My New Year Resolutions

After some consideration I’ve decided to post my new year resolutions for 2010 on my blog. While they are personal goals I feel that this will help me keep them rather than having them out the window the moment the year really gets going.

Of course I also have to say the customary new year things, so here goes!

Happy new year everyone! I hope 2010 is a blessed and prosperous year for everyone and that awesome things will happen in your life!

Ok, now that that is out of the way, here are my resolutions for 2010:

1) I will grow a bonsai tree (don’t ask me why, it’s just something that I feel like doing)

2) I will keep (or at the least attempt to keep) a positive attitude in all of the things I do.

3) I will study harder than I have ever studied in my life. This year I want all of my marks to look like my Informatics marks did last year (if this is achievable is somewhat debatable, but if I don’t try it’ll never happen in any case)

4) I will post to this blog more often. (This will mostly relate to how I am keeping up these resolutions, but I will also add other things that interest me)

5) I will spend time on other subjects of interest (like writing, vectoring images and so forth, so that I can develop some more skills)

6) I will learn more about myself and become a better person.

7) I will watch more anime, read more manga and listen to more music than ever before! (Because all work and no play will make me dull)

I'd be this Boyfriend.

Wow, it’s been ages since I last blogged, guess it’s mostly because I just didn’t have, or didn’t want to make the time. To an extend I also think it’s because I just don’t really have anything interesting to say.

Due to some shifts in my life however, I may soon spent some more time blogging as well as more time on Twitter (hope to see you there).

Anyways, I really just wanted to share a little piece I got in an email a while ago, which I thought was really awesome. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

---

When she stares at your mouth
Kiss her
When she pushes you or hits you like a dummy because she thinks she’s
stronger than you
Grab her and don’t let go
When she starts cursing at you trying to act all tough
Kiss her and tell her you love her
When she's quiet
Ask her what’s wrong
When she ignores you
Give her your attention
When she pulls away
Pull her back
When you see her at her worst
Tell her she's beautiful
When you see her start crying
Just hold her and don't say a word
When you see her walking
Sneak up and hug her waist from behind
When she's scared
Protect her
When she steals your favourite hoodie
Let her keep it and sleep with it for a night
When she teases you
Tease her back and make her laugh
When she doesn't answer for a long time
reassure her that everything is okay
When she looks at you with doubt
Back yourself up
When she says that she loves you
she really does more than you can understand
When she grabs at your hands
Hold her's and play with her fingers
When she bumps into you;
bump into her back and make her laugh
When she tells you a secret
keep it safe and untold
When she looks at you in your eyes
don’t look away until she does
When she says it's over
she still wants you to be hers
When she reposts this bulletin
she wants you to read it
- Stay on the phone with her even if she's not saying anything
- When she's mad hug her tight and don't let go
- When she says she's ok don't believe it, talk with her because 10 yrs later she'll remember you
- Call her at 12:00am on her birthday to tell her you love her
-Treat her like she's all that matters to you
- Stay up all night with her when she's sick
- Watch her favourite movie with her or her favourite show even if you think it's stupid
- Give her the world.
- Let her wear your clothes
-When she's bored and sad, hang out with her
-Let her know she's important.
- Don't talk about other girls around her
- Kiss her in the pouring rain
- When she runs up to you crying, the first thing you say is:
"Whose butt am i kicking baby?"
Guys post as: "I'd be this Boyfriend.
Girls post as: "A real boyfriend"

Just some random thoughts

Well, I haven't written a blog post in ages. Somehow I must say that I am not really surprised, my life has been a roller-coaster ride the past few weeks what with work, varsity and who knows what else to attend to. Yes, I know that this is no excuse not to write a post but somehow when it comes to the choice of writing up a post versus playing games, reading manga, watching anime etc etc well, I guess it's easy to guess what wins. Anyhow, enough complaining about my life let's get around to the topic of today's post.

I have always considered myself as an open minded individual when it comes to new ideas/concepts and pride myself on trying out new thing (in this case software, I am addicted to updates) but recently I realized that it seem as if I have become stuck in a rut. I've been using the same software without question for who knows how long, not bothering to find out what else is available, but it seems as if this will finally change.

For as long as I can remember I have been using Winamp for listening to music, Media Player Classic for playing videos etc etc. Now most people will tell you that Winamp is one of the best media players to use in the Windows environment, or that their browser (be it IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera or whatever) is the best, yet if you ask them if they have tried anything else, their answer is normally no and if you try to offer them another product they will hotly defend their own choice, often sinking so low as to insult your choice. In all honesty though if you aren't willing to risk a step away from your comfortable whatever, how will you ever discover if there is anything better out there.

In the past (before the internet was really big as it is today) I will agree that it was often difficult to get alternative software. With the way it stand nowadays though, there is no excuse not to try out something different (even if your internet is slow and/or expensive, smaller software packages are a good place to start, 3 or 4Mb is really not that much).

So I dare you, go out and try something different today. And before you complain about a piece of software consider the time and effort the developers have put into it. Rather send them feedback so they can improve their product or if you really want to complain try and build your own software and only after that do you really have the right to moan.

Study/Valentines Day

Wow, it's been quite a while since I last went to the trouble of blogging. I guess it's just not exactly my thing, but I really do try. I guess a large part of the reason that I don't write regular blogs is that most of the things I spend my time thinking about isn't really things I want to share with the entire world. But for this week I have some things to get off my chest so here we go...

I've finally gotten round to studying again!

I'm studying Bsc IT at the university of Johannesburg. While I have studied before (I have a B.Com Accounting degree after all) it feels different this time. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I now work, or that I am finally studying exactly what I want to study, but it feels different and I like it!

I have three subject this semester. Computer Science (where we code in C++), Informatics (Where we use Visual Basic 2008) and Mathematics. I would have had Business management as well, but I did that in my Accounting degree so I got the subject off. To be honest I like my computer subjects, to learn a new language is easy (it's not like I haven't done it before) and the idea of the classes are more about problem solving than about coding in any case. Maths so far seem to be a bit of a problem considering that I haven't used those skills in four years. In all honesty I had hoped never to use maths again in my life, yet here I am. At least I have both my aunt and my cousin to lend a helping hand!

Oh, my four years on campus had some other advantages as well, I have the privilege of parking on campus! (It really helps as I have to drive in at 5:00 in the morning (on both Tuesday AND Friday!)) It seems I might lose my job due to my studies though, but I'll take on the boss again this Monday and persuade him of my usefulness. (Not that I really want to stay, but I really need the money.)

Valentines day.

Ugh... After 22 years I'm still single! And I still hate this day as much as I ever did. To be honest I am working on getting a girl, but it's going slow and I'm not entirely certain how to handle things. At least one good thing has come out of my experiences, I have decided that I won't back down so easy this time. Not until I am rejected outright. Should that happen I will pick up the pieces and move on, but until then I will try to win her heart.

Mmmm... Now I feel a little depressed, but as we always say, life has a way of working itself out. So I'll just hang in there. :-D

PS: The picture is one I made the last time my heart was broken. It remains a beautiful picture.

Dead Space First Impression

Well, I finally decided it was time to buy myself another game and after no consideration at all decided to get myself Dead Space (The Xbox 360 version). The reason for this is that all of the reviews were extremely positive and I felt like a good scare (to be honest I had also considered Fallout 3, but not really feeling like a sandbox RPG at the moment).

So yesterday during lunch I quickly dashed out to the stores and picked up a copy for R555*. Not too bad if you consider that most other titles nowadays cost between R600 - R700. Anyways, the rest of the day turned into a drag after that until it was finally time to go home and play. After firing up the Xbox and launching the game I realized it was time to finally unpack my 5.1 set of speakers to truly experience the wonder of the game. Getting them set up took some time, but I think it was worth the effort (despite the fact that I'm only running a 3.1 setup at the moment, don't know where to put the rear speakers in my room.)

Well then, on to the game. To be honest it is scary from the moment the disc launches, the eerie intro music and then of course the haunting voice singing "Twinkle, twinkle little star" if you just leave the game, intermixed with splashed of Isaac's (the main character) death(s). The game itself (after you start) is creepy from the moment go. The (extremely well detailed) interior of the UGS Ishimura is littered with blood and bodies. Enemies start off easy with one or two attacking at a time but by the time you reach the second stage they are often coming to you in droves and you have your hands full trying to handle them all.

The pace that the game set is quite hectic, yet somehow you feel like sticking around in areas for a while (whether to hide from the Necromorphs or simply to read what people have written on the walls), the sound effects keep you on your toes with pipes and metal constantly clanging in the background (presumably as things walk/shuffle past it), Necomorphs growling in the airducts and so forth. I must say that there were quite a few moments where I looked back, thinking there was something when it was just an empty corridor.

Overall so far the game experience has been what had been promised in the reviews. Lots of pretty corridors to walk through, eerie sound, dismemberment (yes, for those who don't know yet, you need to dismember Necromorphs to kill them even taking off a head often doesn't stop them) and an apparently decent story (haven't gotten far enough to be a good judge of this).

Well, that's about all I have to say for the moment, if you really want to know more go and read about it on Wikipedia (Spoilers!!) or simply do a Google for "Dead Space Reviews" to get a more thorough overlook.

Now I really can't wait for this day to go away so I can go home and slice up some more Necros. If you haven't tried this game yet, go out there and buy it! If horror is not your thing though, I strongly suggest you give it a miss.

*R = ZAR (Currency of South Africa)

Random Ranting

Well I guess it's about time I write something again so let's see where this goes.
It would seem that I am once again trapped in one of those downwards spiral, almost self-destructive moods. Losing interest in a variety of things that had previously been pleasurable (reading manga, loss of the desire to finish my vector [about which I will blog once it's done], playing games and so forth).
Now I must point out that I am, at the least, mildly intrigued by this entire situation. It's not like I've done anything unusual, or asked for this in any way it just seem to happen. I guess that it is, at the core of it, nobody's fault but my own for allowing my mind to wander aimlessly (or not so aimlessly), but then again that is probably not it at least not in it's entirety. Maybe it's due to the fact that I mostly don't really exercise, or that I don't drink milk or that blah blah blah...
I guess the point is that it's not exactly easy to pinpoint why I become like this (else I would have done something about it ages ago). Maybe the truth is as easy as I am lazy (and believe me I am), or that I simply spend to much time pondering things which are no longer relevant.
Truth be told I am a little scared of what should happen this year and the things I must do. Now I know that I shouldn't be scared but I really can't help it, it is simply the way I am. I fear however, that this had cost me dearly in the past due to the fact that I rather run away from a situation instead of standing my ground and simply facing the problem. Maybe this is the reason that... well, never mind now that is a story for another post (if I ever feel like telling.)
Either way, I think this has gone on long enough, I have work to attend to after all.
Oh, I'm enrolling at the university on Thursday, this time round to study Bsc. IT (Going to be strange sitting in a first year class again, but there's no helping it.)
I guess I might regret posting this at some point in the future, but for now it doesn't really matter. Sorry for the complete randomness but that's just the way it is (there I go again, always apologizing )

Windows 7

Ok, let's see. This little rant of mine is probably not going to be as long as I had hoped to make it but oh well. I'm not going to re-iterate all of the things that had already been said about Windows 7 elsewhere on the net (just search for Windows 7 beta review and such and you'll get hundreds of hits), nor am I going to post a million screenshots or anything like that instead I am simply going to give my opinion about it.

When I first heard about Windows 7 I was fairly skeptical, saying all the things that other people said (This is what Vista should have been, should be a service pack, etc etc). Though due to my curiosity and my addiction to updates (and any software that is new) I decided to take the plunge and download the Windows 7 beta (yes, the non-torrent one, I find it worthless to format my computer for 30 days). I was quite disappointed that Microsoft planned to only hand out keys to the first 2.5 million to download and was desperate when the servers went down, but I must say that MS did a spectacular job bringing them back online and then deciding to provide keys until 24 January 09 to anyone interested. (If you haven't already or didn't know find the beta here)

Ok, now that that is out of the way lets get down to the beta. I decided to download the 64bit version as my PC has a 64bit processor and I had always wanted to test out a 64bit OS (my laptop shipped with Vista Home Premium 32bit, personally I think it is stupid to ship a 64bit laptop with a 32bit OS but oh well).

Installation was a breeze after writing the ISO image to a DVD. At a guess I'd say it took about 30 minutes but I didn't really time it so can't be certain. I was truly impressed by the way the installer had been streamlined since Vista, asking for minimal information until it finally present you with the create user option and then after that letting you log in.

I initially had some problems scraping together all of the drivers (Windows 7 didn't have my Bluetooth drivers nor did it have the drivers to handle my built in memory card reader but I found those on Toshiba's site so no-problems there) but all other hardware had drivers and I was ready to go in no time. I was also impressed by the way the new Solution center work, quickly pointing out where I should go to get the drivers.

After this it was time to appreciate the cleaned user interface, I must say that I love the new taskbar (yes, you may not agree with me, but that is your problem). I find it convenient that you can pin icons to it, which makes it easy to launch often used apps and find them quickly. I am crazy about the fact that you can finally rearrange icons on the taskbar (should have been implemented long ago) and the way the new preview thumbnails work. I like it that windows are now transparent whether they are maximized or small. I adore the fact that wallpapers change themselves natively instead of having to do it with some third party add-on. Overall, in the looks department, I must say that MS did a great job. I guess there are some things to nitpick about, but nothing that really bothers me that much (and I can always use the feedback option to complain to MS, beautiful).

The new libraries are awesome (though I always liked to keep my folder neat, but this makes it so much easier) making it a simple task to keep files of the same type grouped together even if they are spread over multiple disks. (I must admit I haven't tried this feature fully, but will do so in the next few days).

Networking was a breeze, easily installing the 3G modem (I had trouble doing this in Vista, but Windows 7 had no problems) and then quickly setting up an Internet share between my own and my aunt's PC.

I must also say that there seems to be no compatibility problems with programs (had an issue with Chrome as it doesn't want to work on a 64bit OS without an added switch, but this is in no way MS's fault and will most likely be fixed by Google soon, apparently it happens on all 64bit OSs).

I did find an interesting problem(?) with the experience index rating which now rates my laptop at 2.0 (due to my hard drive, rather weird but it does seem as if I am not the only one with the problem and I assume it will be fixed).

Overall thus, my impression of Windows 7 is very favorable. I must admit that I had always liked Vista (don't really know what other people's gripe is with it), but I must say that MS seemed to have surpassed themselves with 7, bringing out a beta that is so well polished, I can only imagine what the final product will be. And yes, I know that there will always be people who will complain about it (as they did with Vista, as they did with XP) but to them I say, get a grip and go with the flow, or switch to Linux [then we'll hear the siren song of complaints]. (Anyways if you want to complain, do it better yourself and only then do you really have the right to moan).

Mmm... Seems as if this has run on far longer than I had suspected.

Well, that in a nutshell is my thoughts about Windows 7. Yes, I know some people will hate me for this, but as I said, that is their problem. Each unto his own. To MS I must say, a job well done! My faith in you is definitely renewed! Keep it up!