YUP!

I really don't have anything to say. I re-PS3'd myself yesterday (now with backwards compatibility and an extra 40gigs!) and I started playing Metal Gear Solid 4 last night, with an all-weekend session to follow. I'm also going to a local park where they show a movie on a huge inflatable screen every Friday- this week it's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Very cool. I am sad it is going to cut into MGS4 time, but I think this is a good example of my effort to be more sociable instead of locking myself in my house all the time. It is a great sacrifice. But I'll probably be playing it once I get home until the sun comes up anyway.

Oh yeah: So far, it's freaking awesome, btw.

Oh yay, I’m a total geek again.

It’s been years since I’ve done any kind of legitimate coding/web design. Dro didn’t stop, and now he’s like some kind uber-nerd superhero ninja guy. I have no problem with that. But I have spent the past week doing a lot of reading and tutorials on PHP, and more specifically, creating custom Wordpress themes from scratch. After spending a few days on a custom theme, it’s starting to actually look pretty nice (screenshots or something soon). I’m still struggling with a few things; my footer is being a pain in the ass, and some of the formatting (it’s using two loops in columns for the two different types of posts) is finicky. I also need to figure out a better top menu system, even though the current one works fine. But I’m only a few days into the theme itself and understanding PHP in general, so I’m feeling pretty good about the progress that I’m making. I’m hoping to have the main page mostly working by the end of the week so I can start on the single page view and few of the other custom pages. I’d also really enjoy knowing how to add a search bar to the header without it automatically creating a new line for itself, but I have not found a fix for this either. All in due time, I suppose.

Luckily, it would appear that Dro is back. He had to move, which I guess I was aware of months in advance, but he still disappeared for a week or two, right when I was in need of his sagely advice in the areas of PHP and other things. But he’s back now so I can spend my days hounding him through IM for stuff he probably thinks are insanely simple while he curses at me for bugging him during work or whatever. Just like old times.

Don’t think that means he’s going to be posting a lot again or anything. He’s too busy being a superhero ninja guy. I, however, have very little life and a lot of free time. Right now I’m spending a lot of that time reading a book called The Terror by one of my favorite authors, Dan Simmons. The book is starting a little slow, but the concept is strong enough on its own to make me finish it even if it’s garbage, and nothing he’s ever written has wound up being garbage, so I’m pretty sure he is going to pull it off. <3, Mr. Simmons. Keep it up.

Oh! Also, I pounded out two chapters and another 4000 or so words in my book last night. I managed this because I realized it might be better for the story to pick up at a more interesting point than just progressing in chronological order (got the notion from The Terror, as it really helps to draw me into that book’s story). This allowed me to set up one of the main characters much faster, as well as go back to the first big-ish event through a flashback. This event also allowed me to write about the supposed antagonist characters, something I had not yet done as I figured them out in my head in the years between the first draft and what I am working on now. It was great finally putting them down in words and describing their more complex actions, which work out perfectly in my head, but are a (fun) challenge to describe on paper. This version of the story is already turning out approximately a million times better than what I had written years ago (and thank god for that); I’m very excited to keep working on it. Perhaps I might even get the nerve up to post bits of it on here. We’ll see. I’d like some confirmation that it’s actually halfway decent before I start really throwing it out there for all to see.

And that’s the post.

Friends Like These

Zoon.

So it’s like this: I really like the Zune. Dro doesn’t, but he’s become one of those Mac fanboy clones that hates everything that Apple doesn’t do and can’t come to grips with the fact that Microsoft actually topped the iPod in features and usability. So his opinion doesn’t really count for jack anymore in this department.

I dig the big screen, I dig the interface, I REALLY dig the features (FM tuner for NPR, wireless sync, etc). I don’t like the PC software so much. The fancy little touchpad thing the newer Zunes have is very nice to use, but the fact of the matter is some kid in my area is selling his old 30gb for $100 (new 4gb Zunes are $150). I am having a difficult time resisting such a deal. It’s a brown one, the model that got all kinds of crap from people because it’s brown. Well, guess what, internet? I like the brown one. I think it looks fine. I might even think it looks kind of good. Frak off (oh god, I’m adopting Battlestar Galactica lingo and I’ve only watched one season). Read more

Anteaturday?

I know; classy, amirite? Anteaters Wearing Sweaters has made me temporarily obsessed with the funny-lookin’ creatures. I’m sure it’ll pass in a week. Much to talk/write about. Read more

The Week In Summary

I am very good at avoiding finals. VERY good. This weekend, I have a lot of reading and typing to do, and on Monday I have four quiz/test-ish things to take. Three of them are late, yes.

I’ve also got the end of Battlestar Galactica season 1 to watch. I’m also very good at watching Battlestar Galactica. You might be jealous if you saw it.

Hopefully, somewhere inbetween the one awesome task and the one lame-ass task, I will sneak in some writing. I couldn’t bring myself to do any this week, partially out of guilt since I wasn’t getting any assignments done (not doing homework leads to me not doing ANYTHING out of guilt- it’s weird and I need to get over it; I could be on season 2 of Galactica by now), and partially because I wasn’t sure how to start the next section. But I’ve done much thinking about it this week, so I think I’ll be able to pound out a couple thousand words over the next few days.

Also, I’m currently broke so it’s not like there’s anything else for me to do.

I Am So Into Battlestar Galactica

My “Freaking Nerd” level just went up about a zillion points. I’m only three episodes into the first season, but I’m already sold (actually, I was sold on it about a year ago but I’ve been avoiding it, just like I avoided Stargate SG-1 and Heroes). I really enjoy the main premise of the show, an almost-decommissioned ancient battleship suddenly having to protect/escort a convoy of humans fleeing from robot oppression, and constantly being chased. It kind of reminds me of Homeworld, which is to this date one of my favoritest games of all time.

<-- Homeworld, if you are not aware, is totally rad. Imagine Warcraft, but with full-3D tactical maneuvering and frigates instead of orcs. Cool, right? Now imagine it’s actually 100x cooler than that sounds. Now you have an idea of how kickass Homeworld is. The game uses classical music to set the mood, which tends to make large confrontations even more intense. While the story isn’t anything special, it does throw occasional memorable curveballs; I think my favorite section is getting trapped in a resource-rich nebula by a cult-ish collection of ships insisting that you must be destroyed for desecrating holy ground. You decide to book it, but they block your ability to warp out and send an insane amount of tiny fighters at you, roughly 10 times more than you have at that point, and your best hope is to withstand the assault and destroy the ship disabling the warp drive so you can get the hell out of the nebula. When you finally accomplish this, you warp out, only to find that you’ve been pulled out of warp before exiting the nebula by three more of these ships, which naturally also means three times the number of fighters, offset by errie, soothing string arrangements. To quote Teen Girl Squad, it’s soooo good.

Anyway, with a good fifty episodes of Battlestar Galactica to watch and assurances that it just keeps getting better and better, I think I’m in for a pretty nerdy summer.

Also, as a side note: You may recall my review of The Arctic Monkeys’ album Favourite Worst Nightmare last November, where I gave it an enthusiastic “Meh.” Recently, it has been at the top of my listening list and I’m loving almost every track. I went back to read the review I wrote, and now all I can say is I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. The album is fantastic, as good as Whatever I Say… and in some respects better. It’s infected my brain and it even makes me want to start learning the guitar again, especially now that I’m Guitar Hero-less. It would also serve as a decent attempt to counter the copious amounts of geek that I will be injecting into my brainpan-humidor.

I’m a freaking writer. I write things.

First of all, I finally have my laptop back. Did I discuss this with you yet? My laptop was broken. It was pretty weak, and I was stuck with no real entertainment in the evenings or weekends. No way to listen to my 10gigs of music (I know, it’s pathetic compared to most people’s collections, but it still takes me an hour to decide what I want to listen to so I think I’m pretty set), no way to mess around with images, and no way to write in a manner that wouldn’t require me to do my most-hated thing in all of writing, which is writing it again. I’ve celebrated the return of my laptop in many ways.
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Oh yeah, some people come here sometimes.

I’m wondering how important it is for me to apologize for not posting. On one hand, I am pretty awesome, and would totally understand it if you just kept a tab on your browser open with this site on constant refresh looking for updates, but on the other hand, I’m pretty sure only three people read it and even I get bored with the stuff I write on here sometimes. But I figure if anything at all, you dear people deserve some sort of explanation of what I’m up to.

And you’ll be happy to know it is not much. This semester is kicking my ass, and I am really regretting my choices in electives. It’s basically an uphill battle to slog through them until the end of the semester which is sorta-kinda soon, and hopefully get relatively good marks in them, at which point I will have hopefully learned to make better choices in course selection in general, and listen to my sister when she tells me Bible as Literature is NOT a good/fun/interesting course.

So there’s that, my ridiculously easy job that I still can’t seem to find time to get schoolwork done during (yes, I am writing this at work, and it’s probably more so I don’t have to do homework than for your benefit, reader). My laptop’s power plug died, which I would talk more about, but I’ve been dealing with computer-less living okay so far and I’m afraid if I think about it too much I’ll start to get depressed.

At the end of the day, I feel mentally exhausted and I plop down in front of my TV to listen to my podcasts (addictive little things, those podcasts) and play Oblivion, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Super Stardust, or Portal. I recently moved stuff around in my room and it’s in better shape for actually getting things done with minimal distraction (ie, my desk no longer faces my TV), so I’m looking forward to getting the laptop fixed and getting the internet so it’s actually possible for me to be productive at home. However, once that is done I’ll probably be getting an articulated wall mount for my TV so it can turn and face the desk and be a second (ginormous) monitor. That’ll be neat.

New 2D Sonic Game?

Please be real, please be real, please be real, please…

Robot Dog Has Better Coordination Than You

This is either where Skynet starts, or Metal Gear. Either way, it’s freaking eerie. Fast forward to the middle to see it catch itself on an icy patch, go to the end to see it actually run and leap into the air.