D'aww, my little electronic baby :D

I've been having a great time lately working on some electronics projects. It's too bad I can't double-major here or anything or else I'd get an electrical engineering degree too. Fun stuff. Then again, maybe I just like it because I haven't had to take too many courses about circuits and programming and all that, just the basics. In any case, I'm glad that I have the resources and people around to help me turn my crazy ideas into real projects.

This week, I made my very own circuitboard for my clock project so that I can finally move it off the breadboard. I've never made a board before so I was really excited. I used EAGLE, which is a pretty neat program. It has libraries full of parts in their actual size so you can play around with their position on the board and be relatively certain that they'll fit. Plus it mirrors everything so that when you transfer the image to the board everything is in the right place. It also makes sure that lines aren't too close or touching where they shouldn't be. After printing the design with a laser printer, it was out of printer and into the laminator! Then I spent the better part of an hour swishing it around with glee in ammonium etching fluid before it was ready. And ta-dah! My very own special board.

Dear non-sciencey professor

I wanted to love you, I really did. But then, you did something unforgivable.

You said....

you said...

that the analytical engine was "just a really simple calculator".

I cry now.

Labmate Rats

My labmates were curious to see what was in the big plastic kit that I brought for the strawberry DNA demo, so naturally, I had to show them. Part of the demo involves eating a strip of PTC paper to see if you have the gene that can taste PTC bitterness, and oh, woe on you if you do. Out of pity for the children who can taste it, the kit also contains a big pile of candy.

Oddly, every single person in the lab could taste the paper (compared to 25% of the kids I gave it to). Apparently there's supposed to be about a 50/50 prevalence of the gene. This made us very curious and we had to experiment on everyone that came in the lab. And, oddly, they could taste it all too! We had to try a few professors as well to round out the bunch.

Our conclusion is that the ability to taste PTC makes you bitter, and engineers are bitter, therefore engineers can taste PTC. It might need a few revisions, but so far our supporting data is really strong!

You know it's exam time when...

You play beyblades on a plastic caf plate and exclaim that this is the most fun you've had in ages.

then you realize you're playing beyblades on a plastic caf plate.

Get back to work!

Why nerds should stay inside

I walked home from work the other day because I felt guilty taking the train when it was so nice out. Hours later (ok, maybe just hour later), when I was nearly home, I saw a couple of little green caterpillars drop down from the trees, suspended by threads. And all I could think was, "Aww, they look just like Metapods."

Pokémon OCD

Here's my dorky revelation of the day:

I can't stand having a Pokémon party where the Pokémon are at different levels. They have to all be at the same level, or at least within 2-3 levels of each other. Also, I can't have more than one of the same Pokémon in my party, and it has to be properly balanced between types to minimize any weakness. I even go so far as to level up my friends' Pokémon if their party is really unbalanced (starter Pokémon or a tank at a really high level, all other Pokémon at low levels).

Me engineer. Must optimize ALL!

I rawk

I made an R2D2 cake for my birthday. Ok, I had some help from friends, but it's not like any of us knew what we were doing. My plan kind of worked. Sweet (and delicious)!


P.S. This was enough to feed 6 people for 2 days. Srsly.

Steampunk Laptop

I.... I... I think I'm in love!

Steampunk laptop

D is for C was too hard

Well, that tanked pretty fast... C was too hard for a NES review (too many good games), on to D. The letter D will be represented by Dance Aerobics, which shares its initial with one of its descendants, Dance Dance Revolution.

Exergaming always seems like such a good idea, burn calories while you have fun playing a game. The problem with most of them is plain and simple: the games suck just as much as real exercise, and you probably burn less calories playing them, too. Sadly, the actual aerobics component of Dance Aerobics falls neatly into that category. After the initial novelty of trying to follow the 8-bit dance instructor and failing miserably wears off, doing aerobics on your Power Pad really isn't any fun. Although the instructor does a nice job of yelling, "1, 2, 3, HAIIIII!", she's no replacement for Richard Simmons. What makes this game great is all the little extras that they threw in with it.

My favourite extra is simply a free play mode where each button on the Power Pad makes a different tone, conveniently starting on C and going up an octave 'n a bit. You can play SO MANY SONGS in the key of C. WITH YOUR FEET. Yeah, I'm a music geek. It isn't possible to play chords with your feet, but it's still fun to get together with your music geek friends and see who can play the most complicated song with their feet. It's kind of like playing the bagpipes, you only get a limited set of notes so you have to throw in a bunch of embellishments to out-play the other guy and make your songs sound harder. This could keep me entertained for hours, but then again, I was the kind of kid that watched Fantasia three times a day and actually enjoyed it every time. I may not be a good indicator of entertainment value.

If you're really confident in your musical ability, there are 5 songs that the game will teach you to play with your feet. Unlike DDR, this game simply shows you the musical notes of what you will be playing, plays the song once for you, and then expects you to be able to play it. Like DDR, if you don't achieve a certain standard, you fail. So sad. Although there are only 5 songs, I'd say it still provides a lot of entertainment, even for people who have played extensive amounts of DDR.

For the lonely geek, this game also includes a solo version of Twister. It will tell you where to put your hands and your feet (although it can't tell if you cheat, ha ha ha), and you have a limited amount of time to move them before you lose points. If you don't get enough points, you have to repeat the round.

This game isn't going to help you lose weight. It isn't going to encourage you to exercise more. Nonetheless, it still provides a lot of entertainment value for DDR fans and music nerds.

B....lades of Steel!

B is definitely filled with good NES games. Burgertime (a port, but still good), Battletoads (a classic), Bubble Bobble (another port), and many more. There are also some tragically horrible movie games, Blues Brothers and Back to the Future. However, I'm going to step a bit out of my bubble and talk about my favourite sports game, Blades of Steel.

In my opinion, Blades of Steel has a great fun factor. There are some extra touches that make it stand out for me, for example how the players skate in a pattern around the rink before the beginning of the game. I was actually at a hockey game recently watching the players skate around, thinking, "This is just like Blades of Steel!". That's how much of a dork I am. Also, you can sometimes see a zamboni driving by in the background while you pick your teams. Another great touch is the announcer. I always appreciate some good voice clips on a NES cart.

Since way-back-when, I've played several newer hockey games, but I never seem to enjoy them as much. I think that the newer games almost suffer from too much sophistication. I don't want to pick my lines, I don't want to make trades, I don't want to draft players, I don't want to learn the buttons for each kind of physical aggression, I just want to play some hockey with my favourite teams, dammit! Every once and again, I need to punch something. Blades of steel lets me do both of these things. With multiple difficulty levels, I can enjoy creaming Toronto over and over again, or I can try to challenge myself, depending on my mood. Everyone who has ever read "The Hockey Sweater" will probably enjoy destroying the Maple Leafs 20-0 playing as the Canadiens.

This brings me to the last thing I really love about Blades of Steel, the bright 80's teams. It adds so much to the classic, nostalgic feel. And, without having to pick your lineups and choose your players, you can imagine that anyone you want is playing on your team. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go pit my team of Gretzky clones against the worrrlllddd!

A is for... ?

Shoot, this alphabet thing was a bad idea. I mean, as far as blarbling about some of my favourite NES games. There really isn't a definitive NES game out there for me. Instead, I'll review two games that I got on a multicart.

The thing about most multicart games is that they have a very small filesize, and it's not too hard to make a cartridge with, say, 70 of them on there. So, none of them are going to have a large level of depth, a lot of variety, or a whole lot of replay value. What I picked my A games for this time was.... Adorableness! I guess I am a girl after all.

Game number one, Antartic Adventure, features a penguin travelling Antartica. Why? I don't know, my multicart is in Japanese. The penguin itself looks a lot like Tux, or maybe penguins in general look a lot like each other. Along the way, you can catch fish, and pick up flags. One of the flags gives you a beanie hat which temporarily grants you the power to fly WHICH IS THE CUTEST THING EVER! Also, ebil sea lions pop out of the ice and try to... smile at you.

Other than the incredible cuteness of a flying penguin with a hat, the only thing that stood out to me was the end of the level. Each time you successfully finish your one-person race, a random country's flag pops up out of the South Pole. The first time I got to the end of the race, an Australia flag popped up. Second lap, it was France.... what the heck? I stuck around and played some more races just to see what flag would pop up next.

Game number two : ASCII. I'm guessing this isn't the actual title of the game. The real title is something in Japanese, which I guess couldn't be converted into an ASCII character set? Ahh haa haa. Anyway, this game is all about adorable little animals throwing things at each other. Really. You stand on opposite ends of the court and just whup balls back and forth at each other as fast as you can. A good strategy is to knock the other furry out, then keep on pounding him while he's down, because the recovery time from being hit is a lot longer than how long it takes to get a ball and throw it at someone. It's kind of fun, for like, two minutes.

These being multicart games, I wouldn't recommend buying either on their own. I would recommend finding a couple of multicarts, you never know what kind of interesting things you'll find on there. Why, I once bought a multicart that had 10 different variations of Contra, and Mario Bros. with a level select option and updated fancier graphics (no it's not the lost levels). I'm not an expert on legal-y stuff, but if people can sell those crappy 200-in-one systems at the mall that look like Nintendo 64s and come with weird controllers and play a bunch of old NES games, then I think it's perfectly fine for me to go and buy a Famicom cart with 70 games on it. You'll need a pin converter to play the game with. There are almost always several of these on Ebay. Basically, these are like the retro version of cellphone games. Now there's an interesting idea.... a Nintendo Virtual Console for cellphones?

My car has Windows!

We (the rowdy ragged roomies and their slanty shanty crew) were watching TV together in the living room. This is rare, as

A: We only have peasantvision
B: We rarely like the same shows, except the X-Files which we revere.
C: The internet. Seriously, the internet.

What was even rarer was that we stuck on the same channel during a commercial break. And what we saw during this commercial terrified us. There was an ad for a car that for some reason had Microsoft Windows installed. I'm not sure what kind of Windows, and what it does, but all I can say is, "WHHYYYY!?!?". This led to a conversation about what would happen if all cars ran entirely on Windows.

1- Whenever the roads were congested, Death would appear with an hourglass (representing your time left on Earth) and spin it around. If the hourglass froze over, you would die in a horrible traffic accident, or at least end up in a coma with a 50/50 chance of recovering your memory.

2- Your car would come with wheels, axles, an engine, headlights, a fuel tank, and seats. Anything else, such as air conditioners, radio, vents, etc would be a 'peripheral'. Sometimes the car would fail to identify a peripheral properly and insist that an air conditioner was a cigarette holder. You could purchase a car with a factory windshield that did an OK job of keeping most stuff out of your car (and face), but anyone with half a brain would install a third party windshield.

3- The message "Fatal Error" would suddenly be much, much worse. The meaning of "Blue Screen of Death" would become literal.

4- Instead of being locked out of your car, you would merely be "Denied Access". Anyone with a Linux car could just say, "Sudo unlock car" and their car would open for them.

5- Your car would drive itself. There would be an option to drive the car yourself, but it would be hidden behind several buttons and every few minutes the car would ask you if you were really sure that you wanted to be driving.

6- Your car would decide for you what you wanted to put in the trunk. If it thought you were smuggling immigrants, it would eject the contents of the trunk, even if you were just trying to ride in your own trunk for fun.

7 Degrees to Hitler

While I was back home for the holidays, my brother taught me a new game that you can play on your computer while you should probably be doing work. It's called 7 Degrees to Hitler.

How it Works
---------------

1. Head to Wikipedia.
2. Click random article.
3. Count how many clicks it takes you to get to the page about Hitler.

Simple, yet entertaining.

New twist on an old classic

I have invented a new game. You will need:
-2 NES
-2 zappers (pref. one orange, one grey)
-2 duck hunt carts (or any combo cart that has duck hunt on it)
-2 televisions
-2 hands

You thought you were good at Duck Hunt? You were so good you could play with either hand and still shoot all of them? You can clay shoot a single pixel? You're completely bored of Duck Hunt? Well, you haven't played DOUBLE DUCK HUNT!

Instructions:

Try to get two zappers of a different colour so that you aren't confused. Start a game of Duck Hunt on both TVs. Try two ducks on each screen if you're feeling especially adventurous/cocky. NOW GO!

EXCITEMENT!

ADVENTURE!

CHALLENGE!

Ok, you still think you're a good shot? Move back from the TV. Try clay shooting on one screen and duck hunting on the other. Mmm, sensory overload!

This is a great use for free TVs from the classified ads. They don't need to be good, or new, they just need to be able to resolve Duck Hunt to an OK degree. Then you can shoot them for real afterwards if you want to feel really pro. Just make sure you have parental approval and are following all the firearm restrictions in your area.