Feeling: Sleepy

I played some more DDR last night. I'll play again tonight, but I seriously doubt I'll be able to beat a ten footer. Ah well. There's a new picture of me playing DDR at the bottom of the pictures page.

My happy-go-lucky gurus have answered another one of your feeble questions.

Something rather interesting happened to the digital graphics community back in October. Corel (my favorite digital graphics company) has acquired Jasc, of Paint Shop Pro fame. They will continue to support and develop Paint Shop Pro, along with the rest of the Corel graphics library. I'm thrilled about this because it puts them one step closer to uprooting the evil Adobe out of the number one seat.

I've added three new game reviews for The Fool's Errand, Scorched Earth, and SIM City 2000.

Feeling: Cold

Over the weekend I went to Grand Rapids and hung out with Nikia, Angel, and Tracy. We were trying for a bonfire, but the rain had other plans. Instead we stayed inside and played board games. Can you believe it, I lost at Trivial Pursuit!

Saturday, Angel and I went to the mall and I picked up a reprint of the US Army's 21-76 field manual for survival. It's a very nice book covering all the important aspects of survival in the wilderness with little or no gear to help you. Very cool.

There was a sever crash a few days back, and a had to re-upload a lot of stuff. I think I got everything, but if you see a page that lost some data please let me know.

A couple pictures. Here is the morning after the first Michigan snow this year. Usually, we get about ten minutes of snow that melts in ten seconds, but this year we got coated nicely. Also, my new shoes with ducky laces! I'm so hardcore!

I've added a new pointless database entry for shovelware.

Feeling: Happy

Stupid malls and their closing for Thanksgiving so I can't play DDR. Shame on them. Don't they know DDR is about family and togetherness? And they ruin it by celebrating some strange holiday about enslaving native Americans or what-not. Anyway, I stuffed myself with stuffs.

Our first snow day of the year ended up coating us in several inches. Pretty impressive display by Mother Nature. I think she's just showing off. Why is it that we attribute nature to being feminine? Is it because nature is so unpredictable and moody? That must be it. Women's rights activist are free to send all hate mail to support@microsoft.com.

I just finished reading the original 1904 version of Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. Wow, it's considerably different than all the Disnefied versions and musicals I've seen of it. It's as terribly sexist and racist as a book you would expect from the turn of the last century and all the British wording created some rather humorous dialogue that could be misinterpreted by someone with a sick mind (not me of course). The book itself was much more melancholy than I expected.

The new book I ordered arrived Wednesday night. It's William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition". I started reading it last night and it's pretty good so far.

Feeling: Happy

Cleared a few more songs in DDR last night, but got wiped out on Maxx Unlimited on standard, that is a hard song, certainly not the eight footer it claim's to be.

Thanksgiving Day is tomorrow. What am I thankful for? Kendra and Avariella, who else? Thanksgiving is a wonderful day to mock vegetarians everywhere. I guess I'll be spending time with the family or what not. I'm sure it'll be a gay old time.

Click here to see George Bush getting eaten by a turkey.

By the way, it's snowing here.

Feeling: Pensive

Played some more DDR last night and cleared another 8 and 9 footer. It still amazes me how I'm able to pass songs that less than a year ago I thought I'd never be able to do. I'm trying for some more tonight.

I've tallied up most of the books I own and created a collection list of them. I have also reviewed two more books, Classic Rock Stories and Waiting For Snow In Havana.

For all you retro gamers out there, DOSBox 0.63 has been released.

Feeling: Happy

The weekend was nice and long. Friday night I went to East Lansing and helped my friend Dave set up his DVD burner. Then, we played some Magic at the Fortress which is always good fun. Saturday, I watched the Flint Generals (a bush league hockey team) beat Kansas City. It was interesting going to a hockey game again. I haven't been to one since the Detroit Vipers (IHL) were playing back in 2001. Sunday, I went to the mall and picked up some new shoes (and cute duck laces for them!).

If you are unfamiliar with Project Gutenberg, I'll bring it to your attention. Project Gutenberg is an online collection of free books including older books whose copyrights have expired, and also newer books that are public domain. So if you haven't gotten around to reading Moby Dick, Jane Eyre, or Bram Stoker's Dracula, you can now download a free copy. Also, take a look at their new Top 100 page which will show you the more popular books that have been downloaded.

Feeling: Stoned

Yup, my toe can still withstand the pressures of DDR albeit rather painfully, but it'll get over it. I cleared a few new songs again last night. There isn't much left for me to clear now. I've passed most of the 8's, and there aren't that many 9's or 10's to begin with.

Kendra is looking like her old self again. I've got her loaded up with the majority of software that she had before. I'm still missing a few big things like .NET and Office, but we'll take it one day at a time. For now I'm just happy to have her back. I missed her. I still really hate reloading machines. It's such a mind numbingly boring and inane task. It's like reading books for toddlers for several hours and not the cool ones that talk.

Anyway, my guru's have answered a rather startling question of sexual nature which is probably not fit for viewing by anyone from Utah.

I'm off to East Lansing to play some Magic at the Fortress. Then, on Saturday, I'm going to a hockey game. Later.

Feeling: Anxious

I stayed at work extra long in order to backup Kendra. I've got everything I need off of her and running through the terrors of reloading. I should be finished with most of the stuff by the end of the day. While doing reloads I have now become very much in favor of programs that don't use the Window's registry or MSI. Instead of having to reload these programs, I simply have to copy them back on my hard drive. SO much easier. I'm making it a point to never use Windows configuration files again.

I woke up early this morning to a strange dream about summer camp.

I think my toe has healed enough to play some DDR again. I'm going through withdrawl, and I need to play again. I feel like I'm getting fat. I'll start out on low impact songs, just some standard difficulties for awhile. I'm still trying to clear a 10 footer before the end of the month. This toe issue is making it a bit more difficult.

Feeling: Determined

In the news today: Kmart is buying Sears for $11 billion? Didn't they just lose half their stores in a bankruptcy problem? Also, NASA breaks the air speed record again with a measly Mach 9.6. See, they are good for something. In toe news, my toes were all purple and red last night, but as of this morning they're a more sickly green and brown which is a good sign that they're healing. I'll try DDR tomorrow and see how it works out.

On a rather sad note, Kendra is going under the knife today. Even after reloading XP again I wasn't able to get rid of the annoying errors it's been producing. I spent all night cleaning and compressing her hard drive so that it'll be easier to backup. Hopefully, I'll have the bulk of the reload done today. Also, I didn't realize how important the Windows updates are, but I left a new XP install without any service packs online all night and picked up about ten pieces of spyware by itself.

Rent fans will want to head over to IMBD where the recent movie credits are listed. Both Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp are cast, sweet.

I'm going to be without my normal email again tonight while I reload Kendra. If you're expecting an email, you'd do well to check some time tomorrow evening.

I've updated the unusual city names page with several new international names. I still have a lot of other submissions to sort through.

Feeling: Annoyed

After reloading Kendra, after reinstalling all the drivers and programs, after wasting an entire day, I get a "Your computer has recovered from a fatal error" message every time I boot. Why Microsoft? Why must to torture me so? I really don't want to have to reload again to fix this problem. I'll try a repair first, and if that doesn't work, I guess I'll have the joys of another reload. Stupid XP.

On a completely unrelated note, I crushed my toes on my right foot against a door frame making them all bruised and squishy. The pain doesn't bother me half as much as knowing I won't be able to play DDR for a few days. Lame. Literally.

The only joy I get is from my new Pocket PC. I think I'm going to name her Avariella, which is an American name for "small strong woman".

Feeling: Happy

The weekend was long and fraught with peril. On Friday, Angel came over and we enjoyed a fun evening of guitar playing (and she's better than me!). We stayed up late playing and undoubtedly annoying my neighbors. In the morning we had a pork filled breakfast and then played DDR. I was able to convince her to try it and she did very well for her first time. I was also fortunate enough to clear a few new songs.

After that we parted ways and I went to my father's to hang out with my family. Whee. I lazed around the house on Sunday doing exciting things like watching old movies and eating Jell-O.

This morning I started reloading my computer with Windows XP. Explorer now blows out every time I save something from IE. Bill Gates you are an evil knave.

I picked up a new PocketPC today as well. I purchased my boss's barely used one for $50. It only took a solid year of nagging for him to finally crack. It's a ViewSonic with an Intel 255MHz and 36MB memory. Nothing to kill for, but certainly a good deal.

For you Lord of the Rings fans, you can preorder the collector's edition boxed set which has a miniature of Minas Tirith and a bonus DVD of the Lord of the Rings symphony.

Feeling: Happy

If I ever become a whiny crybaby emo brat, someone please slap me. They are SO annoying. Anyway, I've a long weekend planned of video games, sleeping, and annoying family functions. See you all on Monday.

Feeling: Cool

When I got home yesterday I changed into my new Hufflepuff shirt, and then realized that I am severely lacking a yellow bandana. After Angel came over and we grabbed some dinner and then went to get me a new bandana, which I now have, so you can all breathe a sigh of relief. Later in the day I wowed her with my in-depth Nintendo trivia. What can I say, I'm a lady's man.

I'm off to Sarah's place tonight. See ya'll tomorrow.

Feeling: Annoyed

I put a real hurtin' on the DDR machine last night. I passed three new 9 footers as well as some other 8 footers. I think there is a pretty good chance of me clearing a 10 footer before the end of the month.

XP is still messing up on my computer. I guess I'll have to reload the stupid thing. Gah, what a waste of time.

Over the years the Gurus are asked several simple questions. So simple, in fact, that they don't warrant a full fledged answer from our gurus. However, the gurus with their infinite wisdom have taken it upon themselves to rectify this problem. By answering several of these simple questions at once they have made peace with those who would ask a guru a simple question. Head over to Ask A Guru for the new answers.

I've cleaned up the poetry page a little and broke the poems up into categories. Nothing new to look at though.

Feeling: Angry

As the title suggests, I'm quite peeved at a Microsoft product (as usual). It seems whenever I use a common dialog (open / save window) in XP the file viewer decides to forgo the properties of the folder its viewing and show everything in icon or thumbnail view. Those views are so pointless! If I wanted huge ugly icons that covered half the screen I would have bought a Mac! Give me my list view you POS OS. 16x16 icons are good enough for everybody.

Anyway, ranting aside, I've added some more topics into the pointless database which I've been neglecting.

I also pushed the month of October into the old news page.

Feeling: Happy

Last weekend was quite nice. Friday evening, I headed over to East Lansing to play some Magic at the Fortress, and also to try out my new deck the Mesa Matrix. The deck revolves around Sacred Mesas and Bubble Matrixes. It ended up working out very well because I won a large multi-player match. The highlight of my game was a double Congregate (gaining me 28 life) followed up by a Wrath of God. I finally made it home and went to bed at 5:00 AM.

Saturday morning was spent sleeping, but late in the afternoon I finally convinced myself to get up and get breakfast. I went to Big Boy (because they have a cute wait staff). I managed to play some DDR and do some work on my Bionic Commando editor, but the rest of the day was spent doing boring normal stuff.

Sunday involved me sleeping in late again. I practiced my guitar until my fingers hurt and played some more DDR and added a few more songs to my list. I'm trying to pass a ten footer before the end of the month (aside from Bag).

At current, my Bionic Commando editor now has a 6502 decompiler that I wrote encapsulated in it! Yeah, I'm cool.

And take a look over at the new spotlighted item. It's the famed 7th Guest that you always hear me talking about.

Feeling: Happy

I had this strange dream this morning where I was with an old wizard who was trapped in a house that looked like my grandparent's. In order to get him out I needed to find a magic mirror that a villain had used to keep us inside. With help from his small monster-like familiar we found it buried in the garden and brought it to him, and he promptly shattered it. I don't remember much else about it.

The alpha version of my Bionic Commando Editor is ready. At the last minute I added sound editing for all the known events. Take a look at it, let me know if there are any bugs. Just remember that it's written in .NET so you'll need the .NET framework in order to run it. The download contains the latest version of my hacking document as well.

Feeling: Happy

More DDR last night. I think I'm at the level where I can pass an 8 footer without having to worry about failing (except Witch Doctor).

The Bionic Commando Editor is still going strong. I hope to have an alpha version posted tomorrow. I've discovered several new sections of the ROM as well, and the latest Hacking Guide will be posted with it.

Feeling: Pensive

Bush was reelected. What a shame. I expected Bush to win, but I was hoping for Kerry. What do we have to look forward to? Four more years of tax money going to religion, four more years of developing new nuclear weapons, four more years of forcing our culture on other countries, four more years of people dying to lower gas prices. Four more years of wondering if the people I know in Iraq are going to be killed. Gosh, it's going to be great.

Well, I'm back in the swing of things after a totally draining weekend. I played some more DDR last night and cleared a few more 8 footers.

The Bionic Commando Editor is doing very well. I'm writing it in C# and I now have full editing support for the guns allowing you to edit bullet speeds, bullet damage, and sound effects. You can edit certain starting equipment like guns, communicators, hit points, and lives. It also has a built-in ROM corrupter for easy hacking. You can open, save, and restore the ROM at any time. I need to make a few more features to make it run properly before I release an alpha version, but I'll try to get it out this week.

Feeling: Drained

My four-day weekend was very groovy. I got to hang out with Heather, Dave, and Eric, just like old times, saw Heather's family again, went to a Halloween party, carved a pumpkin (always fun), flirted with the hostess at Big Boy, cleared some new songs in DDR, and all out had a blast.

Today is election day! Get out there and vote for someone other than Bush. I don't care who, (well, not Nader either), but not Bush (which is odd for me, I usually vote Republican, but not this time).