What's Wang This Week

I don't know how I got so neglectful of this blog. It doesn't seem right, given that this blog is about the most notable thing I've ever done.

The second most notable thing I've ever done is score over 16,000,000 points on Tetris Tournament. I did that about a month ago, and I've barely played since. I felt, at that point, like I'd proved my point. I also upgraded my laptop to OS X 10.5, partially because I hoped it would speed up my computer, but also partially because then I could run Quinn, which I'd heard described as the best Tetris client ever (although they can't say that themselves as the Tetris people brought down the hammer of litigation).

After this success, I relented to peer pressure and agreed to give a talk in the Statistics Student Seminar about Tetris. Here was my abstract:

"All work and no play make Jack a dull boy", as they say, and perish the thought that grad students are dull. A pleasant diversion can take many forms; one of the most common is the almighty video game. Recently a wave of interest around one particular game has swept through the department: that elegant evergreen, Tetris.

However, the frustration of a bad game of Tetris often leads one to play again, and again, and again, until you achieve what you consider to be a "good" game. In my talk I will discuss and demonstrate general strategies and give some tips to make your game more consistent and improve your scoring, hopefully cutting down on the wasted time of a second (and third) game.

Time-permitting, I will discuss some results about a couple of subproblems of Tetris, including the proof that it isn't possible to play a single game of Tetris forever. This will be followed by a demonstration; in this demonstration I will discuss the relatively new "infinite rotation" rule and how it affects gameplay. I will also field questions about strategy and offer the insights of a Tetris player formerly ranked 20th in the world*.

* assuming Facebook rankings are world rankings.

You'd be surprised how much there is to say about Tetris.

Last week Jowen's friend Albert and Albert's friend Alpha passed through town and they stayed with me. We did the customary trips to Sizzler and In-N-Out, and they in return gave me food. They also invited me along to visit the Googleplex on Saturday, which was pretty awesome. Notably, they both beat Jowen in visiting me here. They were great guests and as such I'm happy to call them both my friends too. Awww.

This weekend is the Bacon and/or Chocolate Experiment of '07. I ordered a turducken from a local butcher, but I realized that we had the wrong date (he and I both thought American Thanksgiving was next week), so I called on Saturday to confirm. Turns out he didn't have my name written down at all, although this could have been because he couldn't make out my last name over the phone and was looking under "Leanne" or "Liane". Maybe I should call back and make sure he didn't write my first name down as "Rachel" this time.

I booked my flight to Vancouver for December 17. Book your calendars. This is no thanks to Adam, whose assholery had me planning to fly with him to Sea-Tac to save money until he found out -- after an Air Canada sale had ended, mind you -- that he had to stay right until the end of exam period because he has to help grade an exam. Fortunately, there were still ridiculously good fares available after he let me know, so he's off my shit list for the time being. Adam: what a douche.

I also finished Metroid Prime 3 in the last month. While it was good, I can't help but feel like my time would have been better spent playing Mario 64 before Mario Galaxy came out. Actually my time would have been even better spent eating more brown rice, which is cheaper and also nourishing.

What Was Wang This Month

Quite a bit, but the main thing that I feel like sharing right this minute is that I made leaps and bounds in my Tetris game and now my best score is 4395970, which at the time was good for 27th of 131205 (omitting the obviously hacked #1 overall score of 133333337). I'd like to thank Crowded House for breaking up in 1996 and releasing a ten-year anniversary DVD of their farewell concert, which slowed down the computer enough while I had it playing in the background that I could achieve this score.

This score is good not just because it's a huge improvement because it is a better score than the cute girl who was #10 for a long time, which means that maybe I'd be worthy of her now. It's also disappointing because my officemate Daniel's best score is now 491302, and my top score is no longer ten times his.

My nephew Thomas had the chicken pox last week. Those of you who knew me when I was 17 and had the chicken pox will understand how happy I am about this.

Bad news on the T-shirt front: the time is coming very quick to retire both my #1A and #1B T-shirts. My grandmother had done a quick mend of all the little holes in my Homsar shirt and my Dick's Lumber shirt while I was home for the summer, and that was great because it bought both shirts some time. Unfortunately, new holes keep appearing in Homsar, so I'm going to retire them while they still have some dignity. I intend to say more on this later, because it really is the end of an era.

I got Metroid Prime 3: Corruption three weeks ago, but I still haven't finished it. There are two reasons for this. One, I'm busy. Two, it's a first-person shooter, and despite the really cool Wii controls, just like all the other FPSs I've played in my life, it gives me motion sickness. I'm still willing to play it for an hour or two at a time though. That I'm willing to lose my appetite for a while just to play it says something about how good the game is, because my appetite is very important to me. It also says something about my frugality because I paid $50 for the game and it would feel like a waste if I didn't play it even though it causes me physical discomfort.

I bought tickets to see the Canucks play the Sharks on December 13. I managed to get a pretty big group together to go see them (14, and only Adam and I are actually Canucks fans), and despite Ticketmaster's sucking, thanks to Allan and Nick I was able to get tickets in groups of 6, 4, and 4. Since the size of the group basically makes this a thing, I think I may have to buy the #2 Ohlund jersey I've been wanting for over a year. This presents a problem, as the new Canucks jersey is really, really awful. While there's something to be said about buying a really, really awful jersey (who among us wouldn't love to have the awful yellow V jersey?), this jersey is so bad that I wouldn't be surprised if they changed it again within two years. On the other hand, that might give it even more novelty value after the fact.

Current Music: Crowded House - Time On Earth

What's Wang This Week

With my sister and her family all vacated from the house, I have had some time to relax (and some mornings to sleep without Thomas waking me up). For the last week I've been unwinding with a steady regimen of video games. I bought Rayman Raving Rabbids, and let me tell you, I was a fool to pick Super Monkey Ball over it in December. Super Monkey Ball? More like Super Monkey Asshole¹. I also played some poker and made almost $5. Which reminds me, I owe Jowen 70 cents.

The single most significant thing I've done this week is play Tetris Tournament. After my last post about Tetris Tournament, I had a breakthrough game and brought my high score to 964155. This was a huge improvement over my last high score, and I felt like my game had progressed almost to the point where I could just keep on playing and playing as long as I wanted, so I was, naturally, thrilled. What I didn't expect was that my score would put me 20th out of 60682 on all of Facebook. I was shocked; that's, like, a world ranking. That's not even just a world ranking, that's a good world ranking.

Unfortunately, it turns out I wasn't actually that close to being one of those guys who can play indefinitely, and for the last week I've been trying vainly to better my score to at least seven digits. The closest I've come to my high score is hitting about 850000 a couple of times, but most of the time my score hovers between 600K and 700K. As it is my high score from before is now 36th out of 73481, and it's not likely to improve anytime soon. It's getting difficult because if I want to play a single game of Tetris Tournament, I basically have to play for 25 minutes, so I can only really get in two or three attempts in a session before my hands overheat. On one hand that can't be good for my wrists, but on the other hand there's something to be said about going out of the world of functioning hands in a blaze of seven-digit Tetris glory.

For some time the #10 score on Tetris Tournament was held by a pretty cute girl. As I played, I'd be watching the top ten scores on the side and looking at her picture, and thinking, "I wonder who she is. I wonder if she knows she's my dream girl." Maybe I should have messaged her, but I think I'd have to be at least top 15 before she would take my messages.

A few weeks ago my mandolin bridge finally arrived -- six weeks after it was ordered. Of course, I wasn't in Berkeley to receive the mandolin, so it went back on the shelf, and when I get back I'll have to go and pick another one. If they run out before Sunday I think I'm going to have to challenge someone at Guitar Center to a duel. Of course now all of my best mandolin-learning time is past (time which I spent playing Tetris Tournament, I suppose), so instead of maybe getting OK at the mandolin, I'll have to set my sights lower and limit myself to learning to play Losing My Religion and Hasn't Hit Me Yet. Maybe -- maybe -- Maggie May.

It looks like I won't be able to join the jazz ensembles this semester, as two of the three intermediate combos conflict with my classes, and I have to TA anyway so I don't imagine I'll have a lot of time. Besides, that's time I can spend learning to play Losing My Religion. That's meeee in the cooooorner...

I realize that no one reads my blog anymore (and I hope it's mostly because I don't write as much anymore rather than that people don't like me anymore), but if anyone does and wants to see The Shins at the Greek Theatre on Friday October 5, let me know and we'll get tickets. Sooner rather than later, though; tickets have already been on sale for a week and I don't want to get caught without a ticket.

Current Music: Beck - Midnite Vultures

1. also: Super Monkey Balls; Stupid Monkey Ball; Sucks Monkey Ball; Super Monkey Bullshit.

Facebook and Tetris: together at last

I've been busy at home with family and friend stuff and so have been neglecting my blog to the point that when I type in "dickolaswang" into my browser, it no longer autocompletes the URL. It's a shame because I feel like there have been all kinds of potent quotables in the four weeks I've been home which I would love to share. I'll just hope they'll eventually come to me when I have a minute and they'll all get their moment in the sun that way.

Another thing that's going to be an impediment to updating the blog is the fact that there is now a credible Tetris application in Facebook. Having completed two games, I'm now ranked 450 out of 50720 players on Facebook, which I'm pretty happy with, but my high score also reinforces the fact that I'll never be a truly great Tetris player as my high score is about 7% of the 2nd place score (which is 6000000), and the top score is over 18000000. This makes me a little sad, but on the other hand, no it doesn't.

It does make me sad that I can't beat the douchebaggery out of the top score holder with my Tetris skills, though. Listen to his commentary on his high score; I wanna clock the guy.