Knowing myself, I probably won't remember to post again for ages, so this is a suitable placeholder now that I'm here at Rensselaer (rather than talking about my 11th grade math class).

It is a lot of fun here, however, and I am very happy. All is well.

Maybe the next time I post here I'll have something to say.

Maybe I'll post here again.

Maybe I won't.

-Will

And on the other subject that's been taking my attention recently, Auto Assault *still* rocks. I'm level 40 now (sadly I haven't played since saturday, so I'm suffering withdrawals from not playing for almost two whole days). If you haven't played it yet, play it. It's incredibly fun, and not enough people are playing it. So come out, support NetDevil and this incredible game, and download the free trial. If you decide to check it out, send me a tell as (of course) Raculot on the Apocalypse server, Biomek side. I've also joined a totally awesome clan, the Fallout Runners, and have been doing lots of fun PvP for practice and eventual fighting in Ground Zero.

Anyway, that's all for today's entry.

Later, Rac

Well, I don't think I've got much to say at the moment. AP's are crushing me to death, all of that. English and Physics next week won't be fun. I'm still on the fence about simply not taking the physics AP, since I really don't think I understand the material that well. English seems OK, but it all depends how the review session tomorrow goes.

I also need to sign up for the June SAT II's (or whatever they're called now) tonight, since the deadline for signups is this friday the 28th. So I'll be doing that.

After coming back to the blog and looking at the "maas o menos" entry, I realized it was unnecessarily harsh and took it down. It was obviously written in anger, and despite being 6 months old was still on the front page of the blog since I haven't updated in ages. So now it's gone, and no one will miss it.

Also, to add even more random stuff going on in my life - AUTO ASSAULT. Since it came out on Thursday the 13th, I've been playing it more than I should. I'm up to level 22 Biomek Terminator, and having a lot of fun. It's a really exciting game, a great refreshing change from the MMO drudgery of the many previous games out there. It is very casual friendly, and can basically be soloed all the way through, making it appealing for me with my maybe 30-45 minutes of free time in a night. So I'll be in auto assault for what seems like a long time, and might eventually update my main page's SWG section to Auto Assault (since I no longer play SWG)

Anyway, that's all for now. Guess I'll be posting again in another 6 months =).

-raculot

It was a TON OF FUN. Really. LAN Parties rule, but this one was particularly good. The combination of no tyler, generally better preparation, and two new guests, it was lots of fun. Unfortunately, not enough people could bring thier computers, so we were short a few. Nonetheless, some great 6 or 7 person Savage matches and one epic Rise of Nations match still were fun. And of course, 8 person Halo is great for rounding out a party, and assorted DDR and whatnot. The setup was hard, but it was totally worth it. I'm thinking we should have another one in late november/early december range, and continue to do one every month or two.

Several people brought cool gifts for my birthday too. I was really surprised, everyone brought really cool interesting gifts. I can't wait to read the manga/books that people gave me, and the Trigun shirt rules. Also, Ix drew an incredibly cool happy birthday picture, which now resides above my television.

In other, stage crew related news, I get to do the sound board for the show. WOOT! Lots of after school run crews that week will be impossible, but it'll be totally worth it. Theatrical Productions is proving to be near-impossible, but is fun anyway. I'll probably be working most of tomorrow on it, perhaps getting the physics lab done too.

Anyway, I guess I'm out for the night. I have lots more to type about, so expect another entry soon.

I do suggest that vandals leave the site alone, as the next time they decide to impress thier friends by showing thier "manliness" at noon on a saturday on someone else's blog, it'll be more then an annoyed post they'll get in return.

In other news, spirit week is going on now. Tomorrow is the "bling" day, where everyone will go show off how shiny they can make themselves to each other. Personally, I hope they all walk out in the sunlight and blind each other, but that won't happen. I'll be wearing the shiny plastic hubalah hat, and my 42 shirt.

Also, I got a HUGE box of Ubuntu Linux CDs in the mail (75 discs) to distribute to future converts. Now I just need to find some non-techies and indoctrinate them into the ways of Linux. I think 75 is a bit of overkill, but oh well, I can find homes for them. Ms Lincoln is definately getting one on her desk, and probably Mr Smolko, and several friends are taking them home whether they want to or not. Then the real fun begins, giving them away at school, leaving a few in piles for people to take home and try, etc, etc. Ubuntu are great people for giving free CDs to distributors like me to give away and convert more people to Linux, and hopefully I will be able to make a few linux users out of Windows or Apple drones.

I've got lots more to write, but thats about all I think I can fit into one entry. I'll post another tomorrow or wednesday, to follow up on all the interesting stuff thats happened since I last posted.

After much fighting over the last day, the blog is actually rebuilding itself correctly. I finally tracked down the problem to a misconfiguration with the file path of where the MovableType CGIs were writing the HTML files to, since iPowerWeb, my new host, did not make the directory assignments very clear. However, thanks to the movabletype checking tool I was able to figure out where it was located on the server and proceeded to reconfigure it appropriately. So, if you can see this (and yesterday's ill-fated entry), I consider this to be a success. If anyone runs into issues with the new server, just send me an email and I'll try to work it out.

Also, the home theater people arrived again today to straighten the crooked screen. Supposedly the chairs should be here sometime next week, just in time for me to get my root canal. =( However, I remain optimistic that the theater will eventually become fully functional.

Anyway, I think that's all for today. Hopefully posts will become regular again now that I can post again.

The server went down as I went away for vacation at the beginning of the summer, and I haven't had a free day at home until now. As a result, I could not update this blog and the forums were down. BUT NO MORE! THE REGULAR ENTRIES WILL CONTINUE!

I AM ALIVE!

*ahem*

Otherwise, today was a relatively normal day. Tyler and Dad are out in Wyoming visiting his godmother, but I stayed home because I didn't want to go, and Mom hurt her foot a few days ago and stayed behind too.

I also tried to reactivate my Final Fantasy XI account, and realized that Square Enix uses the absolute worst stupidest most annoying registration system ever. Everyone in the game is assigned an ID number, and basically if you lose it you need to rebuy the game. I finally got it back after about two hours of fighting with thier tech support. They ended up asking me to give them my Name, CD Key, address, birthdate, and they still wanted the last four digits of the credit card used to activate the account. Well that credit card was destroyed after there was a fraud issue with it, and it took us even longer on the phone with the bank's customer service to get the last four numbers of the card to give to Square just so I can get my LOGIN ID back (I remembered the password)

And I thought SOE was bad

They take away all my time and make me stressed out and never have time to post on this blog. You'd think I'd have more time with the shorter days, but all the stress makes me just put off a new entry. But here it is, so enjoy it. You'll be getting plenty more of them come summer. However, until then, I'm just gonna write about stuff now.

I don't really have a topic at the moment, so I'll just write about how badly I'm going to do on the chemistry exam. I will really be surprised if I pass this thing, because it is REALLY gonna be mean. Not being able to use my calculator won't help, instead being forced to rely upon the utterly stupid TI-36x Solar's that Ms Thompson is paranoid about forcing every student to use to prevent cheating. Math doesn't require people to use thier own calculators, why chemistry?

However, if I look at the chemistry exam the other way, it means that right now is basically the last time I *ever* need to do *anything* for chemistry again, or basically any science that I don't want to do. Going into Physics next year (first period too!) and that'll be a LOT better (especially better then the other option, biology).

Got my summer reading for next year's Planet Waves (YES!!!!!), now THAT will be a fun course. All the books look great. Unfortunately, right now I need to go to bed in hopes of doing well in said chemistry exam, so I'll continue more about my courses for next year and my summer reading tomorrow afternoon, if I think of it.

Plus the Sonos systems are coming tomorrow, so that will be fun! And all the computer parts arrived today, the home theater is gonna be up hopefully for next week! WOOOOOOT!

Antesignanus Fatalis started up a ventrilo server, so I've been on there chatting for a few hours. Lots of fun, a lot easier then text and lets you do other things (like play planetside) while you're at it. I'm really not sure why more people don't use Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, Skype, or other voice programs. They really are incredibly handy, and are able to utilize the vast amount of bandwidth the average user has at his disposal. The computer has the capability to replace the television, telephone, books, cd players, game consoles, and just about every other electronic device you can think of. The problem is people simply don't use them for that. People who are afraid of change and afraid of adopting new technology ensure that the technology does not succeed in the marketplace, while simpler and older technology such as instant messaging is finally now getting accepted, 20 years after its first use. Why should the average consumer wait 20 years for all that when it is available right now? I for one cannot tell. Use skype for your phone calls! Why live in the 80's when you own a computer capable of over 3 billion calculations per second? Why use text messaging when your internet connection can support 1.5 million binary digits per second?

It is this underutilization of technology that angers me. With the exception of digital media creators and gamers, computer users do not use the massive power they possess, instead owning a computer for a couple of years and then replacing it with a more powerful one that they will utilize less of? Simply because Windows causes massive performance decay over time does not mean that you cannot simply reinstall Windows and restart the decay anew, or install Linux or another alternate OS and prevent the decay entirely. In a world where CPU speed does not matter, why is the whole computer world still obsessed with it?

Oh well, it's the weekend now and I can post something, so I am. I saw Revenge of the Sith a few hours ago, and it was AWESOME! It was a really great movie, and did a good job of bringing closure to the star wars saga. Gone was the wooden acting and terrible dialog from the first two prequel movies, instead this one was excellently acted and very well done. If you have not done so already, go see the movie now! I'll probably make a post about it in a couple weeks more in depth, but right now I might spoil it since so many people haven't seen it.

Playing through Knights of the Old Republic 2, and it is a very nice game. The intro area of Paragus is awfully long and boring, however. It leaves you constantly wondering if the whole game is set on this boring old abandoned mining outpost.

Ah well, hopefully I get a lightsaber soon =)

The whole thing reminds me of some of the chess related deaths listed in Wikipedia. I would not be surprised if there is a reported death of the same cause in the library.

Also, el senor Pardo is giving us a test tomorrow, despite the fact that half of our class has no idea what the imperfect subjunctive is. Spanish class is getting more and more annoying, its good the school year will be ending soon.

In unrelated news, we have our last tennis practice today. I'm glad the season is ending, its gone on longer then it should anyway. Our last game is away at somewhere-or-other tomorrow, and then we're done. YAAAY.

Lets see....math class is screwed up, Mr. Denigris keeps delaying the test because the other class isn't learning much since Mr. Straub passed away, so we may end up cutting out our last unit and not reviewing for the exam at all. Its rather annoying, to say the least, and he keeps trying to blame it on us. I'm not sure why, and I don't think he knows either. He's been exceedingly cross and strange the last couple months, and I can't figure out why. He's intentionally failing most of the class. You know that something is wrong when the highest grade on the last test was a 73%.

Now french people are trying to steal my laptop, so it looks like this entry is about to end.

Mateo says "Que tengas un buen dia"

How about the iPod Shuffle? Many similar products, such as the Sony Network Walkman E-505, offer similar functionality, lower price, just as nice styling, far better battery life, and a screen to boot, all in a package that's the same size as the Shuffle? Or how about the Turtle Beach Audiotron or the Slim Devices Squeezebox? Both are vastly superior to the Apple AirPort Express, and had been around for years when the AirPort Express with iTunes "revolutionized" music listening. And none of the competing products try to force you to use the company's other products, as the AirPort Express does with iTunes. And for just slightly more, other companies can give you products that support streaming video in many other formats, such as the Buffalo LinkTheater (I've used Buffalo Technology products about a year now, they're really awesome).

Also, there's the well-known phenomenon of Apple computers always being used by the good guys in movies/cartoons/tv/anything, and the bad guys are always using Windows.

Why is it that a truely evil company like Apple Computers is able to get away with almost anything and still be seen as a great company? While the American people tend to side with the underdog, Apple Computers is exploiting this trust.

I've been hard at work on the new layout for the website. It is coming along, but VERY slowly. There is a lot of work involved in making a totally new website from scratch because you feel like it. My old black-and-white website was nice, but was over a year and a half old and had gotten incredibly boring to me. So, I decided, I should make a better one!

The blog is already done (obviously), and I just finished the Star Wars Galaxies section. A lot of spots in it are a little bare content-wise, but at least the skeleton is there and on the internet. Next I get to make a forum skin to match the site for the Forum section, and then make a computer section.

The computer section will take a LONG time, since I have *so many* ideas for it. In the ideal world where I have infinite time and a working digital camera, I would love to put a virtual tour of my favorite place in the world - inside my computer. However, until I get my camera working again, this will be an impossibility. I also want to put up some of my digital art in a section of its own, and some of the stuff I've been working on that's computer related. Also, I'd like a small website to cover the computer-building business that I've been running the last couple months. All that to go in the little quarter circle for computers! I might need to make a second circle-menu of subcategories for computers if I can't figure out a good way to organize the computers page.

Ah well, lots of ideas, but 2:00 AM right now, so I should probably be heading to bed. I think this makes 3 blog entrys in one day, and I've had to contain myself from ranting about Apple, wireless mesh networks, technology, and about a million other things. I think I may need to ration how many blog entrys per day I can make or I'll end up with 500 posts a weekend for two months until I completely exhaust every possible topic to write about.

Anyway, enjoy the new, partially completed layout. It's better then the black and white one, now its black, white, and blue. In 253 more years it might be worthy of an old monitor.

About 8 months ago, I upgraded my system to an AMD Athlon FX-55, an Asus A8V-Deluxe, and an Asus X800 XT PE, AGP version. Those of you computer geeks in the audience probably think the AGP card was a dumb move, and it was. I was contemplating the PCI-e version, but I kept thinking about losing the extra PCI slots. I realize now that was a very bad move, and will likely mean I need a complete mobo/gfx upgrade in the near future. My X800 XT PE has been acting up the last few months, and gradually getting worse. It just generates too much heat for its own good, and no amount of cooling I can put on it seems to help much. ATI made a bad move with making the X800 a single slot card, and the cooler on the ASUS one is particularly flimsy. I finally downgraded to an old 9800 XT that I had lying around the house because it had become impossible to play games that my old Geforce 3 could run 4 years ago. The system feels more steady now, but that is a short term fix.

Maximum PC hightened my urge to upgrade when I looked at the reviews of new computers they had in there. Even midrange computers have more horsepower then my rig these days. The "zero point" system that all other computers they review are measured as a percent improvement against is an AMD Athlon FX-55, 2 GB low-latency RAM, Asus A8N-SLI-Deluxe, and Dual PCI-e nVidia 6800 Ultras with 256 MB graphics memory each. That system puts mine to shame performance wise, and thier reviews of systems with dual graphics cards with 512 MB graphics memory PER CARD made my single-card computer with 256 MB total seem completely underpowered.

Thier zero-point system would kick my computer's ass any day, yet I still consider my computer to be "powerful". I keep holding off until the next big generation of graphics cards, but I'm really not sure about it. Maybe an upgrade is in order before then.

And I'll keep kicking myself for not getting an SLI board the last time I upgraded the system.

I suppose that part will be left for another day.

Tyler and Dad are away for the weekend, so it leaves Mom and I at home. Most of the friends are away at the band trip, so I'm probably going to pester Samuel in a little while to see if he wants to hang out and play Command and Conquer Generals.

I keep having the feeling that there is some huge homework assignment I need to be doing, but then carefully go through my assignments in my head and find there are no papers due. I suppose its the stress from the end of the year getting to me, even when there's nothing to put stress on me.

Quote of the day:
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. Skinner (1904 - 1990)