Weather

Well in the sheer irony of a very white December we've lost almost all our snow and it's been drizzling or misting so we will enter January with bare ground. Blah.

Not much to talk about. Went to the Cities yesterday, good we did cause today it got hammered. Stopped by Uncle Hugo's. It's an interesting little place stuck in some of the less privileged parts of Minneapolis. It's got a great collection of books especially, cause I am interested in them, old RPG books. Plus some new ones too. It's kinda sad that it's one of the best FLGS (that's Friendly Local Gaming Stores) I've seen in the US and I can only get there about once a year.

Continue to plug away a Civ4. It's rather addicting but taking a break now to delve into Rifts and finish up Walter Lord's Dunkirk book.

Also plugged through all 10 Band of Brothers episodes. That's a depressing series. Then again war is depressing. It's very well done though so I'd recommend if you could stomach some blood then you should watch it.

Anyhow, time to finish up Dunkirk, get some sleep so I don't kill myself driving home!

Civilization

Well after some initial difficulties Civ4 is up and running. Pretty fun game. Very similiar in a lot of ways to Alpha Centauri although with some improvements and some stuff I wish they had kept/ported over. Addictive as expected. Just wish combat made a little more sense (I've expierenced some oddities) and cultural conversion would be faster.

If anyone cares I'll be in Point end of the week for New Year's etc.

Dec 25th

Merry Christmas all!

Statistically Speaking

Finals are over. Yay.

Movies listened/watched: LotR extended edition (all 3): twice. Star Wars (all 6): once. Indiana Jones (1st movie only). Total time spent doing homework as judged by movies that played in background: 40 hours.

GPA trend with finals: down (hopefully just slightly)

What I learned in December: Nothing

Where I'll be living June 1st: No idea.

What I'll be doing the next 3 weeks: absolutely nothing.

Wheeeeeeee

Salute the Grads

That'd be Brent, Evie, and Maggie. Yay for them :)

Exalted Rnd. 7

"It is a dead language." -on Old Realm being the equivalent of Latin

"A warstrider with roller-skates." -ever wonder what a truck would be in Creation?


The wrap up session. Quotes will be added later (and this sentence will be redundant). Not much action, a lot of our Eclipse demonstrating her (his?) dicepool. Basically through diplomacy France, Lubo, and Straytos all join the newly liberated Wabash. The Twilight annhilates both shadowlands with one spell. Scarily efficient that Solar Circle sorcery. Lookshy has a treaty with Wabash. Guild actually gets out negoiated. Place is scouted for geomantic information. Manse and 3 demenses found. Also picked up: copy of Broken-Winged Crane. Yes, our Twilight has lots of bad materials. Renamed Sterling to Aurium (Sterling being the capitol of Wabash) and later the combined nations to Caelestis. Now the PCs want to have somewhere up to 20 years of downtime. Right up til the time the Realm essentially gets involved. Lot of work involved there. Well time for bed, I can't believe I lasted a semester!

Social Commentary

An interesting column on how people spend their time and how to possibly better spend it.

Nap

Nap, originally uploaded by mirv120.

The first of many casualties...

Crisis Management

Crisis Management, originally uploaded by mirv120.

In truth Java brings out the best in programmers. Well not as well as VB but close... (ok, points for what's the real story behind this picture, Tyler you don't count).

Thinking

Thinking, originally uploaded by mirv120.

Ever wonder how brilliant coders sort their thoughts?

Beginning

Beginning, originally uploaded by mirv120.

A little photo-type saga of our Java final. Beginning, middle, and end.

Insert a Lamer Title Here

For some reason I feel I should toss something up here even though I don't have much to say. A couple of things theoretically in the works, they may fall through. I'm in a good mood and I ironically post quite a bit less then when I am unhappy. Guess I want to share the misery or some such sinister thing. As a result it's been commented that this blog ain't much of a fun read. Luckily I have links to 32 thousand million billion other people's blogs and journals who aren't so grumpy. Everyone can read them instead :D

However I am in a good mood as it is. Random attribution to this is almost certainly the Miami Dolphins who've won 3 straight and finally emptied that 6 pack I bought prior to week 1. Yea, only took them 14 weeks but they finally got six wins :) Speaking of winning, somehow I made it into the playoffs in fantasy football and I may even make it to the championship. This is has been a ride heavily based on the efforts of Rudi and Larry Johnson and one Chris Chambers of the aforementioned Dolphins.

I have to salute Tyler as he has to put up with me on a Java project. He is definitely doing a lot here, hope I can catch up so he can relax a bit. At least I got the interface done now just have to integrate. We're pretty close, he really pounded a lot out this weekend.

Got the Firefly soundtrack today. Have to admit it was a bit dissapointing but haven't heard it all yet. Truthfully though the soundtrack for the show is not nearly as powerful as some other shows I watch. It has very select powerful moments so it comes down to if my tastes and whoever is selecting what goes on the CD are one and the same. It doesn't sound like a science fiction soundtrack at all and that fits perfectly with a show that isn't really a science fiction show when it comes down to it.

Ok, enough rambling, back to work.

Music

So when i'm doing homework I randomly listen to iTunes...

1896 songs

Sort by title:
First: (Ghost) Riders in the Sky - Johnny Cash
Last: something in Japanese - GITS: SAC 2nd OST

Longest Song (ignoring a few non-songs prior): A New Hope and End Credits - John Williams
Shortest Song: Ironside - Quincy Jones

By Album:
First: Open Your Heart - Yuki Kajiura (.hack//Sign soundtrack)
Last: That was a crazy game of poker - OAR

Top Five:
Wind (short) - Akeboshi, Invoke4 - Gundam SEED, Anna ni Isshodattanoni - Gundam SEED, Evangelion Opening Theme - Neo Genesis Evangelion, Dijurido - Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop)

Yea, lots of anime soundtracks floating around there. Better get cracking on java.

Happy

Do I really need to say more then that?

Drifts

What an odd night. Kind of a long day. Now I can't sleep. Isn't that sad. Going to be tired tomorrow. And somehow in the end I am now a treasurer, and I'm ok with that. What a strange walk this life has been. I do miss the peace of London. More then even I want dissapear into Regents and hide out.

At least I know what a Tengu is. Although I think for my purposes perhaps this definition is more appropriate. And while I was looking up that I also looked up this. This one actually makes some sense to me, as does this one. That's all I've got for now. Points if you can figure out the common ground I am using. Wikipedia is fun.

Why can't I sleep? So odd. I'm tired.

Drifting a little further, the Ghost in the Shell tonight was interesting. It subletly advanced the plot and I think I've got the two episode types down: dividual and dual.

According to dictionary.com dividual means: Divided, shared, or participated in, in common with others.
Dual means: (1) Composed of two usually like or complementary parts; double: dual controls for pilot and copilot; a car with dual exhaust pipes.
(2) Having a double character or purpose: a belief in the dual nature of reality.

I couldn't determine which of the 2 meanings fit better for dual for the purposes of the episode or the show. Time will tell, we're only three episodes in. Oddly enough the two words have similiar meanings. Perhaps there are more types this time. Last season there were simply stand-alone and complex (a quiet explanation of the name Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex in a way) so I am judging off that assumption.

Well time to see if I can sleep, while the post probably won't reflect it, the time actually is 0230 not 0203.

Cool Down

So a little less frustrated then I was last night. Still think I am just going to take next semester to focus on classes, work, and friends. Stay involved but do less. From what I'm told CIS 358 is 99.9% busywork (and several acres of pristine rainforest converted into paper per student) so a good deal. Well except for the trees, poor trees.

Anyhow, I like those rice/noodle packets where in 10 minutes you've got a meal. Mmmm :) Course I really need more then one pot that I can cook them in, otherwise have to do dishes really often. Guess that might not be a such a bad thing either though.

This analytics stuff is amazing the amount of data tracked. Rather scary too. I knew of course you could track location from Ambrosia but with a little basic knowledge it's scary. It's easy to forget sometimes that to be annonymous on the web involves an insane of amount of skills. Otherwise you're about as annonymous as Brett Favre at a Packer's Press Conference. I do love statistics though. Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone into a field that would do that.

Guess I should do some laundry now. Whee. Clean clothes.

So I am feeling the urge to rescind myself from anything beyond school and work next semester. Prolly keep Exalted cause I greatly enjoy running that (benefits outweigh the costs, yay for a large playing field allowing ad-lib). I've just noticed that a lot of my external stress has come from things that I don't need dragging me down. So I'm toying with the idea of relieving some stress (hope for some opening and closing shifts in CPS and North Quad, those are much fun). Not a done deal yet, should sleep on it but I think I want to be an observer again. Means I'll have to keep my trap shut at times but that's something I see as a positive too. I can't take randomly getting fried, it'll kill me before any true employment can.

Selah

It's that weird moment where you've discovered half the stuff you thought was due next week isn't due for two and suddenly half the pressure (ya know that overwhelming urge for your head to explode from stress and overwork) seems to have dissapeared. I'm not worried tho, procrastination will make it return. Looks like everyone else seems to be surviving as well so good deal. I'm writing a couple longer posts that may or may not get posted so forgive if things are quiet. Don't have much to say temporalily.

1 Year Ago Today

A year is a long time. This time last year I was snug in bed at home. For the first time in almost 4 months. Europe a not so distant memory. I miss MTH and York Terrace East and most of all Regent's and Hyde Parks. I miss it all. But you can't go back. This fall wasn't nearly as much fun. Next fall will be worse. Be really fun to run away back there but I know it won't work out. That's life though isn't it?

On a very random (if disturbing) side note: nuclear catastrophes make me giddy. Yea, it kinda worries me too.

On a slightly lesser note, I finally created an LJ user account. It's mirv120 I like unique names. Hence why I only have used mirv120 several billion different places.

Exalted Fans

Take a look.

Side note. Picked up a new RPG totally on impulse at Games People Play called "Roma Imperious". Looks very interesting.

The Next Big Gaming Thing

That's right. First a trailer. Don't worry it'll load quick :D Then the actual future of RPGs.


D02. :D

Procrastination...

This Java test boggles my mind cause I am not even sure what exactly to study. Could be a ugly thing tomorrow morning. At least ASP is completed. Currently I really feel the urge to write. I want to write back Tricia, write a long post relating to religion and RPGs, and I want to get my new blog off and running (more to come when it gets off and running if that actually happens). Of course I don't have time for any of this. In theory every waking second I should be doing homework. Yet as usual I find myself wholly incapable of just that. Half of my stress relating to homework is self generated. Crack down early and this would be a moderately tough time. Instead I'll be spending many late nights. Go figure. I'm dumb. Then again it's rather a common thing with people isn't it?

Life plods on. I don't feel as lousy as I did at the start of the week but I wonder if it's not just the general insanity blocking out the bottoming out I was feeling. It sounds depressing and it kind of is. Guess I am the type of person who actually thrives in an odd way under a deadline. When under pressure to some extent I can block out external stimuli to get the most demanding problem out of the way. When I get it done I even get a kind of exuberance, one less thing to worry about. Crazy way to go about life and probably why my blood pressure tends to range on the high side.

Oddly enough things are very uncertain right now. I have no idea what will happen next year. Chi Alpha is getting some major shake ups that will essentially change everything, but if all goes well (which I have to believe it will, faith manages and all that) it will essentially stay the same. I picked up being an LA again so my schedule so carefully constructed with get 10 or so hours of time added to it that are out of my ability to manage. I applied at the Clinic again. Should be essentially a cake-walk to get back in as long as I am professional about it but as usual I am worried. The future holds what the future holds though so just have to sit back and see.

And keep in mind you don't need to be Exalted to shake the very foundations of the world :)

Updates Updates Updates

Shuffled some blogs down to the Quiet area. Added several new blogs. Enjoy, peruse, etc.

Time Sense

I was thinking today about time sense in RPG games. Specifically my Exalted campaign. In two weeks it will technically wrap up (I say technically because it may very well live on in the spring). It started in mid-September and will run through mid-December. In game time I was surprised when I crunched the numbers in my head a fairly similiar amount of time has passed. I'd give date comparisons but I can't keep my Ascending Waters and Descending Fires in order and those wouldn't mean much to you since there are more "months" in a year and less days in a "month". Regardless it was a surprise because there was very little built in downtime between sessions. In fact there was essentially non although a couple sessions started with downtime. The events of the first session took a day. The next session was a month of travel time followed by a half day at an encampment followed by another week or two of travel. The next session involed combat and a couple days travel. After that maybe a week and a half in Paris. Then an entire session that covered less then a day in game time (behold flying wheel-less wagons, the new airliner!). This current session took only a couple days and that was all travel, the revolution taking maybe an hour max. Next session will involve 3 weeks of downtime and since it's generally wrap-up will probably cover a fair amount of time (up to a month). Total time about 4 months. Did not expect it to synch up at all.

Now I'll bet that was all rather random and confusing to most of you, but that's ok. :D