Life and Simulation

Huh.

I'm actually posting. Weird, eh?

So this past week has been pretty hectic. There's a lot of work to be done on my latest project. It's been keeping me prohibitively busy for the last month or so. Which means I haven't found much time to do anything particularly interesting.

Against my better judgement, I picked up a copy of 'The Last of Us', which is a new videogame for the PS3. It's another zombie game, where a particularly sinister fungus manages to infect humans and turn them into mushroom-faced monsters. It's very cool, very immersive, and if you're a fan of being scared out of your pants, I definitely recommend it.

I also beat a game called Torchlight 2. It was short but very fun, a good dungeon-romp with a lot of side-quests that were surprisingly long. I've been used to Diablo 3, a similar game with a very linear storyline, so it was refreshing to see a different take on the genre.

A lot of my time has gone to work and gaming. Fortunately, I've been doing some other things as well. I tried a new bubble tea shop near my place. From all observation, I think Asian people need a daily recommended dosage of tea to survive. If you cut me, I'd bleed a watery mix of dried leaves. Some people are connoisseurs. Other people, like me, are just fascinated by the fact that a drink can have chewy snacks in it.

I've also done a lot of work with my electronics hobby. I've had a small solar panel in my toybox for about a year, so I decided I would do something with it. I looked online and found a tutorial for what people call a 'Symet', which is short for 'Symmetrical'. It's basically a small solar-powered robot that scoots across a desk in a random path when exposed to light. The additional components cost me less than five bucks, and it was surprisingly simple to put together. The solar panel collects light and stores it up in a series of capacitors (batteries), and when there's enough power, it activates the motor and the whole contraption spins across the tabletop.

I want to buy a helium balloon from a party shop - you know the foil ones that last for ages? - and attach the Symet to it. If I put a propellor on the motor, it should, in theory, be able to drive around the room like a tiny blimp. I have no idea what I would do with it, but I think it'd be somewhat relaxing to watch a tiny robo-balloon float across my room bumping into things.