Stories of a Runner (2/2)

So the pi-mile's this Sunday, and I can already imagine how it's going to go...
Start out running... This feels nice... 5 minutes in, already tired, stop and walk some halfway through, push to the finish, stumble across the line, they'll say, "Daniel, it's just a fun run you know!" and if I can breathe I'll say, "I- know,- this- is how- I have fun" as I collapse to the ground in front of some other people leisurely jogging in behind me...

Oh wait, that's not how you're supposed to visualize...  I'm supposed to say:
I'm halfway through, still feeling good, headed back in, passing a bunch of people on the way, sprinting as I get near the end, flying past the line, the person with the stopwatch saying, "23:xx" and I'll be exhilarated having run such a time in my current condition.
Yeaaheheheh that's not gonna happen.
But, I'll give it all I've got, finding some kind of motivation in the memories and the unfinished stories of the past...

Names and titles

Being such an indecisive person, I'm surprised I was able to come up with a blog title that I liked.  And well I do like this one.  "The Words of a Self-Proclaimed Genius."  It sounds pretty big, pretty epic.  And, it mixes in one of the things I love to point out.  See, at first glance, one might think that a title like that is something an arrogant person would come up with.  But, I think that that would be making an unjustified conclusion without fully considering everything.  The joke is that the term self-proclaimed generally implies that other people don't feel the same way.  It made sense to arrogantly call yourself a genius, or to have other people doubtingly refer to you as a self-proclaimed genius, but what did it mean to call yourself a self-proclaimed genius?  At the very least, it showed an awareness of the fact that not everyone would necessarily think of the speaker as a genius.  So, it could be interpreted as, "Maybe some people think I'm just calling myself a genius, but I think I'm an actual genius."  Or maybe it could be seen as, "Even though I'm calling myself a genius, I don't think I'm an actual genius.  I know I'm nothing more than a self-proclaimed genius."  Or it could be anything in between.  It could even be nothing more than a cool sounding example of something that could easily be misinterpreted.  An illustration of the mistakes that could possibly occur when one is to quick to judge, and even the variety of valid interpretations that can make an accurate judgement difficult despite a careful consideration.  Yeah, it could be all that and more.  What was it actually intended to imply?  I dunno. Who knows?

You might also be wondering why I chose DdRMaSTeRDan as my Youtube name.  Well, it's because at the time I picked the name I was utterly convinced that I was the best DDR player in the world.  There's actually a short story behind it.  A friend of mine came over when I first got Mario Kart DS, and before I tried playing online for the first time, he put a name in for me.  The name he put was DdRMaSTeR.  So, a long while later when I was about to create a Youtube account but had no idea what I wanted as my name (I'm not very good at coming up with names, as you can see from the name of this blog), I figured, "Hey, why not use that name my friend put in my DS, with 'Dan' added at the end?"  And so I did.  And then when I had to create forum names for various forums, I thought, "Why not use the same thing, or something similar?"  The problem was that people would get a certain impression from the name DdRMaSTeR, and they might not read carefully enough or stay around long enough to notice the things that hinted that that first impression might be wrong.  So, I began to use DdR_Dan instead.
I don't particularly like that name though.  Eventually, I might start going by a different name.  Maybe Regened.  It kind of sounds like I'd be new and improved then, you know.  Regen(erat)ed.  And it also kind of sounded like something else.  You could pronounce it so it sounded like レジェンド.

Pipelining Analysis

Well I ended up making that one game during winter break.  If you don't know what it is, here's an overview of it:

First, some design decisions: score formula was 25*[1.25(# of matches)+.5(# of halves)-.25]*chain number.  Looking back, I'd have liked to increase the bonus for more matches (as is, it's 1.00 for a single match and then +1.25 for every extra simultaneous match; I was thinking something like 1.00, 1.25, 1.5, ...), but considering that the entire fan base for the game would be upset if the scoring changed now because of all the high scores being set with the original scoring, I'm not going to change it.  Also, the bomb piece wasn't originally planned as a part of the game.  You could then be stuck with unplayable pieces, and I would just say too bad, set your pieces better or something.  But, in the end, I think the bomb was a nice addition.  Not only can it open up unplayable sections, but it also helps deal with unlucky piece distributions.

As for the game, I think the graphics are all right.  Not amazing but not bad, which is fine by me, I wanted to make a game, not draw a picture.  I find myself humming the music in my head occasionally, so I guess that's good too.  I do like the voices, and not just because I made half of them.  The game itself can actually be fun for anyone who enjoys games like this.  See, Blockmania was a 3 in a row game with 4 colors and only single blocks, so if you put each color in a separate column, you never fill up and the game's pointless.  It only got interesting if you were into making long chains.  This game isn't like that; it has it's difficulty.  The game also gets harder as time goes on: at first you only need to drop 6 blocks to get a starter drop, but if you play long enough, you won't get more drops until after placing 20 blocks.  The pieces also fall faster.

In battle mode, you send 1 garbage block for every 200 points.  Garbage is cleared by exploding a piece next to a garbage block.  Now, the questions I have are how well this system works when 2 people are playing without any knowledge of deep strategies and how this system affects the optimum strategies.  A single half-hearted sample run (no one I knew was very interested in testing out the game) brings up some possible answers.  Maybe, maybe garbage can be cleared really easily?  Maybe?  It might be the case that the game drags out because most players will have trouble sending a ton of garbage without knowing any strategies?  Which would be all right because the game isn't too easy.  This might happen because you can clear like 20 blocks and only send 12 garbage blocks or so, and then if the opponent can make a match they might be able to get rid of most of that.  However, it could also be possible that someone wins with a big match usually.  It's also possible that garbage isn't really that easy to clear, it only gets cleared quickly if you have a buried match and dig down to it, which I think is what happened in the only somewhat evenly matched game between new players ever played.
And I can only guess what high level play would be like.  But, at least I can guess.  I guess I have a lot of guesses.

Stories of a Runner (1/2)

The thought of being a runner had never once crossed my mind, and so I still find it surprising that I ended up on a cross country team.  I kind of wanted to play tennis, or maybe basketball, but, running?...
I have to wonder how my life would have changed, if I had joined the tennis team instead of the cross country team.  In many ways I think I would have enjoyed tennis much more than running.  Even now, if you were to ask me if I'd rather run a 5K or hang out on a tennis court, despite not really knowing how to serve, hit the ball, or even hold the racket, I'd rather play tennis.  Yes, in some ways I believe I made the wrong choice.  But when I think back on all my memories as a runner, everything I took from the sport, and how it changed my life, maybe running was the best possible sport I could have chosen.

It all began during my sophomore year after a timed mile in P.E.  I was one of the first done and I felt pretty good about it.  And so it happened that the P.E. teacher told the coach of the cross country team that I might be someone who would be interested in running.  And when the coach asked me about joining the team, I figured, "Sure, why not?"  I didn't know then that I wasn't born to be a runner.
I found out though.  Really quickly.

The Outstanding Senior Award

There were 3 valedictorians of my high school class.  I wasn't one of them.

At senior awards night, they gave out the awards for the outstanding senior.  Or, seniors.  There were 3 given out and, unsurprisingly, they went to the 3 valedictorians.  "But!" they said, they had decided to give out one more outstanding senior award, to someone who, while not a valedictorian, had worked just as hard by taking so many difficult classes, along with doing many extracurricular activities...
I sighed.  I already knew what was going to happen.

An Introduction, of sorts.

I'm just a college student, halfway through a Master's program.  I like video games and math and I do a little game design, just for fun.  I used to be a runner.  Oh I enjoy playing sports too.  Anything competitive, you know.  That's how I would describe myself.  Only, it feels like something's missing...

I'm generally pretty humble about things, but I'm a smart person you know.  I mean, I'd go so far as to call myself a genius.  And it is that intelligence that has been the key factor in driving my life.  It allowed me to make it through school with enough time and ability to pursue just about any goal in between.  But there was no point in chasing easy goals.  No, I lived my life going after much more.  We're talking world records.  Unmatched skills.  Stuff like that.  It's just who I am.  But, I don't think that's everything...

I'm someone who probably always sounds uncertain.  I mean, I guess I am.  You could say that uncertainty defined my life.  If nothing else, I was pretty certain in it.  And it drove me towards proofs.  If you want to make a statement, you have to prove that it's true.  Like, if I was going to say that I was a smart person, I would request irrefutable proof from myself.  Which ran into problems like defining intelligence and the fact that supporting evidence was not the same as a guarantee, etc, etc.  So, in the end, I figured I couldn't prove that I was a smart person, and so I wouldn't say something like that unless it was for someone else's sake, or it was for the irony or something like that.  It's just how I live my life.  Well, that might not be absolutely true...

I'm a nice person.  In a way, it's something that really shapes my life.  Making an effort to be constantly aware of the feelings of others, and things like that.  But I didn't want to be the person who did it to show off though.  Like, I didn't want it to be something I was really well known for, because if that happened, inevitably, someone would feel jealous or insulted.  It was something better left in such a way that the people who knew it knew it and everyone else was unaffected.
And then I would say, well, that's actually saying too much, whether it's true or not.  People are going to think too much of me and want to support me and all that.  And so I would go back and do things like change the "I try to be" to "I'm" and add in some extra sentences.  The "I'm" gives it a different feel, because now it's more likely that the reader's will look more for reasons why it isn't true so they can say "No you're not."  But, it balances out, because hopefully there's enough there at the end that people will say, "Well, I guess you are."  See if it was still "I try to be" then some people would say "Aw you really are a nice person" and other people would say "You're just doing it to gain people's sympathy" and I wouldn't want that.  Still, it's who I was, and I couldn't really deny that.  At least, it was part of who I was...

Challenges are what I live for.  The impossible.  The losing battles.  I mean, what was the point of playing a game you expected to win?  You either win as expected or lose disappointingly.  I'd much rather play a game which I'd lose almost every time.  It wasn't that I liked to lose; it was that losing when I felt I had a chance to win motivated me to play more and try harder and harder until it looked like I was mad with determination.  That was the life I lived. ...

I don't have a solid goal, a set direction.  Essentially, I spend my life wandering aimlessly.  I just go with the flow.  But without a target to shoot for, I'm in danger of being another person who could be described as a jack of all trades but a master of none.  That is where my life is threatening to end up...

My life is dominated my a desire to change.  I wouldn't blindly follow my past ideas if I found a reason to change them.  Still, I suppose most of the time I just stayed the same...

I live a life under rules of formality and and politeness that few other people seem to care about.  But they are obvious!  For example, you don't force people to do things, or put unnecessary pressure on them, just as you don't force your opinion onto other people.  Basically, it was all about respect.  You respect others' opinions, you respect others' choices, and you respect others' ways of life.  Why wouldn't I live like that? ...

I can't understand what people enjoy so much about talking with others, which is why my life is not one that's so concerned with hanging out with others or going to parties and such.  But really, what is there to say?  Nothing really crazy has happened to me in the past week/month...  Was there something to be learned?  To be taught?  Because I wasn't overly curious about other people's opinions on most things, and if you wanted an opinion from me, you most likely weren't going to get a very interesting one.

I'm not an opinionated person at all.  And, as such, I have a pretty apathetic view of my life.  I mean, if you don't care either way, then nothing really matters to you, right.

I'm just one person, among billions of other people.  One person, tiny compared to the size of the earth, which was tiny compared to the size of the sun, which was tiny compared to the size of the galaxy, which was tiny compared to the size of the universe...  Why would any of it matter?  Why would life matter?  And how can I live like this? ...

I'm just a human being.  Just someone who's going on living.  Striving for happiness and creating my own reasons.  I can't be that much different than you.


It's all true, it really is.  At worst, there are over exaggerations and understatements.  But, I like to believe that one can describe oneself in so many different ways, all completely valid, all true.  Just as a scene changes when viewed from a different angle, so too, can the interpretations of one's life change, when viewed from a different perspective.  It's not much different than choosing a point of view, choosing the important details, and telling a story.
So, I am a story teller.  Just like everyone else, I have a story to tell.  And this is how I will tell it.

Untitled

You know, I was going to write something here.  I simultaneously wanted to write stuff and didn’t want to write stuff and the part of me that didn’t want to was winning.  At that rate, this blog would have been another thing that I started but kind of just left off and then I’d feel bad about having ever started it at all…  But I wasn’t going to let that happen here.  I was going to force myself to write something, even if the only thing I could possibly convince myself to write was some pointless stuff thrown together in 3 minutes!

Fortunately, it didn’t come to that.