Happy Desolation

BREAKING NEWS! RUMOURS OF A WORLD OUTSIDE THE INTERNET PROVEN TRUE!! READ MORE HERE!!

2011-06-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

So, for the past 5 weeks or so, I've been without the internet due to stupidity on the part of my ISP, LIME (the best ISP in the Caribbean *sarcasm*).

Naturally, to fill the empty void in my soul caused by internet deprivation, boredom and the pain I felt via the psychic screams of my followers unto a Internet God that had forsaken them (namely me), I had to improvise, and make do with games I had on my computer.

Before I show you my so called improvisation, I have a very important question to ask about a certain phenomenon. It puzzled me greatly.

What's that hot, yellow thing that comes down out of the sky when you're not under a roof, and it hurts your eyes when you try to look at it? I've never seen it before...

Umm, so yes, back to improvisation.

Pictured below, improvisation:

The Elder Scrolls 3

I was playing this a bit before the internet started acting up. Despite the fact I spent a bit over a month without the internet, I still haven't finished it. Its a great game, but the constant trekking all over the map, and the running back and forth really does get on my nerves. Technically, although running up and down to do quests is a classic RPG gripe, it's exacerbated in Elder Scrolls, even with the quick transport mechanisms available ingame, considering the sheer size of the game map (insert dick joke here).

What I love about Elder Scrolls however, is how immersive they made the world. I've counted at least 50 books so far, and a majority of them have been 15 or 20 pages long. Their contents are quite varied and include among other things: the history of the world, anecdotes about people, or sermons for the Tribunal temple (an ingame religion, which of course, in classic RPG cliche fashion ties in with the well written main plotline and backstory).

"The Axe Man" is one of my favourite anecdotes from the game. Here it is, in its entirety. It's short anyway. Quick definitions: Morag Tong - Bunch of ingame assassins, Dwemer - dwarves, saltrice - ingame crop

Of all the members of the Morag Tong I've spoken with, none disturbed me as much as Minas Torik. A quiet and reserved man who never drank, never visited a brothel or even uttered a curse, he was famous for his ability to make people disappear. Once a person was targeted by the Brotherhood and Torik was sent to them, they would simply cease to be. I asked him once what his weapon of choice was, and was equally startled by his answer.

“I only likes to use axes,” he said in his typical, quiet voice.
The image of this silent, dour fellow attacking anyone with a weapon as inherently bloody and violent as an axe so frightened and intrigued me that I questioned him about it further. This is an inherently dangerous activity, for assassins are not typically keen to give out their stories. Torik did not mind the questions, though it took some time to get the full story out of him, as naturally shy and reserved as he was.

It seemed that Torik had been orphaned as a very young age and sent to live with his uncle, a saltrice plantation owner in Sheogorad in northern Vvardenfell. The man promised to show his nephew the business and eventually make him a partner when he was old enough. In the meantime, the boy was put to work as his uncle's house servant.

It was a grueling life as the old man was very particular about how things should be done. The boy was first required to give all the floors in the house a thorough scouring, from the attic to the cellar. Whenever the floor was not cleaned to the uncle's satisfaction, which was frequent, Torik was thrashed and forced to begin again.

The boy's second duty was to ring the bell that would bring the laborers into the house. This was done at least four times a day, once for each meal, but if his uncle had any news or additional instructions for the laborers -- which he frequently did -- the bell might need to be sounded a dozen times or more. It was a huge iron bell in the tower and the boy quickly discovered that he had to throw his entire body into the motion of pulling the chain in order to have it sound loud enough to bring everyone in from the field. If he was tired and did not pull the backbreaking chain hard enough, his uncle was soon at his side to beat him until he rang the bell loud and clear.

Torik's third task was dusting all the shelves in his uncle's vast library. As deep and old as the shelves were, he was required to work with a long, heavy duster on a rod. The only way that he could reach to the back of the shelves was to hold the duster at his shoulder and then swing it out in a sweeping motion. Again, if the uncle saw any dust left over or felt that the boy was not working as hard as he ought to, the punishment was swift and severe.

After several years, Minas Torik grew into a young man, but his job responsibilities were not increased. His uncle promised to teach him the business, once Torik had demonstrated his mastery of his servile assignments. Divorced from any knowledge of any work other than his own, Torik never knew how badly in debt his uncle was and how poorly the farm's yield was.

In his eighteenth year, Torik was called into the cellar by his uncle. He thought that he had not done a good enough job scouring the floor down there, and was frightened of the beating to come. What he found, however, was his uncle packing his goods into crates.

“I'm leaving Morrowind,” he explained. “The business has gone sour, so I thought I'd try my luck running a caravan in Skyrim. I understand there's good money to be made, trading fake Dwemer artifacts to the Nords and Cyrodiils. I wish I could take you with me, my lad, but there won't be much need for scouring, bell pulling, and dusting where I'm going.”

“But uncle,” said Torik. “I can't read, I knows nothing of the business you promised to teach me. What wills I dos on my own?”

“I'm certain you can find a job in some domestic capacity,” shrugged the uncle. “I've done my best with you.”

Torik had never stood up to his uncle before, and felt no anger only a sort of coldness that gripped his heart. Among his uncle's possessions being packed away was an old heavy iron axe, allegedly of Dwemer manufacture. He picked it up in his hands and was surprised to find that it was not much heavier than his dusting rod. In fact, it felt very comfortable as he pulled it over his shoulder and swung it out as he had done so many times before. In this instance, however, he swung it into his uncle's right arm.

The old man screamed with pain and rage, but for some reason, Torik didn't feel frightened anymore. He propped the axe against his other shoulder, and swung it out again. It cut a swath across the old man's chest and he fell to the floor.
Torik hesitated before lifting the axe above his head. It was another natural position for him, like he was ringing a bell. Over and over again, he swung down as if he was calling the laborers in from the field. Except that this time, there was no sound except for a wet thump, and no laborers came in from the field. Of course, his uncle had sent them away hours before.

After a time, there was nothing left of his uncle that couldn't be washed down the cellar drain. The process of cleaning up came easily to Torik as well. Blood scrubbed up much quicker than the usual grime and saltrice flour that littered the cellar floor.

It was well known that Torik's uncle was planning to leave Morrowind, so his disappearance provoked no suspicion. The house and all the belongings were sold to the debt collectors, but Torik took the axe. It seemed that his uncle had given him some worthwhile business skills after all.

Good stuff huh?

In the game, I've currently entered the Ghostgate and killed 2 people that I was supposed to kill to recover certain items (I wrote it like this to avoid any spoilers, just in case your interest has been piqued and you decide to play it too). My Redguard Battlemage is quite epic (max proficiency with axe and heavy armour skills, and maxed out strength attribute), but for a magic using character, his MP is really low.

Lets move on before I have a nerdgasm.

Morrowind isn't the only game I played during my little sabbatical. Honestly, I would have gone mad if that were the only thing I had to play. This brings us to:

Yggdra Union

Yes, I've mostly been playing 2D RPGs. Thats usually my preferred choice of game anyway.

I started playing Yggdra Union MONTHS ago, but my playing was intermittent, due to me constantly being distracted by trivial matters like school. I started playing again about 2 weeks ago. It's a really great game (and it seems to be in the same story universe as Riviera: The Promised Land).

*PSEUDOSPOILER ALERT*
Anyway, after much stress and toil, I finally defeated Gulcasa. As my troops were leaving the castle, something happened. Milanor's reaction corresponded to mine quite well....

...although admittedly, my reaction was more alone the lines of "Cho bumboclaut, what now?"

And yeah, long story short, this other thing involves like 4 or 5 more battles before you reach the ACTUAL end of the game. It's still a bit of a nasty shock after you've played through almost 40 hard fought battles and you think you're finally done. Ugh.

But it was a good game, and time well spent. Onto the next one:

Summon Night: Swordcraft Story

I'm still trying to figure out if the fact that they spelt the word as "night" instead of "knight" is some sort of Engrish, a clever pun that went right over my head, or some god-forsaken combination of both.

I'm a bit of a 2D RPG aficionado, and I really enjoyed playing this game. I never minded the level grinding I had to do at times, because the combat system is really fun.

Why?

Well kids, it uses a combat system similar to the original Star Ocean or the 2D entries in the Tales series (eg. Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Destiny, Tales of Eternia). This type combat system is one of my favourite RPG combat systems because it causes the RPG to play more like a mix of a fighting/strategy game than a normal "wait for the bar to fill, pick a command, if it doesn't kill your enemy wait for the bar to fill again and repeat the process" sort of RPG (I'm looking at YOU, Final Fantasy).

The story is a bit cliche, but it does have a few interesting plot twists. Its definitely worth the 15 hours of your life or so it takes to finish it. I won't say more apart from the fact that you have my wholehearted recommendation to go and play it.

I played a many more games than these 3, but these are the ones I played the most. I don't have time to go into the other ones I played. As a side note, I finally beat Final Fantasy 3 (FF6 in Japan) as well, after procrastinating with it for over 6 years. Can you say "no more closet skeletons"?

My game choices have helped me come to the realization that Atlus has the potential to displace Square Enix as the king of RPG game production, but they need to make more worthwhile forays into 3D RPGs, and they need an epic flagship series. More on that in another blog post though, because I could write and epistle on it.

But thats enough about video games now. Movie time!

I only really have one recommendation (because Elder Scrolls sucked up most of my time).

Anyway, one night, after a 7 hour Elder Scrolls run, I turned on the TV (which was on TVJ because I'd turned it off right after the news and gone back to Elder Scrolls). I caught a fantasy movie as it was starting.

The name of this movie was Legend of Earthsea, and it technically wasn't even a movie; it was a miniseries. I spent the next 2 hours or so watching it. It seemed like a relatively low budget production, and the acting was a bit iffy in certain parts, but I loved the simplicity of the plot. Nevermind the fact that I later found out that the miniseries butchered the story of the actual book series (as film adaptations tend to do anyway), I liked the simplifications.

It had plain wizards trying to stop a plain hostile army. No fantasy names to twist your tongue and give you a headache. Just wizards, monsters, rivals, love interests and evil generals. It's pretty much the complete opposite of almost every fantasy production, in any media, that has been produced for like the last 50 years or so.

The only REAL complicating element in Legend of Earthsea was a summoned demon that was chasing one of the main characters for most of the film. That was of course, solved satisfactorily by the time the ending credits rolled.

There is a LOT more that I could write about the time I spent without the internet, but frankly, I think you're all getting as tired of reading as I am of writing. I'll leave it here for now kids.

I hear there's an anime adaptation of the Earthsea series. I think my first order of business back on the internet will be trying to source it.

Yours truly, now and always,
Lord Robinson.

My Son, My Son, Why Have You Forsaken Me?

2011-04-08T18:44:00.000-07:00

About 2 weeks ago, my medical school class and I went on this outreach trip to the Blossom Gardens Children's Home.

For those of you who didn't know, I hate kids. Just throwing that out there. That trip did nothing to change my mind.

I still used the opportunity to take this epic picture though:

And yes, I now know (thanks to EVERYONE TELLING ME), that I'm holding the child the wrong way. -__-

So we brought the children's home some stuff we thought they needed. We got the money from the proceeds of a REALLY successful bake sale we did the month before that.

This whole outreach project was a success, and we look forward to doing it again soon (only I won't be holding any kids this time).

Anyway, apart from this little tidbit, I don't really have anything new going on in my life, except for the fact that exams are approaching rapidly, and I REALLY need to study more. In fact, that's what I think I'll do now...after I finish Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone.

Something momentous MIGHT also happen this summer, but more on that some other time...

TTFN,
Lord Robinson

From the Stacks of Paper and Paint I Rise Again

2011-03-21T16:03:00.000-07:00

So I've been so busy with real life, I've been neglecting the internet (apart from Facebook of course, because it's like...impossible, to neglect Facebook).

So first, my apologies for the fact that my last post was almost half a year ago. Unforunately, my lack of updating doesn't mean that I'm dead, but rather, that I was busy with school. I got my first semester of medical school done. Went pretty well. Got an A+, and the entire B spectrum for the other 3 courses I did that semester.

I wasn't particularly fond of going home at 7 or 8 pm from the anatomy lab, but I suppose it comes with the fact that I decided to punish myself physically by studying to becoming a doctor, rather than sexually by studying to become a programmer.

BUT, I digress. I've had some interesting experiences. I go to the main campus in Kingston on average, about once a month, to do some labs. I get to catch up and hang out with my friends and make some new ones (can anyone say "Hot Trinidadians?").

I just came back from my pinning ceremony and UWI Carnival this past week. I have pictures of the pinning ceremony. I don't have any pictures of the Carnival itself for three reasons:

1) SLACKNESS! :D
No seriously, some of the pictures of the Carnival could seriously ruin the professional careers of some people *cough* me *cough* in the future if they got out. Oh, and I danced with a lecturer for a good 20 seconds, then she pushed me off. Long story. xD

I also danced with this hot Trini girl and bumped her (humped her?) a little too hard, and sent her flying into this hot jerk drum (jerk pan, jerk grill, whatever you want to call it). Before I apologized to her I sang the following hymn (yes hymn),

"You're a jerk!(16x)

Jerk Jerk Jerk! (Jerkin)(5x)

JEEERRK
So cocky with it got my iced out clubs like rocky hit it
Got your girl on my swagg she lovin them jerkin songs
Like the new ipod just touch it and turn her on
And when the bass start beatin and the waist I'm beatin
Done I got on my way I'm leavin she like where you goin? I aint
got my shoes and purse
I said it's none of your concern and she yelled (your a jerk!)
So I walked out the door called Ben J. told him it's a function he
said I'm on my way
We pulled up to the party I take off my shirt and got geeked up
everybody jerkin
We was jerkin to the right jerkin to the left
Then she popped out of nowhere she was still half dressed
She like fa real jerk you left me for this stuff
the whole party heard her but all I could hear was.."

But she took it all in good humour, and I didn't have to run for my life.

2) THE WATER AND THE PAINT
There was an epic water truck, spraying water on all of us. It was an UNGODLY amount of fun, but I was totally unprepared the first time the water hit me, and I jumped a couple feet into the air from the shock. Oh, yeah, but umm, I couldn't bring my camera anyway, because I didn't want to risk damaging it bygetting it wet (it's already half-useless as is already anyway). As it pertains to the prevalence of the paint...here's a little mini-anecdote:

There was a party before the Carnival (Night) Road March called J'ouvert. Unlike the road march, this party took place in one centralized area. As soon as I entered this place, some girl (who I don't even know) slapped me across my face, and I'm talking about an EPIC bitchslap, the sort only Jesus could turn the other cheek for. So I turned around, ready to cut a bitch with my incisive wit, and I saw her laughing at me, and then she just hugged me and ran off. It was unexpected and surprising; after that I wasn't angry anymore. (I should also add that the fact she was in nothing but a bathing suit and had massive breasts also helped to repair my transient anger management malfunction).

Then when I went inside, one of my friends who I was there with (this guy named Steve) was like, "Gavin, you've been painted already!". He showed me my reflection. Lo and behold...there was a massive yellow paint mark in the pattern of a hand on my cheek and my shirt and shorts were stained with yellow paint from hugging this girl. I still wasn't mad though. xD

But yes, I'm straying. Onto the final point:

3) THE EPIC TURNOUT
There were at least 2000 people there (based off my quick, crappy, ballpark estimation). Not only UWI students were involved, but UTech students and random people off the street. In fact, at the J'ouvert party for the night road march, the place was so packed that I actually got claustrophobic. It was rather traumatizing when I was trying to escape from the water cannon that was blasting me, and I was trying to push people aside, but nobody would move, so I couldn't get away in time. Let's have a moment of silence for my poor nervous system. (FOR EXTRA TRAGEDY, imagine a fat man pushing through a crowd of people while getting epically hosed down).

All in all, being my first UWI Carnival, it was pretty cool, but I heard people complaining that other years were better. (One of my classmates who had actually gone before was actually pissed from Saturday morning till Monday afternoon at how lame it was this year, to him at least). My major complaints were that the DJ focused on Dancehall music too much, and never played much of other Caribbean genres such as Soca, and that they repeated the same songs over and over.

As it pertains to my pinning ceremony (which was the original reason I was in Kingston anyway), I got my medical pin. It may sound epic, but all I will say is that those pins are gold and bronze only in colour. No more shall be said. I do look epic in a bush jacket though.

No, I don't know those other two girls. Well, I'm just kidding, they're in my class.

Pictures from the night after, a bit before we went to Carnival. (WARNING: BOOBY SHOT PICTURES)

Marc being epic for the first time in his life.

Me being epic as I always am. (But I just realized I have a massive nose, it's squeezed against her chest dwl)

Steve's frass face, Giselle and Rahje's hand seizing his property.

Marc and his "legal team" (sans Raquel who was an absentee, and Steve, who took this pic). That's me in the pink.

Steve's "fair rationing" of Pepsi to white rum. Yes, that's really all the Pepsi he used. It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Oh yeah, and there was a little messing around at the gas station in New Kingston. Just a little. That involved playing catch with someone's teenage daughter.

Oh, and finally, one of the most epic couples ever (Raj and Gis):

And no, before people start, I don't really drink. I just participate in lots of recreational activities with career alcoholics. Oh, also, I apologize for the quality of these images; this camera is on its way out.

Anyway, I hope these make up for all the blog posts I've missed. I've gotten almost hundreds of new stories since I last updated my blog. I'll cover them all someday.

Till Next Time (which I hope will be soon),
Lord Robinson.

Crucify Me

2010-09-25T18:24:00.001-07:00

I am REAAAAAAALLLLLLYYYYY sorry. Please DON'T crucify me. September is almost done, and I just realized I haven't even blogged ONCE for this month. 残念だね。 I've been busy with school though. As in really busy. The sort of busy that barely leaves you time to sleep, because you have to get your Facebook time in.

But...as a medical student, I digress.

Yeah, that's right. Since I last updated my blog, a lot has happened. I am now officially a medical student enrolled at the University of the West Indies School of Medicine, attached to the Western Jamaica Campus.

The Good:
I'm in medical school.

The Bad:
I'm still stuck living at home.

Seriously, I was really counting on leaving home this year, but I'm stuck down here. Oh well, I'll just have to make the best of it. Nevermind the fact that there isn't a single good-looking honey (by my standards) on the campus.

I must admit however, that I'm quite fond of the way people's facial expressions change when they talk to someone and find out that the person is a medical student. Presented below is a common list of reactions I tend to get:

1) "They offered medicine down here?"
2) "Oh my God, that's so cool!"
3) "You're going to be a doctor?! But how?! You're an asshole!"
4) "Oh cool, have you cut up dead bodies yet?"
5) "Take my wet convulsing vagina NOW, Dr. Robinson! You know, for SCIENTIFIC purposes and all that..."

Medical what the F-?

The picture of me above was taken in the bus when we went to the main UWI campus for a special matriculation ceremony. Take note the epic luggage under my eyes in the picture. They're nothing compared to the size of the bags under my eyes at the moment. I pretty much like all of my classes, except for Introduction to Medical Practice, which is only slightly more interesting than watching paint dry, although I'll admit that 80% of my stress and tiredness comes from the reading I have to do before and after Histology class in order to be able to keep up.

The rundown of the situation is that in five years, and after spending couple million dollars (in JMD) in tuition fees, I'll be legally qualified to put the letters "Dr." in front of my name. Hence, I would become Dr. Lord Gavin Robinson.

After graduating, I'm most likely going to specialize in neurosurgery, but I'll admit that medical research holds a certain sort of intrigue for me. I see no reason I can't do both. (And pimp on the side to make ends meet).

There's an interesting study out about fellatio (layman's term: blowjob) and a reduced incidence of breast cancer. Here's the link.

Wait, what you say? It's a practical joke? Maybe...for now it is. But when I get into medical research, I intend to prove this theory.

Single-handedly.

Peace out,
Dr. Lord Gavin Robinson.

Green Eggs and Ham-onella Poisoning: The Reincarnation of Dr. Seuss

2010-08-05T01:06:00.000-07:00

The title of this blog post is a reference to a book by Dr. Seuss called Green Eggs and Ham. Dr. Seuss is the same person who wrote "The Cat in the Hat", if you didn't already know. Dr. Seuss isn't his real name. His real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel. He had a rather...interesting life. Case in point, he used to make propaganda cartoons in World War 2. Here are some of them that I found:

If you don't know what a war bond is, wiki it.

Anyway, as usual of course, I'm digressing. I really made this post to say that about half an hour ago, I made deviled eggs. For the record, when I was writing this, it was 3:17 AM. Anyway, the best part is, I don't even have any symptoms of salmonella poisoning (yet).

Here's a picture. You can ignore the toast; I was just hungry, so I grabbed a slice of bread and stuck it in the toaster, then slapped it onto the plate.

Not bad. I have to send a shout-out to my friend S-K Sucky, for helping me out when I panicked. I was looking on the eHow instruction page for making deviled eggs, and I realized I didn't have any mustard or mayonnaise in the house. She suggested substituting the mustard with black pepper, and told me that the mayonnaise wasn't really necessary. Well, she was right. It tasted awesome. I added salt, black pepper, cinnamon and vinegar to the yolk mixture. Epic win, if I do say so myself.

Next time I try it though, I hope I have all the ingredients on hand. There are some other recipes that I've seen around the internet that I want to try. Here are some links:

1) Chocolate Chip Cookies - It's not so much not knowing how to do it, or not having the materials, as it is finding the TIME to make them. It seems the only time I can get some peace to cook is at like 1:30 AM in the mornings. So be it. I hereby declare that ungodly hour to be Gourmet Time in this household!

2) Log Cake - I dunno about, "Yule" log cake, as opposed to say, "Summer Holidays" log cake or "Losing Virginity" log cake or "Breaking Up With Your Girlfriend Because She Was Cheating on You and Gave You an STI" log cake, but what I do know is that log cakes look so PRETTY! For this one, the issue is definitely getting the icing and the tools to make the decorations. They don't come cheap (the icing AND the tools I mean), and I'm on a budget (it's called the broke-ass negro budget). I definitely want to make it someday. Maybe before summer's done, who knows?

3) Pound Cake - This is probably the easiest thing on my list to make. It's plain, but of course, I intend to make minor modifications to flavour it to my will. I don't have any particular flavour in mind yet though. I have the skill and I almost always have most of the basic ingredients for Pound Cake on hand, but the idea of making one has just never crossed my mind at the right time. I'll probably try this sometime before the end of next week. Of course, I'll blog about the results, just because I love you guys. I'll even share some with you all. ^_^

4) Chinese Dumplings (Type 1) (Type 2) - This is probably going to be the recipe whose ingredients are going to be the hardest to source. I can already figure out some simplifications to replace the more exotic ingredients, but I'm at a loss for some of them. Like Napa cabbage, I can probably replace that with ordinary cabbage I find at the market. And this may be a long shot, but maybe I can replace bamboo shoots with escallion. As a side note, the Japanese call these edible bamboo shoots "takenoko". Not to be confused with the word "bakemono", which means monster. That might make dinner a bit awkward...

Jiaozi Dumplings

Potsticker Dumplings

Anyway onto the ingredients that are more difficult to obtain. Like this "salt" thing...what the heck is "salt"?! Where am I supposed to find that crap? I'm just kidding. It's going to be difficult for me to get my hands on things like Chinese rice wine, or even sherry (Mr. Chin just went $_$), and I doubt Smirnoff Ice would do anything but be a fire hazard. Also, I could always make my own dumpling dough, but it would probably be a lot easier (and safer), if I bought pre-made wrappers. That probably wouldn't be hard to source though, I have some friends who know quite a bit about that stuff.

5) PIZZA! - My mother has made pizza for me before, but I've never done it for myself. She also uses ready made pizza crust. I want to try it by myself and make the dough from scratch. The varieties of cheese that can be obtained where I live are rather limited though, but I can find Mozzarella (at the low, low cost of an arm and a leg), so that's not really such a big problem. I can get creative with the topping too, so that's not really a big issue. The only problem is time, I guess.

But baby, I've got nothing but time.

Well, I think I'm done for today. The final thing I'd like to say before I conclude this post is: RIP OneManga. We had a good run. You were always good to me, but you're in a better place now (yeah, right).

Anyway, later alligator.
Lord Robinson.

P.S. When I was looking for images of pizza, I realized that it actually looks sorta disgusting. I wonder who else thinks that? Doesn't matter. It tastes awesome. It's actually one of my favourite foods.

Japanese Sexual Terms and Cartoon Voice Actors, what do they have in common?

2010-07-28T21:50:00.001-07:00

Nothing actually.

I was going through my vocabulary list this morning, and I was feeling idle, so I cross referenced some of the words with JDICT and Denshi Jisho (which basically is built on top of J-dict plus some other sources). I found some ermm...interesting words.

So, in order to avoid more useless words, let's get to the meat of the matter. The following list isn't ranked or anything.

10 Dirty Japanese Words To Use Before You Die

1) 外出し: sotodashi(noun) - extravaginal ejaculation. You can contrast this with 中出し(nakadashi), which means ejaculating inside, whether intra-vaginal, or intra-anal.

2) 豆：　mame(noun) - female genitalia, especially the clitoris (this actually means pea...double meaning anyone?)

3) 打っ掛け: bukkake(noun) - ejaculating into someone's face. Doing a Google Image Search on this (with SafeSearch ON), will have you in stitches for hours.

4) ビタミンエス: bitamin esu(noun) - literally, vitamin S. In other words, SPERM!

5) おまんこ：　omanko(noun, suru verb) - as a noun, it means vagina. As a suru veb, it means to have sexual intercourse (it has a tone approximately between the words "screw" and "f*ck").

6)　万摺り： manzuri(noun) - female masturbation.

7) 初体験: shotaiken(noun) - first experience in any activity. In slang, it means one's first sexual experience.

8) 傷物: kizumono(noun) - a woman who is no longer a virgin. Literally, "damaged goods".

9) 立ち役： tachiyaku(noun) - the man that plays the male role in a homosexual relationship. It's a term for kabuki (a sort of Japanese play, where men play both male and female roles. Eww...)

10) 入れて下さい: irete kudasai(exp) - "Please, put it in."; "Do me." Preferably a term only used by women (and unfortunately, sometimes gay men...tsk tsk).

But, that's probably enough with polluting your minds with the awesome perversion of the Japanese, here's something to rot it now.

A listing of some cartoon voice actors was on the MSN homepage and I found it interesting. I was always curious about who the voice actors behind many of my favourite cartoon characters were. This list is a good start, but of course GOOGLE is where you may want to search for more information. ^_^

That's about enough pointless information for today I'd like to think. So, I guess it's time for me to shove off. I think I'll resume playing with my new character in Dragon Age (a human female noble who is a warrior).

That's all folks,
Gavin.

P.S. STARCRAFT 2 IS OUT! MUST...BUY...COPY...

So Like, I Wuz Trolling Teh Telly-Veesion And..

2010-07-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

The title sounds like the start of a bad joke. Thankfully, I don't think I'll have any bad jokes in this post. Well, at least not more bad jokes that I normally have per blog post.

ANYWAY, I was looking for something to watch on TV the other day and an ad caught my eye. It was for this product called the Body Action System, developed by MMA champion, Bas Rutten.

B.A.S. = Body Action System = Bas, Clever huh? Oh, what's that you say? Not really? Well then:

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, while searching for that picture, my lack of an attention span caused me to get distracted and look at some other pictures that came up in the Google Image search result. Here's another one:

Oh right, we were talking about something before, weren't we?

Anyway, yes, the Body Action System. It's like a training dummy that martial artists can use while training to practice throwing punches, kicks, headbutts, kamehamehas, spirit bombs etc. at.

The television ad claimed it was new and revolutionary. I beg to differ. Have you guys ever seen one of the following?

It's called a Wing Chun Dummy. Been around for like more than a century too, maybe two. It's used by practitioners of Wing Chun Gung Fu. For reference, wiki it or watch a movie called Yip Man. It's one of those Chinese gung fu movies. It's fairly recent too. Either way, here's a Youtube video promoting Bas' product, tell me what you think.

If you think anything like I do, you'd probably just make one of the wooden Wing Chun dummies and stick some pads on that sucker. Yes, make. Get some durable wood (no innuendo here guys, move along...*snicker* wood *snicker*) and try making it. It would be a LOT cheaper too, Bas' product is like $500 USD.

BUT, I'm not bashing it. It actually seems like a pretty good idea/product. If he could get the price tag down to like half of what it costs now, I definitely see a big market for it, not just for serious MMA fighters, but for people who want to get a bit of self defense practice in without having to punch their little brothers in the nose. *cough*

In the video, when Rutten called Slice, I almost had an "anal recalibration" moment. I was hoping that they were going to fight. You know, for ermm... promotional purposes. However, that didn't work out, so Kimbo got to take out all that pent up oppression that results from being a hairy, muscular, black guy out on that poor dummy. Ouch.

I like UFC and other MMA competitions. I don't really watch them often, but the matches I've watched, I like. Whether or not you believe the sport is rigged is unimportant, those guys have worked out and are buff, and it's damn entertaining to see them staggering around after a few good blows. Just saying.

お休みなさいよ！
Lord Robinson.

The Good News Cometh Out

2010-07-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

If things work out, within 8 months or so, I should have my own individual website for the blog. I'm been brushing up on my PHP, HTML and AJAX skills to make it happen. The issue is really the time it would take to set up the site, and not exactly the cost (although finding a good cheap hosting package would be awesome).

What do you guys think about a comment system similar to that found on Kotaku and other Gawker Network sites? Minus the whole rating system, I'm actually quite fond of the whole thing. I just like it. Allowing users to add images and videos and stuff to their responses really makes things more interactive. Maybe I should add some Facebook connect functionality too, you know? Make things sooo Web 2.0.

I was on ZOMGAnime and I saw this interesting poll. It said Battle of the Classics: Rurouni Kenshin vs. Yu Yu Hakusho (and the third option was "I haven't seen either"). I loved Kenshin, but watched more Yu Yu Hakusho than Kenshin in my time. So, I picked the Hakusho option. At the time I voted, the percentage score was 45:30, in favour of Kenshin. 25% said they hadn't watched either (morons...XD)

Anyway, what do you all think?

Yu Yu Hakusho:

VERSUS

Rurouni Kenshin:

I'm going to a beach party this Saturday. All hail the power of friends with free passes!! WOOT!! This is a pretty good summer, probably one of the best I've ever had.

Oh yeah, I also finally found the theme song for my armies that I will use to take over the world. Here it is:

Minus smoking weed. That crap will be banned. I intend to make that plant extinct. It's nothing but problems. For reference, look at the Jamaican population.

Blah, enough ranting about crap.

I haven't beat Assassin's Creed 2 yet, but I have beat Dragon Age (DLC not included). I'm going to replay now with a different origin story. It's a really epic game as I said earlier. As it pertains to which ending I got, I took the cop out way, involving Morrigan. I don't want to spoil things for people who haven't beat it or even played it, so I won't say anymore.

This has been Gavin Robinson, here to say that you just wasted like 10 minutes of your life.

Tata For Now,
Lord Robinson.

I Steadfastly Refuse to Talk About The World Cup, But I Would Humbly Suggest That A Certain German Octopus Be Promptly Eaten

2010-07-11T16:53:00.001-07:00

This is the unsightly bastard I refer to. He needs to fry and die!!

Actually, I'm just kidding; it doesn't matter. As long as Germany has fallen, I can tolerate Spain's victory. ¡Viva España!

In other news, I have now linked my formspring.me page to my blog, so feel free to seduce me, abuse me, harass me or confuse me as you see fit. Come on punks, make my day.

I slowed down in playing Dragon Age a bit, since I got Assassin's Creed 2. It's pretty good. I like Ezio. He has some really funny lines. I mean, the first glimpse I got of Ezio (apart from him being born), was him telling his rival about the "handling" that he gave his rival's sister. What's not to like about it?

As an interesting side note, I've noticed that lately, I've been laughing more at dialogue in games. I'm either getting dumber from playing all these games, or game dialogue is getting wittier. Probably both.

Anyway, just jawboning with the faithful audience of my blog. Back to Assassin's Creed 2 now. Or maybe some Dragon Age first. If I don't get too engrossed in them, I might have a special article for you tomorrow on something I found interesting. Reading The Sum of All Fears this morning brought the issue to my mind, so I did some research. More on that tomorrow. Or whenever...

FailOSaga is coming on great by the way. I have a rudimentary battle system. I'll also work on that...whenever.

Either way, my birthday is 5 days from now.

Peace,
Lord Robinson.

I Wanted To Blog About the World Cup and A Friend's Boyfriend Problems But Dragon Age Wouldn't Let Me...Seriously

2010-07-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

Seriously, it wouldn't let me. It's too addictive. It didn't want me to goooo!! :(

Hm. Let's start with my friend's boyfriend problems. I'd really like someone to come with suggestions about how to advise a friend on how to get rid of a dangerous boyfriend. Really...I'd appreciate it, I can't seem to figure out a solution AND get it into her thick skull.

Now, onto 2 things that actually mean something: The FIFA World Cup and Dragon Age.

This world cup, I supported England, up until Germany kicked their asses anyway. So now, I have an ermm...this person I know called it a "grudge" against Germany. I'm now rooting for the Netherlands, since they beat Argentina. Well, maybe beat isn't the word. Rape seems more appropriate.

I never wanted Argentina, Brazil or Germany to come to anything in this World Cup. Two out of three isn't that bad I guess. Let's see if the Netherlands can be this year's champion.

NETHERLANDS MI TING DEH!

(Fun fact: The French flag can be obtained by turning the Netherlands' flag sideways. Compare. I learned that from the ship scene in a movie called Lord of War. The movie stars Nicholas Cage, who as regular readers know, is one of my favourite actors. Epic stuff, you should make an effort to watch it.)

Now, onto Dragon Age.

Dragon Age is just that addictive. So far, I've logged like 27 hours of gameplay. It is REALLY engrossing. The characters are well defined, the available choices you can take are diverse and the world is vibrant. It is EPIC!

NERD ALERT - Skip this section
==========

My character is a City Elf rogue. I play with him more like a warrior though. He has high dexterity and decent strength, but I should do some work on his cunning, although its not bad. He's been lugging around this massive greatsword I got in Ostagar close to the start of the game. So far, I'm like 17% done with the game. That's what you call a reliable weapon.

Moving on to my other characters.

My Allistair is a TANK. I'm amazed there's still any of him left after the number of times he's been burnt, sliced, frozen, poisoned, trapped by roots, knocked down etc. I always make sure to get him the best armour though, since I know he's going to be eating the largest slice of damage pie.

しかし、私のモッリガンがとくい。
Translation: However, my Morrigan is my point of pride.
I have transformed her from a simple witch, to sword-wielding, D-cup wearing, Amazonian princess of badassness. She wields a greatsword (slightly weaker than the one my player character brings around). She can actually wear armour almost as heavy as Allistair. She also does most of the killing in the party, usually finishing off enemies with that ice spell she comes with (I forgot the name).

The final member of the team I normally bring around is Wynne. I got her fairly recently, but she's already an indispensable addition to the team. Her revival spell has saved my party's bacon many times when Allistair or Darrian (my player character) has been incapacitated.

I've been playing the part of goody two shoes so far. What a friend of mine recently pointed out to me was that Dragon Age and Mass Effect are unusual for Bioware RPGs as you don't really have good and evil, but rather the choice of being an agreeable guy or a really rude guy. It's true. If you think about it, you can probably see the progression from KOTOR with the well defined Light/Dark sides, then Jade Empire with the ambiguous Open/Closed Fist Styles to Mass Effect and Dragon Age that lack any REAL good/evil system, but are more karmic. By karmic, I mean that you don't actually get rated on a scale for your amount of evil/good, but rather, in game events are determined by the manner which you respond to certain situations (for example: insult a man at an earlier stage of the game and he comes back to murder you close to the end).

================
END NERD ALERT

I think I've found a my new favourite chauvinist pig this morning. His name is Borgore. He's a dubstep artiste (although lots of Dubstep fans are insulted when people classify him as that). His lyrics are almost pornographic, definitely misogynistic. They never fail to make me laugh. Here's a quick selection of some of his songs:

Peace,
Lord Robinson

Tomorrow is the Day

2010-06-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

I have my Valedictory Service tomorrow. After tomorrow, I will have nothing more to do with Montego Bay Community College.

Heck yeah!

Oh no, wait, they're having the ACTUAL graduation ceremony in November, but if things work out the way I plan, I doubt I'll be going.

A little bit more than two weeks after the ceremony, I'll be having my birthday. How old will I be? I'm not telling you. But, I blogged on my last birthday too, giving my age back then, so if you dig around the blog for it, you just might find it. ^_^

I finished Fallout 3 yesterday morning as a good guy. My Karma rating was pretty high. Like most games where you get to choose good or evil, I intend to play it again, as a bad guy. Fallout 3 has some epic music too. This is one of my favourite songs from the game. It's called Butcher Pete, by Roy Brown.

For those of you that have been following the news for the past two months or so, you should know about the giant oil spill caused by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. This video manages to capture my sentiments of how they're handling the situation perfectly. I found it funny, although not hilariously so. (It was one of Youtube's promoted videos.)

Now that I'm done with Fallout 3 and Jade Empire, I think I'll try to fight my way through playing Mass Effect with my crappy PC. I may also write some code for...something. I don't know yet. We'll see. Here's something I wrote two days ago. It's a simple walk demo for a 2D RPG. Maybe I'll make a full game out of it. I just need a plot...

I made the character using the Charas-EX character generator. The walk demo application itself was written in C++, using SDL. Play no attention to the unfortunate fact I called it FailOSaga.

TTFN,
Lord Robinson.

VATS: A Gift From The Fallout Gods

2010-06-18T20:20:00.000-07:00

I started playing Fallout 3 this morning. As usual, yes, I know I'm a bit late. My latest memory upgrade has allowed me to play more games since I can now meet the recommended system requirements. I don't really like playing games on the minimum system requirements.

Like most other games where humanity is an endangered species, and you are NOT a super soldier in a special armour suit, ammo and weapons and other items are scarce. This of course, makes things difficult.

I would also like to digress for a minute and say that Fire Ants in Fallout are gay. Moving on....

I was a bit impressed by the start of the game. I can't think of any game that started with a first person in-game birth scene apart from Star Wars Republic Commando, and even then, it was cloning tank, so its not exactly the same thing. You really get into the action pretty fast.

The music selection in the game is awesome. Somehow, 1950s show tunes fit a post-apocalyptic world perfectly. I mean, a man crooning in the background while you blow off the head of a savage raider using VATS (the game's built in targeting system) really adds to the atmosphere.

My SAT results are due in 6 days. My graduation is in 9 days.My birthday is in 28 days. See, things got epic when summer finally managed to come around. My Japanese has been improving steadily, although my speaking is still a bit rusty. Tae Kim's Godsend grammar guide is working some epic magic for me. I intend to try and finish James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji over the holiday; maybe when I finish Fallout 3 I'll start.

That being said, I wonder what the beach looks like? Does it still have sand?

The Boy That Wants To Go To The Beach,
Gavin.

3 Games, No Exams and A Yearbook For Good Measure

2010-06-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

My exams finished a bit under a week ago, but I've been a bit occupied, so I haven't been able to blog(until now).

In order of importance, here are the sins that occupied my time:
1)Jade Empire
2)Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2
3)Mass Effect - leading to PC problems somehow T_T
4)Sisyphean tasks

I might as well start explaining the items on this list, so lets go.

First and foremost, the Jade Empire I refer to is an RPG by Bioware. It's an epic RPG with an Asian mythological framework. In other words, it's Knights of the Old Republic + Buddha + Bruce Lee. I love the gameplay, it's pretty good. For those of you who are wondering, it's like maybe 3 or 4 years old (I'm not 100% sure). The story is a bit cliche though...but that doesn't make it any less fun to beat up some ghosts or Imperial soldiers. I recently beat the game following the Way of the Open Palm(simply put: what would be called the Light side in KOTOR).

I now want to replay it as a follower of the Closed Fist style(you guessed it, the Dark Side). The game dresses it up saying that Open Palm isn't necessarily good, while Closed Fist isn't necessarily evil, but I never really bothered myself with the technicalities.

Bioware, despite having this little problem with avoiding RPG cliches, are really masterful storytellers. I was impressed by KOTOR, and I'm impressed by Jade Empire. I'd give it a 9 out of 10.

You guys should totally check it out. Here's a gameplay video:

I know I'm a bit late in getting around to playing Modern Warfare 2, alright? Geez...pushy bastards. In my opinion, the game deserves the amount of hype it has been getting. However, while the multiplayer is quite fun, the single player story is pretty neat. If Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy got together to make a game, this would totally be it. It has quite a few adrenaline-filled, fast paced moments just like what you'd expect to see in the hottest military action movies; from escaping Russians in a snowmobile to chasing down arms dealers in Brazilian slums to sex scenes, there's something in it for everyone. Well, everything apart from the last thing on that list. :P

Now, we move on to Mass Effect, the third item on our list. Before I start, I'm going to say, I never finished it. In fact, I don't think I did 10% of the game. Why?

F**king HAX!!

Well no, not really. But it was buggy and my PC is a bit crappy; it crashed quite a few times while I was trying to play the game...so I'll probably put off playing it to sometime in the not-so-distant future. Still, from what I saw so far, I liked it. The film grain effect was slightly annoying (don't worry, you can turn it off, and you'll probably get used to it anyway). However, I kept it on, and was richly rewarded during cutscenes (such as conversations with NPCs and the like). It REALLY adds an element of realism to the looks of the characters. Well, the human characters anyway. Turians look a bit unnerving to me, film grain or not.

Somehow my PC got screwed up when I was playing Mass Effect. It blue screened and reset a couple times. Long story short, System Restore FTW!! Thankfully, I'd done a restore point on like the 4th of June (not to my knowledge...the system restore fairy was really looking out for me on that one), so I didn't really lose much (apart from my dignity...this is the first time I've EVER had to use system restore since it came as a feature -_-).

Now, I've saved the painful part for last. I am now finished with Community College. It will be official when I actually finish the graduation ceremony, which will be held on the 27th of June. Oh, no...wait, that wasn't the painful part...that should have been at the top heheheh.

We're not getting a yearbook. Why? I dunno. I don't know of any other years that got one though. I have decided to change that. I've started to round up a bunch of friends to make a yearbook. I can't believe that a school would just let us go like that (despite the fact we're only too glad to leave) without a yearbook. It's just so...gauche. Anyway, I've decided to step in and fix their gaffe. I'm not as insouciant about these things as I may look.

With luck, it should be done by the week after the graduation ceremony. To keep costs down, we intend to distribute it digitally. I'll let you guys know how that pans out. So far, I have some awesome people willing to help. Here's to hoping.

Risen from the Dead,
Lord Robinson

P.S. For those of you who don't know what a Sisyphean task is
go wild.

Staying Alive

2010-05-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

That song, apart from being awesome, serves two other purposes. First and foremost, it represents what people in the eastern part of the island are probably trying to do right now, in the midst of all the unrest being caused by the attempted arrest of Dudus. (For those of you who don't know, google Christopher Dudus Coke and Jamaica). Secondly, it represents what I need to do next week, when the bulk of my exams descend upon me. From Tuesday to Friday, I have exams. All long papers. That's Biology, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, all on sequential days. No time to swat during the week. I'm not too worried though.

Thankfully I haven't (entirely) wasted the two weeks I got before these exams. I really feel like I have a lot more Biology in my head at this point in my life than I ever will, including after graduation from medical school. T_T

Bring on the summer!! Now I've gotta go on MSN and have a quick study session with some friends (seriously, studying on instant messenger actually works).

TTFN,
Gavin.

Dubstep and T-2 Weeks To Exams

2010-04-23T21:26:00.001-07:00

As of late, I've started listening to a lot of Dubstep. It's really awesome stuff.

I really love the warbled basslines most of them have.

Dr. Philth has really earned a place in my heart. Well two really. One for awesome music, the other for the most awesome name EVER!! Now I finally have real motivation to mess around with that copy of Fruity Loops Studio I have lying around on my computer. With a bit of effort (and the grace of God) I can probably make something that sounds as filthy as these slime monsters (yeah, that was a lame one...bear with me, I'm new at this).

I finally got my exam timetable. I have my Caribbean Studies exam in two weeks (plus my SAT subject tests next week Saturday). Should be manageable. I don't intend to touch a Caribbean Studies book, much less look in its general direction. I also intend to get a distinction doing that too. Don't follow me. I'm what you call an idler, or to be more politically correct, a wasteman.

So while I'm here, making beats on the eve of probably the most important exams of my life, remember what your good friend Gavin Robinson told you. Don't be like him.

Later folks,
Gavin.

Mmmm...Asteroids

2010-04-01T18:11:00.000-07:00

The other day, I started playing this copy of Homeworld 1 that I ummm..."got". :)
It is an awesome game. A VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY most verily, I say unto thou, an awesome game.

I first heard of it almost a decade ago, when I was a lot younger, and my feet never used to be able to touch the ground when I was vegetating in a chair around my PC. I had gotten a copy of Half Life for Christmas, and was reading the instruction manual that came with it in the form of HTML pages. They advertised Team Fortress (something which had not crossed my mind in the ten years before this sentence), and Homeworld.

The other day, feeling like a pregnant woman, but with game cravings instead of food cravings, I tracked down a copy and started playing. The plot seems pretty interesting so far, and I love the mothership design, it is really cool.

I'm out of prison, at least until the 12th of April. Mock exams finished on Wednesday morning, and in the afternoon I went to a function for the honour roll students (no, I'm not on it, I just snuck in to get free food....fine, I am on it, so what?). The food tasted gre- umm, no, I mean, the food tasted free.

CAPE exams are coming up within a month and a half. But then, I realize I whine and grumble and moan and bitch about them every blog post, so I'll spare you this time.

I'm thinking about getting up to some idleness this Easter Holiday. Not rob a store and spend my life in jail idleness, but scientific idleness. (No dear schoolmates, not biological weapons either). I was thinking about building some circuits slightly more advanced than those we're required to do for Physics class, just for the fun of it. If I run into extra money that is, money is always my limiting factor.

I can't remember if I mentioned this in a blog post, but I think I'll do a simple webshow. Something 15 minutes to half an hour long. The premise of the show is simple, its just me commenting about world issues and giving my personal views and the historical background on them, as well as me talking about my personal life, and random things or cool webcomics I might stumble across on the internet.

By the way, you guys need to listen to some GOOD music. You know, like Benny Benassi. I can't believe that none of my friends know who he is...I'm like, in a state of SHOCK right now. I know that electronic music isn't for everyone (seizure warning), but damn, open your minds people!! Here, I'll save you some work, here are some of his songs:

Get off your lazy ass and go look for the rest yourself.

But, no ranting. I'm a nice guy. And ranting doesn't go well with my sexy, sexy face. Right ladies? :)

Anyway, I suppose thats all for now. In the meantime, entertain yourself with this cool Lego video.

Later guys (じゃまた）、
Gavin.

P.S. I finished the Physics syllabus, and the mock exam was great, with luck, I may have something in the high 80s or 90s.

Japanese Dancehall Slackness and Mock Exams

2010-03-13T22:03:00.001-08:00

Recently, a couple days after my colossal failure in the cross country race (well, not really failure...but blah), we had this lecture on dancehall music by this Professor named Dr. Sonjah Stanley Niaah. Or at least I think that's what her name was.

Anyway, it was pretty interesting, and long story short, dancehall music seems to have some MASSIVE financial benefits that Jamaica could utilize if the country were able to effectively control the distribution of its music on the global market.

Also, I also learnt that Japanese girls can really beat themselves against hard surfaces such as floors and men better than most Jamaican girls...seriously, I have proof. At the end of the presentation, we watched this film called something like "Born in Jah-pan" (can't remember the exact name, and couldn't find it on Google). It was done by some Japanese student doing film school in America. It was pretty awesome.

Japan looks SLACK!! I'm pumped to go man, because some of those sessions down there seem worse than the infamous real Jamaican "Passa Passa". Seriously, the girls were just beating themselves against any rigid object in sight, human, table or otherwise. My mouth didn't close for like the full 35 minutes of the presentation. I've gotta admit though, I can't say I found them attractive. Not because of the self-hatred leading to the self-abuse. I just mean I don't find Japanese women, or Mongoloid women on a whole physically attractive (with exceptions). I don't know why, its just something with me.

But, enough about Japan, which is in the future, and more about my life in Jamaica in the present. The pace of things at school is getting intense. We're wrapping up the final lab reports, and (supposedly) have started studying for mock exams. About two weeks after mock exams, our CAPE exams will start. Beautiful huh?

I'm a bit nervous waiting for a response to my application to UWI medical school. I think I have a pretty good chance of getting in on my first shot, but I'm still worrying a bit. I shouldn't really, because with the way things usually are with the University of the West Indies, I won't be getting any confirmation of acceptance until late August. So it doesn't really make sense that I worry now, but I still am. Ugh. I hate when that happens. >_>

As it pertains to studying for exams, I'm trying to finish up the entire Physics syllabus by myself. It's not going badly. In fact, I think I can finish by next week Thursday (March 18th).

Electricity and magnetism are pretty easy, but they tend to slip out of your mind if you don't study them for a while. Operational amplifiers and circuit construction are awesome. In fact, last week Thursday, we built a couple of simple circuits using NAND gates combined to make different logic gates, such as AND, OR, NOT, NOR and XOR gates. We (the class) tested our output on a bunch of pretty LEDs (ours were red, and their cheap design kept on confusing us as to where the anode and cathode were, as well as causing the legs to break easily). We had a circuit building race (unofficially anyway). We never won, but we definitely had a lot of fun.

Pretty good for a Thursday, I'd say.

In other news, I'm thinking about starting my own little webshow. Nothing too involved or overblown. Just me, my camera, my room and my head full of wacky ideas. I pretty much have everything I need. I have a microphone and a camera that can record high quality videos. I don't know how much exactly, it's a Coolpix S620. Its megapixel rating is 12.2 MP, but its quite unlikely that videos are made at a resolution that high (since a still shot at the highest resolution is about 2.56 mb). Videos and pictures come out looking very good. I'll keep you guys posted on it. In fact, with luck, my first episode should come out early next month, after the assignment pressure with labs has eased up, and I only have to worry about studying for exams.

Anyway, I think I've said all I can really say for now.

じゃまた、
Gavin.

Urgh..Blast

2010-02-02T08:00:00.001-08:00

(For those of you wondering where I got that title from, its a line from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. Its famous for high quality dialogue such as seen above, you guys should totally check it out. I'll write a post about it some other time..)

So, I haven't updated in a while. Maybe you all figured I was busy. Well I'm not. In fact, I wasn't doing a damn thing but spending time being too lazy to update this blog. I'm in the library right now, watching everyone read what I'm writing over my shoulder. I don't mind, if I never wanted anyone to read what I was writing, I probably wouldn't be writing it on a blog, don't you agree?

School has gone into overdrive. Chemistry, chemistry, chemistry is a bitch. I had this murderous project over the Christmas holidays, and although I haven't touched it since the holidays finished, it would hardly qualify as finished. Ha.

As for Japanese, Tae Kim's grammar guide is a godsend. I'm currently in the advanced expressions section, learning about the causative and passive forms. I've finally passed the hell that was counters. In my opinion, its probably not as hard as everyone makes it out to be. Causative-passive is giving me more problems at the moment, because I can't figure out which particles to use. Meh. "Ageru" and "Kureru" were also pretty easy to learn. People complain about a lot of crap needlessly.

For those of you that haven't figure it out (morons...) I'm the writer of The Thousand Chapter Story...thats something I need to update as well. But then again, maybe on some other day. Maybe...

The Logos ship is in Montego Bay. For those of you who don't know what that is, its this ship that sells books so cheaply, its like they're giving it away. I need to go back and get more books. MORE, MORE, MORE, HARDER, HARDER, HAR- oh...wait, wrong context. I finally got Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, to add on to the Fellowship of the Ring, which I bought the last time I went on the ship, a couple years ago (the ship only comes once every few years). I'm quite upset that I couldn't find the third book, Return of the King...but I'm going back later this week, so wish me luck.

Oh yeah, I got this AWESOME digital camera for Christmas. :)Expect photos of my pornographic encounters with a variety of vixens very soon. In your dreams that is...everyone knows those are reserved for Facebook.

Peace,
Lord Robinson.

Avatar

2009-12-20T13:48:00.001-08:00

Well, as of last Thursday afternoon, I'm away from school on my Christmas holidays. So yesterday I went to watch Avatar. How do you like them apples?

When I saw the preview for Avatar, I KNEW it was something I had to watch. (Not that I'm a Smurf fan or anything...O_o). Anyway, it was a pretty big in Jamaica, since they had a massive premiere on one side of the island(which a friend of mine got invited to, but not me...grrr...), and at the local cinema, they finally realized the joys of 3D. Yup.

To be honest, I sort of spoiled the movie for myself by reading reviews. That's not saying the movie was bad (it was really good actually), but I guess my expectations may have been a bit too high because of all the reviews I read. The 40 minute fight scene at the end was awesome, but in my opinion, it wasn't epic on the scale of Star Wars(like some reviewers said it was).

I'm not one for a love story, but I'll admit that it never got in the way of the film too much. It's not particularly like the story was NOVEL though, those who have played Assassin's Creed might have a rough idea of what one of the main plot devices was. Here's a hint, if it looks like an Animus, sounds like an Animus, but its not called an Animus.....

What annoyed me about the story was its environmental crusading, brought out through its one-dimensional human characters("But Gavin...it's in 3D!!" "Shut up."). You have your stereotypical evil corporate mogul that wants a mineral called, brace yourself for it..."unobtainium". You have his loyal army of futuristic soldiers with all forms of mechs and ships that burn forests and kill natives without remorse (apart from one of the better looking female pilots, how convenient is that?). You have the tree-hugger scientist who is so arrogant, she is convinced that you can just TELL people to kindly move because they're resting on the million dollar ore motherlode. And you have the Copenhagen summit, which...wait...where did THAT come from?

Yeah, I sort of find it a strange coincidence that the film came out during Copenhagen, but ugh...whatever.

Now, I'm going to talk about the computer graphics. The CG in the film is AMAZING. In the Marine base, I could honestly not differentiate between which parts were computer graphics and which parts were the physical set. The forest is even prettier. The forest is vibrant, alive, pretty and just REALISTIC(well, if you consider trees with glowing purple tendrils to be realistic, but please, just play along). I mean honestly...the night scenes in the forest were some of the best CG I have ever seen in a movie.

The Na'vi(read: "Giant Smurfs") run into the uncanny valley problem at a few points, but to be honest, I hardly noticed it in any of the main Na'vi characters. It really shows more in the flat Na'vi characters.

I would definitely tell you to go ahead and watch Avatar, its not like you'll be wasting your money. Watch it in 3D too. Seriously. Avatar, my dear readers, is CG history in the making. Let's hope that the game adaptation of it won't be rubbish.

In other news, since I can't remember if I said this before, but I stopped learning 漢字　by grade. I've just started reading Japanese news online and learning 漢字　as they come. Basically, this means that my vocabulary consists of mostly kanji pertaining to economics, at the moment. Hm.

Now here's the sad news. In a move that can best be described as some sort of perverse parting shot, school has left me with two projects to do. The first, is a Chemistry project on Industrial Processes. A MASSIVE Chemistry project at that too. Also, I have my Caribbean Studies Internal Assessment (a project) to do. Wish me luck.

Later,
Lord Robinson/Gavin/Haze

A Compendium of Whats New Since I Last Updated

2009-12-05T20:28:00.000-08:00

Yes, its another one of your favourite types of post to read, my beloved Happy Desolation readers. It is my greatest pleasure to present to you, the billionth "Here's Whats New Since I Last Updated This Blog" post.

To celebrate this special event, I have decided to do something new. This something new, is actually a compendium of everything interesting that has happened since I last blogged. Without further ado, I present it:

Yes, nothing has happened. Oh wait, apart from the following:

1) The pace of school has sped up. I have end of term exams starting next week Tuesday.

2) I'm hot. I'm losing weight. Still a bit puffy and fluffy though, but the chicks like it that way, don'tcha? (Screams of "NOOOO!!!" lol)

3) Directly related to number 2, I've started Pai Lum Tao Kung Fu classes. Yes, Yours Truly is a Kung Fu ckhead.

4) I've learned a lot of Japanese since I last updated, but my rate of learning has slowed down, thanks to this millstone around my neck called school.

Christmas is coming soon. That means Christmas PARTIES!!! Heheheheheh...(would any one of my DEAREST FRIENDS reading this, be so kind as to hook me up with some free passes...thanks...you guys are the best!!! lololol)

I really forgot about Happy Desolation for a little (not forgot as in forgot that I had it, but forgot more as in NEGLECTED it). I really, really do want to be more regular with my blogging in the future. If things work out as they should, I should be actually.

Well yeah kids, that's about it really. Have fun till next time.

Peace,
Lord Robinson.

LCD Monitors Are Oh So Juicy

2009-09-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

Yes...it's shameful. I was living in the 1980s before today. I was holding down a dreadfully antiquated CRT monitor. Now...I'm finally in the 1990s...I got a 19 inch LCD monitor. My eyes are still trying to readjust to the new aspect ratio and different brightness and such, since I can't seem to set them exactly like how they used to be on my old CRT, but hell, change is good.

Lately, I've been listening to the Notorious B.I.G. I'm really enjoying his song Juicy. For regular readers, you would all know that my listening tastes are quite eclectic...I jump from listening Benny Benassi, Daft Punk and the Global Deejays, to Notorious B.I.G. and Nas to Vybz Kartel and Tony Matterhorn to Saosin and Limp Bizkit. I have a very "globalized" ear, as a friend once put it.

My friends are all full of shit.

Generally though, while I listen to practically every type of music, I noticed I tend towards songs with strong and/or repetitive/driving basslines. Maybe I have some subconscious desire to have some subliminal messaging programmed into me...who knows?

Onto the next topic...Kanye West really needs some concept of appropriateness. Ugh..he's a great rapper, but he needs to SHUT UP once in a while. I think what he did to Taylor Swift at the VMAs was just terrible. Even if Beyonce deserved the award more, I don't think he should have ruined Taylor Swift's time onstage like that. How would it have gone if Nas, for example, ran up on Kanye receiving an award onstage, grabbed the mic from him, and shouted, "My man Jay-Z deserves this shit, Kanye is just some wack ass crap man!!"

Not very well, I can tell you that.

Anyway, I should just say that I seem to be overcompensating with blog posts on weekends, since I can hardly do them during the week, but I suppose getting 2 loaves on Friday and Saturday is better than getting none at all for the week right?

I apologize to creator of that idiomatic expression. Like, I'm totally sorry for butchering it like that dude..it was nasty. That was so bad...there was like blood all over the place and stuff, you know?

Learning Japanese is going pretty well by the way. I know somewhere in the region of 100 basic kanji (the 80 Grade 1 Joyo Kanji + a couple of common verb kanji). I'll start Grade 2 Kanji eventually, hopefully, by the end of next week...but I'll just have to see how that fits in with my school schedule.

Oh yes...and for all those who it matters to, PUA Haze is alive, kicking ass and taking names.

Peace Out,
Lord Robinson

P.S. Here's something for the non-Jamaicans to figure out, most Jamaicans worth their salt should figure this out in 10 seconds or less. It's a line from a dancehall song, you can post the answer to the comment box or email the answer to me if you think you know what it means. Extra points if you can tell me the name of the song it's from.

"If yu tell me fi squint me nuh squint my eye."

Good luck people.

Life and Breadboards

2009-09-18T17:41:00.000-07:00

Well, its Friday night as I type this. This is my second week back at school. It feels different somehow. I'm in my second and final year. I guess I'm supposed to feel older and wiser. I'm feeling none of the above. I've completed a week's worth of labs more or less. I suppose I'm getting more experienced with them, since I hardly had any issues really. Well, apart from with my Physics labs, where I'm having hell with the breadboards.

Then again, it's REALLY fun watching my group members getting shocked by raw wires and burned by overheated resistors while I just sit there smirking...but I digress, I'm a prick like that.

On a more personal front, I haven't quite lost much weight, yet I'm convinced that my attractiveness has skyrocketed. Seriously. Maybe it's the fact that I'm a second year dude now, and that does wonders for my reputation. Maybe its that nice, shiny "Honour Roll" pin that I got on my first day back. Or maybe it's because I managed to drill into my head over the summer that I'm God's gift to women.

I'm going with the last one. I've been trying to internalize that mindset for quite some time now, but I think I just woke up one morning and I had that attitude. It's awesome really. I suppose it's what everyone calls "swagger". I call it "me".

Yeah, moving on. I'm here, doing what I'm famous for. Obsessively reading...this time, about breadboards, so when we proceed with the experiment next week, I'll be an expert (as always). I'm pretty excited to be working with electronics this year. Honestly.

By the way, the whole neurosurgeon dream, while I'm not going to say it has been thrown out of the window, it has been derailed. I'm going to be going for a PhD in Computer Science. All of my friends who I've told this have been like "DUHH!!! Did you FINALLY hit your head and knock some sense into yourself? That was how it should have been in the beginning!!!"

Thank God I have middle fingers on both hands.

Anyway, yeah, this is just to let the people who follow my blog know that I'm still alive. I guess I'll be back next week with some wacky, witty and original.

Till Then,
Gavin.

Chez Robinson

2009-08-20T15:48:00.000-07:00

Today, I made yeastless bread. The word technically is unleavened, but not really in this case. I still rose the dough. I just didn't use any yeast.

The chemical principles behind it were pretty easy, they came to me last night when I was studying Japanese. Normal household vinegar is diluted ethanoic acid. I had 5% ethanoic acid, and some baking soda(sodium bicarbonate).

Now, before I get into this anymore, maybe I should explain what happens with NORMAL breadmaking. You add yeast and sugar to your dough, cover it, and leave it somewhere warm. After a couple of minutes, it rises, and voila, leavened dough ready for the oven.

The dough rises because the yeast(which is actually alive), uses the sugar in respiration to produce energy. The byproducts of the yeast respiring, are alcohol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide escapes into the dough, and makes it rise. As for the alcohol, them amount of it produced is so small, that it all evaporates away during baking, and you can't get drunk off it. (Sad, but true =[)

So, if sodium bicarbonate(baking soda) + ethanoic acid(vinegar) produces carbon dioxide, and yeast+sugar also produces carbon dioxide, and we know that carbon dioxide makes the dough rise, common sense says that we could use the baking soda and vinegar as a substitute for yeast and sugar, right?

Yup, I'm here to tell you that it works, but there are a few details you need to take into consideration.

First of all, you need to store the vinegar at a cold temperature (the reason for this will become apparent later). It would also be nice if the baking soda is at a cold temperature too. Also, although I said you don't need to add yeast + sugar to the dough, you may want to add a LITTLE bit of sugar (and salt) to the dough, just to help the bread to taste like bread, instead of saltwater on flour(a LITTLE, not American little, but Third World™ little).

So, like any Good Christian™ (forgive me, I just learnt how to use the trademark symbol today =]..lol), you make your dough with all the traditional ingredients, minus the yeast. Now, you need a pretty big pan to pull this off. You're also going to want something small to mix the vinegar and baking soda in, such as the cover of a peanut butter bottle(...ghetto, right? I know, homey, I know. lol). Don't mix it yet, here's some more info for you.

Put the dough to one side of the pan. On the other side, put your cover or whatever small object you're going to store the baking soda in. DO NOT FILL IT COMPLETELY. In fact, just shake a LITTLE bit of the baking soda into the bottom of the container, about half or a quarter teaspoon full. Remember people, Third World™ little. :P

Now, cover half of your pan with a dishtowel/teatowel/whatever you wierdly accented people want to call it. I'll stick with the word dishtowel, thank you very much.

Make sure the half you've covered is the half with the dough in it. Now, take your vinegar out of the fridge(hopefully its cold by now, but not frozen), and pour a SMALL amount into the cover. Don't pour a lot, because there's going to be a bit of effervescence, from the carbon dioxide being released, and it might spill out and make your dough wet and sloppy.

As soon as you add it, cover the entire pan quickly, so the carbon dioxide doesn't escape.

The reason we kept the baking soda and the vinegar cold is because the chemical reaction is pretty quick under normal circumstances, so most of the carbon dioxide would escape really fast. Chemical reactions(in general) are slower at lower temperatures. Hence, the reaction would be slowed down a bit, so not a lot of carbon dioxide would escape before you get to cover it.

Now, you're almost done. Check back on it in half an hour, and empty the small container where you mixed the baking soda and the vinegar. Refill it like I just described above and leave it for another half an hour.

After that, remove the container with the mixture and dispose of it. Then, bake the dough that's left over like you'd bake bread normally.

I'm no chef, but the end result when I did it was pretty tolerable. I still admit that it would taste better with yeast though, but then again, my baking skills have room for improvement.

Scratch that, they have a STADIUM for improvement.

Maybe I just need some practice.

Okay, I'm lying a bit....the bread wasn't tolerable. It tasted like crap. That was mostly my fault, due to not adding enough salt and sugar to the dough(hence the reason for me warning you earlier, so you don't make the same mistake).

The point is, my dough rose, due to sound scientific techniques...heheheh. Maybe someone with a better baking technique than me could pull it off using the baking soda and vinegar method.

Anyway, I'm done blogging for today, just wanted to let you guys know what killed me, so you can tell the coroner, if you ever get called to identify my body at the morgue.

Peace and Love,
Gavin™

P.S. Technically, I simplified the chemistry a bit. The baking soda + vinegar doesn't produce carbon dioxide directly. Instead, it produces carbonic acid (H₂CO₃), which then breaks down to produce carbon dioxide and water. I suppose my hot tropical climate was partially responsible for the reaction being so quick. Who knows?

Now go make your own bread and go to hell.

Some Cartoon Theme Songs

2009-08-17T15:05:00.000-07:00

Today I was flipping through the channels of a local TV station, and I came up on an episode of X-Men Evolution. Of course, we all know and love X-men, but my mind didn't turn to them. Instead, it turned to the topic of cool cartoon theme songs.

I like the X-men evolution theme song, so I started thinking about OTHER cartoon theme songs I liked. Here are 8 of my favourites (not in any particular order). Note that I haven't included anime's since I've watched like a bazillion animes, and I can't bother to think of anime songs now. I'll deal with Western style cartoons in this post alone:

1)X-Men evolution theme song:

2)Thundercats Theme Song

3)Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

4)Galaxy Rangers

5)Defenders of the Earth

6)Pink Panther and Sons

7)Jayce and The Wheel Warriors

8)Transformers: Robots In Disguise

Yes, I still watch cartoons.

And I was bored when I came up with this.

And I'm going to stop making an ass of myself now.

Peace,
Lord Robinson

Twitter, Japanese and Mathematics

2009-08-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

No, I guarantee you that none of the nouns in the title of this blog post are linked, I'm not that far gone yet. However, I'm blogging about them right now since they're significant. First, onto the issue of Twitter.

Yes, I've been a lazy BASTARD lately. I haven't been updating my blog, but I have been updating my Twitter feed. As I write this, I'm on the eve of my 100th Twitter post(For those of you retards who don't know English, it means I'm at 99 Twitter posts...dumbasses.) If you got to this link via Twitter, it means that you just clicked on my 100th Twitter post, WOOT!!! That's right people, my 100th Twitter post was a link to my blog...wow!!

Everyone knows how AWESOME Twitter is, so I won't waste my time regurgitating what you can find all over the web. So instead, I'm going to talk about the useless crap that has been going on in my life.

First, one of the obvious facts of life. I, Gavin Robinson, r teh HAXXORS!!

Why?

Well, within 3 weeks, I have managed to acquire a functioning knowledge of Japanese, including knowing the entire Hiragana and Katakana tables, knowing basic conversational Japanese, knowing how to conjugate regular Ichidan and Godan verbs (the two main categories of verbs in Japanese, similar to ar/er/ir verbs in Spanish), and learning 12.5% of all Japanese Grade 1 Kanji, as well as the on-yomi readings, kun-yomi readings and the radicals associated with the Kanji.

Yes, I'm boasting. So what? Bite me.

But then, what sort of blogger would I be if I didn't use this to spread free information?

So how did I do it?

Well first of all, get some oxygen to your brain. I'm not advocating the usage of hyperbaric oxygen chambers, but some cardiovascular exercise (in my case, skipping) does help to improve memory (at least it helped mine). I don't seem to be getting any fitter (yet), but at least I'm not getting any fatter.

Next, bite into your lower lip, and prepare for pain while you learn the hiragana and katakana syllablaries. Seriously, this is painful. It's like one of the hardest things (next to memorizing Kanji). This is especially true if you're a natural English speaker like me (or most of the people that come to this blog T_T). It may feel unnatural drawing symbols to represent syllables, but you'll get over it soon. Personally, I found it easier to start with katakana and move on to hiragana. The way I learned it was by learning the katakana/hiragana in sets of 2-5 at a time, then writing each character out about 12-25 times (yes, WRITING them). Then I learnt some vocabulary that used them, and practiced writing those words from memory (its easy to remember words in romaji). I kept this up until I could write the whole Katakana/Hiragana table from memory. I highly recommend these lessons:

Kanji Kafe's Complete Katakana Lessons (also contains incomplete Hiragana lessons)
Hiragana Exercises
Joyo Kanji Up To Sixth Grade Level

Next, go and learn some basic conversational Japanese vocabulary. About.com's Japanese lessons are a good place to start. Don't get ahead of yourself and try Kanji now...you will be in PAIN!!(as in eternal damnation style pain)

After you've soaked up enough conversation vocabulary, check out verb and adjective conjugations (also on About.com's Japanese lessons). Yes, adjectives can be conjugated in Japanese too. Thankfully, adjective conjugations aren't very hard. Neither are verb conjugations for that matter. You'll see once you reach this stage. While learning about verbs, you should also learn basic sentence patterns such as how to say that one noun is another noun, or a certain adjective describes a noun.

By now, you should probably have run into a few difficulties here and there with little oddities in the language. This is why I recommend getting a friend who is DAMN good with the language. Preferably a HOT one.

Sadly, my search for a hot girl that knew Japanese was an EPIC FAIL =[. The one I found was a nice enough person though, and relatively smart. (I'm kidding Shrewy, please don't kill me '^_^ ). In all honesty though, I consider myself fortunate to have found a friend who fit all the criteria for a J-sensei. =]

But seriously, a good friend who knows the language and/or a friend who is interested in learning the language is a great help. The wise friend who knows the language can always help you when you're stuck, and the friend who is interested in learning provides a source of rivalry...so you always feel motivated to work. Then again, that's just me...and lots of my friends say I'm overcompetitive...balls to you all!!! (some friends they are T_T).

By this time, you should know the basic sentence structures, so take a day (as in a 12 hour day) to make some basic sentences using the verbs, tenses and sentence structures you know. You may periodically need to refresh your knowledge of the kana tables by trying to write them down from memory. Personally, I find the hiragana for the syllabes "mu", "yu","ne" and "nu", as well as the katakana for the syllables "mu" and "ne", a bit hard to remember.

Do a refresher on everything for the better part of a week (about 4-5) days, and then go and try some learn some Japanese Grade 1 Kanji. I guarantee you that this is the hardest part.

You can now go and try to read some Japanese websites. I recommend getting the Rikaichan browser plugin for Firefox first though, because there are going to be quite a few phrases/Kanji you don't know. I also recommend getting the Denshi Jisho bookmarklet, for quick reference.

Tada...you now know enough Japanese to find the bathroom if you ever find yourself in the middle of a Yakuza conference by accident (although in all honesty, I think you'd have bigger problems than wetting yourself if you found yourself in the middle of one of those O_o).

Next...up..Mathematics.

Yes, I bet some of you cretinous proles have looked up on some AWESOME people such as myself at times in the past, and wondered, "How can he multiply such large numbers, mentally, so QUICKLY?!"

Well, all your human sacrifices have pleased the I, so the I has decided to reveal to the thou how the I dost do it. Keep in mind that everyone is different, and this is just MY personal method, so other people may tell you different stuff. Mine works fine for me though, so I'm cool with it.

Look at this:

369 x 69

You could do it mentally, but it would take a lot more than 15 seconds. Using my method, you can do it in less than 8 or so. Of course, doing mental arithmetic also depends on how well I slept the night before...some days were just NOT meant for Mathematics.

You split up the numbers first.

369 to 3 6 9
69 to 6 and 9

Now, here's what you do. Normally, you'd multiply 369 by 9 and multiply 369 by 60 and add them, using conventional mathematical methods (If you're confused about multiplying by 60, think about it, you put a 0 at then end, then multiply 369 by 6 to get the second number you use to add. This is equivalent to multiplying by 60. If you're still confused, just think about it a bit.)

So here's what you do, multiply the first separate set of numbers (thats 3, 6 and 9) by the 9 from 69.

So, this gives you:

27 54 81

Now what you do is add these numbers together as follows:

2700
0540
+ 81
------
3321

That's the first number.

You find the second number in a similar manner, but multiply your result by 10.

So, for the second set, you'd have:

18 36 54

This produces:

1800
0360
+ 54
------
2214

which you then multiply by 10 to get 22140. You then add this and the previous number to get:

22140+3321 = 25461

This principle works off the fact that its faster to break up the different parts of the number and add them than it is to try multiplying the WHOLE number by something else. In this way, it's a simplification of traditional multiplication, although the basic principle stays the same.

Still, this has been a LONG post, and I don't want to bore you people now (as if you aren't bored already). So, I'm going to say:

ざまたガャビン
(Later,
Gavin.)

P.S. My friend's an artist btw, and I figure one of the best ways to thank her would be to link to her DeviantArt profile...so I'm putting it here for the WHOOOOLE world to make fun of:

Laugh away =]

EDIT: Added a link to a site containing the Kanji up to Grade 6 level.

Michael Jackson

2009-06-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

As I write this, I have tears in my eyes. Micheal Jackson is dead.I can't believe it. He's really dead.

I don't know how I can cry for a celebrity, much less a person I've never met, but I'm doing it right now for Michael. Maybe its because Thriller was one of the first music videos I ever watched. Maybe its because the Moonwalk was the first dance move I ever fell on the floor while trying to learn. Maybe its just because despite all the crap he did to his physical appearance, you couldn't help but appreciate the things that he did.

It was probably one of the worst ways to wake up. I woke up at 4 PM, went outside, turned on the TV and was watching CNN news. I woke up that late because I was pulling an all nighter, writing some plugin code for a project I'm currently attached to as a member. Then, I heard that TMZ reported that Michael was dead, but it was unconfirmed. I hoped that was just some stupid-ass Hollywood rumour. The one time that TMZ should have been wrong, they were right. Why? Why couldn't they have just been reporting some unconfirmed crap that would turn out to be wrong as usual.

It's all over Facebook. All of my friends had statuses that pertained to Michael. A few had pictures of him as their profile picture. I don't intend to change my status until the first of next month, as a mark of respect for him.

It's all over Twitter too. In fact, its all over most social networking sites. From what I've seen, there are at least 10 Twitter channels dedicated to Michael Jackson with thousands of posts on them. In fact, on the one I'm currently on, there were about 5000 new posts in the time it took for me to write the first 3 paragraphs(about 5 minutes).

I wanted to meet him. He was famous. He was great. His songs were cool and creative, and he made some of the best videos of his time (from what I've seen). I was trying to embed some of them that I had on the computer, but I was having problems uploading to blogger, and most MJ videos on Youtube restrict embedding. See below:

This paragraph is written more than 9 hours after I started this post. The video is still uploading. Way to kill the mood Blogger. You can get other videos all over the net. I predict a major surge in the download of Michael Jackson songs from file sharing networks...oh, and album sales too. As I write this paragraph, I'm listening to a feature on the BBC World Service about his death. My mood has improved a lot (who cries for 9 hours straight, really?)

Just because I haven't mention Farah Fawcett yet doesn't mean I don't have any respect for her. Charlie's Angels ROCKED!!!

Check this out before I wrap up:

Rest in Peace Michael and Farah,
Gavin.

Poon: The Definitive Etymologicalistic Thesis Thingy

2009-06-18T19:46:00.000-07:00

"Poon"...what does it mean to you?

Is "poon" a state of mind? Is "poon" a state of being? Is "poon" some abstract spiritual quality we all must strive for?

Nope..."poon" is that wonderful quality we all desire in a woman.

I'll let the innuendo sink in for a while. For the daft ones among us, I've included a link so you can see what I'm talking about:

But seriously, if you're wondering what inspired this post, I was reading through Texts From Last Night and the site regulars use the word quite a bit (at least compared to people who live in the REAL world). So, I decided to look it up. I already had a few context clues as to what it meant, but Google decided to light up my world a little bit more.

Fine...I decided to pass the knowledge onto you, my dear readers.

After all, isn't that what bloggers do? Aren't they responsible for keeping their beloved readers informed and up to date on a variety of culturally significant topics?

You say no?

So what do they do then?

On second though, forget about it, let me get on with my exposé on poon.

So where did the word come from?

Well, according to this site, it may be a corruption of the French word putain, meaning whore. However, it may also be derived from some part of Chinese language (as well as some other reasons, go read the link if you're one of those people who's interested in "facts" and "logic" and all that crap).

So, having given up my quest to find a definitive origin for the term, I decided to do something that only Gavin Robinson can do. Harass people with the newest addition to my slang vocabulary. I almost got injured a few times, so I'll just include one, in order to preserve my dignity. This interaction took the form of a MSN messenger conversation.

Me: hey man, you ever heard of the word "poon"?
Friend: lol, yeah man...it means [censored to ensure the academicityness of this article]
Me: oh, I should go get some then, huh?
Friend: Fi real...you look like you really need it lol
Me: eat [censored] [censored]
Friend: lol
Me: so do you think I could use it as a verb?
Friend: huh?
Me: yeah, say something like, "that whoring bitch pooned me last night"
Friend: ummm...i dunno, i guess.
Me: yeah...or like, "My favourite drink is Poon Tang."
Friend: ewww
Me: or even better:
Friend: i get the point, please shut up
Me: you get my pooont? cool
Friend: you're [censored] crazy, you know that?
Me: too much poon
Friend: you're creeping me out man, later

I therefore conclude that the word "poon" is a legitimate slang term, that should be respected and feared by all speakers of the English language.

-END OF THESIS-

If you're one of those people who thought this article was serious, you need to close your browser, turn off your computer, and go get some poon. lol

Peace Out,
Gavin

Microsoft Strikes Back

2009-06-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure we all know about the Conficker worm.

And we all know about Microsoft(right Mom?).

Put them together, and what do you get?

(No, that's not a serious pic, and I linked to it from Gizmodo by the way...its not my invention.)

"Is this guy for REAL?!!" you ask yourself, while laughing hysterically.

Nope, I'm just a figment of your imagination who writes this blog.

Anyway, those of us who use Windows Live Messenger have had to tolerate that piece of crap called the Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner anytime we transfer files. Scanning my files every time I send and receive them wouldn't be so bad, but it always seems to freeze my PC (and no, its not a memory or processing power issue, the OneCare scanner just sucks). Yes, that's right. The WINDOWS LIVE ONECARE SAFETY SCANNER sucks, and I hope it's mother gets run over by rabid, castrated, hellbound MOUNTAIN GOATS!!! (Yes, I know you can turn it off, and I did that, but I just had to get that out of my system :D)

So, I check out the BBC World News website today, and what do I see?

Well, I see Microsoft out to release FREE anti-virus software. Yup people, that's right, free like beer!! Its called Morro. And it won't come bundled with the latest version of Windows (probably due to antitrust concerns....you can't expect to be an evil megacorporation without some consequences now, can you? You should follow Google's example...lol). I wish them all the best with Morro, but I hope they remember to make it so that it doesn't piss people off.

Windows has actually been pissing me off a lot lately, and I don't know why. I suppose its WMS(think PMS style symptoms, but as it pertains to Windows...yup lol).

So will I actually be using Windows 7?

The answer is, yes, I will.

Why?

Because Windows has a monopoly on gaming. And as both a dedicated gamer and aspiring(read: wannabe) game designer, I have no choice but to stick with established traditions(at least until I get the resources to run a campaign to put Linux on top as the ultimate gaming system :D)

Anyway, onto less serious issues:

First of all, I've almost beat Devil May Cry 3. The final fight with Vergil is really difficult...and its pissing me off. But I will persevere (this is coming from the guy who fought Beowulf about 15 times lol).

I love this song. I feel like a complete dork for not remembering the name of this song. The instrumental is wicked, although the vocals are sort of crappy.

Next video:

Yes, Will Smith used to be a rapper,for the benefit of those of you who never knew that (this means a lot of people, surprisingly). This was like the cool song when I was in Grade 5 or so. (Its still cool to me, and you people can't tell me shit otherwise :P)

Here comes Men In Black...Galaxy Defenders...
With a theme song like that, it could have been a cool Saturday morning cartoon. In fact, it had a cool Saturday morning cartoon at one point. The score for it sounded pretty cool too. Here it is for your benefit:

Anyway, I'm done writing enough crap for now. Its 2:24, but I don't want to go to my damn bed. I think I'll go read some Questionable Content, and then go eat some Oreos, then vomit them all over the floor.

Goodnight World!!
*Exits stage left*

I Feel Like I've Been Here Before...ughh...

2009-06-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

As you can see, if you scroll down to the bottom right corner of the page, you'll see my Irrlicht-Python integration tutorial. Its not the same as the original version I first posted, because I lost that in a tragic harddrive crash :).

I think its better than the original though, because this one is larger in scope. In the last one, it simply rendered a texture to screen using Python script. In this one, it does all of the following in Python script:

1)Creates a cube scene node.
2)Loads a texture.
3)Applies the texture to the cube.
4)Writes my name at the top-left corner of the screen.

I think it's a job well done. I'd appreciate corrections or improvements of any sort. I plan to do a second part to the tutorial which would cover the integration of classes. If all goes well, that should be ready within the next three days.

Anyway yeah, enough programming talk.

I've been working out a bit lately, but its not enough to produce any results within a reasonable time frame. I need to get intense with it. I'm going to start keeping records of everything I eat and how long I exercise for. I was reading somewhere, and it said that to lose a pound of fat per week, you need a caloric deficit of approximately 3500 calories a week or 500 calories a day.

I intend to reach this by skipping, jogging and weight lifting. I like dancing (despite not being able to do it to save my life), but I don't think I dance enough for it to be a worthwhile contribution to me losing weight.

I need to find the motivation to use this summer wisely. I should be able to lose about 10 or more pounds by the time I get back to school. Wish me luck people.

Tata for now,
Gavin.

Now Playing: Devil May Cry 3

2009-06-04T12:30:00.000-07:00

Well no, I'm actually not playing it YET. Its still downloading (yarrr matey...I be a software pirate...lol).

Anyway, as you can clearly see, I've renovated the blog for summer. I added my Twitter feed (my account name is puahaze) and enabled Google Friend Connect. The weird thing is, I thought I had these features on my blog before. Oh well, I guess I was wrong. Do you think I'm going senile?

Anyway, I just got this site called Texts From Last Night off TSB Magazine. I've been cracking up since I found it. These people are something else. Seriously, I'm left wondering if some of these people EXIST....I would definitely want their autographs. Some of the funniest ones I've seen so far are:

(612): What started out as a threesome has become me sitting here watching them have sex... Can I get a ride home?

(310): ohhhh fuckk. chicks a dude.

(404): Can I crash on your couch? I just came home to find my wife giving two guys blowjobs.
(1-404): Two?
(404): Two.

(603): not only are you not the girl i fell in love with, but from the looks of it, you ate her

(978): i'm sick of taking my pants off and seeing a look of disappointment on the girls face. i want her to be frightened

(513): I feel like Captain Hook just gave me a pap smear.

I could go on and on, but its better that you just read it yourself.

CAPE exams for me are almost finished. I have Mathematics and Biology multiple choice papers left. I think I did pretty well on everything, apart from the Physics long paper, which was an EPIC fail >_< due to a stupid mistake on an optics questions. I still think I'm getting distinctions on everything else. Maybe I'll be getting a 2 in Physics, which at CAPE level is still a distinction. Ah well, life's cool.

Despite the fact that I have two exams left, its SUMMER!!! YEAH!!! The idea of me working out is not working out. Seriously. I started running yesterday though. Hopefully by the end of this month or so, I should see or feel a noticeable change. I'm not convinced, although there's this dent in my belly, which could indicate the start of weight loss(or pregnancy >_<).

Here is a clip of the 08-09 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Before clicking play, you may want to get some tissue to wipe up all the drool. You'll see:

Yeah I was just a bit idle on youtube, all the feminists here, forgive me please. lol

Still, no I haven't forgotten about programming. I've just been a bit...discouraged. But no, I'm not giving it up. More about that some other time.

Oh yeah, and by the way, you guys should check this out. Its pretty enlightening. At least to me it is. I don't know about you "well-thinking" human beings. lol

Peace and Love,
Gavin

The Coolest Thing Evar!!

2009-05-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

Well, CAPE exams have started. Communication Studies went pretty well.Thanks for asking :).

I have Chemistry tomorrow and Physics the day after that. Am I ready?

Yes,I think I am.

In my downtime from studying, I've been scouring blogs. I came found this cool story blog,
The Thousand Chapters of The Writer.

"But sure," you say, "blogs with stories are nothing new. Plus, there are only 2 chapters there so far."

Well yeah, thats true. But the authors are planning ONE THOUSAND chapters. Its worth following even if its just to see how they reach the 1000th chapter. Not counting that, the writing is also pretty snappy. I like it.

Anyway, I can't wait for summer to come. Freedom. And I'll finally get to snag eight hours of sleep. This post may seem rushed, but blah, I am in a hurry.

Oh yeah, did I say I beat Dead Space? The last boss fight is cool, although a bit anti-climactic. I think I'll go through it again to play with my bonuses. I also beat Devil May Cry 4. Maybe I'll go get Devil May Cry 3 now...if my PC can handle it.

Peace Out People,
Gavin

Dead Space!!!!

2009-04-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

Dead Space is awesome. Its scary, but not too scary. The suit looks cool, the weapons are pretty creative and I love the zero gravity sections!!! Buy, borrow or steal. Preferably the first or second one.

CAPE exams finally start week after next. My first examination is Communication Studies. Since the school year is technically over(that is, you won't find me anywhere around the school campus until next September), I decided to make a list of some interesting quotes from my friends.

So here goes:

Number 1:

Me: "Hey, Clive, have you seen Smithy lately?"
Clive: "Yeah, mi did see him pon Saturday inna mi neighbourhood."
Me: "Oh ok....wait....inna yu neighbour WHAT?"

Cultural Note: "Hood" is a slang term for penis in Jamaica for all of you that don't know....ignoramuses. :)

Number 2:

Teacher: "So what's the answer to the question class?"
Vivek: "-2/(x+3)^2"
Teacher: "No Vivek, sorry."
Michael: "Dunce fuck!!!"
Teacher: "Whats the answer Michael?"
Michael: "15(x+3)^4"
Teacher: "You're almost right, but you forgot a term."
Vivek: "Yeah...dunce fuck!!!"

Number 3:

My friend Orlan walks by a bunch of girls the day after the incident at the airport with the hijacking happens (click here for more background info). As all the people who know him can tell you, Orlan is obviously partially of terrorist descent [hehehehe :) ].

Girl: "Its the hijacker. He escaped!! Run and call the police!!!"

Trust me, there are a lot more, maybe I'll edit this post later and add more. I'm updating this from the school library computer. When I reach home, I'll probably make the additions.

Peace and Love,
Gavin

Unfortunately...I'm Still Alive

2009-03-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm here. I'm writing up a PowerPoint presentation to use in my speech for my Communication Studies IA(are you regular readers sick of those 3 words yet?)

The Devil(colloquially referred to as school) has been keeping me down as of late. The good thing is, all the stress of schoolwork has driven me to find good music to listen to while toiling away in the labour camp. So without further ado, I present my top 20 songs for the past month and a half:

1) One Four Love Part 2 - Mos Def and some other black guys
2) Down Goes the Devil - Channel Live
3) Lock It Up - Channel Live
4) Alcohol - T-Pain(yeah...the fact that I'm listening to him surprises me too)
5) In the End Remix (I have no idea who did this song, but it sounds GOOD!!)
6) It Was a Good Day - Ice Cube (I vaguely remember bitching about the virtues of this song in a previous blog post.)
7) Rob and Sherri - Matthew Dear (This is really creepy if you're not used to techno... lol)
8) Satisfaction - Benny Benassi
9) Bitch/Technologic Mix - Benny Benassi
10)Session - Linkin Park (If I remember correctly, this was on the Matrix soundtrack.)
11) Clubbed to Death(Kurayamino Mix) - Rob Dougan (Another song from the Matrix soundtrack.)
12) Still - Common, Talib Kweli and Gangstarr
13) Rhymes and Ammo - The Roots and Talib Kweli
14) Sea Weeds - Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew (pirate rap is teh HAXXORS!!!)
15) Mad Izm - Channel Live and KRS One (All time favourite people!!!)
16) Sex for the Sport - Channel Live (Another all time favourite of mine...seriously.)
17) Homicide Ride - Channel Live (Yeah, I have a thing for them.)
18) Burning and Looting - Bob Marley and The Roots
19) Come Fly Away - Benny Benassi
20) Baby You Got Me - Erykah Badu and the Roots

Time for some video love kids:

Don and Sherri by Matthew Dear

Yo Ho Ho By Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew

So...what else have I been doing that is uncharacteristic of 16 year old kids with CAPE exams?

Well for one, I've been playing Devil May Cry 4 and Left 4 Dead like crazy.

Another thing is that I've been investing in an eye patch and a peg leg so I can join Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew after I leave school. It'll probably be the only future I have ahead of me...kidding...lol.

Yeah, that's about it.

Peace out people,
Gavin.

Something Not Related To School At All

2009-02-21T13:54:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed that while computer graphics are getting better, the illusion of realism is spoiled every time the scene starts to move? That question was aimed at gamers really.

Today, I was googling up on some DirectX info. I saw some pretty photorealistic shots, but realized that in the videos, as soon as there was motion of any kind, the realism disappeared.

DirectX9, despite its age, is still pretty damn capable. DirectX 11 also seems to be shaping up pretty well.

If you've noticed, I haven't used the word OpenGL yet. I still can't get over what the Khronos group did. Maybe 3 years down the line, they'll come up with something cool, and I'll look at openGL again. I'm considering installing Vista over XP on this PC, but I don't know. Maybe I'll just wait for Windows 7 (which by the way is coming soon.)

I LOVE UBUNTU!!!

Maybe I said that before, maybe I didn't, but its the truth. It may not be uber-pretty, but its cool. The only thing is, I don't really have that much of a practical use for it, apart from having an OS that not many other people I know have. Dumb reason, right?

Yeah, I know.

I got an early build of the Linux source code (as in version 1.0). I don't plan to build my own distribution, but I was just curious as to how the code looked. Its yucky, but understandable. After a few books worth of assembly tutorials, that is.

Next thing to rant about, Alpha Centauri.

This game is about 10 years old by now. It doesn't matter, its still deeper than most strategy games out nowadays. It has that Civilization feel (its made by Firaxis, the same studio that does Civilization) but with a sci-fi twist. What I love are the quotes, I always feel smarter for listening to them. lol.

I don't particularly think they should try to make a sequel, they might ruin it. Lets hope that Alpha Centauri always stays cool.

Peace to the People,
Gavin.

Woohoo!!! Level 60!!!

2009-01-16T17:12:00.000-08:00

No, I haven't actually wasted that many hours of my life on a certain RPG. Rather, this is my 60th post on Happy Desolation. As you can see, I decided to celebrate with a new blog layout(Shit, do I know how to party or what?). Anyway yeah, its back to school for me.

School is not treating me very well at the moment. Nor am I treating it very well. As such, I propose to hack the school's network.

Ok, fine...maybe thats a bit too extreme. Still doesn't make it any less fun though. lol. What I really want though, is for June to come. By June, this damn school should be just a distant memory in the haze of cigarette smoke, liquor, loose women and computer parts. Oh well.

CAPE Unit 1 (thats the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Exams) is coming up within like 2 months, so just like during CXC time, I won't be blogging as much. There might also be a surprise coming up for all you loyal readers.

Write to you guys later!!

Microsoft Word 2007 is a B****

2009-01-06T05:43:00.000-08:00

So kids,here's my latest bitching topic. I'm working on my Chemistry project which I got for the holidays. I'm on the second to last topic, so I'm almost finished. Out of force of habit, I press Ctrl+S to quick save on a regular basis(like every 10 minutes or so).

So I press it, and it brings up the huge "Save As" dialog box. I decide to refrain from cursing at that point and just save over the document, which would have the same effect as the quick save. It's located on the base C:\ drive. I click the button. The little green bar on the status bar at the bottom of the screen fills pretty quickly, then it appears again. About 85% of the way through it stops and tells me there is an error in saving chemproj.docx. I curse.

My little brother hears me and laughs.I decide to try it again. Hmph. Same f**king thing. I decide to outsmart Microsoft and copy the entire document to an empty word document and saving it. Didn't make a scrap of difference. I got an error there too. Shit. I do a bit of googling for a solution, since I typed a lot and I don't want to have to retype it.

I see somebody talking about disabling their firewall and antivirus. I'm skeptical, but desperate, so I try it. Nope, no such luck.

I resign to my fate of losing the 3 paragraphs I wrote. I close it, and give up for a few seconds. I decide to open a blank document, type some crap, and see if it will save. It does. I decide to try saving my project again. It doesn't. >_<

I scream, and try the tactic of copying the whole document to a blank file again. I save it to My Documents, and somehow it works.

Its pretty damn weird.

Right now however, I'm just thankful that it worked. I'll figure out the issue later. There is no way I was planning to lose 3966 words of information that was hell to find.

*Sigh*
Oh well. I just had to let it out. I also did a Twitter post about it. For those of you who don't know, besides being an aspiring computer programmer/neurosurgeon, I also want to be a PUA. You can see the Twitter status update on my other blog.

Thats about it still, so I'll write up something some other day. Wish me luck on the project.

The New Year's Nerd

2008-12-29T23:41:00.001-08:00

Well, I finally did it.....Sort of.

I've partially purged myself of Microsoft's sin. I've dual booted Ubuntu 8.10 on my computer. I still have XP (since most of the things I use are on Windows), but I have Linux. Gotta keep my options open, y'know?

Ubuntu is damn pretty. It proves that you don't need fancy hardware acceleration and transparent menu bars to have a good looking GUI. I love how Python is so tightly integrated with the Ubuntu shell. In fact, if it weren't for the games I have on Windows, I'd gladly switch to Ubuntu at any time. Now if only I had a credit card so I could donate.

I've grabbed most of the apps I think I'll need(namely Blender, The Ur Quan Masters, Anjuta IDE, plus some plugins). The only problem I've had so far is with the sound and getting a recent version of Flash Player, but its cool, I'll have them fixed WAAAY before the New Year.

Well, I most likely won't be updating tomorrow...so Happy New Year when it comes!!

Later,
Gavin

Merry Christmas: The Official Post Mortem of Ebenezer Scrooge

2008-12-25T03:46:00.000-08:00

Well, this was a pretty good Christmas in terms of loot. I got a stack of 25 blank DVDs, a can of axe, and most importantly a new cell phone. Its a Samsung...something...blah, can't bother to go look at the box now. lol.

As it pertains to my Communication studies IA, which I may or may not have mentioned in a previous post, I'm making pretty good progress.If I were a studious person, I could be finished by the day after tomorrow.

But alas, I regret to inform you that I am not a studious person. I'll be finished by like next week Monday, I guess.

If you're lazy(like me) and can't bother to read everything up top, but you had to read this text due to its coloration, just watch the video below to summarize how my day was.

This song is called "Today Was a Good Day" and its by Ice Cube. Its one of the songs in the soundtrack for GTA: San Andreas, which I have been playing a lot of lately.

I've also been playing Red Alert 3. That game is so much DAMN FUN!! I mean, its a ridiculous excuse to revitalize the careers of some porn stars and B-movie actors, but damn, it is FUN!!

Oh, and I think my balls are getting bigger. I'm also learning how to grunt. The reason? Gears of War. There is so much testosterone in that darn thing, I'm jealous. I think that game may be applying peer pressure(Is that even possible?). I tried it on the recommendation of a friend, and despite getting killed every second wave, I love it. The Lancer, with the chainsaw bayonet is so cool. Its officially cooler than the plasma sword in Halo(although that can't compare to the Sword of Mana).

Before I'd go, I'd just like to address the fact as to why this sounds different from my other posts. The reason is because in this post, I actually have SOMETHING to talk about, as opposed to many others, where I'm just giving you, my dear reader, reassurance that I'm still alive.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone, including those who live in timezones where its still Christmas Eve and those who live in parallel universes that don't celebrate Christmas, and all the Ebenezer Scrooges who wish it weren't Christmas.

Christmas Around The Corner

2008-12-23T09:12:00.000-08:00

Well, its a year and 11 days since I started Happy Desolation. I've posted a lot of good thing, and I've posted a lot of bad things. Nonetheless, I think its been of good quality overall.

There are a few things I need to do though,so think of the following as early New Year resolutions:

1)I need to rewrite LunaMath (then LunaGraphics and LunaScene and Luna......)
2)I need to do my skeletal animation tutorial
3)I need to bump up my artistic skill level
4)I need to work out a lot more

That's really all there is. 1,2 and 3 are the relatively easy ones. I'll probably have problems exercising regularly, but then, not everybody manages to keep their New Years resolutions.

Oh well.

Merry Christmas Everyone,
Gavin.

OMG!!! Really?

2008-12-11T14:17:00.000-08:00

I don't believe it.

It turns out people actually DO read Happy Desolation. Wow. I feel umm, accomplished.

Anyway, I passed all my unit tests, but didn't really excel(except for Maths and Comm Studies). Oh well.

My exams started this week. So far, they have been GREAT!!! I feel great after leaving them because I know I've done well. I have Chemistry, Physics and Math next week. Guess which one I'm worrying about? Thats right, Chemistry.

I haven't sat down to program anything for a while. I'm going to do some stuff over Christmas so I don't get rusty. But, thats after I finish my Communication Studies Internal Assessment, Biology Meiosis models and some other thing I can't remember at the moment.

I'm just taking the night off since I'll have the weekend to study.

Thank you all my loyal readers. I love you all....sort of...not in a sick way..I think.

Later..
Gavin

The Nerd Report

2008-11-21T18:57:00.000-08:00

I just could NOT less this pass me. I mean, how awesome is this??!!

Click meeee!!!

Cognitive computing huh? Well then, I guess I'd better reread my old,worn copies of Neuromancer and rewatch my rotting Johnny Mnemonic DVDs, because as soon as self-aware, thinking computers take over, I'm screwed. lol.

I have worked on a neural network simulation in C++, but its pretty useless as far as actual function is concerned. Just a bit of number crunching(but then, in the end, everything is).

Still, this is pretty interesting. Thank God my original ambition was to become a neurosurgeon. Chances are by the time I get out of medical school they're still going to be messing around with it. Maybe if I get lucky I can work with them. Who knows?

Lets hope this thing pans out.

Oh yeah, I have 5 unit tests next week. Luck, you say?

Ha, I don't need luck.

I need a miracle.

Peace,
Gavin

The Past 2 Months In Less Than 500 Words

2008-11-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

Wow, perfect. Another "sorry I haven't updated in so long" post. Its sorta becoming a habit, don't you think?

Well, without further ado, here's the rundown of the past two months.

1)School started. Its a bitch.

2)I learned a lesson the hard way about the importance of backing up stuff. My old computer's motherboard,hard drive,graphics card and memory stick went bad all at the same time. Lost over 200 GB of stuff.

3)I finally realized that I was really good at Mathematics and probably should consider taking over Stephen Hawking's job at CERN.

4)I underwent a period of psychological trauma after starting college Chemistry and realizing that electrons don't actually orbit in shells, their positions are random, that is, they have a 95% chance of being found in a regions of space known as orbitals. I wept.

5)I had an epiphany, and realized that its pretty simple to build a nuclear bomb.

6)All hail President Obama!!! Finally, a balla president. Lots of people died that night, since after seeing that, they probably had nothing left to live for.

7)At some point, I realized that I more or less forgot about Happy Desolation. Some good Samaritan reminded me about it(Thanks Robyn!!).

That's about it. Lets hope from now on, I can be more regular with the updates. For your sake,since I know you all live for this. lol.

Google Chrome is Awesome

2008-09-05T17:58:00.000-07:00

Hmm, it seems like I'm betraying Firefox, and Google is too. Google Chrome, their new browser, is AWESOME. In fact, I used Chrome to update this blog posting. Its really ergonomic. No annoying title bar or anything else to clutter the screen, just a clean, streamlined interface.

Get it here and give it a shot.

In other news, school has started for me. Time to prepare for a year of work.

My exam results were great. Eight distinctions for the following subjects: Bio,Mathematics,Chemistry,Physics,English Language,English Literature,Infotech and Spanish. I got a B for GCE Add Maths. Thanks to all my well wishers.

Thats about all I have to say for this update.

See ya people,
Gavin.

Georgia, Russia, Jamaica, l337ness, Isaac and Much Much More.....

2008-08-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

As Russia pushes deeper into Georgian territory, I can't help but wonder if the world is going crazy.

Then, I realize it has. Isaac Hayes has died. A stroke was the cause of death.

If you have no idea who he is, yet he looks familiar, you've probably seen him if you watch Fresh Prince. He was in the episode where Will and Lisa ran away to get married in Las Vegas. He was the ermm..pasto....marriage official.

Anyway back to international news. Russia has sent 20000 soldiers and 500 armoured personnel carriers into Gori, a key Georgian town. Since Monday, they've hacked the Georgian government's website. They want the Georgian President gone.

Yup, they hacked the government website. Now we see where l337ness comes in. That is uber-l337.

Georgian civilians claim that Russian soldiers are torching homes and taking their property. They've ransacked a few military bases too. Foreign journalists have been warned to hurry up and get out of Georgia. Rather interesting. Georgia sits on top of a strategic oil pipeline, which supplies western markets and the oil comes from the Caspian Sea. I'm sure you see where this is going.

There was a fire at Apple Computer Corporation Headquarters. No one was harmed, and I haven't found any information about the extent of the damage.

Anyway, what does the Georgian thing have to do with Jamaica? Well, lets start with the EU. If the EU sends a peacekeeping force into Georgia(remember now, peacekeeping forces are expensive), there will be less money for member states to do other things. Especially buy sugar from Jamaica, since the climate isn't really favourable for sugarcane in Europe, and sugarcane sugar is preferred to beet sugar.

Sugar and tourism are more or less Jamaica's major income earners. Under an agreement, Jamaica can sell up to 126000 tonnes of sugar a year to the EU market. If the average price per tonne of sugar is US$ 330, 126000 * 330 = US$41580000. With the current recession, lets say that they can only buy half of that(and we can barely produce that). Couple this with the fact that oil prices are sky-high right now, and the country is already buried in debt due to loans from the World Bank and such, you know we're screwed.

Also, Iran claims to have built a smart unmanned sub. They've also purchased some submarines from Russia. Nice twist huh? How cool is that.

This Year's Darwin Award Goes To....The Khronos Group

2008-08-12T10:13:00.000-07:00

Yann L Moderator Member since: 2/6/2002 From: Breizh
Quote:
Original post by speciesUnknown
Its nice to know why, but what concerns me is what do we do next? The only alternatives to windows PC's for gaming, without a more up to date OpenGL, is Cider on apple machines, or consoles. For indie game developers, this means XNA, therefore the Xbox. Either way, MS now get a further increased share of the video game market, to the point where the effect of free market competition is non existent.

But what can you do if the only real competitor kills itself with a stunt that would be the digital equivalent of a Darwin Award ?

I'll make the explanation of problem at hand short. OpenGL 3 has come out. Nobody likes it.

I guess that April Fools joke of mine now is an April Fools reality of mine. FUCK!!! This means I probably should have listened to Marc. In his mortal words, "Forget cross-platform, DirectX rocks." He was right I guess. Famous last words? If I get my way, yes.

First Bernie, then OpenGL. What will die next? Will Smith?

Well, I guess that DirectX reading up I was doing came in handy anyway. Now if only I could find a working .X file format exporter for Blender, I'd be a happy boy.

I really can't believe this. I was looking forward to objects.

Later,
Gavin.

Farewell Bernie!

2008-08-09T20:33:00.000-07:00

Bernie Mac is dead. If this post seems less funny than normal, its because of two things. The death of a comedian always sorta puts my sense of humour off track, and as much as he's a comedian, I don't think it would be appropriate to crack jokes in this post.

I'd do a eulogy, but Wikipedia has everything you need to know about this great black man. I mean, he just died, damn. Obama probably isn't feeling too good right now for reprimanding him for his joke the other day at a fundraiser of his.

Oh yeah, big apology to Shanice G. Sorry I couldn't make it to your Sweet 16. I'll make it up to you, sometime, hold me to it huh?

Interesting huh? A birthday, and a death.

I really don't have anything else to talk about, I'm brainblocked.

Thats It For Now,
Gavin.

My Internet Connection Isn't Working, Do I Need More Memory?

2008-08-06T13:44:00.000-07:00

Really, if you read the topic of this post and thought that needing more memory was seriously the answer to that problem you need to turn off the computer now and go back to playing with stones in the mud.

My internet connection, despite recently being upgraded to 5 MBPS is so damn slow. My computer is also on its way out. I'm getting bashed in OGame. I had no fun last night. BBSpot took 10 tries to load. Deus Ex : Invisible War is annoying with all the running up and down.

I think I'm finished complaining.

I don't really have much else to say, apart from the fact that I have a MD5 loader which analyzes the content of MD5 mesh files. No rendering is done yet though. That's about it.

Bye,
Gavin.

Certificate Problems with Firefox 3 and Google

2008-07-31T05:57:00.000-07:00

This morning, I tried to access my Blogger account using Firefox. I got a message about invalid certificate. As you might know, Blogger is owned by Google. I went to Google and typed in the error.

I got a LOT of results. One said that I should download some tool(avoid these sorts of advice at all costs, many of them are spyware). Another pointed out the problem didn't only exist with Google's sub sites, but other sub sites, like some belonging to Microsoft. It was a security certificate problem.

None of the suggestions really helped, so I decided to forget about it and go back to sleep. I checked the time. May 13,2003, 8:00 AM according to my computer clock. That was wrong, so I decided to fix the time. On a hunch, I decided to try my luck at accessing Blogger again. Viola!! It worked.

Well, if anyone is having that problem, and you reached here by googling for it, welcome to Happy Desolation!!

Anyway, I don't really have anything special to say apart from that. I was just planning to update my blog posting, to show my latest attempt at art. Yup, that's right. More Questionable Content characters. I love the art style. Its not as good as last time though. Amir is barely recognizable, and Tai doesn't look right. Only Winslow came out properly. Oh well, practice makes perfect.

Speaking of webcomics, I can't believe I forgot to mention Applegeeks and Dr.McNinja in my last blog post. While I'm a big fan of Jeph Jacques art style, those 2 are the best drawn webcomics I've seen so far.

Going to get a haircut today. Going to the movies next week Tuesday. Going to have a poem for you guys by tomorrow. I think that's about all there is. Its going to be a pretty uneventful life for a while.

Oh yeah, CXC results come out on the 18th of August. Wish me luck.

Later,
Gavin

P.S. Yeah, I haven't made a programming post for a while. I'm just not in the mood. I think I'll be back on my feet soon though. Sorry.

Half Assed or Medium Rare

2008-07-28T09:28:00.000-07:00

Well, as you know, in addition to being a hobbyist progammer, I am also a purveyor of half-assed ideas(POHAI). Here are some of my more recent ones:

1)Become a kickass PUA
2)Start my own webcomic(I can't even DRAW >_<)
3)Learn how to draw(Maybe this is in the wrong order)
4)Write poems

Well, okay, the first and the last ones are pretty reasonable. For longtime readers of Happy Desolation however, you all probably know that my art skills are well, the stuff of nighttime talk shows. So, lets keep it realistic.

Number 1 is going pretty well, trust me. I'll stay tight lipped about it here though.

Number 4 is easy. My father is a pretty good writer. He's won a few competitions, but has never been lucky enough to get a book published or a movie script sold. Its not a matter of the quality of his work, as much as its a matter of our geography, if you know what I mean. I guess writing skill is genetic, because I sure as hell have it.

I was always writing MASSIVE stories in high school. I was always at the top of my English class. If Clive reads this, he can probably vouch for me about that story I wrote in Grade 8. 15 pages in one night. Most of the class did 4 pages. Clive's story about a dying dog warmed our hearts. Mine about a boy who made a deal with a demon froze their blood. Hehehehe.

So, by special request, by a special girl, I post the first poem in my series of poems here.

Haze
Dedicated to Bliss

I don't know where to start this poem,
And thinking would take too much time.
When I try to talk from my heart,
I suppose I could compare you to a fine piece of art,
But really, I'm not a nice person, why should I start?

Your personality is amazing,
And from what I remember, your ass is blazing,
Knowing you makes me lucky, so I'm praising,
Don't let your brother see this, please, no hell raising.

You seem really outstanding,
As bright as a day,
I swear to God, although I'm writing this poem, I'm not gay.

Your eyes seemed as cold as ice,
But at the same time as clear as a bell.
I wonder, if I hadn't met you, would I be in existential hell?
At the time, you seemed as silent as the grave,
But now that I almost know you, its like you're naughty, you can't behave.

Silent yet as pretty as a picture,
After reading this I'm expecting you to give me a stricture.
I'm running out of Blogger space,
But keep this poem in your heart, your special place.

Thats all I can write about you for now, Bliss,
If you really like it you can repay me with a kiss

Oh lol.

Did I really write that? Sounds a bit too mushy. Hmmm...needs a few more heavy metal guitars and rockstars bleeding out of their eyes. Oh well.

You guys should definitely check out Questionable Content. It is one of the funniest and best webcomics I've read, alongside Striptease and Animals Have Problems Too.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm not much of an artist, but that's about to change. I've decided to practice the HELL out of myself lol. I started at like 2 in the morning. I've been drawing logos, then decided to move on to more advanced stuff. I drew the QC characters. I think they came out pretty well, for a terrible artist like me. They look a bit smudged, sorry. They weren't really that smudged, but my scanner is like almost half my age, so its a bit outdated(a bit huh?).

Here it is for your viewing pleasure or displeasure, if you get off on that sort of crap:

Whew, that was a MASSIVE post. I haven't written this much for a while. I think that's about if for now. Hope it was to your liking, my dear readers.

All Your Base Are Belong To Us,
Signed : Gavin

P.S. stricture(noun) - 1)Abnormal narrowing of a bodily canal or passageway
2)Severe criticsm

Learning is fun KIDS!! lol.

P.P.S. If by the odd chance that you're reading this Mr.Jacques, I'm sorry for butchering Marteen and Hanners. I think Pintsize came out quite well though. lol.

The End of Avatar

2008-07-19T19:57:00.001-07:00

Damn right. It came, it went, and it was amazing.

2 years ago when I saw the first Avatar episode, I was impressed. It was one of the few times that an American cartoon(with the exception of the Batman cartoons), had made amazed me like that. I knew it was going to be good from the beginning.

Well, here in the present, thats it. Avatar is done. The ending was really satisfying in my opinion. I've also started liking Zuko. I'm not going to reveal much, but here's ONE spoiler for you unlucky bastards : Most of the relationships turn out as you expect. And Azula also got SCREWED(not in the way you perverts are thinking lol).

I'd actually wanted to be one of the first persons to blog about the end of Avatar, so I'm pretty happy since Google searches haven't turned up much.

Woot!! First dibs on fresh meat.

The OpenGL sample is coming fine.

Oh yeah, my birthday was actually 3 days ago. :P

Peace and Love,
An Avatar Fan.

Still Here, Sorry To Disappoint You

2008-07-14T15:02:00.000-07:00

Yeah, its been three weeks since I've updated. Sorry about that. I've been sorta busy. I'm still here though. I was working on a little OpenGL sample device, to encapsulate shaders, sorta like a template for X-LAX. I've also been brushing up on my shader programming.

My birthday is on the 16th of July. Hip-Hip Hooray.

Thats it. I'm sort of brain-blocked now, so some other time. Oh, and about the evangelion episodes, just go to megavideo and watch them. I don't want to get in any legal trouble for it.

Sorry for the cheerful mood, I'm just brain-blocked as I said earlier.

Peace,
Gavin.

Car Sickness

2008-06-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I've just made my way across the island and back. Believe it or not. Ugh. I slept in the back of the car for the whole journey.It is 3:32 pm as I write this. I left home at 5:30 AM and returned by like 2:30. For the non-mathematically inclined, thats 9 hours exactly.

Thank God I took a quick snooze on the return journey.

Here's your promised Evangelion Episode. This is Episode 2:

Neon Genesis Evangelion

2008-06-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one day. WOOT!

I was wondering,since on Megavideo, they have whole episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion... what would it be like if for every post, I embedded an episode?

The answer is, it would be KICKASS!!!

Seriously though. Its a cool idea. Here's the first one, for the benefit of all those who don't know what it is. It came highly recommended from Todd and Marc. Thanks guys. I owe ya one(or is it two? Whatever >_>).

Hope you enjoyed.

I Think I Just Pissed Myself

2008-06-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

That is scary. What a way to start the morning. Its 8:30 now as I write this. Oh well, I'm in for a wonderful day *grin*. Of course, being the curious individual I am, I had to look up back writing on wikipedia. As a wannabe NLP user, things like this are very interesting to me. Really though, I wonder if those things are real. Imagine, if so, Disney might find themselves in the same position that black metal bands have for years. lol.

Pretty fucking amusing eh?

Still, on a lighter note, here's another video. This video is really funny. You get the WIERDEST ads from youtube. Ugh.

And this kids, is why you shouldn't drink...much:

Ricardo is supposed to get his CD and get fragged today, just wait for it....

And I fixed the problem where SHOGO only ran in 1/4 screen. I had to turn off some of the advanced options. Didn't really affect the graphics that much, although to be honest, it was never really that pretty.

No nightmares now kids!!

SHOGO!!!

2008-06-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to track down SHOGO, and I've burnt through the game in like 5 hours on normal difficulty. (Still too wussy to try MADNESS.) It feels good, I finally managed to track it down after so much time.

As you can see, I've added my own little Blogs of Note feature...only its not called that. I've also added one blog. It belongs to a friend of mine called Ricardo. Don't ask about the name. He thinks he is special. I think he is "special"...get the picture? Like this woman.

I Suppose Australia Has Talent - Watch more free videos

Still, just kidding. Thats my friend man. lol. And I'm going to frag him in Shogo as soon as he gets the CD I burnt with a copy of it. Screw you copy protection!!! You're what spoiled games. lol.

Since I'm an ass, I decided to gizoogle Ricardo's first blog post...(thats mean lol.)Its almost more intelligent than before lol. Here is it, all pimped out like a crack ho(Oops):

yeah hi. This is mah fizzirst tizzle mak'n ma own blizzay n it thiznink i'm going ta have a bootylicious time hav'n it gangsta style. Ma name is Ricardo , but most of ma niggaz cizzay me ricky. Soo i guess you also can ciznall me ricky.
Any wizzay tha name of mah bliznogg is actually weird , "The rejects". lol . I kizzy yeah funny.
Any waaz i wanted ta be genuine in mah bliznogg. So i chose this title. Now what is a reject.
Accord'n ta tha oxford dictionary , n i quote " someone thizzay is not accepted by persons around him or her, who is usually treated differently from gangsta.
Yeah i guess you mizzle be wonder'n y chose such a name fo` mah blizzay. Well i guess it's coz at one tizzy in mah life i was a "reject", but now thats totally over n i am like tha hypest person at mah schoo` . You gotta check dis shit out yo. Soo even though yo a reject you can break out of that n be someone else . Im a bad boy wit a lotta hos.

keep cool, n i'll pizzay ma nizzext blizzay soon soo makes sure you pizzay yo views n comments pleaze.

OGame and Stuff...Right?

2008-06-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been umm..wait, let me think.

Oh yeah, I've been playing OGame(www.ogame.us), and watching funny youtube videos:

and working on Mons Blanc. No you can't see the latest design document. Why? Because I said so, mwhahahaha!!!

I like Flippy. He makes me seem umm, mentally well grounded.

Still, I'm only posting this to let you guys know that I'm still alive.

Free...

2008-06-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

The title of this post probably says it all. Thats right. I'm free. No more exams. I was free from yesterday, but i was too lazy to post on my blog.

Now you have officially been informed. My first order of business is to download Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2008 and the Windows 32 SDK, because lately DevC++ has been pissing me off, crashing every minute.

You'll probably get the skeletal animation tutorial a month or so from now, because I'm still a little brainblocked. Sorry.

I've been practicing a bit of SS as I told you, this is the summer of pimp.

Remember how a few months back, I did an April Fools joke about switching to DirectX?

Well I'm still joking. I'm actually going to keep on using openGL, but since I'm going to have to switch to Vista sooner or later, I'm going to start learning up on how to use DirectX 10.

Maybe if Mac had decent graphics libraries, I would be programming games for it. lol.

As for Irrlicht, I really don't know. I sorta developed this preference towards doing things myself lately. I'll probably stop using it. I'll leave the tutorials up though.

I'm also trying to track down Shogo. (You know, the game, very old, anime style, done by Monolith?) If you're still clueless:

Tata!

2008-06-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

Who Wears Short Shorts? - Watch more free videos

Hehehehe.

That aside, by next week this time, I'll only have one more exam to worry about. Yup, thats right, the Add Maths Paper 2. I feel really good about the CXC. I mean, Physics and Chemistry were just amazing.I THINK Bio was good too, but I might have mentioned my track record with Bio earlier...

Oh well, I did a little bit of work on LunaGFX, only now, I've changed the name.

That's right kids, LunaGFX is now known as the X-LAX Graphics Library, the crappiest graphics library known to man or monkey.

I'm serious.

About the name change that is, not about the crappy part.

In a week kids!!

P.S. I might be getting a summer job. More about that some other time.

Do You Think About Me Now and Then?

2008-05-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

Imagine, CXCs start next week. I know I haven't updated for a while, but I've really been studying*coff*coff*. Now my faithful readership,I know how you all miss me, so here's an appropriate song to help you feel better.

I won't be gone that long people, I promise. After exams, its blogging as usual. Just relax and wait.

In the lack of my wonderful presence, amuse yourself with www.gizoogle.com.

Enjoy. Here's some love:

Yes, my school uniform is that shitty and yes, I was evolutionarily annihilated by the ugly forest and yes, I was tired when I took that picture.

Peace and Something!

P.S. Been studying up on Ross Jeffries and NLP in general, I don't know if I told you guys, so by halfway through this summer, I'll have scored 5. Just watch.

Oh, and just so you know.

Heavyset black guy : Common
"I met this girl when I was 3 years old, and what I loved most was that she had so much soul" - From I Used To Love Her By Common

Hmmm....Racism

2008-04-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

This is one of my few posts that have nothing to do with programming, games, sex or what I did today.I know its been a little while since I updated, but now I'm updating, so stop griping and read or watch I should say.

Pretty cool song with a great message. Now, you know how they say anybody can post crap on the internet. Here is perfect proof(no, not Happy Desolation, idiot >_<, this is the finest literature you'll ever read in your life. I'm going to show the comments).

groundz3ro4
Apartheid built the strongest country in africa, along with rodesia. blacks came to power promising a rainbow nation, and gave now they do anything and everything to remove white people. look at Zimbabwe now and how it has been destroyed, and South Africa is on the same path. Their was a reason for Aparthied blacks destroy everything. Even when its handed to them. Thus what will happen if Obama comes to power.

nhrafan
MLK was one of the worst men in history. Where did his views get him? 6ft under from a 38 caliber shot to the jaw which also hit him in the spine. If he was such a great man why did he like white prostitues so much? Theres no reason to honor him. Negros have so many outlets to make their lives better but they dont. They always play the race card. Look at the stats 77% of negro men go to prison sometime in their lives. Get over what happened to you over 200 yrs ago. We dont owe you nothing

Thats just a small sample.

Before I start swearing, cursing, drinking and preaching I would like to say two things.

Yeah, this post is probably two months late, but at least its getting done.

AND

Yeah, slavery was in the past. Most of the times when people talk about how "Us black people are still being oppressed", they're just looking for attention. Note that I'm not saying that racism doesn't still exist, but what I mean is that generally, when poeple pull out the slavery card, they just want attention.

Now my beef is that those guys disrespect MLK, one of the greatest Negroes alive as well as encourage a system as racist and biased as apartheid. I mean, where the HELL is it documented that he slept with a white whore? Apartheid ended in 1994, after 50 years in use. Granted, in my opinion, most African countries aren't being run right, but apartheid was responsible for at least 50% of the problems that African countries experience today. Its going to be a long road to recovery for them.

As for Obama being racist and evil, I don't know. If anything, he can always be impeached, can't he? Give the man a chance, people.

Murder my comment box, dudes.

Rant with ya later!!

APRIL FOOLS!!!

2008-03-31T17:34:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I scared anybody by saying that I was switching to directX, but I was just kidding. I however am technically working with directX, as I want to take a peek around in the D3DX library to get a better idea of what I need to support. LunaLib is on hold though. I just finished 8 sample DirectX applications, from creating a simple window to picking. Those were for my personal practice though.

The whole DirectX thing was an early April Fool's joke, because I probably wouldn't be able to update tomorrow.

OPENGL FOREVER BABY!!!!

That will be all humans.

Oh, and before I forget, you should all watch Battlestar Galactica. I was reluctant at first, thinking it was a Star Trek ripoff, but I ate my words after watching one episode. That show is AMAZING!!!

Thats all I can say now, BYE!!!

TTYL,

The Latest From The I

2008-03-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

I just decided to update the Source of War design document and show it to you guys...so, knock yourselves out. Remember, its MINE...and I will sue, it saves me the work of actually making the game.

I also decided to give up on OpenGL...or at least I'm having an existential crisis. I'm still going to do the Skeletal Animation Tutorial though, so don't worry, my fellow brethren who I betrayed.

Just because I'm giving up OpenGL doesn't quite mean that LunaLib is out of the picture. I'm still going to work on it. Its just that from now on, I'll make directX my favourite development platform.

As I said, existential crisis.

Too bad I don't really have much more to talk about, so...here's a Smash video:

and:

Later!!

Holidays!

2008-03-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

Well, finally mock exams are over. I'm actually on my easter holiday break. Nothing to do now apart from cheap sex and Red Alert 2 lol. A lot of crap happened during the exam period, but the exams themselves were pretty easy.

I suppose that last blog post wasn't all that short after all. Since I have 11 days free, I'm gonna probably write a "LITTLE" tutorial on Skeletal Animation. This will be different from the rest so far as:

IT WILL USE openGL alone!!

Thats right, no Irrlicht, no Newton. I've gotta admit, its going to be a lot of work, especially since no 3d model file format supports everything I need. Some of you might be thinking about X and COLLADA files, but X files are hell to read and COLLADA is more of an interchange format. I've decided to write my own file format.

Then I realized that was a practical idea, especially for LunaLib. Instead of having to write small loaders for about 5 different model file formats, I write one large loader for a file format containing everything I need, like tangents and bones. The best part is, since I made it, I know everything I need to know about it.

Two other things before I go.

I have created a Devblog for Lunatek at http://lunatekdevblog.blogspot.com . It should keep you informed about things performing to LunaLib and our games. I won't be the only one posting. Sometimes Marc, Stephen and other staff members will post.

Next, take a peek at this image. It caught my eye on wikipedia so I just decided to show it here.

That image compares the styles in which characters were drawn in older animes to how they were drawn in newer animes. Interesting.

Now, this next image is a challenge that I'm going to give Stephen. Stephen's a good artist, but he's lazy, so I don't know the FULL extent of his abilities. I'm going to see if he can draw the picture below, but in different clothes and a different pose. If he does, I'll be REALLY impressed.

And to be honest, I don't know who the person in the image is.
*Grabs helmet and runs to bunker...*

Oh well.

See ya!

Danger...

2008-03-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

Well, tomorrow I have my physics exam and my IT practical. Yawn.

This is almost laughable. I wanna write the shortest blog post ever in the history of this blog.

This should go down in history as the shortest blog post ever. I hope.

Laterz,
Gavin

Halfway Through Hell

2008-03-07T13:52:00.000-08:00

Well, that was pretty much it for my first week of mock exams. I had no exams for like 3 days out of the whole week so I spent the time at home.

In an unexpected plot twist, our protagonist, Gavin found the Biology mock exams unusually easy, but the Chemistry very difficult. He hoped that the Chemistry was marked relatively, so he would have excelled(relatively), coming second only to Clive, who he believed had psionic powers, which enabled him to create a mental feedback loop with his Chemistry textbook(known to normal humans as studying).

As for English, it was a breeze....simple, easy English. I R DA SEX!!!!

Well, mock exams end week after next, screw it, I have a few more free days.

As you might see, I made a few updates to the blog. I changed the layout and replaced the donate button with something less antisocial, thats right, a COMMENTS box !!!! DUM-DUM-DA!!!

No videos this time...maybe when you grow up. No pictures of little girls either Javon ( A.K.A "Sparky).

WARNING: Old Hip-Hop

2008-03-02T16:35:00.000-08:00

That song was Chanel Live's Sex For the Sport. If you liked that let me tell you, there are a LOT of old great hip-hop songs. Today, I typed up a design document for my game...you know the one the Lunatek Engine is supposed to be used in. Its nowhere near complete, but I decided to give all you wonderful people a look. Normally, I'd force you to download it, but I found this wicked thing called ScribD, which is like Youtube for businessmen lol.

Yeah, its a mouthful and I do apologize for the googled graphics.

Tata!

Lilly Allen?!!

2008-03-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

Technically, there's nothing wrong with her name upon close inspection, but still, it just sounds wierd. She's not exactly beautiful either, but her songs aren't actually half bad...if you like British accents. Still, the main reason I picked her as the topic of this blog posting is because I saw the video for the song Driving Me Wild with Common, and was immediately impressed. I also listened to Smile. Great. LDN, not all that, but still ain't bad.

Anyway, I studied a little bit more since I have mock exams on Monday. I think I'm pretty well prepared since I've probably been harping on it for the past month.

I've decided to spend half my summer holidays working on the LunaLibs as well as the Lunatek website. The other half should be dedicated to working out, meeting people, screwing around and putting NLP tricks to good use.

TTFN,

Alive and Kicking

2008-02-29T16:44:00.000-08:00

Well, I decided to post this just to remind Planet Earth that I'm still alive. I just handed in my IT SBA today, and I have some more lab reports due on Monday.

Still, I feel pretty prepared for the exams. I have English first on Monday(piece of cake), then on Thursday, I have the long papers for Chemistry and Biology. In between I have a lot of free time to swat :).

Anyway yeah, thats about it, nothing particularly new or interesting.

The Last Leg

2008-02-20T06:41:00.000-08:00

Its so close. I can taste it. The tension is killing me. I'm on the home stretch. The exams are about to start. I feel really ready for them, I just need to brush up on some MORE Biology and Literature. I feel so good right now, thinking about myself makes me feel...special lol.

I really am prepared. This is the taste of victory. Victory is like sex, only that you don't need protection lol.

Oh well, enough creepy talk. I decided to show some game related stuff. If anyone who reads this has ever played Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, you know its one of best FPS out now. (Apart from Crysis and Halo 3 of course, and my yet unnamed project, which doesn't really count, since its not coming out for now. :P)

I suppose that after exams, the first thing I'll do is write some Irrlicht tutorials and some openGL ones. Keep the $$$$ coming in, you know what I'm saying?

See ya!!

YAAAH TRICK YAAAH!

2008-02-15T18:43:00.001-08:00

I love that damn video!!!! Most people say Soulja Boy sucks, and I (sorta) agree. But this song is just so positive, and its one of the funniest music videos I've seen for a long time. This time, you just can't hate on Soulja Boy. The part with throw some D's on it was pretty clever, and shows that even if he can't rap, he at least knows his puns :).

I really wouldn't have known about it, if a friend of mine hadn't started saying YAA BITCH YAA! as a response to every question. A typical conversation between us now looks like:

Me : Hey man, whats up? You ok?
Him : YAAAH BITCH YAAAH!
Me : Okay then. Have you seen Clive around?
Him : NAAH BITCH NAAH!
Me : Right. Umm, I'm going to eat lunch now, what do you want on your chicken?
Him : THROW SOME D'S ON THAT!!!
Me : Uh-huh, ketchup it is.
Him : YAAAH BITCH YAAAH!
Me : Someone, please kill me.
Him : YAAAH BITCH YAAAH!
Me : GET OUTTA MY FACE!!!

As for mock exams, the studying isn't going badly. I think I've done a lot of Biology, so now I've just got to get in some Chemistry and English Literature. As usual, Physics and Add Maths are not a problem.

I haven't started work on LunaScene though. Go cry in a dark corner somewhere.

On a more serious note, it seems like Lupe Fiasco might take over Talib's place in the rap game. Check this:

I love the way the vocals of Matthew and Lupe contrast. I want Matthew's voice. It would be so cool...but screw it, you can't always get what you want.

Gavin out. Over.

Friction and Electrostatics

2008-02-13T14:17:00.000-08:00

I am as sick as a dog as I write this blog post. I woke up this morning at 5:30 with the most spectacular headache...it was like an...umm... acid trip!! I went back to sleep after taking some medication and woke up at 9, feeling a bit better, although my temperature was still high. I ate a bit and drank a lot(no pepsi this time, guys!) and settled down for a bit, while studying physics.

When I was studying physics, I ran into Coloumb's law. For the less physically enlightened among us, Coloumb's Law states that:

The force between two charges is inversely proportional to the distance between them, and directly proportional to their magnitudes.

In other words:

F = (Q1 * Q2)/ d

where F is the force produced, Q1 and Q2 are both different charges and d is the distance between those two charges.

So, you ask, how does this sloppy physics lesson concern the average retarded chump?

Well, it doesn't.

It just shows that I'm above you mortals. Just kidding. I was bored, so I went onto Wikipedia to look and see if there was a vector form. Turns out there was.

So I decided to go and create a small, utterly useless program that shows Coloumb's Law in action. It consists of a box and sphere. The box represents an electric field, and the sphere represents a charged object in the field. The box is always positively charged, while the charge of the sphere can be changed using the left mouse button. The camera can be rotated around the field so you can see it better, by using the left and right arrow keys.

Please note that I programmed this thing when my body temperature was causing forest fires in my head, so although its pretty much bug free, the source code is too messy to repost here. Instead, I'll just provide the link for the executable. It uses Irrlicht with the openGL video driver, as most of my other programs do.

The link is located under Random Programs. Grab it and go!!!

You might also have noticed that I changed the theme and layout of the blog. I figured it was about time for a change of scenery, you know? I'll probably do it about every 4 months.

That will be all, fellow human.

See ya,
Gavin

P.S. Oh, by the way, I know you guys were all shocked at the last post, and most of you couldn't believe what you saw (yeah Sparky A.K.A. Christopher Backfista, I'm talking to you). So for the pure shock value of it, here's the image again:

Congratulations, perv. Sparky, you might want to wipe that stuff off your monitor, drool or otherwise.(Ewwww....grosss.....)

Dancing in My Own Blood

2008-02-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

No, this post has nothing to do with the title. In fact, this post is actually a programming post.

You see, yesterday, I finished LunaLib's basic math routines. Yup, you heard that right. Matrix multiplication, matrix inversion, vector cross products, basic point in polygon tests, EVERYTHING!!!

So now, I have to work on LunaScene, which I have a gut feeling I forgot to mention. LunaScene is a scenegraph with a built in physics engine, which as you all might guess, needs more work. Advanced collision detection, collision response, etc... I have my work cut out for me. But still, it's going to actually be fun.

After I finish LunaScene and have a working demo, I'll probably work on optimization of LunaLib.

I'm going to have hell learning all the physics I need. But still, no knowledge is useless. It might come in handy if I ever drop out of school and decide to make nuclear bombs for a living. lol.

Now, in a completely unrelated side note, look at this. I almost pissed myself. You will too.

See how easy it is to go to jail now, Clive?

Still...they do say, if you dress like you want it, you're gonna get it.

The studying for mock exams is coming along great though. I feel really energized as of late. I guess Pepsi really is addictive, because I've been taking it in by the gallon to stay awake. Lets hope all this pays off in the long run.

Later peeps!

Almost Done

2008-02-08T19:56:00.000-08:00

Mock exams are on their way. All programming work has stopped. All my energy is being focused on studying and picking up girls. Need to relieve stress. Can't keep coherent thoughts....

A long time ago, I made this video. Yes, I'm KirbzXXX. Hope you like it:

I also made Boondocks and Samurai Champloo AMVs, but youtube removed them. Oh well.

Sayonara,

Fighting My Way Through This Life

2008-02-02T19:00:00.000-08:00

Well, Easter Holidays are coming up. The thing is for me, they're not going to be holidays, since I have mock exams coming up after them. I've been studying too much lately, so I decided to frag some punks to take the stress of. Well that didn't seem to work, so I decided to program some stuff. No, the second Python-Irrlicht tutorial isn't ready yet,its a lot of work, and I'm really too lazy.

However, I did do a simple tutorial on Irrlicht-Newton integration. I made a simple demo that has a sphere falling under the influence of gravity, to hit the ground. It teaches the basics of Newton and a little bit of design theory, so grab it.

Also, I hope you've noticed the donate button. Stick your pointer in it and send me some money please lol!!

School is Rotting My Brain

2008-01-24T17:08:00.000-08:00

Well, I knew it would be a lot of work, but geez...I'm overloaded. Between lab reports and my IT SBAs, I can barely find time to take a breather. Oh well, that's life.

In the time that I haven't been studying, I've been reading up on SSE and Artificial Intelligence, especially pathfinding algorithms. Pathfinding algorithms are actually strangely interesting, but then, I'm different. I've also been brushing up on a bit of shader work.

Yesterday, I got my report card. It wasn't all that bad. I got the 96% average I expected for Information Technology(pssh....) and a surprising 98% average for Additional Mathematics(I expected mid 80s). I also got a 94% average for Chemistry, and a 78% average for Physics.

My Biology grade however is shameful. That one is really gonna haunt me for a while.

Oh well, screw it. If anything, I'll just clean out the innards of my brain with a shotgun.

Yesterday, I also played against Clive in Halo 3. I LOVE THE FRIGGIN' GRAVITY HAMMER AND ENERGY SWORD. We played a match with only these two weapons, with Clive preferring the sword and me preferring the hammer. I won. Our scores were 30:20. We also played with guns, where I won again, but by a smaller margin(30:26).

Clive kept on trying to pop me with the mounted gun that he broke of, but... I'm just too good lol.

Sayonara,

I'm Alive

2008-01-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

Well, I did promise that there would be less postings this year, since I'm really busy. I'm working on the fundamentals of the second part of that Irrlicht-Python integration tutorial, but as I said I'm really busy, so its going pretty slowly.

I've also started working out...since I'm pathetically weak and it can do good things for my concentration. Well not pathetically weak, but I think I could be a lot stronger. I have mock exams late next month, and I get my report card this week Wednesday. Thankfully, I've done well enough not to fret.

That's all, life is pretty boring right now so:

LATER!!!

The Latest from The Twisted Mind of Gargamel

2008-01-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

Well, my Internet just got fixed today(sucky Cable and Wireless!), so being the antisocial person you've all come to know and love, I was bored. To occupy myself, I decided to write a couple of Irrlicht tutorials. There are 3 of them in total. Two cover basic Irrlicht concepts, that is, setting up a window, and displaying an image, while the other one covers integrating Irrlicht with the Python scripting language.You can find it on the links to the left. I will post source code as soon as I get up off my lazy ass and decide to include it.

As for LunaLib, well...LunaLib ain't dead...Its on life support bitch!!!
A must watch for all the Boondocks fans out there:

Anyway, school resumes on Tuesday. Badabababada, I'm dreading it. Well, not really, its just that a sh*t load of work is going to be piled up on me. But I can handle it...I'm Gavin!!!!

...Right? I'm sure I can do this...I think.

Bye!!!

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T17:39:00.000-08:00

The first set of games I ever played was a bunch of burnt DOS games on an old CD that my father got me for Christmas when I was 6 years old. It was a disk from Apogee. I got lots of games. I'm trying to construct this list from memory, so I'm not guaranteeing its 100% correct, but I believe the games were:

1) Duke Nukem 1 (second game I ever beat)
2) Duke Nukem 2 (first game I ever beat)
3) Duke Nukem 3D (a game I have yet to beat)
4) Realms of Chaos
5) Raptor : Call Of The Shadows
6) Rise of the Triad

There's one I can't remember. Oh well.

So, where does this come in? Well its, nothing but a bit of reminiscing, and thinking about how things were different back then. How I used to be so scared of the pigcops in Duke Nukem 3D that I was afraid to go past the second level in Episode One or play anything else. Also thinking about how Duke taught me how to be a good, gentlemanly citizen - "Aaah, much better...*flush*" :).

So anyway, next year is going to be packed. I have CXC exams, so this blog will have significantly less postings. Oh well, gotta live it up while it lasts, you know?

Speaking of Duke, all you Duke lovers might like this video. Start the new year laughing. It'll be a barrel of laughs *shotgun cocks* :).

THAT WAS HILARIOUS.

Anyway, I'm staying up until the new year comes around so I can make my super-secret-ultra-cool-pimpriffic new year's resolution. What is it?

I can't tell you, or else it wouldn't be a secret now, would it?

What sucks is that I only have 8 free days after the New Year starts, because I have to go back to school on the 9th of January. Oh well, welcome to The Suck.

Happy New Year Everyone!

P.S. If anyone can find the full version of any of the above games, I would really appreciate it if you could get it to me one way or the other. That would be so cool.
Remember you can add me at www.myspace.com/gavin468.

Crank Dis And Nilwinds....

2007-12-26T13:15:00.000-08:00

Just in case you're wondering, the second part of the title of this post is not what it sounds like when a pirate tries to pronounce my name. Actually, its the name of a new project of mine. Those of you who know me are probably thinking, "Great, another incomplete project." Actually not this time.

Why?

Because the resources will be as easy to obtain. I was planning to do a traditional 2D style Final Fantasy-ish RPG. Therefore for the graphics, I can use RPGMaker graphic charsets, which can be created at this site. All I need to do is the following:

1)Create a Map Editor and a map file format
2)Link a scripting language(preferably GameMonkey, to keep it simple).
3)Create the main game executable.
4)Rinse, wash and repeat.

Some of you may be wondering what the story will be like, as an RPG is nothing without a story. I won't reveal any details here, but I will tell you its based off a short story I wrote a while back(that no one has ever seen, or ever will see, or that will see not the light of day).

Anyway, moving on to topics that normal people can understand. I found the video below on youtube. Did you know that they have a whole youtube group dedicated to Crank Dat videos? Nah, neither did I.

That was hilarious though.

I go back to school on like the 8th or so of January, so I'm gonna live it up while I have my freedom. That means I'm going to play as many video games as possible!! I'm gonna play until my frontal lobe shrinks to the size of a peanut!!!

By the way, remember to add me on myspace at www.myspace.com/gavin468.

Merry Christmas everyone! Don't drink too much eggnog or you might explode!

Its High Voltage, You Can't Shake The Shock!

2007-12-21T17:16:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been catching up on my listening. That means I've been on youtube and Ares constantly, watching and downloading videos and songs from Talib Kweli, Nas, Linkin Park, Daddy Yankee and Saosin. I'm probably deaf as I write this, as my little brother is watching TV right beside me and I can't hear a thing.

In game related news, I beat Quake 4. Great.

Now what do I have to live for?!! Well, there is still Quake 3 Arena which I have not beaten in nightmare mode *yet*. Christmas is still 4 days away, and I hope someone will have the good sense to give me some games or I'll have to get them the good 'ol fashioned way:

software piracy. Just kidding. I don't really pirate software,(I mean, who pirates Blender...) but like everyone else I download music.

In other, nerd related news, I successfully started a partially heated argument on the gamedev.net forums about LU decomposition(hell if I know what that is, sounds cool though). You can find it here.

By the way, I'm on MySpace. Add me. My page is at www.myspace.com/gavin468.

Merry Christmas, suckaz!

Friends, Power, Sex and Halo

2007-12-19T17:01:00.001-08:00

After reading that title, you're probably thinking, what the hell ?! Well, I needed a catchy title,so I decided to used it to appeal to all the bleeding hearts, megalomaniacs, nymphomaniacs and halophiles. Lets start in order of importance. That means Halo. I'm getting Halo 3, I'm getting Halo 3, la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Seriously. Also, a friend of mine is getting better in Halo. He actually almost beat me when we were playing with guns. I beat him, 25-14 when we were playing with swords alone though.

For the hell of it, I'll just skip sex. "But wait," you say,"skip sex?!!! Is this guy retarded?" No seriously, there are more pressing issues. Earlier, I used the word megalomaniac. That means a pathological egotist.

In English now. That means a power hungry nutjob. Have you ever thought about strategy games nowadays? Basically, in my opinion, they're helping to raise armchair generals, who believe that soldiers are expendable. Think about it. This is more pronounced in futuristic RTS games (think Starcraft, how many Terran marines did we waste?).
Before anybody decides to email me, I should just say I'm not knocking RTS games. I'm an avid RTS gamer. In fact FPS, RTS and RPG games are my favourite genres. I'm just saying that RTS games nowadays seem to encourage throwing out hordes of units to kill your enemies, rather than carefully using a small group of units to destabilize your enemy.Ranting done. Proceed, soldier... the Rear Admiral waits.

While we're on the topic of Warcraft by the way, look at this. Its a video of Warcraft 3 being played on a touch screen.

This was developed by Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, whose website can be found here(click me bitch!).

Okay, now how do friends come in?

Well, for this post, I decided to focus on one friend, whose birthday is tomorrow, the 20th of December. Sadly, she's sick. I hope she recovers by tomorrow. She's really a nice person, once you get past the quirkiness and the annoyingness and the randomness and the ... . Anyway, I'm just kidding. She's a good friend. She really easygoing and has what I call natural crack, she's always energetic.

So Cammy, I'll let the image do the speaking since a picture is worth a thousand words.

Ummm, oops lol. Just kidding. You know science could never replace you

Here ya go sport:

Love ya(like a sis)!

Tata for now people!!!

So far, so good

2007-12-16T11:53:00.000-08:00

Well so far, the holidays seem okay. I've been doing nothing but playing games, working on LunaLib and going out. Most nights, I go to my bed after 1 am and usually I wake up at 7 am.
LunaLib is giving me HELL!!!! Its not impossible, its just taking forever. It is very mind numbing to sit down typing out 4 by 4 matrix multiplication, just to realize that your ordering scheme for matrices is wrong so you have to start over. Collision detection is giving me hell. So far, I've only really managed to implement point in polygon tests. I'm really too lazy to implement line in polygon tests right now. I'm AFRAID to start ellipsoid collision detection.

Anyway, nerd stuff aside. I have almost a full month of holidays left. I really should go to the beach, but I'm afraid of water. And sand. And the sun. And other people. Oh well, such is life. I've decided to end this post with some intellectually stimulating quotes that I got from here as well as your recommended dosage of Happy Tree Friends.

"Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway." - Unknown
"Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling." - Unknown
"Energizer Bunny arrested, charged with battery." - Unknown
"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures." -George W. Bush
"Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the world together." - Unknown

Sayonara.

Blender, Physics Engines, Holidays and Quake 4

2007-12-13T16:50:00.000-08:00

Today, after playing Quake 4, I went on MSN messenger to talk to some friends of mine. Out of the blue, one of them suggested I should make a quake 4 mod. Fine. I started messing around with the Quake4 editor, and to my surprise, it was amazingly easy and intuitive. Another plus was that the scripting language resembled C, so I was right at home. After messing around with it for a few hours, I got bored, and decided to move on. I wasn't in the mood to work on my game engine, but I felt like improving my artistic skills, so I started working on the Blender Noob to Pro lessons and then messed around with MakeHuman. As I write this, I'm working on the modeling a die part in the beginner section of the Blender lessons.
So whats the point of all this information? Well, between all 3 programs, they have one thing in common. All of them have cleverly designed user interfaces, which gives me a great idea of what proper GUIs look like. What I've learnt will be put to good use, in the map editor for my game engine.For example:
1) I will do my best to make the whole thing Linux compatible.
2) Everything will be rendered in openGL(thus, it will use GLUT).
3) It will use a grid like the Quake 4 editor, with measurements shown.

Nerd stuff aside, in other news, today I went to my prize giving ceremony. I came second and got a book and a bunch of certificates.(Whoopdedooo!! <_<) I came second in my class. I don't mind this, because the guy that beat me has only 50% of his teeth, so he doesn't count. It was only a 1% difference.

Anyway, jokes aside(well, maybe not), today marks the official start of my Christmas holidays.

Here's another funny picture:

Bye People!!

Friday

2007-12-07T19:28:00.000-08:00

Well its finally the end of the week, meaning its time to relax and play Doom 3. This week was hell. I had to rush a Biology project on Wednesday and Thursday night, but hey, it turned out pretty decent so HA! I haven't made any progress on my previous suggestion, instead I decided to delay that for a while and create a game engine for my personal use, using the knowledge I have gathered over the years.I want to write my own physics engine and use openAL and openGL. I also got a new graphics card. Its a halfway decent Chaintech Nvidia GeForce FX 5200, 256 MB 128 bit card. If it really works as well and has half the features it claims it does on the back of the box, then I'm set for the next 2.5 years. So I'm in a pretty good mood. I'll set up the card tomorrow.

Tata,
Gavin

Another Post

2007-12-05T07:24:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm still fairly new to blogging, but I figured I should talk about C++(since I have nothing else to write).

*sigh*

C++ is a programming language. Nuff said.

Okay, I'll try and be more specific than that. C++ is an object oriented, general purpose programming language created by Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup in the early 1980s at Bell Labs. It supports features such as operator overloading, preprocessors, templates, encapsulation and inheritance.

So how does all of this mean remotely anything a man addicted to Pepsi?

Well, as an ardent follower of video games, I should point out that C++ is general purpose, for all the right reasons. C++ can be used to program everything, from operating systems to video games.(I really learnt it for the second reason).

Well, all that aside, Christmas is coming up really fast. I actually hope that this holiday drags along, as when I return to the loop in January, its gonna be nothing but work and sex. Ermm, well mostly work.

This Christmas, I plan to visit friends and family and brush up on my C++, and actually start a useful project. My idea was a COM control to replace Flash.

We all know Flash is good for 2d stuff, and 3d can be faked, but Shockwave is sorta slow and not used much. My idea was to create a COM control based off the Irrlicht Engine(http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net) and openAL. This allows graphics and audio to execute as a control inside a webpage. I was planning to use Python as a scripting language to control all this. I haven't come up with a name yet though, so for now I'll call it Cerberus. Imagine:

Oh well. Oh yeah, Lunatek is the name of my company. It currently has 3 employees. We mostly work on ...nothing. Oh well.

Pepsi calls, ADD is at my door.

Hahaha. I'm on Blogger

2007-12-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

Well I'm finally on Blogger. After a lot of personal introspection and drinking I've decided that this would be a good choice. Do you wanna know more about me?

If so, come back later.

Well, nah, just read my profile.