Various topics…

WARNING: This journal entry is even more random crap than normal. Just stuff on my mind, and it wanders everywhere – and probably a couple of strange places.

Now that I have that warning out of the way… Right now, I’m working on Gremlin Panic!, one of the games that’s been in production for at least 6 months now. Not sure how far back the work on it dates. All it’s really missing is the title character and her interaction with the player (and part of that code is already there.) I finally got ambitious, and decided I’d spend some time and see what I could do. Finally got things so that she look pretty good, and am getting the animations ready for the game. Most likely there will end up being 1000+ frames of animation for this character – quite a bit more than I would have liked, but, it really needs diversity! This is quite the task, and I’m guessing that I’ll be spreading it out over the next month or two when I’m not working on Trajectory (and real world stuff like the yard, various vehicles, etc.)

Speaking of vehicles, after some headaches, the Caddy is running properly again. The radiator tank on the drivers side had cracked, and the other one was in the process of going (glad the repair guy looked closer than I had, and pointed out to me. It wasn’t that far from blowing out.) Had slapped the radiator back in, and all was well. Untill the hose blew off. Put the hose back on, and didn’t quite get it on right, and it leaked again. *SIGH* The lower radiator hose is probably the only thing I don’t like about working on the Caddy – it’s actually fairly decently setup for doing maintance and work on it. Bought me a two foot screwdriver that I could reach the clamp with, and managed to get it all together properly since I could reach it, and get enought torque on it to tighten it all the way. Yet another task outta the way.

We’ve got 1/3rd of the front lawn torn apart, and new grass sprigs put in. Unluckly, slowly but surely our front yard is begining to migrate onto the sidewalk due to really friggin heavy rain here in Wichita since we planted that part of the yard – it’s all a downhill slope 😛 I’m dyin’ to see this stuff take off, and produce a really pretty green lawn with minimum maintance 🙂

We haven’t even touched the back yard – I’ve been slowly cleaning it up, and getting ready to attack it. Dad fixed the lawn mower for me (he grabbed the fuel tank and carb from my old one, and mixed it with one of he had that was dead, and now has a working one he’ll give me.) Cool – maybe I can KILL all the Queen Anne’s Lace and sunflowers before it takes over the back yard. I’ve still got cleaning to do, of course, but a good mowing should make things look MUCH nicer quickly.

However I did set things up so I have a due date for all my back-yard work. Either June 1st or June 9th (I’m thinking the latter) we’ll be hosting a birthday party for the twins, a couple of friends of ours. So I need to have our party spot returned to bein’ ready for duty by then. With the BBQ pit, the benches with pleanty of seating outside, etc., it makes one heck of a setup. However, it will eventually go away once we buy land in the country, and I do the next setup which I plan to make this look lame with. But that’s a long way off yet – as in possibly years.

Heabo talked me into starting my workouts again. It really didn’t take much convincing, but, I need a couple of new toys to work out with. The main one, and my biggest concern, is a heavy bag. I’ve always talked about getting one, and it fits with what I want to do – re-hone my martial arts skills. I haven’t reached out and tagged something with my foot in probably 10 years now. If I get mad and hit something, it’s always with my hands – which is probably a good thing. (The force generated from a properly performed kick make a punch look weak, and would probably break anything I hit very badly.)

I plan on working out twice a day, in a particular rotation. Mornings, I’ll go out and beat the hell out of the heavy bag for 20 minutes, after spending 10 minutes or so doing streaches and ‘katta’ of sorts. Mon., Wed., Fri. will be lower body, Tues., Thurs., Sat. will be upper body. Sunday is rest.

Then in the evenings, I’ll spend 30 minutes with weights on lower body days (that way the upper half does still get a work out) and adominal muscles on the other days. I still need two more supplements to complete my plan.

I’ve already found the heavy bag I want – it’s not supported from the top, and instead has a base that is filled with water, and the water filled center extends up the center. I’m guessing the base holds 25 gallons of water, and the rest holds another 15, making the whole thing weight about just under 300 lbs when filled. That should resist kicks fairly well, except for the upper kicks that land at 6 feet or so (It’s pretty damned hard to withstand that much force that far about the main weight that’s at the base.), full body punchs (every last muscle goes into a hit designed send an opponent flying, reguardless of size. Quite impressive to hit some guy and watch him fly for about 6 or so feet before he contacts the ground again), and body checks (ok, that’s cheating – martial arts doesn’t normally use body checks. I do (did).) I’ve got a plan to help with that a bit – I’ll dig a hole about a foot deep, and place the base in there, and pack the hell outta the dirt – it should handle the force then.

I probably looked a little funny in Sears. Heabo and I were looking at it, and I was a bit suspicious of it – I needed something I could use outside, so a hanging heavy bag would be a pain. But this thing didn’t feel heavy enough for what I wanted. And Heabo tells me “Well, kick it and find out.” I looked at her for a moment, and debated it a bit with here, and finally looked around to see if anyone was actually watching. When I decided it was kinda safe, I tagged it with a light side kick. It didn’t move. I expected a sales associate to show up and tell me to quit abusing thier equiptment (I know – that’s what it’s designed for, but, some people have very little brains about that sort of thing.) I kicked it again, about 1/3rd power. It slid a little across the floor. Hm. If I got serious with it, I’d have to chase the damned thing all over the place, and pick it up every other kick. Eventually the sales associate did show up – but not to tell me to quit. Told me the price, and something important – that basically it only had a very small amount of water in it. Perfect. Now I’ve just got to spend the $100 on, and another $30 or so on supplements, and I’ll get started.

While I’m at it, I’m going to begin working on the concepts of Chi (ke, ki, che, qi, etc – pick your term based on preference, religion, language, etc.) I’ve actually studied quite a few different concept systems, ranging from Iron Shirt Chi Kung to FalunGong. The latter is supposedly one of the most powerful, but ya know – I understand China’s problem with it. It is not just a method – it’s a borderline religion. And one or two more things, and you have a full blown religion. So once again I’m going to treat it like I treat magic and religion in general – explore the options, and start adopting parts that make the most sense from each system, forgeing a new one.

When it comes to magic, I’m now a slight bit disgusted with two things. First off, Heabo and I went to Borders Sat. night, and she and I looked into the magical studies section. Guess, what? Wicca is apparently becoming more mainstream. Enough so that the Magical Studies section is now probably 90% wicca based, having choked out the other subjects. I’m not wiccian, and like to study everything that’s out there, but it’s starting to look like the ‘everything else’ part is drying up. I’ll probably have to start breaking down and getting my books online instead of going to the bookstore.

I loved the fact that there are entire sections dedicated to alternative religions and magical studies in bookstores now. The diversity was great. Now the ballance appears to be lost. Definitely time to keep a very close eye on all of it though – when the Wicca sections grow to be as large as the Christian sections, prepare for a damned near holy war to start, as other religions start to feel the pressure. It’s got a ways to go yet, but, at the rate it’s going now, it’s only a matter of time before shit starts hitting the fan on both sides (and it has recently in California, with a Wiccian group taking a Christian group to court over possibly disrupting thier services. The Wiccians are trying to make doing something like that to be a ‘Hate Crime’ under Ca. law. Aw shit people – get a fucking clue, on both sides of the street. Is it any wonder I’ve adopted no existing religion?)

The second thing has become an even more fundamental problem. My magical studies have come to an almost halt. And I figured out why – I lack an advisary. Going back in my history, I learned martial arts because I came upon an opponent who was trained, and I wasn’t. He got an ice cream cone up his nose, but, before I could dodge outta the way, he gave me a nice fat lip. I talked to him later, and he explained (and semi-appologied). After that, I began finding people who knew, and learned from them. And then I got old enough to go crusin’, and partyin’, and pissing people off (or sometimes picking fights myself) I continued to learn, because I had advisaries, even if I had to pick the fights.

Well, I got older, and I don’t particularly know much more from martial arts than I did back then – no reason to expand on what I have, since there’s nothing I need to overcome. Same problem with Magic – when I started becoming aware, I discovered strange things around me, some of which were unfriendly (like a portal in my bedroom that Heabo is still certain belonged to an ex-girlfriend or female of some sort from my past. I never found out, but, I found out how to deal with the problem :-). They were advisaries. I made them go away (and, when Heabo showed up, her mindset and such made them STAY away.) Heabo never agreed with me on how I did things, or how I worked with magic back then. We came to a compromise on the subject though. And later, I think, she finally accepted how I did things.

Anyway… so there’s nothing left nearby to fight. Nothing is threatening me, and there’s no reason to expand my power. Which, with the way I work, means I’m stuck. Funny part is, this will even probably affect my goal to start working with Chi – because for me, there is only one power in the universe, and it just happens to have different facets. I don’t make a distinction between Chi and spellcraft – it’s all the same thing to me. Heck, even the process is incredibly close to being the same when you look at it my way, just the application is different.

So I tell Heabo about it, and she tells me the one of the coldest things I’ve ever heard: “Just pick an opponent then.” Say what? Go out and pick on someone I potentially don’t know and attack ’em. She pointed out that I ‘play fair’ unless they piss me off. But the point would be fairly bad charma on my part – reguardless of if the tick me off or not, if I’m the one doing the inital attacking, then I’m the one who’s bein’ a jerk. I’d rather not do that. Ideally, I need someone who’s bloody evil and a least a little powerful to take a dislike to me 😛 Now, you don’t exactly advertise for that in the newspaper want ads:

“Wanted: I need an opponent.
Only evil, powerful magicaly
inclined opponents need apply.
Must be proficcent in multiple
magical systems. A dislike for
me a plus. Must be willing to
leave my wife alone so she doesn’t
beat the hell out of me for it.”

Funny part of this is – after writing this, I realize that I’ve probably accedentally set things in motion. That’s just the way crap like that tends to work. I suppose I could open a little box of evil that I own that contains stuff that was causing me problems at one time, but it’s pretty low level stuff anyway, and it’s fairly stupid and easily contained (as evidenced by the fact it now exists without it’s freedom).

Oh well. I know I’m capable of A LOT more than I tap now, and if I’m ment to move further, an opponent will appear I suppose. (“When the student is ready, the enemy will appear?” 😉