Standby

Our internet supposedly goes out today. So my blogging will be a little sparse for January, unless of course I find an open wireless network wherever we stay next...

EDIT: Ok, make that another day. All the business closed early today, and dad couldn't get there in time. Yay? Let the agony be prolonged!

Baranquilla

Looks like it's decision time. We are probably gonna move to Baranquilla, as things in this house just haven't worked out properly, and there isn't much left in terms of "good houses" in the area anyway...

Please keep us in your prayers, we could really use some guidance and stuff!

On a lighter note, I was able to order 2 Wii controllers from Newegg. If I ever get them, I don't know...but I ordered them! X-D

Camera

My camera finally came. It's a Canon Powershot SD600 Digital Elph. Check out the main site, or the Newegg page for images of it, as I'd feel like a complete geek taking pictures of my camera...with another camera...X-)

Mountainous

Yay, pics for you! We visit that Mesa Campestre (actually, a bunch of people were calling it 'Mesa de Los Santos', so I don't know) for a day. Here's some pics Fatty took during the climb:







Here's one of me, with my hair all nicely styled by the wind...



Here's some house my sister must've taken a picture of, I don't remember seeing it! :P



And here's the house we stayed at, which belongs to the neighbors in the back...



Huge front garden...



Here's a cave we visit up there...



And lastly, a picture of some docks where we hopped on a small boat for a ride around a lake (a lake in the mountains, crazy...)



Here's a video:


Hopefully I can find a picture of the neighbors that I'm allowed to use or something, so you can finally see them! :P

Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone! :D

December blew by so fast, I didn't even notice that Christmas was in a few days. I also didn't get to give out a birthday shout-out to that Mike and Shane guy, who both turn an old-but-not-as-old-as-me 17...;D I'm telling you, these arepas severely damaged whatever internal clock/calendar system I had...

Well, the people are looking for the gas leak. We are still here though. I'm not sure if we're going to Barranquilla anymore, but I heard my dad talking to the neighbor in the back about going somewhere...I think he said its called "Mesa Capestre".

And the Gold cup (in Super Excite mode) in Excite Truck is so frickin' hard...geez. I haven't gotten any S's yet! >_<

Trouble

Uh oh. We just got some very bad news today...

We had a gas inspector or something come and check out the house. Turns out, there's a leak somewhere. The people who sold the house were getting bills as if people were living here, before we even bought it, and the house was empty. It was as if 12 people were cooking 3 times a day with the stove and taking showers (both are run by gas here). So today, they had to shutdown the gas.

Now we are left with cold water, which isn't even like the cold water in the US ok, this is like water that you had in your refrigerator. Frickin' crazy cold. And we have no stove to heat up the water or to cook on...

And so, we have to make a decision, of whether we leave this house completely, or once again rent somewhere temporarily. Obviously me and Giselle opted for the latter as we are just starting to make new friends, but either way this really sucks. Keep us in your prayers. -.-

Neighborhood

Well, after some says of meeting the neighbors, one night they decided to bring just about everyone in the neighborhood (or rather, the neighborhood wanted to) meet us. :D

There were some...15-20 people there. 4/5 are girls. There's only one guy my age, the others are 13 and 15, if I remember correctly. Same goes for the girls, I think just about all of them are between 13-16. I'm slowly learning the names, but it's a little hard as a lot of girls here are named Maria, and a lot of guys named Juan. ;)

Well, that's about it. We ate some amazing steak yesterday. Mmm...

Neighbors

I suppose I should do my "every-other-day" post...

Well, it only took a whole month, but Giselle (specifically, you will see why) finally made some new friends. There was a neighborhood meeting the other day, and my mom and Giselle went. Me and my dad went to check out the Clubhouse in the back, as we had heard it was women only. Well, apparently it wasn't (though it was mostly a bunch of women :P), but either way, Giselle became good friends with the neighbors in the back. Like, literally, you look out the window in the back of the house, and you can see their window. Maria (14) and Cesar (15) are there names, and they go to a bilingual school. They are freakishly similar in likes and dislikes to me and Giselle. I met them 2 days ago too, but Giselle, being the one who went to the meeting, seems to have grown on them already. X-) What a fatty...

I mentioned to my sister she was lucky to have gone, as I wish I could be as friendly with them as well, but she made a good point. They are still young, and I forget I'm 18. Not that it's a "HUGE" difference, but obviously it's a lot easier to be friends with someone your age. I'm 18. I need to write that on the back of my hand or something. (I also forgot when I wrote that post about the age of girls here, and my theory has yet to fail so far. The 14 year old neighbor could've said she was 18 and I'd believe it. So it looks like a good overall summary is "A girl who looks your age...isn't.")

Turns out, that was the last level of Red Steel. I beat the sword master, only to have it finish as well. Guess I didn't miss much except a different ending cut-scene.

Also, I've unlocked 2 more cars (there are actually some 10 more than I thought, due to Super Excite mode) in Excite Truck!

Lastly, I'M RUNNING OUT OF PANTS!

Media

Some pics and vids for you! First off, the obligatory "me" picture.



And a funny plant on the "front lawn"...



And then our car!





And Wii gameplay footage!

Red Steel

All right, here's my Red Steel review:

The game is about this guy, an American named Scott, and his fiancee Miyu. You're gonna meet her dad, but she gets kidnapped. You meet up with him, turns out he's head of this huge clan and so you are fighting against this Japanese mafia, eventually finding their leader, Tokai and getting back the girl.

The story is all right, the dialog in game isn't the best, but you can stand it. It gets really annoying when you start a level with dialog, and then die a little after it, because then you have to listen to the same thing over and over.

The mouth movements and stuff aren't great either. The whole game is visually a little better than Halo 2. The mouth movements and stuff for instance, are just open and close the jaw. There are many levels with great lighting however, but the graphics overall are nothing "amazing", but good.ou

One thing I did like were some of the songs, or background music that plays when you get into fights. Some dramatic Japanese stuff, or some funky Japanese rock...very neat. They use a lot of the Wiimote's built-in speaker, which is cool and adds to the game's atmosphere.

The game can be a little difficult to control at first, but you get used to it quick. I did find myself spinning in circles because I wasn't pointing at the TV correctly quite a bit. You use the remote as your gun, or as a sword. You use the nunchuk for moving around and doing some moves like opening doors, reloading, or blocking sword attacks.

The sword fighting is okay. It seems to detect the motion of the swipe fine (e.g. you swing to the left or right) but doesn't angle it perfectly or anything. The sword fighting gets increasingly difficult throughout the game. In fact, in the second to last level you get into...some 15+ sword fights, it's crazy (with ninjas nonetheless!) and the last 3 fights are very hard.

Speaking of which, I beat the game, but I don't think I completed fully. I was suppose to protect a guy from dying, by sword fighting his attacker. I lost, and he killed the guy. And the guy who killed the guy died as well. A lot of dying. But I saved the fiancee! X-D So I'm gonna do that level again...

Again, I haven't been able to try multiplayer, but it'll be interesting to see because of the type of movement you must use with the controllers, to cram 4 people on one TV.

I wouldn't recommend the game unless you really want a first-person-shooter. It's a nice long game, but it's nothing super-awesome. I'd like to try Call of Duty 3 and see how that compares...

Blurbs

ZOMG! I'm on the second to last episode of Eureka Seven! Awesome...

I've noticed that novelty tee's don't exist here. That sucks. Apparently people are to cool for them or something, I really don't get it. I was at a restaurant and this little kid and his older brother seemed to have been staring at my shirt. That or they were laughing at my hair. ;) Either way, people seem to be to "old" for these silly shirts. Too bad for them.

Another thing I've noticed is that girls seem to be/look older here. :P In the U.S., I've always thought, a girl from 14-20 something can look like a 16/17 year old. Here, a girl from 14-20 something always seems to be 20 something! Ok, maybe not 14, but definitely a girl my age. She will always seem older than me. It's like puberty all over again. Snap.

I think I beat Red Steel, but not completely. The guy killed the other guy with the sword, I was suppose to protect him. Either way, I failed that little mission. LOL, gonna have to do that stage again! >_< (Review in a following post...later)

I should probably call some friends. I have plenty of minutes on my Gizmo account.

I bought a Canon SD600. My aunt will hopefully ship it to me. It's tiny.

Wiiviews

TADA! Time to post some more in-depth reviews of my games for my Wii!

First up, Wii Sports:

Wii Sports comes prepackaged with the Wii, as game to pretty much show off what the Wii is basically about. It gets all the sensitivity, gyroscoping, motion sensing stuff going, and ALSO shows what a fun, family/friend game should be like. Wii Sports comes with 5 games. Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf, and Boxing. All the games are very fun, though I personally seem to enjoy Bowling (and recently Golf) more, while my sister and dad love Boxing (dad also likes Bowling).

With Tennis, Baseball, and Golf, you can safely assume how they use the remote with it. It's as simple as swinging it around. Of course, in Golf, for instance, how hard you swing will determine the strength of your in-game swing. In Tennis and Baseball it's all about timing. With bowling, you hold down the back trigger on the remote, swing and release the button, to simulate actually throwing it. And for boxing, you get to whip out that nunchuck controller and get to the funny punching. You actually have to hold up the 2 controllers up in your face and punch! It can also detect (though it does get a little funky at times) your uppercuts or swipes.

I think Nintendo should release a sequel to Wii Sports, with more advanced gameplay. As it is now, Wii Sports is very simple, and I understand as it's the first game that anyone will experience for the Wii. It's very easy for parents to play, and that's the whole point. BUT, for those gamers who find it to simple, the advanced version could add a couple of things. For instance, in Tennis, all you get to do is swing. Your character moves back and forth by himself. Also, the power of your swing doesn't determine anything, it's just the timing of it. With the nunchuck controller, and advanced Tennis could use the analog stick for movement, and perhaps they could add the power-sensing on the remote. Or in golf, add a couple more clubs and options for a course creator or something. Baseball, perhaps they could let you play an actual 9 innings, and sense the power of your swing as well? Or even let you throw a curveball by turning the remote instead of just holding a button. Things like that!

All in all, the game is very fun, and has nice graphics and sounds as well. One of the coolest things though, is how you are able to create your own character for the Wii! They are called "Mii"'s and everyone in my family has their own. So far, the only other people we've made are Jose and Zarster (Danish friend). Eventually we'll probably fill it up with all our friends! :D

Secondly, Excite Truck:

This game's best comparison could probably be Burnout. However, it does focus more on the racing part instead of the crashing (though there are 3 minigames, one of which is a crashing arena). The game looks great, and the speed of it is quite exhilarating. The rock music adds a lot to the intense racing atmosphere, though some tracks seem to get repetitive. Speaking of tracks, there aren't that many of them. Despite you doing about 20 races in the first level (there are 2 levels, Excite and Super Excite) the 20 tracks are actually based off of a core 5 or 6 tracks. There's the Desert, Green Castle, Snowy, Island, and China tracks, and from there the other tracks just mess with that basic core (for instance, one Island tracks has a different path than the other, or could be backwards with some terrain differentiation).

There are about 15 cars or so, 3 of which you get on the start, the rest you must unlock. Most of the unlocks are pretty worthless though, atleast...I only use 2 of mine (one which has amazing air, the other great speed and turbo). The rest are just slightly better at something, and slightly worse at something else (each car has a vertain level of sped, turbo, air, and grip). You can also unlock a different paint job for each car, depending on how many times you've raced with it.

As mentioned earlier, there are 2 levels, Excite and Super Excite. As I've also mentioned in a previous post, each level has 4 cups, Bronze up to Platinum. Each cup has 4 tracks you race in. Each race will be graded, from D up to S grade, and by getting all S's in every track, in all the cups, you get to unlock Super Excite. Super Excite is an even FASTER paced version with an extra cup, Diamond. So far, i've only just unlocked Super Excite mode...

There are also 3 minigames (or Challenges, as they are called). One involves you driving through 2 pillars of light, through out the track (which gets harder as they narrow down the further you go). Another is about Rings. In the game, you can hit these switches throughout the track that change the terrain or add rings at the end of a ramp, and if you fly through all the rings, you get special bonuses. That's pretty much what that minigame is about. The last one puts you in a track, but an arena version of it, and is about smashing the other cars. I haven't played much of these, as I've been too busy racing! ;)

I'd definitely recommend buying Excite Truck, I'm sure on multiplayer it would be even better.

Phew! I'll write a review about Red Steel, a first person shooter game later. And perhaps get some pictures too...

Arepa

Mmm...another arepa for dinner! I tell ya, I've had more arepas in the 3 weeks we've been here than I've had in the past 3 years combined, no joke.

In other news, I got pants yesterday! AMAZING!!

Excite

Not much happening now, as we settle more into the house, I return to my indoors-only habits and so there's less stuff to blog about...at least, stuff that actually would be blog worthy...:P

What has happened...

I have left my laptop on for 2 days straight, so I could download 11.27GB worth of an anime series, called "Eureka Seven". It's pretty interesting (I'm 14 episodes in so far) and has a lot of mecha/drama in it. I also downloaded this movie called "Shaolin Soccer", what I could say is my new favorite movie. I laughed my head off when I saw it with Spanish subtitles...

Also, I finally got S's on all tracks in Excite Truck, so I've unlocked "Super Excite" mode. I've yet to actually try a track in that mode, more info later or something...

BLAAH!!

Nerdy

WARNING! WARNING! GEEK POST!

Anyway, so I've been playing my new Nintendo, especially Excite Truck. That game rocks. Anyway, you get ranked on every course, A-D (maybe F, but I never got one), but there is also S, which is better than an A. Ok, and so there are 4 cups, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Each, has 4 tracks. Now, if I complete all 4 tracks in a cup with an S grade, the cup turns into this star thing. I've unlocked some cars and such, and so I'm at the last cup (Platinum) with one track to finish, and another to get an S grade (I can't get past an A). ALL of this, is one the normal level "Excite". I suppose once I finish this, it'll unlock the "Super Excite" level, and I'll do it all over! :P

Also, I've been playing with my laptop quite a bit. I decided to install some IDEs and libraries, all in case I feel like programming something. In addition to that, I was just trying to compile DSLinux for my DS. Problem was, it failed...why? I ran out of space on my Linux partition (I have Windows and Ubuntu on my hard drive, I think Ubuntu has 9GB). So I shrank my Windows partition a bit, and in an attempt to resize my Linux partition, I ran into some problems...

First, I can't resize the partition backwards! I don't know why, and the programs I'm using (all based off of one called Parted) won't move the partition either! GAH! And when I tried to do some deletion and stuff, I apparently screwed up the numbering order of the partitions, and I had to reinstall GRUB (my boot loader). Now, I am currently backing up my Ubuntu install onto my portable drive, and getting ready to reinstall it.

I don't expect you to understand what I said...just smile and nod. :D

More

Ok, so the week and a half or so that we were gone. What happened? Well...

First off we moved into our new house. You can check out some pictures of it here, as usual.

It's crazy because it's so empty. Check out my bed!



I've been sleeping pretty much like that for...the past...well, since I disappeared. :P Actually, after that night I used a tiny little mattress that was inside the room, that's inside the wall. Here's a video so you know what I'm talking about.

Still no car, though dad has his license (which hasn't come yet, but he passed the test and stuff). Here's me eating chicken from Imix Parillla (that place rocks)...



Also, thanks to that crazy guy, Jose (you gotta love that dude!) I have been able to enjoy my new Nintendo Wii!







I'm like a little kid when I get new electronics...



That's about it for now, once I remember more stuff I'll blog some more! X-D

Darn

I was posting my blog thing when my browser crashed. I just wasted 20 or more minutes of typing. I don't feel like doing it again, so I'll post it tomorrow when I'm less mad. I almost kept my promise...:P I'll just leave you with this image...

Interweb

YES WE GOT IT BACK! I'll make a full post update thing later...promise! ;)

Jung

I was just reading Justin's myspace, saw a blog post about this test he took, so I took it as well, it told me to copy this, so here you go:

ESFP - "Entertainer". Radiates attractive warmth and optimism. Smooth, witty, charming, clever. Fun to be with. Very generous. 8.5% of the total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

Does that sound about right? I'd sure hope so! :P Let's see what else it said:

outgoing, social, group oriented, dislikes science fiction, does not like to be alone, feels at ease around others, conventional, talkative, modest, does not like to be alone, good at getting people to have fun, values relationships and family over intellectual pursuits, open, likes to dance, spontaneous, underachieving, at times unprepared, emotional, values organized religion, suggestible, at times easy to impress, not analytical, disorganized, prone to crying, likes to be center of attention, happy, trusts others, can be influenced more by others than self, can be touchy feely, feels the emotions of others, likes teamwork, guided by moods

So there I italicized all the traits that don't fit me. I love science fiction, or atleast...you know, robots, future stuff. TOTAL ANNIHILATION! I don't like to dance, and am pretty sure would never attempt unless a girl got me to do it. :P I don't believe I am underachieving, but I can be known to settle for "good enough" on certain things. Prone to crying...ha! I've cried once in the past...YEARS. You know, I've teared here and there, but actually cry? Nope, I don't really do that anymore (I don't know if that's good or not, and I'm not bragging, I'm just sayin'!) I do NOT like being the center of attention, I very much like to blend into the background as I've said before. And I don't know what being guided by moods means, but that sounds like something a guy shouldn't do...;D

favored careers:
public relations manager, school teacher, radio dj, customer service, emt, hair stylist, event coordinator, pediatric nurse, child care worker, makeup artist, personal trainer, public relations, human resources, travel agent, massage therapist, physical therapist, interior decorator

disfavored careers:
bookstore owner, author, researcher, painter, artist, scientist, philosophy professor, art director, computer programmer, freelance writer, history professor, web developer, paleontologist, book editor, cia agent, aerospace engineer, archeologist, webmaster

Something happened here, as none of my favored careers appeal to me, however, the bold'd disfavored ones do!

Oh yea...house pictures...maybe...later...:D

MERRY TURKEYS!

Mucho

Phew! Lot of pics for you today!

First, tomorrow we should know whether we get the house or not. If so, we'll probably get our internet service ASAP, but it will take 8 days for them to set that up. Also, in 8 days (or less) we get our brand new Chevy Vivant.
Anyway, I've been attacked by mosquitoes quite a bit. I guess they can't resist me. Here are some yummy pics! Here's one I got on my elbow...



But as you can see it got better. Then a few days ago I got bit again. This time on my hand!

That one has also gotten a little better, but they both still itch a lot. I also am amused by the one on my hand because as you can see, if I close my hand, I can make it puff out more, and it looks scarier that way. X-D Frickin' 'squitos, they hit the jackpot! Darn my over-sized veins, or lack of fat...probably both.



But enough of my insect endeavors...here are some more pics! First off, the front patio thing of the house, second is the kitchen, third is...me, in the living room, and lastly me being choked by a little fat girl (my sister). ;)











As for today, we've been in the house all day. Uhm...a lot of stuff...that I already forgot about probably happened, too bad for you. Tomorrow I'll try and get some more "scenery" pics and maybe more of the house. And now, I leave you with the best soda you can have, the Red Stuff, Colombiana!

Casa

Well, we're probably gonna buy (or actually rent) a house today.

My dad also went...somewhere, to try and get his shofar back.

I just realized a Friday went by and we didn't go to Youth Group. GASP! Hopefully nobody noticed, being as quiet as I was, it shouldn't have been much of a difference. (my online nick is Stealth ya know...) Except maybe a lack of bass during worship (unless Jared played! PLAY JARED PLAY!) ;)

The weather here is just like Florida, except maybe a bit breezier or cooler at night.

Uh...what else? OOH! I forgot to mention a little scare we had from the start. When we arrived at the airport, the lady who stands around the front of the line said we were late, and had to "authorize" us to get on. We almost didn't make it. o.o

K, bye.

Stuff

We saw a house we might rent for a year. It looks great...

We are also looking for a car. Which will be interesting seeing as how my dad doesn't have a Colombian license, and my mom, who dislike driving more, has one...except highly outdated. Perhaps my American license could come in handy...? :D

My allergies are a little better.

The Wii costs $477 here, and there are only 3,000 in the whole country.

That is all.

Extras

Random thoughts/blurbs here:

I can't stop sneezing. I think I'm allergic to this apartment. It's extremely annoying and I think my lungs will come out soon...

I'm about half-way done with Yoshi's Island DS...

Advocate is a noob...

We found Rice Krispies! I thought I was doomed. Last time I remembered, we had the same problem and could not find my favorite cereal.

I feel so American. In fact, I'm still speaking in English. I want to make some Spanish friends, but wonder how to go about doing that when I'm not in school. I guess I'll have to wait till we move into a neighborhood, or find a church. Either way, when I do make friends, I will still speak to them in English, whether they like it or not! X-D Hey! If those immigrants in Miami can do it, so can I...

The chicken here is great, but I have had a lack of rice intake, and I think that's probably why my immune system has weekend and has caused my allergies to become so powerful. I knew it...

Plus photos...

Preweekend

So, as the second day here comes to an end (in some 6 more hours :P) I thought I should give a lil update:



So, the day we arrived was quite interesting to say the least. It turns out that some animal laws had the police very conspicuous about our shofar! They've kept it for now until further "investigation" or whatever can be done. It's just laws protecting animal commercialization that has caused so much trouble. Oh well. Either way, the head police army guy was kind enough to give us a ride to our rent-apartment-place. He gave us a nice little tour on the way as well. We stopped at this point, where you can see the whole city (we tried a panoramic shot, but I'm too lazy to stitch it together right now :P):



Anyway, we visited a mall and stuff...that was about it. Here is a picture of my cheap plastic utensils snapping as I eat some steak:



Some interesting things to note are:

50% of cars are taxis. There are also a BUNCH of buses that constantly drive around, unlike in FL where you gotta wait for half an hour or so for that one in the specific route.

There's more Wifi than I thought. In the malls they advertise it, at the airport it was available, and they even have WiMax (it's like a city-wide WiFi) available for those who want it!

I will never drive here. It is scary as heck. The dividers on a 2 lane road...yea, they're worthless. People use the horn as a form of communication or something.

Anyway, here's some photos of where we're staying:





The place looks great, although a bit under-developed (Miami is probably the closest thing you can compare it to). Adios!

Greetings!

From Colombia! I'm here eating in a restaurant at Bogota, waiting for our flight to BucaraMANGaaaaaa...

So far, we haven't crashed into a mountain. That's always good...

Paint

Good morning. I just saw this interesting video. A guy drawing a car in MS Paint. You know, the paint program that comes on your computer.

Also, I fixed up the avatar of our company (for my tournament). You can see on the right the avatar for the 2 Lieutenants.

Countdown

3 days left. This is gonna be interesting...:P

Meh

Sunday: My birthday, was all right. I ate lunch at Bennigans, went bowling with my family (and, unusually, lost) and then went home. But I was surprised when the Diaz's, Mike, Jared, and Justin all came over and took me out to eat at "Steak and Shake". We then went off to Gameworks and had a little fun there too.

Monday: Crap. Woke up at 6:30, went off to the embassy to get my blood taken, picture taken, and hands filled with ink. Come back home at 12:30ish only to leave right after to go shopping (although I admit we bought some cool stuff, I did not serve a purpose for the outting). We get caught in some traffic, come home about 6:30PM for dinner. Finally it's over.

Today: Started 4 hours ago. I found this funny Flash thing. Find the guy with the hammer and the lever and stand on the end of it, so he can fling you into space. Then find the UFO. It's awesome...

Soon

Well, there have been some updates on our moving. From what I could tell, we're going to be shipping our stuff very soon, within the next 2 weeks. Next Friday will be my last Friday at Youth Group. :( I think it's finally getting into my head that I'm leaving. My carefree attitude has done me well, but I can tell it will not sustain the whole sadness of the situation, as I will dearly miss all my friends (and even more so my closer ones, who I hope will keep in touch).

My birthday is this Sunday. I am going to be 18, which I suppose is special because you have to be that old to call in to most of the stuff on TV. I am not excited. First off, I've been way too busy to even think up of what I wanted to do to celebrate, and as of yesterday I decided to do nothing. I'm turning 18 and not celebrating. BAH. I will just use tomorrow's Youth Group Bowling Outting as my "final friend reunion" time, and enjoy it then. Secondly, the next day I have to go to the Colombian embassy and get some final paper work done I believe. Thirdly, I'll just feel the same as if I was 17. :P I'm gonna have to find a more optimistic point of view for this...

In other news, I have a teaching that I really want to share with the Youth group, but don't know if I'll be able to due to their moving into a new place. I'll probably make a blog post of the teaching some day, especially if I can't share it at Youth Group at one of the last 2 Friday's we'll be there...

DVDs

Boy! This week has been pretty busy. I've been put in charge of converting all the old home videos (in VHS) into DVDs, and it is no easy task.

First off, all of the work is done on the fastest machine in the house...my dad's! :P So I am running back and forth across the house because the computer is in his room. (I was actually thinking what if his PC and my sister's swapped places. It would make sense, as she is mainly in school, and being next to the teacher while my dad gets an actual desk for his REAL PC...but whatever...)

Anyway, so besides this new exercise I'm getting, there's also the actual process of conversion. First, I hooked up the old VCR to output via RCA into the back of the TV card we bought a while ago. One of the problems with this stuff is that to record, you have to let the whole video play in realtime! Unlike if you were ripping a DVD, I believe the speed at which it rips depends mainly on how fast your DVD drive is. Anyway, this time consuming process fortunately uses low CPU power, so I am able to convert previously recorded videos (which output to MPEG) into a smaller compressed Xvid format.

So the process is:
-Record video tape on computer
-Convert recorded video into a smaller file (Xvid)
-Burn video on DVD
-Move Xvid video on 200GB hard-drive in mom's machine & Delete from dad's

Oddly enough, my dad's computer rejected a 200GB drive for no apparent reason. So now instead of being able of just saving it there on that machine, I gotta whip out my 80GB external passport drive, jam the videos in there, and THEN transfer to the main drive. My dad doesn't want to clutter his machine with the videos as he will probably be using that machine as a work computer when we get to Colombia.

So I believe that is enough reading for you today. Go play some video games or something.

Borked

So, I was trying to run BeUp, a homebrew MSN client for the DS. The latest version supposedly fix a bug that was brought up, because Microsoft changed the MSN servers, so the client never logged on. Unfortunately, when I ran the program, it corrupted my whole flash card. Luckily, I looked for a recovery program on Snapfiles before I reformatted (because I HAD to get back all my saves, like Big Brain and Metroid Prime), and found PC Inspector File Recovery. Awesomely enough, I was able to recover everything (except the videos, I don't know what happened, but I guess I didn't select that folder to recover) so I had all my data safe. Now I know to back up my card more often. :P

Also, I'm looking forward to seeing this thing getting released, as I rather have a see-through/black DS, with louder speakers and stronger hinge. Depending how much it is of course. ;)

Explosion

Ok, here is a status update of me!

Uhm...well, my first week of not-work has been fairly...boring. Hanging out with friends is hard when they're all in school. :P I have however been hard at work with many things. For instance, I finished an animation for my comic the other day. That was pretty hard to make, atleast 3 hours were spent on that final frame-by-frame animation, that only lasts about...15 seconds? -.- I'm also working on a poster for our General, Saptiva. She loves pirates and hence it is a piraty poster.



I still think I need to add something there on the left. A word of sorts, be it "YARR!" or "75AD", but I don't know...

And now, for the geekier news:
All right, so I've updated both of my machines (desktop and laptop) to Ubuntu Edgy Eft 6.10. The laptop upgrade went a lot smoother than it did on the laptop, as I had to completely reformat and reinstall Ubuntu on my desktop. Whatever. Anyway, after getting both all nice and setup, I installed the Nvidia beta drivers on both of them so I could use Beryl without XGL. After some more tweaking, I got both of them running it silky smooth, and it all looks great. And so ends another adventure in Linux.

Resignation

Today is my last day of work. Hurray? Too bad, it was a good job. Oh well.

Besides that...there's not much to say. Actually, there is a lot of Linux news I can relay here, but I should probably get to work on this animation...X-)

Reviews

Well, I haven't posted for a week. So here is a recap...
Monday-Friday: Work

Saturday: Party at Paula's, for Jose/Jared? No one knows. jose is leaving to Colombia and then Israel for some weeks, and it was Jared's birthday too. We had an intense game of "Spoons" and then Pictionary. I like Pictionary.

Sunday: Grandma...

And here we are. Today. Anyway, also in the past week I have been playing some new DS games I downloaded and stuff. I have actually downloaded MANY DS games, some which I like, some I don't, so let me do some quick reviews here:

Racing - Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Burnout Legens, Asphalt, Mario Kart DS - All these games suck EXCEPT Mario Kart. I really don't know what it is, maybe racing games are mainly about the hot looking graphics (which you can't have on a DS :P) but the controls suck as well. Mario Kart however plays excellent, just like on the N64. I don't play it too much though, it is Mario Kart and I got bored on the 64 fairly fast...

FPS - Metroid Prime Hunters - This game is pretty neat, like Nintendo's Halo or something. It's quite difficult to do the run and shoot stuff with the left trigger and stylus. I think if I had smaller hands it would be more comfortable...

Puzzle - Meteos - Meteos is a very cool, and fast-paced puzzle game. Kinda like Tetris Attack, but less Bejeweldy and more Wario Wood'sy. It's all about the vertical sliding. I should probably buy a real copy of it since I've played it so much.

Sports - Mario Hoops 3-on-3 - OMG...this game rocks. I don't know what it is, but the game looks awesome and the B-ball gameplay (although not true basketball) is still enjoyable. Next time I go to a store, I'll have to pick-up a copy of this since I've played it so much.

That's what I can remember for now, I'll post any other reviews later.

Gadgets

Teehee! It arrived...


New packaging is nice...


4 inside jokes, 3 of which only 21CW people will understand. Maybe not the best idea? X-)


It's pretty much the "iPod Mini 2". Atleast I don't have to waste money on a protective covering now...


My 3 favorite gadgets (assuming you can call a laptop a gadget, and can't call your desktop one)...




Am I a geek? Nah...
(those last 2 pics show about $1900 worth of electronics :D)

Seconds

I sold my old nano and am buying a new one. Apple recently released the 2nd generation nanos, which are pretty much the "iPod mini 2". I got mine in silver, because it was suggested to me the most...and I guess it's better than the blinding blue and green. Nothing was wrong with my old one, incase you were wondering. It just turns out that 2GB wasn't enough for me, so I'm doubling it up to 4. Hopefully most (not including all the podcasts I have, just the main stuff) of my music (and future musics ;D) will fit.

Also, that M3 I bought (post below) rocks so hard. I can almost fit my entire video collection, favorite music (this is not to replace my nano, nano has most of my music, this is just for my very favorites) and a bunch of games on that one 2GB chip! AND if I ever run out, just drop $40 and I got a whole 'nother 2GB to play with! Super sweet...

Also, check my comic (link is to the right, Just Deserts). I made a flash animation today, which is one of the first (as far as I can remember) to actually make myself laugh. :D

Homebrew

See those 2 chips there? The orange one is about 1.25 in. wide, and 1.375 (11/8) in. tall. The other one, same height and an inch wider. These 2 small devices can now unlock all the power within my DS Lite. I can now play music, movies, homebrew games (games that regular people, not companies, programmed themselves), and run Linux off of this!

Also, I can technically use this to run games that you can buy, but are downloadable off the internet (i.e. I never have to buy a game again). BUT I WON'T, as I plan on supporting companies for making a good game (for instance, I still gotta go out and buy Big Brain Academy, and whenever Yoshi's Island 2 comes out, it's mine!) Unfortunately, I can't use them until I get my little memory card on Monday. In total, everything has cost me around $150, which is a little more than buying a whole 'nother DS Lite! X-D Oh well.

Retirement

I plan on letting my boss know that I want to resign at the end of the month. As awesome as my work is (in terms of...payment :P) I would really like to spend the last month hanging out with my closer friends before we have to leave, and I can't do that with work consuming my afternoons. Oh well. So that's about $600 that I can add to my savings before I have no more income.

In other news, I recently (last week or so) broke 300 strips on my comic. No one will actually get it unless they're in my tournament. But you can still enjoy the flashy animation and funny voice-overed music.

Let's see...what else. I plan on buying this game for my DS Lite called "Big Brain Academy". I downloaded a demo while I was at Best Buy yesterday and the game is addictevly fun. It does a bunch of little puzzles, in which you must complete certain categories of, in a certain amount of time. Then depending on how you did on all the categories, it will "measure your brain" and tell you how good you did. Of course this is no standardized national IQ test, but it's still fun to see the scores. Plus, it's a game that my whole family can actually play (both my mom and dad enjoyed it).

Canes

What a disappointment...the frickin hurricane that was suppose to passby was too wimpy and died all over South Florida like a little depression or something. I demand my moderate wind levels. How else am I suppose to use this garbage-bag parachute to fly? GOSH!

I'm fine and you?

Wireless

Goodness gracious, I must have the worst luck with Linux-friendly Ubuntu devices. Lemme do a run-down aight?

Some days ago my dad bought this little guy from Newegg. I told him to go ahead, because according to the Ubuntu compatibility list, this card worked fine (scroll down to see SMCWPCI-G). But what do you know, although I have the same card, turns out that this one has a whole different chipset.

Now let me explain something here. All wireless cards have a certain "chipset". It's the special hardware inside that does what it does. Now different companies use different chipsets. There are some chipsets (made by other companies) used by multiple companies that make the wireless cards. For instance, there are chipsets known as Atheros, Prism, Broadcom, etc. The companies, like SMC, Netgear, Toshiba use a certain chipset (in this case Atheros) in their wireless cards. Got it? Ok. Well, this card was suppose to use the Atheros chipset, which is a very compatible chipset with Linux. (You see, the companies that make the CHIPSET sometimes don't give out the specific details (once in code, this is known as a driver) on how to actually use their chipsets with other Operating Systems besides Windows. So some hackers make their own, but they never work as well as the official drivers. PHEW! A lot of parenthesis...) Anyway, it suppose to be Atheros, but it turned out to be one by Realtek, an RTL8185.

So what happens? The drivers for the chipset (both by the official company, and the ones made by those kind programmers) suck! It freezes the computer on boot, or while conencting, so they are worthless...and now I can't use that card in Linux.

Before, that machine (by the way, it's my mom's PC I'm talking about) used this wireless adapter. (Yes, another SMC product. Last time I buy from them) After some extreme headaches and hax I somehow got those things to work quite well in Linux. But after messing around so much trying to get the other card to work, I somehow disabled that stupid wireless key, and now neither of them work. >_<

And so now, I've bought this guy and await his arrival eagerly. It's supposedly another Linux-friendly adapter, we'll see about that. :P But for now, my mom is booting into Windows (which has the proper drivers, and has that wireless card working fine) and doing her internet surfing there.

Darn drivers...and Windows...and companies...

Haircut

I never posted my photos! :D

Before:


After:


After, driving home from Youth Group:

Monkey

Miss Eileen (A friend I met at this conference, teacher's assistant, who it seems I still can't call by just her name :P) recently blogged about a trip to the zoo. Which reminded me of my last trip to the zoo in Colombia. In the monkey exhibit, specifically the spider monkeys, it turned out one of them had gotten loose. He was actually hanging out in the trees hanging above the cage of his fellow...family and/or friends. It was quite amusing (and slightly troubling) to see he was not caged, but I really can't see whose gonna catch that thing. :P And speaking of monkeys, that reminds me of this video of a silly gibbon messing with 2 tiger cubs. Yea...

Projects

Geez man! I'm not doing school and I still have a bunch of work coming at me. Atleast, this will actually help me for future events, and is more enjoyable. ;)

Lately, it seems I've been needing to get a little more organized. I'm forgetting to do a lot of things (one of which is reading my Bible in the mornings, which sucks because I had a nice habit going before we moved :P), I got a nice amount of requests that I just can't seem to start working on, and besides all that, I have to actually go to work. :P So my solutions so far:

Well, for work, I have to work. But I plan on resigning at the end of September. I'd like a nice month of nothing, perhaps do some final hangouts with my friends before I leave to Colombia in the following month.

Post-it-Notes! I downloaded a little program that sticks em right on my desktop! Very useful, except, they are very annoying (I guess that's the point) and so they hover over all my windows and stuff, and sometimes I need to move/hide them to close my programs. Problem is, if I use the "hide all" feature, they're gone, and I won't remember to turn them back on. X-)

Bible, I don't know what I did before...I would like to read my Bible for real, as in, not briefly read a chapter, pray, and continue. I'd like something a little more deep but don't know how to go about doing it. Or maybe I do but I don't take time out of the day to do it. I guess I need to find an alarm or something to kick me off the comp and tell me to go read it or something...

Anyway, what might I be so busy with you ask? Well...
- I got a logo request for a friend's team
- I have to finish an animation for my comic's 300th strip.
- I was suppose to do a comic page for my tournament's new campaign
- I need to send Jose my flash file again
- I also need to draw a banner for our division's servers (see www.swaw.us for the last one I made)
and probably a couple other things I have forgotten...

WOOOOOOO!!!

-.-

Uggh...I've been feeling nauseous for some 2 weeks now. Not terribly bad, but it seemed odd that I had it everyday, be it a little or a lot. But today, geez...I stood next to the toilet and sink for about half-an-hour waiting to blow. I've been more anxious than a chihuahua in a thunderstorm...I hate it. I hate feeling nauseous. It's one of the only "major" fears I actually have, I don't know why. But ever since I was a little kid, being nauseous made me crazy. I was one of those little kids that loved schools. But even with my love for it, after lunch I always started feeling nauseous and me thinking it was a stomach ache, I was always at the clinic. So much so, that they knew me by name over there. My teacher talked to my mom, knowing that it wasn't some method of skipping school as I wouldn't do that, and it turned out that the jam I was eating, had way too much sugar, and was not going good on me, hence causing the nausea.

And yet, to this day, I still can't get over it. I become very finicky, start walking around my house, become aggitated very easily, and go through these battles in my head telling myself that I'm not gonna barf. Gosh...and I don't understand why. Yea, no one likes to barf, but why do I get such an immense stress out when this happens. And mind you, its not just when I'm "a little nauseous". I only get like this when I actually think I'm gonna blow. So here I am, not at work, writing about my biggest fear on my blog. Is it helping? I suppose, as long as I keep my mind off of it, then I have nothing to worry about.

Another thing I don't like is the appetite aspect of it. Today, I've eaten a total of about...9 crackers, some spoons of rice, 2 cups of water, and 2 bags of baby carrots (One of the few foods I seem to be able to jam down no matter what). What kinda crap is that!? I would think that by eating, I can fill my stomach with food, instead of gas, which is probably causing my nausea right now, but no. Everytime I start putting stuff in my mouth, it comes back. GARRRAHRH!! And I've burped plenty today, and sure it's a nice relief...for a few seconds. I don't get it. I'm hungry, and feel weak, and I can't get rid of this nausea...so yea...can you just add me to your prayer list? :P I know it seems like such a trivial thing, but it's really stressing me out. i have not felt my heart beat so hard in my life (nausea makes me nervous, and when I'm nervous I get nauseous, so its an evil loop that happens and you can literally see my body tremble and pump to my heartbeat. Or even a pillow, or bed, if I'm in it, shake a bit)...

:,(

Comments

Wow, it appeared I had comment moderation on and I actually had some comments on this blog! Altough most of them, to no surprise, were just people trying to refute stuff in my earlier "bible lesson". Oh well. :P Now you can see them too.

Reality

Wow, I just heard the awesomest sermon ever. It confirmed a whole lot of things in my mind, and I'd sure like everyone I know to hear it. Here's the link. Definitely a strong message for everyone out there who calls themself Christian.

Weekend

Ooh was this weekend a blast (specifically Saturday :P). Paula had a birthday party and it was immenese fun. Mainly a pool party, we also did some slip'n slide'n, water gunnin', volleball'n, Gamecube'n! Well, during the slip'n slide we also played with shaving cream, and I got a faceful of it...twice, in my face. Cream up your nose is quite uncomfortable, lemme tell you. Luckily, my long hair seemed to have blocked most of the cream from getting in my ears! X-)

UNfortunately, during the pool time, I saw the downside of long hair, as it likes to smack my face a lot (ya know, eyes, forhead, my hair is not THAT long :P). We also had an unfinished game of Chinese Checkers, I owned at Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey. Another unfortunate thing was that one of the CDs we gave her had already been given to her the day before by someone else.

Oh well, we still stuck in another one, and 2 burned ones that (from what it seemed) she did not have. And if anything, I had already given her a 1000 cents gift card for Starbucks (yes, that was the price I put on it) along with this hand-made card. I shoulda just bought one, as apparently my grammar/cursive was not the best, as she seemed to have had trouble while reading my poem. :P But either way, the party was overallally awesome. I wish we coulda hang out more, but she will start school again soon, and my afternoons are destroyed by work. And to make it all worse, I have only have 3 months left in Florida before we move to Colombia. -.-

Oh well...and Sunday, Michael stood me up on a bowling game. :P I think he was scared I would wipe the alley with him, too bad.

Sigs

Check it out, I finally finished after 2 weeks! Now to finish mine. :P

In other news, I was handed my insurance thingy last night. Nothin' special, as I tihnk I mentioned it before...but oh well. I also bought a new program called Pixel. It's a cross-platform (i.e. can run on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and more) Photoshop-clone. Looks pretty interesting, hopefully I can get used to this so I can stop using the "shared" version of Photoshop I have. ^_^ Anyway...uhm...have a nice day!

Memory

Snap, I come back from work. Another boring day staring at a screen for 4 hours. I was thinking about something that I was gonna blog on...and now I forgot it! You gotta love it...

Let's see, what's happened since Monday? Hmm...nothing really. Tomorrow my insurance is finalized or whatever and I can actually drive by myself. Uh...I still have 2 more sigs to finish, I need to shave my goatee tomorrow cuz its getting messy. I also need to finish an animation for a friend, and I need to find out what the heck is causing the Soldat poly bug in WINE! BUSY BUSY!

Dignity

I lost it...CHECK IT OUT! :D

Pass

Yes, I passed. Despite some mistakes...:D



In other news, I got LMMS 0.2.1 to compile on my laptop. The last version (0.2) had errors, and would not detect any of my sound libraries, but they fixed it. LMMS, or Linux Multimedia Studio, is pretty much a Fruity Loops clone, but for Linux. Its to make mixes, using a sequencer and stuff. It looks really cool, and has a very nice snythesizer feature thingy (I am not music expert, I just like sounds :P) that can make some old retro sounding bleeps and peeps! I'll probably add a sound clip when I make something sound good.

And here, have some more sigs...