Monday, March 24, 2008

Busizzy in the Hizzouse

It's interesting. Today we had this beautiful mix of sun and clouds for most of the day. It gave us a pretty sunset too. But there was something about it that... Put me in a funny mood. Something part anxious, something part regretful or depressed. I can't put a date or occasion to the feeling, but it certainly was something that happened a while ago on one of our humid summer nights. Something that happened to a different person, really. I know I'm young and naive... But it felt like a lifetime ago. Hm.

Moving on to real life - HOLY CRAP. I am soooo busy. Lots of school projects/assignment/presentations are becoming due at once, and I'm trying my best to get them done. Add some ad(s) that need to be done, passport to figure out, and plane tickets to order... You could say I'm swamped. Which leads me to the next point...

DAMN YOU Frank. A good TV show was about the last thing I could've possibly needed right about now. I'm a season and a half into 4400. I'm enjoying it so far, but it kinda sucks that I know I'll be walking into a dead end (I found out the series got cancelled). So there's that to watch, as well as Battlestar Galactica and the Office which start in April. Maybe Heroes too? Hm.

There's also Trigun and Ocean's Eleven. But they're on the iPod Touch, don'tcha know. been having lots of adventure with the little device. Oh! Let me take a step back. I got my iPod! Wooooo! It's really awesome - I'm especially blown by the web browsing, which works so beautifully. Then there's video playing. It took me a while to get that figured out so that I can quickly/easily convert files to play on the darn thing. iTunes SUCKS at that, it takes forever. Enter "Videora iPod Converter" and a wasted afternoon, and it's all running smoothly. Overall the Touch is a marvelous piece of technology. But I have two gripes: First, it's impossible to use without two hands and your complete attention. I like how the normal iPod can skip, pause, etc just by pressing a button. You need to look at the screen in order to accomplish anything with the Touch. And last, it is so underutilized. The device has so much potential, it's a shame you have to jailbreak it (which I want to avoid for being-paranoid-about-the-warranty sake) to get access to additional programs. I guess we'll see how the official SDK goes over, and if there are any free programs for it.

And for this week's art, something that I actually drew earlier in the week but matches my current mood:


It's alright, I personally did some better stuff during the past week. But like I said, it matches my current mood a bit. But if y'alls wanna see more, go to my flickr page.

And that's all for this week. Gunna go wind down and watch some 4400, yo.
-Cril

Angels fly in the air tonight.
Saying, Wasn't it just like swimming
Out on the lake?
Stars collide, and the air's alive.
Or was it just like those promises that you made
On our last night?

Better Than Ezra - Our Last Night

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Group Projects

I hate them, I really do. Sure, on the plus side the other members finally sent me what they had done. And hey - despite having one or two empty sections, we do (barely) meet the required report length. And so now we're down to the crunch - a few more pages to write, appendix to put together, and references to gather before it needs to be handed in in a week and a half. On the down side, however, the presentations are due on the same day. If we want to rehearse anytime before the day we present, they need to plan and get their slides to me ASAP so I can put it together. Gotta love being the only one in a group who is fairly computer literate. Ugh. I sent them emails saying "here's what I need and soon" on Thursday and have yet to hear anything back. Sigh.

Today I got a good chunk of my MACS project completed, though. Because I'm the only one working on it I'm significantly less stressed. I probably put 2 hours into research today, all I have to do is arrange it into a presentation-friendly format. Find some YouTube clips to throw in for good measure, and I should be good to go. It's scary, though, how soon these things will be due. I can't believe the semester is drawing to a close.



Wee, an eye study! I have to say that I'm pretty surprised at how well it turned out. I like it. Anyways, I kept going as the week progressed, and things kind got out of hand. By the end I had probably put about 4-5hrs in (so much for a "sketch"). I oh-so-briefly contemplated the idea of continuing and adding a body... And then I decided I'd rather keep my sanity. Overall, let's 'face' it, the final result is fugly. But I'm pleased with the process. I think it was quite a successful face study, something that I really benefited from doing. It makes me amazed to know that some people can do a bajillion times better in just twenty minutes of work (a true "sketch").

Anyways, I waited all week and the iPod never showed. That's ok, the delivery estimate says it'll be tomorrow anyways. Couldn't help but hope something magical might happen.
-Cril

She was underwhelmed
If that's a word
I know it's not
'Cause I looked it up
That's one of those skills
That I learned in my school
I was overwhelmed
And I'm sure of that one
'Cause I learned it
Back in grade school
When I was young
She said, "You is funny"
I said, "You are funny"
She said, "Thank you"
And I said, "Never mind"
And she rolled her eyes
Her beautiful eyes
The point is not the grammar
It's the feeling
That is certainly in my heart
But not in hers

Sloan - Underwhelmed

Monday, March 10, 2008

Surf surf surf

Mark my words: Casual video games that excel at "wasting just a bit of time" will be the ultimate downfall of all life on Earth. I pirated AudioSurf on Friday night, and spent most of Saturday playing. Damn fine game. I admit I didn't 'get it' by watching the many YouTube videos that showed it. It looked kinda lame and boring... But because of all the good things I've heard about it, I downloaded it and gave it a go. And boy was I surprised - it's an incredibly satisfying game to play. Sure, some songs play better than others, but you always find yourself going "ohhh, one more song..." And before you know it, goodbye afternoon. The online scoreboards only make things worse. "UserX has dethroned your top score on Hell March 2". Of course I had to show him up. And boy, did I show him up. Gah, I don't really know/want to know how much time I've spent over the weekend on that game. ... 9.5 hours, apparently. Thanks, Steam Community profiles.

Anyways, this weeks art kind of surprised me. I said to myself, "Boy, I really don't know how to draw an eye." So I Google'd "eye", grabbed one of the first image results for a reference, and voila:



It took me a good 30-45 minutes, but quite frankly I'm blown away by the results. Sure, it ain't perfect, but it actually looks like the part of maybe a possible almost life-like type of facial object. Maybe I should do a nose next. And then a mouth. Then copy and paste another eye. And then maybe I'll have something really interesting...
-Cril

Do what we can
Won't worry tomorrow
Kick in the countdown
Saddled up and sanctified

Get 9
Get 9
Save your soul
Better make up your mind
Save your soul
Or you're gonna get do time
'Cause we're hot
Too cool
So tight
So fine
Hyper cyberdelic and gold
Get 9

Yoko Kanno - GET9

Sunday, March 02, 2008

All the lonely people

Another week, another... Weekend.

...

BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING!

Anydangway, the deadline for our the Business project is drawing closer. While I feel that I have pretty good team mates who do their work on time... I've yet to actually see what they've done. It's my job for the week to start putting together the whole written report from what we've all assembled. I've yet to actually receive anything, and to be honest I'm a little bit fearful that the quality (or even quantity) of work will be lacking. Perhaps that's a bit elitist of me, but I can't help but worry that we'll get down to a few weeks from handing it in and I'll be scrambling to double the report length and clean out the cut-and-pastes from Wikipedia. Sigh.

Not much else is going on at the moment... I've been experiencing a quick rash of Blue Screens o' Death. I figured out how to access the stop codes (Thanks Frank!), but upon searching for their meaning I can't quite find one unifying issue that could be the source of the problem. Frank also told me a few things to try, which I'll give a go at tomorrow. But if I were to guess, something tells me it has to do with the mobo or the drivers thereof. It sure has been a while since I last formatted, and there's no doubt piles of crappy programs and old drivers floating around that could be cleaned out. We'll see though - I want to restructure my partitions, and with how cheap hard drives are these days I'd probably want a new (larger) one. And two new optical drives while I'm at it. Humph.

And speaking of buying electronics, I think I've decided to buy me an 8GB iPod Touch. I'm not going to get it asap, I have to get over the hurdle of final projects and then exams before any fun/new tech will be safe to play with. Probably once I get my first paycheck from summer work I'll get one. Better yet if I can find one on sale. Either way, though, I'll be able to do something funky with the laser engraver at work. I kind of wish I didn't need to upgrade, it is after all a ~$270 item. Alas, my Mini's battery is on the fritz again. Those things have such crappy quality. I should make sure I get some kind of extended warranty for the new unit. Or... I have two other options, really. I could replace my Mini's battery (again), and try to drag as much life as I can out of the beat up lil' bugger, or I could get a fugly 8GB nano for $70 cheaper. OR, I could get an 80GB Classic for $20 cheaper. Really... I think I'm most tempted by the touch, because of the big screen and other perks. I'm happy with my iPod Mini, but I'm afraid fixing the battery will be an unnecessary expense due to some other, unrepairable function crapping out. I've had brief problems with the screen, connection, and scroll wheel so far. With the shape the unit is in, there's no surprise if one of those problems comes back permanently. One thing is for sure though, I'll get a good case for whatever unit I decide on. I can't believe how much of a beating the unit has taken and how tattered my current case is. And I further can't believe I just spent so long talking about frikkin' iPods. Now, on with our regularly scheduled programming.

Every second week me and Frank sketch something from the same topic. This week, the criteria was "drawing a line of lyrics from a favourite song". It's more of an experiment in seeing how we interpret the topic than how the piece itself turns out. And so, can YOU guess the song?



And with that, I bid you adieu. Who ever you are that sits here and puts a conscious effort to work your way through a jumbled mess of random thoughts and rants.
-Cril

Eleanor Rigby
Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby