Floppies

09.12.2006

Over the weekend I managed to do a little Spring Cleaning even though I'm 6 months behind the times. I cleaned bathrooms, garages, power washed the house (should have power washed the bathrooms), washed the car, moved stuff around, and generally wore myself out.

With every Spring Cleaning, especially those 6 months too late, I find those little piles of paraphernalia that I've kept although there's nothing in the pile that I need or really even want. One such pile I found myself faced with was 5 boxes of 3.5" floppy disks. Most of these were old games from when I got my first PC. Yes, before the advent of programs coming on CDs and DVDs, you could often find yourself with a stack of 25 floppy disks in order to install one game (Leather Goddesses of Phobos had a small mountain of disks). For years I've been actively keeping this horde of floppies. Why? The only 3.5" drive I've got is a portable/USB drive I keep hidden away. The only time I've used the drive was to rescue a file Gina had lost/corrupted on her computer.

I can see it now: 1 3.5 floppy drive. Only used on Sundays. Low mileage!

I started looking through my pile of floppies. Leather Goddesses of Phobos. Geoworks (a predecessor of Office). David Wolfe: Secret Agent. Piles and piles of games and applications I had copied (most unsuccessfully). Even if I hooked up the floppy drive, what were the odds that any of these 13+ year old programs would even run? What are the additional odds that I would go through the trouble of tracking down and loading whatever configuration is needed to get these EGA classics to run, and would any of them be worth it?

So with that I chunked the mountain of floppies in the garbage. Well, almost all of them. I kept a couple of special games, not that I will ever play them again, but I get a nice little warm fuzzy when I see the disks:

• Star Trek 25th Anniversary - Can a closet Trekkie get rid of Trek paraphernalia? I rememeber having a lot of fun playing this game, mainly because each mission was presented like an old tv episode with the mission title coming up as the Enterprise entered orbit around a planet.
• Wing Commander - This was the game I wanted a PC for. I played this game every moment I could manage, and even some that I couldn't - that may explain why I didn't go to classes at UAH as much as I should have. I most remember a glitch in one of the mission campaigns which caused my wingman to get mysteriously killed between missions so that when the final mission came, my lone ship didn't have enough missiles to destroy the enemy starbase. Evidently there's still a community keeping Wing Commander alive. Maybe I'll peek in there and see what's going on.

Usually I don't replay video games where you follow a story along. The old pile of floppies got me to thinking about games I've had and played through that should still work on my current PC. Since I just finished watching the entire run of Star Trek Voyager, my mind had switched to thinking of Elite Force 2, one of the better Star Trek games, especially for a first person shooter. I had never finished the game since it had been released in 2003 - there was a "defend the Enterprise by manning a phaser turret" mission I couldn't get past. well, I loaded the game, started playing it, and finally managed to defend the Enterprise. Now I'm playing the last couple of missions, and it's like a whole new game. Granted, the graphics are no Half-Life 2, but it's still fun for a 3 year old game.

Theres a new Star Trek game coming out in November. It looks to be along the lines of Star Trek Armada or Star Fleet Command. There's nothing wrong with either of those, so I think I'm looking forward to this one. I just hope there's not a "defend the ship from a phaser turret" mini-game in there anywhere.

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Crap

09.08.2006

Don't you hate it when you do something stupid and overwrite something that was deeply profound and meaningful?

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Hack Recovery

09.07.2006

Over this past weekend, the server on which my little website here is hosted was hacked. Luckily, it was nothing to do with the site itself, just some flaw that was available in the server software/BIOS/doohickey. My luck was also in gear since I had recently backed everything up and saved a local copy. Thus, nothing was lost!

Well, it makes me happy that nothing was lost.

Along the way I also cleaned up some old blog entries that had gotten duplicated over the various site changes and upgrades over the years.

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The Gary Gygax Effect

08.30.2006

While reading Jim's blog entry yesterday about all the different universes he's created (well, not exactly, but if that doesn't make you want to go see what he's talking about you're not nearly curious enough!) I started to recollect about my theory of the universe, or multiple universes. It may be my sci-fi upbringing, but I've often thought of key points in my life and "what would have happened" if something very specific hadn't happened.

My favorite example is Gary Gygax, famed/generally-recognized creator of Dungeons and Dragons. Without old Gary I wouldn't be where I am today. Travel with me along my little timeline:

• 1984-ish. Mom is dating a guy that lives in Nashville. He has a son who is 2 years younger than I am who enjoys role-playing games and attempts to get me interested in Dungeons and Dragons (enter The Gary Gygax Effect). We never play a "real" game, he just walks me through the steps of how to create a character and walks me through a scenario of Expedition To The Barrier Peaks.
• During a trip to Nashville with Mom, I pick up a copy of Dragon magazine, hoping to learn a little more about D&D.
• The following Monday, sitting at my desk waiting for 1st period Health class to start, I'm flipping through said Dragon magazine. A tall, skinny 15 year old nerd sitting in front of me turns around and sees what I'm reading. "Is that a Dragon magazine?" he asks. "Yeah, you wanna look at it?" I ask back. "Sure" he says as I hand him the magazine. 22 years later he still hasn't gotten away from me.

But there's more to how my life was influenced by The Gary Gygax Effect and my meeting Jerry.

• Upon graduation from high school, I start going to Birmingham-Southern since that's where Jer is going.
• Once at BSC, I take it upon myself to become a social butterfly. With that I become responsible for Jerry meeting Chris, whereupon they begin dating.
• I take my leave of college after the Freshman year, while Jerry continues on to get his degree in Computer Science. After his graduation, I decide "I can do that", so I then re-assert myself and get my degree in Computer Science 5 years later.
• Jerry gets a new car. I get a new car soon afterward.
• Jerry buys a house. I buy a house soon afterward.
  • Jerry's tangent: Even though he had broken up with Chris years earlier, Chris' mother sets him up on a date at a garage sale with Elaine, who would eventually become Jerry's wife.

• Jerry gets married. I mock him incessantly and flaunt my single lifestyle from that point on.
• Thanks to Elaine, Jerry ends up working at Research Genetics.
• Thanks to Jerry, I end up working at Research Genetics.
• Thanks to Invitrogen, Jerry and I both (eventually) get laid off from Research Genetics.
• Thanks to Elaine and her theater connections, Jerry starts working for Spiritus.
• Thanks to Jerry, I end up working at Spiritus.

Everything for the past 22 years can be traced back to that Dragon magazine. I've always given Gary Gygax the credit. Granted, he had nothing to do with the actual magazine, it was just reference material for a game he developed (along with a bunch of other TSR games back in the day). But if I hadn't gotten that Dragon magazine, what would have happened? Would I have met Jerry anyway? Would I have kept in my little ROTC world that I was stuck in during most of high school? Would I have taken advantage of the scholarship that I was offered from UAH? Would Jerry have met Chris, and then after that met Elaine?

The funny part about all of this spawning from a D&D magazine is that until my senior year of college, I never actually played the game.

Whenever something bad happens (such as the lay-off from ResGen), Jerry I look at each other and say "Damn you Gary Gygax!", since odds are without that Dragon magazine meeting so long ago we wouldn't be in whatever predicament we're in. Overall, I think it's been a good 22 years, so I'm holding off any serious damning of Gary for a while yet.

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Cousin Dugal

08.28.2006

Now that school has started back for all the young'uns, I've found myself drifting back to my scholastic years and noticing that even though I'm a pretty odd fellow now, I used to be a lot weirder.

Harken back with me to 1996. It was around my senior year in college, finally. I've found myself thinking back to being in the Athens State student center studying for an Abstract Algebra final (which I was pretty sure I was going to make a D in the class) while also playing Highlander Pool with Rob. Any story about Abstract Algebra is going to be boring, so let me tell you about Highlander Pool.

Highlander Pool was borne from watching the Highlander series of movies and tv shows. The pool table in the student center was unusually small, or at least it felt small. Rob and I were the big and beefy guys that all the men wanted to be and the women wanted to be with (it's my story, so allow me a little artistic license!). Taking that into account, along with the table not belonging to either one of us, we would often try some stupid/trick shot where more often than not one or more pool balls would become airborne. Said airborne balls would occasionally make a roll for freedom by bouncing off the table and rolling around the room. Or down the hall. Maybe even down a flight of stairs or two one time. As most people who either lack a certain degree of sophistication, or have watched The Color of Money more than should be admitted to, Rob and I would twirl our respective pool cues while awaiting our next turn to shoot, often would a sword-styled flourish.

I forget which of us was shooting and which was twirling, but a shot was made and a ball left the table. Suddenly the twirling cue stopped it's twirling and came about in a [soft] slashing motion landing on the back of the shooters neck along with the exclamation "There can be only one!". At that point, both of us started jiggling as we felt the power of the quickening that accompanies the death of an immortal in the movies/tv show. It wasn't planned, it just happened. From that point on, whenever a ball left the table, you would hear the cry of "There can be only one!". The only recourse would be for the shooter to bring his cue up to block the attacking cue (thus preventing the quickening).

I don't think I've played pool since my Athens State days. I pulled a B on my Abstract Algebra final, but still got a D in the class. Last I heard Rob was off working in the Virginia/D.C. area. I hope he's careful if he finds himself in a pool hall.

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