Remember how, during the "force Eddie to graduate early" meeting last week, the school people said that I would be doing my Senior Show combined with my Advanced Watercolor class so that my later assignments for the watercolor class would go toward my Senior Show project, too?
Turns out it was all a big fat lie. My watercolor projects and Senior Show projects are in fact completely separate from each other, and I'm going to have to do the full (absolutely huge) workload for both of them at the same freaking time.
In other words... I now have two regular art classes plus Senior Show, all crammed into the same semester. You know, just the absolute worst class schedule I could possibly have (okay, almost the worst--having my 4th class be Senior Paper would be the only way this could be worse.) The exact same kind of class schedule I had been trying to avoid when I figured out how my classes would be set up this year--my last two "normal" required classes and a couple of extras this semester, another Spanish class, a couple of extras, and Senior Show next semester... so I don't have more than two art-related classes at once and don't have to worry about homework overload ever being even worse than it was during my "two art classes and Senior Paper" semester a while back.
But no, SVU's administration apparently doesn't consider "exhaustion and/or death by homework overload" to be a problem. They didn't even give me a choice as to which of my two non-required classes to drop; instead of letting me drop Advanced Watercolor to make room in my schedule for the Senior Show workload (dropping my most homework-heavy class and replacing it with another one), they went ahead and dropped me from Marriage and Family instead (which was a non-required class, but not so heavy on the homework, just a quiz every now and then and a couple of projects later on in the semester.) Of course, like I mentioned above, they had originally told me that Senior Show would be mixed in with my watercolor class, so of course I couldn't just drop that one... until it turns out that Senior Show is not mixed in with my watercolor class, it's a separate class entirely (meeting at 3:35 on Mondays, causing M/W/F to be my absurd classes-all-day days even more so than before.) Of course, they weren't nice enough to inform me of this sudden change of plans (on top of their previous sudden change of plans) until today, after I had already returned the Marriage and Family book I had rented and gotten a full refund for it.
Yeah... me and SVU are not getting along so well lately. The students are great, it's the people in charge that are the problem, and I suspect it'd be so much better if they would just get swapped out for someone else (maybe they should go administrate BYU or something, if they want their students to be a bunch of perfect little mindlessly-obedient Mormon children. Of course, I've heard BYU has a lot of Mormon kids who are going around doing non-Mormon-approved college kid activities behind the scenes... but it's not what they're actually like that matters to the people in charge, it's the fake happy-happy-perfect-obedient-Mormon-kid image they put on out in public.)
This whole situation reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw once, comparing politicians to diapers: they need to be changed often, and for the same reason!
Monday, September 23, 2013
Saturday, September 21, 2013
First visit home since... before I moved in. XD
Yeah... Dad and Julia came by earlier today and picked me up from my apartment, bringing me back to Mom's house in the middle of nowhere (but only after stopping by Victor's in Clifton Forge to scarf down some delicious pizza, of course.) This has been an oddly productive trip home; since getting back, I've gotten my mom's Internet to work on the desktop computer we still have here (previously, it wouldn't connect to the wireless and it was impossible to run a cable directly from the computer to the router because the computer's ethernet port was busted... she took the computer in and got the port fixed this past week sometime, but still couldn't get it to work... probably because she's not so good with computers. She claimed it kept asking her for an "IP number" when she tried to get it working before. Yeah... pretty sure they're called "IP addresses" and nothing ever calls them "IP numbers" and you don't need to enter them manually pretty much ever. All I actually needed to do to get it working was check the cables on both ends to make sure everything was plugged in right and then run the router setup program. I have no idea what she had been trying to do) and also set up a Skype account for her so we can talk through the computer instead of eating up my phone's minutes every time she calls (or I call her.) Skype is pretty simple to operate so hopefully she won't have any problems with it. I did have to plug in a second pair of headphones (because it has a built-in microphone), because the computer wasn't made with a built-in microphone like all the laptops are... but still, should be easy enough for her to use.
Also got to see the cats again after a month of being away, which is always nice. Buddy has gotten huge since the last time I saw her; she was one of the smallest ones before I left and now she's almost as big as Buttons (who is also slightly bigger than before.) Callie has gotten bigger too, though it seems to be mostly around the middle in her case. Shy unfortunately hurt her eye somehow and it's now infected, but Mom's been putting some sort of ointment on it (that she got from the vet, I think) so it should heal up okay. Other than that the kitties seem to be doing fine.
Another old house randomly got torn down while I was gone. Not out on White Rock Gap Road where I live, but in the Low Moor area nearby. I don't think this one was even in very bad shape, so I'm not sure why it got demolished... but now it's gone, just an empty field in its place. Weird to come back and see things like that change... makes it seem like I've been gone a lot longer than just a month. XD
My sister Julia drew a really detailed realistic-ish picture of a Pwubba and a K'hyurbhi during this last week, and colored it in (with colored pencils) and everything. It turned out really well. I was planning on making Pwubbas a bit more mammalian than they used to be, but her more-reptiley Pwubba looks really good. Her realistic-ish K'hyurbhis look a lot better in color than they do as pencil sketches--I thought her version of a K'hyurbhi just looked a little off the first time I saw one, but in color I was like "whoa! that's a K'hyurbhi!" rather than "wow... that looks weird." Even with the extra facial hair (which most K'hyurbhis have very little if any of), it still actually worked this time. (She also gave him blue shoes, which fits in nicely with the most recent K'hyurbhi design having actual feet and those usually-red oval things being shoes that they wear... so they don't need to always be red with black marks anymore, they can be all kinds of different colors and shapes now.)
Have made progress on Okédoké, too. 2nd and 1st basement floors of the secret Alaskan lab are both done, all the various lab stuff is functional (there's poison chemical spills on the floor in spots, you can ride around on conveyor belts, there's a switch that causes certain pairs of doors to alternate between open and closed, and there's teleporter tiles!), and you can even fight the first (out of three, plus one optional) boss, Darth Cheney. It took me roughly 23 minutes to explore the outside of the lab, enter, fall down to B2F, and then explore that whole floor (up to the start of B1F right before Darth Cheney's appearance), so this should turn out to be a decently long chapter if the other floors take even half that long. B2F may be the longest one in gameplay time, since it's a little bit maze-like with the conveyor belts going all over the place and one teleporter tile that takes you back to the start instead of further along, but the others are big enough and full of enough stuff that most people shouldn't blast through them too quick, either. Plus, if you go through too fast and skip the room with the door switch, you'll have to backtrack to B1F to get beyond 1F. Next up would be making some readable stuff in the big library-style bookshelves scattered around the lab, and also finishing up 1F so that I can move on to making 2F, which leads up to the second of the lab's bosses: George W. Bush, the President of the United States of America (...this game takes place in 2008, so yeah, he's still in office.) It turns out that he knows Kung Fu, can do his own version of Naruto's clone technique, and has a few more even stranger tricks up his sleeve...
But yeah... for the first time Okédoké being a finished game is actually looking like a real possibility. It'd be nice if it's done before 2013 is over, but I think it'd make more sense to set the "deadline" at "finish playable portions before summer 2014, and then make the ending sequence during the summer." Heart of the OHR 2014 entry? I guess it'd count as an "OHR Legends" entry at this point in its development, since it was part of HotOHR 2010 already.
Also got to see the cats again after a month of being away, which is always nice. Buddy has gotten huge since the last time I saw her; she was one of the smallest ones before I left and now she's almost as big as Buttons (who is also slightly bigger than before.) Callie has gotten bigger too, though it seems to be mostly around the middle in her case. Shy unfortunately hurt her eye somehow and it's now infected, but Mom's been putting some sort of ointment on it (that she got from the vet, I think) so it should heal up okay. Other than that the kitties seem to be doing fine.
Another old house randomly got torn down while I was gone. Not out on White Rock Gap Road where I live, but in the Low Moor area nearby. I don't think this one was even in very bad shape, so I'm not sure why it got demolished... but now it's gone, just an empty field in its place. Weird to come back and see things like that change... makes it seem like I've been gone a lot longer than just a month. XD
My sister Julia drew a really detailed realistic-ish picture of a Pwubba and a K'hyurbhi during this last week, and colored it in (with colored pencils) and everything. It turned out really well. I was planning on making Pwubbas a bit more mammalian than they used to be, but her more-reptiley Pwubba looks really good. Her realistic-ish K'hyurbhis look a lot better in color than they do as pencil sketches--I thought her version of a K'hyurbhi just looked a little off the first time I saw one, but in color I was like "whoa! that's a K'hyurbhi!" rather than "wow... that looks weird." Even with the extra facial hair (which most K'hyurbhis have very little if any of), it still actually worked this time. (She also gave him blue shoes, which fits in nicely with the most recent K'hyurbhi design having actual feet and those usually-red oval things being shoes that they wear... so they don't need to always be red with black marks anymore, they can be all kinds of different colors and shapes now.)
Have made progress on Okédoké, too. 2nd and 1st basement floors of the secret Alaskan lab are both done, all the various lab stuff is functional (there's poison chemical spills on the floor in spots, you can ride around on conveyor belts, there's a switch that causes certain pairs of doors to alternate between open and closed, and there's teleporter tiles!), and you can even fight the first (out of three, plus one optional) boss, Darth Cheney. It took me roughly 23 minutes to explore the outside of the lab, enter, fall down to B2F, and then explore that whole floor (up to the start of B1F right before Darth Cheney's appearance), so this should turn out to be a decently long chapter if the other floors take even half that long. B2F may be the longest one in gameplay time, since it's a little bit maze-like with the conveyor belts going all over the place and one teleporter tile that takes you back to the start instead of further along, but the others are big enough and full of enough stuff that most people shouldn't blast through them too quick, either. Plus, if you go through too fast and skip the room with the door switch, you'll have to backtrack to B1F to get beyond 1F. Next up would be making some readable stuff in the big library-style bookshelves scattered around the lab, and also finishing up 1F so that I can move on to making 2F, which leads up to the second of the lab's bosses: George W. Bush, the President of the United States of America (...this game takes place in 2008, so yeah, he's still in office.) It turns out that he knows Kung Fu, can do his own version of Naruto's clone technique, and has a few more even stranger tricks up his sleeve...
But yeah... for the first time Okédoké being a finished game is actually looking like a real possibility. It'd be nice if it's done before 2013 is over, but I think it'd make more sense to set the "deadline" at "finish playable portions before summer 2014, and then make the ending sequence during the summer." Heart of the OHR 2014 entry? I guess it'd count as an "OHR Legends" entry at this point in its development, since it was part of HotOHR 2010 already.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Hmm... rhymes with "go to hell." How appropriate.
So... apparently I'm going to graduate in one semester instead of two. School ends for me in freaking December instead of... next April, I guess?
I guess for a lot of people this would be a good thing, but considering the reasons WHY my school is shoving me face-first into a big steaming pile of early graduation, it's really not a good thing for me. I won't go into the details out here in public where the Facebook stalkers can see (it wouldn't surprise me if SVU had a Facebook Stalker Brigade specifically set up to find anything remotely negative said about the school or the people in charge of it, so they can overreact to THAT too and cause even more unnecessary problems in people's lives), but I'll let you know what's going on in messages if you want.
But yeah... apparently I'm graduating in December whether I want to or not (the only other option is "don't graduate at all and leave school NOW," so... that's only a "choice" in the same sense that somebody putting a gun to your head and saying "gimme all your money or I'll shoot" is a "choice.")
Apparently my watercolor class this semester is going to be jury-rigged into some sort of mutated half-watercolor/half-Senior Show monstrosity, so I can get all of my required classes out of the way before then.
And my paperwork for my apartment relied on me staying here until April (or was it May?)... so I guess I'll be living in Buena Vista in the spring even though I won't be going to school anymore. Or, I should say, even though I won't be *taking classes* anymore, because SVU is where most of my friends are and I don't want to just leave right away and go back to that horrible lonely boring place they call Alleghany County where I'll most likely never see any of them ever again. I guess I'll try to get a job of some sort in Buena Vista in an attempt to make enough money to pay my rent for that whole time. Which will probably be easier if I don't have to take classes at the same time. Maybe I can finally move out of Mom's house for good? I don't know how likely that is or how well it'll work, but it's bound to be better than "just go back home and die of boredom alone for the rest of your life" at least...
And on a weirder (but also not-making-much-sense) note, apparently the school thinks that I'd declared a double major (art and liberal arts.) I know I don't remember this ever happening, to the point where everyone I've talked to about it agrees that I've never even so much as mentioned a double-major as a possibility, but apparently they had me on record as a double-major. Would've been nice if they'd actually told me about that before today, since I was apparently the last one to know! And in further "incompetence from SVU staff" news, apparently they STILL don't have my senior paper on record, even though I've literally turned it in twice.
Aside from that: had a good sub at Subway today, and a nice moderately-long talk with a good friend (which really helped with the whole "SVU randomly shoving me into early graduation and then trying to fake nice by constantly claiming that they were 'on my side' or 'trying to help' when actually they were doing the opposite" situation--thanks again, if you're reading this! I know I already thanked you like three times, but there is no way to thank you enough. Seriously.) I've also gotten back into working on Okédoké!, finishing up the lower floors of the secret lab in Alaska--I just added the battle with Darth Cheney in yesterday and was testing it out earlier, and everything seems to work fine (though he seems a bit easy even with characters at only level 12, so I might pump him up a little bit.) And now... time to work myself half to death with painting homework. And also take a shower.
I guess for a lot of people this would be a good thing, but considering the reasons WHY my school is shoving me face-first into a big steaming pile of early graduation, it's really not a good thing for me. I won't go into the details out here in public where the Facebook stalkers can see (it wouldn't surprise me if SVU had a Facebook Stalker Brigade specifically set up to find anything remotely negative said about the school or the people in charge of it, so they can overreact to THAT too and cause even more unnecessary problems in people's lives), but I'll let you know what's going on in messages if you want.
But yeah... apparently I'm graduating in December whether I want to or not (the only other option is "don't graduate at all and leave school NOW," so... that's only a "choice" in the same sense that somebody putting a gun to your head and saying "gimme all your money or I'll shoot" is a "choice.")
Apparently my watercolor class this semester is going to be jury-rigged into some sort of mutated half-watercolor/half-Senior Show monstrosity, so I can get all of my required classes out of the way before then.
And my paperwork for my apartment relied on me staying here until April (or was it May?)... so I guess I'll be living in Buena Vista in the spring even though I won't be going to school anymore. Or, I should say, even though I won't be *taking classes* anymore, because SVU is where most of my friends are and I don't want to just leave right away and go back to that horrible lonely boring place they call Alleghany County where I'll most likely never see any of them ever again. I guess I'll try to get a job of some sort in Buena Vista in an attempt to make enough money to pay my rent for that whole time. Which will probably be easier if I don't have to take classes at the same time. Maybe I can finally move out of Mom's house for good? I don't know how likely that is or how well it'll work, but it's bound to be better than "just go back home and die of boredom alone for the rest of your life" at least...
And on a weirder (but also not-making-much-sense) note, apparently the school thinks that I'd declared a double major (art and liberal arts.) I know I don't remember this ever happening, to the point where everyone I've talked to about it agrees that I've never even so much as mentioned a double-major as a possibility, but apparently they had me on record as a double-major. Would've been nice if they'd actually told me about that before today, since I was apparently the last one to know! And in further "incompetence from SVU staff" news, apparently they STILL don't have my senior paper on record, even though I've literally turned it in twice.
Aside from that: had a good sub at Subway today, and a nice moderately-long talk with a good friend (which really helped with the whole "SVU randomly shoving me into early graduation and then trying to fake nice by constantly claiming that they were 'on my side' or 'trying to help' when actually they were doing the opposite" situation--thanks again, if you're reading this! I know I already thanked you like three times, but there is no way to thank you enough. Seriously.) I've also gotten back into working on Okédoké!, finishing up the lower floors of the secret lab in Alaska--I just added the battle with Darth Cheney in yesterday and was testing it out earlier, and everything seems to work fine (though he seems a bit easy even with characters at only level 12, so I might pump him up a little bit.) And now... time to work myself half to death with painting homework. And also take a shower.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Friday the 13th -- never actually unlucky for me. XD
Yeah... today was a pretty good day to (sort of) end the week on. Went to see the play that my school was showing (A Servant of Two Masters, actually a show from all the way back in the 1700s), and while there ended up sitting with one of my favorite people, who I also got a chance to talk to for a little bit after the play ended. I really haven't had enough opportunities to talk to her this semester, so every little bit helps, even if it is just a short walk back to her library-mod house and a bit of talking outside before she had to go in to tend to her ever-growing pile of homework, club duties, and a full text-message inbox that needs to be cleared out at some point. Hopefully I'll be able to ask her on a date of some sort sometime soon... I still don't know if I actually have a chance at all of ever being anything more-than-friends to her, but I figure I should keep trying, at least as long as I continue to like her so much (...especially since I only have this one last year here... she'll be here again next year, but I don't know how easy it would be to come back over here and see her next year... so I'm guessing that if anything's going to happen at this point it needs to happen pretty soon.)
Now if only it was actually the end of the week, and not just the start of the weekend which (like all weekends where I don't really have anything special to do) will inevitably be crammed full of boredom, loneliness, and especially homework... (the idea that my watercolor class wants not one but two paintings--and two little essays to accompany them!--from me on Monday still kind of pisses me off.)
Anyway... things have been going fairly well lately, not just today but most of the whole week. Homework hasn't been weighing me down too much (though I am worried about the painting stuff coming up...), I haven't had too many (if any!) days where there just isn't anyone around to talk to, I've made a buttload of money on eBay thanks to the fact that Ducktales 2 for the NES is apparently really hard to find now (to the point where someone's willing to pay $220 for a copy of it that doesn't even come with the instruction manual!), and I now have a vacuum for my apartment. Yeah, the landlady literally just came by one day and asked me if I wanted it, since it was a smaller, cheaper one that doesn't quite do the job well enough to cover the sorts of messes that a 4-year-old tends to make. Should be fine for one guy living alone, though!
Oh, and today actually felt sort of like a warm day in fall, rather than somewhere between an oven inside a volcano and the surface of the sun like the weather has been lately. I didn't roast even during the day (it was a bit warm outside the shady spots, but even then not too bad), and I was able to go for a decent-length walk at night without even getting sweaty. I don't think I'll even need the AC on tonight, I can just keep the windows to my bedroom open and I should be able to sleep with no problems.
Now if only it was actually the end of the week, and not just the start of the weekend which (like all weekends where I don't really have anything special to do) will inevitably be crammed full of boredom, loneliness, and especially homework... (the idea that my watercolor class wants not one but two paintings--and two little essays to accompany them!--from me on Monday still kind of pisses me off.)
Anyway... things have been going fairly well lately, not just today but most of the whole week. Homework hasn't been weighing me down too much (though I am worried about the painting stuff coming up...), I haven't had too many (if any!) days where there just isn't anyone around to talk to, I've made a buttload of money on eBay thanks to the fact that Ducktales 2 for the NES is apparently really hard to find now (to the point where someone's willing to pay $220 for a copy of it that doesn't even come with the instruction manual!), and I now have a vacuum for my apartment. Yeah, the landlady literally just came by one day and asked me if I wanted it, since it was a smaller, cheaper one that doesn't quite do the job well enough to cover the sorts of messes that a 4-year-old tends to make. Should be fine for one guy living alone, though!
Oh, and today actually felt sort of like a warm day in fall, rather than somewhere between an oven inside a volcano and the surface of the sun like the weather has been lately. I didn't roast even during the day (it was a bit warm outside the shady spots, but even then not too bad), and I was able to go for a decent-length walk at night without even getting sweaty. I don't think I'll even need the AC on tonight, I can just keep the windows to my bedroom open and I should be able to sleep with no problems.
Friday, September 6, 2013
Today was basically the inverted version of how my luck usually works.
Meaning, it started out not-so-great and got better later, after which it continued to be good all throughout the rest of the day!
(And even the not-so-great parts weren't that bad. Just having to wake up at 8 AM really sucks, and I kinda wanted to go to the first Forum thing of the year... but crowdiness and not knowing for sure where I'd be able to sit were a problem as always, and plus I would've had to go in, get a seat, leave to get my drink from the art room where I left it, and then come back and be late for the thing. So of course, I just left instead. That was pretty much it.)
Anyway... after that whole thing was over, there was lunch (where I ate... rice, and then later ice cream), and I got to really talk to Ruth for the first time this semester! I'd say that was definitely worth paying for a second dining hall meal to go back in after I had left before (...and I got ice cream too, so it's not like I paid to get in and then didn't even eat anything. XD) Yeah... I really missed actually having friends around to talk to, goof off with, etc. over the summer... but now I've managed to see at least most of my friends from previous semesters who are still here at this point. And the first week of school isn't even over yet; it's nice to not have to go around for weeks wondering where someone is before finally bumping into them.
After that (and my last class) I took a walk down to the post office and shipped one of the three NES games that I've sold on eBay recently. The buyer for the other two paid later today, and requested some pretty specific packaging (both of the games in a box, with padding so they don't knock around and get damaged), so it'll take a little longer to ship them than previous ones... I'll need to actually find a decent box, plus some padding material of some sort to put in it. Plus I'm not sure if the post office is even open over the weekend, so I probably won't be able to ship it until next week. And I should probably wait for the "E-Check" (not sure what that is... it's the first time I've gotten a message about waiting for an "E-Check" when someone bought some of my stuff... possibly using a slightly different payment method because it was so much more money than most?) to clear so I know for sure that I'm going to get the money without any problems, which should happen sometime around Sept. 11th (so mid-next week, which leaves Thursday or Friday open to actually ship the things.)
On the way back from that trip, started getting hungry and decided to stop by this little restaurant that opened up in the spot where Franks for the Memories used to be. Had the best chicken nuggets I've ever had (actual chicken breast meat! not nasty ground-up nonsense! oh, and the breading stuff on the outside was good too), then headed back home for a bit before going up to the Institute social thing. Bumped into a few people I knew last year there (most of them very briefly, though I did have short conversations with a few), but spent most of my time hanging around with someone I just met this week. Apparently she has the strange and amazing talent of reciting the scripts from most episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender (complete with the right tone of voice, emotions, facial expressions, etc.) After a while we ended up going up to the Lofts to play ping-pong, with a couple of other people I just met this week following at first but then randomly staying behind after a while. I'm pretty sure I was up there playing ping-pong, talking, and just generally goofing off for around two hours with several new people who weren't at SVU until this semester. And now, after bumping into them two or three times, I can actually remember their names! XD
Also, I really like the fridge at my apartment. Yeah, that's really random to mention, but oh well. It keeps my milk really cold, but doesn't partially freeze it into "90% of a gallon of milk, 10% giant ice shards" like the ones at the Library Mods and Carriage occasionally did (mostly when the other guys in the house pushed my milk all the way to the back of the fridge to make room for theirs.) It does look a little empty with nothing but milk, tomato sauce, Parmesan cheese, soy sauce, and a random (so far unopened) jar of pickles in it, though. XD
(And even the not-so-great parts weren't that bad. Just having to wake up at 8 AM really sucks, and I kinda wanted to go to the first Forum thing of the year... but crowdiness and not knowing for sure where I'd be able to sit were a problem as always, and plus I would've had to go in, get a seat, leave to get my drink from the art room where I left it, and then come back and be late for the thing. So of course, I just left instead. That was pretty much it.)
Anyway... after that whole thing was over, there was lunch (where I ate... rice, and then later ice cream), and I got to really talk to Ruth for the first time this semester! I'd say that was definitely worth paying for a second dining hall meal to go back in after I had left before (...and I got ice cream too, so it's not like I paid to get in and then didn't even eat anything. XD) Yeah... I really missed actually having friends around to talk to, goof off with, etc. over the summer... but now I've managed to see at least most of my friends from previous semesters who are still here at this point. And the first week of school isn't even over yet; it's nice to not have to go around for weeks wondering where someone is before finally bumping into them.
After that (and my last class) I took a walk down to the post office and shipped one of the three NES games that I've sold on eBay recently. The buyer for the other two paid later today, and requested some pretty specific packaging (both of the games in a box, with padding so they don't knock around and get damaged), so it'll take a little longer to ship them than previous ones... I'll need to actually find a decent box, plus some padding material of some sort to put in it. Plus I'm not sure if the post office is even open over the weekend, so I probably won't be able to ship it until next week. And I should probably wait for the "E-Check" (not sure what that is... it's the first time I've gotten a message about waiting for an "E-Check" when someone bought some of my stuff... possibly using a slightly different payment method because it was so much more money than most?) to clear so I know for sure that I'm going to get the money without any problems, which should happen sometime around Sept. 11th (so mid-next week, which leaves Thursday or Friday open to actually ship the things.)
On the way back from that trip, started getting hungry and decided to stop by this little restaurant that opened up in the spot where Franks for the Memories used to be. Had the best chicken nuggets I've ever had (actual chicken breast meat! not nasty ground-up nonsense! oh, and the breading stuff on the outside was good too), then headed back home for a bit before going up to the Institute social thing. Bumped into a few people I knew last year there (most of them very briefly, though I did have short conversations with a few), but spent most of my time hanging around with someone I just met this week. Apparently she has the strange and amazing talent of reciting the scripts from most episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender (complete with the right tone of voice, emotions, facial expressions, etc.) After a while we ended up going up to the Lofts to play ping-pong, with a couple of other people I just met this week following at first but then randomly staying behind after a while. I'm pretty sure I was up there playing ping-pong, talking, and just generally goofing off for around two hours with several new people who weren't at SVU until this semester. And now, after bumping into them two or three times, I can actually remember their names! XD
Also, I really like the fridge at my apartment. Yeah, that's really random to mention, but oh well. It keeps my milk really cold, but doesn't partially freeze it into "90% of a gallon of milk, 10% giant ice shards" like the ones at the Library Mods and Carriage occasionally did (mostly when the other guys in the house pushed my milk all the way to the back of the fridge to make room for theirs.) It does look a little empty with nothing but milk, tomato sauce, Parmesan cheese, soy sauce, and a random (so far unopened) jar of pickles in it, though. XD
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Another unnecessarily snarky reply from someone you don't even know? Nahhhh.
About the title... well, all I'm going to say is that "unfollow post" is a great button. So glad Facebook has that button now.
In other news, first real day of school is tomorrow (well, technically "today" since it's after midnight.) 9 AM class, the earliest I'll have in my entire time at SVU. I can make it to the art building in 10 minutes walking, so I shouldn't have to wake up any earlier than 8:00 or so to have plenty of time for breakfast, tooth-brushing, and becoming fully awake so that I'm not a zombie when I get to my class. It would've been nice if the 9 AM class was the one that was Monday/Wednesday instead of M/W/F, but no... only the art classes with 11 AM time slots that would prevent people from going to Forum get Fridays off. Oh well. It's not 8 AM or earlier, so I should be able to manage it.
Also, I drew Kurb and Thunotsu some more today... first just them standing still from different angles (front, back, side) and then a bunch of different facial expressions (Kurb's are easy to come up with, but Thunotsu isn't as expressive... and plus he only has one big eye and no eyebrows, not even the "appears only when needed" cartoony kind that Kurb has, so it's harder to do a variety of expressions with him. So Kurb ended up with 30+ of them, while Thunotsu only had 18), and finally the two of them showing off some of their Kihlah attacks. I think I drew Thunotsu's Zzzter Shield and Zzzter Orb differently this time than I usually do; not sure which version I like better, I'll have to go back and find a drawing of the old version to decide.
And I'm working on a game for the most recent OHRRPGCE 8-bit Contest. I'm not sure just how much I'll have finished by the deadline (Sept. 8th), but so far I have a bunch of maps done and the basic mechanics of the game set up... and not a huge amount else. Well, I've got a lot more now than I did before I moved in at SVU, at least. I only have one regular map left to make, and that one can't be reached until later in the game anyway. The first dungeon is almost done, all I need to do now is add some items to the treasure chests and do the scripting stuff that lets you freeze ice-bridges across some narrow sections of water (after you learn how to do ice magic, of course.) Ideally I'd get all five dungeons finished before the demo release, but that seems unlikely unless I go absolutely nuts working on this thing during some of my "no-school" days, especially since it's taken so much testing to get the boss of the FIRST dungeon to work right. Hopefully I'll get at least the first three of them done (technically the one I have done is "first," but you'll be able to go to the first three in any order you want) before the 8th.
In other news, first real day of school is tomorrow (well, technically "today" since it's after midnight.) 9 AM class, the earliest I'll have in my entire time at SVU. I can make it to the art building in 10 minutes walking, so I shouldn't have to wake up any earlier than 8:00 or so to have plenty of time for breakfast, tooth-brushing, and becoming fully awake so that I'm not a zombie when I get to my class. It would've been nice if the 9 AM class was the one that was Monday/Wednesday instead of M/W/F, but no... only the art classes with 11 AM time slots that would prevent people from going to Forum get Fridays off. Oh well. It's not 8 AM or earlier, so I should be able to manage it.
Also, I drew Kurb and Thunotsu some more today... first just them standing still from different angles (front, back, side) and then a bunch of different facial expressions (Kurb's are easy to come up with, but Thunotsu isn't as expressive... and plus he only has one big eye and no eyebrows, not even the "appears only when needed" cartoony kind that Kurb has, so it's harder to do a variety of expressions with him. So Kurb ended up with 30+ of them, while Thunotsu only had 18), and finally the two of them showing off some of their Kihlah attacks. I think I drew Thunotsu's Zzzter Shield and Zzzter Orb differently this time than I usually do; not sure which version I like better, I'll have to go back and find a drawing of the old version to decide.
And I'm working on a game for the most recent OHRRPGCE 8-bit Contest. I'm not sure just how much I'll have finished by the deadline (Sept. 8th), but so far I have a bunch of maps done and the basic mechanics of the game set up... and not a huge amount else. Well, I've got a lot more now than I did before I moved in at SVU, at least. I only have one regular map left to make, and that one can't be reached until later in the game anyway. The first dungeon is almost done, all I need to do now is add some items to the treasure chests and do the scripting stuff that lets you freeze ice-bridges across some narrow sections of water (after you learn how to do ice magic, of course.) Ideally I'd get all five dungeons finished before the demo release, but that seems unlikely unless I go absolutely nuts working on this thing during some of my "no-school" days, especially since it's taken so much testing to get the boss of the FIRST dungeon to work right. Hopefully I'll get at least the first three of them done (technically the one I have done is "first," but you'll be able to go to the first three in any order you want) before the 8th.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Classes haven't quite started yet... but school seems to be off to a good start so far
Yep... first few days back in Buena Vista have gone pretty well. Even though I haven't seen people I know too often yet (a lot of those who are still at SVU this year are here, but I think at least a few haven't gotten here yet) I haven't gotten to "dying of boredom" levels of boredom even when sitting alone in my house yet (and the one time I got close to that so far, I remembered there actually was something going on up on campus right then, so it didn't go too far before I found something to do.)
Friday (the day that got boring, mentioned above) I ended up going to the "Knight Games" thing that they have around the start of every year. Turned out pretty good, at least mostly due to the fact that I bumped into a bunch of people I know up there (including a whole lot that I had not seen or talked to at all since the end of last semester.) And of course, I got to see people get thrown off of a mechanical bull:
On Saturday there was the first dance of the year, which I wasn't expecting to be anything special (due to some people not being back yet, and the first dance being the one that nearly all the incoming freshmen go to as part of orientation... which means lots of total strangers hanging around.) It actually turned out pretty good, though! Bumped into a bunch of people I knew throughout the time I was there (including some I hadn't seen before then), danced a little bit (during which I found out that I still remember how to do the cha-cha despite not practicing for months... and also one time a complete stranger actually came up and asked me to dance, which was a real surprise--I rarely even have people I actually know ask me to dance, let alone people I've never met before in my life!), and got to know a couple of new people. There were a ton of complete strangers (I'm assuming mostly new freshmen, or returned missionaries that left 2 years ago or something...) there, though. I wasn't expecting there to be that many, especially with the Mormons lowering the mission ages (I figured there'd be basically no 18-year-old guys coming in this year, since they'd all go on missions instead.) The new people I talked to seemed pretty nice overall, though unfortunately one of them pulled out the early stages of a conversion attempt on me almost the instant she found out I wasn't Mormon... Okay, kids, I know your church has been pushing that "every member a missionary" thing a lot lately, but seriously, telling someone to pray about things and hoping they convert to your religion is not the best way to give a good first impression to people you've never met before in your life, or make them want to get to know you any better. That sort of thing is kind of obnoxious even when my friends do it (and has, several times in the past, distanced me a bit from friends... none quite as bad as the one from way back in 2005, but still, there were a few people last year that suddenly become a lot more uncomfortable to be around after they went all converty on me), let alone people that I've only just met.
For some reason, though, the conversion-attempt girl's name is the only one that I remember. It probably helps that I have no idea how to spell the other girl's name, and due to how ear-blastingly loud it was in there when I was talking to her I'm not even 100% sure how to pronounce it either (it was only after the end of the dance that I talked to the other girl whose name I can remember, so there wasn't absurdly loud music blaring in my ears the whole time.)
But yeah, the dance turned out pretty well. And apparently there's another one next week, so hopefully that one turns out well too.
Unfortunately, it's looking like I won't be able to get a job for this semester after all. The good thing, though, is that I might not even need one--now that I'm selling my old NES games on eBay, I might actually be making more money a week than I would have made from an actual job anyway (at least assuming that I was only working low-end part time hours.) So far I've gotten about 80 bucks from my copy of Megaman 5, and I currently have DuckTales 2 up for auction... and the high bid at the moment is over $100 (with 3 days still left to go! O_O) Along with two other games (one's been bid up to around $20, the other still at $10.) Hopefully that should be enough (combined with my financial aid refund check and what I've already got in the bank) to pay for rent and electric bills. If not, I've always got my main bank account back home to fall back on, but I'd rather not drain a bunch of money from that to pay for rent...
Friday (the day that got boring, mentioned above) I ended up going to the "Knight Games" thing that they have around the start of every year. Turned out pretty good, at least mostly due to the fact that I bumped into a bunch of people I know up there (including a whole lot that I had not seen or talked to at all since the end of last semester.) And of course, I got to see people get thrown off of a mechanical bull:
On Saturday there was the first dance of the year, which I wasn't expecting to be anything special (due to some people not being back yet, and the first dance being the one that nearly all the incoming freshmen go to as part of orientation... which means lots of total strangers hanging around.) It actually turned out pretty good, though! Bumped into a bunch of people I knew throughout the time I was there (including some I hadn't seen before then), danced a little bit (during which I found out that I still remember how to do the cha-cha despite not practicing for months... and also one time a complete stranger actually came up and asked me to dance, which was a real surprise--I rarely even have people I actually know ask me to dance, let alone people I've never met before in my life!), and got to know a couple of new people. There were a ton of complete strangers (I'm assuming mostly new freshmen, or returned missionaries that left 2 years ago or something...) there, though. I wasn't expecting there to be that many, especially with the Mormons lowering the mission ages (I figured there'd be basically no 18-year-old guys coming in this year, since they'd all go on missions instead.) The new people I talked to seemed pretty nice overall, though unfortunately one of them pulled out the early stages of a conversion attempt on me almost the instant she found out I wasn't Mormon... Okay, kids, I know your church has been pushing that "every member a missionary" thing a lot lately, but seriously, telling someone to pray about things and hoping they convert to your religion is not the best way to give a good first impression to people you've never met before in your life, or make them want to get to know you any better. That sort of thing is kind of obnoxious even when my friends do it (and has, several times in the past, distanced me a bit from friends... none quite as bad as the one from way back in 2005, but still, there were a few people last year that suddenly become a lot more uncomfortable to be around after they went all converty on me), let alone people that I've only just met.
For some reason, though, the conversion-attempt girl's name is the only one that I remember. It probably helps that I have no idea how to spell the other girl's name, and due to how ear-blastingly loud it was in there when I was talking to her I'm not even 100% sure how to pronounce it either (it was only after the end of the dance that I talked to the other girl whose name I can remember, so there wasn't absurdly loud music blaring in my ears the whole time.)
But yeah, the dance turned out pretty well. And apparently there's another one next week, so hopefully that one turns out well too.
Unfortunately, it's looking like I won't be able to get a job for this semester after all. The good thing, though, is that I might not even need one--now that I'm selling my old NES games on eBay, I might actually be making more money a week than I would have made from an actual job anyway (at least assuming that I was only working low-end part time hours.) So far I've gotten about 80 bucks from my copy of Megaman 5, and I currently have DuckTales 2 up for auction... and the high bid at the moment is over $100 (with 3 days still left to go! O_O) Along with two other games (one's been bid up to around $20, the other still at $10.) Hopefully that should be enough (combined with my financial aid refund check and what I've already got in the bank) to pay for rent and electric bills. If not, I've always got my main bank account back home to fall back on, but I'd rather not drain a bunch of money from that to pay for rent...
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