Old blog archive: 24 May 2003

(continued from the 21/22May03 update…)

I think that wraps it up…though I keep feeling like I’m just making excuses for not using my free time to update more of the “meat” of the page, like the episode summaries and the comic scans especially, and getting content typed up, converted to HTML, and online from the RPG and other things–but longtime visitors/friends know how lazy I am and how I like to shoot myself in the foot by taking so much scholastic/work/extracurricular stuff on, I guess. *sheepish grin* (Currently it’s 3 7-week classes–meaning, fitting the work of a typical 16-week semester’s class into 7 weeks instead. Summers are normally 11 weeks, but these 7-week sessions are especially compressed to, I think, give students time to job-hunt and get other stuff done–or that’s the case according to one of my profs, at least. I didn’t even realize all 3 of my classes were 7-week sessions till after the term started last week.)

I really am sorry–I guess I also don’t want to spend all my free time just sitting at the computer working on this site (though there’s a lot more to be done, but that means I have more content to keep it going for years to come, right? ;o) ), though I totally enjoy putting time and effort into it and actually do think about it a lot, like along the lines of things I come across that I can possibly apply to it–for example, we’ve got a multimedia lab in our library, including a video capture station, and I’ve been meaning to go over there and talk to them about what we’re allowed to use it for (i.e., can I capture Dark Water, The Saga Begins, and the few good copies of PoDW episodes I have in video format?). That would be truly awesome if they did let me capture them. :o) I have no idea if I’d have enough time or the resources to also do image captures, but if I could, I would–I’d love to grab some of my favorite scenes, and set up a section showing the discrepancies between the Dark Water miniseries and Pirates of Dark Water 1-5, and a bloopers/”oops” section of little animation mistakes or “interesting” things is always fun. *grin* Anyway, enough of my whining. As always, I really would love your feedback about this site, what you’d like to see, what you like best, what you like least, and so forth, so I know what direction to take it in. My major focus right now is on the dictionary, and will be on the RPG and comics in coming weeks (I swear I’ll get to work on those, pester me like hell via e-mail to make sure if you want!). Please do let me know. :o)

(not part of the above update) Oh, and I’m almost done typing up the D&D RPG World Book! I’m leaving out the attribute charts, because I don’t want to put the entire thing online and get in trouble for it, and those of you who are actually going to use it for serious PoDW campaigns probably could put your own together…at least, that’s what I’m gathering from people I’ve talked to and from my D&D gaming friends. But I’ve just got a couple of pages left (I sort of had a Coke at 10 PM last night and thought it wouldn’t keep me awake when I had to be up early to get stuff done this morning, gah…I was working on it from almost 11 PM to 1:30 or 2 AM straight–I can’t type as fast anymore or it’d have gone by more quickly… >_<; ), and I'm going to go back through the book when I get back from going home for the long weekend and see if there's anything I missed or skipped that should be included, and I'll start scanning the images in from it. I'm not sure if I'm going to include the images in the document or put them up separately--especially since there are some mistakes (they've got an image of the Banjamar temple where the Bell of the First Sound is held and have it labeled as being the ecomancer temple in Octopon)...I'll figure it out, though, and both will go up somehow. Maybe I'll just have little links to the proper images in the document or something, which'd also cut down on load time. But at any rate, it's almost done, woo! I need to e-mail a few people who've been asking me about that... And I'd better go; I need to run back to my dorm and get my violin (my stuff's in my car, but I forgot it, which I guess is good because it's literally like 90 degrees inside my car...) and head home. (I've determined that the atmosphere of my cramped little on-campus apartment room is very detrimental to my playing properly. I'm hoping practicing in my room will be a bit better--that's my main reason for actually bringing it with me. But anyway.) Have a nice long weekend, to those of you who actually observe it. ;o)

Old blog archive: 15 May 2003

Yet another Smitha Is Corrupted Beyond Repair moment…I was watching King Niddler the other day to pull terms from it for the dictionary, and when the Mobo blow that knocking-out mist at them, as Ren collapses, he breathes, “Ioz…” in this really startled/surprised tone of voice, but if you weren’t paying attention to the context, that would be so so so slash-worthy. Just the fact that he said Ioz’s name itself already points that way. ;o)

Anyway…I’ve been doing a few offline updates, because my network card’s officially dead. I don’t know what happened exactly–I moved back onto campus this past Sunday, and something happened to it between Saturday (when I was able to access our DSL connection at home) and then (when I tried hooking up to our campus residential network). Our ResNet people’ve been in and out of my apartment and they finally determined yesterday that it was the card itself, but they aren’t allowed to do hardware installs anymore due to new, stricter rules, and I have no experience with installing hardware, so I’ve gotten one of my friends to come over and help me out with it at some point tomorrow. I really hope that fixes it…and if it doesn’t, I’m seriously going to consider getting a new, high-end tower from Dell. I’ve been wanting one for a long time–I have a monitor and a keyboard and a mouse and all the other peripherals I need already. And I’ve had this tower for 4 years, with only one upgrade a couple of years ago (from 64 MB of RAM to 160, and to a CD-RW drive from a plain CD-ROM)…I’d seriously just build my own if I could, but I don’t have the knowledge or the resources to do so.

So I’ve been coming to the library daily and spending time here catching up on websites and stuff. Summer term’s pretty hectic; if you don’t read my regular weblog (truthfully, I’m just impressed you’re reading this ;o) ), I’m taking 3 classes–History of Britain Since 1914, Intro to Sociology, and Shakespeare. The first two fulfill two of my social science credits and the third fulfills one of my literary credits. Summer term’s 11 weeks, compared to a regular-length (i.e., fall or spring) 16, but these three are actually all 7-week classes, so they’re plenty intensive (literally 2 full-length lectures in one class period, and I’m in lecture for almost 6 straight hours Monday and Wednesday, just for two classes!). I’m thinking about dropping Sociology (I’m really not impressed with the prof, especially after he commented at least 4 times yesterday that the fact that Indians don’t eat cows is “weird” to Americans, and I’m not too happy with the way he’s handling the class) and taking another class, Biomedicine, that I’ve wanted from the beginning (it filled up before I could get in and they initially were only giving out overloads to graduating seniors), but Biomedicine’s a full 11-week class and that month-and-a-half off is sounding mighty tempting…and I have to decide by tomorrow, when registration for summer closes, and that’s if my overload request goes through, now that they’re offering them again.

But that’s what’s been going on with me, and that’s what’s keeping me busy. I’m not on my computer a whole lot because there frankly isn’t a lot to do if you aren’t online. ;o) I’ve also discovered that our library has a multimedia section that has a video capturing area…I fully intend to go there and inquire into what I’m allowed to use it for (like, if I can capture the Dark Water miniseries in video format, as well as the 4 episodes I do have good, clean copies of). Or if I get a new computer, I’m going to look into getting one that’s equipped with a video in/out or capture card…I’m going to need to do some research into this. But I’d better get back to work now…I need to be at least a little productive before leaving to catch The Matrix Reloaded tonight, and I already am seriously behind in my reading for my classes. ^^;