Jared’s Blog

I’m back! It’s been a few days since my last post. My excuse is I was playing video games. I think that should be a valid excuse for anything. You’re late for work, oh well, you were playing video games. It’s okay. You’re late for class, you were playing video games, not a problem. Anyway, even after about 20 or more hours of gaming this weekend, I’m still set for more.

Rewind back to Friday at 10:30AM. I wake up, get in the shower and whatnot. Then decide I’m skipping class. So I spent my time working on a wallpaper for the [SJU] clan heading down to MulitMayhem that night. I’ve posted it in the wallpapers section if you want to check it out. So anyway, after rounding up Seth, and Adam, we decide to wait for Nick and Weasel (not from 93X HAMS). Brandon and Timmy decide to do the same. Well, around 4:45, Weasel finally shows up. We load everyone up and take off.

Not 5 miles down the road, tragedy strikes! Nick and Weasel were carrying the very important payload of some homebrew beer. One of the gallon jugs exploded in his backseat covering the small region in beer. So there we are, all pulled over on the highway, trying to figure out what to do. Weasel suggests going to his house which is 10 miles away. We all agreed that would be best. Another twist in the plot. It’s dark out, Brandon is parked behind me with his headlights on, and Weasel was behind him. So I never saw them pull out. So we lose them. So Brandon’s group and mine head into a gas station. Fill up, and try to get ahold of Nick and Weasel. No luck. Eh, so what. They’ve got directions, they know where we’ll be. We take off.

About 7PM we finally arrive at Adam’s house. We quickly set up tables and chairs so we can start gaming. While we’re doing that, Nick and Weasel show up. But our friends James and Utsch call. They got caught in a blizzard. At this point I’m thinking, “could anything more go wrong?” Well, finally, we all made it there and got set up for the Pre-MMX LAN aka Johnson LAN.

Things got off to a good start with some Halo and the consumption of what beer we had left. Around 11, we flipped on Cinimax to see what porn we could find. After some short one that no one really paid attention to, came Playmate of the Apes. Now, I really wasn’t paying much attention to the movie, but what I did see was pretty bad. Overlooking the obligatory sex scenes, the costumes and acting were horrible. What can you expect from a low budget porn. We all got a good laugh about it though.

I don’t know when it started, but I do know we stayed up til 4:30 playing Warcraft III. If you’ve never played a “hero battle” then you’re missing out. You start out with just a hero, there’s usually 2 sides to a map. Units are auto generated to go fight each other. If left, they should stay perfectly balanced. That’s where your hero comes in. The object is the same as in normal maps; destroy the enemy town. The fun comes from the variety of modified items and hero skills you get. Some allow you to get to extremely high levels and when you get 10 or 12 people playing at once like we did, it makes for some good fun. Finally, at 4:30 we decided it’d be a good idea to get some sleep so we weren’t total zombies at MMX the next day.

We woke up around 10. Surprisingly, we got the entire basement cleaned and all our stuff packed up in about an hour. This put us at the Radisson in downtown Minneapolis by about 11:45. Just in time for opening of the doors. We pulled up to the entrance and started unloading. What was really funny was the few people staying at the hotel were looking at us in awe. Just imagine what 300 people carrying computers looks like.

Anyway, we all got in and set up. I was a little disappointed in how things were run. They weren’t bad and there were no major problems with the network, but there wasn’t exactly a lot of organization with games. I actually sat there til about 2 before starting to play anything. Part of was that they didn’t subnet very well. Nick turned on his packet sniffer at one point and got 200 some broadcast messages in a row. If you know anything about networks, that’s not a good thing. If you don’t, just know it’s bad. And not good for games. Period. They should’ve subnetted each section (which had up to 16 people each). That way, you’d only be getting broadcast messages from those 16 people, which is tolerable. Sure, some games aren’t visible on the "LAN" section of many games, but you can always reach them by IP. And if they’d had some way of registering or posting what games people were hosting, then that wouldn’t have been a problem. Another part of it had to do with the fact that 1/3 of the people there were there to compete in the Counterstrike tournament. I’m not a CS player, so I just hung out, got r0×0red in UT2003 by some guy named “Stewie” and took in the sights of 300+ people gaming in the same room. Another problem with the network was they didn’t segment it at all.

We had 2 teams competing in the CS tournament. I planned on playing in the Quake III tournament in which I got eliminated in the first round. Other than that, we were just there for fun. Most of the rest of the day consisted of causal gaming. Plenty of Halo, Warcraft III, Quake, and other games were played. I even got to see one of my old roommates, Wash, there. Too bad he couldn’t stick around longer and play anything.

What I was really surprised about was how we DOMINATED the door prizes. Wash, even though he wasn’t a part of our group, took the first door prize which I think was some kind of game and an Xbox Live trial for 2 months. Next up, I won a G4 gamers network clock and a year of Xbox Live. I was pretty pumped about the Xbox Live considering my roommate has an Xbox and I’ve wanted to play a few of his games against other people. The clock made for some fun because Nick had this hat which was the same color. I wore it around with the clock around my neck for awhile. It was pretty funny! Our luck continued with Brandon taking home an nForce2 motherboard by Abit. He was going to buy one pretty soon, so it was really nice that he won that. Ben, another one in our group won a GeForceFX 5200 graphics card later in the day too. We would’ve won the watercooling system if we had all voted for someone in our group for the casemod contest too. So, we came out with quite a haul. A short trip back up I94 put us back on campus here at SJU. I considered gaming again when I got back, but that kinda fell flat when only 1 other person wanted to play. I’ve got some some pictures from the weekend. Check them out below. I’ve got to get writing on a paper and a couple presentations for the next couple of days before break. I’ll probably post again sometime before I leave for break and at least one time during break.

MMX Photos

What am I doing here you might ask. I said I was headed down to Minneapolis for a show tonight, but I ended up deciding against it. I figure I just spent quite a bit on a new hard drive last week and I want to see the Matrix Revolutions tomorrow with my friends. Ahhh Revolutions. I’ve been waiting to see it ever since I saw Reloaded in June. For some reason it seems Revolutions has been getting really bad reviews. I can’t see how. I mean from all the previews I’ve seen, it looks awesome. And unless they totally go for the cheesy love stuff between Neo and Trinity, I can’t seeing it be that bad. I mean the huge Smith/Neo showdown is gonna just rock. I’m expecting that’s the scene that I’ve been hearing they spent like $40 million on. Getting to see the “Head Machine” and finally finding out how this whole thing ends is gonna rock! I’ve got such weird tastes in movies that I never believe critics.

So I went to this Internship/Job fair informational meeting tonight. The funny thing is it made me NOT want to go to the thing even though it was supposed to make me want to go more. First of all, you have to pay $20 to go. WHY!? Please tell me why I should pay so someone can interview me. Last time I checked, I didn’t have to pay for an interview. Second, it’s two days long, in the middle of the week, an hour away from here. So not only do I have to pay, I have to pay to skip class. Then they also recommend staying in a hotel, not just any hotel though, nope, they say you should stay in the Hilton @ $79 a night. That price is for up to 4 people, but it’s still money that I don’t need to spend. Next on the list of craptacular things about this money making sche….I mean job fair is that they want us to also go down for a networking session. The final nail in the coffin was Rick telling me it’s absolutely worthless for tech jobs. So that did it in. I don’t care how much my mom wants me to go, I’ll find a job elsewhere.

That’s it for now. AI calls. What’s the A stand for? Artificial. What’s the I…INTELLIGENCE you idiot! If you don’t recognize that, check out Red vs Blue.

It’s been a few days since I’ve updated. 3 to be exact. Wednesday, I was too tired to update and I ended up watching World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel. Sweet show if you’re into gambling. Thursday I had full intentions of doing some updating, but my friend Justin came over and grabbed me. We ended up going and getting some beer then getting drunk at Dustin and Cole’s apartment. It sure wasn’t as exciting as last weekend, but I had a good time.

So now it’s Friday. I like Friday’s because I never have to be at the high school. Everyone takes long weekends during the summer. Speaking of the high school, I think I’ve finally nailed down a design I like for their site. I showed things to TJ and she also liked it. Like I’ve said before, anything would beat their old site. My version is 100% CSS layout. Yesterday we finally got all the pieces to make the backup system work. The software came in at 2:50PM so I only had about 45 min. of playing with it. Looks like Monday should be busy though. I’m sure those eMac’s will come in and the backup system will have to get configured.

Last night, I finally got my mom to order my headphones. I went around in circles trying to decided which ones I should get, but finally decided on the Sennheiser HD-280 Pro’s. I think they’ll sound good on both my portable CD player as well as my computer. Thanks to sites like headphone.com and audioreview.com for helping me make a decision. I found the headphones for $69.99 on eCost.com. I’d never heard of the site before, but if they’re offering prices that low, I may be buying a lot more from them. Their shipping prices are also very nice. You can get UPS ground for free, 3 Day FedEx for $7.99 or FedEx priority overnight for $9.99. I was going to order them from NewEgg.com, who usually has very good prices on things as well as free 2 Day from FedEx, but they were out of stock. I got into a little argument with my mom because she wouldn’t overnight them. My point was that she was willing to pay $85 for them at NewEgg, but she wouldn’t pay $83 at eCost and have them overnighted. It’s cheaper than what she was gonna pay and they’d get here way faster. She said that she’s saving $10 by not getting them overnighted, and that I don’t need to have them right away like I want. You can decide for yourself who’s side you’re on.

I was in an interesting situation the other day. I went to lunch with a few people from the high school and we met another lady who works for a local organization. At lunch she mentioned, they’re in the process of writing a job description for a network admin for their organization. It’d also involved a little web development. The position opens in September. As soon as she said all that TJ pointed to me and got all excited. Unfortunately, I’ve got to finish up my degree and I have no intentions of living on the Iron Range any longer than I have to. It’s really too bad because I’d probably be getting paid at least $50,000/yr. and she said they get new equipment fairly often. My mom said I should try and get the job. She said I could take classes at night to finish my degree and the money I make with the job would help me pay off loans from school. I’d consider it, but I in no way want to live on the Range. This place sucks, and if I took a job here, chances are I’d be a lifer. One thing I swore to do back before I’d decided on college was to get off the Range at all costs. And I just know that even though I’d have intentions of moving away, 5 years would turn to 10. By that time, I’m guessing I will have met a girl, gotten married, or be pretty close. Once that happens, I’d be stuck here. It’s really too bad. I’d be perfect for the job. Oh well, there’ll be other opportunites.

If you’re a 20-something right now, chances are you’ve seen the American Pie movies. I saw American Wedding the other night. Of course, you get to see all your usual characters, but the girls from the other ones weren’t in it. I miss Tara Reid! Anyway, I don’t want to ruin the movie, but I’ll talk about a couple parts. The opening scene is just hilarous. Jim and Michelle are eating at an expensive restaurant. Jim is about to propose when things start to go wrong. He’s hidden the ring underneath Michelle’s napkin. Right before he tells her about it, Jim’s dad calls and tells him he forgot the ring and that he’s on his way to get it there. The little hints Jim has been dropping are misconstrued by Michelle and she crawls under the table and proceeds to do you know what. Jim’s dad walks in and sits down at the table while all this is going on and starts talking to him about it. He thinks Michelle is in the bathroom, so he pulls his son up to go get some air. There is Jim, pants down and Michelle under the table. Another one of those moments Jim seems to find himself in quite often. He makes the best of it and proposes to Michelle, bulging pants and all. Another one of my favorite scenes is when the guys have the bachelor party. I’m not gonna say much, but you do see some female body parts. And surprise, Jim finds himself in another akward situation. In the end, the movie gets all mushy, but not without the few humorous moments. I don’t think I’d pay to see it in the theatre, but it’s worth renting (or downloading if you so choose).

Last, but not least, I give Mudvayne’s World So Cold video a review in my music section. Check it out.

August is finally here. Some people see it as a forboding end to the summer; I see it as a reminder I’ll be back in school soon. Hell, in 3 weeks, it’s my birthday and I’ll be moving into school that day. I can hardly wait. Sure, I’ll miss how I didn’t have any homework at home and how I had so much free time, but I do have a lot of free time at school too. I think this year I have to get a job outside of campus. That’ll probably take up a few more hours of my days. Still nothing beats being a college student. It’ll be sad to leave the place. My advice is to stay in school as long as possible. It makes me think of going to graduate school just so I don’t have to get a job. I wouldn’t be any worse off for it either. Financially, I don’t think I could do it though. Loans for the past 4 years are going to be a bitch as it is, I can’t imagine anything more on top of it.

Having the day off today, I made it my task to reformat my computer. Most people think I’m crazy for doing it. But, I find my computer runs much smoother once I wipe it all and but things back. I tend to install programs and uninstall them shortly after. This way, I end up having only what I’m using at the moment, and if I need something, I can just install it. I really should get some kind of imaging program. It’d be nice to just have a few disks install what I need back on my machine again. It really isn’t bad when you have 2 hard drives though. Just back up all your stuff onto your 2nd drive while you format and bring it back afterwards. I’m beginning to need a larger drive though. A 120 or 160GB drive would be very nice. It’s up there on my computer parts to buy list.

Speaking of computers, I watched a cool movie tonight called Takedown. It’s based on a book about Kevin Mitnick, the famous hacker. It follows his life starting about 5 years before he was caught. Of course it wasn’t a straight up documentary, they had the government hacker guy who was on his trail. I suppose part of it is true because it’s based on actual events. His story is quite interesting. I definately recommend checking it out.

I’m BAAAACK! In case you didn’t notice, I haven’t posted since Thursday. Of course, not being religious, the promised land is not Israel. It is Minneapolis, however. I ended up leaving on Friday about 4:30 because I was waiting for my friend so we could go down together, but he never showed. Finally, I just left. The drive was nothing extrodinary, although I got lost in Minneapolis. I got down there and wasn’t paying enough attention and ended up turning the wrong way on the last road, so I was heading completely away from my frineds place. I went through downtown and everything before I finally realized what I’d done. Eventually, I made it there and got some beer right away. We all got wasted and played video games til about midnight. At that point we decided to engage in a roman candle fight. Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely live for these things. 4 of us set out for the park near the lake. It was only a few blocks away though. This time was the most exciting one to date because we each had 2 roman candles. So not only are you trying to aim two flaming, sparking balls at someone, you’re also trying to dodge 3 other people doing the same thing. Wonderful chaos! After the fight I got back and passed out on the floor from running back to the apartment. I was only out for like an hour and woke up to my buddy Hank writing on my foot with a pen. After that Hank, Hanson, and I got into a great drunken philosophical conversation. Our topics ranged included aliens, death, the infinity of the universe, copyright laws, drug laws, communism, and politics in general. Following our conversation, Hanson went to have sex with his girlfriend, and Hank and I channel surfed. We eventually landed on a movie called Stranger Than Fiction . I don’t know why, but for some reason we watched all of this horrible movie. It was so predictable even in my wasted state of mind. My advice, don’t ever watch it.

The next day I got up relatively early for going to sleep around 4. Everyone else was still sleeping, so I was watching TV. Death to Smoochy was on. My friends absolutely raved about this movie, but I’d never seen it. It’s got Danny DeVito, Robin Williams, and Edward Norton in it. It’s a really fucked up comedy about childrens television. Sounds bad, but it’s hilarious. Go ahead and read the reviews on the IMDB. After the movie, I started fixing my friends sister’s computer. It just needed a little cleanup. 3 years old and it’d probably never been defraged or cleaned up. The inside was coated with about an inch of dust too, ick. While it was defragging, Andy, Hank, and I went frisbee golfing at this little 9 hole course near their house. As we were leaving, we saw they had new neighbors moving in and they asked us if they could use Hank’s grill. We let them, so they said we could come over for a steak dinner and beer later. KICK ASS! The frisbee golf course was pretty easy. I think all the holes are par 3 or 4. and there’s not a whole lot of challenge to them. It was also about 90 degrees and 100% humidity. Very uncomfortable. A couple hours after we got home from golf, Andy’s girlfriend Amanda showed up. Shortly after, the neighbors came and got us. Hank and I joined them for some damn good steak and beer. After dinner, Hank and I went back to his place and started drinking with Andy and Amanda. All night I was wandering back and forth between the neighbors and my friends place. Hank and I ended up going over there til about 1:30AM. Lot’s of good stories!

Today was pretty lackluster. Got up, hung out, finished fixing the computer. Ate at the best fast food place every, Chipotle. Got paid for fixing said computer, drove home. Talked to family. Wrote blog, going to bed now. BYE BYE!

OK, so after working on this til past 3AM last night, I’ve spent a few more hours on the layout. My main goal for the day of getting this thing working in all browsers was accomplished. So far, I’ve confirmed the latest IE, Mozilla (and derivatives), Safari 1.0, and Opera all work. Still waiting to hear on a few other browers. Next on the list is to get the entire site XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant. I’m pretty close on some of my pages, but others where I’ve copied content from weren’t even close. I’d like to blame that squarely on Microsoft Frontpage. It’s good for beginners, but some of the stuff it does is just horrible.

I had a little conversation with a semi-drunk friend of mine last night. He claims me learning CSS now is basically useless. He said PHP and ASP are the way to go and that no “large” site uses CSS anymore and that maybe 5% of those so called large sites use CSS layouts. I highly disagree. Yes, many sites are using PHP and ASP, but they use it in conjunction with CSS. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when he said that. He could’ve just been acting dumb because he was drunk. Anyway, the bastard is going to be in town this weekend, so maybe I’ll have to talk some sense into him.

My dad has been bugging me to find Johnny English for him lately, so last night I showed him how to get it himself. He wanted to see it, but not enough where he’d go pay those outrageous movie theatre prices. Anyway, we had never been able to get VCD’s working on our DVD player. It’s a Sony DVP-NS300. Well after a bit of searching, I found this cool site called vcdhelp.com. It said that most CD-R’s will not work on that DVD player, but CD-RW’s do. I burned one quick and sure enough it played.