Hazards of the Infrequent

A long (long) time ago, I did 3D modelling. It was a long forgotten day when my 386 with its 16MB of system memory and 4.2GB of disk was a serious amount of computing power.

By today's standards it's pretty weak, but in a day when hardware acceleration hadn't quite reached consumers it was pretty awesome.

Hazard: I have these stored in RD4 format (I upgraded). Nothing in the modern era seems to be able read these files. God knows that even if I had an install disk for the program that made those that it'd be a miracle to get a machine together that will even run it.

The good news: the files are in ASCII. The bad news: the format was written by a "real programmer" and is unintelligible. Yeah. Awesome.

Sooo....my options are looking like:

fiddle through the data to try to piece together the geometry

keep looking for something that can import them

rebuild the models from the source sketches assuming I can find them

Woo.

Half a Rant

I got a package today. This has learned me four things:
- the mail carrier chick is hot
- either my angry calls to the post office or my judiciously applied handwritten nametag worked
- my doorbell also works (didn't know I had one, the random assortment of pizza doods that have been here always knock)
- my legos are no longer lost in the mail

That would be all except for my half a rant.

I spent two days trying to get Linux installed on a spare machine to be a) a non-windows platform to cross compile on, b) an always on place I can drop the multitude of files I want to keep, c) an X server I can break (no X on my firwall). Gentoo did not play nice. This morning after many hours of not being able to get xorg and fluxbox installed properly, I got pissed off and installed OpenBSD instead. It was installed with X before lunch with xorg and fluxbox no less.

Gentoo definitely seemed cool after about an eight year hiatus from anything Linux. If I cared more about the operating system, I probably could have spent another couple days getting it to work. Then I realized that I'm old and cranky and have got better things to do and...hey! Durn kids! Get off my lawn!

Adventures With Legos, Part 1

This one is dedicated to Mr. Brian's weiner cat who sadly can't play with legos due to a distinct lack of opposable thumbs.



Step 1: Pretend to be able to draw with any kind of perspective (yes, the torso part was hacked from a different scan to save your eyes some pain).

Step 2: Get drunk off your rocker and watch TV for five days straight in a pile of legos. Kids: get your parents' permission first!

Step 3: Build:



Depending on which one you saw first and/or your particular loyalties to the respective brands, this is either:
RFL3N-Rifleman from Classic Battletech

==OR==
Raidar X Battloid from Robotech

==OR==
ADR-04-Mk.X Destroid Defender from Macross


I swear that I've run across a blurb about how FASA settled in court with the Macross doods on Classic Battletech but for the life of me, I can't find it now.

Action pose!



And just in case you think I'm way out there, this dood will actually sell you a lego mech.

Stupid Ebay Tricks

A sane person might think that paying rent in one state, mortgage in another, and being out of work for the better part of a month would prevent me from buying crap on Ebay.

Ebay is evil; that is all.

Now Reporting LIVE From Maryland

For those wondering: I did indeed make it though not in record time. That said, I'm pretty glad I took two days to make the trip with a totally loaded car than just doing it in one.

Since arriving in town late afternoon yesterday I've scouted out the appropriate places:
- an appropriate establishment to buy beer
- a place I can get food
- the local EB Games
- Chipotle

The cable doods were here this afternoon and I've appropriated one 72"x30" folding table and a folding chair on the cheap so it's almost like civilization again.