TOJam #4 - Saturday - Clogged Laughter, Drunk Circuits and Doomed Boat

4 Days of TOJam #4 by Jim McGinley
Thursday   Friday   Saturday   Sunday
Clogged Laughter, Drunk Circuits and Doomed Boat

"What time is it?"
Jim McG, 2009


Morning

We need sugar   Credit

Alarm wakes me at 9 am. I slept. Suckers. Can't remember if I ate breakfast (blogging about May 2nd on June 17th has some drawbacks). Arrive at Noon to find Rob holding down the fort. Scott Pilgrim is gone! No trace of the film crew whatsoever. Apparently Eastern avenue was covered in snow last night. Today, nary a snowflake. No wonder Hollywood wants to go digital. Goodbye Michael Cera, don't blow it.

Innovation Toronto is half full, unsure how many crazies stayed the night. Jerry left earlier. The 8 bags of garbage we collected yesterday have dissapeared. "Jerry took care of it". Don't exactly know how he did that, especially considering he's on a motorcycle.

In honour of free comic day, Parrish brought a heaping helping of comics from work, and once again I wish I lived there. There are 6 to choose from, and every Jammer gets two. Among the offerings are a Scott Pilgrim 1-shot (coincidence?), and a Toronto Special that contains "Evil Bacon" by old university friend and comic art genius Dave Lapp. Coincidence!?!?

Parrish asks if we have coffee. Yesterday's unspeakable incident has faded somewhat, and I've setup my home coffee maker. I promise to make a fresh pot right away.

Somehow, the tarps have blown off the skylights again. Luckily, jammers are welcoming the extra Vitamin D and don't want them re-covered. Extra lucky because we're all out of ideas and toilet tank lids.

Gracefully dance bags of garbage between developers. I'm a garbage ballerina. Collect 6 new bags, including 2 full of recycling (the gross cardboard box has won hearts & minds). I fill the washrooms with toilet paper and paper towels, it was almost too late.

Inivislbe Ninja Squid smelled Skunk twice last night. In an unused room, we found animal tracks in the dust. Plan to close windows tonight. Thank goodness there are no holes in the ceiling.

Parrish asks if the coffee is ready. Acknowledge and promptly forget.

For the first time, I'm left in charge of "The Candy Stand". During the Jam, we sell snacks at wholesale prices (aka. dirt cheap). We need to sell everything, otherwise we'll be sitting on a mountain of Slim Jims. Aside from the usual suspects, Jerry included Jumbo Freezies, Red Rave (Red Bull from Costco) and mini cereal boxes. Cereal boxes insanely popular! Milk flows in abundance, but I worry about the upcoming spoon shortage. For the record, game makers don't want Orange Crush. It's Coke or Diet Coke. Also for the record, we don't sell Slim Jims. Who eats those things!?

Someone almost sits in the tampon. I stop him... should really move that.

VB6 can't rotate sprites, so Polly created 16 bitmap rotations of the boat. Just loaded the boat into the game, but it's rotatin' choppy (believe I have Chamillionaire's next hit song). Since the code only cycles through 16 bitmaps, conclude it's the boat source. Polly determines that the Photoshop rotation center was a few pixels off the boat center, causing the entire problem. Since she lovingly ensured the Boat smokestack shadow didn't rotate, fixing this will cause her a world of pain. Go Polly!

Jeff's entire team was unable to make it, yet he continues to persevere. The man is an inspiration. Battle on Xena... battle on.


Afternoon

Michael's sobre   Credit

Michael tells me about a "hole in the ceiling" in the round table room. Preposterous! People have been programming in there for a day and a half! Assume he's drunk. Wait... there IS a huge hole! Since the room isn't flooded, and the sky is shining through, deduce it must lead to a skylight so clean it's undetectable. No clue how we missed that huge hole. Thank goodness there are no skunks.

Andrei arrives - was worried he wouldn't make it. He's extremely busy creating a Flash MMO, and apologizes for his late arrival. "Wouldn't miss it for the world!"

We drag a heavy old school porcelain bathtub, complete with claw feet, into a corner to make more room in the bullpen. One side was cut out, and a cushion was inserted. After sitting in it, Andy confirms it's the world's greatest dog chair.

Thoughts of Parrish's empty mug flash before me. Plug in coffee maker. Grind beans. Fit filter. Add grounds. Fill with water. Done. I've done this countless times at home. 5 minutes later, the coffee maker overflows. Where are all the paper towels!?

Notice 2 people walking around in bare feet... Unexpected. Dangerous.
Next year... tetanus shots for all.

Tessa and 2 catering groupies arrive carrying 400 fresh cookies from à la Carte. 200 chocolate chip cookies vanish within an hour. The remaining 200 oatmeal raisin last another two. Ryan's 50 Timbits are used as chasers, and The Candy Stand remains busy. Jammers eat like Olympic athletes.

Polly's properly rotating boat floats in front of me. Wait... it's partially transparent within the game - that's never happened before. Extra puzzling considering I'm using the same Win32 sprite library I've used for the last 5 years. Perhaps my graphics card is dying? I check the game I copied the sprite library from and it works perfectly. Plug Boat into that game - it's partially transparent. Conclusions:
1. Graphics card is fine.
2. Boat bitmap is haunted.

Someone almost sits in the tampon. We stop him...
and finally banish the chair to the unused hall.

Andrei is leaving!? He claims to have finished his game. He also claims to have started his game at the jam. That means he spent 3 hours. Either Andrei has finally gone insane, or his game is very very bad. Andrei: "You'll see."


Evening

Do NOT Go In THERE   Credit

Possibly sobre and definitely sombre Michael explains there is "a problem with the washroom". He went to brush his teeth... and... and... and I reeeeally should see it for myself. I am greeted by an empty toilet bowl clogged by a single giant turd (probably human). Michael solved this dilemma by brushing his teeth elsewhere.

No time to panic, Michael and all his teeth are counting on me. Quickly I grab a plunger from the other bathroom, and a roll of paper towels (just in case). There's no water in the bowl so I can't plunge. Since it's empty, I gamble that a flush won't overflow. I flush... and pray.

I was ready for anything, except what happened. Standing there, plunger in hand, shocked by the unexpected turn of events I start laughing uncontrollably. I stumble out of the bathroom, doubled over with tears in my eyes. Everyone wants to know what happened, but I can't breathe. Eventually I manage to choke out... "it.. FLUSHED!!!" The offending extrusion, and all its browny goodness, simply flushed away. Did someone forget to flush? Perhaps they flushed and ran? Have zero interest in retrieving the incriminating DNA.

While my mouth fills with T & T dumplings. visions of Jerry in a ditch (wearing the coolest helmet of all time) occupy my mind. No-one has heard from him, and he's not answering his phone. It's his first weekend on his first motorcycle after staying up all night. Man those dumplings are good. Hope Jerry isn't dead.

Chris: "How's your game?"
The question catches me off guard.
My rubbery face is unable to hide the truth.
Chris: "uhhh... have you started?"
Me: "oh yeah.. YEAH. I... uh... I built a boat."
Chris: "uh... good?"

Dammit! It wasn't black! The boat bitmap background wasn't black! When Photoshop saved the boat it converted black to RGB(1,1,1). To the human eye, it looked black. To my sprite code, which only changes RGB(0,0,0) to transparent, it might as well have been neon green. Proves I'm not insane, and that I really need to stop using VB.

Em is ordering Pizza Pizza for tomorrow's dinner. It's the only meal we provide at TOJam, and the donations have made it possible. Nothing says "We have to feed 90 hungry people" like pizza. Is it cheaper to get 18 singles via the catering special... or to buy 9 twins? Is bacon topping bacon or is bacon bacon, and is either one bacon crumble? These thoughts keep Em up at night.

It's 9pm and I'm starting to feel tired. Rob's planning on spending the night so that means I'm not required to stay. Good thing because I can't for the life of me get this Boat to move properly. I need to use angles... somehow. And scaling... yeah... need to scale. No longer thinking... programming via trial and error and hope. It's not working. Hoping for magical surge in productivity.

Power cuts out for 5 machines in the bullpen. What?! 4 machines in the boardroom just lost power! After 2 days of programming, we have suddenly overloaded 2 circuits. "Cap'n, she kanna take much more!" Unravelling a byzantine labrynth of extension cords, we discover all 9 machines and the bullpen kitchen are connected to one outlet. Craig was innocently heating water for tea, and that overloaded the circuit. While we'd been making coffee and microwaving all day, apparently they have nothing on electric water heaters. We outlaw kitchen appliance use. I don't have the heart to tell Parrish.

All the breakers are on except for one. It's labelled #10 with the detailed description "X". Pushing it back on doesn't do anything, therefore it must be the fuses. There are 8 different brands of Fuses spread across 20 sockets. It doesn't help that our flashlight is an iPhone. I check. Rob checks. Tipsy Andy checks. Inebriated Chris checks. Hammered Andy checks again. All fuses look fine.

Since none are blown, several bizarre theories are concocted as to what exactly a blown fuse looks like. Booze Bag Andy: "They all look good. Then again I am drunk." Since we don't trust the labels, we'll need to shut down the entire Jam to safely experiment. Before doing that, sloshed Chris asks to see the breakers. I tell him about #10 and he switches it on... restoring power to all 9 machines! No-one is more surprised than bombed Chris. I ask him how he did it. "Just had to switch it to off before going back to on." Tanked Chris is an electrical genius. Keep him hammered, we may require his services again.

Someone almost sits in the tampon. Wait a second... How'd that chair get back in here?!
Reminds me of HellRaiser cube. Turn chair upside down and dump it in a corner.

Drove Andrew & Michael home. Talked about relationships at work, and how honest people can accidentally be viewed as assholes. Andrew: "If you ask my opinion, and I give it, don't get angry." We all agree... seems profound. Wait... am I driving?

It's midnight. While waiting for "the surge" I realize that due to the boat shape,
I can't use a rectangle for boat collisions.
Fuck.


Tomorrow:
Memories of Marq Singer fill me with despair!
Another Kind of Floater!