2017-09-28:

Fri:
Ugh, where to start? This day was not what I would call a good one. No.

The morning started innocently enough. Had some blueberry pie, wrote some bugs, the usual.

Then I left for the game/food at 12:30. I'm driving along and I had only gotten to five mile when my car light for "you're sliding on ice right now" came on. Obviously it was 80 out and I was not sliding on ice. But I was slowing down and the "fuel" light at the bottom started flashing. Yeah, fuel! I couldn't believe it because I was pretty sure I had looked at the gauge just seconds ago and had more than half a tank. So I coasted to the side and was now under the bridge. Not so much under that I was in the shade, mind you.

So I climbed the hill, went to Lowes, got a gas can, walked to the gas station, got 3 gallons, and started back. Someone stopped and gave me a ride, a big thank you to them, and I stood there trying to figure out how to make the gas come out of the stupid nozzle. It's the odd twist, lock, push thing? Why can't it just come out? We've had gas cans since there was gas, why does it have to be so complex? Anyway, finally got the 3 gallons in there and…

Nothing. So I called the company that manages my warranty and they sent a truck out.

Meanwhile, my co-workers are wondering where I am, and my boss called wondering if everything was all right. (It wasn't.)

About 40 minutes later the truck came, and we went to the service station. They say it's something to do with an "engine module" so either it burnt out or the internal network of the car isn't passing signal anymore. Neat!

While I was there trying to call the dealer like my plan book tells me to (there are 3 steps to filing a claim) some random dude in a UPS uniform walks over to me. Hi Robert, how are you? Did I know who this person was? Nope! Was I in any mood, at that point, to try and pretend I did? Nope! He knew I did computer repair, and he seemed to know who I was. But I had no clue who he was. Sorry dude!

The dealer person I talked to had no clue what I was talking about, transferred me to someone else who didn't answer. The 800 I called from the book kept me in the queue until I gave up. So who knows if it'll even be covered.

So I got a loaner until Monday, when I hope to have my car back.

It was then 4:00 so I went to see "I'm too stupid to plug a cable in" and plugged his cable in.*

*My apologies, that was crude, and unnecessary. I'll try to do better next time. Not in the best mood, as you might tell? I know, hard to say.

Then out to do the shopping, and saw my parents.

Got back here, put stuff away, checked my sites.

Not the day I planned to have, but then, you can't really expect every day to be like that, now can you?

One call, didn't reach her. She wants to cancel Monday, which is probably fine because I'll have to get my car back after work, which shouldn't take too long, though.

Silly little car!

Worked on the game. It looks like this now:

[[image file="2017-09/screen-shot-2017-09-22-at-10.18.13-pm.png" alt="game progress" ]]

Ignore the crudness of the graphics, they're all placeholders. Until I know I can actually get the programming right, why work on the pretty pictures?

Following a youtube tutorial, so it's not exactly original work. But then, match 3 isn't exactly original itself, now is it? I'm using 2D sprites though, while he's using 3D spheres, so my code is slightly different. So there.
At least I'm feeling better.

Sat:
Went out to my 10:00, her wireless signal doesn't reach all the way to her kitchen. There's an almost line of sight between the two, but you take three steps and there's this massive dead zone. She has an airport express (despite having a PC, hate those things) which I thought could extend the network. Nope, it only extends other airport networks for some bizarre reason. Yay.
Tried to get her printer on the network with the cable, the HP software insisted the IP address was that of the router, not the printer. So it wouldn't work right. Putting on wireless did do the trick.

Got some soda and a desert for tonight, and dropped off the laptop.

Came back to find the iMac had been delivered, huge box, got it inside. Also Mizzy's gift, which came out 99% amazing. The colored part… wasn't. Odd. Have to email them about that.

Got back to work on the game. Got stuck almost immediately. He's using a system of "click" "then click again" which is not what I wanted. I suppose it's doable. This is just for me to play, though I had visions of turning it into a real thing. See, the way the physics works the pieces are all under "gravity" so if I move them, they'll start falling even when I don't want them to. And how does the system know which way to move the pieces out of the way? It doesn't. I watched a video of the real game, stepping though frame by frame it's more animated than I thought, even the pieces dropping in they don't drop in a straight line, they're staggered. And all the particle effects when they vanish (which I wouldn't do.) It's more polished than I thought, in other words. Mine wouldn't be, but just figuring out how to do what I want with the system, that's the key.

And how much effort I actually want to put into this, when there's writing to be done.

Read the rest of Inheritance. It wasn't great, the end boss was taken out in a way that was somewhat unsatisfying.

Sun:
Had an idea about the game between my last entry and this morning. I have all my best ideas very late at night it seems. Anyway, turn the physics for the objects off, okay, you don't get the free "falling" mechanism but I wanted more control anyway. In each frame, ask the object "are you where you need to be yet?" If not, move closer to it. When I create each object I can tell it where it is, and where it needs to be. It might be a tiny bit more work, but it solves a bunch of the problems. When the blocks move they just get a new set of "you should be here" coordinates, and the update routine that happens every frame just continues its work. Huh.

But I wanted to write today, so I got to that.

Chapter 17 is done. Going to start moving pretty fast, Amon's attack is just 7 days away.

So nice out today! 81 degrees.

Mon:
Little car is back with me! Despite not calling the dealer I bought the car from or the GM plan people like my little booklet says to, I got changed nothing. Bizzare.

No final build with thinprint in it, they hope to have it ready by the end of the week. So I just went back and did more "reliability" testing on the tablets. I cannot even convey how boring this activity is in words. It's just not possible. Anyway, can't get through it, dropbox or google will screw up and require a reboot, and that means starting the test over. Whoops.
Oh, and they can't reproduce it. Riiiiight.

Left about 10 minutes early, went home to get the key to the car, which I guess has some kind of chip in it. Dropped this off at the dealer, brought the car back, got my car back, then out to do my other job. This went pretty well, it's a laptop I cleaned a few things up on.

Got home, had gotten the RAM in the mail so I popped that into the iMac. He's coming here to pick it up, thank goodness. Because the calls just don't stop. I now have all of this week booked (friday even because my parents won't be home) One for saturday, and one for next tuesday. You recall how I didn't have any work like for the past two weeks? Why am I suddenly getting all this? What did I do wrong?

Had some hilarious ideas last night for the "tutorial" if the game ever makes it that far. But given the lateness of the hour currently I doubt I'll do writing or programming today, or basically at any time this week. Yay! Have to go early to feed my parent's animals at the end of the week. It's not a big deal, just means going to bed an hour earlier.

Why has updating the Mac been stuck at "18 minutes remaining" for like the last hour? Huh.

Still super nice out, yes please.

Got ready for tomorrow.

And then I went ahead and put some more work into the game. Got it looking okay for a wonder. The movement system is quite precise, I need to cap it at .05 or something because it keeps trying to move to the "exact" location but you're good little block, you're good.

Got a reply from shapeways. She said the color information just wasn't there, and I looked into why. Whoops, turns out if you have a "color" (it was white) on the shape and texture data the texture data is just thrown away when you export. It's a feature!

Tues:
More poking at it today, and trying to reproduce a certain issue, which I did and they looked at it. We're just waiting for the new version tomorrow, I don't think anyone really accomplished all that much. John got three boxes of tablets to work on, he was thrilled over it. Just thrilled. Even I could see it.

Delivered the PC, got it set up. No troubles there.

Came back here, ate dinner, checked my sites. Made my phone calls, talked to the BSOD lady (the one with the totally clogged up machine) maybe turning sleep off will do it? She says as long as she's using it, the machine stays on. Weird.

And made another appointment for saturday. That's two plus the guy coming to get the iMac. At least they're close by.

Went back to work on the game. Got the "gravity" to work so they go to the right position. Even got them falling from the right place and looking good. But when I move them around the routine to detect the collision doesn't seem to run until I let the mouse button go. That's no good. Not finding any good info online either. Sigh.

Wed:
Now the real fun of the week begins.

Got the new version, so did the needful and got through the bugs I needed to verify. Helped load tablets because John had 50 of them to load, apparently staples is running out of spares. Whoops.

Not much else, didn't even write up any bugs today.

Then out about 8 minutes to the guy with the unbooting laptop. Win10, some stupid "critical system crashed" BSOD and my favorite little smiley guy because that's what you need to put programming resources into, MS, not helping us troubleshoot the problem, your stupid little emoticon.
Reloaded the system there, because I didn't want to go back. Probably a mistake, it wouldn't boot from the USB so I had to use the CD. Hated his trackpad. Finally got home at 7:00.

Ate dinner, no calls, yay! Thank you! Got ready for tomorrow and went to bed early so I can get up early tomorrow and go to see about my parent's fur babies.

Saw where my error was with moving my blocks around. It was my fault the whole time, I'm a dumb. Now to figure out why both blocks are sending messages not just the one I run into.

Whoops, solved that one too. Got them shifting around, but not very well. Good news there is, I think I know exactly how I'm going to solve that issue.

Thurs:
Went back to the office depot stuff today, and not many of the bugs in the payment system were fixed. In fact, I had to open a bunch of new ones. So nice.

We should get the thinprint build tomorrow, not that I'll have a lot of time for it because of the "launch party" picnic I hope my car makes it to this time in the afternoon. Ah well, plenty of time next week I should think.

Went way down 250 after work to see about the various issues the guy was having, and hopefully got them all straightened out.

Back here around 6:00, ate dinner, checked my sites, three phone calls. Have to work Sunday, which is always a treat. Haven't done that in months, I guess I'm paying for those other weeks I just got to come home after work. Three already, one at 5:00 PM. Yeah, that's a great time. Knew this week would be rough, but not THAT rough. Ugh.

So yeah. Getting what I can done based on when the build is released tomorrow, then picnic stuff. Trying to squeeze the bank, shopping, and buying a router in before a job at 4:30. Kinda-sorta forgot about that, needing to go grocery shopping. *sweatdrop* But if I leave the party at 3:30, which seems reasonable as it's starting at 12:00 I can get everything in.

Then seeing 4 people Saturday, hopefully going to Sean's but no news yet.

Then getting up late Sunday, feeding my parent's kitties, then doing 3-4 jobs in the afternoon. Hopefully I'll be home by 7:00? That would be great.

Not looking forward to the next three days.

Anyway, welcome October, and the final three months of the year. Yesterday it was 80s, today it was 60s, a clear reminder that nothing lasts forever.

See you all next week, if I make it.