4/27/2004

mémoire

stolen from vecnadeit.....

post a memory of me in the comments. it can be anything you want. then post this to your journal and see what people remember of you......

4/26/2004

Highlights and bummers

So this is something we did in our committee meetings last year when I co-chaired the Multimedia Publicity committee for Orientation with my friend Aurlie - actually stolen from the Campus Issues committee. Pretty easy, I'm sure you'll get it.

Highlights
The NSS / DOS people - I went to visit on Friday to sign a paystub and to chat with some of the people, and I had forgotten how awesome the people and environment was there, as I was greeted as I walked in, and just got to catch up with some of the people there. I don't know if if was because it was the end of the week, or just because I hadn't seen everyone there in a long time, but it really felt like home there, and I really felt like I had a place there. And the people are wonderful, so much so that words can't really describe it. So thanks to Cristi, Kristen, Judy, Jenn, Jess, Kyle, Amy, Mary Beth, Steve, Peter and Terri - for all the awesome and wonderful times. You guys are all awesome and continue to make me miss working there every day. Hopefully I will be seeing you all some more soon ^_^


Bummers
Yeah, these are not as much fun - (and in retrospect, I should have written these first) Boo on capmetro - I waited for over 40 minutes for a bus to show up today, so I was late to class, and last week, two buses didn't show up, and when one finally did, it was "Not in service." That's an hour of my life spent at the bus stop that I'll never get back. Boo on still waiting for PayPal to make a decision regarding the stupid guy on eBay trying to steal money from me =(. Finally, boo on my CS classes, specifically those that cause me to constantly meet with the TAs to argue against their grading errors on my labs / homeworks so I can get the credit I worked for.

4/23/2004

Game programmers

"When a sink breaks, any self-respecting plumber will open the cabinets under the sink and look at the pipes.
Game programmers, on the other hand, prefer to stand around and hypothesize about why the sink might have broken, tinker endlessly with the faucet, and occassionally convince themselves that the sink is hopeless and install a brand new sink.
Don't do that."
- Paul Tozour on Game programmers and AI

4/21/2004

YAY!

As many of you have probably noticed, I have been in a very bad mood as of late, mostly because this guy on eBay is now claiming that the refund he sent me was fraudulent money that I stole from him, so my PayPal account is under investigation, so that really annoys me, because I thought I was finally rid of this guy after I got my money back in February. I'm just waiting for PayPal to look over the million emails of correspondence we sent to each other and see that this guy (who closed his business on eBay because people were complaining about him) is just trying to cheat me out of my money... Anyways, so that's no fun - but what is is that I just found out I got the Dean's Dozen award (which wonderful Ms. Cristi Biggs nominated me for ^_^) It's a very prestiguous award given to graduating seniors - here's the description from the email:

Among the thousands of students at The University of Texas at Austin there is a unique group who are altruistic, responsible, committed, and involved in transforming the lives of their fellow students. It is in the spirit of UT that these students reach out to others in a time of need, exhibit model citizenship, foster fellowship among our community, embrace diversity, and promote a fair and equitable campus. Finally, these students utilize strength, initiative, and ambition to persevere, to overcome obstacles, and to seek and enable personal growth.

Anyways, so that's really cool. On top of that, I may be getting an internship at Sony Online this summer and Fall, which would be REALLY awesome. Anyways, I'm still worried about this PayPal thingy, but I'm hoping that everything will be ok. So, I'm trying not to worry about it, and I'm going to the Austin Game Developer's at Dave and Busters tonight - YAY! ^_^

4/17/2004

-_-....

Yeah... so the most grueling weeks of my life just passed me by... in the last week and a half to two weeks, I have pulled 4 all nighters (all in the CS lab, sunrise -> sunset) slept for under 4 hrs for at least 5 days, and have skipped more classes than I can count. I have been in front of a computer for 32 hours straight, minus a two hour nap yesterday morning. Plus last week, I put 43 hours into a project in under four days - that was exciting. I can't believe I'm still alive. Anyways, it's also a shame because the stuff I'm working on is cool, and I would spend a lot more time on it if I had the time or energy, but my other classes and committments far destroy that. Even today, I had to bail on some friends to finish up this god-forsaken project, sorry Matt! =( Anyways, I just got my project done, which was cool, but is slow as crap because of the rush forced on me, and the code is messy, which I detest, especially since it's an interesting subject that I want to go back and fix the code to make it pretty and fast. It's all because of this damn networking stuff we never learned, had to research it all myself and fail multiple times before getting it. Anyways, it's a networked game engine from the ground up - that means I drew every triangle on the screen, every message send in individual byte to encode and decode, all models and art were hand made, all the rules, everything. It's a simple game right now, you run around as a srangle little guy in a tux and a jetpack (don't as me, it was late, and I needed a quick texture - also don't ask why he's bald... ) and try to get all the crystals before anyone else - whoever has the most at the end wins, and the objects knock you around like a ping pong ball. It's not very good right now, but it's kinda neat, the gameplay of getting punted back when you hit a deathsphere (yup, that's what I called 'em in my code - I'm tired, sue me) or another player was so funny it had me and Richard (classmate working on the same project) laughing so hard bouncing our characters off of each other for 10+ minutes we were crying. It was great. Or maybe that was the delusional lack of sleep. Anyhoo - here's some lo-res screenshots (since I have to turn some in anyways) - woot.

Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3
Screenshot 4
Screenshot 5

4/12/2004

O_O

Dude, this is really cool...

4/10/2004

Webthingus!

Here's yet another webthingus, from my sister this time:

1: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says.
-- ... pattern is defined as a method for allowing abstract interface classes to specify when to...

2: Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?:
-- nothin. - the middle of my room

3: What is the last thing you watched on TV?:
-- An infomercial about some makeup artist selling her makeup (watching is a realtive term - it was background noise while typing up my CS project)

4: WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what the time is:
-- 1:34

5: Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?:
-- 1:26

6: With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?:
-- Mike and the group of D&D people, yelling out to each other even though they're in a five foot circle =P

7: When did you last step outside? what were you doing?:
-- About 10 minutes ago, putting my laundry in the washers

8: Before you came to this website, what did you look at?:
-- Megatokyo

9: What are you wearing?:
-- An old Creed shirt, and jeans that have enough holes in them to look like swiss cheese

10: Did you dream last night?:
-- Probably, but I rarely remember :'-(

11: When did you last laugh?:
-- Uhm... a few minutes ago, reading people's blogs? I think...

12: What's on the walls of the room you are in?:
-- Oy. A 2003 kitty calender, 8 pieces of my art from high school, a Kim Anderson photo, sheets with comments from the OAs on them for me and Kim, a copy of the Texas Travesty from last May, 3 wall scrolls, a poster from Ghost in the Shell, some Salt The Earth comics from the Texan, and my bag from Lollapalooza 2003.

13: Seen anything weird lately?:
-- A woman was taking out her laundry today with a parrot on her shoulder - he / she seemed pretty interested in everything around him =P

14: What do you think of this quiz?
-- It's alright - the randomness is always welcome

15: What is the last film you saw?
-- Snake Eyes on tv yesterday

16: If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first:
-- Time, if I could find the place that sold it - nah, I'd probably all the classic games I have been wanting to play and played with growing up.

17: Tell me something about you that I don't know:
-- Who... are... you...? Uhm... I have stuffed animals surrounding my room, including but not limited to a Rubber Duck, a Chocobo, Tux, Spyro, Vivi, and a Gi Wearing Turtle.

18: If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?:
-- Getting people to be accepting

19: Do you like to dance?:
-- Nah. Only if I actually know what I'm doing

20: George Bush:
-- Perfect example that you can play the game of life and succeed, even if you have no idea what you're doing

21: Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?:
-- jeez - this question is always difficult... I always liked the name Iris, but I don't know how well it would work

21: Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?:
-- uuuhmm... I dunno, I got nothin right now - how about Vincent

22: Would you ever consider living abroad?:
-- I would love to visit, but probably not live

4/08/2004

Bonne

Just got back from a super formal banquet honoring the Presendential Endowed Scholarship recipients. It was quite an event - not only did I get to catch up with my favorite tech guys on campus who were working the event, I got to talk with Dr. Vick, vice president of student affairs about my college experience, and his take on video games and pinball machines when he was growing up - quite a charismatic guy - he even remembered me from the Maralyn Heimlich scholarship banquet earlier in the week. ^_^ Not only that, I got to have a really good, fancy dinner (neither of my scholarship donors was there - one of which is Darrell K Royal) but I got to have dinner with - get this - William Livingston - the voice of Tex! "Goodbye and good luck" That was really cool, and he (as well as Dr. Vick) was incredibly charmismatic, so it was a really good time. I don't know why, but I just seem to be in a really good mood now, maybe it's being all dressed up such with a tie and all and lookin' damn sexy ^_~ (that was fun - never tied a tie before =P) But I dunno, I seem to be in a good mood ^_^, even though there's a ton of stuff to keep me busy and down. Anyways, I don't understand the electric synapses that fire in the hardened calcium sphere on a big jumble of carbon atoms, but... I just am in a good mood. ^_^

Anyways, I'm off to work all night on a lab on campus. =P
Whee!

Yay for inverted sleep schedules! o_O Woke up at like 1:45 today... probably because I was up until 5 am working on applications and my CS lab! Finally left campus at like... 3 am, I think, after teaching a CS class to some night owls working on the same project, since an epiphane hit me on the workings of the ridiculously insanely bad specifications which was fun - I realized again how much I enjoy teaching, from karate and such. Anyways, I need to clean up for a business formal banquet tonight - whee. Then off to the lab to work. Anyways, I was bored, so here's a post =P

4/06/2004

Woo hoo!

YES! Small little post, but I just got back from my history class for which I was cramming like crazy for the test last week... and I got a 98! YESSS! ^_^ So it was all worth it - maybe I'll actully get an A in this History class ^_^ Yeah, so I'm excited about that ^_^

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Aurlie who had her birthday this last Saturday!!! ^_^

Oh, and I forgot one of my favority quotes from Dr. Downing (the BEST CS (and possibly best overall) teacher EVER) during one of his intro classes that someone quoted this weekend...

"A friend has access to all your private parts."

Hee hee - oh CS jokes are SO nerdy... (did anyone actually understand that, BTW?)

Anyways, I'm in a good mood because of my history test ^_^ buuut I'm off to do some of the still necessary work.

4/03/2004

Texas Revue

Just got back from Texas Revue - the annual talent show that we have on campus, and it was REALLY awesome - you can see the specifics of the shows on the website, but DAMN. Needless to say, I am going to see if it is possible to get a DVD copy of it. It would be nice to have, as it's my last Texas Revue here, and it was badass ^_^

At the end, they hadn't finished tallying the results, and I actually got my name called out as a special thanks for helping out with the publicity (was very cool ^_^ - even though my name was "Viay" in the book -_-) and next, by the chants of "beatbox", the beatbox act ended up improving the Tetris theme with some other guys dancing and breaking in the background. =P

Finally, in the end, when Old Kids on the Block won the Ovation award (best audience response) the audience almost had a backlash with booing since the beatbox guy didn't win O_O Next, Communication Council got the best technical award... they had a good performance, but I think Koein and some others were much better in a technical sense. And then, the Bhangra Team won most artistic... and finally.... the beatbox guy (Ram Vela) won the best of show 2,000 dollar prize to a huge standing ovation.

Man, that was fun - I wanna see them all again ^_^

4/02/2004

Blah.

Blah. I'm exhausted, and just not feeling well today... woke up and as I was walking to my morning class, just decided that I wasn't feeling up to it, and didn't go. Don't think I'll go to my afternoon class either... I've actually gotten a whole lot worse about that, and it's not a good thing O_O I just don't seem to care anymore about class... far too much effort -_-

On the plus side, my muse seems to have returned in a slightly better mood. Yesterday, I believe, (if you talked to me about art ever in H.S., this will make sense) I started to see people / things in an artistic sense again. That is, as a person walks by, just unconciously visualizing strands of hair as vibrant soft pastels, or seeing trees as I was driving home as wet oil paint blotches. It's a very cool feeling, and I wish I had more time to act upon it and sit down and draw something. Maybe later.

Oh yeah, and I'm hoping to do this at some point, since the last photo project I did was A Day in the Life and I really do enjoy them. Anyhow - off to waste some more time not being particulary productive...