flintmecha.com

School Again

Flint — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:54:34 +0000

I’ve started school again. Aside from retaking Calculus II, I think i’m going to really look forward to this semester, especially my CSCI classes. Also Kassi is back in school, which is great. Of course, the biggest downside to school is always the fact that I get less hours at work, which turns into less money. Oh well, on the same token, it means i’m going out for lunch a lot less so maybe it will balance out.

Here’s my schedule, taken from one of my Facebook apps since I’m too lazy to recreate something like this on my own:

Speaking of Facebook, I’ve been getting a lot of laughs reading some of the discussion topics on the Michael Phelps fan page. Some of the trolls are masters of the craft and the kinds of people who fall for it.. oh man. If you have a Facebook account, click here to see what I mean.

I’ve been enjoying Soul Calibur IV lately, as well as my ownership of the Robotech 20th Anniversary Edition Original Soundtrack. Soon I intend to order the remastered DVD megaset of the entire series and perhaps sell my current DVD set - which is only the Macross saga - on eBay or something.

PIERCE THE HEAVENS

Flint — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:13:57 +0000

Tonight at 11:00 on the Sci-Fi channel, the Gurren Lagann dub is premiering. Now, I’ve never really been the kind of unsocial outcast that has a rabid vendetta against dubbed anime - in fact I’ve been known to defend the voice acting slash translation decisions of many of my favorite shows. And so even though I have the whole series already on my hard drive and i’ve watched it beginning-to-end, I find myself thoroughly excited to see this native incarnation of GL.

The first episode is (at the time of this writing) available for viewing already on this page. Sci-Fi will show two-episodes every Monday night (11 and 1130).

Now. DO THE IMPOSSIBLE.

Some Stuff

Flint — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:19:49 +0000

I completed my summer course of Humanities 2002 at ASU. First time I have ever taken a class over the summer. Possibly won’t be my last. I’m just extremely thankful that I’m done with that class, and even more thankful that I got a B and will never have to see it again.

Tomorrow i’m getting a free Xbox 360. Very long story short, Mike has acquired an extra one due to a ridiculous fiasco involving Fed-Ex and/or Microsoft, and has offered it to me. The only catch is I will still need to purchase a hard drive and power cable for it, seeing as how the process of shipping a console for maintenance/replacement involves seperating these items from the main unit, and the combined cost of these things will still make me feel like i’m buying a new console. That is, one from last gen, because I still live in a fantasy world where video game consoles will never cost more than $249.99.

And in case you haven’t heard, The Dark Knight is fantastic. If you haven’t seen it, do so. And please see it in theaters so that the 1997 stain knows as Titanic can be knocked off its record-holding pedestal. I intend to see it a second time whenever my family decides to go.

Rush on the Colbert Report

Flint — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:38:41 +0000

Rush is one of my favorite classic rock bands, and last night they actually appeared on The Colbert Report. This, in my opinion, makes that one of the best episodes of the Report ever. What makes this even more epic is that this was apparently the band’s first American TV appearance in 33 years. I’m not really sure what made them decide The Colbert Report was the best choice for such an event or how Comedy Central got them to do it, but frankly I don’t care.

Throughout the episode, it was made very clear that the show’s director, “Jimmy” (Jim Hoskinson), is “the biggest Rush fan in the world” and all the way up until the last segment (when the interview and performance took place) there were a slew of gags related to this, primarily Jimmy replacing the show’s opening theme music with the song “Limelight” and later replacing words on Stephen’s teleprompter with the lyrics to “By-Tor & The Snow Dog”. Below are two clips.

Also, you can watch the full episode here

Spore Creature Creator

Flint — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:27:56 +0000

I’ve known for well over a year now about the upcoming Will Wright game called Spore. I’ve known what it’s about - you start off as like a single-celled organism and go through the entire evolution process right up to an intelligent creature and beyond. I’ve also known that the buzz around the Internet about the game has been pretty good. Lots of people seem to be eagerly awaiting the release. But even though the concept sounds pretty interesting, I for whatever reason haven’t really been all that captivated by it.

That is, I guess you could say, until now. Last week EA released a free downloadable demo for the Spore Creature Creator. I decided I would give it a shot and I’m really enjoying it. The things you can make and the things you can do with the things you make all lie somewhere on the edges of hilarious, cute, depressing, and awesome. I’m blown away at the amount of different ways you can shape and modify your creature and seeing how the different physical traits you give it respond individually to the different actions you can make it perform is really cool. There are also some really great features built right into the game, such as the ability to take pictures (including “animated avatars”) and record video. The video recorder even gives you the option of automatically posting the video on Youtube and THEN lets you send the Youtube link to friends via e-mail. Here’s a short clip I recorded of my first creature:

I think I’m officially excited for the full game to come out.

Computer on the Way

Flint — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:47:53 +0000

Update: It seems I totally forgot about taking pictures. The computer did come in last week and I managed to get it all put together and up and running. There were some complications but it all worked ou in the end. I’m extremely satisfied. But I guess I just became more involved than I anticipated, hence the slow update. I might still take some pictures of the final product later, but don’t hold me to it.
—–
So a couple days ago I finally placed an order for my computer. I ordered all of the parts individually from newegg. This will be my first time putting together a computer myself, and I’m freaking excited. A couple weeks ago, Windows XP on my 2.5-year-old laptop decided to stop working correctly, which was enough incentive to break down and get something new and much nicer. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for more than a year now and it’s finally happening. It’s going to have a huge (to me) 22″ LCD monitor, a GeForce 8800GT video card, 4gb RAM, a massive 640gb hard drive, and blue lights in the case. You might thing it’s excessive, but I wanted to push the limit and get something really nice that will last me a long time. Being my own creation, I wanted something I’d really enjoy, rather than a stock factory-build machine out of a box.

I will continue to use my laptop for school and on trips. Fortunately, all of my documents (music and pictures mainly) are there so I haven’t lost data. I can run a Linux distrobution and everything is peachy.

The monitor and a majority of the components should arrive tomorrow, shipped from a Memphis warehouse. The case and a couple other things should be in Thursday, as they’re being shipped from California. I plan on taking pictures of the building process, and if I do I will be sure to share them here.

Youtube Errors

Flint — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:56:24 +0000

Lately I’ve been noticing a very annoying problem with Youtube videos. Whenever I go to watch one, 90% of the time I get an error message saying it’s no longer available. This even happens if I’m trying to watch the video on the video’s page, which doesn’t make sense at all. I’ve learned that other people have been having the same issue.

I tried to research the problem and from what I can find, it has to do with embedding. Apparently, once a video has been embedded on other websites (and consequently viewed many more times) the video times out and doesn’t want to load.

So far the only solution I know of is to just keep refreshing the page. If you’re watching the video embedded on a site, go to the video’s Youtube URL and try there (again refreshing if you need to). Eventually the video will load, because if the video’s URL is active then the video is available.

Internet In Twenty Twelve

Flint — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:47:36 +0000

This is pretty major.

This is what Net Neutrality exists to prevent - an Internet model which resembles cable television. You pay a set fee for access to a select few websites. Pay a larger fee for a sort of “extended package” to get even more major sites. Pay more for a “premium package” type deal. Want to visit sites not included in any of the packages, like for example a small-time blog, a message board, a web comic, video game site, etc? You get charged even more.

If you care about the Internet and the ability to browse any website you want across the entire Internet without restrictions for one flat rate, help do something about it. Tell your friends and family, write to your paper, post or spread fliers at school, contact members of your government, etc.

Read more here The page title is a little sensationalist, but it’s a valuable read.

Not Dead Yet

Flint — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:31:41 +0000

Why hello! I appear to be back. I took a little unexpected hiatus from the site, which I regret. It started when I got busy with school at the end of the Spring semester, and continued afterwards because I was a little lazy I guess.
I’m still trying to sort out plans for where I want this site to go. Goals, if you will. Maybe a sense of purpose. I think I’ve decided I want to avoid using this as personal blog, and instead just share information.

In the mean time . . . eh, do whatever you want.

Life the Great - Stupid Fresh

Flint — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:58:00 +0000

A buddy of mine who works at Janus drives a De Lorean. A couple months ago, he was in contact with a guy in Atlanta who was putting together a music video. This guy wanted a De Lorean to be featured in the video, so Jack (the coworker) drove to Atlanta (I think?) and contributed. Until today I thought that maybe the car would just be in a couple of shots. Well the video was recently completed (editting and such) and has been posted online. As it turns out, the car is a central feature of the video, and Jack is actually in it - wearing the Doc Brown costume he made himself and wore to Janus’ Halloween costume party last October.

I was genuinely surprised, and thought it was pretty funny:

Well it’s time for class now, so gotta speed, keed.