Harmony

Here's a few things I made out of the blue on this neat page: http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/

I'm not much of an artist as you can see, but you can do some pretty cool stuff with it. Thanks to whoever made it. Enjoy!

I'll see you all in 2012.

Merry Christmas!

Yay holidays, I hope everyone is having a good time and your Christmas trees have tons of presents under them! I love snow (hate cold weather) but unfortunately it hardly ever snows where I live, so if you have snow, you better go build a snowman or make some snow angels or something.

Actually a snowball fight tournament sounds good, have one of those. Make up your own rules and the last man standing gets a snowman built for them and named after them, nice prize right?

Anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE! Cheer here, cheer there, cheer everywhere!

Let's hear what presents you got in the comments, or what you gave to others!

Updates

My apologies for not posting this past week, I've been in a bit of a creative slump and haven't had much to talk about. Around a week ago I took my broken Nintendo Wii to a place around here to have them send it in for repair, but I haven't heard back from them yet. I'm hoping they can repair it without a format of the system, which would delete the SNES games I bought for it in the online store.

Nintendo, you suck for me even having to worry about that. Please implement a solution for that type of situation, having to rebuy the games is stupid. (Hint: individual accounts with passwords that show your purchase history with an option for re-downloading purchases made in the online store.) I don't want to trouble myself to make a huge deal about it with some (probably futile) phone call or e-mail.

I'm also waiting on a couple of computer parts to arrive so a friend and I (with the help of another friend) can start putting a new computer together. Right now neither my desktop nor my laptop are capable of playing something like Skyrim or Fallout 3 and I really want to play those.

That's about it for now, thanks for reading.

Baoding Balls

I had only heard of these neat things recently, when a friend of mine told me about them. They're called Baoding Balls and often referred to as Chinese meditation balls, Chinese exercise balls, etc. You don't throw them or bounce them though, you spin them around in your hand. I'll type out the description on the card they came with.

"The Chinese exercise balls are designed for the exercise of hands, which could improve hand dexterity and strength, as well as strengthen the nervous and circulatory systems. Directions: Rotate the pair of balls in the palm of the hand with the movement of the fingers, and gradually increase the size of the balls or the number of balls."

Refer to this video to see someone really good with them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyMXsvBwHKQ

Note: That takes a ton of practice. (and it's not me)

Anyway, you can get them with different designs on eBay for around 8-10 bucks if you're interested. If you get some though be careful not to drop them on a hard surface, the paint could chip off or the ball could get a dent. If you're completely broke, you can use billiard balls to do the same thing.

Cat Crazy (2)

Here's some more cat pictures for all the cat fans out there. Enjoy!

...

I'm on my computer when I hear my cat throwing up, so I get up and turn the light on to watch. As I stand there appreciating the process of her creating the vomit pile, she gives an encore and starts another smaller less impressive one. After finishing, she stares at it and I stare at her. I pretend that she feels bad for making a mess on my floor, so I pet her a couple of times to let her know that it's alright.

Being that I'm a person who doesn't want vomit relaxing and sipping on some juice on my floor, I decide to clean it up. So I wander out into the hallway headed towards our backdoor to let my cat out in case she decides to have another round. It's dark and I can barely see, but I successfully let the cat out. I'm on my happy way to the paper towels until I smell something and feel my house shoes sliding in a manner that suggests fecal matter is having trouble deciding which surface to stick to.

I look back towards the backdoor and see some darker shapes among the floor in the dark. After turning on the light, you can imagine my response to the dog crap on the floor.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDASFLDSAJKDFKJASJDFKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cat Crazy

A couple of photos I took the same day as my cat in the tree blog post. Brix isn't really looking at the camera, but I think her white color with the green in the picture go really well together. Maybe some of you cat lovers out there can appreciate the pictures!

Here's to the first installment of what will henceforth be known as Cat Crazy!

Aniwho? Anime!

Kirara doll

Ayanami Rei poster

Sorry for the late post, just got home. While at the mall away from home I decided to buy a couple of things, since the stores there are much nicer than around here. I'm gonna have to start saving up money specifically for shopping at the stores there...

Pictures of the things I purchased posted above.

I will resume posting once every few days now, maybe a bit more depending on how much I have to talk about. My friend and I finished Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword last night, was a great game as expected. My Wii is sorta broken so I'm stuck with playing my PS2...still trying to finish Persona 3. Anyway thanks for reading.

Frosty Web

Not much to talk about lately, this week I'm at a friend's house watching him play through Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword. Admittedly that's probably worth a post of its own so I may or may not write a bit about it in the near future. We had lunch at Frontera yesterday, it's a Mexican restaurant and their food was great. I'd recommend trying it out if you have one in your area...not sure if it's a here-only type of deal.

Anyway, it's the beginning of December and we are nearing the end of the year. I love the names of the last three months of the year...October, November, December. They just sound so cool for some reason. The names of the rest of the months aren't too bad either. I associate December with snow and Christmas, so I thought it was fitting to post a picture of a really big frost covered spider web shown to me by my friend Coty. Reminds me of Charlotte's Web now that I think about it.

Thanks for reading and here's to a great month for everyone!

Black Friday

A friend and I went to good old Wal-Mart around midnight when Black Friday was just getting started. We didn't plan on going originally but we were out cruising around so it just sorta happened. Needless to say, it was crowded and people were parking in spots that weren't even parking spots. Nothing exciting happened, sorry if you were expecting a funny story. We just walked around the place a few times, trying to move through the hordes of consumers and spot something interesting.

There was a telescope for around $40 but we didn't really know how good it was and we didn't want to wait in any of the long lines, so we just left empty-handed.

This post's purpose is to express my disdain for the type of people you hear about on the news that assault or pepper spray others on Black Friday to try and claim items for themselves. They're fighting over junk, and it's barbaric and shameful. Keep your garbage that you fought over you Black Friday zombies, your bargains suck as well as you.

:)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Luckily I was able to snap a photo of a turkey.

One thing to look forward to about Thanksgiving is the great food. I can't even remember a Thanksgiving where plenty of turkey, stuffing (or dressing), mashed potatoes, corn, green beans and all sorts of other stuff I'm failing to mention wasn't readily available, and I'm thankful for that!

Unfortunately, Christmas really overshadows this holiday. If you've been looking around in stores or listening to the radio then you'll know exactly what I mean. Seems like Christmas starts getting celebrated much earlier than it comes around... what an attention hog. For that, it gets an ugly strike-through in this blog post.

Remember to be thankful for what you have, if you're reading this then you are probably lucky in ways that many others are not. That being said, I hope you eat some tasty food and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

What are you doing up there, cat?

Meet the Family

Brix (don't ask)

Alex (note the battle scars)

Sleepy Leo

Kirby

Zoey

No official name but I'll call him Sylvester (pretty sure it's a male)

No official name but I call her C.C.

Skeletor (you wish your cat's name was half as awesome)

Ruthie

Chili Conundrum

This is the most artful I have ever been with my food.

     If you thought my post about Jolly Ranchers was the most boring thing you've ever read, wait until you read this. I'm about to break my own record in the "most lackluster blog post ever written" competition. After this, you're gonna see why the word 'Entertainment' being in my blog's header is deserving of an irony award. Maybe I'll change that sometime to something more fitting...like "Text Rightfully Assigned Special Help" or T.R.A.S.H. for short. Enough of the self-deprecating humor, if you're ready to start snoring then I'm ready to get started.
    
     You're looking at a picture of something I ate a few nights ago. It's a bowl of chili and tortilla chips (and a few crackers) for all my blind readers out there. This would be a picture of just chili and crackers if we had an adequate number of crackers in stock at my time of eating this. Actually to be honest I doubt I would've posted a picture of just chili and crackers, that's not nearly as artful as my chili modded with tortilla chips. A rose is almost as beautiful as the picture you see above. I had to express my strong disapproval of said picture being put on show in a museum of art, as it would have made everything else look terrible.

     Oddly enough I don't care for chili by itself. I need an entire pack of crackers just for one bowl, or a healthy dose of tortilla chips. I often wonder if I'm eating chili and crackers because I wanted chili with crackers, or because I wanted crackers covered in chili. It's a philosophical conundrum that I should really rid my brain of, lest it explode. I also eat said meal with a fork, not a spoon. Not sure why, guess I'm just more of a fork guy. Except when it comes to cereal, eating cereal with a fork would be really awkward.

     Anyway, if you like chili then I would recommend trying out Hormel's Homestyle chili with beans if it's available where you live. I can't describe why it's good, but it is nonetheless. Other people seem to like it here too, it's often out of stock in the stores. Tell me what kind of chili you like in the comments if you have a favorite brand, and as always thanks for reading.

You can wake up now by the way, the blog post is over.

I WILL END YOU.

I WILL END YOU.

Wise Cat

Here's a picture I would like to share of a friend's cat. He looks very wise.

Autumn Appreciation

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Room Progress (5)

I'm finally back with another update about the new room. There's a huge difference between this and the last update post; as you can see, progress is really being made now. This much completion has been done for a while; I could have updated earlier, but I had other things to talk about. Now the outside isn't completely finished, there's still a few more things to do. Those steps were thrown together by my father as a temporary solution (before you had to step on bricks), and I'm not sure how the final steps are going to look.

As for the inside, there's still much to be done. Maybe I'll show some of those pictures once more work is completed. This is taking longer than the initial estimation to complete, but oh well not really a big deal. That's all for now, possibly more updates in the future and as always thanks for reading.

Brothers in Paws

Leo and Alex

Kirby and Alex

Oh Alex, you so photogenic.

It's raining outside, so I went out onto the porch to view what scenery there is around my house. The rain makes it so much easier to appreciate the beauty in things for me. My cats were hungry and crowding around me, so it was very easy to take pictures. Luckily I snapped a few good ones.

We have 9 cats in total, so there's a third of them pictured. I am a cat fanatic if you haven't guessed by now. We also have 6 dogs and a rabbit, it's pretty much a zoo around here. I don't like having so many animals around but my mother works at an animal care place, so they just end up here sometimes.

Well that wraps up this post, hope you enjoy the pictures. Anyone else think that one leaf in the third picture is shaped like a heart?

(Cheers to you if you can think of the popular lead movie characters Leo and Alex got their names from.)

Geico - Friend or Foe?

     Well, it's the beginning of a new month; I hope all of my readers had fun on Halloween. But now it's time to discuss something a bit more serious, the topic of insurance. Well, insurance in general is too broad of a topic so we'll just narrow it down to car insurance for this post. Is it worth it? In the U.S. it's illegal to go without car insurance, so you're pretty much forced to have some form or another. I'm not sure how it works in other countries, but if you're in the U.S. chances are you've already picked your poison.

     We see different car insurance commercials all the time, you should probably be able to name a few different companies off the top of your head. Let's take a look at Geico. Their mascot is the Gecko, a friendly and charming character who we've seen in many different commercials. When the Gecko is in the commercial, the focus is usually more centered around him and not how much money you could save. In commercials where there is no Gecko present, the commercial is entertaining and often humorous; again taking away most of the focus from how much money could be saved. Why is this?

     Some of you probably already realize, it's to make you (the viewer) fond of the company. So fond, in fact, that for many people the issue of saving money gets placed to the side and instead insurance is purchased for the sole purpose of supporting that which entertains them. A mighty convenient placement for the insurance company, to be sure, for how much less would their troubles become if they didn't have to worry about competing in the arena of prices?

     Different companies have different ways of drawing in customers, but enough about that. Why is this worth talking about in the first place? Well, consider the amount of money you pay to these companies. It's completely possible that you could pay a car insurance company for 30 years without ever getting into an automobile accident. That's a LOT of money built up over time, and for what? They never gave anything in return, other than documentation keeping you out of trouble. Sounds like a rip-off, doesn't it? Maybe that example is a bit extreme, it's more likely a person gets into at least one accident.

     Still, you're paying these companies only for them to hand that money (or much less!) right back to you, and there's no guarantee they'll even do that much! Look online and chances are you'll be able to find horror stories regarding any insurance company. Now I know you can't please everyone, there's probably not a company out there that can exist without a complaint to their name. This post's purpose isn't to demonize insurance companies; although admittedly I don't see them in any honorable light. Instead I hope to spark some thought into how your money is spent and for what reason.

     So what's your view on the matter? Are insurance companies respectable, or are they not working in the customer's best interest? I want to hear what you think, spill it in the comments. Thanks for reading.

Happy Halloween!

Credit to http://tatchit.deviantart.com/ for the image!

GHOSTS 'N' GHOULS! CANDY AND JACK O' LANTERNS!

It's that time of the year again! Everything gets a little bit darker, and everyone feels a little bit more mischievous on this night. Behind the safety of a mask, who knows what a person might do? Most likely travel from house to house in search of delicious candy. Are you stocked up and ready to give away candies, or are you going to be the one who gets candy given to them?

Maybe you're not interested in candy, and interested instead in causing some harmless havoc. Don't be surprised if you wake up to find your house covered in toilet paper! Perhaps you'll just stay in and watch some horror movies to celebrate the occasion. Remember to do something fun, Halloween only comes once a year! Whatever you choose to do, be careful out there.

Now, choose very carefully.

TRICK
or
TREAT

R. A. Salvatore - The Sellswords Trilogy

The Sellswords series is about the adventures of  Artemis Entreri and his dark elf companion Jarlaxle. Entreri is a deadly assassin once again trying to make his name known, but he knows he is getting older and age is starting to wear at his perfection. Jarlaxle is a cunning mercenary and leader of Bregan D'aerthe, a band of dark elves that have come from their underground home Menzoberranzan in search of power.

Entreri is Bregan D'aerthe's tie to the surface world, but Entreri must keep the arrival of dark elves to the city of Calimport a secret. To make things more difficult, Entreri is hated by Jarlaxle's lieutenants and has to manage by being cautious and putting his trust in Jarlaxle who is fond of him. At the same time, Entreri must survive the rival guilds and other enemies in Calimport.

Soon, the sentient crystal shard Crenshinibon starts to manipulate Jarlaxle to pursue his endless ambitions and bring the shard to its highest level of power. Can Entreri resist the calls of the shard and seek help to destroy it to regain his friend, or will things fall into chaos?

I came across the first book while looking through a store on a cruise ship. I had never heard of it before but it looked interesting, so I decided to buy it. Needless to say, a great amount of my time on the cruise was spent with my nose buried in the book. After I finished it, I absolutely had to get the other two.

If you love to read and are into fantasy, I highly recommend looking into this trilogy. It's very well written, when I'm reading it I feel like I'm absorbed into the world the author creates and witness first-hand the events that unfold. The exciting battles and trials the main characters face will keep you on edge and rooting for your favorite characters to triumph while craving for more.

If you have read the books, let me know what you think in the comments below. Thanks for reading.

Final Fantasy IX OST - Memoria

Any Final Fantasy IX fans out there?

Here's a song from the soundtrack that I find pretty relaxing. This is the song you hear at the Memoria area, if it wasn't already obvious. I'm not sure where I would rank Final Fantasy IX compared to the other games, but it's definitely no disappointment; in fact I'm pretty fond of it. This is one of the games I grew up watching an aunt of mine play, so it will always have its own special place along with the other games that I'll mention when I get to them.

Although I have to say, Zidane as a main character is less memorable than some of his counterparts. Squall and Cloud in comparison are much cooler in my opinion. Zidane appears to be part monkey or something, and that tail of his smacks me in the face every time I see it. I don't remember if it's ever explained in the game exactly what Zidane is. I could probably relate to him better if I had a tail.

That being said, all the male monkeys in the world probably idolize him for ending up with Garnet. (Yeah whatever male monkeys, Garnet is a better choice than a female monkey.)

Enjoy.

KILLER INSTINCT

Killer Instinct is one of my favorite fighting games, developed by Rare and initially released to arcades in 1994. There were several launches of the game; a SNES version, Game Boy version, and an N64 version (named Killer Instinct Gold). The version I played-- and I'm sure many of you played-- was the SNES release. I did own the Game Boy version at some point, but I don't remember much about it and didn't really get into it. Without a doubt, the most popular and praised release is the one for the Super Nintendo.

Considered by many to be among the best fighting games of all time, Killer Instinct is your usual fighting game where you play as your character of choice in order to defeat your opponent in a one vs. one battle. According to Wikipedia, the game borrows the attack set of Street Fighter and is also inspired by the finishing moves from Mortal Kombat. However, there are several features that distinguish it from other franchises.

Ever heard "c-c-c-combo breaker"? This game is where that originated.

Here's the story; a megacorporation called Ultratech organizes a tournament to test the strength of their experimental creatures they created. The other participants all have their reasons for joining, whether it be searching for the truth or promises made to them by Ultratech. To read about each character's reasons for participating, visit the Wikipedia page located here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Instinct

If you've played before, you know that this game has some really awesome characters. One notable pair is Cinder and Glacius, pitted against each other in the tournament. Cinder's body is made up entirely of flame, and Glacius is an alien whose body composition is that of icy liquid. Cinder is promised a return to his original form if he can defeat Glacius, and Glacius is promised freedom if he wins the tournament. The rivalry between these two characters is something special.

I believe the video above (not me playing by the way) shows just how great the gameplay is better than I could ever explain it. If you love fighting games, this is definitely a game you should try. The game has a great soundtrack (Killer Cuts); even the opening title's song is something I've listened to over and over again. My personal favorite character is Spinal, the one featured in the video above. If you have a favorite or want to let others know what you think of the game, go ahead and post it in the comments. Thanks for reading.

Fun Fact: Jago and Orchid are brother and sister.
Fun Fact #2: The cyborg Fulgore is only 1 year old.

Out of Place

Sometimes I don't pay enough attention to what I'm doing, and end up making a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes, it's a common thing; we're only human. Most mistakes are easily forgivable, some not so much. I'm having trouble deciding which type of mistake this is, considering the sheer amount of "I have no idea what I am doing" that has to be going through your mind in order to accomplish this feat. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the jar of peanut butter left in the sink.

Jar of peanut butter, you do not belong there.

Alright I'll admit, I've almost put a cereal box into the refrigerator before, thinking that I was holding a gallon of milk. I'm sure a few of you out there have done the same. But how can something like that compare to leaving a jar of peanut butter in a SINK!? This is the brilliant work of my brother, who felt he needed to put the peanut butter in the sink for safekeeping. When I first saw it there, I almost pissed myself laughing, so I thought I'd share the story.

This is not fake, the above photo is exactly (well okay, I did put the jar up before I decided to take a picture, and put it back in for the photo) how I found it, don't ask me why I took a picture. You know, sometimes I feel like that jar of peanut butter, out of place. Thanks for reading.

got milk?

Bored? Try Notpron.

Considered by many to be the hardest riddle on the internet, Notpron is an online puzzle made in 2004 by David Münnich. There are 140 levels in total, and your goal is to start at level 1 and continuously progress through the levels. It starts out simple enough but quickly becomes challenging, requiring players to use a variety of tactics just to acquire more hints. There have been 15.5 million visitors to the site, but only 27 have successfully solved all 140 levels.

If you have some time to kill and feel like pushing your problem solving skills to the limit, try it out and see how far you can make it. If you have played before, share in the comments how far you made it and what you thought about it.

Think you have what it takes? Head to www.deathball.net/notpron to find out.

Room Progress (4)

Time for another update. As you can see, we have a complete (I think) wall frame now as well as a good start on the roof. Right now it reminds me of a big cage or some sort of jail cell. Pretty much anything could escape from it though, haha. They begin more work on the roof tomorrow, so I'll probably go out there and take some more pictures afterwards. No electrical or plumbing work has been done yet as far as I can tell.

I'm gonna have to move some stuff around, there's gonna be a door made that connects this new room to my room, as well as a door in the new room that leads outside.

That's it for now, more updates to come so stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Room Progress (3)

Starting to look like a room now I'd say, got some wall frames going on here. After walking around in it, I can tell it's going to be pretty nicely sized. I don't know anything at all about construction but it seems to be well built, I'd say the construction workers are doing a good job.

There's Dad and a friend in the picture inspecting what has been done so far. (I could hear your curiosity from the other side of my monitor.)

I'll have some nice progress to show tomorrow, so stay tuned and thanks for reading.