Turning Corners

Yawn, yawn, yawn...another boring day at work, but at least today I have something interesting to do. A defect. Whoope-diddy-doo!

Last night, continued working on Avatara. I'm in the middle of cleaning up the code, refactoring the communciation system into a single class so I can send any message at any time. (Will need it later.) I've also optimised along the way, especially as it pertains to Direction objects on the server side. (Still creating too many on the client side, though...)

But, I've done a good deal of refactoring and, after having a couple bugs crop up, they have been fixed so the game is running as well as it did before I started. Once I'm done refactoring, I will start working on some other features such as game seating and...PLAYING CHESS. ;-)

Michele played some SimCity 3000 UL last night...she actually shocked me! She started off doing some crazy stuff that I thought would ruin her (too much building to start, stretched across the whole land). But, in time, she got a couple loans and things look good right now. Maybe I can learn from her. :-)

I'm tempted to buy the Strategy Guide...but I like trying to figure out the optimal building strategy on my own. But, in time, it's only $8 to buy it on EBay.

Also, read a couple more chapters in Harry Potter. I'm shocked at how much is different from the movie. When I saw the movie, it had been several months since I read the book - and things were "close enough" to convince me they were accurate.

But it's the little things. In the book, Hermione offers no help to Ron when he caused the troll's club to stop in mid-air. In the movie she does...and it better explains the three's friendship afterwards. In the book, she just screams...so why did they befriend her?

In the movie, when Harry chooses his wand, we see him given one wand which causes him to destroy part of the store! In the book, there is no such action -- all of the wands did nothing until the final one.

In the movie, there is no hint as to who bought Harry the Nimbus 2000 -- except that he looks at McGonagall who gives him a wry wink. Perhaps Harry's suspicion wasn't necessary, for in the book, the broomstick comes with a LETTER from Professor McGonagall saying that she bought it but to keep it hush-hush. You see, first years are NOT ALLOWED to have broomsticks.

Of course, there are missing sections. In fact, right after Harry receives the broomstick, Draco Malfoy (asshat) comes and grabs it. He then marvels that Harry is still in school (When Harry rides the broomstick when Hooch leaves, that's an expellable offense). He ends up challening Harry to a duel at midnight.

In the book, the duel is a ruse. Draco never shows. It's just his attempt to have Harry caught out of his room at midnight. But, Ron and he and Hermione and even Neville run across Fluffy, the giant 3-headed dog, during their expedition...which is inaccurate to the movie, where they see him for the first time much later.

There is also the whole missing dragon subplot...but I haven't re-read that part yet. It was very noticeable while watching the movie, though.

Well...my lunch is over. A sad time. Back to my boring life. Off I go!