"I swear to God, if I even feel somebody behind me, there is no measure to how fast and how hard I will bring this fight to your doorstep. I'm on my own side now."

Well its Thanksgiving, and I'm in Florida. See, flying home is expensive, and about a week or two after Thanksgiving break is Winter break, so flying home is pretty dumb. So I sit around here on an empty campus for 5 or 6 days and relax. Sure, it get a little lonely, but being able to relax is well worth it after the last couple weeks. As for T-day dinner I just walk over to the Tallman Commons buffet. They serve up a nice all you can eat Thanksgiving meal. I don't eat a whole lot of it though, not real big on the traditional food. As for food for the rest of the week, since the buffet is the only place open all week, I went grocery shopping at Walmart. Alas the choices were limited since I only have a microwave to cook.

The new Battlefield 2 Expansion pack came out, along with it came a new patch for the normal version. As I found out for myself, this new patch, once installed, took up about 3 gigs of harddrive space. This required me to go through my hard drive once again and clean it out. The patch isn't too impressive. The new unlockable weapons are nice...for the new kids. Those of us that have been around a while can't earn unlocks every day, its just too many points between the higher ranks. The new ranking adjustment some predicted didn't occur either. So pretty much the patch added weapons, and left all the old bugs.

About a week or so ago I bought an "el cheapo" game called Strike Fighters: Project One. It didn't used to be el cheapo, but a screwed up release by its publisher caused many folks to dislike it initially, thus earning it a solid place in the bargain bin. True fans though saw it for what it was and bought the fixed version. So what is it? Basically a realistic and fun combat flight simulator that centers on the cold war era. However, it was released with the intent that it would be heavily modified by the fan community into whatever they desired. Add to that the creator's undying support for the game, no less then 5 updates have been released, each adding more content and another is in the works. This game came upon me at a time when I was craving a combat flight sim that I could customize. Anyway, I seriously give this thing a 5 out of 5. I'm not even kidding.

"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."

Bleh, Mondays blow.

Weekend summary then some actual useful stuff. I'm currently not working on a project rough draft which is due in the morning. Heh.

Saturday night we hit up Deland but the place was dead. Yeah...that was Saturday, exciting.

Sunday we went and played paintball. We just had 4 guys so it was 2 on 2. Me and Mike (the Irishman) dominated both rounds. First round Mike got one guy then laid down covering fire on the other while I ran full sprint for a flank. Got around the side and landed some shots, great fun.

Typical Monday today, woke up feeling like absolute crap. Took a lot of energy to go to class. Napped all afternoon.

Wow...why did I even bother writing all that? I could've just said I did nothing all weekend and today. Regardless, moving on with something different.

Finished acquiring a new anime series. As to how I would acquire it refer to the title of this particular Blogspot.

The series in question is titled Area 88. Its a remake of another series which was made back in the early-mid 80's. As far as the original series goes I've read that it was pretty good, pity it was never released on DVD or brought to the States. As usual its all based on a Manga, one which I'm not too fond of because of its character design style. Anyway, I'm off track, this is a review of the new series as a whole.

All characters in the new series recieved a facelift. The main character, Shin, retained his..."interesting" 80's anime hair style, but at least he doesn't look like a woman anymore. All the aircraft are done in 3D with a cartoon texture style applied. It comes off very well. Animations on characters is kinda weak. A lot of the 80's styles are retained there, I found myself thinking of G.I. Joe a lot. The air battles on the other hand are something else. The aircraft are depicted very well in the air, they have a sense of weight and balance that can be lost in 3D animation.

Storyline wise (I won't go into any of the details, at all) the story retells the 80's series as far as I can tell. Certain characters are given more wieght while others lose some. Overall the story doesn't come off too predictable. The mini-stories throughout are well thought out too.

My personal favorite parts of the series are the aerial combat sequences. Now, those who know me are thinking "of course" but bear with me. For a little known anime series the dogfights are really realistic. The things the pilots do make a lot of sense and almost replicate what their real world counterparts would do. Plus the series mixes in some great techno beat music that help drive the combat.

In the end I think Area 88 is a decent anime series. I'd like to see more of it, especially since the quality was improving toward the end of the series. While its not the greatest series ever, I believe it deserves space on my hard drive more-so then Gundam Seed Destiny, that might not be saying much though.

"I love a woman who can kick my ass."

How about a weekend report? Okay.

Friday afternoon we went and saw Jarhead. Interesting movie, I'm glad it did a better job of telling the story then the book supposedly did. Some parts seemed a little foggy on whether or not they could have been true. Overall it seemed like a good account of life for a soldier in the Gulf War. I think its worth seeing just so people understand more what life is like for the soldiers.

After we got back from the movie Jeff and Ryan invited us to go out to Deland with them. So we tagged along to the club and bar. Half Times (the club) sucked, never liked the place anyway. The Blue Martini (the bar) was awesome, by the end of the night it was packed with chicks. Ryan got wicked drunk and Jeff and to take him back home in Matt's RSX. 5 minutes down the road Ryan threw up. Matt and the two freshmen that tagged along got buzzed so once Jeff got back I drove Jeff's truck back with the freshmen. Laughed at Ryan when we got back, he was passed out in his bed covered in puke.

The next morning we got up early (early being 11am) and went out to a paintball field Jeff and Matt had found for us. When we got there the Scenario Paintball Team was there playing. They invited us to join them so we did. They kicked our asses. They had radios and lots of long range guys, within 30 seconds of contact they had us surrounded. It was good fun though, and we offered to be their OPFOR (opposing force) on Saturdays to help them practice. Played a few more rounds with some Scenario and Tourney kids. I had a perfect sniping position and was about to lay down some paint on the other team when I pull the trigger and nothing happened. I had run out of CO2. My backup tank ran out of air the next round too. Oh well.

The rest of the weekend was spent lazing about. I should have done lots of homework on Sunday but just couldn't bring myself to do it. Right now I'm in 3 simultaneous group projects. This is my punishment for taking an 18 credit semester of General Education classes. Of course 2 of them are due before Thanksgiving Break. I don't know why teachers are so damned obsessed with making everything due then, its really stressful on all the students.

Thats all.

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a most painful death."

Quicky update, I mean it this time.

First, the Black Pearl has been entered in a sailing race by Disney. No word on whether she's captained by Mr. Sparrow or not. Courtesy of my sis Jenn, always on top of important world news.

Second, big news. I'm a hypocrite. But just this once. Turns out I actually like watching the Harry Potter movies. I've watched all three this week, just finished watching the third tonight. Even popped popcorn for it. Now if I could just find someone down here to go to the 4th one with me.

I'm still not reading the damn books though.

Lastly, here's a sloppy, belated, halloween sketch.

"Oh, and by the way, I don't get my skills from a pocketwatch."

Short update today.

I recieved my first ever care package in the 3 years I've been at college. Horrible parents? No, I actually told them I didn't want care packages sent. Reason being that 90% of a care package is non-healthy food, which, if it is within my immediate area and I'm bored, will be consumed at an alarming rate. In fact, I don't even keep snacks in my dorm room.

Now, the real update, tech stuff.

You'll take note that at the bottom of my blog rests my latest HTML accomplishment. This is a forum sig from tehsig which contains nearly up-to-date information on my Battlefield 2 status. Integrating a forum sig into blog HTML was interesting to say the least. Also, thanks to the customization built into the coding of the sig, it does this neat thing where the background image is random based off a series I created for it. Fun stuff.


Secondly, and possibly last if I don't think of anything else before I'm done typing this paragraph, is the Greatest Keyboard EVER. It uses, or will use, OLEDs to change the image which appears on every key. Why is this useful? Because it can be set up so that when you open a program the keys will display the special functions attached to them by the program. This is most useful for gaming, also for keyboard shortcut intensive programs like Photoshop or 3DS Max. I've already got some ideas floating around of what I'm gonna do with this baby when i get one, hehehe. Now all they have to do is actually produce the damn thing.

Lastly (yeah I thought of something) the problems which have been plaguing BF2 as of late turned out to be the Punkbuster update. Apparently the auto update process was not working correctly. This hasn't solved some of my issues though, so they remain classified as either video card or 1.03 patch problems. My guess on the reason the PB update was causing trouble was because of the hordes of goddamn fucking cheating ass bitches it had to vanquish.

5 shots, 5 kills. It takes skill, not an aimbot.

I don't especially expect anyone to get todays quote, its not from a movie. Not that anyone guessed on any of the previous ones anyway.

"Definitely, mostly not about the girl."

Long weekend, literally. After the absolute longest 3 day school week in history we finally got our homecoming weekend which so perfectly coincides with Halloween. Friday was Jesse's Halloween party, which was fun till it got broken up. Saturday I didn't do a whole lot. Slept forever till the airshow woke me up. Accomplished nothing the rest of the day as far as I can remember.

Finally Sunday. Dragged my ass out of bed around 11 to go take pictures of some of the airshow acts from on top of the College of Aviation building. Got some decent shots, wonky cloud cover made lighting a bitch. Overall the airshow was vastly disappointing. I feel bad for anyone who actually made the full $20 for admittance. It was mostly aerobatic and wing walking acts which, if you've seen one you've seen them all. Pity since the ramp was full of static military displays and we only got to see one military jet in the air.

Watching Constantine right now. Decent movie, funny lines actually. Too bad I had to go to IMDB to actually know what they said half the time. That can be mostly blamed on Riddle Vision's terrible sound quality.

EA's latest BF2 patch has finally reared its ugly head on the rest of the community. It seems I may be right about a long term issue with the patch since the forums are now alight with players reporting crashes and other general mayhem.

Lastly, as was the case with my former blog, all blog titles are quote from movies. Guess the movie if you dare, this one is insanely easy.

That's all, have a safe Halloween and be nice to the little kids.

Shockwave blows smoke

Boom

USAF Heritage Flight

"You know you're on the path to truth when you smell shit, isn't that what they say?"

Good lord its been a while since I touched one of these things. Myspace was without a doubt too much high school drama to use as a decent blog. Its not that I have a whole lot to say these days, just that its nice to have a place to turn to when I want to type something out publicly. Whether its a review, political rant, or just a general journal entry. That being said, lets get started.

The nice and expensive video card I bought this summer with my hard earned cash is overheating within 5 minutes of playing any of the latest games. The exact games I bought the video card to play. After cracking the case and checking things out the conclusion is that the thermal contact between the heat sink and the video card is bad. This means I have to get some thermal paste and apply it to the card between the heat sink and the card. Not something I'm looking forward to. Add to that Battlefield 2's latest errors and crashes which seem to be manifesting on more then just my own computer.

Speaking of Battlefield 2 (segway usage, 10 point bonus, w00t), a week or so ago EA announced a team competition for the game. The final winners will get $20,000 in prizes. Why does this matter in the least bit? Lately my squad (former roomates the German, and the Irishman, and then me) have been grabbing top scores in all the rounds we play. Too bad the team competition is 8 man(or woman if you wish) teams. Course, as I said, with the crashes and errors manifesting themselves in BF2 lately, who knows if we could even play the game for the tournament. I beleive its longterm problems related with the latest 1.03 patch.

Enough tech talk. Hurricane Wilma cancelled classes Monday. Daytona experianced rain and wind in the morning and just wind the rest of the day. The temperature dropped almost 30 degrees. It stayed low today, the temp didn't seem to exceed 60. Very cold when you're used to 80 at the least. The day off of class let me complete my Excell Project, just in time to get started on my next Tech Report Writing project. The scores for my math exam came back today as well. I scored 111% and was labelled a "curve breaker" thus earning me the hatred of anyone with a bad score. Undoubtedly the best score of any math exam I've taken...ever. The extra 11% will come in handy on later tests.

Finally, saw the Doom movie last weekend. For an action movie, its alright. For a movie based on a game, its actually pretty good. My major complaint is that "The Rock" is in it. He should be banned from movies for very obvious reasons. So basically, if you're bored and feel like an action movie, see Doom. Otherwise, avoid it at all costs.

That is all, maybe sketches in the next post.