Zanthir is #1 (Again)

Not that big of a market, really. But still, it's nice to see Zanthir's Body back on top. Well, it's above the Halo & Lego guys anyways. I happen to have been using my Zanthir user account on the Ubuntu forums a lot lately. So that, as well as a random thread I opened and closed on the forums happen to appear above this blog. But, that's great, right? Results 1, 2, and 3 are all me for Zanthir.

The real question is though, if I go to a public library, where there is no user data about my preferences, etc., am I still the #1 Zanthir out there? I hope so. It's fun being #1 at something, even if it is something I invented.

Psychic Ball

Backing off doesn't mean forgetting it completely.

Updates listed at http://psychicball.blogspot.com, and viewable at http://psychicballgame.com/Home.php.

Enjoy!

Poet/Philosopher

When I was in sixth grade I wanted to be a philosopher when I grew up. Because I thought I really offered an enlightening perspective on the world. I thought I could really see thing from a helpful perspective.

The Devil Needs Love Too is a poem about seeing things from a different perspective. It expresses the philosophical idea that happiness and peace comes from accepting and loving all things, good and bad. Further that by loving, caring, and paying attention to what seems to be the problem, you can understand it, and it can metamophasize (that should be a word, don't you think?) into something that is no longer a problem.

I'm pretty egotistical, thinking I know things. Let's lay it out flat though. I haven't done any kind of formal experiments, but this is a philosophy. I'm not even saying I believe it all the time, but I like how it makes me feel when I read it, and when I think about it. This is my poet side, my emotional, loving, creatively expressing side. I think philosophy and poetry make a great pair.

Let me know what you think.

The Devil Needs Love Too

Unfortunately, you can't just ignore the devil. If you do, he just gets meaner, and bigger, and angrier. Instead, you really need to pay attention to the him, understand his problems, love him, and let him know you care. Only then will he become restful, and you find peace.

Psychic Ball (Backing Off)/Updates!

So, there is a demo screen up at Psychic Ball, and I'm trying to get a guest account up and running to play/collect some data this weekend. Check there to see if it's up and running!

I'll back off on the psychic ball thing from here I guess, now that is has its own blog here. Instead, from here, I'm going to re-vamp this site, update some of the general info (header, links, etc.) and try to redefine this blog's purpose.

I hope everyone likes the changes. Let me know with comments.

Psychic Ball

Ok, here is the idea for this game: Psychic Ball.

Two players, red and blue, use their psychic abilities (real psychic abilities - not any in game simulation) to compete in an online battle.

Random number generators award points at random, and it is set up kind of like tennis, rally score, point score, game score, set score, to determine a winner (best 2/3 sets).

I want it to feel like a fighting game though. This is serious competition. Graphics will have some fighters that look like martial arts combatants from Virtua Fighter or something, as avatars for players. Also, I think I'll steal the ranking system from Virtua Fighter (also used in the board game Go) that goes from 10th to 1st Kyu, and then from 1st to 10th Dan. I think it's really fun to rank up in games, and fewer levels makes them more significant. I was thinking 23 levels total (since that's my favorite number) with maybe Master, Ascended Master, and Deity being the top three ranks.

From what I have read and heard about psychic abilities, some people should definitely be able to be better at this than others. Also, playing with a group focused on you winning should have an exponential affect on your ability to affect the randomness of the numbers being generated.

I had this idea originally when I took my first programming (or second) class in college, but I went for a poker simulation instead. I think I made the wrong choice. I was afraid of being made fun of or whatever, but there are a million poker simulations. There is only one (or, actually zero at this point) Psychic Ball.

Ok, I guess I need to get on the ball so that I beat the competition in terms of producing this game. I am really interested in keeping statistics on this game so a nice database server up and running to track player stats etc is really important to me. But, not to brag or anything (actually, exactly to brag), I am really good at database design, so this should be no problem.

If you are a talented writer, artist, designer, business person, psychologist (psychology are good at statistics and studies, so could help me determine what is relevant data), or anyone, and have some ideas and would like to contribute, please contact me by leaving a comment. I can use all the help I can get. (I'm kind of busy with work lately - at least I have a job.)

The truth is, Ryan and I have talked at length about making a game, but Ryan things psychic abilities are hogwash so is extremely reluctant to contribute or support me in this. Which is really discouraging. But when I think about it, and plan it, and start sketching and designing ideas, screen shot thumbs, databases, etc. I get totally psyched up and jazzed about the whole thing, so I think I'm going to focus on this as my primary creative project for a while.

I really need to focus on one thing, too. Too many times have I focused on an idea just for a few moments, and even though its a fabulous one, let it fade into history forever. This one is different though. I know because its been at the back of my mind since early in college. I haven't seen anyone else perusing anything like it. Ryan discourages me. Yet, I still am totally passionate and excited about it.

If you support me in this endeavor, leave your support in the form of a comment as well. That would be very helpful.

Wish me the best of luck. I hope I can get something cool up and running very fast. I advertise that I am an agile developer, so this is a test of my abilities to deliver my quickly changing design requirements. I'll build a prototype fast, get it up and running for demonstration, and go from there.

Lots of love to all my readers,
Zanthir

OpenSolaris

I just installed OpenSolaris on a new "budget conscious" (read "cheap") machine I built. I took my a while to figure out I needed to uninstall the default network (nge) driver and install a new network driver.

Sorry, I had some trouble getting it online. (If I want to be popular - i.e. number 1 search result, I should speak in layman's terms!) But I'm up and running now.

I want to do a bunch of cool stuff on it, like host a database, and host a game I plan on making.

The game is going to be Psychic Ball. I need to figure out what I need to do to secure rights to the name, etc. (I know, it's pretty stupid to be writing about it online, but I tend to be a fly by the seat of my pants, reckless, kind of guy.) Anyways, I want to get a game server up and running to host databases etc. for that game on this machine.

Zanthir's Body Drops to #2!

I'm furious. Zanthir's Body dropped to the number two result. No wait~! I just checked! #3! I'm so mad. I have to do some research on how to boost my search results! I need to be Zanthir!

Any tips? I enjoyed my stay at the top so breifly... oh, *sigh* what can I do?

Someone told me links, I need registered websites to link to this website...

Hm...

I can link to those... does that help?

Here is Zanthir the Lego Dude, and here is Zanthir the Halo Dude.

/shrug

I don't know what to do... maybe respond to those who post comments, spam my Facebook friends to visit here. I guess in need to buck up and advertise my stuff while it's still near the top.

I need to get my $hit together!

Ok, let's go!

Zanthir's Body is the #1 search result for "zanthir" on Google!

*Applaud*

Happy, happy. Joy, joy. Good job everyone. I couldn't have done it without you.

I'm curious how this happened. I thought this blog was totally neglected and forgotten about. But apparently it is the thing Google suspects people want most when searching for "Zanthir."

That's awesome. I'm so proud.

Zanthir was a name I made up. I was playing Rivers of Mud (ROM) way back around 2000, and I needed a name for a new character. I liked the idea the my brother Eldon had used to create an alphabet map that mapped vowels to other vowels, and consonants to other consonants. In this "language," Eldon became Arcim, which is really cool. Michael translated to Nodhear, which everyone pronounces "Nod, hear." I didn't like that. So I needed something else.

"Z" names were very popular on ROM. Zump was the imp. Zog was an imm. And there were a few others I now fail to remember. After playing for a while, I came up with Zanthir. It used "R" for "L" which is as my brother did. It also kind of used vowel to vowel mapping, though h is not exactly a vowel. I was happy. I thought it was perfect.

So Zanthir was my mage. I liked the name so much I made him a brother, Zanthril. Zanthril was an elf their. When I logged on, I almost got banned instantly. Some imm (Islena :p I think) tried to ban me as soon as I logged on. She was SOO pissed. She thought I was the infamout Zantaril. Apparently he had a bad reputation. I never leveled up Zantaril.

One most famous feat performed by Zanthir was the killing of an Obsidian Guard (level 40+) while I was around level 12. I had been running around midgaard giddy with the ability to do ALL CAPS damage such as, "Zanthir's chilling touch ***DEVESTATES*** the beastly fido's chest." I thought I was amazing. So when someone was screaming on gossip (Rofsky? j/k), "help, an Obsidian Guard is hunting me, he's almost dead," I jumped into the fray, and with one or two spells finished him off. I was the luckiest little mage ever. I got like 600+ exp and fell in love with my combat magic abilities forever.

Anyways, that is a brief history of Zanthir, & where it came from. And now, this blog is what Google thinks best represents the word. I like that. :D

Later

The Price of Gas

The price of gas is not paid in dollars. The price of gas is paid in tears. Tears for the earth as we poison her. Tears for her children as we kill them.

Another Sleepless Night

Last night Carly and I played water pong. We're super dorks, yes. Water pong, we decided, is beer pong, with water instead of beer. Anyways, I had to go pee four times last night, in the middle of the night, and once this morning. And no, I didn't drink any more water after playing water pong. We played two games, and I lost both, so I drank 24 or 25 cups of water with about 3.6 ounces of water each (the amount with beer would be 12 oz. * 3 beers / 10 cups), so about 90 ( 25*3.6=25*(4-.4)=100-10=90 ) ounzes of water. You wouldn't drink this much in beer pong. You have a partner, and when you loose, you and your partner cycle out.

Anyways, last night I journaled a bit (hardcopy journalling, not blogging) and the energy I had, perhaps from the water, reminded me of the first sleepless night when I created this blog. I actually slept quite well, and long, so it wasn't a sleepless night at all, but I thought it made a good title. Last time I looked at the clock it was about 1:30pm. That's enough sleep for me. Well, it's off to work now. Bye bye.

P.S. I plan to be updating links to include all my web pages I manage, and some other like Grandma's Attic's blog. Enjoy!