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!

Last Post of 2006!

Oh my goodness! I can't believe it's my last post of 2006! I've had 60-or-so posts on this blog since January, probably more than two thirds of which hve been since August, so I think I'm getting better at this blogging thing. Also - it helps that there's a bit of a reason to use this blog - every other piece of software I've tried on almost every other hosting service has been massive fail, plus now that blogger is out of beta, it integrates with my Google account quite nicely, and I can compose posts in Google Docs, or just email them from my gmail page.

Well... enough about the wonders of blogging, eh? What exactly do I want out of 2007? Well, hints from the gifts would say that my family wants me to go jogging or walking or something, so I might say that one of my resolutions is to go jogging.

Of course, year-round, my resolution is 1440x900.

Another thing I'd like is for working at the TV station to go well, or for me to find an actual paying job somewhere on campus. Naturally, I'd also like for my application to become a residence assistant to be accepted, and to get into that - it'll help tremendously I think.

I've got a few creative projects I want to work on more in 2007. Given that I now have a super-fast computer and a legal copy of Poser 7, I think that it is necessary I start working on such creative projects as 'A Man and his Mac' (the necessary props can be created with Shade LE or something.) I'd also like to start on more ueberfriends projects, including writing some episodes of the anime, and possibly starting to come up with the characters of it.

Another thing I'd like to do is work on my ideas for CraGNoWriMo, and NaNoWriMo - I've got a few interesting ideas, but I am not totally sure how they'll go over. I want to start making notecards of the plot for at least my NaNo idea, and see how far I can really take the plot. My next NaNo novel will really depend on the ability to create compelling characters that, if introduced in the right order and in the right way, that they can create their own compelling storyline. I have at least one idea that is somewhat feasable for my writing needs, but I've got ten months to come up with some things, right?

In 2007, I'd like to make a movie. Luckily that's been made possible for me by way of an old camcorder and a DVD recorder, so digitizing analogue video will be fairly easy. In addition, there isn't much of an excuse not to at least use iMovie for sequencing shots, and I can use GarageBand for the audio portion of my film, if that's the direction I am going in. (Though, Final Cut Pro is much more impressive, and I think it offers more options for me.)

I'm sure there's more I have to say, but I got caught up in a project helping mom, and I want this blog post to show up before 11:30 so that it has a chance show up on facebook before the new year.

Sayonara, 2006! I'm ready for 2007!

Cory Defeats Home Networking

Headlines are completely devoid of today's best news! I have defeated home networking. It turns out, the best idea was for me to put the base station just a little bit higher than it was, and everybody who once complained about wifi speed, is now jamming along at the full speed of IEEE802.11G. No additional equipment was purchase, no crawlspaces were entered, and no holes were drilled in the walls. However, there is still one unsightly wire still dangling about, I will have to see exactly what the issue is there. I think my mother may have some lead in her closet.

In other news, I have also defeated Network Address Translation! :D You can see the UeberWiki here: http://70.101.193.185/info/ for awhile. I am unsure of how long this will stay up, but if I notice the address changes, or if something else happens that requires me to notify you (like I move UeberWiki to a new server, upgrade the RAM in my PowerMac G3, or go back to university and the address has changed) then I'll do so.

As another note - Kris, Ms. Arnold's new helperguy, is really cool, and he's turning into one of my online buddies. He's "helped" a wee bit with the Wiki too, so if you see something unexpected (such as ranting about a squid or something on the photog Knowledge page) then don't be too surprised or worried. Also, you must bow down to the FVMs! (search the wiki for it.)

Now that we've discussed that, I must bid thee adieu and wish you many happy returns, and that all of your Moon-Tuesdays are excellently happy!

My Week at the High School

I just got done with a week and two days at the high school. I got a bit of a different perspective, because I spent almost all of my time in one classroom, which really gave me my first almot accurate impression of what teaching at the high school level is really like. It's certainly interesting, but I think that it is somewhat restricted. I noticed that Kate spent almost all of her time behind the desk helping students with various things, so at this point in her class (Photo I at least) it is all helping with the Series Project, and no actual instruction.

Another unfortunate thing about Kate's job, especially compared to university instructors and professors, is that she must manage all of the equipment that her program uses. This includes ordering things, maintaining them or hiring maintenance, as well as disposing of broken equipment, and dealing with the state department when it comes to things such as her old video equipment.

In addition, this year she's got a new helper or two, both of which are very interested in video equipment. So it turns out that they've been doing some "fundraisers" in the form of recording Choir and Band concerts on video, editing them, and theoretically selling DVDs or tapes of the finished product at a profit. However, what I have noticed is that these few are causing quite a few problems for Kate. So by the end of her day (this year), Kate spends about 40% of her time interacting with her students. 20% of her time interacting with the school and taking care of business related to that, and 40$ of her time doing fundraisers and working with the video people. I think that it's unfortunate that that's the breakdown, because her students deserve more time, and she deserves more time to just sit, or to do things other than taking care of some sort of business.

Compare this to a standard teacher who spends probably 60% of their time with students, 20% of their time working on school business, and 20% of their time doing other things such as more student interaction, grading papers, etc.

Ahwell, it seems to work for her mostly, so it surely isn't my place to judge. I would probably try to spend less time during the actual day working on equipment, and more time interacting with students or getting other business done.

Luckily, I was able to help Kate (and Mr. Burden) with some things. I helped Kate start to import her old audio tapes to iTunes, with the goal of eventually putting them on CDs. I helped get things a bit more organized in the room. I am also going to help Burden get some of his computers fixed.

Holy Glayven! This network needs help!

Hey Everybody! I'm posting this from home, where I think that my mom's network fails exactly every 128 megabytes, because I can't seem to get the 129 megabyte Aperture 1.5.2 update downloaded. In addition, I get dropped from AOL-IM every so often, and I don't even want to try MSN Messenger.

I just hooked up my printer to the dell and made a proposed network layout for what I call the Network Improvement Project. (That's also known as PNL01 for the NIP.) I printed it over USB (a first for my printer) because I don't feel like screwing around with trying to get everything rigged up with my printer and more than one of my computers at a time on this network. Honestly, even Kingman High School keeps a more functional network.

In other news, I also need to clean up mom's office, not only my stuff in it, but I think the whole thing needs a nice cleaning... I hope to make the stand-up desks more accessible, and get everything in here set up in a fashion that's satisfactory to me, so that I can go ahead and start getting things done, such as some work with a few retro Macintoshes, and the consumption of caffeine, and my network repair/improvement project.

So... currently I'm going to say that the network is in Condition: -10, fails every few minutes, and is in a bad physical state.

If I can improve it to Condition 0 or even have it in a Plus Condition, then I will be made of win. Please wish me luck in my network related quest!

Back Home From NAU

This is just a post to inform the masses that I'm back in Kingman from NAU, and for what it is worth, I have already visited Mrs. Gaska, Hr. Gotsch, and Ms. Arnold.

I still think that Ms. Arnold is the best photo teacher ever, as evidenced by the fact that I am borrowing a MacBook Pro once again (albeit not my own!) to use to install Aperture on it, which unfortunately, has failed thus far. I will make more attempts to make it work throughout the day though.

Another project I've got today, however, is called Photoshop CS3, which has been released in the form of a Public Beta by Adobe in what I call "just in the nick of time" because of the fact that there are rumors that there is a new Macintosh in the pipeline for me, vis the Mystic Force™ known as Santa Claus. In addition, I've got four MacBook Pros under my command now, which means it's necessary for me to try the Photoshop CS3 beta anyway.

It's quite interesting/awesome to be back at KHS, and I'm looking forward to the rest of this month-long break.

Fire Alarm

I just figured that it's important for everybody to know something. At approximately 2:30 a.m. on December 11, 2006, The fire alarm in Reilly Hall at Northern Arizona University went off. It's just about 3:05 right now and we've just been let back in. This is dissapointing, of course, because it was very inconvenient for me to have to wake up from my pre-finals slumber and leave the building, and complain about it for as long to Jim, Nathan and my roommate.

So, if I fail my SC-111 final, I have a reason.

By the way... (Reilly as a cheesy videogame) the mutants are on the first floor, the pirates are on the second floor, the ninjas are on the third floor, and the zombies are on the fourth floor. I am fairly certain that the ghosts are on the fifth floor, and the corrupt cops from the west are on the sixth floor. I haven't beaten the sixth floor yet, but I think that the seventh floor has the big evil monster. I hear that if you start by going in the back entrance, you can go to the first floor after the fifth and you get all the nice powerups from the first floor before the sixth and seventh floors.

Ninjas or Pirates? What about Zombies!

Today, Brandy informed me that Zombies are awesome. I wonder, however. How do zombies relate to Pirates and Ninjas? Of course, we discovered through our discussion that it would certainly depend on the Zombies being evaluated. For example, the zombies in Shaun of the Dead would not do very well in any kind of epic battle.

However, stronger zombies may do well, and it should be noted that zombies have nearly infinite replication powers, which ninjas and pirates lack.

In the end, I think I'm still going for ninjas, though pirates are still awesome, as are zombies. I think that the real moral of this story is that Pirates vs. Ninjas vs. Zombies would make an excellent NaNoWriMo Novel.

Potential Name Switch

I am thinking that I might change the name of my blog. Right now, the title is "Life :: Strapped to a Desk." It describes that my life is one where I am basically strapped to a desk, but because I've got a mobile computer, and I lead a fairly mobile life, what with my feet and legs, I don't know if that really describes my life.

Of course, my idea for the new name was something relating to Tuesdays, or to Pam, or 3 a.m. I might call it "Praying to Pam at 3 a.m. on Tuesdays" or "Tuesdays at 3 a.m. I pray to Pam" or "Pam is the best tree to pray to at 3 a.m. on Tuesdays."

Naturally, I might also like to include some reference to the Steno Pad. I could call the blog "The 3 a.m. Steno" or "Tuesdays praying to Pam is the best time to write in the Steno Pad." Though, I think that that's some pretty extreme integration.

Another idea is just calling it "The Steno" or "Steno Files" or "Online Steno."

Or, I could keep my blog as "Life Strapped to a Desk" and then offer some of my other friends the opportunity to contribute to a group blog with some sort of Steno, Online, 3 a.m., Tuesdays, or Pam theme.

Maybe I'll call it "OMG, Cory's Awesome!"

Though, when I think about it... "Life :: Strapped to a Desk" is not actually that bad. I will probably keep that name for some time.

(Note: for those reading this through FaceBook, the actual blog is located at http://cory5412.blogspot.com/)

Daria Season 1 Complete

I have acquired the complete Season 1 of Daria, I think this even includes the pilot episode. I am certainly going to have a marathon sometime soon, if anybody else is interested. It'll be on my computer (17" CRT) though, unless I get my laptop to TV cable back from Seth, at which point I can play it on the roommate's TV (17 or 27" CRT).

I can't wait for it, and I'm tempted to start right now.

Getting Better

I am glad to be able to say that my health has slowly been recovering, and I'd say that right now, I'm probably at 80 to 85% of full health. I hope to be between 95% and 100% tonight. Yaay! Then I get to go suicide again, with studying and stuff. How wonderfully and posilutely enjoyable.

In other news, I know a lot of immature people. They need to grow up. Oh, and the weather has been decent. The sun has been shining, which isn't my favorite type of weather ever, but it's better than cold + rain + wind. I'd much rather have cold + snow with no wind, though.

Have a Happy Tuesday!

The Universe Hates me, and I'm Ready

Ready for the semester to be over with!

I am not sure what's happened, (other than the horrific sickness, and general awfulness) but ever since getting back to school from Thanksgiving break, I am just ready to be back at home, the way it was over summer. Or maybe I am just ready to not have classes any more.

It starts last Thursday. At about 4am, I had just gotten done eating a microwave burrito, and I was going to go ahead and stay up all day to finish my NaNoWriMo Novel. Unfortunately, what I discovered was that I had started to become ill. So, I decide that I can afford an hour of sleep. Unfortunately, after the hour of sleep, a shower, and anything else I could think of to try, I was still feeling fairly awful. So I just slept until about noon, when I had to get up to get ready (very slowly, might I add) for my class at 1:50. I went to class, and gave the presentation about my extended argument paper. That sucked massively, but at least I did it.

After ENG105, Kat and I went over to the Comm building to get our JLS130 practice final exams, and we then bid each other our goodbyes, and as I walked in front of the math building back toward my dorm, I vomited.

Luckily, I eventually got back to Reilly and lay down in bed, looking forward to a lot of sleep. I crawled in bed, and was nearly asleep, when, of all the awesomely lucky things that could have happened to me... the fire alarm went off. At this point, I knew that the Universe hates me. I eventually got back to sleep, and managed to sleep right through Friday. It is now Saturday, and I'm feeling a bit better, but I don't know when I'll feel perfectly awesome again.

22 hours yet.

Hey everybody. This is just a post to let everybody know that there are approximately 22 hours left in NaNoWriMo. How Exciting!

I am about 6900 words away from being finished. Wish me luck! :)