I wish I could say that this last week was horribly productive for me. Instead I fought with VBA programming for an Access database during the day, and then in the evenings found out that Raiden is a whiny crybaby whenever he has to do something he didn’t first do in simulation.

Yes, that’s right: I’m now sucked into the world of Metal Gear Solid 2. The Metal Gear franchise is a rarity for me: intriguing plot, and 3-D graphics that don’t make me toss my cookies. My casual conversation with Brian is now peppered with talk about single-tapping people in the head; this gets even worse when we’re on top of buildings—namely, eating on the roof of the downtown American Dream Pizza.

Brian’s been an invaluable aide to my addiction to help with MGS2, as he’s the sort who plays around in a game’s world and tests its limits—and then tells me about it when I play. I tend to play through for the story alone (I’d be a terrible beta-tester), and so would have missed all sorts of little touches that the designers added to the game.

Other than Brian watching me get mo’ murder on enemy soldiers, and me watching Brian fight Olga repeatedly on European Extreme difficulty (wherein one shot from Olga would kill you; though in general you take three shots to die), we also hooked up Brian’s receiver (“plugged in lots of cords”) and played a round of disc golf. The disc golf was frequently ugly, but also frequently surprisingly good. It was my first time out in many months, and I didn’t suck anywhere near as constantly as I feared I would. That was nice, because the course was as full of people as I’ve ever seen it—something about the sunshine, I guess.

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My official dance career at OSU is now finished. For the last time, even. I would be sad, but my unofficial career continues unabated: next term Marco will be offering a not-for-credit west coast 2 class, and I’ll be all over it. (I’d be crazy not to; each class is $2, and I don’t have to be a student—i.e. pay tuition—to attend. A steal!)

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Meanwhile, I have lots going on behind the scenes (*cough*) here. Lots to do, and either no time or no energy (pick one) to do them. Some might even bear fruit that y’all could download, someday. Maybe. In the meantime, some random links to peruse:

Speed Demos Archive: download videos of people hauling ass through games

AIM’s sucky new terms of service: damn do they suck, but (theoretically) only for those who didn’t have an account years ago. Still… where’s my encryption program? (hat tip: Greyduck)