Gaming, Music, Technology and Me

Hello and welcome to another edition of my atrocious blog!
Today's episode discusses two personal things, and some bits into the news.

This past weekend at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the school I attend, was the Fall Frag Fest, a computer gaming LAN party that ran from Saturday at 10am to Sunday 10am. 24 hour event of intense gaming fun. This year, I've perked myself up in getting involved in things, this year particularly in the LAN organization for RIT's Electronic Gaming Society, who makes these LANs happen. I've jumped in with the ability and willingness on getting free stuff for the LANs. You know, sponsors! Sponsors are wonderful. Sponsors make these kinds of events happen, and they keep bringing people back for more. Sponsors also get their names out for people to develop a fan-base through the event support.
The previous sponsor master has pulled out of the organization, and the school, so my abilities came in at the perfect time. Though, to be honest, for Fall Frag Fest, I was limited due to time frames and work, and I didn't get nearly as many things as I had hoped for, but it was still rather (actually, very!) successful. The event itself was ran with surprising smoothness, as it was a new year, in a new location, with new ideas. Everyone seemed happy, and hopefully will keep coming back to increase the size of this LAN and really get Rochester to be the gaming hub of the east coast.
The next LAN event is coming January 24th, 2009. I'm hoping to get 10x the amount of sponsors and items. Everybody loves the free swag!
http://www.egsrit.com/lan.php

In the news, there's discussions about , a familiar company who is probably most known for memory of the Flash kind, you know, like USB flash sticks, or SD cards. Apparently, SanDisk has some deals with a few of the huge music industries, Walmart, and Best Buy to bring out a new sort of album distribution to pull away from CDs and move into the flash world. This is all sorts of cool, as it can help stores have bigger libraries, and have the potential to fit more content into an album. CDs have been in decline, while things like music phones and other digital players have been increasing, so why not buy an album that you can put into your phone? Pretty cool. The problem is, though, is that I don't see it working. The problem with the micro sized SD cards is that people will lose them. They're tiny, for better and worse. People will be put off by the new technology of it, just like anything else new in technology. But but but, the number one reason? iPods don't have flash expansion ports. You can't put any sort of SD card in pretty much all of the iPods (Does the iPhone have one? I don't know.) Many other MP3 players do, but we all know the iPod has market domination. So, good luck to SanDisk in their endeavors. Hopefully Samsung won't forcefully buy them out, as the news has poked at also.

A short blurb of more news, the new physicist love toy, the Large Hadron Collider, recently had a hardware error. Some magnets and complimentary components failed, putting the LHC on a 2 month hold. So, looks like we won't all be dying in October. Looks like it'll be closer to Christmas.

This last part is about myself, so feel free to stop reading.
I've been alright. The weekend was tiring, and last week was screwed up. Too many classes were cancelled and I've gotten all sorts of messed up. My internet marketing book never came, and I just got the refund check for it, so now I have to go buy it elsewhere. What a pain in the arse. Already week 4? I'm lagging behind, and really need to play catch up, so some stress here and there.

Thanks for reading!

41q is a sweet! :D
http://www.41q.com/type.41q?p=13577556

Spore

Oh my god, Spore.

School, People, Politics and Google

Another school year, another attempt at making this blog worth something.
I'm back at school. Third year at the Rochester Institute of Technology. My god, 2 years already done? Sheesh. I'm taking the introductory class to my new major, Electrical Engineering Technology. This is important (and funny) because I already have credits for the new few courses in this sequence. Har har, easy-peasy.


People stink. At least, the folks I know at this school. I don't know what it is... I have such insanely amazing friends at home, hanging out with them at least twice a week, loads of fun, never hating a moment. Then I come here, and I don't have anything even close. My roommates are pretty cool, the better friend being Tony, but we don't do a whole lot. As for other folks I know, it seems all of them are the "Hey! Let's hang out/do something/be awesome together" kind of people, but whenever I invite them to something, or looking to hang out, they're busy with one thing or another. Any time they're not busy, or they're doing something cool, they don't bother inviting me. Do I smell bad or something? D: I sure hope not. I'm not as bad as media and politicians as of late, though.


The political news as of late has been all over Republican candidate John McCain's choice of Vice-President, Sarah Palin.

I can't say I've ever heard of her before this choice, but the news about her is consistently saying she's not too dandy. Palin is the governor of Alaska, somewhat wealthy, gun owner, pro-drilling, and anti-abortion, among many other things. Much like Senator McCain, I can't say I like Governor Palin. Not only on base choices, but the way she goes about things hasn't been marking up on her (though, kudos to her for openly stating that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant out of wedlock, and no-kudos to her for having a 17 year old daughter that is pregnant out of wedlock.). Oh, and apparently, the first day of the Republican convention was a bit overseen due to the pregnancy news and the riot arrests from protestors outside of the convention. Not looking good, GOP.
On the other half, the Obama Campaign still looks pretty good. Obama made up for his spited lack of general experience, especially in foreign policy, by picking his running-mate to be Joe Biden. Senator Biden is a respectable member of the Congress, as he's been on it since 1972 or so, along with making some foreign policy committee happen in there. The democratic campaign looks extremely positive, and with a successful convention and the backing of Hillary Clinton, I hope to see the democratic win.

Even though I'd rather see Kucinich in office, or even Ron Paul for something interesting. Also random, candidates like their blue backgrounds for their signs.


The last of my opinionated news is about Google. Google is an amazing company, seems to have their minds in the right place, and continue to grow at an exceptionally good rate has released a new product for a somewhat new market of competition.

Meet Google Chrome, the new, rather sexy internet web browser. It's incredibly sleek, loads up rather successfully, and surprisingly strong for a first release beta. It uses a WebKit base, with influence from Mozilla and other sources. I'm expecting a lot out of it, once it really begins to develop, and I hope to see a strong community behind it to take advantage of the open-source wonder. I highly suggest checking it out!

Today, 10pm Pacific!

I Would Like to Inform You

About the best movie in the world: Iron Man.

If you haven't seen it. Go. Right now. When you come back, read the next line of text.

Wasn't it freaking awesome?!

Doorman is God

I just joined my first gaming clan! Doorman is God is a relatively huge FPS-gaming clan with servers on all sorts of popular games. I applied for their Team Fortress 2 fun, and got accepted! I'm gunna do my best and be cool for 'em. First time for everything.

Forever!

Hello Nobody!
It's time for a random update once again! How long has it been? Too long. Sweet.
Anyways, here's my new set of life.
I've changed majors! (Need to update some profiles.) I left the Microelectronic Engineering department at RIT, and now I'm in the Electrical Engineering Technology major, which seems much more fun and has a kinder, more social set of people in it. Pretty sweet. More hands on stuff, less coating machines to wait for.
Costume? I'm fixing up the Gordon Freeman costume again. Its actually making a triumphant return for the Official UK Xbox Magazine this time! (They freaking LOVE me there, or something). I'll be fixing it up and wearing it in Cleveland for a photoshoot for the magazine in April. As for a new costume, I've been slowly working on the most epic thing come to my hands, a Rosie-type Big Daddy from Bioshock! zomg! It may be in that magazine too... if I can get it done... ugh.
Back in December, I got back together with an ex from some years ago (loooong story), and so far, we've been doing amazingly, and I couldn't be happier! :D
I've come to realize that when I throw out information about myself like this, the thoughts are scattered and never in any sort of flowing order. Oh well, deal with it. Nobody reads this anyways.

So, some thoughts!
US Elections: My god, these elections suck once again. It's not nearly as bad as 2004, but still, I am not pleased at all. The ticket is either the woman, the black guy, or the republican. Of course, there's so much more to each candidate than those factors, but nobody cares that much. I'm once again not pleased with any of the leading candidates (I want my Kucinich ;-;). I guess Obama may be my favorite of the three, but that's like saying I'd rather be executed by gunfire, instead of hanging or the electric chair.
Video Games: Spore's coming in November! Brawl is fun, and I'm still hooked on Team Fortress 2. Besides that, and was playing World of Warcraft again, I don't have much. Games are still fun.

I still want to keep up, I really need to make the attempt to just throw my thoughts down onto here whenever I have them. Maybe I will. Keep checking, Nobody!

The AnimeNewsNetwork!

Alright! My little feature over at the Anime News Network has been finally put up! The article was, infact, written by me and my miserable writing, but edited and posted by the interesting folks at ANN.

Here's the link!

Enjoy the read, nobody!

New blog stuff! Woo!

Hello blog world!
It's that time again that I talk about something to a bunch of nothing. (Seriously, I don't think anyone reads this blog. Ever.)
Today: It's a lot of things

I'm in my differential equations class right now, getting near the end of my third attempt at the class. I don't know what it is, but I just cannot pass this class. I never understand anything as soon as a test come around.
Now, I know what you're thinking, nobody, is that "If you're failing so much, why are you blogging in class?" Well nobody, that's a wonderful question! I don't know what in hell he's talking about. Simple as that. :D


I bought myself a PSP lately. The new sexy slim one, and it's silver. It's so awesome. I love it. The interface of the thing is so elegant and pretty, along with the system itself being surprisingly fast. I picked up Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, Final Fantasy I: Anniversary Edition, Final Fantasy II: Anniversary Edition, and Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lions War. They're all so beautiful, even though I've been very biased to Disgaea lately, as it's an absolutely wonderful game (virtual carbon copy of the PS2 version Hour of Darkness, just has more stuff now, like an Etna storyline mode which I'm definitely gunna be pulling once I beat the original story again). Final Fantasy I and II are gorgeous, for what they're worth. The graphics are revamped yet again for the PSP, and it just looks so good, particularly compared to their 8bit originals.
For you nobodies who are Nintendo DS fanboys, don't worry. I've had one of those since the Lite came out, and I love it too, but PSP has more win for me, with it's epic-sized screen and the pure amount of great RPGs and other games (I need to get Monster Hunter games!)
Oh, and I made some PSP home screen themes, which you can find at http://www.psp-themes.net/ in the games section. They're Portal and Team Fortress 2, and I really like them, at least with my extreme bias towards them.

Speaking of Orange Box games, Orange Box came out since my last blog entry! (Along with tons of other things happening). For those people who don't read this who may not know... the Orange Box is a release from the wonderful game development company known as Valve, most known for the Half-Life series of games. The Orange Box was a pack release that included Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The Half-Life games are wonderful and very dear to me (w00t for my Gordon Freeman costume all over the internet, and featured in the Official Playstation Magazine UK edition!), I'm just going to talk about Portal and Team Fortress 2.
First off: Portal. The basic idea of Portal was being a puzzle game using Valve's powerful Source physics engine. You are a sort of test subject in some mysterious lab who has to go through all sorts of puzzles using portals, and eventually, your very own portal-making gun. The Portal gun allows you to make two portals, which you can in and out of freely, but you can only have two entrances at a time. The puzzles use everything from critical thinking, to strategic timing, and sometimes just pure luck. The game was beautifully made. The soundtrack was perfect, the visuals were stunningly perfect for the feeling of the game, and the script writing was just absolutely fantastic. There's a bit of story to the game, and it just kicks ass. The gameplay itself is insanely fun, using physics in ways you never thought of before, such as falling a long distance into a portal in order to launch out the exit portal on a wall somewhere so you could get over a large, deadly hole. I'm not giving anything away, you just have to play it. It's seriously an incredibly fun game, all around.
Second: Team Fortress 2. Team Fortress 2, as far as I see it, is in a league of its own in gaming. It's an online multiplayer First-Person Shooter, similar to games like Halo and CounterStrike, but at the same time, nothing near those sorts of games. When people play games like Halo, CounterStrike, or Quake, every character is exactly the same, and it's all up to the skill of the player to see who comes out on top, so if you get in a game with some ub3r-h4dc0r3-l33t-pr0-g4m3r, you don't have a chance, as he'll have rockets flying at you faster than you can say "omfgh4x!" Anyways, the Team Fortress games tried to stay away from the typical online shooter, sticking towards something like the Battlefield series, where you have different classes of characters with different abilities. Though, even the Battlefield series was still a pretty much even shoot-to-kill field character wise, just that the different characters had minorly different guns and some different special items. Team Fortress is much different, especially in Team Fortress 2. The different characters you can play in Team Fortress 2 are on the Team Fortress 2 Wikipedia, just look it up, because there's too much for me to say if nobody's going to read this. The gameplay itself is definitely team-based, hence the name, in that you can't just have one person completely winning the game for and against everyone. Some classes are better for certain situations, and crippled in others (A Pyro in water cant use his flamethrower, a Heavy is a HUGE sitting duck in an open field, a Sniper usually stands still for a second while they snipe for the spy behind him to get the backstab.) It's fun. You should play the game, my Steam name is Norumu, so hit me up on there, nobody! :D

Halloween was recently too, and I did a Team Fortress 2 costume, a Red Team Soldier.

As most of my cosplay, it was made out of duct tape, my prime source of energy and dark plans for taking over the world. If you want a quick look at why I'm so Team Fortress 2 obsessed, take a look on YouTube for all sorts of Team Fortress 2 trailers, especially the main trailer and the "Meet the Class" series. (So far, there's Meet the Heavy, Meet the Soldier, and Meet the Demoman.) The videos are hilarious, and gives great personality to the game, just making it that much more fun!

More on cosplay: I'm finally starting my big project for this year. I haven't announced this anywhere else, except to my friends and whatnot, and since nobody reads this blog, it's safe to say it here. I'm doing a BioShock Big Daddy costume, particularly the Rosie type, while my best friend is being the Bouncer, and a very small friend of ours is being our Little Sister for Anime Central 2008. :D It will hopefully be the most epic thing I've ever done. I sure hope so.

Well, nobody who reads this, that's all I got for today. As usual, I hope to update more, and maybe I will, especially of someone reads this. If there is someone who does, let me know, I'd love to hear from you! :D