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School LAN Party

This is awesome. Without mentioning names, someone hid TrackMania Nations on the share drive and we had an über LAN party during programming class. At the height of it’s popularity, there were about 10 people connected, which was cool for a while until the server started crapping out. And here’s why:

Doing some simple math, the game is about 300MB. So each time it is launched, it has to be loaded from S:\. Lets estimate that only 100MB of that 300MB got loaded. By the time we loaded a few levels, we’ll add on another 20MB. When all 10 players needed to load the same level, the server kind of blew up and lagged badly, so everyone’s game froze and we stopped playing. I’ll bet we sucked up a few gigs of bandwidth for this. And also, we kind of lagged up the entire school for 20 minutes. Oops. And the share drive kind of sucks because it consists of old hardware. So now we have to limit connections in the game (or play a less intensive game)

Last semester, the admins emailed our teacher and told him that we were using way too much bandwidth in class. Let’s see how long it takes them to notice now.

End of Spring Break

What a shame… Spring break is over: Here is a brief, undetailed recap that is not in sentence form (not that anyone cares).
Friday – Went to Evac and ate good barbecued food there. Saturday – Fairfield’s accepted students day (out in the cold rain). Sunday – people came over for dinner. Monday – Did nothing in the morning and then at 9 I drove Drob around Eastchester doing Eastchester-like things (Borders, etc.). Tuesday I fixed the ninja’s computer (turns out his video card wasn’t in all the way) and I had to reformat and get him wifi and whatnot. I also had a sore throat and that was the beginning of my sickness. Wednesday – Took a ride up to the Catskills and spent the day there. I was also sick… (cough, cold, sore throat was starting to go away). Thursday and Friday were boring. Saturday was also boring and Sunday I had food and then visited people for Easter. Monday I did nothing thanks to my dumb cell phone not ringing (thanks Verizon). Wait, I lied – I worked on some longterm work and things that needed to get done. And that was my break. So if anyone went away or did better things, good for you, I don’t care. No refund for you.

Six Flags Goodness + Kingda Ka

Today was awesome – Six Flags with Gruber’s physics classes and random other people. We arrived around 10AM just as the park was opening. I was worried that it would be crowded because it was opening weekend and a nice spring, sunny day (compared to last year’s cold drizzle). My group of awesomeness went straight for Nitro (three times in a row) since Kingda ka was closed for repairs, followed by Batman, Batman and Robin, Medusa, Kingda Ka (see below) and the Scream Machine.

There were technically no lines at all in the park, except for Kingda Ka. We ended up waiting on on line for 2 hours and 45 minutes, and in that time, it was shut down for about 20 minutes for repairs and there was this crazy DJ named Scott playing 80s rock and giving out stuffed crayons. We all got crazy sunburns while waiting forever on that line. But yeah, Kingda Ka kicked… The acceleration was insane and the twisty 400+ foot drop was great. Nitro is probably still the best ride in the park because it lasts so long and is a classic, but Kingda Ka is awesome just so you can say you’ve been on the fastest, tallest roller coaster in the world. Our group was lucky to get on – some people got screwed big time. After waiting 3 hours in line and sitting in the car waiting for launch, it broke for the rest of the day. Not only did they miss out on that, but they wasted 3 hours of other activities.

Pure fun… Best day of 2006 so far… It was even better than last year’s Six Flags trip (it was cold rainy and Kingda Ka/ Medusa were closed. If you don’t agree with me, I’ll eject you without a refund.