A First!

Today, I was truly honored to find out someone liked one of my photos enough to have it professionally printed. I am so moved by it. We all appreciate approval in different fashions.

How I First Learned To Program

I been asked many times, is computer programming hard?  My answer is always no, anyone can learn.  I taught myself my first programming language in early in the 9th grade after randomly finding this BASIC Games Book in the used bookstore in Downtown Wheaton, Maryland.  On the family old 286 PC, I would sit there an type out programs and run them on the MS-DOS BASIC Interpreter.  I never learn how to save the files so I would have to retype the programs every time I got on.  It wasn't just about playing the games, it was the correlation of what I typed and how it translated in to actions on the computer.  And with further understanding, I would be able to write programs that do what I want them to do, like those in the book.

At night, I would lay in the bed and study the programs...relating what one line might mean to another.  And that's how I learned BASIC.  I didn't have anyone to teach me or any idea of what it was I was looking at, but I liked it.  I was able to figure out what the keywords meant through mostly trial and error and relational analyst.  Now that I'm older, I don't think it was a process too different from someone learning another speaking language through immersion.  Learning is learning no matter what the subject is.  You can learn the laws of physics by using and observing them.

Today, I know several more programming language and have a Computer Science degree.  Also, I am doing what I learned to love years ago for a living.  It feels good.  But the bottom line, it wasn't hard to learn; it only took one book, and it wasn't even a how to book.

*Disclaimer* Learning a computer language is not difficult at all but being good at writing computer software is mainly the reason why you paid what you are paid.  Just like a writer, knowing how to put words together will only get you so far, the talent is how well you put the words together to achieve your goal.

Look At A Young Will Wash!

On a day of bitching and a Stock Market crash, the CB3 (Cambridge Hall, Third Floor) homie Loco, aka Damon send me this youtube gem.  I remember my folks saying they saw me on TV but I didn’t think much of it, this is before DVRs. 
0:41 seconds in... a skinny young Will Wash with the bush and huge sweatshirt and again at 0:51

Being one of the mascots was the greatest experience of my youth. Shout to my partner Ian Murphy and The University of Maryland Cheerleaders.  LET’S GO TERPS!!!

Fun Fact: FEAR THE TURTLE was started by Ian.

Simple Pleasure #4: My Niece Sydney

Since the moment she enter this bright world I have been captivated with her. I really don't have words to express the emotions and wonder of watching a child grow before my very eyes. Prime example is last Sunday I sat her on the table for her to crawl. But she can not crawl yet, just scoot. Maybe it's the proud uncle in me that trying to get her to develop quickly, but I'm ready for her to be crawling and walking. Anyway I sit her on all fours and place her teething toy in front of her just out of reach. She leans forward and tries to grab the toy with her mouth, it looks amusing to me. You can tell she wants the toy and is unsure of her balance and weight so she leans forward to try to get it. I pick her up and we move on to other things.  Later, I place her on table again, same situation.  This time she leans one arm and reaches out with the other to grab the toy!  I’m ecstatic even though only I know what was going on.  Look at the learning that happening right be for my very eyes.  You know what it is happens a lot as I consciously pay attention to it and I love it so much.  To me the potential is limitless, but of course as we get older and our body stops growing as fast the brain doesn’t continue you to grow connections it is kind of sad to know that information about aging.  But in the mean time I see hope and potential in the freshness of her.

 

Another thing I love about the baby is finding common traits, how she is similar to family members, not just in looks. She has a lot of my brother and mother in her.  The energy, short attention span, and talkativeness are apparent very earlier especially at a higher level I haven’t seen in her cousins.  There is no denying the blood in this child.

Uncle Wee Wee Love You!

Video Games are the Novels of the Non-Reader

For Christmas I got a PS3! Yay, I feel like a kid again.  As a long time Xbox user and avid gamer I don’t think I missed much in terms of gaming, because I try to keep up.  Anyway, my Xbox is still my primary gaming machine.  I but I don’t like the idea of my PS3 as only a Blu-Ray player, so I went looking for a game to play on it.  The keys I was looking for in games for my PS3 was:

1. Single Player.  Xbox reigns supreme in multiplayer, and that’s where all my friends are to play with.  Also I have the Playstation in the bedroom so I can lay in bed and play until I get sleepy.
2. Have an engaging story, part of the experience is I want to be entertained and not need to watch Netflix or Blu-rays.

I remember a friend saying the scariest game he ever played was Dead Space.  So I went to look it up.  It was survival horror game and available for both the PS3 and the Xbox.  I looked at the reviews(8.7 out of 10 with a good story).  They rated the graphics, scary mood lighting, and sound as really good.  That would be perfect for my bedroom set up too, finally get to make good usage of the surround sound set up I was pressed to put in the bedroom.  It doesn’t stop there, it was also up for a few yearly awards when first released and on many blog sites listed as one of the scariest games of all time. However they did say the Xbox version was slightly better( a trend I am noticing).  I did notice the price($20 verses $60) was greatly marked down for a PS3 game and they are in production of a sequel; sounded like a perfect game to start my PS3 gaming on.

Trailer:

I turned out the lights and cranked the surround sound up.  The game was engaging and visually stunning.  It took about 2 days and over 8 hours to finish the game.  I one thing I did not like about the game and I blame myself for reading too many reviews, is that I noticed exactly what the lady that wrote the only negative review about it had complained about it.  And it started to bother me too.  I don’t think I would of notice if I had not read that review either.  Fail on my part, for breaking my own guidelines of not looking too much at reviews.  But I took that negativity and used it as a reason to hurry up and beat the game so it would stop and I would be done with the game.

Normally when playing my games I don’t pay too much attention to story unless I know it or have a strong interest in it, like Star Wars games.  Ask me what the Gears of War or Halo stories were about, I couldn’t tell you even after completing all the games.  But this time I purposely tried to pay attention and listen and watch.  And it pays off so much!  I was amazed at how much I like the entire experience after they wrapped up the entire game at the end.  I thought back to scenes and info they presented earlier and it all made sense!  Shit the game play was average, the story just ok but the experience was amazing.  It was how everything came together, the mood (visuals and sounds) and the deep story (not a great story, but depth plus they had plot twist too like any good story with additional info you don’t think is important until the end).

So I was happy and entertained, because it’s was good game and I actually finished a game and knew what happened in it.

A couple of days later while surfing Netflix I stubble on an movie called Dead Space: Downfall.  From the description, it was a feature length prequel to the video game! And guess what, it was streaming too. FTW!!!  With a 3.4 stars best guess rating for me, 3.3 stars viewer rating (all out of 5), and having NOW beaten the game, I thought I should watch it.  It wasn’t bad at all, it was good even.  The best part was that: I knew what was going on into the movie, so there wasn’t any figuring out, just all story to entertain me. 

Trailer:



The entirety of this was an epic experience stemming from an average $20 video game.

This got me thinking.  The last novel I read was couple months ago it was long and I got kind of bored and didn’t think to pick up back up.  That happens with games too.  This said novel was the 5 in a series, I like the earlier books (great value for $8 packs of paper) and keep reading to see where it was going.  Each book took hours to read, was long, and could be great if paying attention and had depth.  This is very similar in concept to the experiences I have playing some video games.  A common question when looking at a story based game is “Around how many hours is it?”  Like looking at the number of pages or words in a novel.  Novels don’t have straight lines of stories, neither do video games.  They are the same.  Except on makes you feel like you are guiding the story, but let’s be honest, you aren’t, the writers/programmers designed it that way. So I say, video games are the novels to the non-reader that like to do instead of watch.  The difference is interaction.  Both are long winding stories, but some people don’t mind reading for hours on end while others prefer pushing buttons and other stimulations to get their story.

*sorry, wrote this at work and it’s too long for me to read over and fix grammar, spelling, and shit. If you follow me, you know good grammar is not a priority when it comes to get my message out.

Simple Pleasures #2

Sharing a moment. A moment is when you and someone else are thinking the same thing at the same time. Examples: Both you and someone else look across the room and see someone who is looking and acting a mess (a.k.a A Clown) and then the two of you look at each other and share the same feelings and thoughts. Or a well balanced, attractive girl walks by and then you and a stranger look at each other and both are thinking "oh yea, nice." Last night, I was watching Real Chance of Love on VH1 and thinking how gay those guys looked. So I sent a text to a friend saying simply saying "Real is gay" and she finishes my thought and then elaborates. haha Being on the same page...

University of Maryland Rock and Roll pt 2

Simple Pleasure #1: The song has been banned but the fans still sing it. This is the hardest version of the song in the world and sung at every Terp game. The song speaks to the soul. F*ck Duke!!!!

Best Sign Ever

This is the best sign ever. I would give him some money just for the creativity and I know what it feels like to 8,7 ninjas jump out of nowhere and attack you. I respect that.