Sodium told me I like bulleted lists too much. I agree.
Since, well a week or so after the last entry, I started keeping a proper journal, though it's not online. Somehow I am already creeping up to 60 pages O_O
==Nov 21, 2007==
Holy crap has time passed (1.3 years this time!). I swear though, I'm only slightly smarter and wiser than before. Or a lot more. Or less more. Who knows? I don't.
Interestingly, I seem to measure time in game releases. Since my last entry,
Yoshi's Island DS, The Nintendo Wii (and the PS3) have launched, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Supreme Commander(and its' expansion!), BioShock, The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, The Orange Box, and Super Mario Galaxy have been released.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: still in the future. Spore, holy crap, still in the future. STARCRAFT 2 HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED, IT WILL BE A REAL THING.
I actually joined a StarCraft 2 community, became a prominent member, and flew to Anahem CA to attend BlizzCon, and played StarCraft 2. I am actually a bit of an authority on the game. I doubt there are more than a few hundred people in the world, outside the development team, that know as much about this game as I do. It's disgusting, really.
To pay for that trip, and the digital camera I brought along, and the sweet new computer that I am not currently using to type this, I actually got a job.
My map pack has over 50 maps now, about 20 are new since the last update, but a few are just fun inclusions from my junk pile.
I applied to and was accepted to and am now attending the University of Florida, majoring in Physics. Not sure if I intend to go all the way with that. I'll decide once I take an actual Physics class, I suppose.
On my senior AP tests, I got: Literature and Composition(4), Computer Science A(3), Psychology(5), Government and Politics(3), Macroeconomics(3), Calculus BC(2). Yeah... I failed that last one, and there is a nonzero chance I will fail it again if I don't do awesome on these next three tests.
I haven't gotten around to learning C++, but I do have some basic Java, and have written some cool stuff in Processing, which uses Java.
Being in the UF band, I can now say that I have been paid to perform music. I mean, the payment against the time invested is kind of tiny, but still!
I was introduced to StumbleUpon. Wow, what a way to obliterate time.
The Golden Compass is being made into a movie, a movie that will release in a couple of weeks.
The Last Harry Potter book was released. The Deathly Hallows. Good book, slightly meh ending.
The third Pirates movie has been released, I watched it. Pirates of the Carribbean: At World's End.
Pixar released Ratatouille, an extremely good movie, I mean, woah. Yeah.
Remember those ghost smilies my sister put on my wall in 2005? Those are still there, except it's not my room anymore, it's a storage room, because I don't live... here... anymore.
Oh, this may or not be obvious, but I graduated from high school. This is exactly as big of a milestone in my life as I expected it to be: not one. I lost my cap when I threw it up into the air... well, didn't lose so much as "throw onto the stage, where I couldn't reasonably run to get it back even if I could tell which one it was." Everyone I tell about this says that it a terrible loss, or something. I kind of regret it too, symbolism and all. Maybe losing it was symbolic. Yeah, I like that.
I am not going to make any promises about site overhauls this time. It isn't a mistake I intend to repeat.
Oh, I never posted my junior AP grades. The ones I was waiting for in my last entry. I like to post these, since they're so important-seeming: Language and Composition(3), US History(4), Statistics(3), Calculus AB(3).
For some recent events, I woke up this morning, posted on StarCraft2Forum.org, played a game of StarCraft, my mom came and picked me up, we went to the bookstore to buy UF shirts, we drove down to Orlando, picked up the Thanksgiving stuff (with a considerable delay, seeing as Target gave it to some other person, so we got theirs), and then we came back to the apartment. My mom left for work, and I got on the computer and started doing this, then I did this.
On Monday, I attended a talk by Rick Fields about his work with Richard Feynman. Physics-y, good, very over my head throughout.
==Jul 15, 2006==
I finished the game watch thing and will be attaching it shortly. At the moment there is very sparse detail.
I created a link to my full map pack, 28 maps.
I am going to overhaul the site eventually, at the moment I am just cleaning up what I have. I am removing the borders in most of the tables to make it look cleaner.
==Jul 14, 2006==
Look! I topped myself again. Almost a year, almost.
I updated my "About me" page. I mean, nothing huge has changed, but...it is updated.
I think I might include a resume-like skills page. Not because I think you particularly care about that stuff, but because I want to highlight the fact that I am trained in laser safety.
I am going to link to my updated StarCraft map pack.
I am going to upload some images, and maybe start an images/art section, because some of it is pretty cool.
I am going to add a game watch section. I am watching a lot of games, and you should be too.
From previous entries, Supreme Commander is now a 2007 game. Twilight Princess has been pushed to late 2006, and will be released for both GCN and Wii. I have since then taken 4 other AP classes and the associated tests. I have not gotten my scores back on them yet, but I am hoping for a 4 in APUSH, maybe a 4 in AP L&C, a 3 (although that's pushing it) in AP Calc. AB, and I fully expect a 2 in AP Statistics.
I have my SAT results. Critical Reading: 690. Math: 630. Writing: 620. 1940 total. I was aiming for a 2000, so I missed it by 60 points. My score improved from the PSAT, but for some reason my writing score dropped like 100 points. And this is after taking a year long, college-level writing course. *shrug*
I recently saw Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest. It was a good movie, but a bit cheesey with its refrences to the first movie. It's plot was a bit messy, I had to explain it to my mom afterward. I saw X-Men III: The Last Stand earlier in the summer, a good movie, but mainly notable for the fact that it was one of the few places where a character says "Just kill me!" and the other character actually goes and does it. I saw Cars on the same day I saw X Men 3, I have to admit that it is the best movie I have seen all year. I was surprised that it was so good. I would even go on to tell you that I almost cried at one point, but that would be telling you too much. Oh, in my last entry, Disney had not yet bought Pixar. It owns them now. What an unstrange world the past was.
For some reason the bottom of this page has been cut off, that really scares me.
==Aug 19, 2005==
I have successfully topped my previous non-entry period. Please limit your congratulatory emails to 1 megabyte in size.
Anyway, since the last entry, I have finished that AP exam, which I got a 4 (on a 1-5 scale) on. I got two wisdom teeth taken out last week, that was an experience I don't want to (and can't, as I am out of wisdom teeth) repeat.
I found a computer outside my complex's dumpster some time ago. Always something worth repeating.
I found out about Supreme Commander a bit ago. Another 2006 game worth looking forward to.
I am moderately disgruntled at the delay of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It is now a 2006 game worth looking forward to as well.
I am already out of stuff to talk about! Yay!
==Apr 26, 2005==
Ugh, the AP European History test is getting so close...I am spending a lot of time reviewing.
Next year, I should be taking AP Statistics, AP Language and Composition, Physics Honors, Band, AP Computer Science, and AP U.S. History. It'll be a rough year.
Obviously I have not added much to my site for close to a month... just updating my situation...
Starcraft. Lots of that recently.
I have three tests tomorrow, tests don't bother me much though... unless they're really scary like the AP tests...
Ah, I got a lot more time to play Paper Mario after the last update, I got to about 55 hours, I believe, but I had to return it when I was on the last last level >_<
==Apr 04, 2005==
After reading a lot of stuff about the Internet, I have decided that my mind has been boggled. There is a lot of cool stuff happening these days. I'll have to thank Sodium for throwing all of those links from Wikipedia at me the last few days, because previously I had a lot of trouble finding anything really interesting without knowing what I was looking for in advance.
I am thinking of restructuring my site so that my index acts as an actual index. It would have a seperate "main" page, as it should. I like restructuring things.
I like daylight savings time in the fall a lot better. Springtime daylight savings time is just not fun. Going to bed earlier, getting up earlier, it is just wrong!!
I am close to beating Paper Mario 2 (I am a good 45 hours in @_@,) but I am also getting close to having to return it. The pressure is on!
==Mar 31, 2005==
Boom-bassa-boom festival!
Today I ran home from the bus backwards. It's not easy, but it is exhausting.
Yesterday my sister "decorated" my room with 20 or so smilies on colored construction paper. She also made a ghost smiley on my wall using glow in the dark dots. The only reason I have not taken them down is that I am far too lazy to do such a thing. I think that is also the reason that I have yet to remove all of the post-it notes with smilies that she put on my walls a few months ago.
Shortly before the faces, she was using the new scanner/printer to make copies of stuff. She copied a lot of stick figures and smilies, and a sheet of a bunch of anime (>_<) that she had copied from my Nintendo Power magazines. Of all the stuff she copied, (and this is the point I was trying to get at) the only really cool one she did was a chip bag. She copied the bag, wasted a lot of ink and a sheet of paper, but it looked so cool! It was like the bag was trapped in the paper, or something. I recommend for all who possess the equipment to copy a chip bag. The one that she did that looked so good was Lays Salt and Vinegar.
I'd mention stuff I have done lately, but I'm sure nobody wants to hear about my checking out a new math book, or how I have gotten further in Paper Mario 2.
In conclusion, run home backwards, avoid letting siblings infest your room, and always copy your chip bags.
==Mar 24, 2005==
The new computer arrived today. Because it has already been solidly assimilated into my life, I won't go on about how happy I am about it. I will say, though, that the new monitor is a lot better than the old one. The higher resolution really makes it easier on the eyes. Now all I have to do is install a bunch of stuff...
==Mar 22, 2005==
Wow, the power of competition. I recently read a news article stating that Yahoo planns to upgrade its email storage to 1GB as well. Pretty soon I'll have two very large chunks of memory online... makes me wish I was getting more emails than I already do.
Rented "Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door" today, fun so far.
==Mar 21, 2005==
After checking my emial for the first time in a good two months (and actually reading anything) I took my dad's suggestion and got a GMail account from Google. I saw "1000 megabytes of free storage" and was sold. My email address there is [email protected].
Somethingorother happened to my computer again, but I have been so used to reinstalling stuff lately that I just... did. Yay. The new computer arrives soon. Soon is good.
Today I made chicken in the first time for too long.
==Mar 20, 2005==
AHH! AHH! AHH! AHH!! Yes Yes!! Yes! My computer is back from the dead! It's ALIVE! MWAHAHAHA! YEAH!
This last week has sucked soo much for me, as you can probably tell.
I forgot the sheet music I was supposed to be learning at school. I need to get a hold of a copy via someone with a copy.
I started reading Candide today. It's kind of sad, not in a sad sad sort of way, but you really end up feeling sorry for the main character.
I made a game involving a chessboard, and pieces, two dice and two coins. I have not played it with anyone but myself, but would conclude that it is a bit difficult to grasp for the effect it has. I'd say the learning curve is similar to learning Risk, but, like I said, with less effect.
Oh yeah, we just ordered a new computer. It was a $1000 computer with a $300 rebate, so that was nice. We were getting it both because I had killed this one, and we knew we needed a new one anyway. We got a new printer/scanner, and I like it because this one is not a paper-feed scanner but a flatbed scanner.
because I have a cold, I have found that my sleeping habits are shifting dramatically towards being "normal." I am actually going to bed at 10:00pm (which is usually early for me) and getting up at 6:00am (like my alarm clock wants me to.) Hm, come to think of it, my alarm clock-radio-CD player is set to play the radio when I get up, so I end up waking up to the BBC and find that I had some very strange current event-related dreams.
Back to my cold. Yes, I am sick, I am not frequently sick and am not finding this to be pleasant. Oh well, I think more than anything else I have been using it as an excuse to myself to do nothing and drink all of the orange juice.
My cat is sleeping on a sleeping bag on the floor in front of the door next to the computer by the table in the general vicinity of the TV.
As a final note, I only misspelled one word in the first draft of this entry.
==Mar 11, 2005==
I just got home from our district Music Performance Assessment. We did pretty well I think.... The sight-reading session was my personal best as of ever.
It was really awkward with the MPA at my school. I went to Subway several hours before the call time (since I stayed after school instead of going home) and could not for the life of me avoid bands coming at me from every direction. It is really embarrassing walking down a hall with a sandwich and a drink in front of a bunch of uniformed and not so unobservant people. It is! I managed to find a somewhat safe spot to eat, but even then bands went by, and noted my food.
I had a chemistry test today. For future reference, the molecular formula can be gotten from the empirical formula and the molar mass by dividing the molar mass by the empirical and using that number to multiply the atoms in the empirical formula then rounding... down I think. Yeah, I got that all wrong on the test. I think I divided the empirical by the molar. Do not do that!
==Mar 07, 2005==
I bubbled in all of the 'O's, and zeros on the first passage of my FCAT reading test today.
I am mostly done with Gulliver's Travels. It is so abounding with archaic language that it took me some effort to crack into. I found an online version (with no effort whatsoever,) so, to those too cheap to actually buy it: Gulliver's Travels. If on-screen text gets to you as it does me, you can get it for $2.50(+s&h) at Dover.
==Mar 02, 2005==
Being the "land of freedom and opportunity" it seems there is so much that a person can accomplish that, for the most part people choose not to accomplish anything. I think popular culture is the main source for our problems: too much stuff on TV etc. that portrays bad habits as acceptable ones. An article my English teacher had us read actually very convincingly pinned much of our weakness (especially low average education level and attention span) on, of all things, TV commercials. There is so much to distract us here, that, if a person does not properly filter it out, they can become a relatively useless nobody in the vast sea of the less productive sides of our "culture." Of course, in comparing the U.S. you must keep in mind that the entire social system is structured differently. I won't go into detail on how and why I think it works, because I can't say I know enough to hit the deeper reasons behind their ability to maintain education and a high level of general respect. I'll just note that with everything there are tradeoffs. Japan can be a very stressful place because of all of the hard work that goes on over there, property is a lot more expensive, and if you don't like the crowded conditions of Japanese cities, it isn't paradise. It depends, really, on what kind of life you would prefer.
It would be more fair to compare us to other Western countries, though. It can still be argued that students do better in school there, and people are generally less violent, but again, here, these are simply tradeoffs. Europe does not have the same opportunities as the U.S, so if you are looking to become successful on a large scale, it is not the easiest place to do that. With education, one of the reasons European students may seem brighter is that the bottom rung does not necessarily show up. Many European countries are not as active about preventing truancy, so the kinds of students that would simply disrupt a class in America, are just not attending at all. In Europe (if I remember correctly) more focus is placed in academic subjects like math, reading, etc. in the primary schools. In the U.S, there is more focus on more or less abstract things like art. Actually, an insightful source told me that he thought the American education was better geared to prepare students for college than the European systems. At the basic levels, students are taught more abstract concepts, they learn social and problem solving skills etc., that they then use at the college level for more advanced stuff if they choose to go to that level. In Europe, students graduate high school knowing more solid information than Americans, but Americans leave high school with social skills useful in society, as well as a basis for a strong transition into college. Another way to put it would be that the difficulty and information learned in European schools increases arithmetically, while it increases exponentially in the U.S. The level is higher at the high school graduation level in Europe, but is passed by the American college level later on. So, again, it is all about what you want from your education when.
Ok, I know your main argument was on social values, common sense, and the like. While, it would appear that we are a society of utter morons, I think the reason for this, is the fact that people do like to "share and enjoy"(I couldn't resist the allusion, sorry) stupidity. People don't have "common sense," in my opinion, partially because their sense lies in some other area... The problem with that of course is that area might not be a very useful area. But someone who will on one day fry their dog, might be infinitely valuable if you want to learn about... soap or something. Since people end up specializing in certain stuff, the main problem is finding out who is good for what... I am going to put together a rough equation as to how it might work... US: Attention = useful stuff(publicly useful + privately useful) + useless stuff
Elsewhere: Attention = useful stuff(publicly useful + privately useful) + useless stuff Since we are all human, the equation is the same for both "groups,"
however, I believe that Americans have a higher number in the "useless stuff" category, and also in the "privately useful" category then the "publicly useful" category, making us not all that useful in any place other than our private lives. Before I forget to add this, I do not think that our lack of moral integrity stems from a focus on foreign affairs, as I have outlined, I think it has more to do with a focus on inimportant internal affairs to such a degree that it gets in the way of the affairs of other countries. I think that is why so much of the world hates us, actually.
As a last note, this was not so much an argument as it was quite a lot of little theories that I've had, put in some sort of solid medium. I'd go into more detail on how I think it all adds up, but I've worn myself out on this bit of badly organized and supported hunk of text, so I won't.
==Feb 25, 2005==
I rented Star Fox: Assault on Monday (as well as LotR:The Two Towers) from Blockbuster. Thankfully my family has stopped "boycotting" the establishment, because they have supposedly greatly improved their services. Anyway, the game really is appropriate as a rental, because it is just not worth buying unless you really want to get gold medals for every level. SF:Assault is not as fun as the N64 version. You can't choose the path you want to take through the game, the game has been "dumbed down" quite a lot... While I don't remember what happened in SF64, in this installment, hitting stuff only causes your wing to flash red to indicate that it has taken damage. There is not sound indicating that it has happened, and your ship won't even rock! There is a lot in the game that makes the "flying" seem unconvincing (like the fact that you can fly straight into a building, bounce back, boost, hit it again at full speed, and still stay alive.) Another problem is that there were just not enough levels, or at least, not enough of the classic style levels. About 2/3 of the game is ground-based onfoot mission stuff. Not enough fun flying! The music is not as compelling either, with the exception of the menu screens and the Star Wolf theme. The game seems a bit more story oriented, but not in a positive way, there is WAY too much drama... I'll stop now before I go any further with the story...
On a more positive note, I ate breakfast and lunch twice this week, half a package of crackers in the morning, and the rest at noon.
Going back to negativity, my computer is not running my DSL stuff well, due to lack of stuff due to age. It also likes making very unhappy sounds for extended periods.
Back to a positive note (usually "notes" indicate the end of something, but go figure) I am actually winning a game on "Librarian!" Yes, although I started off very badly, I managed to use diplomacy and force, and all sorts of other dirty stuff to make my way to the top. Sadly, when you are on top, the computers start hating you. The only faction of the five others left that is not at war with me is the Morganites, and that is because they don't like war anyway. Luckily, there is only one player that is nearly as strong as I am, everyone else's "dominance" bar sits at my bar's feet. The "strong" faction I am fighting is the Gaians. Diedre has an army bigger than mine, and a stronger air force. I managed to hop from base to base (University sea bases) to go right up to two of her strongest cities. I was not able to capture them (and the secret projects thay housed) before her air force beat me back. When I last saved I was losing ground to her, but it has only been the lightly defended, hard to reinforce sea bases. My main base (which includes the remains of the Cybernetic and University main bases is connected to all of its parts by mag tubes, meaning I can send units from any base to a base I need to defend in one turn. While that also means they can attack at a similar rate, they have to make sea drops to get near me, or at least go through Morgan. I plan to reassemble my army, take out her needlejets, and grab (or even mind control, which will cost me 4k energy) some of her more important cities. Once I have The Cloudbase Academy (airbase at every base[air morale and space access to all bases]) I think I'll have the game as well.
==Feb 20, 2005==
I am just sitting here... in the middle of my three-day weekend. All of my homework is done, what am I to do? Well, I do have some things to do, but am I really going get around to doing them?
Oh, I cleaned my room yesterday. That is fairly rare for me.
The DS vs PSP battle was discussed on Gamasutra. Lots of very big people replied to the topic, producers of big games, owners of big gaming companies, etc. and they all came up with the same stuff as the people on the message boards: same arguments, everything. I suppose we'll have to wait until the PSP is released to find out what will happen...
I have been playing Alpha Centauri on "Librarian," which is 4/6 in difficulty. While I have gotten some decent scores, the computers generally outdo me later in the game. My best game on this difficulty resulted in a 100%+ score, despite the fact that I resigned, and that when I did, another computer had almost three times my score... If I remember correctly, he started launching Orbital Defense Satellites and began shooting down all of my satellites including the ones that were boosting my energy and food income at all of my bases. I quit at that point because I no longer had space superiority (I did have air and sea superiority, but not to t [lost text]
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