Even though I realize I don’t get many readers, and that there probably isn’t a single person that cares one way or the other. I’ve been taking long breaks between blogging mainly because of school. The main reason I even blog is I enjoy typing. I don’t type up books or anything really constructive, however just sitting on a computer typing I find calming and relaxing no matter how tedious or pointless it may seem. Being I’ve stated my Junior year English class at my school I suppose I might as well start trying to post more often, if for no other reason than to practice my typing skills.
Shows these days…
Been off the Internet for awhile, well Internet in the sense of a web browser I’m always online usually playing games, but lately I’ve been watching TV a bit more than usual and am pretty sickened by what I see anymore. No I’m not talking about the typical complaints like Jersey Shore or 16 and Pregnant or the countless other shows everyone complains about I’m talking more cartoons. Cartoon Network has been my favorite channel since I was about 4 years old, yet slowly they’ve phased out all the good shows (with some exceptions: Regular Show, Adventure Time, and I guess even Johnny Test could be in there, along with the Adult Swim lineup), with the most ridiculous shows ever conceived. Not to mention for a while there some of the shows they were trying to push weren’t even cartoons they were live action. Classics like Ed Edd n’ Eddy, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Dexter’s Lab, Johnny Bravo, Codename: Kids Next Door, Camp Lazlo, and many others have been replaced with I would regard as total garbage. Shows like Secret Mountain Fort Awesome, The Problem Solverz, Dude, What Would Happen?, and Destroy Build Destroy have been added to the line up for who know’s what reason. Not to mention Cartoon Network has had some relatively short running shows that weren’t very decent like The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. It’s not just Cartoon Network either. Nickolodeon and it’s cartoon lineup have gotten worse too. New episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants have become increasingly stupid and absurd. Another example is The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius which has been replaced with the far less entertaining spin-off Planet Sheen. I really hope cartoon airing channels start to make some sort of a turn towards their older higher quality programming because if things keep going the way they have been the only good animated series left on the air will be The Simpsons.
Some More Pictures
Well between School and waiting for and then playing Skyrim I’ve been very distracted from doing anything with my blog. However awhile ago I took some more rather nice pictures at White Clay Creek State Park, a different part of the park at least though. So I thought I might as well throw those up here for the Internet to see. As usual the full sized images can be seen on my photobucket album: Here
What a nice scenic view…
Well it’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything, but being I took several very nice pictures over the weekend I thought I might as well. I went to White Clay Creek Sate Park over the weekend and got some rather nice photos with my new Olympus FE-47 camera. It’s been the first time I’ve had a good chance to use it so it was a nice test. I’m very pleased with how the pictures came out, even the close up of the pitcher plant that was growing in the forest. The whole experience was very enjoyable and relaxing.
The full size images are in my photobucket album here.
White Clay Creek State Park, DE
White Clay Creek State Park, DE
Forest Path
Trees
A Little Green Pitcher Plant
Close-Up of the Pitcher Plant
A Quiet Little Stream
Another Little Stream
A Very Small Waterfall
A Downed Tree in the Path
Yet Another Little Stream
A Stone in the Brush
A Look Out into the Woods
A Bit Too Small to be a River
Rickety Old Bridge
A Little Downhill Stream
The Trees Have Eyes
My New Camera
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, school and all, but I had some free time today so I thought I might as well do something with it. Just yesterday I got a nice new Olympus FE-47 camera from Radio Shack. Luckily it was on sale being it was the display so I managed to get it cheap but it was in decent shape, just a few scratches on the body and smudges on the LCD screen. So far it seems to work great. It’s 14.1 MP, has a 5x optical zoom, and plenty of features like being able to take panorama shots. It’s able to take much clearer pictures than my iPod, but can only save about 4 at max resolution on it’s own internal memory. Not a problem though being I have a 2GB SD card laying around here somewhere. At least with this I can take much better pictures of, well, anything I suppose.
Visual Basic 2010
Just in the past week I started learning to code in my spare time. I downloaded Visual Studio 2010 Express from Microsoft and decided to try my luck at making a program. With the help of some very useful Youtube videos I managed to learn what I wanted to know, and so far have a pretty cool project going. As of yet it’s not really a program, more of a menu that I can launch other PC troubleshooting utilities from, but still I made it myself, it works, and I got to make it look how I wanted. Going to test my luck at making a program that actually does something in and of itself, was aiming at something I could use to help with the tedious task of networking. But all things aside it’s a pretty fun task, and not entirely too hard to pick up if you put some time into learning how. As of right now I’m working on re-skins of the menu which a few of my classmates had requested, should be nice especially if one of them pays for it like they said they would. All-in-all it’s been a pretty good thing to take up so far.
LG E2040 Monitor
Upon finding my older Emerson 19″ LCD screen didn’t like to hook to my computer with an HDMI cable I needed to get a new screen, or resort to VGA. Obviously being a total geek I refused to settle with VGA so after a few months of dealing with and slightly bettering the problem I got a nice slim new LG E2040 monitor. It’s got a great bright screen (that nearly blinded me when I opened a blank tab in Mozilla), a nice matte finish that doesn’t reflect much if anything most of the time, is incredibly light and thin, an easy to attach base, and has both VGA and DVI-D inputs in the back making it much better than my old Emerson LCD screen (I can’t really blame my Emerson it’s actually a television, which is what I use it for now and with the built in DVD player it’s great at what it’s for now). The only drawback to the LG E2040 is it’s lack of speakers, which for me isn’t a problem being I have an amazing set of Logitech speakers with a down-firing subwoofer. I have yet to try hooking up a second computer to see if I can switch between my main monster of a system on the DVI to something else on the VGA but I think it shouldn’t be a problem. If worse comes to worse I’ll just buy a KVM switch and use that.
School has started.
This has been my first week as a junior in highschool. Not much more than slightly harder versions of my previous classes just like most of the school years previous to this one. My actual first day was last Friday but everyone flipped out of Hurricane Irene and I ended up getting out about halfway through the day. Being I now have about 1/4 the free time each day that I had over the summer there’s a good chance I won’t be posting as often. But I’ll at least try to keep posting things when I can.
Here Comes Hurricane Irene
Hurricanes rarely hit the North East of the US head on but apparently Hurricane Irene is going to do just that. So far we’ve stocked up enough supplies at my house to last us through the bad weather the hurricane will bring and the premature state of emergency got me out of school early yesterday, but overall I’m looking forward to being able to watch the wind and rain out of the windows of my house. We get thunderstorms and what not in Delaware pretty often during the Summer and Winter but Hurricanes, not so much. Thanks to CNN and the MyRadar app on my iPod it’s pretty simple to tell where the storm is and how long it will be until the bulk of it hits us. Being I have no idea how long I’ll have power I thought I might as well throw up a post on my blog quick just in case. Hopefully there’s something interesting enough to take a picture of during the storm so I can post that later as well. Well I’m going to wrap this up quick, to anyone else on the East coast about to get hit by this storm I wish you all the best of luck.
Halo: Reach
Rating: 7.5/10
Reach is the latest game in the Halo franchise, and the last one done by the amazing Bungie Studios. Somewhat like Halo Wars it raised the question in my mind as to how the Humans had more advanced weaponry further in the past. But that’s easily overlooked once you immerse yourself in the story line. Unlike Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 you play as a Spartan other than Master Chief. You play as the almost equally powerful Noble 6. Even though it lacks the star of the franchise it makes up for it with amazing customization of your own Spartan and an awesome story line. Everything from a helmet with a skull carved into the visor to having lightning surrounding your armor. The story line also lives up to the high standards of the rest of the franchise. You get to partake in many of the battles leading up to Reach’s near total destruction. For the first time you get to team up with a group of Spartans rather than just a squad of ODST and/or UNSC Marines that usually get shot down without much of a fight. Another addition to the game is the new Armor Abilities. Rather than just having over shields and active camo you can now fly, sprint, and dodge out of battle with recharging changeable armor abilities that vary depending on the map and game type. These replaced the things like gravity lifts and bubble shields in Halo 3. Aside from some of the new cool game types that’s where the bulk of the pros end. Like the previous games Halo: Reach is prone to becoming very repetitive. Due to the rather low variety of weapons and vehicles you’ll find yourself in the same multiplayer experience over and over. The main drive to continue playing is to rank up and make your Spartan a bigger cooler target for the enemy. While Halo 3 had a large number of players that made numerous fun custom game maps I haven’t found too many enjoyable ones in Reach and haven’t found too many people willing to play them, mostly due to their wanting to complete the daily or weekly challenges or just wanting to get enough credits for the new Firefight voice or piece of armor. All things considered it’s worth playing, especially being Halo 4 isn’t due to release until some time next year. If your a fan of the Halo franchise this is probably a good game for you.
