Today is Sunday, September 27, 2009.

Due to a lack of a good-short term memory, free time, and motivation, posting on this blog will be going on hiatus.

Sorry [extremely rare] readers, but I really don't have enough of the three items listed above to make a post every-day/other day/weekend/other weekend/month/other month. If you still want to hear about the happenings of my life laid out in text form, you can check out my Twitter account, displayed neatly to the right. It's a lot easier to tweet things than blog them, so, that will get a lot more attention.

While I'm at it, I might as well bring up the awesome idea for a story I got today. If things ever happen I might just have myself something to let my friends read while I feel embarrassed about it. Wish me luck. (really though, even if it isn't for the story, wish me luck)

And to close, a definition of bluh (since it was supposed to be here yesterday);

bluh - adjective, a term used to describe your feelings when doing something to have to do but dislike doing. Most commonly used when doing exxcessive amounts of homework.

Bluh. (yes, I should be doing homework right now.)

Today is Sunday, September 4, 2009.

STUPID POSTING INTERFACE IS SO CONFUSING. WHAT IS UP WITH THE FONTS?

Last week went by excruciatingly slow: Waking up too early, being almost-late everyday, not having homework (reason later), dealing with the heat during marching PE, being sore and sweaty from marching PE, resting for an hour or so after getting home, not having enough time to finish all my homework and practice and eat dinner and take a shower and to relax in the same day, going to bed late trying to finish my homework...then it repeats. UGH HIGHSCHOOL IS HARD I NEED TO WORK ON STUDY STRATEGIES BUT IT'S TOO HARD UGH.

Yeah. That about sums up my week. Bluh.

A bit of inspiration I had: A dream is like water, cupped in your hands... It seems like it would have a different meaning to every person...what do you make of it?

Bluh.

Today was Sunday, August 30, 2009.

The last time I posted was 4 days ago. Huh.


Really, I have no idea what's going on with my setting. I'm not sure if the font I'm currently using is the same as when I first start. Darn.


I hacked a camera today using CHDK. Specifically a Canon Powershot SD450 which had its broken screen removed. Using a portable DVD player as the screen, I successfully took a long exposure shot. I drew a smiley face, but it ended up out of frame.


Staying with the subject of hacking, I hacked my Wii with the Homebrew Channel. I used the bannerbomb exploit and the BootMii installer. It works. Unfortunately, I still got bored. I need more things to do.


Band is awesome. Unfortunately, I procrastinate too much for high school.


Technically, San Diego is a desert. Which makes things really hot.  My room gets to about 86 degrees Fahrenheit. That is hot. (for reference, the thermostat downstairs reads 77 degrees (which is what it's set at), and the computer cabinet reads around 90 degrees.)


If I haven't said this already: I was outside in my backyard one day and I noticed there was a bunch of sawdust (from my dad's woodworking adventures) on the grass. It seemed to be killing it, so I decided to vacuum my grass. Yup.


Does anyone have cool ideas for things to bring to my Wednesday night rehearsals? Currently on my list are a flashlight, but that's about it. It gets really dark around 8 PM so light shows would be pretty visible.


I'm trying to decide whether to get an Apple iPod Touch, or continue saving for a laptop. Advice?


In my head I have ideas for a massive "About Me" project. The problem is, a lot of things don't make it out of my head because I don't have the means of doing so (I have the ability to imagine things, but not to create them. Darn.) Does this happen to anyone else?


I've run out of random. Darn.

Today was Wednesday, August 26, 2009.

I had Wednesday night marching band practice tonight. Woo.

I am now so sleepy and tired I almost fell asleep on a wall (literally). Now that I'm on the computer I can't help bu be awake, but I was unable to climb stairs quickly a minute ago. Ugh.

The past three hours consisted of me marching around, playing (and sometimes failing to play), and standing. THREE HOURS. With about 10 minutes of sitting total. Woo.

You'd be surprised how much stuff you can carry when you have shoulder straps.Win.

I vacuumed my grass yesterday. There was too much sawdust in it.

I still need fundage [funding] for my hobbies. If you read this and you want to give me a dollar that would be awesome.

We're starting to do things in my Chemistry class. Due to overly-long-but-needed-safety instructions, we barely get anything done. Darn.

Due to lack of a good short-term memory I have run out of things to say. Goodnight.

EDIT: Sorry if it looks weird. Blogger is confuzzling me with weird options.

Today was Friday, August 21, 2009.

Meh. Highschool. Very, troublesome. Educational, but troublesome.


Short-term memory loss isn't very good for blogging. Especially when you can't write things down right away. Ugh. Get ready for non-chronologically organized random events.


Something about chemistry class: we watched a safety video that I saw in 8th grade.


Evan and I had a Nerf gun fight. Mildly boring, but better than nothing. I got the chance to use my ultra-modded Nerf gun, which launches Nerf darts at speeds of up to 80 feet per second! The average is about 60-70, though, without certain add-ons.


I devised a Mythbuster-esque method of determining the speed of objects using a Canon camera set to fast-frame video capture mode (this means it records at 60-fps rather than the normal 30-fps), a portable DVD player connected to the camera (for video analysis, and the fact that the camera's screen is broken), and two pieces of paper with lines spaced at one-inch intervals. It works quite well actually; it gets nice, consistent results.


That's all I can remember right now. I'm really annoyed by that fact, but there's nothing I can do about it.

Today will be Sunday, August 16, 2009.

Whew I'm tired. From band camp. Which was awesome. For six days. Playing my saxophone. Marching in time.

It would be cool if that were some form of poetry...."iambic trimeter" or something...

Elaborating on what those last three six clauses mean, I present to you, a list of marching terms:

• 16-per-5
• 8-per-5
• 6-per-5
• 4-per-5
• parade rest
• flanking
• sliding
• jazz-running
• jazz-sliding
• ripple
• hinge-ing
• and a bunch of other things I had but forgot (oh, never mind)
• gush-and-go
• drill down
• and I think that's it

Basically, band camp (for you non-bandos) is like training-before-school-starts-so-we-don't-waste-school-time. We learned how to march and play better and all that stuff. And now I have so may ideas for comics but I'm too lazy and unskilled to draw them. Maybe I'll just go with dialogue-comics:

• "Geez, percussionists are violent.""Yeah! WE GET TO HIT STUFF!"
• Aww darn I just forgot them all. Stupid short-term-memory loss.

Oh, which reminds me, I have five names now:

• Joey
• Rodriguez
• Raphael
• Ted
• Chuck

Please ask how I got those, but in person. It's much more fun that way.

My ID picture looks REALLY horrible. Wow I'm hungry. Yays for non-sequiturs.

Yeah, this is going to be really random and out of order as my mind catches up on a week of life.

I've gotten into reading a certain webcomic. Starting at one, I've made it to about 1300. Oh well. Now my head is back into drawing comics but I'm also jealous since I'm not that good. Meh.

Ugh, there's all these things that I know should go in here, but I'm too hungry to remember the. Oh well. Maybe later.

Today was Satuday, August 15, 2009.

Meh. Tired.

Win! Band Camp!

Fail. Posting interval.

Wait? For tomorrow.

Today is Satudday, August 8, 2009.

Wow ok. I haven't posted in however long. Oh well.

I've been messing with Linux (which I'm typing this from). Maybe I'll start a new series. Oh well. Anyways, I have this old computer: 997 Mhz Pentium III with 384 MB RAM. Old, I know. But with Linux (Xubuntu 9.04!), it works surprisingly well! Win.

I went over the Adam's house yesterday. It was for "gamecube day" which was actually more like "play gamecube games on the Wii day" which was actually more like "lay on the floor for half an hour since the gamecube games we should be playing on the wii are kind of boring day". And that describes my time a Adam's house. (he actually burned my Xubuntu CD since my drive was being evil (which I don't think it was since the CD-RWs I was using had been rewritten 18 times or more))

Heh, stuff is actually more interesting when I bl[ar]g about it rather than actually do it. Wow. Fail. Since I'm exaggerating, probably.

Anyways, today, I finally got my music collection (consisting of 113 songs) playing in Linux. I also added a few programs and changed a few settings. Linux is awesome (except for that program's font size. Ugh.)

I then proceeded to hack a microphone. It worked. Win.

What else...nothing, I guess.

Oh wait: my sister has a laptop. It runs Vista (Fail.) but she only has 1 GB of RAM (Epic fail.). And so, I proceeded to try and save it. It's not working.

I's think's that's about's it's.

Oh, wait, one more thing: I managed to get a program that locks my computer when I move my cellphne far enough away fo a long enough time. Win. (and Sahil said that he couldn't. Epic Win.)

I better end this before I keep editing it.

Life tips #1 & #2

I've decided that I'm going to be putting a bunch of "mini-blogs" with my blog, a series of series, if you will. Each of them will share two-three tags (subject, and "series") , so that you can find them easily.

Here is the first: Life Tips

This may include anything that I've found is uncommon but very useful to know.

• #1 : Always know your place. - This has come up a bunch, and it's something that may play a large factor in how people view you. If you're the new guy at work and you complain about everything or you act like you've done your share of work when you haven't, people aren't going to like you. At all. (Unless they're really nice. But still...)
• #2 : Always know your limits - This kind of thing is more common, but it does deserve its share of reiteration. Sure, you can probably stay up till 1 AM, but does it seem like a good thing to do? Or maybe, you could keep procrastinating all day, but do you know when to stop?

These tips come from general life experiences, or things I've told my friends. They seem to work well for them, and they work well for me (when I actually practice them), so they should work well for you.

Today will be Tuesday, July 2., 2009.

[This morning]

Over the past year, a week after getting my phone, I've had a problem with people from "Progressive Management Systems" looking for someone named "Kyle Liloquist/Liljequis/Lilsquist" so they can "attempt to collect a debt.". Anytime I got a call I blocked the number. But they had like, seven different numbers. So around the end of May I put my cellphone number on the Do-Not-Call Registry, so it'd be off limits for telemarketers. And it seems to have worked. But then, today, I got a nice set of texts from 18582310727 = "Alyssa. Nick's girlfriend.":

• A: Happy Birthday!!
• J: Um, who is this?
• A: Alyssa. Nick's Girlfriend. :)
• J: Which Nick? And which Alyssa?
• A:Your brother Nick.
• J: If he's my brother then what's my last name? You should know if your his girlfriend.
• A: Liljequist. :)
• J: Sure. Nice Try. I don't have a brother named Nick.
• A: Is today your birthday? Is your name kyle?
• J: My birthday's in another month, and I'm not Kyle. Do you happen to be affiliated with Progressive Management Services?
• A: No sorry wrong number.
• J: Yes it is.

So, if this person is reliable, I now know that Nick, who has a girlfriend named Alyssa, is the brother of Kyle. And all of them are somehow related to Progressive Management Services. That's all fine and dandy, BUT I STILL YOU YOU GUYS TO STOP! So yeah, feel free to prank call that number.

[/This morning]

[Yesterday afternoon]

I got my old robot (not rover, robot) out and I charged it up and was driving it around. It's surprisingly fun to drive around fast vehicles. So I calculated the speed using a different method. Apparently, it goes 3.6 miles per hour. Woo.

It looks pretty funny bouncing around on my grass.

[/Yesterday Afternoon]

Today was Sunday, July 26, 2009.

I just got back from a trip visiting my relatives. Here's a recap of what happened in reverse chronological order (since that's how I remember things.) .

READ FROM BOTTOM TO TOP (otherwise you'll travel backwards through time to Saturday.):

• (after the trip) I figured out how to prank text people using anonymous email accounts. Win. But I suck at pranks. Fail.
• (after the trip) My robot traveled my entire hallway in 5 seconds. My rover did the same thing in 10. Now, to calculate the speed. Where's that tape measure?
• (ride home) It's pretty difficult to sleep in a car when you don't have a pillow. But I did it anyways.
• (second house) I watched Twilight. Once again, movies of books = weird reactions.
• (second house) I took apart then re-assembled a broken DVD player.
• (second house) I set up a Blu-Ray player. Then we played a movie on it.
• (first house) Everything in the car was really toasty. Including the ice.
• (first house) I guess that email was true.
• (first house) I had a really magnificent dream last night. Which will be documented in a first of a series I'll start.
• (first house) I had to sleep on an air bed in the middle of a living room. While people (my dad and cousin) conversated about the military's boot camp. Loudly.
• (first house) Filipino food is so odd.
• (first house) There was this one guy who seemed out of place sitting on a recliner and singing (not really; beginning then quitting songs when it got boring I guess) all these songs on a cheapo-karaoke device connected to the TV.
• (first house) I went on a trip with my cousin. First we attended "Philippine Weekend", which just happened to coincide with our visit, then we visited the outside of a movie theatre, then we went home. All in 90+ degrees. Woo.
• (first house) We arrived, then ate something, then we sat and did nothing for about ten minutes. During which I discovered that my deck of cards was missing its 3-of-diamonds and its 9-of-hearts. Darn. No solitaire for me.
• (my house) I was awaken at 8, yelled up for waking up late, packed, then we left for our destination. I ended up with a bag of game boy accessories but no game boy. And a notebook, two manga books, a Rubik's Cube, and my cellphone with it's ultimately-fail headset*.

*Mike at the C*r**l **ll*y Costco Cellphone station ultimately fails too. I (my dad and I) go to an AT&T store in to attempt to get a pair of replacement headphones for my stereo headphones that break. We end up getting redirected to Costco. Then at Costco, we receive a "7 to 10 business days" notification and we give him the broken headphones. "7 to 10 days" later, my dad receives a package containing...not a pair of stereo headphones. Just a crappy "Made in China"-type "Hands-free headset" that looks horrible. And what else, I already have a crappy "Made in China"-type "Hands-free headset" that looks horrible. So he went and took my nice OEM Stereo headphones from AT&T/LG and gave me something from Technocel (which provided the "Accessory Pack" that comes with the phone when you buy it (which contained crappy "Made in China"-type stuff)).

HORRIBLE!

Yesterday was Tuesday, July 21, 2009.

So, well, yeah, I'm in band. And I play the saxophone. So, I did a bunch of band stuff with the rest of the saxophonists. Yay.

First, I got my uniform fitted. By uniform I mean the thing I wear during parades and field shows, if you know what those are. If it were not for the fact that I saw a bunch of people I know, it would've been boring.

Then I went to my sectional, which is basically where all the people in a section (same instrument) get together and practice. That was fun.

Then we had a "pow-wow", I think. Don't ask what that is, or how to spell it.

Then I went to an informal/casual dinner party at Caitlin's place. It consisted of us arriving, us talking, us playing cards*, us talking, us walking, us running then throwing water-balloons (and me and Chris not getting hit), then us walking, then us (everyone except Chris and I) drying off, then us eating fail brownies, then us playing cards again*, then us eating real brownies and drinking soda, then us eating cheeseburgers (or hamburger, in Jack's case). Then us talking some more, and some other stuff. Then we went upstairs to watch a movie (Zoolander, don't ask), then we began another movie, paused it halfway, went downstairs to eat the cheesecake we forgot about (made by Jesse's mom), then us playing confusing games**, then us finishing up Airplane.

* the games we played included Speed, Solitaire (Sean and I), and (Pi-Soy) Dos.

**But listen, I did not die, 4 is cosmic, that arrangement of pencils is zero, and that thing that is a rose cannot be brought to the picnic.

Today was Sunday, July 19, 2009.

Nothing interesting today. Really. It really is boring around here.

Yesterday, though, I went to a birthday party. Which was at a bowling place. First, we started with a normal set, which was fairly suckish since I sucked. Oh well. I still beat my friend. Then, we started doing tricks. Like kicking the bowling ball. Which actually knocked down 9 pins. Win. Then we tried bowling one after the other (as in, I had a bowling ball and my (new) friend had one, and we went at the same time.). But my ball ended up following hers, and didn't hit anything.

Then, around one minute before our time ended, someone kicked threw a ball that went really slow. In an effort to try and hurry it up, we tried hitting it. But we missed. So, the faster ball ended up hitting the pins, and beginning the pin-setting thing. You know how, the pin thing pushes any knocked-over pins over then it comes back then goes up? Well, the other ball just happened to arrive when it was moving back, and ended up getting knocked (at a fairly high speed) back up the lane. After laughing for a minute, we picked up the ball, put it back on the rack, then went on with the rest of the party.

Apparently my robot goes 2.5 feet-per-second. Oh well.

And now, a boring ending.

Today will be Frieday, July 17, 2009.

Woo! Two weeks since my last post! Ugh my summer is so un-interesting.

Let's note some things I can remember since last time in no particular chronological order:

• We went to eat dinner at "ChinaFun: Authentic Noodle House". Then, nearing the end of our meal, we watched some people working there eat pizza (with a plastic fork). You could tell they probably were Chinese, but pizza? Isn't that Italian? (On their side of the argument, preparing pizza is still faster than anything else, and fast food is always helpful when you're hungry and in a hurry...)
• I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. No reviews, but do watch out for anybody who says "Hi".
• Apparently, two of my friends (Adam and Evan) both have Nintendo Wiis and robotics kits (a VEX set and a RIS 2.0 set). So, we ended up having a robot day at Evan's house. And yeah.
• Going along with Evan's House, apparently I suck at Guitar Hero: World Tour. Probably because I didn't get it on the right beat (since I wasn't really listening to the music). Even when Adam and I teamed up on the guitar, we failed. I think it took two tries with our team on the guitar and Evan on the drums for us to actually pass it on Easy. FAIL.
• I got my robot to play a tune from Super Mario World: [video later]
• I modified my robot again. Now it has larger rear wheels. Here's a link to a forum in which I document "Project: L-RAPTOR". You may or may not need to register to see it. Please note that that is the previous version (without the larger wheels)
• What else...
• I tried making a Joule Thief. I failed. So, the awesome blue LED I got now resides withing a solar powered garden light circuit that I salvaged from our backyard. It provides a nice night light.
• Stupid YouTube and their addicting anime videos.
• My sleep schedule is really messed up. Sure, I get 8 hours of sleep, but it's the wrong eight (1AM to 9 AM)...
• What's weird is watching fictional movies of fiction books I've read (cough cough HP6, or that New Moon trailer (since I haven't seen the actual movies)) gives me shivers... some memories are meant to stay in my head, not coaxed out by graphical entertainment...
• Whatever else I did in the rest of the 14 days should be here, but I'm too lazy. Oh well.

Breakfast?

EDIT: An hour later, I got the Joule Thief working. Figures. Then, when I actually tried to do something with it, it died. And now I have a fully assembled broken Joule Thief.

Today was Friday, July 3rd, 2009.

I'll just post today since today was awesome.

Who went to the Anime Expo? I went. I saw. I did. I had fun. Then, I came home. Darn.

Firstly, I should say that on this trip, I invited tehn was accompanied by Anne-Marie, my good friend and fellow otaku.

In more detail, this 8-hour [minus travel time] trek comprised of arriving [at AX at LACC], walking, waiting in line, regestering, waiting, receiving, walking,photographing, photographing, walking, waiting, waiting in line, walking, sitting, laying down, resting, getting up, walking, looking, waiting, crossing, walking, waiting, escalator riding, entering, awestriking [being awestruck], venturing, planning, walking, walking, pausing, observing, photographing, walking, photographing, photographing, walking, sitting, snacking, resting, planning, splitting up, walking, walking, photographing, tiring, walking, walking, laying down, resting, [pen] spinning, reuniting, sitting, [pen spinning], walking, following, waiting, waiting, sitting, waiting, waiting, worrying, waiting, waiting, entering, listening, [being] rejected, walking, entering, walking, walking, walking, photographing, walking, waiting, walking, walking, photographing, waiting, walking, walking, exiting, walking, buying [food], eating,

holding a grudge, letting go of said grudge, holding someone else's grudge, throwing it at them, cleaning [up], leaving, walking, walking, entering, walking, walking, walking, purchasing [an item], walking, walking, exiting, walking, laying [down], resting, sitting, [pen] spinning, [coin] tossing, [bottle cap] throwing, cleaning, leaving, walking, walking, walking, purchasing [a differen't item] , walking, walking, meeting [up with dad/driver], walking, photographing, exiting, leaving, walking, walking, opening [the car], sitting, and leaving.

That is a very un-detailed re-cap of my day. There was probably more waiting, walking, and photographing, but it was so much that I just lumped some of it together.

The to and from car trips included games of "Egyptian Rad", which is a card game that I won't explain at this moment.

If you really must know anything that I didn't go into detail on (besides the number of times walking is written), ask for it in the comments.

Otherwise, I haven't posted in like, a few weeks simply because nothing interesting has happened. It's either engineering my rover, watching anime, or living. Not too exciting. To all my friends on trips (3): HURRY UP AND FINISH HAVING FUN OUT OF STATE! Then you can be bored in state. Just make sure to state your state and the state that you state that your in, but excluding the state that you reside in.

Ugh, I'm tired. I'll rant more tomorrow.

Hey look, fireworks.

Today was Monday, June 22, 2009.

I've been neglecting my blog. Oh well. It must be the anime and the sleeping and the...

...wait for it...

... (here it is -->) hacking my phone! Yes, I have finally figured out how to mack my phone.

After fussing about with the drivers and such, and trying several programs, I came out with a couple of awesome hacks/mods for/to my phone, all thanks to this site.

So, now, my phone has:

• blue clock numbers with "aM" and "pM"
• multiple menu themes (including the Android, BB Storm, and even the iPhone! [my favorite, though, is the "Slide" theme] )
• customized backgrounds (only 2 so far, I ran out of ideas)

I also made a "light tent" out of a shirt of mine and a small table and took an awesome picture of my Rubik's cube (the second is after editing):

This morning is Thursday, June 18, 2009.

I decided to start doing morning posts, since I can. (this post includes real-time events, so be careful you don't put your head into a time paradox. Those are confusing.)

I decided to test the video-playing/rendering capabilities of my phone. So, I have a nice long 20 minute video in two versions playing on my phone and computer as I type. The audio syncs nicely, but the phone's video is about 1/2 second late. Oh well. Maybe I should test it with the converted file also. (few minutes later) Well, the converted video has lag also on the computer, so the phone's lag is only about 1/8th of a second (please note: all time measurements are estimated.)

I decided on it a while ago, but I haven't said anything yet, so I'll say it now. My rover project, in its current form, will be codenamed Raptor, because I said so. It looks really awesome (notice how I haven't put any pictures yet?) so yeah, when it's in its final version (or tomorrow) I'll put pictures. Now I'm trying to get the rebuilt light sensor array working.

My flashlight is oficially dead. Sadly. So now, I'm trying to buy a new one. Darn. $45 is the cheapest I should get now...too bad I wasted ~$32...

I fail at treading water. It's embarassing, but I've gotten over it. Then yesterday, while my friends were trying to teach me how to tread water, things got a little out of control...luckily, I didn't drown. So, here's a tip: if someone says they're panicking, belive them, rather than splashing water in thier face.

I stuck my two polar bears together (one from KBF and one from a promotion party) and it looks cute.

I'll just stick that manga part in here too: Stupid Japanese art, why do you have to be so addicting and awesome? Seriously, that book has me thinking the guy is cute too (NOT in a homosexual gay way, though.) Stupid stupidness. Really. Oh well.

I'm running out of things to write, so I'll go eat something. Goodbye!

Have fun with the rest of your day!

P.S. Adam, did you purposefully disable comments on your blog?

Yesterday was Tuesday, June 16, 2009.

Anyways, I went on a trip to Oxnard, CA, so for the past two days I didn't exactly have access to a computer. Darn. But, I did bring along:

• two manga books
• my Rubik's Cube
• my cellphone and the chargers required for it
• 14 episodes of an anime on said cellphone

First, I'm going to mention that, in our group, I was the only person under the age of 20 (though the second youngest came in at 21) making me the only teenager. Great. Luckily, I had my cellphone...and unlimited texting.

Anyways, those items provided enough enjoyment for the first ride, toward Universal Studios.

But I didn't actually go in. The decided rendezvous point was outside, in US's Citywalk. We ate, used the bathroom, then (5 of us) piled into another car headed for Knott's Berry Farm.

And I actually did go there. Basically, it wasn't exactly boring, but not really exciting, either. I rode one ride: the Southwest Sidewinder, I believe. All the other time was either spent waiting in line, waiting for other people to get off rides, or winning some (2) polar bears by throwing ping-pong balls*. There was also funnelcake, which really wasn't like I thought it should be...imagine, the funnel cake is covered with 1/2" of "powdered sugar" then topped with strawberry jam. Sounds good? Now, I'll describe the cake: imageine pea-sized globs of pancake mix stuck together in a large, plate-sized circle, that is fried, and crunchy. Eww.

But I ate it anyways.

Near the end of the day we proceeded to: wait for my aunt to finish choosing what jewelry she wanted. Honestly, we spend like, an hour there. Oh well. She gave me a [promotion] present of a large monetary amount.

Night 1:

I'm saying Night 1 simply because there was a lot that happened. It included: turning off the light so my parents could sleep, then using my cellphone as a flashlight to finish reading my second manga book, then trying to register my phone for mobile blogging, then watching it give me a malformed request, then me talking to myself, then finally, around 2, me actually going to sleep.

Day 2:

This day wasn't nearly as interesting, since no theme parks were involved. Oh well. I'd say, the highlights were: getting to sleep in a car under a tree with (all) the windows 1/3 open for a couple of hours, and eating/drinking a cinnamon pretzel/strawberry shake combo. Boring things included [forced] shopping, and, the drive back (since I had already read everything).

I'm sure that sometime later on I'll remember all the awesome things I did away from the computer, but until then, I'm going to stop here. (Now that I have my phone connected to this blog, I don't think that should be a big problem now, though.)

There's a bit about the manga book I'm reading, and something else about the people I texted, but that'll go in somewhere else

Today is Sunday, June 14, 2009

Before I forget anything else, I'll just make a quickie post:

While eating lunch at a local In-n-Out, one of my previous school's teacher and counselor sat down beside us. While that was very cool, I didn't say hello since I didn't have either of them as teachers. Oh well. What I did notice that both of them had fairly large and expensive looking digital cameras, most likely Nikon...and they were talking about photography and such. It's really fun to see people you usually only see working in their off-time; it gives you a perspective that says (or, would say for them) "We have lives outside of school, too, you know...". Of course, I already knew that...

I saw Disney Pixar's "UP". I'm not at all a review person, and I'm not going to spoil the plot, but in any case, it was a pretty interesting movie. It wasn't bad, but since it was partially directed at a different age group, I wasn't exactly thrilled by it. In any case, whatever time I spent watching it went fairly well.

In older news, I updated the programming for my rover. It now works faster, using a scanning ultrasonic sensor and stall detection to avoid obstacles. When my sister gives back the camera I'll have a video of that too.

I still need to get that video of the various dancing food items, so wait for that.

Random Edit: I just remembered; anyone hear of the DualSaw? Apparently it's some tool with two blades that rotate in opposite directions. All I have to say about this is, if you have on and you're trapped in a metal box, you're good, unless someone unplugs it. Darn.

What else...Oh. My flashlight died. It was extremely nice, too. Oh well. Maybe I can fix it. I'll keep you updated.

Currently I'm in the process of downloading several (22 episodes in 3 parts each...ugh!) episodes of a certain Anime show for a trip I'm going on. Wish me luck?

On a side note of that, the Anime Expo is going on the beginning of July over at the LA Convention Center. So I'm trying to go to that, along with one of my friends. Wish me more luck?

Huh. This didn't end up quick at all. Oh well.

Have fun with the rest of your day!

Anyone ever notice... (1)

Anyone ever notice:

• my friend kept talking about how she was getting to be a student coach cause she got higher than 4th place, while I wouldn't be able to since I got like, 14th place cause I messed up. Anyone else ever notice how "14th place isn't that bad!" doesn't make you feel any better? Really?
• Anyone ever notice how reverse psychology would be bad? (i.e. when you really mean something but people do the opposite anyways) Like, "Don't look, I'm arc welding." If you didn't know that you needed a welding helmet to look at something that darn bright and you looked then went blind...that would suck. And "Looking at arc welding without proper protection can cause blindness, so don't look cause I'm arc welding." isn't exactly the short and sweet warning you want to announce every time...of course, I don't arc weld, but oh well. I served my purpose.

And I'll just throw this random bit in since it fits with the first part:

If you say "Duck!", would people actually duck or would they look up to see what's happening? My brother says you're supposed to say "Watch out!", but won't that make people watch instead of duck? And if you say both, I can assure you someone is going to reply, "Why am I watching out for a duck?"

Of course, taking reality and common sense into account, most people would duck while watching out in either of the first two cases (the third always ends up like the other case, though...sometimes).

Yesterday was June 11, 2009.

I haven't posted in a while. Oh well.

Yesterday was the day that I, Joey, promoted from 8th grade and the middle school I spent a very...umm, exciting? varying? educational?...experience for three years. I also said goodbye to a lot of friends. That was hard. Luckily, I didn't cry outrageously...

Before that, on Wednesday, it was ;normal school, then after school I invited Adam over...then I fell asleep, then I woke up when he arrived, then he further investigated the items in my room (a.k.a LEGO boxes again) then we revived my single-acting pneumatic engine with a bicycle pump and played with that for a while. Then he left. Oh well. We never did get to make that VEX forklift. And now he's going to Taiwan. I wish him the best.

Back to Thursday: After the promotion ceremony, we (my family and I, plus two of my friends) went to Pat and Oscars where I ate salad, four bread sticks and seven chicken "wings" and a slice of pizza. (I was hungry. Be quiet.)

Then an hour later I went to a pool party, where I unceremoniously (I just wanted to stick that word in here somewhere and I guess it fits here best) failed at swimming, in-pool volleyball, water balloon tosses, hula-hooping, and having pictures taken of me. Oh well. It was fun anyways. Plus, my friend Brittany was kind enough to get promotion presents for us; I got a polar bear type thing.

Some highlights of the party included pouring cups of cold pool water onto the people in the spa, filling up water balloons in the pool (from these nifty heater pump outlet things; I'm not exactly sure what happened) then squirting people with them, rolling hula-hoops across the surface of the water, and, umm, watching mini-marshmallow as, a grape, a chocolate-chip, and a carrot dance to some music:

[Video will be added when I find my camera. Ugh.]

Posts about Friday will come in the afternoon.

Have fun with the rest of your day!

Today was Saturday, June 6, 2009.

Darn. I get to recap three days. How fun.

Wednesday:

Huh. I don't remember too much about Wednesday. I probably had my Rubik's Cube. Oh well.

Thursday:

Huh...Thursday got the short stick too...

Friday:

I'm guessing my long+short term memory only goes up to one day...

Anyways, Friday was a conglomeration of things. First it was school. By this day I know Adam and Ryan (another kid who sits at our "table"; a lot more bearable than Jared) had their own Rubik's Cube, so us three did that for most of the time in BE...I can't really remember anything else since it was just school...

After, I rode home then went to my friend Lea's birthday party at a park near our school (you'll see why). I then proceeded to out-ninja everyone else (considering I was the only ninja there) and have lots of fun at the park. Apparently, climbing up onto to the play equipment then sitting on a suspended inverted see-saw causes several problems: 1)people taking your right shoe 2) the knife-edge-like metal reinforcement bar kills your hand and/or arm 3) it's not a very good idea to use something that people can move as a support when you're 6 feet in the air. Fortunately, you do get one plus: it's fun to wrap your legs around the support-pole and slide down like a fireman.

After that, we walked from the park to the school for our end of the year party. First off, it was dissappointing. No arguing that. We had three arcade-videogame booth things, one "acoustic tent" set up in front of the hired DJs, an inflatable basketball shootout type thing, and an inflatable twister mat. The only interesting thing in that last sentence was the face that --> people tried to dunk into the hoops in the basket ball thing --> the hoops were 3 feet away from the edge --> people ran, then jumped to dunk --> the momentum of the people jumping (most notably Conner) would move the WHOLE basketball type thing backward (and sometimes cause it to tip over completely...CONNER...) --> the fan, in the back, then got eaten byt the thing it was inflating. When the whole dunking thing was banned, people then proceeded to throw mini-basketballs from 30 feet/10 yards into 2/3 foot dimaeter hoops. A lot of people missed and a) the balls bouced off the top of the hoop thing into the surrounding grass or b) it would completely (and this is a really overshot shot) overshoot the hoop-thing and bounce off the concrete behind. Wonderful./

After that hooplah (bad pun) Yearbooks were distributed. I then proceeded to have everyone sign my yearbook upside-down, part of my three year tradition. (with the exception of my ultimately non-cooperative friends who I then forced to sign it sideways.) I proceeded (how many times have I said that word?) to patroll the schoolground looking for friends. Unfortunately, that didn't work. (I tried to ge tthe photographer's signature and that didn't work either). Then it ended and I rode home with Evan, Even's mom, and Adam.

Saturday:

Ooh, that's today!

I proceeded to wake up, then jump on the computer, then talk to my friend, then program my rover, which I finally got to follow a line! I had to reformat it a little, but it works! (using my, *ahem*...hacked thingimibobber...)

Then I went to see "Terminator: Salvation". It has Arnold S. naked. I didn't need to see that. REALLY. DIDN'T. NEED. TO. SEE. THAT.

To top it all off, I got a piece for my flashlight in the mail today (all the way from New York, and for free!), so now it can run on 1 AA battery and still light up my entire living room. Awesome pwnage.

I guess that's it for now.

Today was Wednesday, June 3, 2009.

So today, I brought my Rubik's Cube to school again. Honestly, people get so distracted when they see someone solving it... I also raced Jared, who had his cube today, and the final score was about 3:5 Jared. I should practice more, but I don't care. ~2 mins is good enough for me.

I got my robot/rover working again; after managing to revive its programming software I made it..umm...do something. I still need to get its bluetooth funstions to work...with the computer. It works nicely controlling it with my phone, which is pretty fun. 

Honestly, maybe sometime I'll break out my cellphone, tap a few things, and the box on the table starts driving around. How fun.

 I also printed out a line-following type thing on a couple sheets of paper. (12 to be exact). Hopefully I'll have something that drives around that course sometime soon. But batteries take a while to charge. Darn.

Have fun with the rest of your tomorrow!

Today was Tuesday, June 2, 2009.

Ok. School was pretty much the same, except for the fact that I had my Rubik's Cube. That made it a bit more bearable. But a lot more distracting. Oh well. At least I can solve it now. Hooray!

As for the rmance part of my life, people keep asking me whether or not I asked out the girl I liked that one day I talked to her. Apparently she talks about these kinds of things. Oh darn.

As for the robotics part of my life, I reformatted my rover a bit. It was tall, and now it is short(er). But at the cost of ground clearance. But that's okay; this thing isn't going to be going off-roading anytime soon (unless you call hardwood flooring and carpeting off-road). I've also looked into programming again. We'll see how that goes.

Today was Monday, June 1st, 2009.

Ugh. I hate Mondays.

Anyways, random list time:

• There's this door in my band room that doesn't open all the way (i.e. it opens halfway and then just out into the walkway). I wish I could a) kill move it or b) remove it.
• Dictionaries hurt. PLEASE don't ask how I know. They just do.
• Hmm. I seem to have run out of random stuff. Oh darn.

Well, that 's about it for now. 

Here's the post at 11.

Honestly, I hate when I fail at life.

While trying to calculate the speed of my rover (seen in previous post) with its four different sets of wheels, I did the following:

Diameter X RPM = too low to be anything

Diameter^2 X RPM = too high to be legal

(Radius^2 X Pi) X RPM = WTH AREA?

Then that's when I realized (that I was failing in life and) it's just:

(Diameter X Pi) X RPM

So much for taking Geometry.

Either way, my rover's top speed (with its largest wheels) is 1.3 MPH. For comparison, my robot goes ~ 3 - 4 MPH. And by my calculations, Adam's robot's top speed (with its only wheel set) is 1.4 MPH. Darn. Now we just need a race to confirm this.

I would like to say thanks to Google for calculating all my conversions.

Today was Sunday, May 31, 2009.

Today was awesome and sad at the same time. 

Either way, the sad part was first.

I had to get a haircut today. No aruing. So, we went to the haircut place (in a military base, so there was also a Von-equivalent and Target-equavalent next to it). Anywas, to get a haricut, you get a number, and then you wait for it. I grabbed my number, 31.  The electronic sign read: "Now serving: 82". So, it'd have to go to zero (100), then up to 30. Ok...wait wait wait...

Unfortunately, to some reason I won't divulge, I get skipped. Oh fine, I'll just grab another number: 85. "Now serving: 32" Fine, another 50-some to go...wait wait wait...

By this time it's already 3 o'clock and I haven't eaten lunch. "Now serving: 63" I rush over the the nearby food court, grab a "Crispy Chicken Sandwich Combo" to-go and run back. "Now serving: 78". That's enough time. I eat half of my sandwich and some fries, then head inside when it reads: "Now serving:84". So I'm standing there, and it changes to "Now Serving: 88". Honestly??!?! Change it when you say the number dang it! Oh well. I grab another number. 27. This time all I do is sit. Notheing else*. Just sit.

By the time I actually get my haircut, it's like, already really late. What's weird is I feel like I'm supressing a seizure the entire time. Honestly, it felt really weird. Don't ask. Eother way, I end up with a partiall misshappen haircut that barely did anything. Great. I would've been better off skipping it for another week.

Anyways, to recap, I waited ~4 hours, walked at least a half a mile (to pass time I helped my mom who was grocery shopping in the Vons-equavalent), experienced extreme hunger, and waited through ~<200>

The good:

I made my rover! I got together the remnants of my NXT set distributed over two boxes/three boxes/my room  and built a rover. It goes about 2/3 as fast as my robot, and about as quiet and a little lighter than Adam's rober/robot. And it's controlled by my computer over Bluetooth. If you care, it's awesome. If you don't, it's still awesome.

It also has a roll cage. Which survived a 2-foot fall. Awesome.

Enjoy this badly lit video and some pictures.

Here's the rover itself (with intact roll-cage):

And here it is after that two-foot fall (note deformed roll-cage; it's supposed to do that):

Have fun with the rest of your night!

Today was Saturday, May 30, 2009.

So, yeah, today Adam came over with his Vex set. Fun ensued. Literally. Well, maybe not. I built a robot with his help while he "observed" (explored) the depths of my "top of your dresser", "desk", and "box of LEGOs". Then we drove the car we made around. Then we raced his car and my car. Mine won.

That little bout of fun inspired me to build some kind of rover thing... so now I'm busy looking at parts and such. Oh well. I need fundage. Badly.

On a side note, I did tell a girl that I had a crush on her for the latter part of the school year. Things didn't go to well. What do you guys (readers, if any) think?

It's amazing how messy things can get when you're designing something. Really. Wow. My room's floor is completely lost. Darn.

Anyways, have fun with the rest of your night!

This morning is Saturday, May 30, 2009.

Why must weekends be so boring? I don't know. All I have to do is text people an umm...use the computer.

And due to my boredom, I now know how to solve 4/5ths of a Rubik's cube. Very slowly, but I do get there. Oh well...hopefully I'll find something to do later on.

Today is Friday, May 29, 2009.

So, another school performance today. Three this week! (counting the assemblies as seperate things) It was fairly boring. We got to perform at a rededication ceremony for a bunch of important school people and some 6th and 7th graders. Meh. But...we did get to play "Music for a Darkened Theater", a collection of pieces by Danny Elfman. That ruled.

Anyways, on the afterschool part of my day (right now), I messed with an old RC car from my garage. No matter what anyone says, things that go fast are pretty awesome. and now I want a better one. So, I'm going to see how much that is. Wish me luck.

Look for the "was" portion of todays recap later today. Duh? Duh. 

Here's the post at half-past 11.

So, yes, it's about 11:30 and I'm still awakke, so why not make a post.

It dawned on me in the shower for some reason, I thought of the phrase, "Life goes on." or "Just deal with it.". Does it really go on? Does one just deal with it?

I have no idea why I began thinking about this stuff. I find my mind philosophical at times...maybe it's because I live in a house full of adults. Maturity? Maybe. Either way, I just wanted to share my ideas on something like that; the times that I look back I really do wish that life had not gone on.

Oh well. I should be asleep, but I took a nap. No matter what I do I can never fall asleep at just the right time...

Today was Thursday, May 28, 2009.

So, today was our assembly; I would have pictures but none of them are good, mainly because cameras aren't even allowed at school. Oh well. It went fairly well, though, music wise. We entertained the whole 800+ students at school, with/without the help of our schools Advanced Chior. They were, addmittedly, a bit...umm...well, since I know a lot of them I'll just say good job. *clap* *clap* *clap* etc.

Anyways, yeah. I'm now building a ping-pong ball shooter for use with my friend Adam and  his VEX robot. We'll see how that goes.

Today is May 27th, 2009.

So, today was your average school day...excapte for our seating arrangements. Due to the fact that he annoyed the crap out of one group, Jared, a fairly annoying kid in my class, was forced to my friend (Adam) and I's table. There we endured a slew of comements ranging from stupid and beyond, then back again. All; in all, we survived. End of that.

Next on the adgenda is the hour-long conversation with a friend of mine (Tina) who, being of slightly lower computer-knowlegdibility, asked me for help on making someone glow in a video. During that hour I went over various alternative, including decompiling the entire 37-second video into its frames and editing those one by one then recompiling them...but you may or may not get the picture. Oh well.

On a side note, I did get to mess around with my good old robot (which may be introduced sometime later) and remembered how 3-4 MPH still seems fast enough. Good times. I then proceeded to brainstorm ideas with Adam.

Tomorrow is school with a tewist: I get to perform in our trimester-ly assembly, being in our school's Advanced Band. Wish me luck.

First post. So obligatory.

And so it begins.