Busy...

Well, since Quaal reminded me that I haven't updated in a while I've decided to tell the world that I'm still alive, but not really updating. I'll do that later (around Spring Break). So, short summary: New computer, tattoo healed, gave Nicole some jewelery for V-Day, school is going fine (I guess). Current experiment: install Leopard on laptop and new desktop.

The Tattoo

I got my tattoo last night. Yep, finally got around to subjecting myself to pain in order to get art put permanently on my body. Was it worth it? Hell yeah it was. It looks so wonderful and it has so many meanings to me (I know of some where it only has one meaning if anything at all). Well, enough talk, now for a good picture.

My tattoo.

Here is a link to the post about my planning on getting the tattoo, so you can compare a before and after.

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.

Pre-Party Party

Last night was our pre-party, party. By that I mean we played Monopoly semi-drunk and just hung out with about half of the crew that will be here tonight. We won't be playing Monopoly tonight though and I will be video taping almost all of it and taking pictures of some of it. For anyone who knows people from Onamia and such, the people that were all here was Sam, Mike, both of their girlfriends, Jon, Stephan, Jordan, and myself.

There wasn't much else to say, just had to get this down. Mail hasn't come yet, it better have my battery though.

2008

It's 2008. Well, it has been for a couple days now, but this is the first time I've posted in the new year. So far it's been a good year. It could be a lot better though. I could have my PSP battery so I can hack my PSP. I could get deep into programming in Lisp and start a cool project. I also could throw a kick ass winter break party. All of which in good time will probably come true.

My birds are still annoying me. My mom talks about taking them back and in the end I think I would like that. I'm more annoyed with them than enjoying them. As soon as they are gone though I might get a kitten. Kittens are fun, cute, and Nicole wants one anyway. Hopefully my mom gets the birds soon.

I haven't updated in a while because nothing too interesting has been happening. I over to Mike's house on the 2nd and stayed over night to yesterday. He has been in Arizona for the last two weeks. That is one reason why there hasn't been a kick ass winter break party, we have been waiting for him. We went in his hot tub around 11 at night (with zero degree weather) and accumulated ice caked hair. It was nice and relaxing, like all hot tub visits should be.

There isn't much to say for now. I didn't get my tattoo yet (because of funds), so I can't post anything about that. I'll post pictures and stories about the PSP and party as it happens.

Way too much free time / Rock Band

and thus the reason why I stopped the Everyman Sleep Schedule. It's so hard to stay awake in the morning and do anything productive when you have nothing productive to do. At 3:20AM, after my shower, I sat there for a couple minutes trying to think of a reason to not just go right back to sleep and I couldn't think of one. So I decided that I would take another core, maybe to catch up on some sleep or something. After that one I had a headache and decided to stop the schedule for lack of things to do. I am a determined person, but not when there are no clear benefits to do it. There will be benefits to it when school does start though, and from my experience it doesn't hurt you too much when you start it (unlike Uberman, which you NEED to start over a break). If I need the free time when school comes around, I'll give it a try. And just for the record, I survived three whole days (24 hour periods) on the schedule.

So, how long did I sleep today? Well, it might have been because of some sleep deprivation from adjusting to Everyman, or because I truly do like sleep and was trying to reward myself or something... but I slept 12 hours. It sounds bad, but it felt so good. I think it reset me back onto my normal sleep schedule. I feel really refreshed and aware, thus all of this typing as soon as I got up and got some Sunny D.

Last night we played Rock Band until midnight with a lot of people over. That game does rock. I highly recommend people go buy a 360 or PS3 just to get that game. It is that awesome. It does have many uses, so I might as well outline them for you in order to convince you to go out now, right now, and get it.

1. You can feel like an actual rock band, and come on, who doesn't want to be in a rock band? Rock bands rock, by definition!
2. People will just come over if you own the game and they think you are playing it. Last night was one prime example of it for us, we just have three random people we knew come over and sit around watching us play.
3. It's fun. More fun that almost any other game we collectively have played in the last year. Galaxy is fun as shit, but this one is co-operative, has infinite replay value, and a social status booster (sorry Mario, you haven't done that for me in ages).

See, now go buy it, I know you want to. And yes, EA, you can send me my check now.

That's it for now, have to go play Rock Band.

Afternoon / PSP

So, I'm in-between my noon and 6PM nap, just got done singing for Rock Band, and intrigued by this PSP that I bought. Yep, I broke down (and by broke down I mean went on a whim) and bought a PSP Slim. The only reason I did though was because I could do with it the same as I can with my Nintendo DS, and that is download and play for free as many games I want (PSX, GBA, and PSP). I found out that I need a special battery or a friend with an already hacked PSP, so I bought the special battery. I hope to be enjoying a collection of Final Fantasy games in about a week. And yes, I know I didn't need to link Final Fantasy, thought it would be funny though.

I probably didn't make it clear in my mentioning of the tattoo that I'm getting that I'm getting that specific tattoo. Well, the more I think about it, the more it becomes a collection of many different things. My past with relationships (crazy and me giving my love away too easily), my current relationship (she may have the key to my heart), and other countless things that I can't seem to manifest into words. I meant to mention this and only leave out the bit about the key part of the tattoo, which is still a secret.

From 6AM to 1PM I was working on the PSP. I could tell I was tired, but like all other things that absorb me... well they absorb me. It helped me push through the morning tiredness that I'm experiencing. If I would have been able to hack it I know it would have helped with the next week. Maybe I'll find something else this afternoon/night to do tomorrow morning. I'm thinking that if I'm still tired like this in the morning after a full week of Everyman I'll try to adjust it a bit. The new schedule would be a core sleep from 3AM-6AM and my three 20 minute naps at 12PM, 5PM, and 10PM. The times would be more equal and I would eliminate some of the morning tiredness (hopefully).

After buying the PSP and special battery I'm broke. This means that I might not be getting that tattoo on Tuesday. I'll get it soon enough though. Yeah...

That's about it.