Reflection on the Weather and Involuntary Action

On days like today, I grit my teeth. Not necessarily because it is useful, but because it is usually necessary to keep my teeth from chattering. It is involuntary. This makes my usually sulky "walking face" into one that is little more than a grinning brown skull. My heart beats with increasing speed as I write this; such quickening is useless to me, simply a reaction to persons with faces long unvisited by my eyes. But, like the terrible grin I make in the damp cold, I have little choice but to go along with the flow. My mind cries no as my body stubbornly growls yes, and makes such things happen. So many things in life follow this same crooked antilogic.

I'm in a great mood so far; Don't fuck it up!

Do NOT ruin this mood. I'm in a pretty good mood so far, and it's just after 9am. I sense great things ahead. As I am in a great mood, I thought I would share a bit of my thoughts and things I am "up on" with the internet by medium of web log. Bloc Party is way cool, way cool, way cool. They have a new album called Silent Alarm, out today I think. There a few good songs from them to download free, legally, here. This morning I was coming home from class and I started to think that perhaps there are a lot more sermons on the radio these days, or maybe I'm just noticing them more. In either case, there seem to be more, and they are annoying me. The radio is worthless most of the time, which is why Scan is an awesome feature and no car radio is complete without it.

Oh yeah, I saw Sage Francis!

Twice, this weekend. We saw him in Philadelphia and followed him to Baltimore the next night. The Philadelphia show was ok, but I missed a great deal more than half of the performance on stage because of tall motherfuckers and loud motherfuckers. It became really annoying, especially when these drunk guys decided they wanted to crowd surf and be loud and terrible during a few spoken word pieces by Sage. I yelled at them. The last few minutes were great though. A ton of fools left before the encore, and I met Varick Pyr, who produced Bridle and is an internet celebrity.

The Baltimore show was a hell of a lot better. The crowd was friendlier, and far more receptive to the artists on stage. We got to talk to MC Squared for a few minutes, and he was quite cool. On the way home, I found myself wondering about life on other planets. I believe that there must be life on other planets, simply because there is life on this planet. As rare as it is that the right conditions for life were met here, the universe is vast enough for those conditions to be met somewhere else. It was believed that there was nothing on the other side of the Atlantic, but exploration proved that idea wrong.

Dreams and Sleeping

It occurred to me that people would be a lot more reluctant to sleep if dreaming wasn't as good as reality. When reality is really good or has the potential to be really good, sleep isn't that interesting. Also, when you are afraid of sleeping (rare, but possible because of recurring nightmares), consciousness seems a lot more desirable. Do not ask me to explain insomnia, because I have no real clue how that works. However, sleep kicks ass because it isn't reality and a dream is often a good thing. Sleep is an escape from a bland reality, a place where anything can happen. Who cares that it's all inside our heads? Had we never experienced consciousness at all, we would never know that it's all inside our heads, or even that we have heads in the real sense. The dream would be our reality.

Anyway, sleep is awesome. Like a bonus round. If I had more things in my life that were immediately interesting and seemed worth being conscious for, I would spend less time sleeping, I imagine. The body allows us to dream and keeps dreams awesome because sleep is totally important. It is a cookie manufactured by our body to coerce us into giving it what it needs.

This is a picture of me being gay. Thank you, Hello, Blogger, and Picasa for making this so simple. Thank you, Google.

A Good List Of Windows XP Tweaks

I'm doing some of these right now.

Beginners Guides: 99 Performance Tips for WindowsXP - PCStats.com

My eyebrows are thick and dark,

My mouth is full of venom
My body is covered in hair
And my heart is so empty, so very empty
That it is a vacuum
A vacuum that sucks at the hearts of others
And tries to consume their happiness
But it cannot ever be happy
Even so, it still tries to gain happiness from this cannibalism
Secretly it knows how futile it is

(That my friends, is how to properly write a gothic livejournal entry.)

So we have these Dare brand Maple Creme cookies. I ate two. Then I looked at the nutrition facts and saw that they have like 6% of the daily recommended saturated fat, and some other stuff. And then I saw that the serving size was ONE cookie, which as you can see, is not very big. Then I ate the one in my hand for good measure. Kind of delicious.

So You Want a Hard Drive in Your PS2?

EDIT 2-22-05: I helped a friend out with this and we successfully installed a 250 GB Maxtor drive in his PS2, the L01R250. Just so you all know, these work too. They are on sale this week (until February 26th) at CompUSA for 99.99 USD, which is 70 dollars less than their normal price. So if you have not done this yet and need a hell of a lot of space, I can recommend this.

Ok. Let's get down to business. Here's what you'll need:

• A Hard Drive! - Maxtor drives work the best. According to this chart, the Maxtor 6Y120P0 has had the highest success rate of all drives, and fits the easiest, et cetera. However, it will only hold 120 GB worth of games; most games are around 4 GB, so you'll be limited to around 30 Games for this drive. The earlier versions of the software needed to use the HD only support drives up to this size, but the newest releases can utilize drives that hold up to 200 GB. Only a regular IDE drive will work with the PS2. One can use another brand of drive, but then some tampering with the PS2 Network Adapter may be necessary. I went with the 6Y120P0 - bought it on eBay for $71.50 US including shipping. It fit perfectly, and has been hassle free so far (I've had this doohickey set up for about two weeks).

• PS2 Network Adapter - I have one of the old-school network adapters as can be seen in the picture. Unlike the new one, it has a jack for a modem line as well as ethernet You need the official kind that hooks onto the back of the PS2: This is the ONLY way you can install a hard drive to your PS2. Looks like they are less than $30 on eBay. I think they're around $40 new.

• Software to let you use the drive - Ok, this is pretty straightforward. You need a disc that you can use in the PS2 to let you load the games. This is something that needs to be purchased, unless your PS2 is already modded. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a PS2 that is unmodded, and will remain as such, but will be able to play "backups." I bought a copy of HDAdvance 2.0 from Consolepoint - 30.59 shipped. No problems or complaints whatsoever about the product or the retailer.

• WinHIIP - Use Google to search for and download this program. Please do not tell me this is a difficult task. You will want this program if you are transferring backup images from your PC to the PS2.

• USB Hard Drive Enclosure - I got a cheap but functional one from newegg.com (link to product). $29.99 with free shipping! You will want this if you are transferring backup images from your PC to the PS2.

• PS2 - Ok yeah this won't work with the PSTwo. Sorry.
  

Ok, so let's see: $71.50 for the HD, $30 for the PS2 Adapter, $30.59 for the HD Advance 2.0 Software, and 29.99 for the HD Enclosure. That's $162.08, for those of you counting. Now that you have purchased everything you need and it's all shipped and everything and out of boxes and shit, let's get to work.

• This is what your PS2 should look like from the front. If it's not looking like this, you have a problem that I must not be able to help with. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 Dollars. Sorry.

• Your new Maxtor Drive.

• A good look at business end of the network adapter. You can clearly see where the IDE and power cable from the hard drive will go (lower right and lower left sockets, respectively).
  

• All of our friends together.
  

• If you purchased a Maxtor drive as recommended, your Network adapter and drive should slide together very easily, as pictured above. See how comfortable that looks?

• Slide the Adapter coupled with the HD into the PS2 as shown...and then secure it with the screws.

Ok, so that's about it if you're just backing up games to the PS2 HD. Just pop in a game, choose "convert" and wait for it to finish transferring to the disc. This will not work for dual layer games I hear. You need to first back up the image to your computer, then use another program to send that image to the PS2 Hard Drive. And this is one of the reasons one would use the HD Enclosure and WinHIIP program. Let's go over that now.

• This is the enclosure when it's all closed up. It looks decent, but this sort of case is made for a drive that will be staying in the case all the time. Our drive will be in the case for only a few minutes, while data is being transferred to it from the PC. Therefore, it's more efficient to open it up and have it be ugly, like this:
  

Yup.

• This is the drive working hard and being awesome and picking up hot hot games.

So now that our drive is connected to the PC, let's go through the WinHIIP motions:

• Open WinHIIP
  
  

• Select the PS2 Drive
  
  

• Click "Add Image(s)"
  
  

• Find the image file you're looking for...
  
  

• Click Start...
  
  

• Enter the name of the game
  
  

• The game will begin transferring to the PS2 HD
  
  

Once you've transferred the game(s), you can just plug the HD back into the PS2 and load it up.

Have fun.

Sleep should be bullshit

I do not have time to sleep. I wish I could eliminate the need for sleep. 1/3 of a day is generally devoted to rest. That is a lot of time that could be used doing other stuff. Alas, sleep is necessary. Tonight, I will try to cheat this though.

Dearest Caffeine: Be Mine.

I am pretty fucking hip

I just wanted to make a post about what it's like to be hip, and how I feel about being hip. I feel I am hipper than a large percentage of people in my age group (probably more than half), as I know about things in the music, film, and technology world before they go to the fucking dogs. That's right, I said it. I feel I am hipper than most people my age and it seriously annoys me when something that I consider awesome and to be rather exclusive goes on to impress the lowest common denominator. I hate to lose cool music and movies to idiots, because that makes me feel as though they are less cool. I am glad however, that I was able to absorb whatever goodness was exuded by such things long before the others caught on. I love being hip (Or hep if you prefer. I like hep. I'll start using that word, because it's basically out of use. This in itself is hip [hep].). I love my hep friends, we are pretty damn hep together and we talk about hep things and stuff. I do not dress hep however. I am not keen on fashion, and I feel like I am behind, or actually adjacent to the curve in the fashion respect (I do not generally wear what is cool to most people; fuck a doo rag and long white tees), but that does not bother me. I am comfortable in my elitism. I am glad that I am not too elite to enjoy some things, but elite enough to discover things before they start to suck. And believe me, when undesirable people discover things that were once cool, they really do begin to suck.



Oh Lord, I am such an asshole.

This is what my shit is all about right now:

• Cold Coffee
• Warm Pizza
• Working too many late hours
• Not having enough time to study
• Not having enough free time
• Not having enough time for a regular 8 hour night of sleep
  
• Conversations that leave me feeling broken
• I am the weakest bitch in the history of the world

Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate

Thanks, Useff

Useff found this link which confirms something I've known since I was a young child: I'm allergic to all kinds of good natural foods. It's actually kind of depressing to see it in print, but it's good to see that there's an actual list of things that I should not eat, and that I'm not the only one experiencing this. It really does suck not being able to eat apples, pears, lots of nuts, cherries, carrots, et cetera, though.

I missed math class today

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it is ruining my day.

Whatever, this is all bullshit anyway.

Simplicity and complexity are the two most important elements in creative expression. In the right conditions, one could see the simplicity in complex work, and complexity in the most basic building block of man's World, from a simple line drawing or the arithmetic equation 1 + 1 = 2 or x = x, to the new frontiers of automatic, genetic code mapping, cell regeneration and yet deeper space exploration. One must see that in nature, the complex is simple (Or can be made simple). Because in my just realizing that it works and exists in real time. The simple can be made complex by taking mathematics and other sciences that are assumed to be true, and explaining in graphic unmitigated details as to why complexities are simple, just by their truth. Truth = 1, so the fact that something is visible and is THERE is what makes it true or if you prefer, real. For purposes such as ours in this four dimentional world, this math is fine, but the very theorems and in fact proofs which we get from our math and science concentrations suggest that there is something higher that exists or cannot be seen in this three dimensional world. One would only need to reference the idea of ripping into a piece of paper that two dimensional entities live on (They exist in two dimensions and live in 3, as I am about to prove) - the two dimensional entities would see or experience a tear in the very fabric of their world. Can you imagine a tear in this fabric, as though something was busting through as easily as we would tear a piece of paper?

So, I just cancelled my "Great Fun Online" Membership

Wow that was a great online fun riot rocket blast! My whole reason for signing up in the first place was because I got paid $20 to do a referral for someone's free Mac Mini offer. So anyway, the dude's referral went through and everything, and I got paid, so I called and cancelled on the greatfunonline.com offer. The dude who answered the phone sounded really ignorant, shady, and southern. He was saying all kinds of shit to me trying to get me to keep the $1.00 trial membership that is good until March 23, like "hey you know you qualify for a 10, 20, 40, and 100 dollar coupon, 50% off at your favorite restaurants 100,000 worth of micro machines, gay porn weapons of mass destruction goat milk chance to be in your own movie chance to be in someone else's movie chance to be elected president of the united states" and so on. The guy kept going and going, and I had to stop him in the middle of all this fucking jive, and say "No man, that's ok. I just want to cancel this." Then he gives me some weird ass code for my records to verify the cancellation. I thought that was rather strange, that they would give me a weird seven-digit alpha numeric code, for "my records." That's some pretty shady shit. Anyway, the membership is cancelled.






I hope.

Too many devices wtf 

The Math Exam

I passed. I got a 'C' even, which is very reassuring. As I hoped, I did not fail. I lost a lot of points on stupid things that I could have corrected if I paid more attention. Still, this gives me hope for the future.

What I've learned in M210

• Numbers are awesome. Integers are way more awesome than other rational numbers, as far as I can tell.
• I suck pretty bad at writing proofs, but a well written proof is a beautiful thing to read. I enjoy reading proofs, and I get satisfaction from writing them when I actually can.
• Math is not so hard if you have the proper foundations. Me, I did not have the proper foundations, and as such I am more prone to getting lost or getting stuck on steps. These foundations allow one to break the math down into smaller more managable sub-steps that can generally be done using the more basic knowledge. Everything in math should be broken down into the smallest possible step, which will then use a higher level skill to get to the next part, which will then use a higher level skill. When I pick up pieces of the foundation I should have had, though, one or more mathematical doors is unlocked to me.
  

Garbage Men

I was driving home, and I saw some garbage men doing their garbage collection thing. The first thing I thought was, "Those poor snowmen!" In reference to the garbage men. Isn't that weird?

On Videogames and Aging

I'm getting older, hairier, and soon enough I'll be getting uglier. Ugly is the new beautiful. Well, not really, but to some it may seem that way. I think it would be cool to see that happen for a day. Physical attraction is not just purely biological anyway. It is largely culturally constructed. Today I ordered a Hard Drive for my PS2, and the software that will allow me to use it. I plan on posting a step-by-step guide to the entire process once everything arrives here at my house. I'm quite excited about this.