Pressed Rat and Warthog

Blech, I'm not enjoying marking this weekend. The prof for the first year calculus course "accidentally" made an assignment harder than it should have been. He asked we two markers which wanted to do it, with the promise that future assignments would be shorter. I volunteered, because I didn't have any discrete assignments to mark this weekend, and I figured I'd rather get the work over with sooner than later. Well, it took me about 4.5 hours to mark the first page of the four pages of solutions, so things were looking grim. I've burned through the second page quite a bit quicker, though, and it looks like the whole assignment will take around 16 or 17 hours to finish (still a heck of a lot longer than it should be taking).

I'm not taking a third course this term, but Adam is getting me started on my research project this term rather than in the summer. So far, I'm supposed to be reading some articles to find some inspiration, but I've been slacking off a little bit. I have, however, found a few sites with some reading material on combinatorial game theory. Interesting stuff, but I wouldn't say I'm "passionate" about it. I'd better find something I enjoy for my research project.

Adam bought the second power plant deck for Power Grid the other day. We went to the local game store on Wednesday and asked the owner (Drew) if he could order it for us, and he had it in the store by Friday afternoon! That's a pretty quick turnaround; I'm impressed. It wasn't too expensive either. I saw that they had Ra in stock again, but they've knocked the price up by another three dollars.

Power Grid is Adam's favourite game, and he pretty much goads to play it whenever possible. It's a great game, but I'm getting a little sick of playing the same game so many times in a short time (see: Settlers of Catan, Liar's Dice, Saboteur). I'm *still* waiting to get a sizable new audience to my games nights. It seems that just about every week, I have 7 people. If I could get 8 or 9, I could break into two games easily (since I have a fair number of games good for 4 or 5), but people seem less willing to break into a group of 4 and a group of 3. Well, I guess I should be thankful that I'm getting that many to begin with; 7 is better than 6. Now if I could only convince people from my classes to show up (they all say that they will, but never come!).

I had a hankering the other day to start playing Final Fantasy 12. Argh! I hate when that happens! I still don't have nearly enough time to start playing a meaty game like that! And then of course, when I actually have some free time to play games, I probably won't be in the mood for playing anything. Oh well, c'est la vie!

Well, time for some sleep. There's some A&W breakfast waiting for me tomorrow morning!

Listening to... Opeth - Serenity Painted Death
Link of the moment... Some fresh Super Smash Brothers Brawl gameplay videos

Two more games off the list

Well, I just finished Disgaea. I've been playing like a madman to get it done before any work comes my way. I logged 36 hours of playtime. It got very difficult passed a certain point, and I had to spend a good 4-5 hours leveling just to make it past the last few levels. A big problem I've got with that game is that the only way to get experience points is to kill enemies, and the ones getting the most kills are the ones that are already high-leveled.

Adam and I also finished X-Men Legends 2. That game, on the other hand, got easier as we approached the end of the game. If you stick with the same four characters through the whole game, you tend to gain more levels than you need. Nevertheless, the experience was enjoyable, and we were always looking forward to smashing the heck out of some baddies.

I've managed to cross 9 games off of my "list of games I want to play", though I only actually played 4 through to the end. Another 4 were just too uninteresting for me to justify playing (after all, that's what games are supposed to be for, right?) (Fallout, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Sim City 4, and Lego Star Wars), and one got crossed off because I realized my PC just isn't powerful enough to play at a decent graphics level (Elder Scrolls 4).

Judging from my previous term, I suspect that I won't really have much time to play video games until the summer. My grad seminar course should be about equally hard as last term, and I suspect my reading course (group theory) will be slightly more work than last term (ring theory). Adam wants me to take a third course this term, but I'm hesitant, based on the fact that I found last term to be a lot of work, and I usually find the winter term to be a bit more grueling than the fall. The only other courses I'm aware of that I could take this term include a course in PDEs (which I am not fond of), and "mathematical models in quantum mechanics", which, again, is not in my area of interest. Regardless, I'm going to sit in on the latter tomorrow afternoon. Of course, no matter how much work I have this term, I'm going to take plenty of time to play some Smash Bros when it comes out on February 10th (should I preorder it somewhere, or just hope to find a copy in-store?).

Update: Before I even finished this post, I found out that SSBB has been delayed until March 9th. Stop teasing me, Nintendo!

Listening to... Amber Pacific - Always You
Link of the moment... Funny pics thread over at BGG

But first, an apology

Before I forget, I'd like to issue a formal apology to Andrew for berating his lack of rules knowledge when it came to Cities and Knights of Catan. It turns out I've been playing a number of rules incorrectly in Power Grid. Though there's not much behind the actions the players take in the game, the housekeeping can be a lot to keep track of. There are a lot of details in that game that are easy to overlook.

I was supposed to have my first class today, but the Ryan building was closed today due to a burst water main. The class was only going to be a ten minute "here's the outline, read these chapters for next week" thing, so the prof just sent the two of us an email (yeah, another huge class of two). Thus, my first real class will be the Graduate seminar tomorrow morning. I'll have to make sure to coerce some of my classmates into showing up to this week's game night. I ran into Chris and his girlfriend at a new year's eve shag, and they both mentioned that they were looking forward to playing some games, so I expect them to show up at least a few times.

Adam has made the bold statement that Power Grid is his favourite game, and that can be evidenced by the 10+ plays it's had in the last few weeks. I think I've only racked up two wins so far, and I always seem to make some pretty bad plays every time I play.

I started a new game of Disgaea. I've completely set aside any magic casting characters since they're a pain to level up, and opting for a beat-em-up team. One thing I've noticed about that game is that it's very easy to spend way more time playing it than you originally may have intended. I've racked up about 15 hours of playtime since I started it three days ago (hey, I'm trying to milk as much out of my free time as I can while I still have some!).

The other day, I made the mistake of drawing a comparison between X-Men Legends and Guild Wars. In doing so, I re-lit my spark for Guild Wars, and further fueled my hope that I can get Adam into it (since he seems to enjoy playing XML). The original game is only $30, with no monthly fees. For that price, you get some pretty good bang for your buck.

I had an urge the other day to buy a new computer. There was a computer on the Future Shop website that included a QUAD-core processor, 3GB of RAM, a 400GB hard drive, and a 19" widescreen monitor for a grand sum of $800. By the time I noticed, they were sold out. I'd still be a little wary buying a computer from a box store. I'd rather know that I have higher quality components than having to deal with the hassle of trying to replace crappy components that are jam packed into the case. Case-in-point, Adam's power supply died on his old Dell, and the spare power supply I had sitting around wouldn't fit into his computer since the old supply was sized specifically for a bracket in the case. Sure, you get a great computer for $800, but after a few years, you'll likely have to spend another $500 (as well as a ton of aggravation) to keep it up and running. I think I'll stick with my plan of getting a new computer when I'm done my masters degree (when I'll likely be moving away to get a job in, you know, a *real* city).

Listening to... Metric - Dead Disco
Link of the moment... David Blaine parody (heads up, foul language)