2017-12-01:

Fri:
Fairly relaxed day today.

Got up only slightly later than I usually do, and put up Christmas. Because that's what you do the day after thanksgiving. While out and about I saw some trees on top of cars. I blew them up, because killing a tree is wrong!

Wait a second…

Went out at 10:40 for the 11:00. As expected, she did not have anything wrong ("a virus") with her machine, but instead it was just her trying to open PDFs in a trial version of Phantom, where did she even get that from? Once I took that out and they were opening in foxit as normal everything was fine. Answered a few more questions and that was that.

Back here I waited for movie guy to show up, oh look he didn't until 45 minutes late. Grr.

After I showed him what was left of his movie (And he apparently has 2 HD cameras? What a moron!) I went out to do the shopping. Did a bit more than I expected, as I went down to see about gifts for the game. Then to wegmans across the street from there to get stuff to make for the office party. While there Brain spoke up.

"Hey Robert, where are you?"
"Wegmans, Brain. Where did you think?"
"Good job, Robert. Now, is there something you should be doing here?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do I mean? Oh my goodness you're slow. I wonder why I maintain that body of yours to carry me around me."
"…Parasite, is that you?"
"What? No, it's me, brain! I wouldn't lie to you. Look, I'm talking about candy!"
"Oh, right!"

So I got that bought too. Multitasking!

Came back, the micro-SD card for my Pi came, so I set that up. The case/power supply isn't coming until Monday, because of course it's not. I plugged it into my computer just to see what would happen. Hey, it came on! Sweet.

Not sweet, my controller isn't fully recognized. It sees it as 2 controllers, that much works. But it won't read up or left for some bizarre reason. And holding a button to skip doesn't work. Is it not getting enough power? I tried my absolutely ancient MacAlly gamepad, and it worked just fine. (no really, this thing is from the late 90s)

Weird. Well, played a round of Bubbles so the MAME works too. Copying games now, then we'll try and figure this controller business out. It's always something.

Ate dinner, made some tweaks to Bedlam, made my phone calls, waited for the ROMs to be copied. Is this gigabit ethernet or not? Probably not, truth be told.

ROMS copied. Oh look, I can get all the buttons on this thing to work, and right, and down. But not up and left. Forums which have scant info claim perhaps recompiling the kernel with certain options may help. That was in 2013. Why is this problem still existing in 2017? Wait, it's even older than that!

"This kernel bug is here since 2010, and it affects Linux on desktop too (got it on Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04, per example). Until now, it wasn't fixed by developers. So, the only way to get it working is by compiling kernel from scratch."

Really? And Linux people wonder why Linux hasn't taken off yet. Gee, maybe it's the 17 year old bugs?

The video I watched used a slightly older version of this exact arcade board and it worked fine. Why can't it just, you know, work? I mean up and left? what sense does that even make? None! Why did I start this again?

Sat:
I at least accomplished something! I got the Pi to work with my VGA monitor.

I tried following directions to recompile the kernel and put the fix in for the "out of range" values on the joystick. Of course they were from 2013 and you know things have moved on since then! Oh yes they have. So that failed, I don't even know where to go to find the stuff I did manage to download into the thing.

So I ordered 2 new joysticks. Not as nice as having them on one board, true.
Perhaps having them work? Priceless. If they do I'll just sell this pandora's box thing, and hope I get at least most of the value back out of it. What a disaster this has been. It's like, you step out of the Mac world and suddenly nothing works. Ever. "Oh, just recompile your kernel to add 2 lines of code to a hid.c file." "Modify this text file with arcane numbers that are totally arbitrary." Sure, that's progress!

Anyway, guy came with new HD. Or should I say new tiny M2 stick. Whoops, can't transfer that very easily. I offered to do a clone to a drive I could clone it to, then put that drive in (the machine could hold a traditional one as well) and clone the clone to the M2. He decided to just reload windows. Another brilliant decision on MSs part, with a Mac I could just hook it up and have it automatically set everything up for me.

Went out to see iMac guy, just got there on time thanks to laptop guy being fairly late back. Answered his questions, and he seems to be fine for now, he said he would call when he needed me again. So that's fine.

Heard him say the saddest thing I've heard in a long time. He was setting up an apple account so I could get him Pages to do word processing. One of the questions for password reset was best friend in high school. His words were "I didn't really have a best friend in high school." I mean I still see my best friend from high school twice a month or so. To have not had a "best" friend implies he didn't have any friends in high school. How did he cope?

Back here I messed with my games some more, there's some kind of sailor moon trivia game I've never seen before. Couldn't read it, but it looks neat.

And I now realized that laptop guy walked off with my pen. That jerk!

Went to Sean's.
I spent most of the game stoned out of my mind, but luckily some passing heroes we rescued from a time trap knew a spell to undo my stonified state. Good thing Mizzy was strong enough to carry me up the stairs and back through the labyrinth. Stupid stone causing water, it's only the second level, what are the floors in the 4th level all made of lava?

Sun:
Rained on the way back. Yucky out.

Made muffins, balanced my checkbook (it had only been two months… or so) and worked on the "movie" for movie guy. Mostly taking out ambient sound, because he likes his movies to be silent films I guess?

Ate lunch, took care of the leaves.

Thought I was going to watch some Orphan black season 5. Turned out I hadn't watched season 4 yet. whoops.

Worked on the game a bit.
The store isn't quite done, but it knows how much you're trying to buy, if you have the inventory space for it, and if you have the money for it. Whew.

Am finally now caught up with Phoebe and her Unicorn.
Was going to listen to christmas music while I did so, but turned the radio and there was a commercial playing. That's when I realized why I don't listen to the radio and turned it off again. Sorry, if I need a new car I'll go do some research, a radio ad will not sway my decision.

Made my calls, didn't reach the one call I had.

Found a scene I had missed in the tapes, put that in.
Worked on the game. Successfully sold something! Well, I got the money for it but I think the wrong item was gone. Whoops. Have to look at that. Getting ready for bed now. (and feeding cats)

The store works. You can buy and sell, you can't buy if you don't have the space or the money. You can buy if you sell to make up the space or money. Now to display the inventory on the main page, and hook the two together.
It's coming along!

Mon:
Only wrote half the bugs today, but really you have to ease into it. Like a pot of boiling water!

Or a sewer.

Got a new build of the machine software today, not that the tablet is really impacted. Had to load it twice, the first time it didn't want to complete any job. Odd.

That took the morning, so the afternoon I did reliability testing. It was fine, as I knew it would be. It was the cloud services that were the trouble last time, and we don't have them yet.

Went a half hour to where all the lights are (no seriously, if you're near Rahway Ln at night, take a jaunt down there) and looked at what turned out to be a macbook pro. Nice of him to mention it. Anyway, there wasn't really much wrong with it, that I could see. It was painfully slow, so I sold him the SSD I had brought in case it was the drive. That really sped it up, maybe his drive was dying? Hard to tell, though I suppose I could have booted my tools disk and run the manufacturer's tools on it. That doesn't care what it's formatted as. Oh well. He's got an SSD now and I got to pet two insistent pups.

Got home a bit after 7 (ugh) and ate dinner. Booked tomorrow, and talked to iMac guy.

My little case for the Pi came in, slapped that on.

And boom, it's time for bed because I'm going in an hour early tomorrow. Going to bank some time, as I have the dentist AND the orthodontist this week, figure the appointments may take more than an hour, and that's all the extra time I can put in per day. I suppose I could go in early Thursday if Wednesday takes… no, by then it'll be too late, because if both run late I'll need that day too. Because I'll have to go in early both Wednesday and Friday. Right. So there.

Well, only 19 more work days to go. Not that I'm counting them, or have them up on a white board to cross off. 18 actually, I'm taking the 22nd off.

Tues:
Got up an hour early, as promised, to bank some time for the coming week. Wrote a few bugs, nothing major. With only 4 services to test, we're not really going to find that much. John found some stuff… that I found more than a week ago. Nice job dude.

Had pizza for some random reason. Adnan brought us some.

Actually wrote another chapter, yeah, how about that?

Went to do the cleanout, took an hour so it wasn't too bad. Mbam found a good number of things.

Back here by 6:00, a bit later because I was going to get gas on 104 and then forgot, so I had to go down to browncroft. Sigh. It's my own fault. Ate dinner, checked my sites, made phone calls. Setting up a printer tomorrow. So that should be a laugh and a half. Some other customer of mine is going over there with me? He kept telling me she was 85. Okay, I heard you the first time. And you haven't seen her in 20 years? Huh? Who knows.

So now what can I do for the whole hour I have left in the day? Hmmmm.

Oh right, put my Pi downstairs and see how it looks in the cabinet!
It looks pretty good! Bubbles finally lives again.

[[image file="2017-12/bubbling_again.jpg" alt="bubbles lives" ]]

Wed:
My replacement controllers arrived. Seems like I've replaced just about everything in this project. Bizarre. At least they work. But I'm ahead of myself.

Got a new build, so we started the full test all over again. For like the millionth time. Go us. Will we find anything new? Not likely.

Anyway, reloaded my machine, verified some bugs, and it was time to go. Dentist visit went fine, there's a bit of my one filling coming off so there's a gap in my teeth he wants to fill. But next time I'm there, it's not serious. He'll do x-rays at that time as well. Total bill- $400. Yipes. Why are they so much?

Back to work I finished up the first of the test cases, admin roles. There's one odd situation I was running into at the end of the day, I'll probably write it up tomorrow. I forget now what it was about.

Went to go set up the printer. That took about 2 seconds, but actually getting the iPad to print, well, that's a different story. I don't know if it was the fault of the printer or the iPad, others were having that issue but I did finally get it. Let's hope it stays that way. Showed her how to print envelopes, answered other questions. The guy that met me there was like "do you want more business" and I was like "NO" I didn't even have to think about it. You crazy dude?

Got home at 7:00 (sigh) and ate dinner. Only call was orthodontist place reminding me about Friday. Yeah, like I can forget, I've been looking forward to this visit for a whole month now. More than. I'll be there, don't you worry.

Checked out the controllers, we'll still have to cut the sides of the cabinet to fit two side by side, they're pretty chunky. But I think they'll work out. Didn't really do much more than test them out, so don't know how well they'll work in practice. But so far so good.

Set up the combat, it's going to be huge and take hours to write, but I'm blocked until it's done, so…

Then got ready for bed. Last day of Nov. 2017 is tomorrow. One month to go, how about that?

Thurs:
Just going through some test cases today. Got them done, thank goodness, even wrote up a few bugs. Things taking a little too long, I felt, not anything really serious.

I say thank goodness because they want us to do "trunk" testing, basically you know all that AT&T and thinprint stuff I did before? Like months of it? Yeah, do it again. And then again for the pre-release. And then again for the final release. Wait, wasn't another group supposed to be doing that?

So that's AT&T on two different families of machine, thinprint on one, and oh yeah on the other family the new features they "missed" the first time should be in, so test that now here's a release.

Fun. I think if I can get both families of machines I could do them at the same time, basically cutting my test time by a half. I'm not going to do all the models like I did before. Tried to get into the server to get the software but couldn't get in. Neither could Chris, and he didn't exactly know why. So maybe tomorrow? The IP address changeover begins soon, maybe it has to do with that?

So the next week or two should be interesting. Because the tablet stuff is going out in two weeks, so they want that massively tested too. Well, I'm only one dude, what's my priority here?

Stayed late, did a bit more writing as the lab was empty. (And my work was done, of course) I should have enough time in, hopefully the orthodontist appointment doesn't take more than an hour and a half tomorrow. (Includes travel time)

But if it does my parents will be late because of a show, I could stay a little later. I do want to go to the bank, so I can't stay too much later. So we'll see.

Came back here, did a bunch of the combat and decided they win, it was going to take far too long to actually run the whole thing. In the show 5 year old Meelo takes out six fully trained adult chi-blockers in 10 seconds. He uses a total of 5 actions to do this. My guys repeatedly hitting some dude's left arm for 2 damage apiece doesn't seem the same.

Anyway, the next thing is combat with a giant robot so I'll be stuck again before long anyway. It's the combat part of the story, can't be helped.

So looking forward into December. Seeing my parents tomorrow, bank and shopping after work. No idea what work will be, depends if I can get 4.0 builds/machines.

Saturday my father and I work on the arcade machine, cutting some parts of it off, cutting some wood.

Then I get to go back to bluetooth lady who has screwed her speaker up somehow. All she had to do was nothing. But she unplugged it, and messed it all up. Great!

No news from Sean, may not go this week.

Have to do leaves sometime. They took the pile, but there's still a ton of them in front. Lots in back, the back tree is just about bare now. Hopefully no rain between now and then. Doesn't look like any.

Maybe more work on the game Sunday? Get the two pieces together? Don't know, have to do the overdrive system on the main screen now that I have the graphics. Hopefully won't be too bad?

Anyway, sprinting the last 31 days into 2018. I'll see you all here next week. We'll have had our party, my new trays will be in my mouth, and it'll be like two weeks until christmas. Yeehaw.