I may or may not know what Twitter is really supposed to be for. Maybe it's a hip urban spontaneous social gathering tool, or maybe it's a social networking micro-blog slash IM app that for some inane reason includes SMS. The point is rather moot when no one reads what you write. Twitter failed me yesterday because only half of the people who usually chat with me even know what was going on some 12 hours after the tweet. Was it Twitter's code? No, it was the social network aspect of Twitter that failed.

Because you guys will ask and I really don't want to repeat myself, here is how my birthday went:

1. I had planned on having a nice and relaxing lunch with Holly. I nearly got that. It was nice but not exactly relaxing as I was unsure if anything would settle well. Turns out it did, so win for me, except the entire process took 2 hours!
2. Due to the extra long lunch (90 minutes longer than usual) I had to work late, but decided not to work too late and make up 30 minutes on Friday, so that I might better enjoy my birthday. This was a mistake.
3. I tried to play Bourne Conspiracy while waiting for my folks to return home from errands, as we were to have a steak BBQ at their house to celebrate my birthday. It is now roughly 1700 hours and Emma is in a screaming hysterical fit. This continues until 2030 hours, with only a short break (15 minutes) while she's in the car.
4. Instead of 4 adults eating a steak BBQ it was 3 of us eating a cold steak BBQ while Emma screamed and wailed and turned beet red. It was then decided that we should go home and try to put her to bed in familiar surroundings. This means the planned cake and games time was canceled (maybe postponed).
5. We get home and Holly puts Emma to bed while I put in "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" in a vain attempt to salvage something of my birthday. Yay. I'm 31.

I didn't ask for much, and I stupidly allowed myself to be optimistic that I could have a nice dinner with my family and play either a lawn game or a board/card game. My birthdays don't usually turn out exactly as planned but none have bombed as bad as this one. No cake, no presents, no fun, only 4 hours of screaming that set me on edge and gave me a headache. Instead of being "the birthday-boy" I was "dad". Le sigh.

Dashboard isn't "the killer app", but that's not to say it isn't useful. I have found it to be a time saver (at the expense of resources) in a few tasks. Allow me to illustrate.

Home

In the morning I drag myself out of bed and attempt to feed myself. I'm sure it's a comical event, one which my children will laugh at many times. During this entertainment extravaganza I usually check a few things on my trusty iBook: the day's comics, some blogs, and Dashboard. Dashboard will tell me in a glance if I need to dress warm or cold, expect rain, snow, sleet, or sun, and give me an idea of the wicked pollen and it's continual struggle to kill me. If I've purchased something online I'll usually also track it on Dashboard, so I'll know, "Hey! Why did my package go from Nevada to Kentucky?!?"

Work

My office doesn't afford me a view of the outside. It's terrible in that respect. I never know how the weather is doing, and in the cold months of the year (or April) I like to keep an eye on the freezing point so I can make a hasty exit and work from home. That and it's always fun to comment on the weather in chat, because inanity is great stuff! Beyond this I find that I need to generate random passwords for db connections, random text for site layout testing, and sometimes need to know the HTML entity for something strange like the Yen (¥ btw).

For whatever reason people are always asking me about dates. And I hate loading up iCal just to refer to a date on a calendar, so I just go to Dashboard and look. Takes me a brief moment. I also drop sticky notes on my Dashboard from time-to-time, which keeps things greatly uncluttered.

In summary I use Dashboard for those things I only occasionally need, want to keep hidden but resident, and for those things where a quick glance at data is all I need to answer my question. A push of F12 and I get my data is fast, easy, and most of the time I don't notice the missing resources.

JD made an interesting point here about a desire to have the ability to create what I will call a new "project space" at will; a place where we can discuss, document, brainstorm, and implement a programming idea. The idea has merit and it brings to mind a question of what [web] tools are needed for such things? A wiki? A forum? A blog? A run-of-the-mill CMS? I've tried to do this stuff before and invariably things break, and I'd like to figure out why and what to do about it.

The Wiki

The wiki is a great place to brainstorm ideas and document direction. Beyond this I don't know what it has to offer. It's a terrible medium for discussion and it's not ideal for one-way communication "from on high", so for "immutable" docs a wiki is a bad idea.

The Forum

This is a great place for discussions and to hash out the merits of feature x vs feature y. The problem with forums, however, is once the topic thread leaves the front page it's a dead topic no matter how eloquent. Forums are great for ephemeral conversations and hashing things out, but they beg for someone to do a "formal writeup" after the fact. Forums make terrible reference material.

The Blog

To be honest I'm not even sure how this could be useful to a development team. It has all the drawbacks of a form and the wiki but none of the gain. And yet it is a tool for getting information out. Does it even apply in a development environment?

The CMS

This one can work for those immutable documents (but then how is this not a wiki with security?). This gives a person(s) the ability to push out those few settled upon docs, but again, isn't this premature in a development environment? Isn't this the tool to use to distribute the software and have press releases and stuff?

The Trac-like Thing

I'm not a major fan of Trac; it doesn't work for me all that well. But the software idea of having a shared list of "action items" and bugs, along with milestones, goals, and deadlines could be handy. I'm not sure to what degree but it could be handy. Now having a browsable repository . . . that's not too shabby either, especially if it displayed the commit logs in a meaningful way.

The Main Question

What things are needed in order to create a project space? Right now I like having a forum (in which only the invited devs can access) and a wiki. Are there other components? Is there a way to join these two into one package (a wiki/forum combo)? Thoughts? Ideas? Flames?

I rented Call of Duty 4 (CoD4 from here on out) Friday night and finished it early Saturday afternoon (about 5-6 hours of play time). I confess I am not a big fan of FPSes on console games, though I have played one that I like quite well, and I have a history of playing Quake games on the PC and having a ball. Playing CoD4 however left me wanting more, and feeling quite unsatisfied and a little upset. Mind you I did not play any of the multiplayer online stuff, which I suspect is the main use case for the game, so this is only my reactions to the single player game, which I submit is only there to train you on how to use the game engine.

At fist blush the game presents itself as a bit of a modern day war simulation. You are either a short-lived Marine or an invincible S.A.S. soldier. They hand you and arsenal of what I can only assume are modern weapons (though I never did find a Barrett light 50 calibre rifle anywhere). The tagline of the game is "Modern Warfare" and to this end things seem up to snuff, though not having ever fired anything more advanced than a shotgun I cannot say how accurate they are. Nonetheless I'll assume they got the recoil right, the magazine capacities, rate of fire, blah blah blah all simulated right (although I never could change the fire mode for the MP5; it was always on full auto and I desperately wanted a 3-round burst). The game even goes so far as to start you out with a training level which to my eyes simulates modern warfare urban tactics (complete with flash-bangs, which I never used after that one level). Suffice it to say I got the distinct impression that the game was going to be a modern warfare simulation, and I was all geared up to go tactical, work with my team, and conserve ammo. Too bad I was wrong.

I would imagine that on a real battlefield if I took even one bullet to any part of my anatomy I'm fairly sure that would get me sent back to base-camp where a purple heart would await me (along with lots of morphine). In the game, however, I can withstand a barrage of bullets and even shrapnel from a grenade, if only I find cover and rest for about 10 seconds, after which I'm miraculously healed to 100% and ready to take more bullets. In one level I'm fairly sure I took 10 head shots and still didn't go down. They must have been using rubber bullets on me, but actual lead on my allies, because I saw them drop down dead. And this is an odd point: I cannot take the magazines from a dead comrade to replenish my dwindling supply. Instead I'm supposed to take the enemy rifles as my own, and lets face it an AK-47 doesn't hold up against any of the guns I start with.

At this point the simulation aspect is right out. And so are any tactical elements I was expecting. I cannot open any doors, I have to wait for my Captain or a Lieutenant to do so, and then they get to run in and sweep the room. I'm left to stand around like a useless wad of pixelated flesh (with X-Men healing capacity!). Hell, I can even stand in front of an M1 Abrams tank while it's firing it's main gun and suffer no hearing loss whatsoever! I mean talk about making me think that modern soldiers come straight out of the comic books; Marines are all Superman! WE PWN THE WRLD!!!

Allow me to move on to my next (and final) point: the story is a cruel exercise in railroading the players. My actions have absolutely nothing to do with the outcome of the story, because if I fail they force me to restart the mission (thankfully from the last non-failed checkpoint). I cannot even over-succeed and save some of my dying comrades with an act of heroism. Everything in this game is fated, and you cannot fight Fate. This quite quickly kills any motivation to care, though you are given the sense that "maybe if I were a little faster in this timed level so-and-so would not have been shot to death". Nope. That's a futile thought. You are an utter loser and you can do nothing but watch the people around you die; yeah, that's right kids. War sucks, and heroes don't exist, not even modern near-invincible ones. You may be able to heal all kinds of battle wounds, but don't even think about trying to save a comrade, because you can't. Ain't nihilism great?

The worst part of all this was the stupid flashback level. Talk about total and utter futile loser lameness. They set up the level by introducing a character your Captain knows, and in the photo Mr. Bad Guy (who had a Russian sounding name I cannot remember) has only one arm. Then your Captain goes into some 15 year old flashback about how he was given an assassination mission to kill Mr. Bad Guy. Immediately I thought, "Oh great. The stupid f-er failed and now I get to play the mission. Thanks a ton Mr. Developer guy, because now I get to play a mission where I know I FAIL and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside." I did wonder how I was supposed to shoot his arm off though, but I shouldn't have thought about it. Apparently 15 years ago the British had developed 50 caliber homing bullets, and not just any homing bullets, but homing bullets that would only shoot your bloody arm off. Now I'm not sure why our cousins from across the pond would only want to shoot people's arms off from 1,000 yards out, but I suppose they figure it's a more humane way to assassinate someone. I mean, it's just plain mean to blow someone's head off. At least let them die from shock and blood loss like your spotter suggests will happen (news flash Captain Moron: he won't die, and I had time to get a second shot off). It's sad but I think the developers were making some kind of political statement about the ineptitude of the S.A.S. at confirming their kills, and I think that is highly uncalled for. I'll bet those S.A.S. guys are some really bad mo-fos and I for one would not want to be in their sites for any reason.

I'm sure the game plays like a ton of fun in the free-for-all multiplayer semi-tactical online play, but I'll never find out. I'm not all that good at that sort of game on a console, and what I really cared about was the story, which I found all too linear and way to railroading. I wanted to know what happened when I didn't let Son of Mr. Bad Guy cap himself. I wanted to know what happened if the Marine I played managed to escape the nuclear blast (and yes, the British survive, but the Marines all die. Semper what now?). I know games can be written with branching story-lines, I've played a couple. Without this I'm afraid CoD4 is just an online FPS with a weak story-mode game that must only be there to train you for the "fun" you'll have taking headshot after headshot while killing some poor 10 year old kid from New Jersey. 'Oorah!

I came home last night to find my PS3, the workhorse of my entertainment universe, quietly dead upon my entertainment unit. Sometime during my work day it gave up it's binary ghost, refusing to live in stand-by mode any longer. No amount of coaxing brought it back, so we called Sony and after forty minutes they are shipping us a box to bury Our Little Friend in, whereupon they shall perform an autopsy and attempt to void my warranty before shipping me a new unit.

My favorite part is when they suggest I backup the PS3 HDD so I don't lose things like my saved games. Thankfully I'm not a total dork when it comes to following instructions on removing the HDD; I'll have to commandeer a work machine (I don't have SATA at home anywhere) and make a copy of the files from there.

It'll be a sad two weeks. I'll have to dig my DVD player out of mothballs, and have to limit myself to SD content only, and no video games. Hrm, maybe now I'll finish Neverwinter Nights, or even Zork. Or maybe JD will hammer on me to get some programming done; jerk.

I took (am taking) yet another plunge. Tonight I secured for myself a copy of Spirit of the Century and Cat. I was fortunate enough to get in on the bundle deal with Spirit of the Century, meaning I bought the PDF with the book for an added $5. This means I'll start reading the book before I get the hard copy.

My initial plans include playing Spirit of the Century with my wife, my office-mate, and possibly his wife. Anyone else in the area is more than willing to join in. That door is always open, as long as you bathe. If things are as fun as I anticipate them to be I will consider running a version of Spirit of the Century via email/blog to include my poor SLC friend.

As for Cat, I might go crazy and try to play that with just Holly if I can't find any other cat lovers who will try an RPG with me.

Stay tuned!

[composed and posted withecto]

(It really sucks when you can't think up a good title.)

I went to Borderlands today. Now you all get to suffer with me.

I have been in a bit of a gaming slump over the last few months. It's not that I no longer find my collection of board and card games interesting, rather I am preoccupied, distracted if you will, with storytelling games, and thus distracted by RPGs. I now find myself browsing the RPG section of Borderlands almost as much as I browse the board game sections.

On the one hand it was refreshing to return to the store which steals my money. I did see a few games I want to pick up, and more that I'd love to play. Cave Troll caught my eye, and since I had heard an interview with Tom Jolly that touched on the game I can say, with some level of confidence, that I will probably like the game. As to how it will stack up with my other dungeon crawling games, well that is something which is holding me back. I love playing Dungeoneer, Runeboud, and even Descent, so do I really need yet another one “just like” it? Yes. And I'll probably pick it up this week and play it for the first time, sometime this summer (as I said, I am in a gaming slump, and so is Holly).

The next two (technically three) that caught my eye cause me no small amount of gnashing of teeth. I found the sixth edition of Call of Cthulhu (the RPG). I've really wanted to give this game a whirl, and the only thing keeping me from buying the book on the off chance that I'll get to play it, is the stack of other RPGs I've purchased and am still waiting for their off chances. Still, I want to play that game!

Then along comes Anima (another link). I don't know a lot about this game, in fact I've heard nothing of it, but it has an RPG, a card game, and a miniatures line, which on the outset does sound like an identity crisis. I wouldn't really look at the game except it's illustrated (painted?) by Japanese manga-kas. I get pretty manga/anime artwork with a European game. The other thing that caught my attention is the marketing speak talking about storytelling. So naturally I'm hooked and want to dig deeper into the game. I'll probably only pick up the card game and not the RPG for the same reasons above.

Oh! I also saw the expansions to Arkham Horror, but I will probably not pick those up until I convince people to play the game with me. I still think it has the potential to be a terrifically fun time, but then I say that about a lot of games I can't find players for.

[composed and posted with ecto]

Step One: secure a new job before the old job decomposes into a bubbling pile of putrescence.

Step Two: go out to dinner and dessert. I would recommend a good Chinese restaurant for the dinner and then a cake shop for dessert. Spend this time talking over Step One if need be.

Step Three: visit a local retailer of video games and thereupon purchase Final Fantasy XII, Resident Evil 4, and Devil May Cry 3.

Step Four: play some of each of the games purchased, watch a football game, and write up a lengthly blog post about how Step One occurred.

Thus was my weekend.

[composed and posted with ecto]

I have found myself in a place I thought I wasn't going to be. My writing tools and the way I write are getting in the way of actually writing. CopyWrite is a great tool, but even the authors of the tool call it a project manager for writers. It works great when I want to work on one cohesive project, like say a novel or a novella, but when I want to work on short stories the tool no longer works for me.

The problem I am having now is not knowing where to put things. I don't want to clutter my file system with files, one per story (or as I write, one per fragment of what might be a story). Furthermore, when I approach my writing I sometimes like to see a list of all my "fragments" or all the stories in a certain genre, or even all my stories still in rough draft and needing a first edit, or even all the stories I think are ready for publication. So as I thought of this last night it seemed to me what I need is an application which allows for me to attach metadata to each document, and then query and filter on those documents; in essence it would be an application to manage a collection of short stories (and edit/write them, so I'd want version control).

I still like using something like CopyWrite for novels, because the tools it offers become very helpful, but in something small like a short story where I don't need to track all kinds of ancillary data it fails. This was not a problem a couple of years ago, but since then I've authored 42 pieces of flash fiction, and trying to get a handle on them is driving me nuts, and when I want to start a new piece of fiction but only have an introductory paragraph I don't have a good place to put it.

The other problem I have is one of free-writing. Right now I have a notebook and a fountain pen, which I really enjoy, but I know all too well that if I get on a roll with a story that developed due to some free-writing I won't want to use that notebook for anything else other than that story. There are times when I just want to write something to see where it goes, and I'm still trying to puzzle out how that would look on the computer. I mean, if I had an application which stored things by a "session" of writing, and allowed me to interact with it on a paragraph level (as in I could manipulate paragraphs but not sentences) I might have something in which I could just open the app, type out some crap as it comes to me, and later pull out some paragraphs into my story collection as a rough draft and go from there.

Do I want anything from ya'll? I dunno. Probably not, unless you know of an immediate solution to these problems (that don't involve Emacs). I really don't want to have to develop an OSX app to do this for me because then I won't be writing. But then, if any of you think either of these problems are worth solving it might be something to look into at some point. So maybe more than anything I'm just sharing a frustration and hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone has a constructive and helpful comment.