2017-11-10:

Fri:
Work went fairly well today. Went through the latest spec for the admin stuff and put the changes into the test cases. Then I ran those test cases. It was simplified a bit so there's now a giant table where before it was a lot of the same cases with the user changed and nothing else.

Wrote up some new bugs though. That's always the highlight of the day. Though being over in "my" lab in the quiet was a close second.

Off to the shopping, and then to see my parents. They suggested some things for the bubbles sign (spoiler, they worked for the most part) and I had yummy pie.

[[image file="2017-11/looks-promising.jpg" alt="S under black" ]]

[[image file="2017-11/bubbles-free.jpg" alt="ruined but visible" ]]

Back here I worked on the sign, put stuff away, checked my friday sites, tried movie guy's camera to see if it would play this last tape (it didn't) and got ready for tomorrow. Whew.

We're on for 6:30 but the day is going to be pretty rough. Fairport, then stupid hilton, then iMac guy. But nothing for Sunday but maybe book guy coming over? We'll call him at some point I guess. No help for it.

They're remaking Secret of Mana! Have remade… secret of Mana. One of my favorite games from that era. That I'll never have time to play. Sigh.

Sat:
Scrooge won.

I know, this comes out of nowhere, but hear me out. I was watching a bit of the christmas carol my parents loaned me and there's this scene where Ebenezer is whining like a little baby about how dreadfully unfair is fact that his one and only employee, the stouthearted Bob, wants to have Christmas day off but still expects to be paid.

That is when it hit me that he won. Oh sure, the company I work for (naming no names) is more than happy to graciously allow me even the day before christmas off. But they're not going to pay me for it.

Ebenezer would be chortling into his thin gruel and piling on another layer "that can be used indefinitely" to hear that. And what did they earn last quarter? Like 2 billion dollars? His jaw would drop at those kind of numbers and wonder where they put it all. (A magic box that is full of electrons, making the money somewhat imaginary) But would even he (pre-visitation I mean) scoff a bit and say "that's going a bit too far." We'll never know.

Mainly because he's a character in a book, but I digress.

So much running around today. The first one was about what I expected. It's dead, Jim. (Apologies if your name is not Jim)

Got to the next one a little early. Needed it. She's lost control of her google account or something, at the very least she doesn't have the password. She also reset her phone at the same time, which required her to get back into her google account before it could be used. Whoops! Not very smart. I tried resetting the password, but of course couldn't use the phone number and had to skip that one. We got the recovery email, answered the "when did you set up this account?" which I wouldn't be able to answer for mine because I'm not mired in linear time like the rest of you chumps (just kidding I totally am, it sucks). Her father's middle name, blood type, favorite food, etc, and "in 1-3 days/1-3 hours (it said it both ways) someone will email you. An hour later they did, and rejected her bid to control her account again.

Huh?

So I managed to hack my way around the activation lock (shhh don't tell google) using a method that hadn't been closed off yet. (Seriously, I watched about 6 youtube videos, each one used a different method, none worked.) That got her phone working so we tried the reset password again, this time with the recovery email, the phone text code, the drop of blood, the quadratic equation solved, sphinx's riddle deciphered, and the world was saved. Sorry, what was I saying? Oh right, the phone. Once again it was "1-3 hours we'll get back to you." How much more do you need, google? Come on!

At that point I left.

Came back here, ate lunch, and was 15 minutes late to see iMac guy. Still struggles to remember anything, picked up a book, wondered allowed where the book he wanted was, looked at the other books. It was the book he had picked up. Yeeeeah.

Came back here, ordered a new system for the guy and an SSD.

Ate dinner, and left for Sean's.

We stayed on track fairly well, but only just made it to level 2. We didn't even go down the stairs. 4 more levels to go, that should only be about 6 months.

Came home super early, went to bed.

Sun:
Got up at the usual time, or an hour earlier, or later, or something. Who knows.

Immediately got to work not caring to do any work. Really, just didn't feel it today. Thunderstorms all day, maybe it was the time change? It's not an illness, in fact I know what it is. Before I was all "let's do this new thing!" and now I know exactly what I need to do in order to finish this game. I just have to do it. So… hard…

That did not stop me from making a bunch of the chips. The rendering part is all done, I just have to assemble all the bits of them.

Also made a pie, mom inspired me to use berries with her pie. Ah, summer is here again. No really, it was almost 60 today and it'll be that warm tomorrow.

Also worked on the marquee for the game. Here's a low res preview.

 [[image file="2017-11/marquee.jpg" alt="all the hits" ]]

All the games I recall playing though my childhood are on there. I kept remembering more. Well, except for Ami, she's on there with a "yes, I had an arcade game too" look. My childhood. I'm 40 now. Huh. Can you name them all? Well, can you?

Also watched more ponies and read more Phoebe and her Unicorn… wait, I'm 40 or a 6 year old girl? Huh.

Uh, what else? Oh, went out at 1:00 to set up the new iMac. She gave me the old one, we'll see if there's really a problem with it or not. She was it was wasn't working, then it was, then it was working slowly, who knows. It'll go in the collection if nothing else. If I can find the space, anyway.

Got ready for tomorrow, made my phone calls. Oh, right. Talked to photoshop guy. He's somehow "lost" the gradient tool? So I have to go over there Tuesday rolls eyes. Wednesday is booked with a possible noisy fan? Again, she couldn't even tell me the model number of her machine and she says it goes away so who knows. Laptop, of course I will have to disassemble the entire thing to get at the fan if it is that. Because a plastic door is a little too much to ask.

Tomorrow is right down the street from work, then back here, pick up a kitty, go back to where that is, have him tell me kitty is fine, then back here and make calls.

So much fun.

Tues:
Fun continued today. Did a little more EFI testing with the printer replacing the ones we're using now, it was fine.

Went through the specs we have now, made sure the test cases were up to date. For the most part that was true, but I wrote two new bugs because certain things weren't.

Then back to poking at it. New build Wednesday, should have plenty of bugs to verify at that point.

Finished my 50th (and final) "dialog" for the game, now to just get working on it again.

Went to my after work job. Odd, he got a DVD of his wedding that seems busted. It wouldn't play in his machine or in the two DVD drives I hooked up to the machine. Weird. He had a few other minor things, all taken care of.

Came home, ate dinner, went back out with Tinker. He's fine, came back here.

Made calls, annoying book guy is coming 2:00 this Sunday. Still have to see iMac guy about his toolbar tomorrow, didn't reach one person.

Worked on the marquee, printed it out on transparencies. Just to see if I would like it professionally printed on something or if this will be good enough. I'll probably be good enough, but we'll see how it looks taped to something and with the light on it and everything. (When the light comes in like 2 weeks. Slowest shipping ever, Staples.)

Watched my new best pony episode. Wonder if I'll ever write that well. Here's the song from it. So cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB3DLrdGKs4

Tues:
No excitement whatsoever today at work. I did print out the marquee on various printers, looking for a decent one. The ones I thought would be the best? The solid ink ones? Not so much. Also they seemed to shrink down what I printed, it wasn't the right size anymore. Finally decided on two legal sheets rather than 3 letter sheets, so there's just one break in the middle. It'll probably be fine.

Then just spent the rest of the day waiting for tomorrow when we get the new build.

Went to see iMac/photoshop guy. Despite being there Sunday it seemed his retention was near zero. He messed his toolbar up too. Why does there exist like three separate reset toolbar commands, only one of which actually reset the toolbar?

Am I going to become that at his age? Do something, then be totally perplexed at how to repeat the action just moments later? This I fear most of all.

Started the holiday shopping, though mostly just my mother's birthday. Still, I'm 2.5/7ths of the way done. Yeah.

With eating dinner and viewing websites that brought me up to 8:30. No calls today, didn't reach the guy from yesterday. That's fine, just fine.

Wed:
Thought about it, figured why not, wrote tons of bugs today. You know, for laughs.
I'm up to 244. My nearest "competitor" is Giuseppe, who you may recall stole a bunch of mine, at 111. Basically I went around double tapping on all the things. Wow. Much tapping. So bugs.

Then got the new release, so we loaded that. Mistake. Turns out the "old" tablet we were using (John and I) didn't have a serial number. So the printer refused to even see it. Nice. That took a while to figure out. Then the tablet I got to replace it wouldn't register, but it wouldn't deregister either. Because it had already been deregistered. You following all this?

Finally got that straightened out, verified a few bugs were fixed. I have more to do tomorrow, then back to poking it, I guess. There's no new apps to test, so it's somewhat pointless.

Went to my after job work, yup it's the fan all right. I'll have to order her one and tear the whole thing apart because a freaking door is beyond HP.

Back here I took delivery of three things. 2 PCs, the SSD stuff for them, and the plug for my arcade machine. Got the PC ready to go, so it can go over tomorrow. Copied his stuff over, etc.

Made my calls, didn't reach one guy. Did reach guy 2, but he was walking his dog. He's calling me back soon.

The best evidence of the approaching holiday season arrived. No, not the frost we had, or the drop in temps that are coming. No, the 5 catalogs I got in the mail in one day.

Ugh, 21 by the friday? No thank you. We still have leaves on the trees.

With the multi-plug arriving I put the iMac I got a few days ago on it to see if the display had dried out or whatever. Nope, it's crap. Look at the picture.

 [[image file="2017-11/arcade-display.jpg" alt="crap" ]]

Those are dead pixels, that display should be black. Super. Do you know what kind of hassle it would be to return the thing? I already broke the box down. I looked at the auction listing. "oh, we test them all." "We haven't found any with dead pixels." Really? Didn't look very hard, did you? I don't think you looked at all, given that image. Unbelievable.

Thurs:
Oh great, it's going to snow tonight. How delightful.

Work was boring. Only wrote 5 bugs today. Shameful. Not that anyone else wrote any, but still.

Snuck the element mining game into the tablet when the lab was empty. It actually looks pretty decent. Plays just fine. Then got the bright idea to put it on my phone. It's so tiny and cute.

[[image file="2017-11/element-mining-on-small-screen.png" alt="tiny elements" ]]
Look at that little thing! Playable. The text was a bit small, of course, but come on, it's a phone screen. I was surprised I could play it was well as I did on such a tiny thing.

Delivered the PC, set it up and that went fine. He should be happy, it'll be a lot faster than his old one.

Back here I got the leaves into a pile so they're not all over when the rain/snow begins later. Honestly, we didn't get a summer, now we're not going to have an autumn? I want seasons, darn it, not just winter and semi-not-winter. (And construction)

Still didn't reach dog walking guy or the guy that called yesterday. One appointment to look at a car stereo sunday after book guy.

Which I guess brings us to the future part of the broadcast. More poking the build tomorrow, it'll just fly by I'm sure. Bank, shopping, parents of course.

Saturday I should do my paperwork from last month, just now realized I hadn't done it. Whoops. Put the leaves out. Maybe put the movie together just so I can get it out from under me. Then iMac guy again. No Sean this week by the feel of it.

Then Sunday morning I'm not sure, but book guy and radio guy in the afternoon.

Creeping towards Thanksgiving, hope you've been training for the big day.

See you all next week.