I need $150 – now!

The most amazing thing in the amazing history of amazing things: signed, original, artworks by a 75-year-old Cheeta.

Cheeta, as you all -surely- know, was Tarzan’s chimp in the 30s and 40s. His last role was in Dr Doolittle in 1967. Though cruelly captured from the wild, Cheeta adapted to civilised behaviour. At 75 he is currently the world’s oldest chimp. Apparently most acting chimps are (or were) donated to medical research after their act-by dates, Cheeta was saved and is the main attraction at an animal sanctuary.

And now this rare, old, magnificent chimp spends lazy days munching burgers and painting abstract art.

And you can buy a Cheeta original for $150. Amazing. I’m going to have to get back to work (which, I’m pleased to announced, started yesterday).

The Art of Cheeta

Board Now

For years the only board game that interested me was chess, while I was into role-playing games the concept of most board games left me cold. When I wasn’t slaying dragons I’d be trapping kings, and that seemed fine for me. Actually, as anyone who plays Dungeons & Dragons knows, while you might get to experience a lot of dungeons, you rarely get to fight dragons (not least because they are really, really, really tough; to go from starting character to dragon-slayer strength takes months, even years of play). Though I’m certain I toasted a few dragons in the Dragonlance (the clue is in the name) campaign I played, I don’t actually recall killing any during it. Over ten years of play the only dragon I remember killing was a juvenile red dragon (thanks David!) and he was pretty much bullied-to-death by me and another player who’d just picked up the “Fighters Handbook”, a mechanism to get players to spend yet-another tenner on the game and thereby pretty much triple your characters power. People running games seem to find it very difficult to ban rulebooks if players have spent money on them.

A couple of years ago a friend got me into Risk, a game I didn’t think I’d enjoy and now love, and that led me to start looking afresh at other board-games. Em has been getting into them too, and she went on a frenzied spending spree. We came back with three boxes, and two are in the post.

The one we played tonight was Cults Across America; a Cthulhu Mythos game by Chaosium, who make Cthonic role-playing games. Unlike their very serious RPGs, this is very silly. The game is a Risk variant, you vie with other cultists one city at a time to control America. You control cultists and High Priests, can summon various Mythos critters, and equip your guys to boost them. There are neutral “personalities” to control, including the Pope and the President. There are a lot of action cards, many of them humorous and appropriate, as you’d expect from a team who have been writing Mythos material for decades.

The physical materials are underwhelming, a flimsy board with America drawn in crayon, and flat cardboard counters. Chaosium produce books, not toys, so they obviously had limited production scope. This is a game that is screaming out for miniatures; but that’s okay, there are miniatures out there that could be acquired for the game. I enjoyed our short game (we ended after two turns) but reviews hint the game has problems resolving in a reasonable timeframe. It looks like a house rule or two might be in order, but otherwise it’s looking to be a thoroughly enjoyable game.

Summer Time

Well, that’s the first year over with. I’ll look at hosting Project Mayhem somewhere (it’s about 25 meg). The person I co-wrote it with is keen to improve and extend the game, something I’ll do if I have time and opportunity. Am also starting C++ over the summer, give me a head-start for term when we’ll be thrown into it.

Looks like most people in the class might have passed. Everyone passed their Java, though mostly on their third and final exam. There is at least one guy who failed (didn’t hand in his final essays) and there are one or two people whose work will at-best scrape a pass. I still don’t have back official word if I’ve passed, but I’m quitely confident. I have offers from local Universities for years 2-4, and am heading to Abertay (very high profile in the games industry) for an interview next week.

For summer I’m looking at working it though, go on holiday a couple of times. No destination plans yet but it must combine low-cost with much-cheapness. Have moved out of my studenty flat. Am currently homeless, though not roofless. Am staying with ‘my E’ for at least part of the summer, though I might head away with a mate to do some construction work (we’ll see if that comes about, if it does it’ll be nice as it’s good money).

For all your words needs

words

Insulting Injury

Java Morning has just started. I’m sitting out, having passed. Lecturer (who is good and does know his stuff) marked a question wrong. Not only did it not help anyone in the class, somone who is on a re-take of this course from last year saw his pass dip into a fail. The failure is complete.

Well, almost. In case you haven’t guessed, the re-mark benefited me by 5%.

Grinding Teeth Scrape

Have finished two projects, three remaining and are mostly done. One more busy week and I should be done. Java was frightening. Class had a 20 question multiple choice exams on Java theory and code. I was the only pass, well beyond the pass mark (75%, 60% required) but hardly perfect. The rest failed; including someone who has previously studied Java. This was not perhaps entirely unexpected. There has been a discontinuity of Java teaching over the year, with two lecturers leaving for plum industry jobs. The class managed to convince the Elders and Betters to provide us with fixed, extra Java tutorial each week. Surprisingly – and pleasingly – in the times of budget cuts, they agreed. Unfortunately most of that time has been taken up with someone attempting to make us expert in the areas our projects require (icon placement, file handling, etc.). He hasn’t been teaching general Java. I’d taken to reading Sun’s online documentation, tutorials from the Internet, and on-line quizzes.

And the questions were undeniably challenging. Four reasonable-sounding answers were provided to each question, not one or two reasonable answers and others helpfully wildly incorrect. There was a noticeable gulf within the cull; some missing by a question or two, others hitting scores more often associated with random selection. The class is going to get a couple of hours of Java overview, and a re-test. I’ll sit in the recap then scarper for a cuppa. I’m glad to have it over with. Java was one of the disciplines that yielded a fail last year, so a tense period for some.

I don’t see myself becoming a full-time Java developer, but it can develop quite useful programs that will run on a huge range of platforms. I suspect I won’t be putting in any practise hours over the summer. What code I do in the holidays will be split between C++ and extending the current Dark Basic Pro game. On that front, one of the developers of another game wants to hook up and do some game coding over the summer. He’s an experienced mathematician, before decided he wouldn’t make any money in the field and switching to games development, he was studying astrophysics. He’s certainly able to get interesting sine waves and particle effects going in a 3D engine, and he’s written a modest ballistic physics engine. It looks like he’s going to develop some kind of physics-based game, me helping with implementation; I’ll continue work my work on the shooter, with him offering functions for background particle effects, menu wipes, and the like. The model-maker and animator is still keen to finish the game for public release.

This will only be a minority of the summer, though. Have to earn money, and want to spend time with the people I just haven’t had the time to spend time with recently. And catching a few rays wouldn’t hurt either.