Item 1: I upgraded my computer. I've got two hard drives stuffed into it and am kinda sorta working on migrating down to just one. Also, I don't use explorer.exe anymore because I was bored. I have redesignated this computer Aji' (Aji Prime).

Items the rest: Guess what day it is.

xkcd apparently didn't have a joke this year. The uncertainty is the worst part.

YouTube is currently operating at 110%. I know this because I was up late this morning watching some guy playing with his action dolls. Also, IT IS THE NINETIES.

Dr. McNinja did not get crazy, but instead got product placement.

Google created CADIE which is not Skynet. Good news: its blog is worse than mine and its weakness is pandas. Bad news: it won't open the pod bay doors. Good news: it broke. More good news: it'll still write e-mails for you.

Wikipedia did nothing interesting. Same thing as last year.

The man shut Uncyclopedia down for tellin' it like it should be.

OMG THE COOL GUY FROM FREAKONOMICS IS TEAMING UP WITH TEH PRESIDENT TO FIGHT CRIME

Homestar Runner found the formula for success.

Some guy changed which crappy dubbed anime thingy he's redubbing.

Also, space combat flight games + DJ Qbert = awesome.

edit:

Spoony finally comes to his senses! No, wait. Quick, spam his inbox with proof that he was right!

Poykpac reminds you any AIDS is bad AIDS. Fight HIV today.

I got into RIT! Yes! Now the question is, do I want to go there? If no other colleges accept me, then the answer is "yes", but if otherwise, it gets tricky. RIT does have a shiny new computer science building...

When they don't ask if they're an adult.

Recently I decided to reload my EeePC, because several features weren't working and I could. Anyway, several reloads of the operating system later (Synaptic isn't smart enough to check to see if there's enough room on the disk before downloading updates), I had a working, customized EeePC. Then I decided to see if I could get terminatorX working on it. No, because it didn't configure itself to be allowed to open audio files. But I poked around on the website and found this website by Dave Philips. There's some nifty stuff on there.

All this audio stuff reminded me of The Echo Nest, which as it turns out, has a list of programs that use it. Like myxdup, which takes two music videos from YouTube and blends them into one, which may or may not be the most horrible idea ever. For kicks, I fed it Psilodumputer (Dorothy's Magic Bag Rock Me-Mix) and Chelsea Girls.

The result was kinda cool. You can see it here. I like how the "uh-huh-huh" comes after the "rock me" parts. Also, for some reason it just has the ending to the Psilodumputer vid.

Oooh! I wanna try another one! Let's see... Realtime Demo Wannabe (set to The Plan by D Fast) and Phunx. I think it mashes the second video on top of the first one. That's why the ending was just the first video.

I fed those videos in at 1:17. It's taking forever to work.

EDIT: When it's ready, it should be here.

So, I recently watched a LP of Space Channel 5 and it kinda sorta got me thinking. In a bad way.

First, I realized that all rhythm games have crazy plots. I mean, PaRappa the Rapper is a game about a rapping dog who, among other things, learns to drive a car by having a rap battle with a moose. And there's Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (aka that game on the DS where you tap the screen to music and then spinners come up out of nowhere, also that is a pretty funny LP), which has a bunch of screaming guys violently dancing to cheer people up and make them do things like learn how to make pots or win at dodgeball or get elected mayor or fight their indigestion. (and that's just part of the first game!)
But Space Channel 5 has a female reporter name Ulala investigate a series of alien attacks by dancing to funk music with the aliens and then shooting them by yelling "CHU!". It's strangely catchy, in the sense that I now think laser guns go "CHU!" now, unless they shoot hearts, in which case they go "HEY!". It also adds "space" to the front of every word, so you have things like space children and the space president and space Micheal Jackson. I am not making this up. Space Micheal Jackson runs the Space Channel 5 space station.

But what got me thinking specifically was the 5 at the end. There are a couple of other space channels mentioned in the game, including Space Channel 1, Space Channel 42 and Space Channel 88. Also a pirate TV station. I guess the space FCC is underfunded.
So, you've got Space Channels, and I thought, "What if there were Space Channels based on say, Psilodump? It'd be called Space Channel 476!"
Which leads to some logical conclusions.
Space Channel 476: With anchor Psilodump, co-anchor Paza and I guess Dorothy's Magic Bag can do the weather or something. Stages set to music from The X-Dump, but mostly Psilodump. Come on, Mutiny of the Robots would fit right in with Mexican Flyer.
Space Channel 8: Nullsleep, Bit Shifter, minusbaby, Trash80 and all the 8bitpeoples bring you the news with random sprites popping up in the background and the occasional low-bit party.
Space Channel 2: Phlogiston, Disasterpeace, Alex Mauer and the rest of the II team pause the world for in-depth analysis. And then they blow everything up because that's how they roll. Well, it's how I roll at least.

Also, Left 476 Dead starring The X-Dumpians as they kill zombies with their ninja skillz. Because I randomly add "76" to the end of "4". Anyway, it's just like Left 4 Dead with different characters, but the music is by Psilodump. I totally think Two would be appropriate in Left 4 Dead.
And Space Channel 5 Days A Stranger. I'm not too sure how that'd work out. Um, Ulala is Trilby (protagonist swap!) Pudding is Simone, Noize is Jim, Jaguar is Philip and Ambiguously Camp Fuse is AJ, because I'm sure you wanted to stab him at least once during Space Channel 5 Part 2. And it takes place on a space station. Fight the supernatural with dance moves and laser guns that go "CHU!"
it hurts chu chu

First snowfall of the season!

That's kinda important to me. I'm not sure why.

Lotsa crap's been happening, but I'll talk about that later.

Yes, it's that time of the year again, when I turn another year older and only 10 or so other people care. Well, it's nothing to be sad about 'cause I still get loot.

I've only been up for about half an hour, but my parents got me some stuff, including a book on writing college application essays, more MythBusters DVDs, candy and the best one of all, the CliffsAP AP Biology book. The one my biology teacher recommended! I am totally gonna crush the AP test in May.

Also I am now registered to vote. Eat it, what seems like 80% of people on the internet who can't vote but still feel required to say "bush sux"! Taste my enfranchisement!

And apparently a bunch of forums I'm registered on use the same software with the same automated e-mail system.

So, school started for me last week, on Wednesday. I'm a senior this year, not that it means much to me since I feel like I'm stuck in perma-semi-newb-mode, in that while I know my way around and how things go down, I'm not totally friendly with everyone. I'm like that a lot, essentially everywhere, whenever I see something not involving me. What can I say, I'm shy and resent that I'm shy.

Not much interesting stuff happened. I went to camps, where I fleshed out some of my webcomic ideas because there was nothing else to do. I spent a crapload of time watching stuff on Hulu. Thanks again, Freakonomics guys. You made me waste my summer. I'm joking, Avarax is partially to blame because he made the Miracle Mod script for Soldat and that's really fun, if only for the fact that you can kick major ass on it if everyone else sucks. No, seriously, I got a "Norris-like" streak once when I was playing as Barbarian. That's like, 20 kills in a row without a death. No wonder somebody started yelling "I AM INVINCIBLE!" when they were playing it.

I found an offensive browser-based game based on the internet called Forumwarz. For legal reasons, they have you type in "I am not easily offended" before you can play it. That's a good sign, right? The game is a sorta-JRPG thing where you use attacks to pwn threads and ultimately forums. But watch out, the forum posters will fight back with all of the power their feeble minds can muster, damaging your ego. Fortunately you can buy anti-depressants, which cause you to talk about your mood ("these anti-depressants are anti-tastic!"). I decided to play as a troll, so my attacks involve pissing people off with spoilers and yo' momma slams. And of course, no JRPG is complete without the ability to kill yourself. I'm serious. It's required for a mission. Check it out if you're not easily offended.

I also signed up for Last.fm because I noticed there's a foobar2000 plugin for it. You can see my profile here and find new, easier ways to insult my musical tastes than this thread. My library currently includes "Psilodump and more". (more Psilodump, if that wasn't clear)

Irony is when you expect something to happen and the complete opposite happens, right? So is it just me, or is a cable / satellite TV company advertising on an internet website which hosts the complete run of several TV shows and a ton of movies ironic? And trying to convince people who are receiving broadcast TV that getting an ATSC converter is too much of a hassle and they should sign up for their service probably won't work either. I mean, if they haven't already gotten cable / satellite TV, they probably either don't want it or are too cheap to pay for it. Plus it's actually cheaper to go buy the box than to subscribe to their service for 1 month, since you can get a coupon from here and wind up paying at most $30 dollars.
So essentially they're targeting people not interested in their services and may be somewhat resentful. I suppose advertising to people not interested in your services isn't ironic. It's just stupid and annoying. Show more of those s'mores ads.

Yeah. I have beef with cable / satellite TV companies. Why would I pay and still get commercials? You've got to offer me something better than that. There's thousands of websites filled with interesting and entertaining material out there that I can access without any advertisements. (thanks, Adblock Plus!)

Those of you who've seen me any time in real life in the past year know that I've been experimenting with my appearance. Namely, I've been growing my hair out. My last haircut was in August 2006. My excuses for doing so are as follows:

1. I wanted to keep hair growing as long as I took AP US History.
2. I wanted to be able to headbang. It did not occur to me that I do not listen to music which is appropriate to headbang to.
3. I wanted to see what my hair would look like long. I have discovered I have wavy hair like my mom.
4. I felt like it.
5. I wanted to be able to donate my hair to Locks of Love.

Today I finally got a haircut. Several feet away from me is almost all of my hair, tied into bundles and in a ziplock bag. I plan to mail it out later.
Because of all the newly exposed skin, my dad is concerned about sunburns.

I'd post pics, but I neglected to get a "before" image and I seriously doubt any of you care what I look like anyway.

In lieu of doing constructive things, I have been watching TV shows on Hulu. Thanks again, Freakonomics guys. Okay, I've been playing roguelikes and folding paper. And doing some light typing. I really should follow up on my over-analysis threats.

So, I got bored and started looking for little indie games to play. Turns out some website was doing a competition based around procedurally generated games. First, I checked out Rescue: The Beagles because it was mentioned here on the blog of a netlabel that Animal Style is involved with. Then I happened upon Self Destruct, a procedurally generated bullet hell shmup programmed mostly in 1 day. It's pretty fun, though it's a lot easier than The Garden of Colored Lights. You've got a shield which functions as a life bar, you can absorb blue bullets for energy, you have a screen-clearing nuke and essentially every enemy drops powerups. I managed to beat it on my first try AND get a higher score than the game's creator. No, really, take a look at the high scores. Oh yeah. #17. *overconfidence* Seriously, either the game is too easy (a look through the thread says that it used to go up to wave 400 and was harder, so easier is a possibility) or I'm getting better at shmups. Since I've been playing Aero Fighters and Strikers 1945 II for a while and can get 350,000 points on either, I'd say I'm probably getting better at shmups. This is just tangible evidence. Of course I still suck at them. Just slightly less so. It's sort of the same feeling I get when I join random Soldat DM servers, kill everyone, win, then say "gg no re" and leave.

According to this page, one of the ways I can stay "cyber-safe" is to "Never meet anyone face-to-face whom you only know online." Whoops. I've already done that. Twice. Once was when it turns out this kid my dad beat at Diablo 2 went to the same after-school program I did. The other was when I met this girl who posted on a forum that people mainly from my school posted on. It wasn't gross or anything, we just said "hi" in the hallway. And if I ever see Freezepop, that'll be 3 more instances. Not to mention the possibilities geohashing presents of being able to meet a whole bunch of people from the internet in possibly a remote location. I understand that I'm not exactly the target audience for that message, since I'm old enough to know better and be sufficiently paranoid.

When else can I do something crazy because it sounded fun at the time? Like go out to the park at midnight and get on the swings for half an hour while constantly listening to "Totally On" by David Sugar. I haven't stayed up late listening to the same song over and over since my infatuation with "Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)" by Garbage. Looks like I'm a sucker for driving pop tunes.

Probably the best part is that my dad fell asleep before I left and woke up after I came back, so I don't have to worry about explaining the walk to him. Staying up until 12:45, yes, but not going for a walk at midnight.

Today was officially the first day of my summer vacation. I found out I can't turn my brain off. Actually, I knew that when my summer vacation essentially started back on Friday, but now I know it. Here, I'll get started by over-analyzing a quiz to see what D&D character you'd be.

According to this quiz, which I filled out pretty rapidly and with what may not be entirely honest answers, these are my results.

I Am A: Lawful Good Human Wizard (2nd Level)

Ability Scores:
Strength-13
Dexterity-17
Constitution-13
Intelligence-17
Wisdom-15
Charisma-13
( Stuff it also spit out which I might want to read later. )

Most of that makes sense. I mean, I'm an antisocial 17-year-old computer nerd. I'm on my blog right now, writing about a quiz I found. I have no idea how the hell stats are actually calculated in D&D, since I don't particularly feel like looking that up right now, but those stats seem pretty high to me.

But what I really want to talk about is the statistics page. It's pretty enlightening. Did you know that most people who take quizzes which determine what D&D character they're most similar to also tend to apparently be antisocial computer nerds? And I guess the questions are framed in such a way as to make the "Barbarian" class choice really hard to get. That or the people who take this quiz don't think of themselves as crazy like that. There's a lot of humans, which makes sense because again, antisocial computer nerds. Most people wind up in Neutral Good, because while you are on the side of good, you can still disregard laws if it makes you really badass. (as opposed to Lawful Good, where any law-breaking has to make you really badass) Sort of like Jack Bauer.

Comparing my stats to the average, it would seem I'm fairly typical of the test-takers. The average for most stats is around 13, and I didn't get any under 13.
The only significant differences are my high Dexterity and Intelligence. The dexterity is explained by my love of origami and my training in video games. The intelligence is pretty obvious. How many people do you know who made a blog post about a quiz they found, then went on to look at the statistics and draw conclusions, all for fun?

My stats reflected pretty well in my Soldat playing. I tend to do a lot of juke moves, jumping over people and trying to get into their blind spots, which is hard in a 2D game. Also I like mind games. A favorite trick of mine is hiding in the "water" on inf_Rise and popping up behind people. Next time they come through they tend to get paranoid and attack where I was hiding, only to walk past me while I'm hiding in the other water. Plus I use taunts.

I suppose it'd be pretty cool to have magic powers. Y'know, the whole violating the laws of physics for my own personal gain and amusement. (like in SSX games!) I also love particle effects.
But as cool as chain lighting and the ability to have s'mores whenever, wherever I want, I like guns more.

I should make a graphic about that last sentence.

I've been going through the archives of Arrested Development, and I happened to see this clip, which is easily the funniest thing I've seen all day:
Campaign Videos
"And the girls like him just fine. Young and old, it doesn't matter...in the dark."
"...in the dark." > "...except in bed."
Oh, jeez, this post is significantly more immature than my regular ones. Sorry, that line just keeps cracking me up, and well, if you're old enough to go on the internet, you're probably old enough to laugh at that.

I'd call it "xwds". It'd be kinda like those Alpha-Bits cereal, with sweetened whole grain product pressed into 'X's, 'W's, and 'D's then toasted. About 1/3 of the letters would be the basic "sugar", another 1/3 cinnamon, and the last 1/3 banana. It would be created with state-of-the-art cereal technology to neither turn the milk strange colors nor become saturated with milk and undeliciously soggy after 10 minutes. The back of the box would feature cute cartoon cereal letters forming together to summon me and defeat the forces of an unhealthy diet (i.e., our competitors products) using beams made from 12 essential vitamins and minerals, fiber, and love.
There's also the possibility of spin-off products, like an "Internet Breakfast" variety that contains various legal stimulants, "chocolate xwds", "fruitastic xwds" (blueberry, banana and strawberry), "X" if the machine that makes the 'W's and 'D's breaks, and "supergrain xwds" that instead of being sweetened and flavored, are made from corn, rice, and wheat.

I can taste the profits already.

If it's a sitcom without a laugh track, it's gotta be good, right?
Arrested Development on Hulu

Okay, so it was just the writer guy from Freakonomics who recommended this. I still think it's pretty good and I've only seen about 2/3 of the first episode.

In other news, I am planning to set my brain on autopilot on Friday and coast my way to summer vacation. Also, I might try to over-analyze Order of the Stick comics if I'm feeling adventurous. Because I can't stop thinking and it's Rich Burlew's fault for making me think of it. I think I'll start with some the parallels between Concerned and OotS.

Hey, you know Liz Enthusiasm from Freezepop? You know how she has that hot pink dye streak down the right side of her hair? I think that'd be pretty cool. Only, y'know, maybe a color that goes better with my skin, like a dull green or teal.
Also I'd go on a crazy diet / workout plan and get myself a six-pack.

Insects? I know there's that one fungus that makes ants go crazy and climb really high, then bursts out of their exoskeletons.

I'm working on a research project for my AP US History class and it's not going too well, mainly because I get distracted easily by much more fascinating things such as the Freakonomics Blog. I decided to do a part on Gun Control & the Brady Bill.

Now, my opinion of guns is that they're totally awesome except in real life. Come on, you've wanted to see those movies where the hero expends approximately the same amount of munitions as the average National Guard ammunition dump and then blows up a helicopter. And I'm sure you've wanted to play a game where you can do the same, often while the computer displays messages such as "omfg u suk nub" and "lolol i r leet snpier". So, if I know my readership, and I don't, I'd say you like the idea of guns. Personally I'm in love with them. All of my internet alter-egos use them.

Real life is completely different.

Guns kill people. Okay, technically you could say it's the people or bullets, but the point is, the guns are a big part of the process. Since every major religion on the planet says "killing is bad" and I'll assume you enjoy being alive right now, we can agree that things which kill people are bad. So, guns are bad.

Military-grade assault weaponry is out of the question for civilians. It's called military for a reason. We don't need a lot of people out there with 50-caliber anti-tank rifles and no enemy tanks to shoot. I mean, you'd wind up with those bad guys from Robocop.

I understand that some perfectly sane and rational people are able to use guns for self-defense. That's fine, as long as we can be sure those people aren't going to go killing people because they're bored or suffered a concussion or something. We have laws about these things.

What we really need to worry about is illegal guns.

If you've ever read Freakonomics, which is a pretty good book, it mentions how guns are not perishable products. Even if you're able to turn off the tap of all illegal gun flow into the country, there's still an ocean left of illegal guns. If we started handing out a gun to every adult in the country, we'd run out of adults before we ran out of guns.

Freakonomics also points out that people tend to think there are either too many guns or not enough guns. Those who say too many indicate the example in the previous paragraph. Those who say not enough talk about how hard it is for an average sane person to get a gun.

I think instead of worrying so much about stopping people from getting guns through legal channels, we should launch a massively expensive and movie-worthy program of tracking down every last illegal gun, especially if it requires a climatic shoot-out at a worn-down warehouse between whatever the tough cop and the villain with a foreign accent's henchmen. Yes, that is supposed to be ridiculous.

All vaguely-amusing rantings aside, I'm just annoyed by how biased the Brady Campaign website is. I know, it's supposed to get people to support their point of view, but I'm looking for non-biased reliable sources that are not Wikipedia.

This is gonna be a rough couple of days.

Ninjas. Ninjas. Ninjas.
Because pirates sold out for Disney.