Jay McGavren's Journal

Braid

Those who want to see something new in gaming owe it to themselves to check out Braid on X-Box Live Arcade. It introduces entirely new concepts, requires thinking in an entirely different way. The ability to reverse time is exploited in just a huge variety of new and unique ways, and you will repeatedly say to yourself “Wow, that’s clever” or “I’ve never seen that before”.

Finally, finally in communication with the vendor’s web service in production. What an amazingly painful process. I freaking hate SSL in Java.

Can’t stream last.fm at work due to tight bandwidth. Doesn’t help me in the car, either. So their introduction of personalized podcasts looks pretty damn cool.

There's no place like foam.

I know my opinion is going to be unpopular at the time of this writing, but I consider the average Western-style home to be a form of litter. They cover the landscape, are unsightly unless carefully maintained, and must be cleaned up when no longer needed.

So I consider the styrofoam house to be a step in the right direction. Sure, they’re not much good in a tornado, but the owner could just head for a shelter (and I wouldn’t want to be in anything else during an earthquake). Not only that, the entire dwelling could be replaced for the cost of repairs on today’s houses.

Of course, you can forget building high-rises out of the stuff (barring clever engineering?), so it still doesn’t solve the problem of urban sprawl. I think the final solution will be even more portable and disposable.

Back from John and Lacey’s wedding in Iowa. Our schedule, as usual, did not include time for sleep.

The newlyweds, being but recently out of school, had to do things on the cheap. Among other things, that meant taking care of the reception hall themselves, both setting up (we helped till 1:00 AM the night before the wedding) and cleaning up (we helped till 1:00 AM the night of the wedding). Add in the Iowa State Fair the following day (Ruth wanted to take her granddaughter), followed by a long drive back to Omaha, and you have a recipe for exhaustion. Sorry we didn’t even attempt to see Omaha friends during the trip. We knew there wasn’t gonna be time, though.

John and Lacey are pretty darn cute together. I’ve thought so throughout their four-year-long engagement, of course, but their uber-mushy vows just reaffirm it. Here’s wishing them many, many happy years together.