School'd

Weeeee...excuse my little rant here, just something I'd like to share.
Every time someone mentions something about college I get to wondering...what's the big deal? For instance, some people in my family have asked repeatedly what I think about doing about college now that I've moved over here. My answer, "I guess I'll go to college here." For those who don't know, I plan on studying Graphics Design. That or maybe something with animations, or as a last resort, some sort of computer technician course. That's if I go to college in the first place.

Suddenly, gasps are heard everywhere! "What you you mean IF you go?" Well, I'm not sure if I need to go or not. You see, I'm very laid back about this college situation, maybe too much, but I think I have logical reasons. First off is the obvious international transition that has just took place. if I were still over there I might have been applying already, but since we moved, I'll be delaying any of that junk until I know we are staying for good.

Secondly, I don't see the big deal. I know people who are entering and are stressed to their limits because of college, and I feel so sorry for them. I don't see why it's gotta be like that. What do people go to college for? To study something they'd like to have as a career in their life. Why do you want a career? Well, to have a good life, money, and get a nice piece of paper certifying you for that career. Uh...what? You see, some people, like my grandmas for instance, want their grandkids to get a career simply for bragging rights! That's absurd. Some people do it because their parents pressure them to. That sucks. Me? My parents have one priority in my life, and that is that I have a close personal relationship with God.

Nothing else matters. Am I saying "DON'T GO TO COLLEGE, ITZ WASTE YOUR LIFE!"? No, by all means, do whatever God leads you to do, not what family, friends, or society wants you to do. God probably could care less if you got a career or not, as long as you were doing it in his will. Maybe you were called to do something else besides waste a couple of years learning something you are not meant to do? Which leads me to another point:

I think colleges are really only good for "officializing" whatever it is you are studying. For example, I plan on learning graphics design right? No business would really take a look at my work unless I had a "degree" or some little special thing like that, even if I'm just as good, or BETTER, than some dude that does have one. That's lame, and I see that as a flaw in society. You know how much I've learned about computers over the past 10 years? Then I see these "Geek Squads" and crap like that come up, and hear the stories of how idiotic they diagnose problems. But does it matter? They probably have some certification, while I don't. Too bad for their customers. So pretty much, all I'm going there for is to spend months and months of mostly useless work, to get a paper saying, "Look at me, I can do this!". Seriously, most of what you learn will be on your own time, throughout your life. (unless of course, you get one of those "specialized" type of careers, like a doctor, who will spend years learning stuff) That's what I think, and have read. Programmers for instance, will learn more during their teenage years, hacking away at programs or making viruses (:P) than learning a bunch of junk at college that businesses won't even USE! It's also too generic sometimes. Jose has told me about his studies, and one day he's learning stuff in Flash, another day stuff in Maya (a 3D application). What the heck? if I want to learn Flash animation, I sure as heck don't need to learn about 3D modeling or animation. There's really no way to study a very specific thing...at least, it doesn't seem that way in any of my fields of interests.

BAH! What a waste it seems to me. That's why I'm wingin' it (I guess I'm wingin' life too :P). I have my plans, but if God decides something else, heck, I'd gladly change my plans to suit his. Not that it'd be any easier than going to college, but atleast this will get me some "eternal diplomas", if you will.

Business

Meh. Another week gone by without a fridge. We finally got one though, I believe one of my mom's friends is lending her one.

Anyway, not much has happened over the past few days, at least nothing news post worthy that I can remember! :P However, something interesting has bloomed over the weekend.

Talking with Miguel (remember? Mom's Classmate's Son) we have come up with a small little business of selling parts for the Nintendo DS. I'll be selling memory, cartridges, hopefully games and maybe other electronics as well depending on how things go. I also started another blog specifically for those people who want the latest in DS news, of course, in Spanish. O_O So we'll see how that goes...I've spent some $300+ on products and I need to sell them to get my money back! X-)

Return

Giselle and my dad come home today. They should be here any minute. They apparently have their luggage loaded with stuff, a lot of it bought by me! X-)

I got 2 Wiimotes + Nunchucks, 5 Slot-1 DS carts, 5 memory cards, and 2 bags of gumdrops coming my way! WOOO!

Busted

The fridge broked. They need to get a unit from Bogota. Them punks won't return our money either, so Mom is gonna find a mini-fridge for now.

I got Battlefield 2 to install and run under Ubuntu. Pretty neato, but I can't play on most online servers due to Punkbuster issues.

My Pa and Sis are over in FL, buying me gumdrops, cookies, and Supreme Commander. Hopefully...

I can play Commodore 64 and Sega Genesis games on my DS now. Though the Sega Genesis emulator does not have sound (yet) but it runs at a nice speed, while the C64 is a little slow (due to sound I guess) but atleast it works. Ghost 'n Goblins is harder because jumping with the D-pad is more of a pain. I have to have my thumb at a more extreme angle, so when I'm running up, I can hit Up at the same time to jump to the right. Otherwise, I only jump straight up, and I get stuck next to a tombstone or fall off the edge of something.

Lastly, I've been attacked by mosquitoes again. One of my fingers got puffed up, another not so much. I got a line of 3 dots on my foot, 3 recent ones on my arm, it looks like a huge vampire bat bite (they are separated) but apparently one of them has a smaller bite right next to it. Geez...and I got one on my cheek and some on my legs. In total, over 20 around my body. Boy do those 'squito ladays love me...

Valentines?

Well. Here are my random thoughts/blurbs for the day.

I've updated my photo page with some...well, photos...of the past couple days. We played at this college campus some days ago, and I got burnted. I didn't even notice till the next day when I looked at my face in the mirror. Though I did noticed my skin was a little more irritated than usual. Although I thought that was due to some large mosquito bites and/or rashes I might have gotten from foliage. :P

Our fridge is on the fritz. And my mom has a cold. My dad and sister are leaving tomorrow to the US (so my dad can sign a contract to start working)...I'm scared.

I drew this:



and this:



...the other day. And I've finished coloring both of them recently.

I'm almost done with this really cool animation I've been working on. I'm fairly pleased with it, as it has a nifty scene that I drew frame-by-frame. It was pretty time consuming, but went quicker than I thought it did. In fact, all I need to do now is color those frame-by-frame frames and I'm done. ^_^

And lastly, I've found the holy grail, and it is 45 kilograms (100 lbs.) of awesome.

RSS

So, you're interested in RSS ey? I'll explain what it is, and how you can get my feeds (and any others you wish to get).

Ok, to keep it simple, RSS is a cool little web technology that allows you to receive updates to a website instantaneously. I would call it a "virtual newspaper" type of technology. You have a program on your computer that contains feeds you've added to it, and it will fetch all those updates for you! For instance, if you read a lot of websites that do daily articles and such, doesn't it get annoying checking every website, everyday? Well, you probably don't have to.

Most websites nowadays have RSS feeds. You should look out for a symbol like this, or for the terms
"subscribe", "feed", "RSS", or "Atom". For instance, on the bottom of my blog it says, "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)"

Anyway, you'll first want to get a program. A really simple one I found would be Feedreader. Download it by clicking this text, and install it. during the installation, you may want to have it startup during Windows (which would be a nice option) and it'll ask you if you want to add any feeds (it has some already set, you can choose to add some or choose none). Anyway, once you're done, open up the program and go to the menu "File". Then add a new feed! You'll have to put in a link, here are some of my RSS feeds:

For this blog: http://stealthbarp.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Feed for my photos: http://beta.zooomr.com/bluenote/feeds:rss/people/stealth

Feed for my comic: http://just-deserts.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

And there! Feedreader will fetch all the latest posts I made for you, so you don't have to come visit the site manually all the time! :P Of course, you can add other websites too, so start using ze technology!

Zooomr

Just a heads up, I am now gonna host all the pictures I take on Zooomr. If you notice THIS:



Little icon on the right now, clicking on it will take you to my Zooomr page, where you will find everything (that I deem worthy, some shots don't come out good obviously :P) I will take with my camera from now on. I'm currently uploading the ones I've taken so far (most important ones I've already put on my blog anyway) so just a little notice. There's an RSS feed for it, if you know what that is. If not, I'll explain it in another post, and how to get it set up so you won't have to come here to check for updates, but the updates come to YOU! :)

Oh yea, and here's a video of me play Excite Truck (remember that game I talked a lot about?)

Me

Hi. Remember me?



Geez...check out my "desk"...:P 2 boxes and a tablet stacked up. AND LOOK AT MY HAIR! It's long again. I like it at this length. Same thing with my goatee, they are at maximum length before they start to annoy me. too bad it seems people are scared by my goatee here, I've had many little kids just glare at me. At least, I think my goatee scares em, maybe it's my Americano-looking face!?

1.5

So, we've been here for about 1 and a half weeks. We're pretty much settled down now, except I still don't have a desk. :P But mostly everything is unpacked and put where it should be, and most of the stuff around the house has been fixed...as far as I know.

Not that I would know much, as a guy came into my room yesterday, tweaked and did something with my AC, and left. I didn't even pay attention to him, but around the evening I went to get a fan as I was getting hot in my room, and noticed an extra socket, which the AC was plugged into. Turns out the guy was the electrician who apparently fixed the power overload in the second story. you see, everything on the second story was on one fuse, so if you had all the computers on, and turned on an AC, POOF. Lights went out. Anyway, he fixed it.

I've installed Windows Vista on my laptop, and am not that pleased with it. but I don't plan on wiping it out and reinstalling XP as this is the future Windows, so I might as well get used to it. I also have Ubuntu 6.10 on dual-boot, but MAN...what a PAIN it was to try and get Mac OS X running on my laptop. OS X is not suppose to run on regular laptops, and although this version released has been installed on it (according to reports) and stuff, I don't think my efforts are worth getting that frickin' operating system on my machine. i guess I'll just have to buy a Mac to use its OS. :P

Yea...my eyes hurt. I've been reading a online manga called Megatokyo. It's hilarious, and has a great story line, plus the guy is a great artist. I read the first 820 when I found the site. In fact, my eyes still hurt...geez...

I procrastinate too much on my drawings, I need to be less lazy. :D

Vortex

Snap! I haven't posted here in a while. Anyway, we have most of our stuff unpacked now, all I really need is a desk for my PC, but I have made a temporary one with 2 boxes and a wooden board! X-D Uhm...tomorrow is Giselle's 16th birthday, so drop her an e-mail if you can. Don't tell her, but WE'RE HAVING A SECRET SOLDAT WAN PARTY....that she planned...ok fine. you are all invited, download the game WILL YA!? ;)