Powdered sugar sucks

I found out that you should never use powdered sugar or brown sugar in replacement of regular sugar when making Kool-Aid.

The taste was absolutely horrid for the powdered sugar, as it contained cornstarch, and the brownsugar batch made me vomit.

Hmm... lesson learned.

A+ shenanigans!

Okay, I'm FINALLY taking my A+ cetrification classes at the local ComColl, and just in the first day of class, in the first chapter of the required material, the author and subject material are pissing me off.

The syntax they use for everything just riles me. This is supposed to be a certification ensuring that our future computer techs are intelligent, well-versed and competent, but instead seems to promote imbreeding, NASCAR and Macintosh computers.. (and i use the term 'computer' when referring to a Mac VERY loosely)

Here's a list of some of my frustrations:

* "Covers many operating systems, including Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP"
-To their credit, they do later include UNIX, Linux, Mac OS and OS/2 in lists and descriptions, but to state that XP is a different Operating System than 2000 is flagrant misinformation. Imagine if every major kernel update in Linux were a new Operating System.. there'd be chaos.

* "Only Windows 2000/XP can use the NTFS filesystem"
-As if anyone really WANTED to use NTFS anyways, Linux has full read/write usability of NTFS.

* "PCI is currently the fastest non-video card interface in modern Intel-based computers"
-Wow. Obviously we haven't heard of PCI-E, have we?

* They dismiss the existence of RAID arrays and SATA connections very early on, driving IDE and EIDE into your skull like it's the gospel.

We'll see what comes up in the future, but this isn't promising to be a very enjoyment filled semester.

Silent Hill

As anyone who has had to live with me knows, I sometimes go through unbearable obsession stages. My last one concentrated solely on obtaining work in Antarctica after watching March of the Penguins 4 times in a row, and wanting to be in total dark isolation for 6 months ala John Carpenter's "The Thing". This lasted for 3 weeks, I even sent applications to Raytheon, America's Antarctic Company. (I think of it as a cold-weather CHOAM) I then realized my fiancee wouldn't be able to come with me, so the dream was quickly put on the backburner.

My latest one is this year's Silent Hill obsession. I have had one for about a month every year for the last 3 years. This was re-triggered by the fabulous movie of the same name, Silent Hill, which I recently "bought" on DVD. The movie featured monster choreographer Roberto Campanella's wonderful portrayl of fan-favorite Pyramid Head, much to my delight.

Pyramid Head is just about the most kickass monster ever to grace any form of art ever. He represents all the sexual frustration and powerless feelings James had while watching his wife slowly die in Silent Hill 2. He rapes the shit out the manifestations of James' wife several times. He carries a sword huge enough to rival Cloud's in Final Fantasy VII. He wears a big fucking metal pyramid helmet and looks in silhouette form like some crazy muscular Klan member.

This dude is hardcore with a capital hard.

As such, I felt the need to play Silent Hill 2 for the PC again just to see this magnificent specimen of rape-lust in action. After the 4 hour install in Wine (No, I'm not kidding. 4 fucking hours.) I found out, much to my annoyance, that Silent Hill 2, 3 & 4 all don't work in Wine, Crossover Office or Cedega/WineX. However, I peeked in the data directories and discovered that Konami left all character models, animation templates, and map data free and in the open!

This is when my life's meaning for the next month was defined. I WILL put Pyramid Head in many of my favorite games. Quake will see Pyramid Head. Doom III WILL see Pyramid Head. NeverWinter Nights WILL see Pyramid Head. Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Half-life 2, all will, in due time, see Pyramid Head. Pyramid Head WILL duel with Mario in the UT2004 map Mario64_Bob-Omb_Battlefield. Oh yes! And it will be bloody!!!!

Provided I can find a Linux-compatible 3d modelling suite that can import Animation Master .mdl files. Blender looks promising, if I can get it's import/export scripts working. *gets back to work*

Well, I did it.

This is my first step into a world I swore I'd never enter. Blogging. First MySpace, now a blog.

What am I become?

Well, as long as I'm here, I will chronicle my depraved nerdiness, my sometimes outlandish personal life, and my love of all things Linux.

As this is just an intro to this "Blogging world", I'm keeping it short and sweet.