Interesting Times - Piled Higher and Deeper

So, it's been an interesting week. More precisely, I've had two interesting Tuesdays in a row. Firstly, last Tuesday, was my anual performance review at work, which was somewhat unexpected. I say "somewhat" because it's that time of year so I knew it would be happening sooner or later, but when it happened it was more or less a "surprise! You've got a performance review in an hour!" sort of thing. Whatever. It was fairly painless and they decided to toss some more money at me (not literally).

What made last Tuesday more interesting, however, was that later that evening, I got an e-mail from one of the graphics professors at UW (University of Waterloo) inquiring about my PhD application and if I was still interested. Of course, I replied that I was, and I presumed that, since the prof had taken the trouble to contact me, there was a decent chance of getting an acceptance.

Well, this afternoon, being the following Tuesday, I received my acceptance letter from the department. So it appears that I will by starting my PhD (read: piling it higher and deeper) in January. Not exactly the normal time to start, but that's what worked out, and I'm not really complaining.

The somewhat ironic thing, is that I'll be taking a pretty hefty pay cut from my current salary, but then, if it was about the money, I wouldn't have applied in the first place.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Spore

I had the chance to play a bit of Spore yesterday at a friend's place and, I have to say, it looks pretty nifty. I only played through the cell stage and the initial bit of the creature stage, but I certainly liked what I saw of it. I definitely think I'd like the game, which makes it unfortunate about the DRM that it uses. I don't want to seem to support DRM (which I don't think does one whit of good towards its intended purpose and only manages to annoy/harm the legitimate users), but I want to get the game. Dilemma.

One thing that intrigues me about Spore is all the content editors (like the creature editor). The editors seem to have a certain amount in common (at least in spirit) with my Master's thesis. Oh, there are plenty of differences, yes, but the goal seems similar. My thesis was an animation tool geared towards allowing those with no or minimal artistic experience to easily and quickly create character animation. Spore's editors are (or seem to be) geared towards allowing players to easily and intuitively create 3D models, like the creatures, though the animations are pre-made. So, there seems to be a similar spirit there.

Playing around with the creature creator, I think I can make a reasonable guess as to at least some of what's going on under the hood. I'm sure there's plenty of details that would be tricky to work out without some R & D, but the basics, at least, I've got ideas on.

In summary - Spore: neat game, DRM: not so neat.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Classical Cacophony

With the start of the new term, the UW orchestra is starting up once again with the open rehearsal last night. So, I dusted off the cello (much neglected over the summer) and off I went! It's looking like there'll be 9-10 cellos in the section this term, which is pretty similar to the past few terms. There were 11 signed up on the list, 10 showed up to the rehearsal and 1 left part way through proceedings. If I'm remembering correctly, the largest cello section we've had was a whopping total of 12, so I'd imagine that all the cellos that decide they want to stick with it will get in.

This term, we're playing Borodine's 2nd symphony (we played the 3rd movement two summers ago, and it's one of the easier movements so it won't take long to polish that one off, the rest of the symphony, who knows?), a flute concerto from Mozart, I think, and other things. In addition to our regular end-of-term concert, we're playing at convocation this term, and one of the things we're playing there is a medly from South Pacific, which I gather is a Rogers and Hammerstein musical, though I'm not familiar with it. The medly actually seems more in line with my actual skill level than our normal fare, but I couldn't help thinking that it was more boring than the harder stuff.

Of course, I use the term "boring" relatively in this case, as it's always fun to be playing (and easier means less practicing for me).

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Not Wearing Underwear Today

Well, actually I am, but the song from Avenue Q has been bouncing through my head the past few days. And, yes, this is a post about underwear - my underwear, to be precise, so if that seems like its going to be too much in the realm of "too much information" then theres a nifty post about a couple of my projects just below this one to read instead.

Anywho... I needed to get some new underwear recently and decided to get some boxes, for something different (nearly forgot I'd gotten them, too) and I have to say the feel weeeeeeird! It's like wearing a pair of shorts under my jeans. Yes, I know they're called boxer *shorts*, and while I was expecting them to feel a bit odd at first, I was just expecting them to feel a little less odd.

Oh well. I think I'm starting to get used to them now, so that's fine.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Projects on the Go (With Pictures!)

So, I thought to myself, why don't I do a post about a couple of my projects I was working on this weekend, just for the heck of it! And seeing as it's my flog(*), I'll do what I want to. Narf.

First up is my graphics programming project. I was poking at the particle system stuff a bit (which is about as far as the project has gotten thus far), namely converting it to render point sprites, instead of a textured quad for each particle, which meant writing a point sprite shader (w00t). I also acquired a better test texture for particles so they look a bit snazzier now, over all. There's still some tweaking I want to do and no doubt some further optimizations, but I might leave some of that until later so that I can start working on other stuff. (I can be impatient like that.)

A short clip for the curious:



I've also been poking at my RPG Maker 2000 project, known as "The Kyoujo RPG" (working title). Specifically, I've been working on the latest dungeon, which is still in progress seems to be turning out well. As I seem to have been on a bit of an RPG Maker kick lately, I found some videos on YouTube of various RPG Maker projects which, of course, made me think it'd be cool to whip up a trailer for the Kyoujo RPG, despite the fact that it's nowhere near complete and will likely never be 100% complete, at least in its RPG Maker incarnation. Still, its fun to think about and tinker with from time to time.


And because I can:



Well, that's all for today.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

(*) Flog = Freak Log

Attack of the Flaming Chicken

It seems I was so caught up with the imminent end of the long weekend when I last posted that I forgot to mention other things.

Anyway, I was at my brother's place along with some friends for some labour day laziness, which ostensibly was going to include some fancy barbequed chicken. Now, my brother had attempted to make this at some point last year when we were all gathered, but managed to rather set the thing on fire rather spectacularly. This time, the kinks had supposedly been worked out and we had high hopes that it would turn out better. But, somehow, the chicken managed to catch fire... again and was looking very black and charred. My brother just doesn't seem to be having much luck with this recipe.

Oh well, I'm sure we'll get to try it one of these days!

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Song of the Cheese Dinners

Well, the weekend is at an end - the long weekend. I don't know why, but that always makes me feel a bit restless. I suppose it tends to seem like I'm just starting to enjoy myself and then *wham!* it's back to work. I always think that the whole work-life balance issue is rather off-kilter (and this is for society as a whole, not necessarily me in particular) - though those who know me know my opinions on the matter so there's not really any need to go into that, and that's not really what this blog is supposed to be about anyhow.

So, there's not really any point to this post. Babbling into the ether generally seems to calm me down a bit. Nothing much else going on right now anyway. Orchestra will be starting back up soon which I'm looking forward to and which is bound to make me a bit busier for a few months. Guess I should pull out the cello and get it tuned up, at the very least.

Freak Out,
-TFitC