November 2004 Archives

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Mine was pretty fun. Thursday I had to get up all early to go to my grandma's house to eat. I ate a ton, as usual, and by the time I got home, I was pretty sleepy so I passed out for 4 hours. When I woke up, all I could hear was noise downstairs. It turns out about half of my relatives (on my dad's side) were at our house for a huge Thanksgiving feast. I'm pretty sure we violated some kind of fire code because there were so many people, there was nowhere to sit so people were just sitting on the floor or standing around. I went down to say hi to everyone and chit chat, but quickly snuck back up to my room to hide. The last of them left around midnight, which I was glad for because I don't like noise. During all that, I put my Xbox Live subscription to good use and played just about every game I had with Live capabilities. I spent most of my time playing Rallisport and Halo 2 though.

Friday I went over to Minh & Cassie's apartment for a potluck. We invited several people from work, but only Kenneth, Candace, and Mack showed up. Not a bad turnout. The food was great and we ended up having lots of leftovers. We had Vietnamese spring rolls, spinach lasagna, rotisserie chicken, chicken wings, stuffing, boston creme pie, and some over food I forgot. All in all it was a good time and I ate too much once again. After stuffing ourselves, we went to play pool for the rest of the night, then back for a little xbox before I went home for more Halo 2 online.

Saturday and Sunday I pretty much did nothing except more Halo 2, Rallisport, and DoA2 online. If it hasn't become apparent yet, I'm quickly becoming an Xbox Live addict, and I've already decided to go buy a headset next weekend because it's annoying to not be able to talk back to other players. I would have gotten one this weekend, but I have a lot of stuff due this week and I know if I had it now I'd spend all my time playing instead of doing my work.

Speaking of which, this week I have an EvoPsych paper, Photography project, and a photography book review all due Tuesday. I have to complete and mail my JET program application by Wednesday. Friday I have a Computers & Writing paper due. Also on Friday is my graduation ceremony. It's been 5.5 long years and sadly my college life is coming to a close. I honestly don't want to leave now that I'm just now really starting to enjoy myself, but it will be nice to not have to worry about homework and tests anymore. The weird thing though is that a week and a half after Friday, I have my last and only final, for Perception. Strangely, if I don't pass that final/class, I won't graduate. I'm not sure what'll happen then, and I hope I don't get to find out.

Well, now that I'm done typing this, I think it's time for more Halo 2 or DoA2 online. For those who are curious as to how crappy I am at Halo 2, you can check out my stats, which are now linked on the side, over to the right. I'm terrible at that game. :) If you'd like to play me at any other game, my gamertag is AntX3, but tell me if you're gonna add me. I don't accept friend requests from strangers. Enough rambling, it's game time.

Last night I had to finish my EvoPsych term paper on altruism, so I was going to do the same thing I did for the last term paper in order to get it done. Last time, I basically stayed up all night working on it, except I took two naps, each one an hour and a half long. After the nap, I'd get back up and work some more until I got too tired, then I'd go take another nap. It worked pretty well, I managed to get the paper done just in time, although it left me a zombie for the rest of the day. So last night was going to be a repeat of that night. I had already done some research over the weekend, but once I was ready to write the paper, I realized it was going to be too hard to do, so I switched to another topic and managed to find some useful research I could write about. Come 1am, I had a few good, solid references, but I hadn't even begun to write. I was pretty sleepy at that point, so I decided I would take an hour long nap as sort of a refresher, then I could get up and type away. I crawled into bed, set my alarm for 2am, and immediately passed out. 2am rolls around and my alarm goes off. I woke up feeling extra sleepy, so I set my alarm for 2:30 and dozed off again. 7:30am rolls around and for some reason I randomly wake up. I looked at the clock and saw the time and just layed there trying to figure out if I had already typed my paper or not. At first I thought I had done it, I was just too tired to remember. I quickly realized that I never got up at 2:30 and just slept the rest of the night. So I jumped out of bed, got on my computer and began typing like a madman. By 10:30, I had 4.5 pages (have to have at least 6 pages). I have to work at 11, so I had to leave at that time and just hope I can finish it at work. I sped to work in the crazy rain and once there, quickly got to work on finishing the paper. It was kinda hectic at work, so I didn't have a whole lot of time to work on it. By 1:50 I had 6 crappy pages, so I printed it out and ran over to class so I could hand it in. When I got there I noticed no one was handing anything in. I waited a few mins to see if anyone would, but no one ever did, so I finally asked the guy next to me when our term paper was due. "The 30th," he said... So basically I stayed up all late and worked my ass off like a retard for nothing. I guess the good thing is now I have a week to polish it and make it not crappy, and I don't have to worry about it much over the Thanksgiving break. bah.

The moral of the story: never do your work early. wait until the last minute.

What a weekend. Saturday morning I got up at 8am so I could go do another shoot at the animal hospital for my project. Unfortunately, when I woke up I remembered I needed film, and the earliest time I could get it was at 10am, which is bad because the animal hospital closes at 12. So, I headed over to the camera place to be there by 10am, bought some film, then flew on over to the animal hospital for some more pics. It was nice and depressing again. This time around I saw a cat that had been run over who was being treated but not likely to make it. There was also a three-legged dog and another dog with a lampshade collar thing. I did get to see some not so depressing animals though. I saw Red, the cat with jaundice and an IV, get to go home with his owners thanks to his successful treatment. There was also a chow puppy named Emma that was very friendly and had the whitest fur I've ever seen. I got some (I hope) good shots of her and her owner along with a series of photos from the beginning of her visit to the end. I managed to finish off a third roll right as the hospital was closing. I still need to do one or two more rolls, but I don't know if I'll have time unless I can manage to get up early Tuesday morning. I may have to take a point deduction.

After the animal shelter, I went back over to campus to drop off my film to be developed, but it turns out they won't be ready until tomorrow afternoon since their slide mounting machine broke. After that I drove home in the heavy, heavy rain and then immediately went to get my hair cut. Came home and passed out for a few hours, then got up and began my 6 page EvoPsych research paper but quickly got distracted when I started playing Street Racing Syndicate after I realized I had the wrong tires on my WRX which were totally screwing up its handling. Once I put the new tires on, I was tearing through the game and eventually bought a Lancer Evo VII complete with mods. I ended up playing for way too long, and before I knew it, it was already bed time.

Today slept in a little, then picked up where I left off on my EvoPsych research and worked on my Computers & Writing project since we have to present it tomorrow morning. I got sidetracked when my dad decided to fix the electrical sockets in all three bathrooms of the house, forcing me to turn off all my computers so he could cut the power while he worked. That dragged on for at least an hour, during which I took a nap since I couldn't do anything else. My dad finally finished so I got up and got back to work. Finished my part of the C&W project, just gotta try and get as much done on my EvoPsych paper as I can, since it's due Tuesday and I won't have much time to work on it tomorrow. I'm gonna be so dead tired tomorrow anyway since I have an orthodontist appointment at 8am. But alas, here I am typing this instead of working on my paper. It's a good thing I only have 8 more days of school left (not including weekends and holidays) because procrastination is hell.

Oh yeah, Friday I went over to Aaron's for a bit to see Metroid Prime 2. I was hoping it'd be awesome but it was kinda disappointing. It was too slow and boring to keep my interest. I just wanted to shoot stuff, not run around scanning crap and rolling around as a ball. I mainly didn't like the fact that you can't look up or down unless you hold R and that you can lock on to enemies when fighting them. Multiplayer was especially lame and I don't really look forward to playing it again. All I can say is it's a good thing I don't have a Gamecube, because there really isn't much out there worth playing on it, other than Soul Calibur 2, Smash Bros. Melee, and Mario Kart Double Dash (which I only recently learned to like after playing it for a few hours at Aaron's).

Speaking of games, I played a few games of Halo 2 online yesterday, and since I linked my gamertag to Bungie.net, it automatically generates stats of all my games (Halo 2 only) and even an RSS feed. Check it out if you have an RSS viewer. Now you can see just how crappy I am at that game.

Well, that's enough procrastinating for now. I really have to get back to work on my research paper.

-edit-
I forgot to mention, the one thing I did like about Metroid Prime 2 was that when you fire into a dark wall or something, the flash illuminates Samus' face and you can see the reflection in your visor. It's kinda freaky to just see faint eyes looking at you (especially when she blinks), but it's also a really nice touch.

Wednesday morning I got up all early to go to a nearby animal hospital to start on my photo story. I didn't really know what to expect, but I was expecting to get the runaround as far as getting permission to shoot goes. It turned out that they were very receptive to the idea and welcomed me in. It was slow at first because I had to wait for all the staff to come in for the day. On top of that, it was pouring outside, so there were hardly any customers. Once everyone finally got there and got situated, they took me back to the main room where they do most of their work. The staff showed me around and introduced me to some of their patients who were there being treated. They explained to me what was wrong with the pets as well as how they treat their ailments and so forth. It was quite interesting and kind of depressing at the same time. I met a bulldog wearing one of those lampshade things on it's head because it had a nasty cut on his eye that was swollen and could potentially cost him his eye if not treated properly. Next there was a one-eyed dog with a pretty bad scar over his bad eye. He was a pretty cheery dog though. Then there were 3 cats, one being treated for a urinary infection, another for a liver problem, and then there was Red. Red was a mess. He had a pretty bad case of jaundice. To make matters worse, he had some liver problem and he wouldn't eat, or if he did, he'd vomit soon after. Red vomited numerous times while I was there shooting, it was so sad. In order to keep him from vomiting so much, he had an IV in his leg that would calm his stomach. Since he wouldn't eat, they had to feed him by inserting a tube into his throat and they'd basically inject food into his stomach. I unfortunately got to witness this, which made me feel especially bad for him. But aside from the poor animals, my shoot went ok. I was really hoping to see a surgery or accupuncture (yes, they perform animal accupuncture), but none of that was going on that day. Despite it being a slow day, those people are pretty busy. They were all going back and forth the whole time and I had to do my best not to be in the way. I ended up getting a few good shots though, but I have to go back this weekend and maybe next week to try and finish up my photo story. I'm going Saturday morning because that's their busiest day, so that's a good opportunity to really get some (potentially) good shots. We'll see how that goes.

In other news, Half Life 2 came out this week. If only I had a computer to play it on... Anyone want to donate a brand new Alienware computer to me? :D

Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned...again. I did the unthinkable. Something which goes against everything I believe in. Thursday night I committed the most unforgivable of acts. I bought Halo 2. Now before you stone me to death or burn me at the stake, hear me out. Ever since I first saw the original Halo, I disliked it. When I got my computer 5 years ago, that was the end of console first-person shooters, as far as I was concerned. There was just no going back. Now fast forward a few years to the present. A few weeks ago I rented and beat Halo. It still wasn't all that spectacular to me, but it halfway redeemed console fps's in my eyes. So then a few days after I beat Halo, Halo 2 was released and, as I mentioned, I rented it to see what it was about. It was a marked improvement from the original and the day after I rented it, I ended up buying it. It sucked me in and stole my soul. So anyway, I bought it Thursday night, played it a little Thursday and Friday night. Saturday I took the Xbox and Halo 2 over to Aaron's since he was itching to see it. I pretty much spent the day there, and we played co-op mode and ended up beating the game almost all the way through. It was a lot of fun but the ending was a big disappointment. I won't go into detail about the ending, since there may be some of you still playing it, but needless to say, it was lame. Last night I beat it in single player just to see if there was any difference between it and co-op (there wasn't), so now here I am less than a week after buying it and I'm already done with it. I suppose I can always play online via Live, but I don't really enjoy having my ass handed to me every game. Yeah, I'm terrible at that game. Overall Halo 2 is pretty good and I really liked the movie-like feeling it gave. Now I can get back to finishing all my other neglected games like Tenchu, Ninja Gaiden, Burnout 3, DoA Ultimate, Rallisport Challenge 2, and Street Racing Syndicate. The fun never stops.

So now that I've gotten that off my chest, I should definitely get to sleep right now because I have to get up at 7am to go shoot photos at the animal hospital near my house for my photo story in photography class. It's due at 1:30pm... You'd think in the 5.5 years I've been at UT I'd have learned how to manage my time, but nope. All I've learned is now to get by doing as little work as possible. Ah well, only 2 weeks left until graduation. 2 weeks until freedom... or something like that.