21 May 2013 @ 11:47 pm

My first day of class and I'm already red-lining.

[Kvetching ahead.]

Okay, so brief synopsis of what my days look like for the next 5 weeks:

Monday:
9:15 AM- Technical Communication. I'm basically learning how to write memos, SOPs, and instruction manuals. ...And this is the easy course so far.

Tuesday:
1:00 PM- Human Communication. A 2.5-hour-long course where I get to learn how to give a speech. Long, tedious, and mentally draining.
4:30 PM- Leave house after a brief stop to grab a bite and use the facilities in order to get out to Eagle River before rush hour traffic sets in and turns a 10-mile trip into an hour-long ordeal.
6:00 PM- College Algebra. Our very first class and she assigns 4 hours worth of homework...adding insult to injury, the class is scheduled to be done not at the UAA campus in the town but at the high school, and, due to stuff going on there, this week we're at the Eagle River middle school instead, meaning I have to somehow squeeze my sorry ass into a 6th-grader's chair...which has added psychological bonuses for me due to what my 6th grade math teacher did to me*.

Basically being in class for 8 hours straight, with a minimal lunch-as-dinner break and possible traffic jams therein. No wonder I'm wiped.

Wednesday:
9:15 AM- Tech Comm.
1:00 PM- Human Comm.

Thursday:
See Tuesday....meaning I get to look forward to all this again. Joy.

Friday-Sunday:
If I'm able to, I have to squeeze in an online Computer Tech course that basically teaches us how to use Word, Excel, and Access...in other words, I get to relive my first run at college life all over again. At least this one's more of an at-my-own-pace class, because if how I feel right now is any indication, by Friday I may be running on fumes. I nodded off twice just writing this.

After June 20th the Human Comm course goes away, which is both good and bad. Good because that's one huge slice off the plate, bad because it means that I'm getting a whole semester's worth of class crammed into 5 weeks, meaning that until it's off the plates it's going to be jam packed.

After July 12th, the online course also goes away, meaning I'll be down to Tech Comm and Algebra. I just have to make it that far without bombing out...

Mind you, I have good reasons for worrying about failing a course. I'm not paying the bills on this, the VA is through the GI Bill. I fail or drop a course, they redeem the credit-hours of assistance I used for it....by billing me for the amount they had to pay for the course. Anything below a C- in a course will cost me thousands, which right now will basically bankrupt me.

I'm wondering if maybe I bit off more than I can chew.

EDIT: It seems I owe my MATH A107 instructor an apology. I misunderstood how she assigned our homework assignments. On one side of things, she didn't assign 4 hours of homework, but rather 13 hours worth. However, I apparently forgot about one of the best bits of advice I ever got:

DON'T
PANIC

As it turns out, not one bit of it is due until June 4th, when our first exam is. What this basically amounts to is that I can do one section a night, which at current pace has taken me about 45 minutes to an hour, and have it all done with days to spare.

So, umm...yeah. Oops.

How I'm Feeling: grumpy

grumpy

Re: 2 | Speak your piece

14 May 2013 @ 02:25 pm

I see they've been redecorating.

As I mentioned last week, I'm spending a few days here in Nome to visit the folks. Since I was last here, though, it would seem they've made a few changes. Most notable is the fact that they redid the stairs to the 2nd floor, going back to how it was originally planned. It gives me plenty of head clearance now (I used to have to tilt my head to one side to avoid bonking it on the ceiling) and the light switch is in a much more accessible spot, but that's all because they're a lot steeper than before.

Oh, and, uhh...no handrail yet, either.

Tomorrow morning could be interesting. O_o;;

Re: 2 | Speak your piece

06 May 2013 @ 09:33 am

Wait, what!?

Okay, so first off, now that today's the correct date...Happy birthday, Ravenworks!

And now back to the "What?"-inducing part of this: While reading through the linked entry again, I saw the rest of Team Hatoful bringing up their respective ages, with BudgieBin and DavidN jousting for the title of youngest member. This came as quite a shock to me...no offense, David, but given the status of the top of your head I thought you were closer to mid-40s. o_O;

So yeah, the "Wait, what!?" is basically me trying to come to grips with the fact that, as far as Team Hatoful goes, I'm the old man of the group.

I'm...not sure how to handle this revelation, so..uhh.......

CHANGE OF TOPIC!!

Re: 3 | Speak your piece

03 May 2013 @ 10:48 pm

Coooo! (Finally!)

Another semester over and done. The next 2 weeks are mine to do with as I please.

I plan on devoting some amount of time to better acclimating myself to Ren'py so that I can do more mini-VNs on it. Hitori's Shrine Visit turned out nice, but there's a lot of stuff I could do with it that I'd like to get better at.

As of right now I've got 2 items of significance I want to work on with it.

1) The Hatoful Kareshi manga. I'd like to convert that into a form similar to the game (pages/panels in the background, dialogue in window underneath for ease of reading) so that we could have an easier job of giving it the same treatment we gave the rest of Moa's peristeronic madness.

2) I've started work on another Hatoful fan episode. I won't give away anything storyline-wise, but the tentative title at the moment is "The Ghost and Mr. Kawara," so I'll let you postulate on that. :b (Kudos to anyone who gets the reference, and my apologies if I made you feel old in the process.)

For now, though, I just want to relax.

OH! Important bit of info for the rest of Team Hatoful: May 18th might be a no-go for me as far as recording goes. I'm going up to Nome to visit the folks for a few days that week, and that Saturday is when I'll be flying back home. I'll be getting back home around noon my time (2 PM Hatoquerque time), so if I'm not burnt out from the trip, I should be able to manage, but just a heads-up for you to be safe.

Re: 2 | Speak your piece

02 May 2013 @ 07:37 pm

Note to self: Chiranjeevi

That's the name of that Indian singer from this music video I saw a few years ago...the one where he had dance moves that included mimicking a golf swing.

Now to find out what the hell that video/song was...

Speak your piece

02 May 2013 @ 04:49 pm

UPDATED: 3.5 down, 0.5 to go.

Aviation Law final exam: 50 T/F questions.

Aviation Management final exam: 20 multi-choice/short answer questions. DONE.

Methods of Written Communication final exam: 10-page essay assignment already printed and ready to go. Class meets tomorrow night for turn-in, so HALFWAY DONE.

Elements of Weather final exam: 80 questions. DONE. Good riddance.

Speak your piece

30 April 2013 @ 05:33 pm

Gugh.

I'm gonna keep this short so that I finish before my will to write gives out.

11 weeks, 15 pages, I-don't-know-how-many hours of research...but the final essay for my Methods of Written Communication class, and my essay writing in general for the semester, is done.

*downs an Excedrin, collapses at desk*

Re: 3 | Speak your piece

28 April 2013 @ 12:24 pm

Funny how circumstances can line up so perfectly sometimes...

I was out doing some errands earlier, including grabbing a bite to eat at Subway. The parking space I used faces the Home Depot across the street, where one of the doors has a sign over it reading "CONTRACTOR PICK-UP." From this exact spot, however, a street light obscured the far-right side of the first P and the entirety of the I, leaving it appearing as "CONTRACTOR F█CK-UP" instead.

Lunch got delayed for a few minutes as I tried to quit laughing.

In other news, that cold I was fighting all of the past week-and-a-half appears to finally be gone! Still coughing up a bit of yuck, but the worst of it's over finally. X_x

Speak your piece

23 April 2013 @ 10:27 pm

One side effect of being sick: Imagination goes into hyperdrive.

Still fighting that cold...it looks to be losing, but its mustering its remaining forces up in my head. Sinuses have been running like a waterfall today. Blugh.

Anyway, a minute ago I got kind of a goofball idea in my head for a Final Fantasy stat-boosting system. It's basically FF VIII's spell-junction system mixed with FF VII's Equipment-based system. Basically, rather than linking the spells to your character's stats to boost them (thus eliminating one of the more idiotic systems of the game by letting your levels become relevant again), you'd junction them to your equipment to grant boosts.

You could junction Black Magic to your weapons in multiple ways, either for stats (to increase the damage they deal) or for elements (to let your weapons do elemental damage), among other possibilities.

One somewhat ridiculous idea was the ability to junction magic to accessories as well. A Wall Ring, which reflects magic, could be linked with Status-Effect Magic to cause the reflected spell to do additional things, for example.

Monster tries to hit you with Blizzaga. It bounces off your character, hits them, heals them for 450 HP, and, thanks to what you had connected to your Wall Ring...instantly kills them!

...So yeah, like I said, still sick, but getting better.

Re: 4 | Speak your piece

23 April 2013 @ 10:06 am

Not THIS again.

3 days ago: got back above freezing again.
Yesterday: Temps broke 50, signifying that spring was finally here!

Right now: IT'S FUCKING SNOWING AGAIN.

I hate Alaska sometimes.

(/rage)
I should clarify, it's not just the cock-tease of pleasant weather before dumping this crap on us again, nor the fact that the same basic thing happened 2 weeks ago, that's pissing me off...it's also the fact that this is genuinely dangerous. Give folks around here a few days of nice weather and cleared, snow-free roads, and they completely forget how to drive safely on the stuff. When it happened a few weeks back, I had to go on a laundry run after our How & Why of Team Hatoful session, and just in that 3/4 mile drive I drove past 3 accidents and almost got involved in a 4th when someone apparently forgot about the fact that icy roads are harder to stop on and blew through a red light. Right now, I'm more worried about the fact that this might be happening again than anything.

Seriously, enough already.

Speak your piece

22 April 2013 @ 05:44 pm

Uhh, yeah.

Okay, so apparently I was right about being wrong. I still feel cruddy, but compared to yesterday this is a hellacious improvement; coughing only irritates me rather than hurting like hell, and as long as I've got some fresh air and not doing much of anything, I feel more or less fine. I'd say I'm running at about 60% capacity today.

Made the fact that I had a test in Elements of Weather today kinda suck, but oh well.

Re: 3 | Speak your piece

21 April 2013 @ 11:21 pm

I'll catch the next one, Mr. Conductor.

The other day I mentioned how I was feeling too sick to do a video stream with you guys...well, apparently I haven't gotten much better, if at all. I'm absolutely wiped tonight, and...well, I'm sure this is my imagination running on all the energy my body doesn't have right now, but I honest-to-God feel like I could just drop right here and now, and just to get that part of my brain to shut up, I just want to say this:

If I don't wake up tomorrow, I love you guys and I'll miss you, and I'll see if I can wait at the station to get on the train with all of you somewhere down the line.

(...Actually, I think I can safely say that's been my mentality every night since we finished HolidayStar.)

Still, if it's all the same to you, Mr. Conductor, I'd rather not get my ticket punched just yet.

Anyway, g'night.

Re: 1 | Speak your piece

19 April 2013 @ 06:25 pm

Just a quick thing for Team Hatoful.

I hadn't heard anything on whether or not we were planning to do anything tomorrow, but I can tell you right now I'm not going to be in any condition for it. I've been fighting a cold for about a week now, but today it apparently decided to implement Blitzkrieg tactics, and one of the things it has decided to focus its efforts on is my throat. My voice isn't gone, but I definitely sound about as crappy as I feel.

Anyway, just letting you know in case. For now, I think a nap's in order...and maybe a viewing of all the Top Gear/Doctor Who I've had DVR'd over the past few weeks and never gotten around to watching.

Later.

Re: 1 | Speak your piece

18 April 2013 @ 04:50 pm

How appropriate.

For the past few days I've been embroiled in an online riddle game, "Riddle of Anubis 8." The latest level appears to have some hexadecimal coding in it, so I tried running that through a convert to change it to ASCII to see if it would become a word I could use for the answer. There was a clue to it that simply said "viceversa," so I tried putting it in backwards as well.

Then, on a hunch, I tried it both forwards and backwards. This was the result:

ó_o¡?

Perhaps the most serendipitous emoticon in history, and a perfect summation of how this riddle's making me feel.

Re: 1 | Speak your piece

13 April 2013 @ 05:57 pm

This is why Kjorteo's writing a novel and not me.

I'm 1 paragraph away from having my last bit of homework for next week done, and I can't bring myself to finish it. I've already had to write a 5-page essay and work on a 10-pager due at the end of the semester, plus I've got 2 more I'll have to do for the week after next along with more work on that 10-pager.

I'm officially sick of writing. D:

Re: 1 | Speak your piece

12 April 2013 @ 01:06 am

Yeah, totally not feeling rushed...

Spring semester hasn't quite finished yet.

Summer semester won't even start until next month, and won't be done until August.

Fall semester won't begin until September....and yet here I am, with my classes for it already picked.

Why are they making me do it so soon? D:

Re: 2 | Speak your piece

07 April 2013 @ 11:01 pm

ATTN HATOFANS: You gotta see this.

Remember a while back when some of the AskIRLHato Tumblrs wanted to do a music video of

kjorteo's Seuss-spoof, "Murderbeaks?"

MISSION COMPLETE.

I would have posted about this earlier, but I only settled down from laughing too hard to do so a moment ago. XD

How I'm Feeling: LOL'd out

What's Playing: Kjorteo Kalante - Murderbeaks

Re: 3 | Speak your piece

07 April 2013 @ 10:50 am

Blug.

And here I thought spring had finally arrived...yesterday we got about 8 inches of snow dumped on us up here, after a period of thaw and comparatively hot weather (i.e. mid 40's) that had, apparently, lasted just long enough for everyone in town to forget how to drive in these conditions, because there have apparently been accidents galore since then.

I hate to say it, but I think I may actually be starting to hate snow. :|

Re: 1 | Speak your piece

06 April 2013 @ 01:19 am

Hatoful Insanity - Who Ya Gonna Call?

For those who prefer DeviantArt to Tumblr:

From the twisted-and-probably-sprained mind that brought you Cheerleader Sakuya...I give you

Hitori and Nageki in a somewhat awkward situation.

Re: 1 | Speak your piece

03 April 2013 @ 12:27 pm

Okay, one last thing about the Hitori Shrine Visit mini-episode...

...Does anyone know where I can put a 52.2MB zip file on the Internet?

Because that's how big the final product is...yes, after spending week after week getting nowhere with the wrong software, as soon as I switched over to Ren'py I got this thing done in the span of a few hours. I can hardly believe it myself, but...yes. It's finished.

It's packaged, prepped, and ready to go....just as soon as I find somewhere to put it.

EDIT: Okay, taken care of.

Re: 6 | Speak your piece

02 April 2013 @ 10:29 pm

Some notes on a few random things in my life.

In regards to the Hitori Shrine Visit episode:
-Downloading Ren'py was the best move I could have possibly made. I'm ironing out a few kinks in the template to get the text/name windows and dialogue/names to line up properly, but once that's done, it'll be a simple matter of transferring over the script I wrote up, setting the background/music transitions & sound FX where needed, and it'll be done!
--UPDATE: THE BUGS HAVE BEEN IRONED OUT!! :D

In regards to XKCD, a random-as-hell webcomic I enjoy keeping tabs on:
-Some folks may not be aware of it, but a recent strip, titled "Time," has been constantly updating day after day ever since it was first posted. It started out with 2 folks on a beach hillside, and has since progressed to a rather impressive sand castle. Thought some of you might want to keep track of it.

In regards to school:
-We're in the final month of the semester, and things are starting to pile up on me a little bit. I've got a group assignment in Aviation Management that demands about an hour out of my day to work on, but my biggest issue by far is going to be Methods of Written Communication. I've got 2 more essays I have to write in it, including a 3-pager due in 2 weeks and our Final Exam paper, a 10-page monstrosity that I've been struggling to find a combination of time and energy to work on...to date I have the introductory paragraph done.

The way I've been with these kinds of papers, though, if I can find 4 hours to work on it, I should be able to knock it out and do a good enough job to pass the class; I'm sitting on a C+, nearly a B-, as it is, so I don't think that's going to be an issue. It's just a matter of getting myself to do it, and have a point in time where doing so is viable.

In regards to this post:
-I'm done. Later. :b

Re: 3 | Speak your piece

01 April 2013 @ 11:43 pm

It's a sad thing I didn't think of this sooner!

[Spoilers for both the game and a personal project.]

Okay, so by now you all know about the Shrine Visit episode I was trying to make a few weeks back focused on Hitori, and how one of the biggest problems I was having was finding software that I could use to make it.

The video program I usually use for making things wasn't an option because there was no way to make the text appear properly, and Multimedia Fusion just turned out to not be compatible. The project seemed dead in the water.

...Then, a few minutes ago, I had a colossal "DUH" moment:

I'M MAKING A SEGMENT OF A VISUAL NOVEL.
WHY NOT USE VISUAL NOVEL-MAKING SOFTWARE?

So after a few wall-shaking facebeaks, I downloaded a program called "Ren'py," which should prove promising...and doubly embarrassing, given that the reason it caught my eye is because I've used this software before...specifically the Mac version, which is still installed on Miyuki.

***FACEBEAK***

So anyway, yeah, if THIS doesn't work....if Visual Novel-creation software doesn't work to create a miniature Visual Novel...then the Hitori Shrine Visit is well and truly dead.

In the meantime, however, I wanted to give you a small taste of things just to prove I haven't been making all this up. As such, I present everything I have completed and put together so far....or, in other words, the title screen.

Hitori Shrine Visit Title Screen

Well, that's all for now, everybirdie.

Re: 5 | Speak your piece

01 April 2013 @ 01:33 am

Okay, new personal Hato-project to take place of the previous idea.

I may finish it up one of these days, assuming I can find software that actually cooperates, but anyway, this will definitely be a much easier project to work on.

It's a song cover based on one of the main birdies. I imagine I should be able to manage a sound recording a little bit easier than I can a Shrine Visit episode. :b

Speak your piece

28 March 2013 @ 12:39 am

Dammit.

Okay, in fairness, my landlord said there was a chance that the heating company guys may not make it here today, and given the fact that there was still a 20-degree-plus temperature difference between my room (thank you, space heater!) and the rest of the house when I got home back around 9, I think it's safe to say they didn't. They should be making it in tomorrow; for now, though, I think I'll have to bite the bullet and move my space heater back out into the living room; a 55-degree house is less cozy than a 70-degree room, but I can't risk letting the water pipes freeze. Besides, I've got extra blankets.

Still, this just sucks 20 ways to Gehenna.

EDIT: Okay, problem's fixed now. Yaaay! :D

Speak your piece

27 March 2013 @ 10:40 am

David, please don't kill me for this. It wasn't MY idea to have this idea! D:

I just had the most ridiculous dream last night...I dreamt I was playing Crystal Towers 2 again, but with a graphics mod added on that turned the player's character into one of the Hatoful birds, depending on which robe color you chose. Unsurprisingly, I was playing as Ryouta. Somewhat surprisingly, I was apparently playing as a Ryouta who couldn't fly. Well drat.

If nothing else, can we just blame this on the fact that the heating in my apartment went out last night?

Re: 3 | Speak your piece

DON'TPANIC

CHANGE OF TOPIC!!

DON'T
PANIC