082709

I'm at college. A real college. Not some community college, but an institution with the word "University" at the end of it's name. I'm stoked.

I'm trying to decide if I should tell the universe where I'm attending, but the part of my mind that screams "don't do it, Flytape!" (which, not surprisingly, is the same part of my mind that refuses to let me tell you my name) is screaming just that- not to.

Well, fuck that little bit of Grey matter. I'm going to Ferris State University for Graphic Design. Hell yes :D

I moved in yesterday. My room mate moved in today around noon. He seems nice, but who knows. Looks can be deceiving. I might turn out to be a total douche by his standards, or a saint. Same thing with him and my standards.

A while ago, my sister said I was well equipped to handle a room mate. I asked what she meant. Apparently, she thinks I have good communication skills. <shrug> I guess that's a compliment.

One thing I definitely need to complete my dorm experience is a router. More specifically, I need a WAP. WAP stands for:
Wireless
Access
Point

It's pretty much a wireless router that doesn't have hard-line connections on it. I don't know why, but normal routers aren't allowed at Ferris. I can rent one for the year from the tech department, but it's expensive.

That being said, it's pretty much a moot point because I forgot to pack my laptop's battery, so I won't be moving around too much. My mom dropped it in the mail today so it should be here by Saturday. We can hope, anyway. My first day of class is the 31^st, and I kind of want it here before then.

The Internet here is kind-of annoying anyway. To connect, you have to download a few security programs that ensure you won't spread a virus onto the network. While this wouldn't normally be an issue (it's a good idea, really), it slows down Windows significantly. I know it's slow to start with, but oh my god the time it takes to boot now is just ridiculous.

And that leads me to Linux. I recently upgraded to Fedora11 from 10, and am quite happy with it. That is, until I somehow managed to uninstall a significant portion of GNOME in the process of removing CompizFusion a few weeks back. It isn't something that you can just reinstall, either. I was like w/e and let it sit for a while. I just reinstalled Fedora today, and it's working fine. I just wonder if I'll be able to access the Internet with it, though- what with all of these things the network here requires you to have before you can connect. The guy from the technology center at orientation said that he runs Linux fine and that there are some work arounds, but I dunno. I suppose I could call the center and ask for assistance in the matter, but if it requires so-called 'work arounds,' they might not help because it's considered a security violation or something. idk.

So yeah. That's pretty much it for my first day here. Time to spell check this beast and upload it.

040609

So what is my five month story? More specifically, what's my excuse for waiting five months to update?

In response to the latter of the two questions, no excuse is to be had. I've been an irresponsible blog maintainer, and should be punished. Lauren is able to find the time to update a few times a month, if not once a week- and she's busier than I am. Maybe I'd find it easier to do more often if I could justify the amount of work that goes into the addition of a single update against the size of a post. IE: be able to write small posts and not worry if it was worth the effort.

But in response to the former question, a LOT has gone down in the past 119 days. Since I haven't been keeping notes, however, a lot will be forgotten but will come back to me as I type, so chances are this won't be in a chronological order. I will at least try and date the occurrences by referencing chat logs that I had with my peeps on AIM. I'll be starting with a more recent occurrence and then jump back to December.

The most immediately noticeable difference would be the favicon. The one one I had was ugly and the colors it used represented the old green, black, and white pallet I used to have for so long. This new one is definitely more accurate to the look of my site, and also looks much better. I used Inkscape to make it, following this tutorial. You might be asking, "Hey, what's this inkscape crap? What happened to you and Gimp?" Well, to put it plainly, Gimp still kicks ass. Inkscape is just better at vectors. I don't intend on using it too often, however. At any rate, it's much easier to design small things, like 16x16px icons, at a rez of 1000x1000 and then shrinking them down without risking any quality degradation. I think it turned out quite nicely. You can see the high-rez version here. I don't personally remember when I put it up, but server records suggest that it was 012509.
Now to leap back to December.

Christmas happened. I got a Wii game, Nights Into Dreams, which kind-of blew so we exchanged it for something awesome- Okami. More on that later... actually, I don't really remember what else I got... so I guess we'll be talking about Okami, which is so fucking awesome. Reviews don't like folks, it really is a gorgeous game. I loved it so much!

The woman who has cut my hair since... oh god, I don't remember. Definitely more than 12 years. Well, so I had a haircut scheduled with her one morning. I wake up early and everything to make it on time. So I go downstairs to get breakfast and leave when my mom is all like "Brenda died." This was back on 122708.

Well, to say that was a shock is an understatement. She had gotten a staph infection apparently, and it took her in less than a day. It's really sad. She was such a happy woman, and always seemed to be smiling. The depressing factor is multiplied strongly by the fact her husband didn't work and their son is autistic. It's just a terrible situation all around. We attended the showing, but not the funeral.

New Years Eve- I had Lauren, Nicole, and Nick over. We, or rather I, had pizza and we all ate ice cream. We watched the ball drop and played Pictionary, which we all decided was the best game ever. That was fun.

New Years Day. My cousin of 30some years died of lung cancer. He never smoked, nor did his parents. I think I talked about this back in November... either way, it's still super sad. He left behind 3 kids, two girls who are both really young and a son who I want to say is like, a year old. This was a really hard funeral to go to, especially since there was a lot of family drama going on in the background of all of it.

I got a Twitter account on 020309. This isn't really all that significant- but what came of it is. Through Twitter (should it be capitalized?) I learned of a new, aptly named, URL compression service called Tr.im. And now is the return of my bit-economy paranoia, and the problem being presented unto me. At first glance, Tr.im is one bit shorter than Bit.ly, but after some tests I have concluded that this doesn't always hold true. Sometimes, Bit.ly is the same length as Tr.im after the hash. So, I'm not sure if I should change all over to Tr.im for consistency or just use whichever one presents a shorter hash. Ugh. Why do I have to be so crazy about this? Why do I fear a traffic spike? Why would my traffic even spike since I don't update consistently? Sigh... I have issues.

I'm in the process of learning the Python programming language. It's easy to learn, and it forces good programming structure due to the way tabs delimit everything. I have the basics down, but it's going to be a while before I'm making real things with it.

So I passed all of my classes last semester, and I'm happy. I'm not so happy with this semester, however. I'm taking Astronomy, Comp112, Art History, and Marketing. I'm not too thrilled about Art and Astronomy, although my Astronomy class has some pretty cool people in it. Art history... I'm doubtful I'll be passing that class. Marketing is pretty great though- it's a really fun class, really easy too. My comp class is unusual. It's a technology themed writing class, and the professor is really unusual. He's late a lot and is incredibly frank about everything. It's really a lot closer to a philosophy class than a writing course. I started out thinking I wasn't going to enjoy the class, but it turned out to be one of my favorites this semester. The professor is really awesome, too. The class has presented some interesting concepts to me as well. One of the ones that kept me awake at night was the Library of Babel, which is a really abstract metaphor for the universe. I'm not joking when I say it kept me up. I just couldn't stop thinking about how it's static yet expanding. It's weird.

I met someone. I wont say his name because I don't know how he'd feel about his name being thrown out on the Internet. At any rate, we aren't dating, even casually. We're just friends for now, and that's where it's going to stay for the time being. He's a drama major and is super nice. He's 24, almost 25, which some other people think is an issue, but it's not like he's 28, putting us 10 years apart, which I think is the lower bound on creepy.

For a long time, I've wanted to go to the Detroit Art Museum (aka- DIA), and for the past few spring breaks, I've implored my parents to take me. My Dad always said no, he'd rather do something else and would proceed to constantly pester to take me to Cedar Point (which, while cool, I didn't really want to do). My Mom was a different story. She said she'd want to go, but you could tell she wouldn't have a good time so I never end up going with her. So this year for spring break I decided to ask my Dad one last time. He said OK, that he'd go, but "what if Mom wants to come along?"

I was like, well "I guess she can come then." thinking that would have been the right answer. Apparently it wasn't, because he then said "oh" in a let-down way. Well, wtf Dad, what did you want me to say? "No, leave the bitch home?" Anyway, because of how he reacted to the ability of Mom to come, I was like "Nevermind, I don't want to go with you anymore if you're going to be like that." And everyone got pissed at me for being so selfish. I don't really know what I am or what my issue is. All I know is that I'm fed up with how my Dad treats my Mom. So, I went with Meredith. It was a very uneventful trip. I used my Dad's Garmin Nuvi to get there, and it was great. It's the furthest I've ever driven in one trip before. Meredith and I had a great discussion, and the museum itself was pretty neat. I wouldn't say it was cool though... interesting would be a better word. I think the best part about the whole trip was that I only used half a tank of gas for about 230 miles, which I think is pretty fucking amazing. I'm pretty sure Meredith had a good time because she gave me a hug when we got back into town.

The very last thing I have to talk about is a new project I'm probably going to be working on this summer. I've registered saltinesoldier.ulmb.com. The way it's looking right now, it's going to be a music blog, and it's going to be fucking awesome. Hellz yes.

Well, time to kill this shit and work on my terrible art paper that I might as well not even finish since I know I'm not going to pass anyway. Ta!

120808

Then again, I'm not a patient. I'm a student.

I got my images back from my Arizona trip. One of them is up on my Deviantart account, all nice and edited. That was the only ultra good one I took, I'm still sorting through the others and deciding which to keep. Oh how I would slay for a DSLR camera. Less hassle, for one, when dealing with the digital copies provided on CD with the prints. The digital ones are always washed out. If I had a DSLR, not only would it be cheaper in the long run (no film to buy), I could see instantly whether or not the settings I used produced a decent shot or not, so I could actually increase my skill with instant feedback, rather than waiting a week or two and then struggling to remember the conditions of the shoot.

I bought myself a mini-Christmas gift a last Wednesday- mechanical pencils and fountain pens. The pens were only as a novelty, as I've always wanted to at least try a fountain pen. Why? Because from what I've read about them, they're superior to a normal pen or something stupid like that. There's this weird elitist air that surrounds the fountain-pen world. I must say, now that I've had a chance to use them, they're not that amazing. Sure, they're cool 'cuz you get a nice bold line on the first stroke, unlike a ballpoint where you sometimes have to scribble before any ink flows. I also like the sound of the pen scratching across the paper. That's something you don't get with a ballpoint, that's for sure. People seem to complain a lot about ink easily smearing. All I have to say to that is "Why the hell you touching it in the first place?" It doesn't smear for me too often. The disposable ones I bought have rather quick-drying ink. So yeah- they're nice and all- but certainly no need for such an attitude as ridiculous as the one's I've come across in my searches online. There is also this weird assumption that ballpoint pens make ugly writing. While I do agree that handwriting is affected by the writing implement used, I don't think that the difference is so drastic as to actually make your handwriting bad. These people are crazy, like string-theorist crazy.

I've become infatuated with online Pictionary. I learned about from this nifty flash-blog I frequent called JayIsGames. To avoid copyright issues with Parker Brothers, the developers called it "Draw My Thing." I'm pretty good at it. The best? No, but my rapid fire guessing strategy continues to offer success. If you decide to join, let me know and I might add you as a friend on there. Oh, and i think there's an invite code. If I find one, I'll post it so that I get credit for promoting, and I get like points or something. No clue what they're good for, but whatever.

Oh dear, now I only have 10% power left on my battery. Goodbye.

120308

Arizona was great, and it was even more great to see my sister. It has been too long since I last saw her. Last Christmas, I think.

Anyhoo, this is how the trip went, in either great detail or great brevity. I'm not sure which it'll end up being. Maybe it will be a mixed-mode sort of thing.

At any length, I'm using an actual keyboard for this post, instead of using the one built into my laptop. Why? Because I miss the awesomeness that comes with using a real keyboard. The clicks, the clacks... I love it all. Plus, it's much easier to get into a comfortable position when you don't have to worry about both arm placement and monitor position. It's also nice if I have a headache, because it doesn't force me to look at the screen while I type, I can have my back to the computer and only turn around when I think I made a mistake that I don't think I'll be able to fix by trying to remember how many backspaces until I get to the area I think I might have messed up.

Now, for the trip.

Tuesday: We leave Bishop International for Minneapolis, then from there we flew into Phoenix.

Wednesday: We got into Arizona around midnight, and didn't get back to my sister's flat until around 1. Sleep didn't come until about 2. I was the first one to wake up, at 8. I am such an early bird. All that day, we just hung around her place. For dinner, we went to a place called Benihana, which is one of those Japanese grills that put on a little show while you watch them cook your food right at the table. While I've never been to a Benihana, I've been to local restaurants in a similar style- I liked them better. My sister's room-mate also came. She's really nice.

Thursday: Thanksgiving. Roommate girl made the turkey. It was delicious. I apparently helped make the stuffing, which was awesome, but I didn't realize I had. All I did was help stir it. However, at dinner she announced to the large group of friends that I had helped make it, so it was just as much mine as it was hers I said that I didn't really know what she was talking about. "You helped stir it!" Oh, I didn't realize that gave me a name on the stuffing. Oh well, I'm not going hate her just for patronizing me. She is a teacher after all.

Friday: we went to the Grand Canyon. It was pretty nifty. I was super psyched to get a whole bunch of photos. However, as it turns out, the Grand Canyon is just that. A really grand (as in big) canyon. That means that all you really able to photograph is the colored striations of the canyon's wall. Not cool, because it's really bad composition. The eye can't pick and choose something to look at in the picture, and it just sucks. It was really pretty though, I just wish there were more things to properly take a shot at.

At the end of the day, we drove about an hour south to Williams and stopped in at our hotel, a Howard Johnson. We didn't realize it at the time, but we were in a town that is on the classic piece of Americana, Route 66. This really geeked my sister's boyfriend. He is in love with those sorts of things, and so is my dad. Anyhow, we walked around the town for a little bit. It was so fucking cold. I had only brought a sweatshirt with me on the account that my mother thought that my winter jacket (a -30 rated Columbia) would be overkill for Arizona. Well, she was very wrong. It was about 35° out. Ick. Anyhow, we went back to the hotel, after eating at one of the local establishments, and had a jolly nap.

Saturday: Today, we drove south and hit up Sedona. All I can say is wow. The drive itself was filled with some amazing photos (at some point, I'll get the images up on DeviantArt, but for now they're being developed). It was just gorgeous. We ate breakfast at one of the restaurants, which we dubbed "restaurant" because of the lack of proper signage. We then went offroading on what I believe was called Safari Jeep Tours. I recommend these people if you ever want to take an offroading jeep tour in Sedona. Not only are they cheaper than the Pink Jeep Tours, but I think they're more fun. Pink jeep is just that- a tour. They go slow through the Sedona valleys. These people actually give you an offroading experience. I got some cool pix from this trip, too.

Overall, however, Sedona is just a tourist town. Its real appeal comes from its natural wonders. Unless you're planning a camping or hiking trip, I wouldn't plan to stay here more than a day. There's just a bunch of tacky little tourist shops. Then we hoped on the highway and headed back to Tempe. It was around 9 by the time we got back into town, and for dinner we ate at this really awesome pizza joint- "Classic Italian Pizza." It's located in a strip-mall on baseline road, and from the name you'd think it'd be really cheap and cheesy. This is not the case at all. Everything is reasonably priced, and ultra awesome. The guy makes the pizza in a real brick oven, and makes all his cheese and dough (and sausage, apparently) from scratch. And it tastes great. When we got home, mom and dad went to bed while Sister, her boyfriend, and I stayed up and played Oregon trail for a few hours. Oh what fun.

Sunday: We leave my sister's flat around 1 and head to the airport. We board a flight to Detroit. I get a window seat, my mother gets the aisle. In between us is a guy, early 20s, who had what appeared to be a cold. The flight from Phoenix to Detroit was about 5 hours, and our overhead light kept flickering in and out. It was extremely aggravating, since I was trying to do crosswords. Oh well. When we got to Detroit, we were supposed to have an hour layover before we got onto our flight to Bishop International outside of Flint. However, that flight was stuck in Chicago, and so our journey was delayed an entire hour or so. We didn't get home until about 2AM on Monday. Then, I had to wake up at 9 so I could make it to my English class on time. Surprisingly, I ended up waking up at 8, so it would seem that my circadian rhythms weren't too damaged by the jet lag.

So yeah. That was my trip. Now go away.

112508

So... That's really all there is to it. I guess for interest's sake, I could describe my surroundings. I'm in seat 7B, an aisle seat. In 7A is a guy who looks to be in his 20s, wearing a black and white striped sweatshirt that looks relatively trendy. He has a blue Motorola Razr phone, and brought on two magazines. One was a Maxim. I'm not entirely sure what the other one was, but I'm assuming that it's adult, because it came in an opaque sleeve. To my right, in 7C, is a woman who looks to be in her 40s wearing a gray sweater with a white snowflake pattern across the bust, and a zipper that extends from the neck to just below the pattern. She's reading a book, and drinking an OJ. Finally, in 7D, is a boy, early 20s, listening to his MP3 player and at least appears to be trying to sleep. Behind me is the exit row. This is a small-ass plane. My mom and dad are sitting in 1B and 1C, respectively.

Behind me and to my right is another passenger using his laptop. It looks older, so I'd hazard that he's running XP, or at least 98. A few rows up, there's a girl who has either an iPhone or an iPod Touch. they look so similar, it's hard to decide which it is from this distance. In any case, it is off.

Today, I noticed that my left-shift key is having some issues. It isn't a persistent problem, however. If I tap it a little far to the right, it doesn't sense the press. I'm going to have to work on my hand placement so that when I touch type, it won't be a consistent issues.

Speaking of touch-typing, I finally figured out what my odd skill to type with my eyes closed is called! Touch-typing! I don't recall if I've blogged about this before, but I guess I'll repeat it. If I'm typing and not looking, I still know when I hit the wrong key and hit backspace. It's so odd. I think it has more to do with possible typing habits that cause me to hit the wrong key when doing certain keystrokes.

The guy next to me... either he's sleeping, or he's clandestinely reading what I'm typing... no, he just moved his head, so I think he's just trying to get comfortable.

It's really odd, I miss Lauren already. Either that, or it's just this odd want to be talking to her, but I'm pretty sure that's the same thing in this case. If you're reading this now, Lauren, and I happen to be online, now would be the time to say, "Wow, Andrew. I'm touched, but seriously, that's a bit creepy. Stop it."

I wish there was an even lower power low-power mode possible for my laptop. That way, I wouldn't have to have saved this entry to my desktop instead of to my flashdrive so it isn't wasting power while I'm just typing.

Well, I'm truly out of thoughts for this part of the entry. I wont officially cap this off until we board the next flight, and then I can describe to you the people on that flight. Won't that be fun? Well, maybe not fun, but at least it will give certain people that much more to read if they're bored. It's better than getting yourself killed by dusting off that metal detector and going outside for an invigorating round of minesweeper. When we get to the terminal in Minneapolis, I think I'm going to pass the time by watching some Daria episodes I downloaded prior to the trip.

OK, so I'm in the terminal with a quick update. It turns out I was wrong about two things in my prior descriptions of the passengers. The guy next to me, in fact, only had the one magazine. The sleeve was only there because it came with a free 2009 calendar. Also, the guy behind me had a newer laptop. I don't know why I misjudged initially, but it turns out it was one of those mini-laptops.

Again in the air, I finish reading a book for school and begin to view the movie "A Scanner Darkly" with Keanu Reeves. I love this film. It may not be the most obvious of picks for a favorite film of anyone, but that's why V for Vendetta is here. Anyhow- it concerns drug abuse and the effects it has on the people surrounding the users. It starts out mildly humorous, but turns into an emotional headtrip. I recommend it to nearly anyone. Another movie I'm considering obtaining prior to my return to my residence a week from now is "The Jacket" with Adrien Brody.

I saw it once before, and I enjoyed it. Its more of a psychological thriller than anything, and like all psychological thrillers, it makes you think before you understand it, which is my favorite thing about those types of films. i like being made to think.

Anyhow, I have a window seat this flight. Looking out the window at the cities below is reminiscent of looking at one of those HDR photos of Tokyo at night. It doesn't even look real. And... my shift key is still screwed up. My mom is watching the film over my shoulder while I type this, and I'm not entirely sure what she's looking at, the film or the blog. I'd assume the film, but she's not getting any audio, which leads me to believe she's reading what I'm typing. I turn my head and squint in an incriminating mannor..

She doesn't get why I squinted, so she must be watching the film. I can't wait to get to Arizona. Not just for the opportunity to see my sister, but also for the incredible photographic opportunity that this is going to be providing me. Yey SLR cameras!

Uh oh. I have 18% power remaining. About 45 minutes ago I was at 40%. Again, my wishes for a lower low-power mode for my laptop arise. Maybe I should stop watching the film... nah. I like it. I'll stop blogging instead. It's not like there is much left to say other than I'm on a plane. Have a good evening people (or morning, or slightly aftermorning).

112408

This week is the week of Thanksgiving. Some people go over to the house of a family member and partake in a feast. Others are lonely. Sometimes the feast involves a turkey, or some form of tofu substitute. Others involve sweet potatoes and yams.

As for myself, I will be on an airplane and flying to Tempe, Arizona to visit my sister who is currently attending school there. I will probably be bringing my laptop with me so that I can work on my various papers en route. It will be nice to see her, since we rarely do.

I'm annoyed at the gaming industry right now. There's this game out called "Endwar." It is one of the few shooter games that looks like I might actually enjoy. However, it isn't available for the Wii. What gives? It's available on the Playstation and 360, even the DS? Why are us Wii folk given the short end of the spear?

But there's nothing I can do but complain, and complain I will.

Its snowing pretty heavy-like. I'm wondering how the drive home is going to fare. Last Wednesday, there was a layer of fresh powder not too dissimilar from this, and I had a terrible time driving. I almost ran off the road twice, and due to the incident last July, I was freaking out quite a bit. I'm worried.

I also have to wonder what's going to happen to our flight tomorrow. We're supposed to get hit with a lot of snow tonight and for a good part of tomorrow, and it's resting heavy on my mind as to what this means for our vacation.

If you're the observant type, you may have noticed that I added an "about" page to the site. It is there that I explain a few things about the blog. Right now, however, it just contains information about what programs I use to produce this literary masterpiece I churn out now and again. I uploaded it without even spell-checking it, so be warned.

Well, my battery is about to die so I'm going to pinch this off right about here.

111708

Yup. It started snowing yesterday. It isn't the first snow of the season, however. It's just the first snow that gave real ground cover and required me to scrape off my car the next morning. I'm so giddy. I love the snow. Sure, the cold is shitty, but who cares? You can bundle up!

Remember that mid to late 90s show on MTV "Daria?" I've started watching it on YouTube. I've watched all 5 seasons over the past 3 days. It's such a funny show. I miss it. The only thing I have left to watch for it is the second movie, "Is It College Yet?"

Speaking of college, I've officially been accepted into Ferris State University for Graphic Design! I'm so excited! I can't wait to see what lies in front of me. I love playing around with graphics programs; as an added bonus, the program at Ferris also teaches web-design using Dream Weaver. Not that I actually like to use DW, I find it frightfully difficult. I'm a hardcore notepad coder for websites. I just hope I'll be happy with this as my career path. I'm worried that I'll get to FSU after having just spent a ton of money, and ending up hating the damn thing. Or, even if I love it, what if I graduate and end up failing in the real world? I know there aren't any jobs in Michigan for graphics, but it was never my goal to stay here anyway. So even if I leave, I can still fall flat on my face. I'm so scared. When I think about the possibilities, my stomach drops. It sucks. I'm so damn happy, and yet so terrified at the same time. I think I have confidence issues.

I've been toying with the idea of moving this blog to another site and renaming it, using Flytrap Productions as an on line portfolio. I have no clue in what direction to approach the task of building the portfolio. I mean, it took me like, 3 months just to build my blog into what it is right now, and that's with the basic structure already having been laid out from its previous state. Ugh.

111108

Well, my cousin has stage 4 lung cancer, and it's metastasizing. Not too good. No. Definitely not too good. One of his lungs is completely collapsed. But I won't dwell on such things. I want to be happy.

Yeah... so not much else is going on. I've been tempted to start playing my Xbox again. I was thinking of starting up again with Shenmue 2. I don't know why, I just felt like it a few days ago and I've been wanting to since. I don't know why I don't just sit down and play it.

I have a theory as to why the Asians are better than us at math. Sure, it probably has something to do with their educational funding, but I think it might also have to do with the fact that they still teach the abacus. Yes- I think they are superior because of the abacus.

But why? Well, because if you know the abacus well enough, you can build a model of it in your head and do the math on your mental abacus because it provides a tangible process for arithmetic that calculators can't. As a result, calculator-emphasizing countries resort to memorizing multiplication tables, and that doesn't work too well, in my opinion. Why teach content when you can teach process? They don't teach the meaning of every word in the dictionary, do they? No. They teach how to get to the word your looking for, the process of finding the information. If we were to teach the abacus, we'd be teaching no-paper required algorithms for multiplication and division, so that the pupil can do math in their head.

But enough of that. I have homework to do.

110608

Also, I have to wonder why some people are better at introspection than others. Is it nature or nurture? If you're forced to write daily, like the kid was in Butterfly Effect, will you be better at considering personal thought and verbalizing it in the future? Or is it more along the lines of either you are or aren't, and that's it. It makes me wonder if that's why I have problems with my blog.

I'm having problems maintaining a constant update schedule, and even when I do update, it isn't so much about me, but what I'm doing. And yet, it still isn't me. It isn't my emotions or thoughts. It's just like "Here I am. Here's what I'm doing." No internal commentary what so ever.

So, what am I going to do about it? I'm going to start telling you more about myself. Starting with demon #1.

I'm gay. I haven't told a whole lot of people yet. Just some friends. I haven't told my current college classmates or my parents yet.

Actually, the only person in my family I told yet is my sister, and I think the only reason I'm telling you guys is because "you guys" don't exist in my reality. You're a faceless audience. I'm still trying to figure out the safety rating on telling my classmates, particularly in biology.

That's all the delving for now. Check back later, maybe I'll post a RSS/Atom feed.

103108

I garnered myself a Flickr account where I will be uploading my photography. I haven't abandoned my deviantart; I'll just be uploading to both flickr and deviantart. Flickr, however, will be strictly my photography.

And for all you who care, yes- school is going fine.

Happy Halloween.

090708

I'm never going to learn PHP, so forget it. I'll learn it later in life, but not any time soon. However, I do have a plan that enacts what I consider a web-design sin. This would be implementing framesets. On that note, I've been having issues implementing the new layout.

So, because of this, I've designed a new layout that will require more drastic redesign, and a very possible sin. The drastic change will be a switch from a line length of 72 characters and a content width of 578px to 95 characters a content width of 770px. The design itself abides by the golden ratio. If you don't know what that is, do some research.

Now about this "sinning" I've been slinging around. Like I said before, I'm not going to be learning PHP for quite some time. So instead of creating a structured content delivery system, I will be continuing to update multiple pages of content individually. However, these pages will be far less bloated because they will be stripped of most of the layout content and placed into frames on a page that contains all of the layout information. All without using PHP. There is a possibility that I can avoid using framesets, but its very slim and requires verification of what I think SHTML is (and then figuring out if what I'm trying to do is doable with it).

I really want to learn flash so I can fuck all of this annoying layout bs, and maintain what I'm trying to do. But we all know that's never going to happen, so don't expect anything.

In reality news- college started! WOO! As a result, I've found a wonderful new obsession- calendar software.

I initially downloaded it so that I could set up a class schedule for myself, and I immediately fell in love with it. I was using Mozilla Sunbird. But then I found out that I didn't need it and instead could install an extension into Mozilla Thunderbird so that it acted as a Thunderbird/Sunbird hybrid. So I uninstalled Sunbird and now am using the Lightening extension with Thunderbird. I'm happy. I never knew how nice it could feel being organized. I have all of the categories color-coded. I think I might be going crazy, but it doesn't matter because I'm enjoying myself.

Classes are looking good so far. I know nobody in any of them, which I'm finding quite annoying, but not totally unexpected. So far I've had Speech, Biology, and Psychology. All I have left to attend is English, which will be taking place this Monday.

I went to Wal*Mart yesterday and had no fun whatsoever. Now I know why my mother hates that place. I spent like, 10 minutes looking around for the school supplies, and there was nary an employee in sight for me to ask where the hell I should be looking. When I finally did find the supplies, all but one of the 1" diameter 3-ring binders were sold out. The one remaining being the 93¢ variety that will probably fall apart mid-year. I bought it anyway. I also bought one of those half-gallon water bottles that look like those jugs they have on office water coolers with the sports-top. I'll be using that for tea. I loves me my tea. It's going to look a little odd though, me carrying around a jug filled with a brown fluid. I don't care. If I'm going to be healthy, why not be healthy in conspicuous half-gallon quantities? I don't see any reason why not. I also bought a 4-pack of mocha StarBucks cappuccinos (in the glass bottles) and a tub of Bryers cookies and cream Oreo icecream. I needed to get rid of a gift card I had gotten for graduation, so why not?

So I have a hobby now. That hobby is photography. It sucks, though, because we have a film SLR camera. Yeah. A film camera. That means its an expensive hobby. But at least we have a nice camera.

Film isn't too expensive. It's like $7 for 5 rolls. What is expensive is developing the film. It's like $7 per roll you want developed. Oh, what I wouldn't give for a digital SLR camera. I need a job.

So, over labor day weekend, I went back up north with Alyssa, her uncle Rodger, and her aunt Linda. We had the same goal in mind as last year- to walk across the Mackinac Bridge. This time, we actually did! Hurrah! It took us about an hour to cross. Afterwords, we walked around Mackinac City and eventually found our way to this amazing polish restaurant called Legs Inn. If you ever find yourself in the northern reaches of Michigan's lower peninsula, I definitely recommend attending this wonderful establishment. It's even AAA certified! And then we found our way back south into the magical place I call home.

Well, I'm out of things to talk about. Talk to you all later.