June 2004 Entries

Ok, it's an old game but free?  I got into MMORPG's after Everquest was released (my first MMO was Anarchy Online).  I'm sure I'll be turned off by the outdated graphics, but I'm going to try it nonetheless.

Here's the link: http://everquest.station.sony.com/trilogy/download.jsp

Here's a few cool things to take a look at if your a gamer.

1. Computer Gaming World (the best PC gaming magazine) launched a new gaming site called 1up.com.  Looks like they're in the process of launching it still which means you can't seem to register yet.  Going to keep my eye on it.  Initial impressions are that it's full of advertising, so we'll see if the content is worth it.

2. Warhammer 40k fans may want to consider getting in the Warhammer 40k Dawn of War beta.  I'm not a big fan of RTS's, but my notion is that their will be one game that makes it something click inside my head.  I'm thinking the RTS game that will do it is Lord of the Rings : Battle for Middle Earth.

3. Another RTS, Ground Control II was just released.  I don't plan on buying it, but I might try this.  If you go to this page, fill out a quick form, you'll get access to the full version of Ground Control I.

4. The Planetside promotion had been extended by 30 days.  You can purchase the full version of Planetside (which includes 1 month of play) for a low price of only $9.99.  I was on the beta for the game and was an active subscriber for a number of months.  The game is quite good and is proof that massively multiplayer FPS's can be done.  It's well worth the $9.99 to try it out.

Here's what I'm currently playing:

1. Final Fantasy X : Still slogging through this one.  This is still one of the best games I've ever played.  I think I'm almost at the end.

2. Joint Operations - Typhoon Rising: Simply put, this game just rocks.  It is one of the best LAN games I've played in a long time.  There are lots of discussions going on concerning whether or not this is a Battlefield killer.  In my opinion, definately so.  Up to 150 can play on a single map and having taken part in some large battles, it's truly awe inspiring.  The last 2 nights, my friends and I have gotten together to play COOP games against bots.  Just thinking about it makes me want to jump in and play.  The best way I can describe the game is a mix of Battlefield and Ghost Recon.  Go get it now!

3. Suikoden III: Haven't been playing this one lately but it's still on my active gaming list.  I'm not liking it as much as I originally did.  The battles in the game so far have been way too easy.  I opened up the chapter that lets you build your own town up but haven't played that part.  I'll fire the game up soon (unless something better comes along).

4. Lock-On Modern Air Combat and IL-2 Forgotten Battles: Sometimes I need to fly.  Both of these games give me a good flying fix (although they're both real hard).

Well, I'm back after a long 2 days of interviews in Redmond.  I have lots of good information to dish out.  However, you will have to wait since my notebook is out of my reach and I'm itching to play some games right now instead of blog.  In a sign that I've truly entered the state of blogger geekdom, I brought along my notebook to the interviews and took notes.  These notes however were designed to help me write a blog entry when I got back home.  Lots of notes on the atmosphere, a room full of nervous recruits ( including one recruit blatangly doing something so wrong even before his interview started), a receptionist from Greece with Krispy Kreme donuts, the hour and a half technical interview, the guy from Yacolt (bonus if you know where that city is...I do), and an interviewer on the SQL team that I really hit it off with.

All that will have to wait though.  But in order to keep the suspense level down (well, like anybody cares, but I blog with the notion that a million adoring fans are plugged into my virtual blogosphere with bated breath just waiting to hear what I have to say next), I will tell you what I think...well...I think I did well...quite well.  Did I get the job?  We'll have to wait and see which is what I said last time.  I have a notion of what the result will be just like last time and let's hope that just like last time, I'm right.

If you work in a cube, see if you can relate to this...

Well, I'm finally hear to rant about something, or rather someone, affectionately known as “The Horker”.  It all started when our entire team packed up and moved to a new building.  The old building, building 4, used to be full of assembly lines used to make inkjet printers.  The lines were all removed (except for 1 or 2 prototype lines) and a sea of cubicles were created to house all the engineers (it's a huge building).  Every night at around 5:00, someone in the next aisle over would start playing Counter-Strike.  No problem there since I play games sometimes at work, but this is different.  As he died, you would laugh uncontrollably and loudly.  My co-worker and I always became extremely infuriated.  But now that I've moved, I would kill to have that uncontrollable laughter back.  Why?  The Horker.

So here I am in Building 1.  It is an older building that used to house a lot of administrative type people and is now filled with a lot of engineers just as building 4 is.  It is here that I and my team heard of “The Horker” and when I mean “hear“, I literally mean “hear”.  You see, the guy in the cube right next to mine (we share a wall) has some type of lung affliction.  Many times throughout the day he coughs up a bunch of phlegm, at least that's what it sounds like.  However, it's not so much a coughing sound as it is a...well....horking sound.  You know how you were little and you wanted to spit a big nasty green loogy (spelling?) so you would force air up from your lungs and through your esophagus and in doing so created a loud horking sound in your throat just before the final spit?  Well, it sounds just like that only about 10x louder.

So, some of you might be saying “so he does it a few times, what's the big deal”.  Well, one day I was really bored so I decided to create an Excel spreadsheet listing the times he “horked”.  In a 20 minute period, he horked 22 times.  Now, compound this by how long the day is and I think you see that it's way more than a couple times a day.  Let me just say that it is the most annoying sound in the WORLD, breaks my concentration every time, and has made me say things I would never say in front of my kids, wife, coworkers, friends, etc... I joke that it is literally driving me insane and that is so close to the truth.  I have literally at times wanted to smash my monitors because of it.

Now how did I solve the problem, or rather what have I done to try and solve the problem.  For starters, I told my manager and got the approval to buy a pair of Bose headphones that cost $300.  It works fine but it means I have to listen to music ALL DAY LONG!  After a couple of weeks, I was done.  The only thing I can really do now is complain that it is affecting my work (which it is since I have left to go home early on several occasions because of it).

Here's my disclaimer: I by no means intend to put down this person.  I am pretty sure he has some sort of affliction that forces him to cough up phlegm all day.  He is probably a really nice guy.  I obviously have to watch my step to maintain political correctness in this situation and have to keep a lot of emotions bottled up inside.  I just wish I knew if he a) really has a problem and b) if so, has he seen a doctor (I'LL PAY FOR IT).

There you go.  How about you?  Have any reoccurring annoying things that happen to you while in your cube?

I am currently involved in another series of weekly videos that I write, direct, act in, and produce for our church.  This is the 3rd series I have done (only 3 videos in this series) and is by far the hardest since I am doing a lot of chromakey work in it (think evil and good conscience on the shoulders).  I finished the 2nd video at 5:00 am on Saturday...well...technically I guess that would be Sunday, but I started working on it at 3:00 pm on Saturday so it felt...oh, you know what I mean.

Now to the subject.  I wanted it to open showing a freeway with a lot of traffic.  I was just going to go shoot on the overpass of I-5 one day, but totally forgot about it.  No problem I thought, there has to be a small 10 second video like that on the Internet.  Well, no such luck.  However, there were plenty of videos that I could by, something known as stock video footage.  Well, I do all of this as a ministry and I don't charge the church for any out of pocket expenses (tapes, DVD's, lighting, fabrics, software, etc...) but the price of short clips of stock video is outrageous.  I saw small videos going upwards of $500.  This is just for small 30 second clips.  The cheapest I found was $19.95.  Still, $20 for a small video?  I wonder how much money these people actually make?  If it's a lot, maybe I'm in the wrong business :-)  Here are some examples at how ridiculous these things are:

1) Seen in a close-up, a female hand grasps a computer mouse resting on a gray surface. The pointer finger of the hand double-clicks the left button, pauses, and then clicks it a third time. Runs for 5:18.  Price: $149 .

2) A plate of sushi fills the screen.  You see a man use a pair of chopsticks and grap a piece.  The clip runs for 5 seconds and the price to have it shipped on a CD is $149 (for 5 seconds of video).  But wait! You can download it and only pay $99! Can you say “bargain”!

3) An 11 second clip of someone filming the St. Louis Arch for $9.95.  Ok, I know what you're thinking.  However, that's for the medium resolution version.  The high resolution version is $19.95.  Ok, still not so bad (meaning it won't bankrupt you).  It gets better.  The clip is on the site whose site title, domain name, and main graphic proclaim “Free Stock Footage!”.

Arrests have been made in perhaps the biggest gaming news story last year, the theft of the next Half-Life game.  I for one didn't really care for the first one for some reason, but the next one looks extremely good. Anyway, here's the story link:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/06/10/news_6100381.html

Ok, my oldest son is 12 years old.  He's a geek, just like me so we have a lot in common.  However, there are some things that him and his friends like that is just way beyond my comprehension.  One of them is a MIDI file of the old classic song “Funkytown”.  I didn't like the original song and the MIDI is about 20 times worse.  Apparently the song is used in Shrek 2 which he's seen but I haven't yet.

He just sent me a link to something quite annoying which he and his friends think is way cool.  Without further ado, here it is:  http://picard.ytmnd.com/

I'm tossing around an idea.  I was given a large stack of my latest book.  While I've given several away to family and friends, I still have some left.  I was thinking it might be fun to just give one away to someone I don't know.  So, why not give one away to somehow who perchance happens upon my blog.  So, I'm going to think of some clever way to give my book away using my blog (entries more than likely coming from the comments section).  I'll even sign it upon request though keep in mind that my signature will probably greatly devalue the book itself :-)  What do you think? Interested in something like this?  Here's the link again for those that don't know what I'm talking about: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0672325802/qid=1073329336//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i0_xgl14/002-8010373-3358431?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

If anyone has any contest ideas, let me know.

Believe it or not, I actually write more than just technical articles/books. Growing up, I was always writing poetry and short stories. Recently however, I have found a liking to screenplays. First off, let me first say that the screenplays are generally for 3-5 minutes short video vignettes.  Most of these are due to me being the drama ministry leader at my church.  Just this last week, I wrote a 3 minute screenplay, organized the actors (only 3 of us), shot the film, and then edited it.  All in all, I probably spent about 12 hours on it.  So, I thought I'd share the screenplay that we used.

After reading it, you may notice a few strange things.  First off, there is an evil and good conscience on the main character's shoulder.  Yes, we actually did do that.  There is even a scene of the evil conscience jumping off the shoulder, running across the table and then being picked up by the main character and placed back on his shoulder.  Yes, we did that too.  We did a very cheap green screen method using green fabric from a local fabric store.  You can see a very rough draft of the first minute and a half.  There's no music.  The editing is very rough.  Basically, the finished version is soooo much better.  This little video was just a proof of concept: http://www.schmidt6.com/Anger Management I.wmv. Without further ado, here's the script (oh, and we changed some lines during the filming to make them “a little better”):

FADE IN (OUTSIDE OF HOUSE)
We see a typical suburban home. Minivan in the driveway,
well kept yard and the sounds of children playing in the
neighborhood.

ZOOM IN TO CLOSE UP OF HOUSE AND FADE TO WIDE SHOT OF WINDOW

Although barely discernible, we see someone through the
window sitting at a table.

ZOOM IN TO CLOSE UP OF WINDOW AND FADE TO WIDE SHOT OF
PERSON INSIDE 

Now inside, we notice a man sitting at the
table writing something. A letter perhaps? Who knows. One
thing is certain, he is deep in thought. 

ZOOM IN TO CLOSE UP SHOT OF MAN

                        WILLIAM (VO)
            ...with your constant nagging at me
            at every little thing I do. Don’t
            you know how much I work for this
            family? How hard I try and provide
            the good thing’s in life?
Lifts pencil to mouth as if thinking of the next words to
say.Immediately puts the pencil back to the paper and
continues writing.
                        WILLIAM (VO)
            What thanks do I get? Nothing but
            "get off the couch and mow the lawn!
            Fix the car! Bathe the children!
            Put the seat down!". For once, why
            can’t you ever thank me for
            everything I do for you? Just once!
            I’m getting sick and tired of it.
            Absolutely sick and...
At this point, in William’s furious writing, the pencil lead
breaks. We see a brief slow motion playback as the lead
breaks off and the pencil tears into the paper. The camera
goes back to William and we start to see a brief glimpse of
anger forming. In a quick flash, William’s evil conscience
takes physical form as we see him/her materialize on
William’s shoulder.
                        EVIL CONSCIENCE
            Oh no! Look what happened! Doesn’t
            it always seem to go like this. The
            thoughts are hatching. The words
            are flowing. And then all of a sudden, just as
            Murphey’s Law predicts, something
            wrong happens. Doesn’t that just
            make you soooooo angry?
Poof! The good conscience takes physical form on William’s
left shoulder.
                        GOOD CONSCIENCE
            Wait a minute! Don’t listen to him.
            It’s just a pencil. Sure you may
            have torn your letter a little, but
            it’s nothing to get upset about.
                        EVIL CONSCIENCE
            Oh no you don’t! This is a
            perfectly legitimate reason to get
            angry. You’re just jealous.
                        GOOD CONSCIENCE
            Jealous? Are you kidding me? You
            think that just because he listens
            to you more that you do a better
            job. If it weren’t for me, he’d
            probably be in jail right now.
                        EVIL CONSCIENCE
            Take your goody-two shoes face out
            of here. We don’t need your help.
            We can manage just fine without you.
            If you don’t...that does it, you’re
            out of here.
Evil conscience jumps down off of William’s shoulder and
starts running towards the good conscience.
                        GOOD CONSCIENCE
            You can’t make him get angry at
            everything!
                        EVIL CONSCIENCE
            It’s a dog-eat-dog world. He has to
            get angry! Fight or flight? HA! You
            have to fight! Flight is for the weak!
                        WILLIAM
            WAIT A MINUTE! WAIT A MINUTE! STOP!
They both stop talking. William grabs evil conscience by the
back of the shirt and places him back on his shoulder.

                        WILLIAM
            Can someone please explain to me
            what’s going on? Who are you?
                        EVIL CONSCIENCE
            I sir am your conscience of thought
            and reasoning.
                        GOOD CONSCIENCE
            He’s lying! I am your good
            conscience and that
            other...thing...is your evil
            conscience.
                        WILLIAM
            Look. I don’t have time to go crazy
            right now. I’m in a very difficult
            crisis right now.
                        EVIL CONSCIENCE
             Which is all the more reason to
            get angry! You broke your pencil.
            Doesn’t that make you angry!
                        GOOD CONSCIENCE
            NO! Don’t listen to him. Just get
            up...
                        EVIL CONSCIENCE
            Angry!
                        GOOD CONSCIENCE
            ...and sharpen it. It’s just a...
                        EVIL CONSCIENCE
            Angry! Angry!
                        GOOD CONSCIENCE
            ...minor setback. Look, you have a
            whole...
                        EVIL CONSCIENCE
            Angry! Angry! Angry! Look at
            me...I’m William...I’m ANGRY!
                        GOOD CONSCIENCE
            bunch of pencils in your office.
                        EVIL CONSCIENCE
            Give me an A! Give me an N! G! R! Y!
            What does that spell? ANGRY!
At this point, William has decided. Both conscience’s poof
into thin air. The camera zooms onto William’s face.

We start to see him slowly get angry. The camera keeps
zooming. Once we get to his eyes, they take on a very angry
look, William let’s out an angry roar and the camera blacks
out.
                                             FADE OUT.
FADE IN
The words "To be continued..." display on the screen
                                             FADE OUT.
FADE IN Credits roll.

Awhile ago, I hinted in the comments section of my MS interview rejection post that I had a secret.  Well, it's official.  Apparently I didn't scare MS away too badly.  I am now going up for yet another interview (yes, I am a sucker for pain) for a Programmer Writer position.  For those unfamiliar with Programmer Writers (and I am still a little unsure), they are basically developer's that write sample code and then create an article for it, as well as other writing related tasks.  A good example is MSDN and the plethora of articles, samples, whitepapers, etc...  Most of those were created by Programmer Writers.

To my credit, I do have several magazine articles and 2 books that I've written, so the writing experience is there.  I have also written about 10 or so screenplays for short little videos that I directed/acted/produced.  So, here we go again.  Let's hope the experience is a little better physically (I was extrememly exhausted during the last person of the last interview).

Whilst perusing throught the Office directory, I found a file named VisualStudioTeamCore.dll.  It's located in the Office11/VSRuntime folder.  Just thought it was interesting.

ATI was highly critical of Nvidia after they realized Nvidia was cheating on benchmarking tests to make their scores higher and thus make it seem like their video card was better.  At the time, I was in the market for a new video card and the whole cheating scandal swayed my decision more towards ATI (not by much, the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro was the best card out at the time).  After having been an Nvidia customer for a long time, I bought an ATI.

Now, ATI is admitting that it too employs secret cheats to boost their benchmark scores.  What?!?!  They hammer on Nvidia for cheating while knowing deep down that they are too!  Well, I think its time I start paying attention to Nvidia again.  Their drivers are 10x the quality of ATI's.  I just hope they'll let me come back :-)

Here's the story: http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/06/03/news_6099873.html

• Well, I was actually quite surprised to see that the Spiderman 2 demo is out.  I'm anticipating this game, but didn't even know it was coming out for PC's. 
• A game I've never heard of called Besieger also has a demo out.  It's a RTS which is not my favorite genre but I'll probably check it out anyway.
• Carmageddon 4 in 2005!  Ok, I'm excited about this one.  I played the 1st and loved it especially on the LAN.  The 2nd stunk and the 3rd was pretty good.  I don't play it for the running over pedestrians factor, but rather the cool car physics.  With driving games (GTA, Mafia, Carmageddon), I spend most of the time looking for object to jump over and stunts to perform.  I'm also anxiously awaiting Driv3r but a recent Gamespot first impressions article dampened my enthusiasm somewhat.
• I am playing City of Heroes now as my MMORPG of choice.  It is by far the best experience in the genre that I've had and as such, I have put more time into it than other MMO's (my main is named MonoCrash on the Justice server fyi).  A new video of the first major update was released and man does it look awesome.  However, by looking at it, I don't think my level 18 char can take those mech's.
• Lineage II received a dismal 6.0 from Gamespot.  I was on the beta for that game and agree with most of what he said.  I was drawn to the game based on the fact that the dev's said it would ship with castle siege's and clan warfare.  Well, it didn't but apparently will in the next major update.  The graphics are quite nice but gamers have been pounding into game developer's heads that eye candy isn't everything.  Gameplay is way more important.  City of Heroes developer's nailed it (and it also looks purty).  So, when castle sieges are introduced into Lineage II, I might give it a try.

Here's what I'm playing right now:

• City of Heroes
• Final Fantasy X (since I just recently completed my console collection by buying a PS2. Definately one of my all time favorite games so far.)
• Suikoden III (not as good as Final Fanstasy X but I'm still enjoying it.  My kid hates it though)
• UT2k4 (this is what we play on the LAN now.  We switched from Desert Combat for BF1942, played BFV once, and now play this. Awesome game)

Installing Windows Media Player 10 Beta now from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10/default.aspx

WMP has always been something I follow from a user interface standpoint since its similar to a lot of things I do (skinning, XML UI Definitions, script hosting).  It's beta so beware.