Saturday, January 23, 2010
"Moon"
Tonight I watched a little movie called "Moon". Obviously low-budget, if I had to guess, it really wasn't all that bad. It really only had the one actor. Well one actor, possibly his double and this HAL 9000-like computer A.I. system that may as well have been another character. The computer's voice was Kevin Spacey actually. I recognized the main character from a movie from roughly ten years ago called Galaxy Quest. He played the "plucky comic relief" sort of character. Named "Guy" as I recall. He wasn't so funny in Moon but then he wasn't really supposed to be. The obviously did do a great job on this low-budget movie because I really did buy that he was on this moon base. Some of the exteriors were obviously CG but I was able to look past that. Actually I kind of wish it could have continued on further with the story. Really seemed like it had some other places to go. But that would require one or even two more actors. Couldn't have that could we?
Next I'll mention the LAN party i went to last night. I showed up around 7:00pm which was apparently later than I should have. I thought it was just supposed to start at 7:00pm but every body looked like they were already up and running and whatever. So I guess I'll try and remember that for next time.
There were probably roughly 20 to 25 people there playing. When we first started it was a lot of TF2, which was pretty fun. I started with the "Heavy" class and ended up playing that exclusively. Mostly because I forgot how to change classes but then I realized I was doing pretty well so I just kept picking it. I didn't have L4D2 or MW2 so I didn't do much whilst everyone else seemed to be playing that.
Eventually we played the old hated game, BF2. I hate that game because it goes something like this for me: Play for ten seconds, die, play for ten seconds, die, play for...12 seconds...die...repeat that about 30 times and the end. Lots of random deaths for some random perch of some well-disguised sniper. No feedback or anything else as to what I'm doing wrong or how to improve. But I played anyway. Probably got about 3 kills the whole hour or however long it was that we played. I disliked it, if you haven't gathered.
Around 11:45 or so my eyes started to water so I decided to pack it up. My eyes were watering because I was using the my big 27" or so TV as my monitor and at really high resolutions it can only be run at 60Hz. And if I (and I can only assume most others) sit too close to a monitor running at 60Hz my eyes will start to water and burn badly. So I could either stay away from the screen for 30 or 60 minutes or whatever or I could leave. And since I would rather be sleeping then at a LAN party not playing games I packed it up. Over-all I think I had a good time.
Other than all this I did spend some time learning still more about the DOM and inserting content into a web page. I'm drawing from a number of sources actually. Books, web sites, the samples in the editor I use called conveniently enough HTAEdit. Actually HTAEdit is an incredibly neat free-forever shareware application that really seems like it deserves more credit actually.
Any the only real difficulty I have run into so far is trying to translate some of the JavaScript code into VBScript. I guess there's just some VBScript quirks or features or whatever that I am just not that familiar with. For instance I re-wrote this one JavaScript function from a book in VBScript but when I then try to run the HTA it's like it's automatically just running the code in the function for some reason even though the function has not be called. So then I tried making it a Sub instead of a function and it still game me the same error. I'm sure there's an obvious reason for this but I just don't know what that could be at the moment.
I don't think VBScript is that bad of language actually. I guess just being locked to IE and Windows as it was while JavaScript is seemingly universal has just kind of killed it. For that matter Microsoft's JavaScript called JScript may or may not still be called that. I keep seeing references to JavaScript on Microsoft's site now. Maybe they just gave up trying to have their own locked-in technologies like that I don't know. I think at least for client-side all that stuff has been left by the way-side for a little thing called PowerShell. I haven't yet started on that.
Of course my VBA hasn't actually got to the XML part yet. Either opening an existing or writing a new one. I think I'm on the writ track though. Maybe within a week if I keep working like I am. Course with all the people calling me about jobs maybe I'll have one within a week. Okay not really. I just keep getting more and more depressed don't I? Not feeling a lot of incentive to get any hopes up at the moment.
Okay I'm starting to depress myself here. That's enough job-talk. Actually I don't' think there's anything left so I guess that's enough in general.
