Warren Shea - World of Warren

Archive for the ‘Past’ Category

Useless people

Sunday, December 4th, 2011 at 4:33 am

I’m starting to use the term “Useless people” more often as one of my new friends, of whom I’ve been frequently having deep talks with, often cries out “I HATE USELESS PEOPLE”.

I think her definition of a useless person is different than mine though. She claims that a useless person is a dependent person. Unable to think or make decisions on his/her own, unable to live life without a boyfriend/girlfriend. Basically, someone that can’t take care of him/herself.

I believe my definition of “Useless people” are those who do not contribute anything to society. Or, in an even more personal way: those who do not contribute anything to me. And by that, I mean those who could have no way of benefiting me in any way.

That’s not meant to sound selfish. To go with my last post, I think that you need to cut people off that are detrimental to you. As far as a useless person is concerned, they’re just….more of an existence that doesn’t affect you. They are people who’s existence doesn’t seem to matter in any universal sense. That’s not to say that this is true, but I mean…it’s true as far as you’re concerned.

I’d shudder to believe that there’s a single person on this planet that doesn’t have some type of significance to other people in the world. That there’s a single person without a friend, or someone of who they can talk to and even be relied on. No, I don’t believe a normal person like that exists. But they’re just useless….TO YOU. And that’s fine. I’m fairly certain I’m quite useless to some people around me….(probably though, because I’m such a jerk that I’d knowingly be useless to them :D). But honestly speaking, if I were to cease my existence, there are some people that know me, may even be my friend (on Facebook), but my passing would not have any significance to them. And that’s okay. Realistic even.

Anyways…there’s no point to this. I just wanted to talk about the term as I used it in my last post, and I’ve been thinking about it lately.

On a side note/rant: when I was younger, I was stuck in the car with my brother, driving from Ottawa to Toronto. I was in high school and had obviously done something to displease him, though the reason escapes me. Anyways, he spent much of the drive angrily calling my “useless”. “You’re useless” he would yell, and then discuss why it was true. It was one of the longest rides of my life, I remember both my anger, helplessness, sadly my feeling of defeat for believing he was actually right (I was younger at the time, my self worth wasn’t what it is now), and my frustration for not saying anything back, just holding it in and taking the verbal abuse. It’s one of my worst memories of my entire life and one, if not the, reason I still no longer maintain a good relationship with my brother. Though he’s likely forgotten, I’m not one to forgive and forget so easily. It’s one of the main reasons that I declined being his best man for his wedding (yes, i know….who does that? it’s so mean/sad…). But at the time, I could not and would not see myself giving a speech, saying good things about him on his wedding day to his friends and family. No, I couldn’t lie to everyone. It’s not a decision I regret as, like I said, I still cannot forgive this moment. There’s was actually a recent time in which he also yelled at me, in my own condo no less. Some things never change it seems…

Hah, going back to “Cutting him off”, yes. I did that as much as a brother could. No, I don’t hate him. I don’t wish him harm or anything, but he’s not someone I would choose to have in my life. If we weren’t related, he wouldn’t be my friend. I tolerate his presence, even more so because of his two kids (my niece and nephew) but I don’t enjoy it. I cannot/will not spend time alone with him. And he’s no longer welcome in my condo alone, despite not knowing this and often wanting to ‘crash’ (which leads to me lying and saying he can’t, or we’re out of town or something).

Anyways, sorry to get intense, personal, and emotional. The term “useless” has always been a word that brings back bad memories and feeling. I don’t think there’s any word out there that makes me recall such anger as that word. Fortunately, I don’t hear it too often. Except my friend, who seems to use it often, but in a somewhat comical tone…

Anyways, two blog posts. I was alone with my thoughts for a good 11 hours today. I walked around for at least 2 or 3 hours. And I drove around for about 2 hours. Lots of time to reflect on the past, the people around me, the mistakes I’ve made, the potential futures I may have, the people I wish were still in my life.

I even looked up at the stars for a good 5 minutes, thinking about the light I was seeing and how it was finally reaching me after so long. As in, I probably wasn’t alive when the light was created. Actually, my knowledge of speed of light and light years (which is a distance, not a time) is limited at best so I’m not sure if that statement is true. But I was thinking just how…insignificant all my problems were in the grand scheme of the universe. But then, in contrast, how important all my problems were in the grand scheme of my life. I guess it’s all relative. (That’s my double entendre pun, as I discuss the relativity between the universe and my life…in the same paragraph that I discuss the speed of light). I didn’t say it was a good pun. It’s not even ‘ha ha’ funny >_<

Posted in All Posts, Daily Randomness, Miscellaneous, My Life, Past | No Comments »

Meganekko (Girls with Glasses)

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 at 3:14 am

There was a post a couple days ago on Kotaku: What’s Japan Fetishizing This Week – Glasses

While I found much of the article to be a bore, I found one of the last paragraphs to be particularly interesting.

In Japan, Akiman points out, it’s thought that the reason people wear glasses is because they read too much or play too many video games or watch too much TV. According to Akiman, “The moment that someone puts on glasses, even if it’s Superman, they take on the appearance of being an introvert like me.” The reason why girls who wear glasses are appealing is that they thus appear to be introverts, and it’s easy for fellow introverts to relate to them. As Akiman says, girls with glasses become “one of us”. Thus, the glasses themselves become an object of fetish. “Japanese people are basically introverted,” says Akiman, “and I think that’s why this fetish has grown.”

I’m going to reference this monologue later as well, so I’ll post it here. It’s from the Seinfeld episode, “The Sponge”:

“I have a friend, wears eyeglasses, no prescription in the glasses because he thinks it makes him look more intelligent. Now why? Why do we think that glasses makes us look more intelligent? Is it from the endless hours of reading and studying and researching that this person supposedly blew out their eyeballs, and that’s why they need the glasses? It’s just a corrective device. If you see someone with a hearing aid, you don’t think, ‘Oh, they must have been listening real good…yeah, to a lot of important stuff…’ No, they are deaf. They can’t hear.”

Now, I can honestly say from much experience that I’m the type of person that likes a pair of stylish glasses on an attractive girl moreso than that same girl without the glasses. But it definitely has to be the right kind of glasses. I’m not talking nerd glasses that they have to wear. I’m talking about a girl, trying on various frames to find the right look for her. To find the one that screams “her”. The frames that visually define her personality. Now, I figure most women (and men) do this. Those that don’t do this don’t care about their appearance. And if they don’t care, why should I (or anyone?).

Anyways, what really caught my attention in the blockquote above was “introvert”. Being an introvert myself, I find I’m highly attracted to introvert girls. I’m intrigued by introvert men as well (well, not in that way). The reason is…there’s a connection there. Extroverts frankly…don’t interest me so much. I find they’re generally…free in ways that I’m not, they talk without thinking and do without thinking. And I don’t generally respect that. I’m a person that respects the mind and intelligence more than almost any other attribute. That’s not to say I only value that, but it’s always been very high on my respect list. A person will have my respect if they’re intelligent. It’s as simple as that. I will be nice, I will be patient, I will treat a person like a human being if they’re reasonably intelligent. And I won’t if they’re not. Yes, it’s horrible, but it’s true. That’s just how I am.

Damn, I always get sidetracked with tangent rants. Back to the topic: I like glasses on a female because I immediately think 2 things
1. They’re intelligent.
2. They’re introverts.

2 wins. 2 things that I’m just drawn to. But really, what’s the basis for the first point. Like the Seinfeld monologue (quoted above), is there a correlation between glasses an intelligence? Sometimes?….but that might just be coincidence. There’s also genetics involved, plus a number of other things I would list to sound like I know what I’m talking about but at 3AM, am too lazy to research tonight.

Now, I wore my prescriptionless glasses to work today. I did it on purpose, partially because of this post and the kotaku post and partially because…well, I like the way I look in them. It’s funny but one of the first things that someone said to me (who hadn’t seen me wear my prescriptionless glasses before) was that “I look smarter”. Despite possibly no correlation between glasses and intelligence, you can’t deny the fact that people associate the two together.

I didn’t really think about all this glasses stuff until the Kotaku article peaked my interest. This hasn’t been the first time I’ve worn my prescriptionless glasses for no apparent reason. I won’t even wear my prescription glasses in public because the lenses are so thick…I’m simply too vain for that. So I wear these glasses for 3 reasons.
1. I believe I look more intelligent and people believe I look more intelligent. A trait that’s important to me.
2. I believe I look good in them.
The newly discovered #3 is:
3. I want to look introverted and attract other introverts.

I mean…if I’m attracted to people with glasses (meaning I believe they’re introverts), then by wearing glasses, it’s possible that I’ll attract other introverts…? Well, I don’t quite know how that theory plays out in a girl head though. Are introverted women attracted to introverted or extroverted men? The mind of a woman is something I’ll never understand. Y’know, because b!tches be trippin’

I’ve said it before (in my Scott Pilgrim post for example) but I’m basically attracted to a female version of myself. But I definitely believe that a person like myself would not be the best person FOR me. Because there are so many aspects about myself that I hate, the insecurity, the antisocial behaviour, the arrogance, the narcissism…dealing with someone with similar traits, on a daily and frequent basis would get super annoying. Being arrogant and talking to an arrogant person is one of the most frustrating and annoying things ever. And two narcissistic people in a relationship just…wouldn’t work. I’m a taker, not a giver…so I need a giver to balance the relationship out. “You don’t always get what you want but sometimes you get what you need”. I don’t even know if that quote applies to my paragraph, I’m so insanely tired….but I’ve been rewatching all the House episodes (currently near the end of Season 3) and that just popped into my head.

Damn, another tangent rant. Anyways, I’m basically that girl I described above, the one who cares about how they look and is trying to identify the right image to define me. I’m the guy with <insert descriptive word> hair. I wear untucked dress shirts and sneakers. I don’t care about my clothes but I care about my image. And I wear non-prescription glasses to compliment my image and convey the exact same things that I find attractive: Intelligence and an Introverted personality. Granted, I don’t wear these glasses as often as I could…partially because it doesn’t make logical sense to wear them and partially because, for some reason, I always feel like I have an oily forehead when I wear glasses :S It’s weird. Probably psychological. But true. Don’t ask me.

And this all brings me to this image, which is featured on my About Me page

I posted this image a while ago, when I got my prescriptionless glasses I think. Before I thought about the glasses thing and introvert thing. Before I thought about WHY I like wearing glasses.

Why didn’t I post an image without glasses, the look I have 95% of the time I go out?

No, I posted the image that conveyed the things I like and respect. I posted the image that I felt defined me best.

Posted in All Posts, Daily Randomness, Introspection, Life, Love, Love, Miscellaneous, My Life, Past | No Comments »

Foggy Dew + TFC game

Saturday, March 26th, 2011 at 11:59 pm

Went to a bar, Foggy Dew, last night with my friends. Had some good chatting, some interesting conversations.

Had a Stella, a Black Velvet (a beer cocktail made from stout beer, often Guinness, and white, sparkling wine, traditionally champagne), and a 1L stein of Hacker Pschorr. Afterwards, I had a sparkling wine…so that’s about 4-5 drinks. Less than Bier Market night but I find my tolerance is much worse when I’m at bars or alone than when I’m at a club. I think that’s always been the case…I’m much better with alcohol when I’m on the dance floor than when it’s quiet and I’m sitting still…

We had some interesting discussions last night, my friends and I. Not quite the deep talk I wanted but some of the conversations were eye openers. It started off with one of my friends asking if it was okay to hit on a girl while she has a boyfriend. Out of the 6 guys there yesterday night, 2 of them had personal experience not only being interested in taken girls (which happens quite frequently I’m sure) but succeeding in breaking up the relationships. Well…one was successful, one was….ultimately successful, after a long, long period of time. Note that I call it “successful” in the sense that my friends had accomplished the goal they set out to do: replace the girl’s existing boyfriend. My friend who was asking the question also asked “wouldn’t you feel guilty if you broke them up?”. While I can see his reasoning, I imagine that the primary goal would be to break the couple up and while you may feel guilty, you wouldn’t feel guilty enough that it would prevent you from doing it. I mean, if I were to break a couple up…and I can think of an instance where I almost did, I either wouldn’t do it, or would do it and wouldn’t feel guilty. I mean, in the situation specific to me, the girl would fight with her boyfriend, break up and get back together repeatedly….she was a great girl and I, despite not knowing anything about the guy, deemed him unworthy of her and felt she could do better….(…with me).

Side story on that…I would talk to his girl a lot, see her for lunch during my co-op term (we worked at different places, but they were right across the street from each other). Anyways, we would trade emails back and forth…and eventually one day, her boyfriend read her emails (not cool)…and then got all jealous and they fought and almost broke up. Some more stuff happened…in the end, it would be her deciding, for the sake of her relationship, that my part in her life would be done. Eventually, the two of us continued to be friends and after the relationship I had worked to destroy…eventually fell apart, as I knew it would. And I would talk to her after and she would tell me how happy she was that she wasn’t with that guy anymore. Anyways, I must say that I was probably a really big factor of why they broke up. And I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty. She’s happily married now, I talk to her like, once a year…but she’s doing well.

Anyways, back to the point…if someone were interested in a taken girl, the intention of doing an improper, but fair deed exists. “All’s fair in love and war”. But the intention is understood, regardless of how guilty you may feel, if you actively pursue this intention, then you are indeed committing a foul act.

I also pointed out that while someone might be interested in a girl, it is completely up to the girl to determine what happens. She could ignore the person infatuated with her and stay loyal to her boyfriend, she could play around with both and determine who to be with, or she could leave her boyfriend for the new guy. In scenario two and three (which occurred with my two friends), while successfully “winning” the girl, I noted that immediately after she has been “won”, she depreciates in value. This is because her trust is no longer spotless and her loyalty is in question for all subsequent relationships.

Anyways…both those relationships, in which my friends broke couples up, didn’t last. 1 year and 3 years. However, one of my other friend’s relationship in which he did that is still going strong at 2 years…

Hm, I just noticed that in all 3 of these situations, let’s say 4 including my own, it was the guy that went after the taken girl. Do girls ever go after taken guys? I would assume it’s less likely based on personal statistics. Guys are more…I dunno, I think in at least 3 of these cases, the guy just didn’t care about the boyfriend of the girl they were interested in. The girl is the only focus, the only goal, the only prize. Not that women are objects!. Just kidding, they totally are. And moments after reading this, all my female readers kick me in the balls.

Anyways.

Got a bit side tracked. Let’s see…after going to the bar, we went to my friend’s loft. I was the last one to leave, staying until just after midnight…I cabbed home, close to puking…but I was okay…I guess. I immediately crawled into bed, I wasn’t in the mood for drunken blogging or even staying awake a moment longer. My head was pounding and I definitely could have puked if I tried. But I was resisting. The point of yesterday night, in my eyes, was actually to drink so much that I’d puke. When I was at my friend’s place, telling them I’d never puked before, like 3 or 4 of them shot up with wide eyes in disbelief. I felt…like a drunken puke virgin. How embarrassing. Anyways…it wouldn’t be fun if you TRIED to puke because that’d be too easy. No, the next time I want to drunken puke, I’ll have to earn it. So I crawled into bed…the alcoholic effects yesterday night were some I haven’t had in a while and don’t usually get anymore. See, when I drink, I get hot. Like, I get red, my skin gets warm. VERY warm. It’s somewhat like a fever, in which my skin is hot but the feeling I have is cold. Very cold. So I was shivering, with double blankets as I slept last night…I fell asleep immediately but woke up very often to…use the restroom. I had already woken up 3 times in the middle of the night so when I woke up the 4th, I looked at the time…it was 4:30am. “That’s it?” I thought. Anyways, I woke up again at 6….this time drinking quite a bit of water before I went back to sleep. The shivers were almost gone but my head was pounding. Woke up again at 8:30…and 9:10…but then slept well, headacheless til 11:30am, when I woke up to get ready for the TFC game. I was really worried that I’d be too hung over or sick or messed up to go to the game. I would hate to bail 2.5 hours before it started.

Eventually, I got myself ready. While I didn’t drink during the game (I was still trying to sober up a bit), I had 1 foot long hot dog, and 1 foot long smoked chili hot dog (cheese, sour cream, and chili). My co-workers (as I got the TFC tickets through work) shouted that “Warren likes to eat big wieners!” as we were sitting around, in the spectators. I didn’t deny it, as I totally inhaled the hot dog. It was very good. And juicy. I just wrote all that to give my co-worker, who reads this blog, a laugh :)

A video of how close my seats were

I took some pictures, but they turned out really weird/ugly. Maybe it was the sun that was out? It’s like the soccer game from a radioactive, apocalyptic future!

Anyways…off to try to do something productive.

Posted in All Posts, Daily Randomness, Friends, Love, My Life, Past | 6 Comments »

…in one year…

Friday, January 7th, 2011 at 11:59 pm

Today is a special day for me.

This day represents a number of things making it one of the most important days of my life. Today marks the one year anniversary of the day I quit WoW and began a new life…

You might be thinking “So you quit playing a game, that’s not a big deal…”. You’ve got some nerve…
Quitting WoW was a big deal, not because I was quitting a game, but because of the amount of time I spent playing this game and the adverse affect playing it had on my life and mental growth.

What my life was like before January 7, 2010

I had 400 days of playtime between March 2005 and January 2010. That’s 400 days of playtime within 57 months ( = 4.75 years = 1734~ days ).
At 400 days of playtime in 1734 days, that’s an average of 0.23 = 23% of the day = 331.2 minutes = 5.5 hours/day…everyday…for 4.75 years.
It was another huge aspect of my life, more or less equal to that of my professional life.

In the years after school, during work, my week of 168 hours (24×7) was split up into:

45 hours of work a week (including commute time)
56 hours of sleep a week (at an average of 8 hours/day)
50 hours of WoW a week
17 hours for everything else – going out, hygiene tasks, laundry, playing other non-WoW games, drawing, coding….

Despite the game taking so much of my life, I was able to:

Maintain my girlfriend for 6 years
Excel in my professional career

The items that were strained were:

Time with friends (and family)

And the things that were sacrificed were:

School

This was literally my schedule the weeks before I quit WoW – it’s absurd to the point that it seems like a joke, but it’s not. I played WoW every moment I could while I was awake and not at work or sleeping. While this isn’t completely accurate as I’d occasionally go out, watch a movie, go out to eat/eat, etc…this was always my weekly plan.
WoW schedule

After January 7, 2010
This was my schedule after I quit WoW. Look at all that time. My life, no longer surrounded by WoW.
WoW schedule

So with my new found free time, I began a number of tasks making this year possibly the most productive year I’ve had in my life. I accomplished so much this year, relative to the years I’d wasted playing WoW.

What I’ve done in the last year

warrenshea.com
I finally got off my ass and created a personal site, something I had intended to do for years. I’m quite happy with it, I was able to integrate WordPress into my code. I was able to move 3 months worth of posts from Blogger to WordPress.
I created 4 different themes which are fairly different visually…though the layout is fundamentally the same, something I hope to change with future themes.

Blogging
300 posts since my first one, on Jan 26, 2010.
300 posts in 12 months is, on average, roughly 25.25 posts/month. That…is a lot of posts.

Twitter
1486 tweets (tho this seems to be incorrect – damn you twitter!) since Jan 18, 2010.
Not that the number of tweets is an accomplishment, it’s more the fact that I didn’t stop using it like I do so many other things.

Improved development skills
Learned general PHP. Went from comfort level 0 to comfort level 8, my skill is probably still around 6-7 though…
Improved ASP.NET C# 3.5. Despite all my studying and development this year, I’d still only give myself a 3 in terms of knowledge. Maybe a 1-2 before this year. I hope to bump that up…
Improved XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0 skills
Improved jQuery, Web Accessibility knowledge

Reading
Actually read some novels, a format of media I haven’t touched in years. Completed 4~ novels in the last few months. While I’m generally always reading (Comics, Graphic Novels, Manga), novels have always been something I’ve generally avoided. Too many words. Not enough pictures :) It is an accomplishment for someone like me, to have read 4~ novels among the other things I do/read.

Gaming
This area has been relatively quiet. Nothing worth of note, no long games I would claim as achievements for completion.

Art
This area has also been pretty quiet this year. While drawing is/has always been a hobby of mine, my skill has never been good enough to make it anything more than a hobby, which is why it’s something I’ll only do when I feel like it, I have no desire to improve my skills here.

What I hope to accomplish this year

warrenshea.com
Do I have anything left other than some themes? In a perfect world, I’d like to maintain 2 sites for myself.

warrenshea.com as a professional/resume type site
yet_to_be_determined.com as a personal site, with blog posts, etc. kind of like what I have now but without the projects and resume section. A fully personal site.

I would still like to do a few themes, a professional one, maybe another “theme”Â one like Megaman/Naruto….but of what? Prince of Tennis, Death Note, Hikaru no Go come to mind…
I would like to scrap it all and re-build it now my CSS and HTML skills are much higher than they were a year ago. I would use SASS rather than CSS. I would use HTML5 rather than XHTML 1.0. I would organize my <h#> tags better, since WordPress uses <H2>, I would use…other ones. I would get rid of my general hate of <p> tags and use them over my <br /> tags…

Blogging
I’ve blogged too much last year. Ever since I got sick with the flu, I feel like I’ve been less inclined to blog.
If I’m the type of person to always be addicted to something, blogging would definitely be the World of Warcraft replacement of this year. Considering how much time I blog/write, while it’s significantly less than WoW, it’s the thing I’ve consistently spent the most time on this year. My WordPress is open 80% of the time I’m at my comp and I have so have drafts I haven’t posted…topics that seem relevant at the time and that I enjoy writing but don’t enjoy proof reading.

For blogging this year, I hope it becomes secondary to studying web development, which I’m going to try to make my new addiction (if it were at all possible to force an addiction…). I definitely know I will be blogging less this year. If there were 300 posts last year, I hope to keep it around 150-200 posts this year…and that’s fine with me. I’ve blogged my brains out, it’s time to move on and do something else.

Reading, Gaming, Art
These are no longer goals (except Zelda: Ocarina of Time…and maybe another RPG). I’m done trying to do these things if they interfere with…

Improving development skills
My goals this year is to improve in ASP.NET C#, CSS3. and HTML5. Of the things I want to learn and become proficient in, it’s definitely these 3 items, with a significance on ASP.NET C#. While this has been my goal every year for a few years, I expect this year to be the year that I catch up to the development world. Last year was getting over WoW, it was setting up warrenshea.com and learning PHP, and improving my skills all around. This year is all about going from a 3 in knowledge to an 8 in ASP.NET C#. CSS3 and HTML5 take a back seat to that but are still things I’d like to learn over the next year.

The skill increase leads to…

Epic Site
This is the year that I’m going to do it. I’m going to try to spend time learning ASP.NET C# (again), and really focus on getting this up and running.

How I’ve changed professionally this last year

There have been a couple ups but a lot of downs in my professional life this year, more so than any other year in my life. It has been extremely difficult year.

Roughly 1/4 into the year, my team had a (figurative) bomb dropped on us one Thursday making the next day, Friday, the worst day of work I had ever experienced and ever hope to experience. Personal morale was so low, I didn’t even know this job could affect me that much. Thinking about that day and the reasons why it occurred…it honestly makes me sick to my stomach. It may have even been the worst day of my life this year (in terms of how I felt emotionally)…though that day has some competition………

Roughly half way into the year, I had another professionally crushing moment leaving me depressed for months. While it’s been almost 1/2 a year since it occurred, I know I haven’t recovered from this. There’s still a bitter taste in my mouth that I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of as it’s something I have to face every single day of work.

As this year ends, I wonder if I can take another year like this one. As my ambition increased, so did my disappointment. As I start to care more about my job and career, the more I start to dislike it. It was much easier coming in to work every morning, doing task A, B, and C, and leaving know I’d accomplished A, B, and C. It seems like these days are: doing task A, going to meeting B, going to meeting C, doing task A, meeting D, leaving task A for tomorrow. Like I’m not doing anything. Nothing of personal value/pride/gain. I think I work best doing small tasks quickly and well. Quantity is an important aspect of my professional life. Without frequent moments of pride, I can’t help but feel…unmotivated and aimless. I hate long projects that last more than a couple weeks and that’s honestly all I have I right now.

To be honest, I don’t think I’d dislike what I’m doing now if not for what happened earlier this year. If I’ve changed at all this year regarding my outlook on my professional career, it is that I’m less naive. But I’m also very bitter. I’ve been burned so many times this year…it’s harder and harder to keep my work smile.

How I hope to change professionally this year

There’s a certain groove I used to have when I worked. I didn’t care about anything political, I did a good job on what I worked on, woke up every morning ready to tackle my projects, and left every day knowing I’d accomplished and learned enough that I wouldn’t carry the thought of work with me. I’ve lost that this year but I want to recapture it, somehow. I don’t quite know how yet…but I want to make work fun again. It hasn’t been for a while…not like it used to be.

How I’ve changed in my mindset of relationships and love this last year.

This year was a big year for me. I was able to finally answer a life-long question/riddle/dilemma that had plagued me for years. There had been something I’d been wondering, if the path I’d been on had been correct or not. It was always a nagging thought in the back of my mind but I’ve finally put it to rest. I can’t stress how important it is to answer a riddle that only you can answer and have no means of figuring out other than….you just realize it. It’s so…settling. I feel so relieved :)

…in one year…

How much will change by Jan 7, 2012?
What will I accomplish?
How will my life have changed?
What will I have figured out?

We’ll see….in one year…

Posted in All Posts, Blogging, Daily Randomness, Epic Site (yet to be named), Games, Introspection, Love, My Life, Past, Web Developer, Work, World of Warcraft, worldofwarren.com, Writing | 2 Comments »

Turing and my 2001 Pokemon Game

Thursday, January 6th, 2011 at 10:35 pm

My UWaterloo friend was tweeting about her sibling learning Turing and needed help for it…
It’s been a while since I did Turing, about a decade but I literally did not touch the language for 10 years…and despite being a programming language, it’s really very different from anything I’ve done lately, ASP VB, C#, JavaScript, etc. It was pretty tough to look back and understand the code…

Anyways, in OAC, I did this Turing Pokemon game…I couldn’t get it to run for the last 10 years because
1. I didn’t have a turing compiler
2. My images are in a Turing image format, tm2, which is no longer supported (apparently). I was Googling this format and even in 2004, it was outdated -_-;

Anyways…for some reason, I spent the last 4~ hours making the program work. This involved making new .jpg images and learning Turing a bit again…sorta.

Anyways, here’s Turing compiler/executable and my game:

***** Turing_Pokemon_warrenshea.zip [7 MB] *****

Steps to run the program:
1. Extract the files to a directory.
2. Open Turing.exe
3. Open the file Pokemon.T

4. Run the program (F1) or press the Run button under FILE.

Use the keyboard and press 1, 2, or 3 depending on the options.

Screenshots:

Tips to win:
1. Don’t try to run from the fight. It’s a waste of a turn.
2. Use your “elemental ability” against an enemy who is weak to that element (ex. Lightning > Water)
3. In the last battle, your new ability >> any of your old abilities
4. It’s all about math and probability. You’ll win if you simply consistently attack using a normal attack unless you’re really unlucky.

Notes:
This game is pretty weak and probably below your expectations. It was developed in my second high school computer science course ever…at the time, I had only started learning about loops and conditional statements.

Posted in All Posts, Development, My Life, Past | 3 Comments »