German Class Canceled

Among other things, but the chief topic of this post happens to be the fact that my German class was canceled today. I was quite surprised, really. There was no prior notice, but a sign had been posted indicating that our instructor's 9:10 class would be canceled.

Anyway, lots of snow, a class was canceled possibly as a result. Have a good day!

Holy Improvement!

Google/IG has some improvements that I really like. It turns out, the display of RSS feeds can now display part of the post from the feed, and it displays the date of the post. This is useful for things like the feed of a webcomic that displays the same title in every post, or for keeping track of how often I post to my own blog.

Speaking of cool things - I've been using /IG to keep track of this webcomic. (Actually, I linked to a specific strip. It shows something I've noticed about people with cellular telephones that take photos, and with point and shoot digital cameras.)

Thoughts on Convenience

I am a bit of a luddite. I absolutely love technology, but when it comes to using it, sometimes I shy away from some of the newer and more adventurous technologies. One of these, has traditionally been digital music players. I was a fairly big fan of tapes, and I still am. However - December, 2006 brought around an interesting new device. I received my own digital music player.

There are basically a few reasons why I have had an aversion to things like digital music players.

• They seem to disconnect people from other physical people.
• I'm sure there's some sort of health issue in there.
• Any digital music players that are worth looking at have traditionally been somewhat costly, for somebody with a fairly modest collection of music.
• I have always thought that it was a bit of a waste to keep my music on my computer, as well as on a portable device.

Naturally, there may have been more, or it may just be my aversion to the way people act when they are using such devices. (the same with cellular telephones.) However, it seems as though what the portable digital music player device category offers is convenience, which is not necessarily a bad thing. A good recent example of this is that I recently needed to make a quick run down the stairs and to the ATM machine at the student union. Before, I would have used my analogue tape player on that mission. Instead, I brought the digital player. What I noticed was that I was just as "disconnected" and would have been so, even if I didn't have headphones on. There simply was nobody for me to talk to. Another interesting thing.

Additionally, I didn't have to, or feel the need to change music sources when I came back and sat down, and if my computer were having some sort of issue, or if I were using another computer, I would have still had access to my music.

I guess that this means I must concede... this digital music player device is fairly nifty, and thus far, I give it a rating of "fairly useful" among the sea of devices I've seen, read about, and had the pleasure to use. Naturally, I'm not dumping the tape player, or the optical disc player, but this has probably succeeded those two devices for music which will play on it. (If, however - I feel like only listening to John Tesh's album "Avalon" (which I have on compact disc), or "The Disney Afternoon" (which I have on audio cassette tape) all day long, I will probably use the disc player or the tape player, respectively.)

Epic Video Game

Hey Everybody, this is just a little note to say that I recently acquired an epic "video game." It's the kind of video game you play with a camcorder, apparently! It's this interesting 1990s thing called "Camcorder Helper" it comes with a little handbook, a sound effects CD, and little cards that suggest scenes to act out, among other things. It is from the creators of Magnetic Poetry, and the packaging suggests that it's a combination of an awesome party game, and a "Video Chemistry Set."

I need to throw a mini Camcorder Helper party some time.

Also, an update on CraGNoWriMo, which is now called "ProCraGNo" (Project: Crazy Group Novel.) Brandi has notes about our main characters, and the setting and basic premise. In upcoming meetings, we will discuss more of the technical details about what we will write the novel on, as well as when we plan on starting and stopping the novel-writing madness, and we will also discuss some of the ideas for chapters, specific events, etc. I might even bring notecards to that meeting.

Action News Update!

Heya Everybody! I have news about a variety of things. Firstly, classes start tomorrow, and I am insanely happy about it. Tomorrow, I have GER102 and PHO281 - those were two of my favorite subjects in high school, so I'm interested in what I will think of them at the university level.

Nextly, I have a laptop so old that it is considered to be quite epic. It is an old Toshiba Satellite 486 laptop with 4 megabytes of ram, and a disproportionately large 2 gigabyte hard disc. It will dual-boot Windows 3.1 and IBM's OS/2 Warp 3. I hope to use it for word processing and other retro things. In fact, I may get the CaGNoWriMo group to use it so that we're all writing using the same computer, so that there isn't any issue if some of us use Macs or PCs or whatever. Plus, I bet this thing would withstand being dropped or tossed in case of clumsiness or frustration. Plus, backups onto a modern computer would not be very difficult using floppy discs.

In other news, Brandy and I want to get CraGNoWriMo started by the beginning of February, so we hope that anybody who is going to participate will be able to make it to an Introductory meeting sometime soon. This way, we'll be able to hammer out some of the details, and get going on the upcoming novel. With luck, each of us will be able to have a few characters, and have a lot of say in the overall feel of the novel, we were even thinking of having a very liberal amount of time available to work on your segment, and with luck, with that amount of time, we'll be able to have two full rotations of the novel. That'll be great.

Also, I'm working on moviemaking projects, and probably a lot of other things. Anyway - Happy Tuesday!

WebComic 002

I am now even further into the depths of the world of web comics. In this one, I am introducing another character! Also, I've set up a bit of a strip visual style, with luck the same frame and panel arrangement will be used for awhile - at least for the rest of the strips I do on this computer. I am currently looking for a title for this particular series, and comments about it. If it is not-so-awesome, then it would be best to tell me before I start putting them together in advance or anything silly like that.



Oh, I also plan on another series, which has already undergone some development, I just need to set up a visual style for that one and start making strips in the computer. I don't feel like scanning anything, and my handwriting sucks anyway. Maybe I'll use Poser for my other project.

Electronic Sketchings (WebComic #001)

I am at mother's house tonight, and I don't have the iMac. So I'm just using the old Dell OptiPlex machine - what a surprised. Luckily for me, the Adobe Creative Suite exists on this machine, to prevent me from becoming insane. What a wonderful consideration, don't youthink?

So, basically, I created the first issue of my web comic. I may do more, I may give up. I will probably switch art styles multiple times throughout its run - I may even experiment with using Poser to create each panel, using some of its defaultPeople as the objects of my craziness.

Trip to Vegas!

Today was Vegas Day for Dad and I. :) Here is a Photo-Blog-Post of the adventure. (This is, by the way, my first blog entry of the year!


They started building some improvements to Highway 93, I presume.



Pink Jeep tours now gives tours in pink Chevrolet Suburbans. Don't tell the tourists - they won't even notice.


We then got to the Hoover Dam, and had to drive across it. We went from the "AZ" time to Pacific time.


I saw a ram that you don't put in your computer, as well as an extremely deceiving walkway, it looked more like a wash ditch than a walkway!


Las Vegas has some very interesting landscapes, as well as a lot of smog! I don't know if I'd actually want to live there with that kind of smog hanging around all the time.


I saw a lot of buses in Vegas, which is surprising, and not surprising at the same time. I haven't seen an accordion bus since I lived in Washington, I think. Also, there is a casino with friends. I wonder who they are.


In Las Vegas, especially on or near the strip, just about everything is either more scandalous, or shinier with more neon light tubes.


Danny Gans was Entertainer of the year at least two or three years ago when I went back to Michigan, and he is apparently still it. I think it should be Celine Dion or somebody else for a change.

How interesting! Fashion Show Mall has a huge iPod ad on the front. Almost every surface in Vegas has advertising on it.


Vegas has a lot of interesting advertising. Here is some examples of adversiting on taxi cabs. NewEgg, Toshiba, Microsoft, and Benq seem to REALLY love that advertising space. I also think that the stacked deck thing is somewhat funny.


We went to the Apple Store in Fashion Show Mall! I really liked looking around the store, but I found that while it was mesmerizing, it was less mesmerizing in a "must have a new Mac" way now that I've got... ba-dah-bing - my new iMac. :)


Teavana is another store in the mall. Dad went in here, and was going to buy a book, but he didn't want to, he said, after the cashier in the store said that photography wasn't allowed. The store had a silly fan setup, I took a picture of it from outside after that incident.


I got a new lens for my camera! It's a Quantaray 18-125mm lens for Nikon AF. It is awesome! when I got that picture of my dad, I was standing about three feet away from him. This is totally an awesome wide-angle lens. I also got the picture of the Tamrac logo from probably... well, it was quite far away. I certainly can't wait to test the lens out tomorrow, and next week at school. It will be awesome.


Here are some automotive things from the very end of the trip. (taken with my old 28-80 Nikkor glass.) The first belongs in "Stick Figures in Peril" I'm sure. The second is an automobile that seems to be missing parts.

In all, it was a very awesome day, and writing this blog post has taken much too long. Here's to an awesome 2007, filled with loads of photography opportunities, and great times!