Christmas comes
I didn't realize until today how close it actually was to Christmas. Crazyness. Guess I'm just getting older.

I'm still enjoying having the free time to do gaming. The latest stuff - Half-Life! Yeah, that's right, the first one. It's still a great game. Has to do until the sequel comes out - the sequel I'm sure will be incredible. But we have to wait, dammit. Somebody did something bad. So it was supposed to come out in September, then December, and now it looks like April. Bleah. That's not good, considering I'm going to graduate in May. Nice timing, guys.

AND I also got another little something as an early Christmas present. DDRMAX2! The game you can play and get exercise at the same time! It's pretty fun stuff. Definitely a party game. I might have to use it for New Year's. Good stuff. I have to say thanks to the two Marnis who picked that one out.

Well, I've got to get ready to go do SOME work today. And kung fu. Finally have some time to do stuff, now that finals are OVER. Yes. That, but maybe I should stop sleeping in quite so late. Oh well. I have some time to get around that.

Random link! There was a nice trailer for a new movie on Return of the King. I managed to identify what it was for as soon as they mentioned the name of the "product", but it seems like a lot of people actually thought it was a real product, didn't realize it was a movie. But it is. A movie based on a story by Isaac Asimov.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 3:59 PM | 8 comments

 
Time for weekend relaxation
LONG week. Man. Done with school for the semester, but the next one will be rough. Have to do thesis work, all that. Hopefully it'll turn out okay.

I got a second job, which is cool. Work from home on an hourly basis, good pay, I'm happy. It's good to have connections. I'll be doing that, plus my first job, this weekend. In addition to that - game programming! I'll be getting back into it. I started some a long time ago, but haven't in a while. I'll need to get another copy of Visual C++ to do it. Luckily, I found a good site that makes it easier to purchase software. That, and having the right book also helps. Hopefully I'll have something cool up by the end of break. Maybe not something extraordinary (yet), but something.

Random link time. Seems like a lot of people try to knock gaming and the people who do it. They aren't all bad. (There's a lot of consoles here.)
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 10:33 PM | 0 comments

 
Sweet relief
I've been getting some rest, finally. After finishing all my finals. Last one was yesterday, 8 AM. Stayed up studying until about 4, slept until 7:30 or so. You do the math. That, and somehow, I was up until 6 or so the NEXT night. So that's 22 hours of solid awakeness. Well, maybe not solid, but you know.

I went and treated myself to Call of Duty after finishing my final. Sweet, sweet game. Very intense. Quite good. I may get back to that in a moment here. I recommend checking it out, if you like first person shooters AT ALL.

Went and saw Return of the King today. Amazing movie. VERY long, though. Make sure you have an empty bladder when you begin it. I'll gladly see it again, which I'll be doing tomorrow, with my sister for her birthday. A ridiculous number of "wow" scenes. That, and the CNN review bows down to Jackson and the whole series. Apparently most people think it's pretty good.

Aside from crazy lack of sleep and some playing, I may have a second part-time job. Which would be cool. We'll find out tomorrow, when I have my interview. I have my dad to thank for that one. If I complete the first one fully, I may get a second job from the same guy, if the site does what he says it's going to do, which is make him rich. And perhaps the second job I'll actually get paid properly on. We'll see.

Okay - random link. I have my friend Sean from out of town to thank for this one.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 9:12 PM | 0 comments

 
Study time
It's finals. I've been trying to study. But on the other hand, it's finals. An I'm doing everything else I can get my hands on. Which includes playing a little bit of Dungeon Siege, going to a crazy party, and staying up WAY TOO LATE playing a lot of random stuff. I figure it'll be standard practice. Fully study right before the test. For one class, that means tomorrow, which is when I have the test. Then immediately afterwards begin studying for the other test. So maybe some review stuff later tonight. Since I'll be up.

There's been some major news, in case you don't pay attention to silly things like news. They caught the big Iraqi man. He was actually hiding in a hole, which plenty of people have very interesting things to say about, I'm sure. As for me, I'll let you make your own comments. I'm just glad it's over.

And blogs! There's one more I should mention. My roommate's blog. Which has actually been up for a while. Pretty professionally done, I must say.

Ah! And random link. I think I'm going to start learning how to use Maya after finals. There are some things out there that have inspired me a bit. I especially liked this one.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 5:37 PM | 0 comments

 
Late at night
Or early in the morning. Depends how you look at it. Ah... I like my computer. I have it finally running the way I like it. Firewall's set up, running smoothly. Mandrake didn't work out, because it didn't like my RAID setup for some reason. Alas, I only have XP with a mirrored 80 GB drive, plus my other 80 GB drive for storage. Plus my other 80 GB drive for backup. Yeah, so I'm a little paranoid. Once you reach that level of space, the idea of all of it suddenly going AWAY makes me nervous. Which is why I have as many drives as I do. But I've actually been on it for a much longer time than I have in a while. Because it's so luscious. I use it for gaming, and actually used it for work today. To log in remotely and work on the office computer. I could still have music running on my machine in the background, and jump in and out from it. Very nice.

Speaking of which - my work schedule has allowed me to fall into my natural sleeping rhythm, which isn't normal by any stretch of the imagination. Something like four to two. Ten hours of sleep, on Japan time. Maybe that's a sign. Who knows.

Ah - the Max Payne thing... didn't quite work out the way I'd hope it would. Oh, it's installed. Just not running. Maybe I should buy it. I wanted to try it out before buying it, but the checksum security approach is a little too effective to do things that way. So what do I play instead? Need For Speed, baby! Porsche Unleashed! Yes, it's old. They've got a brand new Need For Speed out, on PC. That, and a game called XIII. (That's 13, for those of you who have Roman numeral issues.) Either of these on PC would make wonderful Christmas gifts (but NFS is better). For who? Why, I have no idea.

Apparently some OTHER people have decided to do the Blog thing. Although I've been here for a while (as you can so easily see). But here, I might as well post the links. The first (by a day or so), and the second. We'll see how long they last. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAaaaaa.

And my random link for the evening. This scares me a bit. I'm kind of glad I'm not an adolescent right now, I can't imagine what kinds of moral effects this type of thing can have on the youth of today.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 3:14 AM | 3 comments

 
My computer rises from its sleep
I've installed two new hard drives into my computer. RAID 1, baby! It's sweet. That, and XP PLUS Linux (Mandrake 9.2), although the Linux installation has yet to happen. At any rate, I had to bring my machine down and perform surgery on it. So I haven't been able to get to the blog, sadly. But it's back! As of today. And it's quite luscious.

Yes, so I was doing that for most of the weekend. A little choir get-together as well, plus a Christmas party where I was the big spender on a date auction. Although I really shouldn't have. But it's for charity, so I figured it's not a bad way to spend money. Instead of buying myself toys. Fun times. The choir thing was a nice lunch with a few people who visit the Newman Center, where I play every weekend. They were cool.

Now it's time to install Max Payne 2! It should be quite nice. I'll have to let you know how it goes.

Sadly, no random link for now. I haven't had web browsing time, so it's going to wait. Maybe I'll come back and delete this line, and add a link.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 1:05 AM | 0 comments

 
Okay, so I haven't updated in a LONG TIME
I've been fairly busy. Thanksgiving, all that. I spend most of my time playing Zelda, so there isn't much to update. I had Thanksgiving with the family, they were cool. Although a certain friend who lives with my sister also came over, which caused some ruckus. At least it turns out I'm better at Hearts than she is.

I've been working at the temp job, turns out I'm pretty good at it, even though it's stuff I don't normally do. Nice hours, decent pay - wish I could keep it until graduation. But no. Sadly. It's temporary. At least it'll last the rest of the year.

I've been doing a lot of school work, also - finished a major programming project, where I wrote an HTTP server in Java. The SERVER, mind you. Which isn't the same as writing a web PAGE. I like it, it's cool. That, and a term paper, which I still have yet to finish. I'm Super Procrastinator.

I picked up the Alien Quadrilogy today. It's sweet. 9 discs. Yeah, you heard me right, not a typo. Two versions of each movie on four of the discs, 50 hours of extra stuff on the other 5 discs. Enough to last at least a little while. Almost the same caliber as the Lord of the Rings movies. But I still think LotR is more luscious.

Ah, my blog, how I've missed you. And my adoring fans, all two of you. Sorry for the lapse in time. I shall attempt to keep it a bit more current. And the random link? Something especially luscious.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 9:42 PM | 0 comments