If you look really closely, you will notice a subtle difference between this photo and the one I posted a couple of weeks ago. Yup, you guessed it. Choco actually rolled over onto his other side. Amazing, huh?
October 2008 Archives
So, Blizzard radically changed the combat log format with patch 2.4. I took down my old log parser since it would not work with the new format, and have slowly been working on a newer version. Well, I've got an initial version of it working. It is by no means a complete work. For example, it doesn't count things like amount of damage mitigated via blocks, partial resists, etc. Nor does it keep track of spells to which your target is immune, etc. I also don't do anything with the timestamps, such as trying to calculate DPS or anything like that. But it does have fairly good coverage of damage and healing.
The other big change is that it is not web-based like the previous one. I decided to write a standalone executable and, since the log files can get fairly large, I decided to write it in C++. What this means to you, if you decide to try it out, is that you will either need to build the executable yourself from the source code that I provide, or you can use one of the exes that I will post. There is more information on the page that I have set up for it here.
Here are a few more pictures of the proud parents and the new baby. Congratulations, again!
It was a very busy weekend, lots of driving up in L.A., but managed to get quite a few things done and make some long overdue visits to friends. I had the distinct pleasure of visiting Ian and Elizabeth and seeing their new little baby boy. I will put up a post later with some photos, but right now I'm swamped with work. I thought I'd throw out a little teaser, this is also one of my favorite photos from the trip up.
It wasn't more than three months ago that I was saying my final goodbyes to my mother. I still think about her every day. The pain has lessened, somewhat. The difficult part for me is, as a friend of mine put it, the whole finality of it...that she can't see what a beautiful day it is today, or watch her favorite TV show (Law & Order), or go visit my nephews and niece. That we'll never hear her play piano again...that I'll never get to be her tech support person any more...so many things I am going to miss for a very long time.
Life goes on...and the amazing thing is that as we lose loved ones, new life is brought into our world, too. I want to congratulate Elizabeth and Ian, who are the proud new parents of a beautiful baby boy...William Isaac Lucas Douglas, born on October 3rd. I haven't been able to make it up there to see them yet, and I'm sure mom and dad are going to want some alone time for a while, but I hope to have some pictures soon. Until then, well, here's a picture of one of my cats, doing what he does best.
