Author Archives: Alan V

Memories

Posted on by

I’ve spent the past ~6 hours going through stuff on my hard drive. There’s things on there from my very first webpage (back in 4th grade) to my first VB programs (4th grade) to my first Java programs (6th grade) to various LPSO board stuff to every photo I’ve ever taken to a bunch of Games Factory games I made with Jim in middle school.

As I read through the various archived forum pages and chat logs, it occurs to me how horribly arrogant and self-righteous I was then. I acted like an ass to so much of the LPSO community, and for that I apologize. In chats, I was intrusive and annoying (hopefully I’m not as bad now… hopefully). Bleh. I hate who I was back then. Stupid stupid stupid.

I look over my old websites and I realize how horribly devoid of content they were. Sure, they featured interesting layouts and advertised themselves as “Fanfics, forums, and much much more,” but there really wasn’t “much more” than that. I think that’s one thing I’m proud of in AlanvDotOrg… it actually has content. Design is important, sure, but it comes second to content. Back in my early web design years, I seem to have forgotten that and used and reused the same old tired layouts as many times as I could just to have many pages up, even if those pages had only a “Coming soon” sign on them.

I was so full of myself… things were created under the assumption that everyone was interested in me… that my site was the one that everyone wanted to come to. I had password protected pages. I had exclusive members-only content. I put together tons of web games and quizzes. I had a page to give out awards to other websites. Meh.

I also stumbed across my first website ever. It’s an animorphs fansite with stuff copied directly from the official site and random animated web graphics. I was a little confused until I remembered it was before I knew to use “index.html” as the splash… so the index is “t1.html”. Odd, but meh. I should upload it sometime in case people are interested… it’s 1.2MB, but only because it contains WAV files.

So yeah, it’s highly amusing to go back and look through my old webpages. I just realized I have screens of them here. Heh. They evolved so much.

Looking over old photos, I’ve really changed.
Here’s me from Halloween 2000 with my Sonic pumpkin

Here’s me from before we even had a digital camera, at my birthday party (probably 5th grade) with Kat, Katie, and Jim

Oh, and me with my 6th grade homeroom class

My photography has also changed a lot… I guess you could say it’s matured. Interesting.
In any case, my folder containing almost every photo I’ve ever taken is now 47.2GB (94,872 photos) and growing weekly.
…
That’s a hell of a lot of photos.
I wonder if I can break 100,000 before December.

Looked over my massive archive of game screenshots from back when I loved posting screens of video games online. There’s over 1.5 GB of horrible-quality 640X480px screenshots from SoAL, Sonic Adventure 2, Animal Crossing, PSO, Grandia 2, Evolution 1/2, Starfox Adventures, SSBM, and Super Mario Sunshine. So much random crap in there. I really should get back into video games… I kinda miss them sometimes. I should also get my video capture card working again. Meh.

Looked over my archive of card games, from the failed games to my first “successful” one, the Starcraft TCG (although the definition of “successful” is debatable). So much potential. I still want to create RPG Get! I think they’re the best set of card game rules I’ve ever created, and the system is expandable such that it can encompass potentially-limitless numbers of RPGs in the game as seperate affiliations. Meh. One of these days I’ll get around to taking more screenshots of the games so I can have enough stuff to create the base set (which I think was supposed to be themed around Grandia 2 and Skies of Arcadia). Whee.

Ahhh so much more I want to write about, but it’s almost 2 AM, so I should probably sleep.

Edit: Meh, it’s 2:30. I’ve uploaded some (more) old pictures onto Facebook. Go and look. Whee.

New Lappy

Posted on by

I am writing this from the pretty bright widescreen goodness of my new laptop. The blue lights… the clear black plastic… the way the keys feel. Mmmmmm I’m in love.
Only thing that I’ll have to get used to is the resolution… 1280X800 is the maximum on this, and I’m used to having 1200 pixels of height. Meh. Whatever.
But yeah, finally got stuff set up today and it seems to be working well. Gotta download other drivers and foo when I get back to CMU, but that’s really it.

My camera memory card died again today. Same brand/make/model as the first one. Going to return it and try a non SanDisk UltraII SD 1GB card to see if it’s the camera that kills cards, of if it’s just the cards that are bad. Given that I used a SanDisk SD 256MB card in it with no problems, I’m guessing it’s a combination of the two.

Congrats to Ben (who may or may not read this) for landing an interview for a great job.

Went bowling with Kat, Jim, Tommy, Kendra, and $person today. I would have pictures, but my card died. Bleh.
I’m gonna miss Kat… :(

Um… yeah. I would also post a picture of my laptop, but my memory card died.
*sigh*

Oh yeah, yesterday was KoL run of amazing funnness. Went from mid-level 10 to level 11, beat the sorceress, leveled up to 12 to get the dual-wield skill, ascended, and went from level 1 to mid-level 5. Played over 350 adventures yesterday. Wheee.
This run would be a record run except it’s a myst class… and I always have trouble with level 9+ areas as a myst class.
Bleh.
The fact that I eat all my reagents doesn’t help either.

Oh, I had the weirdest dream the other night. Society thought masochism and torture were sexy and attractive… so I drilled holes in my toes and was chopping my fingers in half (long-ways). Then I woke up. It was the most disturbing dream I’ve ever had.

Laptop

Posted on by

It’s always an amazing experience to get a new desktop or laptop, open it, and admire it. The way it looks… the way it feels… the way the keys click nicely under your fingers.
…
And then you start setting it up as you want it, and it’s really quite disappointing. It happened with my last computer (this Dell). It’s happening with my new one.

Finally opened the HP laptop I bought today (decided to keep it) and started setting it up. First thing I noticed was the abundance of useless programs installed. Easy right? Just do a clean OS install and then start building it. Well, this laptop didn’t come with any OS or driver CDs… they’ve been replaced by a “System recovery” feature that eats up some of the hard drive (about ~12 GB) and allows for “complete or partial reinstllation of the system to factory specifications,” so that option is out.
Meh, fine, whatever. I’ll just uninstall stuff I don’t want.
I go to install Microsoft Office with the CD I have. Looks good. Go and start it.
It wants a CD key.
I already gave it a CD key.
*tries the key from the software again*
*doesn’t work*
Hm…
*continues to try*
Long story short, the trial version of Office that came preinstalled was conflicting with my installation, and I couldn’t remedy it by doing a complete uninstall and reinstall of Office. Ended up having to register and activate the trial version, THEN uninstall it, and then install my full version. Here’s hoping it worked.
Besides that, the max screen resolution is also lower than this computer (my old broken Dell) despite it having a bigger screen.
Meh, oh well. It’s still a very nice laptop, and it’s light as hell for the power that it packs. Gonna install more stuff on it tomorrow and start switching over to it.

Dad’s coming home from the hospital tomorrow. Yay.

Yesterday was Vicki’s last weekend here (before she heads off to Rice University), so I spent the afternoon/evening with her, David, Jennie, Laura, and Margaret. Was good. We played some ITG (on my laptop with pads) and Time Crisis 3, then watched Fantastic 4 and Rent and went to get coffee.

Today I saw Katie. We went to lunch and talked. Whee.

Um… yeah. My life is boring.

Ploo

Posted on by

Went to visit my dad in the hospital today. He seems to be doing well, I think. I honestly didn’t spend that much time in the room. Hospitals kinda give me the creeps.

Went to Gameworks with David today, and he won me a stuffed Shadow from the claw game. David rules. <3 Shadow. Also beat House of the Dead 4 with him. The final boss isn’t that hard… then again, we went through about $20 worth of points to beat the game (which, at Gameworks, isn’t really that much). Meh.

Apparently there’s some sort of terrorist thingy going on right now? My mom says they’re not allowing gels or liquids as carry-ons, but are allowing them in checked baggage, since they recieved a threat of a liquid bomb or something. Um… correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t it be more prudent to disallow liquids in checked baggage? I mean, unless liquid bombs require human intervention to set off (I know nothing about them; they very well could), it would be better for a terrorist to stick one in baggage, check it, and then not get on the plane, no?
Meh.
This is why I don’t read newspapers or listen to the news anymore. The world is exploding.
Speaking of exploding, is there still stuff going on in Israel and Lebanon? I heard they were fighting each other or something. Blah.

Humans suck. Why can’t we all just get along? And why couldn’t the US just mind its own business instead of invading Iraq and Afghanistan and pissing off all the Muslims?

No picture. Still not in the mood for photography.