Instant Gratification+

Something that sort of slipped my mind (since I was in a rush to head out...).

It's not to say that we should completely ignore instant gratification just because it's not good for the long run. Unless you're completely insane and you're able to stagger several projects together such that you can ride the achievements of one onto another, chances are you're going to have a lot of down time in between.

It boils down to a balance of sorts. In between all the highs of your long term achievements, instant gratification is sprinkled in between just to keep you going. I think a graphical explanation would make the most sense so here:

The red would be the long term gratification. It takes a while to get there and you don't see the results right away. That's what all the other ones are there for. Also, you might notice that that instant gratifications are shorter. Perhaps that's symbolic too. Of course, there are some long term gratifications that kind of last a ridiculously long time, but this is a simplified diagram for the general purpose of explaining the concept.

Or y'know, I wanted an excuse to play with SketchUp.

In other news...

I beat three games in between this post and last. Talk about instant gratification to the max... Whee. Braid was a puzzle game that was released a long long while back. The puzzles all revolve around your ability to reverse time and the mechanics of each world that tweak the time reversal. Solving the puzzles required thinking in a weird way, and when you finally understand how to solve the puzzle, there's an immense sense of satisfaction. A neat touch was how the music would play backwards while you reverse time. It's trippy.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was a newly released game on PSN. After playing the short demo with my brother, the two of us were a little.... hooked. Twin stick shooter, platforming / puzzle elements, and a lot of yelling between the two of us. Reminds me of games the two of us use to play on the SNES.

Machinarium is a point and click game. I have not played point and click games in a long time. I was also reminded why I typically don't play those games. These games, although puzzle solving, are extremely strict in terms of how you must solve their puzzles. I'm supposed to pick up something here, combine it with that, and then click here. I had my own ideas... but apparently they're not good enough for the game. It's restrictive is all. Not to say the game's not fun, I had fun while playing it. The entire game is hand-drawn and sports a color-palette of white, brown, gray, which matches the theme of the story. Despite my grips about the genre, the game itself was very well done.

Midterm rush is coming. I should be studying instead of doing this blogging business. But... soon.

Two consecutive hours of Ultimate this weekend. Felt like I contributed more this time around, but that might also be because the other teams weren't as strong as the ones we played previously. Managed a block or two and even managed to score a point while literally sitting in the endzone. Also find a hole in my pants in an unsightly place. It's being patched since I like this pair of track pants (read: my only pair). Last game next week. D=.

Family dinner thing went well last night. Not awkward at all, except for a short moment when being confronted by my cousin (in a good way?). Food was delicious as usual. And it's always fun when there's a little kid around. Heh. They're so bubbly.

Bcem575 presentation didn't go as well as I'd want it to. Probably because it's material that I'm not familiar with. Probably also because it's material that other students were more familiar with, which enabled them to ask us tough questions. I also had difficulty following what they asked.. so that didn't help. Sigh. Hope we don't lose too many marks.

It's another week that's starting. Let's hope we get lots of studying done.