Sunday Naps

Everyone enjoys a nice Sunday nap. (Everyone I know at least... (or should I say anyone who's normal? ... k, maybe i shouldn't say that)) It is very enjoyable to be able to catch up on some much needed sleep that may have been lost over the week/weekend. I haven't had a good Sunday nap in a while because I've been busy with stuff at the church, busy doing stuff with friends, or busy with other things like that. So today (well, technically yesterday since I'm writing this after midnight), I decided to take a nice little Sunday nap ... but I didn't really get one.

It was almost 2:00 pm, I just got off the phone with someone and I decided to lay down for a nap. At 2:06, my brother calls me about plans for later that day. No big deal right? I had just started to get comfortable - just a minor interruption and I soon resumed my nap attempt. I was fine for a little while - got a little sleep in - but at 2:28 a friend called to ask me a favor. My attempt was again thwarted around 2:40 when my brother got home and I talked to him a little about our plans for later that day. Then, after focusing my efforts on getting some rest, my phone rings again. 2:45 someone from church was returning a call I had made earlier. After that was settled, I again tried to get some shut-eye but 2:51 my phone rings again! It was an assistant stake executive secretary asking me if I could meet with a member of the stake presidency later that day. After that, I only had about 20 more minutes of my previously allotted nap time left. I got close to dozing off but then I couldn't sleep when someone who lives in the house behind my apartment complex was outside having a heated conversation on the phone with his ex-girlfriend about some money ($600) and a car or a motorcycle. I figured this all out because he also called someone else and was explaining the situation to them and saying it was unfair and that she needed to give him his money because it was still his money ... or something like that.

By this time, I couldn't sleep and I needed to be somewhere within a short amount of time, so I got up and went about my day. My nap attempt had failed.

Konami Code

First, a little history lesson: This is a cheat code used in many classic videogames, specifically games made by Konami. It was first used in a game called Gradius, but it was made famous by the game Contra for the NES. This code, if entered in at the title screen, gave the player 30 lives (opposed to the 3 that you normally start out with). This code became well known and popular enough that different versions of it have been used in many games since. I remember using a similar code in the game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project. If you entered Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B, (Select if you want to play 2 players), Start on the title screen and after choosing your character, a new screen would appear where you could change the options of the game. You could change the level (or scene) you started on, the difficulty (easy or normal), and how many lives you started with (3, 5, or 7). On the same screen was a sound test thing where you could listen to all of the music tracks in the game.

More recently, I have found this code to be used on some websites. Just last week, the Konami code could be used when visiting ESPN.com to make rainbows and unicorns appear, but this was quickly removed. A list of websites that use the Konami code for something can be found here: http://konamicodesites.com/ (You need to enter the code to access the site.) Some are strange, some are "meh", but others are neat. My favorites are Facebook, Specced for Awesome (zombies), Paul Irish (I think this is the same type of thing that was on the ESPN website), and Patrick A. Carrell Design.

Graphics

I'm taking a graphics class this semester and I wanted to share a few things that I have done so far. All of these were done in a program called Maya.

Here is a castle made with basic polygon objects:

















Here is Popeye made with curves:




















Here is a Lego man and a spool made with NURBS surfaces:

Robots are cool

Yeah, you know it. Robots are pretty cool.

The other day I saw the movie I, Robot and I really enjoyed it. I just looked at the rottentomatoes.com ratings for I, Robot and I was surprised that it got such low ratings. I also just saw War of the Worlds and I was surprised that it got higher ratings than I, Robot. I enjoyed I, Robot more than War of the Worlds. It kept me more interested in the story and things made more sense. Also, I didn't like how War of the Worlds ended; there were some things that weren't explained and it seemed like there wasn't much of a resolution.

Anyway, back to the robots. Here's a cool video about a Japaneese robot called Keepon. It was made to study social development by interacting with children. It has two cameras for eyes and a microphone in its nose. And, it can be programmed to do some interesting things like dancing to rythms. Enjoy this video:



Heres another video about robots, but this time with fictional robots ... robot insurance, specifically. I always get a good laugh out of this video:

"Camping"

Over the weekend my brother and I went "camping" with some extended family for a family reunion. I say "camping" because we had cabins and there was a pavilion with a sink and a fridge and stuff like that. I don't call that real camping. Here's a link to some photos that I took:

"Camping" Photos

Here's a few of my favorite shots:

CC

When choosing a title for my blog, I wanted something different and interesting. So, I found a list of interesting words and I came across "conglomerate." I liked the sound of it and the definition fit for something like this. Then, I realized that the first letters together are "CC."
So, I thought that I would write a little about a few interesting things that are referred to as "CC."

1. Cross Country
Cross Country running is a great sport. I ran cross country in high school. There's nothing like running for fun!




2. Conquer Club
Conquer Club is an online Risk game. A while ago I was looking for a place to play Risk online and I cane across a few different places, but Conquer Club is the best one out there. They have a great community of players and as of now they have 87 different maps to play on. There are many different game settings as well, so you can find the settings you like the best. If you enjoy playing Risk this is definitely something you should check out. Click the banner below to check it out and join if you'd like.



3. Command & Conquer
This might be an exception to 'CC' since it's 'C&C', but Command & Conquer is a real-time strategy game series for the PC. There are many C&C games out there, but my favorite is Red Alert 2.
Wikipedia: Red Alert 2

4. .cc
In computer programming, ".cc" is a C++ source file extension, although ".cpp" is more common.

5. cubic centimeter, carbon copy, closed captioning, etc ...
More things that can be abbreviated as "CC" or "cc" can be found here: CC

Craig's Blog

Welcome to Conglomerate Craig! I'm planning on making this a blog of things I'm interested in: movies I've seen, games I've played, etc. Stay tuned for updates.