phew. it’s all about learning…. wow. this is the sickest I think I’ve felt yet. I probably pushed myself too hard tonight. I played for 2 solid hours this evening, much to the delight of my kiddos. my little bride was tired and shagged out and spent the evening relaxing/snoozing. =:) *hi honey!* =:) I played online for a good hour, I think. I placed last (like the newb that I am) in the 2 CTF (capture the flag) games that I was in. And I placed 5th out of 7 in every man for himself (what is the proper name for this one?). yay for the newb!!! =:)

Erm, so anyway, now I feel quite ill.

BUT…

several things learned have I this evening.

[thing one] microsoft has placed some goofy copy protection on the halo CD that I just spent $27 for. it apparently uses SafeDisc 2.9, the existence of which I was not aware until this afternoon. oh–why is this important to me? because I want to make a backup copy of it. in fact, I want to use ONLY that backup copy–leaving my $27 CD at home, safely away from evil scratches, smudges, and breakages. so, I’ve discovered a nifty little program from Winblows called “Alcohol 120%”, which did a very nice job of ripping my offensive SafeDisc-laden halo CD to an ISO. I tried twice to use Alcohol to burn it to a CD-R, but no luck was mine, so I burned the ISO with Nero and it worked wonderfully! =:)

[thing two] based on some of the Army research I read (or was it the slashdot posts?), I tried a couple of different things today, playing halo. first, I played upstairs on the dining room table. it’s in the center of the room, as opposed to right next to the wall as my bedroom desk sits. I think this might have made a pretty big difference, as I think that my peripheral vision was able to look past the laptop screen and see the depth of the room, to balance my brain out. also, I think this room is brighter than the bedroom where I typically play. I think these factors helped me be able to play for as long as I did this time.

[thing three] (well, thing two, part 2) I also tried (this is going to sound silly, I know) playing with a towel draped over my head onto the top of the laptop screen. the post that I read (I think on slashdot) mentioned that someone who suffered from simulator sickness had tried this with some measure of success. much to the amusement of my eldest daughter, I tried this for 10 minute intervals here and there–either until the towel kept falling off my noodle, or until the towel sagged in the middle enough to annoy me. what I noticed, though, was 2 things…. first, doing this ridiculous maneuver kept my head still. it forced me to concentrate on holding my head in one spot and not reacting to the game by ducking/raising my head, lowering my eyes, etc. so maybe that helped. secondly, being a towel-head kept all of my vision focused solely on the laptop’s LCD screen, blocking out all peripheral (and possibly conflicting/confusing) vision. I suppose I shall have to test this towel procedure again, using tape or something to keep the towel from sagging. the kids will love this, I’m sure.