Summer Log 2

Yay, more blogging. Well, continuing from where I left off, I've made awesome progress on my Japanese and can now read the whole Hiragana alphabet pretty well. Of course, I will need to practice until I stop second guessing what letter it is I'm reading, but at least I can start reading stuff. Next up is the Katakana alphabet, which is the exact same thing except it uses different symbols. I don't really get that, but whatever, it looks like I'll need it since sometimes when I'm reading different things I see there are symbols I run into that I don't recognize (and I don't mean the weirder, complex kind. They are just simple symbols I haven't learned yet). For instance, my name in Japanese would be pronounced: BU-RA-I-A-N which using Hiragana would come out to:

ぶらいあん

and in Katakana would look like:

ブライアン

(you might not see the above if your Windows doesn't have the Oriental text fonts installed).

Anyway, you can see they are quite different styles, with the first one leaning to what appears to be Chinese. Either way, I'm looking for programs to help me out with this. The best one I've found is this game for the DS called Japanese Training. It looks great and the exercises are fun, but the thing crashes very 5 minutes so it's VERY annoying.

Besides learning Japanese, I've also been learning another "language". Lua! This is a programming language used in a variety of different games and stuff, and in my case, is used in my regularly played Spring. The language is a LOT like Python, and has been pretty easy for me to catch on to. Unfortunately, in my adventure of making a "Ferry Widget" for the game, I've come across quite a lack of documentation on all the functions provided. This doesn't help since I'm stuck doing trial-and-error tests, and when I get stuck, no one helps me out, since most don't know Lua (on the Spring forums). The ones that do are to elite to talk to a noob like me I guess.

Also I've met a really cool client thanks to Scope who hired me to do a web template for him. I've done that work, and he was pleased, saying he'll contact me for future work too! So it's really cool that I'm finally starting up my business. Interestingly enough, it's this type of thing that makes me wonder why I'm going to college in the first place. I mean, am I not studying and paying vasts amount of money to eventually do what I am already doing? I mean, I won't even "learn" any computer stuff (be it web design, Photoshop, or whatever) until 4th semester, meaning I gotta wait another YEAR. Just watch, when that year rolls around, I'll probably end up correcting my teacher on faster methods to create this or that effect in Photoshop.

In other news, I bought Team Fortress 2, have been using Twhirl a lot, and didn't get to see Ghostbusters that last time. It was ending, and my sister just called me to hear the ending song apparently. Though I did get to see Jurassic Park (the first one) again the other day, and I think some friends are gonna go out to see Hancock on Thursday.

Summer Log 1

All right, so I've burned around 2-3 weeks of my "summer vacation". As usual my summer's consist of 100% more computer time, sitting here in my house with little contact to the outside world...you know, besides the internet. X-D

Actually, I don't mind it, and prefer it that way sometimes, but geez. You start to realize that despite the fact you are from Florida (you know, the hot and humid state, where temperatures are usually above 80's, 90's in summer, and humidity makes it feel like the 100's) when you are indoors those large numbers are easily maintained at a more comfortable level by a little something called a Centralized Air Unit. Which, practically doesn't exist here. :P

Each room in the house has 1 AC unit, which we only use at night because electricity here is ridiculously expensive compared to the States. We probably pay more using these 3 units at night then maintaining our old (and large) house back at Tamarac at a nice 77 degrees 24/7. I feel more sorry/worried about my computer than my actual comfort, because this type of ambient is what can kill it easily. :( Good thing the case has large fans, but I've had to keep the case side open since it seems every time I close it up, I start getting some funky errors with the hard drives.

Anyway, besides burning up in my chair, I've also started up another chapter of my webcomic, Just Deserts. I've also been reading a lot of Manga online, currently having finished the latest of Eyeshield 21 and School Rumble (both of which are a bit more than 270 chapters long, around 4-8 pages a chapter).

It has also finally pushed me to point of learning Japanese, reading these mangas. So I've started practicing the writing first, memorizing the supposed 46 main symbols of Hiragana. So far I got my vowels done, and the ka, ke, ki, ko, ku syllables as well. There is no real alphabet, it's a syllabic alphabet, and then there's the Kanji symbols, which are full words or phrases. There are thousands of those, so they will be last on the list. :P Though you don't have to memorize all of it to read manga and stuff. Anyway, Ghostbusters is on TV, so I'll write down everything else I was thinking about later. X-D

Graphic Design Competition

This is something I posted about a while ago on my comic blog, but I think I should move it here to avoid any future problems. ;P This was posted 5/9/08.

So, my group won the competition. It was extremely nerve wrecking as they went down the list of all the entries, which were e-mailed to the director to be judged by a group of professors and herself. First half were the entries for the concert, second was ours with the Communication and Design entries. They showed ours second to last, so the whole time I was worrying whether I had e-mailed it wrong or something. Anyway, let's go back to the beginning.

We started on Tuesday with 2 speakers, Guillermo Valverde and Germán Barreneche. In the evening we began brainstorming the ideas for the poster we had to make. My group was really enthusiastic, and they were throwing ideas around everywhere. I sat back and doodle the following in my book:


So I showed my idea to the 1 or 2 people sitting by me, but I never presented it to the group. They had their own idea going, and weren't really paying attention to my sketchbook, so I didn't really care about anything at that point. They had asked the 2 guests for help and advice. On one of these discussions, the guest through out an example for us (as it seemed he wasn't really into any of the previous ideas). The idea he drew, was pretty much my second doodle, a speech bubble with a scribble (in my case, a blob of paint) in the middle. When he drew that, I pulled out my sketchbook. He looked at it and seemed impressed, asking if I had presented this. Admitting I hadn't, he told me not to stay quiet about anything, present everything. Anyway, we continued the brainstorming.

By then, seeing as how my idea didn't seem unanimously received, I got bored and was walking around checking out the other groups' designs. Near the end, I was outside talking with friends, almost ready to leave when they called me inside. They were talking to the second guest (Germán, I believe) who had a speech bubble with the appearance of a paint palette. The group told me to show him my book, so I did. He was really impressed as well (something to note, is that both of them pointed out my first doodle, the one with the pencil. They seemed to have liked that one a lot as well.) He congratulated me for the idea, and told me that I just needed a little bit more effort to have reached the palette idea. My group cheered and that day ended awesome.

Unfortunately I wasted that night Photoshopping some images of the idea I last heard we were gonna use (as the group never told me, ok, let's use yours). Oh well, Wednesday came, 2 other dudes spoke (mainly on urban art), and once again we started working in the evening. This time I busted out Inkscape and started working on the actual design of the palette bubble. By the end of the evening I had a cool vector style drawing. However, Germán suggested we try a more realistic approach, by Photoshopping a palette into a bubble. At night, I finished up a set of the final designs to choose from:


So, Thursday came, final day to finish our work. We decided to use my photoshopped palette, but the various teachers we asked recommended different backgrounds. The group decided on black eventually, and I had to edit the darn JPEG manually to fix it seeing as how I left the editable PSD at home! :P The end result is below, once again. So, it was definitely an interesting experience. I apparently won a tablet (getting it Monday) but it's probably the lesser-known Genius brand, one that doesn't really compare to my current Wacom. ;) So I'll be selling that. Lastly, the Germán dude told me to stand up, and I was actually complimented as a "serene intellectual" in front of all the graphic designers at the University! (At least, the ones who were still left in the auditorium, some had left since they lost ;P) Congratulated by all my class, we then watched the University's salsa dancers show off their moves, and here I am, feeling great. Back to work on all the finals I have left!! X-P

Mayed

Oops. Forgot I had a blog to update. :P Well, about 1.5 months have passed from my last post. Let's see what I have...

I finished my first semester this Friday. I have finals from Wednesday-Friday, with 5 classes left. My grades are nice, with only that darn Expression Workshop class giving me another 3 (3.6 this time). >_> Everything else (including, surprisingly, the language class) has a 4.2+ so that's good. Art History is kind of scaring me as the professor couldn't find one of my last reports, and I don't know how well i did on my final exam so...I should pass, but if he doesn't find that report it could be a severe hit to my note.

So now that classes finish, what do I plan on doing? Well, I bought www.mastastealth.com and plan on opening my own Freelancing graphic design site to start earning some cash (mainly, for next semester :P). Any extra will probably go into the Get-Myself-a-Cintiq-Fund. It costs about half as much as 1 Semester of my career. -_-

Mmm. I have been dabbling in some interesting sites that have helped through out classes. Quizlet.com is a nice site for flashcard/self-quizzing. Skrbl is a useful collaborative online whiteboard, for when you need to help someone in math or something, and words just aren't enough. Also, though it doesn't have to do with school, I have signed up for Twitter, an addictive little micro-blogging site. It's kind of like an advanced version of Facebook's status messages. You can follow more up to date info about me if you subscribe to my feed. Also, I've been using Google Reader the past few days as my my main RSS reader. A swap from Thunderbird, seeing as how I've heard it's awesome, and really, the only reason I use Thunderbird is for RSS (not e-mail, as it's mainly designed for :P) So with all of my e-mail accounts being from webmail services, I might as well swap my RSS reading to something in Firefox, and have one less program to be opening every morning.

Gaming has been sparse these past weeks. I've mainly been screwing around in Trackmania Nations Forever, completed another mission or 2 in Rhondo of Swords, and got the new Drone Tactics as well (the last 2 are DS games). Hopefully I can get back to owning my 21CW buds in Spring during summer.

Marched

Well, another month sneaks by, and yet a peep out of me! So what's the latest? Hmm...how about THIS:



OMG your eyes! Surprise! Yup, I cut head apart. Too bad, gotta wait some 6 months or so to get it back. ;)

What else...so far so good in college land. So far I have grades of the first "parcial" (Period? there's 4 of them in a semester) for 3 subjects:

Art History: 3.5
Design History: 4.1
Design Theory: 4.2

That's out of 5. Design Theory I almost nailed perfectly, if it wasn't for a little report I screwed up and should of handed in properly the first time 'round. Fortunately the professor let us (it was a team job) hand it later, but it lower our perfect 5 for that project. If you haven't seen my project, check it here. All that remains are my math (next quiz is this Thursday, then we combine the notes from the last and get the grade), Competetive Communication (Final project done, grades expected soon), and Expression workshop (No clue 'bout this one). So I think I'm doing pretty good overall, with those lower notes in classes I expected to not do so well in anyway. You need a 3.2 to pass, so I'm in the clear for now!

Now for more important things, I got and finished the short and sweet Apollo Justice: Attorney at Law. Capcom sure knows how to make some good story, these games keep me hooked until I finish them. Unfortunately it seems this one was a bit shorter than the Phoenix Wright games, with only 4 cases to enjoy. Oh well.

Yesterday Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out, and if you have a Wii you will have to buy it, or give up your rights to own that console. I'm praying that Tronixweb will have them in stock tomorrow so I can get me some 3-Day Fedex and that stuff and get it in time for "Holy Week". I will have all next week off school, and with none this Friday, or the following Monday, I have a total of 11 days to unlock everything in Smash, assuming it gets here in time. ;)

First Semester

Wow, haven't posted anything since Christmas Eve. Well, time for another nice long post for you to enjoy or burn some time with. ;P

So, since December...let's see. New Year's was...nothing special really. In fact, due to my boredom, I started playing a DVD I have, and was watching this stupid (but hilarious) clip:


If your brain didn't melt after that, you can go find Part 2 somewhere on Youtube. ;)

Anyway, it was pretty funny because while watching this I asked what time it was, and it was already past midnight. So...we kinda missed the countdown because of me and the movie. I say, what better way to start the New Year but with KLAY PEOPLE!

Let's jump forward 2 weeks(ish) and we get to January the 17th, the day I finally entered University. Of course, this was on a Thursday, so the 17th and 18th were really for all the new people to get an introduction to their class and the campus. So, I'll be studying Graphic Design here at the Universidad del Norte from now to see how things go. ;)

Other than that, not too much has happened. If you somehow remembered those games I ordered back in November, I'd like to inform you I finally received the first package! :P Geez, the box is even stamped as shipping November 20th, I get a coupon inside that expired the 14th of January, and I get it the 29th or something. Talk about a crap postal service. So, I now have Super Mario Galaxy and Battalion Wars 2 in my collection of Wii games, so far almost 1/3 done with Mario (maybe 4/5 if you talk abuot just "finishing" the game, but I'm going for a 100% type of deal.) The game looks great and is super fun. Definitely the perfect sequel to Mario 64 (never played Sunshine). BW2 is also a cool game, but a lot more complicated and I'm still getting used to commanding all my units in third person. I prefer the usual Advance Wars turn-based strategy play over it, but it's ok. Speaking of which, Days of Ruin is also excellent.

MERRY NAVIDAD

Finished Metroid Prime 3 at 95%, finished Phoenix Wright 3 as well, great stories in both games I must say. Had to e-mail Play-asia to ship me my 3 new Wii games again. So I guess I won't get them till next year. Oh well. "Ate ice-cream" for the first time with some friends. Never did like it, and with the few bites I took I'm still not impressed. Yogurt is better. Anyway, Feliz X-Mas! :D

CRAPTOID!

Aw man, I just finished playing Metroid for about 3 hours due to a GAME OVER. I am now at 67% which is actually LESS than what I should of reached (I got a message saying I unlocked a special ending because I reached 75%) but stupid me did not save and lost about an hour's worth of progress. Freaking crap...

I also finished the 3rd case in Phoenix Wright. On the fourth one, which is usually the second to last if I remember correctly. So, that would be 60% with that. Mmmm...Contra 4 is hard as heck and I've only been up to the 2nd level...

My other games have not arrived, and if they don't come this week, I'll have to wait about 3 more so I can e-mail Play-asia to send them. Again. Let's see if my other shipment (ordered ANOTHER game and cable separate from that other double game shipment) arrives on time NEXT week. I'll probably end up e-mailing them saying send me BOTH orders again. Geez Colombia sucks...

Web Design

Well, in the past few days I have been doing quite a bit of work on setting up various things on the interwebs. The week starts out innocently enough as I post my comic up and decide, "Hmm. You know what, I wonder how easy it is to update the site's look by swapping to another template." So, I opened up the layout tab, BACKUP the site's current configuration, just incase, and start looking through the templates. After a couple tweaks and what-nots, I decide that none of them are close enough to what I want, so I attempt to revert to the original state.

Nope. Blogger starts spitting out some errors, and in desperate attempts to copy-paste and tweak the page back to how it was, I completely destroyed the site's layout. -_- Colors are all different, boxes are where they shouldn't be, and my eyes were bleeding as I stared at my new ugly site. So, I had to do something.

Fortunately for me, I already had my real site designed and awaiting launch. I had a test page setup here, to see how it all looked. Designed in Photoshop, and hand coded by yours truly (with A LOT of help from Mr. Phillips, Justin) I decided that if I was gonna fix the site, I might as well go all out and make it look like it's suppose to.

Tuesday comes, and I'm about 50% with the restorations. After plenty of copy-paste the basic layout of my site is finished, and I had 3 main tasks to setup. My navigation bar, footer, and my Archives page. Navigation bar was already made on my site, but for some reason something was getting messed up. It was probably the heavy Javascript used in the table of links I made, so I had to look for an alternative. CSS is what everyone is using nowadays to make sites. It allows for your website to have a consistent and clean look throughout all your pages. It seemed that navigation bars are also recommended to be designed with CSS, but I wasn't completely sure how. However, after following some links I found a nice program called CSS Horizontal Menu Generator, which as the name implies, generates horizontal menus in CSS. :P

So cool, that's done, and now I have some added rollover effects and everything for my bar. Next came the footer. The footer (and the main post section of the blog) have a nice little Javascript that applies rounded corners to the box. Niftycube was the script, and my previous attempts with it worked out fairly well. Unfortunately, when I tried adding the rounded corners here, the footer was splitting up. I never know why that happens, but as it happened before, I knew what to do. I copy and pasted straight from the example page, and slowly tweaked that second footer into my main footer. Turns out, it was the Paypal button that was ripping open the footer (at least in Internet Explorer and Opera, Firefox looked fine). Oh well, took it out and put it up somewhere better.

Last came the nasty section under my comic, which contains my archives. Blogger has these widgets that you add to your blog. One of them, as you can see on the right of my blog here, is the Archive Widget, which has every year, and month in a neat drop down style menu. In addition to THAT, my comic blog has a small section with the Chapters individually split up as well (A simple list of links). My problem was trying to get these things OFF the main site and into their own page. Unfortunately it seems Blogger does not support widgets in your average post. So it was time to look for some more Javascript that would hopefully be able to hide the section, and toggle it on and off with my Archive button in the navigation bar.

Well, right now I have a working toggle button, unfortunately, the section is NOT hidden on page load, which kind of defies the purpose of the button. >_> Oh well, I'm sure I'll figure something out, but for now I am glad to see the page has come along quite nicely. Now, if only ComicCMS would come out with their new version so I can use my actual site for everything instead of depending on Blogger...;)

T-Minus 7 Weeks

7 Weeks till this year is over, and we are marked for 1 year of living here in Barranquilla. Time sure flies when you think you're gonna die. LOL...just kidding. ;)

Anyway, as usual I am overloading myself with a bunch of games I just can't finish. I've progressed some more in Phoenix Wright, I'm in my second case.

I also got Contra 4, a really cool side-scrolling shoot em up with this Rambo type dude. It's frustratingly hard, and I've failed all attempts to pass the first level, but it sure has me intrigued. :P

Haven't played Metroid in a bit, but I think I'm about 1/3 done with it. That's been without about a month of having the game. :P So I gotta do some major catch up and finish before year's end, as I got a copy of Battalion Wars 2 and Super Mario Galaxy heading over here! :D

College in January...-_-

Super Post

Oh boy, I've been postponing this post since I got back from the US...so excuse this extremely long post. :P

Ok, so...the United States was awesome. From what I remember the things I missed most were the foods, seeing as how my sweet tooth has not had it's share of stuff while being here. Donuts, sugar cookies, and gumdrops. God how I miss those delicious sweets! Gumdrops here suck, sugar cookies don't exist apparently, and I've only found ONE store here who sells IMPORTED donuts. What the heck...

What else. It was nice to see all my friends again, I've uploaded most of my photos (of the youth group) in Facebook. Interestingly enough, I only saw my friends 2 days out of the 2 weeks I was there. That kinda sucks...but then again it's not like it was an actual vacation. We were doing so many errands, it was pretty boring actually. Oh well, one day I will save up to visit by myself. I wonder though if I should visit FL for a week, or perhaps to do some semi-cross-country trip going state to state seeing friends from my tournament in real-life. HMMM. Thing is, I can't expect my Floridian friends to come and hang out everyday since they have lives. (A good thing ;P) Which kind of sucks since despite me being able to drive and everything over there, I believe that's the main reason I never saw many of them. :P OR I could totally be an anti-people person and not even know it.

All right, so on to my usual video game chatter. I am now in possession of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Also, while in Georgia, me and my dad bought Wii Play. That, and a nunchuck at Brandsmart so we are now at a complete 4 Wiimote+Nunchuck set for the Wii. I'm about 30% done with the game, it's really good. Graphics are slick, I'd say past Halo 2, gameplay is great with a lot of puzzle solving and shooting mixed up, and a great storyline too. Wii Play on the other hand sucks. Though it came with a Wiimote so it was like paying $10, which it just might be worth. My favorite game on their is a game where your Mii is racing with a cow made of some apparent woven material. Video here below:

On the DS side, I'm still stuck at Mega-man, and I have the new Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations to keep me busy, and also Call of Duty 4 if I feel like shooting stuff. Call of Duty 4 is not that great. So far the only good FPS I've seen has been Metroid. Oh well.

Last but not least, I'd like to share this cool podcast I've been listening to for a while now. The God Journey, which as the sites states:

facilitates a growing conversation among those who are thinking outside the box of organized religion. One listener tagged it as "two real brothers talking about life," and you can also view an introductory video that captures what The God journey is all about. By sharing their own journeys, searching the Scriptures, interacting with their listeners, and examining current events and cultural trends, they hope to encourage others on their own spiritual journey. Their purpose is not to attack people who see it differently, but to inspire those whose spiritual hungers cannot be met in the conventional expressions of Christianity and yet want to live more deeply in Jesus and be part of the church he is building.

Every Friday you can check out a new one, they are awesome! :)

USA #2

Uh...just more summarization. I don't seem to have enough time to type everything out right now! :P

Tuesday - Arrived, crap, stayed at Inn
Wednesday - Sent bad RAM, Publix and Steak & Shake, saw Michael and others
Thursday - Embassy stuff, got my Colombian ID now and went to Grandma's house.
Friday - Did some errands with dad, left ladies at mall all day, hooked up Wii again, went to see the Youth Group :)

Today will be a family reunion on my mom's side. Also, Giselle is also going to the mall with Jacqi (Smitty's mom) and BABY DAN. So...I gotta see the man Baby Dan again. Baby Dan. Baby Dan. Yea!

USA #1

Well. First day came and went (thank goodness), and it sucked. I will elaborate later on that. :P
Yesterday though was a lot better as we came to my aunt's house and I was able to hang out with my old buddies Michael and Justin. I guess I will elaborate more on that later too...>_> Today it seems I gotta go get ready to go to that embassy and get some of the "work" part of the trip done.

Descansar

Phew. Finally took a break from leaving the house today. Seeing as how I can't elaborate too much on the fact that I played a lot of Mario Strikers this morning/afternoon, I will roll through my day yesterday...:P

So let's see. Somewhere around 2:30 my parents and I went off to a hair salon for my mom. The salon we went to was actually around the block of the hotel we stayed at when we first arrived in this city.

Although the plan was at 3:30, my dad didn't waste the trip and dropped me off at the Sisters' house a half hour earlier. A bit embarrassed, I approached their house, which was getting a new roof installed. After talking to their mom a bit, and after the sisters took their showers (-_-) I did my usual "computer maintenance" work as we waited for Jose to arrive.

So after hanging out, talking, walking, and eating with them (Carolina, Adriana, and Jose), it was time to go. Jose had to go home, and Carolina had choir practice. Seeing as how there was a birthday party for Alfonso later that night, I went with Carolina to choir practice, where we met up a few more from the group and took a taxi to his house. That was the first time I ever took a bus. Later at his house was more of the same, a little bit of talking and eating (cake). I took 2 bites and left it, as the bread was apparently soaked in some liquid. Marcos apparently loved it though, so he ate his, mine, and some leftovers as well. :D

After we sand and prayed over him, everyone went home. I walked to my house, about 4 blocks away and got home around 10. Yay.

Triple Dose

Hurray, another post.

So, yesterday we went too Jose's house. Nothing to exciting happened, we just hung out and talked, played some Parchessi, some Wii, and talked. I felt bad leaving a little early (around 7:45) because he really wanted us to stay later, but I was getting HUNGRY. That and I need to pop up in my tournament at least once this week since I won't be there for the next 2. :P Oh well. Today we complete the triad of visits by going over the Sisters' house. So...

Sunday - My house, some other people from the group, Carolina and Jose
Monday - Again, but just Carolina and Jose
Tuesday - Jose's House, just me and Giselle since Carolina was occupied.
Today - Carolina's house, hopefully they remember to call Jose, since it planned last night. :P

What else...how about my checklist for the visit?

-Bring and Use my Gamestop giftcard
-Send RMA Request to Newegg before leaving, ship my bad memory ASAP.
-Order USB key off Newegg for Lisette.
-BUY JUNK FOOD. Need to buy bags of Gumdrops, box of sugar cookies, and Donuts.
-EAT MORE FOOD. Visit Cici's Pizza, Vocelli's, Steak and Shake, and Dairy Queen once again.
-Drive. I need to speed on 595 or down Flamingo again, haven't touched the wheel for almost a year now. o_o

...and of course, visit the Youth Group. Something I really regret is the fact I didn't take (or bother my sister) to take more pictures of everything. I mean, the group here is incredibly photogenic (in the sense that, they love to be in front of a camera) so I got plenty of shots to show my friends in the US of them. However, the same is not true the other way. I can't find any photos of my old youth group, or even of MYSELF. Then again, I'm pretty sure I can blame all that on Giselle, since she was the only one with a camera at the time and seeing as how she's the worst person to rely on to share the photos...>_>

*adds bring Camera to the list

Lastly, here's a video I promised of the group dancing to that crazy Rednex song, Cotton-Eye Joe:

Week to Departure

Goodness my posts are getting huge and frequent...

So yesterday, Jose, Carolina, and us (Giselle and me) met up at the mall right by our house, the Buenavista. We walked around, looked at some clothing, took some funny pictures (that are in Giselle's camera, so don't expect to see them anytime soon :P), and at the end I treated them to some ice cream.

We then walked over to my house (2 blocks away) and hung out there for an hour or 2, mainly playing my finally-arrived-OMG copy of Mario Strikers Charged. Here's the intro to the game:



In other news, I forgot to mention that on Thursday I finally signed up for college at the "Universidad del Norte" (University of the North). I will be studying Graphics Design sometime in January. I went to get a blood test before we went, which really sucked...

When we flew over here, I already had my blood taken at a little office where I got my passport picture. The lady took one of those tiny needles, pricked my finger, splattered some solutions into my blood, which was rubbed into 4 separate boxes. 20 minutes later, she tells me my blood type. HERE? Geez, they wrap my arm with a rubber string, stab me with your average sized needle into the veins where your "elbow-pit" is, and then have me wait an hour for the same results? Such crap. Worst part is, I had to get the test again because we couldn't find that paper from when we came, and of course after I got my blood test taken, my mom called up to say she found it. -_-

So anyway, I'm leaving to the US in a week. Yea.

Paths

Aww man, I need to write stuff on paper or in a document since I had about 2 huge posts worth of stuff to talk about...but I forgot all of it. :P Let me try and remember.

Well, first off here's a map of the city, and the path I took to go to the house:


After a little ruler measuring, looks like it was 1.5 miles to go, so 3+ total (since I got lost). Not bad eh? :D

What else. Well, I guess with mentioning the following 2 things, I will fil lthis post so:

Played 2 new games (Megaman is on hold). One, nice but short, Sonic Rush Adventures. This RPG tries to stay true to old school Sega Genesis style platforming. Problem is, there's about...7-9 islands with 2 levels each, and a boss. The game was quite easy, and I finish within 3-4 days. So...I don't recommend it, even though it has plenty of "side" missions I guess. But I like when those missions are PART of the game, and not some optional thing. I mean, it's not even like I'll get a super cool prize for it. At least for something like Metroid, if you DO get more items and faster times you get better glamor shots of Samus. :P

Second game is Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Awesome game. A sequel to Wind Waker, this game really takes every feature of the DS into use. I was never a Zelda fan, but this game looks great and has kept me hooked on it for days now. Lemme explain how far I've gone (WARNING. SPOILERS COMING!)

********

Ok. So, like I said this is a sequel to Wind Waker. Copy and pasting from the Wikipedia article...

At the start of the game, Link, Tetra and her pirates are at sea looking for the phantom ship rumored to ply the waters in that area, taking sailors and residents of the nearby islands. Tetra, convinced that the phantom ship is simply a bunch of trouble-making pirates, is determined to teach them that pirates have rules, too. When a mysterious ship appears in the middle of a dense fog, Tetra jumps aboard to explore. Almost immediately after, a shriek is heard. As the ship pulls away and begins to vanish with her on board, Link attempts to leap over and save her only to fall into the water himself.

After having a vision of Tetra being surrounded by darkness and calling for his help, Link is washed up on Mercay Island and meets a fairy named Ciela, whose appearance is similar to that of Navi from Ocarina of Time, even possessing the same voice. The fairy has lost her memory and decides to team up with Link. On Mercay Island, Link meets an old man named Oshus who provides him with a sword. Link travels to the far side of the island and rescues Captain Linebeck from the Temple of the Ocean King.[9] In doing so, Link secures the use of Linebeck's customizable steamship to travel throughout the overworld (initially restricted to a single quadrant, but expanded as he acquires more sea maps).

In the first half of the game, Link must rescue three colored spirit fairies: the red Spirit of Power, Leaf, from the Fire Temple; the blue Spirit of Wisdom, Neri, from the Wind Temple; and the yellow Spirit of Courage from the Temple of Courage. However, upon defeating the Courage Temple's keeper, a giant lobster known as Crayk, the rescued fairy is colorless and appears just like Ciela. Ciela wonders why this is, but cannot remember anything due to her amnesia. As Link and Linebeck are about to leave Molida Island, Oshus then arrives, using his magical walking stick to fuse Ciela with the colorless fairy to become a yellow fairy, revealing that she is the Fairy of Courage.



Linebeck and Link then set off to pursue the phantom ship. After rescuing four sisters from imprisonment onboard, it is revealed that they are in fact phantoms themselves. Defeating them, Link obtains the key to where Tetra is being held, but he discovers that Tetra has been turned to stone. The old man Oshus then arrives and reveals that he is in fact the Ocean King himself. According to him, a few years ago, an evil plant monster named Bellum appeared, hungry to eat life-force. He used this absorbed force to create powerful monsters, including the dungeon bosses and the phantoms in the Temple of the Ocean King, and used them to seal away the three fairies of Power, Wisdom, and Courage. Ciela, the Fairy of Courage, was able to split herself in two to flee, but in doing so, she also lost her memory. The Ocean King tried to fight Bellum but failed, using the last of his power to clone himself, born again as Oshus. He then created the Phantom Hourglass so that someone could use it to venture through the Temple of the Ocean King and defeat Bellum.

Oshus then reveals that the only way to defeat Bellum is by obtaining a weapon known as the Phantom Sword. Oshus asks Link to visit the smithy Zauz on his island. Zauz asks for three pure metals as necessary ingredients for the sword; the Crimsonine, Azurine, and Aquanine pure metals are on Goron Island, the Isle of Frost, and the Isle of the Dead, respectively.

Link sails to Goron Island where DaiGoron, the tribe's chief, asks him a quiz to admit him as one of the Gorons. Link defeats Bongorongo in the Goron's Temple and saves Gongoron, a child Goron that became Link's controllable sidekick throughout the temple, receiving the Crimsonine in return for his efforts. Link then sails to the Isle of Frost where he resolves an ancient bloodfeud among the Anouki and Yook. The two races lived peacefully on either side of the island for 100 years, until recently, a Yook invaded the Anouki's village and disguised itself as one of them. Link defeats the Gleeock in the Ice Temple and receives the Azurine.

So that's how far I am. One more pure metal to go. That's enough for now, I'm going bowling this afternoon, hopefully. ;)

Bike

Well. I'm pooped. This morning I rode my bike (haven't used one in a LONG time) and decided to ride around 2 miles to visit the Sisters' house. It was a nice trip, as most of it is going down hill, but I arrived very tired at their place. After fixing their computer stuff, eating, and waiting for the rain to pass, I rode back home.

OMG. I really pushed my body to the limits, I almost couldn't make it. I was dead tired by the time I was even in visual range of the mall (I live about 2 blocks from the biggest mall in the city, so if I see it I can find home.) The fact I got lost twice didn't exactly help with the much needed energy I was in need of. Interestingly enough, I took a break a few blocks from the mall, and actually saw the Sisters' dad walking down the sidewalk to catch a bus! :D Once I regained a little energy, I pedaled over this long curve, and was able to catch a break as I rode down a huge hill in front of this "Home Depot" (called Home Center here. :P) I was going fast...it felt so good. By the time I got home I was dripping in sweat, pink, and very thirsty. My legs feel fine right now, in fact, my hands hurt more which is odd. It's like as if I had been drawing hours upon hours consecutively.

Anyway, after a nap, I woke up to Giselle screaming, as she was stung by a bee (first time for her, never been bitten myself). After my nap, I had my second lunch (the lunch my mom made while I was gone) which was awesome, since I was able to eat it all. Then Miguel came over and we played on his modified Wii. He showed me Metroid Prime 3, which looks great, and we had a short game of Mario Party 8. We also played Need For Speed: Carbon, which didn't look that good, or play as well as I remember from the PC versions. His mom also cooked a HUGE plate of Spaghetti. In fact, with 7 people eating, we could only finish about half the plate/dish/tray thing. o_o

Overall, today was interesting. Definitely not my average Friday.

Socializing Spurt

Well, this past week or so has been fun. I've been over the sisters' house about 3 times now. First one, being the first time entering. :P Then another to fix their computer (which is dead), and yesterday once again to set up a new computer so that they can get their internet set up. The new computer is actually Giselle's old one. I had her switch computers, taking my old Dell (which has been replaced with my mega-awesome rig) and giving it to her, so that we could lend that old rig to someone who needs it.

Unfortunately, it appears there were situations this morning with the internet tech guy who went to install, and the computer. See, the graphics card is a little loose in that machine (crappy Dell PCI lever thingy) so...apparently it got loose and everyone was freaking out because the computer "isn't working". The card is simply loose and therefore isn't outputting to the monitor. But...despite personally telling that to the tech dude, and trying to get one of the sisters to do it herself, it seems their internet installation will be delayed yet again. >_>

Anyway, yesterday we went over Javid's house. It was cool, except we had soup for lunch. I was able to drink about half by dipping my small plate of rice in it, but I gave the other half to Palito, since I don't like soup. I'm sorry, but if I'm gonna eat food, I would like to CHEW IT, not drink it. Drinking is more sodas, juices, and water. You can see some more photos here.
I'll probably get a video somewhere soon, of a bunch of Colombians dancing to that Cotton-Eyed Joe song. Man...they repeated it like 5 times...I don't like it anymore. >_>

I'm still waiting more a non-humid/rainy weekend to play American Football with the group. This week is scratched off because we'll be having a little party for "El Dia de Amor y Amistad". It's pretty much the Colombian Valentine's Day. It was actually a week or 2 ago, we are kinda late celebrating it. ;P

Because of this, and a lot of other things (my sig request thread, commission work, etc.) I've gotten extremely behind in my comic duties. Not that it's super important...but I know how it feels when one of your regularly read webcomics isn't updated on time, so I don't want to do that to my few readers as well. :D And I still need to register for University, now that inscriptions are open...

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this country sucks, as it "lost" my copy of Mario Strikers, that I had patiently awaited 5 weeks to arrive. I had to send an e-mail to Play-asia and it seems they've sent me another one, which should be here in 2 weeks. If this one gets "lost" again, I'm seriously screwed. It's almost like Colombia WANTS me to buy a mod chip, because doubling the prices for the FEW games that arrive here directly, taxing the imports to crap, and making it an insecure nightmare with their unorganized shipping methods, my choices are limited, and the Internet is there with its usual easy methods...:(

Drawing

Boy. I've been nothing but abusing my tablet for the past weeks! Since the beginning of August I've been doing some commission work, drawing animations, comics, and I'm doing sigs again and a few other commissions! I've made about $100 in the past 5 weeks (not including the job from my dad, which I've yet to hear about my payment) which is pretty cool. Especially since I needed it this holiday as a bunch of games I need to buy are coming out. Have I mentioned which? Let's see:

Battalion Wars (in Sept.)
Supreme Commander Expansion? (maybe. Also in Sept.)
Super Mario Galaxy (Nov.)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Dec.)
Frontlines: Fules of War (Jan. 08)
Mario Kart Wii (Jan. 08)

That's the list I have in my head, I'm sure there is something coming out on the DS as well. Either way, the holiday is gonna burn holes in my pocket. :D