March 27, 2005
First, some IRC fun:
- bloodymike
- I think you'll love the symbology and the puzzles in [The Da Vinci Code].
- bloodymike
- And if it's condemned by the Vatican, you /know/ it's good.
- Havard
- Ooooh!
- bloodymike
- :-)
- Havard
- That's, like, the quality stamp right there: "Banned by the Vatican -- It's Gotta Be Good"
- bloodymike
- Well, they'll only ban it if it's true or scandalous, or both. It's win-win.
- Havard
- ^_^
Second, Asimov was a hell of a writer. Sadly, I didn't finish as many books as I'd like to due to various distractions not under my direct control. The ones I did complete, however, are Robots and Empire, Prelude to Foundation, and Foundation. I won't spoil anything, but if you're planning on reading the series, you're in for a big treat at the end of Prelude to Foundation. I almost didn't believe it.
Third, distractions not under my direct control suck.
Fourth, and most importantly: Play StepMania. StepMania is an emulator for Dance Dance Revolution, a highly addictive game where the point is to hit arrows (either with your feet, as on the arcade machine, or with your fingers on the keyboard) as they pass a designated point on the screen. The more accurately you hit, the more points you get. Now, when you download StepMania, you won't have any songs; you'll have to download the songs for yourself and place them in the Songs folder where you installed the emulator (instructions on how to do this is included in the logically-named file Instructions.txt which resides in the Songs folder). A good place to get songs is Bemanistyle. You'll have to register, but I think you'll manage. The cool thing about StepMania is that it's fast and extremely configurable. Be sure to tweak all the settings you can! You probably won't understand what all the settings do the first time you fiddle around, but you'll understand when you've actually played the game some. Oh, and it uses PNG and XML. WIN!