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Weekend in Ohio Friday May 30th, 2003
So I spent the last weekend in the wonderful woody hills of the Chagrin Valley (a little vale I grew up in outside of Cleveland, OH) for their annual Blossom Time Festival. The one thing that I stubbornly insist upon participating in every year is the Blossom Time Run, a 5.25 mile run along the streets of Chagrin Falls, Bainbridge and Bentleyville.
An important item to note in the geological differences between the Chagrin Valley and the City of Chicago (where I run on a more regular basis) is the complete lack of hills in Chicago, contrasting the rolling (and endless) hills of the Chagrin Valley. This difference played a distinct role in my run this past weekend.
Although I didn't run quite as fast as I had hoped to run, the race was much better than those I've had in the past.
Other than that I got to see the ever growing Cameron Clan again (I have another new cousin) and help my youngest sister (Aileen) celebrate her graduation.
Everyone also seemed enthusiastic about some guy named LeBron.
Reloaded Thursday May 15th, 2003
Just got back from seeing The Matrix Reloaded. It's pretty good and well worth your time go see. Can I compare it to the first? That's actually pretty hard to say - so much of what is developed in this movie isn't resolved - (it's a cliffhanger if you missed the memo Joel Silver sent to public a few days back) I'm going to have to wait until the third movie to figure out if it stands up to it's predecessor or not. I guess they've opened the door with this movie - now it's up to them to walk through.
Alesdar.org moves! Wednesday April 23rd, 2003
Well, you may not have noticed it, but if you're reading this, then that means that the DNS for alesdar.org has moved to my new host. My old account was a pimped out business account, that I really didn't need, and I was paying way too much for. So I've found a new host that has all the same stuff, except for JSP (which is why I rewrote the site in PHP).
Ok, so this probably isn't exciting for anyone but me.
Flash Actionscript, very cool, but... Sunday April 20th, 2003
It's a little slow. Not that I really expected it to be blazing fast. It's plenty fast for doing what it's supposed to do (Web animation and interactivity). However, for whatever reason I felt that I needed to get an idea of just HOW fast it was, so I implemented Conway's Game of Life in it.
The Game of Life requires some mildly intense graphics usage (this version needs to be able to draw as many as 525 squares a frame) and a little bit of very rudimentary AI. It's definitely a lot slower than my Java version.
Oh well, I guess I'll have to limit the flash use to site design and keep all the heavy stuff for the site in Java.
Now, I need to go ponder why I just wasted 2 hours re-implementing that whole game just to get a rough idea of how fast ActionScript is...
PHP Me! Saturday April 19th, 2003
Ok, so I wanted to learn a little bit of php this week. So I went to my friendly neighborhood Barnes & Noble, grabbed a book on the topic and decided to give it a whirl on this site. Turns out the php is really pretty easy..and good! So much so that I've recoded the entire site in php, as opposed to JSP and servlets.
The Reviews That Matter Friday April 18th, 2003
So, Tao Feng has been getting reviews from just about everyone these days, some have been good and some have been bad. But we just got some very good ones from sources that really matter: Maxim and FHM. FHM gave us a 4 outta 5, while Maxim gave us the vaunted 5 stars out of 5. Now really, which review are you going to believe? The specialty press, made up of a bunch of guys who do nothing but play games all day, or the editors at these magazines who just play games in-between brainstorming sessions on how to justify squeezing even more scantily clad women into their magazines.
Let's put it a different way...
Which type of magazine are you more likely to read?
A Strange Coincidence? Monday April 14th, 2003
So, the second day of the state swim meet was just as successful as the first. I somehow managed to get some lifetime bests in events I swam in college...which really isn't supposed to happen to old men like me, so I was pretty pleased.
Also of interest was my overall finish in the standings, I scored 64 points to finish 16th overall for all the guys at the meet. Not a bad finish (not as impressive as my friend Alex Helfers's 4th place finish) but it seems very odd that both of those numbers are powers of 2.
Coincidence?
Perhaps, but until such time as I can verify this as a totally random event, I'm on high alert for events of mystic cosmic consequence.
Get Back in the Water! Now! Saturday April 12th, 2003
Today was the middle session of the Illinois State Master's Swim Meet. For some reason I didn't have enough of beating my body into a pulp in high school and college, and I've decided to continue my swimming career indefinitely. Furthermore, in the name of having the team bring home the biggest trophy possible I entered myself in the maximum number of events.
Is there some sort of chemical imbalance in my brain?
We may never know, but things have been going very well at the meet. My times are significantly faster than last year and I've placed in the Top 3 in my division for all events. Ok, so the competition isn't quite of the same caliber as it was in college but at least I can still swim, right?
Tao Feng - Now on a store shelf near you. Tuesday March 18th, 2003
Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus is arriving at stores as I write this very weblog. It should actually be on the shelves tomorrow. It has been a long and harrowing journey for the band of mad game developers known to the world as Studio Gigante. What is next? Only time will tell. For now you should go check out the game...or check out the new Studio Gigante site that we just updated for the first time in a year.
Tao Feng ... almost ... done Sunday February 9th, 2003
Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus, which is the game that I have been working on with Studio Gigante (published by Microsoft for the XBox) is definitely almost done. Literally, my hands may touch the code for the last time at some point this week. I'm not sure how long it takes to get onto shelves from there, but all usual suspects are putting the street date at some time around March 18th, which seems reasonable. Hopefully we'll get some good reviews! Check it out if you get a chance. (Yes, this is a shameless plug)
Code Complete! Tuesday November 5th, 2002
As you can see, I haven't done much with the webspace...ever. There are, of course, reasons for this. A: I have a job B: I like to go outside every once and a while. The good news is that we just finished up a major portion of our current project ( Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus ) call Code Complete. We're not entirely sure what getting to Code Complete really means, but we're excited to be there. Does this mean more updates in the futute? Only time will tell.
No Coffee After Noon! Thursday July 25th, 2002
Ok, so I don't drink coffee often, but I do like it. So tonight I found myself having some and low and behold I'm wide awake WAY after my bedtime. So, the combination of that, and the fact that my apartment is now habitable (as opposed to being ridiculously hot) has allowed me to actually add something to the site. I'd say there's more to come soon, but we all know better.
Gigante Week(end) Sunday July 14th, 2002
What!? No updates at Alesdar.org for almost a week? No, I haven't descended into total web apathy...yet. It's just been a busy week with a big deadline coming tomorrow. In a Gigante related development Planet Xbox posted this interview with John Tobias. There are some new screenshots in there as well.
Enough Already! Sunday July 7th, 2002
Ah yes, the 4th of July. A wonderfully exciting holiday filled with parades, picnics and blowing things up, I love it.
But wait, it's July 7th!!
Would someone please tell my neighbors to stop blowing things up!? It's making me jumpy.
Alesdar.org returns! Thursday July 4th, 2002
Well, here I am again, reinventing alesdar.org for the umpteenth time. Perhaps this time I actually have something to post! Keep checking back for more strange posts, unnecessarily gaudy graphics and random database driven fun.
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