Journals

Its that time of year again! Happy Birthday to me! Born 19 years ago and aging fast...

Ha ha, I failed my test.

I would have failed me too, I did awful.

I'm going to be taking my final driving test tomorrow, hopefully I won't fail and will receive my license.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi12bRuqJfI

I want my twix

I recently received a "steam" email. Don't trust these things.Also, notice how it addresses me : "dear users" . That's not my steam name.

I have to move to Denver in 2 months. Over the last couple of months, I've been slowly building up my career and its been working for me like you wouldn't believe! When I get to Denver Colorado, I will be senior fuckin art director! WOOHOOT!

On the flipside, I have to break a crush a girl had on me for a long time. Long-distance relationships don't work anyway.

Also, my grandfather was killed in a car wreck with a drunk driver.

Also, I'm flat broke to the zero.

Also, I'm dropping out of college, loan capped off 1 class short of my degree. My employer will help me finish with some class online, and pay for it, as well as help with the debt.

Also, I busted my right wrist. I feel a tad useless. My weekend sucked.

There's more, but its more personal. Life sucks here too.

JavaScript fun!
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Copy it to your browser's address bar. Doesn't work in IE.
This is what I do in school when I'm bored.

Bad day

First a good girlfriend lost her baby, he lived 2 hours.
Second a REALY good friend of mine got cancer in his knee.

life sucks

My cousin is visiting from New York.

He's a lawyer, and his work is busy, so I see him about once every ten years.

He's staying with us, and I found out last night that he plays Half-Life 2 also. I watched him play my single-player maps for the first time.

It was one of those things I've been waiting for all my life--to watch someone who had already played Half-Life 2 to play my map for the first time. I get to see his reaction as he tried to avoid my traps.

I've been waiting all my life for this moment, and it happened so unexpectedly. I had no idea that he is a gamer before.

The best things in life are unexpected.

I just bought myself a new Hard-Drive !
It's a caviar blue, 16 mb cache, 500 gb !

I'm just so happy, no more space related problems now .
For a lot more info, visit
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=301

It's not common that I do something stupid but which requires some balls at the same time, I just do stupid things all the time. This one was going to a fancy dress party as the completely wrong theme. The theme of the party was "Around the world"

SO! There everyone was, dancing, drinking and talking in the club all dressed up as Greeks, Indians, Chinease and whatnot, then next minute Lord Vader and two fucking Stormtroopers walk in.We pulled it off though, more people were amazed that Vader and two Stormies were walking around the party than the theme, and if asked we just said "But we are from around the world... In a galaxy far far away"

Good times. <=)

Hey all,

I have decided to make a new forum for my site. It is going great...I have a member from Allied Mods' forums helping to maintain it and everything...

I even have RPG Inferno installed on it so that now when we finish configing it you can play a massive RPG...

You can view the forums here: http://forum.stixsworld.com

I've just played through John Romero's Daikatana. If you don't know about this game, which is one of the most massively over-hyped titles in gaming history, read the Wiki on it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikatana).

I've gotta say, this game could have been really good. After like the third patch, the sidekicks are not as useless, as they were in v 1.0, and some maps are quite impressive. Too bad that the game as a whole is inconsistent - just when you're starting to have fun, it kicks you in the balls with some terrible design and gameplay decisions.

And why did I bother playing through this shit?

1.: Probably because I wanted to share the frustration of players , who - at the time, when this game finally came out after 3 years - felt bad about waiting for a game, that turned out to be such a mess in the end.

and 2.: Because I love ROFLing at a game this bad.

Overall: A game that had potential, but was brutally fucked up in the end.

Why did i do this to myself? Seriously.

Let me throw some facts your way. Here's my usual week.

Monday - Wake up at 9:30AM, shower, eat breakfast, drive 30 minutes to school for 11:00, Do homework and study until 1:00, go to class until 4:30, drive another 30 minutes home (Or to my apartment, which i really don't consider home) 5:00 - Wonder why i did not eat lunch. 5:30 - get some dinner. 6:00 - Do some more homework. I force myself to work until 8:00, or whenever something happens to distract me (usually my girlfriend coming home and telling me she's bored and wants to do something, but she obviously can't see that i'm busy trying not to fail) 8:00 - take a break from studies, pack my stuff for tomorrow, chill out/ watch TV, go to bed.

Tuesday - 9:30Am -wake up, shower, eat breakfast, drive 30 minutes to school for 11:00. Physics II class at 11:00-12:30. 12:30 - Hit up the computer lab to study some more and do some homework - 3:20 -6:50 (no, i'm not kidding, it's straight 3+1/2 hours of class) i have electronics with the most hated professor at my school.. YAY!! 7:00 - Calculus 9:10 - Drive my 30 minutes home. 9:40 - Exhausted from the day, i'll eat whatever i can before passing out to wake up the next morning.

Wednesday - Wake up at 9:30AM, shower, eat breakfast, drive 30 minutes to school for 11:00, Do homework and study until 1:00, go to class until 2:30, then hang out in the computer lab for however long it takes to do my assignments. (Every monday and tuesday, there's assigned lab-reports. Each have to be roughly 8 pages long, and take around 2-3 hours to complete. Not to mention the daily homework of about 10-25 problems. Each with parts a-d. Now take 25 and multiply it by 4, and you get 100. Then multiply each problem by how long it takes to actually complete them, and you will soon find out there's plenty of time on wednesday to get everything done.)
BUT WAIT!!! My manager finds out that i get home earlier on wednesday than i do on monday. So what does she do?
She schedules me to come in at 4:00 and close the restaurant. And if anyone has ever been to an Applebee's before, they know they close at 11:00. Wonderful. There goes my wednesday

Thursday - (Panic starts settling in as i couldnt complete anything from yesterday) 9:30Am -wake up, shower, eat breakfast, drive 30 minutes to school for 11:00. Physics II class at 11:00-2:30. 2:30 - Hit up the computer lab to study some more and do some homework which i did not complete the day before, which leaves me pretty much wanting to kill myself. - 5:30 -6:50 Electronics class 7:00 - Calculus 9:10 - Drive my 30 minutes home. 9:40 - Exhausted from the day, i'll eat whatever i can before passing out to wake up the next morning.

Ohhh the weekend is here

Friday - I usually open the restaurant. So i have to wake up, once again at 9:30, get in by 10:30, work until 3:00, get a break, come back on the floor at 4:00, and work until about 9:00. Now anybody in their right mind is nuking futz to go home and study after being at work for 11 hours. So thats when i relax, or try to relax because there's always a fucking party at mi-casa every damn friday and saturday night.

Saturday / Sunday - Same exact schedule as friday, i do not lie.

So that's my week. Hectic, long, frustrating, exhausting. And somehow i still find time to describe it to you right here, right now. There's literally not enough time in my week to do everything i need.
Which makes it all worse is that i'm losing 4 hours a week of my life sitting on my ass traveling 74MPH down interstate 84 to and from my school.
that 4 hours can be put forth to mapping, or playing guitar, or maybe doing some work that i didn't have time for earlier..

It's hard to keep in mind that all this will be worth it someday. I just don't see it yet.

WAVE #2

I recently worked out why I prefer playing RPGs (Preferably FPS RPGs)

In most titles such as Half-Life or Far Cry or Crysis, you are perscribed a character, with a backstory and a motive and a set fate. This always kills immersion for me, even in Far Cry 2 when you have a selection of characters the overall game is the same regardless.

Fallout 3 is currently my top game and with good reason. After your characters birth you make your own story starting with your name and how you look. From then on things can change dramatically. I am currently playing 2 games in Fallout.

In one, I have created myself, as closely as possible appearance wise, but mostly in the choices I have made so far. As a baby I became intelligent, observative and agile but not overly strong. On my 10th birthday I annoyed Butch (the bully character) and used my wit to get out of a fight. I also thanked everyone for their gifts regardless of how crap they all were. When the shit hit the fan in the vault I helped out everyone I could and used my agility to sneak around or run from the guards so that I didn't have to kill anyone. Since leaving the vault I have been friendly with everyone, even lying occasionally to make them feel better (or for my own benefit. Hey, thats just how I am)

In my other game, I am playing as Crystal, who is pretty much my opposite. Female, attractive and a complete and utter bitch queen. As a baby I trashed my room, throwing toys all over, and made myself very strong, very charismatic and quite stupid. On my 10th birthday I told everyone how crappy their gifts were and got in a fight for calling Butch's mum a drunk. I even got told off for being ungrateful. I then shot my dad in the eye with a BB gun he gave me. When things went loopy I took a bat and smacked the living shit out of everyone, including those asking for help. I would often loot their bodies as well. I got some nice stuff out of it. I also locked a Butch's mom in a room with some radroaches (big fucking cockroaches) who ate her alive whilst I snagged all her booze and killed her son with a security baton. (I wanted his jacket.) Since leaving the Vault I have become addicted to Whiskey. At one point I broke into a woman's house and beat her to death with my fists so that I could get my fix.

Thats what makes Fallout such an immersive game. Imagine how crazy Half-Life would have been if Gordon was a medkit junkie and needed a fix in the middle of a shootout. The tension would have been double what it was. Or if you could make deals with the militia in Far Cry 2 so that they could give you supplies or be called on to help with missions.

Role-Playing is often shunned because of its slow combat mechanics and levelling systems but in my opinion its the best type of game for interativity and a truely immersive experience.

Oh, I also drank from a toilet in a dank and rusty saloon. Got quite sick.

tl;dr? RPG's are the best source of immersive and interactive worlds.