The Rodeo

Hi to everyone that isn’t me. I’m guessing there aren’t too many of you (yet).

I have decided to try and write something every day for 30 days.
As you can probably see, this is entry number 1.
Not much to speak of, but it is a start.

So, what am I going to be writing about?
I guess we’ll find out as I write it.

I’ll go over the ‘why?’ tomorrow.
Maybe the ‘who?’ might be an idea too.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 2

Why do I want to write something every day for 30 days?

Primarily because I’m terrible at finishing things. I start projects all the time, but I very rarely finish them up. I want to start ending things. So the first thing I am going to finish is 30 days of writing. I got the idea from Steve Pavlina, a shareware author who also runs a ‘self-improvement’ blog. I don’t agree with a lot of his ideas, but the concept of having a trial period of something you want to start really made me think.

It’s just like having a 30 day trial of a new piece of software. I try and write something everyday for 30 days, and at the end of that time if I don’t like it, I stop. If I do like it, it’s much easier to keep on going.

Also, I plan to try and trick my brain into wanting to write. If I can keep myself writing, my brain thinks it should be writing, and so I keep doing it, and can hopefully improve my communication skills, as well as making me better able to put down those ideas that run through my head constantly into words that I can follow up on later.

That about covers the ‘why?’.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 3

Kotaku has a competition running where you can win a swanky looking Electric Blue Nintendo DS.

I’d love to have one of these fine machines but my bank account won’t let me. It keeps going on and on about things like rent and wives and children (I actually only have one of each of the former, but it doesn’t want to listen…).

The deal with this competition is that you have to send in a photo of something blue. And that something should have something to do with gaming (being a game-related website I figure that’s fair enough ).
So I have submitted the following picture:

Doesn’t look too game-like at the moment?
When it was first taken (by my wife – I checked this with Brian at Kotaku, he said it was fine to use) my first thought was: That looks an awful lot like Link finding an object.

I illustrate my thought thusly:

My second thought was: Actually, that looks like he wants to be a plumber, by stomping on my head as all plumbers-in-training are want to do…

If he reminds me of any further game characters, I’ll be sure to make reference to them here.
He is a cute kid for sure though… He’d love to be able to play a fantastic little Nintendo DS (he already plays gamecube… although his small, chubby fingers lack any finesse when trying to control X-wings and Olimar). I’d love to be able to teach him how.

Brian… if you read this, please let me have that DS… I’d really appreciate it. Look at his face, he’s so happy now, and he’d be happier still if we won.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 4

There is a simple rule I was taught in primary school; it was re-iterated at high school, and the first thing any one is taught when learning to drive:

Keep Left* (unless overtaking).

This very simple rule saves a large amount of headache when a large number of people are trying to move in different directions in a restricted area.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of pedestrians in North Sydney are unaware of this principle. Upon alighting from the train, hundreds, if not thousands, of people spew into Greenwood plaza and proceed to fill any available space, the vast majority of whom seem to be short women, who walk at a pace of about one step every 3 seconds. If these people stuck to the left then those who wanted to move faster could easily move around the slower members of society, and then move as far to the left as they can once they have passed them. People trying to enter the station at the same time would have no difficulty walking past, as no-one would be bowled over and the awkward situation that occurs when two people are approaching one another directly, and no-one knows where to move to to prevent a collision. Here’s the simple answer: MOVE TO THE LEFT. If both parties move to their respective lefts, then the uncomfortable ‘dodge/whoops/swerve /one-more-try/sorry-about-that/embarrased-smile’ routine could be extinguished from this plane of existence.

Perhaps the government could run one of their expensive advertising campaigns… “Keep Left and no-one gets hurt” or something like that. I’m envisioning large, thuggish, pin-stripe suit wearing men hired to enforce the rule while the public is educated. These gorilla-men standing at the top of the escalators and near bus-shelters would peer intimidatingly over the tops of immense folded arms and grunt at passers-by. If anyone moves willingly into the path of oncoming pedestrians, they would be ushered away quickly into a nearby side-street or doorway and ‘persuaded’ to mend their ways.

A repeat offense would end with walking rights being denied for several weeks while the bones mend.

This brings me to another gripe I have, this one regarding escalator behaviour. What is with people hurrying along the footpath, grunting at innocents in their line of fire (normally those walkers doing the right thing: keeping left, where they should be if they are among the velocity-deprived), pushing aside those in their way and then… stopping on the escalators. In the right-hand side.

Why do people stop moving once they reach the escalators? Walking while riding the moving stairs increases your speed at no inconvenience to yourself. You don’t even have to stop to get off!.

That’s just about it for this grand rant. It has been hanging over me for a long while, I know there are other largish men, as well as some particularly enlightened women who keep left unless overtaking, and to these pedestrian paragons: I salute you.

*or Keep Right in the US… you understand the principle.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 5

It was pointed out that not moving on escalators just means you can conserve energy. OK, I accept that the escalator problem isn’t as big a deal as I made it out to be.

I was reminded this morning, however, of a far more serious crime that needs rectification.
People ignoring the No Entry signs at Central station. When changing trains from the country line to the city line, the flow of traffic heads underground to where the entry to the city platforms are located. There are two stair-cases to each platform (at this end, I’m not discussing the underground, miniature labyrinth at the far end of the platform), one marked with big No Entry signs at the bottom, and the other with a big No Entry sign at the top. Fairly simple in concept, allowing people entering the platform unrestricted access, while also providing a simple escape route for those leaving the platform.

Unfortunately about 75% of people at Central don’t understand the simple signs with the big slash through them as representing an improvement to the otherwise resultant mess. It’s a pretty simple test of comprehension, and people are failing it continually.

I won’t even start on the people coming down the up-only stairs on the wrong side…

Here endeth the rant.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 6

OK after five entries I have two regular readers (Hi Michael! Hi Andy!) and a further two sometimes readers (Hi Jen! Hi Annelise!), my popularity is sharply on the rise, and therefore it would probably do me good to provide you, my wonderful audience, with a run down of who’s ramblings you are reading (as well as introducing you to each other: Michael, you’ve met Jen and Annelise, this is Andy. Andy, meet Michael, Jen is my wife, and Annelise is my sister. OK, we’re done here ).

My name is Ian Tyrrell, I am about six foot tall, and have blonde hair with it’s own (collective) personality. I have loads of energy, which unfortunately clashes with my low fitness level. One of these days (tomorrow?) I plan on doing something about the fitness thing.

I’m a dad to Matthias, who you can see some photos of here. He’s great, but stops me sleeping. He currently knows the words:
- ‘word’ (a’ight!)
- ‘pear’
- ‘toast’
- ‘dad’
- ‘mum’
- ‘shoes’
- … that’s about it actually.

I work for a company called Proxima Technologies, doing Java development. If anyone runs a big business and needs some business systems management tools, let me know and I can hook you up. Andy will remember this place as he quit about a fortnight ago, and used to sit next to me.

I’m a Christian (I’m sure there will be more on this topic later).
I like meat.
I like Firefly and if you want to buy me the DVD that’d be just dandy.
I like driving.
I like sleeping (but don’t get much of it done unfortunately… see comment on being the father of a small child).
I like ninjas
and pirates
and giant robots with energy swords.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 7

Tonight I am going to write about my wife:

Jennifer Andrea Tyrrell

I love this woman more than my own life.
She means the world to me (and more).
She is the first thing I see in the morning and
The last thing I see at night.

She irons my clothes.
She cooks my food.
She cleans our house.
But that’s not why I love her (it’s just a bonus).

Just the thought of her is enough to make me smile.
Or cry.
She is the mother of my child(ren. Soon. Perhaps).
She is the one I want to hold when I wake in the dark.
She’s the one I want to hold when we walk (in the park… look! I can make it rhyme).

When I proposed I asked if she would put up with me for sixty years.
I hope we make it to eighty.
She makes the mornings worth waking up for.
And the days worth living for.
And the weeks worth working for.
And the months worth fighting for.
And the years worth dreaming for.
And this lifetime… well, it’s already more than I could have hoped for.

I love her and she loves me.
I can’t wait till our fiftieth anniversary (ooh, another rhyme… unintentional. (this time)).

Jennifer I love you with all my heart.

30 Days of writing: Day 8

OK, my sister-in law just returned my copy of Spiderman 2 for the X-Box.
Well, actually, Jen went stealth and recovered it from Sarah’s room. I imagine it was a very Raiders of the Lost Ark-type affair, with booby traps and a bag of sand, running from giant boulders and one nearly-lost hat. But she got the game back to me. And that is good, because this game belongs in a museum.

And when I say it belongs in a museum, I mean that it is a game that will remain with me for a long time. I think it is a fantastic game. It definitely has its faults, but overall a game that was done right.

So, why?

The number one reason this game is so good is that it makes you feel like you are spiderman: effortlessly swinging through the city, knocking bad guys senseless, and never quite feeling like you are in complete control of your powers.

Wait a second…not being in control, isn’t that a bad thing?

In any other game, yes, here however it makes the game feel so much more alive; swinging on instinct, nearly slamming into a wall but then turning that fumble into a skillful wall-run. Being caught in an ambush, but ending with six rough youths dangling from a lamp-post, before finishing the day sitting atop the Empire State Building and just watching the sunset… then launching into space and gracefully diving fifteen-hundred-odd feet, just barely catching yourself before tasting the ashphalt.

I have never played any game just to run around the environment before. However I now find myself starting the game and just spending hours swinging aimlessly through Manhattan. The movement in this game is fantastic, and if there were no story missions, no races, no items to collect, and no Bruce Campbell, this game would still have enthralled me for weeks. As it is, I’ve been playing it frequently over the last year.

There are a few downsides to the game, the all-too-frequent Fission Mailed notices, the insta-death water, the annoying camera when working in 3-D (trying to catch those balloons is almost impossible without locking on to them, and the wall-running seems to change directions depending where the camera is situated – the next game needs to automatically swing the camera behind you when clicking down on the right control stick), and worst of all, the ridiculous load/save times and the completely arbitrary three-game save limit. I have a ten Gigabyte hard drive – why can I only have three save games?

This is definitely the game I’ve played most of on my X-Box, far more than Halo/Halo 2, and I think it comes completely down to the feel of swinging through New York city, I love playing this game, and am looking forward to Ultimate Spiderman (Although I might wait for the X-Box 360 version if it is significantly better than the standard X-Box version).

Oh, and one last thing – make sure you listen to all the hint markers, because once you’ve found all (213?) of them, the Bruce Campbell voice-overs on each change to say something different.

I didn’t catch that gag coming at all. It’s terrible. And fantastic. To Jamie Fristrom – make sure you get Bruce Campbell back again for the next game, please!

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 9

So I have now written something every day for a little over a week, and I’m beginning to see a flaw in my original plan. I’ll stick with it until the end of the month, simply because otherwise I would be doing exactly what I didn’t want to be doing, however I can also look at what doesn’t work and make plans to correct it.

The Good
- I am beginning to write ‘better’, in that my ideas are being formed into words that I can write, rather than just being a jumble of images in my head with no unifying theme or direction.
- I have managed to write something every day for nine days (so far), although a few of these entries have been rushed off before going to bed.
- Due to the very nature of blogging, I can write a review, and have the creator (well, one of them) of the game in question read it within twenty-four hours, and therefore know that I liked it (encouragement is always good), as well as being told some specific flaws that bugged one of the game’s players (me) personally.
- I can stick up pictures of my son so that anyone in the world can see him and smile. Isn’t he cute?

The Bad
- The main downside I have discovered to writing every day is that I have been only giving myself a day to write each piece. And most of each day is taken up with work and sleeping and my family, and so I don’t have a large amount of time for editing what I’ve written. In effect, everything you are reading here (including this) is a draft, written without a large amount of forethought or planning. Is this really bad? I’m not sure yet.
- Jen is getting a little frustrated that I am burying myself in the office for an hour or so every night while I write something. Maybe I can get more written on the train to and from work.

The Ugly
- Too many cliches.
- I haven’t had much time to update my site, so it currently has template sections showing through rather than information about me.
- I haven’t got my email address in a prominent location, so the only way to contact me is via the comments. I’ll hopefully address that issue tomorrow.

Well, that’s my critique of my current endeavour. I hope the few of you reading are enjoying the trip through my mind.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 10

OK, so I’m now thirty-three point three (repeated) percent of the way towards completing my goal, so I’m doing alright so far.

Tonight I’m mainly going to talk about some technical changes I’m planning on making to this blog. It will be an evolution of sorts (by evolution, I mean gradual changes over time, rather than throw the site in a bag and leave it for a long time until it magically turns itself into a sentient being capable of self-analysis, although that would be cool (if improbable\possible) too).

So the plan for the next few updates:
- Update the graphics. Currently I am using the theme chinared, but I am planning on changing the graphics and making the whole thing a bit more like myself (that is: beautiful, chaotic and exciting!) .
- Update the RSS feed* to use the well formed web namespace elements allowing my RSS feed to include comment feeds attached to each item. This is really groovy, and the RSS aggregator I use (SharpReader), will attach a comment list to each post with comments. Even though there aren’t too many people reading and commenting, this at least makes it cool .DONE (plus I added a comment count)
- I plan on removing the two other RSS feeds I don’t really want (Atom and RSS 1.0), as they just add more complexity and every feed aggregator I know of will deal with any of them. This is mostly just a neatening aspect (I might leave them around, but I’ll remove any reference to them from the code etc).DONE
- I plan on adding a tag-based category system, so each post will have many descriptive meta-tags attached to them, allowing searching by ad-hoc categories. Ultimately I’d like to make this into a funky AJAX search mechanism, but that’s probably a little bit further into the future .

That’s about it for tonight. Maybe something actually interesting tomorrow.

*RSS is basically a REALLY REALLY cool internet thing that lets you not bother about checking a site (or blog) for updates. Your computer checks for you and lets you know when something new turns up. I can’t imagine using the net without it, it’d just be so… slow…. However, the site needs to provide the RSS feed for your computer to grab. Any blogging software should do it automagically, and if it doesn’t, bug the people who made it to include it.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 11

I’ve run into a stumbling block.
I’m a Christian, and had a post in mind to write regarding that this afternoon, but I’ve realised that I don’t actually know what to write.

I read a post recently on These Infinite Spaces that I think sums up everything I want to say.

Mercy and Justice

Had a great discussion about predestination in home group on Tuesday. The classic objection people have to this doctrine is that it is unjust.

The crucial point, however, is that the reprobate are not condemned by an arbitrary act of malevolence. They are condemned purely on the basis of their sin. Their judgment will be perfectly just – they will receive justice.

The elect do not receive justice – they receive mercy. This is an act of grace on the part of God. In and of themselves, the elect deserve the same condemnation as the reprobate. But instead they receive mercy.

This is Gods dealing with mankind. Some receive justice, some receive mercy. No-one receives injustice.

I think that this sums up Christianity really well, it has nothing to do with how good you are, or how good you think you are, or even how good other people think you are, compared to God’s standard you fail.
I fail.
Miserably.

The benchmark is perfection and I am not perfect.
It doesn’t matter that I haven’t raped and I haven’t murdered, because I have lusted and I have hated.
I haven’t stolen (much), but I have coveted (much).
I haven’t lied…
.
.
.
.
.
.
(If you couldn’t tell that was meant to be ironic).

The only reason Christians can claim they know where they are going is because of God’s grace.

It’s All Who You Know
Newsboys

For the want of a marker the doctors lost their place
For the want of a cut-line they couldn’t lift his face
For the want of a face-lift his ratings dropped
Then the sit-com folded then the network flopped.

After the climb
After time turns designs to despair
It is good
Nothing’s fair
It’s all who you know…

For the want of a cough-drop the musher’s throat went hoarse
For the want of direction the huskies went off-course
Then the sled got snowbound; took some time to free ‘em
Now they’re on display inside the British Museum.

After the climb
After time turns designs to despair
It is good
Nothing’s fair
It’s all who you know…

And after the fall
After all of our strivings are dust
Even so
Good for us
It’s all who you know…

For the want of a compass; we’d be shuffling charts
For the want of good radar; we’d be glacier parts
For the want of a light-house can’t you see
We’d be lost at sea.
Lost at sea.

After the climb
After time turns designs to despair
It is good
Nothing’s fair
It’s all who you know…

And after the fall
After all of our strivings are dust
Even so
Good for us
It’s all who you know…

It’s all who you know.
-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 12

This morning I added a few features to my RSS feed. In the interests of public knowledge (and so I don’t have to keep visiting pages to read comments), I now present a short article on implementing the commentRSS API within wordpress’ RSS 2 feed.

The commentRSS API allows feed aggregators to attach a comment feed to each item in the RSS feed, giving access to the comments on a post without having to visit the site to read them. Handy.

To start with, open up wp-rss2.php in a text editor and add the line starting wfw: in the <item> </item> node:

<item>
    <title>< ?php the_title_rss() ?></title>
    <wfw :commentRss>< ?php echo comments_rss(); ?></wfw>
    ...
</item>

Close your text editor because your RSS aggregator can now associate the appropriate comment feed with your all-purpose feed. Yep, that’s it. A single line.

You want to make it a bit fancier still?
OK, how about we add an image to the channel (so your aggregator can show a little picture of you above your posts) and a count of the comments to be included.

The image code is fairly straight-forward again, just add the <image></image> node under the <channel> </channel> node:

<channel>
    <title>< ?php bloginfo_rss('name'); ?></title>
    <image>
        <title>The Rodeo</title>
        <url>http://...(etc).../images/ussmall.png</url>
        <link>< ?php bloginfo_rss('url') ?></link>
    </image>
    ...
</channel>

This example assumes you want to label your image ‘The Rodeo’ and use a small picture of my wife and I as your image. Just change the title to suit and specify the URL to where your picture is located.

Once again, a fairly simple change. Adding the number of comments should round off the evening’s lesson nicely.
Firstly the following namespace needs to be defined in the<rss> </rss> node:

<rss version="2.0"
    xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
    xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
    xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
>
...
</rss>

Then add the slash:... line in the <item> </item> node:

<wfw:commentRss>< ?php echo comments_rss(); ?></wfw>
<slash:comments>< ?php echo get_comments_number( $id ); ?></slash:comments>

All finished.
Those few simple changes will make your wordpress RSS feed look a bit cooler in any aggregator that can handle those extensions.

Note: I realise this looks terrible, but I was having huge issues with getting the code to display at all – I’ll try and neaten it up at some point in the future.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 13

Don’t they use computers to do their writing?
Don’t they do any research?

I was just watching the new series of 24 with Jen and some friends, trying very hard not to make any comments on computer usage (Jen hates watching any sort of movie/tv show with computers in it with me), when in a meeting of the US President’s advisors etc, one of them says: “We can’t shut down the internet…”.

That is fine, and an accurate assessment.
Until she finishes her sentence: “without disrupting all communications and operations control”.

I laughed so hard juice flowed freely from my nose and mouth (I caught most of it in my glass). Apparently in 24-land, the President of the US of A has the internet’s on/off switch readily at hand should terrorists want to broadcast videos of beheadings to everyone on the internet (I’m not going to worry about the fact that video requires large amounts of bandwidth, and the fact that you can’t force people to download things and make them watch film on some sort of video player that just works…).

I spent several minutes (once the friends had left) explaining to Jen how the internet (or DARPAnet anyway) was created as a way to avoid communications disruptions due to say, atomic weapons taking out a major city. Trying to explain that there isn’t a single point of failure for the internet is kinda hard.

I really hope there isn’t a single point of failure (can’t think of any offhand).
So, that’s it for tonight, not really interesting or important, but writing none-the-less.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 14

It was my uncle (David Moss)’s funeral today.
He was 40 (or would have been, I’m not sure – he was born in 1965).
He was a genius (literally), and he was killed by a brain tumour.
I think God has a definite sense of irony.

I don’t understand why he had to die so young, but I know we’ll meet again.

See you soon Uncle David.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 15
(Halfway – hooray!)

As I said, yesterday I was at my Uncle’s funeral. I’ve had the (mis)fortune of having to attend three funerals for family members so far this year (hopefully there won’t be too many more for a while) and I’ve made a small observation:

You can tell who is, and who is not, a Christian at these funerals very easily. Uncle David was a Christian, and all the Christians at his funeral, while sad, knew they would see him again. All the people who aren’t Christian had no hope at all.

Not a profound observation by any means, but one that illustrates something of the hope provided by Christ. If he can overcome death, then we will see our (Christian) friends again. It hurts when they leave, but it’s not permanent.

Death is an un-natural part of our lives. It was not intended to be, and that’s why it hurts so much when someone we know dies.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be permanent.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 16

I heard about this on ABC radio this morning. Bernie Ebbers was found guilty of fraud and so was given a 25 year sentence for his part in it (it waas fairly massive). He’s 63, so it’s pretty much a life sentence for him.

While listening to the radio, the reporter said that many people had written to the judge asking for leniency because he was a ‘good man’ and had given much to charity.

It always confuses me as to why people think that because someone is good most of the time, that when they do something wrong it shouldn’t be counted against them, or judged as harshly because of the goodness inherrant in the person. This type of thinking amazes me, and is one of the reasons I think that there is so much confusion as to what Jesus taught. Many people today say that they hope they will get into heaven because they have been less bad than good, or because the good things they have done make them worth heaven. We are told in the bible that “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23. This tells us that even the good things we do aren’t enough to make us worthy of heaven. No matter how much good we do, the bad will always out-weigh it. It is not like bank balance where you put good deeds in and take bad deeds out and if the balance at the end is positive you God accepts you.

It seems to me sometimes, that when people who are generally ‘good’ do bad things, those things become worse (subjectively) than when completely depraved people do ‘moderately’ bad things.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 17

I have decided that using ’30 Days of writing’ as the title of these posts is not the best for archival purposes, so I have gone through the set of posts and given them all new, better, more powerful titles. That’s about it really. Short entry day .

I have a few open letters in mind to write to several people, so that is probably what will be coming up next.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 18

Dear Colin,

We’ve been friends for a long time; it’s been about 20 years since Mum introduced us. You used to look after my money when I measured it in cents, rather than dollars. You used to send me comics, and other surprises (I loved the pencilcase and ruler set by the way). You and I both appreciate that there is some history between us, and that’s what makes this so hard.

It seems you’ve been taking money out of my wallet whenever I’m not looking.

I don’t like making baseless accusations, but I’ve been noticing lately that everytime I get some money (my money) from you, there is less remaining than there should be. I didn’t mind the occasional borrow, but everytime you do anything for me (like pay the rent, power, internet or insurance bills with my money) feels a bit excessive. You already take a fee to look after it in the first place – which I don’t mind giving you each month – but you are using my money to generate some extra money for yourself and then taking fees and then taking some more every time I spend some of my money. I’m beginning to feel like I’m being conned. Especially when you charge me money for things you used to do for free… like provide me someone to talk to face-to-face at your little store-fronts. Also, why do I get less interest from you now than when I was five? You look after so much more of my money now. I’m getting really worried.

I have been thinking about ending our friendship for a while now, but you make it really hard to let go. You keep sending me letters telling me how much you appreciate my friendship but then I notice that you’re telling me that you are taking more of my money. Again.

I’m sorry Colin, but I can’t take your money-grabbing ways anymore.
I don’t think we can be friends any longer. Please give me back what’s left of my money.
Maybe if you change your ways we can be friends again, but for now I don’t want to see you anymore. I’m looking for new friends now. Friends who won’t keep taking my money all the time.

Yours Regretfully,
Ian

P.S. When someone is leaving and the hat gets passed around, next time can you refrain from putting in $17,500,000 on my behalf. I appreciate the gesture but next time, maybe, just give him a gold watch and a Myers voucher? Something a bit more reasonable. Thanks.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 19

Recently I have become mildly enamoured with a program called Next Action. It is a SPADE application (although that is a bit like saying the Automatic ATM Machine), where the entire application is written in JavaScript and contained within a single HTML page. Neat.

Next Action is basically a to-do list, which isn’t that amazing in and of itself, but it feels so cool to use. The list of actions is stored in the html page when editing, and you just do a ‘Save As’ and save the page to keep the data you have entered. The original creator is in the process of adding some more feature, like auto-saving, which is pretty cool.

One other cool thing about Next Action is that all the code for the application is editable from within the page. So you can edit it as well as manage the data from within the page. As I said… pretty cool.

I am thinking about writing a simple PHP page for saving of the data to a database, allowing persistence as well as multi-user lists (I have an action to-do, and you can check it out). Not really a huge project, but I’m thinking about it to improve my JavaScript and PHP skills a bit. I’ll probably look at making it AJAX-y as well, so there is no reloading the page etc. We’ll see how it goes.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 20
I want to be the good guy.

Specifically, when I play computer games I don’t want to be the bad guy. I don’t want to be hurting innocent civilians, I don’t want bonus points for running them down. I don’t want to be rewarded for doing the ‘wrong’ thing.

It seems that because of Grand Theft Auto’s success, every game developer is jumping on the anti-hero bandwagon. I can understand the draw of the morally ambiguous avatar — everyone loves Han Solo and movie characters like him, but ultimately he is a good guy, even though he might ‘bend’ the rules every now and again. I don’t see the glory in being an out and out criminal.

I want to be the good guy however, running down innocents isn’t my idea of a good game, I want to save people (even if that involves beating up the baddies), and I want to be the hero.

If you are thinking about making a game and you read this, please make the player a good guy.

Hot Coffee
If you haven’t heard, a code/download has been discovered that allows the player in GTA:San Andreas to ‘go up for coffee’* with women in the game. The visuals aren’t exactly explicit (from what I’ve heard – I don’t have, and haven’t played, the game), but it shows what is happening quite blatantly. The ESRB has recalled the game from shops, saying that it should have been rated AO(18+) rather than M(17+), and are considering fining Rockstar (the game’s makers).
Rockstar have claimed that the program code was never meant to be activated, and can only be done so by modifying the code. The ESRB claim that the scenes are fully rendered and stored on the disc in an accessible format.
I’m not sure who is in the wrong here. While I don’t like the game’s ideals, I can understand leaving code in the game that should not be able to accessed, and am not sure that they should be fined for people being able to access it. An appropriate analogy might be having a pornographic artwork painted over and then sold to a family. A child in the family then removes the paintwork and sees the porn. This is a similar kind of thing, although in the GTA case, it is a bit more complicated for the child to uncover it. Although the data is on the disc, it is not accessible in it’s original form without modification.

I’m not sure if this is wrong in and of itself, and whether the ESRB is in the right or not. It feels like they are using this to justify their existence. However, if Rockstar released the details on revealing the section of the game, then I think they should get everything that’s coming to them. If they didn’t, and the code was something they were thinking of including, but then commented out rather than deleting, I’m not sure it is their fault or not.

I think the ESRB’s ratings are fairly stupid too. What is the difference between a 17 year old and an 18 year old in terms of ‘maturity’ (although I’d suggest anyone who wants to play the mod isn’t very ‘mature’ anyway). I think either way this goes, Rockstar is going to get even more publicity, and that can’t be bad for them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did release this for this very reason.
It’s a difficult situation.

*have sex with

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 21

This is a poem I wrote during my honours year at university. I have modified it so that it suits my current vocation. The title is actually kind of ironic, as I am working from home today. But I liked it, so I left it.

I hope you like.

I Want to go Home
-Ian Tyrrell

I want to go home.
I am tired and my eyes hurt.
Programming is fun but it makes me think
I don’t want to think anymore.
I want to go home.

My peripheral vision is blurring
and the monitor seems to be slowly moving
away from me, slipping in my frustrum
I need to go home.

I want to hold my wife
I want to kiss her.
I want to not be at [uni/work] for another 30 minutes.
I want to go home.
I need to go home.

I can feel my shoulders straining,
and my back is slowly freezing up.
My neck is cricked.
I can’t think anymore, only spout randomness.
I want to go home.

The office feels dead,
The tack-tack-takky-tack of keys hurts my ears
Onomatopoeia is great, but
I want to go home.

I can hear others breathing, I guess they want to leave too.
But [a thesis\javadocs] must be written and a project must be done.
I want to go home.

I want to sleep.
I want to dream.
I want to wake up.
I want to run.
I want to jump and
I want to fly.
I want to create.
I want to love.
I want to drive.
I want to play.
I want to watch.
I want to win.
I want to eat.
I want to paint.
I want to stare.
I want to read.
I want to stall.
I want to muse.
I want to laugh but
my life is frozen.
I want.
to.
go.
home.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 22

Jen and I just finished watching The Village. My verdict: fatastic.

Before you read any of the comments at the IMDB site (the one linked above), watch the movie first, they all contain spoilers. Yes, this is another spoiler-type movie. It’s not a horror movie, as the packaging and advertising suggest. I feel very sorry for M. Night Shyamalan, ever since he made The 6th Sense, he has no hope of ever being able to just make a ‘normal’ movie again. Everyone is expecting a twist, and a big one at that.

This movie had a few twists, some were pretty predictable. Some things I first thought were mistakes, I’m now pretty sure were intentional clues. I’d been told what the twist was before I watched this movie, but I was still surprised as to some of the others.

I don’t think Jen liked it too much. It is a fairly slow movie, building up over time before finally releasing the goods in a very short burst. Exactly like all M’s other movies (I wonder what M stands for anyway…). I’m a big fan of movies that are well thought out, and I think this movie fits that description well. The characters all seemed believable, and developed throughout the whole movie. And when watching The Village, try and forget that the movie will have a twist, it does, but it’s not the huge 6th Sense sledgehammer-type twist, it’s more subtle and thought provoking than giving any kind of “Oh! I get it!” kind of response.

Anyway, I really liked it. It’s hard to write without giving away the ending and the whole movie relies on the ending so I won’t ramble any more. I really did like it.

“Thankyou for the time we have been given” – Edward Walker (William Hurt)

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 23

Channel 7, how do I hate you?
Let me count the ways:

1. I hate that everytime you get a show you hype it out of all proportion.
2. I hate that the show you have hyped changes timeslots.
3. Many times.
4. I hate that you now have the cricket, and schedule it over the top of a show I would normally watch (after weeks trying to find what timeslot it has been relegated to).
5. I hate that you have ‘recap’ episodes, purely to prolong the top rating shows you have.
6. I hate that you start shows at 8:40 instead of their scheduled 8:30 purely so you can count the previous show’s ratings as the new shows.
7. I hate your ‘news’, and I hate that when a show I want to watch happens to coincide with a bomb blast that hurt nobody, you stop the show I want to watch and cover the non-news event for 3 hours.

I hate you channel seven. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!*

Anyway, that’s enough vitriol for tonight. I have to see if I can find a channel 7 TV show that I want to watch, but via some method that doesn’t involve inconveniencing me, or playing ads over the top of the show I want to watch…

*note: I also hate channels 9 and 10, but the majority of the few shows I watch are on channel 7 – hence they are the target of my attack tonight.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 24

CityRail gives the impression of being run by the most inept people possible. I think that no matter who is in charge of anything at CityRail, they are almost certainly the wrong person for the job*. Almost every aspect of the NSW rail service is terrible, mismanaged and begging for someone sensible to step in and provide a few pointers. Someone like myself.

I believe I am completely unqualified to make any sweeping pronouncements regarding how to run a multi-million dollar public service, but I have been travelling every day on said train service for the last decade and have therefore seen some of the things that should be common sense for anyone running these things.

Let’s start small; if a service does what it is supposed to do well then people will forgive the little things. If it cannot, then the little things start to build up.

1. The new train information monitors installed at Central Station today. They look great; plasma screens are the perfect medium for displaying this information. However, when replacing something as important as notifying passengers which train travels to which destination and when they depart don’t hide the monitors behind the station’s support structures. They need to be visible. This really isn’t rocket science people.

2. The information sticker that drives Sim to distraction constantly.
   “Help us keep our trains clean.
   Please take your rubbish with you.
   Report unclean carriages by
   phoning 131 500 and quote the
   carriage number.”
   You’d think that before putting hundreds of these stickers into production They’d get someone to proofread the text for grammar. Someone needs to explain that you shouldn’t use two different tenses in the one phrase.

3. That last problem actually brings me to my next point. Rather than relying on people phoning in to report ‘unclean’ carriages, why not provide bins. It seems like a fairly sensible thing to offer.

4. While we are on the topic of bins, who’s great idea was it to remove all the bins from stations? I can understand the logic behind removing them during the Olympics for ‘security reasons’, but perhaps someone should put them back now that the Olympics finished about five years ago…

5. People who can speak intelligible English should have priority for any public speaking roles. Such as announcing timetables and the like.

6. A fundamental issue when running transport services should be getting people where they want to go as quickly and efficiently as possible. Running on time is a big part of this, along with letting people know why their train has been delayed, along with how long the delay is expected to last. Giving an explanation wouldn’t go astray either…

7. Oh, please stop putting up ticket prices every time I have to get another ticket.

Anyway, that’s enough complaining for tonight

*There are of course a few notable exceptions: Chris Parr, ex-Station Master of Woodford, and Dave, Station Master at Hazelbrook, are both excellent representatives of the group of people who should be running CityRail. These two guys are fantastic – say hello if you ever run into them. Oh, and the train driver who gives the fantastic speeches every so often: “…please, enjoy your meal, but please, please, remember to take your rubbish with you.” That guy is fantastic too . Everyone else should be sacked.

-RodeoClown

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/contest/and-the-finalists-are-113975.php

That’s Me and Mat at the bottom (zelda baby).
Please vote for us!

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 25

So, yesterday I discovered that Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is trying a new financial model, one that involves allowing people to play for free (rather than paying a monthly fee) and only needing to pay money should they want to become an officer or purchase rare in-game items. A financial model that suits my meager entertainment budget quite well (I haven’t paid anything yet, and I’m not sure if I will.

Puzzle Pirates is a Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game (MMAarr!PG — their joke, not mine ), that consists of friendly cartoon pirates sailing the puzzley seas. Walk up to another pirate and challenge them to a swordfight. Should they accept, you are treated to a tetris-like puzzle game, where the winner of the puzzle is considered the victor of the duel. I am already rated ‘Legendary’ for my swordfighting abilities throughout the entire Viridian ocean (as I should be ). Sailing a ship consists of solving puzzles in order to increase the ships speed. Ship-to-ship combat consists of multiple puzzles being played by various crew members on both boats. Once the ships are in boarding range, a multi-player swordfight breaks out to defend the craft or lose the booty.

It’s great fun and has an extremely friendly atmosphere. I hope their trial of this new payment model works out for them. I like the idea of not having to pay large monthly fees to play a game like this. Check it out.

Bonus Pirate Joke
A pirate walks into a bar and the bartender says “Hey, you’ve got a steering wheel down your pantaloons!”. And the pirate says…
“Aarr! It’s drivin’ me nuts…”

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 26

OK, This morning I found my first comment spammer. Gah!

I’d somehow disabled the first post moderation feature. It’s now re-enabled, so the first comment anyone posts needs to be approved by me, after that it’s plain sailing (or mailing…).

Sorry about the inconvenience. I don’t know why people want to post comment spam on completely unrelated messages. Do these annoyances interrupt people’s conversations at home, barging through the door and then shouting “DO YOU WANT TO PLAY AT A CASINO. MAYBE YOU WANT ‘ENLARGEMENT’. ETC ETC ETC”. What’s wrong with them? The only good use for spam is spamusement. Maybe one day we should make spamming a capital offense. Maybe tomorrow.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 27

Hooray for babies!
They are so good. I love just watching them sleep, and grow, and play, and laugh, and learn. I can’t wait till we have another one. One is great fun, but I’m guessing two will be better (not that I’m sick of Mat, he’s great, I love him so much!).

Why all this baby talk?
If you haven’t guessed: we’re having a baby!!!
In March/April next year. Hooray!!

Pray for us, and the unborn. I can’t wait to meet him/her.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 28

OK, so I did one of those crazy tests. This one is on your humour style. I am a ham.

yep.

The Ham
(39% dark, 65% spontaneous, 22% vulgar)
your humor style:

CLEAN | SPONTANEOUS | LIGHT

Your style’s mostly goofy, innocent and feel-good. Perfect for parties
and for the dads who chaperone them. You can actually get away with
corny jokes, and I bet your sense of humour is a guilty pleasure for
your friends. People of your type are often the most approachable and
popular people in their circle. Your simple & silly
good-naturedness is immediately recognizable, and it sets you apart in
this sarcastic world.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Will Ferrell – Will Smith

My test tracked 3 variables — How you compared to other people your age and gender:

	You scored higher than 17% on dark
	You scored higher than 90% on spontaneous
	You scored higher than 21% on vulgar

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

Oh, and if you like ham, check out MciverCork. They like Ham too (check out their demos… Their album is pretty good too).

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 29

One more day to go and I made it all the way to thirty days. Hooray for me finally finishing something. Wait, better not start crowing too soon or I’ll break all my fingers and be unable to type tomorrow .

So, I have noticed (and so has Jen) that I am starting to get a bit chubby around the midsection. And I re-discover fairly frequently that I am very unfit (normally when running for the train in the mornings…). I’m not sure how to get out of this dilemma though, because I don’t have much time to go walking or whatnot, as when I’m home I want to be around Jen and Mat (who goes to bed at 7) and not out wandering the streets.

I used to go walking at lunchtimes while at work, but then I found myself getting back and being all sweaty and stinky and wanting to go to sleep and not work (not that that is too much different to normal but…). So what do I do about it?

I’m kind of starting a diet, with eating less snacky foods during the day, and smaller serves of food at meals. This is cool, except I don’t really eat too many snacks anyway, and Jen cooks really nice food…

We go for walks when we can, and hopefully as it gets warmer we’ll get to do more of this.

Any suggestions as to how I can lose weight and get myself fit again would be greatly appreciated. Any cheap ways to do it while not having to work-out or eat less would be even better.

-RodeoClown

30 Days of writing: Day 30

Yay! I made it.

-RodeoClown

Oh, maybe I should add a little extra text under here . I’m planning on keeping up writing things, but I’ll probably not be posting every day. But I’ll try and keep posting things fairly regularly, as they come to me. Goodnight.