Last night I had another vivid and detailed programming dream, although this time with a particularly bizarre twist.
The project was to develop an XML schema for describing an arbitrary game in terms of events, game states, player states, and operations on those states triggered by events. As you can see, I remember a fair amount of detail regarding what I developed in the dream. I don’t have time for it now, what with E90 (major programming project), Advanced Graphics (3 more moderate programming assignments), and Senior Conference (1 major programming assignment). Maybe someday I’ll whip up a proof-of-concept for GameML.
At this point, it probably just sounds really geeky. Allow me to describe the situation, and you will understand how it enters the world of the bizarre. First, this was more than just arbitrary programming: it was a programming competition. Second, just to make things more difficult, the competition was held underwater. Specifically, in a swimming pool, because I kept wondering what the chlorine would do to my laptop. My laptop was apparently waterproofed as long as I kept it upright underwater. I guess there were holes on the bottom or something.
The audience consisted of the random people in the pool and on the pool deck. My competitor was Chakotay, from Star Trek: Voyager, but played by Merry the hobbit (from the books, not as Dominic Monaghan from the movies). So there was a very short guy with a tattoo on his forehead and wearing a Voyager/early DS9/Generations-era uniform, sitting cross-legged on the bottom of a pool typing away furiously on a laptop.
I definitely remember having to come up for air every once and a while, but not as often as I would need to in reality. Unfortunately, I woke up before the competition ended, so I don’t know whether I won or not…
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