The excitement of New Year's Eve got a little out of hand.

Amusingly, when I first took the picture "I" blinked:

Trying to fix it just made it worse. I only have the Y signal left, so mini-Mii is angry now that he only shows up in black & white:

Today I downloaded the Wii "Virtual Console" version, played it through and beat it on the first try, and only died once (on the last boss).

I'm not exactly sure what to make of this. I have not played the game in more than 15 years, so seemingly the ability to beat the game is unrelated to having played it recently (though I did eerily remember the locations of every single powerup and warp point as if it was just yesterday).

I suspect that I must have much better hand-eye coordination and timing now than I did when I was 5 years old, because it seemed much easier to control Mario this time around, especially through all of the tricky jumps which were so difficult back in the day. The strange thing is that I don't remember having felt like I had "bad" coordination back then, but I must have. I guess 15 years of playing video games is useful for something

Wiring like this is the moral equivalent of goto statements and spaghetti code. My E.E. professors would be ashamed..

Paperclips to the rescue! Obviously not a long-term solution, but it works.

Yay for finally being able to select 480p! I just noticed in this picture that my camera has no IR filter, so you can see all the LEDs in the Wii 'sensor bar.' I am surprised that it has 4 on each side..

Waiting for Wiidot

A tragicomedy in one act

A Wal-Mart parking lot. A bench. Night.

Estragon, sitting on the bench, is trying to warm up his feet.

(enter Vladimir)

Estragon: (giving up) Nothing to be done.

Vladimir: That’s what I’m saying.

Estragon: And might I inquire where you just went?

Vladimir: Behind the dumpsters at the back of the store, in the bushes.

Estragon: That’s disgusting you know.

Vladimir: Of course. But what else are we to do?

Estragon: You could wait. Like me.

Vladimir: Ah, how well is that working out for you?

Estragon: Not that well.

Vladimir: I doubt you’ll make it until they open in the morning.

Estragon: I have to.

Vladimir: It’s too much for one man.

Estragon: Suppose we gave up.

Vladimir: Now? It’s two in the morning; we’re half-way there. And we have a good spot in the line.

Estragon: What if they run out? Do we wait another week?

Vladimir: We don’t have anything else to do.

Estragon: So we wait until we get one.

Vladimir: Of course.

(enter Pozzo)

Pozzo: Cheerio!

Estragon: Are you handing out the Wii tickets?

Vladimir: He doesn’t look like a Wal-Mart employee.

Pozzo: The what tickets?

Estragon: Wii tickets.

Pozzo: You tickets?

Vladimir: No, we’re in line to buy the Wii, you see.

Estragon: ..and we thought you might-

Pozzo: In line to buy yourselves? I say, that sounds like a strange thing to do.

Estragon: Nintendo Wii.

Vladimir: It’s a game console.

Pozzo: A what? You’re making no sense.

Vladimir: I don’t think it’s us.

Estragon: Look, it’s just called Wii and we’re in line to buy it. At some point they said they were going to come around and hand out tickets to people in line.

Pozzo: I don’t have any tickets.

Vladimir: And you’re not in line?

Pozzo: No.

Estragon: Why are you here in the middle of the night?

Pozzo: How would I know?

Vladimir: You’re cracked.

Pozzo: Am I? You’re the ones waiting in a line to buy yourselves.

Estragon: No, the Wii is a gaming device -

Vladimir: Let’s just drop it.

Pozzo: Drop what?

Vladimir: Nothing, we were just confused.

Pozzo: I’ll say you were; I’ve never heard such boffo. Anyway, I’m off! Adieu.

(exit Pozzo)

Estragon: That was weird.

Vladimir: Maybe he’s been in line for a few days and just lost it.

Estragon: I didn’t see him when we walked by.

Vladimir: Or maybe he waited for a PS3 and didn’t get one.

Estragon: At least it passed the time.

Vladimir: It would have passed either way.

Estragon: Yes, but not so rapidly.

(Long silence)

Estragon: How much longer?

Vladimir: Still six hours.

Estragon: I’m so bored I could hang myself.

Vladimir: Do it.

Estragon: What would you do?

Vladimir: Laugh.

Estragon: I knew it.

Vladimir: Do you hear something up ahead?

Estragon: I believe I do.

Vladimir: I think they’re handing out the tickets for the Wiis.

Estragon: It’s about time.

(enter Wal-Mart Employee)

Employee: .. 52 .. 53 .. 54. (stops)

Vladimir: What about us?

Employee: That’s it.

Estragon: But we didn’t get tickets. Where are the rest of the tickets?

Employee: We only got 54 Wiis delivered. You’re number 55.

Vladimir: But the other lady said you had 75.

Employee: The day manager? She’s a little flaky. I counted them. 54.

Estragon: How could you only get 54? That’s not even a round number.

Employee: I just work here.

Vladimir: But we have to get one! We’ve waited all night.

Employee: We’d still have the same number of Wiis if you’d waited a year.

Estragon: This is crazy! Off by one.

Employee: You could try the Beaverton store. Or wait until we get another shipment next week. Sorry.

(exit Wal-Mart Employee)

Estragon: Should we wait?

Vladimir: Are you nuts?

Estragon: I will be if we don’t get a Wii.

Vladimir: You could hang yourself.

Estragon: (looks up at light pole) I could, you know. In fact, I think I will. (gets up, takes off belt)

Vladimir: Is it long enough?

Estragon: I think it is. (pants fall off)

Curtain.

• "Grid" game: I haven't thought of a better name, but this game is sort of like Othello or Go. Players play as "light" or "dark" and try to capture the opponent's territory by toggling his/her pieces and then capturing any surrounded squares. It's interesting to play at first, but after playing several people without finishing a game, we determined that it's probably not actually winnable as long as both players always make intelligent moves. But, interestingly enough, a "greedy" AI that plays against itself will often end up winning (and losing), as long as it doesn't get stuck in an infinite loop.
• "Raindrop": this is a raindrop ripple simulator. You can create ripples by pushing buttons - the more you push, the bigger the ripples. It's pretty cool.
• Pong: the classic. The resolution (8x8) is a little low, but it actually works pretty well since the computer simulates the board at higher resolution. The main problem I see with Pong is that each player has only 2 inputs (up and down), so it's not using the full power of the 64 buttons, which it seems like good monome apps should.

Here's the YouTube video:

I just read The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, whom I was previously unfamiliar with. I wasn't always precisely sure what constitutes a "Kafkaesque" situation, but now I have a much better idea.

After reading, one thing that struck me was the connection to Final Fantasy III's villain Kefka. I totally missed this connection as a child but now it seems quite obvious. Everything from his theme music ("Metamorphosis") down to the extreme existentialism and absurdism of the character is clearly an homage to Kafka's philosophy. It may not be the most complimentary portrayal, but it's still quite interesting.

Amber commented on a previous post, expressing interest in playing the game I mentioned there. Here is a link to download it:

• The Adventures of Bruto

You will need to have the Isis Game Engine installed in order to play. Unzip bruto.zip and double-click bruto.iss to launch it (if you didn't use the Isis installer, run bruto.iss with the 'ivmconsole' program).

You control the dragon and must protect your hometown from marauding invaders. Fly around using the I, J, K, and L keys. Spacebar breathes fire, and the F key sucks in air in order to shoot fireballs (if you don't like those controls, you can edit dragon.iss in notepad and change them). You win after defeating 20 ships, or you lose when your town and castle are destroyed.

If you don't want to download the game but still want to see it in action, here is a WMV video of me playing. Note that the video has no sound because the game has no sound. Here's a low-quality YouTube copy of the video:

• Isis Game Engine

There's not much on that page yet, but it has an introduction to IsisScript and a couple of sample games. There are also links to the installer as well as the source code if you are interested in checking it out.