St. Joseph’s Vanguard And Our Lady’s Train

Alpha 1 version is up for brave souls to try.

You can scroll down that page and read my alpha introduction to the game.  It uses Silverlight 2 Beta 2, so just follow the directions to install it (it’s fairly fast), and email me if there are problems.  Have fun!

What a lovely place. I experienced the perfect moment yesterday evening, sitting on a bench in a grove of oak trees, looking west over the vineyard at the sunset, enjoying the sweet breeze, eating artichoke-parmesan fritters and listening to the plunkings of the guitarist seated nearby.

The wine is great, especially the Verentino. It’s only 30 minutes from South Austin and a lovely drive through Texas hills. Enjoy!

Totally awesome–I’m full of American pride.

Here’s the latest screenshot of my Silverlight Tower Defense game:

There are currently five distinct tower types and images to go along with them; the cloud-looking things are the first enemy type that has been created, with the life meter directly over it.  The clouds animate as they move, getting bigger and smaller (because the enemy is supposed to be a ferocious “blob” creature).

New screenshot:

I have created two new tower types

Poison towers: the green ones, poison enemies which drains their life for some period of time
Stun towers: Brownish-red ones, damage enemies and have a chance to cause them to not move for some time

in addition to the old ones:

Der Basic towers: white ones, can be upgraded to become obliterators (more on this in future posts)
Ground Pounder towers: Orange ones, powerful towers that upgrade to fire rapidly

The blue and red rectangles are the enemies.

After more thought and prayer, I decided to remove this video. Let’s encourage people to make humorous yet non-vulgar or uncharitable videos and such!

Here are some websites I have been using that I wanted to pass along:

1. CatholicExchange.com: web portal, new articles each day, news headlines, etc.
2. Pandora.com: free music supported by ads; you tell it which bands you like and it plays those bands and others like them (tip: some of the ads they show are immodest (not pornographic, but women in bikinis, etc., so I keep a separate web browser open to pandora and resize the window so the ads aren’t shown)
3. Google Analytics: Web site traffic monitoring; I think J.R. Andrews turned me onto this one, and I have it monitoring blog traffic.
4. iGoogle: This is my main homepage now, and I use the Google Reader widget on it that is an RSS reader for all the blogs I am interested in. I also have stock info, news items, my Google calendar, etc.

If you have any useful or fun sites, feel free to share them. If you are especially motivated, the way that you make hyperlinks using the (somewhat primitive) comment boxes on this wordpress blog is by typing this in: <a href=”http://www.mycoolsite.com/coolstuff”>My Cool Site</a>.

“If you can see the lights/
shine in front of me/
If you can see the lights/
shout out where you’ll be…”
– Simple Minds, “See the Lights”

That song has nothing to do with this blog post.

I blogged sometime back about Microsoft’s new technology, called Silverlight, that allows desktop-programming clods like me the ability to program web apps (like Gmail or Google Maps).

Adam Gretencord rightly let some air out of my sails with the current reality of web app programming, which Adobe does own, and the situation is the same today.

However, I am trying my hand at my first web game, a tower defense clone.  I have little imagination when it comes to inventing new game genres, so I am first trying to just copy an existing, relatively well-contained, game in the tower defense vein.

It is in “alpha” right now, which is a bombastic way of indicating I’m not even half-way done, but it is also much smaller than my (overly) ambitious real-time strategy game Crescendo, which I have put on indefinite hold while trying out this new technology.

Here is a screenshot of the game in its current state.:

We have 18 members in the facebook group I created to help Danielle Bean kick the Diet Coke habit!  I think the direct link to the group is here.

that will be called Support Danielle Bean Kicking Her Diet Coke Habit.

It would involve things like finding research on why aspartame is bad for you and how improbable it is that a zero-calorie beverage that isn’t water can be a good thing. I ran it by Katie, and she likes the idea, too.

Update 6/11/2008: I created the FaceBook group and invited a handful of my friends, but the group is open so you should be able to joint (I think).  It is called “Support Danielle Bean Kick Diet Coke Habit”.

At Texas A&M, most seniors choose to buy Aggie rings, and there has been a dubious tradition of dunking your ring in X pints of beer, ranging from a “schooner” to a full pitcher; further, the Aggie is supposed to drink the entire pitcher of beer very quickly (like 100 seconds).

I had many friends take part in this tradition, and most of them puked up some amount of the beer either while still drinking it or right after. I chose not to dunk my ring, but now there is something for people like me: Priests at St. Mary’s University Center will bless Aggie rings, dunking them in holy water!

Former student and priest Fr. Brian McMaster has been doing the blessing, which I think is just awesome.

Gig ‘em Aggies!

I currently have 3 blog posts crowding in my head and want to comment on all of Devin’s posts–isn’t he wonderful? But, I’ve had such a hard time keeping up lately. I know that’s no excuse, however. Steven Covey says that the phrase “I don’t have time” is not entirely correct. Of course, I have time. I just haven’t scheduled it to include blogging. So, dear readers, wait for me. I’m coming. I promise.

I just thought of an exciting new feature to introduce to the Vanguard: Name that Book/Movie/Video Game.  I give you a (potentially cryptic) quote from one of the above items and you tell me and the other readers the book title/movie or game name.

Our inaugural edition will be from the original 8-bit Nintendo (NES) series (e.g. Super Mario Bros.):

“They say his father was a great magician in India–don’t be charmed by his magic punches!”

Name that video game.

The inspiring movie Bella is out on DVD and has been extremely popular, breaking Amazon.com’s top 10 list at number 5 as of a few days ago!

I heard on Relevant Radio that both Rosie O’Donnell and Bill O’Reilly have praised the movie and given their enthusiastic support of it; apparently Rosie said that it was the best movie she saw in 2007, so obviously it has a broad appeal.

We promoted this movie frequently and have been delighted that it has been a success.  Why?  Because it is a good movie that inspires you to be a better person, even if it means making sacrifices, and we want to see more movies like it.

You may remember that the weekend it came out the top-grossing movie was, of all things, Saw IV.  I mention this fact because of the stark contrast between these two films and that one of them no doubt had little trouble being financed and produced while the other had to pull out all the stops just to get a chance to be seen by people.  This is what we want to change in Hollywood by supporting good movies like Bella.

I just finished reading The Children of Hurin, the latest book written by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son, Christopher, but different from the previous ones in that it is a cohesive novel rather than unfinished tales and fragments of stories.

The story is mainly about Turin (pronounced TOO-rin), of whom a long chapter in The Silmarillion is dedicated; those familiar with the story from that book will be interested to read the full account of Turin and his tragic life in this one.

Turin lived long before the Hobbits and the One Ring ever came to be, in the first days of the world when Morgoth, Sauron’s master, still lived in the world and fought against Elves and Men.

Turin grew up in the time that Morgoth regained the mastery over the world, and so early on he loses his dad, Hurin, whom Morgoth took captive, and he is sent away to live with the Elves in Doriath (Thingol and Melian the Maia).

He grows strong but also becomes very prideful, which plagues him his entire life, ultimately leading to his doom.  Turin leaves the Elves and takes up with unscrupulous outlaws for many years; his best Elf friend, Beleg, leaves in search of him and eventually finds him, but through a twist of fate, Turin unwittingly slays Beleg, one of many horrible things that happens in Turin’s life.

Turin finds his way to another Elven stronghold, in Nargothrond, and once again rises in honor to become the captain of the Elven army there.  However, his pride also rises, and when he is warned to prepare to defend against Morgoth’s assault, he ignores the advice.

Morgoth sends the evil dragon Glaraung to attack Nargothrond, and because Turin did not do as he weas counselled, Nargothrond falls and all are slaughtered.

Turin escapes, however, and ultimately flees to a new land, where he again becomes the chief; his sister Nienor and his mother try to find him, but are themselves ensnared by the dragon, and Nienor loses her memory, ultimately finding her way to Turin’s new homeland.

Grossly, Turin and Nienor fall in love and get married (eww), neither realizing they are siblings, and shortly thereafter, Glaraung comes after Turin again; Turin slays the dragon, but in its dying breath, the dragon reveals to Nienor that Turin is her brother; at the dragon’s death the spell is broken, and she regains her memories.

Then, horrified by what has befallen, she throws herself off a cliff.  (Yes, this book is quite tragic).  Turin wakes up from his wounds, finds out that Nienor was his sister and that she is now dead, and he falls on his own sword.

It is a really depressing story, perhaps the most central one in the elder days of Middle Earth.  The writing does not have Tolkien’s brilliance, but it is worthwhile for hardcore fans of the trilogy.

Our friend Amy sent us this unusual story about a man making his beehives in the shape of monasteries because “bees have souls, too”.

Well, technically they don’t, but this story is still funny.

The Libertos were kind of enough to tag us with this meme, 7 random things/habits/quirks about yourself:

1. I am a horrible back-seat driver, no matter how good the driver is

2. My parents thought I had obsessive-compulsive disorder growing up because of various compulsive little things I did

3. My parents also thought I was becoming a pyromaniac because of how much I loved fire

4. I played soccer my whole life and suffered a broken nose from a head butt and two broken arms from taking some spills while playing

5. I loved the cafeteria food growing up in public school

6. My last years playing baseball in Pony league, around 8th grade, though I hated playing pitcher, I had to pitch and had three different pitches: fastball, change-up, and knuckle-ball; I was the only kid that age who threw the knuckle-ball. Batters on the other team were either bewildered by it or smacked the heck out of it (when it didn’t properly “knuckle”).

7. I won the checkers championship at my school in 3rd grade (only to be beaten in checkers by Katie on our first visit together) and I won the chess championship at my high school my senior year (only to be beaten by Robert, who didn’t play much chess growing up, in college a few years later)

I tag all of our blogging Amigos!

It was junior year in high school, and I was playing chess during lunch with some of my friends.

Yes, chess is nerdy, but we also played varsity soccer, so the cool points we got from that balanced out the other (mostly).
An underclassman approached the table behind me, observes the game, and then blurts out: “Ohh look….Chess!” in a very goofy-sounding way, then he walked off.

My friends and I all laughed and never forgot this incident.

I’m the kind of person who gets interested in something and really delves into it, for a couple of months or a year, then gets a bit tired of it and sets it aside for a time, eventually returning to study the subject again sometime later. Chess has been like that for me: I played a good bit in high school, even subscribing for a few years to Chess Life magazine, then shelving the pieces for a long while after getting bored with it.

Well, my mom kindly gave me a Borders Books gift card for my birthday, so I bought two chess books with the money and have started getting interested in chess again.

International Master (IM) Jeremy Silman’s The Amateur’s Mind is a great book for me because it assumes you already know the basics and then explores what amateur chess players do wrong when playing, especially analyzing their thought processes behind making moves.

It is also an entertaining book because his students explain why such-and-such move is really good in their opinion, and then Silman shows the reader why the move is really bad and how the student and the reader need to change their chess thought processes.

The other book is by Grandmaster (GM) John Nunn, called Understanding Chess, Move By Move, and it is also excellent because Nunn explains why the old “basic principles” of chess that everyone has learned for the past 70 years are usually good but often incorrect for a given board position, and so the chess player must understand the caveats involved with each position.

(Note: Grandmaster is the highest ranking of chess and is greater than International Master, but both of these guys could beat me blindfolded).

Nunn selected many well-played games in modern history and annotates them heavily, which means that every move or two he describes what is happening, why moves were played the way they were, what mistakes were made, and variations (which are other lines of play that could have been made).

This dense annotation is helpful because, for an amateur like me, some books don’t explain all the moves and instead let 4 moves go by and then say something unhelpful like “King to a3 was an obvious choice”, when it wasn’t obvious to me at all!

Chess is a good game, and I look forward to teaching my sons and daughters how to play it, just as my dad taught me growing up. Who knows, my child may become the next Garry Kasparov or Judit Polgar!

…was great!

Katie and I just returned from it, and it went well.  The young lady models performed a dance at the beginning of the show to the “It’s a New Day” theme song which was cute, and then my friend David Thies performed several of his songs, some from his new album, Sunset and the Battle, which I got a promo copy of a few weeks ago.

The models walked the runway 4 different times, each time featuring a different theme of dress; some of the young ladies walked a bit nervously, but that is very understandable and all of them did a good job of overcoming their fears.

Brenda Sharman spoke, as well as one of the Texas State basketball coaches, a young man who gave the “guy’s” perspective on feminine beauty and modesty.

This show was the first annual one, so I bet that next year will be even better.  Way to go, young ladies!

I just heard about a new Christian fiction book called Danny Gospel, by David Athey, and it looks very cool:

As a boy he performed concerts singing old-time hymns with his family and got so famous he’s still known around Iowa as Danny Gospel. But since then, things haven’t worked out quite the way he planned. And now Danny prays for just one thing: a normal, happy life.

What he gets instead is a kiss.

He wakes one morning to a perfectly lovely woman dressed in white who leans down, kisses him on the lips…and then disappears. The next moment, Danny finds himself launched into a quest to find this woman he’s sure is his true love. He is an everyday hero on anything but an everyday journey—dreaming impossible dreams and, no matter how much he must suffer, pursuing romance and heavenly glory.

And here is one recommendation of an early reviewer:

David Athey has written a Gospel novel, and not merely because of its title. It is a dream-like and mystical narrative that takes us inside the mind and life of a Christian who has sought to seize the Kingdom in the midst of sorrows and failures. At a time when much so-called “Christian” fiction is obscenely sentimental, Danny Gospel is a bracing and honest book.

–Dr. Ralph C. Wood, author, Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South

I really like good books with Christian ideals and principles that is not syrupy-sweet, so I am looking forward to reading this one.

I love that song.

Katie and I just found the video and article from the local TV news station, KEYE, about the upcoming Pure Fashion show!

Rock on, fashionable and beautiful young ladies!

As Katie mentioned recently, shortly after bragging to her and probably others that I had never gotten a ticket, I was pulled over by the highway patrol twice on the way back from New Mexico along I-10, somewhere in the trackless expanse of Western Texas.

The first one was the worst because we had just crested a small rise and the patrol car appeared suddenly traveling in the opposite direction from us, and sure enough, I saw him from my rear-view make the dreaded U-turn in the median to come and get me.

I knew I was going a bit faster than the speed limit, but within the acceptable parameters of safe speeding which we all know and love–well, the patrol man was about to break the rules and give me a ticket anyway, or so I thought.

Fortunately, he let me off with a warning, as Katie revealed: 84 mph in an 80 mph zone.  I was greatly relieved and thankful to our Lord for not being given a ticket.

The second time we were pulled over was pretty nonsensical, as the elderly ladies in front of us panicked when they realized they were passing a highway patrol car, who was going 5 miles under the speed limit, and thus they hit their brakes and our car came closer to theirs, but still within a safe distance.

Nonetheless, the patrol man promptly sped up and turned on the flashing lights behind me!   I didn’t think we would escape from being pulled over twice, but we said a prayer, and once more, we were left off the hook. 

The moral of the story:  Don’t brag and don’t underestimate Divine Providence!

This Sunday, April 6!  Tickets are selling fast, so hurry to buy yours.  Here is the link to the Pure Fashion e-ticket sales.  See you there!

As many of you know, I am a happy member of the lay movement, Regnum Christi.  Our motto of sorts is “Thy Kingdom Come”, and I often sign my e-mails with “TKC!”.  A friend of mine, let’s call him J-bud, recently sent me the following e-mail.  Very silly.  I like it.

Dear Catherine:

I have been wondering:  What does “TKC” stand for?  Possibilities:

Telekom-Kontrol Commission (Austria)

Time Keeper Central

Takeda Chem

Turkcell

Textilkombinat Cottbus (Germany)

Teamkill and Cheat Community

Telekommunikationsregulierung mit beschränkter Haftung (Telekom-Control GmbH, Austria)

Toronto Kendo Club (Canada)

The Kennel Club (England)

Tailor’s shop / Kitchen / Covered way

Turn-Key Contract

Thomas Kvamme Consulting (Norway)

Tom Kita Chara (scouting)

Tkachenko

The Knife Collectors

Tightly Knit Community

The King’s College

Trench Coat Knights

Technology Compatibility Kit

Third Culture Kids

Trinity College, Kandy (Sri Lanka)

I think I need to re-evaluate my computer programming job, and perhaps think more about a musical career, especially after being sent this picture from my friend Dave:

If you’re interested in being inspired. If you want to teach your young daughter to value modesty. If you want to help evangelize the fashion industry, I have an event for you.

Sunday, April 6th at the Austin Country Club, 30 brave models of virtue and loveliness will walk the runway. Let’s pack the ballroom and support them.

Get your tickets here!
(Devin here: It’s a new day!)

This blog is really hilarious and unfortunately true for many white people.

I am half-Honduran so, of course, none of it applies to me.

White people voting Green Party!

Any religion except your parents’ (Christianity) is cool to believe in!

Prince Caspian movie, opening May 16

Whenever Danielle Bean sends me and Katie an email, it is an occasion for rejoicing and jubilation.

Today was no different, when I checked my inbox and saw a message to us from Danielle!

She was graciously thanking us for my (only somewhat over-the-top) comment on her blog post in the famous (or in-famous, that is, “more than famous”) attachment parenting debate.

She also told us that my comment had been found humorous by the Wheat and Weeds blogger, whom I am not familiar with but who posts prolifically on their blog and who seems very cool!