Archive for General

Goodbye, 2009

// December 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // General

Wow, it’s insane that tonight is the end of not only the year 2009, but the whole first decade of the new millennium! I say good riddance to 2009, only bits and pieces of it was worth remembering, but I really hope that 2010 is the start of a more peaceful decade for the entire world (violence, economy, etc). The 00’s have come and gone, and throughout those 10 years I’ve learned A LOT of life lessons, done a whole lot of growing up, and established who I really am as a person. I think that I’ve come a long way in the last decade, and hopefully the next will be even better.

So as for new year resolutions, here we go:

  1. Lose my last 30 lbs for sure, try for the 15 additional pounds after that
  2. Bike all the way from Jacksonville to Piedmont on the Chief Ladiga Trail
  3. Continue living a healthier lifestyle
  4. Read “Fight Club”
  5. Write to my dad
  6. Continue blogging!
  7. Go somewhere I’ve never been
  8. Watch as many of IMDB’s top 250 movies I possibly can (that I havent alreaady seen)
  9. Try to learn how to create a Wordpress Theme (keep wishing for this one)
  10. Take a course on Photography
  11. Create a tangible art piece
  12. Jog 5 miles
  13. Get my cholesterol back to normal, and hopefully get off some of my medications this year!

Alicia’s Resolutions are:

  1. Lose my last 9lbs, try for 10 more after that
  2. Bike all the way from Jacksonville to Piedmont on the Chief Ladiga Trail
  3. Continue living a healthier lifestyle
  4. Read 10+ books this year
  5. Go somewhere I’ve never been
  6. Stop biting my nails
  7. Pay off debt
  8. Be more organized

I hope that everyone has a wonderful and safe New Year’s Eve tonight, and a prosperous, healthy, and happy 2010!

I define myself by how well I hide

// December 24th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // General

Well, it’s almost the end of 2009 and I never got around to rebuilding my personal blog :/ So back to WordPress it is, once again, hopefully temporarily because I still don’t like this template (but it’s the best I’ve found so far). I honestly can’t believe that this year is almost over. 2009 was a bit of a shaky year, starting off horribly but ending a lot more pleasant than 2008 did.

I’m totally jacking this concept from Tiphanie Brooke (Antigirl) but I wanted to recap some key things that happened throughout 2009.

Things I Did in 2009

- started off the year worrying about finances due to Alicia’s layoff, but now she works for a new great company, TaxBreak
- saw Nine Inch Nails perform for their possible last tour (ever)
- attended a reunion concert for Blink 182
- took my sister to her first ever rock concert, Poison / Cheap Trick / Def Leppard
- took my nephew Camden to his first ever concert, Green Day
- met Sid Haig
- became lead designer of a startup web firm in Gadsden, AL
- celebrated our first wedding anniversary in Gatlingburg, TN
- took Soph on her first ever road trip / vacation
- made the decision to lose weight and stick to it (currently at 48 lbs lost, and Alicia is at 25, w00t!)
- got HTTD to train Sophie
- developed an addiction to Netflix Instant Streaming television shows
- found a new love for biking, even worked up to biking 20 miles at a time
- dropped a whole pants and shirt size
- i haven’t been sick (bronchitis / pneumonia) since I quit smoking in April ‘08
- successfully have dropped my (bad) cholesterol 200 points and it’s still dropping
- finally got some artwork from Antigirl (thank you baby! excellent anniversary gift!)
- found a love for Dexter / Californiacation / Man Vs. Food
- lost a former classmate

I’m probably leaving some things out, but it’s just a general overview off of the top of my head. I’m really looking forward to what 2010 will bring, and I’m hoping that things will continue to improve on the side of work and finances. 2010 will be a new year, new beginnings, and the start of a brand new decade. Here’s hoping that the 10’s will be better than the 00’s.

Hope you all have an absolutely wonderful Christmas! Enjoy this time with friends and family, and be safe in all your travels!

What-evah! I’ll do what I waunt!

// March 23rd, 2009 // 10 Comments » // General, Technology

Brandon posted a long time ago that he was going to make custom photos/ringtones for all of his contacts on his phone. I thought it was an awesome idea, but it sounded like a whole lot of work lol. So it’s taken me probably about a year now to get around to doing mine heh. Mine are images only though, no ring tones.

Jason’s gotten me back into watching South Park again, so I decided to use the South Park Studio maker thingy to make all of the images for my contacts since I didn’t have photos of everyone to use. First off, try to pick out who is who (its really not that hard, lol) and leave a comment with the number and name of the person. People to choose from: Jason, Jeff, Daryl, Megan H, Megan M, Brandon, Alicia, Daniel Bryant, and Myself.

01

02

03

I also did family contacts and some people from work too :D Here they are as well:

momanddad

debbieandtony

workguys

My XBL Achievements iPhone Web App

// January 30th, 2009 // 7 Comments » // General, Technology, Video Games

So part of my new years resolution was to build an iPhone version of  my XBox Live Achievement site that you could update the achievements you’ve unlocked, as well as view whatever achievements you’d like from the games you’ve played. Sadly, this data can’t be achieved through any Xbox Live API, so there is the whole thing where you have to specifically tell my system what games you are playing…and if a game you’ve played hasn’t been entered by myself yet, it won’t show up at all. Boo on that. But, if there are any games that you would like me to add, I’ll gladly get the achievements added for it!

Listen to me talking like the system is 100% ready for launch — sadly, it is not…yet. And it will only be available to Myself, Alicia, Jason, Megan H. Daryl, Brandon, and Megzirra (that’s how I’ve kept the 2 Megan’s seperated in my database lol). Anyway, I know that the system isn’t quite ready yet, but the desire to work on an iPhone web app was killing me, so I decided to start it anyway. That task was actually a lot easier than the main site, so it went along pretty quickly. I’ve taken some screens for you to see it, and no it’s not all fancy AJAX and stuff, but I think it turned out pretty nice. If there are any other features you think need to be implemented, please give me your feedback.

Keep in mind, the whole point of this lil web app is to allow you to have a “checklist” of a game’s achievements in front of you while you’re playing the game.

Ok, on to the screen shots.

This is the first screen you come to after you log in, it's the full list of all the games you have marked that you are playing. If no games are showing up in this list, just click on "Manage Your Games" to see the whole list of any game I have in my system (screens for this are a few images down).

This is the first screen you come to after you log in, it's the full list of all the games you have marked that you are playing. If no games are showing up in this list, just click on "Manage Your Games" to see the whole list of any game I have in my system (screens for this are a few images down).

 

Once you click a game, you're taken to the list of achievements for that game. When you unlock an achievement, just tap on the gray achievement point box on the right of that achievement to mark it as unlocked.

Once you click a game, you're taken to the list of achievements for that game. When you unlock an achievement, just tap on the gray achievement point box on the right of that achievement to mark it as unlocked.

 

Once you've unlocked an achievement, they will go to the bottom of the page, with a different style applied to them to stand out from the rest of the achievements in your list.

Once you've unlocked an achievement, they will go to the bottom of the page, with a different style applied to them to stand out from the rest of the achievements in your list. And if you accidentally clicked an achievement you didn't have, just scroll down to the bottom and click on the green box to turn it back into an achievement you haven't unlocked yet.

 

I have also given a way to toggle between only seeing achievements that are for "Online" and "Offline" or for seeing All Achievements for a game. Notice the circled area, when under the Online Setting, it shows that there are 14 achievements, and I've unlocked 50 out of the 140 achievement points available in online play.

I have also given a way to toggle between only seeing achievements that are for "Online" and "Offline" or for seeing All Achievements for a game. Notice the circled area, when under the Online Setting, it shows that there are 14 achievements, and I've unlocked 50 out of the 140 achievement points available in online play.

 

Same thing goes for the Offline Setting. It shows the amount of points you've gotten out of the total offline achievements for that game.

Same thing goes for the Offline Setting. It shows the amount of points you've gotten out of the total offline achievements for that game.

 

Up above, I mentioned that once you log in, if there are no games showing up in your list, or if you're looking for a specific game that isn't appearing in that list, you can go to Manage games. When you click the link to manage games it takes you to a list of every game that's in my system. Just click on a game's title, and then you can click the checkbox on the right of that game to toggle it on/off. Once you "Return to Your Game List", that/those games will show up in your list. Might be a little confusing (I'm in no way the best person to explain things...), but since I can't pull from the XBL API, this is the only way I can do this :( Anyway, the next 2 screens show the toggling checkbox.

Up above, I mentioned that once you log in, if there are no games showing up in your list, or if you're looking for a specific game that isn't appearing in that list, you can go to Manage games. When you click the link to manage games it takes you to a list of every game that's in my system. Just click on a game's title, and then you can click the checkbox on the right of that game to toggle it on/off. Once you "Return to Your Game List", that/those games will show up in your list. Might be a little confusing (I'm in no way the best person to explain things...), but since I can't pull from the XBL API, this is the only way I can do this : ( Anyway, the next 2 screens show the toggling checkbox.

 

Unchecked

Unchecked, this game isn't showing up in your list

 

Checked and Now You're Playing that Game

Checked, and now it's showing up in your list.

Another Nine Inch Nails Props Post

// January 23rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // General, Technology

I know that I’ve already posted about my respect for Nine Inch Nails’ frontman Trent Reznor, but he keeps impressing me every time I turn around. There’s a new blog entry on nin.com about the video projects that people are doing with the 400 Gigs of free HD video that Trent gave away from the Lights in the Sky tour. The new entry provides links to a new forum that was setup specifically for the fans to share any of their creations that they’ve come up with from the videos. People have uploaded some video clips, High Res screen caps, as well as low-to-high quality MP3 options & Lossless 5.1 Surround Wav files from the concert footage. 

I’ve been a Nine Inch Nails fan since I was in the 5th grade (like 14 years) so I’ve always thought Trent Reznor was an amazing artist and a very very smart businessman, but I have to say that after everything he’s done, he is the one and only artist that has earned this much respect from me. He takes care of his fans like no other musician does, and seems to truly be in it for the love of what he does, moreso than just for the money. I really do hope that more musicians follow in his footsteps. It’s nice to see someone has our back.

Metallica completely blew it for me with the whole Napster thing. I used to LOVE me some Metallica — now I feel “meh” when I hear them. I mean their whole deal with the Napster thing back in the day completely baffled me because it was a straight up attack on their fans. I mean it wasn’t in any way diplomatic at all, it was just “YOU KEPT US FROM GETTING MORE MONEY, WE WILL SUE YOU NOW!” I know that the whole digital music thing back then was a brand new concept, but the mentality of “ignore it (and just sue) and it will go away” instead of trying to understand and adapt to the new technology, blows me away. I remember reading an article (I believe it was in Rolling Stone) that said the RIAA executives didn’t even really know what the internet was and was just blindsided by the Napster situation. Really? You’re the head of the entire United States recording industry and you’re not trying to stay up with technology? Wow. You can tell their “higher ups” are old, old, old people. If I were the US Government, I would have put an end to the insane amount of STUPID lawsuit cases the RIAA has been involved with for the last 9 years. It’s ridiculous. Their actions make me WANT to steal music…and on that note, an awesome Diggnation clip on that exact statement:

Random Funny Pics

// January 22nd, 2009 // 2 Comments » // General, Humor

I took this pic last night when I was looking through some boxes in the garage. It’s a  box of bottle rockets that we’ve had forever and I just noticed what it said last night and lol’d a bit.

Warning Fail

This next one was taken while we were walking around in Waikiki heh. We saw it on Tuesday, and it was still sitting there after we were about to leave a week and a half later. Guess they never figured out how to get it inside, lol

Delivery Fail

 
Aside from those, I wanted to post a few of my favorite lol pics I’ve come across over the years. I’m sure you’ve all seen them, but I came across the folder that I saved these in and wanted to post them :D  

17 Dollars

DO NOT WANT!

 

DVD Rewinder

grr

fb147

fail-owned-scrapbooking-fail

monkey

fail-owned-zorro-fail

fail-owned-charity

fail-owned-faithful-marriage-fail

fail-owned-hook-hanger-fail

fail-owned-fu-king-restaura

fail-owned-stereo-thief-remote-sign-fail

So, Back to WordPress

// January 7th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // General

I don’t have the time to sit down and create my own blog design right now, but I REALLY wanted a different looking site. So I decided to download and install the newest version of WordPress. I have to say, I REALLY like the update they did to the admin area on this version. It looks (and seems to flow) a whole lot better. I’m just glad my site looks different now — this should hold me over until I get around to starting a new design from scratch. I really want to create a design for WordPress though and continue using the WP admin to update the site. We’ll see I guess. I wanted a minimalist site, so I chose to go with the Hemingway theme — very nice, and simplistic. 

Anyway, hope everyone’s having a great first full week of ‘09. And once again, Happy Birthday to my nephew Ethan, and also to Jason!

My 2009 New Year Resolutions

// December 31st, 2008 // 3 Comments » // General

- Read more books
- Redesign my blog
- Get back into the habit of actually updating that blog
- Create an iPhone web app to update my blog on the go
- Learn how to create my own native iPhone app
- Eat significantly less fast-food
- Lose weight
- Get back into an exercise routine
- Get up earlier in the mornings before work
- Go camping with friends a few times throughout the year (not just once)
- Go somewhere with my dad for a couple of days
- Pay off some leftover debt from the honeymoon
- Save more money
- Finish my XBox Live Achievements site and make an iPhone formatted version
- Spend more time with family (all sides)
- Take more pictures
- Play my guitar more