Well, I'm very sad about the loss of my rank points. I had an accident and now they're all gone. If anything good can come out of it, it's that my misfortune can serve to make others more careful.
Yesterday, I got an urge to get some exercise since I spend far too much time camped out in front of my computer. I decided to go for a bike ride. I didn't want to go by myself, but checking around, I couldn't find anyone to go with me, which left me feeling lonely. This situation comes up all the time, actually, and my solution is to bring the DROD.net server with me on the excursion. The DROD.net server always hums in this pleasant way, and when I have it near me, it's like all the DROD.net forum users are there too.
So I went down in the basement and I found Crampy curled up sleeping around the DROD.net server. I gently and slowly pulled the server out of his grasp. He made whimpering noises but didn't wake up. The DROD.net server keeps him warm, and I felt kinda sad leaving him there on his straw bed shivering in the cold basement. But he was sposed to be up already so he could run the 2nd part of DiMono's contest. Lazy bugger was sleeping in.
So I strapped the 80-pound server to my back with duct tape, got on my bicycle, and peddled off. Soon I was in good spirits, and I felt that this was a day for high adventure, so I thought, "
Hey, I'll bike to Canada!"
I got onto Interstate 5 and drove down the shoulder. It was great! And I was looking at the HOV lane and thinking, me and the DROD.net server makes two passengers, so technically I would be driving a high occupancy vehicle. I shifted my 5-speed into the highest gear and merged into the HOV lane, using my arm to give the proper hand signal.
I had no idea there were so many rude drivers in Washington! People kept slamming on their brakes right behind me and honking. I would give them a thumbs up to thank them for sharing the road, but I still think some people didn't appreciate my presence on the road. It made it about impossible to have a simple ride in peace. And then the cop pulled me over, and I think he was prejudiced against bicyclists or something, because he said I couldn't ride on the highway. He wouldn't even let me ride to the next exit. I had to walk my bike another 12 miles to reach the nearest offramp. Bleh! That would take a long time, and I had to get to Vancouver by 8pm or lose my reservation of the William Shatner Suite at the Crown Regency Hotel. So after the state trooper left me at the side of the road, I knew I needed a plan.
Luckily, about 50 feet to my right was the Union Pacific railroad. I dragged my bike through the tall grass and state-installed noise-reduction shrubberies. The DROD.net server was very heavy and I considered leaving it there and coming back for it, but in the end I decided since I already paid for an extra person at the hotel, I was going to get my money's worth.
Riding on the track was really bumpy because you keep hitting the 4x4 slats that span between the two rails. It was making my teeth hurt, with all the bump-bump-bump-bump-bump. The side of the track wasn't any better since it was covered with fist-sized rocks that constantly threw my tire direction off. But I found that if I was very careful and kept my balance, I could ride on the rail itself which was perfectly smooth. So soon I was making good time, and I was optimistic about getting to Canada. I congratulated myself on my resourcefulness. The DROD.net server seemed happy too. It chirped merrily and played Supertramp MP3s through its internal PC speaker, which had very bad sound quality, but we didn't mind so much.
Then a train came up behind us, so I pedalled harder to stay in front of it, but it ended up being too much work. I got off the track and let the train pass me and DROD.net. But then I had another good idea! As the caboose came up on me I quickly got onto the track again with my bicycle and grabbed the back end of the caboose. Ha! Now, I was booking my way north at 40mph. It was more difficult to keep the two bike tires on the track now, and I had to look down every so often to make sure I didn't fall off, especially on the curves.
Then this guy came out of the back door of the caboose to have a smoke. "
Who are you?"
I demanded. "
I'm an engineer."
Something was fishy here.
"
If you're an engineer, then why aren't you up in the front engine car?"
It turned out that the back car was not just a caboose, but another engine car pointing in the opposite direction. The front car did not have a reverse gear and could only go forward, so if they had to back up for some reason, this engineer would start up his car and move the train in the opposite direction. After he explained this, I was much less suspicious. He suggested we pull the bike up and I could just ride in the car, but I figured it would be more trouble in the end, because then later I'd have to lower the bike back down to the track when we got close to Vancouver. So I just stayed on the track, watching the wheels to make sure they didn't slip off. He brought out a deck of cards and we played some hands of Gin Rummy. It was very pleasant, until something very terrible happened.
In hindsight, I really think I should have been more careful. I mean, it is dangerous to ride a bicycle like this unless you've been doing it for years. It turns out the engineer was an expert at "
rail-cycling"
as he called it. He wanted to bring out his bike and show me some tricks, so I said "
sure, why not?"
He lowered his bike onto the other track, so that I was on the left and he was on the right.
Now this guy was really good! He would let go of the car and do some bunny hops and wheelies and other cool stuff, then pedal back up to the car and grab onto it again. I figured this was my chance to learn from the master, so I had him show me how to do these tricks, and amazingly I could do the same moves as him with just a little instruction. It seems I had a real knack for rail-cycling. I got pretty excited about the possibilities. Maybe I could be like Tony Hawk and have my own series of successful rail-cycling video games on the consoles. DROD.net started playing
Axel F and I was getting into a serious groove. The engineer hopped his bike onto my track so he was behind me, holding onto my bike seat.
He goes, "
Are you ready for this?"
"
Ready for what?!?!"
"
I've been wanted to do this trick for twelve years, but you need two people, and I never found a partner who had enough skill or guts to pull it off."
"
Jeezus, man! What are you talking about?"
"
The double-decker snookey pull!"
"
No way, man. I read about that in magazines. It's not safe!"
"
We do it now or die wishing we tried it."
I breathed deeply, got a good grip, and gave him a nod.
"
Okay, whenever you're ready."
"
Cool. We're gonna need more speed for this."
He radioed up to the front engine car, and the train slowly picked up. I watched the ground beneath me move faster and faster until it was just a gray blur. As speed increased, the train shuddered violently and it became harder to keep my hold on the rod I now clenched tightly. DROD.net started playing Europe's
Final Countdown.
The engineer popped his front wheel up and rode up my back, then with the tire on the top of my head, he pulled his front brake, so that the back of the bike shot up into the air and came to a rest perfectly balanced, with his bike vertical. I reached up and gave the wheel a little push, and he was then spinning clockwise on top of my head. It was fantastic! That was the most exhilirating moment of my life!
The engineer hopped his bike back down. We had completed the maneuver! We were the kings of rail-cycling! "
Wanna do it again?"
he asked with a wide grin.
"
You bet!"
But the second time we tried it, I think my head was too sweaty or something, and he slipped. We crashed in a big pile along the side of the track.
The engineer was pretty mad. "
Dammit! What if that train needs to back up, and I'm not there to run the reverse engine?"
I had more important things to worry about because the DROD.net server had come off my back and got thrown on the ground pretty hard. I ran over to to DROD.net. "
You okay, baby? You alright?"
DROD.net started playing Boy George's
Do You Really Want to Hurt Me and I knew things were not okay. I whipped out the philips and opened the case faster than anyone had ever opened a computer case before. Something sounded really wrong. There was a rattling noise in the fan, and I saw these little blue pellets scattered all over the motherboard. "
Those are rank points!"
I screamed. "
It's a rank point leak!"
Yep, I was right. It turned out only one of the rank point containers was busted, and call it irony or bad luck or divine punishment for my carelessness, but that was my rank point container.
I installed a new rank point container, but still, I lost all my rank points and nothing can be done about it now, except to slowly earn them all over again. It was a hard lesson to learn.
-Erik
[Edited by ErikH2000 at
Local Time:10-18-2004 at 12:35 AM]
____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals |
twitch stream |
youtube archive (NSFW)
)
