The Ramblings of Octavo

Heyo all you loyal fans out there!
I’m sure you will have noticed a positive dearth of blog postings lately and this is due primarily to a rather nasty project I’ve been working to get complete on time. Well I can say with a massive sigh of relief that the project is done on time and about to enter the testing phase! Phew! There’s no rest for the wicked though and I’ve still got plenty to do, just not as much stress. With that in mind I decided it was time to grace you all with another truly awe inspiring installation of my blog.

First up in the news: I managed to snag Ibis a holiday job working at my company! This is truly w00t news, as without it she would have been in Mosselbay from early November until after Christmas. This way she stays here with me until early December and is back in time for New Year! Also on the Ibis front, my sweetest angel of love granted me my birthday present a month and a half early this year (only cuz I begged though!) - A USB Bluetooth adapter.This incredibly cool little device will allow me to upload and download images, ringtones, MP3’s and more to and from my ultra-nifty Nokia 6230. All I can say is: “See my shiny geek toys and cry with jealousy!” mwahahahaha

Ibis and I watched Collateral last night (the new Tom Cruise action flick). I can’t really say much because I haven’t made up my mind about it yet.

Finally I think I’m going to add a section to the sidebar with all the latest news I think is truly interesting or scary, so look out for it soon - but in the meantime read this

Cheers for now!

Stress does horrible things to humans. Unfortunately it seems that stress is an inevitable part of life. No matter whom you are or what you do, you will experience stress on a regular basis. As children, we are taught about many emotions and feelings that we will encounter in life and in some small measure we are prepared for them. We are taught about love, jealousy, betrayal, pride, loyalty, hunger… all sorts of physical and emotional feelings. The concept of stress however is completely neglected… which is strange considering that the average human will encounter orders of magnitude more stress than he will betrayal for instance.

Merely a thought… anyways… Ibis is currently highly stressed out as it’s exam time and I’m stressed out since I have a few projects due at the end of the month. This situation is far from ideal. Ibis is not particularly fun to be around when she’s stressed and I’m no bundle of joy either. Luckily we are both mature and familiar enough with this ailment to appreciate its effect on our emotions, so we usually end up comforting each other rather than giving in to one of stress’s symptoms - anger.

My advice? Become a cat or something

First of all, I must just get this off my chest as it’s driving me nuts. The new guy in the office, who sits just behind me seems to have a frog in his throat. The annoying thing is that he keeps trying to clear his throat (every 30 seconds or so) and even with headphones on the noise is very distracting. ARG!!! Go to the friggin loo and hack your lungs out, but don’t sit there with your constant grunting please!

*sigh* Ok, I feel better now. Anyways the weekend was pretty cool. Friday evening Ibis and I were at Zodan’s place. Ibis and I were tied together by elastic band and given vodka jelly upon arrival, which was interesting! I spent the rest of the evening annoying Ibis by talking about computers the whole time
Saturday we gave my car a half-hearted wash (that’s the LAST TIME I wash my own car). Afterwards we drove through to Rondebosch to look at a few places. One in Woodstock was a complete nightmare - I don’t know what they were thinking!! The second one was nicer and certainly livable, but the neighbourhood still wasn’t all that great and I’m not sure Ibis would be safe walking home by herself in the afternoons. After that we met Ibis’ parents at the beach and chatted to them for while. Then we went home for supper and joined them again afterwards for movies - we watched The Bourne Supremacy… Expect a review only if I get time.

In other news… the zoiboc community grows!

Well, I’m happy to announce that as of this moment, there are 7 registered users on the Zoiboc forum. Sure they’re all people I’ve bullied into joining, but at least it’s a start Hopefully we can attract some more regular visitors and get some real discussion going on… so get your ass over there and register now!!!

Cheers

Well guys and girls the forum is finally up and running! Things are changing fairly rapidly as we customise bits and work on getting it how we want, but there’s nothing stopping you from registering now and setting up your account!! So surf on over to Zoiboc and check it out!

The other big thing is that Ibis and I are making serious progress with finding housing! We’ve got 3 houses to view this weekend - two of them sound perfect, although the third one is probably not our thing. YAY!!!! I’ll be truly happy if we can find a place quickly and then just concentrate on getting our stuff together instead of worrying the whole time if we’re gonna find something. w00t!!!!
Anyways that’s it for now!
Cheers

Well the website has been left as is for the moment as Zodan is busy testing various open-source forum packages. We have pretty much decided that considering the deals we can get, we’re going to pay for a small amount of hosting (50Mb space, 200Mb bandwidth pm). This will allow us to put up a forum and allow the general public to join and comment on not only the game, but also more general topics. With time and some interesting content, me may even develop into a nice little community.

I spent some time last night working on the game. Ibis showed me some of the stuff she’s done so far and I must say I was impressed (even if I did have a few comments and suggestions). A “blue goo” monster she drew (animated even) was exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for. Her grass, concrete and water tiles were awesome as well, although the carpet could do with some work. All in all, I’m very happy so far with the progress we’re making. I developed the spec a bit more and added some tables to the database… progress is slow as the more I drill down into the specific workings of various aspects of the game, the more complexity arises and the more questions get raised that aren’t easy to answer. Every now and then I realise I have to shift my entire thinking about certain things to a completely different perspective. Despite all that, it’s incredibly fun….

In other news, Ibis and myself continue the hunt for suitable accommodation. So far we’ve not had terribly much luck, but it’s still early days, so I’m not worried yet. Tomorrow night there is a party at Zod’s place, so Ibis and I will probably buy some cheap swill and spend the evening in the corner slowly getting pleasantly wasted … hmmm… I fear this blog may be starting to give people the impression Ibis and I drink a lot… we really don’t actually. hehehe.

Update: Ibis got DP for all her subjects!!! (which means she can write exams) W00T!!!

That’s all for now - Expect another fascinating post on Monday!

Cheers