Started Black Plague pretty shortly afterwards and it is easily surpassing its predecessor in how engaging it is.  The first game starts off kinda slow, you're in an old mining cave for most of the game and your major enemies are various creatures.  There's a lot of awesome puzzle elements throughout both games, and the atmosphere is amazing, but the game does start relatively slow.  It ends on a cliffhanger, though, that ties directly into Black Plague.  Because of all the work the first game did in building up the atmosphere and situation, the second is far easier to get into for people continuing from the first. 

Though the game does take a wildly different term in what's going on.  There are clues and hints throughout the first game about what's really going on, but you don't really get a good idea of it until you get a little bit into the second. 

And then shit gets weird.

I'm loving it a lot right now.

Owning a cat is totally different than living with a cat.  I merely lived with Orangey, who belonged to Nicole.  She was a great cat, I loved her, great personality.  A total bitch.  A really loving cat who, if you showed her she could trust you, was all over you.  It wasn't out of the ordinary to have her spend the night in my bed, stomach exposed.  She was my buddy that summer.

On Janaury 6th (happy birthday, Brian!), Sarah and I adopted our cats.  Hers is a small tuxedo named Pinto.  He appears to be part oriental based on his face and love of jumping.  Duster is my dude, a blue cat with very light tabby markings that appears to be at least part Chartreux based on a wide variety of characteristics (communicates mostly by chirping; when he does meow, it is high-pitched; dainty feet; hair on and near his spine is water-resistant and more wiry than the rest of his hair, eventually becoming almost fleece-like on his underside; green eyes (he has some green, but they're mostly yellow.. so that's why we suspect he's either an undesired Chartreux (only solid green eyes are allowed in competitions) or part Chartreux); kitten like until 3 years of age (usually that behavior dies out around 1 year, he's about two months beyond that point as just as childlike as ever); full of energy; and many others).

These guys are a part of the family.  I'm usually greeted by Pinto when I get home from work and then Duster usually won't leave me alone once he wakes up.  Orangey would rub the hell out of me, very forcefully, but she was... a pet.  Nicole's pet.  Duster and Pinto?  They just seem like more than that for some reason.  It's weird.  It's really freaking cool, though. 

The best part is that they freaking love each other.  They've been having a few dominance fights lately, which causes Duster to emit this really pitiful sounding cry (we suspect that, because he's older than Pinto by four months, it's meant to be intimidating in some way; Pinto just ends up hopping on him), but when those are done they're grooming each other and playing with each other and having a good time.  I'm really glad that Pinto is challenging Duster, now that he's old enough to understand dominance.  Duster used to push him around and sit on him and Pinto usually just let him.  Pinto is small, fast, and muscular.  Duster is bigger, still pretty fast, and not as muscular.  Duster doesn't have a hope of winning until he begins to use his weight, but that might take a bit more intelligence...  Chartreuxs are supposed to be pretty intelligent, but Duster?  Sometimes we question him...  I think he might have some form of ADHD, the way he'll sit there and "watch" nothing, then run around and get distract by... nothing.. and just play with... nothing...  It's cute as all get out.  Both of them are.

Man, if I've already written about these guys I'm going to feel like such a dick.

Work flew by today.  I don't get it.

My Chicago Card Plus finally came in today.  Put the wrong zipcode on the mailing address, so that delayed it nearly a week beyond Sarah's.  I can't wait to use it.

Sold the Lumina.  Somehow we got $1500 for it instead of like $200.  That's how I'm gonna survive the rest of the summer, and then excess money from student loans plus work study should help me out quite well each semester. 

Why things are getting better, I think:

• I'm able to monetarily survive the summer.
• I've got my own apartment, where I can do my own things, and cook my own food, and lounge around petting cats and watching Conan on hulu.
• Nicole's cats are freaking awesome.
• My new computer (by need, remember?) is performing great and is allowing me to catch up on some much needed gaming.
• I'm getting back into Animal Crossing (on the Wii now).
• Hanging out with good friends (Casey, Jeremy, Amber) quite a bit these days thanks to the Tai kids.
• Helping out again with the Taiwanese Cultural and Academic Exchange program.
• Got my first above 3.0 semester GPA this past Spring.
• Because of that, I am still allowed to attend IIT! :D
• My beautiful girlfriend comes back to Chicago in less than a month!
• In six days we'll have been together for four months (this still surprises me immensely, to be perfectly honest).
• She's bringing her ferrets back with her and they're going to stay at my place! (this has me extremely excited for some reason :razz: )
• She is learning German and this is the perfect reason to brush up on my skills with the language!
• I bought a game for the first time since... forever.  I honestly forget the last game I bought prior.  Last weekend Frictional Games was having a sale on the Penumbra trilogy (a survival-horror/puzzle/adventurer series).  It was $5 for all three games and they were on Linux.  This is not something I could pass up.  I love survival-horrors (as much as they get to me), I love puzzle games that make you think (as much as they frustrate me), and I love supporting developers who release their games natively on Linux.
• I've been following the Hundred Push-Up Program and, while I've had to repeat two weeks already, I already notice a HUGE improvement in my strength and muscle mass (then again, any muscle mass is a huge improvement over none :razz: ).
• Because of this I have a greater confidence in.. me and my presentation.  It's kind of surprising, really.  I wasn't at all embarassed when I took my shirt off at the beach the other day, for example (I've always been kind of self-conscious about my extremely skinny and muscle lacking body, but I'm actually doing something about it now, which itself is also a huge improvement).
• Summer is flying by, despite every day being pretty much me sitting in front of my computers doing nothing productive.

I apologize that this summer isn't nearly as post-heavy as last summer.  I believe there are reasons for that, though (mostly lack of generally interesting stuff to talk about that hasn't been outlined above and lack of boredom at work.  Boredom at home leads to me dicking around on the web.  Boredom at work led to me writing because I couldn't dick around on the web.  Well, led to.  Since I don't have work this summer.).  I think it's also due to a lack of.. doing things.  If I'm in a doing things mood I tend to think about updating the site more often.

Things with Sarah are going pretty damn well, I'd say.  We had a couple of misunderstandings or little fight-type things near the beginning of the summer, but definitely nothing too serious.  I'm more excited for her to come back than I am for the ferrets to come with her, than I am for everyone else to get back in the city, than I am for James to move out, than I am for.. a lot of things.  I try not to let my mind think about.. much beyond the next couple of days, but sometimes it's hard (nothing more than like.. a season or two...  I'm having thoughts of us just cuddling up on the couch under a blanket drinking hot drinks and just hanging out in the winter, for example.. perhaps after ice skating or something (I can't ice skate, by the way, Sarah.. It could make for hilarious times)).  It's a mental defense I've set up thanks to previous relationship failures.  And, really, why think too much about the future?  Obviously one has to have goals and stuff for school, work, general life things; but one does not live in the future, one lives in the present, they're living NOW.  I try to focus on what's going on now and make the most of it.  No point in worrying about the future or lamenting the past (as much as things tend to pop up and try to distract you, it's just something one has to deal with).

It's been really nice to get out of my apartment for hours at a time last week and this.  I am going to be kind of sad when the kids leave and I really won't have a need to leave my apartment...

Anyway, four fourty-eight is kind of a late time to finish up a post and go to bed..  My sleep schedule was good for like.. a total of two weeks this summer.. not even consecutive weeks at that...

I dunno, ever since the car sold I've just felt really good about things.  That lifted a huge burdon from my mind and now I'm looking around realizing that I have quite a few good things going on.  I am immensely happy I asked her out.  It almost didn't happen, but I forced myself to NOT think about it and just see what would happen.  It was a twofold decision, really...  On the one hand, it was kind of like an experiment.. in that whole "can I actually get a date with someone that I barely know? (as opposed to having been a friend for some time)" way, and on the other it was a necessary step forward, to move on.  It seems like kind of a weird way to look at it, but that's how I've rationalized it out in the time since.  And I've had a lot of time to think about it (four months worth, to be almost exact :razz: ).

Gah, five oh-six.  I really need to get to bed.

...I mean it.

Took pretty much the whole day to get ophi set up.  Well, Linux anyway.  Building him and installing / setting up Win7 was mostly painless (just a few CDs lost in the drive...) and that was the day prior, surrounding Casey's meat party (not gay).  The onboard audio is nice in only one way: It has a headphone jack on the front of the computer that plugs directly into the onboard audio card.  This is actually only half of one way: The headphone cuts out the back speaker port in Windows (as it should).  They both run in Linux.  OK, that's not so much of a problem, just a minor annoyance.  I don't even feel like moving my speakers over to the computer yet anway, might just keep them hooked up to the Gamecube.  The onboard audio sucks in that alsa won't give me built in bass/treble sliders for the card.  It did for the Sound Blaster PCI512 and the Audigy ZX.  I just popped the Audigy into ophi and, while it detects that the card is plugged in (lspci), alsa doesn't detect it.  Oh well.  I'll probably just let it sit there, or rip it out later and ebay it or something.  Even though the Audigy would put out such better sound, I dont really feel like fighting with anything more right now. 

Jeremy might give me something for the GeForce 7600GT from Andy as well. 

I found a software equalizer solution, and the settings given on the Arch wiki are a lot better than it normally sounds, but I need to learn how to play with equalizers and what each band means / effects (I'm just given numbers that correspond to each band... no sliders for me).  Also, the software equalizer eats some CPU.  With only Opera, mpd, and the equalizer running, both cores are idling around 4%.  Without the equalizer, with Opera, they'd both be at 1% or below.  But hey, at least the cores are being used, yeah??  I see it fluctuate between three and six percent on the first and four and five on the second.  I love seeing two arch logos on boot representing the two cores and having two percentage/usage bars in conky :D

(03:47:16 AM) Jeremy: you put about as much time into switching arch around as i do my windows, its just a matter of what your primary os is

Sort of.  I spent most of the day just trying to get shit downloaded and installed on this shitty stolen wifi (cocmast dude comes on Tuesday).  Afterwards I spent a lot of time fighting with sound and a couple other things (why does gnome-settings-daemon set my background on the laptop but not on the desktop?  Both machines start it when openbox runs, so they should behave the same).

I think it's just about done.  This means I can go about looking for jobs again.  Or playing Team Fortress 2 with Casey, Matt, Sarah, David, or whoever else come Tuesday.  I think I might have a "Happy Real Internet Day!" party on Tuesday.  I think I'll have been stealing wifi for nearly two weeks by that point!

Anyway, fucker is orange.  See the bottom part of the white section?  The dvd tray pops up VERTICALLY FROM THERE.  LIKE A GODDAMN TOASTER.  HOLY SHIT IT'S AWESOME.  Except when I lose the teeth that are supposed to hold the disc in and drop a disc or two IN the drive.  It's a pain in the ass to get those fuckers out of there.

• Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.8GHz
• 2GB DDR2 PC6400 RAM
• Geforce 8800GTS 512MB (with free copy of Call of Duty: World at War, normally a $50 game)
• 1 160GB SATA II HDD
• 1 320GB SATA II HDD

I think that's all the important stuff?  Clearly decidely a mid-range machine.  That's all I need.  It'll play TF2 beautifully.  It was only $500.  Andy was $800 when I bought her years ago.  The motherboard is your standard microATX motherboard.  I was originally planning on going for a smaller case (similar to Mom's new one), but most of them don't hold graphics cards, let alone beasts like the 8800 and above.  My case is not as deep as most, though, so it is still easier to carry around and it just feels lighter that both andy AND Mom's new one (thing is DENSE!)!

I'm using andy's old 19" display in the middle of my desk.  Got Sarah's 19" off to the left and am displaying the laptop on that.  The laptop itself sits on the elevated laptop stand to the right, but I couldn't read the display from there.  It serves as a place to set things for now.

Got synergy and hamachi all set up, had to change a few aliases on feldspar's end and change the synergy config, but otherwise it was pretty easy to migrate from andy to ophi. 

Somehow in playing around with oss (not much better than alsa for what I want) and reinstalling alsa, I got sound working in Doom3.  The standard Quake3 engine maxes at 1000 frames per second, but refuses to give sound (not able to map /dev/dsp for whatever reason).  Even though I set the cap at 9000, the game hardcaps at 1000.  I think with the 6600GT (never tryed the 7600GT) I was able to get around 300-400 frames.  If I uncap the frames from 60, my character constantly looks at the floor.  If I cap it again, I can only look up or down.  If I restart the game and keep the frames capped at 60, I can look around like normal until I uncap it again.  The ioquake engine refuses to run, giving some OpenAL (like OpenGL, but for audio, derp) error that I don't feel like dealing with yet.

I, sadly, deleted UT2k4 quite some time ago.  I would love to play that game right now.  I need more native Linux games.

I opted to put Openbox on ophi instead of going the XFCE+Compiz route.  I would like to have the flash of Compiz, but since both Openbox and Compiz are window managers... that can't happen.  The main reason I switched was because XFCE 4.6 no longer has customizable right-click menus (on the desktop).  Since that is my main method of launching programs, I'd rather have a menu that has only what I need instead of the generic crap that the new XFCE menu gave.  Customizability > eye-candy.  Plus Openbox is light.  XFCE was already light for a desktop environment, but Openbox ain't even that.  Just a straight up window manager, nothing more.  Shit is snappy on the laptop, it SCREAMS on the desktop. 

The case is really pretty.  I love it.  The blue power light on the front has a red LED in it for HDD access.  I just LOVE the way it looks.

I think the most CPU intensive game I have under either operating system is actually Dwarf Fortress.  For some reason the Windows version through wine runs better than the native Linux one..  I haven't actually ever run the game under Windows.  While it doesn't take advantage of multi cores, the second core should at least prevent the game from grinding my system to a halt.  I could barely browse the web on andy while playing dorfs.

Shit yeah it runs well now.  I wonder how many people get new rigs just to run dorffort well.

I should also figure out sleep/hibernate under linux. 

It's ten in the morning.  Sarah woke me up by calling me at four in the afternoon...  My sleep schedule is so nasty right now.

I was all type type type for the longest time with this post.  Now I've run out of steam.  I think it's time to call it a day.

Also, six days from now marks seven years of journal-y-ness.

LAN Party was two days ago.  Pretty fun.  Almost won some money, then did win some money.  Hung out, generally a fun time.

The FFXI threads that keep popping up on /v/ as well as playing FFTA2 (full title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: Grimoire of the Rift, long much?) all the time have really given me an urge to get back into FFXI...  :|

Catherine IMed me the other day, totally out of the blue.  Something about still getting emails from the NewTF forums?  I don't even get those, so I don't know what she's talking about.  Anyway, apparently her and I know someone in common besides Jason.  Someone that thinks I'm a dick now?  I'm more confused about who else she knows that I know.  Well, and I'm a little curious as to why this person thinks I'm a dick.  Maybe it's just because I don't talk to anybody from home now besides Paul and the occasional Alyssa or Jason? 

I REALLY need a new computer to play Fallout on (or at least David's over Winter Break :razz: ).  I've already sunk forty hours into my new character, because I beat the game on my first character after like twenty-five hours...  This time I'm going around and exploring the shit out of everything.  It's really compelling to try to find everything in the game world, I'm not sure why.  I could NOT get into Oblivion, and even though this is a direct sequal to Fallout 1 and 2, it is still a spiritual sequal to Oblivion. 

Over the weekend I Facebook friend-requested that girl I see all over the place, except I haven't seen her in a few days.  I believe the last time I saw her was when she was getting off the boat cruise bus with Galina and Katie as I was coming back from 7-11.  I then saw on Facebook a picture of her, Galina, Katie, and Sahar, but she was untagged.  Galina was able to tell me her name, though.  This was like a week or so ago, I think.  I figured that since Linda has 1,100 friends on Facebook (does that make her a slut?  :razz: ), that she'd be friends with this 'Sarah' girl.  Turns out she was.  I sent her a message along with the friends request:

Because I see you all over the place and figured I should say hi.

I sent it and immediately thought I did the wrong thing by doing it through Facebook (and stupidly expressed my thoughts to Jeremy):

(05:26:32 AM) Me: i wonder if that's creepy at all
(05:36:04 AM) Jeremy: Creeper
(05:36:10 AM) Jeremy: :P

We've talked a bit via wall writings, though, and things seem to be pretty alright.  I just don't know if there's things I could be saying to express.. interest in her?  Not like interest interest, but rather that I'd like to get to know her more instead of just talking to her once or twice and then silently nodding at each other whenever we pass.

There are thirteen laptops in use in this class (not including the professor's).  Only one of the laptop users is paying attention (not including me).

Hung out in Jeremy's room a bit last night, to "save" him.  Ended up having some fun impersonating him on AIM to both Alyssa and Galina.  Galina didn't take too kindly to it, but Alyssa seemed to just laugh it off.  Mostly talked Fallout with Jeremy, Nathan, and Alex. 

I got through test twelve of sixteen by Sunday afternoon.  The mailer script was not working properly, however, and we now have a blanket extension until the script is working again.  However, I think the best course of action decided upon by Richard, Joy, and me was to work on the next lab, the infamous malloc lab.  The malloc lab gave Corey and Phil an immense amount of trouble last semester.  They had three weeks to work on it and they still didn't get it working properly.  I am not excited.  I must start this one early, unlike the shell lab that I started roughly forty-eight hours before it was due (I must say, however, I am pretty pleased with how well it turned out given the amount of time I worked on it).  The shell lab was pretty neat and almost.. dare I say it.. fun?  The thought crossed my mind to actually make it a usable shell that I might be able to make my default shell.  :shock: To make it anywhere near usable, however, would require me to make the shell search the system's paths (as I do not feel like typing in /bin/ls everytime I want to get a directory listing)...  Which just means changing all execv() calls to execvp().  Oh, and to implement directory changing.  I imagine doing so wouldn't be that hard?  I'm pretty sure there's a system call for that.

If anyone's interested in checking it out, the C code is here.  Check the comments to figure out which functions I had to write.

Jeremy just noticed the pink sticky notes I stuck on the top corners of his old Dell laptop.  They were ears!  I put them there sometime last night.  Kid hasn't slept all night and I've been talking with him for the majorty of the night/morn (he uses the Dell for AIM and such).  I am proud of myself.  :grin:

My eyes aren't doing that weird halo thing they do after I've been up for too many hours.  This is weird. 

Um..  Not much else at the moment?  I can't think, really.  I've been up far too long.

(Click for more)

Ugh... Intro to Unix exam Monday night and a Data Networks exam on Devil's Night... 

One of the random woot shirts I got is really freaking cute.  It's this cute-ass robot sitting on this sloth or something's shoulders.  It's a light-gray shirt.  Pretty awesome.  The other one is an awkward pale-yellow color with... you know this famous painting?  Imagine it with squirrels and houses made out of giant acorns behind them.  On a sickly pale-yellow color.  It's... eh.  Mostly it's the color that bothers me, not the graphic... 

I am impressed with my laptop speakers.  I am sitting here in McCormick lounge at six forty-five in the morn, blasting the music from the thing above and it doesn't sound all that bad.  Granted, it could sound a hell of a lot better, but I'm never going to seriously listen to music through these speakers. 

I think I might have messed up my foot a bit by walking on couches and tables (like I always do!) instead of around them.  I kind of expected the cushion of the couch to be more firm than it was, I guess? and came down and my foot just went out from under me.  SOMEHOW I was able to save myself from smashing my face right into the corner of the table due to the loss of balance.  I bet I just sprained the thing or something and should therefore take it easy for a bit.  It'll probably feel better in the morning.  I am able to put all my weight on the thing for like ten seconds before it gets awfully uncomfortable.  It's not swelling or anything, so I don't think anything's really wrong, per se. 

There is this one girl that I see everywhere on campus.  More so than creepy-I'm-going-to-stare-at-Tony-everytime-I-see-him-especially-after-he-gets-out-of-the-shower kid that lives just across the way in North hall!  And that's a feat, since I see Sir Creeps-A-Lot all over the place.  Something is wrong if I do not see this girl at least once a day.  Average sightings per day is nearing the solid number of two.  I might like smile at her, nod, say hi, etc., but everything about her is just very...  I dunno.  She looks kind of plain, I guess, but it's not really that turning me off.  It's more the way she holds herself, how she walks slowly, her expressionless face...  Is there a person in there?  It could be a robot!  Stalking me.. waiting for the right moment to DISINTEGRATE ME :shock: At least she doesn't creepily smile at me like creepy-kid, and then laugh a little bit to himself.  WHAT THE FUCK DUDE, SERIOUSLY, YOU'RE SCARING ME.

Just seventeen minutes until sunrise!  Too bad I'm not on the lake or anything, I'm sure that would look amazing.  I need to do that sometime.. go watch the sunrise over Lake Michigan.  This is my third year here, you'd think I would have done that already.

Sitting here in McCormick lounge at fuck-you in the morning has caused me to realize.. I have a laptop!  I don't have to sit on my room all the time anymore!  I mean, not that I had to before, but now I can still be connected.. anywhere!  I should sit in lounges more often.  Perhaps even MTCC once or twice. 

Casey made cheesecake over the weekend, I had a slice on Sunday.  It was really good, almost too good.  I couldn't finish it, it was just too much :( Kind of like how those "death by chocolate" chocolate cakes are. 

Overall, a very nice break.  Now I really need to get that car fixed...  Parking Services emailed me and was all "hey, there's a car that belongs to you in this lot, what the fuck?"

And I need to get back into that "doing things" state of mind.  Problem is, I don't think I've ever been in that state of mind.

Got the first one done.  Am working on the third one.  I've been keeping an almost regular schedule when it comes to doing push-ups.  Did you know that the shower curtain bar in the South showers is surprisingly sturdy?  Makes for a GREAT chin-up bar.  And it's right there everytime I take a shower, which is every day.  I already feel a lot better now that I've been doing this just a little bit. 

Um, that second one, though?  I'll get back to you after this week is over...  I need to finish up three lab reports and study for three different exams.  At least this week ends on Wendesday at 3:05PM, though!  Yay for fall break!  Yay for not having a reason to go home anymore!  It'll be nice and laid back this weekend.  I imagine Phil and I will finally get around to beating Mega Man 9 this weekend too.

Over the past two months or so I've acquired a fair amount of small t-shirts that fit a hell of a lot better than my old larges.  Hell, some of my larges were actually extra-large, that I've had since junior high!  WTF.  These smalls fit a lot better.  I really like how they look on me too.  Paul Schizzy thought I lost weight when he saw me the other day, but it's really just because I'm wearing shirts that fit a hell of a lot better now.

The one-acts and improv that I saw on Friday were really well done.  No offense to the one-act directors or actors, but improv is consistently better than whatever follows them.  Especially the comedian Thursday night.  She was complete balls.