Tag Archives: weather

Rain, relationships, repetition and other “r” words

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I’m going to be watching the skies nervously over the next few days. If I’m to believe my local news (and the National Weather Service) reports, it looks like the Mid-Atlantic is about to get a visit from one Hurricane Irene.

Perhaps as a warning shot, the Philly area got an unhealthy helping of rain and thunderstorms dumped on it this morning…just as I was helping my sister move her stuff back into her dorm for college. We had to wait for about 20 minutes after we arrived for the rain to let up enough for us to get her stuff inside, for lightning, water and electronic equipment make for an especially dangerous cocktail. I’m sure she’s all settled in by now, as she’s got a whole day to herself until the other students arrive.

Meanwhile, I’ve made it my week’s mission to finish off Catherine. After having completed the seventh stage (the Spiral Corridor), I can only state that I’ve ascended the tower of some sort of bizarre puzzle-platform hell. Traps appearing every which-way, me jamming the “Reset” and “Undo” buttons repeatedly when I’ve painted myself into a corner… and that’s just on Easy mode. Playing the game on Normal or Hard doesn’t afford one such luxuries. I was surprised that grabbing the pillows on this level granted you three retry chances and not just one. If not, my game would have been “over” over a loooong time ago. Poor Vincent’s gotten himself into a pickle that not even years of psychotherapy could cure. Note to Vince (and to guys in meatspace in general): if you’re involved with someone, and you wake up next to a strange woman who you know definitely isn’t your girlfriend, KICK HER OUT. (Seriously, how did Catherine manage to get inside of his apartment without keys?)

And because I was looking to re-acquire RPG Maker VX for my new computer, I decided to pay a return visit to RPGMaker.net and download some of the better games used for it and the older engines. Of course, in order to actually play the games I wanted, I had to search the net for the different run-time packages (which contain the basic graphics, music and other required goodies). Most of the editors work fine on my machine, but require administrative access in order to save new projects. The only one that doesn’t is RPG Maker 2000, which doesn’t surprise me all that much. If I ever wanted to use it, I could just go on my laptop, which has WinXP and no such compatibility problems.

For the longest time, I’ve never actually released anything worthwhile with the Makers, and I don’t know whether that’ll change today, but I sure to love playing around with them.

Family Vacation 2011

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I’d been out of commission for almost the last week or so because I’d been out visiting the Wildwoods with my family. It’s been a tradition of ours to go down there every July or August. I missed out on it last year because I’d been laid off, so it was relieving to get to go back down there this year. I was able to get some good photos this time around, and I’ve posted them to one of my Flickr albums.

Sunday: We arrived at our hotel and took a walk on the beach. The ocean water was a bit warmer than it was in recent years. Either that, or I’ve grown accustomed to taking dips in the water on a regular basis.

Later on that night, we went to the boardwalk, and found out that one of Mom and Dad’s favorite arcades, the Supercade, had gone out of business and replaced with a store called the 5 Mile Marketplace. That’s where they used to win a majority of their stuffed animals, but since that’s gone, they didn’t do much this year. Me and my sister, on the other hand, cleaned up at the Mariner’s Arcade just across the street. Those slot machines give away tokens like it’s Christmas.

Monday: Dad was able to figure out how we could get Internet access while we were here. I had to take my laptop down to the sundeck, since I couldn’t get any kind of signal within my room. While unfair, I think it makes sense, since wireless receivers don’t really have enough range to reach every room in the hotel.

I also managed to beat Z.H.P.: Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman twice in the span of 15 minutes – once normally, and the second time on a zillion-to-one critical hit chance in the first encounter with the final boss. The game’s got multiple endings based on when and how you beat Darkdeath, so I’m going to keep my save and try to get them all.

We didn’t get much boardwalk time done, since my sister spotted this wicked storm cloud that just kept growing and growing until it enveloped the entire sky above us. Rain and thunderstorms were inevitable, so we had to go back for the good of our health.

Tuesday, sis and I cashed in our arcade tickets for candy and a few small stuffed animals. We got the small ones since we didn’t want to overstuff our car coming back home (it’s been known to happen a few times in the past; I don’t think we have any of those stuffed animals now).

On Wednesday, we took two trips to the boardwalk – once in the morning to get souvenirs, and later at night to play miniature golf on one of those glow-in-the-dark courses. Getting down there by ourselves was easy, but we had a harder time getting back, because the trolley stops between the Mariner’s Water Park and the south end weren’t clearly marked (we didn’t see our first one until we reached the Convention Center). We did make it back in time to start packing up our stuff, though, so at least we had that going for us.

Arrived at home today at around 10:30 AM, and as with all of our previous vacations, I’m glad I got away, but also thankful to be using my own stuff after a while. Mom and Dad don’t know if they’re going to come back down to Wildwood next year, but at least we had the time and resources to do it this time around. Thanks, you guys…you’re the best!