Life Outside PLT1

Cookies for the Java Programmer

Did you ever dream of cooking? Making cookies? Making brownies?

Did they say you couldn’t because you were a programmer?

You can now prove wrong all those people who said that you couldn’t cook.

With easy to follow instructions, wow your friends and family with your amazing skills.

Cookie Recpie http://www.jibble.org/cookies.php

The recipe makes this plus 11 more (for me anyway)

Speaking of food, yes its late and i’ve just had dinner and cookies, I went shopping yesterday because we had none of this food stuff in my house. So I brought bread and milk and juice and chocolate bars. Then I went to cascades fruit and vege. One small head of brocolli was $2.99. I don’t care, I thought to myself. My parents are paying me back for all this. So it was good and I got the fruit and veges I wanted. And then I came to the mandarins. I love mandarins, I can eat them endlessly and I can speak 300 words of it. So when I saw these ones, I just stood there and looked in awe at the amazingness of them. I present to you, the orange sized mandarin:

STFU and read it for once.

I have decided that I am very disgusted with people mis-quoting Nietzsche, as if having heard his widom makes one well read and intelligent. Heres a favourite of mine just for you, and if you must know I have read the source text in its entire goodness.

When Zarathustra had spoken these words, he again looked at the people, and was silent. "There they stand," said he to his heart; "there they laugh: they understand me not; I am not the mouth for these ears.
Must one first batter their ears, that they may learn to hear with their eyes? Must one clatter like kettledrums and penitential preachers? Or do they only believe the stammerer?
They have something whereof they are proud. What do they call it, that which maketh them proud? Culture, they call it; it distinguisheth them from the goatherds.
They dislike, therefore, to hear of 'contempt' of themselves. So I will appeal to their pride.
I will speak unto them of the most contemptible thing: that, however, is THE LAST MAN!”
And thus spake Zarathustra unto the people:
It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the germ of his highest hope.
Still is his soil rich enough for it. But that soil will one day be poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow thereon.
Alas! there cometh the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man–and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whizz!
I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: ye have still chaos in you.
Alas! There cometh the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There cometh the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself.
Lo! I show you THE LAST MAN.
“What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?”–so asketh the last man and blinketh.
The earth hath then become small, and on it there hoppeth the last man who maketh everything small. His species is ineradicable like that of the ground-flea; the last man liveth longest.
“We have discovered happiness”–say the last men, and blink thereby.
They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loveth one’s neighbour and rubbeth against him; for one needeth warmth.
Turning ill and being distrustful, they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbleth over stones or men!
A little poison now and then: that maketh pleasant dreams. And much poison at last for a pleasant death.
One still worketh, for work is a pastime. But one is careful lest the pastime should hurt one.
One no longer becometh poor or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wanteth to rule? Who still wanteth to obey? Both are too burdensome.
No shepherd, and one herd! Every one wanteth the same; every one is equal: he who hath other sentiments goeth voluntarily into the madhouse.
“Formerly all the world was insane,”–say the subtlest of them, and blink thereby.
They are clever and know all that hath happened: so there is no end to their raillery. People still fall out, but are soon reconciled–otherwise it spoileth their stomachs.
They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health.
“We have discovered happiness,”–say the last men, and blink thereby.–
And here ended the first discourse of Zarathustra, which is also called “The Prologue”: for at this point the shouting and mirth of the multitude interrupted him. “Give us this last man, O Zarathustra,”–they called out- -”make us into these last men! Then will we make thee a present of the Superman!” And all the people exulted and smacked their lips. Zarathustra, however, turned sad, and said to his heart:
“They understand me not: I am not the mouth for these ears.
Too long, perhaps, have I lived in the mountains; too much have I hearkened unto the brooks and trees: now do I speak unto them as unto the goatherds.
Calm is my soul, and clear, like the mountains in the morning. But they think me cold, and a mocker with terrible jests.
And now do they look at me and laugh: and while they laugh they hate me too. There is ice in their laughter.”

And just so you know, I seriously doubt that there is going to be a movie.

Chicken is overrated

Why is it that people just can’t shut the fuck up about chicken?

They go on and on like it’s some kind of miracle meat; given the choice between all the common kinds of meat people will often choose chicken; THAT’S FUCKING RETARDED. Is it the flavour? Chicken is a good flavour, but it doesn’t even hold a candle to the richer and better defined flavours in steak, lamb or even venison; which is basically chicken-flavoured steak.

Moreover, out of the common meats; a lean cut of chicken will have a lower protein to fat ratio than a lean cut of steak. In comparison to red meats, chicken is a veritable wasteland in terms of nutrients and have I mentioned the flavour? Chicken has such a general flavour, which is why so many things ‘taste like chicken’, if you can’t describe the taste of a food item you just lump it in with the fattiness and graininess of chicken flesh.

I’m well aware of religions prohibiting eating anything with split hooves or more than 2 legs (EAT HUMANS); but you really have to ask yourself; what is the point?

As for my own point? I have no idea where the fuck i’m going with this, so:

There’s your summary.

Shut the fuck up about chicken.

Up Yours, Newton

Right, my exams are over. And that makes me happy.

Here is a depiction of Sir Isaac Newton.

Blocked

OUTAGE!

No doubt you have all either experienced first hand or heard of the power outage that hit the sprawling suburban lesion that is auckland.

I was in the CBD during this. It was possibly the most fun I had in ages. I spent the time sitting at Divan and chatting with the waitresses, while 20 metres away on Queen St the sound of general chaos as performed by the police and fire services punctuated by the odd screeching car provided a symphonic accompaniment to the madness.

Overall, this little taste of the downfall of society has been hugely rewarding. I think that the Holocene Climate Change will give me much ongoing amusement. Yes, I did say amusement: the name “JonnyDoom” is not an arbitrary affectation.

If its all the same to you, I’ll drive the tanker.

Important announcement

I have given up shaving.

Normally, i’d shave daily. It was barely a choice at all, since a slight stubble inevitably leads to a man looking like a douchebag.
It’s one of evolution’s old tricks; you either look decent having shaven, or look decent having a full beard and moustache but there is no defining middle-ground, between shaven and bearded; everything is decidely less than the sum of it’s parts, it’s all just douchebag, douchebag, douchebag, douchebag.

But you know what? I don’t have to go out 5 or 6 days a week and be around other people in close proximity anymore, so shaving is no longer of any concern to me. Sure, i’ll look like a douchebag (moreso than usual) but it’s a small price to pay to not have to mow my face with a razor and sting myself with aftershave.

Seriously, fuck shaving.

Yeah, and fuck Microsoft too. I can play Rise of Legends on Windows 2000 despite their monopolistically motivated blocks on my operating system. Why should anyone have to upgrade to Windows XP just to play the games they publish? NEWSFLASH - Windows 2000 is the same thing, but less ugly. The only Windows XP standard feature required for RoL was MSXML 4.0 support; which Windows 2000 is capable of after downloading an installer from, get this; MICROSOFT’S OWN WEBSITE.

Can we say self-owned?

Abhishek, UNHAIRED!

The betting begins on the topic of de-hairifying Abhishek.

This shall serve as a CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION to pay abe the monies upon the advent of his complete unmopification.

We care not how the mighty abe does this deed, but the more public the better; and you never know, maybe Tracy had a childhood crush on Capt Pickard.

Tales of Phantasia

This is a review for the GBA version, mind you, not the SNES fan translation.

What can I really say about this game? Well, I WAS really excited when it came into the store on April 14th. I jumped up and down and even took hours off uni to go and grab it so I could borrow the damned thing. To cut a long story short, I played the bastard when I got home and cried after playing it for about five minutes.

Yes. I cried.

It’s so god damned painful the first time you play it again after the SNES version. The GBA lacks so much finesse in comparison. The battle system is familiar, but incredibly slow and unresponsive. Button mashing does not work in this version as it once did. The start button does weirdo shitty things in the battle screen and changes the active character mode from Auto to Semi-Auto, which is a pain in the ass. I’m sure that wasn’t the case in the SNES version.

Nothing’s been done about the graphics at all, which is understandable. The menu screens are clean (though the SNES ones through the DeJap translations were better). The status and equipment screens are not. The status screen splits in two pages, where all the information, I’m positive they could have fit on one if they tried hard enough.

Although, I have to say that the biggest disappointment is possibly the most annoying. The main character’s name has been translated from the Japanese literally as “Cress” not the much smoother “Cless”, much the same as “Claus” as opposed to “Klarth” etc. Though, you know I wasn’t really worried too much because there’s a NAME CHANGE option in the SNES version! Surely they would have ported that over to the GBA version?

NO.

They bloody well didn’t and that pissed me off to no end. So here I am playing one of the greatest RPG games in history with a hero whose name is the second half of a vegetable.

He’s very much a vegetable in the game as well, which really stuck me as odd, the Magicians in the game seem a little more hardy with some new and awesomely strong spells. Arche’s abilities have surprised me a little, I really don’t remember her being that strong.

A major change to the game is getting Suzu as a playable character now. I haven’t encountered her yet, but I’ll be re-editing this when I do.

In terms of plot, not TOO much has changed, thankfully. Though it really gets to me that the dialogue has been translated and re-written for eight year olds. It’s got a PG rating, yet the game is so freaking hard, I just wonder why they even bothered trying to market it.

In saying this, it’s only gotten harder due to the fact that you can now chain Cless’s (the name I prefer) death skills together so you can have high, mid, low range techs in absolute succession with no break in-between (provided you execute the right techs which are chainable together in a certain fashion) and totally obliterate everything on screen at once, which is cool - admittedly. This chaining is very reminiscent of Phantasia’s later counterparts: Tales of Symphonia [NGC/PS2 (Japan/US only)] and Tales of Eternia [PSP], both of which are more fluid by far.

All in all they’ve pretty much butchered one of my favourite games to the point where all I can see now are the disembowelled remnants of what was one of the most fantastic RPG’s of all time.

NAMCO, you’ve really outdone yourself now. Congratulations.

5/10 from me. Playable, and is keeping me busy, but that’s it, pretty much.

No Photoshopping Required, but you’re welcome to

Mmmm…. Chocolate Covered Dildo…