2012-05-20T06:37:32Z Darryl Copyright 2012, Darryl SPHPBLOG Card Control

It's a collection of card games, all playable against the computer with a nice, easy to use interface.

If you don't have an iPhone or iPod touch yet now is the time to buy one in preparation for my game! :)

]]> http://www.darryl.ca/home/index.php?entry=entry090925-142856 2009-09-25T00:00:00Z 2009-09-25T00:00:00Z
Here's the details ]]> http://www.darryl.ca/home/index.php?entry=entry090205-111854 2009-02-05T00:00:00Z 2009-02-05T00:00:00Z http://apps.facebook.com/herdaword/ or if you're not on facebook, at http://www.herdaword.com/

If you're not a flash developer you can stop reading here!

Anyway, It's coded in Flash CS3 and Actionscript 3. I added sounds to it last night, and I was playing it today when I noticed that on windows, there's a sudden drop in framerate when a sound is played. But it doesn't happen if a series of sounds are played in sequence. This seems to be a bug in flash! If you play a sound, wait a second, then play another, the framerate drops, but if you play a sound and immediately play another sound it's smooth as silk.

The solution is to add silent background music to the game.

Hope this helps someone out there...]]> http://www.darryl.ca/home/index.php?entry=entry071105-183056 2007-11-06T00:00:00Z 2007-11-06T00:00:00Z
If it's homemade beef jerky that was made yesterday, you can eat as early as 8am - provided you did not have bacon and eggs for breakfast.
If it's homemade beef jerky, any other day, 10am is ok.
If it's store bought, and the package is open, you can eat it before lunch when you start to get hungry for lunch.
If it's store bought but the package is unopened you can't open it until after lunch.

Note: Beef jerky is not a nutritionally complete lunch.

If you require an explanation for any of these rules in particular please feel free to ask.]]> http://www.darryl.ca/home/index.php?entry=entry060517-100835 2006-05-17T00:00:00Z 2006-05-17T00:00:00Z but all i really have to do is remember how lucky i am...

...that i don't have to wax my back]]> http://www.darryl.ca/home/index.php?entry=entry051108-165031 2005-11-08T00:00:00Z 2005-11-08T00:00:00Z
Naturally, without hesitation, I chose the surprise birthday weekend. One thing I know about Mel and Chris is that they have impressive skill in the art of surprise. A few years ago, they were the masterminds behind a rather impressive surprise birthday party on my behalf, which I will remember fondly for the rest of my life. Even their relationship was a surprise - Chris (a good friend of mine from high school) and Mel (a good friend of mine from university) dating? Surprise!

On friday the 16th, I received this email from Chris, detailing the full extent of what I was to know of the coming weekend before it unfolded.

--BEGIN EMAIL FROM CHRIS--
The Plan:

9:30 AM Saturday– We will pick you up
-Be ready, do not eat breakfast, have a protein shake if you would like.

Things to bring:

-Change of clothes, toothbrush, etc. – perhaps we are staying overnight somewhere
-Passport
-Wallet
-Swimsuit
-A book to read (non-Harry Potter of the Rings)
-A Black Shirt
--END OF EMAIL--

Chris and I then proceeded to exchange several emails the extent of which was me asking "tell me more" and him responding "no". At the end of the day I received this email.

--BEGIN 2ND EMAIL FROM CHRIS--
Okay D,

You will not hear from us until 9:30 AM tommorrow morning at your front door. Be ready, be packed (well), and be keen.

--END OF EMAIL--

At 9:30 AM the following day, I had all the necessary items with me in a small pack, and was waiting (keenly) at the end of my driveway. Fifteen minutes later, they drove up - rather surprised to see me waiting there at the end of my driveway. Of course, they were suitably impressed with my keenness.

We quickly proceeded to what was to be the first of several destinations in "the plan", Jericho restaurant on Bank Street (Formerly the Glebe Cafe). They appeared a little confused not to find the Glebe Cafe there (they were not forewarned of the name change), however moved on with the plan unimpeded.

Soon, with some bacon, eggs, potatoes, toast, and coffee in me, we moved on - heading towards downtown Ottawa. I had an idea that maybe they were taking me to the Top of the World snowboarding street sale that I had expressed interest in going to (but determined that their surprise weekend takes priority). Indeed, this was our next stop, and I bought some sweet snowboarding pants, and we moved on.

At this point in the story I will mention that it is still going to be awhile before we get to the surprise. I, myself, spent nearly 12 hours with them with no word from their mouths as to why we were doing what it is we were doing (ie: what is the main surprise), so in this story-telling, I am trying to reproduce for you,to some extent, the anticipation that I felt.

Snowboarding pants in the trunk, we found our way onto the 417 heading west. This is where the lies began - my primary goal became to figure out where we were headed, theirs was to lie and mislead me into thinking we were doing something other than what it was that they knew very well that we were doing. "Off to Kanata we go", said Chris.

We turned off the 417 onto the 416, heading south. This closed the door on Kanata, and opened up many new possibilities: Smiths Falls, The Rideau Lakes, Kingston, The Northern USA, Toronto... The Possibilities were still many, and I could discount none of the above. I won't present for you every half-assed theory I had over the next few hours, however here are a couple of the more interesting ones:

* Ryan North's parents have a home on the rideau lakes which is one of the best places ever anywhere, so I hoped perhaps we were headed there for some R&R. Even once we passed the North Gower/Smiths Falls exit which is the direct route there, I thought they could be taking a somewhat indirect route to throw me off.

* We soon hit the 401. The lies, at this point, had me somewhat convinced our final destination was the big apple. We did indeed stop there for some pie, but still pressed on.

* Shortly after the Big Apple, we stopped at a rest stop for lunch. Chris and Mel happened to run into some guys they knew there, who mentioned they were on their way to a "JJ" concert - it later became clear that JJ is Jack Johnson. I, being a big Jack Johnson fan, thought that there was a good possibility we were heading to the same event. I thought, further, that randomly running into these guys had been just the unfortunate coincidence they were hoping did not happen to ruin their surprise. Of course, they still refused to confirm or deny my theory. Nevertheless this remained my best theory for the remainder of the day as to the "surprise", until, of course, the surprise was revealed.

After the rest stop, there weren't many possibilities left on my list of destinations other than Toronto. Sure enough, we found our way into the city around 4:30PM. Still no word from Mel and Chris as to why we were there. It wasn't until we actually hit Spadina that I was sure that Ryan North was, in fact, somehow involved in the surprise (he lives in Toronto, on Spadina, you see.)

Seeing Ryan was a nice surprise in itself. He had been among the conspirators in the aforementioned surprise party (so it was not particularly surprising to learn of his involvement in this one), and I'd known the guy since high school. It turned out we were staying at his pad in the heart of the Kensington Market in downtown Toronto. We walked around this crazy neighborhood for awhile, then had dinner at a restaurant called the Red Room. Sometime during dinner, the codeword "City Hall" was adopted by Ryan, Chris, and Mel to refer to the main event which was quickly approaching. I will adopt this code word for the next portion of my story. I was assured by Ryan that City Hall was a pair of buildings that resembled a massive force field generator, and that it was a sight worth seeing. More lies? We never did see city hall.

After dinner, it was decided that we would walk down to "City Hall", which would take us just under half an hour. Just as we were setting off, I hear from behind me a girl's voice "HOLY DARRYL!" Someone was pleasantly suprised to see me! It turns out it was Priya's voice, who Ryan and Chris and I went to high school with. Ryan (living in the same city as her) had seen her as recently as the night before, but it had been awhile for the rest of us (as you may have guessed from her surprise to see me walking the streets of Toronto). We walked together briefly while our paths led the same direction, but quickly parted ways as she was late for a play and we had to get to "City Hall". Plans for breakfast the next day were made (and later kept), and we continued our walk.

Now, at this point my best guess was still that we were walking towards a Jack Johnson concert, and as a matter of fact I was getting sortof excited by (and attached to) this idea. We approached a large theatre, with a long lineup, so Chris quickly threw in some more lies to convince me we had arrived. We proceeded past the theatre, though, it was a toronto film festival event.

Very quickly, it became clear we were walking towards the Air Canada Centre, and the moment I had (and you have) been waiting for was about to arrive - the main event was to be revealed by a scalper, as we walked passed him. That's right, there was a U2 concert at the Air Canada centre that night!

And sure enough, that's where we ended up. I enjoy U2 in concert (I ended up seeing them 3 times last tour!), and it was great that I did not miss out on this tour! AWESOME. Thanks Chris and Mel and Ryan.

(P.S - There was more to the weekend: Breakfast with priya, 50 dumplings for $16, 5 t-shirts for $10 (seriously!), a broken cot, random girls giving out condoms, huge cookie trays covered with nachos, and more... not necessarily in that order... but surprise birthday weekends are exhausting and this story is long enough)


]]> http://www.darryl.ca/home/index.php?entry=entry050918-212412 2005-09-19T00:00:00Z 2005-09-19T00:00:00Z 2) Always get the girl
3) Never leave Darryl for dead]]> http://www.darryl.ca/home/index.php?entry=entry050915-093425 2005-09-15T00:00:00Z 2005-09-15T00:00:00Z
I should warn you, though, that I only expect - in fact I will only try - to be moderately successful at achieving this goal. And I certainly won't be able to please everyone, all the time. I haven't yet met someone who quite understands every story I tell. (If you find that you are this person - please do be in touch, perhaps we'll make the best of friends).

Anyway, I'm going to start with one of my favorites.

A few years ago, a good friend of mine named Ian was at value village. He was browsing their yellow shirt selection, when he came across a couple yellow shirts he simply could not resist taking home. The first, simply, said "Yellow Shirt". He kept this one for himself. The second displayed the phrase "No Payne No Gain". This one ended up in my hands, which I thought was brilliant because my last name is of course Payne. For years, the mystery of this t-shirt's original source eluded me. Some Internet research suggested a bicycle race called "Tour of Payne " in Stillwater, Oklahoma as the only viable source of t-shirts with this motto. But then how did this shirt travel 1500 miles to find itself in a value village in Ottawa and eventually in my hands? The mystery was far from solved.

Until few weeks ago, when André and I were sitting at the Stout Bros. pub on Bank Street. Shortly after we sat down a guy walked up to us and asked us if one of us is Darryl. I saw no reason to deny it (this time), so I nodded my head and pronounced "that's me!" The guy responded "Well, hi, I'm Matt Payne. You left your credit card at the bar - I haven't met very many people with the last name 'Payne' in Ottawa." We continued this line of conversation for a bit, when I decided to bring up my T-shirt (which at this point I'm quite fond of). Matt Payne exclaimed "That's mine!"

Matt continued to say that he had 20 or so of these t-shirts made in university when he was running for student council, and managed to describe the shirt in detail to confirm his story.

Mystery solved.

]]> http://www.darryl.ca/home/index.php?entry=entry050528-141053 2005-05-28T00:00:00Z 2005-05-28T00:00:00Z