HogSong, Mercurial, Best Weekend Ever.
So this was the best weekend in ever. Erin was down here for the week, and stayed over the weekend as well. After work on Friday (not a whole lot got accomplished due to the earthquake/tsunami in Japan), we started playing video games. And we kept playing video games. Until like 5AM. It was fantastic. Erin ragequit Gears of War because she couldn't beat the end guy (I heard he's hard...), played some cartoony RPG on the PS2, I played some DJ Hero (new high score on Kaskade - Move for Me!), and more. Honestly I don't remember the rest, the last few hours are kind of a blur. We totally should have played some old-school N64 Super Smash Brothers, but we forgot D: I missed out raiding with Eminence again, but I call worth it.
I also made Erin watch 2001: A Space Odyssey. She was not impressed. I believe her exact words were YOU BROKE MY MIND, and something about Stanley Kubrick only having 20-minute scenes of nothing important so he could pleasure himself. She rather enjoyed the Intermission though. Lawl. Also watched Gamer again (continuing the bad movie saga), and Tron: Legacy. Which is by far, one of the best movies ever made. She concurs. Finally found a DVD-quality copy of it to show. Definitely going to be the first movie I'll buy on DVD in quite a while. I tried to convince her to watch 2010, but she sadly would have none of that. Oh well! We also watched some Stargate: SG1 (The Fifth Race, one of the all-time best SG1 episodes ever). I also taught her some shell commands on linux! Mostly because she stole my laptop and then realized she couldn't use it ;D
On Sunday, we came up with the greatest idea ever. HOG SONG: The Pigging. For some reason, we have retarded nicknames for each other, and we are going to make them characters in a game. I looked into an XNA Developer subscription, and started up some character modelling in 3DSMAX. (Gotta love those student discounts...lol). I was going to join, but my Dreamspark account appears to have expired, and I'd have to screw around with getting DeVry to verify my student status (Technically, I think I'm on "leave"). Decided to leave that for another day and just get started. We decided on three main characters, Red Pig, Large Pig, and Mexi-Pig. Mexipig has fantastic abilities, like Taco Whirl, Piñata Bomb, Burrito Bash. Large Pig has Truffle Shuffle, Mud Bath, Suspender Bender. Red Pig has Scarlet Hooves, Crimson Squeal, and Blarney Stone. There are sooo many more, but this is just a preview. If I can convince Erin to give up her precious sketch pad and notebook, I'll scan in some of the concept art and throw up an except and some promo images. It is going to be Flantastic. Going for a free action RPG style for the Xbox Live Arcade; if it gets popular (lol), I might look and see what we can do to port it to Windows. This could be the start of something epic.
This morning started off just fantastic; my clocks were set correctly for Daylight Savings Time (RAAAGE), but my alarm was set half an hour too late for some reason. Managed to get a shower and get in just a few minutes late; not too bad. But by the time I had gotten there, I had several new work orders, emails, and voicemail messages waiting already. I set the Dukane system to update the clocks and the bells, and then set the VK system to update the media retrieval clocks and classroom CCMs. Then, my work done, I forgot about it. Turns out, only half the clocks decided to play nice. After messing around with the VK box for a while, I gave up and gave Jason a call about it. It was a pretty epic battle, very Tron-esque. Totally imagined light-cycle battles and such going on while I was fighting with that ancient software. (Which could be because we decided to watch Tron again last night...whatever 
). Eventually we got that fixed for now (Apparently it will break again in a week when the software decides it actually is DST), but the rest of my morning was spent running around putting out fires for kids to take their Acuity tests (Hooray standardized testing?). Grabbed some lunch with Erin and Dani, then back to work. Found out the bell system actually didn't decide to want to work today, so I spent most of the rest of the afternoon dealing with that and scheduling issues from the VK box's morning antics. Longest day ever.
Tried to find some time to work on the site; managed to get mod_rewrite going (hooray!), so the blog now has fancy looking permalinks. Added the option over on the Eminence side, though I'm not quite ready to roll that SEO mod out yet. Need to do a full backup of the site/content, and actually upgrade to the newest phpBB version. Then I have to fix the theme which will undoubtedly break, and update the PHP hacks for the registration form, etc. Then I can try and add something that might break it. Though it would be nice for more of the site to get indexed than just the shoutbox That's another thing I need to work on, I had planned to add some pagination to the shoutbox page and make it a little more friendly to use. And get a mobile version of the site, or at least shoutbox, going. Most of the users pop on using smart phones anyway, if they aren't at home. Would be nice for me and several others to be able to chat on there.
Talked to Parker a bit about Subversion vs Mercurial; apparently a lot of folks are heading the Hg way. Think I might try it out myself; this Mercurial/PHP web interface looks pretty interesting. I've been wanting to get a nice repository solution setup for my projects; I'd tried to get SVN working on here, but never could find a nice front-end to manage it. Granted it can be done from the command-line, but with as many projects as I work on (and random code snippets that should be organized) it would be really nice to have a way to manage it. The topic of Epic came up and he warned me off. Apparently this article was written by a former Software Engineer there, which is the position I will ideally be applying for. Still, I think I want to give it a shot. The Windows Integration position seems interesting as well, and it's pretty close to my current job/experience. I'd love to find a PHP coding job, but so far I haven't found much luck, except at EarthIT. I haven't quite gotten around to applying there yet either. (I seem to be stuck in my ways, can't take that jump, for some reason.) I need to update my resume and start working on cover letters for these positions, see what comes back. I looked at Raven as well, which looks AWESOME, but I don't have the experience for something that isn't entry-level there. And of course, there are no entry-level openings. Erin suggested I might drop them a letter with a resume and see if they might have anything in the works. Worth a shot; I think working in a game design company would be about the coolest job ever. Can definitely see enjoying my work and loving what I do there. (Blizzard: I love you too. But you won't hire me 
)
Oh well. Time to stop procrastinating, I guess. Until next time!
Mmpf
Sick days are always the worst. Especially when they are unpaid. I woke up this morning with the worst migraine I've ever had (I blame Erin and Dani playing ChronoCross all night), and decided I needed to stay home; there's no way I'd make it through the day like this. So now I have the day to myself, but I can't even enjoy it because everything feels like a bad acid trip with a robot elephant standing on my head. Worked a bit on the site, made the media section work sortof; built a dinky foreach/scandir/lightbox dealie for a nice gallery view. Toying with the idea of playing with mod_rewrite today.
Erin and Dani are off to see Dani's therapist; apparently she wanted to meet Erin. Guess I'm just not important enough to want to meet. Whatever. Dunno what I'm gonna do for the next couple hours. I watched the Blizzard 20 year video, and it yet again reaffirms my want to make my business happen. I love video games, and I'd love to work for a video game company. Blizzard, in particular, would be fantastic. I love everything about the company, from it's history and culture, to the games it makes. Perhaps someday.
Rain, Rain, Go Away — No Wait, Come Back!
First good rainstorm of the season tonight. Was pretty sweet Windows are open, AC is off, its somewhere between 50-55 in our apartment. Perfect weather.
Long-ass week coming to a close now. I caught a cold on Friday sometime, and it kicked my ass around 'till Wednesday. Outta sick days though, so Day-Quil and caffeine have gotten me through the last couple days at work. I think it's finally clearing up now though, which is good. Should make the weekend all the more enjoyable!
I ended up working on a project with some of my family members on Wednesday (more to come tomorrow!). My grandfather invented the G! Panel, which is a modular paneling system for geodesic housing. It's actually pretty sweet; I'm not sure what his marketing plans are for the future, but it sounds like a design project might be coming my way sometime. He is entering his product in an online product promotion video contest, and enlisted the help of several family members in scripting, casting, shooting, and post-production. I was able to snag a GL video camera from work, along with studio/stage and editing time. It should be a pretty good looking and fun project! We spent a few hours shooting on location at a geodesic home, and a few mock locations. More filming and post-production starts tomorrow.
I haven't been playing anything a whole lot this week, on account of my insides trying to get outside. I did make it to 21 on my templar in Aion, which is fun. Scored a sweet deal on a lvl 22 stigma, so whenever I manage to get around to leveling... Sammi is beating me! She hit 28 sometime today, and I've not moved from my ~20 position in a while. Did a little PvP in wow on the warrior, but nothing much to speak of.
Dani found a working WoW private server/emulator, so we played around on there for a while. Ran around spawning a private army of Lich Kings, getting them to follow me around, and slaughter random NPCs. It was pretty sweet. Also spawned Algalon in an ocean and slaughtered him for fun. >.>
Getting paid tomorrow! Finally my bank account will no longer be negative. -_- After I pay the bills, I might have enough to buy food. This sucks. I applied for a job yesterday, at Blizzard Entertainment. It's a Night/Weekend Network Ops Tech job, which is pretty sweet. More or less my dream job, and working for Blue sounds awesome. Unfortunately it's in California. So, if they do want to interview me, it's going to cost over $600 just to get there and back. I almost hope they don't want me, but at the same time I really want that job. :/
Off to sleep I suppose, more work tomorrow, more filming, and at some point I probably need to start working on that big presentation for next month. Farewell!
Snappy Title 37 Not Found
Well, the weekend is about to be over. Back to another week of work! This week might be a little more interesting; I got roped into presenting a session on Moodle Administration at the upcoming HECC conference in November. And by interesting, I mean I have to pull a presentation out of my ass on a topic I was going to the conference to learn about. Ha. Still, a trade's a trade: I get to go to a day long seminar on Network Security, so at least I'll be getting something out of it.
Didn't quite make it to 20 on Maelfas, I got sidetracked with crafting and PvP in WoW. Made it to 19.5 though, so the next half level shouldn't be too difficullt to burn out. I was going to go to Morheim to start the campaign quests for level 20, but I can't get most of them yet. Ended up broke and grinding mobs for crap to cash in A few brokered items sold though, so I was able to get a NICE shield and enchant it. Should help out the survivability. Still trying to decide whether or not to spend some manastones for crit and attack to speed the damage, not sure if it's worth the cost for the gear that will be replaced in a few levels. Then again the leveling is kinda slow, so it might make that go a bit faster. We shall see.
Raped in WSG for a while on my warrior. People always complain about a level 50 in the 50-59 bracket. Sure, I might not be able to do a lot of damage to a 59, or at least that's the assumption. I threw it in the raid's face every battle though as I was #1 DPS on the ally side. L2play. Not that I'm trying to be elitist or anything, but that's pretty ridiculous to get on my back about being too low to make a difference and yet I'm putting out the most damage of 10 other people. They're all idiots, and I'm apparently better. Maybe that is elitism, but it sure as hell seems to be right to me! My plan for my warrior is to level her to 58 solely through battleground experience, then romp through Outlands and Northrend. Still haven't decided if I want to keep her as a 79 twink, or dual-spec Arms and Prot and replace Haf as my main. Time will tell I suppose, as I've got a ways to go to 80 
Pix managed to find me on AIM tonight so I ended up logging in to WoW to tank Anub'Arak in the Trial of the Crusader 10 man raid. We made significant progress but couldn't manage to get him down. Only a few percentages away from the final phase, but our DPS couldn't stay alive long enough to get him there. Something to work on for the rest of the week, looks like. I was going to back to House-- (Oh my god this show is hilarious. I can't believe I never watched it back then. I'm about halfway through Season 3 at the moment; lolol.) but WoW seemed more fun at the moment. About to watch the new episode of Family Guy and Cleveland before I fall into the blissful embrace of nothingness we humans comfortingly call sleep.
Found out Erin's having a themed Halloween party. The theme is "Famous Historical Figures" -- My original idea of going as Hitler was shot down as some girl already called it So now my choices are between Eva Braun (Hilarious, but where do you get a gigantic dress?) and Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill! The possibilities of ensuing debate and hilarity sound...intriguing. Just gotta figure out a churchill costume...I suppose I can just find a white suit, top hat and monocle; no one would know! Or maybe that was KFC's Colonel. Hey, maybe that would do >.>
And as I said, the weekend's about over, so I do believe I'll call it a night. Farewell, 1's and 0's!
I’m Back, Baby!
Website's back up! I found a style I liked and played around with it a bit. Still needs some work, but its good enough for me at the moment! Lets see, roommate got a job, so I don't/shouldn't have to cover all of the bills. Should mean I'll start having some extra cash soon. No more ramen perhaps!
I've started playing Aion: The Tower of Eternity, a Korean/Chinese-style MMORPG. The graphics are amazing, the gameplay is fun, and it's a lot more challenging than any other MMO I've played recently. Up to level 16 right now on my Templar, hopefully finishing out 20 by the end of the week. I'm not rushing anything, I'd prefer to enjoy the game up to end-game, rather than burn out leveling and hate it. Still can't really decide between the Templar and Chanter classes, but the Templar is further along at the moment
I haven't quit WoW exactly.. closer to taking a break. I don't really enjoy playing anymore except on my 49 Warror; WoW's endgame just sucks. There's no point in getting gear, it will just be replaced in a month by a new tier. PvP is unbalanced and not nearly as fun as it used to be. I find that I only login on the weekends, because my guild needs me to tank progression content. Content that we haven't progressed anywhere in for months. I love all my friends in WoW, but I've been playing less and less recently. I don't want to quit playing, because of the social aspect, but I can't very well demand that everyone play the game I want to play now can I?
There are several people from the guild playing Aion though, along with the roommate and couple friends. I suppose if I do decide to quit WoW it won't be cutting off from everyone, but still...I don't know.
Well, back to working on the website. Most of the data is being pulled from MySQL correctly, except for the stuff with # links...They don't work exactly. /at all. Once that's all dynamic, I get to figure out how to build an admin piece, integrate uploading photos, etc. Then sanitize it, and repackage for hosting. Ya know, I've been trying to sanitize and repackage a blogging solution for...years? now, and I never seem to finish.
Perhaps this time will be different...
I hate winter.
I love the snow and all, but to hell with getting sick. I've been messed up a bit for a couple weeks now, and yesterday it all just kicked my ass. Ended up taking two days off from work just to sit around on meds to try and clear it up. I hate meds almost as much as I hate being sick. Figures, vicious circle and all that. Well, I've also used these few days to work on a few projects.
In work life, my company is forming a new department, a Web Apps Team, to design, build, and integrate in-house and open source web applications into our existing management infrastructure. Sounds fun right? Well except for the fact that they still haven't figured out what kind of server they're going to give us, sure. I'll post the code to the Transportation thing here in a bit, it's a good example of how to build a basic ASP/MSAccess Database system running on IIS. They've got a few projects in mind for us, so it will be interesting. I haven't heard anything about a pay-raise, but who cares at this point--it's going to look fantastic on my resume: From Desktop Technician to Web Application Developer in less than 5 months? Beautiful.
In the world of IWM Entertainment, the wheels of profit turn slowly. Actually they don't turn at all since I've not done any real work for a while. I had been working with a client for a design piece, but had to drop it because of time constraints. There are currently two projects at IWM that are under some form of development; phpMyBlog which will either be released to soruceforge or sold retail, and phpMyCMS [fuegoCMS]. fCMS is a retail product, and varying versions have been under development for a couple years (I can't seem to stick with the base code and end up rewriting it.) Anyone who wants to help develop on these projects (and thereby split the profits), send an email to admin[AT]intarwebmachine[DOT]com with a resume, or list of skills and sample of your work. We are looking for HTML, CSS designers, experienced PHP/MySQL coders, and platform-level C/C++ developers.
Since I've been physically incapacitated, I figured I'd do some shopping:
- Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 I figured it was about time I upgraded from Jasc PSP7; Nothing wrong with it, but you can always use new software. That and I can't buy a new license for it anywhere.
Price: $ 49.99 @ BestBuy.com
- Lot of 7 Star Wars Books How can I go wrong? $9 for 7 great books, plus shipping. Now at least I'll have something fun to do in my free time aside from loitering around on the Internet.
Price: $ 9.00 @ eBay.com - Foxconn G31MX-K Motherboard Cheap board for my new PC. Dunno if its value is any good, but it was only about $70. Supports my Core2Duo 2.6gHz and my Celeron 3.6gHz, whichever I decide to use. More info below.
- LiteOn DH-20A4P-08 DVD Burner Cheap burner for my new PC. More info below.
And that's about it, except that I started playing Counter-Strike: Source again. You can find me on Indy Powerplant's GunGame server if I'm on, or my local Iceworld DeathMatch Box.
Happy Fraggin'.
You know how sometimes you just want to stab people in the face because their so assfucking retarded? Yeah, welcome to World of Warcraft. ...
So I FINALLY find a group to go to BRD, right? been looking for like 4 days, all that shit. Anyway, I get there and theyre just gonna do Jailbreak. Now, i reallywanted to go to the bar to get the new plans. But, i digressed, and figured, shit ill get good exp, and definately level up.
5 minutes later.
Yeah, this group won't make it.
We died because no one took the aggro off the healer.
Yeah, but we cant make it.
No, just have [pally] use seal of righteuousness, and use your +aggro stuff.
No, we can't do it.
...So anyway, the rest of the group goes on to do UBRS instead. fucking GAY. And i end up dying, and having all my equipment broken.
One bright point, i sold The Blade of the Titans. woot.
GODDAMMIT I WANT TO BE 60 NOW!!!!!!!!!
so, this one motherfucker's like omg, lf3m brd, and so im like omg, 52pally lfg brd have key, right?
and so then this motherfuckers like orly can you heal? and im like oh totally, i have gear!
and then hes like omgwtf, you noob your too low, you cant come
so then im like oh hey but ive gone before and i can help a lot, i have thekey lol!
and hes oh, ok lolol, here ya go +invite
and then hes like ohshit mybad, your the 52, i invited the wrong person +kick
and now im like. +slitwrists.
Hey you peoples, you know who I am! Haf finally got to 52, so I'm good for a while. Must play CS.
For those of you not in with the cool crowd, come join us on Dalaran, Alliance. Or on Onyxia. 
Your Weakness: beautiful women. and pizza.
Your Best Physical Feature: I've got a couple kegs that i can use as floatation devices, pillows, and to clear the table. im quite talented.
Your Bedtime: i dont sleep. i work 60hrs a week and go to school.
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: fuck tea, drink coffee.
Cappuccino or Coffee: yes. all three.
Are you a Health Freak: Healith? Wasn't that some sort of ancient god or something?
Do you play an Instrument: not a musical one!
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos: yeah...:(
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