Blade Edge

Computer software | Video production | My life in general

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Changing tracks

September 12th, 2005 · Software

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

I had a revelation last night, while catching up on the latest T2D developments. Version 1.1 is supposed to support turn-based networking, not real-time networking (not officially anyways). So why the hell am I working on a game that requires real-time networking when I have another game designed and ready to go that uses turn-based networking?? I don’t know! *bashes head against desk multiple times*

so I’m switching projects and starting to work on Galaxy Conquest. I guess another reason (excuse really) is that I’m better with GUI programming at the moment than actual gameplay programming. So while I wait for T2D resources to appear in greater numbers I can work on the game’s interface. Hopefully by the time v1.1 comes out I’ll be ready with the interface and able to use the T2D Torque Developers Network to start working on the game code. Sounds like a plan.

Bookmark of the Day

What’s Your Hobby?

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The weekend

September 11th, 2005 · Personal

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

Pretty long and fun weekend. Friday was a pretty easy day, cept for having to wake up at 7 in the morning (thx sweetie!) and then finding out I didn’t have to be at Six Flags until 10, so I napped for another hour and then went in. It took the guys from Garden State Fireworks longer than they thought to arrive so we just bullshitted for an hour or so, cleaned up the Batset a little bit. Then we finally headed over to the park where they were having Jackson Day and unloaded all the firework tubes from the truck, racks of 6″, 5″, 4″ and 3″ diameter tubes, about 100 of them all together. Then I had to leave to go coach, pick up my girl from work and see a movie with some more friends. We saw the Exorcism of Emily Rose. It was an okay movie, great court scenes for anyone into that stuff, some pretty freaky scenes where Emily is all contorted and possessed. The main thing about the movie though is it being based on a true story, and wondering how much of the movie is real and how much is Hollywood.

Sat was another early day, spent the morning at Six Flags getting crap together for the fireworks show that night. Then we headed over to the park in Jackson and got stuck for over an hour waiting for the damn parade to pass by us and into the park. They had no other way of getting us into the park. It sucked cause when we got there they had already loaded all the fireworks, which was something that I had been looking forward to doing! So I just helped assemble the huge two-story-tall Six Flags Fright Fest glowing sign, and ran a few cables for the pyro as well. The show was spectacular, we fired from around 100 yards away and the shells were exploding right over our heads. I literally had to stare straight up the entire show, which lasted around 20 minutes. Yea, neck cramps 😛 Two of the shells with delayed fuses after the initial burst went off like 50 feet over our heads, that was crazy, and a few burning embers fell amongst us as well. A small fire was set off in the woods but was easily contained and put out after the show. It took us less than an hour to break everything down and head back to the park. I was up that day from 7am to 2am and worked from 9am to 11pm. But it was a lot of fun.

Today I spent the entire day with my girlfriend because she was leaving to head back up to school in Vermont. Went to the beach and flew my kite, which I hadn’t done all summer, and then just lounged in the sun. I didn’t put on any sunscreen cause my dark skin protects me for short periods of time… however I’m only tan above my waist – I wore long pants all the time during Batman rehearsals (which is when I tan and lose my winter whiteness) and so my legs got roasted

Anyways I think I’m going to get caught up on the T2D developments throughout the past month I’ve been busy so I can start programming again. Yep sounds good. kbye.

Bookmark of the Day Returns!!!

Some Things Never Change

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The next day

September 8th, 2005 · Personal

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

Alarm clocks suck, girlfriends rock. See, she can actually get herself out of bed, and so now she calls me to get me up in the mornings when I have to get up early enough to get crap done before work. How effective is it? Lets just say that I set my alarm for 10am and she called me around 10:30 and that’s when I woke up. I’m glad one of us is responsible

Anyways, didn’t get any programming done today. My life is backed up a little after working so much over the last month. I wanted to wash my car but I forgot that the filter on my Mr. Clean Autodry had to be changed. Blast. So I had to just get my hair cut and then hit up Pep Boys for the new filter. Now I prob won’t be able to wash it till Monday, since I’m working at GA doing some pyro stuff Fri and Sat and at the beach Sun…. maybe sun evening….

So after work I headed to the mall to get my Batman jacket embroidered. This year we got cast jackets (we were promised jackets last year too, but they never materialized) and man are they serious jackets. I’m talking black varsity jackets with the show’s emblem on the left breast. Have a look see

I got my nickname “weasel” embroidered beneath the bat symbol. I had to coach and rehearse at the same time so I was always leaving rehearsals early and “weaseling out” of run throughs 😛 My counterpart thug got rather annoyed at having to do almost all of them, haha. The only other nicknamed cast member was my buddy Steve Izzi, who we nicknamed “lunchbox” cause he carried a big ass lunchbox cooler with him to work every single day from rehearsals to close

Finally, I forgot to mention that I recently checked off an item on my list of 25 years, the Motorola RAZR V3 that I was pining over way back in January is now MINE!! I got it when I renewed my plan with Cingular in July for $200. I just bought a bluetooth headset as well. Since my Logitech DiNovo keyboard set is a bluetooth hub, I can connect my phone to my comp to transfer files, sync my Outlook calandar data, and even use my PC as a headset to take calls. I’m loving it. And I got the black one, of course

K I guess that’s all for now. I have to get to bed – early and looong day tomorrow. My baby’s waking me up at 8 and I prob won’t get back to bed until at least 2am and I have to be at the park at 9am on Sat and work until at least 9pm that day…

If my girl wasn’t coming home for the weekend I’d prob end up shooting myself 😛 Ah well, work hard now, play later!

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Posting just to post? Meh, guess so

September 7th, 2005 · Personal

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

Ah well, nothing exciting to say really. I’m kind of in a slump right now with all that’s going on. I have to kick my insurance company in the ass to get them moving on my claim, and I still have to figure out the best way to deal with the problem of my hard drive. It seems to be behaving okay still but there are times when video/audio is choppy, no doubt as a result of bad seek time. I opened up Codeweaver and just sorta stared at the code for a few minutes before realizing I had no motivation to do anything, even I believed I did a few hours ago. Ah well, just gotta get my ducks back in a row. The holiday season isn’t helping matters much either. The thought that I may not get back into the swing I was in last week until after New Years is kinda depressing, if not a harsh reality. But ah well.. my Monday night escapades are still echoing to this day, I’m pretty darn tired. It took me three tries just to write the word “tired” just then. A sign perhaps? Perhaps. Hokay, guess I’ll curl up with a mag till my eyes fall shut…

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I’m back?

September 7th, 2005 · Software, Stuntwork

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

So it’s been a while. Fancy that. Bet you all missed me. No takers? Ok nevermind

Anyways the hardcore stunt season is officially over as of Labor Day. What another great year. We had another serious injury to match the one that happened last season but that was it. No deaths – that’s definetly a good thing. I learned a lot from a lot of really talented people this year. You know how they say that experience ages you? Well I definetly feel like I’ve aged a few years this season.

So what happened to me at the beginning of July? Why no more updates? Well as I hinted in the above paragraph, I really threw myself into stuntwork this year. There were a lot of really experienced people in the cast this time around, and I had to up my own game to keep pace. I even started working as a technician backstage on my off days towards the end of the month and then all through August I was on 6 days a week teching and doing shows. The last week actually I worked 7 days straight. I also started loading pyro for the show at the beginning of August, and now I’m getting my pyro license this month. I’m excited about the new oppurtunities this will open up for me.

That’s not the only thing though. I was working hard in what little spare time I had, trying to get the hang of Torque2D. Mainly TorqueScript. The main problem was that a lot of the TS resources were for TGE owners only, in fact I actually made two or three trips to Borders to reference the 3D Game Programming All in One book for TS. i was also asking a ton of questions on the forums. What I really needed was a T2D book, but that’s not coming for a while I suppose. Still, I managed to work up enough skill in TS to begin peicing together a game my team and I over at BES drew up a few years ago now (wow, that long eh? Geeeez). I didn’t wanna post any screens (or any journal entries) till I had more done, but seeing as it took me this long to get this far… what the hell.


The main menu. The UI is pretty much fully functional. All the menus are set up, slight bugs in the in-game menu but that’s it.


Settings menu. Learning how to use OpenAL through TS was a trip to Borders 😛


One of the two game modes setup screens. I still need to learn how to load custom fonts for the labels and the text boxes look out of place since I’m using old artwork but evrything’s fully functional (I mean buttons and stuff 😛 You still can’t play against AI, change the music, or any of that stuff, ha)


So while I don’t have any actual gameplay yet, I do have random blocks dropping into their clips and animated, movable drop targets. Again, old artwork with different transparency types. Wheee…


Just a cool shot of all the stats and a look at the sweet 213 fps 😛 Yea that won’t last once the actual game code is in place, haha.

So that’s me in a nutshell these days I suppose. I’m looking to get back into regular journal updates and get back to working on my TS skillz. Obviously my game dev time has been sliced further still now that I’m looking to getting into some pyro work, but it’ll always be a hobby I’ll keep plugging away at. Someday something will come of it. I’m nothing if not a patient man. As Robert DiNiro once said to Edward Norton in The Score, “Kid, I’ll give you some advice. Make a list of the things you want in life now, and then spend the next 25 years of your life getting them”.

Sound advice I tell you. I have plenty of time left

Oh and before I sign off, I have to send some love to my baby, who’s off at college now reading this… miss you!! I’ll throw out another peice of advice too – “He who hesitates has only one week before college”. Best keep your eyes wide open guys – you can never see them hunting you till it’s almost too late

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Whoa that was scary

July 1st, 2005 · Personal

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

So I saw War of the Worlds tonight. It was pretty good. Those tripods were crazy insane and were all I had hoped for. It kinda sucked a bit when my friends started poking holes in the damn movie – I hate that crap. I finally got them to shut up, although they did make a good point in that if the EMP destroyed all the nearby electronics, how’d that guy have a working video camera?

But whatever. It had great humor and Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning were awesome. That kid Roger (I think it was Roger, my memory sucks) needed to calm the hell down and freaking run away from the danger. Yeesh.

The most messed up part though was when we exited the theater there were lightning flashes going off like every 5 seconds or so. That was kinda freaky but at least we heard thunder, so that was good.

Yea, still getting my head back around T2D – no major developments at this time.

Oh and I have an update to my Batman video. Click to read up on the reason behind it’s removal and then click on the link in that entry to see the update.

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Pictars!

June 26th, 2005 · Stuntwork

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

Finally scored some shots of me in the show – one of the Jokers took a bunch of snapshots last week on his day off, and I took snapshots of the snapshots with my camera. Yea. Anyways here they are.


I’m about to punch Robin, but he lifts his feet up and kicks me in the chest instead.


I’m coming in to knock out Batman – yea like that’ll happen. He’s already ducking. Like he always does. Dammit.


Batman halfway through the infamous pole flip. It’s rough cause we have to hold him up sometimes. And we also have to make sure that stupid cape doesn’t end up stuck over his bigass ears. Dumb bat.


I take out Robin with a huge ruby… yes, ok – that’s not the best expression on his face. Uhm… moving on…


I like this shot. Wow. Awesome.


Catwoman kicks me in the face and knocks me off the roof of the museum. This is a few feet higher than my backfall last year.


I’m happy that I blew up the museum. Blowing up things is fun


My buddy and I are whining about our jobs with the Joker. What can you do tho huh?

In other news, I downloaded the latest version of Torque2D. Time to get back in the biz…

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Gimme a break

June 18th, 2005 · Production, Stuntwork

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

Some punk from Six Flags snitched me out today about my Batman video I posted a few months ago. It wasn’t a bad fallout, my boss just called me and asked me to take the video down since there were some legal issues involved, mainly one scene where an actor gave his line from the Batmobile (no audio though). He said DC could technically sue me since it placed a non-Batman person in the vehicle, hence causing people to think Batman isn’t Bruce Wayne. Or something. Damn I hate this legal crap. Anyways the SF performer who ratted me out had something different to say about the video, which I responded to. I’m a bit pissed off right now, but whatever – I sent an email to my boss about editing it so that you fine folk can continue to enjoy it.

Oh yea, a fellow cast member made me a Batman Stunt Team t-shirt – here’s a pic:

How cool is that?? I wore it to my second screening of Batman Begins

Finally, I just have to comment on the fact that during the second show on Friday I finally made it over the crash rail when I laid down the bike in the dirt. It was awesome. I even knocked askew one of the speakers bolted to the crash rail. I did it twice that day and three times today (Sat). I’m going over that damn rail everytime if I can make it, it looks so cool.

Ok that’s all for now – I’m going to go simmer a bit more about the whole video thing and then head to bed. More shows tomorrow.

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Owch

June 14th, 2005 · Gaming, Personal

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

We armored up and fought again, which was cool since we haven’t done that in a while. Two people forgot their armor tho, which sucked. One of them challeneged me to a match and so I neglected to put on my helmet since it was hot out and since he didn’t have any armor I wasn’t going to swing big. I forgot tho that this guy has absolutely no control whatsoever. He had two swords and I had one – I had never fought against two swords, but it was easier than I thought it would be. After a while I finally landed a kill dead center in his chest, but a split second later he swung one of his swords into my head. Dumb schmuck. He knocked my glasses clean off, popped out a lense and left me with this little shiner

I had like five chances to smack him upside the head but you just don’t do that unless your opponent is wearing a helmet. I should have known better – no control at all. But at least I killed him before he chopped off half my head, so I can’t be too unhappy about it. I guess.

One of my buddies had his camera up on the balcony overlooking the floor taping, and he said he’ll burn me a DVD or CD or whatever of the fights we had tonight, so you’ll be able to see this for yourself, along with my best friend then beating the shit out of him in the next fight to avenge me

So yea, still playing San Andreas like nonstop. I’m in San Fierro now, haven’t really played any of the missions there yet, so much other shit to do, like I had to fly home (cause driving takes like 15 god damn real time minutes at least to get from San Fierro to Los Santos) to see my girl Denise and take her out. Then I flew back and hit up the clothing stores and the martial arts gym, bought all the properties there too. I cheated a bit – went to the Off Track Betting and kept betting big on high odds and reloading the game until I won lots of money . I still have to get some new tats and maybe a new haircut I guess – tune up some of my cars… nah I guess the tune-ups can wait a bit… geeez so much shit to do!

Ah well better get back to it…

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GTA San Andreas

June 11th, 2005 · Gaming

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

Welp, been playing San Andreas now for almost a week (got it the day it came out of course) and I still haven’t even made it out of the first city, Los Santos. I think I have just one more mission left though before I can move on towards San Fierro. Wow, this game is a blast to play, and no surprise really, since I considered the last two GTA games to be the best evar. I find it funny how a lot of elements from True Crime: Streets of LA found there way into this new game, such as learning new fight moves at gyms and stuff. I found that they even have a billboard at Unity Station in Los Santos that says True Grime: Street Cleaners, and True Grime is in black and red just like the title of True Crime. Score one for Rockstar!

I’ve taken a few snapshots with my camera, here they are:


This guy was actually plastered to the side of my car. Seriously. He didn’t slide off. It was great.


A shot of the small town of Palomino Creek out in the country


Taking the BF Injector out for a romp in the country side. Then I crashed it into a creek. Dammit!!

So yea, fun fun. K I gotta go play some more! Later

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