metro aesthetics and video game dc @ 6:42 pm

Ambiance of Metro Might Take a Sharp Turn:

Zachary M. Schrag, who wrote “The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro,” said those at Metro haven’t always been aware of its architectural significance. “It’s one of the three great works of public architecture in Washington since World War II,” he said, along with the National Gallery’s East Wing and Dulles International Airport.

Even changing the color of the blinking platform edge lights at Metro Center from white to red was a “massive departure from the landmark architectural design,” Schrag said. Metro is testing different-colored light-emitting diode bulbs that are more energy-efficient. Red means stop, and Metro wants to see whether that will keep riders from getting too close to the platform edge.

A few riders have noticed the change. “The red ones are ugly,” said Mary Burke, who rides the Green and Red lines. “They look like the gates of Hell.”

Many riders, while appreciative of Metro’s unique architecture, say their priority is reliability. “It’s a Cadillac system, and that’s part of the problem,” said Fred Marinucci, a Red Line commuter for 20 years. “It’s hard to maintain a Cadillac system.”

Still, the more time riders have spent on the New York subway, the more they appreciate everything that makes the Washington Metro different.

In New York, “it’s not a question of red lights or white lights at the platform,” Schrag said. “It’s a question of how much gum you’re standing in.”

That’s right. I hope they don’t change it too much. The Metro is one of the few bragging points for us. Let’s not mess it up.

…

Did you know they they make video games in Bethesda? (Well, technically Rockville.) The Business section had an article on Bethesda Softworks the other day, An Inside Play to Sway Video Gamers. The best part of the article was an illustration from Fallout 3, which takes place in a post apocalyptic war Washington. Check it out:

I never though someone would make a video game that takes place in somewhere like DC.

tags: dc, gaming, webloggish

ketchup @ 3:52 pm

Half way through my class. The summer is starting to feel kind of long. Have I really only been home about a month? But I guess that’s longer than it sounds.

I had my midterms last week. Did a bit better on Econ than I expected and a bit worse than I expected on Criminology. It is a pleasant surprise. I’m tempted to take more economics now when I get back to school. I’m already registered for Economics and Law. Urban Economics and The Welfare State in America look interesting. I guess this is that the point in every student’s undergraduate career that they especially start to regret taking certain classes rather than other ones. Why did I ever take American Popular Culture or Philosophy and Psychoanalysis? And I probably could have skipped out on Human Factors too.

To my amusement I got an letter in the mail from the Dean of the College at Brown informing me I have been placed on “Serious Warning.” I assume this has something to do with the fact that it took weeks and weeks for the Registrar to post grades for all but one of my classes. At first I was a little worried — could my transfer credits have gotten muddled? — but no, of course not. On the Registrar’s site itself I’m listed as in good academic standing. Maybe this will give me a bit of kick in the butt to do better next year though, or at least work harder.

I’ve started listening to music again. I figured out how to connect my computer to my mom’s amplifier in the living room. The speakers are a little fuzzy, but much better than the tinny ThinkPad ones. I’ve been listening to a lot of electronic dance music lately: Tussle (thanks McComas!), Simian Mobile Disco, Justice, and of course old favorites like the Knife and Madonna. All sweet chiptune music from Nullsleep and Bitshifter which is available free for download at 8bitpeoples.

I hula-hooped until I dripped sweat this morning.

At the recommendation of Maurie’s mother I have purchased Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Oil Magic Soap to remedy the coloy of acne that cropped up on my forehead since I have come home. I wonder if the other flavors are just as effective? Peppermint is all right but makes feel like I am lathering up with toothpaste.

What else? I purchased Final Fantasy VII this morning. And I’m not embarrassed to say it! A good video game is just what I need to fill up lonely hours, and it gives me an incentive to do my homework faster. Haven’t figured out how good it is yet, but as far as I know it’s as critically acclaimed as RPGs go.

I asked my grandfather what the point of his research is right now (on phase transitions, I think) and he told me that was a philosophical question. I asked him what was in it for the people who were funding him. Didn’t get a straight answer either. Did you know Physics used to be called Natural Philosophy? I’m not surprised. Maybe it’s not so surprising I ended up studying philosophy.

tags: brown, class, gaming, health, music

wii @ 11:46 pm

I’m back at school and I’ve already had more excitement today than the past week at home. It snowed as we were driving to the airport and the flakes moved like sand on a windy day on the road. It was mesmerizing. They had to de-ice our plane before we left.

This is the latest I have stayed up since coming back to America. It is much easier when there are people around. I feel like I could almost stay up another few hours but I have a feeling I am still going to wake up really early so I’m not pushing it. Stuart, Patrick’s friend from home who lives in the suite next to ours, has a Wii but no television. He brought his over and I played Wii Sports bowling and baseball with Jessie and him, and then watched him and his friend do Wii boxing. Using the Wii Remote is cool but it seems like the sports games could get boring once the novelty of the new movements wears off, because like Jessie said, why not just go bowling? But I think for RPGs and fantasy games the Remote could be really effective, because you’d be moving around and thus more involved with your character and his actions in the game, and you’d be doing things in a world that doesn’t exist outside of your television.

tags: dreams, gaming

game night @ 10:25 pm

I went to the mall this weekend to get earrings because it has been almost 6 weeks for my left ear. I got one pair of dangly ones that are easy to put in, a set of six pairs of studs that look like Skittles, black hoops and huge plastic balls the colors of bubblegum wrapppers (pink, sky blue). I like the Skittles-like studs the best. I think I might sleep in them, at least tonight. They are the only ones I have been able to put in myself without any help. What a new and exciting world! So many ways to stick something through your ear lobe for decoration.

After dinner Henry and Josh and I played video games in Henry’s room for hours. Games that were played:

• Super Monkeyball
• Starfox
• A game I cannot recall the name of that involved space ships and absorbing energy of different colors.
• X-Men
• Timesplitters 2

Total hours spent in Henry’s room either playing, watching or sleeping on the floor: 8. It was just like movie night minus the movies, fudgie wudgies, Code Red and cheese curls and Maurie. I have a newfound appreciation for multi-player games.

Today was just as eventful. McComas and I went to Portsmouth to pick up lamps for her and then came back and had lunch and then drove off again to Somerville near Boston to try to haul a three sectioned couch back to Providence in her Jetta. One section fit in the backseat, one in the trunk (although the door wouldn’t shut) and she strapped the other one on the roof rack with some rope. It was something that I never will be confident to pull off by myself.

On the way back we saw a large black pickup truck in the left lane of I-95 take 90-degree turn into the median. It crashed into the barrier and then bounced backwards a little bit. You could feel all of the other cars slowing down and staring. The accident seemed like it had been intentional. Did their brakes go out? Were the passengers having a fight? Was someone being kidnapped? Were they trying to kill someone driving in the opposite direction in the left lane? This is probably the most exiciting thing that will happen to me for at least another few months.

tags: brown, friends, gaming, story

.iso success @ 10:45 am I have gotten Final Fantasy VIII to work with ePSXe finally. I borrowed the game discs from Dan yesterday, but had trouble making ISO files. GnomeBaker, K3b and dd all had errors. I tried a couple programs in Windows, including the Sonic RecordNow which came with the computer. It made an ISO file, but when I tried playing it in ePSXe I got freezing and black screens after a few minutes. Finally I made a working BIN file using this command in the terminal in Ubuntu:

cdrdao copy –device /dev/cdrom

The command is really meant to make a copy of the cd to another cd, so after it made the image file it prompted me to insert a blank cd. Instead I just closed the terminal, found the BIN file in my home folder, and tried it out.

The thing is I think I enjoyed the journey more than the destination, so to speak. FFVIII is pretty cool but I am not going to get that far in a month and a half before FFXII comes out. But getting ePSXe to work, and making a functioning image file? Pretty satisfying.

Yearbook Project work has slowed to a halt just because I am lazy and don’t feel like working in Windows just so I use my scanner. I found my Adobe Photoshop Elements disc that came with one of our digital cameras and am trying it out in Ubuntu with Wine. Not holding my breath.

tags: evergreen, gaming, navi

poop @ 9:29 pm

I spent the better part of this evening install ing ePSXe for linux. (This was after I tried both using wine+ePSXe for windows [failed to detect video plugin] and PCSX for linux [keyboard input troubles].) Everything was going fine. I figured out how to get the framerate at the right speed. I watched the intro movie for Final Fantasy VIII. And then…the text was scrambled, completely illegible. I messed around with all of the settings for both the XGL plugin and the MesaGL plugin for at least an hour, to no avail.

Sigh. I guess it is not in the cards for me to replay FFVIII this summer. Soon enough XII will come out, I suppose.

On the up side, a) Ma and Papi have finally come back to America, even though it is only for a little while, and b) in the process of troubleshooting ePSXe I changed my gtk1.2 theme to Plastig. So now my non-functional ePSXe looks pretty, as will all of the other gtk1.2 (mplayer, ???) applications that I never use.

It is getting warm and I am thinking about maybe going to the pool with Mummy in the mornings before all the scary teenagers come out. I need Maurie to teach me how to crawl properly. I can do it for as long as I can hold my breathe and then I have to stop because I don’t know how to breath and keep going. (Do you read me, Maurie?)

tags: gaming, navi