This is just a random video post with a beautiful song from the Xenosaga Episode 3 soundtrack. I love the Xenosaga series with the exception of Episode 2 and I would encourage anyone to play it. The one major problem that people have with the series is that it is so story driven that it sometimes feels like you are watching a movie more than playing a game; this is especially true with Episode 3. Personally, I really got into the story so it didn't bother me to watch the sometimes over half an hour long stretches of cut-scenes. If you want to try out the series, you really have to start with Episode 1. Episode 3 has an encyclopedia that includes short synopsizes of the storyline in each of the previous games but you will very likely hate Episode 3 if you don't already have an interest in the story and the characters. On the upside, the availability of the encyclopedia means that you can skip Episode 2.

Edit: The video that was originally posted was removed a while ago.

This is an attempt to do a short continuation of my previous post. This week has been fairly busy for me so I have not had much free time to relax and let my mind wander. Now that I am back in my house in Peoria, I have a lot of free time to do whatever until Sunday night. So far, my free time has only been filled with playing a little bit of Half-Life 2. I should be doing other things with my time; I really shouldn't even make this post because it isn't that productive either. I have nothing going on right now so I am listening to some music and thinking a little bit.

Get a real life

This had started at the beginning of the semester. I was learning about the places around campus, I joined some student organizations, and I met a few people on campus. However, all that stopped about the end of week four and now I am back to my old routine of hanging out in my room anytime that I don't have class. A small reason for this is that I am nearly flat broke again so I can't go to places like Gryfalia's Aerie and hang out. I do go to UHACC group meetings but I don't really participate. I wish that I could just get some balls and change things but I am a little sissy.

Stop wasting so much time

There is so much time that I spend either doing absolutely nothing or sleeping. I should try to plan out a schedule in an attempt to get more things done with my day. That would probably only happen for a couple of weeks before I abandon the routine but I should try it anyway.

Start some exercise routine / Pump up

I won't go into detail on this one.

Get back into the anime scene

This problem sort of relates to me wasting my time doing nothing. I have tried to get into some anime series over the past few years and some were great. However, I always find other things, or lack of things, to take up my time. The latest series that I watched for a little bit was the 2006 remake of Kanon. I watched 8 episodes one January night but I haven't watched an episode since then. It is a great series and I want to watch more episodes but I never have the desire to do so.

There might be some other things that I want to do but I think that I have written enough.

Spring break is now over and I am chilling in my dorm with nothing to do. The break went by so fast and I feel like I got almost nothing accomplished during the break; I got some cleaning done during the last weekend of the break but that's about it. There are many things that I have wanted to do for months but I always find other things to occupy my time. As I am sitting here, I am thinking about some things that I would like to do within the next few months. I might as well post about some of these ideas even if it only for personal reference.

Make screencast for Pizza Py Party I have been wanting to make a screencast for Pizza Py Party since it was originally released because Pizza Party has a screencast. The main thing that has kept me from making the screencast is that there is no open-source video editor that I like. I would rather make the screencast on Ubuntu rather than boot into Windows and use something like Premiere to edit the video. Learning how to use Premiere again would be a pain as well since I have not used it in probably three years.

Document PC-DC server setup in Ubuntu / Screencast

I have made some short notes about the process but making something more in-depth might be helpful for some people. Although it might not be as most people want a Windows PC-DC server setup and there doesn't seem to be enough of a demand for documentation of a Linux PC-DC server setup. It is a shame since, based on my experience and what I have read on forums about other setups, setting up a PC-DC server in Linux is easier than it is under Windows. This one will most likely never happen. The best guide currently available is http://ragol.homeunix.net/. It is a guide mainly geared towards NetBSD but it does give almost all the information needed to get a PC-DC server running on Linux.

Support my software projects / Start application programming again Because of other things going on with my life, I have had to abandon practically every software project that I have started. Since the programming classes that I am currently taking are a real step backwards in my education, I sometimes fear that I will lose my limited knowledge of programming. The little programs that I wrote really helped me learn many things, such as GUI programming, and it was fun writing those programs most of the time. Also, having people use my programs gave me a real sense of accomplishment that programming in the classroom just can't give me.

Get a job

I have been unemployed since August 2004 when I quit my crappy Long John Silver's job; for random reference, the LJS building was torn down and the place is now a Starschmucks. I have tried off and on to get another job but things have never worked out. Being unemployed now makes things so much worse as I need money to pay for an apartment for the next school year. I have already signed a lease for an apartment and the lease begins in July. Making the July and August payments will be a pain without getting a job. I don't know if I can say much else. Being a bum stinks.

Study Japanese seriously

I haven't studied Japanese seriously in many years. I have taken Japanese classes during my schooling but I didn't study that seriously for the class; the classes were more about having fun than actually learning Japanese. I have recently declared a minor of East Asian Studies and I want to start taking Japanese Language Proficiency Tests so I better start studying Japanese seriously.

I think that is enough for now. This topic might deserve a part two.

Over the past week or so, I have been getting more heavily involved with Django again. Most of the work that I have done is on a personal blog that is actually something that would be useful to me if I had a place to host it. I feel like I have learned a lot as I have experimented and I have learned enough to attempt to start working on making my works portable.

Portability has become important to me as I have two different setups to test my Django projects. Moving a Django project from one setup to the other was always a pain and it would take edits of several project files to get things working properly. As I have been writing Django projects lately, I have learned more things about Django that would help make my projects more portable. Now, I can actually use the appropriate method of just editing the settings.py file and doing a syncdb to get things going and have everything work properly.

Now, it's time for a random shout out. If you use Django or you are thinking of experimenting with Django, I would recommend that you listen and subscribe to the This Week in Django podcast. The main host of the podcast, Michael Trier, also makes a Django screencast series that has been really helpful to me as I have done more work with Django.

I should note that the YouTubed-2x application that I had been developing is no longer supported. I don't have the time nor the desire to update the application. The last release can be found at http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,17,2284

Let the idiotic ranting commence.

Hey people. This is the current replacement blog for my old blog that was at bored.homelinux.net. It has been a little over a month since I abandoned my last blog but I am currently feeling up to writing posts again. I was thinking about starting fresh with this blog but I had some fairly decent posts on my previous blog so I imported my old blog posts here; there are some embarrassing posts as well.

I would have liked to host a site myself but there are two main reasons that I am not currently hosting this blog myself. The first one is because I have not been able to afford to get a new server. Like I mentioned previously, my old server was not longer suiting my needs as I started to do more with it. Even if I got a new server, the second reason would still keep me from running a site from my home connection. That reason is that the cable company that I was getting Internet service through, Insight Communications, has been bought out in this area and has now become Comcast. Even though I had messed around with using WebFaction for hosting Django projects, I don't have the spare cash to use a paid hosting provider.

As for why I am using a wordpress.com blog, I had an old account that I only used to get an Akismet key for my previous blog so I figure that I might as well use this service; LiveJournal was also an option, since I have an account with them as well, but I didn't even consider it. This blog will most likely be temporary as I don't know how long this will hold my interest. Also, I would someday like to use a blog written in Django, whether it is written by myself or it is a Django blogging application.