Soon it will end

Yes, soon, bwahahaha! Oh, should I explain? Soon, as in a week, summer courses will be done with. Makes me happy, real happy. Not much else to say about that...

In other news I'm currently finishing a web design related project (PHP) and will be starting on a full blown commercial web site redesign. I remember once wanting to do stuff like this for my career. I can't remember why I changed my mind on that, but I guess I'll find out soon since this project is a two plus month long one. Since I will be doing HTML and actual design with this project I'll probably start up my own website again in order to get my skills up to notch (and keep them that way).

Not much else to say. Ian is over with his Xbox 360, so... bye.

Summer Courses

I know, I know. I complained quite a bit about college in the Spring semester, and yet I'm taking a Summer class. The class is just a Gen Ed diversity class. the main reason I'm taking it though is to combat the feelings that I had last semester. The feelings of basically being swamped and never being able to do what I want. Instead of 18 credits (the most you can take without Dean approval) I will be taking 14, with 15 max until I graduate.

Anyway... what's happened in the last four months? Nicole and I went to New York City for four days and she had a great time (I had an okay time, but I'm just happy that she had a great time). We went to the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum, Natural History Museum, Comedy Cellar (two times), Time Square, and a live show of the Opie & Anthony show.

I'm still on OS X Leopard on my desktop. It's still on my laptop, but I mainly use Vista on it when I use it. I've recently reinstalled it on my desktop in order to get an as vanilla an install as possible (meaning that it has the fewest modifications from stock Leopard install) and it's pretty vanilla. I can currently install Software Updates without fear (running 10.5.4 as I type).

By now everyone should know that a new version of the iPhone came out with 3G and A-GPS. Well, I got one. More specifically I was the first in line at the local AT&T store and walked out the store with the first one. It's the white 16Gb model. How do I like it so far? Love it. The AppStore is just as great as I thought it would be (at least at launch) and I know that it can only get better. Same cell number, so call me ;)

I'm still waiting for a What.cd account (I think Mike promised me one when he can invite...). I haven't downloaded music illegally since Oink.cd shutdown. I want to, just I want quality FLAC encoded music, or it's not worth it. I have a good list of music I need, just no venue :(

Anyway, enough for now, will update later.

OS X Leopard

So, I've been on Leopard on my laptop and desktop for a couple weeks now. Soon after my last post I got it running quite well. I'm running 10.5.2 Leopard Server on my desktop and only 10.5.1 on my laptop. I plan on selling my laptop for a MacBook 13" by around May sometime. See, pirating CAN pay off ;).

Besides for that I'm still in school, haven't dropped out yet =P. Been tinkering with ROLE (my secret Lisp project) off and on when I have time, which is almost never. And planning a trip to New York City. Yep, gonna go there around May 24th with Nicole for a week. It was mainly her idea, she mentioned she wanted to go sometime in her life, so I suggested recently that maybe that time should be this summer. So far we are liking the idea.

Not much else to say. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is pretty kick ass, I can hear my roommates play it in the other room as I type this. You really have to play it in order to see how awesome it is.

School, My Hatred

I was supposed to update a long time ago with post party pictures. I have those pictures still, but they will need to wait to be uploaded. Like always around this time of the year I have school. College to be exact. I dislike school. I love learning, don't get me wrong, but I hate the artificial requirements imposed on you in order for you to have a broad learning experience. I want to learn one or two or three things, don't make me inadvertently learn ten things just so I'm well rounded. If I wanted to be well rounded I would have taken classes specifically for that!

Another thing about school that just royally pisses me off is how it caters to the lowest or near lowest of the students. My Computer Science 2 class is one prime example. The prerequisites for the class are absurdly low enough, let alone that we have to lower them yet some more because some people claim to have not been taught simple things about C++. The class shouldn't be about C++ in the first place, we should have that down pat by now since there are TWO, yes TWO, classes about it that you need to have had done. I could choose to not care and still get a B+ or A-, but that's not how I am.

That leads to yet another thing that is getting to me lately. Suppose for a minute that Stephan was still in school and that he got a 4.0 for the semester (or maybe even one class). How do you think his parents would react? His grandparents? His girlfriend? They would fucking throw him a God-Damn party, or buy him a car, or something. You know what I get? "Good job, Brent. We knew you could do it." What type of reward is that? What incentive do I have to keep up the "good work?" It shouldn't be bothering me, but frankly it is. I work my ass off in order to get the BEST you can get. And sure, maybe in high school when I got good grades it was not much (I mean, it was ONLY high school), but this is college. This is supposed to be hard. I 4.0'ed Calculus even.

So, I hate school. What am I going to do about it? Nothing. It's a "necessary evil," if only because it will help me make more money later on. I may not even need the degree I'm going for in order to get the job I want. I'm just gonna have to deal with the hatred and push through this semester and three more. Maybe I'll learn to like it again sometime soon. I can only hope.

Start of Everyman Day 3

Waking up for the core nap so far is the worst part of adjusting to Everyman. I think that it will continue to get worse or at lest stay this bad until the sleep deprivation turns away. It might also be the placement of it or some of my naps, dunno yet. Right now I'm having a hard time from keeping myself from just going back to bed and sleeping in. Even with Stephan doing it with me I feel like I'm really pushing against the grain and that this won't have the payout that my weird little mind thinks it will. I'm giving it a week or two at a minimum though, so we will see.

My naps yesterday got progressively better, with the 6PM and the core nap starting pretty good. Between 6AM and 9AM though there was a period of more intense "I'm about to crash" feelings. I made it through though.

I got my final semester grades, and I must say I'm quite happy. I got my 4.0 again! That brings my GPA for SCSU up to a 3.93. I wasn't sure for some of those, I thought they might have been A-'s or B+'s, but I pulled through. Makes me all happy inside. Now lets hope for the same for next semester.

On a last note I'm planning on getting a tattoo soon. It's the one displayed on the right. I'm most likely getting it over where my heart is or on one of my lower arms, not sure yet. The plan for the key is, well, partially a secret and partially unknown. I'll post pics of me getting it and the end result when it's done. I hope to do it by Tuesday.

Well that's about it, I'm out.

Resurection

I'm back. Well, I never really left, but I'm back to blogging it seems. Why you may ask? None of your business. Actually, I'm fine with telling. The reasons I'm going to (try to) get back to blogging is:

1. I have (and will continue to have) free time on my hands
   
2. I like the idea of a blog (even though I continue to fail at keeping one alive)
   
3. What type of geek am I if I don't have a blog?

But enough of me explaining myself. I have a couple updates/things to say in order to get people back on track with my life (though I doubt anyone that reads this doesn't know this info already). I'm still going out with Nicole. I'm still going to SCSU. I still have the same computer, but with a 24" monitor and 5.1 speaker setup (will be getting a new desktop around March). I live in an apartment in St. Cloud now. I'm taking care of both of the birds (all three if you count the former RO playing one, which leads to...). I live with three of my male friends, Jon, Jordan, and Stephan. And that seems to be enough catchup, I'll say more as it comes to mind if I find that I'm talking about something that doesn't make sense.

One such thing that deserves its own paragraph is that Nicole bought me a nice compact digital camera for Christmas. Yes, that means that I will have a constant flow of pictures to post, and they will be of better quality than my previous ones (even though those ones were pretty good quality if I may say so myself). Its max quality is 7MP (mega-pixels), but with the setting I use it at (wide-angle) its only 6MP. It has 10x optical zoom (yes, you read that right, 10x)! I must say its one of the best presents she could have gotten me (thanks babe). Ohh, almost forgot to say what model it is, its a Lumix DMC-TZ3S.

I plan on redoing the theme for the blog. Probably another default one to start and them some tinkering afterwards. That also means an updated profile picture (yay).

Well, that's about it, except for the mention that I will probably be starting the Everyman Sleep Schedule in the next couple days. The mention is mainly pointed towards Quaal. Anyway, I'm out.