|
|
And we begin a new month.
Yesterday I went to Tampa's brand-new Gameworks and had a blast. I played DDR
probally 15+ times throughout the day. And they even put me up on the big screen TV's they had hanging around the place,
to showcase DDR. It was pretty cool. The only unfortunate thing is that it isn't as big or has as many games as I
thought it would, and it seems to be geared toward the "over-21" crowd by having a bar as the centerpiece of the
building. Not to mention they kick everyone under 18 out after 10 PM.
My trip to Cornell is final, I already have confirmation of tickets. So I'm off for 4 days of fun at Cornell on October
19th.
I got donuts in school today for being a Scholar Finalist in the National Hispanic Recognition Program. MMMMMM
Donuts.
The presidential debates are tomorrow. Everyone go watch.
A list of new TLD's is on ICANN's site.
This list is proposed new top level domains that certain people or organizations want. So bn.com might want to get
bn.shop if .shop becomes a new TLD. So who knows, maybe in a year or two someone's homepage might be at
joesmith.home.
MIR is being eaten by a fungus.
It reminds me of a short story I read in an Isaac Osimov book, about a fungi eating metal in a TV satilate. Very
similiar situation actually.
Presidential debates are tonight
at 9 PM Eastern time. I'm going be watching, are you?
My webhoster was down all yesterday afternoon, so not only could I not update my site, I also couldn't check my
email. All well, at least it's fixed now.
Netscape 6 Beta 3 was released this morning. It looks nice, but I'm still
not sure how stable it is yet. Check it out if you have the bandwidth.
Onto the Presidential Debates, I thought
Gore was the better debator, but I still like Bush more. I just plain like Bush's policies more. Gore seemed more
prepared and confident, but he also kept smirking and repeating himself. So basically it was a toss-up to me. Read the
transcript, or watch the
video and decide for yourself. Isn't the internet wonderful?
Holy cow, did anyone catch the season premire for The West Wing last night? It was awesome! The president got hit, and
then Josh almost died. A great great two part episode. If you didn't watch, well, you missed out.
The Vice-Presidential debates are tonight.
They played ATB - Don't Stop on my school's TV show today. I was quite amazed.
Ugh, I'm sick. I have a nasty sore throat. Being sick is not fun. At least it was on a weekend so I can still not have
to take some of my semester exams.
Mp3 list is updated. I broke 1000 songs!
Today I signed up for a meeting to start the process for interning at several companies. It's part of the Inroads program to help minority students get internships in high school and college. If
I'm lucky I might get to mess around with computers (like coding or admining) for my internship, or at the very least do
some stuff in MS Word or design webpages. But I'm sure I'll be hired to do something with computers because I know so
much about them compared to most people. I'm excited about this oppurtunity since it'll let me get some much needed
experiance in the work place.
LOOK!: A newly released picture of Jupiter from the
Cassini mission (which if I recall correctly was the mission powered by nuclear fission which all the enviromentalists
were up in arms about).
I saw Mission to Mars yesterday, didn't like it. It was too slow and boring. I wouldn't recommend it.
University of Florida called today, while I wasn't even home(!), and talked to my mom
about all the nifty scholarships they'll be giving me. When all is said and done, I'll probally be making money by going
to college since my scholarships will out-weigh my costs. I'm looking forward to college more and more with each day :
)
They had a show yesterday about videogames on the History Channel. It was OK,
but I didn't really like it. Also on the TV note, the next presidential debate is Wednesday, so make sure you set aside
time to watch.
And on a funny note, check out this MS Word "wizard" that you
won't find in any legitamite copy of Office.
I went to that Inroads meeting today, and I don't think I want to do it
anymore. It sounds like a great program and all, but the problem is that if I interned with a company, I'd have to come
back each summer to work for that company, and then work 2 years after I graduate for that company. And in the super
highly competitive world of computers, I don't want to be stuck in choosing where I go to work for my first job. Plus
I'm sure I'll be able to get internships other places throughout college.
Cornell sent me some more stuff about the trip I'll be going on next week. It's
going to be very cold up there, so I'm going to have to stop by the mall sometime this weekend and pick up some more
jeans and sweatshirts. And speaking of colleges, Carnegie Mellon is going to be in
Tampa tomorrow, so I'm planning on going to that.
Second presidential debate is tonight.
Half-day at school today! Woo Hoo!
Tonight I go to the Carnegie-Mellon thing, and then I have to get up bright and early
to go to UF tomorrow. One more step on the long journey to college
The debates were pretty good last night.
Gore got Bush on several points, but I still like Bush more. I also agree with this CNN article about how the canidates
don't talk about tech issues. I for one would love to ask Bush and Gore how they feel about the DMCA, DeCSS, and
Napster. Especially Napster, as that's probally something neither of them want to touch.
My trip to the University of Florida was very nice today. First I talked to a guy about
scholarships since he was talking about ending the National Hispanic Merit scholarship thing, even after all the
admissions people said that they'd give me that money. So it looks like I'll still get my money, but that they'll change
it for next year after giving all the admissions people the new information. Then we took a regular campus tour, and
then talked to an honors college advisor. Then we met a chemical engineering student for lunch (mmmm good food) and then
toured the honors dorms a little bit. Then we stopped in for part of an Engineering department presentation, and then
talked to a CISE (the department in Engineering that I want to major in, Computer and Information Science and
Engineering) advisor. We ended the day by walking through the bookstore and eating dinner at a fast food place on campus. Overall a VERY busy day, but one that I learned
a lot on. I want to go to UF even more after today, and now I'm 95% sure that's will I'll end up at.
Some new NBC show named Tucker will be airing an episode about DDR. So if you
have no idea what the heck I'm talking about when I say Dance Dance Revolution,
watch that show Monday night and find out.
Mozilla M18
was released last night. I personally don't like the old classic Netscape theme,
I wish they'd kept the older bluish one.
Went to Gameworks again today. It was a lot more crowded, since it is now common
knowledge that it's open, whereas when we first went no one really knew it was open. This one employee gave both me a $5
card just because I danced with her on DDR. Man I like those employees : )
I found an interesting site while doing some research. The Library of Congress has set up a website to look up legislative bills in the house and senate. It's basically a
clearing house for all the legislation and voting that gets done in the legislative branch of the government. Want to
know how your local representive voted?
Oh, I forgot to mention that Pokemon Gold and Silver were "unoffically" released
Wednesday. The "official" release date is October 16 (I think) but retailers started selling them as soon as the carts
came in. So I picked up my copy of Silver on Thursday. It's a GREAT game, and I highly recommend you get
it. It takes everything that was great about the first Pokemon games, and expands and improves on it. IGN gave it a perfect 10 and other
sites have been raving about it. Now if you're one of those people who hates Pokemon, just give the game a chance. It's
one of the most addicting games I've ever played. And even if you're fed up by all the blitz of Pokemon products,
remember it's the videogame that started all of it, and the videogame is awesome!
One more day till I leave for Cornell. I'm getting excited!
The last presidential debate is tonight at 9 PM Eastern. This is the last time the two canidates will go head to head in
this extremelly close election, so I know I'll be watching.
Pioneer 10, the little satiliate NASA sent out almost 30 years ago has finally
died. It has gone long past expectations for how long it'd remain active. So
now it's just a cosmic drifter, heading out into deep space with a message
written on it for anyone or anything that ever finds it.
Tomorrow I'm off to Cornell for 3 days of visiting. For those of yall who don't
know what the heck I'm talking about, Cornell is paying the air fare to fly me up from Tampa, FL to Ithaca, NY, and then
paying for my meals and I'll be dorming with a student. So they basically pay for everything for me to visit their
campus as part of a minority engineering weekend. So that means this site won't be updated again until Sunday sometime.
I know that you'll live somehow without this site though, you can pull through! :)
Someone did an intersting art project and depicted some
historical events in videogame style, like The Sims. Some very cool art, and a really neat idea.
Samba De Amigo was released today. It's a music game where you
shake maracas to a beat. Sure it sounds stupid, but I've heard from many people that it's a lot of fun. I'm not sure if
I'll pick it up yet, as it's fairly expensive, but it does intrigue me. Now if only the US home version of DDR would
hurry up and get here....
And as a final update, the mp3 list is updated and it
now reaches 5 GB! All the new stuff is under the "New" column at the end of the list.
Cornell is so amazingly awesome! I just got back last night from visiting there for 3 days, and it is so incredible. The
campus is absolutely gorgeous, the students are really nice, and academic programs are top-notch. If only I could afford
it : ( I'll have more info on the Cornell trip later today and probally
continuing on till Monday and Tuesday. (Update: Here are the Cornell pictures scanned in in May 2002 :))
The computer specs page is updated slightly to
make it clearer which computer is what. I also just found out that our new
computer is coming in Tuesday!
I am so tired right now....
I have my Cornell pictures developed, but I still need
to scan them in. Those pictures I took do no justice to how incredibly gorgeous
the campus is though.
I found this interesting satire site of Billionaries for Bush
(or Gore). Interesting reading there......
Also for those lucky
enough to vote in the US elections this November, there is a website to help you
out if you are still undecided: Issues2000.org. It tries to be
bias-free, and also gives the positions of third party canidates like Pat
Buchanan and Ralph Nadar. Reading through it, no one canidate shares all the
views I do, but overall I still like George Bush the best. Go Bush!
I need to start burning stuff on CD's in preperation for formating everything when we get our second computer. I plan to
wipe out everything on the computer, and start from scratch. And partition the harddrive so that I can be running
Linux, FreeBSD, BeOS (Update: They went under a
year and a half later), and Windows ME at the same time. I
need to read up on how to get FreeBSD and BeOS to play nice though, as I don't
know enough as I should about them.
Mp3
list was updated. Also now includes the latest files I've added.
I
got a letter in the mail today about Colby
doing the same that Cornell did; aka pay
for my flight, meals, and any other expenses in return for visiting their
campus. However for this one I don't think I'll be going since I have absolutly
no interest in going there, and I don't want to miss any more days of school
since that would mean I'd have to take another semester exam. I hate my school district...
Linux was screwing up on me last night. It wouldn't load up X, all I'd get would be the "Black Screen of Death" where
nothing happens except a blank screen. So after about 5 cold reboots, I gave up, went to bed, got up this morning, tried
it again, and it worked! Very very weird.
Hack a Furby. At the time I'm writing this the site is being Slashdotted, but
the premis sounds cool. You try to make a Furby reprogrammable to make it say whatever you want it to say. I'd love to
see the results of this contest. And the winner gets $250 too!
With the PS2 being released tomorrow, the 26th, I figure I should comment on it. I'm a hardcore gamer who follows
gaming news fairly closely. I own a SNES, N64, PSX, DC, and GBC. And in this next geraration console war with the PS2,
DC, NGC, and XBOX, it's going to be a close race. I absolutly love my DC, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone. It
has a ton of awesome games out for it, including several games that are coming out in November like Shenmue, Jet Grind
Radio, and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.
The PS2 has really disappointed me so far. Sony hyped it up to be the end all of gaming platforms, and it's fallen way
short of expectations. It has a lackluster choice of launch games, it's twice as much as a DC, and the graphics are no
better than the DC's. Now I'll admit I'm not completely unbiased, I am a Nintendo lover at heart because IMHO Nintendo
has always made the best games of any publisher. But even objectivly the PS2 is disappointing. It's been reported as
hard to program for, which is never good for games. The only thing that intrests me really is the DVD player, but you
can find stand-alone DVD players for cheaper. Now I do plan to eventually buy a PS2 for Gran Turismo 3, but that's maybe
in 2 years at the earliest. In the meantime, I'll be buying more DC games, along with picking up a Nintendo GameCube
(since I have a lot of confidence in the quality Nintendo puts out) and games for that. I truly believe the PS2 will be
the Saturn of this next generation. As for the X-Box? Well, who knows how it'll do, I certaintly don't.
Woohoo! The new computer came in! It's so awesome! When it boots up a cool looking
alien head appears on the screen before it starts the BIOS processes. And it came totally devoid of AOL advertisments;
the only mass-marketed crap on there was an MSN icon. It also comes with a ton of "real" games, and some cool
backgrounds. All in all I was very impressed with it.
Microsoft finally got cracked. It wasn't totally
their fault though. The more amazing thing is that the crackers might have had access for 3 months already, and that
they probally stole some of the source code to Windows. My concern is that Microsoft will use this incident to pass
legislation to put more control over the internet and impliment more stuff like Carnivore.
The PS2 craze is getting bigger everyday it seems. You can search Ebay.com and find people auctioning PS2's for over $1,000 and up. Now probally most of those are faked
bids, but even $600 for a PS2 sounds way too high for me. Heck, I thought $300 was too high for a PS2!
Linux-Mandrake 7.2 was released Saturday morning, so I downloaded and
installed it late last night. It's not too much of an improvement over 7.1, but it's still pretty nice. It includes a
better kmail and Quanta (HTML editor), along with some new configuration programs. If you have a fast connection, I
suggest you try it out.
I suggest everyone check out DJ Cyberfunk's mp3.com page and listen to some
of his songs. He sent me an email yesterday commenting on me having one of his songs, so I figure I'd point out his
music here on the front page. I personally suggest Groove Injector and Club Breakdown.
Holy moley, I just reliezed I past 3,000 hits. I'm actually almost up to 3,500 now. I can't believe I've
sucker^H^H^H^Hgotten that many people to come to my website. : )
One more day till Halloween. What are you going to dress
up as?
Man, I'm going to be so happy once all these configurability conflicts get sorted out with Mandrake.
Everytime I install the latest version, there is always
about a week of fixing everything that changed back to the way I liked it. At the moment it's a mouse wheel that is too
sensitive, and a couple of other nusiences. But in a month I'll be happy as a lark.
KDE2 comes with this awesome browser called Konqueror. It's very fast, and very
slick. I think I might have to start using it as my main brower.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
My National Hispanic Finalist status is now known across the country to all colleges, and boy am I ever hearing from
them. Everyone and their mother is sending me applications, viewbooks, and financial aid forms. Several colleges have
wanted me to apply for full scholarships, others have promised me lots of money, others want to fly me up to their
school, and they all go on and on about how great their school is. It's almost impossible for me to objectivily figure
out which colleges would be right for me, just because there are so many of them. And the scary thing is that all this
attention is based off a 3 hour test I took on a Tuesday morning in my Junior year. Somehow that just seems a little
wacky.
|
