12.28.2003

Is it colder today?

As hell as frozen over!! The Seattle Seahawks managed to get into the playoffs for the first time since 1999 with a loss by the Dallas Cowboys. So, I thank thee Cowboys for all your hard non-work today.

Yesterday, the Seahawks pulled a win out of their ass. I stoped watching after the 49ers managed to score twice. Now I wished I didn't cause I heard the Hawks went crazy at the end of the game. Oh well, that ok cause next week baby!!! Playoffs!!!! I should make nachos or something. teee heee

Well, that enough excitement for one day. So, until next time...

12.26.2003

A day late, a few hundred dollars short

There's nothing like maxing your credit out by just trying to live. You should try it sometime if you haven't.

Christmas came and went. No hooplah about it. Dave didn't even get the normal haul he got in years past. He didn't seem terribly sad about it, though at our first gathering, he was counting gifts. I think he was doing it because he heard his cousin counting his gifts. I don't blame him for counting gifts. Sure, it's a little materialistic, but it's the amiercan way, right? I even counted presents when I was young, in competition with my younger sister. I really don't know how my parents didn't through us both in a trunk and throw us over a bridge. So, what was my favorite gift? I think it was the Thermos. I wanted one so I bring a bunch of coffee to school with me and not have to buy some there. I have this knack of falling asleep while studying if I don't have coffee. Not a good thing specially when you have to read 20 page in each class you have.

Speaking of classes, I pulled a 3.0 at WSU and a 3.25 at CBC. I raised my Cumlative GPA at WSU a whole hundreth of a point. I think at CBC I raised it one tenth of a point. Not too shabby. If I'm lucky, I could leave with better than 3.0 at both places. But my time is short with school, as I think I've mentioned before. But I'm soo stoked about it, I just have to keep mentioning it. I should be getting ready for that transition to getting a 24/7/365 job to pay back my loans and other debt. I'm stoked abou that too. Really.

Well, I'm not sure how to be more entertaining, so, until next time...

12.19.2003

The Haves and Have-Nots

Ok, I just read a depressing article about the decline of jobs in America. The most distressing number to me was the huge drop of computer programmers and software engineers. That's a roughly 25% drop from current employment levels. My future is bleak. The article goes into the a possible reason as to why this is and that is the jobs are simply going over seas, to India. In this article from the AP, Indian programmers make $20 an hour compared to US average of $65 an hour. From the business point of view, I can totally see the sense of the $45 an hour difference. And I bet that the average programmer from India will probably put out more quality code than the average coder from the US. I'll chalk that up to culture difference: we are big fat piggies whining for this and that utill we get it. Mind you, that's just an observation. People get pissed when they have to pay $.25 for a cup of tartar (true story which I'm sure I've told most of you). The average person from India has it a little harder. As seen from several television programs/documentaries. So their work ethic is little bit better.

Well, I can see two things happenning and probably is happenning now. One, the US will mainly be a place where companies live and all their employees will live somewhere else. Imagine the landscape of Coruscant from the beginning of SW: Attack of the Clones or several other scenes. Just one huge landscape of buildings and structures owned by big businesses. As far as the eye can see, and not just in big metropolitan areas either. This is probably a far fetched posibility, but along with everything else, is conceivable.

The second thing that could happen, which is right along the lines of the the first thing, is that the US will be where the Have's live and everywhere else is the have-nots. Thus creating a huge amount of hatred towards what the US represents. More than what is now, if you can believe that. And it will be a hatred not based on religion. (of course by this time, I hope that religion itself becomes an artifact)

Now, something could occur as well and that is equillibrium will occur. Once all programmers go to India and other places of interest, they will want to have higher wages. So the minimum wage for them will go up to $65. They will turn piggie-like. Hence the cycle will begin anew.

So, something has to be done about this. What? I don't really know. I'm all for a big ol world economy but that can't exist until several things disappear, which I won't get into here. So, for a temp fix, the government can impose taxes on companies that have a certain percentage of people doing work overseas who are not US nationals. The percentage goes up, the tax goes up. I am almost certain that this would get shot down by the big companies before it ever got to the senate floor. They say it would be constricting the way they do business. Well, they're constricting the way we live first and foremost.

That's my two cents on this issue. It is an important issue, the issue of jobs going overseas, and something has to be started or my bleak future will come true.

12.18.2003

A small light at the end of the Tunnel

Well, one semester down, one to go. I turned in my final paper earlier today. I wouldn't consider it A material, but I've turned in worse before and gotten an A. I'm not sure if the instructors do a word count on your paper or actually read the damn things. I'm really guessing they print it out to see how heavy it weighs. Props to my bio instructor for mentioning his true life story of one his own instructors doing just that.

I have managed to get re-aquainted with my friend caffine. During my DB project and my e-commerce paper, I began drinking at least two cups (in my super-duper large Gas Powered Games coffee mug) of coffee (instant Folgers that's at least a year old) a day. Normally one right after the other. This is a bad thing. On Tuesday, I stop drinking the coffee cause I didn't need to put much into my school work. By middle of the afternoon, I was dragging. Today, I didn't have any coffee. I was dragging by 8pm. It was terrible. So around 11pm I make myself a cup of coffee. And BAM, I kick myself up a knotch. So, here it is a little after 1am. I'm still awake (normal bed time is 11 because my first class was at 7:35am). My eyes are heavy, but my brain is still going like 90 MPH. I think I have forever doomed myself to coffee.

On the subject of school, my first class isn't till 11:30am. Which allows for some later nights. Though if I managed to get a job, I'd prefer to work 7 to 11am and then hoof it to school and hope that there's a parking spot left (I have to have classes at the Pasco CBC campus, I'm not thrilled about it). As for classes, I think I only have one hard one, third quarter calculus. I haven't had calculus in more than 5 years. I want to kick my ass because I was enrolled in third quarter calc way back when but dropped it because I only needed one class that quarter for my AA. Actually, I could really be graduating this semester had I finished my physics classes. I could have done it too. I deserve two kicks in my ass for that one.

Anyway, 1 class as WSU and 3 at CBC is all that remains....and no stinking MIS classes!!! I'm sooo done with it!!!! I could say that I have a minor in it now!! haha

Welp, I'll see ya'll later. Oh yeah, if anybody wants to party like it's 1999 on dec 31st, here's a time machine. Enjoy!

12.14.2003

A big round of applause for....

Mike. He gets added to my list of honorable mentionabled blogs. Congrats, Mike!

12.11.2003

The Circle is now Complete

Well boy howdy! I finally got a hit off a stupid search engine today! Check it out!!
Click me!

It's not google, but I'll take it where I can get it.

12.09.2003

One week

Hopefully it will go by as fast as the tempo in the song from BNL.

Presented my DB today. I suck sooo much ass. I totally didn't work on it long enough and it showed. It's a piece of crap. I only have myself to blame. On the bright side, I only have 2 tests now on Thursday. Groovy. Our DB instructor didn't finish the material and she said that our class was great and our test average was good enough. So she threw out the last test. That's good cause that would have been the least studied test.

I want to say thanks to all my peeps about my last post. Word of mouth has gotten back to me to the quality of it. Expect some other top notch posts in the future.

Battlestar Galatica was on last night and continues tonight. As for most of Sci-Fi Channel, I was expecting it to suck. Cheesy. Just pure crap. However, at each commercial break, I was hearing myself say "It hasn't sucked so far." I'm actually pretty happy with the first part. And nuts to all you who think it has changed too much from the original. I think the changes were warranted. Change is good if you want to remake a show. Look at the remake of Psycho. I heard it sucked. I haven't seen either one so I can't be sure at all. In fact, that was a horrible example for me to comment on. "Write what you know," they say. Oopps. Anyway, change can be good.

So the effects were really cool. It was definitely character/story driven as the effects were limited. The effects did enhance the story. I only hope that George L. watches it and goes "Oh, yeah....Enhance the story, not become the movie." I really, really doubt it though. So good points of the effects was the use of thrusters on the Vipers. I can really believe that something like that could exist. My suspension of disbelief was achieved. The Cylons we all remember from the original were only present in their new form for a few minutes at the beginning. They were all CG and looked very cool. The new Cylon starfighters were also changed. For the better. Again, CG.

For the story, it wasn't new or anything. Deceit, cowardness, arrogance. Couple of sex scenes which showed character traits. haha not physical traits, ya sick cheeky monkeys! All the scenes had their place.

Part 2 continues tonight. It will be replayed during the week so if you missed it, don't fret. It will be on again. It also sounds like they will be expanding it into a regular series. I hope so. It would be the first original series on Sci-Fi that I would watch regularly. And I call myself a geek? Yes, I just don't like what's on Sci-Fi.

Ok, well, hunger pains are paining me. So, until next time...

12.05.2003

Spike TV, driving a spike into the Game Industry

Alrighty. I don't know how many of you watched the Video Game Awards on Spike TV. Hopefully a low number of you. I decided I would watch a little bit of it to see how it was. At first, I was thinking how good could it be if Spike TV sponsored the thing. They have Baywatch and Star Trek: The Next Generation in the same mornings or afternoons. I forget. I'm always channel surfing when I get to spike tv and never notice the time. What's important is they have a very broad demographic. Though I could be wrong....Do Trekkies (hahhahaha yes, it's wrong....BASTARD USS Rubicon!!!!) actually like women? in skimpy bathing suits? *ponders...*

My first thought was how loud and in your face this award show was. And I noticed how many "cheerleaders" were there. Ok, they were cheerleaders from an actual NFL team, which again I won't mention because I hate them and I don't want them in my ads. But anyway, they seemed really out of place. I think "boobage" was the term that was used describing it. There was also this canned cheering of what seems like a bunch of women at every point that seemed to warrant cheering. The shots of the crowd proved that the cheering was canned. They were lifeless. Stones at the bottom of a murky pond. Moss was growing on them. The blue kind.

David Spade happened to be the host. He wasn't funny. He was using humor addressed for the viewing audience and had nothing to do with gaming. I liked David Spade back in his SNL days. Now, he's just a starving artist. Not even that. He's just starving. So, he tells some jokes, the canned cheering is used a lot, and they finally get to the first award. I don't even know what the award was. I was expecting a list of nomiations and then the reading of the winner. Not so at Spike TV. They went directly to the winner. Oh yeah, I remember what the category was. It was best animation in a game. The winner? DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball. Why did it win? It certainly wasn't for the animation unless you count all the DOA chicks. The only reason it got that award was for the "boobage" factor. That's it, nothing more. A direct hit at what the game industry was trying to steer out of. Even at the main game conference they are getting out of the "booth babe" scene. Women are not just there in games for the viewing pleasure of the male audience.

Also in the early moments of the show was a performance by Bubba Sparx. I barely know of him. His song was barely intelligible. During it was more "boobage" and canned cheering. Cheerleaders dancing in falling water. Why the hell is this at an award show for games? Oh, it's on Spike TV. I see a theme here.

After some other awards, we decided go shopping for groceries. Dawn was torn between watching the crap and seeing Andrew WK, who was due to be on there at some time. It wasn't for a performance as there are pics of him in a wheelchair and crutches. And sporting a beard. haha I convinced her that AWK was not that important and having food in the house was. So off we went, wondering why we even thought it was a good idea in the first place to watch the VGAs.

Fast forward past shopping. We get home and I turn it back on, half expecting it to be over. Nope, still on. It turns out it was two hours long. So I'm happy with my decision to go shopping. I channel surf for a while and find myself back on Spike TV. There was about 15 minutes left. I was hoping to get a glimpse of AWK for Dawn. I did, but only at a table of one of the award recipients. This award happened to be for best music in a game. The winner for this one? Def Jam Vendetta. This award was then followed by a performance by DMX. Coinkydink? Hell no!! On a side note, between Bubba and DMX, DMX was far better. He knew how to work the audience. Or maybe the audience was too damn drunk by the end to really care any more.

I went to the Spike TV website and actually did find a list of nominations for each category. Why did even list the nominations if they would go directly to the winners? I'm thinking that the nominations were an afterthought to put around the winner to make it look like there's an actual competition going on. Some other clues you can find include:


  • Madden 2004 winning Game of the year, but not sports game of the year

  • Enter the Matrix winning best game based on a movie

  • The mixing of MMO with traditional games in the fantasy game category ie Star Wars Galaxies and Final Fantasy XI competing with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and The legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

  • And finally, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City not even nominated for best action game


There might be others. Without watching the whole show I'd be hard pressed to find more.

The only conclusion I can draw from watching what little I did is that the VGAs were merely a stupid little stunt to draw in some more viewers. It kind of reminded me of the XFL. Hopefully it will last just as long. They mention annual in their name. I know it's a typo. It's just so sad that the game industry worked hard to steer clear of their past image of being an only guy's club.

So, there's some ramblings from an irate game developer wannabe. And so, Spike TV gets my "Thanks a lot" award for bringing the game industry one giant leap back.

12.04.2003

Focus, focus, focus

I would like to introduce Game Matters to my list of great links. I just discovered it, but it looks promising. It gives a take on the game industry. There's also some links to others with info about the game industry. I'm putting this link on so I can focus on my career otherwise it's gonna putter and stop. Then I'll be working at 7-11 for the rest of my life. So, this year I'm not waiting for New Years to do resolutions. Now is the time. So, read if you want.

Oh yeah. I'd also like to mention that I finished my DB project. Now a ten page report due in two weeks and 4, count them with me, 1, 2, 3, four! test next week. Three of them on the same freaking day! How is that fair? It's not. oh well. So, until next time....

Evanescence

Yeah, so like Evanescence. So I was trying to remember the last CD I had bought. And it turns out that Shania Twain Up! CD was the last one I got. Which was a while ago. Earlier in the year. So, I'm thinking that early next year, I'll pick up the Evanescence CD. Soo much goodness, in one little disc. Oh yeah, they got nominated for 5 grammies! Like rock on! The lead signer was there at the new conference. How do I know? Well, I just happened to be flipping channels when they were announcing them and E! Happened to have the coverage...LIVE!! Hehe

So I watched it all. To my surprise, Dido was there too. She's a hottie. Oh yeah, British/Austalian accents are like the best accents in the world!! Specially on the women. *grin* So, if anybody wants to buy me a vacation, please have the UK and Australia on the iternerary.

12.02.2003

Quick Post!

Evanescence CD! Get it for me!!! NOW!!!

Damn my bad self!

Ok, I'm doing up my database now. Not right now cause I'm doing this post. Anyway, in the beginning when I first thought of it, being a computer science student I was gonna make it all "gee-whiz-bang". Now, it pains me that I didn't start on the forms and stuff earlier cause now it gonna suck major eggs! It's gonna be just a shell of what it could be. *cries* I blame that damn bio lab write-up I had to do which I couldn't finish until Sunday. grrrrr another reason to hate bio. heh Actually, historically, Thanksgiving break has always been a bad week for me. Last year I went clubbing, not clubbing of senior citizens or baby white seals, but to the local club scene. Time I could have spent doing my last graphics project which I didn't do cause I was stupid and picked this organic thing to model. Tip for you first year graphic students who have to model 3D object without a 3D modeling application, do something that has lots of straight lines. Ok, back to my bad self. This last week, I spent two days cooking, and the days before wondering what I should cook.

Ok, well time's a ticking away on my DB project. So, back to that.

12.01.2003

Well boy howdy!

So, didja watch the Seahawk game? Didya didya? Well, for those who didn't, I know where you live, the Seattle Seahawks won 34 to 7 over the B team, which I won't mention because of some funky ad stuff. I didn't even watch the game either. I wonder if there's a correlation to that. *shakes head* Nope, just a coinkydink.

And I got a 95 percent on the bio test I had just before break. Number 3 in the class. *big grin* I rock!!! I'm cruising in that class. One more test, which happens to be 40 percent of the total grade, and then only 2 more quarters of Bio. Wheee!!! Ok, now I need to put my mad database skillz to work. So, until the next time....