College, Round 4..... [ posted August 27th, 2003 ]

Well, school has started again, and I am LSU's bitch again. Bah... I wish summer lasted forever!

Time Lost, Daze of the Summer [ posted August 4th, 2003 ]

It's been a busy few weeks. Not that i can really complain, it's just that I wish that the cuold have been better. I ordered my PC parts on the 17th and they finally arrived on the 26th. Well, unfortunatly for me, my old computer's case was not a standard ATX case, but a stamped steal case. All in all it cost me an extra $300 US to build my new computer because I build a completely new PC. The finalized specs

AMD 2700+

Geil 3200 DDR 1.024GB RAM

60GB Western Digital 7200RPM HDD

16x SONY DVD-ROM Drive

52x24x52 Memorex CD-R/RW Drive

MSI K7 nForce 2 based board

ATI 9000 Pro 128 board (old board, gettng a new one this holiday season)

Lan-boy Aluminum Case with 2 blue led fans

Shortly after I had put the computer together, I got a scary call from my girlfriend. The grocery store that she worked at got robbed. She and Lori (her freind) were working and were held at gun point while they were robbed. the rest of the lost time has pretty much been me trying to help Lisa calm down after the incident, but she is still shaken up.

But not all bad things have been going. This past Sunday my mother and I went to Hammond to visit with my grandfather, Aunt, and my cousins. It was a nice visit. I wish that they lived closer

Also, I havent forgotten about the HL how to tutorial, but I just cant getthe game to run correctly under wine, I may try wineX, but if not, I might end up just scraping the idea and start on a couple other games instead.

Last, but not least, I am dreading my fourth year of college as it quickly approches. not to mention I am still poor. Oh, well I guess it's time to take out a loan.....

Long Days [ posted July 16th, 2003 ]

Not much been going on lately in my personal life. It's been pretty much work and nothing else. Either Lisa or I is at work, and since she usually works evening/night (7:30) by the time we can do anything it's already 8:30 PM and I am in bed by 11:00PM (gotta get up for work at 6:30 AM). Tonight, hopefully we will be able to go see a movie.

The week has been pretty slow. By slow I mean mind numbingly slow. I have been putting some work into another HowTo for linux, I think ya'll might know the game "Half-Life". I havent gotten all the bugs out of it right now, but I am still working on it. I need to update the game to the most current version and then I will try to play on-line. Last night I did try to play the single player game, but it gave me a weird error that it could not read the disk. I made an exact copy of my Half-Life disk, same thing. I am going to work on that tonight. I did post the Starcraft How To, it's in the Linux section, and I made a couple of tweaks. I am thinking about writing a bash script that will load the game from a shortcut, instead of havingto manually go to the SC directory every time also giving the choice between full screen and windowed modes. Once I finishthe Half-Life How To I havent decided on the next game, possibly Warcraft 3 or Total Annhilation (my Fav RTS). I guess time will tell.

Funny image, well at least I thought it was funny:

Old Friends, Good Memories [ posted July 13th, 2003 ]

It was good to see Laurel again. She was one of Courtney, Jeff, and I's good friends who transfered to ULL after coming to LSU for one year. Looking back on it I am glad she moved back home because since then she has had a lot of medical problems. Anyway, we all had fun. We ate lunch at Chilies and then just bummed around the mall and Barnes and Nobles (again!). I went in and had to buy some more books.... actually I bought 3 (buy 2 get the 3rd free).

Also, I have written two how to's. In fact one is part of t he other. I wrote an updated Starcraft How To. Most of them out there DO NOT WORK anymore because wine has dropped the "--winver winxx" option. the other how to is "How to Compile Wine and make a viable Fake Windows System". That one was easy because in order to install Starcraft you have to have a viable fake windows system. Anyway, those will probably be up today or tomorrow because the Word (Oppen Office) Document is on my laptop, and alas isnt on so I cant ssh into it.

Dinner and a Movie [ posted July 12th, 2003 ]

Last night was fun. Lisa and I went to Olive Garden for dinner and then went to the Citiplace movie theater to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. It was pretty good movie. While waiting for the movie time to roll around we went to Barnes and Nobles (across the parking lot). This is where I discovered once again I am a book whore. I thought that I had lost the joy of reading back in high school when they forced me to read "Pride and Predjuce", "Little Women", and "The Curcible" books that I completely hated. Granted that I read the whole Lord of the Rings series and the hobbit before 7th grade and started the Dune saga before 9th, I thought that those books killed it. I was wrong. I Picked up about $70 worth of books from the Bargin Bins ($4-$6 each). I forced myself to put them all back except for "The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe". Well I am off to Laffyette.

Another Slow Day [ posted July 11th, 2003 ]

Another slow day. I wish work would pick up, but all the rain isnt helping too much. I wrote a peom, I was thinking about Neal and Meredieth and how luck she was that Neal didnt get hurt in Iraq. I wrote a poem about a soldier not coming home. You can read it here. Lisa is going to take me out tonight, and tomorrow I am going to Laffyette to visit some friends that transfered to ULL from LSU.

Slow Day [ posted July 9th, 2003 ]

Nothing much really new to post. It's just been a slow day. I did review Pop Cap game's Bookworm. Feel free to read it.

Two intersting things..... [ posted July 8th, 2003 ]

This is going to be short and brief, but I thought that they were interesting. First was todays Dilbert comic right here:

The second interesting thing was an article on slashdot.org with a SCO vs IBM outcome matrix. I see the matrix as short sighted because in all the possible outcome Linux is ubeffected, which is not true. If the judge rules the GPL is an invalid contract, linux might be in a world of hurt.

As the world turns.... [ posted July 7th, 2003 ]

Well it's that time again, and I've been busy, but I am updating the page a little more. I am going to add a new section called "projects", no there is nothing there yet, but there soon will be. Right now I have a few on the drawing board (well more like my drafting table). So far I have drawn up the designs for my new computer desk. It will have a dual tower rack and a space for me to slip my laptop. Why dual tower? Well currently that is what my desktop is and I am going to build a new tower come September when the AMD Althon 64 chip is released to the public (I guess I forgot that the new tower is my second project) and my old tower (1.2Ghz) will become a game server. Not only that, but also, I am planning on writing a simple game is C/C++ just for the hell of it and also to try to get myself use to writing games/code again. I will probably write a new pong program from scratch (which would be my third project). Plus I have started to design another game, that will be multiplayer that is kind of like Magic the Gathering, but free, and open source. Sure people will ask about how will the game be challenging, where are the unique cards. Well the unique cards will be offered as prizes, or given away, or if you register your ID you get 10-15 randomly picked unique characters, and there will be other ways to get them.

I also must apologize about not reviewing GTA:VC... yet, but I have a simple explanation. I havent had time to finish the game. Real life (I had the flu for a week and a half), family, girlfriend, and holidays all take away time from playing a game. I might post some web-game reviews, because, lets face it thats pretty much all I can play at work. Later

Happy  4th of July Guys [ posted July 4th, 2003 ]

Happy fourth of July.  Today we Americans celebrate our independance, but all must remember the sacrafices of our friends and family both past and present who have fought and died for our freedom.  I have three veterans in my family alive right now, and my best friend is in Kuwait (USMC) who supplied and fought along side of the 1st Armored Tank Division.  I pray you get home safe Neal, and I know Meredieth miss you too.  While you are setting off you fireworks or watching a firework dispaly over the river, remember what those fireworks really stand for: bomb, missles, mortor, the struggle for life and death, and the preservation of our way of life.  One thing I need to say to anyone who against war. It's fine to be against an unjust war, it's fine to protest, but give the soldiers who are risking their life the utmost respect, because it is NOT their choice to fight the fight, they have been ordered to fight.  If anyone says a soldier is a cold hearted killer, I know that to be a bold face lie.  Killing someone gets to everyone, even the soldiers, because once the fight is over, the soldier like any other mortal human being,  will feel sick and distrubed by what they have done.  Semper Fi!

..Lost but Now Found [ posted July 1st, 2003 ]

So where have I been for the past half-a-month? Woudl you beleive me if I told you laying in my bed. Well thats where I have been pretty much. I had the flu, and with the flu, I missed work and my trip to Nashville for a week. I am a little cross and bitter, but not that much. It's just that I am not use to being sick.... as in 102 F fever for six days straight sick. But alas I am here again. The only real bright spot was last Saturday Lisa and I went to the local comedy club and saw the two great stand up comedians that were performing that night.Oh and just because I didnt update the news doesnt mean that nothing on the site was updated. In fact there has been a lot of updates, just check the linux and code sections of the page. In the Linux section there are three new FAQs and two reference guides. In the code section code from my CS 1250 and CS 1251 classes are up. Word of warning, if you dont know how to program, the 1251 proggrams are going to be greek to you. Right now I am designing a new computer desk and am getting ready to build a new computer. Expect to see a "Projects" section added to the page once I start working on them. And yes, there will be a step-by-step guide on their completion.

Linux Hacking has saved me a headache again [ posted June 13th, 2003 ]

Well it's been another wonderful week. I decided to try to dual boot my laptop... well that didn't work because the only way to get Windows XP on it is to use the Restoration CD's, which as it turns out will fail if you DO NOT let it rewrite the partition record. Then yesterday, I came home after a long day at work, to tired to really do anything and was waiting for Lisa to get off of work. Well I sit down at my desktop top and boot it up. Bios etc etc were ok but as soon as it tried to load windows.. Bam I get "99 99 99 99 99 99..." across the screen then a message saying that it could not read my partition. So I did what any techie would do... use Linux to solve my problem. SO I installed RH7.3 (the only version of any distro with a 2.4.X kernel that doesn't not lock) and then booted up in CLI signed on in root and hacked my GRUB registry and forced it to find my Windows XP partition. Edited GRUB with VI, saved and then rebooted. Low and behold, I can run Windows XP again without losing my GTA:VC and most of my important documents. This leads me to a question for MS. How good can your software be when I can fix it with something that is free?

I am a Sex on the Beach:
"You're a Sex on the Beach! Your party-hard eccentricity is exceeded only by your urge to hump like a rabbit. You live by the 'Sex, or be sexed' motto"

Bored.... [ posted June 10th, 2003 ]

	*dragoon* a master of the spear and lance. quiet; loyal; dedicated
[Final Fantasy Tactics Job Class]

Bored.... [ posted June 9th, 2003 ]

Today has been an interesting day. Well not really interesting but something to keep my mind occupied while I try to remain conscious. Nothing extremely great to write about. I am thinking about writing a review on Metroid Prime and some other games that I have beaten and not voiced my opinions. Anyway, I was thinking about selling either my Xbox or my GCN and using that money to buy parts for a new PC. Even though I already have $500 US saved up for a new PC. I am going to put some stuff up for sale soon, and will probably use C2it by citiback and my perfered method of payment after hearing about the horror stories with paypal. But neither payment option is best, I just dont not want my checking account to be robbed blind by some asshole who rips me off. I have been designing my new computer desk using the old tried and true method of drafting I learned for two years in high school instead of AutoCAD 2002 with will not let me rotate my drawing so I can see it from the top, right and front views.... pardon me while I use a pencil. Also I am thinking about putting something on the site for donations since I am a very poor college student who works for LSU.... let me put it this way, what LSU pays me in a semester does not cover my books, tution and gas. I will also probably put up a frontend page just for the reviews and articles. It will probably be called something along the lines of Game.Shadow. Anyway, back to work.

P.S
I added an archive of my old news/blog entries.

A new week part 2
posted June 8th, 2003.