Serenetastic!

I propose:

(7) On friday, people will come round for more firefly DVDs.
(8) On saturday evening, I will see Serenity at Vue.

Though I could reverse these if people preferred. I apologise to anyone who feels this is an overload, but I don't think I can wait longer to see the film again, and I already arranged the viewing.

On friday, I'll plan for people about 7ish but will be in preparing some sort of food before that, so feel free to come when you finish work if earlier.

Times for saturday aren't decided until wednesday, so I'll decide when then if people want to come, but I'll intend early evening to allow food after.

Oblivion_party (what *did* we call oblivion_party 2?)

Saturday was a massive four-way birthday party. First we met at the Mill to walk to Grantchester, and due to busing I was late, and nearly strode off down the river, before poking my head inside and seeing everyone else still drinking happily. With relatively small amount of faff we set off.

A disturbing man was cycling the other way, and ran striaght into the whole group of us. Perhaps we could have been prompter to let him past, but "look where you're going" doesn't really apply to people walking along a footpath from someone who cycles into them full speed. He crashed directly into Becky and both collapsed under their bikes, making close to dying twice, or maybe thrice, over. While still making cycling motions he then cursed everyone vehemently and kicked his way free.

It's always strange walking, since it allows unusually fluid conversations, so I chatted to just about everyone, though there were quite a few. At Grantchester we went to the Orchard and had tea and scones in a very civilised manner, and it barely rained until we were leaving.

We returned to the mill and dispersed (or disbursed) for last minute present/food buying, or changing into evening party clothes. I dashed to Townsend's and got a new cycle, together with free starwars bike bell, because I mentioned a friend with a birthday would think it so sweet :)

Finally mobile again I went home, changed to my pinkest shirt, and cycled to Oblivion. I got pretty drunk, but sensible enough to cycle carefully home, dismounting for awkward crossings, and enough to behave somewhat wantonly (sorry!) but without quite losing myself :)

I had shaved hair off, and it had reached the one-day strokey stage, which was a great hit. Well, several people laughed, but enough seemed to like it. It feels odd now, but in a couple of days I think is about perfect.

I chatted to lots of people, including some old friends I hadn't seen for a while, and spoke to new interesting people I'd seen about. Different geeks groups are intertwined with linkages like lianas through the rainforest.

There were even a few friends of Becky's from work and karate. Apart from Pip's parties and Becky's hikes, I so rarely meet people my friends know through different sorts of media than I knew them. Some fit right in, a couple seemed slightly shocked, if accepting, of the way everyone there was odd relative to 'normal' people -- the sanest conversation was about guppies. I felt (1) at times people like them here could have felt like people like me feel at parties where the main conversation is about football -- implying no criticism of either sort -- and (2) made me glad I do know people with whom I get on.

Of course, this was repeated when asked about the weekend this morning. Getting fairly drunk on saturday is fairly normal, but when I counted (a) men in supergirl outfits: 1 (b) conversations about aristotlean solids and the application of the offside rule to python: lots (c) people kissed: 4 (d) people in relationships kissed: 8 (e) blogging of party quotes: in real time (f) society comittee meetings: 1 (thankfully not poohsoc!) (g) etc I realised most of this might seem odd to the people I was relating it to and received editing.

Then on sunday... ok, separate post.

Sunday and shareware games

On sunday I relished having a bike, read a lot of Confusion (the second volume in the increasingly accurately named Baroque Cycle trilogy), played a few interesting shareware games, did a lot of washing and up, etc, had a lie in alternating sleeping with drinking lots of water, and did some organising of the cts fresher's fair.

Is there a name for genres that distinguishes between action puzzle games like Tetris, where everything is in the game rules, and action puzzle games like Repton, where the games rules share importance with level design[1].

Anyway, I was playing some old and some new interesting games of the latter sort, which is what I like to write. Though the former has the advantage that it's as fun for the programmer to play as anyone else.

There was also Gish. Chronic Logic made a number of interesting physics-moddelling games, like Bridge Builder/Pontifex, which are great fun to see things modelled well, but a bit lacking in *gameplay*.

Gish is great. You control a blob or tar which is genuinely malleable. You can make it sticky, or firm and heavy, or slick, and everything happens in a truly malleable fashion. In short, they obviously modelled things at a lower level than normal, and much of the control is emergent behaviour. There isn't a "throw" or "pick up" button: you roll over a block, go sticky, roll until it's on top, squish down, and expand.

[1] An early incident. In a history class, the teacher said foo wasn't the only effect, bar was also necessary for the thingy, and in driving this home -- most people would assume foo was the major one -- said the thingy was a sum of foo and bar. I immediately queried -- surely product would make more sense, since if either foo or bar were zero, nothing would happen.

OK, I tend to take metaphors too far. But on the other hand, it is unhelpful to choose metaphors deliberately bad in the way you wish to emphasise. Speaking of which, why is "How high?" considered a good response to "Jump!"? Surely that's way too peedantic? I suppose the message is there on another level -- don't say 'how high' just because Sarge said to say it, just do it, but it seems peverse. I am amused at the vision of having got your paratroopers lined up in the plane, passing over the landing field, and suddenly having a literal reply to "Jump!" :)