Ok, so, my “normal” life has been affected by this neverending tale of tropical depressions, level 99 storms, and days and days of opportunistic hails of rain…
Out-doors activities are all canceled…
So I say: In-Doors Activities!
Here’s a self-compiled list of nice and entertaining stuff to do while the world’s sewer system colapses.
Tool-less, space and people demanding activities:
1. Hide and seek, I bet you saw this one coming (VERY space demanding).
2. Obstacle racing, I bet you didn’t see this one coming… Your house has an integrated racetrack… you just have to find the “safe” way to go with the flow.
3. Kick the can, yep, in-doors is a whole different challenge.
Generally, any game you can play with the least degree of “safety measures”.
Hands, pen, paper, glue, scissors, scotch tape, etc. activities:
1. Tic, Tac, Toe. Yeah… classics are classics…
2. Chopsticks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopsticks_(hand_game)
3. Thumb war.
4. Rock, paper, sissors. Cheap, I know.
5. Chess. I know you might think about needing a chess board, and pieces… but… then… where is your imagination and your creativity. you can always draw a chess board, and you can always cut out some paper pieces to names them or draw the shapes of the real pieces.
6. Checkers.
7. Mancala.
8. Backgammon. (mancala on steroids… that’s my opinion…)
9. Reversi.
10. Arm wrestling.
11. Origami. This is surely the most productive time-wasting activity…
12. Papercrafting, ever dreamed to make awesome stuff? Papercraft your dream… it’s fun and entertaining.
13. Paper plane folding …and flying. My fave.
I got brain damage from recalling so much alternatives already… But there’s many more.
Any boardgames you may have are definitely a choice at times like this.
Computer games:
I’d be bored to death without this section.
1. “Spring Project”. Real Time Strategy meets freedom, of speech, of price, and of choice.
As many people seem to get lost at trying to understand how to play this “game”, I’ll try to explain it as best as I can:
“Spring” is an engine, what you download when you download “spring” is like, the tools needed to play a certain game.
“mods” are the rulesets for a game, and you need this if you intend to play a game with “spring”.
“maps” are like the gameboards for a game, though in a much looser context, but you still need one to play a game in any “mod” with “spring”.
Now, as for the aquiring of such things I will put a list of things needed to download by order, and you’ll se by yourselves that this ain’t rocket science:
First, “spring”, download and install before proceeding with any more downloads: http://sourceforge.net/projects/springrts/files/springrts/spring-0.81.2.1/spring_0.81.2.1.exe/download
Secondly, download a “mod”: http://dé.su/EEv46.sd7 (Please account that this “mod” is only my humble suggestion, you could try to skip this and open “Springdownloader” located in your spring installation folder, and then moving to the download tab, and then double clicking the latest version of any of the mods that draws your attention)
Third but not least, download a “map”: http://www.springfiles.com/show_file.php?id=2579 (Once again, this map is only a suggestion, it’s not the only map available, nor is it an example of what all maps look like)
This should set you up for a nice singleplayer or lobby game.
2. Tremulous.
This game is my favorite mix between First Person Shooters and Real Time Strategy.
You build and you fight, this is a must see to understand. Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tremulous/files/tremulous/1.1/tremulous-1.1.0-installer.exe/download
3. Americas Army 3. Supposing you have the bandwidth and the hardware requirements… WHY AREN’T YOU PLAYING AA3?
This is one of the best free First Person Shooters out there.
Here’s the download page, I’m using deploy version but I’ll let you choose between Steam or Deploy download options: http://www.americasarmy.com/downloads/
4. Warzone 2010. This is a very entertaining RTS that combines tons of macromanaging features, with the ability to micromanage your units to design depth, mixed up with a tech tree of hundreds of technologies.
5. Battle for Wesnoth. If you don’t like or you are tired of RTS or FPS, and you prefer to think well all your moves: http://wesnoth.org/
6. Last, but not least in this small list: Sauerbraten. Sauerbraten combines Fast Paced, First Person Shooter action with Cooperative Map Editing, which makes it a very entertaining game, open for the exploration and expression of your creativity and architectural skills.
Download: http://cubeengine.com/files.php4
This In-Doors activities is far from complete. There’s lots more stuff you can try out at your home, you just need a bit of imagination, and lots of good intentions, to find something fun to do in a rainy day.
Yesterday at Costco I saw an HP touch-screen computer, and I’ve seen plenty alright, but this one blew my mind away, because it had World of Goo loaded in the green “compromise-issues” goo-balls level (ok… “Ivy Towers” level…).
I had to stop and touch that. (”touch that” …you get it? no?)
Veredict is: Boy! AWESOME.
Sure, controls are awkward at first, because, it’s hard to understand how to play without a mouse… but after a few touches and swipes with your finger, you start playing with so much comfort and ease, it looks like if you are leading an orchestra!
It’s definitely a very nice and refreshing way to play World of Goo again.
But brings up this question:
Touchscreen games, are they better native or ported?
Yesterday I accidentally tore off the clot (also “thrombus”… wow, didn’t know that one…) from a wound in my right foot… I pulled off my sock without noticing the clot had sticked to the sock… It hurt like BILLY OH!!! And I went berserker with a wall for a minute or so until the pain lessened enough for me to react at the blood that was emerging from the wound and trickling down my foot… unto the floor…
Anyways… After that, the new clot formed up quicker and a lot less bulkier than the last one… And I’ll be back in shape for Soccer Today. The sun is coming out from the clouds also, so that’s another point for SOCCER TODAY.
My attempt at fixing some verses for the song I was so excited about yesterday… PHAIL… I mean, I’m not that inspired yet, I need more vocabulary, or… I don’t know… but here’s a tip for all ya songmaker wannabe’s: Finish your great song the day or the moment you bake the first good idea, because the next day or the next moment it could be goner… I still have the chorus but… I’m not a fan of songs where you repeat the same lines for ever, definitely gonna put a pin on this project and save it for when I have what I lack of momentum. ANOTHER POINT FOR SOCCER TODAY!
Have I ever told you I’m a fast runner?
Like… very… very… fast indeed?
Like I BEAT USSAIN BOLT fast?
Like MY NICKNAME IS: FLASH fast?
No? Never?
Hmm…
ANOTHER POINT FOR SOCCER TODAY!!!
P.S. My wound was product of a slide-tackle while playing soccer on Sunday.
Sorry about that “I’m fast” rant… I lost it…
I’m fast indeed, I’m nicknamed Flash indeed, but I’m not that fast to beat Bolt…
…YET.
Yesterday, just around bed-time, I came up with a song with some verses and a chorus, but when I actually thought of writing it down I kinda forgot the verses… Anyways I did remember the chorus, and verses can be made up any day, any how… right?
It’s a pretty cool song in my own humble opinion, and I can’t wait to finish it, and maybe publish it on Youtube or something…
Besides that, yesterday was boring… like… dead boring… Bad weather, no park… Fried GPU, no games… sigh.
Today I plan on getting head on with my schoolwork, so that next week is a bit easier on me; I also plan to continue my reading of “Dos Años de Vacaciones” by Jules Verne… (Spanish title to emphasize it’s all in spanish… ¬.¬ …) Which I had interrupted due to my trip to Cd. Madero, where I found my book ”Cien Años de Soledad” by Gabriel García Márquez, and I chose to read it again… it’s odd, I felt the same need to know what happens next, and the same bitter thoughts went through my head, just as if I hadn’t read it ever before… But I’m halfway through the story… and it’s just sooo sad for me, I want to drop it now, I don’t wan’t the whole emotional trip right now…
All spanish, spanish, spanish… I do get tired of reading so much spanish, but I have a backup plan, in case I get too tired, I plan to read Treasure Island!
No other plans for today… with this grey clouds above me… *sigh*.
GLOOMY…
I just deleted 28 comments full of unintelligible gibberish… and lots & lots of links, and when I say lots, I mean LOTS (estimated number of links per spam post: 100)
At least it’s something to do around here…
Quick test…
(posting from a mobile)
:)
WEEEEE!
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| Jet-plane toy models. |
If you can’t see the big smile in my face… is because it’s too scary to be in a photo.
Last week we (meaning us four; meaning me and my brothers), started playing battles with some toy guns (pathetic… toy guns… Mine is a chunk of wood as long as as my arm… with no resemblance to a gun whatsoever) trying to practice teamwork.
The point is it’s fun, and if you wanna have a taste of what it may be like, you should watch the following:
There.
You got the idea? 
Anyways, man needs weapons to wage war, and Ed needs sophisticated systems to make his weapons (unlike me, I just need a stick or something and I’m ready to fight).
So he went on to make a functional gun (rifle), with a trigger system, which you can see in action here:
And because some people like photos better than videos:
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| Ed's rubber-band gun trigger system. |
This just shows how much of a mad scientist-inventor Ed can be when he needs it (even if he is really clumsy at using the gun in battle…)
For the moment being, the latest news about me is that I assisted to my school’s “students and tutors integration” event, that was held this past saturday morning, where I met 2 of my school’s online tutors, and some of my online schoolmates…
It was mostly an experience to let us all know the people on the other side of the screen is actually human; and a chance to spend saturday morning dancing ridiculously, and playing games that involved: learning names, walking blindfolded, and being labeled (that’s right, labeled… in the forehead!), amongst some other activities.
Anyways, I am pleased to say I made an acquaintance with whom seems to be the only student about my age in this online school; we were the only young students in the event (underlined because the tutors are young too, but starting from 18 years old; and the staff in charge of the integration activities was as young as me).
As for the rest of my weekend… I did pretty much nothing except for going to church and playing soccer.
(I played Americas Army and gained 3 honor points in like 1 hour! But… that’s another story…)
Oh, and I also played this game: Take Something Literally, yeah, a puzzle game, I’m into these games a lot recently… I dunno why, I’d like to believe my brain demands it… (but then the bugger won’t mind helping me when I’m stuck at derivatives…)
But yeah, that’s pretty much all.
Besides some music of course…:
Aunt Rebeca and Uncle Fabian had shown this one to us a while back ago…
But only until now it made sense to me.
While playing around… I got a link to this very interesting article: Think
I hope you can find it as amusing as I did…
Do you think your capacity to think has been overridden by the teaching at schools?