10 posts tagged “personal update”

hi there.
to anyone following my blog, i've revived my old blogger blog and am going to write all my gaming related post to it. within the category of gaming related posts, i'll be writing my monthy blog banter article there. it will be awesome. if you don't read it, your comments will be missed.

i didn't know vox was such a closed society...
it's easy on the audio and video but the commenting system sucks. that's why i switched back to blogger so anons can post comments. fun eh? yay.

anyway, check me out at http://johpan.blogspot.com

i'll still post here for the more personal and music related posts.
i still love you vox. just, you're like the clingy girlfriend that doesn't want to hang out with the rest of my friends. you're cute but... i need my space too you know :P

BLUE DIAMOND SNOW

I've been playing a lot of TF2. I'm starting to enjoy the Engineer and Demoman classes more though Medic is still my favourite. I still suck with the offensive classes though when playing 2fort, I thoroughly enjoy rushing to the opposing intel room as long as there are no turrets and hopping the tunnel roof to victory. I can say that I love all 6 TF2 maps in their own way. My absolute favourite has to be DustBowl. Grainery and Well are practically the same for me. How Hydro works is a bit weird but I guess I can't complain so much. 2Fort is great but TF2 needs more CTF maps. How much I enjoy GravelPit depends on who i'm playing with...

so. i was just distracted by some drum and bass being played in the hive just now. i don't know what's going on exactly but anyone that spins dnb is fine with me. i approached the decks but they don't look very friendly. that and i only have another 15 minutes here at school.

i'll continue this later...

The first real test of the Toronto Raptors' season was yesterday afternoon against the Boston Celtics. To make a long story short, shooting was crap, defense was awesome, lost by 3 points within the last 3 or so seconds. TJ Ford made the miracle 3 inbounding with 7 seconds left. Ray Allen replied with his own miracle with the 3 right after that possession. We laughed, we cried. What a game.

bs angel, author of Hawty McBloggy Invites You to Play, made an internet-wide call to video game bloggers to participate in a monthly article writing extravaganza. I've been meaning to write in here more often and here's a perfect opportunity. (life is best lived in the) front row is more of a personal blog. I game occasionally and when I do, I tend to write about it here. It's not really a hardcore gaming blog like hers or, say, Destructoid or QuickJump but I try to get my opinions across as best i can. Maybe the extra traffic would be a good thing. Maybe I should hade a few articles...

btw, I started playing CS1.6 again. Why? Tee hee. There's a reason except I don't feel like sharing it. A guy can have is secrets, can't he?

daily5 here we come:
5. Weighted Companion Cube
4. 4beatgamers.com- my canvas
3. Online gaming with friends
2. Voice chat
1. Honesty

I haven't been "reading" happiness so I haven't been doing any of the exercises. I've been pretty happy recently. I can't complain. I had my reading week and did absolutely no school work. I kinda regret it but the week overall was eventful.

Here's a few pics of what's been going on...

I haz bayked a cayke

I got bored and hungry over the break and I baked a cake. It was yummy. Cinnamon Crumb Cake. It has icing on top. It looks like someone... you get the idea. I want more... o_o. That was Monday I fink.

But before that, I made a bunch of new friends on stickam with the gamer chat turned Gamers&ELBeats turned 4BeatGamers. Funny story that happened between me and one of the ppl there but you'd have to know me personally and talk to me in person if you want to hear that one. lol. I have to finish making the website. I'll be awesome... I hope.

i haz winned at habanera duble expurt

Anyway, in the week, Friday to be exact, I decided to catch up with an old friend. I went to Fairview Mall to confirm the rumor of there being an ITG machine there and whaddaya know... there was an r21 but custom songs weren't enabled. I wanted to play custom songs so I decided to head down to Putting Edge after and I made a new friend. This new friend just happened to be organizing a tourney the next day. I attended this tourney and met a whole bunch of local ITGers which was comforting. I joined the standard division and won. My FA sucks compared to the expert division but I probably should've joined the expert division... I have been playing for 6 years but I've never really worked on FA until I started ITGing and that's been less than a year. Anywho, I finally passed habanera 1 double expert. Crappy score but a PASS none the less. That was post tourney. My legs were shot post tourney too. I was sitting down behind the machine watching the expert division finish up and my left calf just KNOTS. That hurt but I got over it prett quickly... When I got home and finished showering to go to my friend's birthday dinner and right before I exit my door, my right calf KNOTS. After dinner, we went to Dave and Busters and they had a Pump Zero there. I played one round and the arcade attendants open up the machine and say "how many credits do you need?" and followed with "do you need the volume turned up or anything?" lol it was awesome. I was like a celebrity. Anyway, 4 credits in... my thighs start to knot a bit but doesn't fully flare up. It was kinda scary. My legs a better now.

I got a few packs of keyboard charts for stepmania from a friend the other day. My arms are starting to feel the burn.
I think I was meaning to write more... but I won't...

Oh shi-
The daily5.

5. Mr. Happy. (lol. Distorted Minds and Hazard. It's a drum and bass song)
4. The Toronto Raptors (winning the season opener!! WOO)
3. ITG
2. People who care
1. Seeing things in their place

Just letting you stalkers readers know, I'm still alive.

School started. The semester's going well. I love my classes except the work sucks especially after such a LAZY SUMMER. Oh well.

Started listening to Podtoid today since I had something better to do. I can't really compare it to other episodes since I just started following it, so then, podcasting in general, episode #32 was epic. If you like BioShock, rape, shitting dick nipples, and fat Japanese girls, this podcast/episode is for you.

Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

Also, good friend, Zad, introduced me to a good book which I still have to purchase. I finished reading the first chapter. It's called "Happier" by Tal Ben-Shahar. It told me to write about 5 things that made me happy throughout the day and that I should do it daily. I've been meaning to do it. I even had a name for it... "my daily 5" except I haven't been able to implement it until now. I won't be doing it everyday though I should. *shrug* Baby steps I suppose. So I'll turn it into a bi-weekly thing. Probably Thursdays and Saturdays? That may change later on though I'm going to keep the bi-weekly thing going. Routines are good.

On with the bi-weekly 5.

5. Taking public transit
Why it makes me so happy? I don't know. Maybe its not having to drive the rest of the way to school? Maybe it's the potential of meeting someone special? Maybe it's all the hot girls? I dunno. I just like taking the bus 4 times a week.

4. Destructoid + Podtoid
As posted above, I started listening to podtoid and just destructoid articles in general. They are tres (with the little accenty thingy cuz I'm too lazy to open up character map) groovy and brutally honest.

3. Routine
Going back to school, the daily crunch, everything. I like it. I hate to admit it. I like it. Ugh. YAY. Bipolar.

2. Technology
It makes me VERY happy. I <3 my PSP, my iBook, RSS feeds, LOVE IT ALL.

1. People who talk to me
You know who you are. I'd name you but then others would get jealous and be like "how come you didn't name me you little bitch?" and I'd be like "IDK WTF GTFO!?" and then the whole e-drama snowball would roll and I'd be dead and have no friends.

0. DRAMA
I LOVE DRAMA WHEN IT'S NOT HAPPENING TO ME.

-1. The weather.
It's still very nice.

-2. Facebook Mafia.
I NEED PEOPLE TO PLAY WITH. My family sucks. LOL I said it.

OKAY. THAT WAS 8. SUE ME. I'll still tag anything with a list of happys as a daily5 in hopes that one day, it'll manifest and all will be good. There's enough bad shit going on in the world these days that a little happy reminder wouldn't hurt on a daily basis. One of the secrets of being happy is to remind yourself of what makes you happy. O RLY? YA RLY.

If you know me personally, you know I'm a geek. Not a specific geek but I tend to have my feet and hands all over the place. I have a lot of gadgets, I love building computers from scratch, I like customizing, I blog, I compose, I game, I'm a fanboy, etc etc etc. I guess you could just say I'm a tech geek. Sounds about right.

Anyway, my biggest pet peeve is when people have great technology but don't use it to potential. I guess one can say if it works... why mess with it but at the same time, you're not experiencing it the way it should be experienced. You're not getting your money's worth. Sounds like nothing I suppose but it just bothers me so. I was freeloading off of visiting some relatives a few days ago and noticed a few things - They have an ok Sony microdisplay (can't remember the model name or type but it can do up to 1080i) but not a single component/DVI/HDMI cable was running through the house. I noticed this because my cousin and I wanted to watch a movie except the way their media center was wired was ... ridiculous? I didn't want to touch anything because I tend to forget to change things back to how they were (now that I think about it, I left their TV in normal resolution and didn't switch back to stretched. lol). I couldn't figure out how to access the DVD video. They didn't take advantage of the multiple inputs on the back of their TV and just piggybacked a bunch of stuff... Also, they didn't have a surge proof power bar, just extensions plugged into extensions. I was scared for my life. They have a Wii as well but it's hooked in composite in the front A/V ports as opposed to the back ones though they don't take the console anywhere. They didn't even have their Wii connected to their wifi and it wasn't updated nor did they take advantage of the free Internet Channel Trial. I ranted to sis about this and she said internet on the Wii? Maybe she doesn't need it or wouldn't use it. BAH! That's besides the point. the trial was FREE. There's no downside to having it there. Maybe you want to show a youtube video to your friends but don't want to have to surround a small monitor or don't want to have to TV-Out. Finally, they don't have an HD cable box - just digital cable via coax - and they watch their 4:3 formatted channels in 16:9. omg. omg. OMG. I HATE it when people watch things out of proper resolution. Why do you like watching short, fat people?

So anyway, after experiencing that, I felt better coming home to my setup. Everything's where it is and doing what it should. I was on stickam one night and was trying out new camera angles and I was doing an over-the-shoulder type view of my setup while I was on. I got a lot of comments about my dual monitor + laptop setup. Everyone thought I was running 3 computers. I had to answer so many questions about it and explain a lot of things. Which leads me to this post. Though I don't know if I actually am, I feel as if I'm using all of my technology to potential. It suits my needs nor am I doing anything too over-the-top. My hardware isn't the greatest but it gets the job done. Let's get started shall we?

Starting off with the desktop itself. I'm running an Intel P4 2.4ghz with 1.5GB ram and an ATI Radeon x1650 Pro 512MB all on a Asus P4S8X-X. Everything's running stock with no OCing. I have 3 ATA HDDS - 160GB, 80GB, and 60GB. The 160 is split into 2 80 partitions. Everything's scattered all over the place though I try to keep things as organized as possible. I need more DVD+Rs. I have 2 monitors, an LG1710S and a Dell M782p. I game on the CRT. I use Ultramon as a multi desktop manager. Their wallpaper options are better than standard Windows options and swapping the main monitor and turning off secondary couldn't be easier with the systray icon. As for peripherals I'm using a Saitek Eclipse keyboard and a Logitech G5 Laser mouse. Both are quite lovely. Speakers are the Edifier M3300's. They're alright. As for headphones, Sony MDR-V300's. Quite excellent. I love walking around Toronto with them since they're bulky but not TOO bulky.

I have an old 30 something inch tube TV in my room for watching movies and playing consoles (PS2). I have composite cables running to the TV from the back of my desktop. I have a small audio system hooked up to the audio out of the TV and have the TV speakers turned off. Any speakers are better than TV speakers. Too bad I can't triple head but that'd just be too much. The TV is at the foot of my bed so it's comfy to watch movies and such.

As for games, I'm currently playing CS:S, Doom3, Prey, NFS:C and ITG. I have a Logitech Nascar wheel I got for $10 refurb @ canada computers. lol. Works like a charm. For ITG, I have a USB->PS converter for a Dualshock2 controller. Everything else is good old WASD. I use firefox as my browser (I'd go through all my addons but that'd take forever. Maybe if someone was interested enough to comment about it, I'll post it there), iTunes as my music player, VLC for videos, Virtualdub for editing and reincoding, 3GP Converter for converting to mobile devices, Azureus for torrents, and manycam for webcam software (thanks Christine!). For music production, I use FLStudio7 and utilize both monitors by stretching the window over both screens. I'm using a Roland PC-160 midi keyboard just to play around for melodies but I end up just pointing and clicking the notes in Piano Roll instead of recording it on the keyboard. I have timing issues and my compy can't handle < 30ms with enough instruments loaded so the lag is kinda bleh.Here's a pic of one of my latest projects. http://www.box.net/shared/hmy8u43gyh if you're interested in what it sounds like. It's a remix of Tommy february6's Love is forever. Quite a cute song. I just Hardcored it.

FLStudio Setup

For stickam, like I said, I use manycam since it has a lot of source options like showing desktop, playing movies, showing still pictures, etc. It's not bad for being free. I have a Dynex DX-DTCAM which was pretty blow at first since it was supposedly mac compatible. It wasn't from the get go but since then, Dynex posted new drivers on their website so now it works fine in XP and OSX. I couldn't get it to work in Vista. As for audio in, I use my iBook (which I'll get to explaining later) as my jukebox and route the audio in for the room to the line in on my soundcard (being my iBook audio). If I'm not streaming music, I'm using my Logitech Desktop Mic to talk or usually just remain silent. I have a Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1 card though I should buy a better one. I'm looking at the X-Fi xtremegamer card. We'll see what happens.

Let's get started on the mobile front, shall we?

I have an early 2004, 12" iBook G4 with a 128MB so-dimm in the ram expansion slot. Running Tiger. It's basically my school / IM / jukebox machine and useful for when I'm doing something with the desktop and/or don't want to take up any more resources and just need to do a quick websearch. It kinda does the job but I'm looking to replace it. Not that I have the money though.

I also have a PSP which I use as my portable media center. I only have a 2GB card but it's ok. I have about a dozen music videos and 1.2GB of music. I'm running M33's 3.52 CFW though I'm waiting for wildcard's CFW to be more... stable. The recovery menu looks sexy and I love the SCEP menus built in without having to run a prx plugin. I'm just wondering if it uses the sony no-umd driver as well. Dying to get a PSP slim so I can TV out my vids.

Hrm. That sounds like that's all of it. Any specific questions about my setup, just ask.
Maybe I'll add more pictures to this post if I feel like it later...

Update:

- Tekito Lover came in. take a new picture of all Japanese CDs.
- Tommy february6 is my new favouritest artist of all time. Love is forever is, by far, the greatest song ever made.
- Been getting back into remixing. Released one new one enjoy. Another one in the works.
- Also got Amuro Namie's PLAY album. Hide & Seek is my favourite track. I'm totally in lust with her outfit. The collar... yum.
- Saw transformers. was disappointed. comment to find out why.
- Got back into regularly checking my RSS feeds. Found my way to Hawty McBloggy's blog which is always a fun and interesting read :)
- Finished Rainbow Six: Vegas. T'was fun. Probably gonna replay it in Realistic mode.

That is all for now.

my cousin got me into golf. i've only made it as far as the driving range. i need to work on my short game before i start actually playing though. my arms and shoulders are shot. today's my day off. tomorrow, back to the range. i was ripping 175-200 yards with the medicus. not bad i don't think for my first serious driving range session.

HEAVENLY STAR / BREEZE came in a few days ago as well as the impulse buy of the Morning Musume Haru '07 concert. i actually need to re-watch the concert but i saw what i wanted to the first time around. CDJapan just shipped tekito LOVER. can't wait for that.

what's been happening since the last post... nothing really. work. going out with friends. getting drunk. leaving people behind. oh what a night. oh right. HP5 in imax 3D. t'was fun. last battle was INTENSE. it's a definite watch for anyone who hasn't yet. especially if you've all ready took the effort to watch the other 4.

oh yeah, i practically stole the rest of my sister's old computer. i think i'm gonna convert the old one to an ITG box. lol.

Clouds. Yup. Clouds.

Random picture of clouds to end the day.

i don't know what to title this entry so I'll save the titling for last. a lot's happened since the last entry. firstly, to relate to the last entry, the Gyaruru single came in today. YAY. still don't have the routine down. should probably do something about that. anyway, let's just start with what I remember.

been hanging out with the local friends more often. i've missed those guys. i shouldn't be such a shut-in... or just have a one-track-mind about who i chill with. baseball's fun. random outings and not knowing what to do is always fun. coffee's great as well. Canada Day was superb. Port Perry's a good place for fireworks. not too far of a drive either. too bad i didn't have someone special to share it with. chilled with friends after. ripped a sweater that once meant something to me. oh wells. church before the fireworks was fun and interesting. the sis and i were alone with the music for the first time. t'was scary at first. i got used to it by the end. i need to learn harmonies.

mom's friend from her high school came in. we chilled with her. she's cool. we even had beers together. lol. says her boys like anime and jpop. i like 'em already. went to kbbq. yum. she stayed over for the past week. for a finale, we took her to all-star. yum again.

i got a "free" GPU upgrade care of FutureShop a few days ago. my Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb had this thing where it wouldn't operate smoothly if the drivers weren't installed (screen artifacts and such). though that's not really a problem for me, since i didn't report it until now and it's been going on for about a half a year, i thought i'd bring it in anyway. i got a Radeon X1650 Pro 512mb for "free". i say "free" because i paid $50 for the extended warranty. better than paying for what it's worth. i need to get the extended warranty for this guy...

speaking of computers, sis is planning to upgrade her rig. i stole her case. she bought a new one which is pretty sexy. i took her old one since it's a bit smaller than the one i currently had. that and i just love taking apart computers and putting them back together. i got some new speakers today. i think i should've spent on the new soundcard as well. I got the Edifier M3300's. not as treble-y as i'd like. oh wells. the X-Fi xtremeaudio card is looking decent to me right now. i should probably spend on the xtremegamer card... we'll see.

got beta access to skitch. i saw a vid of it on tuaw and that's where i got the invite actually. it's pretty fucking sweet. it's everything I've ever wanted in a quick image editor. even does cam pix. damn. i'm buying this shit when it's released.

Uploaded with Skitch!

i watched rahxephon again. i still didn't catch everything. i read it all on wikipedia afterwards. i'm probably going to watch it again soon.

i watched knocked up with my sister. that was intense. definitely not what i was expecting. i was dying in the theatre. God help me.

watched because i said so earlier tonite. lmao.