Yeah, I came back home at 4:00 am and realised I hadn't done my One a Day. I'm a failure already. Waytogo me!
Showing posts with label One A Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label One A Day. Show all posts
OAD 6: My desk
My desk is messy. It needn't be, but it is. On it there's two Latin dictionaries, a plate of unfinished korma, two empty plates with crumbs on, two empty drinks cans, my montior, a penknife, a bottle opener, a rack of blank cds, an empty cereal bar box and a nail grooming kit. My mic and ipod lay to one side and the keyboard, monitor and mouse are on it too. There's also a lamp and an alarm clock, two refereshers wrappers, some change, a timetable and some fingerless hobo gloves of mine. Also there happens to be a plastic thermoflask cup that held tomato soup once and as I lost my mousemat I have a copy of Private Eye sellotaped down that works really well. Have a picture!
Yeah, I came back home at 4:00 am and realised I hadn't done my One a Day. I'm a failure already. Waytogo me!
Yeah, I came back home at 4:00 am and realised I hadn't done my One a Day. I'm a failure already. Waytogo me!
OAD 5: Street Fighter IV
Ok, so recently I started playing Street Fighter IV. It originally started out as an article idea, which I feel pretty sated with how it turned out. Read it and comment, it makes me feel warm and gooey inside (and can forget I have no professional paid for career). Anyway, since finishing that piece I've returned to playing it quite regularly with a weird determination. I always hate fighter controls, as panicking around trying to input the move you want just to get frustrated when you move the joystick a little too far isn't a good time. It also makes me think less of people who take the time to master such fiddly controls.
It's also introduced to me a competitive side that I don't particularly cater for normally. SFIV is intense, one on one matches against people smug in their own technique. I'm not aiming to win nor do I want to be the best, I'm aiming to make them look as big a fool as possible for wanting to win so much. I mean, smack talking to me with a badly spelled name tag and trying to bring me down. It's just so hard not to get drawn into bitterly matching them at their own game, rather than enjoying yourself.
Smack talk is just something I'll never get I suppose. I understand the pyschological intentioning behind it all, but it makes me pity rather than drawn to anger. It reminds me of Mohammed Ali, most people bloody adore him but I detest the guy. People admire him for his smack talk and the psychological game he played as well as his fighting prowess. But although calling your opposing fighter in the middle of the night and leaving threats before a match might work, it just has no sense of fun or respect.
The best matches I've had in SFIV have been against other Dan players. That feeling when I see somebody else pick Dan just brings an elated smile to my face. The fights can be just as tough and arduous as against the usual dunder headed move spammer, but we have an actual mutual respect. To be able to have a taunt off in the middle of a fight before jumping back into the fray makes me feel better than any victory where I've been hollowed out by frustration beforehand.
Any other time I've played SFIV the game has felt rude and hostile. Another faceless person po-facedly playing the game with a burning determination to win, before parting without a word. Every single Dan player I've come up against however has been pleasantly chatty, recieving and sending messages of "Saikyo Power!" putting me in the right mood to get on with my day.
I have no idea what the point of this post was. One a Day for you!
It's also introduced to me a competitive side that I don't particularly cater for normally. SFIV is intense, one on one matches against people smug in their own technique. I'm not aiming to win nor do I want to be the best, I'm aiming to make them look as big a fool as possible for wanting to win so much. I mean, smack talking to me with a badly spelled name tag and trying to bring me down. It's just so hard not to get drawn into bitterly matching them at their own game, rather than enjoying yourself.
Smack talk is just something I'll never get I suppose. I understand the pyschological intentioning behind it all, but it makes me pity rather than drawn to anger. It reminds me of Mohammed Ali, most people bloody adore him but I detest the guy. People admire him for his smack talk and the psychological game he played as well as his fighting prowess. But although calling your opposing fighter in the middle of the night and leaving threats before a match might work, it just has no sense of fun or respect.
The best matches I've had in SFIV have been against other Dan players. That feeling when I see somebody else pick Dan just brings an elated smile to my face. The fights can be just as tough and arduous as against the usual dunder headed move spammer, but we have an actual mutual respect. To be able to have a taunt off in the middle of a fight before jumping back into the fray makes me feel better than any victory where I've been hollowed out by frustration beforehand.
Any other time I've played SFIV the game has felt rude and hostile. Another faceless person po-facedly playing the game with a burning determination to win, before parting without a word. Every single Dan player I've come up against however has been pleasantly chatty, recieving and sending messages of "Saikyo Power!" putting me in the right mood to get on with my day.
I have no idea what the point of this post was. One a Day for you!
OAD 3: Cheat Tutorial for Mass Effect 2
I loved Mass Effect 2. The main plot didn't draw me in, but the character missions and everything else felt like I was living the best 20 hour movie ever. Everything else, that is, apart from the mineral mining. It's great and interesting at first, but when it gets to the ludicrous amounts of platinum required later in the game you've had just about enough of slowly scanning each planet whilst looking at a graph for the mineral spikes. So here's a handy guide for a more Renegade solution to minerals. Remember to left click when the prompt shows in the paragraph!
WARNING: BACK UP ALL SAVE GAMES FIRST.
1) Go and download Cheat Engine. You might have to disable your anti-virus for a little bit whilst downloading and installing it. Whilst running it's fine to put them back up but overly-sensitive anti-virus software doesn't like some aspects of the programme and can corrupt the download and installation of it. The programme itself is safe, but everything you do is at your own risk. As in, if you happen to be browsing porn at the same time whilst your anti-virus is down it's not my fault if a virus attacks your system.
2) Load up ME2, (preferably on the ship, after you have access to upgrades and are able to afford at least one of them) then alt+tab out and open cheatengine. Go to icon in the top left of the programme (a little computer monitor) and open the process of Mass Effect 2.exe.
3) Now go back to ME2, press escape whilst playing and you'll be able to see how much of each mineral you have. In my case I was pretty spent and had only 4399 Palladium, 5066 Iridium, 9797 Platinum and a measley 341 Element Zero. Make a note of your amounts.
4) Now in cheat engine it should default to exact value; 4 bytes, and above that there is a white bar for input. Put in how much of whatever resource you currently have that you want to change first (lets say my Platinum at 9797) and click First Scan. It'll scan and a list of hits will come up; take note there are multiple addresses but only one is the correct one. For me it was a massive list of about 30 or so matches.
5) Now, that's a heck of a lot. We don't want to start changing random values unless you want to put your Shepard through an end of the matrix situation and The Illusive Man revealed to be Agent Smith.
To narrow that down the best way I've found is to go and buy an upgrade and take note of your now deduced mineral amount. Go back to cheat engine and find the value that has changed to your current resources. I bought a small upgrade of 2500 to take it down to 7297 so was easily able to find the value affecting resources.
6) Time to avoid the interesting yet eventually tedious mining minigame by a quick bit of programming tedium instead!
Double click the correct address for the mineral you chose. It should jump down into the box at the bottom of cheatengine. Now hover your mouse over the value, double click, and a box will come up to adjust the value. I made mine 9000000. Go back to ME2, press Esc to jump out of menu and esc again to jump back in, and check to see if the value has changed. Did it work? If so you're a bonified cheater my friend! If it hasn't you probably had the same problem as me, in that I found there were two values that changed to my reduced mineral and only through first altering one and changing it back when it didn't work did I find the true one.
7) Now here is where note-taking comes in to avoid endlessly repeating step 5 in full. Take a look at the address for your altered mineral and note the digits. It'll be like 0E382429, 27135135 or so, of which there will be multiples with similar starts. For my platinum it was 1291202C for example, so for your value you should make a note.
8) Now click New Scan, and do the same for iridium (5066 in my case). A new list of addresses will come up (it may or may not be larger than your last list). What you're looking for here is addresses with similar beginning digits, so some judgement is required. The addresses are almost exactly the same, with only up to 4 digits separating them (4-8-C in hexadecimal). You are looking for practically the same thing. In my case, iridium and palladium were both exactly the same apart from the last digit; Iridium been 12912024. Now just repeat step 4 and 6 for each mineral to verify and voila, unlimited minerals!
I saved my game IN A SEPARATE FILE just in case, and it's safe to shut cheat engine down after altering. If you want you can use it to similarly adjust your Credits, and even take this know-how and apply it to other single player games with resources. Hope you found this little guide useful.
IMPORTANT NOTE - The addresses of the minerals change each time you load up a game, which is why I don't just out and out give you my values to make the process easier.
OAD 2: America - Bullet Pointed.
I know I promised better for today, but screw it. For the past year and a half now I've been going out with a wonderful American girl called Alyssa. For the past 4 years I've visited America itself and lived with people there for about 2 - 4 weeks at a time. I haven't really seen that many touristy things, but I've seen a helluva lot that if I were to visit a country without a local friend I'd miss. But rather than deliver these inspiring insights, I thought I'd just run off a list bitterly of a few good things and alot that annoys me. Sorry Alyssa, Jon Baker and any Americans who may read this.
The Good
- Shopping; from 6am to 10pm most things stay open.
- Fast Food; TASTES SO GOOD AND SO MUCH CHOICE.
- Meat; See the same as above. Apart from the fact that you say Mince meat and they don't have a clue, instead it's ground meat.
- Able to buy Orange Tic Tacs seperate to Lime and Orange.
- Root Beer, Mountain Dew.
- Turning Right on a Red light; as Jeremy Clarkson said: The only good thing America has done for car travel.
- Optimism and Community; I found it surprising how bitter and jaded England as a country has become when in the presence of Americans. Though I myself am distrustful of Community, I'm not blind to the good and closeness it fosters in people. Folk will support events, band together more easily and be more relaxed about it all.
The Annoying/Bad
- Crap Candy and Chocolate. And I mean really crap. I've had sweets found in the back of my desk after 3 years that have tasted better.
- LOUD PEOPLE. I went to a night with some "frat brothers" once, and fuck me are they the loudest people on earth. When they were drunk the noise level was like a herd of elephants all orgasming at once, for no real need.
- Not been able to handle drink. I'm a light guy, 140lb/10 stone but damnit, that drinking age of 21 does really set American constitutions down. The fascination with alcohol too reminded me of when I was 14 and would rave about it and get drunk off of just a bottle. Nowadays I just want to go out with friends, get a bit drunk or go to a pub and chat. I'm an middle aged man in a young body.
- American Football; Ok, this one is just my own annoyance with Football worship over here carried over to NFL worship over there.
- Like. LIKE. LIKE LIKE LIKE LIKE. USE FUCKING URM OR SOME SHIT PLEASE. It's the most annoying speech quirk I've ever encountered, and girls see no problem in babbling like like alot like when like recounting like a story like. Just SLOW DOWN. Saying like and speaking quickly doesn't make what you say interesting. If you're stuck, don't throw in like as a filler word. Just urm, that's what urm's purpose is. I have my own annoying habit of counting how many times somebody says like in a minute if they use it uneededly. Get an American girl to tell you about their day or a story or fucking anything for that matter and you'll hear like 50-70 times a minute I've deduced.
- Calling your Fringe Bangs. Your hair does not explode. Stop this. It is the edge of your hair, thus called your fringe.
- Neesan instead of Nissan. If you're American and reading this, say miss. Now say niss. Now say Nissan.
- All news networks are as bad as one another. This is also probably a global thing, but I don't think many realise it about America as Fox gets most of the flack. I was just astounded at how extreme the views presented were, and how seriously the middle aged people I spoke to took them. Imagine if people pledged alleigance to either ITV news that only complained about chavs or BBC news that only complained about the Rich and you have an idea.
- Advertisments. I wanted to rip my own brain out rather than listen to another faux-caring Woman announcer. It's literally a bombardment of crap that makes me want to scream. I don't want your fucking head-on APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD, I don't want viagra pills, that four flags commerical is alright but other than that take your souless tat elsewhere.
- Lack of good Radio. Have you ever heard Radio in America? If you had you'll be fighting to save the BBC and its ad free quality output a heckuva lot more. There are three flavours of Radio stations in America:
1) Talk Radio. This is just people talking and talking and talking without ever playing a damn song, interrupted every 10 minutes by an advert.
2) Modern Crap. This radio station of which there are a dozen tuneable at any time plays between 5 different songs, all by an artist like R Kelly or Lady Gaga. Some of these songs can be ok (I'm not a music snob) but god damn, it's the same as the advert problem. After been bombarded with them my brain goes on strike and I'm a drooling vegetable begging for it to stop.
3) Country and Western/American Rock. Also about a dozen of these, for no good reason other than it feels a bit patriotic and matches an atmosphere of Corn fields.
-Spanish workers. Americans struggle with an English accent. Mexicans barely speak English to start with. It's not like the local curry house run by turkish people over here; people who've honed their skills to understand and communicate in English. Every fast food place or shop pretty much has a Mexican working behind the till. This creates a problem for me: I can't place an order. For 4 years any time I've tried the order has come out wrong, so now every time I go to a McDonalds or similar I have to turn to an American friend, give them my order in English and have them repeat it in American English to the tillkeeper.
-Harry Potter. Edward Cullen. That American enthusiasm I mentioned earlier? For four years I've had American girls screeching at me to speak English and say spells, to titter among themselves when I grudgingly do. But the estaticness I've experienced surrounding Twilight and Potter is strange. Again, I'm a grumpy middle aged man in a young body.
This was a very ranty post; I've probably lost my few followers and all friends now. Tomorrow will probably be something sensible/entertaining on Vidja Games and not grumbling, so bear with me all several of you.
The Good
- Shopping; from 6am to 10pm most things stay open.
- Fast Food; TASTES SO GOOD AND SO MUCH CHOICE.
- Meat; See the same as above. Apart from the fact that you say Mince meat and they don't have a clue, instead it's ground meat.
- Able to buy Orange Tic Tacs seperate to Lime and Orange.
- Root Beer, Mountain Dew.
- Turning Right on a Red light; as Jeremy Clarkson said: The only good thing America has done for car travel.
- Optimism and Community; I found it surprising how bitter and jaded England as a country has become when in the presence of Americans. Though I myself am distrustful of Community, I'm not blind to the good and closeness it fosters in people. Folk will support events, band together more easily and be more relaxed about it all.
The Annoying/Bad
- Crap Candy and Chocolate. And I mean really crap. I've had sweets found in the back of my desk after 3 years that have tasted better.
- LOUD PEOPLE. I went to a night with some "frat brothers" once, and fuck me are they the loudest people on earth. When they were drunk the noise level was like a herd of elephants all orgasming at once, for no real need.
- Not been able to handle drink. I'm a light guy, 140lb/10 stone but damnit, that drinking age of 21 does really set American constitutions down. The fascination with alcohol too reminded me of when I was 14 and would rave about it and get drunk off of just a bottle. Nowadays I just want to go out with friends, get a bit drunk or go to a pub and chat. I'm an middle aged man in a young body.
- American Football; Ok, this one is just my own annoyance with Football worship over here carried over to NFL worship over there.
- Like. LIKE. LIKE LIKE LIKE LIKE. USE FUCKING URM OR SOME SHIT PLEASE. It's the most annoying speech quirk I've ever encountered, and girls see no problem in babbling like like alot like when like recounting like a story like. Just SLOW DOWN. Saying like and speaking quickly doesn't make what you say interesting. If you're stuck, don't throw in like as a filler word. Just urm, that's what urm's purpose is. I have my own annoying habit of counting how many times somebody says like in a minute if they use it uneededly. Get an American girl to tell you about their day or a story or fucking anything for that matter and you'll hear like 50-70 times a minute I've deduced.
- Calling your Fringe Bangs. Your hair does not explode. Stop this. It is the edge of your hair, thus called your fringe.
- Neesan instead of Nissan. If you're American and reading this, say miss. Now say niss. Now say Nissan.
- All news networks are as bad as one another. This is also probably a global thing, but I don't think many realise it about America as Fox gets most of the flack. I was just astounded at how extreme the views presented were, and how seriously the middle aged people I spoke to took them. Imagine if people pledged alleigance to either ITV news that only complained about chavs or BBC news that only complained about the Rich and you have an idea.
- Advertisments. I wanted to rip my own brain out rather than listen to another faux-caring Woman announcer. It's literally a bombardment of crap that makes me want to scream. I don't want your fucking head-on APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD, I don't want viagra pills, that four flags commerical is alright but other than that take your souless tat elsewhere.
- Lack of good Radio. Have you ever heard Radio in America? If you had you'll be fighting to save the BBC and its ad free quality output a heckuva lot more. There are three flavours of Radio stations in America:
1) Talk Radio. This is just people talking and talking and talking without ever playing a damn song, interrupted every 10 minutes by an advert.
2) Modern Crap. This radio station of which there are a dozen tuneable at any time plays between 5 different songs, all by an artist like R Kelly or Lady Gaga. Some of these songs can be ok (I'm not a music snob) but god damn, it's the same as the advert problem. After been bombarded with them my brain goes on strike and I'm a drooling vegetable begging for it to stop.
3) Country and Western/American Rock. Also about a dozen of these, for no good reason other than it feels a bit patriotic and matches an atmosphere of Corn fields.
-Spanish workers. Americans struggle with an English accent. Mexicans barely speak English to start with. It's not like the local curry house run by turkish people over here; people who've honed their skills to understand and communicate in English. Every fast food place or shop pretty much has a Mexican working behind the till. This creates a problem for me: I can't place an order. For 4 years any time I've tried the order has come out wrong, so now every time I go to a McDonalds or similar I have to turn to an American friend, give them my order in English and have them repeat it in American English to the tillkeeper.
-Harry Potter. Edward Cullen. That American enthusiasm I mentioned earlier? For four years I've had American girls screeching at me to speak English and say spells, to titter among themselves when I grudgingly do. But the estaticness I've experienced surrounding Twilight and Potter is strange. Again, I'm a grumpy middle aged man in a young body.
This was a very ranty post; I've probably lost my few followers and all friends now. Tomorrow will probably be something sensible/entertaining on Vidja Games and not grumbling, so bear with me all several of you.
One a Day: Go!
Right, a month late I've decided to try this insane project. So from the 1st feb 2010 to the 1st feb 2011 prepare for biterness, gaming, love, politics, films, books and all the sundry crap that pops into my head to write a post. This one is a little bit rushed as I started it at 23:55 and want to get it out technically before it's the 2nd of Febuary.
Here's a picture to enjoy to try and fluff this out a bit -
Speak better shit tomorrow! Promise!
Here's a picture to enjoy to try and fluff this out a bit -
Speak better shit tomorrow! Promise!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
