Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Broken Drum Rock Band versus Guitar Hero
December 29, 2007

I would like to offer my comparison between the games Rock Band and Guitar Hero, but first I will mention something about my broken Rock Band drum set.

I bought Rock Band for myself before Christmas, having had a great time with Guitar Hero 2, and wanting to try out the crazy drum setup. I’ve been playing for a while, and my snare drum (the red one on the far left) has gradually stopped working well. It’s at the point now that I have to bang on the drum really hard just to get it to register.

I’ve seen videos on the web about other people having trouble with their drum sets. Apparently, there were some issues with the early models (which I’m sure is what I have considering I pre-paid for mine) that are fixed in later revisions. EA is being awesome about replacing the broken drum kits. I’ve visited their site and ordered my free drum kit replacement. Hopefully I’ll be swapping out the drums early next week.

That said, let me get into my comparison between the games, and what I think they should do with the next version of Rock Band and/or Guitar Hero.

Crash
December 28, 2007

It’s frequent over the last few years that between early November and mid-January I enter a kind of soul-numbing melancholy. I’d managed to avoid it last year with the new job, and I was doing so well this year, not really thinking too much about it, but I think it’s sneaking up on me. I can kind of feel its approach.

Interestingly, I think that it’s nothing to do with the holidays, which maybe it used to be. And it doesn’t have anything to do with my birthday, which I will once again not be celebrating on the actual day. I guess it’s that I’m bothered by work stuff more these days, which is shocking considering what an influence it was last year to staying out of the funk. Now it’s most of the cause. If I think about it too much, I just want to crawl into a hole somewhere.

It’s a weird mix of feeling underutilized while also feeling ineffectual; overburdened while simultaneously not doing much. For things that I’m supposed to be expert at I frequently feel like that expertise is being eschewed. Things that I’ve volunteered to learn more about - things I don’t already know much about - to help out in areas that we’re weak seem to be things that I’m already expected to know, and when I don’t, I feel worthless and like I’m not doing my job well.

I’m missing opportunities to work on things that might have a finite scope because I have other work that is consuming me - things I know I’m not great at, don’t like to do, and have no end that I can see. It might be nice to start, finish, and be praised for something to have some simple success. My schedule seems to not allow this, I guess. Or I just suck too much to actually be given tasks like that.

I keep wondering if I’m telling myself that I am good at this, but really I’m mediocre. Or worse than mediocre. I’m questioning a year’s worth of thinking that I’ve ever been good at this. Again.

Something Neat About Online Dice
December 23, 2007

I just realized something interesting about rolling dice online. Forgive my geek side for showing for a moment.

I’ve been messing with modules for JibbyBot (a phenny bot for IRC), trying to pick up a little Python here and there, and something I thought to possibly implement is a dice-rolling module that would let you specify die-rolls in D&D format. I suppose a brief tutorial is in order.

Week in Preview
December 17, 2007

There is no Christmas shopping done. I think we’ve just about given up this year. My only enthusiasm for this holiday so far is for it to be over. Of the bazillion lights we bought last year to put outside, we’ve hung exactly zero.

I think we blew through our Christmas enthusiasm on the weekend after Thanksgiving when we went tree shopping, couldn’t find the usual place, and ended up with a decent but pre-cut tree. I wasn’t home when Berta and the kids decorated both trees this year. The one in the family room still isn’t done being decorated, I think. And thinking about it now, I wonder if I’m going to have the stamina for two trees worth of holiday.