2007-06-29

Futurama made me cry

Filed under: Writing — Tags: , , — D. Moonfire @ 15:12

Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal: (1 / 26 weeks)
Muddy Reflections Reading: (1 / 26 weeks)
Summer Biking: (91.2 / 400 km)

I love Futurama. I find the show pretty good, but last night, I found an episode that made me cry. It was about Fry’s loved dog. The episode shows how the dog loved him, but when he finds out that it lived 12 years after he was frozen, he decides it had a good life and didn’t need to be raised from the dead. Up to that point, I was enjoying the show though it wasn’t my favorite. It was the scene where they show the dog waiting 12 years for Fry to return that brought tears to my eyes. I started crying, not because I remember Dante, but because it really brought me sorrow. Even when I tried to explain it to Fluffy, I started crying again.

That episode allow killed my programming for the night. I got next to no progress on Sprite3, despite my best efforts. I went to bed feeling impotent, sad, and basically useless. I know that I’ll get it, and the deadline is completely arbitrary, but I wanted to get drag and drop done last night. Maybe tonight, though I suspect Fluffy is going to want some attention (instead of letting me obsess about a program library).

I’m pulling My Father’s Bike off the progress list. I think that it needs to sit for a few months before I get around to it again. It isn’t because of last night, but I realize that something “isn’t right” and I just need to let it go for a while and come back to it, maybe I’ll find my voice again on that. After the CuteGod/4E6 stuff, I’ll start up the next one.

2007-06-28

Courier

Filed under: Programming,Writing — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 18:43

My Father’s Bike: (28,567 / 40,000 words)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal: (0 / 26 weeks)
Muddy Reflections Reading: (0 / 26 weeks)
Summer Biking: (91.2 / 400 km)

There is something about holding a stack of paper and seeing Courier font across the entire page. Twelve point font and one inch margins. In a way, it makes me smile because it is the picture of doing something. More than anything else when it comes to writing is the typewriter-style font filling the page. Clean, white, and rather bland, but it represents everything I see in myself when it comes to writing. I normally write with the font, though I occasionally go for the proportional serifs, like Garamond, or more exotic fonts, but Courier, Courier is the font that I am a writer in.

Today, I got my package ready for Open Book Press and sent it out. Since Muddy Reflections is over 50,000 words, I sent them only three chapters, which came out to a depressing nineteen pages. I’d love to have sent out 50,000 words worth of chapters, that’s nearly half the book, but when it comes to directions, I obey them usually to the letter. A quick visit to the post office and $1.38 later, it is out on its way. Now, the wait. The horrid wait of “months” until I get a response. On one side, I truly hope that they will love it and I will get another contract, like I did for my first book. In the other hand, I’m worried it will just end up another rejection. Once again, my writing is under the spotlight and I worry about coming up wanting. I also know that most of this worry is self-inflicted and entirely my fault. :) Remember, boys and girls, knowing about a problem doesn’t mean you are immune to it.

In other sides of my world, I worked on Sprite3 last night. I got 250 bouncing sprites without killing my CPU and it is beginning to look like a real library now. I’m hoping to get mouse rollovers, clicking, and drag-and-drop done tonight. That will leave me 1-2 days to write the Planet Cute layout engine with just enough time to work on the CuteGod game itself next week.

I’m also trying a new progress bar.

2007-06-27

Faux Heart Attacks

Filed under: Programming — Tags: , , , , — D. Moonfire @ 14:34

» My Father’s Bike: 0.714 (28,567 / 40,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Query: 0.000 (0 / 26 weeks)
» Summer Biking: 0.228 (91.2 / 400 km)

One useful method of getting an genuine imitation heart attack:

  1. Ride your bike after not doing it for a couple weeks because you are (still) sick.
  2. Do so on a really humid and hot day.
  3. Worry about a wobble in the rear tire.
  4. Struggle a lot trying to beat your wife’s time and then just equal her.
  5. Lean bike against office door.
  6. Get really, really involved with work.
  7. Jump loudly when bike tire explodes without anyone touching it.

So, my tire decided that it was done and committed suicide yesterday. Startled the hell out of me and was good for a few minutes of everyone asking what in the world that noise was. The rest of the day was rather sedate. I’m trying to get LDAP and PAM (ldap-pam) running in our office.

Oh, because my Google-Fu didn’t find it, if you get “I have no name!” and you are not using ncsd, make sure your /etc/pam_ldap.conf and /etc/libnss_ldap.conf are chmod a+r. Just note to others who spend two days trying to figure it out.

Last night, I worked on Sprite3 on BooGame. This is going to be a graphics library for doing sprites in various rendering systems and eventually leading into getting a GUI (menus, windows, etc) working on a pure graphical interface. Kind of like the windows and popups you see in games. I had hopes that CeGui# would do it, but I can’t get that project to do what I need it to. I didn’t get very far–I spent two weeks thinking about it, but when I got into actually coding it… nada. I did manage to get one demo working, of three kids moving around the screen every five seconds.

I did have one minor disappointment. In 2004, I wrote something jendave called the Moonfire Demos for SDL.NET. It was my effort to do basically the same thing with Sprite3, but years ago. Sprite3 is also what I did with my Gtk# Sprites, but that isn’t really important. Last year or so, jendave said he was working toward moving SDL.NET into more of a pygame approach, which is to provide simple game-related functionality instead of my rather specific sprite library. I thought he was going to keep them in there, but in the last couple rounds of changes, apparently most of my stuff was taken out.

On one hand, I can understand that. I haven’t done much with SDL.NET for a few years and I wasn’t maintaining it. But, it hurts a bit to find out that something I worked on basically got removed because it was too broken. I can understand that it happen and I hope that I won’t drop Sprite3 the same way, though I do plan on getting it working on SDL.NET again, mainly because I keep finding myself wanting this library for the various game projects and maybe if I do it properly, I’ll stop doing it. Or at least stop reinventing the wheel every nine months.

It’s may fault for not paying attention to SDL.NET and the ton of other projects that I start to get involved with, I know that. And this is the consequences of doing paying attention since I have simply so many other projects to work on.

2007-06-26

Currency in Fantasy Worlds

Filed under: Games — Tags: , , — D. Moonfire @ 14:26

» My Father’s Bike: 0.714 (28,567 / 40,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Query: 0.000 (0 / 26 weeks)
» Summer Biking: 0.228 (91.2 / 400 km)

Currency, it is a strange and terrifying thing. I mean, it is pretty simple since we are all used to dollars, euros, and yen. There are a ton others, but you get the idea at least. In Dangerous Journeys, they use the BUC to represent something costing about a dollar, so if you know that a fast meal costs $10, then it costs 10 BUC in that fantasy world. It basically uses price lists from today’s world to set the fantasy world. I will admit, this is my preferred system of handling prices. Or at least one aspect of my preferred system.

(more…)

2007-06-25

Weekend Stuff

Filed under: Family,Games,Technology,Writing — Tags: , , , — D. Moonfire @ 18:44

» My Father’s Bike: 0.714 (28,567 / 40,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Query: 0.000 (0 / 26 weeks)
» Summer Biking: 0.184 (73.4 / 400 km)

Forgot to grab the meterage from my bike computer, but I did get some kilometers in on Friday. This weekend, Fluffy was in Iowa and fightertype and uteck were enjoying their anniversary weekend, so I was babysitting four dogs, including one who was senile and one who is still learning the joys of bladder control. Hasn’t gotten there yet, but it is really hard to get anything done when you are watching that many dogs.

I did get some writing on My Father’s Bike but I’m getting more and more unhappy with it as a whole. It doesn’t really feel… fully formed, I guess is a way of saying it. I might be just letting it drift a bit more while I work on CuteGod for a little bit. If I’m still having trouble writing it by the end of June, I’ll just start up my next writing project, which is fully-formed and ready to be written.

Finished up another round of Debian packaging for XSP and mod_mono. Nice to get some of my “support my community” projects done. Speaking of community, I also got much further along in my Exalted XML Schema project. I may have at least one person who thinks it is a good idea. Now to get Anathema to import/export and maybe get someone to write a charm editor. Well, its a dream at least.

Gaming was pretty fun. Characters almost died, heroic rescues were enacted. Traps were there and I think I got the right mix of dangerous and solvable. Most of the time, they are either “squish, you are dead!” or “I’m sorry, could you pretend to even be hampered by it?” Characters survived, but it was close. I like that actually. Having a threat of danger actually in the game instead of deus ex machima, which I’m guilty of, and reasonable attempts to save members. We did have a brief discussion about money (another blog entry coming up) and I think fightertype and I came up with an alternative.

And here are some picture of Inigo, for those who like to look at puppies:

(more…)

2007-06-22

Open Book Press and Bad Timing

Filed under: Writing — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 23:30

» My Father’s Bike: 0.570 (22,814 / 40,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Query: 0.000 (0 / 26 weeks)
» Summer Biking: 0.184 (73.4 / 400 km)

I have the timing of a finely tuned curse and the damned luck that wins a game, but you end up leaving the field with a broken leg. Okay, not quite that serious, but pretty close to it. Yesterday, I sent out my proposal submission to Mirrorstone and a letter to Open Book Press to say that I miscalculated postage and sent them a new SASE with the proper postage. It was embarassing, but I figured what could be worse?

I should have learned, never, ever make that question.

So, this afternoon, when I stopped by my mailbox, I had only two letters. One of them was a SASE where someone added the $0.02 stamp to make it get through postage. Inside was a letter with the predictable header: Open Book Press.

Okay, I found something more embarassing. I mailed that apology a day before I got an answer.

I also got another different type of answer: if they are really nice and apparently when they want to read a few chapters of your novel, they’ll put $0.02 stamp on it. Heh, it took me three times before I realized what they were asking. It was also a very nice and very precise request for submissions. Most of it is pretty easy, cover page between 65# and 110# solid color index stock. A title page. The only thing that threw me is a #5 brass brad with rounded head. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a #5 brass brad in this city? I went to four office places and found #1, #2, and two sets of #3. That is including Walmart and Office Max. Staples didn’t have it either. So, I decided to be literal and order a set of them ($4 a box, with S/H $8 a box!) so I can follow all the directions.

So, apparently my query writing skills aren’t as bad as I thought. As they said in the letter:

What it does mean is your query was professional and captured our interest.

I am happy. Very, very happy. And worth the $8 box of fasteners to follow directions. Plus, they prefer my favorite font: Courier.

2007-06-21

Fear of Submission

Filed under: Technology,Writing — Tags: , , — D. Moonfire @ 21:12

» My Father’s Bike: 0.570 (22,814 / 40,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Query: 0.000 (0 / 26 weeks)
» Muddy Reflections Query: 0.333 (4 / 12 weeks)
» Summer Biking: 0.184 (73.4 / 400 km)

Still no writing, but I did spend most of the night updating the XSP packages for Debian with meebey’s help. That felt nice, getting something done and learning a whole bunch about Debian packaging to boot.

While I did no writing, I am sitting next to a huge packet proposal for Mirrorstone. I had a choice of just a single book or proposal a series. I decided to take a risk and actually write out the entire proposal for all five books that are part of Wind, Bear, and Moon. I mean, I always wrote it with the intent of future plots and apparently four more books is what it would come out to. 70 pages later, I have a thick envelope that I desperately want to throw in a garbage can for some reason. Just sitting there.

I have no clue how to describe how nervous and scared I am to actually send it. I mean, I’m actually terrified. Fear of rejection, I guess. But, also fear that I finally got a chance to show my “writing novels” skill instead showing my “writing query letter” skills and that I’m going to blow it. I’m afraid that, given this opportunity to let my writing speak for me, that I’m not that great of a writer. I picked what I felt are the best three chapters in the novel, and yet deep down inside, I’m as frightened as a yellow electric rat in a blender.

Why am I so afraid?

2007-06-20

LOLcode

Filed under: Programming — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 20:56

» My Father’s Bike: 0.570 (22,814 / 40,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Merge Edits: 0.000 (0 / 45 chapters)
» Muddy Reflections Query: 0.333 (4 / 12 weeks until 2007-08-10)
» Summer Biking: 0.184 (73.4 / 400 km)

Okay, most of you won’t care about this in the slightest bit. LOLcode is a programming language based on LOLcats, which is just a silly meme. But the code was hilarious and I just had to post a little bit of it. This is valid programming code:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
PLZ OPEN FILE "LOLCATS.TXT"?
	AWSUM THX
		VISIBLE FILE
	O NOES
		INVISIBLE "ERROR!"
KTHXBYE

Yeah, it’s silly, but just neat you can do it. The fact someone came up with this, not to mention visual debugging, highlighting of errors and everything else is just neat. Okay, on more:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
IM IN YR LOOP
	UP VAR!!1
	VISIBLE VAR
	IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10? KTHXBYE
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
KTHXBYE

This is a CIL (.NET) language which means it runs on Windows, Linux, and the Mac.

WBM is back in my hands

Filed under: Family — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 20:01

» My Father’s Bike: 0.570 (22,814 / 40,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Merge Edits: 0.000 (0 / 45 chapters)
» Muddy Reflections Query: 0.333 (4 / 12 weeks until 2007-08-10)
» Summer Biking: 0.184 (73.4 / 400 km)

Bike repair stuff ordered so on Friday, I should be back on my bike. I really, really need to get some more biking down and out to the rec center for weights. But, despite my lack of efforts, I’m now on the third notch of the belt I’ve been wearing for the last fifteen years. For the last year or so, I’ve been inching toward the outermost notch and actually have been getting close to needing a new belt since mine fit, but the last month or so, I’ve actually been creeping back in. So, yay!

I got my edits back for Wind, Bear, and Moon. Didn’t come from where I expected them to (hand delivered via fightertype) but got them in email (which I was told it wouldn’t work). So, 45 chapters to go and I send it out. If all goes well, I’ll be able to send it out on Friday afternoon, on my way home.

Today is a quiet day at work. Fightertype is out on vacation, Fluffy is home sick, my boss is out of town. Basically, its a very quiet and I’m having trouble resisting the urge to play or write games, or work on my novel. I’m anxious to get things done, mainly because I feel that I’ve been cruising the last couple of weeks.

I did get some good news, uteck forwarded this article to me which talks about Google opening up an Iowa data center. Since it should be in the “middle” of Iowa, that means that I might have a really good job potential as part of our master plan. Now, to figure out how to get hired by Google and working in Iowa in the next 18-24 months.

2007-06-19

The Last 24 Hours

Filed under: Games,Programming,Writing — Tags: , , , , , — D. Moonfire @ 16:37

» My Father’s Bike: 0.570 (22,814 / 40,000 words)
» Wind, Bear, and Moon Edited: 1.000 (4 / 4 weeks until 2007-06-15)
» Muddy Reflections Query: 0.333 (4 / 12 weeks until 2007-08-10)
» Summer Biking: 0.184 (73.4 / 400 km)

Another day without actual writing. Taking care of the tribble today since Fluffy is downtown babysitting. Hard work, since I usually lose myself during the day, but with Inigo, I have to pay attention every hour to let him out. Not that he actually wants to be let out, apparently. I was just told to let him out.

Since I decided I wanted to write a game to distract me from My Father’s Bike, I had all these ideas. Then I found the CuteGod Prototyping Challenge which is actually a cute idea. This guy creates game art and gives it away for free (damn impressive). He also gave a prototype idea for using his tiles with a little minicontest. It actually looks like a reasonable thing to do in a couple of days (weeks in reality) and would be a nice little “I did this.” I had a bit of trouble sleeping working on ideas for the game. I think I’ll do it since 4E6 hasn’t started yet. After gaming, of course. That will take precedence this weekend.

I’m getting back Wind, Bear, and Moon today. I’m also going to be creating the outlines for the next four books as part of my “series package” I’m going to be sending out as part of the proposal. I think I have a solid round of plots, well within my writing ability. The editor gave me a nice comment:

You did a super job.

I just hope it translates into publishers thinking the same thing. :) But, I think that submission is going out by Sunday and then I’ll be chewing on Inigo’s nails until I get a response. I’m also going to send out a letter to the Muddy Reflections query basically saying its a repeat query, but with proper postage. Since I figured I only have a small percentage change of getting published there (*pout*), it shouldn’t affect it significantly. Or, at least I really hope they love it, sent me a response, and then I look like an idiot for asking for another response.

I also worked on the XSD for Exalted over on patternspider.net. It seems like I’m actually getting some good progress and I can only hope that what I’m producing is actually helpful.

Found an interesting, for-sale knitting pattern: Viking Hats for Babies. I know there are a couple knitters who read my blog, so I figured I’d mention it.

Older Posts »