make these, but we came close by taking a mosaic tile, one of the square ones available in any good marketplace, and splitting them and half (Your tile merchant should be able to do this for you). Then, tie them on using some coarse string.
For accessories, you'll want to make a gladius, a pilum, scutum, and a small basket containing some grain. For the gladus, just wrap some foil on a stick, its that easy. use a similar procedure for the pilum, but remember: the pilum is designed to bend in the center after throwing, so put a slight break in the middle, and only put foil at the end. For the scutum, just fold a sheet of foil around a glass for the curvature, and attach to the hand by means of a small peice of wood through the scutum. With the basket, we can't offer much advice, but we have had some luck by making the baskets out of walnut halves. Separating them proberly is tricky though, so it's definitely a job for the slaves.
One last thing to remember: The centurion is only distinguished only by a galea perpendicular to the soldiers head. Happy crafting!

gladuis=sword, pilium=spear, scutum=shield.

If someone actually makes the diorama described and sends me a photo, I will totally send them something cool. Not sure what yet. Email stuff to bobshush2 at yahoo dot what do you really expect here? org? its dot com.

Hmm, my blogging software is starting to do some weird stuff, updates may become sharply less frequent.

The College Board

I keep getting these emails from The College Board, which is weird, because I made a point of always saying I didn't want to recieve emails from them, ever. Thats not what this post is about. This post is about their logo.

What the hell is that thing? It's kind of like an acorn, but it has a leaf? Are they trying to evoke an apple, which would make sense? If so, they have failed miserably. It's all misshapen and deformed, like some sort of weird...weird thing.

Does anyone know?

Best. Word. Ever.

Sorry about the impulsive nature of this post, but you you have to agree, the following word is the Best. Word. Ever.

Ready? Enfeeblement.

Just say it out loud. Use it in a sentence. Appreciate its glory. And have a great rest of the day, wherever you are.

( Addmendium: 'Meagre' is a spectacular word too. )