20,000!

Yeah, I've reached 20,000.

Night Over, Broken Phone

Today, I worked a shift for one of my coworkers, because I quite like the Saturday morning shift, and because I'm a nice person like that. It was great until I realized that it was so great because the agent phone out in the lab was broken. (Saturday morning works out in the lab a lot like the overnight shifts do.) I tried a different cable but it didn't work, so naturally it's a switch problem, or the phone itself is broken. I called Mel and got permission to try a different cable, but that didn't help.

Anyway, I'm back here in the office working out the rest of my shift instead of in the lab. It's not much of a difference because there are so few people here anyway, but it does make me say things like "wow, I can't wait for the lab aides to get here" which I don't say all that often.

On another note, Megan asked me to stay with her last night because of her scare from yesterday involving some creepy guy who likes entering random rooms. It was the first time this year I've slept on a low bed, and I do say that I miss it ever-so-slightly. Also of note, we can sleep on the same twin mattress successfully if we don't have any additional padding. And no, nothing other than sleeping happened. Well, we did watch "Meet the Robinsons" which is an amazing movie, just so you know.

Also, my NaNoWriMo wordcount is about 7,300 now. Pretty good I think, but I am totally looking forward to increasing that, instead of the word count of my blog.

Legit Software

I'm sad to admit that I'm actually surprised at how much legal software I've got here on the new ThinkPad. Windows Vista is legal on it, and I have now got my legal copy of Adobe Creative Suite (1) on here, and last night I found and took advantage of a pretty good deal on Microsoft Office 2007, the Ultimate Edition, straight from Microsoft, for $80usd. So… here I am on the ThinkPad, with all legal music and all legal software. It's cool, and it was surprisingly affordable, especially given that this used my Windows software collection, which is, as we all know, extensive and varied. I like this setup though, especially since it allows me to move some of the responsibility away from the iMac, which I want to be my graphics/gaming computer.

On another note, I really do quite love Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, I've already started using it for notes for my classes, and I intend to keep using it for other things, such as keeping track of tasks, and other pieces of information I want to have handy. It'll definitely be something I use on a regular basis while I'm doing NaNoWriMo and other similar projects, I think.

Speaking of NaNo, I've got a bit of an idea, and I'm working on developing it a bit more through the end of September and into October. Hopefully by mid-October I should actually be ready to start writing, although what I'll do then is just start plot-sequencing onto notecards or some similar media. (like OneNote, since I'll be using the computer all the time anyway.)

In other news, I think I am going to expand my collection of DVD-RW media, I'd like to be able to use them to back up the ThinkPad, which means I should need about 30 total, maybe fewer. It'd be something I'd do not-too-often, maybe monthly full-system backups onto DVD-RW and weekly or nightly backups of just the changes onto the 40gig drive in the external enclosure. We'll see.

No more PowerBook?

What a fitting revenge of the machine. Officially "almost one year" after I got it, my PowerBook G3 seems to be officially dead. For everybody who placed bets, let's just say that you were all wrong. The culprit happens to be the IDE controller. I'm not sure whether or not this is something that will just smooth over somehow, or if my PowerBook G3 will be crippled in that respect for the rest of its days with me.

I knew it would die, I did not know it would die this quickly. I don't know if it needs to be said, but I'll say it anyway. I am considering getting a Mac Portable to use for note taking and novel-writing. Nice, simple machine with weapon status, and really long battery life.

I am kind of sad that the PowerBook G3 can't remain useful the way it was before. Last fall, it had awesome battery life, wireless networking, good storage, and was generally usable as my main computer. It was originally acquired as a stopgap machine, purely because it had a display that worked, but I found that even after getting my iMac, I did somewhat like having a mobile computer.

How ironic that after two (or more?) years of posting on this blog (whose title is "Life:: Strapped to a Desk" for those of you reading this from any other websites,) I am now for the first time, actually without a fully mobile computer.

Writing a New Novel.

Just a quick note to let everybody know that I have restructured the Gotschland map to be more suitable for some of the changes I want to make to it.

Also, I'm now writing a new novel. Well, I think what I'm writing now will end up being a bit more like a textbook, but it's the beginning of what will eventually be a novel, or collection of short stories. I'm not entirely sure yet.

I am mostly doing this because I found an interesting (far from finished, though) app that's specifically for novel writing. It is only available on the Mac, (which is fine with me) and it's got a few nice additions such as a full screen mode that doesn't waste 75% of my monitor, and a database function that lets me easily keep track of the characters I've introduced, and store information about them.

At any rate - Gotschland, Ahoy! (not Chips Ahoy! - unfortunately.)

Visit to Mom's

I just got back from visiting Mom's house. It was better than over Thanksgiving, but I had difficulties in getting to my 68k Macs. Apparently a whole lot more stuff has been added to the garage, as well as the office, making neither location suitable for playing with old Macs. Additionally, it was very difficult to get to the Macs.

Luckily, I was able to find my 17" VGA monitor, the displaced PC133 memory (128mb sticks from the Dell/500, apparently) and the SGI Octane. I didn't, however, seem to be able to find my Powermac G3. Unfortunate, but I am sure it'll show up. That, or I'll use the Dell/933 as my main Mom's-House computer.

While I was there, I found out that Intel uses really cool codenames for their processors. Examples include Deschutes, Banias, Dothan, Cedar Mill, Conroe, Merom, Merced (boy do I remember the Merced!) , among others. (Prescott isn't that great, but I suppose I have to say "whoo for prescott!" because I have friends from that particular location. -- At any rate, I intend to give my unnamed computers names from a selection of Intel codenames. I may even give one to my iMac.

Schlangenbeschwoerer, however, is still a very tempting hostname for the iMac. Truthfully, who can resist something like "Snake Charmer?" It is currently named PRAGMA-II after the PowerBook G4 it officially replaces. (The PowerBook G3 being considered a stopgap machine, and now filling a different usage slot.)

Also, I really like Initial D music now. The Eurobeat stuff they use is nothing short of excellent. I will probably use this stuff for NaNo Writing Music this coming November.

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!

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.

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! :)

Why I Hate Computers

As many of you know, I have been working on my novel this month. In order to achieve that without many distractions, I have been using Mac OS 9 as my preferred booting operating system on my PowerBook G3. Unfortunately, it seems to have decided on needing a mental vacation, and now, just short of 40,000 words into my novel, I am without an OS9-booting computer on which to write my novel, and I'm sans-the-laptop. It's unfortunate but true.

Of course, I expected some sort of massive failure out of it. i wish it had waited another week, but I am not surprised by what happened.

Massive Gargantuan Failure...

... At polyphasic sleep. Last night I was doing well, then got to my 1am nap, and I must have either not set the alarm, or slept through it for eight hours, because I found myself waking up at about 9am. Actually, I could have waited until 9:30 to wake up, but I wanted to take a shower and today is a Wednesday which means I've got my 10:20 class.

At the very least, SETI has begun to act properly again, meaning that I am now on my way to being the champion of Work Units, and my NaNoWriMo novel has begun taking shape. I have crossed the line for 20,000 words, but today's quota is 25,005 words. Will I make it in time? Will I end up making it to 26,672 words tomorrow, whether or not I mke it to 25,005 today?

Well, I probably will do both if I stop writing silly posts to the blog. Oh-well. One thing that these failures make me wonder is whether or not I am capable of adapting to polyphasic sleep, or whether the current time is just too intense for it. I am thinking about just trying to adapt to polyphasic over the winter break, but I really need it right now, not next year.

The other thing to consider is the fact that I really like sleeping. Not so much being in bed, as I like arranging the covers, jumping in, and just being comfortable and warm between the sheets and the blankets, not necessarily doing anything productive at that moment.

I will continue trying to do polyphasic sleep, hopefully it will have more success with fewer classes and horrible things like that in the next few days to cause it to go wrong.

Still Failing at Polyphasic

Honestly, this is harder to keep up than I thought it would be. Yesterday morning I failed, and then again today I failed miserably as well. I had thought it would be easy to keep up with, but because I failed yesterday, I didn't take any of my naps, and then last night I ended up playing Monopoly and watching Clerks II until about 1am.

Luckily, I did get a few hundred words into my NaNoWriMo novel, but I am certainly not pleased that I feel asleep so easily. I need to find a comfortable spot other than my bed where I can do writing, and not be tempted to fall asleep. I think that tonight, I will try the Reilly Hall lounge, or maybe the 6th floor lounge. However, I do think that the main lobby/lounge on the first floor is more likely to happen as a good writing spot than the 6th floor lobby.

As a sidenote... Monopoly is quite a fun and interesting game.

Polyphasic Day 3

I am now in Day 3 of polyphasic sleeping. I think I'm in Day 3, anyway. This may be the fourth day, but I have been through three nights.

Unfortunately, a few bad things have happened. First, I seem to have a habit of not waking up from my 05:00 nap. I lay down at about 05:00 and then wake up somewhere between 08:00 to 09:30. The other bad thing is that, true to what I have read on the Internets, found via The Google, delivered via the tubes, I do now feel like I am a zombie, continuously being run over by the force of a thousand school buses. It's totally fun and you should try it!

Another misfortune has struck my polyphasic sleep project. I seem to be getting sick. This is one of those "Seriously, WTF?" moments, where you just have to ask if the Universe is out to get you. I know that it's not my God, because my God is a tree at Kingman High School called Pam, and I happen to have a close relationship with my God. Additionally, my God is busy saving Earth from the Aliens, so she doesn't have time to attempt to foil my polyphasic sleep plans. Luckily, the vending machine has provided me with some Orange Juice, which seems to have helped.

At any rate... I am plodding on bravely with my efforts to gain four hours in every day. I must say that I do quite enjoy the extra time. I feel as though by 10:00 I will have either caught up with the few days' worth of NaNoWriMo writing that I have missed, or that I will have the cleanest dorm room in Reilly Hall. Maybe both will be true.

Polyphasic Day 2

I find myself on Day 2 of Polyphasic Sleeping. I have already had some discouragement. It is hard to stay encouraged to do something so completely different from what is considered to be socially normal and acceptable. In addition, I'm having issues finding things to do during all of my "additional time." I know that what I should be doing is working on my novel, but somehow I end up just kind of... sitting at my computer.

I find that I'm doing silly online puzzles instead of writing or my schoolwork.

I have also just awaken from (oops!) oversleeping multiple times. I think that this means that I need to put careful consideration into whether or not I really want to continue my attempt at Polyphasic Sleeping.

Polyphasic Day 1

I am in Day 1 of my new Polyphasic Sleeping lifestyle. I am going to be using this month to transition to an interesting way of distributed resting, so that I can get more hours in the day for studying, being online, and writing my novel.

Right now, I am pretty tired, but I would say that I am fairly alert... I have not had caffeine today, though I may have a few sips (or a few liters) of Mountain Dew later on today.

Hopefully this gargantuan increase in my available time will let me do things like re-learn some three dimensional modeling techniques with 3dStudioMax, watch a lot of youtube videos, listen to a lot of FM radio, finish my NaNoNovel early, and keep my sanity while getting schoolwork done.

Definitely Participating in NaNoWriMo

I just wanted to clarify that I am definitely going to participate in NaNoWriMo. I have a wiki up at http://134.114.91.55/info/index.php/Main_Page that shows some of what I'm going to do, concerning the UeberFriends, and Gotschland, which will be the central focus of the story. I will probably use the Joerg and Kayana characters more, as the title of my novel will be "The Desert Dance of Joerg & Kayana", however I am also going to be using the rest of the Gotschland characters, and the UeberFriends will make plenty of appearances.

http://134.114.91.55/info/Ueberfriends is the page for the UeberFriends.

I totally [heart] Wikis.

Writing A Novel

I've discovered something awesome. It's at http://www.nanowrimo.org and what I'm going to do is write a novel during the month of november. I get to start at 00:00:01 on November 1, and on November 30 at 23:59:59, I have to have 50,000 words written.

I know I'm going to do it, I know a few other people are doing it.

I mostly can't wait to see what happens... I'm somewhat hoping that I can "win" (which just consists of finishing).

I have quite a few plans... I'll probably reveal some of them on this blog before long.